"Not joining this time? Scared I'm going to beat you again?" Toph asked with a teasing smirk, lounging cross-legged on a makeshift stone chair she'd Bent into shape.
Standing behind her, I rolled my eyes as I worked a comb through her hair.
Spirits, her hair was stubborn as always. She probably had access to the finest shampoo and conditioners in the entire Earth Kingdom, yet her hair was anything but soft.
It took real effort to tame it, but after years of dealing with this spawn of hair from Hell itself, I'd gotten used to it.
At this point, I could probably find work as a hairstylist, I mused silently.
"I'm not really in the mood for this round of Earth Rumble," I replied, carefully working through a stubborn knot. "Especially after they changed the format and fired the previous emcee for match-fixing."
The newly revamped Earth Rumble, now under the ownership of a man named Xin Fu, had shifted to a one-on-one format. As a viewer of the tournament, it was an instant improvement. Matches were now decided by skill and technique rather than chaotic free-for-alls. The crowd loved it, and from what I'd heard, the arena's gambling scene had become absurdly profitable.
It was painfully dull as a competitor.
With only one match happening at a time, you'd be stuck waiting nearly an hour just to fight in the preliminaries. And if you made it into the bracket, that was another long stretch of waiting before reaching the finals.
A waste of time, in my opinion. I could use the time to do more things...
... Actually, what would I be doing?
I paused.
Huh.
I honestly don't know what I'd do with the time. It's not like I had a hobby or something since taking care of the Beifongs took the majority of my time. And with the war slowly getting out of control, which means more training, worrying, and experimenting with my Fire Bending—
Oh my god. I have no life.
In the middle of my sudden existential crisis, the sharp clang of a gong snapped me out of my thoughts. Toph hopped off her makeshift chair, landing lightly as a grin spread across her face.
"Alright! Time to make the Pebble crack under my heel—for the second time!"
"Please don't do anything I wouldn't do."
Her response was to crack her knuckles.
"Heh. No promises."
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Ushered out of the waiting room, I headed to the spectator stands to await Toph's inevitable victory. I mean, it's not like the Boulder had improved over the few Earth Rumbles we'd participated in. He was still a musclehead through and through.
Toph, on the other hand, was—without a doubt—the best Earth Bender I had ever met, let alone sparred with. Even Baon, the head of the Beifong family's security, would struggle against her imposing fighting style of waiting and retaliating.
"Now, the moment you've all been waiting for... the Boulder versus your champion!" Xin Fu, the new emcee and owner of Earth Rumble, bellowed through his paper megaphone, whipping the crowd into a horde of screaming cheers.
Draped in green robes, Toph stepped into the arena. With deliberate slowness, she shrugged them off, letting the fabric fall as she raised the championship belt high above her head.
"THE BLIND BANDIT!"
A snort escaped my throat at how small she looked compared to the ring girls posing beside her.
Eventually, I made my way down to an empty spot near the front of the arena, taking a seat beside a group of kids around Toph's age. Ah, they were the group that I accidentally bumped into earlier.
"She can't really be blind, right? That's just part of her act," the only girl in the group muttered, tilting her head.
"I think she is," the boy wearing a douli sitting beside her replied. "Look at how she's standing—she's not even focusing on anything."
"I think she's... going down!" the other boy, dressed similarly to the girl, snickered, clutching a small winged lemur as he cheered loudly for the Boulder.
At that moment, a chill crept up my spine, goosebumps forming all over. While Toph and the Boulder exchanged their pre-fight banter, I slowly turned to inspect the group beside me.
Foreigners, was my first thought. They looked completely different from regular Earth Kingdom citizens. But my attention zeroed in on the boy in the douli.
What kind of kid this young had tattoos running all across his scalp and limbs—?
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"—have devastated the balance of this world."
Caged into the ground, I stared at a figure glowing white floating before me as elements of fire, water, earth, and air orbited the being.
The pressure alone was suffocating. Fear flooded every vein in my body as my heart slammed violently against my ribs, threatening to burst free from my chest.
The figure slowly raised a hand toward me.
"And now, you shall pay the ultimate price!"
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I gasped sharply as the vision faded, the world snapping back into place in an instant. A second later, a surge of fragmented memories and information crashed through my mind like a bolt of lightning, leaving me breathless.
Panting heavily, I leaned forward against the cold stone seating, one trembling hand covering my face as I tried to steady my breathing.
I-I hadn't had a vision since the day I cracked my head open a decade ago. The day I received the memories of Zero...
"Hey, are you alright?" I turned my head toward the girl beside me, watching with a worried expression.
A name flickered past my mind.
Ka... something that ends with a 'ra'? A Water Bender and a member of the team led by the... Avatar.
Oh.
"I'm... I'm fine. Thanks for asking," I exhaled, forcing my breathing to steady just in time to see Toph launch the Boulder clean out of the ring in a single, fluid motion.
The crowd erupted.
Even without looking directly, I could already picture the smirk on her face.
My heartbeat gradually slowed to a steady pulse.
Well, shit. Apparently Team Avatar was sitting just right next to me. Thanks, Zero. Real helpful. You couldn't have dropped that little vision a few days earlier? Or even a few hours?
Stupid meta-knowledge, what's the point if it only shows up at the last possible second?
Honestly, what does "meta-knowledge" even mean, anyway?
As the crowd roared at her victory, Xin Fu leaped from his platform and dropped into the arena, a heavy sack of coins in his hand. He held it up high, letting it jingle.
"To make things a little more interesting," he shouted, sweeping his gaze across the stands, "I'm offering this sack of gold coins to anyone who can defeat the Blind Bandit!"
Normally, I'd already be on my feet since free money was free money. But after that bombshell of a piece of news, my body felt sluggish.
I only snapped out of it when the Avatar himself moved from the stands and onto the arena.
"Hi, I will."
Hooooh, boy.
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It went as well as I thought it would.
Toph's Seismic Sense only worked if the target was standing on the ground she was on. And since the Avatar—Aang, provided by the other guy in Team Avatar who proclaimed rather loudly—was an Air Bender... You might already guess where this was going.
She couldn't "see" and react in time before Aang flung her out of the ring with a gust of rushing wind. So the championship title was now Aang's.
Toph clicked her tongue in annoyance and turned away from the arena, storming off without a word.
I followed suit, standing up from my seat. I gave a brief nod toward Katara and Sokka before hopping down from the stands and making my way over to Toph's side.
"My lady, looks like you finally lost." I couldn't help but tease.
"Ugh, let's get out of here."
"Hold on!" Aang called out from behind us, chasing after us. "Please listen! I need an Earth Bending teacher, and I think it's supposed to be you!"
"Whoever you are, just leave me alone," Toph replied sharply, stomping her foot. The stone wall ahead of us shifted and split apart, revealing a tunnel beneath.
I stepped inside, closely followed by Toph.
"Wait!" the Avatar called out, but he was barely in time. Toph sealed the entrance behind us with a sharp closing gesture with both hands, Bending the passageway shut and leaving the tunnel in complete darkness.
With a snap of my fingers, I ignited a small flame to light the way.
"Come on," she said, grabbing my hand. "I want to get some grub before we go back home."
"As you wish, my lady. I recommend the noodles down at Bai Ying Street."
"Bleh, that's too spicy for my liking, and you know it!"
She pulled me forward, leading us out of the dark tunnel without a second thought.
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NEXT UPDATE: 27 May, Wednesday
A/N: Sorry for the delay. I had a lot of things that unfortunately happened during these last two weeks that caused me to not be able to upload at all. I explained it all in my Patre0n page, you can see the update there.
I should be good to go, though. here's to hoping nothing happens again for the next couple of weeks.
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Your support, even if it's only for a month or even a whole year, helps me dedicate more effort and resources to writing more of my work!
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Advanced Mastery Tier - 3 Advanced Chapters and more (Fully Implemented!)
Ultimate One Tier - 5 Advanced Chapters and much, much more (Fully Implemented!)
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