#... also um yes Yue is... in a situation... as we all know...

[seyaryminamoto]

The Shadows in her Reflection: Sokkla Saturdays 2023

Day 5: Fire

Rated: M

On FF.net//On AO3

A/N:

Recent developments in ATLA's canon have basically decreed that this canon/comics-compliant fic is, of course, no longer canon/comics-compliant. This is no surprise to anyone, I'm sure. It's not even that the changes were huge, they weren't, but there's certainly one important difference between this story and the comic that I'd like to... talk about, I guess?

Azula's Kemurikage group, the Fire Warriors, what have you, have always been an awkward team due to the absolute lack of personality, development and fleshing out of how, exactly, they ever ended up working together. Azula broke them out of the asylum: why did they follow her afterwards? No one knows. Did she get along with any of them? No one knows. Everything is a huge question mark and, unfortunately, the new comic basically did nothing to answer these questions. Instead, it twists them even more by featuring the team being perfectly normal, adjusted, decent individuals while Azula is the only one who is a terrible, no-good person. This invites new questions: why were they in the asylum at all if there's no sign of mental illness or any unusual behavior in these people? Were they locked up under false pretenses of mental illness? If so, that should be fleshed out a bit more, right? Maybe being sent to an asylum when they were 100% okay, mentally speaking, is what makes people like them crave vengeance against the system!

... But that's not really how it reads, and it ends up proposing an interpretation of these characters that I frankly can't describe as anything but shrugworthy. Somehow they're not competent enough to avoid capture but they're competent enough to break free their imprisoned member, without Azula's help...? It's all too convenient, I'd say.

Point of all this is... the Zirin I wrote in this chapter was very much written over a month ago, probably two months ago instead. The character I decided to portray was not going to be a perfectly normal cute girl who loves her friends, because someone with that kind of personality doesn't make a lot of sense joining rogue Azula's terrorist group, if you ask me. I've constantly used Zirin's only line at Yang's hands to decide how to portray her, in which she comes off as brash, harsh, impatient, goal-oriented and willing to defy Azula. In this story, I've granted her a certain unique danger as a firebender that clearly is of my invention and has nothing to do with her canon portrayal. I'm saying all this to make it very clear that I understand how different this character turned out to be in the newest comic, and I acknowledge those differences... but I'm not rewriting this chapter, or this whole story, just to make a terrorist gang look like innocent little lambs who were just guided by a bad shepherd. If they could walk away as easily as they did, I don't understand what was keeping them with Azula in the first place.

Anyway. That would be that, as far as author's notes are concerned here. Hope you guys enjoy the chapter!

A tense silence hung in the air as Azula's placid mood shifted rapidly: she glared at her brother, whose golden gaze carried a mercilessness in it that starkly reminded her of someone else… someone he would do best not to try to imitate in any way.

That cruelty diminished when he turned his attention towards Ursa: his brow drew together slightly, puzzled by her presence around Azula, but he stepped towards her, reaching a protective hand to his mother's shoulder, as though to reel her to safety, away from his sister.

"I didn't know you were here…" Zuko said, his voice softer now. "Are you okay? Did she do anything to you?"

"She… no! Of course not!" Ursa exclaimed, startling Azula by her vehement, firm response. Zuko froze, eyes wide – the last thing he'd known about their bond, of course, was that Azula wanted to kill her own mother…

"W-well… good, then," Zuko said, still urging Ursa to pull away from the table she had been sitting at with Azula…

She didn't move.

"Mom?" Zuko frowned, glancing at Azula with eyes that turned from confused to accusatory in a heartbeat – he thought she'd done something to twist his beloved mother's mind, did he? As usual…

"What is the meaning of this?" Ursa huffed, shaking Zuko's hand off and folding her arms across her chest. "What do you think you're doing, Zuko?"

"What…?" Zuko scowled. "Mom, it's Azula! She's a hazard to your safety, to everyone's safety! You knew that, you've known that for years, she's been causing unnecessary trouble and chaos all across the Fire Nation and…!"

He faltered, frowning more heavily as the utterly confusing situation started to sink in: Azula… sitting placidly at a table with their mother. No screaming, no crying, no accusations, no murder attempts…

He froze on the spot, staring at Azula as though she'd suddenly twist herself into some manner of wicked spirit that could shapeshift as it pleased. Naturally, no such thing happened.

"And she's your sister. My daughter," Ursa said, firmly. Azula's heart jolted upon hearing her speak those words with such confidence. "And you? As far as I've understood, you issued out actual wanted posters asking for her death, Zuko? Did you, truly?"

For once, Zuko paled and backed down. It was almost amusing to see the Fire Lord balking over his mother's fury… but Azula couldn't help but dread whatever Zuko's ultimate reaction to this apparent betrayal might be.

"I… look, I've learned since then that I was wrong in some of my assumptions, but I only did that because it looked like she had kidnapped Sokka!" Zuko exclaimed. "Which… damn it. Guards! Search for Sokka in the rest of the house. Is he here, or did you ditch him somewhere when you had no use for him anymore?"

His snarl towards Azula displeased Ursa, but Azula wouldn't simply hide behind her mother throughout this conversation. Instead, she smirked at his words.

"What makes you think I'd find no more use for him?" she said. "He's a rather helpful ally…"

"What the hell did you do to him? How did you get into his head?" Zuko huffed, glaring at her. "Sokka wouldn't have teamed up with you willingly, leaving his sister to think you'd have kidnapped or killed him…!"

"I was led to believe that he'd written a letter to explain he was leaving. If she overreacted to it? That's no fault of his…" Azula shrugged. Zuko scoffed.

"Everything about Sokka's disappearance was fishy as hell! And then I find out that the two of you have been traveling all over the place, trying to shake off pursuit…!"

"That's not what we were doing," Azula said, hands on her hips. "At least, not at first. We certainly had to put more effort into shaking it off once you and your unhelpful guards turned up, but we weren't always shaking off annoyances, that's for sure…"

"None of this makes a smidge of sense," Zuko said, glaring at her. "But whatever you've deceived him with, whatever nonsense you've done to manipulate him, it's over now: we either do this the good way or the bad way, Azula."

Azula scowled: the guards near Zuko were ready to chain her down, were they? Never again. Whatever she had to do to stop them from…

"Absolutely not!"

Azula froze: again, Ursa's demeanor and determination to protect her caught her off guard, much as it did Zuko.

Then, that surprise increased all the more when her mother clasped her hand, urging her to stand behind her… offering herself as a shield to the disbelieving Azula, as a wall to overcome for the utterly aghast Zuko.

"Mom! W-what are you doing?!" Zuko exclaimed: the guards behind him, whether brandishing weapons or shackles, hesitated to move now.

"I'm doing what I have to do! What you're making me do, I'd dare say!" Ursa declared. "What do you think you're doing, treating your sister this way? I don't care what terrible things you think she has done, she's your sister! Stand down and tell those guards to put aside those horrible shackles!"

"Mom… come to your senses. Whatever she's told you…!" Zuko said, pleadingly. Ursa snarled.

"She has told me the truth! She has been honest, human, real, in ways most people refuse to be around me, these days!" Ursa exclaimed, startling Zuko. "I… I have a chance, for once, to do right by Azula and you will never persuade me not to take it! Whatever you intend to do to her, you'll do it to me first! Be it imprisonment, or moreover, execution!"

"Mom!" Zuko's eyes were struck with utter horror… whereas Azula's widened with amazement: could her mother truly be that courageous when she wanted to be? That was a rather pleasant surprise. If Zuko had been Ozai, he would have laughed in her face and subjected her to the exact treatment she had demanded…

"You are a better man than this," Ursa declared, firmly. "I know you are. So either you listen to me now and stand down… or you're losing me, just as much as you're willing to lose Azula."

That threat, evidently, didn't sit well with the Fire Lord: he glared at Azula in confusion, in horror… did he think Azula had taken Ursa from him? If he hadn't grown up at all, he might just believe that. Azula truly wondered if he might conclude something like that…

"You don't have to…" Zuko said, staring at Ursa in chagrin. "Why are you doing this? Mom…"

"Because it was about time I did," Ursa said, fists tight. "I've never been the mother she deserves. I never have been the one you deserve, either… but even if she doesn't truly need me, it won't change that I finally know what I want to do, and who I want to be, now that I can be part of her life anew. I never imagined the first person I'd have to defend her from would be you, Zuko… but I'm not afraid to do it."

Zuko stepped back, confused betrayal plain across his features: to this day, he prized the approval of those he admired and loved far more than would ever be healthy, Azula suspected. He didn't know what to do, or how to react to the possibility that his sister would have anyone on her side anymore… let alone that the person standing with her would be none other than his mother.

But the gravity of the situation didn't sink in properly for him. No, it couldn't possibly do that… not after a rather unflattering scream pierced their ears, drifting from the direction of Sokka's room.

"Sokka…!" Azula gasped: had he still been resting? Oh, she hoped he had at least been about to come out for breakfast by the time the soldiers stormed the room…

Naturally, Sokka's luck wouldn't favor him: he pulled the covers up to his chest, bashful and confused when several guards barged into the room, hands raised in defensive katas until they flinched out of form over what they found.

"W-what the hell is this?!" Sokka squealed. "Get out! Go away! W-where did all of you even come from, what…?!"

Heavier footsteps down the corridor marched straight to the room: Sokka had no time to prepare himself, or hide better under the bed, when Zuko marched in, unceremoniously.

He froze on the spot, face paling, upon finding Sokka's upper body appeared to be bare.

"W-what…? Sokka?!" Zuko squealed.

"Zuko! You… you can't just invade someone's privacy this way!" Sokka squealed, cheeks flushed as he struggled to find any way out of this predicament.

"Y-you're just… asleep? You didn't even notice we were raiding the place…?!" Zuko exclaimed… eyes drifting around the room warily to find clothing items scattered all around. His eyebrow twitched at the sight of a very evident male undergarment… "Sokka?"

"Yes?" Sokka said, with a small voice.

"Are you naked under that sheet?" Zuko asked, a dangerous glint in the harshness of his glare. Sokka winced. "You… you were naked, in a house with my mother and my sister?! That's what's going on, you idiot?!"

"I…! I…!" Sokka struggled to come up with anything to say, anything at all: he couldn't possibly fight Zuko off like this, he had no weapons at hand, for they were in his actual room… for this was Azula's, actually. Half the clothes scattered around were hers…

Zuko might notice that sooner than later. If he did, he'd realize he had slept with Azula, and then Sokka would be dragged out of here and paraded as a heathen all across town for inappropriate behavior… well, perhaps the townsfolk wouldn't really judge him for that, considering the previous day's festival, but Zuko would certainly judge him non-stop for it. He might even declare him a criminal in the Fire Nation for desecrating the Princess's virtue, as estranged as she might be from her family…

Said Princess, however, suddenly burst into the room, pushing past her brother and startling Sokka with her arrival, welcome as it might be, even if it terrified him too. It suddenly crossed his mind that she would have been better off running away, out of Zuko's reach, out of sight… he would capture her otherwise. She wouldn't be safe…

And yet she seemed to be here to protect him, instead.

"No need… to kick up a ruckus," Azula said, spreading her arms in a defensive gesture as she stood between Sokka and Zuko, without sparing even a glance over her shoulder at her lover. "Sokka is just… unrefined that way!"

"He… you're not telling me that you two have been traveling together for months and he's been constantly sleeping naked near you, are you?!" Zuko squealed, his face a mask of disgust. Azula gritted her teeth as she sought to spin her lie far better than she had…

"I only do it in the Fire Nation!" Sokka suddenly exclaimed, picking up her slack when she faltered briefly. "It's… way too hot around here! So, I just wanted to sleep comfortably and I did it this way! Nothing more to it!"

"Oh, really? And my sister and my mother being here didn't deter you from acting like a creep?!" Zuko asked. Azula scoffed as Sokka processed now that Ursa was back already…

"How do you know that neither me nor Mother do the same thing in the privacy of our rooms?" Azula asked. Zuko yelped. "The three of us might just have a perfect understanding when it comes to preferences in attire, or lack thereof, during nighttime, and we can very well keep… proper, respectful boundaries, in those instances. Such as not barging into other people's rooms without at least knocking first."

"Y-you…" Zuko grimaced, glaring at Sokka with disgust again. Sokka smiled, waving at him, still holding the sheet to his chest. "You have a lot to answer for, Sokka. I mean it."

"Yeah, yeah, well, unless you want me to answer it with my business hanging out in plain sight, I suggest we discuss that later," Sokka smiled awkwardly. Zuko winced, shaking his head in disgust as he turned around.

"Everyone, out! Sokka, get dressed, and come out here to answer for this mess!" Zuko bellowed. "And if you try to run away, I'll… I'll hunt you down all over again! Understood?"

"Geez, fine, damn it, so loud and authoritarian…" Sokka sighed, shaking his head: Zuko shot him one last glare over his shoulder before stepping out of the room. The guards followed… and Azula lingered behind, even though they kept watching her from the corridor, in case either one did anything dangerous. Sokka smiled sadly at her, and Azula responded in kind.

"He just barged in a while ago. Don't even know how he found us yet, but…" Azula said. Sokka sighed. "Go on, get dressed. I have no idea what's going to happen next, but… at least Mom seems to be keeping Zuko at bay, mostly."

"Heh. Come to think of it, he's one hell of a momma's boy, isn't he?" Sokka smirked. Azula smiled at his statement. "You have a reliable ally in Ursa, if she meant what she said yesterday… though I'm surprised she's already here."

"She came by early. Tried to cook. Didn't really go so well," Azula explained. "Anyway, so far she's on our side, and we might just be safe, to a fault, for as long as she is. So… dress up and get ready for anything. I don't know what Zuko's going to react like, going forward."

"Okay… okay," Sokka nodded. Azula nodded back, wistfully gazing at him before walking through the doorway and marching away – she would have gladly kissed him, helped him dress up, but not under those guards' watchful glares.

They hadn't really talked about keeping their relationship secret, but it seemed an obvious decision to do so, particularly when they hadn't truly settled the terms of their dynamic yet. It was difficult to label it as anything specific, after all. By the time they decided on those things, they'd also decide on whether to keep matters quiet still, or be entirely open about what they meant to each other…

After around ten minutes – Sokka had to dress in his same clothes from the previous night, to then return to his actual room and change into a proper, clean outfit there –, the Water Tribesman returned to the kitchen area, where the Fire Nation Royals remained at a standstill. The guards had backed off out of the room, providing them with more privacy than before. Zuko glared pointedly at Sokka, who held his hands up defensively.

"No need to be so cranky, Zuko. Curses, you'd think I took a dump on your favorite portrait or something," Sokka huffed.

"Heh. Might as well do it if he keeps treating you that way, at least you'd earn the scowls fair and square," Azula smirked at him. Sokka snorted, shaking his head as he laughed at her remark.

"You two…" Zuko snarled, as Sokka fastened his hair into its proper wolf's tail.

Azula bit her lip as she watched him, probably more shamelessly than she should have. The way his muscles flexed… and curses, as used as she had become to seeing him with his hair down as they traveled, as shocked as she had been by how well it complemented his features, now she realized the attraction she had experienced towards him hadn't diminished in the least now that his hair was tied up again.

"What?" Sokka pouted, hands on his hips once he was done fixing his hair. "Got a problem with my, uh, partnership with Azula?"

"What the hell are you even partners for?!" Zuko squealed. "Sokka, come back to your senses, can you? Mom, well, she's Mom! She's protecting her kid, but you? What do you get out of all of this?"

"Me?" Sokka started: the immediate, obvious answer could not be spoken. He felt Azula's keen stare on him, and his cheeks flushed as he struggled how to convey something that wouldn't set off Zuko any more than he already was…

"And you!" Zuko scoffed, glaring at Azula next. "Of all people, you… joined up with Sokka. Sokka! You two are… well, not the biggest mismatched pair of all time because you clearly are thrilled to be terrible influences on each other, as your last exchange proved…!"

"Come on, now, I'm far worse for him than he ever could hope to be for me…" Azula said, bringing Sokka to smile fondly at her.

"Point is, you two used to not want anything to do with each other and I'm not exactly aware of when the hell that changed," Zuko growled. "Or why, for that matter."

"Uh… you wouldn't believe it, I think, if we explained," Sokka swallowed hard, glancing at Azula with uncertainty. She sighed.

"Promise you won't drag me by the hair to the asylum or anywhere of the sort if we do explain…?" Azula said. Ursa, beside her, winced.

"He won't do any such thing to you. He can't. And if he ever tries to take you elsewhere, I'll see to stopping him," Ursa said. Zuko flinched: Ursa being on his sister's side was devastating, infuriating, even…

"Mom…" he said, pleadingly.

"The thing is, I… have been seeing visions of someone," Azula said, with a dry grin. "Someone Sokka was close to. And it's not just random visions, but a strange, mysterious, deeper connection than that…"

"The hell are you talking about?" Zuko grimaced. Sokka sighed.

"Azula is connected to Yue," he said. Zuko's eyes widened, and he turned his attention to Sokka again.

"What? Yue? The girlfriend who turned into the moon?" Zuko asked, confused. "Wait. Azula? What the hell did you do?! Is that weird thing with the moon darkening or fading from the sky your fault?!"

"Right! Because I'm so damn powerful that I can annihilate the moon altogether, isn't that right?" Azula said, with a sardonic smile. Sokka stepped forward, placing a placating hand on Zuko's shoulder.

"Azula didn't do anything intentionally. We don't actually understand what happened to the moon. As far as Yue explained to her, a comet crashed into it somehow and maybe that's what started all this," Sokka said. Zuko scoffed.

"And how do you know it's really Yue?" Zuko nearly squealed. "She could be tricking you!"

"Right! Let's see: did you ever tell your sister about Yue?" Sokka asked. Zuko frowned. "My relationship with Yue wasn't exactly public knowledge, you know? Only a handful of people were aware of it, mostly people close to me, and the only one among those people who has frequently crossed paths with Azula is you. How did she know Yue and I had anything going on if none of you told her, huh?"

"I… don't know! Azula has ways of figuring things out! She's smart in… messed up ways!" Zuko huffed, shaking a hand in Azula's direction. The Princess rolled her eyes and drew the mirror from her pocket.

"No doubt I'm smart enough to know exact details about how Sokka flirted by asking to do 'an activity' with Yue, huh?" Azula said. Sokka blushed a little, though he smiled fondly at the embarrassing memory.

"An activity?" Zuko repeated. "Is that some kind of… innuendo?"

"What? No! Get your head out of the gutter!" Sokka winced, lightly shoving Zuko for his remark. "Seriously, dude, we were just kids! I had no idea what I was doing, so I said something dumb and silly and… it's endearing, damn you! That's all it was!"

"Yue certainly agrees," Azula smiled. Sokka grinned back at her, and Zuko brought a hand to his forehead.

"All I'm getting out of this is… she figured out your weakness. And she's manipulating you through it," Zuko said, with a dry grin: both Sokka and Azula glared at him, unamused by his assumption.

"You really underestimate Sokka's mind that much?" Azula said. "Tell me again, why are you friends with my brother, exactly, Sokka?"

"If he keeps that up, maybe I won't be one for much longer," Sokka grumbled. "You know what? Azula! Did I ever tell you about what Zuko did in the North Pole?"

"Uh… no. I kind of forgot he was there for the siege, come to think of it," Azula said, raising an eyebrow. "Mustn't have been very impactful if I can't remember any reports of anything noteworthy he did…"

"More like he did something incredibly stupid that he most likely doesn't want us to bring up…" Sokka said, staring at Zuko sternly. Zuko grimaced.

"Look, I was another person back then…!"

"Ask Yue to tell you, Azula. Go on," Sokka said.

Azula blinked blankly, glancing at the mirror. Yue grimaced.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine. My brother's on the verge of a nervous breakdown, maybe, but I'm alright," Azula said. Yue smiled warmly. "Did you hear the question?"

"I did, and I… I do remember what happened. It's not very flattering for your brother, though…"

"Any unflattering stories about Zuzu are worth his weight in gold," Azula declared. Zuko snarled at her, but her attention remained on the mirror. "Go on, tell me."

With that, Yue began her retelling. Zuko glared at her as Azula raised her eyebrows slowly.

"She says… she was with Katara when the Avatar started meditating in the oasis," Azula began. Zuko's eyes widened. "Says she panicked about Aang crossing over suddenly, he was glowing and all… and that's when Zuko showed up. Huh. Apparently, you mocked Katara and said she was a 'big girl now' because she was confident that she could protect the Avatar by herself?"

"Woah, woah, woah… you said WHAT to my sister?!" Sokka squeaked. "I didn't know that part!"

"I…!" Zuko's cheeks reddened: Sokka hadn't been there to hear that, it was true…

"That is incredibly inappropriate. Shame on you, Zuzu," Azula said, before focusing on the mirror again. Sokka's eyebrow twitched as he stared down his friend ruthlessly. "Alright, then… Yue says she left, but Katara explained later that you defeated her once the sun rose and then took Aang forcibly even though they weren't supposed to move his body at all, so he'd know where to return once he came back. Why was he going to the Spirit World to begin with…? Uh… oh. Huh. He wanted to get help from spirits to defeat the Fire Nation forces, then. Anyway, after that… Katara, Yue and Sokka flew on Appa to find you, because you ran off through the tundra. They found you by some cave and… heh. Yue says Katara beat you in a single move. Nicely done."

"That was very gratifying to see," Sokka said, with a dry grin. Zuko groaned, covering his face with a hand.

"And after that… you and Katara wanted to leave Zuko to freeze to death?" Azula asked, glancing at Sokka in disbelief. "Yue… apparently had no opinion on the matter. Aang's the only reason why Zuko didn't actually just… wow."

"Let's just say, months of being chased by someone makes you very unfriendly towards them," Sokka said. "But you know what's funny, Zuko? I actually regret having said that nowadays. Even if I know why I did it, and I don't think there was any way I wouldn't have, under those circumstances… ultimately, I'm glad you survived. I'm glad you're here, and that we became friends when we did."

Zuko eyed him with uncertainty, aware already that Sokka was going down a rather unpleasant road with that particular reasoning…

"So, as hard as it can be for you to fathom that maybe someday you'll look back on your relationship with your sister and feel the same way about it? I can guarantee that I already reached that stage," Sokka said, arms folded over his chest. "She's the real deal. She's not lying to me, I know she's not. That's Yue in her mirror, in her reflections, in her dreams… it is her. And we're traveling together so we can help Yue see all the sights and places she never could while she was alive, so she can experience the cycle of the seasons, all those things!"

"Right," Zuko grunted, his eyebrow twitching. "And what happens after Yue's had her fill? Do we go back to terrorism, Azula?"

"I…" Azula gritted her teeth, and Sokka scoffed. "I know it's hard to believe I don't intend to do that, but I… won't do that. Not anymore."

"You really don't need to talk to her that way, damn you," Sokka huffed.

"It's going to take a while to convince you of anything, I know it will, but…" Azula said, breathing deeply. "I don't feel the need to do that sort of stuff nowadays. And yes, that doesn't fix all the chaos I caused…"

"You messed with Uncle Iroh not that long ago!" Zuko exclaimed. Azula winced, and Sokka snorted.

"Come on, now. What she did there wasn't terrorism, it was… a prank," he said, with a shrug.

"A surprisingly tame and yet amusing one, at that," Ursa agreed. Azula grimaced, eyeing her mother with uncertainty.

"Here I thought you'd found it terrible too…" she said. Ursa huffed, shaking her head with certainty.

"Zuko is concerned, or should be, about things that endanger the Fire Nation," she said. "I hardly see how a playful, if ill-spirited prank, could achieve that."

"Don't make excuses for her!" Zuko groaned. "Mom…!"

"Making excuses?" Ursa asked, raising her eyebrows. "Do tell… what did you do, exactly, when I told you about how my terrible, no-good choices had resulted in your father treating you as poorly as he did?"

Zuko froze. Ursa smiled sardonically.

"I told you I was unforgivable. You said you disagreed. You made excuses. You said I had no choice," she said.

"But that's different…!"

"Yes: what I did to you and your sister was far worse than what Azula did to Iroh," Ursa finished. Zuko groaned. "So, for that matter…"

"Why the hell are you both so determined to protect her from me?" Zuko exclaimed, looking at them helplessly. "When did I become the bad guy in this situation?"

"Why, I would gladly say you're not… but you certainly pushed your tiles to that corner when you issued out wanted posters calling for her to be caught dead or alive," Ursa said. Zuko winced.

"Well, I don't really want her dead! I just don't want her endangering anyone, simple as that!"

"You just saw she's not doing that right now, so for that matter, you can just as well leave the way you came," Sokka said. Zuko scoffed.

"Your sister's worried sick about you," Zuko said. Sokka winced. "And you have a lot of answers to give her too. Me? I'd rather focus on my own sister, but if you would be so kind and go back to Republic City, talk to Katara and Aang, and tell them what's going on…"

"Yeah, no. I'm not leaving Azula," Sokka said, firmly. Her cheeks flushed upon hearing his certainty. Zuko snarled.

"If you don't trust me to be reasonable with her, at least trust that my mother will keep me in check!" Zuko exclaimed. "Besides…! Why the hell are you standing up for her like this? Why are you so sure that you're making the right choice here? Sokka…"

"Do you really think you know the first thing about Azula?" Sokka asked. Azula scowled.

"If he doesn't, you're not about to start giving things away, now, are you?" Azula scoffed. Sokka shrugged.

"Nah, but… I'm just saying, he doesn't understand how I spent months with you, does he?" Sokka said. "And not only do we not hate each other after all that, we're getting along great! At least, on the most part."

"What's that supposed to mean? In what regards do you not get along…?" Zuko scowled. Sokka ignored him.

"My point is, if your own brother has no idea why I'm protective of you, maybe that's the very reason why I should be," Sokka said. Azula raised an eyebrow. "I'm not letting anything bad happen to you."

"Nor will I," Ursa said. Zuko snarled, rubbing his brow in frustration.

"What makes anyone think I'm going to…? Ugh!" he growled, shaking his head in disbelief. "I still don't understand how exactly I'm the bad guy here, but have it your way!"

"Zuko…" Azula called him, earning herself a resentful glare. "If I agree to go with you for questioning, or whatever you want from me… what would my status be, exactly? Would you deem me your prisoner, or…?"

"I…" Zuko gritted his teeth: evidently, affirming that last question would be utterly stupid. But what would she be, if not a prisoner? He sighed, shaking his head. "You'd be… an honored guest. That's what."

He spoke the words with poorly contained bitterness. Azula sighed, hands on her hips as Ursa scrutinized her son intently.

"Whatever you intend to inflict upon her, you'll subject me to it first," Ursa said. Zuko pouted. "I figured I'd remind you of that. But if Azula is an honored guest, I'll probably be pleased with my own treatment too."

Zuko snarled, rubbing his brow with his fingertips and shaking his head. Even the sight of her son in apparent distress didn't change Ursa's tune.

"Whatever. I… I'll wait for you outside. Get your things, if you have any. You're coming back to the Palace with me. Guests," Zuko reiterated, with a dry grin, before turning on his heels and leaving the room – clearly, he needed some time to himself to stew over the shocking betrayal of seeing his mother taking Azula's side to that extent.

"Well, that wasn't a total disaster. Almost, but not in the end," Sokka said, smiling awkwardly before turning towards Azula. "You okay?"

"I'm… I'm fine. Which is not what I expected to say after being face-to-face with Zuko again," Azula admitted, raising her eyebrows. She turned towards her mother, who still seemed slightly displeased… "You didn't have to go that far…"

"What, you mean by telling him he'd have to do to me anything he did to you?" Ursa asked. "Considering that was what it took for him to restrain that hostility… I suspect I did have to."

"Heh," Azula said, with a weak grin. "You might just have lost your mind slightly, then."

"Maybe it's Zuko who did," Sokka said. "We're, uh, going with him? You sure? I mean, even if I know it wouldn't be the nicest thing to do, we could run away now…"

"No. I think running now would seal my fate, who knows if yours too, as an enemy of the Fire Nation," Azula said. "If this is the first and only time that I'll have a chance to settle things with Zuko, I'd do best to take it."

"Well, if you say so. But I'm standing by you through and through," Sokka said, stubbornly. Azula smiled at those words, perhaps more fondly than she should have.

"You'd better hold some of that back. He's going to start, well… suspecting that you weren't sleeping like that just because the weather is too warm," Azula said, cheeks flushing. Sokka winced, eyes flickering towards Ursa warily. She eyed them with a knowing grin.

"Well, that's for the two of you to discuss. I'm sure you'll figure out a plan on what to do, going forward," Ursa said. "I'll keep an eye on Zuko and make certain that he's not combusting over this. Go gather your things. Mine are at the inn, after all… oh, but finish the mochi at least before we go, Azula. They're edible, if nothing else is…"

"And Zuko cut me off just as I was having them… that's a bigger crime than any I ever committed," Azula groaned, eyeing her guilty pleasure sweets with longing.

"What about you?" Sokka asked Ursa. "You'll eat something, or…?"

"I'll make Zuko's staff feed me, why not?" Ursa smirked. "It's still early anyway. I'll have them set up proper breakfasts for the two of you later. Maybe I'll even stay and watch how they make the meals, that way, once we're on the road again after Zuko lets us go, I'll be able to cook some food…"

"You… w-wait, what?" Sokka blinked blankly. Ursa raised an eyebrow.

"Oh. Uh. Well, you'll have to discuss that first," she said, with an awkward grin. "I'm sure you'll want to have a say upon that. I'll just… go now."

"Right…?" Sokka watched Ursa walk away with confusion… but he turned his eyes on the blushing Azula before the woman was out of sight. "I guessed I'd missed a lot of things, but that's a bit more than I expected. What was that?"

"Well… we talked. It's probably the best conversation I've ever had with her," Azula said. "I never really thought she might be plagued by her own set of troubles, truth be told. It seems she's a little lost in life, too. Might be expected for someone to feel that way, after having two lives to conciliate into one…"

"Might be," Sokka agreed, nodding. "And after getting to understand her better, does she understand you a little better too?"

"I think my outburst from last night saw to that," Azula sighed, leading Sokka back to the corridors where the rooms were. "I, uh… I'm sorry I blew up as I did. I may have inflicted a lot more strife upon you both than I should have."

"I wouldn't call it that," Sokka said, eyeing her with heartfelt compassion. "I'm sorry too, I kind of antagonized you and pushed too hard when we were alone later too…"

"I'm glad you did," Azula said. Sokka raised his eyebrows. "Though you're starting to grow a little too good at understanding whatever I need, whenever I need it. It's, uh… disconcerting."

"Heh. It's always nice to know I'm surprising you in a good way," Sokka grinned. Azula smiled back at him. "But… you really seem calmer now. Was it Ursa, or…?"

"Actually… it was Yue."

Sokka froze, uncertain of what those words meant. Azula, however, smiled as she shook her head in his direction.

"Does it ever bother you, being right about things as often as you are?" she asked. Sokka blushed slightly.

"About… which things?" he asked.

"She doesn't hate me for… well, us. She actually… asked me what sleeping with you had been like, the utter weirdo," Azula laughed. Sokka smiled, cheeks flushing further upon hearing that. "I apologized, but she… she didn't need apologies. She didn't feel betrayed. She said she loved you… and that she loved me, too."

Sokka's eyes widened, though his heart soared upon hearing that: of course Yue would love Azula. Of course she would have grown to see what he had, surely far earlier too…

"Seems like she really just wants us to be happy together, so… guess we'll have to figure out how to achieve that, huh?" Azula smiled teasingly at him. Sokka chuckled, shrugging.

"I'm sure we have an idea or two on how to start," he said, stepping closer and taking her face into his hands.

This time, Azula was aware of the weight of Yue's mirror in her pocket. She didn't draw back from Sokka's kiss regardless, hand upon his chest as they pecked each other multiple times, relishing in a moment of privacy that they weren't likely to find anew once their journey to the Capital began.

And they might not have much of that even after they left, either.

"But the thing is, I… may have extended an offer to my mom to come with us," Azula whispered against his lips. Sokka raised an eyebrow, puzzled, and Azula kissed him softly once more, as though to coerce him into accepting that. "I know it'd mean more restraint for us, and we wouldn't be able to be crazy as much as we were yesterday, but…"

"Heh. That side of it is a shame, no lie, but… I'm fine with it," Sokka smiled warmly, brushing her hair with his fingers. Azula sighed in relief.

"If you're sure… go get your things. We're damn lucky that my brother isn't smart enough to realize half the clothes scattered in the room you were naked in were mine…"

"I think he was too appalled to stop and confirm who they belonged to," Sokka smiled awkwardly. "I'm not sure he'll ever be ready to know that we, uh… canoodled a little too much."

"That's the word you're going to use?" Azula asked, amused. Sokka chuckled and shrugged. "You're a goofball. Go, pick up your things, I'll get mine… and I'll pick up the mochi on my way out too. Let's get ready to face Zuko and his nonsense, shall we?"

Sokka nodded enthusiastically: they shared another thorough kiss, one in which Sokka dared sneak a few bold caresses, and Azula wound up entering her room in a perfectly blissful mood afterwards, as though she weren't about to march into a likely tricky situation in a matter of moments…

Zuko was upset, but he couldn't be too upset, could he? She hadn't done anything wrong right now. Ursa's support had been a shocker, but it might just be the best possible defense from her brother's wrath. Resolving her conflicts with Ursa certainly was one thing… figuring anything out with Zuko would be much more difficult, if just because of his disposition. Merely a few weeks ago, Azula would have told herself that she'd rather deal with her brother's hostility than her mother's emotional manipulation, her sad doe eyes, and her meaningless apologies… but Ursa's reaction to her rant, as well as the conversation they had shared just that morning, had caught her by surprise. She never imagined she might be able to start over with Ursa, and there truly would be no erasing their past… but it was about time to ensure that whatever troubled history they shared would not preclude the possibility of a better future.

The liveliness of Ember Island appeared slightly stunted, as most its population watched in confusion when their Fire Lord led a march towards the largest, grandest ship docked in their harbor: his Royal Barge would rush through the internal waters of the Fire Nation fast enough to bring them to the Capital in a couple of hours, at most. Thus, neither Sokka nor Azula bothered choosing cabins or even asking where they would stay for now: after enjoying their breakfast aboard the ship, sharing the mochi Ursa had found for Azula, they chose to wait on the deck instead of finding any private cabins, sitting together by the ship's railing… meanwhile, Ursa had dragged Zuko inside the ship's tower in order to have a thorough conversation about many things that Zuko appeared to need to hear.

"Well, despite it all, looks like we're going to end up in the Fire Nation Capital," Sokka reasoned, with a slight grimace. "Did he ever explain how he found us?"

"Not really," Azula said, relaxing against the ship's railing. "I suppose we were seen at some point. I'll try to ask later, or maybe you can… but Mom appears to be quite busy scolding him right now. Never thought I'd see the day…"

"A nice surprise, huh?" Sokka smirked. "Guess your mother wasn't as far gone as we thought she was…"

"We? You thought so too?" Azula asked. Sokka shrugged.

"No offense intended to her, but… she sounded like the exact opposite of my mother," Sokka said. Azula hummed, eyeing him with interest. "My mom sacrificed herself, lying to some piece of shit from the Southern Raiders to tell him that she was the last waterbender, rather than Katara. He… he killed her because of that."

Azula's stomach clenched. A swirling fear gripped her chest, with misplaced guilt that might not be as far out of place as she wished it were… for the ideology, the regime, responsible for the death of Sokka's mother was the one she had fought for, across all those years. She knew there were plenty of deaths and sacrifices throughout the war… but she hadn't known Sokka had faced one quite as close as that of his own mother.

"Katara's still working through it to this day. I didn't realize that was why it had happened until she told me, and she didn't even explain until a few years after she confronted the killer directly," Sokka explained. "Anyway… I could be wrong, but it sounds to me like, if my mother had been married to a bastard like your father, she would have never forsaken her kids, just as she didn't forsake Katara. Meanwhile, your mother…"

"She left us and forgot about us, yes," Azula said. Sokka shrugged.

"Even back when we found her, in Hira'a, I didn't really know how to feel about that," he said. "I kind of convinced myself to stay in my lane because it wasn't my business, you know? Who cared how I felt about something like this? But… as time goes by, I've realized I can't really help myself. It's just not fair, Azula. It never has been fair on you."

"No, I suppose not," Azula whispered, glancing at Sokka with uncertainty. "But a mother who would forsake her kids is… is probably less painful to lose than one who loved them with everything she had."

Sokka grimaced, glancing at her with uncertainty: Azula reached out to take his hand, careless about the sailors and soldiers who might see her.

"I'm sorry. Doesn't count for a damn thing, I had no real say upon what happened to your mother, but…" Azula said, gritting her teeth. "It was a lot easier to support the Fire Nation's war by closing our eyes to the rest of the world. That's what everyone seemed to learn how to do. Your mother should have never died that way."

"No, she definitely shouldn't have," Sokka said, with a fragile smile. "But… well, nothing can be done to bring her back, I guess. Though… huh. Wait a second! Ask Yue about the Spirit World! Ask her if the spirits of our people actually go there…!"

Azula blinked blankly, pulling out the mirror. Yue seemed as perplexed by the question as she was, and she offered her a sad smile along with a shake of her head.

"Looks like she doesn't know much about that," Azula said.

"Most souls don't really make it into the Spirit World that way, I think. They tend to be, well… sent back to the real world? Until the soul achieves enlightenment, I guess…"

"Says only the souls that achieve enlightenment would enter the Spirit World," Azula concluded. Sokka sighed and shrugged.

"Worth a shot," he said. "Anyway, your nation's soldiers are nasty, yeah, but… it was a long time ago. We were as good as babies back then. Don't feel responsible for it."

"So, it doesn't really matter that I wouldn't have cared about this one bit if I'd learned about it a year ago?" Azula probed him. Sokka snorted.

"Matters to you now. That's enough for me," he said, smiling at her. Azula shook her head.

"You're too nice for your own good. Still… I'm sorry you that didn't have a mother while growing up either," Azula said.

"If this subject had come up any sooner across our journey, I would've told you not to worry if yours never tried to do better for you," Sokka pointed out. Azula raised an eyebrow. "I mean… if she hadn't done anything but piss you off, the way it sounded like when you confronted her when she first turned up? Well, I would've understood if you hadn't wanted to give her another chance. Though… I suppose you do now, huh?"

"I don't know what's gotten into all of you," Azula said, startling Sokka. "Starting with you and Yue, having it in you to see more to me than anyone else did… and suddenly my mother is taking stands against Zuko for my sake?"

"Don't forget that Toph let you out of prison and handled Kuei and Zuko for us, though I have no idea how that turned out. One more thing to ask Zuko about," Sokka reasoned, tapping his chin with a finger. Azula sighed.

"None of you make any sense. How is it possible that the person who sees things and hears voices has a clearer understanding of reality compared to all of you?" Azula asked. Sokka laughed and shrugged.

"Guess you're special that way," he said. Azula's heart somersaulted in her chest at the sight of his affectionate smile. "Anyway… it's good that your mom wants to help you. Definitely improves my opinion of her so far. Honestly, it was about time someone in your family came through for you. Though I'm still a little surprised that we'll go as far as traveling with her…"

"I know that means we'll have a lot more pressure, and less privacy, and, well… it's going to be awkward. But to be fair, she already walked in on us once so, not much left to the imagination there anymore…" Azula sighed, cheeks flushing at the memory. "How the hell did I manage to talk to her or look her in the eye after that nonsense, exactly?"

"I can't say I know, but I'm glad you did," Sokka said, squeezing her hand gently.

"Of course you are," Azula sighed, glancing at him uneasily. "You sure you're fine with this? With… traveling with her?"

"Might be a bit awkward, sure… but she'd be more likely to keep us in check than Yue was," Sokka smiled awkwardly.

"The sneaky little troublemaker said she caught a few glimpses of us in the bathroom, through the mirror there…" Azula said, with a grimace. Sokka's cheeks flushed slightly. "She said she looked away after a while, but I'm starting to worry that she might not have. Naughty brat. Teenagers do have an inappropriate interest in these matters…"

"Well, I'd like to think she… has better sense than that. Restraint? I don't know," Sokka laughed. Azula scoffed as she pulled the mirror out, startling Sokka. "What, are you going to ask her if she'll behave herself right now?"

"Might as well," Azula said, glaring into the reflection. Yue smiled at her, cheeks slightly flushed, clearly having overheard their conversation. "You wouldn't look intentionally, or hear intentionally, whenever he and I are up to no good together, would you?"

"… Nooooo?"

"That's the most convincing negative answer I've heard in my life! Your lies are getting a lot worse now, mind you," Azula smirked.

"I wasn't lying as much as you think I was before! Maybe I am now, though… but Azula, I'm curious!"

"Well, that's unsettling. Tone down that curiosity," Azula huffed, shaking her head and staring at Sokka. "You're not wrong, my mother's definitely going to be a good asset. Otherwise, this one would get corrupted by how filthy we are, too."

"The Filthy Royals," Sokka said, proudly. Azula snorted and laughed. "It's not that bad, is it?"

"Sounds terrible," Azula as good as cackled. Sokka scoffed, shaking his head.

"Always so judgmental. We still don't have a team name and that's not very nice, mind you. Now that your mother's joining in too, it's going to be even harder to find a unifying factor."

"How about 'Sokka and the women he can't keep up with'? Sounds like a good name to me…"

"Very accurate, but too extensive. You'll have to be more concise," Sokka smirked. Azula laughed again, glancing at him sideways.

"Say…" she breathed in, holding his gaze briefly before tearing her eyes away. It wasn't easy opening up to people, but it was easier when it was Sokka. "I… thanks for not running out on me over my outburst from last night. I mean, you're probably the one person who has every chance to leave me and yet you've chosen to stay without fail. I might not deserve it, but I… I'm glad you chose to do that. I'm glad you didn't run away."

"I'm afraid I'm not the type to run from beautiful women. Instead, I chase them all over the world and fall head over heels for them without even trying," Sokka said. Azula snorted, staring at him skeptically. "I know we have a lot to figure out still, there might be more bumps along the way… but we'll do it, in time. Don't fret about it right now, okay?"

"Well… we should figure out what to do about Zuko, though," Azula pointed out, raising her eyebrows. Sokka blinked blankly. "By which I mean… that absurd nonsense we fed him about why you were sleeping naked apparently worked. He has no idea you and I, well…"

"Yeah, you know, he's very gullible sometimes," Sokka smiled awkwardly. Azula laughed and nodded. "But I guess what you mean is… do we keep it quiet still? Or do we talk things over, so we decide whether to come clean about it or not?"

"Thing is… do any of them even know that you and Suki are done?" Azula asked. Sokka shrugged.

"Toph knows. Don't know if she told Zuko, though," he said. "Though, frankly… is that a big cause for concern?"

"I'd rather they don't give you shit for cheating on her with me. You have to know what this looks like," Azula said, staring at him skeptically. "A hopeless man clinging to his past love has too many clashes and conflicts with his would-be wife, and as a consequence runs off to start an affair with the dangerous, deadly but apparently beautiful woman who's so very bad, absolutely no-good for him…"

"So, what, I'm having a midlife crisis at twenty-seven?" Sokka snorted. Azula laughed, dropping her head against the railing. "Well, guess when your life is as weird as mine has been, it's kind of justified for it to start earlier. Didn't you say that's what's going on with Yue too, as a spirit? Then… the Midlife Crisis Royals! Ha! That actually bonds all of us together, why not?"

"That's awful… most of all because you're not wrong," Azula snorted, bending over forward as she laughed harder. Sokka smirked proudly, arms folded across his chest.

"Gotcha with that one! We have a team name now, like it or not!"

"No, we don't! There's no way we're keeping that one, Sokka, anything but that!"

"C'mon, bet Yue agrees with me," Sokka said, taking the mirror from her and pointing it at Azula. "Hey, Yue, tell her! My idea is the best idea!"

"… I actually don't like it at all. Don't let him use that one, Azula."

Her negative broke Azula with further laughter – so used as she was to hearing Yue agreeing with Sokka on most accounts, she certainly didn't anticipate the opposite happening now.

"Well, well? Bet she thinks it's great! I'm sure she does!" Sokka snickered, waving the mirror proudly in front of Azula.

Standing by a window, in the ship tower's second level, Zuko scowled at the sight of his sister laughing quite so vividly at whatever Sokka was saying. Even in their younger years, he couldn't remember anyone, not even Aang, laughing that way at Sokka's nonsense. An uneasy feeling spread in his gut, one he wasn't sure how to interpret, or what to make of… for it had been quite a long time since he had experienced it over Azula.

Was she a better fit, a more fun companion, than he ever had been? If given a chance, would she mesh perfectly with his friends, better than he ever had? Would he lose everything he had gained to her, if she was granted the chance to heal that their mother was asking him to offer her?

"You didn't send her to the asylum when you did because you thought she was a lost cause, or did you?" Ursa huffed. Zuko gritted his teeth, tearing his gaze away from the pair by the deck. "Otherwise, you would have chosen prison. Even if you didn't understand the full extent of what they did to her in the institute, you had to have believed it was a better choice for her health than a fate as bleak as your father's."

"Had better conversations with my father in prison than I did with her, though," Zuko said.

"Maybe that's more of a reflection of what that asylum could do to a person, rather than anything that determines whether your father or your sister are better people," Ursa said. "Truly, Zuko… as difficult as this may be for you to wrap your head around, it shouldn't be. I'm not going to change my mind about her. She's not manipulating me."

"Right, because this initiative to go travel the world with those two isn't their doing?" Zuko asked. "Say what you will, Mom, but she could have guilted you into wanting something you actually don't…"

"And what if I do want it?" Ursa asked. Zuko gritted his teeth. "What if I need time away from home?"

"But…" Zuko said. Ursa raised an eyebrow.

"But what?" she said. "You forgave me when I abandoned you and your sister all those years ago. This time, I'd be choosing to travel with her and hopefully help her find peace…"

"It's not the same," Zuko said: his heart churned upon realizing the real reason why it wasn't, but he bottled it in for now. "She's dangerous, Mom. Right now, she's saying she sees Yue, but what if she goes off the rails in some worse way later too? You can't know what you're going to get with her."

"You think she's going to kill me and Sokka eventually?" Ursa asked. Zuko winced. "I'm not sure I believe that would happen. Fact is, I… I would even argue that it wouldn't. She has been with Sokka for a long time, and if anything, it seems they're getting along marvelously right now."

"That doesn't mean much. Sokka, Aang and Toph didn't give me a hard time when I joined their group. Only Katara did," Zuko said.

"So, you'd only learn to trust her if Katara did?" Ursa asked. Zuko winced.

"No, I'm just saying…"

"You wouldn't trust her at all, not even if your friends do."

Zuko shivered, lowering his gaze. Ursa folded her arms over her chest.

"Zuko, dear… I love you. You know I do. I've done terrible things, I've made awful mistakes… and I haven't made up for many, if any of them, so far. You forgave me regardless because you loved me. Because you prized me. Because your need for my wellbeing, my safety, my happiness, was paramount to finding justice. Am I wrong?"

"Well… no? But you're you, and she's her!" Zuko scoffed.

"And what if you could heal your bond?" Ursa asked. "What if you could sit with those two and laugh alongside them, too?"

Zuko froze. Ursa shook her head slowly.

"You've been poisoned terribly by your father, Zuko. In ways you never truly understood," Ursa said. Zuko winced.

"That's not… I'm not my father. I'm not!"

"I never said you were. But treating your sister as a wanted criminal, to be hunted all across the world? Isn't that the same thing your father did to his brother? To you?"

Zuko yelped. Ursa sighed, taking his hands in hers.

"No, Azula didn't do things so terrible that she cannot be forgiven for them. By all means, Iroh's death toll will always be far greater than either yours or Azula's could have been," Ursa said. "And yet you can accept him, while turning your back on her. I don't blame you, dear, for your uncertainties and your fear, for not wanting your sister to be around you constantly… but there comes a point in life where we need to stop running away from the harder truths we don't want to face. Azula brought me to realize that. She told me many things I didn't want to hear, but that I had to. And maybe that's what you need to prepare yourself for: listen. Don't just talk back, don't just defend yourself… listen. You have good intentions, dear… but you cannot do anything with them if you refuse to open your heart to other people's needs. More so when you're actually trying to help them."

"Well… I wasn't really trying to help Azula," Zuko confessed, frowning. "And I'm not even sure I want to. I keep thinking she'll just spit it all right back at me if I try."

"Is that any reason not to try at all?" Ursa asked. Zuko flinched. "Your uncle didn't give up on you even when you didn't make matters easy for him, he's told me so, as did you. It wasn't until you opened your heart to him, until his needs mattered as much as your own, that you learned to appreciate him properly. Azula? I think she's at that stage with Sokka, and maybe with Yue, too. Your sister isn't some nightmare to fend off, or merely a terrorist to fight against: she's your family. And you're one of the most powerful people in the world right now, dear. This nation is full of people who believed in the same things she did, and if they'd had the power she held, they wouldn't have acted any differently than she did. You're their Fire Lord: you're her Fire Lord. Wouldn't it be suitable for you to do right by your every subject, no matter how difficult it might be?"

"It's different when you're talking about Azula," Zuko scowled. "She's… not my subject. I haven't thought of her as that ever before."

"Then maybe it's time for you to start," Ursa said. Zuko winced, uncertain. "You're her older brother. And you cannot hope to heal this world, this nation, if you'll give up on members of your own family just because it's hard. In her case, half the work, more of it, even, was already done by others. If she could reach an understanding with me, she surely can with you too. All you have to do is… try."

Zuko gritted his teeth, a fist tightened: that sounded like a taller order than he was ready to commit to… even though, objectively, it shouldn't have been. Trying something didn't necessarily translate to sticking with a set course for good. If Azula went off the rails again, as she often did, Zuko very well could prove to everyone how wrong they had been about his sister.

But if she didn't… then maybe he could be a better brother, starting here and now. It was difficult to fathom, it made him deeply uncomfortable… but if Sokka and Ursa were right to stand by Azula, if she truly was seeing Yue and changing in more ways than he knew? Perhaps… they'd have a chance to be a real family one day. Perhaps.

"I'll talk to her once we get to the Palace," Zuko said. Ursa raised her eyebrows. "I… will try to mend fences. But she does have things to answer for… and I hope she's ready to do it."

"I'm sure she will be," Ursa said, with a genuine smile. "Thank you, Zuko. Your sister needs this, so much more than she realizes. Her heart is finally on the mend, thanks to Sokka and Yue… we could be part of that too. Wouldn't you like to have a positive impact on her life, lead her on a better path…?"

"I… guess I might not mind that. But we'll see," Zuko said. Ursa sighed, smiling still as she approached Zuko.

"Thank you for trying, dear. Thank you."

He hugged her back, uneasy, unsteady. A part of him wondered if Ursa would regret her earlier harshness… but he didn't dare ask. If she didn't, she might just be upset at him for so much as suggesting that she should…

Would she stand up to Azula similarly, if their roles were reversed? The realization that she would, that she might just have gone further for his sake, chilled Zuko's heart as he held his mother closely. He was a fool, wasn't he? Envying his sister for having their mother's attention, if just briefly… she was Azula's mother too. Just as she was Kiyi's. As special as his bond with Ursa might be… he would be an utter bastard if he tried to keep Ursa to himself when she had other children to watch over, too.

He sighed as he glanced through the window anew: their destination approached. His conversation with Azula wouldn't wait for much longer.

The Princess was visibly unsettled upon being in the Fire Nation Capital as herself this time. Her attire, far too casual, suited Ember Island so much better than the grand seat of power of her people. She'd change into something else as soon as she had the chance, maybe ask Sokka to fix her hair too…

But Zuko wouldn't give her that chance: as soon as they crossed the threshold into the Palace, the Fire Lord turned towards her with a stern frown.

"We'll talk privately," he said. Sokka huffed. "And I don't know why that bothers you so much, Sokka, but this doesn't concern you."

"It… doesn't," Sokka said, begrudgingly – he couldn't claim to be concerned over Azula's safety to that extent, not unless they were ready to set off Zuko's alarms regarding their relationship.

Still, he sighed as Azula shrugged – clearly, she wasn't all that pleased for this outcome, but she wasn't about to run away from her brother either.

"See you when I get out, I guess," she said, simply. Sokka sighed.

"Hey… wait."

Azula had merely taken one step forward when Sokka took her hand, placing the mirror carefully in her palm.

"I'd taken it earlier, before we arrived, remember?" Sokka smiled a little. "You won't be alone if Yue's with you."

"Heh. Sabotaging Zuzu's attempt to speak privately with me, I see," Azula said, though she couldn't hide her genuine, fond smile. "Thank you."

Sokka grinned brightly: Zuko scowled upon realizing he hadn't seen Sokka in such a good mood in… years, at least. Perhaps since around the years of the end of the war…

How, exactly, had Azula brought him to be that happy? Was it Azula at all, or was it Yue? It was much easier to believe it'd be the latter… but the fond smiles between them left an awkward feeling nestling in his gut.

He tried to ignore that sensation as he led his sister into a private sitting room. There'd be no pleasantries, no shared tea… they'd just talk. Hopefully, Sokka and Ursa would know better than to try to eavesdrop as they spoke.

"Well… looks like things are looking up for you," Zuko said, turning towards her with a prominent scowl on his face. Azula raised an eyebrow as she stood across him, arms folded over her chest. "Mom's… defending you without hesitation. I'd never seen her do that."

"It's hard to believe for me too, so you're not alone if you're confused," Azula said.

"I feel like I don't understand any of it," Zuko said, shaking his head and staring at her in confusion. "You're having new hallucinations, visions, whatever they are… and yet you sound more like yourself than you have in ages. You have people standing up for you and defending you to this extent, it's… weird."

"It's quite alright, I don't know how it happened even though I was there the whole time," Azula admitted, with a shrug. "Though… you're not the only one confused about certain things regarding each other. How, exactly, did you find us in Ember Island?"

"Oh. It took us a while to pick up on your trail," Zuko said, bitterly. "My guards eventually sought the Mechanist, he told them he'd given Sokka a hot-air balloon. After that, it was just a matter of waiting for sightings of unregistered, non-military hot-air balloons anywhere. Someone caught sight of you by the western Earth Kingdom, so we traveled there… once the next military sightings report claimed the balloon was sighted landing in Ember Island, I didn't hesitate to go there as soon as possible."

"So, you had all your soldiers looking for me, huh?" Azula said, raising her eyebrows. "I almost feel important and everything now…"

"Yeah, well… sure," Zuko huffed, shaking his head. "I'm sorry that I misunderstood that you'd kidnapped Sokka, but I hope you realize you… you don't make it exactly easy to think any better of you."

"Well, I didn't for all these years, that's certainly true. Do you expect me to throw a tantrum over how you don't trust me, or like me, or treat me with respect?" Azula asked, with a slight smirk. "Though I suppose that last one might be a fair one to protest against, come to think of it…"

"I don't want you to throw anything, I just… I want to understand what exactly is going on," Zuko scowled. "You abandoned your group, you traveled to the north, you're ride-or-die with Sokka suddenly… you have to realize it makes no sense. And after showing up in Ba Sing Se and causing unnecessary trouble…"

"Did you only hear about Ba Sing Se?" Azula asked, raising an eyebrow. "That wasn't our first stop, actually. Didn't Suki reach out to you?"

"Was she supposed to?" Zuko asked, frowning.

"That's… odd," Azula blinked blankly. "Here I thought she was that mad at Sokka once they broke up, threatening that she'd only give us one day to leave before alerting everyone that we were there. Maybe she actually had a soft spot for him still. The truth is we went to Kyoshi Island first, they had the break-up of the century, then we left again. That's where I found out that you were hunting for me, dead or alive…"

"I… I'll rescind that order," Zuko said, self-aware and uncomfortable. "I thought… you'd crossed a line. Turned out Sokka joined you willingly, though…"

"There really was no sign that he hadn't done that," Azula pointed out, raising an eyebrow. Zuko winced. "Whichever one of you lot decided I could only have kidnapped him, well… you'd have to give me a smidge of credit after this and admit that at least one weirdo in the world would travel with me willingly rather than dragged into it kicking and screaming."

"We jumped to conclusions and we shouldn't have. But… you do have to admit it looked weird. And like I said, you really…"

"I don't make it easy? No, I don't. Did I say otherwise?" Azula said, with a slight smirk. "I don't pity you at all, Zuzu, you have it pretty damn hard, being my brother. I don't know what you brought me here for, if what you want is an apology you might as well wait forever…"

"You're not sorry for any of what you've done over the last decade?" Zuko asked. Azula winced.

"I… didn't exactly say that," Azula said. "Just said I wouldn't apologize for it."

"So, you're not."

"I'm sorry enough for a lot of things," Azula said, glaring at him. "But… I was vindictive. I was angry, bitter and frustrated and I wanted to hurt you so you'd suffer as much as I was suffering. That's the truth. If you don't like it, that's not my business. I wanted vindication, revenge, what-have-you… and nothing I did actually got me any closer to attaining any of it. So, I failed at my quest to piss you off, and I joined Sokka in a weird journey to please a spirit that only I can see. It's… strange how different it is, living life that way. It wasn't all that comfortable at the start, but it is now. I can't fathom going back to what I was doing before."

"Because Sokka is… more fun?" Zuko asked. Azula shrugged.

"Would it be a problem for you, if that were the sole reason for it?" she asked. Zuko scowled. "Still would mean you're free from being tormented by me…"

"Until you get bored of him," Zuko finished. Azula laughed.

"I'm afraid that's not very likely. He's… a surprisingly resourceful man," Azula said. "Always has something to say that catches me off guard. Like Yue put it once… we're two master strategists in a battlefield of words, somehow. He's far more interesting than you or any of his other friends likely realize…"

"Or maybe you're both just weird in similar ways. Which I'd never have expected, but frankly, his sense of humor is about as strange as yours," Zuko pointed out. Azula laughed.

"I've noticed. I hate laughing at his jokes, but he makes it too easy sometimes," Azula admitted.

"Then… all this stuff about Yue?" Zuko said, eyeing her warily. "Sokka and her were a thing once. You said your entire purpose is to get her to see the world and experience the seasons and so on? I'm not going to say it's a bad purpose, I mean, it's by far the most harmless thing I've ever heard you want to do. But it sounds like a temporary diversion or so. Once she's satisfied, what will you do?"

"I suppose… that's something I'll figure out once we get there," Azula said, with a shrug. "Though if it makes you feel any better, I…"

The words got stuck in her throat at first, and Azula actually smiled a little as something deep inside her seemed to snap. Something she didn't really know nestled inside her broke off, leaving her untethered… forsaken, somehow. Her hand trembled, and she glanced at Yue in the mirror briefly as she processed what a treacherous thought had crossed her mind… a thought she couldn't help but feel keenly, acutely, in her heart. She breathed deeply, and Zuko frowned at the strange sincerity in her voice.

"I actually never imagined I'd come back to the Fire Nation peacefully… and I certainly have no plans of staying here forever."

Zuko's eyes widened. Azula gritted her teeth: those might just have been the most painful words she had ever spoken. She offered Zuko a dry grin then, covering up her vulnerability as best she could.

"So… that," she said. "I think I'd just wait and see what Sokka has in mind. He's weird, sure, but he's the most reliable ally I've ever traveled with. Seems like he wants to stick with me for the foreseeable future too, so…"

"You think he'd stay even after Yue is gone?" Zuko asked. Azula's heart clenched.

"I… hope so," Azula said. "He's said he would, at least."

"Really?" Zuko blinked blankly. "W-wait. Why?"

"Why?" Azula repeated, slightly affronted.

"I'm… not sure I follow," Zuko said, blinking blankly. "You two are, uh… best friends now?"

"Huh. I'm not sure that we are. Which one of them might be my best friend, come to think of it?" Azula said, glancing at Yue in the mirror. She giggled and waved in her direction, and Azula smiled at her.

"Sokka. Say it's Sokka," Zuko said, with a wild grin. Azula crooked an eyebrow.

"What's it to you, exactly…?"

"Toph said weird shit and I would like to confirm that she's wrong about it, is all," Zuko said, bitterly. Azula raised her eyebrows. "She said you'd… seduced Sokka and that's why he was completely wrapped around your finger, basically."

Azula snorted, then cackled by throwing her head back – a slight relief to Zuko, who smiled awkwardly at her reaction.

"Seduced Sokka? She sure gives me too much credit if she thinks I'd have the first clue of how to do such a thing," Azula laughed, shaking her head. "If Sokka fell in love with me, it'd be his fault entirely. I sure as hell did nothing to make it happen, I can guarantee that much."

"Huh. You know, that's not very tranquilizing either," Zuko grimaced. "Sokka's… weird. Suki was too normal for him, I guess…"

"Oh? So you're saying he needed an abnormal kind of partner instead?" Azula asked, raising her eyebrows. Zuko winced, raising a hand as though to stop her.

"I didn't mean… I just mean I'm not really sure how Sokka was having a good time by dating her! If anything, I'd think he wasn't. Which is possibly why they broke up."

"Sounds like it," Azula said, stubbornly. "Believe me, if he dated me, I'd give him far more interesting and entertaining reasons to break up with me."

"I'm not sure he'd choose to date you just so you can break up with him by… ugh! Could you not entangle my head with nonsense?" Zuko groaned. Azula smirked. "Look… I get that I can't change you or make you become the perfect sister for me…"

"Do you?" Azula asked, eyeing him skeptically. Zuko frowned. "Worth noting I can't do that to you, either. You're far too set in your ways for you to be my dream brother too."

"You… you'd change me?" Zuko asked, frowning. Azula smirked.

"I just said I wouldn't. But I'm not the one who replaced the two unpalatable members of my family with new, pleasant ones instead," she said. Zuko's eyes widened.

"I… Kiyi isn't a replacement for you! And I'm not even close to Noren…"

"Your little sister who loves and gushes over you isn't a replacement for the one who made your life a nightmare, apparently?" Azula smiled sadly. "As for Noren and father… if you're not close to him, then he's gotten the fundamentals of the job right, wouldn't you say?"

Zuko gritted his teeth: Azula's words hurt… but he couldn't help but notice that Azula, too, was hurt. He didn't usually notice as much… but this time, he raised his gaze to find that she appeared mournful of the fate they were facing as siblings.

"Point is… you haven't been optimal yourself. I've tried, yes, to mess with you and cause you grief… but I never really imagined you'd ever conform to being the brother I'd want you to be. Doesn't seem logical for you to start trying now."

"Why not?" Zuko asked. Azula laughed.

"I'm not challenging you, Dum-Dum. You're so ridiculous when you get like this," she said. "I'm fine, Zuko. I have no… no right to ask anything of you. That's not what this ever was, I… I admit it's pathetic to say it, but I just wanted to matter and I knew I never would if I went about it in any other way. Or, at least, I've never learned how. Point is… I fucked up, purposefully and intentionally. I'm not here to apologize because I don't think you have any real reason to forgive me, no matter if I'll never do it again. If that's what you were waiting for…"

"I… I don't know what I was expecting," Zuko said, frowning. "But probably more along the lines of you admitting that you're only traveling with Sokka out of convenience, and that you don't actually want him around much but he's useful so far…?"

"You really think I can only manipulate my way through life, don't you?" Azula said. "Granted, I know why you think so, but that's not the case. Sokka joined me, Yue roped me into this journey in the first place… the few times I've tried to do anything mischievous in this trip, it hasn't gone all that well. And somehow… they keep me busy enough that I can't really focus on doing anything to trouble you. Which, then, translates to me losing my taste for messing with you."

Zuko sighed, lowering his gaze.

"Would you get that taste back if I'm not paying attention?" he asked. Azula rolled her eyes. "I'm serious. You say that you weren't really trying to do anything that terrible with your actions… but the thing is, you did cause trouble and when it wasn't you, it was them. Your allies."

"Right, but…" Azula said, frowning. "While we certainly destabilized your rule, caused chaos whenever we cared to, we never did anything quite as bad as to truly hamper your efforts to fix the Fire Nation, did we? If anything, I've been a perfect villain for you to show the whole populace just why things need to change, or am I wrong? It was either you or me on that throne, and the more irresponsible behavior I display, the happier they'll be that it's you. Isn't it at least slightly beneficial to you?"

"You're acting like none of what you did had lasting consequences that could harm the nation…" Zuko said, gritting his teeth. "And you know what? Maybe you didn't. Even if you might have tried, maybe you actually showed some restraint I never truly registered as such before, and you never did something that devastating. But them? You have no idea what they did while you were gone, do you?"

Azula frowned. Zuko gritted his teeth, fists tight by his hips.

"What are you talking about?" she asked, her voice unsteady: she had a feeling she knew what Zuko would say, but even so…

"They burned down the asylum."

Silence.

Azula's heart thumped with triumph… and fear.

"Did… did they get them out?" Azula asked. "The other patients, even the staff…"

Zuko's frown spoke for itself. Azula's sinking dread hit square in her gut, and she snarled as she tore her eyes away from him.

"I thought it was your final move," Zuko said. "Your full-blown act of war. By the time we got there, it was too late. Whole place… burned. Fifty-seven casualties. Some, family visitors. Most of them, patients. The rest, staff. Everyone dead… and not by any mistake. No, everyone in the building died because the people responsible for that crime ensured to shut the doors, the windows, every single exit…!"

"You can't be…" Azula snarled: even if she wanted to deny it, she knew she couldn't do it. Zirin… she would have done it. Azula knew as much.

"Everyone in the premises died… and we tracked down the culprits shortly afterwards. That's when I caught Zirin, and when she told me where you were," Zuko said. "They're in the Prison Tower right now. Awaiting their sentences."

"What are you going to…?" Azula asked, glancing at Zuko with uncertainty.

"I don't know," he admitted. "But I'm struggling to figure out how to show them any mercy."

"Zuko, you… you don't understand what the asylum was like," Azula said, staring at him warily. Zuko scowled. "You never were there as a patient…"

"That doesn't justify what they did!"

"I agree!" Azula exclaimed, startling Zuko. "But… they unleashed the pent-up rage and wrath that place stirred inside them. That place, their families, everyone who played a role in putting them there… do you understand what it feels like, being forsaken in a place that constantly demeans you, dehumanizes you, subjects you to every kind of humiliation whenever you try to fight back, and affords you no dignity anyway, even when you don't fight at all? To be treated like a beast more than a person, to be spoken to as though you were some inferior kind of being…!"

"I don't think I get it, no, but it's not like I haven't been through dehumanizing, cruel things myself," Zuko said.

"The difference is the man who subjected you to the worst of yours is rotting in jail. The one who did it to me is standing right in front of me."

Zuko froze. Azula's accusatory glare caught him in an uncomfortable spot, and she shook her head.

"I… I understand why you did it. I'm not stupid. I know you had no time for me, I know you had no idea how to help me, you had a nation to run… but you don't know what it's like to be truly forsaken. Say what you will… you had Iroh. If you didn't have him, you had Mai. You had our mother. I… I had our father? Do you think he would have ever visited me, if he had been free to do so? He would have denounced me as unworthy of being his heir, if anything… imperfect, broken, damaged as I am. And even if I'm wrong… he was in prison. How could he check on me? But it wasn't just him… it was you. Iroh. Mai, Ty Lee… not a single one of you ever thought that reaching out to me while I was locked in that blasted place was a good idea. And you know what that looks like? It looks like you just want me out of the way. Like I was someone else's problem now, not yours. Like you just needed me to stop being a hazard to your goals and maybe then you'll try to be my brother… and that's a big 'maybe' anyhow. And you're none other than the Fire Lord, with all the resources and power at your disposal… and you couldn't even hire personal physicians to look after me in your home. You threw me out to a distant institution… so I wouldn't be a bother. Even if that wasn't your intention, that's what it looked like.

"And that's what they went through, too, with their own families. Every woman who didn't conform, every girl who dared have ideas different to what their relatives wanted them to follow, anyone who didn't behave exactly as they were expected to. Their own families and loved ones did it to them just as you did it to me. They were angry. They hated that place, more than I did even, and that's saying something. It was a glorified prison, where you could be subjected to the worst of alleged treatments only to be told that you hadn't been through enough of it yet and you needed some more still. I probably didn't even get it as bad as the others… I was only there for a year. Point is… it's not that I don't understand your position. I do. But I don't think the answer to what they did is… killing them. All you'd do is add to the catastrophe's death toll."

"They're more than just casualties of an accident: they instigated it. They're dangerous, Azula," Zuko said. Azula shrugged.

"I'm dangerous too," she said. "And in case you forgot? So are you."

Zuko winced. Azula wasn't accusatory, even if she could have been.

"You're not as healthy as you'd like to think you are," Azula said. "You're not okay, Zuzu. Maybe you never have been, to begin with. But as messed up as your choices were… you got out of being locked up in a place like that and then managed to join the winning team before the war ended. You could have very well ended up in a place like the asylum, by Father's orders, if I had brought you back as he wanted me to, at first. As a prisoner."

Zuko shuddered: he didn't want to think of that possibility. But Azula appeared determined to make him do exactly that.

"Would you have shown restraint?" Azula asked, frowning. "If you had been told you were not human, incapable of love, a rare case of madness, an intriguing subject to study… if you had heard them laugh off your misfortunes, talk about how loaded they'd be because you were of the Royal Family and they'd finally fill the institution's coffers that way, thinking you were too badly out of it with the medicine to overhear what they were saying? If they'd forced you to swallow food, herbs, unknown remedies that would make you feel numb and close to death? If they had… had messed up their dosage to the point where they killed someone in the stretcher near yours?"

Zuko flinched: the picture Azula painted for him clearly was taking a toll on him. Azula shook her head.

"I'm not saying Zirin and the others deserve to be forgiven. As much as every bastard working in that place was unforgivable, I had no intentions of killing them if we ever decided on taking revenge. Zirin made me design a revenge strategy, you see… I did it, and she kept asking for more violence. For a stronger revenge than just sabotaging the place or burning it once everyone was out safely. I refused to do it, I constantly told her we wouldn't make any moves on the asylum until we could get all the remaining patients out safely…"

"And she never listened," Zuko finished. Azula gritted her teeth.

"I was the leader. She listened solely because of that. It's no surprise that the first thing she did, once I wasn't there to keep an eye on her, was destroying that place recklessly."

"You would have saved the other patients?" Zuko asked. "Granted, the most dangerous ones would have been the ones you brought with you, but…"

"That's not necessarily true," Azula said. Zuko frowned. "You don't understand, do you? We were the family pests that nobody wanted to deal with. I had hallucinations? No doubt. But half of them had no conditions of any kind. I don't know how many people were admitted in the asylum without being mentally ill or disturbed in any way to begin with. It felt like… like they force-fed them alleged medicine that caused unwanted, unacceptable behaviors in people, just to justify keeping them there. That's what that place was like. That's why I'm not sorry to learn it was destroyed… and that's why I can't help but be furious that Zirin would decide not to save anyone who still could be helped."

"Would you have saved them?" Zuko asked. Azula shrugged.

"I tried when I broke out my allies in the first place," she said. Zuko's eyes widened. "I offered them the chance to leave. Over half the patients were too scared to try. They wanted to stay because they hoped… maybe by putting up with all of it, they'd get to go home one day. I won't pretend any of them trusted me, no doubt several must have thought I was more dangerous than the asylum staff and that must be why they didn't join me… but I never thought they should have died the way you say they did. They were no different from the rest of us."

Azula scowled: that this would afflict her quite so strongly came as a surprise to her, too. Initially, she had told Zirin they wouldn't destroy the asylum altogether because it would be deemed an act of war. Their team didn't need that kind of publicity, most of all when they were about to begin their act as the Kemurikage. But then she asked again, and again, and again… Azula didn't overlook the extent of the damage Zirin had suffered, but their group couldn't afford, couldn't field, a mission quite so dangerous. Zuko was never going to let that one go… just as he didn't. Massively murdering everyone in that building was not a laughing matter: Azula had asked Zirin if she was ready to pay the price for that destruction, and Zirin never failed to scoff at her sentimentality. Only practicality had kept her at bay for some time: they'd get too much attention otherwise, they couldn't afford that. But now… now, after putting so much distance between herself and that place, after seeing the world through different eyes, Azula's heart grieved for the people who weren't saved. She snarled, fists tight.

"Are you going to execute them?" she asked. Zuko sighed.

"I don't know. Maybe not," he said. Azula glanced at him in confusion. "But you have to understand this kind of chaos cannot go unpunished."

"I don't disagree. I just… don't know if I want you to kill them for it," Azula admitted. Zuko sighed, shaking his head.

"I don't even know what I'd do anymore. When I captured them, I was ready to do something final. Right now… I don't know," Zuko admitted. "Truthfully, I don't want them in prison. The Boiling Rock might sound like the best choice, going forward, but… it's not, is it? They could escape just as well, set it on fire, kill everyone there…"

"They'll always be a hazard, is what you're thinking," Azula said. Zuko shrugged.

"You don't expect that to be different now just because I caught them, do you?" he asked. "The only way they won't cause chaos is if I keep them contained, chi-blocked, fully restrained…"

"And then you'll just give them further reason to cause chaos as soon as there's any weakness, any leniency for them," Azula said. Zuko frowned. "That's the thing about hurting people, holding them against their will… it tends to breed resentment and grudges strong enough to last a lifetime. You wouldn't ask anyone who was a prisoner of war to forgive our father for what he did to them, would you?"

"It's different," Zuko said.

"Not where the imprisoned person is standing, it's not," Azula said. "The way they see it, you're complicit in the hell we faced in the asylum. You even left your own inconvenient relative there, too. They'd see it as no reason to change their ways."

"And yet you want me to believe you did change yorus?" Zuko asked. Azula shrugged, raising the mirror in his direction.

"Not that I was looking to change in any way, I certainly didn't care to at first. Took well over a year for Yue's influence to start gaining ground on me," Azula said, glancing at the mirror. Yue smiled wistfully. "But… I think the main thing that helped was having something in common, a goal that all three of us were striving for. We had to work together, and that meant each other's struggles and problems were everyone's concern. I don't know how anything like that could be achieved with Zirin."

"You could talk to her," Zuko said, simply. Azula sighed.

"You'd let me?" she asked. "I wouldn't even know what to say."

"Tell her you're not doing any of your destabilizing efforts anymore," Zuko said. "Tell her you're done with that, and that she'd better be done too unless she wants to deal with…"

"Then… heh. You want me to control her with fear?"

Zuko froze. Azula eyed him with a compassionate smile that turned mirthful shortly.

"As far as my personal experiences go, controlling others with fear can be terribly effective until it's not. People have ways of finding more courage than they ever held inside their hearts and turn on you when you don't expect it," Azula said. "Sounds easy enough at first… but it means you'll most likely end up living in fear your whole life, too. Can't advise it if you don't want to face more hardships than you'd be comfortable with."

Zuko snarled. He knew Azula was making sense, perhaps too much of it. He sighed, covering his face with his hand before shaking his head.

"What's your idea, then?" he asked. "What would you do to fix this?"

"Why are you asking me?" Azula said.

"Because you're making too much sense, so maybe you know how to make this better," Zuko asked. Azula grimaced. "What made you change was… Sokka and Yue? How do we give your allies anything of the sort?"

"You can't force something like that," Azula warned him. Zuko scoffed. "I mean it. They'd be more likely to set an olive branch on fire than to ever accept it smoothly if you hand it to them with the obvious intent of making them change and adapt to a life they don't care to live. If you'd personally showed up in front of me and entrusted me with Yue, somehow, I would have never listened to a single word she said, let alone would I have treated Sokka as anything but a would-be jailor following me everywhere. You had nothing to do with that, hence why I had a much easier time learning to… trust them."

"Then what do we do?" Zuko huffed. "I don't think keeping them in jail forever is going to be fine, or that they'd even stay there forever, they're likely to find a way to escape. Right now? I think… I think they're waiting for you."

"They expect me to break them out," Azula concluded.

"They wouldn't take it well if you show up as newly pardoned and allowed to be part of the family again, though, would they?" Zuko asked. Azula scoffed.

"But I'm not those things… am I?" Azula stared at him skeptically. Zuko winced.

"I… I guess it remains to be seen," he admitted. "But the point is, if I'm the one sending you… they're not going to take it well."

"They'd take it far worse if I pretend not to be your ally and it's inevitably discovered that I was talking to them by your command," Azula pointed out. Zuko sighed.

"Is there no solution to this damn madness?" he asked. "I don't even know what I was expecting from you, but it definitely wasn't… that you couldn't help me deal with them."

"I don't know that I can. But what, exactly, did you hope for me to accomplish?" Azula inquired, crooking an eyebrow. Zuko sighed.

"I don't even know. Talk things over with them. You understand what they did. Say… that I won't execute them for the asylum, even though a lot of people are demanding that I do. Say that I won't take it that far, and I mean it. What you've explained is… alarming. I don't know why I never thought…"

"You had no time for it. It's not really a defense… just a fact," Azula said. "Besides, you had very little cause for concern, right? I'm the problem and if someone's causing chaos, it's most likely me rather than my captor – or, rather, the physician attempting to control my every move…"

"Did they… make it worse?" Zuko asked. Azula frowned. "I mean, whether for you or the others. Your breakdown… was it a sign of something bigger, deeper, or did they just take advantage of my belief that it was, when it wasn't?"

"That's hard to say," Azula admitted. "I don't have the most accurate memories, frankly, when it comes to what happened. But it's possible, yes, that they weren't trying to help anyone heal. I'm not sure if it takes a year to recover from what I went through, but their grand treatments typically only made my mind more chaotic, and their therapy attempts didn't help matters either. They convinced me of… of the worst things I believed of myself, I suppose. I'm only realizing that they might have been wrong now."

"Then… could you talk to them from that angle?" Zuko asked. Azula raised an eyebrow. "Tell them the truth about what they did, and whatever they convinced them of. Make them understand that… well, the point should have never been to treat anyone interned in the asylum as a criminal. You're not undesirables in society… you were people who needed help, not to be tossed aside. And I… I did exactly that to you."

Azula frowned: it wasn't every day that Zuko seemed so torn up about whatever mistakes he had made… more so, when those mistakes concerned her. Azula waited patiently as he composed himself, and he raised his gaze towards her.

"I don't know where we'll go after this. I don't know what to offer you. I can't make up for my mistakes," he said. "But… I can try to break the cycle. To stop treating you as I have. To… to be a better brother, even if I barely know where to start with that."

"You'll have to figure that one out yourself. I have no expectations and no demands," Azula said. "But I do believe I should clarify one thing, Zuzu… I already said it earlier, but I'll say it again: I'm not back to stay."

Zuko eyed her with uncertainty upon hearing those words anew. Azula swallowed hard.

"Maybe I will do that one day, I don't know, but… I haven't finished my duties to Yue. And once I do, I might still not end up here again later anyhow," Azula said.

"You say that, but going to the Earth Kingdom would be very dangerous for you," Zuko said. "The manhunt for you in the Fire Nation will end, but…"

"And that's good to know, but I might not need to stay here forever even so," Azula shrugged. Zuko's eyes widened. "Did you hope I would?"

"Well… after what you've said, I figured you might go on the road for a while longer. But this is your home, isn't it?" he asked. Azula smiled.

"Did it still feel that way, once you returned from your banishment? I was under the impression it didn't," she pointed out. Zuko gritted his teeth, fists tight.

"If that's how you feel right now, well… it's bound to be my fault. But that was never my intent," Zuko said. "If I can…"

"I don't know that you can, and I don't know that you should have to," Azula said, shaking her head. "We're having a productive conversation right now, and you're finally listening to me, which I appreciate a lot, Zuzu… but I don't think this should be for the sake of ensuring that I stay at your beck and call constantly. If you've been running this nation without my help, you can carry on doing it too. If you want my aid, it's still up to me to decide that I'll give it. But for now… life has enough things left to offer me, even though I figured it didn't. If all signs point to the Fire Nation, I'll come back, but… I'm enjoying everything else far more than I thought I would."

"Dad would be cross if he knew that. Which is always a good thing," Zuko said. Azula smiled a little.

"You never really did get to see the world just for the sake of it," Azula said. Zuko shrugged. "You were on a mission, and just surviving eventually… but you didn't see the Earth Kingdom or the Water Tribes for what they were, with no pressures. I suppose… I recommend it. Maybe you'll want to abdicate by then, though I'm not sure who you'd hand the throne to if you did. I… I really don't want it."

She said the words casually… but a stronger smile spread over her face after she did. A soft laugh left her lips and she smiled brightly. Zuko's heart clenched at the sight of it… of such clarity and certainty in his usually troubled sister's visage.

"I don't want to be Fire Lord," Azula said, closing her eyes. "And that's probably the most liberating thing I've ever come to realize."

Zuko nodded, accepting her decision: it was different than him claiming she'd never take the title for herself. Azula had reached that point without him pushing her to it, even if not necessarily by herself… it wasn't a struggle anymore. It wasn't some chaotic, unnerving conflict. Azula didn't want the throne… she finally had accepted that. Zuko would be free from the chaos she could unleash with her antics until something else inevitably rose to take her place.

He just hoped it wouldn't be Zirin.

"Alright. That's… good to know. But… can I ask you to talk to them, then? To your old allies? At least, to Zirin?" he said. Azula's smile waned… but she shrugged.

"Might as well try. Though I don't think the outcome is going to be any more positive than it would have been if you'd tried this approach with me a year ago," Azula said. Zuko nodded.

"I'll try to brace myself for it. Azula… thank you," he said. The Princess smiled as she rose to her full height.

"For finally giving you a break? I'll find some other way to make you lose your temper, Zuko, don't you worry about that," Azula smirked.

"Heh. I won't lower my guard a lot, then," Zuko said. "Look… maybe I should've said something else first. I just… I wasn't ready to accept I've failed you in more ways than I thought. As far as I could tell, you were a problem indeed, you were someone I had to keep at a distance because you'd only ever hurt me…"

"And I was," Azula acknowledged, with a shrug.

"You weren't," Zuko countered. Azula scoffed. "You were my sister. And I never really thought about what that actually meant until… until I realized you had a whole group of people who had found your value and were helping you shine, and I wasn't one of them. It's not that I feel like I have to be there too… but it feels like I failed you anyway. Like maybe you could have reached this stage if I had tried a little harder… if I had been there for you in ways I wasn't. I kept seeing you as an enemy to defeat, no matter if I already had this crown on my head and… and I was wrong to do that. I can't help but think your life might have been a lot different if I had been less impulsive and stupid over some things. I'm… I'm sorry, Azula. I'm really sorry."

Azula's heart clenched, her throat thickening with tears that seemed to bloom out of nowhere. That wasn't what she had expected from Zuko… wasn't what she would have demanded from him, either. He didn't have to apologize to her… but he had. It was difficult to know what to say to that… though perhaps, it wasn't all that different from how she had responded to Yue, upon hearing her say she loved her.

She hadn't intended to say the words at all, regardless of how she felt. She hadn't thought they'd change anything… but regardless of her reasoning, her instincts pushed her to speak unlikely words to her brother all the same:

"I'm sorry too," Azula whispered, at last. Zuko gazed at her in astounded silence. "I did a lot of things just to make you suffer, I won't sugarcoat that. I wasn't ready to reason with what was going on in my own head, and I took it out on you. Before all this, well, yes, I certainly teased you a lot and I did hunt you down under Father's orders…"

"You don't have to apologize for that," Zuko admitted, with a small grin. Azula raised an eyebrow. "Well, we were kids. It looks a lot simpler now than it did before. I just couldn't seem to make sense of it back then… I was more troubled than I thought, too. Maybe I still am… but I'll try to reason with myself a little more than I always do. Without just… thinking everything's someone else's fault, every time."

"That'd be a good life choice," Azula said, with a slight grin.

Zuko sighed, stepping towards the doorway as Azula glanced down at the mirror: Yue smiled giddily, no doubt thrilled over having witnessed what appeared to be an unexpected reconciliation between Azula and her brother. The Fire Nation Princess smirked a little, shaking her head at her friend's excitement.

"Well, then… ready to go see Zirin?" Zuko asked.

Azula's heart clenched again… but she nodded, steeling herself for a reunion that promised to be a lot more chaotic and unpleasant than this one had turned out to be.

__________________________________

Prison Tower wasn't meant to be a friendly place. Azula's heart clenched as she approached it about an hour later, a foreboding feeling lingering in her heart: her father was there, but she wasn't here to see him today. Maybe one day she would be ready to face him… but the way her mother had explained her own visits to Ozai, it sounded like Azula wasn't remotely prepared to meet her father yet. He had expectations of her that she hadn't fulfilled… and that she never would.

She didn't really know what her future would look like, but she clenched her mirror tightly and let herself bask in the peace, the freedom, of knowing she would no longer serve the purposes that had damn near destroyed her. At the very least, Yue had died but succeeded at saving her people by doing so: Azula's sacrifices had amounted to nothing. Her vindictiveness had achieved nothing, too. She was tired… and ready to move on, now that she finally had a chance to imagine a future, vague and confusing as it might be, by Sokka's side…

Who, of course, stood right beside her at the moment, arms folded over his chest as he frowned at the prison ahead.

"You really had to come?" Zuko asked him, an eyebrow twitching. "You could have stayed with my mom…"

"You could have stayed with her too," Sokka scoffed. Zuko gritted his teeth and glared at him.

"I'm the Fire Lord! Azula can't talk to Zirin if I'm not here to authorize it!" he said. Sokka pouted.

"Then you'll have to put up with me being here too, nothing more to it," he said.

Azula smiled as they marched into the tower: Sokka's devotion to her hardly seemed real most times, and yet she knew it was. She had a baseline as to what his lies looked like, and it certainly wasn't the confident, strong front he was showing Zuko right now.

"You okay? Ready for this?" Sokka asked her, once Zuko took to speaking with the warden, who appeared alarmed to see Azula as a visitor rather than another prisoner.

"I doubt it," Azula admitted. "You didn't have to come, Zuko isn't wrong about that… but I'm glad you did."

"Oh. Uh, heh," Sokka smiled, cheeks flushing slightly as he ran a hand over his hair. "I'm glad you're glad! Though, you know, if you need anything…"

"I'd reach out, but… I don't know if I will be able to do it," Azula said, frowning sternly again. "You'll be right outside?"

"Yeah. And you can handle this Zirin, right?" Sokka asked. Azula shrugged.

"I'd better. She's usually not enough of a bender to be a cause for concern for me, I'd dare say," Azula mused, frowning slightly. Sokka smiled and nodded.

"You're the strongest firebender there is, after all. Nothing she can do should faze you… but in case it does, I'll stay nearby and even cheer you on."

"Well, I've never really fought with a supportive audience like that, but fair enough," Azula said. "Besides… we shouldn't need to fight at all. It's… a conversation."

She said the words while knowing they weren't entirely true: Zirin would make this a battlefield if she had reason to. And if Azula told her what Zuko would expect her to? It might just be a guarantee that they'd wind up in conflict indeed.

The warden led them to the room where Zirin had been brought moments before they arrived. Zuko and Sokka remained tense by the door, and Azula breathed deeply as she readied herself to enter…

"Good luck," Sokka whispered.

"If you need any help, let us know," Zuko said, frowning. "You don't have to face her alone."

"I'm not sure about that last thing… and I'll try not to make it come to the first thing, too," Azula said.

She stepped between them: she gripped Sokka's hand gently as she passed beside him before pushing the door open. Sokka gritted his teeth, gazing after her hopelessly, his anguish increasing once the door closed, leaving Azula alone with her previous second-in-command.

Zirin sat in a slovenly position on a chair, in the center of the room. She appeared to have been bound to it. Azula frowned as she stopped before her… and Zirin scowled as she raised her gaze, gradually astounded upon realizing this wasn't just another visit by Fire Lord Zuko.

"You… you're back," Zirin said, a spark of hope in her gaze… one that went away quickly, replaced by distrust. "How? Who the hell allowed you to visit me officially? Or did you kill your brother and took his appointment instead?"

"I didn't do that," Azula said. Zirin scoffed.

"Of course not. You don't have the spine for it. Had the spine to get rid of your inconvenient friend yet, or was that too much to ask too?" Zirin asked, spitefully. "You were gone long enough. I thought… did it work? Are you yourself again, or…?"

"It didn't," Azula said. Zirin snarled. "She's still with me. Nothing has worked so far… and I don't think anything has to, either."

"Oh, right, so you're just going to keep botching up operations and messing up our objectives by being completely swept up by stupid arguments with the damn girl in your reflection?" Zirin asked. "You're unbelievable."

"I have no intentions of letting that happen because… there will be no more operations or objectives for us," Azula said. Zirin froze. "Which is your fault in no small part. If you hadn't gotten caught, the whole lot of you could have gone on to cause chaos without me. Begs the question of why you were so eager to be the leader when you botched it up so badly as soon as I was out of the way. Isn't that what you were always looking forward to? Isn't it exactly what you wanted?"

"I…!" Zirin snarled, shaking her head. "What's it to you, what I wanted? You…! You kept us chained down, locked to your whims! You saved us and broke us out of that hellhole, and we owed you because of that…!"

"The hellhole you finally burned to the ground, or so I hear," Azula said: Zirin had the gall to smirk. "With all the remaining patients still inside."

"They were as bad as the physicians," Zirin said, shrugging. "Content to live in their chains, emboldening them to do it to others, like us. Don't like it? Not my problem. They got what they deserved."

Azula scowled. Zirin's demeanor didn't change for it.

"I've prided myself in being a terrible person, you know?" Azula said. "In not particularly caring who I hurt and who I didn't… but I guess I overestimated myself. Compared to you, apparently I still have boundaries and sense…"

"You mean you're a coward. Spineless and weak when you should take action… always been in your damn brother's pocket even when you acted like you weren't," Zirin hissed. "Did he offer to pardon you because you weren't part of the destruction, maybe? Might have offered you the chance to execute us by your own hand too. Was that why you were allowed to come here?"

"I'm here… as your final salvation," Azula said. Zirin snorted in disbelief. "If you won't listen to me, if you won't forsake what you're doing, the way I did…"

"Ha! You're done, then? All done destabilizing the Fire Lord's pathetic rule?" Zirin cackled. "You're quitting now? And why's that, exactly?! Who's caught your leash now, Azula? Who's pulling at it?!"

"I don't have one anymore. You, on the other hand…" Azula said. Zirin laughed, shaking her head.

"Don't give me that. I'm no one's beast," Zirin said, her eyes growing colder as all mirth fled from her face as quickly as it arrived. "What was it? The Fire Lord…? Nah, you'd need a stronger incentive than that. Maybe… heh. The pest in your reflection? Is that who?"

"Shut up," Azula hissed impulsively: Zirin laughed again.

"Controlled by that thing, just as you were by your mother. Funny," Zirin said, coldly again. "You're so weak. So spineless…"

"I have more than enough strength and spine to stand here and see you for what you are," Azula snapped. Zirin raised her eyebrows.

"And what's that?" she asked.

Azula breathed deeply, glaring into Zirin's dark eyes… before giving her an answer:

"A lost, helpless, desperate fool looking for purpose and drive and finding none," Azula said. Zirin scoffed. "You've convinced yourself that destroying the asylum was the right choice but it wasn't: all you achieved was proving them right in fearing you… in wanting you out of their way. You've never imagined a way out, a chance to become something different, to start anew elsewhere. You don't even know the value of that kind of opportunity… because no one has ever granted it to you."

"And someone granted it to you?" Zirin asked, derisively. Azula gritted her teeth. "What? Pfft. Your brother?"

"It's not him," Azula said, gripping the mirror in her pocket. "It's someone I never thought would have any manner of compassion for me and yet he did. So…"

"Ah, don't tell me… you found a boyfriend," Zirin said. "No doubt you're thrilled, what you always wanted…"

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Azula scoffed.

"You're so sad and anguished by loneliness, aren't you? I guess you're clinging to the first moron who overlooked… well, all the crazy shit and just latched onto how pretty you were?" Zirin asked, with a sarcastic smile. Azula smirked.

"If that would make you feel any better, go on ahead and believe that. But he's… he wasn't part of this because of me. Not at first. We haven't been journeying together just because he's craving me. He's the one who's helping me fix what's wrong with Yue…"

"And you love him, do you?" Zirin smirked. "Well, wait a few months after the novelty wears off and see how he likes you once you become the harpy that screams at him over anything and everything, just as it goes in all fucked-up marriages. You can't exactly expect to do better than that, can you? Either way… this is stupid. Someone who caved in to something as pathetic as falling for some stupid guy, lecturing me on what to do with my life…"

"I've said I'm your last chance at something better than staying locked inside this building for however long you have left to live," Azula said. Zirin rolled her eyes. "Zuko will kill you if no one stops him. Is that what you want?"

"I want the old Azula back. The one who would break us out of here in a heartbeat," Zirin snapped.

"Oh, you mean the one who laughed when she heard you'd gotten yourselves locked up in jail?" Azula smirked. Zirin tensed up. "I did exactly that, you know? I thought it was a beautiful irony: so much badgering me and pestering me about how you were such a better leader, all your plotting, all your talk behind my back… and you were an even bigger failure than I ever was, in the end. Funny how that works, isn't it?"

"Shut up," Zirin snarled. Azula glared at her coldly.

"That's the Azula you were asking for, though. The one who would walk away and let you get crushed under my brother's boot out of vindictiveness alone," she continued. "I'm here to tell you to turn over a new leaf and set aside your intent, or you're only going to continue paying the price for it. And I won't be paying it with you."

"So that's it, then? You're forsaking me and running off with… with that fool in your head, with the idiot who somehow wants to date you or whatever?" Zirin scoffed.

"I wouldn't be forsaking anything… provided you and the others agree to stop, for good," Azula said. "Zuko is an idiot in many ways, and he didn't truly understand the gravity of what happened in that place. What you did to the other patients is unforgivable, Zirin… were the circumstances any different, I would be advocating for your death myself. But I know why you did it… I just cannot accept that you found no way to spare them. Even so, you can rot in this cell forever or you can make something of yourself…"

"Something to aid this wretched nation?" Zirin asked. "I'd pick the pyre."

"Really?" Azula asked. Zirin scoffed.

"The Fire Nation should go down in flames… and I don't care for it to be reborn from its ashes," she hissed. "You, your accursed family… you all just prove there's no saving this nation. And maybe I'm the one who can do it… by laying waste upon it all. That… that's my fate. There was no Phoenix King, in the end… but I could be the Queen."

"The fuck are you…?" Azula frowned, but she froze: she had seen that look on Zirin's face before.

It was a sudden burst of vacancy that preceded a storm.

The reason why she had been sent to the asylum in the first place.

"Zirin. Zirin!" Azula called her, stepping closer to the woman. "Snap back here! Zirin!"

She was tempted to slap her, but she held back out of knowing that violence might just unleash the very worst of reactions from the firebender even faster than Zirin intended: heat began rising within the room, and Zirin continued not to react… but something seemed to be instants away from boiling over inside her. It was as though she had grown comatose… focusing her power so much that every shred of her energy would become firebending.

"Zirin!" Azula snapped. "I will do it! I will chi-block you!"

It was the only way in which she had been stopped once, when she had withdrawn into that state at night, setting their campsite on fire as a consequence. The others had hidden away from Zirin, and only Azula had reduced her. She had spent hours writhing furiously afterwards, sputtering flames out of her throat all the same…

But this time, Zirin was faster.

This time, Azula raised her hand to stop her just as Zirin screamed.

A violent burst of flames caught Azula just as she had been about to prevent it from rushing out: she was flung back, falling hard against the closed door, as the flames pouring over Zirin's body, charring at her skin, burned and melted the chains and restraints, destroying the chair where she had been perched…

She stood up, fire still alight over her body. Azula snarled, rubbing her back as she felt the door shifting behind her.

"Azula?! Azula! What's going on?! Azula?!" Sokka's voice reached her, and Azula snarled as she pushed herself away from the door.

"YOU'LL NEVER BREAK ME! THERE WON'T EVEN BE ASHES LEFT WHEN I'M DONE WITH YOU!" Zirin shrieked: her hand rose towards Azula, and she leveled a new firebending blast in her direction.

Azula snarled: the door swung open violently once her weight no longer kept it shut, for Sokka shoved it. He had a perfect view of how his princess caught an onslaught of pouring flames in one hand, brandishing it in her control, stealing it from the woman before her…

How? How was Zirin unleashing that kind of power? The room was as good as an inferno, one that Azula was restraining with every ounce of her strength…

Her left leg was unsteady.

There was something dark trickling down her trousers.

"Azula!" Sokka roared.

"GET BACK!" Azula rebuffed, building her power over the flames and wrestling them out of Zirin's control.

This wasn't new, even if it was far more potent than whenever it had happened during their previous mishaps on the road: Zirin's firebending was a threat to anyone around her, even herself. Long ago, Zirin had learned to channel her body's energy in ways completely unknown to Azula until then, as good as shutting down as she gathered her energy in a single point. Even her heart would stop beating for that small moment… and then everything would bloom again, unleashing from her body as an explosion, a storm of flames for which her body was the conduit.

It was more akin to a phoenix than anything Ozai had been. Zirin died for a blink of a moment only to return shrouded by flames. She had hurt herself with her own fire with these stunts in the past, destroyed her childhood home, she had always been restrained with chi-blocking when she had dared do it in the asylum… and chi-blocking was how Azula would keep her in check whenever Zirin's temper got the better of her while they were part of the same group.

She had surely used that technique to lay waste upon the asylum. She had gathered her power and unleashed all of it in one violent, suspended burst that would last for as long as she could sustain it.

And now, Azula struggled against the onslaught of fire that Zirin unleashed through her throat, her body seemingly burning alive as she unleashed her flames into the small room.

She couldn't scream forever, Sokka counted on that: he stood beside Azula, behind her, worried about the wound she had most likely sustained in her left leg… then, Zirin finally slowed her outburst, even as sparks poured from her closed mouth.

"Had enough yet?!" Azula roared: the room turned blue, as Azula brandished Zirin's remaining flames…

She could very well return them at her former ally.

But she didn't do it.

The fire diminished in size and strength, stifled gradually by Azula's expert bending: Zirin laughed, though, raising a hand menacingly.

"You will pay for all your broken promises!" Zirin shouted. "Your cursed family… I will destroy it at all costs! You… the Fire Lord!"

Azula had never understood Zirin's particular hatred towards Zuko: her brother hadn't even entered the room, but Zirin knew he was out there, somewhere. That, alone, would suffice to motivate her into destroying him at once.

She geared up to roar again, and Azula tensed up…

Her left leg buckled.

She gasped: why had she lost her grip? Why had she…?

She reached down to touch it, and only then did she realize her thigh hurt: blood. Her hand was stained with blood.

She shuddered at the sight of it, failing to understand the implications, only realizing now that there was something painfully imbedded in her skin. She couldn't rise back up. She couldn't stand. She couldn't…

Zirin unleashed a new burst of flames.

Azula wouldn't be fast enough to stop them.

A projectile flew violently through the flames, spinning fast in the direction where Zirin stood... but Azula didn't see it strike her.

She couldn't, for she was wrapped in protective arms as the remaining flames of that inferno fell upon the back of the person holding her.

Sokka cried out in pain as the flames charred his body: Azula yelped…

And just as suddenly as it had arisen, the fire extinguished.

"Sokka! Sokka, why would you…?!" Azula gasped, struggling to push herself back upright: Sokka weighed heavily on her, and he snarled with pain under the damage he had sustained. "Sokka!"

"Azula!" Zuko's voice reached them: the Princess turned towards him in anguish, seeing he had retrieved help, but not fast enough to stop Zirin from hurting Sokka.

Zuko's eyes widened at the sight of Sokka's burnt back: his shirt's back had been charred, leaving solely blackened fabric at the edges of the hole across the extension of his spine. Redness underneath betrayed that he had sustained a strong burn… even if the person bending the flames that had hurt him now lay unconscious, bleeding from the forehead.

Sokka's boomerang had spun awkwardly back to him, landing a few steps away, after he struck Zirin down before she could destroy the room, the Prison Tower, everything around them.

"Help…" Azula gasped, gripping Sokka firmly. She looked to Zuko with vulnerability most unlike her… uttering a word she most likely had never spoken to him. "Zuko…!"

The Fire Lord frowned with determination: he gave orders to his soldiers, and he stepped up to take charge of the situation. The guilt inside his chest would be resolved later: for now, Zirin would be contained anew, and Sokka and Azula would be taken to safety.

____________________________________

Sokka sighed, smiling sadly at Azula as she sat by his bedside, her brow furrowed:

The shards of the mirror nestled in a pouch, in her hand.

The mirror had broken against the door in the impact when she had been flung back with Zirin's initial outburst. She hadn't realized it, at first. She hadn't wanted to believe it was true, either, when she understood that her first gift by Sokka had been destroyed by Zirin's attack.

"I know she can show up elsewhere, I do, but… this sucks," Azula huffed, shaking her head and setting the mirror aside, trying to ignore her bandaged thigh. The damage hadn't been that deep, certainly not enough to endanger her, but she wasn't supposed to move around much for the next few days while her body amended the damage.

"We'll get you a new mirror. A prettier one," Sokka said. "One more suitable for you."

"That one was fine," Azula said, sighing as she set the pouch down on Sokka's nightstand. "But I shouldn't complain. You… you matter more than a broken mirror."

"Do I?" Sokka smirked. Azula scoffed. "What?"

"Are you really going to twist my concern for you into some weird flirting or something…?" Azula asked. Sokka laughed, nodding awkwardly as he lay on his back, head turned towards her. Azula scoffed, amused nonetheless. "You're so ridiculous."

"You like that I am, though," he said. Azula lowered her gaze.

"You know… Zuko once did what you just did, too. For your sister," Azula said. Sokka's smile waned slightly. "I was the one on the offensive that time. It's rare enough that I was the one trying to defend others this time… that I was the target of someone out of control, rather than being the one who was out of control or out of line. But it's weirder still that someone would jump into the fire for me."

She raised her gaze towards him, and Sokka smiled a little. Azula shook her head.

"No laughing matter. No smiling matter, either. You could have been burned far worse than you were. It's fortunate that they think you'll recover safely," Azula said. Sokka scoffed.

"Your fire's definitely stronger than hers," he said. Azula rolled her eyes, though she smiled a little. "You overestimated her strength."

"I'm quite sure I did no such thing," Azula said, shaking her head and reaching out a hand to stroke his hair gently. Sokka grinned giddily. "You didn't have to do that, is my point."

"Azula… I love you," Sokka said, earnestly. Her heart jolted to hear the words from his lips again. "I'm sorry to say that's what love means to me. Maybe you don't like it… but I'm going to jump into the fire for you. I'm going to stand between you and any knife that comes your way. If I get hurt… well, it's fine if you won't be."

"That's… you're an idiot," Azula said, frowning. Sokka shrugged.

"Most people think so too…"

"Well, most of them are wrong because they're saying it for the wrong reasons," Azula said. Sokka snorted. "You… you can't go around pretending your life and your safety matter less than that of everyone you care about."

"So… am I supposed to protect myself instead?" Sokka asked, puzzled. Azula gritted her teeth…

A most confusing, surprising epiphany hit her as consequence of his question. Sokka appeared to await an answer… and she was surprised to find she actually had one:

"You're supposed to fight by my side," Azula decided. Sokka's eyes widened. "We're… we're a team. Successful strategies don't require the sacrifice of your own allies. If you need to discard them as you progress towards your goal, you're probably not that good a strategist. More capable and able-bodied allies mean you have more resources at your disposal. It's simple and obvious."

"Heh. So… a practical, reasonable point of view encourages you to believe that I shouldn't jump into danger," Sokka smirked. "You know what? That's exactly why I like you. Love to hear it."

Azula smirked back at him, shaking her head: she couldn't help but grow fonder of him for that reaction. She suspected anyone lesser would have been cross with her for responding with practicality rather than sentimentality after a sacrifice that great… but not Sokka. They certainly saw eye to eye when it came to strategic matters, if nothing else.

"The next time we're in danger, if we are… and we most likely will be, considering who I am, and what your luck in life has been like," Azula pointed out, to Sokka's amusement. "Please… work with me. Don't jump into danger that way. It… it means a lot, that you would. But I'm not exactly eager to lose you. It was good thinking to knock Zirin out with your boomerang, you sure threw it hard for it to cut across her fire that way…"

"Well, these muscles aren't just for show," Sokka said, tightening his biceps to her amusement. Azula laughed, rolling her eyes and shaking her head. "See? See?"

"Dork," Azula smiled. He snickered proudly. "I'm grateful anyway. Just… don't do that again, will you?"

"I'll try not to," Sokka smiled warmly, reaching up to clasp her hand, pressing a soft kiss to her palm.

The tingling feeling of being treasured by someone to the point where he might sacrifice himself for her sake hadn't receded. It almost brought her to tears. Her throat tightened as she pondered it, as she realized that perhaps love did look a little bit like what Sokka had described for her before, even if it shouldn't be as self-sacrificial as that…

She leaned closer to him on his bed, pressing her lips to his cheek. Sokka grinned mischievously at the feeling.

"That's nice…" he said.

"You do realize… that we're not going to sleep together until your back recovers?"

"What?!"

Sokka yelped, and Azula laughed at his extreme reaction: he even seemed to rise from the bed, and she had to reel him in so he'd stop being so careless.

"Come on, you won't be able to lie on your back…"

"Well, I won't lie on it. I don't need to. You'll have to put up with being under me more often!" Sokka pouted.

"You really are that eager to get back to it, are you?" Azula smiled, stroking his hair and kissing his cheek again. Sokka groaned needily.

"When you're being this nice, it's hard to help it," he said. "C'mon, I could just lie on top and even as we sleep, I'll just rest on, uh, the best pillow in the world…"

"You like my breasts far too much for your own good," Azula said: Sokka smiled wildly, glancing at her chest even if her clothes covered her bosom fully.

"What's not to like?" he said. "You're delightful. And delicious, too."

"I'm… ugh, you don't have to be so crude, Sokka," Azula blushed, shaking her head as she pushed him slightly on his mattress. Sokka snorted at her remark.

"If it disgusts you so much, why are you climbing up here right after I said something stupid?" he asked: Azula was halfway on the mattress by then, and she shot him a fierce glare.

"Because I… had already meant to do this before you started being embarrassing," she huffed, lying down fully beside him. Sokka giggled, and Azula rolled her eyes before reaching towards him. "Come here, you annoying jerk, you…"

"Woah, wait…!"

His request was not heeded: thus, before he knew it, Sokka was left to lie his head down happily, comfortably, atop Azula's chest.

"I hope this will help you recover. At least, might brighten your spirits," Azula said, unsure of why she felt bashful after what she'd done. Sokka, of course, beamed with delight.

"Sure brightens them," he said. "Though I hope it won't help much because that means I'd recover too quickly. If I don't, then I'll get to do this even more often, and…"

"If you recover faster I'll sit on your face sooner than you know," Azula declared, boldly: Sokka smiled wildly, raising his head from her chest eagerly.

"You will?!" he exclaimed. Azula snorted and laughed.

"Guess you're happy when I'm the one who's crude. You know, you're delightful too. And ridiculous," she said, cupping his face with her hands before kissing his eager lips softly.

It was a tender, meaningful kiss for the two of them, and they extended it for as long as they dared with sweet, gentle pecks, as well as deeper, thorough explorations of each other, interspersed between the chaste kisses. His hands dared touch her with desire, even if he wasn't about to act on it… and Azula let him. She felt his fingers trailing her weak spots and she thrived in it, quietly, letting her lover trigger her pleasure at his leisure.

"You didn't need to do this either, you know?" Sokka smiled a little, raising his head to gaze at her. "Could've just left me to rest quietly while withholding yourself from me…"

"Why would I want to do that?" Azula asked, stroking his hair gently. Sokka chuckled.

"Don't know. Because I'm the annoying guy who put himself in danger for your sake when he should have been fighting alongside you?" he said.

"Well, lesson learned now, I hope. You're… a little forgiven," Azula said, with a smirk. Sokka laughed, his brow pressed against hers.

"Good to know," he said. Azula bit her lip.

"Maybe we're not so different, you and I. You jumped in front of an inferno to protect me because you love me… and I let you rest on my chest because I…"

"Azula?" Sokka raised an eyebrow, looking at her with surprise.

Azula breathed deeply before meeting his eyes: it felt like the biggest risk she had ever taken. She didn't know what was so frightening about uttering those words, she had already spoken them to someone else…

But doing it with Sokka felt like a greater commitment. Like deciding she was throwing her lot with him for the rest of their lives, if he could stand her for that long.

The way he gazed at her suggested he was capable of that, and so much more.

So she had to do it. She just had to jump… and wait for gravity to claim her, or for her wings to burst from her back and help her take to the skies.

"I love you."

Sokka's eyes gleamed with emotion, reflected by the tears that were born in the corners of his eyes. He laughed softly, and Azula smiled warmly too, if tearfully: he kissed her sweetly, and her arms locked around his neck as she kept him close.

"Azula…" he managed to say, with a broken voice. Azula shook her head.

"It's okay. We'll… talk things over later," she said, caressing his cheek. "We'll decide whatever we need to decide, alright? For now, just… just live in the here and now. Just… just let me love you even if I barely know how, okay?"

"You know more than you realize you do," Sokka smiled warmly: the affection in his eyes caught her so off guard she nearly melted into his next kiss, into his warm, loving embrace…

Yes, there were many things for them to work through still. Yes, perhaps she'd regret having said those words once it sunk in that she had done it, whenever she lost her mind to anguish over not being good enough for him… but right now, everything felt just right. His kisses were as warm as sunlight, setting her inner flame afire with potent emotions she never knew she could experience.

Fire could be so deadly, so devastating. It could lay waste upon everything, just as Zirin had tried to… but it could be warm and gentle, too. It could embody passion… it could embody life. The dark shadows fire cast around itself were intricately connected with its light. The hand of the bender wielding it would determine the true purpose of flames: destruction or creation, hatred or love, life or death…

And right now, the fire in her heart burned with unequivocal devotion for the man whose brow pressed to hers, as they basked in their newfound peace. A part of Azula wickedly wished to ask if this was exactly what he had been missing with Suki… but she didn't dare mar a perfect moment of shared tenderness with any matters besides the two of them. All teasing could wait for later.

Though they would be forced to interrupt that crystallized moment of happiness rather quickly, too, once they heard footsteps approaching Sokka's room, as well as the quelled voices of Zuko and his physicians, who no doubt were informing him of Sokka's state.

"Uuuh…" Sokka grimaced: Azula flushed as she squirmed clumsily, awkwardly, out of Sokka's embrace.

"Lie down quietly there. Nothing happened here," she said, bashful, carefully moving so her leg wouldn't hurt.

"Right. Right. I'll… pretend I was asleep, yep. That's it," Sokka smiled, closing his eyes and relaxing.

Azula's heart raced as she took her seat: Zuko barged in moments later, without knocking.

"Still can't bother announcing yourself before entering any rooms?" Azula asked. Zuko grimaced, slowing down at first before stepping closer to Azula, sitting beside her.

"I guess I ought to work on that," he said. "How is he?"

"He's… asleep. As you can see," Azula said, trying not to show her bashfulness too overtly – while there was much they would need to work on and decide, one of such things was settling on whether to keep matters quiet a little longer or blatantly sharing the truth of what their relationship was with everyone around them… such as Zuko.

"Well… yeah. I can," Zuko sighed. "The physicians say he might… might have light marks left. Fortunately, the fire receded fast enough so it isn't as severe as, well… my face."

"It wasn't a third-degree burn," Azula concluded. Zuko nodded.

"Still… I don't feel like this is the right choice," Zuko said. Azula raised an eyebrow. "I mean… my physicians are the best the Fire Nation can offer. But is Fire Nation medicine going to be enough?"

"I have no idea. I hope so?" Azula said. Zuko sighed.

"I think we should get him to someone who could alleviate his pain much faster. Maybe even heal him enough so his skin isn't damaged forever," Zuko said. "Not even with light marks."

"Is that even possible?" Azula asked.

"Waterbending healing is impressive. You'll see," Zuko said, reassuringly.

"You're bringing a waterbender here?" Azula asked. "Or… do you want us to go to the Northern Water Tribe again?"

"I, uh… didn't mean for us to travel that far. A little less far, frankly," Zuko said, twiddling his thumbs awkwardly. Azula frowned.

"What?"

"There's… a really great waterbending healer who would gladly look after Sokka and make sure he's okay. And I think we should trust her to take good care of him. I know I do… though I'm not sure you do. Sokka would, though, I mean, she's… uh, well… his sister."

Azula had started to suspect what Zuko was getting at right before he arrived at his destination: her jaw dropped, and she inched away from him before blurting out the one answer she could give her brother's suggestion:

"Absolutely not."

"Azula, he's her brother. She'll kill us if we don't tell her he was in danger, if we don't take him to her…!"

"She'll kill you for harboring me at all, and then kill me for being, well, me! So as far as I can tell, the casualties will be minimal provided we just… avoid her. Forever."

Zuko snorted, slightly amused by the panic Katara elicited in Azula's heart. The Princess glared at her brother in displeasure, and he shook his head.

"I'll go too and make sure she understands that none of this is your fault. If anything… it's mine," Zuko said. Azula winced…

"As touching as it is to hear you admit that? I still don't want to go. Nope. Not a chance," Azula said, eyes wide.

"You might just like Air Temple Island…"

"What does that even matter?! I'm not going to jump right into their hands when they thought I'd kidnapped Sokka to begin with!"

"Well, I'll clear that up too! It'll be fine! Maybe we can call Toph too, I bet she'd help clear your name! Maybe she even told Aang and Katara that you're not a hazard to Sokka already…!"

"Right, and you think they believed her, if she did? You're as gullible as…"

"If you guys argued any louder, maybe you'd finally make sure that no one gets any rest around these parts, you know?"

Both Azula and Zuko froze up at Sokka's accusatory tone and deadpan glare – evidently, his attempt to pretend that he was sleeping had ended very quickly. Their apologetic grimaces brought a smirk to his face, and he shook his head at them.

"We can go to Air Temple Island. I'll handle Katara… and I'll make sure to have a loud argument with her just as you two are trying to fall asleep, too."

"Haha. You're hilarious," Zuko scoffed. Azula chuckled, shaking her head at Sokka's promise. "But then… once you're okay to travel? We'll… we'll get going. We'll get you some more healing, Sokka. You'll make a full recovery."

"As noisy as you may be… that's nice of you, buddy. Thanks," Sokka grinned.

Zuko didn't stay for much longer, busy as he was: Azula's nervousness over the next leg of their journey didn't diminish at all… but once Zuko was gone, she reached out to take Sokka's hand in hers: he smiled as he fell asleep holding it, and just by the sight of that gentle smile upon his face, Azula allowed herself to believe wistfully that everything would work out for the best…

They were gone. No light. No reflections. Nowhere for her to peer through and understand what had happened. The mirror was shattered, stained with her host's blood.

"You see? You hurt her! And you keep hurting her! Your meddling ruined her bonds with her allies, and you couldn't save her from another betrayal!"

Yue gritted her teeth, closing her eyes as she tried not to listen to the cackling cruelty of her captor. She didn't want to hear it. She didn't need to…

"Yue… Yue… Yue…"

A second voice. The one she heard at times, a familiar voice… it was kind, it was reaching out for her…

The dark restraints around her body tightened. She closed her eyes and hoped they'd hold. She needed them to hold. Otherwise…

"It won't be long now. It won't be long," her captor giggled with cruelty: she refused to look at him. She wouldn't meet his gaze. She had always refused… and he would never stop pushing her. "It won't be long before you're mine forever… once no one needs you anymore. Once you're well and truly gone from that world. Once every memory of your existence vanishes…

"Once they forget you. The Princess, the warrior… they will give their hearts to each other, and you will be forgotten for good."

A tear escaped Yue's cheeks: she might never be free again… but so long as they were, she would endure this nightmare and face the dark fate that swirled closer and closer around her, threatening to fulfill the dark promise of Oblivion.

[quazartranslates]

Welcome to the Nightmare Game II - CH38

**This is an edited machine translation. For more information, please [click here]**

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Chapter 38: Star Death Reality Show (XXI) {cw: gore}

"The explosion just now was because Mark shot a rocket launcher underground, but as you can see, I’m unscathed. The origin of the rocket launcher is somewhat complicated. In fact, there's a huge research institute hidden in the underground beneath this village. Before, I met He Yi there..." Qi Leren explained the previous events, and the framing of his “miracle” made his words' credibility soar, full of brainwashing persuasiveness. Once he had recounted his story, three minutes had elapsed, and the illusory wings behind him gradually dissipated in the air, his feet set foot on the ground again, and the silvery spots of light around him disappeared.

But even though he had returned to his normal state, Lara couldn’tn't look at him the same way as before.

"You seem to have a lot of questions." Qi Leren stopped his story, stared at Lara, and spoke in a tone that was definitely not his usual voice.

"Yes... I... You... Who are you?" Lara asked.

Qi Leren smiled: "I have already answered this question."

Lara certainly remembered that he said he was an apostle of God. After this impact on her worldview, she obviously couldn't take this answer as a joke.

"You’re really..." Lara murmured. She was afraid of this answer from the bottom of her heart.

Qi Leren looked at her gently and nodded his head.

Lara took a step back and took a deep breath of cold air. The chill through her heart and lungs calmed her down, but there was a flame burning in her heart, burning her questioning heart.

Seeing was believing, however, and she had nothing to say.

"Now... What are we going to do?" Lara asked. She seemed to have lost her cognitive functions after the shock of this scene, and listened to the apostle's commands like a docile little sheep.

"A lot of things. There is only one mature octopus left, but we can't find him for the time being. There may be a few larvae that have just completed parasitism, and they won’t be too aggressive... Let's gather those who are still alive. We can enter the underground research institute, where there’s a machine that can detect whether someone has become a host," Qi Leren said.

They acted quickly. Jing Siyu and Jing Sixue were woken up in the middle of the night and were taken away in a daze. As they walked, Qi Leren kindly asked what they had done today, and found no abnormalities. He wasn’t sure whether these people were infected now, but they had no ability to spread in this the first day after being parasitized, so he wasn’t too worried. As long as he could take them to the instruments in the underground research institute.

Xue Jiahui, Mark, and Annie were dead, and there were only ten contestants who may be alive at present. Among them, one had a mature octopus in their body, and eight or nine times out of ten, this person was Francis. But looking at the present situation: Dr. Lu and Du Yue were missing, He Yi was also missing, and Francis was also missing.

Qi Leren and his party found Janet and Alex, who weren’t as obedient as the Jing sisters, but even those who didn’t want to cooperate were convinced after Qi Leren took out his handgun. Although Janet wanted to keep her mouth shut, when Qi Leren shot the vase beside her, she spoke honestly.

Qi Leren smiled kindly, looked at this group of people who had gone silent, and sincerely understood the joy of getting things through violence.

The five people were led back to Annie's house and were amazed when they entered the attic, as they hadn't thought that such a secret room was hidden in the house. When they entered the basement, the messy sight before their eyes and the lingering smoke that hadn’t yet dissipated silenced everyone.

Janet looked at Qi Leren with indecision. Although she had completely regarded the story Qi Leren told as a joke before, she was not those two young girls, Jing Siyu and Jing Sixue, who had gone pale with terror. She didn't believe anything about Leviathan or the amphioctopuses, but her woman's intuition made her keep her mouth shut and look at the situation coldly.

They entered the underground research institute through the blasted tunnel. Right now the power supply wasn’t connected, but Qi Leren knew where to turn on the backup power. He knew where to instruct the five people to go, and he stayed at the back in case of a sudden attack.

Lara, who walked at the front, was very careful all the way, and took a fire axe to defend herself when she passed a fire control station.

In this shadowy underground research institute, the dark and long tunnel was like being in the body of an ancient beast. Within the range illuminated by flashlights, there were dusty relics everywhere. When walking here, their empty footsteps echoed constantly, inspiring the most horrible images in everyone's brain.

Qi Leren suddenly felt that he heard footsteps. He stopped, listened to the sound for a moment, and there was the rush of running in the distance.

"Someone’s coming! Turn off the flashlights and stand against the wall," Qi Leren whispered.

The five people were taken aback, became nervous, and obeyed without thought.

The footsteps were getting closer and closer. Qi Leren stuck to the wall and took the safety off the gun in his hand.

"Huff, huff, huff..." The short breaths were getting closer and closer, and Qi Leren suddenly felt that the sound was a bit familiar. It seemed to be...

"Du Yue?" Just as the man ran around the corner of the corridor, Qi Leren called out his name.

Du Yue slammed on the brakes and almost lost his balance. He looked at Qi Leren with surprise: "Qianbei! Qianbei, are you all right?! You absolutely won’t believe what happened at that time, I—fuck, he's crazy!"

"Steady, speak slowly, where is Dr. Lu?" Qi Leren handed him a bottle of water, and Du Yue unscrewed the bottle cap and drank a few mouthfuls.

"What's going on?" Janet also asked in disbelief. She noticed that Du Yue had blood on his body.

"I ran away with Dr. Lu... He should be fine, that guy chased me." And after a pause, Du Yue told everyone what had happened.

Du Yue and Dr. Lu had found a second ID card  in the basement of an uninhabited house that could open the door to the corridor. They had also met Lara and asked her about Qi Leren. They had honestly said they didn't know, but they were looking for him. When they went to the basement in Jing Siyu’s house, they opened the door again and met Qi Leren inside. Qi Leren had turned back to cut off the institute’s power supply. As a result, shortly after the power supply was cut off, Francis actually entered the basement, holding a dagger in his hand.

"I... um... used some special means and ran away." Du Yue scratched his head, and Qi Leren knew as soon as he heard it that he had used the [Protagonist Halo] skill card.

But this was the first time he had heard of a “protagonist” using his full power to escape. Shouldn’t he have used it to kill him? This boy hadn’t followed the routine!

Qi Leren was a little worried about Dr. Lu, but on second thought, he felt that with his luck, he shouldn’t have any troubles—look, the monster had come after Du Yue at the critical moment. At most, he had probably fallen on the ground and screamed, and by now he might have found a safe place to hide. Qi Leren had great confidence in Dr. Lu’s ability to win by lying down.

"Don't panic, since Francis is using a dagger, we’ll have no problem at all, even if... Quiet, I hear something!" Qi Leren heard footsteps again, and he held his breath, listening to the footsteps getting closer and closer. Then they suddenly disappeared, as if the owner of the footsteps had already known of their existence.

The distance between them was very close, just around the corner.

The darkness before his eyes, the coldness of the air, and the heartbeats of him and those around him made him feel as if he was deep underwater.

Qi Leren could bear it, but the two little girls couldn't. Jing Sixue held her sister's hand tightly and pulled her back. The cloth rubbed in the dark, making a shuffling noise. This slight movement was just like a flame in the silence of night, which made the stagnant air burst out in an instant!

Dadadada! Suddenly there was the sound of a machine gun firing on the opposite side, and Qi Leren shouted: "Get down!"

The bullets ricocheted off the fall, brushing Qi Leren's cheek.

Fuck me, how has the enemy’s weapon already upgraded from a dagger to a machine gun!

No, you can't fight here, or the six people next to you will be in danger!

Qi Leren paid attention to the last time he had used his S/L skill. The cooling time of one hour had passed, so he could use it. This time, he again forgot the Prophet's warning. After saving, he got up and rushed around the corner. In the dark, the only light was that of the machine gun’s shots, and it lit up the world frame by frame. His body slid along the ground like a fish and he swept his leg out to knock Francis down.

Francis roared. The machine gun was too long to hit the Qi Leren who had gotten close to him. He discarded the machine gun and gripped Qi Leren's arms. His strength made him think that his bones would be broken.

After being parasitized by the octopus, Francis's body had mutated to be more like a strong man. Qi Leren, who had not fought closely with the octopuses before, suffered a dark loss at this point, and he easily fell to the ground. The revolver in his hand also flew out and hit the wall, clattering away to somewhere he couldn’t see.

Qi Leren couldn’t come up for air and almost fainted. Amidst his confusion, there was a loud thundering in his ears and something slammed against Francis's head. With the women’s screams, the strength holding Qi Leren became lessened, and Qi Leren broke free, rolled over, and coughed heavily on the ground.

Qi Leren endured the dizziness and nausea and looked up. An axe was stuck on the back of Francis's head. Du Yue pried Lara’s hands off the fire axe. Lara covered her mouth and collapsed against the wall, sniffling and repeating Francis's name.

"Qianbei, are you ok? I'll help you up." Du Yue kicked the flashlight he had just left behind and helped Qi Leren.

"He’s not dead, cough... the octopus in his body will come out soon..." Qi Leren knew the octopuses’ habits and warned hoarsely. He picked up his handgun from the ground and pointed it at Francis's brain. Every shot was accompanied by the sound of Lara’s exhausted crying.

Qi Leren was panting heavily. His throat had almost been crushed and there was still some damage, so that he couldn't speak loudly, but he still amplified his voice as much as possible: "Stand back! Run! The monster inside him is coming out!"

As if it had been called, as soon as Qi Leren finished speaking, Francis’s brain had been blown off, and Francis, whose body had fallen to the ground and was bleeding, suddenly moved.

Janet also collapsed. When she saw the first tentacle sticking out of Francis's broken head, the woman screamed in a soprano voice: "He's alive, he's still alive! Monster, monster!"

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[crashingmeteorz]

rich kid runaways (ft. yuexzukoxtoph friendship)

for my 100 Followers Celebration - credit to @aroacebitchboi for this amazing idea!

zuko faces his father in the agni kai, and when he is told what he must do in order to be welcome in his homeland again, he just says “fuck this” and runs away.

he’s not sure where he’s gonna go, just that he has to get out, and fast, because his dad’s gonna kill him. like. for real. so he stows away on a fire navy ship headed Literally Anywhere Else (and maybe the soldiers don’t care! because he’s 13 and hurting children is a disgrace! maybe they sneak him food and blankets idk!)

yue, meanwhile, in the north pole, has just been told she is going to enter an arranged marriage for the good of her people when she turns 16. respectfully, she asks her father what exactly this marriage will do, politically speaking. the north isn’t at war with itself, in fact they’re more united than ever. maybe if it were a southern water tribe boy, sure, but no, it’s going to be a northern boy.

her father just tells her it’s imperative to the stability of the tribe that they uphold tradition. yue, realizing this is bullshit, even at the tender age of 13, says “fuck this”, and runs away.

she is all but screwed without waterbending or any practical survival knowledge - except, she’s been chosen by the moon spirit. when she steals a boat and heads south, the moon takes pity on its ward and keeps her safe, at least on her waterbound journey. once she lands on the northern shores of the earth kingdom, yue depends on the kindness of strangers to survive.

zuko, meanwhile, is angry and mistrustful and afraid when he ends up on the western shores of the earth kingdom, and he depends entirely on his determination to survive. he learns to live off the land the hard way, and avoids major cities and towns for fear of being found out as a firebender. of course, if he’s ever spotted, he’s regarded with pity and empathy because of the festering burn on his face, but zuko doesn’t realize that.

yue never stays in one place too long, bouncing from family to family and learning more skills in a few months than she was ever taught in her whole life up north. she cooks and cleans and sews, yes, but she also farms and skins hunted animals and does house repairs. she is happily taken into homes because of her ability to heal - though never a waterbender, yue still learned basic healing with the other northern women, and can manage even bad wounds all on her own.

afraid she’ll be recognized by her vibrant hair, however, yue continues her journey south, considering running to the south pole for sanctuary. she wonders how their women are treated. zuko, meanwhile, lives alone in the wilderness most of the time, and moves very slowly up the west coast.

they’re 14 when their paths cross. three fire nation soldiers harass yue while she’s journeying along a rural road, asking her for a made-up toll. usually trading in work, yue has no money to speak of. the soldiers threaten violence, and, though he is afraid of being caught by his countrymen, zuko was never one to let bullies have power over the innocent.

he emerges from the forest, swords in hand, attacking the soldiers. at first it seems like he has the upper hand - and then he stumbles, and the soldiers laugh and pull him up to beat him. zuko panics and relies on instinct - firebending at the soldiers and burning them badly. they run away yelling, and zuko panics, certain that he’ll be caught out. he goes to run, but yue stops him.

“you’re hurt,” she says, pointing to where he’d been cut by the soldiers’ swords. “please, let me help you. it’s the least i can do.”

“you’re not scared of me?” zuko asks in confusion, looking around wildly, afraid his father will pop out of the trees and strike him down.

“you saved me,” yue says, just as confused, because between the rescue and the obvious burn mark, she doesn’t really think this boy would have any reason to hurt her. also he’s kinda shrimpy, and yue, who has built up some strength through hard work, is pretty sure she could take him. “come on, i have some herbs. is there clean water nearby?”

shocked that anyone in the earth kingdom wouldn’t call for zuko’s arrest on the spot, zuko leads yue to a stream in the forest. yue silently patches his wounds, and then eventually asks if she can get a look at his eye. apart from the initial work of the fire nation healers, zuko hadn’t really done much to treat his eye, and it’s so badly crusted he can barely see out of it. when yue reaches for him, he jerks away.

“i don’t need your help!” he snaps, standing and shaking himself off. “if it weren’t for you, i wouldn’t be in this situation to begin with.”

“excuse me.” says yue, standing as well, because who is he to talk to her that way? “i didn’t ask you for help, you chose to do that. and you’re mad at those soldiers, not me, so why don’t you try being a little nicer?”

they stare at each other furiously for a moment. then yue sighs and says “i think i can help you with your eye, so that you can see. let me do that and i’ll leave you alone.”

it’s painful, and a very slow process, but with water warmed by zuko’s bending (”just heat up the water.” “someone could see!” “we’re in the middle of a literal forest! who’s spying! the frogs???”) and a few medicinal herbs, yue manages to clear away most of the crust and dead skin over zuko’s eye. when he finally opens it again, he’s shocked to find that he can see.

“well, i won’t bother you anymore,” yue says huffily, moving to leave the forest. as she does, she realizes she doesn’t know where the heck she is. zuko’s still marveling at how different the world looks with two eyes.

“umm, which way is out?” yue asks him. zuko snaps back to reality and says “oh, um. i’ll show you.” because he is, admittedly, grateful.

of course, when they try to leave the forest, they run into bandits and barely escape. then yue reccomends they take a country road, and zuko reluctantly agrees, except they run into more bandits. after the fourth round of bandits in two weeks, they’re convinced they’ve been cursed with bad luck.

“can we just go to a town or a city?” yue asks, panting from their desperate escape. “we’re not having much luck living in the wild.”

“i was fine until you showed up!” zuko retorts, panting as well. “fine! then i’ll leave!” yue yells back.

“wait,” zuko says, and yue turns, tapping her foot impatiently. “i’m sorry,” zuko says, to yue’s shock, because if her few weeks with this kid who calls himself lee has taught her anything, it’s that he does not apologize. “i don’t really...understand, um, local people and-“

“let me do the talking,” yue says, gentle as always, reaching for zuko’s arm. he smiles at her, a real, happy smile, and they make their way to the nearest earth kingdom town.

after that, yue and zuko are inseparable. they argue a lot, naturally, but they become good friends, too. yue says she always wanted a sibling, zuko says he always wanted a different sibling, so it’s nice, to have each other. without going into too much detail, they bond over their shared experiences of pre-determined destinies and overbearing parental figures (“my father said i have to get married for the good of the people! what does that even mean?” “tell me about it, my father got mad that i talked out of turn, so he tried to kill me.” “...he what?” “hahaha just kidding that’s not a normal thing that happens.”) no matter how scary it gets, they agree, the earth kingdom makes them feel freer than they ever have before.

does the food they cook suck because they’ve never had to cook in their lives? yes. do they sometimes put all four feet in their mouths because of how they speak to the poor people of the earth kingdom? yes. have they ticked off a lot of fellow teenagers for acting bratty? yes. (“what, so, you don’t have palaces around here?” yue asks. “yeah, where are the royal gardens?” zuko asks. “leave before we rock your shit.” says Every Teenager They Meet.) but at the end of the day, they’re happy.

at 15 they reach a city called gaoling. by now they can both do enough odd jobs that they always have some pocket money on them, although yue still struggles to behave in a way that isn’t dainty and delicate, and zuko still struggles with basic social skills.

they’re getting ready to move along, when they’re stopped by a girl. she’s young, about 11, and entirely blind. she’s being chased by a loud crowd, who seem to be just around the corner.

“please!” the girl says. “help hide me! they’re after me! i think they’re going to kidnap me!” yue and zuko, who are the captains of the child-protection-squad, immediately move to protect the girl.

“this way!” zuko says, and the three of them run down narrow streets and alleyways, in and around shops, until they’re stopped at the city gate by the mob going after the girl.

“alright, kid,” the leader, a tall, buff man with long greasy hair says. “you’ve stolen from us for the last time.”

“how many time do i have to tell you?” the girl bellows, much different than her sweet and innocent pleas from before. “i won fair and square! you’re just mad because you got your butt kicked by a little girl!”

before zuko and yue can even react, the girl pummels the mob of men with an avalanche of rocks, and then launches the earth they’re standing on into the air, landing them far outside of the city limits in a dizzying display.

“woo! that was awesome!” the girl says gleefully pumping her arms. zuko and yue are both trying to wrap their heads around what just happened. “thanks for the help. not that i needed it, i just didn’t want my parents’ guards to see me bending...i wasn’t really planning on running away, but, i mean, i doubt they’ll even notice i’m gone-”

“just a second,” yue says, collecting herself. zuko’s jaw is still hanging open. “who are you?”

the girl grins smugly. “name’s toph. who are you?”

i cannot fully express how much i love this idea. top-notch. god-tier. thank you again!

[doumekiss]

the third person in the bed (cardcaptor sakura fanfic)

Touya/Yukito + Yue // T // 730 words //  Turns out Yukito is the type who likes to talk after sex

Touya fell asleep shortly after it was over, he wrapped Yukito in his arms and soon  he was already sleeping. Yukito was still in his arms but he was not sleeping though, he thought sleep would come easy too, after all he was tired , but that didn't prove to be the case. His mind was electrified with thoughts of Touya and him. It took him a bit  to remember that they weren't really the only people there.

"Yue are you awake?" Yukito asked mentally.

"Yes, if you're awake that means I'm too," Yue answered immediately.

"I wasn't sure, you were quiet for a long time"

“Considering you were having sex, talking didn't seem like an appropriate secondary activity”

"Well yes, although maybe some tips would have been appreciated, I wasn’t sure if I was doing the things right at times."

"..."

“That was a joke”

“I am aware of that. It wasn't very funny. ”

Yukito was worried now, Yue was so quiet in his mind that it was easy to forget that he was there during the calm days. But he was there all the time watching and feeling.

“Okay… Touya told me that he asked for your permission before, obviously you know that… sometimes it feels so unfair that you know everything that goes through my head, everything that happens to me, everything that I feel and I just know what you choose to tell me ”

“I would never hide anything relevant from you”

"I know, I think I expressed myself the wrong way. I meant it's not fair to both of us, in different ways."

“When we talk like this it's a little harder for me to know what you're thinking. But anyway I can't change the way things are, if it’s worth anything  I'm sorry our circumstances can't be more normal. ”

“I does… how did it  feel to you, what we did?”

“If it was physically good for you it was for me too”

"I wasn't asking just about the physical aspect, like emotionally left me feeling satisfied and happy, what about you?"

“I'm not sure how I feel. It was not an unpleasant experience for me if that's what is worrying you ”

"Um ... how do you feel about Touya?"

"I am very grateful to Sakura's brother, thanks to him we are alive ... and I like being in his presence, but I am not sure how much this comes from me and how much comes from you"

"He's very easy to like, maybe it's just you"

"Maybe yes, maybe not"

“I think we should talk more, there are obvious disadvantages to our situation, but an advantage should be that you and I don't need to be lonely ever, I don't want you to feel alone or excluded, or I don't know as if you are someone who is just watching my life instead of someone who is part of it ”

"I'll tell Touya that you're the type that gets overly emotional and philosophical after sex."

"If you do that I'll tell him that you comment that you think he's very good in bed"

"I did not say that"

“But he is right? Like I know I'm not impartial when it comes to him, and it was my first time, but I think it was above average, right? ”

“I have no parameters for comparison”

"Was this your first time too?"

“I don't know if I can count your experience as mine either. But if you do, yes it was ”

“That's kind of cool, like we're on the same page, going through the same thing with a mate there. Well an extra than usual. You know what I mean ”

“You have some weird thoughts”

Yukito laughed, which led Touya to wake up briefly.

"Yuki what?" Touya asked.

"Nothing. Go back to sleep ”Yukito said and kissed Touya lightly on the lips.

Less than a minute later Touya was sleeping again.

"I thought you were going to comment on the thing I didn't say" Yue commented.

"I was just kidding. I wouldn't say something that would embarrass you, you can trust me. ”

"I ... thank you Yukito"

"You're welcome. When I sleep, do you sleep too? ”

“Most of the time yes. Sometimes we dream together and I am not sure who I am and who you are. ”

"I like that, I hope we have a good dream tonight"

“I think we will”

Also available on ao3

[mactuna]

ᘻᖻ ᕵᕲ᙭101 ᕵᓰᑢᖽᐸS ᖇᘿᗩᑢᖶ!!

↠ summary: basically, how my top11 pdx101 picks would react to you getting hit on and 100% in ABSOLUTELY NO PARTICULAR ORDER!!!

↠ starring: kim sihoon, song hyeongjun, son dongpyo, ham wonjin, lee taeseung, choi suhwan, kim yohan, hidaka mahiro, kang seokhwa, wei zi yue, kim wooseok

𝒦𝒾𝓂 𝒮𝒾𝒽𝑜𝑜𝓃

You and Sihoon had been taking out your little brothers out to the arcade to just relax for a bit. But then, he had to go pee really badly, leaving you to watch the boys play Just Dance. Not even five seconds later once he was gone, a tall-looking guy appeared from literal nowhere.

"Hello, beautiful lady! My name's Eunsang. Care to tell me yours?"

"No. Goodbye."

Rolling your eyes, you diverted your attention back to your little brother, who was currently losing pretty badly to Sihoon's brother. To your annoyance, Eunsang moved again to block your view. Freaking stupidhead was obviously clueless on how to take a card of rejection.

"Not until I get your name, pretty lady."

"You are so-"

"ANNOYING!!! GET AWAY FROM MY SISTER!!"

Trying not to laugh, you let your six-year-old brother be your knight in shining armor, with his arms folded across his chest and frown on.

"I would just like your sister's name, little dude."

"I don't think she likes you very much."

"And I 100% do not approve."

Sihoon's brother joined in on the fun too, threatening to break your stoic facade.

"I think you should listen to them, dude."

Smiling at the familiar voice, you eased into the comfort of Sihoon's arm around your waist, looking up at his pouty face. Rolling his eyes, he pecked your lips before waving the other guy away. Who finally took the hint to scram. Once he was gone, you let out your giggles as the three boys hugged you tightly. Sihoon grinned, kissing your forehead.

"The other stupudhead boys won't ever get you while I'm still around!"

Laughing, you kissed the tops of their three heads.

"Glad to know I have three knights to protect me then."

𝓢𝓸𝓷𝓰 𝓗𝔂𝓮𝓸𝓷𝓰𝓳𝓾𝓷

For the love of all things good in the world, all you had wanted was to get your ice cream in peace today. Was the world against you? 200% yes. Which is why you and Hyeongjun awkwardly stood in front of the cashier lady, who would not stop ranting about pretty you were and how much she would love to kiss you. The worst part was that you were both still minors so you couldn’t physically leave until she dismissed you. And there wasn’t anyone in line behind you guys either. So essentially you were doomed. But as the lady just kept on talking, you felt Hyeongjun’s grip of your hand slowly getting tighter and tighter. Looking out of the corner of your eye, you saw his lip beginning to stick out in an angry pout. Until finally, he took a deep breath to get all the oxygen necessary to counter the lady with his speech. With his dialect.

“Excuse me, ma’am? Please stop talking about my girlfriend like that, because it’s making us feel super uncomfortable. And as her boyfriend, I really, really don’t appreciate someone else talking about kissing her. Ok so, bye!”

Grabbing your hand, Hyeongjun basically dragged out the door and all the way to the park.

“Hyeongjun? Are-”

Falling onto the bench, he sat there breathing hard and looking stunned.

“Oh my god that was so scary. Oh, what we going to do?!! Did I seem manly?? Oh my god she was so weird… But that was so scary!”

Laughing, you hugged him tightly. Your poor baby looked like he was about to cry from being stressed about being manly enough to scare the weird lady away. Leaning closer to you, he kissed the side of your head and smiled with your next words.

“Yes Hyeongjunnie, you were very manly.”

“Phew!”

𝓢𝓸𝓷 𝓓𝓸𝓷𝓰𝓹𝔂𝓸

“Son Dongpyo?”

The nurse called out, scanning the room for the boy. Nudging him with you shoulder, you shook him awake gently.

“Pyo, it’s your turn to get checked out by the doctor.”

He woke up, looking super dazed and confused.

“Huh? What? Okay.”

Trudging forward, he disappeared behind the door, but not without a little wave.

“Don’t leave without me, okay? I won’t take too long!”

“Okay!”

With a soft sigh, you made your way to the espresso machine. You were in dire need of one since it was finals week. You were supposed to be studying at home, but Dongpyo was afraid of going to the doctor’s alone, so you had agreed to go with him. You were adding the condensed milk when a voice startled you.

“Hey, wanna make me a cup too?”

Turning around, you saw a boy that literally looked like a mix of literally all the visuals of all the idol groups that you could shink of, stood, looking blank minus the spark of hope in his eyes.

“Can I help you?”

“Um, I just wanted to get a cup of coffee. Sorry about that…”

“No worries! I’m Y/N. And you are?”

“Kim Mingyu. Thanks!”

“So what brings you here?”

“Oh, um, I came to drop off my sister’s lunch since she forgot it at home.”

You were surprised, to say the least. Because you knew that your brother would rather let you starve than make the 15-minute drive to drop it off. But before you could reply, you were snatched away, nearly dropping your beloved espresso in the process.

“Son Dongpyo! What the heck do you think you’re doing?!”

You glared at him, but his bear-like back hug wasn’t loosening anytime soon. The stupidhead wasn’t even looking at you, but was glaring at the confused boy in front of you.

“Ah, my mistake. Sorry about that! I’ll be going now…”

He quickly left for the other side of the waiting room, red in the face, while Dongpyo went to check himself out at the front desk. Tapping your feet impatiently, you waited until he finished before dragging him outside to talk to in a quieter hallway.

“Dongpyo, look at me and tell me what that was all about.”

He sighed, exasperated at your obvious cluelessness.

“Did you not see the way he was looking at you?! How his hand was inching closer to yours?! How he kept checking the door to see if I had appeared?! Obviously not! You know, I really hate that you attract so many people.”

You just laughed, finally understanding the severity of the situation in Dongpyo’s eyes.

“Well, you’re the only one that I know of where the feeling is mutual.”

“GOOD!”

𝓗𝓪𝓶 𝓦𝓸𝓷𝓳𝓲𝓷

Wiping your tears, you and Wonjin stumbled your way out of the movie theater.

“The ending was so good!! But now I’m also super sad about it…”

(A/N: btw the movie referred to is Avengers: Endgame)

Wonjin nodded, trying to pull himself together for both of your sakes. He hated that he cried super easily, but you just thought that it made him that much more human. It’s one of the many reasons why he had fallen for you in the first place: your ability to turn any negative thing into something 3000x more positive. But his thoughts were interrupted when three guys approached, all of them looking like models. The blonde one spoke up first.

“So me and my friends noticed you during that movie, and we were just wondering if you wanted to ditch your crybaby, loser boyfriend to come hang out with us?”

Wonjin held his breath, hands balled into fists, as he waited for your answer. What if you did ditch him? After all, you had three pretty boys gunning for you. He wouldn’t blame you at all.

“No.”

By the nature of their shock, it was easy to tell that these boys had never been rejected before. Rolling your eyes, you pecked Wonjin’s chin, which instinctly made him pull you closer.

“He’s more than I could have ever asked for, so I suggest that you three should leave before I call security.”

Taking the hint, the boys scoffed and sauntered away. As annoying as it was, they still looked like models in the process. But once they were gone, Wonjin’s protective instinct finally appeared.

“Oh gosh… are you ok?! I’m so sorry… I should’ve done move to help you. You shouldn’t have had to-”

Cutting him off, you pressed your lips to his gently.

“It’s the 21st century sweetheart. You don’t always have to be the one protecting me.”

“But it would be more reassuring....”

𝓛𝓮𝓮 𝓣𝓪𝓮𝓼𝓮𝓾𝓷𝓰

“Trick or treat!”

Laughing, you opened the door for your dinosaur boyfriend.

“Oh? Does Taeseungie want candy?”

“YES!”

Laughing, you threw the whole bag of candy at him. Every since fourth grade ended, the two of you had gotten too lazy to go trick-or-treating, so it was your tradition to give out candy eat it in the most extra costumes and share tea. Rolling his eyes, he plopped down onto the couch with arms wide open for you to lean into.

“So, what do you think about Yuna’s pregnancy?”

You nearly choked on your M&M’s when he mentioned her name. She was your cousin, who was temporarily staying with you and your parents until her parents returned from their business trip. And neither yours nor hers knew about the baby yet.

“Shh!! Keep your voice down! My parents don’t know yet. Let’s just call it… milkshake for now.”

“Okay…? So what do you think about the milkshake?”

“I think she was being stupid for getting the milkshake so soon after graduating high school. She hasn’t even picked a major yet, so how the heck is she gonna be a mom?!”

He just sighed, rubbing your arm.

“That’s what I thought, too. But then I realized that it was her own choice, so whether or not she regrets it is something she has to live with.”

Right then, the doorbell rang, signaling the arrival of trick-or-treaters. To your dismay, it was some college freshmen. Aka, the boys from Yuna’s grade. And you knew exactly which one out of the four of them had gotten her pregnant.

“Trick-or-treat baby doll. But I’d like to make a special request for you as my treat.”

“Get away from my house.”

“And what if I don’t?”

Before you could even reply, Taeseung was getting out of his dino suit and pushing you behind him, phone ready.

“Lay a finger on her and I’m calling the cops. Please leave while I’m still asking nicely.”

The other boys ran for it, leaving Seungwoo standing alone on your front porch.

“You little boyfriend won’t always be around to protect you, Y/N. You better watch your back.”

Once he had disappeared, you slammed the front door closed with a relieved sigh, collapsing into Taeseung’s waiting arms.

“Don’t worry Y/N. I won’t ever leave you.”

Seeing him smile so gently at you made it hard believe the sheer amount of rage that you knew lay hidden behind it.

𝓒𝓱𝓸𝓲 𝓢𝓾𝓱𝔀𝓪𝓷

“YES! I GOT A STRIKE! You better pay up, sweetheart.”

You and Suhwan had made a bet over 10,000 won on whether or not you’d be able to bowl a strike. And lucky for you, you had made one in your last set.

“Fine….”

Grumbling, Suhwan stole a peck from you before handing over the money. Much to your annoyance.

“Hey! That’s not fair! You aren’t allowed to get a prize for losing!”

Laughing, he stole another kiss from you. Much to your disadvantage, he knew that most of the time, you would give into his kisses.

“I hate you!”

“Love you too sweetheart!”

Right before you guys returned your shoes, he planted another huge kiss on your lips.

“EW! SUHWAN! Don’t be gross!”

The guy at the counter just laughed at the two of you as he put your shoes away.

“You guys are really cute, by the way.”

You smiled, touched.

“Why, thank you!”

But Suhwan totally took it the wrong way.

“You callin’ my girl cute?!”

Rolling your eyes, you dragged your mumbling boyfriend away from the counter, despite his endless complaints.

“But-”

“It was a compliment, you buttface!”

He was being nice and you 100% took way too much offense to it.”

“But-”

Before he could start complaining, you quickly shut him up with a peck.

“Relax, I’m still yours. Ok?”

“Ok…”

𝓚𝓲𝓶 𝓨𝓸𝓱𝓪𝓷

“YAY KIM YOHAN!”

Smirking, he winked at you playfully before the referee blew his whistle in annoyance to get his attention. Snickering, you covered your smile behind one hand while all the other girls around you sighed with a hand over their hearts. They all believed the great Kim Yohan’s wink had been for them, but of course, you knew better.

“Hey baby girl, why don’t you cheer for me?”

Yohan’s competitor winked at you with a sly grin on his face, disgusting you.

“Uh, no thanks.”

“You will after this match.”

“Sure…”

But now you were afraid for Yohan. You knew that vengeance was a powerful emotion, and that combined with skill could be extremely dangerous for him. Already, you could see the arrogance building up in his competitor. Yohan was significantly smaller than him, maybe even scrawny. But you knew better than to underestimate him. But you frowned slightly, seeing the rage building up in him. Why? You hated it when Yohan got mad, partly because it scared you but mostly because you saw no reason for it.

“Yohanie fighting~!”

Your cheers just encouraged him to beat up his competitor even more as the referee blew his whistle to start the match. Before you knew it, his competitor was on the ground, Yohan standing victoriously over him with the referee holding his fist up in victory.

“KIM YOHAN… WINNER!!”

With a proud smile, he pushed through the screaming crowd, making his way towards you.

“Congratulations Yohanie- MPHM!”

Before you could get another word out, his lips were already on yours, quick and urgent. You were practically helpless in his capable hands, or rather, lips. Shielding you with his jacket, he dragged you outside through a back door that led to an alley where he had parked his car.

“Yohan, what’s going on?”

Huffing, he kissed you again, biting your lip.

“I really, really didn’t like the way he talked to you. Are you ok?”

“Yeah babe, I’m fine. What are your fans gonna say?”

“I care more about you than I care about what they think. So what does it matter?”

𝓗𝓲𝓭𝓪𝓴𝓪 𝓜𝓪𝓱𝓲𝓻𝓸

“Y/N GET DOWN FROM THERE!!”

You opened your eyes to see your boyfriend sprinting at you from across the park, as you still hung upside down from the monkey bars. You laughed, watching as he continued running, even after he dropped his phone. You were touched, to say the least.

“Y/N I’M NOT KIDDING!!”

“I KNOW YOU AREN’T BABE!”

As soon as he reached you, you released your grip and unhooked your legs, allowing him to catch you.

“Please don’t ever do that again.”

“He’s right, sweetheart! You don’t wanna mess up your pretty little face!”

“Talk like that about my girlfriend one more time and I WILL KICK YOUR ASS!”

The boy on the bench smirked, seemingly at ease.

“Or what, short stuff?”

Setting you down gently, Mahiro took off running after the boy, much to your dismay. Surprised, the boy literally ran for his life.

“MAHIRO GET YOUR ASS BACK HERE RIGHT NOW!”

“BUT-!”

“NOW!”

Rolling his eyes, Mahiro made his way back to you.

“But I really don’t like what he said about you…”

“Then ignore him and focus on me, ok? We are fine. I am fine. And I’m your girlfriend. Not his.”

“Ok that’s fair.”

𝓚𝓪𝓷𝓰 𝓢𝓮𝓸𝓴𝓱𝔀𝓪

“AH! OH MY GOD! KANG SEOKHWA I HATE YOU!”

But all Seokhwa could do was just laugh at your pure terror and misery in the haunted house. He was afraid of a lot of things, like losing you, but things like this? Not so much.

“Haha, you are such a scaredy cat!”

“SHUT UP! OH MY GOD IT’S A CLOWN!”

The clown jumped out, waggling its fingers at and grinning widely at you.

“HI THERE BABY DOLL!! COME PLAY WITH ME!! I’LL TAKE CARE OF YOU!!”

You were too terrified by its appearance to do anything but cling to Seokhwa’s arm, hands over your ears. Meaning that you were totally deaf to the world and had no idea what he had said to you. But Seokhwa, on the other hand, was ready to beat the living shit out of him.

“Try saying that ONE MORE TIME to my girlfriend and I’ll kick your ass to YG’s compound!!”

The clown cackled, running away to scare someone else in the haunted house. Whimpering, you looked up at Seokhwa.

“Is it gone?”

Seeing you so scared made him feel like it was his obligation to protect you at all costs, especially from other preying guys. Particularly clowns and anything else that scared you. As soon as you were near the exit, he kissed your forehead, smiling gently.

“I promise I’ll protect you princess, don’t worry.”

“Protect me, my foot.”

“Hey! I promised!”

𝓦𝓮𝓲 𝓩𝓲 𝓨𝓾𝓮

“Here you go, miss! Have a great day!”

“You too, thanks!”

Grabbing yours and Ziyue’s cups of bubble tea, you made your way back to the table.

“Here you go!”

“Thanks Y/N! Wait, what is that?”

Grabbing your cup, he turned it around to see the note on the back:

call me soon, doll ~ (123) 456-7890.

Before you could stop him, he was ripping the label off your cup and tossing it away, before slouching back into his seat with a pout on his face. Rolling your eyes, you kissed the top of his forehead.

“What are you so worried about?”

“I hate other boys. Especially the ones that hit on you.”

“Well, that’s not the worst thing in the world to hate. But it’s not like it’s ever going to affect me, ok?”

“Good. But come here, there’s something on your face.”

“Where?”

“I’ll get it, you dumb cutie. Come here.”

Frowning at the nickname, you leaned in closer so he could brush off whatever was on your face. But to your surprise, he locked lips with you instead, keeping you in place by cupping your face gently in his hands. When you finally pulled apart, all you could say, was:

“Wow…”

“Wow is right sweetheart.”

𝓚𝓲𝓶 𝓦𝓸𝓸𝓼𝓮𝓸𝓴

“Hey, I’ll be right back, ok? Stay here, whatever you do, please?”

“Okay, I got it.”

You watched as your boyfriend practically tripped over himself getting off of the bar stool, before smoothly making his way through the crowd to get to the bathroom. Hiding a giggle behind your hand, you turned back to the bartender, who served you up another shot.

“This one’s on the house, courtesy of the other guy down there.”

Craning your neck, you looked to see a guy waving with a lopsided smile on his face.

“Ah, say thank you to him for me, but please tell him that I already have a boyfriend.”

“Will do, miss.”

And right then, your lovely boyfriend appeared.

“Which is me. And I don’t like him.”

“Wooseokie, don’t do something stupid. Please?”

“Ok fine, I won’t bust his head. What do you expect me to do, instead?”

Rolling your eyes, you grabbed his arm and started dragging him through the crowd, out the door.

“Ok, you’re drunk sheep. Let’s go.”

“Mary? Is that you?”

Smiling, you pecked his lips gently.

“Come on, sweetheart. Let’s go home.”

“But I want to beat up that guy~!”

“Too bad.”

________________________________________________________________

A/N: with their recent performances, this bias/pick list is bound to change so soon XD

[kdinthecity]

Confessions of a Teenage Sugar Queen: Underwater

Welcome to Day Two of @zutaraweek. Here is the previous chapter from Day One, Chapter 1: Fired Up.

The Memorial Day holiday weekend marks the end of school and beginning of summer. Ozai—excuse me, Mr. Kasai, ever so graciously invited “Azula’s friends” to their family beach house on Ember Island. Dad must not have known we’d all be there without adult supervision, otherwise he’d never agree to this. Especially since Sokka is here with his girlfriend, Suki. Ugh, they are so disgusting together and not even subtle about it! I actually respected her—a cheerleader, taekwondo black belt, honors student who nailed the coveted coast guard internship for the summer. But when I stepped on something cold, wet, and squishy in the bathroom on the first morning of our beach getaway... just, ew.

I know it’s not their first time. And I know people do it, alright? Hell, Jet and I did everything but. I just want it to be special. And with someone I… dare I say it? Love.

Can you fall in love in high school? My rational brain says no. I write about it in my fictional stories, but that’s the only way I’ll entertain the idea. Besides, I have responsibilities. Gran Gran is great at taking care of us, but she isn’t getting any younger. Dad is gone over half the year. Sokka can barely match his own socks much less wash them. And for my junior year, I plan to take college level calculus, chemistry, and political science. I don’t have time for a boyfriend and certainly not any notions of love.

“Zuko was looking for you!” Ty Lee plops down next to me on my beach towel. I had distanced myself from the others, saying I want to work on my “tan.” My skin is dark enough already, so anyone with eyes can see through my outright lie. Even Toph wouldn’t be fooled. Although I swear that girl detects falsehood by the catch in your breath or the rhythm of your heartbeat. Toph teases that she can predict the next earthquake through her feet, but I bet she would feel it before the rest of us do.

It takes a while for Ty Lee's comment to register. Why would Zuko be looking for me? He hasn’t spoken a word to me since we arrived. I’m pissed about this, actually, and two can play the game of cold shouldering.

“He found the surfboards,” Ty Lee continues. “Did you want to surf?”

I do love surfing. Mom taught me. Sokka hates it; the uncoordinated doofus always falls off. But I’m a natural, almost as if I can command the waves. I'll be the bigger person and call a truce on this no-talking thing. Maybe Zuko surfs, too.

He doesn’t.

He doesn’t even like the water! He looks at the ocean like it’s going to swallow him whole. This could put up a serious roadblock in our relationship, I mean—friendship! Gah, we don’t even have that! I’ve spoken exactly 17 words to him. Why do I know? Because I've replayed that stupid encounter in my head, thinking I could have said something much more interesting. It would be a miracle if creepy, sexy scar boy ever talks to me again. Like when he gave me a board, he just grunted. And I took it without saying thank you! I clearly suck monkeyballs at conversation.

“Katara?”

“Hmm?” Get ready for case in point.

“I think I gave you the wrong surfboard.”

All I can think about is how tight my wetsuit feels all of the sudden and how his golden eyes shimmer in the midday sun. Even the half-lidded one is so striking, like his gaze is on fire. Zuko barely says a few words and apparently possesses the power to melt my insides and freeze my brain all at the same time.

“Huh?” Yes, I know. Eloquent.

“I gave you my sister’s board,” Zuko continues, a slight flush rising to his cheeks. “From when she was younger. I didn’t know how experienced you were.”

So… he was watching me. Again.

He shrugs. “Um. Maybe you want to try my mother’s instead?”

My tongue feels thick, but somehow I manage. “Yeah. Sure. That’d be great.”

He hesitates before handing over the board, tracing the rail with long nimble fingers. I don’t recall Azula ever mentioning their mother, so I wonder.

“Don’t worry,” I say. “I’ll take good care of it.”

He simply nods, and while the sadness in his expression is fleeting, it did not go unnoticed.

I distance myself again at the beachside bonfire that night. I much prefer the cool ocean breeze whipping through my hair over the hot stifling smell of burning wood. From my vantage point on a rocky ledge nearby, I can see the group down below. Azula assembles the ingredients for s'mores, taking a little too much pleasure in stabbing marshmallows with long metal skewers.

Sokka and Suki are snuggled up together in the same position they were earlier. With her head tilted back and lips slightly parted, I can only guess what’s going on underneath their blanket. Ewww.

Zuko is wearing a Hawaiian print shirt and handing out lei necklaces of all things. I decide he is much more interesting to watch—so awkward and adorable. He tentatively places the flowers around Ty Lee’s neck, obviously trying to look anywhere besides the cleavage spilling from her bikini top. She gives him a peck on the cheek in response. It’s too dark to tell, but I bet his face has turned as red as our school mascot, the firedragon. I wonder if he knows that Ty Lee is into girls.

Zuko’s sister waves him away. Sokka and Suki are making out now, so he avoids them. He’s obviously searching for someone. Could it be me?

Mai.

That girl has complained nonstop since we got here. She hates the sand. She sunburns too easily. Ocean water makes her eyes sting. Zuko doesn’t pay enough attention to her. Zuko won’t leave her alone! UGH!

He gives her TWO leis. And she fucking rolls her eyes at him. That’s it. I’m going for a walk on the beach.

I don’t know how long it’s been, but I have a tendency to lose track of time when I’m out here close to the water. My element.

Someone clears his throat. If he weren’t so wrapped up in his girlfriend—literally—I’d expect Sokka to start worrying and come find me. But no, this isn’t a concerned sibling visit.

“Missed you at the bonfire,” Zuko says.

“Yeah, sorry. I guess I don’t really like fire. It’s too—” Destructive. “—hot.” My throat feels tight again but not for the same reason as before. My thoughts have been... drifting.

“I like fire. As long as it’s controlled.” His voice is sexy as fuck, but surprisingly I am able to find mine this time.

“Well, anything out of control is a bad thing, right?” Control is everything. That’s why I work so hard to maintain it.

“Makes sense. I don’t really like the ocean for that reason. The waves seem… uncontrollable. Or controlled by a force that we can’t wield.”

Ah, he likes his control, too. “The waves are controlled by the moon,” I say.

“I know, and the moon is untouchable. At least with fire, humans can light it, contain it, and put it out. Y’know?”

“I think I’d trust the moon over a man with a match any day.”

He regards me for a few seconds with those sad, striking eyes of his, then laughs. “Maybe so.”

He turns to leave, and I’m searching my brain for something, anything to say to make him stay. I want to hear him laugh again.

“Oh! I almost forgot.” He’s suddenly back in my field of vision, and he’s closer than ever before. He smells like campfire and chocolate, and I didn’t think it possible, but those eyes are now smoldering. My breath catches as he gently places a lei around my neck; I shudder when warm fingers brush past my left ear.

He’s gone, and I discover this is no cheap party store necklace, either. The flowers are real, and their fragrance is intoxicating. I might feel high for a different reason, though.

“If you don’t like the ocean, then why did you apply for this position?” I’m basically high on two cups of coffee and a cocoa almond flaxseed energy bar. I’ve been anxiously waiting for our internship to start. We’re already on a boat first thing, and Zuko is gripping the side of it for dear life. Hahn immediately and shamelessly attached himself to Yue like a barnacle to a buoy, so it is only Zuko and me positioned here portside.

“It’s for PR,” he replies.

“What?”

He sighs. “Look, you wouldn’t understand.”

I don’t think his knuckles could get any whiter… or his face any greener. I can’t help but worry.

“Are you gonna be OK?” I ask when he’s clearly not.

“Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“No.”

“Can you maybe… explain? I can try to understand.” I stare at the right side of his face, chiseled and flawless. Admittedly, he’s beautiful. It's my turn to sigh.

His eyes remain fixated on the water below. “OK… it’s for my father’s business. To improve his reputation. It looks good for tech companies to support noble causes, give back to the environment. My father thinks I’m useless as an employee, so this is how he wants me to restore honor to the company name.”

“Oh.”

Even though I am mesmerized by his perfect profile, his statement doesn’t settle well with me at all. Of course, I want the position so it will look good on my college applications, and maybe that's a little selfish and not that much different. But I also care about the important stuff we're doing. Nobody ultimately goes into nonprofit work for personal glory, right? Maybe people do it to feel good about themselves, but somehow I know this is not Zuko's intention in this situation. It won't be fulfilling unless he feels something for it.

“Is that how you see it? As just a job to make your father look good?” I ask.

“Katara… I just need to… survive, OK? I need to graduate, get into a good college, so I can get the hell out of here.”

“But… you’ve got the education position at the Marine Center. How can you teach what you don’t really believe in?”

“I got that position because I have a ton of Future Fire Technology branded freebies to hand out when I go visit places. I’m telling you, Katara. It’s all about PR.”

But it’s not! It’s about speaking truth! And saving lives! And changing minds! That’s what Mom used to…

I can’t look at him anymore. I just can’t. I can only look at our reflections in the water and fight the urge to push him overboard.

What if he can’t swim, though? Is that why he’s afraid?

I look at his pained expression once again, and it seems like he’s already drowning.

The setting is modern day California, specifically Silicon Valley where HS kids are super stressed about stuff like internships because the tech culture is all around them, and Stanford and UC Berkeley are the “local schools.” Ember Island is like Angel Island; it exists solely for recreational purposes. The Marine Science Center is based on two real-life organizations in the Bay Area.

Chapter Three: Steamy  | Chapter Four: The Fall

[allbrows04]

I forced my Hindu/Desi mom to watch Avatar: The Last Airbender- A Saga

I think this is one of the funniest things that have ever happened to me and I have to record this experience somewhere bc I got a real kick out of it

first of all, I need to explain how I got her to watch in the first place:

so I was sitting in my room, and planning a Zuko animatic and doodling him in my sketchbook (I wanted to make an animation based on The Love Club by Lorde) and I realized that, unfortunately, I was going to have to draw Book one Zuko as well. So I’m sitting there, with my ipad propped up on the wall, with a HUGE image of this bald kid covering the entire screen for everyone to see. Right then my mom walked in the room and just,,,, she just froze. I swear she spent an entire minute looking from me to the screen. The first thing she manages when she regains the ability to speak was “what is t h a t?”

me: um- I was drawing him

my mom: you were DRAWING that?

then she just walks out in stunned silence. Whenever she passed by my in the house the next few days, she would just scrunch up the side of her face in mockery of his scar and I absolutely lost it every time. Eventually I mentioned that he happened to be from a really good show but obviously she didn’t want to watch anything that involved a boy who in her opinion, looked like an alien. I now present to you this meme I made at the time when I was telling my friend about the situation:

So eventually, I catch her when she’s SUPER bored and finally convince her to watch the first episode with me. Needless to say, we both cackled like madwomen when Zuko first came onscreen.

a few days later, we ended up staying pretty late watching. When we were about to go to sleep, she turns to me and goes: “so that boy Shikunzli(she pronounces it “shy-koon-zlee”) ... he’s a ... fire bender, right?

me: who?

my mom: you know who! Shikunzli! *scrunches up her face* that one

me: the angry bald one?

my mom: yes the weird one

So after five minutes of me absolutely losing my shit at like one am because my mom called my comfort character “Shikunzli“ I tell her that no, that is in fact not his name, and i try and get her to guess what he was actually called. I can’t really remember her guesses, but some honorable mentions are “Zuzu” and “Li”

so that’s how book one basically went.

Here’s how my mom referred to the characters throughout the show bc she can’t be bothered to remember names:

Katara: “the sister”

Sokka: “the brother”

Aang: “Avatar” but in the desi accent so it’s pronounced “Uhvathar” like how it’s supposed to be

Toph: “Thothulu” which translates roughly to “baby voice” I’m actually not sure if its an actual word or just something we made up. With my family it’s hard to tell

Zuko: “Shikunzli“ because I still don’t think she remembers his actual name

some memorable quotes from when we were watching the show(most of this wasn’t said in English so unfortunately a lot of snarky humor has been lost in translation):

--

my mom when King Bumi was introduced: *excited gasp while pointing at the TV screen* LIKE BHOOMI!!! BECAUSE ITS EARTH!!!

--

so “Appa” also means “father” in telugu so whenever he comes on screen we call my actual appa into the room and go “look!!!! its you!!!!”  he was very confused

--

Sokka, during the North Pole arc: Yue has an ARRANGED MARRIAGE??😨😱

my mom, who is literally married to my dad through an arranged marriage: oH nO hOw hOrRibLe

my mom, later on: oh so she’s going to run away from her arranged marriage. Like a wimp.

--

- she straight up started laughing in the middle of the episode where we learn where Zuko got his scar

- like I know he’s ugly but,,, have you no emotion?

--

iroh: Zuko, I have always loved you like a son

me, tearing up bc I’m a sucker for found family:

my mom: 😑😐

--

*during the blind bandit*

me: ok so this is my favorite one in the show

my mom: oh really? Why is that?

me: idk

--

Toph’s father: She’s just a little baby girl!

my mom, nodding: that’s exactly how i feel about you

my mom sitting there while Toph’s parents are portrayed as overbearing and restrictive: 👁👄👁

- but seriously I just like toph bc shes adorable and badass and I want to adopt her as my little sister even though she could beat the shit out of me

--

Iroh: You must not give in to despair. hope is something you give yourself-

my mom: *nodding sagely* in life, you-

me: do we have to do this right now

--

- both of us witnessed our boy Shikunzli yelling at the sky

- my mom called him dramatic and then we proceeded to sit there in absolute shock

- I literally started wheezing it was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen

- we still make fun of that scene of his to this day

--

*Zuko passes out after making a good decision*

my mom: woah is he ok???

me: oh you thought he was dramatic before??? Just you wait

my mom: *offended gasp* don’t say that! He’s sick!

*several Zuko cutscenes later*

my mom: isnt this stupid guy‘s fever OVER YET???

--

*after Zuko wakes up in the morning and starts being nice to Iroh*

my mom: see why can’t you be more like that?

me, remembering how he’s going to betray everyone in a couple of episodes: you’ll see why

--

me, watching Toph beating the living shit out of some guards: she’s beating them with her tiny little hands 🥺

my mom: tiny little round hands 🥺💗

--

- my mom hated the ember island episode so much that she got up and started putting up our wallpaper while it was playing

- I don’t blame her I bet no adult can sit through an entire episode of melodramatic teenage angsting

--

my mom while watching Iroh give his nephew the silent treatment: ouch 😬

--

my mom seeing sparky sparky boom boom man: ITS S H I V A N

me: I know

my mom: why are they?? Taking our things???

--

My mom at some point during Zuko’s redemption arc: oh he’s just like a typical Hindi movie protagonist

--

- I started tearing up during the scene where he apologizes to Iroh while she just sits there and goes “pshhh i expected that”

--

- while Azula was cutting her hair during her mental breakdown she runs a hand through her diy quarantine haircut and goes “yeah that’s exactly what i did to my hair”

--

*during the very last scene*

my mom: *obnoxious fake kissing noises* close your eyes

me: aren’t I a little too old for that?

my mom:

*Katara and Aang continue smooching as I look away*

my mom: aren’t they done yet?

my mom:

my mom: why- why is it so intense?

[quazartranslates]

Welcome to the Nightmare Game II - CH29

**This is an edited machine translation. For more information, please [click here]**

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Chapter 29: Star Death Reality Show (XII) {cw: brief discussion of menstruation}

This conversation between guys didn't last long. After all, Qi Leren and Du Yue weren’t too familiar with each other, and they wouldn't be as casual as with Dr. Lu. It was almost two o'clock in the middle of the night. It was time for Qi Leren to watch the speaker.

The temperature difference between night and day was not much in the polar region, and the sunshine of the polar day fell on the tundra, quiet and serene. If it weren't for the danger stirring, that was spying on these poor lambs, Qi Leren probably wouldn't be as uneasy as he was now.

When he came to the outside of the church, Qi Leren saw Janet’s bright clothes at a glance. She was breathing on her hands. After a while, she pulled thick gloves on her hands: "This damn weather is really enough to freeze penguins."

—It's cold enough to freeze penguins. Someone had once described a polar environment to Qi Leren like this. When Janet’s words, he couldn’t help but think of that. Qi Leren showed a smile: "There are no penguins here, and we have temperature-control suits. We won’t freeze to death."

"Hey man, this is just an exaggerated metaphor. Can you have a sense of humor?" Janet rolled her eyes at him.

Dr. Lu and Alex came out of the church. Both of them were a little sleepy. They went back to rest after the handover with Janet. Janet walked into the church, sat down on the couch, and chatted with Qi Leren boredly: "You and Lara have a good relationship?"

"Not bad," Qi Leren said perfunctorily.

"Uh-huh, I guess you’re being condescending now," Janet said with a smile.

"You’re not a worm in my stomach." Qi Leren refused to admit it.

"Come on, I still have self-awareness. I never wanted to be likable." Janet shrugged her shoulders and said casually, "Let’s change the subject. What do you think about the disappearances these past few days?"

"...It's hard to say, but I don't think this is a ‘script’. The situation has been somewhat out of control." Qi Leren frowned. "I feel that it’s dangerous. A great danger..."

"Interesting. What kind of danger is it?" Janet asked curiously.

Qi Leren glanced at her. He wasn’t sure what this woman was thinking: "In many ways. Although intelligent life on this planet is extinct, there are still large animals alive, the vegetation is well preserved, the air quality and temperature conditions are suitable for survival, and it may be used as a colony planet or sightseeing planet in the future."

Janet was suddenly taken with him and followed along his topic: "I don't want to come to this hellhole again. Unless some discerning producer invites me to be the heroine and let Lara play the villain, then I may think about it, haha."

"You hate her that much?" Qi Leren was surprised. He thought Lara was easy to get along with.

"It’s the war between women, men wouldn’t understand." Janet spread her hands. "Anyway, I just hate the way she carries herself all the time. She acts like she’s the smartest, most powerful, most understanding in the world. It’s hypocritical, but you men eat this up."

Qi Leren declined to comment.

When Janet saw that he didn't speak, she curled her lips in boredom and found a place to sit down.

It was getting late into the night, Janet complained about the importance of beauty sleep, and absently dozed off. Qi Leren had had enough sleep during the day, so now he was very energetic and wandered around the church. This church should be quite old. If it wasn’t in the polar region, it would have been overwhelmed by lush vegetation and become a green ruin.

Looking out from the church window, Qi Leren could just see He Yi's house in the southwest. He suddenly remembered that He Yi had talked about something. On the first night, he saw...

What did he see? Did someone enter the church? If so, who did he see?

Unless He Yi reappeared, it was impossible for him to know.

This night was calm, Janet slept for a while and woke up after a while. At 7 o'clock, she finally got up. She tidied up her hair and complained: "I have never lived so rough in my life, and I have never desired to before!"

Qi Leren was about to speak when he saw Lara coming with Xue Jiahui from the window, so he asked, "How do you feel?"

Xue Jiahui looked at him in confusion and shook her head: "I still can't remember..."

"It's good that we’re returning to our parent star when the program is over. It should be only temporary," Lara consoled.

When the contestants came one after another, Lara pulled the Qi Leren aside when no one was paying attention and whispered, "When you searched for materials a few days ago, did you find anything like cotton and cloth?"

"Yes, I did. What do you want this for?" Qi Leren wondered.

"I don't want it, it’s Xue Jiahui. I saw that she discarded a cloth in the bathroom with blood on it. I think she probably encountered the same problem as Annie," Lara said.

Qi Leren: "..."

"Even I don't think it’s very good. You may not know this, but this physiological condition can be contagious," Lara said embarrassedly.

Qi Leren felt that, as a man, he didn't really want to know this kind of thing. He was a little concerned that Lara didn't tell others, but instead had taken him aside to borrow necessities. Did he look like a "best friend"?

Probably seeing Qi Leren’s depressed expression, Lara added: "I asked Francis to look after her for a while yesterday and went everywhere to borrow something, but unfortunately none of them had anything."

"Then how did you deal with it?" Qi Leren asked.

Lara gave a complicated look and said, "Xue Jiahui cut up her pillow... The pillowcase was used as a liner."

As the two people whispered, the contestants had already arrived one after another. This time, the atmosphere was more dignified than the previous two times. It even faintly appeared somewhat strange, because this time, what would be announced by the speaker was not the person who had won the Best of the Day, but the person who had knocked out Xue Jiahui and left her in the church. And this man was among them.

Time passed, and at eight o'clock the speaker started. The answer they eagerly wanted to know was given in a mechanical voice: "Now broadcasting the voting results. The winner of the Best of the Day is: Mark."

"Mark?"

"How can it be him?"

"Isn't he missing?"

"It turned out to be him?"

They were all whispering in amazement, but Qi Leren was not too surprised. It had seemed like Mark had gone missing at the beginning, but he wasn’t really missing, he was hiding somewhere... He quietly glanced out of the corner of his eye at Annie who was standing in the shadows, and she was expressionless.

……

……

……

The discussion was still inconclusive, so they had to split up again. Qi Leren was in a faint hurry. Today was the fourth day. If there was no breakthrough, even if he risked being seen through by the audience, he would identify the dangerous creature "amphioctopus", or risk being parasitized or injured. He would forcibly enter Annie's house.

Although Annie's own fighting capacity shouldn’t be strong, Qi Leren strongly suspected that she was already a puppet of the octopus, and he doesn't know anything about the octopus’ fighting capabilities. He didn't have the confidence that he could kill an octopus without using a skill card. Fortunately, after listening to the broadcast results, Annie returned to her house and then left the house again with the axe to go look for materials.

After waiting for the opportunity for such a long time, Qi Leren immediately climbed into Annie's house through the window, focusing on searching for the attic. This time, they had a clear goal and had good luck. In less than ten minutes, Dr. Lu found a dark panel on the second floor ceiling, from which an iron ladder could be pulled down after it was lifted.

Qi Leren looked at the dark attic above his head and was excited. His guess was right. Annie's house did have an attic! Mark and He Yi didn’t disappear, but hid in the attic!

After entering the attic, it was dark inside. Under the illumination of the flashlight, the desks, chairs, and bookshelves here all looked grim. Qi Leren noticed that the attic was also like a laboratory, just like the basement in Jing Siyu’s house.

Dr. Lu also came up, looked around to search, and soon felt that there was something wrong with the floor in the attic. Du Yue came up to help and lifted the floor. It turned out to be a straight, dark passage below, leading underground!

"So the structure is like this," Dr. Lu said, looking at this passage "It's not that there’s a trapdoor on the first floor that’s used to enter the basement, but there’s a passage through the attic, which isn’t connected with the first floor or the second floor, but goes straight to the basement. Um... For example, it’s like an enlarged version of a sewage pipe embedded in the wall."

"Why would they have such a design?" Du Yue asked curiously.

"God knows, I don’t have a clue. Oh, it’s also possible that the owner was a hikikomori and hated to see the sun. His scope of activities was the attic and the basement, so when building the house, he simply made such a passageway," Dr. Lu said.

Although he didn’t hear any movement, Qi Leren was a little worried that someone could be in the basement, so when he grabbed the metal cross section and climbed down the pipe’s ladder rung by rung, his heart beat fast and he was extremely nervous. But after reaching the bottom, he found everything was normal and the basement was empty.

"Wow, what is this? Was there an explosion?" Dr. Lu also climbed down and was surprised to see that there was a pile of messy rubble deep in the basement and a big hole punched out of the wall.

"Do you remember that when we were in Jing Siyu’s basement, there was the sound of an explosion outside? At that time, I thought it was the church or something had collapsed, but now it seems that... It happened here," Qi Leren said thoughtfully.

Du Yue also came over. He was more active. He simply rolled up his sleeves and moved the rocks. However, several huge rocks blocked the hole and couldn’t be removed without tools: "No, I can't move them. Can I explode it again?"

Qi Leren looked at the rocks on the ground that had obviously been manipulated but still blocked their way. He could imagine what Annie and Mark had been busy with these past few days… Hey, but where had Mark gone? They didn't see Mark go in or out of Annie's house all day yesterday. Maybe he was here the whole time, or maybe he was outside the whole time.

There came a squeak sound, the hatch that connected the attic to the basement was lifted. Qi Leren immediately turned off his flashlight, as did Dr. Lu.

Deng, deng, deng, the sound of shoes stepping on the metal rungs came, and Qi Leren felt like his hair was about to fall out. He looked in horror at the metal pipe with its iron ladder. Someone was coming down!

"Did we close the attic door when we entered the pipe?" Qi Leren lowered his voice and asked.

"It was closed, I was the last one, I closed it," Du Yue replied nervously.

"Okay, don't make any noise, stick to the wall, I’ll handle it." Qi Leren said after a pause, guessing that the other party didn't know they were in the basement.

After turning off the flashlights, only pure darkness remained in the basement, almost opaque. Qi Leren closed his eyes, stroked the palm of his right hand with his left hand, and silently counted the sound of the steps on the rungs as he readied himself.

He felt as if he had returned to the sea. The sea water was cold, and the pressure from all directions became stronger and stronger with his dive. He forced himself to slow down his heart, because at this time, panic would only make his oxygen consumption faster and make him closer to death.

Just as Qi Leren constantly adjusted his own state and brought himself closer to his peak level, that person had already reached the bottom. When they were about to step off it, the person fumbled in their trouser pocket and took out a flashlight...

The flashlight’s switch gave a click, and in a moment the light lit up the people hidden in the darkness. It was at this instant that Qi Leren shot out like lightning and kicked their calf! Kicked their face down to the ground!

"Ah!" A woman’s voice let out a painful cry and the flashlight fell to the ground. She wanted to look up and see who it was, but Qi Leren swung his hand down like a knife on the back of her neck! The strength was so great that she passed out instantly!

Looking at Annie, who had collapsed to the ground and passed out, Qi Leren breathed a long sigh of relief. He felt that he had returned to the surface from the bottom of the sea and felt renewed life thrum through him.

Thank you Chen Baiqi, thank you diving training, and thank you three-headed hellhound.

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