Chapter 44

Chen sat down by the tree, his eyes fixed forward. He tried to ignore the laugh of Vaatu, the spirit of the dark. As much as he didn't want to admit it, the darkness he felt made him feel nostalgic. Well, he wasn't a good man in the first place to feel ashamed of what he was. 

"So, human. Why are you just sitting here." Vaatu said. "You came with the Avatar, I can say that Raava had contact with you. It has been a long time" 

By Raava, he would mean Korra. 

Chen lifted his head and thought about Korra. 

She should be pissed off about him. 

Knowing that she would curse him, despise him because she wouldn't accept reality, made him feel amused. 

"Hehehe." He laughed. At any rate, he didn't care. 

He told her what she was. A mere pawn. By now, he bet that her uncle would invade the south pole. He would tell her that the south and north are united now. And when she would question his methods, he would tell her that as the Avatar she had to remain neutral. Of course, she then would think about what she was. A mere pawns, who had no say because their job is given by others. 

"By getting exposed to different choices, she would have a choice. What will happen after that, I don't care." 

Korra would enter a second shock. She would pass the anger stage, and she would try to see what happened.  She would soon accept the reality. What would happen after that, what would she choose, would determine what she was. 

If she made the right choice and trusted her judgement, well, Unalaq would have a hard time.

 "Human, what have you done? What do you mean, by what will happen after that you don't care? " 

"Oh, nothing," Chen said. "Will you just shut up?" 

"No." 

"Listen, I know you have been trapped here for eternity. But trust me, I can torture you if you don't shut up." Chen stood up and turned to the spirit of darkness, giving it a challenging look. 

"Hoho." It chuckled. "You think you can torture me, I, who lived before the first of your kind crawled out of the mud. I who live thousands of lifetimes." 

Chen nodded. "Yes. You have no idea how far humanity degenerated." 

"Go ahead." Vaatu challenged. 

Opening his mouth, Chen started singing. "Baby shark do dodo…" 

That song had tortured Chen for sure in his past life. Once, he had been tortured. His neighbour played that song so loud for her kid and put it on loop. Geez. The killing intent he had that day. 

"So ridiculous." Vaatu scoffed. 

— One hour later

Chen was tracing his finger along the spiritual soil. 

His mouth was moving on its own. "Grandma shark dodododod…" 

"Stop… this is insane. Will you just shut the fuck up!" 

"… Dododo," Chen didn't stop. He was mind absent since he couldn't endure singing while conscious of it. 

"So this what the world came into after ten thousand years. And Raava dares to call me evil. A world where such a song exists is worse than the world I had in mind. Fuck you, stop!" 

As much as it was fun to torture that spirit, that song tortured Chen as well. He stopped, took a bottle of water, and decided to take a small break. After resting a bit, he continued torturing the spirit of darkness.

"Stop! Why do such songs exist?" Vaatu was on the verge of crying.  

(A/N: they used this song to torture inmates in jail)

'Don't worry, I'm waiting for him to come.' 

-x-X-x- 

Unalaq appeared. His feet were on the top of the head of a dark spirit, which looked like a dragon. 

Currently, he was done with the arrangements of uniting the south with the north. 

He'd already told the Avatar to open the portal in the north. 

His niece would surely do that, without knowing what it would result to. 

He could always take her inside the portal to open the second one. 

However, she would see the dark spirit Vaatu, and she wouldn't open the other portal. 

At any rate, she now was dealing with denial. He'd invaded her home, and he'd said her job wasn't to interfere. He couldn't believe how lucky he had been to fool the stupid Avatar. 

That proved Unalaq's primal idea. There should be no Avatar. The first one, Wan, was wrong for declaring himself as the bridge between the spiritual world and the physical one. There should be no bridges. The two worlds should be one. And the avatar wasn't the one to decide what was right and what was wrong. 

People had been lost for so long as their spiritual side was missing. With each era, the distance between people and spirits would increase. 

Unalaq had to save them, to connect the worlds again. 

For that, he'd decided to be the new Avatar, the dark one. 

Darkness wasn't such a bad concept as people used to market to. 

Just as darkness could hurt, the light would hurt if it was too strong. 

The balance should be back. It was broken by the Avatar, and he would bring it back. Unalaq had always believed that wars were Avatar's fault. At first, he thought were fighting and killing just to satisfy their physical needs — food and money. 

However, even in this era where people has money and food and everything, they still fought. 

Even the wars for food and money were just bullshit. People could always farm and create money. 

Unalaq had realised that people were fighting to fill a missing side with them. The excitement they get was the compensation for their missing spiritual part. 

For that, he decided to save the world. By freeing Vaatu, he would become the dark avatar. He would link the worlds. Even with some darkness, people would be balanced. They would connect with spirits. Unalaq then would be the hero, the watcher, and the guardian of the two worlds. 

As for Korra, she would be sacrificed for the greater good. Until then, he would manipulate her until the harmonic convergence. 

The spirit he was on, plus the ones that were following him, stopped. Unalaq looked down, toward the tree of time. 

A man was there. He could recognise him. Chen. 

Great, that guy again. What was he doing here? 

What Unalaq knew about Chen was that he was a man of wisdom. A very mysterious firebender who used a method to deal with spirits, which he had never heard of. Chen had said that he learnt from a spirit. But Unalaq knew that it was a lie. Spirits, other than a few ones, knew nothing about bending. Bending had been given to humans with the lion turtles. Only humans developed it. 

At any rate, he couldn't underestimate Chen. He may not be as foolish as Korra. 

"Stop it! Just die!" Screamed Vaatu. Unalaq blinked. He was taken by surprise. Chen was sitting next to Vaatu, making him scream. He couldn't hear what he was saying, but Chen's words could affect a mysterious spirit such as Vaatu. He should take guard against him. 

Just as Unalaq thought about that, Chen stood up. Sparks of lightning bolts circled around his body. In the next second, the man's image started fading as if he were an afterimage. 

Chen appeared next to Unalaq, who felt an extreme killing intent heading toward him. 

Chen wanted to kill him. 

He extended his hand to the left, lightning covering his hand. 

He then stabbed with his hand his chest. 

It was like a lightning edge cutting him. Unalaq took the hit to the chest, and he was sent flying to the ground, next to the second portal. 

Chen flipped down and pushed himself to the ground. 

Unalaq shrugged to stand up, feeling an extreme pain coming from his chest. 

He would have died if he'd come to this place in his physical form. 

What was here was Unalaq's soul. 

Unalaq's chest had faded, and Chen was heading at him with killing intent. 

The more damage it took, the weaker he would become. Chi came from the soul. When a soul is damaged for good, then Unalaq may lose his power for so long time. 

Just more two strikes of these, and Unalaq's soul would fade more. Humans couldn't be killed as souls. Well, not with direct strikes. That's why spirits would send them to the mist. 

Chen stopped in front of Unalaq, extending both of his hands. A great dark purple fire stream flew out of them, devouring Unalaq, who jumped back. Damn. Although he didn't have a body to be damaged, he felt the pain of being burned. Usually, those who get burned by extreme fire would lose their sense of pain, as the receptors in their skin would be destroyed. But as a soul, he would feel every ounce of pain. 

"DAAAAM IT!" Unalaq yelled. 

Chen landed on his feet and spread his arms. The fire moved to the sides, revealing Unalaq from the other side. 

Chen had a confused look on his face. "You're not dead?" 

Smirking, Unalaq said. "Good luck." 

At that moment, the dark spirits, which he came with, were descending. Unalaq had only to give an order. "Take him to the mist." 

At that moment, a large spirit came. It was a dark dragon. It opened its mouth widely. Chen pointed his hand at it, releasing five lightning bolts at the same time. The dark dragon howled, leaning back and screaming from pain. At that moment, another spirit, a dark giant rabbit, opened its arms widely. At a speed that could be compared to the sound, it hugged Chen and flew him across the spirit world. In no time, Chen wasn't in their sight. 

"Finally!" Vaatu said in relief. 

Unalaq didn't know what Vaatu had been through, but he knew that Chen was a scary man to make the dark spirit feel this way. 

In that case, it was a matter of time before Chen came back. He needed to manipulate Korra to open the second portal while the dark spirits were busy distracting Chen. In the best-case scenario, they would throw him into the lost souls' mist. In the worst-case scenario, he would come back, and Unalaq would have to deal with him, which was unlikely to happen. But one must always prepare for the worse. 

"I need to go back," Unalaq muttered. Half of his soul had faded. He needed to go back to his body. As he closed his eyes, his body started fading until it was completely gone.