— tw : neglect , trauma , mentions of blood and death / violence —
❝ the game ❞
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Akio and Tayiko stood in the sparing room of the family's home. Stone walls carpeted by red flags and honored trophies that adorned the cold marble floors, fire resistant in their crispness.
In front of Tayiko, who's hands raised in the first fighting position, was a trembling Akio. He was not ready to face the son of Hikaro, or more importantly, his daughter soon after Tayiko would chew him up, spit him out, and squash him.
The older, seventeen year old boy had already looked at Akio as though he was the gunk Tayiko stepped in on the way here. "Being a man means holding a stern respect for not only yourself, but those around you." He grumbled. "Did you have respect for my sister when you burned her?" Tayiko cocked a brow.
Akio sweat; beads of water dripped from his forehead in a nervous apprehension, and all the more he remained sluggish in his stance for it. "I-"
"I'll take that as a no." Tayiko swung his leg over his head, kicking fire from the soul of his foot as it swooped below Akio's feet. The boy jumped into the air, evading Tayiko's initial wrath. Tayiko stood with feet distanced in a squat, switching them as he punched and punched, and Akio punched back.
He bent the flames of Tayiko attentively, but not well enough. Though Akio managed to push whatever Tayiko threw at him, the older boy had more passion and edge, and every fire bender knew that that is what fuels the best. "You speak your high praises but can't get a shot in! Who are you to hold yourself above others when you've fallen in the mud?!"
Tayiko's words were as sharp as they were smart, and Akio blasted at him When the older boy slid under the frame of the kids aim, he kicked Akio's feet out from under him, pinning him to the ground as fire spiraled upwards.
Akio huffed violently, face worn with the exhaustion of fighting Tayiko. He sits on top of Akio, the line from his face to the younger boys a straight line.
Akio's breathlessness turned into a tight lipped smile, craze in his eyes. The front of his dark brown hair flung backward with spitted words, elongating his thin and pointed face."Hit me," He begged. "Do it! What are you waiting for?"
"My sister." Tayiko beamed. He knew well that she was not here, for her show will embarrass this menace of a teenager for years to come, his shame having been so undeniable that even his parents would suffer. And whilst Nari prepared, she readied herself with hate which has spiraled from her hurt, full intentions of lashing out of such a scum bag. Spectacularly. Tayiko's hair framed his defined face well, his prominent cheekbones having dropped just one trace of sweat as his hair hangs from his scalp, rimming the top of his vision. He laughs at the boy who struggles beneath him "Violence for violence shows a lack of self control. Violence for pity shows a lack of self respect. For that I spare you. We'll see if Nari feels the same way."
♛
Nari does not, in fact, feel the same way. However, she dodges each strike of Akio's with a mockery smile plastered on her face. She holds he hands behind her straightened back, stepping to the side in one sweep as she speaks. "You didn't impress me earlier, and you surely don't impress me now."
Akio snarls as he lowers his blasting fists. "You're father gave you options, which one are you taking?!" He grows impatient, eyes furious as he falls with hands resting upon his knees. His dark hair is plastered against his forehead, and Nari simply laughs at his incompetent begging.
"Oh, I decided your fate long before my father let me," Nari stands a distance from the boy, formfitting armor not moving an inch as there isn't one hair out of place. Her demeaning eyes stare down with pride at the boy, hands folding at her hips.
Akio snarls at the girl, spit flying from his teeth as he cracks. "You're weak!"
"And you're a shame, and a waist of my energy." Nari waits for Akio to make his first move, some tremendous plot of little attacks until, finally, he releases such an exploit of power that it knocks her down. This is the basic fighting which is drilled into fire bender's brains; start little, punch little, kick little, then finish strong. She plays his game, allowing herself to take his unhinged blast of flames-- one set to her left, the other to her right-- with a slight tinge of pain sprouting from her cheek where a flame brazes it, missing her curled-in hairs by nothing but a strand.
Nari stumbles back purposefully before charging after Akio, no fire awaiting in her fingertips aside from the taut muscles readying themselves for a punch. She swings an arm to him once she catches the small glint of shock in his eyes-- what esteemed fire bender slouches to hand-to-hand combat during an Agni Kai?-- which he easily blocks by holding his elbows brutally before his face. Nari raises a knee to nail his stomach, missing entirely as the boy steps back to slide a foot right to her head. As Nari ducks beneath it, she swipes his remaining foot from the ground, bringing Akio to the solid floor with a thick thud.
A laugh escapes her lips as she glares down to Akio, her eyes narrow slits of golden knifes as she wipes a glint of sweat from her temple. Akio withers just beside her, eyes locked with his pale face scrunched and creased cavernously into lines of pain-- his breath left his lungs the moment his back smacked against the harsh ground, and now he does everything in his power to regain it before Nari can launch a hit on him.
And now would be a perfect time to do so-- yet, she doesn't.
Nari only smiles crookedly, a gnarly and dangerous laughter behind her breath, whilst Akio wheezes. "Why aren't you taking your shot? You could take me out right now," He strains, resting onto elbows when confusion etches onto sharpened features.
Nari cocks her head to the side, pouting trivially. "It would take the fun out of this." As Nari jumps to her feet from such a crouch she so easily dropped into moments prior, Akio scrambles away from her.
Now, he realizes her plan: draw out the fight, make him tired, make him suffer.
His heart races against his chest, thundering like a maddened sky in contrast to his opponent who speaks her exhaustion in the form of forced out huffs and chaotic chuckles.
She now holds fire within her hands, lighting that slightly frayed face of hers which glows flawlessly within the blaring light of her bending. Nari waits for Akio to match her stance, lunged where her feet are grounded yet ready to dance with flames.
And ready the fighters are.
Akio makes the first move, smacking his fists together as his hands sprawl towards the sky and ground as his front foot stomps forward. Fire sprouts from his hands in a burning heat, stretching and streaming out to Nari though she easily deflects it, building a wall in front of her. The blistering red fire of Akio's sprawls against Nari's gleaming yellow, so bright it swirls as a white in the middle and a blue at it's tips. Her shoulders pulse with the beat of her heart, blood soaring through her ears louder than the fire feet away from her face. An ache takes it's toll over her body, neck tensing against the beads of sweat which form at her neckline, all thanks to the blazing fire which soon yields.
Akio lowers his hands defeated, resting them in a blocking position only after swiping perspiration from his forehead. "Is this fun enough for you?" He quips, his breath trembling inside the ring of his exasperated voice.
Nari laughs bitterly. "Oh, this is incredibly humdrum." Strengthening her stance, Nari pulls her hands from out in front of her, narrowing a gnarly glare to him through a tunnel. Golden orbs trap his reflective wooden eyes, one like a raging titan while the other is a shaking mouse. This whole debacle between Nari and Akio, it's humorous, but it's not fun. Fun would be to dig his face into the sandstone-like tiles below them, to crush his bones, to spit on his name-- Nari hasn't done any of that. She still can meet his eyes, see his hands move to her, and yank back her hand to keep him from grabbing her. She'll slightly flinch-- a toughened exterior is all for show, like eggshells with a spoiled yolk. But if she can fake her facade to such an extreme extent, Nari just might believe it. So a sorrowed laugh pierces pink lips. "Tell me, Akio, you were the top of your class?"
The boy stands taller. "Undefeated."
Nari bends fire to his sides, an arch which frames his body for ostentatious pride. "Huh," She hums, "who told you that lie?"
Akio kicks frightening flames at Nari for saying this with suck a mockery laugh, embarrassing him in front of such a crowd and with such ease. She dodges the flames as though it is natural, ducking under before twisting out of the motion. As she swings her leg under his fire, she kicks her own. It travels in a straight line to Akio, who jumps over it before digging his feet into the ground.
Nari smiles.
Akio holds his hands at his chest, back ankle slowly backing up before his hands punch forward in fists, generating a fire so large the heat brushes past Nari long before the flames do.
She smiles crookedly, eyes swirling with the reflection of the growing fire towards her, moving in an ironic slow motion which is only seen to her. She sprints through the flames, bending them from her way as she pushes fire from her hands and feet as a blast. A foot from Akio, she uses his punched hands as a boost to jump up with, erupting from their mixture of flames. She thrusts her shoulders forward as she twists in the air, throwing flames down to Akio with all her might.
For her spectators, the mother and father of such a false hero, and the family of Nari, this is a fight and a teaching.
For Nari, it's a game.
When Akio's flames hit Nari, it was not pain, rather it was the sting of some sudden force. Piercing pain. Blistering burns. Aware one moment, forgotten the next. Nothing. The cloth of her armor sticking to her moist skin, hair tied in place by one band and slicked back by a thin layer of sweat, her legs jumping from the ground with such a height-- it does not matter whether she wins or not, it does not matter what pain gifts her, so long as she returns the same to Akio. For Nari, she can not remember certain moves, certain punches, just the leap she takes before the room goes dark black and flames sprawl through the darkness like a whirling white gust.
A hot wire shoots from her head, crawls down her neck as it whips through her arms and legs with known directions, flames spinning from her palms anew. She feels an exultant pleasure with each punch she receives, because with ever stab of pain in her body gives her ends in Akio's. It's a matter of suffering, because whatever Akio does to her, she releases back to him.
This is what sprouts the fire in her soul-- knowing that it is not her pain she feels, but Akio's.
She lands gracefully, yet with such a force that fire spins from under her in each direction, behind Akio.
The boy whips around, eyes searching up the now standing body of Nari. From her toes to the wisps of coal black hair from her ponytail, Nari has control, has a plan. With each spiraling flame, Nari pictures Akio's chest at the end of it. And now, in this fearful glance which dives into Nari's glowing eyes, Akio knows this.
Fire falls from her lips with her breath, the girl is now Akio's exact height as he stumbles three exact inches from her face. Her warm breath breaks across his glistening face, sweat dripping from the unkempt chunks of inky hair which has glued and flattened itself to his forehead. Their eyes don't leave each others, battling in a strong or shaky war whilst waiting for the other to yield a treaty. Nari huffs. "You need mint tea, you know."
Akio's lips tighten upon Nari's words, holding in a breath which she so blatantly declared pungent. His silence speaks enough embarrassment for him, stunningly soundless aside from the heavy and heaved breaths which opposite Nari's. But silence is irritating and useless, and Nari becomes impatient.
She growls a smile before bringing her arm up to his face, cupping it softly before flicking him square in the damp forehead. He then trips to his rear, hands flying down in avail to catch himself.
Shock absorbed more of his fall than his arms have, and Akio's head smacks against the compact ground with quite a hollow thunk. He's down, a similar expression to when Nari had so previously swiped his legs from under him. Some huff within him, a spared rise and fall of his chest, brings Nari's heel to it. She pressures all of her weight into her foot, which stomps into Akio's sternum with a slow vigor, before twisting the balls of her foot sharply.
Akio snaps out a strained grunt, sounding less like a agonized teenage boy and more of a dying child who fears whatever is after death-- Nari takes no pity, even as Akio's claws dig into her skin, shredding the flesh of her ankle into oozing gashes and stinging scratches, gaining her own skin between his blunt nails.
Nari waits until the searing ice of his clawing is unbearable, snapping the slightest of tears to her eyes with each increasingly cavernous dig, to rear her foot to his face. The point of her shoe slices through his face disturbingly: it's peak catches on his lip, hooking on to his lip before cutting roughly through to his cheek.
Akio's claws detach from Nari's shin, clinging to his face before scrambling out from under her, his hands covering grunts and hisses which are sharper than a sword master's wits. This new wound of his stretches over his lips, cutting cleanly through his chin and up to the rise of his cheek when the boy forces put a agonizing shout.
Nari stumbles back, weight within her right, shredded leg oozing into the crimson-turned skin as it rockets a fiery scourge above her. She spares no care into the boy who contains no oxygen, who still reaches for it like a child to it's mother, only hobbling in a hidden pain to her pealing leg.
Akio, though ripened in a peril of the fearless, unhinged girl who towers above him, heaves and wheezes heavy and sharp breaths which sting with pain. He holds a strained face of triumph as he laughs, looking down from her eyes to hide his own tears of pain. "You're nothing,"
Nari turns her head to the side with a feeble chuckle, returning to his eyes before shifting to a simple leg, carrying it across his abdomen with a trail of fire, and returning to her stance. "Say it again."
Akio grasps the ground around him in pain, gut sucked in with such abhor. "You. Are. Nothing." He huffs, drawing the blood from the gash of his sliced mouth with a snarl. "You hold yourself so high, don't you Nari? Huh? You think you have so much power because of your father, but I've met servants who could bend better... servants who could hold a better temper... servants who don't snap at someone's breath. I've met peasants who deserve to be on this earth more than you ever will-- once you'd open you're stubborn eyes you'd see how you're a waist of air."
She is stunned, honestly, that Akio could pipe out and process all those words, with his lips so horrifically disfigured. Nari licks her teeth slowly, knowing Akio was all the same as her-- he craved the hate he holds right now, the taste of liquid metal against his tongue, he is just as crazy as she is. The only difference is Nari never hides it.
Like now, when the bile taste of her cool saliva rests against her throat. When her fists are balled with such tightness her nails dig into her palms. When her breath is stopped with the squeezing anger in her abdomen. When her shoulder blades stand tight. When her eyes shake with such a sharpness. When every muscle burns red hot. When her eyes swirl with the same heat, the same fury and sting, of the very fire she bends.
And Akio holds it, too.
He lashes his foot through hers, hooking her leg with enough force to bring her down before pinning her to the ground. He clams littered and red hand around Nari's wrist, ripping the wrapping over the very burn which started this, before digging his knee against her other arm. His spare hand throws a flaming dagger to her throat.
Miniature whips of fire brisk Nari's skin, her neck burning against Akio's flame with fear to even move despite the inescapable pain that grinds her bones to ash. Akio's grip, his threat, is dangerously worse than it was some hour before. The pressure to her charred wrist forces her hand limp and bitterly cold. The digging weight pools the blood from the rest of Nari's other arm as Akio jabs his knee deeper into her bicep with each passing second. His flame singes her neck stingily as his breath bites against her face.
Granted, the peril she finds within herself makes it hard enough to breath, but Nari sucks in her gut, no air yanking into tightened lungs. It's not until the ache travels to her neck that she seeps a controlled gasp below Akio's blade.
And just like that, Akio swipes his fire-blade to a brute hand clasping down to Nari's neck. Crushing her windpipe. Blocking the blood from her brain.
Though Nari gasps for air, nothing comes of it. She tries to kick, punch, break free from Akio, gain that blissful air and life once again, taste air's sweet and savory kiss within her once more, but the boy has done everything within his power to keep her from that. She's got nowhere to go.
As Nari's neck tenses, the burning of his hands nothing compared to the absence of air and blood within her lungs and head, color to her face or feeling to her hands, she resorts to one thing. She's read him, and she knows exactly what can make him loosen his literal death grip. It takes everything within her, her actual last breath, to muster these words: "You're... weak."
Akio immediately lets go of her throat.
Though his hand still clutches her wrist, Nari now uses the power to whip him over, gaining the upper hand albeit the stretching grip he has on her arm.
There's a perilous glint, then, in the girl's eyes. Some gnarly spark, narrowed and sharpened by hate, brewed by irritation, spawned by fury and fueled by a need to survive past her feat. Nari nurses a creature inside her, raises it with whips and rage and hot snaps to the creatures back. Now, that animal has risen to a titan, a ferocious beast, a colossal monstrosity. That tumultuous rampage within her is something Nari knows nothing of.
She can't handle the agony it takes to hold that monster in.
To do such and keep a clean slate is to be a saint.
Nari, she's far from a saint.
She stands. Her shoulders snap up with each keen breath.
Nari has never felt such rage. Such strong, unimaginable rage. It swirls in her core, rings in her ear, steals from any coherent thought and replaces it with violence. The term 'seeing red' no longer applies to her, for her anger surpasses that. She sees blood. Hatred felt by no human other than her herself. Ears sting hot, gut ice cold, spine a strand of fire controlling her. Nari no longer thinks. Nari no longer breathes. No action, no thought, no words can paint her feelings or state of mind, and with eyes the color of a brutally massacred battle field, Nari finally loses it.
She juts out her tightened arms, those tightened arms stronger than her arms should let her as they kick out a violent flame. Feet dug deep into the ground, she is steady, supported by her fire and loathing alone. "If you want to spill such blood on my name," Nari spits, voice lower than hers should have ever gone with the rasp of a demon, "make sure you have enough to give."
Akio looks to Nari with shaking eyes, white to an extent of vanished color as they hold the fear of no other. "Nari-" He cries with a cracking voice rivaling a prepubescent teen. He act as though he's pure in every eye, never to have done anything wrong in his scornful live, but Nari knows against it. She can read his demeanor of cowardice-- he's surely done worse to others than her, but for the ink he has poured on her, his payment is inevitable.
Nari spots the hitched, hesitant breath begging against Akio's chest. There's a shining and mockery red pin-like broach of the Fire Nation's symbol for strength. Nari laughs before shooting right for it.
She strikes out her fists even further, sleeves snapping as her fire turns bright white.
It is a power which was unknown, to Nari. For she had so much anger, so much rage— the very fuel of the fire nation— pent up inside of her. The exact moment she released all of it onto Akio, a decision poorly made but granted all the same, her hands burned with its powerful heat.
It blisters as though her life itself is pulsing from her hands, the very energy, the very power which she has developed and gained over her fifteen years amounting to this. And in such a paused moment— white flames slowly spiraling in their dancing path, feet nearly now acceded from the ground as fire breathes below her, the cowardly face of a fearful and suddenly apologetic guy— Nari has never felt so in control. A heaping helping of blinding fire targets the boy from one hand, and in the other, ruthless lighting strikes.
A lightning to rival Azula's, perhaps even beating that which the princess could bend. All those spars at the Royal Fire Nation Academy for Girls against her, all those chest burning moments where Hikaro and Rai would snap at her for fighting dirty after begging to headmasters to keep Nari in the school, all the slaps or strikes or teachings-- they must've drilled something inside her. They must've fueled some monster.
And up to this moment Nari would be not be able to stress her worth of such an academy, of a place or any place, yet now as fire burns through her veins, pulsing with each heart beat as it reigns in her amber eyes, she could proves herself to everyone with brute power.
The cold white of her flames stop, and Nari herself falls to the ground.
Even colder, however, is the unmoving and still body of Akio on the ground. There is a gaping hole, smoldering with a tarnished black ash at it's perimeter, in Akio's burgundy armor, and his skin painted bright pink and blistered with a dark burn.
The girl is too weak to take step back; after exhibiting such a force her body is left with little to no energy to grant her a stance. She shakes, trembles with a stumble onto her behind, and the respective families rush to the sides of their kids.
Nari's vision slowly blurs, a black darkness like ink seeping into the outlines of her eyesight. Her ears begin to rumble with the thunderous beat of her heart, and the growing nuisance of a blistering ring.
Black strands hang across her face, sticking with the dampening sweat which traces the sides of her face as they wisp across an already distorted vision. Rai, however, appears from it, along with Tayiko and Hikaro soon after. From the blurb of whatever she could make out, Nari took note of their frightened faces, lit with such a peril at Nari herself. She grimaced for it, but that lacks importance as she can not bring her body to move. It takes to much work, too much force and energy, so the act itself is as painful as her limbs are stubborn.
Tayiko lifts her head onto his legs, which crease directly under him, allowing Rai to swiftly pull Nari's hair from her face. "Nari?" He calls out. "Can you hear me?"
She huffs out a breath. Though she could vaguely hear him over the chaos in her eardrums, she still focuses on his voice. Her sigh is enough for him to accept an answer, and she is grateful as she can't muster one.
"Ri?" Tayiko asks, though he knows of her awareness which slips away in such an exhausted state. "Hey, stay awake, get up-"
"You can lightning bend?"
"Rai, that isn't important, her fire was white!"
Nari closes her eyes slowly as her head becomes flooded with her parents blistering voices— they were not sweet and caring like Tayiko, who cups her face with hopes she is conscious.
"Mom, dad!" Her brother yells with haste. "She's barely staying awake. We need to get help!"
It's then that Hikaro and Rai take such a caution to their daughter, and not of their daughter. With a great and gentle care, Hikaro swoops his arms under Nari's knees and shoulder blades. When she winces with the movement, he lowers her back down. "Nari, can you move?"
Once again, she eludes an answer by expressing her pain in a large exhale. Her lungs burn, eyes pricking behind their sockets as tears taunt her. She is in no condition to stand, to get up— not when every move hurts her, at least.
She wants, more than anything, to slip into a sleep. It's nothing hard, the simple blackness, the blank rest which comes so easy at this moment, it's so close. Yet there's something that wards against it, and whether it's Tayiko tapping her cheek each time her eyes close, her father reluctant to even lift her, or her mother holding her hot hand tightly, she'll never know.
"Ri, we've got to move you, okay?" Tayiko holds her face steady as he forces her eyes to his, to which Nari heavily attempts to shake her head. "You're burning up, and it's not from a fever."
"Blink if it hurts to move," Rai gives her daughters hand a squeeze, and as Nari looks to her and blinks, Rai shifts a gaze to her husband. "We have to get her out of here, Hikaro. There's nothing else we can do."
Hikaro nods as he lifts up with his legs, rising from the cool floor with Nari in his arms. Forcefully, she gasps, taking in a deep breath which hurts more than the reason she did it in the first place. "I've got you, it's okay," her father comforts, slowly moving as to not hurt Nari further.
Tayiko remains in her lousy sight, her head falling from a view of her fathers face above her to her brothers face at her side. "Steady, Ri." He says as he keeps the pace with his father, opening the doors for the family to pass through.
Nari cannot make out much after this, everything dissolving into a dusty cloud, blurred into what she doesn't know to be sleep or an excessively long blink. The only identifiers between the two are the voices and foggy sight, and the painful movements she must endure but never make. Soon enough, however, she falls into it. Her slip into unconscious is inevitable, and she welcomes it with wide arms.
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published in may 2021 | chapter length — 4,700 | written by peri
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