Chapter 37: The Assassin Attacks
The tiles shattered beneath Gan Ye's boots as he lunged forward, blade gleaming in the dawnlight. The assassin met him head-on, both curved elephant tusk-like swords moving with impossible speed, not striking, but flowing, as if the man was water incarnate.
Steel screamed.
Gan Ye's sword barely caught the first arc, a sweeping left meant to bisect his neck. The impact sent a jolt through his shoulder, his bones rattling with the force. He gritted his teeth and stepped in, trying to get inside the assassin's range.
He was too slow.
The second blade came around, a backhanded slice aimed at his ribs. Gan Ye twisted, but not fast enough. Steel kissed flesh. A searing line split across his side, slicing through armor and tunic alike. Blood splashed across the rooftop like a red fan unfurling.
Gan Ye gasped, staggering, but didn't fall.
The assassin advanced, silent as shadow. He didn't run. He glided, feet whispering over stone. His blades never stopped moving, each one circling, tracing infinity loops through the air, a perfect storm of death.
Gan Ye forced his wounded side behind him, raising his sword two-handed now. "You're not touching her," he growled.
The assassin didn't reply.
He lunged again, this time faster. Gan Ye ducked the first strike and parried the second, but the force of it bent his wrists backward, pain exploding through his forearms. The third strike came immediately, a low sweep at his legs. He jumped, barely, and the tusk-blade carved a groove through the tiles where his ankles had been a heartbeat earlier.
He landed hard and retaliated, a thrust to the chest.
It missed.
The assassin tilted just slightly and twisted, like wind slipping past stone. His left blade slashed Gan Ye's forearm. Skin split. Blood sprayed. The sword flew from Gan Ye's hand, clattering across the rooftop and skidding to the edge.
Gan Ye dropped to one knee, gasping.
The assassin raised both blades. The ivory curves caught the rising sun, their points turned down like ritual knives about to consecrate a sacrifice.
And then…
Gan Ye roared.
With a surge of earthbending, he slammed both fists into the rooftop tiles, sending a pillar of stone bursting up beneath the assassin's feet. The figure was thrown back, twisting midair, blades crossing to block. He struck the rooftop and rolled.
Gan Ye didn't wait.
He bent again, ripping stone spikes up in a row, trying to impale the assassin mid-roll. But the figure twisted like a serpent, dodging between the spears. He landed on all fours, then sprang forward like a beast, one blade spinning into a blur.
Gan Ye barely raised his arm.
The blade sank into his shoulder. Bone cracked. Blood erupted in a hot geyser. He screamed and fell backward, but the sword caught in bone, sticking.
The assassin wrenched it free in a shower of gore and raised the second to finish the kill.
Gan Ye rolled, bleeding and gasping, and kicked, his heel slamming into the assassin's knee with a crunch. It buckled.
The hooded figure faltered for a second. That was all Gan Ye needed.
He bent the tiles beneath him, raising a slab to push himself upright, blood slicking down his chest like war paint. His left arm hung uselessly, but his right grabbed a loose tile like a dagger. He hurled it.
It struck the assassin's mask.
The hood tilted. For the first time, the figure stumbled. Gan Ye seized the moment. He yanked a dagger from his belt and charged.
Steel met steel.
He drove the dagger into the assassin's forearm, just above the wrist. The blade didn't go deep, but it was enough to twist the sword off-course as it came for his throat. Gan Ye headbutted him, cracking skull against mask. The sound was like breaking pottery.
The assassin reeled.
Gan Ye kicked him again, once, twice, driving him back toward the roof's edge. Tiles crumbled beneath the assassin's feet.
Then the assassin moved again, this time different.
No elegance. No grace.
Pure fury.
He screamed, a sharp, metallic sound like wind howling through a blade. He slashed both swords in a brutal cross, one aiming for Gan Ye's throat, the other for his hip.
Gan Ye blocked low, and the high slash grazed his cheek, slicing a bloody line from jaw to ear. He screamed, stumbled back…
…just as the assassin surged forward and rammed his knee into Gan Ye's gut.
Gan Ye coughed blood. The air left his lungs in a wet gasp. The assassin grabbed him by the collar and lifted him, holding him over the edge of the rooftop.
"Last words?" the assassin rasped.
Gan Ye's head lolled. Blood poured from his mouth.
Then… his hand lifted.
The Tide-Cutter.
The curved dagger gifted by Jian Ye, stolen back in the chaos.
Gan Ye shoved it into the assassin's gut.
A scream, low and sharp.
The assassin dropped him.
Gan Ye hit the rooftop hard, rolled twice, and came up coughing blood. The assassin staggered, one hand on his stomach, red soaking through the black cloak.
"Guess that edge really can part water," Gan Ye rasped, blood bubbling on his lips.
The assassin snarled and lunged again, but this time, his footing was wrong. His motions sloppy. Pain had ruined his rhythm.
Gan Ye didn't need grace.
He bent the rooftop beneath the assassin's feet, and it gave way.
Tiles shattered. The assassin fell, crashing through a balcony below, bouncing once, twice, and vanishing into the alley below in a spray of blood and broken stone.
Gan Ye collapsed onto his back, panting. The sun above him was bright and blinding. He was soaked in blood, half-conscious, chest heaving.
But he was alive.
And so was Mariko.
He laughed, a short, cracked bark, and let the darkness take him.
Dust curled through the alleyway like smoke from an invisible fire.
From the cracked rubble below the balcony, a black shape shifted, slowly, unnaturally. Loose tiles and shattered wood slid off his cloak as the assassin sat up, bent at angles no body should tolerate.
His left leg stuck out sideways. His right shoulder was dislocated, the arm dangling lifeless. One blade was still in his grasp, but the other had dropped somewhere in the fall. His mask was cracked, a sharp split running down from the brow like a lightning bolt. One of his ribs jutted visibly through his side, where Gan Ye's dagger had found its mark. Blood soaked the cloth around it.
He grunted.
Then he laughed. It was a rasping sound, dry and hateful.
"…Didn't think I'd need this so soon."
He reached beneath his robes with his one working hand and pulled out a tiny vial, no bigger than a child's thumb. The liquid inside was electric blue, glowing faintly like moonlight on the edge of dusk.
"I got cocky," he muttered to himself. "That won't happen again."
The assassin lifted the vial and slid it under his hood.
He drank.
At first, nothing.
Then, his back arched. His entire body spasmed as if lightning had struck him from within. A sharp crack rang out, then another. The rib that had been sticking through his side snapped back in. His shoulder popped into place with a sickening pop-pop-POP. His leg twitched, twisted, and realigned with a wet crunch. His dislocated fingers stretched and twitched, the knuckles reforming with rapid clicking like insect legs snapping into shape.
Torn muscles mended.
Bleeding veins sealed.
Even the cracks in his mask seemed to fade slightly as the edges fused into smoothness.
The entire process took less than ten seconds.
And when it was done, he stood.
Whole. Straight. Silent.
He bent, retrieved his fallen sword, then vaulted up onto a stack of broken crates, kicked off the wall, and launched himself upward.
His cloak snapped behind him like wings, and in a single, impossible leap, the assassin soared three stories back to the rooftop, landing silently where Gan Ye had once stood victorious.
The tile beneath his boots cracked from the force, but he didn't flinch.
His blades slid into his hands again, like they had never left them.
Mariko's voice broke with a sob as she knelt beside Gan Ye, her hands pressed against his bleeding shoulder. His chest still rose and fell, shallow and slow. His face was pale, too pale.
"Come on… stay with me," she whispered. "Don't you dare die on me. You stupid, stubborn…"
Her words trailed off as a cold shadow fell across her.
She looked up.
And froze.
The assassin stood there once more, no limp, no wound, no hesitation. His hood was still up, face hidden, but she could feel his gaze pressing down on her like a weight. The same swords that had nearly killed her gleamed in either hand, perfectly balanced.
Her eyes widened. "No… no, no…"
She scrambled in front of Gan Ye, arms trembling, tears streaking down her cheeks.
"I told him to get out of my way," the assassin said.
And then he moved.
In one blurred motion, he surged forward and slashed at her throat, both blades gleaming in twin arcs of death.
Mariko screamed…
But then…
A wall of rooftop tiles exploded upward in front of her.
CLANG!
The assassin's swords slammed into the wall, stopping just inches from her neck. Sparks flew from the impact as bits of stone chipped away.
He stepped back and turned, swords still raised.
Across the rooftop, standing low and wide in a solid earthbending stance, was Keru.
His boots had cracked the stone beneath them.
His eyes were hard. Focused. Cold.
"Another fool," the assassin said, voice low. "Another corpse waiting to happen."
He withdrew both blades and took a step forward, the blue glow of whatever unholy thing he'd consumed still faintly visible beneath his collar.
Keru didn't blink.
He shifted one foot back and clenched both fists. The tiles beneath him shuddered.
"Try me," he said.
The rooftop tiles were still vibrating when the assassin stepped forward again.
Keru didn't wait.
He slammed his palms together, dropped low, and stomped. The entire section of roof beneath the assassin buckled, then lurched up in a jagged spine of stone, aiming to impale him from below.
The assassin kicked off the rising stone just before it struck, flipping sideways, both blades spinning in a flash of glinting ivory. He landed behind Keru.
Keru twisted. Blocked.
His gauntleted forearm took the first blow, but the force of it split the leather and sliced deep. Blood spilled down his wrist in hot rivulets.
He growled through clenched teeth and slammed his elbow backward, catching the assassin in the mask with a solid CRACK. The assassin staggered for only a heartbeat before retaliating, sweeping low with both blades.
Keru jumped, barely, and a ribbon of blood bloomed along his calf where one tusk-shaped sword grazed him.
He landed hard, one knee down, and punched the rooftop. A ripple of force exploded outward in a ring, throwing tiles in every direction.
The assassin backflipped once, twice, using the force of the blast to gain distance, but Keru didn't give him time.
He dived into a roll and slapped both hands to the ground mid-spin. A slab of stone tore free from the roof and hurled forward like a battering ram.
The assassin sliced through it.
In two perfect, diagonal arcs.
The stone crashed apart midair.
Keru was already moving, pulling another chunk of the rooftop up as a shield. The assassin charged, blades flashing in crisscrossing death patterns. Each impact against the earthen shield rang like a hammer against a bell.
Ching. Ching. CRACK.
Keru flinched as one blade pierced through the shield and nicked his cheek, the tip cutting skin from jaw to ear. Blood dripped into his mouth.
He spat.
The assassin pressed the advantage, ducking around the wall and thrusting upward with the curved blade aimed at Keru's ribs.
Keru raised his arm and caught the blade between the guards of his gauntlets. Metal screamed. His eyes burned with pain, but he held it, held it, and then used his free hand to uppercut the stone beneath them.
The rooftop erupted, launching both men into the air.
Keru landed hard, rolled, and slid down the sloped tiles.
The assassin didn't roll, he landed on one foot, bouncing down the incline like a hunting cat, and lunged again.
Keru raised a shaky arm, and was kicked square in the chest.
He went airborne, smashed through a clay chimney, and plummeted off the rooftop.
He landed in the street below.
CRACK.
The stone cracked beneath his impact. His shoulder dislocated with a sickening crunch, and he screamed as he rolled across the dirt, blood painting the cobblestones.
The assassin dropped down after him, blades first.
KERU MOVED.
He rolled and slammed both fists into the street, sending a shockwave outward. A fountain of jagged spikes erupted in a wide circle, forcing the assassin to backpedal and leap.
Keru struggled to his feet, holding his ruined shoulder, and jammed it back into place against a lamppost with a howl that echoed through the alley.
He staggered forward, one arm dangling, and slammed his foot down. A wall of stone burst from the ground, then crashed forward like a collapsing wave.
The assassin spun through it, slicing through the weaker points like a dancer wrapped in death. He came out bloodied, Keru's stone had grazed his thigh and carved a red channel through his cloak.
Still, he kept coming.
Keru bent again and pulled up three stone pillars, launching them like javelins.
The first missed.
The second clipped the assassin's shoulder, knocking him sideways with a grunt.
The third was cut in two.
Keru took the moment, pressed both palms flat to the ground, and ripped open the earth beneath the assassin's feet. A pit.
The assassin stumbled, but only slightly, before catching the lip of the crater with one hand, flipping out, and hurling one of his blades like a spear.
Keru bent to raise a wall.
Too slow.
The blade grazed his side, sliced through armor, and dug deep into his ribs. He collapsed to one knee, coughing blood onto the cobblestones.
The assassin was already charging, second sword raised, his cloak now stained with both their bloods.
Keru raised his hand in desperation.
The earth responded.
A spike of stone shot up, angled, jagged, brutal.
The assassin twisted mid-sprint, it sliced across his abdomen, tearing cloth and flesh. A piece of his mask cracked off and flew into the street, revealing a flash of pale skin and scarred jawline.
He stumbled, caught his balance, and slashed blindly, carving a long arc through the air.
Keru caught the blade with both arms, and screamed as it sliced through muscle to bone.
But he held it.
And while holding it, he slammed his knee into the assassin's gut.
Once.
Twice.
A third time.
CRACK.
The assassin's ribs gave.
He kneed again, even as blood poured down both arms.
The assassin shrieked and headbutted him.
Keru staggered back, nose broken, blood gushing.
The assassin wrenched free and spun, one blade now glowing faintly with blue residue. He lunged again…
And Keru dropped.
Into a split, earthbender style, slamming both palms to the stones.
The entire alley rose around him, stone serpents twisting upward and collapsing in on the assassin.
For the first time, he was trapped.
Keru, panting, bleeding from every limb, forced himself up. He staggered toward the stone mound, teeth bared.
Then, a flash of steel burst from the side of the prison.
One sword. Then the second.
The assassin cut his way out, caked in blood, one eye exposed, now red with fury.
Keru raised a trembling fist.
"No more…"
The assassin raised both blades.
"Then die already."
They charged.
The assassin lunged again, his body a blur of rage and precision. His blades whistled through the air, aimed at Keru's throat, and only just parried by a slab of earth raised in desperation. The clang of impact sent cracks spiderwebbing across the stone as chips and dust flew in every direction.
Keru stumbled back, sweat and blood dripping into his eyes. His breath came in sharp, ragged gasps. He had no more words, only grit, only instinct.
The assassin closed the distance again, fast, faster than before.
Too fast.
The blades sang as they danced. One slash raked across Keru's thigh, the other scraped bone along his upper arm. Blood sprayed. Keru dropped to one knee, struggling to raise a wall, but it came up slow, sluggish.
The assassin ducked under it, spun, and drove a boot into Keru's ribs. Keru gasped as he flew sideways, slamming into the side of a merchant cart with a crunch of splintering wood.
Shouts rang out.
The streets, once empty in the early hour, had begun to fill with life. Vendors, porters, and early risers now stood frozen in shock as the alley became a warzone. Faces peeked from behind awnings. Murmurs turned to panic.
"Spirits above…" someone whispered.
"Is he… fighting with swords?"
"Where are the guards?!"
The assassin didn't even glance their way.
But their presence made his posture shift. His movements, already lethal, became vicious.
Annoyed.
He threw off his torn cloak in a swift flick of his shoulder, revealing lean, corded muscle beneath dark armor strapped tight to his frame. His skin bore old scars, pale against the blood dripping fresh from new wounds.
And then, he vanished.
Keru saw only flashes. A blade slicing toward his stomach, blocked by a wall of rock that exploded from the ground. A second cut at his thigh. A third, his chest. He tried to raise a shield, but the assassin carved right through it and raked the tip across Keru's neck, a shallow slice, but enough to paint his collar in red.
Keru bellowed in pain and stumbled back, earth rising up with each step, but the defenses were too late, too thin.
A blade stabbed into his shoulder.
The assassin twisted it.
Keru's scream echoed through the alley.
"You die here," the assassin hissed, voice low, sharp, almost clinical. "I told you."
He raised the second blade for the finishing blow…
And was suddenly yanked into the air by a surge of blue.
A whip of water coiled around his waist like a striking serpent and ripped him off his feet, pulling him back mid-slash. The assassin flipped once, arms flailing, and SLAMMED into the stone street, the impact cracking the flagstones beneath him.
He rolled once, and hit a lamppost, denting it with his shoulder. He skidded to a stop, half-buried in rubble and dust.
All eyes turned.
Rilo stood at the mouth of the alley, waterbending stance low and wide, hands still dripping with cold liquid that hissed against the hot stone.
His face was calm.
His eyes were not.
"I think that's enough," he said quietly.
Across the alley, Haru and Kenshiro stood stunned. Yogan ran in, his face pale, eyes wide with panic.
He dropped beside Keru, who was barely upright, slumped against the broken remains of the cart, one arm hanging useless and the other coated in blood from shoulder to knuckle.
"KERU!!" Yogan screamed, voice cracking. "Spirits, no, Keru!!"
Keru's head lolled slightly. One swollen eye cracked open.
"The assassin…" he rasped. "He… was going for… Mariko…"
Yogan gripped his bloodied friend's tunic, pressing a shaking hand against the worst of the shoulder wound.
"Stay with me. Don't you dare check out now, don't you dare!"
Then…
From behind, a voice.
"Where'd he go?"
One of the townspeople stood by the edge of a ruined fruit stand, eyes darting around.
Yogan's breath caught in his throat.
He looked up.
The assassin was gone.
Only torn stone, a broken lamppost, and a wet trail of blood remained.
Then, a scream pierced the morning air.
A woman's scream.
Mariko.
Yogan's heart seized.
He turned sharply, eyes scanning the rooftops, and then he saw it.
The roof of the inn. Her silhouette. Kneeling beside someone.
Yogan's eyes widened.
Gan Ye.
And walking toward her…
The assassin.
No cloak now. Just blood and blades and silence. Approaching like a reaper in slow stride, elephant tusk like swords dragging behind him with a quiet hiss against the roof tiles.
Yogan moved.
He didn't think.
Didn't breathe.
With a blast of air, he shot upward, spiraling like a cyclone between buildings. Dust and loose paper exploded around him as he launched high…
…and landed on the rooftop in a single, graceful arc, boots hitting tile with a crack and slide.
His heart pounded.
Mariko sat crumpled beside Gan Ye, her arms around him, her face streaked with tears.
"Mariko!" he gasped. "What happened to Gan Ye?!"
She looked up slowly, eyes red and wet. Her voice shook.
"This weird guy, he tried to kill me. Gan Ye tried to stop him-he-he wouldn't let him…"
She couldn't finish. Her hands tightened on Gan Ye's tunic.
Yogan turned toward the figure.
The assassin stopped walking.
The wind picked up.
Then he vanished.
Yogan's eyes widened. "No…!"
A blur. A hiss of steel.
Mariko screamed.
And just as the assassin's blades came down toward her exposed neck…
BOOM.
A massive concussive blast of air erupted from the rooftop…
…sending the assassin flying backwards, his body spinning, flailing through the air like a broken marionette.
He crashed through a laundry line. Then a chimney.
Then a second building.
And landed somewhere in the distance with a muffled crash, hidden by rooftops and smoke.
Yogan stood, arm still outstretched, steam rising off his skin, eyes wide with fury, breath coming in ragged gusts.
"You've done enough already," he said.
His voice was low.
And it trembled with the kind of power only the Avatar could carry.
Smoke drifted from shattered tiles. Loose laundry fluttered in the breeze like flags of surrender.
Yogan exhaled sharply, shaking off the last of the fury crackling through his fingertips. He glanced once at Mariko, still clutching Gan Ye, and then bent his knees, drawing the wind around him.
"Stay with him," he said.
Mariko barely nodded, eyes wide.
Yogan's feet left the rooftop in a vortex of pressure. Air coiled around his legs like a spring and launched him in a graceful arc. He sailed over the street below, twisting slightly mid-air, and landed on a rooftop two buildings down, its shingles groaning under the sudden force.
Ahead, half-buried in a crumbling brick wall, the assassin moved.
First a twitch.
Then a hand, gloved and bloodied, pressing into the broken masonry.
He stood, slowly, unnaturally. Dust fell from his shoulders like ashes, and a long, crackling line split through the mask that had hidden his face since Shuihan.
The mask shattered.
Ceramic fragments clattered to the stone at his feet.
And for the first time, Yogan saw the face of the killer.
Not a monster.
A man.
Scrawny. Lean. Pale. Not malnourished, but designed, like every inch of him had been carved for speed and agility alone. His cheekbones jutted sharply, jaw narrow, and skin pulled tight against bone. Not young, but not yet old.
Long brown hair spilled past his shoulders, wild and tangled, framing a face more fox than wolf.
But it was his eyes that stopped Yogan cold.
White pupils, no irises, piercing and inhuman, yet very much awake. They locked on Yogan with idle contempt.
"You're getting in the way of a great pay job, boy," the assassin said, blood sliding down his chin from a cut along his scalp.
Yogan narrowed his eyes, wind curling around his fingers.
"You're doing this… for money?"
The assassin chuckled softly, one blade still raised lazily at his side. "What else is there?"
A silence passed between them, tense as a wire.
"You're what unbalances the world," Yogan growled. "People like you. Who destroy for coin."
The assassin's face didn't even twitch. "Tell it to somebody who cares."
Yogan lowered into a stance, bending at the knees, one arm sweeping up in a coiled arc, fingers open. "Then I guess…"
He didn't finish.
He never got the chance.
From the side…
BOOM.
A concussive blast of wind struck him at full force.
It hit like a mountain.
Yogan was thrown sideways, head snapping back as the gust sent him crashing through a rooftop vent, splintering wood and ceramic. He smashed through the wall of the next building, bursting through the outer panel like a wrecking ball, trailing shattered timber and red dust in his wake.
He flew across the room inside, a carpenter's shop, and smashed through the opposite wall, stone cracking under the impact before he finally skidded across the floor in a cloud of rubble and groans.
Blood trickled from his lip. He coughed once, then twice, the world spinning.
Footsteps approached, measured, slow, indifferent.
The assassin stepped into the ruined shop, framed by the broken wooden doorway and sunlight. His silhouette was thin as a blade.
"Actions," he muttered, both swords gleaming in hand, "work better than words, boy."
His boots crunched over the dust and glass as he walked closer.