The Hiro Games

CHAPTER FIVE

          Life was never hard for me. In the mornings I would lie awake on a floral bedspread, listening to the birds chirp outside my window on the terrace, while my mother stirred in the living room watching The New Adventures of Nuktuk. Of course, the UNR sentries had censored all scenes depicting bending so I don't really know what it was she ended up watching, but nonetheless, it kept her entertained. In the afternoons I would return home from school, practice a few chi-blocking forms I would never get the hang of, and admire my signed photo of Shira Shinobi. By the nighttime, I would be in bed by nine o'clock.
          This was perhaps the extent of my excitement while living in the United Non-bending Republic, as much of it was still undergoing reconstruction even a hundred years after the Division.
 
          You see, immediately following the end of the Avatar, the world was left to wonder what would be done. Granted, nothing could be done and I'm not quite sure if anything should have been done, but still, things were. That's what my teacher says, anyway.
          I had learned that there was a very particular situation in what was once called Republic City. This was before it became the United Non-bending Republic, so the years of intermingling, and intermixing among the elements certainly did their damage. There were non-benders giving birth to firebenders, earthbenders giving birth to waterbenders, and airbenders seeming to spawn from nothing. They all had to be removed. When they finally were -- each element relegated to their respective nations -- the non-benders were finally given their own home: the UNR.
          But that's all ancient history.
 
          I only thought of my home-life again after hearing Sona's own tale. It was unexpected to have her talk about herself so much, if at all, but I suppose the arena had that effect. When she spoke, the sky was dark and we were high up in a tree, suspended on some metal cables that she had laid out earlier in the afternoon. The day was fairly uneventful and Varun had fallen asleep on a branch nearby. It seemed as if she had been waiting for him to become unconscious.
          "I know what it is you must think of me," she stated sharply but still in a whisper, while glaring at me boldly. "You think I am another killing machine, no doubt, like the rest of them."
Her words seemed to trail off near the end, like she had more to say that she couldn't fit into the one statement. I also noticed that her voice was oddly guttural, but still feminine in pitch. It was like there were vowels trapped in her throat, making her sound immensely foreign to me.
          "You haven't killed anyone yet," I told her pointedly.
          "Indeed you are right, yes," was her response. "But that is not going to last." She gave me a resounding look of cold indifference. There were no semblances of emotion, or empathy, or even distaste; only her eyes. "You know this, Sato. You are going to die, and you know that it will be my doing."
          I stared back at her, just as cold; just as indifferent.
          "I am not sorry," she said plainly. At this moment she leaned away from me. Somehow, we had reeled closer to one another as our conversation deepened, without realizing. She had turned to fetch a bag, which she retrieved from the far end of the branch using her cables. They made a loud zipping sound that made me uncomfortable. "Here are your knives," she said. Sona handed me the blades I used to miserably defend myself against Varun just that same morning. "I have something else for you, too." She stuck another hand into the bag and pulled out, to my surprise, an Equalist glove. "I found this at the Cornucopia. Upon it is your nation's symbol. If you are going to survive with us you will have to defend yourself."
          For a moment I was shocked at how reckless it was to hand anyone an Equalist glove, especially for a bender, but when I thought it over, I realized that she and I both knew I wouldn't try anything. Instead, I was grateful to her, and knew that the indifferent look on my face had by this time faltered -- I was smiling.
          "Thank you, Sona."
          She had returned to her position directly in front of me, and stared at me square in the eye. "I am going to tell you something I have not spoken about in many years."
          I remained silent, nodding my head slightly for her to continue.
          "When I was a child, my parents were killed by the Firebending Police." She paused for dramatic effect, or to sort through her emotions -- I don't know. "You may be wondering 'Why the Firebending Police? Are not cross-elemental interactions forbidden?' Well, you are right, and that is precisely what got them killed. I was born on the Fire Nation Islands to a firebending mother, and an earthbending father."
          She stopped for a moment, watching for my reaction. Perhaps she was trying to gauge whether or not I was disgusted. Outwardly, I was not, but I certainly was disgusted. She went on.
          "I do not know how they met -- only that during my father's life he had lived in hiding. When I was born, that became my life too. Every day we had hidden underground, in a cellar that opened out to the wooden floorboards of our kitchen. I believe my father had carved out the cellar himself, so there was no way for the police to know it was there, on record." At this moment she became very quiet -- quiet enough to hear the crickets chirp down below us, like they do on television. "I am certain it was such a disappointment for my parents to see that I was an earthbender," she whispered solemnly. "I began to show signs of earthbending when I was only seven years old. Some would have said I was a prodigy." Sona let out a sarcastic guffaw. "To my parents I was just an insolent child. I am the reason they are dead."
          The nighttime was still. All that could be heard was the slight clanking of her metal battle armor as she floundered uncomfortably.
          "My father taught me what he could, about earthbending. It was not much, as he never had a proper teacher. He only knew how to fling a few rocks -- he knew nothing of the martial or pro-bending styles we learn in academia. I was grateful for our time together, and we could not have lived in a more convenient place: our home was essentially a small, seaside cottage, lying at the precipice of a large cliff, between two hills. We were isolated.
          "You are a non-bender, so you do not know just how powerful it feels to bend. You do not know what it is like to have the Earth tremble before you, or to feel that surge of power and control hum through your veins. It is...remarkable.
          "With my newfound abilities I felt strong. I certainly did not feel as though it was necessary to hide who I was. As you can imagine, in my youth, I did not like spending my days in a hole with my father, watching as my mother tried to act natural whenever she had visitors or when we easily could have been seen. How foolish I was."
          Her demeanor became grave once again. "Each year the Fire Nation conducts a census," she uttered. "And during this census, a few firebending sentinels come by every home to facilitate. Each year it was absolutely horrifying to watch them from beneath the cracks in the floorboards, only a few mere inches from my face, interrogating my mother about this thing or that; rifling through drawers and the like. This, all while my father and I could do nothing.
          "One year, during the census, three sentinels had come by to question my mother. As always, my father and I hid, but things seemed different from the start. The sentinels were kind, and seemed to have taken a sort of liking to my mother. They asked her about her life, her plans for the future, and she had even offered them drinks as a friendly gesture. But things soon changed when they realized she was supposed to be alone on that desolate cliff. One man reared closer to her, and another grabbed her from behind, while the third stood by, smiling.
          "My mother was silent. They began to put their hands on her, running their paws up and down her legs and through her hair. She gave no protest -- what protest could she give?
          "All that could be heard were the chuckling grunts and slurred words of the sentinels as they bent my mother over the table right above us. Then there was the clattering sound of dishes, at intervals, as my mother whimpered."
          Utter stillness permeated the nighttime air, with only the dull humming of nocturnal creatures filling the silence. It continued this way for about a minute or two, before Sona spoke once more, chokingly. "I sat in that hole, wide-eyed, staring through the thin cracks beneath the planks, watching as my frazzled mother used all of her strength to not fight back.
          "I cried, almost wailing as my father covered my mouth, trying to pull me away from the scene; trying to protect me from witnessing anymore of the atrocity unfolding before us both. I probably would have followed suit, had I not caught my mother's eye.
          "It was an impossible moment, but somehow, in the darkness of that cellar, my mother seemed to know I was watching. Her deep, auburn eyes peered at me right over the edge of the same table we had shared countless happy meals upon. They gazed, glistening with sorrow, and anguish, and dread, perhaps hoping I would stay put.
          "But I did not. I did not stay put. That single, most unthinkable moment, had changed all our lives forever. Seeing her that way had inspired in me a most primal instinct -- something I am not sure even my father could understand. I felt a hot rage and used all of my adolescent strength to punish those filthy pigs before they could again enter my mother. The earth shuddered beneath my feet as I called upon it to destroy those firebenders, and before my father could stop me, I had forced everything I could through the flooring beneath them.
          "The wood had erupted into splinters as sharp pillars of earth jutted through the cottage, tearing at the feet of the sentinels. For a moment, they were disoriented, and did not know what to make of the little earthbending girl who had just materialized from beneath the ground. As I emerged, I saw my mother, lying helpless on the ground, confused as to what had happened. She was nearly all unclothed, and the three other firebenders were gathering themselves from the initial strike. I used that moment of bewilderment to bombard them with my childish power. I flung rock after rock in every direction, likely making more of a mess than truly landing a hit. But still, I was in a tizzy, not understanding why my father was only standing by as my mother -- his wife -- was violated. As soon as the dust had settled and I fell to the floor in a sad panic, silence had washed over the cottage. There were then the slow footsteps of the firebending sentinels out of the rubble, who seized both my mother and I, and then my father.
          "There were no words exchanged between any of us, as I am certain we all knew what would happen next. I saw my mother, still bare, as she gave my father a pleading look. It was as though she was asking him to make it all better, but in the way he ignored her, I saw that there was nothing any of us could do.
          "The three of us were marched outside, where the crashing of the waves just at the foot of our cliff, roared all around us, and the gray sky marked the solemnity of what was about to transpire.
          "It is possible that my parents had hoped we would simply be separated, as the typical intermixed family always was. I would go to the Earth Empire, where I would live with my father under some type of probation, while my mother would stay in the Fire Nation, perhaps as a prisoner. This was the usual scenario based on all the other deportations we had heard of.
          "However, this was not the case. Rather, we were brought to our knees and put into a line. The sentinels muttered to us something about honor, and proceeded to create flaming whips, as we often saw them do at public events to keep people in line. Except this time, the three of them directed the flames first at my father, slashing his face and his torso. He crumbled in pain, and reeled in the dirt, screaming in pure agony. Their flames moved on to my mother, and did the same. I sat there between them, as they cried, and the sentinels called me to their side, saying it was my lucky day, as they would have mercy upon me.
          "I walked slowly toward them as I tried to block out the screams of my parents, when the sentinels had grabbed me and turned my face to watch my parents die.
          "'Now you will see what you've done, child,' the sentinel leader said to me as he held my eyes open. The two other officers stood perhaps a foot from my parents, and raised their palms right before their faces, and blew what looked to be a mile-long cloud of flames.
          "I will never be able to rid myself of that image. My family, lying limp on the ground, with their identities quite literally incinerated from existence, and floating away in ash."
          There were no words I could say to console her, but I wouldn't have tried anyway. She deserved every horrible thing that had ever happened to her. Sona's blood was filthy, and I felt good to know there was at least one person still below me in this arena.
          I said nothing.
          "This is why I need you, Sato. Raiden is the only firebender I will ever meet -- Varun robbed me of the other. Raiden is the reason I volunteered to enter the Hiro Games. I have spent my entire life training myself to fight in these Games, so that I could finally show the Fire Nation who I am, and who my parents were. I do not care if I win. My goal is only to stay alive long enough to kill Raiden, and you are my key. For that, you will die."