Zuko's POV
I unpinned my headpiece and pulled my armour off before sitting down and spreading out a piece of parchment and preparing my ink.
I sighed.
How was I going to say this?
I tapped my thumb on the page and bit the inside of my cheek.
Dear Y/N,
I don't really know what I'm supposed to say, but I'm leaving. I'm sorry that you had to find out this way, I'll be back when the war is over.
Please stay safe, and know that I meant everything I said.
- Zuko
I sighed as I placed the note on my bed and wrapped my cloak around me, as I made my way towards the door it swung open and Y/N appeared from behind it,
"Zuko, we need to talk abou- where are you going?"
My heart dropped.
She eyed the note on my bed and opened it up, her eyes widening as she read it, her expression became blunt and she glared at me,
"So you were just going to leave? That's it. No goodbye? Just this lousy note."
She dashed the note at me and I fathomed the words,
"I'm sorry, Y/N..."
She bit her lip and looked away, squeezing her eyes shut,
"I gave up everything to bring you home, I dropped my entire life to chase a twelve-year-old bald kid around the world because you couldn't. I left my friends, my family, my position in the army... for you to run away!?"
"Then come with me, Y/N."
"What...?"
"I need to fix the wrong doings of this nation, I need to join him... I need to join the avatar."
She squinted her eyes and shook her head in disbelief,
"I cannot believe this..."
"I'm doing this for my country."
"You're betraying your country."
"I'm not. I need to help put an end to this war, I can't let you or anyone else run off to fight a battle that doesn't need to be fought. Please, try to understand."
She cut her eyes at me and spat,
"No. Now if you'll excuse me, your highness, there's an invasion going on, so I'm going to protect the country that you're supposed to rule one day."
As she turned to leave I grabbed her wrist,
"Wait!"
"What do you want!?"
"I know where your water bending came from, I know about your parents."
Her eyes widened and she took a deep breath before relaxing,
"How?"
I sighed and gestured for her to sit down on the side of my bed as I made my way over to my desk space and pulled the bracelet from my drawer before handing it to her.
She inspected it thoroughly before looking up to me,
"What is this?"
"That was on your wrist when your parents... well, General Zorian and Azira picked you up from the orphanage."
Her breathing quickened and her hands began to shake as she traced over the names on the back of the bracelet,
"So... Akaden and Katia... they're my..."
I nodded.
"I'm... adopted?"
I nodded again.
"They lied to me... I'm not even from the Fire Nation... I'm not even..."
I watched as a single tear rolled down her cheek, I sat beside her and wiped the tear from her face with my thumb, she darted her eyes up to me,
"This doesn't change anything, look at the bigger picture, so what? I'm just one soldier in an entire army. We're changing the world for the better, the Fire Nation-"
"The Fire Nation killed your father!"
Her face dropped, and for the first time, she looked lost and confused. She slowly stood up and glanced back at me- my heart felt heavy seeing her so bemused, especially when she was always so certain, so ready for anything, nothing ever fazed her.
"Well, are you coming?"
She slowly shook her head,
"I... need to find Azula..."
I sighed before standing up and placing my hands on her shoulders, I softly kissed her forehead and whispered,
"If you change your mind, you know where to find me."
Then I left.
Y/N's POV
No words could describe the way I was feeling, after Zuko left I made my way down to the bunker below the mountain, I had to find Azula.
When I finally made it, she sent me to hide above the room her Dai Li agents.
Soon enough, the doors were forced open, Azula calmly remarked,
"So, you are alive after all. I had a hunch that you survived, but it doesn't matter, I've known about the invasion for months."
I then heard the avatar demand,
"Where is he!? Where's the Fire Lord!?"
"Hm, you mean I'm not good enough for you? You're hurting my feelings."
Them I heard Sokka, the boy from the Water Tribe yell,
"Stop wasting our time and give us the information. You're powerless right now, so you're in no position to refuse."
Then I heard another voice, I think it was the blind earth bender, Toph:
"And stick to the truth. I'll be able to tell if you're lying."
Azula cockily asked,
"Are you sure? I'm a pretty good liar. I am a four-hundred-foot-tall purple platypus bear with pink horns and silver wings."
I had to hold back my sniggering.
The little girl then yelled,
"Okay, you're good, I admit it. But you really ought to consider telling the truth anyway!"
I heard the Earth move, I supposed they must've trapped Azula.
I made my way over to just above where I needed to be and nodded to the Dai Li, I watched them move their arms around before hearing crumbling rocks below us as Azula told them,
"When I left Ba Sing Se, I brought home some souvenirs... Dai Li agents."
As they jumped down, they split the earth below me and I landed behind the avatar and his friends, by the door.
Azula smirked at them and gestured towards me,
"And I'm certain that you've already been acquainted with Y/N here."
As they turned to me I smirked and mockingly waved at them.
The avatar furrowed his eyebrows and began to attack Azula as his friend Sokka swung his sword towards me, I pulled out my katana... Zuko's katana that he had lent me before, and blocked him easily, I blocked and thrusted forwards, keeping the Water Tribe boy busy as Azula and the Dai Li agents fought with the blind girl and the avatar.
He wasn't too bad with the sword, he put up quite a fight, but I was still practically yawning. Then, the boy jumped back away from me and yelled to his friends,
"Wait! Aang! Toph! Stop attacking. Don't you see what they're doing? They're just playing with us. They're not even trying to win this fight!"
Azula placed her hands on her hips,
"Not true, I'm giving it my all."
Toph pointed at her and yelled,
"You're trying to keep us here and waste all our time!"
Azula raised her eyebrow,
"Um, right. I think your friend just said that, genius. And since you can't see, I should tell you, I'm rolling my eyes."
"I'll roll your whole head!"
Sokka pulled her back,
"She's just baiting you again."
The avatar turned back to his friend and asked,
"Okay, so what do we do? Just ignore her?"
"We don't have a choice. We just have to get out of here and find the Fire Lord on our own somehow."
Azula called after them,
"It's a trap. Don't say I didn't warn you."
The avatar and Toph turned around but Sokka shouted,
"Ignore!"
I pulled my katana from my belt and looked to Azula but she held out her hand, signalling for me to wait as she called out,
"So, Sokka's your name, right? My favourite prisoner used to mention you all the time. She was convinced that you were going to come rescue her. Of course, you never came, and she gave up on you."
Tears streamed down his face and he grunted as he charged towards her, she muttered,
"Come and get it."
She pulled a knife like one of Mai's from her sleeve, but Toph must've noticed because she pinned Azula's hand to the wall with earth, the avatar ran to join Sokka but I jumped in front of him, holding my sword out.
Sokka pushed Azula against the wall and demanded,
"Where is Suki!?"
Azula stayed silent.
"Where's Suki? Answer me!"
The avatar called out to him,
"Sokka! She won't talk."
"Where are you keeping her!?"
We then heard crashes coming from down the other side of the cave. Azula smiled,
"Oh. Sounds like the fire bending's back on."
Then she kicked flames at him, he dodged, I replaced my katana in my belt and leaned against the wall with my arms folded.
Azula jumped at the avatar throwing blue flames at him, he jumped out of the way and stood in defence with his friends.
She smirked at him,
"Dad's all the way at the end of the hall and then down a secret stairway on the left. I'm sure he'll be more than happy to see you now."
Then a Azula ran off, I looked at the three of the, and sarcastically smiled,
"Bye-bye!"
Before following Azula down the hall.
Zuko's POV
I took a deep breath in and exhaled,
"I'm ready to face you."
I slammed open the door to the room in the bunker that my father was hiding in.
He looked up at me,
"Prince Zuko, what are you doing here?"
I stepped forwards and he asked again,
"Why are you here?"
"I'm here to tell the truth."
"Telling the truth during the middle of an eclipse. This should be interesting."
He dismissed his guards. I started,
"First of all, in Ba Sing Se, it was a Azula who took down the Avatar, not me."
"Why would she lie to me about that?"
"Because the avatar is not dead. He survived."
"What!?"
"In fact, he's probably leading this invasion. He could be on his way here right now."
My father stood up, furious and shouted,
"Get out! Get out of my sight right now if you know what's good for you!"
"That's another thing, I'm not taking orders from you anymore."
"You will obey me, or this defiant breath will be your last."
He jumped up to advance towards me, but I pulled my dual swords from my back and yelled,
"Think again! I am going to speak my mind and you are going to listen."
His eyebrows furrowed and he sat back down.
"For so long, all I wanted was for you to love me, to accept me. I thought it was my honour that I wanted. But really, I was just trying to please you. You, my father, who banished me just for talking out of turn. My father, who challenged me, a thirteen-year-old boy to an Agni Kai. How can you possibly justify a dual with a child!?"
"It was to teach you respect."
"It was cruel and it was wrong!"
"Then you've learned nothing!"
"No, I've learned everything. And I've had to learn it on my own. Growing up, we were taught that the Fire Nation was the greatest civilisation in history, and somehow, the war was our ways of sharing our greatness with the rest of the world. What an amazing lie that was. The people of the world are terrified by the Fire Nation! They don't see our greatness, they hate us! And we deserve it, we've created an era of fear in the world. And if we don't want the world to destroy itself, we need to replace it with an era of peace and kindness."
Father started laughing at me before asking,
"Your uncle has gotten to you, hasn't he?"
I felt a small smile form on my lips, what a compliment.
"Yes, he has. After I leave here today, I'm going to free Uncle Iroh from his prison and I'm going to beg for his forgiveness. He is the one who's been a real father to me."
He laughed again, before sarcastically remarking,
"That's just beautiful. Maybe he can pass down to you the ways of tea and failure."
I ignored him and continued,
"But I've come to an even more important decision. I'm going to join the avatar and I'm going to help him defeat you."
"Really? Since you're a full-blown traitor now, and you want me gone, why wait? I'm powerless, you've got your swords, why don't you just do it now?"
"Because I know my own destiny. Taking you down is the avatar's destiny. Goodbye."
I replaced my swords on my back and turned to leave.
"Coward! You think you're brave enough to face me, but you'll only do it during the eclipse. If you have any real courage, you'll stick around until the sun comes out. Don't you want to know what happened to your mother?"
I stopped in my tracks and turned to him,
"What happened that night?"
"My father, Fire Lord Azulon has commanded me to do the unthinkable to you, my own son. And I was going to do it. Your mother found out and swore she would protect you at any cost. She knew I wanted the throne, and proposed a plan. A plan in which I would become Fire Lord and your life would be spared. Your mother did vicious, treasonous things that night. She knew the consequences and accepted them. For her treason, she was banished."
I felt tears fall down my cheeks,
"So, she's alive...?"
"Perhaps. Now I realise that banishment is far too merciful a penalty for treason. Your penalty will be far steeper."
And in that moment, my father struck lightning towards me- he intended to kill me. I did exactly what uncle taught me, I let the energy flow through my body and shot the lighting back at my father, before swiftly leaving.
When I got to uncle's prison, guards were knock out on the floor everywhere, but uncle was gone.
I grabbed the guard by his cell by his shirt and demanded,
"Where is my uncle!?"
"He's gone. He busted himself out. I've never seen anything like it, he was like a one man army!"
I dropped him and left, I grabbed a war balloon and left, following the avatar and his friends on the bison.