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Chapter Text

Blinking open her eyes, she mused that death was truly strange.

She had never dedicated time to thinking about death–it was a useless endeavor. Now, though, she let herself muse. Her life had been arduous but–and she loathes to admit it–it had gotten better. She had gotten better. It was hard for her to believe, even now after her life had quietly come to an end, but it had happened.

Taking a short breath, she feels a cherished warmth swell within her.

Her next breath stuttered.

That wasn’t right. She had passed on to the Spirit World; she wasn’t supposed to feel warm.

At that moment, her eyes focused and she realized with another stuttering breath that she wasn’t in the Spirit World. What she had thought was the blinding expanse of an immortal plane turned out to be blaring white stars embedded into an even whiter ceiling.

She blinked. No, those weren’t stars–couldn’t be stars because she was clearly inside somewhere. She turned her head, needing, craving, yearning to understand what exactly she was seeing but she could only tilt her head to the side and that’s when she saw her.

Hair, colored the same gold as Agni’s rays, loosely curled around her flushed neck and covered shoulders. Soft skin, seemingly to have been sweetly kissed by Agni’s light, visibly different yet innately similar to the glowing pale skin made in Agni’s image. Delicate features weighed down by a natural exhaustion that didn’t–couldn’t–obscure her shining beauty. But it was her eyes that stole her breath away.

Because her eyes were a brilliant and a blinding and an all-encompassing gold.

Gold like Agni after he crested the slowly brightening horizon previously bathed in Tui’s darkness. Gold like the unmistakable flame hair ornament that once represented unrelenting violence but now represented harmonious peace when perched upon neatly styled black tresses. Gold like the crisp trimmings on a no longer well-loved set of armor from a mission always meant to fail. Gold like the brightness and curiosity swirling within the gaze of a newly hatched dragon. Gold like the softly unconditional love held in her brother’s eyes whenever he looked at her.

Gold like a brilliant and a blinding and an all-encompassing Spark.

The woman smiled once their eyes met and it seemed as if her relentless exhaustion melted away because her face suddenly glowed . The woman shifted before bringing a faintly shaking hand up to gently brush aside the hair on her forehead. The woman’s hand lingered on her temple before gliding over her cheekbone and gently booping her nose. Her face scrunched and the woman smiled and it was as if Agni was finally peeking through after an endless night of stormy skies.

The illusion was broken when the woman opened her mouth–she understood her Common, despite it being accented strangely–and said, “Oh, Denki, you’re such a beautiful boy. I can’t wait to see all the wondrous things you’ll accomplish.”

Azula wanted to scream.

After internally panicking, being coaxed into a feeding by the woman and unwillingly settling down for a nap, Azula came to a few startling conclusions.

She first realized that she was a baby, a baby boy to be exact, which was strange–and quite possibly life-altering–but she could work with it. Then she realized with a jolt, more forceful than Druk attempting to cuddle her when he was well over twice her size, that whatever life she was now living was most definitely not in the Fire Nation. In fact, she whole-heartedly believed that she would never see anything remotely similar to the Fire Nation in this life because the Fire Nation didn’t have strange roped devices that made annoying noises; the Fire Nation didn’t have bustling healers dressed in strange white garbs that were a mockery of traditional robes; the Fire Nation didn’t have people with powers that were straight out of a spirit’s tale.

Taking a deep breath in hopes of preventing another bout of internal panicking, Azula came to a conclusion that nearly brought tears to her newborn eyes.

Because as she breathed deeply, she felt the searing flare of her inner flame.

And when she breathed out a harsh breath, a puff of smoke followed.

Azula didn’t know what she had done to deserve such a blessing because, while she may have gotten better, that doesn’t mean she was good. But Azula wasn’t an idiot–not like her father–and her brother had taught her long ago how to be truly grateful, so she resolved to thank Agni (and Tui, and La, and Oma, and Shu, and even Lung-Ta) until her throat bled for witnessing her many faults yet still deciding to shine dearly upon her.

Suddenly a voice that made her very soul ache with longing filtered through her ears.

“Uncle once told me that, ‘there are reasons each of us are born, we have to find those reasons.’ I know you have a reason that is greater than being Father’s perfect heir, but you are the only one who can find your reason. Just think about it, okay?”

Don’t worry, ZuZu, she vowed, I will find the reason for my second chance and I will not waste it.

Chapter Text

It didn’t take long for Azula to demonstrate her prowess; she was a prodigy after all.

She had learned quickly–through observations and her mother’s gentle guidance at first, then through private lessons and exciting trips into the city. The first thing she had learned was that the world she lived in now was so vastly and utterly and inexplicably different from the world she had lived in before. She lived in a world filled with gallant heroes and half-mad villains, with tremendous feats of power and strength achieved through Quirks, with the chance to truly be something other–something more –than her father’s perfect heir. It was both maddening and exhilarating whenever she thought about it.

She learned the most, surprisingly, from the fantastical stories her mother–an overwhelmingly kind woman named Kiyoko–would orate to her whenever sleep seemed too far away to grasp.

Stories about a woman named Reiko, her maternal great-grandmother, who had been known as Dragon Hero: Koru. Reiko, her maternal great-grandmother, who had wielded a fire Quirk of multi-colored flames that did so much more than simply burn. Reiko, her maternal great-grandmother, who had once been Japan’s most beloved Number One.

Stories about a woman named Satomi, her paternal great-grandmother, who had been known as Isonz. Satomi, her paternal great-grandmother, who had wielded a lightning Quirk that was the first and only of its kind. Satomi, her paternal great-grandmother, who had once been Japan’s most feared villain.

She had thought stories were stupid–idealistic whims that made her first mother look past her instead of at her–but listening to her new mother ornately describe the history-defining battle fought between Koru and Isonz many generations ago, Azula learned that stories were so much more than idealistic whims. They were tangible hopes weaved together by intricate words that truly inspired her.

If she ever saw Zuko again, she would fill their time together by re-telling these stories to him.

The day after her third birthday–which had been filled with sweetly sung lullabies and cuddly gifts–something incredible happened to her. Something that was just as awe-inspiring and soul-opening as when she had produced her first flame all those years ago.

The day after her third birthday, she had manifested her Quirk, and it had gone a little something like this:

Blinking open her eyes, Azula immediately recognized the lithe fingers gently brushing through her golden tresses. When her hair had first begun growing, she had spent many hours seated before any reflective surface she could find–the mirror on her mother’s vanity, the empty television screen in the family room, the metal spoon she had been using to eat–because she couldn’t quite believe that another part of her shined the same color as Agni’s rays. It was breathtaking and exhilarating and somewhat overwhelming but she had learned to take it in stride; she was a prodigy after all.

Peering past her cable-knit covers that were the same hue as Druk’s scales but couldn’t glimmer in the same marvelous way, she caught sight of the blinding smile decorating her mother’s face. That was even harder for her to believe. In her first life, she had never truly known the tenderness that was a mother’s unconditional love. After she had gotten better, Zuko had tried–Agni he had tried so hard–but, while he freely gave her the softness that was a brother’s unconditional love, he couldn’t quite replicate something that would never be innate in him. Now, though, she had a mother who recognized her powerful potential and didn’t shy away from it. Now, she had a mother who, before her power and potential and greatness, saw the young child she was and willingly provided her with everything she had ever wanted and everything she had never known she needed. It was terrifying most of the time but, seeing the way her mother gazed at her as if she had personally strung up the stars in the sky, Azula knew she could learn to find comfort in it; she was a prodigy after all.

“Good morning, Denki,” her mother said sweetly.

Azula found herself smiling, “Good morning, Mom. I thought you had work early today.”

She hadn’t thought it possible but her mother’s smile seemed to glow brighter, “I did but one of the perks of owning your own company is that you can change your hours when the need arises, and Matsukawa was more than happy to keep things in order until I clock in after lunch.”

“Matsukawa’s always a little too eager to help you, I think he’s got a crush on you or something.” Azula huffed as she sat up in her bed.

Her mother laughed–a sound that reminded Azula of tenderly cared-for roses and soft downy feathers–before saying, “You don’t have to worry about him, firefly.”

Azula crossed her arms and stuck her nose into the air. “Good, because he’s weird. Efficient at what he does, but weird.”

Her mother laughed again, and this time the sound reminded her of hand-stitched parkas and gentle fires encased in snow, “I’m starting to think that no one will ever be good enough for me in your eyes, firefly.”

And wasn’t that so ridiculously yet utterly true because no one would ever be good enough for Azula’s mother. Her mother, who always made a wondrous effort to be the first thing she saw after she awoke with Agni and the last thing she saw before succumbing to Tui’s embrace. Her mother, who told her fantastical stories about Koru and Isonz but always reminded her that, before their extraordinary power, they had been two women simply fighting for what they had believed in. Her mother, who held so much genuine and tender and unconditional love for her that it sometimes made her want to cry.

Azula nodded, “No one will ever be good enough for you, but I suppose I could be open to an exception if you really liked him.” Because Zuko had taught her that, when you loved someone, you wanted them to be happy, and Azula loved her mother.

Her mother leaned down to press a gentle kiss on her brow. “Don’t worry,” she said, “I don’t need anyone else when I have such an amazing son right in front of me.”

Azula pointedly ignored the sting that was building up behind her eyes. Once her mother pulled away, she gave her a softer, but still shining, smile before slowly pulling away from her and rising from her bed.

“I’ll get started on breakfast. Your candle is already set up in the solarium, I finally found one in that shade of red you were asking for.”

Azula found herself smiling again, “Thanks, Mom.”

Her mother grinned–it was the secretive yet blindingly reassuring one that only graced her lips when Azula’s “odd” habits were brought up–before leaving her bedroom.

An hour or so later, after her inner flame had been properly stoked and moments before she had seated herself for breakfast, Azula noticed that something about her was off. She couldn’t place it, but she was definitely still a bit restless even after meditating. Sitting down, she resolved to meditate some more after filling her stomach.

She and her mother offered up a brief prayer before preparing to eat. As she reached for her metal chopsticks, the restlessness within her seemed to jump within her veins and what followed was a small bolt of electricity. The bolt had shot out of the tip of her pointer finger, seemingly being conducted by her intended utensil.

She blinked.

I need to meditate more if I’m starting to imagine that I can bend yellow lightning, she thought absent-mindedly as she moved her hand forward. But then the restlessness that had been stirring inside of her–which she had failed to notice had grown more pronounced–bounded within her veins and the bolt that followed was more pronounced, emitting a soft glow as it arced across the wooden table.

Okay, I definitely did not imagine that, she thought, stunned.

Setting her newly alighted gaze on her chopsticks, she withdrew her outstretched hand and drew in a deep breath. She focused not on her inner flame, which was starting to roar with her steadily mounting excitement, but on the unfamiliar tingling sensation that now bounced about within her veins. Quick as lightning, she extended her pointer and middle finger out toward her chosen utensil and the unfamiliar tingling sensation leaped within her veins. An arc of yellow electricity burst from her fingertips, racing across the table before being absorbed by her chopsticks.

The sound of a chair clattering to the ground caught Azula’s attention. She quickly turned toward her mother–in the back of her mind, she was faintly worried that whatever she had just done had somehow hurt her–and she was immediately blinded by the unadulterated joy that had encompassed her mother’s face.

“Denki!” Her mother grinned, and she somehow seemed to become even happier, “You manifested your Quirk!”

“Quirk?” Azula said, confused, looking down at her poised hand and still trying to wrap her muddled mind around everything that had just happened.

She felt her mother’s hands gently smooth over her shoulders, “Yes, firefly, your Quirk.”

“What–?” Then her mind came to a screeching halt as her mother’s words finally registered.

She hadn’t thought it to be possible. While her new body certainly looked different, it was still hers considering her inner flame continued to flare within it. She never allowed herself to imagine that she could have also developed the same biological advancements that allowed the people in her new world to achieve those tremendous feats of power and strength.

The breath was knocked out of her in the same dizzying way it had when Katara thought it would be funny to water whip her in the sternum and her head was reeling as a smile, so uncharacteristically big that it strained her youthful cheeks, split across her face.

“I got my Quirk ” She cheered, forgetting her poise and decorum and perfection in that moment.

“My firefly,” her mother breathed, “I just know you’ll do something truly remarkable one day.”

Azula tilted her head back to look up at her mother, and when she caught sight of the gleam in her mother’s golden eyes, she believed.

Then, just a few short hours after her mother had left for work and while being bathed in Agni’s light, she had tested the limits of her Quirk before seamlessly performing the first firebending kata she had learned and her soul had sung.

It had been breathtaking and exhilarating and somewhat overwhelming but it had been so tremendously right that Azula had almost cried for the second time that day.

After that fateful day, Azula had begun to train herself because–while she was unsure of what exactly her future held–she knew, deep within her vibrating soul, that something awaited her, and she would be prepared to face it head-on.

Denki peered up at the swaying branches above him (it had taken some time, and a considerable amount of effort, but she had learned to grow gracefully into her new identity; she was a prodigy after all). His hair, colored the same gold as Agni’s rays, was neatly pulled up into a topknot with two loose strands framing his delicate features. He wore a cable-knit sweater colored the same hue as Druk’s scales and black wool pants with the hem draped over his black boots.

It was the day after his thirteenth birthday and his mother had just left for work. She had finally deemed him old enough to responsibly take care of himself while she was away, and he planned to spend his first time unsupervised wisely.

Which was why he was now wandering through the forested area that belonged to his family’s property.

Very responsible indeed.

His mother, a few nights ago, had mentioned off-handedly–which, now that he thinks about it, had most certainly been done intentionally–about the large clearing his great-grandmother Reiko had used to train her Quirk for the UA entrance exam. His solarium, these past couple of years, had steadily grown too small to allow him full range of motion while he trained and, long before his current predicament, he had dedicated himself to following in his great-grandmother’s footsteps. So this clearing was exactly what he needed.

Peering between gnarled trunks, the gentle splashes of water and the faint sound of quieted sobs stole his attention. Denki, without making a sound (because sneaking around both the Caldera Royal Palace and the Kaminari Manor provided him with a useful set of skills indeed), crept toward the noises. Eventually, he came across a large clearing and, as he emerged from between the trees, he noticed a quaint creek running through the open area a few feet before him. Looking at the bank opposite to the one closest to him, he found the source of the noises in the form of a boy crumpled over the creek’s edge.

He couldn’t make out the boy’s face, as it was bowed toward the rushing water, but he could see that his hair–tossed back into a careless bun–was two-toned, perfectly split down the center with the right half white as a first snowfall and the left half red as freshly spilled blood. The boy was dressed plainly, and he had one of his hands dipped into the creek.

Now, Denki had seen a lot of strange things–he could even breathe fire for Agni’s sake–but never, in both his last life and his current one, had he ever seen something as remarkable as this unknown boy’s hair.

Then, because Denki was starting to think that the universe itself wished for him to die prematurely from shock, the boy’s hand slowly emerged from the flowing water and it was encased in an ethereal blue glow that Denki knew intimately. The air was viciously stolen from Denki’s lungs and his inner flame hauntingly cried out as he watched the boy splay his glowing hand over the grotesque hand-shaped burn that was clasped around his right forearm. The glowing water melded into the boy’s mangled skin, stitching together charred flays and leaving an unmarred, smooth expanse.

Denki strided forward. “You’re a waterbender.”

The boy snapped his head up, and Denki found himself looking into panicked heterochromia eyes, “What’re you talking about?” He snapped as he set his eyes–the right colored a gentle gray and the left colored a tumultuous turquoise–into a narrowed glare.

Instead of answering, Denki extended a blazing blue flame cupped in the palm of his hand before quickly extinguishing it with a short exhale and dropping into a low Fire Nation bow.

“I asked,” he said, “because I’m a firebender.”

Chapter Text

Blinking open her eyes, Katara found herself screaming, loudly, because what in Tui’s name was happening?!

She had died peacefully, surrounded by her ever-growing and vastly compassionate family, but now she felt her eyes burn as she frantically flitted between the five unknown pairs of eyes that were trained on her. Gray was an eye color she knew intimately–always shimmering with delight whenever Aang had smiled–but on these people, these absolute and complete strangers, it looked wrong. Gray-colored eyes meant gentle breezes brushing through her free tresses, midnight rides across a never-ending starry sky, soft caresses when the world got to be just a bit too much. These gray eyes that peered down at her now were cold.

Cold like the moment when Aang had been shot down by lightning and he hadn’t gotten back up.

Cold like the few minutes she had spent in a bone-chilling numbness after Zhao–that absolute and complete idiot–had murdered the moon.

Cold like that fateful day when the Fire Nation had descended upon her home, and she watched as her mother was reduced to nothing more than some charred bits and ash.

“Why is Shouto crying?”

Through her panicked haze, Katara was barely able to catch the words that floated above her. But she managed, and a whole new slew of troubled questions cascaded onto her, because who in La’s name was Shouto?!

She snapped her blurred vision onto the person she believed to have just spoken and she wondered if the sudden loss of her breath was how someone would feel if an airbender spontaneously decided to forcefully steal the air within their lungs. The girl–a child no older than eight, if Katara had to guess–had leaned over the wooden railing, that Katara just realized was surrounding her, and her white hair, interspersed with bits of red, hung only a few inches out of Katara’s reach. As the girl continued to creep closer, Katara found herself screaming, again, because, as utterly mind-halting as it had been to look up into those three sets of cold gray eyes, there could be nothing more unusual than seeing someone else with white hair.

The girl jerked back–serves her right–and that allowed Katara to finally see the three other people, three other absolute and complete strangers, who also had white hair.

Her mind was slipping faster than she could blink.

One of them–a boy no older than four–was gripping the wooden bars and looking up at the startled girl, seeming to be asking her a million questions in the span of only a few seconds. Katara could faintly make out the small bits of red hair growing near the boy’s temples. The other two–another boy, this one probably around nine, and a woman–had hair that was fully white.

The boy with the full head of white hair leaned up against the wooden railing before asking the frantic girl, “What’d you do to make him screech like that?”

“I didn’t do anything!” She snapped.

The younger boy let go of the wooden bar to poke the girl’s ribs, “You must’ve done something, or maybe Sho just doesn’t like your face.”

“Doesn’t like my face?!”

“Yeah, maybe he doesn’t like looking at it.”

“What?!”

“Alright, you two, Sho’s reaction probably wasn’t that deep. You might’ve just startled him.”

The, no doubt childish, replies perched on the tips of the squabbling children's tongues were never let out, because a haunting whisper mercilessly struck the conversation down.

“My masterpiece.”

The white-headed strangers, and Katara, turned their attention to the final stranger in the room, a man who Katara just realized was towering over her crib (because, somewhere in her panicked haze, she had finally–finally–realized that she had to be a baby and so her wooden enclosure must be the crib she was laying in). Looking up at him, she noted that he must’ve been where the two squabbling children had gotten the non-white bits in their hair, because he sported a head full of hair as red as freshly spilled blood. She never got the chance to fully take him in because her mind had, at that very moment, caught up with the spiraling situation happening around her.

Wait. Masterpiece? For Tui and La’s sake, what is he talking about?!

The woman hesitantly reached a hand out, appearing to want to lay it gently on the man’s upper arm but being deathly afraid of what the action might bring upon her. “Enji,” she called in a frail tone, “he’s only just been born.”

The man ignored her, “I have finally created one who will be powerful enough to surpass All Might.”

All who? What is going on?!

“Enji,” the woman said, a bit more forceful this time.

The man moved his gaze toward the four other people crowding around Katara’s crib, and he seemed to have only just noticed that they were even there as his awe-filled face–which somehow seemed to promise nothing but relentless pain and endless suffering–twisted into a scowl so fierce, Katara could’ve sworn she felt the temperature in the room rise with it.

“Everyone out!” He roared, jabbing a large finger toward the open doorway on his right. “I will not have you weaklings interfering with my masterpiece.”

A stunned silence settled over the five strangers before the white-haired ones scattered quickly, although the boy with the full head of white hair seemed to linger for a quick moment before he, too, disappeared into the darkened hallways beyond the opened door. The man stared down at Katara for a few minutes before turning sharply and leaving as well, slamming the sliding door shut on his way out.

In the welcomed absence of five people seemingly trying to stare into her soul, Katara felt her eyelids begin to droop. Seems like all that “excitement” caught up to me, she thought, numbly, as she fought against the insistent tugs of sleep. It was a losing battle, and she quickly found herself falling into an unwilling fit of rest with her last waking thought being, I can’t believe I’ve actually been reincarnated.

The room was now dimly lit when she was brought into wakefulness by the sound of softly padding footsteps creeping toward her crib. She blinked harshly a few times to dispel the sleepiness from her eyes and, when her vision had finally cleared, she found it being drawn to the lone boy who was leaning over her crib’s railing.

She noted, faintly, that this was the only child with a full head of white hair as he reached down to scoop her up, delicately cradling her to his chest. “Hi, Shouto.” The boy’s soft rasp cracked as he whispered Katara’s new name, but he smiled tenderly nonetheless.

Being face-to-face, and despite the darkness gingerly enveloping them, Katara was finally able to take in his blue eyes. She hadn’t noticed them at first, having been absolutely and completely caught up on the cold gray eyes and almost full heads of white hair, but now she was able to truly see his blue-colored eyes. They were far from the same dancing shade of blue that hinted at the unending depth and the unyielding force that was the rushing nature of water. His eyes were such a vivid shade of blue that they blazed relentlessly enough and burned fiercely enough that she almost–almost–was convinced that they were glowing.

Glowing in the same unending, unyielding, relentlessly fierce way that Azula’s blue flames had.

That shade of blue reminded her of fearful nights traversing through rocky terrain, of strained apologies after genuine efforts had been made, of a tentative friendship that had not yet been ready to fully blossom. But softened into a tender gaze, those blue eyes reminded her of quietly sung lullabies giving way to blissful dreams, of petty arguments always followed by heartfelt reconciliations, of a bond that had intertwined itself into her very soul.

Their vivid blue may have reminded her of Azula, yes, but their unwavering gaze reminded her of Sokka, her cherished brother.

It eased her shaking mind to know that in this new life, which she was steadily realizing with a startling clarity that it was far removed from both the Southern Water Tribe and the Air Nation, she had someone–a brother–who would care for her and fight for her with the same ferocity that Sokka had all those years ago.

With these thoughts swirling about in her mind, she reached her chubby hand out and placed it gently upon the boy’s slender cheekbone as she cutely giggled up at him. The boy’s smile seemed to grow positively radiant before he shakily said, “I’m Touya, your niisan.”

Katara knew somewhere in the back of her mind that she wasn’t old enough to talk, but she still attempted to say her new older brother’s name. All she got out though were a few garbles and she pouted fiercely once she realized that was the only sound she could make besides screaming.

Touya laughed softly. “You’ll be talking soon enough, peppermint.”

Katara glared up at her niisan.

Touya laughed again. “Patience, peppermint, all good things come to those who are patient.”

Leveling another heated glance up at him, her disgruntled expression melted into a look of morbid curiosity, that probably clashed violently against the delicate planes of her newborn face, as she caught sight of something that she had missed before. She hesitantly reached out and tried to tenderly brush her clumsy fingers against the white bandages wrapped around her niisan’s neck. He gently caught her outstretched hand and she noticed, stunned, that there were more bandages wrapped around his forearm.

“Shouto,” Touya called and Katara peered up into turquoise eyes that swirled with an ocean of emotions she couldn’t even begin to decipher, “I don’t know how, and I honestly don’t really care, but you’ve got a look in your eyes that tells me you’ve got more going on in there than ‘no thoughts, head empty’ so I came here to make you a promise.”

He took a deep breath. “Life with this family will not be easy, but I promise to do my damnedest to protect you, even if it means fighting death,” and when she caught sight of the gleam in her brother’s blue eyes, she believed.

I suddenly feel a lot more empathetic toward Zuko and Azula.

During the span of only a few years, Katara learned very quickly what Touya had meant when he had said that life with her new family wasn’t going to be easy.

Her father, Endeavor–or Father Lord, as she has taken to calling him behind his back–somehow managed to climb the Pro-Hero equivalent of the corporate ladder to take up the mantle of Japan’s Number Two. It irked Katara to no end because, while no one could probably stoop as low as the Fire Lord, Flame Hero: Endeavor came uncomfortably close to that threshold. He was often removed from the stilting domestic affairs that occurred within the Todoroki home due to his long patrols and even longer desk hours. But whenever he did manage to grace the house's shoji, he was accompanied by a suffocating tension that never failed to violently make her heart cease beating. It reminded her, intimately, of her time spent hiding in the Fire Nation: always being cautious with her words, always avoiding eye contact, always looking over her shoulder.

If she knew that this was what it had been like to live in the Fire Nation, let alone the Caldera Royal Palace, she probably wouldn’t have been as harsh as she had been on Zuko when he had tried to join up.

Actually, maybe not. He had threatened her home and he had chased Aang across the world.

And his ponytail was stupid.

“What’s got you thinking so hard, peppermint?”

Katara tilted her head away from her lunch to look up into her brother’s eyes. “Touya-nii,” she began with the utmost seriousness, “don’t grow your hair out into a ponytail and then shave the rest off. You’ll look stupid.”

Touya blinked, “You’re the boss.”

“Damn straight.” She nodded with all the satisfaction her four-year-old self could muster before turning back to her lunch and slurping up a few noodles.

Touya raised an eyebrow as he stirred his noodles with his chopsticks, “Where’d you learn that?”

She quickly checked to make sure that they were the only two in the dining room before leaning toward him and whispering, “Don’t let the Father Lord know, but I’ve been watching TV when he’s on night patrol.”

“You sneak!” Touya laughed, shaking his head lightly, “I can’t believe you thought to do that before me.” He glanced sideways at her, “Why haven’t you invited me on these escapades?”

Katara turned her head away, messing with the remaining noodles floating around in her broth, “You need rest, Niisan. I’m not blind, I know you’re the one really taking care of us now that Mom’s checked out.”

“Shouto,” her brother sighed.

“No!” She snapped, slamming her chopsticks down and splattering broth onto the wooden table, “I’m gonna worry about you whether you like it or not! Someone’s gotta take care of you ‘cause you obviously can’t, so shut up and deal with it!”

After a short pause, Touya simply sighed again, “Alright, I did say you were the boss.”

This is utterly ridiculous.

It was almost–almost if she blatantly ignored certain details–as if she was back behind the seemingly impenetrable walls of the Northern Water Tribe, attempting to covertly learn the combative forms of waterbending late into the frosted nights. Except the engawas surrounding the enclosed courtyard she was standing in were not made of snow and the still moonlit air that blanketed her would never be stirred by the enthusiastic chatter of a young Avatar.

She had a few months until her fifth birthday, and she intended to use those months wisely because those months–those alarmingly fleeting days–would be the last moments she had safely nestled in the cooling embrace of her newfound childhood ignorance. In her first life, she had been violently exposed to the truths of her world far too soon and it had broken something inside of her. It had made her angry in a way that had blinded her, and it had taken her a long time to truly heal. (If she ever had the chance to see Azula again, she would grip her hands and apologize because no one–not even the Fire Lord’s prodigious daughter–deserved to be stripped of their childhood ignorance in such a ruinous way).

She only had a few months until she inevitably manifested the Quirk the Father Lord had been eagerly awaiting for since the moment he had purchased her mother. Perhaps, in a faraway lifetime, she would have felt nothing but excitement at the prospect of manifesting a Quirk that would aid her in becoming a hero like All Might. Perhaps, in a faraway lifetime, she would have been young and naive, sleeping peacefully despite the horrors hidden within the shoji of her family’s mansion. Perhaps, in a faraway lifetime, she would actually believe that her father was capable of loving her.

But she wasn’t stupid (and the only one who seemed to understand that was Touya).

With Zuko’s mastery of dragon fire came the ability to share memories, and Katara would never forget the three–and only three because, even after all those years of unwavering friendship, he still hadn’t wished to put that kind of burden on them–horrifying memories he had shared of his younger years under the cruel hand of the Fire Lord because she was living that same nightmare.

So here she was, standing by the still edge of the pond in her house’s enclosed courtyard while being bathed in the pale light of the full moon, itching to see if she had carried anything else with her into this new life besides her memories.

She took in a deep breath, relishing in the familiar way that the moonlight danced across her gleaming skin. (Her porcelain skin tone had been a difficult adjustment for her. At first, all she could see was a deathly paleness that faintly longed to be wreathed in Fire Nation red. Now, she saw a glittering fairness that glowed in the same gentle way as Tui’s rays). She raised her hands and began with the simple pulling and pushing motion of water; a movement that had long since been ingrained into her soul. Almost immediately, she felt a flood rush through her veins. It swirled and swished around, trickling over her heart and weaving between her soul before the chilled sensation streamed from her fingertips. On her next motion, she grinned with a blinding delight as the pond water eagerly responded to her, receding with her pushing before swiftly returning with her pulling.

She rescinded her connection and she allowed herself to feel the cascading caresses that were being brushed along her chi paths before dropping into a stance with all the ethereal fluidity of a master waterbender. She had her hands pulled to her chest and, taking hold of the still pond water, she swiftly dropped her hands to settle them down by her right thigh. She moved her hands up to straighten out her arms and, with a gracefulness that had become innate to her, she swung her arms to her left before sharply throwing them back to her right. What followed her movements was a stream of water that curled around her back before curving around her front and shooting out a few feet away from her.

Her grin grew even wider as she turned back to the softly lit pond and settled herself into another stance.

“Shouto, what–?”

The stream of water she had started to bend fell back into the pond with a faint splash. She whipped her head around before spotting where a warm light was spilling from a set of opened doors on her left. She felt the flood in her veins freeze over so suddenly that it harshly stole the breath held within her lungs as she watched the boy with a full head of white hair step out onto the engawa, sliding the doors shut behind him.

“You didn’t see anything, Touya-nii!” She snapped, narrowing her eyes into a fierce glare after shaking off her daze.

Maybe she could convince him that this had been a dream if she glared hard enough. But, even with the dim light of the full moon obscuring her niisan’s face, she could still feel the incredulous expression he was shooting into her soul.

“Right,” he drawled as he walked up to her, “I totally didn’t see you using your Quirk, this is all just some figment of my imagination.”

Before she could stop herself, the words, “That wasn’t my Quirk, Touya-nii,” were flying out of her mouth. A wave of panic cascaded over her as her eyes widened and her jaw snapped closed with an audible click. She turned away sharply, hiding her distraught expression behind a curtain of red hair and fully intending to hide herself away in her bedroom for the rest of her miserable life.

How come I always manage to fuck up?

In this life, so far removed from the Southern Water Tribe and the Air Nation, Touya was her lifeline. He kept her tethered, he gave her the strength to keep going. She had finally–finally–been able to experience true peace after months of fighting in a devastating war that had been happening before she had even been born. Living under Endeavor’s fiery wrath felt, to her, as if those months of tireless fighting had never ended and–while she could take a beating–it was so utterly difficult for her to go back to living in that same soul-shattering fear.

Her niisan had kept her afloat because, unknowingly to him, he had always been there to catch her in the moments where it got to be too much.

And now she had gone and fucked up their relationship.

A gentle, bandaged hand on her shoulder cut off her spiraling train of thoughts. “Shouto,” Touya began, “what do you mean that wasn’t your Quirk?”

“You’ll think I’m crazy,” was all she could manage to spit out.

“When you were born, I told you that you had a look in your eyes that made it seem like you knew what was happening around you and, as you got older, it changed into a look that gives me the feeling that you’ve already lived another life, so I think I’ll manage.”

She couldn’t bear to look into his eyes–eyes that reminded her of Azula’s fiery confidence whenever he squared off with Endeavor; eyes that reminded her of Sokka’s fierce dedication whenever he snuck into her room after a tense day–as she said, “That’s because I have, Touya–nii.”

“Shouto, what?”

She whipped around to face him, knocking his hand off her shoulder and leveling him with a blazing glare, “I knew you wouldn’t believe me!”

Somewhere, in the back of her whirling mind, she knew her reaction was intense. But, in that moment, she felt as if her entire world was crumbling around her; as if her hope was being stamped down into nothing. It reminded her, intensely, of the time that Azula had shot lightning at Aang with the cold intention to kill.

A gentle, bandaged hand was gingerly placed on her cheek. She felt a thumb wipe delicately under the bottom lashes of her left eye, and that was when she noticed the silent sobs wracking through her body.

“Shouto,” Touya began softly, “I could never think you’re crazy because I know there’s more to you. I was just surprised that I got the ‘more’ part right.”

She tilted her head up and she couldn’t help the broken, “Touya-nii,” that passed her lips once she caught sight of the ferocious love swirling in his turquoise eyes.

“Shouto,” Touya responded as he pulled her into an equally ferocious embrace.

Taking a shuddering breath into his nightshirt, she said, “It’s a long story, you sure you wanna hear it?”

She felt him lay his cheek atop her mused hair before nodding lightly, “If it’s about you, always.”

A few hours later, with Agni’s rays beginning to crease over the horizon, Touya still looked very confused. “So let me get this straight,” he began, lounging back into the grass by the pond’s edge and tilting his head sideways to look at her again, “You were the last waterbender of your tribe and then you fought in a war that had been going on for a hundred years because you were fated to be the Avatar’s waterbending master? That sounds like the plot to a crazy war drama.” Touya shook his head as he huffed out a laugh.

“Believe it or not, but it actually happened. And I totally kicked ass during the final battle.”

“I suddenly just got a lot more terrified of you.”

Pain was an aspect of life that Katara had come to know intimately. She knew the unending cavern that pain left in the heart-wrenching wake of the loss of a loved one; she knew the destructive streak that pain left in the blurred moments after a devastating betrayal, but she had never been misfortunate enough to come to know the unique viciousness that was hidden within the shattered crevices of pain because her first father had been a good man. Zuko and Azula had become familiar with that viciousness too early in their lifetimes because their father had been a bad man.

“Get up and fight me, Shouto! You’ll never surpass All Might by lying around uselessly.”

Endeavor–as it turns out–was also a very bad man.

A dull pain was throbbing along the bridge of her nose; it leaked into her eyes, causing water to fill up along her lash line and turn her vision into a mess of beiges, browns and reds. From her nose, a steady stream of warmth was sliding over her cheekbone and dripping down onto the matted floors. A few moments before, when her body had enough fight in it to keep her standing, that warmth had been sliding over her busted upper lip and had pooled onto the tip of her tongue, coating the back of her teeth in a distinct taste of iron. Her right wrist would flare anytime her body was jostled and the pain shot up towards her elbow, making her forearm muscles want to spasm. One of her fingers on her right hand was bent at an unnatural angle; that spiking pain had long since settled down but the pain was now shooting through her palm and making the throb in her wrist even more noticeable. On her back, just below the spot between her shoulder blades, was where a burning pain had settled. She felt, keenly, the spots where her plain t-shirt had melted into her skin whenever she tried to shift her torso.

She tried to roll away–her years of fighting homicidal firebenders eventually led to her developing some battle intuition–but her back suddenly and sharply flared, shooting hot streaks of pain up into her neck, across her shoulders and even down into her legs. She grunted in both agony and frustration as she realized that her young body must have finally given up–and stubbornness could only take her so far–before a startling pain blossomed from her left side. She noted, faintly, that something unyielding had wedged itself between her last rib and her hipbone.

Then she heard the sizzling.

Katara refused to scream; to give that man the absolute satisfaction that what he was doing to her was truly and utterly ruining her. She clamped her teeth down onto her tongue, hard, and the faint taste of iron–that had coated the back of her teeth–exploded in her mouth as she tried desperately to move away from the pain.

All too soon, the sizzling became drowned out by the scorching stench of melting flesh and burning fabric. In the midst of her weak struggle, she felt her skin bubble and droop, sticking to the ashened edges of her t-shirt.

It was as gross as it was painful, and she wondered with a startling clarity if this was how Zuka had felt when the Fire Lord had decided to melt half his face off for simply existing.

Abruptly, the pressure left her side but the pain remained, screaming. She couldn’t see her father’s scowl through her watery vision but she could feel it in the way it had raised the temperature of the room by a few degrees.

“Pathetic,” he spat before turning on his heel and stomping out of the training room, more than likely on his way to pretend that he doesn’t beat his children halfway to death during his off-hours.

“Shouto! Oh Kami!”

The distressed cry cleared most of her pain-induced haze and she weakly tilted her head toward the open doorway. Touya scrambled into the training room with a frantic expression marring his features, placing a panic-stricken glint in his azure fire-colored eyes and pulling his lips down into a heartbreaking frown.

“Shouto,” he choked out after he had fallen to his knees beside her prone form and raked his wide eyes over her small frame.

She yearned to reach out and reassure him. Within the past five years of her miserable life, she had never seen an expression so distraught skew her niisan’s face. Her niisan was a formidable wall made from snow, refusing to giveaway in the face of roaring flames. Her niisan was a towering wave brewed by a storm, crashing effortlessly over steel hulls. Her niisan was a full moon, feuling her strength to see where this life would take her.

But now, as he gazed down upon her broken and bruised body, he looked so utterly and hopelessly terrified that it broke something inside of her.

Sobs violently shuddered through her mangled limbs, sparking white-hot pain throughout her veins, as she curled up by her niisan.

“Touya-nii,” she cried, pitifully, “it h-hurts.”

A gentle, bandaged hand brushed away the tear-soaked strands of hair that were clinging to her flushed cheeks. “I know, peppermint, I know. I’ll make it better, I promise.”

“Touya-nii. Touya-nii.” She sobbed.

“I’m here, Shouto. I’m so sorry, I should’ve stopped him.”

She wildly shook her head as another sob wrenched itself past her blood-stained lips. “N-nothing you could do, so d-don’t apologize.”

“But–”

“No!”

She heard him sigh. “Okay, alright, c’mon, I’ll patch you up. I think we also have some leftover ingredients for cold soba.”

Roughly a few hours later, Katara was seated at the dinner table, shakily scooping up her soba noodles into her mouth. Tending to her wounds had been a painful process. Touya had to peel her singed shirt away from her burns, which had ripped off bits of her charred skin. He had to set her broken finger–thank Tui for the internet–which had sent a spike of pain so sharp up into her ear that she had felt her stomach lurch up into her throat. Her sprained wrist had been wrapped and a bandage had been delicately placed across the bridge of her nose.

“Are you okay?”

She flitted her eyes toward her niisan who was sitting beside her, picking and pushing around his serving of cold soba. She moved her eyes back down to her food before moving some of her soba noodles around a bit with her shakily held chopsticks.

“I’ve been better.” She shrugged, scooping up a small bit of her cold soba, “But I’ve also had worse.”

“You sure? Endeavor was a lot harsher with you today than he’s ever been with me.”

She slurped up her soba noodles before saying, “Maybe, but it’s nothing new to me. I used to fight firebenders on the regular, remember?”

“None of those firebenders had been your deranged father, and you were a fully trained waterbender when you were fighting them, not a five-year-old who just got their Quirk.” He deadpanned.

“Those facts are irrelevant, I’ll be fine.”

“Shouto–”

“Touya-nii.” She slammed her chopsticks down onto the wooden table and turned sharply to fully face him, pointedly ignoring the white-hot flare of pain that had shot through her veins. “You gotta believe me when I say that I’ll be fine.”

Touya pursed his lips as he held eye contact with her before sighing and leaning forward to rest his forehead against hers. “Okay, alright, I’ll believe you,” he said, “but you gotta tell me if it becomes too much, I made a promise to protect you, remember?”

She tilted her head to very gently rub her nose against his in an Eskimo kiss–a common sign of affection shown amongst members of the Water Tribes–before saying, “I will, don’t worry.”

The scorching stench of burned flesh attacked her nose as she moved deeper into the seemingly empty alleyway. At first glance, the alleyway appeared to be inconsequential. Dim lighting, bits of broken glass littering the dirtied ground, a lone dumpster bin lining the grimy wall. But as she walked further down into the alleyway, that scorching smell of burnt flesh grew stronger and stronger until it crept down her throat and caused her stomach to uneasily churn once she reached the lone dumpster that was on her left. Hesitantly peaking over the dirtied edge, the churning in her stomach lurched up and lodged bile in the back of her throat after she caught sight of the mess of stark white hair amongst the clumpy, black garbage bags.

Two years, five days and three hours ago was when her mother had finally lost the remaining dredges of her feeble sanity and poured boiling water over the side of her that looked identical to the Father Lord. It had been a traumatizing experience, yes, especially because she could understand where her mother was coming from (in her first life, she had come uncomfortably close to hurting Zuko in such a way because he had looked so much like the Fire Lord). Still, it hadn’t scarred her soul in the same horrifying way that watching her first mother being reduced to nothing more than some charred bits and ash had.

However, nothing–not even watching her first mother’s death or getting physically scarred by her second mother–could ever compare to the sheer horror and utter helplessness she had felt during Touya’s final hours as a member of the Todoroki household.

She would never forget the screams (“NO, STOP! YOU’RE HURTING HIM! TOUYA!”).

It had taken her two days–two whole days of frantic searching interspersed by fitful bouts of sleep–for her to find him because, just hours after Touya’s banishment, the Father Lord had seen it fit to give her the beating of a lifetime.

Reaching down into the dumpster and pulling her niisan up with all her seven-year-old might, she wondered, faintly, if this was how Azula had felt after watching her older brother be cast aside for simply being a “disappointment.”

Touya remained unconscious as she clumsily maneuvered him onto the dirty ground–she could practically hear Mater Yugoda scolding her into next week, but she couldn’t necessarily afford any luxuries at the moment–before dropping to her knees beside his lolled head and roughly shucking off the backpack she had brought with her. She hastily unzipped the backpack to reveal the numerous plastic water bottles she had stolen from various convenience stores (she would have bought them but she hadn’t the chance to steal any cash from the Father Lord). She wasted no time in snatching up the first water bottle her hand touched and cracking its lid open.

“Shou-to?”

She managed to keep her white-knuckle grip on the opened water bottle but the cap clattered onto the dirtied ground with a faint clink as her wide eyes darted up to zero in on her niisan’s marred face, and that’s when she noticed that his turquoise eyes–which somehow had remained alight despite the circumstances–were narrowed at her.

“What, Touya-nii,” she snapped, realizing that what she was about to do had now become considerably more difficult with her niisan awake because he just loved to question everything she did (sometimes, it reminded her so much of Sokka that it made her want to hold him tight and apologize for all the times she refused to listen to him).

“What’re you doing here?” His words were slurred.

“Helping you.” She focused her attention back on the water bottle in her left hand.

“Shouto, you should be at home.” Now his words were a bit more forceful.

“I’m not leaving you here.” She lifted her right hand and extended her fingers toward the water bottle.

“Peppermint, it’s alright.” He shifted, trying to reach out to her but letting out a pained groan instead.

“No, it’s not, but I’ll make it alright.” She could feel her chi pulsing as it reached out to the still water.

“Shouto, there’s nothing you can do.”

“Yes, there is.”

“No, there isn’t, that’s okay.”

“Yes, there is, niisan.”

“No, there isn’t, go home, Sho.”

“Yes, there is, I’m not leaving you.”

“Shouto–!”

“Shut up and let me help you!” Having enough of his pestering, and in a bit of a time crunch, Katara decided that the best way to quiet her niisan’s concerns would be by simply dumping the opened bottle of water onto his face.

Touya spluttered, spitting water out of his mouth, “Shouto! The fuck was that for?!”

“You wouldn’t shut up!” Katara snapped, sending a glare at her niisan so heated that it snapped his gaping mouth shut with a click.

After a few moments of silence, Katara firmly nodded to herself before tossing the–now–empty plastic bottle aside and holding her hands above her niisan’s soaked face. She let her chi rush out to connect with the spilled water before saying, “There’s something about waterbending that I didn’t tell you about, Touya-nii.”

Touya hummed questioningly as she pulled the water up and wrapped it around her hands. “Every element has something unique about it. With water, it can be used to heal,” she explained before the water around her hands began to glow, casting the alleyway in a soft blue light and causing her niisan’s jaw to drop.

“How–?” Touya stuttered.

Instead of answering, Katara brought her hands down to gently cup the bubbled and blistered skin of Touya’s cheeks. Her young body lacked the stamina she had developed over her years as a waterbending master but her natural ease for healing–a blessing from Yue many moons ago–blanketed her in the same way it had before. She watched as the water was absorbed into her niisan’s heated skin, leaving behind raw scars.

“Shit,” she cursed.

“What is it?” Touya tried to move his charred hands up to feel his newly healed skin.

“Don’t touch it.” She snapped, “It’s just that I wasn’t able to reconnect your burnt skin with your not-burnt skin, your body must have already rejected it. I would fix it but I don’t have the stamina, or enough water, for that.”

Touya nudged her knee. “It’s fine." After a moment, he said, "Stop it.”

“Stop what?” She asked as she reached for another water bottle and cracked it open.

“Blaming yourself. I can practically hear your thoughts. You’re doing amazing, snowflake.”

After she had unloaded her life story onto her niisan that fateful night three years ago, Touya began to call her “snowflake” whenever he needed her to truly listen to him. The nickname was an ode to her first life; a reminder of all she persevered through.

She sighed, healing the rest of his face, “I just want to help you.”

Touya’s smile was small, but it shined brighter than Agni’s light. “And you have, so much.”

“Azula?”

Water–in a life that Shouto kept gently buried underneath the trickling current of the stream that weaved through the far crevices of his mind–was considered to be the element of change.

Life without Touya (his formidable wall made from snow, his towering wave brewed by a storm, his full moon) had been devastating. Shouto’s heart was something akin to a rushing waterfall that cascaded powerfully over a cliffside. Once he pulled someone into the tumbling currents, they remained there until his heart eventually eroded into a stilted river. But Touya (“Stop, please, you’ve hurt him enough already!”) had been forcefully pulled out of the waterfall, leaving behind a rock that jutted out of the cliffside and jaggedly parted the flowing stream, and the azure mourning bead he had weaved into the white strands of his hair only helped to set that rock even more firmly between the tumbling rapids of his heart.

Touya (who had eyes the color of Sokka’s fierce dedication and flames the color of Azula’s fiery determination) had done everything in his power to keep their father’s scorching rage from burning Shouto to nothing but a crisp. He had always found a way to be by Shouto’s side; never once did he falter in the face of their father’s maddening frustrations or their mother’s fleeting sanity.

It had been no surprise to Shouto that life without Touya (his strength to see this life through) had crushed almost every bit of his soul but, just as a river found a way to continue flowing between the cracks in stones, Shouto too continued to live.

Now that river was being lit on fire.

“Katara,” the boy–Azula–said (and that smug smile he sported was just as infuriating as it had been when Azula wore it all those years ago) after he rose from his Fire Nation bow.

Shouto fell heavily into a seated position, “How–?”

“How do I know it’s you or how am I here? Well, to answer the first question, you’re the only waterbender I know who’s confident enough to address me so informally, and to answer the second question, I’m not sure how I ended up here. Also, my name’s Denki now.” Azula–Denki–grinned (and that smug tone of voice was just as grating as it had been when Azula used it all those years ago) as he sat himself down seiza-style across from Shouto.

Shouto–after taking a deep breath to steady himself–let his leftover fear of being discovered and the remaining shock of finding someone familiar flow out of him. He imagined that those remnants of fear and shock floated in the water before him for a few moments before being swept up by the creek’s current and rushed away into the forest beyond the clearing. “You know,” in place of his fear and shock crashed a wave of fond irritation that crested whenever he was in the presence of certain fiery Fire Nation nobility, “you’re still just as annoying as you were the last time we met.”

He couldn’t help the bark of laughter that escaped him as Denki’s smug expression morphed into a fierce glare. “Whatever are you talking about? I was delightful then and I’m just as delightful now!”

Shouto chuckled lightly as he moved his legs to sit cross-legged before resting his elbows atop his knees and leaning slightly over the creek. “Whatever lights your inner flame, Sparky, but seriously, what’ve you been up to? Surely you’ve found a way to make your life interesting.”

Denki rolled his eyes, and that was the moment when Shouto–with a start–realized that his eyes were the same stunning shade of liquid gold that Zuko had sported, “Laugh it up, Sugar Queen,” and here Denki cackled at Shouto’s scandalized gasp, “but, as I’m sure you’ve already figured out, I can bend in this life as well. My Quirk is actually an electricity-type, I inherited it from my father’s side of the family. How weird is that?” Denki laughed airily, “I’ve spent most of my time getting to know this world though, and training for UA’s hero course.”

“You want to be a hero?” Shouto said incredulously with a raised eyebrow.

“Crazy, I know.” This time, Denki’s laughter was humorless as he tilted his head to squint up at Agni. “But I can’t help feeling as though this is my second chance. I didn’t have any honor in my last life, and it took me losing a fight to you to even realize that–” Denki moved his head to peer into Shouto’s wide eyes–“so I’m finally going to gain my honor in this life by choosing to do what’s right.”

Under the raging inferno that was his father’s cruelty, Shouto had forgotten why he decided to become a hero when-at the delicate age of two-he had first watched that spine-tingling clip of an unknown Pro-Hero dressed in black, masterfully saving a civilian after they had been thrown off the roof of a skyscraper. For Endeavor, being a hero meant surpassing All-Might and–in his unrelenting fury in the wake of Touya’s banishment–for Shouto, being a hero had meant being better than Endeavor.

But for Katara (and now for Shouto too), being a hero meant choosing to help others.

Without missing a beat, Shouto threw himself into the creek to lean up against the bank that Denki was sitting beside. He grasped onto Denki’s hands like they were his lifeline–absently noting their unusually warm temperature–as he felt the waterfall that was his heart begin to rush over the cliffside a little faster (as if the water had been startled into action by a strike of lightning) and he allowed himself to smile something wholly brilliant for the first time since Touya’s banishment.

“Katara, what–?”

“You just reminded me why I want to join UA’s hero course, so thank you for that. And my name’s Shouto now.”

Denki’s parted lips quickly stretched into a grin that reminded Shouto of the same grin Azula had sported after her surrender in that deserted town all those years ago–dangerously sharp with an edge of unsettling cockiness that wasn’t directed at Shouto this time around. “Well, ShoSho,” Denki purred, “those hero wannabes aren’t going to know what hit them once we get there.”