A/N: Hi everyone, this is my first Avatar fanfiction, and I must admit that I'm not the most knowledgable about the Avatar world, so I'm sorry if things are just plain out wrong. I do, however, acknowledge that there is a part in this chapter where my OC says the Fire Nation attacked the Northern Water Tribe before Zhao, and I know this didn't actually happen, but it's necessary for my story. Also, I'm not that sure about dates and everything, like you'll see in this chapter with how long they stay in the Northern Water Tribe, but hey ho, what ya gonna do? Anyways, on with the story.

Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing related to Avatar and do this solely due to want.

Chapter 1: The New Teacher

"Ugh, this is so unfair!" Katara yelled in frustration after losing to Master Pakku. "Just because I'm a girl, they think that I don't deserve to learn waterbending like them? Seriously, who do they think they are?"

Aang and Sokka merely nodded profusely, not wanting to accidentally say something that would've turned Katara's legendary temper onto them.

"Katara, if you want me to, I'll gladly refuse to learn from Master Pakku." Aang offered.

"No, it's ok Aang. You need a waterbending teacher and fast. Who knows when the fire nation will attack." Katara said after a deep breath. "Hey wait, what if you taught me everything Pakku taught you when you come back from your lesson?" She asked excitedly.

"Uh, yeah, I guess that could work." Aang said hesitantly. "But to be honest, I don't know how great of a teacher I am."

"Oh Aang, I'm sure you'll be fine!" Katara said. "Besides, this way, everybody can be happy."

She gave Aang her best puppy dog eyes, pleading with him to fully agree.

At long last, Aang finally gave up resisting and nodded.

"Oooo, thank you thank you thank you Aang." She said, hugging the Avatar.

All of a sudden though, they broke apart at the sound of someone clearing their throat.

Turning around, Aang, Katara and Sokka saw a guy around 15 standing before them. His larger than usual 5'11 frame supported a strong build, although not the chiseled build of many earthbenders, it was easy enough to tell he was lean with a subtle muscle tone. His dark hair was unruly, some might even describe it as incredibly messy. Yet, despite that, it fit him. His eyes, however, were the most striking figure.

His eyes, though blue like the rest of water tribe members. However, whereas many held the cool blue of a clear ocean or the dark blue of their depths, his were an icy blue. Though, they didn't bear the coldness associated with the element, instead, they contained a kindness and warmth like a fire.

"Um, hi, please excuse me for my rudeness, but I couldn't help but overhear your conversation." The guy said.

At that, the trio immediately looked wary, all assuming the teen would tell Master Pakku, but to their relief, he quickly corrected them.

"Don't worry, I won't report you. I actually agree with you guys, and I have to say Katara, you did quite well for someone who had never been taught waterbending by a master." He said politely.

At that Katara blushed from his appraisal, muttering a quick "thank you".

"Anyways, I should probably introduce myself. My name's Kuro, and I'm also a waterbender." He held out his hand as he shook each of their hands.

"Ok Kuro, so if you're not here to report us, what are you here for?" Sokka asked suspiciously.

"Well, I've been studying with Master Pakku for quite some time, and he believes I'll even be a master in less than a month's time. As such, I would like to offer my help to you Katara. I know you trust in the Avatar a lot, but it would be too risky for him to be teaching you. If he got caught, who knows how Pakku and our chief would respond. With me, they can't do much that would harm the fate of the entire world."

The trio contemplated his offer, although, Sokka and Aang merely looked at Katara. It was, after all, her decision.

Taking another moment to think about it, she agreed. "Ok, I'll do it, but are you sure? I mean, won't they put you in jail or prevent you from learning any more waterbending if we get caught?" Katara asked.

"Yes, but everyone has to do their bit to help in beating the fire nation. I know just how helpful it is to have happy friends, and if you're in a good state of mind, I'm sure it'll boost Avatar Aang's morale and your brother's morale as well!"

Seeing his logic, the trio readily agreed before saying goodbye with the date set to start training tomorrow.

"One thing before you go though Kuro." Aang said, prompting the Northern Water tribe member to turn around. "My friend's call me Aang, there's no need to address me as the Avatar or whatever the whole time."

Kuro smiled and nodded before leaving.

"Wow, what luck huh?" Sokka said, Katara and Aang agreeing. "Well, anyways, I'm famished, I'm going to go find some food to eat." He said nervously, sneaking away.

The other two looked at each other, confused by the older boy's antics before shrugging and heading back to their temporary residence.

Line Break

The next morning Katara was up bright and early, just as Aang was. In order to draw the least amount of attention, Katara and Kuro agreed to meet when Aang and the rest of the new waterbending students were meeting.

Making the trek to Kuro's home, she was pleasantly surprised to see how beautiful it was. Since she and the others had arrived, there seemed to be an endless amount of things needed to be done, but now on this early morning, she got to appreciate just how pristine the environment was. To others, they might've just seen a whole bunch of snow and ice and water, but to Katara, she could feel all of the energy that went with the flow of water.

"I see you're enjoying our environment." A voice behind her said.

She gasped and quickly turned around to see who it was. "Oh Kuro, you scared me." She said with a smile.

"Sorry, you seemed so deep in thought. I assume having come here from the South Pole, you haven't had a lot of time in an environment you're used to." She nodded in agreement.

"Well, then that's our first lesson for today. No matter where we are Katara, we must always remember the water around us. It flows everywhere, even when it seems still. Our task when waterbending is to not force it to move where we would like, but alter the flow and allow it to move naturally." As he said this, he pulled the water out of the small pond before them, and slowly guided it to wrap around the two before emptying back into the pond.

"If you are too rigid, like earth, you will not be able to bend water. However, if you are too free, the water you bend will be wild, uncontrollable. That is why today, we will just learn to feel the water around us and make it flow."

Katara nodded, instantly taken by his words. "You know for 15 years old, you sure are wise." She remarked.

He gave a slight chuckle before turning to the pond. "Yes well, it is both a blessing and a curse I suppose." He paused for a brief second before continuing. "Both my parents were killed by the Fire Nation when I was around 7, and Master Pakku took me in and taught me everything he knew about waterbending. Even in my spare time I was reading through scrolls endlessly, soaking up information."

His eyes gently turned their attention back to her. "I know you must dislike him heavily for his stance Katara, but he is a good man. I hope sometime soon he will change his ways, and I'm hopeful you might be the one to do it." He explained.

Katara nodded. "I'm sorry about your family Koru. My mother was taken by the Fire Nation too, and my father is trying to fight them off with other members of our tribe as we speak."

"I'm sorry about your mom too." He said.

"Now, how about we actually get to some waterbending and away from all this depressing talk?" He said, a smile returning to his face.

Katara nodded, returning his smile with her own and noticing that he was quite cute with that smile. "So, should I call you Master Kuro?" Kara asked teasingly.

Kuro had laughed, although a slight blush did reach his cheeks at the name when some rather inappropriate thoughts popped into his head. "No, I don't think that'll be necessary."

The rest of their training had been seen slowly moving water as they both reveled in the feeling of the flow of the liquid. Soon enough though, the time for their training was done with Katara feeling a bit saddened. Though she loved her time spent with Aang and her brother, it took quite the toll on her and was almost always anything but peaceful. With Kuro, he was easygoing, not in Aang's childish style, but with a level of maturity that exceeded his years. Along with that, it was just nice to be with another pure waterbender.

Line Break

It had been two weeks since Katara had begun her training under Kuro, and she had learned so much. After the third day, Kuro had begun teaching her how to better use waterbending in fights.

Kuro had taken it easy at first, but after Katara had shown him no mercy, he quickly showed her just how skilled he was, a smile playing on his lips.

"Ok, fine, I yield. But just know, that this is not fair!" Katara said after about the 50th time of landing on her ass that day alone.

"Hey, you're the one who didn't want me to go easy on you." He said with a chuckle. "Besides, Pakku won't go easy on you, so I need to get you ready if you want to try and face him again."

A couple days ago, Katara had approached him with the idea that if he helped her enough, perhaps she could take down Pakku. At first, Kuro scoffed at the idea. Though he hoped to be a good teacher, the thought of him being able to train someone to beat his teacher was laughable.

Kara though, simply looked at him with fierce determination and a stubbornness that seemed to suggest she thought otherwise.

With a sigh knowing that he would not be able to convince her otherwise, he relented and accepted her request.

Since then, well, one could say Katara had regretted her decision at times. Kuro had been ruthless, making Katara get up even earlier than Aang, leading her to another beautiful place where Pakku would not discover them. Well, no one would ever really discover them, this was apparently Kuro's special place.

When he first brought her there, she had merely glanced at him in disappointment.

Flashback

"What are we doing here? It's just a wall of ice." Katara had remarked, completely unimpressed.

Currently, they were perched on a cliff overlooking the vast ocean that surrounded the Northern Water Tribe.

"What I'm about to show you Katara, you can't tell anyone about this. The only one who knows about this is Pakku." He said cautiously.

Katara curiously looked at him, wondering what was so peculiar and special that no one could know.

"You can trust me Kuro, I promise I won't betray you." Katara said, grabbing both of his hands and looking him in the eyes.

Kuro hesitated but nodded and gave her a smile. Pakku had warned him of the dangers revealing this secret to someone could be his downfall. The power he had could easily be abused and manipulated.

With a deep breath, he turned around, back facing the water. His eyes closed, he raised his arms, beginning the motion of, well, Katara didn't know.

Katara again looked on in extreme curiosity. The way he was moving, it wasn't like any waterbending Katara had seen. Though it still contained what one might call a fluid movement like regular waterbending, there was a strong showing of rigidity, similar to earthbending.

Watching him bend with rapt attention, her eyes widened in extreme surprise as a shape in the form of a pair of doorways shifted, going beneath the ground.

She turned and looked, gasping in slight fear at what she saw.

Where Kuro's eyes had usually held so much kindness and compassion for those around, now, they held nothing but apathy and coldness. Looking into them was like experiencing the harsh, unrelenting torment and attack of a blizzard.

Soon enough though, it was gone, just as the ice finished sinking.

"Kuro… what happened to your eyes?" Katara asked.

Knowing his secret was out there and there was no reason to hide anything about it, he explained. "I'm an icebender Katara… There hasn't been one in centuries, at least, not a known one. An icebender has incredible power, but with that power comes a curse."

He hesitated for a second before continuing. "Ice has an incredible power to overwhelm someone. The coldness that icebenders feel is unparalleled, their whole body freezes up, and the ice takes over. It can obviously be fought, however, there are always limits."

He hesitated again, this was the reason why he never told anyone, the reason why he agreed with Pakku so much.

"Katara… I've only ever lost control once, but it was enough… After my parents were killed, my bending got out of control with my anger. Hail and ice pelted whatever Fire Nation soldiers came. Even people here were scared. Luckily for me, no one from our tribe was hurt, and Pakku cleaned up, saying that it was just an angry spirit defending us. Still, the power I felt and had scared and still scares me."

Kuro looked down, finding the snow a better sight than his companion.

"Thank you for sharing with me Kuro." She said, taking his hands in hers while tilting his head up. "I know it must be difficult to share and know it really does mean a lot to me that you can trust me this much even though we've only known each other for a short amount of time."

She gave him her brightest and nicest smile, elated as he did the same.

"Come on, we've wasted enough time as is."

Flashback Ends

"If you are to have any hope in beating Pakku Katara, you must learn to defend for long periods of time. Today Katara, all you will do is defend, you will not attack. It is easier for waterbenders to defend just as it is easier for airbenders to dodge, for earthbenders to block, and firebenders to attack. As such, you must be patient, waiting for your chance to attack."

Both getting in attack position, Kuro started attacking without warning.

Line Break

Katara had returned back to her, Aang's, and Sokka's temporary home exhausted, she wasn't the only one though.

"Aang, are you ok?" Katara asked, noticing the Avatar's particularly exhausted figure.

"No," Aang said, "Pakku has been incessant in his teachings, but I don't know how effective they've been."

Katara looked at him sorrily. "I'm sorry Aang, I'm sure it'll get better soon enough." She consoled.

"How has your training been? You seem tired too."

A smile appeared on Katara's lips. "Truth be told, it's amazing, he's teaching me so much! I couldn't have asked for a better teacher."

Aang felt his mood dampen a little. "Well I'm glad that you found such a great teacher."

His sad tone caused her to roll her eyes. "Trust me when I say it'll all be better soon."

He gave her one final curious look for before shrugging his shoulders and letting sleep take him.

A/N: Hope you liked this first chapter! Please follow, favorite too if you like it enough, and review for what I did good and things that I might improve or add on to this story.