COLLISION - a zuko and yue centric tale

Chapter seven

Zuko slips away. He longs to fight Zhao right then but decides to catch him later. He's gone before Zhao finishes his speech about his proclaimed greatness. The coward. Trying to have him killed by pirates. Zuko doesn't think about how the Avatar... rescued him. So naive and young, like his friends. That boy and girl from the south. He wonders if that other girl, the young woman, had joined them. Zuko doubts it. She's dressed finer than anyone else he's seen, most likely nobility of some kind trying to get into the Avatar's good graces. She took me from the Avatar and put my head on her scarf. Perhaps not a horrible person, but naive. Didn't she know what the point of war -- of enemies --- was? Zuko can feel the warmth from the scarf as he slips through the Water Tribe city. It's not like she really needed it, did she?

A cold tier overlooking a footbridge is perfect. Zuko climbs up and waits. Zhao would be there any moment. The guards would be no object. As would any Water Tribe warriors that might stray their way from the fighting of the siege. From the sounds of it, there weren't any left. All Zuko could hear was fire and screaming. There was a red cast over everything that appeared after the moon disappeared. Zhao had succeeded, apparently, in becoming the "moon-killer" or whatever he was blathering on about when Zuko was slipping out of that oasis. It only fuels Zuko's rage.

Zhao rounds the corner and goes on the footbridge like a coward traitor. Zuko roars and blasts fire in his path.

"You're alive?" Zhao is shocked. Incredulous. Zuko relishes the expression. He is bruised and battered, yes, but alive. He was still alive. 

"You tried to have me killed!" There was also that score that needed to be settled. He launches at the older man from the tier. Zhao rolls behind the footbridge's wall.

"Yes, I did. You're the Blue Spirit — an enemy of the Fire Nation!" Zhao spits. Zuko's rage is white-hot as they face each other. Waiting. A blue light runs under them through the water that Zuko barely registers.

"You freed the Avatar!"

"I had no choice!" How else was he to return home, restore his honour? He blasts fireball after fireball at Zhao, who dissipates each one, snarling.

"You should have chosen to accept your failure — your disgrace! Then, at least you could have lived!" Zhao threatens, thinking himself invincible despite his initial failure at killing Zuko and how he was now losing ground against the same man. With a carefully executed series of blows, Zhao is flat on his back. His eyes widen.

"It can't be!" He's looking up. Up past Zuko. Up into the sky. The red cast is gone. The moon is back. Things feel... right. For Zhao, it feels wrong. The water rises up behind Zhao in the shape of a hand. It grabs the Admiral and lifts him up. Zuko springs forwards.

"Take my hand!" He reaches for his enemy's hand. Zhao thinks for a moment and Zuko thinks he'll grab his hand, but instead he pulls it back and throws a fireblast right at Zuko's chest. Zuko, completely unprepared is thrown back and hits the edge of the bridge's wall. He slumps down. The water drags Zhao back and into the water. He disappears from Zuko's rapidly darkening sight. Nothing.

Yue becomes. She is whole. Where there once was a kernel, now is a vast well of essence, of being. Some still confidence runs through her veins. Libraries of books and experiences fill her head. She almost forgets that she is Princess Yue of the Northern Water Tribe. Tui, Tui, TUI!

She bolts upright. She's swimming around La. Like she's been doing since before time came and there was a "before" rather than "being". She's standing upright. She's not a koi fish. She's Yue. I am Tui. The words resound through her and she knows it's true. She is Tui, the spirit, and Yue, the human. Two parts of a whole. She thought she had given her life force to Tui but she had also given herself and became one with Tui.