The passing months in the palace went by smoothly.
Zuko had turned his surroundings into a masterclass of efficiency. Gone were the tantrums and the clumsy footwork. In their place was a terrifying precocity that unnerved the servants and delighted the royal family.
He spent his afternoons sitting in the private gardens with Azulon, the current and aging fire lord. The old man was a tyrant, ruthless and cold, but he respected intellect. Zuko played to this by acting like a miniature strategist.
"Grandfather, surely you understand that the Earth Kingdom's resilience is in their decentralization. To break them, you'd have to sever their roads."
Azulon sipped his tea as his golden eyes narrowed with curiosity. "And what shall that do?"
"It'll starve their veins..."
The old man found the answer more than pleasing. "You have a sharp mind, Zuko. Sharper than your father's at this age. He only thought of burning things down. Yet you think of how they burn."
In those days, Ozai himself began to see Zuko's shift; he no longer looked at his son with so much disdain. There had even been a moment that he praised Zuko as a potential weapon to be used for the nation.
But words were wind to Zuko, who wanted physical dominance.
That was how his firebending became flawless. Even then, his true secret lay in the texts he had read about chi-blocking.
During a sparring session with a new instructor—a fat teacher named Qin—she was aggressive, favoring heavy, overhand strikes.
"Again!" Qin barked at the time, launching a blast of fire.
Zuko hadn't blocked it with fire; he stepped inside the guard, ducked under the teacher's arm, and with two extended fingers, he jabbed a specific cluster of nerves just below her armpit.
Bing-bing!
When it had landed, Qin had spun around to retaliate. "Defend yourself properly!" She thrust her arm out to summon a fireball. But nothing happened.
A look of pure confusion had registered on her face. She had strained, but even Zuko knew what had happened: her chi path had been severed.
"Something wrong?" he asked at the time, feigning innocence. "Is something wrong?"
"I… my arm. I... I can't—"
"You must have pulled a muscle," Zuko said, stepping forward. "Here. Let me help."
He reached out, pretending to massage the shoulder. In reality, he pressed the counterpoint and had dug his thumb into the deltoid. The chi rushed back instantly. And just like that, sparks flew back into Qin's fingertips.
"Better?" he smiled.
"Yes," she breathed, eyeing the boy with a superstitious fear.
Now in the present time, there was one more power Zuko needed to understand—the most destructive force in the lore: Combustionbending.
It was the sniper rifle of the Avatar world. Telekinetic fire channeled through the forehead chakra, capable of vaporizing rock and water instantly.
Zuko knew of the man he had hired to kill the Avatar years from now—the silent assassin known only as 'Combustion Man'. What Zuko needed to know was how exactly Combustion Man did it, though.
"Mother," he said that evening, finding Ursa on the balcony. "I feel stifled. The palace's so loud. Can we visit the coast? Just for a few days?"
Ursa was also homesick from being trapped in this golden cage just as much as he was. "That sounds lovely, Zuko. Fresh air would do us both good."
The two soon gained approval to be escorted with guards. Not a moment later, they were seen traveling to a port city famous for its black sand beaches and high cliffs.
While Ursa was distracted by the nostalgia of a private tea ceremony with local nobles, Zuko slipped away from his guards in the crowded market until he reached the outskirts of the city.
If memory served him well, there was a specific address he had once visited before. It wasn't long until he found it near the cliffs: a stone compound that was isolated from the shores.
When he knocked, the door was answered by an elderly couple. They looked harmless, so he introduced himself: "Pleasure to you both. I'm prince Zuko."
The elders exchanged a look of terror.
"Your highness," the old man bowed low. "We… we are not equipped for a visitor like yourself."
"You have my apologies," Zuko said, humbling himself. "I'm actually here because of a man who's capable of firebending with his mind. I wish to learn from him if he's here."
"He is," the old man said, lifting his head.
They soon led him down a flight of stairs into a reinforced basement. The air here was hot and dry. In the center, sitting on a stone slab, was a young man. He was massive for his age, and his shaved head revealed a tattoo of a pagan symbol on his forehead.
But it was his limbs that drew Zuko's eye. The man's right arm and left leg were gone, replaced by crude, heavy metal prosthetics.
This was him.
"Leave us," Zuko commanded the elders.
They hesitated but obeyed, closing the heavy iron door.
When the man looked up, his eyes were vacant, as if dulled by the sedatives nearby.
"I know your accident," Zuko said, walking closer, unafraid. He studied the metal arm. "You tried to channel the chi before your mind was ready. Then the energy backfired, and you blew yourself apart as a child."
The man flinched.
"No need to threat," Zuko continued. "I'm aware that you're a mute. Or rather, the nation's greatest weapons."
Zuko spent the next hour interrogating him. He didn't want to learn how to combustionbend. After all, he preferred to keep his limbs intact. Why he came here was to learn the theory behind it, the sensation in the forehead, and the specific breathing technique that compressed the fire into a beam rather than a plume.
Combustion Man, although mute, used basic writing to communicate. That allowed Zuko to learn the requirements.
The biggest factor in this was immense stillness. Normal firebending thrived on breath and motion; combustionbending required a total lock of the physical body to channel the mind. It was a sniper's discipline.
Even more, it was the 'light chakra' that touched the forehead. Apparently, when it opens, the world 'screams', as Combustion Man put it.
Zuko didn't quite understand, so he asked about the training regimen the elders used to dampen his volatile chi. As well as the limits, including the recharge time and the vulnerability of the third eye itself.
All his questions were answered.
The last thing he asked was something never known to anyone: "What's your name?"
The man looked surprised. This was the first time in ages he had such a long conversation with an outsider. So he calmly wrote, "Gyu-Seng."
"Gyu-Seng," Zuko repeated. "I'll be sure to remember that name."
At that, Zuko turned and left the basement.
As soon as he made it back to the main city, all the citizens seemed to be searching for something. Ursa herself was waiting near the carriage with a pale face. When they saw him, someone pointed it out. Already, Ursa ran to him before dropping to her knees to embrace him.
"Zuko!" she cried with tears. "Where were you? I was so worried!"
He let her hug him and felt the trembling of the genuine fear of a mother who thought she had lost her child. It was a touching scene.
"I got lost, mother," he lied, burying his face in her shoulder. "I just wanted to see the ships. I'm sorry."
"It's okay," she sobbed, holding him tighter. "You're safe. That's all that matters."
Zuko's smirk couldn't have been more cold. He was indeed safe—safe to become the most dangerous thing in the world!