84: I can see you.

"We started strong, huh?" Ty Lee muttered, looking down at the comatose man lying in the snow, covered in his blood.

Ty Lee usually had a lively and affable personality, but right now, she felt no empathy for Hahn. He had taunted not only her closest friends, Shisui and Azula, but also the Sage's mother. That was a boundary he shouldn't have crossed.

If Hahn had limited himself to insulting her friends, she could have taken it as the attitude of a foul-mouthed rival. How many times had she seen that? Even that could lead to an interesting fight!

However, this was something else entirely, beyond what she and her companions would tolerate. Ty Lee was upset, and Mai, expressionless, had crouched down and pointed a dagger at Hahn. She didn't stab him, though; she couldn't do that in public.

Her actions made her intentions clear. Although the atmosphere had become tense, she hadn't gone so far as to murder in public. This event raised certain questions.

"Was he manipulated into saying those things? Black blood! Could it be that creepy woman's doing?" someone muttered. Because of the previous silence, his voice could be heard clearly.

"Shut up! Those rumors only come from snow madness. I haven't seen that so-called witch roaming the city," another person answered, but a middle-aged man pushed him and made him turn around.

As he did so, he saw the man's red eyes and ugly scar. The man looked at him with anger and fear. Then, the man spoke.

"If you don't know anything, shut up! You didn't see her. She's like a spirit. She ambushes you. She uses her claws to gut you. She points at you, and you can't control yourself. Even worse, she controls the blood from your wounds to hurt you.

"She knows I didn't die. She laughed at my attempt to escape. But she did it because she wanted me to spread her story and her rumors. I know because I could feel her inside me, digging into my guts. The man narrated his story, his words constantly cutting off. His hands flailed erratically, saliva spurted from his mouth, and his reddened eyes seemed to unfocus as he spoke.

"Old man, it's nothing bad..." The young Water Tribe warrior's words were cut short when the man suddenly stopped, his movements resembling those of a puppet abruptly shaken.

Shisui felt it. An evil chi had clung to this man, abruptly intruding into his body and crushing his natural energy field. It had snatched dominion over his body, no, over something more vital: his blood.

Pakku felt it, too. He could feel the man's strangeness and see his muscles twisting under his skin. They were rupturing, causing internal bleeding, and his skin was quickly covered in bruises.

Zuko and Azula could feel the heat in the man's body rise quickly to levels a normal human wouldn't naturally endure. Petra could sense with her novice seismic sense that the man's heart was racing so fast that she thought it was lucky it didn't explode.

The man's neck turned 180°; a horrible crunch accompanied the movement. Now, those bloodshot eyes looked directly at Shisui. A creepy, unnatural smile spread across his face, accompanied by a hoarse voice.

"Shisui! You've finally come to see me! How nice!" It was shocking to see someone whose head was turned like that still alive, but worse was realizing that it wasn't "him" talking, but another entity.

Shisui was extremely upset by this. Not only was he seeing something he rejected, taking control of a person and manipulating them, but he also felt that it insulted the true essence of waterbending.

For him, bloodbending was not "heretical" because it depended on how it was used. For example, Shisui incorporated bloodbending into his healing arts, which allowed him to achieve a superior form of bending called life-bending.

But now, he was seeing someone being manipulated by bloodbending right in front of him! In his opinion, this was the worst use of the art, especially when it was done in front of him.

Shisui hated manipulation and possession most of all, and the grotesque spectacle happening before his eyes was both. The man was being used to deliver a message, so he needed to take advantage of the situation to extract information.

"I'm sorry, do I know you? I just came to visit my aunt. I don't think you're her," Shisui replied calmly, as if he were talking to just another stranger.

"Hey, you mean that white-haired bitch? NO! You're supposed to want to see me!" the man shouted. The expression on his face transformed into anger, but Shisui remained calm, staring straight into the eyes of this talking corpse.

"It seems you haven't learned your lesson. I don't like it when people close to me are insulted," Shisui pointed out to Hahn, who was lying on the ground. In passing, Shisui showed Hahn the black blood he was keeping afloat.

"By the way, is this your doing?" the Sage asked pointedly. The manipulated man turned his gaze to the black blood, then burst out laughing.

"Yes! You like my idea. I can teach you! Just look for me..." The man's voice stopped abruptly as Shisui manipulated the water he had attracted earlier and applied it directly to the blood tainted with Vaatu's dark energy, thus initiating its purification.

The bright light of the water attracted many stares. Even at the North Pole, the art of purification was uncommon and mastered only by women who specialized in healing and support arts and had trained in this special sub-bending technique.

The blood resumed its natural color before Shisui closed his eyes. He was determined to demonstrate the true power of something higher, a concept any Waterbender should aspire to, to the person behind these actions, whoever he was.

The Sage used life bending to connect with the residual chi in the liquid and find its source. Motes of golden chi emerged from his body. The water around him seemed to come alive. Anyone exposed to Shisui's light felt healed.

His senses had been extended to higher levels and borrowed ideas from a special art that anyone could master. In the original show, however, only three people did.

Energy-bending. Shisui 'flowed' from his life-bending to that lost and difficult-to-master art. He applied the concept of 'flowing' water at its best.

Shisui was not one to stop or stagnate! He was always exploring, moving forward, investigating, and mastering every path and sub-bending.

His path was a personal quest to transcend by mastering everything. How could he leave behind an ability that he knew he could master with hard work? He refused to believe that this gift could only be given by a lion turtle.

Toph and Amon could do something similar. Different paths could arrive at the same result. He was an expert at doing that! So, beneath his serious life-bending act, he touched something else:

The location of the bloodbending user! His eyes traveled to an icy wasteland covered in dense snowfall. There he saw her: She could be considered beautiful in many ways, but Shisui's current state allowed him to see beyond outer beauty.

It was a rather abject inner ugliness. In this strange state of heightened perception, Shisui could see a mass of dark energy pulsing inside the woman he recognized as Hama.

He also noticed her chi, which seemed messy and mixed with foreign things. Seeing her youthful appearance and using his Life-Bending to sense her vitality, Shisui concluded that she was stealing Chi from others to extend her life.

Hama was stealing chi from others to extend her life. He was already aware of this practice due to his knowledge, which came directly from the past Avatars.

As someone who used the supposed 'canon' merely as a suggestion, without much credibility, he was aware of this path to longevity and managed to confirm it during his stay in the spirit world, where he was training Aang.

Interestingly, the spirit on Hama's shoulder raised its head and looked where Shisui's vision "floated." Then, an eye made of red lines appeared on the creature's chest, a channel for Vaatu to see the world.

There was no dialogue, but the sage could understand the meaning of these actions. It was as if the creature were asking, "Do you like the gift I prepared?" Something Vaatu would do! Shisui also noticed the teenager near the woman but paid no further mind to him, other than to remember his appearance.

Shisui's vision returned to his body, and he staggered, but Azula held his hand. For the first time in a long time, the Sage's Chi seemed exhausted. He had put a lot of himself and his understanding of life into touching something he could not yet access, nor should he have.

This experience would undoubtedly prove valuable to him in the future. He felt that his understanding of energy, water, and life itself had increased slightly. Then, with a confident smile, he looked at the man she had controlled.

"I looked for you, Hama, and you're awful." The man's body stiffened at Shisui's words; the woman's control over him faltered because of his fluctuating emotions.

"What?" Unable to think of anything else to say, Hama spoke through his flesh puppet. Even his worry and conflicting emotions could be expressed quite well through the puppet, which allowed Shisui to learn more about the woman's psyche.

"I see you. Well, I saw you. You have amazing abilities, but you've chosen the wrong path. Controlling others? That's bullshit. It can't compare to the door that opens to that power. You don't know the vastness of the water." With his ever-changing mind, Shisui decided to give this woman a psychological blow before eliminating her in due time.

"Even so, with so much wasted potential, you play with this aberration in front of me. The ironic thing is that you're a puppet of Vaatu, which honestly makes me laugh." When he said this, he started laughing. If that weren't enough, his friends joined in.

"It's wrong for me to laugh; a man died. But the puppeteer is a puppet! HAHAHAHA!" Ty Lee laughed the hardest, leaning her body against Petra's, who was also laughing.

"You know, at first, I thought it was kind of scary. But, remembering her initial words, it looks like the 'puppet master' has feelings for you, Shisui," Petra stressed. This caused Azula to look at the talking corpse in annoyance, though a smile was plastered on her face.

"Hey, Shisui, is that a woman? From what you said, it seems like it," Azula asked. Shisui nodded.

"You're too late. I've already 'wrapped you up.' You can't run away anymore, since you're going to be a father!" The princess's words made the people around them, who didn't know this news, look at the couple with astonishment. 

But they didn't care; they were making things up to make fun of an old woman who had lost much of her life being locked up, and who didn't understand young people today.

Hama didn't understand why Shisui was making fun of her. Unable to endure his words pointing directly to her emotional shortcomings any longer, she released her hold on him.

The moment her power left his body, Shisui quickly stepped forward, twisted his neck again, and poured all his remaining Chi over him.

The seawater, snow, ice on the ground, clouds in the sky, and water in the air all trembled and shook under Shisui's influence. He unleashed all his power not to show off his strength, but to achieve something else.

Saving a life! Azula and Petra joined him, covering the fallen man with their elements and unleashing their healing properties to help Shisui.

At that moment, three of the four elements performed in unison, demonstrating the same ability and putting on a spectacular show for everyone present. It was a once-in-a-lifetime event!

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AN: Using common sense, the man is 'dead' because his neck was fucking broken, but in next chapter I will explain about his current status and how Shisui will solve this point. Also, if you think it, this story is reaching its final, woooo! But don't worry, there a lot of chapter before the end of this fanfic.