Chapter Text
Zuko takes down the guards at the airship base rather easily. Considering his own state—the aftershocks of betraying his entire nation, the exhilaration of redirecting lighting at his father, and the shock and confusion when he found Uncle Iroh’s cell empty weighing him down heavily—it really should have been difficult. Especially on a day where guarding the palace is vital.
He’s walking towards a small hot air balloon when he hears the door close behind him and light footsteps. Shit.
Zuko whips around, expecting to take on more soldiers, but he finds something—somebody even worse.
Azula.
His sister watches him, eyes narrowed. “Care to explain why the guards are shouting to apprehend the traitor? And why that traitor is you, the prince of the Fire Nation?”
Zuko opens his mouth and closes it again. He stares back at her, unsure of whether or not he should reach for his swords. Then, the air gets hotter. Azula certainly had no qualms about taking him down. Why would she? Doubts extinguished, he draws his own swords. He would not be so foolish to think his sister had any sentiment for him.
“Do you plan to stop me?” Zuko asks instead of replying.
Azula’s palms light up. “I plan to kill all of the traitors to the throne. I almost wish that did not include you. But alas, you were always foolish.”
Zuko’s jaw works. His grip on his swords tightens. He glances out of the window. No soldiers—not yet—but he hears them shouting in the distance. If it were just the two of them… Maybe, just maybe, he could take Azula down or at the very least distract her long enough to get to the hot air balloon.
And then, the flames in Azula’s palms go out. Her arms fall to her sides as her lips twist into a thin line.
“Why did you do it?”
Her voice is demanding, yet small. He hasn’t heard her sound like that in so long. Not since they were children.
“Why, Zuko? You had everything. You were the heir to the throne. You killed the Avatar. If you had just waited until our victory, you could have had the world in your hands,” Azula hisses, starting to pace now. “But no. You chose to be a dirty traitor.”
Zuko swallows. He, too, sheathes his swords. “I didn’t kill the Avatar. We both know that,” when he says this, Azula’s face pinches. She looks around to see if anybody overheard. “What the Fire Nation is doing isn’t right. We’re not the greatest nation in the world. We’re far from it. What we claim about the savagery of others is nothing but falsehood. We are the savages, Azula. If you… If you came with me… I could show you.”
Zuko doesn’t quite know what he’s doing. Azula would never do it. She’s far too ambitious, far too loyal to ever consider such a thing. Does he even want his sister to join him? After all, Azula is Azula. A moment of unity couldn’t possibly erase a lifetime of conflict between the two of them.
Luckily for him, he doesn’t have the time to regret his actions.
“For the sake of sentiment, Brother, I will let you live,” Azula drawls. “Do not try to entertain me again with your foolish ideas. Leave. Join the Avatar. I will enjoy watching you fail.”
Zuko swallows. He shouldn’t go after her. He really shouldn’t. But still, he hesitates. Azula turns on the balls of her feet and leaves the base. Zuko opens his mouth to call out for her. He closes it and turns around, too. He walks towards the hot air balloon. Towards the Avatar. Towards freedom, for once in his life.
—
Ozai brushes the strands of hair behind his ear from where they came loose after Zuko redirected lightning at him. He attempts to take a deep breath—the Fire Sages claim clarity is a virtue, after all.
Tch. Foolish.
Anger surges into his chest until he lets it out in a scream and whips around to strike the wall. His hair falls out of his topknot again. He strikes the wall over and over again, his fist creating a print in the rock in front of him.
Foolish. Foolish. Utterly foolish.
His wretched son and his lying daughter both.
“It was Azula who took down the Avatar, not me.”
Lying traitor! Ozai screams again and grabs the flag stand holding the beloved Fire Nation flag. He smashes it against the rock over and over until the metal rod is entirely deformed.
“The Avatar is not dead. He survived.”
His daughter lied. Azula gave credit to Zuko, her worthless brother, and lied to him about it. She was already a traitor for the offense of mistruth, and she had to dig herself further into a hole by failing such an easy task. How hard could it possibly be to slay a child in the midst of a transformation, one where he quite literally sat in the sky, unmoving?!
Ozai had believed that Azula was his one true heir. After she revealed her prodigal skills, he let out a sigh of relief that he would never have to rely on his foolish, worthless son. He really should have just had a third child while Ursa lived.
Ozai paid for his sins when both his children utterly disappointed him. And now, Azula would pay for hers.
He calls for the guards, barely keeping his rage contained as he tells them to summon his daughter. His head spins with the anger of two betrayals. What did he do in his past life to deserve this? To be betrayed by all of his family?
As if to rub salt into the wound, Azula arrives late. Her eyes widen the slightest when she sees his disheveled appearance, but succeeds in keeping quiet. The overwhelming urge to punch her surges in his chest. He taught her better than to gape.
“You called, Fath—” Azula begins.
Ozai slams his fist on the platform beneath him. “Wait to be addressed, you vile girl.”
Azula’s mouth opens and closes like a fish. Eventually—it takes her far too long, in his opinion—she composes herself and bows her head. Which reminds him—not even a bow when she stepped into the room.
“I’m sure you must have heard by now that your brother is a disgusting traitor,” Ozai drawls. His thoughts spin—he would fall over were he not sitting down. He prides himself in containing his anger.
Azula nods. “Yes, Father. Zuko’s betrayal will be punished. I will see to it myself.”
Ozai nearly rolls his eyes. Instead, he keeps his cold gaze on her. “I see you did not hear of another betrayal.”
“Father?”
“Yours.”
Azula opens her mouth, but Ozai surges out of his seat and grabs her. Azula, that stupid, stupid girl, tries to escape him. Ozai grabs her by the arm and tugs until her chest touches his. He grabs her roughly by the chin, lording in how her eyes frantically look for explanation.
“Zuko told me the truth. It was you who killed the Avatar. And failed.”
“F— Father, I— I would never lie to you—”
“Wouldn’t you?” Ozai growls, gripping her chin tighter. His lips twist into a smile. “I taught you everything, my daughter. That is why you are so perfect. What a delight that I never taught you to lie. You may not sound as foolish as you do now if I had.”
He shoves Azula away so harshly that he nearly tumbles to the floor. In a pathetic display—Agni, how could he have raised such a weak child?—Azula prostrates herself at his feet.
“Father, please,” she begs. “I only acted in your best interest. I was a fool not to ensure that the Avatar truly fell, yes, but I wanted Zuko home. Zuko was the heir. The male heir. He was weak, but the people loved him. I… I just wanted to be a family again. And I thought… I thought you may, too. Father.”
Ozai closes his eyes. Utterly stupid. He wishes that he did not hear any truth in her words. His daughter is a self serving bitch. He made sure of that. Loyal to nobody but herself and her father. But in her words, he hears sentiment. Sentiment breeds weakness. He does not know to despise more—his sentimental son for preaching about peace and hope, or his idiot daughter for picking up on it.
“Yes, you are right,” Ozai sighs, lying right through his teeth. Azula looks up, her eyes shining with hope. “Zuko is my son. My only son. He was weak, but he always knew how to handle pain. I wonder, my daughter, if he could handle the gift of your head delivered to him on a platter.”
Azula stares, not comprehending. Ozai grabs her by the hair.
“F— Father, Father, no—” she begs, clawing at his wrist.
Ozai brandishes a dagger from his inner robes. He draws it back.
“Father, please!”
Azula gasps in tandem with the sound of a wet squelch when the dagger sinks into her stomach. She looks at him, eyes searching his for something other than hate. She goes limp.
—
Zuko wonders if the Avatar and his friends deal with this every day. Considering he chased them for a year, he wouldn’t be surprised if they did. Not even a day after he somehow managed to join the Gaang, proving his worth by fighting off the assassin, trouble sought them out. Or rather, sought him out.
There’s no way a giant Fire Nation warship wouldn’t be to take him back home and kill him for treason. And nobody but the Fire Nation's best soldier would be able to find him out here, anyway.
As the Western Air Temple crumbles with the force of the fire blasts, rocks fall all over them. The Avatar tugs desperately at his sky bison, who refuses to go through the tunnel that the earthbender dug. Zuko glances back at them. He steps forward.
“What’re you doing?!” The Avatar shouts over the noise of destruction. The others stop and stare at him like idiots.
Zuko doesn’t look at him. “They’re here for me. I’ll hold them off.”
He runs towards the airships.
“Zuko, no!” Aang shouts.
Zuko hears Sokka telling Aang that they need to leave. He makes sure that the Avatar is long gone before he faces the Fire Nation airships throwing explosives and fire bombs at the temples. He vaults over the fallen rocks and shoots several fireballs right back at them. If his hypothesis is right, his sister should be showing up soon.
A soldier throws a fire bomb at him. He jumps to the side as it explodes into the ground, rolls through the smoke, and kicks out an arc that tears through the balloon. It plummets to the ground, followed by the screams of the soldiers manning it.
Zuko scans the air, searching for the biggest airship—his sister’s airship. After dodging a plethora of attacks, he retaliates again, taking down two more airships. More keeps coming. Agni, he forgets that he’s a prince sometimes and that his treason holds far more value than a peasant’s.
When the fifth airship falls to the ground, Zuko spots the biggest airship. It floats upwards until it’s ground level with the cliff he’s standing on. But Azula isn’t the one standing at the railing. Zuko won’t admit it, but he lets out a sigh of relief. It doesn’t last long—not when Mai and Ty Lee walk out, staring at him with contempt. The two of them aren’t as good as Azula, but they’re both formidable in their own ways.
Especially in making Zuko feel judged. Mai’s gaze especially makes him want to shrink in on himself. It’s the first time he’s seeing her since he left. They lock gazes. Mai’s eyes narrow.
Zuko’s palms light aflame. He expects Ty Lee to dart out of the airship and perhaps do a flip to try to distract him while Mai sends her tiny knives to gut Zuko for what he did to her. None of that happens. No—they just stare at him. Zuko’s eyes flit from Mai to Ty Lee, then back again. The air freezes between them. Finally, he notices it. Ty Lee’s eyes are red. Something between rage and anguish simmers in Mai’s eyes. It’s the most emotion he’s seen in her ever.
Finally, Mai moves. Zuko tenses, but Mai doesn’t move to kill. She walks calmly—Zuko can tell she’s anything but—towards him. There’s a box in her hands. By the time she’s face to face with him, Zuko’s breathing has gone shallow.
Mai shoves the box into his chest. She looks even more furious up close. Zuko stumbles and grasps the box, looking down at it with surprise, then into her eyes.
“You’re selfish, Zuko,” Mai tells him, her voice rasping like it did in Ember Island when she snapped at him for being an asshole.
Zuko opens his mouth to instinctively defend himself, but Mai cuts him off.
“I want you to know that she fought for you. She fought hard before you fucked her over.”
She?
But just like that, Mai’s gone. Zuko stares at her back as she walks away from him without another glance. He doesn’t know how long he stands there in shock, just that when the Gaang comes back for him, all of the airships are gone, leaving him unscathed in the destruction around him.
The airships become small dots, almost like a flock of birds, when Sokka cautiously says his name.
What… What’s that?” Sokka asks.
Zuko looks down at the box. He’s still stuck on the interaction. The Gaang surrounds him, staring at him with concern. Eyebrows furrowing, Zuko finally opens it.
It’s a hairpin. Azula’s royal hairpin. Around him, his new companions tense. With trembling fingers, Zuko lifts it up. It takes him a moment to realize what’s under it, but when he does, a strangled noise escapes him. His eyes go impossibly wide as he drops the box and stumbles back, breathing hard.
It’s a pinky finger. His sister’s pinky finger.
A scream bubbles up in his throat.
“No. No.” Zuko covers his mouth with his hand, unable to look away from the severed finger. It can’t be. It can’t be.
Something close to a whimper threatens to crawl out of his throat.
“Zuko…” Sokka begins. His eyebrows knit together as he places a cautious hand on Zuko’s shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
Zuko swallows hard. He shakes his head slowly, still trying to come down from the shock. He shakes his head again.
“No. Don’t be,” he replies, his voice a hoarse whisper. “She… She was terrible. It was coming for her.”
Even as he says it, his friends don’t seem to believe him. He doesn’t even believe himself. Katara, who told him just yesterday that she’d kill him if he breathed wrong, places a hand on his back.
“It’s okay to mourn her,” Katara tells him gently in that voice she only uses with Aang. “She was still your sister.”
Zuko closes his eyes and swallows the bile in his throat. “Azula’s— Azula was a criminal. She hunted us. What happened doesn’t change our goal.”
He pries himself from Sokka and Katara’s touch and walks away. He refuses to let this hurt him. He refuses to let Azula, even in her death, take control of his life again. He’s happy, he tells himself. He’s free. Free from his sister’s grasp at last.
And yet.
—
Being brutally smashed by the tides against the coarse and sharp rocks is an unpleasant experience that she would not like to endure ever again. Grabbing onto one of those rocks and nearly impaling her hand is also rather distasteful. When she looks up at the amount of cliff she has to scale, she wonders if she should have just stayed dead. Especially in this weather, which has her pushing her rain-slick hair out of her face and wondering when the lightning would come to claim her next.
Nevertheless, she has enough spite to power a village. She grabs the next rock and scrapes the skin off of her palm in doing so. Breathing raggedly, she pulls herself up.
She wonders where she could possibly be for the waters to be so rough. The moment she regained consciousness on that swaying warship, her father had grabbed her by the throat and threw her into the brutal tides. She can at least deduce that they were nowhere near the Water Tribes—thank Agni for that blessing.
Taking another wet breath, she pulls herself up another meter, switching between grasping the cliff and applying pressure to the wound in her stomach. Why her father stabbed her in the stomach rather than the heart, she did not know. Did he want her to suffer, or was he just foolish?
She grabs onto another sharp rock and nearly falls, taking half the skin on her palm with it. Pathetically, a whimper escapes her. She bites her lip hard and forces herself to keep going. Gripping onto the textured holds with raw flesh makes her wonder why she’s fighting so hard.
The memory of her brother’s betrayal flashes in her mind.
She keeps climbing.
She doesn’t quite know how long the rain beats against her back or how many times lightning struck or how many meters she climbs before she finally reaches the top, but when she looks up, there’s no more cliff left to climb. She grabs onto the ledge. Only four fingers on her right hand wrap around the rock as she hauls herself up.
Azula lives.