The Bitter Truth Ch 21

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Everything had quieted down in the Royal Palace, no more meetings or planning, no more parties or nobles. After their little fun, during the day, Azula was ready to go to sleep, but a knock on her door prevented that.

She immediately changed into her Royal-robes, covering the parchment inside her robe and starting to modestly make her way towards Zhan's room, down below.

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Arriving at the underground facility, Azula was fortunate due to there weren't any guards stationed there during the night. Unlocking the door with a fireblast, as the door slid open.

"Zhan...wake up..." whispered Azula, to his sleeping form, near a makeshift bed near his desk.

"Uh...oh...what? Azula? What are you doing here?" he asked, rubbing his eyes.

"This, read it!" she said, illuminating the room with a small blue flame, as he shook off from the tiredness, and started to read.

"Well..." he said, finishing the scroll. "This is interesting and...disturbing."

"What do you remember about Fire Lord Sozin's history? Anything I don't know?" she asked.

"Not much, as much as I know, that has been told in school, overall, in the end, he died off old age," he said, thinking through the history lessons. "No mentions of assassinations or other illnesses."

"But how did he die? If this is something to go on, something else happened," she said, illuminating it further. Soon enough, another inscription started to appear from under it.

"The Fire Sages keep the secret history in the Dragonbone Catacombs," he read out, surprising both of them.

"I suggest we head there immediately," she said, as Zhan rolled-up the scroll.

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The temple was a little, difficult to get into unless it wouldn't house the secret documents there, sneaking in took some effort. But they mostly succeeded the Fire Sages weren't expecting anybody of their people to break-in here. But Azula had her reason for wanting access here, with the information given.

"Okay...we're almost there..." whispered Azula, as they saw a Fire Sage exit from an underground stairway close it, then leave.

"Follow me...and watch for any Sages," she said, going to the hidden stairway doing the same remove she saw the Fire Sage do, and to their luck, the pathway down opened. "Let's go!"

Trekking through the Dragonbone Catacombs, they soon found the secret history department, along with what they were looking for, the final testimony of Fire Lord Sozin.

"Let us start, shall we? We gotta lot to read through," he said, opening the scroll, as he and Azula started to read it.

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"That's it?" asked Azula, as they finished reading through, the scroll most of the knowledge was well-known everywhere. Sozin's history, colonies, the air nomads, yet small pieces that Azula found out: Avatar Roku and Fire Lord Sozin had known each other, even been friends for a time.

"Did we miss something?" asked Zhan, looking through the scroll, for any hints or secret messages.

"I don't think so," she said. "Well...this was a waste of time. Luring us down here, to read something we already knew!"

"Pretty much, but who sent this?" he asked, rolling-up the scroll and put it back on its place.

"I got an idea about who might have sent, this and he is sitting in a nearby jail," she said to Zhan.

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Out of the people who could've to send Azula this letter and knew about the Dragonbone Catacombs were a few. Only the Royal family, and a few high-ranking Fire Sages and nobles. In retrospect, that only one person General Iroh.

"You sent this, didn't you...uncle?" said Azula, having made her way from the Royal Palace to her Uncle Iroh' jail, her fianceé alongside her.

Intending to get some answers to this mindless chase, over her Uncle's sudden idiocy, is numbing at her. "I found your so-called secret history about Sozin, which by the way most people already know, so what was the idea? Trying to get, us caught and dragged into a scandal? What's your game about me and this secret about this so-called great-grandfather's demise? Who was might I add still alive after it all?"

"No, he wasn't," spoke Iroh, looking Azula face-to-face for the first time in ages.

"What are you talking about?" asked Azula. "What aren't you telling me?!"

"You have more than one great-grandfather, Azula. Sozin was your father's grandfather. Your mother's grandfather was Avatar Roku," said Iroh, calmer than ever.

"What! Impossible!" exclaimed Azula, suddenly shocked and confused.

"Believe it or not, my niece..." said Iroh, calling Azula niece the other time was when she was a child, years ago. "...it is true."

"Why are you telling me this?! Why?!" asked Azula, angrier than ever.

"Because understanding, the struggle between your, two great-grandfathers can help you better understand yourself there's still good inside you Azula you can still be saved," spoke Iroh.

"Why would I do that?! Betray Fi-"

"I know...what Ozai did to you when you were a child," said Iroh, bringing up an ancient memory from her mind.

"Don't! You! Dare! Go there!" she yelled, practically inches away from his face.

"I know you trained until you passed out, you cried until your eyes were red, your body aching until you couldn't move. And nobody could help you..." spoke Iroh, his face ashamed and sad. "...not me, your mother or your brother who only saw you as some emotionless being..."

"Why? WHY?!" asked Azula, her face in tears and the cell-bars smoking.

"Your mother tried, but she deduced Zuko was weaker and vulnerable, and anything Ozai would've have done...well he couldn't have handled it, I see now that you were vulnerable too, maybe even more than Zuko...and, I was too late to realize, too late to fix it."

"When I had returned and saw you, I thought you were already gone..." spoke Iroh, each word hitting Azula like a sharp dagger, till Zha practically hold her up. "...yet someone saw beyond you...someone who saw, what you truly are inside..."

Azula, at this moment she only wanted to rust the very man that was standing, in front of her she felt so many different emotions. Yet his word held genuinely she has given up, trying to stand on her own her fiancee was holding her up, holding Azula close to his chest, while she silently sobbed.

"You don't have to do anything Azula I just wanted you to know, the last words of a probably rambling old-man, whatever you choose I hope you can forgive this old fool for what he hadn't done in the past," finished Iroh, as he soon slumped back to a nearby corner. Zhan had hoisted, Azula onto his back, she wasn't looking at anything, only her face buried in his shoulder. Soon exiting the jail, carrying Azula on her back. "Congratulations on your engagement, my niece..."

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Omake: How dense can he be?

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Zuko was walking on the hallways of the Palace, and he suddenly spots Mai with her back against the wall, one hand inside her pockets while the other one scratching the back of her head.

Zuko stands beside her, "Uhm... Do you have any concern about anything in particular...?"

'Wondering why she was in front of the council door?'

"No...! There's nothing to be concern about!" she said embarrassingly.

"..." both stood there in complete silence.

Zuko finally enters the room only to see Azula in the room it seems no one has-arrive, "hey Azula, where did you leave your Golden Retriever?

Azula stopped looking at the papers she was working on and took a glimpse at her brother, she gave a smile that could freeze hell and change the name to Winterfell.

Zuko felt-shiver he had trouble swallowing, "little brother, do you want to have another play by play?"

"No! Anything but that please I beg you," Zuko throw, himself to the ground and hug Azula by her leg.

Azula rolls her eyes, "you say it like is a bad thing is more like a brother-sister bonding moment it deepens our relationship," Azula said while smiling and having the palms of her hands close to her face in a 45 degree.

Zuko decided to change the subject, "by, the way you know why Mai is waiting outside of the room?" Azula had a look on her face, 'is he that stupid?'

"You are lucky this is not, some cheap or bad harem, fanfic, or I would have thrown both Mai and Zhan in a room with a single bed and lock the room and let nature take its course." Zuko only had a confused look.

In the end, Zuko didn't catch what Azula, said while millions of people of readers probably cursing the creator of this omake no more harem as their dream burns as strong as Zanka No Taichi.

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