Chapter 4: New rival

The school stood out among all the other buildings in the city. This was the only institution where both boys and girls were educated together and on the same subject.

Not only that, it doesn't matter if you are a bender or a non-bender. You would be receiving education at the same place.

Why was it like that? Because it was convenient. Why else would these Old men allow equal opportunity to the women of their tribe? 

How did the tribe become sexist in the first place? It doesn't make sense at all. It could be understood if it was a normal world but this world has bending that is a great equalizer. 

With the help of bending, there was no difference between men and women in terms of strength. 

And that is not the only reason. Water is the element of change. How can a society of water benders become so rigid in ideology? 

And most importantly, The Avatar. It couldn't be possible that every Avatar born in the water tribe was a man. How could 'The Avatar' let this happen? 

This must be a new ideology. Probably not much older than a few centuries. The reason was still a bit ambiguous to me. 

This was my first time here, so I followed my fellow kids as they moved into the building and then into the rooms. 

Thankfully there were not many of us, so everyone entered the same room otherwise I had to toss a coin. 

Once we entered the classroom. I quickly understood why kids were considered little agents of chaos. 

All hell let loose with someone fighting for pencils to someone making paper planes. 

A few were already crying while others mocked them with words such as crybaby. 

Awesome. 

At least I wouldn't get bored this way for at least a year. 

I grinned like an idiot. 

Just then a girl in the first row noticed me. She narrowed her eyes, studying my face for a few seconds before walking up to me. 

"I know you," She said while pointing her finger at me.

"Is that so," I don't remember meeting her. 

"You are Arisu, aren't you? Your skin color was a dead giveaway. The water tribe has extremely few people with fair skin and only one in our generation." She replied with a smug face. 

What she said was indeed true. Almost everyone in the northern water tribe at least has a light brown skin tone. Only a few have fair skin. 

"My father sometimes mentions how master Pakku thinks that his grandson is really smart." She continued taking my silence as permission to talk. Or maybe she doesn't even consider the need for permission. 

Pakku certainly was a tsundere. He never gave a praise to me and now I learn that he brags about me behind my back. The old man shouldn't behave like tsundere. It's disgusting. 

"And who are you?" I asked the girl. 

"I'm Asahi." The girl put her hands on the hips with a proud look as if her name carried equal weight in gold. 

"And you approached me because?" Does she want to be friends or something?

"I challenge you," she declared suddenly, drawing the attention of the entire class to both of us.

The audience started to murmur. 

"She is doing it again?" 

"Yeah, can't you see?" 

"We know that she is smart and all but does she have to keep proving it?" 

"Who is that boy? First time seeing him here."

"Give me my PEN~" "No... It's mine..."

"Waaa~ ahhh~ ah?" 

Maybe not the entire class. 

"Let's see who is smarter," She didn't care about the whispers, at all. 

"""Fight! Fight! Fight!" The audience started chanting. 

....

"How could this be?" The girl asked in disbelief while kneeling on the floor. She is certainly over-expressive, quite a good trait if she wants to do theatre. 

Maybe I went too hard on her. I would have lost if it was any other subject, but she chose mathematics. That was the only subject that never changes no matter what world you are in. 

If it was biology, botany, history, or even science, the chances of me losing were high. 

Because there were a lot of differences in this world related to these subjects but maths, it remains same. 

"Are you okay?" I leaned forward to console her. I didn't want my first day to be memorable like this. 

"This ... This isn't over." Ohh spirits above, She's crying. "You... One day..., just you wait. one day I will defeat you." I just nodded, trying not to aggregate her too much. 

And finally, the teacher came after all this mess. While I do blame her to be late in the first place, she quickly took control of the situation. 

In just a minute, everyone was in their seats. Including Asahi, to whom the teacher said some things that made her quiet down. 

I was assigned to sit beside a boy I didn't see during morning practice.

"Hi, I'm Arisu." Since he would be my bench mate for quite some time, it was better to get to know him.

"Enyo," He replied in a sulky tone. I felt some edgy lord vibes from him. 

"So... Enyo, what do you like to do once you grow up?" I asked in curiosity. 

"I wanna kill a Fire Nation General because he killed my mother~, my father~, and my uncle~, my cousin~....." He kept naming a lot of people. 

Wow, lo and behold, that general massacred a whole small village. This reminded me of the Uchiha massacre. 

"Wanna be friends?" I still tried. 

"What's the meaning of wasting the effort when fire nation keeps getting stronger with time. Only by defeating them will we have time for such things."  He spoke grimly. 

"Heh heh, okay then I guess. See you around." This guy needs therapy. Poor fellow witnessing something like that at such early age. 

The class was somewhat interesting. Except for a few subjects, everything was new for me. I found it much more interesting than the morning training. 

My favorite subjects are biology, introduction to spirits, botany, and, last but not least, geography. 

After the class was lunch, I felt pretty excited to open my lunchbox though I quickly realised that Enyo didn't bring much. He only had simple but good-baked bread.

"Wow, that looks well baked. Hey, give me some of it and we can share." I acted like I was interested in the bread so he would accept it. 

He looked like a guy who had too much pride to take any help if he perceived it as pity. 

He hesitated for quite some time, glancing between our food before the temptation of trying out new food started to affect him. 

"Okay..." he muttered like he was still debating before making two parts of the bread and passing me one of them.

I happily received it and took a bite while putting my lunch between us. It was bland but not inedible. Someone tried their best to make it tasty. 

Sadly, you can only make something this good with normal ingredients. 

"It's crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside. I have decided. We will share our lunch every day." I stuck the iron while it was hot. 

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He absentmindedly nodded while focused on eating some koala seal meatballs. Cute. 

I smirked. 

After lunch was playtime. We were allowed to go outside and play with snow and ice. 

"Watch out," someone yelled before throwing a snowball at me. The instincts I had developed while fighting Beings capable of devouring entire worlds unconsciously reacted.

I spread my legs on both sides, causing the ball to fly above my head and hit the person standing behind me. 

"Woah...!!! That was so awesome." Kids that witnessed the maneuver cheered aloud.

Meanwhile, the person that got hit," You little...." It barely started as a whisper that turned into an outright war cry. 

Asahi quickly collected some snow and threw it at the guy that unintentionally picked a fight with her. 

"Hey ...hey, come down." He pleaded once he realised he was too slow to win against her. 

"No, you wanted to play. Then let's play. Hehehehehe," She laughed an evil laugh. 

"Please. Look, it's not completely my fault, okay. It- It happened because that guy dodged it, right?" He ducked a snowball but ended up losing balance. 

Wait, he is the same guy that warned me against befriending Hahn. 

Asahi turned at me to see my reaction. 

I just smirked while shrugging my shoulders, " You can try. I'm bolt, lightning bolt. You can't hit me." 

"Is that so," She once again got that competitive look in her eyes while picking up snow. 

After that, it became sort of a challenge for everyone to try and hit me with a snowball. 

I ran left and right, trying to dodge as much as possible but in the end, I was defeated due to numbers. 

"Yaay!!!" They cheered. 

"Hey!!! That's cheating. There were 5 people throwing balls at once." I complained still stuck inside a lot of snow. 

"Loser, loser, loser...," Hahn started the chant, and others quickly joined. 

I noticed that Enyo wasn't with us and instead sitting quite a far away drawing something on the ice with a tree branch. 

"What's with him?" I asked Asahi as she gave me her hand so I could stand up. 

She looked at him before shrugging," Don't know, he is always talking to himself about battle plans or something." 

"Let's see, shall we?" I said while pulling her with me. She reluctantly joined. 

"What are you drawing?" I asked once we reached him. 

"Can't you see for yourself?" He asked honestly not realising that he was not a great painter? 

"Hmm, is that some abstract art?" I teased. 

"What does that mean? Anyway, this is a battle formation. One day, I will lead a battalion and get revenge for all the killing." He looked quite confused at first, not knowing what abstract art means before turning serious. 

"Sea or land," Asahi asked sounding interested. 

"Sea," He gave only the necessary amount of reply. 

"Then you will lose. Fire nation uses metal as materials in their ships. Either you need a group of master benders or a larger army to win this battle." Asahi gave her two cents on the topic. 

It feels weird standing here and listening to two 5-year-olds, talking about taking lives so casually. 

Necessity is the mother of not only innovation but extreme normalisation. 

...

We stayed in the school until 3 pm before returning to our homes. It felt weird going home alone while others were picked up by adults. Weirdly there were a few kids that were in similar situations for example, Enyo. 

"How was your day, young master?" As soon as I entered the household, the maid asked me about the school. 

Due to his position as an army general and a water-bending instructor, Pakku has a lot more responsibility than any normal person. 

Even if he no longer accepts several students at once, it is still a lot of work.

So seeing him mainly at the time of dinner was routine. That's the one thing that he makes sure never changes. We always had dinner together. 

Due to his absence, I was raised by the household's maids and servants, and they are quite fond of me.

"It was good. Especially the school." I shared my opinion with her. Girls are considered of a marriageable age once they reach 16 in the northern tribe.

While it was usually true, most just get a fiancee at that age and get married between 18 to 21 depending on the situation. 

"Did you make any friends?" She asked while receiving an empty lunch box. Her smile increased knowing I liked her food. 

"Yeah, I think so. But they are weird," Rivals and people you share food with could be counted as friends, right?

"Birds of the same feather flock together, after all," She muttered something under her breath that I couldn't hear exactly while giggling a lot. 

There were only 2 maids in this household. One was the head maid while the other is this girl. We do have 4 servants though. 

This maid is the daughter of the head maid and chief servant that has been serving Pakku for more than 2 decades. 

She just turned 20 this year. Technically she would have been married two years ago but her parents chose to wait for a few years because she was assigned to take care of me since the day I was adopted.  

The head maid is quite old and also needs to take care of other duties, so the task was assigned to her at that time. 

"I've already begun preparing some hot water for you to bathe with. It should just take a few minutes to prepare. Your clothes are already in the bathroom." Before leaving to assist her mother in the kitchen, she informed me.

One of the advantages of living in the city of ice is that everyone gets to bathe every day without any problems just like in the modern age. 

Especially children must bath in the evening with hot water as their bodies get cold due to playing in the snow during the day. 

Where does the fuel come from for all of this? 

The Northern Water Tribe is well-known for raising elephant whales and then using their bodies to make clothing, boots, and body fats as burning fuel.

(ED:- Please let me know of errors! Comment them in the particular paragraph where the error is/ * can you add this remark to the chapters of Avatar fic)

(Author's note: I want a koala seal as a pet.)

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