A flash of dark crimson, followed by the eruption of a gruesome sound unpleasant.

Was it perhaps the stealthy pounce of her in the shadows, or was it the sight of his own blood, of the same blood they shared, spurting from a new cut wound somewhere on his body?

No, he had to remind himself harshly in this emotional peril, they didn't share the same blood anymore. She was royalty; she was the heir to the throne, she was perfecton. He was a filthy traitor; burned and branded unworthy by his own father, the same father who had dubbed her as that divine perfection.

Everything was becoming darker, it was like a mind trick. He spun around, trying to find her in this oblivion of darkness, the very veil she had created to deceive him. Between the massive blood loss, and the wrecked state his mind was in at the moment, he was falling weaker and weaker.

The original crimson flash was replaced by a sudden electric blue, Fire at it's purest form. He tried his hardest to dodge it, but the attack had come from nowhere, and he was already too weak, failing from all of the other piercing battle wounds his body was barely sustaining.

I'm going to die, he told himself, not sure what he wanted at the moment, if death would be easier than this ongoing pain, or if revenge was really that important to him. Azula finally got me...NO! I CAN'T GIVE IN TO HER!

The fall seemed like an eternal doom, as his body slowly jerked back from the assault that had claimed it as victim. He fell so hard. The ground refused to welcome him kindly as it made contact with his unwilling body, scorched from the attack, burning. His skin was peeling horribly, crystal amber eyes watering. He couldn't move.

"You're so pathetic," her voiced hissed like a snake, the quality of it being that way for as long as he could remember. "What were you thinking? No, you're too stupid to think!" she laughed cruelly to her dying brother, kicking him sharply in the side.

He tried to speak, but it was if every part of his body had been damaged. "I..."

"What's that, brother dearest?" she came closer, almost teasing him with every ability that she had been blessed with, and that he lacked. "I can't hear over the loud cracking of your skin!"

Suddenly, a violent beast arose within his chest. With everything he ever had in him, whether valiant of cowardly, he grabbed her by the collar with his seared hand, shaking to suppress the unbelieve pain that he had not suprisingly succumbed to. "...I-I...I...h-hate you..." he groaned, somehow able to shake her incredibly hard. The feeling's mutual, I assume.

Caught off guard for only a second, she retreated away, spinning around with the elegance of a swan. After ripping his dirty hand off of her, she prepared another charge of her gleaming lazuli inferno. "I can't believe this, dear Zuko. After all this, and you're not dead yet? Tsk tsk...maybe I underestimated you." She seemed to consider some strange desire to allow him to survive. "Maybe if you pledge your undying piety to me, I will let you live."

Wincing his incredulous pain, he somehow managed to sit up. Grunting, he spat at her direction, blood, saliva and a tooth. "I would rather...die...r-right here...t-than ever follow you." He wiped the crude residue from his cut lips, staring her down with his last defense.

A wicked smirk ran strongly across her face. "Too bad. Oh well, at least you'll finally let me kill you easily." Looking down upon him, a trail of Fire, that he had never witnessed before for the way it happened to be shifting between the shades of a glowing sunset orange and cerulean blue, was being summoned as it wrapped around her arm. It's intensity seemed to feed off of all of the negative energy that had devoured her heart for most of their lives. "Cowards with no respect don't deserve any mercy, and I feel equivalently pusillanimous for letting you go this long!" she screamed violently, though satisfied, before shooting the last long assault of her now ultramarine Fire at him.

Horrendous stinging tremored his body as the flames engulfed him. It was a pain that could never be rivaled or bested. It was the pain that everyone has feared would be their death, the pain that often haunts nightmares of demise.

And then, from the bright glow of the Fire riding high on his body, everything went dark and quiet.