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.

41. Chapter 41

AN: Entering our final arc and a half or so for this story :) Hope everyone's been enjoying!

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Chapter 41: On to Ba Sing Se

"Leaving, are you?"

June didn't look over as she checked her sparse gear and put left leg up on a chair to adjust the knife that she kept strapped to her ankle. She didn't quite understand Iroh's concern with her by that point; wouldn't he have had other things to worry about?

Maybe… but this old man… I get the feeling there isn't a human on the planet he wouldn't openly care for if given the opportunity.

"Yeah," she said, without looking at him.

"Might I ask where you plan to go?" he asked, and June had to resist blowing a frustrated sigh out past her lips as she put her foot back down on the floor and looked towards the door.

In her head, June hadn't even really assembled a plan, she only knew that she needed to leave. Her fuzzy mind had slowly regrouped after her long spell of sleep and now, with a fair bit of Iroh's cooking and tea in her stomach, she was feeling more rejuvenated than she might have expected to feel. It spoke to just how out of it she had been, but it was no doubt heavily influencing her desire to get a move on.

What was even more peculiar though was the singular objective that had planted itself in her mind that she was trying hard to fight. Rationally, she should have immediately moved for the walls of the city, gotten herself out, found Nyla, and been on her way. There was nothing for her here, especially if Kakashi had lied about Sasuke even being in the city at all. And with the army returning, it didn't make sense to remain when danger could find her at any moment in such a hot spot of spirit activity. June had always prided herself on her sense of self-preservation, and she was finding herself genuinely rather bamboozled with her own mindset.

But her heart was telling her quite strongly to head towards the palace and find out what exactly it was that had happened to her short-lived partner.

The answers might not have been satisfactory. They might very well wind up being damn infuriating, but it was something that kept feeling as though it were a hook pulling at the base of June's neck.

Stop it. Get out of the city while you can. Kakashi wasn't truthful with you, you don't even know where your bounty is now.

There was one thought however that kept a sense of doubt and unease lingering in the back of her mind, however.

He had that eye… the eye that Sasuke has. That his people have. That would make Kakashi incredibly powerful too, no? So… if he had been beaten by something which kept him from coming back to Smellerbee and myself… how powerful must that thing have been?

Over and over, she angrily shoved the thought aside and she waved off Iroh now as she headed for the door. He didn't move to stop her, but as June's hand met the door handle, she couldn't help looking back to him. She and him were the shop's only two occupants as Smellerbee had run back out to keep an eye on the spirits' movements.

"Do yourself a favor, Iroh, grab that girl and get out. Every person in this city is at risk with the way Ba Sing Se has been occupied. And if what you've told me about Sasuke is true, then you can probably expect that this fight will eventually make it here."

She pulled the door open and looked out towards the early evening sky. The fresh air was cool and calming in her lungs.

"If this is a war, we want nothing to do with it, old man. This isn't our fight."

June stepped out into the street and closed the door behind her before he could say anything in reply as she rather expected that he would give her some word about sticking together and 'this is our home, we need to stand by it' or some crap like that. She was a survivalist and she wasn't about to jeopardize that side of her any more than she already had.

Still, as she prepared to dip her way through the shadows of the alleys to get out of the city without being seen, she couldn't help but glance back over her shoulder at the looming palace in the distance, her mind twinging in annoyance and what she knew too to be dread.

None of your concern.

It was as convincing an argument as any, and June was one with the shadows a moment later.

---

Iroh laced his fingers and sat tensely in his chair, wondering if he should have done June better than telling her what he had. None of what he had said was a lie, but there was much more that he could have told her; he could have said that her quarry was actually someone he had met and spoken with, and that there was surely a storm brewing that was larger than anything she could even guess at. He could have told her that Sasuke could very much have been on his way to the city now to try and put an end to all this and he could have told her that he was all but completely sure this person whom she had traveled with was no doubt either dead or captured.

For Iroh, though knowing the power that the spirits wielded in their numbers and the fact they had two past Avatars with them, would still have never guessed that they would be enough on their own to keep Sasuke away, or to otherwise stand a chance against a being of his immense power. He was deeply sure that there was something else lurking within the city, perhaps in the very depths of the palace, something that might actually be able to hold its ground against Sasuke, but every part of him hoped deeply that he was completely wrong in that regard.

But nothing he could have said would likely have been able to sway June's mind. He had experienced a few run ins with her over the years and knew that she was as headstrong and determined as anyone he had ever met, and her independent streak was not something that he would have been able to challenge.

The door banged open from the back of the kitchen and Iroh waited until Smellerbee had come running back into the main room before turning his head to look at her and saw that her expression was just as anxious as it had been when she had reported that the spirits had returned. Iroh almost couldn't find him able to muster the energy to hear what more news she could possibly have to bring him; he was feeling genuinely tired and rather just wanted to find his bed just then.

"What's happened?" he asked nonetheless, pushing aside his own desire for some comfort to focus on the reality before him.

"I, uh… well…" she started to stammer in front of him before looking over his head and giving her head a little jerk. Iroh's brow furrowed at her behavior, but he then heard further creaking of the floorboards and realized that Smellerbee had not returned alone.

"You are Iroh?" came the question from a strong female voice and he half turned in his chair to see two young women walking into the dining area of his establishment. The one who had spoken was tall and imposing looking with hair as black as night and the woman by her side was a head shorter with straw colored hair and, despite the different in height, looked no less like she could toss a person twice her size over her shoulder. Iroh had a fairly good idea what these two young women did for a living before he even replied and found that they looked vaguely familiar to him for some reason.

"I am indeed, welcome to my teashop," he said with a smile. "Can I make you up something?"

The tall girl didn't smile back.

"You were there that night at the town hall," she said curtly. "You saw Sasuke, and you saw the spirits when they first appeared."

He raised his eyebrows in surprise at her.

"What makes you say such a thing?"

"I was there as well, with my sisters," she replied and after a moment longer of staring, Iroh found out why it was he recognized the both of them.

"You're Kyoshi Warriors," he said, posing it more so as a statement as a question. They both nodded in reply before the tall one spoke again.

"I am Reina, second in command to Suki of the Kyoshi Warriors," she confirmed and gestured to the young woman to her right. "This is Bernice, my lieutenant."

Iroh turned himself fully in his chair to face them both while Smellerbee eased herself into a position to lean against the wall and watched the three other people in the room anxiously.

"I suppose then that you didn't stop by for just some tea," Iroh said to the pair. Reina looked at him through stern and disciplined eyes, but she surprised him with what she said next.

"No, but I can't say either of us would turn down a cup."

After a brief moment of silence, a smile split Iroh's face and he got to his feet, gesturing at the table he was at.

"Sit, please. I'll be just a moment."

A few minutes later, he had returned to the table with a platter of tea and biscuits and joined the two Kyoshi Warriors around the table where they had indulged his request to be seated. He looked between the both of them with a quick appraising glance, and found that even without their warpaint, they were still deeply striking individuals. As they both sipped at their steaming cups, he asked, "What can I do for you?"

Reina set her cup down and eyed it a moment before answering.

"We have been… struggling as a group, as of late."

Iroh looked on patiently and attentively while she made her point.

"We were on duty the night that all hell broke loose. Suki requested a detail to accompany her in protest of the execution of Toph Beifong, and as we were all outraged to hear about the execution ourselves, we of course attended at her side. Following the events of that night, Suki asked us to remain behind while we believe she is in the company of the one known as Sasuke now. We heeded her order and have waited within the city, but the bleakness of our situation has only worsened. As you're aware, there is a strict curfew throughout the city and the citizens we have encountered believe us to have been involved with Avatar Kyoshi's return and subsequent occupation of Ba Sing Se."

Though he hadn't himself seen any of the Kyoshi Warriors since he had more or less obediently hunkered down in his tea shop, it didn't surprise him that Reina's group was being met with prejudice as a result of the circumstances.

"We've foregone wearing our uniforms and paint in public to avoid such unnecessary and aggressive attention as we have received," she continued, and Iroh could see Bernice seeming to tighten her knuckles in what could have been restrained anger. "Save for the occasional trips we make to the palace, hoping to speak to our patron."

"Judging by your overall demeanor, I would imagine those attempts have been unsuccessful," he replied slowly, and she nodded.

"Unfortunately, yes. The spirits won't let us inside the palace grounds, nor do they seem inclined to pass along our desire to speak with Avatar Kyoshi. We… had rather hoped she might be willing to speak with us and maybe something, anything could have been cleared up."

Her voice was calm and controlled, as stoic as could be, but it was clear that the situation was wearing thin on her.

"We've had no contact from Suki, Avatar Kyoshi will not speak with us or the spirits are withholding us from her for some reason, and we are frankly at our limit. That's why we tracked you down."

"How might I be able to aid your situation?" he asked, part of him already assuming he knew what she was going to bring up next. Reina exchanged looks with Bernice.

"We… saw you speaking with the Avatar and the group that left with Sasuke, the one that Suki was also a part of with her husband," she said slowly. "Before we move forward with our plan, we intended to ask you if there was anything you could tell us regarding where they might have gone, where they might be now, if you've had any contact with them, or anything to give us a better picture of where our leader is or anything pertinent to the situation at hand."

Iroh found himself immediately in something of a jam. He looked painedly at the both of them as he tried to figure how best to handle this.

On one hand, he knew that it was only through considerable fortune that he hadn't yet been taken and interrogated by the spirits which he assumed was due to the fact that none of them had likely seen him with Sasuke and his company, or perhaps it was simply due to the fact that they didn't believe he had anything useful to tell them. And in truth, Iroh supposed there wasn't much he indeed could tell them. Sasuke, the Avatar, his nephew, and the others had taken an airship and headed west, that was all he knew. Surely no real harm could come in telling the two warriors that much.

But on the other hand, he knew that keeping a low profile was paramount. The city streets of Ba Sing Se were technically not off limit to foot traffic, but very few citizens were taking the risk and leaving their homes and spirits were patrolling the skies and streets mostly unseen. If one happened to see and identify two Kyoshi Warriors entering his teashop, they might find reason then to pay him a visit; Reina had all but told him that their family of warriors was getting a fair bit of attention, both from disgruntled citizens and also from the spirits themselves who seemed to need to consistently turn them away. It was possible they were some of the more high profile individuals in the city, at least in the eyes of the spirits. Regardless of why they chose to come see him, the last thing Iroh wanted was for them to pay him a visit; who knew what they would try and extract from him. Perhaps they might even try and use him to get at Zuko, perhaps as a hostage.

After a few moments of deliberation, his own conscience got the better of him, just as it always seemed to.

"I'm afraid there isn't much I can tell you that would be of much use, ladies," he said with a sigh. "Nothing else was told to me that you likely didn't also hear; the group took the airship and left west some weeks ago, and I've had no communication from them since."

Reina and Bernice both seemed to try and withhold looks of disappointment as the former nodded almost reluctantly.

"And you've no idea where they'd be headed?"

"None," Iroh replied. "Based on the state of the city's occupation, I can only assume that they've had success in evading the spirits to this point. My only hint has been when the army of spirits departed the city, they went north, not west."

He looked over to Smellerbee.

"They were returning from the north too, were they not?"

Bernice looked over quickly at the young woman who had been next to motionless against the wall, listening to the conversation.

"You saw the spirits return?" she asked rather quickly. "Did you see Avatar Kyoshi with them?"

There was a genuine air of reverence in her voice and it was clear to Iroh that these women likely considered the Avatar to be someone of deific status, regardless of what she had done, or the fact that Suki, their leader, had sided against her. Smellerbee seemed to tense up at the suddenness of being addressed and shifted her weight nervously.

"I'm sorry, no," she said, biting at her lower lip. "But they were returning from the north. And there were a lot less of them returning compared to the number that had left."

Bernice looked back to Reina who had her brow furrowed.

"Do you think…?" she started to ask and Reina put a hand over her mouth, wiping at her chin thoughtfully.

"That they might have gotten Sasuke and his child? Maybe."

The thought had crossed Iroh's mind as well, but it didn't explain the change in number of spirits returning, nor the fact that the city seemed to still be readily under occupation.

"North…" Reina continued to quietly puzzle. "Perhaps the Northern Water Tribe? Some of the spirits could have stayed to occupy the city, which would explain the change in the army's size."

"But what reason would they have to occupy the city?" Bernice inquired. "Especially if they found Sasuke?"

"They could have run into a dead end trying to find him," Smellerbee offered. "Maybe they had a solid lead on thinking that he was in the Northern Water Tribe, and they didn't find him, so they left some of the army there to occupy the city in case, I don't know, maybe they were expecting he might show there at some point?"

"They wouldn't take such a force unless they were certain, and the city wouldn't warrant an occupying force of that size," Iroh said.

"Then… they were attacked?" Bernice persisted. "Maybe they did find Sasuke! Maybe…"

She seemed to grow almost nervous.

"Maybe he forced them to retreat?"

Smellerbee and Iroh both started to speak at once before Reina's clear and collected voice cut through them both.

"It doesn't matter."

She got to her feet and looked to Iroh respectfully.

"Thank you for your time. But there are clearly more questions than we could ever hope to have answers for, even more so than when we first thought."

Turning to her lieutenant, she gave her head a small jerk and Bernice obediently rose as well. Reina looked back to Iroh.

"I tell you this out of respect, Dragon of the West, and I pray you will not try to stop us. We intend to get into the palace one way or another and speak with the Avatar herself. We are not concerned with resistance we might meet though we intend to do it as carefully and quietly as possible. At the very least, we intend to learn more about why it is that we have been left in the dark and why perhaps Kyoshi herself has not spoken to any of us since the night she first came to us."

It was something that Iroh had supposed he had expected deep down. His first instinct was to try and talk Reina down and attempt to convince the Kyoshi Warriors not to put themselves at such risk, but he knew just as quickly that it would be a futile effort. Whatever he could pull from his internal reservoir of reassuring sentiments and suggestions, no matter how he tried to generate some reasoning for them to keep to themselves, there would be no point to it. The very nature of their creed was being threatened and they were as completely in the dark as could be, their leader gone, Kyoshi hardly even seeming like she was even a presence to them. They needed some kind of closure beneath the answers they were after, and they certainly deserved it. Even as badly as he wanted to, he couldn't tell them a thing that would be able to give them that what they were after. And Iroh didn't dare try to convince them otherwise.

He nodded to both Bernice and Reina as they thanked him for his time and the tea before leaving from the door in the back that they had entered from. When the door had swung shut and it was just the pair of them, Smellerbee started to hurl questions Iroh's way, but he didn't give her much by way of answers, responding with as little as he could. He quite found he didn't want to talk, much less even think that hard about what he had just heard. Every day that passed had been a collage of Iroh battling down his doubts and fears about the connection of the material and physical worlds and understanding very early on that there truly wasn't any way that he could make sense of it all. But now with this visit, he was once again thrust back into a rather dark place in his mind that he had been hoping would resolve itself when the conclusion of this invasion finally came about, whatever that meant.

Smellerbee seemed to understand fairly quickly and she excused herself shortly after she asked where June had gone and was met with the very simple reply of, "She left," from Iroh. She murmured something about letting her know if Iroh needed anything, which he appreciated; for all her brazen and abrasive personality suggested, she had come to care for Iroh the same way that he had for her, but he found that he wasn't able to spare her much thought as she left him alone in the dining room.

Iroh's mind drifted to others, to the Avatar, to Sasuke, and to his nephew and as he thought to Zuko and wondered where the reigning Fire Lord had found himself, Iroh lowered his head and put his face in his hands. It shouldn't have been that painful of a thought, but it labored harshly against his conscious anyways as he prayed desperately for his nephew's wellbeing.

---

Aang nearly knocked the door to the terrace of its hinges as he burst out into the early evening air. The sun was below the horizon and the slowly progressing darkness did nothing to stem the anxious nerves that were spearing at his insides. Expanding his lungs, he pulled in as deep a breath as he could and closed his eyes tightly, trying to let the oxygen overwhelm his brain for just a moment, just long enough to allow his most recent memories to briefly disappear. Thinking on it, he couldn't even remember a time in the past several weeks where this anxiety hadn't been weighing on him with a dismal and ever-present lack of mercy.

The group had met within Tangith's chambers per his demand with Ty Lee arriving later than the others. Toph hadn't shown up at all and it had been assumed that she was too upset over Sasuke's disappearance to join them and the chief had been in far too foul a mood to seem to care much to wait for her. Immediately, he had started firing questions at the group of them, seeming certain that at least one of them knew what it was that had happened. None of them could even seem to get an answer in edgewise and for the first time since they had first arrived, Aang had felt the chief putting him seriously on edge. He knew that due to his military history and past with butting heads with other political adversaries, Tangith was not immune to paranoia, and it almost seemed rather like he was about to give into that less rational side of himself, so furious he was about the disappearance of Kyoshi, Sasuke, and Azula. He might very well have shouted himself hoarse if Lorna hadn't had the gumption to take him gently at the arm and gesture softly to Ty Lee who looked like she was on the verge of tears.

As Tangith caught his breath and fell silent, Ty Lee started to speak. Her words came out towards her feet as she didn't seem willing to look at any of them. By her admittance, Azula had come to see her just before she had come up to the meeting and spoken with her. The princess had told her that she and Sasuke were leaving for Ba Sing Se; this was something they would do on their own and they had deliberately freed Kyoshi as part of their plan, though Ty Lee hadn't seemed to have been made aware what could have been gained by freeing the Avatar. But Azula and Sasuke had been to leave just moments later and even as Tangith barked orders at his generals to sweep the outside of the city, Aang knew nothing could have been more fruitless. However Sasuke and Azula were moving, they would have been long gone.

No one seemed deeply surprised by what Ty Lee had said, but Ursa had caught Aang's eye. She had been sitting around the chief's meeting table, picking almost absently at a loose strand on the knee of her pants and seemed completely unfazed by Ty Lee's admittance. Aang found himself assuming that Sasuke must have come to see her before he had left and she was keeping quiet. How he mad managed to convince Ursa to not try and stop him or come along, Aang couldn't fathom.

The rest of the group who had been looking deeply weary seemed to have been rejuvenated by this spark of news. Suki had immediately wanted to head to Ba Sing Se as well while Sokka had been adamantly opposed to such a thing and the two had started to heatedly debate until Yue of all people interrupted, shouting openly at Ty Lee. She seemed certain that there should have been something Ty Lee should have done when Azula had come to see her, stop her, force her to stay, alert someone before the princess and Sasuke had disappeared. Aang remembered the last time he had seen her so furiously wound up had been aboard the airship when she had jealously attacked Ursa over her relationship to Sasuke, but unlike with the older woman who hadn't so much as remotely backed down from the aggression, Ty Lee looked even more so that she was about to cry and she very well might have if Mai hadn't gotten nearly nose to nose with Yue and snapped at her to lay off. The tension made it seem like the two women were very close to throwing a swing at one another, but Yue had sat back down angrily, her face still ripe with anger. Mai had gone over to massage Ty Lee's shoulders in a gesture of comfort, but Aang noticed how stiff she seemed herself as though she were also upset with Ty Lee deep down.

When Sokka and Suki had simmered down, Zuko had spoken and said something that shouldn't have surprised Aang, but that still shook him to his core regardless.

"What can we do?" the Fire Lord had said almost hopelessly, his misery apparent but so too was the bitter resentment that Aang had seen out of him for the previous weeks. "Our best odds of reaching the city are by boat; none of the Water Nation airships are built for inherent speed. It would take days traveling at top speed to get to Ba Sing Se, and even then… what can we hope to achieve?"

Jin had knocked her chair over in her haste to stand up, her fists pressed to the table as she looked at Zuko like she was seeing him for the first time.

"We can fight!" she snarled, speaking with more fire than even Tangith had minutes prior. "We can take the fight right to the spirits and help Sasuke and help Azula get their daughter back! Are you suggesting we lie down and let the spirits just keep walking over us until our world has no choice but to submit?!"

Zuko, who had always been on good terms with Jin, looked surprised and perhaps even offended at her blustery response to him.

"Now hold on just a minute," he started angrily, but she didn't seem remotely interested in giving him a chance to excuse his words.

"By the sound of it, when the spirits are destroyed, they reform in the spirit world and then are able to come right back! They will keep coming back until they have what they want, and I honestly think Sasuke might be the only person who understands that! He's going to end this, one way or another, and I am not going to sit here and just let him go and see this through while I sit on my ass and do, what exactly?! Pray?! Hope?! Wish?!"

She shook her head in what could very well have been disgust.

"Even with as much of a monster as she is, you're just going to let your sister walk into that hell on her own?! And leave the fate of your niece to chance?!"

That seemed to have fully gotten under Zuko's skin and he leapt to his feet then as well.

"I love my sister!" he roared at Jin. "Don't you dare suggest otherwise! But by the time we reach Ba Sing Se, it could very well be nothing but rubble, and you saw what we were able to achieve against the spirits at the harbor! Their auras defend against our bending, and we hardly fought a sliver of their army! Who knows if that was even their whole number they arrived with and if that, that thing hadn't shown up with Sasuke, we'd all have been dead!"

"So giving up and letting the spirits have their way is a better option to you than actually having some balls and—" Jin started to snarl back before the door to the chambers was thrown open and the captain of the guard entered. Jin stopped talking, but she and Zuko continued to glower at one another, at least until the captain spoke in a deeply urgent tone.

"Toph Beifong is not in her quarters, sir!"

Whatever hostility had been brewing around the table, Yue at Ty Lee, Suki and Sokka, Zuko and Jin, all of that seemed to topple away in an instant. This was not the first time in recent memory that Toph had gone missing and when they considered what happened last time, it was no surprise that everyone immediately tensed up at this news.

Tangith then ordered the palace to be swept by every available soldier on the grounds, but minutes later, they came back to confirm what the captain had initially implied. By then, there was no doubt among any of them that Toph had either gone off on her own after Sasuke or had joined him and Azula and left without a word.

It had been a relief to Aang that Tangith had almost disgustedly ordered the meeting adjourned. While he didn't directly say anything, it was clear that he believed at least one of them was withholding something, or at the very least, he was resenting their lack of attention to Sasuke, Azula, and Toph, and he wanted time to figure out what he thought would be the best course of action forward. It wouldn't have been a surprise to Aang if he hadn't just angrily ordered them to leave his city, but while the chief was clearly in a frustrated and angry headspace, such irrational spite was far beneath him. Instead, he ordered them all to remain within the palace until such a time as he had a better grasp on the situation. Without even seeing them out, he had stormed from his chambers towards a hallway that Aang imagined led to some more private room where he could be with his thoughts, but just then, he couldn't spare another moment thinking about the chief, or even anyone else in that room. Ignoring Mai and Sokka calling after him, he had raced from the meeting room and sprinted down the halls until he found a doorway that led outside to one of the palace's verandas.

This was where he found himself now, leaning over the railing, taking in large gulps of air and trying to not think about the fact that he genuinely felt sick. Throughout the entire meeting, he had been toying with his bison whistle underneath his robes; throughout the years after the Hundred Years War, Aang had worked to create and improve his own bison whistle which he had tested distances the span of whole continents. Appa was currently roaming free in eastern skies far from where he was, but if Aang called him now…

Will even Appa be able to get me there fast enough?

He had imagined he had come close cracking the whistle so tightly as it was clenched in his palm then.

How… how, Sasuke? Why? Why?!

Aang didn't need to ask Sasuke himself to know what the rational had likely been; Sasuke had surely finally reached a point where he was fed up with inaction, with running away, with trying to find some alternative solution to their problems, and he was bringing the war to Kyoshi just as much as he was going to save his daughter. Aang couldn't deny his own fearful thoughts that Yangchen carrying Soza away was the last time any of them would see her alive, but regardless of her situation, this must have just been too much for Sasuke. He had gone against the grain of his own personal mindset for weeks with them, and Aang could see how it had worn on him. The entire time, Sasuke was surely looking for an excuse to break away and take this war directly to the spirits where he didn't have to worry about any of them being in danger, where he could cut loose and unleash all of his powers and abilities to end the war in one fell swoop.

But he wasn't the angst-ridden and resolutely withdrawn person he had been as a teenager. In his time alone, he had matured and been more accepting of the idea of relationships as a friend and, in the case of Ursa, as a lover. Aang had thought more than once to the idea of Sasuke being on his own for a decade, this detached person lost and chasing after a solution he didn't know even existed to find his way home and perhaps, that was what had driven him to be so much more open when he had stepped back into their midst.

Maybe he really was just lonely.

Aang bowed his head and grit his teeth almost tight enough to hurt. He wished so badly Sasuke could have been there now or that he could reach out to Sasuke and tell him not to do what he was about to. Even if it was a fruitless task, he wanted Sasuke to know that…

What? What do you want him to know?

Giving a shiver, Aang shook his head and closed his eyes tightly. It hurt too much to think about that just then, especially after all that had happened with Katara and the fact that he had never once really told Sasuke just how it was that—

"You are in misery, Avatar."

Aang leapt like a fish from the water in utter fright at the sudden voice. His feet slipping on the ice out on the veranda, he heard himself yelp audibly as he gripped the railing to right himself and looked to see who it was that had spoken. For a moment, he blinked as the visual before him was distantly familiar before he remembered where it was that he had seen this strange figure before.

A small, thin humanlike figure was sitting on the railing, its legs dangling into space as though utterly unaware of the fall that it would encounter should it have tipped even slightly forward. It was wrapped unevenly across its body in what looked like bandages which only further enhanced its sickly appearance and the only feature he could make out of its head beyond its shoulder length blueish grey hair was a single large peering glassily into space. The other eye was bound equally by its wrappings, and it was curious to Aang that its voice should have been so audible behind them. But it was no doubt that it was the same creature that had appeared and briefly spoken with Sasuke.

"It's you," Aang whispered before he could stop himself, because he found that he knew full well who this creature was. It flicked its gaze over at him forlornly, but its voice was nothing if not curious.

"Do you know who I am?" it asked.

"You're Koloss," Aang said back breathlessly, not even sure how he knew so surely in his heart that this guess was right. "You're the one that Sasuke went to find."

The being looked back at him thoughtfully a moment longer before inkling its head in a slow nod.

"And find me he did," it said in a rasping, weak voice. "Your intuition serves you well."

There could have been a hundred things that Aang would have liked to ask the spirit regarding its past, its existence, its powers, and a great deal more, but the question he blurted out then was just as much an automatic response as his first statement.

"Did Sasuke tell you what he was going to do?"

Koloss had a perplexingly constantly sad look about it, but it seemed to grow even more melancholy then. It looked back out over the darkening sky.

"You ought not ponder such a thing," it said quietly. "The war he fights is not yours."

"How can you say that?!" Aang demanded. "These spirits, they should be my kin! They should be watching over this world and working in harmony with it! Not this invasion! Not taking over our cities and subjugating our people!"

When it next spoke, Koloss's voice almost seemed to have developed a bite to it.

"Please do not speak to me of subjugation. I know perfectly well what that truly is, and I assure you, your people have not yet experienced it."

Aang's heart skipped a beat.

Yet?

"Regardless, I suppose I can try to understand your fears and that awful pain that is clearly afflicting you," the being said. "But it also seems to me that your fears are possessed by much more than just concern for the people you shepherd over as Avatar. You fear for the safety of your friend. You fear for the safety of his woman with whom he bore child, and you fear for the safety of said child. You also fear for the other who travels with them now."

"Toph?" Aang said urgently. "You saw her with Sasuke and Azula?"

Koloss inclined its head almost politely and Aang allowed himself to take a deep breath and exhale it with the touch of relief it had given him. Though one of his fears had been confirmed, at the very least Toph wasn't on her own.

How did she talk her way into that?

"So they're going to Ba Sing Se," he said through tight lips. "You helped him here, why aren't you following with Sasuke now?"

He was feeling strangely indignant as though he really couldn't believe that Koloss was sitting here on this railing while Sasuke was heading south with only Azula and Toph at his side. Somehow, he was certain that the giant being he had seen towering over the bay had been Koloss's secondary form, or at least a sort of shell it could control. Perhaps it was Aang's ability to be in touch with spirits when he encountered them, but this was something he was sure of.

"Alas, I grievously miscalculated my own power," Koloss said in a hoarse sigh. It raised its thin and sickly arms as if to explain by a mere gesture.

"While I certainly must appear rather an appalling creature to all, this weakened being you see is a somewhat accurate reflection of my current condition in more ways than one. After so many centuries of dormancy… urging my protective body into action so swiftly and fiercely forced dire consequences upon it. It rests just west of the city, lying just as it did for all those years. I damaged it with my haste and my connection to it is weak. Had the battle continued much longer, I may very well have collapsed with it and as such, I can be of no aid to the man who freed me."

It lowered its head in a gesture of saddened penance.

"I owe him more than he likely realizes… especially after…"

Koloss trailed off as though uncertain of whether it ought to say more. Aang looked at it helplessly for several long seconds before reinitiating an attempt at coercing some more helpful information.

"I can't just sit here and let him go," he whispered. "Not him, and not Azula and Toph. I have to be there for them, no matter what that means. I don't know how I know that for certain, but I do."

He couldn't stand how weak his voice sounded, but the frail being before him didn't seem to notice or care that his tone was growing more and more desperate.

"I'm aware of your certainty in this. You and all of your companions hold great stake in the plight of Sasuke, just as this world does. Be it for love, for friendship, for anything at all, I know you are not alone in your displeasure at not being able to be at his side."

"So, that's it then?" Aang growled, frustrated by the being's mere observations of the situation; Aang could easily have told anyone how upset he was and how he dearly wanted just what Koloss spoke of and if this creature was just here to offer candid points…

"No, that's not it," Koloss said with another sigh. "You still have a considerable choice to make. I urge you not to take yourself after Sasuke until he has finished his duty. If you leave now, perhaps you could help him, but… the danger you put yourself in and the others as well."

"I'd rather die at his side then know that I did nothing to help him," Aang said bitterly, not finishing the entire thought. It was a possibility he didn't want to consider, and he was worried that even just voicing it would make it all the more likely of actually occurring.

"Clearly," the creature said with yet another sigh. "But Sasuke clearly departed on his own with intent. He doesn't wish any of you to be put in further danger. Certainly you see that?"

"I don't care!" Aang said loudly. "That's not his decision to make! Ursa would do anything for him, I would do anything for him, Mai, Yue, hell, just about any of us would!"

He didn't want to think about Zuko or Suki's rather more recent animosity-laced attitudes towards Sasuke and so he brushed off such thoughts.

"It's not up to Sasuke to decide who is at his side at the end of all this!" he further expulsed.

"And has being at his side met with anything but more anxious dealings and near tragedy?" Koloss asked, its soft and brittle voice somehow matching Aang's evenly. "If you consider what happened when he returned in the first place, how many of you could have died engaging the spirits, or the events aboard the airship, or on that island, or on the way to this city, or even just this morning in the harbor? If you look back to the moment you met Sasuke, was there anything but more danger that came about as a result of knowing him and being at his side?"

Aang didn't want to ask how Koloss could possibly know all of these specific details, but it was hard enough for him just trying to keep those memories from overwhelming him. Because it couldn't be denied the danger that came from knowing Sasuke, from traveling with him, from just being around him.

But danger always found us before I met him. And it followed after he left.

It wasn't that Sasuke brought danger with him; he was suffering from it likely more than any single one of them.

"Don't you think that Sasuke would be better off knowing you were all safe and far from danger as he makes a last step to protect your world?" Koloss's voice came to him, whispering gently. Aang blinked aside tears and gave his head a single shake. Wiping his cheeks, he gave a wet chuckle.

"You don't get it. That's not the point. Better off in his head, maybe. But…"

It was a difficult pill to swallow, but Aang supposed he had already taken it down in his head before this moment. But admitting it now in such a way felt like a much harder step to take.

"I don't care about putting myself in danger. I don't care if Sasuke would be upset that I did something like that. Because just like Kyoshi accuses Sasuke of being, I'm selfish too. I want to be at his side. I want to see this through till the end."

He gripped the railing tightly before him, feeling an almost cathartic numbness spreading through his digits.

"At the end of the last war, Sasuke shouldered it all for us. Yeah, he was doing it to try and reach a point where he could get home himself, but he could have waited. He could have let it all blow over and then find some less dangerous way to get what he was after. But he took my responsibility, my weight and bore it himself. It was never supposed to be like that, or at least, that's what everyone tried to tell me. I had to be the one to take down Ozai, I had to be the one to end the war. And I hated that. I didn't want a war and I damn sure didn't want to be the one to bear all that. But I believed that it was the truth because everyone told me that was the way it needed to be. Then I met Sasuke, and he told me that was a complete load of crap. I didn't know if he was right or not, but I still watched him end the war on his own terms, giving everything he had to beat down the forces at our door and bring it all to a close. And now he has to do it all over again."

Strangely enough, he found himself grinning.

"I'm selfish because I'm not letting him take that responsibility all on his own again. I want to be there for him, and I don't care if he thinks I should be or not. No matter what that means for me."

Feeling the words expelled from his body brought an almost dreamlike and relieving sensation over Aang's mind as he looked out over the city lights. Koloss didn't reply for quite a time and when it did, Aang expected a rebuttal of his words and thoughts, calling him foolish or reckless as he would have expected anyone to do.

"You're a very free spirit, Avatar Aang."

He looked over and, though he couldn't see the thing's mouth, Aang somehow knew it was smiling softly. Feeling the question brewing on the tip of his tongue, he threw out the question before he found himself too tense to ask such a thing.

"Do you know any way I can get to him? Fast enough to make a difference?"

Aang felt the question sound stupid to him even then. He didn't know exactly how omniscient this being before him was and if it would even be willing to offer him such advice if it could. It had seemed fixed on trying to talk him out of such action, but Aang was even more frightened that all it would tell him is that there was nothing he could do.

But Koloss only looked out towards the sky, replying distantly.

"The stars are bright tonight."

Heaving a sigh, Aang lowered his head and closed his eyes at the obnoxiously cryptic response. He didn't know what he had been expecting. There was too much that to suggest that Koloss would never have given him that kind of assistance; after all, Aang had seen the being and Sasuke exchanging words and if Koloss owed Sasuke like it implied, it would no doubt prefer to side with the man who—

Wait.

He looked up, his brow furrowing.

There's no stars out yet.

Casting his gaze towards the heavens, he looked at the paling blue sky that was dipping towards the black of night, but indeed, no stars were yet visible. He scanned the horizon intently, trying to see if there was something he was missing and as he looked past the eastern cliffs, he saw something quite odd.

A bright orange glow was gleaming just around the side of the frozen mountain. Its origin wasn't clear to him, but it couldn't have been more apparent that it was there, hovering strangely and beckoningly.

"Is that what—" Aang started to say, but as he looked over towards the balcony where Koloss had been sitting, he saw that the strange being was gone with not even an indent on the snow-laced railing to indicate it had been there at all. Sparing only a couple moments to look at the spot in bewilderment, Aang found his hands extending his glider and a moment later, he was soaring towards the orange light flickering just beyond the city.

For a wild, hopeful moment, he thought that it might somehow be Sasuke hovering out there; perhaps he had needed to return to the city, or had reconsidered his choice to leave. Aang knew it was stupid to hope for something so unlikely, but as he drew ever nearer to the anomaly, he found that it was quite possibly the next best thing.

For while it had been weeks since he had lain eyes on it, Aang still fully recognized the sight of the sleek airship that had carried them from Ba Sing Se.

---

From the moment he had collided with Aang in the hallway, Zuko had barely registered what the out of breath Avatar had told him before Aang was off to find others to inform them of the news he had just given Zuko. It had taken him just a couple moments to stand still, utterly in a state of surprise, before he had turned on his heel and headed quickly towards where he had last seen his mother.

While he knew that most of the others had returned to their rooms likely to engage in attempts at getting some rest, Zuko hadn't been able to even consider such an idea. It wasn't necessarily because of the situation as a whole, though the idea of his sister, whom Zuko had genuinely felt he might be able to spark a new relationship with, being gone was certainly distressing to him, he couldn't quite get over how Jin quickly Jin had gotten under his skin.

From the moment they had gotten a chance to talk after the war's end and smooth out the 'Lee' character that she had known him as, Jin had been remarkably understanding for a girl who had been lied to about the very person she had gone on a date with. And as the months became years, Zuko had learned just how good natured of a person she was, through her tolerance with passive-aggressive abuse from Azula and Soza, to her caring for Toph and friendship with Ty Lee, and just the way she treated people in general, Zuko had found that he quite liked the rare occasions he was able to see her and visit. The opportunities were few and far between with his duties as Fire Lord and Jin being far to the east in Ba Sing Se, but they were always instances he looked forward to.

So for her to have lashed out at him so angrily and for her to have been so rash, it was something that Zuko had found made him quite furious.

He had become a much more tempered man since his days of bitterly sailing the seas in obsessive pursuit of the Avatar and his honor, and he found it usually took quite a bit to rile him up too badly. Zuko had even felt rather proud of himself when he had openly opted to not try and attack Sasuke after learning of the relationship the other man shared with his mother and he had been just able to keep such feelings from devolving into irrational anger. But with Jin… marching angrily through the palace had been just enough to keep him from breaking down properly in fury.

Was it what she said? What she implied? The fact that we've always gotten on so well? Why did that infuriate me as badly as it did?

Zuko couldn't blame Jin for being angry with him. His words had been fueled by resentment for Sasuke, not a lack of caring for his sister, niece, or Toph. They had been brash and instigative at best.

Is that why? Am I really just angry at myself?

It was a touch unsettling that he hadn't even thought of Ursa until just then; through the meeting, he had been so focused on Ty Lee's words and the following exchange with Jin that he hadn't even thought to how his mother might have been feeling at the sudden disappearance of her daughter and the man whom had gotten her…

Zuko had always forced his thoughts to choke off then. Combining the words 'mother,' 'Sasuke,' and 'pregnant' in a sentence was a touch further than he cared to go.

After minutes of pacing angrily and muttering bitterly to himself of all the things he had wished he could have instead said to Jin, he reached a much more calm point where he actually found himself wanting to seek her out and apologize, and that was when he had all but crashed into Aang.

He had forced aside the thoughts that were so occupying his mind then and hurried off to find his mother, feeling guilt over his lack of attentiveness to her. She hadn't headed towards the rooms they were staying in and he imagined that she might be in a similar place that he had been, where physical movement was the only way to stave off the genuine anger and anxiety flushing through the core of their entire group.

His lungs were burning by the time he saw her disappearing out of sight around a corner down a hallway he was passing. Skidding to a halt and nearly falling as he did, he raced after her, calling out as he did. When he reached the corner, his mother had indeed heard him and had turned to look back at the sound of his voice; her expression tightened with concern as she saw Zuko's state.

"What's wrong?" she immediately asked, a twinge of fear in her calm and steady voice. Zuko then repeated what Aang had told him and a mere two sentences later, he saw the first sign of life in his mother's eyes that he had seen all day. Her body stiffened as she asked him to lead the way, which he did.

A minute or so later, they were rushing out onto a large terrace, one that was much larger than any of the others that extended from the palace. Zuko had been out there once before years ago for a gala to celebrate five years of the war being at an end and the wide-open terrace had comfortably held at least a couple hundred people. Now, it was void of such a crowd with no more than a dozen people silhouetted against the dimming of the early evening. The pink had faded from the sky and a deep indigo was flush over the Northern Water Tribe, making the only light that wasn't spilling from the opened door behind Zuko and Ursa come from the orange, warm lights of the airship that was hovering just a dozen meters or so above the terrace.

Just as Aang had said, it was indeed the same type of airship that they had fled Ba Sing Se aboard, one of the prototype Whisper class vessels, built almost purely for speed. Zuko slowed his jog to a trot as he made out the figures before him.

He could see Aang, Jin, Ty Lee, Yue, Mai, Sokka, and Suki all already there making his mother and himself the last two to arrive. Several cloaked figures stood just ahead of the group, varying in size and stature and the tallest and broadest of them seemed to be in swift conversation with Suki as they approached.

Zuko was caught off guard as his mother dashed past him, shouldering him as she did. In the low light, he caught only a glimpse of her face as she passed but even as she did, he could see the wideness of her eyes and knew that her nearly knocking him over hadn't been her intention. He followed close behind as she merged with the group and pushed between Ty Lee and Jin almost as though in a trance. The tall man stopped speaking with Suki and looked to her intently before inclining his head respectfully in a mirrored movement of the other men behind him who had all noticed Ursa as well.

"Good to see you again, captain."

As he too joined the group, giving Aang a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder, Zuko could see that the effort to keep from possibly breaking down was taking all of his mother's self-control. Her hands were balled tightly into fists and her face could have been carved from stone, but he noticed the small shiver that was traveling up her entire body as she looked back at the man who stood even taller than her. Zuko recognized him immediately as the one called Siado, who had been Ursa's first mate aboard the ship they had sailed far beyond the reaches of the Four Nations; backlit by the orange lights of the airship, his silhouette was deeply imposing, but the slightest bit of light that touched his face gleaming out from the palace showed that he was wearing a large, genuine smile.

Zuko watched as his mother swallowed twice, her lower lip quivered, and her face tightened a moment like she was about to cry before she caught herself and seemed to regain her usual air of composure.

"You're still alive," she remarked, and received a couple chuckles from her crew behind Siado and Zuko imagined he was the only one who heard the faintest quiver in her voice.

"I'll be honest, I don't think any of were sure that was how it would turn out," Siado replied, crossing his large arms as his hooked hand glinted in the orange light.

"He was just telling us how they managed to escape the spirits and get here," Suki explained; Zuko noticed that her words sounded a little worn and frenzied and there was a strange, almost manic look in her eyes, though he dismissed that as a trick of the light. Ahead of them, Siado nodded.

"After you lot hit the trail, we juiced the airship for all we had and made it as far as the coast before the spirits caught up to us and took the ship and forced us to land. We were almost burnt out of fuel by that point anyway, so I don't know how much further we would have gotten. Anyways, they dragged us all out and put us on our knees in the sand while they ransacked the airship trying to find even just one of you. When they didn't, they started going at us, trying to get us to tell them something."

"I'm so sorry," Aang said in a whisper, a hand nearly over his mouth. Siado waved a hand dismissively.

"Nah, don't worry about it. They burned a couple of the guys and popped a few bones, but nothing irrecoverable. And they didn't get far either; after only a couple minutes of that, this big massive thing with a head like a bull…"

Zuko remembered the pacing spirit at the head of the army in the bay only that morning.

"… he lifts his head and looks off towards sort of a northeast direction. He doesn't say a word, just gives this booming roar and the spirits up and left us on this bit of coast with an almost empty airship."

"That must have been when Dovan and Orian found us with the Talons," Sokka remarked. "What then?"

"Well, we patched up those of us that had been handled a little more roughly by those ethereal bastards," Siado grunted. "And then we had to figure out what the hell to do next. We didn't know where you guys were headed, but we were pretty much stranded at that point anyway. Broke up into a few groups to try and track down a port of something and it took almost a week before we even found a touch of civilization. But it was hardly a port, just some backwater village practically and it took our best games of cards to win some of the little fuel some of the townsfolk had. They were certain we were cheating by the time we took the fuel and left back for the airship."

"Were you?" Ursa asked knowingly and Siado flashed her a grin.

"We do what we have to, captain."

She smiled back and Zuko couldn't believe how good it felt to see his mother smile.

"Even with all the fuel we won, which was a pain to haul back between less than a dozen of us, we only filled the ships tanks by half. The thing guzzles that stuff like a tavern hooker downing drinks on break, but we were still able to lift off. Decided our best bet was to backtrack; since we hadn't seen spirits since the night we left, we figured we were at least a little in the clear and we took to the skies back over the Earth Nation. Figured we'd at least skirt Ba Sing Se to see if things had changed, and well… that was when we saw this properly huge fucking army leaving the city and heading north."

"There was a bit of a argument then; some of us didn't want to go anywhere near it in case it wasn't what we thought, but we eventually decided to tail them from a distance. We got high in the air, high as I think we dared; I really was waiting for that manta ray behemoth to spot us even as far away as we were. When we reached the edge of the city here, we had been a few hours behind the spirits and we could see all hell breaking loose. We moved behind the mountains and then when we checked back around in the late afternoon, we saw that things had cleared up. We were all pretty mad about not coming sooner, what with at least trying to help and whatnot…"

"You made the right choice," Yue said abruptly. "The spirits would have torn this ship to shreds if they saw you coming."

Ursa nodded and looked at her first mate somewhat sternly.

"No one will question a decision like that. You've experienced their strength and power firsthand; your blades would have done nothing against them."

Siado still looked almost sheepish, but he seemed to accept the truth of that.

"Anyways, we were deciding how to move at the city without getting shot down, and that's when the kid flew right up to us."

He gestured to Aang who gave a meaningful look.

"It was lucky I saw you when I did. Any closer and I'd bet the soldiers on patrol of the wall would have opened fire. With things the way they've been… even just one airship might have been enough to tip them over."

"How did you get them to let the ship fly into the city?" Sokka asked him. "And how the hell did Tangith allow the ship to park here instead of in the shipyard? Why wouldn't he even be here himself, that's awfully strange."

"For the soldiers holding their fire, I asked a favor," Aang said somewhat evasively. "And as for the chief… well, I don't think he exactly… knows."

Zuko felt himself pale and knew he wasn't the only one. He, Suki, Sokka, Mai, and Yue all whipped their heads around to stare at him wide-eyed.

"What?!" Yue almost shouted before looking back to the palace in nervous anticipation as though expecting to see Tangith come storming onto the terrace.

"Are you serious, Aang?" Sokka asked, much more calmly, but no less urgently. The Avatar looked only the barest bit put off by the attention being directed his way.

"What was I supposed to do?" he replied sharply. "If Tangith had known, he would have had them land in the shipyard, would have had the ship searched, ordered Ursa's crew to offboard and interrogate the lot of them himself, and taking the ship would have been completely out of the question!"

An almost uncomfortable silence fell over them as Aang's eyes widened as though he had just uttered an awful curse. Zuko felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck as his voice came out thin and distantly judgmental.

"Of course," he said. "Why wouldn't I have guessed?"

Of everyone there, Zuko shared one the best relationships with Aang. Once enemies, they had joined sides against Ozai and had only become closer after the war had ended and Zuko had been made Fire Lord. They had kept one another company on many a diplomatic trip they shared, bemoaning the necessities of such things as they laughed into the night at the snobby nature of the many people they would meet with. They had confided openly with one another about their concerns and fears over a great many things, from responsibilities to romance to relationships to duty. Zuko could truly call Aang what he thought was his best friend, but as he looked at him now, he could feel the wedge between them, a wedge he had never before felt.

"I'm not asking you to come, Zuko," Aang said quietly and Zuko nearly drew blood biting his tongue in anger.

Does he really think that I—

"Aang," Sokka said, putting his face in his hands and rubbing it in a gesture of what looked like pure exhaustion. "You… you need to think very hard about this."

"No, I don't," Aang replied flatly. "I've thought plenty about this, and there is no good that more thinking could possibly do."

He turned to face them all, looking as resolute as Zuko had seen in weeks.

"I'm going to take this airship to Ba Sing Se. I'm going to find Sasuke, Azula, and Toph. I'm going to help them save Soza, and I'm going to help them end this war."

"Even though that's the last thing Sasuke probably wants?" Jin asked quietly and Aang nodded firmly as he looked back at her.

"It doesn't matter what he wants. He left without talking to any of us, so I hardly think I owe him the due of considering what he would prefer I do just now."

His eyes flicked almost curiously to Ursa as though hoping his words would incite something from her, but she remained silent as she looked back at him.

Giving a groan, Sokka turned away from them all and ran his fingers through his hair before throwing his arms down and releasing a sound that was both a sigh and a laugh.

"Damn it all. Well, I guess I'll be going to, since I've already seen my wife giving that airship the eyes she usually reserves for me behind closed doors."

His joke only caused Suki to lightly hit him on the arm and as Zuko looked at her, her rather intense expression he had seen earlier made sense. Put on the spot, Suki wet her lips before she spoke in a tone that she was clearly have to force to stay even.

"Based on what Azula told Ty Lee… this could be it. I don't know how long Sasuke will wait until he springs into action, and I don't know how long it will even take him, Azula, and Toph to reach Ba Sing Se, but this airship at full speed will get us there faster than anything else ever could."

She looked down and swallowed.

"I left the Kyoshi Warriors there. I told them I needed them there so I knew I had someone I could trust. If they get caught up in this… whatever this will become…"

Suki didn't finish that particular thought, but the implication stood just fine on its own. She turned her head back up and there was steel reflecting in the orange light against her eyes.

"I'm not abandoning them. I'm going to play my part, whatever that is. And I'm…"

Her jaw muscles tightened and the muscles on her arms tensed as she shook her head.

"I'm not abandoning Sasuke either."

It was a considerable admittance considering the animosity she had been rather openly bearing for him following the incident between Ty Lee and Azula, and Zuko could tell that it was almost painful for her to admit. It was Ty Lee who then spoke up.

"I know I'm not exactly a full-fledged Kyoshi Warrior..." she started to say somewhat timidly before Suki reached out to put a hand on her shoulder.

"You're as much my sister as any of the others."

Ty Lee looked at her with gratitude in her eyes as she gripped the hand on her shoulder. Mai looked for a moment at the pair of them before grunting in something like annoyance.

"Well, someone's gotta watch Ty's back."

Her eyes flicked to Ursa then and the question was there in her gaze, and Zuko knew Mai well enough to know when she was looking challengingly at someone. But either Ursa didn't notice the look or didn't care enough to acknowledge it as she nodded herself.

Ty Lee looked at Jin then, who was looking deeply conflicted, though Zuko knew it was nothing to do with fear of her own safety.

"Jin, you don't have to—"

This warranted a punch to her arm from Jin who looked at her almost in offense.

"Shut the hell up, Ty. I'd rather kneel before Kyoshi and ask her to take my head off then let you lot go and do this on your own. Ba Sing Se is my home and whatever I can do to stand up to the spirits and help turn this thing around, I'm going to."

She seemed go grow a little anxious then.

"And… I need to make sure Iroh's okay."

At that, Zuko felt a genuine chill run up his spine as his mind blanked for a moment.

Uncle.

How… how could he have forgotten about his uncle? The most important person in the world to him, who had stayed behind to submit to Kyoshi's taking of the city? Zuko looked deep within his own thoughts and allowed himself to wonder a very dark, very sickly thought.

Was I really still so angry at Sasuke that I wouldn't have gone with everyone else to Ba Sing Se?

He only realized then that Mai was saying his name, which he only noticed when she reached out and gave his arm a small shake.

"Zuko," she said firmly and, even despite all the turmoil in his head, Zuko could feel a warm, fuzzy sensation at Mai's touch.

"What?" he asked rather stupidly and knew that he must have looked quite the fool as he blinked himself back into the moment. He looked around and saw Mai and Aang exchange glances, saw his mother look down to the side to avoid meeting his gaze, saw Ty Lee looking sadly at him. And as he knew what each of them were trying to figure out how to ask, he felt his lips peel back in a snarl over his teeth.

"Of course I'm going," he snapped. "You think I'd just leave my sister like that?!"

He didn't know exactly who he was lashing out towards, and after a few moments he realized it might have been towards himself. Mai seemed to bristle at his response, but the movement didn't reach her eyes which looked at him with a sadness similar to Ty Lee's. His mother too was looking at him and for a moment, he thought that she was going to tell him something, but though her eyes didn't leave him, it wasn't him that she addressed.

"Yue, you ought to stay behind."

Pulling her head back in what looked something like reproach, Yue looked back at Ursa with wide inquiring eyes.

"And what makes you say that?"

There was no real reproach which Zuko might have expected; he doubted anyone there had forgotten about the confrontation aboard the airship that had led to the reveal of Sasuke and Ursa's relationship, but either Yue was willing herself not to grow angry with such a definitive suggestion or she was more surprised at it than anything.

"You have a family here," Ursa said. She moved her gaze from Zuko to Yue, the sincerity in her voice unmistakable. "I've seen how much they mean to you. With what it took to bring you back to them… you shouldn't risk what you've taken back by—"

"And if you guys can't win?!" Yue demanded. She seemed to have caught up to what Ursa was implying and now her expression was openly upset. "Let's say for one awful, twisted second that the spirits win. Sasuke, Soza, and you are all killed, and the world is returned to normal by some standard they choose to enforce. You think that before they leave and go back to the spirit world that they don't tie up the loose end that's me?!"

Her eyes were shimmering orange in the glow of the airship's lights as her voice grew louder but started to weaken.

"I'm not supposed to be here! I wasn't even supposed to be here when I was born! I was a sick child who had every chance of dying, but because of what the spirits chose, I was granted a brief life that was always on borrowed time! And when I was brought back to help Sasuke return to the Four Nations, I was being used still by them; Kyoshi had forced Roku to give me this false hope that I was doing something to stop this exact war from happening! My whole life has been one that's used by spirits and now that they're done with me, they'll take me right back away from my family, from my people, from my home, from everything that I care about!"

Tears flew from her eyes as she shook her head angrily, fixing Ursa with an intensely angry look.

"I'm going to give it all, just the same as everyone. I'm going to help Sasuke blow Kyoshi back to where she came from, and I'm going to do whatever we have to do to keep the spirits from ever doing something like this again. And then, when I'm finally free from all this, I'm coming back here and I'm…"

Her voice shuddered and broke off as she gave a heaving sob.

"I'm going to hug my mom and dad, and I'm going to live my life. But if I don't do my part, I sure as hell don't deserve a chance like that."

Zuko was of the opinion that Yue had done plenty well in deserving a shot at the life she never got to lead. After learning that she had been set up by the spirits to force Sasuke back to his daughter, she had never wavered in standing beside them, nor had she ever once back down from any danger they had come across. She was a warrior through and through, and she had more than earned this all being said and done.

But just as Zuko would never have denied anyone there the chance to fight for their own freedom and the safety of those they cared about, he wouldn't dare say such a thing to Yue who had such a furious fire in her eyes that he almost wanted to step back from her.

It wasn't that he didn't want such a thing. In his heart, he selfishly wanted nothing more than to keep his mother, Ty Lee, Mai, Jin, Sokka, Suki, and Yue there, and he started to realize that so much of his internalized anger was directed towards the very fact that they were intent on coming. Regardless of his disdain for Sasuke, he would have gone alongside Aang through any hell, and most certainly if it meant saving his sister and niece. Would he still have given Aang a snarky comment for being so driven on going? More than likely. But of them all, Aang was the most powerful, and if he had to take anyone with him on such a venture, Zuko would have picked the Avatar.

But it's not my choice. Everyone has stake in this, not just him and I. I can't tell everyone except the two of us to stay behind while we go after Sasuke.

He clenched his fists, an invisible gesture in the near dark.

I want it to be.

As he withdrew from his angry thoughts in time to see his mother nod at Siado.

"Unless you and the men have any objectives to flying to Ba Sing Se?"

He looked around at the crewmates assembled around who had all been silently watching the brief drama. Not one of them did other than smile or nod at him and he turned back to his captain with a chuckle.

"That bastard still owes us. Don't care how you feel about him, captain, he's gotta cough up at some point."

Zuko couldn't tell if his mother was blushing or not in the dark, but she nodded once more and looked to Aang.

"That favor you asked for…"

The Avatar's face tightened in slight consternation.

"I asked Lorna. She stood down the soldiers on watch to let the ship dock here, but… I haven't cleared us to leave again."

"We have to get going," Suki said. "It won't be long before the chief finds out about this, and if he's angry at us all right now…"

"She's right," Mai added. "Aang, get back in there, find Lorna and bat those baby eyes at her until she agrees to—"

"Don't bother."

They all turned back towards the palace as the voice carried out over the terrace. Lorna was slowly walking towards them, her eyes looking dubiously between them and the airship hovering just above the terrace. Giving her head a small shake, she stopped a short distance away and crossed her arms.

"Lorna, I'm sorry," Aang said, sounding genuinely like he was. "But we have to—"

She waved a hand dismissively as it tucked over her lean and muscled arm.

"Yeah, yeah, get going."

Zuko blinked in confusion at her.

"You're just… letting us go?" he asked slowly. Lorna looked at him with almost a touch of annoyance in her eyes.

"Yeah, your highness, I'm just letting you go. Guards are called off for another twenty minutes," she said dryly. She turned her head over her shoulder back towards the entrance to the terrace and let out a long sigh.

"It'll mean my job, sure. But… hell, I don't know all of what's going on here, who Sasuke pissed off to make this all happen, or what exactly our world is up against. But I do know what happened in Ba Sing Se over ten years ago, and if I just imagine that kind of chaos spreading all the way over the nations… not a hard call to make."

Likely not alone, Zuko couldn't quite believe his ears. Lorna hadn't been particularly enthralled with their presence in her city since they had arrived, almost making it seem like she was trying to convince Tangith to have them removed because of Sasuke. For her to be making such a decision now…

I suppose she feels the gravity of all this, even if she doesn't understand it.

Speaking for all of them, his mother inclined her head intently.

"Thank you."

Lorna waved them off again and turned her back.

"I can talk away just about anybody that comes snooping, but if the chief shows up…"

She let the implication of her sentence carry and immediately, Siado called up to have the ship's harnesses brought down so they could board.

It was rather surreal; after weeks of being relatively secure in the Northern Water Tribe until the spirits had first arrived with Gilbert, they were leaving on that short of notice. Save for some clothes, they didn't have much by way of luggage and those who carried weapons had them on themselves. Zuko hung back as the majority of them took the harnesses up to the ship before he saw Aang and Sokka looking meaningfully at one another. It only took a glance at the expression of pain on each of their faces for the realization to hit Zuko and he felt his stomach give a painful lurch.

How could he have forgotten about Katara?

Sokka was saying something in a quiet voice to Aang who nodded along with his words. When Sokka finished, Aang gave him a final nod and said very firmly, "I will."

Zuko watched as Aang quickly darted towards the palace, spoke quickly to Lorna who sighed and waved him along, and then raced out of sight back indoors. Turning his head to Sokka, Zuko tried to read the other man's rather miserable expression, a look that he didn't usually associate with Katara's brother and that most certainly didn't suit him. But as he heard his mother call from above him, he turned away and moved to the harness to hoist himself aboard the ship, wondering what exactly it was that Aang was going to tell her.

---

Katara's head snapped upright as the door to the room that contained the holding cells was flung open and she tightened her eyes at the sudden light that seared into the room. She hadn't had a visitor since Sasuke and she somehow found herself hoping that he had come back; since he had left, she had come up with a myriad of things she wanted to say to him, rebuttals to his words that had of course only come to her after he had left, and she had been alone with her thoughts for hours.

But she immediately felt her heart thump painfully in her chest as she recognized the silhouette of the person standing in the doorway. Getting jerkily to her feet, she crept to the bars of her cell and gripped them as if for dear life as the person stepped slowly towards her. She couldn't believe she was getting this chance, but as she saw him, she couldn't for the life of her think of the words she wanted so badly to say. Her mind had gone blank and was buzzing for all the effort she tried to put forward to keep it steady.

"I wanted to see you before we left."

Aang's words were tight and cold, but Katara could tell that he was forcing them to be that way. She knew him far well enough to know when he was holding back his emotions and while she didn't doubt for a moment that he was angry with her, it was clear he was holding back considerable distress.

"Where are you going?" she whispered, knowing in her heart what the answer was even as she prayed against all odds that Aang would tell her otherwise.

"To Ba Sing Se. Sasuke, Azula, and Toph left without warning, but Azula told Ty Lee they were leaving, and she told us. They're going to get Soza back, but I have no doubt Sasuke is going to try and snuff out this war at the same time. He's had enough, I could see it in his eyes this morning when I saw him heading down to see you."

Aang pulled in a deep, tempered breath before continuing.

"Ursa's crew found us with their airship; it'll be the fastest way to get to Ba Sing Se, and we're planning on leaving before Tangith finds out what we've done. We're going to be at Sasuke's side through this whether he likes it or not."

It grew silent then as two people who had always so faithfully always stood by one another stood just feet apart, but with a distance between them that couldn't be measured by any physical means. Aang looked down towards his feet.

"Did you at least apologize?" he asked quietly, and his voice trembled. "For being the reason that his daughter was taken? For lying to all of us and trying to have him set up?"

Aang had never been one to ice his words with venom, and to hear that now directed towards her, Katara felt her heart hurt even more badly.

"No, I didn't," she said thickly. "Because why I did it will always be more important to me. I don't hate him. I don't hate his daughter, I don't hate Ursa. But they're not more important to me than you are."

With that, she had all but just admitted her reasoning behind her betrayal. She stared desperately at Aang, hoping that he would at least understand; she could shoulder the hate, the resentment, if it only meant that he knew why she had done it.

His face was somehow impassive which surprised her since Aang had always been so bad at hiding his emotions. Or perhaps it was because there was so much thundering about in his mind that he wasn't able to so much as muster an expression to match any one particular feeling he was laboring under. Katara continued to stare at him and she gripped the bars of her cell tightly.

Say something… please, just say something…

His head turned slightly and in the utter silence of the room, she was able to hear him wet his lips.

"He doesn't look at me that way."

Katara felt her breath catch in her throat as she looked back at him, somehow unable to think otherwise that she had just heard him wrong, or perhaps hadn't heard everything. She felt very cold.

After a moment, Aang continued.

"I couldn't believe it, Katara. When I saw him in Ba Sing Se, it was like I had seen a ghost. I couldn't believe it was really him, but with every passing second, I knew it was Sasuke, the same Sasuke that had saved our lives more than once over and who had left when we were still just kids. And hours turned into days, and yeah, I guess you probably noticed better than anyone how I was looking at him. I never could have seen it coming, how strongly I would feel, but… it was just a stupid crush. He never looked at me that way. I don't think even if I really talked to him about it if he would think twice about it. Whether it's Ursa, or Toph, or Azula, or…"

Giving a miserable little chuckle, he massaged the back of his neck.

"Hell, anyone else really. Just not me."

He turned his head again and the light behind him threw his face completely into darkness.

"But Katara… I'm sorry if I ever made you feel that I was ignoring you. Or that somehow, the fact that I was giving him so much attention…"

She could see his body tensing in frustration.

"… that I ever once stopped loving you."

Though it already had been rather cold within the cell, Katara felt a horrible chill that had nothing to do with the temperature of the room freeze the very blood in her veins.

"I'm sorry that if you thought I still didn't care about you more than anyone on the planet. I'm sorry that you thought you had to do this for me."

He can't.

Her heart was splintering.

How can… how can he blame himself for this?!

Of the very limited pool of things that Aang had in common with Sasuke, it seemed that he also shared Sasuke's obnoxious tendency to blame himself when it was entirely unwarranted. Katara felt her fingers numbing with pain as she gripped the bars of her cell with a vicelike grip.

"This isn't your fault!" she practically screamed. She didn't want to sound as agonized and heartbroken as she did, but there was no way to keep herself from giving in to her emotions just then.

"Aang, please! Please, look at me!"

He didn't and Katara felt a pained gasp rip its way from her throat as her vision blurred.

"I'm sorry that this has all led to the fact that I can't trust you enough to bring you with us," he said, also sounding just as much like he was holding back tears as she was. He turned away from the bars and took an almost staggering step to the side and through the rushing of blood in her ears, Katara heard him give a sniff.

"No!" she cried, moving along the bars to remain as close to him as she could. "Please, Aang, don't! Don't go! Don't go without me, don't…"

Just as Sasuke had said, she could have broken free from her cell. The bars would fall eventually to her immense bending prowess, but with how she now knew Aang felt, there might as well have been absolutely no moisture in the air for her to bend to her advantage. She might have been a complete nonbender for all the good it felt she could do with it.

He doesn't trust me. Aang doesn't trust me.

"I never stopped loving you once, Katara, and I… I wish I could bring you with us now. I want you to come with us."

Giving his head an almost twitchy shake, his body gave a quiet shuddering exhale.

"But how can I trust you?"

And he doesn't care why I did this.

The world was moving both extremely slowly and very quickly all at once. Katara watched Aang turn away, looking like he was ready to run from the cell room and leave her before he broke down any further. His movements were sluggishly slow, but as Katara felt the seconds hammer by with the beating of her heart, she realized there wasn't a thing she could say to convince him to act differently. She couldn't convince him to stay. She couldn't convince him to let her come with.

She couldn't say a damn thing, because Aang, the person she loved, who she had done this all for, didn't trust her.

Katara blinked the tears from her eyes and felt the warmth of them as they splashed against her chest.

Has there ever been a time in our relationship when he hasn't trusted me? In over a decade, has anything like this ever happened?

Suddenly, she felt there was a last-ditch effort she could make to keep the situation from becoming perhaps truly unsalvageable.

"Aang, wait!" she yelled at him. He stopped and she could tell it was taking much of his self-control to keep that way.

"What?"

She reached through the bars with an open hand, extending in a movement that she knew must have conveyed the desperation dragging her soul down.

"Come here, please!"

Aang looked over his shoulder and she could see the pain flashing on his face.

"Katara…"

"Please!" she begged. "Please just…"

Not sure what she could possibly say, she pressed her forehead against the bars and jammed her eyes shut. Gritting her teeth, she felt more tears falling in a rather uncontrollable flow.

"Please."

That was all there was, the only thing she could truly say that would have a prayer of reaching Aang who had very clearly made up his mind about her to that point. Only her voice, offering that final, desperate plea might be enough for her to actually pull this off.

Behind her closed eyelids, the cell room didn't dim in light which meant the door hadn't been closed. Katara dared to wait just another couple seconds before opening her eyes.

Aang was standing before her, just out of reach of her outstretched hand. Realizing this might be her only chance, Katara stared at him for just a moment, hoping that the regret and apology in her eyes would have done just as much as any words could.

Then, she shoved her other arm through the bars and reached with the other that already was. She had just enough reach to grip Aang by the front of his robes and pull him roughly towards her.

"Please don't go!" she screamed. "Let the rest leave, let them do what they have to, but please, I can't let you do this! I can't lose you!"

Aang knocked aside her hands and stepped back out of her reach. She gripped the bars and looked through with wide and agonized eyes, knowing what he was going to say even before he said it. She could see the shimmering where his eyes were on the dark silhouette of his figure.

"You already did."

His voice cracked apart on his last word and he rushed from the cell room without another word, slamming the door behind him and plunging the room back into semidarkness. She was sure she heard a sob just before it closed.

Katara felt her mouth fall open and she dropped to her knees, bowing her body and wrapping her arms around her. She was silent a moment before she released a horrible, wrenching sob of her own and let the tears continue to flow and spill openly. Her body shook miserably as she wept for what her relationship with Aang had become. So easily she had shattered it by lying, by betraying him, by betraying them all. This singular, stupid belief that what Koh told her had held any possible piece of hope that she could protect Aang without achieving some end like this. For even if it had all worked, if Sasuke had died, and the spirits had left, would Katara have truly been able to hold to her chest forever the part she played in such a deceit? To Aang?

Never.

How she had lied to him in the first place, she had no clue.

It took minutes before the shakes stopped and her cheeks started to dry. Her heart continued to beat sickly, but she finally slowly withdrew her hands around her torso and straightened her back. Remaining on her knees, she turned her head upwards and gave as deep a sigh as she could, trying to expel as much of the anxiety and hurt as she could. She needed to be strong now; this might have been the only way that she could make things right, and she was not about to let her own self-pity and misery weigh her down any more than it already had.

She looked down at her hands that were clenched in her lap and unfurled the right. Her fingers fell back to reveal a small shape, a small, curved shadow resting against her palm. Pulling it up, she held it tight to her chest, trying to remember the last time she had ever had to use the whistle.

---

Sasuke walked.

He could have run. He could have flashed to his destination in the blink of an eye, his Susanoo billowing around him and destroying all in his path.

But he chose to walk anyway.

He had walked since well before reaching the wall and he hadn't slowed when the first spirits had seen him. They converged around the gate he was walking towards but were consumed in a flash of black just as soon as they would have made to stop him. A moment later, the gate had been blown in by a deafening explosion and Sasuke had stepped over the wreckage and continued to walk.

The citizens of Ba Sing Se were likely confined to their dwellings by order of the spirits, but the explosion had roused many of them from homes and he saw doors and windows opening, curious and frightened individuals looking out. They caught sight of him walking up the street and pointed to him, gasping and crying out. He heard their voices but paid them no mind otherwise.

"Look!"

"Is that… it can't be!"

"He's… he's here!"

"Isn't he the one?!"

"Mommy, it's him!"

"He's back, he's come back!"

"It's him!"

Their voices converged in a chorus of shocked and stunned voices, and Sasuke rather sensed a crowd of them forming up far behind him, following him gingerly as though unable to help themselves. For a moment, he considered telling them to return to their homes, but he cast that idea aside quickly.

No. This'll help more than anything.

Spirits flew down from the skies and came rumbling out of alleys to stand ahead of him or to his side. Every one that made to attack him was vaporized by any number of his abilities; Sasuke found he barely needed to expend any chakra to deal with them. Dispatching them was just about as easy as blinking.

Minutes of this passed as he continued to walk and the spirits seemed to grow wise to how futile their attempts were. Some shot off towards the center of the city, some paced nearby angrily, but they stopped trying to attack him. It gave Sasuke a dim sense of satisfaction that they realized just how helpless they were before him now.

Not like before. It's just me. No one around me you can target. Just me.

He could have slashed his way through their entire number then and there, but he knew that the less he killed the better. Just like the crowd, they would surely only aid him just following and watching as they were.

Ba Sing Se was hardly the largest city in the Earth Nation without good cause. Minute after minute passed as he continued towards the center of the city where the spirits had flown off in the direction of. His adrenaline and chakra was singing a savagely pleasing tune as they coursed as one through his form. He felt free. He felt alive.

Eventually, the looming shadow of the palace came into view in the distance. Sasuke locked his eyes on it and didn't look away, marching on as purposefully as he had been. The number of whispering and muttering citizens that were following him had multiplied significantly and Sasuke wondered just how much of the city was on his heels, flooding the streets as silently as they dared. The spirits had formed a practical blueish fog overhead as they circled about, furiously twisting about as they writhed in their own frustration. And Sasuke was at the center of it all, the eye of a storm that hadn't yet broken.

The massive wooden gate at the wall around the palace was splintered open with the barest touch and erupted inwards, spewing lumber and metal all over the courtyard. He heard the crowd give a rumbling gasp as he stepped onto the palace grounds and could feel that they didn't dare follow him any further. The spirits continued to loom overhead and as he looked up the vast staircase that rose up to the palace, Sasuke saw that a great many more of them had congregated just outside the building. They all moved in throes of agitation and Sasuke knew they were waiting for their leader to emerge and order them into action or otherwise. But he knew fully well that Kyoshi would not be joining them at that particular moment. His trick that had set this entire plan into motion ensured he knew that.

And that was fine by him. Because it wasn't Kyoshi he was here for.

Sasuke stood still for a period, letting his emotions weave however about within him as they wanted. They were a chaotic collage that he could hardly make sense of, but after giving them their due, he reached inward with an invisible hand and seized them all tightly in a fist, slamming them into the pits of his mind where they could do his mental state no more harm for the time being. Sheer focus was necessary for what was to come next.

His mind flicked to both Ursa and Toph. He saw their eyes widening as they realized the doubt that Sasuke was carrying about confronting Madara. He had forced himself to lie to Ursa and pretend that he wasn't sure that such a person was involved. But Sasuke did. He knew full well the gravity of what he was about to have to do. And as he had felt when he had spoken with both Ursa and Toph, he wasn't sure that this was a fight he could win.

But it still didn't matter.

He had to, regardless.

Drawing himself up and pulling in air, he turned his eyes towards the steps just ahead of him and roared.

"MADARA!"

The bellow echoed over the palace grounds and took several seconds to fade away completely. The spirits seemed to cease their movements for a moment in reaction to the sudden thundering vocalization and as Sasuke forced himself to keep breathing, he knew there was no longer any going back. For what felt like an hour, he stood there at the foot of the palace, left with no response to his shout. He didn't move, and he didn't say another word. Sasuke knew he had been heard.

At the top of the stairs, the doors to the palace creaked open. The spirits gathered there turned inwards to face it, no doubt relieved that they would see Kyoshi and be given some direction. But given the way they pulled back from the doors then, almost with an aura of fear in their movements, Sasuke imagined that they hadn't expected to see the person who stepped through then.

The person walked step by step down the stairs, slowly and methodically. The pace never altered, never slowed, never sped up. It was the walk of someone completely in control and with no fear in their heart. It took over a minute for the being to come to a stop, some twenty stairs up from where Sasuke stood in the courtyard.

He recognized the figure standing before him. Sasuke had never forgotten the sight of him, for the brief period they had once come face to face. So often his memories had returned to that fateful day, to the moment he had almost lost so much more than he would have realized. There wasn't a person other than this one that had ever once made him feel something like true dread, but he felt something very much like that now. He thought there would be more fear reentering his body by that point, but he found to his surprise that his focus hadn't wavered in the slightest.

Soza's life on the line was clearly all it took for him to master self-control.

"Well… such a dramatic approach, Sasuke. One might almost think you were enjoying yourself."

Sasuke said nothing and locked his own black eyes with the grey ones flickering with amusement ahead of him. And he felt the spirits seem to fade away, the throngs of people at his back, the very city itself too seemed to shimmer from his mind.

For that instant, it was just him and Madara.

Sasuke cracked his knuckles and, despite his own doubt, felt a very genuine thought touch his mind as he prepared to put his plan into action.

Just the way I want it.