CHAPTER 22: THE IMPENETRABLE CITY (PART 3)
(Disclaimer: Avatar The Last Airbender belongs to Nickelodeon and Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto. I only own my OC's)
(PLEASE READ: THIS IS NOT A SEQUEL TO "SHUJINKO: THE FOURTH MEMBER", BUT A DIFFERENT STORY WITH SHUJINKO AS THE MAIN CHARACTER. THIS STORY WILL NOT HAVE ANY EFFECT WHATSOEVER ON "SHUJINKO SHIPPUDEN". I REPEAT THIS IS NOT A SEQUEL TO SHUJINKO'S ORIGINAL STORY)
Summary: One night, a stranger breaks into Shujinko's house and tries to steal one of the most mystical objects in the history of the Ozuma clan: The Eye of Kazemaru. When Shujinko tries to stop him, the two of them activate an ancient and forgotten power of the gem by accident, which sends them to another dimension where a certain bald-headed monk has to master the four elements in order to defeat the evil Fire Lord. What kind of impact will Shujinko's presence have in the Avatar universe? Who is this stranger and what does he want? Get ready for one wild space-time adventure
|Inside the drill|
"This place sure is big," Ty Lee commented. "I wonder how much time it took to build something like this. You could fit an entire town here, maybe even a small city. Can you imagine if people actually lived inside this drill? It wouldn't be that crazy when you think about it. You've got kitchens, bathrooms, dormitories, and lots of space to move around,"
"I would rather live in that cruddy circus you used to work at," was Mai's response. Unlike her friend, Mai was keeping her eyes on what was ahead of her, for she couldn't be any less interested in the enormous piece of marching metal they were in. To make matters worse, they were passing through an area where the air hung hot and heavy due to lack of ventilation. It didn't bother Ty Lee as much since she was wearing less and lighter clothes, but Mai could feel her silk robes sticking to her body every five seconds.
"Well, duh, of course! Who wouldn't want to live in a circus? Free air, tons of fun, you get to travel a lot, and if you're good at what you do, people will love you! I'm not saying I regret coming here with you and Azula, but I sure do miss having a crowd to entertain,"
Mai nearly scoffed at that. The idea of joining a circus was about as unappealing to her as returning to her old life would be. Growing up as a girl from a royal family had been a dull experience at best, and it got even worse after her father was appointed governor of the city-state of Omashu, a place where nothing remotely interesting ever happened. When the princess of the Fire Nation showed up in person to recruit her, Mai didn't even ask her what she needed her for and left Omashu that very same day. Risking her life while doing Azula's bidding was far more preferable than withering away in absolute monotony.
"Hey, do you think we'll get to see him one day?" Ty Lee asked all of a sudden.
"Him? Am I supposed to know who that is?"
"Isn't it obvious? I'm talking about Shujinko, the guy Azula ran into when we were chasing the Avatar's friends. Come on, don't tell me you're not even a little bit curious about him, I know you better than that,"
Ah, so that was the "him" Ty Lee was referring to, the mysterious Shujinko. Under most circumstances, Mai probably would've guessed it, but not when she was inside what felt like a giant oven. "I don't get why you're so fixated on someone you've never met before," Mai said as she wiped the sweat off her face with her wide sleeves. "Listen, if we do end up bumping into that boy, you'll have to fight him, so whether he's good-looking or not should be irrelevant to you,"
"Geez, that's not what I meant! Why would you assume that? Sure, I'd like to know what he looks like, but his looks aren't the only thing that interests me. When we asked Azula about him, she wasn't quite acting like her usual self. You noticed it too, didn't you? I didn't want to bring it up right there and then, but even her aura felt strange, like it was quivering. When that happens, it usually means that a person is having doubts or is being secretive on purpose. Maybe she wasn't telling us the whole story?"
Mai didn't answer right away. Unlike Ty Lee, Mai didn't in believe in any of that "auras" nonsense, but that didn't mean that the acrobat's observations were flawed or inaccurate. Regardless of how much their personalities differed, Ty Lee was still one of the very few people who truly knew the princess of the Fire Nation. Mai was also one of them, and just like her friend, she had also caught on to the unusual behavior displayed by Azula the night they went to her tent.
When describing Shujinko, Azula had done it ambiguously, almost open to interpretation. Someone like Azula, who paid so much attention to details that were easy to miss, would've offered them a full description of what she saw and what she was able to deduce. Instead, all she said about Shujinko was that he had a particular set of skills and that it was a shame he wasn't on their side. While these statements certainly spoke volumes coming from Azula, they were still vague as she never explained either of them, as if Azula was expecting both her friends to just take her word for it.
The biggest question, however, was how Azula had gotten her face so bruised and swollen.
One would think that a small group of girls who went around fighting the Avatar and his friends would always be exposed to suffering injuries. While that would normally be the case, this was Azula, Azula, who had gotten hurt. Mai couldn't think of a single occasion in which the prodigious firebender had been minimally wounded before, whether during a real fight or during her training. If anything, her own Firebending teachers had been the ones who ended up needing healers after the lesson was over, not their student. Azula's ability for combat was like a Tiger Seal's ability to swim; it simply came to her naturally.
While anything could happen when elements were being bent and weapons were being swung or thrown, Mai still had trouble believing that Azula had hit her face by accident. Azula never had accidents happen to her. No, it must've been an attack, an attack that for some reason, Azula was unable to dodge… and she did mention that Shujinko was capable of close, medium, and long-range combat. Then there was the incident at Gi Yuin Village, in which Lieutenant Kaizu told them about Shujinko and even gave a more thorough answer regarding the boy's aptitudes than Azula had.
Could it be that Shujinko was the one who had given Azula that black eye? Could it be that he was a far bigger threat than Azula had made him out to be?
"Whatever happened that day, we weren't there to see it for ourselves," Mai finally said. "Even if Azula wasn't being completely honest with us, are you going to call her out on it? Because I shouldn't have to explain to you why that's not a good idea,"
"Of course not, but that doesn't mean two friends can't share their thoughts on a mutual friend. It's not like we have other people to talk to anyway," Ty Lee responded, placing her hands on the back of her head as she walked.
Both she and Mai had grown up understanding that despite being friends with the princess, they still had to tiptoe around her. Even though she had more of a backbone than Ty Lee did when it came to dealing with Azula, Mai still feared getting on her bad side. She was just better at hiding it. Instances such as this one were the only moments where the two girls could speak freely about Azula, and since they didn't come very often, they had to make the most of them.
"In any case, if we do end up running into Shujinko, would you let me fight him first?" Ty Lee asked her friend, holding her palms together while making puppy eyes at her. "I just really wanna check for myself if everything we've heard about him is true. Pleeeeease?"
Mai let out a sigh. "Sure, he's all yours. I couldn't care less about something like that,"
"Yay! Thank you, Mai. You're the best!" the acrobat exclaimed cheerfully, hugging Mai from the side.
BOOOOOOOOM!
|Some minutes earlier|
Lying flat on their stomachs at the top of an elevated platform, Shujinko and Suki stared at the sight in front of them.
About two dozen of men, most of them engineers, were working inside what seemed to be some kind of single-space factory, where two rows of four huge fireboxes stood parallel to each other. Each firebox was connected to its own vessel mounted on top of them; giant containers of metal that were fixed to the walls and that nearly reached the ceiling. A total of sixteen engineers were working in pairs shoveling coal into the fireboxes while the rest of their peers were busy doing all sorts of tasks, such as carrying bags of coal around or fixing minor water leaks.
"I've never seen a power station before, but if this is not it, I can't imagine what else it could be," the Chunin muttered. Watching this type of technology at work was making Shujinko feel strongly out of place. There were so many weird things he had witnessed as of late that it was hard to keep count: A spiritual library buried in the desert, a colossal snake that lived underwater, and now a drill powered by steam that destroyed everything in its path. It made him wonder what other bizarre encounters awaited him in this part of the world.
"Same here. I knew the Fire Nation's technology was on another level, but this is something else," Suki said as she turned to Shujinko. "Now that we've found the power station, we need to shut it down. Any ideas?"
"First things first, we need to figure out how to get rid of all those engineers down there. I'm counting at least twenty-five of them. It's gonna be complicated,"
That last part made Suki frown. "You don't think we can handle that many opponents at once? I know it's just us two, but those engineers don't look like they can put up much of a fight. Besides, I get the feeling that none of them are firebenders,"
"That's not the problem. If we only had to beat them, I'm sure we could do it without having to go all out," Shujinko replied, a conflicted expression growing slowly on his face. "I don't think that pushing a button or pulling a lever is all we need to do if we want to stop this power station. Even if it really is that simple, we still don't know which button or lever to go for and we don't have the time to try them all, so we can forget about that,"
"Alright, but what should we do then?"
"There's only one option: We have to blow this place up,"
"… B-Blow this place up?" Suki repeated, thinking that perhaps she had misheard what Shujinko had said. She waited for him to correct her, and when that didn't happen, Suki gave the Ozuma a bewildered look. "Isn't that going a little too far? I mean, surely there's gotta be something else we can do,"
"Do you have any other suggestions? Because if so, I'm all ears," the golden-eyed boy said in a tone of voice that was neither harsh nor pleading, giving Suki some time to answer. Silence was the only response he got from her, so after a short while, Shujinko redirected his gaze at the fireboxes ahead. "An explosion would not only get the job done, but it might also paralyze the rest of the drill if we're lucky. Aside from that, not even the best engineer in the world can fix a power station that's no longer there. It'd be like trying to rebuild a house from its ashes,"
After taking a deep, deep breath, Suki concluded that despite being extreme and over the top, Shujinko's plan was theoretically effective at the least while she was unable to come up with an alternative solution. "Fine, you win. We'll do it your way. But how do you plan on making an explosion big enough to destroy this place?"
"Don't worry about it. I have something I can use to craft my own bombs. I'll set them up evenly across the power station to make sure it gets blown to pieces. However, as I mentioned before, these engineers complicate everything,"
At this point, Suki wasn't even going to ask Shujinko about the bombs, so instead, she decided to move on to the next question she had. "I don't understand what you mean by that. Are you saying we don't have enough time to beat those guys and then set up the bombs?" The leader of the Kyoshi Warriors was a little taken aback upon seeing Shujinko furrowing his brow, staring at Suki as if her question had offended him. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
"Even if they're from the Fire Nation, do you seriously expect me to blow this place up with all those people inside?"
It wasn't until then that Suki began to feel stupid. In her hastiness to stop the power station, she had failed to consider the barbarian massacre that would come as a result of bombing the place. Even if they managed to take all of them out without killing anyone, the explosion would surely finish the job, and there was no way they'd be able to carry their unconscious bodies to a safe location before the drill made contact with the wall of Ba Sing Se. Maybe they could pull it off if there were only a couple of engineers to deal with, but with this many of them, there simply wasn't enough time.
"Killing enemies on the battlefield or during a mission is one thing. It'll happen whether you like it or not. Sometimes it's inevitable, but when it's not, I want to… No, I need to do everything I can to avoid crossing that line," It was rather peculiar, if not hypocritical for a ninja to say things like that. Shujinko was aware of this, and it was only thanks to how little Suki knew about him that he could get away with preaching about life and death as if he understood those concepts better than anyone else. All the same, he wholeheartedly believed in his own words. As somebody who had crossed that line more than once in the past, the Ozuma knew just how hard killing a person could be on someone, even a ninja.
"Inevitable…" Suki repeated. "Does… Does that mean you've-?"
"Someone's coming," Shujinko interrupted her, pointing a finger discreetly at a man entering a security booth located on the other side of the station. Judging by the cut of his jib, the man who had just walked in didn't seem to be an engineer, or at least not someone who had to do any type of heavy lifting. He then grabbed what Shujinko presumed to be a microphone and spoke into it, making his voice loud and clear as it resonated within the walls of the power station through the loudspeakers.
"Attention, workers of power station number 3: War Minister Qin would like to remind you of the importance of periodically checking the heat levels of the fireboxes every twenty minutes. Any concerns should be expressed directly to the foreman assigned to your power station," Having transmitted his message, the announcer turned around and left the booth.
"Looks like these guys take safety rules very seriously," Suki commented. "Anyways, we still don't know what to do with those guys down there. Maybe we should get out of here and find the others while there's time left,"
"No… No, we can still make this work, and I think I just figured out a way to make these engineers leave at once," an inspired Shujinko said. "Azula is supposed to be somewhere in this drill, right? You could sneak your way into that booth, grab the microphone and order these people to abandon the power station immediately while pretending to be her. They wouldn't refuse to obey a command given to them by their princess,"
"… Hold on, you want me to impersonate none other than the princess of the Fire Nation, right here and now?" Suki asked, to which the Chunin gave her a nod. She took a few seconds to process what was undoubtedly the most bizarre request she'd ever gotten up to this point in her life. "Are you for real? I can't impersonate someone I haven't met before. I don't even know what her voice sounds like. A-and besides, what am I supposed to tell them anyway?"
"Anything that can get these guys to start panicking should be enough. Tell them there's an emergency. As far as your voice goes, even if they notice the difference, they'll forget about it as soon as they're told that their lives are in danger. I'd do it myself, but honestly, I'm not that good at making my voice sound like that of a girl. That's why I need you to play the part. Think about it; if everything goes well, we'll get rid of them without having to throw a single punch. If it doesn't, we'll catch them by surprise and use that to our advantage. Either way, we gotta act fast,"
Frankly, it almost irked Suki how Shujinko was able to give her valid reasons to make her do something so extravagant. The petition itself wasn't a big deal; she'd done more dangerous and uncomfortable things than a little duplicity. It was the timing that threw her off. If Shujinko had proposed something like this beforehand, it still would've been odd for Suki at first, but she would've gotten over it quickly. However, she was being asked to do this right away, which made it all the more awkward considering that she'd never done anything similar in the past. Of the many disciplines and areas of study a Kyoshi Warrior was involved in, the art of imitating voices wasn't one of them.
"Even if it could work, there's still the problem of getting to the booth," Suki said. "If there were fewer engineers hanging around, I'm sure I could sneak past them and reach the booth unnoticed, but there's just too many of them sharing a single space. I won't make it halfway across the station before one of them sees me,"
That was a good point. Aside from the fireboxes, there weren't any other structures standing in place between them and the other side of the power station where the booth was at. As someone who wasn't a kunoichi, getting there while avoiding being spotted by twenty-four pairs of eyeballs was going to be damn hard for Suki, if not impossible. The Ozuma scanned his surroundings searching for a way to solve this conundrum, and just when it seemed they were out of luck, he suddenly realized the solution was literally above them.
"Check it out,"
Just below the ceiling was a king-post truss composed of several collar ties that stretched from one side of the room to the other, each with its own set of support beams that helped maintain the structure of the power station in place. The distance between the floor and the framework of the truss coupled with the number of beams, girders, and purlins made it the perfect hiding spot, or at least the best place to hide within the confines of the power station. It was exactly what Shujinko needed so that they may proceed with his plan unencumbered.
"This is what's gonna happen, so listen carefully. I'll go up there and distract these guys with a little smoke show. As soon as it starts, you must head to the booth right away. While you're at it, stick to the left side of the room where you'll be able to see better and get to the booth faster. Be stealthy, but try not to take too long. Once the smoke clears out and everyone is confused, you then grab the microphone and do your best impression of Azula, and whatever you decide to tell them, it's gotta make them tuck tail and leave. After that, I'll rig this place up to blow. Are we clear on what you have to do?"
"Wait, how are you even gonna get up there?"
"Are we clear or not?"
"… Yeah, I think so, but-"
"Then let's do it. I'm counting on you, Suki," Before Suki could say another word, the golden-eyed boy abandoned his commando crawling position and stood up straight. Then, he bent his knees halfway and took a deep breath before jumping upwards, startling the leader of the Kyoshi Warriors.
A gasp of shock escaped from her mouth when she saw that Shujinko, who had been right next to her just a moment ago, was now holding onto one of the collar ties of the roof truss like a Hog Monkey hanging from a tree branch. Far from struggling, the Chunin seemed perfectly fine swaying his body back and forth in order to create enough momentum to climb the steel beam and get on top of it. He had moved so swiftly that none of the men at the power station detected his presence, and they certainly weren't going to notice him now so high up there.
While the Ozuma hopped from one collar tie to the next, Suki was left gawking in disbelief, completely forgetting what they were doing here. How in the world was Shujinko able to do all of this? Aang was the only person she could think of that was capable of defying the laws of physics in a similar fashion, and that was because he was the Avatar, the one individual who could master all four elements. On the other hand, not only was Shujinko not the Avatar, he wasn't even a bender by his own admission. Was that a lie? If not, what the hell was he, then? What sort of magic or sorcery enabled him to run across water and jump far higher than any other human could?
Shujinko stopped halfway across the roof truss, positioning himself roughly at the center of the power station from above. The multiple purlins and support beams would help him stay out of sight, although what he was about to do required some exposure. He opened his back pouch and retrieved a small leather bag where he kept a handful of smoke bombs. Smoke bombs weren't a shinobi tool that Shujinko used very often. In fact, he hadn't used a single one since the beginning of this crazy journey, which was fortunate given that he was going to need a lot of them in order to pull off this particular stunt.
He chose his first target, an engineer who was going around distributing bags of coal with the help of a wheelbarrow. 'Suki, you better be ready,' the Ozuma thought as he grabbed one of his many smoke bombs and waited for the engineer to come closer.
He waited, waited, waited… and then…
PSZZZZZZZZZ
As intended, the bomb landed close to the engineer's feet, releasing a cloud of yellowish smoke that swallowed him whole. Whatever the engineer's reaction was, Shujinko didn't get to see it as he immediately grabbed another smoke bomb and laid eyes on his next target, a couple of workers shoveling coal into a firebox nearby, and took a shot at them. Judging by the way they burst into hysterical screams of shock, the pair of unlucky fools probably thought the firebox had exploded right in front of them once the bomb released its smoke.
The Ozuma didn't stop there and kept going at it, determined to fill the power station with smoke until no one down there knew where they were anymore. In less than a minute, Shujinko managed to send the entire room into foggy chaos, with engineers yelling and bumping into each other by accident like chickens inside a burning henhouse. Although the smoke gradually expanded itself to every corner of the power station, the brown-haired boy aimed his bombs at places where it would at least take a while before they reached the left wall, giving Suki a small buffer.
However, the spectacle didn't last much longer. The chieftain of the power station pulled a lever after struggling for minutes to find it, which opened a large aperture in the ceiling shaped like an ellipse, allowing the accumulated smoke to rise and escape. Seeing as a lot of people were going to be looking in his general direction, Shujinko decided it was time for him to escape as well. He took advantage of the fleeing smoke and shrouded himself within it as he jumped out of the truss, going into the ellipse and landing on top of the drill with a shoulder roll.
Now that he was completely out of sight, all that was left was for Suki to do her part. The Ozuma had lost sight of her as soon as the first smoke bomb was dropped, so he could only hope that she had managed to reach the booth unnoticed. He sharpened his hearing and tried to make out what was being said down there, but too many people were talking at once and he was too far away to understand any of it, which made it impossible for Shujinko to verify whether his plan was working or if things had gone awry.
Just when he was starting to consider heading down there to check what was going on, an announcement was broadcasted through the loudspeakers, one that was narrated by a female voice. "Attention, workers of power station number 3: This is princess Azula speaking to you directly. There has been a leak of deadly gas in your power station. If left untreated, this gas will eat through your uniforms and your naked skin within minutes. I am ordering all of you to abandon your station at once and go to the back of the drill, where medical assistance is available,"
Upon hearing Suki's message, all hell broke loose. People were tossing their gas masks aside and screaming their heads off as if they were actually feeling their skin eroding away. The chieftain, the man in charge of overseeing the work of his subordinates, did nothing to impose any sort of order as he pushed his way to the forefront of the human stampede. In their state of panic, they didn't even close the exit doors to stop the "deadly gas" from spreading to the rest of the drill. Soon enough, tools and labor supplies were all that were left in the power station while the fireboxes kept burning whatever coal still remained inside of them.
Once she was certain no one else was there, the leader of the Kyoshi Warriors got up and jumped out of the booth, hanging onto a pole nearby and using it to slide down to the floor. She then approached the closest firebox and grabbed two abandoned shovels before making her way to the exit doors at a hurried pace. It was only a matter of time before the workers of the power station realized they'd been hoodwinked, which was why Suki closed the exit doors and inserted the shovels into the handles so that people outside wouldn't be able to open them so easily.
As soon as she turned around, Suki was met by the sight of Shujinko falling to the center of the power station. Instead of breaking every bone in his body after such a fall, the Chunin landed smoothly on his feet without even making that much noise, as if the boy had simply hopped over a fence. He then had the audacity to brush his hands against his pants and act like he had done nothing out of the ordinary, hardly aware of the looks of astonishment he was getting from Suki.
"Nice work, Suki. You really nailed it," Shujinko said as the young warrior walked towards him, clenching her fists and breathing heavily through her nostrils. "With them out of the way, we can finally get on with what we came here to do. I need you to help me put thes-"
Before he could finish his sentence, Suki went and grabbed the Ozuma by his vest with both hands, getting right in his face. "Screw that! I've had enough of this!" she yelled. "You better start explaining yourself this very instant!"
"Hey, what's your problem? Back off!"
"What's my problem? My problem is that I've been seeing you do all sorts of crazy stuff in front of me like it's no big deal! On top of that, you expect me to just ignore it and move on! Well, guess what, I'm done putting up with this nonsense. Tell me how you are able to do the impossible without the use of bending, and if you lie to me, I'll-"
"You'll do what? Beat the truth out of me here and now while this drill is about to penetrate the walls of Ba Sing Se? Is that what you have in mind?" Shujinko asked as he sharpened his gaze, matching the intensity with which Suki was staring at him.
Ally or not, it irked Shujinko having people make demands of him when they had no right to do so, much less if they resorted to utilizing physical coercion while they were at it, including something as inconsequential as pulling his vest. Suki wasn't his superior. She wasn't his sensei or his team captain, nor did she hold a position that entitled her to his compliance. In fact, Shujinko was hard-pressed to even call her a friend or a comrade. Suki was, at best, a friend of his friends, and while that was enough for the Ozuma to take her into consideration, it hardly gave her permission to treat him as if he owed her a damn thing.
The Chunin then grabbed Suki's wrists, but instead of squeezing them until she was forced to let go of him, he instead grasped them delicately as if they were the arms of a child. His facial features softened and the look in his eyes became less confrontational. "I imagine you must be deeply confused by the things you see me do. Trust me when I say I know the feeling all too well, but this isn't about either of us. Right now, stopping this drill is the only thing that matters. I swear you'll get your answers once that's taken care of, but until then, you're gonna have to deal with me for a while. Can you do that?"
For a minute or so, silence reigned in the power station, defied only by the sound of the drill's inner mechanisms at work. Generally speaking, Shujinko tried to avoid having conversations of this nature when the time and the place demanded action instead of words. For Kami's sake, the drill was literally minutes away from reaching the outer wall. Even so, the golden-eyed boy felt that a calm, tactful approach was the only thing that might get through to Suki at this moment. He didn't need to be a soothsayer to know that the situation would've only gotten worse had he lost his cool and told her off for trying to interrogate him.
Finally, it was Suki who broke eye contact, lowering her gaze as she stopped holding Shujinko's vest, to which the Chunin also let go of her. "…Stopping this drill is more important than anything else," she admitted resignedly before she started pinching the bridge of her nose with fervor. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have yelled at you like that. It's just that… I wasn't expecting any of this to happen. You, the drill, it's a bit too much to handle,"
"Don't worry, you don't need to apologize. But from now on, no more questions until we're done, alright?"
Suki inhaled as deeply as she could and released all of the oxygen at once before meeting Shujinko's eyes. "No more questions until we're done. You have my word. Now tell me what I can do to help,"
In response, the Ozuma retrieved eight explosive tags from his leather pouch, handing four of them over to Suki. "I want you to stick these to the fireboxes. Make sure to put them someplace where there they won't be too affected by the heat, but not too far away from the fireboxes themselves,"
The leader of the Kyoshi Warriors couldn't help but raise an eyebrow as she inspected one of the strange pieces of paper, failing to understand what sort of purpose they could possibly have. "I don't get it. Why would you need these in order to make your bombs? Are they some sort of crafting material?"
"These are the bombs, Suki,"
"… Wait, what? Do you mean to tell me these little papers are actually explosive? How is that even…" Before she could finish what she was about to ask, Suki caught the Chunin giving her a deadpan stare, which reminded her of what she had promised just a minute ago. "Right, sorry. Forget I said anything,"
|Meanwhile, in Ba Sing Se|
Zuko found himself sitting on a water well made from stones after hours of walking around the neighborhood, although calling any of the Lower Ring districts a "neighborhood" was being quite generous considering it was just one big dumpster after the other.
After getting into Ba Sing Se with their fake passports, Zuko and his uncle found a place to stay at a local shelter, a communal building where they had to share space with dozens and dozens of other refugees. From what he had heard, there were more of these shelters within the Lower Ring, all of them owned and managed by the Royal Administration of the Earth Kingdom. Apparently, it was part of a program started by the Crown some years ago in order to tackle the refugee crisis that Ba Sing Se was dealing with, and judging by the number of people that requested asylum every day, the pair of firebenders were lucky to even have enough room on the floor for the two of them to lie on.
Even so, whether he liked it or not, this was his residence for the time being and he wanted to become familiarized with its vicinity. Iroh had left the shelter a while ago in search of a tea shop that might hire them (because of course his uncle would look for work in any place where he could get his hands on that stuff). Although serving tea day and night sounded like a lame way to waste one's time, at least it would give them the means to start saving up until they could move out of that cramped little shoebox of a shelter they were currently staying at. Zuko wasn't thrilled by it, but after everything he had gone through along with his uncle, working as a waitress at a tea shop wasn't the worst that could happen to either of them and he knew it.
In fact, one could say that from a certain point of view, things were looking up for the banished prince and the Dragon of the West. They managed to escape from Azula when she tried to have them both imprisoned and sent to the Fire Nation, they had clothes and passports that allowed them to pass off as Earth Kingdom citizens, and now they were in Ba Sing Se, where no one from their homeland would ever find them. Sure, they came across their fair share of bumps in the road, but that was to be expected. More importantly, they were able to overcome those obstacles, big and small ones, together. They had made it quite far, and as long as they did nothing to expose themselves, they no longer had to worry about fighting, running away, or having to constantly look over their shoulders.
Honestly, it was kinda'… nice.
…
Zuko's breathing grew faster and heavier out of the blue. A rush of hot rage came over him, to which the firebender plucked a loose piece of rock out of the well and held it with the tightest grip he could muster, trying to crush it between his hands as a way to release some of the anger out of his system.
Nice? How could any of this be nice? When was it that he became so pathetic, meek, and complacent?
This wasn't some stupid leisure trip he was on. He had a mission, a goal to accomplish! To lose sight of that goal was akin to losing sight of who he was, and Zuko had already lost plenty. The fighting, the training, the running around, the fatigue, the hunger, and thirst, he had dealt with all of that and more, but he had experienced those hardships in pursuit of his objective. This place, on the other hand, had nothing to offer him, not even worthy struggles that might get him somewhere.
So how come he was so at ease just a moment ago? Why had he felt like being here wasn't so poor a prospect?
Zuko wasn't willing to admit it. In fact, he wasn't even fully aware of it himself, but the answer to those questions lay deep down in the most hidden corners of his sub-consciousness. After years of commitment, persistency, and relentlessness, facing adversity time and time again, his resolve was starting to wane, beginning to show cracks like a sword that had parried far too many blows. Since the day he embarked on his journey to capture the Avatar, Zuko knew it was going to be the most arduous trial he would ever have to face, but now, a small part of him wondered if success was even achievable at this point, if maybe renouncing his quest and doing something different with his life was his best and only option.
The event that sowed the seeds of self-doubt took place in Tu Zin not so long ago, when Zuko bore witness to something that made him question his perception of reality. Azula receiving a severe drubbing like never before at the hands of Shujinko was shocking enough on its own, but it didn't hold a candle to the fight between him and the hooded man. Words failed to describe what he felt watching those two going at it. There were weapons that appeared out of nowhere, acrobatics beyond the capabilities of almost any person, multi-layered tactics applied in quick succession, and above else, powers that quite simply shouldn't exist. All of that was displayed in just one relatively brief instance.
There were many things that Zuko didn't know about Shujinko Ozuma, but by observing how the Avatar and his friends reacted during the fight and afterward, it was clear to him that the boy was with them. That simple fact constituted a huge, if not insurmountable issue for the banished prince. If he was unable to beat his sister in single combat, how was he supposed to fare against the one who made Azula look like a weakling? Confronting a guy like him was out of the question, not only due to the futility of the act itself, but also because unlike the young airbender, Shujinko didn't seem to be afraid of killing whoever posed a threat to him.
For a while, Zuko entertained the possibility of somehow making contact with the hooded man and attempting to recruit him. This, however, was wishful thinking at best. Not only did he lack the means and the information to track him down, but even if the hooded man were to present himself before Zuko, the scarred firebender could offer him nothing but promises in exchange for his cooperation. As if that wasn't enough, Zuko suspected that the hooded man would probably attack him without bothering to hear anything of what he had to say.
'What am I going to do now?' Zuko thought as his boiling fury simmered down, allowing confusion and anguish to grow inside the melting pot of his emotions. 'No matter how hard I try, everything just keeps getting more difficult for me. The Avatar, Shujinko, Azula, the hooded man, all of them are out there somewhere. Meanwhile, I'm stuck here with my uncle, pretending to be someone we're not and surrounded by commoners, guttersnipes, and vagabonds. Every step forward we take draws us further away from where we're supposed to be going. Why is it always like this?'
It took him a while to notice his hands were shaking by now. Weaving out a heavy sigh, Zuko dropped the piece of rock, which landed between his feet. He started to rub his palms together in order to stop his hands from trembling any longer, but then, the firebender realized that the piece of rock was still twitching on the ground, along with other pebbles that happened to be close to where he was.
'An earthquake?' Zuko thought, blissfully unaware of the fact that this was no seismic event produced by mother nature. Rather, it was the result of his nation's most titanic beast of metal slowly approaching his direction.
|Back at the drill|
"There, all done," Suki said as she finished sticking the last of the explosive tags to the remaining firebox, making sure that it stayed glued to the surface. "Hey Shujinko, are we ready or what?"
"Yup, we're good to go," the Chunin answered all the way from the opposite corner of the facility. The two teens then regrouped at the center of the power station, and to Suki's surprise, Shujinko was carrying a long rope wrapped around his torso in a horizontal fashion. "Before you ask, I found this while I was setting up the bombs. You can use this rope to climb your way out of this place. It's gonna be tedious, but we don't have time to look for another exit,"
"Wait, why should I have to use a rope to get out of here?" Suki asked. "I saw you reaching the roof with a single jump a few minutes ago. Can't you just do that again while carrying me? I'd be a lot faster,"
Shujinko scratched the back of his head, looking slightly troubled. "It's true that I can jump way higher than most people, but I'm not sure I can do it with you weighing me down. The distance between this floor and the roof isn't exactly short. If you were a baby or a little kid, then it wouldn't be an issue, but since you're heavier than that…"
"... Are you calling me fat?"
"I'm saying that if I mess up even a little, you're the one who's not gonna have a soft landing. Do you want to risk ending up like a beetle that's been squashed under a boot or should we play it safe?"
"… Fine, you win," Suki said as the Ozuma handed over the rope. She tied one end around her waist before giving Shujinko a warning stare. "For the record, Kyoshi Warriors are meant to be slim and nimble. This uniform adds a few extra pounds at best. My bodyweight is completely healthy for a girl of my size and age,"
"You don't need to tell me, I already figured out as much. I'll tie the other end of the rope to the truss above us. Now let's get on with it. This power station isn't going to blow up by itself,"
|Back to the present|
"In any case, if we do end up running into Shujinko, would you let me fight him first?" Ty Lee asked her friend, holding her palms together while making puppy eyes at her. "I just really wanna check for myself if everything we've heard about him is true. Pleeeeease?"
Mai let out a sigh. "Sure, he's all yours. I couldn't care less about something like that,"
"Yay! Thank you, Mai. You're the best!" the acrobat exclaimed cheerfully, hugging Mai from the side.
BOOOOOOOOM!
Before the markswoman could break off the hug (which made her skin stick to her clothes even more), a clangorous noise was heard, immediately followed by a tremor that shook the entire drill. Mai and Ty Lee fell on their lower backs, looking baffled as the drill's emergency alarm started ringing at full volume. A voice message started playing on one of the loudspeakers, but the pair of girls couldn't understand a thing it said as the message kept getting interrupted by the alarm.
Mai suddenly spotted a hatch window near them. After struggling for a while, the two girls managed to open the window and stuck their heads out to see what was going on. What they saw made Ty Lee gasp and caused Mai's eyes to go wide.
A segment of the third wagon of the drill had blown up and was now on fire as a column of thick black smoke slowly rose to the sky.
"No way!" Ty Lee exclaimed, her eyes as wide as a pair of dinner plates. "Mai, look! Part of the drill is totally ruined!"
"I can see that," Mai replied, although her tone of voice lacked its usual sarcasm. The sight of fire, ash, and smoke on such a grand scale, while shocking, was also mesmerizing in its own way. As soon as Mai got ahold of herself, she immediately realized how disastrous this could be and that their entire mission, which began as smoothly as silk, was now compromised. In fact, if the rest of the drill was paralyzed as a result of the explosion, then they were officially done for.
While this and other thoughts bounced against each other inside her head, Mai noticed what she believed to be the silhouette of two people. She couldn't recognize them due to how far away they were, but they seemed to be relatively close to the disaster scene. This was enough to raise suspicion, and in any circumstance, she and Ty Lee weren't going to benefit from standing there dawdling. Such a passive reaction was the kind of behavior that was met with heat from Azula, both figuratively and literally, so if they wanted to be spared from that, this was the time to demonstrate some proactiveness on their behalf.
"Ty Lee, follow me. Let's go take a closer look,"
Aaaaaaaand that was chapter 22. Hope you all liked it.
Hello again, dear readers. First off, I wanna clarify that this chapter is slightly shorter than the ones I usually write, but meh, it was either that or making it a lot longer due to the nature of the scene that will come immediately after this one in the next chapter.
Rather than bringing you epic and high-paced battles, I wanted this chapter to be different, yet still entertaining to read by focusing on cunningness, strategy, and problem-solving abilities, all of which are elements present in both A:TLA and the Naruto series. If chapters like these aren't your cup of tea, that's fine, more power to you, but my stories cannot revolve around fighting and dialogue alone. That being said, you'll get your fill of fight scenes as this story goes on, so no need to worry about that.
This chapter also had its fair share of introspection and sub-consciousness, especially during Zuko's POV scene. Zuko is a complex individual in his own right and arguably the character that has the most trouble dealing with his emotions out of the entire cast of the show. Taking into account everything that he has gone through thus far, his current situation, and the addition of Shujinko + the hooded man to the story, I simply felt obligated to dive into his psyche and illustrate the inner conflict brewing within him.
I'll be the first to admit that I thoroughly enjoy writing scenes in which I get to explore the thoughts and feelings of characters while interpreting and conveying them to my audience as best I can. It genuinely makes me feel like I'm describing an actual person rather than a fictional character. Some might think that by doing this, I'm breaking the "show, don't tell" rule, and although I won't say I disagree with that, I do believe that the aforementioned rule doesn't necessarily apply to every single facet of storytelling.
Moving on, the next installment will provide an ending to the "The Impenetrable City" mini-saga so to speak. This damn drill has been taking up a lot of space in this story, more than what I originally anticipated. After that, our brave young ninja and his friends will be introduced to Ba Sing Se, and boi do I want to get into more of that. For now, enjoy this chapter and be patient for the next one.
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Peace!