"Hahahaha where is my little sunshine" Iroh said smiling coming through the doors of the palace.
"Dad" Akira said and hugged his big belly while Iroh just laughed.
"I brought you a very special gift, promise me to take good care of it" Iroh said and Akira nodded seriously wondering what this gift would be.
Iroh then revealed a little black cat mabye a few months old.
"We found it when we fought and killed it's parents. This is a black panther, a spirit animal as big as elephants and wolflike stamina. It will be your compagnion gor life" Iroh said and gently gave him the small cat which Akira took carefully.
"Happy birthday my son" Iroh said and smiled "Now where is my beautiful wife?"
Akira ignored him and looked at the small cat thinking of a fitting name "...Noir. From now on your name will be Noir" he decided and felt a weird connection to the little cat.
He could feel it's thoughts and feelings and it seemed to look at him like an older brother.
"Oh you are so adorable" Akira said and petted it.
The small cat made himself comfortable in his lap and began purring loudly especially when he scratched behind it's ears.
He also recieved other gifts like long twin daggers from Azulon, a firebending scroll with a kata he had already learned from his uncle Ozai and a bracelet from his mother that makes one more sensitive to fire energy and boost ones training.
Akira thanked them all respectfully.
Then there were the rest of the nobles of the fire nation who also attended his birthday mostly gifting him with expensive paintings, high quality training gear and money or jewelery.
Akira stayed polite and followed all the etiquettes even through he will sell them later on anyways.
For him hoarding money was more important than having a painting inside his room.
Anyways the rest of the day was a chore with him needing to act refined and polite to all those old noble geezers.
If it wasn't for Noir the small cat he got and already had grown fond of this would be one of the worst days in his life.
The plus side of such a chore was the money he got from selling all the extravagant stuff each birthday.
He had no use for something that only looked nice and was of no use to him so he sold all expensive things in his posession that he didn't deem useful which was...a lot.
At his last birthday he already earned 300 gold coins from selling all the useless stuff which was a fortune for normal soliders.
Other than Azula and Zuko who were throwing their money left and right he lived more frugal and stockpiled his money inside his inventory because he would need it later in his life...a lot of it.
He also made tests with his inventory such as if there is an upper limit of what he can store inside, how much and if food stays fresh.
As he expected he couldn't store living things inside his inventory but food was absolutely no issue and the space inside his inventory seemed to be endless.
'I wonder if I can stuff a whole fleet inside there?' he wondered.
At the evening Naemi came to him in a sober mood and looked him deep in the eyes.
"My son, I need to tell you something" she said and Akira immediately knew this was serious so he listened carefully.
"I am sick, very sick. I will likely die this year" she said quietly and coughed violently.
"The doctors are clueless and can only lessen my symptoms" she said "No matter what happens, always remember that I love you and Lu Ten more than anything in the world"
Akira felt a bit guilty. He wasn't trying to sound like an asshole here but she was always a stranger to him even when she took care of him. The only person around he truly cared about was his best friend and cousin Zuko, the others can die for all he cared.
Still her impending death dampened his mood because this would mean that Ozai or Azulon would personally take care of him as Iroh was busy with being a general on the west front.
Not really knowing what to do he decided to just hug her and stay silent.
...
The next day he began training again. His chi training has considerably boosted his physical agility and strength and he was able to perfom movements in lightning speed.
Even his tutors now needed to get serious when teaching him.
He exelled in all his classes leaving even Azula far behind althrough she seemed to believe that she is still close to surpassing him.
Half a year later his mother died and Azulon personally took care of him skipping over Lu Ten and raising him as future fire lord because he showed more promise.
Lu Ten wasn't angry at least and joined Iroh in the siege of Ba Sing Se.
As future firelord he had to attend military meetings handle minor political problems and get personally advised by Azulon who was quite fond of his cold charackter and ruthless decision making in difficult situations.
When he became 7 years old he already begun performing master level firebending techniques including complicated footwork, complicated pirouettes and a lot of power.
He was a genius beyond geniuses, he was a monster and Ozai grew more restless the more powerful he became.
When he became 8 years old small "accidents" started to happen.
Someone trying to kidnap him in the city, an asasination attacks during his sleep that left him in the infimary for a whole month.
It was clear that Ozai was trying to get rid of him so he had to make preparations for Ozai's impending ascension to the throne after killing Azulon.
He took everything he could get. Information about invasion and trading routes, information about prototypes they were working on and a map of all strongholds and prisons of the fire nation.
As excuse for his need for those informations he used his military training as excuse.
He planned every step of his plan carefully.
As soon as Ozai ascends he would need to desert, causing a political split in the fire nations leadership as Iroh would be the rightful king not Ozai.
He would raid the royal treasury before departing and with these funds he would raise a giant rebellion increasing his forces with prisoners of the fire nation mostly earth and waterbenders but also deserters.
"Akira, please come to the throne room. Azulon has summoned you" a servant said to him and escorted him to the throne room.
He entered the room not knowing what his grandfather wanted from him this time but he wanted something. He wouldn't summon him just to ask how his training is going.