Chapter 8 — Protects Mankind from Heaven and Damnation

Katara moved with the group out of the forest. Piandao and Sokka overflowed with energy and were discussing something between themselves at the front of the group. Beside her, Zuko limped awkwardly, his body still damaged from the woman's bloodbending and his hands from his own fire in his attempt to shake her control. It had put undue pressure on his joints and muscles, and he would need time to fully recover. Meanwhile, with his hands injured to that extent, his firebending would be hampered, leaving him vulnerable. Piandao was adamant that many in Shu Jing and with Yue's group wanted to kill him, and she supposed the same applied to her. Nuwa had been the one trying to kill Zuko, but whoever had made the attempt on Yue's life was still out there, and her brother had supposed she was just as good a target and her death might accomplish the same end they sought. From her time in Ba Sing Se she'd heard enough stories of the capabilities of the Dai Li, an elitely trained group of earthbenders known equally for their stealth and brutality. Even Jet had feared them—that is, until he joined.

For a moment she wondered if he might be the one who would kill her, if he hated her that much for rejecting him. It wasn't unheard of for a spurned lover to murder the object of their affection. Some stories treated it as a romantic gesture, an expression of sincere unwavering desire gone tragically awry. She didn't agree. After all, she could never imagine Zuko harming her, no matter what she did. Whoever composed those types of stories had a misunderstanding of the nature of love, perhaps never having truly felt it themselves.

Desperately wishing for a moment to sit down and finish healing his hands so he could regain his better sense of bending, she was forced instead to stay with their group. The night was chilled and quiet. The rain beat steadily and the ground was saturated into a mudfield. She knew how badly it must hurt for his burned hands to be exposed to the cold rain and hoped they could shelter indoors soon.

They rounded the corner to the aviary. The building was entirely destroyed, like it had been hit by an earthquake, and every brick was skewed out of place, leading to its partial collapse. The ground was torn up. Toph was there in a fury. She hadn't been in the bamboo grove, although they got by well enough without her ability. She began ranting about it to Piandao. "I was asleep and felt something happening, but by the time I got here it was already like this. Those Dai Li are creeping around the mansion grounds. They probably vaulted those walls with ease, and they're doing spirits know what."

Sokka hopped over the broken ground and rubble and scrabbled inside. They peeked in after. Feathers littered the ground, but the animals were not there. "They set all the hawks loose. Every last one is gone. There goes our only means of communication. We can't even borrow a bird from the town or hire any messenger now that they're subverted against us."

He crawled back out as Piandao checked the skies and treeline with a sharp eye. As he found nothing, he exhaled and pinched his face in thought. "At least, I'm pretty sure the students are on our side. None of them could be affiliated with the Dai Li."

"What about Haoran and Caishen?" Aang asked. "Caishen is still gone, and Haoran never explained what happened between them."

"That's a different matter. I already understand their situation. Regardless, I think my students and the new Kyoshi Warriors can be relied on." He didn't offer an explanation, and she assumed that the strange delivery of the Buddha's hand fruit had been some kind of coded message for them. Her brother wouldn't tell her anything more about it, taking his White Lotus business too seriously. Aang accepted it and didn't press him. "I don't think the Dai Li are satisfied with just generating a rumor about the Firelord, nor do I think they'll wait long now that Nuwa has failed her task. My next step would have been calling for backup, but that's out of the question now. They were a step ahead of us."

Zuko asked, "Do you think my family are safe?"

"If Iroh is with them, then yes. It's okay. I did contract with one ally before they destroyed our dovecote. He's in Shu Jing now, keeping an eye on things for me."

"Could we send a messenger by foot?" Aang asked.

"I'm reluctant to send any of the students out. I don't know what the Dai Li might do to them."

Toph crossed her arms. "Meanwhile, the Dai Li can slip in and out of here as they please. I don't feel them around, but I do have to sleep sometime, and I can't be everywhere at once."

"We can take turns keeping watch," Aang offered.

Katara asked, "Should we evacuate? If we can make it to the coast, Aang and I can ferry everyone to the next island, and we have Appa as well."

"I want to save the air bison for an emergency," said Piandao. "We have a large number of students, and the next island is quite far in our archipelago. We're better off staying in place. The Dai Li cannot do anything if we keep our group together." He broke his thoughts off and looked to the two of them. "Why don't you take the Firelord inside to finish his treatment?"

Suki kept guard over them as she sat Zuko on the bed. Hands were delicate, and she was scared that he had gone too far and damaged the nerves. It was around midnight already, and she hadn't slept the previous night. They stayed like that, his hands in hers under care of the healing water, until they fell asleep.

#

Katara went into the empty room that used to be Yue's and saw Suki seated at the bed, staring out the window. She and Zuko entered. "Are you okay?"

Suki was pulled from her thoughts and turned to them. Her Kyoshi outfit was gone, stashed in the town to disguise herself and save her life, and they had no spares at hand, as the other students had been too much demand. With spare fabric she'd made herself an armband in Kyoshi-green fabric, and that was all that she had left of it. Her face, in its heavy costume makeup, looked discordant with only the stolen Fire garments. "I'm fine," she said. "I was worried for Yue."

Zuko said, "While it's true that killing Yue would restart the war, it's also true that saving her from a perceived threat of assassination by Fire, real or falsified, would be just as good for their position. It depends on her, if she realizes soon enough how to negotiate for her life, but there is a chance they won't harm her."

"A chance isn't good enough. I should have done something when they were on stage, I should have reached her in time." She blinked back her emotion and set her face. "Sokka is in the next room speaking with Piandao."

They stayed with her there to wait. Yue's hair ornament and other possessions were still scattered through the room. They'd had no news of anything, and the rain continued, shifting from highs to lows and setting off occasional thunderstorm bursts. Finished speaking to Sokka, Piandao entered and said, "Let's go to dinner." Without Nuwa, the other two servants had done their best to take over her duties, one a middle-aged man long in his service he had grown up with and the other a teenage girl who had been orphaned by the war. The food supply was substantial for the time being. However, shut off from resupply and barred from the town by the angry crowd, they would not last forever. Including his students and the Kyoshi Warriors, about thirty people needed to be fed, and that pressed their stock. "Firelord, how are your injuries?"

Zuko flexed his hands. He still had difficulty walking and holding chopsticks. "Improving."

Katara whispered to him, "I still have the oasis water."

"We need to save that for something important. I'm fine like this, it's just inconvenient. I'll heal in time, between you and nature."

Appa stuck close to the mansion and was visible outside the window, occupied with his own dinner. They had a large supply of wild grass and bamboo shoots, especially after the good rain. Momo joined them, keeping close to Aang, but when he saw Zuko struggling with his utensils, the lemur ventured over to him and offered him a grape out of sympathy. Toph was keeping guard while they ate, doing a tour of the grounds with two students, and they always had someone patrolling the campus on rotation.

Sokka said, "The Dai Li can strike whenever they want, but we think it will happen within a week. If the palace doesn't receive their check-in from Zuko soon, they'll know something has gone wrong and send a regiment of the army. But it will take time for them to arrive, and they won't know that the Dai Li are their enemies, so the army could walk into an ambush and be annihilated."

Piandao stated, "In Ba Sing Se they often conduct night operations. Toph puts a check on them as she doesn't need the sunlight to see them, but I think they'll favor it anyway. Appa has poor night vision, and I presume they have taken it into account. However, they might surprise us at any time. Everyone needs to stay on guard."

Sunset was beginning. "Will they try to break Nuwa out of the room in the cellar?"

"Probably not. She can only use her bloodbending ability during the full moon. From their perspective, she is low value. I don't think they'll risk it."

"We have the Avatar, though," said a student.

"We do, but he's only one man. The Dai Li can out-maneuver him. They're experienced in fighting and accustomed to working together." Piandao had taken Aang aside earlier. She didn't know what they said, but he had been quiet since then. "As for how the Dai Li work, they will try to subdue opponents as efficiently as possible. They do not fight one-on-one. If they bind someone with earthbending, we have only two earthbenders on our side who can free them, and they may be able to outpace us. That's not to say they won't kill you—I have no doubt they would not hesitate to take a life. But they work with targeted speed and precision. Of our students, we have four firebenders, including Haoran. The rest are nonbenders at various stages of weapons proficiency." Some only had a few months of training, no better than children, whereas the Dai Li were an elite force.

They had been filling rainbarrels to place around the campus, and especially nearby the mansion, for Katara and Aang to utilize. However, the ground itself they stood on was a minefield, as the lava tunnels could be collapsed from under their feet, which was a dangerous situation. It was thought only the runs close to the surface would have a weapons-grade effect, and those areas had been shown them and marked off as dangerous to be near. In building the mansion, the ground had been tested, and its foundations were assumed solid, though that meant little to an earthbender.

Additionally, Zuko—their strongest firebender—was impaired. Katara didn't feel good about their chances.

They were encouraged to stay in a large group whenever possible and to never stray off alone, so one of the larger rooms on the top floor, away from the ground which could be vulnerable to manipulation, had been converted to a communal sleeping area, with all their bedding sprawled out across the wooden floor. Her sleep was punctuated with anxiety, and, despite having Zuko at her side again, they were surrounded by the sounds of others sleeping, half at a time on rotation to stand guard. His injuries were healing by the day, but their overall strength as a group was draining through the more stress they suffered waiting. The larger riots had quelled, but a protest group held outside the mansion during the day, demanding the Firelord be turned over to them. Piandao forbade Zuko from presenting himself, as all it took was one arrow.

Two nights in they were awakened to a loud bang. She darted up, her mind in panic that the Dai Li were beginning, but Suki, who had heard it, said to wait. Nothing further happened. A group went to investigate and it was reported to have been a singular incidence of a firework tossed by an irate local resident venting his grievance by disturbing their sleep. She tossed awake for hours after, but, when it came her turn to stand guard with several students for patrol, she was tired enough to have fallen asleep on her feet.

Five days in, there was no question. The foundation began to shake. A student, dashing in from her shift of patrol, began shouting at everyone to wake up while the support beams of the mansion groaned as if the building would come down on their heads. "We need to evacuate."

In a sleep-dulled disorder they and the two schools of students assembled outside under a starry night sky. The rain had cleared, four days without a drop, but Katara felt the barrels still filled in their various caches ready for her use. Toph knelt beside the mansion, earthbending towards the ground trying to keep the building up while hidden agents worked to topple it from underground. "Aang, you'd better flush them out from the tunnels or we're losing the main building."

Earthbending in the same style as her, he shut his eyes trying to pinpoint them from their hiding places. For everyone else they could do nothing but stand at ready, their footing untrustworthy and the landscape around them dark and soundless. Momo, sensing the danger, leapt off Aang's shoulder and took to the air.

Below them, the ground tore apart.

#

Once, as a child, Zuko had witnessed an earthquake caused by volcanic activity on a neighboring island in their archipelago. During a fire or an emergency or even an enemy attack, there was something concrete to direct their energy towards, a clear plan of action evident from the first moment that carried them mentally and physically through the event, giving them a target for their energy and a vent for their urge to action. In an earthquake there was simply nothing that could be done. If the planet itself decided to begin an assault, not even his father had a say over it, and the only thing to do was wait and see if you would live, if it would reside, or if the spirits had decided to end the world. He had no pretext for what to do when the ground cracked apart.

He was falling sideways in a confusion of screaming voices. His hand reached out in a blind impulse. Katara, who had been beside him, shouted his name and reached for him—his fingertips grazed her hand, and then they separated.

Toph's voice.

The ground undulated like an ocean wave. His direction changed. His body was thrown. A distance away he landed hard on the grass, rolled with the momentum, and came to rest. On his knees he tried to make sense of what had happened.

Roofing tiles clattered and fell like a landslide off the slope of the collapsing structure. Pillars cracked apart like trees on a mountain being wiped out in a mudslide. The mansion slanted and corners disjoined, then walls and floors and support beams collapsed with explosion-like booms as the foundation liquefied.

Toph had abandoned holding it up to instead save them. As the ground had opened into a chasm, she had taken what remained below their legs and flung them away from the opening abyss. What remained of where they'd stood was a crater. Piandao had been wrong, and it didn't matter how deep the lava tunnel was when they had over a dozen master-level earthbenders working in unity.

"Scatter, spread out so they can't target you!" Toph yelled. Aang, his footing salvaged by airbending, had freedom of movement even without coherent ground, and he raced in pursuit. With a motion of his raising arms, he lifted up a scoop of earth and flung it outward. In the spray of stone chips and soil was a man in dark clothing.

Toph, stomping and wrenching at the underground enemy, Aang uprooting them like weeds, and the students scrambling over the broken ground to engage them once exposed led to a confusion of vying actions like fighting ghosts. Piandao could draft any battle strategy he liked, but what resulted was pandemonium.

He sighted a spout of dirt Toph dug out and ran towards where it would impact. Zuko dodged back, his knees and ankles stiff from the previous trauma in an ache that would slowly worsen with the strain of each action, and a punch of compact rock flew past where he would have been, grazing his chest at a rapid speed. The fragmented earth she had excavated landed empty in a wide spray of impact—she had missed her target—and an enemy targeted him from another position than that which he'd been paying attention to. His footing yanked from under his feet and he fell.

Water streamed past and stabbed to the spot the attack had come from. Katara ran to him, and the enemy was already out of sight, blending back into the darkness. He punched flame towards the last position known and cringed as his damaged hands throbbed. There was nothing but emptiness.

Dust accumulated. Night, already black, choked on plumes, and he sucked in a lungful of air only to cough short-winded. The stars gradually disappeared, and the moon alone was strong enough to shine through. Battle appeared in flashes of differentiated currents breaking the dust plume. He threw a shot of fire and the air around him ignited along with it. Flames raced across the surface of every dust particle. The small scale explosion was carried away from him with a strong gust. Another firebender on the other side of the field didn't have the same luck. As he shot out, a fireball blasted out around him.

"Damn it!" He had his dao, but his use of them would be even less able than his firebending with his injury.

Blasts continued to upend the earth. Bomb-like chunks were being ripped out and hurtled across the field as Aang and Toph kept pursuit. Chips of stone pelted them like hail. No matter how careful they were, the scene was too intermixed and chaotic for the pair to track everyone accurately while hunting out the Dai Li.

Katara whipped a line of water around them, catching debris and halving itself through its arc, and was depleted by the time it splashed against her target. The Dai Li stumbled but would soon right himself. In that moment Zuko raced out and tackled him.

The ground sank under them both, and Zuko yelled, "Katara, now!" A dagger of ice slammed into the agent's shoulder, kept small enough to miss Zuko who was grappling him. The changes to the earth stopped and he hauled the agent out of the forming sinkhole and threw him on the ground. Katara froze his hands together, then paused, needing to search and gather more water from what had dispersed.

With his legs he began another bending motion, and Zuko kneed him from his beginning stance, then bashed his nose out with an elbow. They tussled, and then the water flowed in. The man's feet were pulled together and frozen there. Blood wept from his injury and he wished she had stabbed deeper.

"Get down!" She was taken sidelong by a Kyoshi Warrior as a boulder impacted where she'd been standing. The two women skid across the ground. She pulled a fan out, the golden color washed to grey in the moonlight.

A rumble pierced his stomach. Undefended, a section of wall crashed down. Its material was converted to projectiles. Across the intermixed field, a volley of huge stones rocketed out.

Bright light flashed. Wind swept from the opposite direction hard enough to knock him off his feet. All the upkicked dust was sucked out with it, leaving him a taste of clean air, and the volley was checked. The opposing forces exploded against each other. Pebbles and shrapnel burst out.

He remembered Ember Island, his father colliding with the awakened Avatar State, and the incomprehensible attacks.

In the cleared air, free from the risk of a particle explosion in the wake of the airbending counter and before the arrival of the debris, Zuko lit a canopy of fire that turned the field to daylight for one precious moment of sight.

Air tinged scented with scorched soil and the descent of the debris was partially blocked as half of it burned off overhead. In that second of clear sight their allies located the attackers. Then everything faded again to darkness.

The fight resumed. The last remnants of the mansion came to rest in a heap of remains and a crater. The Avatar had gained a look as well, and screams of three men overhead were held suspended somewhere in the air. Their bodies were flung, and three impacts followed on the extremes of the field.

Swords and fans clashed with stone projectiles. The ground shifted continually from the continued body of their attempted attacks and Toph's attempt to hold the fabric of the field together so they would not be swallowed into the abyss or crushed.

His hands and arms ached beyond tolerance. The last wave of flame was larger than responsible. If he could do it once more, if Aang could sweep out the dust once more and give him a chance to illuminate everything for them, they could have a chance to do more than defend blindly while attacked from all sides.

Five barrels of water formed a flood that swept across the ground and took an agent in the current. It sounded like a large wave crashing against a ship hull, and the target flew to the far reaches.

I can't yell loud enough to tell him, and in that state he isn't reasonable, taken over by instinct and past experience.

Doing another wave of that fire over the entire field might kill me. I'll never be able to use my hands again.

Fire swelled in the sky, unfolding like a rose coming to bloom. It wasn't Aang, and he didn't think any of the students advanced enough. What was above them, above the wafting dust clouds that threatened to ignite them along in the explosion, safely above, was a miniature sun.

It wasn't any color he recognized. He knew Azula's blue and his own standard, but what he witnessed was a different element.

Could fire be that many colors?

Everyone on the ground was illuminated. In the direction of the gateway created by the collapsing section of wall, an army had arranged itself—his army. In Fire Nation armor, ready with spears and animal mounts, his own army had arrived.

"Subdue the Dai Li! Charge!"

He recognized that voice. They were the guard stationed in Caldera City, his own men.

They swept across the field. The Dai Li tried to run for it, the half of them who remained, but couldn't escape. Students, well or injured, remained in place while the dark-outfitted attackers were run down, outnumbered ten to one. Toph and Aang, his arrows still flowing in vibrant white, prevented even a single agent from earthbending by preemptively taking hold over the ground through the entire battlefield.

In two minutes it was over. The unfathomable sun above faded, disappearing with flickers of every color he could name, but darkness was held at bay. In the east the sun was rising. As the dust settled, the moon compensated, and they could see each other and the successful army regiment as they took the Dai Li into custody.

"Katara?"

"I'm here, Zuko. I'm fine. Are you okay?"

"I'm alright." They found each other and stood side by side.

A man walked towards them. His wide-brimmed hat was discarded and his clothing changed into a casual outfit, revealing much more of his skin, which was marred in stripes of red and pink flames. He raised a hand as he approached. "You really had me deceived in Ba Sing Se. Only afterward I found out you were a firebender after all." He held no weapon, but had a knife strapped to his thigh. His raised hand was streaked in red scarring, and a blue ribbon was tied around his wrist. "So, how about it? Hit me with some fire. What are you waiting for?"

Despite feigning aggression with his words, his tone was level, and he made no motion to attack them. Katara pulled a measure of water from what remained on the ground and readied herself for a fight. Zuko held a hand in front of her and stopped her. "You've been lying this whole time, haven't you?" said Zuko.

"Have I?" Jet replied.

"Yes, you have. You've never been on the side of the Dai Li."

"Why do you think that?" Someone else had noticed them and was walking over to meet them.

"You wouldn't hurt Katara. It's right there, in your eyes and on your wrist."

The captain of the royal guard regiment stood next to Jet as he said, "You found me out. This is Captain Touwa. I believe you're acquainted." The captain made a flame salute. "Katara, were you really going to waterbend at me?"

Confused and frustrated, she snapped, "Why shouldn't I?" even as she lowered the water, sensing the true situation.

"Your boyfriend trusts me more than you do. That kind of hurts." He looked over his shoulder at the final motions of the army in making its arrests. The sunrise inched up every second higher and the light level gradually rose. "I joined the Dai Li to take their money and their training. I was living in the Lower Ring, I saw what they did and how they treated people, and I always hated them. Then, they announced this operation. They thought I would jump at a chance to kill the Firelord, and I let them think that and went with them in order to stop them, to save you, Katara."

"I don't want to hear that from you," she said. "If you knew what they were planning you should have told us, you should have prevented this."

"The Earth King is the only one with the authority to disband them. I had no choice but to wait for hard evidence, until they had made their move and I had witnesses to corroborate my testimony. By then I had the army prepared and ready to overtake the battle."

"How long did you know about this?"

"They've been looking for an excuse to restart the war since the new Firelord was crowned. A war-time state keeps them powerful and gives them special privileges. If they could get Water and Fire to go to war, leaving Earth out of it, they would have prospered and the Earth Kingdom would have an opportunity to invade the Fire Nation and take revenge for a hundred years of antagonism. The Earth King opposed a new war, so they had to take matters into their own hands to instigate one without his knowledge, somewhere far from his oversight."

"You sat there and let this happen. People could have died."

The captain spoke for him, "The boy did what he could. If Xiao Dan had sensed his intention to betray them, they would have had him killed. Being the only nonbender put him in a difficult situation. There was no way he could win against all of them. Besides which, no one would have believed him. I certainly would not have unless I saw this scene for myself. When he sent that message I almost threw it away."

"What message?"

Piandao ran over towards them, bleeding from several gashes but largely fine. He put his hands on his knees to catch his breath, then greeted the pair. "What a battle. I'm feeling my age."

Jet explained, "Before they destroyed the aviary, I sent out a hawk to Caldera City to inform the captain that Zuko's life was in danger and they needed to send the army."

Captain Touwa said, "This young man saved your lives, and he risked his own to do it. The Dai Li, in their own way, are more brutal than our own military towards traitors. They would not have given him an easy death."

"Why did the Dai Li trust you so much?" Zuko asked.

"They assumed I hated you for taking Katara from me. They were right."

"But you helped us anyway?"

"Katara," he addressed her. "I meant it when I said I admire you. You know, I was doing all this to save you, not him. If you were in the Fire Nation when this happened, you would be caught in the middle and might get hurt, or they might try to target you to remove him and check Aang's power. They don't like the fact that the Firelord and the Avatar were so friendly. Don't you know how terrifying that is for the other nations?" His expression softened. "So, after all I've done, would you give me a chance? Be with me again."

"I love Zuko."

A flicker of anger dissolved into disappointment, and he seemed to come to terms with it. "Fine. I won't forget you, but I will let you go where you want." He turned to Zuko. "However nice you act now, whatever aid and charity you hand out, just know that none of it will ever bring back the people murdered by Fire soldiers, and no one will ever forget who they lost."

"I know. I lost my sister to this war. She's just as far gone as these Dai Li are, and I'll never have her back."

Jet snorted, then shoved a finger against his own mottled flesh, rippled with scarring from raw flames. "Your sister gave me all this. If you slip into her ways, if a single Fire Nation soldier kills someone on Earth soil, I'll be back for you, and I'll make you look this way too even if I have to do it with a knife."

"Then I'm glad to say I'll never see you again," spat Zuko. "I'm not my sister, and I'm not my father, either."

Jet sneered at that outburst, nodded to the captain, then turned to leave, the ribbon still tied at his wrist, pristine and safeguarded through the entire event.

#

While Zuko spoke to the captain, Katara slipped away and followed Jet. They didn't go far—it was Aang he had wanted to speak to.

"Avatar," Jet addressed him. Aang had just come down from the Avatar State and was uneasy on his feet. He wavered and fell to kneeling, and Jet, almost in a sympathetic manner, extended a hand to help him back to his feet. Aang took it, and Jet continued, "I need someone to come with me back to Ba Sing Se to speak to the Earth King. I'm the most junior member of the Dai Li and my words alone have little weight. Captain Touwa is writing a letter for me but cannot return with me. You, however, would be sufficient as a witness to convince him to imprison the Dai Li and break up their power. The group who came here are only one division of their total number, and their leader remains in the city."

"Will the Earth King respect my word on it?"

"Yes. He is on your side, the side of peace—never doubt that. I want to wipe the corruption out of the Earth Kingdom."

Aang replied, "I'll be there to help you."

"I also need to borrow some local forces to help us escort the Dai Li back, since I can't do it alone."

"I'll speak to Piandao and Suki, but I believe we can cover you. This would be a great learning experience for the students."

"Thank you." He turned back then, as he must have after all been aware of her presence, and he looked into her eyes a long time, showing her some depth of the hurt lingering there and the layers of entwined emotions. He turned without comment and went to oversee the collection of the agents, who were being secured and counted out. Toph continued to pace around, trying to clear the area, while Jet reported their total agent number to make sure they had accounted for everyone involved.

Katara smiled to Aang, then went back to find Zuko. The captain was on his way back to the soldiers. Zuko had been forced into firebending, and she was anxious to tend to his injured hands, but he was speaking with Piandao and another man. She recognized the scar running down his face. The three were in hues of orange-pink from the sunrise.

"Oh, Katara," said Piandao as she walked over. "Take a moment and rest. When we get the students accounted for I'm sure there will be injuries, but for the time being it looks like we have no emergency cases. I'm sure you recognize Master Jeong Jeong. He was watching the town for me while we were sequestered here. Captain Touwa was not very impressed with Jet's letter, but Jeong Jeong also sent him a note, which prompted the army along at a slightly faster rate." He must have been the firebender to create the sun-like illumination overhead.

The man was not in a good mood and looked ready to start a fight himself. Having barely held off while the captain had been present, they had sufficient privacy for him to stride forward and jab a finger into Zuko's chest. "Idiot boy!" he shouted. Zuko was pushed off balance and nearly fell, while Piandao shook his head in disapproval. Jeong Jeong berated him, "I watched your stage performance. Your father would have never lost his calm that way. You are the Firelord—it is your job to command. If you can't do that, you won't be Firelord for long. Instead you let some unarmed country peasants run you out of town." He turned to Piandao, saying, "You're too easy on the little prince. Given an entire month I would have thought you would teach him something to fill out his empty head."

Piandao had a scattering of small injuries. Despite being a nonbender, he'd been front and center for the fighting, and a trickle of blood ran down his forehead into his eye. Piandao cracked a smile, then laughed. "Perhaps he could use another teacher. How would you like to take up the position for a while?"

"My last student was experience enough in teaching an angry idiot."

Zuko walked forwards and shoved his hand into the man's chest. "Enough. You will not insult me further."

Jeong Jeong grinned. "Better. I'll consider it. Your firebending form is sloppy."

"Then correct it," replied Zuko. The man stepped back and made a flame gesture with his hands while looking amused.

At that point Sokka called her over and she was presented with the students most in need of healing. The mansion, in the background, no longer existed; it had collapsed in on itself and was a pile of rubble completely destroyed. In the cellar, Nuwa was certainly already dead, and Katara tried not to feel relief in that. She gathered water and knelt before the first patient of the day, thinking that it would be quite a long day, and it would be good if the students indeed went to Ba Sing Se as escort, because they no longer had any facilities there until the academy could be rebuilt. The broken ground was a disaster zone, and the army regiment were fitting chains around the captured Dai Li. Some of them might not survive the trip across the ocean, and she certainly wasn't going to be the one giving them medical treatment.

A boy around seventeen, no older than Aang, was badly burned by his own firebending gone wrong in the dusty conditions, and she laid a water-covered hand on his cheek to begin.

#

A/n:

Touwa 東和 – Eastern peace