Chapter Text
Ozai watched with cold, unwavering eyes as Ursa- no Zuko, stared back at him, his lips trembling, his face streaked with the hot tears that flowed endlessly from her eyes.
It wasn’t a new sight to him—no, not at all. Yet the sight of it now, with Zuko’s lifeless form writhing in agony, sent a shiver of discomfort crawling down his spine. This was no longer just a matter of personal contempt. This was something far darker: a soul that should be lost forever to Agni’s eternal hell.
It was wrong—so utterly wrong—to witness a dead woman scream and wail, her his voice raw with desperation, begging for mercy. The very sound was revolting to his ears.
An authentic Royal would never grovel on the floor like a common peasant, begging for mercy. A true Royal would stand proud, would fight with honor, would never lower themselves to such a pathetic display.
"Get up, and fight like a true member of the Royal Family, Zuko," he sneered.
Zuko. The very name filled Ozai with a deep, gnawing contempt. That child, that monstrous offspring of Ursa's, was not meant to survive—certainly not to live long enough to even have a name. If it weren’t for those ludicrous Fire Sages and Ursa's endless pleading, he would have thrown the demon-child over the palace wall to face his death.
“You cannot do such a thing, my Prince!” the Fire Sage had protested in a voice filled with eerie conviction. “He is destined to cause great change in the Fire Nation's history! I can sense it in his spirit!”
Great change. How curious, how vague. What change was he truly speaking of? Would it be the fall of the Earth Kingdom, or perhaps the downfall of Ozai’s own Dynasty? The Fire Sage had not specified, and Ozai would never take such a foolish risk.
“You have disgraced my name,” he murmured darkly, his voice like a death sentence. “And suffering shall be your teacher.”
He moved closer, his hand hovering over Zuko’s pale face—then, with slow deliberation, he cradled his son's cheek, an almost tender gesture, yet the malice and cruelty behind it was palpable, as if the very air around them turned frigid. The stench of death seeped into the arena.
Ozai’s thumb brushed across Zuko’s left eye, wiping away the corpse’s tears as if they were nothing more than an inconvenience. But then—suddenly—those cold tears burned boiling hot.
A soul-shaking scream erupted from Zuko’s mangled throat, the sound so deafening that it seemed to split the very walls of the arena. The audience fell into a deathly silence, the air heavy with the echoes of torment. Not a single cheer or whisper dared disturb the gruesome scene; only Zuko’s dying wail filled the space, hollow and agonizing.
His flesh—his very skin—began to melt away. Patches of it sloughed off in sizzling strands, dripping onto the floor in sickening splatters. The agony in Zuko’s eyes, once human, was now replaced by something far worse. Nothing. Zuko's once -admittedly gorgeous- gold eyes, had now popped out of his own skull, leaving bloody empty sockets behind. His face bloated and turned a gruesome shade of pink, blistered and torn, each gasp for breath a silent plea for an end that never came.
Ozai barely registered the frantic cries of the Fire Sages, their voices shaking as they insisted that the Agni Kai was over. He had won. They begged him to stop, to show mercy, but Ozai’s heart was already lost to the carnage.
He couldn’t stop. He felt a twisted sense of euphoria as he watched Zuko’s face—Ursa's face—melt away, a grotesque image that mirrored a person he'd never wanted to see again.
The sound of Zuko’s screams slowly faded into the haunting silence, leaving only the charred remains of what had once been Ursa's son. The lifeless body collapsed onto the arena floor with a sickening thud, as if it were nothing more than a worthless object—a discarded piece of charcoal, insignificant and broken.
The people around the arena began to rush forward, but Ozai didn’t care. He saw only the charred, hollow shell of a once-defiant child, now reduced to ash and bone. His eyes briefly flicked to the peasants who scurried in and out of the palace, their faces twisted in fear, yet Ozai felt no pity.
Zuko was dead. He was gone.
It was such a shame really, he had always thought about acquiring a new Fire Lady since the past one’s sudden execution.
For a fleeting moment, a dark sense of relief washed over Ozai. The face that had tormented his every thought, every nightmare, was finally gone, never to return. And that—more than anything—was all that truly mattered to him.