Chapter 19.1- And so the Dragons Danced

XXXXXX- TWO MONTHS BEFORE THE ATTACK ON OMASHU

He resisted the urge to curse out loud as he whipped his fingers out and nothing happened. He’d been training at it for almost a month now, and even after writing multiple letters to Maki and getting her take on things, he was still yet to perform even the smallest bit of combustion bending. Maki had said it was impossible. His ancestor insisted that he’d managed it. His ancestor’s explanation was also almost entirely useless, but even knowing that it was possible should have been enough for him to manage something. Just the slightest bit of something. 

That was the only part of his training that was delayed, as the rest of it progressed at the expected speeds. His fire came to him quicker than ever, and it was hotter too. The training exercise he’d theorised was having great effects after only a month. As he always did after making fifty failed attempts to blow up a boulder with nothing but his mind, he turned to the same boulder and took a deep breath before stretching both his hands out and bathing it in flames. The goal here was to improve his endurance and firepower. The theory was the fire bending would work a little bit like a muscle, or even like a magical core. 

The more he firebended, the better he got at it. The more times he calle don his inner flame, the more readily it came to his aid and answered his desires. But even with the improvements, he was unsure it would be enough to take on the King of Omashu, the strongest earth bender of them all.

XXXXXX- SIX WEEKS BEFORE THE ATTACK ON OMASHU

“Left, Right, Left, Right” He heard Toji’s voice before he saw him. His friend had recently earned a promotion to the rank of Captain and had now taken the duty of training the recruits in the division’s tactics upon himself. Considering they were gearing up for a full scale assualt on Omashu, they’d been receiving a steady influx od soldiers, redeployed from other divisions within the Army. Some of the smarter ones among them even found it easy to figure out that something massive was in the works. Those were the ones who were most unenthusiastic about their addition. Major General Sung’s division was well known for being a meat grinder that left men dead, maimed or worse. It was a known fact within the army that this was where the action was. 

That also made it the place people wanted to go to the least. Even the most battle hungry of firebenders would blanche at the amount of combat Natsu had seen in his few months with the army. The closer they got to their target, the more frequent skirmishes with the earth kingdom army became. It was almost like there’d been some form of alliance between Omashu and the rest of the Kingdom. That was a possibility placed in the worst case scenario category. 

A/N; Sneak peek. The battle will begin this chapter, don’t worry. We have a lot to cover