Chapter 260: One Last Regret (2)
What sets one event from the other in an infinite pool of possibilities are the actions of living beings who don't know any better.
In one possibility, a passing comet grants Ozai unbelievable strength, which helps him dominate the Avatar.
In another, hope vanishes from people's hearts and the world for good since Aang is never discovered.
A stream of possibility exists where Aang wakes up years after Ozai goes with his plans. A possibility joyous of Aang's despair and suffering. He finds himself alone. A world where Ozai is a God and people do not know of him.
A world where spirits hunt him.
But all these possibilities pale compared to one possibility.
An event that Aang did not witness in his lifetime. His source of only and the greatest regret.
"Welcome!" The aged Fire Lord Sozin welcomes the crowd of Airbenders from the four corners of the world with a beaming smile. He walks up to the group of old monks and priestesses before bowing slightly in respect. The Gates of Azulon is still not constructed, but this place could only be the—
'Fire Nation Capital.' Aang gapes and looks around from side to side. He sees many familiar faces. Among them is Monk Gyatso standing ahead with other monks who reciprocate Sozin's
Respectful demeanor.
'Where am I?'
Aang zones out. He cannot remember the last thing he was doing, but it feels like something too important to forget—'Wait... I remember now. I was annoyed with the monks for not letting me play air scooter. Just because I'm the Avatar...'
Aang looks around as he buries his indignations for later.
'So this is the preparations for Roku's Festival. I wonder if Roku used to have fun with his friends.' The boy looks around the port as Sozin leads everyone to the designated location where the Airbenders will begin the festival by meditation for an hour.
Next, everything happens too quickly.
They sit for a moment and close their eyes. The airbenders—young and old—control their breathing and fall into their meditative trance only to hear a loud command.
"Attack!"
Fire and arrows rain down on the nomads from all sides. Archers on the surrounding hills aim for the children indifferently while firebenders set the area on fire!
"Huh?!"
Aang's eyes snap open as an arrow whizzes past him.
*Khcch*
He looks back and sees the arrow sticking into the eye socket of his training buddy, who collapses on the scorched ground with a puddle of blood forming around his head.
Aang looks around. He is too shocked to care for the monks rushing in his direction.
He sees his brothers and sisters getting slaughtered and is quickly brought to reality as a stray arrow flies into his thigh.
"Khuk!"
Aang stumbles down involuntarily. The smell of smoke and blood fills his senses, and his eyes widen in pain. A drop of cold sweat drips down his shaved head as he hears Gyatso's shout, but it is too hard to discern anything in this carnage.
*Fwip*
An arrow whistles and stabs Aang's chest. He looks down over his bloodied habit. It's at this time that Gyatso reaches and holds him close.
"Aang! Stay with me! You'll survive! I promis—"
Aang's eyes widen in despair as an arrow pierces the back of Gyatso's neck and sticks out of his mouth.
'No!'
Aang's mind screams.
He wants to scream out loud, but his body refuses.
Memories fill his mind.
Gyatso is dead.
Aang's gaze turns hollow as he perceives destruction around him.
His heart is filled with regret as all of it vanishes away.
The—
"End."
Aang's eyes snap open at the familiar voice. He looks around in the darkness. However, as he blinks again, he is back in the port.
He looks around in confusion.
If he can't remember anything, it must not be significant, right?
'Wait... I remember now. I was annoyed with the monks for not letting me play air scooter. Just because I'm the Avatar...'
---
"What happened here?" Sokka whispers, and others are equally dumbfounded. It was already challenging to convince the captain to continue on the set course and reach Bhanti Island. Carrying them would have been impossible, so Sokka and Suki chose to explore while Azula, Jin, and Yue stood guard on the anchored ship.
Azula should be enough to deter the captain and other soldiers from doing anything stupid out of fear of the unknown.
The two seasoned warriors were not empty-handed. The warship itself had many weapons for the two to choose from.
"What happened is," Suki grunts, "Zuko was right, and we all stepped on a spiritual landmine!" She gazes at the ground of a stone temple littered with stormbenders.
"That much is clear," Sokka rolls his eyes and looks around, "If something happened to Nik then I can kiss Rena goodbye which is not happening!"
"Isn't Nik your friend? Show some care for him, too!"
"Believe me, if we wore the opposite boots, Nik would care about you girls more than me," Sokka shoots back. "You girls will carry our next generation while we, guys, will carry the next bill in a tavern. Take a guess and see what's important."
Suki narrows her eyes. She somehow feels insulted and complimented at the same time.
'It's probably his tone,' She clicks her tongue internally and chooses not to give this discussion any more heat before it becomes an argument.
"Besides, we should try not to speak too much."
"What do you mean?"
Sokka and Suki enter the shrine and gaze at the broken pillars. The temple is well-maintained despite its dusty exterior.
"All of them were in bad moods and probably argued. Nik didn't have any immediate argument, but he was sour for sure. We never know what a spirit uses. This time it may just be one's foul mouth that gets them in trouble."
"I think it's a little more complicated than that," Suki replies. "At the risk of sounding like the Ty Sisters, their aura felt off."
"Hah! That sounds even dumber from someone other than those sisters!" Sokka chuckles.
"Were you always an ass or did Rena contribute?"
Sokka tosses an unamused look toward Suki and sighs, "Sorry. I'm just feeling a little unnerved and worried. But this isn't the first time we encountered a problem of this nature. I just hope this isn't our last."
Sokka's instincts force him to accept the reality of the situation. While others would feel deterred from following Nik after so many issues he seems to encounter... he understands that death is an eventual step in life. Death will seek them no matter where they live, so the fear of death should not stop them from making a decision. If anything, death should only deter them from being foolish, not courageous.
Suki nods grimly.
The two explore the temple cautiously but find nothing. There is another group of unconscious people aside from the stormbenders that are dressed similarly to the fire sage on the temple's lower floor, but everything else isn't spiritually weird.
"Hey, there's a way out from here," Suki discovers traces of disturbance leading through a wall.
A densely packed vegetative path reveals itself once the stone wall drags open slowly as the two warriors push it simultaneously. The duo trek through the pseudo-grotto and work their way up the slope.
The vegetation grows sparse the more they walk until they are near the top of a hill which might be the tallest peak on the only mountain range of the island where the temple is built.
What they saw on the mountain peak did not please Suki and Sokka in the slightest—a 'meditating' Aang sitting near unconscious Hina and Niwanl.
And a cloaked individual perched on a small rock near the Avatar.
Suki and Sokka instantly ready their sword and spear.
"Who are you?" Sokka questions fiercely.
One thing the two did not expect was an interactive spirit as the cloaked individual chuckles.
"Redemption slays me, so does self-satisfaction; I'm always a whisper away, but measured when one dies. O' warriors, do pray tell, what am I?"
Sokka and Suki look at each other for a moment.
Suki sighs softly and then grips her sword harder. She almost charges the spirit when Sokka gestures for her to stop with a thoughtful expression.
"Redemption is your slayer... so is self-satisfaction. Always a whisper away, but measured in time of death..."
The Chieftain exhales a long, exhausting sigh.
"Man am I familiar with you."
His words cause the spirit to cackle gleefully.
There is a reason why Sokka and others are the way they are. There is something he has faced in his long tenure as a chieftain and made peace with just like others.
The only thing that the five survivors of the spirit's mischief have experienced due to helplessness or the merit of their wrong decisions.
"You're—"
---
He can finally hear Mokshi.
'For some reason, I previously couldn't. It's not like I'm completely immune to other spirits. While Koh could not steal my face, Reaper did devour me. So what caused me to fall into another spirit's 'mischief' this time?'
Nik observes his surroundings.
He is in a beautiful room. Four lamps covered by pink lids illuminate the area in a sensual glow. Translucent crimson curtains cover the four sides of the bed, on which lie several 'instruments.'
His eyes darken as he looks at himself.
He feels short and frail. A strip of blue cloth covers his torso in an x-shaped fashion, leaving his skinny abdomen and flat pecs bare while sashaying around his neck. A golden piercing on his navel reflects the pink light in the room.
His lips quiver, and he locates the nearest mirror to observe himself: a small scar near the corner of his right eyebrow, a bastardized heart tattoo above the flat of his cock.
A pair of baggy blue harem trousers cover his legs and reveal everything underneath them.
The violet irides of his eyes are the only thing that assures Nik that he wasn't dreaming before this moment. But the rest almost made him throw up again. It's not the clothes, tattoos, piercing, or the room. It's not even the nightmarish memories. Nothing about his past bothered him, but he still feels irritated.
Why?
External memories threaten to overcome his senses, but Nik holds his ground. His violet pupils exude a hazy glow as he feels Mokshi's reluctance clearer than ever.
'You think this is my fault?'
Instead of snapping back at Mokshi, Nik carefully considers his bonded spirit's intent.
Mokshi never screws around with him. Aside from its lack of will to communicate directly, it is willing to convey information in every other manner, including the more intimate energy bending.
'What spirit is this? Can we break this illusion?'
His question meets rich denial.
Before he can question the 'Why?', the door to his chamber opens. Nik's head whip in the direction of the entrance. That's where his nightmares began every day when he worked in the Pink District—the Entrance.
His customers sauntered up to him. All of them high-paying meant that they committed many atrocious deeds to reach their position of wealth and lacked compassion.
This time he saw three familiar faces.
Triplets.
Innately wavy and luscious locks of gold flow down on their backs. Three sets of beautiful ruby eyes light up in delight the instant they see him. Their plump and pink lips smirk widely in joy, and their generous bosom jiggles as they jog to him with wide eyes.
"Nik~! Are you ready?! See? We took Esta's permission and purchased an elixir from her, too! So sorry for the last time! I got excited and didn't think of healing your toes."
She lowers her head and looks up with coy, upturned eyes. "Will you forgive me?"
"Stupid, that's why I told you that branding the flesh is simpler," the one on the right smiles fondly and shakes her head.
"Eh, whatever way is acceptable," the one on the left drawls with a lazy smirk. "As long as our dear Nik get our names correct. Then we can have the nights of our lives."
"So?" The one in the middle reaches out to stroke his chest. "Forgive me?"
Nik smiles gently. His face lacks the battle-weary features he has grown into, and his body lacks the same physical strength. But his mindset cannot be more different.
No, in fact, this is the same night he tries to escape with Cresta before he was betrayed a final time by whom he considered his mother for his actual 'mother'—Esta.
"Ishtra," Nik smiles and reaches out to stroke her cheek.
"You got my name right—" Before the psychotic woman could squeak joyfully, Nik cuts her off.
"I will not forgive you."
His hand digs into her face before he smashes her head into Fretra to the right.
Without waiting, Nik grabs Aphrotra by her throat. His violet eyes glimmer in a cold light as the remaining two sisters reel from shock.
"Cease this illusion at once," Nik demands, but nothing changes.
The girl in his hand struggles to free herself from his grip. Even if he wasn't startlingly strong, the three girls were nothing to him.
He feared them once. He then came to loathe them.
Now?
Nothing.
Right?
Wrong.
His hate burst out with no one to hold him back.
The primordial spirit of freedom becomes his witness as he brutally chokes the life out of one girl before killing the rest by stomping on their heads.
His own bare feet fractures in the process, but he does not stop even when their skulls cave in. The sound of the brutal performance long attracted attention, and the only one allowed to touch him in this establishment aside from the customers arrived at the room after a few minutes.
"Nik, what the hell—" The muscular picture of perfection comes to a slow stop as she looks at the blood-stained 'son' of hers and frowns. The next second, her palm flies out alongside her thundering voice that Nik has never heard before!
"Who are you?"
'Is that a chi on her hands?' Nik blinks in a similar surprise before Esta squashes his head, and darkness overcomes his gaze.
"What was that?" Nik questions the moment he understands things are different than his initial assessment.
This is no illusion.
And that's why Mokshi refuted the notion of breaking the illusion since it wasn't one in the first place!
A mischievous chuckle replies to him instead of Mokshi.
"I suppose my skills are limited when working on Mokshi and its host. To think a fickle mortal with some measure of spirituality will sense my presence..."
Nik looks around. He can still feel his body, but he finds nothing.
"I'm not something you can see here, Dear Traveler. I'm a sensation that you hide constantly. Although, things would have been better if I could control your memories while you traveled in this life."
"Great, another spirit who says a whole lot of nothing, is that it?" Nik narrows his eyes and tries to connect with Mokshi. But something stops him—A whisper.
It's like a soft gale grazing over him.
Do you really want to do this? Are you sure you won't—
"Redemption slays me, and so does self-satisfaction; I'm always a whisper away, but measured when one dies. O' traveler, do pray tell, what am I?"
Nik realizes the identity of the spirit instantly.
He realizes the source of his irritation. It's not something Mokshi can ever stop him from feeling. It's the reason why he felt like lashing out at Ty Lee. No, it's the reason why everyone felt like lashing out at each other during the whole ride.
The more you suppress it, the worse it festers.
Once it blooms, it cripples.
"You're..." Nik sighs softly.
—Regret.
***
Alternate Title: Worst Situations; The Massacre of the Air Nomads; Ground Filled with Bodies; The Dark Spirit of Mischief; Return to Whoreville; The Triplets of Nightmare; No Forgiveness; Hidden Hate; Deeper Regret; The Paradox of Freedom Countered—One's Own Chains
***
A/N: I'm a little happy that I finally get to work a little on Esta. And yes... I was scrambling for names, so the triplets were named after the three goddesses of beauty and love from Danmachi.
***
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