Sukuna: The Last Sorcerer 10

A month and two weeks. 

Not that counting mattered, of course.

Not that she would ever admit such a thing if her father deigned to ask her.

Not that she hadn’t counted every single day, each rising number in her skull like a splinter she could not reach yet one she could not entirely ignore all the same.

Forty and seven days.

The arena floor had been shattered apart at the hands of a Greater Spirit.

Four members of her Lord Father’s most esteemed Ri Quang had been reorganized from proud guard to pathetic gore. 

Forty-seven days since power, real power, the kind that made her own blue flames feel like parlor tricks, had washed over the entire court and silenced even the Fire Lord himself for thirty perfect seconds. 

She’d counted those, too.

The time away from court had been spent in a manner most… adequate. Her assignment to the Western Commanderies’ had been handled with the proficiency expected from a princess of the Fire Nation. The quarterly reports had revealed three discrepancies in coal distribution, minor but present, suggesting some minor governor (one who clearly didn’t value his life) was skimming. She’d noted his name and assigned him and his family to summary execution post-haste, of course. 

The rest of her time had been largely pointless busywork, though. Very few executions, and only one of them at her hands, even. 

All of it was largely a way to fill the hours while the real source of power sat leagues away from her under her father’s roof, contained like volatile material in expensive wrapping.

But weapons left in their sheaths grew dull, weak… restless, even.

Which is why she had wasted little time the day after her return, and the summons for her Avatar had gone out thirty minutes ago. Now she stood in her chambers and waited, sandalwood smoke threading through the air.

Footsteps were the first break in the quiet of her hall, Azula’s gaze casting itself upward. 

Four sets of them, lacking the rhythm expected of those who usually approached. 

Two guards, that much was obvious in their heavy synchronized march, that Imperial stance drilled to the point their bones and muscles knew more than their minds. One was lighter, the practiced soft-step of a court attendant. 

The fourth was loud but not heavy, careless in a way that made her jaw relax.

A knock came to her door, Azula blinking slowly at the side.

“You may enter.”

The door swung open and the attendant entered first with a bow as the girl’s first motion. She held the position the appropriate amount of time, raising her waist but not her head; every movement perfect as expected. 

Azula’s gaze tracked over her with the same attention she’d give a new blade. Pretty, of course they’d picked pretty, barely two years her senior with perfect skin and dark eyes and a bosom that drew attention she had yet to receive. 

From one of the respectable families, no doubt, the ones who sent daughters to court hoping for elevation.

That smile, though, was the girl’s one flaw. Placid and perfect and so obviously, artlessly fake it was almost offensive. An insult to the entire concept of deception. If you couldn’t even manage a convincing mask, what use were you?

The princess dismissed her from thought immediately as her eyes turned to the person she had called for.

Ryo.

Azula’s face stayed still, controlled, because surprise was weakness and she’d stopped showing weakness around the time she’d learned to walk. The half-starved creature from the volcano had vanished under palace food and time; his frame broader now, lean muscle visible under simple black silk that someone had dressed him in, probably this same smiling attendant.

Those eyes, still that same blood red, impossible as it was, stared back at her. The confusion she’d seen in them, that he had tried to hide in their weeks of travel, was no longer. 

Carved away, it seemed; replaced with something that read in the lazy slouch against her doorframe, the way his gaze drifted around her chambers with a casual arrogance, the kind earned or stolen. Finally, his red found her gold, their gazes lingering.

Heat prickled at the back of her neck, irritating and strange.

Still his face, fourteen and tattooed and human-shaped. But the thing looking out carried weight, ancient contempt she’d seen for three seconds in the arena before Father’s guards had become abstract art.

Fascinating.

“Princess,” the attendant said, marble-smooth voice interrupting, and Azula let herself turn, slow and deliberate, to give the girl her full attention. That flawless posture, the perfect knot of dark hair, crisp lines of court attire. So much effort toward appearing untouchable. So much fragility underneath, obvious if you knew where to press.

“I did.” She lowered her lids, allowing the servants the kindness of being free from the judgement of royal eyes. “You all are dismissed. Leave us.”

The guards bowed and disappeared from her door, obedience absolute as breathing.

The girl, however, hesitated.

A single eyebrow found itself rising high on the princesses face. Forty-seven days of busywork and forced distance, and now this pretty, useless thing thought she could hesitate when given a direct order. 

In Azula’s own chambers. With Azula watching.

“Forgive me, your Highness.” That same placid smile remained in place even as the attendant’s hands clasped tight enough that the knuckles on her pale skin screamed for release. “But the Fire Lord’s orders were clear in that the boy is not to be left unattended, for his protection and the safety of the court.”

“…the boy.” Azula let three seconds pass as the words left her lips, watching as the girl pulled her shoulders back, tension bleeding through as the first crack in that smile appeared.

“Yes, your Highness.”

The attendant’s eyes tried to slip sideways and failed, the girl held firmly in place under Azula’s unblinking royal gaze. “I assume you meant to refer to him as Honored Avatar.“

The muscle in the servant girl’s jaw jumped. “O-of course, your Highness, I m-mean—”

“Furthermore.” Her tone left her as cold as her fire was undoubtedly blue. “Am I correct in that you dared to suggest that I, Crown Princess of the Fire Nation, am incapable of attending to a guest in my own chambers?”

Her head tilted, a movement Ty Lee once told her was a perfect mimicry of a cobramander.

“Or are you rejecting a direct command from your princess?”

The smile cracked wider, another stronger tremor of fear working its way across that painted-on calm. “N-no, Princess, I would never dare to go against Her Highness. It is only that my duty to the Fire Lor-“

“So, you fear my father’s displeasure more than you fear mine.” The attendant’s mouth was still open, words dying half-formed. Azula stepped closer, close enough to see the fine sheen of sweat beading at the girl’s temple. “A logical calculation. But a flawed one. My father is far away, sitting on his throne.”

Another step. 

“I am right here.”

The attendant’s eyes darted to Ryo, raw and graceless panic obvious even before she turned them back to Azula, that tremble having spread from her lips to the rest of her as that court training evaporated to nothing under the heat of Azula’s presence.

“Go.”

The word landed like breaking glass and the girl fled, that soft-step shuffle now a scramble as she practically threw herself through the doorway. The door slammed shut behind her.

Silence dropped into the room, thick and waiting.

That lazy sprawl across the doorframe hadn’t shifted so much as an inch, smirk still sitting there on his face where it had no business being. “You know she’s gonna cry her eyes out, right?”

“And?” The word came out harder than she’d meant it to, the blue flames in her brazier pulsing brighter in response. She turned back to them, watching the fire dance and pretending she couldn’t feel his eyes tracking her.

“And nothin’.” His voice dragged out the syllables, casual and low and completely wrong for the perfectly ordered space of her chambers. “Just missed you, princess.”

Heat crawled up her neck before she could stop it. A reaction most traitorous yet undeniable, weakness visible on her skin to all present. Azula kept her back to him, focusing on the blue flames burning bright, as she willed her body to cool, to obey, to stop.

“I noted your absence as well but a princess has her duties.” The words came out as crisp as she expected them to, each one precisely laid like individual brick in a wall built of court language. 

The grin on his face was almost audible before he even spoke.. “I bet.” 

“I trust your accommodations have been satisfactory.” As he had apparently spent millenia underground, she would hope so.

“Yeah, the room’s fine.” Footsteps came out behind her, soft on the rug as they moved further into her space. “Food’s pretty good too. But man, the service sucks. My keeper was halfway up my ass.”

She turned as her eyebrow rose again in a perfect arch, composure sliding back into place where it belonged. “I was under the impression you’ve been doing little more than eating and sleeping for forty-seven days.”

“Nah.” He pushed off from whatever he’d been leaning against, ambling past her like he owned the room,  until he came to a slow stop in front of the detailed map of the Earth Kingdom colonies she’d personally marked herself. “Been training.”

Azula blinked at that. The guards had reported nothing, not a single incident of bending or combat practice, just the Avatar eating his way through the palace kitchens and sleeping like the dead. “Training? The guards reported no such activity.”

He tapped his temple with one finger, that smirk pulling wider. “With the guy upstairs.”

She processed that in silence, the awareness that the spirit was teaching him. The change in demeanor… That certainly explained much about that, at least. “And what has your… tutor… been teaching you?” 

Azula almost cursed herself at allowing such open curiosity to bleed through, but Ryo didn’t even seem to notice the open weakness on display, the boy shrugging his shoulders as he turned back around.

“A bunch of shit, princess. A bunch of shit,” her guest sighed as he traced a fortified city on the map with his finger. “Mostly how to not get my shit pushed in again, because it makes him look bad or… blahblahblah… ‘two-faced demon god’, blahblahblah.” He spun on his heel, rolling those blood-red eyes her way with another sigh. “Just showin’ me some tricks of the trade, if you know what I mean. Something beyond bending, from how he talks about it.”

His metaphors were absurd as they were common, yet the meaning was clear all the same. 

“And this… training you underwent,” Azula circled around him, steps slow and careful, “what does it entail?”

Red eyes met hers again, the amusement on his face replaced by something dark for an instant. That instant passed again and she found herself staring at a sharp-toothed grin. “Mostly just an abysmal ass-beating. Tears my arms off, breaks my bones, cuts my jaw off when I get too mouthy. You know. The usual.” 

A shiver rolled its way down her spine at the casual brutality leaving his lips, equal parts fear and fascination as he spoke of brutal mauling as others would speak of the swimming of turtleducks.

“And what have you to show for these… lessons?”

Ryo shrugged again, flexing fingers in front of his face. “Nothin’ much, pretty sloppy still. He says it’s like using a club when you guys are all using swords.”

Sloppy… To claim that as sloppy…

Azula shook her head quickly. Sloppy or not, she had seen what such a “club” had done to the Ri Qiang.

“All that aside, I have been occupied as well,” Azula  “My father has seen fit to task me with matters of state. Overseeing reports of desertion from the western territories. Reviewing architectural plans for a new garrison near Ba Sing Se. It is… tedious.”

“Sounds important.”

“It is busywork,” she snapped, the frustration of the past month boiling over for a second. “Nonsensical tasks to keep me outside of the palace walls. To keep me… supervised.”

Azula clenched her fists tight at her sides, not at all having meant to say that last part aloud. To allow such an open admission of her father’s lack of trust, the leash around her neck…

She decided to change the subject, to regain control of the conversation, to turn the focus back on him. With a single finger, the princess gestured to one of the low seats near her bed. “Sit.”

Ryo didn’t waste a moment, collapsing onto the furnishings in a flop of motion that was almost an outright insult. Azula thought nothing of it as she laid eyes on him.

“Tell me of the spirit, the Dark Avatar,” she steeled her voice again. “The scrolls that remain of my ancestors, expansive as they are, are simple retellings. Even still, they say he was the first and greatest of fire users, one who commanded spirits, that he shaped the world in the image of Fire long before Fire Lord Sozin.”

Ryo blinked, smirk slowly falling off his face. “…uh.” 

“Tell me,” Azula nodded towards him. “What does he desire?”

The boy across from her flinched, movement almost unnoticeable as his eyes clouded over for a second. 

“What?” she asked, her gaze narrowing as Ryo’s hand went to his heart.

The lazy confidence drained from his face as his hand slowly lowered. “Nothin‘.” 

Yet, even as he said that, the strain in his voice was obvious to her ears. “Sukuna’s just… laughing. He… he thinks that name is the stupidest thing he’s ever heard.”

The name hit her again, that same weight from the arena settling on her chest. 

Ryomen Sukuna. 

This boy was a cage for a Greater Spirit, more malicious and likely more powerful than the Avatar the world knew. Said Dark Avatar was amused by her questions, entertained by her curiosity like a child poking at an insect.

A divine weapon no one else had the spine to wield was sitting in her chambers, bored and restless and wasted.

Her feet carried her from the brazier, steps silent on the imported rug, until she came to a stop before him, close enough to see his red eyes track upward to meet hers.

“You are bored.” There was no question on her lips, only facts at their truest laid bare. “You are tired of these walls. This cage.”

The scowl that twisted his face, eyes shifting a brighter red for a bare moment, was all the confirmation the princess needed to continue.

“The tasks my father has assigned me,” her voice dropped lower, “are meant to humble me for proving him wrong in front of his court.” She let that sit for a second, watching those red eyes follow her every movement. “But they are also a key.”

He was listening now, truly listening, that casual sprawl gone as he sat up.

“There are reports.” She turned, fingers selecting one of the desertion scrolls from her desk. The one with the highest body count potential. “From the outer colonies. Deserters from the army forming bandit groups. Treasonous elements stirring unrest among the peasants.” The scroll unrolled in her hands, characters neat and official. “My father wishes them dealt with. An iron fist to crush dissent before it can grow.”

The scroll extended toward him, held between two fingers. “He sees this as another tedious task to keep me occupied.”

Azula took a breath.

“I see it as a hunt.”

“You want me to be your attack dog.” The flatness to his words was new; unexpected given the offer. Pride? He hadn’t shown this much before but learning at the feet of a Greater Spirit with such methods could change even the weakest.

Or perhaps, the inherent arrogance of his… station? Did spirits have stations?

Azula frowned at the thought, dismissing it. The hunger was there regardless, visible in the way his fingers flexed as he stared back at her.

“I want to offer you a purpose beyond these four walls.” The correction flowed smooth as honeyed milk, lessons at court proving their worth. “A chance to feel the sun on your face without a warden at your back.” She watched his shoulders ease, tension bleeding out by degrees. “A chance to unleash that… power… you seem to have obtained.”

“…okay.” 

“My father has sanctioned this operation.” The lie tasted sweet, almost true enough to believe herself. Yes, her Lord Father had sanctioned the mission; of course Ryo’s involvement was not at all part of that, but results spoke for themselves. “You would be acting under my direct command. My personal executioner.”

War played out across his face, silence stretching long enough that the soft crackle of her blue flames became the only sound filling her chambers. 

Finally, those eyes lifted again. The smirk spread slow across his features, sharp and hungry and eager.

“When do we leave?”