And in light of all this, I came to another realization:
I could not allow everything my people had spent a century achieving to be flushed down the drain by an exiled prince and a selfish, underage boy—one willing to drag the world back into a stagnant mire simply because that was how he envisioned some mythical "balance and harmony."
I remembered all too well what the collapse of a great nation looked like.
I had lived through it in my first life—albeit as a child. Hunger. Ruin. Poverty. Shortages of everything. The deaths of millions of ordinary civilians who failed to "adapt to the new market reality." And it was happening there—in the richest country in the world, with vast resources, industry, and the accumulated legacy of past generations. A legacy that the new "masters of life" devoured greedily and siphoned off for another thirty years after the collapse, without ever quite managing to strip it bare.
And most importantly—that collapse had happened without a military defeat. Without devastation. Without national humiliation or reparations paid to victors.
But here?
The Avatar would bring exactly that: defeat. Devastation.
And without a doubt, the entire Fire Nation would be forced back onto the archipelago, compelled to abandon the lands it had taken in the Earth Kingdom. Meanwhile, the Fire Nation colonies there had already grown to rival the homeland itself—not just in size, but in population. Entire generations had been born there, for whom the mainland was home. People who had built their own cities, roads, entire regions of the country.
I might not have cared about the fate of some barely familiar tycoon—Admiral Chan—whom I hadn't even seen with my own eyes and for whom I certainly felt no filial attachment. But when I tried to imagine what the victory of the "good boy Aang" would mean for the Fire Nation—for millions upon millions of people—I could no longer say I didn't care.
Besides, the consequences of defeat would affect me directly as well.
I'm not claiming that selfishness is a morally sound motivation—but it is a very real one, unlike hollow moralizing. Whether I liked it or not, I was the heir to an old military aristocratic family. My father was the Commander-in-Chief of the Eastern Fleet of the Fire Nation. And in the event of defeat, our family wouldn't just lose everything—we'd be among the first on the list to be purged by the new regime.
And you know what?
That "good guy Zuko," who went through such a noble moral journey from Villain to Hero—he only looks good on screen, after all. In reality, this same man had his own father and sister thrown into prison.
I'm not even going to mention that he spat on the lives of millions of his own people for the sake of some vague notion that the Avatar is "good." What I'm saying is this: if that's how he treated his own family, then what could some random admiral and his son possibly expect?
Long story short, sitting tight was a one-way ticket to the chopping block "for company," just by virtue of your birth.
Medieval times, folks!
Harsh times. Harsh customs.
A class-based society. A nation at war. And a traitor prince who seized power in a coup with the support of the country's enemy.
Even back in my old world, "serious people" didn't hesitate to wipe out entire families of the defeated to prevent revenge—just look at The Godfather. And here, talking about humanism was laughable, no matter how sweet and idealized the Avatar was portrayed in the cartoon.
So if I didn't want that fate for myself—or for the hundreds of thousands of soldiers and their families—then I had to act. Of course, if I wanted to stop the Avatar and his companions, I'd still have to do something about my own bending. A sword was all well and good—I might even dare face a dragon with it now—but without bending, there was no way I'd bring that flying bastard down.
Aside from swordsmanship, Piandao, as promised, passed on other knowledge as well.
Sadly, I would never become a painter. But I did manage to "make friends" with calligraphy, so at least my handwriting improved. And, paradoxically, I even learned to play the flute decently. Never would've thought I had any musical talent—but apparently, I did.
Alongside this "spiritual development," the old master also took it upon himself to harden me.
At one point, as part of a lesson, he ordered me to bring him the heads of bandits who had settled along the road.
Now I could say with confidence: all those stories about the first kill being some life-shattering trauma were complete nonsense.
When your blood is flooded with adrenaline, you don't even realize you've taken a life. And afterward, when you return home and hand over the "trophies" to your master, you're kept from sinking into gloom by a bottle of good wine and a pretty, affectionate girl he provides…
***
I was pulled out of my reminiscing—indulged in while running the required thirty laps with a log on my shoulders—by the Master's voice.
"That's enough, Lee. I asked for thirty laps, not fifty. I see you've changed your attitude toward running?" There was clear amusement in his tone.
Yeah… running and I had a complicated relationship.
The thing was, a warrior needed more than strength—he needed agility. In fact, unless you were encased in heavy armor from head to toe, agility was your primary stat. But during my training, my muscle mass had started to increase rapidly—and the heavier an object is, the harder it is to move.
Physics. You can't argue with it.
So, to "cut down," I had to run endless laps with a log on my shoulders, stand for hours in various uncomfortable positions under load, and entertain myself with other delightful methods straight out of those old martial arts movies.
Sure, the result—a lean body with enough strength to bend a horseshoe—was gratifying. But the sheer amount of sweat poured out on the training grounds to achieve it was downright horrifying.