Round nine
The palace was still trembling a little – Toph could just barely feel it – like a scared child getting over a fright.
This is a good example of Toph’s point of view. allowing for some esoteric scene-setting. No funny*, sorry.
“It’s, ah, to the left here, Commander Beifong.” Deshi instinctively winced. “I mean… Toph?”
Toph has no rank, no formal training, and isn’t even a citizen of the country, but you will salute.
It was rather eerily as if someone had just willed his ribs to snap.
“The… the Princess Azula has escaped, sir. And free of her pressure-point harness that kept her from firebending. I’m afraid all of the guards assigned to her rooms are dead, as well as the servants.”
I have definitely been writing Gentleman too long, because my first reaction was basically ‘well I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for all this.’
“…’All warfare is based on deception, but a kingdom that has once been destroyed can never rise again, nor can the dead be brought back to life.’”
Sun Tzu said that, and I’d say he knows a little more about fighting than you do, pal, because he invented it! And then perfected it, so that no living man could best him in the ring of honour!
*wait you thought you were being funny all those other times?
