The Avatar's Will of Fire

The Storm: 2

"As he raced across the rooftops of the city, Naruto allowed a distant part of his mind to process everything that had just happened. He had to admit, if he hadn't experienced it himself (well, not literally, but close enough) he would have been more than a little skeptical. Someone else in this world actually knew about the Kage Bunshin's? Not only that, but their side-effects as well? While he supposed that he should be relieved, or maybe even elated, that this might mean that he wasn't completely alone here, something about that trench-coat guy just felt dangerous. Naruto had that feeling before, and it had saved his life on more than one occasion, so he had learned to listen to it when it popped up.

Then there was whatever was happening to his Sage Mode. Somehow, the two Kage Bunshin he had created seemed to gather nature chakra before they were destroyed. While that was by no means anything new, they hadn't done it on their own accord like this before. It was still active from the last Clone, and Naruto was able to perform a scan around a good portion of the city as he made his way forward.

That was odd too. For one thing, he couldn't find a trace of trench-coat, even though he had still felt Asami and the others, so that meant the guy had either left or had found some way to totally conceal his chakra signature, which was supposed to be impossible. And provided Naruto with yet another reason keep his guard up around him. But that wasn't what concerned Naruto the most right now.

Naruto could also track the positions of the others, and found that they were about where he would have expected them to be. But what he could sense around Lin was... worrying. Lin herself was fine – Naruto knew from first-hand experience that she could take care of herself – but there was something else there, something that set all kinds of warning bells off in his head.

Naruto could honestly say that he had never encountered anything like it, which was cause for concern in and of itself, but something about it just felt wrong. That was the only word he could think of to describe it. If he had to gauge its size, Naruto would say that it was maybe humanoid, but that was as clear an idea as he could get. Whenever he tired to focus more on it, his head would start to ache.

Naruto forced his thoughts to the side as he reached his destination; Republic City's power plant. What little he'd been able to pick up here had not been encouraging. He could sense one signature that flared like a star near the power plant's center. While there was a small scattering of other signatures there, which he could only guess were the employees, and their numbers had been steadily dwindling as he made his way. Naruto knew exactly what that meant, and he grit his teeth in fury at the thought.

Following Tarrlok through the city streets, Korra tried to keep herself focused, but was finding it difficult. She just couldn't get what had happened at Tarrlok's office out of her head.

She had just seen eight dead bodies, people killed by a man she may not have trusted, but at least held some respect for. Shouldn't she feel something? Shock? Horror? Anything?

Korra knew she should have, but instead, she only wished that Tarrlok had killed the last Equalist as well. It... worried her.

What, exactly, did that mean?

Tarrlok clearly caught on that something was bothering her, but hadn't brought it up. Korra was grateful that he had decided to leave her to herself.

Why was she taking all of this so calmly? Korra had never even come close to killing someone else—she hadn't even seen a dead body before! Well, unless you counted the ones she had seen in her vision of Naruto (which Korra didn't). Okay, so, there were also those gangsters Amon had killed during his Revelation, but it wasn't like she'd had a front-row view to it or anything. Which brought her back to the question that bothered her the most; was there something wrong with her?