Chapter 12

-[Aroh]-

It didn't take long for 'Jet's' reinforcements to arrive but they all yielded the same results. None of them were willing to reveal how it is that they escaped the spirit world.

In the end, he had to put them down like he did the rest of them. Looking at the hook sword he took from the now dead leader of the Freedom Fighters.

'It isn't all that great but it should suffice.' He thought as he splashed the blood away with a swing.

He turned to Katara who was hunched over the floor, puking out her guts. He had to admit that he was impressed.

-[A Few Minutes Ago]-

Aroh stabbed the sword through the last freedom fighter, twisting as he pulled it out and allowed the dying body to hit the floor.

[You have leveled up]

Despite the fact that they refused to divulge the information he needed, they were useful in helping him level up.

As he took in his surroundings, he noticed that one of them was simply playing dead a few feet behind him.

'Fool.' Aroh thought as he tightened his grip on the sword.

The bloodstained body of one of the presumed dead freedom fighters suddenly rose behind him, lunging at him with a dagger in hand.

Just as he spun to finish him off, his brows raised in surprise as he saw his opponent stop in front of him, a tentacle of water coming out through his chest.

It wasn't hard to figure out what happened but it was something he didn't expect. At least not anytime soon.

-[Present]-

He honestly had no idea how to go about comforting her about her first kill. When he first killed someone, there was no time to stop and regret what he did.

Though he was affected at first, he had no choice but to keep going. It was kill or be killed. It wasn't healthy but it helped him adapt to it and eventually desensitize him from the feeling.

Lowering himself beside her, he pulled her close to him as she sobbed lightly. "It's okay. It'll be okay." He said gently as the girl buried her face in his chest.

His hand soothingly traced small circles on her back, relaxing the girl further.

-[Later]-

It took a while for her to calm down but she ended up falling asleep after she lost her energy. Carrying her on his back as he trudged through the forest, a thought occurred to Aroh.

Apparently it was normal for peopel to react this way when they have their first kill. 'Am I the weird one?' He briefly wondered before discarding the thought.

It didn't take him long to find the freedom fighters' camp. He knew that they were in the trees so it wasn't that difficult to find.

Their food supply consisted of mostly fruits which while healthy, wasn't satisfying when you think about it in the long run.

They were currently in one of the huts with Katara carefully laid on a clean sleeping bag he found.

A groan emerged from Katara as her eyes slowly fluttered open. "What happened?" She asked groggily only for it to hit her moments later as a sad look appeared on her face. "Oh right."

This time she didn't cry but she was visibly distraught.

"Was this what it felt like for you?" She asked quietly but he still heard her.

"Kind of. I won't lie to you and say that I didn't feel anything but…" he paused as he took a deliberate breath. "I understood that it wasn't something I could avoid. Some people would disagree with me but they ended up dead by the very people they spared."

His words didn't serve to encourage the girl but that wasn't his aim. He wasn't going to give her some speech about how it was okay to kill or whether it was wrong to do so. He wanted to strip away any illusion attached to it and allow her to understand its gravity.

"Does it get better? This…feeling…does it go away?" She asked, almost scared.

"It all depends on you. Do you want it to go away? Why do you want it to go away? If you were in that situation, would you do it again?" His questions kept her silent as she considered them.

"I'm not going to tell you if it's right or wrong. There's no right and wrong or good and evil. It's all a matter of perspective." He finished as the girl pulled her knees close.

They sat in silence for a while before Katara decided to change the topic.

"Since we've found their camp, what do we do now?" She asked.

"I've been thinking about that." He turned to face her. "We'll stay here for a while before we move on."

"What? Why are we stopping?" She was reasonably stunned. They had been on the move since they escaped from Zhao and suddenly they were stopping. Little did she know that that was the reason why they were stopping.

"You've been through a lot. From getting captured by Zhao for who knows how long to pushing the ship forward for almost two months straight. Why don't we take a break for a while?" He said as he moved to sit in front of her. "No ships or traveling, no fire nation and no chasing the avatar. Just you and me for a while."

-[Katara]-

The girl's face colored a bit as he said that. It was tempting, too tempting.

A chance to relax. Just the two of them with no urgent attacks or interruptions. A part of her wanted to say no and continue looking for her brother and Aang but a larger part of her chose the other option.

"J-just the two of us?" She stuttered as Aroh leaned in, capturing her lips in a passionate kiss that she immediately reciprocated.

She didn't regret her choice.

-[Unknown Location]-

A young bald monk with an arrow tattoo on his head sat in a meditative pose, silence all around him.

Had Aroh been present, he would have felt the turbulent spiritual energy wafting off the boy in waves.

The arrows on the boy's head glowed a bright white color as his eyes snapped open, revealing his eye that were glowing brightly and similarly to the tattoo.

A drop of tears rolled down his eyes in his unresponsive and meditative state. He had lost the girl he loved and he didn't know what to do.

No matter how hard they searched, they still couldn't find her. The only thing he could do now was turn to the spirits for answers. Maybe one of his last lives could help him.