Disclaimer: Consult previous chapter.

Special thanks to my previous beta Lavanya Six, and my current betas Devon and Aurelia Le!

Timeline Reminder: The "Enlightenment" chapters take place approximately one year after Ozai's death.

The Right to Rule

An Avatar: The Last Airbender fanfic

Chapter 9

Enlightenment II

Pathik insisted on changing locations before they began working on the second chakra. They were now sitting on a giant stone pillar next to a waterfall.

Azula still half-suspected he was messing with her.

"The second chakra is the Water Chakra, located at the sacrum."

"Where?"

"The pelvis."

"…Ah."

"This chakra deals with pleasure and is blocked by guilt."

So the pleasure chakra is next to the genitals. How creative. "I have one question, before we begin."

"Why is pleasure blocked by guilt?" Pathik offered.

"Do you have to keep reminding me you can read my mind?"

Pathik laughed. That laugh was really starting to grate on her. As was every other part of him. "Actually, I could just guess that. In any event. First, how about you—"

"Don't tell me you're going to force me to have visions again."

"Actually, I was going to have you just tell me what you feel guilty about."

"...Oh."

"But if you want to have more visions—"

"No no," Azula said quickly, "your idea is perfectly fine, Guru."

That earned her another laugh from Pathik. Bastard.

Shaking it off, Azula took a deep breath and searched through her memory.

"Well?" Pathik asked after a few minutes.

"I'm going to be honest with you, Guru. Guilt is a somewhat foreign emotion to me."

"How's that?"

"If you've read my mind, you should know. I...wasn't exactly the nicest person in the past. I'm still not really a very nice person."

"Hmmmm..."

That noise... "What is it?"

"You seem very invested in this view of yourself as a terrible person."

"Invested?"

"Perhaps we'll talk about that more later. If you have trouble with the concept of guilt, why don't we start with what you blame yourself for?"

"...I guess that's clearer," Azula admitted.

She shifted, trying to get into a more comfortable position. This would probably take a while.

"I'll start with my brother..."

Pathik didn't say a word as Azula detailed how she had done her utmost to put her proverbial boot on Zuko's neck, manipulated Mai and Ty Lee into obeying her every whim, and put her literal boot into Katara's stomach.

"But I suppose you already knew all that, since you read my mind," Azula grumbled after she finished.

"First of all, as I said before, I'm not reading your mind; I'm seeing your spirit. I cannot look at your memories in nearly as much detail as you just gave me."

He can look at my memories, though.

"Second, even if I could look at your memories in detail, it was beneficial for you to say that much aloud."

Sure doesn't feel that way. "Now what, then?"

"Let's examine these events more closely. Why did you do the things you did?"

"I just told you why."

"You only talked about the circumstances," Pathik said, sounding annoyed. "What I was asking was—"

"Yes, I know. You want to know what underlying reason there was behind all three. I was just trying to buy some time." She leaned her head back. "What's there to tell? I treated them like crap because I held them in contempt. It's not complex."

"So why did you—"

"—hold them in contempt?"

Pathik chuckled briefly. "It appears you can see my spirit as well."

"Ha ha." Azula was silent for a while, waiting for Pathik to say something, but he never did. Stubborn bastard. Oh well.

"Why don't I tell you a story?" Azula finally said.

Once upon a time, there was a little girl. Innocent and pure, unsullied by the world, she played with her parents, grandfather, and older brother every day. They had much fun together, just the five of them in their tiny house.

Then one day, the little girl did a bad thing. She wandered outside.

Outside she saw an old man, sitting all by himself with a tin tray in front, a few coins scattered inside of it. The little girl's grandfather, just as old as this man, was taken care of and loved, but this man was spat upon and kicked by passers-by.

The little girl wandered on and saw a sick man, with boils all over his body. Her older brother had looked like that once, but her parents had applied a little balm and he had gotten all better. Nobody was giving this man any balm, though. Instead, another man was slicing the boils off with a knife, making the sick man to scream out in pain each time.

The little girl wandered on and saw a sleeping man, face down on the street, rats gnawing at his flesh. She scared the rats away and tried to get the man to wake up, but he wouldn't stir. She groaned and grunted and eventually managed to turn him over, only to see that his face had rotted and melted off.

The little girl wandered on, passing by other broken, tired, dirty, hungry men, until eventually, she saw someone different. She saw a clean, handsome, well-dressed man, wandering the city with a smile on his face. When he passed the other men, they all bowed down and lay their faces on the ground, and despite having almost nothing, they all gave an object to the clean man. He accepted all the gifts with that same smile, putting them all into a sack.

Confused, the little girl approached the clean man and asked him a question. "Who are you?"

The clean man looked down at her, still smiling. "I am a wandering monk. Who are you, my dear?"

"I'm a girl. What's a 'monk'?"

"A monk is a man who can commune with the spirits."

"Is that why everyone gives you stuff?"

The clean man chuckled. "Indeed. They believe that if they gain my favor, I'll intercede with the spirits on their behalf. Then the spirits might lift them out of their misery."

"Will you, then?"

The clean man chuckled again. "Even the spirits can't change fate, my dear. All our destinies are set from the moment we are born. Most of us are destined to live hard and empty lives. On the other hand, some of us," he jiggled the sack with the gifts he was given, "are destined to receive whatever excess the empty ones happen to obtain. This allows us to live pleasant and full lives."

The little girl didn't know what to say. The clean man chuckled a third time at her confusion. "Don't worry, my dear. Nobody can change fate. We can only fulfill the roles we are given."

Her parents found the little girl afterward and took her back home, but the clean man's words continued to ring in her ears.

She wasn't going to become an empty one, no matter what.

There was silence for a time. Then Pathik spoke.

"As parables go, that was rather uninspired."

"Oh?"

"An old man, a sick man, a dead man, and a wandering monk?"

Azula shrugged. "I may have read something similar to that while studying some obscure, dead religion."

Pathik cleared his throat, loudly.

"Is something the matter?" she asked in her most polite of tones.

The Fire Nation made that religion dead, she was sure he wanted to say. But he didn't. "So," he said instead, clearly anxious to change the subject, "I believe what you were trying to say with that story was obvious enough."

"Do tell."

"You believed that your brother and friends were..."

"Empty ones, yes. I believed they lived empty, meaningless lives, fit only to give whatever they could to people who are actually worth something."

"Meaning yourself."

"Naturally."

Pathik let out a long sigh. "I understand. But you are different now, correct?"

Azula was silent.

"Correct?"

She remained silent.

"You brought this up when I asked what you blame yourself for. That means you must have changed."

"Yeah. I did. I mean, I obviously did. Just...not by a lot, I don't think."

Pathik didn't say anything. Since he could read her mind, or spirit, or whatever, he must have known she'd go on without him saying a word. Bastard.

"I do blame myself for what I did to them. But I'm not sure it's because I regret hurting them. I think I blame myself for losing potential allies, for losing...tools."

Azula lay back, resting her head on the cold stone below. A long, strange sound emanated from Pathik, kind of like a 'hmm' but different.

They were silent for a long time. Pathik was the one who spoke first.

"Now I have a story for you, Avatar."

Once upon a time, there was a little girl. She went too far into the ocean and drowned.

Pathik found his joke very hilarious, and demonstrated his opinion through elongated, loud, and extremely vociferous laughter.

Azula held a somewhat different opinion. "Yes, yes, very clever," she said disdainfully.

"My apologies, Avatar," Pathik said through his laughter, "I couldn't resist."

"I'm sure."

"But there is a tale I do wish to tell."

Azula put her elbow on the ground and lay her head on her palm. "Be my guest." Not like I have anything better to do.

Once, there was a woman with five sons. She loved them all very much.

The eldest son fell in with a bad crowd, and started fighting all the time. One time the fight escalated and he ended up with a knife in his throat.

In order to make sure her second son avoided this fate, the mother didn't allow him to have any friends. But the loneliness made him miserable and he eventually committed suicide.

In order to make sure her third son was never sad, the mother gave him everything he wanted. This made him naïve and weak, easy prey for those who would feed on others. One night he was beaten, robbed, and killed.

In order to make sure her fourth son was self-sufficient, she trained him in all the combat arts she knew. But his strength made him cocky and eager to fight others. Same as the eldest, one fight escalated and his upper leg was impaled by a sword. He bled to death soon afterward.

The mother became overwhelmed with guilt and, convinced that she only caused pain, locked herself in her room. Her youngest son died of neglect.

"Oh, you're just a bundle of joy today, aren't you?"

"I would appreciate you showing an emotion other than sarcasm, Avatar."

Azula grumbled.

"I assume you understand my point?"

"No, I think you may have been too subtle. Why don't you try hammering it home a little stronger, for the benefit of the audience?"

"No matter how much you attempt to push me away with your biting wit, Avatar, this journey is about yourself. And you are the only person you cannot run away from."

This guy can only speak in pretentious garbage.

"You do see my point."

"If you feel too guilty about something, you go too far in the other direction to make up for it. Everything in moderation, etcetera. I've heard this kind of lecture before."

Pathik let out an even longer and deeper sigh than the last one.

"Okay, now you're just being dramatic," Azula said.

"Our journey here is not about moderation, Avatar. Our goal is to eliminate your emotional muck completely, not merely to moderate it. Go deeper in your analysis. Why did the mother sink so deeply into her guilt? What did she have to gain from it?"

"Gain? You're saying people get something from guilt?"

The waterfall roared as it plunged into the depths below.

"You wanted to know why pleasure is blocked by guilt," Pathik said. "Neither pain nor misery precludes pleasure. Even if one possesses both, it is still possible to obtain happiness. However, guilt causes us to dislike ourselves, to hate ourselves. If one hates himself, then he feels unworthy of pleasure; he feels pain is his just reward. Even if he becomes temporarily happy, he will feel guilt at that happiness and work to stifle it. It is a cycle one cannot escape. Only guilt makes us turn our pleasure into pain. In which case, what motivates us to feel it in the first place?"

"Maybe it's different for you, but most people don't need a motivation to feel things."

Pathik ignored her. "Think back to my parable. Until the end, all the mother's sons died due to their own decisions, and yet she only blamed herself. Hating oneself is just as self-centered as loving oneself; self-hatred makes us focus on ourselves and not those around us. Through her guilt, the mother maintained the illusion that she was special. Only by overcoming this illusion, forgiving herself and thereby accepting reality, could she have saved her other sons."

With that, Pathik finished his speech, and Azula had no idea how to respond.

"Thoughts, Avatar?"

Azula's hand wandered to her eye socket, and she didn't have the wherewithal to stop it from scratching. "What you're saying makes no sense. You say guilt is self-centered, but guilt is the only thing that causes us to be moral to others. If you don't feel guilty when you do something wrong, what'll stop you from doing it in the future?"

"Don't tell me you're defending guilt now, Avatar," Pathik said, amusement evident in his voice. "I believe you told me guilt is a foreign emotion for you?"

Seriously. Bastard. "I understand it in an academic sense and can see its objective benefits, even if I don't experience it myself."

"Oho. That's some quick thinking. I'm impressed."

Now he's trying to piss me off. "Thanks for the compliment. Will you address my actual argument?"

"If you wish." Pathik made a show of thinking about it, hmming and all that, but Azula suspected he already had his riposte all lined up. "It is all well and good to learn from your mistakes. But if you sink into the swamp of guilt due to that, you limit your potential to love not only yourself, but others as well."

"...How does that follow?"

"It's actually quite simple. If you can't even love yourself, how can you possibly love anyone else?"

Azula opened her mouth, then closed it. Then did so again. Finally, she said, "That's incredibly imbecilic."

"Thank you."

"But, look. If you never feel guilty, no matter what you do, doesn't that mean you don't care about anybody else? I mean, if you're just blasé about hurting people, or…"

"If you actively enjoy it?"

"Yes, exactly."

"You are correct, Avatar. If you don't feel guilt, you don't love others. But if you feel guilt, you don't love yourself, and so don't love others." She could almost feel his smile. "Quite a paradox, no?"

There were a number of things she wanted to tell him, but Azula managed to keep them all under her tongue. Though since Pathik could read her mind, that was probably pointless. "So what's the solution?"

"Paradoxes don't have solutions, Avatar. That's why they're paradoxes. The ordinary person must simply muddle through as best he can, feeling enough guilt to correct his conduct but not enough to be overwhelmed by self-hatred. That is where the 'moderation' you mentioned earlier is relevant, I suppose. But you are not an ordinary person, and as I said, our journey here is not about moderation. If you wish to open your chakra, Avatar, you must eliminate your guilt, and find a different reason to care about others. There is no other way."

"But I told you, I don't—"

"—feel guilt, I know. Which brings us back full circle. Our main goal here is to find out why you're so obsessed with thinking of yourself as a monster."

Now that shut Azula up quick.

"I can see you won't tell me anytime soon." Pathik was starting to sound more forceful now, even a little impatient. "We cannot move on if we do not deal with this first. Therefore..."

Azula flinched back, but it was too late. He put his finger on her forehead and she sunk into the ocean of memories.

Azula put her chin on her hands, watching the small squirrel-cat Zuko had found. It was a cute little thing, with its long fluffy tail, buck teeth, and triangular ears sticking straight up. She pet it absent-mindedly, enjoying feeling its soft fur, trying not to think about how Father had yelled at her for still only being able to bend sparks.

"Your brother was already learning katas at your age!"

Furious, Azula made a spark, and it hit the squirrel-cat. The animal startled and looked about warily, trying to find out what caused it that small jolt of pain.

A smile slowly formed on Azula's lips. Caused it pain. She was the one who caused it pain.

Another spark, a bigger one this time. Now the squirrel-cat decided it didn't matter what caused the pain, it just wanted to get away. Not wanting to let it run, Azula gripped the small animal tightly with her hand.

Now the squirrel-cat was clearly in distress. It started wildly looking about for a way to escape, squeaking pathetically, clawing weakly at Azula's hand.

Azula's smile grew broader. Before she knew it, she was making strange movements with the hand gripping the squirrel-cat.

Slowly but surely, Azula felt her palm getting hotter. Slowly but surely, the squirrel-cat started moving more frantically, started crying more loudly, started scratching more ferociously. In order to keep it under control Azula had to add her other hand to the mix, gripping the animal's neck and forcing it down.

The squirrel-cat's moments of highest activity were when smoke started rising from its mouth. That only lasted for a little bit, though. Soon enough, it started moving more sluggishly, as the smoke got thicker and thicker.

When her mother entered the room, she held up the charred remains of the squirrel-cat proudly, grin still fastened to her face.

She had finally created fire.

The vision ebbed away, and the two of them entered another long bout of silence.

"I see," Pathik eventually said.

Azula didn't respond.

"Thinking you're a monster isn't how you feel guilt. It's how you avoid feeling guilt. After all, for a monster, things like that are to be expected. But if you were just another human, like everyone else—"

"Yeah, yeah, congratulations, you figured it out. You're really brilliant, and all that."

"It's impossible to eliminate your guilt if you keep running from it, Avatar. You must face it head-on."

"You're not saying anything I didn't already know."

"Viewing yourself as a monster who's nobly fighting against your true, inner nature is not ultimately much different from viewing yourself as the only worthwhile person in a world of empty—"

"I said I know!"

"Yes, you do. And with time, you may perhaps be able to accept your guilt naturally. But, alas, we cannot afford to leave the world absent your presence for that long. Thus, I fear some drastic measures may be required."

"...I'm listening."

"Forced empathy. I have the ability to make you feel all the pain you have inflicted upon others."

Azula gaped.

"I will only do so with your permission. However, it is my opinion that it is the only way for you to confront your guilt directly."

All the pain she had ever caused...Azula could scarcely even imagine it. She certainly didn't want to imagine it.

"Avatar?"

If she could access the Avatar State at will...if this was the only way to gain that kind of power… "Fine. Sure. Whatever. Do it."

"Are you certain—"

"I said do it. Before I change my mind."

"Alright." And before she changed her mind, he once again put his finger to her forehead.

It hurts

Azula was her mother, suffering agony for hours in order to bring her into the world, all that pain compressed into a single second

It hurts

Azula was the squirrel-cat, insides burned to ashes in an inferno of flame, voice croaking out to

It hurts

Azula was her brother, every time she kicked him, every time she burned him, every time she said just the right combination of words to stab a blade into his heart more painful than any sword

It hurts

Azula was her father, kneeling on the ground, seeing his life's work crumble around him, at the hands of his own flesh and blood, the person he had put so much time and energy and love into teaching everything he knew

It hurts

Azula was Katara, who finally found a friend her own age, a friend who didn't care she was the daughter of the chief, a friend she did so much for, helping her with no thought for herself, until she learned that she wasn't really a friend after all, learned while writhing on the ground with a searing pain like none she had ever felt, but the physical pain was nothing compared to the

It hurts

Azula was Mai and Ty Lee, her only friends when she was princess, who lived each and every day in the terror that if they displeased her, if they didn't do exactly what she wanted, they might get beaten, they might get burned, they might die, their family might die, and there was nothing they could do

It hurts

Azula was a Fire Nation soldier, just trying to make enough money to support her family, when she saw the tidal wave, and then she was swept away, and thought about her children, and what would they do without her, and I don't want to die

It hurts!

All the pain flowed together, and she didn't know who she was anymore, the pain was so great it blocked out everything else, time, space, everything—

Avatar!

Pathik's voice.

Avatar! Keep a hold of yourself! Remember who you are!

Can't remember, don't want to remember, don't want to be the person who caused all this—

You must know who you are! If you lose yourself, this is all meaningless!

Meaning, identity, who cares about that, compared to this pain none of it matters—

You are responsible for this pain. It is your fault. As the Avatar, you must accept that.

My fault...all of it...

If you want to blame yourself, do so. If you want to hate yourself, do so. You have that right. But you must not lie to yourself.

I...don't want to...

It...hurts...

Azula awoke slowly from the sea of pain. She was back on the stone pillar, the waterfall bellowing its endless roar beside her. Her back was sore, but she didn't sit up.

"How are you feeling, Avatar?" Pathik asked. He did honestly sound concerned.

"I don't know," she said, like an imbecile.

"From what I can tell, you have opened your second chakra."

Azula scratched at an eye socket.

"If I may ask, what method did you find to accept your guilt and move past it?"

Azula sat up, groaning as her joints creaked against each other. "I understood that I can't change the past, only the future. I realized I didn't want to wallow in self-pity and self-hatred forever. Something." She grinned. "You know, maybe I was right the first time. Maybe I just naturally don't feel much guilt in the first place."

There was a short pause, then Pathik started laughing. After a second, Azula joined in.

"I must admit, Avatar, you are much different from everyone else I've ever known."

"I appreciate the compliment."

"Come. We must go to the site where we will open the third chakra."

"Remind me again, why does it matter where we open each chakra?"

Pathik adopted his lecturing tone. Azula could almost picture him wagging a finger at her. If she knew what he looked like. "As you should know already, location is very important in spiritual matters."

Not for the first time, and almost certainly not for the last, Azula sighed.

End of Chapter 9

Author's Notes: The "walking outside and seeing an old man, a sick man, a dead man, and a wandering monk" thing is taken from Buddhism—supposedly, Siddhartha Gautama did the same before he became the Buddha. Azula, naturally, put her own personal spin on it. Pathik's parable is (as far as I know) my own invention.

As always, I hope you enjoyed this chapter!