Disclaimer: The following chapter is entirely fictitious. Any similarity to the history of any person living or dead is entirely coincidental and unintentional, except when specifically noted otherwise in the cast and crew credits. All celebrity voices are impersonated and no celebrities have endorsed any aspect of this fic.

Chapter Twenty: And Ju Came Tumbling After

'-'

He already did what he needed to do, but Zuko was still there hours after being attacked. He was sure someone was going to return to finish them off but no one did. He was exhausted and he could tell Mai was, too, sitting in the chair next to him unaware she was drifting off every five minutes. He wanted to tell her to go back to the ship but he knew it was probably better to stay in the house in case there was someone who was waiting for them. He wanted to stand, but his head was much too heavy to lift and every time he did stand he was always dizzy, or throwing up. Four of five of them were in the small kitchen talking in hushed voices so as not to disturb the ones sleeping in the sitting room. Sokka was sleeping on the couch with baby Awinita snuggly on his chest and following her father's example. Within an hour after Tsuchi had bandaged him up Sokka had passed out four times, fell over six times, threw up twice, dropped thing because he forgot his left hand was missing seven times, and was now currently running a fever while simultaneously being clammy. His friends had just managed to convince him to sleep half an hour ago and since then he was all but dead. They were trying to keep as quiet as they could, but Zuko was able to strain his ears just enough to hear them.

"…I mean I get that he's here to help, but how do we know he didn't just lead them to us?" he could hear one of the woman saying.

"I saw the way that girl talked to him, she wouldn't have thrown him down the river like that," the only man in the kitchen, Aang, mumbled. "She acknowledged that she knew him but she was so rude and disrespectful. Why would she do that?"

"It's not like it hasn't happened before, Aang," another one of the women replied. "You know how many times people lied to us just to cover their story. Still, I agree with you. Zuko's here to help us. Why else would he risk himself to help Sokka?"

"Monetary gain?" one of the woman suggested. "Let's face it, if someone offered me a huuuuge settlement I'd give you up too." Surely that one was Tsuchi.

"Tsuchi, this is serious," the second woman scolded her. "What are we going to do to protect ourselves?"

"I already said—"

"Aang, you're not going to take their bending away. There's too many of them and you'll end up killing yourself," what he assumed was Katara said.

"Then what do you suppose we do?" the other voice, Suki presumably, asked.

"There's very little we can do," Katara's voice sighed. "We can't fight them. There was one of her and she managed to keep all of us at bay. I can't imagine facing thousands of people just like her. Maybe even stronger."

"Ionno," Tsuchi said pensively. "Maybe it's just me but I don't think these people are as powerful as they seem to be."

"She made me pass out without touching me, she disintegrated my husband's arm, you saw the arm yourself! Even you said it was beyond repair!" Suki cracked.

"Exactly," Tsuchi confirmed. "Without touching any of you, did you see how much damage she did? When I was alone I swear I didn't even know I was attacked. Okay, let me start from the beginning so you don't look at me like that. See, I was in the woods and I hear this person calling for help and I go to look but it turns out to be this black haired girl—"

"Short hair? Purple shirt with one strap?"

"With the black pants and boots? Yeah, that was her. She attacked here too?"

"Yes…" Katara paused for a moment before continuing, "She said she was the one who killed your sister. She said she had killed you, too."

"I see," Tsuchi mumbled. She took a deep breath as if to calm herself before continuing her story. "Well, anyways, she grabbed me and cuffed me to the tree and she was saying all this nonsense about how no one was going to doubt her, how she was going to show them. I really didn't know what to say. After she was done ranting she stabbed me in the gut. Lucky for me I brought my messenger bag with me that had my book in it. But…"

"But nothing, she tried to kill you and—"

"Aang, that's the thing," Tsuchi interrupted. "She stabbed my book and it went all the way though enough to get me good in the stomach, but wouldn't you know where you were stabbing? Like, wouldn't you be able to tell if what you're stabbing isn't flesh?" There was silence at the table and Zuko could only imagine the looks on their face if he were to tell them he knew exactly what she meant. "I've handled a scalpel before and I know from firsthand what it feels like to cut into flesh and I'm telling you, a book and the abdomen feel like two different things. And see, she stabbed me way to the side, Katara, you saw it. Come on, she got me in a spot where even if it did go through I'd still be alive to tell you. I'm thinking these people aren't as good as you're all thinking they are. Well, if they are then they aren't as smart as we think."

"Okay, then what are we going to do?" Katara asked. The table fell silent again. He could tell they were contemplating as best as they could but the silence implied they did not know what to think.

"Well we can go make sure what Zuko said is actually going though," Tsuchi suggested.

"Okay and what about Sokka?" Katara quickly squelched. "We can't leave him behind without anyone to help him. For god sakes he only has one arm and he's a mess!"

"In that case Suki and I should stay behind," Tsuchi answered.

"No, I want to go and stop this," Suki corrected her. "What she did to my family—"

"Will be nothing compared to what she'll do to you if you do go," Tsuchi intervened. "Look, I know you're a good fighter and up against any other bender in the world you can probably beat the shit out of them better than another bender, but this isn't the case. Suki, you realize they can kill us without touching us. Without any form of bending I doubt you stand a chance. I'm sorry but that's the truth."

"Then why did you say you would stay?" Aang asked.

"For the same reason," the woman responded. "These two need at least one bender and I can kind of count for two. Besides, I'm a doctor and Sokka really needs me. Katara could probably stay but I think you'd be better off actually fighting. You're stronger than I am."

"Then that means the girl Zuko brought would have to stay because she's not a bender either," Katara added. Zuko shifted his eyes to Mai who had finally lost her battle with fatigue and was now secretly sleeping in her arm.

"I didn't get to see her fight for very long but she can actually be a danger to us," Aang contributed. "She fights with knives and if all the earthbenders can bend metal then she's just supplying them with weapons."

"Then that only leaves you with three people," Suki argued. "That's not enough people. You need to go, Tsuchi. If it's benders you need to concern yourself with then four is better than three."

"Either way we're eff-ed in the A," Tsuchi sighed with a mixture of yawning. "We can't just leave you all behind. And Sokka needs medical attention. I thought he was fine but he's not handling it well, despite his lying."

"I can take care of Sokka."

"I'm not saying you can't, but I am saying that I have better equipment than you guys. Well, except Katara, but you get my point. I think you fail to realize that people in the old days use to die because of infection and poor treatment. He has a compression band, he's all sutured up, it will heal properly, and while I'm gone Katara will keep infections at bay, but what will happen if you're tending to his fever and then all of a sudden you guys are attacked again?"

"I don't know—"

"Exactly. No matter what we do we're screwed. We all go, we all die, only the benders go, we're outnumbered. There's no dealing with it."

"Well Zuko said he brought his ship," Aang mentioned. "He said he brought some of his guards, and they're all benders. Maybe he'd be willing to have some of them help us."

"Which would require us having to tell them what to look out for, which means more people involved, which means more people they're going to want to kill," Tsuchi shredded. "Granted, it's a good idea, but I'm just not sure if it will work."

"I still think I should—"

"Aang, will you stop it? We can think of another way around this."

"No, you won't. None of you can think of a way around it. The only real plan there is might not even work and for all we know that person wasn't even phased by what Zuko said."

'-'

She had palpitations. Rushing through her was adrenalin and she was unsure what to do with herself. So many thoughts passed through her, more than all of them she had to stifle lest she be known. It was unnerving, it was bewildering.

Frankly it was exhilarating.

Still, she did not know what to do.

Or if anyone knew already.

No more than two days ago she was in the arctic and now she was deep beneath the earth, back home and in the most dangerous place she could be. No one had yet approached her. She assumed no one knew quite yet of her failure, which was strange since news of anything spread so quickly, especially within the busybody group of assassins who loved to brag of their success, or mock others of their fails.

"Kurogane!" she heard the familiar waterbender's voice from the tables near the cafeteria. Darja was not alone and despite each one looking as identical as the other, she knew there were all types of benders there. Cautiously but nonchalantly, Kurogane walked towards the table and pulled up a chair to join them. "I was just telling them how the High Master gave you all of the south and the Fire Lord again! You just get back?"

"It was unsuccessful," she sighed truthfully.

"Unsuccessful?" one of the men sitting with them, a firebender, chuckled at her expense. "It's Zuko. He's not exactly the best firebender in the world."

"But he did get better over the years," Kurogane admitted. "He managed to distinguish his bending away from his anger."

"That doesn't mean anything," an airbender woman interrupted. "He's still inferior compared to us! And you're supposed to be the best out of all the assassins!"

"There were more than five of them. There was no chance for me to get them all, and besides, they had the Avatar. The last thing I needed was to kill all his friends and have him go into the Avatar state. It wouldn't have worked that way."

"Oh, please!" Darja scoffed. "That's bullshit and you know it! I've seen you take on ten benders at a time! Three of those people didn't bend at all! One couldn't even fight! Did you at least get the baby?"

"Didn't get a chance. Like I said, Zuko knows too much about us and he warned them before I got a chance."

"It only takes like two seconds to gut them," another man, an earthbender like her, demeaned. "Trust me! I'm a pro at it."

"Yes, but I would at least try to have some dignity when I assassinate people," Kurogane mumbled. "Unlike some barbarians."

"They're the barbarians," said Darja snobbishly. "Those trivial people have no idea what they're doing. Such sinners."

"Haha, it looks like the almighty assassin Kurogane has finally met her match!" the firebender spoke with spite and condescendence.

She grinded her teeth. How rude of someone to speak so rudely of her when they did not even know. "It's just Zuko," she muttered through her fingers, chewing on a hinge of excess protein hanging from the edge of her finger. "There's nothing those damn firebenders can do to me. All I have to do is throw dirt on then, that ought to extinguish them." She continued to chew on her cuticle and ignored the wide eyes staring back at her. She knew exactly what she said.

"Okay," the firebender tried to speak calmly. "I guess that is true. He is nothing compared to us, so I can see why—"

"What's there to guess?" she continued again, this time with a dash of annoyance. "He's a firebender. You should know how they are. Enough said."

"No, not enough said," the firebender growled. Everyone at their table was horrified at the words spilling from Kurogane's mouth. Never had anyone spoke such awful things about another bender, and from the mouth of someone so prestigious. It was heresy. "There is a huge difference between inferior firebenders and our kind."

"Not much, if you're going to get all up in a huff as to what I said," Kurogane berated. "It's like you people enjoy being mad. No wonder the Fire Nation fell so quickly. Winning the war would actually make them happy."

"What the hell are you talking about?" the man gasped in horror. "The Fire Nation fell with a mixture of us and the Avatar and those other people whom he gathered!"

"Yeah, but even with the power of the meteor, how did a seemingly strong nation fall with it? They had the world in their grasps for a hundred years and the one time they have the most power, isn't it a little suspicious they fell so quickly? I think so."

"How rude!" the airbender woman scolded the earthbender. "You know as well as all of us that all the elements are equal in strength! You know the Fire Nation was weak—"

"Oh shut up, Luli, don't even get me started on weak, see, there's a reason your people were killed first!" The airbender was left with her with a Se Tu's mouth.

"Kurogane, what is the matter with you?" Darja growled at her friend. "What the hell is all this with your inferiority shit? That's not Resistance appropriate!"

"Now hold on a second, the Air Nomads are a strong people!" the woman defended herself. "They died because they were ambushed and simply refused to respond."

"Sure they did," Kurogane said humorously. "Next time we need to give the infidels a bad hair day I'll make sure they send for you.

"Oh hell no! You think this is funny?" she barked at the earthbender man sitting next to her.

"A little bit," the man said honestly. "Oh, relax, Luli, she's just messing."

"Just messing?" she said with causticity. "Okay, Kohaku, does that mean I'm just messing when I say all you earthbenders are inferior to the rest of us?"

"Well now I know you're joking," he responded.

"Oh, so it's okay for me to say that I could just blow dirt away. Or how about how water can always turn you dirt munchers into mud? Or how about your people's indecency to breed like bunnies with the rest of the countries, you fucking sex addicts."

"Hey, I take offense to that!" Darja intervened.

"Well that's because there's a lot of mudbloods out there, isn't it?" the woman sneered.

"Yeah, all the Fire Nation crossbreeds are dead!" the firebender joined. "All that's left are your unwanted muck-ers."

"Actually, there's a few that are still alive," Kurogane slipped. "I contribute that to the earthbender in them. If they can hold their own against the Fire Nation for a hundred years I think they can handle me. But I guess I have to be careful."

"Fuck that! It's the Fire Nation in them!" the firebender yelled. "They managed to keep your dirt munching ass away—"

"You want to say that to my face, Fan?" the male earthbender holler so loud that now everyone was staring.

"You FUCKING dirt munching ASS!" the firebender said so slowly yet so loudly.

"Oh hell no, that's the line! Fuck that! I'll kick your fucking firecracker ass!" The earthbender jumped to his feet and kicked the table over into Darja and Kurogane.

"Kohaku, Fan, stop it!" Darja hushed them. She pushed the table away from herself and into the woman who started the fight. "You two are being ridiculous!"

"Shut your mouth, wetback!" snapped the firebender.

"Fan!" the airbender cried.

"You, too, you airheaded pikey bitch. Stay out of it!" The men began to shove each other, the woman attempting to separate them but only to get shoved herself.

"You see what you did?" Darja ridiculed Kurogane. "Do something about this!"

"No, I need to go," she replied blankly. She turned to walk away, but before she did she whispered into Darja's ear, "I need to speak with High Master Keme. You know, before things escalade too much."

'-'

Okay, so today marks the ninth year anniversary of the day some very irate retard terrorists crashed themselves into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. I remember how selfish I was when it happened. They had all this news coverage on it and they took Sailor Moon off the air for the day and I was mad because of it (the Sailor Moon thing.) But now as I've gotten older I know it was bad. And I wonder about the people who could have died but didn't. Like Seth MacFarlane, creator of Family Guy and American Dad! He was supposed to be on the airplane that crashed into the North Tower, but he was hung over and had the wrong time. And it's times like these I get The Bride of San Luis Rey flashbacks and wonder if there was a reason he wasn't on that flight. I know he's an atheist, but I like to wonder if it was maybe God or the Devil who saved him. In my mind I like to think it was God. Maybe God thinks Family Guy is funny too! I like to think that so I don't feel bad watching it. And then maybe the Christians who hate it won't be all in a huff about it.

NEHO, as always leave a message por favor, I miss them. Don't make me sad : ( . Also I have a deviant art page, and I'm always looking for suggestions. And as my poetry class gains steam I'll probably be posting poems up too. Until next time, Signing Off!