Chapter 84: A Sister's Wrath
The silence that followed Zuko's words, "Long time, Aang," was absolute and brittle, ready to shatter. It was a silence filled with the echoes of a shared spirit world, a palace bargain, and a mutual, grudging understanding that now hung by a thread. In the space of a single breath, a dozen unspoken questions passed between the Avatar and the Prince.
It was Azula who, predictably, shattered the stillness. A slow, delighted smile spread across her face, a predator finally loosed upon its prey.
"Well, isn't this a perfect little reunion," she purred, her voice dripping with venomous glee. She cracked her neck, a series of sharp, precise pops. "The Avatar, his water tribe peasant and her brother, and a cripple. All gathered for the slaughter. You've led us on quite a chase, Avatar. But all games must end."
"Azula," Zuko's voice was a low warning, a note of genuine caution. He knew what was coming. He had to play his part, the concerned brother, the strategic prince, while secretly setting the board for his own endgame.
"Oh, don't fret, Zuzu," she said, not taking her eyes off Aang. "I'll be gentle. Relatively." Her gaze then flicked to Katara, and the mask of amusement slipped, revealing the raw, seething contempt beneath. "I've been looking forward to a rematch with you, little girl."
Before anyone could move, Azula exploded into action. It wasn't a run; it was a fluid, terrifyingly graceful launch. She didn't bend fire first; she bent space itself, closing the distance between them in a blur of motion. Aang reacted instantly, a blast of air shooting from his palms, but Azula was already gone, using the force of his own attack to propel herself into a spinning backflip. As she flipped, twin jets of precise, searing blue fire shot from her heels, forcing Aang to throw up an earthen wall with a stomp of his foot.
"Is that all?" Azula taunted, landing soundlessly on a high, broken pillar. "The great Avatar, hiding behind dirt?"
Sokka yelled, charging forward with his club. Azula didn't even look at him. With a flick of her wrist, a whip-like strand of blue flame snapped out, wrapping around his weapon and yanking it from his grasp, sending it clattering across the stone. A second, concussive burst from her palm sent him flying backwards, skidding to a halt at Katara's feet.
"Sokka!" Katara cried, her hands already moving, drawing moisture from the air to form her water whips.
"Don't bother," Azula sneered, and with a series of rapid, pinpoint fire blasts, she superheated the stone at Katara's feet, the steam hissing violently and disrupting her stance, causing the water to fall harmlessly to the ground.
She was toying with them. A whirlwind of azure fire and impossible agility. She moved like liquid lightning, striking from every angle, her attacks not just powerful, but surgically precise, designed to humiliate and disarm. She used the temple's verticality against them, leaping from pillar to archway, raining down fire that forced them into a desperate, scattered defense. Aang was a flurry of air and earth, but he was reactive, always a half-step behind her relentless, unpredictable assault.
Throughout it all, Zuko stood with his arms crossed, a statue of cold observation. His face was an unreadable mask, but his mind was racing, calculating every move.
"See, Zuko?" Azula called out, her voice bright and mocking as she effortlessly dodged a slab of earth Aang hurled at her. She landed in a perfect, balanced crouch, not a hair out of place. "This is how it's done. No grand speeches. No complicated traps. Just pure, overwhelming power and skill. I don't need your soldiers. I don't need your plans. I certainly don't need you getting in my way."
She launched herself at Aang again, this time a direct, brutal assault. She feinted high with a jet of fire from her right hand, and as Aang blocked it, her left leg snapped out in a low, sweeping kick that sent a crescent of blue flame towards his ankles. Aang leaped, but she was already in the air with him, a spinning vortex of fire forcing him to encase himself in a ball of air, deflecting the attack but sending him crashing hard onto the stone floor, dazed.
"He's finished," Azula declared, landing gracefully and striding towards the stunned Avatar. She raised a hand, blue energy coalescing into a deadly, focused point. "The Fire Lord will be so pleased. I do hope you'll give him my regards when you see him in the spirit world."
This was the moment. The threat was real, the killing intent palpable.
"Azula, wait!" Zuko's command cut through the air, sharp and authoritative.
She paused, her head tilting. "What is it now? Don't tell me you've grown sentimental."
"Sentiment has nothing to do with it," Zuko retorted, his voice dripping with cold pragmatism. He gestured to the surrounding temple, to the watching, terrified faces of the Mechanist and Teo peeking from behind rubble. "This is a strategic asset. The Avatar is a prize to be presented to our Father, not incinerated in a fit of pique on a mountaintop. His knowledge, his very existence, is a weapon. You destroy the weapon, you lose the war."
He took a step forward, his golden eyes locking with hers. "Or are you so desperate for a petty, personal victory that you'd throw away the greatest advantage the Fire Nation has had in a century?"
The barb struck home. Azula's eyes narrowed, the blue fire at her fingertips flickering. She despised his logic because it was correct. Killing Aang here would be satisfying, but delivering him alive to Ozai… that was true power. That was restoration.
She lowered her hand slightly, the killing energy dissipating. "Fine. We take him alive. But the others…" Her gaze swept over Katara, who was helping a groaning Sokka to his feet, and Teo. "…are redundant. Especially her."
"The waterbender is his primary emotional attachment," Zuko countered, his tone that of a tactician analyzing a battlefield. "She is a lever. You remove the lever, and the prize becomes exponentially harder to move. The brother is a further guarantee of her compliance. The cripple… is irrelevant, but harmless. We take them all."
He didn't wait for her agreement. He turned to the stunned Fire Nation soldiers, who had been watching the display of royal sibling rivalry with terror. "You heard me! Secure the prisoners! Bind the Avatar's hands and feet with triple-layered chains. He is not to be harmed further. The others are to be tied and gagged. Move!"
The soldiers, jolted Into action by the direct command of their Crown Prince, scrambled forward. They roughly pulled Aang's limp form up, beginning to wrap thick, metal-reinforced ropes around his wrists. Another pair moved towards Katara and Sokka.
Azula watched, a simmering pot of resentment. She had won the fight, but Zuko was seizing control of the victory. He was dictating terms, framing her triumph within his own narrative. She had shown him her power, and he had used it, contained it, and made it his own.
As the soldiers worked, Zuko stood over Aang's unconscious form, his expression unreadable. The first part of his plan was complete. The players were in position. Now, he just had to wait for the right moment to spring the trap he had been building since they left the Fire Nation capital. The real game was just beginning.
The soldiers finished their work with efficient, grim silence. Aang was bound in heavy chains, his head lolling. Katara, Sokka, and Teo had their hands tied behind their backs, their faces a mixture of fury, fear, and despair. The initial shock of the royal siblings' arrival was now replaced by the cold, hard reality of their captivity.
Azula watched the proceedings with a smirk of satisfaction, though it didn't quite reach her eyes. She was still simmering from Zuko's intervention. "Satisfied, brother?" she asked, her voice a silken blade. "We have our trophies. Though I fail to see why we need the extra baggage. The girl is a liability. A reminder of your… sentimental phase."
Zuko turned from observing the prisoners, his gaze landing on Azula with an intensity that made the air between them crackle. The casual, observing prince was gone, replaced by the Crown Prince in full, chilling command.
"Your short-sightedness is going to lose us this war, Azula," he said, his voice low but carrying through the ruined courtyard. It wasn't a shout; it was a pronouncement, and it was far more terrifying.
Azula's smirk vanished. "Excuse me?"
"You heard me," Zuko continued, taking a deliberate step toward her. The Fire Nation soldiers froze, unsure whether to watch or find somewhere to hide. "You were about to make the single greatest strategic blunder in Fire Nation history, all because you let your emotions control you. Your pride. Your petty need for a clean, flashy kill."
He gestured dismissively at the unconscious Aang. "You think killing him is about power? About a trophy for Father? You are thinking like an assassin, not an heir to an empire."
"Enlighten me, then, oh wise Prince," Azula spat, her hands curling into fists at her sides, blue sparks dancing between her fingers.
"Killing him," Zuko said, enunciating every word with brutal clarity, "would mean the Fire Nation losing the fucking war."
A stunned silence fell, broken only by the crackle of a dying fire. Even Katara and Sokka, in their bound state, stared at Zuko, utterly confused.
"What are you talking about?" Azula demanded, her confidence momentarily shaken by the sheer conviction in his tone.
"The Avatar Cycle, Azula," Zuko explained, his voice laced with a condescending patience that he knew would infuriate her. "Or did you sleep through that lesson in history? You kill the Air Nomad Avatar, and the spirit is reborn. Into a fucking waterbender."
He let that hang in the air for a moment, his golden eyes sweeping over the captured group, ensuring they were all listening, that they all understood the depth of his calculation.
"Where?" Zuko continued, his voice dropping to a deadly whisper. "The North Pole, which we will be besieging? The South Pole, which we have pacified? Or some hidden swamp tribe, some isolated village in the Earth Kingdom that we have no knowledge of? We would have to scour the entire world, and by the time we found the new Avatar, he would no longer be a child. He would be protected. Nurtured. The entire Water Tribe, north and south, would rally around him. He would not be alone and untrained, like this one was. He would be a symbol around which our enemies would unite."
The truth of his words landed on everyone present like a physical blow. The Mechanist, watching from the shadows, felt a chill. This was not the reckless boy he had heard tales of. This was a strategist who thought in generations, not in battles.
Zuko turned his gaze back to Azula, who was now staring at him, her expression unreadable, the anger replaced by a cold, calculating assessment.
"The only way to win," Zuko stated, his final point a hammer blow, "is to break the cycle. To end the Avatar spirit, once and for all. And nobody, not you, not me, not even Father, not even the Fire Sages knows how to do that. Yet."
He let the word 'yet' hang in the air, a promise and a threat.
"So no, Azula," he concluded, his voice returning to its normal, cold timbre. "We do not kill the Avatar. We use him. We break him. We learn from him. And when we have extracted every ounce of his value, then we will discover how to make his death permanent. Until that day, he is the most valuable, and most dangerous, prisoner in the world. And you were about to throw that away for a moment of personal satisfaction."
The difference between the two siblings was now starkly clear to everyone. Azula was a brilliant, unstoppable force, a master of immediate, overwhelming power. But Zuko was playing a different game entirely. He was thinking about the soul of the world, the flow of history, and the absolute, final victory. The soldiers looked at him with a new, profound respect, and a flicker of fear. They saw not just a prince, but a future Fire Lord who saw the entire world as his chessboard.
Azula said nothing. She merely held his gaze, her mind undoubtedly racing, recalculating her own position in light of his devastating logic. The victory she had felt moments ago was now ashes in her mouth, replaced by the bitter taste of being outmaneuvered on a level she hadn't even considered.
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