Chapter 8: Breaking Point

"I'm a soldier, these shoulder's hold up so much, they won't budge,
i'll never fall or fold up,
i'm a soldier,
even if my collar bone's crush or crumble,
I will never slip or stumble,
i'm a soldier"

From "Soldier" by Eminem

Zuko had barely fallen asleep when someone jumped him that morning.

They weren't fools. They held him down and tied his arms up while someone held a very pointy knife to his neck saying that if they saw so much as a spark he'd have a slit throat.

Then he was dragged out of his tent and forced to kneel in front of Azula. Looking around he saw the troops she had called in.

"What's the meaning of this?" he yelled as he stood up only to have a soldier kick him in the back of the knee so he was on them again.

Azula ignored him. "Check him for weapons." She order Ty Lee who had been standing to her left.

The circus girl made a face. "Why not have Mai do it?"

Azula glared at the comment and Ty Lee decided not to try arguing.

Mai was standing to Azula's right. Her hands were folded into her sleeves and she looked as bored as ever.

As Ty Lee checked Zuko, he tried to tell himself to breathe and not react as she got close to the pocket he had Katara's necklace stashed in. When her fingers closed around it and started pulling it out though he couldn't contain himself.

The circus girl was much quicker then he was though, she swept his legs out from under him causing him to need to worry about his breathing more then the necklace.

"Did you find anything?" Azula asked as if the scuffle hadn't happened. She was however curious as to what promted such a response from her brother.

"No weapons Azula. Not even that dagger he prized so much."

"He probably sold it when he was on the run awhile ago." Mai stated.

"I did find this though." Ty Lee said holding up the necklace. She looked down at and snickered at Zuko. "It's a little girly for you."

"A necklace?" Azula said in mild confusion. "Let me see it."

Zuko got up to dive at the girls but two firebenders grabbed him and held him in place. He watched Azula study Katara's necklace with a curious and malicous look in her eyes.

Azula knew the Avatar travelled with three girls.

She recognized Mari from her discription and knew the girl enough to know she wouldn't wear something so homely. When Mari bothered to decorate herself she aimed for flashy.

The blind earthbender. Tomboy to the extreme. Although she had done her research and knew the girl was rich and connected she didn't use it unless she had to. She cared even less about her appearence then the boys from what Azula could tell. She doubted the girl even had any interest in jewelry.

That left only one other girl the necklace could've came from.

The one Azula hated the most.

The floozy had manage to best Azula in the catacombs. She'd had Azula helpless and had even cut off just the smallest bit of hair. Her brother had come to her rescue and that was the most lowering experience of her life.

The fight had not gone perfectly for Azula and if it was one thing she demanded it was perfection. She was perfect. That silly waterbender was going to learn that when it came to fighting Princess Azula you had better just surrender or you walked away with a burnt face.

Azula's rage was a living thing. Although Ty Lee and Mai knew it wasn't directed at them they backed away from her anyways. Azula breathed in and calmed herself back to her lethally cold self.

"That pathetic little waterbender gave this to you didn't she?" She asked Zuko.

"A peasant gave it to me." Zuko stated. It technically wasn't a lie, Katara was a peasant by Fire Nation standards. Just because he didn't call her that anymore didn't make it less true.

"One with the Avatar. I traced your movements back over the past few weeks brother. You showed a sudden interesting in navigation and travel from Ba Sing Se to the Fire Nation after I mentioned Uncle being shipped out. Then you went hunting up blue prints of Fire Navy ships, and regulations for the number of troops and siege equipment on each. You were busy planning Uncle's escape. You gave that information to the Avatar the night I sent soldiers combing through the woods. That's why..." Azula grinned as she metaphorically went for the throat. "That's why you were humming a Water Tribe song when you came back."

She hadn't know if that was truely where the song Zuko had been humming for weeks came from, everything was a guess. He could have had perfectly logical explainations for each of the things she'd touched on. It was the sudden though of the song that was Azula's nail for Zuko's coffin. His face damned him the minute she mentioned it. His normally pale face lost all it's blood till he looked like a corpse, with his mouth hanging open and eye wide.

I have you now. She thought to herself. There was no way he could escape this fate. No Iroh to save him, no place to run, and he'd handed all the evidence to her on the silver platter of his face.

"Don't worry Zuzu." Azula told him in an almost sympathetic tone. "I'll let you keep your little bauble. It'll remind you what your little girlfriend looked like before I burn her to the point where you'll look like a work of art in comparison."

Something snapped in Zuko. He wasn't sure how he got out of the grip of the guards holding him but he was suddenly lunging at Azula's throat, having every intention of strangling her with his own flaming hands.

He was so close when Azula spun and her heel connected with his head knocking him unconscious in a single blow.

"I told you he'd bite back." Mai said in a matter-of-fact tone.

Azula glared at the emotionless girl. She was not in the mood for this.

"Mai, you and Ty Lee are taking a squad and returning to the ship with Zuko."

"Aww but Azula I wanted to go with you to catch the Avatar." Ty Lee said. Her eyes got a far away look for a moment.

"You just want to see that stupid boomerang guy again." Mai stated.

Azula herded the two away from the troops a bit before hissing at them. "I need you two to go with Zuko so he doesn't get loose. We've already established that the average soldier is a pathetic weakling. I'm sure you two will be more then a match for him if he gets out of hand."

Ty Lee looked sad but nodded while Mai simply sighed

"I was hoping I'd get to watch you burn that water girl's face off." Mai said.

The two girls did as Azula asked though and loaded their mongoose dragons. Azula also picked out a squad and had them load up to.

She put the necklace back into her brother's pocket and stared at him till a couple of men came to load him onto a komodo rhino.

"If he causes any trouble at all," She told the small group. "Kill him."

Ty Lee blinked at the princess with wide eyes while Mai simply stared and flicked her mount's reins.

Azula watched till they were out of sight.

Replaying the incident in her mind made her mentally shuddered. Zuko had gotten to close for her comfort.

There was just one second where she thought she'd seen his flames spark blue.

Azula shook her thoughts away. Zuko didn't have the ability to make different colored flames, he was too emotional for it. So she didn't have to worry about his bending abilities getting better.

Even if they did get better she would still win a fight with him. She was perfect after all.

With that thought she turned to the rest of her troops and ordered them to move out.

Zuko came to slowly. The jostling of the rhino waking him up along with his throbbing head. He could feel the goose egg forming.

Looking out the corner of his eye he surveyed his situation. It wasn't looking good. Aside from Ty Lee and Mai there was ten other men. Five Dai Li and five royal guards who were the elite of the firebending community outside the royal family.

He mentally groaned for a moment. Why did the spirit always have to put him up against odds that were heavily against him?

Before he could start brooding and getting angry over his life and the cards he'd been dealt he felt something in his pocket. His iron clad wrists wouldn't allow his hands to check what it was but after a moment of drawing a mental picture Zuko realized it was Katara's necklace.

Azula would've moved out by now. Most likely following his own tracks to the Avatar's camp and then she'd follow their's. He growled to himself remembering what Azula said she'd do to Katara.

Not if I have anything to say about it. He mentally swore.

First he had to get himself out of his current situation though.

Thankfully none of the squad seem to think him an actual threat or they would've put him at the front of the line as opposed to the back. He just needed a good distraction to take attention off himself for a few moment while he made a break for the woods.

Borrowing an idea from Iroh's book, Zuko carefully started heating up his chains. He'd only get one chance at this. If it didn't work they'd make sure he couldn't firebend again.

Once the chains were red hot Zuko gave the rhino an apologetic look. "Sorry about this," he whispered before pressing the hot shackles into the animal's rear.

The rhino let out a cry and reared up, pulling the firebender who'd been leading him off his feet and dumping Zuko onto the ground. Zuko quickly rolled away to get out of the way for the rhino's whipping tail and stamping feet.

The enraged animals rampage kept the guards away from Zuko as he rolled to his feet and started running. He kept low as bits of earth and fire missed him by inches.

He just reached the tree line when an odd whistling noise reached his ears. He felt something puncture the cloth and skin on his right side. Pain radiated out as he kept running, not daring to look back to see who followed.

Mai straightened up from her throw as Ty Lee started to run past her. "Let him go." She stated.

Ty Lee stopped. "What? But...Azula..."

"He's not gonna get far Ty Lee. That throwing dagger was a special one."

Ty Lee blinked at her friend. She didn't realize that Mai had taken Azula's order about killing Zuko seriously. "Shouldn't we recover the body?"

Mai nodded. "Of course, but there's not reason to hurry. He'll leave a nice bloody trail right to his corpse."

Then Ty Lee saw it. It wasn't in Mai's body language, tone, or expression. Her aura though snapped with rage. Mai was internally raging at the fact that Zuko had favored a water tribe girl over herself. Mai, a fire nation noble, had lost the chance of Zuko's affections to a water tribe peasant.

Ty Lee mentally shuddered. The people around her were going mad.

Zuko ran until his wound forced him to stop. He could feel the blood running down his side and soaking his pants.

Years on the ship hunting the Avatar had taught Zuko many things. One of them was caring for various battle wounds.

Carefully he ripped the shirt around the wound away and took it off. It hurt and was difficult for the knife was still there. He couldn't see it but he could feel it with his fingers. He ripped the shirt into some bandages, he was surely gong to need them.

He'd have to take the dagger out, or he'd risk making the damage worse.

Using his own shirt to muffle any cries that might escape his mouth with one hand he carefully grabbed and yanked the dagger out with the other.

He didn't bother looking at the weapon yet. Instead he set about packing and bandaging the wound. He silently prayed to the spirits that the wound wasn't as bad as it felt.

Finally picking up the dagger though, he knew he was in graver trouble then he thought.

The dagger wasn't a normal one. The blade was barbed, meaning to inflict more damage going in and coming out then a normal throwing dagger would have. It explained why he was bleeding so heavily, he needed stitches.

There had to be a village somewhere in the area, but it would take time to find it and more time for him to heal up enough to travel.

Azula was just ahead of him after the Avatar and Katara though. If he went to find a village he wouldn't be able to save Katara.

Zuko wasn't aware that he was clenching Katara's necklace in his fist till he found himself staring at it.

He got up and started walking as fast as he could manage.

Katara I'm coming, hold on.

Hours later though, it was all Zuko could do to put one foot in front of the other. It was dark and he could hear animals around but he kept walking, knowing that if he stopped he likely wouldn't get up again.

The makeshift bandages were red as well as the side of his pants although that was harder to see since they were black.

He was pretty sure he was following the right trail. He'd stumbled upon rhino tracks with a mongoose dragon mixed in them. He still clenched Katara's necklace in his right hand like a drowning man to a rope.

Zuko found himself staring down at his feet, he ordered the right one forward but it wouldn't move. He was so tired...

It didn't hurt to fall to the ground. Maybe he'd just lay there for a moment...just to catch his breath...he was having trouble with that.

Katara's necklace lay in the dirt near his fingers, he didn't remember letting it go. He tried to will his fingers to grab it but they wouldn't do as he asked.

Zuko suddenly felt unbearably sad. Not that he was dying but that Katara was going to. He hadn't been able to save her like he'd wanted to. He wouldn't get to try out kissing her again.

"Katara..." he whispered as his eyes closed.

Katara...

Katara snapped awake looking around frantically. She couldn't seem to breath and tears were running down her face. Only the fact that Sokka and the rest were standing in front of her kept her from screaming for Zuko.

"Katara are you alright?" Sokka asked with a look of fear on his face. His sister's face was as close to white as it could get, he fully expected her hair to follow at any second.

Katara nodded. Physically there was nothing wrong with her. She simply felt panicked and scared.

It took her a few moments but she manage to convince everyone that she was truely alright.

They went back to their beds, all worried about her but none able to think of any reason other then a bad dream she'd be so upset.

Once they were all in their bedrolls, Katara quietly got Zuko's dagger from her bag that was next to her. She'd managed to keep it hidden so far and had no interest in having anyone ask where she'd gotten it.

She hugged the sheathed blade to her and closed here eyes.

Spirits, please keep Zuko safe. Please.

Katara openned her eyes again and found herself staring at a woman. Ancient eyes simply stared back in sympathy as steel colored hair seem to flow around her.

Then the water girl blinked and the woman vanished.