Chapter 33: Iroh versus Bumi
The wind shifted.
The battlefield, littered with smoldering wreckage and broken stone, now bore witness to something mythic. Bumi stood barefoot on the raw earth, shoulders hunched, arms loose, like a man preparing to wrestle a mountain. Iroh, steady and still, stood opposite him, his breathing calm, his center unshaken.
Neither spoke.
There was no need.
In the space between them, the very air bent inward with pressure, a meeting of opposing forces older than most. Earth and fire, stubbornness and balance, chaos and poise.
Then Bumi vanished.
One moment he stood, laughing in that gravelly, mad cadence and the next, the earth beneath his feet imploded, propelling him forward like a living projectile. His body became a blur of tensed sinew and spinning limbs, a rock propelled by rage.
Iroh met him with fire.
A heavy snap of both arms and a twisting pivot of the waist birthed a pair of high-pressure jets, concentrated cones of flame that screamed through the air like twin spears. They collided with Bumi mid-air, not to stop him, but to redirect him. The earth king spun off-course, crashing to the ground in a roll but came up laughing.
"You still fight like a teacher, Iroh!"
Iroh exhaled, lowering his arms. "And you still fight like a lunatic."
"Correct!" Bumi declared and slammed his palms together.
The entire ground shifted.
From beneath Iroh, slabs of stone peeled away like pages from a book, attempting to fold around him. But Iroh stomped, grounded his heel, and shot a column of flame straight downward, the force of the blast launching him into the air.
Bumi tracked him mid-ascent. A flick of both wrists and a boulder ripped from the side of a distant hill, arcing upward like a homing missile. Iroh twisted mid-air, forming a ring of flame from both hands, rotating his body through it and igniting the boulder like a comet before it struck. The flaming mass crashed behind him with an earth-splitting roar.
Iroh landed hard, rolling into a low stance, one palm to the ground.
"Tell me, old friend…" he muttered, rising slowly, "…why now?"
"Because I've waited a hundred years to break the Fire Nation's nose!" Bumi said cheerfully.
He stomped once, and a wall of jagged spears burst from the ground, sharp stone teeth racing toward Iroh. The general raised both hands in a rising arc, and a fire shield bloomed outward, like the petals of a blooming flower, incinerating the front line of spikes. But Bumi was already behind them.
With shocking speed, the mad king leapt from spike to spike, moving like a dancer across the tips of mountains. He landed just meters from Iroh, a boulder forming in one hand, shaped like a fist. He punched with it, the rock-arm stretching forward like a battering ram.
Iroh side-stepped. One half-step to the left.
And then he twisted.
With a whip-crack of his forearm, a ribbon of flame lashed from his sleeve and coiled around the rock-arm, severing it from Bumi's connection.
The stone crashed beside him.
But Bumi was already low, sweeping the legs.
Iroh jumped, barely clearing a rising stone that tried to take him in the gut.
Bumi followed up with a high knee but Iroh brought his forearms down hard, letting two dense jets of fire burst downward from his palms, creating a pressure pocket that pushed him back and away.
They separated.
Both men were breathing harder now, not from exhaustion, but exhilaration. They had not fought equals in decades.
Iroh wiped sweat from his brow. "I thought your back was crooked."
"I just like the view," Bumi grinned.
"You're completely insane," Iroh muttered.
"And you're going soft, General."
Then they were at it again.
This time, Bumi didn't charge.
He stomped and lifted both arms skyward. A slab of earth, not stone, but pure granite rose from the center of the field. With a spiral of his hands, it broke into shards, each hovering like daggers around him.
Iroh narrowed his eyes.
He twisted both wrists and ignited his chi into a dual spiral, both hands glowing white-hot. The flames spiraled around his forearms like living dragons.
The projectiles launched.
Whistle. Snap. Crack.
Stone met flame in midair. Each rock burst like a clay pot against the spiraling inferno. Ash rained down like volcanic soot.
Then, Iroh stepped into a stance no one had seen him use in twenty years.
Tiger-Willow Root.
He swept one leg behind the other, bent his knees, and with one massive inhale, he exhaled a tidal wave of fire.
It rushed toward Bumi like a living wall.
Bumi crouched.
The stone beneath him cracked, then lifted, an elevator of earth taking him high above the wave. But the heat still reached him. Sweat began to pour down his neck.
When the flame crashed and faded, Bumi jumped down.
Landed in a squat.
"I give you credit," he said, rubbing a reddening spot on his shoulder. "That singed a little."
"I'm not done," Iroh warned.
"Neither am I."
They circled.
The earth smoldered between them. The sky, now darkened by ash and smoke, cast them in red silhouette, two relics of a world at war, about to show that age means nothing when true power answers the call.
Their stances locked again.
The second round would begin.
The sky had begun to darken.
Not from clouds, but from the slow haze of dust and smoke, kicked up by the unrelenting rhythm of battle. The land beneath the duel had become unrecognizable, torn in half by seismic violence, trampled by titanic will.
They had moved. Ten paces forward, twenty paces back, neither able to plant roots for long. Ground cratered where Iroh's fire had struck. Earth lay warped where Bumi had shattered it.
Iroh struck first.
A low sweep of his arms, legs locked firm into the Horse stance, birthed a circular wave of fire that rushed outward like a spiral blade. The flame was tight, compressed, white-orange and whistling with heat. It sliced across the ground, kicking up debris, carving a shallow trench as it spun toward its mark.
Bumi didn't block.
He ducked low, touched two fingers to the soil and dived into it.
The spinning flame spiraled over the spot where he vanished.
Then, from beneath Iroh, the ground exploded.
A slab of granite burst like a geyser, catching him in the back. His breath left him in a grunt as he was thrown forward. He landed hard, rolled, burning across broken stone.
He barely had time to lift his arm before another rock volley came down like rain. Each boulder fell faster than a thrown spear, sharp and brutal. Iroh twisted sideways and blasted a pillar of fire vertically, deflecting three of the stones mid-air. One still glanced off his shoulder, cracking armor, tearing fabric, scraping skin.
He winced.
It had been years since he fought like this. Real combat. The siege of Ba Sing Se. The longest siege in history, six hundred days of attrition and tactics. But even then, he had never gone blow-for-blow against a living force of nature like Bumi.
He turned his hand. A fireball shot outward.
Bumi batted it aside with a rising wall of stone.
Another blast came, wider, angrier, a crescent wave of fire that stretched ten meters across. Bumi spun on his heel, his foot churning the dirt in a spiral as he lifted an angled wall to deflect the blow.
The ground cracked under the pressure.
And then Bumi surged.
There was no hesitation.
With a leap that defied gravity, he closed the gap between them in two bounds. Stone rose beneath his feet to meet his strides. He landed in front of Iroh with a spinning kick, his heel wrapped in a tight roll of compacted rock.
Iroh blocked with both forearms. The impact still shook his bones.
Bumi didn't stop.
He struck again. A jab with his right, stone-knuckled fist. Iroh pivoted just enough to avoid the full force, letting the blow scrape his ribs instead of breaking them. He dropped into a crouch, and from both palms burst twin columns of fire, slamming point-blank into Bumi's chest.
The mad king slid backward, his bare feet carving a trail through the ground but he remained standing.
His chest smoked, bruises forming beneath the singed skin.
He smiled.
Iroh stepped back, breath ragged.
His knees hurt.
His shoulders screamed.
Each motion carried weight now. The coils of fire he summoned were just a fraction slower than they had been minutes ago.
He could feel it, his edge dulling.
Bumi was bleeding now, small scrapes on his cheek and forearm, a welt forming across his ribs. But he showed no limp, no stutter in his movements. His back, once hunched in jest, remained straight now. His stance was open, agile. He didn't just look younger, he moved younger.
He rotated his torso once and slammed his fists down into the earth.
From behind Iroh, a massive stone column erupted, then fractured into a flurry of smaller shards, each launched at chest level. Iroh spun again, fire whirling around him, turning into a flaming vortex that disintegrated most of the rocks.
But not all.
One sharp piece clipped his thigh. Another struck his forearm. A third grazed the side of his neck, leaving a line of red.
Iroh stumbled, just a step but enough for Bumi to notice.
The old king stomped his foot. A large boulder rose.
He punched it toward Iroh.
Iroh exhaled, lungs burning, and met the boulder with twin fire jets from his palms, slowing it but not enough. The stone slammed into him with diminished force, but enough to knock him off balance.
He fell to one knee.
He got back up.
Zuko watched from the ruins behind him, smoke clinging to his blackened coat, bandages still crusted with blood. His hands trembled, not from fear, but from awe. From something deeper. Reverence.
He had thought he'd reached this level.
He'd thought the battle with Zhao, the manipulation of generals, the mass maneuvers and backdoor politics made him a master of the game.
But this?
This was war incarnate. This was power carved by time, sharpened by loss, and honed in fire and stone and pain.
Two legends.
One losing.
Iroh's breathing grew heavier. His stance faltered for half a second before he steadied it.
Bumi narrowed his eyes, not mocking now.
Assessing.
Measuring.
And then he bent again.
The ground quaked.
The next round was coming.
Iroh's arms rose.
And Zuko, still hidden among rubble, knew—if something didn't change soon, the legend of the Dragon of the West might end in that field.
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