Night had fallen by the time the group reached the rendezvous point for the invasion.  Kouji was yawning, already sleepy and thus not really paying attention to anything that was being said.  Instead, he wandered over to the nearest koala-sheep and lay down beside it to use it as a pillow.

"Wait! Four days!?" Aang suddenly yelped. "The invasion's in four days?!"

Kouji bolted upright, earning a displeased blaat from his pillow.  "Haven't you been counting?" he asked curiously.  He had been.

Sokka yawned. "Besides. That's like, four days from now. Let's just calm down, and—" With a skill none of the others had been able to master, he fell asleep midsentence.  Kouji nodded and tried to follow the warrior's example, curling up again.

"Sokka's got the right idea, Aang," Katara was saying. "We're here, we're ready, the best thing we can do now is get plenty of rest."

"I guess," Aang said, though he didn't sound convinced. He lay back down and was quiet.

Good.  Kouji proceeded to do algebraic expressions in his head until he fell asleep.

 

 

When they all woke up the next morning, Aang was already beating up a tree.

"…did he have some fermented fruit last night or something?" Kouji asked nobody in particular, rubbing his eyes.

"Nah, he's just in panicmode," Toph said, as Katara wandered over to talk him down. "Hopefully he'll come out of it in a day or two."

Kouji nodded.  "Can't say I blame him.  So, what's on today's agenda?  Training or lounging?"

"Practicing, not training," she corrected. "We're not gonna bother learning any new things, and we're not gonna do more than a couple of hours a day. Sweetness was right last night, most important thing is for us to be as well-rested and energized as possible. So we practice to make sure we don't lose anything over the next couple days."

"Makes sense to me," the boy replied as all the leaves fell off the tree Aang had been beating up on.

"Then come on," she said, grabbing his wrist. "We're both already up, we might as well get our practice done now so you can have the rest of the day to do whatever."

"Sounds good to me."  Kouji got the rest of the way to his feet and followed her.  Just as she'd promised, she only practiced basic manoeuvres with him for about two hours, then dismissed him for the day.  From there, Kouji practised his own hybrid style, taking care to do the sand whip out of Katara's sight. After that, he grabbed his wakizashi and went to find Sokka, who was happily curled up with his maps back at their campsite.

"Hey, Sokka?"

"Hmm?"

"Will you spar with me?  I haven't had any practise against another opponent since last winter."

"Huh?" He looked up. "You've been practicing with Toph all morning."

Kouji raised his eyebrows, and simply showed Sokka his sword.

"...Where'd you get that?" the teenager asked, boggling a bit.

"I bought it, of course.  I've had it since you started training with Master Piandao."  Kouji still hadn't returned the pai sho tile.

"Wow. I totally missed that."

"I think all of you might have," Kouji admitted.

"Oh. Sorry," Sokka said, a little sheepishly.

"So… sparring?"

"Uh, yeah, sure, just gimme like five minutes?"

Kouji's grinned broadly.  "Okay!"

A couple minutes later, Sokka finally put his maps away and retrieved his own sword, and the boy led him  to a more open area where they could practise.  Kouji found out quickly that Sokka had a natural gift for swordplay in addition to a longer reach; the younger boy was disarmed multiple times through the session.

"Not bad," Sokka told him after, grinning.

Kouji grinned back.  "I've been practising as much as I could, despite a five-month hiatus."

Sokka nodded, then changed the subject. "Lunchtime!" He bolted back to camp, Kouji hard on his heels.

 

 

The rest of the day passed more lazily, though Sokka did go out hunting elsewhere on the island after Katara flat-out forbade him to 'hunt' one of the koala-sheep.  Kouji spent it somewhat apart from the others, using a stick to do math problems in the dirt.  In three days, I'll be officially branded a traitor, he thought.

By the time they all went to bed, Aang still hadn't come back.  Tonight, Kouji returned to his normal spot on Appa's tail; he was very fond of the giant beast.  Aang wandered in a couple minutes later, though, and proceeded to tell everyone goodnight. Repeatedly.

"Go to sleep already!" Toph finally yelled.

The Avatar obligingly fell silent.

Is he going to do this every night? Kouji wondered, closing his eyes.

He was awakened the next morning by Aang panicking again. "SOKKA WAKE UP I NEED TO KNOW WHAT DAY IT IS!"

"Take off every zig!" Kouji shouted in turn, bolting upright.

Everyone stared at him.

"…what did I just say?"

"Take off every zig," Toph said.

"...Yeah. Um. We've still got two days," Sokka said, then Aang resumed his panicking.

"Sokka, you've got to get up and drill your rock-climbing exercises!"

"What?"

"In one of my dreams you were running from Fire Nation soldiers trying to climb this cliff but you were too slow and they got you!"

"…We have two earthbenders here," Kouji pointed out.  "Three, counting you."

"Besides, that was just a dream," Sokka said. "I'm a great climber!"

"THEN CLIMB THAT CLIFF! CLIMB IT FAST!"

Grumbling under his breath, Sokka wandered over to the cliff and started up.

"Hā Lì Bō Tè would like his large calligraphy back," muttered Kouji, stretching.

"DON'T DRINK THAT!" Aang yelped, turning on Toph next.

"Why, is it poisoned?" she asked, after spitting it all out onto Katara.

"In my dream, we were right in the middle of the invasion, and you had to stop to use the bathroom! We died because of your tiny bladder! And you need to start wearing your hair up! In my dream, your hair got caught in a train and--"

"Aang," Katara cut him off. "I know you're just trying to help. But you really need to get a grip. You're unravelling."

Aang took a couple deep breaths. "You're right. I'm losing my mind."

"Are we sure we don't want the past tense here?" Kouji said under his breath.

"Come on, Sunshine. Let's go practice while Sweetness tries to unbreak his brain," Toph said, grabbing Kouji's wrist and pulling him away from the campsite.

"I'm for that."

The two of them worked at that for a couple hours, then Toph sighed. "Okay, it's probably my turn to try and calm Twinkletoes down. We're done for the day."

"Okay."  Kouji hoped to get through more sparring with Sokka; he banked on the fact that Katara probably wouldn't let him anywhere near Aang to try to calm the Avatar.

"Maybe later. Wanna help me make some armour for Appa?"  Sokka said, when he asked.

Kouji considered this, then nodded.  "Okay.  What do I need to do?"

"Put these together." Sokka handed him a couple pieces of metal and a hammer.

"…how?"  Kouji had never worked metal before.

"Hit them!"

The boy looked doubtfully at the items, then shrugged and did as he was told.  The two of them worked at that for the rest of the afternoon. Aang went to bed at the same time as the rest of them, saying he sort of kind of maybe almost felt a teeny bit better.

Kouji wasn't going to hold his breath, however. 

 

 

Sure enough, it wasn't long before Aang woke up screaming, prompting Kouji to come out with something else nobody understood: "Use the force!"

This time, they didn't stare at him, being fully occupied with Aang's declaration that he wasn't going to sleep again until after the invasion.

"…oh, this is going to end well."

Try as they might, no one could dissuade Aang from his stupid plan of stupidity. Toph sighed and dragged Kouji off for another practice session.  After that, Kouji practised on his own, both sword and dirt, and then moved on to help Sokka with Appa's armour.  Sokka wasn't there. Instead, he was watching Aang hallucinate.

Kouji bounced his head off the metal.

Sokka wandered back to him after a while. "Wanna help me shave some koala-sheep? We're gonna make Aang a bed. He's starting to hallucinate."

"I'm starting to think some kava might be a bit more useful here," Kouji replied.

"Maybe. But we don't have any, so this is the best we can do. Come on." He dragged Kouji over to where he had some koala-sheep penned. "Start shaving."

"I've never done this before," the boy pointed out.  "I might cut them."

"Neither have I," Sokka admitted. "Katara will fix any mistakes."

"And the blood that would get on the wool?"

"We'll put that on the bottom. Aang doesn't need to see it."

Kouji shook his head and started.  Rather than shave all the way down, he used his belt knife to cut the wool close to the animals, afraid of hurting them.  After he'd finished the first, he stopped to stare at the weapon in his hand.

"What's wrong? Why'd you stop?"

The younger boy jumped and jerked his thoughts back to a normal train.  "Sorry, Sokka.  Just… got caught up."  He sheathed the blade.  "Can I borrow your knife?"

"I'm using it. And yours is fine."

"…Zuko gave it to me," Kouji said quietly.

"...Fine. We can trade."

"Thanks, Sokka," he said, relieved.  He gave the older boy his knife, took Sokka's, and went back to work.

"Wait, actually—" Sokka started, then cut himself off. "...No, never mind. Forget I said anything."

Kouji looked over at him.  "Huh?"

"Forget it. It's not important."

The boy stared, but Sokka wouldn't elaborate further.  With a sigh, he turned back to the task at hand.  Sokka brought all the wool to where the girls had set up a platform, and the four of them finally managed to talk Aang into using it.

"I really hope this works," Kouji said quietly as he made his way back to Appa.

 

If Aang woke up that night, it wasn't loud enough to wake the others.

 

The next day was the invasion.