The behaviour is mostly inspired by my experiences and Doki Doki Literature Club.
Summary: Master Shifu holds a dark secret about his adoptive daughter which is ruining her life.
Isn't this a breach of privacy? I'm sure Tigress would want some privacy if she has overslept, but she has never overslept before.
I abolish all second thoughts before gently opening the door, "Tigress?" I immediately notice her dilated eyes and twitching movements, she had blood dripping down her arm revealing small gashes made by a pocketknife.
She barely noticed my presence, it made my heart melt like hot wax.
Tigress was still wearing her nighttime clothes which was a black, silky tank top with a cardigan to preserve herself from the cold. One of the straps hung over her shoulder along with the cardigan, showing off her bare shoulder.
Her pants were thigh - length shorts, flaunting her amazing legs earned from the hours of working out and doing Kung Fu.
All her fur was extremely messy from a lack of grooming. I can't stand to see her like this, "P-Po, I-I..." There were no excuses for this behaviour.
Instead of finding an excuse, she smiled and laughed, despite it being extremely misplaced.
"Tigress! Your acting, really really weird. This is really out of character for you."
She only tilted her head at me, making me feel physically sick, "Goodbye Po~" Tigress staggered out of her room, leaving behind a few little puddles of blood that dripped off her hand while she sliced into her own flesh.
A Day Earlier
I sit at the table eating my breakfast with the others, laughing about God knows what. I look around at everyone, but Tigress was completely out of it.
I wave my hand in front of her face, "Hey, you okay?"
Tigress blinked a couple times, "Yeah. Just tired." She responded, quickly popping another piece of Tofu in her mouth to finish off.
"I'm going off to train." Without another word, she was gone.
Weird word choice.
'I'm going to train early' Is what she'd usually say, but to be honest, speaking wasn't her strong point.
Her strong point was always... strength? Does take the word 'strong point' to another level.
Another thing, why am I the only one to notice her behaviour?
"Is Tigress okay?" I asked the others.
Viper answered quickly, "Yeah, this happens sometimes. We can't figure out why, but this never affected how she trained."
"If you call getting out of bed training then get a dictionary." Mantis sneekly muttered, earning earning a smack from Monkey with his hand making Mantis yelp.
"No one will tell us anything, either they don't know, or something big is going on." Crane admitted, eating the last noodle in his bowl.
Suddenly, a large sound vibrated through out the palace.
It's time for training.
I packed up and left to train.
When training, I looked over to Tigress to see if she's avaliable to train, she appears to be.
She's more like standing and staring at some random object.
I decided to approach her, "Hey. Wanna train together?" She turned her head to face me with a look of shock.
"W-What?" She stuttered, but a lot louder then usual.
"Want to train?" I suggested, Tigress relaxed after tensioning when hearing her name called and tthe sound of liquid dripping onto the floor in front of her, disappearing in another's eyes.
She seemed to stammer quite a bit when answering, "I-I... Y-Yeah..." I eyedeyed the clothes she's wearing, her clothes seem to cover more of her body like she's covering something.
"Don't you want to take that jacket off? It's really hot in here." I suggested, Tigress lowered her head before shaking her head.
"No, it's too cold for me."
Honestly, I wasn't convinced.
Seriously? Too cold?
I mean, I'm not her but, it's still way too hot for her to be so cold, she'd wear a jacket.
I decided to drop it.
I can't press her for information, especially is she's just having one of her moments.
Up to an hour, we spared.
She still floored me.
Just putting that out there, but I did land a few hits and dodged a lot.
Evening eventually came, I immediately collapsed on my bed after eating with the group.
I close my eyes.
Hoping to fall asleep.
But something doesn't feel right.
No.
Something isn't right.
I stayed lounged on my bed, not being able to fall asleep.
Every time I closed my eyes, I just had to open them.
GONG!
Before I knew it, morning came with me not having any sleep.
I dash to the door, greeting Master Shifu before he could call out my name because I wasn't up in time.
I looked around.
Money.
Mantis.
Crane.
Viper.
Tig-
Where's Tigress?
I wonder, she's never done this before.
I offered to wake her up, with Shifu agreed to.
Everyone left me with the tigers door, as I walked up to it, getting ready to call out for her.
"Tigress!"
I ran!
Looking for Shifu.
Tigress is injured.
I dash into the hall, where all the artifacts lay to find the small red panda looking at me in shock because of the commotion.
"Master Shifu!" I called out, he looked at me in concern, expecting something silly, "Tigress is injured."
"What?" He questioned.
"She was covered in cuts, I think she did it to herself."
Suddenly, he sighed, almost like he wasn't that worried.
"I think you should know something. follow me Panda."
Curiously, I followed him...
"Alright, Panda. Take a look at these, I was given them after I adopted her." Master Shifu handed me a booklet with Tigress's full name printed in bold letters on the top, Tigressa Araiah Vennasa Valle. Very long name.
I flipped the pages, coming across a document with symptoms written down, including her age, responses, tolerances, sicknesses, and successful tests.
One immediately caught my attention; symptoms to ignore.
Vocal Tics
Self harm
Misplaced Laughter
Aggression against members of authority
Aggression against new people
Delusional thinking
Auditory Hallucinations
Visual Hallucinations
Twitching
Suicidal talk.
If she's seen experiencing any of these, immediately interrupt the experience and report if necessary.
"What is this?" I questioned, there are so many pages, too many pages.
"When I adopted her, she wasn't well. She was broken, traumatised, she kept going into states where she'd cut herself because the voices told her to do it, she even tried to stab herself in the stomach with a kitchen knife, it got so bad." He paused, I couldn't believe my ears, Master Tigress trying to stab herself with a knife?!
"I sent her to the doctor, she was diagnosed with, Ishiki Dylexa Shokogun. A rare mental disease that manifests under countless of trauma and having mixed DNA from two different animals having a child and birthing one of the two animals. She's one of the surviving babies. She received some form of food and she stopped having these states or they were unnoticeable, I don't know why this happened. She's technically another species that can't control their emotions."
I stared at him in shock, the most dangerous and rarest mental disorders exist within her? It kind of explains why she was so aggressive against me at first and still kind of is but she has a less chance of spooning my eyes out and making me eat them.
"She's dangerous, she has always been dangerous. That's why she was locked up in the first place, for her own safety and other people's." I now kind of understand why they locked her up, all this time she carried a disease which is extremely rare.
Master Shifu sighed before admitting, "I never knew that she was so broken in that way. I thought if I gave her a good home and fed her she'd be seen as a living person who can be controlled but all this time, she's been cutting over the tiniest emotions and even trying to hang herself from the ceiling."
I could really tell that he adored his adoptive daughter very much, but this whole time, she has been a danger to people, more importantly, herself.
Reading through the massive file of record, I couldn't help but feel sorry for Shifu.
All this time, he's been looking after a girl that couldn't control herself because of her past and genetics.
It's so messed up, I never thought that someone like her would be like this.
"That isn't all though." Shifu added, "You've noticed the change in her build from other people from the same species, the drugs she's taking right now, if stopping her development, but only decreases her symptoms."
Shifu went to the same silver box and took out a very beautifully drawn picture of a tiger.
"This is her mother." My eyes scanned the picture with fascination and shock, the curves, her whole body is so attractive. I might need to rub my eyes, this isn't real, she looks so similar, but at the same time. The differences are uncanny.
If Tigress stopped taking the drugs, she'd look like this? I was in shock honestly, to think that she'll change from the body of a child, to a woman will be so drastic.
But the side effect is that I'll lose my best friend to this sickness, she'll worsen and become unpredictable.
That's fucking terrifying.
"Where are the drugs?" I question, curiously.
"They're in a needle, she needs to inject it into her forearm everyday." I nod, understanding what they're going through, have injections everyday with life changing side effects, or have everything changed around and muddled up to the point that she can't even remember what her own name is.
Ouch.
I look at the documents again containing everything before handing them back to him.
"I got to talk to her."
