A/N:
In
response to reviewers from Chapter 8:
xSilentSakurax: I really enjoyed this. I can't wait till your next chapter! :)
= = = Thank you very much! I love to write, it's sort of an escape for me in a way, so I plan to update regularly :)

Sarcasm22: Great story! You do a really good job of keeping all the caracters in caracter. Update soon!
= = = Thank you! I really try to keep the characters true to themselves and resist taking the easy way out and changing them to fit my vision of my story.

ArrayePL: I really wonder why did Katara saved him. It was plain stupid move. Especially that she had to deal with Jiao too.
= = = It might seem like a stupid move, but Katara is too morally sound to just leave him to die. Maybe she should have, but her pesky little conscience wouldn't let her do it, no matter how bad Ozai is. Don't hold it against her :)

AnnaAza: Geez. That's gratitude for you. Next time, just let him drown.
= = = I know, right? I'm sure that's exactly what she was thinking as soon as he started talking.

Thanks to all of you for your feedback! You guys rock!


Ozai awoke as the sun began peeking over the horizon. The morning haze had not yet cleared and the moisture in the air clung to his skin like a cold, wet shroud. Jiao still lay asleep on a dank bed of rotting timber and fallen leaves, snoring softly while the waterbender was curled into the crook of a close by tree. With a little perseverance he had managed to get a small fire burning in between them, inwardly cursing and damning the Avatar for stealing his bending. He had not built a fire with his bare hands in as long as he could remember and it showed.

He glanced down at the Fire Nation guard uniform he still wore. Everything he had planned so carefully to bring with them had been lost in the wreckage. The food, the tools and supplies, and the Earth Kingdom clothes Jiao had obtained for the three of them to change into. He cursed under his breath. The wreck had set them off course and put them behind where they needed to be, at least a hundred miles from their destination, he guessed. What advantages the storm had imparted, the wreck had instantly taken away. His efforts to gain ground and scale the Earth Kingdom's northern coast before its people were alerted had been thwarted. Now he would be forced to cross the expansive country on foot; the chances of them slipping under the noses of the guards who were now certainly raking the earth to find him would be grim. And to top it off they were all wearing the most identifiable clothing possible. At least he still had the cloak Jiao had given him, but until they came across a market to replenish their gear and garner more inconspicuous attire, he would need to take extra precautions while advancing forward.

He quickly shed his cloak and pulled off his crimson shoulder plate armor, throwing it to the side, leaving him in the close-fitting dark grey shirt underneath and matching pants that hugged his waist and flowed outward until they tucked into the top of his black boots around his upper calf muscles. He removed the scarlet sash that draped from his waist and was about to discard it as well when he thought better of it. It might come in handy later. He tied it in a haphazard knot around his waist and replaced the cloak over his shoulders.

It was then that he noticed, not for the first time, that the ends of his hair and beard were damaged and fraying from the lack of attention during his years in prison. They had grown unmanageably long and matted. It was a disgrace for a man such as him to appear anywhere near as unkempt and lowly as that miserable fool he had slain and thrown overboard. Ozai reached into his boot and pulled out the dagger he kept concealed inside it. At least one thing had not been lost in the wreck. He grasped the tattered ends of his hair in one hand and brought the dagger up to just below his shoulders. He had filed the blade to a dangerously sharp edge before the journey. With one swipe, he lopped off several inches of his hair and followed suit with the end of his beard, trimming it down to its rightful length.

A soft rustling stirred to Ozai's left as Jiao roused from his slumber and trudged over to him. He was about to sit and huddle close to the fire to shake off the cool of the morning when Ozai's voice made him halt.

"As long as you're awake," he spoke in a low murmur, "make yourself useful and gather some food for us to eat before we head out." Ozai kept his gaze fixed on the fire, never even bothering to make eye contact as he addressed him.

Jiao hesitated for a brief moment, appearing somewhat disgruntled, and then slogged off in search of some form of sustenance.

Ozai listened as Jiao's shuffling footsteps grew fainter behind him, staring intently into the flames licking up from the ground before him. He only broke his gaze away once to cast a cursory glance at the waterbender before directing his eyes back down again. All of his thoughts now shifted to the girl sleeping against the tree a few feet away. Why had she done it? It defied all logic. She had had a chance to escape and instead she had chosen to bring him to safety. No, she had not saved his life. His pride refused to fully admit even to himself that he had needed saving, that his existence could be so easily extinguished.

His muscles tensed as the ordeal of last night darted through his mind unwelcome. The morning offered up to him unsolicited a newfound clarity. For a brief moment, he could taste the bitterness of his mortality and it made him shudder. Try as he might, no amount of denial could stifle the troublesome reality of what might have happened to him if she had not intervened. But why had she done it?

All of a sudden, a new thought revealed itself to him. She was sensitive, naïve, impressionable. Regardless of who he was, she had saved him as an act of reciprocation; despite what he had told her, she must still believe in some small way that he had save her from that lecherous beggar for her sake, and had felt conflicted about leaving him to die. She probably believed, foolishly, that no man was beyond redemption, not even himself.

A new plan began forming itself in his mind as he remained transfixed on the flickering flames before him. Her relationship with the Avatar was already shaky and slowly unraveling, and she was to blame. With guilt likely nagging at her, it would not take much for her to begin to believe he had abandoned her to her fate. All he needed to do was plant the seeds, and with a little nurturing it would grow.

And perhaps if he could bring her to believe that he was a different man than the one she had been taught to hate, he could replace her trust in the Avatar with a newfound trust in himself. It would be a slow and difficult process, but not unfeasible. Of course, her scandalous relationship with his son could complicate his mind games. He would serve as a remaining source of her hope and might make her less likely to succumb to his manipulation. But as her trust in the Avatar weakened, so he surmised would her hope in his son. All he needed was for her to trust him just long enough to carry out his plan. She would not only be the perfect pawn in his game but he would hardly have to do any of the work himself. She would inadvertently bring about the demise of that pathetic little boy Avatar and the rise of the supreme Phoenix King.

A troubled sigh a few feet ahead lifted him from his thoughts. Glancing up, he saw the girl finally stirring, trying to rub the sleep out of her tired eyes. The faintest hint of a malicious smile turned up his lips.

.:. .:. .:. .:. .:. .:. .:.

The first thing Katara saw upon waking was Ozai's piercing gaze fixed directly on her. She flinched slightly at the unexpected sight and then shot him a look of sheer loathing laced with a hint of apprehension. His appearance had been altered slightly; his hair and beard had been trimmed and tidied up, transforming him from the weathered mess he had been before to the statelier man she now saw sitting before her.

"Why are you staring at me?" she snapped, her voice wavering slightly with uneasiness.

"That's rather presumptuous of you, don't you think?" His voice sounded monotone and almost bored, unaffected by her reaction to him. "I never expected a Water Tribe peasant to come with such a gratuitous ego."

Katara ground her teeth at the insult. Toying with her again. So typical. She wanted to lash out against his snide comment but decided not to give him the pleasure of a reaction and bit her tongue instead. Ozai simply returned his gaze to the fire that separated them, appearing indifferent to her refusal to engage him, falling back into the solitude of his own thoughts and ignoring her as though she had suddenly ceased to exist.

His mood was so unpredictable it made her want to scream. One moment he was intense and dangerous, and the next he acted aloof and impassive. It was if her presence was suddenly of no consequence to him. She had never seen someone with such a capricious disposition. Even Zuko was not this temperamental, although she was beginning to see where he got it from.

Trying to shake off her frustration, she looked around to examine their makeshift campsite. They had not advanced far into the forest; she could almost make out the rocky coastline a short distance away through the lightly populated forest. The sun was beginning to burn away the morning haze, although dew still clung resolutely to the undergrowth of the forest, largely shielded from the sun's rays by the perforated canopy overhead.

Upon further inspection of her surroundings, she realized that the other man, whose name she was still unsure of, was missing. She was about to break the silence to ask where he had gone when she saw the man emerging through the woods on her left. In one hand he was carrying what looked like vines of different types of berries, and dangling from the other were two lifeless gophersquirrels. Katara could hardly watch as the adorable creatures' bodies swung suspended in the air by their tails clutched in the man's pitiless grip. She was far from unaccustomed to hunting animals for food, but Sokka had always skinned and cleaned them before giving them to her to cook. She rarely ever had to see the animals in their natural, recognizable forms and the scene caused a small knot to form in her stomach.

Ozai looked over his shoulder at the approaching man who held out his catch in a gesture of success. Ozai only remained stone-faced and silent as the man finally arrived beside them.

"I came across some berries not too far away. Looks like this area's full of them. And I was fortunate enough to catch these little devils. We can skewer them and roast them over the –"

"Do it then and stop wasting time," Ozai interrupted with the same monotone voice as before. "We need to be on our way before the morning has withered away."

The man appeared somewhat hurt by his master's curtness but nodded respectfully. "Yes, my lord," he assented, and then began busying himself with the meal's preparations. Katara kept her eyes occupied elsewhere as he cleaned and skewered the animals and began roasting them over the fire.

Before long they had all eaten, although as before, Katara's portion had been decidedly more meager. As they put out the dwindling fire and began making their way deeper into the forest, Katara realized that Ozai had not bothered to bind her hands this time. She was certain he would not have simply forgotten; it must have been a conscious decision on his part.

Was it some of kind of trick? He might be waiting for her to try to escape and then strike back even harsher to make a point of his power. It was not beyond him, but she doubted that was his intention.

Perhaps he felt that she would be able to keep up better and pull her weight in case of trouble if he left her hands unbound. But surely he would have considered that she might try to escape if they ran into trouble.

Or perhaps it was actually a small gesture of trust on his part, seeing as how she could have let him drown. Maybe he felt that she had earned at least that much and was testing the waters with her now. Still, she would have preferred to receive some tangible expression of gratitude. But this was probably the best she was going to get, and she was not about to object. Her tender wrists desperately needed the break.

.:. .:. .:. .:. .:. .:. .:.

Ozai knew it was risky leaving the girl's hands unbound. But by doing so, he would be planting the very first seeds of trust in her subconscious. He was no stranger to the complex inner workings of the human mind; he was a master at manipulating the human psyche. Ozai knew that any act of non-hostility from her captor would translate as an act of kindness in her prisoner mindset. And he was fairly certain that the unexpected act would likely catch her off guard and temporarily offset the chances of her using it against him.

Still, he would be careful not to underestimate her. He knew more of the waterbender from the Southern Water Tribe than he let on. He knew her to be the very one who had single-handedly taken down the firebending prodigy that had been his daughter. Azula had been nearly undefeatable; in a fair fight with her, even he might have been given a run for his money. And yet this water peasant had brought about the downfall of his only worthy successor.

As greatly as he despised the girl for it, even he could not deny that such a feat could not be acknowledged without garnering admiration. As much as he hated to admit it, a miniscule part of him grudgingly held a morsel of respect for her because of it.

But even so, she was still weak and naïve. She had held her enemy's life in her hands yet had refused to extinguish it. And it was that very naivety that would serve to benefit him in the end. The plan had been set in motion. The seeds were being planted. He only needed to wait as the roots began to grow and take hold and then soon, very soon, he would take back a hundred fold all that had been stolen from him. And he would do to the Avatar what he had done to him: he would strip him of all that he is and all that he loves. Starting with his precious little waterbender.


A/N: Many thanks to all you lovely readers and again to those who've reviewed! Please don't forget that your feedback means a lot to us writers, so please be sure to review :)

Until next time… flameo, Sifu Hotman!