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Blue Mask	By : PatPat Category: Avatar - The Last Airbender > AU/AR - Alternate Universe/Alternate Reality > Het- Male/Female Views: 11083 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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Blue Mask, Two Swords, and Sozin’s Comet
Saving a Soul
By Pat Squared

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It has been four long, terrible years since he last stepped on the soil of his homeland. The former prince was thankful that his disguise included bandages covering his face or the Fire Nation would be treated to seeing the spectacle of their former crown prince brawling like a little child who had just lost his only toy.

Death is kind compared to being kept away from the place you would forever love.

Using the white cane to feel for obstructions, the former prince made his way towards the city.

“Sir, I need to see your orders.”

The voice was young, squawking in the all too familiar pattern of a boy’s voice breaking. Zuko estimated his age to be thirteen or fourteen, the same age he was when he was banished.

The boy believes that he is grown up and able to handle anything. I was once that stupid and so sure of myself.

“Sorry, trooper,” Zuko apologized as he opened his bag.

The banished prince reached in and handed over the paperwork that Mei gave to him. There was a pause. Zuko could hear the kid verbalize the symbols as the kid read his orders.

“Sir, it will take a minute, but I will have one of my privates escort you over to the palace.”

“Thank you...?”

“Lance Corporal Go, sir,” the young boy turned around and hollered for Private Huang to come over. “Private, escort the lieutenant over to the naval infantry barracks, ensure that he is squared away, and come straight back here. Or you will be shipped out to the front lines.”

“Yes, sir.”

Zuko was not surprised to hear a female voice.

With a population where adult female currently outnumber adult males eight to one, females now occupied most strata of Fire Nation society. The worked in the textile factories, help smelt the iron, hawking their crafts in the markets, negotiate contracts among the merchant houses, and in many cases now ran entire family cooperatives on behalf of the husbands who are serving on the front or in trust for their sons because their husbands made the ultimate sacrifice.

It was one of the changes brought on because of the war. Traditionally, females of the Fire Nation were kept at their home or place of work and were virtual slaves to their fathers, older brothers, or husbands. Now they were doing all the jobs that did not require vast amounts of muscle because the men were being sent off to war. Zuko remember his father cursing the unnatural independence of the ladies of the Fire Nation and threatening to make it illegal for females to act independent. The law died as soon as the ministers and generals told Ozai the truth: Every female working in the war industries or even standing guard duty in the Fire Nation freed up a brother or husband to fight in the Earth Kingdom.

The ladies will never willingly return back to being locked up in their homes. They could probably do a better job if we did not butt in all the time.

“Sir, don’t worry. The healers work miracles. When I was hurt people told me that I would never walk again. The healers saved my leg and give me the hope that I needed to suffer their therapy, but now I can run father than I ever did before. They might be able to save your vision.”

“Thanks for the encouraging words corporal. I wish you luck and pray that Agni gives you strength to face all the challenges you shall face in this life and the next.”

In the Fire Nation, it was bad luck to ask the gods for favors save for more challenge and the strength to meet them. It was this philosophy that made the Fire Nation strong. Challenges were sort, not avoided.

“Thank you, sir. Here are your papers.”

As the private lead Zuko away, the corporal was already squawking at the next person coming off the docks.

________________________________________

Later that evening, Zuko arose from his cots in the officer’s dormitories. His rank, mission priority, and supposed condition gave Zuko a private room with its own jakes and pump.

Zuko carefully bathed to rip himself of the scent of the sea or any lingering odors that could betray his presence. He slid into the familiar dark suit and slid the blue oni mask unto his face.

The Blue Spirit lives again!

The Blue Spirit took in a depth breath and was rewarded by a coughing fit. Ripping off his mask, Zuko coughed out some phlegm. It was pink with oxygenated blood. Zuko knew that he had to act soon. His health was not improving. He slid the mask back on.

The Blue Spirit slid though the bars over his windows and made his way across the roof tops. Tonight would be the hardest mission of his life. He slid his fingertips over the handles of his swords, as if to reassure himself that he was not totally without hope. Tonight a legend would be born or he would die just another nameless assassin foiled by the guards of the Fire Nation palace.

These guards were perhaps the best-trained group of guardsmen in the world. Male or female - All were veterans of the war with lots of experience in nighttime skirmishes. They knew the tricks that he would use and would be ready to trap any assassin stupid enough to try to enter the palace. However, the Blue Spirit knew a truth that gave him hope. A trap by its nature would always have one weakness. A trap by its nature would remain open until the prey was dumb or unlucky enough to activate it. The Blue Spirit hoped to slip in and slip out before they realize what happened.

The walls were lined with smooth metal panels to render the Earth Kingdom’s knowledge of earth bending useless. The Blue Spirit by sheer effort climbed one of the drainage-pipe and narrowly avoided impaling himself upon the spikes on top of the roof. The roof top was cleverly hinge to allow a grapple to attach and would not hinge open until the climber was near the top so that the climber would fall the fifty-five feet to the stones below.

The Blue Spirit followed carefully keeping his steps in the footprints of the sentry. Some of the outer gardens were booby trapped, a thing at Prince Zuko learned the hard way at age seven when he injured himself in one of the ‘off-limits’ northern court yards trying to escape into his five year-old sister’s growing fascination with setting her Zuzu on fire.

However, the Blue Spirit had an advantage. The royal family had to escape traitorous body guards before and so the palace was lousy with escape holes know only to the royal family. The Blue Spirit was thankful that Zuko’s uncle taught the boy about their existence and how to locate and activate the opening mechanism.

There was one that he knew would take him inside the wing of the palace that housed his father and sister’s sleeping quarters. It was not known to his father or sister since it was useless for two generations since the latest expansion of the latest palace complex. Zuko uncle knew about it because Lu Ten’s Zuko’s grandfather show it to Iroh and told Iroh that it was the way the agents of Kozun and his silent lady use to sneak into the palace to deliver their reports. It was these agents that allow Kozun to accurately predict the plans of the Water Tribes and Earth Kingdom and allowed the Fire Nation to capture a large slice of the western Earth Kingdom. Besides it went to Zuko’s old bedroom.

The Blue Spirit knew that he had a secure place to enact the rest of his plan. Activating the trip lever, the Blue Spirit entered the underground labyrinths of the palace.

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"Fail to pay me what we agree and I will ensure that you will end up just like your great-grandfather Kozun’s older sisters, mother, and grandmother. Imagine what it is like making lots of kids with no two having the same father. Imagine being a harlot who had to share herself with the hideously ugly to pay her pimp his protection fee. Imagine being knock up on a dark country lane by some Earth Kingdom peasant with manure clinging to his bare feet for a few messily brass pennies. You are really not all that pretty and after a while, you will be lucky to attract even a drunken patron."

Azula was about to explode. If this Jian Li did not have Zuko’s head, she would have carbonized him already.

"I have it on good authority that the other kids from the other noble families laughed at you and your brother for not being able to fill out the requisite nine generations of honorable ancestors on your mother’s side of the family tree that the other students had to fill out at the imperial academy. Didn’t your father publically call your mother the luckiest prostitute in Fire Nation history!”

The firebending protégée snapped and launched a wave of fire at her taunter. As she extended her hands, he ducked underneath, came up between her arms, head butted her, and knocked her to the earth.

Jian Li fell on top of her and had his dagger to her neck. There was a thin line of blood starting to well from the small cut.

“The only thing stopping me from raping you and releasing Ty Lee's need for vengeance on your pal is profit, highness. Dead men can't enjoy it."

He extended his tongue and licked her jaw line. Unlike in life, she returned the kiss. This time he was excited and she could not say no to her master, her illicit lover.

He whispered into her ear, "You have called the tune, highness, now it’s time to pay me what is mine. Tell Gloomy Girl to drop whatever knife she is holding and keep her hands up so that everyone can see them. From this moment until I leave, if her hands are not up in the air, one of you two will be sporting a new fashion accessory - a crossbow bolt going through your back and coming out the center of your chest. Slowly nod if you understand what I am saying."

Azula nodded. For the first time in her life she was truly scared. Jian Li had defeated her and she was his to take and ravage.

Jian Li slowly cut away her blouse without uttering another word. She did not care that Mai would see him ravage her and steal her virginity. He could have his way with Mai too, Azula did not care as long as he sated her lusts, first. Azula merely waited for him to claim her honor, but Jian Li was all business even in a moment of passion.

"Your brother, your highness. He was one of the better clients that I have serviced. He learned much from his time pursuing the Avatar and it was a worthy chase. Unlike the others who saw my blade, he never whimpered or begged or even offered to buy me off when I cornered him. He was sick, wheezing like a leaky bellow. He could barely stand and yet when I fought him, he neither gave nor asked for any quarter. If he wasn't weakened by illness, it would be my flesh that roasted for the benefits of the wild animals.

"Thank you, highness, for giving me such a marvelous creature to hunt. Hunting down your brother was a worthy capstone to any assassin's career. If it wasn't against my principles, I might have done that hunt for free. I just hope your father can provide the same type of sport if and when you decide to take me up on my offer. Behold my latest trophy, Princess Azula. Behold the head of Prince Zuko, son of Fire Lord Ozai, and your older brother."

Jian Li displayed the contents of the box. Azula was suspicious until she saw their mother’s locket.

She smiled as she left the locket in the box and whispered, “Zuko stole that when he left. He would never give up his mother’s precious locket. He is definitely dead; otherwise no force on earth would stop him from reclaiming it. Too bad the wire portion of the necklace was damaged or I would wear it to my brother’s funeral so that I can taunt his shade one last time.” Jian Li handed over the box. With a single motion, Jian sweep the three velvet bags into his pack. He turned around and started to walk away.

“Aren’t you going to check your gems?”

Jian Li did not bother to turn around. He just stop, merely smiled, and said, “I don’t have to bother counting. I know that if you have any brains, you would not cheat me until I have the Avatar in captivity. Besides, I am not the one with a tick off assassin’s apprentice who is too eager to collect on a debt. Girls, enjoy yourselves girls and next time don’t try to play these silly little games with a professional killer. I will leave a message in the usual spot when I get another trophy for your collection.”

“Please don’t leave! I need you.”

“Sure you do. Ozai will marry an air nomad! The Avatar and the other Kingdoms will surrender just because you wish it so. Keep dreaming, princess. Reality just ain’t your thing. Have a wonderful evening highness and don’t run with sharp items in your hands, at least until I collect my other two fees. Don’t worry, I would tell a soul what really happened. Go ahead and lie to everyone. When I drove my sword into your brother’s chest, his last words were a warning to me, ‘Azula always lies.’”

“I don’t always lie.”

With that declaration, Azula ripped off the last of her clothing and prepared to surrender her virtue to her assassin making him hers body and soul. He ripped of his cloths. He was scarred as benefited a veteran of many conflicts, but they only made him more handsome, more commanding. She knew then that she would not willing let anyone else father her numerous children. For that she would surrender everything just to have his love for one night.

Azula woke up with a growl of irritation. Every time, Jian Li was about to consummate their love in her dreams she always was awaken. Spring was starting to fade into summer in the Fire Nation capital. In the northern provinces of the Fire Nation, the earth was still covered by ten feet of snow in the mountain passes, but here a heat wave had already taken its toll killing some of the elderly and only served to enrage her already legendary temper.

Azula slipped out of the sweat soaked nagajugan (undergarments). She walked over to her private bath and slide into the cool water seeking relief both from the heat and the terrifying emotions that her dreams brought her. She had schemed and worked all her life to get to where she was and now she did not want any of it.

Zuko was lucky that he did not have to deal with an arranged marriage.

Fire Lord Ozai patience ran short and announced that Captain Wong would be the consort to the next Fire Lady without even telling her before he announced it in the throne room. The royal astrologers and midwives got together to pick a fortuitous date to ensure good luck and to ensure that she would be carrying an heir by the time their traditional isolation time would be over. Thankfully it would not occur until next spring. The cooks already started adding special extracts that were suppose to enhance her beauty and fertility.

Lots of girls wanted to be Wong’s chosen one, but Azula was not one of them. Wong was too loyal, too dog-like, worse too steadfast like a Earthbender to ever sate Azula’s growing passions.

Azula wanted passion, excitement. She wanted a man like Jian Li would with a single motion capture her lust and twist her spirit.

Gods, Wong is going to mount me and treat it just like another battle drill.

Azula got Mai drunk one night and Mai told Azula in detail about her shame and her child. Mai described the pain and how she remembered crying for days afterward. Mai told Azula about never feeling safe or even clean anymore. Mai was physically sick, even before she was pregnant.

Azula did not want that fate. She cursed the fact that she was not born a boy. Boys enjoyed their first time. Boys did not have to endure a sweating, heavy lug mounting them. Boys did not have to put up with the sickness and the pain of labor. Boy can go around and father children and leave the mothers behind. If she was a boy, she knew then that her father would have loved her and maybe even respected her.

Azula wanted love. She wanted someone who would pay attention to her, who would be with her, who would give her what she was missing for all her life.

The cool water cooled her flesh but not Azula’s overwhelming thoughts. Azula knew that she had to have Mai find Jian Li. Azula would ensure that Wong would go to the front and die for her in battle before he got a chance to mount her. Azula would have Mei take care of daddy dearest and have Jian Li as her husband.

Climbing out of the water, Azula slipped into her yukatabira, or bath underclothing. The moisture made the thin cloth almost transparent, but Azula did not care. This wing was guarded by female troops for three generations and they had seen this little girl run around virtually naked all her life.

She did not want to be in her room right now. It was the room assigned to the Crown Princess. Once Zuko sleep here and the room felted like a grave despite her removing everything of his from the room. In doing so, the crown princess found a bolt hole. Unfortunately, the latest palace addition rendered it obsolete. It did not extend past the latest wall and terminated in one of the northern forbidden courtyards, the one that Zuko hurt himself in when she was five.

She activated the mechanism and slipped into her own private world.

She had modified the tunnel into her own little workshop/office. Here she kept the correspondence with Mai, her journal, and the outfit that she wore when Jian Li captured her heart.

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The Blue Spirit cringed when he saw that Zuko’s sister obviously knew about the bolt hole. He hated her for it. It was Zuko’s private place. It was the place where he could be anything he wanted to be. He was not the failure here that everyone outside called him. It was the last refuge of his childhood and Azula stole it from him.

However, the Blue Spirit was committed to using this bolt hole. He took a blank scroll and in very small symbols recorded his sister’s plans. The Blue Spirit knew that if worse came to worse, he could blackmail his sister, turn her tactics against her.

The plot to kill Zuko’s and Azula’s father was expected. However poems about being violated by the Blue Spirit’s alter ego, Jian Li, was quite an eye opener.

Trust my sister to fall in love with herself.

The Blue Spirit based Jian Li’s persona upon how Zuko perceived his sister’s interactions with others. She was ruthless, cunning, psychopathic, and had no conscience. She went from little flame to major inferno, but at the heart of the inferno was a spoiled, little girl who was upset that her favorite toy would not play with her.

The Blue Spirit knew that if Azula ever figured out that the Blue Spirit, Zuko, and Jian Li was the same person and every got her hands on him...the torture cells under the palace would become a paradise compared to what he would experience.

Azula entered the room. It was dark, but cool.

She did not bother to light a flame. It was her room and she could maneuver around without the need for a light. A flame would only make the room unbearably hot and would defeat her quest for a little coolness.

“Hello highness. Don’t bother to tell me how much you want me.”

It couldn’t be...Jian.

“I read your little poem, touching really.”

Go and kill this impertinent scum. He will just use you - Just like he used Ty Lee. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him.

But Azula could not even think of how to do it.

A pair of hand shot out and grabbed her by the throat.

“I was waiting for the avatar to eventually show, but you will provide better entertainment for tonight.”

He was hurting her. He was caressing her. She did not want him to leave her feeling this frustration.

“I see you are not wearing much. Nothing underneath. Very businesslike, I like that in my wenches. Let us see if you can kiss better than that bouncy girl you gave me as an appetizer. Her belly is already swelling with my child. It's fascinating that she can coo for her child one second and slice another man's throat the next.”

He kissed her.

The thought of him being so potent as to already knock up her former friend only excited her. She wanted him to give her his seed. She wanted to him to give her a heir that would be strong and ruthless like its mother and father. She did not want to be upstaged by her former friend. She would capture his heart. He will forget about Ty Lee and worship at Azula’s shrine.

First he gently nibbled on her lips and slowly she responded in kind. She reached up to untie her sash.

He broke off the kiss.

“I will unwrap your present in good time, highness. Let us savor the moment.”

He attacked her lips and her sanity.

She knew that she would be ruined if she let things go on. She would be dishonored. She knew that if he released his salt inside of her she would bear his child. She did not care. She wanted to be disgraced and used by the man kissing her.

The kisses got fiercer. His tongue darted into her throat.

She felt paralyzed, weak, and helpless.

The last thing she felt was the blood leaving her head.

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The Blue Spirit lowered the princess to the earth.

He had choked her as he kissed her so that Azula did not realize what was happening to her. Her mind was focused on what she believed were the lips of her true love.

Nothing was a disgusting as what he had done or what he was going to do. He was going to shatter his sister’s heart. He did not intend for things to happen in this fashion, but it did.

He hid and she bumped right into him.

Had the Blue Spirit not shared the body of Azula’s brother, he might have been tempted to dishonor the crown princess. Her body was no longer the flat body that he remembered from the time their mother bathed the pair as little children. Azula’s body was women-like and if he was not her sibling would merit his effort to add her to his harem. Thankfully the incest taboo allowed him to keep a clear head around the passionate princess.

He left the princess a note, careful to disguise his handwriting.

Thank you highness for the gift you offered to me. I am sorry that I could not accept it. I had to choke you unconscious since I could not say what I should have said long ago.

Your father raped a lady eighteen years ago and I was my mother’s souvenir of the encounter. She was a nobody forced to live in the palace by our grandfather. It is perhaps best that we never see each other again. The incest taboo is strong. I am an honorable man, but nevertheless I am a man prone to the temptations that all men face.

If I tasted your sweet nectar again, I would surrender my honor and destroy yours. You would be innocent of your crime against the gods since you did not know the truth, yet the gods will punish you with sickly children.

Once I hated you. You had your father’s love. You had the life I desired. Yet now I see that you are trapped in a cage not of your making. Our father’s love was an illusion. I wish I had let you known before you surrendered your heart. Were I not your father’s son, I would be tempted to kidnap you, rescue you from your gilded cage, and let us live by a quiet hut on our own sanctuary. We would have the sun, the moon, the land, and the sea. We would have been so happy.

Fate in its perversity chooses us, brother and sister, to be red string soul mates. To save both our souls, I must move on. Someday, some son seeking vengeance for a father’s death will find me and end my days. Perhaps then the gods of fate will let us have the next life to share the love they cruelly denied us in this life.

You will never see me again. I will be in the shadows watching over you. Your kiss shall haunt me forever. You and I are from two different worlds. You are a lady of the of light. I am a lord of shadows. I am the Blue Spirit wanted by both the Fire Nation and the Earth Kingdom. I choose this life long ago and now I must live alone until I perish.

Your brother,

Jian Li

Zuko had to call upon every sappy love tragedy his tutors inflicted upon him to come up with this letter. He told the truth. Ozai did rape his mother. His grandfather was powerful enough to force Ozai to make Ursa his wife instead of just another concubine. Zuko wanted to hurl. He had never written a love letter before in his life and now he had to write one to the sister that would flay him alive if she ever guest his true identity.

Why couldn’t it have been Katara?

The Blue Spirit now had only half a night to rescue Mai’s child.

The Blue Spirit knew that hell would have no fury, compared to his sister’s fury the moment she woke up and read the letter. He had to move fast, but before he went off he had to wash the foul taste of his sister’s tongue out of his mouth.

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The princess woke up knowing that last night was not a dream. She had shared a passion filled night with Jian Li and she hoped that he left her a child.
Now she had to deal with the fallout.

She only wished that Jian remained, but hopefully he would pay her another midnight visit.

She understood now what Jian meant when he told Mei that to follow best follow from the front.

The avatar would have to come here soon.

Jian knew it and would deliver the avatar to her. Then she could safely proclaim Jian a hero and make him her consort. Her father would not fail to reward Jian with honors and title of nobility. Wong would die in the war or in a carefully arranged accident. Then Azula and Jian can live happily ever after making heirs and trying to steal the dais from her father.

She touched her stomach wondering if Jian Li already gave her what she wanted.

She had done the impossible. She had bound the elusive assassin to her service. She had won their little game and now he would serve her. He would never hurt her as long as he shared her bed. Now she just had to have his child. He would then never turn against his own flesh and blood.

She saw a note left behind.

Perhaps Jian proclaimed his love for me.

She read the note and her victory turned into bitter ashes.

She was going to personally double the reward on the Blue Spirit, and promise honors and an estate to any person who brought him alive enough for a visit to one of the torture chambers under the palace. Jian had destroyed her dream and now she was dead inside.

First, Azula had to throw up.

She had almost surrendered her virtue to a bastard half-brother. If her father knew that he had another son, then all she worked for would be destroyed. Ozai wanted a son. Yet he was sterile. None of his concubines got pregnant and it was not for the lack of trying. A bastard son would be legitimatized and she would no longer be the heir. Especially if the bastard can show that he is not sterile.

Why couldn't you have just given me what I wanted?

I would have given you the world. Am I not pretty, pleasing, soft where I need to be soft? I offered you the change to rule the world.

I hate you Blue Spirit. I hate you Jian Li. First I have to kill Ozai, but I guarantee you will be next. The torture chambers will only be an appetizer.You will give me what I want, even if it cost you your life and spirit.

________________________________________

The Blue Spirit looked on Ursa’s grave marker.

It had been a long time since someone tended his mother’s shrine. As a youth, he would sit there and tell his mother what was happening. Now he was afraid to confess to his mother’s shade the mind trick that he played on his sister.

He had felt a moment of victory when he walked away from his sister’s unconscious body. He had shattered her dreams of love. He had set things in motion. He had destroy the last thing that could have saved his sister’s soul. Now he was ashamed that he had sunk lower that his kin. He was afraid of what his mother would say to him when they met in the underworld.

He reached under the mask and wiped his right eye as he walked to the nursery.

The boy was unconscious. Zuko had the child drugged and curled up in a canvas sack. The child was three. About the same age his eldest child would have been if he was not banished. Mai, what they did to her was unforgivable. It was not her fault that Zuko spoke out of turn. It was not her fault that he failed to stand up to his father at the Agni Kai. It was his fault and she was punished.

Mai had loved him.

She had once defied his sister and father and got him the medicine that prevented the infection from claiming his life. She had tended his injuries in the middle of the night and she was ready to slip aboard his ship so they would always be together.

He had turned her away and now Azula was taking the one thing that kept Mai from slitting her wrists. Although he did not love Mai in the manner that she loved him, nevertheless, Ty Lee and Mai were like the younger sisters he never had. His hate for his real sister grew. Now he vowed to be no longer ashamed for what he did to Azula.

He had set his sister on a quest to preserve her own honor. She would kill their father, a man that was destroying the Fire Nation. She would hunt him down and perhaps relieve him of his live. She was ruthless enough to keep the nation intact until the gods allowed someone more worthy to assume the dais. Breaking her heart was just the first payment on the interest.

And yet, he could not help hating himself for what he had just put her through.
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Blue Mask