A/N It's been a busy month. A busy, stressful, diverting month. Here we are. The final confrontation at last. Besides my many distractions, it took me ages to think this out. I hope it measures up. Enjoy!

Chapter 67

After healing the little girl, Katara and Zuko moved slowly toward the gates of the city, helping more people as they went. The miserable state of those that had been able to escape to the plaza was heartbreaking. Katara had known since she was a little girl that Fire Lord Ozai, just as his father and grandfather before him, was a vile monster, but everyone's enemy is a monster in war. To order this kind of destruction onto his own people just to spite his son, Ozai truly was the worst kind of despot. From where they stood in the plaza, sounds of Iroh and the rest of their soldiers chasing down mercenaries could be heard and Katara hoped they made quick work of them. She was anxious to get the fight ahead over with and return to her daughter.

Mercifully, she did not have long to wait. Less than an hour after Iroh had led his men through the gates, a solitary soldier came running back towards them. He gave them each a shallow bow before relaying Iroh's message.

"General Iroh says the main road to the caldera is secured Prince Zuko. You should be able to make your way there without incident." Zuko nodded but the soldier wasn't finished. "I should warn you, there hasn't been time to clear much from the roads. It's…" He sighed and looked away, swiping roughly at his eyes. "Well not everyone was as lucky as the people here in the plaza." Zuko gripped the stricken young man by the shoulder, thanking him, and turned to Katara and their group of five that stood behind her. It was time.

Katara tried her best to block out the carnage as they raced to the high stair, but it was difficult to ignore when it was sprawled out in the streets beneath her feet. The people in the plaza had been injured and terrified but seeing what had befallen the city itself and those not lucky enough to escape the mercenaries filled her with righteous fury. Buildings were toppled, nearly every wooden structure was on fire, and the bodies… Running down the street nearly choking on the ash and the smell of burning flesh, Katara was overcome with heartache and hatred. Only knowing they were going to kill Ozai kept her from weeping and despair.

The main body of soldiers that had gone on ahead of them had split themselves into two groups. Most of them were engaged in chasing down the mercenaries but whole units of firebenders had been tasked with putting out burning buildings and helping the injured back to the harbor for treatment. Bodies and debris filled the streets, slowing their pace and forcing them to pick their way more carefully. Sounds of battle echoed throughout the city as they made their way and Katara knew her husband was struggling as much as she was not to join in. She had expected violence and pillage but the horrific reality was so much worse. Knowing the Fire Nation soldiers would be even more moved than she and act accordingly was only so reassuring. In the main square of the city, near the high stone stairs, a massive statue of Fire Lord Ozai gazed down at them with an almost smug glare. Gritting her teeth, Katara resolved to have the monstrosity destroyed the moment Ozai was dead.

Once they were out of the city, it was a relatively easy climb up the winding stone stair into the caldera and the royal city. At the rim, one of the men in their group set off a flair to signal Sokka and Azula before they passed through the gates. Inside the caldera itself, it was immediately clear that this was where the mercenaries had begun their ruinous path. Nearly every building besides the palace itself was burned to stone foundations. Fewer people lived here than the city below and many of those that had were well connected enough to know when to flee. Even without the bodies and wounded people, the streets were still nearly impassable and Katara wondered if that hadn't been an order from the Fire Lord himself. Small craters peppered the wide stone streets and several of the larger structures had been pulled down to block their way. As they descended into the smouldering chaos, Katara wondered how they would ever be able to rebuild.

Despite the labyrinthine state of the city, it only took twenty minutes to reach the palace gates. The mercenaries had done their work and all gone down to the city below, so there weren't any left to interfere. There wasn't anyone to interfere. The royal city was deserted and eerily quiet. Hanging at wrong angles as though they had been blasted open from the inside, the palace gates themselves did nothing to block their way. While there had been no signs of human casualties outside the palace, the bodies of several servants struck down as they fled littered the courtyard and Katara thought again of Ming.

Beside her, Zuko stopped, hands clenched and jaw tight. She could feel the fury burning off of him, heating the air around them as he looked around at the dead servants. They had been defenceless, none of them were soldiers or benders. It had been a massacre just like the main city below.

"Fuck."

There wasn't anything else to be said and, with a furious sigh of flame, Zuko strode on ahead of them through the gates and into the palace. Katara glanced over her shoulder at the men behind them before following him, her gold trimmed skirts whispering across the bloodstained ground. The wide, lacquered hall beyond the courtyard was as deserted as the city had been, only the clack of their shoes against the tiled floor disturbing the ominous silence. After several minutes of finding no one, Katara began to wonder if Ozai wasn't hiding in a bunker somewhere rather than waiting for them as they'd thought until they came upon a set of massive gilded wooden doors. Katara recognized them from the last time they had been in the palace. On the other side was the grand central courtyard where they had fought Azula on the day of the comet. If Ozai was waiting for them, it was likely he would be there. She met Zuko's hard gaze with a reassuring one of her own and nodded. Together they thrust the doors open.

oOoOoOoOo

Ash from his ruined city rained down around Ozai, blanketing the flagstones in the courtyard before him and clinging to his plain red robes. Zuko would be there soon, he could feel it. Unlike the last time they faced each other in an Agni Kai, there would be no mercy. One of them was going to die. Ozai had done everything he could to prepare; Sozin was well protected and if he was lucky Zuko would be exhausted from fighting his way to the palace. It did not matter that the Fire Nation army, every warrior from the Southern Water Tribe and many from the Earth Kingdom fought with him, Zuko was such a slave to petty things like compassion and love that Ozai knew he would throw himself into the fighting, saving as many worthless peasants as he could.

He squinted as he looked at where Agni hung in the sky. On a normal day it took less than an hour to reach the palace from the harbor and Ozai knew the traitors had landed nearly three hours earlier. No matter how little he thought of Zuko, he was not foolish enough to believe he'd fall to the mercenaries. Would he be brave enough to come alone or would he bring his whole army? Anticipation and something like resignation filled his gut. Today he would kill his son. His firstborn. Recalling every failure, every disappointment, every time Zuko proved himself unequal to his rank, Ozai wondered if he wouldn't have been better off smothered in his crib.

There was no shouting nor sounds of fighting preceding Zuko's entrance to the courtyard. One moment Ozai sat in silent contemplation, the next the great wooden doors were flung open and there he was. He had not come alone, but he neither did he have a horde at his back. Five warriors of mixed nationality filed in behind their leader but they did not follow him into the courtyard, instead standing sentry along the far wall as if to ensure they were not interrupted. It had been more than two years since Ozai had last seen his son and he was much changed for it. He was taller. More muscle strengthened his still lean frame, his hair was nearly as long as Ozai's own and it was styled the same. If not for the scar that marred half his face he would have thought Zuko an apparition of his own younger self. For one heartstopping second Ozai's gut twisted with the realization that despite everything Zuko truly was his son and in moments they would be fighting to the death. Bile threatened at the unnatural wrongness of it but then his eyes slid over the women at his son's side and he remembered who he was and that looks were the only thing still connecting Ozai to the man before him.

The few generals that had returned to him had told disgusted tales of how the disgraced Fire Nation prince had sullied himself by marrying the late Avatar's waterbending teacher. He had not doubted it. This Southern whore had helped Zuko defeat Azula and now she dared wear the royal crest on her breast as if she had the right. His momentary hesitation forgotten, Ozai's face slid into a sneer of distaste as he stood to address his errant son.

"I knew, the moment I learned you were still alive I knew you would come to face me again. I see you brought the waterbender that defeated your pathetic sister. Good, it saves me the trouble of finding her myself." Neither of them flinched as he carried on. "I have heard from those officers you were unable to convince to commit treason that you further dishonored yourself by marrying her. I can see she wears the royal crest so it must be true. Awfully presumptuous." He smirked. "And here I thought you could not sink any lower."

Finally a reaction, though not as dramatic as he'd expected. Zuko's voice was as measured steel when he rebuked him.

"Do not speak to me of honor. I have come through the city you ordered sacked. Your own people, raped and burned and murdered and for what? To spite me? You know nothing of honor." Ozai could only glare. "Fire Lord Ozai, by the authority entrusted to me by the people of the Fire Nation, the whole of her military and by the right of my birth; for crimes against the Water Tribes, the Earth Kingdom and your own people, I, Zuko, Prince of the Fire Nation sentence you to die."

Ozai snarled in rage as he descended the dias. "How dare you! You are no Prince, you have no authority over me! I am Fire Lord still, it will be Agni Kai or nothing! You will not execute me like some common criminal."

Zuko only stared at him with a look somewhere between molten, righteous fury, and profound sadness. "An Agni Kai is an ancient Fire Nation rite, practically sacred, a fight for honor. You threw away any shred honor you had left and your right to that privilege when you set murderers and rapists on your people. You betrayed the Fire Nation, and for that sin you will die by my hand."

Ozai tore his glare away from his son long enough to see the woman sink into a stance beside him. "By your hand, and yet you need this Water Tribe filth to help you." A humorless laugh clawed its way out of his throat. "What a waste of Agni's breath!"

"My wife, master Katara from the Southern Water Tribe, has as much right to this fight as me. Your death is a burden we have chosen to share."

A final furious bellow and flames erupted from Ozai's fists. "Come on then!"

They attacked, moving as if of one mind and more than prepared for everything Ozai could throw at them. Steam filled the courtyard. He thought to strike the wet flagstone with lightning but the waterbender did not allow any water to linger there long enough. As they three danced, ash filled the water, blackening it with the wrath of his people. For the first time, Ozai felt a thread of fear wind itself up his spine.

At last he perceived an opening and, drawing his arms around himself in familiar arcs, shot a mighty bolt of lightning at Zuko. He had forgotten the women in his haste to strike his son. Half a breath later and the screeching blue nightmare was crashing back just above his own head. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end and a strange shiver ran through his body as he turned to sneer at Zuko and fire another blow.

But as he made to raise his arms, he found that he could not move them. He could not move at all. The strange shiver he'd felt a moment before began to burn, slowly at first and becoming more painful by the second until Ozai could not hold back a cry of pain. Whatever it was that held him forced him to his knees. His teeth ground together as his eyes frantically searched for the source of his paralysis. Zuko stood solemnly before him, his hands at his side while his wife, was sunk in a rigid bending stance.

"What.. What is sssshee... " The edges of his vision blurred as the pain became excruciating. "What is she grr... dd.. doing to m me?" His voice grew shrill in his mounting hysteria.

"She's bending your blood and you will die if she continues. It could be fast if she were feeling merciful, though given the state of the people we've just seen I doubt it." Ozai's heart gave a great lurch in his chest making the organ feel close to bursting. "But as I've said, you'll die by my hand. I wish it hadn't come to this.. father. I wish you could have been an honorable man like your brother, a good father and a just ruler but it was not to be."

Zuko's words cut through the cloud of agony and Ozai had a flash of their Agni Ka,i when their positions had been reversed. Taking a shaking breath through his nose, he ground out what he was sure would be his final words. "It… it was nn..n..necessary… all of it. Some.. Someday when you.. you're a father… you'll understand."

He could no longer clearly see his son's face but his voice dripped with regret. "You're wrong. I already am a father and I've never understood you less." There was the unmistakable hiss of steel sliding against the leather of a scabbard as a confused wonder swirled in Ozai's nearly obliterated consciousness. "I'll tell you something father. I spent years trying to find the Avatar and capture him on your orders. Turns out, all I had to do was marry a Water Tribe woman and have a child with her. The spirits sure have an ironic sense of things, don't they."

Sightless eyes opened wide and a garbled, hysterical sound that might have been a laugh fell from Ozai's lips as the air whistled around Zuko's blade. The last thought Fire Lord Ozai had before his head was parted from his shoulders was that his son was wrong. The spirits weren't ironic, they were spiteful.

A/N Well, there it was. I had all kinds of ideas of how Ozai might meet his end, some more gruesome than others, but ultimately I had to think about who it was that was doing the killing. I know, after the last few chapters, that he sure begged for a hideous end but I don't picture Zuko partaking in that kind of thing. Bloodbending is torturous enough.There will likely be one more chapter before the epilogue, maybe a bonus chapter before that with a few scenes I loved but couldn't fit in anywhere. Mostly because I want to end it on an even number of chapters but also because I think Sokka teaching Zuko how to build an igloo needs to be read by more than just myself. :D There is so much left to wrap up I feel, sorting out what should go in the chapter and what in the epilogue will take me a minute but I want to have this finished before the end of Feb. That's when I started so, one year on this project. Anyway, I hope this was satisfactory and please let me know what you thought. Thanks!