Guest: The reason for his compliance will be revealed eventually. :P
gemsofformenos: xP Torture is my specialty! "It has twisted my stomach and made me wish I could jump right into it to help Azula, to scream at Aang to fight back against Sangyul and to punch named "doctor" as hard as I can." Oh yeah, it was a tense chapter. And super glad to hear that it was able to evoke emotion! "It puts me through the torture Azula has to endure and." And this time around it is a very vivid and harsh suffering. "So far I've seen an absolute darkness in this man which chokes my heart while the way he treats Azula leaves deep cuts on it at the same time." Yeah, Sang is one of the my more or less unapologetically evil OCs. He does take pleasure in the way that he can control and manipulate her. He sees it as something of a conquest. "This one is so intense my highest respect for managing to write it." And thanks again so much. I've really been enjoying typing this one (though I say that about like 90% of the fics I write xD). This new chapter is gonna be a little less intense (I think) but hopefully still just as quality. Thanks again for another review!
TheQuietReader: A bitch among other things lmao. None of said things are good. Dickhead is also definitely one of said things. And as mentioned to the guest reviewer, I plan on revealing why Aang kind of just goes along with it.
He feels sick as he brings his fingers to her forehead. Sick and strangely calm. Azula doesn't move at all. He tries not to look her in the eyes, those hazy, resigned eyes. He can't really look at her face at all, seeing the stark red line beneath her eye is nearly as bad as seeing the unhealthy indifference in her eyes. He knows just what he is about to do to her. He knows that the light won't return to those eyes after it is done. His queasiness doubles until he thinks that he very well may throw up. "I don't want to do this."
Sangyul stands with his chest puffed up and his arms collapsed behind his back, mouth pressed into a stern thin line.
Aang takes a deep breath before proceeding to paint Azula's aura from a deep grey to pure white. He doesn't think that he has to, she has gone passive and subdued all on her own. He isn't sure if it has more to do with what she has already been subjected to or what she will soon be exposed to. He watches her go from truly passive to innocently passive. Almost childlike.
Very childlike.
In her aura he detects speckles of the blue of fear, he doesn't have to coax these. His heart clenches.
He presses his fingers more firmly against her forehead and silently hopes that she will offer just as much resistance as her father had.
.oOo.
His phantasmal fingers, as per routine, are stroking and plucking at her spirit energy. It is different this time, harsher and all encompassing. Overwhelming and...painful? Yes, it is painful, a very strange and unique kind of pain. She can't quite articulate it, she knows it is pain but it is a numb sort. A kind that she almost doesn't feel. She thinks that she only feels it at all because she is aware that it is there.
It is overwhelming.
She watches as fingers of light blue shot with grey begin to strangle her own light. This time they don't pluck or pull, in fact, they ignore the aura threads entirely. They leave her mind and find their way into the pit of her stomach. A fluttery, tickly, dread builds there alongside the fingers of energy.
Also present is a large, phantom fire. It burns white hot with a pride inducing intensity. She wills it to flare up as the spectral hand reaches for it. It reflexively retracts as the fire bites it and for a moment she thinks that she has won but then it plunges itself right back into the flames. Its touch is icy and she thinks that her physical body has shuddered.
She tries. Tries like she hasn't tried in ages, to expel the foreign energy. The invasive spirit that is not her own. The fingers close around her fire and it begins to sputter and suffocate. The hue of her aura glows a deeply depressing blue.
Her physical body cries as her astral one weakens. Dulls, dims, and distorts into a hallow parody of itself. The interloping energy chokes her inner flame until it can resist no further. The space on the astral plane that her fire once lit goes black and with it her arua.
Decidedly she is a husk, there is nothing left of Azula.
.oOo.
He retracts feeling heavy, burdened.
Azula's eyes are open, they are fixed on the ceiling. A single tear slips down her cheek. For a moment he thinks that he has killed her. Her eyes have dulled enough for him to think so. He feels for a pulse and finds it. It is the only thing that beats strongly in her.
"Get up." Sangyul demands of her.
She is unresponsive.
"Avatar, get her up and take her to her room."
She is deadweight. He resorts to scooping her into his arms. He doesn't like how it feels to hold her when her arms and legs hang limp and her head falls back without her to support it. He only knows that she is alive by the steady rising and falling of her chest. And he knows that he is going to have to do this all on his own.
At least for the time being.
He hustles past her room and peeks down the hallway. It is vacant. Mercifully so. He isn't sure what he will say if he runs into someone else. He thinks that he might have to resort to something more drastic than words and is half-prepared to do something that the Air Monks would frown and bow their heads at.
He peers at Azula and decides that he already has.
He navigates the maze of the facility, avoiding the main hallways and the ones that lead to places like the dinner hall. Azula is beginning to feel heavy in his arms. He slips into a supply closet to catch his breath and rest his arms.
"Azula." He whispers. "I need you to walk with me."
She remains where he has set her down, unmoving, and unmotivated.
"Please, just help me do this and it'll be okay. I promise."
Nothing.
She is gone, truly gone. He doesn't think that there is even a flicker of Azula left in the body that he hoists back into his arms. He feels queasy and he wonders if he has done something that he won't be able to fix. Wonders if this is all for nothing.
He is almost certain that he has when he, at last, slips out of the compound. When the light of day warms Azula's face and she doesn't seem to feel a thing. When he looks into her eyes and sees nothing at all behind them.
He looks back and he knows that they have realized that he has not taken her back to her room.
"I can fix this." He tries to rouse and convince her. He says it again and again as he runs further and further from the facility. "I can fix this." She doesn't believe him and neither does he.