Later, she will be convinced many times, that the reason of ideological favors and hatreds is not always just a primitive need of making the world better, but sometimes just a desperate effort of drowning her own hopelessness.
- Pavel Kohout
It got dark. Zuko was steering Appa and watching the horizon with a telescope, Katara was reading through the map in the saddle. Suddenly, Zuko exclaimed.
"There! See those sea raven flags?" He gave Katara the telescope to look at it. Really – there was a ship with bloody red triangle flag with a black crow-like bird silhouette in the middle of it. "It's the Southern Raiders..." Zuko said.
Katara held the telescope over and covered her face with a dark camouflaging scarf. "Let's do this!"
Katara climbed from the saddle to Appa's head, right next to Zuko, and let the bison under the water. They entered the sea, Katara made a massive air cover so he could breathe and do not wet his head. Stealthily they came to the ship. Even through the water above their heads, Katara recognized a few soldiers standing on the board. She touched one of them with a stream of water right before they rose up from the sea and dragged him off the ship. The soldiers didn't expect the attack and didn't know what's going on. Appa surfaced on the other side of the ship. Before they could look back, a large wave ran over the board and washed them to the sea. Appa landed on the board. One soldier who had managed to stay on the board, saw them two. Katara jumped down from Appa first. Her look met the soldier's and he attacked her with fire, but in a moment, he was thrown to the sea among his confused comrades.
Katara vigorously opened the door from the below deck and burst in, Zuko following her. On their way, they stroke down one other man, and in a few second, they appeared in front of a heavy metal door of commander's cabin. Katara and Zuko were sure that behind them, there's a man they are searching for.
"This is it, Katara. Are you ready to face him?" said Zuko to energize her. Katara didn't say anything. Pressed by uncontrollable power and ferocity she hit the door with such energy that the massive metal door hinges cracked like a skewer and the door opened sharply in both sides. Zuko entered the cabin to catch the confused commander (maybe to make sure that they will overpower him).
"Who are you?!" he asked confusedly.
"You don't remember her? You will soon, trust me!" retorted Zuko.
But suddenly, he started to stumble uncontrollably. In his face, there was a real fear. "W-What the hell... W-What's ... happening to me?!" he was stuttering. Zuko abashedly looked back – Katara was standing there, her right hand raised forward, her face frowned, her eyes dark, basted with blood. She was staring at the man in front of her, scaring him with a terrible look. Zuko widened his eyes in unbelief. He didn't know that Katara is able to bend water in a living human body. The commander fell down convulsively. Katara was gazing fixedly into his frightened face, showing him a horrifying view. Zuko quickly recovered from his fascination and turned to the commander again.
"Think back. Think back to your last raid on the Southern Water Tribe!"
"I don't know what you're talking about!" he retorted. "Please, I really don't know!" Zuko was running out of patience.
"Don't lie!" he shouted at him and bended closer to him. "You look her in the eyes and you tell me you don't remember what you did!" was shouting at him and pointing at Katara.
Katara grinned like a rabid wolf and lifted the commander off the ground so they appeared face to face, staring at each other. The commander was pale with fear. Katara concentrated on his face, but the longer she was looking at him, the more she felt that something is wrong. Suddenly, her cold, hard animal-like grimace turned into aghast, confused face. She widened her eyes in realization.
"It's not him!" she gasped in shock and freed him from her grip.
"He's not the man..." she said with chagrin in her voice. Her face was sad.
"What? What do you mean he's not?! He's the leader of the Southern Raiders! He has to be the guy!" was shouting Zuko confusedly. Katara bowed her head in disappointment, turned around and went away through the destroyed door. She remembered face of the man who killed her mother, she was sure that this guys is really not the one. She tried to search for him farther to the ship. Zuko angrily grabbed the commander and pinned him to the wall.
"If you're not the man we're looking for, who is?!"
"Argh, you must be looking for Yon Rha. He retired four years ago..." wheezed the commander.
After getting this information, they left the ship. The both were disappointed but at least, now they known where the real murderer of Kya lives. Katara went steering Appa and let Zuko to go to sleep. She was steering at night, he during the day. The next day anyone of them will sleep because they will finally find the man, but Katara didn't care. She was still too excited to sleep. They were continuing their journey. But Zuko was still thinking about that moment when he saw Katara bloodbend. He couldn't hold on – he had to ask her how he got it.
"The worst guarded secret of mine." she said. "You know me for a long time, Zuko. Since you came to the South Pole to capture Aang" She rolled up her sleeve to show him the dark veins bulged out of her wrist which seemed just like Hama's hands when they were together in the forest. "Do you see, Zuko? These hand and the bending hidden inside, it all used to be unblemished..." and upset Katara, looking for some way of getting out of her burden, started narrating.
"A short time before the invasion, we were camping in the forest one night. That night, an old woman found us – ′Hama′ was her name. She was a waterbender from the South Pole, just like me. Unsurprisingly, I was excited about it. She taught me some of her tricks and one night, when the moon was full just like tonight, she led me away to the woods near her village. She told me that she wants to teach me some secret technique. I let her to lure me there, although I didn't like it much. I felt a bit strange about it...
Later, I found out that she's a bloodbender, a mad, sadistic beast who is taking revenge on an innocent people because of she was captured by the Fire Nation and imprisoned. And she wanted to force me do the same. She started to bend the blood of mine and my body after I refused to take this technique. She was tormenting me. She liked that she can hurt someone. I kept opposing. She liked my strength and resolve, and when Sokka and Aang came to help me, she started to control them, just to make me succumb. And she was successful..."
Katara made a short break and inhaled loudly. "The imprisoned villagers who were freed by Toph, they captured her and led her away. Until she was gone, she exclaimed that her work is done and that I will continue it. I though there's no way how she could force me to hurt anyone like this, to take revenge... But that it's going to control my mind every full moon term, that's what I realized much later..." she sighed sadly. Zuko was trying to understand all the connections perfectly.
"... and since that moment, during every full moon, I'm driven to do these atrocities." She ended her narrating.
"I'm not sure about what exactly she did to me that night, but I think that it's forever... There's nothing positive about it, but for saving my boys, I simply had to do it. I couldn't know that it will make me so bestial, or that my relationship with Aang will be so scared by this. There are a sacrifices that are declared to be heroic and noble-minded, but there are also a sacrifices that will never be accepted positively... I swore that I will never use this bending on anyone – you can see, it's not my place to decide about it. I'm just doing what I'm driven to do, what's my appointed task." she added downheartedly. Zuko was talking with her for a few another minutes and then he went to sleep. Katara was surrounded by silence again, it was pressing her to think deeply.
She was realizing what' going on, getting awake from her daydream – she's going to commit a murder. She wants to kill a man. Although he's dirty villain and killer – her, Katara of Water Tribe, Avatar's master and protector, who never felt any need of be violent and vengeful, now, she's going to average her past... really? Katara realized how much her present passion contrasts with her lifelong philosophy, but on the other hand, she had to admit that she can't help herself. Something is pressing her to do it, some frightening power, an energy waves coming from the full moon light. And she reminded Hama – the one who suborned her on this way of madness and bloodthirstiness. Again in her life, she felt her heart torn apart, she felt like the terms are leading her in two different ways all at once, and she has no idea what to do. And here is the question: Will she really kill her mother's murderer, or will she let him alive, as Aang wishes?
"Things like this can really happen just to me..." she sighed. Again in her life, she can't decide aright. It's just the same as when they were deciding about accepting Zuko. Then, there was no right decision she could me. And now, it also doesn't exist. If she kill that man, she will overcome her troubles, but Aang and all her friends will blame her of the murder and it will be the need of her membership (and Zuko will replace her officially). But if she let him alive, all this journey was good for nothing, moreover, she will be still frustrated and depressed and it's not sure that Aang's opinion on her will ever be better, maybe he will see her as a villain forever because she once simply tried to kill someone. Katara was hopeless, and hopelessness is much worse to the strong ones than to the weak. She felt to be slaved by the full moon psychosis which drives "new born" bloodbenders into a cruel acts. When she had to decide whether to accept Zuko or not, finally, she gave up and adapted to the others. And nor now she has other choice. She will have to act instinctively – maybe it will be her protectionist sense for loyalty (so typical for water tribe people), maybe it will be her bloodbender madness. She can't bargain with herself, what will be, is what simply must happen.
Disheartened southerner wasn't showing her despair, it seemed that she got used to it. But she was really relieved that nobody sees her like this...