AN: I only recently realized as I looked through all of your feedback that I'm not going to be able to deliver a progression and ending to this story that pleases everyone. I suppose I knew this all along, but it does bum me out that I can't make everyone happy. Still, I hope you'll all be able to get something out of this as we churn along and pieces start to fall more into place; I still have many more cards I hope to play.

A question I've been asked a fair few times that I thought would be better to address here is in regards to Summoning Techniques. While I will hesitate to say for certain if this will occur within this story for obvious reasons, I will just warn everyone to not write off any kind of jutsu or technique in this story; nothing that was used canonically is unachievable here.

Much love and hope you guys enjoy!

Chapter 17: Attack on the Azulon

The deck of the Azulon had exploded to life in a vibrant rush of violence. Soldiers who had assumed that the centermost ship of the fleet would be the least likely to be attacked due to its positioning as well as being utterly certain that the fleet wouldn't be attacked period, were scrambling to try and assume readied stances and formations while plumes of fire, water, air, and electricity pummeled them. Those that tried to flee for the bowels of the ship were slammed aside with pieces of the ship itself, pure metal being rent from the walls to create devastatingly hard fists that struck an errant soldier unlucky enough to be caught in the attention of their owner.

Said owner was Toph, who was down on one knee, her hands pressed against the metal deck of the ship, her power rushing out across the vessel's bow and turning it against its occupants. Behind her, Aang and Katara were flinging colossal waves that ran over the ship's edge and crashed against the soldiers, those able to survive being swept away lifted into the night sky by sheets of air. As they hurled helplessly through the void, fire of blue and orange coloration slammed into them, dealing the final blow as Zuko and Azula, so normally opposed to one another's mere presence, stood side by side in their battle against the hordes of Fire Nation soldiers. Whilst the benders worked their trade in dealing a majority of the heavy lifting, one only needed to look a little closer to see the other half of this tight operation playing their part.

Ty Lee, Mai, Suki and Sokka darted amongst the chaos, making their moves against the soldiers who seemed to have enough wherewithal to make an attempt at any of their bending allies. Knives flashed, swords swung, blows were dealt as the four of them painted a trail of bloody carnage to the centermost area of the deck where a great pair of doors were shut against the intruders.

These doors were made of a powerfully reinforced metal was run on a great contraption that used the door's weight as the counterbalance to keep it shut. With the mere push of a button, the vessel's operating captain, standing high above the battle in the ship's command tower, the door would open, but without his aid in doing so, even that metal bending girl would find it a chore to open any too quickly.

Behind the captain, one of his subordinates shouted, "Sir! We're being hailed by the surrounding ships on all sides! They're asking how they can provide assistance!"

The captain said nothing for a moment as he watched the swarm of conflict several hundred feet beneath them. It truly was smart, attacking the lead vessel of the fleet; with the Fire Lord himself aboard, other ship's wouldn't dare fire on the Azulon with the risk that it entailed. All they could do was force a perimeter into place, and wait to be hailed.

"I don't believe we have a choice other than to order our allies to fire on the deck, but only towards the deck. Any other damage we sustain anywhere else could endanger the Fire Lord but it is clear to me that we are hopelessly outmatched being this caught off guard. On my mark, order the bombardment of—"

The shadows at his feet seemed to swirl for a moment before a figure suddenly seemed to materialize just before him. He couldn't even think of anything to say before this intruder punched his sword completely through the captain's head and sliced upward, making the orders that he had been about to utter a mystery.

"New orders," the figure muttered. Black fire swirled around him as the soldiers that had been in the tower with the captain prepared to attack.

"You've all been relieved of duty."

Katara just had time to look up and see the tower directly above them erupt in a torrent of black fire that spilled outward with a furious rush of power. Around her, her allies ceased their regrouping to observe the same, with all of the soldiers who had rushed to fight them being unconscious, dead or flung from the ship. The spewing onyx heat curled around the tower for a moment before being snuffed out as though it had been sucked into a vacuum. A moment later, there was a thundering creak as the great door that led deeper into the ship yawned open slowly before them. And just after that, there was a barely audible sound as Sasuke landed in front of them as nimbly as a cat.

Though the mission was first on her list of priorities, Katara couldn't help but fight down a feeling of unease when she saw Sasuke, one that wasn't common to her. Her utter dislike for him was certainly to be expected, but there was a real discomfort that she felt when being near him now, almost as though she wanted to step away and distance herself from him, like a distant fear that she couldn't identify. She believed that she had dreamt a terrible dream during the time between when they had landed on the cliff to when they had commenced their attack, and she was very sure that Sasuke had been in it.

Now, though, such thought was wasted time and dangerous to boot; she had to stay focused.

"It won't be long before the other ships start sending advance parties and battalions over," Zuko was saying. "Enough of them and we'll be tired out and overwhelmed."

"Then we should stop wasting time with words, Zuzu," Azula snapped. She turned to Sasuke.

"What's the move now?"

Hearing Azula look for orders from anyone would have made Katara's head spin in a less intensive time, but she could only find herself anxiously waiting to hear what he would reply with.

Sasuke had a look of pure concentration on his face, so much so that she wondered if he had even heard Azula's question. His black hair waved gently in the breeze and his dark eyes were pits of pure focus. His hands hung loosely at his side, but were clearly ready to bunch into fists or grab the hilt of his sword at a moment's notice; perhaps the lot of them had taken time to get into the way of the world, but Sasuke seemed long since ready for war.

"We have to control the deck as long as possible," he finally said. "We're going to go in two groups; a portion of you will stay above deck and keep the ship from being boarded. The rest of you will come with me as I go get Ozai."

Wiping a smear of blood from her face and trying to catch her breath, Suki propped her sword over her shoulder. "Who's with who?"

Sasuke replied without missing a beat, "Aang, Azula, Sokka and Mai, with me."

At his words, there was a clear ripple of varied reactions to this order. Aang and Sokka both looked more than okay with being asked along, and Azula looked downright ecstatic. Mai's face tightened and she nodded, and Katara noticed her look at Zuko with a pleading look, but the Fire Nation prince was looking resolutely towards Sasuke. He and the rest seemed fine with the arrangement as well, though Toph looked hardly pleased when Azula's name was mentioned, though she said nothing when hers was absent from Sasuke's list.

Katara suddenly realized that she was slightly resentful hers hadn't been mentioned as well.

Looking around at each of the people that he had been content to leave on the deck, Sasuke said, "I can't guarantee the other ships won't turn their guns on us after any amount of time, so be ready to move inside the ship if things get too dicey, or if you get overwhelmed by these inevitable reinforcements."

As his eyes reached Katara, she made sure she was looking away; she would follow these orders only grudgingly, and it was taking a great deal of effort to not openly challenge him in regards to the splitting of the team. But she knew that such argument would be a waste of time and they needed all that they could get right about then.

That and she could barely even manage to think of what she might say to him then and there, not with the nerves that were going crazy in her midsection right about then.

When no one raised any questions or concerns, Sasuke turned to his four selected and jerked his chin.

"Alright, in we go."

Toph felt the five of them pound their way into the ship through the metal floor that surrounded her and tried not to feel as deeply resentful as she did. Her entire being wanted nothing more than to follow Sasuke wherever he was aiming to go, but if it was his wish for her to stay above deck, she would comply. She knew her ability and what she lent to being above deck and as Katara seemed to almost relish the chance to take back control, she was reaffirmed why.

"Toph, can I trust you to handle any approaching small craft?" she asked. It struck Toph how relieved Katara sounded to be back giving orders, and she supposed that Sasuke taking the lead had done nothing but batter Katara's idea of being the natural leader to the group. The thought gave Toph a distant rush of satisfaction; about time that Katara realized she wasn't the most important person there.

"I can handle them as long as there's enough of this ship to tear apart," she replied, not voicing her opinions on Katara's obsession with leadership. "I can keep taking pieces of the tower, but when that's gone and we're stuck with just the ship itself, I really don't know what I can and cannot take before we potentially start to take on water. And I'll need someone to guide my aim; I'm good with distances but unless they're touching the ship, I'll have no idea where to hit."

"We should be able to keep enough time where that won't be necessary to take that much and we should be able to keep you on target," Katara said. "Ty Lee, Suki, can I have the two of you run rounds on deck and see where any potential visitors might be approaching from?"

They both voiced their confirmation and Katara finally addressed their last member, "Zuko, I want you here with me. I'm going to take turns with Toph the best I can in keeping us from being boarded, but you're going to need to be our last line if something gets past."

Zuko didn't say anything but Toph was relatively sure he had nodded in confirmation of this order as Katara then said, "Alright, let's do this."

Ty Lee and Suki immediately took off and Zuko moved towards the front of the ship to try and get a head start on the waves of soldiers that were no doubt about to start piling their way and Katara made to follow him.

As the group began to split up, a raging thought forced its way into Toph's mind, a thought that had been eating at her since just before she had fallen into a fitful period of rest hours before. It was stupid, it was so completely not the time for it, but Toph couldn't help from asking, "Katara, what happened with you and Sasuke last night?"

Katara might have become one with the ship then with how quickly she stopped moving and stood still. For a long second, the only sounds were of the crackling of the still raging fires and the creak of the ship as it rocked ever so slightly in the ocean surf. Toph had felt him move over to her earlier that night, but had been unable to hear what was said, but based on some of the movements she had felt, she had cause to believe that more than words had been exchanged. The thought made Toph so irrationally and completely irate that it was all she could do then to keep from clenching her hands into shaking fists.

Isn't contending with Azula enough?

Then, Katara said, "I don't know what you're talking about or why you would even think it your business if that had happened, Toph. Sasuke never came to talk with me last night, I walked off on my own to cool down and went to sleep just after. There's nothing more to it than that."

She started after Zuko again as she added over her shoulder.

"You really ought to tone down just how much you're obsessing over him. You're starting to sound like Azula."

And she was off then, leaving Toph standing on alone in the center of the deck, fists clenched and shaking at her side as angry tears swam into her eyes. She didn't know what made her more angry, the fact that Katara was comparing her to the psycho, or the fact that she was pretty sure Katara had been lying.

Azula watched, almost perfectly mesmerized as she jogged along behind Sasuke as he led the way deeper into the Azulon's depths. Nothing so much as slowed him down; any soldier in his path was cut down without a word, either by his sword, his kunai or the lightning that spat around his wrists whenever he called it into existence.

Just another thing we have in common.

She couldn't help but think back to what had taken place only hours ago as she followed close behind Sasuke's direct route to her father's chambers. The fervor at which he had pushed her away had been certainly something that might have been cause for her to feel resentment, but she knew why he had been hesitant at her advances. He had a lot on his mind and wasn't willing to let something like a night with her distract him from the importance of what he was doing. It was beautifully focused of him, and it made her heart beat all the quicker as she thought on it.

But his hand on her throat… Azula couldn't remember the last time she had felt that exhilarated, it was as though he had been about to force her to the ground in an effort to make her submit.

She honestly thought she might have let him.

"Down the hallway on the right takes us to the engines, but there's also a drainage tunnel that runs to the ship's aft end if we can't leave the way we came."

Mai's voice returned Azula to reality and she looked as Sasuke gave her a brief, impressed look. "How do you know so much about these things?"

With a shrug, she replied, "My family comes from a noble house, and I always hated the glamor and bore of it. I studied all kinds of war when I was with my uncle, tactics, technology, you name it. All of it fascinated the hell out of me."

Sasuke nodded. "Not something I would expect out of a girl like you."

She flicked her eyes at him, "What's that supposed to mean?"

It was his turn to shrug then. "I'm not sure. Though after you cut me open during our first meeting, I don't know why I would expect you to just be some typical rich girl."

There was something like a soft smile playing at Mai's face. "You better watch it, or I can pick up where we left off back at the prison."

Sasuke looked back ahead. "I don't doubt it."

Azula felt her blood pressure shooting through the roof at this exchange. Mai didn't belong anywhere near him, she had no right even talking to him. If they hadn't been in such a tight situation, it would have been something Azula would have been more than happy to consider, to put a bolt right through Mai's back then and there, to keep her from getting anywhere close to him. It drove her absolutely crazy to think that she had spent time alone with, and in such an intimate environment to boot, Azula wanted to believe that Sasuke wasn't withholding anything from her, but of course he would do what he could to protect her and if that meant keeping juicy details out of her reach, then she knew he would do it, he was too good to her, he would never do anything that—

"Up ahead."

The group rounded a corner then as Mai spoke and they suddenly found themselves face to face with about a dozen heavily armored guards. Azula backed out of her mental self-torture and growled as she drew up a swirl of fire. She recognized the armor of the men, it was protection befitting of her father's personal guard, a sure sign they were on the right path. But this armor was extremely powerful and offered no gaps for a knife or sword to easily penetrate, and most importantly, it was extremely heat resistant. Azula would have to try with a great effort to so much as put a scorch mark on that tempered steel, and though she supposed that Aang might be able to work some airbending for their advantage, it would still be…

Before she could even complete the split second it took her to try and generate a plan of attack, Sasuke growled.

"Burn out."

A wall of black flames rushed through the corridor in front of him, utterly reducing the now screaming men to cinders. Sasuke continued past them, not slowing in the slightest; starstruck by his display of dominance, Azula followed after him before Mai, Aang or Sokka, desperate to be the closest one to him.

He was so powerful too, it was intoxicating just being this close to him and watching him forge forward by his mere will alone. The fire he could summon was unlike anything Azula had experienced or read about in her people's history, his ability to bend more than just fire made him an impossible phenomenon even beyond that, and his control… oh, his control. It sent waves of passion through her just to think about.

She remembered how quickly he had sprung into action when she had cried out at the festival. Azula wanted to ask him if her being tortured had spurred him forward during that time, if it had angered him to the point of taking the risk of exposing himself. She wanted to tell him that she would have taken so much worse for him, it would have been her pleasure to take whatever was dished out if it was something that would help Sasuke, she wanted him to know that so badly…

When this is over… then I'll tell him. And he'll accept me then, because he'll know what I'm willing to do for him. And if he says anything, anything at all about Toph, or Mai, or Katara, or whichever bitch is trying to steal him from me, I'll kill them, I'll cut their damn throats for even so much as thinking that he'd be willing to leave me and—

"Look out!"

Azula just had time to register the shout as she looked to her right in time to see a flaming spear thrust upwards at her head just before an arm on her sleeve pulled her out of the way of its burning path. Mai, who had been the one to call out the danger and also pull Azula aside, leapt forward and stabbed the soldier in the eye. He had time to scream before she struck the knife on the hilt, forcing it deeper in and ending his life. As his body collapsed to the floor, Sasuke looked back.

"What happened?"

Aang, who looked shaken by the encounter, replied, "Azula almost got gutted by a soldier hiding in a corner off to the side here."

Azula looked up to see Sasuke look from her to Mai; to the latter, he said, "Good catch." His eyes turned back to Azula.

"Let's not get sloppy now."

He started on then, followed by Mai, and then Aang and Sokka. Azula felt herself frozen in place for a long moment before she resumed her pace after them, trying to rationalize what had just happened. She didn't want Mai to have saved her. She didn't want to be saved by a person who was trying to take Sasuke away from her. And worst of all, he had seen it. He had not only seen Mai with a sizeable accomplishment in saving one of their lives, but he had seen Azula been caught off her guard and nearly being injured as a result.

Azula was never caught with her guard down.

She began to fume silently as she trailed the rest of the group; that wasn't fair. That hadn't been fair, it had happened too quickly and too much had come of it as a result. That had surely been damaging to what Sasuke thought of her. He needed someone who was indomitable to all but him, and she had just gone and completely thrown a wrench in her own plan. Perhaps Mai had arranged for it to happen that way, she had perhaps known that an attack was coming and had purposefully let Azula step into it so she could make her move and get a leg up in getting closer to achieving Sasuke's acceptance. Mai truly was cunning, the lengths she would go to take Sasuke for himself…

Shaking her head, she tried to calm herself. This was fine, it wasn't something to get so worked up over. Besides, she would be able to show him her devotion and commitment again soon enough and Sasuke would forget all about this clumsy little slip up, and he would know that she was—

"Hello, my child."

It was only when her father's voice rippled out across the room that Azula realized she was even in a room. That she was no longer rushing behind Sasuke, that they were now all standing still with the massive pieces of the door that had led to her father's chambers having been flung aside by Sasuke's whim. It was only then that Azula remembered why they were here.

She had been in her father's room aboard the Azulon only once, and it had been years ago. The Fire Lord was not a man given to enjoying company, but aboard his flagship, he entertained the idea of guests even less. But he had taken her aboard as a birthday present, and shown her all around the ship's interior, including his private residence, an area that was almost as large as a small arena. The room was just as magnificent and reflective of her father's being as it had been when she had first stepped into it, with scarce furniture, but a spectacular map table that would put any charting table in the entirety of the four nations to shame, with only gentle torches lighting the room, but with huge stained glass windows that looked out over the ship's bow. Azula only remembered then just what had last occurred between herself and her father, a memory that had been kicked to the side due to her overwhelming interest in Sasuke. But now, her recollections of that day returned as did the burning resentment and agony that had come from being thrown aside as she had.

Fire Lord Ozai spread his hands as he regarded the five of them. "I'd say make yourselves at home, but it would appear that you already have done a good bit of work on making that happen."

He looked around, eyes settling first on Aang and Sokka. "Ah, let's see: the Avatar and one of his loyal pets. I suppose this meeting was bound to happen sooner or later."

Aang's eyes were wild, angry and frightened but he made no response other than to ball his fists. Sokka, someone Azula had known in the past to be stupidly obnoxious particularly when his usefulness was brought into question, looked unbelievably calm at the insult.

Her father looked then to Mai and then her, and Azula felt herself barely able to contain a shiver as he did. "My daughter, and her loyal friend. Come to finish what you started back at the palace when you tried to take my life I suppose?"

Mai took a step forward and the expression on her face and the pause before she spoke indicated just how much talking back to Ozai was something that went against everything she knew.

"You were the one who tried to take a life first. Don't you dare stand there and try and play the victim when you tried to kill your own daughter in your pursuit of power."

The Fire Lord raised an eyebrow, looking curious. "But had she not been prepared to make the sacrifice that was necessary for the good of our nation? You act as though this was something I had done for my own indulgence, but not only was it the hardest choice I've ever had to make, but Azula also understood the crucialness of the act."

His piercing eyes moved back to Azula. "Isn't that right, my daughter?"

And under his gaze, Azula began to fall apart. Suddenly, she was a child again, being reprimanded by her father for any inadequacy she was careless enough to show. It was so much a rarer happenstance than her brother, but Azula would forever remember just how humiliated she had felt when her disappointed father had lain into her. And that same feeling was rushing at her now as she stared him down and tried to appear as though she wasn't shaking, like she wasn't terrified jus seeing him again; a part of her wanted to rush forward and fall at his feet, imploring forgiveness. She would kill the Avatar for him now, she would kill anyone he asked, just so long as he absolved her of her sin of treason. Her lower lip quivered as she tried to think of what to say, of how she could keep herself from collapsing then and there.

"Azula."

Sasuke's voice slashed through her doubt and parted its foggy bank with all the clarity of the morning sun. She turned her frightened gaze towards him then and saw him.

He stood straight and unbending, eyes driving towards Ozai with all the intensity that could be managed. His hands were loose at his side and his stance was prepared. Sasuke was in complete control.

"You're alright," he said, and Azula's heart melted. How could she have stood there and been so weak? Her father was nothing to her anymore, because she now had found the exact thing that she had been so terrified she wouldn't be able to find. Sasuke was here, he was with her, and he was all she needed.

A tear streaked down her face as a smile blossomed outward across it. She turned back to her father, feeling a violent elation tear its way through her veins.

"I'm yours no longer, father," she cried out, her voice shaking with the freedom the words gave her. "You thought you were all that controlled me, but I've found purpose, real purpose beyond that what you instilled upon me. I'm not afraid of you."

Fire Lord Ozai regarded her with eyes that burned with disappointment and sadness. "My daughter, I will always blame myself for the failure that you have become. Forgive me for not being able to do better with you and your brother."

His utter dismissal of her was enough to shake Azula to her core, but before she could so much as muster a response, her father turned his head finally to examine Sasuke.

"And you. I knew I would see you again."

Azula looked back to Sasuke to see a grim smile on his face, and knew then that this was about to come to a head. And she couldn't have been happier to be by his side.

Sasuke, hoping that his words had been enough to get Azula under control, stared across the room at Ozai with as calm a look as he could manage. Had he allowed himself, he would have been smiling like a lunatic, so pleased he was to finally be privy to this moment. He had hopefully done the necessary part of appeasing Katara and taking Aang and some of the others with him, but now that the Fire Lord was just before him, the four people standing just behind him may just as well have not been there at all.

"We can skip a whole lot of unpleasantries, your highness, all I need are some answers from you."

Wanting to give Ozai the chance to come forward with his transgressions and see just how he reacted to them was Sasuke's first hope that he could manage but as Ozai smiled, he knew that this would not be so simple a thing to manage.

"I've told you before and I tell you again now, Sasuke: I have no answers for you. I know very little about you, and that has not changed since the last time you tried to assassinate me."

Not willing to waste time as he heard distant booms that were no doubt a result of the battle being raged above deck, Sasuke snapped, "Don't play dumb, Fire Lord. A memory returned to me, one that I experienced when I was in your temple. You spoke of having finished off a race of people and how only one was left to give you grief. Well, here he is now, and I'd like some answers."

For a moment, Ozai simply looked stunned. Then, he threw his head back and laughed, a genuine hearty sound that echoed all across the room. Sasuke bit down on his tongue and tensed up, but said nothing in reply to this outburst. Eventually, Ozai's laugher fell away and he looked back to Sasuke with a wide smile.

"Your assumptions have made you the dumb one, I'm afraid."

The Fire Lord turned and pointed a finger at Aang. "He was the one to whom I was referring. His people posed as great a threat as any could to the way of peace in the world. And now, thanks to his cowardice, he is the only one who remains."

A hideously deep gash opened up within Sasuke's stomach, taking hold of his entire body and forcing him to come to a paralyzed standstill. There was something about this exchange that only he knew, not any of his company, nor Ozai, but it was something that was most certainly troubling, well beyond an admission of guilt.

Ahead of him, Ozai's smile widened even further.

"There was never any thought to you, Sasuke. Once again, you are nothing more than a nuisance of unknown origin. I have nothing for you."

The feeling was now a terrible numbness that had seized Sasuke's form, a chilling and terrible feeling that crept into his very heart and poured its ambiguous disbelief deep into his core. He wanted to shout at Ozai, accuse him of lying, place him under the most awful of genjutsu and force a proper confession. But the truth was, from the moment they had entered the room, Sasuke had cast a jutsu, one that hung in the air silently and undetectable. It allowed him to detect when a person was lying or telling the truth, which was why he had been able to sense Azula's distress and why now, even as he couldn't bear to even imagine the thought, he knew Ozai was telling the truth.

Everything seemed suddenly very inconsequential to him. He had put his entire faith, all his stock into the fact that the Fire Lord would have information he needed to move forward with rediscovering himself. Now, he was aware of the cold truth that contradicted this belief.

Ozai truly had nothing for him, and again, Sasuke was lost.

Sasuke stood still, his charade of being in control now crashing down. He wanted rather badly then to just sit down and wait to be dragged away by guards. He could feel the eyes of Azula, Mai, Sokka and Aang watching him closely, waiting for direction and what was to come next. But just as the Fire Lord was empty handed to his plight, Sasuke had nothing to offer his companions. All he had left was his failure.

"You stupid boy, you really thought this was something I could solve for you?" Ozai asked. He must have been able to sense just how disheartened Sasuke had become and now went on the offensive with his verbal jesting. Azula stepped forward then, still seeing deeply emboldened by Sasuke's brief but clearly meaningful assurance.

"Don't lie to him! Don't you stand there and keep holding down the truth, you answer him honestly now!"

Aang, seeming to have sensed that Sasuke's mood had changed drastically, murmured nervously, "Azula… ?"

She bore no mind to the Avatar's meek attempt to get her attention and continued roaring at her father.

"You don't know what he's been through, the choices he's had to make! You tell him what he wants to know, or I'll make you myself!"

Finally, Sasuke couldn't bear it any longer.

"Azula."

His voice was still calm and controlled, but he was just able to keep it at that as opposed to a defeated croak. She spun to face him, her face alive with a manic excitement; when she saw his expression, her smile disappeared but her eyes remained large and fixed on him.

"What's wrong?"

When he didn't reply, she walked over to him and put a hand on his cheek; gritting his teeth, Sasuke pushed her away but not before Ozai clearly had seen what had happened. The Fire Lord's eyes widened and he broke out into a brand new vicious smile.

"Oh! And now we see just why my daughter has become so open rebellious!"

He narrowed his eyes and Sasuke could see some parental instinctiveness creeping into the Fire Lord's openly displayed malice. "What lies have you filled her head with? What have you promised her to make you such an appealing alternative to my attempt to heal this world? If I kill you, will I be able to gain my daughter's love back?"

Azula spun around and stepped in front of Sasuke, spreading her arms.

"Don't you even think about touching him!"

Judging by the look on Ozai's face, he had been expecting this and her father made no reply, only continued to stand there smiling. Eventually, he looked past his daughter in an open show of ignoring her and addressed Sasuke again.

"And this is what you've come up with? A suicide charge that will kill you and all of your friends, the Avatar included? I wanted a swift end to this war, and you've all but giftwrapped it for me."

Within the numbness that had taken hold of Sasuke's heart, a small hole began to burn outwards, slowly but with a heat that was unmissable.

"Perhaps I should take you all captive first instead. If I can grill you for information, it will make my retaking of the city all the easier. Which of the lot of you would you recommend I torture first, Sasuke? Who will give up the quickest when I take the iron, or the whip to first?"

That heat worked its way from his gut through his core, ascending to his shoulders and reaching down towards his legs.

"My daughter certainly seems taken with you. I would hate to have to harm her, particularly after how I learned how she had been treated at the festival. But if I can get through to you through her, perhaps that's the way to go."

Azula seemed to tense up further in front of him, but this was something that Sasuke only noticed in his periphery; in his focus was just that heat that was starting to steam through his very core now, extending to his toes and fingers and charging his heart with a furiously intense burn.

"Or perhaps the youngest of your lot, I was informed by my new friend that she was a part of your landing party and is aboard now…"

Distantly, Sasuke recognized this odd choice of words.

New friend?

"… but someone like her… I've heard varying reports from my field operatives and my daughter to boot. A talented bender from a rich family who's never truly experienced any real hardship would probably tap out in a panic the moment the iron touched her skin—"

Taking Azula by the shoulder and forcing her aside, Sasuke exploded forward, the heat that had begun to burn within now a full blown furnace of rage. Perhaps Ozai couldn't provide him with the answers he so desperately sought, but it would bring him no small amount of pleasure to crash his Chidori into the Fire Lord's face and wipe that smile from his sneering face. He had heard enough of this bravado-ridden grandstanding, this talk of free victory, this threatening of Azula and Toph; Sasuke was going to render the Fire Nation leaderless with a single blow. Ozai had proven himself strong previously as a firebender, but Sasuke had only faltered in their first encounter due to a myriad of factors. Now, he may as well have been rushing at just a man, just a hateful, despicable man who stood no chance against him.

But as he looked at the Fire Lord who stood before him, entirely unconcerned, entirely undefended, and entirely confident, Sasuke couldn't help but look past his hate for a moment, long enough to realize how strange Ozai's behavior was, especially when he knew just how dangerous Sasuke was. It was almost as though he were welcoming Sasuke's attack. Like everything he had said had been to spur him into action.

Like he was using himself as bait.

The hair's on the back of Sasuke's neck stood up a moment too late as a deafening blast roared behind above and behind him, culminating in what must have been a massive fireball that slammed into his back and sent him skidding the length of the chambers to crash into the opposite wall.

He picked himself from the ground with a grimace; no one in this world had been able to catch him off guard like that, no one could hope to be fast enough. But as a figure dropped from where it had been hiding within the darkness of the ceiling, Sasuke could tell this was no ordinary bender.

The figure was a younger man, with short and spiky black hair, and scars marring the right side of his face. He wore unremarkable robes of a deep purple, but the mere presence that he exuded was enough to let Sasuke know that this was not a person to be underestimated, certainly not after the strike he had been dealt just a moment before.

"I think that will be enough from you," the man said. Behind him, as though they had been practicing it forever, Azula and Mai sprinted into action, moving towards the man's left and right, shooting a jet of blue fire and hurling a slew of thin knives respectively. The man before Sasuke made a few hand signs in the blink of an eye and raised a hand, palm facing behind him. Azula's fire altered course in midair and twisted to catch Mai's knives, disintegrating them into puffs of smoke before the fire withered out entirely. The pair of them slowed for a moment in shock at how easily their threat had been neutralized but only for a moment before they resumed their rush towards him, Aang and Sokka now close behind.

They made it only a few more paces before a great wall of flame rose between them and forced them backwards. Sasuke turned to see Ozai weaving the fire with his open hands, aggressively moving towards his companions. Only able to watch as the four of them had to reconsider their target, Sasuke straightened and regarded the man before him, trusting in his companions to hold the Fire Lord at bay while he dealt with this sudden intrusion.

The man eyed Sasuke with an intense curiousness.

"So, you've decided to use your excessive might to take advantage of the weaker people of this world. Siding with terrorists and assassins? I don't know exactly who you are, but you embarrass me to be part of your family."

Sasuke froze again. The stranger gave him a flat smile. "Ah, just as lost as I, are you? Tell me, Sasuke, what do you remember?"

So totally stunned at what he had just heard, Sasuke took several long seconds to realize what had been just asked of him.

"I remember… names. Faces. I remember my brother. I remember how to fight. I remember my family being destroyed and I remember that I need revenge."

The man scoffed at this. "You don't even know who you're trying to get revenge on. And here you are having chosen a side without even knowing the stakes, in a world that we have no place in."

Firing up, Sasuke snarled, "And you do? How do I know that you're not just some actor that Ozai is using to try and trick me into some—"

At once, the man's eyes flashed, one with an angry red and the other with a muted purple coloration. Recognizing one of the eyes as a Sharingan, Sasuke stopped talking and swallowed.

"Do I look like an actor?" the man asked coldly. His eyes were as true and genuine as anything Sasuke had yet seen and he knew then that he was indeed dealing with someone from his world, where he had come from. Despite the circumstances, despite the danger, he dared for a moment to hope.

"Who are you?" was all Sasuke could think to say. In that moment, even with Azula, Mai, Sokka and Aang in true danger behind this newcomer, all Sasuke wanted was to know more about who this person was.

Fortunately, the man hardly seemed reserved in offering his own side of this puzzling equation. "My name is Obito; I know we share the last name, Uchiha. It's why we have these eyes, and I think it has something to do with why we're here. I too remember names and faces, distantly. And I also remember how to fight."

As Sasuke eyed Obito's sword and felt the throbbing pain from the attack he had just taken, he knew that was likely more than a true statement.

"We don't need to be enemies," Sasuke tried. "Just because we came into this world in different places and have met different people shouldn't dictate what side of the line we fall on."

"I agree," Obito said before pointing a finger in Sasuke's direction. "Renounce these terrorists and stand with Ozai and myself. He's offered his entire wealth of resources in tracking down my lost memory in exchange for helping him put an end to this war."

And there of course was the catch. There had to be one.

"Ozai is a tyrant," Sasuke snapped. "He wants to put the entire world under Fire Nation control through force, and you just heard him admit that he was key in wiping out an entire nation of this world that we know nothing about."

To this, Obito said nothing, merely stared across the way at Sasuke. Sensing an opportunity to push his chances, Sasuke continued.

"I've seen the results of his attempts at 'peace', or so he calls it. He tried to kill his own son, his own daughter, and you think this is a man to be trusted? What makes you think his side is the right one?"

"You're talking from the perspective of someone who's fallen for that princess. Or was it another one of them? The earthbender? A little young for you, don't you think?" Obito smirked. Sasuke had to keep himself from getting immediately fired up but he wasn't given time to respond.

"I'll make this simple for you, Sasuke," Obito said. "I don't care if Ozai is in the right or in the wrong. I don't care about what happens to this world. He has the resources to make finding my past all the easier. I traveled with his brother, a person that I know for a fact could not be an evil person. So if you don't side with me and make my route forward easier, I'm going to kill you. Then, I'm going to kill all the insane, murderous people you came here with. And I'm going to deliver Ozai this war and he, in turn, is going to deliver my answers."

He spread his arms in an open gesture. "If you really care about them, you'll side with me anyway. I'll make sure they aren't killed as a result of all this. Ozai is already willing to make accommodations for his children, I'm sure I can make some of my own."

This was it, then. Sasuke knew just by listening to Obito speak that there was no talking his way out of this. He wasn't going to be able to cast a genjutsu in time and Obito wouldn't let him get past to take down Ozai and escape with everyone. With a sinking feeling, he realized just how much peril that Aang and his entire company was in, purely for no reason. There had been no answers to be found. Just more violence.

So he supposed he owed Aang at least a solid try on his part.

He turned his gaze down and closed his eyes. "You've made up your mind. I suppose I can't fault you for that."

Sasuke opened them, and let the light of his Sharingan wash out over Obito.

"But I've made up mine as well. I'll get the answers I seek, but not through negotiating with a man like this."

He locked eyes with Obito and growled, "And you're in my way."

For a moment that lasted an eternity, they only stared at one another, scanning and digging for weaknesses and preparing all their most lethal attacks. And Sasuke supposed that if Obito was anything like him, he was regretting the little time they had been given to speak to one another and just how unfortunate it was that this world was pitting them against one another.

They both moved at once.

Sokka gasped for breath as he breached the water's surface alongside his father. Behind the both of them, the small envoy of special operations soldiers that had accompanied them also surfaced, waiting for orders. All of them fully armed and prepared to leap into action, Sokka looked them over before turning to his father. Explosions, flashes and distant cries were all around them as they hugged the massive underbelly of the Fire Nation's flagship and Sokka couldn't help but feel impossibly tiny in comparison.

"Are you sure about this?"

Hakoda offered him the most genuine smile possible and replied, "I wouldn't have brought this plan to the high command and offered to lead the charge myself if I didn't have the utmost faith in your design."

He reached out and put a hand on Sokka's shoulder as they tread the water. "I'm proud of you, son."

Allowing himself a moment to swell with happiness at the recognition, Sokka then took a deep breath and turned to the men immediately behind him.

"Now!"

At once, geysers of water sprang up from beneath him and the two dozen or so men he was with, propelling them upwards through the air to race towards the cloudy night sky. As they came over the deck of the ship, the geysers sputtered out, giving them a last push to come onto the deck; Sokka hit the metal ground with a roll and came out of it with his sword drawn and his teeth bared as he opened his mouth in what was about to be a battle cry intended to frighten any Fire Nation soldier before him.

What he saw instead was hardly anything he had prepared for.

He and his father had led this dark op when they noticed that some level of chaos had broken out neat the Azulon, and they had rushed into the ocean in an effort to take advantage of whatever carnage was being generated. They had expected that there had been some sort of malfunction aboard the ship causing it to suffer a series of explosions and ships were being dispatched to help with the repairs. But as Sokka looked over the deck, he could see that they had been grievously wrong in their assumptions.

Because what Sokka saw was perhaps one of the most shocking and uplifting sights he could have seen.

Toph was slowly tearing pieces of the ship's metal exterior and flinging it over the ship's bow at shouted positions from Suki and Ty Lee, while Zuko and his sister rushed about, slinging fire and water at any approaching small craft that were near enough to be too close to comfort that Sokka and his company had needed to swim around in their approach of the ship. They all stopped though to turn and stare as Toph called out they had visitors.

Sokka couldn't decide who he wanted to go and hug first.

Katara made the decision for him and walked up to him, and he closed the distance and threw his arms around her.

"Oh, thank goodness you're safe! I was so worried about you!"

Strangely though, she only returned his hug half-heartedly and slowly pulled away, looking at him in confusion. Before he could ask her what was the matter, Suki and the rest of them jogged over and Sokka then threw his arms around his girlfriend.

"And you! These past few nights have been killing me! I missed holding you so much…"

And as she said nothing and Sokka pulled away, he saw that Suki too was giving him the strangest look, one that didn't reflect at all the relief he might have respected in turn after he had been gone for several days. Zuko, Ty Lee and Toph all mirrored the expressions of Suki and his sister and Sokka looked around at them in confusion.

"What?"

A booming thud knocked the side of the ship, sending up a spray of water. Hakoda barked out orders to his men before turning to Katara and stepping forward to wrap his daughter in a hug, one that Sokka noticed with annoyance was returned much stronger than the one he had given.

"Don't be long in your reunion. You kids have done great so far, but we need to stick to the plan."

He addressed Sokka then and gave his son another pat on the shoulder. "Get them up to speed as quick as you can."

Then, he rushed off to coordinate his soldiers in picking up where Katara and the others had left off. With that, Sokka looked back to his sister and asked a more, less ambiguous, "What?!"

It was Ty Lee then who slowly asked, "Sokka, what do you remember about the last few days?"

He made a bemused face before sputtering out, "What's to tell? I thought you guys would have been worried sick, but I guess not. I went with dad, and Chit Sang and the other kids to the first outpost we could reach. I went inside the main headquarters with dad to talk to the leadership of the western offensive about what they could give us about Ozai, you know, that I could take back to Aang and all you guys. I left the tent about an hour later to fly back, but when I went to look for Appa, he was gone."

He shrugged.

"I guess I just assumed that Aang had used that whistle, or something else had sent him away. One way or another, I was just stuck with dad and everyone else. I've been worried like crazy about you guys but I guess that you all just decided to make a move on Ozai the same night we did, crazy as that seems. I thought Aang was going to wait until Sozin's Comet though? I bet it had something to do with Sasuke, he probably wanted to go earlier, didn't he?"

His questions weren't met with any answers though and instead he watched as his comrades looked to one another with expressions of growing concern as Toph turned to look towards the yawning entrance of the ship's interior. Sokka finally couldn't handle it any longer and threw his hands up.

"What are you all looking like that for?!"

For a second, no one replied. Then, Suki looked back to him and spoke slowly as though she were afraid that something she said was going to upset him.

"Because, Sokka, two days ago, you came back with Appa. You've been traveling with us since then."

Katara's expression was now looking more frightened then anything.

"And ten minutes ago, you went down below deck with Aang, Sasuke, Mai and Azula to find Fire Lord Ozai."

As what they said rebounded inside his head over and over before finally settling and chilling him to the core, Sokka swallowed and slowly looked to the ship's interior entrance with the rest of them.

Toph was already running that way.

It was utterly baffling in Mai's head where her priorities were in that moment. There she was, squaring up against who was perhaps the most powerful firebender alive, very much fighting for her life and for those of her companions and yet she couldn't so much as keep her mind drifting to Zuko, or Sasuke.

She had near the edge of that cliff for well over an hour after everyone else had lain down, trying to decipher her feelings, but had come no closer to any kind of solution in bringing herself peace. Mai knew that Zuko was resentful of what she had done, and it had been stupid of her to even think that speaking with him in private wouldn't have been a much more practical solution than just pretending it had never happened. But she had been so hopeful that she could just bury it that it hadn't even crossed her mind that Katara might fight as dirty as she had.

But still, Katara's public outing of her aside, why had she reacted so badly?

Mai had thought to it a hundred times at least by that point; every part of her natural persona indicated she would have snapped something back or downplayed it to the point of being irrelevant, but she still remembered her heart rate exploding to a new height, how humiliated she had felt and how, of all the people she had looked to first, it hadn't been Zuko.

It had been Sasuke.

A whip of fire conjured up by Ozai slung its way past her midsection. It might have burned a hole clean through her if she hadn't been able to get her thoughts under control enough to leap aside and evade it. Nevertheless, it opened up the side of her robes and struck her with a nasty burn just below her ribs and she yelled in pain. The fiery cord reared back to snap towards her again, but suddenly, the Avatar was in front of her, waving his hands frantically. It was clear his mastery of firebending was still not quite achieved, but he was able to twist it enough that it dissipated into hot sparks. Aang turned to look at her.

"Are you alri—"

Mai lunged forward then and tackled him to the ground as a wave of heat blasted over their heads and smashed into the wall behind them with a scorching boom. Looking up to see if another attack was coming, Mai saw Azula and Sokka moving in, the princess slinging attacks just as large in scope at her father, blue fire crashing against his orange flames, while Sokka attempted to move around and potentially get a hit in while the Fire Lord was distracted. Ozai was forced to occasionally turn from his daughter and hurl an attack towards Katara's brother, but he avoided each of them nimbly. Almost too easily, Mai thought, like Sokka was somehow able to increase his speed in combat.

She rose to her feet, wincing at the burn on her midsection and pulled Aang up by the forearm. It took a single look to see how shaken the kid was and Mai felt a pang of regret that he had been selected by Sasuke to venture down this far with them. She knew why though; Katara would never have let it go if Aang hadn't been actively involved in Ozai's defeat.

Still, Mai was sure that whatever Katara didn't know wouldn't hurt her.

She put a hand on Aang's shoulder, looking down at him, doing her best to sound as compassionate as she felt; speaking kind words didn't exactly come naturally to her.

"Look, kid, you can hang back, if you want. Azula, Sokka and I, we can handle this."

The fear and lowkey panic that had been on Aang's face gave way to indignation. "And let you and Sokka take the brunt of his attacks?! You're both nonbenders and you could be hurt way more easily than I could!"

Mai looked up back to the fight, understanding that this was probably not the time to have a heart to heart on the importance of duty and survival.

"Just take it easy in there, " she finally said. "We lose you, and Katara'll have all our heads on stakes before the night is out."

They both looked back towards Ozai who was falling into a rhythm of defending himself against Sokka's probing advances and Azula's onslaught of bright blue fire. In the midst of it, he was calling out to his daughter, adding verbal engagement to his offense.

"You can still make things right, Azula," he was saying, that Mai struggled to hear over the roaring heat of their attacks. "Come back to my side, and all can be forgiven."

Azula's face deepened with fury at these words, her attacks growing more and more wild by the second. Mai growled and said, "We'd better get back in there."

Aang looked at her, "You're worried Ozai's going to get her too reckless?"

She shook her head, "I'm worried she's going to listen to him."

Nodding, Aang propelled himself back into the fray, a newfound courageousness etched into his face. He summoned a cyclone as he leapt into the air and slammed it into Ozai's side, sending his next fireball awry and forcing him to give ground to Azula. Mai realized that if the room hadn't been as massive a chamber as it was, this would surely have been a much different fight had the space for battle been any more enclosed. She drew several knives and made to insert herself back into the conflict before she happened to look to her right and stopped where she stood.

Sasuke and the stranger were going at one another in hand to hand combat on the other side of Ozai's chamber. Considering the explosive awe that accompanied the fight of benders and nonbenders occurring nearby, their battle would have seemed much less impressive by scale and therefore less noticeable. But as Mai watched, her eyes widening, she could tell that there was so much more happening than even she could tell.

Sasuke's arms and the stranger's arms were actually blurring to her vision, as though they were moving too quickly for her brain to track. It looked as though they might even be phasing through one another as she noticed leg sweeps and kicks were a part of the fray as well. It was as though each of them were both several steps ahead of the other and it genuinely started to hurt her head on how much she couldn't tell what was actually happening.

An explosive bang sounded to her left and she looked back to see Ozai stumbling towards the back wall of his chamber at the combine effort of Azula and Aang's firebending. The princess turned and fixed Mai with a furious look.

"Anytime you're ready would be just fine with me!"

Cursing, Mai tore her eyes away from Sasuke's conflict and returned it to her own as she raced forward to end the battle that she had unknowingly been preparing to wage for years.

Sasuke would still be there when Ozai was finished, she convinced herself.

Toph's breathing came in ragged gasps as she tore her way through the Azulon's interior. Her adeptness with metalbending was nowhere near as proficient as her absolute mastery of earthbending, but she could still tell that, just as sure as she was that her Sokka, Katara, Ty Lee, Suki and Zuko were all running behind her, there was a battle of extreme proportions occurring somewhere below her.

The hallways and corridors of the ship became tunnels in her mind as she connected the dots in finding the path that would lead her below to where she wanted to be, where she had to be. She focused as hard as she ever had, even as exhausted as she was from the effort it had taken to send all those massive pieces of metal flinging towards approaching Fire Nation craft. Soldiers that must have missed Sasuke and company when they had come down initially or perhaps who just now had been alerted to the situation were blown aside by metal pieces rent from the very halls down which they ran.

Sasuke was in danger and Toph was stopping for no one.

Distantly, she tried to imagine who the mystery person disguising themselves as Sokka had been. She was struggling not to beat herself up mentally for it; the person had never quite had the same bounce and aura to his weight and movement as Sokka had, with his antics and goofiness almost feeling forced at times over the past couple days. But Toph guessed she had just played that off as him trying to inject some good natured humor into their often depressing situation, as forced as it might have been. That, or she had been too mentally preoccupied with other things to properly take into stock his odd behavior.

Toph didn't know why she was so ambiguously lying to herself when she knew for a fact she meant Sasuke.

He was the reason she had been feeling so distracted and so pained in recent days, he was the reason why she had dared to hope for a real future beyond this war, he was the reason she had cried herself to sleep on more than one occasion, and he was the reason why now, even as she barreled her way deeper into the ship, tears burned their way down her cheeks.

Sasuke, she thought and grit her teeth, you better not die on me.