Carved In Rock || ATLA

Unholy Confessions

Appa's Lost Days/Lake Laogai Continued

"I wish I could be the one, the one who won't care at all but being the one on the stand,
I know the way to go, no one's guiding me. When time soaked with blood turns its back, I know it's hard to fall. Confided in me was your heart, I know it's hurting you but it's killing me." - Avenged Sevenfold

🌊🏔🔥🌪

Previously

Long Feng was lost in thought and flames as he stared off into the dancing embers in his fireplace. He had always known the day may come where the young Prince fell out of line and he had even planned for it but nothing could've ever prepared him for all the damage a group of children could do. The Avatar and his friends had proven to be even more than he had bargained for.

Kyojuro Hashibara had not only managed to cross paths with the little waterbender and the Beifong girl but Akira Aelita herself. And it seemed she befriended him. The boy never had friends before.

He could still salvage this. He hadn't come this far and sacrificed this much of his humanity for nothing. His plans could be adjusted to work around the gaggle of troublesome teens. The Akira was a firebender after all and that could very easily work to his advantage.

First, he had to navigate the collateral damage. The report of the Prince and Akira having been spotted together came not long ago, and both of them seemed to have their own civilian in tow. The Grand Secretariat needed to know who these two were. Given their association, there was a fair chance when it came time to bring the two teens under heel the others would simply be casualties of war. Long Feng needed to know who would be waiting for them at home so he was aware of exactly what kind of battlefield cleanup he'd be navigating during the fallout. They'd need to be silenced one way or the other whether it be by fear or force. If he didn't have the information he needed to make that call within the next several moments there would be far more blood staining these floors.

Luckily for the men serving beneath him, a knock came on his door a short time later, an agent strolling in with a scroll full of information in hand. He bowed to his support before passing off the paper.

"Roshi Fura and Usagi Nishiki, sir. The old man with the Akira and the child with Prince Kyojuro." The agent summarized as Feng read. "Fura runs a noodle shop in the Lower Ring, no living family in or out of Ba Sing Se."

"Grey enough that any customers or neighbors would assume his disappearance was due to old age," Feng observed.

"Precisely, sir."

"And the child, Nishiki is it? Why do I know that family name?" He wandered out loud.

"Her mother is one of ours, Sir. She was recruited not long ago but took to her training exceptionally well. She's the sleeper agent currently assigned to the Avatar."

"Interesting." Long Feng grinned to himself, the wheels turning inside of his head. "Any other family that we need to worry ourselves with? Father? Grandparents? Siblings?"

"None that we could track down. Any extended family is either dead or spread far and wind across the Kingdom. Their only other immediate family is the girls' father but the last mention we could find of him was his name on a list of men sent to assist with holding the line of control outside the Fire Nation colonies. Those orders came last spring so..."

"He's likely already dead."

"Yes, Sir."

"I do believe this could work in our favor." Long Feng closed the scroll and set it aside on his desk. "If we can spare the child and the old man then we'll consider it a bonus, if the Prince or Akira put up a fight and either civilians are caught in the crossfire then so be it. As for the mother, send word that tonight she is to deliver a message to the Avatar and report to myself directly after."