How many chapters is that now? Four maybe? In the past few days? Wow, I must really love you guys. I love your reviews that's for sure :) I think this chapter is mainly about some of the mental scars from what happened with the kidnapping and torture stuff, and parts of Naoki's past, how Hakoda and Naoki met, how Hakoda and Sakida met, and just a bunch of stuff like that. Hope you enjoy, and please review. I love them all.
Disclaimer: I don't own, and I never will
"I love your father a lot," Naoki sipped her freshly made tea. After Katara's 'freak out', Naoki made tea and settled down to tell her the story, she even gave Kaskae a bowl of tiger-seal meat. "still do. He's under that witch's demonic spell, that's all."
Her eyes were sad, she wanted to believe it was all just a spell. Naoki and Hakoda have been through a lot, but everyone else has as well.
"I just don't understand, my dad trusted you after nearly killing him?" Katara held her own cup of tea in her hands.
Naoki smiled, holding the cup to her mouth, but not drinking it. "He was impressed with my skills as just a healing waterbender, but I've improved much since then, I even begged Pakku to train me when I arrived here."
"I've never met another waterbender who's wanted to learn fighting as much as I have before." Katara really liked this woman, she was a lot like Katara herself; strong, persistent, compassionate too.
"I was the most rebellious in my healing class, I hated just learning how to heal, I wanted to fight. I wanted to become a warrior." Naoki placed her cup down, leaning back a little and pulling her knees to her chest. Even though she was an adult, she was a teenager at heart. "So, after I graduated from healing lessons, I packed up my stuff, said goodbye to my uncle Arnook and left the Northern Tribe."
"You're Chief Arnook's niece?" Katara gapped like a fish. She was liking this woman more and more each sentence she spoke.
"Yeah, gotta love the royal life." Naoki muttered, resting her chin on her knees. "I've heard the Southern Water Tribe hasn't been rebuilt since the last raid, and I wanted to travel there to see if my presence can make a difference."
"But you ended up meeting my father instead." Katara smiled, finally feeling happy for Hakoda since the ending of the war. "I'm glad he has you."
"Yeah, now he has that-perfect goody two-shoes, Sakida." Naoki shook her head, making a disgusted sound. "I even hate her name."
"You and me both." Katara laughed, throwing her head back a little bit. "Don't worry, my entire family and practically all my friends hate her, even my boyfriend."
"Boyfriend?" Bato asked, joining in the conversation. He never suspected Katara to have a boyfriend so soon, and so young.
Katara blushed. "Yeah, I'm kind of dating the Fire Lord." She ducked her head a little bit, embarrassed.
"Really now, how's that working out for ya?" Bato teased, poking Katara's shoulder. A knock at the door interrupted them; standing Bato walked over and pushed the door open, revealing Zuko.
"Katara isn't here, is she? Someone told me she came in here about an hour ago." Zuko asked, rubbing the back of his neck.
"Come on in Zuko," Katara called from the inside. Bato stepped aside and waved Zuko in. Katara pulled him to sit next to her and Kaskae who had his head in the empty bowl, asleep. "this is Naoki, my dad's real girlfriend."
Zuko's eyes widened. "Mind explaining?" He asked Katara, pulling her close to him, exhausted from training with Aang.
"I will later along with Sokka and the others, that way we can come up with a plan to bring Sakida down." Katara answered for him, pouring him a cup of tea.
"You guys want to kill Sakida?" Naoki asked, straightening herself out and refilling her own tea cup. "Or at least get rid of her?"
"After what she did to Katara, I wanted to end her the last time I fought her." Zuko gritted his teeth and closed his fists, recalling the memories. "I won't let something like that ever happen again." Zuko held Katara even closer, kissing her head on the way, not afraid of showing affection towards her in public anymore, or at least in front of other people.
"You're father told the tribe what had happened, but he said no one knew who did it, besides you two, and you refused to tell anyone." Bato threw a few sticks into the fire that was burning between them, he had a hole in the roof so nothing would melt.
"I had my suspicions at first, but when Katara saw Sakida bleed, it was confirmed." Zuko explained, heating his body temperature up, to warm himself and the waterbender in his arms.
"She has purple blood, but when it touches your skin, it burns like scolding hot acid. It was like lava swimming inside you." Katara never really talked about the experience, no one wanted to, it was too terrible. Katara peeled her gloves off and pulled her parka over her shoulders, revealing the faint scars in her arms and collarbone. They were the scratch marks those crazy girls from the asylum carved on her. There was a faint circle wrapped around her left wrist, where the acid sinked in the first place.
Zuko looked away, he was horrified and furious with himself and his own stupidity. Why couldn't he come up with a solution faster than he had before? Why couldn't he save Katara before they scarred her? Why didn't he protect her in the first place?
"I don't blame you Zuko, if that's what you're thinking." Katara's voice directed at him was the last thing he wanted, especially if she was saying something like that.
"Well, I definitely blame myself," Zuko unwrapped himself from Katara and covered his face with his gloved hands, resting his elbows in his crossed knees.
Naoki and Bato were respectfully quiet as the two young benders coped with their pain and suffering; they let them have their moment to themselves.
"You shouldn't, if it makes you feel any better, you saved me." Katara gently placed her hand over Zuko's shoulder, but he shrugged it off.
"It doesn't." He replied, his voice muffled by his gloves. Then-surprising Katara-he pulled his face from his hands and turned to glare at Katara, guilt written all over his face. "I could have prevented the whole thing Katara! I could have stopped that demon from hurting you but I couldn't! I couldn't Katara! And now you're scarred forever! I can't even hug you without those memories burning into my head! That demon has hurt you in more ways than one Katara, I can't even think straight anymore!" Zuko gripped his head in pain, the memories were back again. Zuko's shouting had woken Kaskae, and now he's nudging his nose into the firebender's face, licking it.
Giving him a few minutes to collect his thoughts, Katara moved behind Zuko, gathered water in her hands, and clicked into her chi. The water glowed, and Katara made the water hover over Zuko's temples, clearing his head.
It seemed to calm him down. Zuko removed his hands and lowered them to pet the bouncing animal in his lap. Zuko feels bad for getting angry so fast, but the thought of that-devil-just clicks something inside Zuko, something that turns him into the angry hotheaded jerk that used to chase the Avatar everywhere.
"I'm sorry for getting so upset." Zuko apologized, not only to Katara, but to Naoki and Bato as well, even Kaskae.
"Katara," Naoki spoke, softer than she has ever spoken to anyone. "I haven't known you for long, but when you do fight Sakida, I'm going to help."
Katara and Zuko looked up at the determined woman, and Katara was the first to speak. "Then I'll need to train you myself."
"Did you call us here just to adore your new pet?" Sokka complained when Katara dragged everyone aboard Zuko's ship-which was still docked.
"No, now will you please be patient? I need to talk to all of you, but I don't want anyone overhearing." Katara answered, about ready to bury her brother in snow.
Toph felt a little bit better now that she was on metal; she couldn't completely see everything and everyone, but she was working on it, and was getting better at it.
Once they were in the privacy of Zuko's large cabin, Katara spoke, and explained to everyone what's going on.
"I met this woman at Bato's house today, she's not his girlfriend, but my dad's real girlfriend." Katara paused to make sure everyone was catching up. She waited for the shock and disbelief to pass through everyone before continuing. "She's actually a waterbender from the Northern Water Tribe."
Naoki was the best healer in her class, but she wanted to learn more about bending, more than just healing, she wanted to fight. Naoki is Arnook's niece, and Yue's cousin, earning her a pretty high title. When she graduated from healing, she bid her goodbyes to her family and left, hoping to find other waterbenders willing to teach her fighting styles of the South.
This all happened a year and a half ago, so when Hakoda and Naoki met, he has been gone from his own tribe for about six months. Naoki was passing through the northern forests just outside the Northern Air Temple. She had accidentally stumbled upon Hakoda's campsite, where he and the rest of the men were camping out for the night.
Startled by their presence, Naoki had quickly frozen about three men to the trees, using just about all of her water. Using the rest of it, Naoki managed to grab Hakoda and use him as bait to stop the oncoming attacks. Hakoda wasn't frightened by the girl, she was clearly untrained and her grip wasn't that tight, he knew she had no intentions to kill him, and decided to negotiate with her.
For letting them live, Naoki was welcome to stay and travel with the men, fighting as many Fire Nation soldiers as they could. She gave them her healing abilities and her cooking skills because clearly none of the other mean could cook meat very well, and they let her stay to become a better warrior and a better bender.
Weeks turned to months, months turned into a year. Naoki and Hakoda stirring something special between them, something the rest of the warriors could clearly see. When they nearly reached Haru's village, together they ambushed a group of firebenders that surrounded a carriage, it was a prison carriage.
Once all the firebenders were taken care of, Hakoda and Bato ripped open the doors, only to reveal another woman dressed in prison clothes, her arms and legs bounded by several chains, even one around her neck. When the woman looked up, her eyes met Hakoda's and he fell right underneath her spell.
After that day, Hakoda would show more and more interest in the strange woman, and not Naoki. He would command the rest of the warriors to give whatever Sakida wanted, and he would do whatever she demanded. Naoki took note of this, and despised it; not because she was stealing the only person she truly loved and cared for, but because she was just evil in general. Bato was the only warrior besides Naoki that hated what Sakida was up to.
Bato didn't like the way Hakoda changed so easily too, before he was carefree and someone to laugh with, and he loved Naoki so much; but after he met Sakida, he's demanding and gullible, he was like a slave to Sakida, and he acted like Naoki didn't mean anything to him, like she was nothing.
Naoki couldn't stand it anymore, she wanted to stay and fight with the other warriors, finally feeling like she belonged somewhere, but she couldn't stand listening to Hakoda's rants and orders. She left once again.
Only this time, she didn't meet someone new, she continued her journey to the Southern Water Tribe, and stayed there. When Naoki arrived, she knew something had happened, something big and it screamed "Fire Nation."
Naoki asked the oldest woman there-Kana-what had happened, and she replied, "The Avatar has returned, and my grandchildren are helping him."
Kana accepted Naoki when she arrived, shocked to see that someone from the Northern Tribe had left and traveled all that way on foot. Naoki had said she knew a man-Hakoda-but wasn't sure if the old woman knew him or not.
The old woman smiled. "He is my son-in-law, the father of my grandchildren that are helping the world."
Naoki settled in pretty quick, seeing it was much better in the small quiet village, than the huge, grand city. She was also very happy when Pakku and others from the Northern Tribe, begging to be taught the fighting style.
Pakku agreed, and after explaining how Katara-his star pupil-fought him in a battle, made him realize that gender shouldn't matter when it comes to defending the ones you love and care for.
"You really inspired Master Pakku didn't you?" Suki asked, bringing everyone to the present, everyone too caught up in the past.
Katara shrugged. "Apparently, I'm just glad women can be taught how to fight. Now I'm going to personally train Naoki my way, so she can help us when it comes to the time."
"Going by everything you just told us," Toph commented. "Naoki sounds like a pretty cool person."
"She is, I'm glad I got to meet her and I'm glad she's the one my dad actually fell in love with." Katara smiled.
Kaskae barked and wagged his tail, making everyone laugh.
So yeah, this chapter is just a lot of the past, mostly Naoki's past and stuff. I hope you liked the part between Zuko and Katara, where he was upset over her getting scarred and hurt. Hope you liked it, it was a really long chapter to write.
Please review!
~EZ17