Ikigai

Chapter 31: We, the Survivors

Her first task as the Avatar had been given and as the contagious and rare excitement of Rashaan reached 12-year-old Kintsugi, she knew that life would work out if she did well. 

That was what Rashaan had instilled in every lesson for the past few years, in every criticism, and in every punishment that was necessary for her to gain an advantage over her disability. For both of their sakes,  she must do well.

But even with the buzz of adrenaline in her veins and in the hands of whatever was in the cups of the crowd, there was a pit in her stomach as she sensed the shadows of figures draw nearer and nearer to her in a show of intimidation. 

She felt, rather than sensed their breath upon her skin as they drew nearer to her face, smirking when she flinched back in clear discomfort.

"Stop," Rashaan spoke, but Kintsugi knew he had aimed those words at her. She knew better than to let her face give her inner thoughts away.

"I'd say she looks fresher than that girl Hama, don't you think Yuru?"

"Fresh indeed," the other man responded as he licked his parched lips, "it wouldn't be a celebration without some fresh-"

"Enough," Rashaan scowled in disgust, now aimed at the two burly men before them. "The council deems that this event is in violation of common law. As an agent of the court, I find you and everyone in attendance guilty of the desecration of our sacred water temple and the extermination of a holy species. The council has spoken and you will be punished."

"Council? I am a citizen of the water nation, do I not have a say in this as well?" The man sneered as he turned to drunkenly glare at Rashaan, "we have hunted for food and we are merely celebrating the fruits of our labor, old man. What are you going to do about it, huh?"

Looking back, Kintsugi wondered if she had only killed those men sooner, would that have made her master happy? But she hadn't sensed them and she had no time machine to do anything differently. 

In a moment of distraction, Rashaan had cleared his face of the man's saliva, and a knife had been thrown into Kintsugi's bubble of naivety. 

"Kintsugi!" Rashaan yelled as she flew backward from the almost crushing force of ice hitting her chest. 

"Master," she groaned, her eyes pricking with unshed tears at the numbing pain that had stolen her breath.

A moment of confusion entered her mind as she imagined his face in what would have been worry towards her, but as a familiar hand harshly yanked her upwards and onto her feet, she realized that was not the case at all. 

"Useless cripple, when will you learn? Hmm," Rashaan spoke harshly as he gripped her face. "Deal with this and then maybe you'll be worthy of being called the Avatar for once."

Rashaan had never called her a cripple, of course, not that she hadn't been called that before, but to hear him say it hurt her 12-year-old heart. 

For years she had lived with the thought that perhaps Rashaan would one day love her and for a time she had convinced herself that the criticism he had given her stemmed from his desire to watch her grow into an honorable Avatar, that he forced her to exercise until she could no longer walk because he believed in her full potential to fully run. 

Perhaps at first, it had been that. But the more disappointment she brought, the more criticism he received as her handler. 

She was blind, not deaf and Kintsugi's failure was also Rashaan's. 

"Yes, master," Kintsugi mumbled as she rid her face of tears and any emotion other than that of a machine.

Screams soon filled their ears as people crumbled to the ground, trails of blood spilling from eyes, ears, and noses as the young girl manipulated their bodies into submission. Whereas the Council would openly condemn blood-bending, Rashaan would secretly nurture strict obedience.

"When you are finished, make sure to dump their bodies in the river. We don't need the Council thinking you couldn't handle a few people. Understood?" He spoke as he brushed the falling snow off of his clothing. 

"E-everyone?" she hesitated as she sensed a few young people in the crowd kneeling beneath the pressure of her hands. 

"I didn't stutter Kintsugi. Do your job and let's be done with this. I would like to be on time for once."

But Kintsugi paused as she scanned her surroundings. Gutted Koi fish, though not from the Spirit Realm, lay strewn haphazardly across a cold block of ice, old malnourished men and women dressed in seal leather hunched over empty stomachs, and young children with fresh fish still on their lips. 

She would remember sensing their intangible fear, remember sensing it taint their blood.

And though the men that had first approached them now lay strewn across her feet, teeth bared in burning hatred at the child before them as they slowly inched towards her out of self-defense, Rashaan had left. Walked back to the comfort of the warm ship they had arrived in as Kintsugi was left to deal with the morality of her decision and his command.

When Kintsugi returned to the ship a while later, the rolling waves that hit the hull were not what had made her immediately throw up, and it would be a while before the voices of the people she had forced to fall deep into the depths of the water, powerless to bend or swim upwards, would no longer be a suffocating pressure in her mind.

A couple of years later the voices she had heard that same night were replaced by each feat she performed, each order Rashaan gave as the swift punishment and "balance" she brought to society elevated Rashaan to a level of respect Kintsugi had yet to receive. 

And things had looked well for a short while.

But Kintsugi was no longer naive. 

When she had turned fourteen and saw for the first time the way Rashaan had taken care of his own children, the way he would laugh when they would trip over and fall to the ground as he chased them around his home in the rolling hills of the Earth nation, her ever expressionless face was fighting against a very strong emotion as her fingers itched to bend the elements around her.

She had heard the twins giggle as their father carried them in their arms and threw them in the air, ever trusting their father, ever trusting that he would catch them in his arms.

It was more than what she could say for herself. 

Her parents, traveling nomads had rarely written. She didn't miss them though, too young at the time and now too old to remember the face of her mother or father and she couldn't miss something she never knew she could or should have. 

But she was not the only one. The temples were full of children who had been left behind. That's the way it had been for generations.  And she had never felt out of place in that regard. 

Yet it was then, as she blankly stared at the loving family, that she learned there would never be any place for her to fit in.

But she had come this far and she would not give up here, because all the things she had were not the things she wanted. And all the things she longed for were out of her ability to bend.

And so she had stared into space as she sensed the scene before her, mesmerized as Rashaan had lovingly stared at the young lives before him in a show of clear admiration and pride. 

It was the same look that Itachi was giving her now, years later and it was as if her heart were physically breaking under his gaze, unable to handle the warm embrace his lips gave her own because, after all she had done, she did not feel deserving of any such reciprocation of love.

Not with the blood she felt singing beneath her fingertips or the headache that reminded her of the inevitable.