No. It couldn't be.
Bin stepped inside the empty warehouse hideaway speechless. First shock took hold of him, then panic, then pure seething hatred consumed him the moment he saw the dart lying on the floor.
He picked it up. And it burned in his hands as his eyes shone with rage at knowing what it had meant.
From his mouth, he screamed pure fire. Not caring that this was his home or that these treasures he had stolen would go up in flames. It paled in comparison to what he had lost.
He burst from the wooden walls, trailing soot and ashes. The coward Azzai had played him and would likely turn her in to the easiest, shortest distance form of payment. The governor's office. Or the marshal. At the town center. There was still time. There had to be time. Please let there be time.
Not caring that he was injured, he sprinted with all his might, using the power of the rising sun to fuel him and give him strength. It invigorated him and he vowed one way or another.
Azzai would die.
As the bounty hunter calmly carried the airbender around one shoulder through the longest, widest street toward the city center, her limp body like a sack of potatoes in his arms, he felt just tired. Tired from the ordeal, tired from having to put up with this pretending for so long. Everyone else was still fast asleep. He just wanted to turn the girl in and finally, finally go home. After so many years. His exile would finally end. He glanced upward and saw that the sun was rising even further. He paid it no mind and kept his thoughts on the task at hand only. He could already see the marshal's office right in front of him at the end of the street. He was so close. So close..
AZZAII!!!!! Came a scream from behind him. It was a sound like cold fury.
Azzai didn't bother to turn just yet. He simply dropped the airbender face down into dirt and turned to face the voice he recognized.
Alright. I guess we're doing this then. Azzai said, readying his stance for the reckoning he knew he deserved.
The two stared across each other in silence. Realizing that another Agni kai was due. Only this time, there would be no witnesses to watch the spectacle. And this time.
Bin would not show mercy.
Neither would Azzai.
Bin limped forward hastily like a spirit hellbent on vengeance. His eyes were wild and wide, beaming anger as they focused only on him. his breathing was heavy and erratic; the stitches in his body that Jina had done for him had come undone in his haste to catch up. He found renewed purpose in the pain. He powered through and raised his fists, igniting them.
Stand and fight coward!!! Bin demanded.
Isn't that what I'm doing? Azzai said.
Bin lashed out. Enraged. He let go of restraint. Let go of composure. He just wanted him dead. He unleashed jabs of flame with all his hatred and rage hoping it would be enough to make him suffer and die for what he had done.
Azzai ducked and dodged. Hiding behind cover like the coward he was.
Oh, have I struck a nerve? He called out from behind a rebuilt cabbage cart.
Bin leapt through the air and shattered the cart he was hiding behind into burning embers before coming up with a series of spiraling flaming kicks one after another. It was agonizing but he had to keep going.
As the fight carried on. Azzai didn't strike back once. He only goaded Bin further with words as his most prized weapons for the current moment. More stitches in bin's body began to come lose as blood began to drip onto the dirt and sandstone street. He was struggling to stand. He hadn't slept all night or eaten anything. Azzai just flipped and spiraled, all the while mockingly. Why hadn't he fought back at all. Why wasn't he firebending?
It was in that moment. Bin understood.
Azzai was a non-bender.
Azzai unfurled the Morningstar chain he had hidden behind his back and spun it in circles wildly through the air with a wide windup as it kicked up dust to build force. Bin was taken aback and had no defense against this weapon. When he tried to counter, his own flames only passed harmlessly through the metal, actually heating it up red hot. Soon enough, as bin let out another desperate fist of flame, the tip of the Morningstar ignited in flames and hit him, burning the side of his torso with an agonizing, sizzling yelp. Azzai had coated it hours earlier in flammable gel for just such a scenario as this. And bin had just inadvertently ignited it for him. Seeing Bin in pain, Azzai pressed the frenzied attack further; it shattered carts and set stalls ablaze as it spun through the air like it was alive. A comet orbiting a sun as its master. Bin was fighting for his life against someone he should have had an advantage over. This fight should have been won by now. But he was losing.
Because Azzai never gave up.
Not being a bender meant he had to work twice as hard in life. Using the right tool for the right job and relying on his own cunning, skill, and sheer determination to prevail in a world that didn't expect much from the likes of him. For this fight, he knew what was needed as his best chance if he wanted to come out of this with his life and his prize. Azzai may not be a firebender but he was extremely clever, using his opponents' own strengths against them. Bazzan had counted on blind aggression and unrestrained strength to win, and it had failed him. And now it was failing Bin too. Azzai in contrast, was calculating, cold, disciplined, manipulative, and wasn't above fighting dirty if it meant winning over a normally stronger opponent. The perfect fire nation soldier, if only he had been born a bender.
Azzai didn't let up even for a moment as he unfurled blow after blow, knowing it would doom him. If he wanted to win, he couldn't let a firebender resume his assault. That was the great cost to firebending, you sacrifice personal safety for a strong decisive attack in the hopes of winning the fight first. Bin was now the one ducking behind cover as the chain wrapped around a wooden pillar, that sensing opportunity, bin then snapped in half with a flaming kick. Azzai tried to recover the chain with a tug, but it was buried by the beam. Bin charged hellbet on returning the favor.
Seeing that he had to adapt, Azzai discarded the chain and threw throwing star after throwing star from beneath his shirt until at last one found its mark, passing through bin's fire to embed itself deep in his shoulder red hot and sizzling flesh.
Bin screamed as he stumbled momentarily. His legs were shaking as he wavered. He refused to fall and kept on fighting, only now with one good arm. The other is dangling and useless.
Without his precious chain, bin pressed back the attack with his flames from a distance. Azzai soon ran out of throwing stars and was forced to hide and ducked behind cover again like the coward he was. Keeping a level head, he then kicked burning debris skillfully back toward bin, hoping it would catch fire and collide with bin. It did. Bin was knocked to the street, forced to use his arms as shields where they suffered the worst burns. The smoldering carnage of battle blazed beside him. Red hot splinters embedded in his forearms. What he had suffered at the hands of Bazan paled in comparison to what he was feeling now. As bin let out one last dash of electricity wtih his good arm in hopes to win this fight, azzai grabbed the bucket from the town well and threw it back at him. Bin saw the danger and diverted the lighting bolt into the sky at the last second with a deafening crack as the water doused his body harmlessly but did not touch the lightning. Only now he was blinded by the water, So Azzai closed in for the kill naturally.
He threw a smoke bomb to blind bin even further just for good measure and dove in to finish the duel with just a small knife in hand.
One knife was all that was needed.
Azzai was a shadow. Bin couldn't see. He was burned all over and Azzai struck everywhere at once. It was death by a thousand cuts. It was hell as he slashed at his calves, arms, torso, and back. He had underestimated Azzai severely. And this was the price.
Jina slowly began to regain feeling in her fingers again. Then her toes began to wiggle. Soon enough, under a muffled groan she began inch and worm her way into standing to see where the hell she was.
She heard bin's screams. It was the type of scream from a man dying slowly.
Before her was a large cloud of smoke, Bin was inside suffering. And she knew who was the cause of this Her eyes shone with rage.
The airbender parted the smoke with a flick of her wrists, still bound by rope and metal. But still she could use them. What she saw horrified her.
Bin was drenched in his own blood and burns. But still he refused to fall. Azzai had just stabbed him in the back for the fourth time and was about to slit his throat. Yet still he refused to fall.
Get away from him!!! She screamed. she blasted Azzai off of bin with a deafening scream of her voice, sending a gale of wind to send Azzai as far away as bin as possible. Bin finally succumbed to his injuries and fell. She tried to catch him but instead both of them fell on the dirt facing each other. They both looked like shit. But they were alive.
They wouldn't be for long if the shadow had it's say.
Azzai drew his katana. It shone in the dawn, blinding her intentionally as he charged.
She wormed her way up into a leap and kicked air toward him. He dodged and flipped almost as well balanced as she was. It was two against one now, but he still knew he had the advantage. Bin was bloodied and dazed, The airbender was bound and gagged. There was no way he could possibly lose this.
As Azzai closed the distance and slashed the airbender across her arm and kicked her in the chest, to put her back onto the street where she belonged. He was confident of his victory as he prepared to end bin's life then and there. Preparing to decapitate him in one stroke. But he had forgotten one vital key aspect.
The wildcard.
Leaping from rooftop to rooftop, Malo leapt down into the street to stand before Azzai and Bin.
Want to split the reward? Azzai tried to tempt him.
Malo drew both his nun chucks.
Not with the likes of you cheekbones. He replied.
Azzai charged with his sword, all Malo had to do was twirl the nunchucks to send him spiraling backward. But even hurling through the air he tried to adjust. Azzai dug his sword deep in the ground to plant his feet to try and take the impact as best he could, his hair billowing widely in the path of the torrent. He tried to endure, taking a step forward, but eventually it was too much, and he went spiraling backward, losing his sword as it was blown away and embedded in a rooftop. The spinning sticks made a vortex of pure air no one could withstand. Everyone was stunned. Jina most of all. That shock soon gave way to bliss and relief she had never felt such with such intensity as this. She wasn't the only airbender in the city. She wasn't alone in the world anymore.
Azzai sensing desperation at this discovery cut and slice with his last remaining knife hidden within his boot as Malo bobbed and weaved like he wasn't even there. Ducking under Azzai's legs before tripping him and blasting him through the window of a nearby pottery shop with a loud crash.
Are you guys alright he said, running over to check on them.
Bin gave a bloodied thumbs-up face down in the dirt, while Jina nodded.
As azzai stood bruised and beaten refusing to give up even now, the three of them had finally had enough. They unleashed a combined assault of fire and air upon him. At the last moment he grabbed a large iron cooking pot lit to shield himself from the blast as best it could as it propelled him backward. The air and fire assault obliterated the shop in its entirety sending Azzai to crash through the opposite window into a pile of manure. Alive and unconscious. But beaten.
As bin tried to stand to finish the job he collapsed struggling to breathe. This fight had taken everything from him. And now it may take his life. And theirs as well.
All around them, people had been roused from the noise of lightning and noticed the commotion. Soon enough, though the city's soldiers would converge and surround them. The electricity having pointed right toward them. Some guards were already turning the corner and were giving chase the moment they spotted them. They had to flee. They had to flee now.
We have to go! Jina said as Malo used one of Azzai's throwing stars laying around to cut her ropes. He tried to cut through the chains, but it didn't make a dent. No time she muttered. Grab him. Malo nodded as they resorted to carrying bin once again like a piece of crispy bacon, telling them where to go with the last of his will power before losing consciousness.
Whether he would wake up again hung by a thread.
Stay with me bin She begged. Stay with me!!!