Leap of Faith: Sokkla Saturdays 2022

by Seyary-Minamoto

Whether they're spouses decades into their marriage or two strangers who are still getting to know each other, opportunities to find love and happiness will always be within Sokka and Azula's reach: all they must do to seize them is take a leap of faith. One-shot collection written for Sokkla Saturdays 2022.

8. Chapter 8: Academic Rivals

A/N:

And here's my second-to-last chapter for this year's Sokkla Saturdays! Hope you guys enjoy it!

---

The office's door swung open: Rector Benzhuo smiled and bowed his head in a display of respect towards the woman who strode through the threshold. He was tense in her presence, but he did his best not to show it as he rose to his feet to greet her properly.

"It's my pleasure to host you, Princess Azula," Benzhuo said.

"And mine to be in Ba Sing Se University today, Rector Benzhuo," Azula said, curtly. "I understand clearing your schedule was no easy feat?"

"It wasn't, no," Benzhuo said. Azula nodded.

"Then we'd best get started right away with the tour. We both have many things to do beyond being here, so…" Azula said, but Benzhuo shook his head.

"We do, but precisely because of how tight my schedule is, I've needed to merge two tours into one, if that's alright?" he said. Azula frowned.

"Two? I thought this was a rather unusual, exclusive service you'd be providing for me?" she asked. "You don't usually do this, do you?"

"I don't, no, but I'm afraid it's quite odd that two people would request a tour of the facilities of our grand, honored university at the same time," Benzhuo said, with an awkward smile. "I even thought that perhaps it was intentional. I do believe you're familiar with our university's other visitor?"

"Am I?" Azula raised an eyebrow slowly. "Well, I know plenty of people, so you'll have to be more specific. Who…?"

Heavy footsteps and breaths came rushing down the hall until they came to a heavy stop right by the door: Azula frowned, turning around warily… and her lips twisted into a grimace of distaste and displeasure upon realizing one of the worst-case scenarios appeared to be happening right now.

"I'm sorry, I'm not late, though! Got here right on time to…! Woah, shit, Azula?!"

His eloquence was accompanied by a grimace of his own. Her eyes bore into his with no remorse, bitterness plain upon her face as she regarded her brother's friend without a smidge of respect. He seemed to share her feelings, if only to a fault, going by how he inched away from her and glanced at the Rector as though to plead for help…

"Ah, see? You did know each other!" Benzhuo grinned brightly. "One tour is better than two, I say!"

It certainly would be better for the busy Rector… but not so much for the two people he'd promised to show the campus to, on that day: the man's words caused them to glare at each other reproachfully, most unwilling to spend any amount of time together, but knowing their respective missions required that they scouted Ba Sing Se university all the same…

They managed to feign civility while the Rector guided them through the campus, explaining the institution's layout as well as the university's internal organization. Both Azula and Sokka asked occasional questions, and glared at each other frequently, too, but they didn't ruin the experience by bickering bitterly… at least, not until the Rector brought them to the dining hall, where he asked them to wait while he ensured to order proper meals for the three of them.

"So… what the hell are you doing here?" Sokka said, point-blank. Azula glared at him across the table, arms folded over her chest.

"I ought to ask you the same question. Especially today…" Azula said, rolling her eyes.

"The Rector said it was the only available day he had for me, that's why I'm here now. If he'd told me it was a group tour, I would've made sure to reschedule. Which, I guess, you would've done, too," Sokka said, pouting. "Look, we don't have to make this a thing, do we? Let's just get through the day and go our separate ways without making a fuss."

"I've made no fusses, so I see no point to this warning of yours," Azula said, curtly. Sokka grimaced. "You're the one asking why I'm here without first venturing your own explanation of why you are, therefore…"

"Well, I'm here as a representative of the Southern Water Tribe, where I hope we can make important progress in education soon," Sokka huffed. "My dad sent me here so I could learn about what's necessary to start a university back home, so…"

"Huh. That's your intent, then?" Azula asked, raising an eyebrow. Sokka stared at her skeptically.

"What about it?" he said, harshly.

"I… suppose your father is a wise man. Wiser than Zuzu," Azula said, with a shrug. "I'm the one who had to insist to him that, if he's so keen on doing better in regards of education, we'd do best to learn from those who are already ahead of us in this respect. I'm here for reasons similar to yours, it seems."

"Huh… that's odd. But, uh, great then?" Sokka said, grimacing still. "Good luck building your own university."

"And good luck to you with yours…"

"Why do you say it like that?" Sokka huffed. Azula raised her eyebrows.

"Like… what?" she said. Sokka scoffed.

"Condescendingly. Like you think I can't do it or something. Is this another 'the Fire Nation's better than everyone else' superiority thing, or are you just particularly keen on underestimating me?" Sokka said, glaring at her. Azula smirked.

"It was simply a wish for good fortune… you, in your grand paranoia, have misconstrued it as something else entirely," Azula retorted.

"Oh, really?" Sokka said.

"You feel smarter, don't you? By acting like you can see right through me and my wicked purposes," Azula said, mockingly, her voice intentionally eerie. "I have no doubts I've estimated you perfectly, peasant. It's not much of a matter of Fire Nation superiority, no… but I, certainly, am better suited for this task than you are for yours."

"Oh, are you, now?" Sokka scoffed. "You think you're the only intellectual in the world, then?"

"Don't start," Azula sighed, shaking her head. "Your puny invasion plan…"

"So puny you had to move as many strings as you did to counter it…"

"And I countered it successfully. Therefore, I clearly outdid you."

"Only because I didn't know that you knew about the invasion," Sokka hissed. Azula rolled her eyes. "You know it's true. On equal standing? You would realize you're actually the one who can't keep up with me."

"Oh, I can't keep up?" Azula laughed, looking at him in disbelief. "Is that right?"

"Damn right, Princess," Sokka declared, raising his head proudly. "I beat you in the Boiling Rock because you didn't have enough information to figure out what was going on…"

"And I beat you and your gang of misfits in Ba Sing Se because you were blind and foolish, trusting you were going to meet your girlfriend when it was actually me, Mai and Ty Lee…"

"Ah, and the drill! Don't forget about the drill! It was my idea and my plan, I figured out how to break it…!"

"You had already infiltrated the drill, damn you: you could have very well made for the command cabin instead and attempted to stop the machine from there rather than by breaking the system elsewhere."

"I… huh?" Sokka blinked blankly. Azula smirked.

"Didn't occur to you, did it? Would have been much more effective, too. In fact… the command cabin was in a most indefensible position, raised right atop the drill. Had you and your friends actively damaged the foundation of the cabin, the drill would have been unable to continue operating, me and the rest of the commanding officers of the mission would have been in serious danger once the command cabin toppled down… so I'm afraid even your grand victories were not as impressive as you want to think they are."

"Y-you…" Sokka groaned, cheeks flushing. "You're just pissed off because you ended up covered in slurry."

"I…!" Azula scoffed, glaring at him: her reaction resulted in a smirk from him, and she composed herself quickly. "You mistake me for Ty Lee."

"Do I, really?" Sokka smirked. Azula rolled her eyes.

"How is it that you and I can't have a conversation for two minutes without winding up arguing about all this?" she asked. Sokka huffed.

"You're too stubborn, I guess…"

"You are!"

He couldn't hold back a soft chuckle as Azula glared at him pointedly. It was true that, in the years after the war, the two of them hadn't been on the best of terms. Whatever their respective reasons might be, theirs was a persistent rivalry that never failed to rear its head in that same bickering and butting of heads they were indulging in now.

"The past is not relevant to what we're here for now," Azula finished, glaring at him. "So your persistent attempts to prove yourself better than me will go nowhere, peasant."

"Only because you already know I'm better, right?" Sokka said, with a careless sing-song voice. Azula rolled her eyes.

"Your delusions are alarming," she said.

"So are yours. You do think you're better than me, so…"

"Do you need tangible evidence of such a simple fact?" Azula scoffed. Sokka raised his eyebrows skeptically. "Because oh… there's a way of going about it, if you're so desperate to gain even a smidge of my respect."

"Is there, now?" Sokka asked. Azula smirked dangerously, and she conveyed her idea to him.

About two minutes later, Rector Benzhuo returned with a careless grin. Two staff members from the kitchens had brought trays full of food for the two guests, and the Rector smiled as he took his seat at their table, too.

"I do hope you enjoy the meal," he said. Azula and Sokka stared at their trays for a moment, but neither one could focus on food properly – a rarity in the latter's case. "Is something the matter?"

"We have a few more questions," Azula said, with a slow smile. The Rector cleared his throat and nodded.

"Why, ask away!"

"How does someone go about enrolling in this school?" Sokka asked.

"How costly is tuition, too?" Azula said next. The Rector blinked blankly.

"Is enrollment in the university exclusive for Ba Sing Se residents?"

"Or Earth Kingdom citizens?"

"W-wait…! That's four questions all at once, and…!" the Rector swallowed hard, glancing between them "W-why would you like to know those things? I'm sure each of your nations has a different economy and you may charge your students whatever you…"

"Because we would very much like to spend one semester here to personally witness what university-level schooling is like," Azula said, smiling in an unpleasant way at the older man. The Rector's jaw dropped.

"In short… mind if we become students at your school, for a few months?" Sokka asked, with a grin not too different from Azula's.

The Rector instinctively wanted reject their request: something about the pair before him was unsettling now. His gut told him they might end up causing chaos, havoc of all sorts on his beautiful, pristine university… but his fear of the political consequences was stronger than his sense. If he refused, wouldn't that cause plenty of strife too, who knew if even a new war where the Fire Nation and Water Tribe might join forces to demand they were allowed to partake in Ba Sing Se's education and knowledge if they so pleased…? The Avatar might end up involved, too, and he didn't want to deal with that, not at all…

So, he smiled awkwardly… and he said yes.

---

"You… what?" Zuko said, staring at Azula in disbelief as she sat in his study, with a perfectly pleased grin. "You're going to enroll in Ba Sing Se University? You're… but why? Azula, you don't have to go that far to figure out whatever you wanted to figure out about education, do you?"

"I probably don't, but this is a better way to be thorough about the matter," Azula said, with a shrug. Zuko scoffed.

"You don't have some underlying purpose here, do you?"

"Oh, not this again…"

"Azula…"

"I'm hiding something? Well, I might be: it's not something that should worry you at all, though," Azula said, rolling her eyes. Zuko huffed.

"You know, I'd like to trust you, but you make it too damn hard sometimes," he shook his head, running his hands over his face. "What is going on? Until you tell me, I'm not going to ask Kuei for an extended permit for you to be in his city and without it…"

"They'll hunt me down and kill me. How nice of you, Zuzu," Azula huffed, rolling her eyes. "Your… friend."

"My friend?"

"The Water Tribe peasant," Azula hissed. Zuko blinked blankly.

"Which one?" he asked, slowly.

"The fool who constantly tries to earn my respect by losing it," Azula said, rolling her eyes. Zuko raised an eyebrow. "He's up to the same thing I was. We were… stuck doing the tour together. And one thing led to another…"

"Words that usually precede something very different than what I'm sure you're about to say…" Zuko said, grimacing. Azula scoffed.

"Get your head out of the gutter, brother: we challenged each other to prove our superiority."

"You… you did what?"

"I'll get better grades than him in one semester of studying in Ba Sing Se University," Azula said, simply. "In the process, I'll see the functioning of the university in-depth, up close, far closer than what I saw in this single visit. We'll both profit off this, and I'll finally ensure your irksome friend learns to stop pestering me. Understood?"

"I… I mean, objectively, I get it, but that's insane, Azula!" Zuko said, grimacing.

"Come on, Zuzu: you can start all the educational reforms you already had in mind, right?" Azula said, with a shrug. "I'm the one who said we had to go further with university-level education. Therefore… you have six months to proceed with your intended plans without me bothering you. Isn't it a dream come true for you?"

"Well… it's not a terrible idea," Zuko grunted – it was reassuring to have Azula advising him, admittedly, for she was sharp enough to catch everything that slipped past Zuko's immediate vision with any project he set out on. But admittedly, her advising, effective as it might be, always came with a set of mockery and dismissiveness Zuko frankly hadn't learned to deal with any more effectively in the present than he had in the past…

"If so, why not?" Azula said, with a dry grin. "Come on, just enjoy being free from me for six months. I'll be back to torment you before you know it, and in that time, I'll ensure to gather enough knowledge to build ourselves the best university in this planet. How about it?"

Zuko sighed. The whole matter of her competition with Sokka sounded rather stupid, in his opinion – as he had learned after a lifetime of knowing Azula, and over a decade of knowing Sokka, smart people were actually absurdly prone to clinging to the stupidest ideas. But if that was truly her sole underlying motive, rather than anything dangerous – and indeed, knowing his sister, she might be making this wild choice out of slighted pride and nothing more – then he had little to worry about, right?

"You… you'll stay in the Jasmine Dragon?" Zuko asked, raising an eyebrow. Azula scoffed.

"No," she said, pointedly. Zuko rolled his eyes. "There's dorms in the university, I have no reason to go elsewhere. That way, I can…"

"Find out what university dorms are like. Right," Zuko sighed. "Well, then… I'll finance part of your big expedition if I must. You have savings of your own, don't you?"

"I do… but what I need from you, primarily, is for you to handle the Earth King and his squeamishness," Azula said, with a dry grin. Zuko nodded. "You'll do it, then?"

"I'll try, at least. If he asks that I allow him to keep lots of soldiers watching you, though…" Zuko said, raising his eyebrows. Azula rolled her eyes.

"At least make them watch from a distance. The other students will be unnerved enough by my presence as it is," she said. Zuko sighed.

"I'll try. But be careful anyway. This… this isn't something to take lightly," Zuko said, shaking his head. "My sister, going to Ba Sing Se University…"

Azula smirked, nodding upon hearing Zuko uttering the words with disbelief. It was a strange feeling to return to schooling now… she had never thought she would, displeased by her education in the Royal Fire Academy for Girls as she had been. But this was something greater, a much better challenge she would take up proudly, proving herself to that irksome, disrespectful man who, in the face of her perfect scores in exams and schoolwork, would finally surrender and admit defeat, whether he wished to or not…

---

"You… want to enroll in Ba Sing Se University?" Hakoda said, staring at his son in confused disbelief. Sokka pouted.

"Look, I know it's not what you wanted me to do, you hoped I'd stay a while longer to help out with governing the tribe and everything, but…!"

"I do want that, but you're a grown man and you make your own choices," Hakoda sighed, though his disappointment was apparent. "Still… do you really think you need to do this? Are the inner workings of a university so difficult to grasp?"

"It's… well, a little more complicated than that," Sokka admitted, gritting his teeth. "You see…"

"Oh, no. It's a girl, isn't it?" Hakoda sighed. Sokka winced.

"I… w-well. I mean… wait, in what sense are you trying to…?"

"You and Suki called it quits years ago, so I suppose it's only natural that you'd find another girl in time, but if you met her in the university on a single visit… are you sure you need to spend a whole semester there to get to know her?" Hakoda asked, uneasy. "I'll understand if you feel a connection there, but…"

"Wait, wait, wait, wait!" Sokka exclaimed, waving his hands around to stop his father's rambling. "That's… not it. Not exactly. I mean, there is a girl, but that's not the kind of girl it is. And I didn't meet her just now, and she… hates me. And I don't like her one bit either. And I want to prove her wrong about me, and show her that I'm way cooler and smarter than she has ever thought I was, and…"

"Wait, what?" Hakoda blinked blankly. "A… girl you dislike? You're throwing off your plans for the next six months over… a girl you don't like? Sokka, that doesn't make any sense."

"It doesn't if you look at it that way!" Sokka squeaked, blushing. "Okay, Dad, it's… it's Azula."

"A… Azula. Zuko's sister, Azula?" Hakoda repeated, staring at Sokka in utmost confusion.

"She's up to the exact same thing I am," Sokka said, gravely. "And that means they're going to build their own university and pretend they're more advanced than everyone else by doing it, because they can't stand being outdone by the Earth Kingdom, worse yet if they're outdone by us, right? So…"

"So, you're going to compete with her regarding… who spreads education and preparation for professionals faster across your respective nations?" Hakoda asked. Sokka shrugged, with a sound of agreement with his father's words. "Well. Better to fight by building up your nations than tearing them down, I suppose… but this is still very strange, Sokka. I'm not going to tell you what to do with your life…"

"You're not, but you're going to judge me for it, if just a bit. Right?" Sokka sighed. Hakoda raised an eyebrow.

"I'm simply saying… I wouldn't spend six months of my life clashing with a girl I don't like," he said. Sokka's eyes widened. "I mean… perspective, my boy. Perspective."

"What does that…?" Sokka blinked blankly, as his father offered him a dry grin and continued to work on the trade statements he had been composing before Sokka entered his study.

His father wasn't telling him no, but he did tell him that chasing a girl for six months just out of a sense of rivalry was incoherent, right? So… did his father imply he should be chasing Azula for other reasons? The very notion was utterly perplexing. She was beautiful, of course, he wasn't blind, but… that didn't have to mean anything, did it? She hated him, after all. This entire matter was simply about proving himself better than she believed him to be… better than her, if possible. A semester spent doing that might be too long… but he would earn her respect and force her to earn his own, too – for that was a two-way street after all. At last, their strategic and intellectual capacities would be put to the test on equal standing… and they would determine who was superior indeed, for once and for all. That was what he'd return to Ba Sing Se shortly for… and any suspicions that he might have romantic feelings for Azula were utterly out of place. He would focus on studying, on professionally assessing that university, and on crafting his own plans to build the Water Tribe's own top-billed university… and one day, Fire Nation people would flock to them to learn from the scholars in the South Pole. One day, they would have no choice but to forsake their pride and accept they had been outdone…

And that day would arrive for Azula far sooner than it would for the rest of her nation, Sokka would see to that.

---

The first day of class found Azula sitting close to the front rows while Sokka picked a seat further back in the classroom. They shot each other sharp glares as he passed her by – because, of course, she had arrived earlier than everyone else – and they were determined to ignore each other for the remainder of the session. Once sitting back where he was, though, Sokka noticed the other students eyed Azula warily, mumbling among themselves. A few of them seemed to recognize him too, but not nearly as many as those who recognized Princess Azula, the one-time conqueror of Ba Sing Se…

A pang of worry took root in his chest at that. Worry that he shouldn't have been feeling, not at all – she had been the one who had suggested this after all, she was no fool, she had to know exactly what the risks would be. And yet he wondered if she had underestimated the Earth Kingdom citizens and their likely resentment towards the person who had claimed their city and stolen it from their nation's grasp…

"Settle down, settle down…" the history teacher said, stepping into the classroom and setting down his bags carelessly by the desk: the other students found their seats quickly, and with that, the class began.

The man's lesson wouldn't be too thorough on the first day, Sokka suspected as much, but he took notes quite eagerly all the same – Azula, he realized, was doing the same thing. Some students were simply talking among themselves, others were sleeping, a few were paying attention, and the teacher simply kept talking, explaining the timeline of Earth Kingdom history they would be learning about through the semester.

"… After Chin the Conqueror's failed full conquest of the Earth Kingdom, we'll move forward to the commoners' revolt against the 46th Earth King. Then we shall study the 47th Earth King's policies, such as the formation of the Dai Li, a force assembled by our monarch to protect the cultural heritage and interests of the city…"

Azula had stopped writing. Sokka only noticed it because so had he.

The two of them stared at the man who continued to drag his chalk across the blackboard, failing to notice the way his most attentive students had reacted to his latest words. He kept talking and he didn't stop doing so at all until the class's period ended – that he only had needed a couple of swigs of water from his bottle after talking non-stop for hours was certainly impressive.

The other students almost ran out of the classroom. The teacher, too, left it quickly. Sokka picked up his things, frowning as he glanced at Azula with uncertainty. He approached her slowly, though, stopping right beside her to find her frowning with irritation… and he confirmed, too, that she had stopped taking notes exactly where he had.

"Something wrong?" he asked. Azula winced, glancing up at him quickly before closing the notebook.

"Nothing you'd understand," she said, shaking her head. "I suppose I expected something else from a historian. But it shouldn't be too surprising that there's…"

"Revisionism?"

Azula froze as she stood up. She glanced at him in perplexity, and Sokka raised an eyebrow.

"It wasn't the forty-seventh Earth King who founded the Dai Li," Sokka started. "It was…"

"Avatar Kyoshi."

They spoke the name at the same time, and a strange flow of understanding rushed between them. Azula huffed, and Sokka huffed as he let out a soft laugh as she brought a hand to her forehead.

"It's not just me, then…" she said, shaking her head. "You knew that too, did you?"

"I read about it in Ba Sing Se's Palace," Sokka explained, with a shrug. "In a document in…"

"Long Feng's office," Azula finished. Sokka blinked blankly. "I… I went through those too. Well, the ones that were scattered carelessly, I wondered if there was anything of use in them when I took over the place and…"

"So, you picked up the ones I left lying about?" Sokka smiled. "That's kind of funny. So, in a way, it was I who taught you…!"

"Shut up," Azula huffed. Sokka snickered deviously. "But then… you knew about this too, right? Your girlfriend, she would have to know as well, wouldn't she?"

"Eh?" Sokka said, with a shrug. "To be perfectly honest, Kyoshi Island's a bit keen on worshipping Kyoshi, goes without saying, so… might be they didn't want to acknowledge their big hero's mistakes. Also? We're not together anymore, haven't been for a while, so… I probably shouldn't just send her a letter to ask her if this is true or not."

"Heh. That would be uncomfortable, I imagine," Azula said. Sokka shrugged but nodded. "Well, then. Thank you for confirming I'm not losing my mind, I suppose… I expected a place like this one would be unaffected by political alignments. I'm no stranger to revisionist history, of course, there's been no shortage of it in the Fire Nation, but still…"

"Well, I haven't had much of that problem in the Water Tribe, myself," Sokka said, with a proud smirk. Azula rolled her eyes and glared at him.

"Oh, really?" she said. "I bet Avatar Kuruk has some shady past no one knows anything about. It'd explain why he's so irrelevant and why nobody ever talks about him, huh?"

"Not like that affects me much, because he was from the north, not the south, so… ha," Sokka said, smirking proudly. Azula snorted, shaking her head. "For that matter, I bet Avatar Roku's got a lot of shadier stuff going on than…"

"That doesn't bother me in the slightest, actually," Azula said, with a dry grin. Sokka's smile waned quickly. "Roku made a fair share of mistakes and I'm not afraid of calling them out. Your point?"

"I… well, I wish you'd had that attitude with your other great-great-grandpa or however many generations there were," Sokka huffed. Azula sighed.

"I didn't always. I take more issue with his policies and choices nowadays," she said, simply. "The years didn't pass me by in vain… maybe they did with you, though. You still act and sound much like you did when you were an annoying teenage boy…"

"Hey! You don't sound or act much differently than you did back then either!" Sokka scoffed: Azula smirked as she made her way out of the classroom, and Sokka followed her, grumbling behind her. "Anyway, don't misunderstand, alright? I'm only talking to you about any of this because I noticed you reacted when he said what he said. So… we're still enemies."

"Always," Azula sighed dramatically. "I don't expect all our classes to deal disappointing blows like this one did, so… we'll carry on with our usual hostility then."

"Damn right," Sokka said, stubbornly. Azula smirked as she marched to her left. "Uh… where are you going?"

"Class?" Azula said, slowing down and glaring at him pointedly. "And I certainly hope your rambling won't keep me from arriving on time, so…"

"But the next class is over at the other building," Sokka said, pointing to the right. "Engineering is…"

"What?" Azula froze. "Engineering?"

"Well, yeah, that's the next…"

"I didn't sign up for any classes in the Engineering department," Azula said: her voice almost made it sound like the very notion of her joining any classes in that faculty was entirely out of place. Sokka's cheeks flushed.

"W-wait… what class do you have now, then?"

"Ancient art?" Azula said, with a shrug. Sokka's mouth twisted into a grimace. "Which… you, of course, didn't sign up for."

"No. I signed up for history, mechanical design, advanced calculus, geography and poetry," Sokka said. Azula huffed.

"Poetry? You?"

"What about it?!" Sokka squeaked, face flushed. Azula chuckled, shaking her head… though her amusement receded quickly.

"We… only share one class," she said, staring at him again. "I'm in history, ancient art, historical bending, traditional literature and introduction to anthropology."

"Wait, really?" Sokka blinked blankly. "Uh… huh. Then, our big challenge…"

"We probably should have discussed which classes we would take before jumping into this, huh?" Azula said, with a dry grin. Sokka huffed.

"We'll be able to measure our grades anyhow," Sokka said. "We can compare grades from different classes and…"

"And what if they're objectively of different difficulties?" Azula asked, skeptical. "It would give one of us an unfair advantage over the other to go about it this way. No… we'll focus on history only for our challenge, and that's final. The circumstances allow for nothing else… and, again, I won't be late because of you. Goodbye."

"Az-…!" Sokka started, but she had already stormed off. He groaned, shaking his head before turning to leave the building, on his way to his next class.

Their competition would be simpler, then, Sokka supposed… but a strange tingling feeling stuck with him once he entered the assigned classroom for mechanical design in the Engineering department. Some of the students looked at him with amazement, and gossip started right away… there were people who knew who he was, just as they knew who Azula was. But where he was a hero… she was a villain. He expected Azula would be alright, she could handle herself without a hitch on a battlefield and she knew how to navigate social, political waters far better than he did. And yet a needling, twitching discomfort settled in his gut…

The semester proceeded as smoothly as could be, if with odd tension between Sokka, Azula and the rest of the student body. Where both the outsiders had come to the university in hopes to both put their competition to rest and to understand the inner workings of such institutions, many of their classmates misunderstood their intent. A lot of them invited Sokka to parties, and he joined the first one for courtesy's sake only to conclude he was never doing that again – most these students were at least five years younger than him, and it seemed their idea of fun wasn't quite what he would have in mind, with far too much drink and too little food to go around. Azula, on the other hand, received no invitations anywhere. It didn't seem strange to Sokka that she would be a loner on campus, but he couldn't help the occasional pang of concern for her sake, no matter how expected this outcome had been. She sat on the first rows of their history class, and nobody would sit on any adjacent seats, giving her a wide berth and even shooting her furtive glares or giggling at who knew what devious jokes they made at her expenses. She was too perceptive not to notice this, Sokka knew… but she reacted to none of it, regardless.

But the months went by, their academic efforts and investigative duties paid off individually, and all seemed to proceed favorably for the two of them… until it was time for the final assignment in history class.

"It's a group assignment," the teacher announced, and both Azula and Sokka tensed up. "Make teams of two or three, tops. I don't want to grade that many essays, honestly… I thought more of you would have dropped out of class by now. Happens every year, so… uh, anyway: I will list the subjects on which you may write your essays, and I expect you to bring something new to the table with them. I don't want you to simply repeat what I told you through class: investigate deeper and offer me information that I didn't provide you here. Understood?"

Everyone nodded and the teacher proceeded to write a list of potential topics for the assignment on the blackboard: Sokka's eyebrow twitched upon glimpsing the foundation of the Dai Li among them. Oh, he was taking that one. He certainly had new information he could offer the teacher on that front…

"… Wait, but what about him?" he heard the whispers of a few students on his right. He didn't look at them, even if he focused on their voices.

"Well, I could partner up with him, you know?" said one guy. "Imagine getting to be friends with him, and then with the Avatar! Bet they throw bigger and better parties over at Republic City, haha…"

"But you said you'd be a team of three with us…!"

"And I want to be the one who asks him! Maybe he should be my partner rather than yours, you always said he's the more boring war hero out of them all, so…"

"I didn't say 'boring', I just meant… well, you know, he's not a bender, so…"

Sokka's eyebrow twitched even further by then. He was tempted to stomp up to the teacher and tell him he'd do his work alone…

A glance in his direction, however, revealed someone else was doing just that.

"Uh… how about we ask around to see if someone else doesn't have a team yet?" the teacher said to Azula, who had stood up and approached him as he wrote on the blackboard. "It always happens, I'm sure you can work with another student…"

She seemed moments away from retorting, from saying she didn't want to be part of any teams, let alone with people who clearly wanted nothing to do with her… but she didn't have the chance to do so.

For Sokka had stood up from his seat and approached the teacher, knowingly.

"Sooo… I was thinking about doing my essay on my own," he said: his voice startled Azula, who shot him a disbelieving glare. "Is that okay?"

"Ah! See? You two even know each other, as far as I'm aware…" the teacher smiled at Azula, who grimaced as she met Sokka's skeptical stare. "You can work together!"

"I… would rather not," Azula said, pointedly. Sokka huffed.

"So would I, but it's the teacher's orders, right?" Sokka said, with a shrug. "Sorry, but you're stuck with me now."

Azula eyed him warily: she had to suspect he had an ulterior motive in mind… he'd probably explain it eventually. But for now, she simply held her tongue for a moment before sighing in surrender.

"Fine," she said, stepping up to Sokka. "But if you purposefully sabotage the final essay just to mess with me…"

"I want to get good grades as much as you do," Sokka grunted, glaring pointedly at her. "This is a win-win situation for the two of us, so, you know, don't be such a grump: that's supposed to be your brother's job."

"I'm not…" Azula started, but she huffed again: Sokka smirked upon recognizing he had outdone her in this particular discussion. "This won't happen again, is all I'm saying."

"Evidently. It's the final assignment and we're only here for one semester, so…" Sokka said, with a shrug. Azula sighed and nodded.

They took their seats again, and the teacher asked each team about their preferences for the essay: it didn't surprise Sokka that both he and Azula would have the very same idea in mind. They requested the topic of the creation of the Dai Li, and they agreed to meet after class in order to write the essay – Azula told Sokka that she hadn't found many sources for what they knew to be true, but she had borrowed many books from the library and there was a convincing document in one of them that they could quote in their essay to justify their work's hypothesis.

It was sundown when they met again, and Azula had no choice but to lead Sokka to her dorm room: it was the all-girls dorm, and boys typically only visited them furtively. A lot of girls made unnecessary noise and fuss as Sokka walked past them, though many others simply gaped at Azula warily as she strode, head held high, towards the stairs.

"Considering you're always sitting at the front of the class, as if you were trying to be close to the door to get out at once? I'm surprised your dorm room isn't right by the front door too," Sokka said. Azula hummed – they had climbed five stories by then, and she kept going higher. "Why did you pick such a distant room if…?"

"I didn't: it was assigned to me. And actually? Wait here for a moment," Azula said: they reached the sixth story, and only one more set of stairs was left: Sokka frowned, for it looked like an old attic rather than another proper floor of regular dorm rooms.

"That's… that's where your room is?" Sokka asked. Azula shrugged enigmatically as she stepped up the staircase… though she did it very carefully.

She probed each floorboard cautiously, moving in zigzags and even taking two steps at once. Maybe she was paranoid…

Or maybe she had every right to be, Sokka realized, when he gazed up at the ceiling to find a bucket full of some sleazy, black substance was dangling right above her head.

"Azula…!"

"Don't… break my focus," Azula said, curtly. Sokka winced. "It's not important. It's but another challenge, so…"

"Please tell me you're the one doing this to yourself and that it isn't the other girls in the dorm who…"

"Evidently, I wouldn't challenge myself not to trigger a bucket full of ink to fall on me just for my own amusement somehow," Azula said, bluntly. "It's embarrassingly wasteful… but I can repurpose some of it before it dries, provided I can take down the trap safely."

"Azula, has this been happening to you all semester?" Sokka asked. Azula shrugged: she hugged the wall carefully now, after detecting something worrisome near the center of the stairs' floorboards.

"It's gotten more intense as time goes by, if you must know," she said. "But it's unimportant. They'll only succeed if I allow them to believe that their tantrums affect me on any level. My actions and choices, my triumphs and achievements, still torment them quite so constantly that they feel the need to take petty revenges such as these…"

She reached the end of the staircase and drew her hairpin out of her top-knot, causing her hair to cascade down her back as she slid the pin through the door she pushed open very cautiously and slowly. She focused again fully, ignoring Sokka's presence until she finally found something with her hairpin. The bucket swung slightly suddenly, but Azula pushed the door open regardless: she kept the bucket's rope taut with her hairpin at first, her full hand later on.

"Very well: feel free to climb up. And don't worry, I won't dump this on you, we can use some of that ink to write the essay," Azula said, simply. Sokka grimaced, and even if he did as she told him to, he climbed by hugging the wall just in case she changed her mind. "Anyway, their actions won't be a burden for me forever. This is insignificant in the face of what I accomplished…"

"Which was, admittedly, a pretty nasty thing to do to the Earth Kingdom?" Sokka said, with a dry grin, once he reached her. Azula shrugged as she began undoing the rope system that held the bucket in place.

"If you'll be preachy and moralistic about it, certainly. War is what it is, however," she said. "Had any of them been in my shoes, they would have sought to achieve the same thing I did. They're quite lucky that they get to purge their own souls and frustrations by taking them out on me, wouldn't you say?"

"Lucky?" Sokka repeated, watching as the bucket slid safely, lower, down to one of the steps. "Look, we've all done things we're not that proud of. Most these kids we're studying with were barely ten when you and I were out fighting wars. They don't understand what it really means to be in one…"

"And you'd disagree with the notion that they're quite lucky for that?" Azula asked. Sokka unfastened the rope, and the bucket was no longer a threat to either of them. "They're the first generation that gets to live freely from the military demands of their nation… though, to be frank, Ba Sing Se hardly had to struggle compared to the rest of the Earth Kingdom. All thanks to Long Feng and the Dai Li… which brings to mind that we should start discussing how we'll handle that rather than worrying about whoever set up this nonsense."

"Look… I get that you want to focus on work, but you really shouldn't be putting up with this," Sokka said, stepping through the room's threshold.

He joined Azula in the dark room – she was lighting her candles right now, shedding light on the old, damaged furniture, the decayed sheets, and even a few pots in which trickling droplets of water fell at a rhythm, giving away that there were leaks on the ceiling. Azula scoffed, eyeing him skeptically as he grimaced at the poor state of the room.

"If I outdo you in these circumstances, I will further prove myself in our foolish little contest," Azula said. "And you should be thriving in it, if anything. I was under the impression that you disliked me even more than the locals do, so…"

"Wait, now…" Sokka grimaced, running a hand over his hair. "I… I dislike them way more than I dislike you, actually."

"You… what?" Azula blinked blankly. Sokka smiled awkwardly. "The hero worship isn't all that agreeable with you, is it?"

"Heh. The conditional, bullshit hero worship?" Sokka said, rolling his eyes. "I'm not young enough to enjoy the stuff they enjoy anymore, to begin with… but to make matters worse, they think I'm the 'boring' war hero because I'm not a bender. I totally should be stoked about that, shouldn't I?"

Azula actually let out a wicked laugh upon hearing those words… one that Sokka might have taken offense to, if only he hadn't sensed something was different about that laughter, compared to the ones he had heard from her before.

"The boring one… that's something," she smiled. "And I'm sure you've attempted to tell them that your friends would have likely wound up dead within a month or less if you hadn't been there to do all the thinking for them…?"

"Actually, I haven't. Because they only say that shit when they're talking behind my back," Sokka smiled tensely. Azula sighed, shaking her head.

"Well, it's still true that they would have wound up dead, in my opinion, for whatever that's worth," Azula said. "I'm surprised you're not simply taking it upon yourself to change their minds about you, though. You're this keen on proving me wrong about you… why not do the same with them?"

"I… I guess it's personal with you," Sokka said, blinking blankly and eyeing her warily. Azula smirked.

"That's almost flattering to know. Anyway, that's enough about that: here's the book I meant."

She showed him the documents she had procured from the local libraries, and Sokka frowned as he started to study them. Azula started explaining her reasoning, and how what he was reading related to the common understanding of the subject… but after about a minute, Sokka huffed and shook his head.

"You know what? Maybe you really are too powerful for the likes of me," Sokka said: he shot a glare at the vases by the furniture, and Azula snorted at his words. "How the hell can you focus with that stupid dripping sound just going on and on and on…? We can at least get the rector to fix the ceiling, can't we?"

"Well, I don't see the need…"

"Come the hell on. You're even more likely to get annoyed by these things than I am," Sokka huffed, staring her down skeptically. Azula sighed.

"I… have had four months, give or take, to adapt to the circumstances," she said. "Therefore, I no longer pay attention to the noise. It's even… soothing. Therefore…"

"You're really leaning hard on the whole 'I'm not letting them get to me' angle, aren't you?" Sokka said, hands on his hips. "Look… come to my room. I don't have a roommate because I expressly requested to be alone after I saw how these people acted, so…"

"Oh?" Azula blinked blankly. "Did you have one and they disappointed you that badly?"

"Well… yeah," Sokka grimaced. "He was specifically a Toph fan. It started out more or less okay… then the conversation topics he brought up started to feel borderline creepy. So I told the rector to move me to another room, because I wasn't comfortable sharing rooms with some guy who kept asking me unsettling, intimate details about one of my best friends. I still have a second bed in that room, so… if you want to crash there altogether, you can do that too."

"That's, well… unnervingly generous of you," Azula said, staring at Sokka skeptically. "I thought you'd be scared that I might try to harm you while you're conscious, but you're willing to be around me while you're unconscious too? That's bold of you."

"Maybe it is, but… look, have they been assholes to you during class?" Sokka asked. Azula raised an eyebrow. "I know they're not exactly nice in History, but…"

"But are they worse in the others?" Azula said. "Well… it's more or less the same. I suppose the dorms are worse than classes, in general. Still… you're not seriously feeling sorry for me, are you? We're enemies, sworn, mortal enemies, so…"

"Right… but my victory will feel weak if I took it while you weren't in optimal conditions," Sokka said, stubbornly. "In fact, I'm sure you're going to say that it's not even valid because of the suboptimal conditions, so… all the more reason to at least give you a more relaxing environment to dwell in for the last weeks of the semester."

Azula eyed him with uncertainty, and Sokka waited for her to give him an answer. She opened her mouth, closed it again, did the same thing about five times… before huffing and folding her arms over her chest.

"I'll inspect your dwelling first, then. If you're too messy, I'm not going to stay there," Azula said, stubbornly. Sokka smiled.

"Fine. You be the judge, but we'll write the essay there anyway. This place is unnerving," he said.

They gathered Azula's stack of research documents and carried them – along with the ink bucket – all the way to the men's dorms. Most guys there shot Azula odd stares, a few even whistled mockingly as they passed, and some congratulated Sokka as he rolled his eyes and opened the door to his private room.

"I suppose every woman who comes into the men's dorms is a victim of that undignified treatment?" Azula asked, staring at Sokka skeptically. He sighed, shaking his head.

"I've heard them do it to other guys a few times so far. I kind of thought they'd be too scared to do it with you, since you're you, but… apparently not," Sokka said, letting out a deep breath. "Anyway… here it is. A bedroom without leaks."

Azula studied it intently, no doubt keen on finding flaws worth mocking Sokka over, all be it to tell him he was mismanaging his room, perhaps… she set the books on his desk, though, and shot him a judgmental stare from the corner of her eye.

"I suppose this is decent," she said. "But I'll still have to think on your offer. Putting up with those fools and their whistling sounds like a pain."

"Yeah, I guess it would be one," Sokka acknowledged, smiling as he set down the ink bucket carefully. "Anyway, let's get cracking. Want to do the honor of writing it yourself, or…?"

"We have to develop the structure first, so we'll see who has the better handwriting after we handle that," Azula said, taking his desk's chair while Sokka sat down by the edge of his bed. "You don't write an essay by sheer impulse and relentless motion. We'll think this through… especially considering we have to demonstrate something our professor is utterly unaware of, going by what our lessons suggest."

"Alright, alright. Let's see what your essay-writing system looks like," Sokka smirked, leaning back on his bed as he defied Azula with a jerk of his head.

Their work on the essay had to be handled along with the rest of their final exams: they met once every two days, further cementing and discussing their information on the subject, before they finally composed the essay together. It surprised Azula to find a perfectionist in her partner, one who seemed to second-guess his wording choices frequently, always seeking a better way to convey his thoughts. Before she knew it, she was giving him her opinion on his poetry assignments, while he offered her his own on a painting she had crafted, attempting to recreate a certain technique developed by Earth Kingdom artists from five centuries ago. And while she didn't move to his room permanently, Azula still wound up sleeping on the room's second bed a few times before the semester ended – rumors spread alarmingly quickly across the school about their apparently intimate connection, but much as Azula didn't acknowledge the vindictive practices of the spoiled girls in her dorms, Sokka didn't offer his attention to the spoiled boys in his, either.

The day of turning in the essay arrived indeed, and by then, genuine respect appeared to be brewing between them. Sokka turned in their work, one of the denser essays of the class, and he smiled complicitly at Azula as he returned to his seat. She nodded lightly in his direction as he passed beside her.

The results, then, were unveiled a week later: both Azula and Sokka were anxious as the professor left their essay for last, summoning the two of them to speak with him at his desk while the rest of the class was leaving…

"Look, your work was quite impressive," he said, smiling nervously at the two most dangerous students in his class. "There's no denying your prose is quite powerful, and you certainly investigated deeply, but… you may have been somewhat careless about your sources."

"Careless?" Azula said, raising her eyebrows.

"The primary author you chose is well-known for his embellishment of matters, I know I couldn't expect you to know this, but the lack of further evidence that Avatar Kyoshi had any connection to the Dai Li suggests that…"

"Wait, so you think we failed at your assignment?" Sokka asked, staring at the professor skeptically. "Are you trying to say that you don't believe in the power of proper historical investigations, by any chance?"

"I do believe in it, but I don't believe that's what happened here, if I may say so myself," the professor blurted out, eyeing them nervously. "I… can give you a passing grade, for your efforts were quite commendable, but the outcome is…"

"A passing grade?!" Sokka squealed. Azula scoffed, glaring at the man.

"That's unacceptable," she said. "We followed your every indication in order to investigate matters properly, didn't we? If the rest of the historians have been covering up Kyoshi's mistakes, that's on them, not us. We have evidence…"

"You have… circumstantial evidence, at best, but it may very well be a coincidence instead," said the professor.

"We…!" Sokka started, huffing before glaring at the man in a surprisingly threatening way. The professor winced, taking a step back before Sokka turned to Azula with a stern frown. "You know what? We do have evidence. Really strong evidence."

"We… wait," Azula held his gaze, raising an eyebrow as Sokka smiled dangerously. "You don't mean…"

"Professor! Do you mind joining us on a brief trip?" Sokka said, hands on his hips: his sudden change of mood was utterly unconvincing, for the teacher remained deeply daunted by the much taller, notoriously dangerous warrior in his room. "It shouldn't take us longer than a couple of hours…"

"I-I would rather not…"

"Don't be such a worrywart! Just join us, just join us…!"

It was clear that the professor expected them to drag him into an alley and threaten him with direct violence, so his unwillingness to join them decreased when Sokka and Azula marched together, with him standing between them, to the nearest train station in Ba Sing Se. The professor was genuinely surprised when they boarded a train leading deeper into the heart of the city…

His shock was stronger yet when they arrived in Ba Sing Se's Royal Palace.

"Hello there! You guys know me, I'm Sokka, friends with the King? With the Avatar?" Sokka spoke to the guards by the gates: they shot each other a wary glance before turning towards the warrior once more.

"You… we do know who you are. And we also know who she is," one said, pointing at Azula with a finger quite rudely. She raised a judgmental eyebrow, and they glared at her for it. "She is not welcome in the Palace."

"Uh, I figured you might say that, but she's with me, and so is this guy," Sokka said, gesturing at the trembling, dazed professor. "Look, we only need a moment with the King, once we have what we need, we'll leave. You can keep watch on us the whole time, I promise Azula's not going to do anything dangerous and I'm not going to eat all the contents of your kitchens… just let us through so we can fix a problem going on at the university, alright?"

"Ah… a problem?" said one of the guards. They exchanged a glance: that concept seemed to register as something noteworthy to bring to their king's attention.

"A problem at the university, then…" Azula recited quietly to Sokka, once they were escorted inside by a full squad of twenty guards. Sokka smiled awkwardly. "You do realize the King's bound to be quite alarmed by that wording of yours?"

"I do… but what choice do I have? They weren't going to take me seriously if I told them exactly what was going on," Sokka whispered back. Azula let out a soft chuckle.

"That's almost admirable of you. Keep this up and I might actually respect you before the day is out."

"You say that now, but I think you already do, Princess."

He smirked at her, and she smiled back as they marched through the familiar halls of Ba Sing Se's Palace. The professor seemed close to a nervous breakdown as they walked across the corridors, remarking on all his knowledge of the structure of the building, the date of certain ornaments and portraits, the gold mines from which the more luxurious adornments had likely been crafted…

Until the most luxurious of them all coaxed him to fall silent in utter reverence: Kuei sat on his throne, glaring at Azula nervously as the whole group entered the Throne Room.

"Hey there!" Sokka smiled: Bosco, the king's bear, groaned as a greeting, and Sokka chuckled as the creature marched up to him, asking for attention and affection. "And hi to you too, Bosco. Hope you've been doing well."

"Sokka… my friend. Why have you brought… Azula, my enemy, to my doorstep?" Kuei asked, his voice betraying his utter distrust of the woman. Azula rolled her eyes as Sokka smiled awkwardly.

"You did authorize her to study in your city…"

"Because Fire Lord Zuko requested it, and he agreed to fund further recovery programs across the Earth Kingdom in exchange for her studies," Kuei said, glaring at Azula, who grimaced upon hearing those words. "But that does not mean she was ever authorized to come to my Palace again. I would rather you return to the university at once…"

"We will go back, yeah," Sokka said, with a quick nod. "But… we need your help to sort something out."

"A… conflict between the two of you?" Kuei asked. "If so, I hereby declare you're correct, Sokka, and she is wrong…"

"Oh really? Without even knowing what's going on beforehand?" Azula scoffed, and Kuei immediately winced away from her when he heard her voice. Sokka smiled awkwardly and shook his head.

"Doesn't really work that way, King, because you see… Azula and I are in agreement," he said. Kuei gasped, as though the very notion of anyone agreeing with Azula were unthinkable. "It's our teacher from History class who thinks we're wrong and we're here to prove otherwise."

"U-uh… this is about a class?" Kuei raised an eyebrow, perplexed.

"Well, he's going to give us a passing grade if we don't prove we're not talking out of our asses, which is not fair!" Sokka squeaked, pouting. "So we're here to prove the truth! All I ask is to check some documents that were in Long Feng's office, and if they're still there, it'll only take a moment for us to find them, prove what we have to prove, and clear our names!"

Kuei blinked blankly. He stared at Sokka in utter perplexity, at Azula, whose arms were folded… and the professor, who had dropped face-first on the floor in a deep reverence, unwilling to so much as meet Kuei's gaze. The Earth King sighed before shrugging.

"I suppose, if what you're looking for isn't unreasonable… but you'll be the one looking, Sokka, not her," Kuei pouted. Azula rolled her eyes for the umpteenth time. "I don't want her reading any sensitive, important documents!"

"But it's fine if he does?" Azula asked. Kuei huffed.

"Yes, it is," he decided, and Azula rolled her eyes again.

"Well, whatever. That only means you have to put in extra work now, Sokka," Azula said, with a dry grin. Sokka sighed and shrugged.

"Considering that you transcribed the whole essay, I'd think this is a fair trade. I'm getting us our full marks, I promise," Sokka said, firmly. Azula actually smiled at his vow. "Wait here with the professor, I'll be back in a bit…"

"W-wait! You're leaving her here with me?!" Kuei squeaked. Azula sighed at his jumpiness and Sokka gestured at the Earth King with a hand.

"Join me personally and that way you'll be away from her. How about it?"

Kuei accepted Sokka's idea, although he ensured that Azula and the professor wouldn't be in the Throne Room, anyway. The two of them were to wait patiently near the Palace's entrance while Sokka rummaged through the office, trying to sort through documents, looking for a specific file that was likely as good as lost among Long Feng's formerly tidy bookshelves – many people, such as Sokka and Azula, had looked through these documents on occasion since Long Feng's fall from grace, and the result was a much messier bank of information than it used to be.

Three hours of boredom later, though, Azula heard the heavy footsteps of someone marching in their direction: one glace revealed Sokka was back… and to her relief, he had a stack of familiar papers, bound in a green leather cover, in his hands.

"It's here!" Sokka said, his voice hoarse, eyes almost out of orbit as he stomped up to the professor proudly. Azula smiled wildly, turning towards the still starstruck, and now shellshocked man, awaiting his reaction as Sokka offered him the document. "There you go. Proof… and proper evidence. Just as you wanted it."

"Good job finding it," Azula smiled. Sokka sighed.

"I don't know who went through that place recently, but everything's not where it was when I last visited that room," he said. "I'm going to assume it's not your doing…"

"Sokka, it's been over a decade since I took Ba Sing Se, and as is obvious, it's been in the Earth King's control for far longer than it was in mine. It's far more likely that he would be responsible for the mess, if there was one, right?" Azula said. Sokka shrugged.

"Well, I suppose…"

"Are you trying to imply I could be messy?" Azula said, glaring at him skeptically. Sokka snickered softly. "Seriously?"

"I don't know! How am I supposed to know? Could be you're just tidy nowadays, maybe you weren't back then…" he chuckled, and Azula rolled her eyes… though he caught sight of a smile once she turned her face away from him.

They fell silent then, though, watching as the professor read the document quickly. His eyes widened further with each page he read until…

"I… I see. I… I understand now," he said, with a nervous smile. Sokka and Azula grinned knowingly at him. "Goodness, well, this is… quite a shocker. I mean, I suppose there's areas where interpretation is valid, still, and…"

"And even if that's the case, what we wrote in that essay is still provable by official documents, no matter if most historians didn't acknowledge that," Sokka said, with a shrug. "Now, then… passing grade, or full marks?"

"I… yes, yes, of course. Full marks, indeed."

"YES!" Sokka threw a fist in the air before offering Azula a proud handshake – or rather, forearm shake, for he gripped her by the forearm when she was expecting him to clasp her hand. "We've pulled it off, Azula! Our reputations and names are cleared anew!"

"Well… we should give credit where credit's due, and it's certainly due now," Azula said, eyeing him skeptically. "I didn't do anything to clear either thing, after all. So… good work, Sokka, even if it kills my pride to say that it's just your doing, but still…"

"Heh. You praised me? Now that's something else…" he chuckled, and Azula smiled proudly still as she turned to their professor once more.

"I take it you can amend the final grade you gave us on the essay itself, can't you?" Azula said, pulling out the essay from her bag and offering it to the man… who continued to scan the ancient document in his hand, a worried grimace across his face. "Hello?"

"Uh, right. Right. I… I will, though we can take care of it in two days, if you'd like?" he said. "I'll be turning in the final grades for the class by then, so… let's handle it then, shall we?"

"Uh… okay, but are you alright?" Sokka asked, raising an eyebrow. Azula's eyes narrowed.

"It's like he's uncomfortable, for some reason. Is it you don't like that we've disproven something you've been teaching for years?" she asked, nonchalantly. The professor tensed up, and she frowned upon confirming her guess had been spot-on.

"I… I have to think a lot about what this means. And how it… fits within what we know, what was written elsewhere," the man said.

"Well, sure, but this is a very important document that explicitly proves what we have told you," Sokka said, pointing at the green-bound document. "I get that it changes things, but it's history, right? Adapt to the changes and teach the truth now."

"I… cannot quite do that."

Both Azula and Sokka frowned: even the guards, still keeping an eye on the Princess, were perplexed by the man's declaration. He cleared his throat.

"This puts numerous historical accounts into question, you see? It's… it's a complicated situation you've put me in. I need to analyze this with the other scholars, and perhaps they'll agree with me that… that teaching history has enough complications as it is? The Earth Kingdom has many convoluted stages in its history already, saddled with so much internal strife and conflict, and Avatar Kyoshi is a great, heroic figure too, so…"

"So… wait. You're trying to say… you're not going to change anything?" Sokka asked. Azula's eyebrow twitched.

"You'll continue teaching this part of history exactly as you have so far, even if you know it's wrong?" she asked.

The professor's tense smile was a sufficient answer to their questions.

An hour later, Azula and Sokka fumed together in the Jasmine Dragon – it was the first time Azula visited the place ever since she had started attending classes in Ba Sing Se University, but Sokka hadn't known anywhere else where they might unwind after their frustrations over their professor's behavior. Iroh was uneasy over their presence too, aware that Azula was in the city since months ago even if they hadn't met once until today. He approached their table, clearing his throat as Sokka splayed carelessly on his chair, scowling, while Azula crouched over the table, holding her head up with a hand.

"This… is the gloomiest date I've ever seen," Iroh announced: both his customers raised stern glares at him, and he offered them a guilty smile. "Not at date?"

"If it is one, it's a date for mourning," Sokka grunted.

"Mourning… what?" Iroh raised a bushy eyebrow.

"Our respect for the local education system?" Sokka said. Azula huffed.

"I believed the Fire Nation was the one that constantly, actively attempted to rewrite history," she said. "All for the convenience of whoever was in charge at any point in time. I never imagined it'd disturb me this badly to find out other nations do it too."

"Water Tribe doesn't," Sokka huffed. "And I'll make sure it won't when I establish our university."

"I will do the same with the Fire Nation, even if it won't be easy… as shameful as our history may be, the Fire Nation University's history department won't be as self-congratulatory as Ba Sing Se's," Azula huffed, shaking her head.

"What an uphill battle you face," Iroh sighed, shaking his head. "I fear history cannot be fully objective, no matter if you attempt to make it so…"

"At the very least we can stop erasing inconvenient truths just on the basis of them being inconvenient for a political group or another," Azula growled, arms folded over the table. "Zuko has been adamant about not tampering with the truth in the Fire Nation anymore, and as far as I understand, everyone believes it's most noble of him to do so. Nobody is concerned over how the truth about our worst choices might affect the morale of Fire Nation people, so why should different rules apply to the Earth Kingdom?"

"Especially when we're talking about something from so long ago," Sokka huffed. "It's hardly like we're saying the current Earth King Kuei is at fault for the Dai Li's existence or something…"

"Perhaps you should change the subject," Iroh said, with a careless grin. "It sounds like you're both getting yourselves down even further, so how about a fresh batch of tea to…?"

"Sake," Sokka blurted out. Azula snorted as Iroh pouted. "Don't have any?"

"I… suppose I can find some," Iroh sighed. "One bottle only. There's no going overboard with drinks in the Jasmine Dragon, let alone for my niece and my son's friend."

"Fine, fine, whatever you say," Sokka sighed, nodding in Iroh's direction.

The near-empty teashop fell silent again as Iroh walked off, bringing back the bottle and giving them privacy anew afterwards. Both Azula and Sokka remained as moody as before… though their eyes met before long, and they sighed at the same time.

"I suppose at least we redeemed ourselves and didn't get a low score on that essay," Azula said.

"You mean, we shouldn't worry about what this means for the Earth Kingdom's education and only focus on what it means for us on a personal level?" Sokka asked, raising an eyebrow. Azula shrugged.

"When no one around you seems to have any sense, selfishness is the better policy," she determined, sipping her drink – it wasn't to her tastes, but after a semester where nothing had been, it didn't seem like that bothered her much.

"Until you have enough power to change things on a larger scale?" Sokka said. Azula shrugged. "We'll have enough power in our own universities, once we set them up. And… we'll start doing that pretty soon, won't we?"

"We should," Azula agreed, glancing at Sokka almost wistfully. "I won't miss this place that much, but… admittedly, studies on this level are far more enjoyable than what I endured in the Royal Academy for Girls."

"Well, I'd never been in class like this before, myself," Sokka smiled awkwardly. "I adjusted quickly, but honestly, I learned everything from my parents back when I was little, then from my grandmother once I was slightly older. I've had a few mentorships here and there, like with the Mechanist…"

"Ah, the artificer of the train-tank," Azula said, with a weak smile.

"Suits you to speak of it so fondly," Sokka said, eyebrow twitching as Azula laughed. "Anyway, I'm just saying… I'd never had to face this kind of formal education before. But this wasn't that bad, just… sucked because of what happened today. But anyway, we've learned what we need to learn, right?"

"We have," Azula agreed.

"And in the process, maybe we've grown to respect each other a little?" Sokka asked, smirking as he raised his cup. Azula let out a dismissive laugh.

"A little, and that's as far as I'll go," she said, raising her own. "We're still mortal enemies forevermore."

"And I wouldn't want it any other way," Sokka chuckled. "I just want to say… you were a tough competitor, that's for sure. I look forward to finding out who won in our contest…"

"So do I," Azula said: she tapped Sokka's cup with his own, and they drained their contents quickly. "May the better student, and better future university founder, win?"

"May it be so," Sokka smirked.

Azula laughed softly as they spoke anew about the university, about the things they liked and disliked from their experience in Ba Sing Se, and even swapping old stories as if they were, instead of mortal enemies, old friends.

Once they returned to the university's campus, Azula didn't go back to Sokka's room: Sokka smiled wistfully at her as she waved at him from the entrance to the female dorms, and he ensured to enter his own dorms later – it was late, but the sounds of reckless partying gave away that some people were rather excitable about the upcoming end of the semester. Technically, Sokka should be looking forward to it too, even if a strange part of him felt lonesome upon knowing this competition between him and Azula would come to an end soon… a part of him he endeavored to ignore as best as possible, of course. This had already been a whim, the Water Tribe needed him, his father needed him. He had been here long enough, so he'd finish up and go home…

A week later, the final results for all classes were revealed.

Sokka and Azula stood side by side, frozen solid, at the History Faculty's board, where said results had been pinned for all students to see.

All their work, all their efforts, all their attempts to outdo each other had been pointless: they stared at each other in utter chagrin upon confirming their final grade had been the exact same number.

---

"Well. That was… something," Sokka said, sitting by a pond in campus with Azula. She snorted, shaking her head as she rested with an elbow on her flexed knee.

"A draw, then. We've tied for results… top of the class, so we can't really complain on that front," Azula said, with a shrug. "We have honored our respective families and cultures. That is good. That is… right. It's how it must be. You should be proud of your performance."

"And you should be proud of yours," Sokka said, eyeing her skeptically. "You kept up with me, after all. Genius of the Water Tribe?"

"And you with me, the genius of the Fire Nation."

"So, this is… good. It's the best result, right?"

"Yeah. This is… this is good. This works. It makes sense."

"Then we're in agreement."

"We are."

"So, we're doing another semester and settling this competition for once and for all?"

Azula froze in place. A ticklish, rushing sensation bloomed in her gut, reaching up across her body as she shot Sokka a smirk. He smiled back at her, shrugging.

"I'm just saying…"

"If you insist," she said, without even attempting to mask her deviousness. Sokka chuckled, shaking his head.

"Now, this time? We're going to settle it for sure. You'll pick half our classes, I'll pick the other half, and that way, with four or five different classes, we'll definitely get a much more comprehensive result than we did this time," Sokka said, beaming. Azula nodded sagely.

"Perfect. I'll just… let my brother know," she smirked. Sokka bit his lip.

"And I should tell my dad, too," Sokka swallowed hard. "That's… going to be something."

"Is he against this arrangement?" Azula asked. "You could very well tell him you're still getting to understand how to run an institution like this one…"

"I can and I will, but…" Sokka said, with an awkward smile. "He's got it into his head that I'm doing this because I, uh, am interested in… someone. Romantically."

"Oh?" Azula raised an eyebrow. "Is that so?"

"Well, it's what he thinks, but that's not what's going on," Sokka laughed, shaking his head. "He just thinks it makes no sense for me to spend six months here over a girl I don't like, so he says it's because I actually, uh…"

"Because you actually like another girl?" Azula finished. Sokka's eyes widened with nervousness as he glanced at her significantly. "What?"

"You're gonna make me say it outright, are you?" he asked. "Azula… he thinks I like you."

Her face flushed. Had she been drinking anything, she would have spat it right out, into the pond.

Instead, she just snorted, leaning forward and covering her mouth with a hand. Sokka smiled sadly, shrugging as she eyed him in disbelief again.

"I told him that's not it, but he doesn't think I'm as professional as I say I am," Sokka sighed. "Anyway, don't mind it much. Because, as you well know, you and I are…"

"Mortal enemies," Azula said, nodding and smirking at him. "But I suppose you could very well fall in love with your mortal enemy, huh?"

"I did no such thing!" Sokka squeaked. Azula chuckled deviously. "Oh, come on! I thought you'd find it funny, but don't use it against me…!"

"Oh, goodness, if you lose against me next semester it'll be because you're in love with me, of course! Letting me win because you're a gentleman, I see!"

"Shut up!" Sokka laughed too, as Azula hugged her belly, tilting sideways under the force of her laughter.

Their choice had been made, however: even if Hakoda and Zuko would be deeply confused, they would have to accept receiving reports and concepts from their respective relatives for now, and they'd only see the two students and future university founders a whole year after their academic journey had begun, from the looks of it.

Their second semester, then, was a lot less lonely than the first one: Azula wound up crashing at Sokka's room more often than not, down to scarcely using her attic room –as she seemed so unaffected by the ill-intended pranks of her fellow students, said pranks slowly drifted out of fashion and stopped happening altogether. The rest of the student body, it seemed, was slightly offput by their apparent closeness, and rumors abounded all across campus that, much like Hakoda believed, Azula and Sokka were actually dating.

The truth was, perhaps, slightly more surreal than that for the sworn mortal enemies: they were friends, even if competitive friends given to too much banter and teasing of each other. But there was no better term for it, even if they hadn't admitted it out loud: Azula joined Sokka in a physics class while he partook in painting with Azula. He chose to carry forward with poetry too, and Azula had enjoyed anthropology as well, therefore, those four classes, along with the next level of history, had become their subjects for their second semester.

Thus, Sokka gave Azula crash courses on many scientific notions she'd need to keep in mind for the physics class, while Azula ensured to teach Sokka the proper basics of painting. She was a far more ruthless teacher than him, of course, but at least his work showed more promise by the time their spring break ended than it had ever before. She, in turn, wasn't quite that keen on poetry, but Sokka encouraged her to try her luck with haiku, settling for simple compositions before trying anything more ambitious. Azula wasn't disappointed at all by Sokka's quick grasp of the basics of anthropology, thus, the two of them were as ready as they could hope to be by the time the semester began, and their progress through class was even smoother this time than before, as they were working together more often than not.

Whether in labs or in actual ruins – the anthropology department had chosen to authorize a brief expedition into the underground tunnels in Ba Sing Se for their class, and Azula was notoriously tense through it, no doubt recognizing the battlefield where she had clinched her victory over the Avatar long ago –, in their room or in the library, they were together more often than not. They even visited Iroh's teashop more often, unlike in their first semester, even if Azula spent most of such visits bickering with her uncle while Sokka laughed carelessly at their arguments. Though Sokka would take a more active role during their visits to the Jasmine Dragon from time to time…

"Now, now, please have some mercy on an old man!" Iroh laughed, a hand on his belly as Sokka smirked proudly: he had cleared the Pai Sho board from all of Iroh's tiles that game.

"Such butchery and violence," Azula said, shaking her head slowly. "The blood of Iroh's tiles spills down the board and all across the floor…"

"Want to turn that into a haiku?" Sokka taunted her. Azula chuckled and shrugged.

"Not a bad idea, admittedly. Now you'll have me thinking about how to compose that one for days," she said.

"Could turn it in for our next assignment, if you're quicker than that about it," Sokka smirked. "Or maybe you ought to get extra inspiration by beating Iroh yourself…"

"I am not interested," Azula said, bluntly. Sokka shook his head as Iroh breathed out in relief. "Pai Sho is… too simple."

"What? Simple?!" Iroh exclaimed, his relief fleeing quickly. "How could a member of my own family say something so horrible?"

"Feel free to disown me, the game won't be any less simple just because you do," Azula smirked, glancing at the Pai Sho board. "I'd rather put my mind to something more challenging than that."

"Maybe it's not the game but the opponents you've faced?" Sokka asked, raising an eyebrow. Azula huffed. "I'm just saying…"

"You're not about to start pretending you and I would be on equal standing in this game, or are you?" Azula asked, skeptical. Sokka smirked.

"Well, I've beaten your uncle thrice in a row… I can't be that bad, can I?"

"Hmm… perhaps you could humble her," Iroh said, stroking his beard. Azula rolled her eyes at his wording. "If someone has the wits to do so, it may just be you, Sokka! Yes, yes, please do!"

"Humble me? Perhaps I should be the one to humble you first," Azula said, scowling at him. "Sokka… off that chair. I'll finish you second, but I'll embarrass my uncle first."

"Ooooh, this is getting serious!" Sokka snickered, rising from his seat and spreading an arm theatrically towards it. Iroh winced, paling quickly.

"I-I, uh… didn't quite mean it like…"

"Oh, you meant it alright, and I'll turn your words against you," Azula smirked, taking her seat and gathering her tiles. "Ready to be humbled, Uncle?"

"I… I will defend my honor as a Pai Sho master," Iroh said, though his voice trembled.

He had to prepare for a most challenging, dangerous duel against the deviously clever mind of his niece. She would give him no quarter, especially because of his foolish wording, but he would fight back. Her strategies and tactics couldn't possibly outdo his decades of experience, so he picked up his first tile, setting it on his strategic position on the board…

Within five minutes, Iroh's hung head gave away that his aspirations to outdo Azula had gone nowhere:

"I resign."

Sokka gasped, staring at the board in utmost astonishment. Azula smirked at him, shrugging carelessly.

"While I certainly enjoyed your figurative bloodbath, Sokka, for it was most wicked of you… victory is, ultimately, what matters," she said, turning her attention to the board again: Iroh had a lot of tiles left, but her choices had seen to the breaking of his possible defensive formations to fend off her initiatives. "How humbled are we feeling now, Uncle?"

"I will go to the kitchen to rethink my life. Good luck defeating her, Sokka," Iroh said, mournfully. Sokka chuckled as the old man rose to his feet, walking awkwardly as though he had actually received a physical beating.

"You really know how to silence someone, huh?" Sokka smiled, taking his seat across Azula as they gathered the tiles anew. "I wonder if you'll beat me just as easily…"

"I wonder if you'll beat me just as violently," Azula said, with a mischievous smirk. Sokka rolled his eyes, smiling at her too.

"Come on, it's a board game. Even if I was mean, it doesn't make me all that violent…"

"Oh, don't be modest now. You cleverly targeted the lesser tiles, the outliers, constantly giving Iroh the hope that, even if the first few tiles didn't offer him the right results, the next ones would do the trick… only to then annihilate everything on his side of the board," Azula smirked. "I admit, I'm quite impressed. It's… greedy, even."

"Next thing I know, you'll say we're more alike than you ever wanted to admit," Sokka smirked. Azula laughed, shaking her head as she made the first move.

"If anything… we're contradictory. Aren't you friends with the pacifist Avatar, who tries to win battles with the least casualties possible?" Azula asked. "Which means you probably had to adjust your strategies so you'd cause the least collateral damage. I assumed that's why your strategy to destroy the drill was as it was…"

"Hmm… I'd love to say you're right, but to be honest, the alternative you suggested that day didn't even cross my mind," Sokka laughed, making his own move, and Azula followed with hers.

"Maybe you were already that deeply caught up in the Avatar's morality system, even without your awareness," Azula suggested.

"Well… you'd think. But I've done some pretty harsh things, myself," Sokka said. "Can't pretend my hands are completely clean, no matter if I still believe my actions were necessary…"

"You were victorious. No need to regret your choices or the path that led you there," Azula said. Sokka raised an eyebrow.

"Sometimes you do need to. Victory attained by the wrong means is… well, not exactly honorable, I suppose. It'd be like flipping this board, I'd say?" Sokka said. Azula smiled.

"Unfortunately, war is not a controlled, restrained environment where that analogy would be accurate. Personal duels ruled by laws are one thing, all-out war is quite different," she said – Sokka made a tricky move, and she hesitated before making her own, next. "I made the choices I made for the sake of my father and my nation. That I can see that those choices were not correct now doesn't change the fact that I made them anyway. And I wouldn't have cared about right or wrong back then… only about victory. Only about securing the triumphs that would bring the Fire Nation further progress. Hence, we're contradictory: I wouldn't have shed a single tear if I had to annihilate everything in my path to secure victory, back in the day. Whereas you would have sought to attain victory with the least casualties…"

"Which begs the question of why we play Pai Sho by resorting to each other's default strategies, then," Sokka said, staring at Azula pointedly before displacing one of her tiles with his own. Azula smirked.

"Well… it's more efficient this way," she said, with a shrug: Sokka's eyes narrowed upon detecting that he was being trapped… and he made the right choice to cause Azula to snap her tongue. "How shrewd. Not tricked by bait so easily, are we?"

"You'll have to try harder than that," Sokka smiled. Azula chuckled as she proceeded to make her next move.

They continued to speak as they played, discussing their different perspectives further, laughing at their clever responses to each other's moves… until the state of the game became clear to them both. Azula raised her eyebrows, eyeing Sokka skeptically as he chuckled: Iroh, having returned to watch the outcome of their battle, hummed in amazement.

"A stalemate, then?" he said. "That is quite rare…"

"Oh, it's par for the course for the two of us," Azula said, staring at Sokka skeptically. He chuckled and shrugged in response to her assessment.

"And we've humbled ourselves and each other by remembering… that we, apparently, are evenly matched," he said. Azula smiled and shook her head.

"Don't say that, or else this semester will be a waste too. Aren't we trying to outdo each other this time as well?" she asked. Sokka smiled and nodded. "Then fight to the very end, will you?"

"As you wish, Princess," Sokka bowed his head, waving his hand in a pretentious flourish, and Azula chuckled at the sight of it…

Iroh blinked blankly as he stood between them, eyes drifting from one to the next. He whistled carelessly as he walked away, the sound causing both Azula and Sokka to ease up their laughter and camaraderie to watch Iroh with confusion.

"Why's he whistling?" Sokka blinked blankly. Azula huffed.

"I don't know, but he's annoying. We're done here, aren't we?" Azula said, pushing herself up to her feet. "It's getting late, and I have no intentions of waking up late tomorrow…"

"You never wake up late, to begin with," Sokka retorted, and Azula nodded sagely.

"I'd much rather keep it that way, mind you, so… off we go."

They weren't oblivious, not truly, to the misunderstandings their bond elicited from people. At this point, both were bored and tired of explaining they were, in fact, mortal enemies who had challenged each other to obtain better grades in school… and Iroh certainly didn't seem to understand that. As things were, the two roommates rather preferred to ignore outside opinions, focusing only on their competition.

The months drifted by and they helped each other constantly with their studies. They answered letters sent by their respective family, some exclusively professional, some concerned about them on a personal level – Zuko asked Azula, point-blank, if rumors about her apparent relationship with Sokka were just rumors, and she rolled her eyes before giving him the same answer she gave everyone. That they spent most their time together, took all the same classes, went shopping together, helped each other in lessons, and went on outings in the city with each other, didn't have to mean that…

… Well, once she thought of it that way, people's assumptions started to make more sense than she had been willing to give them credit for, so far.

"You know, if we stuck around for another semester, taking that bending class you liked wouldn't be outside the question," Sokka laughed one afternoon, merely a few weeks before that semester ended. They were sitting under a tree's shade, the afternoon light providing Azula with visuals she attempted to recreate in the final painting she wanted to deliver for class… but she couldn't seem to get the right shadow and light contrasts she was looking for. "Could be easier than painting…"

"I'd take both if you weren't so hung up on physics," Azula sighed, shaking her head.

"Well, I would've taken more mechanical design, actually, but that teacher went on sabbatical," Sokka pouted. "Anyway, it's good for you to learn physics…"

"And for you to learn how to paint," Azula said. "Which you did, considering you're already done with your project but I'm not with mine. So… unless you have a better tree to suggest to me, perhaps just take a nap while I finish this."

Sokka was about to rebuff her suggestion, perhaps to say something about not needing a nap at all… but his eyes narrowed when the spark of an idea struck him.

"Say… you want a good tree?" Sokka asked. Azula grunted. "Would you believe me if I said I know of one…?"

"Better than this one?" Azula said, skeptical. Sokka smiled awkwardly.

"I don't know if better, but… it might be more peaceful?" he said. "It's… it's in the Lower Ring. Zuko and Iroh wanted to visit it on the morning after we celebrated the war ended, so… I think I still know how to get there."

Azula's brow furrowed as she lowered her brush. She glanced at Sokka warily as he shrugged.

"If it's not a good idea I'll just shut up…"

"Lu Ten's memorial?" Azula asked. Sokka bit his lip and nodded.

"I don't know if it's painful for you, maybe you were close to him, I don't know, but…"

Azula frowned, falling in silence for a contemplative moment… then she breathed out and rose to her feet. Sokka raised his eyebrows, and Azula jerked her head towards him.

"Come on. We'd better hurry or we'll only get there by dusk."

Sokka smiled, clasping her hand and rising to his feet: he helped Azula gather her equipment and they set out together to the tree that had become Lu Ten's memorial location, long ago.

The sky was bright orange once they got there: Azula laid down under the tree briefly, catching the right glow of light, the contrast between greens and oranges before sitting up and working on the canvas, tweaking her previous work until she composed something far more suitable for her artistic vision. Sokka smiled as he watched her work – he took off, finding them some casual dinner, and they wound up eating it together under the tree after it was too late for Azula to keep working.

"Still… I think I'm on the right track now," Azula said, setting down the piece and sighing heavily. "I'll try to finish it tomorrow."

"Do you have a perfect picture in your mind of what you want it to look like?" Sokka asked. Azula shrugged.

"Not entirely. Sometimes art is… a little freer than that," she said, dropping against the tree trunk. Sokka sat beside her, and he offered her the bag of gyoza he had bought earlier. "Thanks for buying."

"No problem. They're not as spicy as you'd like them, I bet, but they're not bad," Sokka said. Azula sighed.

"Nothing here is ever as spicy as I want it," she said. Sokka smirked.

"People are bound to misunderstand that, you know?" he said. "What kind of spice is missing in your life, Azula?"

"If you must know, Togarashi chili powder. Yuzu spice paste. Curry powder…"

"Ah, so all food, then?" Sokka said. "Well, good to know…"

"What? Expecting something else, were you?" Azula smirked. "Why, I seem to spend all my nights in the bedroom of a rather imposing, daunting warrior, don't I? That concept alone is spicy enough, isn't it?"

"Sure thing," Sokka chuckled, shaking his head. "I suppose we don't really help things, do we? Spending as much time together as we do these days…"

"Well, you can always ask me for a break, point-blank, you know?" Azula said, with a huff. "I won't be too upset about it, no. It's not like I'm emotionally invested in this mortal enmity of ours, no…"

"I don't believe you," Sokka smiled – to his amusement, so did she. "I don't… want a break, actually. And I mean… it'll be summer break soon. Which means… we're going home again."

"We are," Azula said. "We've been here too long as it is, haven't we? We have important duties to our respective nations, and we ought to fulfill them. That is why we're here, so…"

"Still… I'm going to miss this," Sokka sighed, rustling as he settled better against Lu Ten's tree. "I'm going to miss you."

"You… are?" Azula said, raising her eyebrows. Sokka smiled.

"How about I go visit you and check how your university's progress is going?" he asked. Azula huffed. "I could be there for about a week, no need for more…"

"Heh: you just want to steal my ideas, I know you do," Azula said, stubbornly. "If you go for that, then… I'll only agree to it as long as I can go for one week to your hometown as well, and steal plenty of ideas right back."

"And if I steal nothing?" Sokka smiled. Azula huffed.

"I wouldn't know if you will or won't until I see the progress of your work, so… if you intend to go, I will go see the Water Tribe afterwards anyway. It's not negotiable."

"In short… you're going to miss me too."

"I never said that."

"You don't have to."

They fell into silence then… and to Sokka's surprise, it was Azula who chose to break it, shortly after he resolved to say something and defuse the strange, charged, quiet moment they were sharing.

"You know… I did get along with Lu Ten."

"Did you?" Sokka asked. Azula nodded.

"He was… more mischievous than his father, in the right way. He was probably the most reasonable member of the Royal Family. Zuko and I clashed in every way possible, but… whenever we were around him, things would feel better. Different. He… brought out the best in us, I suppose. I can't help but wonder if he'll do that for me again in this painting… but maybe I don't deserve that, honestly."

"Why wouldn't you?" Sokka raised an eyebrow.

"Because I… I barely mourned him. Because I resented him for dying so easily, or at least, I assumed it was easy," Azula said, with a sad smile. "Because I was an idiot child who… who didn't really understand that I'd never have a chance to talk to him again, or spend time with him, or play games with him anymore. I'd never impress him with what I'd learned in school… I'd never show him what a great firebender I'd become. And instead of letting myself be sad for all those things, once I processed that reality, I just… I just forced myself to resent him for being weak, instead. That's what my father would have done, so… it was what I had to do, too. Worst of all is… he wouldn't have been disappointed with me even if he knew I acted like a brat. He would have likely laughed it off, held me… told me that it didn't matter. But it did. I… I never had come here before and I've lived in this city for a year, I invaded and conquered this place years ago and I still never visited his memorial hill because I… I didn't feel worthy."

"I'm sorry to hear that you felt that way," Sokka whispered, swallowing hard. "Did something change now, though? You could have said no, and we wouldn't have come here…"

"I'm not alone. I think that's what did it."

Sokka's eyes widened as Azula breathed out slowly, closing her eyes.

"I don't know what we're doing, Sokka. I don't know if… if we've been dating for a whole semester without our awareness," she admitted, with a chuckle. "But even if we weren't… you achieve the same thing Lu Ten did, somehow. It feels like you bring out the best in me… even if I doubt I can return the favor."

"You doubt it?" Sokka asked, staring at her in confusion. "You really think you're not doing the same for me?"

Azula blinked blankly, meeting his gaze as Sokka shifted on his seat, angling his body better towards her.

"From the minute we issued out this challenge to each other, I… I've been pushing past my boundaries in ways my sister would have never imagined possible for me," Sokka said, with a weak smile. "I've worked hard when I'd usually choose to be lazy because… because I really wanted to do this. I have no idea when I became the kind of crazy person who clears the board of a Pai Sho game rather than being the one who puts in the least effort to win… but I get the feeling it was around the same time as when I decided I wouldn't settle for a passing grade when I knew I deserved better."

Azula raised her eyebrows, gazing at him in surprised confusion. Sokka smiled fondly, shrugging at her.

"What I'm trying to say is… maybe you did that for him too," Sokka whispered, tapping the tree trunk gently. "Maybe Lu Ten was a perfectly common, ordinary guy… but having a cousin like you brought out the best in him, and he returned the favor. Which is kind of how I think things went between me and you, too. Whether you like it or not."

"Heh," Azula smiled, withdrawing her gaze slowly. "You're unnerving."

"You look way too happy for that to be the case…" Sokka huffed, poking her shoulder with a fingertip. Azula chuckled, shaking her head.

"You're unnerving because you can't stand winning anymore than you can stand losing, can you?" Azula said, smiling at him. "I… I just gave you a big opening. A chance to take advantage of my words and say… that maybe you should take all the credit for my success and growth as of late. What I said basically implied as much, and… nothing. You just had to go out of your way to level the playing field again and say I do the same thing for you. You just… you keep doing this, over and over again and I…"

"Azula…"

"I don't know… what you're doing to me," Azula admitted, swallowing hard. "A part of me just wants to… to ask if this means anything while another part of me just wants to believe it doesn't, because if it didn't and I thought it did, I would wind up disappointed and it would be no one's fault but mine, and…"

"You're rambling," Sokka smiled. Azula stopped talking, shooting him a reproachful glare. "And now you're looking cute. That's not fair."

"Cute? I'm not… ugh. Still unnerving," Azula huffed: her cheeks were tinged red, though in the darkening twilight, it wasn't easy for Sokka to notice it.

"Look… I don't think either of us set out to make such a mess of ourselves with this silly challenge of ours," Sokka said, biting his lip. "And I won't lie, my dad's immediate assumption that I was just… chasing a girl I liked was kind of wild for me to handle. I didn't see you that way back then, didn't think I would later on either, but… I guess there's some stupid part of me that feels stronger, emboldened, whenever you're around. I… I don't know if that happens to you too, but I guess I would have gotten bored from university in a matter of weeks if I hadn't been keeping an eye on you in history class the whole time…"

"And I kept feeling your eyes on me… so I refused to back down or falter because you would mock me if I did," Azula said, simply. Sokka chuckled.

"Would've tried for sure," he said. Azula's lips curled slightly. "But now…"

"Now we're allies. And mortal enemies, still," Azula declared. Sokka raised his eyebrows.

"Right. Not contradictory at all, huh?" he asked. Azula smiled and shrugged.

"I fear you and I embody quite a lot of contradictions," she said, gazing into his eyes as best she could in this darkness. "Two people who disliked each other profoundly, calling themselves each other's mortal enemies… only to wind up spending a year together and having some strange heart-to-heart in places like these? Admitting… to inspiring each other, of all things? It doesn't seem to make sense, does it?"

"Not to anyone but us, I'd say," Sokka whispered. Azula snorted.

"Speak for yourself. Makes no sense to me, either," she said. Sokka smiled and shook his head.

"You don't fool me. You haven't for a while now," he whispered.

His fingers rose to caress her cheek delicately, smoothly combing her hair as he leaned closer. Azula's breath trembled as she turned towards him, as her hand clasped his, and then she closed her eyes, feeling him so close, brow pressed to hers…

"Wait."

Sokka gritted his teeth, but he slowed down. Her lips were a breath away from his.

"We can't just… go for this now," Azula whispered. Sokka hummed, waiting to hear her out once she elaborated her thoughts. "Semester's almost done. So… if we do this, we'll get distracted. We'll…"

"We'll be too busy with each other to focus on studying?" Sokka asked. Azula bit her lip and nodded.

"And this could be a mess anyway, beyond that. This is our last semester, so… we're not bound to see much of each other afterwards. If we start this, whatever it is, now, then…"

"We'll be set up for failure in the future?" Sokka asked. Azula shrugged. "Hmm… and what if it's a tie again?"

"What if…? Wait, you mean our average scores altogether?" Azula frowned. Sokka smiled.

"If that happens… then that means we'd have to go for one more semester, right? A third semester. We wouldn't have settled things… we wouldn't know who's superior at all," Sokka said: his fingers slid through hers, caressing her hand gently. "Our challenge wouldn't be complete yet…"

"And if it never is?" Azula asked, biting her lip. "If… if we finish our full careers, what then? How would we settle our perpetual stalemate then?"

"Then… you can come get a specialization in the Water Tribe's university once it's built," Sokka smiled. Azula hummed. "And I can do the same in the Fire Nation, when you've built it too. We could help each other establish each country's university too…"

"That's a strange connection to build…" Azula said, with a weak smile. "Cooperation, rather than competition?

"It kind of suits us, doesn't it?"

"I suppose it does. It's strange… but maybe it'll work. Maybe."

"But… this will happen only if the stalemate continues?" Sokka asked. Azula swallowed hard and nodded.

"Only if the stalemate continues."

He smiled. The temptation to kiss her was strong… but he withdrew, caressing her face gently with his free hand before sitting up against the tree.

"Well… I'll hope our results are the same, then. If you're willing to explore this… so am I," Sokka smiled. Azula blushed, but she said nothing in response this time.

Instead, she settled against the tree, dropping her head on Sokka's shoulder as their fingers intertwined. His own head fell smoothly atop hers: they closed their eyes to bask in the smooth peace of yet another moment of mutual acceptance and understanding… of standing – or sitting, as the case may be – on even ground, regardless of the world's attempts to persuade them that no such bond could be possible between them. Who knew, in the end, if the future could be brighter than this? Perhaps one of them would actually win their contest, and if they did, the other would have to step aside. These plans might fall through… and then distance might arise between them, as it often happened between school friends.

Neither one wanted that, though. They huddled together underneath that tree, comforted in each other's arms for the very first time. Their efforts to become each other's foils had turned them into each other's strength, instead… their stubbornness about their rivalry had brought forth a rather different feeling inside them, too. Whatever might come next, all they could hope for was that the six months they had spent together would extend, yet again, and for longer than just six more months…

---

Weeks later, they took notes of all their final grades once they were posted in each faculty's board. Then, they joined up underneath their tree in campus, quickly working to determine what their average score, altogether, had been. Sokka had done better at the classes he was prepared for… much as Azula had done better at the ones she had affinity with.

But ultimately, their scores were eerily similar even if not for the same classes. It was hard to ignore… and hard to disregard the thrilling tingles that rushed them as they finished the last calculations to discover…

"Same score?" Azula said, setting down her calculations next to his. Sokka bit his lip and smirked at her.

"Same score," he confirmed.

She had never been less keen on victory than she was that day.

His hand reached for her neck, and her arms wrapped around his: she nearly knocked him down with her enthusiasm, but Sokka managed to sit upright still as he embraced her tightly... as their lips joined in a deep, necessary, heartfelt kiss.

---

A month later, Hakoda was utterly unsurprised when his son returned home… and didn't do so alone. He offered him a dry grin when Sokka admitted that the relationship between him and Azula might no longer be strictly professional – though he insisted that they were, to this day, mortal enemies, and Azula seconded that promptly, shivering in her parka, unused to the cold weather.

They wouldn't return for the third semester right away – both had duties in their nations, and it was time for them to supervise the beginning of their respective universities. Still, Azula had agreed to come with Sokka to the South Pole first, accompanying him as he offered to show her a beautiful sight she might enjoy painting, seeing as lights were her favorite thing to depict in artworks.

"It's… not very comfortable painting while we're freezing," Azula admitted: Sokka chuckled upon hearing that, stepping up to her and wrapping his arms around her from behind. Her easel was firm on the snow, and her mittens didn't help matters with her grip on the paintbrush… but she smiled, nonetheless, as she let greens and purples blend with whites and blacks upon her canvas. "But this is… certainly an interesting experience."

"Can't help but wonder if we could harness the power of auroras somehow, for light's sake," Sokka whispered, kissing the side of her head. "It's going to be tricky to handle class properly during the south's winter months… at least, it will be for people who aren't used to the Water Tribe's weather. I wonder if I could set up some sort of… mirror system? To shine the aurora upon the classrooms, or so?"

"It would be interesting… but I'm not sure of how effective it would be," Azula admitted. "Auroras aren't constant, after all… what are they, to begin with?"

"I guess that's one more thing the Southern Water Tribe's university will have to figure out," Sokka smiled. Azula chuckled, nodding slowly. "But I suppose there's a few things that have natural light to them, huh? Sunlight, stars… the moon, though as far as I understand it, the moon reflects the sunlight that bounces off it. Auroras… could they be reflecting light somehow too? Or maybe they're… I don't know, kind of like rainbows?"

"Fire also gives out light. Fireflies, too," Azula said, with a shrug. "And… lightning, of course."

"None of which is ever as stable as the sun," Sokka said, biting his lip. "Torches, lanterns… they need oil, fuel to provide flames and light. So… huh. How about using that principle to develop a stable source of light? It could help the Water Tribe…"

"It could help both Tribes. Could even help the entire world, actually…" Azula reasoned, glancing over her shoulder at him. "You know… you could have as many disciplines as you want here, but you could build the Water Tribe University into the leading institution for scientific advancement and practical application of those advancements. The Fire Nation has technology, yes… but it's mostly for warfare."

"Doesn't mean it can't be repurposed for better ideas, though," Sokka said, raising an eyebrow.

"If so… you'll have to come by to borrow those ideas," Azula said, smiling as she set down her palette and turning in his arms. "At least, whichever ones you think could help here."

"And we'll make sure to share our advancements with you guys too, once they're done?" Sokka said, stroking Azula's hair and brushing it out of her face. "I suppose the only way to have a proper rivalry is by standing on the same level, huh? So instead of tearing each other down…"

"We build each other up?" Azula finished. Sokka smirked. "That's… a strange sort of balance, I suppose. I don't expect a lot of people will understand or appreciate it, but…"

"But it suits us," Sokka whispered, his brow against hers. "You'll help me figure out how to create a stable, steady source of lighting for the Water Tribe… and in return, I'll make a painting of you as you paint the Southern Lights. How about it?"

"Oh? It better be a good one," Azula smiled. Sokka chuckled and shrugged.

"If it's not, you'll just have to come by again and again so I can try a thousand times," he said. "Though… we'll go back to Ba Sing Se for the semester after this one anyway, right?"

"Well… I suppose it wouldn't hurt to finish our whole careers there, after all," Azula smiled. "But only if we continue to go evenly at everything. The minute you outdo me in our total scores, I'll skip town and you'll never hear from me again."

"What? Oh, please, it'll be me who won't be able to live with the shame if you ever defeat me…!"

Azula laughed, wrapping her arms around Sokka as he leaned in to kiss her deeply. Perhaps this challenge between them would never end… but the way it had changed in nature was delightfully agreeable for them. Their alliance on a professional level would bring great progress to the Water Tribe and the Fire Nation… and the personal partnership they shared would bring them the deep fulfillment they had never imagined they might find in each other.

And perhaps, yes, they were still rivals, still mortal enemies. But the year they had already spent together had proven that was no impediment for affection and love to bloom between them all the same.