The elements protection

Chapter 3

Even though Kazumi’s life turned for the better again, her body couldn’t keep up with the once again sudden change of her life-style. So, it was normal for her to have the days, where she would eat less in order to not throw up or when she would stay in bed, because she was too worn out.

Despite everything that had happened and still did, she wanted to pick up her training once again. However, at first, she was only allowed to do so, when someone was watching her, so that if something was to happen to her, she could get help immediately. The one to more or less watch over her on his own free will was Kitai and since Kazumi needed someone to train with, you could say he was forced to learn how to fight.
 

Her life carried on for some time like that. She trained, helped in the village with the work and regularly visited her parents’ grave. She also started to help with delivering the food to the Ember Island and that’s where she heard something very interesting.
It was around 4 years after she became an orphan, that she heard the news of the return of the avatar. As you can imagine, the talk about that topic on the Ember Island wasn’t really happy, since it is part of the firenation. For our young girl however, it meant hope, hope that all this fighting of 100 years would find an end and one day, after a lot of thinking she decided, that she would do whatever she could to help too.

So, she planned to leave the island that she had called home since she was born. Kazumi wanted to leave without telling anybody, but the villagers noticed that something was of about her. On the late evening that she wanted to go, she took the backpack which she had prepared the day before, went a last time to her parents’ grave to say her goodbyes and then went to the beach where one of the small boats was waiting for her. However, the boat was not the only thing waiting for her to arrive, everyone of the people of this island were present, some of them still hoping that their suspicions were wrong and others that have accepted it by now. Every single person knew, that Kazumi wanted to leave and they understood why, but no one really wanted her to. That’s why they all decided to tell her farewell together and when she saw them standing by the boat, the tears she tried to hold back all this time came through. She got a hug from everyone wishing her all the best and, in the end, they gave her a bag with a few helpful things in it, like a map, a sleeping bag, also a small sword and so on. Then it was time for her to go.
She got on the boat and as she sailed away, she looked back, seeing the many lit small fires at the beach and feeling the wind blow around her figure, as if it was hugging and comforting her once more. The wind and the sea sent her on her journey and as the island got smaller and shifted into the distance, Kazumi knew that there was no going back now and that it will take quite some time until she’ll be able to come back.

 
As soon as it started to dawn, land came into the young girl’s sight and as she realized that, you could see the relief light up her eyes. It took around an hour for her to finally reach the shore and have solid ground under her feet again.

She first decided to find a place where she could rest, because she didn’t even close one eye for the time she was out at the sea. After a short walk she already found a small cave, which seemed perfect. It also had a good location, since it’s close to the road, but because of bushes and trees not immediately visible.

Kazumi quickly fell asleep and when she woke up again, it was already midday or even a bit later. So, the first and most important thing to do was to eat something, because it’s been some time since her last meal and her stomach wouldn’t quiet down. Even though she took food for a few meals with her, she knew that she’ll soon have to buy some and that meant looking for a city or village.

So, before packing everything together once again, she decided to take a look at her map and see were she most probably was. She never was the best at reading maps, so it took her longer than expected to figure something out. After half an hour she had some clue to in what direction she was going to go now.

Once she had all her stuff organized, she left the cave in the direction of the next village. There were a lot of things going on in her mind as she made her way through the forest. She thought about the all the people on the island, who were most probably working on the fields or delivering all the food to the Ember Island right now. Also, her parents crossed her mind, all the things they taught her like cooking, helping where ever she can and much more. She remembered all the training with her mom as well and she knew, that it’s now going to pay off since she will go against the fire nation and the fire lord’s goals. For this fact she was grateful for all the time her mother spent to teach her.

Before the girl realized it, the trees got less and she was getting closer to the village. She was a few hundred meters away, but she already heard all the noise coming from that direction. Though Kazumi heard it, she didn’t know what caused all the commotion and therefore she was a little alerted and more focused now.

As she arrived on the outskirts of the village, she saw a handful of what seemed to be fire nation soldiers and also a few, so she guessed, villagers. Slowly she started to hear some sentences like “Where’s the rest?” from the soldiers or “We don’t know.” from the normal people. By now Kazumi saw that three men were detained and surrounded by the soldiers and then there were some villagers.

The girl asked the first person she was standing next to, “What’s going on here?”

The woman answered in a low voice, “The soldiers try to find the members of the rebel group, which hides near here.”

“A rebel group?”

“We should go somewhere else for that. Follow me.”, the woman walked away through the streets and looked around to make sure no one was close, before she started talking again, “You want to know about the rebel group, right? … They fight against the soldiers’ injustice towards some people here.”, Kazumi was still and listened carefully to what she learned about right now, “You see, this is a pretty poor village and the weather in the last few months has ruined a lot of our crops. Because of these factors it’s hard for us to pay taxes and in addition to all that, most of the men here were called to fight in the war.”

Finally the girl started to say something, “So, … the rebel group protects you from the soldiers. That means the capital doesn’t like them and that’s why they’re in troubles now, right?”, after she received an agreeing nod, she thanked the lady turned around to walk back, while hoping that those rebels were still save.

Kazumi was getting closer to the soldiers, villagers and rebels as she saw the most probably head of the soldiers starting to loose his patience. She immediately looked at his hands and noticed the first signs of fire bending. The girl began running towards him and the people close by to hopefully stop the soldier’s outburst before anything bad would happen.

Hi to all of you!
It took me some time to upload again because a lot of stuff was going on these last two months.
I also don't know if I'll ever get better at it. However, if it takes too long for you, text me and make me upload again. This could maybe help.
I hope you liked this chapter and as I told you in the last one, this one is less depressing. Also, I'm sorry about that again.
As always, I would be happy about feedback of any sort!
Other then that have a great day, night or whatever it is with you right now and see you in the next chapter!