The Wrath of the Dishonored
1
The thousand injuries of Ozai I have born best I could. Murder, subversion, dishonor, and regicide are among his many crimes, crimes that, unfortunately, shall never be punished. Nothing the Fire-lord does is ever punished! Well, that's about to change. It will change because it must change. And if it does not change then there is only one explanation. Failure.
Final entry in Kochi's journal
The boy moaned quietly and stirred from his place, upon a bed of rubbish in the east district of Ozai. Of course, the name "Ozai" would only pertain to this city until the death of the current Fire-lord, and this might be more imminent than anyone suspected. How? No one knew, except for the one who did.
The boy wore only minimal clothes, for the constant tropical atmosphere of the archipelago meant that it was not necessary to wear more. As he stood, not rubbing sleep from his eyes with grimy hands, but instead blinking multiple times, he made very sure that he was alone. There was no one else in the back room of the teashop, no one but him and the pile of rubbish. The sun shone brightly through the open roof, (it was much more annoying when it rained) but also revealed that it was quite barely dawn. No one would be out and about, because no one drank tea in the morning. So he stripped off the rags that wrapped around his body, stinking more than the rubbish heap, and tossed them atop said heap.
The boy- perhaps it would be more accurate to say teenager, or adolescent, being as he was approximately thirteen years of age- Scrunched his eyes closed, carefully breathed three deep breaths, raised his hands in front of his face, and proceeded to light his body on fire. The fire glowed bright, not burning him or his hair, but managing to destroy all of the filth slowly but surely. He held this pose for about a minute, until his skin was once more white instead of a filthy gray-brown color, and then let his hand fall to his side and the pyric aura fade completely. He did not need to indulge in showers, because he could not afford it with his small amount of money he earned from the teashop, so he was forced to burn off any filth that found its way onto his body. Sleeping on a heap of scraps offered plenty of muck.
Now that the muck and fire were both gone, the adolescent fire-bender opened his eyes and proceeded to don his uniform, the only real clothes he had. Well, with him at least. The red cloth with the telltale logo of a smoky dragon was mostly covered with a white apron that had the same logo in the right hand corner. It was too large for him, with his 135-centimeter frame and, not emaciated, but extremely thin body. The clothes were passed down from the person of closest size to him in the recent past, but he didn't care. Worn clothes served astoundingly well to mask his identity, despite the fact that his searchers knew he was not in the same attire in which he had left. His clothes were probably being sobbed over by his maternal grandmother at this moment. Assuming she was awake, of course, which she probably wasn't.
Once he was done with tying the apron strings a couple times behind him, he walked into the main building and grabbed a rag. The merchant who owned the shop was kind enough to let him live there as long as he kept working as a tea-chef. Cleaning the counters normally made the man start the day in a better mood.
Once the tea counter was spotless, or at least not sticky, the adolescent reached into the pocked of his uniform and made sure that the few copper coins were still there before leaving to find breakfast. There was a small produce mart across the square, and he went there to buy a small piece of fruit. He fished out one of the copper pieces and bought a small citrus fruit, much like a peach or apricot, before turning and finding himself face to face with none other than Joshu himself. His tutor, from before he had left. All color drained from the boy's face, and he knew that if he didn't hide or run now, he would be forced back to his life of uselessness and confinement, only even more so. Therefore, he did the only thing it was sane to do. He threw the fruit in the man's face, and ran round him.
The fruit was ripe, and splattered all over Joshu's face. He cursed, but before he had time to wipe the fruit from his eyes, the youth was back in the teashop. His sandals slipped on the slippery floor, and sent him to the ground with a thud, at the feet of his boss, Ti-cha. He scrambled to his feet and glanced over his shoulder. "I don't have any time to explain, bye!" he said quickly, and attempted to run around the tea merchant. Unfortunately, the merchant grabbed him by his apron strings, and kept him from running.
"Not now you aren't. I won't have thieves living under my roof or working here. So you'd better return whatever you took, or I'll be forced to turn you out on-"
The boy's voice, cracking from emotion and his stage of life, interrupted the man's words. "I didn't steal anything, it's this person I-" he quickly silenced himself, as the bamboo and paper door opened. It was Joshu.
"Kochi, what are you doing. You have the entire household in an uproar, and you really- Hey, come back here!"
This final outburst came about because of the boy, Kochi, reaching back and pinching the apron string that tied the entire cloth piece of clothing to his body. A small spark of flame leapt from his fingers to the apron, and burned a small hole in the rope, meaning that it was no longer bound to the apron. This all occurred during the first sentence and a half. The outburst really started when he continued running, leaving the apron in the stunned teashop owner's hand.
Joshu attempted to run after him, following the boy through the door to the back room, and then through another door into a shadowy alleyway. The older man pursued after the pattering of footsteps, but Kochi was much faster in a place were size was an issue for Joshu and not him. When he finally burst out onto the dawn-lit street, Kochi felt he was approximately two minutes ahead of his ex-tutor. The good news was that no one but the tutor knew where he was, and a single person could be eluded.
Kochi slowed to a walk once he was out of the empty street, so as not to attract unwelcome attention. The people in this district had hardly ever seen him before, so he ought to blend in as a messenger or apprentice of sorts, though the dragon inscribed on his chest probably should be eliminated as soon as possible. It was surprising, now that he thought about it, that Joshu would be in this lower district, which was home to the middle class for the most part. The tutor probably was looking for him, possibly because the search had not located him away from the city. His subversion of the unexpected was no longer working, as soon as the tutor returned to Kochi's legal guardians.
The young fire-bender finally made his way to the city gate, which was, apparently, unmanned, and east facing, to throw the inner side of the wall and gate into partial shadow. This served the runaway well, and he would likely not have any trouble getting over the wall. The wall's bricks were rough, and offered plenty of handholds to the agile fire-bender.
Once he was three-quarters of the way to the top of the wall, he became aware of a rattle of distant footsteps. There was a soldier coming along the wall, there was not much time to spare, so Kochi quickened his ascent. Unfortunately, his crimson clothes caught on the jagged edge of a stone, and tore them jaggedly. His copper coins spilled from the gap, and fell to the ground, six meters below, with a rain of tinkling music, a requiem to his ears. He needed that money to be able to survive anywhere civilized, but he could not retrieve it and still escape his pursuer and the soldier, who was coming steadily closer. So he continued up the wall, and, once he reached the top, the soldier was about ten meters away. He apparently saw the adolescent, for he charged forward.
Kochi saw that there was no way he could descend the wall the same way he ascended, so he ran to the gate, which was iron and extended to the top of the rampart. He grabbed the nearest solid bar link and swung so that his hands and feet were about the bar, but the rest of his body was away from it. The crossbars were on the inside, luckily, so he only had to release the bar for a millisecond for each. His hands grew warm, and he could tell that his sandals were wearing from the friction, but he managed to reach the bottom quickly. The soldier glared at him from the wall, but his metal armor and gauntlets rendered him quite helpless.
The boy, now that he was on an open road, burst into full speed, trying to put as much distance between him and the wall and pursuit. He did not stop until he reached a grove of trees, where he stopped, panting, gasping for breath beyond the eyes from the wall. Once he had done so, he touched the logo upon his chest and scorched it off quickly. This added to the general raggedness of his attire, and probably just made him seem like too young of a wanderer, nothing more.
Now that the adrenaline and excitement had faded, he realized he was ravenously hungry. There was no food about, he was too tired to make his way to the nearest town other than the capital, and the woods looked rather empty. They were the type of small groves that were inhabited, because of nearby human habitation and isolation from larger forests, by only birds, rodents, insects and other assorted small beings, useless to fill his belly. He needed to rest, he knew, because he was overheated and exhausted. So he climbed into a nearby tree, and quickly fell asleep.