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Fire Lord Ozai paused before speaking again.
"Now I realise banishment is far too merciful a punishment for treason," he said coldly, his golden eyes slipping shut with feigned disinterest.
Zuko's fingers twitched, ready to unsheath his dual broadswords again at any moment. His chest tightened in trepidation, eyes never leaving his father's calm visage. He hadn't allowed himself to admit it before- not even during their Agni Kai- but he couldn't deny it any longer.
He was afraid. He was afraid of his father.
"Your penalty will be far steeper," Ozai warned, his demeanour deceptively calm.
Zuko, who stood frozen in apprehension, hadn't even felt the eclipse fading.
Eyes snapping open in a blaze of fury, Ozai's arms twisted around the air in a blur of motion. The electricity from his fingertips sparked to life in an instant, bathing the room in a silvery-blue glow. Harsh shadows flickered beneath high cheekbones as he sneered at his eldest child, one foot sliding in front of the other to strengthen his stance. And then the lightning shot towards Zuko without hesitation, the deadly bolt heading straight for his face.
Stepping forward on instinct, the 16-year-old boy just barely managed to catch it on outstretched fingers. The force of his father's bending pushed him back several feet, all while he struggled to guide the current through his body. He had practised this motion a thousand times before, but never with actual lightning. Even at his strongest, he had never felt such pure, unyielding power coursing through his chi paths. The sensation threatened to overwhelm him completely, but being the stubborn teenager he was, he gritted his teeth and swallowed his alarm.
Uncle Iroh had developed this technique by studying waterbenders, and the master firebender had even used it on Azula. The move worked- of that, there was no doubt. Zuko trusted his uncle, and he trusted this technique. Now if only he could trust himself. He had to do this correctly the first time, or else he would face certain death.
The electricity travelled down one tense arm, and past his heart. It settled deep in his gut for a lingering moment, near his diaphragm- the greatest source of power in firebending. He allowed the energy to push onwards, back up his torso.
Then suddenly, it was too much. It just narrowly avoided his heart this time, but he couldn't hold the energy in any longer. Exhaustion burned through him as the lightning swam into his shoulder, twisting down his arm before he absolutely had to let it go. His vision dimmed when he lifted his other arm, fingers pointed directly in front of him.
The whole process took perhaps seconds at most, but to Zuko, the strain on his body felt like it had lasted a lifetime. And in the moments before the counterattack landed, he was struck dumb by the raw fear in his father's wide eyes.
Distantly, Zuko heard himself scream, as if the sound of his voice could call the cold fire back.
The wild arc of silver struck Ozai, the Fire Lord regalia melting into his flesh on contact. The blow threw his tall form backwards, slamming him against the stone wall beyond the dais. A brief howl of pain was ripped from his throat before gravity recaptured its hold on him, and he crumpled to the floor, face down.
Frozen in horror, Zuko could only watch as his father convulsed on the ground, once, then twice, a suffocating heat rolling over the room as the energy from the lightning dissipated completely.
With a speed he didn't know he possessed, Zuko finally rushed forward. "Father!" he shouted, knees slamming against the ground as he keeled over. He fisted the heavy ceremonial robes and rolled Ozai onto his back. Though the man had clearly lost consciousness, a soft, pained growl trickled from his lips. His usually neat hair was slightly frizzed, stray strands sticking out at awkward angles around his face. The mark where the lightning had struck sat squarely in the centre of Ozai's broad torso- an angry, starburst of red against fair flesh. The wound shone with sweat. The edges smouldered, cloth and skin melted together. Thin streams of blood trailed just underneath the burn itself, and crisp slivers of skin flaked onto Ozai's sash.
Zuko couldn't think. His chaotic mind was oddly blank, as though he couldn't yet process what had happened. "Father!" he tried again, this protest weaker than the last. Ripping the rich sash from around the man's waist, Zuko desperately tried to cover the burn. He didn't know what else to do. He had been largely unconscious for the initial care of his own burn, the pain so great that he had passed out. "Father?" Zuko said meekly, pressing the cloth over the horrific injury. No response came- not even the slightest shiver or flutter of eyelashes. Shoulders jerking with realisation, Zuko ducked his head as though to shield his eyes from the blank face before him. His breath grew ragged. Thick tears rolled down his cheeks, dotting his father's rib cage. He waited for a few moments longer, only to confirm that his father hadn't taken a single breath in well over two minutes.
Stumbling to his knees, Zuko took unsteady steps. He swallowed big gasps of air, fighting down the urge to outright sob like a child. The smell of charred flesh finally reached his nose and he managed to turn away, bending over to dry heave as the scent only served to remind him of the last time he had fought his father.
Finally, Zuko vomited, the meagre contents of his stomach emptying on the floor before him. He wiped the back of his mouth with a shaky hand, and straightened.
He had to get out of here. He didn't know where to go, but he knew he had to leave. No longer the crown prince, Zuko would be forced to fight his sister for the throne if he chose to stay, and he quite literally couldn't stomach the thought at that moment. She would be more powerful than ever, fueled with rage, and he would be undoubtedly weak with regret and sorrow.
Because he hadn't just killed the Fire Lord. He had killed his father. This was the very same man who had lit his face on fire at just 13, and the very same man who had saved him from drowning a decade earlier.
A man he both hated and loved.
He couldn't lose his sister the same way. His precious baby sister, whose big, golden eyes he still remembered opening for the first time. Zuko and Azula were only two years apart in age. He should have been much too young to remember the day of her birth, or the way a nameless face ushered him into the room so he could meet his new sibling. Yet the memory sat in some far corner of his mind, dusty with the passage of time, but vivid with the glow of his mother's soft skin and his father's lined face smoothed with pride at his youngest child's spark.
Zuko squeezed his eyes shut, struggling to reconcile the man he used to know his father to be with the man his father had become. And now, his father was neither of those men, because Zuko had killed him.
And like the traitor he now was, he ran.
He needed Iroh now more than ever. But when he reached the city's prison, he found guards disabled around nearly every corner. He stepped over bodies and discarded weapons, his worry increasing with every passing moment.
Skidding to a stop, he gaped at the mangled iron bars previously confining his uncle. A large section of the cell wall was missing entirely. The edges of the bars were jagged- they didn't even look melted in the slightest. Alarmed, his eyes fell on a half-conscious man slumped in the hallway.
"Where is he?" Zuko demanded, grabbing the guard roughly by the front of his uniform. "Where's my uncle? What happened?"
"I've never seen anything like it," the man stuttered, blood and drool still damp across his stunned face. "He was like… a one-man army." With glazed eyes, the man stumbled in and out of coherency, and Zuko only caught the tail end of the story.
"...With his bare hands."
Releasing his hold on the guard, Zuko raced back down through the prison. He leapt down the stairs four at a time, out onto the street. Not even bothering to be stealthy anymore, he ran frantically, trying to catch any sign of the path his uncle had taken. He shot straight past several pockets of occupied firebenders, who were too busy capturing Earth Kingdom fighters to notice him. Eventually, he slipped in between two buildings to catch his breath and regain his composure.
"No, no, no," Zuko thought, fury building inside of him. His eyes crinkled in distress, fighting back more tears. "Everything went wrong." He didn't know where his uncle was, and his father-
Biting down the urge to scream in frustration, Zuko darted across the alleyway and threw himself into the air. His calloused fingers caught the edge of a rooftop, and he pulled himself up with ease. Now sneaking across the tops of buildings, sticking low to the dark shingles to avoid being seen in broad daylight, he made his way down to the coast.
He thought back to the day he set foot in the throne room again, for the first time in three years. Ozai had looked exactly as Zuko remembered. The high cheekbones present in Zuko's oldest memories sat beneath golden, almond-shaped eyes.
Eyes they shared; or used to, until part of Zuko's face had melted away under his father's heavy hand.
Ozai hadn't changed in the years since then, but Zuko had.
"I'm proud of you, Prince Zuko."
A rush of emotion barreled through the teenager as he scaled the rocky cliffs of Caldera City, his hands and feet moving swiftly despite being lost in thought.
For the first time in his life, his father had been proud of him. It was all Zuko had ever wanted, and it was based on a lie.
That hurt more than the burn ever could.
When he reached the stolen war balloon, the boy's fire burned hot and erratic, driven by grief and despair. The balloon flew high, the warmth inside the basket nearly unbearable as each flame reflected his distress. Still, he was lucky to have escaped unnoticed. Unbidden, some small voice in the back of his mind scoffed.
"You were lucky to be born."
In the scalding blaze, his tears evaporated quickly.