Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

One moment, Touya was burning to death, the next he was kneeling on the ground, no longer ablaze. It took everything he had to focus on anything that wasn’t the weird tingling on his skin or the frantic drum of his heart that drowned out everything else. His breathing was weird, like he’d been crying, or like he inhaled so much smoke his lungs were straining in a fruitless battle against carbon monoxide poisoning.

Honestly, Touya just wanted to curl up in some quiet corner, not kneel wherever the fuck they were right now.

He looked up to get a bearing on his surroundings (made more difficult by the tears in his eyes), only to stare up into a burning hand reaching for his face.

His body might not take much more, but Touya had never been one to go down without a fight, so if Endeavor decided to attack him right now, Touya would do what they’ve always done and fight with every little scrap of power he had left.

Right before the hand connected with his face, Touya threw himself to the side and lunged for the outstretched arm, palms already covered in blue flames. There was a sudden scream, no, a roar like a stadium full of football fans when someone hit the goal, but it only mixed in with the rest of the white noise that were Touya’s senses.

Endeavor threw them back hard, spine painfully connecting with the floor, but Touya had already scrambled up before the flames hit the spot he’d been in moments prior.

Something was deeply, awfully wrong, but Touya didn’t have time to contemplate, too busy dodging the next swall of flames. He flung himself to the side and almost stumbled over his feet as he landed.

That mistake was enough to make him eat the next wall of flames, but by now the fire licking at his skin, wanting to scorch and mark him was more familiar than the faces of his own siblings, so Touya pushed through, arms covered in blue as he lunged for Endeavor.

He connected with something (chest? forearm?) and let his quirk loose, like he’d done moments ago at Sekoto Peak, flames spreading everywhere. Except this time, their target wasn’t Touya, but Endeavor.

As the flames reached higher and higher and further and further, trying to find anything else to fuel them, Touya realized what exactly was wrong.

His quirk wasn’t hurting him.

Sure, there was still the familiar sting of heat, but his arms weren’t burning from the inside out. Even Endeavor’s fire had only left angry red skin in its wake, not the blisters Touya had come to expect.

Oh.

The noise had shifted and changed, but Touya didn’t care. Straining his ears to listen was almost as hard as trying to see more than the blackness slowly creeping into his vision.

The afterlife was actually kind of shitty. Sure, Touya never had high hopes in the first place, but he at least thought it would be nicer than having to fight Endeavor again. At least this time he won? See, that just confirmed he was dead. Or very nearly dead and this was the last hallucination his brain could come up with.

Someone placed a hand on his shoulder and Touya didn’t bother flinching. He followed as that person led him away.

Zuko’s whole body was burning. He was no stranger to burn injuries, not with the way his teachers punished him for every little misstep, but this was worse than anything he’d ever experienced before. There was nothing but him and the endless sea of flames hungrily eating away at his skin. He couldn’t tell if he was standing, or falling, or rolling around on the ground in a feeble attempt to get rid of the fire covering him, but it didn’t matter.

He knew there was nobody who would help him, not now after he disrespected his father - and probably also not before that because he was Zuko and that was enough to make everybody hate him. So, he did the only thing he could do, and helped himself.

Taking control of the fire wasn’t easy, not with its ferocity and determination to burn the whole place down and especially not with the way his body ached. He might be a failure, but if there’s one thing he has learned at the Palace, it’s how to stay determined even when the whole world is against you.

So, he forced the flames to obey him, extinguishing those crawling up his charred skin and slowly, painstakingly, creating a path out of this inferno.

He stumbled and almost lost control when he realized the flames were the same shade of blue as Azula’s.

Moments ago, he was facing off against his father, begging him for mercy and now Azula was trying to kill him? Actually, that made perfect sense, she had always been father’s prodigy and if Zuko had insulted him this gravely, he had no doubt she’d show him where his place was.

Looked like he’d have to show her that you can’t get rid of vermin that easily.

Another step, then another and another and he was finally away from the flames. That’s the moment his body chose to give up and Zuko collapsed onto the grass (why was there grass?). He faintly heard someone approach, but a comforting wave of unconsciousness washed over him before he could see who it was.

Touya was being led down a hall. Maybe? It was hard to focus on anything but the queasy feeling overtaking his body. Was this what dying felt like? Was he about to die again in the afterlife? That would be pathetic.

"I think I'm going to be sick," he helpfully informed the person guiding him and then threw up in some potted plant.

That's when everything got especially blurry again and the next thing Touya knows is that he's lying in a bed. He felt marginally less shitty, which was his sign to sit up again.

The room didn't look like any part of his home. Sure, it was big and spacious and had an air of 'rich person who's kind of a dick towards his children lives here', but the decor was vastly different. Everything was so red.

Thankfully, he was alone. He really didn't want to talk to anyone right now.

Hey, someone left some tea for him. It was already cold, but Touya couldn't care less, his throat was dry and the tea would help with that.

The cup was empty way too fast and Touya briefly thought about getting up to grab something else to drink (sue him, he wanted a fanta), but his body told him it was a very bad idea by simply collapsing into an exhausted heap. So, he just stayed crumbled on top of a bed that wasn't his and exhaled the world's most annoyed sigh.

If this really was the afterlife, it sucked. But what else could it be? One moment he was burning alive, then he was suddenly fighting Endeavor and now he was in a weird room he didn't recognize.

Burning alive definitely really happened, fighting Endeavor is also something that fits his life, but this room didn't. So something has to have happened to make him be here anyways.

Wait. The burns. Burning means burn wounds. Using his quirk means burn wounds and fighting Endeavor means a lot of burn wounds.

And yet his body showed a surprising lack of burn wounds. Sure, his skin was reddened in some places, but that's nothing compared to the injuries he usually gets after training on his own, much less compared to what he should be looking like after standing in that inferno for who knows how long.

His quirk also hadn't hurt him in that fight. His quirk always hurt.

Touya took a deep breath, preparing for pain he hoped wouldn't come and created a small flame in one of his hands. It flickered to life, a bright orange.

So far, so normal. Making his flames burn hot enough to turn blue still required a lot of energy, so seeing the orange wasn't the confusing part. And as he'd suspected, his quirk wasn't slowly creating blisters beneath his skin, which was already weird enough. But it didn't even feel like his quirk.

His fire had always been an extension of him, something that belonged to him and could be created or destroyed as he wished. Sure, when the flames started burning something, he could no longer control them, but up until that point the fire was his. Now, he had to fight to keep the small flame in his palm under his control. Like it was alive. And even weirder, he was suddenly aware of it in a much clearer way and it was waiting for him to do something. Like he could move it if he just-

Woah. He 'told' the flames to move and they did, twisting to the side unlike anything he's ever seen before. This was definitely not his quirk.

It was so much better than that.

Touya couldn't help the smile that crept onto his face as he let the flames curl around his arm, traveling up and down and then extending past his hand, only to curl inwards into a coil and return to his palm.

And it didn't hurt.

The fire was just there.

At least until they spluttered out and Touya was reminded of how exhausted he was.

And then the door slammed open and a girl was on him faster than he could react and holding a knife to his throat.

"Who are you and what have you done to Zuko?" Oh, her voice sounded murderous. If this really was the afterlife, Touya didn't want to find out what dying in here would be like.

"What?" That didn't mean he had any idea how to react to that.

"Don't play dumb with me. Everyone knows Zuko is too much of a pathetic coward to fight like that."

Touya felt vaguely insulted on Zuko's behalf.

"Maybe I just grew a backbone while you were busy being a dick to me."

The girl blinked back at him, as if she hadn't expected any backtalk like that.

"Oh my, looks like you're really not Zuko. And here I just wanted to tease you for actually having a bit of agency."

If he hadn't been so exhausted, that little brat would have eaten flames already.

"Well, I'm not going to take your bullshit anymore, I've had enough of that to last me like four lifetimes."

She decided to remind him of the knife in front of his throat by pressing it against his skin just a little harder.

"I'm going to ask you one more time, what have you done with Zuko, you imposter?"

Touya glared at her. "Do I look like I know who the fuck that is?"

"You're pretending to be him!"

"I'm not pretending to be anyone! I'm me!"

She stared at him.

"You look just like him, of course you're pretending to be him. You even fought in his place!" Just then, her face turned contemplative. "Did that cowardly excuse of my brother hire you to take his place in the Agni Kai?"

Yeah, this still didn't make any sense.

"God, I'm sorry that this poor Zuko got stuck with you for a sister. Also, what's an Agni Kai? It sounds like a drug."

One of her eyes twitched a little bit. That's when the first part of what she'd said hit him.

"I don't look like him! I mean, I don't know what he looks like, but I look like me!"

"Are you actually this stupid or do you just have brain damage?"

Touya shrugged as well as he could with the knife still at his throat.

"Probably both."

The girl put the knife away, grabbed his sleeve and pulled him up, all much too quick for Touya to react. He kind of stumbled into her and she sent him a withering look.

Rude. She was the one making him stand and oh, they were walking now, fantastic. Thankfully, she pulled most of his weight along, so Touya just followed her. Not like he had much of a choice.

The hallways she was leading him through were ridiculously big and fancy and decorated with tapestries and paintings and Touya got the vague feeling that they really weren't in his house. Or hell, any house in Japan he's ever been in.

It didn't take long for them to arrive at what was apparently their destination. The girl slammed the doors open, pulled Touya through and slammed the doors closed again with even more vigor. The room they were in now looked like another bedroom, only somehow even fancier than the one Touya had been in. There was also a big mirror on one of the walls and the girl pushed Touya in front of it.

What the fuck.

“See? You look like Zuko.”

The face staring back at Touya wasn’t his own. What the fuck.

Chapter Text

Touya tilted his head left and right, then poked his cheek and yep, the person that wasn’t him, but was somehow his reflection did the same thing.

“What the fuck.”

“I do believe you’ve said that already.”

“Shut up, I’m having a crisis!”

He glared at his reflection again, as if maybe that could change something. His reflection only glared back, golden eyes narrowed in the exact same way Touya’s eyes always did. But the eye shape and color wasn’t the same, so the expression only looked like a distorted version of the real thing.

“My eyes aren’t even blue! I mean, I can get behind that change, but still,” Touya pointed an accusing finger at his reflection, “you’re fucked up.”

The girl snickered, as if this was all fun and games for her. “Oh, are you that sick of being a water savage?”

Being called whatever ‘water savage’ is supposed to mean was certainly a new one.

“Nope, I’m just sick of being a Todoroki.”

“Please do enlighten me on what that means.”

“Seriously, you’ve never heard of the Todoroki family?”

She shook her head.

“The Flame Hero: Endeavor?”

“No. However, he sounds like quite the important person with a title like that.”

“Believe me, he’s a dick. Japan? Even if you don’t know our top Heroes, you have to have heard of Japan, right?”

The girl (he should really ask her for her name at some point) looked at him like he’d asked her to look at a squashed bug he found.

“Is that Earth Kingdom?”

“What the hell is an Earth Kingdom?”

She rolled her eyes at him. “Seems like I was right, you really are a savage.”

“Says the girl who doesn’t know that Japan exists.”

“Oh, if you’re so smart, I’m sure you can show me where this Japan is on a map, correct?”

That really wasn’t the challenge she thought it was.

“Uh, yeah?”

Touya was pulled through various corridors again, still occasionally stumbling because damn it, his body wanted to rest. This time, the room they entered was blocked by curtains instead of doors, which sure, go and put curtains there instead of normal doors, who cares at this point?

The room was less of a room and more of a massive hall. There were stone pillars towering over everything and stretching up and up and up until they reached the impossibly high ceiling. But the thing that really caught Touya’s eyes was the massive wall of flames blocking a good portion of the room from access. Again, Touya felt this weird connection to the fire that definitely wasn’t there before, like it was just waiting for him to manipulate it into whatever shape he wanted.

Knife Girl cleared her throat and pointed at a low table not far from them. On closer inspection, it showed a map of… something.

“I have no idea what that is.”

She only stared at him for a moment, disbelief clearly visible on her face.

“You do know what a map is, right?”

And now she thought he was stupid again!

“Of course I do! But that’s not any map I’ve ever seen before! The continents aren’t even the right shape.”

“Ah, and what do your maps look like?”

“Do you have some paper for me? Or should I just draw one into thin air?”

She stepped further into the room, to some shelf that was almost entirely hidden away from view by the shitty lighting inside here. A few moments later, she returned with a scroll, some small jar and an honest to god brush.

Fine. This was fine. He could draw a world map with a brush like he was a twelfth century monk or something, sure.

“I’ve never used a brush before, so it’s not going to be perfect.”

He spread the empty scroll (why) out in front of them and after a brief fight even managed to get it to stop curling inwards.

“And with what are you writing instead?”

Touya wasn’t actually sure what the exact shape of America looked like, but it was probably close enough to whatever he’d drawn that he decided to ignore that.

“A pen, like a normal fucking person.”

Europe was coming along nicely until his hand spasmed a little and he accidentally invaded Sweden(?) with the brush. Whoops. Africa actually looked decent and he quickly moved on to finish all of that by adding Asia. The brush was too big to make Japan anything but a smear, but it would have to do. He finished everything by adding the North and South Pole.

“That’s it?”

“Uh.”

Fuck, he forgot Australia.

“Yeah, that’s it. Japan’s over there.” He pointed at the line next to Asia.

“And you’re not joking? That’s what you really think the world looks like?”

No, he just drew random shapes to mess with her.

“That’s how it’s taught to everyone I know.”

“How odd. I certainly recognize none of the landmasses you, ahm, drew.”

Why did she sound proud of that? Touya would bet that even Shouto could more or less draw a world map, or at least correctly identify one if it was put in front of him.

This girl was driving him up the walls! She’s acting like he’s the one who has no idea how the world works, but she doesn’t know what the world looks like!

“Well, if it’s bothering you that much, you can just fucking google it.”

“I can do what?”

Did she not know what googling meant? Man, and Touya thought he’d been growing up sheltered.

“Search for it online.”

“On what line?”

Uh.

“You know, online. On the Internet. With your phone, or computer, or whatever.”

She stared at him for a moment.

“Are you sure you shouldn’t be seeing somebody for that brain damage of yours?”

“The Internet is real!”

Touya took a deep breath. Something something, Yumi kept telling him to actually think before getting angry all the time. Sure, it didn’t have the intended effect of making him stop screaming at Endeavor, but maybe her advice would work this time.

“Do you really not know what the Internet is?”

“No.”

“How about phones?”

“Still no.”

“Then how do you talk to people who are far away?”

“We send messenger hawks, or have someone deliver the news directly.”

Messenger hawks? What was this, the Middle Ages?

…That still wouldn’t explain why the continents look that different.

“I’m starting to think I’m not from this world.”

Zuko tried his best to stay asleep, but unfortunately he could feel himself wake up more and more, mostly thanks to whatever that repetitive beeping noise was. He enjoyed a few more moments of keeping his eyes closed, if only so he wouldn’t have to confront reality after what happened during the Agni Kai.

It was probably a bad sign he couldn’t remember anything but flames after his father had reached for his face.

Still, he knew hiding was pointless, so he opened his eyes. Wherever he was, it certainly wasn’t the Palace and probably not even the Fire Nation, if the lack of banners and Firelord portraits was any indication. Even weirder, the room had a giant window placed right above his bed and it didn’t even have any bars on it. If he needed to, he could probably escape through that. As soon as he got rid of all the weird, thin ropes stuck on his body, at least.

Did that mean he hadn’t failed his father that badly after all? Was the way he saved himself from the fire enough to show he was still honorable enough to be treated like more than a prisoner? Because that's what he assumed he was going to end up as, no matter how the Agni Kai went.

"He's waking up!"

A small head covered in messy hair bobbed into his view, hiding most of the unknown room from him. Zuko stared at the kid, with his gray eyes and white hair and briefly wondered if he had encountered a spirit. What Nation was he from that his hair was white.

"Natsuo! Give him some space."

The child was lifted away, only to be joined by a girl with equally white hair, only this time with red streaks and eyes the brightest blue he'd ever seen.

"You can understand us, right? Nod if you can understand us." She sounded so genuinely worried about him that Zuko found himself complying.

"The nurse said you have a concussion from hitting your head after going up in flames. Then Yumi said you have a concussion from running into the open cupboards all the time. " Even as he talked, the boy (Natsuo?) squirmed around in the girl's grip, trying to free himself.

"Hey!" the girl (Yumi?) exclaimed.

"Oh." As soon as the sound left his mouth Zuko grimaced. That had hurt. And so had grimacing.

"Touya, you- you shouldn't talk just yet. You need to take it easy, you're hurt really badly."

Zuko wasn't quite sure why the girl had called him Touya, but the wave of weird emotions he felt at the worry and affection in her voice was enough to shut him up.

There was a faint tug at the blanket covering him, so Zuko looked down, only to come face to face with yet another child. This time, the hair was white and red, split down in the middle, with one gray and one blue eye and a nasty scar on half his face. Sympathy struck Zuko, his life as a fully Fire Nation prince was already hard, he couldn't even imagine what being such an obvious half-breed must be like.

Not that he could even imagine what Nations that kid came from.

The kid kept staring at him and Zuko simply stared back. He had never been good at initiating conversations and now he wasn't even allowed to speak at all.

"...I'm sorry."

What? What was he supposed to say to do about that?

Zuko reached for the kid and after a brief moment of hesitation placed his hand on top of his head and ruffled his hair, in the same way he remembered Uncle doing that to him when he was a lot younger. The kid flinched and Zuko was about to withdraw his hand (look at him, angering the one person (spirit?) to ever say sorry to him), but then he leaned further into the touch and even closed his eyes.

That was good, right?

"You all confirmed he's alive, now let's go."

The voice was deep and booming, so now it was Zuko's turn to flinch.

And sure enough, standing right next to the door was another person, easily towering over all of them. From the looks of it, he was even taller than father and at least twice as muscular. But the most striking detail was the literal fire he'd manipulated to form a beard that he was keeping up without any obvious effort.

Now that was a bender Zuko certainly didn't want to fight against. He'd wipe the floor with him without even breaking a sweat. Not that most people couldn't do that.

Apparently the middle child didn't think so.

"Like hell we are! We didn't-"

"Natsuo!" The girl was rightfully horrified.

"-even know if he'd make it, we're not leaving."

The firebender stared at all of them for a moment and Zuko was about to apologize for the kid because he'd just learned how much danger you put yourself in if you spoke back like that and he couldn't let a little kid fight an Agni Kai against someone that obviously powerful, but before he could open his mouth, the man spoke.

"Fine. Shouto and I are going outside. You'll join us in ten minutes."

He took the smallest child by the arm and left.

Zuko exhaled. That went better than expected.

Natsuo(?) yelled.

Chapter Text

"Tell me the most basic things about this world."

Knife Girl glared at him for a second, but mercifully complied.

"Have you heard of the four Nations?"

Touya shook his head.

"Of course you didn't. See, there are the Air Nomads - or were, they're all dead now, so technically we're only three Nations - then the Water Tribes, the Earth Kingdom and the Fire Nation. That's us, by the way."

Seriously? They based their countries on elements?

"Why are they based on four of the elements?"

She sighed.

"Citizens of the Fire Nation can bend fire, those earth people can bend earth and so on."

"That's it? All of you can control an element?"

"Obviously not, a large portion of the population are nonbenders."

Huh.

"Quirkless people are actually really rare where I'm from. Almost everyone has some Quirk."

Well, Natsuo was one of the unlucky few, but he wasn't going to tell her that.

The girl looked almost thoughtful for a moment.

"These Quirks are what we call bending?"

"I mean, kinda? But they're more."

That really seemed to get her interest.

"How? What's your Quirk?"

"I'm not the best example. My Quirk, uh, has to do with fire as well. But some people have extra wings, or are strong enough to punch through walls without getting hurt, or can even see the future or control fabrics or can yell loud enough to incapacitate Villains."

Now the girl's eyes were all but sparkling with… excitement?

"And how do you get these Quirks?"

"You're either born with one or not."

"Ah, so it's at least like bending in that aspect." She made a face that felt like a watered down version of what she would look like if she’d bitten into a lemon.

“If you say so.” He certainly had no idea if that was true or not.

Touya opened his mouth to ask another question when Knife Girl suddenly lunged for the table, then grabbed him by the collar and yanked him into the shadows. Even in the almost-darkness, Touya could still see the finger she pressed to her mouth and gave her a little nod.

Not a second later multiple people barged into the room, all wearing weirdly spiky armor with white masks that seriously looked like they’d dressed up as some creepy monster thing for Halloween. They looked around the room and Touya fell into the familiar rhythm of slow and steady breaths that were next to inaudible.

“He’s not here, keep searching.” The person at the front did some gesture with their hand and the others turned around again and left without question.

They cast another long look into the room and then followed and while Touya didn’t sigh in relief, he could still feel his shoulders drop just slightly.

Knife Girl exchanged a look with him.

“How good are you at sneaking around?”

“Decent enough to keep up with you.”

Yumi(?) sat down next to him on the bed and grabbed his hand.

“I’m sorry we can’t stay much longer, but we’ve already been waiting a while. Plus, I got dad to agree to bring us back here tomorrow! So you’re not going to be alone all the time.”

Zuko nodded at her because even if he had been able to reply, he wouldn’t have known what to say to her.

"I also brought you your phone!"

A small slab of something was shoved in his face and Zuko quickly took it. Was this a phone?

"Natsuo!"

He only rolled his eyes at Yumi.

"I know it's bad for concussions, but he's going to be alone for so long and being bored is the worst part of being sick."

Why should you get bored if you're sick?

"Touya," Yumi turned back to him, "when you start feeling bad, you put the phone away again, okay?"

She'd called him that before. Touya. But why? Was that actually his spirit name? It couldn't be, mortals didn't even have spirit names, even if a white haired girl spirit kept calling him by the wrong name. But what other reason could there be for someone calling him by a different name? Even if nobody besides the Palace staff liked him, people still knew who he was and what he looked like.

Unaware of his dilemma, Yumi kept staring at him. After a moment, Zuko nodded in the hope that would be the right answer. She squeezed his hand and turned back to Natsuo.

“Did you also pack his charger?”

“Oh.”

“Really? Fine, you can have mine for now. But I’m taking yours as soon as I get home!”

Yumi rummaged through a big bag dangling at her side. After a few seconds, she pulled out a rope? String? It was black, smooth to the touch and unlike anything Zuko’s ever seen before, just like that phone.

“Do you want anything else?”

Zuko mainly wanted to disappear forever after that disastrous Agni Kai. But he also wanted something to drink because his throat was scratchy and dry, so he did his best to mimic drinking something.

“Water?”

He nodded at her guess.

“Of course, I’ll be right back!”

With that, she left the room, door gently falling closed behind her with a soft click. Immediately after, Natsuo took her spot on the bed, only that he didn’t sit, but lay down with all his weight pressed against Zuko as if trying to strangle him. Natsuo wrapped his arms around him as best as he could and pressed himself even closer. That’s when Zuko realized this wasn’t a weird murder attempt, but a hug.

“I’m glad you’re not dead.”

For some reason, Zuko could feel tears build up at the corners of his eyes, so he tried his best to blink them away. (Would Azula have said the same thing?) He placed one of his hands on Natsuo’s head and ruffled his hair as well because apparently that was his life now.

Not that he would complain about that.

They stayed like that until Yumi got back, which wasn’t much longer.

“I know you like sparkly water more, but with your throat it would hurt drinking that, so I only got you boring water.”

She held a glass pitcher filled with whatever boring water was meant to be out to him. Then she realized it would be easier to just place it on the small table next to his bed and did just that. As soon as her hands were free, she leaned over the bed and hugged him as well, squishing poor Natsuo between them.

The embrace was over all too quickly, but Yumi didn’t look happy about it either.

“We’ll have to go now, or dad will be mad. But we’re coming to visit you again tomorrow!”

Zuko nodded. Natsuo refused to move from his place for a few more seconds, before reluctantly climbing down from the bed again.

“It’s not fair! Touya’s hurt. I wanna stay with him!”

Sighing, Yumi knelt down a little and hugged Natsuo close to her.

“I know. I do too. But we’ll be back faster than you can think and then we’ll spend more time with him, okay?”

With the drama only smaller children could reach, Natsuo sighed.

“Nothing is okay.”

He went over to Zuko again and gave him one last hug.

“Be good and listen to the nurses. They’re all very smart and hard-working people!”

Zuko gave him a solemn nod, which was judged trustworthy enough by Natsuo.

After that, the two left and Zuko was alone again.

He closed his eyes briefly, but without the intention of sleeping. There were too many things to think about. Who were these people? Why did they think he was Touya and not Zuko? Where exactly was he? Did he lose the Agni Kai? What was a phone? Where were uncle and Azula and father? What was sparkly and boring water? And what in Agni’s name was that beeping noise?

Most of these he couldn’t answer by lying around here and doing nothing, but at the same time he really didn’t feel ready to get up just yet. He knew he was injured, but he barely felt anything, but at the same time his whole body felt drowsy and he had the distant feeling that it wouldn’t cooperate if he tried to get up now. So instead he decided to start working on the one question he could solve while bedridden:

What were phones?

Knife Girl was great at moving through the Palace without being noticed. Touya was also great at moving around without being noticed, but he still had to trust her to lead the correct way. And he really didn’t like that. He barely even knew her, let alone trust her enough to follow her blindly like this. Fuck, he didn’t even know her name. But it was either that or say in the weird pillar room and wait for people to find him.

Because even he knew without asking that they were after him, if only based on Knife Girl’s reaction.

So he followed her through corridors and hidden passages until they reached a vaguely familiar room. It was the one with the mirror that he strongly suspected to be Knife Girl’s bedroom.

He exhaled, flopping onto the floor. Sure, he was good at being stealthy, but that didn’t mean staying constantly aware of his surroundings wasn’t still exhausting. Especially if his body was still as spent as it was and wanted to do nothing more than collapse onto a nice, comfortable bed and not get up for a few days, at least.

“What’s your name?”

She stared at him with disdain.

“Excuse me?”

“Your name. What I should call you. If you don’t say anything, you’ll just stay Knife Girl in my head.”

“You really don’t know who I am?”

Seriously?

“I didn’t even know the Fire Nation existed, why should I know your name?”

Knife Girl (maybe he was going to keep calling her that out of spite now), pinched the bridge of her nose, then exhaled.

“You’re right, I really cannot expect anything as basic as that from you. I am Crown Princess Azula, Daughter of Firelord Ozai and Heir to the Fire Nation. I’ll spare you the rest of my titles, you wouldn’t know what they mean anyways.”

Oh, she wanted to impress him with titles. Two could play that game.

“If you insist on formalities, I’m Todoroki Touya, oldest son of Japan’s Number Two Hero Endeavor and Hero In Training.” Unofficially. Without having even tried to apply to a Hero School. But she didn’t need to know that.

“That’s certainly something.”

“Hey! That makes me mighty important where I’m from!”

Azula snickered.

“Even if that’s the case, you’re here now and you’re Zuko. The Failure. The Unloved Son. My unlucky brother everyone only tolerates out of pity.”

She really couldn’t stand her brother, could she? …But she had still been worried about him when she first met Touya.

“At least Zuko isn’t as much of a bitch as you are.”

Her face darkened and Touya got the feeling that maybe he’d overstepped a line this time.

“I could kill you right now and nobody would bat an eye, you know that, right?”

Touya grinned at her, putting all the hatred for Endeavor (and his body, for being so frail and useless) into the expression.

“Then do it. Kill me. See if I fucking care. Though, I can’t help but wonder what would happen to your brother. Would he die while I get to go back to the real world, or would he stay trapped there forever, with no way to ever return?”

“If you think I actually care about him, I’ll have to inform you that you’re deeply mistaken. He has no value to me.”

“Prove it. Murder me, right here, right now. I won’t even fight back.”

He would. He absolutely, definitely would. But he was really hoping she would back down so it wouldn’t come to this because as much as he wanted to believe otherwise, he was pretty sure she could beat him. At least at the moment. But he could probably cause enough chaos for someone to notice them. And then those people searching for him would find him and probably throw him in jail or something, but that would still be better than getting stabbed to death.

Azula only raised an eyebrow at him.

“You’re that desperate to die, are you? I think I’ll-”

A knock on the door interrupted her.

“What,” she snapped.

The person on the other side didn’t open the door, just started talking through it.

“Princess, Commander Zhao would like to talk to you.”

Touya was lucky enough to have the privilege of watching Azula’s face scrunch up in disgust.

“Tell him I’m busy.”

“He said it has to do with your brother.”

“You heard me, didn’t you? Now shoo.” Even with no one (but Touya) to witness her, Azula still made a shooing motion with her hands.

“...As you wish, my Princess.”

After a few seconds Azula let out a gruntled scream that sounded eerily similar to Fuyumi when she was frustrated.

“I cannot believe that fool dared to interrupt me! Why won’t father just get rid of him already? He’s useless!”

She paced around the room, each step still graceful, but also filled with seething rage.

“That Zhao guy sounds like a real piece of work, huh?”

“You have no idea. He’s infuriating and always trying to crawl up my good side like one of those ugly eelleeches that suck the dirt from our warships. At least for those it’s just instinct, but he chose to be like that!”

As he wasn’t stuck in his body, Touya saw no reason to try and stand up for Zhao. Plus, the way Azula talked about him felt different from the way she talked about Zuko, so maybe he’d actually been right to think she cared about him in her own, fucked up way.

“What are eelleeches?”

“Gross sea creatures that are still more useful than Zhao.”

Oh, like a mixture of eels and leeches. He got it now.

“Azula, are you familiar with the concept of hatemail?”

Chapter Text

Zuko stared at the phone. A reflection that wasn’t his own stared back.

He reached up to touch his own face because maybe phones were just weird and showed you distorted reflections, he couldn’t know that. But even underneath the bandages, he could feel his face wasn’t his face. The bones were all different and as he lowered his arm again he noticed the slim rope stuck into it with a needle and felt his stomach drop even more.

Just as he closed his other hand around it to rip it out, he remembered that Natsuo told him the nurses were all very smart, so if they put it there they probably had a reason for it. So, as much as he hated having a transparent rope with liquid inside stuck in his body, he left it in and instead focused on the phone again.

Yep, his reflection was still different.

He turned the phone around. The other side was black as well, but now it was decorated with blue flames painted on it. In the middle was a small indent, edges much too smooth to be there on accident. The slim sides of the phone also had small ridges, again too delicate to be anything but purposeful. It still didn't help him in finding out what this thing actually was.

Sighing, he stared at the reflective side again, fingers idly tracing the flames on the backside until he felt the small indent beneath his index finger.

The phone lit up.

Startled, Zuko dropped it, fire in his hand before he could comprehend what he was about to do.

He squinted at the phone, but it wasn’t doing anything besides glowing, so he let his fire go again and stared at it, not quite confident enough to pick it up again.

Now that he was over the initial shock, taking a closer look at the phone revealed it wasn’t just glowing, but showing a picture of the smallest spirit child without his scar, happily eating some form of noodles. It looked real enough that Zuko was fairly sure no painter could ever have made it, no matter how hard they tried. Well, except for the little symbols all over it.

How had all of that suddenly appeared there?

Hmm, the phone had done something when he touched the thing at its back, so maybe it would also do something if he touched the things at the edge? He stared at them for a moment, but they were still just as mysterious to him as before, so he simply pressed his finger against the smaller one.

The phone went black again.

Huh.

What if…?

Yes, touching the thing at the back makes it glow again. Zuko had no idea how that could possibly work, but he was willing to bet it was some weird spirit magic from the kids.

Seeing as he had nothing better to do, he might as well keep trying to figure out what other secrets the phone held.

To do that, he did the next logical thing and pressed the longer ridge.

The picture on the phone changed. At the top a thin, but long square almost stretching from one side to the other appeared, showing a blue line in the middle of it. Zuko pressed the ridge again. The line moved to the left.

He could control the picture with just a little press of his finger.

Was that why those symbols were there? Could they change the image as well?

Zuko took a closer look at them. The symbol that caught his eyes first was orange, with some form of white bird (duck?) on it. What did it mean?

The worst that could happen was that nothing would happen, so Zuko took a deep breath and pressed it.

“But Zhao could easily take the letter and compare the handwriting until he found out who made it.”

“Not if someone who’s never written anything in this world does it.”

The phone turned from the picture of that child to mostly white as soon as his finger connected with it and Zuko almost threw it away again. What in Agni’s name was this thing? Could he seriously just change the picture by pressing random things?

Just then, a block full of letters Zuko recognized but had never seen before popped up at the bottom of the phone. Sure, having the picture change was still just as weird as it had been the first time, but the letters were so much weirder. He knew there was no way he should be able to read them with their foreign shapes and lines and yet he could.

It was probably part of the magic the spirits had used to make the phone. It had to be, right?

"What are those squiggles supposed to mean?"

Touya knew his handwriting was messy, but it still deserved better than being called 'squiggles' by Azula.

"I'm writing what you told me to."

"No, you're not. You're making random squiggles like a baby."

"Then what should writing look like?"

"Ugh, just copy what I put down and try not to be too sloppy about it."

Touya glared at her, but Azula was already looking at her own parchment.

After looking at the letters for another moment, Zuko pressed them as well. And sure enough, that changed the picture to show the corresponding letters at the very top. Huh. He even knew how to write 'fire' in this weird language.

Something happened - he's not quite sure what he did - and then the whole picture changed again. Now it was showing a whole lot of text, except that it was cut off by a new piece of text starting.

Could he press on that as well?

Turned out that yes, he could, so now the picture showed something different again. At the top it said 'wikipedia', then below that 'fire', followed by a long text.

It didn't even take him a full sentence to stumble over an unfamiliar word, but after a quick press the phone now showed an explanation for that word, using even more words he didn't know.

Touya stared at Azula's writing. He tried to stare a little harder, but found he had already engaged maximum glare mode.

He could read her writing. He could read her writing despite never having seen those letters before.

"Stop freaking out over it. It's probably just weird spirit magic."

Azula waved a hand at him, clearly dismissive, as if this wasn't a situation he should panic in.

"That's it!" And now she was suddenly screaming as if everything wasn't bad enough already!

"You happened because of spirits!"

Hold up.

"I did what?"

Ignoring him, Azula barrelled on: "So if I can find someone good with spirits, I can trade you back!"

That's… actually not a bad idea. Sure, Touya didn't know the first thing about those spirits, but if they're the ones who caused him to be here, getting someone who knows their stuff to help with it sounded like a solid plan.

Then Azula apparently thought of something that ruined her mood, if the sudden shift in expression was any sign.

"I know someone who would be able to help."

Touya didn't see the problem there.

"But that's good?"

"He's been gone for almost a hundred years."

Oh. Okay, now he saw the problem.

"So we'll just have to be the ones to find him."

Wait, what?

Zuko somehow ended up reading about 'mind uploading'.

"And how do we do that?"

Azula shrugged.

"We'll just have to look where nobody else bothered to check before."

Sure. Let's just check under the couch for some century old guy. Sounded like a foolproof plan.

"And where would that be?"

She rolled her eyes at him, as if they hadn't already established that he didn't know shit about this world.

"At the South Pole, obviously. The last time anyone was there was years ago, it would be the perfect hiding spot."

"And how do we fucking get there? Via messenger hawk?"

"We take a warship, obviously."

Yeah, obviously.

Apparently that was that. Azula turned around and began looking through her closets, throwing random garments onto the bed.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Go pack."

Oh, this was awkward.

"I don't know how to get back to my room."

Sighing, Azula shook her head.

"I'll take you there once I'm done."

"Fine."

"Fine."

This really was his life now, huh? Fantastic. At least Azula didn't take long to pack whatever she needed. On the way back to his (or rather Zuko's) room, they took a different path, but stayed hidden just as much.

As it turned out, Touya had no idea where to even start looking for things to grab, so Azula also packed his things, which was just great. Then, they headed out, except Azula didn't take any of their things with them.

"Where are we going now?"

"To the hawkers, duh. We still need to send your hatemail to Zhao."

Touya could get behind that, so he followed her through even more unfamiliar corridors and secret passages of the Palace they were in. After way too many twists and turns, they finally came to a halt in front of a big entrance leading outside.

Well, not exactly outside outside, they were still surrounded by Palace everywhere, but the garden still supplied a nice change in scenery to the endless red hallways with their banners.

There were some people out and about (all wearing significantly less extravagant clothes compared to Azula), but the most they did was briefly bow to them before hurrying along. Azula simply ignored them and led Touya to a much smaller building that even he could see was for birds.

Azula suddenly pressed the scroll into his hands and after a brief moment of confusion Touya took it.

"You do it. Those stupid birds like you more anyways."

"Maybe they like me more because I don't refer to them as 'stupid birds'?"

"Ugh, just get it over with already."

She was the one eating their time by not doing it herself, not he.

After glaring at her, Touya stepped closer to it. Wow, those messenger hawks sure were big. Logically, Touya knew hawks could be really big birds, but seeing one in front of him was still quite different. And the bird wasn't even scared of him, it just tilted its head sideways, as if waiting for something.

He supposed it actually was waiting for something, so he quickly put the scroll into the carrier around its chest. The bird kept looking at him. Right.

“Uh, bring this to Zhao. Please?”

It made a bird noise at him, then took off. Alright, now this was no longer his problem.

People were flying to outer space?!

Chapter Text

After Azula made a little stop somewhere else to grab a small bag filled with something, they finally got their luggage ready and headed out.

It didn’t really surprise Touya that they didn’t leave the Palace through the big entrance doors that had to exist somewhere, but instead some small passage probably meant for servants, but he was still displeased with that. Seeing the grand entrance would’ve been so cool, but no, all he got to see was the backside of the palace that nobody cared about.

They rounded a few corners and Touya could hear all kinds of people sounds come closer and closer, but before they could reach the marketplace or whatever it was, Azula stopped him.

“Here, wear this.”

She threw some piece of cloth at him and Touya caught it out of reflex. Yeah, he had no idea what to do with that.

Luckily, she was apparently also going to wear it and when he saw how she wrapped it around her head he felt a little stupid again. Seriously, he could’ve gotten that bit on his own. He quickly followed suit.

Even he could see that her ‘hood’ looked a lot prettier than his, but it still fulfilled its purpose. Whatever that might be.

“Now people shouldn’t recognize us.”

Oh.

“That’s smart.”

“No matter how much I hate mingling with peasants.”

“Hey, isn’t that rude? They’re your people, after all.”

Azula sneered at him.

“But they’re still lowly peasants.”

“Without them, you’d be nothing. Now let’s go! I wanna see what the commotion there is about.”

Not waiting for a reply, Touya started marching right towards all the sounds. Pleased, he noted Azula followed him after shaking her head.

They rounded another corner and Touya stopped dead in his tracks.

“Woah.”

His senses were assaulted by approximately a billion different sounds and smells and visuals all mixing together to create what felt like a wall of sensory impressions. Stalls lined the sides of the big street, all accompanied by people trying to out-scream each other to get everyone’s attention on their products. A mass of humans slowly moved from one end to the other, people blurring together into one big mess of different shades of red cloth, fluttering around in the wind like the covers of the stalls. And while he couldn’t make out where food was sold, the beautiful smell hitting him from all sides made his mouth water, the taste of sweet, sweet spices almost on his tongue.

“You’ve never been to a market before?”

He didn’t even care that Azula had probably meant that as an insult.

“Not really.” The awe in his voice was obvious, but he didn’t care.

She rolled her eyes at him.

“Come on, or do you want to waste everyone’s time just standing there?”

With that, she disappeared into the crowd and Touya quickly hurried after her.

Being among all the people only amplified all the chaotic noise and Touya knew for a fact he would get horribly lost in here if left to his own devices. So it really was just instinct to grab one of Azula’s sleeves, just to make sure she wouldn’t disappear into the crowd. She didn’t pay him any mind, marching through the sea of her subjects with the determination of someone who knew exactly what they wanted.

“Where are we going?”

People towered over them, blocking Touya’s sight, only leaving a small patch of sky visible overhead.

“To get some food. Then, we’ll head to the port.”

As if to confirm his hunger, Touya’s stomach growled, but the noise was lost in the crowd.

After shoving her way past a few more people, Azula came to a stop in front of a bright red stall, which was overflowing with a heavenly smell. Touya glanced at the signs, still amazed he could read them. Apparently ‘fire flakes’ were being sold here.

The owner looked down at them with a welcoming smile.

“What can I serve you two?”

As soon as the words left his mouth, the owner coughed, as if he’d choked on his own spit or something.

That couldn’t be very hygienic.

“I want two extra large boxes.”

The poor guy looked like he was about to faint.

Azula paid him no mind and instead grabbed into the mystery pouch she was carrying at her hip, producing a gold coin. Right, people probably weren’t using yen here. She placed it on top of the counter.

“I believe that should cover everything?”

Now the owner’s eyes almost popped out of their sockets.

“Of course, my prin- my esteemed customer.”

Faster than he could blink, Touya’s hands were suddenly filled with a box full of what were apparently fire flakes. They smelled delicious, so he didn’t hesitate and threw a large handful into his mouth.

The spices burned his tongue in just the right way, and he shoveled more and more into his mouth. The consistency was perfect too, they were even crunchier than chips, but also less fatty.

He swallowed and turned to Azula, who was devouring her own box.

“We need to buy more for our journey.”

She nodded feverishly at him, but made no move to talk to the owner herself. Ugh, he really had to do everything, didn’t he?

“Excuse me, but uh, we’d like to buy the biggest bag of fire flakes you have.”

“Of course, yo- dear customer. It will only take a moment.”

Touya had the distinct feeling their disguises weren’t all that good.

While waiting, Touya continued eating, stomach happy at finally having been fed. Even if it wasn’t a full meal.

It didn’t take the owner long to appear in front of the stall with a huge sack that he carefully sat down.

“Here you go.”

That was a lot of food.

“How much will that be?”

The owner waved him off. “Please, please, the piece of gold you paid me with is more than enough to cover the costs.”

Touya shrugged.

After they had finished eating, Touya and Azula were posed with a new problem: they actually had to get the sack over to the port now. Despite still not feeling all that well, it was obviously Touya who ended up carrying it over his shoulder. At least Azula was now carrying his bag of clothes.

The crowd didn’t thin out around the port, but by now Touya had acclimated to all the people around him. Still, he was thankful as Azula led them away from the part where the most people had gathered until they eventually reached the last few boats docked here. Most of them were made out of metal, varying in size between ‘tinyr owboat’ and ‘probably big enough to fit half the palace’. Without hesitation, Azula headed for a ship that was bigger than ‘tiny rowboat’, but overall still on the smaller side compared to the other ships.

She walked across the walkway thing and onto the boat like she belonged there and put their bags down.

Taking a deep breath, Touya followed with small steps. He really didn’t want to fall into the water, especially not with his precious cargo.

He made it over safely and dropped the sack onto the floor as well.

What was Australia?

Apparently Azula knew how to steer a boat, which sure, this might as well happen. She really was good at everything, huh?

Thankfully, the giant box next to the engine was filled to the brim with coal, so they wouldn’t run out of fuel anytime soon. And as Azula was taking over the first shift of steering, Touya was free to explore their new home.

It really wasn’t that big. There was the deck with a small mast (and accompanying flag - obviously in red and with that flame insignia he’d seen on all those banners), the hut thing with the steering wheel and maps and everything and then below deck was the engine room, a small bathroom (fully kitted out with soap and everything), an even smaller kitchen as well as a bedroom.

That was the point where Touya realized they’d probably just stolen some random ship because the bedroom was filled with personal belongings. He wasn’t quite sure why, but he’d assumed Azula had picked this ship because it belonged to her or the palace or something.

Whatever, they probably needed it more than its actual owners did.

He made his way to the kitchen. It’s been hours since he’d had that tea and screw everything, he was thirsty and his throat was dry. The only problem was that he couldn't find anything. There was no crate filled with water bottles, no juice hiding in some shelf, not even an opened and abandoned bottle of coke that he’d previously assumed belonged in every kitchen.

The only thing there was was the water tap, which no. That was not going to happen. Tap water was awful and disgusting and he was not going to drink that.

But no matter how much he looked around in the kitchen and even the bedroom, he couldn’t find anything else.

Welp, looked like he’d just die of dehydration then.

He opened the door of the top rack again, as if maybe that would make some carbonated water appear there, but he was still out of luck.

That’s when his eyes landed on the glasses labeled as ‘tea’.

This had to be a joke, right? Was he seriously going to have to turn into a tea person to survive here?

Zuko glanced up at the ceiling. There was so much information on this phone and yet so little time to learn it all.

Touya didn’t know the first thing about making tea, but it couldn’t be that hard, right? He filled some of the disgusting and inferior tap water into a kettle. Then he realized he had no idea how to use that kettle. It didn’t look electronic, so he held it firmly in one hand and used his other to create a fire underneath it.

His quirk or bending or whatever might not hurt him anymore, but getting the water to boil already exhausted him so much more than it would’ve had he been in his own body.

Still, the water was hot, so he grabbed one of the glasses and shook some of the herbs into the kettle. Then he swirled the water around until the leaves were more or less evenly distributed and waited.

He'd just wanted to drink something. But noo, the world had to be cruel and unfair to him specifically.

Touya glanced into the kettle again. Yep, that was still water with some greens thrown in. Tasty.

Might as well leave that to its own devices for now, there had to be better to do than wait around in the kitchen. Touya stretched his arms above his head until they made a satisfying pop, then moved back on the deck.

Their little ship was fast, he could barely even see the coastline anymore.

The only other time Touya had even been on a ship was years ago, when Endeavor had been invited to some Hero Party Thing on one of those giant luxury yachts. He couldn't even remember why Endeavor took him with him, only that all the Heroes there had been boring and that Touya assaulted the buffet as soon as Endeavor stopped paying attention to him. It ended with him throwing up in a corner and never telling a soul about that.

This trip had to turn out better than that, the bar was already on the ground.

At least it already had a really pretty sunset going for itself. The light of the vanishing sun reflected off the water, turning it a burning red.

Azula walked over to him, resting her arms on top of the railing like he did.

"Shouldn't you be driving this thing?"

"It's called steering. And the boat can take care of itself for a bit, I'm tired of it."

That really wasn't the way Touya wanted her to act about their safety, but then again, she was the one who knew how to do this, so if she decided it was fine it had to be fine, right?

"Can you teach me how to steer a ship?"

"Obviously. You have to pull your weight somehow."

Touya yawned. It was honestly a miracle this body hadn't given up and collapsed yet.

"Then let's go."

"What? I just said I'm tired. We'll do that tomorrow."

"Are we just going to let the ship continue without making sure it doesn't crash?"

"And what should it crash into? Water?"

She couldn't be serious.

"Other ships! Or, or, I don't know, those small islands where seals live on!"

Azula rolled her eyes.

"Fine. If it helps you sleep at night, I'll turn off the engine and throw the anchor out."

Just because Agni was setting didn't mean Zuko would stop learning. However, the phone telling him the battery was low did.

What was he supposed to do about that? Why was it bad?

Wait, he got it. Yumi had given him a charger, right? That had to do something.

So, he grabbed the charger and looked at it again. One side ended in a small metal bit, the other was more weird, black material with two small rods sticking out of it.

The phone had a small hole at the bottom, so he tried fitting the smaller end in there. He couldn't tell if that was how it was supposed to be or not, but the metal bit disappeared and didn't fall out on its own again.

Okay, now all he had to do was figure out what to do with the two rods.

Yumi gave it to him under the assumption that he could use it from where he was, right? And sure enough, when he took another look at the table besides the bed, he saw something in the wall behind it. Holes, with even smaller holes inside that looked suspiciously like they would be a perfect fit for the charger.

He took a deep breath, then grabbed the charger and pushed it in.

Nothing happened.

Wait, no, that's not correct, the small square at the top of the phone now showed a lightning bolt next to the percentage.

Was that good?

After a few moments, the percentage went up. That had to be good, right?

When the phone didn't suddenly explode after a few more minutes of waiting, Zuko decided that he'd probably done the right thing and continued reading.

Chapter Text

Actually going to sleep posed a problem. At least Touya thought so until he realized the singular bed was big enough to fit multiple copies of him and Azula without it becoming cramped.

So, going to sleep no longer posed that particular problem. And he’d thought that was it, he could sleep now, but just as he got comfortable and was ready to close his eyes, he realized his throat was still dry as fuck. Because obviously the universe couldn’t be nice to him for once in his life.

Touya untangled his legs from the nice and comfortable blanket and sat up again. Even though Azula didn’t say or do anything, Touya could still feel all the anger radiating off of her at his disturbance.

He quickly hurried to the kitchen.

The teapot had long since gone cold, but he honestly couldn’t care less. He just wanted something to drink that wasn’t disgusting tap water. Touya eyed the pot, then he eyed the entrance to the kitchen and, seeing as nobody was there to witness his crimes, he drank straight from the kettle.

And almost coughed all the tea onto the floor.

Fucking hell, this shit tasted bitter.

…But it still wasn’t as bad as tap water.

Besides, this could be fixed by simply adding some sugar to the whole thing. Touya opened the cupboards at random, until he finally encountered a white, grainy powder. And because he was smart, he licked one of his fingers and stuck it inside, then tasted the powder to make sure it wasn’t secretly salt.

It wasn’t.

Again, he looked at the tea, then back to the sugar and decided fuck it, he deserved nice things and poured most of the sugar into the kettle. Then, he swirled it around until most of it was dissolved and took another, much more careful sip.

Hm.

This almost tasted like that gross iced tea that one shady gas station that was probably just a yakuza front sold. So, all in all, it was a solid 4/10. Still better than tap water, and much sweeter as well.

Seeing as he had already drunk from it twice, Touya might as well commit now and just take the whole kettle back to bed with him.

He placed it down next to the bed on his side and climbed back into the nest of warmth and comfort (and grumpy baby child glaring at him).

Oh.

Oh.

Zuko could see Agni slowly rising again.

Azula kicked Touya’s stomach to get him to get up, but he just rolled over and kept sleeping. Sure, Zuko’s body might be used to getting up at this time, but Touya was used to 1) fighting his body every step of the way and 2) sleeping for as long as he pleased, thank you very much.

There was a knock on his door and Zuko hid the phone on instinct, remembering how Yumi had warned him not to use it for too long. (Look at him, already not succeeding at that.)

After a few moments, a nurse entered. She made sure he was alright and then finally, finally removed some of the cables stuck to him.

Just as Zuko had the phone ready again and was about to start reading again, another nurse entered his room and he had to hide it once again. This time, they brought him some food, which he was beyond thankful for. His stomach apparently agreed with him and he busied himself with eating.

It continued like that, he got a few moments of peace and then the next nurse entered, so Zuko decided with a heavy heart that he would leave the phone black for now and instead do such riveting things as staring at a wall, or staring out the window.

Another knock, and this time two nurses entered.

“Hi there! Touya, right?”

He was about to correct them, when Zuko remembered that Yumi had called him by that same name, so it would just be best to go along with it for now.

Zuko nodded.

“I’m Doctor Rutile and this is my gi- coworker Temnova.”

He nodded again.

“If everything goes well, you can go home again in a few hours. You probably don’t remember, but we helped heal your injuries after you just came in yesterday.”

They did? But how? Were they waterbenders? That was the only explanation why they could actually heal his injuries instead of just treating them. But that still didn’t explain why they were here and much less why they would help him.

Then again, he wasn’t really looking like Zuko at the moment, was he?

Not knowing what else to do, Zuko only nodded once again.

Doctor Rutile opened her mouth to say something else, but Doctor Temnova put a hand on their shoulder and they stopped talking.

“It’s okay to be scared, but I promise their quirk won’t hurt you. It actually feels rather pleasant and will be over quickly, okay?”

If only he knew what that meant. At least things not hurting him for a change would be nice.

He better reply with words this time, he didn’t want their patience with him to end before they even started healing him.

“Okay.”

Not like that was much better.

Doctor Rutile sighed.

“If you’re ready, lie back and I’ll place my hand on your torso. It’ll start glowing and you might feel a weird tingling in your chest, but that’s it. If it for whatever reason starts hurting, tell us, okay?”

“Understood.”

Doctor Temnova raised an eyebrow at that, but didn’t say anything else, so after a moment to ready himself, Zuko lay down again.

True to her word, Doctor Rutile’s hand started glowing as soon as it was gently pressed against his still clothed chest. A weird, fuzzy and itchy feeling spread across his body, but that was it. They hadn’t lied, there really was no pain involved.

Even weirder, Zuko could feel his body regain more and more strength, until he couldn’t even feel the exhaustion of staying up all night.

As quickly as everything started, Doctor Rutile removed their hand again. Zuko followed their arm until his eyes landed on them and he had to do a double take.

Nothing from their previous energy was still present, he could even swear he saw dark bags under her eyes. That’s when Doctor Temnova took their hand in hers and Zuko could see the color returning to their cheeks again, eyebags vanishing as suddenly as they’d appeared.

This was magical. No, it was beyond that. His injuries had disappeared with a simple touch and now the same was being done for Doctor Rutile.

“How did you do it?”

Doctor Temnova looked at him, surprise obvious in her face. It was Doctor Rutile who replied, though.

“My quirk lets me heal people using my own energy reserves and Temnova’s quirk can restore other’s energy. It’s pretty neat, right?”

That still didn’t make any sense to Zuko, but he nodded along as if it did.

“And with that, you’re good to go. Do you want one of us to call your guardians?”

Zuko had no idea how to do that, so yes, he wanted them to.

“I would appreciate that.”

“Alright, just give us a sec!”

As it turned out, steering a ship really wasn’t all that hard. Touya just had to double check the compass needle was still pointing at the butt of the ship and everything was fine.

Well, not everything was fine. Touya was rapidly running out of sugar and without sugar he couldn't drink the tea and without the tea he'd have to drink tap water. So, when he saw something that wasn't water appear at the horizon, he ran out onto the deck to convince Azula that they should head there.

Huh.

He hadn't thought she was the kind of person to do yoga. Or whatever that was. Actually, that really didn't look like yoga.

"What are you doing?"

Azula didn't even bother looking at him as she replied.

"Kata."

Yeah, that didn't explain anything.

"What's that."

"...Firebending moves."

Ohh.

Screw him, Touya was curious what firebending not directed at his face looked like.

Azula's movements were smooth and utterly precise. Kicks and lunches transitioned into the next attack seamlessly, but Touya could still see the sheer power behind every little twitch.

And then Azula added fire.

She picked her speed up, going faster and faster until Touya could see nothing, but a red-orange blur exploding in flames. Her little show was over all too quickly though.

"That was so good!"

"I know."

"It must've taken a lot of practice to get there."

Azula glared at him.

"I'm a prodigy. This? This was barely even anything. And certainly not something I needed to train for."

Something ugly curled in his stomach at that, but Touya ignored it like the pain of using his quirk.

"If you say so."

She didn't look happy with that answer, but Touya didn't care.

"Anyways, I wanted to tell you there's land in sight and I thi-"

"We're going to stop at the nearest port."

"Huh?"

Not like he wasn't on board with that plan, but why?

"We need to stock up on food."

"But we have the fire flakes?"

Azula gave him one of her stares that meant he just said something incredibly wrong.

"Obviously they're not going to last all the way, so we better get more food now."

As it turned out, Zuko's guardian really was the big firebender from earlier. Only that he didn't have any of the spirits with him this time, so it was just the two of them. After- after everything, Zuko wasn't going to risk ending up on his bad side, so he was quiet for the walk through the hospital.

He was also quiet as they left and headed for a horrific amalgamation of war tank and cart.

It didn't take more than a few minutes of being driven around that Zuko felt like he was going to throw up, but he'd practiced and practiced and practiced his kata way past the point of nausea enough times that he wasn't particularly bothered by it, even as he body tried to convince him otherwise.

"It's good to see you're okay."

Zuko squared his shoulders. How was he supposed to react to that?

"Me too."

If he was his guardian and the spirits had called him their father, did that mean he was also Zuko's father now?

He obviously wasn't in the Fire Nation anymore and also no longer in his own body and now completely new people were suddenly related to him. Could some spirits have made him switch places with whoever Touya was?

That would explain why everyone kept calling him that, too.

"This is exactly why you're not going to be a Hero. You're only going to get hurt and make Shouto worry about you."

Oh. From the way he spoke, it seemed like this Touya (if they really did switch places) desperately wanted to be a Hero or at least had this argument a lot of times already.

"I know. I'm sorry."

That didn't mean Zuko wanted to risk getting into a fight right now. Or that Zuko even had the energy for that.

His new father(?) only huffed and kept driving.

The port they ended up docking at was a lot smaller than the one they'd started from. But it was still huge and Touya was seriously worried about getting lost for good. Azula strode onwards, as confident as ever, but even she paused at some forks in their path for a moment or two.

In the end, they ended up with multiple sacks of rice, a sack of sugar for Touya’s tea, way too many dried fruits and beef strips, fresh fruit, flour, various spices and nuts.

Carrying all of that to their little ship had been exhausting, but Touya still wanted to just wander around the port for a bit and - to his surprise - Azula agreed. She was busy tormenting some poor lady trying to sell clothing, when a smell that wasn’t quite as good as fresh fire flakes, but still in his top ten, hit Touya.

Seeing as Azula was still occupied with whatever it was she was trying to accomplish, Touya followed his nose. Just around a few corners was a stall selling what was obviously the source of the delicious smell. He took a closer look at the wares, and sure enough, they were selling fried chicken skewers here, covered in some red sauce that was probably spicy enough to burn part of his tongue off.

Touya immediately bought one, giving the owner a gold piece in return.

He could feel his mouth water as he raised the roasted, but hopefully still tender meat up to meet his face. Closing his eyes, he opened his mouth to bite down and-

“There he is! Get him!”

Whoever interrupted him was going to pay for that. Touya looked around, trying to find the appropriate person to glare at when he caught sight of those people in their spiky costumes again.

And they were running towards him.

“Fuck off! I’m trying to eat here you spike-headed, ugly mother-”

He was cut off by one of them trying to roast him alive.

Oh, it was on.

Touya quickly shoved the skewer into his mouth, biting down on the wood to keep it in place, then turned around to the attacker and threw flames at him. See how they liked that.

And if he’d been in his own body, controlling his own fire, that probably would’ve worked, but that wasn’t the case right now, so the flames spluttered out and died a pathetic death halfway across from his opponent.

It still made them stop in their tracks for a few moments, if only to admire how much of a fuck-up that attack had been.

Wasting no time, Touya took the chance to turn around and run like the life of his precious chicken skewer depended on it.

Fuck, this was definitely the wrong fucking way, more of those spike-bastards were blocking his way. He spun around, but realized even as he was running again that it would be pointless. The other end of the street was blocked as well.

He was well and truly surrounded.

Then, a swirl of fire swallowed the spiketards behind him.

An arm lunged forward to grab him and Touya almost tried smacking it away, but it was undoubtedly the small, grabby hand of Azula. He let himself be pulled away, running around more and more corners until it felt like his lungs were going to combust.

There! He could see their ship. With the last of his energy, he sprinted towards it, right behind Azula.

She jumped onto the boat, sailing right over the small gap that led to a very watery doom, Touya following after a few seconds.

That could’ve gone so badly, holy shit that could’ve gone so fucking badly, but he didn’t have time to hesitate or think about it now.

“Get the anchor!”

Touya didn’t need to be told twice and started pulling it up as Azula ran below deck to start the engine. She came up again a few moments later and sprinted over to the steering hut thing as Touya dropped the anchor onto the deck.

One of the spiketards definitely looked like they were about to jump after them, even as the ship finally got a move on, but one of the others grabbed their arm to stop them. So, instead of falling into the sea, the guy only shot fire at them, to which Touya replied by flipping them off with both hands, skewer still securely tucked into his mouth.

Chapter Text

Zuko was dropped off pretty unceremoniously at the entrance to some house. Thankfully, the spirit kids were also there and threw the door open the moment they saw him and their father arrive, so at least he didn’t have to find a way to break into the house.

“Touya! You’re back!”

“You’re healed!”

And then he had two children clinging to him, threatening to make all three of them fall to the floor, so he focused on standing upright and keeping his balance instead.

That had apparently been the wrong decision because Yumi untangled herself from him and instead grabbed his hand to pull him further into their place. Not knowing what else to do, he followed her, Natsuo still glued to his side.

It didn’t take long for them to reach what was apparently their destination. Yumi finally let go of his hand and Zuko got the chance to look around the room they were now in. It was messy, much messier than any room he ever remembered being in. The bed was unmade, toys were scattered around the floor and various books were stacked next to the desk (which was covered almost entirely in papers and pens).

But the one thing that really caught his eyes was the big glass tank in one corner that contained fish in all the colors he could imagine.

“Natsuo, go and grab some blankets, please.”

“But why?”

“For the, y’know,” she waved around with her hand, “the thing.”

“Ohh, on it!”

After making the sloppiest salute Zuko had ever seen, Natsuo ran off.

Now Yumi grabbed his hand again and guided him to the bed. Then, she sat down, so he did the same.

“How are you feeling? Do you need anything? We still have miso soup, if you’re hungry.”

He was actually feeling pretty good. The exhaustion was slowly creeping back up on him, but aside from that his injuries were barely even worth mentioning anymore.

“I’m fine.”

“Touya, I know-”

“I’m back!”

Natsuo chose that moment to interrupt them and Zuko gladly took the out. He couldn’t help but smile as he saw the kid standing in the doorway, blankets trailing behind him and piling up in his arms higher than he was tall.

“Okay, okay, Touya close your eyes!”

As soon as she saw him, Yumi had jumped up from the bed and was now next to Natsuo, grabbing the blankets from him.

Zuko really didn’t want to close his eyes, but he sighed and did it anyway. These kids had been very nice to him so far and they didn’t even know he was Zuko, so there was no reason for them to do something mean as soon as he couldn’t see them anymore, right?

There was rustling behind him and Zuko almost turned and opened his eyes. But he didn’t. Instead, he decided he should focus on his breathing, a slow and steady stream of air filtering through his body, fuelling his fire. He’d always been awful when it came to breathing and using his fire at the same time (or using his fire in general), but just breathing? That’s something he could do now, after it had been drilled into him for years and years.

“You can open them again!”

This time, it was Natsuo telling him what to do.

Zuko carefully opened his eyes again, unsure of what he’d see.

But nothing had changed.

“Oh, you need to turn around too!”

Again, he obeyed what Natsuo told him and turned around.

The spirits (he should stop calling them that, he was fairly sure they were just normal children and not actually spirits) had apparently hung blankets up in the room, making an even bigger mess of everything.

“Tada! A blanket fort!”

He seemed so proud of it that Zuko really didn’t have the heart to chide him for creating so much chaos in his wake.

“I know it’s a bit rough, but we didn’t know you were coming home already. We’d wanted to make it as a surprise for you.”

That was really sweet? Yumi sounded hopeful, almost like Ty Lee whenever she did something and hoped Azula would approve of it.

“It’s nice. I like it.”

Was that the right thing to say?

“Less talking, more blanket fort!”

With that, Natsuo reached over to grab him and pulled him under part of the structure.

Oh.

It was cozy. Most of the daylight was blocked by the blankets, but it was still bright enough to see without problem thanks to a small orange thing shaped like a halfmoon glowing faintly. The ground was covered in even more blankets and Natsuo didn't waste any time getting comfortable in one of the corners.

Yumi joined them shortly after that as well, arms filled with pillows and stuffed animals that were quickly dropped to the ground. Then she curled up on that pile, head resting against the wall of the shelf on the side. Zuko followed their examples and sat down cross legged on top of some blanket.

"What's said in the blanket fort stays in the blanket fort."

Huh? Yumi sounded weirdly serious about this, like this was a life or death pact.

"What's said in the blanket fort stays in the blanket fort."

Natsuo too?

And now they were both looking at him, as if waiting for him to say something as well.

"Uh, what's said in the blanket fort stays in the blanket fort?"

Yumi grinned at him, but not in a mean way. More like she was excited?

"Yesterday outside the hospital Natsuo caught a frog. I think it was a [jap. frog], you know, those ones that are super rare? Anyways, he took it inside with him to show it to you-"

"I did not! You told me to, even after I explained that hospitals need to be sterile and frogs wouldn't help with that!"

Yumi waved him off.

"The point is, the frog was now in the lobby with us. And then Natsuo set it free."

"It escaped!"

"I tried to get it back, but it was so fast and got away. And I got really worried about it at this point because what if someone stepped on it accidentally? Or what if dad found out we brought a frog inside? He told us to behave and maybe he wouldn't take us to see you if he noticed. And then…"

She paused dramatically.

"A blond guy with super, super long hair knelt down and caught it. I think he even knew we got it inside because he winked at us and then put it outside again."

That was apparently the end of that. Both spirits were obviously waiting for a response, but Zuko had no idea what to say. So he nodded.

"That was my story to tell." Natsuo sounded sulky.

"Well, you'll get over it."

"Like how Touya will get over you eating his favorite pudding?"

She gasped, deeply offended.

"Don't listen to him! He's lying, he ate it himself!"

"Am not!"

"Yes, you are! I even cleaned the spoon you ate it with when I did the rest of the dishes."

"No, that was your spoon!"

They continued like that, bickering about unimportant things and telling 'secrets', always making sure Zuko nodded at the appropriate points. This was surprisingly nice. Nobody threatened him, he wasn't the punchline in their stories even once and they didn't even really fight, only mess around without actually trying to hurt one another.

They’d decided not to dock on any other ports if possible from then on. At first, Touya had been worried that the spiketards would follow them via boat, but Azula reassured him they were much too inefficient and slow to really pull that off without preparation, so as long as they kept moving, they’d be fine.

So that’s what they did. When Azula woke up early next morning, she made sure the ship was still going in the right direction (much to Touya’s displeasure, she insisted on keeping it going during the night, so they’d get more space between themselves and their possible pursuers) and then took control of it. At some point after the sun reached its peak, she traded with Touya, who was to keep them going until evening.

He’d expected her to come and annoy him hours ago, but even as the sun started to set he hadn’t seen her once. Now that he thought about it, she’d been a hell of a lot easier to deal with today.

That couldn’t be good.

Eh, the ship would be fine with him for a few minutes while he went and found Azula.

Only that he couldn’t find her. She wasn’t in the bedroom, or the kitchen, or the bathroom, but she also wasn’t on the deck. Walking it up and down for the second time, Touya finally, finally decided to look up and lo and behold, there she was, sitting on the cross beam of the mast, hugging her knees to her chest.

Well, that just engaged his big brother mode. Climbing up to her wasn’t all that hard because thankfully whoever built this ship decided to include rungs sticking out a few centimeters.

Azula wasn’t startled by his sudden appearance next to her (which was good because Touya really didn’t want to find out if he would’ve been able to catch her or not), but she was still obviously displeased.

Good thing Touya still didn’t care.

He reached over and somehow managed to pull himself up onto the beam to sit next to her, keeping her between himself and the ladder, so she wouldn’t feel cornered. Sure, it might be different for her and she actually didn’t care at all, but if someone forced him to talk about his feelings, he at least wanted an escape route he could take without much trouble.

Here went nothing.

“How are you?”

Azula glared into nothingness.

“Fine.”

“Well, you don’t like fine.”

She glared harder.

“Stop bothering me. I’m fine.”

“Nope. You’re not, so much is obvious. Look, you don’t have to tell me what’s troubling you, but please don’t pretend to be fine when you’re not.”

She was quiet for a few seconds, only hugging her knees closer.

“Why should you care about that?”

Oh.

“Because we’re stuck together and you’re not fine.”

Now she focused her glare on him.

“It’s none of your concern.”

Like hell it wasn’t.

"Yes, it is!”

“Fine. You what to know what I’m thinking? I’m thinking that I should’ve let the guards take you back with them because that’s obviously what father wanted and I still can’t believe I’m stupid enough to ignore that all for Zuko whom nobody likes anyways!”

That was a lot.

Touya wanted to snap at her because what the fuck, but something about how she was still sitting her curled inwards reminded him all too much of Fuyumi when she was crying about wanting a real family again.

“But at least you care about him, don’t you? You’re doing all of this just to get him back, after all.”

“Shut up! You don’t know anything! You’ve never seen what father is like when Zuko disappointed him again, I should’ve known better than to go chasing some spirit-tale!”

Ouch. That hit a little too close to home for comfort.

“Fuck your dad.”

“What?” It shocked her out of her anger, at least.

“I said, fuck your dad. Fuck him for being a little bitch when your brother did something wrong and fuck him for making you so afraid to disappoint him.”

And now he’d shocked her out of speaking. Or maybe she was going to laugh at him.

Before she could make up her mind, he leaned over and hugged her. She was stiff and Touya could feel her heart beating fast, but he only pulled her closer, tucking her head into the small space between his chin and chest. It took a few breaths, but then Azula reached out to wrap her arms around him as well.

“You know, you really are quite vulgar.”

“That? That was nothing.” He cleared his throat. “Fuck Azula’s dad! He’s a bitchass motherfucker!”

The ocean didn’t reply, but Touya was still fairly sure it had heard him.

“You could probably get executed for that. Insulting the Fire Lord like that is as good as treason.”

Touya huffed.

“And to that I say, let him fucking try. I don’t give a damn what a bastard like that thinks. Not when he has the personality of a shriveled up grape, the emotional range of burned beacon and the intelligence of the rock I’m gonna use to smack his head with. See how he likes it when people show him just exactly how goddamned disappointed in him they are.”

A weird sound escaped Azula, who tried her best to swallow it down. Was she giggling? Was she displaying an emotion that wasn't annoyance combined with an air of superiority?

That was clearly encouragement, so Touya continued to shout profanities at the Fire Lord, even if only Azula and the ocean heard him.

Chapter Text

When Zuko realized one of the spirits was missing, the embarrassment threatened to choke him. They'd been here for what felt like hours and he only now noticed that they weren't complete.

"Where's the sm- Shouto?"

The pleasant atmosphere turned sour in an instant. Great, he hadn't even managed to go a single day without messing up.

"Oh. He's training?" Yumi sounded like she really didn't want to talk about it.

Azula also frequently chose training over spending time with him and while he knew it was true, it still hurt that she felt like she was too good to spend time with him. But weirdly enough, Shouto didn't seem like someone who would think that, not after he apologized to Zuko like that.

Maybe he was actually really bad and needed every spare second to get better? But that would mean Yumi and Natsuo were good enough to not have to do that and then it wouldn't make any sense why they would want to spend time with someone like him instead of just each other.

"Touya? Are you okay?"

Right, because he'd fooled them into believing he was someone else.

Tears pricked the corners of his eyes and Zuko hated how Azula always called him a crybaby, but maybe she'd been right about that.

He was already screwing up, so he might as well make everything worse because there was no way he was getting out of this with Natsuo and Yumi still liking him anyways.

"I'm not Touya."

"Ha, I knew it!" He didn't sound shocked at all?

"Shut up, Natsuo." Yumi turned back to him. "What do you mean?"

Zuko sighed. This was it.

"I'm sorry for lying to you, but I'm not Touya."

"What?" He was very focused on staring at the ground, so he didn't have to see their expressions.

"I don't know how this happened, but I'm not your brother."

"What." Oh, Yumi was pissed.

"I'm sorry!"

Something sharp was pressed against his throat before Zuko even had time to close his mouth. He glanced down to see a large icicle growing from Yumi’s hand that was too close to his skin for comfort.

She was a waterbender?

"If you're not Touya, then who are you?"

He knew this was coming, but he still hated it.

"I'm Zuko."

Neither spirit replied.

"So, Zuko, why are you impersonating our brother?"

"I don't know. It just happened…?"

Yumi glared at him, brow furrowing in anger.

"Keep talking."

"I was just- father was there and I remember-" he was not going to mention the Agni Kai, "-and then suddenly there was fire everywhere and after that I woke up to you waiting for me."

"Ah. And why didn't you say anything earlier?"

"I’m sorry.”

Even though he was still looking at the ground, he could practically feel Yumi’s glare intensifying.

“That doesn’t explain why you did it.”

Was she really going to make him say it?

“I was selfish, I know, okay? You were just so-” He shut his mouth. Would he never learn that arguing only made things worse? Not even after-

“We were so what?”

Zuko really couldn’t stop digging his own grave, could he?

“Nice. You were so nice. And I know it’s unfair to you and I shouldn’t have lied to you, but- I’m sorry.”

However they were going to react, Zuko knew it wouldn’t be pleasant. At least Azula and father were very good teachers when it came to that.

And despite - or maybe because of - that, he was still surprised when the ice vanished Yumi threw herself at him. His breath hitched even though he knew he needed to keep breathing if he didn’t want to be a total failure who couldn’t even use his fire in an emergency, but she didn’t do anything else. She just- just hugged him. Natsuo, not wanting to be left out, joined them as well.

He couldn’t remember the last time someone had hugged him.

“We’ll still be nice to you even if you’re not Touya.”

What in Agni’s name was he supposed to do now?

“Thank you.”

Yumi detangled from him, but only so she could grab his shoulders to try and look at him. Zuko still refused, but this time for an entirely different reason.

“What were you doing before you switched?"

Did she not know about the Agni Kai? If that was the case, he desperately wanted to keep it that way, it was humiliating enough that he knew about it, no reason to tell the spirits what a screw-up he was.

Time to change topics.

“That sounds like you know why this happened?”

She tilted her head to the side.

“I mean, it was a Quirk, right?”

“What’s a quirk?”

Both Natsuo and Yumi stared at him like he’d just asked what fire was.

“I made ice to threaten you with it. That’s a Quirk.”

Huh.

“I thought that was actually waterbending?”

Yumi wanted to reply something, but Natsuo was faster.

“What’s waterbending?”

“Uh.”

Sure, Azula was pretending like nothing had happened after that, but at least she was back to being her usual, terrorizing self instead of being paralysed by guilt. And even though that meant he had to deal with her acting like she was better than him, Touya didn’t regret talking to her.

If the blanket fort would’ve been bigger, Yumi would be pacing around right now. But it wasn’t, so the only thing she did was move her one leg up and down at dizzying speeds.

“This is revolutionary. You’re- you have to be from another wo- universe, right? I’ve never heard of a place where Quirks developed like you described that bending. Do you have any idea how many theories you’ve proven and disproven with your mere existence? The multiverse is real.”

Natsuo was trying his best to shut her up by glaring at her. The biggest problem was that his glare looked cute and wasn’t effective at all.

“Do you think there are more of you out here?”

“Huh?”

Why would there be more Zukos?

“We have more important things to talk about.” Yep, his glare was still not doing anything.

Yumi gasped in deep offense.

“What could be more important than a scientific breakthrough?”

“Touya and Zuko.”

That actually gave her pause.

“You’re right. Zuko, you don’t know anything about this world, right? We’ll have to teach you everything so you can stay undetected.”

He opened his mouth to ask why he should do that, but then he thought about how father would react if he found out there was a new dimension with superpowered people. He closed it again.

“You do know who we are, right?”

“You’re Yumi and Natsuo. And Shouto, but he’s not here.”

“And why are- wait, do you think Yumi is my full name?”

Oh. Was it not?

“I thought so?”

She grinned, but it still didn’t seem mean.

“It’s actually Fuyumi. You probably don’t know who exactly we are, right?”

Didn’t she just ask that?

“We’re the children of Endeavor, he’s a very important Pro Hero.”

“What’s a pro hero?”

Zuko tried as best as he could to listen to Fuyumi explain the hero system and HPSC and public rankings and all the work heroes had to do, but all of that felt so wrong to him.

"But wouldn't heroes just try to be the most popular ones instead of actually helping people?"

"Exactly!"

"Shut up, Natsuo!"

"No, you shut up."

Fuyumi threw herself at Natsuo, doing her best to clamp a hand over his mouth. And she succeeded, at least for a few moments. Then she pulled her hand back with a disgusted face.

"Ew, don't lick me!"

As a reply, Natsuo simply stuck his tongue out and lunged for her as well. Then they fought (but was it really fighting? Fuyumi didn't even try to use her ice again), almost tearing the blanket fort down in the process.

It ended with Fuyumi sitting on top of Natsuo, who gave her a very annoyed look.

"Zuko, you can't say that to dad, okay? Actually, don't say anything to him."

"Why?"

As soon as the words left his mouth, he realized why. Their father was a powerful hero and he'd just messed up taking to another really powerful person, so it really would be best if he just kept quiet for once in his life.

"Touya's… complicated. They don't always get along, so you could accidentally start a fight."

"Touya's not complicated, dad just sucks!"

For that, the back of Natsuo's head got flicked. He tried to shove Fuyumi off, but she was still too strong for him.

"Whatever the case, just don't talk to dad, got it?"

Zuko nodded, then remembered there's another person living with them.

"And what about Shouto?"

Both siblings grew quiet at that again and Zuko got the distinct impression that maybe Shouto was someone he shouldn't mention.

"Don't tell him you're not Touya. He already has a lot to deal with."

"Yeah, plus he didn't do the oath!"

The wh- oh, the promise to keep everything said secret.

"Okay."

He wasn't going to disobey them, but Zuko still felt wrong. Shouto was so small and yet he was supposed to carry their father's legacy, even though he was last in the line. Then again, he also knew father would do anything if that meant Azula would take the throne instead of him.

“Do we tell him- Should he know more about our family? In case something happens?”

Natsuo looked at Fuyumi questioningly, apparently having a certain topic in mind that Zuko didn’t know anything about yet.

“Yeah, you’re right.” She stared at the ground, not wanting to meet his eyes. “So, uh. Our mom isn’t here anymore.”

Zuko knew what that was like.

“She’s at a hospital now because-”

“Dad took her away from us.”

“Because she accidentally attacked Shouto and the doctors are going to help her.”

Fuyumi directed the last bit at Natsuo, who stared back at her with the same intensity.

So their mother was still alive, just put out of reach? Zuko pushed those thoughts down as soon as they surfaced. Just because his mom was long gone didn’t give him any right to view this woman as his new mother, even if he technically was her son.

But maybe he could still find a way to establish contact with her, even if it only was for Fuyumi and Natsuo. They shouldn’t have to grow up without a mother like him.

Chapter Text

As it unfortunately turned out, being stuck on a small ship in the middle of blue nothingness was boring as hell.

Especially when he couldn’t even listen to his music or fuck around on his phone. Or even just read one of Natsuo’s weird books that were written long before quirks even existed.

"Azula, I'm bored."

They both decided that the ship probably didn't need constant supervision, so they were out on the deck, enjoying the sun. Well, at least that's what Touya, sprawled out on his back and staring directly at it, was doing. Azula meanwhile was Firebending again.

"Tragic."

Rude, she didn't pay him any mind. He wanted attention and she was literally the only person he could get it from.

"Azula."

Was he whiny? Yes, but fuck him, this was boring.

"Stop being such a little baby and firebend or something."

Touya sat up fast enough that the world needed a few seconds to adjust again.

"You're a genius! You can just teach me how to do it!"

That finally got Azula to stop, if only so she could devote her entire attention to looking annoyed.

"Fine. But it's hard and Zuko was never good to begin with, so don't feel bad if you won't be able to keep up."

Well, that was a challenge if Touya ever heard one.

"Bring it on."

"Get up."

Touya got up.

"First lesson of Firebending," Azula threw a handful of flames his way, "is to always pay attention and be ready."

He sidestepped the flames without difficulty. Endeavor had used worse attacks on him when he'd been half this age. That took her by surprise, but after a moment she took it as a sign to speed her attacks up, assaulting Touya with more and more fire.

"Second lesson: the best defense is an excellent offense."

She steadily advanced until she was right in front of Touya, who kept furiously dodging her attacks. Retaliating with fire didn't work all that well, it still spluttered out almost immediately. Well, if fire wasn't going to work, a good old kick to the shin might.

Azula stumbled, but didn't fall. She did, however, gasp in shock and/or pain.

And then Touya was on the ground, a dagger made of fire pressed somewhere below his head.

"Lesson number three: at least try to fight honorably."

Touya grinned at her.

"Hell no. A battle won is a battle won, no matter how I did it."

"Oh, and here I thought you would have more honor than my brother."

She moved away from him again, allowing him to sit up.

"I'm not fighting for honor, I'm fighting out of spite and I don't give a shit what you think about that."

That was close enough to the truth, anyways. Obviously he was fighting so father would accept him as a hero again, and if that failed, to make his meaningless life as shitty as possible, but she didn't need to know that.

"So, are you going to teach me or not?"

"Fine."

She sat down across from him, legs folded one over the other. After a pointed look, Touya mimicked her.

"Firebending is about control and that starts with breathing."

When she suddenly summoned a flame in her hand, Touya was about to jump up, but she didn't do anything, merely held it.

"Focus on it."

Touya did. At first, it just seemed like a normal flame, but if he really, truly looked at it, he could see it grow and brighten, then shrink and dim every few seconds, almost like it was alive. Azula had mentioned breathing, so he watched her chest rise and fall and sure enough, it corresponded with the 'breathing' of the flame. It was like the fire was an extension of her, pulsating with life borrowed from her.

"Here."

Azula thrusted her hands forward and after a moment Touya cupped his to take the flame from her.

Like every fire he tried to control in this world, it went out.

“You do need to use your bending for that, you know.”

“Well, and how do I do that?”

“You just do?”

Wow, that was helpful.

Then again, Touya wasn’t sure if he could explain how to use his quirk if someone had asked him to explain.

“Where does the bending come from?”

Touya always imagined his quirk as being in his hands, so when he wanted to use it, he just needed to activate it in his hands. He’d tried to do the same thing here too, but maybe that wasn’t actually it.

“Everywhere?”

Even as she said it, Azula’s face scrunched up in thought. A moment later, she created another flame in her palms, then extinguished it again.

“It spreads from my lungs into my body.”

Huh, that made sense if there was such a big focus on breathing.

Touya inhaled, feeling the air expand his lungs. He tried imagining his blood collecting and transporting the oxygen and how he could transform that oxygen into fire bursting out of his skin. Maybe he was just tricking himself into believing that, but Touya could swear he could feel the flames waiting beneath his skin for his commands.

“I think I got it.”

The worst that could happen was that he embarrassed himself further in front of her.

Once again, Azula made a small flame appear between her hands and as Touya reached for it this time, he also willed the heat writhing beneath his skin to grab onto it. As soon as he closed his hands around hers, she pulled them back.

The flame didn’t go out, though it did change.

“Great. Now just keep it steady.”

Even as she said that, Touya realized that was much easier commanded than done. The flame kept growing, using the air around them to fuel itself and Touya briefly feared losing control over it.

Then he remembered to breathe and really focused on the flame, not just what it looked like. It was pulsating with energy, wanting to burn brighter and higher and more, but Touya forced it down until it regained its initial size.

“Yeah, like that. Do that for an hour or so and I’ll do the next thing with you.”

“What? But I can do it now, can’t I?”

Just then, the flame suddenly redoubled its efforts to grow and Touya had to put all his focus to bringing it back down.

“Oh, I forgot to mention. The fire also reacts to your emotions, so try not to be so irascible.”

Try not to be what now?

Borrowing the body of Touya was apparently fine with Fuyumi, but she drew the line at also borrowing his room. So now he was sleeping in hers, while she shared a room with Natsuo. Zuko tried his best not to touch anything (aside from the bed and floor), but it was still weird. Not that staying in Touya’s room would be much more pleasant, he’d still feel guilty for moving his things around.

Still, that didn’t prepare him for the conversation Fuyumi was having with him now.

“You need new clothes.”

Zuko looked down at what he was wearing. A black shirt and grey sweatpants. Sure, this certainly was nothing he would be caught dead in in the Fire Nation, but he didn’t see what problem it would be for Touya to wear it in this world.

“Are the ones I’m wearing not appropriate?”

Fuyumi blinked at him a few times.

“They’re Touya’s. You need to get your own.”

Ah.

And then his hands were suddenly filled with a laptop and a wallet. And while he now knew what a laptop was, he still didn’t know why he was suddenly holding one.

“Here you go. The accounts everywhere should still be logged in and if a site asks for your payment for some reason, just put in the number on the back of the credit card in there.”

Zuko stared at the items he was now in possession of.

“Uh, I can stay and help you, if you want. All that technology has to be very confusing for you still.”

That wasn’t the problem.

“Thank you. But I’ll be fine.”

He even knew about online shopping. But he didn’t know why he should get clothes out of the internet when he didn’t even know if they’d fit or not.

“Alright. If you need help, I’m helping Natsuo with his homework.”

With that, she left again.

Zuko carefully placed the laptop on the bed and opened it. It was already activated and showing the browser with multiple tabs opened. He clicked on them and discovered that they all featured online sites he could order clothes from. As much as he wanted to do what Fuyumi had told him, it just didn’t make any sense. Instead, he opened a new tab and searched for stores to buy clothing close to where he was.

He opened the map and looked at the stores that were marked for him. One that was pretty close advertised itself as a ‘thrift store’. Zuko wasn’t exactly sure what that meant, but cheap clothing sounded good, he really didn’t want to spend all of Fuyumi’s money on himself.

A few minutes later, he left the house, wallet securely tucked into the pocket of a borrowed jacket. He fumbled around with the phone for a few seconds, but eventually managed to get it to show the map while also playing music over the earbuds.

The music Touya had on his phone was loud and sounded completely different from what was played at Fire Nation festivals, but Zuko didn’t mind. If anything, hearing something so loud was a great way to drown out everything else and really focus on the task at hand.

Touya had now processed to having to control the flames on three different candles. Truly a great feat.

The thrift store was huge and every viable surface was bursting with clothing. And all of it didn’t cost more than 1500 yen, which was about the price of an apple according to Fuyumi, so basically nothing at all.

He walked through the store, grabbing everything that looked fun, until his arms were filled with clothing. As he tried it on, quite a few things were put away again because they looked weird on him or didn’t even fit.

Still, at the end he had a considerable yield of shirts, pants, skirts, socks, a new jacket and various accessories that only cost a few thousand yen. He’d wanted to get more, but he hadn’t realized until now that the nice lady behind the counter also sold bags. And now it would be awkward to keep looking, so he decided to just come back tomorrow and made his way back home with his freshly acquired bag full of clothes that were actually his.

The music was especially good, so Zuko closed his eyes for a few seconds as he kept walking. That was probably why he didn’t notice someone reach for him until he was pulled into an alley.

Startled, he opened his eyes, but it was already too late. The stranger had forced him into an alley and was pointing a knife at him, opening and closing his mouth like he was a fish on dry land.

Oh, he was probably talking to him.

Zuko reached up to pull an earbud out, but the guy’s expression grew even angrier at his motion, so he stopped, arm raised halfway up to his head. The guy lunged forward and gave the wire connecting the earbuds to the phone a forceful tug, removing them from Zuko’s ears.

“Are you listening now, you brat?!”

Hopefully that didn’t damage them. Touya wouldn’t be happy if he found out Zuko accidentally got his earbuds destroyed. What did that guy even want from him?

“Hello?”

Now the guy was waving a hand in front of his face. Right, he’d been talking.

“Sorry, I wasn’t listening.”

“You-!”

He grabbed Zuko by the shoulder and shoved him to the ground. Oh, that wasn’t good. Zuko looked at his elbows where his skin was now grazed and bleeding. Would Fuyumi believe him if he told her it had been an accident?

Before he could move away, Zuko was pulled up by his shirt and slammed against the wall, knife poised at his throat.

Well, that wasn’t good.

“Are you listening now? I’m not fucking aroun-”

Zuko had just been preparing to slam his knee into the guy’s crotch when he suddenly disappeared. That was one way to get out of this, he supposed.

Then he looked around and saw the guy lying on the ground, someone in white armor pinning him down and securing something around his wrists. After looking at the knife guy for another moment, the armor guy got up again and walked over to Zuko.

Ugh, great. Now he was going to get another lecture on how weak he was for not escaping his kidnappers - or in this case some random person, which was even worse - on his own.

“I could’ve dealt with him.”

That startled a weird noise out of the armor guy.

“Sure you could’ve. Did he do anything to you? Are you hurt?”

What?

Zuko blinked at him. Then he remembered that random people probably didn’t go around scolding Touya, so he really shouldn’t have expected that. Still, he wasn’t used to being asked questions instead of screamed at.

“I’m fine.”

“Okay, then- what’s with your elbows?”

Oh, right.

“It’s nothing.”

Armor guy moved his head to get a better look at them and when that didn’t work out took a step closer to Zuko, who stepped back on reflex. In response, armor guy didn’t come any closer and even put his hands up.

“That doesn’t look like nothing.”

He quickly spared a glance at his elbows and sure enough, all of that was bloody.

“I’ve had worse.”

For a moment armor guy didn’t reply.

“That’s- That’s concerning. I’m concerned. Let me call someone to take care of that Villain, then I’ll take you back to our agency, okay? We have first aid supplies there, so we can take care of those injuries and then call your parents to pick you up, how about that?”

Oh.

Oh, that was bad.

Fuyumi had told him not to cause any trouble and if they ended up calling their father that would be the exact opposite of that. He needed to get away quickly.

Realizing that armor guy was still waiting for a response, Zuko nodded. Apparently satisfied with that answer, armor guy got his phone out and called someone, except he didn’t need to hold the phone close to his face to do that. Maybe he had earbuds in that helmet he was wearing?

Wait, no. This was not the time to think about that. He was distracted by the phone, now was the perfect time to slip away.

So Zuko did just that. He grabbed the bag with his clothes and ran, dashing through the streets. He’d quickly learned how to escape Azula back at the Palace and while the terrain might be different now, it was still pretty much the same. But he couldn’t run all the way back to Fuyumi and Natsuo, not if that guy could be following him.

He needed to hide somewhere until he stopped the pursuit.

There!

Another alley, this time with a big container on rolls right at the entrance. Zuko didn’t waste any time shoving his bag beneath it and then crawling under it as well. It was a tight fit, but he made it work. Besides, he’d hidden in smaller holes before.

It didn’t take long for the armor guy to arrive there as well. At least the boots entering Zuko’s vision of the alley looked the same. He stopped halfway across it and walked back out. Except, Zuko could hear his steps stall and come to a stop right in front of his hiding place.

He kept his breathing flat, even as his heart was beating loudly enough that he was seriously worried about armor guy hearing it.

Then, he did something with the top of the container. After a few seconds, the steps left the alley.

Zuko didn’t dare relax yet, but his heart was slowing down again.

“Crap, dad is going to be so disappointed I let a civilian run off like that.”

Oh.

If Zuko went with him, he’d get in trouble with Endeavor, but if he didn’t then the person who saved him (even though he would’ve been fine on his own!) would get in trouble. He really wanted to stay hidden, but that wouldn’t be fair. Armor guy wasn’t the one at fault, that was Zuko for somehow ending up in this situation.

Mind made up, he wormed his way out of his hiding spot.

But armor guy wasn’t there anymore.

Shit.

Chapter Text

Five candles. Touya was starting to think Azula was making fun of him.

As soon as he was back home, Zuko dropped his clothes off in Fuyumi’s room and went to the bathroom. Leaving open wounds like that was unhygienic, so he needed to take care of them.

But after he washed all the dried blood and bits of road that stuck to him off, he didn't know what else to do. Well, he did, but he had no idea where the bandages were kept.

So he went to find Fuyumi.

She wasn't in the kitchen, she wasn't in the room with the big TV, she wasn't in Natsuo's room or her own or Touya's and she also couldn't be in the bathroom because he came from there. At least on his second search through the house he found Natsuo in the kitchen, shoving pudding into his face at alarming speeds.

He turned around, ready to defend himself against Fuyumi, but upon seeing it was just Zuko, he continued eating.

"Do you know where Fuyumi is?"

Natsuo nodded, then pointed his spoon in That direction. Towards the part of the house he wasn't supposed to enter. That he couldn't enter even if he wanted to because the door there was locked. The part of the house where Shouto was staying.

Oh.

That wasn't good.

He promised not to go there to not cause any trouble, but he could also clearly feel that his injuries were still bleeding and if Fuyumi went there it had to be okay, right?

Mind made up, Zuko left the kitchen and made his way to the staircase leading up to Shouto's part of the house. He briefly stopped at the base of the staircase, suddenly hesitant. But their father wasn't there, so he wouldn't know, right?

Even so, Zuko couldn't help but sneak from here on out.

There was nothing to indicate that this part of the house was any different than the rest, but it still felt wrong. Luckily, the first room he dared to peek into was the right one. Fuyumi sat with her back to him, bent over something. That something turned out to be Shouto.

At the sound of his footsteps, Fuyumi swiveled around, but relaxed once she saw it was him.

"What are you doing here? You're not- Oh goodness, you're hurt too."

What did she mean, ‘too’? Natsuo was fine.

Then he took a closer look at Shouto, who very much wasn’t. Burns were littering his small body and Zuko felt something in his stomach turn. He tried reassuring himself that this child wasn’t a firebender and didn’t have their natural resistance against fire, but that didn’t make this any better.

“What happened?”

“Training with dad.”

Fuyumi looked back and forth between him and Shouto.

“Can you-?”

“Take care of Shouto, I can treat my injuries on my own.”

Nodding, Fuyumi pushed some supplies towards him, then got back to smearing something across Shouto’s burns.

Now, logically Zuko knew he was also frequently covered in smaller injuries from firebending training and yet seeing Shouto like that felt wrong. He was just so small, but Zuko could still tell by the way he was behaving that he was used to such injuries, which only made everything worse.

And then he realized that he’d been staring (even though mom had told him it was rude, but he’d never been good when it came to listening to what he was told) and quickly grabbed the bandages. He put the sterile part of the first bandage on his elbow and then wrapped it around his arm as well as he could, using his chin to secure it in place at first. Then he ripped the end into two parts and tied those around his arm. After making sure it held, he did the same thing on the other side.

He turned around, ready to leave again, when Shouto called out to him.

“Touya.”

Zuko looked at him, waiting.

When Shouto didn’t say anything else, Zuko knelt down in front of him and slowly extended a hand to ruffle his hair, unsure of what else to do. Shouto flinched away before leaning into the touch.

This was a situation where he was supposed to say something, wasn’t it?

“I’m sorry, too.”

After a second, Shouto nodded and Zuko took that as his sign to leave.

Azula took a scrutinizing look at his candles, which were all burning with identical flames.

“You’re decent at using the abilities my brother trained.”

“And you’re really allergic to being nice, huh?”

He couldn’t help the smile appearing on his face as he saw her expression. She really wasn’t used to someone not putting up with her bullshit, wasn’t she?

“The next step is taking control of fire quickly and efficiently to extinguish it. Here.”

And then she threw fire at him again and Touya dodged, except the blast was way too big to escape it from his sitting position. His clothes caught on fire almost immediately and Touya tried to get his quirk back under control, but it wasn’t working again and he could feel the flames on his skin and under his skin and inside him burning and burning and eating him up and he might’ve been screaming, but he also felt like there shouldn’t be any air left in his lungs to do that.

No matter what he was doing, his quirk was too strong to fight against and Touya could feel his skin blister and burst with the heat, smoke attacking his eyes as his vision faded out at the edges more and more. He felt a sharp and sudden pain flare up in his cheek that was so startlingly different from the burning of his own hell that it shocked his brain out of processing anything for a moment.

The next thing he noticed was the sudden flare of pain coming from his shoulders and the small part of him that wasn’t being a screaming idiot at the moment realized he’d just been slammed to the ground.

“-out of it! Stop it! What’s your problem?”

A face- Azula’s face was uncomfortably close to his own.

Touya rolled onto his side, legs curled up to his stomach and distantly noted that his body was shaking.

“Are you listening to me again?”

Azula was now kneeling down, trying to get a better look at his face. Which wasn’t burning. He wasn’t burning anywhere anymore.

“Fuck you.”

“What.”

Shit, he couldn’t stop shaking, and neither could he stop the tears forming in his eyes. At least the fire was gone now. He wasn’t- wasn’t dying.

Well, this was certainly new. He’d been burned countless times before, many leaving worse injuries than this would, but he’d never reacted like this. Yet another thing that was just fucking broken about him.

Was it- was it because of what happened at Sekoto Peak? That would be just his luck.

“Don’t fucking do that again.”

Azula raised her hands in mocking defense.

“I certainly wouldn’t have done that if I knew you’d be such a little baby.”

He didn’t trust his shaking body to get up without embarrassing him further, so Touya stayed on the ground and glowered up at her.

“I almost burned to death and you just attacked me when I thought I was safe.”

Stunned, Azula didn’t reply for an increasingly awkward amount of time. Touya took the chance to glance at his injuries.

Now that's a surprise. He'd expected to see burns all over himself, but the biggest change he noticed was that his skin was now red in some places.

“Why would you feel safe around me?”

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe because I thought I could trust you?”

The biggest mistake he’d made recently. Wait, no, that was definitely the whole Sekoto Peak thing, so this was only the second biggest mistake.

“Now you’re whining about that, but you were fine with me attacking you earlier?”

“Because I could easily dodge a small blast while I was standing! But now you didn’t even give me a chance, you burned me on purpose.”

Azula furrowed her brow.

“Enemies aren’t going to give you a warning before attacking you.”

“I didn’t know you were my enemy.”

His body still felt like shit, but at least the shaking had mostly stopped, so Touya pushed himself up.

“I’m going showering, have fun training on your own.” You bitch.

With that, he walked (still unsteady, but fuck it, he pushed through worse before) below deck again, not waiting to see if she was going to respond.

Zuko needed to do something. Shouto was obviously hurting, but it seemed like Fuyumi and Natsuo (and Toyua?) were unable to do anything about it. He needed to find someone he could ask for help, but who?

Their mom.

Natsuo had said she’d been taken away from them, so they probably haven’t seen her in a while. If he found her and told her what was happening to Shouto, maybe she’d know what to do.

She was being kept in a hospital, right? All he had to do was find out which hospital and then he could sneak in and find her. Their father had been the one to put her there, so if he’d learned anything from being the Prince of his Nation, it meant that there was paperwork and documentation for everything, he just needed to find it.

And seeing as the spirits and him were the only ones home, this was the perfect time to do it.

It took him a few hours, but eventually his search had led him to a room with a big desk and walls covered in shelves. This definitely looked like their father's workplace. And sure enough, there was a folder with 'important' written across the spine, containing all kinds of documents, among other things an admission to Fujiya Hospital in wherever Tokyo was for a certain Todoroki Rei.

That has to be their mom, right? And even if she wasn't, talking to her might still be useful.

He put everything back just like he'd found it and hoped nobody would discover that he'd been snooping around.

Then he realized he should probably change into some clothes that covered his arms, so he wouldn't have to explain how he got injured to their father.

Chapter Text

Touya stayed in the shower for as long as it took to cool down and turn his anger into boredom. His hands were wrinkled, the whole room was uncomfortably warm and little droplets were collecting on the walls. All of that left him exhausted.

Truth be told, the thing that left him exhausted was probably whatever the fuck had happened to him on deck and not showering for an hour and a half.

When he opened the door, Azula was loitering around in the hallway and he almost closed it again. He did not want to deal with her.

"I made you tea. I still don't see why you like that stuff."

She could go and drown herself in her stupid tea for all he cared.

"I don't need your charity, princess."

Azula made it a point to look at him and then roll her eyes.

"If I'd known you'd react like a little baby, I wouldn't have tried to teach you."

Oh, like this was his fault.

"Fire is dangerous. You don't just throw it at someone! Do you even know how fucking easy it is to kill with it?"

"Well, you would've been fine." Now she sounded sullen.

"Like hell."

"You're a fire bender, you weren't actually going to die."

The only reason he wasn't a lump of charred whatever was because she extinguished the fire she'd started.

"Just because I can bend fire doesn't mean I'm able to use an ability I've only had for a few days while I'm being burned alive."

She sighed, exasperated.

"Agni, you're a fire bender, do you know how hard it is to even injure us with fire? There's no way that little blast could've damaged, let alone killed you."

What?

"Look, do you have any injuries?"

She took his stunned silence as an answer.

"See? You would've been fine."

As much as he hated to admit it, she might have a point there.

"Don't ever do that again, even if I'd be fine."

"Alright, Agni, I got it. Calm down."

Zuko quickly discovered how much he hated family dinners and, as promised to Fuyumi, he kept as quiet as he could whenever their father was around. But this evening, he was seething with rage.

It just wasn’t fair. Shouto was locked up in his room while their father sat with them at a table and pretended like nothing was wrong. Like he hadn’t injured Shouto badly enough that even Zuko’s stomach twisted.

“You’re quieter today. Seems like you finally listened to me for once.”

Something inside him burst.

“You’re despicable!”

And then he was standing, fists covered in flames raised, even though he hadn’t called on his bending yet.

“No matter how badly Shouto failed, you have no right to hurt him like that!”

Fuyumi, completely ignoring the fire around him, grabbed his arms and tried to hold him back, even though that would mean she’d get burned. But he didn’t know how to make it stop, the fire wouldn’t listen to him.

“That’s enough! To your room.”

Even though he wanted to - needed to - make sure Fuyumi wasn’t injured too badly because of him, that was a tone that didn’t allow any room for arguments. If he stayed, he’d only make everything worse for the spirits.

He turned around and left, fire still clinging to him.

Azula had fallen asleep basically as soon as the sun had set, but Touya had no such luck. No, instead he was lying in bed, freezing his butt off. Seriously, why was he so cold all of a sudden?

When he calmed down a bit, the flames thankfully vanished again, but not without leaving their marks.

Zuko stared at the wounds in strange fascination. He was a firebender, there was no way such a small amount of fire could hurt him. Well, at least it wouldn’t have hurt him had he been in his body. But for all intents and purposes, he was Touya, not Zuko and although Touya could apparently control fire he hadn’t been granted the protection firebenders usually had.

A quiet knock on his door pulled him out of his thoughts. He opened it, but whoever it was had already left again, leaving some first aid supplies at his doorstep.

He collected them and then got started on treating his injuries for the second time that day.

At least it gave him something to do while sorting his thoughts. He always did manage to organize those best if he could busy his hands with something else.

So, Rei. He needed to talk to her as soon as possible.

Huh, he could just go right now. Or, well, as soon as his injuries were bandaged. Who was there to stop him? After getting caught by the guards once when he snuck out of the Palace to buy his favorite fire flakes, he’d been so scared of angering father again that he only ever left with permission. But now there were no guards to catch him. And their father had to sleep too at some point.

There was nothing stopping him.

Touya found a whole stash of blankets hidden inside some drawer and decided that fuck it, he was cold and all of them were coming back to bed with him. Covered from head to toe in multiple layers of blankets, Touya finally felt warm again.

The internet told him that the address wasn’t all that far away and that he could also take a ‘train’ there. He then asked it what a train was and discovered what exactly it was. That only left him wondering why anyone would still use a car if trains existed. They were better in every way, shape and form.

He decided to change out of his current clothes and put on fresh ones. It had felt weird to put his clothes into Fuyumi’s closet, so he simply put them in front of it. From those piles, he grabbed [a really funny outfit] and quickly changed.

There, that was much better.

Sneaking out of the house really wasn’t all that hard, he could just climb out of the window and was basically already gone.

It seemed like luck was on his side for once in his life because he just so managed to get into the train leaving for the city he needed to be in.

Great, now Touya was sweating.

Tokyo was so unlike anything Zuko had ever seen before. Everything was glowing, even though Agni had long since set. Noises were coming from all around him, drowning out his own breathing and heartbeat until all he could hear were the people around him. Of which there were a lot.

A really big lot.

He wasn’t unused to crowds, but back in the Fire Nation, he had always been standing or sitting in the areas reserved for royalty, not mingling with the general population. Here, people passed him by every other second, indifferent to the fact that it was night and all the reasonable people should be asleep at this point.

At least having people around was less scary than being all alone in this place.

After taking a few more moments to get his bearings back, Zuko told his phone to guide him to the hospital.

The walk there was both longer and shorter than Zuko would’ve liked. It had certainly been long enough that he could start to realize just what exactly he was doing, but it had been too short for him to talk himself out of this again.

He was just about to push the door at the entrance open when he realized that it was super late at night. There was no way that hospital would still be operating at this point in time.

But now he was already here and he wasn’t going to run back home empty handed.

So, he took a purposefully slow stroll around the building, trying to find a good place to enter it.

And sure enough, someone left a window at the back of it wide open, as if it was just waiting for someone to climb through. He did just that after making sure that the person in the room really was asleep.

As soon as he set his first foot down in the room, they shifted and Zuko was about to bolt outside again and run for his dear life, when he realized that nothing else was going to happen. They’d just turned around or something.

With a quietness that had taken years to perfect, he made his way over to the door and cracked it open a little bit.

The hallway looked clean as well, so he darted outside.

Now all he had to do was find Rei’s room without being discovered.

Which might actually be easier than expected. He had walked into a random direction as soon as he left that room, not wanting to remain in one place for too long. And now he was standing in an even bigger hallway, which also included arrows labeled with all kinds of things pointing everywhere.

Oh, that made things so much easier.

At least until Zuko realized there were about a billion different floors where patients were being kept. Great, looks like he’d have to brute force his way through this after all and just hope he found Rei’s room before the guards found him.

Why did Touya have to suffer like this? If he removed a blanket it was too cold, but if he added it again it was too hot. How was he supposed to live laugh love in these conditions?

Chapter Text

After what felt like hours, Zuko finally, finally found a room with a piece of paper stuck to the door telling him Todoroki Rei really was inside. Zuko could really count himself lucky that while she hadn’t been on the ground floor, she was on the first floor and he didn’t have to waste the rest of the night looking for her.

He carefully pushed the door open ever so slightly, glancing into the room to make sure there weren’t any unpleasant surprises waiting for him. But all he could see was a bed with a person on it. It was too dark to make out anything else, so Zuko quietly slipped inside. At least here he wouldn’t have to worry about guards discovering him.

The woman hadn’t noticed him yet and kept sleeping. Zuko took that chance to sneak up right to her bed and tried to get a better look at her. Sure enough, she had the same white hair that made him call the spirits that and her face looked similar enough to Fuyumi’s that he was reasonably sure they were related. At least from what he could make out in the darkness.

Zuko cleared his throat, and when that didn’t wake her gently tapped her shoulder. She stirred, rolled over and raised her head after a few seconds.

“Huh?” Her voice was still thick with confusion and sleep.

“Uh, hi there.”

That startled her into scrambling backwards in bed.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

She reached for something. A moment later, a small light turned on next to her bed and Zuko used its glow to confirm that yes, this woman was probably the Rei he was looking for.

“...Touya?”

“Uh.”

Right, she didn’t know he’d actually swapped places (he hoped they’d swapped at least and that his body wasn’t lying around for evil spirits to possess) with her son.

“You’re not- who are you?”

Oh, well that made things easier.

“I’m-”

And then he was pinned to the ground again, icicle pressed to his throat.

What was it with Todoroki women attacking him with ice?

“Why are you impersonating my son?”

“I don’t know.”

Rei blinked at him.

“What?”

“I was just there suddenly and so were the s- your children and then I was their brother and I learned what a phone is and then they took me home and built a blanket fort and now Shouto was hurt and you were the only person I could think of to ask for help.”

She kept staring at him. The prick of the ice against his throat was starting to hurt.

“I’m sorry for bothering you, I can just leave!”

That was a good idea. He should just go. He shouldn’t have come here in the first place. What was he thinking, anyways? The only person who would ever help him was his mom, but she was long gone and he was on his own.

“How old are you?”

What did that have to do with anything?

“I’m thirteen.”

Magically, he said the right thing for once because the icicle was removed as suddenly as it had appeared.

“You’re jus- I’m sorry for attacking you. That must’ve been rather scary, wasn’t it?”

She offered him her hand and, after hesitating for a moment, Zuko took it and was pulled up into a sitting position by her. And then she slowly put her arms around him and Zuko was being hugged again. Even though he wouldn’t admit it out loud, Zuko had certainly missed this, so he leaned into the touch just a bit more.

“So you were suddenly just in Touya’s body, is that right?”

Zuko nodded.

“Yes. There was a lot of fire and then I noticed I wasn’t myself anymore.”

“Fire? Is everyone alright?”

Oh, she hadn’t known about that.

“Shouto is hurt, but that’s from something else. I was the only one in the hospital and they let me go after healing me with magic.”

Rei got up from her kneeling position, taking Zuko with her until he was standing. She moved them towards the bed and sat down on it, Zuko falling into place on her side.

“You said that before. Shouto is hurt. What happened to my baby?”

“Your husband - is he your husband? He’s a firebe- he has a fire quirk and beard made of flames.”

“Yes, that’s him.” She didn’t sound happy about it.

“He hurt him. I don’t think that’s the first time it happened, either. Shouto was covered in burns, but he was too calm about it.”

Just then, Rei glanced down at his arms.

“You mean like the burns you have?”

“No, those were my own fault. And it’s not all burns.”

Because Zuko was staring straight ahead, he missed Rei’s vivid expressions as he talked.

“I need to help him. And at first I thought about asking Natsuo and Fuyumi, but if they knew a way to stop him, they would’ve done so already, but then I remembered that you’re away from them so I thought maybe you know something they don’t?”

Rei ran a hand up and down his shoulder and arm, pulling him even closer.

“I’m so sorry. I’ve tried, believe me, I’ve tried. But my family never understood how bad it was and the police didn’t believe me, no matter what I said.”

“Oh.”

Well, now Zuko felt bad for talking to her about that.

“Have you tried it with murder?”

Rei’s movements stilled.

“What?”

“I’m pretty sure my father had my grandfather murdered.”

“Oh. That’s- are you okay?”

Was he okay?

“No, not really.”

She sighed, then hugged him closer. Zuko still wasn’t sure what he’d done to deserve this closeness, but he wasn’t going to complain.

“Please don’t try to murder him, okay? It really wouldn’t end well.”

“But not doing anything isn’t going to end well either!”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

She’d said she tried talking to her family and to the police, right? Maybe Zuko got an idea.

“Have you-”

Rei put a finger over his mouth and Zuko shut up.

A moment later, there was a knock at the door and Rei grabbed his shoulders, making him turn to her.

“You need to hide, okay? You’d get into big trouble if anyone found you here.” Her voice was quiet enough that Zuko wasn’t even sure he’d heard her.

He made his way over to the window.

“Miss Todoroki, may I come in?”

“What are you doing? We’re too high up.” Even this quiet, Zuko could still hear the panic in her voice.

“Don’t worry, my sister pushed me off of higher ledges and I’ve survived. It was nice talking to you.” He decided to match her volume, not wanting her to get in trouble for having him in her room.

He pushed the window open and grabbed the windowsill, holding onto it until his legs were dangling in the air. Then he let go, even as Rei gasped.

As soon as he felt the impact on his feet, Zuko folded onto his side. Oh, great, he was going to have grass stains all over his new clothes now.

When he looked up, Rei was staring out the window, obviously worried, so he gave her a thumbs-up. She shook her head, but closed the window and left to deal with whoever was at her door after a moment.

Zuko groaned.

Touya moved the outer blanket so it was only covering his legs and then he was hit with a sudden wave of nausea and was suddenly seeing mom again. He reached out, desperately wanting to-

Gasping, he bolted upright, blankets falling off of him.

He took a moment to take in his surroundings, then fell back down with an exhausted sigh.

Dreams about mom were always weird.

When Zuko finally got back, Agni was already making his way past the horizon. He made his way around the house and slipped back into his room through the still open window, only to come face to face with a furious Fuyumi.

“Where have you been?”

She crossed her arms, glowering at him. Her eyes were accompanied by dark circles and were still red, as if she’d cried.

Confronted with her like this, he realized he probably should’ve asked if she would’ve liked to go and see her mom as well.

“I, uh. I was just out for a walk. To clear my head.”

“Well, don’t do that again! At least not without telling me. I thought- I thought-” she inhaled, “I was worried, okay?”

Oh.

Now he felt even worse for leaving without telling her anything.

Zuko sighed, then crossed the distance between them. Hugging people was still awkward for him, but Fuyumi didn’t seem to mind and clung to him as he ran a soothing hand through her hair.

“Go to sleep, Fuyumi. You’re tired.”

Just then, she yawned.

“Fine. But only if you promise to never disappear like that again.”

“I promise.”

Next to Touya, Azula woke up. She stretched her arms above her head, letting out a yawn. That’s when she noticed Touya wasn’t asleep.

“Oh, you’re already awake for once?”

He sighed.

“I haven’t slept yet.”

Azula, who was standing now and generally didn’t seem to have any problem getting out of bed early as fuck every single day, glared down at him.

“Well, what are you waiting for?”

“For the sweet release of sleep to draw me back into unconsciousness.”

She rolled her eyes.

“Get up. We’re doing more firebending.”

Wait, seriously? She couldn’t believe he still wanted to do that with her, right?”

“Ugh, seriously? Are you still hung up on yesterday?”

“Yes.”

Azula threw her hands up in mock defeat.

“Fine. I’m not going to attack you, okay? I’ll just show you some boring katas.”

Well, if she broke her word, he could just toss her off the ship after he calmed down again. Touya sighed and got up, leaving his comfortable nest of blankets behind.

Chapter Text

Zuko had research to do. If appealing to the police (as if Zuko knew what that was) wouldn’t work, he could still try to contact a Hero directly.

So, he looked up ‘Hero’ on the laptop. It didn’t take long for him to find a site showing last year’s Hero Rankings. Their father - Endeavor, he was apparently called - was on the second spot. All Might, the number one, was grinning in his photograph, but he was also huge and had to have a lot of power and influence and Zuko could feel his stomach twist if he just thought about asking him for help.

Sure, his father had never smiled like that, but it could still just be a facade. Like how Azula pretended to be nice in front of mom, but always found new ways to hurt him as soon as she hadn’t been looking.

He kept scrolling, marveling at how different all these Heroes looked. Some looked mostly human, but were wearing outfits even the performers on Ember Island would be jealous of, while others didn’t even look human at first glance. Eventually, a familiar sight caught his eyes.

It was the armor guy. Or at least someone who looked a lot like him. And now he finally had a name for his face - helmet, whatever.

Maybe he could ask him for help? He had shown he was willing to assist him once already, after all. That would be better than trusting someone he’d never even met before.

With the magic of the internet, it didn’t take Zuko long to figure out where he was working. And that the person he’d seen on the ranking likely wasn’t the one who had saved him. His family was running an agency together and he was just one of four people with almost identical armor.

He’d just have to pay them a visit and make sure to find the right person.

Practicing firebending alongside Azula was weird.

Sure, she was showing him only the beginner stuff, but his body didn’t have any trouble repeating everything, as if it had committed every small movement to muscle memory ages ago. Which it probably did. Most of the time he didn’t really notice he was in a completely different body, but now it was glaringly obvious.

And then there was Azula.

When he used to be trained by Endeavor he was ruthless and Touya knew, deep down, that no matter what he did, his father would still be disappointed in him. Now, Azula wasn’t all that kind about this either, but she didn’t try attacking him again and mostly left him to repeat the kata on his own.

Still, Touya wasn’t going to complain.

After telling Fuyumi that he would go outside for a bit, Zuko left and watched the agency. At first, he considered just standing around next to it or walking up and down on the street, but that would make him rather easy to spot and he wanted to do this on his terms and not theirs, so that was out of the question.

Luckily, the agency was surrounded by plenty of buildings. Zuko ducked into a nearby alley and scaled one, out of the direct view of possible onlookers. The roof was flat, the only things on it were some chunks of metal, a rusty door and a wall surrounding everything that roughly reached up to his hip. In other words, it was the perfect surveillance spot. The likelihood of anyone but him coming up here was very slim and if he saw somebody had noticed him, he could just duck and disappear from their view.

Sure, maybe he could also just go inside and ask, but he wanted to talk to the armor guy directly and not just some of his employees, or another member of his family. And Zuko especially didn’t want to be shooed away like Rei was.

It took a few hours, but eventually Ingenium - at least he was reasonably sure this was him and that he was the person who saved him - appeared. He entered the building.

Not long after, another armored person appeared and suddenly Zuko wasn’t all that sure if he hadn’t been the one to save him. Then, a third armored person came into view, but at least this time he was fairly sure that wasn’t the one he was looking for because this person had long, flowing hair poking out from under the helmet, while his savior hadn’t. And then came a fourth person who looked identical to the first two and Zuko was seriously considering throwing this whole plan away.

The lights in the building went out and only then did he realize it was getting kind of dark outside. He wanted to stay and watch, but he also wanted to go home so Fuyumi wouldn’t worry about him. Just then, four people left the building, with one of them doing something with the doors, presumably locking them. Only one of them had long hair, so Zuko ruled them out. That left a guy with gray hair, a guy roughly his father’s age and lastly another guy about the age Lu Ten was when he died.

Zuko would bet a hundred gold pieces that the last one was the person who’d saved him. Since he’d been worried about how his father would react, it couldn’t be the oldest. And someone as old as the middle-aged guy probably didn’t need to worry about his father anymore either. So, it had to be the youngest.

The group made their way to one of the cars on the side of the road and entered it. Just thinking about that made Zuko feel nauseous all over again.

After a few moments, the car moved onto the road and drove away. Zuko tried to memorize the way it was going until it took a turn and he could no longer see it.

Oh. This was going to be more complicated than he thought.

If these people had been in the Fire Nation, he could just remember their cart and cling to the bottom of it the next day, but with how fast cars were moving that was much too risky, even for him.

Instead, he mentally noted which building was at the corner where they’d turned as well as what their car looked like. Tomorrow, he would have to climb onto that building and wait for them to pass by and then repeat the whole process until he knew where they lived.

Hey, at least he wouldn’t get bored.

Touya was exhausted from training his sick dance moves - he meant kata - day in and day out, so today he decided to really take stock of what exactly was on their ship.

It was all fun and games until he stumbled across some documents hidden away in a drawer.

“Azula? You should see this!”

A few moments later she came stomping down the stairs.

“What. I’m trying to practice creating lightning. You know, not all of us are as lazy as you are.”

He waved her off. “Yeah, yeah, you’re superior to everyone, I know, I know. Here.”

With that, he shoved one of the scrolls into her face.

Grudgingly, she took it from him and started reading, eyes growing wide with surprise after a few seconds.

“That letter is addressed to Zhao.”

Touya nodded. “All of those are his. I think we stole his ship.”

“Give me the rest of them. I’m going to burn them all.”

Azula lit a fire in the hand that wasn’t holding the scroll and moved it right below the paper, but Touya grabbed it before it could catch fire.

“Give that back.”

“Wait, I promise I have a good plan.”

She crossed her arms, obviously not believing him, but at least she didn’t try to set his precious hostage on fire again.

“We keep all of them in excellent condition and if you ever see Zhao again, you take them and burn them right in front of him.”

A sadistic grin spread across her face.

Chapter Text

Fuyumi was sitting at her desk (she kept insisting it was now their desk, but this was her room, even if Zuko was staying in it and he wasn’t going to demand even more), working on something that might be homework or might be modern art. He wasn’t sure yet.

With an exhausted sigh, she leaned back into her chair further and further, until it was balancing on two of its rolls.

“Why are you always going out so late?”

Zuko tried his best to get his face back to a neutral expression.

“I just, uh, like the cars. Watching them, I mean. When their lights are on. I don’t have those in my world.”

“You don’t have cars or you don’t have lights?”

This was good. She believed him.

“We have carts that are kinda like cars, but with animals. And we also have lights, but they’re made of fire and not, uh, magic quirks?”

The chair fell back into a position where all five of its rolls were firmly placed on the ground.

“They’re actually not made by quirks! Lights are made of heat.”

What?

“But you can’t see heat.”

“Yes, you can! If you make some metals very warm they start glowing with heat.”

That only made Zuko’s head fill with even more questions.

The first time Touya came onto the deck wearing two of his robe-shirt-things, Azula laughed at him. With her sleeves rolled up. He could feel the frostbite forming at his fingers just looking at her.

So far, Zuko knew where the long-haired person lived, or at least where they left the car. He now also knew a roof where all the cats in the city were meeting up.

By the time Touya saw the first chunk of ice floating next to their ship, he was wearing three layers and a blanket.

His original body was always running hot, even in the depths of winter, so he never had to wear more than a shirt. But now? He wanted to do nothing more than curl up inside the engine. Sure, he might burn to death, but at least he wouldn’t be fucking freezing anymore.

And now Zuko knew where the old guy lived, but still nothing about the person he was actually after.

Ugh.

Ice was everywhere now and Touya was very glad their little ship hadn’t gotten stuck yet. He was bundled up behind the cockpit - or driver’s seat, or whatever that little shack with the steering wheel was called - and watching Azula perform a complicated set of kata for the billionth time.

Then, as if he’d jinxed it, the ship shuddered and came to a stop.

Azula stopped what she was doing and rushed forward, only to freeze as she was next to Touya.

Huh.

Curious, he got up and turned around.

Yeah, that’s something that would’ve stopped him dead in his tracks as well.

As he’d expected, they hit an iceberg. But it was eerily round. He turned to Azula.

“Is that normal?”

“No,” even as she said it, her brows furrowed, “there had to be bending involved.”

Just then, the fucking ice sphere started glowing.

Within a second, Azula was suddenly holding daggers made out of fire, which were about the coolest thing ever. She definitely needed to teach him how to do that. Then Touya realized he should get ready as well and covered his fists in flames, which was objectively worse than fire-daggers.

A strong gust of wind suddenly picked up and Touya felt the blanket draped across his shoulders flatter away. He turned around to grab it, but it was already too far away.

Oh, whatever had caused that was going to pay.

As soon as that wind stopped, at least.

There was more weird glowing going on and then the wind actually stopped. Just after he thought about it.

Holy shit, could he control what happened at the South Pole with his mind?

…Probably not. The ice would’ve long since melted if that was the case.

“I’m going to see what the hell that thing is.”

Azula nodded and then Touya was running forward, heading right for whatever was wrong with that iceberg like he was born to make self-destructive decisions. The ship was still stuck in it, so he had no problem reaching for the ice. What posed a problem was its sheer height. At least until Touya remembered ice melted really easily. He burned a path through it, only to stop moments later because the damned thing was hollow.

Correction, it was hollow, contained a body and some weird animal.

After testing if the ice held him (it did), Touya approached. The person was still a child, he couldn’t be older than Fuyumi. And, much more importantly, he was utterly unresponsive. Touya gently kicked his leg.

Nothing happened.

Well, what else had he expected? To not stumble across a corpse? That had been trapped in ice for who knows how long, but still looked as alive as Azula?

Touya backed away, slowly. Whatever was going on, he wanted to be no part of it whatsoever.

Just then, the corpse sat up, staring straight at him.

He screamed.

The fucking corpse screamed back.

Even if his scream might not have alarmed Azula, hearing a second voice certainly did and she was on his side within the blink of an eye and Touya very quickly shut up.

Seeing the corpse, Azula froze.

Now it - he? - stopped screaming too.

“Oh, are we done screaming now?”

Well, he certainly didn’t sound like Touya imagined zombies would sound. He was so weirdly cheerful.

Azula wasn’t swayed by the childlike innocence in his voice.

“Who are you?”

The boy grinned at her, then jumped up in a move that, frankly, shouldn’t be physically possible.

“I’m Aang, pleased to meet you! And you’re…?”

And because Azula never missed a chance to talk about herself, she replied.

“I’m Azula, daughter of Firelord Ozai and beloved princess of the Fire Nation. Oh, and that’s Touya, my brother.”

Wait, could she repeat that? This kid obviously didn’t know who they were, so she could’ve simply introduced him by his name, without saying they’re related. But she still did.

…Was she actually seeing him as a brother?

“Ohh, royalty! It is an honor to meet you, esteemed princess and prince.”

Aang bowed to them. He honestly bowed to them. At least that gave Touya free view of his bald head, with a tattoo on it. Why did a child like him have a tattoo? And, much more importantly, who was willing to tattoo a child and could Touya get their number, please?

“It’s just princess. The part of him that’s the prince currently isn’t with us.”

“What?”

Yeah, what. If he looked like a prince and was physically related to the royal family, then he was a prince and he would be called such!

Except there were much more important matters at hand.

“I’m not from this world. My consciousness just swapped with that of Zuko. He’s the one this body actually belongs to.”

“Oh.”

Oh indeed.

“We’re currently looking for the Avatar, do you know where to find them?”

Sure Azula, let’s go and ask the undead iceberg boy for directions.

The undead iceberg boy deflated like a popped balloon.

“I, uh, I might know a thing or two.”

“Tell us.”

He only shrunk further under the demanding tone of Azula. Touya glared at her. That was no way to pry information from a child. You had to be nice and gentle and then you could get Natsuo to admit he’d seen Fuyumi eat his pudding and go hunt her for sport.

“You don’t want me to stay trapped in someone else’s body forever, do you? The faster we can find the Avatar, the faster he can help us.”

Aang gasped.

“Of course I don’t! It’s just-”

He sat down again, arms wrapping around his legs.

“I don’t know how to help anyone. I don’t even know where I should start."

Wait…

“You’re the Avatar?”

The look Azula was giving Aang wasn’t exactly predatory, but Touya still wouldn’t want her to look at him like that.

“Yeah.”

“Well, then off you go.” Azula made her favorite shooing motion again. “Find the spirit who did that and make them undo it.”

“Wow, glad to know you’re that eager to get rid of me.”

“I just told you, I don’t know how!”

Great, now Touya was feeling sorry for the undead iceberg boy.

“There has to be some place where you can learn how to be an Avatar, right?”

Aang shook his head too fast for it to be convincing, but at least right now Touya wasn’t going to push the issue.

“The m- I need to master all four elements before I’m a fully realized Avatar. And only then I can act as a real bridge between the spirit world and this realm.”

Fantastic.

“Well, how many elements have you mastered yet?”

Aang rubbed the back of his head.

“Uh, one?”

Yeah, Touya was going to revisit that ‘sitting inside the engine’ plan.

Chapter Text

Zuko couldn't remember when he'd fallen asleep on top of whatever building he was on, but he did. He had to. Because suddenly his head was filled with weird dream snippets of ice and a yellow child and screaming.

That was weird.

He rubbed his eyes, trying to recall more of the dream, but his mind came up empty.

“Let’s put a pin in that for a moment. What is that thing behind you?”

Azula gestured at the (probably not actually dead) animal behind Aang.

“His name is Appa and he’s my best friend!” He turned around to Appa, comping his hands through his fur. “Isn’t that right, buddy?”

Did Appa have six legs? Touya hadn’t looked at him all that closely at first, but now that he did he found out just how weird he looked.

The only reply Appa gave was a low groan that reverberated through Touya’s soul. That’s exactly how he felt whenever someone was trying to make him get up.

“Oh, he’s probably still tired from flying so much.”

And then Aang did a backflip through the air and landed on Appa’s head, as if that was an entirely normal thing to be capable of.

“Wait. Flying? How?”

Appa certainly didn’t look like a bird. Or a plane. Or a guy with a levitation Quirk.

“He’s a flying bison,” Aang said, like that explained literally anything.

Next to him, Azula was doing something complicated with her face, but as she wasn’t yelling at him or telling him how much better she was, Touya decided it couldn’t be that serious.

“In that case, he can just fly you over to the next waterbender in town, right? Problem solved.”

“I just said he’s still tired. Poor boy probably won’t be able to fly for a few days.”

Ugh, seriously?

“But you could take me with you on your boat! Then we can make our way to the Water Tribes here.”

“You’re willing to abandon him just for that?”

Sure, Touya wanted to go back to his siblings, but even to him leaving Appa behind like that seemed kind of cruel.

“I’d never abandon him! Appa is my best friend!” Aang petted Appa slightly above his nose, to which he let out a sound that sounded oddly pleased. “He always knows where I am, as soon as he gets enough energy back, he’ll find us and join us in the villages.”

That kid sure had a lot of trust in his bison buddy.

“Sounds like a plan. Get on.”

Even when agreeing with him, Azula made it sound like somehow Aang was in the wrong.

“Thanks!” Meanwhile Aang was completely oblivious to it.

He jumped off of Appa and made his way onto their ship, scurrying around like some animal high on sugar.

“I’ve never been on a ship before! This is so cool!”

Oh shit.

That was the exact tone of voice his siblings always used before they went and accidentally caused trouble, so Touya ran after him.

After way too many evenings spent squatting on top of random buildings, Zuko finally saw the car stop for the last time. Both the middle-aged and youngest guy exited and made their way over to the same house.

It was nice, but so much smaller than the Palace Zuko had been used to, or even just the house of the spirit children.

But that didn’t matter. All that mattered was the fact that he’d finally found where his armor guy lived.

Now all he had to do was break in.

Well, Zuko would have to break in soon, at least. But not today.

He’d just found the house, but that didn’t mean he knew anything about their security. And he also wasn’t wearing appropriate clothing. If he did this, he’d have to do it in the middle of the night, wearing clothes that didn’t rustle.

Still, it wouldn’t hurt to take a closer look.

Azula had taken it upon herself to navigate the ship through the ice, while it was up to Touya to make sure Aang didn’t accidentally injure himself and/or destroy something.

Luckily, he’d discovered he could climb the mast and decided to busy himself with that. At first, Touya felt his heart skip a beat every time Aang got a little too close to falling for his taste, but after the time he did fall and simply manipulated the air around him so he would land safely, Touya stopped worrying.

The kid would be fine.

Probably.

But obviously, because the universe (universes? Didn’t his very existence here prove there had to be multiple universes? Fuyumi would be ecstatic) clearly hated him, he got something new to worry about not long after.

More children.

At least he hoped those high-pitched voices belonged to children.

Except they were surrounded by nothing but annoying ice, so maybe he’d actually prefer if there weren’t more random children around here.

But nobody ever cared about what he preferred before, so obviously he spotted two kids (adults? It was hard to tell from this distance) on the ice.

Great.

It looked like they had some big, ugly object with them. Was that a boat? If it was, Touya really hoped they wouldn’t try to use it again because it looked broken as hell.

“Azula?”

She hadn’t heard him. Or was ignoring him. (Probably the latter.)

With one last glance thrown Aang’s way, Touya quickly made his way over to her.

“Azula?”

“I heard you just fine the first time.”

“Then why didn’t you reply?”

She rolled her eyes.

“I was waiting for you to keep talking, obviously.”

Uh-huh.

“I think some kids are stranded a few ice floes over.”

“And what do you want me to do about that?”

He sighed. She had no right acting like he was the one being complicated, if she was like that.

“To steer us that way so we can help them.”

She had no right to sigh like that!

“Fine. Let’s just turn this whole ship into a charity station for annoying little brats.”

“I mean, you’re already on it, so…”

That earned him a ball of fire sailing towards his head. He battered it away with his hand, redirecting it to somewhere on the ground. And while he would absolutely pretend otherwise, he could still tell by the size (or lack thereof) of it that this attack wasn’t really intended to harm him.

“I really should’ve left you in your room back in the Palace.”

“But you didn’t. So now I have to put up with you.”

“Agni, just be quiet already!”

Touya did what every good sibling in this situation would’ve done and stuck his tongue out. Azula resolutely ignored him.

“Which way were those brats again?”

“Mostly in front of us, but a bit more to the left.”

“It’s called portside, you clown.”

“It’s called portside, you clown. Nobody likes smartasses, you know that, right?”

Oh, now that was a glare that could and would kill. Luckily, Touya had been steadily building up an immunity by getting into fights with Endeavor and, more recently, by annoying Azula as much as he possibly could.

Zuko couldn’t see any guards, or really any other way that house was protected. He could just walk in and talk to Armor Guy.

Except that seemed way too easy and nothing in his life had ever been this simple.

Hmm, maybe he could look at Touya’s phone and see if it knew ways people in this world protected their homes from intruders.

Chapter Text

“I told you we should’ve taken the other way!”

The first child (designated Child One) stomped her foot, which really wasn’t a good idea if the only thing separating you from living and dying a horribly cold and wet death was a thin sheet of ice.

“I was trying! But the current was way too strong! You could’ve used that waterbending of yours to stop our ship from breaking into pieces!”

Child Two gestured around with what appeared to be a very sharp boomerang. Touya suppressed to urge to smack it out of his hand because he could already see one of them losing an eye to his gestures.

“Oh, so now it’s my fault our boat imploded?”

Oh, she sounded pissed.

“It didn’t implode, that’s something completely different.”

“That’s not the point!”

Above all, Touya was surprised how enthralled they both were in whatever argument they had going on that neither of them noticed the very big ship (okay, it was pretty small, but compared to the remains of their boat it was huge) approaching.

“Do you think I didn’t want to- Ashes and fire, that’s the Fire Nation! Get behind me!”

Child Two stepped in front of Child One, who stayed where she was, frozen. (There was an ice pun somewhere hidden in there.)

“Don’t come any closer, or I’ll beat you all up!”

Touya couldn’t help the huffed laugh that escaped him. This scrawny ten-year-old was threatening him with a boomerang. Even Natsuo could look scarier than that and he was the least scary thing Touya had ever seen.

“Relax, we just want to pick you up.”

That had the opposite of the intended effect.

“You’ll never take us alive!”

At least this kid had guts, Touya had to give him that.

“Why are you so hellbent on the idea that I’m going to fight you?”

Child Two stared at him with the exact same look of disbelief Azula liked to inflict upon him.

“Because you’re Fire Nation! And you’re all bad and evil and now dad- Ouch!”

The other child had kicked his leg and he shut up. Touya got the strong impression those two were siblings.

That didn’t mean that whole thing didn’t leave him with even more questions than he usually had.

“Why should the Fire Nation be evil?”

“Yeah!” Oh holy fuck, Aang was good at sneaking up on him. “The people there are really nice, like my friend Kuzon who-”

“Oh, both of you can’t be serious.”

At least Azula had the decency to make her footsteps echo wherever she went. If only to show everyone that she was the most important person in the whole world and desperately needed attention.

“It’s because of the War.”

Aang turned to her, confusion written all of his face.

“What War?”

When Touya looked at her, his face was filled with indignation and maybe also a little bit of confusion.

“Yeah, Azula, what War?”

Child One snapped her head around to look at each of them with a speed that had Touya worried for her poor neck.

“What’s your problem?! Your Nation has hurt so many people and you don’t even want to acknowledge it?!”

She stomped her foot again, only that this time the water behind her raised up to her knees, then her torso, then her head and then even further beyond that.

Yeah, no. This was definitely not his problem to deal with.

“I’m going to make some tea.”

With that, he left for the kitchen. He’d been freezing his butt of for who knows how long by now, he didn’t have the fucking energy to deal with whatever was happening up there.

At least the kitchen was nice and kind and didn’t scream at him about a War he hadn’t known about that he couldn't possibly be involved in because he was from another world. But that didn’t mean his face wasn’t contorted with anger as he held the kettle above one of his hands to heat it up.

He angrily picked the two blends of tea he hated the least and angrily poured some of them into the kettle, angrily added sugar and stirred the whole concoction angrily. Then he (angrily) stayed in the kitchen for a few more minutes, hoping to avoid the fighting that was surely happening right now.

But as much as he wanted to, he couldn’t hide forever down here, not if he wanted to make sure none of them destroyed the ship while beating each other up. So, sighing (a bit less angrily), he grabbed some teacups and headed back up on the deck.

Oh.

No fighting had broken out yet. All the four children did was stare at each other.

Great, he’d have to play the role of responsible older sibling again and get them to talk about their feelings or whatever.

He held the cups by their handles, all balanced with the help of the fingers of his left hand and poured tea into all of them. And then, after realizing he needed both hands to safely hand the cups over, he put the kettle down on the ground, praying Azula or Aang weren’t going to trip over it.

Azula took the tea without any shift in her expression or stance, while Aang took it with excitement. Then he realized the ship was too high to just hand the tea over to the two on the ice.

So, Touya fiddled with the gangway thing that should let him walk out onto the ice. After it became clear that he couldn't do a whole lot with both of his hands full, Azula lowered herself to help him.

He stepped onto the ice, half expecting it to break below him. The two stranded kids took half a step back, but he only held the tea out. After a moment, they took it and Touya went back onto the deck.

Just because the ice hadn't cracked under him yet didn't mean it wasn't going to.

“How do we know you’re not trying to poison us?”

Touya shrugged. It wasn’t like they had to drink it, he just knew from experience that he couldn’t get anything without his siblings demanding he share it with them, so he got into the habit of simply giving everyone their share before they could try and steal from him.

“Believe me, Touya’s not good enough at making tea to poison anyone.”

“Hey!”

Azula really didn’t have to do him so dirty in front of all the new people.

But at least her comment got Child One to raise the cup to her lips, taking in the scent for a moment before taking a sip.

Then, her face did something funny and she started viciously spitting the tea back out.

“This is awful! He doesn't even need to poison us, this bad taste alone is enough to kill!”

“Hey!”

“That’s- I don’t care about your tea! Why is the Fire Nation here? And why do two thirds of you not know about the War you started?”

At least Child One had his priorities straight. Another plus point for him in Touya’s book.

“We came here to find the Avatar. He’s going to help us.”

Touya glared at her. That wasn’t the kind of exposition he was hoping for.

“Care to elaborate on the ‘war’ part of this whole thing?”

To his side, Aang nodded feverishly. It was great not being the only one not in the loop.

“The Fire Nation is the Nation that’s the furthest developed, so almost a hundred years ago my ancestor decided to share our fortune with the rest of the world, but some of those savages resisted change, so we have to fight them.”

He stared at her for a second.

“That’s fucked up. You do see how that’s fucked up, right?”

Aang looked even more aghast than Touya felt.

“But the Nations are supposed to live in harmony. You can’t just attack one another like that! That’s wrong. It’s going to shift the balance, it’ll disrupt the whole-” he grew oddly quiet, stopping right in the middle of his sentence.

“Did you say a hundred years ago? That’s not possible. I was in the fire Nation just a few months ago and everything was fine.”

Now Azula looked at him, too dumbfounded to speak for a second.

“Why should I be making this up? Just ask these two, they’ll confirm what I just said.”

Child One finally took a step past her brother(?), face unreadable.

“I hate to say it, but it’s true. The Earth Kingdom has been fighting for years upon years to keep those Ashmakers as far away as possible. My- our men just joined the fight as well.”

“Ashmaker? I’ll show-”

Touya smacked her head and she shut up to glare at him.

“What about the Airbenders?”

Oh fuck, Aang looked miserable. He had his arms wrapped around himself, head hanging low and Touya could swear he even saw the telltale glittering of tears at the corner of his eyes.

At his question, Child Two faltered.

Right. Just because this wasn’t his world didn’t mean none of this wasn’t real. It was just hard to wrap his head around.

Wait a fucking second.

Touya turned around to Azula.

“Did you fucking kill the Airbenders?”

She said they were all gone, hadn’t she? And now there was this war she conveniently forgot to tell him about.

“What else was Sozin supposed to do? They had an army! They would’ve obliterated us otherwise!”

“We don’t! We’re not fighters! There never was and never will be an Airbender army!”

“You’re lying. Obviously there was, why else would we have had to attack you first?”

Aang turned around and ran. He didn’t stop when he reached the end of the ship, instead he jumped up into the air and somehow turned the staff he’d been carrying into some sort of kite.

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

He wanted to run after him, but even if you ignored the fact he couldn’t run across water, Aang was much faster than he could ever hope to be on foot.

Why were things always falling apart when they seemed to be going well for once?

“I’m sorry. I- We have no intention of harming you. I just saw you stranded here and figured you might appreciate the help.”

The least he could do now was try to not fuck things up even further.

“Thanks, but we don’t need your help, Ashmaker.”

Child One glared at him, which Touya supposed was fair, if he actually were part of the Fire Nation.

“Sokka, there’s no other way home.”

He turned around to face Child Two.

“So we’ll just lead them to the village instead? Now that I’m the only one who can defend it?”

"Well, no, but even if we managed to somehow walk there, they could just follow us."

Touya sighed.

"We're not going to hurt you!"

Yeah, screaming that at them was surely going to convince them, great going, Touya.

"Why are you so desperate to help them, anyways? If they want to freeze to death here, just-"

"God, shut up!"

Azula stared at him, clearly taken aback.

"...What?"

"Just shut the fuck up! Aang's fucking gone because of you! He-"

She pushed past him, hitting his shoulder with hers, as she stomped off. A few moments later, the sounds of fire whooshing around could be heard and Touya didn't need to turn around to know she was letting her unjustified anger out by practicing her shitty bending.

Touya slammed his head against the railing.

"I'm so sorry about her. I actually thought she was a decent person until now."

Sokka glared up at him.

"As if you're any better."

God, he just wanted to go home.

"I'm not actually Fire Nation."

He snorted.

"You sure look like it."

Well, this situation couldn't get any worse anyways, so Touya might as well tell them, even if they weren't going to buy it.

"For some fucking reason my consciousness got swapped with this Zuko guy, so now I'm stuck in his body and world."

"That's not possible."

"God, I wish you were right."

Sokka tilted his head ever so slightly.

"Wait, seriously? Where are you from, then?"

He believed him?

"It's- my world is different from yours, you wouldn't know it anyways."

"You can't seriously believe him!"

As much as it pained him to admit, he was on Child Two's side here.

"Of course I don't! I just wanted to know how he'd respond."

Ah.

"Well, then how do you want me to prove it?"

Sokka opened his mouth to reply, but he couldn't come up with a sufficient answer, so he just shut it again.

"Excuse us for a moment."

Without waiting to see if he could come up with a response of his own, Child Two grabbed Sokka and dragged him away.

They began 'whispering' and Touya tried his best not to listen to it. Fuck, he couldn't even believe he'd stayed here and talked to them, he had enough problems without getting them involved.

He was just about to say fuck it and tell Azula to head after Aang, when the two walked back towards the ship. And then kept walking towards the gangway. And then towards the deck and holy shit they were joining him?

"We're coming with you."

Child Two glared at him as if he'd suddenly try to kick them from the ship now. And Sokka looked like he'd rather be anywhere else, and Touya couldn't help but sympathize.

"Okay."

"But we'll go and find Aang first."

That's exactly what Touya had wanted to suggest. Even if he managed to somehow survive being frozen in ice, they really didn't need to push their (or rather, his) luck.

"Great."