Azula was too young to realize anything had changed, the day Zuko faceplanted into the ground and woke up terrified, snatching at his eye. At five years old, her firebending was her one focus, and she did not notice her brother collapse as she slowly incinerated a flower, licks of flame not yet blue.
Shouto was sure he was dreaming. There was no other explanation to waking up taller, in a different world, wihout his ice or his scar. The door to the room opened, and a tall woman with long black hair walked in.
"Zuko, honey, what's wrong?" she asked. Shouto waved his left hand, which was aflame.
"My ice is gone." he said.
"Your ice?" the woman asked. "Yeah. I make ice with one hand, and fire with the other. And my face feels different." Shouto said. He didn't know this lady, but she was nice.
"You--you...ice?" the woman asked again, confused. Shouto didn't see the problem.
"I was just making ice yesterday. Then I melted it by accident. I'm still working on it, though." Shouto said. "You can't make ice here, honey. You have to keep it secret, okay? Because--that would mean you're the Avatar, and you know your Father doesn't like the Avatar." the lady said. Shouto frowned.
"The Avatar? Who's that? Father doesn't like All Might." he said. Shouto wasn't sure why everything was different. Maybe he'd been hit by a quirk? That's what people said when confusing things happened.
"Oh, go see Azula, she's been waiting for you to get out of training." the lady said, and opened the door. A girl a few years younger than Shouto ran into him.
"Zuko! What happened?" she asked.
"I got hit by a quirk." Shouto announced. Somehow, he managed to get through the rest of the day without much incident, although Ursa became convinced her son was the Avatar, which only increased her protectiveness over him.
Zuko woke up to an unfamiliar girl standing over him. She had really strange hair.
"Who are you? What did you do?" he asked, swinging out of bed--and what was wrong with his eye, why couldn't he see? Zuko reached up to his face and oww, that hurt.
"What did you do to me?" he asked, stumbling in front of a mirror--what was wrong with his hair, it was all wrong he was all wrong this wasn't him! Only the spirits could change someone like that--oh no, the girl was a spirit and she'd done this to him what should he do?
"Great Spirit! I apologize for however I annoyed you can I please have my own body back I want to go home!" he said, bowing.
"Shouto--what--are you Shouto?" the spirit asked.
"I'm Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation, sir. Um. Miss. I don't know how to address spirits sorry!" Zuko said. "Okay. Provided you aren't Shouto...I'm not a Spirit. I'm Todoroki Fuyumi. I'm going to assume you got hit by someone's quirk, and hope this ends soon. And what do you mean, you're the Prince of the Fire Nation?" the girl asked.
"You have two names? Are you Earth Kingdom? I'm the Prince of the Fire Nation, and we're gonna beat you! Cause we beat the Air Nomads and most of the Water Tribes already. Fire always wins--aaah!" Zuko shouted, because he'd firebended, but one of his hand was covered in ice he wasn't a waterbender wait that meant that...oh no.
"I don't want to be the Avatar! The Fire Nation wants to capture the Avatar, I don't want to be captured!" Zuko said, staring at his hand. Wait. Waterbenders couldn't make ice. Only firebenders could create their own element. "What." said Fuyumi. Zuko saw her mobile phone.
"What's that? It looks spirity. Ooh, what's this?" he said, picking up a hero figurine.
"Right. Zuko; that's your name, right? You can't let Father know about this. It'd be bad, he'd get angry at Shouto and after Touya...well, I hope this doesn't last long." Fuyumi said.
Fuyumi asked the boy in her brother's body about 'firebending.' She discovered he was quite talented, even though he was reluctant to let the fire go past his hand--was his quirk similar to Touya's? She then explained Shouto was not the Avatar, whatever that was, and then quirks in general, while Zuko explained how his world worked. His WORLD. Fuyumi now had dual motivations; another planet, less technologically advanced, with both terribly restrictive and terribly powerful quirks, was not something she wanted getting out. The next day, Shouto was back, and he told her exitedly all about Zuko's world. And that was the end of that, until the next Tuesday.
And the next one.
And the next one.
Fuyumi and Natsuo began marking the kitchen calendar's Tuesdays by drawing a small flame symbol. She decided to adopt Zuko, learning of how similar--yet how worse--his life was to theirs. Shouto's fire improved; as much as he despised using it considering 'who it came from' firebending techniqueswere extremely helpful, as were earth and waterbending for his ice. Due to the fact Shouto could not control his ice after it was created, it was difficult, but he, Fuyumi and Zuko figured out a bending style for it, and for it used in tandem with fire. Zuko loved his new brother, even if they only met with notes left to the other. In turn, Shouto helped Zuko with his fire--the two traded techniques, and though it took until Zuko's banishment for him to figure it out, he managed to bend beyond his hands.
Iroh was rather astonished, the day his nephew made an unforseen breakthrough in firebending. Zuko always acted differently on Tuesdays, writing in his notebook that had a half-red, half-white leather circle stitched on the cover, and poring over bending scrolls. Today was a Thursday, and Zuko was meditating on deck, a flame held in each hand. And then--the flame rose. Twisting, weaving, both Zuko's arms produced fire. Zuko stood up, and practiced a firebending kata--the amount of flame produced was amazing, almost unheard of for benders his age; more surface area equaled more fire created. Sheets of flame, flickering blue at the edges, curled around the deck. Then Zuko slammed his hands together, and his entire body burst aflame, blue flaring visibly through the red-orange. Iroh was playing Pai Sho with a crewmember when Lieutenant Jee tapped him on the shoulder.
"You'll want to see this, General." he said. Iroh turned around, and dropped his teacup. The last firebender who had achieved what Zuko was doing had been Avatar Kagome--and it had been said she had received aid from beyond the Spirit World. Of course, back then there had been the whole thing with the half-demon and the Shikon Jewel--that period of history was particularly murky--but the facts were undeniable. Zuko had accomplished something unheard of for a good seven thousand years. (and he thought he was better at swords)
Oh, Shouto learned how to use the dual dao, but preferred the less lethal version known as escrima sticks.
It had been eight years since a certain Tuesday, and Katsuki and Izuku were sparring; Izuku was winning. Despite explosions.
"Hah! I won, Kacchan!" Izuku shouted.
"You are going to be the greatest quirkless hero ever, you stupid nerd." Katsuki said, as the two sat down to rest. "Better than you?" Izuku asked.
"Of course not. I'm going to be the best hero, total. You'll be the best quirkless one." Katsuki told his friend.
"I'm going to be the only quirkless one." Izuku mumbled. Kacchan was his best friend, and unlike the world in general, had supported him fully (although somewhat rudely) on his quest. He hadn't realized how great his notebooks were, until Katsuki had asked him to do an analysis of how to take down the heroes he wrote about without using a quirk. Izuku had done so easily, and then Katsuki asked him what was preventing him from doing the same to villains.
"I'm not strong enough." he had said.
"Well, [bleep] get strong enough! How the [bleep] else are you supposed to challenge me?" Katsuki had asked. "Challenge you?" Izuku wondered.
"Yeah! There'll be no point surpassing you if it's easy. We have to beat all the extras together, see. Once that's done, I'll kick your [bleep]!" Katsuki yelled. Izuku loved his friend, even if he kept secrets, and never let Izuku see his four notebooks.
"We'll do wonderfully, don't worry. You're almost as good as analyzing people's quirks as I am!" Izuku said.
"I cheat." Katsuki said.
"You can't cheat at analysis!" Izuku cried. Katsuki just smiled.
Unfortunately, it seemed that magic came from an internal funnel to entropy, accessible by draining the power of his quirk. It was limited compared to the magic of the other world, but worse than that was the fact that Izuku, quirkless, could not cast any.
Many things were different, because of a certain Tuesday. However, when it came down to it, the path of fate as a whole barely wobbled, and for nine years, few things changed.
And then everything did.