Chapter Text
Zuko sat at his meditation altar, centering himself. Today was a visitation day. Most days, he would be training at this time and meditating afterwards, but he needed the extra stability to be able to endure seeing Azula in her current condition.
A year ago, after his coronation, he’d sent her to a specialized hospital, one that apparently specialized in healing the mind. Quite a few had quietly popped up over the past century, as wealthy families found their returning sons unable to resume their duties due to the trauma of fighting in the War. One of the reforms he was planning on implementing would expand them, make them more mainstream and accepted. He figured that, if a member of the Royal Family could receive treatment and come out of it for the better, then the way would be open for him to use that success to accelerate and smooth out the process.
Except she wasn’t getting better. An entire year of weekly visits, and where she used to be simply scathing, now she was rambling, incoherently screaming, and what intelligible things she was saying was addressed to things only she could see. When he went to the physicians for an explanation after his fiftieth visit, they suggested he cut back, only coming every month. This was almost exactly the opposite of his wishes, but he couldn’t argue the reasoning that perhaps his presence was setting her back. After all, she was supposed to be Fire Lord and there he was, practically flaunting in her face that he was Fire Lord instead.
That was a month ago, and today was the day he returned. As per usual, he’d cleared his schedule for the morning so he could spend a full 45 degrees with her, giving himself time to steel himself before the dozen-degree-trip and wind down after getting back. With one last breath, he stood and went out to his carriage.
***
“Heh, orange. O-range. Or-nge. O-rayne-ge.”
“Azula?”
“Blue. Blew. Bee-Lou. Ba-loo.”
“Do you even notice I’m here?”
“Nen, nen korori yo~”
“Your Majesty, she’s been like this for some time.”
“What caused it?”
“Moon, Loo, Ma. Sam, Mo, Da. Fa, Bat, Waan. Si-i-i-ik!” she drew the final syllable out.
“Who can say for certain what goes on behind those eyes, my Lord? Some madmen are more in-tune with the Spirit World than the rest of us, which might be the cause of their madness. After all, malicious spirits preying on the mind would wreak havoc on anyone, even one such as the princess.”
Zuko looked back down at his sister, who had started cackling at some point. He could see that the laughter was putting a strain on her body, arching her back and pulling on the bonds she had been in for months by that point. The sight saddened him, that such a mighty individual, a teenager, not even an adult, could be brought to this state. But there was little he could do here. The physicians were highly recommended and they obviously knew their craft better than he did. If they said they were doing all they could, then they were.
The rest of the visit passed relatively normally, with him filling her in on the goings-on of court and the frustrations he was experiencing. From his perspective, this was a good thing. Not only did it remind her, on some level, that the world still existed outside these walls, but on rare occasion, she’d make some seemingly-nonsensical comment that actually helped him when he seriously considered it later. For example, when he mentioned various nobles constantly hinting at marriage arrangements, she started shouting about “Ice” and “Drain”. A couple weeks later, after several letters exchanged with Katara, he announced that anyone who wished to take Katara’s title of future Fire Lady from her could challenge her to an Agni Kai for it and the nobles very quickly backed off.
But that was early in the year. Those useful flashes had largely gone away, or they were so shrouded in whatever nonsense her mind pushed into her mouth that he couldn’t find the diamonds amidst the rough. On the way back to Caldera, he tried to translate her insanity into something he could understand, but all he could get was her references to the ten firebending forms. It was a frustrating process to try and discern her mind, even more than it was as children.
Shaking his head, he cleared his mind and put the thought of Azula behind him. She needed help, and not the kind of help he could give her. He couldn’t afford to burn himself out on her when there were thousands of people he was equipped to help, people who needed his help in particular.
***
It was mid-spring and Azula had stopped talking. This hit Zuko harder than watching her break down during the Comet, since now it seemed like not even her ghost inhabited her body beyond making her breathe. Zuko had spent the entire visit talking to her, calling on childhood memories, reminiscing on the times they spent actively trying to kill one another, and outright asking her for advice on political matters. As per usual, he spent the ride home contemplating her words, or lack thereof in this case. As the carriage neared the palace, Zuko did something very dangerous: he came to a decision and made a plan based on that decision.
***
The following month, he cleared his schedule for the entire week, as opposed to just the day of the visit. It wasn’t hard, per se, since he had followed Katara’s advice and organized a bureaucracy to handle the day-to-day business of running the nation. Or rather, he had burned out the rat’s nest that Ozai had set up and organized a replacement that wasn’t based on exploiting his own citizens and required regular infusions of Earth Kingdom plunder. Once he had floated the idea of taking a week for himself to his secretary, it seemed like all of them conspired to pile on a month’s worth of work to make up for it. After several weeks’ worth of sleepless nights, he was ready.
The visit itself went about the same as the previous one, with Azula silent and practically unresponsive. The physician tried to convince him that it was a good thing, but after growing up with her, Zuko could tell that this body on the bed practically wasn’t his sister anymore. By the end, he was fully convinced to go along with his plan.
He got in the carriage as usual, but shortly after leaving town, he snuck out. Having shed his outer layer, he was dressed in his ninja outfit. If he’d been seen by anyone, they would probably get suspicious of him, but no one had any reason to look closely at shadows or rooftops in this quiet town.
Soon enough, he was crouched behind a crate watching the guards around the facility. This was no fortress, so it was a simple matter for him to sneak by and make his way in. One thing that had always struck him as odd was how enclosed the interior of the building was. He’d have thought fresh air and sunlight would be good for patents, but the building had essentially no windows, the air stale and the only light coming from lamps. This was to his benefit today, since all the creepy shadows gave him ample coverage.
What he saw as he wandered the facility, however, was far less pleasing. Any time a patient would act out, she was given violence. Most of the time, the nurses would simply shout at them, but he saw one patient get beaten practically to a bloody pulp and chained to her bed. This kind of response angered him, but hearing the resident alchemist detail to a nurse how a set of potions would induce violence and mania before watching that nurse pour the concoction down a patient’s throat got his blood boiling. His rage built, slightly affecting the candles around him, until he got to his sister’s room where the physician was groping her body as she laid there, taunting her with the authority he had been granted.
“It won’t be long now until he stops showing up at all. And then I’ll have you all to myself. Ah, ah, ah,” he chided when she weakly growled. “None of that. You know what happens when you resist. You don’t want to take a bath again, do you?” He chuckled when she shivered.
Beneath his scarf, Zuko’s face was blank enough to stare down the Face Stealer. Turning, he snuck out as stealthily as he arrived and went to the nearby foliage. Normally, he would be hitting something, maybe throwing fire around, but he was far beyond that point. It’s not that he was above yelling, punching walls, and throwing fire around, he was simply too deep in hatred for it to do any good. Rather than clouding his judgement, like his normal anger, this seething rage actually sharpened his mind. It wasn’t often that the son of Ozai let his ruthlessness out to play, but this was a special occasion. Someone had managed to play him and break his sister. And unlike Ozai, who was protected from him by honor, tradition, and the Avatar’s wishes, there was nothing to save this “physician” from his wrath.
Sitting down, Zuko meditated. Most of the time nowadays, he immersed himself in the positive, constructive aspects of fire. The Life side, as it were. Today, he embraced the negative aspects, the hate, anger, and cruelty he had tried so hard to emulate in his exile, yet never truly felt in his bones. Today, his entire mind, body, and spirit were flooded with it. Today, Zuko was the son Ozai had wanted.
***
Night fell, the day shift went home, and the facility had only a few nurses and guards. It was the perfect time for him to sneak in and do some snooping. He had already found the Head Physician’s office, so it didn’t take long to pick the lock and find the files on the personnel and patients. He quickly noticed a pattern: all the patients were teenaged girls, all their physicians were men, and none of the employees, male or female, were satisfied with their lot in life, using this place to exert some kind of control. Most damning of all, all of them were prescribed daily contraceptives. The only one without them was Azula, but given what he had seen and heard, it was only a matter of time.
As much as he wanted to, this wasn’t the time to slaughter everyone in the building. For one thing, the girls were sedated at night and their doors were locked, so the people currently in the building weren’t quite as guilty as the rest. It wouldn’t spare them from his wrath when the time came, but understanding this was enough to beat his rage back into a simmer.
Once he got his temper back under control, he started going through every scroll, every file he could get his hands on. It took him two nights to go through the entire office, another to go through the alchemist’s office, and two more days to scout out the homes of the employees. He rested for a day to get himself back up to full capability before releasing his fury and proving his heritage. On the sixth day since he visited Azula, he slaughtered the families of the physicians and nurses to the last, returning to the hospital right before they were scheduled to leave for the day to carve his way through the faculty themselves. As he was finishing, the night shift arrived, right on schedule. Their punctuality didn’t save them.
Once the bloody work was complete and his rage was spent, he went to collect the covered wagon he had stashed nearby, backing it up to one of the more secluded doors. It took a while to load all nine girls, but they were still sedated, so the only real challenge was making sure they sat upright on either side of the wagon. Once everything was set, he drove the wagon for a degree before doubling back and setting the building on fire. Between his bending and the oil he had splashed everywhere, there was nothing but rubble by dawn, at which point he and his passengers were long gone.