parallel lines

chapter v

Word Count: 3,015 words

Chapter V: 縁の下の力持ち

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Natsuko looked at the boy who she had been holdings in his shoulders, surprised to see that he already knew who she was, "Did I get it wrong?"

She shook her head and let's go of his shoulders, her right hand clasping his hand just how she saw other people greet for the first time, "No, no, my name is indeed Natsuko. May I ask your names?"

"I'm Aang." he perked up and the girl with him also introduced herself, "I'm Katara, how do you know each other?"

"I just do." he looked at her and Natsuko just shrugged at the girl, "That's amazing, there could still be other airbenders who are still alive."

Aang was ecstatic when he saw Natsuko, someone who was inside the sanctuary which meant she could airbend, an airbender who was alive. He wasn't the sole airbender anymore, "Aang, I'm not from the Air Nomads."

The three of them walked towards the center of the circle, leaving another person who was with them complaining about how they only found statues instead of meat, "I was sent here by my other halves to search for you, Aang, you've left for a hundred years."

"What do you mean?" his confusion grew more and more the more he talked to Natsuko. He doesn't know who she is but he knew her name? Why did her voice sound familiar? Where did she come from? He already understood that the statues represent the cycle of the Avatar and he was the last one, as well as the last airbender, and that his friend believed in him.

He had a lot of questions he would like Natsuko to answer but his eyes were focused on the statue at the end of the circle, the eyes of it glistened the more he looked at it, snapping out of the trance when Katara shook him, "Aang, snap out of it."

"That's Avatar Roku, the Avatar before me." he told Katara who asked him who he has been looking at the entire time Katara, Natsuko, and the other boy named "Sokka" was in a banter about the Avatar's.

Sokka still hadn't find out the name of the spirit, nor did anyone know that she was in fact a spirit from the Spirit World.Unlike other spirits of this place, she was tangible and human-like, she eats, sleeps, and desperately in need of a break from solitary confinement, it still isn't definitive if she is able to die in this world.

The two kept on talking about the last statue of the cycle and Natsuko walked towards them, knowing that Aang had many questions, "You were a firebender in your past life? No wonder I didn't trust you when we first met."

He joined the three of them and was feeling unsettled with the way the place is in it's solitude and emptiness, especially when Aang talked about how he knew Roku without seeing his name written on the stone or anywhere in that matter, "You just can't get any weirder, and this place too."

He pointed towards the girl, Natsuko, beside him with his thumb, "Who is this girl anyway?"

"You needn't know who I am, you are just my mere hostages with no one who will find you ever again." Natsuko looked at the man with the wolf tail dead straight in his eyes and she could sense that he didn't find it funny, "Aren't you alarm with who she is, guys?"

Before she could answer his question, a horn could be heard from the door something that wasn't the same as the horns of the door and with the door unlocked, it could've meant another person had reached the temple.

They quickly hid behind statues while the two who were clad in what seems to be Water Tribe clothing kept on whispering to each other, Natsuko had just grunted silently as it seems that she hasn't been given a break from the Fire Nation. She looked at Sokka who was ready to attack the other being in the room, turning around then suddenly lowering his weapon down when he got a clear look at the "Fire Nation Soldier". The three others followed suit and Natsuko saw the friend who was accompanying her all this time.