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He was trapped in a losing battle; he was certain of it.
But Prince Zuko had never given up without a fight, not even when all of the odds and the whims of the universe itself were stacked against him.
And though it was hopeless, he gritted his teeth and set off after the damned waterbender daintily yet firmly marching away from him, her parting insults still hanging heavy in the air between them.
He pushed his way through the other congregants scattered throughout the temple, who had long since lost patience with the pair of them for their inability to keep their voices down, even in the holiest of places.
“Katara, how may I prove my love to you?” he found himself blurting out, ignoring the indignant shushes and scandalized glances. “How?”
She paused, then turned her head back to regard him with a raised brow.
“Do you ask in earnest?”
“Yes.”
The waterbender continued staring at him, eyes narrowed.
“If you would prove your love,” she finally said after a long pause, “you should do your worst.”
… surely he had misheard her just now, hadn’t he?
“My worst?” Zuko asked, slowly and deliberately. “What do you mean?”
A hint of a smirk tugged at the corners of her mouth.
“Instead of winning to honor me with your high reputation, I want you to act against your normal character and do badly,” she explained.
… had she gone mad?
“Do badly?”
“Lose.”
Oh, so she had definitely gone mad then.
“Losing proves nothing except that I’m a loser!” he snapped.
She spun back around to face him properly, and he instinctively stepped back as she marched towards him, staring in shock down into her wild blue eyes.
“Wrong! Losing is a much keener test of your love,” Katara retorted. “Losing would contradict your self-love, and losing would show your obedience to your lover and not to yourself!”
The waterbender paused to draw breath before continuing her rant, but she was interrupted as one of the sages approached them both, wagging his finger imperiously.
“My lady, if you would keep your voice down…” the man began.
“Do not shush me and spare him!” was Katara’s indignant retort, immediately silencing the sage into shame. “Now begone! Go!”
As exasperated as he was, Zuko couldn’t quite keep his mouth from curling upwards seeing the sage slink away like a scolded pet, though he steeled his features back to neutral by the time Katara had turned her focus back to him.
“What is your answer?”
He glared down at her, exhaling wisps of smoke through his nose.
“… I will not lose,” he gritted out.
The disappointment was evident on her face, though she kept her chin raised in defiance.
“Then you do not love me,” was her even reply.
And with that, she turned primly on her heel and tossed her hair over her shoulder, leaving him behind to gawk after her like the fool he was.
Zuko could do nothing but growl, stifling the flames that threatened to ignite in his hands as he too turned away and stormed off, muttering curses under his breath that would have made the spirits themselves weep.
~*~*~
He stared blankly ahead at the arena, his vision unfocused as the world rushed around him in a haze that he had no desire to comprehend.
Zuko barely registered his companions aiding him as they tied on his armor, and the sound of his best friend’s carefully constructed speech promoting him to the crowd sounded like the buzz of a wasp in his ears.
“… the enforcer of Agni himself, the one, the only, Prince Zuuuukoooo of the Fire Nation!”
He heard Aang and Toph saying something to him now as he numbly accepted his broadswords from them, something no doubt meant to be encouraging.
But all he could see was her, sitting across the arena in the stands with her handmaiden, frowning down at her hands folded in her lap.
This was a once-in-a-lifetime tournament, and people from every nation in the world had turned out to witness the best of the best competing.
How could he possibly allow himself to throw away this chance at glory?
To prove to everyone – to his father – that he was not the disappointment they perceived him to be?
The Fire Lord’s seat in the tournament stands stood high above many of the others.
Zuko squinted his good eye, watching as his father conversed with one of his admirals, while his sister openly sneered in his direction from her seat at their father’s righthand side.
He would not lose and bring dishonor upon himself.
He could not, and yet…
His feet were heavy as he trudged forward towards his opponent waiting for him in the middle of the tiles.
And when his rival swung his own swords at the prince, Zuko lowered his arms and dropped out of his defensive stance.
“What are you doing?!”
He had no time to answer Sokka’s half-hysterical squawk from the sidelines before the blows landed squarely against his chest.
Hard.
Startled cries rang out from the crowd, and he couldn’t help but stagger backwards, all of the wind knocked out of him.
But Zuko remained on his feet, even as he clutched uselessly at his own swords, willing himself to block out the pain for now.
His friends’ feet pounded on the stone tiles towards him, but he kept his gaze fixed on the waterbender across the stadium, his breaths ragged as he watched Katara rise to her feet and clasp her hands together, her mouth open in astonishment.
“What are you doing?!” Sokka all but screeched again, shoving his shoulder none too gently. “Are you blind? Did you not see – ”
“I’m losing,” Zuko gritted out, still keeping his focus on the figure in blue staring back at him from the other side of the arena, even as the crowd started to boo. “Isn’t it obvious?”
“But why?” Aang asked, shaking his head. “I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I,” the prince sighed.
“Wait!” the airbender said, snapping his fingers as though he’d had an epiphany. “You want to come back from behind for a more dramatic victory, right?”
The prince sighed once again, shaking his head.
“No,” he explained, his tone resigned. “I’m doing this because Katara told me that I should lose to prove my love.”
His companions exchanged disbelieving glances with each other, or rather, Aang and Sokka did – the earthbender among them let out a short, barking laugh.
“So, the reason why you’re throwing the fight – why you’re losing on purpose when you’ve done nothing but train for the last few years is…?”
There was another sigh from the prince.
“It’s because…”
The warning gong sounded, and the companions just barely avoided the strike that nearly knocked Zuko clean off of his feet.
More booing from the crowd could be heard, and the prince groaned, visibly struggling to keep his footing.
“… it’s because I love her,” Zuko managed to choke out.
There was a pause that seemed to stretch on for an eternity.
Until Sokka scoffed loudly, turning away from them all with his hands raised in defeat.
“Oh spirits, I’d rather you were blind like Toph,” he bemoaned, earning him a scoff from said earthbender. “I’m going to kill my sister…”
His threats of fratricide would have to wait, though, as the friends were finally forced to rush off of the tiles, just in time to avoid the next attack that sent the prince reeling backwards once more.
~*~*~
Prince Zuko, a renowned swordsman in his own right and one of the most promising warriors the Fire Nation had to offer in this world tournament, was losing a duel that he should have easily won.
On purpose.
He never conceded defeat against his opponents, nor did he surrender – instead, he stood and took every attack head-on, refusing to let himself be knocked down or disqualified from the matches.
Katara winced each time his opponent’s blows landed against his armor with harsh metallic thuds, soon barely drowned out by the crowd’s booing.
She turned to her handmaiden sitting beside her in the stands, who had watched all of this unfold with her own brows raised high.
“Are you convinced yet?” Suki asked, a knowing smirk growing on her painted face.
The waterbender nodded, covering her mouth with her fingertips.
“… he loves me,” Katara breathed.
Suki propped her chin up in the palm of her hand as they watched the prince take yet another punishing blow that would certainly leave a nasty bruise.
“He’d be stupid not to,” her handmaiden agreed.
~*~*~
The prince had always considered his threshold for pain to be strong, and he could often withstand punishment that reduced lesser men to weeping without making a sound.
But here in the medical bay, Zuko discovered that even he had his limits.
And he nearly bit down on his tongue trying to stifle a yelp as Sokka tried again to force his dislocated shoulder back into its socket.
“Well, if nothing else, at least the armor’s proven itself,” Toph remarked as she tapped experimentally against the metal plates. “It’s absorbed the worst of the blows, so you could be much worse off right now, Prince Charming.”
Sokka and Aang exchanged a look with each other, both raising their eyebrows before turning back to the prince still clutching his wounded arm.
“And what about your love?” his best friend inquired dryly, gripping his shoulder blade as Aang stood by with crossed arms. “Have you proven that yet – ”
Pop.
Zuko snarled, exhaling flames as his dislocated shoulder finally snapped back into place.
“… y’know, he may be stupid, but it is very romantic,” Toph said, shrugging.
The other two men turned to stare at her, leaving the prince to rub his sore arm with a pathetic whine.
“Are you a woman, or are you a blacksmith?” Aang asked.
“Sometimes I’m both!” the earthbender replied with a grin. “How’s the arm, Prince Charming?”
The prince in question resisted the urge to spew every curse known to mankind and instead turned his attention to Sokka.
“You’ve been to the temples to worship, you remember what it’s like?” Zuko asked, wincing as his shoulder throbbed. “The fear, the passion? That’s what she makes me feel, and for that I will prove my love by worshipping Katara and no one else.”
His best friend grimaced, resting his hand on Zuko’s injured shoulder blade.
“… that’s my sister,” Sokka pointed out, “and that’s blasphemous.”
Zuko had no time to defend himself from the (probably deserved) smack to his shoulder that caused him to yelp pitifully.
Oh, he was going to kill them all before the day was through, assuming he lived that long.
“Then may I burn in hell,” he seethed, clutching his arm as he glared at his companions.
His friends exchanged another glance, shaking their heads as they sighed.
“Listen, no other combatant has your level of skill with swords,” Sokka said. “So if you win all of your remaining matches, then who knows? You might actually make it to the semifinals.”
“Or if you’re not going to try to fight back, then at least withdraw,” Aang pleaded. “At this point, it’s better for you to lose than to take any more punishment!”
The prince groaned, shaking his head.
“Don’t you understand? I can’t – ”
“Um, excuse me?”
The three men whipped their heads around towards the sound of the new voice, startled by her silent approach.
Toph, meanwhile, had said nothing of their newcomer’s arrival, keeping her focus on examining her handiwork and testing the armor for any new weaknesses.
“Sorry to interrupt… whatever this is,” Suki began, her hands clasped together as she smiled at the group. “I have a message from my lady for his highness. She says that if you love her – ”
“I know, I know, I must lose,” the prince interrupted with a scoff. “Is she not watching?”
The handmaiden’s eye caught Sokka’s, and she winked at him before replying to the prince.
“My lady says that if you love her, you will not lose another match.”
Zuko couldn’t stop himself from rolling his eyes and glaring up into the heavens, lest he lose what little remained of his temper and accidentally burn the surrounding medical bay to the ground.
“She says that if you love her,” Suki continued, “you will win this tournament.”
The prince closed his eyes and exhaled, ducking his head.
If that was what Katara wanted from him, then so be it.
She wanted a show?
Then he’d give her and everyone else a show they’d never forget.
~*~*~
His armor was uncomfortably tight against his injured shoulder, and Zuko wanted nothing more than to sink into a steaming hot tub until all of his aches and bruises disappeared.
Instead he rolled his neck and cracked it loudly, then turned to accept his broadswords from his companions.
“There she is,” Aang said in an effort to cheer him on, pointing her out in the crowd. “The embodiment of your love, your princess!”
Zuko scowled in her direction, even as his eyes gleamed in anticipation.
Later that evening, she would pay him a visit under the cover of darkness and tend to his wounds, and she would reward him greatly for all of his suffering on the battlefield.
But in the meantime, he still had to win this match, and all of the matches that followed, which would be made much more difficult than normal thanks to his injuries.
“Yes,” Zuko replied, his mouth curling up into a smirk despite himself. “And how I hate her.”