"Azula."

The cloaked figure removed its mask, revealing flowing black hair and cold golden eyes. "Took you a while, dear Zuzu," came a familiar condescending tone. "Honestly, you were supposed to have figured it out days ago. But then again, you never were the smart one."

"This doesn't make any sense!" shouted Zuko. "Why take such a roundabout way of undermining my rule? How do you get from the Forgotten Valley to this? Who are those other two Kemurikage? This isn't you Azula! This isn't the girl who took Ba Sing Se in days."

Azula shrugged indifferently. "I'm crazy, remember? I guess I'm not really myself when I'm crazy." She flinched and threw an irritated glare over her shoulder before continuing, "But that's not the point. You looked for me for weeks, right? Here I am. Come and catch me."

Azula took advantage of a strong gust of wind behind her to shed her cloak. The billowing piece of clothing combined with the smoke she was generating temporarily blocked their line of sight. By the time Zuko knocked the offending garment away, Azula had jetted down to the streets below. "After her!" he commanded. Suki, Aang, and Ty Lee leapt into action.

The chase led them through Caldera City's financial sector, usually crowded but deserted this night. Five minutes into the pursuit, Zuko began to regret all the sitting he was doing as Fire Lord- it had always been hard keeping up with his sister, and that was while he didn't have all sorts of duties keeping him from regular exercise. Aang and Ty Lee were having a better time- their nimbleness and Aang's glider were allowing them to keep pace.

'But they should be doing more than keeping pace,' thought Zuko. Aang should be able to fly faster than Azula could run. But despite the generally open air above the streets, Azula's route seemed full of obstacles that impaired the Avatar's airborne advantage. Ty Lee should be more agile than Azula, but it seemed that every turn kept Ty Lee from building any momentum. 'Just my luck,' groaned Zuko inwardly. 'Azula would be the one lucky enough to escape pursuit from Aang and Ty Lee.'

'No,' he realized.

It wasn't luck. In their childhood, he had always called it luck, but Azula would train for hours after he had called it quits for the day. Azula was meticulous about everything, accounting for every detail. It was just one of the many things Ozai had valued about Azula. She had planned this path specifically because she anticipated being chased. She had anticipated being cornered tonight, which meant...

"Stop!"

Aang halted his chase and looked at Zuko questioningly. "She wanted us to chase her," Zuko answered to the unasked question. "The other two Kemurikage had Kiyi, and Azula used herself to take our attention off them. She's been playing us."

Aang groaned. "This is just like the Day of Black Sun! And we fell for it again!"

Ty Lee ran up to the pair, a disappointed look in her eye. "I lost her," she said sadly. "There was oil in the street, and Azula burned it so I couldn't follow."

Zuko's heart sank. Of all the situations he had expected himself to be in at the start of the day, none could match the dread he felt at being in middle of one of his sister's plans. He flagged down a nearby watch commander and ordered, "Organize the home guard. Mobilize every soldier. My sister is loose in this city, and I want her captured!"

"Aye aye!"

"Come," Zuko said to his companions. "We need to plan."

…

"Well that's great," Mai said. To the unpracticed ear, it would sound like her usual bored tone, but Zuko could tell how much stress Mai was feeling right now. It was probably comparable to the amount he was feeling.

"She took my daughter," Ursa cried, wringing her hands. "She took Kiyi! Do- do you think Azula would hurt my daughter?"

"Azula's your daughter too," Zuko added quietly, clasping his mother's hands in support. They felt unnaturally cold. "No matter what she's done, no matter what she thinks you've done, she's still part of our family."

"She hates me," Ursa lamented. "When she broke into our home in Hira'a, she looked at me with so much hatred. It's because of me that Kiyi's gone, I'm sure of it!"

"Don't worry," Zuko whispered. "We'll get her back. I promise."

Zuko turned his attention to the other people in the room. "Suki, has there been any progress on the search?"

Suki shook her head. "We've established a perimeter around Caldera City, so she's trapped in the city. If she tries to get out, we'll catch her. We're allocating every extra person possible for patrols. They have orders to not engage, only to report sightings."

"Azula studied the city's defenses extensively for the Day of Black Sun," Zuko countered. "She knows more secret passages around the palace and Caldera City than anyone else alive does. The perimeter won't keep her in."

Suki was about to protest, but Zuko held a finger up and continued. "But she'll stay in the city anyways. Too many children were taken- they couldn't have smuggled them all out of the city. So for now, their home base is somewhere in Caldera City. She's confident- she thinks we can't catch her unless she wants to be caught. And without Toph here, she might be right. There is one piece of information though: she was leading us away from wherever her cronies were taking Kiyi, which means that their home base is either in the..."

"Entertainment, industrial, or residential districts," Suki filled in.

That's so helpful," remarked Mai sarcastically. "We'll just go through every single abandoned factory and warehouse. A lot of them have closed since the war ended, by the way. We should probably visit the residential district too- I can think of several nobles who would harbor Azula against you."

Zuko gritted his teeth. "Everybody except Mai, leave the room." Upon seeing the surprised looks, he confirmed, "I mean it!"

Once everyone else had left, Zuko turned to Mai. "Mai, we've known each other a long time. You're being especially passive-aggressive, which means there's something else that's bugging you. Is there anything you would like to share?"

Mai sighed. "When we still thought the spirits were real, my father said that you were to blame for the attacking spirits. And I believed him. But since we know that they aren't real spirits, I guess there's no point in protecting him any more. My father's leading the New Ozai Society. I'm pretty sure he knows where they're keeping the children."

A flame flared up violently between them, and Zuko yelled, "And you didn't think to tell me this before?" When Mai kept silent, he continued, "These people kidnapped Tom-Tom. They tried to have me killed! They've taken Kiyi! They are trying to overthrow me and put my father back on the throne! Why the hell would you keep information like this from me?"

"To protect my family," Mai replied nonchalantly. "Tom-Tom is safe with my father, and I'd prefer if all of my family stayed out of prison."

"You better hope this ends well, because if things go south, there might be more than just your father in prison," Zuko seethed. "If Azula's planning on hurting Tom-Tom, your father's not going to be able to protect him. Now get out, and call everyone else back in."

The argument left an uncomfortable tension in the room, and Zuko wasted no time in passing out new orders to his allies. "Ukano knows where the children are being held. I want him arrested immediately."

…

Well that had turned out badly.

'The things we do for family,' Mai thought bitterly. She had tried to protect her father, and it had blown up in her face spectacularly. It seemed that her father had not shown her the same courtesy; she was very skeptical that Ukano still thought the Kemurikage were real, which meant that Ukano had lied directly to her face.

She supposed her father couldn't take all the blame. From her own experience at the end of the war, she knew that Azula had a certain ability to persuade people to follow her, even against their own self-interest. If Azula had Ukano wrapped around her clawed fingers, Mai couldn't fault him for not being able to wriggle himself out.

She leaned against the balcony, gazing into the night sky. Despite all the chaos that had made its way into Caldera City, the skyline still managed to seem peaceful. Perhaps with her kidnapping plot exposed, Azula would leave the rest of the children of Caldera City alone, and the peace would be something more than just an illusion.

The illusion was abruptly shattered by an unmistakable eruption of blue flame. Mai scanned the area surrounding the fire for landmarks so that she could triangulate Azula's location, and her conclusion made her fall to her knees in shock. 'Oh spirits, have mercy.' Even though Zuko was still mad at her, he would definitely want to hear this news as fast as possible.

…

Mai sprinted through the streets, tracing a very familiar path from the palace to their destination. With the route ingrained into memory, her mind was allowed to focus on much worse thoughts. 'Please let them be okay, please let them be okay. If Azula's hurt them, I swear I will gut her before opening her throat. Please let them be okay.'

Their proximity to their destination was confirmed by screams of panic and crowds running in the opposite direction. Mai rounded the final corner to be hit by a crushing wave of heat, and saw her fears confirmed.

Her aunt's flower shop was burning. Azure fire taunted her, daring her to check on the status of her mother and aunt. She was about to dash into the burning building, but a hand on her shoulder held her back. "You aren't a firebender," came Zuko's voice. "If you get too close, your whole body will end up like my face. Don't worry, Aang and I will do this."

The two men entered the shop, dispersing the flames as they went. Mai fidgeted nervously; Ty Lee embraced her in a tight hug, attempting to calm her down. Suki was trying to coordinate the fire brigade, which seemed to be taking much longer than usual. (The fire brigade got pulled to patrol the streets, one man explained; they had to get back to their station first.)

Finally, Zuko and Aang staggered out, two women leaning on their shoulders. Zuko's eyes locked with her's; he gave a slight nod, and Mai nearly sagged with relief.

Aang and Zuko set the women down at the sidewalk, and Mai dashed over to them. "They aren't hurt," Zuko explained. "Scared out of their minds, yes, but physically hurt, no. We found them in a stone room in the basement; it was the safest place they could have been."

"So they ran in there after Azula started burning down the shop?" Mai asked.

"You'll have to ask them yourself," replied Zuko.

Mai knelt down in front of her mother so that they were at the same eye level. "Mother, can you talk to me right now?" Michi nodded, despite the obvious trembling. "What happened?"

"A-Azula c-came in t-to the shop," Michi started. "She t-told us t-that she w-was there to settle a score. I could tell she w-wanted to kill us, but she told us that somebody wouldn't let her. S-she didn't say who it was."

"You're doing great," Mai said gently. "What happened next?"

Michi's trembling had seemed to die down. "She forced us into the stone room in the basement, told us to stay there if we wanted to be alive for when help got here." Mai clenched her fist; even though this counted as mercy by Azula's standards, her talent for cruelty was unfortunately stellar.

"Anything else?"

At this, Michi seemed to get nervous, breaking eye contact to stare into her lap. "What is it?" Mai asked. "This could be important."

"No, it's not important," Michi denied, although Mai didn't believe her. She turned to Mura, raising an eyebrow expectantly. Her aunt sighed.

"She said that as a price for her mercy" - Mai snorted at the utter lie- "she wanted us to tell you one thing. You must understand, this is her saying it, not us."

"She wanted us to tell you that you are the entire reason this happened."

---

A/N:

So Zuko basically sums up how I feel about Azula being behind the events of Smoke and Shadow.

This fic will focus on Azula, but it won't be told from her perspective. The purpose of the fic is to bring the badass chessmaster from the show into Smoke and Shadow.

The length will either be 6 or 7 chapters, hopefully to be finished before Smoke and Shadow 3 comes out.

If the characters feel OOC, please ask me about it; I'm trying to stay true to all of the characters.

Mai's mother and aunt survive because this is AtLA, not Game of Thrones. There's a tiny hint in this chapter about who the "somebody" is.

R&R, F&F!