Chương 8: 8: Full Moon.

Later that night...

"So, shall we have this conversation again?" asked Iroh as he sipped the jasmine tea from his cup.

He was sitting in a rather comfortable chair in the study of the newly ascended Fire Lord Ozai, his younger brother. In another similar chair, his father was sipping from a large glass of what appeared to be an unknown beverage, using a strange drinking utensil.

"Yes, look, he even made this for an old man like me," Azulon replied, pointing to the object in his glass, a straw to sip any drink comfortably.

"That's not what I meant... although it's a good idea, especially with that 'lemonade with sugar', I never thought you could make something so sweet out of beets," Iroh replied, watching with some envy as his father enjoyed his nice cold drink, courtesy of Shisui.

"It's not the Avatar reborn, the tests proved that, didn't they? The Fire Sages already told us that," Ozai, sitting behind his mahogany desk, touched his temples, trying to relax for a moment.

"He wasn't possessed by a spirit either," Iroh said, perhaps the most spiritual of the three, and using the methods of the sages, he was able to determine a crucial fact.

Shisui did not even have a residual aura from the spiritual world, which ruled out possession or contact with such beings. Cases of people being influenced by these beings have already been reported in the available literature.

Some artists could learn new songs or ways of making art and even inspiration for writing through contact with spirits. However, a possessed person could even suffer physical deformities due to gradual exposure to these beings, in addition to going insane.

Shisui did not even have any deformities, and although he was a little strange at times, he was not insane. But the three of them did not fully understand why he was so wise, where his knowledge came from, and why they could accept him even though strange things happened to him.

In a way, this was Shisui's real danger, it could be his personality, the charm of a budding scholar, or something superior, but the three men present realized that as long as the boy usually talked about what he was passionate about, usually knowledge, they were enveloped in his 'presence' so to speak and did not doubt the strangeness of the situation.

It wasn't mind control, they could doubt, question, and even correct Shisui, but when it came to those topics or some more serious ones, people tended to treat him like an adult, like the knowledgeable elder in the group.

"Wait..." Ozai thought of something and couldn't help but speak, drawing the attention of his father and brother.

"What happened, did you think of something?" asked Azulon, causing Ozai, who had his head down, to look out of the closed window.

Ozai stood up and walked to the window, the other two standing behind him to follow. When the man opened the window, he looked straight up at the sky, full of stars and clouds, but what stood out the most was the moon.

The full moon.

"Father, what was the moon like when Shisui was born?" Iroh asked suddenly when he noticed that his brother was staring at the moon in the sky.

Azulon grimaced as he remembered what he'd done that night, that general deserved to be punished for hiding an important threat, especially since Shisui's mother was not just any waterbender, but his past actions were just that, past.

Shisui proved to be truly valuable, and even he felt a twinge of remorse for his hasty decision that night, but at least he had found ways to soften his relationship with the boy, Azulon suspected that Shisui already knew the reasons why he had no parents, only neither of them ever broached the subject.

"It was a full moon..." the old man answered somewhat reluctantly, but when he felt Iroh's hand on his shoulder, he pulled himself together.

'At least Shisui is committed to Azula,' the old man thought, realizing that at least he had managed to solve a ticking time bomb for the nation.

Someone as wise and eager to improve as Shisui was indeed a danger, but fortunately, his grandchildren took it upon themselves to bond with him, especially Azula. And even he was trying to forge even a tenuous bond with the child, lest he create the nation's worst enemy besides the Avatar.

"Father, do you remember why Grandfather Sozin attacked the Air Nomads?" asked Ozai, not taking his eyes off tonight's moon, which seemed brighter than usual.

"Because he feared the reincarnation of the Avatar, who was his childhood friend? Is that it, reincarnation?" asked Azulon, somewhat intrigued.

"Yes, it's not the reincarnation of the Avatar, but what if it's the reincarnation of someone else?" Iroh's question brought the three of them closer to an answer.

"If Shisui is the reincarnation of someone else, how do you explain his special wisdom? Azula is smart, but she's just a child, Shisui is more than smart and you know it," Azulon pointed out.

Reincarnation existed in this world, the best example being the Avatar himself, the greatest exponent of that fact. But there was a general consideration that the reincarnation of others was different from this being.

The Avatar reincarnated in a new life, but kept the imprint of his past life, which he could access under certain conditions; a normal person could hardly achieve something similar, and if he did, it was to a lesser degree.

"The moon, father, the moon," Iroh pointed to the sky, causing Azulon's eyes to light up.

"I see. Perhaps a sage from ancient times, reincarnated in Shisui? Influenced by the full moon and the spiritual connection between it and the waterbenders, something from his past life may have seeped into his new self," Azulon mused aloud, but his conclusion caused Ozai to shake his head.

"I don't think so, the experience of a sage could overwhelm any baby, it must be something else," Ozai stopped looking at the moon and turned to face his brother and father.

"Did the moon allow the spirituality of his past life to drip onto his new self, filling him with a different vision? A vision that no child would have. It could also explain the child's strange ability," Ozai's conclusion partially convinced the two men before him, but doubts remained.

"Perhaps an inordinate amount of such spirituality? I noticed that the boy's energy consumption increased when he entered that strange state in his fight with Azula, a child's mind cannot withstand the wisdom of an ancient sage," Iroh scratched his head in confusion.

Iroh felt that he would have to start searching through the ancient archives to find out who that person might have been, but there were so many outstanding men and women in the past, who could Shisui's previous life have been?

"The child meditates constantly, perhaps as a way to assimilate his former self in an accelerated manner, that's why he's getting wiser and wiser. A strange phenomenon, but not uncommon," Azulon sipped the rest of his lemonade before speaking to his two sons, who looked at him expectantly.

"As a child, I was interested in learning more about the Avatar, you see, he was a friend of my father's before he started the war. I found an old story repeated in some dusty scrolls about the Avatar of the pre-Szeto Fire Nation, a very nice woman indeed.

It is said that the female Avatar had a series of encounters with a rather peculiar man, who not only possessed knowledge that few had at the time, some of which was even lost, but he was also very different as if he had a large library in his head.

This person, of whom it is not said whether he was a man or a woman, even popularized some strange political ideas, of which we only have names like "democracy, capitalism, free market", these were ideas proposed by some guys in the Earth Kingdom, but centuries before the time of the story.

He was a ruthless person, he killed his opponents at every turn, and he seemed to love to steal women, as if he was not used to the time he was born in and was stuck in his past until it occurred to him to force the female Avatar of that time to be with him.

The Avatar won and destroyed him, but it is said that at the end of the battle, the Avatar commented, 'You are a soul from the past, overwhelmed by the spirit world and the passage of time.' Since then, there has been a belief that many reincarnated people have something to gain from their past selves.

Wise men, brave warriors, and even despicable villains have been reincarnated throughout history to continue their exploits, though only a few have access to knowledge of their past lives, usually appearing around the Avatar of that era.

It is said that even Szeto encountered a woman whose past self may have been a former Earth King, and whose ideas caused that Avatar to refine his political ideas of the time, bringing prosperity to the nation.

It is worth noting that these types of people tend to be born at times of great spiritual upheaval. Full moons, comets, eclipses, earthquakes, hurricanes, tidal waves. All phenomena related to the spiritual world seem to favor their birth, although they are extremely rare and very obscure cases.

Could Shisui be something like this? Probably, which would also explain the way we get involved in it. Sages in particular have the ability to attract everyone's attention when they teach.

Or have you forgotten the conversations with the leader of the Fire Temple? It wasn't until I stopped talking to him that I realized the bastard had me all wrapped up and cajoled," Azulon finished the long story and then popped a piece of ice in his glass into his mouth, obviously courtesy of a certain boy.

"Wow... but when you think about it, it makes sense. Even I, in some of my deeper meditations, have come to see some fragments of my past life, though I learn nothing from them.

I never thought that anyone could replicate the Avatar's specialness, even a little, in that respect, maybe I should ask Shisui for help with meditation," Iroh let out the breath he had been holding for a long time, feeling that the mystery finally had an answer and that he had gained a new interest in his past life.

Maybe he had been a Waterbender in his past life? It would be ironic and something particularly revealing, so Iroh thought about the possibility of helping Shisui with his training if the latter would give him guidance in meditation.

"So, is Shisui aware of this? He has to be, and he doesn't seem to care much about his particularity," Ozai said, leaning back in his seat and sighing deeply, at least they had solved one problem.

"He's probably aware of his oddity, who knows what children have in their heads? But we shouldn't worry, those people are rare and a per era, although sometimes they don't show up.

For example, there was no such person in the Yangchen era, in the Kuruk era, nor in the Kyoshi era, nor in the Roku era. Four eras, so that would explain why this kind of knowledge is so unpopular.

The concern is, will the Avatar return? Shisui has been born, which means that one may soon appear," Azulon's conclusion caused the room to fall into a tense atmosphere until Ozai began to draw up an order on a scroll.

"I will organize a special squad to investigate spiritual phenomena in the world, if something like that happens, it's either spirits or the Avatar. The search for the Avatar must continue," the man said with some tension in his voice, it would not be good news for the Fire Nation to see the emergence of such a troubled entity.

Iroh was a little uncomfortable with his brother's particularly hostile approach, but he was no traitor, so he decided to nod. He was a member of the White Lotus, but also a Fire Nation general, so it was best to seek balance on both sides, at least until it was no longer necessary.

Iroh hoped that peace would come to his people.

"Father, can you find the scrolls? I would like to study them," Ozai asked with some interest in his eyes.

"Sure, I am old, but I have a good memory. If there were no political problems, I would give them another brother..." Azulon then began to vividly tell how he still had the strength to further expand the royal family, ignoring the uncomfortable faces of his two sons.

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AN: This is the way I came up with to resolve the issue of Shisui and his somewhat strange and questionable actions in the past and future chapters. His actual reincarnation is not revealed, but it can be assumed that he is part of the reincarnation cycle of the Avatar world.

There will be no other-worldly or Avatar-worldly reincarnations during this story, maybe in the future when Shisui dies and there is a brief mention of his reincarnated self, who knows. So don't worry!

As far as I know, some types of meditation can (theoretically) allow you to see parts of your past life, and some people claim to be reincarnated (I doubt it, but who knows), or maybe they have knowledge they weren't supposed to have at the time, filtered from their past life.

I think it was Buddha who, after attaining enlightenment, was able to see and relive all his past lives, unlike the Avatar who can only talk to his past selves.

Anyway, to those who have commented on this paragraph, thank you for your comments! Did you like this way of resolving the situation?

By the way, Happy New Year! Thanks for supporting this fanfic, 2.4K collections as I write this, FUCK, I never thought it would stick so much.

My Dragon Ball fanfic has only 1.2K and my Reincarnation fanfic has almost 300. And my original novel 'Steam and Heart' only has 20, but shhh, details. Go read it, I swear it's good!

Sincerely, thank you. Seeing your comments, your conversations, your doubts, questions, and comments is something I appreciate very much. They encourage me to write and make me better as a writer.