Chapter 4

In this life I was sure I will be ready for anything but the situation that I'm right now was truly unexpected. Fire lord Azulon from what I remember was a ruthless man. He will in future order Ozai to take Zukos life so that Ozai could go through the same pain as Iroh did. The Azulon infront of me was an old guy like that you see as a villain in those chinese cultivation stories. Even though he had white hair and some ageing spots on his face his eyes still looked really alive.

"Its an honor to be in your presence my lord." I said while bowing to him.

"When I heard that Azula invited another child around her age I was expecting a girl." The fire lord said while he sipped some tee. "You will be allowed to stay in the palace for the next 5 days is that clear?"

"Yes my lord."

"Good, You may leave." Bowing ones more I arose from my seat and exited the main hall. Whew...that was tiring. The fire lord sure has some presence. From what could I sense he had more than 4 times the chi I have currently and I have more chi than any other person I met until now. Even if I fight him in his aging state I doubt I can handle more than 50 moves from him. Although I have the raw power he clearly has more experience and I am not a fool who underestimates his opponents. As I was existing the main hall I was met with the culprit who put me through that experience.

"Was it really necessary?" I asked her.

"Royal protocols you see, nothing I can do about it. So how did it feel to meet the fire lord himself?" Azula replied while she was checking her nails.

"His old" I said with a thoughtful face.

"You really have no fear do you? But I agree with you he rally is old. Come on follow me now our tea session awaits." She then asked me to follow her. 

"So whats this about me being in the royal castle for the next 5 days?" I asked while I followed her.

"You wanted to go to the royal library right? there you have it." Azula then stopped and gave me smirk turning around but seeing my unamused expression she let out a sigh.

"Well I can't just take you there. You will spend time in the day with me and during night I will sneak you into the library. Keep in mind that these 5 days are the only time I can take you there so make sure to read everything you can while your there. The royal library is a place given access to only the royal family so feel honored." She made eye contact for a second before continuing to lead me. 

5 minuets later we arrived at a garden with a fish pond. I could see a woman pampering a boy like how mother does with me. 

"Mother I see Zuzu is wasting time again." Azula said with a slight cold voice.

turning to us she eyed me for a second. Beautiful face hair like a black waterfall and charming eyes. Its hard to believe that she was mother of two.

"Greeting madam Ursa." I said while bowing.

"Oh what good manners you have unlike someone here." Then she eyed the boy to her side. Black hair amber gold eyes though his missing a scar on his left eye I could tell that he was young prince Zuko.

"Mom my manners are better than his hmph!" An Angry Zuko said with a huff.

"Zuko come now be nice to Azulas friend." Ursa said while rubbing his head. 

"Well are you done mother ? because we have places to be." said Azula while she dragged me with her.

"Azula why are you being like this let your friend introduce himself." This stopped her for a second before continuing on her way with me.

"He can play house some other time with Zuko. Right now he has more important things to do right?" Azula asked me. I then gave Ursa an apologetic look before grabbing her hand and going on our way.

"You don't get along with your family that well do you." After we left the garden we arrived in a courtyard. We were now sitting face to face and having some snacks and tea. 

"Mother dearest is great to get along with. Its great when you just feel how much different she treats you compared to her son." She said to me while giving me a smile that was not a smile.

In the last air bender show her mother feared her If I remember correctly but I don't think things have progressed that far yet. "Can't say I don't Know how that feels. At least you don't have to act like a slave to your older brother just because his born earlier than you. Trust me the amount of brainwashing my father puts me through each time we meet will make anyone sick. At least I have my mother with me. If she wasn't there I would have run away burning everything." I said while took another sip of the tea.

"Must be nice knowing someone loves you." She said while while staring at her reflection in the tea.

"Well you have them too I bet. Your brother loves you more than you imagine and although your mother can be a bit reclusive, she loves you all the more and besides you have me I always care for my pupils. A teacher for a day a father for a life am I right ?" I said while taking another sip.

Azula just laughed and said something that I wasn't prepared for "looking forward to what you will teach me daddy." 

I spat out my tea and coughed for some time. "Don't do that ever again!" I said to a confused Azula.

"Whats wrong with calling you da....." I quickly pluged her mouth before she could finish.

After that we chatted some more before nightfall. I had dinner with Zuko, Azula and their mom. Ozai was out of town for the war. From the interactions between Ursa and Azula I concluded that although Ursa tries to shower her with love Azula is too mature for her age leading to awkward moments in them. I didn't see any signs of Ursa hating her yet. After dinner I went to my assigned room. Royal beds are something else, the comfort they provided is out of this world. Just when I was about to drift off to the realm of sleep I saw my blanked moving. 

"What do you think your doing Azula." The chibi ghost came out from under my blanket.

"Oh I thought you were asleep and just wanted to create a royal scandal by sleeping with you so that you could get executed." I forgot how bad she was in flirting.

"Haha very funny. Now how are we doing this?" I asked as I got of from the bed.

"Just follow me and stay in the shadows don't make too much noise." She also got out of the bed albeit a bit embarrassed.

And so I followed her through the royal halls. We made my way through many checkpoints and each time Azula would distract the guards while I made my way past them. After about 10 minuets we arrived infront of a heavily guarded door.

"Wait here." saying so she went ahead and bickered with the guards for some time until they left. She then signaled me to come in and we entered the library. 

"How did you make them to go way?" I asked curiously 

"Oh you know threaten them using their family and showing off royal authority and all that." Azula replied casually. 

Now I feel bad for them. Anyway the royal library was pretty big it was two stories andd I could see that the books were sorted out in sections, history geography, general studies and more. After looking around some more I finally found the section named bending. The section wasn't that big considering that it contained nearly all past royal families bending arts. Grabbing on a random book I decided to start reading.

"We have until sun rise so make It count." Saying so she headed of to the geography section. I immersed myself into to reading. Considering that I had limited time I concentrated in memorizing everything that was in here. I had selective photographic memory so I could memorize everything very quickly, another reason why Yoriichi was so overpowered. And so we continued do do our acts of sneaking in to the library thing for the next couple of days. In the day we or atleast I spent much of my time interacting with Ursa and sometimes Zuko. Unlike his sister Zuko was an immature brat so I can't say I liked the current him very much. All he ever says is that his gonna be the fire lord one day and finish the 100 year war.Then there is honor this honor that bullshit of his. Funnily he does end the war in the future but not the way he intends doing it right now. Honestly how much he screams about being the lord he reminds of Naruto. 

Today was the last day of my access to the library and all in all it has been a very fruit full venture for me. I have basically memorized all the knowledge stored here about bending minus what I already knew. And based on this I have already outlined the forward paths of my bending. What got me most interested was the art of bending lighting. You could not really call it bending maybe generating is more of a fitting word for it. Lighting is considered the pinnacle of fire bending. You have to master fire bending before you can even consider lightning bending. 

There are three essential things that you need to have in order to master lighting bending. First being inner peace. You can't have any regrets or inner turmoil otherwise you will just blow yourself up. Second You need to have a completely emotionless state of mind hence the name cold fire. Third and finally you need to have the intend to kill otherwise you wont be able to generate lightning. Now this his what I don't get In Korra where lighting bending became the norm you didn't need so many steps and their lightning was also non lethal so I guess ones the bending art became wide spread someone made some alternate way but the result was far less powerful. 

I also came across clues about combustion bending. You need to learn how to bend fire under water that was it, nothing more. Apparently Fire lord Sozin hired the combustion benders to annihilate the air nomads but after he saw what how powerful they were Sozin tried to acquire them for himself but failed miserably. The combustion benders almost destroyed a whole fleet of the fire nation although they themselves suffered direly. It is said that only two benders survived the ordeal and they hid from the world.

There was other knowledge like the lion turtles and all that but they were very vage. I also secured many location of important places like where all the air temples are located. Then there were also locations like the ancient sun warrior island, Avatar Rokkus temple and the island where the Bhanti tribes lived. I also learned how to utilize my heat redirection better. I was making a satisfied smile while thinking it was very worthwhile trip. But my smile didn't last very long as a guff voice snapped me out of my reverie. 

"I see you are satisfied with what you learned young man. Now mind if I test some of your knowledge?" I looked backed to see a middle age man holding Azula by the nape and giving me a smile. Lets just hope I can get out of this alive.