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.

39. Chapter 39

Chapter 39: In the Dark

All things considered, Soza supposed that her conditions could have been a lot worse. It was true that beyond the door of her room there were a number of particularly large spirits who would have been good and ready to withhold her should she have tried to escape, but had that not been the case, it would have seemed as though she had been given exceptional accommodations.

Though she had been led through the palace quite forcefully and quickly after Yangchen had put her in the hands of the spirits guarding the castle, it rather seemed as though she had been forced into one of the suites reserved for very honored guests. It was even nicer than the one she and her mother had been given to stay in when they had come to Ba Sing Se, and in the back of her head, Soza supposed she was rather annoyed by that.

Yangchen had whisked her back to Ba Sing Se in what felt like no time at all; the entire journey, Soza had felt herself barely restraining tears as she felt extreme fear over her own fate eating at the back of her mind. She didn't expect to live for long and she couldn't stop thinking too about her parents, her grandmother and her friend back north, where who knew what they were facing.

Dad… how long until he knew I was gone? Did he tear that giant apart looking for me?

It had been a thought that was both painful and somewhat comforting for her, to imagine just how much Sasuke might have flown into a frenzy at the idea of discovering her being gone. Based on the little she had known after the fact, they had been tricked by Koh, something that had been frustrating to no end for Soza. Tricked her, tricked her father, tricked them all and in doing so, they might very well have wound up losing… losing the…

She had forced herself to think of something else, anything else, besides the possibility that they might have lost because of their misstep.

Arriving in Ba Sing Se, it had been rather curious to see that there were very few spirits actually present in the city itself. A fair number patrolled the streets themselves but compared to the number that had invaded the city, they seemed tremendously sparse. They must have all gone north with Kyoshi and Soza took some solace in the fact that it seemed like perhaps there was an end to their number after all.

The palace itself was quite a different story. Spirits roamed about its insides en masse, and it was quite difficult to look anywhere without seeing some bizarre being walking or floating through the halls. When they were only a few steps into the main hall, she and Yangchen were immediately accosted by two massive ogre-like spirits who peered down at her through beady dark eyes. They had rather unceremoniously informed the Avatar that they were to relieve her of Soza at once.

"You are not in a position to make such a request," Yangchen had replied testily.

"Kyoshi's orders," they had replied and the Avatar whose hand had been gently resting on Soza's shoulder seemed to tense. For a moment, Soza had been sure she would continue to contest them, but she slowly withdrew her hand before stepping back.

"She's not to be harmed," Yangchen had said sharply to them both. They confirmed this and led her away; looking back over her shoulder, Soza saw the Avatar watching her go with a conflicting look clouding her eyes and Soza found too that she rather would have stayed with Yangchen. She was the only spirit she had yet encountered who gave off anything like a comforting vibe.

Well, she didn't even want to be here it seemed like. As though she only came along to accompany Kyoshi.

But questioning Yangchen's motives didn't do her much good. She was led away between the two spirits, the top of her head not even level with their knees, and they had brought her deep within the rich, dark halls to the room she was in now. It had been rather a surprise to her when she had been half-expecting a cell, and she had spent several long minutes taking in the rather roomy surroundings.

Still, there was only so much an enormous and comfortable bed, luxurious carpet and soft, enticing furniture could do for her and it didn't distract from the fact that she was here as a captive and alone.

Well, almost alone.

"I still don't get what you're doing in here," she snapped, looking over her shoulder. "You went toe to toe with dad back on that island, and I can't see why the spirits guarding the door would be enough to stop you."

She hadn't expected to have company when she was brought to the palace and was even more surprised to see who else was in the room with her.

"I told you, it's not a matter of the spirits," the reply came to her with a tired sigh. "Neither of us could leave this room if they weren't there. There's a field around this room; you walk through that door, you'd find yourself not leaving it but walking right back in."

Kakashi lowered his head, looking more defeated than anyone Soza had ever seen.

"Trust me, I've tried already."

Soza hadn't seen her father's old mentor since the island and part of her had put him far into the back of her mind. From what she knew, he had told Sasuke that he would try and meet him in the north, but since he had never arrived, Soza had all but forgotten about him until she had found him sitting limply in one of the room's chairs when she was brought in.

Physically, there didn't seem to be anything wrong with him, but he was acting rather strangely. When on the island, he had possessed a tired appearance, but there had been something like a mischievous aura to him. There was a sense that he had a quiet determination about him and her father had certainly seemed to trust him enough for Soza to be alright with the relative stranger.

Now, however, he was acting both cagey with his replies to her and not saying a word other than when Soza would fire a question at him. He hadn't moved from his chair and when she looked at him, the one eye that she was able to see was fixed on the floor; he was clearly thinking about a good deal, but nothing else suggested that he was actively looking to escape. It was frustrating to Soza: why would a person with powers similar to her father's be unable to free them from a situation like this. The excuse he had just given aside, surely there was something he could do.

"Are you going to tell me how you wound up in here?" she demanded of him, looking back after another round of pacing the room. She had already asked him this question more than once, as it was one of the few to which he didn't offer so much as a word in reply. And still it seemed that he wasn't willing to. Soza tried to burn a hole right through him with her glare, but he still didn't seem to care enough to oblige her. This time it was enough to push her over the edge of her fear and frustration, and she snapped fire to life in her hands, blue and enticing.

Fine. See if I care.

She marched towards the door of the room, ready to blast her way out of there through whatever opposition she might encounter. Half-expecting Kakashi to try and stop her, Soza reached the front door and was surprised as it flew open in her fiery grip. Feeling a surge of confidence, she marched into the hallway…

And found herself walking back into the room.

Stopping dead in her tracks, she spun around and looked at the now closed door behind her. It almost seemed like it was taunting her. Soza growled and lunged for it again, this time making sure to keep her eyes forward; if something had spun her around and thrown her back into the room without her noticing, it wasn't going to be able to this time.

The next moment, she was sprawling ungracefully onto the carpet of the room. The fire spat and faded from her palms as she rolled over into a sitting position as she stared fixatedly at the door. Her pulse hammered in her throat as Kakashi spoke up quietly somewhere off to her right.

"Don't waste your time. Like I said, it's not a matter of what's outside the door if we have no chance of even leaving the room."

Soza refused to look at him as she got shakily to her feet. Maybe he had given up, but she had no intention of doing the same. Neither of her parents would have surrendered themselves by this point, and as long as Soza could still pull air into her lungs, she would do the same.

Getting to her feet, she started to look around the room. There were no other doors as she had previously surmised, but as she craned her neck, she saw that there were two windows towards either end of the room, both of them raised towards the ceiling. Soza hadn't noticed them since the light filtering through them was minimal; there were thick clouds over the city and the few lamps within the room drew the eye more than the outside lighting.

She turned back to Kakashi, snapping, "Well, if we can't use the door, why don't we get out through the windows?"

He peered at her almost curiously out of his one visible eye and she felt her frustration only ramp up at his lack of a response.

"You have powers like my dad, don't you?!" she barked. "Use them!"

Kakashi didn't move and Soza released a snarl of frustration before marching past him and right up to the wall, glaring up at the window a good twelve feet above her. The explosive force that was generated when she used her firebending to fly made using such an ability out of the question as it would likely burn down the whole room if she used it even slightly improperly. Her brain told her to look around for furniture she could stack or some way she could mantle her way up to reach the glass, but her eyes slowly lowered down to the wall in front of her.

There was a substantial thrill that rolled through her as she put two and two together. Pulling in a deep breath, she closed her eyes and stepped just near enough that she could comfortably raise a foot and place it flat in front of her on the wall. It immediately slid about with no grip whatsoever as Soza applied pressure and she shook her head, forcing herself to relax.

Breathe… just breathe, and focus. Clear your head.

Feeling what she knew to be chakra running through her body, she turned her relaxation to focused determination and, trusting the one foot planted on the wall, she moved her other foot to match it.

The ground met her with a painful hardness, slamming into her back and her eyes sprang open. She looked at where she had fallen and looked at her two feet which were resting stupidly on the ground, rather than holding her to the wall. Growling, Soza scrambled back to her feet and tried again, and again, but successive attempts produced the same result each time, and each time Soza felt her frustration continue to mount.

Come ON, you stupid girl! You can do this, I did it before! Dad showed me how, I'm not… why can't I do this?!

Letting loose a strained howl, Soza pulled herself up, took several steps back and then sprinted at the wall. So much for focusing, her mind was running wild with the possibilities of what could happen if she didn't escape that room; perhaps she would be killed, or worse, she might be used as bait for the others, for her family. Angry tears filled her eyes as her heart continued to pound against her chest as though it were trying to escape.

Come on, come on, COME ON, COME—

Soza's mind drew a blank as she realized she was standing perpendicular to the ground. Staring forward, she was looking at the dark ceiling, and when she looked down to her feet, she saw them pressed against the wall as though they had been glued there.

She yelped and immediately toppled to the ground again. The pain was dulled by her shock at what she had just achieved, and she pulled herself into a sitting position, looking down at her feet as though it were the first time she had ever seen them. Her mouth slightly agape, she heard a slightly rustling behind her.

"How did you do that?"

Looking over her shoulder, she saw that Kakashi had gotten to his feet and was now regarding her with considerable interest. After all the lame answers and silence he had given her questions, Soza didn't feel in any sort of rush to comply with an honest and solid answer.

"What do you care?" she snapped, reaching down to massage her waist just below her buttocks where she seemed to have taken the most brunt from her falls onto the hard floor. "You're good and ready to just sit and here and die, aren't you?"

Kakashi looked at her for a long moment. He crossed his arms and continued to look at her, and there was a strange sense of familiarity in his eye.

"If I say nothing and go back to sitting down, you're going to keep trying to reach that window, aren't you?"

"You're damn right I am!" she yelled at him, and he sighed. Turning on his heel, he walked back towards the furniture in the middle of the room, but instead of sitting back in the armchair that he had previously been reclined in, he lowered himself onto the cushy sofa facing her. Letting out another sigh as he got off his feet, he looked back to her and patted the cushion beside him. Her eyes narrowed as she looked at him suspiciously and he leaned back.

"You can keep trying to make it up that wall, but I'll tell you now, when you reach the window, you're going to experience a great swell of blood rushing to your head, and you'll about pass out. Same with the front door, it repels any attempt to near it, let alone pass through it."

Soza looked back up at the window. It looked so enticing and so tantalizing, and yet just out of her reach. Though if what Kakashi said was true, it might as well have been on another planet.

"Why are you telling me that now?" she asked him angrily. "You haven't been keen to be so talkative since I got here and now you want me to pull up some couch so, what, you can talk?"

He didn't seem to entirely buy into her attempts to guilt him and he simply watched her as he replied.

"If you want answers, I don't know you ought to waste time wondering why you're getting them."

Though she was still angry with him, Soza knew grudgingly that answers were indeed more important to her then than worrying about her more bitter emotions. Pushing herself up, she walked over and dropped herself on the couch next to him rather huffily, but she didn't say anything else that might damn her chances of getting her answers. She wasn't sure if she should lead with a question, but Kakashi started talking just after she sat down.

"I've been in here for what must have been days now, or at least that's how it's seemed to me. This room, I truthfully don't even know if I'm really in it."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Soza asked rudely.

"The being that put me in here has access to some powers that could make me think I'm in a rather comfortable and luxurious room for days, when in fact I might be shivering on the cold ground in some cell with only minutes having passed," he replied, taking no note of her disrespect. "Truthfully, I'm not even certain you're real to be honest."

Soza wasn't sure what to make of this and she wondered if perhaps Kakashi wasn't perhaps losing it a bit. She didn't want to pry in that regard, so she decided to keep drawing whatever information she could while he was still in a talkative mood.

"Well, assuming this is all real, which it is, because I'm real," she said, not able to keep herself from adding that bit. "How did you wind up in here?"

What would have been strong enough to take you down?

If he was from the same world as her father, able to fight him in hand-to-hand combat in a blur of speed, as well as snatch him from the sky after he had been struck from it by Kyoshi, Soza had found herself rather sure that no person or spirit should have been a match for Kakashi. He had trained her father when he was right about her age to boot; he should have been invincible.

"I misjudged and miscalculated," Kakashi said simply. "In my journeying to try and track down the true source of why this is all happening, this… invasion," he gestured around him ambiguously, "I got right to where I wanted to be. And I walked right into the place I should have been."

"That's not exactly the answer I—" Soza started to interrupt, but he held a hand up. There was a clear conflict in his eye, and she could tell he didn't want to tell her whatever was on the tip of his tongue. She wanted to demand an answer of him, but she surprised even herself with restraint and kept her mouth shut, opting to instead put her hands in her lap and clench them tightly into fists to hold herself back.

"Do… you remember the stories I told you about your dad, back around that campfire? When I brought him back to you all?" Kakashi finally asked, his voice almost coming out nervous.

"Yes," Soza replied almost too quickly.

"Then I'm sure you also remember how I didn't get much farther talking about him than when he was just a little older than you."

Of course.

"Yeah, I remember that too."

He sighed yet again.

"In our world… the events that would shape your father's childhood, the events that shaped my own… so much would come together in culmination of something I still don't entirely understand. I thought I did, I suppose we all did, but when I found that cave, found Obito's… what was left of him. Found Kabuto's seals and saw that one still remained, when I saw that…"

Kakashi wasn't making much sense to her now, but Soza still did her best to process the information as best she could. Even if it didn't seem relevant to her, or was even something she understood, there was no telling when it might become useful to her in the future. That, and she was fairly sure that this would loop back around to her question, or at least she hoped so.

Beside her, he seemed to realize that he was starting to ramble and caught himself.

"Your father and I spoke before we went our separate ways some weeks ago. We talked in depth about what we think might have been the reason behind why the spirits decided to come charging into your world."

"Talked in depth about what?" Soza demanded, unable to restrain herself. "They came here to try and kill him, and anyone related to him!"

"Yes, that seems to be the goal," Kakashi replied. "But why?"

Soza blinked at him, too bemused by such a stupid question to immediately reply.

"Because that wicked Kyoshi thinks he's some kind of threat! She gathered up all these spirits and rallied them against us because they think we're going to cause some sort of irreparable damage to this world!"

Kakashi gave his head a small shake.

"Your father and I aren't of the same mind. Not entirely anyway; based on what I've heard, it doesn't surprise me that Kyoshi wouldn't go after Sasuke with a serious fervor, but we wonder if perhaps the real reason isn't something even more deadly."

Narrowing her eyes at him, Soza cocked her head slightly to the side.

"I don't get it."

He looked back at her carefully.

"Let's go back to the war that ended over a decade ago, the one that ended just before you were born, relatively. What do you know about that war? Specifically, what do you know about how it ended?"

Thinking hard, Soza scratched the back of her head. Her mother hadn't very much seemed interested in talking to her about it, but she had heard snippets from Ty Lee and Mai, and it had been touched on the night that Kakashi had saved her father.

"My grandfather led the Fire Nation army against the united forces of the Water Nation and Earth Nation in Ba Sing Se," she said, doing her best to pull up every memory she could think to. "At the time, the Avatar and his group were in the city, some time after they had met my dad. And he supposedly won the war all by himself, or at least something close."

She scrunched her brow.

"But there had been… I think two other people from his world that had actually come here as well? One of them was manipulated by the other, the one you called Obito, he fought with my father, but he had been pretty much forced into having to by that other one… what was his name…"

"Madara."

Kakashi spoke the name and Soza could hear the cold in his voice. There was a bitterness in his voice as he spoke it, almost a kind of fear.

"Yeah, him," she replied. "My dad and Obito had to work together to blast him out of our world."

"That would certainly have been the ideal situation," Kakashi said tersely. "And you're correct, that's what we believed to have happened, but unfortunately, it seemed that wasn't the case. Your father and I wondered if perhaps the Madara, when blasted from this world, became trapped within the spirit world and then constructed a plot to invade and go after you and your father. We had brought together a bit of supposed evidence that suggested he never was destroyed, nor did he ever return to his own world, based on what I knew. Neither of us were sure, but your father and I were certainly wondering if perhaps he was just as involved as anyone else."

Soza took this all in before giving him a shrug.

"Okay. But this is just a theory. What does that have to do with where we're at right now?"

Giving his eyebrow a flick and lowering his head to rest it against his palm, Kyoshi replied quietly.

"I would have certainly liked it to be just a theory. But it isn't. I came to Ba Sing Se with the intention of confirming or denying that theory, or at the very least to learn more about what was happening in this city."

He looked at her seriously.

"It's no theory anymore. I found Madara here. He defeated me and has had me imprisoned for days now, hence why I wasn't able to meet up with you all at the Northern Water Tribe."

This, finally, was real news to Soza and she recoiled slightly at his words. For a moment, she tried to wrap her head around what exactly this might mean before turning her eyes back to Kakashi urgently.

"But… if he's here, then…"

"I heard him speaking with Avatar Kyoshi before he found me out," Kakashi said, his voice adopting the defeated sort of aura that he had displayed to Soza when she had found him in that room. "Based on that, it's very clear to me that he has been heavily involved in orchestrating most, if not all, of this entire invasion."

Soza retreated into her thoughts for a moment, feeling worry start to creep back into her veins. Based on what she had been told, this Madara was not a person to be trifled with and he had not only beaten Kakashi, but also had apparently been the cause behind why an army had stampeded its way into her their world hellbent on taking her and her father. The odds had already seemed so damningly insurmountable before this, and now some person who was on a level above Kakashi… did that mean he was on the same level as her father? Maybe… even more?

"That was rather why I spared you the questions about Sasuke and the others," Kakashi muttered. "Madara could easily place me in an illusion, put a fake you in here and try and ask me questions, but I realize now that there's nothing I could tell him that would be of much use."

"I'm real!" Soza shouted, getting angry again. She hadn't even thought about the fact that Kakashi hadn't asked about his former student; of course he would have been worried about Sasuke, and she forced herself to calm down.

"I'm starting to think you might be," Kakashi replied. "You certainly seem real enough in terms of an annoying child that came from the loins of Sasuke and that princess."

It took Soza a moment to realize that he was poking fun at her. She didn't care much for it, but if that was just his way of trying to keep himself in a positive state of mind, she supposed she'd let it slide.

"So… how is everyone? The last time you saw them?" Kakashi asked almost hesitantly. For the briefest moment, she continued cold shouldering him, but found that maturity that was something difficult for her to find these days. She launched into a brief telling of their trip to the north, and how she and her father had gone hunting for a being that might have been able to turn the tide of the war.

"Do you know if Sasuke destroyed it?" Kakashi asked when she finished, ending on how they had found Koloss and then how she had returned to the Northern Water Tribe only to learn that they had been tricked by Koh. Kakashi had leaned forward with great interest since she had started talking, and it was clear he was processing everything she told him with great concentration.

"I don't," Soza replied. "Like I said, he made me leave the room and I didn't see him again after that."

Kakashi leaned back, stroking his chin thoughtfully.

"And the army had reached the city?"

"Yeah," she said, not happy to have to return to that memory. The last thing she had seen of her mother, of her friends, was them all lain down in the snow by Koh's shadow soldiers, and her father was still nowhere to be seen. It was as ugly a picture as she had ever seen, and she had no idea what had happened next. Who knew what Koh had done exactly to her dad?

Releasing another sigh, Kakashi gave his head a small shake.

"There's no good to be found in worrying too much over it," he said. "We just have to trust in your dad. Can you do that?"

Soza looked at him in surprise. After all that defeated aura he had been giving off, he was now telling her to have faith? Still, it was a much more appealing solution to her than wallowing in anxiousness and she nodded. Her mind didn't quite let her immediately, but at another question from Kakashi she eagerly listened in, ready to talk about anything to distract from it.

"Other than that, how was your dad doing? Just overall?"

She looked at him in puzzlement, not quite sure what he meant.

"How are things between you and him, between him and Ursa, between him and whoever?"

Catching on, Soza nodded quickly. She could tell that Kakashi was actually rather worried and curious as to what had been happening with his former student.

"Well…"

It was both a deeply painful and comforting realization as Soza thought to how things had grown between her and her father. It was a very warm feeling that passed through her as she remembered how they had hesitantly grown nearer to one another during their journeys, but it had been a growth that she had cherished every step of the way. Even through his disappointment, through the ways she had let him down, they had become closer as father and daughter which in the end, had been all she wanted. That, and to make him proud to call her his daughter.

It also hurt as she realized too that all of that might wind up being for nothing, that she might never see… might never see him again.

Shut up.

Chiding herself mentally, she talked over her fears, doing what she could to keep herself distracted from them.

"Me and dad are really good," she said, giving a firm nod. "I think so anyway. We've talked a lot and he's shown me so much; he taught me how to go up a wall like that."

She gestured to the side of the room beneath the window and Kakashi looked that way with something like genuine impressment in his eye.

"Impressive you've managed even what you have," he said. "Even kids we would train who spent years in school learning about their chakra flows and how to use them could take even months to climb the trees we put in front of them."

He chuckled softly.

"Probably helps you've got a parent who's as powerful as he is."

Soza didn't feel like what she had done was very impressive at all, not in light of what she had seen her father do. She had made it up a couple paces training with him and just now, she had only barely been able to stick to the wall before falling. She pressed on.

"He and grandma seemed to be getting along really well during our trip north, and especially too when we were there."

She remembered something that possessed quite the deal of gravitas so much so that she couldn't even believe that she had forgotten it. Looking at Kakashi with genuine curiosity, she asked, "If dad has a baby with someone who's not my mother, would I be that baby's sister?"

Yangchen's words to her echoed in her head as they had when she had spoken them during their swift journey to Ba Sing Se.

"I'm sorry this all has to happen… to you, your dad, to your grandma… I can't believe that she's pregnant… of all the fool things to go and do…"

Soza looked up quizzically.

"Who's pregnant?"

The Avatar had looked down at her as they flew over ocean, a touch of surprise in her eyes, but she seemed to decide against hiding anything.

"Your grandma. Ursa. She and Sasuke got pregnant. Surely you knew that?"

Soza had very much not known that and had felt rather betrayed that no one had seen fit to mention it to her. Why would her father not have deemed her worthy of knowing, through all the days they had spent traveling together?

Kakashi's head turned to slowly look at her; his expression passed through several emotions so much so that it was rather comical. He went from bewildered, to puzzled, to then, something like grim realization.

"Oh no…" he muttered almost blankly before shaking his head and looking at Soza with an intentness that she didn't quite feel was warranted.

"Did he get someone else pregnant?"

He asked this with such a sense of urgency, exasperation and possibly panic that Soza almost recoiled from him in surprise.

"Yeah, I found out just before I was taken that Ursa was pregnant, which was why—"

Kakashi leapt to his feet.

"What?!"

The word snapped off the walls with a harsh reverberance and Soza looked at him reproachfully. He put his hands against the sides of his head and turned away from her, pacing a few steps away and then coming back, his face downcast towards the carpeted floor with it rather looking like his mind was running a hundred miles a second.

"They… what was he thinking, going and… and she should have known, why… what the hell would have possessed them to… I can't believe this…"

Frowning, Soza spoke loudly over his quiet rambling.

"I don't get what the big deal is. Yeah, I was mad that no one told me… but people have babies all the time, right?"

The pitying look he gave her then was something that she found almost rather offensive in how patronizing it was.

"Soza…" he said rather weakly. "It's not…"

He closed his eye and rubbed his forehead tiredly.

"I suppose that when…it might have happened, they didn't know what their relation to you was."

"You mean when they had sex?" Soza asked and Kakashi seemed to redden in the dim light of the room.

"Er, yes, that."

"What does that matter?" she persisted and there was genuine pain on Kakashi's face, and his eye flicked back and forth as though looking for some kind of escape to the situation.

"Let's just say that if Ursa had known that Sasuke and Azula had conceived you, and Sasuke knew that Ursa was Azula's mother, and the grandmother to his child, they likely would never have… well, had sex."

Frustrated, Soza crossed her arms. It was true that she didn't know much about the essence of family-making and what went into a proper one, but Kakashi was reacting like Sasuke and Ursa had done something really, deeply concerning. And he wasn't doing a necessarily good job of explaining why.

Does it really matter that they have that kind of relationship to me and mother?

"Regardless, that's not the immediate problem," Kakashi said quickly, seemingly looking to steer the conversation in a different direction. "The problem is that, in Ursa becoming pregnant, she's now just as much a target as you and your dad."

This, Soza could understand, and she looked down to her knees, shocked that she hadn't seen this piece of the puzzle.

"They've torn apart our world trying to find me and dad… so if they thought there was another kid that he had…"

"Then they'd have just as much reason to go after Ursa as the two of you," Kakashi finished. Soza considered this for a long moment before she let out a frustrated, agitated sigh and threw herself back against the sofa.

"Why can't they just leave us alone?" she asked bitterly.

To this, Kakashi didn't seem to have a reply, but he slowly worked his way back over to the sofa and sat down beside her again.

"I wish I could give you an answer that would be even remotely satisfying," he murmured to her and Soza didn't say anything back.

Just like that, now she was fearing for her grandmother now too, who the spirits would no doubt demand come along as well. Soza was surprised that she hadn't been brought along as well after what had happened, and it only frightened her more that perhaps something… something had happened to her. Though it had only been weeks, she had grown quite fond of Ursa, and their relationship had become something Soza had warmed up to quickly. And now, maybe something was going to happen to her too.

Or already had happened.

Pulling her knees up to under her chin, she glared at the carpet, her eyes glazing over as she retreated into her own head. She could feel thoughts of fear for herself and the people she cared about prod aggressively at her, trying to slip back in, and she shoved them aside angrily. She instead focused on the easiest thing that she could; her mind locked in on her hatred of the spirits, most specifically Kyoshi, how she was trying so badly to tear apart her and her family. It wasn't a great deal of respite, but Soza found some distant, dark comfort in imagining a helpless Kyoshi before her, and all the things she would do to that awful woman for what she had done to Soza.

---

"Over two days."

June repeated the words in a mutter to herself as she sat in a chair in Iroh's teashop, her eyes fixed blankly on the wooden floor at her feet. She thought that saying them would somehow making processing them easier, but they only served to further belabor her stunned being.

Not a half hour prior to her walking back into the teashop, she had awoken in a patch of shrubbery next to a great wall, feeling altogether not too well. Feeling a weight on her, she had looked to find Smellerbee's head on her shoulder, looking to be in the throes of sleep. Blinking awareness back to her mind, June had taken several seconds to remember what they were doing there; she remembered traveling with Kakashi, slipping into Ba Sing Se, meeting Iroh and Smellerbee, and making their way to the palace. Where she lay then had been the last place she remembered being and she had pushed herself up, causing the other woman to roll off her in the process, still fast asleep. June had realized how ill she had felt at that point, like her stomach had shriveled and her mouth was as dry as a desert. It was only when the question crossed her mind as to how long she had been unconscious in the shrubs outside the palace walls that she aggressively tried to wake Smellerbee up who only came to after a sharp slap across the face. She had awoken in an equally stunned and weakened state and the two women had only briefly exchanged their confusion before a spirit guarding the palace had flown over their head by a margin of no more than dozen feet and they had both decided that there were better places to figure out their situation. They had spared a few moments looking around for Kakashi, but the oddly dressed man was nowhere to be found.

They had staggered back into Iroh's shop not long after, the old man paling as he saw the state of them. Sitting them both down quickly, he had hurried off to fetch them something to eat and drink while both women sat blearily at a table, trying to regain their bearings.

When they had gotten some sustenance back into their bodies, Iroh had gently eased them into trying to recollect what it was that might have happened to them and it was only after Smellerbee asked him why he looked so upset, he had looked between them both with deep concern in his eyes.

"You've been gone for days," he had said.

That had been enough for Smellerbee and June to both stare at him in shocked silence; the former had immediately started denying that there was any chance this could be true, but June had remained silent. Smellerbee then went and told Iroh what had happened, the last thing they remembered, and how they had woken up. It hadn't taken her long to get to her feet despite Iroh's protests and start marching around the shop in a state of anger, furious that Kakashi had left them in the state he had. Iroh tried to voice reason over her, suggesting that perhaps Kakashi had been taken, and something had caused them both to be knocked out for the extended period that they had, but Smellerbee wasn't having it. Through the entire exchange, June had remained silent; she couldn't figure out what would bother her more: if Kakashi had went on his own to get Sasuke, leaving her behind, or the fact that she might have let herself get played like that in the first place.

No one plays me like that.

Or so she had at least thought to herself bitterly. If Kakashi had lied to her, or not been entirely truthful, and he had gone on and gotten Sasuke… June figured she'd hate both him and herself forever for the con.

"Over two days."

These were the first words she had spoken in near to a half hour. Smellerbee had settled down slightly, at least enough to return to the table and sit down even as her eyes continued to flash angrily, her body tense.

"Yes," Iroh said, shifting uncomfortably where he sat across the small table from them. It was strange to see the old man in such a perplexed mood; June had always pictured him as being unable to be fazed by anything, but this invasion and all of the events that followed it seemed to have taken a toll on even his stoicism.

"Over two days since that bastard knocked us out, and took off on his own," Smellerbee said furiously. Her theories had shifted wildly since they had returned to the teashop, but this seemed to be the one she always came back to. "I can't believe him, that we were stupid enough to trust him like that."

Iroh gave her a pitying look, but he turned to June then and she saw him cock her head slightly in her periphery.

"June," he started carefully. It was clear that he thought perhaps she was just as caught up in an angry state of mind but was just hiding it better. "Please remind me, what was it exactly that Kakashi said he was looking for Sasuke for?"

"He wanted one of his eyes," she said flatly. "Showed me the one that he had hidden, it was all weird and patterned red and black. Both of them had apparently been like that, but Sasuke had gotten to one of them and he wanted it back."

The old man didn't answer him and she looked up to stare at him somewhat impatiently. She was in no mood to play guessing games.

"Why?" she asked shortly. Running his fingers over his knees, Iroh released a slow exhale through his nose, clearly deep in thought.

"I… it doesn't make sense to me, that after everything he did, traveling with you, June, coming here, asking advice, letting Smellerbee guide you to the palace… why would he just up and run out on you like that? Knock you both unconscious and then leave?"

"I've got a fun theory," Smellerbee snapped and as Iroh looked at her reproachfully, June shook her head.

"No," she said, her voice cold and toneless. "He's not someone who would do something like that."

Somehow, even despite whatever had taken place, such an accusation seemed completely absurd to her; why would he have gone to all that trouble just to take two women that way? Looking at her disbelievingly, Smellerbee raised an eyebrow.

"Even after he tricked us like he did, for whatever reason?"

June locked eyes with her, letting her eyes speak her mind just as much as her words did.

"He's not that kind of person. And don't you think we would have known if he did?"

Her eyes flicking down towards her waist, Smellerbee looked away, muttering something about 'could have gone away after a couple days,' but she said nothing more directly. Iroh shifted where he sat and cleared his throat almost reluctantly.

"I… have a theory. Though I know neither of you will probably like it."

June looked at him without a word, beckoning him to carry on with her eyes alone. He took her meaning and continued.

"Perhaps… he came here for another reason entirely. Perhaps Sasuke was never the end game for him."

"What are you talking about?" Smellerbee snapped. "Why would he have bothered coming to the city then, what was the point of going to the palace?"

To this, Iroh didn't immediately reply as he looked rather sadly down at his cup of tea.

"Iroh, I'm really not in the mood to play games," June said in a low voice and though it was a rather rude and almost threatening statement, he only nodded sullenly.

"Forgive me," he said.

Placing the teacup on the table, he laced his fingers and resumed talking.

"When you and Kakashi arrived, you told Smellerbee and myself that you were hunting Sasuke."

He looked pointedly at June.

"You told us that. Kakashi said nothing of the sort, but rather that he was here to… confirm some information I believe were his exact words."

Swallowing uncomfortably, he continued.

"I… didn't mention it at the time, but I would have been nearly willing to stake my life on the fact that Sasuke wasn't in the city whatsoever, likely hadn't been since the invasion began. And something told me Kakashi knew that as well."

June's knuckles crackled like firewood popping in an open blaze.

"So why do what he had done? Are you saying he…"

Something occurred to her then and she felt a burning in the pit of her stomach.

Fuckin' bastard.

Had he given Nyla a false scent to follow? Had that scent been what he had actually been tracking, and he had just used her and her partner in his scheme to find a quarry?

That doesn't make sense. The scent was of a being that could have only been Sasuke; who else could have been that powerful?

"My theory," Iroh said, speaking slowly and carefully, "is that Kakashi is on the hunt for someone, or something else. He was able to enlist June's help to track it here to the city and let Smellerbee guide you both to the palace where he believed whatever he was after to be. Knowing perhaps that the danger was such to a degree that he might only be able to handle, he knocked you both out and went in on his own."

Smellerbee gave a harsh bark of a laugh.

"Oh, so you think what he did was in our best interests?"

Iroh shook his head.

"I can't say for certain what it was that he was after. But… call it a hunch, developed from years of learning to read people, but I don't see him as the person who would have done something like what you say."

"So we're taking your word because you believe his intentions were good," June muttered, still heavily wrapped up in stunned bitterness.

"I'm not telling you to take any word of mine," Iroh replied evenly. "I'm merely offering you both my theory."

Smellerbee leaned back in her chair frustratedly.

"Great. Real great. So, regardless of what he did and why, the chance that Sasuke was here at all…?"

Giving his shoulders a small shrug, Iroh replied, "If there's one thing I think I can be certain of, it's that Kakashi's purpose for being in Ba Sing Se was not to track Sasuke down."

June couldn't think of a time she had ever been more angry at herself. Had she really been so caught up in the idea of riches and rewards and fame that she had been so willing to go along with this strange man because she thought it might give her a chance at Sasuke?

That's all this really was, no matter how you look at it, she thought angrily. A chance. I was moving between the Earth and Fire Nation coasts for days, and not a single reliable lead. None of the usual places turned up a fucking thing when I went snooping for information, and none of the other top hunters seemed to know where to start either. It wasn't just a bounty, it was a damn manhunt. And I was so caught up in it, he played me like a stupid little girl.

To her in that moment, why Kakashi had done what he had done was irrelevant to her. What was really driving June up the wall was the fact that she had allowed it to happen. She had put hundreds of people through cons over her lifetime for many different purposes, and she should have been able to figure for herself that something was off about what Kakashi had been doing.

But that's just the damn thing. It never felt off. Even having been fucked over now, looking back, nothing felt off.

Kakashi had certainly been a strange enough person, quiet, odd, almost airheaded in a way and even what she now had come to terms with, June couldn't fathom for a moment that he had done something against her. Could he have been trying to protect them? Had he perhaps been taken himself, run into something too much for him to handle?

"It doesn't matter," she said suddenly. "All that matters is he's gone."

She got to her feet, her joints still aching somewhat from her supposed multiple day slumber. Iroh and Smellerbee both looked at her, the latter furrowing her brow in surprised confusion.

"What? You don't want to know what he—"

"I don't really care," June interrupted. "If I just had my time wasted, because I was too stupid to see that it wasn't actually Sasuke we were tailing, I'd rather not burn any more of it."

With a pained look in his eye, Iroh leaned forward somewhat urgently.

"June, you can't be thinking of going out there to try and track Sasuke down, can you?"

There was a withheld edge to his voice, and she locked her eyes on him dangerously. She knew just intense a look she could issue someone, and she did her best to channel that now. Seeming to sense the tension that had nothing to do with her, Smellerbee said something about going to do a patrol of her own, but June didn't much hear her. She was too focused on Iroh and only distantly heard the door close behind the young woman as she made her exit. When it was just the two of them, she replied to Iroh.

"Why, something about that idea not sitting well with you?" she inquired somewhat mockingly. She posed it rather rudely, but in truth, she was trying to coax something out of him, some explanation to his words; she had been to tell that Iroh was keeping something to himself, even when she and Kakashi had first visited him, and at the time she hadn't cared enough to ask about it. June had been so sure that Sasuke was in her reach that she had ignored anything that could have been a distraction from her goal. Now though, she found herself wondering with significant interest what it could have been that the old man had been keeping to himself.

He seemed to buy into her attempted ploy and fixed her with a look of concerned impatience.

"Do you have any idea what Sasuke is?" he demanded, and she crossed her arms, raising an eyebrow in pretend apathy.

"Does it matter? Man, bender, spirit, whatever they're calling him, it makes no difference to me."

Iroh's impatience seemed to wane into worried frustration; June was further surprised to see him this worked up.

"The bounty is meaningless!" he said loudly. "The money and glory you think you'd receive for finding him is meaningless, because there's no one to collect on it! That bounty was put in place when the Nations believed Sasuke was an active menace. But in case you hadn't noticed, an entire army of spirits has been set loose in our world, a calamitous event that should give everyone considerable pause! Things like what you're after are pointless now; our world will be lucky if it survives this peril!"

He spoke to a silent concern that June had been fighting the moment she had seen Ba Sing Se, seen the army leave its gates, seen the massive spirits circling high above the city. From that moment, she had wondered what might have changed since she and Nyla had seen the wanted poster for the one known as Sasuke.

Had that been it, then? I just didn't want to believe something like this could have truly happened?

Iroh seemed to catch himself and resumed speaking in a still impatient but much more stable tone.

"Regardless, you no doubt saw that army leaving the city heading north. You think they're going sightseeing? No, they came into our world for the same reason you came to Ba Sing Se. The difference is that they are taking their number to destroy Sasuke, not capture him."

He leaned forward.

"And if they've moved out with an army, composed of beings with powers beyond anything you or I could fathom, numbered hundreds upon hundreds, what makes you think you'd be able to so much as get near him, let alone capture him?"

June suddenly found herself wondering why it was that she had wanted to hear what Iroh had to say in the first place. She had just learned that her trip to Ba Sing Se had been for naught, and she was further having to confront the fact that even if Sasuke was here, her odds of pinning him down were slim at best.

And there might not even be anything to collect for turning him in… fuck, could this get any worse?

In that moment, she was just angry; angry at Iroh, angry at Kakashi, angry at the spirits, angry at Sasuke, and considerably angry at herself. For so many years, she had just rolled with the punches and allowed herself to be taken where the money was. She supposed that was what had made her entertain Kakashi's suggestion and the deal they had wound up making, but as she really thought about it, she realized that she rather was finding herself feeling… lucky?

Something about how she had woken up, where it had been, to find Kakashi gone, all of it was giving her a deep sense of relief that she had just now been able to identify. That only served to further frustrate her.

Why? Why would I feel relieved?

She turned her head towards the door as though expecting Kakashi to come walking back through it.

Did he really… save me from something?

Then, the door did bang open, but it was not Kakashi who entered, but Smellerbee who looked out of breath. The angry, indignant expression she had been sporting was gone, replaced with a pale and stricken expression of fear.

"What's wrong?" Iroh asked immediately, getting to his feet as the door swung shut behind her. She gulped and locked her wide eyes on his.

"The spirits," she gasped. "They're back."

---

Standing atop the wall of Ba Sing Se, Yangchen had been able to see the returning army from many miles away, a blue haze on the horizon. Her gut had surged in both relief and fear at the sight; relief that Kyoshi and the others were returning so soon and fear over what they had done before leaving the Northern Water Tribe.

Yangchen didn't bother lying to herself. She had left the capital of the Water Nation a coward; it had been clear that Kyoshi's plans entailed well more than just taking the girl and leaving. Though she hadn't known what, she had willingly taken Sasuke's daughter in flight back to the Earth Nation, leaving Sasuke's companions and the city itself to the will of the army she had accompanied.

Ursa? That poor woman, Kyoshi wouldn't kill her, would she?

She had grit her teeth in disgust at her own pretense of hopefulness. If Koh and Kyoshi had been so keen on keeping the pregnancy a secret from her, why wouldn't they have been planning to kill her, or worse? Yangchen's mind had become filled with awful imaginations on the trip back, picturing Koh driving his spiked appendages into Ursa and robbing her the miracle of bearing a child or Kyoshi drawing her razor-sharp fans across her stomach and removing the growing fetus, or flat out cutting Ursa's throat. Every second that had passed, Yangchen had cursed herself for a coward, unable to even believe that she had left the others when she knew full well what her own companions were capable of.

So standing atop the wall, she had been overcome by fear and trepidation that whatever had happened had not been something worth celebrating.

But as the army had grown nearer, a new chill had run up her spine.

Their number was vastly smaller than it had been when they had initially marched from Ba Sing Se. The sea of blue was still quite considerable in size, but it was impossible to ignore the fact that it had lost a sizable chunk of its number. Yangchen's mind had immediately taken to work what might have been a logical reason for why that was as her hair was tossed about by the heavy breeze atop the wall.

Where are the rest? Did something happen to them? Perhaps… perhaps Kyoshi left a number of them north. Or sent them elsewhere, perhaps to look for Sasuke.

Yes, that made a good bit of sense. If Koh's plan was to be in any sort of working order, Sasuke hadn't been at the Northern Water Tribe when they had been, per his planning. If they were looking to draw Sasuke into a trap, using his love for his own family against him, Kyoshi might have very well sent out a large fraction of the army to find him and get him in motion. She had seemed most anxious to find Sasuke and finally put their entire crusade to rest and Yangchen wouldn't have put it past her to do all she could to track Sasuke down.

But even as this theory sat well with her, she saw the soaring aura that was Kyoshi rocketing overhead of the spirit army, traveling far faster then any of them could hope to. Her speed was something rather curious in and of itself, an almost frantic pace it seemed. Yangchen watched as the other Avatar soared above the wall in a flash and arced down towards the palace. Gritting her teeth, she leapt from the towering barrier around the city and shot after.

She touched down in the courtyard just after Kyoshi had; the other Avatar ignored her and started towards the palace doors, leaving Yangchen to trail after her with a frown, jogging to catch up.

"What happened? Why are there so much fewer of you then when—"

She came to a quick and sudden halt as Kyoshi turned to face her, her heartbeat catching in her throat.

Kyoshi looked terrible. Her robes were slashed and tattered in places, bloodstains showing in numerous different places. The skin that was visible on her arms, legs and midsection had cuts and bruising littering its surface and her face was hardly anything to scoff at. It was just as battered as the rest of her body, her warpaint smeared, dried blood in several spots, her headpiece missing completely. It was rather worrying to think that as reincarnated spirits, they had impressive and very quick healing that their bodies were privy to, so imagining what Kyoshi had looked like before the blood had dried and she had begun her hasty trip back to Ba Sing Se was deeply concerning.

Yangchen had seen Kyoshi's entire life, witnessed all the events that had brought her existence to its fullness and in those hundreds of years, she had never come close to seeing Kyoshi in such a sorry state.

Despite her condition, Kyoshi hadn't lost her stoic and emotionless expression, nor had her tone lost any of its command.

"Is the girl inside?"

It took Yangchen a moment to even rationalize the question, let alone reply. Opening and closing her mouth once or twice, she eventually managed a nod. Giving a curt incline of her chin in reply, Kyoshi turned on her heel and started back towards the palace doors and it was only then that Yangchen remembered that she was still in control of her own motor functions.

"What happened?" she asked sharply as she followed Kyoshi through the massive ornate doors. The spirits lingering within saw them and pulled out of the way, bowing their heads as the two women passed.

"Sasuke returned," Kyoshi said shortly and nothing more. Yangchen's pace slowed briefly as she considered this and what it meant.

She fought him… and he nearly killed her by the looks of it.

She had of course known what Sasuke was capable of, his powers and abilities transcending anything that made rational sense. But to see Kyoshi, such an impressive, powerful, and domineering force sent back to Ba Sing Se in a hurry with her tail between her legs was another realization entirely.

"He did that to the army as well?" she asked quickly, catching right back up to Kyoshi as she started down the hallways.

"Sasuke found Koloss, whatever that being was. It came back with a small army of its own and, with Sasuke, attacked us. The casualties would have been far worse had I not pulled back the army when I did."

Kyoshi had never been one to mince words, but the graveness with which she spoke of the situation made their reality even more concerning. It was only her years of training and mental toughening that kept Yangchen on track rather than causing her to need to sit down and process all that she was hearing.

"And he just let you leave?" she asked carefully. In truth, she quite wanted to be shouting at Kyoshi just then, demanding her fellow Avatar stop walking and tell her straight what it was that had all happened, but while Kyoshi seemed in control and stable, there was no telling what she was feeling underneath her impenetrable persona.

"No," Kyoshi replied, short as ever. "He beat me nearly to death and they imprisoned me. Thanks to a blunder by that psychotic, lustful Princess Azula, I was able to escape before anyone could notice I was gone, and I caught up the army just as they neared the city now."

Yangchen processed this too, but there was still a damningly concerning uncertainty still looming above them.

"So… what happens now?" she asked.

"Never you mind," Kyoshi replied curtly. "You've done your part; Sasuke will no doubt come for his daughter, and I will make sure we are ready."

Though she was doing her best to keep from getting impatient, this wouldn't do.

"Stop!"

Kyoshi, who had turned away again and started walking, came to a halt and looked back over her shoulder. Yangchen could see a single piercing eye glaring at her with an unrelenting intensity, but she didn't care. Not even Kyoshi's colossal presence could have pressed her down.

"I've maintained silence, I've stood by while you break your own morals and twist your reasoning for what we're doing here, and I think I could have even let you kill a…"

The words caught in her throat, but she knew they were true, even as she hated herself for it.

"… kill a child, if that had been what it took to end this damned crusade. But I cannot, cannot, be here another minute and watch you shove me into the dark. To what end?! What is it you don't want to tell me?! Why don't you want to tell me?!"

It was as honest a thing as she could have said and just briefly, she thought she saw Kyoshi's eyes soften before the taller Avatar looked down and away from her. With the low light, the shadows cast over her savaged face were deeply haunting likely due in part to the inner turmoil Yangchen could tell she was struggling through.

"I'm sorry."

That was all she said before she turned back down the hall and marched away.

It certainly wasn't the first defeat for Yangchen in this sense, but it was by far the hardest. She stepped to the side and leaned against the wall, looking after Kyoshi with regret and frustration ripping at her insides. She found it darkly humorous just how little her years of mental training and meditation did for her now.

Slowly, she looked down at her hands. Physical, real, material, what she had taken in following Kyoshi from the spirit world. That hope she had felt before feeling the impossibly peculiar sensation as her body was drawn back into existence was all but gone, that hope that things could be sorted simply and with little conflict. The world would never be the same after this as every move the spirits had made under Kyoshi had led from bad to worse for the people that resided within.

We were the Avatars… we were supposed to bring this world together, heal it and nurture it during our lives and instead, we've thrown that all away on this mad quest for blood.

She made a fist and tightened her lips.

But I don't care about my legacy. No matter what damage we've done, my responsibility hasn't changed. I made Kyoshi a promise and I made myself a promise. I've come close, but I haven't broken it yet.

Squaring her shoulders, she started walking with instilled purpose of her own, ready to put her fears behind her.

---

Her throat tight and clenched, Ursa dashed through the halls of the palace, looking every which way as she did.

What's he doing… why is he doing this?

After Sasuke had beaten down Kyoshi and Soza had been taken from them, Ursa had nearly completely shut down. Something about seeing Sasuke that way, knowing the indiscernible chaos before her, and wondering if this would ever end had put her mind in a very dark and dim place. She had spent day after day thinking nonstop about Sasuke and how much she would hold him when he returned and yet, even seeing him looking dead on his feet himself supported by Azula, Ursa hadn't so much as wanted to touch him, or even speak to him. Everything just all had felt so wrong, so impossible to overcome, even her love for Sasuke which she still felt burning strong in her heart couldn't shake her from her state of despair.

Because that was what it had ultimately been. Despair.

Ursa had practically staggered back to her room and collapsed on her bed, and she sleep that she hadn't expected to experience took her the moment her head touched the pillow. When there came a sharp rapping at her door, she had sprung up quickly, feeling like an entirely different person. She had supposed at that point that so much of what had defeated her the day previous had been nothing short of miserable, merciless exhaustion. Little sleep on top of worrying for herself, her baby, her children, her friends and Sasuke must have done quite the number on her and as she had sat up in bed, she couldn't believe that she hadn't immediately hugged Sasuke when she had seen him in the palace. The look in his eyes, the defeat he was also laboring under, he had needed her more than ever. Her gut had churned with fury at herself.

And I wasn't there for him.

Heeding the knocking at her door, Ursa had opened it and found Yue standing there, pale and eyes wide.

"Kyoshi's gone," she had said in an almost panicked voice. "The room she was in was destroyed and…"

She had paused as though frightened as to what to tell Ursa next.

"…and Sasuke and Azula are gone too."

Yue had barely managed to get a word out regarding the fact that the chief was furious and was demanding a meeting with everyone there to figure what next to do before Ursa had pushed past her and had started sprinting through the hallways. She had only encountered Aang, who had asked her in a worried voice if she was headed to the meeting, but she flew past him without a word.

What have I done… what have I done… what have I done…

The words were a sickening mantra in her head, and with every second that passed and she didn't see either Sasuke or her daughter in the halls as she dashed through them only flushed more panic into her veins.

Why? Why had she shut down so badly, why hadn't she been there for Sasuke? Had he gone and done something stupid, gotten himself and Azula into trouble? What else would explain the fact that Kyoshi and the two of them were gone? If only Ursa had just pulled him to her room with her; she wouldn't even have needed to say a word, she could have just taken him and pulled him to bed where they could have fallen asleep in each other's arms. Would that have been enough, but that have stopped this, whatever this was, from happening?

Ursa realized as she cleared her way through the deserted halls that she was screaming for them both. Their names rang out from her throat, echoing around her and as this realization settled, she felt tears streaming down her face. She had never felt so horrible, so helpless and panicked, everything about her being was telling her to run back to her room, grab one of her swords and run it against her own throat. Though she never would have dared with the people she knew needed her as much as she needed them, it was impossible not to pray for something, anything to stifle this pain, this fear, this total panic that was consuming her and rendering her—

"Ursa."

She threw her body to a halt and turned to her right, eyes wide.

Sasuke was standing in the doorway of a rather unpronounced door tucked away along the hall she had been moving through. Had he not said anything, she would have run right past him.

"S…Sasuke…"

Her hands quivered as she reached for him weakly and he stepped into the room he had been just in front of, allowing her to join him. Ursa had time to distantly take note of what appeared to be a sparse supply room before she threw her arms around him and hugged him as tightly as she had ever hugged anyone. Fresh tears split hotly down her cheeks as she hugged her back after only a moment and she heard herself babbling over his shoulder.

"I thought… I thought… oh, Sasuke, honey, I was so… I didn't know… you and… Azula, is she…? And Kyoshi, what… I didn't… Sasuke, I was so… so scared…"

His hand came up to draw through her hair, running against her scalp and she quivered at his touch, hardly able to believe that it was really him here holding her.

"I'm fine. Azula's fine. Kyoshi escaping was our fault, we did it on purpose, but we're both fine."

Ursa's mind tried to catch up to what he said about Kyoshi, but just then, hearing that he and Azula were alright was enough to wrench a sob from her, causing her whole body to wrack in his arms. Never would she ever have imagined falling apart this badly in front of Sasuke; so many times she had thought that would be her role, maternal and caring, letting him be vulnerable while she comforted him. And now here she was, breaking in his arms while he gently stroked the back of her head and held her tight to him.

"I couldn't… Sasuke, I couldn't bear it… that something might have happened to you…"

"Hey."

Gently, he took her shoulders and pulled her away from him just slightly. He looked up into her eyes and she saw the comforting tone in his dark orbs as well.

"I'm okay," he said strongly, warmth trickling from his voice and filling Ursa with a relief so profound she thought it might buckle her knees.

He put his hand on her belly.

"And I needed to know that you, both of you, are okay too."

Sniffing, Ursa tried to keep herself from shaking as she nodded.

"We are. We both are."

He nodded and looked at her with a smile. For a moment, it was perfect; one of his hand around her waist, the other pressing to her stomach as he smiled and looked at her. Ursa wanted that moment to last for as long as an eternity, but it was only seconds before Sasuke's smile faltered.

"I'm sorry for worrying you. And I'm afraid… I'm going to have to do it again. But I had to see you first."

Just as quickly as it had been flushed from her body by seeing Sasuke and hearing his voice, Ursa felt the anxiety that had attacked her so violently returning.

"What are you talking about?" she said in a brittle voice. Sasuke's eyes moved down from hers and she immediately reached out and put the side of her finger underneath his chin, gently urging him back up to look at her.

"Please, Sasuke… don't do this."

She had been intending to ask him again what he was talking about, but somehow her heart spoke for her. She could feel the hesitation in his voice and the trepidation he had in even so much as telling that much.

Sasuke looked like he was forcing himself to keep his expression from softening.

"I'm sorry," he said again in a quiet voice. "I don't want it to be this way. I…"

His hand moved to her arm and gently moved along its length until he reached the hand Ursa was using to cup his chin. Taking her hand, he gave it a small squeeze before holding it in front of him and bringing his mouth down to kiss the back of it.

"I never wanted any of it to be this way."

A wistful and distant smile crossed over his face.

"It'd be nice, wouldn't it? If none of this had happened as it had… if it was just… me and you."

His fingers moved down her arm, stroking against her skin and Ursa felt the hair on the back of her neck rise at his intimate touch.

"Maybe we could have just found an island somewhere… or somewhere in the woods, or far off in the mountains. Just me and you, and…"

The hand over her belly moved just barely and Ursa closed her eyes, trying not to start crying again. Her tongue felt too large in her mouth and her throat almost seemed to be trying to constrict on itself, but she swallowed hard and forced herself to say something.

"We still can," she whispered, trying not to sound as desperate as she felt. "We still can, honey, please… please don't leave…"

Putting her own palm over the hand Sasuke was pressing against her, she leaned forward and kissed his forehead.

"We can still go, be together. We can run as far away as you want."

It was as much even empty promise as anything; how could Ursa imagine leaving Azula and Zuko again, even if it was what Sasuke wanted? But she was nearing a point where she would have offered him anything if he would just agree to stay with her.

Besides, going away together doesn't sound like such a bad idea.

Sasuke looked down at her midsection, eyes glazing over.

"I want that."

His voice was distant and foggy as they stood against one another.

"I want that… I think more than anything."

For a moment, Ursa felt a fleeting hope that Sasuke was going to acquiesce to her wish but focus quickly returned to his dark eyes and he gave his head a firm shake.

"I can't. You won't be safe until I finish this."

Her heart sank deeply.

"You're going to Ba Sing Se?"

There couldn't have been any way she could have hidden the resentment and hurt in her voice, and Sasuke looked at her with a dark look she hadn't been expecting.

"In case you'd forgotten, my daughter was taken earlier today."

Ursa clapped a hand over her mouth, eyes widening as she realized she hadn't even considered that piece of the situation. Tears blurred her vision once more as she tried to comprehend what she had just done.

His daughter… my granddaughter… had I really just… put that out of my head?

Had she truly been so scared for her future with Sasuke that Soza's abduction had just slipped from her mind?

"You know I'd never… I'm just frightened for you too! What good is done if you just walk into that lion's den and are taken from us as well?!"

After a few seconds, Sasuke pulled his hand away from her belly and looked away with a cold sting in his voice.

"You have that little faith in me to succeed?"

She grabbed his shoulders and tried desperately to meet his eyes.

"It has nothing to do with that! This is about not losing you too!"

She looked back to the door in earnest.

"Let's just go and meet with the others; I know you had a reason as to why you must have let Kyoshi go, let's put together a plan and we can get Soza back and end this with—"

"No."

Sasuke shook his head again as he cut her off.

"I've tried… so hard. To let everyone be a part of this, to… to not do this on my own."

He scratched the back of his head tiredly.

"You weren't here all those years ago… but I tried to do it all on my own. Even when I could have used the help, or even needed it, I never wanted anyone with me. I wanted to do it all by myself. I could lie and say that it was because I wanted to keep everyone safe, and that was part of it. But… hell, you know me though."

Ursa did, and she could picture with almost perfect clarity a scene where younger versions of her companions were arguing with a younger version of Sasuke about tackling something on his own.

"I always ignored that and then… after being on my own for so long, and seeing them again, I really didn't want that loneliness anymore. I might not be as different a person as I'd like to have been, but I tried when I came back, I really did. I wanted so much to not distance myself and try to just be…"

His hands came up as though he were grasping for the right word.

"… a good friend."

Her heart aching, Ursa could only watch as he looked back to her with a steeled expression.

"But I can't let that matter more to me than keeping you all safe, and when I go to save Soza, there isn't anything you all will be able to do against those odds. You've seen how powerful even just a couple spirits can be and I'm going right at their heart."

"Is that why Azula is coming with you?" Ursa couldn't keep from demanding. She didn't know whether or not Azula was actually accompanying Sasuke, but her absence and the fact that Sasuke had admitted she had helped him was enough reason for her to assume that was the case.

Sasuke's expression darkened.

"Were it up to me, no, she wouldn't be going with me. But she made a very compelling argument."

"And what argument was that?" Ursa asked sharply and he gave a small smile.

"She's Soza's mom."

At the thought of Soza's parents going at Ba Sing Se on their own, Ursa about couldn't take it anymore.

"And since I'm Azula's mother, that—" she started to force out angrily before Sasuke reached out and stroked her cheek.

"You're also not a bender, and pregnant," he said. "You're staying here, and when I come back—"

Starting to resist him, Ursa began to shake her head, her lips tightening as tears yet again started to swell in her eyes. Sasuke gripped her by the shoulders and held her steady.

"Hey. Hey, look at me."

She couldn't and bowed her head, the heated drops spilling from her eyes and dropping down to wet the floor at her feet.

"Hey."

When she still didn't meet his eyes, Sasuke wrapped her in his arms and hugged her again, deeply and strongly.

"Do you remember what I told you before I left north with Soza?"

Ursa's body gave a shuddering, silent sob. His hand ran up and down her back and even through her pain, she could tell that giving this kind of comfort was not something he was familiar with.

"I told you, no, I promised you that I'd bring Soza back and that we would be okay."

He pulled back and moved his hands to cup her face, wiping her tears with his thumbs.

"You believed me then."

Her own hands coming up to grip his wrists, she felt her lower lip quivering as she replied in a whisper.

"This isn't the same, Sasuke, you know that!"

Giving a small nod, his eyes drifted down and for the first time, Ursa realized just how tired he looked.

"Yeah, maybe. But it doesn't matter. This is how it has to be, Ursa, and I think you know that."

She wanted to laugh hysterically. To deny those words and tell him that this was absolutely not how it had to be. Ursa was ready to fall to her knees and start begging by that point, but in her heart, she knew the good such a display would do. So, she stood there holding his wrists like they were her lifeline and tried not to have a breakdown.

Why is this so… so damn hard?

Years of losing her innocence to Ozai, years of hardening her mind under his abuse, years of traveling and finding a place for herself on a ship, years of working as leading her crew as a cold and calculating captain, only to be reduced to such a whimpering husk of a woman in Sasuke's arms. And she didn't care, truly, that he made her feel this way. She just didn't want to believe that it would be the last time.

"Who, then?" she said loudly, pushing him back with difficulty. It was easy enough to let the anger come but having to pull away from Sasuke was like being stabbed in the gut. "Is it this Madara that you're talking about? He's who you think has your daughter? Him on top of Kyoshi, and Yangchen, and Koh, and the rest of those spirits?"

He offered her a small nod.

"I think it might be."

Ursa was ready to continue demanding questions of him angrily, doing whatever she could to try and talk him into staying where he was, to not take her daughter and go off to face down this all on his own. She'd do it as long as she had to as long as it would bring Sasuke out of this state of certainty that doing it this way was not the best way.

The words were on the tip of her tongue before she noticed something that caused her to freeze entirely. Sasuke's eyes flicked up at her sudden silence at lack of movement, his brow furrowing slightly.

"What's wrong?"

She didn't reply immediately and only stared back at the boy she was so hopelessly in love with.

By this point, Ursa felt strongly that no one else among their group knew Sasuke as well as she did. She had seen him at perhaps his most vulnerable and his most hurt. She had learned so much about him in a matter of time that felt to her almost like years. It had been enough time for her to fall completely for him and the idea of his child growing within her womb did nothing but rain joy upon her heart. Ursa had learned to recognize his ticks and quirks, what the little changes in his expression meant and what the darkness in his eyes translated to his what he was feeling. She felt like she might have known him near as well as her own self by that point, with all that he had shared with her.

Which was why the shadow on his face filled her with enough fear to press her into a suffocating silence for ponderously long seconds, horror gripping at her very soul.

"What?" Sasuke said, more urgently this time and Ursa only shook her head at him slowly, her eyes pleading and agonized.

"You… you don't think you can beat him."

Her voice was hoarse and weak, and when Sasuke didn't immediately refute her, it only worsened her fear.

"What makes you say that?" he asked and Ursa hated that he hadn't just laughed her off instead.

"I can see it in your eyes," she said quietly back to him. His lips tightened and she couldn't tell if he was angry at her for noticing or angry at himself for letting that slip. They looked at one another for over a minute, eyes looking into the others while both their minds raged. Though they were only a couple feet apart, Ursa felt like the distance was a hundred miles.

"It doesn't matter," he finally said and gave his head a much firmer shake.

"What do you mean?" she practically cried out. "If you're going right to this person and you don't even think that you can—"

"It doesn't matter!" he snapped and Ursa swallowed, falling silent. "It doesn't matter what I think! I have to beat him! I have to!"

Though she didn't say anything in reply, it must have been the look on her face that caused his face to twist with anger and the next moment he was shouting at her.

"You think I'm doing this without a plan?! You think I'm not doing everything I can to make sure this works out?! You think I'm not going to do anything and everything to save my daughter?! I'm going to crush the spirits! I'm going to split Kyoshi and Yangchen's skulls under my fucking heel! I'm going to rip Koh apart and burn him to ash! And if… if Madara's really involved, I'll kill him too! Anything to protect—"

His chest heaved as he glared savagely at her and it was only when he blinked that he seemed to notice that he had stepped forward aggressively causing Ursa to back against the wall as he had advanced furiously on her. There wasn't a part of her that believed he would willingly hurt her, but she could tell in his eyes that he was frightened that was precisely what she had thought.

"I… I didn't mean to…" he muttered almost automatically. Ursa said nothing. She really didn't think there was anything she could say anymore. Nothing to convince him to stay, nothing to convince him doing this on his own with only Azula at his side was not the best course of action, no way to use her love to keep him there by her side.

Because its his love for all of us that's making him go in the first place. How can I pit love against love?

"It's okay," she said softly, and was surprised at how soothing her voice suddenly sounded. After her hoarse, pained, anxious, and panicked tone that had been issuing from her mouth unstoppably, hearing the usual tone she spoke to Sasuke with was almost alien. Reaching out, she took his hands and looked into his eyes.

"Can you do something for me?" she asked.

Sasuke nodded.

Drawing in her breath, Ursa closed her eyes. It took effort, but she gradually gathered her fears and anxieties revolving around everything. Fear for her Azula, fear for Soza, fear for the child within her, and fear for Sasuke all were wrapped tightly up and, though she didn't know for how long it would last, Ursa exhaled and released them. Just as she had when she had left Azula and Zuko in the night so many years ago, she forced herself to surrender to the will of the universe, knowing that her power wouldn't be nearly enough to stave off its impending swell.

It wasn't any easier the second time.

"I want you to close your eyes," she asked as she opened her own. Sasuke looked at her in mild puzzlement, but after only a few seconds, he obeyed. Ursa smiled and closed the distance between them, lowering her forehead to press against his.

"I want you to imagine a beach," she said gently. "Stretching as far as you can see. Warm and soft under your feet."

His breath came in slow draws as she spoke.

"The water is as blue as you've ever seen, just about lapping at your feet as you stand there. You see all that?"

He nodded against her.

"Now… I want you to imagine you're holding the hand of our child."

Sasuke tensed.

"They're only a few years old, just able to walk. But you've walked to the edge of the water with them and they're holding your hand."

Almost imperceptibly, she felt him quiver.

"I want you to imagine how at peace you are. How calm you feel, how happy you are to be there with your child. You see Soza down the beach getting ready for a swim. There's a small hut behind you and you smell something delicious cooking within. It's just you and your family, Sasuke. Imagine that for me."

His lips peeled back as his eyes remained closed.

"If this is you trying to convince me not to go…" he started in a low tone and she heard his voice tremble.

"No," she said and tilted his chin up again, and he opened his eyes. She could see the longing there and couldn't stop herself from leaning in to kiss him. They worked against one another's lips for a long moment that would never have been too long for Ursa.

"I just thought that thought might help you, if you ever are… out there, and feeling hopeless."

As he took in her meaning, his expression nearly split with affection before he inhaled strongly through his nose and squared his shoulders. He was clearly trying hard to keep himself together.

"I'll be thinking about that even when I'm not."

She smiled warmly at him and through her arms around him. Again, they hugged, but Ursa didn't feel so much like crying this time. Somehow, a thought had settled in her mind that repeated over and over.

I'm going to see him again. I'm going to see him again.

"I love you," he said in a husky voice as though he were about to cry himself. Ursa held him tight and closed her eyes just as much.

"I love you too."

Not for the first time, she wished the moment could last forever.

"Are you and Azula leaving now?" she finally asked, and he spoke over her shoulder as he embraced her.

"Not just yet…"

"I'd like to talk to her if—"

"No," Sasuke said rather suddenly and Ursa pulled back from him, blinking in surprise. Sasuke seemed to catch himself and shifted his weight somewhat uncomfortably.

"She said… she didn't want to talk to anyone before she left. Said that… she didn't… didn't…"

His lips formed a thin line and Ursa could tell he didn't want to tell her what Azula wanted to say. And while the idea of letting Azula go like this was terribly painful, Ursa knew better than anyone that changing her mind was as foolhardy as trying to drink the entire ocean.

"As long as you promise me you'll protect her too," she said. "Just as long as you promise me I'll see my daughter again."

Sasuke looked at her with a slight wonderment in his eyes as he realized the trust she was putting in him before he gave her a powerful look.

"I promise."

They stood apart for a few silent seconds before they had thrown their arms around one another again.

"You're not leaving yet?" she asked again quietly.

"No…" Sasuke said in a voice almost too quiet for her to hear even as close as they were. "I still have one person I need to talk to."

---

Soza had resumed pacing the room. Her anxieties had returned almost tenfold as with the passing of time, she could only wonder what had happened back in the Northern Water Tribe with her parents, with her friends, with everyone. It was a brutal guessing game that she couldn't figure out why her mind was trying so hard to play with her.

Kakashi was still where he was, sitting on the couch. He had taken to watching her with an aura of both concern and what might have been guarded annoyance. Though she had wondered if perhaps her pacing was perhaps stressing him out, she found she didn't care. The idea of not moving was torture to her just then.

They had started getting along rather well, but it hadn't taken too long for them to stop talking to one another, purely due to stress no doubt. There was plenty they could have chatted over, but Soza was much more interested in just moving and fighting a silent war in her head than opening up any more than she already had.

"You know, the more you focus on what you can't change, the longer the time is going to take to pass," he finally said after what might have been a half hour.

"Who says I want it to pass faster?" she snapped at him. Though she knew she wanted to know what had happened more than anything, there was still something vaguely appealing about the unknown of it. For what if what she truly came to fear came to pass? Did she really want to know something like that?

Kakashi sighed.

"If you just had discipline, you'd have made it up to that window on your first try," he said.

"You sound like my dad," Soza muttered. "He'd be all, 'Soza, you're too aggressive' or 'kid, you've got to learn to focus' or 'I just want you to…'"

She trailed off when she realized just how badly she wanted to see her dad again. Kakashi seemed to sense this and leaned forward from where he sat on the couch.

"You're just a child, such discipline shouldn't be something expected of you after the upbringing you've had."

Spinning, Soza glared at him.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Seeming to regret his choice of words immediately, Kakashi put his hands up.

"I'm just saying that—"

"You think because of mother I'm never going to be good enough?" she spat. She was aware how immediately she was stretching but being angry was the best way to keep her mind off things.

"No, not at all, I just—"

When he cut off again, Soza could tell something was different. His body seemed to stiffen as though he had just had ice pressed against the small of his back. His head turned and brow furrowed as his fingers dug into the cushion of the couch. Soza watched him carefully, wondering what it was that he was sensing, and she almost wondered if he was about to be sick for some reason.

Quite suddenly, he looked up to her, his visible eye wide.

"Soza, get—!"

He had just made it onto his feet before he toppled over, landing heavily on the carpeted floor.

Remaining where she stood, Soza could feel her pulse pounding in her throat at the sudden thrill she had just felt. She didn't dare move towards Kakashi's body since she found she really wasn't sure if he had just passed out or if… something worse had happened. But just when she had given herself time to get ahold of herself and start breathing normally again, she felt something against her.

It wasn't physical, but it might as well have been. There was a creeping sensation running along her spine that felt very much like she was being watched. As she looked towards the door, she found that there seemed to be something ominous just beyond it, as though a dark mass, something large and horrible and dreadful was drawing nearer on the other side. Though the fire remained in place, the room seemed to darken and Soza started to move, not towards Kakashi, but back into the shadows.

She realized how scared she was then, wondering just what it was that was getting closer. Soza hated the cowardice slipping through her veins, but just then, all she wanted was to get deep enough into the dark that whatever was drawing nearer wouldn't notice her, wouldn't see her hiding if it came in the room…

"There's no need to be frightened."

Releasing a short scream, Soza leapt forward away from the voice that had just spoken behind her. Deep and rich, it had felt like it was right next to her ear; no, it felt like it had been spoken inside her very head. Her feet didn't seem to want to obey and the next moment she was sprawled on the floor, scrambling around and looking back in fright.

Standing near the wall as though he had melted out of the very shadows, she saw a man. He was unlike anyone she had ever seen before, clad in black with what looked like red armor over it. His hair was onyx dark and spiky, just like her father's, but the man's mane reached down much further than Sasuke's. His skin was the strangest of all; it looked cracked in sparse places like a dried-up riverbed, but there was no doubting the life burning in his eyes which flashed with red and black. His arms were crossed, and he looked both mildly amused and deeply intrigued.

When he spoke again, it was even more powerful than it had seemed to her the first time and her knees quaked.

"I apologize for my manners. But I was hoping we might… talk for a moment?"