Chapter 32

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***

"How is Azula?" I asked Ty Lee, who had come to join us for dinner at our table.

The company gathered here was quite large: Mai, her mother, father, Tom-Tom, myself, and now Ty Lee as well.

"She's always eating a lot, and when she's not eating, she just smiles!" Ty Lee responded with a smile, sitting down at the table with us and joining the meal.

"That's good. She needs to eat a lot right now to not deplete her body. After all, growing limbs is a taxing process for the body."

"It's amazing. I've never heard that firebending could be used to heal people. Have you never thought of becoming a healer? These are unique skills. As far as I know, no one else is capable of this," the governor said to me.

Mai looked at him, sighed deeply, and shook her head at her father's words.

"I'm afraid that's a bad idea. Unfortunately, this firebending technique is not called Dark Healing for nothing. For the life and health of one person, you have to pay with the lives of three others. It's not an equal exchange, very destructive for the soul of the user." I was making this up on the fly and feeding these people nonsense.

"What a terrible technique!" Mai's mother looked at me in shock. "And how often have you used it?" she asked me.

"Three times," I said after a brief pause - the first time when I was learning this technique and saving my own life. The second time, when I saved the life of a guy who once saved me but lost an arm. The third time was here.

"And who was honored this time?" Mai asked with interest.

For the first time, she showed me some emotion.

"His name is Freo. However, among our people, he became famous under a different nickname."

"And how is he known?" Mai's mother asked.

"In some places, he became known as the Elusive Joe," I smirked, seeing the governor choke; he should have been aware of my capture and the subsequent events, being a high-ranking official, "but here he is more likely known to soldiers and benders as Chimamin Monsuta..."

Now, the reaction was visible on all present, except perhaps Tom-Tom. However, the rest froze, soldiers standing by the doors also froze, barely moving, the governor's wife and Mai went a bit pale, as did the governor himself. Understandably - rumors had it, I was last seen near Omashu. That was several months ago, but still... I had earned quite a reputation for my alter-ego! Among the Fire Nation people, I was really feared! Soon they'll start making legends about me!

Why did I reveal my real name? What's the point in hiding it? No use at all. I can change my appearance at any moment and maintain it for a long time. If I don't engage in battles, I could even fix it from the first attempt. Now it simply makes no sense to hide such information. Now I can become anyone. Well, almost anyone, I'm still quite limited, but still!

"And how, if it's not a secret, did you meet? And what is he like, this Chimamin Monsuta?" the governor asked, putting his cutlery down. Can't swallow your food?

"It was nothing special. I was attacked. I defended myself, and he appeared. Together, we managed to fend off the attackers. That's when I used the technique for the second time. As for him... a guy my age. In some ways, our appearances are similar, only his hair is lighter, his facial features are completely different, his eyes are green, unlike my blue, my height, his physique clearly shows that he, like me, did not neglect physical exercises.

"They say he's a genius in waterbending," Mai said.

"Yep, that's right. We traveled together for a while, and during that time, he managed to copy the Dark Healing technique based on my explanations, transferring it from fire to water, more precisely to bloodbending. Honestly, in his execution, this technique looked very creepy. But effective, can't deny that.

"He managed to replicate your technique?" the governor asked in surprise.

"Oh, you didn't know? I thought everyone knew..." I was genuinely surprised, as I really thought so. After all, it was precisely this technique, because of which I was called a master of bloodbending. And suddenly, it turns out nobody knows about it.

After that, we ate in silence. Nobody wanted to continue the conversation.

After dinner, Ty Lee and I went outside for some group work, and then we stood in a sparring match against each other. I learned her close combat style, and she used me as a strong sparring partner, on whom more than half of her strikes didn't work. Plus, I had my own unique fighting style, so she had something to learn as well. These training sessions started back in the circus when I got interested in her ability to block bending in close combat, and she, a bit later, asked me to teach her to fight as smoothly and beautifully. Whatever you say, but my style is based on Wushu, which was first adapted to control water in combat, then earth was added, and finally, fire. It turned out to be a wild mix, but seemingly effective. At least, nobody has told me otherwise yet.

Our training didn't last long - Mai called Ty Lee, and they went off on their business, and I climbed onto the roof of the house and, sitting there, started meditating while the wind blew around. It seemed like this wind was completely natural and there was nothing unusual about it, but that's good, nobody will accuse me of practicing airbending. This is exactly how I train in this element. For more complex exercises, the time is not right yet, and I have too little control for that. At the same time as creating winds, I listened to the vibrations of the stone of the house I was sitting on. I wasn't particularly successful in distinguishing anything, but I had already begun to understand when someone was walking nearby in the house. It's somewhat similar to the surface of the water into which raindrops fall. This noise won't let you understand anything from the vibrations, but if someone suddenly throws a larger stone into the water nearby, the waves from it will be strong enough to make themselves known even through the background noise. That's how I was already starting to distinguish vibrations from the steps of armored Fire Nation soldiers about ten meters from me... but I wouldn't feel Tom-Tom even two meters away from me!

Meditation, meanwhile, allows me to gradually... how to put it... lower the sensitivity to too fine vibrations that create background noise, leaving only the vibrations I need in my perception area, while increasing the area of perception of these vibrations. The thing is, I currently perceive the vibrations of the earth as constant white noise, in which I can only distinguish particularly strong vibrations from people and objects. However, by gradually reducing sensitivity, some of these fine vibrations become less perceptible to me, and I start feeling the necessary vibrations better. And I feel them from a greater distance. In other words, I'm improving my seismic sense by filtering out the unnecessary from my perception.

By the way, indeed, the brain best interprets the information received through

 vibrations as three-dimensional images. A kind of 3D model of everything that's happening related to the earth. Very unusual information. And perhaps I'm even glad that I didn't immediately get a perfectly tuned seismic sense, I'm afraid it would have been too much for the brain. But this way... I gradually, albeit slowly, filtered out the unnecessary and felt the vibrations better, getting used to them. I try to walk more often with my eyes closed - if you use both seismic sense and eyes, it turns out to be too high a single load on the brain. I really fainted several times while I've been in Omashu, suffering from sensory shock and losing consciousness. The head hurts a lot after waking up, and it's good that I can stimulate my body's recovery, without it, it would be scary to develop seismic sense. Maybe stop using eyes at all for some time. Tie them up and fully switch to seismic sense... but definitely not now, later, when I get better at sensing the environment through the earth.

Four hours later, Ty Lee ran up to me and, climbing onto the roof to me, pulled me away from meditation.

"Garo! Hurry up! A messenger hawk has arrived and brought a letter. It's a message from the Fire Lord!" she said to me energetically, trying to pull me along with her.

"I'm coming, I'm coming, just calm down."

We quickly descended from the roof and headed to Mai. She was in the room with Azula. The princess was lying on the bed, and her legs were under the blanket. Judging by Azula's face, she was now experiencing all the delights of extremely rapid bone and tissue growth in her legs, and that's quite a pleasure, I tell you.

"Ty Lee, Mai, Garo, father sent me a letter. He has learned about everything that happened to me and wants me to return home to the palace immediately," Azula told us.

"So we won't be able to meet Zuko? What a pity." Ty Lee said.

"Father wrote that he wants you to accompany me and ensure my safety while I'm unable to stand up for myself. You're coming with me to the Fire Nation capital. We're returning to the palace. I hope you'll enjoy your visit, Garo!" Azula smiled.

I looked at her for a few seconds, thinking, should I go there? To go there, where perhaps the strongest firebender resides?

What do I lose from this? They don't seem to be planning to kill me. And I still haven't gotten my lightning!!!

"Undoubtedly..."