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.

42. Chapter 42

Chapter 42: The Plan and the Offer

"Where's my daughter?"

Sasuke's voice rang out over the courtyard, clear and sharp. His eyes didn't so much as leave Madara's, his Sharingan preparing him for anything. And even though his question was anything but one he actually expected an answer to, it snapped venomously out with a furious sincerity that he was happy to hear.

Madara raised an eyebrow from where he stood above on the stairs.

"You came all the way here, just for that?" he asked, cocking his head slightly to the side.

"Why else would I be here?" Sasuke snarled. It wasn't difficult in the slightest to dig into his anger and channel it into his voice. He watched as Madara shrugged, as though what was happening was the most ordinary matter he'd ever attended to.

"To bring your hand down upon the spirits who have been hounding you like bloodhounds since you came back to this continent, would have been my guess. Considering that you aren't likely to have a moment's peace as long as they're content to see you out. Not to mention the danger they put your friends in… and those closer to you than friends…"

"The one thing I didn't come here for is to listen to your lies," Sasuke growled.

Madara's mouth flexed into a humored smile, but his grey eyes danced with intensity.

"Ah, yes… it did seem you knew I was here, didn't you? And after all the hard work I laid to keep my presence hidden…"

"Answer me!" Sasuke roared. Though he was fairly certain of the answer, an anxious, nearly panicking part of him needed to know.

Ahead of him, Madara raised his hands and issued a response that allowed Sasuke to feel a rush of nearly overpowering relief that nearly caused his knees to shake.

"She's fine, she's just fine. Perhaps I might have had other plans for her, but her being alive serves my interests just fine presently."

What that meant, Sasuke didn't know, but for the time being, hearing that his daughter was alive was plenty enough for him.

Madara began to move again, continuing down the steps towards Sasuke with the same slow and methodical pace.

"How did you come to find out it was me?" he asked, gesturing around him lazily. "Not even these stupid creatures could figure out who was pulling Kyoshi's strings when I was right under their noses."

At this, Sasuke hesitated. By this point, he knew one of the few things he needed to keep hidden from Madara was the very answer to that question. It would certainly not give everything away, but if it got Madara's mind even the least bit started on the side of suspicion…

"Kakashi and I deduced it had to be you," he chose to say. He felt a touch of guilt for admitting Kakashi's presence in the world, but hopefully it wouldn't wind up mattering in the end. Hearing this would hopefully at least distract Madara away from the possibility that he was lying. "After you were behind the near chaotic takeover of this world a decade ago, and after we had no way of knowing if you were still alive under Edo Tensei or not, there was only one logical explanation for why everything began to happen the way it did."

"Ah yes, your dear old sensei," Madara grinned. "I'm surprised you haven't asked of his whereabouts. Quite the pleasant surprise to find him lurking about the palace I've made my home over these last weeks."

Immediately disarmed, Sasuke felt his body twitch as though he were doing a double take.

Kakashi was trying to find him… he must have tracked Madara here but was found.

Kakashi might have been an extremely capable shinobi, but there was no chance of him being able to stand on his own against someone like Madara. With everything at his disposal, the revived Uchiha was surely as powerful as he had been in his prime and Sasuke hadn't even seen that part of him yet. Madara hadn't used any techniques that he had seen neither in the present or even ten or so years ago, not besides the Flame Release that Sasuke remembered had been used to burn the life from Fire Lord Ozai. Whatever was up his sleeve after so many years of likely practicing and perfecting jutsu was a mystery to him, and it surely had been enough to take down his former sensei.

"Is he dead?" Sasuke felt the words pull from his mouth without urging. He was surprised how easy the question was to ask, but Madara merely continued to grin, raising a finger as though preparing to tell off a child.

"Now, now, I can't go telling you everything now, can I? Well, not that at least, it would spoil the surprise."

Sasuke didn't care enough to bite at was an obvious attempt to get him to keep further demanding. Madara clearly still enjoyed a bit of wordplay and seeing Sasuke as tensed as he was no doubt made him want to keep dangling mysteries before him.

This expectation made it all the more paralyzing when Madara reached the bottom of the stairs and looked at him with a look of sincerity on his face.

"Do you want to see what I've been up to? The reason behind all my, shall we say 'scheming,' for lack of a better word?"

Sasuke didn't reply to the offer, hardly able to believe what he had just heard.

Since he had confirmed Madara's involvement, he hadn't been able to escape the multitude of questions that had begun to buzz about in his head like incessant insects that he just couldn't swat. How he was controlling Kyoshi, how he had brought this all about.

And most of all, why?

Why had he done any of this?

Why had he tried so hard to hurt Sasuke and the people he cared about?

"Don't play games with me," Sasuke snapped, but his voice sounded much more hollow then. Madara took notice and gave a nod of confirmation.

"No games here. Not now. I have no reason to hide my doings from you at this point. You're too late to stop me, and even if you weren't, you aren't strong enough. Part of me almost suspects that you know that."

He inclined his head knowingly, his eyes flickering with a hungry energy.

"And I can tell by the look in your eyes how badly you want to know why this is all happening. Even if you hadn't been involved in the slightest, even if you were still slumming it on some random island far to the west, you would still surely want to know why it is I still have my hand so dipped in this world."

Spreading his hands in an open gesture, he smiled further.

"I'm offering you that now, Sasuke, if you'd like it. It'd be much easier to show you than tell you, mind, and I rather doubt you'd believe me if you didn't see for yourself what I've been working on."

Working on?

Without waiting for an answer, Madara extended the fingers on his hand and swiped down in a slashing motion. For a moment, it didn't look like anything much had happened beyond what looked like a rather dramatic gesture, but after a few seconds, the air beside Madara began to ripple and flicker along the invisible line he had drawn. It seemed briefly like a nauseating trick of the mind before the line opening into a tear; light spilled from it, bathing the dark courtyard in a mix of color that coated the ground up to Sasuke's feet. Looking through the rip that was roughly larger than a man, he couldn't perceive hardly anything except more color and strange shapes beyond.

Madara looked at the tear as well and then back to Sasuke, smiling at the dumbfounded expression Sasuke knew he must have been wearing.

"Surely you didn't think I wouldn't be able to easily make my way to and from the spirit world by this point?" he asked. "It took some time to figure out, but I found that jutsu wasn't even necessary if you can believe that. Not when I'm forcing someone else to give me the power to do it."

The spirits above and around them had grown even further agitated; they were moving about in a frenzied manner, some releasing high-pitched inhuman wails, others deep, trembling roar. But not one of them dared make a move at Madara who didn't even seem to acknowledge they were there at all. His eyes remained focused on Sasuke, a great interest in his grey eyes.

"So, would you like to see? I promise you, no tricks."

Though his heart was nearing his throat, Sasuke felt himself ask thickly, "What assurance do I have of that?"

"Because I still think I might be able to convince you of my cause," Madara said. "If I could only show and explain to you."

Without more explanation or a further attempt to convince Sasuke, he turned and stepped through the tear, his body melding with the rippling color of the tear until it had vanished completely from sight.

Sasuke felt both rooted to the ground and pressed with an inexplicable urge to step forward and follow Madara. In the back of his mind, he was aware of just how easily his concentration had been broken, with such a simple offer, one that he would never have expected to be before him. It took effort to remind himself that he had a plan and that failure to stick with it could mean catastrophe.

But this… this won't change anything. If I just go and see.

Madara remained his focus and if Madara wanted to show him something before Sasuke did what he needed to, how could he refuse such an offer of information?

Bracing himself, he walked towards the rip. The colors around it grew brighter and more intense as he drew closer; at the corners of his vision, the dark features of Ba Sing Se and the illuminated spirits became no longer visible a moment before he passed through the tear and crossed over.

---

Sitting in the darkness, Toph pressed her fingers against the dirt beneath her, digging them into the earth and, not for the first time, feeling very grateful she was no longer standing almost entirely on frozen water. The circumstances aside, being free to be one with her natural element was truly a blessing as she felt it all around her, its cold and somewhat moist feel giving her comfort even as her insides felt sickened by anxiety.

From where she was, she could feel the palace above her, a massive looming presence through the earth, but from that distance, she couldn't quite pinpoint a weight or shape that could be Soza. She had been focusing hard in an attempt to do so for minutes now but was finding each attempt frustrated by the pure size of the palace and the spirits swarming about within. They created a web of motion that screwed up her concentration and made the process of finding the shape of a child nearly impossible.

Though the fact that I'm so scared for her might be messing with that too.

And regardless, it didn't stop Azula from pestering her about it and throwing off her concentration further.

"Well?" she demanded, also sitting nearby in the tunnel that Toph had earthbended for them underneath the city.

"I said I would tell you if I found her," Toph growled irritably. In truth, she didn't think she would be able to actually find Soza until they got closer and into the palace, but it was hard for her to keep from trying nonetheless.

Though at the time she had been feeling quite grudgingly satisfied that Azula had felt so put off by her coming to Ba Sing Se alongside her and Sasuke, at that particular point, Toph was starting to wonder how unlucky she had to be to wind up underground next to Azula of all people. She hadn't forgotten that their last real encounter had involved an extremely cruel confession from Azula which resulted in Toph losing control for a brief period and attacking the princess. The only reason things probably weren't more tense between them then they were was because of their mutual reason for being there. Both of them were willing to do whatever it took to get Soza back and they were going to follow Sasuke's plan as such. That left little time for bickering or arguing or potentially even fighting. In her mind, Toph imagined that if this damn war ever came to a close, she rather would have liked to corner Azula and demand many questions of her, and force out the answers if it came to that.

"I thought you could detect an ant sitting on a rock from a mile away," Azula said almost sneeringly, and Toph could picture the princess crossing her arms and looking at her dismissively. "Were all those propaganda pieces written about you not true then? The ones that were published after you got involved in training earthbenders to bend metal?"

"You know as well as anyone how much I hate the press," Toph snapped. "Earth Nation reporters wrote those articles without my permission; was no surprise that I started getting so much more attention after that, but I sure as hell didn't want any of it."

There was a rather strange pause before Azula replied, a hesitancy that Toph wasn't used to associating with the princess.

"What sort of attention?" she asked, her voice sounding much more like it was trying to remain uncaringly casual, but Toph could hear the hint of curiosity in her voice. It had always been damn difficult to tell when Azula was lying, but it would have been impossible for Toph to not catch a slip like that.

"Military came practically knocking down my door trying to conscript me, and I had to tell them a hundred times that I was working with all earthbenders not just enlisted soldiers; they could send all the men and women they wanted to me, but that never seemed to be enough, they always wanted me on, even offering me a role as an officer if I agreed. On top of that, it became impossible to walk around Ba Sing Se or honestly fucking anywhere without being recognized as this person who was creating this new monumental way of bending that was deemed unfeasible by a ton of people."

She heaved a sigh.

"And then came the boys. Hell, they came in droves. Either in my classes, calls to my residence, letters, which I couldn't fucking read, but Jin read me plenty and I got the gist."

Finally realizing that searching for Soza at that point was going to be fruitless since, even if she did think she might sense her, she wouldn't be able to trust her bending from that distance with how much it was being interfered with, Toph pulled her fingers from the ground and gave a heaving sigh.

"So much attention," she said in bitter exasperation. "Everyone knew who I was, wanted to know me, or date me, or even just be me if felt like. I get that metalbending is a new form and I'm the first one to make it happen, but… you'd think after a few years, it would die down some."

There was another pause from Azula as Toph realized just how much of herself she had just personally spilled to Azula, the person who was known for preying on people's emotions and trauma, and using that as ammunition if she ever needed something against them.

"What was wrong with the men trying to see you?" Azula asked then after the pause. Her voice still rang of someone who was trying not to show much interest and fake apathy, but Toph could still see through it. For no other reason than she didn't really believe any of what she could say could be used against her by Azula to any great effect, she opted to continue answering truthfully.

"Probably nothing, at least with some of them. I can still technically 'see' them through my bending, and there were plenty of studs, tall guys built with pure muscle, some had really nice voices which is kind of a big deal for me, a fair few seemed to have good heads on their shoulders."

"So why didn't you take any of them up?" Azula persisted and Toph felt herself loose her cool slightly.

"You know perfectly well why," she snapped and Azula fell silent again. Toph wondered in the quiet just where the princess was going with this sudden line of inquiry, why she suddenly had such an interest in Toph's life. So much of what had taken place over the last decade had done so with Toph and Azula hardly ever speaking to one another, even when the princess had openly allowed Toph to spend ample time with Soza. Though she knew full well now why that had been, Toph still had always felt almost like she wanted to reach out more to the princess too and try and see if there wasn't some way they couldn't be friends, so similar were they in their affection for Soza. But year after year, and the two had hardly ever shared words and when they had, Toph knew for certain that they hadn't been with questions regarding her personal life.

"I was jealous of you, you know."

The words resounded in Toph's head several times before she realized that they had actually been spoken aloud. Her head twitched upwards toward where Azula sat a few meters away; using her bending, she reached out and tried to feel through her bending to confirm what she already knew: Azula must have been lying.

But as her bending reaching the sitting princess, she found something very odd.

"You're lying," she said automatically, even despite what she now felt. She could practically see Azula smiling as she replied.

"Am I?" the princess asked. "You're that sure, are you?"

She's lied to me in the past… and I haven't seen it. That must be what this is now, I just don't see the lie even as she's feeding it to me.

Toph felt anger burning in her veins.

Right now, of all times to boot.

"Why the hell would you be jealous of me?" she snapped, determined to get Azula to say something that would draw out the fact that she was lying. It was quiet for the longest stretch yet, and Toph became certain that she wasn't going to get an answer.

"Everyone knows who I am," Azula then said, rather matter of factly. Toph shifted in annoyance where she sat, frowning.

"Yeah, we know that, you pompous, self-absorbed—"

"And everyone knew who you were too," the princess added, cutting off what was about to be a rather biting insult.

"So what?" Toph snarled. "You were jealous of me because someone else on the planet existed who also had most everyone knowing who she was?"

"No," Azula said, her voice a very peculiar sort of calm. "Because everyone knew who you were, and they loved you."

Blankly, Toph shook her head in a moment of complete confusion. She couldn't believe what she was hearing. It was defying everything she thought she understood about Azula, and as the princess continued to speak in a quiet voice, she couldn't even muster a response other than sitting there with her mouth slightly agape.

"I didn't realize it at the time… it was so much easier to hate you," Azula murmured. "I already knew full well that I intended to kill you at some point to awaken Soza's eyes, but I couldn't keep from paying attention to how it was that you were affecting people, and how it was that they were reacting to you."

The way Azula was talking about it, it was as though it were the most matter of fact thing that could have been discussed between them; she spoke of how she had spent years grooming the relationship between Toph and her daughter with what almost seemed like ease, as though it weren't one of the most traumatic things in Toph's memory, how she had been being raised like a lamb for slaughter. It was like all of the things Azula was bringing up were puzzle pieces that she was just now piecing together and making any kind of rational sense of.

"And maybe it wouldn't have mattered how the rest of the world saw you; I could handle being known from fear and you being known from love. But… it was so easy for me to plan on your eventual demise when I saw how it was that my daughter loved you."

Toph had grown very still as she listened to Azula speak; she wondered if the princess even still knew she was there as she released such a stunning confession.

"I ignored it. Or that's what I told myself. I spent many a day watching you in private, looking just how much higher she thought of you than she thought of me."

It was starting to click in Soza's mind then; no part of her could ever have imagined that Azula could have been jealous of any part of her, but somehow now, it not only was seeming possible, but perhaps Toph was even beginning to believe that it was true.

"Soza loves you," she said, the words escaping her dry mouth with an empty sort of feel to them. She felt Azula shake her head.

"No, my daughter respects me. She honors me. She might very well care about me, but she's never loved me the way she loves you."

Toph started to protest this again, but Azula continued to talk over her.

"Answer this honestly, sand rat. If it were just one of us here to save her, and she saw either one of us running into wherever she's being held: which one of us do you think she'd be happier to see?"

Though her mouth remained open, Toph eventually forced it shut when she couldn't think of an answer that she thought would appease Azula. She could hear the satisfied smirk in the princess's voice then, but also a repressed air of genuine sadness.

"That's what I thought."

Still unable to fully rationalize what she was hearing, Toph finally managed to give her head a hard shake.

"What did Sasuke do to you?"

Azula laughed, a haughty, familiar noise that cloaked the bitterness she spoke with.

"You're not the first person to ask me that, and I'm certain you won't be the last. To answer truthfully, he showed me who I was. He showed me who I was, who I am, and who I might be. He showed me what I've inflicted on others, he showed me what I was scared of, he showed me everything about myself that had simply become a part of me. I wouldn't have known to look for it and I wouldn't even have known it was all truly there. I saw my past, I saw the present I wanted, and I saw the future my heart so desperately desired, and do you know where you were in all of that?"

Toph's fingers curled into the dirt, this time for some attempt at relief rather than to give herself comfort.

"I saw you bound in a dungeon, deep below the earth," Azula said. "I saw you being tortured by my command, unable to speak, barely able to move, just able to live. In some future, in the pit of my heart, that's where I wanted to see you."

A shiver ran up Toph's spine that had nothing to do with the temperature of the subterranean tunnel she had made for them.

"You represented so many things that I hated… someone who could be respected by all, and also loved… someone who loved Sasuke just as I did… and someone who my daughter loved more than me."

It occurred to Toph then that perhaps she needed to be ready to defend herself. Though she could hear no malice in Azula's voice, nor sense her body tensing with the possibility that she might be about to strike, everything she was saying was reminding Toph just how much bad blood was between the two of them.

"Alright then," she said as steadily as she could. Somehow, hearing her own voice was deeply calming to her. "Why tell me all this? If you're not lying, what's the point of admitting this all over again? I'm not going to try and kill you again like back up north, after you confessed you had always intended for me and Soza to grow close to awaken her eyes. And it doesn't really seem like you're going to use this time alone to try and kill me either, despite how much you're saying that you hate me."

She gave a shaky shrug.

"So, why? Why tell me all this?"

It became quiet once more and the wait felt like forever as Toph waited for a response.

When Azula did reply, it wasn't what she expected.

"Because I suppose there's every chance that I might die today," Azula finally sighed. "There's many things I wish I had told the people in my life. I could have told Ty Lee more when I went to see her. I could have told my mother something, I could have told my brother something, but somehow, now… I just wanted to tell someone that, even though it might have looked that way, I guess I never really was that happy."

It was incredible to Toph that she the pounding of her own heart wasn't audible as it pounded in her chest.

"I just wanted to tell someone that I had convinced myself that I was happy. That I had what I wanted. But because of what I saw, I know that even if I was Fire Lord, married to Sasuke, mother to the most powerful person alive, and conqueror of the Four Nations… I don't think just that would make me happy."

Her voice didn't sound particularly emotional, but rather thoughtful and calculating as though she were sorting through an incredibly complex math problem in her head, one she had never seen before. Azula did seem to catch herself at least somewhat then, and she gave a rather vain sniff.

"Don't think I'm getting sappy with you, earthworm," she said, her voice regaining its usual aura of arrogance. "I'm just venting is all and you happen to be the only one around to take it."

That was the first time Toph could feel her lying since they had started talking.

And yet… you told me specifically about what in your twisted future you saw for me… somehow I don't think you would have told this to just anyone.

It was only when Toph thought she felt herself beginning to smile did she catch herself and swallow the down the smirk that had been forming. She knew what it would mean if she started to reciprocate what she was hearing, and to say what she had been about to.

She's hated me all her life. She lied to me and let me get close to Soza, all intending to kill me in the end.

So many years of deception and hidden hatred…

But… she confessed. Sasuke showing her all that did something to her. She came back and told me what she had planned to do. She didn't try and use it to lure me into attacking her so she could kill me. She let me hit her and would have let me kill her if I had wanted to. She's told me all this now, as though she's trying to apologize or something… though I suppose it would be a dream to even imagine Azula saying sorry to someone, especially me.

A question occurred to her, and she wondered if it would merit an honest answer.

"Azula?"

"Mmm?

Toph swallowed again before asking, "When you went to see Ty Lee before you came down to leave the city, what did you tell her? I can't imagine it was just to tell her that you and Sasuke were leaving, you could have told anyone that."

Now she could feel Azula tensing.

No, not tensing. Involuntarily protecting herself.

"Why would you assume I told her more than that?" the princess asked, her voice a vain attempt to still sound apathetically arrogant, but Toph could hear the nerves underneath.

"I don't know," she replied. "Maybe because, even despite how you've hurt her, you really do care about her."

There was a brewing mixture of emotions in Toph's gut; defensiveness and anger on Ty Lee's behalf, curiosity as to if Azula's thoughts toward Ty Lee had possibly changed since her period of transformation with Sasuke, and if it was even something that Azula was going to let slip past her own personal barriers. She had already revealed so much, was this going to be what was going too far?

"I…I…" Azula started, seeming to be unsure of what to say for the first time and Toph decided to try bluffing.

"Whatever," she said carelessly. "I didn't really expect you to tell me. But after what happened between you two, I just thought that—"

Azula began to speak curtly and clearly without a second more of hesitation.

"I told her about Sasuke and myself leaving. I told her what to tell the rest of the group after I left her room. And after she had agreed to do so, I asked her if there wasn't more that she wanted to know."

"And?" Toph asked, almost breathlessly. Azula waited an eternally long second before continuing.

"She told me it wasn't her place."

Feeling her heart sink into her belly, Toph's shoulders slumped miserably. She supposed it was probably rather stupid to assume that somehow Ty Lee would have been able to fully shake free of Azula's hold over her, especially after so many years beneath her. Even after what the princess had done to her, she still likely couldn't help but submit. It rather sickened Toph to her core and she started to feel blisteringly angry towards the woman sitting just a few meters from her.

"Is that all," she growled disdainfully, not bothering to keep the genuine anger out of her voice. She didn't care if Azula knew just how upset she was with her over Ty Lee; to the princess, it was no doubt just another person who was beneath her, just someone else who was there to be used; how stupid to assume that whatever Sasuke had done had allowed Azula to gain even the smallest margin of—

"I didn't know what to do."

Toph turned her head up in surprise, the aner in her heart abating for just long enough to acknowledge what she had heard. It wasn't the words in particular that stunned her so, but rather the fact that Azula sounded genuinely… helpless when she said them.

"I tried… to tell her that she shouldn't be acting that way. That I knew it wasn't right, but I didn't know how to say it. The words just wouldn't come out like they were supposed to and then, that stupid girl had to go and start apologizing."

Toph felt as indignant as Azula sounded at that.

"So… I just got on my knees and prostrated myself before her."

If anything, Toph wasn't imagining there were many more shocking things that Azula could hit her with, but as she heard these words, she felt her mouth genuinely fall open in what was likely a comical fashion.

Spending as much time as she had in the Fire Nation as a result of being around Soza, Toph had learned a fair few things about Fire Nation customs, likely more than she rather cared to know. And one of the many facets of their tradition was that citizens who had wronged someone of a higher class than them would fall to their knees and bow with their body forward, hands flat on the ground and forehead nearly touching it. It was a show of utter humility and submission, and was never, never performed by anyone above the middle class. Nobles would settle things differently, often through mediators, but there were never such displays of open humility between them. And the idea that anyone of the royal family would do such a thing was simply unheard of.

And now imagining that Azula herself had prostrated herself before someone who had been born of a middle class family…

Toph couldn't quite fathom it.

Azula.

Princess Azula of the Fire Nation.

Had knelt at Ty Lee's feet.

She was so shocked, she barely even thought to try and feel if Azula was lying, but she sensed nothing to suggest that she was hearing a falsehood of any kind.

That's fucking impossible.

"I told her that I understood now what I had done to her, what I had put her through over so many years. I told her that I simply did what I thought was right and cannot say otherwise. I told Ty Lee that I don't expect her forgiveness and that I don't deserve or want it, and that, when this is over, she can do with me however she feels I deserve. If she wishes to punish me, or subjugate me, or however I can make things right, I will do so."

Through all of the utterly baffling things she was hearing, Toph's brow furrowed as she heard something in particular.

Or rather, something in particular she hadn't heard.

"Did you say sorry?"

There was no immediate response and Toph could imagine Azula's face blanking in confusion at such a question.

"I… offered myself completely and wholly to her will, I believe that sufficed; what good would an apology have done?"

In that moment, Toph couldn't stop herself. She felt her midsection shake with a quiver before she burst into laughter, bowing forward where she sat as she shook with disbelief turned horrible, cold amusement.

"What?" Azula snapped, clearly put off by her display, but Toph only continued to laugh for several more seconds, the sound issuing in an eerie echo through the tunnel.

"What?!" the princess snarled, making to get up as though intending to march over and shake the answer from Toph who died down and shook her head, her head still pointed towards the ground. She still wore a smile, but both it and her laughter were nothing short of bitter, brought on by pure bemusement over how emotionally stunted Azula was, especially towards others. There was nothing actually funny about the situation, but Toph hadn't known how else to react to what she had heard. The cold smile still on her face, she replied quietly.

"Apologizing is what you do when you're sorry for something you'd done, your highness."

She turned her head slightly towards Azula.

"Unless you're telling me that you're not sorry, and that this is just your twisted way of trying to make things right between the both of you."

The princess couldn't seem to come up with anything in response to that and Toph felt her lip curling in disgust.

"You've probably been patting yourself on the back like crazy over doing something like that, probably thinking 'oh, how generous am I, the great Princess Azula, for offering the woman I've tortured for years some sort of twisted trade for my abuse'."

"And saying sorry would have done much better than that?!" Azula very nearly yelled.

"You bet your fucking ass it would have!" Toph shouted, deciding not to hold back. "Ty Lee loves you, Azula! She really, truly loves you! You talk about how no one loved you, but you never could see that?! How she gave herself entirely to you, no matter what you did to her?! How could you not be sorry for that?!"

Azula was starting to sputter incoherently.

"I… that's not… how could you say…"

Toph thundered on over the princess's furious blustering.

"I would bet my life that all Ty Lee wanted to hear from you was an apology! She didn't need you to get on your knees like some show performer, she didn't need your promises and offers; all the riches and power in the world wouldn't matter to her if you just said sorry!"

That last word echoed around the cave with a final, piercing sound and Toph forced herself to relax her body as her pulse hammered in her throat and her breathing came in deep and heavy. Azula had stopped trying to muster up some interjection or rebuttal to Toph's furious shouting and had fallen silent and for just then, Toph was glad she remained quiet. The silence did well to calm her down and she wasn't sure she wouldn't want to get up and slap Azula upside the head if she tried to make some awful justification or defense of what she had done.

I know… I know that's all Ty Lee wants. She just wants to hear that Azula is sorry for what she did to her. No one on the fucking planet could ever imagine that the princess would be sorry for any-fuckin-thing, and yet if she could just hear that from Azula…

Nothing could ever make right what had been done to Ty Lee, but Toph knew that with how much she loved Azula, this might work towards something better than the princess likely understood. Could she really be blamed for not understanding when she likely had never once uttered a sincere apology in her life?

"I hadn't thought of it that way," Azula finally grunted, sounding like she was trying to go back to sounding somewhat careless. But Toph knew that her words had resonated with Azula to a considerable extent, even if she didn't quite know what that might be.

"Well, maybe you fucking should," Toph said curtly, taking deep breaths to return some level of calm. "But if you don't love her like she loves you, I don't want you doing any more than that."

Realizing that she very well was about to threaten Azula, Toph found herself quite liking the idea of doing something that the rest of the world would have surely considered wildly taboo to even dare.

"You're a monster, but you're not stupid," she said. "And I'm sure you've seen how me, and Mai, and Jin, and Suki in particular have been watching after her since what happened. Ty Lee deserves closure, but she also deserves a chance at a normal life. So… if you've got it in your head that this somehow might go back to the way things were, where you abused her in the dark from the rest of us, you've got another thing coming, your highness. Just like I'll gladly die for Soza, I'll die too to keep Ty Lee safe."

It was as though some looming weight had been lifted off her shoulders just by that mere admission. For all that she and Jin had clung to Ty Lee's side, sat beside her in her room while she lay in bed, trying to make sense of what had happened and how to remedy it, saying everything to promise that they would keep her safe, it was something very different to be before Azula now and say those same things. No matter how different Azula had become, whatever changes had come over her, Toph didn't trust any of it near enough to think that things could somehow be… positive between her and Ty Lee. An apology from Azula and then the princess leaving her friend alone forever would have been ideal for her.

"You said, 'if I don't love her like she loves me' just now," Azula said slowly and Toph flicked her head in her direction, her expression tight and defensive.

"Yeah, what of it?"

Azula shifted where she was sitting and, not for the first time, Toph sorely wished she could see the princess's face.

"I… never intended for it to be about… love."

Coming very near to snapping off a vicious reply, Toph could sense there was more to be said, so she kept quiet for the time being. Sure enough, Azula continued a few ponderous moments later.

"I thought… she enjoyed it. It wasn't meant to be about anything more than control, and the… happiness it gave both of us."

It was bitterly painful for Toph that she knew she couldn't refute this. No matter how bad it had gotten, there must have been a side of Ty Lee that enjoyed what was happening between them. Perhaps at one point, it had actually been a healthier sort of relationship, even with the twisted power dynamic.

"I'll make no attempt to excuse what I've done…"

I should fucking hope not.

"…but I never sought out her love."

"So why do you sound so much like you're giving this some actual thought?" Toph asked snappily. Azula's voice was indeed contemplative, as though she were fishing around in her mind for some way to understand where she and Ty Lee had diverged in what they wanted out of their relationship.

"Because… I'm picturing a world where it was just about love. Nothing more."

Toph didn't know if she necessarily wanted to see what Azula's idea of love was, but the fact that she had said something like that at all was enough for her to blink for several moments in surprise.

It doesn't matter. She fell too far. Even if she's at a point where she can genuinely look back and see the wrong she's done, it can never erase what happened between them.

For a brief, rather beautiful moment, Toph shut off her mind from the world around her and just thought of different time, a different place. She felt herself and Soza walking through the Fire Nation gardens, seeing one another again after an extended period. They were talking happily and animatedly before the door opened at the entrance to the palace. Azula and Ty Lee stepped through, hand in hand, and Toph could feel the love between them. She could practically see Ty Lee looking at Azula with affection as well as the content smile on Azula's face, no malice or possessiveness about her.

Toph choked the thought off and strangled it quickly; it hurt too much to think of such a miraculous future that would surely never be.

"I would have liked to talk to her about it," Azula said, rather suddenly as though she had just come to a very definitive conclusion. "I think there was more to be said between us. And…"

She seemed to say the last bit grudgingly, likely because it was Toph who had thrown the idea out, but Toph could still hear that she meant it.

"… I think I would have liked to have said sorry."

Those ten words felt like a stake in Toph's heart, and she suddenly wanted very badly to grab Azula by the hair and drag her to wherever Ty Lee was so that she could admit that very thing.

And yet…

Though Toph had heard it the first time when Azula had said that she was aware of the possibility that she might die that day, this was the first time it really came across that the chance was very real. There was no fear in Azula's voice at the idea however, only a controlled understanding. Toph supposed she had been considering the same thing, but hearing the princess bring it up in such a matter-of-fact way didn't sit right with her.

This is Azula. She should be spouting arrogant confidence, not caring about the odds and paying no mind to the danger. When has she ever gone into a fight without a complete certainty that she'd come out on top?

Just another thing that had changed about her.

"Hey, princess."

She felt Azula turn her head towards her and Toph tried to keep any emotion from entering her voice even as she suddenly rather felt like crying.

I wish things could have been different between us.

"We're going to get Soza and get her out safe. We're going to regroup and help Sasuke win this war. Then, you're going to go back to Ty Lee and you're going to apologize for everything you've done to her. And you're going to figure out what the fuck real happiness is, however that means. Somehow, you're different than you were, and if you have a chance to make things right, you owe everyone you've ever met to try. Don't think for a second I'm going to let you die before you've done that."

It was silent for several long seconds before Azula released a soft sound that might have been one of impressed amusement and it allowed Toph a brief moment to feel that she could smile.

"Alright then, earthworm."

---

Sasuke could never have prepared himself for the shock of seeing his surroundings after stepping through the tear after Madara.

The sky was bright and vibrant, but instead of a natural blue, it glowed with a sickening, rippling violet hue. He couldn't tell if he was looking at clouds, or if the very sky was distorting in such a way that changed the way he was able to perceive it. There came distant snapping rumbles like that of thunder, but the sound was unnatural and Sasuke was reminded of the lightning that Azula wielded and the way it popped and crackled about her when she summoned it. There came no flashes of any sort of lightning, but occasionally, the purple sky would pulse slightly brighter in rhythmic and disorienting fashion and Sasuke was oddly put in mind of a heartbeat.

The ground all around him was brown and rugged, rather like the outskirts of Ba Sing Se. It did him better to look at it though since it made a sight more sense to him then the nauseating sky. Dry and flaky, it kicked up small clouds of dust as he walked further inwards; turning his head up ahead of him, he found himself looking over a hill down into a stretch of flat land that extended to the horizon and he saw what couldn't have been anything other than what Madara had brought him there for.

A vast circular area of the rugged ground had been somewhat more smoothed out, the circumference of a large town. On one end, there was what seemed to be a monstrous dead tree, far larger than any tree Sasuke had ever seen. Its dark and expansive twisted branches reached into the violet sky and loomed over like the claws of a waiting predator, but Sasuke's attention was drawn towards what was pressed against it, almost looking to be inside it somehow, though that might still have been his perspective playing tricks on him.

There was no easy way to describe it; what seemed to be a massive ribbon of black and deep red with writhing tendrils seemed to be saddled to the tree. Across its front were a series of symbols and patterns that made little sense to his eyes. There was a strange thrumming sound that seemed to be issuing from it, but while deeply chilling, the noise seemed almost muffled. It gave Sasuke a strange sense of foreboding as the ribbon seemed to flex nearly imperceptibly against whatever it was that held it against the massive arbor obelisk.

Tearing his eyes from the sight, he looked to the other side of the circular clearing and saw another ribbonlike thing lain against a massive rock. Unlike the one pressed to the tree, it was purely white that almost seemed to glow; it too had markings on its form but they shone in a light blue. This ribbon seemed to be smaller than the black one and was just as much a part of the rock as the other ribbon was to the tree. It too seemed to be emanating a soft sound, but it seemed much more like a gentle breeze through tall grass to him, more calming than the thrumming of the black ribbon, but just as muffled and imperceptible as an actual sound.

As Sasuke looked carefully, he saw a pair of nearly invisible streams wisping from the two ribbons, swirling off into the pulsating sky which continued to flicker with that sickly sort of heartbeat.

"Quite the sight, isn't it."

Blinking, he turned his head slightly down to see Madara standing just a couple steps down the hill that led to the enormous circular space where the two glowing ribbons were. Knowing that he wouldn't have more of a chance than right then as Madara stared away from him, Sasuke quickly activated the jutsu he had been preparing and after a few moments, it confirmed what he needed to know. Making a firm mental note, he prepared himself and stepped towards his foe.

"What is it?" he asked. Madara looked out over the landscape before them, crossing his arms and looking on as proudly as a parent at the sight.

"This… this is what I've been working on for the past decade, Sasuke."

Not ever coming close to letting his guard down but feeling that Madara wasn't going to attack him at that point, Sasuke allowed himself to draw up just beside the other Uchiha. He waited patiently for what more there was to the tale, and Madara waited a good long while before choosing to further inform him.

"I take it by your reaction that you don't recognize either of them?"

Sasuke looked at him with a furrowed brow as the thundering crackle continued to sound distantly above them.

"What? You mean the ribbons?"

Madara released a chilling few seconds of genuine, amused laughter.

"Yes, those."

Sasuke gave his head a single shake.

"No. I've no idea what they are."

Looking around near his feet, Madara locked his eyes on a rather flat piece of the rugged landscape and moved towards it a few meters away.

"You are looking at the two oldest spirits in existence: Raava, the spirit of light and peace, and Vaatu, the spirit of darkness and chaos."

Based purely on the colors and auras the two seemed to give off, it wasn't difficult to tell which was which; Sasuke felt his breath catch just slightly in his throat at this revelation. From what little he had heard of these two, they were as significant and as powerful as gods to the people of this world.

"I see the names have sparked some recognition," Madara remarked, but Sasuke didn't reply. He looked out over the two spirits as they pulsed themselves, just slightly against the boulder and tree.

"They have been locked in combat with one another for thousands of years, since long before the first humans stepped foot in this world," Madara continued. "Through what I've been able to discern from them, though they've been less than cooperative…"

His voice darkened then.

"…they actually aren't able to destroy one another. Should one be defeated, its energy, which they both hold of one another, will grow in the victorious party until the defeated party will be reborn and the cycle continues.:

He chuckled.

"Rather makes our conflict seem rather like a quick bout in the primordial stew, doesn't it?"

"What are they doing here? Shouldn't they have reacted to us by now?" Sasuke asked, not reciprocating Madara's attempt to make light of their situation. The other Uchiha released another deep chuckle.

"Have you not noticed their condition?"

Sasuke looked back at the two massive spirits and where they were. He saw Raava against the boulder and Vaatu against the tree, and it clicked for hm a moment later.

"They're imprisoned."

"Correct. By my hand, I have placed them here."

For what might have been the first time since Sasuke had seen him again, his smile faded, and he looked genuinely annoyed.

"Vaatu was actually already imprisoned when I found him, but when I tried to free him just enough to question him, he broke free. It was simple enough to beat him down and confine him once more, but Raava… elusive creature that she was, it took years to finally track her down. I used transformation jutsu more times than I could count until I finally was able to catch her with her guard down. But she knew… she knew I was here, and she knew she was no match for me. It gave me quite a bit of satisfaction to crush her into submission and bring her back here."

Madara cast Sasuke an almost mischievous look.

"Why do you think that naïve child you call the Avatar was unable to make contact with her for such a length? Why he has lost his connection with this world? She is his root here, and I cut her off from him."

He spread his arms, gesturing towards all that was before them.

"And thus, with these two under my hand, my conversion of this world began."

"What are you talking about?" Sasuke snapped. He felt himself only growing further and further anxious about everything that was unfolding before him; he wanted his answers and he wanted them now.

Madara looked thoughtful for a moment, like he was thinking something over.

"Sasuke, do you remember the plan I proposed, or rather, Obito proposed on my behalf? That what with the war I declared on the Shinobi world?"

"Of course," Sasuke replied curtly. Though it had been so long ago, the last memories he had of his own world before he had found himself in this one would return freshly to him whenever he thought on them.

"Do you know what my end goal was?"

Sasuke was fully prepared to answer 'yes' before he realized that, just as he possessed no true understanding of Madara's motivation now, he hadn't known what it was back then either. Back then, he hadn't cared; he had felt he was using Madara's power, influence, information, and resources just as Madara was using his.

"No."

Madara made a satisfied sound.

"I thought not."

He sat down on the flat patch of earth and sighed before he continued.

"You surely assume it was something as dull as world domination, some sort of conquering of a world out of a desire for power or attempt at revenge at what I believed had wronged me. But the truth of the matter is it was nothing quite so selfish. At least to my eyes."

He fell silent for a long moment.

"From the moment I encountered Obito and put my plan into action, I only had one true goal in mind: peace. Peace unlike our world had ever seen. Peace that was impossible to know without first removing the first and most important facet of humanity that also happened to be its most hindering."

Sasuke didn't need to ask before Madara looked at him with a humorless smile and answered.

"Free will."

His grey eyes seemed to cloud with memory as he looked back out over the two bound spirits.

"Free will amongst human ensures entirely that our kind will eventually seek conflict; it cannot be helped, it is our nature. Whether justified or not, war comes and goes, fluctuating with the mood of humanity, but at its core, that conflict is always there, for at least two people will always find themselves at odds. Our free will is the root of this for, as long as humanity is prevented from seeking this conflict in the first place, there can be peace among men."

"And so what exactly did you propose?" Sasuke asked. "Take away that free will you seem to hate so much?"

Madara's smile widened.

"Precisely."

Not following what that could possibly mean, Sasuke remained silent as Madara continued to explain.

"The culmination of my plan, putting all its intricate facets and design aside, was to utilize the moon to trigger the Infinite Tsukuyomi. I would cast the entire world under a genjutsu and humanity would no longer be able to clash with one another, bringing harm and hate and pain to one another. I would trap every single man, woman and child in fantasy most suited to their desires; in these illusions, they could live out their full lives in the perfect conditions; be with the ones they love, accomplish all that they seek to accomplish, live their lives to the fullest. The world would be happy, and at peace. That would be their true freedom, being granted the futures they all wished to have, futures that were unattainable due to the human condition of conflict."

The suggestion of such a thing had Sasuke's mind reeling, but there was one thing he was immediately certain of.

"That's not freedom, that's prison," he said quietly, ignoring how his heart was now beating quite heavily in his throat. "You would take away everyone's freedom and put them in illusion. You deny everyone the chance to love, to learn, to live."

"Would that truly be so terrible?" Madara sighed. "If I told you right now that you could live in a perfect world, where you could be with the woman…"

He gave Sasuke a snide look.

"…or women, perhaps, it's difficult to tell with you… but you could live with them, happily, in peace, no fear, no anxiety, no stress, no negative feelings whatsoever. And all you had to do was submit yourself to my genjutsu, is that so awful a trade? To never feel scared, angry, anxious, depressed, hurt, none of that for the remainder of your existence?"

Sasuke couldn't have talked through Madara's proposal if he had wanted to for truthfully, it was hardly something that he found unappealing on the surface.

No more being frightened for everyone I know back in the material world… no more wondering what's become of everyone I knew back in my own world… no more feeling anxious about Ursa, and Toph, and Azula, and Aang, and everyone else… just… bliss. No memory of all that pain, just… bliss.

He pictured himself standing again on that beach that Ursa had asked him to imagine. He felt the tide lapping around his ankles, he felt the sun against his skin, he smelled the strangely nostalgic smell of the saltwater through the breeze. He heard his children calling to him as they both played in the surf, he could hear laughter, coming from more than one person, behind him and he felt truly, genuinely at peace.

Sasuke then found himself standing before Madara in the spirit world, Raava and Vaatu imprisoned before him. He felt none of that peace now, just the fear and anxiety aching underneath his focus. Madara was right: it truly was an awful thing to bear.

But somehow, Sasuke found himself somehow beginning to smile.

"You seek to rid everyone of that pain," he said softly. "But I don't want it taken from me."

Madara fixed him then with a look that was the most bemused Sasuke had seen from him.

"Why ever would that be?"

Sasuke felt his hand rubbing near his midsection where Azula had driven her hand through him in a crazed frenzy to try and hurt his friends. He saw Azula raging and screaming, threatening anyone she deemed to be someone to stand between her and Sasuke, saw the manic look in her eyes. He saw Ursa's body lying at his feet and felt the grief and shock wash over him. He felt much younger as he watched a much younger Toph turn towards him with fear and disgust at his actions, tears brimming in her eyes. He saw the sadness in Yue's eyes as she realized that the attraction she had felt for him could never truly be. He looked into the hate-filled eyes of Ty Lee as she forced herself wildly onto him. He saw Aang looking at him with saddened fear and betrayal. He saw the distant looks from everyone he knew, silently judging him and mourning the things he had done.

Then, it changed.

He saw Azula looking at him with clarity in her eyes, nodding firmly as he told her they were going to rescue Soza. He felt himself kissing Ursa while he felt her stomach, trying to imagine the life growing within her. He saw Toph smiling at him as tears rolled down her cheeks as she told him she loved him. He saw Aang grinning widely at seeing him walk into a room, looking thoroughly relieved to see him. Sasuke saw himself sitting around a table with the four of them, as well as Yue, Zuko, Ty Lee, Mai, Sokka, Suki, Katara, and Jin; a fantasy, but he saw them all smiling, talking, joking, laughing, not anything but happiness between them all. Then, the vision melted and he saw one that was plenty real; he was sitting around a campfire with Yue while she rather annoyedly tried to get him to talk which only resulted in some sly remarks from him. This only served to annoy her which amused him, and in turn, made her happy that he seemed to be opening up. It was just the two of them, darkness all around them, the night sky above, but Sasuke remembered how good it had felt to have that kind of company, which he hadn't held in years.

And then he saw Soza.

He saw his daughter smiling up at him, her hands behind her back, her eyes wide with admiration and affection. He saw him put a hand on her head and ruffle her hair, before his pointer and middle finger came down to press her forehead gently.

And he knew it was real.

Sasuke felt the burning behind his own eyes as he looked at Madara then.

"That pain proves I'm fighting for something real. I wouldn't feel this hurt if I wasn't fighting to be happy, and for the happiness of those I care for. The pain is just a reminder that the happiness I've felt before is as real as the air I breathe."

He felt his smile stretch just as Madara's had, but there was no smirking malice in his expression.

"I don't need your illusion. No one does."

Finally, something he said seemed to give Madara pause. Those grey eyes seemed to narrow just slightly as the other Uchiha replied in a low, threatening rumble.

"We'll see."

He seemed to need to force himself back to the situation before them, as though what Sasuke had said had been unexpected enough to throw himself off his train of thought. Sasuke was genuinely surprised how much lighter he felt after admitting what he just had.

"It doesn't matter what anyone wants…" Madara murmured, and it didn't sound so much like he was even speaking to Sasuke anymore at that point before he looked over with a darkly curious look in his eye.

"Do you think I would have shown this all to you if I thought you had a chance of preventing it?"

The brief feeling of minor victory at defying something that Madara had taken for granted ebbed away as Sasuke felt the ominous sense of foreboding crawling up his spine.

"The only difficulty I truly faced was ensuring I had the power necessary to wrest my way to achieving this end," Madara continued; his voice had grown a great deal colder. "Accidentally stumbling across this world was originally resulted in nothing more than experimentation, throwing you inside for example. I thought I could practice my abilities on the inhabitants of this world who would be helpless to try and stop me rather than the thousands of powerful shinobi I might otherwise be forced to tend with in our world."

"Obito and your… defeat of me had me quite furious for a time. The gate I opened with the archstones was destroyed after Obito and I passed through, and I was trapped. I managed to conceal my presence from the spirits and, after my anger had subsided, I started looking for ways to free myself from the spirit world. It was during this time of disguising and moving unnoticed that I started to take notice of the massive power at work here."

"I listened and I waited. I was patient and careful. I learned much by paying close mind to the world around me, infiltrating the minds of others when I could and capturing and interrogating when I was able. I learned of the Avatars, of the nature of this world's chakra, of the spirits themselves, and how their energy is truly gained. I learned that only through Raava and Vaatu can the world offer its energy to the spirits that reside within. Those two are what allow such transference to occur at all."

"When I learned that all energy from the spirit world flowed through them, I learned what I might be able to do with them. Finding Vaatu was simple enough, and after my strenuous attempt to track down Raava, I placed them here and found that something very beneficial to my plan could be achieved through jutsu. The sky that you see, the two spirits imprisoned, those sounds you hear, none of that is noticeable by any spirit passing this way. I doubt either Raava or Vaatu themselves can take notice of the changes in the world around them. But you and I, we are perfectly capable of seeing these… anomalies. I suppose you might guess why that is?"

This time, Sasuke knew the answer before Madara even asked the question.

"Our Sharingan."

"Well done. Because of the jutsu I have placed on them that has been draining the energy passing through them for years now, they are invisible, gone to all who would seek them out."

"By altering the flow of energy and keeping it from flowing to the rest of their world, the spirits inhabiting this place began to very slowly, very gradually starve of a lack of this energy. It produced violent moods, strong dissent, and was likely the cause of why many started to believe that your presence in the material world was a hindrance to them. And hence why so many were glad to follow Kyoshi through the breach I convinced her to make and go after you."

His last sentence was a revelation purely on its own and Sasuke rather badly wanted to find the last piece of the puzzle as to Kyoshi's part in all of this, but he reminded himself of his purpose and stayed focused.

"If the energy hasn't been moving to the other spirits, where has it been going?" he instead chose to ask. At once, Madara's thrilled smile returned and he gestured upwards around him.

"It's all around us!" he crowed. "I'm draining the energy back into the spirit world by using both Raava and Vaatu! I could never hope to grasp the power on my own, that was too difficult a task to try and achieve, but through them, I am able to recycle it before it is even put to use, slowly draining this world and refluxing the energy back into it."

Sasuke looked up at the sickly pulsing sky.

"And how does that help you exactly?" he asked, dread in his heart as he feared he had already guessed at the answer. Madara waited with an almost dramatic poise before confirming.

"I've changed just one thing about the energy as it passes through Vaatu and Raava and returns to the spirit world," he said quietly. "It is now energy that I can harness."

He got to his feet and stretched, looking about in triumph.

"I can touch it now, and I believe I can use it. It has been being slowly transformed into a form of energy that I can transfer to chakra of my own. This entire world… has become an energy source from which I can draw nearly unlimited chakra from. Because my jutsu connects me to this well of chakra, I can be in any world, here or there, and still have access to this incredible and nearly unimaginable resource."

The pit in Sasuke's stomach had deepened significantly and he did his best to keep from showing how much this revelation meant. The sickening feeling the pulsing of the sky and the crackling around him was finally making sense as he pressed his sweaty fingers to the palms of his hands.

He had already anticipated that Madara would be powerful enough as it was; he had been lingering behind the scenes for as long as Sasuke had been scouring the world looking for a way home, and no doubt had been biding his time and power. But now, he had created for himself a nearly infinitely vast reservoir of chakra with which he could surely draw from for as long as he needed to. The spirit world had become his greatest trump card, not because of its inhabitants, but because of its very nature.

"Why go through all the extra trouble then?" Sasuke asked, his mouth dry as his mind raced for some solution. "Why try and find me and have me killed? Why set Kyoshi and the spirits on me, why all this chaos?"

Madara gave him an almost disbelieving look.

"I think you know the answer to that, Sasuke. Who else but you could ever put this plan into risk? Who else but you could have stopped me all those years ago by tricking me alongside Obito? I know you too have grown more powerful and while I was content letting you foolishly wander the world while I slowly built up all the energy here that I needed, I admit I grew paranoid, especially when I learned you had become a father. A child of our world and this world… surely you can at least understand that there could be dire consequences of an action like that? You were powerful, perhaps powerful enough to stop me and I had no way to know just how much time I might still need. It must have been close, but I wasn't sure. Therefore, I supposed the best thing to do was to destroy you and your offspring before you ever could threaten my new design."

"But I couldn't alert you that I was behind the attempts on your lives. I used Kyoshi as my vessel, and her hatred of you certainly helped fuel her commitment to destroying you. Perhaps not as much as she hates me, but she's put on quite the show, hasn't she? Come quite close on more than one occasion, but only mere days ago, I felt the milestone I had so sought to achieve be met. The energy was finally enough, enough to my calculations that I could use it in our own world."

Madara's voice rippled with emotion and distant relief.

"I had done it. Years of draining this world through those two spirits, and I had finally achieved it. I can return now; I can go back. I can release my Infinite Tsukuyomi on our world, after I test it on this one and ensure its potency. I will be able to put this journey to rest and live in a world of my own design, no war, no conflict, no free will. Peace. All will be at peace. This power offered by the spirit world will be able to indefinitely sustain my Infinite Tsukuyomi and I will finally be able to rest."

He looked at Sasuke with almost an aura of annoyance.

"You certainly gave me some concerns that I would be contested. I couldn't block out the possibility that you might somehow come across me and put my will to the test, but Kyoshi and her band of ethereal monsters kept you at bay, though I wonder if just reintroducing you to all your old acquaintances wouldn't have been enough on its own. You truly do seem to incite conflict wherever you go."

Sasuke's heart was beating with a heightened, tensed pace. He was doing everything in his power to both listen to everything Madara was saying and listen for some weakness, something he could use against him while also trying to muster up some idea on how he could possibly win this situation. His eyes looked to the pulsing sky and, as though reading his mind, Madara addressed him further.

"You can't stop it now," he said. "You never could stop it unless you destroyed me, but there is too much energy for me to draw on now. You cannot defeat me, and you cannot do anything about what you see here."

Feeling a mounting, almost furious sense of frustration at how hopeless everything was starting to seem, Sasuke gave his head a small shake.

"How?" he said, his voice just above a whisper. "How can you take this energy back to our own world and utilize it?"

Madara crossed his arms.

"I'm… afraid I've only been half truthful with you. About the reason I sent the spirits after you, about how I was trying to draw you into your own destruction."

He raised a finger.

"There is a sole flaw in my plan, a single snag that I hadn't counted on until the conversion process was nearly complete."

Sasuke listened close, praying he was about to hear something, anything, that he could use to turn Madara's plan on itself.

"It has always come back to our Sharingan," Madara said. "Our eyes let us make passage through this world in the first place, they will ultimately allow us to leave, and without them, I cannot bring my plan to fruition."

Though he had tried very hard to keep from reacting to a particular piece of what Madara had said, Sasuke could tell his twitch hadn't gone unnoticed.

"Yes, Sasuke," Madara nearly whispered. "They can bring you home. I can show you how."

He spread his hands like an amenable uncle offering some tantalizing piece of knowledge to a curious nephew.

"You spent so long hunting for such a solution. I was able to watch you in brief spans, I could see your efforts resulting in fruitless ends. It was all you wanted, a way to return home, and I can show you how."

His hand made a gesture not unlike the one that he had used to generate the tear to the spirit world.

"It was your eyes. Removing you as a potential problem fell quickly by the wayside in consequence to bringing you to me so that I might procure your body for use."

He gestured towards the violet fluctuating sky.

"As you have brought up, the power here… it is unstable. I cannot hope to move it in its entirety to my own world and put it to use. I believe it will require the power of Sharingan to do such a thing properly."

Sasuke, starting to understand where this was going, cut Madara off bitterly.

"You wanted me for my eyes… Kyoshi and the spirits were first after my life, but then you ordered my capture instead once you realized you needed Sharingan."

Madara nodded.

"Well, you or your daughter, either would suffice at that point."

A rush of extreme emotion flooded Sasuke's gut and Madara noticed his change in expression.

"Relax, boy. I haven't touched her since she was placed under my custody. As I told you, she is perfectly fine and will remain that way."

His gut still churning, Sasuke glared back into those piercing grey eyes.

"So, what then? Is that why you brought me here? To make a deal? I give you my eyes so that you can properly transport this energy from this world to our own, and in exchange you show me how to go back?"

Madara laughed.

"Hardly."

He regarded Sasuke with an appraising look before turning back to look out over Raava and Vaatu.

"Should I have desired your eyes, I would have forced them from you well before now. After so many years, thing began to happen so quickly… and I no longer need your Sharingan. The one possessed by your sensei should do nicely."

Kakashi.

"They why did you bring me here?" Sasuke asked slowly.

"Because I still desire to make a deal with you," Madara replied with a stern look. "I brought you here to prove the purpose behind my plan and what it is I require. The offer I make to you now is one out of respect for our shared bloodline; I do not wish to continue to wage war with a member of my own family."

Sasuke crossed his arms.

"What's the deal then?"

He found himself not even sure he wanted to hear it, not out of disregard for what might be offered, but rather because he was fearful that it might be a touch too tempting, whatever it fully comprised of.

"I will show you how to return to our world," Madara said. "I will teach you the technique, and you will be free to leave if you wish, or stay, should it suit you. I will spare you, your daughter, your woman, all of your friends from my Infinite Tsukuyomi. You can set sail for western waters here, or leave the Five Great Shinobi Countries in our own world and seek a new life elsewhere. I have no interest in the entire world, either here nor there. I will use this power I have attained to subjugate the Four Nations here, and then use Kakashi's Sharingan to convey my power across worlds in order to ensnare the Five Great Shinobi Countries in our own world. A test of the peace my power will bring, and then I shall inflict it on the lands that have so been laden with war and pain. And per your assertion, I will not inflict it upon you and those you care about here. The ninja world must give in to my dream, but you may go freely. I know not what lies beyond either of these borders, but it is yours."

Sasuke's heart was hammering harder than ever as he drew up a last question through his dry throat.

"And what do you want in return?"

Madara fixed him with the closest thing Sasuke had yet seen to a warm smile; it genuinely looked like he was trying to reach Sasuke with his next words.

"Only that you leave me to my work. You do not interfere, you do not try and prevent my plan from being carried out. You take you and yours wherever you'd like, but you leave me to complete my dream."

The smile grew icy.

"Because the alternative is your destruction. You cannot beat me with the power I have amassed, and I will crush you and then crush your friends when they no doubt try to oppose me. In exchange for my own convenience, I am offering you your life and your… freedom."

He spoke the last word with a fair bit of hatred and it was clear that he still despised such an idea and couldn't wrap his head around Sasuke's rationale for denying ignorant bliss to painful freedom.

For Sasuke, it was enough to make him feel completely paralyzed. His plan still lingered in his head, but the idea of not considering what Madara had just told him was completely impossible. How could he stand there and flatly deny the safety of the people he cared most about, regardless of whatever plan he had concocted?

Even though it was impossible to say for sure if Madara was being truthful about leaving him and the others be, the clarity with which he spoke of his plan was enough to convince Sasuke that it made perfect sense for him to make such an offer. He wanted to move forward with his plan, he wanted to be done with the entire mess that had clearly been plaguing him for some time. In order to move forward with complete efficiency, he was offering Sasuke the one thing he should have wanted more than anything.

Everyone could be safe… we could just… go.

It was a surreal idea. He envisioned himself climbing aboard a ship westbound from the Four Nations, with everyone he knew and cared for on board. He would be able to know they were safe, that this hell was over, that they could just… be free of it all.

And damn the entire people of the Four Nations and the Five Great Shinobi Countries.

He thought of their faces when they learned what he had done.

Fuck.

The decision stopped being a decision then.

"No."

Madara blinked at him before looking at him with a look as though he had just been told a joke he didn't understand the punchline to.

"You… truly would deny this?"

Stepping away from the other Uchiha, Sasuke slowly shook his head.

"You would take the freedom of all those people, regardless of their decision in the matter. You offer freedom from your design to me purely because you see me as the only threat to it."

A rather pained chuckle issued from his throat then, which only grew when he saw the look on Madara's face the noise inspired.

"The selfish part of me is raging against this. I want quite badly for my family, for my friends to be free of all this, to just have lives they can live again. Just as I want that for myself. But to truly have that, to achieve that dream of my own…"

Hardly believing it was finally coming to this, Sasuke dug his heels into the ground and adopted a readied stance, his hands coming up to make fists.

"… means I have to take you down."

For a long time, Madara stood before him, hands open and hanging almost comically at his side. His eyes were blank, his mouth slightly agape as he looked truly bemused by what he had just heard. Sasuke waited for him to try and offer it again, perhaps with something more to it, or threaten him and the people he loved in an attempt to force him to back down. But Madara didn't do any of these things.

Without a word, he adopted a similar stance, one that Sasuke had read of in Uchiha combat history books and it was then that he realized just what it was he was fighting against. His eyes weren't angry, nor confused, nor amused. He wore as passive an expression as he could, the splintering cracks on his skin not tightened as a result of any sort of emotion. He peered at Sasuke with what no doubt was nothing more than necessity.

"So be it," Madara said.

Sasuke tried to keep his arms from quivering in anticipation. He was staring down what was essentially a god, even to his own people. Madara Uchiha stood before him, as powerful and prepared as ever he could be, the Edo Tensei no more afflicting his body than the unnatural world they were inhabiting together. The sheer power and presence that he invoked was starting to come crashing down on Sasuke, and he suddenly found himself feeling very small. For so long, nothing had posed a true threat to him; from humans that he could crush as easily as ants, to the massive force of Kyoshi and the spirits that he eventually had been able to purely overwhelm, he couldn't remember a time he had been preparing to go into battle and had been forced to fight down feeling genuinely frightened. Madara would show him no quarter as Sasuke had denied the only chance he had been given for a peaceful resolution for his own sake. Now, Sasuke represented nothing more than a roadblock and needed to be removed.

And I'm not just fighting for myself. I just threw away a chance to secure safety for everyone I know too.

He suddenly felt a physical memory touch him and felt Soza's hand gripping his own, and the fear left him.

But if I win… when I win, they'll all be safe, as will both our worlds.

With a nudge at his chakra flow, he activated a jutsu that he had prepared before even entering the spirit world after Madara. It produced no visible sign of its use, which suited Sasuke just fine. Hoping that things would go just as well in the material world, he let go of his concern for the others and honed his focus on nothing more than the man before him.

There was no shout or taunt made. No particular thing that initiated what happened next.

For a time, the two simply looked at one another, the strange, ethereal breeze tossing their black hair gently. Sasuke supposed this would have been quite foolish if he hadn't had a plan.

And then, they went at it.

---

Azula's eyes flashed open as she felt the unfamiliar burning. Her hand which had been resting in her lap moved up her body, tracing over the curve of her breast to touch at the skin where the mark Sasuke had once laid upon her still rested. It had just seared as he said it would, an uncomfortable and exhilarating feeling. By the way Toph had suddenly stiffened across from her, Azula knew that the earthbender had just felt the same.

They turned towards one another for just the briefest moment. Despite what had been said before, there was no need for words now. They knew what needed to be done and what was resting on their shoulders. At that point, for how different the two women were, their minds might very well have been one and the same. They were locked upon a single point, a single purpose for being there; all that came after was incidental for them now.

Azula followed quickly behind as Toph resumed the bending of the tunnel, thinking of nothing more than her daughter's face and how tightly she wanted to hold her.

---

Mai saw the distinctive shadow of Ba Sing Se's wall come into view. Stunned with how quickly they had made the journey, she supposed the fact that their airship had burned enough fuel to power half a fleet might have had something to do with it, but the engineering alone was enough to impress her.

The wall somehow looked differently to her than it did now as she ran her hand over the grips of her knives in an almost feverish ritual. She had been there many times since the end of the war, but to her now, it felt as though this was the first time she had seen it since the day a yawning chunk had been blown open in it. Now though, there was no Ozai, no Obito, no Fire Nation army.

Just something that's probably a whole lot worse.

She stood near the window in the hangar, the only one seeming fixated on gazing out towards the approaching city. Everyone else save for Aang and Ursa were standing around her, and all of them seemed to find that movement was more relieving than standing still. From pacing, to checking weapons, to standing up and sitting down with high frequency, everyone seemed to be just as she was in trying to find a way to occupy themselves.

Suki seemed able to remain sitting, but Sokka kept coming over to sit down beside her and hold her hand; he would look for something to say, be unable to find it, and resume pacing. Yue, Jin, and Ty Lee were also making their rounds around the hangar, both looking to be lost in their own worlds. Zuko would walk from one window on the port side to the adjacent window on the starboard side, look out for a second or two and then continue walking back and forth. Mai felt a strange, almost strangling feeling to go to his side, but her feet wouldn't obey, and she turned to look out towards the city.

Only a couple seconds were granted her to do so before she felt the ground beneath her pitch as the airship lowered in altitude and her stomach leapt. At once, everyone in the hangar stopped what they were doing and looked around the airship towards one another and at the very walls of the vessel as though expecting an answer. And not a moment later, the door to the hangar swung open.

Aang marched inside with Ursa just behind him. Zuko and Azula's mother had regained the poise with which she had first seemed to hold herself when Mai had first seen her after so many years, that poise that had been so badly crippled by Sasuke and all that had happened.

Sasuke's going to kill her for coming with us.

Mai felt another stabbing urge that caused her legs to twitch slightly, nearly propelling her forward.

The sight of Aang was enough to make her eyes widen in impressment. So many days of seeing the Avatar looking about ready to collapse from sheer nerves and seeing him now was liking setting eyes on a completely different person. There was a confidence to his step, his hands clenched into fists at his side, his brow furrowed intensely and his eyes flashing with steel.

"Siado and the crew are taking us down," he announced to the lot of them and Mai slowly moved away from the window. The rest of the group moved to gather around Aang without a word, taking clearly to the command in his tone. "I don't want to risk having the spirits try and intercept us from the air, so we're setting down a couple kilometers outside the city."

He glanced towards Zuko.

"Zuko and I will draw the attention of the spirits as best we can. We're not going to be able to just get into the city without a fight, but hopefully we can provide enough of a distraction for you all to make it to the city. Yue, you'll be the only one who will be able to harm any spirits we can't distract, so you'll need to be at the front."

The silver-haired girl nodded confidently, running her hand over her shoulder to touch at the handle of her sword.

"Once you guys make it to the city, we're going to have to work fast. Suki, you track down the Kyoshi Warriors; Sokka, I need you to find General Gokan and have him mobilize whatever troops he can; Jin, you know the city well?"

She nodded firmly alongside Sokka and Suki.

"Like the back of my hand."

"Alright," Aang said. "Find Iroh and get him up to speed. Then, track down anyone who you know you can trust and get people together to start going door to door; I don't know what all will come of what Sasuke's doing, but if something goes down, it will be at the center of the city at the palace. People need to get distance if they're able."

"I'll go with her," Ty Lee said as Jin nodded confirmation.

"Me too," Yue said. "We'll cover as much ground as we can."

"If anything, anything happens that you can tell from the palace, get clear and safe," Aang said, even as he nodded at the three women. Ursa spoke up then, her voice ringing out clear and calm.

"I'll travel with them until we reach the city center, then I'll head for the palace and try and track down Sasuke, Toph, Soza, and my daughter."

To this, Aang said nothing, but Mai could see the first sign of trepidation cross his face and she felt the same tug from a minute earlier, and this time, it drove her to speak.

"Ursa, let me go."

Everyone turned to her, Ursa's eyes moving last.

"Let me go to the palace," Mai said, continuing before she lost the gumption to do so. "I'll find them, I'll—"

"I have just as much a right to try to—" Ursa started and Mai felt something within her snap.

"I know!" she shouted. "I know! You love him! You feel responsible for him, and for your daughter, and for your granddaughter! And I'm just asking you, please, just think about the fact that you're with child!"

There was a surge of hurt that passed through her then at the mere mention of it that felt a twinge too much like jealousy to her, and she shook it off. Ahead of her, Ursa bristled at her words, but said nothing and Mai found this as encouraging as anything.

"No one will think badly of you for not diving directly into the heart of all this shit! I know that things haven't been the best between all of us after what we learned was going on with you and him, but… what are you trying to prove?! We all want everyone to walk out of this in one piece! Just please, I want you to—"

"ALRIGHT!"

Ursa roared the word and Mai was struck into silence. She stared at the older woman who, beyond her now heavy breathing, still was maintaining her calm stature. But her eyes were flashing with emotion, and Mai could see her struggling badly.

"Alright," Ursa said in a much quieter tone. Mai couldn't quite frankly believe that she had just actually submitted as she had; she had expected a drawn out battle of words in convincing Ursa to keep away from the main conflict, and had been willing to resort to as many dirty tactics as she could, from guilt-tripping to suggesting something like a miscarriage or worse. When she had felt the urge in her gut, that part of her that had suddenly been screaming at her to take responsibility in keeping the older woman safe from the worst of what was to come. But now, it looked like she had somehow managed to pull this off without so much as an actual argument taking place as Ursa stood before her in pained silence. She seemed slightly cowed by her own lack of restraint, and she looked down, seeming rather detached from the group as a whole just then until Mai closed the short distance between them and put a hand on her shoulder.

"Hey," she said. "I'll find them. Everyone's getting out of this. I promise."

What are you doing?

It couldn't have been a more foolish thing to say, but the confidence she spoke it with had even her believing it for a moment and, judging by the way Ursa turned her gaze up to look at her, she hoped the lie had been enough.

The stretch of rather uncomfortable silence was cut short as the ground lurched beneath them and they all stumbled before it completely leveled out and no longer so much as rumbled.

"We've touched down," Sokka said rather unnecessarily, but Mai heard his voice shaking. Aang nodded in a final sort of way before crossing over to the edge of the hangar and pulling a large red lever. With a loud series of sounds, the ramp that sealed the large room lowered down to touch the hard rugged ground of the Earth Nation. Mai looked down at the light that spilled from the airship out onto the dark ground and felt the hairs on her arm raise as the cool air swept in over them.

Do I really want to go out into that?

The answer was no, of course, but this was far from being about what Mai wanted.

"Everyone, move when Zuko and I go to work. Don't stop for anything and regroup outside the city as soon as we can. We have to keep this fight as far from civilians as we can, because I can't imagine we're done with the spirits just yet."

Aang nearly brushed past her and looked back, meeting her eyes with a rather helpless sort of look on his face, but she could see the silent question being asked of her. How she would manage it, she didn't know, but Aang wouldn't be talking about taking the fight out of the city, if this wasn't the end goal. She nodded and he gave her a small smile.

"Please be careful," he asked before turning and descending the ramp.

Mai watched as one by one, her friends passed by her; she took note of the steeled expressions every one of them wore and soon found herself as the last person aboard the ship.

She ran fingers over her arms and felt her knives underneath her sleeves as her robes gently flapped in the breeze. It struck her as Aang had made that gentle request of her that she had openly volunteered for the most dangerous role that any of them would be taking. Trying to find the three people who had been set on diving into the hell of this matter was going to be nothing less than near suicide.

Oh, hell.

Grinning in a sort of manic fashion that she thought might have even given Azula a run for her money, she ran her fingers through her jet-black hair and gave a small shrug.

No more than what we've been dealing with for the past few weeks.

Releasing a sigh as she did everything in her power to release her fears as well, she stepped after her friends out into the dark. As soon as she could see the wall, she saw the wave of blue shifting in the black of night and heading towards them over the giant barrier that stretched around the city.

"Looks like we'll have even less time than we wanted," Zuko growled as fire burst to life around his hands and arms.

"Well, when have the odds ever exactly been in our favor?" Aang asked as he too became surrounded by fire. He looked around at them all.

"Good luck."

The sentiment was echoed silently before Yue drew her massive sword which glowed in the night before being completely outshined by the dual inferno that exploded to life above their heads, drawn into existence by Aang and Zuko. It coalesced into a violent cyclone which angled towards the approaching spirits and slammed into their front as they cleared the wall, breaking the line and sending many of them flying. As they flew about like great blue insects, Mai heard Yue shout over the roar of the searing blaze above them and she broke into a run, following her friends as they dashed towards the wall, not daring to let an ounce of fear into her heart.