Sweet Air [Mature]

Kano's heart sank. He was afraid she'd ask that. He wanted to give her an answer, he really did. At that moment, he wanted it more than anything else. So many times, he'd seen his friends fight with their girlfriends, unable to make their feelings known. Each time, he'd chuckled with all the rest at it, sure that he wouldn't have such a problem when the time came. But somehow, this was the first time it had come to this question. He had spent all his time studying and little, if any time pursuing matters of the heart. Yet, there they were...

How did he feel about her? He searched and searched. Even for an answer like 'I think we're just friends' or 'I want you to leave me alone.' At least those would be answers. All he could find within was confusion and uncertainty. He'd never felt so hopelessly unattached to himself before. Part of him wanted more than anything to be anywhere but there, anywhere where he didn't have to give her an answer. However, wants were not always so. He was there. He did have to give an answer. And he was a man of truths. Though it pained him, there was nothing for it.

"Honestly..." he said slowly, sinking back onto his perch on the edge of the pool. "I... don't know."

Kano smiled. It wasn't one of jest or happiness, but of understanding. They were in the same boat, as the old Water Tribe saying went. And when one was in a boat with someone, headed for an uncertain goal, one did not simply sit back.

He looked over at Xi slowly, considering his words with care.

"It seems like we're both a little lost." he said, planting his elbows on his knees as he leaned forward, letting his hands hang between his legs. "We're both lost for our own truths. Maybe... if we work together... we can find them."

Kano smiled again, though it was one of happiness this time. Glee was more the accurate term, but it was a word he truly disliked, so... happiness it was. The two of them shared a long and powerful moment of locked gazes and then something intruded upon their privacy -- the sounds... of fire.

Kano stood slowly and looked around. The sound seemed to be coming from a large, square enclosure of massive doors. Kano'd seen the airbenders of the temple open and close it with ease.

"Do you hear that?" he said, looking around at Xi.

By the time Xi had turned back to him, Kano had already sent a blast of water from the fountain at the firebenders, throwing two of them against the stone wall before bringing the whip-like spout back around and landing a massive hit on a third. There were more, however, where that came from. And by then, the surprise of the sudden arrival of a waterbender and an airbender in their midst had pretty thoroughly worn thin.

His last target still reeling from his hit, he brought his water back around and formed a shield between himself and the remaining firebenders just in time to intercept a flurry of fiery attacks. Unfortunately for these guys, you had to be a lot hotter than that to defeat water with fire. Still, they weren't all total buffoons. One of them, the most grizzled one, was charging up some lightning by the looks of him. Kano looked over at Xi.

"Xi!" he said, nodding toward the man. "That one!"

He hardly doubted her skill or her reflexes. He said it more out of courtesy than anything. Even the best warriors occasionally overlooked something...

Kano, meanwhile, was busy on his own front. Three firebenders had decided to surround him. It was difficult, but he was slowly able to force them to move closer and closer together, placing icy barriers to steadily restrict their movements while disguising it as an attack. The three of them fired a single, powerful blast of fire at him.

Kano, however, was no fool. He threw himself onto his back on the ground briefly, just long enough for the blast to pass over and then sprang to his feet once more, bringing a water whip across all three of the firebenders in one great, fluid motion.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted the staggering lightningbender and grinned inwardly. He drew in the water he'd been working with into a ball and casting it at the man, encasing his head in a block of ice. Kano snorted. He then blasted a scorching stream of steam onto his own attackers...

Kano felt a blast of fire singe his shoulder as he drove a fist into the face of a firebender who got a little too close. They'd done away with all but a handful now. Unfortunately, that handful seemed to be the most experienced and powerful of them. They'd been able to organize without their greener comrades into cohesive attacks and had moved in on him. Apparently, they didn't consider him as much of a threat as Xi seemed to be.

"Ugh!" Kano grunted as another of his opponents avenged his comrade with a punch to Kano's face. A pair to the stomach followed it. And a kick to the chest wasn't far behind. As he flew backward, he couldn't help but hear that little voice in his head: Oh, man, c'mon! We're getting our ass handed to us!

He struggled to his feet, peering across the room at Xi. She was hard at work with a number of enemies. He only paid her attention for a fraction of a moment, but he saw clearly why the firebenders were giving her a wide birth for the moment. No doubt, they wanted to be rid of Kano so that they would be able to focus their attention on her in peace.

He turned his attention defiantly back upon his own opponents. They were smirking at him, clearly confident in their advantage as he straightened up. He looked around at them, lifting a single hand and wiping with two fingers the blood streaming slowly from the cut that had been opened above his eye by the punch they had landed.

"Did you know that wolves don't swim very well?" he said slowly, cracking his neck. The firebenders just exchanged a confused glance. "But ice? Now that's another story..."

With an almighty roar, he summoned all his energy to pull every last drop out of the fountain pool and bring it around himself, circling him in so many rings. Just as the firebenders began to move to pre-empt his strike, the water began to swiftly crystallize into ice. With a furious glare, the speed of the orbiting water kicking up the air around him and playing at his hair, he exploded the ice outward, sending shards in every direction. Most of the firebenders got hit. Two didn't make it. The Six Rings of Aowaka technique... It was furiously powerful, for those who could control it. It wasn't about power... it was about understanding water's mind. The only person who wasn't surrounded by icy spikes was Xi, aside from Kano himself, of course.

"It's called the Six Rings of Aowaka." Kano said through a groan of pain, limping over to a large block of stone sitting nearby and taking a seat, grasping his burnt shoulder. "It's one of the ultimate techniques of the Aowaka Style. There are twelve in all. Only members of my family know how to perform the techniques..."

He reached down with his injured arm and passed his fingers over one of the icy daggers stuck in the wall, liquefying it instantly and passing it up to his other hand so he could heal his burn. It was mild and probably wouldn't leave much of a scar, but it still stung like all hell. The instant the soothing water, imbued with his healing power touched his skin, the pain vanished, replaced by a sort of relaxing, cool feeling in his arm.

"I don't use them often." he said, his eyes closed as the soothing feeling overtook him. "They are quite taxing on the body. They drain the chakras of active energy and require an incredible degree of concentration. I had to control the paths of every last one of those daggers so they didn't hit anything I didn't want them to. It really takes it out of me."

Kano nodded as she explained her aversion to such attacks, known to Aowaka students as Soul Strikes, techniques which spend vast quantities of energy from within the user's body. It was a belief once that this energy came directly from the soul, the only thing known to the ancient Water Tribes to be powerful enough to fuel such powerful abilities. Since then, the wisdom has changed to a more thorough understanding of how the energy pools and flows in the body, but the name remained. At least, for those of the Aowaka lineage and it's school.

"I tend to avoid them as well." he said, testing the bruise on his chest with a few gentle presses. "But you can't always avoid using your most potent ability. If that fight had carried on much longer, there was a good chance one of us would have been seriously injured--Ack!" he winced as he accidentally tapped his side with his elbow.

A jolt of pain had shot through his ribs at the touch. Seemed those hits had done a bit more damage than he'd thought. He pulled his kimono off on one side and turned his healing water on the bruised rib. From the feel of it, it'd barely managed to avoid a break. Like his now healed shoulder, the rib experienced a wave of soothing sensation passing over it as he healed himself.

"They're dangerous, those techniques." he said, breathing calmly. He didn't want to stress the rib in any way until he was sure any damage done had been reversed. "More than one of my ancestors died because they spent too much of their energy on one of them. That includes the man who invented them."

Kano's jaw clenched. There were hurts that were still quite close, hurts he could not face in that moment. Draining one's chakras had many ill effects. Emotional instability was one of them. The memory of his death was... painful. Yet, without that sacrifice, where would their clan be? Where would the North be? After using such a technique, he didn't have the fortitude to defend himself from the pain of his losses. And so, he had to force himself away from them... for now.

"It... hasn't happened in a very... long time." the lie was like a stab to his heart. "But regardless, the Six Rings were useful here."

He looked around at the incapacitated and deceased firebenders. They didn't wear the uniform of the Fire Nation, nor any markings of any kind. Their simple garb of grays and pale, faded clothing made them unassuming, though they were hardly harmless. Kano stood and paced through the bodies, peering down at them, healing his minor scrapes, cuts, and bruises as he went, his kimono hanging off him oddly as he was technically only wearing half of it.

And then his gaze fell upon a grizzled man with an icicle sticking out of his chest. He knelt down beside the man's body and searched through his clothing, looking for anything, really. As he searched the inside of the man's jacket, his fingers brushed the corner of a folded piece of paper tucked away inside the man's inner pocket. He withdrew it and unfolded it, examining what was written within. As his eyes scanned to the end of the page, his lips pursed and he looked down at the man again, his eyes narrowing in disgust. He looked around at Xi.

"Here." he said, offering the paper to her, not rising from his kneeling position. "Read it."

Contents of the paper...:

"No." Kano said, straightening up. "This isn't your problem. You have a temple to defend."

He turned on his heel and marched out of the chamber, pulling the other half of his kimono back on. He turned out of the chamber and marched along a hallway toward the main pagoda. He'd just stepped out onto the foot of a stair which led up to the connecting bridge when a figure appeared seemingly out of nowhere to his right. He instantly snapped back into defensive mode and raised his hands, ready to fight.

"Whoa." said the man who had appeared, raising a hand to put him at ease. It was Gen. He was looking Kano over with concern. He could clearly see the lingering injuries from the fight... "What happened to you?"

Kano slowly lowered his arm, his breathing calming. His heart had jumped into panic mode, beating wildly when Gen had appeared. Now that the danger was gone, it was slow to calm itself. It made his chest ache.

"There was an attack in the chamber next to the Fountain of New Hopes." Kano said. "Firebenders."

"What?" Gen had shock in his eyes.

"I'm leaving the Western Air Temple." Kano said, looking between Gen and Xi. "I've a bounty on my head that won't leave many hunters disinterested."

"Leaving?" Gen said slowly. "Are you sure that's wise?"

"There's nothing else for it." Kano said, shaking his head. "If I don't leave, this entire place is under more threat than it already is. I don't need to tell you, Colonel, what types of people answer calls like this."

He took the paper from Xi and brandished it in front of Gen. Gen reached out and took the notice from him, examining it carefully.

"Ten-thousand in gold coins." Gen said slowly.

"That is the kind of money that brings down the wrath of the spirits on a place." Kano said. "I may be young, but I know what an unneeded complication looks like. For the Western Air Temple, I am just such a thing right now."

"Where would you go?" Gen asked, folding the paper absentmindedly.

"North." Kano said simply. "The walls of the Northern Water Tribe do not easily give way to mercenary bands."

"Great fortresses are not always as safe as they seem, my lord." Gen said, handing the folded notice back to Kano. "Those looking to collect on that offer need only look the part of northerners and the walls which have so well protected your people will easily give way. The palace of the Northern Chief is not much better. Here, the faces are known. The people, irreversibly marked. It would not be easy for these bounty hunters to repeat their feat today."

"My concern is not for my own safety." Kano said incredulously. "The people here have the Fire Nation on their threshold. What kind of ally would I be to them if I stayed here and brought more evil down upon them, evil which might take their lives all in the interest of finding me, one man? They set fire to the temple just to mask their actions!"

Gen exchanged a look with Xi briefly before turning his gaze back upon Kano.

"You have given much to these people, Chief Kanoei." he said slowly. "In your short time as chief, you have proven your good will toward these people in a great many ways. You have given your own time and soul to helping this place return to it's former glory. I thank you. And I would repay the favor with my life. As you have proven yourself my ally, I would gladly prove myself yours..."

Kano looked between the two of them, feeling as though he'd just been cornered by some unknown beast. He looked out across the great pagodas of the temple, thinking deeply about this situation.

"So I'm supposed to, what?" he said finally, his tone that of a defeated man. "Just sit here and wait for some assassin-turned-blade for hire to sneak in here and prize me away from you? People would get hurt. People might get killed. We don't know what kinds of characters are after this money." he brandished the folded paper again.

"If the day's events are any indication, it would seem that we are dealing with the sorts of people who would burn a temple to the ground without a second thought if enough money was involved." Gen said, folding his arms inside his baggy sleeves. "And knowing this, we have asked you to remain here."

Gen locked his serenely determined gaze upon Kano's uncertain one and refused to let it go. They stood there for a moment, their wills playing a game of endurance through their eyes until, finally, Kano realized he'd been defeated. With a clench of his jaw and a purse of his lips, he nodded curtly...

Kano sat on the edge of his bed hours later, staring across the room at his own reflection. Though he hadn't moved for quite some time, he was deep in thought. How could he handle this situation? How did other leaders deal with this confusion, this uncertainty?

He stood and walked slowly across the room toward the mirror, staring at the dark bruise on his bare chest, the last injury from the fight earlier he hadn't healed. He had shed his kimono the moment he got back to his room in the interest of changing into a light shirt he preferred to sleep in. Upon seeing his remaining injuries in the mirror, he'd set about healing them. However, when he got to the bruise on his chest, he found he couldn't bring himself to heal it. He just sat down and peered at the reflection, thinking about how much worse the wounds would be if the temple fell under attack. So few of those wounds would be his.

His gaze rose and he locked eyes with his reflection in much the same way Gen had earlier. All he saw in them was doubt, uncertainty... fear. Before he knew what he was doing or could stop himself, his fist slammed into his reflected face, shattering the mirror instantly. He hated that doubt, that fear, that uncertainty. He hated it and he hated himself for being weak to it. He should know what to do. He should know how to handle this... but he didn't. How was he going to lead his people?

Just as he reached the depths of his despair, however, he heard the door open behind him...

Kano looked around, turning slightly. It was Xi.

"I'm fine." Kano said, his tone curt yet mild.

He couldn't summon the will to pretend he was okay. In truth, this was still the aftermath of the Six Rings. He couldn't bring his emotions under control and his darkest fears were playing on his conscious mind like a poison. It had undoubtedly been the source of his lack of control with the mirror. The Aowaka Style's deepest secrets were ways of maintaining one's control even in a weakened state. It was a skill that took decades to master. In fact, the only man Kano knew who had accomplished complete emotional balance was his grandfather, Hakano.

"Can I do something for you?" he asked, raising his eyebrows as his knuckles slowly bled, leaving droplets of blood to fall on his bare feet.