War stops being abstract after the first few months.
The screams lose their novelty. The smell of ash becomes familiar. Fear sharpens into something clean and usable. By the time the third Earth Kingdom city fell, the battlefield no longer felt chaotic—it felt legible.
Predictable.
I stood at the front lines, blue fire roaring from my hands as I hurled compressed fireballs into advancing formations. They weren't wild explosions. They were precise—detonating just behind shields, cutting off retreats, forcing enemies into exposed positions. Soldiers fell back in panic as heat ripped through stone and armor alike.
Then I drew my blade.
My chokutō—simple, straight, lethal.
Lightning crawled down the steel, white-blue and cold, humming like a living thing. I could feel it through my grip, perfectly stable. That alone would have terrified most firebenders. Lightning was never meant to be held.
But I wasn't most firebenders.
I charged.
Footwork flowed naturally—Sasuke Uchiha's memories unfolding through my body as if they had always been mine. Every step, every pivot, every cut was efficient. Earth Kingdom soldiers tried to raise stone barriers, but the blade sliced through armor and bending alike, lightning disrupting their chi as the steel followed through.
No wasted motion.
No hesitation.
I moved through them.
The new technique formed in my mind even as I fought.
Lightning bending was usually linear—direct, lethal, singular. Earthbending, by contrast, excelled at connection. Transfer. Conduction through stone, metal, and ground.
So I fused them.
I planted my foot, slammed my palm to the earth, and released chi in a controlled surge.
Lightning erupted—not outward, but through.
It struck the first earthbender square in the chest, then jumped—snapping violently to the next, then the next, branching like frozen veins across the battlefield. The lightning felt cold, sharp, draining rather than burning.
Cold Chain Lightning.
The weakness was obvious even as I used it—the more targets it passed through, the weaker the discharge became. To compensate, I flooded the technique with raw chi, forcing stability through sheer volume.
My Uzumaki bloodline answered gladly.
The chain snapped through half a platoon before grounding itself harmlessly into the dirt.
Silence followed.
Then panic.
I flipped over a raised stone wall, blade flashing as I descended. Two earthbenders fell before they even finished forming their stances. Their techniques were solid—but slow. Predictable. I punished hesitation with precision.
A wall of fire erupted from my outstretched arm—wide, controlled, advancing steadily instead of exploding. It forced defenders back from the ramparts, driving them away from key choke points without incinerating the city itself.
I wasn't here to destroy.
I was here to win.
City after city fell the same way—supply lines severed, morale shattered, resistance collapsing once leadership was removed. My name spread faster than the fire.
Blue flames.
Lightning blade.
The Crown Prince who fought like a storm given form.
At the final city, the gates loomed ahead—reinforced stone, earthbender-anchored, designed to withstand siege weapons.
I didn't bother with siege weapons.
I stepped forward, raised my hand, and gathered lightning.
Not fast.
Not violent.
Dense.
The air screamed as chi compressed, the sky darkening overhead. Soldiers on both sides froze, instinctively sensing the danger.
I released it.
A massive lightning bolt tore forward, not scattering, not branching—focused into a single devastating strike that slammed into the gate and detonated from within. Stone shattered outward in a controlled collapse, the entrance blowing open in a roar of dust and light.
The path was clear.
"Advance," I said calmly.
My soldiers poured through the breach, disciplined and relentless, securing the city block by block. I followed last, blade lowered, fire extinguished.
The battle was over.
Another city under Fire Nation control.
And as I stepped through the broken gate, lightning fading from my fingertips, one thought settled in my mind—quiet, dangerous, inevitable.
This world was not ready for me.
And it would learn that the hard way.