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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
Agni Kai
By Pat Squared

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Azula’s gut curled up into a tight ball when she heard a girl’s voice say, “Zuko, it’s Katara.”

She remembered Zuko’s whimpering that name in his sleep begging for her to hurt him, to punish him for the sins that Azula forced upon her older brother.

“... Tara, let me go. Don’t avenge me. Take my sister someplace where Ozai can’t hurt her anymore.”

Her brother’s voice was raw from the screaming. She could hear the hiss and smell the burning of his flesh. She remembered the network of the familiar old scars on his body and could only imagine where the new scars Ozai’s torturers had inflicted upon him. It should have been Azula that suffered for her sins, but fate made Zuko her whipping boy.

The former Fire Nation Crown Princess remembered someone leading her by the hand someplace. A female voice different from the first told the boys to leave and stripped her of her filthy smock.

“It will be damp when you put it back on, but at least it will be clean.”

The girl ordered that a couple buckets of clean water be brought. Azula could hear someone opening a bag and handing her a bar of soap. Another set of footsteps entered the room and poured a bucket of water on her dirty flesh. A pair of hands grabbed the soap and started attacking her skin.

“It will hurt, but I got to remove the dead tissue before it becomes infected and spread into your blood.”

Azula suppressed a scream as she felt the remnants of her face was torn apart.

After an eternity of scraping, they merely poured water on her face.

“It will tingle, but I am doing something that will help you live. I cannot restore your eyes though and there will be some scars, but not as bad as it could have been. Now tell me what you did to Zuko.”

The event of the past week had destroyed Azula once overwhelming pride. She now no more cared what the others would think of her, she was going to die anyways. So she confessed everything. Another lie would only burden her soul in its journey to the next life. As she did so, she could hear the sharp intake of breath and feel the building anger growing inside her questioner. If the questioner was a fire bender, the heat would have scorched the heavens.

“Why should I let you live?” the voice finally demanded.

Azula could only answer, “I shouldn’t. My child must live, it’s the only reason I have not yet taken my life. I broke him until all he could do was cry out to you to end his life.”

Azula could hear a block of ice shatter against the dungeon wall.

“And he wanted me to forgive you! He was...he is dying. He is dying because you and your father cut him off from everything he knew. You sent him on a quest that would kill him. He has the lung flux...You knew that every time he bends he destroyed his lungs. He sacrificed years of his life for who...for some twisted old man and an incestuous slut bitch.”

Azula only faced the voice and asked, “Then kill me.”

“Stop it,” a young male voice on the verge of breaking commanded, “Stop it now. We can’t waste our time killing each other. Ozai will gain the power of Sozin’s comet unless we defeat him before sunset.”

She recognized the voice from the chase. It was the avatar and the youth in the voice did not reassure her. She wanted to run someplace safe. She wanted to run to someplace where her father would never find her. However, she was carrying the last of Ozai’s blood and he would never stop hunting for her child.

Fire bending was never a defensive art.

The very existence of fire consumed qi so unlike the others bending art, fire could only serve in the attack. It could not be held in reserve like an unstable pile of stones or a wall of water held back before it slammed down on a foe. The fire bending inside of her knew that the only way to save her child’s soul was to keep attacking until her father lay dead at her feet. As for her soul, she had already incurred such debts that she would be lucky to reincarnate as a cockroach in the next live.

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Katara could never forgive the blind Fire Nation bitch that broke her lover.

Zuko loved me, not that hussy whore. My child and I are already dead because of her and her father. Now she ruined my memories of him.

The only reason that she did not turn the Fire Nation princess into a living icicle was because of Zuko.

“Go ahead, tell me how much you hate me. I would hate me too.”

Zuko was out of his mind with pain.

Katara now knew why Zuko had hurt her. Zuko had gone on a final mission to make things right. Zuko had gone to stop the madness and he did not want her to suffer as he suffered. However, she suffered as she saw every new mark on his flesh.

If Zuko was a lesser man with a lesser man’s will, he would have long died. However, among men there are warriors. Among warriors, there are princes. In Katara’s opinion, Zuko would be the god of war in the hierarchy. Even plagued by doubts, he still sacrificed himself. Now he was reduced to being Azula’s stud and Ozai’s whipping boy.

Katara finished putting on the splint on Zuko’s right leg.

The young man with the tortured soul was in no condition to fight. Blood lost and infection had only complicated his fragile health. Katara wanted to hurt someone in the worst possible way.

“I splinted it. Don’t put your full weight on the leg, or it will not heal properly.”

Katara felt foolish for warning Zuko. He was not going to live long enough for the leg to knit let alone heal. She wanted to believe in the happily ever after that storyteller talk about. She wanted to believe that there was a future together. However, she knew any dreams of a future for any of them was only a sign that their collective sanity was slipping.

“Zuko, please forgive me. I’m...”

He placed his finger on her lips. He then kissed her like he once use to kiss her – Gently, yet she could taste the fire burning brightly inside of him.

“You don’t have to tell me about our child. I can already see the bump. I am only sorry that I can’t be around to see it grow.”

Katara felt herself flushing red in the face as her eyes welled up in tears.

“Please don’t follow me. Today, I will face off against the Fire Lord in an Agni Kai. The last time I faced my sire in an Agni Kai...I did not fight. I begged for mercy and he scarred me and cast me out. This time, I must fight. He is mad, believes himself to be Agni on earth. If so, I must send him off to hell to answer for what he did to my mother, my sister, you, my nation, and our future.

“I love you. However, I have to follow this path. Let me finish so that others won’t be forced to walk the same path again. Take care of my sister and don’t let her or her child be taken by our father. Don’t let him corrupt another generation with his madness. If I fall, I want you all to run and hide. Don’t let our child waste its life by trying to avenge me. Don’t waste your life by trying to avenge me.”

He tried to get back up on his feet, but the pain was obviously too much. He fell, but he waved off help. She knew that he would die before letting other’s know of his pain and weakness. He needed to get up on his own. Not because he would soon fight, but because he needed to prove to himself that he could defeat anything if he could summon the iron will he once had. With it, he would once more be the man that she loved.

Zuko smiled.

Today it would be over. Either way, he will die and he did not care.

From the look in the other’s eyes, the others did not understand why he would fight once more even as he was dying. They did not understand that he had to redeem himself; he had to redeem his soul, his honor before he met his mother once more. In dying, maybe he will save them all, maybe he will save no one. Yet he had fight once more and try to save all those he grew to love. Maybe expect for the loud mouth peasant with the twin axes.

The plan was simple. Use the Agni Kai to defeat or at least weaken his sire for the avatar to finish off. The others managed to squeeze into the armor of the guards and they would drag his limp body into the arena. The others would see to it that the only two fighters in the ring would be a banished prince and a mad Fire Lord.

The sun was terribly bright as the others dragged him into the arena and merely dumped his body in the earth.

“In the East is the living god, Fire Lord Ozai. In the West is the notorious assassin, the Blue Spirit Jian Li. Both are blessed by Agni’s gift of flame. Both have agreed to fight to the death. Does either yield?”

Zuko made his way to his feet and spat on the earth. It was a bright pink, frothing with blood from his lungs, but he no longer cared.

Fear made the mouth dry, but Zuko had already accepted death. Only one who has shed his fear can spit in the face of death.

“Never will I surrender to such scum,” announced the Fire Lord.

The arena master then nodded.

“All the forms have been followed. Both warriors have accepted fate’s ruling and fate’s penalty. May Agni bless the just!”

Ozai could not wait to taunt his foe.

“Die, Jian Li. Tonight, I greet Sozin’s comet and tonight, you will just be another memory of a fallen foe blessed to be slain by my hand.”

Zuko remained silent knowing that talking was merely a waster of precious breath and energy.

“Go.”

Ozai summoned Agni’s gift and launched an impressive wall of flames at the weakened prince.

Burn your qi, father. Keep burning your qi. I have only one strike, and I WILL make it count.

Zuko merely made a motion with his left arm and circled the flames into a tornado around his body. Ozai launched another attack and Zuko incorporated it into the fiery inferno swirling about his weakened flesh. The banished prince flung the fire back at his sire. He then limped forward.

His sire summoned the dragon and sent it after him.

Zuko smiled.

Here is action. Here there are no doubts. Here the voices that weakened me are mute. Fire is my birthright and unless I give up, fire cannot hurt me before I accomplish what I must.

“I am a living god. I will cast you down. You will tremble for mercy. Jian Li, you will beg and plead like that brat Zuko.”

The father ranted and raved as he cast more fire at his only son.

Zuko merely limped forward using his skills to turn his sire’s weapons against him.

“Die.”

Zuko had to save his qi for the one killing blow. He held back the urge to launch it. He held back the urge to strike down the man who tormented him.

“You will learn respect. I will make pain and suffering your teachers.”

Zuko remembered those words. Pain and suffering taught him well. Pain and suffering taught him that he made his own honor and did not need his twisted sire’s approval to live with honor.

“Guards, kill him! Strike him down, now or suffer the consequences!”

A gust of wind arose and the arrows fell around him.

Thank you, Avatar. I am sorry that we could not be friends.

Zuko merely limped forward wordlessly towards his sire preparing himself to deliever the final blow of this Agni Kai.

His father in fear had forfeited his honor. Now the illusion was revealed. Ozai was not omnipotent. Ozai was not a great warrior. Ozai was merely a cowardly man like Earth Kingdom governor who surrendered his province to Azula or like the other scum he assassinated. Ozai used his power to oppress the weak and when confronted by the righteous, Ozai surrendered his honor in self-preservation. His power was soley based upon his ability to perpetuate a lie. Once the lie was exposed, Ozai was powerless.

Zuko knew that that his end would mean that the world would be a better place. Death could not stop him.

The old man launched another attack, but the old man's flames were not as powerful as before.

The old man screamed, “Who are you? Why don’t you die like you were suppose to? I command you to drop dead. I command you to...”

Zuko took in a tortured breath. He was only five paces from his sire. He took another step and smiled.

“I am Zuko, son of Ursa,” he whispered.

The old man eyes grew terribly wide as the Fire Lord recognized the injured fire bender as the son he cast out. Hatred replaced the terror that the silent killer formerly inspired.

“You ungrateful bastard - Tell the avatar that I will still win. Sozin’s comet will bring death to all my enemies. It will strike all you love down. The Earth Kingdom and Water Tribes will soon meet the fate of the Air Nomads. Strike me down and I still win. I will burn you like I did the last time. I will personally strangled you like I strangled your mother, the Lucky Whore.”

Zuko did not bother blocking or deflecting his father’s last flame strike, but instead accepted the burns and battled through the pain to make his move.

With two more painful steps Ozai was within range.

Zuko summoned his qi for the make or break strike. Positive and negative energy mixed in his sea of qi. With an almost serene acceptance of the terrible act he was going to perform, Zuko launched a quick right jab forward into his father’s chest and let a spark of lightning loose into Ozai’s chest. With his left hand, Zuko launched an explosive ball of flame into the stunned man’s gut.

There was a reserve of qi that the body greedily horde to keep on living. For Zuko, this was the moment. He surrendered all his qi into the flames.

For generations, the Fire Nation would speak of the legendary white flame that had not been seen since Lu Ten, son of Kuzon and his silent lady died. Azula had practiced for countless hours to find the secret to the flame that could melt any metal. All Iroh told Zuko was that Zuko’s maternal grandfather, Lu Ten, once said only the strongest emotion and purest heart could summon the white flame.

Contrary to all that was taught him, passion and hatred did not yield the hottest flame. It was love and the willingness to sacrifice all in love’s name that summoned the legendary pure flame.

Zuko simply sat down and looked on the smoking ashes of the man who had sired him and tormented him.

He once dreamt of avenging his mother’s death.

He once dreamt of breaking the old man and forcing Ozai to grovel before him and beg for mercy and he once begged his father for mercy. He dreamt of making his father surrender. He wanted to see his sire kow tao, to abase himself and strike his head into the earth as Ozai begged his son for forgiveness. He wanted his father to feel the burn as Zuko marked his sire as his sire marked him.

Now Zuko felt strangely empty. He had paid too high a price to sully what he did with vengeance. His sire was mad and had to be put down like a rabid hound. He felt more used than victorious.

Zuko could not breathe, but somehow that knowledge did not panic him at all. He had won, but his inner fire was gone. Spent of his qi, he collapsed into the darkness, knowing no matter what happened now that he had shed the demons that haunted his past.

For the first time in four years, the young man was at peace.
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Blue Mask