Daughter of Hate

by Blutus Mindpretzel

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

26. Chapter 26

AN: So, quick heads up, though hopefully this won't even wind up being relevant: I'm going on vacation starting this Saturday for about a week, and my internal clock is going to be a little wacked up as such. That being said, I fully intend to keep working on Chapter 27 while I'm away and will hopefully still be able to upload as per standard by Thursday, but it might be a little later then around when it usually is released, so sorry about that ahead of time. After 27, I'll be back on a normal schedule and there shouldn't be any worries going forward from there.

Anyhoo, enough of that; thanks so much everybody for leaving the feedback and reviews, getting to hear from you guys is something I really can't describe in how special it is for me as an author. Hope you all are having an awesome week, and really hope you enjoy the chapter!

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Chapter 26: Painful Healing

Kakashi slowly moved through the pub, doing his best to not attract anyone's eyes as his uncommon attire had managed of him thus far. It was strange having a different sort of concern over being noticed; often when he was moving about from Konoha back in his own world, there had been the constant fear of being recognized when he was on more temperamental and sensitive missions. In this instance, it was rather because of his appearance rather than who he was that was causing other patrons of the establishment to glance his way with furrowed brow. None did more than that however, and he did his best to keep his eye to himself.

As the barkeep had said, she was sitting in a booth very near the back, someplace he might very well have missed had he not been pointed directly to it. She had her eyes closed as her head drifted softly and slowly back and forth to the sounds that the musicians playing near the large fireplace in the center of the bar were making. Kakashi couldn't tell if that was because she was enjoying the music or if it was due to the nearly empty flagon in front of her.

He stopped in front of her booth and one of her eyes opened lazily.

"Like something you see?" she asked flatly and Kakashi shrugged. Her voice was low and silky, but there was a jagged edge that spoke to years of her craft.

"One eye definitely makes me appreciate the beautiful things in life more than I used to," he replied.

She smirked humorlessly.

"Nice."

Sighing, she straightened and leaned forward, her elbows propping against the wooden table as she eyed him up and down; Kakashi supposed that he hadn't been lying, for she truly was quite beautiful.

"I'm not in the mood for a fling tonight, honey," she said wearily. "And even if I was, I promise you'd have to do better than that."

"Well, fortunately, that's not why I'm here," Kakashi responded and sat down across from her in the booth. She raised an eyebrow at his presumption, but he was hoping someone like her would appreciate him being straightforward. "I'm here for your services."

Her eyes drifted down to her flagon which she turned about lazily on the table.

"And what is it you think you know about me that makes you think I have some service I can offer you?"

Kakashi glanced quickly back the way he had come, old habits dictating he looked about for anyone who might have potentially followed him.

"I went down to the local bounty hunter's guild here in this little city," he said. This was partially true; when he had headed east after separating from Sasuke and his group, he had been aiming for the coast of the Fire Nation to try and scrounge up at least a bit of the overall atmosphere that the commonfolk of the nation had. Knowing whether or not the spirit invasion was common knowledge across the board was very important to his mission. But upon seeing the sign for a bounty hunting commune, he had decided to snoop further; he had a series of his own jutsu that he hoped to be able to use when he reached Ba Sing Se, but when he was told by a guildmember that the most talented shirshu trainer alive was in the city, he had gone to look into it. In the case that his techniques might potentially fail him, a master tracker and hunter with a beast that could supposedly track the barest scent a continent away would be as good a backup plan as he could manage.

"I was told of a bounty hunter with a shirshu who was the best in the business while I was there," he continued. "I believe you're that woman, and I would like to hire your services."

She flicked her eyebrow at him again and leaned back, draining her flagon as she did.

"Sorry, but I'll have to disappoint you there."

"You are June, correct?" he pressed and she chuckled.

"Correct," she said. "But I'm just taking a break tonight from the hunt I'm already on."

"Could you be persuaded to put this hunt on hold?" Kakashi tried and she gave him a look.

"It would have to be quite the quarry for me to even think twice about something like that," she replied. "I'm after the biggest fish in the sea right now, as far as bounty hunting is concerned."

"Oh, and who might that be?"

The expression she regarded him with then was almost pitying.

"You must be out of the loop, stranger. Sasuke Uchiha, heard of him? Demon of a young guy with these alien red eyes and powers to match a god?"

Of course.

"I have."

She nodded matter-of-factly.

"There you go. He's got the whole damn world looking for him, but I aim to be the one to bring him in."

That answered half of Kakashi's question right there, but he still needed the other piece.

"What about the spirit invasion? That doesn't put a hold on things?" he decided to ask out of the blue and June rolled her eyes at him.

"Don't tell me you're believing that rumor too. Couple of high off their ass merchants come rolling through town screaming about Ba Sing Se getting overrun, and we're just supposed to believe that? You've got bigger problems then hiring me if you're on board with that story."

Kakashi took a couple seconds to quickly mull this over. To know that reaches of these Nations weren't all yet aware of what had happened in Ba Sing Se told him that at least for the time being, maybe Sasuke and his company would be able to take advantage of that, assuming they hadn't already been tracked down. Kakashi was just a hop and a skip from Earth Nation territory at this point, and the timing for him might very well work out, all things considered.

He was now facing three options, however: firstly, he could attempt a genjutsu of sorts on June and hope that he could maintain control of her long enough to utilize her skills if need be. This posed several problems however. Kakashi's greatest strength had never been genjutsu, and with the strange way that it felt to use his chakra in this world, he wasn't sure he would be able to maintain it for what could very well wind up being many days.

The second option was to tell her the truth. Tell her everything he knew about Sasuke and what he knew about Madara and see if that appealed to her. But assuming that she would either laugh him off as crazy, call him a deluded fool, or both, he didn't like that option much either.

That left the third option, which he opted for.

"Well, you might be very well in luck, I'm also on the hunt for Sasuke," he lied, lacing his fingers on the tabletop. June gave him a dry look over it.

"And I'm not looking for partners."

"You don't understand," Kakashi continued. "I need to find Sasuke to regain something he took from me. Should we find him, the bounty is all yours once I reclaim my possession."

This likely was rather odd sounding and it certainly seemed to pique June's interest, at least in passing.

"What kind of possession are we talking about?" she asked, and even just a single inquisition on the matter was enough to encourage him on. He knew that doing what he was about to was a bit of a colossal risk, but, after making sure that his back was to any other prying eyes in the tavern, he reached to his face and pulled up his headband to reveal his Sharingan.

"You mentioned Sasuke and his red alien eyes. Something like this?"

To her credit, June didn't react as badly as he might have expected. Still, her fingers clenched intensely and she jerked sharply where she sat, her dark red lips tightening into a focused line.

"What are you?" she asked quietly as he casually covered his eye back up. "Are you someone like him?"

"I should have two eyes like this one," Kakashi said without answering either of her questions. It was much easier to lie about this when she had no way of verifying anything about his story. "I intend to take back the one he stole from me."

"He took your eye?" June repeated back as a question and Kakashi nodded. She seemed to have sobered up a fair bit as she leaned back against the booth, her eyes never leaving him, even as he could tell her mind was running at a mile a second.

"Alright, stranger," she finally said slowly after nearly a minute. "Say I believe you and that freakish eye you have there. What good does teaming up with you do for me?"

Kakashi looked around again to see if anyone was paying any bit of attention to them before responding.

"The guild member said that a shirshu is an incredible animal when it comes to tracking. They said that, given a being of enough power, it can pick up a scent just from them having been in a certain area."

"That's been my strategy so far," June replied curtly. "Covering as much ground as I can and hoping that Nyla is able to catch a whiff of him just from location alone."

"Well, what if I told you that I know a location where Sasuke has been, to the span of a couple hundred yards?" Kakashi asked, finally dropping his bait. It was as good an offer as he could have made, and if what he had been informed about shirshus was true, picking up the scent of someone powerful would be enough and neither June nor her animal would know who they were actually helping him track.

June continued to stare at him, drumming her fingers slowly on the table. It was impossible to tell what she was thinking and Kakashi could tell that she was trying to figure if this wasn't too good to be true, and if taking him up on this was worth her time to try. Finally, she slammed her hands rather abruptly on the table and stood, moving away from the booth. Kakashi watched as she strode a few paces away from him before stopping and half-turning her head to look back at him.

"Noon. Out back. Be there."

---

Mai's heart wasn't in it. It would never be in something like this and it was likely she would never acted on such a thing on her own, but somehow Suki's words had reached a place inside her she had been avoiding for so long. As they walked quickly towards the palace as the night dwindled to its end, she thought back to her words to Katara and tried to make herself believe them.

I hate her. How can I not?

With everything that Azula had done, there was no reason for her to feel any reservations for being willing to go through with this. Mai had watched her father order the family's servants to put down a rabid dog that had quietly roamed the streets of the Fire Nation for years, getting by on the scraps it could find, keeping to itself until it reached a point where it began to show dangerous signs and nearly took off Zuko's hand one day when he had tried to feed it. Azula was no different just then from that rabid dog, a quiet threat that had been allowed to lurk until its condition and mentality made its danger impossible to ignore. This was who Azula was, what Mai had stood by and watched her become as they had grown from girls into women, a monstrous entity of envy, possessiveness and hunger over power. It was impossible not to feel some guilt and anger that she and others hadn't done anything to keep her fragile state as a girl from exacerbating into what it had become, to where ending her was the best sense from a logical standpoint.

And so Mai had to keep fighting down the urges that kept rising within her, to stop Suki and Katara, and suggest that there had to be a better course of action.

She didn't act on these thoughts of course; Mai had done her best to grow into a person whose mind was distinctly rooted in rational thought. And it was not even because of this woman she had become that kept her from trying to stop this march towards Azula, nor the thoughts of all the awful things that the princess had done over the years, the way she had continued to abuse her position to take Mai and Ty Lee on these sadistic power trips that would have earned anyone else the death penalty multiple times over were these things to ever come out, the way she had groomed her daughter into obsessing over power and control just as she was, the way that she had tried to keep such a stranglehold on Ty Lee even as the three of them had started to grow further apart… though even Mai could never have guessed that their relationship was anything like what she now knew it to be.

That was why she had no issue with continuing to walk towards where she knew Azula was waiting for them. Because of Ty Lee.

Or more accurately, what she had seen had been done to Ty Lee.

It was anyone's guess how long Azula had been abusing her, or the severity of such, but what Mai had seen was enough to know that this was something she would never allow to continue. She could live with Ty Lee's hate even though she knew it would hurt, but now knowing exactly how deep her relationship with Azula went gave Mai no reservations about shouldering that. It hurt her just as badly as seeing the injury to hear how desperately Ty Lee had tried to defend the princess.

Part of Mai wondered if she shouldn't be the one to carry out the act herself. When Suki had approached her first, she had immediately ensured Mai that she could be the one to actually do the deed, but Mai somehow was having trouble imagining it being done by anyone other than herself.

"Wait," Katara said and Mai blinked back into the real world as the threesome came to a stop at the foot of the stairs that would lead up to the courtyard just before the palace. As Suki looked at the waterbender inquisitively, Katara pointed around towards the right of the palace.

"There's a pathway nestled against the side of the palace that leads directly down into the lower levels, including the holding cells which is definitely where they would have taken Azula," she explained. "If we want to attract as little attention as possible, we'll want to go that way."

"Works for me," Suki said curtly and started walking that way with Katara just behind her, leaving Mai to fall in last. It struck her then just how close they were to actually being face to face with Azula, and a violent twinge passed through Mai as they walked around the side of the palace, cast in its shadow.

She couldn't figure if she would rather Azula be sleeping or awake. Part of her knew that asleep, the deed would be a good deal easier both in respect to actually killing her and posing the least risk to the three of them. On the other hand, she was finding with every step she took that she had so much she wanted to say to the princess. Sadness, anger, resentment, so many words that she wanted to voice to maybe just see something, some last bit of regret from Azula. It might have been as foolish a wish as anything could have been as Mai truly didn't know if there was a single piece left in Azula that would be able to wrap her head around the gravity of what she had become and what she had done to the people who cared most about her. But she felt she owed it to both Azula and herself even just to try. She kept it to herself as she knew that Suki would immediately take issue with something like that and she didn't want to raise the tension of their small group even more than it already was. Both Katara and Suki were conducting themselves with a fair bit of self-control, but Mai could tell that the both of them were on a razor thin edge, and she didn't dare test that.

As they drew nearer to the secluded entrance, Mai tried to think of thoughts of Azula that weren't so rooted in fury and resentment, and found there were plenty to be found. She remembered the time they had spent as kids, how angry she would get when Azula and Ty Lee would poke fun at her and Zuko as they had dealt with their early feelings of crushing on one another, she remembered the time she, Azula and Ty Lee had spent in the academy, diving into different fields of study that interested them and sparring in the evenings in martial arts where Mai had begun her affinity with the blade. She remembered how she had felt genuinely happy deep down when Azula had first come to her and asked her to join her in the hunt for the Avatar, and she remembered how even with as miserable as it had often been, traveling with her and Ty Lee all across the Four Nations had been one of the most fulfilling experiences she had experienced. Even the trip to Ember Island which had been mostly a disaster on paper was something she had found she quite enjoyed when looking back on it.

That was all so long ago…

What had been the tipping point? What had been that breaking moment where Azula's toxic personality had devolved into what Mai could only describe as genuine evil? Where her manipulation, and obsessiveness, and controlling nature, and all else that she had grown into had taken a deep dive into a much darker place?

Mai nearly laughed aloud as they walked, what surely would have been a strange sound to the silent intensity that they were moving with. She knew damn well what had been the cause, the two-headed spear that had completely shattered Azula's perspective of the world and rebuilt it again in a quiet and crazed frenzy.

Her father forsaking her… and meeting Sasuke.

Though she knew that Ursa couldn't truly be blamed for not being a part of their lives for so long, it was difficult not to resent there for not being there for her daughter. Maybe, just perhaps, if she had been there when Azula had been forced to flee her home with Mai and Ty Lee at her side, having her mother there would have been able to keep her mind from developing so sickly around Sasuke. The lack of purpose that came from Ozai's decision to kill her for the use of his ritual which had then become nothing short of obsession when she had seen Sasuke. Mai could never hope to even so much as guess all of what she felt for Sasuke, but she remembered how she had acted back then and now that she knew Azula had raped him… she knew obsession might even have been too soft a word.

As the gate came into view, Mai felt anxiety run hot through her veins.

Let her go… just let her go.

She repeated the words over and over in her head as Katara gently waved her and Suki behind her as she approached the single guard who was leaning against the hall beside the gated door. It was clear that this position rarely saw any sort of action because he seemed to be almost dozing off until he saw the three of them approaching and straightened stiff as a board immediately. He clearly recognized Katara and seemed to almost start sweating at the mere sight of her.

"Master Katara!" he stuttered out by way of greeting and bowed hurriedly. "How can I help you?"

"Our friend was checked into one of your cells for her own safety, for fear she was having some difficulties with her general coherence," Katara said briskly. It was clear that she had been figuring what best to say since they had started on their way over and to Mai's ears, there was nothing in her voice to suggest the actual manner of their visit. "We would like to check up on her."

"You mean Princess Azula?" the guard asked and Katara nodded. For a moment, he seemed to almost quiver in his boots as he looked from Katara to both Suki and Mai who were looking at him just as intensely.

"I would certainly like to comply, but—" he started before Suki nearly bit his head off.

"You're not going to let us in to see our friend?!" she demanded and the guard seemed to shrink, waving his hands frantically.

"No, no, no, you can certainly come inside if you'd like! It's just that—"

"The princess has been moved," came a female and much more controlled sounding voice. Mai looked on as the gate was opened to reveal a strongly built and toned woman with reddish-brown hair and intense, bright eyes. It took her a moment to recognize Lorna; Mai had encountered her twice on diplomatic trips north and her overall distrust of anyone even remotely related to the Fire Nation couldn't have been any more pronounced. Though she had done her best to be as understanding as she could of those people who resented the Fire Nation for the way, Mai had found herself growing irked with people like Lorna who still held such open and abrasive distrust and dislike. Her Nation had spent the last decade paying excessive reparations and helping develop infrastructure in both the Water and Fire Nations, and yet there were still individuals who didn't seem to so much as even consider allowing for forward progress.

"Moved where?!" Suki shouted and Lorna gave her a look with a wrinkled nose.

"I'm not at liberty to say," she replied coldly and as Suki swelled in anger, the guard behind Lorna quickly started to scoot to the side as if to get out a potential danger zone. It was Katara however who stepped forward, and got nearly nose to nose with Lorna.

"Not at liberty to say because you don't know, or you won't tell us?" she quietly asked.

"Orders from above," Lorna replied, not looking at all intimidated by Katara's advance. "If you want answers, go find your friend, Sasuke, he's the one that came by and had her moved again."

Suki swore violently and turned away; Katara narrowed her eyes slightly and crossed her arms, her voice drenched with menace.

"Princess Azula is very potentially a violent threat," she said evenly, her calm voice not matching the anger flashing in her eyes. "As her companions, we have a right to know where she's been taken."

Lorna gave a slight sneer, a disgusted look passing over her face.

"Don't mistake this as me giving a rat's ass about Azula, I'd sooner have her executed than jailed," she snapped. "But you won't be getting any more out of me. Feel free to head inside and look around, but the guard here doesn't know, and I'm under orders not to tell anyone, including you."

Seeming more than happy to take Lorna up on that challenge, Suki marched past, storming into the lower levels of the palace, no doubt to tear open every door to try and find Azula. Katara stayed where she was, continuing to glare furiously ahead.

"You have no right, even if you've been ordered!" she said, her voice raising in volume. "We had her moved here earlier tonight, and we need to see her!"

"We can sit here and shoot back and forth all night," Lorna growled. "But even though the criminal who's been bizarrely pardoned by the chief was the one who moved her, I cannot and will not say."

The two women continued to raise their voices to the point of shouting at one another, but Mai tuned them out as she stepped back, leaning against the marble railing that edged around the outside of the palace grounds. She knew she likely should head in after Suki and make sure she wasn't getting into more trouble than the fruitless search would be worth, but she needed a second to herself. It was clear that Suki and Katara were both livid at this turn of events, but as she supported herself against the railing, all Mai could focus on was how much she hated herself then for feeling relief.

---

Even from as high up as he was on the terrace, Sasuke could hear Katara's distant voice echoing up towards him in the quiet still of the morning, far off below where he was.

"It would seem she's found out what you've done," Chief Tangith said from behind him and Sasuke turned to see him offering a glass. He accepted it and glanced at its contents; a quick sniff told him the base of the liquid and he gave the chief a glance.

"This early?"

Tangith shrugged.

"My guess is that you need it. Looks like you've had a rough enough night already, and probably are in for a good bit more."

As he remembered his plan, Sasuke sighed and drained the glass before looking out towards the pink horizon moodily.

"Fair point."

Seeming to shift uncomfortably a moment, Tangith gestured to Sasuke's midsection.

"Are you sure I can't have one of medical waterbenders give you a look over? You really seemed to have taken quite a blow."

Looking down at himself, Sasuke ran his hand over the gash in his shirt that had been torn by Azula's passage through his body to gingerly touch where his body was still healing. At the time right after she had punched a hole through him, he had honestly expected to need to turn to Katara for help, but the medical jutsu he had used seemed to be working, even if it was likely consuming an excess more chakra due to his clumsiness with the ability. His internal organs had been his first priority and it had hurt quite badly even just to heal the damage that had been done to them, but somewhat fortunately, the heat from Azula's hand that she had pierced him with had cauterized the wound enough that he hadn't lost nearly as much blood or tissue as he might have otherwise. Still, the drain on his chakra was annoyingly noticeable and Sasuke cursed himself internally for not practicing it more over the years. Sakura would surely have been able to handle it with a great deal less and Sasuke supposed he should have been grateful that his body held such vast stores of it by his age.

Sakura…

Her name resounded again in his head and he felt a rush of nostalgia that was impossible to avoid. He wondered where she was, and if she had long forgotten about him; there were many things he had wanted to ask Kakashi, and that was one of them.

When he gets back, I will.

"No, that's alright, thank you," he replied. "It looked much worse even just hours ago, my body just needs more time to heal."

Tangith didn't say anything immediately, but shook his head slowly as he looked on transfixed at the wound just under Sasuke's ribs.

"You're quite the bizarre being, Sasuke," he finally remarked. "Part of me wishes I could have seen what you were able to do all those years ago at the end of the war. I heard from General Ungo and Lorna that it was quite the sight."

Sasuke looked at him in mild surprise.

"Lorna was in Ba Sing Se on the last day of the war?"

Tangith joined him against the railing, his tired eyes seeming to admire the beauty of the sky as it paled further and the sun neared the horizon. Below them, Katara's voice had faded away and Sasuke hoped she had left back for the complex.

"That was mere months before she learned of her true heritage and returned to us here in the north. But yes, she was part of a small group of Dai Lee whom opted to assist in the evacuation and defense effort of the city; I was appalled and disgusted when I heard of the state of leadership in Ba Sing Se during Ozai's attack, but the army led by Gokan stood strong, and Lorna and several of her own nobly made their own stand. She made it to the base of the wall just after it collapsed and was tasked with making sure no Fire Nation advance forces snuck past the defensive line and made it into the city. She speaks rarely of that day, but your exploits always come up when she does."

Sasuke would never have guessed that Lorna had so much as seen his face before yesterday, and he tried to imagine what she would have looked like ten years ago, watching from a distance as he engaged Obito and took on Ozai's forces.

No wonder she's distrustful of me.

Behind them, one of Tangith's aides stepped out onto the veranda and gave a low bow before straightening; Sasuke noticed how her eyes kept flicking almost nervously towards him.

"Sir, the arrangements have been handled. They're ready at the northwest entrance."

The chief nodded and she bowed again before retreating back inside. Tangith sighed, seeming almost even more tired then before but Sasuke could hear the reserved curiosity in his voice when he spoke again.

"That's yours," he said. "You're all set to go whenever you're ready."

Sasuke pushed away, feeling his own curiosity come on.

"Where and what is the place?" he asked and the chief gave another shrug.

"Nothing special, but that is what you asked for: we have checkpoint based huts set up along the northern edges of our territory. We have them positioned for soldiers to regularly take shifts during storm season, though we wouldn't regularly post them until about a month from now when that actually begins, in order to get a head start on advancing fronts. As such, none of them are occupied at present, and they are little more than small cabins with a single bedroom and living space, but per your request, that sounds like what you would be looking for."

Sasuke nodded.

"Indeed it is, that sounds perfect."

Another short silence followed and he knew that the chief was trying to decide whether or not to ask what his plan was, but he inevitably remained silent and looked back out to where the sun was glinting up over the horizon as he sipped his own drink. Sasuke realized something rather odd and asked, "You said storm fronts? From the north?"

Tangith nodded knowingly.

"It certainly doesn't sound like it makes much sense, but we have a period of about a half year where we can expect full on thunderstorms with hail that we have to prepare for. Further north, the weather is much more likely to consist of that and it's one of the many reasons why we don't venture there."

He smirked.

"Hell, maybe they're something to do with this Koloss fellow that you're looking for."

Sasuke smiled as well, but there was little humor in it; there was too much on his mind for him to feel any real amusement. In truth, he was tired, he was irritated, he was angry, and he just wanted to lay down and sleep, but he didn't have time for that just yet, and might not for a while still.

"Maybe."

"I'll have my scholars get to work the moment they return, assuming that you're not back by then," Tangith said. "You said you rather hope for your… situation to not last longer than a day, but I'll ensure they're working here in the meantime."

"I appreciate that," Sasuke said. He didn't actually know how long his task was going to last him, but he also didn't want the chief thinking that he was going to be gone too long. There was a very tangible feeling of dread in his gut right near where a hole had been torn through him and he knew that he very much didn't want to do this. There was a much easier solution, one that it sounded like had come to Katara and whoever else had accompanied her to the palace, but Sasuke couldn't reach a point where he could even consider it.

I have to try.

"I'd better get going," he said with a sigh of finality, and bowed to the chief. "I thank you very much for your assistance with this whole matter and am very sorry for having you deal with this so early in the day."

Tangith waved a hand dismissively.

"One of the more tame things I've had to deal with in recent days, trust me; I had more of a headache trying to rein in Lorna and the rest of my head staff when I said I was allowing you and your companions asylum here in the capital."

He finished his drink and gave a short nod, and Sasuke could tell he was still resisting the urge to further inquire as to his situation.

"Best of luck," was all he said and Sasuke thanked him again before exiting the veranda and heading back inside the palace.

Frankly, he just wanted to turn around and head back down the staircase, through the palace's main hall and head back down the massive front steps to walk back to the complex. There, he could fall asleep, preferably in Ursa's arms if she was willing, and Sasuke could probably let himself pass out for a whole day. But he had committed to this course, and he was not at all about to back down now.

He clenched his fists at his side as he approached Tangith's aide who bowed shakily to him and nervously asked him to follow her. Though he wanted to be able to let go of his anger, he wondered if it might not be exactly what was keeping him remotely alert just then. Anger at Azula, anger at Ty Lee, anger at Kyoshi, and of course, anger, blistering and searing anger, at himself.

They reached the northwest side of the palace and Sasuke saw a large gate drawn up to reveal a snowcovered road that led out towards the mountains behind the capital. A sleigh style carriage was just inside the gate surrounded by about a dozen soldiers who were eying the inside of it with an overall aura of interest, curiosity and worry. As he approached, Sasuke could hear bits of what was being said; with their backs to him, they seemed to be oblivious to his approach.

"…I can't believe we've got her, just sitting there…"

"You know, my older cousin was in the west isles a year or so before the war ended… she showed up when she couldn't have been older than fifteen and completely annihilated him and his platoon."

"And you don't want to put her down for that?"

"Never said I didn't."

"I heard she was a monster, but as a kid, I can't imagine someone being that powerful."

"Believe it, I'm not the only one who lost family to her when she was just a teenager."

"I hate how she's looking at us, I really don't know why we don't just kill her. We all know what she's done…"

There was no reason that Sasuke should have felt any indignation on Azula's part, and he supposed he rather didn't, but with what he needed to do, he didn't like the way they were staring into the carriage.

"I'll take it from here," he called out and deep down, he was pleased to see them all jump and whirl about as Tangith's aide stopped walking alongside him and let him close the distance on his own. It was clear that they were just as nervous about him as they were about Azula and they gave him a wide berth as he approached. Sasuke reached the small door to the carriage and locked eyes with who would be his solitary companion on this journey.

Azula was sitting in the carriage, half turned where she sat; her body was fully bound by leather restraints and she had a gag in her mouth as she glared unblinkingly towards the door. When her eyes fell on him, her expression softened immediately and she made to sit up, but he put a hand on her shoulder and forced her back against her own seat as he took his. Closing the door without any further fanfare, he punched the roof of their transport twice.

"Let's go."

Two waterbenders climbed to the front of the carriage and began to usher to along and within moments, they were out of the gate behind the palace and heading along the path towards where Tangith had informed Sasuke he would be able to have some privacy. He hadn't actually asked how long the trip would take via this carriage, but he wouldn't have dared try and get some shut eye with the only other occupant than himself being Azula.

Squirming slightly, Azula seemed to be trying to work the gag free from her mouth with little success and Sasuke sighed. He would have thought he would have learned his lesson by now on letting her get her venomous words in his ears, but in truth, he knew that nothing she could say would change their course, nor would they deter him from the path he had chosen. Reaching across, he yanked it from her mouth and dropped it to the floor before leaning back in his seat and continuing to watch her. Azula coughed briefly before clearing her throat and straightening, shaking her hair aside as though trying to readopt a regal look and air about herself which seemed rather hard being bound as she was. Still, she contrasted his slouched demeanor with a straight back and perfect posture, smiling radiantly at him as she did.

"I knew you would come for me. I assume that Suki, or Aang, or one of those self-righteous clowns got to me after I mistakenly struck you, but I knew when I woke up in that cell that you would come."

She looked about eagerly.

"Is this our escape? You're pretending to be escorting me somewhere, perhaps somewhere more secluded, before we kill the waterbenders and make our getaway?"

Her smile faltered for just a moment as something else seemed to occur to her.

"What about Soza?"

Sasuke was struck with the smallest tinge of hope as he noted the concern flickering in her voice. He had known that Azula had genuine feelings of care for her daughter, but to hear them expressed to him in private, no essence of a façade, was quietly reassuring to him.

"Don't worry," he said quietly. "She'll be fine. You and I, we're just… we need to take some time away from the others I think."

Azula released a sigh of pure relief and tilted her head back.

"I couldn't possibly agree with you more. I know you have reservations about removing the more… problematic members of the group, but I'm sure we can figure something out, just the two of us."

As she seemed to properly wrap her head around the fact that it was actually just the two of them, it almost looked as though she was quivering in excitement. She leaned forward, her eyes filled with emotion and purpose.

"Sasuke, please let me take this time to apologize… for everything, for lying to you, for hurting you, for bearing your child without your knowledge… I just wanted us to be able to be happy together. I know even back then you had feelings for me, and I know you have them now."

Sasuke, who had been staring at her emotionlessly since she had started the apology that he didn't know whether or not to believe, raised an eyebrow at her latter words.

"What makes you say that?"

Somehow, she continued to smile at him as she replied, though her words briefly dipped in cadence.

"Because you would have killed me to save yourself the trouble if you didn't."

Her read was about perfect and Sasuke tried to remain expressionless. He hated that she was able to get under his skin and manage such tells on him that he even felt he was able to hide somewhat well from Ursa. He watched as she slightly inclined her chin and her smile widened, her eyes dancing with a challenging fire. Knowing he couldn't trust himself to take the bait, Sasuke looked away from her and out the window to look at the hills of snow and ice pass them by as they traveled. He could re-gag her, but there was something about knowing whether or not she'd obey a command from him.

"Azula, shut up for a while," he muttered softly as he rested his head against the side of the carriage. It was easy to tell that this wasn't an easy order for Azula to follow since, bound as she was, she couldn't try and lay her hands on him and use her seductive touch to her advantage, but she complied.

As they continued north, Sasuke knew that her eyes never left him, no doubt looking him up and down while who knew exactly what dark thoughts were passing through her head, her smile surely never wavering.

---

Ursa heard Katara coming before she even heard the word snapped at her from across the dining room.

"You!"

Sighing, Ursa turned somewhat lethargically to face the angry face of the waterbender. Stupidly, she had thought that coming down to get her breakfast that early in the morning would allow her to do so in quiet and peace, but she should have guessed that things wouldn't have panned out that way. She hadn't gotten a great deal of sleep considering the night they had and she imagined just about everyone else was sleeping, but as she looked at Katara who was flanked by Suki and Mai, she could tell that the three women had also been awake for a decent period of time and based on their matching angry expressions, this was not about to be a pleasant conversation.

"Can I help you girls?" Ursa asked wearily; she really shouldn't have said something mildly condescending like that, but she was feeling somewhat annoyed at this intrusion as it was and it was with effort that she hadn't said something even more unnecessarily rude. It was still enough however to cause Katara to puff up a touch more as she stopped a few feet in front of Ursa, her lips a tight and aggressive line.

"Where are they?!" she snarled, wasting no time. Ursa looked at her tiredly and nearly heard herself play dumb before she realized that would only waste more time and she wasn't frightened of this self-important girl who had barked far more often then she had bitten to her eyes.

"I don't know," she said, crossing her arms. "He wouldn't tell me."

Ursa took a quick moment to look from Katara's restrained anger to Suki and Mai, as she wanted to gauge better perhaps what this might all be about. The Kyoshi Warrior looked equally as upset as Katara, perhaps even more so, but she was fighting hard to keep it under control. Mai on the other hand was looking both deeply aggravated and yet slightly uncomfortable. It didn't take Ursa long to piece together where they had been and why.

"Why were you looking for them?" she asked anyway, curious if they would be honest with her. But even with how angry Suki and Katara looked, both of them seemed to hesitate on responding to this and she supposed she could guess why; it made sense that even in their infuriated states they wouldn't be willing to admit that they had been looking to murder her daughter.

Strangely enough, it was the uneasy looking Mai who gave her a response even if it wasn't entirely truthful.

"Ursa, you know that Azula is dangerous. We have to make sure that she can't hurt anyone the way she hurt Ty."

Ursa couldn't have agreed more, but she knew deep down that no matter the circumstances, no matter the cost, she could never condone what she knew the three of them had likely been looking to do. It hurt terribly to think that Mai had been willing to go through with it after how many years Azula and her had known one another. But Ursa knew that Mai was just as close with Ty Lee if not closer and she didn't dare try and judge Mai for coming to the conclusion she had.

"What do you expect me to say?" Ursa asked, looking back to regard the three of them as a whole. "To tell you where my daughter is so you can find her and kill her?"

Her bluntness seemed to once again slightly cow Katara and Suki, with Mai looking away towards the ground, not even trying to hide the shame on her face.

"He came to see you then?" Suki asked in a low tone and Ursa glared at her.

"Yes, he did, and he didn't tell me a thing, other than that he had a plan."

Suki scoffed, looking away and Ursa felt herself growing more angry.

"I don't care if you three don't trust him, but I'm putting my faith in him. I will never be able to sanction my daughter's death, no matter her deeds, and I am more than willing to give Sasuke a chance to make things right."

She could see the overall expressions shift to confusion as they took in what she had said and Ursa immediately wondered if she had gone too far in what she had said.

"Are you kidding me?" Katara managed to get out, her face twisted in disbelief. "Sasuke doesn't know how to handle Azula! He said it himself, he let her manipulate him while he ignored her to the point that she raped a daughter from him after—"

If Katara thought that was going to fly, throwing that in Ursa's face as she was, she was sorely mistaken.

Getting right up face to face with the waterbender, Ursa tried to keep her voice even, but she could hear it shaking.

"I promise you, Katara, I don't need to be reminded of the sins my daughter has committed. If you think my shame and horror over those facts doesn't destroy my soul piece by piece every day before rebuilding it to crush it again, you could not be more wrong. But I will not… I cannot give up on her if there is even the smallest chance that things can be changed for the better. Because I will always love her."

She knew that explaining how this felt as a mother would be impossible to relay, but the words spilled out of her anyway. To her credit, Katara didn't back down at her sharp words and only stared at her for a long moment before even daring to reply.

"The same way you love Sasuke?" she asked quietly and Ursa felt her body tense harshly. Mai looked over swiftly at the words, and even Suki seemed to realize this might have been overstepping. Ursa narrowed her eyes as she glared harshly back at Katara.

"What… exactly… do you mean by that?" she managed to ask in a voice that was just above a hiss. It was difficult to keep still as she found she genuinely wanted to strike the young woman for what she was implying, but she managed to refrain as Suki stepped forward and put an arm around Katara, pulling her back.

"Katara, come on," she said in a dull, defeated voice. For a moment, it looked like Katara had more to say, but she voiced nothing further as she allowed Suki to lead her from the dining area and it was only near the door did she take her eyes away from Ursa's. As the door swung shut behind them, Ursa released a shaking exhale as she leaned against a table and gripped the edges of it tightly. Mai, who hadn't moved, was quiet for a long while before speaking.

"I'm sorry, Ursa. I know this is just as hard on you as it is anybody else."

It was so odd to her that the woman she had last seen as a young girl was actually Mai, and Ursa forced herself to smile.

"Don't apologize. I love Azula, but that doesn't mean I can hold her blameless. But I also can't betray her, even if I knew where she and Sasuke had gone."

"You really don't, huh?" Mai asked and joined Ursa in leaning against the table. Lowering her head, Ursa stared at the floor dejectedly.

"No, I don't. I wanted to press him, but… damn it all, I just had to trust him."

Mai seemed to hover briefly on her next few words.

"Even after what he did? With Ty?"

Ursa took another long, deep breath and tried to let it settle down her nerves. She wanted to tell Mai what Sasuke had told her about Ty Lee forcing herself onto him and then him giving into his frustration and lust, and joining her in a lustful dance of anger, but she knew it wasn't her place to do so. Mai didn't deserve to hear about it secondhand from her, and she should have heard it from her best friend, or from the boy that Ursa loved, and yet found so much difficulty in trusting him, the same boy she knew that Mai had eyes for.

"I meant what I said just now," Ursa said softly. "I know there's nothing I can do for my daughter, beyond offering her my life. She hates me as much as anyone and wishes me dead, and I… I spent so much of her life absent from it, I wouldn't know where to even begin otherwise. I'm certain if I tried to talk to her or get close to her, I'd wind up the same way Jin nearly did, with a hole through my body."

"Jin, that stupid girl…" Mai grunted distantly, but there was a respect in her voice that Ursa could sense. "Trying to play the avenging hero like that…"

If Jin and Ty Lee were as close as Ursa had been led to believe, it only made sense she would have been so outraged over what had been done to her friend, and she supposed she respected the fruitless attack as well since, without Sasuke, it would only have ended one other way.

"But yes, Mai," Ursa said, returning to her question. "I'm choosing to trust him. Of course it wasn't easy. And if things should go… poorly, I need to be here, I need to be ready. For Zuko, if not myself."

She didn't want to pry too much into Mai and Zuko's relationship, even if she rather badly wanted to. Seeing the two of them as little more than toddlers struggling to wrap their heads around their emotions for one another and been one of Ursa's favorite memories from what had otherwise been a very difficult time in her life.

Mai reached out and somewhat awkwardly gripped Ursa's shoulder, giving it a light squeeze.

"You're a good mom. And you're way too good to Sasuke."

Ursa smiled and reached across her body to grip Mai's hand on her shoulder.

"Maybe. Love makes you do stupid things sometimes."

They sat there a moment before leaving one another's company without another word and Ursa did her best to ignore the flash of envy that had slipped over Mai's face at what she had said.

---

Ty Lee felt almost as though she were sick as she opened her eyes a crack, the way they almost seemed to repel the dim light of her room. They immediately watered and she closed them again as she tried to let herself wake up.

Her body was aching all over, likely from the two very different forms of abuse she had undergone with first Sasuke and then Azula, but there was a strange numbness near her crotch and as she remembered what had happened there specifically, she tried not to feel a wave of fear crash over her. She let herself lie there a while longer before the anxiety was too much and she tried to sit up, wincing as she did while pain coursed through her nerves.

Toph was sitting on the carpet with her back against the door while Jin sat in a chair near the foot of Ty Lee's bed, her head resting on the mattress. They were the only other occupants of her room, and both looked up as Ty Lee moved; relief washed over Jin's face, but she seemed to try and hide it almost immediately as she sat up straight and looked at Ty Lee carefully.

"How are you feeling?"

Weakly, Ty Lee flexed her legs and arms just slightly to get some blood flowing in them, each movement causing a twinge of pain to pass through some part of her body.

"I've certainly felt better," she grunted softly before reaching for the covers and pulling them down towards her waist. As she reached further to pull up the nightgown around her waist and truly get a look at the damage that had been done to her, Jin reached out and grabbed her hands.

"Katara said you might feel some numbness; she did something with the injury to keep it from hurting and keeping you awake. But she said not to move around too much or… to touch it, or anything like that."

Though she didn't really feel able to keep from looking between her legs, Ty Lee complied with what Jin said and sat still, keeping her hands on her thighs.

"Where's Azula?" she asked quickly as the thought suddenly occurred to her, and both Jin and Toph seemed to grow quite still.

"She's… she's away with Sasuke right now," Jin said softly and Ty Lee felt a collage of emotions slam about her heart as she tried to push herself from the bed to get to her feet, before she was stopped by her friend.

"Ty, we don't even know where they are," Jin said firmly. "Ursa doesn't even know."

"Why?" Ty Lee nearly shouted. "Why did they leave?"

Casting a look at Toph as though looking for some form of support, Jin swallowed before replying.

"We don't know. Sasuke just said that he was going to 'deal with it'."

It was a rather terrifying thought to Ty Lee, and she felt herself growing deeply unsettled at the mere idea of this as her imagination started to run wild.

"He's not going to kill her," Toph said in a low sigh from where she was sitting. Both other girls turned to look her way and Ty Lee, barely daring to ask, whispered out a question.

"How do you know?"

Toph picked absently at the floor, a rather pained smile on her face.

"Because no matter what she did to him or what she's done to anyone else, he has feelings for her, whatever they might be."

As though it were a lifeline, Ty Lee grabbed this thought and clung to it tightly. She knew that Azula was the mother of his child and that alone should have been enough for her to know that Sasuke wouldn't take that final step in keeping her from bringing harm to anyone else. But not knowing where they were, or even the circumstances of their departure was tying her stomach in knots. Still, she forced herself to accept this, at least for now. There would be time to do snooping on her own, something she knew neither Toph nor Jin would ever be okay with.

"Okay," she replied, just as quietly. To surrender that knowledge was genuinely difficult for her, but she was aware enough to know just what further instigating that matter would do.

The silence that fell between the three of them then grew awkward very quickly; Ty Lee knew that any time the three of them been together in the past, they had been able to talk, to joke, anything to just be glad being in one another's company. She tried to think of a time before Ba Sing Se to one such instance, but just trying to pull that memory felt like trying to imagine it as though such a thing had never happened.

She curled her fingers, wrapping them about her covers as Jin's hands remained over hers, but kept her eyes down. It was impossible not to feel the silent judgment and hurt from both Jin and Toph, and she wanted nothing more than for them to just leave her alone in her shame. She knew what was coming and she didn't want to hear it from them. It would have been better to have it screamed at her by Mai or Zuko because—

"Ty, why didn't you tell us?"

The quiet disappointment and hurt in Toph's voice was what Ty Lee had been so worried about and she felt her lower lip quiver as she clenched the covers tighter.

That was why it would have been better to hear it bellowed at her from someone else. How could she even think to face her two best friends with something like this?

"If we had known…" Jin said quietly when Ty Lee said nothing in response to Toph's question. "We could have—"

"What?!" Ty Lee snapped, suddenly feeling fearfully defensive for reasons she couldn't quite identify. It didn't feel like she had woken up and rather as though she had just run a lap around Ba Sing Se. "You could have done what?! Killed Azula?! Made sure she couldn't so much as move, let alone come near me again?!"

Jin didn't seem remotely affected by her sudden outburst, and continued to gently squeeze her hands, her eyes downcast and heartbroken.

"We could have helped you, Ty…"

Toph stood from her spot by the door and brushed herself off. Ty Lee knew her blind friend well enough to know when she was fighting down rage, and it was very clear that this was one of those times; Toph's arms crossed as the muscles in her jaw worked and her bare feet rapped against the floor softly with her toes. It was clear she was doing her best to keep from blowing up.

"You were quietly letting Azula torture you for years and for what? I could tell that something was going on between you, I could feel how you got any time she would come around, but I assumed… so fucking stupidly that it was just quiet intimacy between you two. I let my guard down with Azula because of Soza, but maybe that was just another layer of that snake's plan," she growled, her blind eyes narrowed and piercing even in their unseeing.

"You couldn't understand," Ty Lee weakly blurted out and Toph raised her eyebrows as she took a step nearer to the foot of the bed.

"Who was it who came to me when I was eating myself alive with anxiety and hurt over Sasuke, and told me… oh, what was it now?" she asked, looking upwards in mock thoughtfulness. "Oh, that's right, to 'stop letting him haunt me.' I can't believe you had the fucking guts to tell me that when you were probably a half hour away from going to Azula on your hands and knees to let her abuse you."

"That's not fair, that's not even close to the same thing," Ty Lee snapped, feeling anger mixing with her fear and desperation to make a very dangerous mixture of feelings that bubbled in her gut.

"Why?" Toph shot back. "Because Sasuke wasn't actively in my life, using me and treating me like garbage while I followed him around like some stupid dog, eager for more?"

"Toph…" Jin tried to interject, but it was possible the storm couldn't be stopped at that point. Ty Lee pushed herself to her knees, ignoring the chilling and discomforting feeling that surged between her legs as she did.

"You were obsessing over him for years, when you didn't even know if he was even still alive, let alone in our world!" she shouted. "How is that the same thing as me being in a relationship with someone who's actually in my life?!"

"A relationship?!" Toph yelled back, a burst of furious laughter issuing from her throat. "You can call this sick game a relationship?! Azula doesn't care about you, Ty! How can you not see that?! She ignores you unless she's in the mood for your company and then does… this to you, because she knows she can get away with it! She knows you'll keep whatever awful secret she makes you!"

"You don't know the first thing about us!" Ty Lee roared as Toph began to pace at the foot of the bed furiously and Jin quietly pulled back, tears in her eyes. "You could never know, because you can't ever know what this feels like!"

There was a sickening feeling growing inside her like she was going to be sick as Toph whirled on her, black hair flying around her face as she bellowed back.

"Oh, yeah?! Why don't you fucking try me, Ty?! Tell me why you can't see how Azula is breaking you apart!"

The words couldn't have been stopped, even as much as Ty Lee wanted to stifle them.

"BECAUSE I LOVE HER!"

The sound of her voice resounded off the walls of the room with a brief sharp echo as she slumped back down to sit on the bed, her hair falling around her as tears splashed into her lap. Neither Toph nor Jin said anything to her then and she closed her eyes, feeling as alone as she ever had, even with her two best friends in the whole world just beside her.

"What do you want me to say?" she said in a voice that was half whimper, half whisper. "That I want this? That I want to be hurt like this? I don't. But… I love Azula."

There was something both exhilaratingly liberating and damningly crushing about those three words.

"I love Azula. I don't know for how long, probably since we were kids. But I was stupider back then, and I didn't know how to deal with that. Then, when we were a little older, after Sasuke left and she started… taking me aside, if finally felt like she was loving me back. I knew then that I would do anything for her and I would be the world's most pitiful liar if I said I don't still feel that way."

She clenched her fists so tightly that she could feel her nails cutting into her palms.

"I never wanted to hurt like this. But I felt that if I ever finally put my foot down to her, I would lose her forever. And I know that you probably think that's for the best, but I… I can't imagine a world without Azula in my life. I know this is wrong, I know what we have is anything but good for either of us, but… I've never been able to say no."

Jin seemed able to find her voice then as she pulled nearer to the bed again, her eyes wide and imploring.

"Because you are so wrapped up in your affection for her, Ty. You're a much better person than she is and you've convinced yourself that this is love what you have together. But please, you have to see that it isn't love that Azula has for you."

Shaking her head and unable to look at either of them, Ty Lee muttered down at her lap.

"I can't let myself believe that."

Jin made a soft noise of consternation as she reached out and gripped her shoulder.

"I'm so sorry it has to be this way, but that woman is a monster. You have to know that's true now, look what she did to you!"

Clenching her teeth, Ty Lee still didn't look up to meet her eyes.

"Tell me how then," she growled miserably. She could feel the confusion from both her friends as they regarded her in silence.

"Tell me how to stop loving someone. Tell me how I can let Azula go without it destroying me, and I swear, Jin, I will."

As she had known, there was no answer to such an unfair question and the room fell into silence once more. Ty Lee could barely stand to even just sit there and breathe; her body ached, her midsection throbbed and all she really wanted to do was see Azula or Sasuke again, Azula so she could keep grasping for her love and Sasuke so she could slap him across the face.

That's not fair to him… I've never made this fair to him…

It was too difficult to think even remotely in depth about it, but Ty Lee knew as she thought to him that blaming Sasuke for this was as unfair a thing as she could do to him. She knew deep down what she had done to instigate this whole climax which had culminated in Azula's attempted mutilation of her sex. Had she not allowed herself to get so riled up over the princess's feelings for Sasuke, Toph's relationship with him, and the myriad of other factors that had been pumping nonstop anxiety into her veins from the moment he had reappeared in Ba Sing Se, she wouldn't be having this conversation.

I forced myself on him… just like she did…

It didn't matter that he had reciprocated her and forced himself onto her just as aggressively. It didn't matter how good it had genuinely wound up feeling for her body, just as it didn't matter the reasons she had even leapt on him in the first place.

I put myself in danger… I've put myself in danger the moment I gave Azula reign over me.

And yet, Ty Lee still couldn't bring herself to so much as consider renouncing the princess.

"I think you're wrong."

Toph's voice sounded so much more comforting when it wasn't an angry yell, even if it was still chillingly brittle in tone.

"Yeah, I figured that out," Ty Lee said bitterly. "You don't need to—"

"I wasn't talking to you," Toph said sharply and both Ty Lee and Jin looked at her in confusion. The blind eyes amid her tired expression spoke to how pained she felt about the entire situation.

"I'm not sure that Azula doesn't love you back, Ty. In her own twisted, horrible way."

Hearing any sort of affirmation for Azula from anyone else was enough to leave Ty Lee stunned as Jin's brow furrowed intensely.

"What? Toph, what are you talking about?!" she snapped with real horror in her voice, but Toph kept her arms crossed and face directed towards Ty Lee.

"I've… felt the way that you are around each other. I know how Azula treats literally every other person she has to deal with, and you've always been different."

"Yeah, only because she wants to own Ty as some kind of sex slave!" Jin shouted, but Toph shook her head consistently like a swinging pendulum.

"Maybe that's part of it… but… I don't know. There's more there than that."

Jin looked completely baffled and sat back in her chair, staring at Toph in utter disbelief as the black-haired girl kept her expression fixed down, looking like she was hating herself with every word she uttered. Her mouth curled into an angry snarl as her grip tightened on her crossed arms.

"Don't think for a single fucking second that I'm going to let you go within a spitting distance of Azula without me paying very close attention. In fact, I don't know I'm ever going to be okay with you two being able to even just look at each other ever again. And you better believe that I'm not going to be the only one; whether it's Mai or Suki, I don't know if Azula is ever going to—"

"I know!" Ty Lee shouted then, not able or willing to think about how things were going to be going forward. She could remember in the back of her head how Suki had been the night before and she didn't know how the Kyoshi Warrior and Azula would ever be able to stand in the same room together again without full on hell breaking loose again, but for the time being, her mind was running wild enough. Taking a deep breath, she lowered her head and closed her eyes again; she knew she had to calm down and keep herself from losing too much of herself in that moment. Her friends were already likely very certain that she was mentally loose in the head for allowing herself to be put in such a situation with Azula in the first place and if she broke down and started crying now beyond what she already was, she knew that was only going to make things worse.

What do I do… what even can I do? I've tried to make myself end this, but I just…

In her mind's eye, she saw herself walking to Azula's room in the Fire Nation royal palace, her feet making a quiet yet deafening sound against the floor as she paced to the wide, ornate entrance. She didn't need to knock and pushed into the darkness before closing the door behind her, completely encapsulating her.

Azula leaned against the mattress, completely naked. It should have given Ty Lee some sense of confidence to see the difference between their state of clothing, but she felt far more naked than Azula looked; quietly, she walked to stand a couple feet before the princess, hands behind her back as she looked modestly at the carpet before her.

Ty Lee heard the hundreds of things she wanted to say, to ask Azula to please be honest with her, to ask Azula to stop doing this to the both of them, to beg her to just listen while Ty Lee admitted the truth of her feelings. But the minute Azula's nails softly brushed against her cheek and neck, her will collapsed.

That's how it will be again. I know it will, I know it will… I can't fight back. Why can't I fight back?

She pictured knocking Azula to the ground and climbing on top of her, pinning her arms down so that she couldn't bend herself free. She imagined seeing the princess beneath her, and feeling herself in control, finally being able to shake herself free.

And how despite that, all she would want to do anyway as she stared down at the furious, snarling princess was kiss her.

Ty Lee opened her eyes to see that Jin and Toph had both quietly climbed on the bed while she had been lost in her own head, one of them on either side of her. Considering how adverse they had been to her situation, the show of affection stunned her into immobility as she let them hold her. Their arms wrapped slowly around her and she found herself pressed between both of them, their warmth enwrapping her and the comfort of their touch causing her muscles to relax almost on their own.

"We don't need to take this any further right now, Ty…" Toph said, but Ty Lee still could hear the reserved hostility in her voice even as her touch was gentle. "But please… please just remember that you have people that care about you."

Ty Lee's stomach churned as she heard the other implied part of that statement in her head.

"Even if you've stopped caring about yourself."

Ty Lee reached up with her hands and grabbed the wrists of both Jin and Toph as they held her, taking solace in even just the feeling of being touched and knowing it was out of nothing more than love. She wanted more than anything to be able to tell them that she was going to be able to deal with this, to pull through and make change for the better. But she didn't dare lie to them now, not considering what was now out in the open, something she had been hiding for most of her adult life. She wanted things to change.

"I know," she whispered and gripped them both tightly. There was a long pause as she slowly maintained her calm breathing before an unbidden chuckle bubbled from her throat at a sudden wave of gratitude and thankfulness rushed through her.

"I love you guys," Ty Lee said as the laugh petered off and they hugged her all the tighter. It was nothing short of a bittersweet sensation within her as she realized deep down that she would never be able to make the change she knew she needed without help.

Without them…

The three of them remained together for minutes until Katara eventually came to resume her treatment of her injury and during that time, Ty Lee realized, bizarrely, that she felt something like collapsing, overpowering relief.

---

Soza sat outside the door to Auntie Ty's room, her legs pulled up to her chest, her arms crossed over her knees and her chin resting on them. It had been a minute or so since the shouting had died down, but somehow it didn't even feel any less tense now that she could no longer hear muffled yelling. In all her years, Soza had never heard Ty so much as raise her voice, let alone scream like she had just heard.

Then again… I haven't heard her scream like when she was under mother's foot last night either.

It seemed to just be a recurring theme now that Soza just felt horribly out of the loop, things happening all around her that she didn't understand or know the full story about. She had hoped that following Toph to Ty's room would be enough to get her some answers, but there was only more weighing on her mind now. She hadn't missed Toph's shouting as well and the idea of the two of those women whom she had all but grown up alongside screaming at one another was a deeply painful memory already burning its way into her mind.

Just another stupid thing to add to the list of stuff that no one will ever talk to me about.

She knew that she shouldn't have been griping in her head so much, but even with the fact that she knew there were people hurting other than her, it was impossible not to feal resentful.

Soza could have handled learning that her mother and Auntie Ty weren't getting along. She could have handled trying to wrap her head around the strangeness that was her father's relationship with her grandmother, she could have done her best to deal with the fact that her world was being swarmed by spirits, who apparently had the intent to take her life because of her parentage. She was even doing her damnedest to come to grips with the fact that she even had a father back in her life at all.

But what she was slowly realizing she couldn't handle was the fact that now both her mother and father were gone, and neither them, nor anyone else, was telling her a damn thing.

It wasn't that she had been actively grilling everyone in the complex over the absence of them both. But the fact that she had woken up and no one, not a single person, had so much as glanced her way and told her why it was that neither of her parents were with them.

Why neither mom or dad said a word to me about where they had gone. Or why.

There had been such a part of her that felt as though she and her father were starting to get along well. And yet when something important like this had come up with Soza's mother, he had disappeared with her and not given her so much as a word.

She hated how betrayed she felt. There was no reason to assume that she would be as well informed as she wanted to be when it came to either of them; she was just their stupid kid after all, it wasn't like she had much bearing on anything. No matter how she wanted to.

And so she was reduced to this, sitting outside doors and listening for any scrap of information that she could hear, and hope that it granted her some kind of answer or at least added a piece of the puzzle. All while trying to keep tears from her eyes from hearing Toph and Auntie Ty, two of the toughest women she knew, biting one another's heads off. Soza had thought about attempting to talk to Ursa, but she couldn't find her grandmother anywhere in the complex. The only other person she had actually seen was Yue, who had just given her a sad look in passing.

It was strange, knowing there were so many people around, and yet still feeling so alone, Soza thought as she hugged herself on the floor of the hallway.

---

Yangchen squinted slightly as the glowing blue doorway before her brightened intensely. She stood in the center of Ba Sing Se's grand palace's throne room, where Kyoshi had deigned the portal should be placed; around her, a dozen or so of the spirits that she and the other Avatar had named as their lead commanders stood in tight formation. Some were humanoid in shape, almost entirely reminiscent of a person in their own right while others were three times as tall as any man could ever be, and others still were shaped like fantastical hybrids of all sorts of creatures. Yangchen was very comfortable with those she had chosen, but the majority of Kyoshi's sent uncomfortable chills down her spine. Considering that she and her fellow Avatar clearly had very different approaches to this whole situation, it made sense that their handpicked commanders would differ.

Still, there was no time to pay them any mind. If it were most amenable to Yangchen, none of these generals of sorts would ever have to leave the city, though she had a feeling that hope was about to be dashed.

The blinding shine of the portal faded away as Kyoshi stepped through in all her intimidating stature. To anyone else, she would have appeared characteristically cold and stoic, but Yangchen knew her well enough to note the danger flashing in her eyes. She immediately turned her back on the newly arrived Avatar and gave a sharp hand signal which prompted the spirits behind her to file out of the dimly lit throne room, some more reluctantly than others. Every one of them had a different overall appraisal of the situation for which they had been reincarnated as physical beings, and it was clear that some, namely a few of Kyoshi's choices, were raring for a chance to get some action in hunting down Sasuke.

As the large door shut behind their departure, Yangchen turned back to Kyoshi who had all but ignored her as she strode to the large table upon which a map of the Four Nations was lain out. Looking at her back for a few seconds, Yangchen finally walked slowly over to stand just beside the taller woman who was practically radiating dissatisfaction.

"No luck with Roku?"

Kyoshi shook her head impassively.

"He's as stubborn in death as he was in life."

Though she was rather curious, Yangchen didn't want to know to what extent Kyoshi had gone to in attempting to extract information from her Avatar successor, so she held her tongue in that regard. A piece of her heart pitied Roku for his compassion and attempt at goodwill, though she knew that he had done it to himself in siding with Sasuke.

"What of Dovan and Orian? And Illazar?"

Kyoshi released a short snort.

"Not even closed to reassembled. Whatever got them killed them well enough that their essence is taking a long period to recollect in the spirit world."

The fact that all three spirits were taking days to coalesce into a tangible form again was a more worrying thought to Yangchen then it was to Kyoshi, who was blowing it off as a grievous inconvenience more than anything else.

Our reentry into this world… it's causing something more to happen to use. Becoming physical again and then being reverted back into spirits after our essences have already undergone that transformation on a higher level… this is more dangerous than we realize.

"What was recovered from the site of the battle?" Kyoshi asked and Yangchen returned from her thoughts to the moment at hand.

"Nothing of value," she replied. "The bodies of a couple hundred of those fanatics you gave our forces permission to enlist and little else. They covered their tracks well."

She could feel Kyoshi's anger building at that point and the taller Avatar spun away, shouting as she did.

"Koh!"

From behind the throne that had previously been used by the king of Ba Sing Se, there came a rippling in the shadows and a looming hiss.

"You called, dear Avatar?"

A shivering shape seemed to merge out from the darkness behind the throne, the massive centipede like shape making its way out into the dim light. Yangchen fought down a sneer of disgust at just seeing him; she felt a chill run over her arms as she realized that she hadn't even known he was present in the room.

"How could you lose them?!" Kyoshi snapped in a rare show of lost composure. Koh released another strange noise, the nature of which was a mystery.

"The answer I gave you before has not changed," he whispered. "My essence was simply erased. I didn't feel it discovered and destroyed, or moved, it was just… expunged. I cannot feel it, nor can I trace it past the island where the slaughter of the Talons occurred."

Kyoshi stared at him as though expecting her glare to coax an answer out of him that she liked better before she turned away from him as well. She bent back over the table and pressed her knuckles against the wood of the table, her knuckles crackling like rocks splitting. Her eyes glazed over with a focused fury as she looked over all the painted etchings of the Four Nations on the enormous map.

"Sasuke…" she said quietly, her voice pure steel.

Yangchen let her look over the map for several more long seconds, trying to grasp the nature of how the other Avatar was feeling. It was so rare that she ever got a chance to observe Kyoshi in a brief, thoughtful state like this as she was usually so focused in the moment. But it was clear that the situation was wearing on her more than she was letting on.

"We'll find him," Yangchen finally said, trying to inject some of that focus back into the conversation. "There's only so many places he can go."

"I had him," Kyoshi said quieter still, her voice trembling ever so slightly. "I had him twice."

Releasing another quivering hiss that sounded like laughter, Koh spoke again from behind them.

"Might I suggest we permit the human Gilbert's plan to be carried out?" he asked. "If his analysis of the situation and deductions hold any merit, it could be quite beneficial in locating Sasuke and his band. And allowing him to try will lose us nothing, even should he fail."

"Absolutely not," Yangchen snapped. "We've toed and crossed line after line since we decided to interject into the dealings of this world we are no longer a part of, but after what you did…"

She shot a look accusingly at Koh before looking back to Kyoshi.

"… that is far beyond what we should ever even consider."

For a moment, she was certain that her words would be met with approval from Kyoshi but for every second of silence that passed, her hope of that began to fade exponentially. When the taller Avatar finally turned slowly to face them both, there was something very clear in her eyes.

During her time in the spirit world, Yangchen had met with more Avatars than she could likely count off the top of her head, but Kyoshi was likely the one that she had shared the most time with, discussing experiences and meditating together among other things. Kyoshi's extreme composure, stoic and cold attitude, and unshakable focus had taken her interest and for years, Yangchen had toed the other Avatar with curiosity and had learned a good deal about herself in the process.

Then, Sasuke.

When the initial squabbling had broken out in the spirit world which would eventually turn to complete chaos over what should or shouldn't be done about that boy, Yangchen had distanced herself from the infighting that had grown amongst the spirits and had more importantly seen Kyoshi doing the same. There had been a very distinct moment that had always stood out in her mind when the two of them had been alone at one point.

"Pointless squabbling. The world changes; you can't trust anything. Trying to influence even an alien presence like this into any sense of normalcy is like trying to force an apple tree to bear peaches. There is an inevitable conclusion and you waste energy and time trying to dictate otherwise."

Those had been Kyoshi's words to Yangchen only a year or so before she had not only quite suddenly taken up the cause against Sasuke's existence, but had stormed to the forefront of it as its leader. She had given powerful, commanding speeches and condemned those unwilling to act as cowards and traitors while whipping up those who were already stirred for the purpose of acting against Sasuke. And Yangchen had continued to watch from the shadows, trying to fathom what had caused this change of heart with her, to cause her to so instantly change her perspective. Her composure had remained, her commanding aura, her dominant persona, but that focus, that pointed and unwavering focus had cracked then.

It was those same cracks that Yangchen could very clearly see now.

"This has gone on long enough," Kyoshi said firmly. "Due to my carelessness, it has been nearly a week since Sasuke eluded our grasp in this very city. He must be found and dealt with and those who hide and protect him have made their alliance against this world quite clear."

"There is no alliance against their own world!" Yangchen said, hardly believing what was happening even as it did. "They are not traitors or anything of the sort; just because they stand against us, that has nothing to do with their feelings for their home!"

Kyoshi remained unfazed.

"They had a simple choice: Sasuke and his spawn, or the safety and security of their world. They chose him."

Feeling genuine anger starting to rise within her, Yangchen grit her teeth.

"And that's enough to condemn their wellbeing, their very lives?! It has never been our place to cast judgement on others, I joined you to keep true chaos from falling on this world and you're taking it into your own hands to harm the lives of those who—"

Suddenly, a flash of something appeared in Kyoshi's eyes as her voice rose in pitch, a violent crack like that of a whip as it resounded in a sharp echo through the throne room.

"We are out of time!"

Yangchen didn't respond to this as Kyoshi glared at her a long moment before regaining her composure. She turned to Koh who had been looking onto the confrontation silently and inclined her chin.

"You know what to do."

Seeming to almost quiver with excitement, Koh twisted and slipped back into the shadows where the sickening sound of his movements faded away into nothing. As silence fell over the room again, Kyoshi didn't look back to Yangchen as she walked for a side door.

"I'm going to get some rest. If you haven't gotten some yourself, I recommend you do so. I'm having a word with the generals in a few hours."

Yangchen could only guess what that meant but she remained silent as Kyoshi's tall, imposing form slipped through the door and disappeared from sight.

Left alone, the former Avatar released a long, quiet sigh as she leaned against the map table. The situation was only unraveling more and more to a worrying degree and she could only sit by and watch it happen. If Kyoshi was truly preparing to go past what she had initially said she would do to unleash the generals, Yangchen would have her work cut out for her in maintaining order. Dovan's advance team had been meant to quickly carry out a search and destroy mission against Sasuke, but now that it was clear that Kyoshi was willing to recruit live people as well as spirits, that only added another layer to things. Yagnchen ground her forefingers against her temples and pushed hard to try and alleviate the tension that had built up there.

What are we becoming?

That question posed several interpretations even on its own and she sighed again; pushing away from the table, she decided to take Kyoshi's advice and get some rest. It certainly sounded like she was going to need it.

But as she made her way towards the chambers she had set up as her own personal quarters, she couldn't help thinking back to the flash she had seen in Kyoshi's eyes.

Why, ever so briefly, had she looked… frightened?

---

Sasuke did a quick once over of the cabin, which was exactly what it was, before walking out to the front door and watching the ride they had taken disappear back towards the Northern Water Tribe capital. It was pitch white as far as the eye could see, plains of snow and ice stretching out to vast distances over gently sloping hills; the sky itself was a solid grey as a cloud bank had rolled in during the couple hours it had taken them to get out to the small lodging. It almost caused vertigo to try and find the point where the sky met the earth, the grey and white mixing to create a dizzying horizon.

Pulling in a deep breath of the cold, brisk air, Sasuke stepped back inside and closed the door, feeling the warmth that the small fire he had started had generated. He had placed a very precise Amaterasu flame in the heating unit which would burn until he deemed otherwise, which would hopefully keep the cabin warm during the time he was under, which he was worried could be longer than he hoped.

The cabin was small, just as Tangith had said; a kitchen attached to the living space where the front door was located and tucked in the back right corner of the wooden frame was a single bedroom. Sasuke moved towards this room and looked inside, leaning against the doorframe as he did.

Azula was fast asleep on the mattress, one hand resting on her stomach and her head tilted slightly to the side as her breathing came in slow and paced. It was several seconds before Sasuke realized he was admiring her beauty again and he grit his teeth, uttering a foul curse to himself. The last thing he needed right now was to get any more attached than he already was, sick, twisted game that it stood as in his head. It was pointless to stall, every moment he stood there doing nothing was another second that Kyoshi and the spirits could be closer to honing in on the capital.

Sasuke straightened and brought his fingers together, working them in a series of fluid movements to bring his first jutsu to life. Completing the signs, he held his hands over Azula and gently pressed them down, one over her forehead and the other against the top of the hand that rested on her belly. As he finished casting the jutsu, he couldn't help but stare at his hand over hers, and both of them over her stomach.

Is this what it might have felt like? If I had stayed and been here while she was… pregnant?

It was a sickeningly sweet thought to imagine holding Azula's swollen belly while she was with child, holding her close and hoping to feel a kick while she smiled at him fondly.

No, not sweet.

Painfully perfect.

Sasuke blinked and pulled his hands away, swearing again and forcing himself to focus back on the scene before him.

The jutsu he had used was a variation of a kind he had seen medical ninjas use on patients who were unconscious or worse, and needed to be left alone. The chakra he had transferred into her body then would do its job in sustaining her, keeping her from needing water or food for an extended period, should this process take longer than Sasuke wanted. He was going to do his best to make it as efficient as he could, but he was not at all the master his brother had been at this sort of thing, and he knew deep down that he couldn't count on himself to properly manage time outside of his work and within as well. This was very possibly going to be the hardest thing he had ever had to do, but he knew that he had to try.

For her, for Ursa, for her brother, her friends…

A piece of his mind was still heavily stuck on Ursa and what he had told her, how he had all but forced her to keep from inquiring about what he was planning. And that wasn't to mention everyone else, the people who were worried for Azula, hated her, wanted her dead, or any combination of the three. Who knew just what Aang, Mai, Ty Lee, Toph and everyone else was thinking just then.

…and for Soza.

He spared a thought to his daughter who had crossed his mind several times on the trip over. Part of him wanted to have said something to her before leaving, but he didn't even know what he would have said if he had.

She'll be fine. She's strong and she doesn't need affection like some people do, she's been toughened up by her mom that way. She'll be fine.

He didn't quite believe his own thoughts, but he had no choice but to try.

Pulling in a last, deep breath, Sasuke took a moment to gather his chakra and steel himself. Though his eyes were mostly healed after his mutilation of the Izanagi technique, he had still felt a pained twinge when he used just the slightest bit of Amaterasu earlier. He was slightly nervous what this task he was about to undertake might do without giving himself more time to heal.

But it had to be now. It had to be.

Releasing his breath, Sasuke let go of his worry and went to work.