.chapter eight, the one that got away

Fragments of fabric tumbled lightly, like wisps of smoke billowing down a hill, to the ground soothed and guided by the wind. The figure let drop the shard of ice and smirked with thin, but well-drawn lips. Hayate cringed as he attempted to regain focus; he was hurting in countless places from being ruthlessly shot into a stone. One of his sickles, out of his own incompetence, had drawn a thick line of crimson down his right leg. It was ironic that in his futile efforts he only injured himself. Perhaps not quite so ironic as it was sad.

His eyes adjusting, he made out the assailant's sleek form. Slowly, his eyes climbed up his body to eventually reach the face, at which point he choked on air out of pure surprise. What, he began thinking, is going on?

Before anyone could say otherwise, Kiro's form leapt out of the water. His dark hair covered his eyes in sullen bangs, and his glasses had fallen off and lay against a rock, battered and worn but not broken. In his hand, he clutched what seemed to be a dagger made of ice, although it didn't seem to be very well-constructed, as though it would fall apart at any second, the surface of the ice cracking mildly with every passing second.

With a primal scream the boy, obviously exhausted, tried to bring the weapon down on the now-unmasked villain. The latter, not expecting the attack, raised his arms above his head in defence, but needlessly; the dagger fell apart at the last second, collapsing to the ground. Kiro was still mid-flight, though, and crashed into the figure, knocking him down. Coating his boot in water and freezing it, Kiro kicked the assailant but missed, still partially blinded by the curtain of hair across his optics.

In a sleek move the assailant caught Kiro's oncoming onslaught and retaliated, pulling a dangerous-looking katana, or samurai sword, from a hilt on his waist and slashed at Kiro's face, missing his flesh by mere centimetres and severing the bangs that clouded his vision. Astounded and petrified, Kiro's jaw hit the floor in recognition of the character in front of him.

It was Suyin.

The waitress smirked and raised her weapon in the air before sheathing it. "Crap, Kiro." She laughed. Sukai slowly came to and climbed out of the water, Hayate rising as well. The three of them slowly joined her laughing with very nervous chuckles, wondering why this woman was trying to kill them. Sukai and Hayate were, despite the circumstances, also chuckling at Kiro's now-worse-than-before hairdo.

"I haven't gotten a workout in a long time. The old lady," she began, cracking her knuckles with a satisfied sigh, "is gonna have to give me a day off." Her eyes opened wide at the cut on Hayate's leg. "As much as I beat you guys up I'm pretty sure I didn't do that."

She approached him, and, grabbing another shard of ice on the floor, severed the lower part of her left sleeve. Slicing it down the middle, it revealed a good ten small cylindrical bamboo items tucked into pouches. Choosing one at random, Suyin picked it out and pressed a button at the top, watching a glass vial fall out the bottom. She caught it and Hayate noticed that inside there was a clear liquid that was tinted a very light, almost unnoticeable shade of red.

She dipped her index finger inside and swiped Hayate's wound with her digit. He cringed- it felt cold. Suyin shrugged as she got up. "It's only a small cut. It probably won't even leave a scar, you're lucky. It could have dug way into your leg and then you'd pretty much be screwed." She severed the lower part of her right sleeve and, slicing it down the middle as well, tossed it at Hayate. "Just wipe it off for now and we'll disinfect it inside." She turned around and walked on over to the door that led into the teahouse, almost disappearing into the fog as she distanced herself away from them. Pulling the door open, she turned her head. "Are you coming?"

Sukai spoke first, her voice sounding quite exasperated. "Hold it! I mean, you just tried to kill us! What's the deal, and why," her tone of voice fell to a rather morbid deep one, "didn't you finish the job?" Suyin sighed. "I didn't try to kill you. I was completely taking it easy on you guys- except you, Sukai, you're pretty good." Kiro and Hayate scowled while Sukai beamed subtly. "If I really wanted to kill you, I would've. I just couldn't overhear all your conversations about wanting to fight someone for real over the past few days and wanted to show you just what a real fight is like, how tiring, exhausting, that small little battle was." Hayate, Kiro and Sukai didn't notice but they all felt drained, and truly wanted to just crash and go to sleep. "You should be thanking me, huh? Now c'mon inside, you're letting the incense out."

Slowly, Hayate began limping over with a wary Sukai and Kiro in the lead. The boy closed the door behind him and left his sickles on the stones outside, not wanting to toy with those implements at the moment.

Suyin slid open the door that led into the tearoom, uttering "Grandma?" as she took a step in. After one step only, though, a loud noise was heard as Mizai, standing on top of the table most adjacent to the door, slapped the woman with a frying pan.

Suyin twitched and fell to the floor, fake tears falling down her cheeks. The three others now felt particularly pathetic that a frying pan could inflict more damage than the three of them combined. Rising to her feet and rubbing her head, Suyin groaned. "Old lady, what was that for?"

Mizai kicked her in the shin, jumping down from the table. "What do you think? I saw how you toyed with those children. You're working overtime tonight, you know!" Suyin scowled and unslung the sword, tossing it against a wall and sat down at a table. "Where's the fairness in that, old lady? They practically asked for it, and it's been three freaking years since I even touched a sword." She groaned loudly, with Sukai, Kiro and Hayate staring at each other nervously, feeling out of place.

The rest of the day went by quietly and quickly; Mizai bandaged Hayate's leg, and Sukai eventually convinced Kiro to let her try and fix his abominable new hairstyle.

As Hayate sat on a table with a crouching Mizai wrapping strips of white around his wound, he cringed when she tightened them, stinging his lower leg. Suyin scoffed. "You should see the scars I got from when I-" Mizai turned around and waved her hand with speed the boy didn't think her capable of. Scalding tea water from a teapot on a table a bit farther away covered her mouth in a Sukai-esque move. Suyin screeched a muffled scream as the boiling liquid tore at her skin. In a second, the older woman dropped the technique, allowing the water to fall to the floor. The conversation ended there as Suyin frowned and leaned back on a table, pushing her hair over her eyes and closing them.

Kiro sat cross-legged in his room, with Sukai on a chair behind him. She had with her a pair of scissors obviously not intended for cutting hair, but was trying to render his new hairstyle a bit more bearable, although she was doing quite the terrible job. Locks and clumps fell every so often, to the point that Kiro eventually demanded she stop.

"Oh good God, Sukai, what have you done to me?!"

His hair was long in some places, short in others and in a sparse few places, completely nonexistent. He scowled and ordered that she leave the room immediately. Frowning, she grabbed the chair and brought it back to the table, on which an open notepad lay. Curious, she looked at it with a smile. "What's this, Kiro?" She began to read a few words. "A rose that wilts will never-"

With passion and fury Kiro sprinted to the desk and shut the notepad forcefully, grabbed Sukai's collar at the back and quite literally dragged her kicking and screaming across the room to the door, which he threw her out of and slid his door shut with a slam behind her. She rolled her eyes and walked towards the hot springs, hoping to relax a bit. As she walked, however, she couldn't help but notice the door directly parallel to the one that lead to the hot springs; it had always been closed, but this time it was open a sliver. Curiosity got the best of her. "I'll just close the door. Whoever it belongs to will have wanted that."

As she walked towards it, she grabbed it and slid it to the point that the door was completely open. She followed the door with her eyes. "Oops," she began, switching her gaze to the room in front of her. She chuckled and spoke sarcastically. "Looks like I shut it in the wrong direction, silly me-"

Her jaw hit the floor.

Hayate sat upon a rock in the hot springs- having been there long before Sukai contemplated entering. He held his Kusarigama; the scythes that almost took his life. Was he really that terrible? It had been a whole week, after all…

Tying the weapons together as Suyin had showed him and holding them in a manner that would make it near impossible for him to stab himself accidentally, he slid open the door and entered the hall, only to see the stupefied Sukai. He spoke her name once or twice, but the girl didn't so much as flinch, causing him to walk near her and share her shock as he looked inside the room.

The tatami-covered floors were bland compared to the walls, adorned with most every type of weapon imaginable. Different shapes and sizes of gleaming blades shimmered proudly. Dull, wooden weapons even emanated danger- Hayate also noticed a pair of Kusarigama that seemed far superior to his in design, at least.

The two looked at each other nervously. The rest of the room was quite the disaster; piles of dirty laundry sprawled everywhere for one. They kept staring, dumbfounded, until their hearts skipped a beat as they heard the familiar sliding sound of a door- what would Mizai or Suyin say if they saw them?

Fortunately, the door was Kiro's and they hastily closed the entrance to the weapons room, despite Kiro's order to leave it open for him to see. In fact, if it weren't for the sound of a major commotion from the main tearoom, Kiro would have most likely prevailed in the argument. As they entered the room, they seemed slightly repulsed at the sight.

Suyin was holding up a man; battered and worn. Dark, oily hair fell far beneath his shoulders and his eyes seemed somewhat lifeless. Stubble lined his chin and upper lip, and he was clothed in torn green and gold robes- earth nation. At this realization Kiro and Sukai spat subtly while Hayate cringed.

But the condition he was in was the real shock- cuts, bruises and scrapes scarred most of his face, along with dried blood. However, as Suyin adjusted her arm to support him better, he shrieked of pain and, horrified, Suyin let him fall.

As he landed to the ground with an awkward thump, Mizai approached, slapped Suyin in the back of the leg and kneeled down. The man was facing up, she slit his shirt with a knife placed on a table with only a bit of difficulty; there were so many tears one could have used their hands. As she pried the fabric apart, they all shuddered at the sight of a massive, still-red cut that seemed excruciatingly deep and was slashed across his entire chest, along with countless smaller, but still significant cuts as well.

Suyin and Mizai didn't seem overly fazed, but Hayate and Sukai were thoroughly disgusted. Kiro was as well, no matter how much he tried to conceal the fact by biting the inside of his cheek to keep a straight face.

Impulsively, Suyin got up and pushed the three aside, running into the hall and charging into the weapons room, coming out with a large terra-cotta jar that Sukai and Hayate hadn't noticed earlier. Pulling off the lid, the three noticed that Mizai had already covered the wound with some sort of serum and was now applying the same yellowish liquid to his face. Suyin, however, was taking clumps of white powder out of the jar and putting it over the serum. The man groaned once or twice.

At least he's alive. Hayate thought.

Once the two women finished, all was quiet for a good two minutes- no one dared speak. Eventually, Mizai summoned water- notably warm but not quite boiling as her teabender motto exclaimed, and washed off the serum and powder. To the amazement of the three children the wounds had scarred over and all traces of blood were nonexistent; even the massive injury on his chest had slimmed down drastically and lost most of its crimson hue. The man seemed to be at ease, unconscious, but comfortable.

When Mizai waved them away, they went about their other business. Suyin decided to make herself some tea, Kiro returned to his room to write poetry, Sukai let herself sink into the hot springs and Hayate climbed in a tree, staring at the sky.

I wonder what happened to that man.

His Kusarigama hung from a branch, and he sighed upon looking at them. The two weapons weren't very large, nor were they ridiculously heavy but he still found them awkward to control. He had read a book in which the main character, at some point, had to learn to use a weapon… A sword, he remembered. There was a passage that seemed to emerge from the depths of his subconscious at this random time and he cringed.

In order to truly be able to use your weapon, it must be an extension of your person. The sword, an extension of your arm. Moving it, you move yourself. Let your own power flow into the weapon…

And then of course the protagonist proceeded to demolish the foes in an unprecedented display of skill.

Hayate sighed. Stuff like that would never happen. This was real life…

He spent a while longer staring at the clouds and climbed down eventually, slowly making his way to the door and walking into the teahouse. He was surprised to see the man, bandaged, sitting on a cushion beside Mizai; he was speaking.

"You're not allowed to leave." He coughed. "…It all happened so fast… Senator Bao ordered it, and all of a sudden every man in the city, even the women Earthbenders, were called on to come to the City of Flower Petals. No one really knew why; it was such a weird action and it came out of nowhere, but we were literally faced with this option or death. A lot of people chose the latter, anyways…" He coughed again, and Hayate shuddered when blood flew out of his mouth and landed on the floor. Mizai tried to comfort him, patting him on the back.

"I couldn't stand it anymore… We had the city under our control for more than a week, but the citizens were living lifes of Hell; killing themselves just to be freed of our power. We don't even know how to run this city, it's falling apart… It's like the Senator just sent us here to take the city and doesn't care what happens afterwards…" Once more, a fountain of crimson spewed from his mouth and a stray tear fell from his eye, no matter how hard he tried to keep it back.

"Can you honestly tell me…" He said to Mizai, "Am I going to die?"

The woman denied the fact completely, but Suyin, who was drinking her tea at another table to give the two their space, seemed to know better. Hayate bowed at the man and at Mizai, although neither of them really cared at that moment, and he walked past Suyin to enter his room.

Seemingly, Kiro had heard the entire conversation as well. "The walls are thin," he reasoned, "so long as it's quiet in here it's not a challenge to hear what's going on right in the next room."

"But, what do you think's gonna happen to that guy? He looks pretty beat up." Kiro shrugged. "Suyin and Mizai did the best they could possibly have, that medicine is some of the best you'll ever find for healing wounds like that. But… I don't really think the wounds are the biggest problem there. He has a lot of internal bleeding, at least that's what Mizai says, and there's no way she can fix that with the stuff she has here. His heart rate's low too, and his mind's probably warped from the battle… You know, seeing so many people die. It can drive people insane." He shrugged, getting up from his chair and closing his notebook decisively, before pocketing it. "I can't say that I care. He wanted us dead, we wanted him dead. He's going to die, so we win."

Hayate shivered in fear at Kiro's cold statement that he uttered without the slightest hint of hesitation. Seeing the fear in Hayate's eyes, Kiro inquired "What? I'm not wrong. He deserved this, he completely had it coming." Hayate had to admit he was right. During the past week, he and Kiro had been able to live with each other, since there was no other choice, but there was still so much about Kiro that he wanted to destroy.

The rest of the day was rather eventless; dinner was quiet even though everyone ate at the same time; the man, who was named Vu, apparently, skipped the meal and lay down in the room adjacent to the Weapons Room. After a few polite thank yous, the three went to their respective rooms and slept.

The morning was quiet. Hayate got up first again, as became habit, and he walked into the main tearoom. He noticed, surprised, that his shirt had now a black flower that resembled Sukai's sewed onto the left sleeve. He shrugged it off, though, deciding that Suyin or Mizai must have done it for some reason or another. He'd ask them right away.

As he entered the tearoom, the scent of incense crawling into his nostrils, he was surprised at the scene. Normally, Suyin and Mizai were on different sides of it, Mizai knitting or drinking tea with Suyin lying down like a rag doll on a table, staring at the ceiling… Today, though, they sat facing each other at a table, turning around when they noticed Hayate walking in. Both of their arms had the black flower sewed on.

What the… Hayate thought. Suyin bit her lip, and sighed. "Vu died." She said, coldly.

Stupefied; Hayate remained frozen in place.

Dead?

It was a thought that haunted him all evening, he figured that Kiro was right and that the only LOGICAL thought was that Vu would die. And he shouldn't care, Vu wanted him dead anyways.

So why was he so sad?