Playing Waterbending (Avatar: Last Aibender SI)

Ryuk looked at the last bounty hunter earthbender, who turned and started to escape.

Not going after him, Ryuk watched as the man recovered from the hellish pain, crawled, and ran away.

"Would it be a good idea to let him go? You should think more about it." Katara lifted her hands and pulled backward, causing the man to fall, holding his groin in pain and screaming. She didn't want to let him go, not after they had tried to murder her boyfriend and hand him over to the Fire Nation. Not only that, but she was already pissed off. Toph had gotten under her skin, and she needed some breathing room.

Ryuk put his hand on her back and said, "Let him go. I need someone to spread the tale so no one else dares to attack us in the future."

Toph shared her opinion. "The earthbenders are straightforward people. They're greedy, most of those who fight underground are. If you let one of them go, he'll gather more people and attack you."

Since she was 12, Toph had fought in underground tournaments. It had become her hobby after she started running away from home. Her routine was simple: escape, fight, have her parents send someone to get her, and then pretend to be a lost blind girl.

But thanks to her four years of traveling, the Blind Bandit had seen things most people never would in their whole lives.

Not only was her vision broad, but she also had no blind spot and could see beyond walls.

She had seen all kinds of people, and she knew one thing:

You can't trust greedy people not to backstab you.

Ryuk seemed like a nice guy, a fun one, and she didn't want her fun journey to end before it began.

Ryuk looked at Toph and sighed.

"Don't sigh at me. It's advice from the heart," she pouted.

"You don't know men," Ryuk smiled smugly.

Toph let out a mocking chuckle. "You'd be surprised by what I know. These greedy guys won't let you go. They'd risk their lives, and each of them will think, 'He spares some people. Why shouldn't I be the one he spares if I try my luck?'"

"I guess you've seen a lot. So tell me, what would these greedy people spend their money on?"

"Women, mostly," she replied.

Men spend money on women in different ways: gifts, houses, and all sorts of things to satisfy their desires.

She paused for a second. It might be about lust and not greed after all.

"Not with twisted balls," Ryuk replied.

He was certain no one would risk getting their balls twisted.

At best, that escaping man would send his worst enemies and most hated people to experience hell at Ryuk's hands.

Toph tried to argue back. "Family. You can still spend money on family. You have to feed them."

Ryuk shook his finger. "You can't have a family without your balls."

"Hmmm…" Toph lowered her head. "So it's all about balls in the end. But what if you're already married? You have nothing to lose."

Ryuk smiled and shook his head.

Although Toph's personality was quite hard to deal with, she was surprisingly easy to talk to.

Besides, she seemed to be the kind of straightforward person who spoke her mind. She wasn't sneaky and could be trusted.

Katara could also be trusted, and she was quite a caring woman.

"Okay, I believe we've forgotten about my brother," Katara said, covering her mouth.

-x-X-x-

It didn't take long for the rumors to start spreading that night. By morning, everyone knew what Ryuk had done to the bounty hunters, who happened to be the elites of underground earthbending tournaments.

The news didn't stop in this city; it spread fast.

By morning, Ryuk was the main topic.

Many people considered going after him: those deep in debt, those who desperately needed money, and those who believed that a portion of his bounty would make them rich for the rest of their lives without working.

They all reconsidered.

Even the idea of handing Ryuk over to a friendly city in the Earth Kingdom was reconsidered, since that guy could bend the nuts.

That day, Ryuk wasn't just the Coldest Nightmare of the Fire Nation.

He was the Nightmare of every man in the world.

An image of an evil waterbender doing unspeakable things.

From that day on, a new legend was born.

Mothers would scare their children, telling them that if they didn't study or do their chores, Ryuk would visit them. And seeing how his name made the adults sweat, the children would believe they might get hurt.

"Achoo…" Ryuk rubbed his nose while looking at Sokka, who was sitting in the corner of the motel room.

"Where were you last night?" Ryuk asked. He was standing at the motel door, and it just so happened that Sokka had spent the night there.

Sokka looked at Ryuk and sighed deeply. "She was married."

"Who?" Ryuk asked, not knowing what Sokka was talking about since he had spent all night making up with Katara. Toph had played on her nerves a lot, and contrary to what he had thought, he didn't end up using his hand. In fact, Katara had topped him, doing all the work and squeezing him dry.

The only problem was that Sokka was here, so his sister couldn't just walk out of his room. She was just that shy.

"The love of my life," Sokka said, his voice grim and his eyes swollen. "Can we talk inside your room?"

"Sorry, it's a mess," Ryuk replied.

"How messy can it be?" Sokka asked.

"Messy enough to traumatize you."

"Geez," he grimaced. "Anyway, that lady yesterday, she made me accompany her all day. But by the end, she told me she was married."

"Man, that's sad," Ryuk replied. "Did you do her?"

"No. What kind of monster do you think I am, to do that to someone's wife?" Sokka replied.

"I'm proud of you," said Ryuk. "Let's have some breakfast."

"I have no money, and I haven't hunted," Sokka replied.

"It's on me today. Eat as much as you want," Ryuk extended his hand to him.

"Thanks." Sokka took Ryuk's hand and stood up.

After they walked out, Katara snuck out of Ryuk's room.

-x-X-x-

The sun shone brightly, and I looked at the sky.

The feeling of empowerment provided by the full moon had gone away.

After resting last night, I had pondered a lot about my pre-bloodbending and how to get to the next level.

You might be wondering, "Ryuk, you have bounty hunters after you, and you dare to sleep in their city?"

I had a trick to sleep less. It didn't take me more than an hour of sleep to feel fresh.

Well, Katara and I shared a ritual before bed. We would heal each other's bodies from toxins. I would do this more for Katara since she had been training, and healing her brain allowed her to speed up the process, which turned her into an asset.

And you might be wondering, "What do you do when you don't sleep?"

Thankfully, Katara didn't sleep either.

As for what we did…

Of course, it's grinding.

But it's not about grinding levels.

Back to the main topic.

I had pondered a lot about yesterday.

Pre-bloodbending.

I hadn't been able to learn bloodbending, not because my Waterbending skill was lacking, but because my spiritual power was less than required. It made sense. The crazy woman who invented bloodbending could only do it when the moon was full. Other than that, only Amon's family could do it without the full moon. Not even Katara could do it without the full moon.

Now, I could think of two ways to fix that:

One, increase the Chi bending level, which would increase the Chi efficiency, get my bending response faster, and thus my spiritual power.

Two, I could look for methods to increase that power directly. Wan Shi Tong's library might have what I need.

That was one more reason to visit the library and have Toph with me—the main reason would be to know when the comet would strike.

I mean, it would allow me to think of the best course of action. If the comet had more than a year to descend, it means that the Avatar isn't meant to emerge yet.

If it has, let's say, 6 months, that would be an emergency to launch a full-scale attack on the Fire Nation.

I may even ask our cousin tribe in the North Pole to help them with learning metalbending faster.

"So, what are you thinking?" asked Sokka.

Currently, we were in a rented carriage heading to Omashu.

When you have money, it's easy to even have space for your tiger to travel with you. The driver was a very nice person and polite. When I asked him if I could bring my tiger, he smiled and waved his hand, saying it was fine.

Though, I thought I should try to heal him later. He'd been sweating while talking to me, which is a bad health indicator.

Toph was petting Lucy, while Katara was playing with a small water bead in the air, splitting it into the smallest beads as much as possible for her.

"Nothing much," I answered Sokka. "We may stop on the road."

Stopping on the road would give me occasional experience points. After all, traveling the kingdom on land was much different than using a flying bison.

I opened the system and looked at my accumulated experience points.

I had around 330,000 XP.

My Chi bending was at level 11.

'This will get me to level 13. In waterbending, that's grandmaster level. Let's see.'