Duel of the Fates

Shingyung was on the hunt.

She was on a mission of death, tasked with chasing down the most dangerous, most wonderful, most twisted woman in the entire world. The true Princess Azula had been destroyed by her enemies, but her body and most natural instincts still walked the world as a woman, and Shingyung craved her pain and attention. They had scuffled a few times before, but the coming fight would be to the death, the most exquisite intertwining of lives possible. It would be the best kind of physical love. Shingyung had never been so happy, never felt more alive, and she wanted to howl at the moon as she was carried along on her chase. The shirshu she rode was much more reserved about the whole affair, but then, it had no personal investment in this little outing. As far as Shingyung was concerned, it was nothing more than an ill-tempered servant, and like all servants the beast needed punishment and molding to be useful The suffering that resulted was like a fine wine to Shingyung. She could relate to suffering, and it was the true path to the most beautiful understandings the world had to offer.

The first place they visited was the port town of Maiha. The shirshu started on the docks, and followed the scent-trail straight out of town. From there the shirshu struck off northeast at a good pace, and for some reason the trail remained fairly straight and mostly ignored the roads. Shingyung thought it odd that she encountered none of Long Feng's industrious little agitators, but she had her mission and put all other concerns out of her mind. She had been promised this chance, and nothing would detract from it.

When she arrived in Geum Gwuang and found Dai Li Agent Nuo Fu's base and communications center half-demolished and ransacked, though, Shingyung could no longer deny her worry. How had Azula found that place?

When Shingyung followed the scent-trail to the ranch where Dong Min was supposed to be reprogramming and deploying new waves of Azula duplicates, and found nothing but fields of graves, things had gone beyond worry. What was happening? What did that filthy little shadow think she was playing at?

And then Shingyung rode her shirshu further along the trail, and her state of mind started blossoming into outright paranoia when she realized what she was traveling towards.

Yang City. Her own base of operations.

She tried to deny it, but sure enough, the shirshu did not turn from its path, and soon the city itself rose into view on the horizon. Shingyung just sat in the saddle, savoring the paranoid swirling of her mind as she was carried into the city in the light of the setting sun, and glorified in the lightness of her head and the pounding of her heart. The sensations reached a crescendo when the shirshu stopped in front of her own massage parlor, scaring away the pedestrians, and came to a rest like it had finally reached its destination. This, then, was where Azula had supposedly ended the most recent leg of her journey. As she was nowhere in sight, she must be inside the building itself. Night had fallen by now, with a full moon glowing and caressing above, and the darkened parlor was like a Spirit Cave from the old legends. Shingyung dismounted, but stayed out in the street.

Needless to say, this was a trap. Shingyung craved Azula's presence, and could feel the compulsion to dash into the building boiling in her blood, but she had not come so far in life by acting without thinking. She thought in ways that were different than most, but she still considered everything with great care and judgment. That was what she had been taught, and that was what made her so valuable to Long Feng.

So instead, Shingyung did a little twirl and laughed. "Oh, Azula. You are such a delight! Even when you're not really you, you're still so exquisite. Just when I think Dong Min killed the true Princess, you pleasure me by killing him right back! I should have known that balance would assert itself." She shimmied closer to one of the shuttered windows, and shouted so that she would be heard inside. "I'm so glad you decided to wait for me. Our meeting is the culmination of our lives, and it thrills me to know that you want it every bit as much as I! But my hunger for the sight of you, the smell of you, is not so great that I will let you ambush me. I can wait." She spun in place and went back over to where the shirshu was resting, throwing a little extra saunter into it, and kneeled down right there in the empty street, unmindful of her nice silk dress. "Don't make me wait too long." She closed her eyes and started a simple meditation, sure that Azula would soon reply.

Shingyung wasn't expecting the building to just explode like that, and couldn't stop the force of the blast from knocking her to sprawl out in the street, chasing the shirshu away.

The roof of the massage parlor had burst open to expel fire and debris, but the rest of the building collapsed inward like an egg being crushed in hand. The fire spread quickly to consume the whole ruins, but strangely didn't jump from that single lot despite the proximity of the other buildings. Shingyung heard the shouts and cries of her neighbors as they responded to the firebombing, but she only had eyes for the shadow stalking through the flames.

It was Azula-shaped, and oh so exquisite.

Grinning so hard her face hurt, Shingyung rose and flicked the caps off of her four water skins. She licked her lips and called out, "Ready?"

Azula- beautiful, delicious, seductive, infuriating, glorious, and looking pleasingly like her old self in proper Fire Nation armor despite the lack of topknot- passed through the last of the fire to stand opposite Shingyung in the street. The Princess pulled a pair of objects out of her belt with both hands, and an instant later, snapped open a pair of golden war fans that shone with a mix of the lights of the moon and the fire.

"Ready."

Although Kyoshi Island was nowhere near as old as such pillars of Earth Kingdom civilization as Ba Sing Se or Omashu, it was exerting increasing influence on the post-war world, and its short history was a fascinating study of intercultural influence. Indeed, the fighting style practiced by the Islanders was by itself a microcosm of the various cultural trends that the island had experienced.

Though originally a coastal settlement at the southeastern tip of the Earth Kingdom, Avatar Kyoshi's hometown did not see much contact with the Southern Water Tribe in its early existence. The 'Southern Islands' such as Whale Tail and Kangaroo were as far as the Water Tribe ships liked to sail, and so they served as the cultural gateway between Earth and Water. It wasn't until Avatar Kyoshi created a new island and pushed her hometown out to sea that the settlement rose to prominence as a sovereign trading port. Very quickly, the newly renamed Kyoshi Island became a fishing and trading hub, and since it produced very few Earthbenders even in those days, the Water Tribe's primary fighting style and manner of dueling rose as fads amongst the island's natives. The fighting style, called Kavisilaq, displayed staying power, coming to replace the Earthbender-derived arts as the self-defense of choice for the Islanders. However, at the time Kyoshi Island was still not producing any of its own Waterbenders, so the use drifted away from its roots and slowly became a variant focused more on non-Benders and simple civilian self-defense.

It wasn't until early in the life of Avatar Roku that the next major change came about. Roku himself was still a young man learning Airbending when he and a monk friend from the Southern Air Temple named Gyatso came on a pilgrimage to Kyoshi Island (although Gyatso, an eventual Master and Elder of his people, confided in his personal journals that the trip was really meant to be more of "a vacation from those tucked-robes who can't see the genius of Air-surfing"). While there, Roku and Gyatso assisted the Islanders in a long-running but recently escalated conflict with a local pirate group. The pair of Benders convinced the Kyoshi Disciples to forsake their vows of pacifism and join in the defense of the island, teaching them some Airbending-derived techniques so that they could fight without heavily injuring their opponents. After their victory, the Kyoshi Disciples admitted that they had lost their way and broken from Avatar Kyoshi's influence as represented by her reincarnation Roku, and vowed to henceforth protect their home as a kind of paramilitary force. After Roku and Gyatso left, the newly renamed Kyoshi Warriors further developed their fighting arts, mixing the Water Tribe-style practiced by the other Islanders with the Airbending principles that they themselves had learned, eventually culminating in a new style they called Aikido.

The Kyoshi Warriors adapted the style, over the next two centuries, to include the use of Avatar Kyoshi's traditional weapons, the war fans. Later, trade with the Fire Nation's Outer Islands introduced the thin, curved 'katana' swords to the island, and the Kyoshi Warriors adopted that weapon as well. The locals, meanwhile, found Aikido to be very appealing as method of self-defense, although they mostly only learned the unarmed forms.

Aikido was refined throughout the war with the Fire Nation to stand as its own distinct fighting style, but was able to come full circle by the end of the war when Kyoshi Island was visited by Avatar Aang and his companions, among them Sokka of the Southern Water Tribe. Both boys learned from the Kyoshi Warriors, and adapted aspects of Aikido into their own fighting ways, with Avatar Aang even using war fans to enhance his Airbending several times. However, Aikido otherwise did not spread much beyond the shores of Kyoshi Island, being so counter in philosophy and movement to the fighting styles of the world's most dominant cultures, the Earth Kingdom and the Fire Nation. This was even despite Kyoshi Island's friendship with Fire Lord Zuko after the war ended, for the aggressive nature of the Fire Nation's fighting arts were believed to be completely incompatible with Aikido's roots.

This was eventually proven wrong by Zuko's infamous sister, Princess Azula.

Azula had hoped that Shingyung would blunder into the massage parlor and die in the firebombing, but she had to admit that a little part of her was actually looking forward to beating the Waterbender into submission. After Mianju the Victim, all the manipulations, the manner of June's death, and the ambush in Long Feng's base, Azula very much wanted to see Shingyung hurt. Although it would have been so much easier if the explosives she had borrowed from Yeh-Lu could have finished things in a single blast, Azula's backup plan had been in the making for a long time and boasted a number of personal perks.

Shingyung started things by streaming out the most common and versatile Waterbending attack, a lashing tendril. The tip whipped forward faster than the speed of sound, meaning that the water itself would feel more like stone when it actually struck, but instead of waiting to block or dodge it, Azula swept one of her war fans up in a simple slicing motion.

Behind Azula, the fires of the burning parlor responded to her call.

The inferno spat out a flat arch of flames that expanded out as it traveled. It pulsed out just above Azula's head and kept going until it intercepted the stream of water. The ring of fire sliced through the liquid tendril in several places before both exploded into a cluster of steam bursts.

Kyoshi-style Firebending. If Azula was right, it would be especially effective against Waterbending.

So she went on the offensive.

Azula held her position but began a dance that anyone who had visited the old Kyoshi Warrior training dojo would have recognized. It resembled a kata in execution, but it was no rote exercise. Azula tailored each move to a specific strategy. She flicked out her fans in a series of movements that probably made it look like she was swatting spiderflies, but the burning building responded by pumping out fireballs as tall as Azula herself to fly past her towards the Waterbender. Shingyung dodged by going into a circling run that didn't seem at all hampered by her stupid purple dress, and waved out more tendrils from her water supply in an attempt to get the initiative back. Azula just shifted her movements to sweeps of her fans that summoned more of the expanding fire arches. They sliced through the water constructs at multiple points and completely compromised the structural integrity, turning them to steam easily.

Then Azula raised both her fans above her head and brought them swinging down with her arms fully extended. The fires behind her rose and swirled together to form a massive tendril, not unlike Shingyung's waterwhip, that lashed about and scattered tongues of flame all over the street. Azula heard screams from the darkness beyond the immediate battlefield, but none sounded pained, so she ignored them. The sooner she finished this battle, the better for everyone. Slicing the air in front of her with her fans, she directed the fire-whip to strike at Shingyung on an intercept with her running. The Waterbender tried to switch direction, but wasn't quite fast enough; the fire whip struck the ground near her and exploded into heat, sending Shingyung tumbling. As she skidded across the ground, small tendrils of water sprung out from her form and flowed out in front of her, solidifying into a small ramp of ice. Azula flung out more fireballs, but Shingyung managed to get upright within her skid and began surfing the ice-ramp with considerable speed.

Something about that seemed familiar to Azula, but she ignored it and concentrated on her attacks.

Shingyung slid past another wave of fire bursts but scooped downward as she surfed, and then flicked her hand to send pieces of her ice flying out as frozen razors aimed straight for Azula's head.

Azula pulled flames past her with a summoning wave of one of her fans, and then flicked it up again to turn the fire into a wall that melted the ice-daggers away. She let the small blaze dissipate and searched around for Shingyung, only to find her bearing down from Azula's left side. Azula quickly shifted to a defensive stance and brought her fans up, as Shingyung's ice-board liquefied and flowed up her tall body to cover her arms while she continued forward at a run. The water-arms immediately launched into a lashing attack, and as they closed in on Azula the tips turned to ice and sprung spikes, but Azula was already in motion herself, bending Fire out of her own body this time. The flames extended from the fans and acted like extensions of the golden weapons, flapping out to heat the icy weapons and weaken them so that the blows of the metal war fans shattered them easily. She flowed through the old defensive cycle she drilled relentlessly on Kyoshi Island, surrendering to its efficiency and focusing on the increasingly thin and weak water-arms, each blunted attack losing more water to Azula's heat.

Finally, with a triumphant yell and one last burst of flame, Azula shoved her fans forward and exploded the last of the water into vapor.

Even before the steam dissipated, though, Shingyung was already running off down the street like her backside was on fire. Azula tried to turn that simile into reality with another set of fireballs, but the Waterbender dodged around one of the massage parlor's neighboring buildings and broke from Azula's line of sight.

So, Shingyung had figured out that she needed to get Azula away from her helpful little inferno. She also was probably hoping to find more water.

Well, they couldn't have that. Azula ran off after her enemy.

As infamous as the animals were, Toru had never seen a shirshu before, and he would have been content to continue his life along those lines.

Azula had brought him and Meisai along to help set up the explosives in Shingyung's massage parlor and provide any other assistance that was needed, but the plan seemed to be in the bilge now that the Waterbender hadn't walked into their trap. As soon as Azula had walked off through the flames of the parlor's wreckage to confront Shingyung, Toru had turned to his daughter in their hideout across the street. "What now? Are we supposed to help her?"

But Meisai was already putting her attention elsewhere, stretching her arms out in front of her and breathing like she was meditating. "Gotta keep flames contained," she said between breaths. "Can't let them spread. Neighborhood would burn. You help Azula. Do what you can."

So Toru went off to try, but quickly realized that there wasn't much he could add to the proceedings. Azula and Shingyung were going at it like warriors from some ancient legend, and Toru just knew enough about fighting to defend himself against pirates. What was he going to do, run up to Shingyung and hit her over the head?

Then Toru remembered the animal she had ridden in on, the shirshu. It had taken off when the parlor exploded, retreating down one of the streets leading deeper into this maze of a neighborhood, but maybe it would be back to help ambush Azula? Toru wasn't especially good with animals, but he had worked docks and ships all his life, and had helped various Fire Nation circuses with their travels, a few times. Maybe he could do something with the shirshu.

So he had followed its tracks in the dirt streets, and found it huddled and whimpering in a dead-end alley about a ways from the fight. Its dark fur almost disappeared in the shadows of the corner where it had shoved itself, where the light of the full moon was blocked by the alley walls. Toru knew shirshus by reputation, and had even seen one, one time at a distance, but something about this animal seemed off. It didn't act defensive as Toru approached; it just whined and writhed a bit in the stinking filth that covered the ground. Had Shingyung been abusing it? That seemed probable, from what Toru knew of her, but then why was the shirshu still staying so close? Why not just head for the horizon?

"Ahoy," he said in his most soothing tone, like he was speaking to a scared child. "I'm not going to hurt you. Here, are you hungry?" He fished the last of his personal jerky supply from his belt pouch and slowly placed it down on the cleanest spot he could find on ground, then backed up so that he was no longer blocking the entrance to the alley.

The shirshu stayed still for a moment, and then came forward to sniff at the jerky. When it backed up again, Toru figured his peace offering had fallen flat, but the shirshu snapped out its tongue with a noise like a whip, and a second later it was chewing enthusiastically on the captured jerky.

Toru smiled in the night air.

Azula had been expecting Shingyung to run as far as she could, so she was quite surprised when she turned a corner found herself in a small plaza with her quarry. There were a number of people milling around the square holding buckets, but Azula spotted the tall Waterbender's ponytail sticking up from behind a cluster of people. Azula raised a one of her Kyoshi fans above her head and channeled a small fire blast through it to briefly light up the night. "Out of the way! There's a dangerous criminal-"

Even before she was done with her warning, the people all scattered and ran for shelter, and Azula was left to see Shingyung finishing what looked like some kind of Waterbending movement, culminating in a motion that raised both of her hands above her head. Then Azula saw, in the bright moonlight, what Shingyung had been standing next to the whole time.

It was a water pump, buried low in the ground at the center of the plaza.

Ash and Unagi breath.

The ground sang like a dying camelephant, then broke apart with force that would have impressed even Toph. Azula's view of Shingyung was suddenly blocked by the river that had exploded up from the center of the plaza.

Azula backed up as fast as she could but the water traveled even faster and she was nearly knocked off her feet by the force of the flow. She stumbled back against a ramshackle house, and water lapped up all around her to soak up to her knees. Azula looked back to the source, still streaming with all the foam and force of a rapids, and realized what Shingyung had unleashed. It was one of the city's underground aqueducts. Cities like Yang had such large populations living in them that nothing but the world's greatest rivers could supply enough water, so the architects of the Earth Kingdom had devised underground tunnels that would slope up and down in such a way as to let the water's own momentum carry it long distances. The Fire Nation had learned well from the canals and ducts it captured, and used the same principles to supply its own colonial cities.

And now Shingyung had turned them to her own use. It was a trap; it had to be. Shingyung had known that an aqueduct was buried beneath the plaza, such a short distance from her massage parlor. She had led Azula here, away from the burning building, to this unquenchable supply of water.

Azula was starting to grasp that she might have made a small tactical error.

She immediately tried run back the way she came, but slipped in the mud that the street had been turned into and nearly fell face-first into the streaming water. She grabbed at the building she had been leaning against and pulled herself back to her feet. She was just considering trying to climb up to escape via the rooftop when she heard a shift in the noise of the rushing water and instinctively threw herself backwards into the wider plaza. A full wave of water crashed down where Azula had been standing, pounding the home with enough force to collapse the wall and bring the roof down.

The force sent heavy ripples through the water. The plaza was starting to look more like a lake now. Was the water naturally being dammed up? Or-

"We've played with fire for long enough, I think," came Shingyung's breathy, sing-song voice. Azula turned to find the Waterbender standing with hands on her hips a distance away. "Welcome to my world, my delicious little pet."

Azula, of course, flicked her fans to bat out a flurry of fireballs, but a quick swish of Shingyung's hand was enough to raise a wave of water large enough to fully block and quench them. By the time the swell was allowed to fall again, Shingyung had taken a proper Waterbending stance.

She met Azula's stare and gave a laugh that dripped with easy confidence.

Azula was starting to give thought more to surviving this fight than winning it. She had blundered into this trap, and her retreats were cut off. Like a Firebender, like a Kyoshi Warrior, she had to face her opponent and meet offense with offense. She tried dashing at Shingyung, but even though she stepped carefully to account for the mud and moving water, it was slow going. She managed to get a kind of wide-legged run going when the Waterbender finally deigned to react. After a single flick of motion on Shingyung's part, Azula suddenly found herself at the center of a hailstorm.

Her armor deflected some of the flying ice flechettes but that only protected her chest and limbs, leaving her midriff and joints covered only by flexible leather, and the ice was sharp enough to punch right through that material. She brought her armored forearms up to protect her face, and then took a Kyoshi Aikido stance and brought her war fans into play. She snapped them out to cover her face and middle, making for a symphony of ice tinkling against metal, and then when she thought she had the pattern of the attack, she broke into further motion. With each step, she moved one fan back to provide defense while whipping the other out to unfurl a wave of flame meant to melt the incoming flechettes. However, she was standing knee deep in an artificial lake, under the full moon, and was soaking wet from her earlier dive. The fires that unfurled like wings from her fans were far smaller and thinner than those she had made back at the burning massage parlor.

It just wasn't enough. One half-melted razor managed to get past her defenses to scratch deeply along the back of her left hand, and another nicked her chin. This was still a losing proposition unless she could get closer, quickly.

Azula would simply have to get creative.

She started another awkward dash towards the distant Shingyung, holding her fans out in front of her to block the bulk of the razor hail and ignoring the rest that bit into her skin, and then began breathing as fast and deeply as she could manage without hyperventilating. On her fifth step, she turned her exhalation into a shouted kiai and pushed her Qi down through her body into her feet, swinging her arms out to the side like the wings of a hawk. Fire exploded from the soles of her boots, and Azula rose up through the water. A few steps later, she was running atop the water. Just two steps later, she was rocketing across the water like a Fire Nation jet ski.

Azula swerved out of the razor hailstorm and began spiraling in towards where Shingyung had taken a position at the center of the plaza beside the still-surging aqueduct. Shingyung immediately extended her arms and began moving in a slow dance, and the surface of the 'lake' responded by churning and peaking like waves in the ocean. Azula skipped over them as easily as a sailboat but the motion delayed her enough to allow Shingyung to grab at the water at her feet and pull out larger icicle shapes with unmistakably fine points.

Azula got a very good look at them when they started flying towards her.

One bounced off Azula's chest armor, and another two missed when she swerved around them, but a fourth was aimed right where Azula's head was angled, and she had to twitch to the side to keep the icicle from punching right into her skull. It was close enough that it still caught her skin, a sting that melted into the sticky warmth of blood. Then Azula was finally close to Shingyung, and she brought her arms up to launch some fireballs, but the Waterbender threw her own arms wide and the water retreated instantly from beneath Azula's feet.

Suddenly she was less rocketing across the surface of a lake than skidding face-first into the mucky ground.

When Azula rose, her vision clouded with a mix of mud and the blood leaking from her forehead, Shingyung was waiting for her with a sword of ice in each hand. Cold water once more rushed in to settle just below Azula's knees, and Shingyung said, "It seems first blood goes to me, if such a thing has any value." She swung her swords up and crossed them in front of her. "First or last, I'll take your delicious blood any way I can get it. Come, Princess Azula, let's test your shiny fans against my frigid fangs." Then she giggled and struck like a viper, stabbing out with both her swords, and Azula had to bring her fans up too quickly to even consider calling for any fire. Azula's training let her deflect the blades to the sides, but Shingyung spun in place to slice again with her right sword. Azula tried to duck beneath it, but the other sword came up in a cross swing that took both war fans to block.

Even with weapons, Shingyung fought like a Waterbender, flowing all her attacks together into a chain that hammered at Azula's defenses with the relentlessness of the surf against a shore. Azula was limited to retreating only a step at a time thanks to the water and mud weighing down her boots, and couldn't find an opportunity to make an attack of her own. If she wanted a shot at Shingyung, she'd have to sacrifice something to get it.

Well, that was doable.

When Shingyung tried another stab with her left sword, Azula allowed it pass between her fans and took the strike fully on her breastplate. The force of the blow pounded her chest painfully and she was worried for a moment that it had punched through, but then she heard the metallic scraping and realized that the rounded design of the armor was working as intended, guiding the tip of the sword to scrape along to the side instead of piercing the plate. Azula pushed forward, knocking Shingyung's other sword out of line with her left fan, and then brought her right fan up to pound the side Shingyung's head like she was swinging a hammer. She let loose a kiai and burst of Qi as she struck, and was rewarded with a little pop of heat and light that made Shingyung shriek in agony.

The Waterbender stumbled back, but Azula refused to give up her advantage and tried to grab at Shingyung without letting go of her fans. All she managed was hooking her fingers into a sleeve of the other's dress, and Azula tried to bring her left fan over for another hit, but Shingyung flailed her arms, bringing her swords back into play. Azula held on and attempted to angle around the ice blades but then there was the flash of frigid crystal in her vision, a tearing sound, and suddenly Azula was stumbling back to crash into the water.

She shook her head to clear the darkness that seemed to be clouding her conscious, then realized that it was just more blood from her head wound running into her eyes. She tucked her fans back into her belt, took the dress sleeve that she had held onto, and tied it around her head to bandage the cut. Hopefully, that would hold.

"Ha ha," Shingyung wheezed. Azula looked, and had to swallow against her revulsion at the damage she had inflicted. The left side of Shingyung's face was already darkening with bruises that almost seemed to complement the bright light of the full moon, but the whole patch of skin between her eye and her ear was red and wet with blisters. "There's my exquisite Princess. Trying to turn the whole world into a mirror of your brother? Perhaps Dong Min didn't purify you as much as he thought. Our damages run deep, don't they, sister?"

Azula's only response was a Firebending punch. However, she was tired, injured, and sitting in the mud with water coming up to her chest. The flame was thin and watery in the air, and Shingyung batted it away with a single slice of her ice swords.

At least the fire was still blue.

Shingyung licked her lips and grinned, scrunching her burned skin. "Why don't you go for a swim?" She raised both swords above her head, and just as Azula was about to try to take advantage of the lack of defense, all the water around her rushed in and rose upward, suddenly making the lake much deeper in the area where she was sitting. Deep enough to completely cover her head. Azula flailed for a moment, then slammed both her boots and her fists into the same spot of mud, and pushed her will as strongly as she could.

The resulting explosion sent her flying back in a massive spray of water. The ride was its own torture, as Azula skipped backwards along the surface of the lake with each impact hammering at her armored body, until she slammed up against something solid and unyielding with enough force to knock the wind from her lungs. She was sprawled across the object- a beam of broken wood? As she gasped for air, Azula looked around, and realized she was back where she started, in the wreckage of the house that Shingyung's first wave attack had collapsed. The walkway she had taken to the plaza was blocked by the remains, and Azula had crashed into them. Finally catching her breath, she pushed herself up off the wooden beam, and tried to come up with some kind of plan to save herself, when-

-when a blade of ice stabbed straight into the back of Azula's right hand to nail her to the wooden beam.

Azula screamed.

She was grabbed by her shoulder and roughly turned, and Azula found herself in Shingyung's grip. The soaked Waterbender beamed down at her, the burn on her face glistening furiously. "Does that hurt, little girl? Does it make you want to behave?"

Azula stifled her own cries of pain and tried to summon the fire, but the agony continued to rattle down from her hand and she could feel the bones in her hand scraping up against the ice. What warmth she could summon seemed to be leaking out from her wounds, from her hand and her forehead and all the little scrapes she had accumulated.

"Still you think you own your fate, little girl?" Shingyung gave a giggle. "You must enjoy the punishments. That's what they told me. If you like it so much, I shall give you more. Then we'll talk about how you can thank me." Shingyung yanked at Azula's shoulder again, pulling and twisting her so that her pinned arm was extended along the wooden beam. Then Shingyung slid her hand down Azula's other arm, extending that along the beam as well, and Azula just had time to realize what her enemy intended-

-when the other ice sword was shoved into the palm of Azula's left hand, sinking deeply into the wood.

Azula screeched her throat raw.

Through the pain, she was barely aware of Shingyung working on the swords, partially liquefying the shafts and shaping the water to encase both of Azula's forearms and the wooden beam, completely trapping her. Then she swept into Waterbending motions, and the waters beneath them moved and swirled to lift Azula up. She floated atop a wave back to the center of the plaza, near where the aqueduct continued to spill ammunition for Shingyung into the flooded square. Azula pushed through the pain pulsing from her impaled hands and began to wonder what Shingyung planned, if the Waterbender was going to drop Azula into the underground river and let it sweep her away to unknown parts, but then she felt a wave of cold and the waters beneath her began to solidify.

Azula came to abrupt halt, the shaft of wood frozen in place, and the water supporting her suddenly fell.

Azula's body dropped briefly, slamming to a stop to hang suspended by her pinned arms from atop a pillar of ice, body stretched out across the wooden beam at her back.

The pain was excruciating-

-breathing became like shrieks-

-no, couldn't breathe-

-hanging from the crossbeam-

-pulled down by her own weight-

-compressing her chest-

-so tight-

-strangled-

-by-

-ribs-

-have to-

-lift-

-bones grinding together-

-screaming-

Azula didn't need to think to know that she would be dead in minutes.

Toru and Meisai arrived in time to see Shingyung raise up Azula's body on a pillar of ice. The Princess hung by her arms, and looked like she was trying to scream with agony but couldn't find the strength.

"Droppings and ash," Meisai hissed. "We need to help her!"

Toru just nodded. He didn't want to send his daughter into harm's way, but he had already betrayed Azula once for what was supposed to be the good of his family, and Meisai had made her thoughts about that more than clear. "Get as close as you need to do what we planned. I'll handle things back here."

Meisai didn't even bother acknowledging him; she just dashed from their hiding place into the lake-like plaza and began following the edges around. Other people were emerging from homes and buildings to see what was going on now that the fighting was over, and Shingyung laughed at their attention. "Have you come for a show? You're in luck, then! You're just in time to witness the death of Princess Azula of the Fire Nation! The symbol of all the suffering we have felt- of all the damage inflicted by the war and chaos that came after- will now cleave her spirit and body before us today! And I am her killer! I was made to be her killer! All of my hate and love and loathing and desire made me better than her! I can survive anything!"

Toru shook his head as Shingyung twirled like a dancer at the center of her own lake and the crowd murmured with audible fear. He patted the animal beside him and said, "Easy, boy. I'll help you get rid of her once and for all."

The shirshu whined and shook, but stayed put.

Then a warm light flared amidst the crowds across from Toru, and shot out to become a long thin line like a dragging tail. It sizzled where it dangled into the water, and people shoved away to reveal Meisai standing in their midst and holding a whip of fire. Without banter or war cries, she flicked the whip out to strike at Shingyung. The Waterbender reacted smoothly, summoning waves of her own water right in front of herself to block, but the fire whip didn't even strike them. It just cracked the air in front of the Waterbender.

But Meisai's attack wasn't meant to actually hit anything.

It was just meant to direct.

"Now," Toru shouted, "strike!"

The shirshu made an enthusiastic sound and flicked its tongue in the same direction as the sound of Meisai's cracking fire whip.

Which, given its position, meant that its tongue lashed Shingyung right on her undefended back, slicing through the fabric of her dress.

Toru cheered and rubbed the shirshu's head, but then he noticed that the Waterbender wasn't falling. Instead, she was turning around with a thunderous expression. "That," she wheezed heavily, "wasn't very harmonious with my mood."

"Uh oh." Wasn't shirshu venom supposed to paralyze people?

Shingyung moved into a Waterbending stance, and Toru began to think that it was time to get out of there, but the shirshu was growling and holding its ground. Fine time for it to develop a backbone.

Then a war cry sounded, and Shingyung spun to defend herself from Meisai's attack. Their fight immediately started moving too quickly for Toru to keep track, and he could only hope that his daughter would be able to hold her own for long enough. He turned to the shirshu and leaned over to peer into its mouth, and immediately saw the problem. There were ugly scars in the tissue around its tongue, like something had been cut and dug into. Had the venom sacks been removed? Then the creature couldn't do anything more than lash away at its victims. That wouldn't stop Shingyung.

But, he realized, it might accomplish something else.

Petting the shirshu, Toru whispered, "You can't paralyze Shingyung, but you can help Azula. Remember the woman you were hunting? She's out there, dying. She needs your help. I need you to sniff for her blood, and strike at that. Please, I need you to do this. Strike Azula. Strike Azula. Strike. Azula. Strike... Azula..."

The shirshu sniffed the air, whined, and flicked out its tongue.

Azula had no idea what was going on around her. She was aware only of her own increasing cold, of every single one of her bones, of her flattened lungs, of the burning muscles in her arms and back and chest and the way they all stretched and rubbed and hurt.

But one thing finally pierced through her haze of agony, a sound like a crack in the air and then the crunch of crumbling ice.

Her body fall a short distance but was yanked to halt when her left arm didn't fall with it. The agony in her arm flared, then there was another crack and crash and the pain suddenly came to an end as gravity took complete control. Azula into the mud and the water that stil flooded the plaza, and it was enough to cushion her. She gasped for breath and sat back against the ice pillar, feeling a hundred years old.

She was sick and tired of asphyxiation. Seriously, she hated it.

Hated it.

If Azula never suffocated again in her life, it would be too soon. Or something.

The pain still wasn't gone. Her hands bled and screamed whenever she moved them. Her whole body ached. She wanted to shrug off her armor and just sleep. But she heard a sound like laughter. A voice that belonged to someone Azula was pretty sure she hated. She lurched to her feet, and looked over to where Shingyung was fighting... Meisai?

Had to save Meisai. Meisai was a friend.

Azula dragged herself to her feet and stalked over to the fight while Shingyung battered away at Meisai's defenses with arms covered in water and ice. She got up right behind Shingyung and untied the ripped sleeve from around her head, and then she threw her arms around the Waterbender, ignoring the pain in her pierced hands, and used the silk sleeve to tie her own wrists together as swift and as surely as all Kyoshi Warriors were trained.

She was locked into an embrace with Shingyung. The Waterbender whipped her head around and gasped, "You?"

"We both heal, or we both die." Then Azula took a deep breath threw herself into the gushing aqueduct, yanking Shingyung along with her.

The weight of both their bodies, including the weight of Azula's armor, dragged them right through the surging water to sink to the bottom of the stone tunnel.

The water rushed over them like a thriving river, but it wasn't enough to drag them away. In the dark of the underground, Shingyung struggled against Azula's grip, but it was futile. She hadn't had time to take a breath before this, and with her arms pinned, her Waterbending options were severely limited. Azula held her own breath and waited, eager to see how Shingyung liked not being able to use her lungs. The Waterbender's wiggles grew more frantic but Azula tightened her grip. She wanted so much to breathe after nearly dying on that crossbeam, but there was no way she could beat Shingyung as long as she was injured like this; it was time for a new round. Shingyung threw her head backwards, likely in an attempt to butt Azula, but it was slowed by the water and did nothing but nudge Azula's nose. Azula held on, and began to worry that Shingyung would let them both drown here.

Then the water around them began to glow blue, brighter than the moonlight, and a soothing peace moved out all over Azula's body. She had no idea how long it took, as time seemed to suspend itself in that little universe of light, but when the dark came back, Azula's aches seemed to have drifted away with the current. Her hands no longer felt like broken toys.

She shifted her restored body to coil her legs beneath her, and then pushed the last of her breath into her Qi just as she jumped. She and Shingyung rocketed up with the power of Fire and burst out of the aqueduct tunnel. They hung in the air for a moment before crashing down onto the muddy ground, Shingyung taking the brunt of the impact with a wheezing grunt. Azula renewed her own close relationship with air and used it to push fire out of her hands, quickly drying and burning the silk binding.

She also just so happened to burn Shingyung's stomach in the process.

Oh well.

Azula stood up in the mud, and noticed that with Shingyung's concentration broken, the water in the plaza was receding, likely draining into the city. Best not to rely on that, though, and Azula's memories provided the answer. Ty Lee had taught all the Kyoshi Warriors the basics of Qi-blocking, and while Azula had never gotten good enough to use them in full combat, she could handle a helpless opponent. She leaned over Shingyung, formed an arrow-fist, punched her in very specific spots once on each limb, and Shingyung's arms and legs went limp in response. Azula couldn't help but wonder if the idea had only occurred to her because of the healing her mind had done in Ba Sing Se, but now was no time to go over all her memories of the last half a year to see if there was any point where Qi-blocking should have occurred to her. Azula looked up and checked out the rest of the situation.

It seemed she had an audience.

A crowd of people were gathered at the edges of the devastated plaza and were watching her with an undisguised mix of fear and fascination. Even as Azula examined them, a squad of spearmen from the City Watch ran into the plaza from one of the leaking waterways. Meisai was also there, and approached Azula with relief on her face. "And here I was actually worried for you," she said.

Azula smiled wryly. "I was actually worried about me, too. And a little for you, of course, but I kind of had holes in my hands at the time. That was distracting." She bowed low to Meisai. "But really, thank you for your help. You saved my life." Rising again, she nodded over at the crowd. "Who are these people?"

"Locals, I guess. Shingyung told them who you are."

"Is that so?" Azula took a deep breath, promising herself that she would never ever let anyone stop her from doing that again, and made herself stand up straight. "Well then, we might as well use this opportunity."

She dragged Shingyung's limp body closer to the crowd, and gave them all- curious families, nervous soldiers, merchants and beggars and people all- her most confident gaze. "You know me. I am Azula, the Fire Princess," she projected. "In another life, I was willing to burn the world for the sake of the Fire Lord. But now... now I consider myself one of you. I have no home. My only allies are my the friends I've made here. And people like this woman- this tool of the powerful, the corrupt, and the unfeeling... people like your Governor, who betrayed me once- are trying to do what I once did. Burn you. Be it with Fire, Earth, or... yes, even Water. They will use you as fuel for the fires of their ambition. That's what this fight was about. I came to kill this woman because she hurt me, and because I discovered she will hurt everyone if not stopped. I'm sorry for what happened to your homes. Part of that is my fault. I shouldn't have waged this fight here. So, to show my regret, I... I will let you choose. What shall I do? Kill the woman? Give her to your city? Shall I leave? Surrender to your corrupt Governor? Tell me. I am your servant, now."

The crowd was silent for a moment, and then one man- a man whose red robes shone even in the light of the moon- shouted, "The Waterbender is our enemy!" An older woman, her hair in a topknot, called out in a wavering voice, "If she owns the governor, she'll go free!" A younger woman in green who clutched a girl and boy cried, "She destroyed our home!" More and more angry voices joined the call, and the City Watch tightened their grips on their spears. One call, spoken by many voices, was soon echoing through the crowd:

"Kill her."

"Kill the Water Witch."

Azula looked down at Shingyung, and was unsurprised to find an ugly grin awaiting her. "You know," the other lilted, "what the true Azula would do, my exquisite little girl."

"Yes," Azula said. The real Azula would take revenge for The Victims, for Mianju, for the manipulations and lies and beatings and stupid swords stabbed into her hands. That was one of the dreams that had motivated her to survive Ba Sing Se, to raise an army and save the colonies. She also knew what Suki would do. Suki was, at her core, an enforcer of the law. She would want formal justice for Shingyung.

But Suki would also know that there was no justice where Long Feng's corruption had spread.

Azula summoned a blue flame in her hand and concentrated her Qi so that it shrunk and intensified, becoming almost solid in its burning, peaked like the blade of a knife. "Remember when you betrayed me and Mianju, and arranged for soldiers to ambush us in that death trap of a factory?"

Shingyung sobbed, or maybe laughed. It was hard to tell which. "Oh, yes. Oh, yes yes yes yessssssssss..."

Azula raised the fire-blade as the shouts of the crowd intensified. "You deserve this. Whatever else had happened, you made the choice to be who you are. You embraced it."

"Yes. We've both had to choose who to be. We had to choose many, many times." Shingyung blinked tears out of her eyes. "Thank you for choosing to be you. I'm so satisfied I was able to see it, just once."

Then Azula struck, plunged the weapon of fire straight into Shingyung's throat. It met no real resistance, passing through flesh and bone and out again. The sounds and smells assaulted Azula's senses and she let the dying body fall into the mud and filth.

The crowd exulted, but one clear voice raised above all the others:

"SUKI, NO!"

Azula's gaze snapped to source, and saw Sokka of the Water Tribe in the moonlight, stumbling out of the crowd with horror twisting his beautiful face.

TO BE CONTINUED