Assassin's Creed Republic
Chapter 1 – The Red Spirit
Disclaimer: I own nothing
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Caldera City was abuzz with celebration. Being the capital of the Fire Nation Capitol, most residents owners were noblemen who would normally be celebrating in the Royal Palace, but this was a special occasion.
The dark figure perching on top of the roof of the pagoda-styled dwelling belonging to the House of Lang remarked to himself that this was probably the first ever in the history of Fire Nation that nobilities and the lowborn that served them mingled together in jubilation. He was up on the tip of the pagoda, eight storey above ground, but his sharp amber eyes caught the sight of the youngest daughter of the House of Ty making out with a footman right there in the middle of the street. The figure chuckled to himself, thanking Agni that Kuzon, the footman, served the House of Lu. It would've been very awkward came morning, when life returned to normal, had he been a servant to the Tys.
The figure leaned back on the protruding tip of the pagoda, easing into a sitting/crouching position. He looked up to the sky, marred with colors and fires of numerous fireworks, set off from the Palace, judging from the angle. He smiled under his dark hood, almost fooling himself into thinking that the peace the people below were celebrating were anything but an illusion it really was. Peace, finally, with the Earth Kingdom.
What a load of bullcrap!
Out of habit, the figure began tugging on his armor – thick leather vest with cleverly camouflaged hidden holster for throwing knives, segmented pauldron over his left shoulder, his belt where more knives and a dagger were hidden, and his hood pulled low on his head. The last thing he checked, as always, was the mechanism fitted to his left bracer; the hidden blade, quintessential for any Assassin.
The red mask of oni he put on, that was not.
The Red Spirit, nimble as a lynx, leaped down the multi tiered roofs of the pagoda, and touched down on the front lawn of the Lang residence. Many noble houses refrained from the city-wide jubilation, despite the fact that the Royal Family had joined in and was at the center of the celebration at the town square, guarded heavily as they enjoyed the festivities from an impromptu viewing box. House of Lang, thankfully, was a young house of nobility and they were quite flexible and not as stuck-up as other older names. The whole family were out on the street, their five young kids were dancing and screaming like banshees while General Lang and his wife watched, laughing, surrounded by the their household staff.
Which was good for the Red Spirit. Their dwelling was empty, save for the horses on the stable.
Soundlessly, he ran up the wall that surrounded the mansion and landed on the back of the dwelling, seamlessly blending with the revelry. Masks were not common at the celebration, but not too uncommon. The young highborns wore domino masks, probably from last month's Autumn Moon Festival, a little bit of protection for their dignities and identities as they mingled with the peasants, perhaps.
None wore full-face mask like him, or hood like him, but no matter. The Assassins had long learned to harness the anonymity afforded to them by the crowd. The best of them could wear a full armor and carry weapons in the open and still blend well into the morning market. The fact is, people are like sheep. They respond to the mundane and the bland, and anything that isn't those would, surprisingly, be ignored by most (unless it was simply too much). So, a little shift here, a little nudge there, and invisibility wasn't too difficult a task when a fully-trained Assassin slipped into the crowd.
Sure, the Red Spirit garnered some curious stare every now and then, but none lasted for more than two seconds. He simply needed to disappeared quickly and he would be nothing but a trick of the light.
A true scare came when a noble lady from the House of Zhang bumped into him. Before he could slipped away, the giggling lady blushed under her domino mask – the Red Spirit smelt alcohol in her breath – and she giggled again. Then, she grabbed him, pushed his mask up a little, and planted a big wet one right on his smackers.
It would have been nice, cause the last time the Red Spirit kissed anyone was… so long ago he couldn't even remember. But Zanna was a sloppy kisser and she was drunk (and tasted like it), and they were never that close to begin with. No, siree! The ever gentlemanly Prince Lu Ten, against his better nature, had even resorted to declaring Zanna, of the House of Zhang, some rather unsavory thing during last year's Winter's Ball, mere days after their engagement were called off. Sure, he had been drunk then, but he stood by what he'd said; what little he remembered of it anyway. The slap the young lady had awarded him for such comment, he thought had been a little unfair. Especially since things sort of turned out well in the end; Zanna had been promptly betrothed to another noble son and Prince Lu Ten became a pariah among the eligible women of the Nation.
In any case, the Red Spirit, fumbling with his mask, pushed the young lady away. Before any recognition could form in the addled mind of the girl, he quickly slipped away. Now wisely choosing the less trodden alley, he moved faster, silently cursing himself for getting all flustered.
And he ran smack onto the back of a big giant of a man.
The man turned around, hooded like him, with a mask covering the lower part of his face. A head taller, a little wider, and looked a lot meaner. Unlike the Red Spirit, this one was an enemy; the pin that secured his hooded cloak was a giveaway, bearing the symbol of the cross.
When fighting a bigger stronger opponent, said the Mentor once, each strike must count and be aimed at vital points. Only a fool would hit on the jaw, chest, or the gut. The Red Spirit, with a knife-hand form, struck on the man's thick neck, right on the neck bump. Chocking, the big man suffered a kick on the crotch. When he bent down, grunting, having the worst day of his life, he suffered an elbow strike on the back of the head that mercifully knocked him out.
The Red Spirit exhaled and straightened his vest unnecessarily.
A session of pat down of the downed enemy agent yielded nothing of interest. A pouch full of coins, to make it look like a simple robbery, sure, but nothing substantial; it only had like six silver pieces anyway. And a cheap dime-a-dozen dagger fitted on the man's belt, the Red Spirit took the whole belt. And his boots. Prince Lu Ten happened to know how piranha-like the street scavengers could be, even here in the Caldera (being an exclusive residential area, the scavengers in the Caldera were the underpaid servants of the noble houses who happened to be out on the street at the right time; this particular time, the potential suspects were endless).
He tossed the boots over the tall wall on his side, trusting the residence to have underpaid servants who wouldn't question their good luck, and resumed his stalking, donning on his new belt.
The crowd on the street was easy enough to blend into and, being in the Caldera, the alleys were empty save for young men and women stealing some moments for themselves. No thugs, which was a small blessing. In five minutes, he found himself lifting up on the top of the constable office, a four-tiered eight-sided pagoda, one of the several buildings framing the square.
He'd wisely chosen to climb the outer side. Perching on the sides facing the square were Imperial Archers, keeping watch over the Royal Family. He counted three on each level of roof.
He took his time to study each group. Alternate stance of one crouching and two standing, or one standing and two crouching. The ones who stood all carried longbows and the ones who crouched had either crossbows or short bows. That was a legit enough sign that those were real Imperial Archers, and not imposters, though the Templars, as resourceful as they were, surely had agents within the Imperial Army.
He did another slow search, looking for any sign – an awkward fidget, a twitch in their bow-drawing hand – and found nothing too alarming. One or two stood out, but they were solitary figures accompanied by steady Imperial Archers. It was not Templar's style to send solo agent; they always had backup muscles and they did not take the risk of being outnumbered.
Satisfied, the Red Spirit climbed down and mingled with the crowd below. He took off the lower part of his detachable mask, keeping the upper part on, and mingled into the square. The large stage where artists performed everyday now housed lively dance performance by the Royal Fire Academy of Art. Fire Lord Azulon and Fire Lady Illah took center spot on the viewing box. On their left, sat Fire Prince Ozai and his family - Lady Ursa, Prince Zuko, and Princess Azula. Lu Ten tried not to smirk when he noticed that Zuko was barely able to contain his excitement and Azula looked thoroughly bored. They were young, after all; Zuko was just about to turn ten.
A shift. The Red Spirit glanced and saw one man in mask not cheering like the rest (even he cheered when the crowd did, which was basic blending technique; this was why the Assassins always beat the Templars when it comes to stealth and subterfuge!). The man was of average enough built that he could easily be mistaken for just another nobleman that he was trying to impersonate – or that he really was since when it comes to Templar agents, you would never know. Red flowing robes with wide sleeves that could be hiding any number of weapons, mask that bore resemblance to a monkey, clean-shaven chin, he really could be anyone. The Red Spirit couldn't even begin to guess from which house this nobleman was supposed to hail.
Still channeling his inner cheering peasant, the Red Spirit inched slowly, very slowly, close to the man. Positioning himself behind the man, he glanced around every now and then, watching out for more enemies, while keeping an eye on the man's lower back and two hands – target and potential danger.
Up on the stage, the Academy's Castrati Choir were wailing a long-drawn tune that marked the end of any Fire Nation folksong, and the dancers formed a circle, looking ready to wrap up their performance. The Red Spirit now focused solely on the back of the man.
True enough, as the performers finished and bowed, the crowd delivered their standing ovation, the nobleman pulled a bamboo tube out of his sleeve. The Red Spirit, thinking the worst, stepped into action. He grabbed the man's left hand, the one that was holding the tube, with his left hand, as if bracing him, while his right hand found the man's side with his hidden blade engaged. A stab to the kidney, enough to shock, enough to bypass pain into numbness, usually not enough to drop the victim.
The man gasped wetly. The Red Spirit grabbed the tube, slipped it inside a pouch on his belt, and, playing a kind bystander, helped guide the nobleman out of the crowd, apologizing to anyone who turned their way that his 'friend' was suddenly feeling faint due to the excitement.
The nobleman's steps grew heavier with each second but the Red Spirit managed to maneuver him out of the square to a nearby empty alley without a hitch. No one would be looking at the trail of blood the nobleman left and thank Agni for Fire Nation's preference for red fabric that hid blood rather well.
Laying down the nobleman, the Red Spirit grabbed the man's collar and pulled him up closer he could feel his dying breath on his face. "You are dying", he whispered. "If you can speak, do so now while you still can. Tell me all you know so you may face Agni with some dignity."
The man, already pale, chocked. And he stilled.
The Red Spirit eased him down and sighed. Closing the man's dead eyes, he whispered. "Follow the Light of Agni and be at peace."
A pat down yielded nothing substantial. A money pouch that he claimed, a Templar ring signifying that the nobleman was a ranked member, and a peek under the mask did not give much. Putting the mask back on, the Red Spirit took out the tube he had claimed earlier.
It was a double segmented bamboo with obvious partition in the middle, a common enough contraption any two-bits craftsmen could make. Usually employed as letter carrier, it had other uses as well; scholars used them to hold penbrush and other stationary, apothecaries used them as containers for cream, salve, or powder. The military though…
The military filled one tube with blasting jelly, fixed with a fuse, and the other held the rest of the fuse between two spark rocks that were fixed inside so that, when pulled, the spark rocks would light the fuse. A portable bomb.
Carefully, the Red Spirit pulled the two segments apart and, as he had suspected, a lit fuse greeted him. Calmly, he pinched the sparked fuse before things got too excited. He quickly dismantled the contraption and found that he was only half right. It was meant to go boom, but it was not a bomb. It was a flare.
Meaning this man had been about to signal his associates.
Meaning the danger had not passed yet.
Blending back into the crowd, the Red Spirit returned to his earlier task of smoking out Templar agents. His mind, in the meantime, analyzed the plan.
The Assassins had received a reliable tip that the Templars were planning something at the celebration of peace treaty tonight, only they didn't know what exactly. Naturally, everyone suspected an assassination attempt on the Royal Family. Not only were they high value target, they were also exceedingly difficult to get. Fire Lord Azulon held court that was open to the nobles only. Fire Lady Illah confined herself to her quarters, a model Fire Nation noblewoman that she was. Lady Ursa and her children occupied their own quarters. None of them ever stepped foot outside the Palace and the paranoid Fire Lord always made sure they were shadowed by the Royal Processions.
Crown Prince Iroh was the Grand General of the Army and was still in the Earth Kingdom, wrapping up the treaty, surrounded by his loyal men and women; so, quite impossible to reach. And Fire Prince Lu Ten? Technically, he was recuperating in his quarters from a wound sustained at the Battle for the Wall, in which General Iroh had finally broken through the mighty Wall of Ba Sing Se.
It had been horrendous. That was where they'd received the information about the Templar's plan. Prince Iroh, Mentor to the Fire Nation Assassins, in his infinite wisdom, had decided to send Lu Ten, Master Assassin and his own son, back to Fire Nation. The story was Lu Ten had been injured quite badly. The horrendous part was that while they had faked the story, they didn't fake the injury. Prince Iroh had reassured Lu Ten that it would be safe, but a knife to the gut is still a knife to the gut. It had hurt.
Now, throwing his hands up in the air as he cheered, Prince Lu Ten racked his brain as he assessed the potential plan. The entire Royal Family – a significant part of it, at least – was out in the open. They were prime target, definitely. They were surrounded by Royal Processions, Fire Nations finest warriors, and Imperial Archers ringed the square. Whatever they planned, whoever were supposed to carry it out, they were not getting out of this alive.
The Templar Lu Ten had neutralized was supposed to give signal only, which was obvious since he had not even been armed. Lu Ten looked around, calculating in his mind; if the flare had gone up, who would have seen it amidst the excitement and the fireworks? Well, many people… too many to consider.
So, focus back on the (potential) targets. The Royal Family were there, well-guarded. Spread on their right and left were the nobles, the males on the right and the females on the left; Fire Nation might not be as much of a stickler to tradition as the Earth Kingdom or Water Tribe, but when the Fire Lord was on scene, the rules were observed to the letters.
The Red Spirit considered the high nobles for a moment; maybe they were the target. But, no. The nobles were seated on rows of chairs, spaced enough to allow each to have a couple of personal bodyguards to stand behind them. It would be easy for Zhao, Naval Commander and Grand Master of the Templar, to stage an assassination of any nobleman right there and then using his bodyguards; he could definitely take a hit himself in the process and then just denied all knowledge of it. Simple.
And had been done before by Admiral Chan, another Templar, who had gotten away with it. The low ranking fanatic was a soldier under his command, and though not so much, but he had died doing what he believed in so he must have died happy. Hanged to death after a hundred lashes, but happy.
In the viewing box, the commanders of the Royal Processions and the Rose Guards – Fire Lady Illah's personal all-female army – accompanied the royals, armed and armored, and scanning the crowd and surrounding for any sign of dangers. They made a formidable layer of protection, sure, but a crossbow or portable bomb from where Zhao sat would have reached the Fire Lord easily.
It simply didn't make sense. The more the Red Spirit thought about it, the less clear the Templar's objectives became.
Them targeting the Royal Family had been a conjecture. But, if the Royal Family were not the target, then who was?
The signal was supposed to be lit up here, from the crowd, seen by pretty much the entire gathering here. And then… what?
The nobles? Even if Zhao were to pull 'my-armed-bodyguard-went-berserk-and-I-have-knothing-to-do-with-it' maneuver, whoever his target was also had bodyguards with them and the Red Spirit was sure that Zhao had taken into consideration that they would cut him down in retaliation before he could deny any involvement.
The crowd? Those living in Caldera were either members of the noble houses and those serving them. The celebrating crowd were either servants or younger members of the nobilities who were not worthy enough to sit so close to the Fire Lord. It was hard to consider them as targets, unless the Templar's aim was to cause panic. But, if so, why the flare? A bomb would do the trick. Unless the dead nobleman had been spineless enough to sacrifice his life for the cause.
Scanning the crowd once more, the Red Spirit looked for different targets. This time, he found them easier: there was the butler from the House of Wu, the servant girl from the House of Li, the two footmen who served the House of Lu. The Red Spirit stopped once he spotted the middle daughter of the Tys. If Young Lady Ty and the Wu butler were here, they would be sure to bring their teams; that alone meant that at least a dozen Assassins were here among the crowd. If the flare had meant to signal a physical assault, there would be casualties, sure, but, even if the soldiers were incapacitated or occupied, the people would not be undefended for long.
And so, he left.
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The celebration was still going strong in the city. The Royal Family, for the first time in decades, had left the Royal Palace to join the citizens (the upper class, but still) in celebrating peace after decades of war with the Earth Kingdom. They might call it a treaty, but, for all intents and purposes, it was a subjugation.
The Wall of Ba Sing Se had been breached. The Earth King, a naïve young boy-man whose compassion outweighed his negligible political savvy, had called for truce almost immediately and signed the treaty almost without checking the terms. History would record that the Earth King had been lucky it was Crown Prince Iroh, a shrewd but reasonable compassionate politician, he had been in dealing with. Any other Fire Nation war commanders would've called for total subjugation.
Prince Iroh let the Earth Kingdom save some face and not a small amount of dignity. The details of the treaty had not yet been made public knowledge, but the story of how Prince Lu Ten led the assault on the Wall and was vital to its defeat had spread like wildfire. The young Prince had come home to a fanfare and the Fire Lord himself had led the procession to accept his arrival at the Royal Plaza. Much tears were shed among the females, which culminating in Fire Lady Illah taking over the processions with her Rose Guards and Lu Ten, while fit enough to walk, confined to an armored palanquin and escorted back to the Palace by a contingent of the deadliest female warriors.
Not that he was complaining.
Upon his return, his injuries had gotten worse that he couldn't join the festivities in the streets; a story further corroborated by the Palace Physician, a woman of great medical talent and an ally to the Assassins.
In any case, there was no mistaking Lu Ten's heroic reputation now. There had been talk that, now that the war had virtually ended, Prince Iroh would retire and focus more on politics. There were rumors about the senior General Lu or the rising General Jiang being considered as his replacement as the Grand General of the Army. Lu Ten, who obviously was due for at least a promotion, would also be put in a very high place in the army.
The Templars who fared in politics would face Iroh soon and Lu Ten would eventually become Iroh's most trusted agent within the military, and maybe his replacement one day. The Templar's agenda might still be mystery, but their aim was always power. The Fire Nation government would ensure that the Templars would never be a Fire Lord, unless they somehow turned someone from the bloodline of Agni to their cause.
Which would never happen as long as Iroh was around.
And the Templars had tried to get to Iroh. General Shinu's attempt to persuade him to join the Templars had gotten him banished to the colonies; Colonel Shinu now led Pohuai Stronghold and had not stepped foot in Fire Nation soil for nearly two decades. Numerous attempts on Iroh's life had been foiled and the Templars had stopped trying since the Assassins had nonverbally declared that Iroh was under their protection by retaliating mercilessly each time the Templars tried to kill Iroh.
Of course, no one utilized secret identities like Iroh. The Templars didn't even know that the Crown Prince was the Assassin Mentor.
And they certainly did not know that Lu Ten was an Assassin himself.
It all made sense to him now.
Their target was Iroh, Lu Ten was sure. Well, by proxy.
Crown Prince Iroh was very fond of his son, it was no secret. To get to Iroh directly would be suicide, with the security around him and the Assassins protecting him. The only way to hurt the Crown Prince would be by hurting Lu Ten.
And, as the Red Spirit lay soundlessly under the blanket in Prince Lu Ten's bed, Iroh had fallen into a trap.
The information they had intercepted had been orchestrated masterfully to prompt Iroh to send Lu Ten home. And now, back in Fire Nation, the security around Lu Ten would be more lax; even more so now the celebration was ongoing. The Royal Family had taken most of the retainers and guards with them, leaving only skeleton crew in the Palace. And the flare, the Red Spirit thought in hindsight, could have been seen anywhere, even from the Palace. It might cause panic among the crowd or be mistaken as fireworks. Either way, it would signal the opportune time to strike at him.
Which was why, Lu Ten had entrusted it to a fellow Assassin he had met in the crowd. The Assassin would give Lu Ten thirty minutes to sneak back into the Palace, do a quick sweep (which yielded nothing), and prepared a trap of his own. He could not involve the Palace Guards or it would be suspicious.
And finally the time came. He had doused all lighting in his room, leaving the room dark. Light spilling from his slowly opening door was impossible to ignore. Calmly, he prepared himself to pull the pin of his incendiary grenade. He waited until he heard the rasp of blade leaving its scabbard before he threw off the blanket and toss the grenade to the dark room.
The crack of the explosion was deafening and the flame that came after illuminated the sight of three men in dark masked and hooded garb. The would-be killer closest to him was caught by the flame. He ended up screaming and rolling in the burning carpet.
The Red Spirit leaped like a tiger over the burning killer and slammed his hidden blade on the second killer's throat, bringing him down. The third killer overcame his surprise and lashed with his short saber. The Red Spirit dodged, blocked the second strike by the killer's wrist with his bracer, and smoothly drew his dagger from his waist and slashed the killer's gut with one stroke. He ended with a kick that sent the killer sprawling on the floor.
He pounced at the killer, ready to interrogate. However, the half-opened door was kicked open and a group of Palace Guards spilled in.
Now, while Prince Lu Ten was relieved to see them, the Red Spirit was not. The interrogation would have to wait, provided they didn't just kill the wounded killer on the spot and sent for medical help at once (he could question the killer later in jail).
For a split second, Lu Ten was tempted to just unmask himself and spin a lie about knowing about the attempt on his life and he was ambushing his ambushers and the unusual armor he was wearing being a special kind of armor or a new model. Sadly, as he threw an obscuring smoke bomb, leaped to the other side of the room, and made his escape through the window, the Red Spirit was a well-known vigilante.
His father would do anything to keep him out of jail, sure, and his doting grandmother would ask for leniency and even spin his deeds as somewhat heroic, but there was no way in freaking hell the Fire Lord would let this go. After all, there was that one time when the Red Spirit sabotaged a supply chain that resulted in the Siege of Tianshui being called off; sure, the Templars had arranged for the supply to be stolen and added to their own arsenal and the Red Spirit had beaten them to it, but the Fire Lord didn't know that.
And then, thought the Red Spirit as he scaled down the Palace, there was the Senlin Incident that scorched miles of forest. Oh, and the skirmish in Mo Ce Sea where the Red Spirit might have caused a fleet of homeland patrol boats to get lost in a storm. And let's not forget the Omashu debacle, which ended with the city's complete isolation and Fire Nation Army having to contend with only forming perimeter around the now-unreachable city. All had been to thwart the Templars, sure, but nobody except for the Assassins knew that.
As he ran across the hallway of the Palace, he simply had to admire the tenacity of the Palace Guards, if not the accuracy of their archery skills. Ducking low, he threw another smoke bomb at his feet at an intersection. Guards trampled into the smoke and found nothing. They dispersed and headed into all possible exits.
The Red Spirit, perching on the horizontal beams above the hallway, waited with bated breath. When he could no longer see the light dancing from the Guards' lanterns, he dropped and snuck deeper into the Palace.
The Red Spirit ran calculation in his head. Returning to his room would be impossible; with three intruders and a small fire, it would be crawling with Palace Guards. Worse, now that Lu Ten wasn't in his room like he was supposed to, the Guards were bound to be looking for him to make sure he was okay. He needed to get out of the Red Spirit outfit, but he didn't have clothes anywhere else.
Several ideas came to mind. Royal Bathhouse was plausible if Lu Ten hadn't been stabbed on the gut and such wound certainly should not get wet. He silently cursed his father for that; they should've just played the 'paranoid dad' card and left him with only his genuine dislocated shoulder injury. The Infirmary, Lu Ten shook his head as he skulked across the hallway. Head Physician Azaya was surely accompanying the Royal Family and Lu Ten was not sure if her medical minions knew of the Assassins.
His other option was the training grounds. It was the farthest but the most probable. The training grounds were never guarded and there'd be some fresh training garbs there that he could change into and he could hide his gears somewhere. When the Palace Guards finally found him, Prince Lu Ten could have been having trouble sleeping, a fortunate coincidence, and had been doing some training to calm his mind. Archery, perhaps. He was injured.
It sounded good enough.
The Red Spirit nearly ran into some patrol groups twice but he kept to the shadows and had some knowledge of the hidden servants' passageways – expertly hidden false walls and walkways that enabled servants to be ever-present. Thanks to his training, he made it to the training grounds safely.
He snuck into the locker room, quickly shed off his gears and hid it in one of the lockers, and put on a simple training he garb he found over his undershirt. He was just about to grab a bow from the armory wall next to the locker when the door to the open-roofed grounds were pushed open by a stampede. Smoothly, Lu Ten made it as if he was returning his bow. He even threw in a surprised look.
He hoped his sweatiness would cover for the fact that there wasn't a single spent arrow anywhere down the shooting range.
The group that entered flashed a dozen lanterns held by a dozen Palace Guards.
"Stand down!" Lu Ten boomed; lesson number one when incognito as a Prince and he was about to get caught doing something or covering for something: project authority by shouting. "What is going on here?"
The group promptly fell to their knees. The man leading them, the only one not in armor, was a tall and thin man in red robes. Master Kunyo, the Imperial Martial Instructor, bowed lower down on his one-kneed position. Normally, they would be required to go full kowtow, but it was an emergency and the one-knee position was permissible. Prince Lu Ten, of course, did not know there was an emergency and he managed to look bewildered and offended.
Master Kunyo, always a theatrical man, was strangely level-headed when he explained the situation to the Prince. There was a killer on the loose, targeting him.
"You are lucky you weren't there, Your Highness", said Master Kunyo after he seconded the Prince's protest that the Guards were to remain with him. The Master reassured them that the Prince would be fine with him around.
"Of course", Lu Ten grumbled. He never liked Master Kunyo, not after little Zuko broke his arm during a training with him. "I will be fine on my own and I would like to shoot some more targets after I cool down. Don't worry about me, Master. I'll be fine", he turned his back on the man. Another lesson from his father: a royalty rebuffs with gesture more than with words.
"May I ask why His Highness is practicing archery without lighting any torches?"
Lu Ten had hoped Master Kunyo wouldn't notice that they would have been standing in complete darkness if not for the two lanterns that two of the Palace Guards, that had insisted to stay on guard by the door, were carrying.
The Prince sniffed and turned a fraction, projecting haughtiness. "I was practicing archery for nighttime situation. It sounds trivial, but it's a specialized skill", and he left it at that without adding 'cause I've been to the war and I know what I'm talking about'. Yet another lesson from his father: a royalty flaunts, but does not boast.
In all the effort to project Fire Prince Lu Ten, sadly he forgot that he was also an Assassin. Turning his back on Master Kunyo had been a mistake, the last one he would ever make.
Lu Ten gasped when Master Kunyo pulled the knife out. It felt surreal when his arms fell to his side, dangling uselessly, and he felt that tingling sensation of life fleeing his limbs. His knees buckled and he fell. He felt nothing but the sharp pain on his lower back, he felt his life fleeing out from the gaping bloody hole that must have opened there.
He had been arrogant. Too arrogant, even for a Prince.
He felt cold floor on his cheek and the last thing he saw was the feet of Master Kunyo retreating, the Master heading to the door where the two Palace Guards were waiting.
Then, he felt nothing.