"I offer you Sokka so you can do as you please with him," Naruto quickly seized the opportunity to offer up Sokka as a sacrifice to the enigmatic waterbender.

"Hey, put me down!"

"I'm not that desperate. I'd rather take you," she pushed the Water Tribe teenager aside, advancing directly toward him with a menacing look, her hands enveloped in water.

"Oh, no," Naruto's mind raced with several ideas on how to escape this situation, although he doubted any of them would work.

"I'll pay," before Niisa could grab Naruto from the bone fish and drag him to her boat as her future slave, Yue gestured to one of the guards who promptly brought a chest of gold.

"Don't get involved in this."

"Gold is gold, sister. What's the difference between that child's gold and mine? Just take it."

"As always, the little princess knows how to solve problems," with a sigh, the waterbender reluctantly accepted the chest and hoisted it onto her shoulder. Her patience was running thin. As she was about to leave...

"You don't have to go, sister. You can stay for dinner tonight to meet our parents."

"No, I can't stay."

"Things have changed."

Niisa paused at the door, heavily dropping the chest from her shoulders. She gave her younger sister a cold look. "Nothing changed. Just because this brat has the apprentice symbol doesn't mean anything," she pointed out with disdain, casting a skeptical glance at Katara's coat, marked with the emblem Master Pakku had painted there. "I'm sure the old man only gave him the mark for sentimental reasons."

"I earned this mark!" Katara wasn't about to let her achievements and progress be belittled.

"And where's mine?" Niisa sneered at Katara. "At 15, I could defeat anyone. I was a natural warrior. But lo and behold, they didn't give me anything. A lifetime of training, only to be told that my calling should be to heal people..."

"You know that's not true."

"Oh, no? Then what? I had to stay and be the ice princess? Save my virginity for the brave, strong, powerful man my father chooses as my husband? Well, that sounds like a perfect life, doesn't it?" Niisa taunted Katara, her words dripping with disdain. "So I see you'd like that, wouldn't you? To be the trophy wife... You make me sick."

"Hey! That's enough!" Sokka's shout was belated, as the princess had already risen and walked away from everyone, leaving an uncomfortable silence in the living room.

"What's going on?" Naruto stared daggers at the waterbender, who snorted and reclaimed the chest of gold.

"She can't handle the truth. Not my problem. I'm leaving now. See you, kid."

Everyone remained in silence, watching the waterbender depart and make her way to her boat to leave the tribe.

…..

"That woman is a bitch"

"Sokka you don't have to say those things."

"Are you going to defend her? Then what did she say?"

"Well, no, but it's bad to talk behind people's backs."

The Avatar team took a break before the grand farewell banquet. Tomorrow, they would continue their journey, with Aang's ongoing training in mastering the other elements.

Katara and Sokka sat on the stairs, engrossed in an argument, while a bit further up, Aang and Naruto were in conversation. Momo, the lemur, rested on Naruto's head, peacefully napping.

"How did you meet her?" Aang's curiosity got the best of him as he wanted to know how Naruto encountered that feisty woman.

"I fought her for a reward, and I think she's still mad at me."

"Because?"

"Well... I used a technique that, honestly, leaves people marked." Naruto reflexively clenched his rear end, experiencing a phantom pain from that technique. He silently vowed to get back at Kakashi-sensei for it.

"Wow... that must be an incredible technique."

"Maybe you can show it to Aang, so he can use it against the Fire Lord," Sokka chimed in lazily, casually scratching his back with his Boomerang.

Naruto had to stifle a laugh at the thought of Aang using the "thousand years of death" technique against the Fire Lord. He'd pay anything to see that.

"Hey, Naruto, you never told us what happened in the cave with the lightning girl and her friends." Katara asked, noticing a blush on Naruto's face. He laughed awkwardly and looked away.

"Not much..."

"A fight to the death? A knife fight?"

"Only one of them used knives, and we didn't fight to the death, Sokka."

"Why are all the girls you meet crazy sorcerers?"

"They're not crazy... just weird, and I like weird girls." Naruto's statement raised puzzled looks from the group. Blinking at their stares, he asked, "What? Did I say something wrong?"

"Who am I to judge tastes?" Sokka didn't think much of the matter; he couldn't criticize Naruto's preference. He had a fondness for tough girls too, with Suki and now Yue. They were different, but he liked it all the same.

"What exactly are these tastes?" Aang seemed a bit lost, unaware of the topic they were discussing, which wasn't surprising given his upbringing in a monastery.

"Well, my friend Calco, in simple terms, it's like deciding what sauce you want with your sausage. Always choose the one you like the most. Ahuhh~!"

"Don't say things like that!" Katara smacked her brother's head hard enough to send him tumbling down the stairs. He ended up at the feet of someone who had just arrived.

"Did I arrive at the wrong time?" Yue greeted Sokka with a smile, extending her hand to help him up, and he accepted with a silly grin on his face.

"We were talking about soaking sausage-"

"Nothing" Naruto had to cover the monk's mouth before he said anything, it was a gesture that the southern tribe warrior appreciated.

"We only talked about what happened today, it's nothing"

"Oh yeah?" In an elegant manner, the princess sat next to the teenagers on the stairs, under the light of the full moon, "My sister is somewhat intense."

"Intense is putting it lightly, but I understand; we all have someone with psychological issues in the family."

"Hey! What does that mean?" Katara was offended by the implication, but her remark was ignored.

"I can't blame my sister for being the way she is. She always wanted to be the child our father longed for: strong, intelligent, skilled, worthy of becoming the leader of the Water Tribe. No matter how hard she tried, it never seemed to be enough."

"…"

"Despite everything she's done, she still feels it's not sufficient." Rubbing her hair, the girl gazed at her white locks. "When I was born, I was lifeless, no pulse, no breath. While my parents mourned for me, my sister brought me to the sacred pond... My parents tried to stop her, thinking she was desperate, but she used her waterbending to defy them and took me to the spirits of the moon. We entered the sacred waters, and the spirits granted my sister's wish — that I would live. But it came at a great cost."

"What cost?"

"Half of her life."

"..." The Avatar team exchanged puzzled glances.

"Nothing comes for free in life," Naruto couldn't help but recall Niisa's repeated phrase.

"Niisa and I shared her life. She cut her own lifespan in half to save mine." Smiling, the girl continued stroking her hair. Curiously, her hair had turned white like her sister's. "The spirits work in mysterious ways. They don't always give us what we want, but rather what we need, even if it's not fair. They've condemned my sister to perhaps only living to be 30 or 40."

"Is that why she left the tribe? Did she regret what she did?"

"I don't know. One day when I was just fifteen, I witnessed my sister challenging Master Pakku to a duel. If she won, she'd earn the title of waterbender. Naturally, she lost, although she put up an incredible fight. She felt humiliated and... well, she just left."

"Just like that?" Naruto inquired, intrigued. He couldn't fathom walking away so easily over not obtaining a mere title. Yet deep down, he recognized that had he failed to become the Hokage or been denied the title, he wasn't sure what he would have done.

"She must have had her reasons. I don't know... but I hope to find out one day." Rising from the stairs, the girl shrugged her shoulders. "Come on, it must be dinnertime. Tonight will be a great evening."

….

"Where do these seas end? ~ Where love is shipwrecked ~"

Damn, she had already drunk too much.

In the middle of the boundless sea, a solitary boat drifted across the waters, carrying a lonely and inebriated Niisa. She sat on the boat's edge, clutching a bottle and several gold coins in her other hand.

Playing with one of the coins, she spun it between her fingers while taking another swig from the bottle, draining it until it was empty and tossing it into the sea.

"Gold." She gazed at the coins in her palm, contemplating all the vices she could indulge in – alcohol, gambling, liaisons with both genders, sex, and debauchery – anything to drown her sorrows. "It's just gold..." With a dismissive gesture, she threw the coins into the sea and then grabbed the chest next to her, tossing it overboard as well, her vacant eyes mirrored in the serene and clear waters.

Her feet gradually approached the edge of her boat, when she was about to jump, she noticed something looming on the horizon, her drunken state disappeared instantly when she saw hundreds of armored ships on the horizon, all of them flying the flag of the nation of fire flapping on its horns.

Clapping her hands, the waterbender made a wave of water turn her ship, at full speed she headed towards her home, a great battle was near.

[ If you want to read advance Chapters then go to Pat reon and support me there.

PAT REON I'D:- Alzero ]