Hello, I'm back again. The last chapter was hard stuff, but I needed the hard strike, to shake Azulas guard. And I decided, that I liked to share the reader a similar experience, like Azula.

Thanks to Guest for the review. I'm happy, that you like my story so far. I won't spoil too much, but I can promise, that both, Zirin and ShiLy will return in this story. Thanks for the support.

In this chapter, The Wise Dragon will show up and Azula will search a way, how to deal with her feelings. I hope everyone will enjoy this chapter. To be honest, it was a lot of fun to write it down.

Between -...- Azula's thoughts

Meetings

Three days later

Dr. Hong closed the door of his house. He was exhausted and concerned about the last days. Both, the police and the army had asked a lot of questions. First of all, why the chief of the most prominent mental sanatorium had been on a trip to the former colonies of the Fire Nation.

And why he had made this trip in an official military wagon.

And what he knew about the mercenaries, that had guarded the wagon.

And a lot more.

His head was buzzing and the pulsing pain of his cheek didn't helped him, to get rid of this dizzy feeling. He walked to his private office, grabbing a bottle of booze, which stood on a little table at the side of the entrance and took a big mouthful of it.

"What a luck, I actually have taken a drink for myself, right a few seconds ago. Otherwise I had to refuse your offer."

Hong winced, as he heard the voice. He looked at his desk. He could see a man sitting in a chair in the shadows behind his table and he bowed clumsy.

"What gives me the honor of the presence of the Wise Dragon."

"Do not make a fool out of yourself. If you can pick out the right one of all my titles, then I have no doubt you know, why I am here!"

The man sounded like a teacher, who had to answer the same stupid questions over and over again. Hong took another drink out of the bottle.

"As I told the police and the army. I was…"

The man interrupted him, by hitting the desk with his fist.

"I know, what you have told the police!"

The doctor gasped shocked. After a second the man talked again, but now his voice was distracted.

"And I am fine with it. If Zao will stick to the plan, then this would not be a problem. But I am here for what you did not told the police! What have they stolen from us. What have we lost, and I do not mean the money!"

Hong stared at the bottle and touched his stitched cheek, carefully.

"The girl is gone. And the other presentation material."

His voice was trembling.

The man stayed silence for a while.

"And the letters?"

Hong shook his head. He could her the man taking a deep breath.

"So let me sum this mess up. You had allowed Azula and her freak show to free admiral Hamato's daughter and to steal some of our client lists and the plans for our expansion."

The voice of the man let Hong take a step back from him.

"What should I have done? I'm no bender! I had no chance against her!"

He sounded desperate. All color had faint from his face.

"You could have eliminated evidences! Burning the papers, killing the girl. I do not care about Zao's money, or the trouble this may have caused for him, but now they could become dangerous for us."

The doctor looked at him, completely shocked.

"Okay, the papers are my fault, but killing the girl? This would had also caused a lot of trouble for me!"

"And losing her gives you less trouble?" It sounded sarcastic. "Now she could talk to someone, about what has happened to her. Sooner or later her family will ask some questions. And right now I am here and asking questions. So tell me, what solution causes more trouble? The girl alive or the girl dead?"

"But how should I have explained her death, beside the fact, how should I have explained her presence at all?"

Hong looked around, obviously helpless.

"A new treatment method, for example. And for her death you could have blamed Azula and her gang of freaks."

The man seemed to get tired, explaining Hong his missed options. The doctor looked like a wild animal, which had been trapped by hunters.

"But it isn't as bad, as it seems. With our connections, we might find ShiLy before anyone get a clue, that she was also inside the wagon. And if we find her, we will find Azula and Zirin and still can eliminate the evidences."

Hong noticed, that the name Zirin had caught the attention of the man.

"Zirin didn't die in the fire, she is part of Azula's group. So maybe this is a chance to get rid of some other problems, too. And about the lists, they are useless for them, unless they find a way to decode the client names. And after all they have done, Azula, Zirin and the others are only known as a group of liars and kidnappers. Nobody would believe them a word or any evidence, they would present."

Hongs voice nearly turned over. But a flash of hope came to him, as he saw, that the man had tended his head to one side.

"I can handle this. I will put the things right, I promise!"

The Wise Dragon stood up.

"I believe you. I am sure, you will put everything in place."

Hong laughed at him, almost hysterical, as the man passed the room and left through the door. But he stopped a last time right in the doorway.

"And you are sure, that Zirin is part of her group?"

Hong just nodded strongly. He could see a smile at the mans face.

"You are right, this may offers us the opportunity to solve some other problems."

The man finally left the room. Hong waited until he heard the house door closing. Then he took another big drink from the bottle. He knew, that he had to prepare a lot. But not today. Today, he was happy, that he was still alive and that he still had a chance to add a good reason for his terrible headache.

Azula rushed smoothly over the roofs of the Palace. She wore a black fighting suit, which also covered her face, so she could easily moved like a shadow through the night. Three days had passed, since they had attacked the wagon. During this time, Azula had tried to work along with the documents, after she had helped Zirin, but every time, she had started to watch at the papers, her stomach had cramped and her world had started spinning around.

Azula had told the other girls, that she had to go to the Palace for some further investigations, but the reality was, that she needed to get out of their hide for some time. She had seen wounded people during her time at Ba Sing Se, but helping Zirin to nurse ShiLy's wounds had chanced something in her. She had seen the terror in her eyes, and she was forced to think about the nightmares, these wounds had told her. And now, all this mess didn't let her go anymore. She had recognized, that her walls, which had protected her during all these years, had received some very serious cracks, and this fact was frightening her. She had fought hard to get back the control of her emotions after her defeat at the Agni Kai, after her father had refused her help to win the final battle.

- To keep my emotions under control was the key, to find my destination. It always was. And now Zirin had crushed a hole in my guard. Was this her plan? Maybe she wants me to lose control, so she could take over the group? It's not the first time, when she questioned my decisions. -

Azula had stopped at a edge of the roof of the building, where the Royal Family had their rooms. Zuko had left the Capital some days before, so probably no one would expected her, to visit her old home so soon after the incident with the disappeared children. She was surprised by herself, that she just ended up here. While she had dealt with her troubled feelings, she didn't had payed attention, where her footsteps had led her.

- Everything was much easier during my time in the Palace. It was fun to scare the servants, to tease little Zuzu and to explore the secrets of this place and their inhabitants. -

Azula felt a tear coming to her eye. She quickly wiped it away and climbed silently down from the building. She searched at the wall, until she found the hidden mechanism to open a secret entrance and rushed into the secret passage. She lighted a blue flame in her hand to get some light, as soon as Azula was sure, that no one had recognized her. She followed the corridor for a while until she reached a certain door at her left.

- The private rooms of the Fire Lord. -

A mischievous smile came to her face. She entered the room, carefully and realized, that the room didn't look much different, than the last time, she was in here. It still might have been Ozai's room, beside the fact, that Zuko had removed the Phoenix emblems. And he had added two crossed swords at the wall.

- Little Zuzu and his swords. But it seems his taste has become better. This ridiculous mask is missing. -

Azula took one of the swords and entered the dressing room. In one of the wardrobes she found, what she was looking for. She took out all of Zuko's belts. Azula carefully cut a notch in the broad backsides of every belt with the sword. Then she returned the belts and the sword with a satisfied smile. With a bit of luck, the belts might survived the dressing up, but would snatch during a training or a meeting, and Zuko would lost his trousers.

- It's a pity, that I didn't get a chance to see this. This is a joke, Mai and Ty Lee had liked. But they betrayed me. Does Zirin plans the same for me? -

The smile faded from her face, when she returned to the corridor. Lost in her thoughts, she walked along the dark way. Suddenly she heard voices in one of the rooms in front of her. She started to run, so she could catch up the words, which were spoken.

"…. so late at night. You should be in your room. Your mother will get worried."

The voice belonged to a young woman.

- Maybe one of the servants. -

"I couldn't sleep and then I heard, that you were busy, so I got up to see, what you are doing."

This was the voice of a young kid and Azula knew, who was talking. This had to be Kiyi, her half-sister, she had kidnapped some time ago.

"And you managed to dress up completely so fast?"

The fist voiced was amused.

"Yeah, neither I'm my mother nor Zuzu…. I mean Fire Lord Zuko! I can dress up quickly."

Azula had to oppressed a loud laughter. The girl sounded sulky.

"Okay, this might be true, but you have to go back to bed. It's late and you have to sleep."

The first voice gave this order in a warm sound. A few seconds passed, before Kiyi answered.

"Okay, if you're telling me, what you're doing here so late at night, then I'll return to my room."

The girl sounded decisive and Azula waited excited. To her satisfaction, she heard a resigned sigh.

"Alright, the Fire Lord will return tomorrow and he will bring a guest with him and had ordered to prepare a quarter for her, near by the Royal Family. So I have started to get everything ready for tomorrow."

"Who will be the special guest, and why iss she allowed to stay here in the building with the family?"

Kiyi sounded most innocent, but Azula recognized the decisive moment, between the information, the kid had received and the further question.

"You have agreed to return to your room, when I would tell you, what I'm doing here. And I can see, you have received quite more information. With all respect, young Princess, but if you want to find out, who will be our guest, then you'll have to wait until tomorrow." It was obvious, that the servant wouldn't give Kiyi any further information.

"Fine, a deal is a deal. See you tomorrow, Uzusa."

Azula heard the footsteps of the kid rushing out of the room. She remained some minutes in the hidden corridor behind the room. Her head was dizzy.

- This almost could have been me. Sneaking around in the palace and searching for news and information. -

Azula was astonished, how much this little kid reminded her off herself. Obviously Kiyi wasn't be feared as she was, even when she was in her age, but she definitely took advantage out of this fact. Azula was impressed how clever this kid got a lot of information from this servant.

- So, Zuzu had invited a female guest. It must be some very close friend, otherwise she wouldn't have got a quarter here by the Family. So it must be someone out of the group around the Avatar. Someone he has a good connection with. Someone like… this filthy water witch! -

Azula felt the rage rising in her. She barely recognized, that she had start running through the tunnel. She rushed around the next corner and hit a wall. Pain flushed her head and for a second she saw bright stars and flares before her eyes. It took her some minutes to recover. Then she looked at the wall with a mixture of anger and surprise.

- I could swear, the way has to go on here. There has to be a room, there…. -

"Oh come on Azula, how could you have forgotten this at all! What's wrong with yourself?"

She screamed at herself angrily and warmed up a certain rock at the wall. The secret door sunk into the ground and opened a dark room behind it. With a short raise of her hands, she lighted up the fire pits in the room. Azula went in and took a look around. A warm smile came to her face again. She stood in the middle of a training room. It was filled with a lot of targets, training puppets and training marks on the floor, the walls and even at the ceiling. She had used this room for her private training for several years. She remembered the hours, she had spend here, beside her regular training, to practice for herself. When years gone by, she had brought here all this equipment in order to make her training harder and more efficient. She knelt down to some old markings on the floor. They were rubbed off by shoes many times, but were also often renewed.

- The first markings, I have made in this room, when I was a kid. It's only a basic kata for a master in firebending, but for a kid, who had just started with training, this was a far more than basics. But I had solved these forms here for myself, long before they got part of my regular training –

She relined one mark with her fingers. Then she stood up and took the starting position. It was quite an easy task to her. These ten figures were now part her basic warm up, before her real training was about to start, but doing this short choreography gave Azula a warm and happy feeling. It was like she was a kid again. During the last two steps, she recognized a movement behind her in the doorway. She realized, that, she hadn't closed the door after she had entered, and now someone had found her here! Anger and panic rushed through her veins. No one must knew, that she was here in the Palace.

Her back was turned to the doorway, as she reached the last position. But instead of ending her movement in the last position, she immediately did a back-kick, firing blue flames with her foot at the direction, where she assumed the intruder. Nearly instantly she rolled forward, turning herself to the doorway, firing two fireballs in the same direction with her fists.

The cracking sound of a bowl, which has been dropped to the ground caught her attention. Her eyes widened in shock. She saw her last fireball flying directly towards the intruder. Azula saw a kid in the light of her flames, who had dropped a bowl of cherries. Kiyi had fearfully opened her eyes. The blue light mirrored in them. Azula felt instantly a great panic raising in her.

"NOOOO!"

She knew, that she couldn't do anything, while she was screaming out her panic.

"Duck!"