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Azula is three when she awakens in her new reality.
In her hand is a stuffed animal, a bunny, its head lopped off and stuffing scattered over the dirt. Tears prick her eyes, her hands shaking as the laughter of the other children settle against her ears.
The wavering of her lip then turns into a snarl, eyes flicking upwards to the trio of giggling maggots.
She falls into the familiar form, swinging her arms in a practiced motion and relishing at the wave of blue that erupts from her fingertips, bright and bold. The maggots scatter, shrieking and crying for their parents, but Azula feels nothing but satisfaction.
A woman hurries over to grab her, snatching her wrist with a ferocity that belies her thin frame, lips turned downwards into a thin frown. Azula snarls, swinging her other hand, fire encasing her fist, but it fizzles out before she can connect, the woman jabbing at her shoulder in a startling familiar motion that has her breathless.
“Izuna!” the woman hisses, dragging her by her wrist and pulling her up to hold her in what Azula decides is a dignified baby hold.
“Azula!” She snarls right back, kicking.
“Uchiha-dono!” One of the maggot’s parents comes rushing over, holding said maggot.
“Mitokado-dono,” says Uchiha, “I was just about to take Izuna-chan home, when I saw your son teasing her.”
Mitokado puffs up, her boring plain features pulled together in what the woman probably thinks looks haughty. If anything, in Azula’s opinion, she looks like a flat-eyed monkey-lizard.
“Just some teasing between children! Really, Uchiha-dono, I would expect that you would understand. Izuna-chan’s reaction was extreme.”
It comes to Azula then, that she is Izuna and the woman whose firm grip she was encased in was her mother.
Azula cranes her head up, expecting the pretty features of Ursa she saw in her own face, but finds nothing. Uchiha is pretty, if a little more plain-looking than Ursa. She has inky dark hair and even darker eyes, her features fine and elegant but lacking the beauty Ursa possessed.
“Considering that the stuffed animal your son ripped up was given by her late grandfather, I would say that Izuna’s reaction was valid.” She sets Azula down on her stupid toddler legs, holding out a pale hand. “Come, Izuna.”
Azula takes the woman—her mother’s hand—turning her head to sneer at the boy. He was older than her and obviously thought she was an easy target. Lucky for him, she wasn’t.
They leave the park, a neat dirt road giving way to clean streets. The houses here are a mix of different types, buildings in styles she both recognizes and doesn’t. It’s jarring to her, who has been around the world.
There are a few architectural styles that she recognizes, like the pointed tiled roofs and even the more homely wooden ones that resemble the houses built in the rural areas of the Fire Nation. Some are more round, unlike anything she has seen and smooth, as if someone raised them from the ground out of wood.
The people are strange here too. She stares a little too hard at a woman with yellow hair and is even more shocked when the person that skips around her has a shock of purple on their head. Hair-dying wasn’t unheard of, but it was uncommon, in the Four Nations.
There were waterbenders that liked to dye their hair shockingly pale, in reverence to their moon spirit. Ginger hair was rare, but not unheard of, and usually seen in colonies. A trait from their mixed breeding, surely.
Azula takes this all in silently, cataloging everything in her mind before she can figure out a plan.
Along the roofs are people that occasionally run across, jumping with frightening speed and accuracy that has her thinking of Ty Lee and her insipid acrobat sisters. Really, she saved Ty Lee from a dreadful life of playing circus animal and the girl thanks her by betraying her for plain, boring Mai.
The image of her two closest friends sear like hot coals across her mind and she hisses, banishing the image to the furthest recesses of her mind. If the spirits were kind enough to her, both of those traitors were dead.
Father would have surely dealt with them quickly, when word of their betrayal got to his ears, she thinks.
(A smaller, more childlike part of her that fits her current body, wonders if maybe Ozai would not care at all.)
Azula is gently tugged as they turn down another street. Her mother says nothing at all and her face belies nothing as well. She is rather boring, dressed in a dress that looks like a mix of Fire Nation ensemble, but not. The color is boring as well, a plain steel gray.
There is a monument in her vision, peeking over the colorful tiled roofs. A man stares at the city—actually, men, as they descend down a sloped road.
Carved in gray stone are three men. Or at least, the visages of three men. The sheer size of them is somewhat impressive, but she had seen bigger monuments in the Earth Kingdom dug up by mud-filthy benders.
It looked…ugly.
She tells her supposed mother as such.
Uchiha looks down at her with her soot-black eyes, something flashing in them that is gone before Azula can decipher it.
“Hn. Is that so, Izuna?”
Azula wrinkles her nose at her…name. Izuna didn’t sound as bad as Azula, where she was named for a grandfather she cared little for. Fire Lord Azulon was never the doting grandfather from Ty Lee’s silly little stories, or the hobbling weak old men she saw her peers with.
No. Fire Lord Azulon was the very core of what it meant to be Fire Nation royalty. He had no qualms ordering for the death of Zuko, despite him technically being father’s initial heir. Azula knew little of her grandmother, other than she was an avid tea drinker and a non-bender, but she supposed that maybe she had enough wit, for her husband to not arrange a simple accident.
“Why am I Izuna?” Her words rasp with a babyish accent that she immediately vows to get rid of.
“You have your great-grandfather’s name. Uchiha Izuna was a mighty shinobi.” Her supposed mother gestures to the streets. “He is the reason why Konoha is here, little fire.”
Azula sniffs, irritated. It seemed that in this life and the last she would be named for crotchety old men. What a bummer.
“What are shinobi?” Azula asks, because it doesn’t sound like anything she has come across.
Uchiha doesn’t look down, patiently guiding Azula’s toddler feet over a curb as they step onto a sidewalk, the road widening out for carriages and wider traffic. It is busier here, in the town of Konoha.
Glancing up and around at the shops, she is disappointed by the lack of warm hues. The mix of colors is different, but not all-together awful, she gives. Some of the buildings are painted in nice reds, startling greens, cheery yellows, and a plethora of other colors that come together like a painter’s canvas.
“Shinobi are important. They protect Konoha—just like your father. We serve the Hokage and our people, just as our elders intended.” The smile her mother gives her is faint, but doesn’t quite reach her eyes.
Azula thinks that if she is going to spew propaganda at her three-year old daughter, the woman should at least look like she believes it.
She doesn’t say anything, mulling on Uchiha’s words.
Konoha is not a familiar town or village to her, but they spoke the same language and Uchiha could pass as a fire national. There was a smattering of smaller dialects across the archipelago that could truthfully be qualified as their own languages, but Uchiha’s accent is not one she recognizes.
It could be that she was horrificly in the colonies. Mai had said that the colonialists were akin to rats—adaptive, sneaky, and a bucket of surprises due to their mixed breeding.
She wants to ask, but calling the woman mother feels foreign and almost like an insult. Azula barely had a mother, Ursa too preoccupied with her firstborn to even pay a glance at her, no matter how talented and perfect she strove to be.
That was fine.
Azula had Ozai, the Fire Nation, and her annoying handmaidens.
(Once upon a time it was also Mai and Ty Lee, but they had sniveled away, hiding behind the Avatar and useless Zuko.)
‘Shinobi’ means nothing to her, but it obviously has meaning to Uchiha. It has meaning here, in Konoha, which is strange and different but not all-together a dump, from what she has seen so far. It could be worse. She could be in the South Pole, with nothing but ice and otter penguins.
They enter into a compound, a guard at the gate waving them through and bowing low when he spots Uchiha.
“Mikoto-sama,” the guard says, his hair a dark brown and his eyes the same inky black as her assumed mother. “Izuna-hime. I hope you both enjoyed yourselves.”
Her supposed mother stops, giving a polite nod. “It was, Hito-san. Fugaku and I were hoping to see you and your wife for Itachi’s upcoming celebration.”
Hito smiles, “Of course! Kie-chan has been busy with the bakery, but she always has time to make specials for our esteemed heir.”
Mikoto, her mother, says something else polite that has Azula boredly dragging her eyes up to the compound walls. They aren’t that tall, probably more for just keeping this district separate from the rest of Konoha, but it is obviously near the heart of the village, shops and restaurants lining the street outside.
Uchiha Mikoto. Not a bad name. She had a music instructor named Mikoto, before she had shown proficiency in firebending. The woman was a non-bender and married to a soldier and had taken permanent leave when he died.
Azula had privately thought it ridiculous. Half of her cousins had died on campaign, until the royal family was whittled down to just Iroh, Ozai, Zuko, and herself. The less said about Ursa, the better.
The streets here in the compound are older, the buildings resembling a less colorful neighborhood reminiscent of the Fire Nation capital. Gold paint does not score the underside of tiled roofs, but it's still rather nice, even if a little more plain. They could do with some red.
The house that Mikoto leads them to has a large yard, trimmed back bushes, and pretty blue flowers that burst along the walls. A forgotten toy marks the yard, probably hers, but she feels no attachment to it and takes off her shoes herself when they step onto the wooden porch.
“I’m home,” Mikoto calls out into the home. A scroll depicting a waterfall is hung up in a small alcove with a vase of red lilies, to their left. Mikoto bends down to set Azula’s shoes along with the rest and she then instructs her to go sit down at the dining table.
Azula does as she is said, though going through the house is strange. It's familiar to her in the same way the summer house is, with fading memories that are hers but not.
She wracks her brain trying to remember this body’s family, but comes up short when the squiggly image of having a brother and two parents surfaces.
There is a man seated at the table with a severe frown and tanned skin. His hair is long, but not as long as Ozai's, stopping just below his shoulders in a sharp cut. He looks up from the puzzle he was doing, a teacup in reach.
“Welcome home, Izuna-chan.” The man says. Azula assumes its this body’s father, but she doesn’t say anything, instead choosing to bow deeply.
Mikoto bustles in soon after, changed out of her clothes for something more simple looking.
“Fugaku. We need to talk.” Mikoto says simply, then turns to Azula. “Izuna, your brother is outside training. Go and see if he wants any help, hm?”
Azula says nothing to that, slipping down the familiar-not-familiar hallways and slides one of the shoji screen doors. The backyard is wide, with short grass and trees encasing the space.
There is a boy older than her with the same inky dark hair as Mikoto and he turns when he hears the door open, a warm smile on his pale face. He looks like a boy-copy of Mikoto.
“Little sister,” he greets, setting down something in his hands before jogging over to her. He picks her up with ease, hands fitting under her armpits and setting her on his hip in a motion that tells her he has done it a hundred times before. “Did Mama send you outside?”
Azula decides that she does not like being carried, as snug as it is. “Unhand me.”
He blinks, surprised, but does as she commands.
Azula decides that maybe this brother won’t be that bad, obeying her demands instantly. Zuko had been an annoying older sibling, too emotional and prone to tears. Azula had taken it upon herself early to try and toughen him up—he would’ve been the Fire Lord one day, snivelling behind a chancellor. The horror would’ve turned Fire Lord Sozin in his grave like a rotisserie.
“What are you doing?”
“Training, little sister. Would you like to see?” He is dressed rather plainly for training clothes, but Azula nods once.
He has her sit down a bit away from a sheared up training dummy, straw sticking out of the vital points and looking worse for wear. He expects him to drop into a kata, but is surprised when he picks up what he dropped earlier.
Black gleams in his hands, the quality of fine steel, and he assumes a pose that is not too dissimilar to the one she would see Mai drop into.
He launches the knives—kunai, upon a closer look—and to her surprise he strikes true in all the spots that matter. At once.
One kunai spears itself into the head of the dummy, then the heart, and another on the wrist where it would make a real opponent bleed to death. She claps, impressed.
“Again.” She commands.
He does as she says dutifully, each successive try as accurate as the last. He was as good as Mai, even better, since he didn’t look more than four or five.
“Thank you,” he says, eyes closing as he gives her a small smile. “Would you like to try?”
Azula quirks a brow and gets up from her spot, dusting off herself. She had tried throwing knives before, when she was younger, but had little patience for trying to get it right when her firebending was much more effective.
Azula holds out an expectant hand and he dutifully hands over the live steel, instructing her softly on how to hold her hands. The grip is different to what she is familiar with, but Azula has always been a fast learner.
She doesn’t strike true on her first throw, or her second, but she hits near the heart and where the stomach would be.
“Good job!” He beams at her, leaning forward to ruffle her hair, to her chagrin.
“Don’t do that.” Azula glares, reaching up a hand to fix her dark strands. “Show me how to hit to kill.”
He blinks at her, but does as she says, adjusting her elbow as she copies the stance from earlier and explaining something about distance.
“If it's windy you will need to compensate for the wind. Aim a little off the curve.” He nudges one of her feet. “Stay grounded but curve your feet. You want to be ready if your opponent is going to strike back.”
She flings the kunai, one successfully hitting the heart and the other grazing the straw dummy’s neck. Azula frowns.
“That was great, little sister!” He crouches down to her height. “You learn so fast.”
Pride curls like a heavy snake in her stomach and she snatches the extra kunai in his hand to try again. This time she hits the head in quick succession.
There is clapping from the door and she looks up to both Uchiha Mikoto and the man from earlier. Mikoto is smiling, something like pride in her eyes and the sight is strange—a mother, proud of her child’s martial ability is not something she ever experienced.
It is…strange.
Ursa had been proud of her before…before she had surpassed Zuko. Once upon a time she cheered when Azula performed perfect kata, then stupid Zuko had ruined it all, falling behind in training.
But there is none of that in Mikoto’s face. In fact, the woman seemed to be glowing with pride, her dark eyes glittering.
The man, Fugaku, has his arms crossed, a contemplative look on his face, but Azula can read people. He seems happy, eyes flickering between his two children and the dummy.
Azula bows to her supposed parents, deciding to take the information gathering route. Her memories are strange. Konoha, her family, and the house are all like transient layers atop each other that somehow fit but not, at the same time.
“Izuna, that was fantastic!” Mikoto exclaims, turning to her husband. “Did you see her form, husband?”
He nods once. “It was.”
The four of them fall silent for a moment, her brother moving to collect the scattered kunai.
“Izuna. Your mother says you performed ninjutsu,” the man uncrosses his arms, stepping off the porch and stopping a few paces from his two children. “Can you show me?”
Azula doesn’t know what ninjutsu is, but she can infer he meant bending. She lowers her head. “Of course, father.”
Her brother skitters closer to their father, but with Mikoto’s beckoning he leaves the man’s side to take a seat on the porch next to her, feet dangling.
Azula rises, then falls into the familiar position for a basic starting kata. Her chi here feels…stronger, buzzing like a bull-hornet’s nest under her skin, just begging to be unleashed.
She punches, but no fire emerges, then falls into the familiar sweeps and dances she has practiced for a decade. Blue fire erupts on her second turn, blooming like fire lilies.
There is a gasp, but she continues. It is harder, in a smaller body with coordination that is obviously lacking, but Azula has been nothing but perfect.
She sweeps the air with her arm, swapping her hands from a standard fire fist into her personal two-finger point—a variation she had swapped to, once learning how to control her vast levels of chi—the fire erupting from her fingertips in a great bloom of fire that is bigger than anything she had bent before.
Her chi was stronger here.
Finishing off with a spinning jump kick, fire erupting from her feet, she quickly drops into a low bow towards her father, waiting. Sweat is gathering at her temples and she resists the urge to breathe heavily. Ozai had once commented that she was akin to a cow-pig, banishing her from his sight on the royal training grounds.
“You use no hand seals,” her father comments. Azula bristles, but the chastisement never comes. His sandaled feet make their way into her periphery, a hand coming to rest on her shoulder. “Look at me, daughter.”
Azula does as he bids and even though there is a waspish retort on the tip of her tongue, it dies.
There is nothing but warm pride in his eyes.
“That was fantastic, Izuna.”
Azula, three years into her new life, cannot help the tears that burst from her. She is three, her heart heavy with a past life she can remember with startling clarity and the new one that swims and leaves like koi in a pond.