Word Count: 3, 827 words
CHAPTER XXVII. 残り物には福がある
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Walking wasn't a fun activity if one has been doing it for the majority of the night. In a few minutes after, they all got out of the bushes from the woods they were just in. The trip towards where they were headed has taken them more than a week, after having too much fun making fools out of people who tried to fool them and a fool who did make a fool out of them.
There were a lot of obstacles along the way and a lot of cheating and in a way, blood, Sokka's never ending fascination with facial hair as a disguise, Appa being the hero of the day, "look it's a train", came to the situation they kept digging themselves into.
Their minds were on a whim, doing whatever suits their boredom whilst heading to the direction of the rendezvous point. She remembered running to a headache problem that caused the man to explode, two things: forehead and explosion.
She remember also distinctly remembering the banter between the two girls of the group, slowly emerging to be another brawl like the first days when Toph had joined them in their travels.
"Hey, I only cheated because he was cheating." Natsuko remember the smirk Toph had, "I cheated a cheater."
She remembered how Katara tried to reason about how it was immoral or somewhere between the lines. With all the yapping and Momo language that all seemed like in her head, she did agree to what Katara was trying to point out.
Until she also remembered, "Weren't you the same person who robbed from pirates?"
Katara's glare was too intense. Natsuko kept her mouth shut the entire day/s Katara was in a bad mood. She had seen how the girl turned into something unlike what girls typically looked like and zoned out from the bickering, hearing the Momo language once again.
At that point, she snapped out of it before she goes in too deep, "Aang, let's just train."
There was always the side of every town where the people with intentions to break norm rules are, the likes of the whole fake accident victim situation, a sugarcoated term for gambling on public streets, and the very slim chance of being on a wanted poster.
Coincidentally, the rest of the group had done all of that in the span of 2 days to the nearby town, the third day was the so called "Ultimate Scam" that Katara and Toph tried to pull off.
Keyword was try. Unfortunately, unlike every scam, this has been well planned out by the dubbed Sparky Sparky Boom Man who was chasing them every chance he gets. He has a third eye on his forehead which sends explosions at a long distance, she had seen the first works of a hereditary disease; at least it was what it was labelled as during the old days; and seen how innovative it had turned out to be.
During their many talk and back with many foes they had faced, his grunts before attacking was a scary sound to hear and the explosions were always too loud for their poor ears. It was like, he has been Zuko's replacement their entire trip in the Fire Nation.
It wouldn't be a surprise if that was the actual as to why he has been chasing them around, but she shouldn't jinx it.
That wasn't the last of Mister Boombastic, later renamed Combustion Man, they've ever seen, however, it was the last time right before they were approached by an old lady in the middle of the night and in the middle of the forest.
It was the typical time when they were trying to scare each other and Sokka wasn't doing well with the story he came up with. Of course, Natsuko was also, in a way, forced to tell them stories.
"Well, back in my day." Sokka groaned at the way Natsuko worded her words, asking her to emphasize which part of her days, "There are a lot of spirits, born before this war and before the Spirit World was separated from our world."
"I didn't know that happened." Natsuko nodded and continued without interruption:
"There were spirits who helped humans out of pity, loathed them out of disgust, played with them out of boredom. One of the spirits residing in the Spirit World is a tall large man, as black as the darkest night sky, who smoked burnt nicotiana leaves rolled together, puffing it to make smoke, rubbing it to set fire to those who tried to take his tree down."
The fire they started began flickering, "A shapeshifter who comes from the Spirit World during the first days of the new year in hopes of finding a new victim to take their own body from, check if someone else would notice what was wrong. You know, just trick people. Not to mention, they're really fast."
A gush of wind ran passed quickly through the campsite, "A long creature of a malnourished human with skin develop to withstand the hunger until they find dead meat, pounding their feet to sound like drums headed your way when you feel like dying on your own, waiting for the light to leave your eyes before they take you to the ground. I heard they take the faces first."
The sound of a drum came ringing to their ears, "These kinds of spirits I've encountered many times, always wanting to stay in the human world before being banished back to our world. Spirits that would keep you awake until you lost all your sanity, they like human meat in distress and I quote—"Makes them juicier and delectable"."
Would you like me to go in more detail?"
Aang, Katara, and Sokka was clutching onto each other while Toph wasn't fazed by it, even when Katara had told her story about the real-life. Natsuko was just used to people who falls gullible at all she had said, most of them were true and added a bit more depth at the horror part to let them visualize well.
If it weren't for Sokka telling everybody "I-i think that's enough for now." she would've loved to continue talking of it, as if she was talking about something close to home. Sokka lets go of the grip between the three of them when Toph had heard the screams from the insides of the mountains, or what she had claimed, "Nice try."
"No, I'm serious, I hear something."
"You're probably just jumpy from the ghost stories."
"It just stopped."
"All right, now I'm getting scared."
Aang still had his arms around Katara while Momo was snuggling between the both of them, Sokka was still trying to look calm and all despite Toph feeling his heart beat faster than usual and a spike of fear and anxiety was too much coming from him. The three ran to Toph and Natsuko and clung onto them when a voice of an old woman called to them, offering them to stay in her inn for the night.
Now, that lady was from the Southern Water Tribe just like Sokka and Katara and a waterbender who was captured during the Fire Nation raid amidst the war that has been going on for a decade.
At first, everybody wasn't at all rest easy with the lady, having good intentions at first by letting them into the inn without even being asked for is already a bad sign, more so if they were someone who took a fondness to keeping some sort of puppeteering using strings in her inn hidden as if to hint at her manipulative behavior. Even when Katara was the only person who felt a connection with her, probably due to the small population of the Southern Water Tribe, Hama and Kana were acquainted or maybe yet, friends.
But it wouldn't be possible if a person of their own kin turn on them.
In a way, there is something that was fascinating to the universe wanting to prove everyone wrong, especially Sokka. So when the night of a full moon came, Hama taught Katara a Southern Water Tribe tradition that no one else was guaranteed to have done in a very long time or at least attempt to.
Bloodbending has been around for quite a while back in Natsuko's days, bending forgotten and killed by the same people who suffered from their fate of bloodbending. The same person to walk to her own fate was Hama who had the notion to let a waterbender from her own tribe continue what she started.
Adding Sokka's attempt to save the town for food and Appa having to save him from an Armadillo-Bear doing so and Sokka's attempt to get food but been run down by children after learning that the mustache disguise plan made him look like another person who had the words "Teacher for Hire" on a poster, they took the afternoon train going anywhere but Mister Bombastic's chasing instinct was better than Zuko's or Azula's and wrecked the train. It was safe to say that the week was as dangerous as it may get, but it wasn't safe at all.
After all of that, they finally got to rest easy before the raid could even start, a good four days which meant relaxation and training was acquired. What's left for them was to sleep for the night to wake up fresh and possibly train a little bit for the invasion, at least which was what Natsuko thought of until she woke up and saw Aang repeatedly punching the tree.
Katara was already awake when she heard Aang, then Sokka and Toph, they all looked at each other and Sokka gave them a shrug before the waterbender stood up and talked to Aang. When a bush-like sound that came falling to the ground with a thud sounded off, the three of them looked to Aang; at least Sokka and Natsuko; to see him losing it.
"You don't get it, do you?" Aang's dark bags under his eyes were more visible against the bright sky while he held his fighting stance, encircling Katara whilst he trains himself, "My form is bad, I'm sloppy, and I still don't know any firebending. Not even the basics."
"That's okay, Aang, the eclipse will block all firebending anyway. You don't need to know any." Sokka mentions as he scanned the map in his hand, "Plus, it's a stupid element."
"I can teach you what I know." Natsuko offers and Aang gives her his smile which was less happy than the usual.
"Great, let's go firebending." Aang moves his body around, legs far apart and punching the thin air.
"Of course after you take a nap."
"How long?"
"A day."
"Forget it!" Aang stopped from punching and started to move his hands around for an airbender way of bending, "I'll work on everything else instead."
Staying true to his word, Toph, Katara, and Natsuko trained with each other whilst Aang didn't want any kind of help from bending, insisting that he should learn on his own. They should've seen it coming with the way the paranoia came unto him when they mentioned the invasion was less than a week away.
It wasn't until later when the dark night rises and Aang had decided to come back to sleep, going down with a thud within the circle while Natsuko was snuggled on Appa's tail and Momo on top of Appa's head.
"Good night, Katara. Good night, Sokka." the two Water Tribe siblings were already sleepy to respond back.
"Good night, Natsuko." whilst his spirit has already entered the Spirit World in her mind.
"Good night, Toph." and Toph just doesn't care.
"Good night, Appa. Good night, Momo."
When they all thought it was over, Aang kept on going, "Good night, Appa and Mo-"
"Go to sleep, already!"
Taking Toph's advice, Aang tried to until the next day. Although he woke up in the middle of the night, it only took Katara a hold to his hand and leading him to the sleeping spots to let him slowly meet the goal they were all looking for.
What woke Natsuko up, though, was Aang shouting at everyone to do this and that starting with Sokka who he woke up first, demanding to know what day it was whilst the invasion is just two days away. Sokka, in response, didn't have a pleasant awakening; in a literal sense, mind; when he was shook to wake and he impacted to the rock wall in front of him.
Aang apparently saw the prophetical vision in his dream about Sokka, "Sokka, you've got to get up and drill your rock-climbing exercises. In one of my dreams, you were running from the Fire Nation soldiers trying to climb this cliff. But you were too slow and they got you. Climb that cliff! Climb it fast!"
And apparently, Sokka wasn't the only person to have appeared in his dreams.
Amidst Aang encouraging Sokka to climb the cliff he pointed at and Sokka muttering phrases like "Stupid Avatar", "Stupid Cliff", and "Stupid Dream" before falling and letting out a scream every time he does, Aang saw Toph drinking from Katara's canteen, "Don't drink that! In my dream, we were right in the middle of the invasion and you had to stop to use the bathroom. We died because of your tiny bladder."
"And you!" he pointed accusingly at Natsuko who was still trying to decipher why he was now able to talk like Appa, "No firebending for you and don't eat any nuts and don't drink tea! In my dream, your hands got scarred again and in the other, you became suddenly allergic to nuts and had to leave the battle! You also had to stop when Iroh served you tea one of the rooms which was actually Ozai and a set up trick to capture you!"
He looked at Katara, "And you need to start wearing your hair up. In my dream, your hair got caught in a train and-"
The waterbender placed a hand to the side of his face in assurance of the gratefulness they felt for his genuine concern, but had to admit that he was losing it. He was aware of it as well, no matter if the distress he was getting from it was worsening his anxiety or just Sokka plainly telling him of the obvious fact.
"You know what, I've got just the thing. "Katara placed her hands firmly on Aang's shaking shoulders, "Get ready to be de-stressified."
Toph created a cave-like structure and they filled it with hot, steaming water, as if to mimick a sauna for Aang, something about yoga stretches compatibility to heat. The experience for Aang would've been better for any other scenario but the heat of the sauna wasn't helping if they were about to invade the Fire Nation after 2 days, making it a failed attempt.
Meanwhile, Natsuko and Sokka were at the other end of the cave, wanting to do the yoga stuff do. Admittedly, it's not as charming as they thought it would be, Sokka's yoga consisted of South Pole coldness and Natsuko only knew of the sits and the ground isn't as smooth as she thought it should be, "That's it, Sokka!"
Despite their complaints, they held their hands in the air like the last step of a dance routine and their feet pressed together while legs were lifted from the ground. They closed their eyes and breathed in through their nose before Natsuko added, "Release all of the sound that's trapped in your mind."
Sokka's scream was identical to the screams he had during the rock climbing, which reminded Aang of the enemy birds that he saw in his dreams were actual spies of the Fire Nation so he blew air to Sokka with a scream of his own.
"Maybe your stress is the kind you need to talk out."
That was Sokka's cue to try and help Aang. Sure, he might be stuck with the koala sheep that were munching on his hair and it was Aang who airbended him out of the cave, but to wear fake facial hair was a moment he didn't want to pass on, "Sokka, you don't need that."
He looked at Natsuko sternly, "It's Counselor Wang Fire to you, young girl!"
The therapy session wasn't too much help for Aang either, even after telling someone else about his problems and shouting to the fluffy koala sheep surrounding them. While that wasn't fruitful, neither was Toph's attempt at a leisure massage that did bruise Aang's back and managed to block Natsuko's chi from behind, even the offer of acupuncture didn't seem fitting for them both.
What Natsuko was doing joining in on Aang's path to peace was a mystery, not even she knew why she was trying along with Aang. But nevertheless, it was her time to test her theory to him, "Come, come."
"No, I'm not going to talk about fighting the Fire Lord again and again and again."
"Shush, kid." she placed her hand on his forehead, thumb to the center, radiating energy from within her towards him. In a few seconds, he felt better and was thanking Natsuko over and over again, "You're welcome, boy. Now, you should try and get some rest."
"I can't." his whole being was shaking, "I feel very much alive mostly merry undead."
His mind must've been in an overload and it was nothing like the wearing off effect after a few hours to knock him out cold until the next day. Even with a claim such as that, it wasn't enough for Aang as he kept on training and refusing to lose consciousness over his brain.
Nighttime came again, with Aang's half-assed response being doable with the rest of them. Natsuko was losing her grip as well after lending most of her energy to the airbender after he passed by and passed by the same spot she was in and could practically hear the beings surrounding her whimpering from the natural energy she grabbed from nature. And after a the next 15 minutes, she went back to that routine sleepily and Aang consistently waking her up after he feels tired yet again.
The sun was up and Aang was coming down from a high when Katara approached him while they were near the cliff. His mind was playing tricks with him, suggesting the feelings reciprocated by the waterbender he gave up his 7th chakra for, "Well, I'll go back to Natsuko now and get all energy-ied up again!"
Katara placed a hand on Aang's shoulder to stop him from going further, "Aang, you and Natsuko need to rest. Natsuko hasn't been looking goof after giving most of the energy of this place to you."
"Nah, I'm fine." there was finally a worthy opponent to the bags Aang had under his eyes. Natsuko walked to them with a smile on her face but the dark circles looked like she wasn't happy at all, "I'll sleep when you decide to."
They began training together around a decoy Fire Lord and was all over the place until Aang claimed to here Momo talking to him. At that point, the rest came to check on him, Natsuko standing behind them as well and tried to check if she was actually seeing Aang talk in Momo language to King Momo of the Momo Dynasty.
"Is he talking Momolandish?"
"You know, it might be a language of their own."
Sokka earned a slap on the back of his head, Natsuko would've gotten one too if she wasn't too far away or if she hadn't had enough sleep. After more than 5 minutes, Aang was in distress again for a reason far from the invasion and the reality when he told them about Momo and Appa sword fighting, a lot of rocks, the koala sheep encircling him from moving out and Guru Pathik gathering more than 5 arms.
"I just need to jump in a cold waterfall."
With that, Aang came running. Natsuko followed behind him suitly to stop him from injuring his brain with the sudden cold impact and also to talk about things, "I don't need a therapy session, I need a cold waterfall."
"Boy, the impact your brain would be in after being waterbended, what more if you were to jump to the waterfall." Natsuko shushed him, "Let's just talk. What were your dreams about?"
He started talking about every dream he remembers, seeing the scary and implausible ones and tried to distinguish what they call chance and what Natsuko calls probability of how accurate it could be. Listing off the dreams that felt real and make a scenario to maneuver away from the situation. So far it was doing well until they had no choice but to come back empty handed. Something was missing to the equation and she was determined to find out what is was.
"You know." Natsuko really tried to make sense of what she was conjuring in her mind, "Life is like a meal for 30 servings. You'll never know what it'll serve until you have it in your stomach and sometimes people tries to get your meal from you for their own. But sometimes people offer you the picnic of a lifetime and you don't want to leave the picnic until its dark but after the dark comes the day."
"What's the moral of my proverb, boy?"
Aang shrugged.
"There is luck in the last helping."
They walked back to the camp in silence.
"I didn't understand a thing you just told me."
"Neither did I, boy."
By the time they got back and Aang has felt a lot better for the same reason, fog covered up there feet and lured them to a cloud. They checked around the cloud to see if what was happening.
Aang had his face on the cloud, "Oh, look, another hallucination."
Natsuko was poking the said cloud, "Boy, this is definitely real. The sky is actually falling."
He raised a brow at her, "Wait, you can see it too?"
Natsuko nodded, "Either that or mass hysteria."
He gasped and resume a fighting stance, "What if the Fire Nation are trying to capture us with this?"
She plopped down to the bed, "Then we let them sleep on the bed too."
Meanwhile, the three of the team were muffling their laughter at the conversation before showing to Aang. Natsuko wouldn't try to bother listening to what the rest of them had to say, knowing that Aang was supposed to be the only person who needs it and the path that led them to this spot.
"Thank you, guys." Natsuko got to sleep after that before muttering to them, "Good night and don't forget your pants to the invasion."
Aang nodded and indulged at the texture it felt to his delicate, sensitive skin, "I'm ready."
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I really liked the bloodbending episode as a kid. Of course I thought it was cool at first and I thought that Katara was just being stupid to hate it and then use it to the person who killed her mother because of rage, but it showed that not everyone was bad and not everyone was good. It gave me nightmares, sure, but I had worse than that.
The marionettes were a big giveaway. Watching as a kid like Inuyasha and Card Captor Sakura, I knew that strings and even hair could be used for puppeteer so seeing puppets, much more marionettes, made me think what kind of bending did she use to manipulate human bodies. I don't know, this mind can't stop digging more holes with more questions as it is.
I tried to encapsulate the sleep deprived parts by method writing this at 3 in the morning, whatever came out was the product of the imagination of the sleepless. I might have missed or did something entirely wrong in the conversation from the episode but OC's were genuine sleepiness.
Stay safe and always sleep 8 hours a day! If you have a hard time focusing then take a break okay? Don't overwork yourself.
- Amboo