Avatar - chapter 32 (Patreon)

The same day, master Piandao said I was ready to master the way of the sword on my own. I left, I had now a map guiding me to where I had to be.

Today like any other day in the surprisingly cozy Fire Nation the sun shone bright in a cloudless sky, every now and then a bird would fly by, but besides that nothing much. The Fire nation was calm and beautiful, so much at times it would make me forget about the war altogether.

So far… I really couldn’t complain… Besides my meeting with Vaatu, things were going awesome for me.

I even had the luck to find a merchant group after I left the island that offered to take me there, if I escorted them all the way there, and while I was mostly inclined to outright reject the offer, I decided to do otherwise and accept it. That way, I would be seen as considerably less suspicious to the eyes of others, soldiers especially. I wanted to avoid fights, for the time being.

As the caravan advanced through one nearby towns, a group of soldiers stopped us, nothing serious, just routine checks. I knew that much.

With a long scrutinizing look, I studied the orderly row of the soldiers in front of my ride, with their helmets gleaming in the sunlight. There were about two dozen men, on foot, in the rear guard, all in identical red and black armors, some carrying long spears and swords.

One of them had a slightly different armor, and if I had to take a guess he was their squad captain, or something similar, not only that, but he was the one doing all the talking, showing he had in a way authority.

I was ready to literally rain hell on them, but I had to wait, if they didn’t stop us… It would save me a lot of trouble, if possible… a low profile was best for me.

“Everything seems good,” The captain stated, eyeing the paperwork the merchant had given him, “Be on your way,”

I inwardly cheered the fact that I didn’t have to kill them all, which while easy… it would’ve made the trip a living hell. Ozai for one, would want my ass on a silver platter.

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Without any more interruptions, the caravan continued with the trip, eventually taking us in the depths of a forest… plagued with thieves… that or really human-like monkeys methodically following us… all I knew thanks to my water sense was that we were being followed.

I had two options in how to deal with this situation… one, using my bending to take them all… saving the caravan… and revealing my identity. Two… using only what Piandao had taught me… keeping my low profile.

I suppose I’m about to see how much improvement with the sword I had obtained after that crash course Master Piandao gave me.

And here we go… three… two… one...

As if on cue, a man with a very assassin's creed look, leaped from one of the trees, his arms and legs spreading wide to keep the balance in the air, the man in question landed with ease on one of the mounted men beside one of the many carriages in a deadly crouch. His weight, combined with the gravitational force of the landing, immediately brought both man and horse to the ground in a painful mixture of a neigh, a cry and a loud crash, blood splattering everywhere.

The poor man the thief had landed on was now dead in a pool of blood on the ground, while his horse was running away in fear.

The man stood up unsheathing his blade and pointing at us with it and said, “Surrender all your belongings… and we will let you live,”

Crowley eyed me… and the man, and simply skipped away to an empty hay bed, like saying… you get in way too much trouble, I’m going to sleep.

I rolled my eyes at Crowley, as I kept on observing the situation… wondering what the merchant would pick… his merchandise or his life…

“We won’t give you anything… freeloaders!” Oh, his merchandise it is.

“Very well,” the man snapped his fingers, and more assassin’s creed lookalikes forms jumped down from nearby trees. The assailants all looked identical, with slight differences, like height and weight. But besides that… it was like a fucking Assassin’s Creed convention out here, “Kill them all,” the man ordered.

I sighed as I rushed in to help the caravan, if push came to shove I would use water bending to kill them all, so this wasn’t much of a tough situation for me. Taking a step forward…. the man tried to cut me with his blade, I surprisingly found myself easily countering his attack, and cutting his throat.

Getting my clothes dirty with the blood the now dead man had spilled on my clothes…

“Killing with a weapon sure is way messier,” I muttered, as I continued to field test my new skills.

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[Azula POV]

Akira was starting to make this game fun… like a mouse… getting into a lion's den, he was making this game so interesting that for a moment, a brief moment at that… I wanted to stop chasing Zuzu, and the Avatar. Just to kill him.

I had no idea what his motives were at this point, nor I actually cared, but he was playing a game… I was known to always win, I always catch my prey.

But the question now was… where was him? I had unfortunately lost track of him after the fire colony in the earth kingdom… who I had to personally punish for being so stupid.

After that, I knew he was heading towards the Fire Nation, and considering he is probably trying to keep a low profile three places came to mind, Shu Jing, The Fire Nation Bazaar or the pitiful town Jang Hui.

And two of those options were practically out of the window, The Fire Nation Bazaar had too much security, one mistake and he would have the entire nation on him, and the disgusting town of Jang Hui… had nothing to offer him, in the military point of view.

Which only left Shu Jing… from there, his options were nearly limitless, the island was vast and with little to no security… meaning he would have time to plan his next move, uninterrupted.

From Shu Jing… it pained me to admit I had no idea where he would go from that point….but like everything else I would eventually figure out… after all, I have to keep tabs of all my prey, the Avatar, Zuzu, my uncle and of course, him.