Burning Souls - Book 2 // Zuko

Chapter 2

As Zuko began to climb up the ramp onto Azula's ship, he paused in his steps to look over his shoulder. Nope.... No sign of Shira. He felt a deep pain of regret strike his heart. He shouldn't have done those things. Constantly pushing her to try and become who she had been in her past. It was like asking her to be someone she wasn't.

"Prepare to set sail men!" The captain called. "We're taking the prisoners ho....."
Zuko snapped back into reality at what the man said, his eyebrows snapping down at the pale look of horror on Azula's face. Uncle Iroh immediately began striking down soldiers while Zuko went for the captain, throwing him off the ramp before he approached Azula.

"You lied to me!"
"Like I've never done that before," Azula taunted, turning to walk away while two fire benders approached Zuko.

Zuko let out a frustrated grunt, fire blasting both soldiers before he ran after his sister. He formed two fire daggers in his hands while Azula raised her hands defensively.

"Do you really think that father would want you back?" Azula taunted as they began to go at each other. "A failure.... A child who cannot even capture the avatar?"
Zuko yelled in anger and lashed at her but Azula blocked his strikes. "I should have listened to Uncle!" he yelled.

"Maybe you should have," Azula teased. "You never really were one to listen to anyone's advice. You should have listened to uncle when he told you to be quiet in the war chamber, then you wouldn't have been banished. And what happened? You had to have a little girl save you! Well, she isn't here anymore."
Zuko almost wanted to smack reality into Azula's smug face by telling her that he had found Shira, but he thought it was probably best if she didn't know about Shira's existence. It would become dangerous for Shira especially since Azula hated her with every vibe in her body... something that Zuko could never understand. Azula did always seem to hate everyone except their father, but Shira was so easy to love, yet Azula hated her.

The brother and sister jumped apart, both raising their arms in defensive manners, preparing to start again. However, just as Azula began to wound lightning from her hands, she let out a yelp when something jabbed her in the shoulders, making one of her arms jolt forward.

She went flying across the deck and the first thing that Zuko saw was a spike of ice that had appeared below his sister, which had thrown her across the deck. Standing on the other side of the ice... was Raven. She had left her hair down but had taken the scarf that she oftentimes used to hold up her hair and tied it around her face, concealing her nose, cheeks, jaw, chin and mouth. All they could see were her striking blue eyes that were burning like blue fire.

"Raven," Zuko breathed.

The girl snapped her head in his direction, slight surprise written on her features, but she kept it well hidden beneath the mask of slight annoyance. "We will talk about this later," she muttered.

Zuko nodded but he was snapped out of his thoughts by a yell behind him. Spinning around, he saw Azula running at him but before he could even begin to form fire in his hands, something grabbed him around the waist and ankles, pulling him a good distance away from his sister and behind Raven. He didn't have to look down to know that Raven had drawn him back using ice.

"Hey Ra...." He started.

"I failed to protect you last time," the girl remarked bluntly, not looking back at him but keeping her back to him and her eyes on Azula. "I won't let that happen this time."
Zuko tried to melt the ice around him but Raven just spouted more ice, pinning all his limbs down and slowly began to push the ice further away from them, toward the ramp as if forcing him to leave.

"I was wondering when you would show up," Azula smirked. "Zuzu doesn't really make friends with girls unless they know how to handle themselves."
Raven rolled her eyes before grabbing her sword, drawing it out and flipping it so it was held backwards, "Well it's a good thing he met me then."
Before Zuko could even blink, Raven had sprinted across the deck and began to slice at Azula, meeting every single one of her lightning jabs with the flat of her blade, returning them with a blast of ice. The two girls were well matched and Zuko knew that both of them were aware of that. Realizing that Raven was too busy fighting Azula to notice him, Zuko began to melt the ice holding him down.