Genocide. Although Kahn could not feel the bloodshed and gravity behind those few cold words, he could still recognize what they meant.
This was no longer something that could be explained or whitewashed through so-called perspectives, interests, or national concerns. It was unquestionably a crime against humanity that deserved condemnation!
Watching Kahn sink into shock, Iroh continued to explain the deeper reasons.
The Avatar was the world's most powerful Bender, capable of mastering all four forms of Bending at once. For thousands of years, the Avatar had been responsible for maintaining the world's balance and peace, an existence above worldly affairs.
The Avatar was not ageless or immortal, but in a certain sense, the difference was slight.
Whenever the Avatar grew old, he would reincarnate, retaining all the memories of every past Avatar. Thus, as time passed, the Avatar would only grow stronger.
To maintain balance among the peoples, the Avatar would reincarnate into each bending people in a cycle: air, water, earth, and fire.
A hundred years ago, Roku, the Avatar from the firebending people, had stopped the Fire Nation's emperor of the time from launching a war. Even so, he had been unable to extinguish the ambition in the emperor's heart.
And so, after Avatar Roku died, the emperor had still unleashed war without hesitation.
After the Avatar from the firebending people died, his next incarnation would be among the airbending people. To prevent the Avatar from stopping him again, the emperor had led his armies to wipe out the Air Nomads when Sozin's Comet arrived, cutting off any future threat.
Judging by the results, they had succeeded. The Avatar had not appeared for nearly a hundred years, and there was no telling whether anyone still awaited the Avatar's return.
After hearing this secret history, Kahn fell silent, as did Iroh. This was not an easy stretch of history to discuss; it was also an indictment of the Fire Nation.
At the same time, his convictions began to waver.
Originally, Kahn had believed that the great tides of the world followed the pattern of unity giving way to division and division giving way to unity. The Fire Nation's war was merely part of the natural course of history.
Moreover, although all the countries in this world had different cultures and customs, their writing and language were the same. One could say that they already possessed uniquely favorable conditions for unification.
But what the Fire Nation had done to the airbending people went far beyond what he considered normal.
He had thought the Fire Nation had been handed the template of the Great Qin Empire, which had united all six kingdoms. Instead, was it actually a genocidal, anti-humanity gang combining World War II Germany and North American slaveholders?
Although he had always regarded himself as an outsider, if the Fire Nation truly united the world, even he would no longer be able to stay out of it, would he?
So, would the world truly be better off united by a country like this?
From his experiences living in the Fire Nation over the years, it did not seem quite so terrible. Its economy flourished, its technology was advanced, and education was widespread. It seemed the finest model for the world to learn from.
But genocide was an original sin the Fire Nation could never erase.
Besides, as an insignificant individual, what could he do in an age like this?
Even if he had transmigrated, even if he came from a more civilized world, even if he was an exceptionally gifted Firebender, faced with a question like this, he felt only helpless and lost.
Iroh watched Kahn's inner struggle from beside him. Kahn's reaction was within his expectations.
Nor did he offer guidance for Kahn's doubts and confusion as he usually did. Whether or not Kahn aimed to become a grandmaster, this was a stage he had to experience as he grew.
Besides, he himself had squandered half his life without finding an answer. What right did he have to guide anyone else?
Fortunately, Kahn was not like Iroh, the sort who would fight a difficult question to the bitter end until they perished together.
As the saying went, nothing in the world was difficult, so long as you were willing to give up. To avoid driving himself into a dead end, Kahn forcibly stopped thinking and made himself put the matter out of his mind.
Whatever the case, an issue on this scale was not something his present self could consider.
Taking care of what's in front of me comes first!
Kahn repeated this to himself over and over, but his unsettled feelings would not calm for a long time.
After that conversation, Kahn gave himself a rare few days off to relax. He did nothing but play and empty his mind. After all that, he finally returned to his usual state.
Looking back on that day's conversation now, he realized he had simply been making trouble for himself.
Ultimate questions such as how to achieve world peace, how to eliminate war, and whether the world should be united had never been resolved back home either.
He was not much cleverer than any ordinary person, much less comparable to the sages and great minds of the past. If even those giants had yet to solve these problems, why should a small fry like him go out of his way to worry about them?
As for the future, as the saying went, the boat would straighten itself out when it reached the bridge.
Fuck it, I'm just going to let it all slide!
Having thought this through, Kahn immediately felt refreshed. He cast aside his distracting thoughts and prepared to devote himself to studying Firebending.
However, Kahn soon found himself troubled again. He suddenly realized that he did not quite know where to begin.
It was not that he lacked ideas. Quite the opposite: he had so many ideas in his head that he found it difficult to choose.
If he simply wanted to develop new moves outside Firebending, Kahn already had plenty of options. The works he had seen in his previous life contained countless characters who used flames. They were practically an inexhaustible treasure trove.
To take an example close at hand, during his first spar with Zuko and the others, he had used [Scum Gale], a move from The King of Fighters series, and that series alone had quite a few characters who used flames.
And if he wanted to study the nature of flames, there was even more to discuss. Between the two directions of idealism and materialism, there were countless avenues to explore.
There was little need to elaborate on the idealist direction. Put simply, it came down to one sentence:
A believing heart is your magic.
So long as you believed, you could give flames any function you wanted. For instance, you could use flames to burn away scars and restore skin to its original state, indirectly turning it into a healing technique.
As for the materialist approach, the possibilities were even more varied. Even flames themselves held many avenues to explore.
According to what he had learned in middle school, flames were the phenomenon of light and heat emitted when matter burned. In other words, controlling flames could actually be divided into controlling light and controlling heat.
And when their temperature grew high enough, flames became that seemingly miraculous substance, plasma.
In short, after all that brainstorming, Kahn felt as though a riot of blossoms was dazzling his eyes. Instead, he no longer knew where to begin.
He sighed helplessly. Ah, were these the troubles of a genius?
And so, carrying this worry, he sought Iroh out for advice, leaving Iroh utterly at a loss.
In all his years sweeping across battlefields as the [Dragon of the West], he had never heard such a humblebrag. In all honesty, he wanted troubles like these too!
Despite the thousand words of envy, jealousy, and resentment in his heart, Iroh still responsibly pointed him toward a clear path.
"You can realize the ideas in your heart little by little. There's no need to rush.
"If you don't know how to choose, why not try returning to the starting point?"
Before you continue