Pre-Chapter A/N: Please do check out the first chapter of the novel I'm working on up on pa-treon- it's completely free to access. What can I say except you're welcome? Here we go. Lovely to have you all here, and I hope you enjoy this one. If you do, feel free to head over to pa-treon and read the next two chapters- I update there on a daily basis so there's always something for you to read.
SPARKY SPARKY BOOM MAN
"What do you want?" His assistant growled at the man who had barged into his tavern, of all places, seeking an assassin. The fool stuck out like a sore thumb with his silk robes and his high-handed sneer. The sneer that reminded Baki of the men who had hurt him— made him into this abomination of flesh and metal, unable to speak, and barely even able to breathe without extreme pain.
"I am told that your man can eliminate anyone for the right price" The fool even went ahead to speak about an assassination in the open air of the bar. Thankfully, the patrons were well-trained enough to pretend they heard nothing, and so Baki returned to polishing the glass while listening in.
"Depends on whom you are looking for and how much you can offer for it" Mako was being careless, he realised. This could be anyone. Definitely not one of the City Watch, those ones were too busy trying to keep their heads down while the new Fire Lord tore through their ranks to do anything as silly as a sting operation against him, of all people.
"Natsu Wu. I want him dead, and for that I will offer a million gold pieces." The silence in the bar shifted. Where before it had been cold and flat, now there was something tense and warm about it. Something charged. Something anticipatory. A million gold pieces were enough money for a dozen men to live like kings and never run out until they died. This had to be someone important indeed. Baki slammed his metal arm against the table, in the signal that these men would understand. One by one, they left the store. Some grumbling, others too stubborn to move until he turned his gaze upon them.
At least he wasn't going to be sending anyone to the hospital today.
When the bar emptied, he turned to Mako and grunted.
"The boss wants to know why you want the Fire Lord dead"
"He's the boss? Him?" The stuffy noble said. Had to be a nobleman with those clothes, that voice, and that kind of money to toss about. He grunted again to convey his impatience.
"Not important. He wants you to answer."
"The why is not important. And if he gets it done, I'm willing to make the both of you very rich men. Probably the richest men of your birth in the whole Fire Nation." Mako definitely liked the sound of that, but Baki knew about sweet-talking nobles and their tricks. He grunted again. Mako snapped his head to him in shock, and he grunted again. Get on with it.
"He says if you don't answer, he's not interested" Mako conveyed his message, and the man flushed. He flushed from his forehead down to the neck of his fancy robes, and undoubtedly further down than that. How much further? Baki wasn't much interested in finding out. The snobbish noble was clearly used to getting his way, and while he was tossing around a lot of money, Baki had him made.
He flushed, sputtered, and complained, but Baki left his face blank and eventually the man caved.
"We don't want a Fire Lord. The Noble families pay exorbitant amounts in axes to the throne year after year, only for it to get squandered in a useless war with no clear benefit for anyone other than the Fire Lord. Natsu Wu is the only one with a chance of holding this Kingdom together and when he's gone, we can finally return to living as our ancestors did— every man being a Lord within his own lands" He said, a gleam in his eyes. We? How interesting. Baki hummed.
"He says he'll do it for two million gold pieces and that he wants half before the deed." He smiled. He definitely hadn't added that last bit, but it was good to see Mako taking some initiative at the very least.
When the man was gone, Mako turned to him with a bright smile.
"We're going to be rich," He said. Baki did not point out how they were already far richer than they had ever been, and richer than anyone would have expected people with their backgrounds to be. Instead, he just grunted.
"But how are you going to do it, though? Assassinate Natsu Wu. Can't be easy to sneak into the palace, and we've seen his escort when he moves through town."
Baki just took the poster he'd ripped off their door this morning and set it on the table. There was only one reason he'd taken this deal. Usually, it was suicide, assassinating someone as well protected as a Fire Lord, but this one was stupid enough to declare that he would face against anyone who had objections to his ascension in an Agni Kai. Baki saw the opportunity for what it was. He would make a killing in one deal and no one would ever be able to come after him for it because it would all be legal. A perfect plan. Nothing could go wrong. Natsu Wu thought fighting in a war and killing some earthbenders made him scary, but he had no idea what Baki could do.
XXXXX- JUN WENJUN
"And let me get this straight. You want me to kill the new Fire Lord for only two million gold pieces? She asked
"That's more money than most nobles see in a year." The man across from her replied.
"What does that have to do with me? You want me to kill someone like Natsu Wu, then you better move your offer up" She replied.
"We could just as easily have you arrested for the role you played in the previous Fire Lord's death, you know?" She scoffed at the threat.
"Everyone knows Prince Zuko killed his father. You'd struggle to find anyone willing to listen to tall tales about poisons and the likes."
"We paid you one million for that. This is double!" He snarled.
"Yeah, Ozai was a different beast. He was a soft man who spent all his time on the throne and never even saw the Battlefield. Add to that the fact that my only role was in creating a poison that his tasters would never detect, but here you want me to do the deed myself. Against a far scarier foe. Natsu Wu fought the world and won. You want me to kill him, you'll pay something appropriate" She said.
"Five million."
"Now you're speaking my language, but I'll need you to move up on that a bit more" She said with a wide smirk, tossing her long black locks to the side.
XXXX- ISHIDA
"The Fire Lord, huh?" He asked with a look to his side. He itched to have his bow in his hand. He felt naked without it. That was why he spread his arms out and put one on the table before using the other to pick a hold of his cup of tea and bring it to his mouth.
"Precisely. Someone like you shouldn't have much trouble with that, would you?" The fellow across the table from him asked.
"Why would I not? I have heard the kind of things Natsu Wu is capable of, and I'd rather keep my head down and avoid incurring his wrath."
"You already have his wrath. No Fire Lord would stomach knowing that a deserter from the Yuyan archers still lives" He did not react at the obvious threat. So that was the stick to the carrot. 'I know who you are and will expose you if you do not do as I will'. How plebeian.
"Why should I care? He'd struggle to find me, just like everyone else." He said with a casualness that he worried sounded false even to his own ears.
"We found you. If we could, then someday someone else could as well. Take this deal, do what we need you to do, and you will never have to work a day in your life again. You could buy a ship to the Earth Kingdom and live your days out as a king on your own small corner of the planet."
"That sounds tempting, but I didn't get here by taking careless risks. Trying to kill someone who's killed everyone he has ever faced from before his balls even dropped is the definition of a careless risk".
"You're an archer. You don't even have to get close to him, do you?" The man objected.
"Sure. There's a Nine in ten chance that I get him right in the eye and kill him in seconds. But there is that 10 percent chance that he just happens to turn his head at the wrong moment, and the arrow shatters against his helm. The city would be locked down, searched, and as you must know, the signs of what I am are not easy to hide. I'd be flushed out and killed. A 10% risk of death is far too much for my tastes, I'm afraid.
"What would it take to make the risks more edible?" The man asked with a sigh.
"I don't think you get my point here, Gentleman. I will not be risking my life for your gold. If you want the Fire Lord dead, kill him yourself." He said.
"We'll expose you," The noble hissed.
"Go right ahead and do what you want" Ishida replied. He had a strong bullshit detector, and something about that offer just stunk to the high heavens to him.
"We will" was the last thing he heard as he left the tavern.
He briefly considered putting an arrow in the man's eye for the threat but abandoned the thought.
XXXXXX- DAIGO
"I want none of your money. I will kill this Natsu Wu, but only because my honour would have it of me" He told the woman who had come to him with this offer. She worked for someone. Someone most definitely wealthy and powerful, but Daigo had no need for wealth or power. He had enough of the two of them from a long and successful career.
No, what he needed now was something baser. Something more concrete and worth far more than gold.
"So how will you do it?" The woman asked rolling easily with his refusal of her more than generous offer.
"He is taking offers for duels, is he not?"
"You would fight him in an Agni Kai"
"I am not stupid, no. I am an honorable man, but no fool. I will attend these fuels of his and watch him. One day, he will fight someone strong, or stressful, or tiring, and then he will be distracted on his journey back to his palace. That is when I will strike" He said with thin lips. He had never planned an assassination before, but he had foiled more than a few in his long lifetime. It was in foiling one that he had met Piandao, his old friend after all.
'We've made enough money. We should retire as wealthy men' he remembered Piandao telling him. His friend had told him nothing of his desire to start working with traitors and risk his life in combat with the Fire Nation itself. Had he thought Daigo would judge him? He couldn't have. Daigo had not a shred of nationalist pride in him. To him, the Fire Nation was a place just like any other, and he would have worked to tear it all down at Piandao's word. So why hadn't he told him? He didn't trust him. That was the only explanation he could think of, and that meant that he had failed him. Failed his closest friend. His confidant. His brother.
"Well, if you are going to do it, hen there is nothing for us to speak about then" She said, standing up.
"No. Not so fast. We still have something you can do for me".
"So you want the gold?"
"Are you daft, girl? I care not for gold. But since you have offered yourself to help, then you shall procure seven barrels of blasting jelly for me. High-Grade Blasting Jelly, not the local one." He said with a sharp smile.
XXXXX- NATSU WU
"I maintain that this was a foolish idea" Grandfather said as the carriage plied the paved streets down to the coliseum.
"Objections noted and recognised" I said with a sigh.
"But not taken into account"
"No. I've made my choice."
"A foolish choice"
"The right choice. I have no blood connection to the throne. If I want this nation to respect my legitimacy, then I must give them something to look to. Deeds in a war an ocean away matter little. I must prove myself, and for good or for ill, one thing all children of Agni respect is power."
"The only issue with this is that your entire rule becomes predicated on being the strongest. What happens when you grow old? Or what happens if your children are less powerful than you are? Would you see our line supplanted from the throne by grasping lackwits because they might have more martial power?" I wondered if I could tell him that I didn't care much about shit that went down after I was dead. If my kids were too weak to keep a hold of what I fought for, then that was their problem, wasn't it?
"We can solve that when the time comes. What matters for now is that I need legitimacy beyond just being the one to put an end to the war. Speaking of that, how is the planning going?" I asked.
"Logistics are going to be the major bottleneck. The liaison from the Arsenal says the Airships are not rated to carry enough resources and rations to provision an army across that distance. So the fleet of Air shops would have to be accompanied by actual ships holding resources. The Liaison says they have balloons capable of ferrying troops from the ships to the airships. The only difficulty is that the ships cannot be expected to keep pace with their airship counterparts" He said.
"And I'm sure you collection of geniuses have found a solution to that problem," I said, studying the drawings that he handed over.
"The route was mapped extensively for Zhao's folly. If ships are sent out today in batches and groups, then they will be able to array themselves in such a manner that the airships would be able to stop to resupply at two different points in the journey." He said, passing m another drawing that had the route scaled down. I nodded at the supply points.
"And the ships will be in position on time? When would we need to leave?"
"In five days"
"Good. Then I have time to finish with this" I said as the carriage came to a stop. The noise of the crowd was something else. The coliseum was filled to the brim again.
"We might have to consider charging for entrance" I said as I could see the line stretching out from the building into the streets.
"They'd riot" Toji said with a chuckle, appearing next to me.
"Wouldn't want that to happen, would we?" I asked as I stepped forward. A few of them broke into applause as I began to walk past the line and inside the venue. I made sure to smile, nod, and wave where possible. One man even offered a bow that I made sure to acknowledge with a nod. This was only the first day, and I could see the building of a legend here. Grandfather could say whatever he wanted, but this was how to get the people's hearts. Panem et circenses.
The Panem part was easy, since the Fire nation enjoyed wealth beyond all the others and food aplenty. It was a simple measure to declare that prices would be reduced by half to celebrate the first week of my coronation. A subsidy on food that the crown had the gold to bear. In a different society, I would have feared the merchants would just cheat the people and cheat me while it, but here honour mattered more than anything else. Sure, there would be the outliers, but we could afford it. Early reports made it clear that Ozai had been many thong, but a fool was not one of them. The coffers were near overflowing even after supporting a century of war. Of course, that was probably because the war was almost entirely financed using gold from all sorts of taxes.
Another thing for the list of things to review— what taxes to remove, reduce, and what to keep as was. Grandfather had already mentioned the tea tax as one for removal, but I was certain there would be more.
"The next challenger for our fire lord- Bang Hui from the Yu Dao Province" The announcer, a tall reed of a man said, riling the crowd up. I gave a bow that the man returned, and I waited for his first attack.
He blasted himself right at me. At least this one, was competent. The first two hadn't been. I hadn't killed them though. I dodged around the kick and dropped a jab in his ribs before taking a step back. Unlike the others, he was no stranger to pain and managed to remain standing. Instead, he brought his flames to bear again and slapped his hands together, sending a blast right at me. I ran forwards, straight at him and his blast, before leaping into a front flip at the very last moment.
I landed right behind him and kicked the back of his knee in, forcing him down, and then chopped him at the back of his neck, sending him to the floor unconscious.
"And another one bites the dust. Is there any who can even make our Fire Lord call upon his hallowed green flames?" The announcer did his job well.
"Next we have Baki of the plains of Ilah" He said, and then a familiar man stepped into the sandy field, metal limbs slamming against the ground. Sparky sparky boom man?
A/N: And so we have the last bits of the story in progress. Natsu's official coronation comes soon, and we get to see the assassination plots come together. As always, the next two chapters are up on pa-treon. If you just want to read complete chapters and not my work in real-time, then feel free to purchase this story as a collection on my pa-treon page so you get to read each chapter after I finish it and not neecessarily the daily updates available with a regular pa-treon membership- nice way to support this story and me while you're at it.