Zutara Week- Blood

The list of good things that Zuko did was short. That day was the day he chose that he was going to be on the good guys’ side. The day of Black sun.  The halls of the underground fortress were deserted and even if it wasn’t nobody would dare stop him. It was that day that he performed his first deed of good as an actual good guy.  He had been running to the war balloon hanger when he spotted her.  

The waterbender.

Katara.

She was face to face with a firebender.  He threw a fireball to her right and she let it whiz pass her.  Her eyes kept glancing to the dead bodies to her side.  They looked like casual people. People that had unfortunately not taken shelter in the underground bunker.  Her eyes met the firebender’s again and in a series of successive kicks three fire blasts were coming towards her. She blocked all with a head size ball of water. She sent a series of ice needles towards him and he evaporated them easily with a fire blast. Her ball of water got smaller.  It seemed the firebender noticed this to.

Unmercifully he shot fire out of his hands and instead of letting it diminish he kept it going. She blocked with her ball of water and slowly the water started to turn to steam. Zuko knew he couldn’t go barging in there, she would think him an enemy. He quickly grabbed an extra shirt out of his bag and tore it. He wound the cloth around his head and burnt eye. She would have noticed the eye immediately.  He ran towards the firebender as her water ball got even smaller.
He wasn’t going to make it.

He saw a tear slide down her cheek before turning to steam. His run quickly turned down to a walk as he watched the blood of the bodies stream towards her hands, making the ball of water big and tainting it as red as the blood. Her blood overpowered the fire and the firebender’s eyes widened before he turned tail and ran away. Katara fell to her knees and wept. The blood fell to the floor causing it to splash onto her. Slowly Zuko approached her, as if not to scare her, and put a hand on her shoulder. She looked up to him startled but didn’t move.

“You have to catch up with your group. Ozai is dispatching war balloons. You have to hurry.”

She looked up to him oddly before looking at the blood. Tears continued to cascade down her face.

“That could have been innocent’s blood!”

Zuko signed.

“Well they weren’t using it.”

She slapped his hand away, eye narrowing and sparking with anger.

“How can you be so cold?!”

He pointed at the Fire Nation main city

“It’s us or them! You can’t save them now! “

He signed as she cringed away. He didn’t mean to shout.

“The only thing we can do is try to end this war as quickly as possible...”

She knew he was right. She had been taught that blood was life. She had bended blood, she had bended someone’s life. She felt a bit nauseous.

“C’mon.”

She looked at the hand offered to her before taking it. He helped her stand.

“If we don’t move qui-“

“There she is! The Avatar’s waterbender!”

Both heads whipped around to the entourage of firebenders. There had to be at least 30.With one big synchronized kick they sent a line of fire towards Katara. Zuko sent most of the fire back at them. Their eyes narrowed

“C’mon. We have to fight.”

They sent another fire wall towards him, this one more powerful.

“I’m out of water.”

He looked over his shoulder before turning back towards the fight as they sent another wall at him. He could only stop the fire directly in front him.  They were too many of them.

“Bend the blood!”

She shook her head furiously.

“I-I can’t!”

He looked back at her with anger before it turned to sympathy.  His hands were slightly burnt.

“You have to survive. The avatar needs you. I can’t hold them back on my own.”

It was then she realized that this man needed her.  That he might also be a victim if she refused to bend blood.

She bended.

It started with all the blood on the floor and on her but she knew that wasn’t enough. She bended the blood out of a dead old man and that wasn’t enough either. She almost cried as she bended the blood out of a girl that looked her age and almost threw up as she watched the body grow paler. She did start crying though as she filled her canteens with blood. A Fire Nation soldier’s blood mixed with that of an innocent little girl.  Old blood mixed with young.  Innocent blood mixed with tainted.

She drew in a breath.

The fire nation soldiers sent a wall towards them. She breathed out. She bended a wave of blood and sent it crashing onto their fire. She froze them and hit them and that wasn’t enough because in the end it was them who made her do this. She hated them for it. She wouldn’t take their lives though. She scared them and soon they ran off, drenched in blood.

She watched them go with sad eyes. Zuko put a hand on her shoulder and she saw his eye glow with sympathy. She fell to her knees and sobbed and he held her because in the end he couldn’t help but think it was his fault that she crying.

Zuko positioned her on his back and she held onto his shoulders for dear life as sobs wracked her body.  He ran through the buildings, trying to get her back to her group as quickly as possible for he could already imagine the war balloon cresting the volcano. After a series of complicated turns and a few burned fire nation soldiers he was able to see Katara’s group in the distance looking to the war balloons that were cresting the volcano.  It was then he noticed she had stopped crying.

She was only shaking now.  Slowly he crouched down and she unwound her feet from his waist and let her feet touch the ground. Still she held onto his shoulders with her face pressed against his back. She continued to tremble. He turned around and grabbed her face bringing it to look at his. Tears continued to slowly make their way down her face. Finally she spoke.

“I never wish to bend with blood again.”

She closed her eyes tight as if that would erase what she had done.

“It was...amazing”

Her eyes opened quickly and looked at him shocked.

“What?”

He shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly.

“It looked like Fire Nation water.”

Her eyes drifted to her shoes. He must be insane. Delusional. He put his hand on her left cheek, like she had to him so long ago.

“Do whatever has to be done to survive. Take care Katara.”

Then he was gone.  He ran back into the city and she watched as he disappeared.

“Who was that?”

Katara didn’t even look back at her father as she continued looking into the mist. To the man that thought the most disgusting part of her was amazing.

“I...don’t know.”

As she looked into the mist she remembered that she never gave him her name but somehow he had known it and she was struck with a strange feeling that she had looked into golden eyes like that one before.

His eye colour was stunning.