Unfinished Business

"Yangchen isn't here right now, [...] I am."

— Kyoshi to Kuji, who is praying to Yangchen.

"Unfinished Business"
Information
Novel	The Shadow of Kyoshi
Authors	F. C. Yee Michael Dante DiMartino
Chapter	1/27
Word count	4,649
From page	7
To page	23
Chapter guide
Previous	Prologue
Next	"The Invitation"

"Unfinished Business" is the first chapter of The Shadow of Kyoshi.

Overview

Avatar Kyoshi tracks the Triad of the Golden Wing, a group of daofei outlaws, in the Lower Ring of Ba Sing Se.

Synopsis

Kuji holds his rusty and chipped dao sword as he watches the door with his daofei brothers. Brother Po, holding his small axe, stays by the doorway. Though looking calm, his throat keeps bobbing up and down as he swallows. The boss of the Triad of the Golden Wing got a tip that their stronghold is going to be hit that day, so every brother must take up positions until the threat is gone. Kuji, believing their turf, Loongkau City Block, would take more lawmen than the Lower Ring possesses, is confident. He does not think their floor will see any action, as he hears a crash on the upper floor. Him and Po give all their attention to the stairs, where they expect the enemy to come from. As Kuji loses his balance while trying to hear anything, someone flies through the doorway and collides with Kuji. Kuji screams, attacks, and misses his target, hitting his head with his pommel. Po realizes it is Throatcutter Gong, as he raises his hatchet to strike, Gong's wrists bent the wrong way and his ankles bound with his own garrote wire. Forgetting about stealth, Po asks Brother Gong what happened in worry.

At that moment, a pair of gauntleted arms bursts through the brick wall opposite the door. They wrap around Po's neck from behind, choking him, and pull him out of the room straight through the wall, into the darkness. Creaking of the floorboards is heard as heavy boots walk outside, disregarding stealth, and a very tall figure enters from the doorway, blocking all the light coming from the hall. The figure, wearing a green silk dress, has a white mask for a face, and its eyes are monstrous streaks of red. Its throat has a thin line of blood, as if it had been beheaded and put back together. Kuji, scared and trembling, raises his sword, but is only able to move slowly out of fear. The figure, who Kuji believes to be a spirit, only watches as the blade hits its shoulder, snaps, and bounces back to Kuji's face. Kuji drops the handle and begins to pray to the Avatar. He falls and sidles away to the corner of the room as he prays to Yangchen. The figure moves closer and lowers its face, and with a cold disregard, says Yangchen is not here, but she is. Kuji begins to cry as the figure asks the location of his boss.

Kyoshi's neck itches and bleeds from the glass-coated garrote. She decides to spare the young, crying daofei, as he reminds her of Lek. She moves through Loongkau City Block's tight corridors and reaches a small market area. She bends a little earth platform and stands on it, and begins to fall through every floor one by one, until she reaches the bottom of Loongkau. She sees Uncle Mok sitting behind a desk in the large empty room. Mok is surprised at Kyoshi's presence, and gets angry when she starts mocking his daofei traditions. As they speak, men from the upper floors enter and surround Kyoshi. Kyoshi tells them to surrender, which makes several men laugh. Mok refuses, and Kyoshi asks if everyone is present, and offers to wait until everyone's arrival. Mok's face swells with rage as he orders his men to attack. Kyoshi pulls out one of her fans, finding two to be a bit much.

Kyoshi, standing over the daofei bodies, notes that one of them is still alive. When Mok tries to get up, she pins him down to his chair, still referring to him as Uncle. Mok asks her if she is going kill him, just like she did Xu Ping An, and insults her for slaying her sworn brothers. As Kyoshi is bothered to be called a murderer, she clarifies that everything goes on lei tai, and asks for his contact in Ba Sing Se. When Mok refuses to give information, Kyoshi dents the nerves in his arm with her fingers, making him scream. Kyoshi is surprised when Mok reveals his contact is someone from the Middle Ring rather than Lower Ring of the city. As she lets Mok go, he shouts at Wai, who immediately jumps into the room with a knife in his hand; however, when he sees the intruder is Kyoshi, he steps back, drops to his knees, places the knife at Kyoshi's feet, and bows his head to the ground, disappointing Mok.

As Kyoshi steps out to the street, a group of peace officers approach, some shocked to see the Avatar. Kyoshi walks past the guardsmen, ignoring whispers and bows, and goes to Captain Li. She informs him about the daofei inside, and his men go in to extract them. Kyoshi gets angry when the guardsmen walk out with one of the poor families who lived in the City Block. Kyoshi opens her fans and muzzles the guardsmen with earth. She takes all of their badges as everyone suffocates, and lets them go afterward when they turn purple. Captain Li says the briber's name is Minister Wo, and Kyoshi tells him to write a confession after taking out the daofei. When she approaches the family, the man gets between his family and her, telling her to stay away. Feeling shamed, she slowly walks away, her paint covering the flush in her cheeks.

Production notes

Series continuity

• Kyoshi follows through on her promise in "The Town" to personally "sort" Mok and Wai someday, dismantling their operation in Loongkau and turning them over to the police.
• Kyoshi suffocates Captain Li and his peace officers with the same earthbending move Jianzhu uses to choke her in "The Spirit".

Character revelations

• Mok reformed the Yellow Necks into the Triad of the Golden Wing.

Trivia

• An excerpt from this chapter was released by Entertainment Weekly on May 5, 2020.