A Joke
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Avatar: Awakened Gamer
🕑 Added 2022-05-05 10:19:36 +0000 UTCChapter 118
…
The white-haired man continued following him. Not even bothering to hide his presence.
What is he thinking? What are his intentions? Fun Shi didn't know, he didn't have the mind for these kinds of things. Never bothering to get involved in conflicts Lord Beifong didn’t need him for.
But there was a limit to everything and Fun Shi wasn’t a fool. He could see that the white-haired man knew something.
“If you're not going to stop following me, I will have to take care of you,” Fun Shi turned around, his gaze unfaltering as he stared at the white-haired man straight in the eyes. “This is the first and last warning I will give you. Don’t stick your nose in other people’s business.”
Tobirama stared back at him, he didn’t back down an inch either, instead, his eyes narrowed. Fun Shi could feel the hidden violence behind those eyes, violent people had a certain feeling about them, he had learned that the hard way in the slums.
“Take care of me?” asked the white-haired man rhetorically. “You mean to kill me, right? That’s quite something, I must say. However, I am not following you, we’re just going the same way.”
That was it, without a second thought, Fun Shi clenched his fist, and small rocks rose from the ground, forming into earth spikes. They shot like razors, cutting through the air in a piercing howl.
The white-haired man looked on calmly. He wasn’t a slouch either, as, with a wave of his hand, the trees around them turned into husks, and a wall of ice formed in front of him.
The man moved so fast that Fun Shi was barely able to see him, which brought a sense of nervousness crawling to his heart.
Fun Shi wasn’t dealing with just some thug, but an actual fighter, with likely a lot of experience and movements so fast it was hard to keep up.
But Fun Shi had expected something like this and was already onto his next move. As a bodyguard for the richest family in the Earth Kingdom, it was inevitable that one day he would meet an overwhelming opponent.
In a way, he had been preparing for this moment his whole life.
Rock rose from the ground, moving around like a tornado of earth, while at the same time forming a child and attack force around him. Fun Shi brought his hand back, drawing a bundle of rock from behind the white-haired man.
But as if he had eyes on the back of his head, the man waved his arms and the water around him moved like a whip cracking in the air, destroying any small rocks coming his way. Within an instant, the water had turned into tendrils that seemed to each have a mind of its own.
Fun Shi now understood another deciding factor in this battle, he had never fought a waterbender before while the white-haired man in front of him had likely fought many earthbenders. They were in the Earth Kingdom after all.
He crumbled the earth below his feet, creating a small shaking, but the white-haired man stood there like a statue, toiling together with the earth and not losing his balance at all.
“You will have to try better than that, I’m quite agile,” Tobirama added, the amusement on his eyes saying a thousand words.
Fun Shi clenched his teeth and crouched down, his fingers digging into the earth and he pulled up a giant cluster of earth and threw it at the white-haired man. But that was just a distraction, as spiked rocks the size of a finger were thrown after that.
Surprisingly the man didn’t dodge, and the giant cluster of rocks was cut in half and once again those whip-like water tentacles cut the big rock into many smaller pieces.
But that had been all a distraction, the big boulder wasn’t the real attack but the small spikes hidden in the dust created by the destruction of the boulder. Veins popped on Fun Shi’s forehead as he tried to remotely control the earth spikes, it was hard, and he could feel himself starting to get tired.
‘Die you bastard!’ Fun Shi yelled internally, doing precise earthbending he had never done before in his life. The pressure of the battle had pushed him a step further in something he hadn’t gotten better at in decades, despite training every day.
For a split second, Fun Shi could see that high level of earthbending that only certain legendary earthbenders like the King of Omashu achieved.
All that hope came crashing down, the image darkened once again as a wall of ice formed within an instant.
The wall of ice cracked as the stone spikes dug into it, but it didn’t break. For the first time in a long while, Fun Shi felt the weight of despair in his life.
The white-haired man in front of him wasn’t just some run-of-the-mill guy. The way he moved, his speed, his bending… everything…
Tobirama had a small, almost unnoticeable smirk on his face. His eyes dull, as if he had already read through Fun Shi’s mind and finds this exchange boring.
“You fight well,” he started. “But unlike earth which can be broken with blunt force, breaking the ice is better done by putting pressure on one point repeatedly. For example, if you had thrown your earth picks one after the other in a straight line you would have broken through.”
‘Is the white-haired was taking this as a joke? Playing around?’ Fun Shi could tell the truth but didn’t want to see it. ‘How can someone like this be human?’
Fun Shi shook his head, dismissing thoughts of cowardice from his mind.
No one in this world was unbeatable. One small mistake and his arrogant opponent would fall.
Swinging his fist, a large boulder rose and slammed toward the man.
Tobirama moved his hand vertically and clenched his fists, creating a thin, almost invisible blade of water. His water tentacles were no longer visible.
Fwish!
The boulder was cut into a hundred pieces in less than a second.
Fun Shi’s eyes widened as only the sound of air being cut rang in his ears, he instinctively moved to the side, the tree behind him was cut right in the middle and so were the other trees and the ground behind it.
Looking down, Fun Shi saw a thin line on the ground, as if a hot knife had gone through butter.
Fun Shi swallowed, his heart beating crazily fast. He would have died right then and there if he hadn't stepped to the side. Was it some miracle? Luck? Who knows, but he understood one thing, one wrong move and he would have been dead.
He wasn’t fighting against his opponent, no… the white-haired man had been playing around the whole time.
As the bodyguard of the Beifong Family he has had to deal with people, and trespassers, but they were mostly thugs.
In his over forty years of life, he never fought someone as skilled as the man he was facing right now. That control, turning water so thin like an invisible razor blade. He didn’t know any waterbender had ever done that before. Well, Fun Shi didn’t know any waterbenders, to begin with, but if every waterbender could do what the man in front of him could, then the Fire Nation would have been suing for peace a long time ago.
“If you decide to give up at any time. I will spare your life. Unlike what it might seem, killing people isn’t something I like doing,” said Tobirama, his eyes never changing even as he had almost killed him. As if that had been like talking about the weather, nothing important… and that made it even more terrifying.
Fun Shi swallowed, feeling his saliva go down his throat. His body has never felt so heavy, his hands twitch uncontrollably, and he couldn’t stop his body from shaking.
Felt the blood in his heart go still for a moment, as the water around Tobirama morphed, forming thin string-like blades that were invisible to the naked eye, but seemed to reflect the light of the sun.
Everywhere, shining threads appeared, if he took even one step forward Fun Shi saw dozens of threads were ready to cut him up.
It was now or never, the one choice he could make. Fun Shi wanted to surrender and run away from here, he felt his mouth go dry as if he was in a desert. The words he wanted to say next refused to come out of his throat. Were they words of bravery or giving up? Even Fun Shi didn’t know that.
This was an honorable way to die. But… Did he want this?
To die right here and now, his existence over, forever. People always preached about the Spirit World, but he never saw a spirit in his life. Where do humans go when they die? Eternal darkness? Was there a God? He doesn't know, the unknown bringing another washing dose of fear over him.
“I…” Fun Shi’s mind was running a thousand thoughts at once, his life flashing before his eyes. The bodyguard, the guy with no-name standing behind Lord Beifong, nobody. Did he want to die like that? “Fuck it. I… I give up.”
As soon as those words left his mouth, Fun Shi’s body slumped to the ground. His knees felt like noodles as if his spirit had left his body.
But for some reason, he felt liberated at the same time.
Looking toward Tobirama, he could tell, that today he had lived dishonorably, but he would still live to see another day.
***
-Sokka-
Seeing a grown man, twice his size, slump to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut off wasn’t something Sokka would ever get used to.
He didn’t want to kill the guy either, the man was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Not like he would get in his way. The man looked so scared like he would have a heart attack. Sokka was trying to test his waterbending and if it would level up faster while fighting somebody.
Killing people like that without a care in the world would eventually come to bite him, so it was better to kill as little as possible. Also, there’s the moral side of things, but Sokka doesn't remember the last time he tried to listen to that side of himself.
If he kills someone, he will be through with it. Eliminating the whole family and anyone close to them to the root, no cliche revenge stories against him, thank you.
Dying of some strong poison, decapitation, destruction of the brain, these all are things that would kill him, despite how hard my Gamer’s Body makes it to die of such things.
If humans were good at one thing, it would be killing other things, no matter how bigger or stronger. Humans always end up at the top of the food chain.
Putting his hands behind his back, Sokka used the inventory and took out a small sack of gold he had taken from robbing the Fire Nation.
Walking toward Fun Shi, Sokka could see the man was about to piss himself so he put a reassuring hand on his shoulder and handed him a sack of coins the size of his hand.
“From now on, Fun Shi is dead. Be your new self.” Sokka whispered to the man, and pinged him on his Map, to make sure he disappeared for good.
With that said, Sokka walked off. For a second there he contemplated whether Fun Shi would take this chance and try to attack him from the back. But he didn’t.
‘Wonder where he will end up in his life? Every time I spare someone’s life, it always brings that thought to the forefront of my mind. Do they become criminals or just live their life normally?’
Such thoughts didn’t plague his mind for long as he kept walking toward the Fire Nation camp nearby. With a couple of hand signs, he transformed into the perfect image of the guard, Fun Shi.
Sokka knew Lao Beifong was smart to send someone he trusted and that couldn’t just abandon him so easy to deal with these delicate situations.
But the perfect strategy doesn't exist and every plan has a weakness. Because while Fun Shi was known to be with the Beifong Family, so much that an insult to the Beifong Family would be the same as insulting him.
That also meant another thing, Fun Shi was very closely associated with the Beifong Family.
There was no perfect plan, and the bigger the plan, the bigger the collapse. Sokka wondered how things would play out from now on.
