Sora stood looking down at the scattered skeletons of the airbenders.
Dissevered feet, shattered hands, and fragmented skulls lay strewn across the cold stone.
Some of the skulls had been completely pulverized by brute kinetic force, while nearby, the charred ribs of molten ribcages were blackened and fused together from absolute heat.
This was a grim reality that the historical records had completely omitted.
The text failed to paint the gruesome picture of how every single corner of the sacred temple had been turned into an open-air charnel house.
Splintered bones and limbs were scattered among breached walls; the slain Air Nomads lay where they fell.
Over the course of a century, nature had slowly reclaimed the horror, growing grass and twisting roots directly through the ribcages of the dead.
Even the ancient bison stables had been transformed into a massive slaughterhouse.
Giant skulls of the flying beasts were piled high, butchered and systematically distributed across the pens.
The sheer scale and anatomical difference of the massive skulls—stacked so high they formed a literal mountain of bone—spoke of an unspeakable carnage.
It was a meat grinder.
An absolute genocide fueled by pure, unadulterated malice.
“Go on ahead,” Sora said, his voice cutting through the heavy silence.
“I will stay behind to bury the dead.
Leaving them out in the open like this is an insult to their memory.” “Do you want some help, Sora?” Katara asked gently, she and Sokka stepping forward to assist.
Sora calmly raised a hand, declining.
“Go with Aang.
He’s going to need someone by his side to help him process the shock.” Sora knew his own limitations.
He lacked the emotional capacity for comfort or soft-spoken empathy; he utterly despised vulnerable situations where he didn’t know what to say.
Rather than drowning in useless sentiment, he chose to channel his grim mood into physical labor.
Katara and Sokka nodded silently, turning to follow a visibly trembling Aang deeper into the sanctuary, leaving Sora alone in the courtyard.
Searching the immediate area, Sora found no tools to dig with.
He decided to rely entirely on his airbending.
Targeting a patch of frozen earth, he projected a localized atmospheric ring above the soil.
With a sharp downward thrust of his hands, he drove a high-pressure column of air straight into the dirt, breaching the crust.
The air molecules instantly seeped into the fissures, churning and lifting the dense soil and heavy stones upward in a controlled spiral.
Within moments, he had carved out a neat, individual grave.
The task was effortless.
After his hundred-year stasis, both his spiritual energy and raw bending capacity had unlocked a terrifying new echelon of power.
He dug the first grave, then the second, and the third, continuing the repetitive cycle until he completely lost count of the trenches.
The sheer volume of skeletal remains was staggering.
With calculated precision, Sora organized the dead.
He laid the skeletons of the Air Nomads along the right side of the clearing, while the remains of the Fire Nation soldiers were carefully arranged along the left.
Despite his deep-seated hatred for the invaders, he chose to grant the Fire Nation soldiers a proper burial.
They were dead, and death carried an inherent sanctity that transcended warfare.
He had no desire to desecrate or mutilate corpses; internally, Sora fought to maintain a strict anchor to his own morality, ensuring he never degenerated into a monster driven by raw impulse.
The moment Sora laid the final skeletal remains of a Fire Nation vanguard into the earth, a blinding pillar of brilliant blue light erupted from the heart of the sanctuary, piercing the heavens.
Far across the world, at the sages’ compound of the Earth Kingdom Temple, the stone chambers suddenly vibrated as the piercing blue beam fractured the clouds.
Simultaneously, within the subterranean chambers of the Fire Sages’ Temple, the glowing eyes of the ancient statues ignited, casting a fiery hue into the sky.
An elder sage ran frantically toward the heavily armed sentries.
“Inform the Fire Lord immediately!
The Avatar has returned after a hundred years!” The guard did not hesitate, sprinting at top speed toward the royal palace.
Even at the absolute edge of the world, within the icy spires of the Northern Water Tribe, the sacred aurora borealis shifted violently as a column of spiritual light split the atmosphere.
The three great nations finally knew: the Avatar was awake.
By the time Sora finished sealing the massive network of graves, the spiritual light had faded back into the ether.
He retreated to a solitary rock formation—an old spot he used to frequent a century ago—now overgrown with thick moss and wild vegetation.
Moments later, the crunch of snow signaled the arrival of Aang, Katara, and Sokka.
“Have you decided on your next destination, Aang?” Sora asked without turning around.
“Yes, Sora,” Aang replied, a newfound weight in his voice.
“I’ve realized that I have a responsibility to this world, and I can’t run away from it anymore.
I’m going to master all four elements.
Since water is the next phase of the cycle, we’re heading to the Northern Water Tribe.” Though the initial sight of the temple had devastated Aang, hope had sparked anew.
He had discovered evidence indicating that small pockets of airbenders had managed to flee the initial purge, living in absolute secrecy across the globe or hiding in inaccessible terrains.
The Air Nomads could be reborn.
“Did you pack enough provisions?” Sora questioned, standing up.
“Our trajectory involves navigating an immense stretch of open ocean.” Sora was acutely aware of the path ahead; their route would inevitably take them past Kyoshi Island.
“Yeah, we’re fully loaded,” Katara said, patting the heavy pack slung over her shoulders.
“We have enough food to last.” “Then we move now.” Before they could take a step, Sokka stopped dead in his tracks, his eyes wide as he stared at the massive, perfectly organized rows of fresh graves.
“Sora…
did you dig all of these yourself?” Sokka asked, his voice rising in sheer disbelief.
“Even the Fire Nation soldiers?!” Sokka’s face contorted in anger.
“Sora, those monsters slaughtered your entire civilization!
How could you give them a respectful burial?!” Sokka harbored a deep, visceral hatred for the Fire Nation; he blamed them entirely for the hundred-year war, and bitterly resented them for stripping him of his father and forcing him to grow up without a normal childhood.
Katara and Aang walked up beside him, finally taking in the sheer scale of the cemetery.
Aang, given his pacifist upbringing, looked at Sora with profound appreciation.
“You did a good thing, Sora.
Respecting the dead is noble.” Aang had been raised from infancy to revere all forms of life.
“What are you saying, Aang?!” Katara interjected, turning on both of them.
Though she possessed a kind heart, she couldn’t rationalize showing mercy to the butchers of the world.
“They wiped out his people!” “Listen to me closely, all of you,” Sora interrupted, his tone shifting into something cold, sharp, and commanding.
The sudden gravity of his voice caused the trio to freeze.
“I am an airbender, but I do not harbor a blind, irrational grudge against the Fire Nation as a whole.
In every society, you will find the corrupt and the innocent.
To me, the Earth Kingdom is no different than the Fire Nation; one is governed by a parasitic class of corrupt nobles, and the other is ruled by a tyrannical royal family.” Sora locked eyes with each of them.
“Both nations possess good and evil.
I will not elevate one over the other based on propaganda.
Open your eyes.
The Fire Nation is currently unleashing horrors upon the world, but that isn’t because they are inherently worse than the other nations.
It is simply because they possess the industrial and military power to do so.
If the Earth Kingdom or the Water Tribes possessed that exact same level of absolute power, their kings and nobles would be tearing the world apart for their own gain.” Sora stepped forward, his expression deadpan and unyielding.
“Before I continue this journey with you, you need to understand my parameters.
The moment I encounter a tyrannical noble or a corrupt king who oppresses the weak, I will execute them without a shred of mercy.
Monsters like that do not deserve empathy.
Do you understand?” “I suggest you don’t be foolish enough to stand in my way when I purge that darkness.” Without waiting for a response, Sora channeled a sudden draft of wind beneath his boots, lifting his body effortlessly into the air until he settled onto Inma’s saddle.
Katara and Sokka stared up at him, completely stunned by the dark philosophy of the young man.
“Don’t worry about it, guys,” Aang said softly, trying to ease the tension as they walked toward Appa.
“Sora is a good person at heart.
His words are just incredibly harsh, but you’ll get used to it.” Aang was thoroughly accustomed to Sora’s radical theories.
Back at the temple, Sora had always been the black sheep, constantly challenging traditional doctrines with his unique perspective.
Yet, despite his brutal pragmatism, whenever a helpless person was in danger, Sora was always the first to stand between them and the threat.
For that reason alone, Aang loved and respected him.