Bruce, seeing that his soft method hadn't moved the broken Ozai, switched.
The easy smile vanished like a candle snuffed; the air around him tightened, sharpened. He spoke with a new weight, his voice low and serious, the kind of serious that made the edges of the cave feel colder.
"Pick your sword, pick your sword, Ozai."
He didn't shout. He didn't need to. The command landed like a verdict.
"Pick your sword and fight me like I killed your entire family. Use everything you've got."
Ozai's jaw worked. His eyes darted to the twin silver blades lying at Bruce's feet, dulled, spent of their earlier blaze, and for a moment they looked foreign, stripped of their purpose. The sight of them so close to Bruce's boot did something to him; the last spark of his bravado guttered and died.
Bruce watched him with a thin, contemptuous smile. "Pathetic," he scoffed, the word small but razor-sharp. "I expected more from a young master of the mighty Thorne family."
