"Is no one seriously going to say anything about how Shisui played with that poor thing, and now we're eating it?" Ty Lee asked. She was sitting in the dining room of the ship on which the group was traveling, eating a large piece of what appeared to be fried kraken tentacle.
"No, adapt," responded Mai as she ate chunks of kraken tentacle in vinaigrette with rice and fish.
"You should be used to everything she does," Petra pointed out to Shisui, who was feeding Azula bite by bite.
"He came up with new ideas. He recently stopped mumbling about causing storms while blurting out, 'Show me your motivation,' until Azula finally forced him to feed her," Zuko whispered to Ty Lee, whose eyes sparkled with curiosity.
"We're just enjoying our time as a couple. After all, he made me worry." Perhaps it was because of the prospect of becoming a mother, but Azula was more concerned about Shisui.
However, this never changed her powerful character. It solidified it, as Shisui could attest to, since Azula was squeezing his free hand tightly, as if she feared she would fight some powerful creature again.
"Yeah~ Who needs to show all their power when they have the opportunity to provide food for the one they love? Don't you agree, honey?" Shisui's tone was so exaggerated that it caused laughter among his friends, except for Azula. Despite guffawing, her golden eyes narrowed dangerously.
'Mom said I should be stricter with the boys, but do I want Shisui to sleep on the floor?' Azula mused, internally debating whether she should reassert her 'stance' in the face of Shisui's unconscious actions that put her at risk.
At the very least, she didn't want him to be in danger during her pregnancy. She'd rather have him return to his old ways after their child was born. Not that she was envious or annoyed that Shisui didn't take her to fight the Kraken.
"Anyway, aren't eating powerful creatures supposed to make you stronger? I read that in a book!" Ty Lee complained, her cheeks full of food, making Mai roll her eyes.
"Isn't that a silly old legend? That's why so many Firebenders hunted dragons, supposedly to get power from them by eating them. But when they found out that's not how the world worked, it became a strange tradition to prove your worth." Mai pointed to the Kraken meat on her plate, emphasizing her words.
"I still don't fully understand our nation's culture. Didn't we worship a giant dragon that was the sun of our world?" Petra scratched her hair. Even she couldn't understand her ancestors' minds or how such "wonderful" ideas had come about.
"Ah, surely someone in the past gained something. Who knows? Aren't spirits beings of energy? Maybe he ate one and thus started the prototype of the rumor!" Zuko's words, which were at first a joke, made the group fall into a brief silence.
"What if that's so? Maybe that's why the two sides are at odds. The spirits are calmer now, but before, some craved physical bodies and others wanted to enhance their power. That just added up to chaos," Ty Lee mused, placing one hand under his chin.
"But I don't think just anyone can resist the power of spirits, and vice versa. Haven't we already heard of those strange fusions that occur when a spirit possesses a human?
The best combination will always be inspiration. Grandfather Azulon thought that Shisui had been inspired by the spirits when he was a child." Zuko's words made Shisui frown as he remembered things from his childhood.
"They did talk to me around that time, but they told me things I already knew or that were inaccurate, such as the distance from our world to the sun," Shisui revealed, causing Mai to point her chopsticks at him.
"Don't tell me you had already done the calculation yourself?" There was interest in the girl's eyes because she was particularly interested in astronomy—it was an activity she could carry out in silence and the quiet of the night.
Perfect for her! She had been conducting astronomical research, so how could she not have a scientific hobby after growing up with Shisui? She was even planning to publish her findings.
She had even come up with a catchy title: "Are the moons of other worlds like ours?" It would be a paper on her discovery of multiple moons, along with her observations and drawings of the rings of some worlds in her solar system.
"Well, yes, but I have so much researched and written down that it would be overwhelming to publish it all at once. People would no longer want to research for themselves," Shisui replied, causing Mai to nod.
"I don't want to review your writing. You gave me spoilers for a novel I was reading. Who writes a 50-centimeter-long review on a scroll of parchment?" Ty Lee gave Shisui a dirty look, but the sage ignored her friend.
'I just wanted to revive my interest in sharing my opinions on things I like,' Shisui thought. But Ty Lee didn't need to know that he was also a fan of that novel, did she?
The group chatted like that, jumping from one trivial topic to another, until a warning sounded on their ship. They had sighted the Northern Water Tribe fleet nearby. The fleet would escort them on the final part of their journey.
The arrival of Sage Shisui at the North Pole was near. Agna Qel'a was prepared for the return of this important figure, now called 'Ice Prince' by some and 'Traitor' by others.
What kind of stories will Shisui create upon arriving in this part of the world?
...
"Many have wanted to run away from me. No one has been foolish enough to approach me like you. Boy, what do you want from me?" Hama, who had decided to take advantage of her renewed beauty, wore only a blue blouse and black leather pants. She looked at the boy kneeling in the snow in front of her.
The young man's body shivered. His messy hair was stiff from the cold. His hands and feet were bruised. But there was a determined look in his blue eyes, fueled by pure hatred.
"I...I know of your actions. Do you bloodbend?" Only something like that would leave marks like those on those poor remains!" the boy said. Hama opened the corner of her lips slightly, showing her sharp teeth.
"Hehe, boy, don't you know you can die from knowing too much?" The woman looked at the boy with interest. Despite being scared of her, he was adamant.
"I just want to learn from you! My family was the leader of a small tribe. Do you know how the North Pole works? The tribes came together as one group, but they still maintain the old organization. Arnook is the true leader, but they still follow the old organization.
One of my ancestors also developed bloodbending, but no one else had this talent until I was born." To demonstrate, the boy waved his stiff hands, and his brown skin quickly turned red. Sweat poured from his body.
The coldness seeping through his flesh seemed to disappear; even his purple limbs regained a healthy color. All of this was because he was manipulating his blood to warm himself better.
Hama noticed this and crouched down next to him, watching him with interest. She had developed bloodbending herself after years of captivity, taking advantage of every full moon to train for several hours.
But here was a young man using this art, which normally required the support of the full moon. Yet it was daytime, and he still showed this power.
Hama could do that because he was empowered. Though neither of them knew it yet, Shisui could do the same, but he chose Life-bending, which was more advanced.
What kind of talent had this young boy inherited from his ancestors? A different light shone in Hama's eyes as she straightened her body and turned her back to the boy.
"Follow me. I will teach you everything I know, but first, I would like you to share some things with me, like your name," Hama said. While she could not see him, the young man's eyes were filled with mockery, and he wore a cruel smile.
"Yakone. That's my name. I think you'll be interested to hear that there's news of Sage Shisui reaching the North Pole. Shouldn't we be better than him? I doubt he can do what we can do," he thought, deciding he no longer needed to be cautious. Yakone stood up as he said those words, but then the air thickened around him.
A trail of black energy erupted from Hama's body. Although Yakone couldn't see it, he could feel it. His whole body trembled, not from the cold but from the pure fear she instilled in him with her impulse.
"Do you think Shisui couldn't learn from us if he sees us? He's a sage! An Enlightened One! Don't despise him, little one, or it will cost you.
Never look down on people. Remember, you are not special. Except for the Avatar, no one is special in this world." Hama turned and looked intently at Yakone with her blue eyes, which seemed devoid of sensitivity. It was as if she could pierce his flesh and look directly into his soul.
"I don't mind your ambition. I've already raised a crow; I'm not afraid you'll gouge my eyes out~ But I'll teach you something basic, Yakone." Hama turned into a blur, her long nails digging into the young man's throat. She grabbed him by the neck and lifted his body with ease.
"Respect those who are more powerful than you, or you will pay dearly for your overconfidence. Your tricks and emotions are exposed to someone like me." After saying this, the woman threw Yakone's body to the ground and pointed one of her fingers at him.
"To make sure you remember... I'll teach you something I recently learned: sensory stimulation. A little blood in the right places, and you may feel incredible pleasure. In others, you'll wish you'd never been born." Hama used bending to intrude on Yakone's spiritual energy, fighting for control of his blood.
Yakone felt an ever-increasing sense of dread as he vividly felt his blood flowing rampantly through his veins, reaching parts of his body and provoking unwanted reactions.
A cry of pain escaped his lips, but Hama shook her finger, and all sound abruptly ceased. Yakone could only endure the excruciating pain in silence. However, every time a tear tried to escape his eyes, the woman abruptly forced it back in.
"Do you remember now, Yakone?" Hama asked. Without releasing his speech or stopping his torture, she shook the boy's body like a puppet, rubbing his face against the snow and ice and scraping his skin without letting the blood spill out.
"Do you remember now, Yakone?" Seeing that she wasn't getting an answer from the boy, Hama continued to manhandle his body, making it float and crash to the ground while asking him the same question.
Yakone certainly remembered this moment. He never allowed himself to forget it, not when hatred and fear were the ink recording all the unspeakable suffering he felt at that moment.
He promised himself that he would make others feel the same despair, helplessness, and suffering. For now, though, he had to remember. His head nodded languidly, much to Hama's delight.
"Okay, now come on. We have a lot to do. I need to pick out my best clothes for my meeting with Shisui."
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AN: Yakone is the father of Amon, the first villain of the Korra show. He and their sons can do Blood-bending with their minds, they are kinda op, because Amon can block the benders' Chi path and disable their bending.
Also, Young Hama is top waifu.
In this paragraph, there are some pictures (made with AI) with Séraphine Rohan, the main character of my novel, with Shisui and Azula~