Akashi forced a smile when he saw everyone in the rebel's camp bowing to him in respect.
Founder, did they call him that?
'Fuck you, Amon,' Akashi thought. 'The whole reason I pushed you to lead a rebellion was because I didn't want to get attention from it. Now, you've made me look like the big leader. Shit. Shit. I'm going to have to deal with a lot of headaches.'
'Amon knows that I hate it, so he did it deliberately to take his revenge on me. Amon, I never thought you were this petty.'
Looking at the admiration in their eyes, Akashi didn't deny the charges.
"You can call me that," he said, quite weakly, before exhaling a heavy sigh. "Now, where is Noatak?"
"I'll lead you to him." Said one of those in front.
As Akashi walked, he found people staring at him. Some even followed them out of curiosity.
It wasn't strange behavior, given how big the scale of the rebellion was.
Akashi stopped in front of a large tent, with two bulky earthbenders standing guard.
"Let him in," said a voice.
The guards stepped to the side.
Akashi walked into the tent.
"Didn't expect you to recognize me without looking," Akashi said, "and given how many people were out there."
"I expected your arrival," said Noatak, who was sitting at a map, reading it while giving Akashi his back.
"And besides, I could never forget how your blood feels," added the bloodbender.
"Tone it down. You make it sound gay with your wording." Akashi grumbled as he walked in and took an empty chair.
"Even after all of this time, you haven't changed," Noatak turned and faced Akashi.
"Yeah. People rarely change." Akashi leaned on the chair and relaxed his body.
"You don't look surprised by the stares people were giving you," Noatak said, "After all, your name carved itself into history without doing anything."
"Well, stupidity is stupidity. There's no need to get surprised," Akashi pretended not to be annoyed by that. "I wouldn't consider a petty revenge seriously."
"If I didn't know you any better, I would have believed you," replied Noatak, "No one is pettier than you."
"I'm a changed man," Akashi shrugged.
"Thought you said people don't change?" Noatak mocked.
"Well, you knew me when I was poor. Now I'm not," Akashi said. "Money changes people."
"Or reveals what they are," Noatak said. "Anyways, since you are the reason we are moving ahead of schedule, you have to take some credit."
Akashi clicked his tongue.
He would have to deal with so much annoyance when all of these rebels establish their country and name him the founder.
People would annoy him and start asking him questions—starting with Lin and not ending with Korra.
"Hey," Akashi smiled at Noatak, "Thank you by the way."
"Thought you would be annoyed?" Noatak raised an eyebrow.
"Thanks to you, I will be able to buy lands here more smoothly," Akashi nodded, "I'll turn it into potato land."
Noatak grimaced, then shook his head. "At least, Tarrlok will be happy."
"I think so too."
"He really likes your food. I should give it a try sometime."
"Well, let's leave the chit-chat for later. What's the plan for the war?" Akashi asked.
"We originally thought of getting weapons for our nonbenders combat force. As you know, the Earth Queen has acquired how to make planes—those exploded though. And other weapons. They are ahead of us in that regard. But when it comes to benders, morals, and fighting force, we're above that.
"However, it reached me lately that some of the neighboring states fear that I would get too greedy and attack their lands, so they aided the queen.
"But with me here, brother, and you, it shouldn't be trouble to get a thousand men down." Said Noatak.
"Thousand. That's barely a warm-up." Akashi waved his hand.
Noatak shook his head, "You may be strong in direct comforting, I testify for that. But I know your capabilities very well. At best, you would take a hundred before getting worn out, and any blow can kill you by then. What I was hoping for you to do was to stay behind and throw some of those explosive winds. You could get a few hundred or more with it, and aid the morals of our men."
Akashi chuckled.
It seemed that Amon was talking about level 30 Akashi.
But who was in front of him was level +80 Akashi.
And he was here to grind his levels on some army.
"Let's make a bet then." Akashi said, "That, with me standing in the front lines, I can get most of the kills."
Noatak looked at Akashi, confused. But he didn't show his emotions on his face. Instead, he thought that Akashi was bluffing. He knew that Akashi wasn't stupid or cocky, and he wouldn't say such a thing without purpose.
The only thing that came to mind was that Akashi was trying to get back at him—some petty revenge—by making Noatak back down.
Noatak decided to call out his bluff.
"Alright then." Noatak said, "Let's not bet on money then."
"What do you want to bet on?" Akashi asked.
Noatak looked at Akashi's hair.
That man changed his style.
He was dressed up in rich people's clothes, and his hair was quite long, shiny—clearly, he spent some time and money to look good.
"The winner will shave the loser's hair in front of everyone." Noatak said.
Akashi smiled, "Deal."
And even though Noatak knew that Akashi wouldn't be stupid enough to step into the front lines, he felt that he fell into a trap.
'He's bluffing,' Thought Noatak, 'he believes that I will forget about the bet after the war and getting busy with the funerals.'
-x-X-x-
For the next few days before the grand battle, Akashi spent time in the rebels camp—to make them familiar to him. He got to know them, their sad stories, and why they joined.
Apparently, most of the people weren't happy with the leadership of Ba Sing Se and with the average life. Some had been locked up in concentration camps. Some lost their families, and others had their children kidnapped and forced to join the Dai Lee.
Even though most didn't get locked up in concentration camps, they wanted change.
'Poor people. After this war is over, I'll help them. I'll hire them to farm the land and cook.' Akashi thought to himself.
And so, days passed.
Until it was the night before the grand attack.
Behind the wall, the army of the queen gathered, slowly positioning themselves. And above the walls, guards stood up, with massive boulders next to them. Those boulders would crush anyone thinking they could get near the wall.
Akashi, that night, stood with Noatak, looking at the scenery.
"We will attack at dawn." Said Noatak sadly.
"Yeah, I know." Akashi replied, "And what's wrong with you?"
"The other side is also well prepared," Noatak addressed his concern. "Even if we win, we will lose many. I find myself wondering, wouldn't it be better if we just killed the queen. If there is chaos after that, so what?"
"You're missing the whole point," Akashi laughed.
"What's so funny?" Noatak roared.
"At this point, we can just kill the queen," Akashi turned his face to Noatak, "And no chaos will happen. Can't you see this," Akashi pointed his thumb behind, to their army. "We're strong enough to do that. But these guys are only needed as standbys. We'll easily finish the job."
"You're too optimistic for a scheming man." Noatak said.
"True." Akashi replied, "but for a good reason."
The army behind them slowly started gathering, as the stars in the sky started fading, indicating that the dawn was getting nearer.
And just then, Akashi opened his system's window. It's a prolonged battle, after all.
The scale of this battle was hundreds times more than what he fought in the South Pole — a whole kingdom thriving in good weather was different from a part of army's tribe living in the North Pole.
It needed a more optimized build. Not to mention, he hadn't spent any skill points yet.