Shen thundered down the rest of the street at a breakneck pace, the mushy target provided by the soldier's unarmored head having slowed him down barely at all. He pulled up to avoid a fountain of Kyoshi and another woman in the central square, just barely missing the other's topknot. 'Her wife, maybe? I think that her name was Rangi.' It took a while, but he finally found the breach, on the left side of town where there were no ports, just farmland. He pulled up and chuted down nearby the destroyed section of wall, several of the pushed over logs burnt to a crisp, he noted. Kyoshi, what he believed to be Rangi, and several other women in similar garments to the former were standing there, weapons drawn and pointed at the crowd of soldiers outside, a few scattered corpses from both sides lain in between. 'About two-fifty. Not enough to actually weaken the main force, but plenty enough to cause havoc in a village this size.' He spotted something out of place, and surmised it was the reason the soldiers had not yet been blown off the face of the map. "Hostages. Damn." Kyoshi spared him a glance then looked back forward. "I had expected you'd still be passed out for another hour or two."
"Nothing keeps me down for long. Permission to do something drastic?" "Will it endanger the villagers?" He shrugged. "No more than they're in right now. I'm going to flip the table." Her head whipped around. "Flip? You're going to turn the entire slab of rock they're on upside down?" He scratched the back of his head. "Ehm, no, not really. Just the part with the soldiers." Rangi gave her partner a questioning glance. "Who is he?" Her eyes narrowed, then turned back to face front. "He claims his name is Shen, and he's the most poorly instructed functioning earthbender on the planet. He's the one that killed Chin." He shook his head. "I disagree. He committed suicide by interrupting me. Manners are important." Rangi gave him a sidelong look before turning back to the front. "Do you honestly think you can do that?" He nodded. "Yes, I can. Give me the word and I'll get started. It's that or this stalemate." Kyoshi took a deep breath. "If this doesn't work and a single one of these villagers is harmed, I'll kill you." He shrugged. "Five seconds is all you're going to have after the signal, you'll know what it is and what to do. Go along with this next bit if you would."
He turned on his heel and started to walk away. He raised his voice so the soldiers could hear him. "I'M OUTTA HERE. FUCK THIS, NO STUPID VILLAGERS ARE WORTH RISKING MY LIFE FOR." He really, really hoped that Kyoshi would catch on. From the volume of her voice, the answer was probably yes. "COWARD! THEY NEED YOUR HELP, AND YOU'D TURN YOUR BACK ON THEM?!" He put his hands behind his head. "IT'S NOT ME IN TROUBLE. WHY SHOULD I GIVE A OSTRICH HORSE'S ASS?" A small diagram of sand appeared in front of Kyoshi with an image of a stick figure being squashed by two plates of earth, out of view of the soldiers. "THEN PAY FOR YOUR COWARDICE WITH YOUR LIFE!" Two massive earthen slabs raised from the ground and started to squash towards him. He bent small spires of rock between them in a vain attempt to stop it, but they all crumbled to dirt and dust. The bricks clapped shut with a sonorous "THOOM!"
When they separated, there was a bloody smear on the inside and a gnarled, twisted up sword. Kyoshi nearly dropped her fans in shock before the sand in the diagram shifted to spell "Nice work. That was a soldier by the way." She breathed a heavy sigh. Rangi hadn't moved a muscle but still smirked. "That kid is something special." Kyoshi's eyes turned back to the front. "I'd use another word entirely."
June 23rd, 1:45 PM
Underneath Yoyoka
Jacob grinned to himself in the dark tunnel he'd dug from the surface. "Now that they think I'm dead, the fun can really begin. Right now, I'm, probably a hundred feet below ground? Menu."
STR: 267
He rubbed his hands together and started parting the ground below him, slipping down into the rock further. "How deep can I go, I wonder? How deep should I go is the real question, though. I have to be able to get fresh air and stay in range of the people enough that I can tell where they are. I also have to go deep enough for this to work. There were six hostages if I remember right. They were bound with rope, and had people standing directly next to them." He ran through the calculations in his head before opening his eyes. "Three hundred feet. That's how far I'll have to go." Up on the surface, his tunnel's mouth rippled and widened, getting larger and larger to allow more air in. He kept an eye on the menu the entire time.
STR: 801
He couldn't help but grin. "This power, flowing through my body… I feel like I could destroy the entire world! Remember, game devs, this is why you never put stacking multipliers in open world RPGs." He shook his head. "Wait, who the fuck am I talking to? There's nobody down here to hear me except worms. Do worms go this deep, actually? Yet another question for yet another day." He dove down further.
STR: 2,403
Jacob had now encountered a new problem. His muscles felt like they were going to burst. 'Shit! Is my flesh too weak to take this?' The reason slapped him dead in the face. 'No. Normally I would be fine, but I've been exerting myself non-stop today. First the battle, then Chin's little shishkejacob cooking class, then the training, then flying into town? I'm running on empty. But come on, you fucked this up, now you have to fix it, you pile of shit!' He closed his eyes and concentrated, sitting in a lotus position. The area around him hollowed out and he took deep lungfuls of the air the vacuum had drawn in. He ignored the searing pain that permeated every inch of his being and focused, gritting his teeth. He felt for the faint vibrations in the ground and traced out circles in the cave roof under each of the hostages. He bent thin cracks from each running up to the surface, so small that nobody but the most finely attuned earthbender would notice. A pillar of rock shot out from above and smacked his back. "GAAAHHH!" He straightened his posture immediately and it receded. 'Fucking old lady, I'm going to give her a piece of my mind when I get up there!'
He rose from his position and took a wide stance directly in the middle of the rough hexagon the hostages formed. He took a deep breath and steeled himself for what was about to come. He clenched his fists and stared at the circles. 'Dead center, straight up. Five seconds, then I'm doing it.' He reared his fists back and let the punches fly.
June 23rd, 2:20 PM
Earth Kingdom
Yoyoka Port
Rangi frowned, form tightening a bit as her fists started to smolder. "Nothing's happening. When are we going to push them?" Kyoshi tensed, a small bead of sweat rolling down the back of her neck while her hands gripped the fans inside them tighter. "Not yet. Whatever he's doing, he just did. But why is he punching the rocks?" The answer became incredibly clear when the ground the hostages were sitting on rocketed into the sky, taking the limbs of several soldiers with them. Her eyes widened before she remembered what he said. 'Five seconds is all you're going to have.' She made a sweeping motion with her left fan, a slash of air chopping all but the very top off the six pillars. Rock crawled up along the terrified villagers who were too well gagged to make much noise as her right fan cast them away from the area where the soldiers were standing.
The soldiers were staring in shock before one pointed at her. "SHE'S DISTRACTED WITH THE HOSTAGES! GET HER!" The men yelled and shouted, getting ready to charge. Then, the ground underneath their feet quaked. A tremor ran through the entire village as a cube of earth raised up, and up, every soldier on it. 'How is he doing that by himself?! He's a master, and he didn't even look far past puberty!' Then it hit her. There was no pulse of power emanating from below. She set down the villagers and made a small spear of dirt jam into one of the soldiers attempting to hop down. The ease of it confirmed her suspicions. "He's not bending." Rangi's head turned so fast she nearly got whiplash, and Kyoshi was sure she heard a crack. "What do you mean, he's not bending? No human being could do something like that without bending!" She shook her head, taking a step back. "If he was bending that, I would've felt some resistance from him when I made the spear. But there was nothing. He's doing this with just raw muscle power. What… what the hell is this kid?!"
The soldiers on top of the cube were looking around in confusion. "What's going on?" "Why isn't she doing anything?" "Guys, look! She's not the one doing this!" "Yeah, you're right! Her fans are down!" "But then who is?!" The cube dropped an inch, and then another, and then another, until it was almost at its original position. They murmured and looked around. "Were you doing that, Jin?" "Wasn't me. How about you, Peko?" Then a voice rang out among the crowd. "I DID IT!" The group collectively turned towards the center, where a gray-haired man with a decorated uniform and several medals was standing. "I did it, to show you louts what will happen if you don't get over there and kill that spiritscursed group of whores right now!"
Kyoshi let a smile tug at the corner of her lips. Rangi scowled and flames burst into being on her fingers. "What's so funny? We've got the hostages, now let's go get them!" "If you take a single step onto that platform, you'll die." Her movement halted instantly. Kyoshi's tone was full of mirth as she stared the soldiers down. "They're already dead. They just don't know it yet." The cube sank another inch, burrowing into the dirt. They looked around nervously, some of them glancing at the self-proclaimed mover of lots of stuff. He made a shooing motion with his hand and they anxiously began to step forward. Before the first leg could touch solid ground, the cube rocketed up into the sky five hundred feet, flipped 180 degrees, and came crashing down.
Shen appeared before them in a swirl of sand, but something was horribly, horribly wrong. His skin was torn all over his body and the emerald belt was gone, showing the bulging muscles and pulsing organs, and the fresh blood coming from his wounds gave him the appearance of being more meat than man. But he still managed to lift a split open finger and look with glazed eyes defiantly in Rangi's general direction. "Told you I… could do it." He then collapsed in a heap on the ground. She stared at him for a moment, face flashing between anger and shock. "That's the most important thing he had to say? He had ten seconds of life left in him, and he wasted it on a SNAPPY COMEBACK?!" She reared back her leg to kick what she thought was a lifeless corpse before Kyoshi put a hand on her shoulder. "He's not dead, but he might be if you follow through on that." She bent down and poked his head, receiving a pained groan in response. "We can't just leave him like this, can we?" The pleading tone in her voice made clear the answer she wanted. "Go… ahead… I'll… still… be… cooler… than… you… even… with… my spleen… on the… sidewalk." Kyoshi snorted. "He won't even make it to the infirmary if he keeps that up." His sole response was "Hrghubbl."
June 23rd, 6:00 PM
Yoyoka Port
Infirmary
"I'm fine! Let me go!" Shen was currently wrestling with one of the nurses, trying to get out of the bed he'd been placed in, wrapped in bandages like a mummy. "You are not fine! You've been so badly injured that I had to put your intestines back in! I brushed up against your heart!" He suddenly changed tactics and winked at her. "You sure did, but that's not the only thing you brushed up against." The utter shock on her face provided him the opportunity he needed to wrestle her to the floor, pin her there until a pair of earthen shackles poked through the wood paneling, and start to stroll away, opening the door. A folded war fan came down on his head and a pair of arms tossed him back onto the bed bodily. "Are you trying to kill me? According to the nurse, I'm in a very delicate state."
Kyoshi sighed, staring down at him with her arms folded across her chest, a small wave of her hand dispelling the shackles. "Where is the polite young man I met on the battlefield? Can I have that one back instead of this rebellious smartass?" He shrugged. "I know when to be serious, I know when not to be. I've had enough serious to last me the next ten years in the last four months, so I'm trying to tip the scales." 'Thoron.' "Then get serious." He sighed in an overblown imitation of her own, then his back straightened and he looked her in the eyes. "I'll start with the first thing, once the nurse leaves the room." The nurse looked towards Kyoshi, who nodded. "I can handle him." She left, closing the door behind her and rubbing her wrists. "Gods are real." She raised an eyebrow, beckoning him to continue. He pointed towards his chest. "These aren't tattoos, they're scars, marks from them, claiming me as theirs. I met the Goddess of Earth more than a year ago now while I was practicing my earthbending. Apparently my attempt to bend saltwater was seen as close enough to waterbending, so the Goddess of Water stamped me too, giving me the ability to actually waterbend. I was unconscious then, but she filled me in today."
Her eyes closed as she was deep in thought, her brow creasing in worry. "So it's like I feared." He shook his head. "No. Apparently I'm just an empty void, but normal people have shit inside them that keeps them from taking more than one at a time. I'm the only one who can do this." Then he looked up at the ceiling. "If I'm understanding what she said correctly. I've also made friends with a parrotfish named Bart. He's remarkably affectionate." It was like a weight was lifted off her shoulders as she stood taller. "So it's just you?" He shook his head again. "Technically, yes, but really, no. I swore not to touch air or fire." Then something sparked in his head. "Air… mmm, I'm gonna go to the Eastern Air Temple and-" He caught himself mid-sentence. "I never said that." Her gaze lightened a little, mirth dancing behind her eyes. "No, go on. I'd love to hear all about what you're going to do to the Air Nomad nuns." He blinked, then squinted at her. After a moment, he decided "This is a trap."
"Moving on. What else do you want to know?" She gestured over to the back wall, and by proxy the massive chunk of land flipped upside down in that direction. "How exactly you did… that without bending." He snorted. "I thought you wanted me serious. Lift with your legs, not your back. The only proper way to do it." Her glare intensified and he held up his hands. "Alright, fine. There are certain perks to being a chosen of the gods. This one" he tapped the sigil of Gaia "means that the closer I get to the earth's core, the stronger I get. The increase is roughly triple every thirty meters. Once I get ninety meters underground, I could kill a dragon with my bare hands. So punching and lifting some rocks isn't that big a deal." She took the information that she was standing in the presence of one of the potentially most powerful beings on the planet well, probably because she was up there too. "But it places immense strain on your body." He shrugged. "Normally, I'd have been able to deal with it fine, but with a hole in my chest and being borderline exhausted, it's a bit tougher. Too much deeper than that, though, and I would've died, well rested or no."
She rubbed her forehead. "You understand how utterly ridiculous this sounds, right?" He shrugged again. "Yeah. Got any other ideas how it could happen?" Kyoshi leaned against the wall, tapping one of her shoulders. "... no." "Ah, one other thing I think I should probably mention." Her head raised. "What? You're going to the Western Temple too?" He rubbed his chin. "Not a bad idea, I like the way you think. I used to be a detective. I got very good at reading people, and discerning things from their unconscious tells. Of course, some things are obvious, like the way your eyes twitch a little bit towards the door, telling me that Rangi is there eavesdropping." He heard a small curse from the hall and smirked. "But other things take a lot more experience to decipher. For example, why you keep shifting your weight from one foot to the other, and why the longer I've been on this tangent the more I can see little beads of sweat start to poke through your makeup, signs of recent physical exertion." She began to look towards the door anxiously. "The odd posture, with your chest puffed out, the way your hand is unconsciously grasping for something, or should I say someone, that isn't there."
He could see her starting to sweat now. 'Cornering an Avatar, now this is an achievement.' "That hand motion in particular is very revealing. Index and middle finger almost but not quite together, while the thumb, ring and pinky are all separate. An odd pattern, but when I make the motion myself, I am reminded of my actions with a lovely girl from the Northern Water Tribe. Specifically, when I'm fondling her breasts." The sweat was coming off her in waves, the makeup almost starting to peel. Just a little further and he was sure he'd break her. "Now, a couple having sex? Not something terribly unusual. I have to say, though, that timing is a little weird. Right after two big battles, where thousands of people were killed? If I didn't know better, I'd say you were a sadist. And you might be, I haven't ruled that out. But I do know better, and that's not what this tells me."
"All three of us know. You don't have to say it out loud." He rubbed his chin. "I suppose that you're right. I don't have to. But among other things that I don't have to do are breathing, eating, sleeping, bathing, etc. I don't like leaving things hanging, and who knows, I might be wrong. Continuing, one of you two initiated it. Given that your normally very domineering personality leaves in her presence, it was probably her. So, if I think about it like this, what happened? I made a grandiose display of strength, something far beyond normal human capacity, and she got horny. Thus, she's got a thing for strong people. Right?" Rangi chose this moment to join them inside the room, her cheeks flaming red. "SO?!" He rolled his eyes and clapped his hands together gently. Twin tentacles of sand prodded them closer to each other, before pushing their heads down. "Shut up and kiss your wife, I don't break up happy marriages." They obliged without hesitation as he leaned back onto the pillow. 'Damn that's hot. Ah well, I'm going to sleep. Going to have to be well rested for tomorrow.'
"Hold it." His eyes flew open and he looked around wildly. "Wha- oh, nevermind. You wanted something else?" Rangi gave Kyoshi a concerned look. "Why did you react to that so viscerally?" He shook his head. "I'm just more used to hearing it in court than casual conversation, that's all." 'Her voice…' "If you're really a detective, then we're going to need you." He pressed a finger to his forehead, closing his eyes. "The barricade, right? Someone set fire to it, and you think it was an inside job." Then he shook his head. "That's a hell of a case, though. There's already been a lot of traffic there, so footprints are gone, and anything with fingerprints would've been torched." He rolled his shoulders and started unwrapping his bandages. "Still, I'm one of the best in the world. I've never met a case I couldn't crack, and I'll be damned if I find one here." Kyoshi grabbed his hand. "Tomorrow. You have done plenty today already." He bit the inside of his cheek. "You sure? They might have split by then." "Nobody will leave this village before you're finished." He relaxed and nodded. "Thanks. That's going to make my job a lot easier." He sighed internally as they left. 'This was not the ideal time period to end up in. I would've preferred something either fifteen years earlier or fifteen years later, but when life gives you lemons, you shut up and suck on them because you're hungry. 1 out of 730.'
June 24th, 8:00 AM
Yoyoka Port
Outer Wall
Despite his incessant protests that he did not need help, Rangi was standing next to him as he surveyed the scene of the battle. "Hmm. I'm beginning to regret my tableflip." "You didn't regret it when you were torn to shreds?" He shrugged. "I've taken worse, and I probably will again before my life is over. I'm regretting it because I could've mucked with some evidence." His gaze swept across the area, looking for anything out of place. He stepped in the direction of the palisade, over the corpse of one of the watchmen. He looked at the grain of the wood, and at the burn marks. They trailed along the outside where some dead grass near the bottom had caught fire. "This thing is new, right? A few weeks old at most?" Rangi nodded, looking down the inside of the simple structure, two logs with a space between them and boards of wood on the top to make a platform. "We made it as soon as news of Chin's army reached us. It's been here for a week and a half. What told you that?" He pointed out the burn marks. "Obviously, dead grass caught fire here. More recent, it would've still been alive and not burned, later than that, the wind would've taken it away. Of course, inside, where the wind can't get, that's not an issue. Our arsonist was keenly aware of this fact. Look at the dirt over here." He traced a line between the two halves where the dirt was charred black. "No tinder needed. They set the fire from outside, while there was something waiting in here to catch and carry it to the other side."
Rangi shook her head, a small frown on her face. "Not so fast. How would they have known to breach here? The village has been on lockdown ever since it went up. We were ready for a month-long siege. Got an explanation for that, Detective Shen?" He waved his hand in the air. "Detective Doragon if you're trying to be formal. Buttchin might've been an impertinent asshole, but it's hard to take over the whole of the Earth Kingdom without being a half-decent strategist. Where are we?" She looked around them. "Uhm. The west side of the village? What's your point?" He shook his head. "Think about it. We're in the Avatar's home. Chin might've gotten here a few weeks ago, but if his ambition was the whole Kingdom, he would've planned long ago to take this place. If you want proof of that, just look at what the soldiers did. They didn't come in and raze the place as much as they could, they took hostages to tie your hands. They stalled. They were expecting something else to happen, to buy time. If you ask me? The plan was to keep Kyoshi here until the main force arrived." Rangi snorted. "And got obliterated by the wrath of the Avatar protecting her home? Great plan." Shen pressed a finger to his forehead. "I've had to deal with plenty of powerhouses in my time, people I couldn't fight head on, just like Kyoshi. There's only one way to do it. You have to restrict their power. By bringing the fighting into the village, they constrain her, because if she lets loose with the full breadth of her power, there would be innumerable civilian casualties."
He folded his arms. "In the middle of the close-combat chaos, maybe someone slips a blade in between her ribs, a lucky arrow hits her back, and down goes the strongest woman in the world. That's the plan I'd have used, at least." He noticed the look he was being given and held up his hands. "I didn't get much sleep last night, too busy thinking about the case. I've gone over every strategy I could think of that involved hostages, and that's the only one that seemed likely to pan out." Her eyes narrowed and the tips of her fingers started to smolder. "And did you think about anything actually helpful to our needs?!" He nodded, scratching his head. "Yeah, that was kinda the point. I considered a few possibilities about the wall. This was my bet on what happened, so it's nice to know I was right. Anyways, the spy has been here, probably since Chin started his conquest. Who suggested the wooden barricade? Because that's also my bet on who it was." She shook her head. "It was suggested at a town meeting. We have a ledger that says who attended, but I don't remember who put it forth." He rubbed his chin. "A list of suspects is always helpful, even if it's not exact. That's the next stop."
"I have a few questions for you first, though." Her eyes widened. "Me?" He made a production out of looking around the area. "Well, unless there's another firebender around here, yes, you. Are you and Kyoshi the only ones in the village? I keep looking for an ignition point, like you'd normally see if someone manually lit a fire. See, when tinder goes up, there's a quick burst of heat, and it scorches the ground, then the secondary stuff goes up and leaves a larger but less pronounced burn, then the big shit just warms it up, not really doing much other than drying it out. In this case, the big shit is the logs, and the tinder is the dry grass. But I can't find a single trace of the medium, so I have to assume that the grass was a casualty and the logs were torched up directly. That'd take a pretty hot flame, thus, firebender." She poked a finger into his chest, glaring at him. "I don't like what you're implying." He shrugged. "I asked a question. Infer from that what you will, I already told you exactly why I'm asking it." Her face clouded, wrinkles appearing on her forehead. "I can't say for sure, but as far as I know, yes." Shen nodded. "So we're dealing with someone who presents themselves as a non-bender. Good to know, a decent part of the population is out now. How long did it take you to get here after the wall was broken?" The clouds dissipated to reveal upturned brows and pursed lips. "You aren't suspecting me?" He flicked her forehead with a finger and she unconsciously covered it up. "Earth to hotwoman, did I not just say that whoever it was had to have arrived here within the start of Chin's conquest? Besides, even if I were to throw that fairly rock solid fact out, you would still be in the bottom two on my suspect list."
The next object of his inspection was the area of field past his table flip. The grass and dirt was matted from the few hundred feet that had worn it down, showing the clear path the army took from the forest fifty meters away to the edge of the wall. Shen frowned. "Do you make a policy of hiring the disabled as guards?" Rangi was dead silent as a cricket chirped somewhere nearby. "I'll take that as a no. Then our spy took care of at least one, maybe more, while they were setting the fire and while the troops were marching up, otherwise they would've been spotted instantly. And here I was hoping to avoid checking the bodies. Oh well, I said I'd crack it and crack it I shall." He hummed and set to work arranging the bodies of the guards into neat rows, sand welling out from underneath them and floating them wherever he so chose. He rubbed his chin as he inspected them, before he noticed a pattern in three. "That's one hell of a coincidence, unless it's not." Each of their backs had a stab wound, in almost the same exact spot.
Sand flowed into the wounds and he made it solidify. He pulled the blade casts out, with a flat plane of rock on each. His frown deepened. "Weird." Rangi plucked one from his hands and rotated it. "Pretty simple dagger. One of these to the back would kill anyone, especially in the back of their kidneys like that. What's so weird about it?" He put the other two in front of her face, making her recoil from the sharp points. "Look. Two of them are angled to the right, probably making it a left-handed strike. But the one you have there is angled left. For whatever reason, they swapped hands to stab the third guard. Why the hell would they do that?" Rangi tried to flick him in the forehead. She pulled her finger away and rubbed it, a small bruise forming. "Is your head a rock?" He knocked on his forehead and a skin-colored piece of rock fell off. "Sometimes. Go on, make the obvious deduction that follows the flick." "If your left arm is your main arm and it gets hurt in battle, you swap to the right arm." He blinked, then flicked his own forehead. "I deserved that. A more precise question, then: What hurt them that badly?" She shrugged and started looking at the right angled casts. "We know these two were killed first. Maybe the answer is somewhere on them." He recreated the gourd on his back from his time as Gaara and let them float inside. He shrugged at the look she gave him. "It's a good way to store stuff and it's not all that heavy."
They had peeled off the armor and clothes of the first two guards to die and set them aside. Rangi was the first one to spot something odd. "There's more than one cut in the fat one's clothes." He moved over from his position examining the other's armor and knelt down next to her. "Hm. Even further to the left. Now just what would…" he stood up and raised a level field of stone. A near perfect replica of the man made from sand appeared across from him. "What are you doing?" He took one of the casts out for reference and made a small dagger that seemed about the right size. He stabbed the replica in the back in the right spot with his left hand. Then he glanced back at the bloodstained linen and pulled out the dagger, scraping against the sand version of the same. His frown deepened further. "There's no reason for that to be there. If it was closer, I wouldn't put much importance on it, but the distance I had to move my hand, that would've needed to be done deliberately." He knelt down to take another look at the linen.
A spark of inspiration struck him, plain as day in his eyes. He swept his hand over it and restored it to the way it was seconds ago. He stabbed the replica again, but this time something else happened. As he was pulling the dagger out, it slumped over, falling back onto him. The dagger pressed against the sand cloth, and when the 'corpse' fell onto him totally, the blade jabbed back onto his wrist. "Yes! I knew it! That's how they got hurt! He fell back on them and the dagger fucked up their wrist!" Rangi rubbed her chin before looking down at her hand and shaking her head. "They'd have to be slight to get crushed so easily. Doesn't this raise another question?"
He shrugged. "That's how investigations go. Questions lead to questions that lead to questions that lead to the culprit. Shoot." Her eyebrows knotted. "How did they get up there to stab the guards in the first place?" Shen looked at her like she'd just asked him what two plus two was. "I guess everybody has their off moments. There's two broad possibilities. They were supposed to be up there or they weren't. If they were supposed to be, then they were a guard, if they weren't, they snuck up there. Were the guard's positions handpicked or was it a volunteer duty?" Apparently Rangi had grown used to his assumptions being correct as her face relaxed. "Any of the normal peacekeeping forces that wanted to stand guard was allowed to. I'm afraid looking through their numbers won't help much, they're all very active members of the community and attend meetings often." Shen rubbed his chin. "Not very likely they snuck in, then?" Rangi flexed her fingers, twin tongues of fire alighting on her index and middle. "Seven dead guards. They work in pairs, and there weren't any other ones around. It had to have been one of them." He rummaged through the corpses once more, checking for anything he might've missed, and something he missed indeed. "All men. Can I assume missing number eight would've been male too?"
Rangi's expression was complete and utter shock. "Every trained woman in this village is part of the Kyoshi Warriors. How did you manage to come here without knowing that?" He scratched the back of his head sheepishly. "Ehm. Is that what the hot ladies in green were? Kinda narcissistic to call them that. But I can see the benefits of only training women, same diet, workout, and lesson plans." "You're towing the line dangerously close to sexism." He shrugged. "I don't have the luxury of being sexist. Anyone, be it man, woman, child, the elderly, can slip a blade between my ribs. Letting my guard down for even a second towards anyone could mean death." Her glowing bronze eyes dampened for a second. "That's a very lonely way to live." He shrugged again. "Even if I can't let my guard down completely, there's still people I can relax it mostly with. I used to have someone I could let my guard down with, and every time I remember her, it's like there's another fresh wound ripped in my gut." He waved his hand. "But anyways. Male suspects exclusively, that's great to know, half the list gone instantly! Come on, I need you to show me to the town meeting hall so we can pick up this ledger." He turned back to the town as if he hadn't just made himself more vulnerable before her than if he'd bared his neck and given her a knife.