Those words alone from the Inquisitor were enough to unsettle Zhao Jingzhong. A man who no longer valued his own life could still be threatened by using those he sought to protect. Standing at the edge of the courtyard, Mayumi felt her understanding sharpen with cruel clarity, this is what it meant to stand against the infamous guardians in brocade.
"Zhao Jingzhong," the Inquisitor called. "You remember what becomes of those who dare wield our safeguarded techniques against the state, do you not? For all your yearning for so-called freedom, this is its cost."
It was a rhetorical question. No one understood better than a former Dai Li himself. Even so, his other half stepped boldly to his side, openly proclaiming that any who sought to apprehend him would first have to strike her down. Plainly, each valued the other's life above their own.
"Is that a challenge," the Inquisitor asked her. "Or a prediction?"
To even dabble in the Dai Li's secrets is to court death. The remaining four agents in embroidered uniform seemed to agree. Even Ba Sing Se's most infamous thieves and wanderers hesitated before crossing the city's cultural guardians, men who possessed the authority to make, or unmake kings.
"Take them alive," the Inquisitor ordered, though his tone suggested a tinge of doubt, knowing this task may be difficult to regular Dai Li agents. "If possible."
The four agents struck as one, driving their fists forward with rigid precision. The air surged with four earthen gauntlets, the signature weapon of their order. To the untrained eye, this precise method of bending appeared unfamiliar. To those who understood it, it was lethality distilled.
Zhao Jingzhong and his partner responded without hesitation. A thin wall rose to intercept the gauntlets. In the same motion, the woman countered with her own earthen gauntlet forming in near-perfect imitation. She punched repeatedly, unleashing a hail of compacted earth that forced the agents to erect hasty defenses of their own.
One shot managed to slip through.
The small projectile struck a Dai Li agent square in the torso, embedding itself deep within flesh. A common soldier would have screamed. The injured Dai Li, though young and perhaps newly inducted, only clenched his teeth and rejoined the fray.
"Will you not assist?" Mayumi called to the painted man.
"For the newest generation to surpass their predecessors," the Inquisitor said solemnly. "They must not be allowed to grow complacent fighting weaker foes."
Zhao Jingzhong, with his experience showed, moved with startling speed. He caught a steel chain mid-swing and drove its cuff deep into the courtyard floor. The agent tried to separate himself from the metal chain and attempted to dislocate the renegade's arm by firing a precise shot from the gauntlet. Zhao Jingzhong answered by bending the entrapped metal chain along with a generous mass of earth, hurling it and allowing the still connected chain to drag cultural guardian into the clay roof tiles of a nearby building.
Across the courtyard, the woman fully utilized the Dai Li's own techniques, the signature earthen gauntlet. She ducked beneath a whistling small boulder and answered with a storm of earthen shrapnel, tearing an enforcer's helmet free and spattering another agent's robe with his own blood.
Were it not for timely intervention, the outcome would have been far worse. A carefully placed shot from the Inquisitor himself struck her arm, disrupting her stance and silencing her relentless barrage of small earthen projectiles.
As intended, this was enough for Zhao Jingzhong's attention to be faltered for a single, fatal instant.
The Inquisitor seized it, charging forward with a simple blade drawn. The simple weapon was unadorned, but efficient when used in a specific circumstance. No matter how formidable a former Dai Li might be, metal remains a stubborn adversary, an substance that will not readily yield to the will of even the most disciplined Earthbender. A common sword does not crumple beneath intent alone, nor does it falter for the treachery of a man caught unprepared.
Bereft of loose earth with which to wrench the blade aside, Zhao Jingzhong was forced to improvise. With a sharp motion, he snapped a flick of stone from the ground, knocking the saber's stab off its true path. It was almost enough, but the edge still found him, carving a shallow but searing line across his face.
The fray erupted in earnest. Here, the Inquisitor revealed the full meaning of his title within the ranks of embroidered brocade. The Dai Li were already feared as cold, efficient arbiters of the Earth Kingdom's will, kingmakers and jailers alike, capable of subduing generals and breaking master Earthbenders. Yet any secret police worthy of the name understood that purging one's own demanded something far rarer than skill, which is an emotional detachment so absolute it eclipsed even loyalty. Even the sternest servant of the state might hesitate before spilling the blood of a comrade. An Inquisitor did not.
Zhao Jingzhong held his ground as the Inquisitor pressed him into a duel, though one could argue the younger man was merely indulging himself, toying with the renegade rather than ending him outright. Even so, Mayumi knew what most warriors understood instinctively, a single rogue Dai Li may often be more dangerous than an entire mob of religious fanatics. However despised the secret police might be, their Earthbending honed from a malleable childhood into something precise and merciless was uniquely lethal.
"The world may appear alluring," the Inquisitor said coldly, his voice untroubled by the chaos around them. "But its pleasures are poison, seeping into the ranks of embroidered brocades." His gaze lingered on Zhao Jingzhong's bleeding face. "How disappointing. It seems not even the finest among us are immune to such petty temptations."
Without a word, the remaining Dai Li closed ranks around the woman, positioning their earthen gauntlets if the need to execute the seditionist is required immediately. Given the cultural guardians' notorious reputation, there could be no doubt. Anyone who pried too deeply into their methods would receive no mercy.
"Do not harm her!" Zhao Jingzhong pleaded, even as he maintained the distinctive Dai Li Earthbending stance. "I alone broke the rules!"
"Consorting with a daofei, selling the secrets of the state," the Inquisitor's calm demeanor barely concealed the fury beneath. "You have gone far beyond broken rules. As touching as your devotion may be, your loyalties are now clear. Had this merely been a slight against the Director, perhaps mercy might have been considered. Instead, you betrayed his trust and endangered the lives of your colleagues."
With no further deliberation, the Inquisitor soon sheathed his blade and punched both his Earthen gauntlets back and forth. A dense hail of stone pellets tore through the courtyard, launched with a velocity far exceeding that of ordinary cultural guardians. Zhao Jingzhong hastily raised a thin earthen wall, but it splintered and eroded under the relentless barrage.
One pellet buried into the renegade in his right torso. Another grievous wound.
Desperate to spare the woman from the cruel ingenuity of his former brethren, the renegade chose to fight, a decision he knew even then was folly. Yet even wounded, a former Dai Li remained deadly. He retaliated with razor-thin shards of stone, hurled with surgical precision at the painted Inquisitor. Most missed, gouging the courtyard and surrounding walls, some flew perilously close to the Dai Li agents restraining the outlaw woman, even forcing the Kyoshi Warrior near the entrance to deflect them with her blade.
One shard struck true, tearing into the Inquisitor's chest. Blood seeped through the exquisite dark-green brocade, staining the golden coin emblem as it trickled downward. But even that meagre symbolic victory wasn't enough to save oneself from the indifferent vengeance of the state.
The two skilled Earthbenders exchanged blows with brutal efficiency, each aiming not merely to wound but to erase the other's ability to fight. In the end, youth and ruthlessness prevailed. The Inquisitor fired a final pellet that slammed into Zhao Jingzhong's chest, skirting the heart by a cruel margin.
Zhao Jingzhong vomited a dark pool of blood, a sight that left the trembling woman utterly mortified. And yet, anyone who dared claim a former Dai Li was weak needed only look to the Inquisitor's shattered gauntlets, now fully expended. There were techniques even the Dai Li could not entirely suppress.
Seizing the moment, two Dai Li agents quickly pinned the traitor to the ground, clamping metal cuffs around his wrists. They then wrenched his arms sideward, stretched in opposite directions, a small satisfaction for the Inquisitor. Nearby, Zhao Jingzhong's accomplice crumpled before another Dai Li, reduced to silent terror.
"A lifetime of service," Zhao Jingzhong spat bitterly through bloodied lips. "For what? You have nothing to cherish, and no one who will remember you."
The words failed to stir the Inquisitor, or the other Dai Li agents. The former merely carried out his usual duty with practiced detachment. When treason festered within their own ranks, and when one consorted with outlaws and endangered the state itself, no punishment could be too severe.
"Fear not," the Inquisitor said evenly. "Depending on what follows, I am certain you will remember me with great clarity. Her mouth is of lesser value to us than yours."