A/N: The Following is rated L; for Loss.
It takes place, chronologically, somewhere during the series finale S3E18-21 "Sozin's Comet."
Reader discretion is advised.
Chapter 21: "The Battle of Burning Sulfur"
Early Summer, Year 13 in the reign of Fire-Lord Ozai
Now then… where was it?
Zuko was reasonably certain that the battle was over as he wandered through the grassy windswept plains in the shadow of Omashu. The field lay thick with both the dead and the dying and all around him soldiers with stretchers, in blue and red and green, moved with an intensity, still seeking those who were only in the latter category and rushing them up to the healing tents in the north.
I know it was around here… somewhere…
Purple was an odd color. All the other colors of the rainbow were easy; roses were red, poppies were white, fire-lilies were varyingly yellow and orange. Purple, however, was not a color often found in the Fire-Nation or otherwise.
But his Katara was a Unicorn and they were purple.
So he kept looking.
He remembered seeing the flower in the chaos of battle and had defended it for a good long time before he'd needed to roar his way to another weakness in the line of battle. He was reasonably certain that he'd killed at least twelve people as he'd circled around that flower. Fire-Nation soldiers all of them. Enemies, certainly, but still… bright eyes over familiar-looking faces going dull and horrified as his blade of fire had…
Great ancestors, I'm tired, Zuko thought, shaking his head free of extraneous thought. Where in the ash is… THERE!
He'd finally managed to retrace his steps and had found it, a vibrant and purely indigo blossom, miraculously undamaged amongst the carnage, a loyalist firebender's corpse, showing the mon of Bayushi, laying scant inches away. Zuko fell to his knees in front of the flower, the movement sending a strange twanging sensation up his left side, and contemplated the it for a long moment.
"Sir?"
Zuko glanced up and saw Rin, the barest hints of concern peeking through his otherwise stoic mask. He started to speak again, but Zuko put a finger to his lips in a silencing gesture. He wasn't certain exactly why quiet was important, but the weight of the moment seemed to demand it.
After another long moment, something akin to reverence in his slow movements, Zuko gently grasped the stem of the flower and cut it, low to the ground, with his wakizashi. As he held the blossom up to the light of Holy Sun it cast mottle purple shadows across his bloodstained and mutilated face.
"Sir?" Rin said again, this time his voice in a near whisper. "We… we should probably get to the healing tents, sir."
"The healing tents?" Zuko asked, his brow wrinkling in confusion for a moment before nodding. "Ah… yes. She will probably be there. Excellent work, sergeant."
"It's… it's colonel, sir."
"Oh. Right. Sorry, Rin," Zuko said and he lurched his way to his feet, flower still delicately clutched in his left hand. "You know, I don't think anyone has been with me as long as you have, have they?"
"No, sir."
"…This isn't much like Doromuri, is it?"
"No, sir."
"I… I still miss Ping some days, you know?"
"Yes, sir. So do I."
"What was I…" Zuko glanced around himself in confusion for a moment and then down at the blossom in his hand. Without another word he began to make his way back to the camp, weaving his way through the discarded spears, arrows, and corpses without a passing glance.
As he walked, people called out to him. Still somewhat entranced by the blossom in his hand, he only waved back at them somewhat idly as Rin, diligent officer that he was, shushed anyone who tried to talk to Zuko. It made sense of course, no one ought to bother a man on the way to see the love of his life.
Everyone seems so tense, a part of Zuko thought, noting the looks on the faces of many of the passers-by. I thought we won this one?
They must have. Despite the visible concern on everyone's faces, no one was tearing down the camp to beat a retreat.
Tactical withdrawal. We don't retreat.
Right. Tactical withdrawal. No one was tactically withdrawing. So they must have won the battle. That hadn't always been the case of late and Zuko's body and brain stutter-stepped for a moment remembering the past few months, the loss of life among his people, both loyalist and rebel, the burning camps and villages, the sounds of the wounded, the dying, and those who were caught somewhere between those two states. The hoarse piercing screams of…
He paused for a moment and shook his head again, shaking off the thoughts like they were insects buzzing around him, before carrying on.
The healing tents were in the center of camp and as he continued in that direction a rather large group of people either stared at him in open wonder or simply fell in behind him conversing quietly among themselves or with Rin.
Uesugi Bo appeared suddenly, her eyes widened in surprise and her hands flying to her mouth as her toddling daughter stood behind her, grasping her leg, and staring at Zuko with a curious look.
Why is she… Is Rin hurt?
"Are you injured, Rin?" Zuko asked, stopping suddenly.
"I… have a few cuts and scrapes, sir."
Ah. That must be it. He's downplaying it in front of his wife, but she can tell.
"You had better come with me to the healing tents then. Before your wife worries to death."
Bo just goggled at him.
Why do you insist on trying to make jokes? Nobody ever thinks they're funny.
Zuko shrugged, which sent another twinge through his arm for some reason, and then carried on. He was getting close to his destination, both sides of the path he was on were full of soldiers recovering on stretchers, having been moved out the healing tents after the most grievous of their wounds had been seen to.
A few moments later Zuko, now followed by what appeared to be a small parade, lurched to a halt.
There she is.
Katara had her hair tied back loosely as she scrubbed at her arms in a barrel of water, washing the last traces of someone else's blood away.
She must be tired. She's not even using her bending… Ash and bone is she beautiful.
Their eyes met across the road and, in a sudden rush, she was there in front of him, mouth working in concern and anger.
"What- How- Where have you-?"
"Purple," Zuko said simply, holding out the flower. He was certain that he'd had a better explanation when he'd started this particular quest but, looking at those eyes, words tended to desert him.
Katara, like Bo before her, goggled at him, her eyes flicking down to the flower in his left hand and back to him in a snapping beat. "You mean to tell me… after all of that… and when everyone was looking for you, for hours, you stopped to pick me a flower?!"
She seemed upset for some reason.
"You… you don't like it?" Zuko asked scratching at the back of his neck with his free hand. It seemed very important that she like the flower for some reason.
She stared at him for a long moment, mouth slightly ajar. Then she took the flower from his unresisting hand and put it behind her ear.
"You look very nice," Zuko said, his face contorting into something akin to a smile as he admired the contrast between the flower and her stunning eyes. Just as quickly as it had arrived his smile disappeared as he came to a sudden realization. "…Katara, did you know you have blood in your hair? Are you hurt?"
She stayed behind in camp! Was there a breakthrough? She should have been fine!
The look on her face, one of worry and anger, shifted to wide-eyed shock.
"Zuko… this is your blood."
Zuko looked down at himself with no small amount of confusion. His chest was almost bare, the thick protective tunic he normally wore under his armor was nothing more than bloody rags over top of the small razor-thin cuts of katana that had come within a hairs-breadth of being too close. He suddenly remembered the part of the battle where he'd had to shed his breastplate, a lucky strike had severed one of the straps that held it together, and that had made wearing it more problematic than not. He also remembered how it had been moderately difficult to accomplish because of the arrows that were embedded in his left shoulder and arm. He remembered breaking off the shafts after it had happened and, as dictated by his training, had left them there in order to staunch the blood flow. Still, his blood had leaked, was still leaking in fact, down his arms to his hands, both of which were stained black with blood and firebending char.
Some of which had gotten on the flower.
Ash and bone, Zuko thought, scowling at himself. Who gives his girlfriend a present with blood on it? Idiot.
He idly tried, and failed, to wipe his hands on his leg armor, sending that odd twinge through him again.
"I… I will get you another one," he said aloud, nodding to himself and turning around to head back out to the battlefield.
Maybe there was another one? He thought as he looked past the milling crowd of soldiers and officers who seemed to be considering just how they would be stopping him if he tried to leave.
"Zuko. Stop," Katara said, quickly grabbing ahold of his uninjured arm. "I don't need a-"
"But… I have to fix it," Zuko said, brow furrowed as he turned back to her. "I… I broke it… and I have to fix it. All of it, you see? I broke it and- and- I have to fix it. You said… You said you wanted me to, and I… I have to. Have to fix-"
Katara's hand tightened on his. "You did. You already did fix it, ok? Just stop this and let me heal you."
"Actually," Zuko said, a small smile appearing again amidst the blood and scars of his face, "Rin might need you to tell Bo that he's going to be just fi-"
"Hey, Zuko? Anybody tell you that you got shot again?" Sokka asked, appearing out of the healing tent, and cocking a single eyebrow at Zuko's bloody chest.
Zuko rocked back in surprise and looked down at himself again, really taking in the wounds and arrows for the first time.
He blinked.
"So I have… Rin?"
"Yes, sir?"
"Help me into the healing tent, would you?"
"Yes, sir."
-Ω-Ω-Ω-Ω-Ω-Ω-Ω-Ω-Ω-Ω-Ω-Ω-
The colonies had been nothing more or less than a blood-soaked nightmare.
Before, Zuko had been justly proud of his previous string of unbroken victories. Now, however, after fighting loyalist forces across the length and breadth of the colonies, he had privately begun to wonder if the war might not have been better served if he had simply stayed on Ember Island. Stayed there and simply wished his enemies dead. To know that the armies of the Fire-Nation numbered in the hundreds of thousands was one thing, to see that truth played out before him, to play Go against an opponent that could play ten stones to his one, was exhausting.
No matter that a steady stream of defections to his side had begun in earnest, whole platoons often defecting just before a battle, the war machine of the Fire-Nation was grinding him down like grist in a mill. While Zuko had eventually come to the surprising conclusion that he could out-general almost anyone of any station, he had also discovered the truth of another ancient maxim.
Quantity was a quality in its own right.
But, still, he'd managed. Hopping from castle to castle, port to port, to keep the colonies free of any permanent loyalist foothold. He had found it not entirely dissimilar to trying to bail a sinking ship with only a teacup, tossing incursion after incursion back into the sea only for them to appear again in a different place.
Again and again and again, until he'd even begun to fight the enemy in the deepest of his dreams, lashing out with a shout and often a firebend.
Or at least trying to, often he simply woke to the sensation of Katara, her arms wrapped around him tightly, restraining him consciously or unconsciously.
Spirits, I'm tired, Zuko thought, clenching his jaw against another yawn even though Katara had, over the last few days, made certain he'd gotten what she considered an "adequate" amount of "bed rest."
But, to be fair, he was not the only one. Everyone present, even those who normally set the standard for rigid straight-backed posture, seemed to have a slight barely perceptible slump to their shoulders. They slumped in their chairs, or where they stood, around a table in Omashu's newly re-re-liberated throne room, listening to Mai give a presentation in her normal calm monotone.
But then again that slump might have had more to do with the subject matter than with any actual exhaustion.
The Fire-Nation airships… were missing.
They were supposed to be here. They were supposed to be being assembled in the new airbase just east of "New Ozai" for Operation: Clean Sweep. Part of the reason that Zuko had spent so much time darting around the colonies was to make sure that no one would foresee his actual objective; the damnable airships that were supposed to be here.
And while the airbase, with barracks, hangars, and landing area certainly was present, investigation had revealed only a pair of war-balloons and absolutely no sign of their enormous cousins.
Mai's presentation currently was providing context to the map she had made of the surrounding lands, the western coast nearest the city, and the islands beyond that. It was covered in her small neat handwriting and she read from it detailing where she believed the battle-blimps might have been moved to, where they might still be, as well as several conceptual strategies for how they might decide to go about capturing them.
It was far too many "mights" for Zuko's liking, and so, having already heard several versions of this particular report himself, he moved his focus from Mai's words to the people around the table with him.
Toph looked bored, but then, unless she was kicking somebody's ass, she always looked bored, especially when confronted with things on paper. Now, a good six months after Ba Sing Se, even Zuko could tell that she had finally entered her growth spurt. She stood past shoulder high to Zuko now and had, since the war began, destroyed four sets of armor, and innumerable sizes of normal clothes, due to a combination of excessive Toph-levels of wear and tear, natural growth, as well as her natural tendency to throw herself bodily after Zuko or Sokka, following them to the places where combat was the thickest.
Sokka, flat-faced and generally unsmiling as he had been for months, watched to presentation with his now usual display of flat-eyed unconcern. Unless the contents of these meetings had anything specifically to do with the deployment of soldiers for battle or reports of enemy movement he generally did not seem to care. Zuko knew better than to assume that he was not listening however, as Sokka had managed to master the art of listening without seeming overly engrossed in the content. While this stoicism was something Zuko would have approved of in a Fire-Nation subordinate, he found it somewhat disconcerting in the man who had once argued, with great passion and vehemence, that "Meatmaster" was a perfectly acceptable code name.
Mai, despite being in the midst of a presentation, also looked bored. That was typical, but Zuko couldn't help but stare with a sense of unreality at her now only shoulder-length hair. It had been almost a month since she had cut it, Zuko assumed in solidarity with Ty Lee's still short fire-shorn bob, and he still found the look rather jarring. She'd had long hair and buns since they'd been eight, and without them she looked… different.
Zuko had remained silent on this topic, however. He knew better than to insult a woman's hairstyle choices, even in the privacy of his own skull.
Ty Lee probably looked the least weary of any of them, but that was probably just through dint of pure optimistic muscle memory. She'd been unbearably chipper as a child and now, at nineteen, that energy had restrained itself in idly tapping feet and fingers as she intermittently watched Mai's presentation or gazed, her normally bright grey eyes growing dull and unfocused, out into the middle distance. She was normally fine in a combat situation, but Zuko had noticed that, since her near brush with death, her attention tended to wander away from her at times, often seemingly against her will.
The rest of the assembled officers and lords looked about as haggard as the rest of the army was. Uesugi Rin and Ren stood at parade rest behind Zuko, sporting numerous small blade and burn scars on their armor and faces.
Haki sat a few places to Zuko's left, listening intermittently as he scowled at both the crutch leaning on the table next to him and the wooden prosthetic affixed to his left leg that it was meant to help with.
Ichiro Sanjo, formerly Suki's second, stood calm and impassive by the far wall, her traditional makeup mostly obscuring the blade wound that pulled the right side of her face downward into a permanent scowl.
Chieftains Hakoda and Korra had a series of new scars that made their already weather-beaten faces look even more fearsome. Arnook still looked more put together, despite the fact that he and his retainers had actually been called upon to defend the Princess Yue from enemy airships more than a few times.
Lord Toritaka and Lord Edo, another Earth-Lord that had joined the fight a little over a month and a half ago, seemed as steady as the stone that they could bend as they listened. There were, however, small cracks to be observed in that façade. Every so often their eyes would occasionally drift towards the far end of the room, towards the unoccupied throne that had been previously held by Bumi.
Here's hoping we can find an heir, or at least put THAT power struggle off for a while, Zuko thought, idly making a mental note to discuss the matter with Mai. He shook his head minutely and did his best to keep what was, at its most honest, an exasperated sigh restrained to a simple puff of air from his nose.
Not that that fooled Katara.
In her seat to his right she gave his hand a fierce but communicative squeeze under the table and Zuko squeezed back in thanks as he refocused.
Over the course of the war she had been his anchor, tethering him and, some days it seemed, the whole army back to some semblance of normalcy and functionality.
There was no one in this room that she had not, on some occasion, healed personally. There was no one in this room that, even at their lowest and most quarrelsome, would refuse to speak with her if she asked. The inevitable squabbles that cropped up among groups with collections of strong personalities like this one were quashed before they could ever even begin thanks to her previously inconceivable coalition with Mai. If Zuko was looking for her, and could not find her in the healing tents, he was almost guaranteed to find her with Mai, discussing how best to manage the varied officers, Lords, and Chieftains.
Or, sometimes, how to manage him. Much to his consternation.
From the very beginning she had decided to reserve her energy for saving lives overtaking them, and now, untold casualties later, the entire Legion recognized her on sight almost as easily as they did Zuko. Zuko could tell that she still struggled with the idea, startled that people should be showing her deference based on something that was simply the right thing to do, as well as worried that, in staying behind with the healing tents, she would not be there if someone she cared about needed immediate medical attention.
But, as of yet, she remained in the role she had chosen for herself, working until exhaustion and beyond after every clash.
Zuko had watched her at it a few times in the days after Ba Sing Se. Watched her stand in the middle of a healing tent as assistants moved stretcher after stretcher and barrel after barrel of water into her vicinity.
He had started watching every time after the instance where he had seen her collapse. One moment she was pulling another soldier out of the clutches of the spirit world in the post-battle twilight, the next she was crumpled on the ground. He'd carried her back to their tent after Yugoda had pronounced her in no danger, and all along the route soldiers and camp followers, in blue and green and red, had bowed, knelt, or kowtowed in something remarkably akin to reverence.
Zuko was comforted by the fact that, if he did eventually fall, the army would very likely re-coalesce around her. He believed that she should have enough momentum, morale, and time to go and get Kiyi and continue to prosecute the war without him. She would be furious at him for dying without her permission, but she would at least have a fighting chance of survival, and of victory.
Both of which were far more important to Zuko than his own life, and both of which seemed increasingly unlikely in the current, airship-less, environment.
Mai concluded her report with a small bow and sat down next to Ty Lee. The assembly sat in somewhat awkward silence as they all processed the information that, in summary, meant they and the Earth-Continent were all screwed.
They needed those airships. Naval defections had been minimal and were nowhere near substantial enough for the Legion to make a crossing to the home island. With the airships that were supposed to be here, however, there would be every possibility that Zuko could carry his army across the Bay of Flames, combine with the still embattled personal guard of the Matsu and besiege the capital itself. Such an implicit threat could not be ignored by loyalist high command and would force them to redeploy their own air assets in defense against such a maneuver.
Air assets which then could not be used in Operation: Clean Sweep, making the entire thing untenable.
But the airships were not here, much to everyone's current frustration. They would have to be somewhere nearby, the requisite tactical concerns dictated it, and Zuko only hoped that they would have enough time to scour all of the places Mai thought likely before they ran out of time.
Because the comet that had been renamed for Zuko's great-grandfather was fast approaching.
The silence, heavy with all of these uncomfortable facts, stretched long in the semi-ruined throneroom of Omashu and was only slightly broken as Tokugawa Koshaku, formerly known as "the Duke," slipped into the room.
He had been serving as something akin to a page for Zuko for some time, much the same function that Ping had held some years ago. Zuko had been nervous about the idea at first but, at Katara's urging, had accepted that it was possible that history would not repeat itself in this instance. He had made absolutely certain that the boy understood that he was not expected to participate in any battle, attack, skirmish, or otherwise. He was to remain calm, weaponless and, most importantly, by Katara's side in any of those instances.
He too was growing like a weed, almost as though he was trying to keep up with Toph, despite being almost six years her junior, and Katara was frequently heard to comment to him that growing up was not a "race" and if he ever wanted to have a pair of pants that lasted longer than a week he should maybe slow down a bit.
He usually just grinned at her, his previously taciturn nature nothing but a memory, and asked for another portion of whatever was in the stewpot.
Now, however, his still semi-adolescent face was torn in indecision as he entered the room, a message scroll gripped in his hand and his eyes darting between Mai and Zuko.
Zuko and Mai both registered this at the same time, caught one another's now narrowing eyes, and then turned back to Koshaku, both of them now silently willing the boy to bring the message to them.
Mai was still, in Zuko's opinion, overly possessive of any communications and she still frequently suggested, with that special variety of condescension and sarcasm, that not everything was important enough to warrant the future Fire-Lord's attention.
Zuko thought that he ought to be the one to determine what was important or not, and now, driven by the same competitiveness that had made him keep trying to beat Mai at Go when they had both been children, he focused his attention on Koshaku and tried to silently command the boy to bring him whatever message he had.
With the increasing nervousness of one with torn loyalties, Koshaku's eyes darted from Zuko to Mai and back again as both silently commanded him to step toward them while maintaining their normal stoic masks.
After an interminable few seconds, Koshaku's eyes fell to rest on Katara, who sat right between the two silently competing Fire-Nationals. She, with a look torn between sympathy and amusement, nodded her head to her right. Towards Mai.
Koshaku exhaled a breath of relief and scurried his way towards the now semi-visibly gloating Mai. Zuko's normal scowl deepened in surprise at this tiny betrayal.
Katara squeezed his hand again and, a small smile on her face, leaned in to whisper into his un-mangled ear.
"Maybe… I want you all to myself," she said, her tone of voice making Zuko's pulse shoot up minutely.
That particular innuendo was not to be explored further, however. Mai unrolled the small hawk scroll and scanned through its contents rapidly, and Zuko's attention was dragged away from Katara as he caught sight of her eyes widening minutely as she very visibly did a double-take. She rose from her seat with an almost unseemly speed and glided around to Zuko's side to whisper in his other ear.
Zuko was far less restrained in his surprise and shot up from the table so fast his chair nearly toppled over.
"This meeting is adjourned," he snapped. He hesitated a moment before turning away, his eye sweeping over the suddenly interested crowd of Fire-Nation officers, Earth-Lords, and Water-Tribe Chieftains.
"We may not be completely screwed after all," he said eventually, his face twisting into a slightly subdued version of the sinister grin for which his family was famous.
-Ω-Ω-Ω-Ω-Ω-Ω-Ω-Ω-Ω-Ω-Ω-Ω-
Appa touched down on the deck of the iron ship with a roar and a heavy thump as the mist that Katara had bent around him dissipated.
Toph was first off the beast, leaping the instant before the landing and hitting the deck of the Fire-Nation dreadnaught with the strange twanging reverberation of a metalbender practicing their art. While the ship seemed visibly unaffected, she had assured Zuko that, if push came to shove, she could tear it in half with a flick of her wrist.
Considering that that would likely dump all of them into the ocean, and that Toph still couldn't swim, Zuko was really hoping that she wouldn't be forced to prove that.
By the time Zuko himself had dismounted the Sky-Bison, after Mai and Ty Lee, but before Katara, a greying man with the Sun-and-Anchor pin of an admiral at his collar had rushed out of the command tower and, alongside his sailors, thrown himself on to the deck and into a full kowtow.
Zuko's boots rang as he strode across the deck and were the only sound, save the constant wind of an ocean out of sight of land. Mai and Ty Lee moved along with him, flanking him as their eyes swept through every person present for any sign of hostile movement.
"You may rise, Admiral Damasu," Zuko said a moment after he had come to a halt. Damasu Jiru unbent himself from his kowtow and rose to his feet, only to immediately bend himself nearly in half, into the deepest of bows, as he held his wakizashi out in front of him, formally surrendering his command to Zuko. Despite knowing that this was all part of the formula Zuko could feel all of the women he had brought with him tense at the gesture.
As though Zuko couldn't defend himself from the blade of a single non-bender.
He managed to restrain an eye-roll as, with a single hand, he gripped the scabbard of the proffered blade, taking all of the weight for a moment, before resting it back into the admiral's hands and giving it a small push to indicate that the man's command, and his honor, were restored to him.
I'm going to have to rebuild this man's beach house, aren't I? Zuko thought, restraining a sigh as the memory of pursuing this man's son through a burning building after discovering that he had kissed Azula drifted into the forefront of his mind.
He could actually see said son, Damasu Chan, a lieutenant's pips at the collar of his uniform, still in an exceptionally nervous kowtow a few feet behind his father.
Admiral Damasu rose from his deep bow for only a moment before dipping back down again, a much shallower bow this time, the bow of respect appropriate for a full admiral to his prince and liege lord.
"Your Highness, may I present the Third Fleet. We stand ready."
Zuko was unable to restrain a small exhale of relief as he finally allowed himself to look around at the almost two-dozen ships at anchor around the dreadnaught the HMS Triumph of Flame. As indicated in the message he'd received several days prior some of the ships showed obvious signs of battle-damage as the fleet had not, as a whole, decided to defect. A few of the ships sat much lower in the water than they should have been, indicating structural damage and water seepage.
But, even with that, even as a part of Zuko lamented the death of so many of his people who had incorrectly felt that their ultimate loyalty lay with the Fire-Lord…
A semi-feral grin of triumph spread across his face as he looked around at the manifestation of his new ability to prosecute the war on sea as well as land.
"Very good, Admiral," Zuko said with a nod. "And now we will discuss the location of this hidden airship base."
-Ω-Ω-Ω-Ω-Ω-Ω-Ω-Ω-Ω-Ω-Ω-Ω-
Summer, Year 13 in the reign of Fire-Lord Ozai
There was simply no good way to do it.
The Third Fleet had been largely responsible for guarding the supply runs into Suribachi Island, which was why they all knew that Zuko had been telling the truth in his declaration. They had transported the airship parts, the Royal Guard companies, the kayaku bombs, and airship engineers. That last had been the tipping point, the technical experts needed to reconstruct and operate the airships were known for being significantly less taciturn than their more combat-oriented brethren, and while they had not known all of the details of the still-classified Operation: Clean Sweep, they had known enough for the junior officers of the Third Fleet to connect the dots.
Admiral Damasu, likely as a survival technique, had ridden the growing popular sentiment to his defection rather than instigated it. That said, he had so far proved a competent, if not particularly imaginative, officer and had provided Zuko with all the intelligence he had been able to assemble about the most important single military objective in the entire war so far.
And much to Zuko's growing fury and directionless outrage there was simply no good way of taking it.
It seemed to make no difference that he had more tools, tactical innovation, and strategic flexibility than any Fire-Nation general in recent history. Sometimes the only path forward was straight through. A simple, unimaginative, bloody path. Straight through.
Suribachi Island was a mostly dormant volcano so small and unremarkable that many maps did not even bother marking it. Its only interesting feature was the continual plume of sulfurous smoke that rose in a thin streamer from its peak.
That and the numerous barricades, redoubts, and fortifications that had been erected around the island perimeter of course. All of which told Zuko that the prize they sought, that they needed, was truly there.
But Suribachi was too far away from any other island to conceivably try to earthbend tunnels, nor did they have any of the strange submersibles that had been used during the ill-fated Black Sun invasion. The island was mostly vertical and far too rocky and jagged to attempt another airdrop, even if anyone had wanted to try that again after Suki's passing. Zuko wasn't even certain that, had he been able to get all of the waterbenders on board, he could have flooded the island into submission. Even from a distance, Zuko could see that many of the fortifications and bunkers were high enough above the waterline to stymie such a tactic.
The only path forward was an amphibious assault, and a rapid one at that. Zuko had no doubt that the soldiers stationed there would have been given instructions to destroy any airships that were unable to escape. Given that aerial observation had indicated that the flattened "landing zone" was only big enough for one airship to be launched at a time Zuko was certain that escape would not be the primary method of defense.
In full darkout, Zuko had had the Third Fleet surround the island and, at dawn, the shelling and assault had begun. Fire-Nation battleships had begun launching their siege weapons at the shore for the quarter of an hour it had taken the Water-Tribe ships, much faster and more capable of making a landing on the gravelly beach than anything else they had, to dart forward and eject their payloads before darting away, weaving through enemy bombardment before taking on more soldiers who waited in calm rows aboard the ironclad battleships.
Zuko was not among them.
Toph and Katara stood at either side of him on the observation deck of the Triumph, both seeming ready to restrain him in iron or ice should he even look like he was thinking about jumping into one of the departing ships.
They had all agreed, the entire war-council, that the likelihood of death was far too high in the initial assault for any of the "essential" personnel to take part. Zuko, with his understanding of the dangers of amphibious assault, had readily agreed with that glaringly obvious tactical assessment.
It had taken him almost a half an hour to realize that they had been speaking primarily about him.
So now he sat and watched men spend their lives for him, the iron railing under his clenched hands growing cherry-red with the heat of his discontent.
Sat, watched, and did nothing. Nothing except disembowel himself with guilt again and again as his men died, unseen, almost a half a mile away.
And not just his men either, the number of people who had declared themselves "non-essential" was aggravatingly large.
Lord Toritaka had gone in the second wave, and his eldest son, the spitting image of the mercenary Zuko had watched die in a cave near Omashu, now stood not five paces away an equally worried look on his broad face. Katara, when she was not looking at him had her eyes locked on the Water-Tribe ships that held her father, her uncle, and her brother.
Sokka was out there, and Toph, one hand gripping the back of Zuko's belt to support herself and restrain him, looked about as unhappy as Zuko felt. Zuko supposed he was not meant to have heard the argument between these two women that had led to Toph remaining behind, but she had already extracted a promise from Zuko to teach her how to swim after the war was over.
Boats came and went, the island, illuminated by Sun behind him, flashed as steel glinted and blasts of fire roared.
Katara gripped Zuko's arm in silent communication before she turned to leave, shortly after the fourth wave had returned and begun disgorging casualties before onloading more attackers.
"…I hate this," Toph said after a long moment, her grip on Zuko's belt tightening.
"Say the word," Zuko said with a half-growl of triumph, "we'll get on Appa and turn that island into a flattened piece of glass."
"No," Toph said, echoed in the same moment by Mai, who must have materialized in the doorway to the observation deck quite quickly after Katara had left. Zuko scowled as he looked over his shoulder at her and she rolled her eyes at him as she pulled out a kunai and sharpening stone.
"You have to wait. And listen," Toph said with a snort drawing his attention back to her. "You keep telling me that part of strategy is like earthbending? Well, that's what this is. Waiting."
"I am not an earthbender," Zuko growled quietly, turning back to view the embattled island, the metal railing under his hands still glowing with heat.
"Yeah. That's why I'm here, Sparky. As much as…" Toph's face contorted into a mix of anger and anguish, "…as much as I hate this, it's the right call. You can't solve everything yourself, and this is the best plan."
"How do you know that?" Zuko snapped. "You- you-" he deflated slightly as he bit back words he would likely regret and clawed guilty rage back down into the pits of his stomach. "What if… what if there was something I missed? What if, by being there on the ground I can adapt the plan and-"
"I know it's the best plan because it's your fucking plan," Toph said cutting him off with a shake. "I don't have all the hog-humping war-schooling that you do, but I know enough now, after all the shit we've been through, to trust your plans." She sighed. "Katara was right. The two of us? We've tempted the spirits enough in this war. Going out there right now… sure I can't fucking see it, but from the way everyone's heartrates have been… I assume it looks pretty hairy." She paused and Zuko felt her grip increase on his belt. "You have done all you can right now. You've done enough."
"…It will only be enough when my bones are ash," Zuko said softly, quoting one of his family's addendums to his copy of LEADERSHIP.
"Yeah, I thought you'd say something dumb like that. Which. Is. Why." She began punctuating her words with more rough shakes to his belt. "We're. Not. Moving."
Zuko sighed and looked back out to the island. He watched the too frequent bursts of fire, visible even at range, that confirmed the reports that the island's garrison was almost entirely members of the Royal Guard. All of them firebenders that were fanatically devoted to his father. He watched as another Water-Tribe ship, a column of smoke drifting skyward, slipped beneath the waves with a gut-wrenching suddenness, and wondered who it had belonged too. He watched down below him as casualty after casualty was unloaded, blue and red and green marred with blood and firebending char, but far enough away that their cries did not reach him except in his imagination.
He watched. He waited.
He grieved.
-Ω-Ω-Ω-Ω-Ω-Ω-Ω-Ω-Ω-Ω-Ω-Ω-
It was all Zuko could do not to lose his mind as Katara sobbed into his chest.
The SONG roared in his ears, the sound of his very blood calling for vengeance, calling for violence, calling on him to get up, discover whoever had made the woman he loved cry like this, and then destroy them along with everything they had ever loved.
But Katara clung to him desperately, anchoring herself to him, and him to the tenuous threads of his sanity.
Moto Bato was dead.
Katara's uncle, eldest son of Moto Chagatai, had gone down with his ship, and now she wept and half screamed into his uniform on the bed in the dreadnaught's cabin that had been set aside for him.
Even Sokka, who had seemed largely incapable of feeling much after Suki's passing, looked horrible. He had sunk to the floor of the cabin where he had been leaning, still dripping with salt and seawater which was now joined by saltwater of a different kind.
Hakoda was still on his feet, he had brought the news here, and now, fists clenched in directionless anger, his face maintained its stoicism by only the barest margin as he also dripped saltwater on to the floor.
"…Anything you need," Zuko said to him after a long while, after Katara had settled into a quieter pattern of sobbing and his sanity was less shaky. "Anything."
Hakoda wiped his face and exhaled in a long gust before raising his eyes to Zuko.
"He is already in La's care," Hakoda said quietly. "Tonight we will say our Last Goodbye." He paused for a moment and then nodded to himself. "Midnight. On my ship. No weapons," he finished, looking directly at Zuko.
While Zuko knew that, despite his best efforts, he did not know everything about Unicorn customs, he did know that the burial rights, the "Last Goodbye," were meant to be reserved to the family of the departed.
And that he was being included, just as though he and Katara were already married.
Zuko, his arms still wrapped around his weeping lover, nodded, acknowledging all of the implications, both voiced and unvoiced.
He sat there a long time, waiting for Katara to put herself back together in her own time.
When she had done so, detaching herself from Zuko's now damp and slightly snotty uniform, Zuko pressed a kiss to the top of her head and rose to his feet.
He had his own pyres to light after all.
As he strode through the iron ship, he imagined he could hear the other woman howling in anguish somewhere on board. He could practically see her wrapped in much the same posture as Katara had been, sobbing into the uniformed chest of her brother-in-law.
Uesugi Rin was dead. His daughter half an orphan.
The thin-faced swordsman had been with Zuko for the better part of six years. The only person who had seen more of Zuko through his strange and zig-zagging journey was his uncle, and as Zuko climbed aboard Appa and steered him skyward he half-meditated on the man's life.
It was different than any other loss he'd felt, save perhaps when he'd thought his sister had made him ronin.
Or perhaps, more accurately, when he'd discovered that he had lost an eye. Like something fundamental to him had been permanently severed.
Too quickly, Appa landed on the small rock ledge where the body had been lain out. With the island bereft of trees of any kind the body rested on a small bed of coal from the stores. All along the waterfront below him Zuko could see the small dark spots of similar pyres as soldiers waited for their cue to send their fellows to the spirit world. Custom called for it to be done as quickly as possible, and with as little display of emotion, which was why neither Bo, Ren, nor little Kyoshi were present.
It was considered something akin to setting a broken bone. Or cauterizing a mortal wound.
The only other figure on the ledge was a scowling Matsu Haki, propped awkwardly on his crutch and prosthetic leg, the rhino-lizard that had conveyed him here sitting quietly in the background.
Both soldiers took their positions on either side of the pyre.
"General Uesugi Rin," Zuko intoned, almost barking the words out into the growing dusk, "The name you borrowed from your ancestors you now return, unblemished, in flame."
And with a simultaneous blast of fire, somewhat awkward in Haki's case, Uesugi Rin was given over to the spirits. Down below, he was quickly joined by the innumerable fires of his comrades, and the whole of the western side of the island eventually glowed with flame.
Zuko, his brow furrowed in concentration, sent his chi to every fire he could reach, feeling each one of those pyres in his senses. The island below him gradually turned red, matching the horizon in front of him.
And then, almost as quickly as it had begun, it was over. Zuko and the other firebenders spread throughout the proceedings had sped the process along quickly and when it was concluded all of the participants, Zuko included, took a small sample of the ash with them.
One way or another those ashes would eventually rest in the Temple of the Ancestors. Interred by, or possibly alongside, the still living men below.
Hands covered in ash, Zuko turned to leave but was cut short as Haki cleared his throat.
"Sorry, sir, but…" He somehow looked even more grim than he had while burying the man that had been almost a brother to him. "There… there's something you need to see."
-Ω-Ω-Ω-Ω-Ω-Ω-Ω-Ω-Ω-Ω-Ω-Ω-
Zuko was something of an expert on having a "long day."
Almost a connoisseur, really. Able to examine such troubled times with a level of detachment that made him proud and Katara alarmed.
Today, while it was not the "longest," was certainly in the top ten.
Top five possibly.
He had had to sit and watch, without lifting a finger, the single greatest day for casualties in the entirety of the war, and indeed, his career so far. He had lost the man that he had hoped would someday be a member of his extended family as well as the man who had taught him, through quiet example, what being a soldier was really about.
Them, along with thousands of others. Names he would endeavor to learn if only to assuage what remained of his conscience.
By the time he had been allowed on Appa the fighting was already over and there had been nothing to do. Nothing but scowl and stand in grim fury as casualty reports filtered in to him.
And best and worst of all, in his heart of hearts, he knew that this was a true victory. Bloody, expensive, personally costly to be sure. But even had he known the final cost beforehand he would have still given the order.
He'd have given the order at twice the cost.
He wasn't sure that the shame of that wouldn't strike him dead the next time he set eye on Uesugi Kyoshi.
They now had ten airships.
Nine of the original eighteen had been left intact by the time Zuko's forces had managed to seize the cavernous mountain hangar. Several of Zuko's engineers believed that, with some time and effort, a further four might be salvaged.
But that was time that he had discovered he did not have.
The Comet was coming. The exact date, as determined by the Shugenja of Fire, had until now been something of a state secret. But that date had, on this exceptionally long day, been confirmed to be barely two weeks away. And now the war…
Well, by some measures, Zuko's Sengoku, his war against the Fire-Lord, was over.
In his declaration, he had sworn not to rest until another had ascended the throne. He had meant it as a safeguard against his own death by assassination. At the time he'd hoped that his uncle might take the throne in that instance and, in later months, that Kiyi might do the same.
Now, however…
Akodo Ozai had abdicated. Renounced Akodo's throne, becoming one of only a few dozen in history to ever do so willingly.
He had abdicated… and then declared himself Emperor of the entire world.
It was insane. Absolutely mad. Zuko had had to read the announcement that had arrived in the island's hawkery, barely an hour after it had fallen, multiple times, sure that he had somehow misread it. He couldn't help but wonder just what impulse had made his father do it. Was the thing that lived in him so in control that it made him abandon common sense?
Ozai's Fire-Nation loyalists were, obviously, a rather conservative bunch. Zuko could not imagine a single one of them that would look upon the idea of Akodo's throne being subservient to another power with anything even approaching acceptance.
The Fire-Nation did not do Kings, in many ways the position of Fire-Lord, whatever it had evolved into over the millennia, had begun as a position of first among relative equals. This was a stance still, privately, held by many of the High Lords and they guarded their authority within their lands somewhat jealously. The idea that there might be something even greater, or even that the throne of the Fire-Lord was somehow equivalent to that of the Earth-King, was practically blasphemy.
Zuko was sure that the most blindly zealous of his father's supporters would continue to work with him… but the other High Lords and family heads?
There would be rebellion. Rebellion, unlike anything anyone had ever seen.
It would tear the nation even further apart, destroy one of the few things that had always bound them together, and create a war that would see his people driven to the point of extinction.
And now, at the very center of that coming conflagration, was Zuko's sister.
Almost a footnote on the proclamation of "Emperor Ozai's" ascension was the announcement that Crown-Princess Azula would be become Fire-Lord on the very day that Sozin's Comet began its trek across the heavens.
And if Zuko allowed that to happen… then it truly would be over.
Nothing was certain anymore. He had been certain that by capturing these airships, almost half of the air-corps, he would have stopped Operation: Clean Sweep in its tracks. A threat to the capital, in any form, should have been treated as the most important strategic fact in the conflict. Now, however, he knew that that was no longer the case. His father had changed the rules on him with his unconventional, if insane, gambit. He had essentially demoted Otosan Uchi from a game-ending goal to simply another piece on the board. An important piece to be sure, but one that Zuko was now certain his father would sacrifice without hesitation if the mood took him.
In the dark early morning of this very long day, Zuko turned the problem over and over in his mind as he stared out the porthole, Katara sleeping the sleep of the exhausted and grief-stricken on their bed behind him.
Zuko really wished his uncle were here. He was certain the man would make sense of the entire situation with a simple cocked eyebrow and a terrible pun involving tea.
But he wasn't. Even if Zuko had sent a messenger hawk the instant he'd learned, there was no way that any reply would reach him in time.
And so Zuko's exhausted brain came back to one fact over and over again.
He could not let Azula take the throne.
Not just because she was unstable. Not just because it would doom his nation to utter devastation and dissolution into several warring states. Not just because he had a burning desire to thwart his father's designs, no matter what form they took.
He could not let her take the throne because it would destroy her.
As much as he had once thought she would be the best Fire-Lord in history, he now knew better.
"You left me alone to carry the whole thing!" she had screamed at him, voice brittle with anger and what he now recognized as terror as they stood in the black sands of Ember Island. "The whole FUCKING Fire-Nation!"
That voice came at him again and again in the dark. The sight of her yellow eyes, the same color as the one reflected back at him in the glass of the porthole, but wide and trying to tell him something that he had not understood.
"…I am coming, Azi," Zuko said quietly, as the dark of his cabin gave way to the grey light on the very outer edge of dawn.
"I'm coming."
A/N: Good morning (or whatever time it is for you) humans! Welcome back to your (hopefully) favorite Zuko-samurai-angst-fest fic.
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So much angst, so much drama.
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Well I hope you enjoyed it, and if you are still reading, that you will enjoy these author notes and their corresponding…
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META BITS
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Mental breakdown: Oh yeah, Zuko's having a nervous breakdown here at the beginning. You get that when you see month and months of active combat for which you feel personally responsible. I seem to like torturing him for some reason. But either way, war is hell, people continue to die around him, and its lucky that he's got a good support system around him. That the important thing here, he's got people who actually care about him, one of which is an exceptionally competent medical professional.
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SO. He's got that going for him at least.
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Yet another time skip: Yep another time skip. You can imaging that the character art (which I try to describe in my normally ham-handed method) is being updated to the new models. Most of the Gang are now in their late teens early twenties. I also, for some reason, love the idea of Mai with a different hairstyle. I don't know why exactly, but I think it's a good sign of growth for her.
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The pain of hands-off plans: Very important lesson here. Sometimes, especially when you are a leader, you have to let your plans run to fruition. The impulse will be there, to rush and check on progress, to tweak, to just get in there and, like Thanos, "do it myself."
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But you can't. Sometimes, and this is a lesson I have tried to retain from canon, you have to let go. I will not go into a rant here about how, in many ways, the show that we all love failed to do that.
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See? Letting go. Good for the soul.
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Phoenix king? That's a dumb name: So, immediately the name "Pheonix King" was going to be discarded. Firstly, and objectively, I think it's a dumb sounding name. Opinions may vary on that, but I just snickered at that point in the show along with Ozai's ridiculous hat.
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Also, in this AU the Pheonix is the dojo of Lady Airbenders. Yang Chen was a Pheonix, so obviously that's right out.
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I chose "Emperor" as the title de jure because it's simple, to the point, and ties back into the sort of star wars homage I've got going on.
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I regret nothing.
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We're getting SO close: This is not chapter penultimate but, unless something drastic changes as I edit and revise, the next chapter is "The Last Agni Kai."
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Woo boy am I nervous about that.
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To me, the end of the duel between Zuko and his sister is both the crowning achievement of the show and the last part I actually care about. As I may discuss later (and have probably discussed before) I don't particularly like the last 15 minutes or so the show. A lot of pat wrap up that just screams "we don't know how to end this!" to me. So, because endings are hard, I am correspondingly nervous about how THIS, my samurai epic version, is going to turn out.
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In any case I hope you'll stick around and enjoy it whenever it does drop into your inbox.
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Thanks again! Remember to comment, kudo, review and like! Validation isn't necessary but it is a nice bonus.
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Also, please wear your mask and wash your hands. It's a small sacrifice that may make no difference to you personally but might save somebody else.
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Have a good one!
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NEXT TIME on a very special "Avatar: The Last Dragon"...
The LAST AGNI KAI.
TUNE IN. Some Zuko time, Same Zuko channel!
Original post date: 27 June 2020