Y/N wished she could stop time and rewind. Her stupid decisions finally caught up to her.

          The fight started off with a bang, Azula lunging first, sending a wave of blue fire towards Zuko with a crazed smile and mad glint in her eye.

          In that moment she would've given her soul to La if it would change something, anything.

          Zuko dodged, and sent his own devastating attack back, having new strength drawn from the comet. Azula cut through it, laughing hysterically. She was losing it.

          No one had been in the way, it had just been Zuko and Azula out there. It would have been better if she hadn't been there at all.

          Y/N had to duck back behind the wall to shield herself from the waves of heat. She could hear Zuko yelling something, but she didn't dare look around the corner again until the heat strangely dispersed.

          "Use your lightning! What? Afraid I'll send it back?" Zuko challenged. Y/N just barely peeked around the wall, making sure she wasn't seen.

          "I'm not afraid of you," Azula laughed, "But there is someone else here that should fear me."

          She couldn't feel, she couldn't even hear herself.

          Everything seemed to slow as Azula pointed directly at the wall Y/N crouched behind. She reached to her side, but there was no water container. She reached towards the air, but it was so dry with heat, could she even pull any from it? She had no water to bend.

          The enormous wall would break, and if the initial rubble, shrapnel, and electricity didn't kill her, it would bury her alive. There was no time to dodge. 

          She stood, certain death staring her in the face.

          Then he was there.

           "ZUKO!" Everything finally came into focus, and Y/N could her her own hoarse screaming, sobs wracking her body. "WAKE UP! YOU HAVE TO WAKE UP, PLEASE!" 

          He wasn't moving. Y/N gathered him up in her arms, screaming for any response. Sobbing uncontrollably, she grabbed one of his hands, feeling the wrist for a pulse. She couldn't feel it. It had to be there, right? She was just too panicked to feel it.

          Right?

          "Zuko..." Y/N's sobs were turning into muffled hiccups as she pulled Zuko's completely limp body close, burying her face in his shoulder as she tried to speak his name with her destroyed throat.

          For a brief second she wished she hadn't told Zaji and Amo to leave. They could get him help, to safety. Katara could've been here, but she was safe with Amo. But Y/N had insisted they go, so they were safe. If they had been here Azula likely would have killed them.

          Azula.

          She was just laughing, nearly choking on air as she watched Y/N cradle Zuko's still form. 

          "Azula..." Y/N stood, letting Zuko gently rest on the stone, doing nothing to stop the stream of tears down her face. She was still weak, injured, and had lost a lot of blood, but none of that mattered now. She wanted blood. No, she wanted Zuko back. Blood. Stop, he may still be alive. Blood.

          "'You won't touch them' landed you in a fantastic spot, didn't it?" Azula laughed. "You're a fool. You should have feared me more." 

           The air went painfully dry as Y/N drew gallons of water from the entire arena. Weeds, grass, air, anything. It was painful to breathe the waterless air. It was painful to fight the urge to snap Azula in half, press her into a small cube of flesh and brittle bone. Blood dripped down her legs from falling to her knees on broken rock.

          "No," she whispered. "You should have feared me more." Azula was gone in a matter of moments, washed away by a powerful jet of high pressured water. 

          Y/N ran forward, rage fueling every painful step forward. 

                              —| § ථ § |—

                              Zuko's POV

          Zuko

                 Zuko

                         Zuko

          "ZUKO." Zuko inhaled sharply, and immediately regretted it. The air was painfully dry, grating roughly against his throat and lungs. His body ached, but he opened his eyes to see familiar blue ones staring back. Tears were streaming down Katara's face. 

          "Please, I only just barely revived you, but please, you have to save her." She managed. Zuko laid there for a moment, trying to comprehend what was happening. There was the sound of a strong wind, and someone was yelling.

          He turned his head a little, trying to make out words over the ringing in his ears. There was Zaji, he was crying too, and screaming himself hoarse. He could finally hear him.

                    "Y/N!"

          "Please." There were strong arms around him, helping Zuko sit up. It was Amo, tears streaming down his face, and voice choked almost to the point of being inaudible. "SHE CAN'T HEAR YOU, ZAJI. GET BACK."

          At the other side of the arena there was a swirling sphere of ice shards. It wasn't very large, about twice the height of an average human. Azula was chained to a grate several yards away, but that didn't matter once Zuko registered the black, moving shape inside the sphere.

          "I DON'T CARE." Zaji screamed back. He began running towards the swirling sphere of ice, struggling against the strong wind concentrating around it, and Zuko nearly fell over when Amo let go, running after his friend and tackling him to the ground.

          "ARE YOU INSANE?? YOU'RE GOING TO KILL YOURSELF." Amo scolded, yelling over the wind as he dragged Zaji back. Zaji flailed, struggling.

          "Please." Katara pleaded, helping Zuko to his feet. "If she'll hear anyone, she'll hear you." 

          Zuko stood, transfixed by the swirling shards and barely visible form inside. She was moving, slamming her head against a stone column. He could faintly hear heart wrenching crying from inside.

          Y/N.

          He barely felt himself walking, moving forward against the wind. Amo's warnings fell on deaf ears, and any other yelling was lost in the wind. After only a few seconds of walking, moving became hard, and it wasn't just the wind.

          Zuko could feel a force tugging at him. His blood wasn't moving properly. It felt like the closer he got, the more his body wanted to be ripped to shreds, the water and blood in his body straining to join the endless swirl of ice.

          His muscles wouldn't respond properly anymore once he got within 10 feet of her. He stumbled, falling to the ground.

          "Y/N." He couldn't muster the strength to yell, it came out more like a whisper. "Y/N, I'm here." The crying coming from the sphere stopped, and the form inside raised its head, looking at him. He could only see the black shape, and glowing white eyes.

          "Y/N, come here, please." Zuko smiled weakly, but nearly scrambled back when the shape emitted a low, horrifying hiss, the wind seeming to blow faster. A few stray shards of ice whipped by, cutting a small gash in his left cheek. He flinched, shielding his face as he crawled forward.

          "Y/N?" He managed, swallowing the sudden fear building up in his throat. The form he thought had been Y/N flinched at his voice. It stood abruptly, so fast it was chilling. A human being should not have been able to stand that quickly.

          Zuko opened his mouth to speak again, but the thing in the orb let out a blood-curdling, inhuman screech, causing him to instinctively clap his hands over his ears. It was loud, long, and tears burst from Zuko's eyes just listening to it. It was pure, vocalized pain.

          "Y/N!" He yelled, and the form stopped screaming.

          "STOP. SAYING MY NAME." It was Y/N's voice, but a chilling number of them. It sounded like four of her were speaking at once, all at different pitches, but blending together in an awful chorus of agony.

          "Please, come to me, come here."

          "I'LL KILL YOU." Y/N rasped, scampering over to him at a terrifying pace, the orb moving with her to engulf him, and half a second later Zuko was in the sphere with her. It was extremely cold. The pure silence inside would have scared him if not for Y/N roughly picking him up by the collar of his shirt.

          Her form hadn't simply looked black from the ice around her, now that he was in the bubble, and up close, he could see her clearly. Her skin was black, in a horrible, frost-bitten way. It wasn't just her irises that were white, her entire eye was like cracked porcelain.

          "Y/N-?"

          "SHUT UP." She snarled. "SHUT UP!" She shook him, and walked back over the the pillar, slamming him against it. "SHUT UP!"

          "You've already told me thrice, and I didn't even say anything after the first time." Zuko complained. He didn't know where it came from. Maybe he was delirious. Maybe he was tired. Maybe it was the fact that he'd gotten his head bashed into a stone pillar two seconds ago.

          "Remember when I promised you to remember?" He smiled weakly. "It seems like so long ago, doesn't it?" 

          "Remember what? Y/N isn't here. She is here. She—" Y/N growled in pain, a long ice lance forming in her hand. "Make it quick, and say your final words." She raised the weapon to his throat.

           "You asked me to remember that you loved me." Zuko braced himself, but the tip of the lance wavered a bit at his words. "Remember? More than once. The second time was a situation similar to this one, but my promises are no different."

          "Y/N ISN'T HERE TO PROTECT YOU." Y/N rasped, raising her weapon again.

          "But I'm here to protect you." Zuko reached out, cupping her face with one hand. Her skin was rough and cold as ice, but it thawed under his touch. Y/N dropped him, and he was unable to support himself, thudding painfully to the tile. She turned away, and Zuko grabbed her hand, pulling her down into a hug.

          "Please don't leave me, I'm so sorry." The emotion finally built up in his chest, and his words came out in choked gasps. He pulled away to look at her, she blinked, and he smiled at the beautiful E/C eyes staring back where white had once been. He took her hands in his, the horrible black slowly fading from her skin.

                              Y/N's POV

          "There you are." Y/N blinked slowly as Zuko spoke, smiling. "Found you."