Daughter of Hate

by Blutus Mindpretzel

The war is over. Azula's motives remain unknowable as her child stands to shake the foundation of everything built since the fall of Fire Lord Ozai. For Toph, Mai, Aang, Katara and the rest, the world is an even more dangerous place than it was when they were children. And despite being long since gone, Sasuke's impact continues to shudder their world, perhaps more than they know.

43. Chapter 43

Chapter 43: Battlegrounds

Every second felt like a minute, every minute felt like an hour.

In all of his time doing battle, Sasuke had never once come remotely close to engaging someone of the skill, speed, and proficiency with which he was presently dealing.

With each attack that came his way, it required every ounce of his focus to avoid, block, or deflect. His Sharingan was just able to keep pace with the flow of the fight, something he had never before experienced; even when he had fought Obito, who had by far been the greatest foe he had faced previously, he had felt moments where he could breathe or take a split second to decide on his next best move. Everything that came from him now was fueled by the moment itself, purely reactionary and almost entirely out of his control. His body seemed almost like it was performing the deeds for him, not even giving him a chance to think about his next play. Fuzzily, he found himself rather badly wishing that Kyoshi had been the furthest that this went. With her, Sasuke had found no trouble battering her to a pulp at his full strength. He had watched as her expression had grown more and more tense while he had struck her at every conceivable angle and slowly watched her slow until the point he could lay a full beatdown on her.

Madara on the other hand could have been picking flowers for how intense his expression was.

It was clear that he was putting in as much effort as he could to try and eliminate Sasuke, but every time Sasuke could catch a glimpse of his face, there was nothing like the tensing on his face that came with the heat of battle. He could have been doing as mundane a chore as possible and Sasuke supposed that was likely exactly like what he felt he was doing.

I'm this last piece of debris to clear away before he can move forward with using the Infinite Tsukuyomi.

The only solace he could find was, if Madara was looking to remove him as quickly as possible, he must have been trying his hardest to finish Sasuke as quickly as possible, which could infer that, despite his almost relaxed disposition, he wasn't holding anything back.

Sasuke managed to turn a twisting midair dodge away from a pillar of jagged ground that shot up from beneath him to slam his feet into Madara's chest. Kicking hard, he propelled himself up and away from his foe, using the strike for an escape just as much as a chance to inflict a rare bit of damage. But no sooner had he touched down and tried to come to a sliding halt across the wasteland, Madara exploded through the pillar of earth he had created and came soaring through the air towards him. Gritting his teeth, Sasuke focused a burst of Chidori around all the places he thought Madara might attempt to dodge to, but he saw the other Uchiha's eyes flicker red and black, and the web of lightning that erupted from around his wrist outward met no mark as Madara wove between it to close in just as quickly as the lightning moved. Sasuke just managed to bring up his forearm to block a hard jab and ducked under another as Madara remained on top of him, hurling punches and directing jabs at places all over Sasuke's body. Just as many connected as were blocked or deflected as Sasuke was forced on the defensive. He had never before encountered someone so adept at taijutsu, but every strike that came his way was added to his mental registry, though he feared he would never be able to manage a completed picture of Madara's fighting style before every drop of blood was beaten from his body. Knowing he couldn't keep up the pattern of avoiding some strikes and feeling others crash into his body with painful aftershocks, he pulled Obito's Rinnegan to life and blew Madara away from him with Shinra Tensei. Spiraling away, Madara corrected himself in midair and swept aside Sasuke's Fire Style Flame Wall that came exploding down upon him and leapt high into the air to avoid the residual effect of its passing. No sooner had he done so when Sasuke triggered Shinra Tensei again and yanked Madara towards him; he spun at the last second and drove his foot into Madara's gut with a powerful kick that sent his opponent skidding backwards, but as he was flung away, Madara grabbed his ankle and whipped him around to slam an elbow into Sasuke's head. Sasuke went crashing heavily to the ground while Madara was tossed several dozen meters away to land nimbly on his feet.

Picking himself up, Sasuke found the first brief break he had experienced in the battle thus far as Madara moved towards him at a brisk walk, allowing him several seconds to try and ease his racing mind.

Sasuke hadn't dared to try and put his plan into action that early in the fight. His strategy revolved around a single moment that, if seen coming, Madara would catch, and the strategy would be rendered completely useless. It was a onetime chance that had every chance of failing, but should it work, Sasuke would have the battle won in the time it took to blink. He had prepared a backup plan of course, but it was much more dangerous and risky, and he had no desire to resort to it unless there was truly no other option.

For the time being, he needed to work on wearing Madara into something like a semblance of security, and judging by the way things were going, that wasn't going to be difficult on its own. Sasuke just had to make sure he didn't die in the process.

Unsettlingly, he hadn't noticed even the slightest dip in Madara's chakra flows when he had reached out briefly to analyze him, which was a clear indicator that the energy source he was pulling from hadn't been a lie. The very pulsating sky above was fueling Sasuke's opponent and keeping the reserve of his chakra from ever dwindling, meaning that if this was a battle of attrition, there was no chance he had of winning. But as long as he was having to fight Madara anyway, looking for the perfect opportunity to make his move, he might as well try and perhaps go for broke.

Deciding to be the one to initiate, Sasuke launched himself forward, Kusanagi whipping free of its sheath as he lashed his arm sharply forward as he came bearing down on Madara; flicking his eyes up at it almost passively, Madara reached up and caught the blade between both his palms and yanked it forward. Seeing the blow coming, Sasuke let go of his sword to avoid being pulled into a ferocious knee to his gut and instead slammed his left fist into Madara's face who couldn't release Kusanagi fast enough to defend himself and went toppling backwards at the force. Sasuke let the momentum carry him forward and he grabbed his sword again in midair, tucking into a roll and coming out just in time to swing his sword around to impale Madara as he bore down on him. His blade sank nearly to the hilt before the substitution jutsu disappeared in a poof and the real Madara slipped behind him and knocked him into the air before leaping into the air with him and smashing him with a kick. Sasuke flew the length of a good hundred yards before he smeared into the ground atop the hill that he had first walked when entering the spirit world.

Wincing again, he picked himself up and looked to the sky for Madara's next attack before he noticed a strange glowing near his feet. Glancing back, he saw the tear that he had originally walked through flickering almost pleasantly behind him. He could make out only colors and abstract shapes through it and his mind briefly wondered if—

He hadn't the time to even finish an entire thought. His Sharingan flashed a warning and Sasuke wasn't even able to fully turn his head before he raised his arms to feel the force of something truly massive slam into him with what felt like the force of a volcano erupting. As his vision blurred and briefly went black, he was knocked backwards like a leaf caught in a windstorm, his head spinning while his stomach seemed to fly all about his insides.

The hard ground came beneath him quickly and he was dashed across it before he felt himself slam into some structure hard enough for it to give way and there came a rumble and the ground shook. Debris came crashing down around him and he pressed his feet to the ground from where he lay on his back to propel himself quickly backwards to avoid the rubble that collapsed into a massive pile but stumbled due to his still spinning head and wound up flat on his back. Blinking at the crumbling mass ahead of him, he saw that it was the wall that surrounded Ba Sing Se's palace and he leapt to his feet rather ungracefully; it would seem that Madara had smashed him clean back through the tear he had made, and Sasuke imagined that had been completely intentional.

His eyes flashed around in an effort to see where Madara had followed him through, and he triggered his Sharingan when he couldn't immediately catch sight of him, but it seemed that either Madara had somehow managed to hide himself or he simply hadn't come back through the tear yet. Betting rather foolishly that it was the latter, Sasuke cast his gaze around the courtyard where a large portion of the surrounding wall had toppled at the force of him crashing into it.

The spirits that had gathered around him and Madara had all vanished; he could see no sign of their telltale blue glow anywhere in sight. So too had the crowd vanished. Hopefully, Sasuke thought, back to their homes to hunker down for this all to be said and done. The courtyard was strangely silent and motionless as the rubble settled and the only movement to draw Sasuke's gaze was the flapping banners around the palace itself.

One of which seemed to be moving away from the palace through the sky.

Sasuke blinked and saw perfectly well then that the shadow he had briefly mistaken as a flickering banner was anything but. He directed his Sharingan at the flying shape and identified quickly what it was, and what was atop it.

His heart skipped a beat and he couldn't so much as bring himself to blink.

Damn it all, no…

Stupidly, he wanted to wave viciously and give a shout of warning, but an instant before the instinct to do so overtook him, he realized that if he just allowed himself to put what had happened behind him.

This could be exactly what I need.

Giving himself just time to swear violently, he went with his gut.

---

So disappointing.

Nothing more could really pass through Madara's head more than that. If he could put describe his present mood as a single action, it would have been a sigh.

So much I offered him. So much that he could have taken away from all of this, more than he deserves for all the trouble he's given me, but he chose defiance. And for what?

Now, all of his friends would be crushed for his foolishness as they would no doubt choose the same path that Sasuke had. Whether through loyalty to him, their home and people, a desire to defy, or a mixture of all three, they would no doubt force his hand. Just more needless death before the plan could finally come to fruition.

It bothered him, it truly did. It would have been a lie to suggest that he hadn't quietly enjoyed Sasuke's struggles with his little group of friends and lovers; it often seemed difficult to tell the difference. The time he had forced them to waste had allowed him to finish converting enough of the spirit world's energy to give himself the backing power he needed and uncover that he needed Sharingan to undergo what could potentially be a fatal transferring process. Then, as if presented as a gift, Sasuke's sensei had fallen right into his lap just after he had sent Kyoshi away again to bring back Sasuke, his daughter, or both. Having Kakashi present would no doubt make Kyoshi's inevitable failure that much more tolerable, but she had indeed surprised him heavily by sending Soza back with Yangchen, even if she and her army returned in tatters shortly thereafter. She had gotten feisty with him then, demanding that she was given her due, but Madara didn't know if he still would require her service. Kyoshi, ever brash and headstrong, had certainly earned the beating she had taken then, and then Soza had so curiously refused the offer to participate herself when presented the opportunity…

What is with this family and refusing perfectly acceptable offers?

He caught himself before he got too frustrated and stepped back through the tear after Sasuke. As he took a deep breath of the fresh night air, he looked about for Sasuke and caught sight of the half collapsed wall near the front gate.

Dear me… I suppose I did hit him rather hard.

Wondering if Sasuke wasn't buried beneath that rubble, he started towards it. Only a few steps were managed before his senses whispered a warning and he turned, eyes moving towards the star studded night sky.

A fully formed purple Susanoo was plummeting towards him, fist drawn back to flatten him into the ground as one might an insect. Madara smirked.

I really will just have to beat the fight from him, won't I.

The flaming purple fist smashed down with an explosive and earth-shaking retort. Madara would have liked to see Sasuke's expression behind the purple form as his own Susanoo slowly rose to stare eye to eye with Sasuke's, the blue of his flashing against the purple of the one whose fist Madara's Susanoo held in its grip. The two massive forms strained against one another, neither willing to back down. Madara drew back then and gripped the handle of a burning azure sword and whipped it around, the speed of it causing the sound barrier to splinter with a crashing boom. Sasuke's Susanoo had already moved to draw its own blade which it barely brought around in time to cross with Madara's; a flickering eruption of their clashing lights burst through the air then and the two giant figures began to strain once more against one another.

Pity, Madara thought. I would have liked to be able to take the time to properly enjoy this.

---

Ty Lee looked hurriedly up and down the street as civilians poured through it, clutching their loved ones as they quickly made their way towards the outer rings of Ba Sing Se. She echoed the shouted orders of Yue and a young woman with the bizarre name of Smellerbee who apparently Jin was quite friendly with. Their small group had met her as well as Iroh in his teashop and Jin had nearly collapsed in the old man's arms before taking a very staunch expression. She had asked Iroh to move away from the city center after he informed Suki that the Kyoshi Warriors had been planning on getting into the palace that night under any means necessary.

"I couldn't think of any plausible way to stop them," he had said painedly, looking at Suki with a clear apology in his eyes. "I don't know if they would have made their attempt by now or otherwise…"

Without a word to any of them, Suki had darted from the shop and into the night. Ty Lee had made to go after her before Jin had caught her by the shoulder.

"She has her mission, we have ours," she said with a clarity and confidence in her voice that had made Ty Lee feel surprisingly invigorated. It didn't make her feel any better that there was yet another person now though that she wasn't able to keep track of; Sokka had left their side early to run towards the barracks, and Mai had sped directly towards the palace without a word over her shoulder. Though she knew she couldn't expend the mental strain in worrying about her, Mai was never far from her mind. Jin had quickly been able to distract her however and issued orders to her, Ursa, Yue, and Smellerbee in the districts around the center of the city they needed to spread the word to.

"These are the people you need to call for," she had said, hastily scribbling several names on pieces of parchment and distributing them. "Tell them I sent you and that they need to get the neighborhoods out of their homes and away from the palace. Don't worry about the richer domiciles; they probably will have trouble wanting to leave their homes anyway, or just won't believe you. The people on these lists will know them better and will have a better chance convincing them to leave. Direct everyone down the south main street and regroup at the square there where the streets intersect, it's the widest and people will be able to get far from the city center the quickest that way."

Jin's knowledge of Ba Sing Se certainly was paying dividends by that point. Giving quick nods in understanding, the women had taken off in separate directions to do what they could for the people of the city, Jin planting a quick kiss on Iroh's cheek before moving down a street of her own. Ty Lee had ignored the breath exploding in and out of her lungs as she threw her knuckles against door after door, calling for the people on the list she had been provided. Every single one had been surprised to see her, but upon hearing Jin's name and a brief overview of the situation, they had taken up the cry of evacuation and a butterfly effect initiated. With increasing numbers, the streets began to flood with people, many of whom were distractedly yelling that they had seen the near mythical figure of Sasuke walking the street towards the palace.

Sasuke… were you really going and being that dramatic about all this?

With him though, Ty Lee was sure there had been a plan, especially if he had so openly marched down Ba Sing Se towards the city center. And there would be time to worry about that later.

Regrouping with Yue, Smellerbee, and Jin in the square that filtered the fleeing citizens down the south main street, she waved everyone along, occasionally shouting encouragement towards them. When it seemed that a proper consistent flow was being achieved, she hopped off the sales cart she had been standing on to head towards Jin, apologizing to the harried owner who was running over to push the cart along with him as he fled, shouting something about cabbages.

"Do we need to keep moving along the rings and warning people out?" she asked breathlessly as she drew up beside Jin.

"No," her friend replied, expression steeled and reassuring in its focus. "Everyone we rallied will keep the pace going, spreading the word and getting more folks to take up the cry. At this rate, the only people left behind are the ones that refuse to leave."

Ty Lee recalled a particularly glamorous house she had rushed up to in her run, which had resulted in a man in a nightgown expensive enough to buy a small town answering the door and telling her off in annoyance, barking about scams and young people getting hopped up on stimulants before closing the door in her face. She looked over her shoulder worriedly.

"Shouldn't we go back?" she asked, hearing the nerves in her voice.

"No," Jin said again. "No one needs to go risking their lives more than necessary for stingy rich nobles who don't have the sense to look out into the street and realize something's wrong. Chances are, they'll know soon enough that there's something to be worried about."

Not for the first time, Ty Lee was caught off guard by how much her friend had taken control of the situation. Perhaps it was due to the fact that she had finally been given an element with which she was truly comfortable, but she had taken complete control of the situation. There had been no doubt in Ty Lee's mind that Jin had been the right choice for the task Aang had given her, but seeing her come into her own this way filled Ty Lee with a pride she hadn't expected.

Suddenly, over the now consistent sound of civilians flowing through the streets, a great echoing boom thudded somewhere that could have either been directly above them or far off. Feeling her very bones rattle, Ty Lee felt her head turn almost as though pulled by a string to where she somehow knew the sound had come from.

Over the rooftops of the buildings, in the direction of the palace, she saw a great violet figure rise into the air. The thudding boom had come from the thundering flap of its wings. By now, she had seen it enough time to recognize the chilling and demonic form of Sasuke's Susanoo.

He's alive.

There was some strange relief in that, and she realized that while her thoughts had seemed so focused on Azula and Toph after they had left, a heavy chunk of her was just as fearful for Sasuke. Seeing him then gave her a shot of hope that perhaps, despite her fears, things might somehow wind up okay.

That hope lasted for about a single second before she saw a second shape rocket up towards Sasuke. Despite what she wanted to deny, Ty Lee realized she was looking at a second Susanoo, just as horrifying to the eye, perhaps more, than Sasuke's. It was a shimmering blue in contrast with the deep purple of Sasuke's, but it seemed to her an almost frightening mirror of it; as she watched, the two crashed together in midair. For a moment, it looked like Sasuke was winning the grapple before the great blue figure slipped underneath his guard, came behind him and slammed his Susanoo with a kick that sent it rushing to the ground. Ty Lee couldn't see the impact, but she surely felt and heard it as another almighty rumble shook the ground beneath her feet.

Whether or not the crowds still spilling through the streets saw the sight of not, the mere sounds seemed enough to whip them into more of a panic than ever before. They sprinted through the streets with reckless abandon, a full-on stampede forming as they rushed to get far from the perceived danger. Trying to calm them would have been a hilariously fruitless task and Ty Lee's attention remained locked on the hovering blue figure, the only one now visible in the sky.

And for the first time since she had met him, she truly wondered if this was something Sasuke could win against.

Through the running mob of people, Ty Lee caught sight of a flash of silver. In an impressive feat, Yue managed to slip through the veritable roaring river of humanity sweeping past them and slid up beside the both of them where they remained protected against the passing crowd.

"Did either of you see Ursa?" she asked, having to shout to be heard. Ty Lee, who hadn't, looked over at Jin who matched her negatory reply.

"I didn't see her meet us back in the square!" Yue yelled, fear flickering in her eyes. She didn't need to say any more at that point as all three of them looked off in the direction of the palace. It was clear that Ursa had fulfilled her duty given the tide of people that had come from the direction she had been sent in, but if she hadn't already come back…

That stupid woman, Ty Lee thought, fear flashing through her mind.

She couldn't have.

---

Ursa ignored the cacophony of sounds that continued to rumble behind her. As she ran, they started to grow fainter regardless as she moved into a part of the city district that seemed fairly emptied. She caught occasional glimpses of blue streaking above her and she kept to the shadows to prevent any spirits from seeing her. She didn't know if they would pay her any mind if they did lock eyes on her, but she didn't want to take the chance on way or another.

Her destination was fortunately not that far away and Ursa found herself actually thanking her late husband in the back of her head.

If not for him, I never would have thought of this.

It had become something that almost seemed to amuse Ozai in the years following her giving birth to Zuko and Azula. No doubt in part because he was hoping to further influence their children for his own means, he had most certainly known just how Ursa couldn't stand being sent on far flung diplomatic missions to meet with their neighboring nations, even during wartime. The Earth Nation would never have laid a hand on her when she would appear for a completely futile and pointless peace talk, but it had afforded her more than Ozai might have known.

Ba Sing Se had been one of her preferred places to travel to, if she was ever to be given the option. The city's leadership always treated her well, so much so that they had even deigned fit to grant her with a tour of the city's finer district one day during her visit. From morning till late afternoon, Ursa had seen a great many sights within Ba Sing Se, and it was one of these sights that she ran towards now.

A moment before she had run off to assist in evacuating the inner city's civilian population, she had happened to glance at Yue and had seen the faintly glowing sword upon her back. Perhaps that, along with actually being in Ba Sing Se, had triggered this particular memory.

As she turned a corner, the building she was looking for appearing dead ahead, she heard a violent screech behind her. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw a spirit coming around a junction in the streets that looked to be part woman, part snake, part horse. It clearly had taken notice of her and started towards her with a considerable bit more speed than Ursa would have liked. She let out a harsh curse and sprinted all the faster. While the spirit might have been quicker, her distance to the building was close enough that she was at the foot of the stairs seconds after noticing the spirit. Taking them up three at a time, she saw the door closed atop it and realized with a start that she hadn't even considered actually getting in. Not slowing down, she lowered her upper body slightly to ram into it, hoping to break the lock with the force of her momentum.

To her surprise, the door swung open the moment her shoulder collided with it. Having not been locked at all, it took near to none of the brunt of the force she had driven into it with and Ursa went crashing down the half dozen or so stairs in the entrance hall to the building, landing on her shoulder on the hard marble floor.

"That smarts," she muttered, picking herself up and sparing a moment to rub her shoulder as she started to run again. "Next time I'll actually try the door first."

Praying her memory was good enough to lead her straight and true, she could hear the continual screeching of the spirit behind her and growing ever closer. She ran past display case after display case, sparing no time to glance at the priceless and historical artifacts that the museum had to offer. There was only one thing she was interested in finding.

Her heart leapt in her chest when she saw the glass case. She raced up to it as she heard the hooves of the spirit not a dozen meters behind her; drawing one of her swords, she spun the handle of it in her hand and rammed the pommel into the glass. It shattered at the strike and Ursa plunged her hands through the still falling glass, immediately starting to turn as she released the grip on her sword.

The spirit had been just behind her as she had anticipated. Riled up either due to seeing her, the chaos that had erupted in Ba Sing Se, or both, it bore down on her with clear murderous intent, screeching all the while. Its snakelike tail whipped back and forth as the upper torso which bore the body of a woman swung its arms down towards her, both of which ended in serrated looking blades instead of hands.

The furious expression never left the spirit's face as its head left its shoulders and hit the ground with a soft thud. Its upper body followed, completely removed from the horse and snake section of the body, and both pieces fell with a much louder retort. Forcing herself to draw in measured breaths, Ursa didn't look away from the body until it started to dissolve, wisping away into nothingness several seconds later. Only then did she allow herself to look down to her hands.

Gripped in her palms were two matching katana, each perfectly balanced with blades a deep shining grey. Ursa had seen these blades once before during her tour of the city so many years ago, and they had been easily the most interesting artifact to catch her eye. At the time, she had been studying wielding twin blades in private as Ozai would never have allowed her to become adept with any sort of weapon; the weaker she was, the easier he would find her to control. Ursa could recall the guide she had been following remarking how strange it was that a woman of her beauty and stature had been drawn to one of the few sets of weapons within the hallowed museum, but Ursa had ignored the comment and asked instead why the blades seemed to glow.

"Oh, that? Well, these were wielded by a nonbender native to Ba Sing Se in the first years of its establishment. Unfortunately, not much was known about him beyond the fact that he repelled several attempts by rogue Air Nation raiders to sabotage early construction of the city, and that he was a weaponsmith. Though it's never been able to be replicated, our belief is that he found a rare luminescent material in the mines beneath the Earth Nation and infused that into his crafting of these two swords, giving them that strange gentle blue glow."

That glow had been the same as the one Ursa had seen on Yue's greatsword and, on a whim, she had decided to take the risk in trying to uncover them. And, forced to prove themselves in an instant, her hunch had paid off. She looked down at the swords in mild awe of their beauty, wondering just who this nonbender was who had possessed blades capable of slaying spirits.

They weighed slightly differently to the blades she had grown so accustomed to carrying given the longer lengths of these new spiritually imbued blades, but Ursa could already find herself growing used to them as she swung them in a few practice motions, replicating the moves she had used for so long. As she did, her eyes fixed in the direction of where she had entered from where she pictured the chaos exploding beyond.

I will NOT stand by as Sasuke and my children fight through the end of this war. I will protect them, I will protect Soza, I will protect all that I can.

Hastily agreeing to Mai's words aboard the airship had been a ploy she hadn't possessed any real idea on how she could back up. She knew her regular swords took several strikes to even come close to piercing the spirits' ethereal barriers, and now, she possessed weapons that would carve into them like a hot knife through butter. Ursa found herself feeling oddly powerful, almost wishing for more spirits to come following after the one she had just ended so that she might further demonstrate the new advantage she had found.

Allowing herself only a minute or so longer to familiarize herself with her new weapons, Ursa marched back through the museum in the direction of the door she had so recently barged through. As she did, she glanced down at her belly and smiled softly.

Don't worry, little one… we'll find your dad soon enough.

And though it shouldn't have been possible that early on in her pregnancy, she could have sworn she felt a small kick just then.

---

Mai's legs burned as she dashed through the streets, slipping past and shoving aside the frantic citizens that came to stand in her way. There weren't many, but she could hear an absolute roar of sound coming from the direction just east of where she was. Hopefully, that was the sound of the people evacuating that Jin, Ty Lee, Yue, and Ursa had gone to deal with.

There was something freeing that she felt as she ran through the streets with a vigor that she wouldn't even have guessed possible by her. Mai had always been the type to prefer to be on her own, and this hadn't changed, but she had been given nary a chance to be in such a way over the last month. Even with the gravity of what she was doing weighing heavily on her mind, there was still that lifting feeling in her gut about only needing to worry about herself in that moment.

As she drew ever nearer to the center of the city, she tried again and again to concoct some actual plan. Hilariously and stupidly enough, she hadn't managed to think up a proper way to deal with the situation before her beyond just getting there in the first place.

Oh, I'm sure it will be so easy. "Hello, Sasuke, would you mind taking your fight out of the city to where we can help you? Oh, and have you seen Azula, Toph, or Soza anywhere? Just would like to get them out of her soon too, if possible."

She forced herself to trust that whomever she ran into first would inspire the right words she needed to say.

Above her, a steady flow of spirits was passing overhead, paying no mind to the people running below. It only spurred on Mai with greater speed as she imagined that every single one of them was heading right for Zuko and Aang, and the distraction they were causing.

Those two won't be able to hold out forever.

All the more reason that she needed to move as quickly as she knew everyone else was. Hopefully, Sokka had locked down Gokan and his troops by now and was en route to aid Zuko and Aang; Mai knew the general well enough to know that he would spare no time in whipping his soldiers once he understood the situation. He surely had hated this forced peace within the city during the spirits' occupation, but by the look of things, he hadn't gone off and done anything rash. Him and the army of Ba Sing Se would add as much power as they needed for fighting the spirits on the outside of the city.

But Mai knew that the spirits themselves weren't so much the problem.

Kyoshi… Yangchen… Koh…

And deep down, she knew there had to be more.

Sasuke knew something, that was why he left the way he did. If Kyoshi was the worst of it, what would he have to fear?

A droning rumble sounded somewhere off in the distance and Mai dug her heels into the ground, coming to the first stop she had since she had started running outside the wall. Wiping her brow free from sweat, she looked around swiftly, trying to figure what it was that was making that sound; whatever it was, it was giving her a horrible sense of foreboding.

Then, off in the distance and silhouetted against the black of night, two great winged figures one purple and the other blue rose into the sky, looking to be grappling furiously with one another. As Mai's mouth fell agape at the sight, she watched the blue figure twist around the purple one and strike it hard enough for it to go crashing to the ground below, past what Mai could see over the buildings that composed her horizon. Still, she steadied her feet as a rumble passed beneath her and the buildings around her quaked.

She couldn't take her eyes off the winged blue monstrosity far off though it was.

Another… another one like him.

Her mind immediately went to Obito, the one who had fought Sasuke nearly to the death at the end of the last war, but she knew this was to be dismissed. Even if he had somehow survived despite the wounds he had suffered and the eyes he had lost, the part he had played in the end had been at Sasuke's side against…

Oh no…

Mai tried to think of the little she knew of Madara, but there wasn't a thing about him she knew that at all suggested he would be someone that Sasuke would find himself able to defeat with the ease he had defeated so many others. A person of the same blood as him, with the same powers, and Mai felt her heart thudding violently in her chest as she looked at the second Susanoo as it looked down towards where Sasuke had crashed down to.

What if Sasuke can't beat him?

Perhaps the most chilling Mai had yet had throughout so many weeks of panicked fleeing and anxious waiting; despite all they had encountered and been forced to face, there was some part of her that had always felt so certain that Sasuke was truly unkillable and powerful enough to overcome any foe. What did she really have to fear with a person like that as a friend? And so the idea that he might finally have met something like his match was enough to cause her innards to squirm frigidly.

She noticed the quickly receding ground before it struck her that something had gripped her around the shoulders with a vicelike grip. Swearing, Mai realized that while she had been standing still in the street with a dumbfounded look on her face, a spirit, who clearly hadn't been as keen as the others to reach the edge of the city, had flown down without her noticing and swept her up in a flash.

"Get the fuck off me!" she heard herself roar as she strained against the grip the flying creature had on her upper body; her hands were just able to sweep into the sleeves of her robes and her knives sprang free. Crossing her forearms, she slashed at the things legs and felt her blades strike dully against the protective aura that surrounded the spirit. Shouting in frustration, she drew back both knives and flicked her wrists to throw them towards the harpy-like spirit's face. Even if she couldn't hurt it, perhaps she might be able to distract it enough to result in it dropping her.

To her surprise, the spirit gave a sudden shriek as though her knives had succeeded in impaling it and Mai's gut rushed to her throat as she found herself in free fall.

Shit.

She hadn't quite thought this through. Trying to right herself in the air as much as she could, she saw the curving roof of a building coming up beneath her quickly. Knowing she had just the one chance to try and pull this off, she angled her legs as best she was able; the roof crumpled her stance and she allowed it to do so in order to keep her legs from breaking at the impact. She slid down the edge of the roof, hoping that she would be able to tuck into a roll off of it and keep from hurting herself too badly.

That was the hastily constructed plan anyway until Mai saw that the roof was on top of a three story building as she went over the side of it and watched the cobble street coming up beneath her with an almost disorienting sort of speed.

Shit, she thought again, but forced herself to prepare to try and tuck into a roll nonetheless. It was likely she would snap some bones as a result of this, but she didn't want the fall to kill her.

There came a great rush somewhere above her and she felt a cold rush somewhere off to her side as the street beneath her suddenly became pitch white. Trying to register what she was seeing, Mai was suddenly greeted by a cold, but somehow soft landing. Rolling down what seemed to be a small hill that had suddenly formed, she was dumped into the street and scrambled to her feet quickly to assess the damage. Lifting both legs and stamping down with both feet one after another, she found nothing seemed to be broken, or even strained. Blinking at the small white hill, she found that there was a five foot mound of snow in the middle of the street with an impression on the top of it of a full grown woman dropping onto it and then rolling down its side.

Snow?

She heard the same rush again and spun to look around. As if the snow hadn't been peculiar enough, Mai now saw a flying bison coming to settle in the street a dozen meters from her.

"Appa?" she asked in bemusement, approaching the bison and was given a very wet greeting by an enormous tongue in confirmation that the animal was indeed the one she had known for years. Grimacing, she rubbed her face in the crook of her robes as she wiped down her front to splatter the ground at her feet with saliva.

"How the hell did you get—?" she started to ask, her mind still running at top speed before she saw someone stand atop Appa's saddle and swing gracefully down to stand in the street before her. The black sky did her no good in discerning the person's identity and it was only through the lights dotting the outside of the buildings around them that she saw who it was as a breeze swept hair around her face.

"You!" Mai shouted and drew a knife to press against Katara's throat. Appa released a rumbling bark at the violent show and stamped his many feet before Katara raised a hand to calm him, which he did reluctantly.

"Yes, me," the waterbender said breathlessly. She didn't cow from Mai's glare, her eyes flashing with purpose under the orange glow of the lamps emanating from the buildings around them.

"I should kill you," Mai growled and found her heart skip a painful beat as she wondered if she might actually mean that. But this too didn't seem to deter Katara who instead gave her a meaningful nod in reply.

"Maybe," she said. "I almost got all of us killed because of my impulsiveness. And I certainly don't expect your forgiveness."

There came a soft thud somewhere above them and Mai nearly leapt as a body crashed down in the street from her a moment later. Shooting a glance at it, she saw the motionless form of the spirit that had lifted her into the sky starting to dissolve with an icicle the size of a spear puncturing through its chest.

"Took a good bit of force to get it past that thing's aura," Katara said, and Mai turned her head to glare back at her. What had caused the spirit to scream and release her made sense now, as did the pile of snow that had formed beneath her to protect her from the fall, but this didn't change a thing for her and she found she didn't even care to acknowledge that Katara had potentially saved her life.

"How did you get here?" she snarled, not taking the knife away from Katara's neck.

"I flew," the waterbender explained. "Aang came down to tell me you were leaving to go help Sasuke in Ba Sing Se. I managed to lift Appa's whistle off of him before he left and I broke out just after he did."

Though she couldn't easily move with the knife against her neck, she turned her eyes to fix Appa with a grateful smile.

"He must have been fairly close by as he arrived only an hour or so after I blew it. Got really lucky. Somewhere in the eastern skies by the sea if I had to guess. He's gotten faster as he's grown over the years, but I still only just made it to Ba Sing Se. And by the sound of things, you guys have been here a little while."

Mai truly didn't have any sort of gauge on how long the night had been already, but it was safe to assume that even though Katara must have left not long after they did, Appa had needed several more hours to reach the city, even flying as fast as he was able.

"And so what, you just happened to find me before anybody else?" Mai growled. "I figured you'd try and hook up with Koh, aren't the two of you best buddies by now?"

For the first time, Katara's face flashed with hurt, but she seemed to force herself past it.

"Listen, Mai, I don't need you to try and like me right now, and I don't need you to forgive me. But you have to trust me."

This warranted a cackling laugh that Mai hadn't even been aware that she could even produce as she threw her head back to release the sound.

"Are you fuckin' kidding me, Katara?!" she yelled then. "Trust you?!"

She pressed the knife against Katara's fair brown skin with furthering pressure and she saw the waterbender wince as a thin line of blood appeared where she had her steel angled.

"We're trying to find Sasuke and help him, and you're expecting me to not only drop that, but to trust you as well?!"

Shaking her head with a disdainful look on her face, Mai fixed Katara with as hateful a sneer as she had likely given anyone before.

"You've got a lot of nerve. I'm sure even Sasuke would have to crack a laugh at how fucking stupid you think we'd have to be to buy that after what you pulled."

"Well, he certainly didn't seem to find anything too funny when I spoke to him a minute ago," Katara shot back then, and Mai took a moment to process such a statement.

"You… you didn't… what—" she started to sputter out before Katara angrily began to clarify.

"He was the first person I wanted to find!" she snapped. "I knew that he would be at the center of all this and if I could find him, I could find out how bad things really were! It hurt me more than anything to see Aang fighting alone with Zuko outside the city, but I couldn't stop to help, not when I know I have to end this as fast as I possibly can!"

Seeming to get fed up with being felt at the point of a knife, she swung her hand out and knocked aside Mai's wrist. Mai didn't make an attempt to bring the blade back up, but only stared at Katara fixedly.

"By the time I had flown Appa over the palace, I couldn't see signs of anything, other than that the outer gate surrounding it had been blown open. There were no spirits, and no sign of Sasuke or anyone else, just a strange sort of doorway, or portal or something, it almost looked like that was glowing in the courtyard. I was getting ready to bring myself around to the back where I knew I might be able to get into the palace when Sasuke came flying out of the portal and crashed into the wall around the palace. I started to fly down to him, but he must have seen me because he flew up to me and we spoke briefly before Madara followed him out and Sasuke reengaged him."

Mai's blood felt chilled then.

"It is Madara then?" she asked, surprised at how tentative her voice had suddenly become.

"Yes," Katara said impatiently, drawing up moisture through her waterbending to heal the cut she now bore on her neck. "I don't know all of what this is ultimately all about, but Sasuke and Madara are fighting as we speak."

There came a strange empty feeling in Mai's head as though she had just stood up too quickly and the blood had all rushed to her head.

Someone like him… someone maybe even more powerful than him.

How could they hope to fight against that?

"Hey!"

Mai realized that she had bent nearly double, her hands on her knees as she fought down a wave of nausea. Katara had come over and pulled her upright under the armpit and Mai looked to see Katara's eyes blazing with an energy she didn't feel she had herself.

"He's not giving up, and neither are we!" she barked. "He asked me to do something but told me I couldn't do it alone. So, I went to try and find someone I could trust as quickly as I could and so I guess we're doing this together!"

Mai wanted to make some snide comment regarding the irony of Katara trusting her after what had happened between them but couldn't find the gumption to do so. The only thing that was on her mind then was what Katara had just implied.

"What did he ask you to do?"

Katara pointed a finger behind them in the direction of the palace, her thick brown hair flowing around her intense expression.

"I don't know all of the specifics, Sasuke didn't have the time enough to tell me. But through that portal I saw Sasuke come out of, he asked me to go through and find someone. He said that finding this person was paramount to winning this conflict, they needed to be found and taken here to the material world."

"Someone?" Mai asked dubiously and Katara glared at her all the more intensely.

"I don't know what it meant either, but that person is supposedly being held through that portal against their will and are supposedly a pretty big key in all of this."

Mai shifted her weight anxiously.

"Well, even if that accounts for Sasuke and he's… fighting Madara, I still need to find Azula and—"

"Mai, we have to trust that the others will be able to handle themselves!" Katara said fervently, her eyes flashing. "What could you even do for them if you found any of the others? Know they were alive? This is something we have to do, you… you should have seen the look in Sasuke's eyes! I could tell that he was…"

Katara looked bitterly hurt then.

"… wasn't happy to see me, and I don't think that he would have given this to me if it wasn't as urgent as he made it sound. Though, he did say… I don't know if I ought to just find someone else…"

She seemed to get held up on something then and Mai narrowed her eyes.

"What?" she asked in a low voice.

"Well… the person is apparently being guarded by Koh," Katara finished with a sigh.

Mai was grateful then that she was wearing long-sleeved robes or else the goosebumps that rose on her arms then might have been perfectly visible to Katara. That being said, it seemed that her expression had changed enough that Katara gave her a slow nod.

"I was worried about that," she said in a concerned tone. "Look, I… it doesn't have to be you. I just need to know where someone else is so that I can—"

"Why?" Mai asked with a sudden vigor. She tried to keep her voice calm but couldn't keep it from leaping in pitch; she couldn't help from thinking about just how strangely panicked her voice had become. "Why do you need someone else?"

"Because Koh will need to be distracted," Katara said. "If he's gone back into the spirit world to protect this person, there must be a good reason for it. Sasuke said that while he should no longer have his shapeshifting ability since he's no longer one with the physical world… he'll once again be able to… to…"

"Steal someone's face," Mai finished for her, and Katara nodded firmly.

"Even if I'm able to maintain a neutral expression when encountering him, I still wouldn't be able to get to whomever it is that Koh is guarding," she explained. "One person will need to distract Koh, and the other can save his hostage."

"Who even is this person?" Mai yelled. She was feeling quite overcome with anxiety at that point and couldn't quite shake the feeling from her mind. It had nothing to do with the war itself and she found herself starting to grow frantic.

"How do I know you're telling the truth?!" she shouted out, pointing an accusing finger at Katara. "How do I know that you're not Koh, that you're not feeding me all this to lure me into a trap?! How am I supposed to believe any of that?!"

She almost expected Katara to explode right back at her for her outburst, but as she looked at the waterbender, Katara only crossed her arms and fixed Mai with a pitying look.

"Firstly, if I was Koh trying to kill you or lure you into a trap, I would have let that fall kill you or break your legs, or just let the spirit carry you off," she said quietly. "If I was Koh, I wouldn't be here with Appa right now, who would surely have known immediately that I wasn't actually Katara."

She sighed.

"But if you want proof of how you can know for certain I'm not Koh, I suppose I'd have to tell you something that only I could know, or something that Koh wouldn't possibly be aware of," she continued. "He can replicate us, and pretend to be us, but he doesn't have our memories or our feelings."

Taking in a deep breath and straightening her back, she looked at Mai delicately and with a concerned furrow to her brow, as though she were fearful of breaking her; Mai felt a rush of nerves then that she couldn't pinpoint as to where they had come from.

"Aboard the airship after we fled Ba Sing Se, you went out onto the catwalk to be alone. Sasuke followed you," Katara started and Mai's heart about stopped then and there.

"He confronted you about when Koh had been posing as him, and you had made to protect him," Katara continued. "And you told him about how Koh had visited you already, and… how you were worried that you might have been pregnant."

It was a secret that Mai would have been willing to take to the grave and she had been quite certain that she and Sasuke were the only two that had been aware of it, at least to this degree. Hearing Katara speak about it now almost didn't make sense to her, like she was hearing some kind of foreign language.

"You were frightened that Koh had somehow managed to… do that to you while pretending to be Sasuke, but the real Sasuke checked and found that you were free of a burden like that. Then the two of you hugged for a while before coming back inside."

Katara scratched the back of her neck, looking unwilling to meet Mai's eyes, likely to do with being uncomfortable, apologetic, or both.

"Even despite what Koh's been able to manage against us, I don't suppose he would have been in any kind of position to know that was what went down between you and Sasuke that night."

While Mai knew full well that this was as good a piece of proof as anything, she found her mouth tightly sealed for a few long moments before she managed to quietly ask in a very hoarse tone, "Why were you listening in on us?"

Katara made a softly amused sound.

"You kidding? I was trying to corner him since the night he came back. But between you, and Toph, and Azula, and Yue, and Aang, and Ursa, it was a damn near impossible task. I thought I could get to him that night and yes, I suppose I did eavesdrop. Another thing I have to apologize for if I—"

Mai whipped her hand around almost fast enough to draw sound as it passed through the air and slapped Katara across the mouth. The waterbender took a step back, staggering considerably; her eyes widened as her mouth went slightly agape in surprise at the blow. The ringing sound of the smack echoed up and down the street and Mai shook her hand at her side as it stung badly. After a moment, Katara slowly straightened and turned back to her, her expression still stunned as she slowly brought her own hand up to her cheek.

"That was for listening in on something that no one else but me and Sasuke should have been a part of," Mai said. "And this…"

She stepped forward, bending her arm to a ninety-degree angle and clenching her hand into a fist. Without more warning than those two words, she drove the fist into Katara's gut as hard as she could.

"…is for taking Koh's deal."

Katara's body curled around her hand as the breath rushed from her lungs with an explosive gasp. Her legs trembled a moment before she dropped to her knees, seeming to heave briefly before she gave a loud, pained gag. Mai gave her a couple seconds before she reached down and hoisted up Katara underneath the armpit. The waterbender looked at her with shock still written on her face, as she put a hand gingerly over her gut and pain still glistening in her eyes.

"That should do," Mai said, shaking her hand out and fixing Katara with a humorless smirk. Some part of her knew that things might never be fully mended between them ever again, but she also knew deep down that Katara hadn't sided with Koh out of hatred for Sasuke.

She did it for the same reason she came here as quickly as she could… she's trying to protect Aang.

It was selfish, it had been stupid how she had gone about it, but Mai knew there were much worse things she could fault a person for and, right about now, there was no time to be thinking about grudges.

"Alright then," she said, whipping her head around to throw some of her errant black hair from her face. "Lead the way."

---

Whipping an enormous spiral of fire around his body, Aang twisted to the side and leapt, bringing his foot down hard on the ground. Even as his burst of firebending sent a group of spirits flying away from him, the earth rose up near the point of contact his foot had made, creating a wall that barred off several grounded spirits from rushing him.

"Aang!"

Hearing his name shouted by Zuko, Aang already knew what was being asked of him in that singular call. Starting to pull together his airbending even before he had fully spun, he turned to see that Zuko had brought to life a massive cyclone of almost blinding orange and white before him; Aang thrust out with both his palms and his airbending rushed over head, colliding with Zuko's firebending and sending the cyclone slamming into the swarm of spirits still pouring over the wall towards them and blasting apart their ranks with a furious, burning intensity. Aang threw himself back to back with Zuko, allowing himself a moment to catch his breath as, even despite their devastating bending prowess, the spirits kept coming.

"How much longer you think we can keep this up?" Zuko asked him in between deep pants.

"For as long as we have to," Aang replied grimly, though he was equally out of breath. In truth, he didn't know how many more minutes of this they would be able to last. The dust in the air had settled in his throat and nose, giving everything a dry, arid feel every time he pulled in a breath. Sweat beaded down the sides of his head, and he was fighting a painful stich in his side. They had been in the thick of this battle for at least a matter of hours now, and he was keeping himself distracted from how tired he was growing by thinking about how much closer his friends were to accomplishing what they had come there to do.

But every time he thought he heard a distant thundering sound from deep within Ba Sing Se, he couldn't keep the doubts from creeping in.

Sasuke… where are you?

In his head, he had been hoping that Mai would have found Sasuke quickly enough as well as Azula, Toph, and Soza, and they all would have grouped up outside the city, and then the others would be soon to follow. Even as he thought about it then, Aang knew how stupid a hope it was; what then? Once they were all back together, what then? Hold hands and hope that was going to be enough to destroy their enemy?

Damn it all, Aang thought as he slammed another approaching group of spirits with an explosive burst of airebending. He really didn't have a clue how, even if all his friends returned after completing what he had sent them out to do, how they could hope to proceed.

But this is going to be it. No matter what happens tonight, this is going to end, one way or another.

"Aang, behind us!"

Swearing angrily at himself, Aang whirled on his heel. He had been getting so caught up in his thoughts furthered by his exhaustion that he hadn't been minding behind them as he had been doing since the battle began. Sure enough, Zuko had caught sight of what Aang had failed to.

A sweeping swarm of flying spirits were darting their way over the ragged landscape, rising up like a wave as though to flatten him and Zuko. The Fire Lord hurled his firebending in the other direction as they were continuously besieged from their front as well.

"I can't hold both sides!" he yelled and Aang didn't reply. He was already preparing his earthbending to shield them, but he didn't know how long that would provide for them. They were slowly being completely overrun and if he didn't deal with these spirits coming at their backs in time, then they—

A chill ran up Aang's spine as he felt some sort of presence pass above him. Though the only light came from the glinting lamps atop Ba Sing Se's wall and the firebending he and Zuko were implementing, he felt rather as though a multitude of shadows had passed over them. His eyes flicked up and he indeed saw a series of shadows seeming to swell above him before the shadows collided with the spirits fast approaching from behind them and it was only when they were blown backwards, crushed to the ground, or exploded completely that Aang realized they had been massive boulders.

"Sorry we're late!"

Aang half-turned to see Sokka jogging up the hill towards them with what looked like a small army in tow. In the low light, he was still able to make out the traditional green uniforms of the Earth Nation army. It seemed that they had stormed from the wall and had cut their way through the spirits to reach Aang and Zuko.

"Apologies indeed!" came the booming shout of General Gokan. The massive man leapt up on a pillar of earth and came down on the ground hard beside Aang, smashing his fists into the ground. A tidal wave of earth rolled over the landscape, battering against any spirits that had gotten too close and putting some distance between them.

"We have been counting the hours until the time came when we would be called to action!" the general rumbled as he moved to stand nearby to Aang, his soldiers pouring up the hill around them and beginning to form a perimeter.

"You won't get in trouble with the United Nations Council, will you?" Zuko asked, and it took Aang a moment to realize that his friend was actually telling a joke, calling back to those years ago when they had ordered their troops stand down hours before Ozai's attack had commenced.

Gokan gave a single dark laugh.

"Those cowards fled from the city the moment they knew they were able. They more or less had King Bumi take them to Omashu, and I imagine that's where they're hiding out now. None seemed willing to stay, save for Dreyer; she surprised me, but refused to abandon the city when so much was still unknown, though I don't know if she so to save face, or because she thought she might be able to make a difference. Regardless, we would have come even if they had threatened us all with treason for doing so."

Based on the intense and almost excitable expressions of the soldiers around them, Aang supposed that sentiment was echoed in their minds as well. By the look of it, they had been looking for this chance to defend their city with considerable eagerness.

"Is there a plan?" Gokan asked towards Aang and Zuko as Sokka moved to stand beside them as well.

"Destroy as many spirits as we can," Zuko growled. "Buy time for Sasuke and the others."

"Easy enough to remember," the general replied and Aang thought he saw a twinkle in the man's eyes before he turned and bellowed out the orders to his surrounding captains who relayed the orders concurrently.

"No one's come back out of the city yet?" Sokka asked Aang as their eyes scanned around to take note of the still steady stream of spirits pouring from the ground and sky of Ba Sing Se.

"No," Aang replied grimly. "Still waiting."

From the look on Sokka's face, he hadn't anticipated being the first one back. He looked towards the city's wall nervously.

"It's been hours…" he muttered. "Should I go back and…?"

"Absolutely not," Zuko replied. "You made it to us because of Gokan's men, you'd never be able to slip past that many spirits again."

Sokka didn't look convinced nor satisfied with that answer, but he tightened his lips and nodded in affirmative.

"Here they come!" a soldier called out and Aang took a deep breath as the tide, though briefly stymied, began to crash towards them once more.

Having Gokan and the army of Ba Sing Se beside them was only a temporary relief. Just like him, the men wouldn't last forever, and the spirits seemed to have no end to their number. A moment before the spirits surrounded them once more and the battle exploded anew, Aang threw a last desperate glance towards the top of the wall but saw nothing. And all of the sudden, he felt a spiking wave of guilt wash over him.

Sasuke, everyone… please be okay.

---

"This is ridiculous!" Azula practically shrieked as she sprinted after Toph through the palace. "How have you not managed to find her yet?!"

They rounded a corner, and three more spirits came charging down the hallway to meet them. Azula sent a forking spear of bright blue lightning to blast through their protective auras before burning one of them to a crisp and allowing Toph to raise two walls of earth formed from the palace itself to crush the remaining two between. The interruption barely slowed their movement, and it certainly barely slowed their argument.

"I can tell you again and again, princess, but something's wrong with this place!" Toph shouted back. "I can feel about in a small area around me, maybe a couple dozen meters, but without getting closer than that to any rooms, something is messing with my ability to sense weight and movement!"

Azula fumed as she looked at Toph, but she could tell that this strange inhibition of her senses was putting a colossal amount of pressure on her. They had anticipated that they would be able to breach into the palace and find Soza in a matter of minutes, but because of this sudden handicap, they were being forced to get close enough to every single room from the sublevels up for Toph to actually be able to sense Soza. And while Azula was certainly starting to grow deeply anxious and impatient, she could tell that Toph was experiencing the same thing.

I suppose it would rather be like if anything past twenty feet of me was invisible.

Understanding perhaps what the earthbender was going through however didn't come anywhere close to stemming Azula's frustration, however.

"We need to move faster!" she barked. "We've been in here too long, and we're only now getting past the third floor!"

"We need to be thorough!" came Toph's agitated reply. "If we start going any faster, we could miss her!"

Azula surprised herself when she didn't snap back an insulting remark, but she chalked that up to her fear for Soza being much higher than her anger was at present.

They burst into what seemed like a lounge of some kind with a half dozen spirits milling about inside. There was a brief moment to assume that they were there on patrol or guard duty before the combined force of Azula and Toph's bending devoured them and removed them as a threat in seconds. As she touched down from where she had leapt into the air to bathe the spirits in her fire, Azula had to grudgingly acknowledge how well she and Toph were working together in the heat of combat.

She trained with my daughter for years… and much of what Soza knows, she learned from me.

The idea made Azula want to slip into Toph's head and see just how much of how the earthbender was fighting was based on her projecting Soza's fighting style onto Azula and using that to complement her in battle. Regardless, their tactics were working well enough that they had yet to have been slowed down by a single obstruction.

They continued on, surging through the third floor as carefully and quickly as they could, trying to harness the perfect level of efficiency. It was silent between the two of them, but Azula knew that they were both completely furious in their heads, wondering where in the world Soza could be, if they hadn't somehow missed her, or if she hadn't been moved from the palace. Such an idea caused Azula's teeth to grind painfully, and she didn't allow herself much time to consider such a thing. It was entirely possible that if such a thing came to be true, she might very well melt the palace in an inferno out of pure rage.

Just as she was nearing the point of snapping at Toph again purely for her own alleviation, Toph suddenly shouted, causing Azula to look over so quickly, it hurt her neck.

"Above us!" the earthbender shouted. "Ton of movement, at least twenty plus people!"

Despite being physical, the spirits they had so far encountered had all been hovering or floating in some way, making Toph's perception ahead of them completely useless in detecting such danger. The fact that she had just located actual people was the best news they had yet heard.

"Take us up!" Azula roared, and Toph didn't need to be told twice. She slammed her bare foot on the ground and the floor rose up underneath them, propelling them towards the ceiling above. A moment before they were crushed against it, Toph slammed her palms into the ceiling and a hole was blasted open to allow them to leap onto the fourth-floor hallway. Azula lunged forward into a roll and came out of it whipping an arc of blue fire around her body to deter anyone who might have been running up to attack her as Toph landed beside her, fists raised in a traditional earthbending prepared stance.

Ahead of them, however, were some of the last people that Azula expected to see, and she felt a sneer crawl onto her face.

"Well, well, if it isn't this pretentious lot."

Before them stood roughly two dozen Kyoshi Warriors, every last one of them fully decked out in their uniforms and war paint. By the way they had all seemed to have turned into a series of readied stances, they seemed to have been heading the other direction down the hall prior to Azula and Toph's prompt arrival.

One of them, taller and more intense looking than most of the others, stepped forward, cocking her head slightly, her brow tucked in confusion.

"Toph?"

Beside her, Azula watched as Toph took a measured step forward. The earthbender's expression was cautious, but somewhat hopeful looking regardless.

"Reina? Is that you?"

The woman that Azula knew by name as Suki's second in command flicked her eyes between the two of them, with a strange mixture of confusion and relief on her face.

"What are you doing here?" she asked as several of the other Kyoshi Warriors exchanged quiet words, some of them smiling; no doubt they were thrilled to see Toph alive and well.

"I could ask you the same thing," Azula said loudly. "Though I suppose that is probably a moot point by now."

She gestured towards them, her long nails gesticulating in their direction.

"So instead, why don't you tell me where my daughter is?"

Reina looked at the Kyoshi Warrior standing beside her, both of them exchanging uncertain looks before Reina turned her gaze almost suspiciously back towards Azula.

"Your highness, I'm afraid we have no idea where your daughter is."

Toph started to say something, but Azula cut her off with a suddenly violent screech.

"YOU'RE LYING!"

Beside her, Toph stepped just in front of her, seizing her by her forearm. The earthbender was looking almost worriedly angry, as though ready for something to break out between Azula and the Warriors.

"Azula, stop it!" she shouted. "What do you think you're doing?!"

"THEY'RE LYING!" Azula roared again. Ahead of them, the Kyoshi Warriors had all tensed violently, most of them drawing into combat ready stances. Reina flicked her eyes around at them, clearly not liking what she was seeing, but no doubt certain that there was little else to be done just then.

"WHO STAYED BEHIND IN THE CITY AFTER WE LEFT?!" Azula screamed. "WHO WORSHIPS THAT SADISTIC BITCH KYOSHI WITH EVERY OUNCE OF THEIR BEING?! AND OUT OF ALL THE SPIRITS WE'VE SEEN IN THE PALACE, THESE ARE THE FIRST PEOPLE WE FIND WALKING AROUND FREELY?! THEY'RE WORKING FOR HER, AND THEY KNOW WHERE SOZA IS!"

Though she didn't look entirely convinced, Azula felt slightly mollified to see that Toph didn't look entirely convinced. She kept her hand on Azula's arm as she looked back to the group.

"Reina, are you working with Kyoshi?" she asked firmly as Azula's chest heaved.

"No," the Kyoshi Warrior replied just as firmly. "We haven't been able to so much as meet with the Avatar while the spirits have occupied the city. We've been denied time and time again to see her and decided tonight that we would get into the palace and find out exactly why we haven't been able to even see her, let alone speak with her."

"A likely story!" Azula snarled, her voice becoming slightly less abrasive though she spoke with the same amount of venom. "You just happen to be inside the palace on the very night that we come here to try and rescue my daughter?!"

"Coincidence," Reina replied cooly and Azula felt a touch of respect for the woman not choosing to back down, even as she felt her blood heat all the more. Toph seemed to sense the tension that was clearly thickening between them, and she stepped forward, putting a hand on Azula's chest while she faced the Kyoshi Warriors.

"Have you found her since you've reached the palace?" she asked.

"No," Reina said again. "We initially had to move very carefully and quietly, but we heard a considerable commotion outside and the majority of the spirits seemed to clear off the upper floors where we assumed Kyoshi might be, our last destination being the throne room."

Would make perfect sense for that cunt to fancy herself sitting in a throne, Azula fumed, but remained silent to allow Toph a moment longer to try and convince her that the Kyoshi Warriors ought not to be decimated on the spot.

"Did you know that we were the reason all the spirits converged outside the city?" Toph inquired and Reina gave her head a firm shake.

"Hardly; we hadn't a clue what the matter was, but we didn't pay it any mind. Our only goal was to find Kyoshi.

"As if they're not perfectly aware of where she is now," Azula hissed, reaching her breaking point. Toph turned to her, black strands of her hair across her angry expression.

"Azula—"

"NO!" the princess howled, as fear and anxiety over her daughter overwhelmed her. "THEY KNOW SOMETHING, THEY'RE HIDING SOMETHING! THEY KNOW, THEY'RE LYING, WE DON'T HAVE TO SIT HERE AND—"

She shouldn't have been able to hear the voice then, not with how quiet it was, a timid and soft question formed in a single word.

"Mother?"

Though she immediately recognized the voice, Azula felt her insides heave with a feeling that almost drove her to her knees. Jerkily, she forced herself to turn towards the sound, her breathing barely mustering any oxygen to her brain. It felt as if she had been flushed with some kind of toxin that was shutting down her nervous system and she hardly even trusted her eyes to operate properly by that point.

Her eyes locked on a door opening from an adjacent hallway from which two people were walking through. One was taller, familiar, though Azula's buzzing mind needed several blinks to realize she was looking at Suki whose piercing eyes were locked on her with an intense glare.

And standing there, just in front of Suki, her daughter was looking at her with a tentative concern in her eyes.

Azula stared at Soza who stared back at her. Time may as well have stopped at that point for all the relevance it posed to the moment.

It was Toph's voice that cut through the air behind her, sounding distant and flickering with emotion.

"I think your mom needs a hug, Soza."

It wasn't said as though to a child; Toph spoke it with a necessitous edge, sounding more sad than anything. Soza's eyes flicked over Azula's shoulder to look at Toph before she gave a sniff and nodded. Gingerly, as though worried it would create too much sound, she took a couple steps forward, eyes never leaving her mother, her arms slowly stretching outward in an offer of an embrace.

Those couple steps were as far as she could get before Azula remembered how to use her legs. The distance between her daughter was closed in a mere second, but it felt like miles as she sprinted to Soza; as she neared her, her knees buckled, and she fell to them just in front of her daughter. She put her hands on Soza's shoulders and looked into her daughter's eyes with what she knew was a wide and stunned gaze.

Soza swallowed and bit her lower lip nervously as she looked into Azula's eyes.

"I'm sorry, mother."

Azula could only blink as she felt paralzyed once more.

"I'm sorry they got to me," Soza continued quietly, turning her eyes down in shame. "I shouldn't have let it happen. I'm sorry I wasn't able to—"

Yanking her daughter to her without allowing for one more word, Azula felt the sob give her body a shivering tremor as she released it. She felt Soza's warmth against her, felt her hair against her cheek as she buried her face in Soza's shoulder, and wrapped her arms around her daughter's body, not a single part of her wanting to let go.

Not now, not ever… I'll never lose her again.

As she continued to do her best not to cry into her daughter's shoulder, she heard Soza's voice, soft and tentative.

"Mother…?"

For a moment, Azula wasn't sure what it was that Soza was questioning until it hit her with an almost comical amount of obviousness.

Of course.

When had her daughter seen her fall apart like this? She'd seen her mother break down in furious, hateful fits, but when had it ever been anything like this?

The words came, words that felt like they had been pent up inside her for years, words that she had, until recently, hadn't even known were there in the first place.

"I love you, Soza… l love you so much."

There was so much more and Azula wished she could say more than one thing at a time.

"I'm sorry. There's nothing you need to apologize for. It has been my… my arrogance. My hate. That has been what brought us here. You are blameless, Soza. And I'm so sorry you've had to go through this."

The tears dampened her cheeks in consistent streams, though her voice didn't reflect the state she was in. It sounded miraculously clear and gentle, a tone that Azula didn't know she had been able to produce.

It's because I'm speaking to my daughter.

She clung to Soza all the tighter and her body heaved with another quiet sob as her daughter put her arms around her slowly in turn until her grip intensified with a sudden desperation as she hugged her mother. Azula couldn't help but remember how tightly she had held to her own mother those nights ago and she jammed her eyes shut as fresh tears leaked from their corners.

"Mom…"

That was all Soza seemed able to manage, but it was more than enough. Just that was enough to melt Azula's heart into an agonized puddle.

Not 'mother.' Not anything quite so formal.

Mom.

Mom.

They didn't share any more words than that as the two hugged one another and cried.

They didn't need to.

---

Sasuke leapt from the rooftop spire above the palace that he had deactivated his Susanoo and landed on just in time to avoid a punch from Madara that completely destroyed the spire; the hefty piece of architecture exploded into a violent spray of brick and stone, and as Sasuke fell through the air, he watched as Madara lunged upwards, seizing the top of the spire and hurling it at Sasuke with the force of an erupting volcano. Cursing, Sasuke drew to life Chidori that crackled around his palm and he thrust it forward at the projectile splitting the air towards him. Midfall, his fingers touched the tip of the spire and the massive piece of the building shattered in a burst of blue. Said burst hadn't remotely faded though when Sasuke watched Madara slash through the still forming debris and slam him in the chest with a vicious kick.

A moment later, Sasuke slammed into the ground several hundred feet below, just barely able to press his Shinra Tensei outwards to keep the force of him touching down from shattering his spine. He had time only to blink before shouting and kicking off from the ground to just avoid an explosion of Fire Style that Madara sent towards his prone body. As he righted himself, he saw the slashing arm of Madara's half-formed Susanoo whipping down towards him like a bolt of lightning. Blood spilled from his eye as he wrapped the spectral limb in Amaterasu that he twisted into a cyclone that he directed towards the Susanoo's caster.

Madara was already long since out of the way by the time the black fire reached him and he touched down just behind Sasuke who only heard the soft retort of one of his feet touching the ground before Madara whipped his body around to slam a kick into the side of Sasuke's head. His careening body punched through three buildings before he came to a skidding rest in the lobby of the fourth.

Snarling, he pushed himself to his feet and looked around the spacious building, towards the banisters on the floors above and all around him, but he couldn't see a single other living soul.

Where the hell is everyone?

The lack of people made him hope that the crowd following him had possessed the sense to run home and spread the word of evacuation. It certainly made him less worried about civilians getting caught in this mess.

It had been only a couple seconds, but he immediately found himself wondering why it was that Madara wasn't on top of him again. His foe hadn't given him so much as a chance to have a thought to himself and this strange silence Sasuke now found himself in gave him a peculiar sense of foreboding. Kicking off hard enough to leave a crater where he had been standing, he launched himself clean through the building and back into the sky.

Twirling as he flew into the black night above the city, he couldn't find sight of Madara until he heard a voice high above him.

"You've brought this upon yourself, boy."

Looking directly up, Sasuke saw Madara hovering far off above, arms crossed and looking down at him, face cast in shadow. Gritting his teeth, he made to launch himself at the other Uchiha before he realized something quite unsettling.

The night sky above was pitch black, but as he looked, the dark almost seemed too dark.

And that was when he realized the dark was moving.

His eyes widened as his Sharingan came to life and he realized what he was looking at.

An enormous piece of spherical debris, at least wide enough to rest comfortably within Ba Sing Se's outer wall was falling towards him. As Sasuke took a moment to process the giant meteor he was now confronted with, his upward movement slowed; off above, Madara called down to him again.

"You chose this. And now the deaths of so many thousands will be blood on your hands. They could have lived in my peace. But now they will rest in it."

As the vision flashed in his mind of this colossal meteor touching down on Ba Sing Se and extinguishing life as far as the eye could see, Sasuke's lip curled.

"Like hell they will."

He blew past Madara in the wake of his Susanoo which he had resummoned around himself. Bearing upwards towards the falling black shadow was enough to send a shiver up his spine, but he only needed to think back to a decade prior.

Sozin's Comet… now this.

Sasuke allowed himself a smirk.

At least I've had the practice.

---

Madara turned to watch Sasuke sail upwards and away towards the Tengai Shinsei he had summoned, and he couldn't help but give his head a small shake.

It's all too easy, really.

He had done his best to enjoy his bout with Sasuke, but there was little fun to be had in wearing the young man down to the point of being able to stifle him and destroy him. When he knew he was as close as he was to the completion of his plan, he couldn't focus on something like enjoyment. And it didn't help that Sasuke seemed to be fully distracted while he was fighting.

Poor boy… lovesick, caught up in protectiveness for his friends, family, wanting to protect his world and our own… I suppose I can't blame him if he's so focused on all of that.

But regardless of their respective motivations, Sasuke was also just badly outmatched.

It wasn't that he was weak, far from it. But he hadn't spent the time that Madara had learning and practicing so many different forms of combat; those years of experience far eluded him, and he hadn't come close to something of this caliber since he was thrown against Obito back a decade ago. He was giving his all now, but with Madara's constant flow of chakra reinvigorating him at every second of their battle, it was hardly anything like a contest.

The feeling was truly rather odd; it felt to Madara that he wasn't even using jutsu or channeling it through his eyes or his Susanoo. It was like he was sitting a distance from his own body, commanding it to fight on his own accord without actually having to expend any of his energy. It truly wasn't a fair fight for Sasuke, but it wasn't supposed to be. Madara was finished playing with his food.

Time to end this.

The Tengai Shinsei was as much a ploy as anything in the fight thus far. Madara didn't want to flatten Ba Sing Se, it would be one of the best places to test his Infinite Tsukuyomi and he knew full well that the power Sasuke wielded would allow him to destroy the meteor all too easily. But it would still require focus, and that was what Madara could take advantage of; it was why he had allowed Sasuke to rocket past him in his Susanoo and make for the massive, descending obstacle that could wipe the city below off the face of the planet. He let Sasuke make it a distance away before he turned too and followed him upwards into the black of the shadow.

By the time Sasuke was nearly right on top of it, the lights below of Ba Sing Se were just orange dots that flickered upwards in an almost disorienting sort of way and Madara turned his gaze up to Sasuke's purple Susanoo. He saw the flashing blue of the Chidori spiking around its arm, as the right hand reached upwards. To the right and left, the curve of the meteor was now very clear, a shadow distinct from the clouded night sky around it as it descended through the atmosphere. Madara allowed himself a small smile as Sasuke's Susanoo flashed towards it, heedless to his approaching presence from behind.

A moment before the outstretched hand of the Susanoo made contact with the meteor, Madara thrust himself upwards with a powerful burst of speed and came directly behind the Susanoo's back as the fingers of it brushed against the Tengai Shinsei and erupted.

The sky became bright as day as Sasuke's Chidori splintered across the meteor's surface, cracking it to pieces before the resulting explosion caused the pieces the fractured apart exploded backwards and were propelled away. Madara allowed himself a moment to be impressed by Sasuke's willingness to drain so much of his chakra in a technique that powerful before he drew his arm back and thrust it forward.

His Susanoo's arm burned to life behind him and followed the path of his physical arm. Its blade angled directly towards where Sasuke would have been positioned inside his Susanoo and Madara brought to life a burst of Fire Style jutsu which he kneaded and infused into the blade as it burned forwards and plunged into the back of Sasuke's Susanoo and directly where Sasuke himself was positioned within.

It didn't have to be like this, Madara thought with a touch of melancholy, a moment before his world was rocked.

Rather than slice open the Susanoo as he had expected his blade to, the back of Sasuke's purple glowing form exploded like a volcano, though instead of spewing lava, Madara found himself blown backwards through the sky by a pure eruption of Chidori. For the first time that night, he found himself genuinely stunned as the lightning coursed around him, flinging him backwards through the night sky like a piece of dust caught in a breeze.

What?

As he righted himself, he looked to see that Sasuke's Susanoo had faded away, leaving only a flicker of Chidori in its wake beneath the blasted open meteor, but of Sasuke himself, there was no sign.

Madara's brow furrowed as he tried to make sense of what he was seeing before it clicked, and he curled his lips angrily.

The bastard… he placed his Chidori into the Susanoo itself and sent it upwards on his own, acting as a vessel for the jutsu; he was never inside of it at all!

Then that would mean—

Madara felt an arm suddenly wrap around his neck.

"Gotcha," came Sasuke's voice in his ear.

"What are you—!" Madara started to shout before he felt a strange tucking feeling at the very essence of his being and he realized what Sasuke's endgame had been all along.

He hadn't even time to say a word before the space around him and Sasuke twisted and morphed, pulling them away and in the blink of an eye, they were gone from the night sky, whisked away to parts unknown.

---

Sasuke slowly rose to his feet as he looked at Madara's prone form just a short distance away from him.

I did it.

Even despite the coursing pain in his body from the battering he had received from Madara and the exhaustion that was starting to creep in for the amount of chakra he had been forced to expend, the cool rush of victory couldn't help but bring a smile to his face. He stood there and tried to return his breathing to a measured pace as he waited for Madara to rise.

It took only a few seconds before the other Uchiha pulled himself up, shaking his mane of pitch-black hair from his face as his grey eyes flicked around to scan the surreal scape around them.

It was complete blackness all around them and the only discernible color and shape could be found on the rectangular prisms that jutted upwards from the abyss below, one of which Sasuke and Madara now stood upon. Madara took several moments to take this in before rising fully to his feet and straightening his back.

"So, Obito mocks me from the grave… this was your plan all along, was it?"

"I put you here, you can't bring harm to anyone," Sasuke replied plainly. "Here, there's nothing you can do to their world, or to ours. I just had to get your guard down long enough to get near to you and pull you in with me. And now you're trapped here, even with all that power you possess."

For a period, Madara did nothing but stare at him. He looked ahead almost curiously and Sasuke felt the smile on his face waver just slightly at the lack of anger he was seeing.

I've pulled him away from his master plan… I've beaten him.

So why was it that Madara looked so calm just then? All Sasuke had to do was trigger his eye again and Madara would be left in Kamui forever; Sasuke was more than willing to sacrifice ever risking opening the dimension up again in order to seal him away for as long as the Edo Tensei would keep him alive, which perhaps might be indefinitely.

Then, Madara did something that wiped the smile from Sasuke's face completely.

He started to laugh.

The rumbling, rippling sound issued from his mouth as he threw his head back and laughed long and hard. Sasuke didn't dare say a word even as he clenched and unclenched his fists, trying to prepare for whatever Madara was about to throw at him now, for what else could inspire such a spur of laughter?

Finally, the sound died away and Madara looked back to him, giving a single shake of his head.

"I must commend you, boy, truly… you gave everything to trap me, you had it all planned out! Here I had thought that you were coming at me in some heroic, misguided attempt to kill me outright, but you must have known even before you knew of my manipulation of the spirit world's energy what you were going to do! You had no intention of winning, you didn't believe it was even possible! At least not in the traditional way…"

He gave a small chuckle.

"I suppose such an underhanded move is only deserved, after what I've done to gain an advantage over you… but nonetheless…"

Slowly, he raised an arm, flattening his hand outward as though he were about to wave at Sasuke. His smile deepened darkly as he did and Sasuke felt his innards twist in sudden, uncertain fear.

Then, Madara slashed the air with his hand.

Nothing happened.

Sasuke let several seconds pass before he forced himself to release a chuckle of his own, though it didn't sound nearly as natural as Madara's.

"Was something supposed to happen?" he asked, putting some arrogance into his tone. Ahead of him, Madara's smile didn't waver.

"It already has," he replied, and looked at the area where he had just swiped at the air with his hand.

"Can't you tell?"

Narrowing his eyes somewhat suspiciously towards Madara, Sasuke turned his gaze towards the space as well and looked closely. For a time, he could see nothing, until he caught sight of something that made his blood run cold; he blinked rapidly, hoping, praying it was just a trick of the eye. But as his eyes adjusted, he realized that his vision was just fine.

There was a tear in the space where Madara had moved his hand, about the same size as the entrance to the spirit world. Sasuke hadn't seen it as the night sky beyond was the same level of dark as the space within Kamui, but now as he looked closely, Sasuke could see faint orange lights, just barely perceivable with how small they were, far beyond the tear.

They were the lights of Ba Sing Se.

His face cast in shadow, Madara's eyes glinted at Sasuke dangerously.

"So, do tell me, Sasuke… how exactly am I trapped?