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.

30. Chapter 30

AN: To quickly answer a question I was posed, I actually don't know how long this is going to wind up being. We're a little far out to even gauge how many chapters we have, but I'll keep everybody in the loop as soon as I have some idea of that. Certainly a fair few more chapters than part one to be sure though.

---

Chapter 30: Northbound

Kakashi felt June tense as he tightened his grip around her waist and she pulled back on the reins of her mount, causing the beast to slow to a halt just underneath the large outcropping that jutted out of the ground at an angle.

"You could just tell me to stop, you don't need to keep squeezing me like that," she snapped, but Kakashi had already dismounted by the time she was angrily telling him off. He had been riding with her for a series of days now and it had become almost routine for him to give her waist a tug rather than inform her by other means that he wanted to stop. It clearly irked her, but he knew that if it really bothered her, she would have punched him clean off the saddle days ago.

Moving low to the ground and stopping underneath the shadow of the outcropping, Kakashi looked down over the sloping hill that led to a long stretch of open and craggy plain; it was a testament to how vast and open the area was that Ba Sing Se looked almost small in the distance, though he knew just how large the city actually was. June, having also dismounted, moved up alongside him with Nyla gently sniffing at her back.

"What are we stopping for?" she asked. "We still have at least an hour until we reach… you've gotta be fucking kidding me."

Two nights ago when they had been resting, Kakashi had seen a small group of pale blue glowing creatures flying overhead far above where they were camped out, and he had chosen not to draw attention to them for June's sake. He didn't know if her actually realizing the truth behind the stories and the spirits would cause her to want to turn back, but he wanted to get as far along as they could before risking it.

Now, in the distance, it was impossible to miss what looked to be a giant floating manta ray, well over a hundred yards from fin to fin. It flew near the city, soaring through the air as though it were nothing short of an ocean. It performed wide circles as it flew and Kakashi could only surmise that it was moving in a monitoring pattern, and that its movements were those of something on the lookout.

"All those stupid stories. All those insane sounding travelers, and it was true all along," June whispered and Kakashi looked to her. It was a streak of nothing short of stupidity hidden behind his greater sense of morality, but he knew what he ought to ask.

"If you wish to turn back now, I will not hold it against you," he said. She slowly turned to look at him and he was surprised to see not fear, but an excited hunger in her eyes.

"What the hell are you talking about?" she asked. "I just saw with my own eyes that the spirits really are here. If that's true, and they're in Ba Sing Se, a lead on Sasuke is bound to be near the city."

Kakashi wanted to suggest that if the stories were true, then it was quite possible that the bounty on Sasuke's head might have altered since, but decided not to bring that part of it up. He was concerned for June's safety, but not necessarily her seeming state of voracity over nabbing the price on Sasuke's head. If she wasn't concerned to keep moving, he was just fine letting her believe whatever she liked.

"If they spirits have set up in Ba Sing Se, I don't know how well they'll appreciate wandering travelers, regardless of what we state as being our purpose. I think we ought to keep under the shadows of the outcroppings as we near the city."

"And when we hit the open plain?" June inquired flatly. "That place once held enough room for Fire Lord Ozai's entire ground force to walk across without so much as a worry of stubbing their toe, I don't think we'll be able to do much by way of hiding when we make it there."

Kakashi eyed the enormous creature moving through the sky and sighed.

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

The pair returned to Nyla's saddle and June began the process of coaxing her mount from shadow to shadow along the craggy landscape, keeping to the dark where she could and avoiding open space as best as she was able. She did a fine job of keeping their approach relatively inconspicuous, but Kakashi knew that her point was as valid as one could be.

He knew that if it came to it, there were more than a few jutsu that would conceal their presence, and while he had already revealed his eye to June in order to obtain her belief in what he said, he didn't want to go out of his way to make her any more suspicious of him than he imagined she already was. Their journeying together had been altogether more pleasant than he would have expected, but he knew fully well that June was likely staring him down when he wasn't looking, trying to guess at his motives. He had known the moment she had accepted his deal that she hadn't fully trusted what he said, but he didn't mind that as long as they kept moving. If he needed to resort to jutsu, he didn't want to think about what might happen if she decided to leave him upon finding him too suspicious to continue traveling with, or worse, think she might be able to obtain some sort of reward for bringing him in.

The questions were still dangerously unresolved in Kakashi's head as they neared the edges of the plains the distant walls of Ba Sing Se looming ever nearer. The trip took just under an hour, but still he had no clear answers to how best to proceed. June drew Nyla to a halt and turned slightly in the saddle to look at him.

"Well? This is far as we can go without risking openly being seen. It's nothing but flat, dry land between here and Ba Sing Se. And if you're thinking about going around, you should know that it looks the same from every side of the city."

A conundrum to be sure.

I suppose I don't have much choice.

The chances were high anyway, Kakashi supposed, that June would wind up seeing what he was capable of sooner or later. If they wound up finding Madara, and he noticed them, Kakashi knew he would have to fight with everything he had just for them to be able to make it out alive. The goal was just to find Madara and then regroup with Sasuke, but if they were unlucky and had a fight on their hands…

I can do a fair bit of work with taijutsu and weapons, but against him, I'll need to pull out all the stops.

In truth, he didn't think he would last more than a couple seconds against Madara if they actually went toe to toe, but it would still take a substantial amount of skill and chakra for him to ensure he escaped. Hopefully, they would just be able to find Madara and leave without being noticed, but Kakashi had a sinking feeling it wouldn't be all that easy.

If it's even Madara we're after.

He sighed and opened his mouth, ready to tell June what he was about to do, before a deep, thunderous sound caused his gaze to snap towards the city.

It was impossible to tell exactly where the sound was coming from, but it seemed to loud and rumbling a sound to be produced even from a creature like the giant flying ray, but as Kakashi looked, the ray slowly turned its ponderous and massive shape towards the right of where they watched the city. It started to move away from Ba Sing Se and as Kakashi looked downwards, he saw what looked to be a massive blue wave moving away from the city's wall. It only look a little bit of jutsu to coax a heightened and more focused vision to tell what was actually happening before him.

A veritable army of spirits was on the march away from the walls of Ba Sing Se, a vast assortment of walking or flying beings from being the size of a child, to the size of a building. Some flew over the wall, adding a haze of blue to the grey sky above, joining the enormous ray in their exodus from the city.

"They're leaving…" June murmured. "Where are they going?"

As the pair of them watched, there came a rumbling underneath their feet that was just barely something they could feel, bursting in short intervals. From out of sight on the other side of the wall, a being appeared; it was as tall as the wall itself, a giant cloaked in the same bluish tint. Each step it took was followed by the short rumbling beneath Kakashi's feet and he realized it must have been larger even then he was able to give it credit for at that distance, being able to shake the earth under him from that far away. It moved along with the masses, the thousands of ethereal beings that continued to move away from Ba Sing Se, a destination very clearly in their collective mind.

After a while, he put a hand on June's shoulder, indicating for them to keep moving, but he said nothing to indicate an answer to her question. He had a fairly good idea where the spirits might have been headed, but all that knowledge did was tell him that he might have had a good deal less time than he had originally thought.

---

Toph was several punches in before she even realized why she was angry.

Instinct would have told her it was because Azula had been silently grooming her relationship with Soza for over a decade, and how the princess had planned to use her death to her own design. How despite everything, Azula had never seen Toph as anything more than as a tool to be used. She had been quietly planning her destruction with likely as much hesitation as a person would resist swatting a fly. It was so disgustingly like something Azula would do that Toph was upset that she was even so surprised by this.

But none of that was why she felt her body lose control, why she could hear her own voice sounding almost muffled as it screamed, as she tackled the Azula to the ground.

No matter who it would have been… she did this all with full knowledge that it would traumatize Soza. Her own daughter. She's spent years preparing to break her own daughter.

Toph thought to all the times she had heard Soza's voice, felt her excitable energy, and felt that she could be someone so much different than her mother had been. It had been perhaps the brightest spot in her adult life to be able to be beside Soza and watch her grow as the two had grown so very close.

But none of that would have happened… if Azula hadn't decided to use me. To hurt her own daughter to make her more powerful.

She thought to the exhausted girl sleeping in the other room, how she had been forced into such a different world so suddenly, powers thrust upon her that she likely didn't even understand, powers she couldn't even control.

All according to Azula's plan.

Toph wanted to deny it. She would have loved so badly to just ignore the words the princess had flung at her, and hear the entire confession as the words of a madwoman, someone who hadn't been thinking right in the head likely since she was Soza's age.

But Toph knew voices better than anyone, and if there was ever a time where she would have thought Azula's words could be believed, it would have been those. Something had happened between her and Sasuke while they had been gone, something that was causing her to spill the truth just now, whether by her own wishes or otherwise. But something told Toph that in that moment, Sasuke had nothing to do with it; Azula has confessed this completely on her own accord, knowing full well that she had done so in front of Toph and every person close to Soza.

These were all thoughts that trickled through the back of Toph's head, but nothing remotely close to deterring her from her present action. All that was going through the front of her mind was getting her hands on Azula and hurting her as much as she possibly could.

Though Toph rarely fought without her bending, she and Ty had trained on many an occasion and she knew perfectly well how to handle herself if a situation called for her fists and feet rather than her bending. Still, in the time it had taken her to roar with fury, break into a charge and reach the princess, she would have expected Azula to be ready for her. But when Toph had reached her, there had been no movement, no attempt to move out of the way, and Azula had let herself be hard tackled to the marble floor. Toph had started punching even before they hit the ground.

None of it should have surprised her. None of it should have been information that Toph could process and be unable to wrap her head around the fact that it was true. She should have been able to hear Azula's confession and nod her head saying, 'Yeah, that makes sense.' But after years of being alongside Soza growing up, Toph had found herself doing everything in her power to give Azula the benefit of the doubt. Sure, the princess hadn't seemed to care much to speak with her unless she needed to, but Toph had always blamed this on her pride, the idea that she could never openly act as though what she had believed before was so wrong. Her letting Toph spend time with Soza was her way of admitting that wrong without ever needed to really face it.

But that hadn't been it. Every time Toph had stopped over to visit Soza and had thanked Azula for allowing her to do so, she had heard the princess offer a sickly sweet reply in return.

When I thanked you… when I talked to you… was that all you were thinking when you looked at me? Were you just counting the days until you could have your chance to have me killed, to the moment you would be able to break your own daughter, all because of Sasuke and your fucking pride?

Toph stopped being aware of much as her tired limbs lashed out furiously, striking at whatever bit of Azula she could reach. It was betrayal at the hands of a person she should have expected it from, whom she should have known couldn't be bothered to care about her past whatever usefulness she offered. But more so than a stab in the back to her, it was the most terrible, despicable thing she could have done to Soza. Her own daughter.

Furious cries ripped past Toph's lips, through her clenched teeth as she had to forcefully remind herself to keep breathing. She couldn't stop herself, and she didn't think she wanted to stop as it was.

It would have helped if the punches didn't make her feel more and more horrible with each one she landed.

---

Sasuke had barely been able to get the ability off in time, the only way he could immediately think of to comply with Azula's wishes. It would have been simple enough for him to keep back, but he knew for certain that there were multiple people behind him who would no doubt try to intervene. He wasn't sure anyone else had seen Azula's mouthed words to him, so subtle they had been and the way they had been directed his way as opposed to towards anyone else. He didn't know if it was the right thing to do, but he wildly had decided to trust Azula in that moment, and keep himself and anyone around him from trying to prevent whatever was coming.

The technique in question was something Sasuke had concocted on his own, based on his attempts to play around with Shinra Tensei as his Rinnegan had granted him leave to do. The jutsu in particular was a much more focused, honed and exceptionally smaller form of that same energy, designed to stabilize rather than be expelled violently. He quickly lay out the barrier of invisible chakra in a half-bubble between him and the rest of the group, letting it form up around them and restrict them to the fireplace side of the room. By the time Toph had reached Azula, he already felt people moving behind him, only for them to collide with the barrier he had erected. He couldn't bring himself to turn and look at anyone, but it didn't take long for those trying to intervene to realize what he had done.

"Sasuke!" Ursa's voice cried out to him, mingling with Ty Lee's panicked shouts as she slammed her palms against the barrier. "What are you doing?!"

He said nothing and didn't react to her words as much as it pained him to do so. There was a part of him that believed rather sincerely that if he turned to look at Ursa, meeting her eyes would be all it would take for him to relent.

"Let us go!" she yelled at him desperately. "Stop them!"

There was an orange flash out of the corner of his eye and he knew that Zuko had just tried to firebend his way out of the jutsu to no avail. Sasuke ground his teeth and forced himself to look ahead of him, but the sight of it all wasn't much easier to put his eyes on.

Toph had taken Azula to the ground in a full tackle and was slamming punch after punch against her face. Each hit was punctuated with a cry of rage and denial, and Sasuke could see the utter horror and fury written all over Toph's face as her black hair swirled about her. She seemed to be about as unstoppable as anyone could have been, but Sasuke realized there was a particular reason for that.

Azula wasn't putting up the slightest bit of resistance.

Each punch that hit her face or body didn't so much as draw any reaction from her body, even as blood began to trickle from her nose, mouth and split skin on her forehead. The only thing Sasuke could see was the slightest look of pain that she seemed to be doing all in her power to hide. Beyond that, she lay against the marble and let Toph's fists connect again and again.

Eventually, Toph seemed to realize through her fury that something wasn't the way it should be, that she should have been getting some form of resistance from the person she was currently pummeling. She clambered off Azula's lap and grabbed her by the hair, causing the princess to grit her teeth, though she made no sound as Toph yanked her roughly, pulling her up and throwing her to the side. Azula hit the ground hard and made to push weakly to her hands and knees before Toph rushed up and slammed a kick into her ribs, causing Azula to roll over, her face seeming less able to hide the pain she was in as Toph began stamping on her stomach and ribs violently.

By this point, Sasuke couldn't block out the sounds of Ursa, Ty Lee and Zuko behind him, all of them trying something different to appeal to him. Ursa was pleading desperately, Zuko shouting threats and demands, and Ty Lee barely making sense as she screamed at him to let the barrier down. He could only grit his teeth and hold steady as he watched the scene unfold before him.

As Azula continued to do nothing to fight back or defend herself, Toph released a frustrated scream.

"Fight back!" she howled. "You psychotic bitch, fight back!"

Azula's hands remained loose and open as she lay on the ground taking hit after hit, her expression dazed and almost emotionless. By now, she was bleeding from multiple points where Toph had split her skin, and from her mouth where a trickle of blood ran past the red of her lips, the colors almost identical. With every kick or stomp or punch that he saw, Sasuke had to fight down the increasing urge to intervene, but the request Azula had made of him kept his feet rooted to the ground. It didn't help either that of everyone yelling behind him, Ursa's voice reached him with the most clarity, and it was getting harder to listen to her beg with him.

"Sasuke, please, please stop this, I'm begging you, please don't let her hurt my daughter anymore, please, please…"

Her voice was shaking and he knew without looking that she was crying; Sasuke hated knowing that this was hurting her, and he very clearly heard the maternal desperation that had come into play. Regardless of what Azula had done, Ursa was still her mother and she was being forced to watch her daughter being beaten to a pulp and there was nothing she could do about it. Sasuke only had to remember the realization that had came to him as he was in his Susanoo out over the ocean that Soza wasn't there, to recall that surge of panic to get a sense as to what Ursa was feeling.

Just hold on… this won't go on forever…

Toph mounted Azula again, climbing onto her lap and grabbed her by the throat, slamming her head once, twice, three times against the marble floor before stopping and glaring down as she gripped the princess by the neck.

"Why?! Why was your daughter's soul such an easy thing for you to toy with?!"

She pulled back and drove a hard hit just underneath Azula's left eyes, where a cut had already been opened, further smearing blood on her face and on Toph's fist.

"Why did you play with her like that?! Build her up for years just to shatter her world and break her down?!"

Toph hit her again.

"Why can't you just give a shit about someone who's not yourself?! Why couldn't you just care about Soza, if you couldn't care about any of us?!"

She hit again.

"Why… why, why, WHY?!"

She hit again.

"Why…"

Toph looked down at Azula's nearly motionless form and pulled back her arm to prepare to swing another punch. Her fist shook near her head as she glared down at the princess and she heaved in a deep, shuddering swallow before rolling off Azula and lying on her back, panting quietly as sweat beaded down the sides of her face, mingling with the tears that had finally started to stream.

"Why won't you fight back…"

Behind him, Sasuke heard everyone go quiet thankfully as they all stared at the two women with silent nerves, waiting for something to break and for the chaos to begin anew. For a brief moment, Sasuke wondered if Azula was even conscious; with both her eyes closed and her soft breathing, mixed with the blood and bruises she now sported, she might very well have been knocked out before Toph had even stopped hitting.

Then, a quiet and pained rasp sounded from her mouth, barely audible with how weak her voice was as she asked a question of her own.

"Why… did you stop?"

Giving out a sound that was partly a growl and partly a sob, Toph put a hand over her face and Sasuke could see her tightly gritted teeth.

"Because I could never kill Soza's mother."

It became silent between them for a long while until Azula's voice whispered out again, the pain in her voice a great deal more than just physical.

"Even if I deserve it…?"

Toph rolled to a sitting position, her face a disgusted scowl.

"Especially if you deserve it."

She pushed to her feet and stalked away bitterly, leaving Azula to lie on the floor. Assuming that this had been what she had meant when she had asked him not to stop things, Sasuke dropped the barrier and was nearly knocked over as Ursa, Ty Lee and Zuko all came barreling past him. They dropped to their knees on all sides of Azula, Ty Lee on her left, Zuko on her right and Ursa at her head, slowly lifting it onto her lap as she ran gently strokes down Azula's bloody face, murmuring shakily as she did.

"Oh Azula, my baby girl, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry…"

Azula didn't seem to be remotely receptive of any of them, not reacting when Ursa held her, nor when Zuko whispered words that she was going to be alright, nor when Ty Lee hesitantly took her hand. It was only when Katara reluctantly and slowly approached that she cracked her eyes open and snarled weakly.

"No."

Katara stopped in her approach, the meaning in Azula's single word clear. Zuko and Ursa looked at one another in quiet anguish, clearly not wanting Azula to not be seen by such a capable healer, but they seemed to recognize too that there would be no changing her mind. Sasuke flicked his eyes towards Toph who had walked back in front of the fire and was leaning against the mantle, moving as much as a statue might; he was grateful when Jin had the courage to slowly walk over and reach out gingerly for her friend. Toph seemed to twitch slightly as the hand came down on her shoulder, but she didn't make to knock it away or resist being touched, and allowed her friend to gently squeeze her shoulder; Jin looked back at Sasuke somewhat helplessly and he could only stare back at her and offer quiet reassurance through his eyes that things were going to be alright. She seemed to understand this and lowered her gaze sadly to the floor.

Aang, Sokka, Suki, Yue and Mai all seemed just fine to remain where they were; Aang and Sokka both looked deeply disheartened, Yue looking disturbed and rather as though she wanted to melt into the floor, and both Mai and Suki were gazing towards Azula with something almost like disappointment on their faces and with a deep resentment in their eyes. Sasuke noticed then that even those people gathered around Azula, her mother, brother and Ty Lee all were looking at her with an expression as though they didn't quite know her. Katara too, though she had clearly gone over with the intent of helping, had a look in her eyes that Sasuke could only call hateful.

He realized that until just recently, only he and Azula had known how she had tried to use Toph to awaken her daughter's potential Sharingan. And now, that knowledge was just as much in the open as anything else.

They know her as a sociopathic killer, a sadist, a rapist… and now this.

Sasuke looked at Ursa's shaking hands and wondered how much of that anxiousness was because of what had happened to Azula and how much of that was because of what she knew her daughter now to be. Swallowing, Sasuke took a couple steps towards Azula's form, hoping to be a comfort to Ursa at least if nothing else.

After he had taken only a few steps, Ursa looked up to him and he stopped dead in his tracks.

He had been treated to a great many feelings from her in their short, albeit emotional relationship. She had been annoyed, angry, and frustrated with him, though he liked to think that her affection outweighed the rest. Sasuke was well aware of his stunted ability to be open and good with someone in a relationship and Ursa had seemed content to help him through theirs, even as he knew he had messed up on more than one occasion. Somehow though, she had always seemed to be just fine in forgiving him and not letting their relationship splinter because of a stupid mistake he had made, and he couldn't be more grateful for that. From leaving the group on the airship to rashly trying to keep the spirits off of them, to giving into his frustration and accepting Ty Lee's advances, he knew that there was much he had done wrong by her.

And yet, when she cast him that glare just then, he felt less welcome than he ever had in their relationship. Not a word passed between them, but he looked back at her furious gaze and all but shriveled. No one else could have made him feel quite so terrible in the pit of his stomach with just a look, but now here he was suddenly wishing he was somewhere else, anywhere else.

He saw her expression soften as perhaps realization of how much fury she had been regarding him with struck her, but by then, Sasuke was already heading towards the door. It was entirely possible that her anger hadn't been directed just at him, that it had been pointed in multiple directions, but Sasuke couldn't be asked to care just then. Resentment of his own had just started to blister away at his insides and he couldn't be asked to stay put and try and work through this. He shoved the large door open with enough force to cause it to crack against the marble wall as he stormed from the room, his lower lip curling.

Because even behind his own anger, he couldn't shake the fact that he had seen both fear and hate in Ursa's eyes as well. The fear he didn't understand, but it was impossible to not see the chilling resemblance between mother and daughter in the hate.

---

As the door swung shut behind Sasuke, Aang tried to keep himself steady, but could last only moments before he remembered how to move. He looked to Sokka who only gave him a somewhat helpless look before he turned towards the door, took a deep breath as he squared his shoulders and started to move quickly after Sasuke. When he reached Katara and made to pass by her, she grabbed his upper arm with a strength born from worry and anger.

"Where are you going?" she snapped quietly before blinking in surprise as Aang ripped his arm from her grip with an aggression that he never brought out in her direction.

"I'm not just going to be someone else who treats him like a monster after all he's done," Aang snapped back with venom to rival Katara's, and he brushed past her before she could muster a response. By the time the door closed behind him, he was jogging, realizing that he didn't know quite how much Sasuke might have been looking to be left alone. For all Aang knew, he could have case some of his jutsu to turn himself invisible or move so fast he was well beyond the palace already. Looking up and down every hall that he passed by, Aang drew up a current of air just at his back that helped him move at an even quicker speed. He didn't know quite why, but he felt very much like he needed to find Sasuke then, more than he ever had before.

As if the universe had heard his call, Aang skidded to a halt as he caught sight of a dark figure stepping down a hallway on his right. He dashed after them and as he rounded the corner, he nearly ran smack into a glass door that was swinging shut behind who he was chasing. It opened to what looked like a small veranda nestled into the ice of the mountains that surrounded the palace. Several evergreen plants lined the circular room as far as Aang could tell from where he peered through the glass, making him wonder if this was some sort of arctic greenhouse of sorts. His focus drifted towards the dark shadow of a figure that he could see however, and he gently pushed the door open to join them.

Sasuke stood near the center of the circular room, surrounded by the dark green of the plant life around him, looking up. Following his gaze, Aang could see that the room didn't have a ceiling and rather opened up to the night sky. Above them, pale stars flickered brightly in the dark of night and it was then that Aang could feel the cold of the room.

"You can't just keep running off," he managed to say quietly and Sasuke made a soft sound of amusement.

"I think that would be for the best, wouldn't it? Would we be here now if I hadn't come back at all?"

Aang took a couple steps closer to him, shrugging his shoulders.

"I don't know. Soza would probably be dead though."

Saying it aloud caused him to wince silently as he heard just how brutal it sounded coming out that bluntly, but he didn't regret saying it. Sasuke didn't reply to this and instead only took in a long slow breath that released in a cloud of steam before him as he exhaled.

"Was all that true?" Aang dared to ask. "What Azula said?"

He supposed he would have rather been denied the truth as Sasuke gave his head a small nod.

"Yeah."

Of all the things he had heard in recent days, this shouldn't have struck Aang as being more surprising than others, and he supposed it wasn't. Still, the hurt that came with it caused his entire body to sag in depression.

"I can't… I thought if there was just one person that Azula would be able to care about… it would have been her own daughter," he whispered, causing Sasuke to twitch his head slightly to the left, the annoyance clear in the movement.

"She does care about Soza. Just not in a way that we can understand, and not in a way that's remotely healthy for either of them."

It wasn't lost on Aang that there was some part of Sasuke's voice that was speaking to defend Azula; not what she had done, not where her motivations were placed, but to the motherly part of her that Aang would have been all too fine denying just then. He had used up just about the last bit of patience he had with Azula, and to hear Sasuke even suggesting that there was something redeemable about her actions about made Aang want to snap at him angrily.

Something occurred to him then about what had happened, something that he hadn't understood and something that he had pushed to the back of his mind as he had allowed his resentment for Azula dominate his thoughts.

"Sasuke… why did she say all that? True or not, why would she admit that to Toph, in front of all of us?"

He had a feeling he at least had an inkling as to why, as the fact that Azula's rather shocking confession had come out just after she had returned from her outing with Sasuke seemed hardly a coincidence.

Sasuke gave a noncommittal shrug.

"Temporary moment of moral clarity perhaps," he said and Aang fixed the back of his head with an annoyed stare.

"I'm being serious. None of us have probably ever seen Azula do anything like that, regardless of how serious the subject matter was. She's a proud and treacherous person, we all know that. So for her to come out like that and just admit what she did is about as off-character as…"

He trailed off, looking for an example that matched the scenario.

"As me and Ty Lee having sex?" Sasuke suggested and Aang felt his cheeks redden before he swallowed and gave a short nod.

"Yeah, something like that."

Finally turning to face him, Sasuke crossed his arms; Aang could see the conflict boiling behind his dark eyes but he was being just as reserved about it as ever.

"What do you want me to say, Aang? That I reformed her? That I was able to make her realize just how awful a person she had become?"

"Based on what just happened, I don't think that's so farfetched an idea," Aang shot back. "She runs off with you, and then five days later, you come back and she starts admitting her deepest, darkest secrets? On top of allowing herself to be attacked, without defending herself in the slightest? You did something, I know you did."

He didn't mention that Azula's words might have been the most damning of all, how she had implied that not only should Toph not have stopped hitting her, but also that she might have deserved to die for her actions. Everything about what had just occurred was like something out of a dream to Aang, as he watched one of the most cunning and venomous people he had ever known just openly seem to show a side of herself that he would never have guessed possible.

"I tampered with something that I had no right to," Sasuke said, meeting Aang's angry eyes unflinchingly. "I went digging to try and find just some piece, some scrap of evidence that the woman who is the mother of my child isn't as lost a cause as several of you seem to think. And yes, Aang, I think that some part of her might have changed when I did; when you force a person to look at their own choices, their own feelings, things they've hidden from themselves, it's bound to have some sort of effect on them!"

Aang could hear the very gradual rise in the volume of Sasuke's voice as frustration seemed to start taking hold of him.

"I didn't show her any mercy, I found all of it, and I made her look at all of it, feel every little thing that had caused her to turn into the merciless and power-hungry sadist she is today! I made her look at the voices, at the things that had put her on this revenge course against the people she believed had wronged her, how she got the idea of her relationships so twisted that she believed her own mother hated her, how she believed that the world was out to get her, to stand in her way, to put her down!"

He took an aggressive step forward and Aang felt his heart leap into his throat as Sasuke grabbed him by the front of his shirt.

"So yeah, I guess I did 'something', Aang. And I guess that 'something' has me a little worked up," he hissed. "A person's mind should be their own and yet I plunged into Azula's anyway, and you know what?! Maybe I found something I didn't want to!"

For a moment, he just glared at Aang, holding him tightly before clarity seemed to flicker in his eyes at what he was doing, and his fingers slackened, removing their grip on his clothes. He turned away and took several paces from Aang, lowering his head towards the ground, the regret clear in even just his motions.

"I might have seen some of myself."

His quiet words echoed with all the effect that might have come if he had screamed them, so much weight did they seem to hold. The loneliness that Aang had seen in Sasuke before was clear now, the obvious sense that he didn't feel like he belonged.

"I'm sorry. It's just… when I made to try and fix Azula, I didn't think I would have to see what I did. And I especially didn't think I would see those bits and pieces that told me we were more alike than I cared to really think about."

Another confession and somehow, this one was just as jarring for Aang to hear as Azula's.

He thinks… he's like her?

Barely trusting himself to, he walked gently up behind Sasuke before reaching out a hand. It quivered before him a moment, shaking as he tried to muster the gumption to touch Sasuke.

What am I doing?

With an extra mental nudge, Aang put his hand on Sasuke's arm, fingers gently giving it a squeeze.

"You're not like her."

Sasuke released a disbelieving snort.

"What, you think that just because Kakashi blabbed my whole life's story to you guys that you really have any idea what's going on in my head? You think you know me any better than…"

He trailed off and Aang wondered who he had been about to say.

"It doesn't matter how well I know you," he said. "What matters is that I know you enough."

Sasuke's expression pulled into one of exasperated disgust.

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"

His abrasive attitude might have been enough to cause someone else to leave him to his quiet bitterness, but his words only caused Aang to smile and in an action he barely believed himself willing to do, he walked up close behind and rested his forehead against Sasuke's back.

"You left us for over a decade. You spent all those years staying far away to try and get yourself home, but you said the archstone lead fell away after only four years? And yet you stayed away from us, people that cared about you?"

His smile widened, but he knew that the expression was just as sad as anything.

"I know you cared about us. You stayed away to protect us, even if you wanted to come back. Then, when you found out we could be in danger… did you continue to stay away?"

Sasuke didn't say anything and that was as good an answer as anything could be.

"You're a good man, Sasuke. I don't care what you've led yourself to believe, and maybe that's the one thing you have in common with Azula, that you've let yourself create this illusion of your own being that you believe as much as anything. Even if it's not true."

He let out a long, quiet sigh.

"You can't let yourself think that you're anything like her. You would never do something like that to your own daughter, you would never torture someone who loves you, you would never openly find us as hindrances as much as anything. You have a heart, even if you won't admit it."

Feeling a numbness in his toes, Aang felt himself reaching around Sasuke's torso to hug him, another act he could hardly believe he was doing.

"You came back for us, you were there when we needed you the most. And I told you, didn't I? I'll be at your side through whatever comes; I meant it when I said it, and I still mean it now."

Something else ran over the tip of his tongue, words that he was able to keep to himself, but words that he nearly caused his heart to stop as they passed through his mind. As he hugged Sasuke, he tried to get his heartrate, which had just jumped badly, back under control, but ahead of him, Sasuke slowly turned, extricating himself from Aang's grip. Looking up into his eyes, Aang waited for him to say something, but there was a distant and melancholy puzzlement that he didn't expect to see in those dark orbs.

"Aang… I appreciate what you're saying… but… are you…?"

He trailed off in the question and as his intent became clear, Aang felt his throat tighten as though a hand were tightly clenching around it. His eyes widened and he took a step back, shaking his hands in a motion that he knew looked too desperate.

"No! No, I wasn't trying to… it's not like—"

The glass door behind them swung open and Aang spun to see Chief Tangith stepping through, two scrolls tucked under his arm.

"There you are, you want to tell me what just happened in the…"

The chief too trailed off as he saw the emotion etched on Aang's face that he hadn't been entirely able to remove, as well as the reddened cheeks that were as much a giveaway as anything.

"Am I interrupting anything?" he asked in a tired growl and Aang immediately began whipping his chin back and forth, in yet another movement that was likely more indicative of what he was actually denying.

"No, sir," Sasuke said in a gesture that was much more helpful in dissuading any notions that Tangith might have had brewing in his head. He stepped past Aang without so much as a glance at him to address the chief more directly.

"If you were going to ask what happened in the sitting room, there was a breakout of tensions, and Princess Azula had a less than winning encounter with Toph Beifong."

The chief didn't look entirely satisfied, but the answer seemed to put a touch more at ease.

"I thought something like that might have been the case," he grunted. "No one was saying much of anything when I just poked my head in, but the princess was in one of the armchairs, looking like she had just lain down in front of a stampede of whale walruses."

He seemed to be looking for further elaboration, but Sasuke remained silent and for a moment, both men regarded each other quietly.

"Well, in any case," Tangith finally said, seeming to relent the point. "I have your information here."

Sasuke looked down, his eyes widening slightly as though he hadn't guessed at the nature of the two scrolls.

"Just the two scrolls?"

Tangith looked down at the two rolls of parchment, looking similarly unenthused.

"Yes… somehow, this was all we had, in all of our documentation, and these were only found in the last two days. Three days through all our archives and libraries, and my scholars were able to find nothing. Your Koloss is even more reticent than we might have even guessed."

He extended both of them to Sasuke, who took them as the chief continued to speak.

"The first is the creation myth surrounding him. Supposedly, he was drawn into life by Raava when the spirit determined that the energy that bound the physical world to the spirit world needed to be harnessed. Whether that meant she was fearful of that power being harnessed by individuals with less than righteous goals or that the power couldn't be allowed to pass freely about the physical world is uncertain. Regardless, as you said, a mighty titan known as Koloss was brought into existence for the purpose of holding the energy within itself, to keep anyone else from possessing it. The giant creature was placed in a land so rife with snow and wind that it could be said the land was in a state of perpetual storming, blizzards that never dwindled freezing the land with an icy relentlessness. It was therein that Koloss found itself, and there it has remained, guarding this energy and holding it within itself."

He pointed to the smaller of the two scrolls.

"I would assess that particular bit of research would be the more interesting to you. It discusses a study that took place many generations ago by a small group of scholars who wished to determine the location of Koloss. They scanned the myth and…"

The chief drew to a halt in his speaking, looking more than a touch perturbed. His silence prompted Sasuke to inquire, "And?"

Tangith grimaced.

"And, I believe, other documents that have been lost to time."

He met Sasuke's eyes grimly.

"There is much more to this being than I think we understand. I am resonant of the theory that we once did have more reading on Koloss, but someone at some point in my tribe's past found and destroyed any knowledge beyond these two scrolls. If the case were different, I have no doubt my scholars would have turned up more, but the fact that such an important being from myth wasn't better documented is beyond my willingness to believe."

"You think someone didn't want anyone else doing any digging on Koloss?" Sasuke asked, prompting the chief to nod firmly.

"The study references several points of interest, things like 'past even north' and 'within the frozen fjord,' things that aren't mentioned in the myth. You can look for yourself, but these are things that aren't found in the first scroll."

Sasuke held them both, but kept his eyes on Tangith.

"I will look over them with my companions, but I am most interested in the moment of your assessment. Based on what you've read and considered, if I asked you to tell me where to find Koloss, where would you point me?"

The chief fell silent and his eyes lowered towards the ground, glazing over a touch. He paced forward slowly and walked between Sasuke and Aang towards one of the evergreen trees stretching towards the night sky and leaned tiredly against its trunk.

"I fear for your safety if I told you what my understanding would be," he said hesitantly and Sasuke gave his head a short, firm shake.

"Worry not for my safety. Your city was attacked tonight as a result of my presence. The sooner I can leave and track Koloss down, the better. For both you and your people. If I can find Koloss, I can destroy him, it, whatever this creature winds up being, and I will be able to keep any other spirits from invading the physical world and putting others in harm's way."

He spoke with such a determination that it was difficult for Aang not to get emotional and he smiled at Sasuke from the side.

He'd do anything for us. He really would.

Tangith looked only slightly reassured, but he released a sigh of his own and nodded nonetheless.

"You may come to your own conclusions, but do with my assessment what you will: based on those two documents in your hands, I believe you must head north, towards the land that even we have never attempted to colonize. Though it makes little sense, here at the northern pole, conditions aren't as bad as they are further north of us. I myself don't understand how such a thing could be, but our world still holds many secrets beyond the lands of the known Four Nations; it is my understanding that you even might have encountered some of that far to the west. In any case, the lands north of our nation will become perilous and they will become unpredictable. As you were informed based on where our observational cabins are located, we have studied the storms on the edges of our border for an extensive period of time and have learned very little beyond just how vicious they can be and how quickly they can arise. I believe once traveling north, you have no choice but to try and find the fjord mentioned in that second scroll, as it is the only sort of actual landmark mentioned."

He squared his shoulders and regarded Sasuke somewhat apologetically.

"I wish I could be of more assistance. But that is as much as I can offer you."

Sasuke looked down at the scrolls, holding one in each hand. He seemed to think long and hard about something before looking back up, his expression still just as determined and stalwart as ever.

"Thank you. I will have a plan drawn within the hour, and I'll let you know the moment it's locked in."

Tangith seemed stunned that Sasuke would be able to finish preparations so quickly and he blinked at him a moment.

"Are you certain? If you need more time—"

"Time is not a luxury I have," Sasuke said curtly. "Thank you, sir."

He turned on his heel and walked from the small greenhouse. Aang looked to the chief who looked just as stunned as he felt before running after him.

"Sasuke!" he yelled as he caught up to him in the hallway. Sasuke didn't slow his pace, leaving Aang to walk hurriedly alongside him.

"What are you doing?! You're going to go over the scrolls and then, what, just have a plan of attack ready within an hour?!"

"It's only two scrolls worth of information," Sasuke said, just as curtly as he had spoken to the chief. "I could have one ready much quicker than that, but somehow…"

A small smirk passed over his face.

"I feel that I'm going to need a little more time, considering who all I'm going to be talking to about this."

---

"Are you out of your mind?!" Katara shouted, loud enough to echo within the walls of the sitting room. "You're going to head north without so much as an assessment of the visible weather, perhaps just running smack into a blizzard that will freeze you solid?! And the only thing you have to go on is looking for a fjord?!"

Sasuke sat in an armchair, looking both tired and well beyond the point of wanting to talk about the matter. Jin could tell just by looking at him that his mind was already made up, at least to a certain extent, but he was still at least humoring Katara and the rest of them by putting the matter out in the open, rather than running off on his own. Though she rather hated that it was something worthy of feeling proud over, Jin thought it was quite evident of his maturity that he had decided to do this at all.

He had come back into the sitting room with a pair of scrolls in his hand and Aang right on his heels. Jin felt as though the atmosphere in the room hadn't become any less tense since he had left; Azula had been moved to a chair and wasn't letting her mother, Ty Lee or Katara so much as touch the cuts and blood on her face that she had gained from Toph's beating, and was gazing into the fire with an expression that almost made Jin think she was about to run and jump right into it. Toph had walked to the other side of the room and pulled a chair for herself and was glaring resolutely towards a window that she couldn't see out of anyway. Jin had nearly gone over to join her, but Suki had put a hand softly on her forearm, keeping her from doing so and Jin knew there was likely good reason to give Toph some time to herself.

Chief Tangith had entered the room rather soon after Sasuke and Aang had left, and had found the scene, no doubt finding it rather unsettling to say the least. He might have let things slide until he looked down to see the blood on the floor from Azula that no one had bothered to try and clean before demanding to know what had happened. Sokka had given a rather shoddy excuse, even for his standards, citing that Azula had slipped and landed face first on the floor which the chief had bought perhaps as little as anyone could buy a lame story. He had left just as quickly as he had entered in search of Sasuke, leaving Suki and Katara to glare at a sheepish Sokka who blurted out that no one else had come up with any better ideas.

Despite the rather humorous moment, the tone of the room couldn't have been any less pleasant. Jin knew that she was not alone in reeling over what Azula had said and how she had said it.

Firstly, the fact that she would admit such a thing at all, and then even more so the fact that she had admitted it to Toph, the very person whom she had wronged, and then right in front of everyone else to boot. Running through her insides, Jin was feeling a rather nauseating mixture of hate, shock, disbelief, spite and confusion, and it was making her overall ability to remain conscious of the situation quite limited. She rather wanted to just be given some time to herself where she could pace, and think, and contemplate what all this meant, for Azula, for Toph, and most of all for Soza. Her own mother had openly admitted to them all that she had used her relationship with Toph to try and break her into experiencing something similar to what Sasuke had in order to help further along her powers. Around the campfire back on the island, she remembered quite clearly hearing Kakashi's explanation of how witnessing his family's murder at the hands of his brother had caused Sasuke's eyes to 'awaken' or so he had put it. Such an awakening could only be achieved by something deeply traumatic, and Soza's own eyes had seemed to experience such an awakening when she had watched Toph be tortured and nearly executed.

But to think that it had all been in the workings for years by Azula's planning…

Jin had sat on one of the sofas between Yue and Mai, and had been unable to keep from staring daggers at Azula. It wasn't as though the princess took any semblance of notice; she looked rather lost staring into the flickering of the fire and likely wasn't even thinking about what any of the people around her thought. Had she been trying to get herself killed by Toph's hand, Jin wondered? Had her time away with Sasuke forced her into the realization that her daughter's life was no longer hers to control? Had that somehow knocked down her very willingness to go on living? What had been at the core of that confession?

These queries had all been swirling about in her head when Sasuke had come bursting back into the sitting room. He had immediately unrolled both the scrolls and passed them around without a word; when they had gotten to Jin, she had looked them both over with curiosity and apprehension, and found that both were rather brief in terms of the actual content they possessed. One was a legend about the being known as Koloss, a rather short legend considering, and the other had been what looked like footnotes on a study as to, if this being existed, where might it reside. The scrolls were looked over by all those in the room, including Toph, who came over with bitter reluctance and quietly asked Mai to read her what they said. Azula was the only one who didn't so much as glance at them, not even looking over when they were hesitantly offered her way.

When everyone had gotten a chance to read the scrolls' contents, Sasuke, who had seated himself in an armchair of his own, finally spoke up for the first time since he had rejoined them.

"I intend to go north immediately. The spirits will no doubt come running now that they clearly know we're here, and I haven't the time to do anything but immediately begin my search. If Roku's words hold any credence, this is the only chance I have to stop the spirits' invasion."

His words had settled over the room with nothing short of intent, and Jin had closed her eyes. She would have been lying if she had said that this didn't seem like a completely rash thing to do, but it wasn't any real surprise why he was considering this as his course of action.

We're out of time.

Katara and Mai had been the first to rather loudly interject that this was a completely ridiculous thing to decide, and while Mai's questions of him had been much more levelheaded, if clearly holding reserved anger, Katara's were quite the opposite.

"There are other places you could look! We aren't limited to just this information, even if this is all that exists in the north!" she shouted and Sasuke shook her head.

"I don't have the time to make some trip south, west or east to try and find something else. This will have to be enough."

"What's your actual plan then?" Mai asked flatly; she was regarding Sasuke with a very challenging expression even as her words remained their usual dull tone. "Just transform into your giant purple demon form and just fly there?"

Sasuke shook his head again.

"No, I don't know what I'm going to be up against when I finally find Koloss. If I go using too much chakra before even reaching it, I could put myself at a disadvantage, and when I find this thing, I intend to put it down good and quick. Using Susanoo just to find it could wind up making it all for naught. I'll travel when there aren't storms above as often as I can and use the bare minimum of chakra to provide myself with the body heat to move through the cold if it's absolutely necessary."

Mai didn't look at all satisfied with his answer, but looked at Katara as though giving her the floor to further speak her peace. Not seeming to need any urging, Sokka's sister burst out loudly once again, not seeming at all at odds with doing so.

"This will be like finding a needle in a haystack! It's no matter how large this thing is, trying to track it down across miles of frozen land, possibly in blizzard?!"

"I've managed against worse odds before," Sasuke muttered and Jin shook her head as Katara continued to yell. For all his determination and confidence, Sasuke really didn't have any idea how to placate people he was trying to convince of a plan.

"Say you're right about the spirits," Sokka said firmly, managing to cut his sister off between her angry outbursts. "Say that they could be here in a matter of days, or even less, say maybe they're already almost here. Wouldn't it make more sense to just have you here when they arrive? You're by far the most powerful asset in this conflict against them, and if we can just have you here to deal with whatever their initial force is, they'll be regenerating in the spirit world. They won't have a concentrated force then, and you can leave at that point, when the danger isn't as great. If what we think about them is true, when they're killed, their bodies resolve and return to their own world, and Kyoshi opened their portal in Ba Sing Se, and sending them on that regeneration trip only for them to come back and have to come from the Earth Nation all the way here to the north, doesn't that make better sense?"

"You think someone like Kyoshi hasn't considered everything she might have to deal with when leading her forces after me?" Sasuke asked. He got to his feet and walked to stand in front of the fire, gazing into the orange flickering intently.

"I fought her. Maybe I don't know all the stories about her, maybe I don't know everything she did during her time as Avatar, maybe I don't really know the first thing about who she was when she was alive, but I fought her. I know what it's like to have someone hold back against you, even if I'd rather choose not to believe it. I could see in her eyes how much she wanted to let herself go and try and pulverize me, how much she wanted to put me down that very night we first met, but she didn't. She was smart enough to understand that doing so would have meant her death. However powerful she is, I would have overpowered her, so she understood that and played it safe, learning how I fought, testing me for my own weakness. In all of that desire to kill me, she didn't keep from doing what was smartest, which was keeping from directly engaging me."

He looked at Sokka over his shoulder, the fire casting half of his face in an intense, yet somewhat melancholy shadow.

"That plan would be fine, if this were someone other than Kyoshi we were going against."

It was Ty Lee who spoke up next, her voice soft, yet somehow a touch playful.

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say you've been thinking about her more than she's been thinking about you."

Jin knew Ty Lee exceptionally well. She had been around her enough to know that she had an urge often to interrupt a tense situation with a joke, something she had come to do much more in her adult years. This was how Jin knew just then that Ty Lee had been telling a joke, but as she watched her friend's eyes widen as she clapped a hand over her mouth, it was clear that her words had come out on instinct rather than thought. It as quite possibly the first time she had directly spoken to Sasuke on her own since the night they had partaken in one another's company, and in such an overall tense situation, it was shocking even to Jin that Ty Lee had lost restraint just long enough to crack a joke like that.

Everyone in the room turned to give her a look of genuine surprise, though there were several expressions darkened by further expression than that. Ursa looked like she was trying to keep from appearing angry, Mai looked like she wanted to walk over to her friend and wrap her hands around her throat, and Toph's mouth was open like she wanted to say something, but had no words to even consider getting out. Even Azula's eyes had flicked over, the only real movement Jin had seen out of her in the better part of a half hour, though the princess's eyes turned back to the fireplace just as quickly as though she were still adamant on not being noticed.

But Ty Lee had her eyes set only on Sasuke, looking fearfully up towards him as he ever so slowly turned his head to regard her. Jin tried to read the look on his face but it was as infuriatingly impassive as it usually was and he didn't say anything for several long moments. Then, to her disbelief, the corner of his mouth turned up a hair.

"I somehow imagine she and I are a little too far gone to consider going down any such path," he replied, and it took Jin several seconds to realize that he had just cracked a joke back at Ty Lee, albeit with his usual dry mannerism. Ty hardly looked like she could believe it herself, but her mouth turned up in a smile of her own and as the two looked at one another, Jin felt the heat in her cheeks rising as Mai and Ursa's expressions both darkened considerably.

What do they think they're doing? After what they did, they can't just… do that!

Fortunately, Sasuke turned his attention away from Ty Lee a moment later, much to Jin's relief. He looked back to Katara, seeming to glance at her somewhat apologetically.

"I'm sorry, but my mind's made up. I can't give Kyoshi any more time than I already have, and I can't imagine I'm going to find a better lead then this."

Katara still looked like she was in full on argument mode, a side of her that Jin had to admit that she was quite acquainted with. Her arms were crossed, her lips pursed, her body language tight and tense. All indications were that she was good and ready to continue this conversation in a properly heated manner, but second after second ticked by in which she said nothing.

Then, "I'm going with you."

She should have seen it coming, but Katara's words still caused Jin to lower her head and release a long quiet sigh through her nose.

No matter what… she always has to be there. To try and make sure everything goes right, to make sure that… that nothing happens to the people she cares about.

Sasuke seemed to have expected this too, at least to an extent. He crossed his arms as well and looked at her sternly.

"No."

Katara's lips curled as she snarled back at him.

"You don't get to tell me yes or no. Everything you've done, all of it, has affected us one way or another. This is our fight just as much as yours, whether you want to consider that or not. I'm honestly shocked you haven't decided to try and sneak off on your own, but you won't be able to this time. I'm coming with you."

Looking away for a moment, Sasuke released a frustrated sigh, but he didn't back down in the slightest.

"Just because I'll be on foot doesn't mean everyone who's able should come with me. It's going to be dangerous, even for benders like you. If Tangith is being truthful and the storms are as bad north as he says they are, then that means it will be dangerous, no matter who's going. And I can't afford to protect more people than I have to."

Jin furrowed her brow at him.

What's he mean by that?

"No one's asking for your protection," Katara snapped, not looking remotely willing to back down herself. "Were you really considering going on your own?!"

Something caught in Sasuke's eye and Jin could tell he was contemplating whether or not the words on the tip of his tongue were ones that he wanted to air out to the rest of them. He looked down towards his feet a moment, the contemplation clear, before he looked back up to meet Katara's eyes unblinkingly.

"No, I wasn't."

This seemed to catch her off guard, but she quickly recovered, her aggression returning just as fast as it had faltered.

"And why is that, Sasuke?! Because you knew that we'd never let you go on your own?!"

He seemed to still be at odds with whatever was on his mind, but clearly was past the point of no return by that moment. When he replied, Jin could very easily see why it was that such a thing was difficult for him to say aloud.

"Because Soza is their other target, and I'm not letting her leave my side again."

The room fell deathly quiet and Jin knew that she wasn't the only one who turned her eyes towards Azula just then. For a moment, she wondered if the princess had even acknowledged what he had just said before Azula's eyes flicked to Sasuke, the fire burning before her glinting orange in her gaze as her voice came out as a dangerous, low question.

"What did you say?"

Not cowed by Katara, and also seemingly not cowed by Azula, Sasuke matched her gaze firmly as he clarified.

"I'm taking our daughter with us. The spirits are trying to get their hands on her just as much as me, and regardless of the feelings I hold towards any one of you, I don't trust anyone more than myself to keep her safe."

Jin couldn't hold that assessment against Sasuke; as powerful as he was, she didn't blame him for feeling that Soza wouldn't be safe in the care of anyone other than him. Still, she somehow didn't imagine someone like Azula would feel the same and she watched the princess as she stared out from her bloody face towards Sasuke, waiting for something to break.

Azula was perhaps the most possessive person Jin had ever known; with all that she knew now, it was clear that she had considered her raping of Sasuke as being a way to hold triumph over the idea that she had made him hers. Jin knew now that Soza had been as much an experiment as a daughter, someone to try and push past their limits in order to make her more powerful by means of traumatizing her with the loss of Toph. And Jin knew that Azula had been so outraged by Ty Lee, someone she seemed to almost consider as her own personal sex slave, and what she had done, she had nearly mutilated her for life. That wasn't even to mention that Jin never forgot what Azula had done to her the first time they had met so many years ago. Everything that Azula seemed to do had been in pursuit of her own benefit, her own desire for possession and power.

And the fact that Sasuke was openly stating his intention to take his daughter, no matter what Azula's feelings were, had Jin on the edge of her seat.

She watched and waited, waited for Azula's battered face to twist in fury, waited for those eyes to widen with hate and rage, waited for her to bellow that Sasuke had no right to take their daughter, waited for her even to leap from the chair and rush at him just as Toph had rushed at her.

But Azula did none of this.

Her intense, beautiful eyes remained locked on Sasuke for a very long moment and just when it looked like she might make to stand from her chair, she leaned back and turned her eyes back to the fire.

"Fine," she said quietly. "Do what you have to do."

Jin found herself only able to stare at Azula alongside just about everyone else as the impact of her concession made its rounds throughout the room. It made absolutely no sense that she would have given up this way or this easily, and yet there was no denying what had just come out of her mouth.

What happened to her out there?

It all seemed to be a bit much for Aang by that point who pushed himself shakily to his feet as he approached Sasuke with a somewhat pleading expression.

"Sasuke… I know you're set in what you think you have to do, but can we… let's just get some rest for the remainder of the night, before you go? I know that you need sleep, and so does Soza, you're not going to drag her out into the cold right now, are you?"

It was clear just by his expression that Sasuke hadn't even really seemed to assume he would have been able to make it that far as his eyes glazed over thinking about his daughter. He finally nodded after a stretch of time that was a touch long for comfort.

"Alright."

He didn't specify when he intended to leave, nor did he indicate whether or not he was conceding any part of his argument, but he did turn away from the fireplace and exit the room as the first to go. Slowly, the other occupants of the room followed suit; Azula eventually pushed aggressively to her feet and stalked from the room, shrugging off the hands of Zuko and Ty Lee who attempted to aid her. Jin might very well have sat there for another hour if a brush on the arm from Yue hadn't reminded her that she was still very much a presence there, and not just some ethereal being hovering and observing. It was difficult for her to remind herself sometimes that these things were even happening around her, so wild and boggling did they sometimes wind up being. She was certain that it would be some time before she would even be able to get any sleep, but she followed Ty Lee, Yue and Toph into one of the guest rooms with two large beds and lay down in one of the beside Yue. She didn't bother to wash or change, but looked over to see the white haired girl sitting at bedside, looking absently towards the ground.

"Hey, you gonna lay down?"

Yue looked over a touch and offered a small, tired smile.

"In a bit. Don't wait up."

Giving a nod, Jin put her head down and closed her eyes; it was strangely comforting to have Yue sitting there beside her, and even more so to know that Toph and Ty Lee were just a dozen feet away in a bed of their own. And despite what she had initially believed, Jin was asleep mere seconds after her eyelids slipped shut.

---

Sasuke sat at Soza's bedside, looking down at his daughter in silence. It had taken him a moment to even realize he had been doing it, but when he noticed that his hand was gently stroking the side of her face, he had let himself release a quiet, tired sigh.

No child should have to go through this.

It had been impossible for him not to measure Soza's experience against his own, but he had known even then how different they were. Perhaps she was a touch older than he had been when he had awakened his own eyes, perhaps their upbringings had been entirely different, but he couldn't help but see himself in the sleeping face of his daughter. No matter in what light he looked at it, she had been forced into a place she would never be able to come back from. There had been so much she had been forced to bear in recent days, and now, on top of everything else, she had just murdered someone for the first time.

Sasuke grit his teeth and tried to ignore that he had thought of it as her first time as though he somehow knew there would be more to come.

She looked rather as how he had imagined himself after his session with Azula, sleeping so soundly not even the most explosive sound imaginable would rouse her. After what had happened, it was no surprise; Sasuke was genuinely surprised she had lasted as long as she had after she had lost control of Amaterasu and had it burn dark and hot for such a period of time. Her chakra reserves were incredible for someone so young and he found himself wishing he had been able to take some time to talk to Kakashi about her. Might it have been possible that her being of both his and Azula's blood meant that her chakra stores were somehow even more vast than should have been possible?

It doesn't matter. She can't control it. Hell, it's not even that she can't, it's that she's scared of it.

No doubt it would have been a deeply disturbing thing for him to even broach with Soza; she had clearly been raised to the point where fear was something to be shamed for, not something to be used and learned from. Sasuke was already counting on the fact that when she woke after a good night's rest, she would be no doubt deeply humiliated of how panicked and frightened she had been that night, from crying in his and Toph's arms, to collapsing over her mother's unconscious body, to being completely unable to restrain her use of the Amaterasu. Part of Sasuke wanted to wake her up that very moment and console her, tell her that it was okay to feel that way. He knew that at her age, such feelings had been just as taboo to him as they likely were to Soza at that very moment.

But I don't want her to be like I was. Hate and fear should have no place in a child's life.

Of course he couldn't prevent that entirely, but if Soza let herself become consumed by those same feelings as he had once been, he didn't want to imagine just how much like her mother she might wind up becoming.

Her mother.

Azula had all but stunned their entire group that night with what she had done, and Sasuke still wasn't entirely sure why she had done it. Part of him was hoping deep down that she had confessed to Toph openly like that in an act of contrition and repentance, but with Azula, nothing could be taken at face value. He didn't know the person she had really been, and he especially didn't know the person she was now; her allowance of him to take Soza on his journey north was proof of that. He had been ready for her to rush him with her bare hands, assuming that she didn't still have her bending available to her, but for her to just back down like that…

Sasuke sighed softly and got to his feet, making as little noise as he could as he retreated from Soza's bedside. He still wanted to talk to his daughter, but now was certainly not the time. She needed her rest and he needed his. There was too much on his mind that he was doing everything in his power to keep from overloading his mind thinking about, so much so that he wondered if he was successfully avoiding thinking about them period, to the point of forgetfulness. He supposed that might wind up being dangerous in the long run.

He retreated softly from Soza's room and closed the door gently in front of him, allowing himself a moment to stand at the door and quietly mourn for his daughter's loss of innocence, in all the facets that had come in.

"Sasuke."

He had noticed her approaching behind him, but hadn't acknowledged her, just as he didn't acknowledge her now. She didn't press it, but waited silently and respectfully as he stood facing Soza's door with his head down and his eyes closed. Finally, he turned to face her, expression passive as he could manage.

Ursa had her arms crossed and was looking like she was holding a good deal back. Sasuke's eyes immediately went to the bruises on her arms and the marks on her face, and instinct made him want to move to her side and relieve her of some of the pain she was surely feeling all over, but just like Azula, somehow he knew such aid would still be denied.

"What?" he asked, perhaps a touch more curt than he would have liked, but she didn't seem to notice or mind.

"Can we talk?" she replied and Sasuke raised an eyebrow.

"I don't know. You going to give me one of those looks again?"

She seemed to know what he was referring to immediately and gave him a look like she was genuinely annoyed at his reaction. Sasuke could understand that, but she hadn't seen what he had. That hate he had seen on her face was something he had only ever seen on Azula, and not only did it not match the Ursa he knew whatsoever, but he was struggling to figure out if it frightened him or not.

"You did what you thought you had to," she said stiffly, and Sasuke didn't miss that there was neither forgiveness nor understanding in her voice. She was still upset with what he had done with Toph and Azula, and Sasuke could never have blamed her for that. Still, it was painful to see her so clearly bitter with him. He wanted to walk into her arms and apologize, but he didn't regret what he had done, and he wouldn't disrespect Ursa by making it seem like he did. She would probably have seen right through him even if he had tried such a thing.

"Alright," he said and they walked shoulder to shoulder through the halls of the palace. Wordlessly, they made it up several flights of stairs until Sasuke finally spotted a veranda and gestured to it; moving past curtains that gently flapped in the frigid night breeze, they stepped outside to look up at the starry night in the small space they had allotted themselves.

"So?" Sasuke asked as soon as Ursa had walked past him to stand near the railing. Her long hair gently was tossed in the wind, her figure very powerful and imposing even after the damage her body had been dealt that evening. She didn't reply to him for a long period of time, and he started to wonder if she had perhaps changed her mind in the time it had taken for them to walk up several floors and outside. It wouldn't have surprised him; it was clear that she was feeling a great many things, and he would have been shocked if she would feel comfortable airing them all out to him.

"What did you do to my daughter?"

With that question, uttered in a shaky, almost threatening tone, Sasuke knew that Ursa's maternal instinct had breached what she had told him before on the roof.

"I trust you."

She had trusted him to do what was best for Azula, but now that Sasuke had returned to her, and her daughter's decision-making was even more unpredictable than before, she didn't know what to think. And now, she had no choice but to turn to the one person who might give her some clarity. It didn't matter what she felt towards him, the trust that she had put forth. Ursa wanted answers about her daughter and she felt she was owed them, Sasuke could tell from her tone.

"If I tell you, you think that will make you feel better?" he asked, and she turned to look at him. The cold glare she responded with nearly made him forget that she had been hurt as there was no sign of the physical pain she was working through on her face.

"It might," she replied icily.

Of all the things that he had felt stab at his very soul that night, Ursa's aura around him might have felt the worst. Perhaps not because of the gravity of it compared to a situation like Soza's, but because after everything he had been forced to deal with, Ursa was the one person that Sasuke had been hoping in the back of his mind he could just turn to and let the tension and anxiety ebb away in her arms. She hardly seemed to be in a comforting mood however; quite the opposite, she seemed more ready to take his head off at a moment's notice if she let him.

Azula… after everything she's done, she's ready to slap me across the face because of Azula.

Sasuke finally was able to look inward then and take stock of how angry he was.

"You think I wanted this?!" he shouted, stepping forward to be only a couple feet from Ursa. "You think I wanted this all to happen?! You think I wouldn't just rather your daughter act like a good fucking person and just apologize for all that she's done and start over?! But no, you want to hear why she's acting this way, why she's not a complete murderous psycho anymore, then fine!"

It was with some satisfaction that he saw that, though she hadn't back down, Ursa's expression was a touch cowed. Still, he took in a deep breath and spoke as calmly as he could despite his anger and exhaustion.

"I spent four days inside Azula's head. I used my abilities to get inside her psyche and root around for any sign that there was a hope she could be somehow turned into a better person than she was when I left. I put her through years and years of fictitious living in her head. I found out what she dreamed of, and I found out what she dreaded. I looked into her past and saw her memories, I made her face the emotions of the people she had hurt the most, and—"

As he remembered the most damning thing of all that he had seen within Azula's mind, Sasuke cut off as his insides gave a tremendous and pained heave. Because it wasn't any of Azula's twisted future that hurt him the most, it wasn't seeing people like Ursa and Toph tortured that had hurt him the most, nor even seeing himself as completely receptive and reciprocative of Azula's sadistic lifestyle as he had been in her fantasy.

"Ursa…" he muttered, glaring at her with as much venom as he knew that she had been looking at him with. "Why didn't you tell her?"

By that point, Ursa had backed against the railing, a very tight expression on her face. Seeing her rattled after how coldly she had treated him should have continued to give Sasuke a sense of satisfaction, but he couldn't be bothered to care how he felt anymore. All he wanted was an answer.

"Why didn't I tell her what?" Ursa said haltingly, and Sasuke stepped back and leaned against the railing that wrapped around the veranda several meters from her.

"I saw… I saw something. I saw something that caused Azula to break down and start crying in her own head. There was a memory that shouldn't have been there, she shouldn't have known because she was asleep, but somehow… it was still buried there, as deep as anything could be."

He looked up and met her eyes furiously.

"You came to her before you left, didn't you? You told Azula that you loved her, and that you were sorry."

Ursa said nothing in response to this and he practically shouted his next word.

"Right?!"

She nodded with a sharp firmness and Sasuke bowed his head, closing his eyes.

"Ursa… why didn't you just tell her?"

Pinching the bridge of his nose, he remembered Azula's future wherein she had seen herself torturing her mother and he remembered what she had said. He genuinely didn't know how much of this Ursa actually understood, but it didn't matter. If she didn't know what she had done to her daughter…

"Azula spent the rest of her childhood believing that you hated her. She thought you saw her as nothing short of a monster, something to be reviled while you spent all your time with Zuko, pampering and loving him while she watched from the shadows. She felt slighted, disregarded, and turned to Ozai as her only source of affirmation, because she felt nothing but coldness from you. Then you left, and she had nothing to tell her otherwise. I… watched as she pictured a world where she saw herself as Fire Lord and she had you locked up and tortured, and she screamed at you and screamed at you, demanding you tell her why she was so worthless, so unfit to be loved as Zuko was."

Strangely enough, Sasuke could feel a burning behind his eyes that indicated tears were trying to break free; why should he have wanted to cry over this? It had nothing to do with him.

"You left her… and she had no one. She turned her resentment to Zuko and drove away her brother in an attempt to find fulfillment in rivalry and beating him down, and she never once turned away from Ozai's shadow. It was only after I arrived and her outlook was forced to change, but by then, it was just a matter of securing her rightful place of power. There was nowhere for her to go back from, because she had already sorted out the world in her head. And so she did everything she could to remain better than all others, and did her best to retain possession of me, and when she couldn't, she chose to rape me as her only means of securing that power."

He grit his teeth.

"Because no one was there to tell her how to live."

Turning his eyes back to her, Sasuke couldn't keep the resentment from his gaze as it finally, truly settled on him the part that Ursa might have played in her own daughter's wicked development.

"So, I'm asking you, why didn't you wake your daughter up to tell her that you—"

Sasuke stopped as he focused his eyes on Ursa. He hadn't heard a sound from her as he had been talking, and he had assumed that she had been doing but nothing but stare at him coldly as he had carried on. But the sight he was greeted with was anything but what he had expected.

Ursa's body was shaking quietly as she cried, tracks of tears spilling down her cheeks. Her mouth was pulled in that grimace that only came when a person was sobbing, even if she was as quiet as the gentle breeze nestling them every so often. She had an arm wrapped around her body to clutch her other bicep, looking quite badly as though she just even needed the sensation of being held by someone. As he looked at her, she gave a small, sad smile and shook her head.

"Sasuke… you don't need to say anymore…"

She turned her eyes up towards the stars above as tears struck the cold ground at her feet.

"I… always knew I failed my children. I cursed myself everyday for leaving them, and every terrible thing that happened to me, the ship I was on sinking and nearly killing me, being picked up and used for sex by the Bjorn's first captain, everything awful instance in my life from then on I assumed… it was comeuppance for what I had done."

Ursa closed her eyes a moment, shaking her head ever so softly.

"It never made it feel any better."

Swallowing deeply, she looked back down and continued to hug herself, her breathing coming in shakily.

"But I never would have guessed that… what I had done, that one moment… would have caused my daughter to be so… hurt."

She shook with another sob and looked away from him, turning towards the city lights as her body quaked under the weight of her guilt.

Sasuke looked at Ursa's back for a long while. He tried to keep feeling angry towards her. He tried to keep using her to give himself something to vent towards.

But…

Was she holding back… all this time?

He couldn't.

Sasuke was behind Ursa in a moment, wrapping his arms around her waist and pressing himself against her back. In his head, he knew it was a complete shot in the dark; he didn't know if this was going to be something she wanted, or if the idea of human contact just then was going to be enough for her to turn around and slap him hard enough to make his ears ring. It wouldn't have surprised him to take a hit like that, but Sasuke knew fully well that all he wanted just then was for her to know that he still cared about her. No matter what she was feeling, and no matter how small a comfort it might have been, he wanted Ursa to know how he still loved her.

"I'm sorry," was all he could manage to say quietly. He wished he could have told her that it wasn't her fault that so much of this was happening, but he would never have dared lie to her. "I didn't mean to—"

Pushing away from him, Ursa spun to face him; Sasuke took a step back, preparing to retreat with the idea that he had overstepped looming, but he didn't make it far before Ursa grabbed him and yanked him somewhat roughly into a rather crushing hug.

"Don't be," she said, somewhat muffled as she spoke into his shoulder. "I shouldn't have treated you that way. I was just… so worked up over Azula, who she had become and what might have changed about her. Even if she has reached a point where she's willing to admit such awful things… it doesn't change the fact that she did them. Anyone else would have been given the death sentence a hundred times over for what she's done."

Sasuke desperately tried to think of something of comfort to say in response to that, but he could find nothing. He wanted rather to not say anything, but even as he felt his body's tension give way to Ursa's touch, he knew there was still something more that needed to be said, even if he would have rather anyone else been the one to tell her.

"You need to talk to Azula."

Ursa released a shaky, weak sigh over his shoulder and he held her tighter.

"She needs to know. She needs to know you don't think she's an abomination. That you always loved her."

She still said nothing back to him and he pulled away to look into her wet eyes, glistening with tears and sorrow.

"I'll be there if you want. But I can't do this for you. And Azula needs it, maybe more than anything."

Looking downwards, Ursa drew a hand back and ran it through her rich, brown hair.

"I know."

Giving a watery chuckle, she wiped the tear tracks from her cheeks.

"It's funny… after everything dangerous, everything frightening I've ever done… talking to my daughter scares me more than anything."

There was nothing Sasuke could say to alleviate that fear, so he walked up alongside her and took her hand in his as they both leaned against the railing. Their shoulders touching, Sasuke allowed himself to continue to inhale and exhale deeply as Ursa regained control of her own breathing. He was distantly upset that he wasn't able to give her a better source of comfort, but as he felt her hand tightly clenching his own, he hoped that he was at least giving her some form of reprieve.

That was stupid of me to be angry with her… she's done nothing wrong. Unless I can qualify caring about Azula as doing something wrong.

Ursa quickly was able to get ahold of herself and after a minute or so, she put a hand around Sasuke's shoulder and pulled him to her.

"Thank you," she said quietly and Sasuke cocked his head.

"For what?"

Turning her head and leaning in, she kissed his forehead.

"For not running off when I started crying."

Smiling, Sasuke reached up to put his hand around her head to pull her head down so that his lips could meet hers. Her being taller than him made kissing often be something that he had to work for, but when she reciprocated him, it didn't matter.

"Why would I go and do a thing like that?" he asked against her lips.

"Because you don't want to deal with an old woman having a breakdown?" she asked after a moment, and he pressed his face to her chest.

"You're not old," he muttered against her. "Stop that."

She gave a quiet laugh which made his spirits soar.

"Would you still say that if we weren't the way we are?"

Deciding to press his luck a touch, Sasuke leaned in and brought his lips against her neck, risking a small nibble near her collarbone. He felt her tense and utter the quietest moan, and he smiled as he hugged her again.

"I can't imagine not being this way."

He felt the nudge of reality plant his feet back in a world where it wasn't just him and Ursa, and he felt his smile tugged away at the bitterness of that. She must have felt his touch soften slightly and she held him tight.

"What's wrong?"

Sasuke let out a short exhale and ran his fingers through her hair while resting his head against her chest, taking everything he could from her comfort.

"I want you to come with me and Soza."

Ursa's nails stroked against scalp and he didn't need to look at her to know that she was smiling gently.

"But?"

Closing his eyes, Sasuke tried once again to find the answer that wasn't there.

"But I don't know what's waiting for me up north. I don't know what to expect, and I know that Soza… she…"

As he should have expected, Ursa understood what he meant without him needing to finish his thought.

"She might be a child, but she has powers that will keep her safer if anything should go wrong."

Sasuke pulled back and saw her looking down at him with a sad smile.

"And you don't want to put me in danger that I won't be able to defend myself from."

He sighed somewhat miserably.

"I'm planning on using my jutsu to open a link between Soza and myself using our chakra. It will help me keep an eye on her even if I'm not standing right next to her, though I don't intend to let her out of my sight. And it will let me protect her almost remotely if I need to. With you… it wouldn't be that simple."

As she considered to run her hands over his arms and shoulders, Ursa looked at him with a quiet sadness that told him of how much she wanted to ease his mind. It was comforting to him that with her in this mindset, she really seemed able to put aside her guilt and fear over Azula as she brought her focus to him.

"Then I'll stay here. I don't want you being worried about me when you have so much else to pay mind to. I only…"

Sasuke looked up to see that he might have thought too soon. Ursa's face had become clouded by uneasiness and that same guilt was back in her eyes. She seemed to catch herself and immediately wiped the look from her face, but it was far too late to draw Sasuke away from it.

"What's wrong?" he said, mirroring what she had just asked him. Ursa broke his eye contact and looked down, trying to hide behind a forced smile.

"It's nothing, I'm just—"

Sasuke brought a hand up to cup her cheek, catching himself from keeping his voice from growing too stern.

"Please listen to me. Everything will be okay with Azula. I know Mai and Suki, and probably a couple others are watching as closely as they can, and what I did to her, no matter how much you might hate me for it, I truly believe might be for the better for her."

Ursa frowned and started to slowly shake her head.

"Sasuke, I don't—"

"And everything will be fine between you both. You just need to tell her the truth."

"I'm not—"

He continued to cut her off, wanting to make his point in its entirety.

"I'll be there for whatever you need; I want everything to be alright, please know that I—"

"Sasuke!"

As she shouted his name with a surprising amount of force, he stopped and felt himself almost jerk back from her on instinct. Very briefly, her face came alive with a vibrant intensity and frustration that she once again wiped away, but not before he had gotten a chance to see it. He hated to think about it, but he couldn't help wondering if there were other emotions she had hidden from him prior to that night.

I don't know I could blame her.

"That's not what the problem is…" she said and then looked down, looking much more guilty and feeling quite terrible as a result. The pain on her face spurned Sasuke to grip her upper arm tightly and try to meet her eyes.

"It's… not a problem," she said then, almost more to herself than him. Her eyes seemed to widen as she spoke, and some level of understanding seem to pass through them as she finally turned her gaze to his.

"Ursa, what's wrong?" he said, his voice a chill cut of evenness that he hoped didn't sound more menacing than anything. She swallowed and lowered her head, hair falling around her face and she brought her hands up to cover her face. With every passing second, Sasuke grew more and more concerned as it was clear this was something she didn't want to talk about.

"It's… about us."

For a reason he didn't immediately understand, Sasuke felt his heart drop to his feet and he took a step back, his entire body slumping. When realization came over him, he closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Was it what I did?"

She didn't reply and he looked up to see confusion on her pain-stricken face.

"What?" Ursa asked, her voice echoing her lack of understanding.

"I know I messed up," Sasuke said, feeling numb to his core. "Is that why?"

For a long while, Ursa simply stared at him before understanding broke out over her face, and she actually laughed briefly, a sound of sheer clarity.

"I… no, Sasuke, I'm not trying to say we're done. That's not what this is."

The numbness in his gut switched to an uplifted hopefulness and Sasuke had to crack a grin at the rushing pain and change of his emotions.

Is this what being in love does to you?

"Then…" he started slowly. "What's the matter?"

He watched Ursa's chest slowly rise and fall as she stared at him unblinkingly, and it was clear that even after his misinterpretation of what he had thought the problem was, she still didn't want to bring it up. It might very well have been a whole minute before she actually replied.

"I suppose I don't know for certain… but as someone who's felt this before in my life… I can't… I can't ignore it."

She suddenly reached up and grabbed the sides of her head, her face contorting in clear mental stress.

"I can't ignore it, Sasuke, I can't! And I can't keep it from you!"

Feeling at nothing short of a complete loss, Sasuke remained where he stood, motionless, as he waited and watched the woman he loved battle hard with something in her mind. Finally, Ursa's hands fell away and her arms dropped loosely to her sides, a tiredness in her eyes that seemed to completely consume her, but as she looked at him, she had the ghost of a smile on her face and he knew it was real.

Then, she spoke, and he felt the world that had slowly been coming back together in her arms collapse as Ursa slammed a brutal hammer against it, a hammer made of six simple words.

"I think… I think I'm pregnant."