Chapter 25

The nonstop wheel ended with my somersault, in which I flipped over Ty Lee, who was still doing her wheel. I landed and froze, feeling in my now considerably heightened zone of sensitivity a new blood that I had never encountered before. And in my time living in the circus, I had come to recognize the blood of all the people and animals living there, so I noticed the stranger immediately.

"Hey, Garo, why did you stop?" Ty Lee asked, approaching me on her hands.

"Someone foreign is coming. Not one of us."

"Oh! Is that so!" Ty Lee responded, looking around.

Out from behind the tent came... rather, a girl of fourteen or fifteen years old, with black hair braided into a bun, in which a clip indicating the high status of the visiting guest was placed. She was wearing the officer's uniform of the Fire Nation's benders.

"Azula!!!" Ty Lee squealed with joy and quickly leaped to the aforementioned, grabbing her in a strong embrace. And she's a strong girl, so it was indeed a strong grip.

"Hello, Ty Lee! Happy to see you! Oh, please, don't let me distract you from... whatever you were doing."

"Oh! Right! Azula, meet Garo, he's my performance and training partner. Garo, meet Azula!" Ty Lee whispered, "And she's a princess!"

"Wow! My respects, Princess Azula, it's an honor to meet a princess of the Fire Nation and, more importantly, a genius of firebending, about whom so many rumors circulate. It's said that you're no less a genius in firebending than the Blood Monster is in waterbending. And at your age! What will happen next? When you grow older and even stronger?" I asked, pondering more to myself than to the princess, whom I remembered from memories of the prison where I had spent almost a year. I recall, my overseer—The First—told me of her genius in her element.

"And you know how to flatter," said Princess Azula and turned to Ty Lee. "Ty Lee, I don't understand what you're doing in this... hole..."

The princess stopped, noticing my intent gaze, then looked again at me smiling.

"Did you want something?" she asked me.

"Yes. Princess Azula, being a firebender myself, I ask you to allow me to have a fight with you. If you're not against it, of course."

"What?!" Ty Lee and Azula both stared at me.

"Garo, are you out of your mind?!" Ty Lee asked.

"Yes. I just really want to see even a bit of the genius that is praised in our princess."

"You're brave!" Azula exclaimed loudly. "Alright. We'll have a training Agni Kai."

The smile on her face and the emotions that probably everyone around her was feeling indicated that this would not be just a training duel.

"Forgive me! I humbly ask you, Princess Azula, could you conduct the Agni Kai with this fool outside the circus, so as not to burn it down?" the circus owner came running and almost kneeled before Azula.

"Yes, of course, I wouldn't want to harm my father's subjects."

A few minutes later, I stood opposite Azula in the midst of trampled earth and small patches of grass, which seemed to grow in clumps. And in the distance, the rest of the circus population began to gather, including Ty Lee.

Azula stood still, waiting for my attack. I also stood still, completely relaxed.

"Princess Azula, I don't intend to beat you, I just want to see your capabilities in combat, to understand your greatness, so could you attack first."

In response, Azula smiled on one side of her mouth and made several sharp movements forward, and from her extended index and middle fingers, clusters of bright blue flames burst forth. Just seeing the blue flame, I immediately spun a fire disk with a circular motion of my hands, into which the fire clusters crashed. I spun the disk and sent it towards Azula, but she jumped up, intending to leap over it. A clap of my hands and the disk, being directly under the princess, exploded into a sphere of flame.

A jet of flame of the same blue color burst out of Azula's feet, counteracting the explosive wave, and though Azula was blown away, she wasn't seriously harmed. She was falling to the ground when I quickly moved closer to her, and getting within about seven meters, I crouched on one knee and spun on a circular axis, releasing a powerful jet of flame from my foot. Azula released fire with her hands and feet to protect herself from my flame wave, which, upon colliding with her fire, rose high up. Taking advantage of the moment while I was lost from her sight, I began to close in and simultaneously concentrated fire between my hands at one point. The wall dissipated, and as soon as I appeared in Azula's field of vision, I released the accumulated fireball, forbidding the fire to spread in any direction except towards Azula herself.

The princess, although she defended herself with her fire, was still blown away by the explosion for many meters.

This time, Azula couldn't land properly and fell, rolling on the ground a couple of times.

I froze, waiting for her next actions. From the rumors I had gathered, more out of boredom than intention, I knew she was a very volatile personality, cruel and unable to tolerate defeats. So, perhaps, she would show me new fire techniques that I could try to master? I wasn't fighting her for nothing.

Princess Azula slowly got up, first by pushing herself up with her hands, then getting on all fours, and from that position, she stood up. Her hair was disheveled, her clip was gone, possibly blown away by the explosion. Standing on her feet, she swayed from side to side—apparently, the explosion had somewhat concussed her, and she was now diligently trying to regain her composure. An ordinary person would have been torn to pieces by such a concentrated fire explosion, but I had long learned that benders, especially strong ones, have particularly durable bodies. While cutting them might not be much harder than a regular person, inflicting crushing damage is significantly more challenging. So, I wasn't worried about the princess's life. In the worst case, I would experiment with transferring blood and life not into myself but into another person. This is much more complicated because I automatically consumed the stolen life and assimilated the blood, but here I would have to make the patient do it. The main thing is to have a victim and no witnesses, otherwise, there would be too many victims, even for me to consume. At this point, I could consume the life and blood of four benders at once... and then I would enter a several-day period of intoxication. Complete disorientation, a total shutdown of the survival instinct, and removal of all moral and logical restrictions, extreme curiosity, and hyperactivity! I was in such a state once and that was enough, so I try not to overindulge. It's good that memory remains intact after the intoxication by life ends.

However, I digress. Princess Azula, it seems, had come to her senses and was preparing to continue the fight, but I called out to her.

"Princess Azula, I don't want to harm you, so if you wish, we can stop the fight. I have already seen your greatness. Your blue flame is much stronger than mine, and that says a lot!.."

I couldn't finish, as a large stream of blue fire was thrown at me, but towards the direction where I had rolled, a second, much larger one was already flying. I couldn't dodge it in time, so I decided to defend. In my right hand, a flame ignited, and in my left, hidden from everyone by my body, concentrated pure oxygen, invisible to anyone. The movement and two hands joined, releasing a flame towards the princess's fire stream, fueled by pure oxygen.

The collision of the two fire streams caused an explosion that spread upwards and sideways, covering a vast space and blocking my view. Using my own tricks against me? Almost.

I sensed her moving upwards. Fast and steady. Was she flying? But how? Could it be on jet propulsion? Darn, and why hadn't I thought of such a simple thing, given that I had long noticed that releasing a tightly compressed and strong stream of fire from my hand, I felt resistance. Not to the movement of the fire, but to the hand. The released fire stream created a small thrust, trying to move the hand in the opposite direction. It just never occurred to me to achieve greater thrust and initiate jet propulsion! It's quite simple, either by generating more fire or by increasing the density of the released fire. Either way, under equal conditions, it would increase thrust and potentially allow me to move through the air by jet propulsion. I had already attempted to learn to fly. For instance, using bloodbending to make myself fly, as I had done with victims... only to find out that although possible, it was terribly unpleasant to fully control my own blood. And attempting to move in such a way caused me great pain. I suspect my victims felt the same.

But again, I digress.

The wall of flame only slightly dissipated, Azula was somewhere at a height of about ten meters, and I prepared to observe a new firebending technique, ready to defend myself.

However, I didn't expect that as soon as the flame cleared, I would see Azula flying on streams of highly compressed fire, surrounded by blue electric crackling and emerging glow of discharges, as a lightning bolt released by Princess Azula struck me!

"Damn it!" I exclaimed, watching as Azula pointed her fingers at me and began to concentrate a large amount of fire in a cavity I had created in the ground.

As soon as the lightning began to concentrate and head in my direction, slower at the beginning stages and perhaps in general than ordinary lightning, I initiated an explosion beneath my feet.

The explosion threw me upwards, and at the same moment, the lightning struck the spot, blasting the ground around the impact site, literally exploding it.

Wow, that's something! Real lightning! It may have moved slowly at the start, but after that, it reached the speed of standard lightning, covering the distance between Azula and the impact point instantly!

My legs hurt from the explosion. I hadn't injured anything, but the small blood vessels could have burst from such a gift. Probably why I felt pain. And it must have hit the nerves pretty hard.

I landed on the ground and immediately raised my hands, yelling at the top of my lungs.

"Princess Azula! I surrender! Hear that? You've won! I can't fight against you!" I yelled, ready to dodge to the side from another lightning bolt at any moment.

However, after a couple of seconds, Azula quickly descended and landed two meters away from me.

"Who are you, Garo? Who taught you firebending?" Azula asked sternly, while breathing heavily with her bangs partially covering her eyes.

"Princess Azula, I swear, and all the firebenders in the circus can confirm, when I first arrived here, I could barely keep fire under control. Everything I can do, I learned here. In this circus. Picking up bits from other firebenders and the rest I figured out myself. However, your technique of jet propulsion has greatly intrigued me. I will definitely learn it! As well as the technique to enhance fire. Because that's why your flame is blue, right, Princess Azula?"

Without responding, the princess turned around and walked away from the smiling me, heading towards the circus performers and Ty Lee, who was only looking at me. It seems I somewhat shocked her... like that.

I looked around. The ground was in places exploded, dug up, melted, and the grass was completely burned everywhere. Some of it was still burning. Obeying my will, the fire went out.

Sitting down with a satisfied smile on the still-warm ground, I created fire in my hand and focused on it…