Raitei

Raitei was a firebender from the Natsuo Island chain who was recruited by the Unanimity project during the era of Yangchen. Raitei was tortured by being partially drowned in hope of him becoming one of the first combustionbenders in recorded history.
Raitei survived the programme, although he did not develop true combustionbending like the adult firebenders. He was left abandoned on a Mo Ce Sea island and later killed in a scuffle after he betrayed Avatar Yangchen while supposedly cooperating with her to escape the island.
== History ==
=== Unanimity project ===
Raitei was born on the remote Natsuo Island chain, situated on waters that were not fully controlled by either the Fire Nation or the Earth Kingdom. The archipelago offered few opportunities for work, and thus, Ratei joined up with unmarked ship recruiting islanders and offering to pay them, regardless of age or fitness. They made it clear that Raitei stood to earn more than most, as he was a bender. This recruitment was part of the early phase of the Unanimity project, as Zongdu Chaisee tried to create human weapons of mass destruction under her mental conditioning to give her unlimited leverage against the four nations.
Raitei was separated from the earthbenders and nonbenders upon his arrival. He and the other firebenders in the project were chained underwater in an attempt to have them fight against the surrounding pressure, and exert as much force and will as one could in a single blast, like an explosion. Raitei was able to make the initial breakthrough, which was only possible if a firebender truly believed they were going to die.
Many firebenders drowned during training. Though Raitei survived the initial experiments, there were other stages required to become a true combustionbender, and only Thapa, Yingsu, and Xiaoyun were chosen to continue. With combustionbending proving the most successful by far of Unanimity's various experiments, Raitei eventually saw the trio taken away on a ship to elsewhere. Raitei felt disdain for Xiaoyun, thinking that the man was smug for grinning at them and waving farewell as they left.
Raitei remained on the island for some time after the combustionbenders left. Around the time of Unanimity's demonstration in Bin-Er, the camp runners suddenly left. New recruits and supply boats stopped coming the island, with only around two dozen participants left there. Raitei joined up with Hsien, a nonbender girl who had developed a basic form of chi-blocking from intense practice at unarmed combat. The adults scavenged rotting longboats and tried to flee, but told the two children that there was not enough space for them. However, a storm struck that very night, and the two children believed they were the only survivors of the island left alive. Raitei and Hsien survived in a grotto for the next few months, surviving on breadnut and fresh water that trickled down into grooves from rocks above.
=== Encountering Avatar Yangchen ===
On a day when their campfire had turned to ashes and there was no water in the grotto, the pair approached a disguised Avatar Yangchen on the island. The Avatar had come to investigate evidence of Unanimity with her companions, Kavik and Jujinta. Kavik heard the sound of their footsteps, and drew a blade of water from the skin at his side. Upon seeing the haggard appearance of the children, he re-formed the water into a less threatening sphere instead, stating that he was not going to hurt them. The pair licked their lips in thirst upon seeing fresh water, and Kavik offered them some. However, Hsien lunged toward him and punched him with a single knuckle in his palm, grabbing his pouch as the children fled along the beach.
Raitei and Hsien were making their way up a scarp by their grotto by the time Yangchen and her companions caught up to them. With the children now sticking out on the cliff surface and being potentially vulnerable to the Avatar's group, they slowly clambered down the sand when Yangchen asked them to do so. Both the Avatar and Kavik offered them fresh water and more food, asking what had happened. Just as the airbender prepared to reveal her identity as the Avatar, Jujinta approached them instead, offering to speak to Raitei and Hsien in a "language they [understood]". He demonstrated his abilities to bounce a knife into a peach-sized chunk of driftwood twenty places away. The second knife struck home before it landed, and Jujinta also demonstrated with a third knife for show. The block of wood landed neatly on a new tripod, and the children were astonished that he had been able to juggle an object with just the points of his blades. He explained that he could perform the feat because he had grown up on an island like theirs, and knew that the extent of his own abilities represented dozens who could not make the cut. He stated that the group could choose to behave like those that ran the camp, and only take the child that proved most useful to them. Jujinta then immediately stated that he would rescue both of them, and that neither child would have to answer for the horrible deeds he knew they must have committed to survive. In spite of this apparent kindness, he ended added that all would be forgiven only once they answered Yangchen and Kavik's questions. Both Hsien and Raitei broke down sobbing as a result of this cruel manipulation.
The children recounted their time on the island to the Avatar and her companions. When Raitei explained what the firebenders had done in his group, Yangchen ran toward the water and had it explode within, allowing her to reveal a chain and cuff that prospective combustionbenders had been held in underwater. Once Yangchen confirmed with Raitei that only three full combustionbenders had left the island, she led Hsien and Raitei away as the Avatar's party prepared to depart.
Raitei was suspicious of the Avatar's flying bison, Nujian, and seemed much more cautious than Hsien. When the Avatar's party took off, Raitei feigned sleep to listen in on the conversation Yangchen and her companions were having. He heard the Avatar speculate how Raitei would be of high value for Chaisee, as he would be the closest person in the world to Unanimity once Thapa was neutralized. Jujinta remarked that Raitei would be "worth his weight in platinum several times over". She decided that the best move for the time being would be to have the children sequestered until the high-stakes situation was over.
When the group descended on the outskirts of Taku, Raitei crawled to the top of the grassy knoll that Nujian had landed behind, and surveilled the area to make sure nobody had spotted them. Yangchen promised to Hsien that she and her companions would do all they could to make things as right as they could. Raitei proceeded to ask Yangchen if she was truly going to take down the people who ran the camp, and if she would bust Chaisee. As a certain expression made its way across Raitei's face, Kavik realized that the firebender boy had learned information from feigning sleep, and screamed to warn the Avatar. The waterbender tried to dive at Yangchen and tackle her to the ground, but this diverted her attention from Raitei's threat. Raitei inhaled sharply as he tried to launch a combustionbending attack, but Nujian rammed into the boy. While a sound similar to combustionbending came forth from Raitei, no explosion followed. Nujian was killed from the pressurized air that ensued, but Raitei also died from his failed technique. Kavik saw a single, small wound in the middle of his forehead, trickling blood over his skin, thinking that the pressure of his technique had failed to project past his skull and sought a channel of escape.
== Physical description ==
By the time Yangchen and her companions found Raitei, he was suffering from the effects of being alone on the island with Hsien for months. He was wearing tattered and salt-eaten clothes. His cheeks were sunken with hunger and his lips scabbed from thirst.
== Personality ==
In comparison to Hsien, Raitei seemed far more hardened by the events on the island. He was the more passive of the two in sharing details about their situation. He had a much more suspicious attitude to the Avatar's party, and was fairly condescending to Kavik when the waterbender asked if the islands' adults had intended to come back for the children. Most crucially, he operated according to the greedy, selfish, and competitive culture of the Unanimity project. In spite of his torture on the island, he felt resentful that he had not been picked for further training. He ultimately planned to betray the Avatar, seemingly believing that life as potential asset of Chaisee was preferable to starting a new life.
== Abilities ==
Raitei showed considerable endurance. While still a child, he was able to survive the initial experiments that led to him achieving a breakthrough to a new form of firebending. While he was not able to truly combustionbend, he was far shorter and younger than any others known to have mastered the specialized bending technique. He died as a result of overestimating his bending abilities, but nonetheless was able to kill Nujian as a result of his attack on the Avatar's party.
== Appearances ==
=== Chronicles of the Avatar ===
==== The Legacy of Yangchen ====
== References ==
Category:A to Z
Category:Characters
Category:Combustionbenders
Category:Firebenders
Category:Minor characters (Yangchen novels)
Category:Neutral characters
Category:Yangchen novels characters