It was the silhouette of a man in a Fire Nation uniform, holding up a helmet with a blank white plate on the front. Each footstep he left as he walked towards me burned. He handed me the helmet and I looked into the hollowed out face of an erased man’s firebending before it dispersed throughout my body, mind, and soul.

A blank plate… a blank, white plate thrown at me by Zhao… Spirits operated on rules of exchange. The owl wanted information, but what would want a blank, white plate for helmets? Unless… unless the plate wasn’t always blank. “Perhaps making Troy was the misnomer,” Wrath admitted, “Perhaps, making Pompeii would be more appropriate.” Not a war, but a natural disaster.

My eyes opened as I exited my mental world and found myself standing in the spirit world. Zhao’s lost knowledge, information once only privy to him and him alone was mine now that he’d poured so much of himself into my Zanpakuto. His firebending was mine to command in full, mine to give as I wished or keep as I wanted. My ability to bend solid fire was only further enhanced by that, I knew.

But there was always more, wasn’t there? Zhao knew where everything in this world was. He’d studied it extensively while he was in the library and admitted as such to me before we got here. He knew where everything was. So it stood to reason that now I had his knowledge, I would know exactly where to go.