Avatar, The Last Airbender: The Rise of Kyoshi

by F. C. Yee

  The slime was full of human teeth.

  Kyoshi was so scared that she wanted to die. Her heart, her lungs, her stomach had been turned into instruments of torture, clawing and biting against each other like frenzied animals. She wanted to reach the void. Pass into oblivion. Anything to end this terror.

  As the ooze reached for her knee, Yun opened his eyes. Summoning his strength, he lunged at Kyoshi, shoving her away, throwing his body between her and the spirit. He choked in surprise as the rasping slime shot underneath his clothing. A damp crimson spot bloomed on the back of his shirt.

  Kyoshi’s foot lay next to the brazier of incense. A meager contribution after what Yun did, but she screamed with her whole body this time, instead of her vocal cords, and kicked at the little bronze vessel. The burning ash landed on the slime and fizzled out. The plasm nearest them shrank from the heat and the spirit hissed angrily.

  Yun struggled to his knees beside her.

  “I’m surprised you can move,” Jianzhu said to him, more impressed than anything else.

  “Poison training,” Yun spat through clenched jaws. “With Sifu Amak, remember? Or did you forget every darker exercise you put me through?”

  They were distracted from the slime regrouping, wrapping around Kyoshi’s ankle, until it latched on tight and ground away, sanding her skin off with the rows of teeth. Her blood formed clouds inside the living mucus.

  Yun saw her writhe in pain. He grabbed her hand and tried to pull her away from the spirit, their palms clasped hard enough that Kyoshi felt their bones roll over each other. But the tendril held her fast, tasting her, lapping at her wound.

  “It’s this one,” the spirit said. “The girl. She’s the Avatar.”

  Kyoshi and Yun were looking each other in the eye when it happened. When she saw Yun’s spirit break inside him.

  He had been lying to her with his body and his smile and his words this whole time. He’d thought it was him. Truly and utterly. He’d never once entertained the notion that it might not be him. Any kindness and warmth he’d shown to Kyoshi since the iceberg hadn’t been signs of his acceptance—they’d been layers of armor that he’d furiously assembled to protect himself.

  And that armor had failed. Piece by piece, Kyoshi saw the only Yun she’d ever known, the boy who was the Avatar, slough and flake into nothingness. His mantle had been stripped from his shoulders, and the shape underneath was merely wind.

  He let go of her.

  Jianzhu was on top of them in a flash. He sliced at the branch of slime with a sharp, precise little wall, and using the care of his own two hands, dragged Kyoshi away to safety.

  Just Kyoshi.

  He laid her on the ground and turned around. But it was too late. The spirit’s slime reared into the air between them and Yun, a snake guarding its prey. The eyeball in the tunnel swelled with fury.

  “You call me forth, ask for my boon, and then assault me?” Its roar nearly shattered the bones in Kyoshi’s ears.

  Yun, she tried to shout. Run. Fight. Save yourself. The Avatar—it never meant anything.

  Jianzhu took an earthbending stance, cautiously settling his feet the way a swordsman might slowly go for his blade. “I couldn’t risk you taking your revenge on Kuruk’s reincarnation. You had your blood, Father Glowworm. Your price has been paid.”

  “I’m raising it!”

  Instead of attacking the two of them, the tendril wrapped around Yun from neck to hip. His face was as pale as clay. He wouldn’t move his limbs. Every fear Kyoshi had of taking from him what he treasured most had come to pass in a thundering instant. There was only one more thing left for him to lose.

  No, Kyoshi sobbed. Please, no.

  The spirit pulled, and Yun flew backward into the tunnel, disappearing into the darkness. As Jianzhu punched his fist upward to seal the passage shut once more with solid mountain, Kyoshi found her voice again.

  She screamed pure fire.

  The flame shot out of her mouth like the rage of a dragon, in a single explosive burst. It doused the terrace and rendered swathes of lingering ooze into blackened, flaking char. But the tunnel was closed. Her fire washed impotently against the mountainside, until it petered out entirely.

  Kyoshi stumbled to her feet, barely able to see past her sticky eyelids. The inside of her mouth was blistered. She could sense Jianzhu’s presence in front of her, looming.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “This could have been avoided if you had—”

  She surged forward and tackled him off the edge of the terrace.

  The trip down this time was worse than the iceberg. Kyoshi lost her grip on Jianzhu the instant her shoulder smashed into a withered, hardened tree root. She tumbled wildly, tail over tea-kettle, and came to a stop at the bottom of the slope.

  Ignoring the pain, she looked around for Jianzhu. He wasn’t to be found in the thin scrub surrounding the base of the mountain. She snapped her head upward at the sound of stone moving.

  The earthbending master descended casually, stepping down a flight of stairs that he created himself. Where a more orthodox bender would simply raise a solid platform from the ground, Jianzhu gathered planks of stone and assembled them at will beneath his feet, using the same technique he’d reached Tagaka’s ships with. It looked like the earth itself was bowing to him, prostrating under his immense power.

  Kyoshi spotted a boulder behind him large enough for her to lift and rooted her feet to the ground. She pulled it toward them, not caring that she was also in its path.

  Jianzhu didn’t bother turning his head. He reached behind him with one arm and the room-sized rock split along its grain, letting him pass through the gap. The two half spheres kept going and narrowly missed clipping Kyoshi as well. She forced down a yelp as they collided with the ground behind her.

  Jianzhu looked at her with the same thoughtful expression he once reserved for Yun. “I’ll have to teach you to do more than simply go big,” he said.

  Kyoshi tried the only other basic tactic she knew of, breaking the opponent’s foundation. She aimed her intent at the base of his stairs. She’d take them out along with a huge chunk of the slope.

  But after rooting herself again and throwing the mother of all arrow punches at the mountainside, the only movement she got was a geyser of dust. The stairs barely trembled. She tried again. And again.

  Jianzhu was taking deeper stances now, spiraling his arms in time with hers, and suddenly she knew why. He was reading her. Smothering each movement of earth she attempted. Nulling her out. She was a child pulling on a door an adult was holding closed.

  Jianzhu stopped right in front of her, his platform raising him up so that he was eye level with her. Aside from the dust on his clothes, he could have been leaving a meeting in his house. She’d been unable to touch him in the slightest.

  “Kyoshi,” he said with a warmth that made her sick to her stomach. “You are the Avatar. Don’t you know what that means? The responsibility that you now have?”

  He ran a hand through his hair and bared his teeth like he regretted what kind of bushes he’d planted in his garden. “Kyoshi, I’m not a fool, and neither are you. We’re not going to pretend you’ll ever truly forgive me for what happened here. What I’m asking you to do is weigh our loss against the future of the world. Don’t let Yun’s sacrifice be in vain. Embrace your duty and let me teach you.”

  Yun’s sacrifice?

  Our loss?

  Her teeth crushed fresh wounds into her lips. She’d thought she’d known hate before. Hate had been a hollowness inside her, the dull ache that she’d been forced to cradle as she stumbled through the alleys of Yokoya, dizzy with hunger and sickness. Hate had been reserved for her own flesh and blood.

  But now she understood. True hatred was knife-edged and certain. A scale that begged for perfect balance. Yun lay on one side of the fulcrum. Her only responsibility in this life, as far as she was concerned, was to even the weight.

  She swore to herself. One way or another, she
was going to know what Jianzhu looked like when he did lose everything he held dear.

  Kyoshi hurled a Fire Fist, a move she knew nothing about. But whatever firebending she had in her had been used up. It came out as a normal punch, stopping short of his face.

  Seeing her so desperate to harm him cracked his mask of serenity. He frowned an ugly frown and clenched his fingers. Two small discs of stone slammed into Kyoshi’s wrists from the left and right.

  It happened so fast she didn’t have time to flinch. The stones shaped themselves around her hands and joined each other in front of her body, forming a set of thick shackles. They were as snug as a bone-doctor’s splint and as unbreakable as iron.

  The bands of rock rose into the air, taking her with them. Her shoulders clicked painfully under her own weight, and she writhed like an insect caught on sticky paper, madly kicking her feet without purchase.

  Jianzhu held her like that, a carcass for inspection, before slamming her back down. The stone shackles merged with the ground, and she struggled on all fours. He’d forced her into a full kowtow, a student’s posture of submission to their master.

  “Had you the essentials of earthbending, you could free yourself,” Jianzhu said. “You’ve gone neglected long enough, Kyoshi. You’re weak.”

  Her palms sunk deeper into the ground the more she tried to resist. There was no denying that he was right. She was weak, too weak to fight him the way she needed to. The distance between them was simply too great.

  “So much wasted time,” Jianzhu said. “I could have taught you sooner, if only I hadn’t been distracted by that little swindler.”

  That he wasn’t done being cruel to Yun was a final kick to her gut. It was incomprehensible. She couldn’t keep the tears from flowing down her face. “How could you say that?” she screamed. “He worshipped you, and you used him!”

  “You think I used him?” Jianzhu’s voice grew dangerously quiet. “You think I profited from him somehow? Let me give you your first lesson. The same one I gave Yun.”

  He stamped his foot, and a thick layer of soil clamped itself over Kyoshi’s mouth, a muzzle with no holes for her to breathe. She began to choke on her own element, her lungs clogging with grit.

  Jianzhu swept his arm behind him in a wide, encompassing arc. “Out there is an entire nation crammed full of corrupt, incompetent people who will try to use the Avatar for their own purposes. Buffoons who call themselves ‘sages’ when all it takes in the Earth Kingdom is having the right connections and paying enough gold to plaster such a title on your brow.”

  The map of Kyoshi’s vision curled in on itself. Her toes gouged furrows in the dirt, trying to push her body toward air. The pounding in her head threatened to burst her skull.

  “Without my influence, you’d turn into nothing more than a traveling peddler of favors, flopping here and there with your decisions, squandering your authority on petty boons and handouts,” Jianzhu said, unconcerned that she was losing consciousness before his eyes. “You’d end up a living party trick, a bender who can shoot water and breathe fire and spit useless advice, a girl who paints the walls a pretty color while the house rots at its foundations.”

  She barely made out Jianzhu crouching down beside her, bringing his lips close to her ear. “I have dedicated my life to making sure the next Avatar won’t be used in such a manner,” he whispered. “And despite your every attempt to fight me, I will dedicate my life to you, Kyoshi.”

  He suddenly ripped away the earthen gag. The rush of air into her lungs felt like knives. She collapsed onto her chest, her hands freed but useless.

  For several minutes she lay there, despising each pathetic gulp she took, each time she tried to stand but could not. Finally, she heaved herself to her feet, only to see Jianzhu backing away from her, glancing over her head. A gale of wind washed them in dust and desiccated leaves.

  Kelsang landed his glider on the slope and slid down on his feet the rest of the way. Relieved as she was to see him, Kyoshi knew right away that he shouldn’t have come. His wounds had reopened, staining his bandages red. He’d traveled too far on his own without his bison. The journey by glider would have been arduous for an Airbender at full health.

  “How did you find us?” Jianzhu said.

  Kelsang closed the wings on his staff. They’d been repaired so hastily that they wouldn’t fold completely into the wood, lumps of glue sticking out of the seams. He leaned heavily on it for support, staring hard at Jianzhu the whole time. “You left a map out on your desk.”

  “I thought I locked my study.”

  “You did.”

  Jianzhu’s composure broke fully for the first time today. “Really, Kel?” he shouted. “You think so little of me these days that you panicked when I took the Avatar on a trip by myself and broke into my room? I can’t trust the people closest to me anymore!?”

  Kyoshi wanted to run to Kelsang, hide behind his robes, and sob like a child. But fear had closed her throat and glued her feet. She felt like the slightest word from her could prove to be a spark thrown on the oil.

  She didn’t have to say anything though. Kelsang took one look at her trembling form and grimaced. He stepped carefully between her and Jianzhu, leveling his staff at his old friend.

  It looked much more like a weapon than a crutch now. “No one in the house could tell me where you went, Rangi and Hei-Ran included,” he said to Jianzhu. “You’re saying I had no reason to be suspicious? Where’s Yun?”

  “Kelsang,” Jianzhu said, thrusting his hands toward Kyoshi, trying to get his friend to see the bigger picture. “That girl is the Avatar. I saw her firebend with my own eyes! Your hunch was correct! After so many years, we’ve found the Avatar!”

  Kelsang hitched, his body processing the revelation. But if Jianzhu thought he could distract the monk to his advantage, he was mistaken. “Where is Yun?” he repeated.

  “Dead,” Jianzhu said, giving up the ruse. “We tried to commune with a spirit, but it went berserk. It took him. I’m sorry.”

  “No!” Kyoshi shrieked. She couldn’t let that go. She couldn’t let him twist what had happened. “You—you fed us to it! You threw Yun to that spirit like meat to a wolf! You murdered him!”

  “You’re right to be upset, Kyoshi,” Jianzhu said softly. “I got so carried away with finding the Avatar that I lost my pupil. Yun’s death is my fault. I’ll never forgive myself for this accident.”

  He wasn’t wailing with sorrow. That would have been too obvious an act. He kept the face that most people knew, the stoic, plain-speaking teacher.

  This was a game to him. With Kelsang as the piece in the center. Kyoshi was gripped by a fresh bout of despair. If the monk believed his friend—the adult, the man of good repute—over her, Jianzhu’s crime would be buried along with Yun.

  She needn’t have worried. “Kyoshi,” Kelsang said, never taking his staff off Jianzhu. “Stay behind me.”

  Jianzhu rolled his eyes, his ploy having failed.

  “I don’t know what’s going on here,” Kelsang said. “But I’m taking Kyoshi and we’re leaving.”

  He staggered, still weak from his injuries. She caught him by the shoulders and tried to keep him upright. The only way they could keep stable was by holding on to each other.

  “Look at the two of you,” Jianzhu said. “What you’re doing is you’re coming home with me. Neither of you are in any shape to argue.”

  Kelsang felt Kyoshi tremble through her hand on his back. Felt her fear. He ignored his own pain and drew up to his full height.

  “You will have nothing to do with Kyoshi for the remainder of your life!” he said. “You are no longer fit to serve the Avatar!”

  The cut landed deep on Jianzhu. “Where will you go?” he roared, frenzied and frothing. “Where? The Air Temples? The abbots will hand her back to me before you can finish telling your story! Have you forgotten how far you’ve fallen in disgrace with them? Didn’t Tagaka jog your memory?”

  Kelsang tensed into a so
lid carving of himself. The grain of his staff squeaked from how tightly he held it.

  “I know everyone in the Four Nations who could possibly help you!” Jianzhu said. “I put out the message, and every lawman, every sage, every official will be tripping over their own feet to hunt you down on my behalf! Being the Avatar will not protect her from me!”

  “Kyoshi, run!” Kelsang shouted. He pushed her away and leaped at Jianzhu, bringing his staff down to create a gale of wind. Jianzhu brought earth up to meet him.

  But they weren’t fighting the same fight. Kelsang meant to blast his friend away, to knock the madness out of him, to overwhelm him with the least amount of harm done, in the way of all Air Nomads.

  Jianzhu shaved off a razor of flint no longer than an inch, sharp and thin enough to pass through the wind without resistance and slice at where his victim was exposed and vulnerable.

  A spurt of blood came from the side of Kelsang’s neck, from a finger-length cut so clean and precise it was almost elegant.

  Jianzhu’s expression flickered with a sadness that was deeper and truer than what he’d given to Yun, as he watched his friend fall.

  Kelsang collapsed to the ground, his head bouncing lifelessly off the hard-packed earth.

  Those were the last things Kyoshi saw before the white glow behind her eyes took over her entire being.

  THE INHERITANCE

  One time, when she was ten or thereabouts, a traveling fireworks vendor came to Yokoya. The village elders, in an unusual fit of decadence, paid him to put on a show celebrating the end of the first harvest. Families packed the square, gazing up at the booming, crackling explosions racing across the night sky.

  Kyoshi did not see the display. She lay on the floor of someone’s toolshed, twisted by fever.

  The morning after, the heat in her skull forced her awake at dawn. She staggered around the outskirts of town, seeking cool air, and found the field where the vendor set his explosives the night before. The ground was scorched and pitted, utterly ravaged by a fiend born of no natural element. It was covered in a layer of ash and upturned rocks. Water creeping in slow, black rivulets. The wind smelling like rotten eggs and urine.