The Legend of Ryuji

Chapter One: Introduction to Ryuji

Chapter One

"Sobo, I'm heading out!" Ryuji called to the elderly woman inside the hut she called home. It was 7 am and she was going to school. She heard the woman call out in acknowledgement. Glancing at her watch, she realised it was almost time for her to be at class and that if she didn't hurry she would be late.

Yelping, she quickly grabbed her bag, headphones, and phone, running out of the doorway. Whispering a quick prayer to the spirits that her teacher wouldn't kill her, she set off, putting her earbuds in the headphone jack and pressing the play button on her phone. The music began to play. As she listened, it filled her with nostalgia. The song was an old Earth Kingdom lullaby. She didn't remember much of her parents, except for a few memories. The first one was that of a man laughing heartily, and a woman joining him. That one was filled with joy and happiness. The second was one of sober solemnity and sadness, as though someone had died or gone away. The third was a happy one. Her father, or at least a man she assumed was her father, along with her mother, were singing her the lullaby she heard now. The fourth was a memory of holding a little squirming bundle. At the time she hadn't realised what it was, but now that she was older, she realised it had been a baby. The fifth and final memory of her past was one filled with horror, blood, and death. There had been loud noises and flashes and bangs, and it had scarred little Ryuji so badly that it was the first thing she remembered when thinking about the past. 

As she walked, she remembered the first time she met Sobo. The woman had apparently found her in the busy urban streets of Ba Sing Se. She had heard crying in a back alleyway of the Lower Ring and decided to investigate, thus finding Ryuji. She looked around and saw nothing identifying her or marking her, so she picked her up and named her Ryuji. From that day on, the old woman had cared for her as her own child. Ryuji thought back to her earliest memory of Sobo, the one about how Avatar Genji saved the world. He was the last Avatar to ever have been found by the White Lotus. The organization had been in place since before Avatar Roku was alive. It only revealed itself, though, during the Hundred Year War of Avatar Aang's time. She remembered how Sobo illustrated the world of imagination in her mind, painting pictures of the past.

She was startled out of her musings when she was a few hundred feet away from the entrance to the school building. She was walking in the chilly, crisp air, when all of a sudden, someone bumped into her forcibly. She jumped and glanced back at the person who did it. Her eyes immediately widened and then she sighed audibly. So it's Kenji. The boy who tormented her. Nonstop. He was the most popular boy in school. In her school, "East Kuyiku Island Academy" there was a sort of hierarchy. And she was at the bottom. She hated her school, not just because of this, but because it was full of too-strict teachers, idiot principals, and stupid people. It wasn't even on an island. It was just east of the island it was named after. She stuck her hands in her pockets, annoyed. Today was not the day she wanted to battle things out with Kenji.

"Hey! Why don't you watch where you're going, you damn idiot! If you don't stop doing that, I'll make you regret it!" he shouted, at the top of his lungs. Ryuji sighed audibly and rolled her eyes. 

"And why would I listen to an ugly little rat like you?" Ryuji snorted, and turned around, heading towards the doorway of the school building. She heard a snarl behind her and the cracking of knuckles. She sighed again and braced herself for the beating that was coming. She felt a hand seize her from behind, and she was whipped around to face the boy. He was 15, a year younger than she was, but he was taller than her, and still acted like he owned the world. He was a brat, and he hated people who didn't obey his every word. He was in fact, a foreign exchange student. From the Fire Nation. He also happened to be a firebender. Which meant she got daily burns that she received for sassing the boy. She hid them from Sobo so it didn't seem like she was in pain.