"Speaking of which,"
After Uncle Iroh had left and they were about to head to Zuko and Azula's courtyard, Azula suddenly spoke up.
"Zuzu, I think I only invited Kahn, not you, right?"
"Why exactly are you following us?"
Zuko didn't react immediately.
"What do you mean?"
Azula stated bluntly.
"It means you don't want to play with us, and we certainly don't want to play with you."
"So you really don't need to follow us around right now."
"Go play somewhere else!"
"You... Azula, don't go too far!"
Zuko immediately pointed a trembling finger at Azula, his face flushed red with sudden anger.
What is going on here?
The sudden, drastic shift in the atmosphere also left Kahn thoroughly bewildered.
He secretly sighed at Azula's utter unpredictability and her top-notch ability to constantly stir up trouble out of nowhere.
He quickly spoke up to mediate.
"That's quite enough, Azula."
"Don't bully Zuko too much."
"If he really isn't going, then I will just have to go with him to find Uncle Iroh instead."
"Kahn... Thank you."
Seeing Kahn openly speak up in his defense, Zuko's chaotic emotions calmed down considerably, and he offered his gratitude.
But Azula, seeing Kahn's clear stance on the matter, immediately became displeased.
Her beautiful face instantly darkened.
"Are you really just going to side with him?!"
"He was the one who blatantly disliked me first!"
Mai and Ty Lee, seeing Azula genuinely getting angry, immediately huddled closer together, completely terrified to speak.
"So I was on your side just now, wasn't I?"
Kahn had recently grown completely accustomed to Azula's exaggerated, dramatic facial expressions and showed absolutely no fear of her darkening mood.
But it turned out Azula's sudden, aggressive outburst was actually because Zuko had openly expressed his dislike for her earlier?
From that specific perspective, Azula wasn't actually being completely unreasonable right now.
So Kahn considered the situation for a brief moment and suddenly suggested a compromise.
"How about both of you just apologize to each other, and we consider it mutual forgiveness?"
"Apologize to her/him?!"
"Impossible!"
The two royal siblings shouted in absolute unison.
After shouting, they both haughtily snorted and turned their heads away from each other.
From this specific point of view, they were undeniably true siblings.
Although both were incredibly stubborn, it was clear that their fiery tempers had already cooled down significantly.
They both just desperately needed a graceful way to back down without losing face.
"Since you both aren't speaking, I will just take it that the previous conflict is officially water under the bridge."
So Kahn bravely stepped forward.
He smoothly draped one arm around Zuko's tense shoulder, and then casually extended his other arm to embrace Azula.
He began pushing them both forward with a playful, yet slightly forceful, demeanor.
"Alright, let's go quickly!"
"I'm still waiting to play!"
"What are you doing!?"
However, Azula showed an incredibly unusual, genuine panic at Kahn's casual physical contact.
"What do you mean, 'what am I doing'?"
Kahn turned his head to look at her in confusion.
Looking at Kahn's face from such an incredibly close distance, Azula instantly froze completely for a solid second.
Then she violently reacted, suddenly forcefully shoving him away and storming ahead.
She fiercely led the way with a distinctly rough, aggressive tone.
"I can walk perfectly fine by myself!"
It was a very good thing she had rushed ahead so quickly.
It prevented anyone from seeing the deep, blazing blush that had spread across her usually pale face at that exact moment.
...?
Kahn felt that her reaction was a bit inexplicable.
But he had already gotten completely used to Azula's highly neurotic, unpredictable behavior.
He simply let go of Zuko and shrugged indifferently.
"Alright then."
Meanwhile, when Mai and Ty Lee had seen Kahn casually put his arm around Azula, they had almost been scared completely silly.
And when Azula had shoved Kahn away but shockingly hadn't brutally retaliated against him afterward, they were left even more utterly dumbfounded.
The two girls exchanged hushed, deeply incredulous whispers.
"Mai, did you see that?"
"I didn't see wrong, did I?"
"I saw it perfectly clearly."
"That commoner boy named Kahn actually hugged Azula, and Azula wasn't even genuinely angry about it."
"It's actually true!"
"Is this Azula some sort of fake impersonator?!"
"Given her tyrannical behavior just a moment ago, probably not."
After repeatedly confirming what they had just witnessed, the two girls finally managed to accept this completely astonishing fact.
Ty Lee looked at Kahn with an expression of pure, unadulterated awe.
Her bright eyes seemingly sparkled with literal starlight.
This person is truly amazing!
He's not terrified of Azula in the slightest, and he won't even be brutally retaliated against by her!
Can I ever be as incredibly amazing as him someday?
For the very first time in her life, strange new emotions named admiration and longing began to blossom within Ty Lee's young heart.
The five children finally arrived in Zuko's expansive private courtyard.
After a brief, heated discussion, Kahn's decisive swing vote ultimately passed Ty Lee's cheerful proposal to play a simple somersault game.
Aside from Azula giving Kahn a highly dissatisfied, sharp kick to the shin, no one else voiced any objections.
It wasn't that Kahn actually liked playing such a childish, simple game.
It was entirely because Azula had seriously suggested they go on a 'fun adventure' by actively sneaking into the Fire Lord's strictly forbidden Imperial Study!
That was way too terrifying.
He, a completely underage, powerless child, absolutely could not handle that level of deadly excitement.
Although Azula was still a bit deeply dissatisfied, once they actually started playing, she and Ty Lee were easily the most wildly enthusiastic participants.
Mai mostly stood quietly on the sidelines, simply watching them play.
She only begrudgingly joined in exactly once when Azula directly demanded it, and then immediately returned to standing quietly aside.
Kahn and Zuko chatted casually nearby.
Originally, Kahn had been aggressively ordered by Azula to play together with them.
But when Kahn, relying entirely on his bizarrely bugged physical talent, flawlessly performed an 'infinite backflip' right in front of her, instantly winning the entire game, Azula had unhappily kicked him again.
She had then directly and permanently disqualified him from playing.
Tsk, what a terribly sore loser.
Zuko had originally been standing quietly next to Mai, awkwardly watching the game unfold.
But after Kahn was unceremoniously banished from the game, Kahn had smoothly pulled Zuko aside and immediately began a highly targeted interrogation that was essentially pure gossip.
"Do you actually like that gloomy girl named Mai?"
Kahn threw out the incredibly direct question, asking with intense curiosity.
"!"
Zuko froze completely solid, exactly like a statue.
Then his entire face instantly turned a violent shade of crimson, and he desperately stammered out a denial.
"What... what are you talking about..."
Seeing this incredibly transparent reaction, Kahn knew instantly that it was an absolute sure thing.
However, Zuko's romantic 'melon' was clearly still far too unripe to harvest.
Even under Kahn's incredibly patient, step-by-step guidance, Zuko continued to just helplessly stammer.
He was completely unable to articulate a single coherent sentence about his obvious feelings.
Feeling utterly helpless, Kahn finally decided he had to let the poor boy go for now.
He internally stated that he would simply continue to closely observe the situation as it naturally developed.
Azula and Ty Lee's intense somersault game continued.
Ty Lee clearly possessed incredible natural talent in this specific area.
It was said that she was actively learning formal techniques regarding flexibility and acrobatics.
Her somersaults were flawlessly perfect and incredibly beautiful.
They were full of grace and aesthetic appeal, making it look as if she were performing professional circus acrobatics.
Kahn's 'infinite backflip', on the other hand, had been purely a crude, brute-force display of bizarre physical talent, entirely devoid of any actual grace or aesthetic appeal.
Although Azula was also an undeniably gifted prodigy, her immense talent lay primarily in destructive Firebending and lethal combat.
In this highly specific, acrobatic aspect, she was not only vastly inferior to Kahn, but also significantly inferior to Ty Lee.
Kahn cheating with his weird physical talent was one thing, but seeing Ty Lee actually doing significantly better than her was completely unacceptable.
She unhappily started blatantly playing dirty, actively trying to force Ty Lee to make critical mistakes.
Poof!
Under Azula's increasingly aggressive interference, Ty Lee finally lost her balance and fell hard onto the soft grass once again.
Although she wasn't actually hurt, she remained sitting on the ground, clearly feeling deeply wronged by the blatant cheating.
Kahn simply couldn't bear to watch this blatant bullying any longer and complained loudly.
"Azula, are you seriously that hyper-competitive?!"
"You're actively playing dirty in a simple, meaningless children's game."
Hearing this entirely justified criticism, Azula immediately hurled a small, incredibly fast fireball directly at Kahn's face.
After Kahn easily dodged the lethal projectile, she yelled unhappily.
"Hmph, mind your own business!"
Mai and Ty Lee watched from the sidelines, their young hearts pounding wildly in their chests.
Were they actually going to have a brutal Agni Kai right here?!
However, their intense, fiery dispute surprisingly stopped right there.
In fact, for the entire rest of the afternoon, Azula's blatant dirty tricks decreased significantly!
Oh my goodness, what is genuinely wrong with Azula today?!
Mai and Ty Lee both internally exclaimed once again.
This is far too abnormal!