Maintaining the Balance: Ch. 10 (Patreon)

After returning to the igloo he shared with Katara, Kahn found the former resting in a rocking chair while a pot of seaweed soup boiled on the stove.

Hearing Kahn's entrance, Katara kept her eyes closed as she asked, "How was it? Did your little playdate go well~?"

Exhaling a sigh, Kahn made his way over to the stove to adjust the heat and sample the seaweed soup. Katara wasn't a bad cook by any means, but her tastebuds had numbed rather drastically due to her age. Most of the food she prepared was too salty or too sweet, so Kahn had developed a habit of making minor adjustments to make it more palatable.

Opening her left eye a smidgeon, Katara gazed at Kahn's profile from the corner of her eye. She didn't mind him pretending to ignore her or making adjustments to her food. After tasting his food, the only reason she even bothered cooking was that she felt guilty about him handling most of the chores without even needing to be asked.

Kahn would never admit it, but he was a very good-natured child.

"That girl never stops talking about you. Even during our training, she is constantly bringing up the things you've taught her. When I told her she couldn't use the other elements during our training, she even lectured me on the importance of maintaining one's Chi Pathways..."

Stopping what he was doing, Kahn looked over his shoulder to see Katara leaning in her chair, eyes closed, and with a smile on her face. 

Clicking his tongue, Kahn poured a portion of seaweed soup into a bowl before adding a few additional seasonings as he explained, "All Bending stems from the same source. The quality and quantity of a person's Chi are important but so too are the paths through which they travel. If you leave an irrigation ditch unattended, it will gradually clog up or fall into a state of disrepair. The correct way to teach someone with Korra's unique constitution is to have her focus on all the elements at once...if she were to follow your method, it would make mastering other elements far more difficult. Depending on the damage done, she might not even be able to enter the Avatar State without suffering a trauma..."

No longer smiling, Katara's opened her eyes and stared at Kahn with a glimmer of anxiety in her gaze as she muttered, "I see...I nearly made a terrible mistake, didn't I?"

With his characteristically apathetic expression, Kahn handed the bowl of soup to Katara as he flatly replied, "Mistakes are a natural part of life. The same can be said for traumatic and other kinds of formative experiences. Don't blame yourself for having Korra's best interests at heart."

Though she accepted the bowl from Kahn's hands, Katara didn't touch its contents. Instead, she just stared off into space for several minutes until Kahn sat down on the nearby rug. When he did, she shifted her gaze him, asking, "Have you ever heard of an Earthbender named Ragna Rokr...?"

Meeting the old woman's gaze, Kahn caught Katara completely off guard by calmly answering, "He was the Avatar of Earth and Loyalty. His body is the vessel of the Great Stone Dragon of the East, Baade."

Dropping the completely frozen bowl of soup, Katara rose to her feet with a mixture of confusion and excitement in her expression as she exclaimed, "Aha! I knew it...!"

Without rising from his spot on the rug, Kahn gave Katara an incredulous look as he replied, "Good for you?" before taking a sip of his soup.

Seeing how casual Kahn was behaving, Katara's mood quickly diminished as she said, "It might not matter to you, but this is a very big deal, young man. Rokr was one of the most influential people in the entire world prior to his death. Were it not for him, why-"

*sluuuuurp*

Since he knew a lot more about Rokr than Katara, Kahn just continued staring at her with a thoroughly indifferent expression on his face. As a result, Katara's formed into a pout that didn't suit her wrinkled face as she said, "You could at least pretend to care..."

Lowering his spoon into his soup, Kahn questioned, "About what...?" in a genuinely confused tone. Katara hadn't actually made any points, so he wasn't entirely sure what it was he should care about.

"..."

Plopping back into her chair, Katara massaged her forehead in a clearly exasperated manner before asking, "Just to be certain, there are at least two other Avatars alongside you and Rokr, correct?"

Understanding that Katara was referencing his fellow Templates, Kahn nodded his head, explaining, "There is the Avatar of Air and Perpetuity, Yao Yoko, and the Avatar of Water and Virtue, Regina Akua."

"..."

Inhaling a deep breath, Katara did her best to stay calm as her mind slowly processed the information Kahn had given her. She had never heard the names Yao Yoko and Regina Akua, but she didn't doubt for a moment they were real.

Raising her head to meet Kahn's gaze, Katara asked, "If I were to ask, would you tell me about them...?"

Shrugging his shoulders, Kahn answered, "The only one I know anything substantial about is Rokr. He sometimes stops by whenever I'm taking a break and drinking tea with Old Man Iroh. As for Yoko, she spends most of her time in Wan Shi Tong's Library. I tried meeting her a few times, but she is even less sociable than me..."

"..."

Reclining into her chair, Katara fell silent for the better part of a full minute as she reconciled the fact that Kahn was apparently in contact with both Rokr and Iroh. She was aware he substituted sleep for meditation, but it hadn't clicked that he was meditating to enter the Spirit World.

"The banes of old age...my mind truly isn't what it used to be..."

Understanding that Katara was muttering to herself, Kahn returned to his soup. He could always reheat it using his Firebending, but he would rather finish eating quickly so he could retreat to his room. Katara was easier to talk to than most, but that didn't mean he was just going to sit around for hours answering whatever question popped into her head.

Noticing Kahn scarfing down his food, Katara opened her mouth to speak but ultimately decided not to. She knew Kahn disliked being interrogated, so she did her best not to ask more than 3-4 questions a night. She was already well past that quota, so, after a moment of deliberation, she made use of her Waterbending to retrieve her bowl and liquefy its contents. Fortunately, even without asking, Kahn was willing to reheat it of his own volition...

...

..

.

Unaware that Kahn had effectively exposed her identity, a young girl with platinum-blonde, nearly white hair tied in a ponytail was casually roaming the backstreets of Republic City. Her perpetually annoyed expression and piercing blue eyes were supposed to give people the impression she was cold and ruthless, but her small stature ultimately undercut her intentions. After all, she was only ten years old.

"Haaaaaa...I wish the Avatar would hurry and show up. I'm getting tired of just waiting around all day..."

A stark contrast to her words, the platinum-haired youth pulled moisture from the atmosphere before forming it into a disc of glowing blue ice that cut through the steel door barring her entry into a secret warehouse. Her actions immediately alerted the people printing false currency inside, but the moment they turned to face her, a layer of frost covered their eyes as the young girl directed an arrow-like ice projectile to pierce through their wrists and ankles.

"Shit! It's that White Demon bitch! Run for your lives...!"

Furrowing her brows, the platinum-haired youth, now wearing a layer of ice and snow in the form of a very aggressive-looking bunny, directed the ice projectile to impale the man who had called her a bitch. She didn't kill him, but an ice spike through the lumbar vertebrae all but guaranteed he would spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair.

"Asshole..."

Forming a second projectile, the girl was prepared to continue where she left off when one of the half-frozen workers pulled out a police badge and stammered, "R-R-Republic City Police! P-P-Put your h-h-h-hands up...!"

Shifting her attention to the man, the girl sent a shiver through his body as she raised her left middle finger and said, "Bite me, pig. If you assholes did your jobs, I wouldn't need to get involved. If you dumbasses can't do anything about the people ruining our lives, at least shut the fuck up when we take matters into our own hands."

Though it would add to her very long wrap sheet, the overly aggressive youth waved her left hand to produce a layer of frost over the undercover cop's body. She had once tried to work with the police from the shadows but quickly grew weary of them when they kept trying to arrest her. Ever since then, she had always done things her way. If the cops couldn't deal with the criminals due to them exploiting legal loopholes, she would...

Hearing sirens in the distance, the platinum-haired youth created a pillar of ice to propel herself atop the nearest building before parkouring across the roofs of several others. A few Metalbending Officers saw her retreat, but, after failing to apprehend her more than a hundred times, they knew better than to give chase. If they tried, she would just bore a hole into the sewers before freezing every manhole cover and pipe within a city block.

Of course, the most crucial reason for the Officers not giving chase was that the White Demon had the support of the public. She also dealt with a lot of the criminals they wanted nothing more than to put behind bars, so, while they were obligated to arrest her if the opportunity presented itself, few within the Republic City Police Department treated the capture of the White Demon as a top priority. A few even regarded her as a Hero...

...

..

.

After retreating to her base, an unauthorized and highly secret expansion to the Republic City sewers, the young Waterbender known as the White Demon allowed her costume to melt away before stepping inside. When she did, more than a dozen young children, each ranging between three and seven years of age, crowded around her, shouting things like, "Akua!" and "Big Sis~!"

Though she snorted through her nose, the platinum-haired youth, better known as Regina Akua, ruffled the hair of a few children as she asked, "Is Mako back yet?"

In response to Akua's question, one of the young Waterbending girls she had saved from a group of human traffickers stepped forward to answer, "He sent us a radio transmission saying he would be away for another two days. He got into another fight at school."

Exhaling an exasperated sigh, Akua ran her fingers through her silvery blonde hair before pulling out the scrunchie tying up her ponytail. All of a sudden, her disposition changed drastically. Gone was the always angry youth that seemed one word away from biting out someone's throat. In its place was a relatively gentle-looking girl with fair features, kind eyes, and a faint smile as she said, "Okay. That means I'll need some of you to help retrieve supplies. Any volunteers?"

Without any hesitation whatsoever, each of the children that had gathered around Akua raised their hands. She had saved their lives and given them a place where they could belong. Since she refused to let them help with her hero work, they did their best to help with anything else she asked of them. After all, Akua wasn't just their boss; she was the one who brought them all together as members of the same Familia...