[Take your gifts, young one.]
A voice.
[Take your gifts and live freely this time…]
My eyes opened.
Where am I?
The floor is cold, but my body isn't. It's lukewarm. Not hot. Average. Like I had just stepped outside of my house.
Something cold.
Iron.
Iron on my chest. It felt like it weighed a thousand kilograms, but oddly it also felt manageable. It was tough, I couldn't bend or change it in any way. Like a law of nature, resisting against any change.
I don't know how I knew. I just did. It felt like a burden on something on a much deeper level than just my body…
I look down
A ring attached to an iron beat chain around my neck. Silver, or at least looking like silver. It glowed dimly in the light, shimmering like. Twilight vampire in the sun.
My clothes…?
Weren't there.
I had memories.
Not memories.
Knowledge.
My name.
Yuta.
How to speak and write.
Where I am…
And finally…
Memories.
Last to arrive, the memories of a world I had lived in.
The architecture around me, the world sprawling…
It was familiar. I knew this place.
It was the Western Air Temple.
From ATLA. Avatar the Last Airbender.
An incredible show.
How did I get here?
Why am I so calm about this development?
It feels almost novelesque.
Or rather- Fanfictionesque.
Yuta…
Yuta Something.
The second name is fuzzy.
Like a memory that I haven't completely recalled. Like something I studied for ages ago, only to vaguely remember during the exam.
I looked down.
First I need clothes.
No. Before even that, food.
And water.
I look around.
A plant, no, a fungi.
It had a vibrant yellow-orange colour and a shelf-like growth pattern, rising from the oak of a nearby building.
Laetiporus Sulphureus. Edible. May cause mild allergic reactions.
How did I know that?
It doesn't matter.
I know it's true. It's true. Something in my mind was so very sure of that fact that I couldn't stop myself from picking it up and inspecting it.
The more I looked, the more sure I was that it was an edible mushroom.
And as I walked I spotted more and more.
Grown here and there were medicinal herbs, edible plants, everything.
Even if the air nomads were gone for almost a century- well assuming from how rusted and old the fire nation armour here is, they were vegetarians.
They ate what they grew and since nobody was here to keep cultivating the crops, they either died out or grew uncontrollably.
Its a haven of resources.
But next is water.
I turn and look over the sheer cliff edge.
There were clouds below me obscuring my vision.
I'm not going to check for water down there. That would be idiotic.
I'd rather not recreate the Kratos falling meme.
I frowned. I need water. Both for hygiene and for drinking. Disease is the worst thing I could get, I need to minimize the chance of me getting one, through regular showers and cleaning myself.
I pause.
I hear something.
Running water.
I close my eyes and focus.
I try to focus as hard as I can but I can't make out where the water is coming from.
Then I felt fire. No, heat. I felt heat originating from inside my body rush to my ears and it became crystal clear.
Woah.
Is this…
Chi?
I remember ATLA having a power system like that. Does that mean I'm a bender?
I'm not sure…
I haven't watched it in years. I got no clue if its a bender exclusive or not.
The circus girl could do that chi blocking thing and temporarily disable people, right? She could do it with normal humans too, which means normal humans could also probably control Chi to some degree…
Or need Chi in order to move…
I just don't know exactly…
I sigh and just leave it for later. I'll think about it after I find the water source.
I walk inside the buildings and through a twisting corridor, I find a small waterfall.
The water looks clean to the touch. It's also flowing which means that it's somewhat clean.
It was good enough.
I think. That strange feeling of knowing came up again, it was good enough.
I bring my hands over and cup some water before drinking.
Yeah, definitely not bad. Long term it's a bit iffy, but for now it works and that's good enough.
For now that is.
I stare at my reflection.
Dark circles under my eyes, near permanent in nature, dead gloomy black eyes, clear white skin and black medium length straight hair.
The look… Reminded me of someone.
Someone, I didn't exactly know who, but someone…
It was so familiar.
Handsome though, at the very least, so that's a plus.
I fill up on water, drinking as much as I could before going back outside.
How do I get out?
I could climb the walls.
This body is a bit weaker than my body from before, from what I could tell.
But that might be a product of age.
I'm definitely much younger than when I was on Earth. From early twenties to early teens.
Maybe fourteen?
A big jump, but considering I don't have to go to school this time, maybe not the worst of things.
But I do have to deal with puberty again though, so maybe it's not the best thing either…
It's got pros and cons, but managing to edge out a few extra years on my total lifespan isn't the worst thing in the world.
I'd say it's worth it.
But that's beside the point. How the hell do I get out of here?
From what I remember, Toph managed to earthbend everyone else here whilst Aang flew on his staff…
But I genuinely have no clue how to get out of here without bending.
This place was designed for Airbenders in mind, not people like me…
Fire Nation soldiers got here though, how did they do that?
Probably the jet technique shown in the series. Slowed the descent long enough to give them time and land properly.
These corpses had long since rotted.
I took some fabric that wasn't entirely burnt to ashes, trousers. No underwear but thats fine for now. Attacks to the chest were more frequent than legs, so I couldn't find any shirts. I was stuck with a dull unclean ash covered baggy pants, loosely held onto me with a scrap of red fabric around my waist.
I'll have to clean those later.
Preferably in a source of water unrelated to my drinking water.
There should be a place. This temple was made to sustain life that's no longer here.
I close my eyes.
I had knowledge, I don't know where I got it from though.
I had memories but they felt detached. Information without a cause.
I think back.
Those words I first heard when I awoke.
I have some kind of gift. Following fanfiction logic, I probably got placed here by a ROB…
Why?
They said to live freely, why?
My life wasn't bad enough for me to be told that.
I mean, I had just stepped into the workforce after finishing university, I should be a bright kid with a bright future but…
"Huh…?" The first real words I spoke since I awoke. A damp wetness drizzled down my cheeks down towards my chin before dripping onto the floor beneath me, "Why am I crying…?"
I can't remember.
Something happened.
Something…
Something bad. Worse than bad. Something atrocious happened. And I can't remember.
Any time I try to remember, I only have tears.
That's… Horrifying.
Something so absolutely mind-boggling horrible happened, and I don't even remember it. Why don't I remember it?
Something so tragic a ROB took pity on me and told me to live freely.
Just what exactly happened?
I stop thinking about it. My tears eventually dried up.
My necklace got heavier. The tiniest fraction of a percentage heavier. I must be a bit weak from all the crying…
"Grown ass man…" I chuckle to myself. Except I'm a kid right now. Maybe I could afford to be a bit childish.
But crying without knowing why? Well my dad would probably smack me upside the head and tell me they'd give me something to cry about.
A chill runs down my spine.
I pause.
Behind me.
There's nothing there.
No, I could feel it. Shifting and warping, changing and bending the light. I focused. It only got clearer.
What I thought was Chi funneled into my eyes as I saw it take form.
A grotesque amalgam of faces in a giant ball of sickly gray flesh. Three large fat hands sprouting from the bottom, holding the creature up like a tripod.
An enormous Fire Nation Helmet placed upon its form, enveloping the chimera.
A wide toothy mouth began to open, like Pac-Man, the ball of faces split in half. A long slimy tongue lay there, before unfurling out onto the floor.
A deafening roar attacked my ear drums as I paused in fear.
What is that…?
Knowledge.
It came to me and I knew.
It's a Spirit. The spirits of the fire nation soldiers who died with regrets and never got to pass on.
Like the body, the spirit rots when exposed to impurities. Fear, resentment, hate, anger…
And if said spirits can't reach the spirit world in time? They turn into… That.
I don't know how I knew.
But I knew.
And I also knew it was trying to kill me.
But I couldn't move. Fear struck every part of my body.
I can't go up against something like that.
It's not possible.
It crawled closer, using its hands to bring itself towards me.
It opened its big inhuman mouth wide and I could only stare.
I'm scared.
Why is this happening to me?
Thoughts ran through my mind as I felt my body get shoved into its orifice.
Saliva splashed onto my skin and it felt like acid, flesh melting slightly as the ring on my chest only felt heavier again.
I was quickly getting pushed by the tongue towards crushing teeth, as my stiff body murmured two words.
"Help me…" I don't know who I was calling out to, or why, but I did.
I felt blood.
Not my blood.
In the most split of split seconds, I was only the floor, a fleshy cushion of spirit flesh under my back.
Another scream rang out.
This time from behind me.
I turn and look.
Oh.
That makes much more sense.
It was a familiar sight. Ugly, yet beautiful in a way. A sight I only saw in paper or on a screen. Not in reality. That's probably why I couldn't recognise this body either.
It's younger version, but it's definitely him and her.
Rika, the Queen of Cursed Spirits, stood tall, two halves of the Cursed Spirit who had just tried to attack me in both her hands, sprinkling blood across the land that quickly evaporated into mist.
I look at her before my eyes softened. A part of my mind looked out at the spirit with a twinge of affection of some kind.
"...Yuta…" An echoing distorted feminine voice rang out, dragging out the 'u' vowel as her voice cracks in the middle.
And me.
Yuta Okkotsu.
Special Grade Copyman.
So I got reincarnated in ATLA as Yuta.
That sounds like the name to some shitty fanfic.