AN: Here's hoping to clear up the confusion of Family. This should help y'all understand, but feel free to interpret any way you want. I had a good time reading your predictions! Enjoy, and leave me some feedback, eh?


04. Knowledge

He looks out the window. There isn't much to see; it's all obscured by smoke. The smell of blood is wafting in even though the battle is a hundred feet below him. It's metallic and hot and he loves it. He's getting excited. He wants to fight, he wants to cut, he wants to kill. But knows he's already lost, so he turns away.

He listens through the door. He hears nothing, and is not surprised. The thick steel door is closed, locked and bolted shut just like his advisers told him to do. But he knows that they're dead now, and he doesn't have to listen to them anymore. He unbolts the door, just to be spiteful.

He should have done it himself. Azula failed, and he knows it. She was strong, probably stronger than he himself was. But in the end she was weak, and she let her emotions get the better of her. And now she was dead, and Zuko was still alive.

Zuko is coming, and he knows that too. That worthless, no-good piece of scum would be here in a matter of minutes, and he knows why. He's here to kill his own father. At least, that's what Zuko would say. But he's never been much of a father figure, and he's certainly never thought of Zuko as his son. He knows both these facts, and regrets neither. Emotions had always been his brother's prerogative, after all.

Through the door he hears footsteps falling fast and hard, and he knows who it is. He knows he as to do it fast.

His father didn't give him the chance, and traditions are meant to be carried on.

He clutches the dagger, and he knows what he has to do.