Disclaimer: I don't own Avatar: the Last Airbender and its characters. Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko do, as does Nickelodeon.

Please Review! This is a birthday present for my sister, but I haven't given it to her yet, so, Sis, if you're reading this, please stop.

It hits him then.

Then, when the sky is consumed in a raging fire that is beyond even his control. Then, when the world is rent apart by the lightning of a storm only the warriors and those waiting with bated breath can see. Then, when the broken sanity leaves with a deadly finality the eyes of a girl he now calls his sister only in the darkest of his dreams, and the happiest. Then, when the world he is just beginning to know at its best is going up in smoke on all sides.

It hits him, the reason why he is here- the crown prince of a burning nation, seemingly fighting for the wrong side. The losing side. Fate has marked him, branded him with a destiny that has never made sense up until a few precious weeks ago. It's made a him fool of boy, a traitor of a teen, and finally, a man with everything to lose, yet nothing to lose. It has guided him down this path that, no matter how many detours or wrong turns he took, has always ended here. In this Agni Kai. This "meeting of fire", this crossroad of destiny. And only now does he realize he wouldn't have it any other way.

He knows what she, the shell of his sister, is going to do a threadbare moment before it happens, a split second before the jagged blue-white lightning arcs from her fingertips towards the other girl. And he knows what he must do, seeing the fear in his friend's eyes that matches that of his own.
He dives to his right and intercepts electric death halfway to its mark. The crown prince of the Fire Nation, who used to be proud of this title, even coveted it, screams in agony and falls at his younger sister's feet, but not before seeing the wordless, pained gratitude in the eyes of the waterbender, as well as the stunned hysteria in those of the other firebender who shares more of his blood than he cares to admit.

His kismet has always meant to lead him here, to this moment. The moment he turns and faces the wrath of the flames. After all he has been through, everything he has lost and gained back, this, it seems, is how it will end.

Fate, it appears, has a cruel sense of humor.