The Brutal 0.054

Whilst growing up, Azula led a very harsh childhood.

The moment her brother was deemed to have weak bending powers, Ozai had given up on him and focused on producing another heir with his wife, Ursa.

The product of that attempt was Azula who was born with the talent for firebending according to various Fire Sages.

Glad about this, Ozai quickly took her under his wing and cut Ursa off from any contact with Azula.

Ozai knew of his wives 'weak' personality and how she would pass on that 'weak' personality over to Azula just like she did to Zuko. He only accepted the best and never the mediocre, Ozai would never let Ursa to 'contaminate' Azula, his hope for greater power and strength in the future.

As Azula grew up, she would be punished whenever she didn't perform satisfactorily, or in this fact, perfectly. Until she could perform something perfectly, Azula would be punished and forced to perform again no matter how tired she was.

With this type of treatment, Azula began to unconsciously believe that hurting people was normal and could be used as encouragement.

As she trained under her father like this and lived by his rules, Azula would have to follow him around most of the time and would watch and listen to everything he does.

Beating servants and manipulating the generals and people through blackmail or fear, Azula learnt it all.

It wasn't until everything was too late that Ozai finally let Azula properly spend time with Zuko and Ursa. Even when sending her off to school where she met Ty Lee and Mai.

Ursa still loved Azula, but she was unaware of the 'brainwashing' her husband had done on their very own daughter for his own selfish goals.

All she ever saw was Azula being sadistic and bad in the head. Never once thinking about checking up on her.

Azula's personality only ever got worse when she wouldn't receive any praise from her mother who said nothing when she would perform well. She would only receive her father's look of approval.

On the other hand, her brother Zuko would fail and her mother would jump out to tell him he did fine before caring for him.

Azula would unconsciously continue to depend on her father and listen to him more as she watched her mother support Zuko more and more whilst she was trapped with her father.

Such a dark childhood, and it only continued to grow dark after her own mother killed the Fire Lord in order to keep Zuko from being killed. Her mother fled and left her and Zuko in the hands of a cruel man like Ozai.

Slowly, Azula's mind was made more twisted and even felt happy when her brother was burnt in the face by her very own father. She smiled and enjoyed every second of it as her brother cried in pain and her father left the arena arrogantly as if it was as expected.

As Azula got older and some people approached her, Ozai would secretly scare away and kill people who would notice Azula's predicament and keep them from 'saving' her.

It was like a story out of a fairy tale book, the princess trapped in a castle by a very evil dragon.

A story which would end sadly if left alone. The princess goes mad at the end and her mind breaks as she falls into despair and craze after having the last things she has taken away from her.

Her 'friends' (trust) and her 'father' ('love and care').

With both things gone and having nothing anymore, Azula finally broke into despair which she had been forced to think was the behavior of a weak person. By then, it was game over and she could never live the life of a normal person ever again.

Without trust, Azula would never trust anyone ever again and would continue to be in a state of paranoia, believing everyone was out to kill or something similar because of her distrust towards everyone.

Without love and care, Azula wouldn't listen to the words of even her close brother Zuko or even her father who had been reduced to a non-bender in the end.

However, at this point in time, Azula's terrible fate has yet to befall on her.

With these thoughts in mind, Genji resolved to save Azula from her future demise.

However, it is currently difficult to pull off something like that since he continuously felt a firebender guard trail him. Genji was sure this firebender came from Azula considering that this particular firebender followed Genji after Azula had approached it.

On the other hand, he didn't know who the other two firebenders who were following him were.

'Fire Lord Ozai, maybe?'

There weren't any suspects other than Ozai since Genji was sure that he didn't make any enemies during his stay at the royal palace.

[Ding! Skill level up!]

[<Danger Sense> (Lvl. 24)]

'I know I'm being chased by killers, but I can't do anything now,' quietly thought Genji as mentally made the blue screens disappear.

Genji could feel the killing intent from the two firebenders following him from afar.

Even though he could feel them, Genji didn't have the means to properly defend against them. He was being followed by two firebenders and were most likely professional killers. He was walking in a crowded street and no matter how much of a scum he is, he wouldn't get innocent people killed.

He could lead them into an alley and fight them, but they might be stronger than him and he might even walk himself into a dead end if he's not careful.

Genji also couldn't directly walk to the boat since they could manage to get on the same boat. By then, the two firebenders would try to kill him and all the people aboard the boat.

'My safest bet would be…'

Looking around, Genji went over to a stall owner and quickly bought some cloth from the vendor.

With the cloth, Genji quickly ran over to an alley.

…

'What is he doing?' thought both killers as they looked at Genji run into an alley with a dead end.

They turned to look at each other and quickly followed behind the young man with quick and agile footsteps. The sound of their feet were inaudible but they were very quick.

Soon, they arrived at the entrance of the alley.

In said dead end valley, the two killers only noticed two people there. A single man far into the distance wearing a lot of worn out cloth and an old man at the entrance of the alley sitting down on the floor.

The two killers ignored the old man and walked over to the person wearing a lot of cloth. One killer brandished a knife whilst the other prepared to launch fire at the person.

'Such easy work like always,' thought the firebender as he let his partner go forward and take out the person in the worn out cloth.

Lowering his body, the man with the knife quietly approached the person before rapidly stabbing the person in cloth multiple times in rapid succession.

"Success," said the knife wielding man as he hid his knife and stood tall and proud as he looked at the dead body before him.

"Hm?"

Suddenly, the knife man felt weird as he looked at the body on the floor not bleeding at all. Feeling skeptical about his kill, the knife man approached the body and removed the cloth off the head of the dead body.

Squeak!

Suddenly, an elephant rat, a black rat with the snout of an elephant, jumped out from the cloth and attacked the first person it saw, the knife man. Jumping on the face of the knife man, the elephant rat began to scratch and bite at the man's face.

"Ahh!"

Screaming out in pain, the knife man quickly stabbed the elephant rat and tossed it away before turning to look over at his partner.

"What are you doing?! Why didn't you come over to help m-"

The man's words were cut short as he noticed his partner being stabbed through by an old man.

"What the… Who are you?!"

The knife man quickly began to question the old man but as he continued to look at the old man and focusing on him, the old man's face slowly disappeared and revealed a young man's face.

'It's him?'

Seeing his target in front of him, the knife man was shocked to realize that his target was able to hide right under his nose using a weird technique.

'What kind of disguise was that?!'

…

[Ding! Skill level up!]

[Ding! Skill level up!]

[<Adept Illusionist> (Lvl. 21)]

[<Acting> (Lvl. 22)]

Knowing his illusion and acting worked great together, Genji finally realized that using his class skills together was possible. Albeit a bit difficult to pull off, but nothing a bit of practice can fix.

"Me? I'm just a wanderer. Don't mind me~," said Genji as he pulled out his spear from the body of the now dead firebender.

[Ding! Level 4 Distracted Killer Firebender killed. Experience +5]

[Ding! Player level up!]

[Gained 4 Stat Points!]

'Damn, now my skills won't level up as fast as before,' thought Genji as he turned his gaze over to the knife wielding firebender.

With a serious look on his face, Genji looked at the man and used all of his sensing skills.

Quickly running over to the man, Genji brandished his spear against the knife firebender and thrust the spear forward.

The knife firebend bent his legs a little and jumped to his left but failed to move even a little.

"The hell…" looking down, the knife firebender frowned as he looked at his feet that were frozen in a small puddle of water.

'Fuck… he's a waterbender?'

Clink!

The spear was deflected by the knife of the firebender who acted quickly and began to use his firebending to burn the ice off his feet.

It was a shame he wasn't quick enough as Genji made use of the man standing still to quickly launch many rapid strikes. However, no matter how much he tried to hit the man, every single of Genji's attacks continued to fail.

Genji knew that he could defeat the man before him, but at this very moment, the man was blocking his every attack through sheer experience and luck.

Ping!

Ping!

Seeing as the man continued to melt the ice, Genji finally realized that he wouldn't be able to land a single attack at all any time soon before the ice finishes melting.

With no other choice, Genji turned to look at the only skill that could help him at this point.

[<Eternal Fist> (Max) - 0.054 -]

'It's not much, but it's better than nothing!'

Quickly discarding his Spirit Spear into his storage space, Genji ignored the man's surprised look and launched out an attack with his fist.

…

The man watched in shock as the spear in Genji's hand disappeared and he instead launched an attack with his hand.

Not thinking much of the simple attack, the firebender was ready to cut at Genji's hand and stabbed into the hand.

However, Genji's fist didn't stop like he believed. The firebender felt an incredible force of strength gush out of Genji's fist as it headed straight towards him.

"No!"

Before his last moments, all the firebender saw was a huge fist punch him before his vision turned dark.

…

Bang!

Genji watched in surprise as the strength of his blow blew out of his fist and struck the head of the man.

The punch made contact and like if it was nothing, the man's body flew off with a single punch before crashing into the wall and crunching a bit.

'Oh fuck!'

With a face full of disgust, Genji ignored the body that hit the wall and turned to look at the blue screens that appeared.

[Ding! Level 4 Knife Wielding Firebender decapitated! Experience +3]

[Ding! Skill level up!]

[Ding! Skill level up!]

[Ding! Skill level up!]

...

[<Precision> (Lvl. 16)]

[<Heightened Senses > (Lvl. 14)]

[<Adept Waterbender> (Lvl. 21)]

'Damn! It was only 0.054! I thought it was going to be weak!' grumbled Genji as he pulled out the knife from his hand and tossed it to the side before cleaning his wound and performing first aid.

[Ding! Skill level up!]

[<Adept Physician> (Lvl. 21)]