Title: In The End
Pairing or Character: Katara, Zuko, Mai, Azula
Rating: PG-13
Squicks/Spoilers: Character death; no spoilers, as far as I know.
Notes: Written for the_glow_worm for avatarflashfic on LJ.



I tried so hard
And got so far
But in the end
It doesn’t even matter
- "In The End" - Linkin Park


I. Death

Azula inhales and exhales shallowly, carefully; everything throbs in sync with the small breaths and she feels herself getting light headed from the lack of sufficient oxygen. She knows better than to take deeper breaths though, now. She’d learned her lesson, the painful way, when her wounds opened deeper than she could have imagined and pain had ricocheted throughout her body.

Her vision blurs when she shifts slightly to get a slightly more comfortable sitting position against the tree. When it clears, she is again looking at a battlefield strewn with dead, rotting bodies, and blood everywhere in sight. Her body aches, reminding her of her injuries and her own contribution to the blood on the field, and Azula grimaces as she imagines the blood soaking into her expensive, fancy robes. Father would be displeased.

If he were still alive, that is. Azula allows herself a second of remorse for his passing, before being swept up in the feeling of triumph. She has had her vengeance. Azula smirks slightly at the thought, remembering shrieks of horror, of pain; of the smell of Avatar’s burning flesh and wide milky-green eyes losing its passion. Her smile falters suddenly as she also remembers the flashing, blue eyes and the feel of a waterwhip ripping through her skin; karma is a cruel bitch indeed.

Layers of gravel crunch under the pressure of a heavy foot, and Azula looks over to see the water tribe boy (man) tiredly make his way toward her, his clothes in tatters and the war paint on his face half gone. The other half is smeared, and for a moment, Azula’s vision blurs again, and it’s monstrous and leering, almost truly intimidating – but the moment passes.

“You’re still alive,” he says, less of a question than a statement, and his voice is low and gravelly and Azula gleefully thinks of the grief churning below his skin. She caused that, and that makes him hers. She’s marked him and Azula’s heart bubbles with an unholy delight at the thought that he will never be the same again.

"Disappointed?" Azula asks, smirking, but she hisses quietly at the resulting stab of pain in her abdomen, “Or are you here to finish the job your pitiful sister didn’t finish?” She tilts her head down as much as she dares to examine her own injuries, and bites back a hysterical giggle at all the blood – “Vengence does have a name,” she whispers, almost reverently.

“And thy name is Katara,” and her lips twist into a horrible smile when she hears the hollow, defeated voice of that water tribe peasant (nothing better than the bloodsoaked dirt beneath her heel, even as she lies dying on the ground) add onto her words.

Azula wants to laugh at his face, because in it she can see that this has broken him more than seeing the blood from their battered broken bodies on her hands (and she doesn’t feel regretful at all to remember that it is her that ended the young, promising lives, barely matured, barely lived; the Avatar and his little earthbending bitch, dead by her doing, and her name will live on in history forever).

“No,” he responds wearily, and she sneers at him.

“Why not?” Azula asks, lip curling, “I know you want to.” She spreads her arms out, ignoring the pain and rendering herself vulnerable to any attack he can think of. “Don’t you want me to die for my sins?” Her voice is cruel, mocking, amused: “I killed them. You watched me kill them and I enjoyed it – and then I turned your sister into a murderer.”

He doesn’t deign that with a response, but Azula smirks when she sees that his hands are clenched so tightly his knuckles are white, and he’s shaking. She doesn’t really think he’ll do it, but she’s not afraid if he does; she has already accepted Death as her mistress.

“Come on, little boy,” she taunts, “Kill me. When your dear, sweet sister comes to her senses and realizes what she’s done, don’t you want to be able to take away the guilt of at least one death?” The girl is tainted now, Azula knows, and one life won’t make a difference, but Azula is dying and she feels a cold, cruel sense of achievement to know that she can - is taking them down to hell with her.

“Katara-” his voice is forcibly even, but he still chokes on her name, “She’s not my sister anymore. I can’t help her now.” A look of despair crosses his face at his own words, and Azula lets a peal of horrible laughter escape, despite the screams of protest from her body.

“Poor, conflicted hero,” she mocks him, “The responsibility falls heavy upon your shoulders, doesn’t it?” She cackles again, thinking of her own brother. “You can run, but you can't hide, Zuzu,” Azula laughs, hysteria tickling her throat and lacing into her voice as her vision begins to turn dark, “She’s coming for you.” Azula closes her eyes in surrender, even as a self satisfied smile spreads across her face, and she adds, viciously, “I’ll see you in hell.”

And Sokka stands there and watches as she slumps forward, unconscious, and with a sick feeling in his stomach, he waits for her to die.



II. Justice

Red stains her vision and she lets out a piercing scream of rage; no, not rage, because she knows her heart and it is cold with justice, not anger. It is justice that fuels her as she tracks down the prince and his consort, justice that banishes the exhaustion in her muscles that threatens to overcome her.

Justice reminds her of her righteousness, reminds her with flashes of Aang’s mutilated body, scorched and burned beyond recognition (he had been smiling tiredly, the Fire Lord was defeated and it was over, but a flash of light and she was too late, too slow, too shocked to stop it and he is gone forever) and Toph’s face is whiter than usual and her mouth will be forever frozen in a smirk of triumph, even as her eyes stare blankly towards the sky (silent, and that is how Katara knows Toph will never see her real mother ever again, because Toph is many things, but quiet will never be one of them).

She tracks them and sometimes she even sniffs the air; Katara thinks she smells their fear and it soothes the justice in her heart that cries out for blood to avenge the blood of her own.

A flash of red and black, and Katara whirls around. Zuko stands before her, white faced and shaking slightly, and she smiles frighteningly.

“Pray,” she advises him coolly, and with a wave of her hand, he is on his knees and screaming. Her conscience screams along with him as she viciously crushes it(him).

Justice does not give her victims a second thought, hears them suffer and laughs without mirth. She has no empathy, no emotion, no heart to be swayed. She is a cold mistress to serve, Katara thinks, but she has already chosen.

There is no turning back.



III. Love

Mai, he thinks wildly, and hopes that she gets away in time. His limbs are no longer his own to control and he feels the blood in his body rebel against him. Zuko knows his time is limited and he dares not waste time on thoughts that are not important. Don’t die, he begs her in his mind.

Zuko falls to his knees as his body submits to someone else’s control, a mockery of a submissive pose to his gods and red explodes in his vision. He gags in revulsion as he realizes it is his blood that stains his vision, his hands – his head spins: he feels faint. Zuko’s last, desperate, but reassuring thought is, ‘this is for her.’

Justice shrieks in resentment at the contented smile that crosses Zuko’s face before he dies.



IV. Fear

Her breath is hot against her knees and her back is cramping up, but fear and the animalistic instinct to survive keeps her from shifting a single inch. Mai hears him scream, and squeezes her eyes shut, but imagines the scene as if it is playing on the insides of her eyelids (torturing him –her- and she gags at the images her mind conjures up) and her sob is muffled when she shoves a hand in her own mouth.

There is no honor, no dignity in the mistress that rules her, but she still breathes and she still remembers and she still loves. The tears stream down her face and she chokes silently on her despair.

Justice hovers nearby, waiting.

The tide will change.



V. Life

A beautiful baby is born to a water tribe couple today. It cries and it cries, and the anguished mother frets as she can’t soothe her newborn child, but the father is disturbed as he realizes it sounds as if the babe is screaming in grief.


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