Note: Written for Tyzula Advent Calendar 2015. Might be AU to Smoke and Shadows but definitely follows after The Search. This takes the what-if-Azula-got-a-new-face headcanon which I already previously used and had always wanted to go back to again.

My personal goal is to update this everyday but if schoolwork, my job and extracurricular activities would keep me from doing so, I would still finish this. I am taking a risk and gladly doing so.

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A New Way to Remember

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"Forgiving does not erase the bitter past. A healed memory is not a deleted memory. Instead forgiving what we cannot forget creates a new way to remember. We change the memory of our past into a hope for our future."

-Lewis B. Smedes

Part One

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001 Sweet Sugar Cakes

The girl wakes up with no past. She wakes up with the present a mystery. She wakes up unsure if she even has a future.

"Hey, you're awake!" A voice. Something wet on her forehead. Dark haired, amber-eyed figure with a cocked brow. Painted lips. She is familiar, she thinks. But the thought is gone before she could articulate it. She tries to place a name. She finds none.

Mumble. She thinks it comes from her mouth but she does not recognize it. The voice too squeaky. The voice too uncultured. She moves her fingers, her too brown limbs—none of which feels like her own. She cracks her lips open once more. No words come out. She does not know what to say.

Likes waves crashing on the sand…

Nothing.

… gives you a clean slate.

Who am I?

"Are you okay?"

….

Kazumi's life starts at sixteen, in a world torn in a civil war, where a reputed idiot sits on the throne and a worse idiot tries to take over. Kazumi's life starts when the girl who called herself Riko asks for a name and it is somehow easy for her to make it up, along with stories of nonexistent childhood when she learned the skills for combat so that the girl would no longer ask questions on how she could beat grown men with one arm. Kazumi becomes a bandit to live and survive, stealing from misers and the corrupt, taking from the rich the money that the poor earned. Kazumi becomes a reluctant hero to impoverished peasants, one of the masked nice young women who left bread for the hungry. Riko joins enthusiastically because her mother died when she was young too, killed by a world war that Kazumi does not even remember.

Sakura joins much later and in every moment that she brushes her own adversaries off with the nonchalance that is contrast of Riko's exuberance and Kazumi's thrill, there is a dull pain that throbs in Kazumi's heart that she pushes down, that she swallows. A longing for something that she is not sure she understands.

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"You gave her more than usual." The girl that the village of Hanabi knows as Kazumi remarks, eyebrows raised in surprise. Sakura shrugs, as cold and beautiful as her namesake. They sit with their earnings laid on the wooden table, a score they got with the lucky chance of incompetent bodyguards and their coward of a charge. Riko has gone to town to leave their tokens to the less fortunate. Not signed, because the exuberant girl decided for the fun of incognito.

"You must have noticed that her breathing has gone worse." The newer addition to their team explains, fingers drumming. She stares after where the old woman who just exited, mouth set into a thin line. "Staying here would not be good for her. Keeping her fed is the least I can do."

The coal factory. The fumes it releases. And more importantly, the guards that stand by the high gates of the city. Because apparently, they say they work for the Fire Lord, a man driven to improve industry, at the expense of lives. Riko tells stories of how Caldera is flourished and wealthy, how its citizens must have been the most beautiful people in the world. Kazumi does not know. She does not really know much.

But this Fire Lord must have been an idiot then, if he could sacrifice the health of his constituents for extravagant living. Old Sae is the latest of his victims, the old woman who once took them in when it was snowing and Riko and her were weak and hungry. Who rescued Sakura from a life that would have forced her to her knees to please lecherous, old, men. "Your mother died like that too, didn't she?"

A cool nod is her only answer and there is an uncomfortable silence until Riko comes in with a gust of cold air and suppressed excitement- an announcement that someone is looking for them.

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"The plan. We must go with the plan."

Caldera. The city of dreams. It is better than the product of Riko's overactive imagination, more deceiving than the one that is subject to Sakura's contempt. In here stands the Fire Nation Palace, the place where the Fire Lord that made them slaves to their own town resides. It looms tall and menacing over the metropolis. Something in Kazumi flutters when she stares. She thinks it is appreciation, excitement. She thinks it is wonder, the suspense of being in the most guarded place in their nation.

What is wrong with that child?

"Not bad." Sakura murmurs beside her. It takes a lot to impress her. "Not bad at all."

Of course...

I'm the Princess.

"Don't forget the plan." Kazumi reminds them, nodding. She looks at her two companions and for a moment, there seems to be two people she never saw before in their place. Braids. Buns. But they vanish like everything else seems to do. "Old Sae needs to stay in that hospital until she is well, right?"

…

The Fire Lord's bodyguards are far from incompetent.

Green robes, painted faces. Of course, she knows they would be there. That is part of the plan. But she did not foresee that they would have quite a fight in their hands. The objective has been accomplished. All they need to do is hand the item their employer wants—

"Wow. Kazumi. They sure are as good as we were warned!"

-and fulfill their part of the deal when he promised to ensure Old Sae's medication.

They are fast, she thinks as she leaps through barrels and pushcarts. A step behind, Sakura and Riko follow. She nods once. Both answer with a crane of their head. Wordless communication. They have stolen so much loot together, it is almost unnecessary. The plan. Don't forget the plan.

Riko leaps to the right. Sakura turns to the left. From the corner of her eye, she sees her pursuers split up as the faster one that tumbles and cartwheels while running, tails after her. The leader. She knows one when she can see one. Impressive too. But... Let's see how good you guys are. She draws a penknife, turns the blade.

She slips through a narrow walkway, jumping through the windowsills and landing on a flat roof. In full speed, she sprints over the houses, one eye watching as the enforcer slowly vanishes from her sight. Smirking, she slowed slightly and…

"Gotcha." A high-pitched voice chirps from above and she is down.

Three quick jabs on her back. Braided brown hair and a rather guilty-looking petite girl her age towering over her fallen form. The gravel against her face hurts as she glares at the pensive, pale face. A scene briefly flashes in her mind, anger a predominant emotion. And then like everything that confuses her, it is gone.

"It's over." The green-garbed monkey calls, sitting before her. Forcefully she turns Kazumi's head on the other side, all the while her mouth split into that annoying grin. In cuffs are Riko and Sakura with two other clowns dragging them forward, looking regretful.

The plan.

Don't forget the plan.

She is searched, humiliated by girls with fans and makeup. "Here it is!" the girl in braids, apparently indeed the leader for some inexplicable reason, proclaims. Triumphant. And the trade banking scroll they almost bagged away is back on the hands of stupid Capital people. "You're good." The girl comments, running her hand on Kazumi's chin. The bandit does not flinch. She could not. Chi-blocking. She does not know how she knows.

"But we're better. Oh, my bad. I haven't introduced ourselves. We are the Kyoushi Warriors and we don't really appreciate crime in our neighbourhood, if you get what I mean." She finishes and then looks at her cohorts, all of which look like her. Matched set. She wonders how they could bear it, being akin to having no name. "Take them to the Capital Prison. I have something planned for them."

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"Recreation program?"

"Yes. That is the plan, ladies."

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"Hey there, you're awake."

Hey there, sweet sugar cakes.

Kazumi is not chained, to her surprise. But prison looks very much like the way she imagined it would be—brick walls and bars. A torch on the side. A bed that is nailed to the floor. As expected too, she is kept away from her accomplices, left staring at the Kyoushi Warrior that actually looks kind of normal without the face paint.

Pretty too. Just ignore the stupid, exultant smile.

"My name is Ty Lee. I am second in command of Kyoushi Warriors, a joint faction that spans both Earth Kingdom and the Fire Nation. But I head Fire Nation's Security Team. Been doing it for a couple of years, since Zuko took command."

Zuko.

The Fire Lord.

"What's your name?"

Stare. The plan.

"Not very talkative, aren't we?"

Tight lip. Don't forget the plan.

"I can offer you a deal."

"I'm listening." She finally says.

Ty Lee smiles. "I saw how you did back there. You were good. Very good. In fact, I was impressed."

Unperturbed. The plan. Never forget the plan.

"I am thinking of recruiting you to our group. The security group. That kind of stealth is what we are looking for. You just need some training, some polishing. We need your skills, you see, especially at these rough times. The past couple of years have been pretty hard on us Fire Nationals, hasn't it?"

You have no idea. "Why are you offering me this?"

"It's part of Fire Lord Zuko's administration. The Recreation Program. Everyone is of course capable of great good and evil. I don't know your story. I only saw what you did there. But everyone deserves a shot of redemption, right?" There is an inexplicable note of sadness that crosses Ty Lee's eyes. Redemption. Hah! Kazumi frowns.

"How do you know you should trust me?"

"I don't." The famous, overused line. "I just do."

Kazumi waits for the right moment for the comfortable quietude to settle in. She pretends to think. She pretends to mull over her own distrust.

Then she says, all according to plan: "Kazumi." She sighs. "The name is Kazumi."

Ty Lee's smile is bright and sickeningly sweet. Kazumi wants to puke. "Nice to meet you."

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"Sweet sugar cakes?" Sakura scoffs. She looks odd in green, almost ridiculous while Riko blended right into it. Thankfully, they were recruited into the division where they don't have to dip their faces into paint. The backup squad that would work in the shadows.

"Seriously?" Her stoic friend is still regarding the white confection with suspicion. Beside her, Ty Lee who insisted on being with them in their initiation party, giggles.

"It is an all time favourite." She says. Her eyes turn back to Kazumi, for what she notices as the tenth time of the night. "You should try it too Kazumi."

"Hn." She raises her eyebrow at Riko.

The girl shrugs. "You know I am not really fan of sweets." She dips her hands to her plate of fried shrimps once more. Seafood was a rarity back in Hanabi.

"Try it!" Ty Lee implores. "It's an order." The commander assumes mock authority when she hesitated.

She puts it in her lips. Chew. Taste.

"Not bad." She says. And Ty Lee beams. For some reason, this makes Kasumi uneasy. "Not bad at all."

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(TBC)

Alright, if it is not already obvious why Azula is tagged as a main character: feel free to sue me. Otherwise, yes, endgame is TyZula. Anyway, enjoy and see you guys soon (hopefully tomorrow).