Slight TW for mentions of blood, not very graphic

He slides over the gate and freezes for a moment behind the tree outside, once again considering whether or not this is a good idea. The mask in the pack underneath his shoulder feels awfully heavy even though it shouldn't. Kaz knows that when he ties it over his head he'll have committed himself to this completely. And he's not sure what this is. Revenge? Justice? A way to covertly talk to his father and impress his aunt, a way to pull strings outside of the court? A way to have fun, maybe. A way to scare people without being himself. He remembers the day with the boat, the feeling of exhilaration as he'd bent across the ship's harbor, the excitement in his stomach as he'd tried to navigate the ocean for the first time. He was a different person.

He's so many people. He's his father's son even though he doesn't want to be. He's his mother's son and he doesn't mind as much. He's related to Iroh and his wise sayings and Azula and her strange tact, his uncle with his swords and Zuya with her innocence. He wants to be himself because he feels like he isn't. And he doesn't exactly know if he's going to accomplish that by being the Blue Spirit, by slightly honoring his father's legacy in favor of the Fire Nation. In a way this is poetic justice. He can recreate this and be himself and he can run away from the past.

His face has been tense for the past hour or so, lips pulled back in a thin line and forehead ruffled. He edges behind the tree to ensure that he's out of sight of the patrol and places his head in his hands for a moment, just to gather himself. He can do this. He's spent the day planning this in his rooms. He's going to find Lord Jiro and he's going to humiliate the man. Physically. And then when he goes back to court tomorrow he has a case for himself. And he'll be defending the people of the Fire Nation and he'll be supporting his war. It will all work perfectly, everything that he's worked on so far. Now he needs to leave and do it.

One more, he thinks, and breathes in. When his parents were his age they were fighting in a war and they had courage. His father was the Blue Spirit and his mother went on missions with the Avatar. They snuck into places, scaled walls and set explosions. They were fighting in a war. And he probably won't bend unless necessary but he has his sword in his hand too and he knows how to use it. He was taught by the Blue Spirit himself and now he's being taught by the Fire Nation's best masters. He can do this. It's for his throne, after all. His birthright. And he has courage.

And as he prepares to jump further outside, looking out to ensure there aren't any guards in sight, he is suddenly struck by the realization that he has never fought like this before. The only real life-and-death situation he's ever been put in was in Ba Sing Se and he walked out of that city with a broken arm. He can't do that now. He needs to come out of this alive.

I will, he convinces himself as he sprints forward. This side of the palace is stuck in the brush, and the area outside of it is full of trees and stones and bushes. It makes it harder to ambush but also easy to hide in. Anyway, nobody is looking for someone leaving the palace. They're looking for people coming in. Kaz'll be fine. He knows he will.

He steps on a small twig and hears it crack, freezing up; but nobody seems to take notice of the Crown Prince in the black clothes running through the night. After a few minutes pass he gives up his slow path and starts on a sprint running uphill, where he can clamber down the rock that will lead to the rough path toward the main shopping district. The prison where he often comes back late from meeting Iroh is located there, but Jiro resides in the higher residential district, a little further out. His feet touch the ground carefully. When he's sure he's hidden he pulls out the map he'd taken from the library and carefully lights up a finger to bathe it in blue. He can make out the thin line from the palace to the residential areas, ironically next to the rice silos.

Kaz carefully runs his eyes over the paper, mapping out the route in his mind, before stuffing it back into his pack only to reach for the marble-textured blue mask he'd taken from the theater.

For a second he stares at it, at the thin sheen of the layer over its eyes, at the way it's looking into his soul. It does remind him so intrinsically of his mom. Maybe that was a mistake. But he's too late now and he closes his eyes as he holds it to his face, using a hand to keep it forward and ungracefully fastening it in the back. It doesn't cover the bottom of his face that well, his telling skin color, but it works well enough. It's dark; hopefully nobody will be able to see his face anyway.

The mask is cool against his face and it smells old and sort of disgusting. He disregards the stench and starts moving again.

The man's window is open.

Kaz supposes that's not that surprising. Nights here are humid and Jiro might not have a noble name, might just be a merchant, but he is definitely corrupt. His house, stacked with its floors and clear decadence, is protected with several guards who look like palace contracts. Kaz doesn't want to hurt them; not only because they're technically his but also because he doesn't think he could take on that many of them. He knows when he's defeated and he won't be tonight.

They're not that great at their job. Or maybe he's just good at this, good at being unnoticed. It's what he's spent a rather large part of his life attempting to do.

The room that he softly lands in seems to be an office. And Jiro isn't in it. That makes sense; any sane person would be in bed right now. For a second he blanches because he's here and he's going to do this but he doesn't want to search out a bedroom and attack someone's wife by accident. That would be unintentional murder. Not that he's going to commit murder. Wait. He's not going to — where did that even come from —

And yet luck either hates or despises him, because it's at that moment that the doors of the office fly open and a rather large man yawns and stumbles into the office. He's acknowledged Jiro before but the man's abstract. He's seen hundreds of old and fat Fire Nation nobles and merchants. He thinks they're remnants of an older time; he can't imagine Azula purposefully putting any of these people in power.

With an arm out the man lights up a torch to the side and Kaz jumps out of the way, flattening himself to a bookcase in the corner. The cabinet is built of wood, he notices suddenly. And he narrows his eyebrows because that's a little strange. Very little in the Fire Nation is made of such flammable material. The desk at the side is metal and so are the torches. But he's not here to critique the man's interior decorating skills. He has to do something.

And as he primes his muscles to move and jumps in front of the merchant he briefly realizes that he does not have any idea what he's doing.

He vaguely knows what he wants to do; humiliation. Preferably public. He wants to put these merchants in the nation's eyes, wants to be able to justify letting the palace virtually control them. In order to do that he needs to ensure that they have no influence, no respect, no honor. There are moral codes here and he doesn't think he's eluding them. Any man who hires security which doesn't realize that there's a masked man in his office isn't worth much.

How exactly is he planning to humiliate some merchant in his office? He doesn't know. He had this idea in his mind of holding his sword to the man's throat and giving off some Azula-speech about righteousness and maybe adding in some platitudes. But actually doing . . .

Kazou is facing Jiro — or rather, this strange rendition of the Blue Spirit is — and the man looks . . . surprised. Sleepy. He's placed thin glasses on himself and is sitting behind his desk. They stare at each other. Or, well, he stares. He supposes Jiro doesn't exactly know where he's looking.

I didn't think this through is his last thought before he's turning to the side to avoid being hit by a barrage of sparks. The heat catches on his clothes and he fights the urge to turn around and bend back. He's young and virile and he could probably take a sleepy old man down. But he can't bend because that would be . . . no. So he reaches for his sword and points it at Jiro who has another ball of fire in his hand.

"Get out!" Jiro says. His voice sounds weak, thick with something that's probably sleep, and it gives Kaz confidence. Before the merchant can consider fighting again he's crawled across the room, dodging the ball at the last moment to hold the weapon to the man's throat so he's incapacitated.

That was easier than he thought it was going to be. But now he has a rather angry old Jiro staring him down. The man stinks of fish, he thinks vaguely. "What do you want?"

Can he talk? The Blue Spirit never talked. But Dad's voice is raspy and distinctive. His is still slightly recovering from puberty but he should be fine. "I want . . ." he pauses. He doesn't know what he wants.

Jiro senses his hesitation and lurches forward, but Kaz feels the motion and presses him further onto the sword. A bead of blood erupts on the man's neck and he looks very very scared. That settles into him and makes him feel better. He can work with this. "You're going to kill me," Jino whispers.

While he doesn't have another plan he supposes that's his last resort, so he presses tighter and a wound starts opening. It's sort of gruesome and he looks away from the red he can't believe he's inflicting. He hasn't — hasn't killed anyone before. Purposefully. Maybe he has accidentally. He has hurt people, that one Dai Lai agent he'd met on his way to Azula's.

Kazou really hasn't thought this through. Jiro's eyes widen as he starts something that sounds like coughing, and he looks down to see that he pressed harder than intentional against the man's skin. The sound of pain cuts through him.

"I'll give you . . . anything . . ." the man gasps. "Don't . . ."

He's not going to kill him. No matter how corrupt this man is. He's not going to —

He isn't. Right?

It would be so easy. Just another cut and then this failure of a night could be put away. He would still have the momentum to pass the legislation he just drafted and establish himself. Nobody would know it's him. It would be a nobody who did this. All he needs to do is move his hand further . . .

As if he's moving of his own volition he moves up his other hand and punches Jiro in the head, pressure in the right area. A second part of him watches in surprise as a combination of blood loss and blocking makes his eyes droop so that he falls to the ground. There's blood on his sword and leaking down the man's sleeping robes. Monster.

Shit.

He has — Kazou has a plan. He needs to stick with this and think things through. Jiro is going to be found in the morning and there's going to be a man in a mask for no reason and he will have accomplished nothing except a failure to give into that part of himself. I thought you weren't —

Deep breathe, he thinks, one and two. And then he starts digging through Jiro's desk, overturning every paper he can see. Something in here can be useful. Tax filings that don't look quite right. An invitation to some gala or the other — he's sure he was invited and isn't going to go. A letter from a daughter who's on a different island for school. His heart drops and he stares back to the river of blood that's starting to pool at his feet. Jiro's not — he's not dead.

None of this is useful. He's about to just call it a loss and leave so he can internalize all these thoughts in his head when he catches a glimpse of something circular drawn on paper. Geometric shapes are strange to see and he's not sure what he's expecting to find — a drawing, maybe?

But Kaz bites his lip when he opens the scrolls, curling at the edges, and sees what they look like in the lamplight. Circles and arrows and lines and — architectural plans.

There's a date at the bottom and a word. Rice, it says. His heart stops and he traces over it again and steps to the side when he feels something cool on the sole of his shoe. He winces for a moment and pulls away, placing the plans into his bag before quickly jumping out the window . . .

Almost. First, he lights the bookshelf on fire. He's not sure if that's for better or worse