The next morning, the mood and the atmosphere in the Jade Temple was more or less the same it had been the previous evening, only Crane and Viper behaved a lot closer to each other, and there was certain carefulness between Kajirn and Tigress. Every time they looked into each other's eyes for some reason, they immediately pulled away again. Breakfast was underway, and the group was now together at the table.

-''Man…'' Monkey was the first one to break the slightly ominous silence. ''I really got some good sleep this night. How about you guys?''

-''Me too, actually. I am usually too worried of something to get enough sleep, but this time I didn't wake up or anything. I feel real good!'' Mantis then raised his voice slightly higher than usual, sounding very enthusiastic.

-''Well, we all know that, Mantis.'' Viper then said gently. ''You usually get real grumpy if you don't get enough sleep, and that doesn't happen seldom.'' This comment caused almost everyone, including Mantis himself, to laugh.

-''How about you, Shifu? Did you get enough sleep this night?'' Monkey then asked, turning to his master. Shifu simply growled lowly, sounding irritable. Po then chuckled at it.

-''He hasn't woken up yet, that's all.'' The great panda said with a smirk. This made Shifu give him a sharp jab in his side. Po bent over to one side with a grunt of pain before getting back up again.

-''What was that good for?'' Po exclaimed accusingly as he gripped his gut where Shifu had jabbed him.

-''I am awake, Po.'' He then said. ''I am just bugged by what happened in the panda village. I mean, Tai Lung more or less killed everyone there except for us… I just don't get it.'' Po winced as his parents were named as two of the killed victims. ''And he survived the hold that you used on him. I simply do not understand. When Oogway taught me about the hold, he said that one couldn't ever make it if it was used on you…'' Shifu almost trailed as one word crept into his head: Impossible.

-''I'd say that we shouldn't think so much about it.'' Crane interfered, throwing Viper a very friendly side-glance. ''It ought to give us nothing more than a headache.''

The morning passed, with a filling breakfast to grant the fighters energy. Everyone went to training shortly thereafter, and it stayed that way until evening. However, during afternoon, somehow Kajirn ended up alone in the main training room alone with Tigress. The others had gone outside for a bit.

For the first whiles, neither of them said anything. They acted as if they didn't know that the other one was there. After a time of silence had passed, Kajirn decided to move on to what he called ''The spinning branches of death''. They were created to put one's dexterity on test. Kajirn performed really well at first, but when he suddenly stopped without any reason whatsoever, Tigress threw him a very quick glance. When one of the spinning branches nailed Kajirn right in the face, sending him flying through the air and eventually crashing into the floor, Tigress stopped her own training and watched him as he slid across the floor towards her. When he stopped, she couldn't stop herself from wondering what had made him miss.

-''Hey, Kajirn, was it?'' Tigress gently asked the young tiger who was lying on the ground. ''Sorry for what I did yesterday, I didn't mean it, I just got angry and… Well…'' Tigress held her paw out in an offer to help Kajirn up. After a short moment of hesitation, Kajirn grabbed her paw and she hoisted him up to his feet. Now that they were a lot closer to each other, Tigress saw the ugly wound that her claw had left on his face.

-''It's fine, really… I'm sort of used to it.'' Kajirn mumbled as he looked down into the floor. ''But it was my fault too. I didn't know how much I hurt you when I said that you had no emotions. I'm really sorry for that.'' Tigress smiled at him.

-''It wasn't your fault, Kajirn. Not the least bit. But what did you mean when you said that you were used to it?'' She asked with a very soft voice.

It took some fishing, but Tigress finally got it out from Kajirn. It turned out that in his early teen ages, around thirteen and fourteen, he had asked a girl to go out with him on a dance, but apparently, the girl got upset and slapped him across the face, and that was pretty hard. That was the first time it had happened, but it wasn't going to be the last for that part. He explained how Tigress' claw had hurt, but in a different manner.

-''That's pretty sad…'' Tigress murmured as Kajirn finished telling her the story. Kajirn was still a little sad about the fact that he had been rejected so roughly, but he said that he had gotten over it. Tigress didn't quite believe that.

-''But why did those girls reject you, Kajirn? I mean, don't take this wrong, but you look really good. If I didn't already have Po, I'd gladly accept you.'' Tigress explained to her shocker friend. ''You know what?'' She then asked sort of slyly. Kajirn slowly shook his head.

-''I think I want to help you to find some kind of girlfriend. Po and I are together, and from what I've heard, Crane and Viper are together as well. Neither Monkey nor Mantis wants any, but you do, I take? Why should you be different?'' Tigress almost cooed as if she tried to comfort the young fighter.

-''Well, no need to hurry. My mom taught me many things, and one of those things is patience. If you don't have any patience, you aren't going to get far in this life. That's why I never rush things. And that applies to fighting too. Use patience to find a weakness in your opponents defences. When you have found it, strike, and your enemy will go down before you know it.'' Kajirn said to the female Kung Fu fighter.

-''Well, no offense.'' Tigress chuckled. ''I've been in this business for quite some time. I don't think that you can teach me anything.''

-''You should always keep your mind wide open. There's always something new to learn.'' Kajirn said shortly while looking at a training dummy standing by a wall. He then thought of an idea that would probably impress Tigress. He cleared his throat shortly, once again gaining Tigress' attention.

-''Let me demonstrate what I mean.'' Kajirn said as he pointed at the training dummy. ''Can you move that closer to me, please?'' Tigress didn't know what he was going to do, but she still did as he asked and moved the dummy so that it was now standing only a few feet away from Kajirn.

-''What are you going to do, Kajirn?'' Tigress asked curiously.

-''You'll see.'' Kajirn said shortly. ''Now, if you may, please step aside. I'll need some room to move in order to do this.'' Tigress took a few steps backwards, giving Kajirn the room that he needed. Kajirn slowly stretched some of his muscles before doing something that Tigress had never seen in his entire life.

At first, nothing happened. Tigress kept looking on patiently while waiting for Kajirn to pull off his move. When a few minutes had passed, she almost considered walking up to him and shaking his shoulder, but when Kajirn mumbled something, she pushed the thought out of the way.

Then, it happened. Kajirn started to float upwards slowly, gaining a few inches every second. When he had ascended around ten feet or so, he was about halfway up to the roof.

-''Behold!'' Kajirn then boomed with an unnaturally dark voice. He then mumbled some kind of command word that Tigress didn't understand. Before long, some kind of blue light appear, circling Kajirn. Eventually, the blue light formed a perfect sphere around Kajirn, and after that, it seemed as if it turned to water. The blue light became aquatic in front of Tigress' eyes. She gaped in awe as the blue water finally settled still around Kajirn, who was still airborne.

With another sort of command word, the blue water was set ablaze. Kajirn then started to descend, and the blue water that had surrounded him before had now turned into some kind of fire. Tigress had never seen anything of the liking, and it was a completely new experience. Eventually, the fire completely engulfed Kajirn, hiding everything that he was away from Tigress. He now looked like a person made out of fire.

Kajirn then raised an arm, his arm pointing outwards, towards the training dummy Tigress had placed. A stream of liquid fire broke out from his palm, heading for the dummy. The fire then made contact with the dummy, and the wood started to melt in front of her eyes. She gasped, almost not believing what she saw. Kajirn then descended completely, his feet touching the ground. He stopped the liquid fire and then turned to Tigress.

Before she could react, Kajirn blasted a ball of blue fire from his fist. It whizzed through the air, flying past Tigress' head with just a few inches of distance between. Tigress quickly swayed to one side as the fireball flew by. Kajirn chuckled slightly. Then, with one sweeping motion with his arm, all of the fire disappeared, including off of himself. It was as if he had never used it.

-''The Avatar of Blue Fire. Works in all situations.'' Kajirn smiled as he reverted back to his normal form.

-''As seldom as I say this... That was awesome.'' Tigress said enthusiastically while complimenting Kajirn's move. ''Where did you learn it, Kajirn?''

-''Well...'' Kajirn began. ''I learned it from a templar in one of the villages I passed through on my way here. I had helped to ward of a bandit attack on the village, and as thanks, the templar offered to teach me the move. It's really useful, but I'm telling you, it was a hell of a pain to learn it. It took several weeks just to achieve the concentration you need to have in order to use it. Then, it took almost a year for me to use it in combat properly.'' Kajirn explained to his amazed friend.

-''Kajirn, just one question.'' Tigress then said, sounding like she was wondering about something.

-''Yeah, go ahead. Ask me anything you want.'' Kajirn responded in a friendly tone.

-''Well... Where do you come from? I mean, you said that you came here from a faraway place. Why didn't you stay in your old home?'' At this question, all the happiness that had been present in Kajirn's face was now gone, and replaced with a distinct sadness.

-''None of your business.'' He then snarled, turning his back. Tigress was shocked at this, but before she had the chance to say anything back, Shifu came bursting into the hall.

-''Tigress, and Kajirn! We have to go! There is an attack on a nearby village, and their population are very skilled craftsmen. We can't let any bandits get their hands on equipment like that.'' The small red panda explained to the two warriors.

-''We are ready. Where are the others?'' Kajirn said before Tigress had a chance to say anything.

-''They are already outside, waiting for you. Shall we go?''

-''Yeah.'' Tigress then said quickly, throwing a quick glare at Kajirn before proceeding outside.

(A/N: Sorry if this chapter is worse than usual. My previous one accidently got deleted, and I'm fuming because of that. Anyhow, here's the chapter that you've been waiting for, and I hope you enjoy.)