"You sure you want to come with? This might tip off Kangana that Mosi is trying to take her position." Toji said with a smile as he adjusted the sail, Liu just shrugging as he hummed while lying on the deck of the small ship they were on.
"Think of me as extra incentive to make sure you win the coming fight." Liu answered and Toji just rolled his eyes as he sat down while looking at the island far in the distance.
"So, why are you exactly hunting Kangana? Is it truly for a bounty or is there something else?"
"Trying to see if I got some sad backstory for why I'm a bounty hunter?" Toji asked as he looked to Liu, smirking as the guy nodded while sitting up from where he was lying down.
"Kind of, unless you got something else to talk about?"
"Nope and as for your question, no backstory here. I'm just a greedy kid that wants money and Kangana had the biggest bounty available."
"…You know that that's not the normal thoughts of a…how old are you?"
Eight years old, I think. I'm not really one to worry about stuff like that."
"You look like you're 12." Liu spoke with a raised eyebrow and Toji snorted as he stood up to adjust the main sail.
"I get that a lot. My chi is a lot more potent than that of the average kid's so I guess my body decided it needed to force my growth a bit to make sure I can handle it."
"…I just saw you punching your hand into the chest of a guy and snapping his ribs just a few days ago. There's kids who are freakishly strong and then there's you."
"True. I am quite literally built different." Toji nodded in agreement and smirked as he looked to the island before humming as he caught sight of the dozen or so ships around it becoming visible.
Ignoring the ones with two masts, he smirked as he finally caught sight of the three-masted ship with dark red sails that were rolled up as it was anchored near the front of the island.
'Black skull under a full moon and painted in dull, dark colours to make itself hidden in the dark of night.' Toji thought with a hum before turning the sail to the wind and lowering their speed.
"So, what's your plan?" Liu asked and Toji stayed silent as he looked at the numerous ships around the island, noting how a few of them were still actively circling the island before smirking as he saw the few crew members on them.
"Does the average Crimson Sails ship have tar and/ or oil on it?" Toji asked and Liu raised an eyebrow at the question before nodding.
"Yeah, especially Kangana's ships. She likes to use the trebuchets like the Fire Nation do to make sure their target can't flee. …Are you planning on blowing them up?" Liu asked and Toji snorted as he shook his head before taking off his shoes and shirt.
"No, if I go onto the island, I need a way of escape and this might work."
"How might it work?"
"You'll see when the job's finished. Now, you coming with or staying on board?" Toji asked as he walked to the front of the small boat and Liu looked at the cold seawater before Toji rolled his eyes as the man shook his head.
"Nah, I'm good up here, but you go have your fun."
"Scaredy cat." The boy muttered before diving head first into the water, breaking the surface a few seconds later before making his way towards the closest ship.
Taking out his dagger as he neared the first ship slowly sailing past, Toji grunted as he stabbed the dagger into its side before pulling himself upwards, looking down at the scratch mark on his pants from where the barnacles on the bottom of the ship had cut right through it.
'It's a good thing they don't believe in making everything out of metal or else I would be fucked.' Toji thought with a smirk as he took out his butterfly sword, taking his time and keeping an eye out for any enemies while climbing his way up to the deck.
When he finally reached the edge, the boy slowly raised his head to look above instead of just rolling over before quickly pulling his head back when he saw one of the pirates nearly catching him.
Waiting a few more seconds, the hunter tried again and noticed how the guy that nearly noticed him was now gone, leaving him now free to scan the crew aboard.
'Seven on deck and most likely more below. Two other ships that have a similar number on them and the rest of the crew on the island itself. Hmm, how do I play this?' Toji could just go ahead and kill everyone, but he doesn't want to tip Kangana off and potentially lose a lot of gold.
Next was the option of quietly scaling around the ship, but from the sound of the wood he stabbed as he climbed up, it was beginning to rock away and falling into the path of a ship was not something he wanted to do even with his enhanced body.
'That just leaves one option since I'm not staking my life on Liu helping me.' Toji thought with a frown as he pulled himself upwards, the dim moonlight hidden by the clouds as he watched the pirates slowly patrolling the ship.
'Wait for it…wait for it…wait fo-Go!' With a soft grunt, Toji kept himself low to the ship while running across the deck, his eyes constantly flickering to the side and the doors in hopes that no one caught sight of him.
It appears Lady luck was on his side as he slid under the wooden railing while stabbing his butterfly sword into the side of the ship, riding it down to the water before jumping off halfway and diving head first into the sea.
'Hah, that was pretty fun.' Toji thought with a smirk as he swam deeper before making his way to the beach, hoping that there was at least some way off of it and into the forest.
'If not, it's going to be a bloody night.'
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'Well, good news. I don't have to worry about the pirates bothering me.' Toji thought with a frown as he hid behind a large rock on the sandy beach, watching as half of the crew was completely knocked out while the other half was plastered while still drinking their asses off.
This is why he could never work with a pirate crew in his past life. The goofballs get one taste at victory and all of a sudden, they need to drink their asses off to celebrate it.
'Fucking idiots.'Toji thought with a shake of his head as he began walking away, making his way to the forest while tiptoeing around the ones that were still knocked out as the ones that were awake were all gathered together.
"Y-Yo, you look fucking funny~Hehe~" Toji turned as he sheathed his butterfly sword, watching as one of the pirates slowly sat up with a dopey grin before the pirate fell back with a slit throat.
Toji just waited while pressing his hands against the pirate's mouth and stabbing his dagger through their brain, the pirate's struggles soon seizing as his life faded before the boy wiped his dagger clean.
Closing the eyes of the deceased pirate, Toji frowned as he slowly began making his way to the forest before sighing as he heard another pirate waking up.
'This is about to be a long one.'
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"That took way longer than it needed to." Toji muttered with a frown as he cleaned his dagger before tossing the bloody shirt of the second pirate he killed to the side.
He didn't have to kill that many people, but it was just the struggle of having to slowly walk through that many people at a snail's pace while making sure that they don't wake up that irritated him more.
'I swear, Kangana better be an easy kill or else I'm going to be pis-Who the fuck is that?' Toji stopped his rant while hopping up into a tree, pulling himself up onto a branch and staying still as he saw the two figures drawing closer.
"You sure he's this way, Fern?" He heard the bigger of the two asked, noting the guy's black hair that was done up in a ponytail as well as the two dadao he had in his hands and the four daggers sheathed at his side.
The other was a dark-haired man as well with shimmering green eyes, who simply hummed as he carried four small gourds at his side and from the side of the liquid inside of it, it was most definitely water he was carrying.
'So, a weapons specialist and a waterbender, huh? Wonder what they're doing out here, though the waterbender doesn't look like one.' The other guy was nicely dressed with the same Crimson Sails Armadacloak over regular clothes, but the water bender was completely naked except for a seaweed skirt and a pair of seaweed shorts under it.
"This is what Mosi's message said. He should be here since Liu was to make sure he docked here."
'Good thing I left him, then.' Toji thought with a smirk as he slowly took off his crossbow, loading a bolt as he watched the weapons guy cutting some of the bushes out before he took a deep breath.
Rolling backwards off the branch and making the icicle miss him, Toji shot out a bolt at the water bender Fern only for the weapon specialist to parry the bolt.
Landing in a crouched position, Toji hooked the crossbow back onto his back and took out his butterfly sword as he sheathed his dagger before grabbing his dadao. The weapon specialist smirked as he sliced his dadao against each other while Fern frowned as he pulled out water from one of his gourds.
"Careful, Raldri. That's that Toji kid that took out the Renegade Phoenix."
"Is it? Hmm, and he uses weapons. You guys said that all weapon users are weak. Looks like I get to say that all benders are weak now." Toji raised an eyebrow at the way Raldri was joking while looking at Fern to see the bender sigh.
"Can we focus on killing him and then getting back to that discussion?"
"Just saying. I see a weapon specialist alive and all the benders on the Renegade Phoenix dead so it's a pretty clear answer to me."
"Hey, if you're just going to keep arguing, can I go and kill off Kangana and then come back to you guys?" Toji cut into their discussion and both looked at him before Raldri shook his head.
"Tempting, but where's the fun in letting you walk away after you decided to drag our armada's name through the mud?" Fern just sighed at his fellow pirate's excitement before Toji smirked as the water bender looked at him.
"We were told to bring you in alive so do not make this difficult."
"Funny 'cause I just wanted to kill Kangana and go about my day. Once again, think you guys can just move to the side and let me through?" His response made Raldri blink while Fern narrowed his eyes.
"You really have a death wish, kid."
"Yeah, Tengfei said the same thing. Now, she is dead and I'm currently hunting her captain." Toji answered with a smirk, watching as Raldri lazily spun his dual dadao while the water coiled around Fern's arm.
"Then, let's get this over with." With those words from Fern, Toji didn't waste a single second as he rushed to the side, Fern quick to react as he swung a hand and an arc of water shot at the boy.
Toji rolled under it as the tip of the water sliced through a tree trunk with a sharp hiss while Raldri rushed in, closing the distance with shocking speed with one of his blades slicing towards Toji's neck while the other sliced at his leg.
Parrying the slash at his neck with his butterfly sword while hopping over the lower one, Toji used the force from his jump to twist and kick Raldri right in the jaw, landing with a smirk as the man stumbled back with a surprised look.
Fern was not still as his water surged forward in the form of a jagged ring with sharp edges that spun like a buzzsaw. The boy doded to the left only to frown as it turned to follow after him, grunting as he rushed at it before sliding underneath it and hopped through the centre.
With quick precise cuts, Fern looked surprised as the boy cut his water ring apart before Toji frowned as he landed right as Raldri charged at him with a roar.
"Not so fast, you little shit!" Toji spun on one heel and blocked the first dadao with his own, ducking under the second before spinning his butterfly sword into a reverse grip to stop the first one from cutting into him.
"Nice! You're making this interesting-Hurgh!" Toji didn't respond as he pushed the man's dadao upwards before driving his knee into Raldri's gut, smirking as the man stumbled back while gasping for air.
"I've got more for you." Toji spoke as he rushed in and dropped low, ducking under Raldri's swing before sweeping the man's legs from beneath him.
Slashing Raldri across the side as the man fell, Toji clicked his tongue as the cut was too shallow, hopping back right as Raldri swung both of his blade down in a crisscrossing pattern.
The man seemed to have gone wild as he swung his blades in all directions, Toji frowning as he watched each blade still cutting through anything in their path before looking up right as Fern hopped into the air.
The ring of water around Fern stilled for a brief moment before the waterbender punched the part of the ring in front of him, Toji hopping from side to side as ice rained down and nearly pierced through him.
Turning around and running towards the nearest tree, Toji hopped off of it and onto another right as Raldri cut right through it with a roar. Looking down at Fern as he landed, Toji hopped from tree to tree in rapid succession before diving down at the water bender.
Rolling under the water shield made to block him, Toji punched forward right as Fern tried to make a shield of ice, but it was too fragile and the boy punched right through it before following up with a roundhouse kick that sent Fern skidding across the ground.
"I'm going to kill you!" Raldri bellowed as he charged towards Toji, who turned and waited until the right moment before he moved right as Raldri swung both blades down.
Spinning around the attack and around the man, Raldri let out a pained cry as Toji tossed his dadao into the air while taking out his dagger and stabbing it into the back of his knee.
Lashing out with a kick to the back of Raldri's head, he jammed his butterfly sword through the man's back and out his stomach before taking the man's dadao swords and stabbing them into his lungs.
Catching his own dadao as he finally stopped in front of him, Toji didn't even look as he simply swung his blade outwards, staring directly at Fern while ignoring the headless body dropping like a sack besides him.
Smirking at the waterbender's look of disbelief and horror, Toji took out his butterfly sword from Raldri's back before spinning it into a standard grip as Fern spoke.
"You…you're a monster."
"Nah, I just don't like wasting time." Toji answered, adjusting the grip on his blades right as Fern attacked.
His other three gourds opened right as Toji also ripped his dagger free before the water wrapped around his arms. Fern formed them into water whips before swinging his arms and lashing them at the boy.
Toji smirked as he rushed in, surprising the water bender as the boy easily deflected and danced in between the strikes while juggling the three blades like they were nothing.
Fern quickly stopped the whips and shot out ice spikes, but Toji just smirked as he hopped to the side before beginning his counter.
His dagger struck first, Toji ricocheting it off an ice spike and into Fern's shoulder. The pain broke his concentration and that's what Toji needed as he rushed in, leaping over the water whip from Fern's good arm with a spin.
Kicking the dagger further in as he landed, Toji turned and sliced down on the same arm that had the dagger, Fern gritting his teeth as the butterfly sword got stuck in the wound.
Toji was surprised as he saw the waterbender's blood rippling before he decided to finish it, quickly rushing in and sliding under the blood whip swung at his head before Fern stopped as Toji hopped up behind him.
The water bender's body twitched and blood spurted from his lips as Toji walked back around to stand in front of him, grabbing the dadao stabbed through Fern's lungs before grunting as he ripped his arm to the side and sliced right through his lungs.
"You guys really should have let me pass." Toji muttered as he swung his dadao to get the blood off before taking out his dagger and butterfly sword, cleaning all three and sheathing them with a smirk.
'Still, though, they weren't that bad.' Toji thought with a hum as he patted his side where one of Fern's ice spikes had made a shallow cut as well as his cheek where the pressure from Raldri's swings during his rampage were enough to cut him open.
If they had kept a clear mind and worked together, they would have won, but unfortunately, Fern decided to leave it all up to Raldri and that cost them the battle.
"In all my years of combat, I admit that I have not seen a child with your capabilities."
'That is not a female voice.' Toji thought with a frown as he turned to the voice, raising an eyebrow at the figure before he groaned as he saw the figure wearing the black and dark red armour of the Fire Nation.
"Great, you guys are here too."
"Hmm, you make it sound as if we are but a nuisance." The Fire Nation soldier spoke with a raised eyebrow and Toji just shrugged as he rolled his neck.
"Not really. You guys are just a nuisance because you think you can force me to follow your 'great plan to help the world' when it's really just a plan for world domination."
"Huh, when you look at it like that, it kind of makes sense." The bearded man muttered and Toji rolled his eyes as the soldier chuckled before nodding.
"Ah, where are my manners? Allow me to introduce myself. I am General Iroh, son to Fire Lord Azulon and heir to the title of Fire Lord. I was on my way to lay siege to the great city of Ba Sing Se when I got word of a great bounty hunter that was very young and I simply wished to meet the young hunter myself" Iroh spoke with a smile, but Toji just looked at him before looking up at the sky with a sigh.
'Looks like you have forsaken me, Lady Luck.'
A/N: And here we go~! Now the canon is truly kicking off~! Toji is so close to finishing his job, but now…the Dragon of the West is here~!
What will happen? Who knows? Guess we'll just have to find out.
And now, like always, you can go to my Pat-reon-.-com-/-KingCrimsonNova to read ahead on this as well as many other stories. If you want to, you are free to, but if you don't want, all's good as I will still be uploading here. This is just me trying to get some extra cash.
As always, read, enjoy, review and until next week...
Ba-Bye~!