"Sure. But only at night. Only close to the full moon." I pretend like my voice doesn't fail me at the last word.
He nods and climbs to his feet. "We had best see to the Trap Unit. Who knows how many of them are still out there."
...
I nod and we make for the wall. There are still several holes that the Fire Navy punched with the noses of their battleships. "We should make these into landing platforms. Harder to stumble and die, then."
Pakku manages a scoff, but already we're bending in tandem, smoothing jutted edges and using rubble to form a sturdy platform in front of the wall. Katara watches, a frown still etched onto her face. I suppose it is good that she's got strong morals, but it wasn't like I was deliberately committing any taboo. The same way you can bend sweat you can bend blood. It's water. Or close enough.
Were I less exhausted, I'd have some fun with getting us to the first group of survivors. As it is, Pakku gets us there because he can't heal and Katara and I do what we can.
We find some dead, some close to and I manage to save two using the same method from earlier. Pakku watches in fascination, Katara in frustrated constipation.
Then, the sun rises.
We get to the last platform and find Hiraku almost dead. Katara does what she can, but shredded insides are just that hard to knit back together.
I frown and take a seat on his other side. He was a good commander. He got most of the Unit behind lines of warriors during the red moon phase. Some of the more coherent ones asked after him.
"Ha, didn't think…" he wheezes, "That your face… would be the… last thing… I see…"
I grimace, "Then look to the left. There's a pretty girl right there. Or the old man. Though even my face must be better than that."
Hiraku gasps, the beginnings of a laugh on his face, "I… mis… judged you…"
I pat his hand, "Most do. Just how I like it."
He furrows his brow, "Glad… you… survived."
I pull my lips between my teeth. Why the sentimental crap now? Sure, he's dying, but if he weren't he'd still dislike me just as much. Only now, he wants me to know he respects me, "I'll tell your sister you love her."
"I don't… have… sister, you… ass."
With that, he dies.
"Good last words," I say and Pakku chokes on a laugh. Katara, though, just looks at me like I'm scum.
In her eyes, I probably am. She didn't like me from the very beginning. Then, I let Zuko escape, I'm still wearing the proof of that. I bended blood and now I refused to join in on heartfelt confessions. To her, I'm the worst kind of human being there is. Probably.
I close his unseeing eyes with a brush of my fingers. Hiraku lost his parents early, I think, and doesn't have any siblings. Pakku must've been his only real role model and parental figure.
Do I need to ask Master Pakku to supervise the men because you can't? Scum indeed.
As I sit back on my heels and let the sun warm my face I wonder what kind of psychological trauma I could be diagnosed with. I grew up with an adult mind in a child's body and tried to make the most of it. That being said, most of my social interactions consist of annoying Pakku, drinking with Arnook, sparring with Hahn, guarding Yue and sleeping with Lanni when she comes over. I lost my second set of parents whom I loved and depended on to a degree not too long ago. I killed four men last night and probably drowned a few that first day of the siege. I don't feel any remorse.
To me, they were abstracts, not real solid people. Sometimes, I still have trouble with reconciling myself with the fact that I was reborn into the Avatar universe. That all of this is just as real as my old life. Because it is. (After all, what reality is there, but the one you perceive?)
I am dead tired. Zuko's clothes are too tight and chafe. I just want a nightcap and then sleep.
But there is still work to be done and people to bully into action. Once the fighting's done, it's the civilian's time to step up.
Wearily I climb to my feet. "Let's head home."
The way back, we manage together, all three of us and the bodies pile on. Both the living and the dead.
The plaza looks the same, only the dead have been readied in boats to send to their rest. Civilians are slowly moving about, beginning to take stock of the situation. A few rush over to help the wounded into the city.
What follows is clean-up. The benders who are capable do repairs. The warriors who have the energy carry the parts of machinery they can to one of the supply halls for later examination. The healers who can do anything in their power to keep everyone alive. Civilians provide meals and housing.
I am the one to carry Hahn's body to shore. I owe him that. The fucker, dying on me in a critical moment. I am also the one to clothe him in his warrior's garb so he won't have to make the crossing in a Fire Nation uniform. His father's dead, too. Better too late than never, eh?
The following night, after I've slept for some time, I show Yugoda what I managed to do on a minor wound on one of her apprentice's forearm. She is suitably impressed and instructs me to write down every detail I remember for her.
Somehow, strangely enough, Team Avatar come visit me while I'm busy with that. I end up giving them all their first drink, and Sokka his second. They sleep in a puppy pile in the middle of the living room. I spread a blanket over them and finish my report.
Once the city looks presentable again and the dead have been sent to their respective rests, I visit Hahn's house. His father died in the attack, and so his friends and I clear through their stuff. Most of his is already at my place. But his father's house tells me a story that infuriates.
Neglect of not only home, but also his child. Broken furniture. Bloodstains.
I take a deep breath.
He's gone.
They're both dead.
Calm the fuck down.
He was there for me after my mother's death and I was the one to witness his engagement to Yue. Beautiful Yue with her silent suffering. Had she lived, she should have gone with Sokka, to be free. But she was determined to change the tribe. I wonder… would she have succeeded?
I find Hahn's mother's picture amongst his things, along with a dagger I remember Yue giving him. Those two items I keep. The rest I offer up to those whose houses and property were destroyed during the fighting.
The night after that Arnook and I drink ourselves stupid. We might or might not cry on each other a little bit. I try to give him the dagger, but he won't take it.
Then Pakku tells me that he's going to visit the Southern Watertribe and giving Team Avatar a ride to the Earth Kingdom. I figure I'd fit right in. Maybe I'll go find Katara and Sokka's dad and join his fight against the Fire Nation. Or I find Iroh and Zuko to annoy the prince into hating me more than the Avatar. Could work. I hear Zuko's pretty easy to rile up.
...
A war is never good. It's blood and death, tears, agony and pointless.
I'm drunk. In the spirit oasis, staring at the fish that is a powerful spirit whose life continues because Yue gave up hers.
For balance.
For her people.
Because she was brave enough to care about things beyond herself.
Cross-legged and slumped over, one hand propping up my chin, wild strands of hair tickling my forehead, I point accusingly at the fish.
Say nothing.
Sigh.
It's shite.
It's so shite because she should've been making an effort down in the city, repairing, redistributing housing. She should be down there, bossing me around. And I should be down there, letting her because she has good ideas.
"Oh," someone says from behind me.
It's Aang. Behind him, Sokka and Katara. All three of them have panda eyes.
I make a vaguely inviting gesture.
They come closer, all uncertain.
"Hey Kaito," Aang says. "How're you holding up?"
I grunt at him, not caring that it should be me asking him that. Forlornly, I glance at the last of my sake.
He wants to meditate.
Let the Avatar do his communication. Fuck the spirits.
I get up.
"You don't have to leave," Aang says, sounding young and uncertain. Somehow hurt.
I want to say something comforting, but all I can think of is "I know. I just… can't. Just… if you can speak to Yue… ah. Fuck it. That idiot. Suddenly going places I can't follow."
"What the hell?" Sokka whispers as he watches me go.
...
I'm with Yugoda, going over the bloodbending in her hut over tea, when Katara, Sokka and Aang enter. Again, they seem surprised to see me.
I'm not a ghost yet.
But maybe the disappearance of my figure after that mild encounter at the spirit oasis gave them the impression that I would not be in attendance for anything anytime soon. Well. I'm her now. Even if I had a day of aggressive venting in the form of using violent efficiency to help clean out the bay of the oil film on the water's surface and getting the suffocating and dying seal-lions to the healers. Or fishermen.
Yeah. Yeah, I've arrived at using life as a distraction.
"Katara," Yugoda smiles kindly at her, voice warm, "Aang, Sokka. What can I do for you?"
"I… er," Katara stammers, eyes drifting to me and back to her teacher twice.
I look at Yugoda. "I'll come back later. Was getting hungry anyway."
"No," Katara says then, "This is about you, too. Erm. Actually, this is about the bloodbending you did."
Ah. I settle back down.
"Well then you had all best sit down," Yugoda says. "Kaito, be a dear and put on another pot of tea."
I do as she asks.
The three children look various levels of awkward.
"You're struggling with the morality of it, aren't you?" Yugoda asks. "You don't know how it can be alright what Kaito did to save that man's life when he didn't know it would work."
They nod.
"Well, Kaito," the old healer turns to me, "Why did you try?"
"I was… in a strange headspace. Yue had just. Well. Yue had just sacrificed herself to become the moon-" I cut myself off, clear my throat to get rid of the growl seeping into my voice, "And I thought, look, there's someone who's going to die if I don't do anything. I thought that the blood looked as red as the night did, just before she did it. And blood's close enough to water. So. I tried."
"And you succeeded," Yugoda finishes. "Rest assured, young friends, we will not use this knowledge for anything other than healing. And the number of those who will be taught this technique will be very low."
The silence that greets this is somehow heavy and light at the same time.
"There's something else," Sokka says.
I look at him.
He frowns. "Why did you let the Prince and the old man go?"
"Ah," I say. "We had no means of holding them. They would have escaped and more people might have died. And the General had the opportunity to kill me minutes earlier. Instead, he helped me to the oasis. I sort of owed him."
"Oh," Aang says.
Yeah.
War's shite. Also, I shouldn't make important decisions like that on my own.
...
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