A/N: CONTENT/TRIGGER WATCHING! MAJOR CHARACTER DEATHS! And this half-written story is horror at best, the kind where the hero still dies in the end. Love and be loved. Read… and review!
How Do You Want to Die?
[Early 158 AG]
[DAY 7]
The air gusts backwards and very nearly blows her over, whipping in her ears. The snow all around kicks up and whitewashes everything as if Katara was shrouded by a blizzard. However, as fast as a flash of lightning, the snow and the wind come to a halt. There's a smell of fresh powder and dragon's hide leaving her behind. She looks up, a lump in her throat and a dryness in her mouth that she can not deny.
She had spent her entire adult life caretaking after Bakunawa with Aang. When he had passed, there was no reference to Baku's whistle in Aang's last will and testament and the item itself was missing. Never in her wildest dreams could she have imagined that it would be Azula of fucking Caldera who held the piece. Not only did she have it, but Aang had given it to her - willingly! Just then her ears are filled with a slamming noise. A mother comes screeching out into the open.
"Korra! Oh my Yue, thank goodness!"
"Mama!" Baby Korra reaches out.
Ty Lee looks stunned as she looks at the woman across from her now. She tries to force a smile as she greets them.
"Hello! Sorry to give you a fright with our arrival. My name is Ty Lee. I'm here to help, I promise."
Senna, cooing at Korra, suddenly feels like she's misheard something. "I'm sorry, can… can you repeat that?"
"Hm?"
"Your name. What was your name?" She asks, lightheaded.
"Um. Ty Lee, of Caldera, although I've lived many places in my life, and haven't been to Caldera in a great many years."
Katara watches as Bakunawa disappears into the clouds. She turns now to the Kyoshi Warrior who she believed, until moments ago, had been dead these some five years. She feels lightheaded herself and stunned, but not perhaps more than the mother of the Avatar.
"Ty… Lee? Many places?"
"Yes, that's what I said."
Unalaq takes this unique opportunity to slink away, back into the building. The situation is completely compromised, blown to tiny bits. He needs to regroup and reconsider his options. He slips back into the door, leaving the three mother's and the Avatar outside.
"Lonlhai? You were in Lonlhai? Until —"
Senna's eyes slowly move to Katara. As they drift across the way to her, they remember a lifetime of memories. Today she owes much of her life to the waterbender, responsible for saving her from The Destruction, and now protecting her child. Their lives have felt inexplicably linked. Yet overlapping that connection is the everlasting outline of two women from her homeland. They had names but they became known as something more to her.
"Yes, perhaps you know of me from the Last Dragon books? It's true, I was in Lonlhai until, ahem, I wasn't." Ty Lee replies, eyes flickering to Katara momentarily.
"You were the Ghost. The Guardian and the Ghost."
"Guilty as charged." Ty Lee says with a heartfelt smile and a goofy wave of her hand.
Something feels off to The Ghost though. This woman, the Avatar's mother, seems too focused on this fact. She shifts the weight of her feet and tugs her jacket a little closer to defend against the cold. She exhales and watches her breath fog in front of her. When she's done she looks into her eyes. They are a gorgeous cyan color and they see more than just a woman standing before her.
"Do I - ? I'm sorry, but you just look so familiar?"
Before the two women can bridge the gap, Katara does it for them.
"She should. This is Senna of Lonlhai, your former ward."
Ty Lee gasps and looks at Katara. "Say what now? She-! You-? You're-! But, we were told? No one survived?"
"I wasn't there." She answers.
"I got her out long before."
"Yue above!" Ty Lee marvels, feeling rooted to the spot. There's a concerning feeling in her lung, like the wind has been knocked out of her. "You lived?"
"Mama what's going on? What are you all talking about?"
"But if you're here? Then where is-?"
Katara answers, "Give me the child."
"Huh? Why?"
She points off to the side. "There's a snowmobile over there."
"What do you mean, Katara?"
"I thought you were dead. We both thought you were dead! I can't believe it. And you? You gave birth to the Avatar?"
Korra climbs into Katara's waiting arms with glee, despite mother's confusion.
"When I tell you where she went," Katara says, walking towards the snowmobile. She shakes her head in disbelief, but accepts the fate all the same. It is an impossible thing, an unbelievable thing, all of it. Nonetheless, it has all come to pass and she embraces it. "Well, there is no force on this Earth that will keep you here when I tell you that Azula has gone to the fight."
Katara is right. Before this moment, Senna had been furious about being sidelined. Now there is nothing that would keep her from the fight.
Tonraq's first move is to secure their prisoner by encasing Ming-Hua in her own prison of ice. He spins his arms and legs and moves his body to wrap her up. Zuko rushes to his side to heat the ice prison just enough that it transforms into glass. They tightly bound the woman without arms, and then compromise the water restraints with fire so she can't just melt it all down when she comes to eventually.
Azula looks to her left and watches as Tenzin takes off after Ghazan. She spots Zaheer sprinting back towards the town and hot in pursuit are Suki, Lomin, and Bashan. She notices lastly that Bakunawa was snapping and sniffing, trying to uncover wherever P'Li had disappeared off towards. Azula takes this time to bark orders at the men responsible for Ming-Hua's prison.
"Zuko! Follow Bakunawa after you're done. He's familiar with you because of Druk and Aang so he won't be hostile. I can't trust anyone else with this!"
"Yes, Empress!"
Hana steps towards Sokka's limp body, examining it with a certain horror. Her eyes sting, from the tears and the winter freeze blowing so harshly when Bakunawa flaps its wings, and she's never felt so cold in her entire life. Her father's corpse smells of burning, but not like firewood. No, this is a different kind of burning. One that is unlike any other and at the same time one she may never forget for the rest of her life
Azula looks at her cautiously, still standing a few feet from the body she'd sent to an eternal slumber. She averts her eyes, hoping that this gives Hana a chance to mourn alone, on her own terms. She returns to barking orders as she watches them finish.
"You!"
"My name is Tonraq!"
"Follow Tenzin. He will need help. I'll help the Kyoshi Warriors to defeat Zaheer."
"Will do!"
Hana spots something glittering in the snow at the feet of her deceased father. The snow crunches underfoot lightly as she steps forward to grab it. Azula, not wanting to look directly at her, doesn't notice and begins striding away purposefully and speaks to Hana.
"You don't have to fight. You can stay - ahh!"
Hana had not hesitated to attack. She whipped the boomerang at Azula, who only barely was able to duck away before it bounced off of her shoulder and back towards Hana. Azula stumbles forward and trips down towards the ground. Her fingers go into the frosty mess of the snow beneath and go cold right away. She tries to rise but before she can Hana yanks her by the collar and turns her over to fall onto the snow. Hana presses the edge of the boomerang to her throat, just as her father once did on the Day of the Black Sun.
"I said I'd fucking kill you! And I meant it!"
Azula struggles to breathe, feeling the weight of Hana's knee on her chest and the boomerang constricting her even more so. She could just as easily grab any piece of the nonbender and zap her off, but that would be unbecoming of her and felt wrong in multiple ways.
"And you can, but how's about later?"
"Not later! Now! You'll pay for blood with blood!"
"Hana, please. There was no saving him!"
"Shut up!"
"If I could've saved him, I would've!"
"You hated him! You always hated him!"
She presses the boomerang into her throat and Azula is struggling more for air. The fingertip zapping is becoming more of a necessity with each second. She remains committed to talking her down amicably though.
"If I wanted him dead, if I was really, ugh, against you, then why would I save all of you?"
Hana blinks back tears without an immediate answer.
"Think about it, Hana."
She only sees memories of her father, doting and loving, present and adoring. She stares at the face of his murderer and begrudges her for speaking words that make sense. Juxtaposed to the memories in her mind's eye, her mind can not balance the two opposing ends. Azula, sensing her faltering, running dangerously low on oxygen, presses her last chance.
"Your father and I were not allies. But we weren't enemies on this battlefield either. If I could've saved him, I would've. I swear it to you!"
Honor and duty. These were tenets of Sokka's life. Core values he imparted on Hana from a young age. She wants to dole out the Chief's Justice to this woman, to this murderer. Hana can't do it though; her honor will not allow it.
Hana removes the boomerang and her foot from her chest. Azula sucks in a huge breath, more grateful for air than anything else. Hana reaches a hand down.
"I won't forgive you, but for now I need you to help defeat these people. They must pay for what they did to him."
Azula stares into the blue of Hana's eyes. She reaches up and takes the hand.
"Let's avenge your father — together!"
The Dragon Empress only has one goal today. It is a simple but important guiding principle that she is resolutely devoted towards achieving, like a lifelong Watchkeeper attending to their community, or a Guru counseling their faithful. She recites it in her head like a Fire Sage repeating a prayer.
'Keep everyone alive if possible. Everyone comes home in the end.'
The Guardian has been in life or death battles before, dozens of them at this point. She has seen death and its many faces. She has fought beside comrades and daughters and warriors, and lost some of them along the way. The fight is not new to her, but the stakes are different now. She is without a doubt the most powerful and successful fighter alive, yet she has a deep sense of foreboding all the same. A doom hanging over her as clear and evident as the sky up above.
Azula follows quickly behind Hana as they chase after where Zaheer and the Kyoshi Warriors are doing battle. She looks off to her left as they go and she sees Tenzin and Tonraq in the distance, a mixture of air and water, facing off against a combination of earth and fire in Ghazan's young lavabending. It is a fierce duel with every element represented in some way; walls of lava shielding from water whips while air blasts are used to deflect lava shurikens.
The Empress looks quickly to be right and a far ways off she witnesses a brief clash of great flames. There's clicking noises and booming noises, but P'Li is far from a one trick pony. She shoots out giant waves of flame at Zuko and Bakunawa. Bright red flames lick the sky and the stench of burnt firewood fills the air, invading ber nose and becoming a disgusting taste in her mouth.
All of the rest of it falls away as she and Hana arrive at their destination, a battle with Zaheer already underway. The Dragon Empress finds it to be a disappointing affair, yelling out upon her arrival.
"Watch out, Suki! Lomin!"
The two former Leaders of Kyoshi Island battle the martial artist and sword master. Bashan is on her knees, bleeding from the head, trying to regroup her strength. Azula curses herself for not bringing a healer with her, but what's done is done and she can't change that now.
"Bashan? Are you alright?" Hana yells as she and Azula come to her aid.
"My arms. The water girl stabbed me earlier, right through my arm muscles. Just now he swatted me like an antfly."
'Keep everyone alive if possible. Everyone comes home in the end.'
"Alright, if you can't lift your fan, then you need to vacate. You're more of a liability than a help!"
"NO. I can not abandon you, any of you!"
Zaheer gets the better of Suki, getting her off balance and kicking her hip so she goes colliding to the ground.
"Grah!" Azula doesn't have the time to argue. She leaves Bashan and dashes forward. "Come on, Hana!"
Lomin is trying to fight Zaheer one on one and it goes poorly, quickly. She and Suki together could not handle his superior age and strength, alone she quickly is overpowered!
"Get away from her!" Hana screams as she tosses Boomy at Zaheer.
The boomerang collides with his blade, disrupting his kill stroke and giving Lomin the precious moment she needs to roll away from the danger zone. Boomy flies back to her hand and Azula comes to stand beside her, Space Sword pointing forward, directed at the Leader of the Red Lotus.
Zaheer leers at her from across the way. The battlefield echoes with the sounds of warfare. A dragon roars and fire blasts, clicks and booms, earth rumbling and air blasts. Yet it is eerily quiet where this group is concerned. The nonbending blade master steps back carefully, preventing the group from completely surrounding him. The snow cracks and breaks beneath his soles. Each of the five women, four nonbenders and the Spirit of Lightning, labor in their breathing and their leg movements to keep him in place. They each tighten their grip on their fans and Azula's Space Sword. Zaheer can feel the fear in their energy, can see it in their eyes, can smell it on them. He points his own blade at her and taunts the Faceless Demon.
"The Immortal Soldier has come to die."
Azula contorts her face, forcing it into a smug expression which not even she believes. She jabs back at him with the cold truth of her lived experience.
"You're not the first person to say that to me."
Zaheer and all of his enemies slowly creep backwards, as they try to gain favorable positioning and he sizes them up for his first target. His youthful exuberance and unflinching belief in himself drives his next point.
"When history writes the story of our victory today, they will remember you, Dragon Empress," he says with a sneer. Zaheer spins the blade in his hand and continues, "Your legend will be that of one of the greatest traitors to ever live. The one who tried to stop the Red Lotus from reshaping the world."
Azula continues to remind him of her age, "I've fought countless men like you before, Zaheer. Yet I'm still here and they aren't."
"And I've killed plenty of women like you."
"Wrong," she juts in, her dragon's pride strong and tall. "You've never fought anyone like me."
"Your wife. She's still alive, isn't she?" He cuts in. She doesn't respond but her lack of answer is enough for him. He adds, "I always believed she was out there, hiding with you wherever you went. Now I know."
Azula has been on the other side of this situation countless times. Odds stacked against her, five against one, and sometimes more, often more truth be told. The stench of the battlefield is no different from a cave full of Koh's Disciples. She knows better than anyone to not underestimate her enemy, because she has survived precisely because her enemies underestimated her. She takes a more defiant step forward, the snow crunching louder underfoot.
"You're better off with me, Zaheer. The Last Dragon might show you mercy. The Ghost would not."
He laughs, loudly and obnoxiously. He's forcing it and buying time, analyzing them in preparation. Suki stands, blood oozing from her mouth, her fans in each hand. Lomin prepares, woozy and weary. Bashan is beside them, injured and weak. Azula and Hana, the healthiest of the five, are ready to attack. Zaheer speaks with a booming voice, echoing across the graveyard they now fight upon.
"I'm going to enjoy this; killing your annoying little group. And when we're finished, I'm going to march to that compound. I will be the one to truly kill Katara. I will find your wife and kill her. And I will take the Avatar."
Zaheer has decided his course of action. He stops retreating backwards and allows Suki and Lomin to begin to surround him.
"I'm going to take everything from you. You will have done this for nothing. You will all die for nothing!"
'Keep everyone alive if possible. Everyone comes home in the end.'
And so it begins.
There is a dizzying display of swordsmanship. A cacophony of sword parries, steel clinging loudly, teeth clenched and gritted, everything a blur of steel and fire, as small lightning blasts echo repeatedly across the village. Azula tries to douse Zaheer in blue flames and lightning, but his speed and agility are unlike anything she's ever seen. He dodges her blasts with ease, almost anticipating them it seems, all while continuing to fight back four of the best fighting non-benders alive. Azula blazes down the entire field and village with each wave of fire that misses its mark. Blue fire, hot enough to burn heaven itself, reaches high above them as she and four other warrior women fight back against Zaheer.
"Aghh!'
Suki is the first to fall down.
Zaheer has successfully knocked her off her feet with a surprising sweep motion of his legs. Bashan rushes to defend her.
"No! Suki! Stay away from- HUH!"
Zaheer rips a hole in Bashan's thigh with one masterful stroke of his blade. She collapses onto the ground in agony, gripping her Kyoshi fan tightly. Suki, incensed by this, instantly recovers from the ground and rises up. She, too, is met with a sharp edge.
"You'll pay for- AHHHHHHH!"
Zaheer's sword slips through her toned, defined leg muscles like a knife through a running faucet. No resistance and clean through. Suki rolls back down, into a heap with Bashan, crying out in blinding pain. Like her husband before her, Zaheer had cut her in a place where she would never walk again.
"Stay down, Suki! Stay alive!" Azula demands.
Azula twists her hand back and launches it forward. Branching lighting spews forth for Zaheer but he has the foresight to jump back and it dances well beyond him. As soon as the last trail of lightning is gone, almost before it's gone, he is moving again. Zaheer crashes with an overhead strike on Lomin. The red eyed former Leader barely parries the blow. Zaheer attacks again, and Lomin feels her foot slipping. He goes once more for the overhead and Lomin is knocked down from the weight of his force.
Azula has seen enough. She sees Hana beside her, without a weapon, her bö destroyed before Azula arrived to the fight.
"Hana! Take this!"
She tosses her Space Sword up into the air, handle pointed towards Hana, who snatches it from the sky. She lifts it up high and it gleams briefly in the sunlight. It fits her hand so naturally, so perfectly, as if it has been forged by the Spirits so that it could be held in her hand.
'Keep everyone alive if possible. Everyone comes home in the end. Please Yue everyone comes home!'
"Ready?"
"Yes! For my father!"
Zaheer jeers at them.
"Yes! For Chief Sokka. You can both join him in the grave!"
The two women advance together, Azula without a weapon, but her fists and her bending more formidable than any blade, and Hana wielding her father's sword. For the first time, Zaheer is the one who struggles. Azula is determined to close the gap. She just needs to get her hands on him and she can incapacitate him, or at point blank range if nothing else a wave of blue fire should send him to the ground. Zaheer knows these things and he braces for them.
The master swordsman uses Hana's unquenchable rage against the both of them, guiding her attacks to block Azula's path. All the same, Azula quickly adapts, throwing fireballs and snapping small bouts of lighting from behind Hana to attack the man. The Dragon Empress sees a path forward unfolding. At last, Azula emerges from behind Hana and reaches a hand out for his blade.
She will cut her own fingers off if it means she can grip his blade for even a moment. The Spirit of Lightning will spark the sword, which would traverse up his arms, and shut him down. Zaheer is in the middle of his swinging motion when he sees her finger tips are just within reach. He knows what she'll do, and he responds accordingly. Zaheer lets go of his worldly possession.
Crack!
Her lighting sparks along the blade but it doesn't go anywhere. He lets it go and it falls to the ground, the zapping of her power doing nothing to it. Hana only has a moment but she sees the opportunity. She jabs with the space sword, but only nicks him as he moves away.
"Ragh!" Zaheer grunts in anger at the first successful blow. "Take this!"
Zaheer rips a dagger from hiding and swings it across Hana's thighs. She falls to her knees. Hana loses the Space Sword, clattering on the ground. Zaheer grabs her head with one hand. Another moment later and he could slit her from ear to ear, but he is not fast enough. The Mother of the Kemurikage steps up, swinging a fist.
She has so much at her disposal. The Prodigy with Blue Fire sends more waves of flames out in her fist fight with Zaheer. The Spirit of Lightning attempts crackles of web like blasts, which he inexplicably avoids. The Leader of the Fire Warriors can chi block him, if she could just connect with one blow, one pair of fingers into his body. Zaheer is too fast, too young, too nimble and swift. He knows all of her tricks and has heard all of the stories. Azula doesn't have time to think or react, every move is simply about survival. Zaheer does not underestimate her, just as she does not underestimate him.
But all battles must come to an end. Zaheer's blade finally connects, slashing Azula across the arm.
"Gah! Fuck!"
Zaheer doesn't need anything more than that moment. He kicks her legs out from under her and she slides backwards on the ice. Azula looks up and Zaheer is above her, his dagger extended above his head. Azula suddenly gets an idea and decides to welcome the blade. If he stabs her with such a short blade dagger, he'd be too close to avoid her hands. She could wrap him up and shock him to his core, even if it meant her own demise. Zaheer has murder in his eyes and Azula welcomes it.
Azula gets what she wants: she welcomes Death.
"NO!"
Death has other plans.
"Gluh-!"
A flash appears in front of Azula and a bushel of black hair appears in-between them. Lomin had come to her rescue, rising up and coming to stop the killing blow. What's more, she has captured Zaheer in an advantageous position. Zaheer's one hand holds the dagger. With one hand Lomin holds his wrist, and with the other she grabs him by the throat. Lomin is taller, bigger, and stronger than the little man. She towers over him and proceeds to lift him off of his feet and into the air.
Lomin has done it. She has saved Azula and defeated Zaheer. She chokes the life from him, his feet kicking in the air. Lomin knows she can not show him mercy. She knows what must be done, to save her Sisters. Lomin finally sees the smile on Zaheer's face. He opens his palm.
The blade drifts down in front of her, and into the open palm of his free hand. Lomin doesn't have another moment left. Zaheer shoves the entire dagger, tip to hilt, into her abdomen, below her chest armor.
Zaheer falls to the ground instantly, Lomin releasing with the shock from the pain.
"Lomin?" Someone calls out in shock.
Zaheer twists the dagger in her guts and then drags it across her stomach, until he rips it right out of her body, emptying the contents of her lower intestines onto the icy cold floor like a red sludge.
"LOMIN! NO!"
Lomin's body slumps down onto the ice below and a sobering reality crushes Azula. She feels as though she has lost the ability to breath, to feel anything. Her heart shatters and the shards rip apart her insides as they tumble. Her eyes sting from the fight and from the fright.
'Not everyone will live. Not everyone will be coming home.'
Zaheer looks down at the dead woman at his feet and feels nothing. He turns his treacherous olive green eyes back to The Puppetmaster. His expression is darker than night itself. He is preparing to advance on her when a wounded animal charges approaches.
"You monster!" Bashan screams while standing up, wobbling mightily, her injury from before far from healed. A cold air blows mightily through and there are burning fires all around them. Zaheer looks positively bored of her indignation. Bashan screams at him, her blonde hair shaking wildly, her emerald green eyes watering with tears. "She was my warrior, my mentor, my friend! She was my friend!"
"BAHSAN! NO! DON'T!" Suki screams.
She runs at him, the Kyoshi Fan she has used her entire life positioned in an aggressive stance. Zaheer doesn't move. He lets her run right at him. The Leader of the Red Lotus dodges the Leader of the Kyoshi Warriors at the last second, then makes one compact swing of his dagger. Clean across her throat.
Bashan falls to her knees and grips her throat as blood spills into her fingertips. She falls down face first, gripping her wound, trying to stop the bleeding. It does nothing. She is dead within seconds of hitting the ground.
Zaheer stands and breathes slowly and purposefully, never taking his eyes off of Azula, wary of her fire and lighting. He finds his own sword only two feet away, and picks it up. He steps towards her, ready to finish the job. Azula can only think about how she has failed.
'Keep as many people alive. That was the plan. That's still the plan.'
Zaheer spins his sword in his hand, eyes glued to Azula. He's so focused on her that he's surprised when he steps on something oddly shaped. Both of them look down and see the Space Sword underfoot.
Azula's eyes dart from the jian blade to the face of the Leader of the Red Lotus. They dance back and forth frantically. Azula has not lost in a fight like this in her entire life. Sick memories poison her mind and blur the line between what she sees and what she feels. Her breathing becomes quick and shallow. She feels her heart pounding. Suki and Hana are incapacitated on the ground nearby, watching, seeing the quick breaths. Azula wonders if she can take him with her when he comes for his killstroke.
Zaheer sees the fear in her eyes for the first time since meeting her. He puts a foot on the handle of her jian, seemingly signifying his dominance over her, claiming victory and her blade.
The next moment though he kicks forward and her sword bounces on the ground towards her. With all eyes on Azula's blade, the jian comes to a rest in front of her. Her faded amber eyes rise to meet the olive green ones of the man across from them. He eggs her on with three words.
"Pick it up."
In the distance an explosion supplies the background noise.
Victory had not come easy to Tenzin and Tonraq, but they had finally subdued Ghazan, their bending mixture proving to be a formidable and powerful combination. They wrap up the Earthbender in a cocoon of an ice prison, much like the one they'd been subjected to earlier.
"Where are the others?" Tonraq asks, his arms moving to complete the prison.
Wiping the sweat from his brow, Tenzin replies quickly, "I'm not sure? We need to find them though before-"
CLICK.
BOOOOM!
Zuko is knocked off of his feet by the explosion. He rises quickly though, as horror spreads across his face with the sight before him.
Bakunawa had saved him, but in doing so has given his life.
The Blue Dragon, which had once belonged to his best friend Aang and then his sister Azula, is dead.
Their battle reaching an end and almost lost, the Dragon made a suicide play, dive bombing onto P'Li. He had opened its giant maw and wretched Dragonfire upon her third eye. P'Li absorbed it for as long as she could, strong hands keeping the jaws of the Dragon just barely open and away from chomping her clean in half.
When she had taken all of the Dragonfire from its mouth, she had nowhere else to go. The blast exploded from point blank range, blowing out the back of Bakunawa's head. P'Li ricocheted backwards and her head smashed into the ice with such ferocity that she was instantly knocked out. Such is the state of affairs when Tenzin and Tonraq arrive on the scene.
Zuko's eyes well up with tears as he looks at the glorious beast, now gone.
"Great Yue above." Tonraq mutters in shock as he arrives.
"Tonraq, please, we need to capture her. Her especially."
"Right. Sorry. It's just… I can't believe she killed it."
The two of them go to work bending P'Li into a makeshift prison. Zuko feels like he sits in silence, observing the dying breath of a once old friend. He is so stunned by this development that he doesn't realize, as the seconds tick by, the sounds of lighting blasts that had once filled his ears during this battle, have all gone out.
Zaheer stands across from her, hulking and massive. He menaces at her, wildfire burning behind him, a dark smog overwhelming the nostrils and casting a darkness over the entire scene. Azula wearily rises to her feet, the Space Sword in her hand. Zaheer's voice is forceful and strong. He goads her with a reminder of their first conversation.
"I've enjoyed the chase, Dragon. But I think we've reached the end now, you and I."
He steps in a semi-circle around her, and she proceeds to do the same, wiping the blood from her mouth. She tries to think of something witty to say in response. She settles on nothing. An old man on a lost island once taught her to fight until there are no words left to say. The last words, and the end, will belong to Zaheer, not her. She thinks of Ganzaya and Avatar Asuna and her Uncle Iroh. Azula summons the lightning.
CRACK!
Lightning strikes from above and hits her body where it stands.
CRACK!
Again.
CRACK!
And again.
Azula opens her eyes and they are pure sparks of electricity. The Spirit of Lightning reincarnated. Avatar Asuna reincarnated. She spins her space sword in her hands and steps more confidently now.
"Yes! This! Give this to me. The true power of the Dragon Empress."
Her eyes do not change, they remain the blue electricity. A phenomenon that has occurred only twice before in her life, and only momentarily when it did, now courses through her completely. She still says nothing to Zaheer, but he is not afraid. He welcomes the challenge.
"It will make it all the sweeter when I put your head on a spike!"
Zaheer charges forward and she launches towards him as well. Azula is as fast as a clap of thunder, faster than Zaheer has been at any point. There are periodic blasts of lightning from the heavens that land right on top of her, and she swings the space sword with the power of Agni and Yue combined.
Azula's lightning infused strength gives her ultimate power. Their swords clang loudly as Zaheer parries her blows, however each successive strike is met with less force from the man. Azula swings the space sword so quickly and with such ferocity that Zaheer finally loses the grip on his own blade! It clatters to the ice and snow below! They make eye contact, her lightning pupils and his unmoving, stone cold green ones. Azula has no words for him. She swings the space sword down!
"Uht! Uht!"
Zaheer catches her sword hand in the air. She has no idea how, it should've been impossible.
"Graaa!"
Azula moans in agony. Zaheer squeezes and twists her wrists until finally she too drops her sword. It falls at their feet.
"All the power in the world doesn't change the fact that you're still Princess fucking Azula."
The lightning eyes stop. The periodic blasts stop. Azula is as mortal as Zaheer. He reminds her of this instantly. Zaheer twists her wrists and her body until he can slam her to the icy floor. Her head smashes against the ground, disorienting her momentarily. Azula hears the scrape or metal against ice but is too slow to do anything. She is older and slower and not as strong as him, not anymore. Zaheer takes up the Space Sword and runs her through with it!
Swip!
"N-RAGGH!"
Just below the belly button and off to her left side.
"This time I'm keeping it." He goads her, referring to the sword.
'Send as many people home! Do it!'
Azula charges electricity and blue fire in her left hand, hoping to strike him while he's close and not looking. Zaheer sees it happening.
"I am the Red Lotus. No weapon of yours will ever prosper against me!"
Zaheer twists her body and uses her blade against her. He leverages the blade against her left forearm, pressing it against the flesh, threatening to cut her. Azula realizes how dire the situation is and begins trying to scrap and claw to escape. She is desperate to touch him so she can shock him or burn him. Zaheer positions her in a way that she can't before finally deciding to put an end to the game.
Crack!
He breaks her left arms and at the same time dislocates it by ripping it out of the socket. Her left hand goes limp. Azula struggles to catch her breath now, overwhelming pain rising in her between the stab wound in her abdomen and the arm injuries. Zaheer does not relent for a moment. He presses her own blade against the flesh. It slices through fabric, skin, and muscles tendons.
Swip!
"HAAA!" Zaheer grunts as the sword rips through her completely and he follows through with it.
"Grahuuu!"
Azula's entire body goes into shock immediately. Her eyes move to where her arm had been a moment ago and now she can see it detached from her body. A pool of blood has started spurting out of where her left arm used to be connected to her shoulder.
"Huh!" Azula gasps sharply as she reaches her mental limits of the pain tolerance.
Azula loses blood quickly between her abdomen and her shoulder. Zaheer steps away, standing upright and stepping a few paces away to stretch his aching body. She would strike him with lightning if she had the strength. Instead, as she drifts into an out of body experience she sees flashes in her eyes.
So many memories appear before, much faster than any blink of an eye. The people she hurt and the people she saved. Ozai and Ayon. Zirin and Yakone. The Unbroken and the Spirit of Death. Xai Bau. Meng Shou, Tapisa, Ganzaya. On Jin and Jin. Both versions of Sayaka, the one she lost and the one she saved. Katan and Sonok. Aang and Zuko. Po Boh and Aiwei. Lin and Ai Zhou. Hana and Lomin. Siqniq and Yasuko. Breaking through all of these people, like a golden spirit shining bright, is a brunette girl with grey-brown eyes. The love of her life. The one who made any of it worth doing.
She thinks of Suki and realizes that she has been staring into her eyes from across the way this whole time. The brunette warrior rises to one leg. She stares back at Azula and nods. There is an unspoken message in her nod, one that Azula can't decipher and desperately tries to decode. Suki's eyes convey a final message before Zaheer steps up to stand above her once again.
"You were right, Dragon Empress. There will be no hero in the end."
Zaheer rears back the Space Sword for a killing blow. Suki bounds up to him on one leg.
"Suki - no!" Azula weakly mumbles.
Zaheer turns around. There is more than enough time for him to dodge out of her way. Her efforts to stop him are in vain. He grips her by the shoulder and cuts her down as well.
Swip!
They are practically standing over top of Azula when he kills her. The end of the blade sticks out the front of her stomach and splashes fresh blood on the Dragon Empress down below.
"MOM! Nooo!" Hana screams from her place in the snow nearby.
Everything grinds to a halt around Azula.
She feels her life leaving her, an unimaginable pain pinning her to the ground. Suki stands above her with a blade belonging to her husband protruding from her belly. Suki looks down at Azula and nods again, the message still lost on her. Suki's hands fly upwards and clasp onto the blade's pointed end. Her fingers cut and bleed instantly.
"Hmm?" Zaheer mutters when this happens.
Suki's eyes find Azula and right there and then - the message finally rings home. She remembers what Suki said about how she wanted to die.
"I go to my grave knowing I fought to the end, to the bitter end, for the betterment of the world."
Azula finds everything is heavy. Her body, her hand, this moment, her emotions. The burden of leadership is a heavy weight to carry and she has worn it throughout her life. Now, Suki has already sacrificed herself. Azula can not save her anymore… but she can give her a death that she wants. It is heavy beyond measure, but Azula carries the weight all the same.
Azula raises her right hand, her body failing her, her fingers struggling to point directly at them. Suki nods again. There is no fear in her eyes. None whatsoever.
"Let go. Let go!"
Zaheer begins pushing with all of his might. The blade slips from her fingers but not from her grasp. Azula's hand straightens and her aim is true. The best friends share a final look, Azula looking her in the eye. The next moment there's a bright white flash of light.
CRACK!
Azula uses the last of her energy. The electricity bumps through her body until the light and power explodes out from her fingertips. The lightning blast strikes Suki right on. She is pumped full of electrostatic shock, which travels through the tip of the blade, up the Space Sword, into Zaheer's hand and up through his body.
He never saw it coming. He didn't let go. Suki sacrificed herself to defeat the Red Lotus. They both did in the end.
"Gluhhh."
Zaheer trembles and shakes against his will and his wishes. He falls to his knees before collapsing face first into the snow. He is unconscious in a matter of moments. Suki's eyes roll up into the back of her head and she lies down on the ice cold ground. She joins Sokka in the afterlife.
Azula, meanwhile, lies on the icy ground, the blood seeping out of her in two places. She feels so lonely and cold but she can't focus on any of that, because she hears an odd sound in her ear drum.
It's a bumping type noise, or perhaps something else.
Almost like her brain bouncing against her skull.
The knocking of death at her door.
Feet scrambling across the snow and ice, rushing to the scene of the lightning strike.
Scrambling to the scene of the final place.
They do not have a moment to lose.
Azula has courted death at every turn of her life. As a child soldier, as a queenpin, as a fugitive, as a civilian, as a watchkeeper, and as only a woman. She has imagined her death more times than she could ever remember or ever care to remember. She's had nightmares and daydreams, for a long time in Honan Bay she even wished for it. She has been faced with mortal peril on five separate occasions: Zirin holding a blade to her neck, Zirin in the cornfield, the elements on Linlhao, the Spirit of Death in Lonlahi, and Xai Bau in Yu Dao. She survived each of these somehow, but now when the sixth knock comes she does not believe that Death will be turned away. As a young woman her Kemurikage had a saying: 'Welcome to where you're going.'
'This is always where I've been going. I'm just finally getting there.'
Aang had asked her to do it for him. As she lies there, dying from blood loss and shock, she does not feel pride in knowing she's done it for herself. Instead, she just feels pain and regret and lonely. She had never wanted so many to die trying to stop the Red Lotus. She'd arrived hoping they would fly on Bakunawa with her, and she could've taken them somewhere to fight alone.
'If I could've done it again-'
She stops herself there, not wanting her final thoughts to be of that she could've done. Instead, she thinks of Ty Lee and Lin and returning to the ocean. She is freezing, her lips are parched, but there is a strange taste of wet iron in her mouth. The sky above is a drole mixture of gray and blue. The sound of pattering feet come to a stop in the snow.
"Azula!" A man's voice from somewhere else shouts. "Oh no! Oh-oh my!"
There's suddenly a body next to her. Her head weighs like three hundred pounds, so it takes considerable effort to turn it. She strains her neck. She can't shake the knocking in her ears. She focuses her eyes to look and when she does it's a familiar man with a burn scar on the left side of his face. He lights a small flame in his hand and reaches for her left shoulder socket.
"Take a deep breath, quickly!" He commands.
She does not oblige. He cauterizes her wound nonetheless. The pain stings but it's also somehow muted. It lasts for a few moments before he removes his hand. There are wet tears staining his aged face. The knocking in her ears tunes out many of the noises but she can hear him sobbing. Azula doesn't know why he cries, so she tries to console him.
"Oh, c'mon, Zuzu," she starts, getting his attention. He looks up at her face. Dried blood caked on to her mouth, bruised and damaged, she smiles at him. A soft, broken smile. "You knew this would happen eventually."
He doesn't scream for help because she's right. He does already know how this ends. There isn't a healer for miles. She begs something of him.
"Just… don't let me die alone, Zuko. I don't want to die alone."
"No, no, you won't!"
Azula lies down, because all of the dead lie down. Zuko lies beside her, and he grabs her right hand in both of his. She looks up at the sky above, thinking it looks like a blanket about to drop down upon her. He stares at the face of his savior and younger sister.
"Remember in Lanxi? When you visited me?"
She uses fewer words because it pains her to use any.
He sobs, "Yes."
"You had a dream. 'Begin again.'"
"I did. But don't think of that right now, don't!"
"I just … you - know, Zuzu. I wanted that too. I wanted it."
The knocking grows louder, drowning out his cries and the comforting words he attempts to mutter. Azula of Caldera has imagined and dreamed of this moment for most of her life. She has been faced with similar moments multiple times. She's shocked at how it is all so familiar to her. She has achieved what she always meant to do; Death is so close to her that it embraces her with open arms like the old friend she knows it to be. She would find it peaceful if it wasn't so damn scary. She'd thought of how she would die since before she could remember thinking about it. Yet as Azula lays there, in a pool of her own blood, she can't help but to find it so frighteningly cold.
Azula shuts her eyes and that's when it happens. It wraps her in a cool sensation, her body ascending from the ground. In her hardly lucid mind she envisions herself returning to the ocean. The snow becomes water and wraps itself around her body, filling her injuries with its mystical powers of the afterlife. The cold embrace of Death heals her wounds and makes her whole again. The knocking stops. She does not dare open her eyes again, but she can feel it becoming brighter all around her.
Slowly her body descends, and she isn't sure why. She opens her eyes and Zuko is staring at her with tears in his eyes. But they are not tears of sorrow. Her body touches back down to the ground. What she thought was the metaphorical feeling of her body returning to the ocean was instead something else.
"A h-healer?"
"Y-yes. Y-yes!" Zuko tells her as he uses his sleeve to wipe the latest wave of tears.
'No. No!'
Azula yells at the invisible bender.
"Her! Them! Not me. Save Suki. Save Lomin! Save Bashan!"
"Azula," Zuko tries to tell her. "Th-there's nothing to save. They're all gone."
Azula screams in agony.
"No! No! No! Why me? They were supposed to live! They were supposed to go home! Why couldn't you let me die! I was supposed to die, not them!"
A serious and somber voice speaks.
"When I was a child, I was brought to the woods beyond the walls."
Snow crackles underfoot.
"A firebender and a ghost taught me how to waterbend in secret there. They taught me how to heal."
Appearing in Azula's field of vision is a young woman. She has brown skin, brown hair, and she's small in stature. What strikes Azula though is that she has the most beautiful cyan eyes she has ever seen.
"I later found out that my Guardian was not a guardian, but a Dragon Empress."
Azula sees but does not believe. Her mouth is completely dry. There is no noise to fill the background and tell her this is real.
"She helped bring me into this world, kept me safe, and saved my life. So now I return the favor"
Before she was weighed down by the gravity of her injuries. Now she is paralyzed by the sight of her legacy. The woman crouches down and brushes some of her hair out of her face. Just so she can see the light reflecting off of the amber eyes again.
"I, Senna of Lonlahi, save her life."
Tears well in her eyes. Senna bends down and delivers a kiss to the forehead. Azula, missing an arm, healed but still broken, exhausted physically and emotionally, can not handle this truth. She can not believe that Senna of Lonlhai had rescued her from Death's cold embrace. The kiss is the last thing she remembers before she passes out from the shock.
A/N: First of all, RIP to the Kyoshi Trio. Suki, Lomin, and Bashan will always be loved and admired. Additionally, Bakunawa did not survive the fight. Then toss in Sokka and all of the fire and water soldiers. This was a devastating loss, even if they 'won' in the end. Now, let's move on to the protagonist of this story. You may be asking yourself, "Wow! Notorious spent a metric F ton of time preparing us for Azula's death… just to not kill her in the end?" And… you'd be right! I did spend a disgusting amount of time talking about, writing about, teasing, tweeting, and planning Azula's death. When I drafted the plot outline for this story back in December of 2020, it originally ended with Azula's death here. The following/final chapter was going to be her funeral. That was the plan. The issue is that… some things happened along the way. First, my first editor and close friend, LV, was not a fan of the idea. She planted the seeds of doubt. Then she stepped aside and I asked FMTomiko to come in. Tomiko reviewed the plot outline and also didn't love the idea, but she supported me as the author to do what I wanted. But she did politely, gently challenge me on the idea. She pushed back and ultimately took an all-or-nothing approach: either both Ty Lee and Azula died, or neither, but don't keep 1 alive while the other is gone. There were versions of this battle where Ty Lee was a part of it and died. So as you can see, I was conflicted. The next big thing that happened was the ending of Killing Eve. For those that watched it, you know exactly what I mean. For those that don't, just suffice it to say that it was a gut punch of an ending. I found myself furious and rage posting on twt. It reminded me of the end of GOT, which got me thinking. I love complex female characters, especially ones who fill the anti-hero role. They're really my shit. And between GOT and KE, I was crushed and hopeless by major female characters being killed in the end, and I realized I was staring down the barrel of my own gun. I controlled the path that Azula would take. What's more, the 'bury your gays' trope became another point of anger for me, and I realized I would be guilty of that as well if I let Zaheer kill Azula. So all of this congealed in my mind together to become a mental block. I was no longer able to go down the path of killing her in the end. But many of the plot lines and themes were already in motion, established and routing. I had/have billed this story as telling 'the rest of Azula's natural life' and yet I end it here, with Azula alive. Perhaps the biggest giveaway was that in the comments I was telling people (for years!) this story would serve as a bridge from ATLA to TLOK, but that my plan was to not change the canon events of either series - and in the end Azula never found out about Unalaq nor where Aiwei is posted. If she had stumbled upon that information, she would give it over at this point in the story to really expose the Red Lotus in full. She would pass that along and it would, as a result, drastically change the events of TLOK. That was never my goal. So shrewd readers trying to read the tea leaves may have realized, "If she learns about Unalaq/Aiwei, then she can't live?" And when she never did, she was therefore safe. But I doubt anyone read that much into it. There is a lot to unpack in this chapter, but I've already said a lot so I'll just chat with you all in the comments. One more chapter next week! Three years of this story and it all finally ends!
Love always. Sokka and Suki and Lomin and Bashan and Bakunawa forever!
Notorious