-*-*-*
Uncle suggested that we got to port inorder for me to get the avatar away from Zhoa. He knew what I was doing yet he did not care that I was purposely going to sabotage the Admiral's attempt to capture the avatar. I realize the true reason why he wanted us to dock.
I wasn't supposed to get the letter. There wasn't supposed to even be a letter, yet I did. My father had sent out a letter to every important person in the navy and the army. I was to be allowed into the area and then captured. I would be brought back to the mainland and publicly executed for my incompetence. They would create a bullshit law that I had broken and boom Azula would have the throne. Well, I am officially fucked. Now I see why Uncle was so eager to go shopping for some inane thing.
Well too bad for them I found the note. I am going to screw all of them over by going and helping the avatar under the disguise of a blue oni spirit.
I would have to take care of myself some time, might as well be now. I went to go and prepare for my journey. I knew where the avatar was going to be. He was going nowhere anytime soon. I waited until night so no one would know I had left and it would give me a couple of hours ahead of my Uncle and the men under Zhao's command.
I realize that as good of a firebender as I am I needed the advanced material. I walked toward Uncle's room in the attempt of borrowing the material. I reached his room and began to go everything in the attempt to gain all the scrolls relating to firebending. Gathering them all together I raced back to my room. Grabbing a backpack I went about gathering my double dao swords, a bow to hunt with, the knife Uncle gave me, extra clothing, and some cash to buy assorted items with. As soon as night fell I was going to make my way out of the boat when I saw a pirate begin to plant explosives.
It looks like they were going to try and get back at me when I dealt with them before. I slipped the dagger into him. He did struggle much and I dragged his body into my room. I laid him onto the bed. This should give me some cover from people thinking that Zuko is the blue oni. I went back to the explosives and began to drag some of the powder toward the exit. When I was at the exit, I threw a fireball at the powder. It began to crawl back toward the planted explosives. I was through the small port before the ship blew up in a great explosion sending shrapnel everywhere.
-*-*-*
The famed YuYu archers may able to split an arrow or pin a fly but they need a target, and I don't plan on giving them a target. They were a big gamble on my bet to see if I could get away from them. It would only heighten my disguise's prowess when I need to join the group.
It was only majorly annoying to try and find the correct schematics of the fortress while avoiding all the guards. Then to top it all off I can't take the schematics or someone might call the guards and that is the last thing I want to happen.
It appeared they were holding him on one of the top levels in the tower. Great as if the day wasn't bad enough, now I have to deal with rescuing the avatar and getting away without one of the archers making me into a lovely pin cushion. Taking a look around, I made my way to the tower and began to ascend the dizzying amount of stairs. I am going to kill who ever put this many stairs into the tower. There was going to be some guards protecting the avatar, so I grabbed some rope and some water in order to help me take out some of the guards.
I knew of commander Zhao, and the lack of intelligence the man possessed. He would expect a large army to try and take down the fortress, not a lone soldier with determination of an oni. I made my way up the stairs careful to not make too much noise and alert the guards. I had reached the level where they held the avatar. It amazes me how he can defeat me time and time again yet he face archers one time and he loses badly. It has got to be karma paying me back yet again.
I made a loud noise to lure one of the guards to inspect what is wrong. He saw me and began to rush me to burn me to a crisp. He was surprised when I cut his flame in half with one sword and found a new resting spot for the other sword. Unfortunately the new sheath would ruin the sword so I removed it from his chest and began to hang him up. Once he was above the ground, I jumped onto of his body and hid behind the corpse. Another two guards began to slowly make their approach. I had to wait till the time is right. They were almost at the corpse.
With a sword in one hand, I bent a small fireball to my right turning the corpse like it was a top. In a swift move, I was able to decapitate one of the soldiers while the other one had a little bit more time to react to my unorthodox move. He bent fire darts at me, and I jumped over his head. As I was falling I smashed my sword onto of his head. He fell to the ground and I decided that the last one did not need to die. Yet it would make the oni more appealing to the pathetic warrior of he were dead.
Forget the bucket, I would deal with him. I began to go around the turn and face the last firebender between me and the avatar. He was going to blow on a horn in order to alert more guards of what had happened. Quickly throwing a knife I eliminated the option. He threw a large fireball but I cut it in half and made a thrust for his neck. Apparently he had underestimated the distance between us and he was certainly paying for it now. I removed the sword from his throat and opened the door.
I saw the avatar hanging by two chains that were connected to a metal post. I ran toward him and cut off the chains. "What are you doing?"
I pointed to myself and then to the avatar. I quickly moved my pointer and middle finder so it looked like it was walking. He seemed to realize what I had meant by the hand gesture. He began to rotate his wrist and began to jog toward the door. He was a fast little bugger, must be because of his airbending skills. Luckily he did not see the bodies of his guards. The avatar would have been scared out of his mind if he had seen what it had taken to get him free and not raise the alarm.
We managed to get to the first wall when some stupid grunt found us trying to escape. He managed to scream out before I could silence him forever. This is the worst case scenario…well actually the worst case scenario is me without any weapons, firebending facing off against the YuYu archers but hopefully it won't come to it. We raced toward the two large doors hopefully we would get through before they closed. The guards began to converge around me because I was killing them while the avatar was merely knocking them out. He saw I was being swarmed by the guards and sent two large blasts of air that removed the guards away from me.
Luckily for the guards while he sent the air blasts, they were able to close the two doors. The avatar used his bow staff to lift me up to the wall. Once there I began to remove the vermin that plagued such a lovely wall. More guards were racing up the wall by using bamboo ladders to help stabilize while they ran up the wall. They were almost at the top when the avatar used air blasts to remove them. He collected a total of three of them and we would use them like poles to get to the next wall. We ran forward and jumped onto of the first ladder. When it was almost done, we used the next ladder to propel us to the next wall. Before he had a chance to use the next ladder, a guard kicked out the legs of the ladder and sent a large fireball to us. The avatar used his airbending skill to send us to the ground without breaking any bones. They began to form a total circle around us. Another bunch of guards formed a second line of spears behind them.
Seeing the wall of moving metal, I made a split decision to use the avatar to my advantage. I twisted around and caught his head between my blades. Seeing the guards begin to get worried, I used the avatar as a shield while walking toward the door. With my back against the massive door, I began to look for the commander. He had no other choice but to let us go.
He ordered for the doors to be open. He sent another command to get the best of the YuYu archers. I could barely make out the words for the command to get the archer. I began to take larger steps so the avatar would be forced to be moved faster and hopefully give us some time before the archer could line up a shot.
Eventually I was atleast 100 meters from the wall, when the archer shot the arrow. I dove to my right hopefully shielding the avatar with my body. I felt the arrow as it pierced the tip of my throat. Instinctively I let go of the swords and grabbed my throat. The avatar created a shield of air and began to take me to where his friends were. It was getting harder to stay focus and to not black out. God damn archers.
-*-*-*
The avatar had brought the masked person to the group. As soon as they saw Aang and the person he was carrying, they began to rush him and bombard him with questions. Looking at the wounded person Katara made a medical assessment that the person need to stitch up the throat otherwise he could die. Sokka went into their bags to get some potent alcohol to disinfect the wound. Katara began to take the pulse of the victim to see how long he would possibly survive.
His pulse was a stead rapid thumping. He was bleeding out. Sokka came back with two jugs of sake. He did not know how badly hurt this warrior was. Before Sokka was able to give one of the jugs to Katara, the sword wielding warrior reached out and grabbed one of them. He pulled the cork out with his other hand and began to drink one of the jugs. Katara tried to remove the jug out of his hand but he held her back until the entire jug was gone.
After the jug was gone, he relaxed and put up no resistance as Katara began to remove his clothing to get a better look at the wound. After the cloth around his neck was gone she tried to remove the mask, but he held her hand from pulling it off. The mask began to move side to side indicating that he did not want his mask to be removed. "You do realize that you might die because you refuse to take the mask off?"
His head shook up and down very slowly. There was nothing Katara could do about the mask so she would be required to work around the mask and any complications he might have because of it. He was only bleeding a bit. However what was really bad about the wound was that every time he breathed small bubbles would gurgle out.
Katara went through her bag searching for clean bandages. Katara dipped the bandages into the alcohol then placed them onto the wound. She compressed them as she took another clean bandage and used it to wrap around his neck to keep the bandage in place. She saw that she did not have the necessary equipment to deal with an injury like his. "Aang get one of the blankets and lay it right beside him, Sokka we are going to need to lift him up and get him onto Appa." They rolled him over and placed the blanket under the ninja. The three lifted the body and got him onto the saddle. Appa rose slowly so as to not hurt the patient and the gang headed to the nearest town.