Chapter 5: The Burning of Failure

Fire Nation War Room…

The war room was bathed in an oppressive glow, the flames from the towering braziers along the walls casting long, flickering shadows over the polished stone floor. The scent of smoke and seared parchment lingered in the air, mingling with the faint aroma of oil used to keep the torches burning through the night.

Fire Lord Sozin stood at the centre of it all, his golden gaze locked onto the words inked across the parchment in his hands.

Southern Air Temple Assault: Partial Success.

Enemy Casualties: Near Total.

Fire Nation Casualties: 203 Dead.

Reason: A single airbender combatant.

The muscles in his jaw tensed as he read the words again, as though the act itself might force them to rearrange into something more acceptable. But they did not change. The ink remained, permanent and damning, and the weight of the report settled heavily upon his shoulders.

For a moment, Sozin remained perfectly still. Then, slowly, methodically, he crushed the parchment in his grip, his fingers tightening until the paper crumpled into a tight ball. A soft breath escaped him, calm and measured.

Then the fire took it. A flicker of heat, a whisper of flame, and the report was gone; reduced to curling black embers before it could even reach the ground.

At his feet, the commander kneeling in submission barely dared to breathe. His forehead was pressed to the cold stone floor, his body stiff with fear, as though the very air around him had become suffocating beneath Sozin's presence. And in truth, perhaps it had.

Sozin turned slightly, his heavy robes whispering against the polished floor as he took a slow step forward.

"You led our forces into battle," he began, his voice a quiet thing, but thick with something deep and simmering beneath the surface, "A battle that should have been won before it even began."

The commander swallowed hard, but dared not raise his head.

"The Air Nomads had no warriors," Sozin continued, each word carrying the weight of absolute certainty, "No armies, no fortresses, no weapons of war. Only their temples, their faith, and their illusions of peace."

He paused, his golden gaze narrowing as he stepped closer, the soft crackling of the braziers the only sound in the vast chamber.

"You did not march under an ordinary sun," Sozin said, and now his voice was like embers smouldering beneath the surface of a great fire, "We stood beneath the comet; my comet. The gift of fire's unrelenting power, bestowed upon us by the heavens themselves. That power should have swept over the Air Nomads like a tide of flame, reducing them, along with the avatar to nothing but smoke on the wind!"

The commander flinched as Sozin stopped before him, the warmth of the Fire Lord's presence almost unbearable.

"And yet," Sozin said, and now his voice was no longer quiet, no longer measured, but something low and crackling with restrained fury, "two hundred of my finest soldiers are dead, and the avatar somehow escaped."

Silence.

The commander inhaled sharply, his entire body trembling against the stone. A single monk. Two hundred dead. Sozin did not need to repeat it aloud. The words hung in the air like smoke from an extinguished flame, suffocating in their meaning.

The flames behind him flared, roaring higher, feeding off the fire within his own being.

"A single monk," Sozin murmured at last, his golden eyes gleaming like molten gold in the firelight, "Not the Avatar. Not an army. Not even a warrior, but a monk; one who should have folded before us like parchment to flame. And yet, you return to me with a disgrace unlike any the Fire Nation has suffered before."

The commander pressed his forehead harder against the floor, as if attempting to melt into the stone itself, "F-Fire Lord, please—"

Sozin watched him for a long moment, expression unreadable. He could feel it; the power in his blood, the heat just beneath his skin, the pull of the fire within him that demanded action. He could burn this man alive.

It would be easy.

One gesture, one flick of his wrist, and the flames would rise, consuming him completely, leaving nothing behind but ash and a warning for the others. And yet… he did not.

Killing him was a mercy. No, there were fates worse than death. To strip a man of everything; to reduce him to something lesser, to force him to crawl, to fight, to prove himself worthy of the very air he breathed, that was true punishment. That was a lesson that would linger, seared into the flesh and soul alike.

"You are hereby stripped of your rank," Sozin said at last, his voice cold as embers in the dark, "Return to the barracks as a common soldier. If you wishes to redeem yourself, you will do so with blood, not words."

A strangled sound of relief left the commander's lips, "T-Thank you, Fire Lord! I—"

Sozin did not acknowledge him further. He simply turned away, his gaze shifting back to the flames. The commander scrambled back, bowing over and over again before fleeing from the chamber as though fire itself chased him.

And then, at last, Sozin was alone. Alone with his thoughts. Alone with the past. His eyes drifted to the brazier before him, watching as the flames danced and curled, ever-changing, ever-consuming.

Fire did not waver.

It did not hesitate.

It existed to devour, to expand, to grow beyond the limits set before it. Sozin closed his eyes for a brief moment, but the past found him even there. He could see it… him; Roku.

His childhood friend. His greatest rival. The last obstacle in his path. He could still remember the heat of the volcano, the way the ground had cracked and groaned beneath them, splitting apart under the fury of the earth itself.

He had watched as Roku struggled, as the flames closed in around him, as the very world turned against him in his final moments. And he had chosen to let him fall.

"It was necessary," he reminded himself, though the words felt more like an incantation than a truth, "He would have stopped me. He would have doomed the Fire Nation to stagnation, to weakness, to an existence no greater than the one we were born into."

He had done what had to be done. And yet… His hands curled into fists, the edges of his sleeves trembling from the force of his grip. Even with Roku gone, there were still obstacles.

One monk that should not have survived.

"Kalsang," Sozin thought, his mind turning over the name, "An airbender who does not fight like an airbender. One who does not flow with the wind, but bends it to kill."

It was unnatural. A perversion of the way the Air Nomads existed. But the why did not matter. Only that he was still alive, and had taken the few survivors of this attack with him. And the Fire Nation did not tolerate threats.

Sozin exhaled, long and slow, before his gaze dropped to the great war table before him. The map of the world stretched before him, its borders incomplete. That would change. Roku was gone. The Air Nomads were all but eradicated.

The world was beginning to shift. And the Earth Kingdom would be next.

Sozin dipped his brush into ink, bringing it to the map, his strokes deliberate. The Fire Nation would not stop. Not until every corner of the world blazed with its insignia.