The Shadow of Kyoshi (Avatar, The Last Airbender)

She was still trying to process what had just happened when a man slammed into her back. She whirled around and flung the offender to the side, bowling over two of his kinsmen. Or his enemies. Already the lines had merged into a pitched brawl with no defined front. Keohso and Saowon fought each other tooth and nail, with everything short of drawn blades and firebending.

Kyoshi spun on the balls of her feet and lunged, sending a blast of wind hurtling at the biggest clump of people she could pick out. It flattened them like wheat in a storm, but with the combatants already locked together, they simply continued their fight on the ground, grappling in the dust. Thrashing bodies piled up at her waist like snowdrifts, impeding her movements.

She forced her way to the pocket of space that had formed around Rangi and Koulin. Huazo had disappeared, leaving her niece to manage things. Rangi raised her hand to Kyoshi, a silent order not to interfere. Koulin wiped the blood off her smirk. The blow had been hard, but she’d rolled with it, expecting and wanting it.

“What do you say?” she asked Rangi. “After-Curfew Rules? No burns or closed fists?”

“I was thinking the same thing,” Rangi replied.

The two of them walked right up to each other. Instead of resorting to graceful punches and kicks in the long, far-reaching style Kyoshi was accustomed to seeing from Firebenders, they grabbed for the backs of each other’s necks and fell into an exchange of brutal, vicious strikes with their knees and elbows.

The first blast of heat made Kyoshi think they’d broken the festival’s prohibitions. But then she remembered skilled Firebenders could do extreme damage from the concussive force of their bending alone. Each time Rangi and Koulin rammed a knee into the other’s ribs, or aimed an elbow at their opponent’s temple, they let out a shock wave that rattled Kyoshi’s teeth.

There was no way they could keep this up. They absorbed each other’s blows with their shins and forearms, their skin reddening from toeing the line of open flame. Koulin attempted to smash her forehead into Rangi’s eye and just barely missed, cutting a gash along the cheekbone.

Rangi staggered away, her knees wobbling. Koulin followed in pursuit, hungry to exploit her advantage. But she’d fallen into a trap. With the extra space, Rangi turned her back to Koulin and leaped into the air.

It was a move few others but Kyoshi would recognize. Jet-stepping, but not the way Rangi had used it in Chameleon Bay. Flames shot out from only one of her feet, propelling her into a backflip, pinwheeling her around with extra speed and force. Her knee came crashing down on Koulin’s head like a sledgehammer.

Koulin was out before she hit the ground. She fell face-first, as limp as a wet rag. The whole fight had passed in seconds.

Rangi, breathing heavily from exertion and pain, but somehow completely calm, crawled on her knees over to Koulin. Without hesitation, she turned the unconscious girl over and raised her fists to strike her helpless opponent again.

“What are you doing!?” Kyoshi screamed. She grabbed at Rangi and pulled her off Koulin.

“I—” Rangi struggled to find an answer. Horror seized her as her mind finally caught up with her body. She stared at the roiling battle she’d sparked over the town square, and then at Koulin, who wasn’t moving at all. “I—”

Kyoshi had seen Rangi start a fight once, on a lei tai platform, but it had been a calculated maneuver, not a complete breakdown. If the madness of family honor could make someone as disciplined as Rangi lose control, then there was no telling what would happen if this violence burst the bounds of North Chung-Ling and Shuhon Island. “Take her to Sifu Atuat!” Kyoshi ordered.

Still in shock, Rangi laced her arms under Koulin’s and slung the girl over her shoulders. She staggered through the melee, threading into the open spaces she could find. Kyoshi had to trust in luck and whatever remained of clan honor that no one would strike them from behind.

She couldn’t use earth in the frenzy, not without risking serious injury to her targets. She resorted to pulling Keohso and Saowon apart with her bare hands, hurling opponents as far away from each other as she could. Sometimes she had to crack their skulls together first. Pair by pair, she worked her way through the crowd, creating peace through brute force.

Kyoshi spotted Jinpa coming to her, quelling the violence in his own way. Many of the fighters simply stopped when they saw him, the grace of an Air Nomad enough to calm their tempers. The ones who didn’t he wedged apart with his staff, smacking them on the shins and hands like an angry schoolteacher until they let go of their enemies.

“Avatar!” he yelled. Their combined efforts were working, slowly, and she could hear him over the lessening din. “Atuat’s set up a field hospital in one of the restaurants.” He pointed to one of the buildings closer to the Saowon side. “Our inn didn’t have enough space to hold the injured. Rangi’s there right now.”

The village bystanders were already dragging the more badly beaten warriors in that direction. Kyoshi was going to tell Jinpa he’d done well, that their whole team, despite its many mistakes and humiliations and failures since coming to North Chung-Ling, had done well. But when she looked around and saw the brawl dying down to its embers, there was no reassurance. Only the pounding thought in her head that everyone in the village was here, watching the fight or participating in the fight or recovering from the fight.

A deep, queasy sickness rippled through her core. “Where’s Hei-Ran?” she said. “Who’s with her?”

“She’s still back in our inn . . . by herself.” Jinpa realized it too and swore a curse unbecoming of his people.

This whole showdown. A more perfect diversion could not have been designed. After all, why would Yun switch tactics if she kept falling for them?

Kyoshi barreled straight for the inn she hadn’t slept in yet, knocking men down, trampling them in h

er haste. Jinpa fell behind, struck in the neck and knocked to the ground by an errant Saowon elbow. There was no time to wait for him to rise to his feet and shake it off. She had to get to Hei-Ran.

The street she was trying to reach lay several blocks away from the square, and as she gained distance from the noise a ghostly silence fell over her like a cloak. Her own footsteps and ragged breathing were louder than the clash of knuckles on bone she’d been listening to until now. She found the corner where the man from yesterday had nearly caved in his nephew’s head and went inside the inn.

Inside, the common room was warm, cheery, and well-lit. This establishment was deep in the Keohso side of town, so cushions and throw rugs adorned with the winged peony lay over every surface that would hold them. A Pai Sho board made of weathered wood had been set up in the middle of the floor. On one side sat Hei-Ran. The other, Yun.

“Don’t move, Kyoshi,” Yun said. “She’s in grave danger right now.” His eyes stayed on the board, examining the game that lay in its middle stages. He’d been forcing Rangi’s mother to play.

Instead of his Earth Kingdom clothes, Yun wore pilfered Saowon robes, a stone camelia emblazoned on his shoulder. He’d snuck through the chaos outside by blending in. No bending tricks. Just the skills of an infiltrator, his learning made possible by the woman who sat across from him.

“Kyoshi, remember what I told you.” Hei-Ran spoke with the same calm determination she had before cutting her hair and letting go of her honor. Now she was ready to give what little she had left. “Remember what’s important. You won’t get a better opportunity than this.”