Book 4: Light and Darkness

by ButtonPusherExtraordinaire

Air's murder was a symptom. The Great War was over, but the Greater War endured. The Realms are imbalanced, and Air's loss is but a sign. Years after Sozin's Comet, The Avatar's most ancient enemy reminds The Avatar of his existence. Lies and truths are disordered as the roots are infected from the chaos, to which The Avatar was ignorant. Things must change. The cycle must end. AU!

27. Conqueror

ATTENTION! THERE ARE NOW 37 CHAPTERS, NOT 24! I HAD TO REDO THE LENGTHS OF EACH, STRETCHING IT OUT MORE! THE NEWEST CHAPTER IS CHAPTER 37 (STRATEGY)! START FROM THERE IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN READING THE NEWEST CHAPTER! IT WILL TAKE PROBABLY A FEW HOURS, POSSIBLY DAYS FOR ALL THE NEW CHAPTERS TO BE UPLOADED! PLEASE GO TO CHAPTER 37 AND READ THE NOTICE AT THE BEGINNING FOR EXPLANATION! MY APOLOGIES FOR THE CONFUSION!

Thanks for the reviews! I really appreciate hearing the feedback from you guys!

Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar the Last Airbender

XxXxXxXxXxX

"The Yu Yan Archers are legendary in their competency. From what I know, each archer makes his own bow, gathers the material, and shapes it with his hands. An archer cannot be separated from his bow because the bow is part of him. In some ways, the bow is his child. He must care for the bow and nourish it, keeping it from decay and neglect—because an archer is only as good as his bow."

Aang's brows rose at Zuko, whom he had asked about the Yu Yan Archers as he intended to mastery archery, as Azula had suggested. "You seem to know a lot about the Yu Yan."

Zuko shrugged. "I was almost killed one time by a Yu Yan. I learned what I could about the Yu Yan because of it. And I considered sending a couple after Kuei, but I never went through with it, knowing it meant war if I did."

He no longer winced or felt a flush of emotion surge through him at Kuei's name. Ba Sing Se was a long time ago, and he accepted it—and what he did, no matter how horrible. The only thing he could do was defeat Vaatu and heal the world after, making a real balance. It was the only way. He had to ignore the surface and look to the roots, which were tarnished and rotten, having been neglected for generations. Only by focusing on the roots would the surface become healthier—because the surface was a direct extension of the roots.

Appa continued the flight back to Ba Sing Se, and Aang gripped his demon spirit mask in his hands—his was red versus Zuko's familiar blue. "How long before mastery for a Yu Yan?"

"Why do you ask?"

Aang smiled slightly. "Azula think it's a good idea for me to master archery—Airbender and all."

Zuko snorted. "Of course, she does. There are few things more worrisome than an airbending archer."

"Right. How long before mastery for a Yu Yan?"

"Depends on the archer, I imagine," Zuko replied. "Depends on capability, determination, strength, and talent."

He nodded and peered over Appa's saddle and saw a deep valley, stretching for many miles. It was a beautiful valley that prospered in its vegetation and resources. "I'm going to start now," he decided. "But it's not only that. I need to master lavabending and combustion-bending, too."

Zuko's good eyes widened. "Lavabending?"

"An earthbending skill," Aang explained. "It's really rare. But previous Avatars have mastered it. I need to master it, too."

"And combustion-bending?"

"I need to see if I can. No previous Avatar has done it, to my knowledge, but if I can master it, I need to. I have no idea what Ozai is mastering. I need to be the best I can be because I know he's pushing himself to be the best he can be."

Zuko's eyes closed briefly. "He is," he confirmed, voice dimming in the gentle breeze.

Aang looked down at the valley again and felt a burst of inspiration. "I really will start now," he realized. "That valley down there is the perfect place for me to train—alone and unbothered. I don't have to worry about destruction or anything. I can focus."

"Wait," Zuko said, voice rising slightly. "You're leaving?"

"Yes- "

"No, we need to tell everyone what happened and what we learned from Lonin and his advisor."

He didn't like the reminder of what he partook in, but he accepted it. "You tell the others about what happened. Make sure to warn Bumi about this unofficial fourth King of Earth. His name might be Chin. From what it sounded like, he may be descended from Chin the Conqueror. You can explain it. You don't need me for that."

"We need you there in case something happens."

"Nothing's going to happen, not now. There's nothing else to do but wait until Bipin is adjusted and then reach out to him for an alliance, which he'll be a lot more open to than his father," he pointed out. "This is the exact time for me to do something like this. I'd be wasting time and opportunity, otherwise. I can't do that anymore. I've already done that enough—you know I have."

Zuko nodded, understanding his reasoning. "I get it. I agree with it. But you have a wife and daughter now," he reminded. "You have to think about this—about them."

Aang hesitated before shaking his head. "I'm not running, okay? Give me three weeks to train, and then I'll return to Ba Sing Se. I'll get there on my own. That three weeks could make a massive difference for us going forward where I can just focus on it. I can 'Avatar' it. I get a lot done when I'm by myself—I always have."

"I agree, but Azula may not be as understanding—or Samir."

"I wouldn't have married Azula if she weren't understanding," he pointed out. "She's more understanding than anyone I've ever met besides Gyatso."

"I never thought I would agree with that assessment of Azula, but I do—one of the most surprising things I've ever realized. But what about Samir?"

He squeezed his eyes shut at the thought of his daughter—his daughter!—being disappointed and feeling hurt at his absence, but he was The Avatar, and they were in the middle of a deadly war. "I know. But I'm sure her Uncle Zuzu can play with her and make her feel better."

Zuko groaned, though there was a fond huff that escaped him. "You are lucky I want to be a good uncle to my niece like Uncle was a good uncle to me."

Aang smiled and handed his demon spirit mask over; he stood to his feet, impervious to the motion of the flight. "Thanks, Zuko."

"You really are leaving now, just like that?" Zuko asked in disbelief. "You make a decision and have no plan; you have no supplies- "

"I'll eat when I need to," he dismissed. "I can go a month without anything at least. I need to do this. I'll be fine. You know I can't be harmed."

Zuko sighed. "I literally can't stop you. Do what you will."

Aang floated off Appa's saddle, to which Appa stopped and hovered in place, questioning. He glided back and patted Appa's head, staring into his eyes. "You go to Ba Sing Se, okay? I'll be there soon. I have to stay here for now."

Appa crooned sadly but accepted the command with a huff.

Zuko adjusted himself on Appa's head, taking over. "This better be as easy and simple as you say it will be."

"It will be."

"I will literally throw it in your face if it's not."

"You won't have to."

"I am going tell everyone it was your idea- "

"Go, Zuko," he called out, drifting back.

"If Azula shoots lightning at me for leaving you here, I will fly back here just to shoot it at you!"

"Kiss her for me!"

Zuko stared at him like he was insane. "What?"

"The cheek!" he clarified, amused. "Kiss her cheek- "

"Her and I are not that close!"

"You'll think of something!" Aang dismissed and looked at Appa. "I'll be alright. Yip-yip."

Appa took off with a powerful flick of his tail, creating massive gusts of wind in his wake.

Aang watched them fly into the distance before dropping into the valley, where he landed in the midst of splendid, healthy vegetation with large trees and gentle streams. It was a perfect place to commence his training, allowing him to focus distinctly on a single, needed realm. It had been something he struggled with in Ba Sing Se because there were many things pulling at his attention ranging from Bumi to Samir to Ozai to politics. But in the valley, there were no distractions to consume him and deplete his time. There was only the expanse of possibility and material to do everything that he knew he needed to do.

It was time to work.

Aang stared at his surroundings and exhaled roughly.

"Here we go."

XxXxXxXxXxX

She was dead.

The evidence was before his eyes, but it was impossible to believe. His sister was sprawled on her bed, moved into a perfect position by her murderer, arms and legs extended in opening. She was still—so still! Too still! There was so much blood, pooled on the bed, cratering under her body due to the weight, but there were dripping trickles that hit the ground in a running stream. And her face—a face that he loved and found reprieve in despite its ugliness—was unnaturally pale, deprived of the blood it needed because the blood was no longer in her body, dripping to the floor.

How could she be dead? How? Why? Who—who? Whom possessed the audacity and daring to murder his beloved sister, more beloved in his eyes, even with her unappealing appearance? Whom possessed the power to defeat her in combat, attacking her in her own bedroom, and smiting her without a visible struggle, for the power was too overwhelming for her to face and defend herself? Whom would jeopardize the Conqueror's heirdom by ensuring there could never be a true heir to his greatness, only grandchildren to his legacy, never children?

Fire Lord Ozai.

The wound was obvious and proud—visible for anyone to see, proclaiming its presence with vitality—in a gaping but scorched hole. He knew from extensive experience what made a wound like it, and it was more familiar to him than anyone in the world, for he alone was master of it—until he taught it to a man unworthy, a born deceiver and monster.

Lava.

Chin V bowed his head, forehead brushing against his sister's still hair, never again to move in the wind or rustle when she shook and stared at him with knowing eyes—eyes that he would never see again! "This is my fault," he breathed, trembling, realizing that he would never feel her again. Her hands would never cover his scars and trace them with her fingertips. "I am so sorry. Forgive me, Sister. I gave our future to a madman, trusting him to secure it, but he destroyed it—and you, too." He kissed the side of her head, unable to touch her cheek or lips—the thought of how chilling each would feel was an unbearable one, which he intended to repay in vengeance born of the Conqueror's might. "You put your trust in me, and I failed you. I failed us."

He memorized his sister's motionless face, committing the evil sight to his memory, for only it provided the necessary motivation to do what must be done; it would sit inside him, gnawing away all hesitation and weakness and replacing each with vengeance, reminding him of vengeance, until there was nothing left in him but vengeance—vengeance was all that mattered now. He hated that Fire Lord Ozai made his last memory of his sister—the final memory he would ever have of her—as a slaughtered corpse, stretched out in an unholy sacrifice. It added more growth to his vengeance, for he vowed to repay Fire Lord Ozai for the attack—somehow. Perhaps if he attacked Hama, of whom Fire Lord Ozai was clearly fond, it would equal the indignity and horror destroying him until vengeance remade him.

He willed his vengeance to remake him in its grotesque image.

Finally, he dared kiss his sister's lips, which were as cold and unmoving as he feared, but while the chill pierced him, it ignited a fire inside him, greater than any he had ever felt, even for King Bumi. "I will avenge you, and I will see you again momentarily," he vowed, standing to his feet. "I am to die by Fire Lord Ozai or Vaatu. Either way, you are with me. I want you to open your eyes, smile, and tell me to make the Conqueror proud as you always have, but you cannot. It should not be me talking; it should be you. I took that from you with my mistake. May you forgive me when I see you again minutes or days from now."

Chin V stalked out of his sister's room, heart on fire with chilling hatred. He knew his fate—his demise. He had invited it by accepting Fire Lord Ozai and embracing him initially as 'Piandao,' deceived by Vaatu. If it were any other enemy, he would summon all his vast kin, numbering in the millions now due to The Avatar's murder of Ba Sing Se, but even though it would ensure Fire Lord Ozai's death, it also ensured that Vaatu destroyed all of them in wrath for murdering his beloved vessel. He would face Fire Lord Ozai alone, speaking of his sister's murder to none of his kinsmen, as he did not want all of them dead, even if it was inevitable now.

The Children of Chin were already dead with his sister's death. He and her were the last true heirs of the Conqueror—his direct children, preserved in purity and potency—as all their siblings and 'cousins' had all died long ago, either in the Great War or from constitutional weaknesses. Even his cousin, sired by the traitor of his blood, grandson of Chin III's brother, had died years ago, depriving him of any woman with whom he could breed and preserve the Conqueror's purity and presence. Henceforth, there would only be grandchildren of the Conqueror and great-grandchildren, diluted endlessly until the Conqueror was forgotten both in name and blood.

He would rather die by Fire Lord Ozai or Vaatu's hands than live to see the long demise of his kinsmen.

It was time to die.

XxXxXxXxXxX

The forest was brilliant, shining under the Moon's light, alighting the grass, stones, and trees with a silver hue. The wind flowed with grace, hardly felt, but Ozai was powerfully aware of the wind—always had been since The Avatar had used the wind to slice off his arm in an unthinkable attack. There was something troubling about the wind as it was everywhere, all around him, pressuring him, reminding him, and mocking him—shrieking that The Avatar would return and finish his attack. It was appalling because it became clear to him that Air was pervasive universally, the only Element capable of it.

Agni was not in the sky anymore, not having his turn in prominence, replaced by the Moon, nor was Fire everywhere all around him—and same for Water. Earth was beneath his feet, but it was not everywhere, all around him and above him, suffusing all that he was. But Air was—around him, above him, behind him, and beneath him, filling the space between his legs and toes.

He lived his life in Air, not any of the other Elements—not even Fire! No man never experienced Air in his life if he wanted to live, and like all men, he wanted to live, for which he relied on Air. When he leaned back or stepped forward, he passed through Air because Air allowed him to; he did not step through Fire, Earth, or Water. It was always Air.

Air was everything.

It was intolerable and equally worrying.

Was that what Grandfather felt before he attacked Air in response to their insolence? He must have realized the imminent presence Air possessed. There could be no secrets or safety with Air everywhere, listening and watching, holding the ultimate power over everyone.

Ozai knew how devastating Air could be in The Avatar's attack. It was gentle now in the forest, delightful and soothing, but it turned to destruction so swiftly it was impossible to follow—only experience.

He needed to master airbending as soon as possible! He needed such power!

"Why bring me out here?" Hama demanded finally.

Ozai cast his thoughts of Air to the periphery and smiled as he turned to face her, doing nothing to hide his appreciative glance in how the wind rustled her garbs, emphasizing her woman figure. "Have you reconsidered my offer of rejuvenation?"

Hama's eyes narrowed, though it did little to diminish the gleam therein. "I made myself clear."

"I know when a woman gazes at me with desire," he countered. "You desire me. Otherwise, why not crush me when you felt my 'reaction'- "

"Vaatu would crush me in response," she snapped.

Ozai did not believe her; the heat emanating from her was passionate, stirring his own. "I would deny him—because you will never crush me." He stepped closer, rewarded when Hama did not step back. "We are the same; we need rejuvenation."

Hama's face flashed with something he could not describe. "That's a hollow victory."

"What do you want?"

"A real victory."

"Real victories are only achieved by hollow victories."

She laughed with a ring of hysteria. "Do you really believe that?"

Ozai remembered ascending the Dragon's Throne—but only after he lost Ursa. It had felt like a hollow victory, certainly, and unfortunately, it had not resulted in a real victory in the long run. "I am unsure."

Hama pulled water out of the grass, which withered instantly; she held the water before her, staring at her reflection. "What would all those I knew think of me, knowing I was considering your offer? My family would be horrified. They would hate me and call me 'betrayer'."

"Your family already betrayed you," he pointed out. "They betrayed you first- "

"I know!" she hissed, glaring at him; the ice in her eyes matched the water that suddenly shifted, sharpening, and elongating. "But how is that enough? You're a beautiful man, but beauty's never enough."

Ozai swallowed the scoff rising inside him. "It is. Beauty is what makes everything else possible."

"I loved a man a long time ago," Hama said softly after several moments; she did not look at him, only at the ice afloat in the air, tethered to her will. "He was going to ask me to be his betrothed, and I was going to say yes. But he was killed before he could ask me." She whirled on him, blue eyes piercing and accusing. "He was killed—slaughtered—by your race. If I knew bloodbending then, I would have put his blood back in his body, but I couldn't—I could only watch it gush out of him."

"You blame me?" he asked in disbelief. "You are more intelligent than that."

"And your race kidnapped me from my home as a war trophy," she continued, voice drifting. "I was imprisoned and tortured in agony for years. It was pointless—meaningless. It was cruel. There was no reason to keep me prisoner for so long—it was a waste. All of this your race did to me, and more, yet you ask me to lay with you. The sight of you should repulse me instead of excite me, and I hate that you're unlike anyone else—unlike all the others." She ice began to spin, twisting to face him, floating closer in ominous warning. "I hate that you understand me and know more about the betrayal of Family than I do; I hate that you encourage me in my efforts; I hate that you vow to help me kill Katara and mean it; I hate that you're the only friend I have, the only friend I have ever had since I was imprisoned by your race, led by Azulon; I hate that you're who I turn to and look to; I hate that I trust you; I hate that I want to trust you more because I want to have that again, even if it's with you; I hate that you have beauty and strength; and I hate that I don't care you're Fire."

Ozai knew he was close to having her, which meant he needed to play his strategy sensibly with the utmost subtlety and care. "I do not rejoice in what you are, either," he observed, watching for a sign, though it was difficult—and unnerving—as all the ice shards gleamed in his direction, aimed at him. "Yet I am fond of you. These circumstances are simply circumstances. I learned to seize circumstances, lest I die. Will you seize these circumstances as I do?"

Hama stared at him, breathing deeply, for a long time before the ice vanished into water, which splashed to the ground as she dropped it. "Maybe," she confessed.

It was not enough for him, for he needed her to be on his side firmly and utterly when Chin V attacked inevitably, but before he could persuade her further, he registered the proximate but familiar vibrations and glanced behind him in confirmation to see Chin V part through the trees, blending in with his green robes—that were stained with blood.

Chin V had obviously found his sister's corpse, but why was he here? Was there an army behind him?

He panicked and stretched his senses as far as he possibly could, but it was clear that there was only one—Chin V—who came to confront him. "We sparred yesterday," he pointed out, watching carefully, wanting to see if Chin V's charade would fall or continue.

And there was Hama to consider.

Chin V stared at him with poisonous green eyes, matching the beautiful jade clothing he wore, rotating a dozen small pebbles in the air without even waving his hand—an intimidation tactic that did not work. "I have much more in mind now."

How he wished for his firebending to shoot lightning at him immediately! "My mind is full now. Come to me tomorrow."

Chin V's disfigured, inbred face was set in dedicated hatred. "Cease your pretense of ignorance. You know why I am here."

Ozai's jaw clenched as he realized that he had miscalculated—possibly fatally. He thought that Chin V would nurture his hatred of his sister's murder and spread the word amongst his many kinsmen, taking days to plan the assault, which would give him enough time to seduce Hama into his bed, playing on her obvious fondness for him and showing to her his obvious fondness for her. Thus, he would have the strongest ally possible in the world except The Avatar himself or Vaatu to deal with Chin V and his kinsmen when it inevitably reached a clash of wills.

And he had the perfect means to sabotage Chin V's standing in his kinsmen's eyes, even with Hama on his side as his failsafe.

Earth was a race that sanctified stability, like the ground was. When he revealed that he only completed his duty as an honorary member of his master's family by murdering his sister, who could never provide the stability sought by the Children of Chin, they would understand. In response, realizing that his grip on power was vanishing, Chin V would either attack or attempt to smear him, but Ozai would deride Chin V as a saboteur who sought to destroy his own kinsmen by willfully breeding with a woman—his own sister—incapable of stability, least of all providing it, and directing his kinsmen to attack him, Vaatu's vessel, in whom only wrath and destruction could be dealt to his attackers, endorsed by Vaatu himself.

Either way, he would ensure that Chin V could never hold sway over his kinsmen, who believed Chin V wanted only their destruction and demise. And if the Children of Chin elected to remain loyal to Chin V, he would have Hama force their loyalty to him with her bloodbending—the ultimate terror. There was also the promise of open conflict since Zhao was gathering all of Ozai's nobles, rallying them, ensuring that they would be ready for a conflict with Chin V's kinsmen. It was the perfect plan, made possible by murdering Chin V's sister, and he had executed it perfectly, knowing how to play the long game and act when necessary.

It was guaranteed to work—or so he thought.

Instead of fulfilling his expectations, Chin V confronting him alone—and with Hama with him to possibly persuade her to his side—was something he never conceived. It might be the death of him since Vaatu was elsewhere, gone for over a month since obtaining Zhao. Not even he could face Chin V and Hama, especially Hama, united in resentment toward him. He was not transcendent yet.

"What's going on?" Hama demanded, looking between them, posture tight; she clearly sensed the hostility rippling in the air.

Chin V's laugh was rough and grating. "Do not interfere; do not heal him from my inflictions. His belligerent mendacity ends here!"

Ozai shook his head. "I am here. Have your desire. But know that my desire is greater, as I am greater. My desire is to repay to you whatever you inflict on me a hundredfold."

"I am not stupid," Chin V hissed. "Hama must leave- "

Hama's eyes blazed in confusion and ire. "I'm not leaving! What's going on? You're attacking him- "

"Only him, not you. Step aside and respect the results of the conflict."

"Never- "

"You don't have a choice- "

Hama scoffed and opened her hand; instantly, Chin V's body seized up, held in her bloodbending grip, and Ozai stared in pleasure. "No, you don't have a choice! What's going on- "

"Chin V misplaced his sister, lost sight of her," Ozai interrupted in goading, unable to resist, to which Chin V became apoplectic, deprived of utterance as he seethed.

"Piandao, what's going on?" she asked, staring up at him in confusion and trust, clearly trusting him to tell her the truth.

Ozai would tell her his role in Chin V's sister's death, but it was not the time since Chin V was present. "Fate is happening. She met her fate as she sought to bring me to mine."

"You are dead!" Chin V shouted, voice echoing in the forest. "You will be nothing but a shriveled stain on my robes when I am through!"

"Your robes already have enough stains," he pointed out, staring at his sister's blood on his robes.

"I will add your brains to it!" Chin V's smile twisted in horrific triumph, despite him being held in Hama's grasp. "What is it your vile race says? Agni Kai."

Ozai frowned, knowing he needed to accept, lest his nobles start to question him. If word traveled that he refused an Agni Kai, it would be a sign of crushing weakness. "An Agni Kai is a firebending duel, not earthbending- "

"Accept!" Chin V demanded, snarling. "Agni Kai, Fire Lord!"

Realizing instantly that Chin V had not only hated him out of envy but recognition of his identity, he cursed inwardly when he saw Hama look up at him sharply, eyes wide, dropping Chin V in her shock, but there was a dark, brewing accusation therein. "What- "

Ozai glanced at her, not wanting to take his eyes off Chin V, but he needed Hama to remain loyal to him! He desperately needed it! "I will explain later," he urged, knowing he had to get her away, lest she hear something she should not. "Go. I accept his challenge to Agni Kai. An Agni Kai is between us only. You need to go."

Hama must have seen something on his face as her eyes became slits. "You will explain everything, Fire Lord."

Then she was gone, not looking once behind her, which he knew meant he had to make severe amends—and try to prevent her from putting together the truth of his identity. After all the work he had done to win her over and have her, it was infuriating to realize that all the work might be for naught because of Chin V.

It was a well-played tactic.

Ozai laughed in surprise when he turned back to Chin V. "You caught me by surprise. I did not think you had the temerity."

Chin V's misshapen eyes boiled. "When you murder my sister, I am capable of anything."

"Even challenging me, your better?"

"Yes. But your mistake lies in thinking you are better. You are not."

Ozai stared at him, unimpressed. "How long have you known my identity?"

Chin V sneered. "Your friend, Zhao—since Vaatu brought him here. I put it together."

He sighed and adjusted his stance slightly, prepared; though he wished he possessed his firebending, he was confident enough with his earthbending prowess that he could and would defeat Chin V. "You will die for this."

"I know, but I will kill you before Vaatu kills me. Do you know why?" Chin V opened himself, stretching out his arms, seeming absorbing all the land around them. "Because I am greater than you."

A laugh escaped him at the absurdity of the statement. "You know who I am, which means you know how wrong you are."

"You lack knowledge, Fire Lord," Chin V derided in triumph. "What you know is that The Avatar murdered my sire, but what you do not know is that The Avatar did not murder an enemy."

Ozai frowned, wondering if Chin V's objective lied in distraction. "Meaning?"

Chin V's bitterness was apparent. "Kyoshi did not murder an enemy because she murdered a husband—her husband."

He blinked, disbelieving. To have the blood of The Avatar was prestigious. He knew that Ursa was the lone granddaughter of Avatar Roku, the reason why Father had been so content with their union. His wife was a prodigy, strong, and powerful. Avatar Roku's blood flowed through her veins, as it flowed through his children's veins, as well. Any Avatar's line was the epitome of power, and often, the strongest benders in recorded history claimed the blood of The Avatar. Chin V became more dangerous in his estimation because of it.

"Avatar Kyoshi is your foremother?" he asked, unable to help himself.

If Chin V's aim was distraction, it was a brilliant distraction—to match a brilliant execution.

"Yes. She murdered her husband, the Conqueror. We remember what destroyed him—The Avatar. That is why we work against The Avatar now. And to think—Kyoshi helped him at first! The rest of the continent has forgotten thanks to Kyoshi's change of heart when it no longer mattered, but we remember here. We know what Kyoshi did, and we know what Kyoshi did not do. She never stopped the Conqueror; she supported him—she helped him once she became fully-realized! So many people never knew what happened because those who knew were killed and silenced forever. In the generations since, people wonder how the Conqueror managed to conquer the entire continent under Kyoshi's nose, not realizing that Kyoshi always knew and participated in the conquering. The Conqueror only ever got as far as he did because Kyoshi helped him, not as The Avatar but as his wife. But his wife betrayed him and undid his life and life's work. My kinsmen have tried for generations to avenge his murder, but we have failed always, for The Avatar is beyond anyone—beyond even the Conqueror. Her love for her own husband did not surpass her innate tyranny to murder him. I am begotten of this holy bloodline, descendant of the Conqueror and The Avatar."

Ozai's eyes narrowed, doubtful. "No, you obscure the truth to deceive me- "

Chin V smiled; it was a sickening sight. The scarred flesh on his inbred face scrunched, cringing together until his ugly face was split in an inhuman mass of glee. "You are afraid of the truth, which means you are afraid of me, of the inheritance within me. Truth unifies, and the Conqueror wanted our race under one truth—the Truth. He wanted to lead them as one man, the single King of Earth with vast dominion."

"Uniting Earth under one royal family," he concluded. "Under his lineage—your lineage."

"On even ground with your lineage, Fire Lord."

Ozai stared at him, finding that his curiosity was strong enough to stay his hand to attack—for now. After all, such information would be powerfully useful in convincing Chin V's kinsmen to ally with him and accept him as their new leader after he killed Chin V as it proved that he was serious and a worthy replacement with the requisite knowledge to lead them and understand their customs. "The right move from a tactical standpoint, which is foreign to you," he observed. "How unfortunate that you inherited only his blood and not his mind."

"You are pathetic, unable to accept the truth," Chin V hissed in response, eyes flaring with manic devotion. "You cannot accept that you have a rival—me. All the Chins have always been a rival to the Fire Lord, beginning with the Conqueror."

"But he failed."

"A new contender would have arisen against your forefathers, and there would have only been one survivor. It was going to happen until The Avatar interfered."

Ozai scoffed to keep his façade, needing more information. "Why would Kyoshi murder her husband?"

Chin V looked like he briefly agreed with his feigned disbelief before he remembered his hatred. "The Conqueror first made a name for himself as a watcher of incoming Fire Nation ships for trade off of the coast. For years, he was forced to hear how Fire Lord Kazuki's will alone shaped an entire race through power. The Conqueror rallied and banded together with other disgruntled warriors who sought power and placement for Earth rather than the displacement enforced by the selfish, deceiving Earth Kings—and Kyoshi was one of those who joined him."

"I do not see how that leads to murder."

"Have you no imagination?" Chin V snapped. "He stumbled across her when she was a mere teenager, years before she learned she was The Avatar, and he was ten years her senior. Their connection was before Kyoshi was absorbed by The Avatar. He was a renowned Earthbender and never met someone as great as him—until he met her. Her eminent earthbending intrigued him, and his ambitious willpower intrigued her; she was fascinated that he was willing to overthrow the four unlawful, unnatural Earth Kings. She knew that the Fire Lord was the most powerful leader of the Four Races- "

"Naturally," Ozai agreed.

Chin V smiled thinly. "- and wanted the same for Earth. She and the Conqueror laid together when she was only a girl, right when she turned fifteen, and soon, she was pregnant with the Conqueror's firstborn. She loved him, and he loved her. They talked of marriage after she gave birth to a son, named after his father—Chin II. They were happy and prepared for a marriage, but the Earth Sages found her—they lost her after she first joined the Conqueror and traced her energy—and outed her as The Avatar right on her sixteenth birthday. Everything changed. No longer could they marry, and no longer could he rely on her support—as she had to depart for years to master the other bending arts. The Conqueror almost murdered the Earth Sages in his fury, but Kyoshi stopped him; she left of her own will, stranding Chin II, her infant son, with his father. Years passed—fifteen years—before she returned, having completed her quest. She was thirty-one; he was forty-one. While she was gone, the Conqueror had sired numerous children through his harem of women as he believed that a man's legacy is determined by his children. Thus, he fathered many—but he kept his firstborn as his heir and valued and praised him above all others. He had made slow, steady progress in his pursuit to unite the continent under his lineage. He spent those fifteen years creating systems of authority and structure, learning to delegate his authority where necessary, as he amassed an army that outclassed any in the Earth Kingdoms, later to be the Earth Kingdom as he unified it before his work was destroyed, building a loyal circle of men with similar contentions to himself. When Kyoshi returned from her training, the Conqueror was ready; he had laid all the meticulous groundwork and sturdy foundation for a swift overthrow of the Earth Kings, replacing them with himself. She agreed with his plan and helped him implement it. They reconnected and married quickly. From their marriage sprung two more children—two daughters."

Ozai remained on guard, waiting for Chin V to attack at any moment in the story, prepared for it, but he listened, intrigued, for he knew it was the necessary knowledge he needed to control the Children of Chin after Chin V's death. "They only had three children?"

"They had many more after the Conqueror's death," Chin V revealed with a hidden pleasure. "The Conqueror's death ruined all his endeavors—because his wife murdered him. But before Kyoshi betrayed him, they were unbeatable—unstoppable. They swept across the continent with the Conqueror's army, and Kyoshi participated with enthusiasm, conquering every city and town, even the four Major Cities themselves: Chyung, Zaofu, Omashu, and Ba Sing Se. Kyoshi helped Chin conquer the continent; she actively took part—until The Avatar awakened inside her, poisoning her to tyranny, as The Avatar has always done. She was in love with the Conqueror; she married him and became his wife, bore his children, and looked after his other children. But The Avatar was stronger than Kyoshi, for Kyoshi lacked all strength. As the unification happened, as they went farther across the continent and gathered all provinces and territories unto the Conqueror, she hesitated at the engagement needed for the unification—the piles of bodies ascended higher than her arrogance and pride—and she wept like a woman. Even for The Avatar, she lacked strength. She lost sight of the Conqueror's vision as The Avatar blinded her. If Kyoshi was never The Avatar, they would have remained married, and the continent would have never lost the Conqueror and his strength. But The Avatar seized hold of Kyoshi and ruined her and desecrated her marriage. The more time that passed, the more she hesitated and lost herself in confusion and doubt. She was between a rock and a hard place. She initially agreed with it, and she participated in the atrocities, seeing it as the necessary, right sacrifice to destroy the Earth Kings and their depraved, pervasive influence. Millions died during the conquest through the Earth Kingdoms—no one disputes this, not even I. But what I dispute is the fact that it was wasteful and unnecessary. If Earth was unified under my lineage—under the Conqueror's lineage—your race would have never had such success against us during the Great War."

Ozai's eyes narrowed. "Unlikely. We are born of Power; we were always going to win."

"Then we would have made it two centuries of resistance instead of one century. But Kyoshi failed and became soft, poisoned from the inside by The Avatar's pervading presence. She encountered families who were destroyed and fell soft to their pleas; she claimed nothing was what it should be and that the conquest was going too far. She tried desperately to get the Conqueror to change his mind and stop, but he kept going, advancing toward his dream of a unified Earth, and Kyoshi was pulled along, unwilling to destroy her husband and father of her children—until he reached her homeland, where she was born, to conquer."

"That was the last occupied land the Conqueror needed to conquer to fully unite Earth under his lineage," he realized, finding himself feel a kinship with the Conqueror, for he had been so close to destroying Earth during Sozin's Comet, the last valuable occupied land not under his rule—until The Avatar interfered, destroying his dream, like The Avatar destroyed the Conqueror's dream. "He was so close."

"Just like The Avatar to do such a thing," Chin V hissed, and Ozai was reminded of their shared powerful hatred for The Avatar. It almost made him regretful that he would kill Chin V, but he knew it was necessary. Chin V was a more dangerous opponent than convenient ally, particularly since in Chin V's veins flowed The Avatar's blood. "Kyoshi became feckless, too stupid to understand glory and purpose. It is said Kyoshi painted her face for the first time that day when he arrived at her homeland, and she stood against him—so her husband could not see her anguish on her face. And every day since, she kept her face painted; she never revealed her face again for all her life and refused to remarry and bear more children. The Avatar won. Kyoshi was The Avatar that day, glowing white in her eyes and mouth, for Kyoshi could never go through with it; she surrendered to The Avatar and let The Avatar murder her husband and deprive her children of their father. I thank her for being my foremother and raising my line to power beyond conception, but I hate her. I can think of no greater monster than her—than The Avatar. The Conqueror was murdered in front of his entire army, among them his heir, Kyoshi's own son—her only son. But she did not care that he witnessed his father's murder and was caught in the terror of The Avatar's unleashed power. The Avatar separated the mainland into an island, tearing down to the depths in the ocean and through hundreds of leagues of forests and farmland. The Avatar blew the army back, leaving the Conqueror alone, but the Conqueror stood in courage against his wife's betrayal—until The Avatar took his courage from him with his life and pulled the island away from the mainland with lava spewing into the air in towers of domination. The Avatar left—and left with Kyoshi's mind because she lost it after. She undid all of the Conqueror's achievements and gave Ba Sing Se, Zaofu, Chyung, and Omashu to new kings chosen specifically by her, loyal to her, granting them all the old holdings and power, creating new royal lineages that had no legitimacy—it was the beginning of the end! She invited the Great War because of it! Those kings were pretenders, not born of the previous royal lineages; they had no history to legitimize them, and they suffered under eternal doubt and accusation for generations because of it! Thus, these kings' descendants ensured the Great War because they were desperate to legitimize their reigns and lineages, making a legendary history that would augment their standings forever, where no one would ever doubt their rule again. They let Fire get so far ahead of us so they could tell a greater story, a greater history, a greater legend in striking back against the tide and pushing Fire back after it all appeared hopeless. Kyoshi did it all; she is the source of all the horror that devastated our race for a century! It was intentional! She disbanded the splintered remnants of the Conqueror's army and murdered all the soldiers—many of whom she knew personally—who rebelled against her tyranny and tried to continue the Conqueror's vision. But The Avatar was supreme, and there was no rebelling against such a will. Not even Kyoshi's children stopped her; she could not be swayed by their deep anguish. She was a stupid, heartless cunt! She destroyed everything she and the Conqueror had worked for and stole from her children a glorious inheritance! And she deserved her fate! Never has a cunt deserved her fate more! Kyoshi lived in heartbreak for the rest of her life as her children rightfully wanted nothing to do with her after she betrayed their father; they wanted her dead, and while they refused to act against her, their children—Kyoshi's grandchildren in body—tried to assassinate her. She never had the will to destroy them, those of her own blood and body—the embodiments of her marriage to the Conqueror. Even though she moved her homeland, now made into an island, across the ocean to the other side of the continent, making her homeland closer to her husband's homeland, it was a scarce attempt at atonement. Nothing could redeem her of her sins. She deserves all the hatred in the world. She died, haggard, under the weight of her afflictions. She betrayed everything she devoted herself to, murdered her husband, devastated his army—many men whose names she knew and with whom she shared laughs, discussing their children's futures and befriending their wives—by way of might, and abandoned her children to fecklessness. I hope she burns for all-time from her betrayal; I hope she has no memory of her real face, only her painted face, the literal armor she used to fortify herself to murder her husband and scar her children; and I hope that she was raped daily by the ugliest, vilest men in the world to devalue her worth to match the diminishment she gave her husband's legacy."

"Just like The Avatar to do such a thing as everything about The Avatar is fraudulent," he commented, knowing under different circumstances that he and Chin V would be the greatest of allies and possibly friends.

But it was not to be.

The ground beneath Chin V morphed into sizzling lava, and Ozai adjusted his stance and summoned his own lava, superheating the air around them. "The only inheritance she gave her children was her prized blood and lavabending. I know you wonder who taught us such power, and it was Kyoshi. After she returned from her training, she taught her son. The Conqueror was unable to master lavabending, but his children by Kyoshi were capable of it. We are capable of it because of Kyoshi. Chin II taught it to his two sisters—full-blooded sisters—and it has passed down to me and my sister before you murdered her. Now I taught it to you, and you used my gift to murder my sister."

Ozai stared at him, unapologetic and unashamed. "I wish you possessed the vision of your forefather. He was a great man and would realize the necessity in allying with me, but you are emotional and hate Fire."

"I hate Sozin's seed, of which you were born."

"Yes, but unlike your great forefather, mine succeeded."

Chin V's fierce face spasmed with severe rage. "Know your blessing of Vaatu's regard. If not for him, I would descend on you with my kinsmen, all the direct descendants of the Conqueror's other children by his harem before he married Kyoshi upon her return from her training, and destroy you. But it can only be me to destroy you and avenge my sister's murder. The mistake in trusting you is mine alone and, thus, must this conflict be mine alone."

"And your generosity of your lineage's knowledge?" Ozai asked. "Why tell me your foremother is Kyoshi? As intimidation?"

"I tell you this to cripple your resolve as you are not better than me and never will be. Conflict is within me as the Conqueror and The Avatar strike each other in their eternal disagreement that destroyed their marriage, sharpening my strength and awareness with the force of their love—and their hate. Only The Avatar is greater than me." Chin V clapped his hands; his disfigured, inbred face flushed triumphantly in hatred. "You see, Ozai, within me is the Conqueror and Kyoshi's blood, but while my body is descended from them four times over, my blood is not; my blood is only descended from them once, retaining all the glory and power they passed to their children—for all the children of each generation bred with each other, preserving the Conqueror and Kyoshi's presence in our blood, not losing it over time, not diluting it out. Within me is the chaos of lost love and the demand for duty and ambition. You stand in my way, and by the power in my blood, I will destroy you and become Vaatu's vessel. I am worthier than you in every way. I am greater than you as I am a son of The Avatar while you are a son of a Fire Lord, and we both know that The Avatar is greater than the Fire Lord in every way."

Ozai smiled, though he seethed. "Your sister was a daughter of The Avatar. It did not stop me from killing her. Her fate will be yours."

The lava beneath Chin V bubbled in warning. "It will be, but not by your hands. I surrender my fate to Vaatu's judgment."

He felt the rumble and pivoted, smashing through the boulder sailing toward her, but when he turned back around, he was helpless to defend himself from the pillar of earth that appeared out of nowhere and smashed into him. Ozai put his single arm up at the last second, but it was not enough. The air left his lungs in a rush, reminding him painfully of what The Avatar did to him months ago, as the pillar blasted him back into the forest, spinning into the soil.

He snarled as he stood to his feet, golden eyes blazing with rage. "It is my judgment you will feel, for Vaatu's judgment and my judgment are the same!"

Chin V said nothing, only surging toward him on a wave of lava, and Ozai met him on his own. They clashed against one another, all-encompassing heat blanketing the surrounding area. Lava roared as it smashed against Ozai, who carefully dealt with it. If he had his firebending, he would let the lava smash into him harmlessly and drift down his body like water droplets, but he was without his firebending; he only had his earthbending to deal with his earthbending master who taught him mastery.

It was rival against rival, will against will, and vengeance against judgment. The battle was vicious and unrestrained; neither made any effort for restraint, letting devastation litter the area from their clash. Ozai realized quickly that he had never fought Chin V completely in their spars, giving him a disadvantage since he had scarce idea of what Chin V was truly capable of, but Ozai knew his advantage lied in his unorthodox style and knowledge in blending what he knew with firebending and earthbending, making him unpredictable.

Metal spun through the air, joining the fray, directed by each, each move lethal and calculated, designed to decapitate—but each strike was repelled masterfully. The world shuddered; trees toppled; the earth groaned; the soil was freed from its dormancy; stone died; and lava consumed.

Ozai spun around and slammed his single fist into the ground with ferocity; an explosion of earth ruptured in all directions, blowing Chin V back and destroying everything in the area. But when Ozai looked to continue his assault, Chin V was nowhere to be found. He looked around in wild determination, crouching in preparation, listening, waiting for Chin's inevitable attack, but seconds passed, and nothing happened.

A movement.

He whirled to his right, instinctively catching the shard of metal that had almost decapitated him. Chin V leaped toward him, metal and lava rotating around him in a defensive shield, and Ozai threw the spear back at him and charged, metal coating his single fist as he surged against Chin V, lava spurting with each pound of his feet.

However, Chin V swept the lava at him, which Ozai jumped to the side to avoid, but he realized his error instantly as Chin V had predicted his evasion, for the second he pivoted over, he winced as several pieces of the metal suddenly clamped onto his feet, trapping him. He lurched forward as his momentum was used against him, forcing him to keel over awkwardly, single hand bracing him to the ground. But before he could recover and reply, his hand was fastened by metal, as well, immobilizing him. He was powerless to defend himself against Chin V's metal-protected fist—a clever trick he had learned from his earthbending master—smashing painfully into his ribs, chest, and face, over and over again, dazing him.

Chin V continued his vicious assault, and Ozai regretted sending Hama away, but he knew he would die with his regret; blackness sparked in his vision, growing with each strike, compounding the pain. He had no idea what his face looked like but presumed it resembled Chin V's in its gruesome horror.

A hand wrenched his head back, gripping his hair, and Ozai could barely keep his eyes open to stare into Chin V's livid, triumphant ones, though much blood spilled from several of Chin V's wounds. "You die in failure while I die in victory. I avenged my sister's murder, and I go to my death by Vaatu's hands with pride."

"Hama will kill you before Vaatu does," he whispered, coughing. "She loves me—or is close to it."

Chin V gripped his bloody, bruised—nearly broken—jaw with harsh, quivering fingers, wrenching it up. "I will kill her before she has the chance. You kill my lover, I kill yours."

He recalled Hama's mesmerizing power of bloodbending and felt a croaked laugh escape him. "I beg you to try so she rips you apart."

"Regardless, Ozai, when we see each other again, you will be beneath me as you are now." Chin V's eyes were delighted, blazing with satisfaction, poisonous green orbs dancing in the lava's light. "You know nothing of power."

Ozai inhaled sharply and almost choked on the blood in his mouth, tasted its presence, which sparked his awareness—it awakened him. "Power?" he hissed, muscles spasming through his body. "Power is unknown to your race. It exists for you to grab, but none of you have the boldness and passion to grab it. No wonder the Conqueror fell to The Avatar, for he held no power—like you."

Chin V struck him again, panting for breath, but Ozai hardly felt it; he was invigorated. "Who holds the power to end your life when he chooses? Me! I pull your life to your death, and there is no greater power than that! It is in my blood!"

"Power is in my blood!" he roared, voice hoarse, but it ignited him in vigor. "In your blood is failed men and heartless cunts! You have no greatness in you, where greatness is all that I know!"

The metal ground against his skin, trying to crush his bones, and Ozai resisted as much as he could, straining against Chin V's powerful energy. "You will not die great," Chin V said, coming closer to hiss in his ear. "You will die forgotten, Ozai."

"I will never be forgotten," Ozai spat, spraying Chin V's deformed, inbred, and wounded face with his blood. "I am of Sozin's line, the culmination of a royal bloodline so mighty that the world trembles at my very name. I am the son of Fire Lord Azulon, son of Fire Lord Sozin, son of Fire Lord Kohaku, son of Fire Lord Kazuki, son of Fire Lady Akemi, daughter of Fire Lord Rylun, son of Fire Lord Henjul, descended from Fire Lord Ravi, descended from Fire Lord Kai, descended from Agni! My willpower warms the world! You may have The Avatar's blood, but I have Power's blood, and The Avatar answers to Power, beholden to it! You are beholden to me!"

Afresh with vigor, he felt the phantom limb he lost to The Avatar's wrath, felt the ghostly sensation of its presence, and imagined his lost arm there, slashing forward with precision. The energy connected, and Ozai smiled, eyes alight with powerful victory.

Chin V howled when a metal spear pierced through his stomach, gazing at him in outrage that slowly morphed to fear when Ozai summoned lava beneath him, doing the unthinkable and burning himself alive—but also the metal holding him in place. He roared in agony as his single hand, single elbow, knees, and feet were burned severely from the lava, unusable and possibly primed for amputation, but Ozai had another limb—his missing limb—and was free from the constraints.

He swiftly cooled the lava and attacked again and again, immobile, kneeling in place in the cooled lava, but because Chin V could see no movement of his limbs or sense the vibrations made by his body—because it was his will and imaginary arm that made the movements—there was momentum on his side.

Ozai repaid all the strikes with countless ones of his own, smashing Chin V back and scorching him with lava and piercing him with more metal shards. Chin V's walls and defenses were useless because Chin V had no idea where the attacks would come from before it was too late, and Ozai stared in dark satisfaction when Chin V collapsed and did not stand up again after Ozai severed his spine with a jagged metal part.

Silence—filled only by their haggard wheezing.

Ozai panted and tried to stand up, but his feet were ruined, and his hands and knees prevented him from crawling forward to finish; he hissed between his teeth and grunted as he tumbled forward and landed with a smothered groan. Making sure that Chin V had not moved and that he actually severed his spine, Ozai rolled on his side, over and over, gathering momentum and direction, taking him to the needed destination—his dying enemy.

When he reached Chin V, who laid prone in a growing pool of his own blood, chest rising and falling with erratic breaths, Ozai paused to catch his breath and bearings and blink away the vertigo. "If we both die now, we will finish this on the other side," he called out hoarsely.

A gasping, gurling laugh met his ears. "You can bet on it."

"I will crush you for eternity."

"No."

Ozai staggered to his scorched knees, nearly whimpering at the pain, but he forced himself to hobble over to Chin V and leaned over him; he stared down at Chin V's pale face, connecting their eyes—poisonous green orbs were hazed with resigned agony. "You have no heir because you are so inbred. Now I give you the fate that should have been yours from the start when your parents bred."

Before he could grab a stone and smash Chin V's skull in or slit his throat, a blanket of frigid cold descended over the area, and Ozai inhaled sharply, making him cough in surprise.

Vaatu.

"What is the source of this?" Vaatu snapped, appearing before them, shaking the air itself with ripples of displeasure.

Ozai gasped for breath and craned his neck up fearlessly. "He knows my identity."

Chin V's head jerked and writhed, the last sparks of his willpower, but only his head could move; the rest of his body was motionless, paralyzed. "He murdered my sister."

"Because she sought my assassination," Ozai defended. "She went around, asking about me, demanding to know my plans—so she could make her own plans."

"I told her to do it."

Vaatu's shadows roiled in aggravation. "Hama!"

The words snapped louder than the harshest thunder, making Ozai flinch in surprise, as it echoed everywhere, seeming to echo inside him—and inside everyone who could possibly hear it, which might be everyone in Chyung's territories.

"You have much to answer, Chin V," Vaatu hissed, furious. "You attack my vessel and think there would be no consequences?"

Chin V's breathing shuddered, lips stained with his blood. "I knew the consequences. I accepted them—I still do. He murdered my sister and gave my line extinction."

Before Vaatu could respond, Hama dashed out of the trees and stared at them, horrified. "You damn idiot!" she hissed, glaring at him—but there was worry in her blue eyes.

"Heal, healer!" Vaatu ordered, to which Hama needed no further demand. She pulled water out of the air and began healing him, which allowed Ozai to collapse to the ground near Chin V, grateful for the reprieve from the pain, which died slowly under Hama's attentive care.

He closed his eyes and memorized the sensation of his body living again, hearing only Chin V's rattling, uneven breaths. Vaatu was silent, watching over them, ensuring his orders were completed perfectly. However, when Hama finished healing Ozai, Vaatu hummed, staying Hama's hand from healing Chin V.

"You are a valuable ally, Chin V, but you have reduced your worth vastly. It is not you whom holds value but your kinsmen; it is no longer you but what you can do."

"I can- "

"Silence!" Vaatu ordered, darkness exploding off him. "You do not speak. I am ancient, the creator of this Realm! It was I and Raava who bent the Tree of Time's very roots, binding them to this realm while we shaped its very formation, creating it out of the cosmic energies. I am a power beyond understanding, Chin V. My judgment is aligned perfectly—unlike yours. I know what is needed and what is not. Be grateful I know these things, for it is the only reason I am going to save you. The only reason your mortality is not realized is your usefulness."

Hooks of piercing shadows extended out of Vaatu and slithered over Chin V's chest, littered with wounds—and sunk into the wounds, the crimson color of blood clashing against the darkness.

Ozai stared, amazed. "The more I am acquainted with your methods, the more I admire you, my friend."

Vaatu ignored him, for which Ozai did not resent him. "You will forget what you have learned, Chin V, and continue your and your kinsmen's loyalty to me and Piandao, and in exchange, your sister will live again."

Silence.

Ozai was not the only one who gaped, and Chin V's head thrashed, revived in strength—however temporarily. "Please."

"Will you be loyal and forget what you learned, Chin V?"

"If she lives again," Chin V vowed in a wheeze.

Vaatu peered down at Chin V for several long moments until the darkness retreated into him. "Heal him, Hama."

Hama obeyed and began healing Chin V of his fresh wounds while Ozai shuffled over to Vaatu, watching, making sure that Chin V did not try anything as he regained strength and mobility, though he knew Hama would know before he ever would because of her bloodbending. "You can revive her?"

"By the same method The Avatar returned your daughter."

Ozai's jaw clenched at the reminder and made sure to keep his voice low to prevent Hama from overhearing. "I see. Do you trust his vow?"

"You murdered his sister, and I return her. He has no reason to betray his vow."

"You know why I did it."

"I know this is the result."

Ozai frowned, glancing up at Vaatu in irritation. "I had little options. If my identity is known to Chin V's kinsmen, we will lose much. I needed to act. You were not here."

Vaatu bristled. "I trusted you to handle- "

"I did."

"Your strategy was necessary," Vaatu agreed. "Your delay in dealing with Chin V was not."

He grit his teeth before releasing a breath. "I miscalculated," he admitted. "I thought I had more time. I had no idea he would confront me alone."

"We need him," Vaatu said with seriousness. "He will invade for us and strike a blow to The Avatar's resolve. Only he can accomplish it and unleash the utmost destruction. No one else can supply us with such a deadly attack while we administer our own."

Ozai looked back to Chin V, seeing him sit up and struggle to his feet, clearly regaining his strength and health. "He is worth the risk—if he remembers his place."

Vaatu's shadows thrashed slightly at the possibility that Chin V would not remember his place. "He will. He has only known my generosity; he does not want to know my wrath."

Chin V approached, and Ozai stared, daring him to attack—to finish what he started—but he had learned his lesson as he bowed to Vaatu. "Thank you, Vaatu."

"Take us to your sister."

A hesitation froze Chin V, who glanced at Ozai in impotent rage. "Even him?"

Vaatu floated forward, forcing Chin V back. "Even so. Take us."

Chin V whirled around and led them to his sister's final resting place, and Ozai avoided Hama's searching gaze, brimming with questions and accusations—he needed to keep his eye on Chin V until he was certain there would be no attack.

When they exited the forest and into the main village, Ozai watched as everyone froze at the sight of Vaatu and bowed in honor and greeting, some even whispering amongst each other in amazement at Vaatu's presence. But when Ozai saw Zhao, who stared at him, questioning, he waved him off; he would deal with Zhao later and adjust his plans accordingly. There were bigger things to deal with at the moment, such as apparent resurrection.

He was also curious to see, vicariously, how Azula was brought back from her death by The Avatar.

Chin V guided them into his building and moved to his sister's room, which was exactly as Ozai had left it. He looked at the evidence of his work and felt no regret as it was necessary; he only felt annoyance that he had miscalculated so drastically. It was unacceptable!

Hama stared at Chin V's sister's body with a tight look on her face, and though she glanced at him for several moments, she quickly got to work healing.

"We will leave you to complete your work in peace, Hama," Vaatu said as the blue glow brightened. "Let us know when her body is healed. I will finish the process then."

"Yes, Vaatu."

When they were outside the room, door closed, Vaatu turned on Chin V. "Remember your vow," he ordered, and though there was no direct way to tell, it was obvious that Vaatu glowered down at Chin V. "You do not speak of what you learned about Piandao or allude to it in any possible, conceivable way through speech or writing to anyone, not even your sister upon her return, nor will you attack or plan his death, or order others to do the same in your place."

Chin V inclined his head. "Of course. However, I refuse to ever spar with Piandao again or teach him anything else. I am not loyal to him, only to you." Chin V glared at him, eyes poisonous and loathing. "I want nothing to do with you."

"It matters not," Ozai observed. "I am master in all facets. I defeated you with only my earthbending—and with only one arm."

Something resentful and humiliated flashed over Chin V's ugly face before it was gone. "You stay away from me, and I will stay away from you."

Ozai did not bother waiting for Vaatu to answer or interrupt as he nodded in confirmation and looked at Vaatu. "I trust your absence was beneficial."

"Agni and Devi are reformed," Vaatu notified. "I found them and watched over them as they finished reforming, lest The Avatar destroy them again to weaken us. That is why I took so long."

Ozai frowned. "Where are they now?"

"Searching for Indra. It is their task—the only one that matters. If we cannot secure Indra, there is no victory. We need her."

"And the North?" he asked.

Vaatu laughed. "The North will fall. We have an ally there—Hahn. He will ensure our invasion is successful and destructive to its ultimate capacity. Air has been in disarray for over 109 years; Water will be in disarray with the North's doom, which will pull the South into weakness and confusion; Earth has been in disarray since The Avatar devastated Ba Sing Se, fracturing the continent and displacing countless people, which has bred chaos and discord; and Fire will soon be in disarray when our friend, Lee, unleashes his gift."

Ozai recalled the boy who helped him slaughter the Order of the White Lotus, The Avatar's personal organization. It irked him to have to put his race in disarray, but he knew it was a necessary sacrifice to make if it helped him become his own Avatar by distracting The Avatar, which it would. "A boy worthy to complete such a task."

"There is disarray everywhere," Vaatu pointed out, sounding proud. "No one is free from it. No one is not touched by it. The world will be ours and will welcome our Ascension, for we will provide the solution to the problems The Avatar breeds. He will fail to stop us and to stop this from happening—it is his nature. I knew it from the moment I met him, and he verified it with his rash unintelligence. All the Races will curse his name and chant for his eternal demise because he will fail to stop their ruin."

"This is why I allied with you," Chin V cut in, relieved. "This is what it takes to destroy The Avatar, cripple him from all points of attack, and only you can realize this destruction."

"You will play your role," Vaatu assured. "But your role requires your acceptance of my choice of vessel."

Chin V's face twisted while Ozai watched in interested amusement. "Why, Vaatu? He is unworthy."

"I chose Piandao, and my choice is correct; he reaffirms his worth and value every day to me. Only he can annihilate The Avatar—I have seen it."

Ozai's lips curled at Chin V. "The Avatar knows me—he is friends with my son and beds my daughter. It is personal for The Avatar with me, which means he will make rash decisions—mistakes. You are nothing to him, despite your descent from Kyoshi. He would kill you without effort; he would not care at all. But with me, he cares—he cares a lot."

"Which means he will try harder to destroy you," Chin V countered, frowning in severe disagreement. "My lineage knows the results of The Avatar's 'trying harder' approach."

"Kyoshi was in her thirties when she murdered the Conqueror," Ozai dismissed. "The Avatar is barely a man now. And do not think we are comparable to the Conqueror—we are vastly greater. I am Vaatu's vessel as I am the only choice. You are not a choice; you are a dream- "

"Enough," Vaatu interrupted. "Accept my choice, Chin V. Your sister's return depends on it."

Chin V shuddered, face spasming with resentment, but he bowed his head. "Yes, Vaatu."

"Show the same respect to Piandao."

Ozai almost laughed when Chin V flinched and turned to him, eyes hateful, and bowed to him. "Piandao."

The door opened behind them, and Hama peeked out, eyes darting between them with critical analysis. "Her body is healed; she breathes now- "

Chin V burst past her into the room and rushed to his sister's side, gazing at her healed body with rapt attention. Ozai went to follow but Hama placed a hand on his chest, while Vaatu remained behind him.

"What?" he demanded.

Her blue eyes were dark and troubled. "I doubt it's wise for you to be there when she wakes up."

Ozai nodded, knowing she was right; he would react violently if he woke up and saw The Avatar before him. "Well said."

"Thank you for healing her, Hama," Vaatu commended. "Your service to me is exemplary; you are second only to Piandao in my judgement."

Hama's lips quirked slightly. "Not a bad man to be second place to."

Vaatu hummed in agreement, which made Ozai's senses feel on fire. "Piandao's earthbending is over; it is time for him to move to waterbending. I know you have shown him what you do, but now you must teach him."

She bowed. "Yes, Vaatu. I will teach Piandao everything I know. I have mainly focused on healing, telling him what I do, what I search for, and how I do it, but I will move to other areas."

Ozai felt his pulse accelerate at the thought of learning bloodbending, such an invincible skill, and Hama felt it based on the way she glanced up at him briefly. "We will accomplish great things."

"We will," she agreed.

He knew he was going to have her.

Vaatu hovered closer before blurring into Ozai's back and settling within him; the primal power of totality surged through him, and he wanted to face The Avatar immediately as he had before. But before he could do anything, he felt his energy change. The alignment of his steadfast, sturdy power of earthbending left him, replaced by a cool, flowing power.

Hama gazed at him, blinking in amazement. "I feel your energy."

Vaatu appeared out of him within moments. "Because I reoriented him. He is now a Waterbender until I return him to his firebending or earthbending. Start his waterbending training immediately."

"We will start in the morning," Hama assured.

"I will return Chin V's sister," Vaatu notified, drifting into the room. "It may take several days to a week."

The door shut, leaving them alone.

"A notable night," he commented.

"Follow me," she ordered harshly, and Ozai surprised himself by voicing no disagreement and complying with her order. He followed her out of the building and traced the familiar path he had walked countless times when he went to Hama for one of his healing sessions, going inside the building and following into the room where he had spent much time recuperating on the large cot.

She glared up at him with a fascinating fire in her blue eyes. "Sit."

"You already healed me," he pointed out.

That fire seemed to erupt out of her eyes and sear his flesh. "I focused on healing other parts of you," she snapped. "I didn't once focus on your shoulder. Sit."

Ozai sat and reclined on the cot, as he had done countless times since Hama had arrived so many months ago. The cool sensation washed over him, and his eyes fluttered shut and the relieving, pleasing ministrations.

"Why did you murder her?" she whispered, not pausing or wavering in her healing touch; she seemed curious and concerned.

"I received word that she was going to assassinate me," he revealed—because it was the truth. For what other possible reason would Chin V's sister, at Chin V's order, go around asking about 'Fire Lord Ozai' beyond the logical aim of assassination? It was the only thing that made sense. The ultimate goal was to discern his motives and destroy him. "Chin V wanted me dead—and she did, as well. I acted first."

Hama hummed, touch becoming softer and firmer simultaneously; it almost made him groan in relief. He had not realized how tight and strained his shoulder felt. "She was zealous and rigid—so unlike Water."

Ozai laughed slightly. "But exactly like Earth."

She pulled her hands away, satisfied his shoulder was better, and Ozai opened his eyes when the blue glow faded. "Why did Chin V call you 'Fire Lord'?"

He stared at her, having already considered how to answer, but there was no disgust or distrust in her blue eyes; there was only a demand to know, and a stern warning that no obfuscations or deceptions would be accepted.

"I was responsible for Fire Lord Azulon's sudden death," Ozai revealed, and he watched Hama freeze in place, like she was held in place by her own bloodbending. It was a risky strategy, especially since she had clearly lived in the Fire Nation for decades and might know more than he was aware of, but it was the only way to ensure she stayed loyal to him and would be his waterbending master—and be other things to him. "Chin V somehow found out. It was a secret Agni Kai between us. By killing Fire Lord Azulon, it is customary that his titles and lands would pass to his killer, as in every Agni Kai. Thus, I inherited his mantle, which makes me the rightful Fire Lord. However, I never ascended to the Dragon's Throne to fulfill my aspirations." Ozai looked down, jaw clenched, allowing his real frustration over how short his reign was compared to his father's and grandfather's, to bleed into his tone, making his story more real and easier for Hama to understand—he needed her understanding! Father was Fire Lord for twenty-three years while Grandfather was Fire Lord for 128 years, the longest in Fire's history, even surpassing Kai. Ozai had thought he would fall between them in length, but all he held were six years in power. It was humiliating and disgraceful. "Fire Lord Azulon's second son, Ozai, discovered my involvement and tried to kill me. I banished myself in exile in response and have been on the run. Fire Lord Zuko, Ozai's son, will kill me if he can—I know it. The Avatar hates me and wants me dead, for I accomplished what he failed to—killing Sozin's son. If not for me, The Avatar knows that Fire Lord Azulon would have lived decades longer. I deprived him of the chance to kill Sozin's son and avenge himself of his loss. Thus, I hate The Avatar because he hates me."

Hama shuffled closer, face considering and even almost gentle, as she brushed her fingers against the stub of his missing arm on his shoulder, making him shiver. "And because he did this to you."

Ozai relaxed in relief that she believed his story. "Yes. And I hate him because he seduced my children to him."

She looked up at him, looking relieved—and realized. "That is why your Fire nobles keep speaking off Fire Lord Ozai," she breathed. "Because of your rivalry with him. You are rivals, and they know it."

He would have immediate words with his nobles to cease speaking of 'Fire Lord Ozai,' even amongst themselves in privacy, on pain of death. "Yes. Chin V somehow found out about it, possibly from my nobles, and that is why he called me 'Fire Lord.'"

"That is why he and his sister were going to assassinate you," Hama concluded. "They realized the connection and misinterpreted."

"They know their places now."

"You should have come to me," she muttered, frustrated. "I could have helped you and prevented all of this."

Ozai knew his literal reason for keeping it from her—because she would likely realize his identity—was unacceptable to admit, but he knew the right response. "I wanted your hands clean in case it erupted."

"It did erupt. How could you think he would not attack you?"

"I knew he would always attack," he dismissed. "I had no idea he would attack me on his own."

Hama blinked and stared at him, confused and realized. "You thought he would attack with his kinsmen."

"Yes."

She looked away, gazing at nothing. "And you would have had your own kinsmen to fight back. You were preparing for a battle."

Ozai saw no reason to lie. "I needed control of his kinsmen for my army. Something like this was always going to happen. His envy was too great."

"I destroyed a man today."

"Good for you," he commended.

She glared at him. "I left you with him. You could have died. It was me that destroyed you, not him- "

Ozai scoffed. "Have some faith in me. I would have killed him if Vaatu had not appeared. Then I would have found you, and you would heal me. I was always going to win—I did win."

Hama looked unimpressed and frustrated; it should excite him because it was undeniable evidence that she was powerfully fond of him, which he could use to his advantage, but he was more taken aback by the fact that her worry and ire were so visible—because she was fond of him. Such a thing had not happened to him in his life since Ursa.

It was a pleasant sensation, though there was part of him that resented it was not Ursa before him, caring so obviously.

"I don't want you to die," she admitted, blue eyes roaming him, tracing his face; there was no disgust or bitterness as she did it—only gladness. "I like you living; I love you living. I think I love you for killing Azulon."

He was quiet for several moments, staring back at her, absorbing the hints and insinuations and evaluating them. "Is this a healer talking or a woman talking?"

Hama's eyes brightened. "A woman."

His pulse thrummed with the possibility of rejuvenation, and he burned to act on his powerful passion, but he needed to be sure. If he misinterpreted, unfortunately, it meant he might lose his waterbending master and the knowledge of bloodbending. If it were any other woman, he would act instantly, but he needed to restrain himself—for now. "You have only touched me as a healer."

"Let me change that. I want you to rejuvenate me, Piandao," Hama confessed with a piercing, pointed gaze, pulling at her garbs, revealing more of her smooth exotic flesh. "And I want to rejuvenate you."

Ozai wasted no time in beginning the rejuvenation.

XxXxXxXxXxX

"Uncle Zuzu!"

Azula looked up in surprise as she watched Samir dash at Zuko, who was seated at one of the chairs in the dining hall, eating by himself. She had risen with Agni and awoken Samir, intending to start early meditation after breakfast, hoping that her own focus with Samir would make it easier for her. Although Aang had made massive strides in lowering his expectations, there would always exist a pressure for Samir to meet what she thought were his wants and expectations. She had decided to use the time while Aang was away to practice meditation with Samir—only the two of them.

The first days had certainly been successful compared to when Samir always meditated with Aang. Apparently, Samir was always confused by what Aang described as 'emptying' yourself, but Azula had told Samir to think on one thing before thinking about another thing—and then another and another and another, continuing on until she felt done. With the new description and instruction, Samir had made greater achievement than ever before.

Now the next step was convincing Aang that her approach was a wiser one for Samir than the one Gyatso did with him. But it appeared that her convincing would happen swiftly as Aang had clearly returned from his trip to assassinate King Lonin as Zuko sat before her—the evidence of Aang's return as Aang had left with Zuko. If Zuko had returned, Aang had returned.

But she did not see Aang.

Zuko caught Samir when she jumped at him, and he laughed as Samir squeezed him tightly in a hug. "Good to see you, too, Samir."

"Uh-huh! Where's Daddy?"

When her brother's eyes caught hers briefly, she knew immediately as dread and disbelief swallowed her. He had left her again! "He did not return."

Samir gasped. "What? Is Daddy hurt?"

Zuko stood to his feet, still carrying Samir in his arms; he approached her. "He's training," he explained quickly. "It's nothing like last time. Believe me, if he was acting like he was last time, I would have knocked him out and dragged him back here. But it is not like that—not this time. He really is training. He stopped in a valley and is practicing archery; he is also going to master lavabending and combustion-bending if he can."

Azula relaxed in relief and nodded; those were things she and Aang had recently spoken of. Furthermore, there was no evidence that he was dissatisfied or regretful about their marriage—not at all. Since his return from the time of his birth, he had been overjoyed with their marriage and cherished her as his wife.

"Very well," she replied. "It is prudent to complete those tasks now."

Her brother sagged and jostled Samir in his arms with a laugh. "Good. I thought you were going to shoot lightning at me for leaving him there."

She smiled coyly and took Samir out of Zuko's arms. "The day is still young, Brother."

Samir wiggled in her arms. "I want to eat."

Azula released Samir, who scrambled to the table to eat from the plate that Zuko had prepared that sat next to his—Sokka would likely be proud.

Zuko's face fell. "That was for Katara," he muttered in resignation.

Azula rolled her eyes. "You try too hard."

He glared at her. "You make me choose between being a better uncle or a better betrothed."

"You can have many wives, Zuzu," she teased. "You already have many wives, according to Air. You only have one niece."

Zuko crossed his arms. "For now. I imagine that I will have many nieces and nephews once this is all over."

Azula nodded. "Bearing a new race happens only one way—what sublimity. I expect you to be a more devoted uncle to my children than husband to your wife."

He looked unimpressed. "Really? What about my children?"

"My children will be more beautiful than yours," she dismissed, gesturing to herself while recalling Aang's beautiful appearance. "Aang and I are beautiful, certainly more beautiful than you and Katara. Thus, my children will be more beautiful than yours."

Zuko stared at her, single brow pinched tightly. "Katara is more beautiful than you."

"Whom will poets praise for generations?" Azula challenged, lips stretching. "Whose beauty captured The Avatar and swayed him from his eternal hatred?"

He scoffed. "Someone's full of herself."

"Someone must be," she agreed. "However, I merely jest. I do not expect you to be a better uncle to my children than a father to yours, but I do expect you to be a better uncle to my children than husband to your wife."

She was only partially jesting about that part.

"And if I choose to be a better husband to my wife than uncle to your children?"

She smirked in teasing. "I will shoot lightning at you."

"I know it, too, now," he pointed out, amused. "You don't hold that advantage anymore."

Azula shook her head. "But I have the ultimate weapon on my side."

Zuko scoffed. "Aang wouldn't kill me- "

"No, Samir," she corrected. "She will distract you, of which I will take advantage."

"If you are not careful, I won't be a good uncle to her anymore—I can start right now and take back Katara's plate of food that she stole without asking. You press your luck in having such a good brother."

Azula patted his shoulder. "You have always been a poor liar, Zuzu."

Zuko's face twisted in grumpiness. "I've gotten a lot better," he muttered.

"But not when it comes to people you care about," she observed. "The simple fact is—you do not care about a lot of people, which is why you appear such a skilled liar."

His golden eyes flickered down to meet hers in evaluation. "You are not as skilled as you used to be; you lost some of that edge."

Azula raised one shoulder in admittance. "I do not care to lie to those I care about. It does not mean I am incapable of it, but I choose not to—it is distasteful. And I have learned that Aang is a better liar then even I am. I do not want to induce him to deceive me."

Zuko nodded. "I think Airbenders are naturally deceptive; it bleeds into other areas. I'm not sure I would have been able to get into Chyung on my own without him there. I would have been seen or felt or something and would have had to kill a lot more."

She stared up at him, critical. "It went well?"

"Easy," he replied. "We didn't even scout. We arrived, snuck in, killed them, snuck out, and flew back."

Her eyebrows pinched. "Them? Did Prince Bipin discover you- "

"Lonin's advisor," Zuko explained. "He was connected to Lonin. King Bumi was right about Chyung's real king being Lonin's advisor. We needed to deal with him, too, to put Bipin into the best position to accept our alliance. I can tell you everything we learned now, or I can tell you with everyone else."

"Tell me with everyone else," Azula dismissed with a wave of her hand.

Zuko smiled slightly before it faded. "Did anything happen while we were gone?"

Azula sighed. "Nothing of importance."

"But something happened."

"You have gotten better," she praised before nodding. "I have no specifics, but Toph and Prince Bor appear to have confronted each other."

There had been a prickling tension in the air whenever they were in the same room that made everyone, even Azula herself, on edge and uncomfortable.

Zuko's only eyebrow rose. "As in bending?"

"No. Something more dangerous—as in words."

"Do we need to pick sides?"

Azula laughed briefly, surprised by the question. "No. I imagine Toph would be displeased if we offered her support, likely perceiving it as a slight to her fortitude."

Zuko nodded, looking like he agreed. "Good. I may have had to pick Prince Bor, anyway."

Her brows rose. "Do tell."

"I allied with King Bumi. To take sides against his heir would be taking sides against him. I want to stay allied with him."

She watched him for a moment, realized how serious he was, and shook her head. "Something tells me that King Bumi would understand your hesitance to pick a side. However, there will be no sides. Toph and Prince Bor have a disagreement, but that disagreement does not impact anything that we do or decide to do."

Zuko's golden eyes darkened. "It better not."

"It will not," she assured, trusting Toph to handle the disagreement to ensure there were no fractures amongst them.

"We have had enough fighting amongst ourselves," her brother muttered, clearly recalling all the various disputes that had left many of them distrustful and enraged toward the others. "We have no time for pettiness."

"Certainly not," she agreed.

Azula followed Zuko's gaze and turned around to see Katara walk into the dining hall and pause when she noticed Zuko. "You're back!" Katara exclaimed as a beaming smile split her face.

She only shook her head in amusement as Zuko immediately left her side to reunite with Katara. It was painfully obvious that her sister, inevitably, would be Katara, for there would never be a Fire Lady but her. If Katara changed her mind, she felt confident that Zuko would simply sire his heir by a concubine—or perhaps he might embrace one of her sons by Aang who was a Firebender as his heir.

That was an intriguing thought—her direct line would be in control of two Nations and Races.

Perhaps she should endeavor to splinter Zuko and Katara to ensure one of her firebending sons by Aang became the Fire Lord—it would be glorious. But upon seeing the contented, peaceful expression on her brother's face as he stared down at Katara, who vibrantly explained things that had happened while he was gone—apparently, Katara had more of an insight to Toph and Prince Bor's disagreement—she knew that she could and would never act on such an impulse, no matter how much it would benefit her.

She was not that girl anymore; she loved her brother and wanted for him peace.

Azula heard Samir's light footsteps behind her and turned to see a disgruntled expression on her small face. "My food's cold," Samir said, conveying exactly how she felt about it. "Can you heat it up, please?"

She followed Samir to the table, giving Zuko and Katara privacy.

XxXxXxXxXxX

The wood was smooth and strong in his hands, never straining under the pressure he exerted on it. It had been only two days since Zuko left him in the valley, but he had made extensive progress. It allowed him to clear his mind in solitude and enforced the fortitude necessary to triumph.

First, he had gathered Yangchen's opinion, and she gave him great advice, citing historical occurrences of a rogue Air Nomad, a disillusioned Airbender who, while a pacifist, would strike back with deadly force if attacked. She even informed him of a belligerent Airbender during her reign who experimented on innocent non-benders in the Earth Kingdom, holding the air away from his victims, watching as they died of suffocation to their air-starved lungs.

He knew better than anyone that his race could have conquered the world to create a world of only Children of Air. Such a massacre would have made Fire's conquest during the Great War appear piteous in comparison. While Fire was the element of Power, Power could be tamed, weakened, as Power was always beholden to something, ultimately. But Air was everything. It was life itself. Air was the element of Freedom, and if those who were borne of freedom chose to control the freedom of others, there would be nothing—only darkness and death.

Based on his trip to the Past, it was obvious to him that his race had embrace darkness and death for the other races to glorify and sustain themselves, perverting everything about Air. It was of profound significance that he restore his race correctly, teaching airbending and its ethics as it should be—not as what the High Council decreed and interpreted.

But after he spoke to Yangchen, a vision blackened his gaze and swallowed him; it foretold destruction and chaos—and an all-out war impossible to prevent—as he had foreseen it.

A culmination of the darkness that had plagued the Mortal Realm for thousands of years, festering, growing as Vaatu became ever stronger from the Great War's chaos, was to rise like a hurricane. In his vision, the world had been bright, clear, and then in the blink of an eye, a storm of destruction surrounded everything.

And across from him, walking on the wind as easily as a true Airbender, was Ozai.

Behind Ozai was a trail of blood and death. It was a combination of all of the evil that had been unleashed by Vaatu and Ozai's actions. He saw glimpses of the three Races' coalition: Water, Earth, and Fire. He even saw Air, too, but that part was unclear, murky even to himself, despite his frantic pursuit to decipher it. However, his pursuit was stalled as he discerned Ozai's power, shaking from the horror of the realization, the mind-numbing, strident truth.

Ozai was his own Avatar—exactly like Aang was. He had somehow accomplished it, somehow achieving the Ascension, enabled by Vaatu's irreversible sacrifice. There were now two Avatars, one borne of Light and the other borne of Darkness.

The vision of Ozai, who walked on the winds, tilted his chin up at him, golden eyes burning with enmity. "You never thought I was your equal when always I was—now is the evidence of it. Only your equal could equal you, which I have accomplished. This was always my destiny—Power is mine. Power answers to me now, not you, and you will feel Power slip from your grasp as I seize it from you, robbing you of everything as you once robbed me. It has finally come—the reckoning of everything you stole from me, the reckoning of what you stole from the world when you cast us into Imbalance like the Tyrant you are. The Void smiled at me when I underwent the Ascension, but I know it scowled at you when you did it. It favors me, not you. The evidence is the fact I succeeded, and I shall redeem the Realms of the collapse you inflicted." Power rippled through the air, shaking the earth beneath them, and Ozai's eyes were now black orbs, sucking in the light around them like endless holes of darkness. Abruptly, Ozai threw a sizzling torrent of lightning at him, and Aang smacked it aside. "I will strike you down forever with endless fury and a heart that has remained beating only at the thought of your demise, born of a will that achieved transcendence despite all your endeavors to abolish it, for there will be freedom now without you there to smother it." Ozai's voice was enhanced with divinity, facilitated by Vaatu, the Void, and the Tree, darkness drifting off him in waves of power as the bond was complete and irreversible, a bond that no one understood except Aang himself. "I am better than you—I am The Avatar, not you. You will understand and accept it when I inflict the Void's vengeance on you."

It was all he saw, but it was enough.

Aang embraced training as swiftly and brutally as possible, taking scarce breaks and only focusing with all his willpower. If he were to, in any possible way, avoid his vision from manifesting, he needed every advantage over Ozai and Vaatu.

But there was that sobering, haunting feeling inside him proclaiming that his vision would come true.

However, it didn't stop him from practicing archery, a skill that was effortless to master with his airbending. By controlling the wind, he controlled the arrows, hitting the mark every time. But he tested himself by lessening the winds each time, forcing himself to make it an actual skill rather than a trick. He was getting much better, and his arrows were more accurate and swift without the wind guiding them.

Aang stared at the many arrows he had created. The feathers were taken from many hawks that he flew beside while the arrowheads were simple applications of metalbending that he pulled from the valley's depths. The shaft was made out of a tree branch that he delicately used airbending to create—all to create a worthy bow that belonged only to him, like Zuko described the Yu Yan Archers.

In a blur of motion, as fast as the wind itself, Aang fired several arrows at his target, watching as they blazed through the air until they connected, how they were perfectly centered, accurate and precise in ways that eclipsed that of the Yu Yan Archers by a wide margin—all with minimal airbending used.

It was lonely, but he took peace from it, the air whipping around him gently, the whispers of the wind itself echoing in his ears. He slipped the bow over his shoulder, stepping softly towards the edge of the cliff, staring across the large ravine at his target. The sensation he had felt ever since he left Zuko plagued him, growing and intensifying.

Something was clawing at him, trying to get his attention, to reach him, to speak to him. Earlier in the day, it had almost seized control of his body, which meant it was essential to deal with it as swiftly as possible. It was never a good thing to ignore one of his past lives, but he was finally ready to deal with who he suspected to be Avatar Jinzhai.

He felt it, the beckoning, pleading urge that resonated throughout his soul, begging to be released. Still staring at the arrows across the ravine, Aang let go.

The world shimmered around him, pulling around strangely, lashing out in confusion; then there was a rough inhale behind him, someone breathing for the first time in over a millennium.

Aang inhaled and slowly turned around, passively gazing at the force who sought his presence. A man stood behind him several feet away, golden eyes connecting with Aang's eyes. The man appeared quite tall, but he only gave that appearance because of the long, massive hat he bore that showed slight glimpses of his black hair. The longer Aang looked at him, the more he saw the Fire Sages themselves as the man was dressed most similarly; noble Fire Nation robes hid his body like Roku's did, and his mustache was pencil-thin, drifting down past his lips and chin.

"Avatar Jinzhai, I presume," he greeted.

"Indeed."

"I've heard about you."

Avatar Jinzhai's mustache ends rippled in the air. "I have heard of you—because I am you. I know all your accomplishments—the greatest Avatar, the boy who triumphed over the most powerful military the world has ever seen, the last of the old Air Nomads, redeemer of Roku's gross mistakes, first master of energybending in many millennia, and the rival to Vaatu. I know what else you seek to accomplish—lavabending."

Aang felt the urge to defend Roku. "Roku made mistakes, but I made mistakes, too."

"Roku's mistakes were worse, and you know it," Jinzhai dismissed. "If it were not for Kuruk and Kyoshi, he would be the worst Avatar. I admire you in so many ways, Avatar Aang, for you have to redeem not only Roku's extensive failings but Kyoshi's and Kuruk's, as well—nearly an entire Avatar Cycle of disgusting failures. None of them did what they were supposed to—and if any did, it was too late. All of them lacked vision and insight—they lacked the will to do what was necessary. Kyoshi learned that lesson, but it happened too late, which defined her entire reign since she lost herself, which emanated out and touched all other things and people, which culminated in what is happening right now in the Earth Kingdom. Its roots began with Kyoshi's overwhelming failures. The world has not had a good Avatar since Yangchen—and now you."

Aang scoffed. "Don't do that. I murdered Ba Sing Se and- "

"Kyoshi murdered all the Major Cities."

Silence.

He stared at Jinzhai incomprehensibly; he absorbed Jinzhai's seriousness, no hint of mirth or deceit or provocation, and remained incomprehensible. "What?"

"Not her specifically as in unleashing her power as you unleashed yours, but she embraced their destruction and let it all happen," Jinzhai explained, looking simultaneously amused and disgusted. "She let Chin the Conqueror sweep across Earth's continent, murdering millions who stood against them and the unification of their race, participating in the horrors, and ignoring all pleas for help and mercy—until she finally did act. She did all of this because she loved Chin the Conqueror; she married him and bore him children. She realized her mistakes, but it was too late. She destroyed Earth's ethic of History, leaving only splintered fragments out of the chaos. She ruined her race in many ways and deprived them of their foundation stretching back thousands of years. She was a terrible Avatar, like her predecessor and successor."

Aang laughed, unable to help himself; his brief surprise faded into scorn. "That's so rich. She lectures me on my failings, but she married a monster and loved one!"

"You have made mistakes, Avatar Aang, but what I admire about you is your persistent striving to overcome and do what is right—and, most impressively, you do not wait until it is too late. Kuruk and Roku never learned while Kyoshi did. But Kyoshi's learning proved worthless because she learned too late. Kyoshi's failures culminated in what is happening right now in the Earth Kingdom—it is a direct outgrowth of her incompetence. She tried dutifully to fix it—I will concede she certainly tried—but it was too late. She looked only to surfaces and fixed what she destroyed on the surface, but she never once looked to fix what she destroyed of the roots—of Earth's roots. You think Devi hates you simply because of Ba Sing Se, Avatar Aang, but she hates Kyoshi, as well, for she blames Kyoshi for Earth's cultural and intellectual devastation. Kyoshi was too late and too unintelligent to fix her mistakes. But you are not like her—you are aware and intelligent."

Aang looked away, fists clenching as he recalled Earth's hatred toward him. "It certainly feels like it's too late for me. Everyone hates me."

"Everyone hates The Avatar—that is how it has always been. We are the world's scapegoat. Vaatu knows it and orchestrates everything to point to you—to blame you for things that have happened. He smears your name, title, and legacy, and you must be prepared for it."

He raised a pillar on which to sit. "I prepare by training and mastering."

Jinzhai inclined his head in agreement. "I worthwhile strategy, yet you miss one crucial thing."

"Which is?"

"Ignoring."

Aang stared at him, astonishment. "You're out of your mind! I've done enough ignoring! This whole thing happened because I was too busy ignoring to deal with things!"

Jinzhai's lips twitched. "I speak of a tactical ignoring. You will have decisions to make; you will be pulled in different directions. You will have to let horrors happen because you are focused on the bigger horror. There is only so much you can do—you must choose what to focus on and what to ignore. You must ignore that which is inconsequential to defeating Vaatu."

He hated that he understood what Jinzhai was talking about. "A selective ignoring," he whispered. "It's what I've always done, I suppose. Now I'm simply conscious of it."

"You must be conscious of it," Jinzhai pointed out. "You must know what you are doing and what you are not doing. You must be competent."

"I have to be the leader."

"Yes."

Aang was quiet for several moments. "What about lavabending?"

Jinzhai stared at him. "Thank you for summoning me. If you do not wish to learn lavabending from me, you can learn from Kuruk or Kyoshi, but I assume you do not want- "

"The right assumption," he interrupted. "How did you learn lavabending? I talked to Boruk, who said he was the first one to do it but that you mastered it, realizing it was a subset of earthbending instead of firebending."

A strange laugh echoed as Jinzhai stepped closer, overlooking the ravine. "I was raised by the Fire Sages, kept on as an ignorant apprentice, no idea that I was The Avatar."

Aang's eyes widened. "You were raised by the Fire Sages?"

"To enhance my spiritual focus. The Fire Sages were well aware of my predecessors' neglect of spiritual matters. I succeeded, and so did Yangchen, but Kuruk destroyed all the good that we did."

"All it takes is one generation to ruin everything and begin everyone on a destructive path," he whispered, remembering what happened to his race. "Did the Fire Sages know about lavabending?"

"Yes, and they thought it a firebending skill. When I was a boy, I heard legends of Boruk's lavabending. It was something the Fire Sages focused on, forwarding many theories as to why Boruk was unable to ever command lava once again."

"Did they tell you your identity?"

Jinzhai grunted. "Of course. I was shocked—and furious."

Aang laughed, feeling genuine mirth at such a thing—something he once thought impossible. "That seems to be the standard."

"For my entire life to that point, I had heard of The Avatar's unrivaled power and extensive duties; I was forced to learn the history of the previous Avatars; I was forced to learn everything about the Order of the White Lotus, created by Keska, Boruk's predecessor. I should have suspected something back then as everything I learned was oriented around and to The Avatar, but I never did. Even though I was the youngest apprentice, raised from near birth, while all the other apprentices were adults, I never suspected anything."

"Why?"

"Because my father was one of the Fire Sages."

Aang nodded. "Your mother?"

"A nobleman's daughter, but she was spiritual and became an apprentice to my father. She is the only woman known to me who ever pursued such a thing." Jinzhai's voice softened with fond melancholy—a distant yearning. "She was unique, kind, and reliable. She understood the world's cycles and wanted to teach others. She loved my father, and he loved her. The union was forbidden, but it did not stop them. I was the result of their relations, and my mother died from my birth. I killed her."

He swallowed as he recalled his own birth and how much it took out of his mother—how it nearly killed her. "That seems always to be the risk of bearing The Avatar."

"My father never hated me for it," Jinzhai said distantly. "He loved me and raised me, but he was strict. He was a Fire Sage, and he wanted me to focus on spiritual matters more than material matters as he saw spiritual matters as more important. I knew that Boruk died before I was born—nine months before I was born. Yet I never imagined that I was his successor. When I was told, I called my father and the rest liars, confused by their cruelty."

"Understandable."

Jinzhai nodded. "It took months to reach acceptance, but in time, I accepted my destiny, and for thirteen years, I mastered the other elements. Once I did so, I returned to my home, to the Fire Sages, to my father, and they all taught me how to master The Avatar State. It was relatively simple for me. Then I spoke with Boruk, whose legend was told to me as a boy many times, for the first time."

"What did he tell you?" he asked, curious. "When I have spoken with him, he's quite congenial and open. He's much better than Kyoshi."

"Because he is better than Kyoshi in every way," Jinzhai agreed with a brief laugh. "He was always a kind soul. I disagreed with my father and the other Fire Sages' disregard for him. Boruk told me details of his life that I never knew and that the Fire Sages never knew. I was grateful as I had finally found someone who could sympathize with my plight. Boruk spoke about lavabending often, and not even his death could destroy his frustration in his lack of progress about it. It was his great vexation—or one of them. He showed me the day it happened."

Aang leaned forward. "And? What happened?"

Jinzahi's eyebrows rose, surprised. "He did not show you?"

"No."

"Likely to force this meeting," Jinzhai said with mirth. "He always had his tricks. He and his firebending master dueled on a volcano's cliff, a monstrous one. In fact, it was the same volcano that Roku eventually made his home many lifetimes later. Boruk defeated his master in the duel—it is the natural order. Then the natural order was threatened when the volcano rumbled, awakened. Boruk told me that he believed it to be a result of the fire blasts that exploded inside the volcano's throat. With no airbending to aid him as he knew only earthbending and firebending by then, he slipped into the volcano. There were horrified gasps and screams from the observers—from the other masters watching and evacuating from the volcano—but that did nothing to stop it."

"But Boruk survived," Aang concluded. "He wasn't even harmed, was he?"

Jinzhai smiled. "Not even his pride. In fact, his pride grew as a result of his unthinkable display. However, everyone thought that Boruk was going to die, which meant the world would be without The Avatar for another generation—a terrifying thought. Boruk soothed the terror, but recreated it in a new way, when he arose out of the volcano on a vortex of lava. I heard the legend from the Fire Sages, but it was something entirely different to witness it with my own eyes."

"I can imagine."

"For a few decades, Boruk tried to gain a semblance of control over lava, but he failed."

"Because lavabending originates from earthbending," Aang pointed out, remembering Boruk's words. "You're the one who realized it."

Jinzhai smiled slightly. "I tried originally to succeed where my predecessor failed but had gotten nowhere after months of effort. I had tried every form of firebending I knew, adding different flares with no effect. Eventually, I perused through every scroll in the Fire Nation that contained information about volcanoes. What was lava, I wondered. Why had no Firebender ever manipulated it? But why had Boruk done so? If lava was essentially fire-water, why could no one in the Fire Nation control volcanoes? Why were so many villages and provinces situated near volcanoes terrified of them? Master Firebenders could walk through the lava, but they could not keep the lava from destroying villages and non-benders. Why did the benders not control the volcanoes, taming them? I narrowed down a list of differences between Boruk and a Firebender. What made Boruk so different except for the fact that he was The Avatar? Then I concluded that it was because he was The Avatar—that was the source of disparity, as it is always. I constricted my line of thought even further. Boruk was The Avatar, but so was I. Why had I not controlled lava when he had? We were the same, yet he succeeded doing it once when I never could."

"What did you do?"

"I spoke with Boruk to determine what was so different between us. Then I had the epiphany! What was Boruk when he bent the lava?"

Aang frowned in confusion, not sure what Jinzhai meant. "He was The Avatar."

Jinzhai inclined his head. "But not a fully realized one. He knew only earthbending and firebending. No Avatar State was triggered when he fell into the volcano; it was only Boruk who controlled the lava. It was clearly not from firebending, for Boruk and I had both tried for over a combined century with firebending. I realized that Boruk and I looked at it all from the wrong angle. Boruk had not bent the lava using firebending; he had bent it by using earthbending."

He nodded in understanding, impressed by Jinzhai's dedication in deciphering the puzzle. "Then you mastered it."

"Yes. After my death, I passed the knowledge to Kuruk, bypassing Yangchen, who did not yearn to master such a power, and Kuruk then passed it onto Kyoshi, the last Avatar to truly utilize lavabending. I know you will mention that Roku has bent lava, specifically when he destroyed his own Avatar Temple, demolishing the entire island in the process, but he was not a master as I and the others were."

Aang shrugged in admittance; he had been thinking about Roku's deed. "Whenever you're ready, I'm ready to learn under your guidance."

Avatar Jinzhai bowed. "We shall start now."

He bowed back.

XxXxXxXxXxX

The food was splendid, the finest that she had encountered since she died. It was obvious, at least to her, that King Bumi had ordered it specifically for them—or, more specifically, to celebrate the first victory they had achieved in a long time, the beginning of their momentum in assassinating King Lonin. Everyone—except Samir, who was too young to understand such intricacies and complexities, and had been suitably distracted during the sharing of news—had accepted King Lonin's assassination at Zuko and Aang's hands with an ease that surprised her. She thought there would be a façade of outrage, possibly, but it became clear with the easy acceptance that everyone was tired and wanted the conflict to be over as soon as possible, which meant they were tolerant of dirty, ugly deeds if the goal was peace and balance.

Toph had grumbled that she should have been invited to participate in the 'fun,' but it was obvious that she only wished to be away from Prince Bor and possibly saw the fact that she had not been invited as the direct cause of her disagreement with him.

Azula sipped from her chalice and the water slid pleasantly down her throat, refreshing her. She then took a bite of her komodo chicken, savoring the flavors of the rich substance. She hummed and wondered where King Bumi had procured such a Fire Nation treasure from. Had Uncle sent some to King Bumi, perhaps?

"So, what are we going to do now?" Sokka asked while chewing what looked like the leg of an animal. "We came here to build an army to fight back against Ozai."

"And an army you'll get!" King Bumi declared. "I'm working on it. It's all political."

Sokka nodded his head. "But what do we do in the meantime? I'm bored. I know I shouldn't be, but I need some action. It's hard to feel alive when a sword's not coming at my face."

Azula cataloged Suki's suppressed wince and vowed to analyze it later. "Aang is gone now, training- "

"Yes, lavabending, we know," Sokka interrupted, rolling his eyes as he pointed his leg of meat at her. "I still don't think there's lavabending."

Katara rolled her eyes, as well, looking surprisingly like Sokka, revealing their resemblance. "We were there when Avatar Roku destroyed his temple with lava, Sokka. What else do you call that but lavabending?"

Sokka scoffed. "I call that crazy fuc- " He withered at Azula's glare and glanced at Samir, who watched him innocently. "I call that crazy stupid stuff."

"It was lavabending," Zuko cut in, shaking his head. "I was there, too. Aang's mastering lavabending now. It will be useful."

Azula noted King Bumi's distant expression and remembered Aang telling her that a Lavabender had maimed King Bumi's legs years ago, but what she could not discern was why King Bumi stared at Prince Bor with a strange look in his lopsided eyes. "Aang will not be gone long."

"But we're always waiting on him," Sokka protested, tearing into his leg for another bite as he continued to speak. "I'm serious. We can't just keep waiting on him when he has stuff he has to do. We need to be able to have things that we can do, too. Otherwise, we're just sitting around. Yeah, training is nice and all, but we need the real thing to actually be able to make a difference. How much longer until we can get an army, Bumi?"

"Half-past a badgermole's ass and a quarter to its testicles!" King Bumi snarked, and Azula's lips twitched in amusement.

"Snoozles, next time when you talk- " Toph growled out after King Bumi's declaration as she flicked pieces of meat out of her hair. "- make sure that you swallow before you speak."

Sokka shrugged. "Sorry, Toph."

"No, you're not."

"Then why complain?"

"To teach you some manners. You're going to need them soon. How else can you set a good example?"

When Suki glared at Toph with an urgent fire on her face, Azula began to have her suspicions, but she kept quiet. "We have already discussed this," she cut in. "We must wait on King Bipin to accept our offer. We must wait several weeks before reaching out for an alliance. That is why Aang chose to train now. It is the perfect time for him to do so."

"But why can't we do anything else?" Katara challenged, seeming to somewhat agree with Sokka. "We could reach out elsewhere, maybe."

King Bumi sighed. "No one in Ba Sing Se even knows that you are all here in Ba Sing Se—only those in the palace, who are all loyal to me. Earth's not ready to forgive The Avatar—or Fire—and anyone allied with either. And we'd be asking them to ally with The Avatar and Fire, represented by Fire's royal family."

Zuko winced. "A little too much all at once."

"Revenge, revenge, and revenge," Mother whispered, sipping from her chalice, shaking her head. "All of this is about revenge, from the top to the bottom and the outer to the inner. Slights have gone unacknowledged, least of all repaid. There is imbalance, and as long as there is imbalance, balance will never be possible."

Azula glanced at Samir, who was wiggling in her seat, clearly wanting to say something but lacking the courage—or the words. "You can go play. You should."

She did not want Samir burdened by the complexities of the conflict.

Samir's gray eyes latched onto hers; she pouted. "But I wanna play with you, Mommy. I don't wanna be bored."

"I can play with you, Samir," Ty Lee offered.

Silence.

Azula wondered if it was possible to shoot lightning without Samir seeing it—it was the only acceptable outcome to such a gross offense! "That is unacceptable," she hissed.

Samir gasped, clearly not understanding the danger like everyone else did, glancing to and fro between she and Ty Lee in wariness. "But Mommy, please? I don't wanna hear about war. War's stupid. Sorry, Uncle Zuzu."

Zuko blinked incomprehensibly. "It's okay."

"Nothing will happen, Azula," Ty Lee promised. "You don't want Samir to hear all of this- "

Azula's hands visibly clenched atop the table. "Never tell me what I want my daughter to hear or not to hear. You know nothing."

"Mommy, please?" A tiny hand snared her sleeve in a desperate grip. "Please, please? I'll be good—I promise!"

She braced her own hand on top of Samir's delicate one, holding it there; it was reassuring as it meant that Ty Lee could not—and would never!—snatch her daughter from her and fill her mind with nonsense and lies.

"I'll keep an eye on them," Toph promised. "She shouldn't hear any of this. It's a good offer to- "

Fire almost spurted from her mouth as she pulled Samir into her lap, protecting her from those who would harm her. "I do not trust the offeror."

"Trust my feet."

Unfortunately, she realized that Toph was correct. She would leave with Samir herself and play with her, but she knew that her presence was needed in discussing the conflict's nuances and necessities.

Zuko gripped her shoulder, golden eyes piercing. "It will be okay."

Azula glared at him; she felt the urge to throw a fireball—at Ty Lee first, then at him. "It better be." She looked at Ty Lee pointedly, golden eyes narrowed in slits. "You may think you can bear the brunt of my ire but think carefully of everything you do and say with her. If you attempt anything, it will not only be me to whom you answer—it will also be Aang, whose ire is beyond conception."

Ty Lee was noticeably pale, but she nodded shakily and stretched a fake smile across her face. "Sure, Azula. Now come on, Samir! We can play in the next room."

Samir scrambled out of Azula's lap and surged to Ty Lee and dragged her to the door, listing all the games they could play.

Then they were gone.

"No wonder Aang's with you," Sokka said with a whistle. "You take being a protective mom to a whole new level. You'll protect his brood of Airbenders to your last breath—or the world's last breath."

Azula agreed with his conclusion but ignored him and refocused the conversation. "I suspect King Kuei's ideology has spread far and reached everyone on the continent," she mused. "It would act as powerful incentive and reason."

"What ideology?" Suki asked, frowning.

King Bumi snorted. "Prepare to unclog your ears from all this nonsense."

Toph's brows rose sharply. "Is this that Three Races versus Two Races- "

"Yes," Prince Bor answered, but though it was surprising he answered Toph, clearly knowing what she referenced, he stared straight ahead, not looking at her.

Azula nodded. "Aang told me about it, and I heard several things before Aang snapped in Ba Sing Se. King Kuei did not believe Air could return, which cast the world into permanent imbalance."

"How could he say that?" Katara gasped.

"He said it to Aang's face."

"A braver man than I thought," Zuko said.

"Or just a dumber one than you thought," King Bumi pointed out, sharing an appreciative glance with Zuko.

Azula could no longer hold her tongue as she glared at Toph. "Well?"

Toph simply shook her head. "She's fine. They're in the next room. Ty Lee is walking on her hands, and Hitchhiker's loving it."

Satisfied, Azula shook her head. "King Kuei argued with Aang about it for a long time. Since Air could not return to make balance in the world, according to him, he proposed that another race die to make balance in having Two Races."

Mai snorted. "And he generously proposed that Fire—that we—be the ones to die."

She ignored her former friend, though she agreed with the sentiments. "He thought Aang would go along with it, citing Fire's murder of Air. He claimed that murdering Fire would not only bring balance to the world but also act as recompense for Air's slaughter—the very act that, in his eyes, made all the imbalance."

"That's horrible!" Katara gasped in aggravation. "How could he think like that? He must have known it would never solve anything!"

Prince Bor stared at her, resigned. "You think this possessive ideology- "

"Ideology is, in and of itself, possessive," Azula pointed out. "I would know—I do know."

"You think this ideology has spread far enough to reach everyone on the continent?"

Azula nodded swiftly. "Aang told me that Kuei shared it with Chyung and Zaofu. Kings Lonin and Tornor must have shared it with their peoples in their territories. Since Aang destroyed Ba Sing Se in what is likely seen as a defense of Fire, against whom King Kuei had declared war, it must have spread. King Kuei's aim was to become the single King of Earth to match the single Lord of Fire, and he saw murdering Fire as the political power he needed to ensure it happened."

"But don't people realize that such a plan would throw the world out of balance even more?" Katara asked in disbelief. "There can't be just Two Races, Nations, and Elements! There are Four! There must be Four!"

"Nobody cares," Zuko muttered darkly, face twisting, emphasizing his scar. "Everyone wants revenge and can't look at the big picture."

"But that risks breaking The Avatar Cycle," Toph commented. "Twinkletoes is getting busy with Lighting Psycho to pop out some more Airbenders, bringing back balance, but if Fire is massacred, that means the world will be without The Avatar when Fire comes up in The Avatar Cycle again."

"And the Great War is the utmost example of what happens when The Avatar is gone," Mother pointed out, almost needlessly.

Azula knew they were all thinking about it, but rather than think of it, she elected to think about Samir, who was possibly being indoctrinated by Ty Lee. She looked pointedly at Toph, who shook her head. "She's fine. I will literally tell you if anything's wrong."

"I pray you do," she ordered.

"I think this ideology is probably being used as a rallying cry on the continent," Zuko claimed after several moments. "It makes sense with what Aang and I heard from Lonin's advisor."

"What did you hear?" Sokka asked.

"Lonin wanted to do what Kuei wanted to do—unify Earth under himself and his lineage."

King Bumi nodded. "Like the Conqueror did generations ago."

Zuko tensed. "Yes. There was a lot of talk about Chin the Conqueror. Lonin said he, Tornor, and King Bumi were positioning themselves to take over the continent once this war is over, being the last man standing in the conflict. To the victor go the spoils. Lonin wanted to destroy his rivals before they destroyed him."

Toph snorted. "Too late."

"He talked about the vast displacement of people who were looking for safety after what Aang did to Ba Sing Se. Though some have returned to Ba Sing Se, seeing opportunity and advancement, the city's population is depleted compared to what it was."

"It is," King Bumi agreed. "It's actually the only reason no one has discovered that you're all here yet. I count that as a blessing. Otherwise, there would be some serious shit happening—more serious, that is."

Zuko nodded. "Lonin turned away countless people from Chyung because he had no room, and the people either died or went elsewhere. There was talk of a new Chin, who is the unofficial fourth King of Earth and lives in Chyung's territory. This new Chin may actually be a descendant of Chin the Conqueror from what it sounded like."

"Are you sure he's a descendant?"

"A name is a powerful thing," he retorted. "He may have renamed himself to make people think of himself and Chin the Conqueror in the same breath, but there is a new Chin. Lonin's advisor said that this new Chin had inflated his numbers vastly by absorbing all the people displaced by the chaos flooding the continent and welcoming them into his army and territory. The advisor said that there is no one on the continent equal to this new Chin, apparently, including you, King Bumi."

Prince Bor looked at King Bumi, face slack in nervousness. "Do you think he will move against us?"

King Bumi's lopsided eyes glowed in promise. "If he does, he will meet the same fate as all my enemies."

Zuko looked somber. "Lonin's advisor talked about an invasion, too—said it was coming."

Suki frowned. "This new Chin will sweep across the continent like the first Chin did."

Toph scoffed. "He'll get fucked up just like the first Chin got fucked up by Kyoshi."

"This is why it's important to ally with Bipin," Katara pointed out. "He can give us numbers to help against a possible invasion."

Azula nodded in agreement. "Yes. Aang could wipe away the invasion with his hand, but he may be needed elsewhere." She looked at Toph. "Anything?"

"Nope," Toph notified. "I told you—I'll tell you if anything- "

"Unnecessary," she dismissed. "I will continue as I have."

Mai's smile was slight and dry. "I am sure you will."

Azula raised a mocking brow. "Careful, Mai. My daughter is not here to stay my hand from shooting lightning at you—nor is Aang."

"If you were going to kill me, you would have done it already."

"Do not pretend to grasp the complexity and range of my thought."

Sokka frowned. "Anyway—what makes us think that this Bipin will be more welcoming than his dad?"

"When politics change, history changes," Zuko pointed out. "Bipin will become King Bipin if he has not already, and with it, the history of his father's policies, the history of his alliance and demand for territory, will be forgotten. It will no longer be history. He is more open to us. Lonin was talking about Vaatu—or his advisor was. We were right in our instinct that Lonin was allied with Vaatu. But Bipin is younger and more rebellious. If we approach him right, he will join."

King Bumi nodded in confirmation. "My agents verify it. He wants to do things different from his father; he wants to make his own legacy and not be seen as an extension of his father, who he knows is viewed with weakness and disdain."

"If we can ally with him, it would jeopardize a possible invasion from this new Chin since he lives in Chyung's territory," Suki reminded. "Bipin would be king over this new Chin."

"We can't count on that," Toph said. "It could be a deterrent, but I doubt it would actually stop this new Chin."

Zuko shook his head. "This new Chin will use Kuei's rallying cry to sweep across the continent. He must hate The Avatar and certainly hates Fire. He is already allied with Vaatu."

Azula glanced at him. "Did King Lonin's advisor say that?"

"Yes."

Sokka groaned. "Of fucking course. Who doesn't the Loser Lord have on his side?"

Mother's lips twitched, though there was a sadness on her face—likely because she wished her and Father could still be on the same side. "Avatar Aang, which can make all the difference."

"And his own wife, children, and brother," Zuko added. "He has likely mastered earthbending by now- "

"I guarantee he has," Azula said. "He must move to waterbending."

Katara grimaced. "I can't see any Waterbender who would teach him. And Vaatu still doesn't know where the Ocean and Moon Spirits are."

"Vaatu's fucking resourceful," Toph observed. "He found the Loser Lord an earthbending master who, according to Devi, is as good as Bumi—if not better."

"No one's as good as me," Bumi said with a scoff.

Toph looked smug. "Devi disagrees."

"I'll tell her to her face that she's wrong."

"Of course, you would," Toph muttered before raising her voice. "But Vaatu was able to pull that earthbending master out of nowhere, when none of us, not even me or Bumi, could think of him. We don't know who he is—no ideas. Vaatu may do the same with a waterbending master. And before you ask, Lightning Psycho, Hitchhiker's fine."

Azula was impressed that Toph had been aware she was about to ask after Samir while Sokka's face crunched in doubt. "No, it makes sense that you couldn't think of the earthbending master because the continent is fucking huge. The Water Tribes are much smaller. I can't think of anyone in the North or South besides Hahn who would ally with these fuckers, and Hahn isn't a Waterbender. He couldn't teach the Loser Lord anything except how to be a bigger loser."

Mai's eyebrow cocked. "What if there are Waterbenders other than in the North and South?"

Katara shook her head. "None of the Swampbenders—Waterbenders who live in a great swamp in the Earth Kingdom—would ally with Vaatu. I really can't think of any Waterbender who would ever ally with Ozai. He's of Fire, and he looks more Fire than anyone—just like Zuko does."

Zuko smiled slightly. "Thanks."

"Suck up," Sokka grumbled.

"And then there's Vaatu," Katara continued. "There's no one of Water who hates Aang or anything, not after he ended the Great War."

"Hahn."

"But Hahn couldn't be Ozai's waterbending master, Sokka. Vaatu would want Ozai to learn from a powerful master, someone like Pakku. But there's no one in the North or South—or anywhere in the world I can think of—who is at Pakku's level and would ally with Vaatu to teach Ozai. It doesn't make sense."

Toph shrugged. "I'm not saying it made sense; I'm just saying we have to be prepared for Vaatu to pull someone out of thin air or something."

Sokka grinned. "Don't you mean pull someone out of 'water'?"

"Sure. And Hitchhiker's fine, Lightning Psycho."

"Excellent," Azula commended.

"We need to start making plans," Prince Bor argued, leaning his elbows against the table; he noticeably did not look at Toph. "Ozai is already halfway to becoming on par with Avatar Aang- "

King Bumi shook his head. "No, Bor. Ozai will never be on par with Aang. Aang is the living embodiment and culmination of ten-thousand years of knowledge, power, and bending. Ozai has only lived one lifetime, whereas Aang has lived thousands."

"That is not accurate," Azula corrected. "The Avatar lives a long life. Based on what I learned with Aang from a previous Avatar—Avatar Kirku—there has not even been half a hundred Avatars to exist since Avatar Wan, the first Avatar. Aang is the thirty-eighth Avatar."

"But that's still the point," King Bumi stressed. "Aang has lived thirty-eight lifetimes, taking all the advantages that come with it, while Ozai has only lived one. Even with Vaatu on his side, it's too big a chasm. It's too much of a difference. It's unthinkable to even contemplate a victory for Ozai during such a battle when both he and Aang are fighting with all their strength and power."

Azula inclined her head in agreement. "Vaatu knows this, which is why he has focused so extensively on gathering the most powerful of allies. Vaatu has been simultaneously building bridges for himself and burning Aang's bridges."

Sokka groaned. "You could say that the Great War was just one giant bridge burning—all designed to burn Aang's bridges."

"This is why we must make plans," Prince Bor said. "We need to know what we can do and will do."

Zuko massaged his eyebrows. "I sent a letter to my uncle, who is currently acting as Fire Lord on my behalf, and to the Sun Warriors. I'm waiting for replies from both. Based on whatever I receive back, I will do what I must."

"And I'll join you," Katara declared immediately.

Azula's brows rose in intrigue while Sokka glared at his sister. "Seriously? This isn't the time to split away from the main group for whatever Zuko has to do, Katara! It's a stupid idea!"

"Actually, it would be tactically sound to spread ourselves out," King Bumi said, nodding his head. "We are all concentrated here, but the problem is that not all of us are needed here. We are needed many other places. If we split up into groups, we could accomplish a lot more."

Mother's head tilted in thought. "I agree. It would be beneficial if our group did, indeed, split up."

King Bumi's smile was equally charming and promising. "What do I have to do to get you to marry me?"

Azula suppressed a laugh while Zuko closed his eyes in disbelieving irritation, to which Katara patted his arm kindly, face understanding but amused.

"Likely dissuade my husband from his chosen path," Mother said with a disarming wave of her hand. "I think if Zuko and Katara can personally go to convince the dragons to join us, others can stay in Ba Sing Se. This can be our center of operations while sub-groups branch out to deal with areas when needed."

"I like that idea," Toph said instantly before holding up a hand. "Yes, Hitchhiker's fine, Lightning Psycho."

Azula inclined her head in thanks. "The idea has much merit and possibility to build success. We can wait for Aang to return from his training to discuss further with him, but I am certain he will agree. He would prefer to stick together, but he knows it is not feasible."

"We need to wait to hear what the Sun Warriors and Uncle say," Zuko added. "But by the time Aang returns, we should have a reply from, hopefully, both."

Toph jumped to her feet. "If that's everything, I need a break from you guys."

Prince Bor's face flashed with a disdainful mockery, but he said nothing. But Toph's departure was a swift gust of wind to the spark of her worry for Samir. Azula's eyes sharpened as she stood to her feet. "I must rescue my daughter from her captor."

Mai stood up quickly. "I will go with you."

Tension clouded the air, smothering like a blanket, as Azula glared at Mai. "No, you are not."

"I am."

"Your aims are as infantile as your intelligence."

Mai laughed dryly; it sounded scathing. "You are clearly an excellent mother."

"I am," she hissed, stepping closer. "I protect my daughter from those who would sabotage her."

Fortunately, Mai did not have a response to the insult, since Mai and Ty Lee were, by definition and reputation, saboteurs.

Sokka whistled. "Is someone going to die?"

Zuko glanced at her with a slow shake of his head. "Don't," he said simply, though there was a powerful command in his voice.

Azula was authentically impressed and, in retaliation, bowed to him in the most improper way she could. "Do not take me for a fool, Fire Lord."

"Just go—with wisdom."

She spun on her heels, ignored Mai following her, and exited the room.

XxXxXxXxXxX

"You're a beautiful girl, Samir," Ty Lee gushed, staring down at her cousin—second cousin, third cousin?—in amazement.

Samir looked down at her feet, shy. "Really?"

"Absolutely!"

"Am I beautiful like Mommy?"

Ty Lee kept her smile on her face, though she felt her heart shudder—because Samir was not Azula's, not according to Fire's laws. "You will grow into a beautiful woman."

Samir beamed, gray eyes sparkling—the same gray eyes she had seen countless times when talking to members of her family, including her grandfathers, who must have been an ancient enemy of Fire! It was the only explanation that made sense! "Thanks!"

"How about I show you how to walk on your hands and do cartwheels?"

Samir gasped and nodded eagerly. "Uh-huh! I can surprise Daddy when he gets back!"

Ty Lee began showing Samir how to walk on her hands, to which Samir giggled and followed along, but she did not have the strength in her arms to hold her body weight up. She would only plop onto her back and laugh before trying again and again, only to have the same result.

But Samir would clearly be capable of it with age—because she was of Ty Lee's family.

When Samir's face was red with exertion, clashing against the vivid gray of her eyes, Ty Lee finally saw her chance—because Samir was ready, fulfilled in expending energy. "Do you know your father?" she asked, tentative.

Samir looked at her strangely before giggling. "You're silly! Daddy's my daddy."

"I don't mean Avatar Aang, Samir," Ty Lee explained. According to Fire's laws, Samir's closest of kin was supposed to step in and raise her. If Samir's father, who was one of Ty Lee's cousins, was still alive, it fell to him to raise Samir. It did not fall to Azula and Avatar Aang, regardless of Samir's claim to being an Airbender. Samir's lineage was of Fire and Earth, clearly, but she was still of Fire and was subject to Fire's laws, not Air's laws—because Samir was evidently not of Air. Her only connection to Air was her gray eyes, which she only inherited from her father, a son of Agni, not an Airbender. None of it made sense, and as Samir's closest relative, it fell to her to figure it out. But if Grandfather had really been an ancient enemy of Fire, which she was never allowed to talk about, Samir's claim, and her own, to Air was much closer in time, made sense of by Grandfather's obvious resemblance to Avatar Aang. "Who is your father?"

"What do you mean?" Samir asked, looking smaller and wrapping her arms around her stomach. "Daddy's my daddy."

Ty Lee felt horrible for making Samir doubtful and look afraid, likely reminded of something she wanted to forget; she pulled Samir into a hug, which Samir accepted—she was hugging her cousin! "I don't doubt that Avatar Aang loves you. He does, doesn't he?"

It was a profound change from what she imagined him capable of, loving a half-spawn of Air, when compared to how he had been after the Great War when she had gone to him to tell him of her suspicions of her lineage.

She had realized quickly that nothing but heartache and possibly death awaited her if she told him the truth.

But he seemed to have moved past it with how well he obviously treated Samir.

Samir perked up and nodded with eagerness. "Uh-huh! I love Daddy, and Daddy loves me! He's the best!"

"That's really nice of him," she commended honestly. "Does he treat you well?"

"Uh-huh!"

"Does he make you feel safe?"

Samir giggled like it was the weirdest thing she had ever heard. "Uh-huh! Daddy's The Avatar! He's fun!"

She thought of what she had encountered of Avatar Aang and wondered in disbelief. "Really?"

"He throws me off the temple!"

Ty Lee stiffened in horrified outrage, but when she saw the delight and awe on Samir's face, she recalled her own love of acrobatics, which could be dangerous. "That does sound fun," she commented, trying not to shudder.

Samir grinned, face stretching in joyful innocence. "He throws me into the sky and catches me before I fall!"

She began to understand Fire's legends of Airbenders, which told of how Airbenders were the most dangerous of anyone and lacked sense, but she realized that those legends were born of incomprehension of what Airbenders were and how connected they were to their bending element. It was a misjudgment—that resulted in atrocity.

It also made several things about her grandfathers make more sense because her grandfathers had a certain wildness about them that was unlike Firebenders.

"I'm glad you have fun with Avatar Aang," Ty Lee said, relieved that Avatar Aang seemed to be a good, attentive father. After all, if he wasn't attentive, Samir would have been harmed during the, what it sounded like, numerous dangerous escapades unique to Airbenders. "And he really makes you feel safe?"

"Uh-huh!"

"You feel loved by him?"

"Uh-huh!"

"Good." The words tasted like death in her mind, but she forced them to pass her lips: "What about your mother?"

Samir beamed. "Mommy's amazing!"

Ty Lee swallowed, wondering if Azula was such an excellent actress that she could deceive a beautiful child in Samir, or if Azula was authentic. How could she know? She wanted her cousin to be safe and loved, and it was her duty as Samir's closest relative to discern if she was being treated well by her new family. "Really?"

An eager nod accompanied strange gestures with her hands. "Uh-huh! When we went to Daddy's home, Mommy flew with me off Appa!" Samir's hands become clasped tightly but awkwardly. "Then we just stayed there. It was so pretty. I wanna live there with Mommy and Daddy. And Grandpa Gyatso's there, too!" Something disgruntled crossed her petite face. "But he's just a statue now—an ugly one! He looks weird! He doesn't look like a grandpa, but Mommy says he's my grandpa. He doesn't look like what Daddy and Mommy say in their stories about him."

There was clearly a lot of context that she would never know unless Avatar Aang or Azula divulged it to her, which would never happen, but it sounded like, tentatively, that Azula was acting as a good, worthy mother to Samir. "Does Azula make you feel safe?"

Samir stared up at her like she was crazy, which, apparently, she was. "Mommy makes me feel safe all the time! Mommy's not scary at all."

Ty Lee wondered what Azula would think of such an 'offensive' statement. "Really?"

A delighted laugh echoed, one born of innocence. "Uh-huh! Mommy's not scary; she's nice. She's not fun like Daddy, but she's fun, too. She talks nice. Daddy talks fun, but Mommy talks nice."

"Nice?" she echoed, wondering if Samir understood the meaning of the word 'nice'.

"Mommy has pretty hair, too," Samir continued and, to Ty Lee's shock, grabbed some of her hair and threaded it through her tiny fingers. "It's more pretty than yours, but yours is nice."

Samir certainly did not know the meaning of the word 'nice.' "Has Azula hurt you at all?" she asked softly but firmly. "You can tell me—no one will know but us. Has she hurt you?"

A tiny face scrunched up in confusion. "What do you mean?"

Ty Lee sighed at the fact that Samir was not making it easy for her at all. "Has she hurt you? Has she harmed you or made you feel bad? Has she said something to you that hurt your heart?"

"My heart hurt that Mommy and Daddy were gone so long," Samir mumbled before perking up. "But that's just because Mommy was hurt and Daddy was saving her. I forgive them."

She assessed Samir for a sign of deceit, but either Samir was not telling a lie or she had learned the deceptive art from Azula and was lying masterfully. "But there's not anything else?" she asked. "Does Azula make you feel good about yourself or bad about yourself?"

Samir's grin split her face. "She makes me feel good about myself! She always says that everything's going to be okay! When Daddy was being scary about airbending, she stopped him and loved me! She said that I'm gonna be the best Airbender after Daddy!"

It was too good to be true—it had to be! But hope pierced through all the disbelief, doubt, and confusion, making it seem, impossibly, that things would be okay.

Ty Lee's smile no longer felt as forced. "I'm glad to hear that. You know what?"

Samir blinked up at her. "What?"

"I think you will be an amazing Airbender when you're older."

"Is that flattery or fact, Ty Lee?"

Ty Lee flinched at the sound of Azula's voice but was unable to respond as Samir dashed to Azula and collided with her leg in a fierce hug, to which Azula combed her fingers through Samir's hair on the top of her head. "Mommy! Ty Lee says I'm gonna be an amazing Airbender, too!"

Azula smiled, but her golden eyes were analytical as they assessed Ty Lee, who slowly stood to her feet. "Indeed? Well, Ty Lee has always known what is right in front of her."

She inclined her head and tried to smile; it was easier than she thought—and it also helped that Mai was present, making Azula's presence less intimidating. "Samir's a beautiful girl, Azula. You must be proud."

Golden eyes narrowed, but she nodded. "Yes. She is a treasure—one whom I will fight for against anyone."

Mai's lips twitched. "Even herself, it appears."

Azula shot a brief glare at Mai. "You can never be too careful. My enemies are numerous."

"Are your enemies here?" Mai asked, and Ty Lee's eyes bulged in shock at the bold question.

"That remains to be seen," Azula commented neutrally. "There is possibility for either side."

"But one more than the other," Ty Lee pointed out hopefully. "I think Samir can help make sure there's only one side—the good side—rather than the other side."

"What are you talking about?" Samir demanded, pouting.

"Nothing significant," Azula answered. "We are drawing lines and ensuring we are all on the side. I determine their friendship."

Ty Lee smiled and winked at Samir, staring into her brilliant gray eyes—identical to her own gray eyes, which were Grandfather's eyes and not Fire Lord Zyrn's eyes. "We wouldn't want to worry anyone. There are some dangerous things four Fire Nation girls could do."

Samir giggled. "I'm not Fire Nation! I'm Air! Daddy says I'm Air!"

Azula glared at Ty Lee, daring her to go pull on that possible thread of Samir's prominent connection to Fire, to which Ty Lee wisely nodded with a simple but tight smile. She knew Azula's temper and recognized the danger of inciting her wrath, especially about her adopted daughter. But she didn't have an impulse to ruin Azula's standing in Samir's eyes as her mother, not anymore. She was reassured that Azula was a good mother to Samir, and while Azula may never be her friend again, it was enough.

"Of course," Ty Lee agreed. "My mistake. It's just that you look like your mom, Samir. You really are your mother's daughter."

Samir's eyes widened in delight as she gasped, looking up at Azula for confirmation. "Really?"

"You will mature into a beautiful woman," Azula replied instead and was quiet for several moments as she stared into Ty Lee's gray eyes, prying into her soul. "Ty Lee surely will have advice for you. She has gray eyes, too."

Ty Lee smiled in gratefulness and bowed her head. "I would be honored."

Maybe there really was hope.

XxXxXxXxXxX

That's all of this one, everyone! I hope you all enjoyed it and please leave a review and tell me what you thought. I always appreciate it.

**Aang and Zuko discuss the Yu Yan Archers, and Aang decides to do some training during the "downtime" he has, telling Zuko to go back to Ba Sing Se without him.

**Ozai murders Chin V's sister, culminating in Chin V attacking Ozai in a brutal, vicious fight that leaves Chin V paralyzed and Ozai's remaining limbs scorched by lava. Vaatu interrupts Ozai from killing Chin V in a final strike, and Hama heals them both after Vaatu vows that, in return for Chin V's silence on Ozai's identity and loyalty in not attacking, he will return Chin V's sister by the same method Aang returned Azula. Chin V accepts the offer, but things change fundamentally. Ozai knows Chin V knows, and Chin V knows that Ozai knows he knows—but there is nothing that can be done. Chin V is done with Ozai since Ozai has surpassed him, meaning he no longer needs a master. Ozai will now move to master waterbending under Hama's tutelage. But after seeing Ozai's state from the battle, Hama agrees to lay with him as she is fond of him and feels something—and Ozai is more than willing. They both get "rejuvenation" from it.

Chin V reveals the truth of his lineage to Ozai as an intimidation tactic in which Kyoshi and Chin the Conqueror were married! This was the only conclusion that made a lick of sense to me based on the conflict between Kyoshi and Chin the Conqueror. How the hell does Chin actually conquer the entire continent, including all the Major Cities and sweeping aside all the kings and armies against him, with Kyoshi not doing a thing about it until he gets to the edge of her homeland? There's the option that Kyoshi was away training, not fully-realized in her training, but that appears like such a lazy option since it's already been done before with Aang and Sozin/Azulon/Ozai. I think it actually makes a lot more sense that Kyoshi failed in letting things reach such a drastic boiling point in which only death and destruction were possible as solutions. Kyoshi failed—it's her great failing that defines her reign and legacy forever. It was never the Dai Li, not at all. Kyoshi let Chin complete his conquest for years, allowing him to have control of the entire continent, brimming with millions upon millions upon millions of people, something that no one in Earth's history had ever done before. It was a generation-defining thing; it was a race-defining thing—because it changes Earth's trajectory forever, historically, politically, structurally, economically, and socially. But this isn't an easy change that Chin implements across his race; it's a literal revolution that impacts everyone. It's violent; it's gruesome; it's ruthless; it's an annihilation of the old order (the order of the Earth Kings) to make room for the new order (the order of Chin, the single Earth King); and it's brutal in killing millions of people who are either caught in the conflict or destroyed in rebelling against his conquest. Chin literally destroys Earth so he can remake them in his image—in his ambitious dream, which puts him at the top of the hierarchy, filling the political, cultural, and social void of the Earth Kings. He destroys Earth's history by severing their connection to it, beginning to make his own history that's at odds with Earth's history, depriving everyone henceforth of meaningful memory. Chin's conquest is why Earth's history is so lackluster, particularly compared to Fire's—there's not much known because Chin killed everyone and everything that could challenge him.

How does something like this happen with The Avatar out there if not during The Avatar's infancy? There are two options. Kyoshi is either unbelievably incompetent, or she simply didn't give a shit, and her personality has never been apathetic—it may appear apathetic on the surface, but she is more ruthless to do what needs to be done. But how does she get that way? By originally being "unbelievably incompetent," but how/why is she unbelievably incompetent? It's much more complicated—because it must be. Otherwise, she's a shit Avatar who's unworthy of any praise or memory.

I think her having a connection with Chin, loving him, marrying him, and bearing him three children (one son and two daughters) answers the question—along with the fact that she HELPED Chin in his conquest, agreeing with what he was doing and his ambitions. But then she stopped agreeing with it—but it was too late as the damage was already done. That's the only way something like this could happen, especially with Kyoshi, whose ruthlessness and seeming callousness would belie anything else—but this direct situation is what ends up making her so ruthless and callous. It destroyed her, too—like it destroyed everyone, including Chin. When Kyoshi chose to stop Chin only when he reached her homeland, it suggests that a reawakening happened inside Kyoshi. If she reached the point of doubting and disagreeing with her husband's methods/conquest after seeing the horrors and atrocities (all of which she participate in and endorsed) and the impact on all the innocent people and families caught into its whirlwind, it makes sense that she wouldn't act until he reached her homeland, where her family and people/friends she grew up with and knew would face the same fates as all those across the continent—it makes it more personal and registers more with her. It forces her to act and stop what's going on, and she knows it can only end one way—with her murdering her husband and devastating his army, many of whom she knew personally. But after she does the unimaginable, she has to undo all her husband's work—his literal life's work, the thing he wanted more than anything and fought to make happen.

I think it makes Kyoshi much more "human" and actually gives her long-lasting consequences for her reign as Avatar—because she actually did fail, severely—as the theme of Avatar, going back to Kuruk (and before, but before Kuruk, it was sporadic, revealed by the great success of Yangchen's reign), is that The Avatar is always failing as it's Vaatu rising after being "dormant" so long, which is impossible to stop. The Harmonic Convergence happens no matter what. As is the cycle, everything went wrong for Kyoshi, and she had to pay the price of murdering her husband and friends that she knew and traumatizing her children forever—and ruining her relationships with her children forever, forced to thwart assassination attempts against her by her own grandchildren. Frankly, she did the best she could in an impossible situation as she loved her husband and children but had to stop them from continuing what she had initially agreed with, participated in, and endorsed. But despite her doing the best she could, she still failed drastically on all levels—because she was The Avatar, who should have never let such a thing happen. With her unbelievable failure, she not only failed herself but everyone else—countless people who did nothing wrong. It makes her jaded outlook make a lot more sense, along with her shameless violent rhetoric, saying violence is the only answer possible—because violence, for her, was the literal only answer for her and her situation, since violence had distinctly made the situation. Only violence ends violence—a violent lesson that she learned much too late.

I know that I probably ruffled some feathers with how I changed Kyoshi's origin, especially concerning her marrying Chin the Conqueror after meeting him when she was a teenager (and bore his firstborn, Chin II, close to her sixteenth birthday before she's revealed as The Avatar), but if analyzing the era on which the show is based, it makes a lot of sense. Kyoshi was a girl, a girl of marrying age at around fourteen or fifteen years old, and it wasn't too uncommon for girls to marry at that age during such a time period. There were even girls who gave birth when they were eleven, twelve, and thirteen years old. (Margaret Beaufort, mother of King Henry VII of England and grandmother of King Henry VIII. She gave birth to Henry VII—then Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond—when she was only thirteen, after marrying at twelve.) It did happen, but Kyoshi, in this, is older, entering into a relationship with Chin when she's fifteen while he's twenty-five; she gives birth nine-ten months later, but before they could marry, she is revealed as The Avatar, which separates her from Chin for fifteen years while she masters the Elements, reuniting them when she is thirty-one and he's forty-one—and they pick up shortly where they left off.

Also, I tried to realistically think of some other way in which Chin V and his ancestors could have learned lavabending, but the only thing that makes sense is Kyoshi teaching it to her son upon her return from her training (at which he would be fifteen years of age), before he later teaches it to his full-blooded sisters, who are between two and five years of age when Kyoshi kills their father.

**Aang finally contacts Avatar Jinzhai and learns how lavabending was recognized as a subset of earthbending. I hope that it seemed believable how Jinzhai discovered it and how his viewpoint as The Avatar is unique because he was raised by the Fire Sages themselves.

We've seen, in canon, Roku bend lava when he destroyed his temple in Winter Solstice, Part 2: Avatar Roku. Because of that evidence, it appears that Roku knew a little bit and what he did was pretty much all he knew how to do. It explains how he failed to defeat the volcano that ended up killing him—from the poisonous gases and Sozin's betrayal. In The Avatar State episode, a Fire Avatar—who is Jinzhai, in this story—controls four volcanoes simultaneously, causing them to erupt, and he manipulated the lava. If that's a Lavabender's peak, at least one who is The Avatar, why didn't Roku simply do the same to the volcano that killed him? The only conclusion is that Roku never learned how; he knew how to do the small things, not the big things. He was not a lavabending master like Jinzhai. Remember, Roku lived a very short life for The Avatar—only seventy years old upon his death. It's possible that he thought he had more time—much more time—to learn and master lavabending, especially since Kyoshi lived a little less than the average length of The Avatar's lifespan. Roku assumed he would have more time, but he assumed wrongly.

Kyoshi was shown lavabending during the Avatar Day episode flashback when she annihilated Chin's army and created Kyoshi Island. It appears that she mastered it, or at least learned more than Roku ever did—and, thus, taught her children, who are the source of Chin V's (and Chin III's and Chin IV's) lavabending mastery. I debated whether or not Kuruk would have ever mastered lavabending, learning under Jinzhai, and I ultimately decided to. Kuruk lived for 600 years according my calculations, an insane amount of time. His arrogance and apathy—and eagerness/willingness to impress women—act as perfect motivation to learn and master such a skill from Jinzhai.

As for Aang mastering lavabending so quickly, it makes sense. Aang is a prodigy beyond any other—it's said as much in canon. He is a genius when it comes to bending. At age ten, he was declared a master Airbender, ahead of his teachers even—besides Gyatso and a couple of the Elders. And remember, The Avatar has been borne of the Air Nomads before, and yet Aang apparently outclassed each of his previous Air Avatar lifetimes as a child, as well. He mastered his native element, as The Avatar, faster and more efficiently than any of his predecessors. Roku was shown in flashbacks to still be somewhat clumsy and awkward when he was almost sixteen and announced as The Avatar. Aang picked up waterbending effortlessly and would have mastered it in the show more than Katara ever had if she hadn't berated him in a jealous fit of rage. It was earthbending that gave him the hardest struggle, but he eventually became more than adept at it—likely after a single day of struggle based on the show's timeline. While he wasn't as strong as Bumi or Toph, he was far stronger than the average Earthbender at that point, and since his maturation, he's stronger than them both. And he only trained under Zuko for firebending for a mere couple of weeks, becoming very proficient at it. If it wasn't for his mental block, his fear after burning Katara when he had effortlessly been throwing around large spurts of flames on his first ever try just based on watching someone else, I believe that he would have been stronger, though not at Zuko, Azula, Iroh, or Ozai's levels, of course. However, despite his physical and mental gifts, he has been put through the ringer more than anyone in the story—in the world of Avatar itself—with Air's murder, the self-loathing of being The Avatar, and the burden of stopping the Great War at twelve years of age. Not everything was effortless for him like bending was; really, bending—learning, mastering, inventing, discovering—will always be the easiest thing for him compared to anything else.

**The Gaang (minus Aang) plus Bumi and Bor discuss possible options while Aang is gone and all get on the same page.

**Ty Lee spends time with Samir just herself and asks probing questions to see if Samir is really being treated well by Aang and Azula. Ty Lee is paranoid that Samir might not be treated well, particularly by Azula, but she's reassured over her conversation with Samir, in which Samir's innocent bluntness and shamelessness win Ty Lee over. And when Azula gathers Samir, there is the possibility of reconciliation, a branch willing to be extended—however slowly and tentatively.

Things are starting to heat up! I hope you enjoyed this one. Please leave a review and tell me what you thought. I always appreciate them!

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