Fire roared in uncontrolled joy across the decks of his boats, mocking him for his failure.
Zhao seethed with white-hot fury. He'd been tricked! Lured into destroying his own boats by a ten year old child! Humiliation fuelled his rage, urging him to lash out, but with proof of what such recklessness led to burning away in front of him he dared not.
With no outlet for his surplus aggression he found himself paralysed by it: standing dumbly in the water as his body trembled with wild wrath.
The Avatar had beaten him! And hadn't even thrown a single punch to do it!
"No luck capturing The Avatar? Welcome to the club."
Zhao's spine stiffened. Who dared to speak to him that way! Slowly his head turned back to the riverbank, bloodshot eyes fixating on the blonde-haired girl who stood there, cradling one arm. Tanya!
"I hope, for your sake," he ground out between gnashed teeth, trying to force himself to stay calm. "Jeong Jeong is dead. Because I swear to Agni if you've failed me again, the very ground you stand on will be your grave."
"That old windbag?" Tanya snorted dismissively. "Tougher than I'd expected, but still no match for me. He's dead."
Dead. Master Jeong Jeong was dead. Since the moment he'd heard the news that his mentor had turned traitor, Zhao had longed to be the one to bring him to justice. He'd dreamed of how satisfying it must be to strike down the man who'd berated him with constant, wasteful lessons on restraint.
Had restraint saved Jeong's life in the end? No, it hadn't. Restraint was for the weak, like Prince Zuko or his clown of an uncle. The strong did not pull their punches.
And yet, despite his expectations, Zhao did not feel happy to learn of his master's death as he'd expected to. Instead it left him feeling… oddly twisted up inside. "I- I see." He muttered, turning away to face the river. "Very good then. At least one threat to the Fire Nation has been taken care of."
"Oh please." Tanya scoffed. "Do you really think crowing on about killing a senile old man with be enough to distract The Fire Lord from tour yailure to capture The Avatar?"
Zhao's head snapped around like a whip, eyes so hot with rage it almost seemed like fire might shoot from them. All at once his impotent anger found a convenient target.
"How dare you!" He hissed, striding forwards to Tanya. As he got close enough he raised one arm and struck, delivering a heavy back-handed slap right across her cheek. It only infuriated him all the more when Tanya didn't react to it at all.
"You DARE to imply that I am the failure here! ME!" He would not be seen as a failure! He refused! He would never allow for his reputation to be sullied! In the feverish madness of his anger, inspiration struck. "Why did YOU not capture The Avatar! YOU are the one who the task fell to!"
"Because you ordered me to chase your hobbling old master." Tanya sneered. "No doubt petty sentiment blinded you to what was truly important. I'll make sure The Firelord knows exactly what really happened here."
No. NO! The Firelord must NEVER discover the truth of what happened! If he lost The Firelord's approval now all his plans would fall apart! The fleet he'd been gathering to storm the North Pole would be disbanded in the blink of an eye!
There was only one way to stop the truth from getting out.
Zhao straightened, a steely coolness entering his eyes. "I warned you before that failing to capture The Avatar again would mean your execution." He growled.
Yet far from being intimidated, Tanya scoffed. "You won't kill me." She stated, with all the casual certainty of one remarking on the weather.
"Oh?" Zhao leaned in closer so that his eyes bored directly into hers. "And why, pray tell, is that?"
Tanya's eyes flickered to something over his shoulder, and her signature creepy smile spread across her lips. "Because without me, who is going to protect you from him?"
Zhao whirled around, body instinctively settling into a defensive stance to protect himself from an ambush! Someone had snuck up behind him! Who had she partnered with? Master Jeong? The Avatar? The Firelord?!
Yet there was nothing behind him but empty space.
BAM!
A hollow thud struck Zhao in the back, stealing his breath away in an instant, and bright orange light filled his vision. It was over as quickly as it had begun, leaving spots swimming across his eyes. What was that? What just happened? Numbly he looked down towards his chest, which felt strangely heavy.
Oh.
A large hole the size of a fist, outlined with blackened and charred flesh, loomed back at him from out of his own torso. He craned his head back to look at Tanya, who stood behind him with a smoking hand pressed against his back.
"You…" He managed to gasp out weakly, before his knees buckled. Strangely enough Tanya gripped his shoulders to stop him from falling and gravity claimed him, and lowered him gently backwards to lay in the shallow water of the riverbank.
"Ssshhh now, it's okay, don't fight it." She whispered soothingly as she set him down, like a nurse offering a facade of comfort to a patient as they unplugged their life support. Zhao's hands fumbled weakly towards her throat in a last attempt to strangle his treacherous subordinate, but she casually slapped them away.
Tanya knelt down in the river beside him, tiny waves lapping at her knees as she cradled Zhao's head to keep it just above water level. "You know, I really do regret that it had to end this way." She said with uncharacteristic gentleness. Idly she swept a lock of hair off of his face.
"Things got rough between us at the end, but for most of the time I've known you, you've been the perfect superior.
Nobody else would have promoted a girl as young and seemingly inexperienced as me all the way up through the ranks so quickly. They would have assumed I was untested, or too immature. But not you." A wicked gleam flashed across her eyes.
"No, to you it didn't matter who I was or where I came from, so long as I could destroy your enemies. A perfect meritocrat. By staying in your shadow and fuelling your rise, I could rise myself without scrutiny."
"But you know…" Tanya trailed off, her lips turning down into a small, sad frown. "Your master Jeong Jeong helped me realise that we'd reached the end of that arrangement.
Like any manager who rises upon the work of a skilled subordinate, you'd reached the top and wanted to keep me in your shadow forever in order to stay there.
You'd become the final hurdle I needed to clear in order to fulfil my own ambitions. So in the end, what other choice do I have but to kill you? When given the choice between being a murderer or a slave, I'd pick murderer any time. I think you would too."
A gurgle of blood welled up in Zhao's throat, causing him to cough it up violently over his chin. Tanya tutted and wiped it away.
"But don't worry Zhao. I know how much glory meant to you, and out of respect for everything you've done for me I'll make sure you still get it.
The whole Fire Nation will know how, upon learning that your own treacherous master was teaching The Avatar firebending, you gallantly rushed here to confront them.
How ferociously you fought The Avatar, who was drunk on the power of learning the superior element. How you would have won had The Avatar not grovelled before you in fake surrender, then struck you from behind like a coward the moment you turned your back."
Tanya leaned in closer, her golden yellow eyes locked on Zhao's like a bird of prey swooping towards its next meal. One of her hands reached down into his shirt and pulled out the key he wore around his neck.
"But do you know what will be best of all? Once I lead the successful conquest of the North Pole, I capture The Avatar, and I am hailed as the greatest hero of the Fire Nation, I'll have a statue of you built.
I'll tell everyone who'll listen the story of the wise mentor who spotted me as a diamond in the rough; how you gave me the guidance and opportunities to make something of myself in the military, and how right now, with your dying breath, you told me the secret to conquering the North."
Tanya's smile would have seemed so sweet and innocent, had the blazing gold of her eyes not shone with cruel, violent glee.
"You will attain the eternal glory you craved as an extension of my legend Zhao. Ironic, considering how you tried to make me an extension of yours."
Zhao croaked out a final, feeble attempt at an insult, but could barely muster the strength to lift his head. His body felt heavy and sluggish, like it was filled with lead, and darkness was rapidly creeping into the edges of his vision.
As his eyelids grew heavy Tanya lowered him down into the water, smiling ghoulishly above his body like a demon waiting to claim his soul.
"Sleep now Zhao. I'll take care of the rest."
With a heart full of fear and regret Zhao's eyes fell closed for the last time, and the darkness swarmedin to swallow him up just as it had his master.
...
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