Where There Is Smoke, There Is Fire [Avatar: The Last Airbender Fanfic]

Chapter 22

Chapter 22

Iroh was meeting with some of the old advisors who had since retired and some of the senior Generals from the Army and Navy while Izara was waiting outside, ever vigilant. Zuko had left a week ago and would have arrived in the Earth Kingdom a few days ago, with Appa flying at full speed. The old men were laughing and chatting away, catching up and talking about anything and everything that had happened since they had seen each other last. Iroh discussed opening a branch of his tea shop in the Capital and asked them to support the business so he could eventually return to the Earth Kingdom once he left it in good hands.

It took another hour or so for all the men to tire and call it a night. They were in a large restaurant in the Capital, so Izara and Jay would escort them back to their homes along with Iroh and then return to the palace. As they strolled through the streets of the Capital, Iroh saw his friends home safely before they finally got to the last house. It was closest to the palace, only a few hundred metres away.

When they arrived, Jay and Izara stayed back a little to ensure they weren't infringing upon Iroh's privacy, but this worked to Izara's advantage. She felt more comfortable staying out of sight and hidden in the shadows, so being in the Capital was good for her.

This was when she spotted him. Someone who set the hairs on the back of her neck on end, and every sense in her body went into overdrive. Jay noticed the change in her demeanour, mainly because they had worked together many times, and he could tell something wasn't right since she wasn't standing still while they waited. Izara had noticed the same man on the way out hours ago, and he was in the exact same spot he had been. Something wasn't right.

Izara silently gestured with a nod in the direction of the man she was concerned about. Jay didn't look worried, but Izara didn't want to take any chances. Since they were close enough to the palace, she gestured to the guards at the front gate, and they only noticed her after she grabbed a dagger from her holster and flung it as far as she could. It clunked on the ground metres from them but drew their attention in her direction. Two of them came rushing over and took over for her. She left Iroh to be escorted back to the palace by them, trusting her instincts enough to not let this go. Jay trusted her and let her follow her hunch.

When she breathed in, she got a specific scent that made her panic because it smelt like it had when the siege against the Supremacists was on. She had remembered it, and it must have been what set her off. Although she was loath to essentially leave her post, she didn't move far until seeing the Iroh made it back through the Palace gates with Jay and the other gate guards. She would report back to Iroh in the morning immediately to tell her what she'd done and why, but for now, she felt that she needed to capture this man at all costs and then get information from there.

Moving around the corner so she was concealed, she began to close in on him. He had been standing at the corner of a home that she knew wasn't occupied by anyone of his appearance. This was what she did best. She moved in the shadows and got just a little bit closer as the minutes went by, always keeping him in her sight so she could capture as much as possible in her memory. Using her collar, she pulled it up to stick near her face and head to cover as much of her pale skin as possible. She grabbed another dagger from her other holster and hoped for the best. It had been a long time since she'd tried to capture someone alive, so she just had to be cautious and do her best.

Playing it safe, she grasped her dagger in a backhand grip. Silently, she closed in until she was just a few feet away from him. He seemed to react to something, but she was unsure what it was. Did he hear her? Halfway through transitioning her weight between her feet, she stopped moving and held her breath. Once, he seemed to relax, and then she struck. Hitting the back of his neck with the hilt of her dagger, he dropped to the floor with all his dead weight. Now that he was unconscious, she could search for him and figure out who he was. Hopefully, her hunch was correct, and she hadn't just knocked some poor innocent man out in the street.