A False Hope(Legend Of Korra/My Hero Academia SI) Chapter 4

People tended to underestimate Kya.

It wasn’t entirely their fault—she didn’t go out of her way to make waves. 

She wasn’t like Tenzin, who carried the crushing legacy of being the world’s last airbending master after their father’s death. 

She wasn’t like Bumi, who made it his mission to escape the shadow of Avatar Aang’s name by joining the United Republic Army and building a reputation from the ground up. 

And she certainly wasn’t like her parents—her mother, one of the first women from the North Pole trained in waterbending, and her father, well… the Avatar.

With so many giants in her family, Kya had learned to blend in rather than stand out. So when people heard she was Aang and Katara’s daughter—the “middle one,” the “waterbender”—they usually gave a polite nod and moved on. “Oh, that’s cool,” they’d say. And then forget her name five minutes later.

But what they failed to realize—what they always failed to realize—was that she was the only other waterbender in the family. And that meant her mother had passed down everything. Every technique, every trick, every hard-earned lesson she’d learned as one of the South’s last masters. Kya didn’t go around declaring herself one of the best waterbenders alive—but quietly, confidently, she knew she was top ten. Maybe even top five. Whether it was healing or combat, she was second only to Katara. And sometimes, not even that.

She’d even convinced her mother to teach her countermeasures against bloodbending. Katara hadn’t liked it—hadn’t wanted her daughter anywhere near that kind of darkness, let alone use it on her—but Kya had been insistent. She needed to understand the full scope of waterbending, even the parts that frightened her. Especially those.

It was that knowledge that made healing her brothers—and the boy—so fast.

“How’s he doing?” Bumi asked, crouching beside her.

“Which knucklehead are you talking about? You mean our idiot brother who thought getting up close and personal with a mysterious spirit was a smart idea, or the kid who’s been fighting him for the past three days straight?” she replied dryly.

A smirk tugged at Bumi’s lips, even as Tenzin groaned softly.

“I didn’t think spirits could lie,” Tenzin tried to explain, already bracing for a lecture.

“Yeah, because spirits are always super sweet and trustworthy,” Bumi said with theatrical sarcasm. “Except for, oh, I don’t know—Ko the Face Stealer. Wan Shi Tong. General Old Iron. Hei Bai when someone burns a tree. And the other dozens of other evil spirit’s who just seem to exist to fuck over humanity whenever one of us so much as pisses in the wrong part of the woods. But other than them, yeah, real stand-up guys.”

“I get it!” Tenzin snapped, irritation creeping into his voice. “Look—I know spirits can be dangerous. But I just… I didn’t think they could lie. That’s a human flaw—something we do to manipulate, to keep secrets. Spirits don’t need to hide anything. They’re not like us. They don’t lie.”

Bumi’s smile faded. “Everyone lies, Tenzin. Sometimes they don’t even mean to. Prey animals play dead. Predators mimic the cries of children. Even machines give false signals. I’ve got a cannon on one of my ships that squeaks like it’s broken—mechanics have checked it five times. It’s fine. Just noisy. And despite it not being something that can think or even breathe, it is technically lying by doing something that makes us think it’s broken when it’s fine. If animals and machines can lie, why not spirits?”

Tenzin deflated at that. “I just… I guess I wanted to believe something out there was clean. That there was one part of the world that wasn’t… tainted.”

“Well, welcome back to reality,” Kya said gently, water glowing between her hands as it soaked into the boy’s skin. “Speaking of tainted, we have a bigger problem. A chunk of your chi is missing.”

Tenzin’s head snapped up. “What?!”

“I think that spirit—whatever it’s name was—tried to steal it. A substantial amount. You’ll recover it eventually, but your airbending might be weaker for a while.”

“And the kid?” Bumi asked, frowning.

“Exhausted,” Kya said. “Still unconscious. He’s got microfractures in nearly every limb, burn marks on his knuckles, signs of severe dehydration. I’d guess he’s been fighting for days with little to no rest.”

Silence fell between them as Kya continued her work, the soft hum of healing water the only sound.

It was Bumi who finally broke the quiet.

“So… are we just gonna ignore the elephant-rat in the room?”

“Which one?” Tenzin asked wearily.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Bumi said, tossing a snowball lazily into the air and catching it again. “Maybe it has something to do with the fact that while we were making our way up here, we saw this kid throw fireballs, call down a lightning storm, create half a glacier, and whip up a tornado like it was nothing. That’s three elements right there. Only reason earthbending’s not on the list is probably because there’s no dirt in this frozen wasteland.”

Bumi didn’t have to say exactly what was on his mind; the thought had entered their heads from the first minute that the lightning had started pouring down like rain, and they had only intensified when they got closer to the battle and saw him facing a spirit.

Tenzin frowned, crossing his arms tightly over his chest. “...He doesn’t look like an Earthbender,” he said slowly. “In fact, he doesn’t look like he’s from any of the Four Nations. That white hair, and those eyes—they’re yellow, rather than the gold we see from members of the Fire Nation. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“There’s gotta be some one in the world with yellow eyes,” Bumi pointed out, leaning casually a giant block of ice that had been thrown during the fierce battle. “But I’ll admit, the hair’s throwing me off. Still…Princess Yue had white hair, didn’t she?”

“Yeah,” Kya cut in, dismissing her healing water with a flick of her wrist.. “Because she was blessed by the Moon Spirit, not born that way. Big difference, genius.”

“Hey, you don’t know his life,” Bumi shot back, holding up his hands. “For all we know, he was blessed by the Moon Spirit. Stranger things have happened in this freaky little world of ours, haven’t they?”

Kya rolled her eyes, but chose not to answer.

Tenzin stepped between them, his expression turning contemplative. “It’s too soon to say whether or not he’s…well…”

The Avatar, went unsaid.

“His chi…” Kya murmured, almost to herself. “It’s dense. Heavy. More than Dad’s. More than anyone I’ve ever seen. And not just that—the chi paths in his body are… swollen.”

“Swollen?” Tenzin echoed, the word foreign and uncomfortable.

Kya nodded. “Yeah. Most people’s chi paths follow a pretty standard flow. Minor differences based on age or training, sure, but this kid’s? They’re huge. Especially in his arms. It’s like his body was built to carry ten times the energy of a normal bender.”

“Is that… good or bad?” Tenzin asked carefully.

“It’s neither. Just… unnatural. Or rather, unstudied,” she admitted. “The only Avatar I’ve ever had to reference was Dad. There’s no baseline for this kind of thing. But whatever he is, he’s not normal.”

Bumi let out a low whistle. “So… definitely not the average teenager caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Kya looked over at the boy again, lying unconscious in the snowbank. “No. And if I’m being honest… he scares me a little.”

There was a pause.

Bumi exhaled slowly. “We should get him back to Mom. She’ll know what to look for. And… she’ll want to see him herself. You know she will.”

None of them said it, but they all felt it. There was something ancient and powerful moving beneath the surface of this boy’s existence—something more than coincidence or talent. 

Something that had teeth.

____________________________________________________________

The storm had passed, but its presence still lingered in the air. The sea howled in the distance, stirred by waves that had not yet quieted. Snow blanketed the rooftops of the Southern Water Tribe village, whipped into curling drifts by biting wind. The sky, though clearing, was still tinged with the deep gray that promised more cold to come. Inside her modest house near the edge of the village, Katara sat beside the hearth, knitting a thick woolen scarf. A pot of sea prunes simmered on the fire, perfuming the house with its familiar, comforting scent.

Then the door creaked open.

"Where have you been?!"

Her voice was sharp, not with anger but concern. The scarf tumbled from her lap as she rose swiftly to her feet. Standing in the doorway, snow-dusted and breathless, were her three grown children: Tenzin, Kya, and Bumi. Bumi, as usual, was grinning like a madman. On his back, bundled in Bumi’s thick coat, was a boy with striking white hair and skin so pale he could have been carved from snow outside.

Katara blinked.

"There was a storm," she continued, stepping closer and inspecting them with a healer’s eye. "Lightning, tons of it, according to the neighbors. I thought you were caught in it. Spirits, I was worried sick."

Bumi chuckled and waved a dismissive hand. "Well, it’s a long story, Ma, but the short version is—we brought the storm back with us!"

"What does that mean?" she asked, eyes narrowing in confusion. Her gaze dropped to the boy Bumi carried.

The confusion only deepened. "Who is that?"

Kya and Tenzin exchanged glances. It was Tenzin who finally spoke.

"Mom," he said carefully, as though still unsure himself, "we think... this boy might be the Avatar."

The room went silent even as the fire popped and crackled.

This boy…is Aang’s next life?

 …how long had she waited for this since Aang’s passing and Korra’s death? How many times had her heart beat crazily as she opened one of Khanji’s letters, hoping to see an update on the Avatar? How many times had she listened to the radio, hoping to hear some news of someone wielding all four elements once more?

Katara stared at the boy, her breath caught between disbelief and instinct. Then, without a word, she turned on her heel.

"Bring him in," she ordered. "Lay him on the rug. Kya, get me the pot from the bathroom, it has clean water. Bumi, support his head."

They obeyed without question. Bumi crouched carefully, sliding the boy down from his back onto the thick polar bear dog-skin rug. The boy's head lolled slightly, and Katara wasted no time once Kya brought in the pot. With a flick of her fingers, water streamed from the pot and wrapped around her hands, glowing with the soft blue light of healing.

She laid her hands gently on the boy’s chest, assessing him with the practiced skill of a master healer.

"He's stable," she murmured. "No broken bones, but he's exhausted. Hmm. Kya, this is your work, yes? It’s excellent. But I don’t recognize this boy; he’s not from the village. Where did you find him?"

Kya stepped forward, brushing a damp strand of hair from her face. "So, when the lightning was coming down, we made an executive decision…and decided to go towards it, rather than run away, like we technically should have done, now that I think on it."

Katara looked up, meeting her daughter’s nervous eyes, before he eyes turned to her sons, who suddenly found the floor and ceiling very interesting. Then, slowly, she chuckled.

"You three are definitely Aang's children," she said, not unkindly. "Alright. You went towards the lightning. What did you find?"

Bumi rubbed the back of his neck. "Well... at first, we didn’t know what we were looking at. But then we saw him. The kid, we mean. Fighting a spirit. It was like something out of a nightmare, honestly. Never seen anything move that fast, not even polar bear dogs. Kid wasn’t a slouch either, but the spirit was dodging for most of the fight with ease."

Katara glanced at the boy again. He was maybe fifteen, maybe sixteen, seventeen at most. 

Young. 

Too young to be carrying this many scars. "What kind of spirit? Describe it to me."

She had met many spirits during her adventures with Aang, so she was hoping that a description would allow her to place a name to the face, and that way she’d know what she was dealing with.

"It was this long, black worm thing," Bumi offered, gesturing with his hands. "Massive. Bigger than Appa ever was. One big eye, glowed a really weird green. The rest of it was like smoke and shadow. Like it slithered through the air, like a really fast sname."

Katara stilled, her hands frozen mid-motion as she processed the description. The healing water paused for just a second before resuming its flow, helping her to examine more of her patients inner workings. She noted his swollen chi paths in his arms, and his how dense his chi was; Aang’s chi had been different; it had been the same as everyone elses, but his was golden whilst everyone else’s was blue. Feeling chi was…hard to describe, and even harder to understand if you weren’t a waterbender. You could see the color, the kind of element the person weilded, even the kind if life they lead based on their chi. All you needed was the experience to see the signs.

"I... I don't recognize that one," Katara admitted, uneasily. "Most spirits avoid human contact unless provoked—especially the powerful ones. The ones strong enough to fight the Avatar, or someone like him... they usually stay in their own realm."

"It was targeting him," Tenzin said, glancing at the boy lying on the mat. "Not just lashing out. It was… focused. Like it knew him. It hunted him down."

"Spirits don’t hunt humans without reason,” Katara murmured, wringing the water from her hands and drawing it back into the basin beside her. She leaned closer, gently brushing a strand of white hair away from the boy’s face. His skin was still pale, still cold. “They guard sacred ground. They punish transgressions. But they don’t stalk like predators.”

Kya hesitated, arms crossed, voice tight. "I wasn’t sure if I should bring this up, but… the spirit lied to us. It told us the boy attacked it, that it had only tried to help him. Then, once our guard was down, it turned on Tenzin and drained some of his chi."

Katara’s eyes sharpened like blades of ice. “The spirit lied?”

“It claimed the boy attacked it during a gesture of peace,” Tenzin said grimly. “But its entire story was one of deception. It manipulated me by feigning weakness just long enough to get close and take my chi from me. Deliberately.”

Katara’s hands froze over the boy’s chest for a long moment.

“Spirits don’t usually lie,” she said quietly, mostly to herself. “They don’t need to. Even the lesser ones are powerful enough to force compliance. Some speak in riddles. Some twist the truth, like Ko the Face Stealer… but to fabricate a false narrative? That’s rare. Extremely rare.”

Bumi scratched his chin thoughtfully. “I’m more curious about how the kid ended up tangling with something like that in the first place. We’ve mapped out most of the spiritual zones in the world, and there’s not supposed to be anything that dangerous down here. Unless…” He frowned. “Unless it’s super ancient. Older than the maps. Older than even the stories of whatever spirits used to roam around here.”

Katara didn’t answer. Her gaze was fixed on the unconscious boy, eyes soft with concern and burdened curiosity.

“That,” she said at last, “is the question we must answer.”

A stillness settled over the room. Outside, the wind’s howling had softened, replaced by the gentle hush of falling snow.

Then—

“Oh, right!” Bumi suddenly exclaimed. “I almost forgot.”

He reached into his belt and pulled out something wrapped in cloth, something she hadn’t seen him bring in. With a practiced hand, he unwrapped it and held it out.

It was a sword. A black blade, jagged at the tip like it had broken mid-swing. Black swords were rare, but not unheard of.

But the hilt—bronze, rounded, and worn smooth with age—caught her breath in her throat.

She knew that hilt.

She knew that pommel.

She knew that sword.

“Where did you get this?” Katara asked, her voice barely above a whisper. Her fingers reached for it instinctively, reverently.

Bumi blinked, confused, but passed it to her, handle first. “The kid had it on him. Clutched it tight, even unconscious. Took me a while to pry it out of his hands. He was gonna stab the spirit with it, or… banish it? Tenzin, what even happens when you stab a spirit?”

Tenzin shook his head. “Honestly? I don’t know. Not many people have ever tried to kill a spirit, let alone succeeded. Some vanish. Some reform over time. Some just… don’t come back, or are never seen again by humans.”

Katara turned the blade in her hands. “This is Sokka’s sword,” she said softly, her voice distant, like she was speaking through years. “The one he forged from the meteorite.”

Her children stared at her.

“Uncle Sokka had a sword?” Kya asked, surprised. “He never told us.”

“He only had it for one summer,” Katara said, brushing a thumb along the nicks and scratches worn into the blade. “The summer we ended the war. He said he lost it saving Toph. We searched for days, but it was just gone.”

Sokka had practically mourned for the sword; he even had a tiny funeral for it when everything was said and done. To see it again, long after her brother had passed…

She stared at the boy again, something like awe creeping into her voice. “And now this boy has it.”

“Yeah,” Bumi said, looking at the kid with a newfound seriousness. “So that’s another question to add to the list when he wakes up.”

Katara couldn’t look away. The boy—whoever he was—had brought back something she’d believed lost to history. He had survived a spirit that lied, and had defeated it handily, according to her children.”

She didn’t know who he was.

But she already owed him something more than gratitude.

He had returned a piece of her big brother.

And that, in this cold and lonely place, was a kind of warmth she hadn’t felt in years.