Gaoling slept early, as always.
In the Beifong mansion, the lamps were almost out, leaving only a soft glow in the hallways. Guards patrolled with monotonous steps, not suspecting that a small, barefoot, silent shadow was slipping between the walls as if the house knew her better than its own owners.
Toph held her breath as she passed near her parents' door.
She listened to their voices, distant, united in that bubble of expectations and rules that had always been used to suffocate her without them realizing it.
—"Our daughter is so fragile…" her mother said sadly. "I don't want anything to happen to her."
—"As long as we keep protecting her, she'll never be in danger," her father replied.
Toph gritted her teeth.
That word ran down her spine like an iron chain: fragile.
When she finally left the family rooms behind, her steps changed: from cautious to sure, precise, quickened. As if the earth itself were calling her.
Once outside the Beifong property, the little earthbender let out a deep sigh, lifted her foot, and pressed it firmly into the ground.
The vibration spread under her soles.
The hidden maps of Gaoling appeared in her mind with perfect clarity.
Down there.
In the tunnels.
The clandestine arena awaited her.
And she… was waiting for her, too.
Toph smiled.
—"Let's go for another victory," she murmured as she ran toward the secret entrance.
The underground arena roared that night.
The crowd shouted, bet, demanded blood and spectacle.
Not a single person in that crowd knew that the Blind Bandit who dominated all the fighters was actually the protected daughter of the most powerful family in the region.
It was her favorite secret.
Her freedom.
Toph entered the circle of stone, felt the vibration of her opponent and… that was enough.
Three moves.
A shockwave.
A controlled collapse.
The man was out of the fight.
The crowd erupted.
—"Blind Bandit!"
—"Queen of the earth!"
—"Invincible!"
But as the celebrations thundered, Toph felt another pulse, different from all the others.
A quiet breath.
Soft.
Precise.
It didn't belong to the spectators.
Nor the opponent.
Nor the arena's handlers.
It was her.
The mysterious woman she had seen from the shadows before, the one who that same afternoon had spoken to her backstage, with a voice so firm and frank that Toph still didn't know how to process it.
"I can give you freedom."
Not a lie.
The earth doesn't lie.
As she climbed up the secret tunnel to return outside, Toph felt that same pulse, a few meters behind her.
Suri.
She wasn't following her aggressively.
She wasn't watching her like an enemy.
She was just there.
Present.
Silent.
Patient.
The earth girl didn't say a word as she exited the tunnel into the backyard of the Beifong property, where no one would see her. She walked calmly to her room. The hallways were quiet, filled with a silence rich in social pressure.
She carefully opened her door, entered, and closed it slowly.
Only then did she let out a long sigh.
Her muscles trembled.
She collapsed onto the bed, barefoot, feeling the vibrations of the mansion… and there it was.
The same presence.
Suri hadn't entered the house.
Toph knew that.
Suri was a few meters underground, perhaps sitting in an old cavity of the terrain, watching, feeling, listening to the echo of every emotion the little prodigy released through the earth.
Toph frowned.
The woman's words came back with force:
"You don't have to hide your strength.
There are places where a power like yours is celebrated, not caged."
Toph clenched the sheet between her fingers.
—"I don't need to be celebrated," she whispered, irritated. "I'm enough on my own."
But her chest ached.
And the soft vibration of Suri underground…
It didn't judge.
It didn't mock.
It didn't press.
It was just there.
As if it understood.
Toph turned on the bed, annoyed with herself for feeling such a strange, new emotional tremor.
—"It was just a conversation," she told herself, trying to sound firm. "I'm not going to let a stranger mess with my head."
The floor beneath her returned a faint vibration, almost like a contained sigh.
Suri was still there.
Watching.
Waiting.
Interpreting every surge of the little prodigy's heart.
Toph buried her face in the pillow.
—"Freedom…?" she whispered, her voice broken, barely audible.
The word came out like a secret she had hidden for years.
In the underground cavity where she was hiding, Suri opened her eyes.
Toph's heart…
for the first time
had moved toward her.
And that was all she needed.
Suri stood up silently, turned, and disappeared into the tunnels.
She wouldn't intervene.
She wouldn't rush anything.
Someone like Toph Beifong could only be recruited in one way:
By letting her walk toward freedom herself.