Chapter 48.5- And so the Dragons Danced

“Okay, even if…and that’s a massive fucking if— I want this, how do we get everyone to say yes? The military was only on-side because of Azula. With her gone, there’s no chance the generals don’t turn into squabbling children. They won’t bow to me. They don’t like me much just as I don’t like them much”

“They don’t need to like you. They fear you” Toji said, making me turn to him in shock.

“You didn’t know? How rich” Maki said with a laugh while Toph grumbled before digging some coins from her pocket and dropping it into my friend’s waiting palm.

“What were you betting on?”

“Toph here thought you were playing some kind of mental game with the Generals by being such an arsehole. I figured you were just being you” Maki said, still having mirth in her tone.

“We call the Generals back and you give them two choices— bend the knee or die. You do it now, and then you separate the troublesome ones so they don’t get the chance to plot with each other as we sail to the Capital. The Avatar is dead, we have an army, I say we take the capital now” Toji said, and I gave him a different look. This couldn’t be coming off the cuff. He’d clearly been thinking about this, and the questions then become for how long, and to what ends?

“Okay, Toji. Let’s go with your plan. It’s not any more likely to end up with us losing our heads as any other, and the upside is immense. But how do we tell the ships to turn around?” I asked.

“Ships? They never left. What was the point in a retreat if the Princess was going to stay here?” He asked. I facepalmed.

“And we can’t burn the bodies. We just need them to tell the right kind of story.” Toji said next.

“You want us to desecrate corpses” I said.

“Better than having to deal with the suspicion of not having any bodies at all’” Toji riposted.

“Fine. Do as you will” I said.

Taking a step back as he began to instruct Toph and Maki on what to do.

First there was Azula. Toph held the body upright with her earth while Toji took a hold of her head, holding it lightly like he was caressing her and then snapped her neck.

“They fought, and the Avatar carried her up in his tornado and she landed on the ground with a snapped neck when the tornado was finally destroyed” He instructed as he tossed her body up in the air at his full strength. It landed on the ground in an odd angle and left it there.

“Natsu, I’ll need lightning for the Avatar” He said before instructing Maki to sent a low powered blast into his back that burnt the wound shut and seared the bits of the outfit that had been stained by blood.

“I’m knackered.”

“Dig up the energy” He said in a stern tone.