Things were not looking good for Princess Azula on this promised day. Her father, Phoenix King Ozai, had left her on the sidelines while he burned away the Earth Kingdom, knowing full well her capabilities. Her servants and Da Li agents are severely lacking, which was unacceptable. Everything has to be perfect today. It will be perfect. It must be perfect. Or else, what's the point of it all?
It would probably be an underestimate of the Hundred Year War. For Azula, though, this day was about to be worse. The elders decided to put that fateful crown that Azula spent her entire life in her grasp, and they stopped dead in their tracks. The momentary pause might be agonizing for her, forcing her to say.
"What are you waiting for? Do it!" she said impatiently.
"Well, if you insist," said a mysteriously gravely voice.
Instantly Azula saw her mysterious new challenger, a man with several severe burns on his body, clad with piercing blue eyes, ghoulish white hair, and drab black clothing. Nonchalantly he strolled into the palace with an enigmatic expression. Dozens of paranoid questions clouded Azula's mind and froze herself in place. Eventually, she came up with the two most important ones.
"Who are you? How did you get in here," she said in a panicked tone.
"The name's Toya Todoroki, son of the Number One Hero Endeavor. You can call me Dabi though I don't care. I let myself in as well. We got important business to discuss.
A dangerous cocktail of pride and paranoia took over Azula for a moment. And only for a moment as she replaced any worry she had with a cocky laugh.
"And why would I even think of talking business with someone that looks like a charred elephant rat?"
Unfazed by the comment, Dabi instead smiled and stated.
"Because there's a battle coming. One that makes this war of yours look like Child's play. I'm confident in our chances, but my boss still wants some insurance. Which is why I'm here, to make sure that you scratch our backs when we need it so that we don't have to scratch yours," he said with creeping intimidation.
The ground beneath Azula's hands started to smoke, unable to control herself amidst such insolence, the power of Sozin's Comet coursing through her veins. Boiling anger and gripping fear nearly had her let loose, but she still held on to her slipping persona.
"I think your mistaken, "Dabi," I think that statement should be flipped around. And if you don't want to join the Earth Kingdom, I suggest you stop your praddling. Before I cremate, you like your namesake," she said venomously.
At that moment, Dabi's smile vanished instead, growing colder than his eyes while saying.
"Frankly, the only mistake I made was thinking I could talk this long to some stuck-up princess with an unearned title," he said while having his hands start to smoke.
At that point, a tidal wave of repressed rage claimed Azula as she belted out.
"Then I guess I have to prove to you why I've earned this crown!" she said as she blasted a torrent of blue fire towards the villain.
However, Dabi remained unfettered, swiping his hand just right to divert the blast, creating a geyser of flames that could get seen for miles. Shock distracted Azula for a moment, realizing their near-equal power and flames. However, that distraction nearly cost her the fight as Dabi sent a beam of concentrated heat.
The young prodigy managed to narrowly dodge it using her natural agility as the beam tore through the Captial using her natural agility. Several buildings were instantly burned to smithereens, reminding her of the danger of the fight. One wrong step could leave her in an urn. Realizing this, she took a more calculated offensive, spawning jets of flame that made her get to the rooftops, all the while firing fireballs the size of boulders. However, Dabi simply avoided them, propelling himself to the very same rooftop horizontal to Azula.
Taking his body into account, Dabi became more suppressed, unleashing several small blasts of flame while running on the rooftop. Azula nimbly dodged every attack, flipping without pause. Once she gained the momentum, she counterattacked, unfurling her legs in whipping fire that both met her attacks and aimed straight towards Toya!
Using his minute control, Dabi sent out a wisp of fire to propel himself just a tiny bit to avoid it still. Part of the attack got him slightly. Still, the villain didn't care, instead pressing on to deliver a last-second flamethrower-like attack that Azula barely met head-on. Two small explosions rang out, covering the vision of both fighters in thick smoke.
They both tried to continue the fight, but the pressing heat started to get to them. Stinging sweat furrowed their respective brows, leaving their skin itchy and singing. Though you couldn't tell with Dabi as he held a stone-cold poker face while Azula panted unstably, giving him all the ammunition he needed. Realizing this, they both unconsciously entered a short reprieve, thus starting a battle of words that burned hotter than any flame thrown so far.
"What's wrong, princess. Can't handle the heat? Cause it's only going to increase from here," he said coldly.
Azula's psyche once again slipped, conjuring voices she probably had heard all her life. Her mother, Ursa, grabbed her right shoulder and lovingly said. .
"Leave now, Azula; you have nothing to prove. You don't need that crown, fear, or anything else, just your friends and family," she said in a sickly sweet tone.
However, on her left side laid her father, coldly sitting away from her on an iron throne while stating.
"I didn't raise a coward. You can still stand, which means that you will still fight!" Ozai said vehemently.
The angel and demon on her shoulder kept arguing until Azula then screamed out, ignoring them while addressing Dabi.
"Shut up! You don't know me or what I'm capable of," she said furiously.
"Please, there isn't a thing about you I don't know. We're the same princess. A young prodigy desperate for dear old dad's love. Working to the bone, begging for the love that'll never come, in a world that doesn't give a damn. Except I learned my lesson a long time ago," he said ravingly.
"Shut up."
"I learned to burn away my chains, what about yo-"
"SHUT UP!" Azula said as she flew towards Dabi upon jets of flame.
Dabi started to grow a wide smile, matching Azula's intensity Dabi also flew in, clashing together with her in a fiery display. From there, the two engaged in a deadly close combat, clashing with the flame-clad fist with no clear winner. The sparks from each clash effectively rained down on the surrounding buildings, eventually causing a multiple city block inferno. Though both fighters didn't care, instead only increasing the intensity of each strike. They were adamant about burning the other from the inside out.
Unfortunately for Dabi, CQC was Azula's home turf, her physicality and combat skills coming in clutch. With the hunger of a wild animal, she leaned in, using unearthly torque to scratch Dabi's chest and twist into a spinning armbar that threw him down. Like a meteor, the villain fell, hitting the ground hard enough to have him cough up blood. Still, he didn't get time to lick his wounds as Azula descended like an archangel on blazing wings.
Using some of his saved-up stamina, Dabi propelled himself out of the way from Azula's hellish dive. Another giant blue explosion rang out the entire arena, burning the area in laden ash. Amidst this scorched earth, Azula reigned supreme, once again panting heavily with a wide grin over her face and her hair down. However, that sense of victory, those quiet voices, didn't last long. Over the crackling of the flames, a coarse voice rang out.
"That's more like it."
Azula turned around in disbelief, not annoying if what she saw was real or not. For Dabi moved on, bloody tears already steaming from his face. His upper right side seared from the earlier attack in multiple wounds like butter on a frying pan. Any normal man would've long since gone into shock, but Dabi was anything but normal. Pain meant nothing to him. Nothing meant anything to him anymore, not so long as this ghost can have its vengeance.
Pure apathy radiated from his scarred frame as he circled Azula in a ring of flame. Azula readied herself, panicky, staring in disbelief, fear, and confusion over her various voices. She thought she was a monster all her life, without ever knowing what other horrors this world creates.
But she would get to know that personally as Dabi's entire body combusted into blue flames, signifying his Flashfire Fist, a move reminiscent of his father. From there, he raised his charred hand while stating with a demonic grin.
"My turn."
From his left hand, he fired a crushing firestorm is on its way towards the future "Fire Lord." Azula responded through instinct, reflex, panic, or sheer fear, fighting her way through a huge stream of fire to counterattack. Toya's attack was stronger, but Azula managed to divert most of the blast's power, keeping her alive. Still, the force did its job, hurtling Azula into a pillar so hard she felt her bones rattle.
The wind was completely knocked out of her, leaving her vision clouded and her senses blurred. So blurred that she could only see herself and her opponent. In most cases, one would think they saw their death right before their eyes. However, for Azula, it was far different because she was away from her parents' voices at this moment. Away from her grand legacy. For in this space, all that mattered was life and death.
So Azula left both her birthright and all her rationale, getting back up with a fire in her eyes. Dabi trudged across the burning field, collecting the strength to finish Azula off with another "classic" from his father. Yet she didn't react to it, instead holding out her fingertips through a circling motion, relying on fire more primordial and cold.
Sozin's comet-infused lightning danced across her body, leaving the arena to crackle with untapped thunder. The entire battlefield soon started to glow an ominous blue, as if cowering at the collision to come. Eventually, both characters collected enough power to fire off their attacks.
"Flashfire Fist: Blast Core!"
The exchange between them was over in less than a second. Forked lighting met compressed flame in a massive clash that was brighter than any flashbang. Thankfully though, the princess attack's won the battle, if only slightly, causing another massive explosion that sent Azula flying again.
When she woke up this time, though, things were very different. Plenty of cuts and bruises were on her body, yes, but what hurt most was her face, which felt like it was on fire. Realizing she was right near a grate of water, crawling towards it groggily with her bloodied up body. When she finally saw her face, she couldn't help but laugh.
And laugh she did, hauntingly cackling amongst the wildfire, at both her apparent victory and brutal irony. The young girl had something else to share with her brother, and that was a large jagged scar right over the left side of her face. A living symbol that for one brief moment, she had found peace and freedom from her legacy. Unfortunately for her, she couldn't even enjoy that.
"Now you've done it, that's the face I wanted to see,' said a gravelly voice.
Once again, Dabi managed to come out of the fire shaped like a demon. He was now half-dead, with skin nearly charred black all over his body. Despite the startling feat, though, Azula didn't bother turning or moving away, instead clacking even more as if he wasn't there. With this sight, Dabi didn't have any real final words, driven so speechless that all he could do was see himself: a child driven to the brink.
So instead of any spiteful last remarks or even remorse. Dabi decided to take one more step in fully liberating Azula as he used the embers of his stamina to burn away all her anguish. And instead of saying anything in return, Azula just kept laughing so much she shed boiling tears before vanishing into ashes.