Chapter 125: Theft, Betrayal, and Revelation
The silence that followed Zuko's declaration was shattered by his own movement. He turned his back on Azula, on Katara and Yue, as if they were of no more consequence. His focus was the pool.
From within his simple, damp tunic, he withdrew not a weapon, but a container. It was a hollowed gourd, dark and polished, sealed with a waxed stopper. He knelt at the water's edge, the sacred koi fish swirling unperturbed just inches from his hand. With a reverence that seemed at odds with everything he was, he uncorked the gourd and submerged it. The Spirit Oasis water, Glowing with its own inner light, filled it.
He stood, lifting the gourd. For a moment, he looked at the water within, his reflection shimmering on its luminous surface. Then, with a resolve that seemed to shut out the entire world, he raised it to his lips and drank.
He did not sip. He drank It all, a long, continuous pull that emptied the gourd.
The effect was not immediate. He lowered the container, his expression one of intense concentration. Then, a shudder racked his frame, a violent, full-body spasm that made his knees buckle for a second. He caught himself, one hand going to his chest. His breathing became ragged, plumes of frost and steam mixing in the warm air. Veins stood out on his neck and temples, his skin flushing then paling. It looked less like healing and more like a violent internal war, as if the primordial energy of the moon and ocean was a live wire thrust into his core.
A low groan escaped his clenched teeth. His good eye screwed shut in agony.
Then, as suddenly as it began, the storm within him subsided. The tremors stilled. His breathing evened out, deeper and slower than before. He opened his eye, and it seemed to shine with a colder, clearer light. He exhaled, and a look of profound, almost ecstatic relief and pleasure smoothed his features. He looked at the empty gourd in his hand, then back at the pool. The pain was gone, replaced by a terrifying, palpable sense of power thrumming just beneath his skin.
Without hesitation, he knelt again. This time, he did not use the gourd. He simply held his hand over the water. A stream, thick as his wrist and glowing like liquid moonlight, rose in a perfect arc and coiled itself into a second, identical container he produced from his belt. He sealed it, the sacred water now his to keep.
Only then did he acknowledge the others again. His gaze, now sharper and more penetrating, swept over Lieutenant Jee.
"Lieutenant Jee," Zuko said, his voice carrying a new, resonant depth. "It's been a while. Or should I say, Lieutenant… Commander?"
Jee, who had stood stiffly beside Azula, did not meet his eyes at first. Then, with a slow, deliberate motion, he bowed. Not to Azula. To Zuko. "The infiltration back into service was a success, Prince Zuko. Your instructions and messages were all delivered by Rin and Lee in time."
The betrayal crashed over Azula in a visible wave. Her composure, her cruel smirk, vanished, replaced by raw, stunned disbelief. Her own subordinate. Her eyes darted between Jee and her brother, the architecture of her control crumbling.
Zuko ignored her spiraling fury. "Secure the Water Tribe Princess," he said to Jee, his tone now one of casual command. "We will go on to our agreed-upon place soon."
Without a word, Jee gestured. The Yuyan Archers, their loyalties now horrifically clear, shifted their aim. Their arrows were no longer trained on Zuko or the Avatar. They pointed at Katara and Yue. Four of Jee's commandos stepped forward, their movements efficient and cold, moving to flank Princess Yue.
Katara threw her hands up, water rising from the pool, but a dozen bowstrings creaked in unison, aimed at her heart. She froze.
Yue did not struggle as the soldiers took her arms. Her face was pale, but her eyes burned with a furious, luminous light. "This is sacrilege," she whispered, the words meant for Zuko.
He didn't even look at her. "Archers," he commanded. "Anyone else entering this place… kill them."
The final order, given so calmly, broke Azula completely. "You… you planned this with my men?" Her voice was a strangled scrape. "You used my invasion, my victory…"
Zuko finally turned his attention to her. He did not speak. He simply walked towards her, each step measured and heavy with the authority he had just stolen back. The aura around him was no longer that of a fugitive or a ghost. It was the chilling, absolute aura of the Fire Prince, in full command. He passed her by as if she were a piece of furniture, his focus elsewhere.
He stopped before the still, meditating form of Aang. He looked down at the young boy, his expression unreadable.
"I know you're there," Zuko said, his voice low but carrying. "The charade is over. It's time we talked."
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, Aang's eyes snapped open.
But they were not Aang's eyes. They glowed not with the white light of the Avatar State, but with a fierce, ancient silver-blue light, the color of a winter sky. His airbender tattoos pulsed with the same ethereal luminescence. When he spoke, the voice was layered, powerful, and utterly female.
"Is that you Raava?" Zuko asked noticing the slight difference.
"How do you know that name?"
Zuko did not flinch. A flicker of genuine surprise crossed his face, followed by swift recalculation. "Raava. I expected Kuruk. Not the Third herself."
The being inhabiting Aang-Raya-stood. The movement was not Aang's playful agility. It was a slow, deliberate uncoiling of immense, dormant power. "I sensed the death of an Avatar and came to prevent it," the ancient voice stated, the words resonating in the oasis's air.
"The death of the Avatar?" Zuko asked, his earlier confidence faltering for the first time. His mind raced, his eyes widening as the implication struck him. "Aang was to die? Here? Tonight?"
"If it was not you," Raya intoned, Aang's head tilting, "who would be capable of such a thing?"
Zuko thought for a single, crucial second. The pieces clicked: Azula's mission, the archers, the scroll, the target not being him but the spiritual heart… a blow meant to cripple the Water Tribe and kill the Avatar in one stroke. He whirled around, the truth dawning on him.
But he was too late.
Azula, enraged, humiliated, and seeing her entire plan usurped, had seen only one path to victory. While Zuko spoke to the ancient spirit, she had begun the forms. Her fingers traced the separating circle in the air, her body a conduit for deadly charge. The crackle of building energy filled the oasis. Her face was a mask of pure, focused hatred, aimed not at Zuko, not at the Avatar, but at the source of all their power, the pool, the koi, the heart of the moon itself. A killing blow meant to shatter the world.
Aang or rather, Raya simply raised a finger.
It was not a bending form. It was a gesture of absolute, effortless authority. From that fingertip, a single, precise bolt of pure white lightning, thinner and brighter than Azula's blue, lanced across the space. It did not roar. It sounded.
It struck Azula not in the chest, but in her outstretched right arm, at the epicenter of her own generating energy.
There was no grand explosion. There was a sickening pop and sizzle of fat, a flash of blue-white light swallowed by the cleaner, fiercer white. Azula was thrown backwards as if yanked by a wire. She landed in a heap against the base of an icy wall, her arm bent at a hideous, wrong angle, blackened and smoking. A thin wisp of acrid smoke rose from her uniform. She did not move.
The oasis was silent again, save for the hum of Raya's power.
Zuko stared, his mind blank for a full three seconds, at the smoldering, crumpled form of his sister. The clever, vicious, formidable Azula, reduced to a broken, smoking doll by a flick of a finger from a twelve-year-old boy possessed by a ten-thousand-year-old ghost.
A raw, animal sound tore from his throat. He turned on Raya, his composure incinerated by a shockwave of pure, undiluted rage.
"WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO?!" he roared, the fire in his voice hotter than any flame he had ever bent.