Art By PumpkinHead | Tomura on Quotev! I LOVE how his scar looks. I love his hair, I love his build, his necklace, the tattoos, I love EVERYTHING.

Aang's mood couldn't have been better as they searched for a new place to get some training in. It had been a few days since they left Haru and his family. Aside from getting away from his 'competition' as he so thought, he was filled with a sense of... relief.

It had been difficult wrapping his head around the thought of war. It had been worse understanding the fact that it began a hundred years ago, and that his people were all gone. That coupled with having to see all of the damage it had done firsthand, going village by village on their way north.

Yet the most horrid thing he had to think about was how he, the Avatar, was supposed to fix it all. No matter what he came up with, it all ended with the fact that he was a kid with zero knowledge of how to do his job. The world was entrusting itself to a novice and he knew it.

But on that rig, in that town... he'd done something. His inexperienced self along with his friends (family at this point) had saved hundreds of people. And those people were now off saving more, a chain reaction that they began.

That wasn't just "Avatar" Aang that had helped in that. It was him, just the simple "Aang". It was his strengths Sokka utilized and he Ayaan signaled, not the Avatar. He, as an airbender, and he, as himself, is who they saw. Sure, they knew good and well that he was the Avatar with this great destiny over his head, but they didn't try to put more than he could handle on him.

They were looking at Aang, not a legacy he was supposed to fulfill. And even though he didn't know much about being the Avatar, he'd been able to help just the same.

Ending this war didn't seem hopeless anymore, even though he understood that his dream of peace was a long way away. But now, he could see it, that light at the end of this very long tunnel. They had a real chance, and it was growing larger as the days went on.

He had so much help, people who were so much stronger than him in ways he'd never be able to fathom. Katara was braver than him, Sokka was smarter, and then, there was the one that kept them all together: Ayaan. A brother he never knew he needed.

As a monk, Aang didn't quite understand the concept of family. He was sure that he had parents, but at the temple, everyone was your parent, your sibling, and your friend. There were no boundaries created by blood. His first true introduction to the term happened the moment he met the watertribe siblings.

What those terms meant was reinforced by Ayaan, every time he cared for him in the same way.

After Aang left the Southern Air Temple, finding out the truth of the genocide of his people, he'd been unspeakably sad. He was angry, lonely, and mourning. In those times, Katara would try to cheer him up by spending time with him, and Sokka would offer him food, though he'd decline gratefully. Yet the one comfort that stood out to him was Ayaan's.

He sat with him while he was sad, tucked him in when he fell asleep, and did other small things like bringing him his favorite fruits. Even on Kyoshi, he'd made sure to buy a small stock of egg custard tarts! All in all, Ayaan was always there for him to lean on. Silent, steady, and constant. He would perform small gestures, like patting his head or washing his clothes the same way he did Katara's or Sokka's.

But he never said a word, not one, in regard to his people. He never re-opened that wound by mentioning what they might have thought or 'even though they're gone'. He simply stayed close by, listened when he spoke, and acknowledged his pain. All of his gestures spoke for him.

'You are hurting now, and time may not ease that pain completely, but I'll always be here for you when you need me.'

If this is what having a brother was, he didn't think he could go back to not having such a tie. A family wasn't just a boundary; it was a home you could return to, no matter where it is. Aang couldn't be more thankful that he'd found one with them.

"They're amazing." Aang thought aloud. Though he could not shake, at the very back of his mind, that he'd had something like that before.

He only got that feeling when he was with Ayaan. Certain gestures felt... familiar, as if he'd seen or done them before. It was a crippling sense of déjà vu. What Yon had said before only deepened that fact for him.

<<During the time of the last Avatar, or maybe the one before him, The Asrani attempted to separate a blessed child from their spiritual tie.>>

<<Would they become like others? Normal hair, strength, and stuff like that?>>

<<After having something so connected to them ripped from their being, they die a slow, agonizing death.>>

That sense of wrongness that both of them felt, the heartache that shot through him at the mention of a death, and Ayaan's own livid expression as if it had happened to him personally... It brought up questions for Aang that he didn't know where to get the answers to.

'Have we met before? Did I know you in a life before mine? But how could I have known you if 'you' couldn't have been there? You're here, with me, right now.'

That just brought up yet another thing he'd heard Yon mention.

<<As to why you two feel so strongly about it... It may have something to do with one of your predecessors.>>

She hadn't said that or just him, as the Avatar. She'd said that for both him and Ayaan.

'Could a Blessed Child also be someone that reincarnates? No, it's different somehow but... could it be?'

The only way for him to know was for him to meet one of the Avatars before him. But how was he supposed to meet them? How would that even work? So much he had to know, learn, and do, and no information to go on. While it was frustrating, he was glad that he wasn't looking for them alone. He had people to help him through it which he was grateful for.

They had stopped to rest by a river for a while before heading off again. They were in a more forested part of the earth kingdom, and fire nation activity was high in the area. While revolts were happening and the villages were starting to take back their lands starting from the mining towns, it would still be a while before the effects reached where they were now.

'What would I have done if I'd woken up a hundred years later and hadn't been found by them?'

They had to be careful, they needed to be stronger, and thus...

"Come on, Aang. The break is now over." Ayaan stated. "It is time for our training with the weights."

'Maybe my tattoos wouldn't be trying to detach themselves from my aching body.'

"On my way..."

Ayaan's Hell Training began in earnest.

"My arms... my legs... " Sokka groaned, getting up from where he was sprawled on the ground himself. His weights weren't as large as Aang's but they were indeed larger than the ones he had before.

"My everything..." Katara was in just as bad a shape as her brother. She was certain she would be 'Muscle Katara' by the time they finished, and she wouldn't look as good as Miss Yon at all.

"Maybe if I just go this way—" Before Katara could make a break for it, she was picked up like a sac of potatoes "—Hey!"

"No." He said simply, but firmly. He didn't need to say anything more for her to understand it.

She's the one that went to the rig when she shouldn't have.

And they were the ones that let her. They helped her do that, and were, as a result, just as guilty.

Thousands of 'What if's ran through his head daily, and he just wished, for one moment, that they would stop making them come true. Why couldn't they stop worrying him like this? Sometimes, he felt like he was the only one who worried about things like this.

Sometimes, it felt like they didn't care that he was struggling with the incessant worry that maybe... maybe he wasn't enough to protect them.

Night after night it was the same hell for him.

What if something had happened to them and he wouldn't have known until he returned? What... what would he have done if that happened? He couldn't take that thought. That one fear had given him sleepless nights since they left, and Yon's warning hadn't helped at all.

In fact, his dreams had been getting more vivid and... confusing since he saw that wretched thing that symbolized the Asrani scum.

'Who's voice do I keep hearing...? Who's calling to me?'

It wasn't the lady who sang a lullaby for him every night beneath every phase of the moon. It wasn't the man whose laughter eased his worries when he stood by any form of water.

It was rage. It was a wave of pure anger at the world he could feel rush through his veins so vividly it terrified him. But the moment it sensed him there, it vanished and was replaced with a sense of overwhelming longing.

That's when he'd hear it, that voice. It was distant as if so far away only a whisper could be heard.

'In my dreams, someone I don't know keeps appearing.'

It was a man with hair just as silver as his own. He couldn't discern any other feature of him but one.

'His eyes...'

They were so dark. There was nothing but a void within their eyes, but towards him, it wasn't emptiness. No... something that should have been there was...

'Missing.'

Something in that being was missing, too.

This person kept saying the same thing, in the same desperate way, and reached out for him every other night when his worries got the best of him and nightmares plagued every minute of his rest.

' "Please find me again." '

It left Ayaan waking in a cold sweat as if he kept reliving something horrible happening. He'd had enough of that with his mother's death, he didn't need something new weighing on him. He wasn't the type to linger on something he couldn't understand, but this...

'I feel like I'm getting clues to what's missing, and it's a lot bigger than just not understanding my own waterbending.'

It was something a lot bigger than that. And... that scared him.

He wasn't ready to learn something so massive, he couldn't handle more problems than the three gremlins that would have given him gray hair if his hair wasn't already silver. They kept getting themselves into troublesome situations and dragging him into them. Yes, this was what he signed up for when he joined them on this journey. He knew it was going to be dangerous.

He just thought the danger was going to be coming from the enemy, not them waltzing into it themselves.

Ayaan had a horrid feeling that this pattern was going to continue, so, he put all of his sincerity into training them. He sincerely created training for them to improve through sheer suffering.

And maybe drowning himself in training would relieve him of thinking about weird dreams and his crippling déjà vu. Aang wasn't the only one that noticed that.

"I will worry about that later. Now, it is time for training."

Just as Ayaan had promised, Training had become hell on earth for them. It was no drastic change, no, it was the intensity that increased within their regular training. It was a lot harder to best Ayaan in battle, it was harder to track him during hunting. It was harder, period. And to top it all off? They had to keep wearing the weights for a period of time during the day, every day, for the foreseeable future.

How was it that training could be this difficult?! They didn't understand how it could get harder than it was before! And these stupid weights...! Did they get bigger?! How many did he even buy?! When they trained in their awareness, which for some reason Ayaan was especially strict about, it was like the traps he set were alive with how accurately they got them.

On top of that, they had been doing an increasingly rigorous version of their weight training. They would do everything with the weights on from sunrise until the afternoon. Of course, Ayaan wasn't exempt from this. He had heavier weights and a lot more restrictions compared to them.

They did basic things such as exercises and regular things throughout the day. They would hunt and gather when they could. After they got through with that, they were able to take off the weights.

If you believe this was a break, that was a damn lie. What break? What was that? After leaving the mining towns, Ayaan's demonic regiment beat the meaning of that term out of them.

The moment the weights came off was when battle training would begin.

The three of them against Him.

And Ayaan made sure to never go easy on them. Ever. What was 'easy'? Something you can eat?

They were truly wondering if this was training or punishment. At one point, they outright asked him. His response?

"For me, it is just training. You, however, can see it however you wish to."

Punishment it was then...

The silver-haired male did not use his spear when battling them. He solely practiced hand-to-hand with them, helping them build their evasive skills, blocking, and wanting them to pinpoint openings. One would think that this was being merciful, and in a way, it was.

Except for the fact that just behind his spear art, he was best at hand-to-hand. When it came to strength and stamina, there was no one that could best Ayaan. He was a battle beast, a complete monster.

'And apparently, a sadist when angry.'

"Hah!" Sokka burst forward, lowering his stance to the ground as he dodged what would have been a devastating blow to his torso. Using Ayaan's momentum, he aimed his palm-opened fist toward his brother's strong legs. "Take this, bro!" The hit landed, much to Sokka's internal delight. Ayaan was sent into the air by his own speed, but Sokka couldn't act his success yet.

Ayaan was quick to recover, easily transitioning from a tumble to a flip as he was back on his feet within a split second. Sokka had hoped that he'd be down for just a bit longer for the grand set-up of his plan, but he felt a lot better when he saw the proud smile on his brother's face.

This was one of the openings that Ayaan had left for him to get, and he took it effectively. Ayaan was very proud of his progress. Sokka saw it and was tempted to do a happy dance in celebration, but it was not over yet.

<<Never give the enemy time to settle. Attack, then attack more. Don't allow them to move, to think, or even breathe in their favor. Build your stamina, build your strength, build your technique, and build your resolve.>>

Ayaan had taught them to be relentless.

"YAH!" Katara followed up on her brother's attack, pouncing on him in his moment of recovery. While her waterbending had once again stagnated, much to her frustration, her battle technique had improved by leaps and bounds. Maybe it was due to being involved in a real battle on the rig and almost fumbling, but she was a lot more cautious than she had been before.

Ayaan was very pleased with that fact, showing such on his face as he evaded her attacks. They were strong, too, a homage to all of the chores she'd done growing up. Katara had a talent for close combat, it seemed, and Ayaan was going to bring that to the forefront as best he could.

<<I will fight you just above your level to keep you from stagnating in improvement. The moment you do, the difficulty will increase. To get a hit on me, you must be at whatever level I'm using. I will create an opening for you to find until you improve. If you don't see one, make one.>>

"Aang, Tag Team!" Katara called out, and it was then that Ayaan noticed one young Avatar coming up from a blind spot he'd purposely left unguarded.

"Got it!" The airbender swooped in with his speed, surprising the larger male for a moment. The weight training was doing wonders for Aang, who had since become faster when they were removed. This was a 'no bending, no weapons' spar, however, so he too was going at Ayaan hand-to-hand.

It had been a nightmare instilling any form of attack into his usually evasive and defensive way of fighting. It was a task to get him comfortable with even sparring like this. But they had been working at it for more than a few months now, and Aang had been a steady learner. Ayaan was proud of his maturity.

Since he spent most of his time with Katara, they worked together well. While he sometimes felt like pointing his spear at the kid, he was happy they had such synergy. When they battled like this, they complimented each other's style. They split his attention, aiming for any openings the other created. He was proud of both of them for doing so well.

'Though I still feel the need to point my spear at him sometimes.'

"Sneak..." Sokka came in from a blind spot, landing a solid hit on Ayaan for the second time. Katara and Aang hadn't been trying to defeat him, they were leading him into a trap with all three of them. "ATTACK!"

<<Your goal in this long-term training can be put very simply...>>

But Ayaan was a smart foe with a sixth sense out of this world. He dodged once again, sliding to the ground to a point it almost looked like he was doing a split. The attack meant for him ended up hitting Katara instead, and her momentum backfired as she, in turn, crashed into Aang. They ended up in a pile of soreness, recovering only to find an amused yet delighted Ayaan standing above them.

"You've all improved." He said. "Training tomorrow will be harder."

"My arrow will fall off... I'll be arrowless..."

"This is the road to manliness... But my arms... My legs..."

"My everything..."

While on the outside they physically and vocally groaned in both trepidation and absolute agony, internally they cheered. The fact that he said that meant something greater than just more pain. It was a symbol of their betterment.

It was the sign that they were closer to that one moment.

It was a sign that they could reach the end of their training.

When was that? Ayaan put it simply for them.

<<The moment I must take you seriously is the moment I no longer need to train you.>>

"Up," Ayaan effortlessly lifted them all, a perfect showcase of his impressive strength, "We must put the weights back on until sunset."

They had hope that, one day, they'd be able to do it, but...

"NoOoOoOo..."

They could have sworn there was a sadistic smile on his face as he responded, "Yes."

That day was in the very, very distant future.

On a branch not far away was a very colorful sparrowkeet with a message holder on his leg, waiting patiently for the opportunity to deliver his message from the three phantoms not far behind them.

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