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Bitter Alliance	By : Looneyluna Category: Avatar - The Last Airbender > Het - Male/Female > Katara/Zuko Views: 31138 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
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.

Chapter List
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Act III

Chapter Five

Author’s Note – The response to this story has been tremendous. I cannot thank all the reviewers enough. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Here’s another short chapter. I’m happy to report that the muse for this story is going strong. (Crosses fingers and prayers that she doesn’t have another case of writer’s block.) This chapter, unlike the others, never went to Moncapitan. So any mistakes are my own. If you see something that is horribly misspelled or grammatically incorrect, please point it out. I strive for accuracy, but I write late at night when I’m half asleep sometimes.

I have received some reviews that are concerned that Katara and Zuko are going to miss one another. Let me take this time to assure you that this is not what I am planning. They will be reunited within the next two to three chapters. As always, enjoy this chapter. It’s got lots of juicy tidbits of plot in it.

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Azula walks beside me. She is sullen and quiet. My niece feels her death to be a betrayal of everything she believed in while she was alive. Her trust and love in her father was unconditional. She wasn’t as evil or as crazy as I had supposed. She was only Ozai’s daughter.

I haven’t the heart to tell her my suspicions, but I know that she feels it too. Why else would she journey with me into the desert? Appa and Momo walk beside us, their purpose on our journey baffling me even more.

“How did you die?” she asks quietly, shuffling her feet in the sand.

Looking up to the burnt orange clouds overhead, I contemplate my answer, careful not to slander her father. Though she resents her death and suspects her father’s hand in it, she is not ready to hear the truth.

I know the truth. I know what Ozai is trying to do. My father taught me the shameful secrets of the sect. Kroni the Destroyer cannot be allowed to cross the bridge between the spirit world and the physical.

Many people think that it was Sozin’s ambition that started the war. It wasn’t. It was the secret Sect of Kroni. It was their ambition that poisoned my ancestor’s mind and led our nation down the path of war.

“I died peacefully in my sleep,” I lie.

Stopping, she crosses her arms over her chest and arches a graceful eyebrow. “Do you not think me worthy of the truth, Uncle?”

Much as she was in life, Azula is too astute for me to trick. I stare at the horizon, unable to meet her gaze. “Old habits die hard. Like Zuko, I seek only to protect you.”

She scoffs. “Oh really, so those fireballs you threw at my head where tokens of your affection?”

“Think of them as much needed training,” I retort jokingly, refusing to take the bait. She is spoiling for an argument and I will not be the one to give it to her.

“Training?” She gives me an incredulous look. “Like I needed training!”

I chuckle, trying to lead her line of questioning astray. What can I say? Old habits die hard.

“Tell me the truth,” she insists, the look in her eyes so sad that it makes me want to embrace her. But, I can’t. Neither one of us has substance. We are shades of our former selves, trapped souls destined to roam our old world.

Drawing a shuddering breath, I bow my head and try to pluck up the courage to tell my niece what she wants to know. “Are you certain? What I have to say does not cast your father in a flattering light.”

“Please,” she says softly.

“Very well,” I capitulate, wishing I had a place to sit and a nice cup of jasmine tea. We continue walking as I gather my thoughts and try to ease the burden of the information I am about to depart.

“If the legend is correct, I, Appa, and Momo were all victims of the fire rain of Sozin’s comet. As spring started to warm into summer, I was sleeping outside next to the Avatar’s bison. Unlike the rest of the traveling party, I didn’t mind being too warm. When you get to be my age, warm weather is your friend. I woke up in time to see the fire rain. Before I realize what it was, a flash of fire had engulfed me and I was here.

“Somehow your father summoned the comet early. I’m not exactly sure how he did that, but I think he had help from the Sect of Kroni.”

“Sect of Kroni?” she asks as she walks next to me.

I shudder even though I cannot feel the heat of the sun as it warms the desert sand. Her lack of knowledge gives me hope. Ozai was mad, but it is oddly comforting that he had not chosen Azula to be the bride of the destroyer. It leaves me to wonder who my brother had chosen for such a daunting task.

“The Sect of Kroni is a religious cult that laid the foundation for the Sages of Agni. They were outlawed long ago, most of the followers executed for their refusal to renounce Kroni’s lust for power. Legend says that Agni trapped Kroni in the spirit world to protect our nation.

“When he was a boy, Sozin found the scrolls of Kroni. He became obsessed with them, for they promised great power and dominion over this world and the spirit world. He is the one who harnessed the passing power of the comet and started the war. Even now, I doubt the other nations realize why our nation attacked.

“Sozin told my father all the secrets of the scrolls, grooming him to carry out his work. My father passed the secrets to me. Azulon gave the scrolls to me to destroy. He thought Sozin to be insane and he lacked the conviction to carry out his father’s ambition.”

I shake my head in remembrance. “But the Fire Nation was already embroiled in a bitter war. Nothing could excuse the genocide of the Air Nomads or the massacre at the South Pole.

“I took the scrolls and never destroyed them. I was lackadaisical in my duty and lost them. My spirit is heavy with shame. If I had only done what was asked of me…”

“I still don’t understand, Uncle,” Azula questions me, her inflection that of a curious student. “How did the Sect of Kroni help my father call the comet early? What happened to the scrolls? I saw the fire rain. I took refuge under ground. Then I fell ill with fever and I never recovered.”

“Your father stole the scrolls,” I continue. “He came to me one day and confronted me with them. I’ll never forget the look in his eyes. It was the same look that I often saw in my grandfather’s eyes. It was the lust for power. We fought. I demanded the scrolls back, but he wouldn’t give them to me. Then I reminded him that it would be me on the throne of Agni and not him. I told him that I had no intention of summoning the power of the comet, and that I would use the passing of the celestial harbinger to usher in a new era – one of peace and restitution.

“Ozai spat in my face and told me that I was a traitor to our nation. He said that he would take the throne from me.” I sigh, trying to shake the melancholy of that day away.

“I don’t know how the Sect of Kroni helped your father. There are forces other than elemental ones in the world.” I point to the burnt orange clouds in the sky that block our path to the spirit world. “As for your fever, I can only guess at what happened.”

She nods for me to continue.

“When Ozai called upon the power of Sozin’s comet, it consumed him…not in the literal sense…but the metaphysical sense. Only a descendant of Agni or the Avatar could call the comet down from the heavens. When he consumed the power, the power consumed him and all of his bloodline. I suspect your brother fell ill with fever as well.”

“Then where is he?” Azula snaps bitterly as she scans the horizon.

“We were traveling with a Waterbender with tremendous healing abilities. She probably healed him,” I huff as we climb a steep dune and see the oasis in the distance.

My niece chuckles mirthlessly. “I wish I’d had a Waterbender.”

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TBC
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Bitter Alliance