Zuko wasn't sure what he expected when Raizu asked for his, Azula, and Lu Ten's help, but he was sure it didn't involve sneaking out of the palace and a short walk to the nearby beach just outside the walls. What was more telling was how Raizu didn't ask for help from their mother or any other adult, and the most concerning thing was how they never encountered any guards along the way.

Zuko knew those same passages Raizu led them through—but he'd never used them before without being found. No one said a thing as they waited his youngest brother to lead them where they needed to be.

Which was apparently to a small hill next to a pile of boulders.

Raizu raised his arms and said, "Open."

Zuko swallowed the lump in his throat.

But nothing happened.

"Yeah, I'm just messing with you, magic isn't real like that."

Azula punched him in the arm.

"Right, to the real entrance."

"Entrance?" Lu Ten said.

Raizu went in front of one boulder and set his hands on it. "I don't think our instructors have talked about how to use the inner fire yet?"

"Not that you bother waiting for our instructors," Azula said.

"No, I definitely do not," Raizu said.

"Father talked about that before," Lu Ten said, "it's why he keeps telling me that power comes from the breath."

"At the same time, remember that Chi is burned when you create fire, but for fire to come out of your fist or legs, the burnt Chi must pass through your limbs."

Raizu pushed the boulder away, rolling it to the side and revealing a tunnel through the dirt.

"No way," Zuko couldn't help saying.

"Come on in then," Raizu walked in and lit a flame in front of him to light the way. "And watch your step."

"How long have you been hiding this place?" Azula ran her hand along the wall, letting her nails catch on the surface. The walls were smooth in most places, though there were some gaps here and there.

"A while," his brother's voice echoed from further ahead.

"You made this tile-work yourself." Azula said, not asked.

"Flames of rage burn the hottest. With a little bit of mud and a whole lot of patience, you can make a castle."

The tunnel eventually led to a hollowed-out room, also coated with the hand-made tile work based on how the light hit the walls. There was a high ceiling, and the air was a little damp. Zuko smelled a bit of the sea nearby, but it was faint and overpowered by the musty smell of mold. The room must have been a little bigger than his own room in the palace.

"Since we'll be leaving the palace sooner or later, I need to get all my papers out from here. And well, I'm not really willing to let go of my air of mystery just yet. At least not to everyone."

"You have your own personal records room?!" Lu Ten said.

"So this is where you disappear to." Azula shook her head. "Wait, is this why your writing is lizard scratch?"

Raizu turned back to them. "Are you implying that I just rehash old things I've already written down before and make it look like I wrote all that down just recently?"

"You said so yourself?" Lu Ten said.

"Actually no, I copy my old notes onto fresh new sheets. This place is not very good for keeping paper safe. Wax and pots can only go so far, I'm afraid."

"Oh, so your writing really is just lizard scratch," Azula said.

"I prefer to call it, dragon script."

"Sure, keep telling yourself that, Raizu." Azula punched him in the arm again. "I can't believe you had this place all to yourself for so long."

"In my defense, I never planned on telling anyone."

She punched him again.

"But grandpa will need the rest of my wisdom if he's going to be sending us away for some time."

"When did you learn to write again?" Lu Ten asked.

"Two," Azula answered. "And his writing never got better since."

"Hey, pencils helped."

"No they didn't," Zuko couldn't take his image of Raizu always telling the truth getting tarnished by such blatant lies. But then, it wasn't technically lying if he believed he were telling the truth, now was it? He shook his head. This was not a line of thought he wanted to go into in a hidden cave his mother didn't know about and apparently his younger brother had kept secret possibly for as long as he'd been writing.

"Well, these records won't move themselves." Raizu passed Lu Ten a jar almost as large as his cousin. "Strengthening is like fire bending without letting out the fire. Move your Chi as you move and you'll be just fine."

Lu Ten received the jar and sank to his knees. "Why are these so heavy?"

Raizu shrugged. "I am not blessed with skill for pottery making, also I had to add some coal to the jars just in case water got in through the lid."

"You owe me for this," Azula said.

"I'll teach you lightning?"

"We'll all learn that eventually. No deal."

"How about I teach you instead how we didn't encounter any guards?"

"Deal," Azula agreed. She picked up a jar on her own just fine. "And how many jars do you have have?"

"Twenty-two."

It took them another four trips back and forth, all the while avoiding any curious gazes from anyone in the palace and left the jars in Raizu's room. He and Lu Ten took some time to get used to using inner fire, and like always, Azula picked it up the fastest. Even with inner fire though, those four trips still exhausted him by a lot—likely twice so because he was using up both his strength and Chi.

Zuko was starting to think his brother had always been the way he was even before the incident with Sephiroth. The people in court weren't wrong that he was touched by a spirit, they just had the wrong name. Not that Zuko could blame them. His brother's hoard of knowledge was very Wan Shi Tong of him. And he was sure such a display would have made that spirit proud.

Zuko also wondered how Raizu would feel about ever visiting the famed library. How much of what his brother knew was already there and how much of that brilliance was Raizu himself? Which brought his focus back to the matter at hand. His brother had been hoarding knowledge for the longest time and slowly releasing them to his grandfather and the rest of them at the palace. Were the ones that earned him a favor with grandfather already from his best ideas? Or were they just another couple of sheets in the pots?

Apparently, his brother was the stuff of proverbs now.

And apparently, his already so amazing brother was also at the mercy of those same spirits, just like his grandfather and father had been. And apparently Zuko and the rest of his people owed the Avatar an apology—the War was a very good reason for one—but that their great grandfather Sozin apparently left Avatar Roku to die kind of weighed the scales against them by a lot.

And since the Avatar was the bridge between humans and the spirits, was the Avatar then more powerful than the spirits? But if that were true, then how did Avatar Roku die in the first place? Zuko decided it was better to just ask. Ask and learn everything he could so his uncle wouldn't have to run the fire nation all alone like his grandfather had.

Zuko promised things would be better the next time.