Chapter 6.1- And so the Dragons Danced

“Do you know what this means?” Grandfather asked for what felt like the seventeenth time as he stared at me. My display of lightning bending had placed the man in a state of simultaneous shock and amazement as he both tried to figure out what to say and tried to think of a way to express what he felt. I mean, I could understand where he was coming from. Lightning bending was pretty much limited to the royal family almost exclusively.

“When you display this talent, the royal family will be the ones begging you to marry Princess Azula” or they’d send assassins after my head, I silently added at the end of his sentence. He was right though. If they weren’t going to kill me, then the royal family just might actually end up marrying into mine to make me one of them. Grandfather’s obsession with a royal match still didn’t make complete sense to me, but I knew he was right. Talent like what I had now would open a lot of dorrs for me. If I didn’t get killed, that is. Sure, my name prevented me from just disappearing into the night, but being given an impossible mission that practically assured my death was also a possibility.

Sure, without knowing that the royal family was insane as could be, one would never be able to guess just what they were capable of. Unlike Grandfather, I had a pretty good idea from the series, so I was careful and wary. Wary of what could happen but still willing to go along with Grandfather’s plan for the time being.

A closer relationship with Azula might make me able to prevent her descent into madness, and maybe even mould her into something resembling a competent fire lady. “Yes, Grandfather” I said, and he smiled in pride.

“Good, my boy. Keep practicing. Never stop. All your firebending training will have to be cut in half to keep you energised and give you time to work on this. How many bolts do you think you can generate in a day?” he asked, sensing my tiredness.

“Right now, three. Maybe four if I push myself.”

“Good. Let’s see if we can get that up to ten by the end of the break” He said. Even though I knew he knew less about this than I did, something about the way he seemed assured as he created a training plan in front of me made me beleive in him and trust his words.

XXXXX

I went through the motions for the fourth time today, and the sky was split assunder again as my lightning tore through the clouds. Fuck. My body. I dropped to my knees, breathing heavily, trying to get what oxygen I could into my body. I’d been training my lightning bending for two weeks now, and it still felt draining to use each and every time. Less draining than it had at the beginning, but still much more taxing than any other form of firebending I could do.

Grandfather applauded from off to the side. “That was faster than usual. Again” He said and I stood up with sheer willpower and took my stance again. This time, when I separated the energies; yin and yang, it was easy. They didn’t fight to be with each other as intensely as they used to, and when I lashed them together and guided the lightning, it felt so easy and smooth. It felt normal to me and I stared at my fingers with shock as I left the stance I’d used to generate the energy.

“Do you feel something different?” Grandfather asked, and I was unable to reply as I fell unconscious.

XXXXX

“And you say you were lightning bending?” The crone asked as she laid a hand above my chest. The flames in her hands made me a bit nervous, but Grandfather seemed to trust her.

“Yes I was.”

“Yin and Yang. You tore them apart too smoothly. They remain separate even now, that is why your bending feels different.”

“How do we fix it?” I asked her, feeling my heart jump to my throat in fear.

“You don’t. Give it time. A few days. I advise you to stop pushing the limits of lightning so thoroughly. There is a reason the technique has seen little development since the day it was discovered. The cold blooded fire is dangerous, both to train and to experiment with. It is my advice that you pause  your practice with it, especially at your age. To seperate ones positive and negative energies could have unforseen effects for one so young. We do not know enough about the techniwue or its users to tell, but surely none of them had been as young as eleven years of age” The woman said before standing up and exchanging greetings with Grandfather before leaving.

After that day, firebending training had been difficult to come by. Grandfather limited our sessions to one hour in every two days and scrapped my private practice. The threat of me accidentally permanently crippling myu firebending talent with overtraining had been too much for the man to accept, so he did his best to reduce the possibility by making sure overtraining was no longer possible for me. Of course, that gave me more time to focus on training my body.

Hiroshi might have been a bastard, but he was competent. Competent enough to give me a personalised routine that actually had me feeling noticeable faster, stronger, and more energetic in months. Sticking with his routine helped my physical recovery and did have me feeling even stronger in the two months that the break was supposed to last. It was just too bad that I was going to be depriving quite a few people of the man’s talents and tutillage. The school would find a replacement, Grandfather had assured, but I knew part of him hoped they didn’t. Their reaction to my hospitilization had been especially disappointing to the man, and he was altogether quite displeased with the place in general.

XXXXXX

In the end, the break went quickly. When we resumed, instead of orientation, we were left to our own devices until dinner time. I hadn’t been to the room I shared with Toji yet as Grandfather had taken up residence in the guest wing of the school for the days leading up to the Agni Kai. This night was when I would place my formal challenge, and I adjusted my outfit in the mirror again to make sure I looked the part.

With the baby face I still had  and my height, I was everything but imposing in my crimson red robes, but I didn’t need to be. I just had to look good. That was one thing I was sure would work out perfectly. Looking good was one thing this body was born to do.

With my black hair even longer than it had previously been and reaching towards my shoulder blades, and my attractive features, I had hopes for a bright future. A very bright one.

When the bell rang for dinner, I waited a bit before making my way to the hall. After Lee, Toji and I had trashed Noaya and his bunch of idiots (along with a good portion of the hall) last time, the teachers had begun taking their meals with the students. Ostensibly to make sure we all complied with the school’s dinner policy and rules. A directive that started to prevent me from causing trouble was actually going to end up being the mechanism for the latest bit of trouble I’d end up causing. The irony was real.

I walked in, ignoring the eyes that inevitably turned to me even as they increased as I got closer and closer to the front of the hall. I caught the principal’s face as I made my walk, and the man just looked resigned. After he got it, it seemed the crowd only needed a few seconds extra to put together the cues from my attire to my demeanour to my destination. When I arrived in front of Hiroshi, I tossed a scroll on his empty plate. It was brown with a red bow around it to signify its contents. But it wasn’t the contents thjat made the crowd go wild instead. It was how the scroll was delivered.

By tossing the scroll instead of passing it to him, I was making it known that I did not respect my opponent. I was basically saying Hiroshi had no honour and that I had no interest in associating with someone like that even if just to do something as minor as passing a scroll to him. Hiroshi purpled as he also understood what was happening, but before anyone could say anything and ruin the shock value, I was making my way out of the hall. “See you tomorrow, Hiroshi” I called out without even turning around to address him. If there was one thing guaranteed to get him pissed off and off his game, it would be that. Addressing him just with his first name and then speaking to him without even turning around to dignify him with eye contact. Oh, the dragon in his blood would be boiling.

A/N; I actually wrote this a bit ago, and imagine my surprise to find out that my clown self didn’t upload it. Anyway, how’s it looking?