Chapter Twenty-One: Purged of Tyrants
The barracks was silent. No sounds of fighting outside could even be heard.
"Check every room," Shifu whispered. "Leave nothing untouched."
The Masters began to spread out a little. While each of his students searched the rooms, Shifu scanned every inch of the hallway and listened intently for any sound of movement. He moved forward very slowly, as if he was stalking the otter.
Then he froze. At the other end of the hall, a dark figure suddenly materialized. She looked directly at him as if she was waiting for him to move.
"Ruili!" Shifu shouted.
He dashed forward as his students came running out of the other rooms. Ruili ran as soon as Shifu did. Knowing she was weak and wanting it to be over, Shifu doubled his pace. If anyone could catch her, he could.
Then he stopped very suddenly, almost at the spot Ruili had been.
His students slowed to a stop as he turned slowly to look at them. They all looked down at his feet.
He was trapped in a snare.
"Master?" Tigress started.
"Not a step closer," Shifu said very firmly. "This was meant to take us all out. Once I activate this trap, continue after Ruili."
"But... you might..." Vixey began.
"No stupid trap can kill me," Shifu told them. "Catch Ruili and end this battle."
He swung his staff at a nearby rope that no one else had seen. It was as if the walls around Shifu were blasted away and suddenly, he was gone. The other Masters ran to the hole in the outer wall, helplessly watching their Master fly toward the Valley among splintered wood.
"We need to go!" Tigress ordered. "Now!"
The others, hesitantly at first, pried their eyes off where their Master had now disappeared to and continued running after Ruili.
Tian tripped as she tried to evade the deadly arrows. As she prepared a barrier that likely wouldn't protect her from everything, a small figure landed right next to her.
"Don't you dare touch my sister!" Shifu shouted.
With only his staff, which at times seemed invisible, he deflected every single arrow and took out every bat that had shot at them, scattering the rest.
Tian picked herself up.
"Shifu! The students!" she started.
Shifu looked back up at the Palace.
"They're on their own now," he told her.
The Masters now scanned everything in sight, cautious to find any trap set to catch them, while trying to find Ruili again. They turned a corner to go down the other hallway and were startled.
There was Ruili, a few feet away, staring at them very calmly. It was unnerving.
"How can you still be here?" she asked. "All together? Through days and weeks of hardship, you haven't splintered. Surely, the poison should have destroyed you."
Po scoffed.
"What poison?" he asked. "You're not making any sense!"
"Don't you know?" Ruili told them all. "Something vile is creeping up on all of you. Between you. Filling the entirety of your beings."
The Masters were all confused, but didn't let down their guard.
"A quickened heartbeat," Ruili continued, "a slight burning, some shaking, a few cold chills."
"What are you talking about?" Po demanded. "Nothing's coming up between any of us!"
However, Tigress's gaze shifted to her fists. They were trembling. And she felt like she was about to shiver.
"Panic begins to set in," the otter continued on, catching Tigress's shift in attention. "As panic sets in, it all goes by so fast."
True to what her enemy said, Tigress could feel her heart racing and she began to panic. This had to end now.
"Get her!" she cried.
As soon as any of the Masters took one step forward, Ruili darted away. As they chased her down the hall, she suddenly fled into one of the rooms. As they ran in, they realized it was the storage room. Crates and cleaning utensils were piled up almost to the ceiling. There was almost no room for all of them to fight in here.
Then it was as if several crates exploded. The closest Masters attempted to strike Ruili as she darted around the room. She continued to jump at crates to shatter them with her body, sending projectiles at her enemies. She kept evading attacks as if she was a snake in a bog.
Then she escaped the storage room. The Masters chased her to the kitchen, where she made a mess of everything as she had done in the storage room. Monkey and Vixey were temporarily dazed by flying pots and pans and the others were lucky to just evade them.
They continued to chase Ruili from room to room, only to have each place demolished and Ruili to escape again and again. Frustration was growing as she leapt away again.
"She's getting away!" Viper cried.
They saw Ruili charge toward another room, deliberately crashing through a part of the doorway, causing timbers to start crashing down. In a split-second decision, Tigress slid under everything without getting a scratch. The entrance was now completely blocked.
"Come on! Hurry!" Monkey shouted on the other side of the debris.
"Get her, Tigress!" Vixey called. "We'll get through as soon as we can!"
On the opposite end of the room, Ruili was on her hands and knees, panting. Tigress approached carefully, ready for a surprise attack.
"Still standing, are you?" Ruili asked, a rasp in her voice. "I'm surprised you haven't collapsed yet."
"What are you talking about?" Tigress demanded. "I'm nowhere near collapsing yet!"
Ruili turned wearily to her.
"I saw it all from my window," she said. "I saw you push that great fuzz ball out of the way and, from the way you jumped back, I was sure you'd been struck."
Tigress's mind raced back to that moment, when she'd saved Po's life. Yes, she had been cut, but it hadn't bled.
It hadn't bled. Tigress reached for the wound and her hand came back bloody.
"Proof," Ruili cackled. "You don't have long at all."
"I have long enough to take you down!" Tigress told her desperately.
"We'll see about that," Ruili growled, and she leapt at the tiger.
The room was wrecked within seconds. Tigress did a great deal more dodging than attacking. Ruili dove at her every chance she had, and she was extremely fast.
Tigress struck out and missed often. She did land a few hits, but Ruili had jumped out of the way so quickly that they were near-misses and lacked full power.
Then, a lucky strike. She put all her strength behind a punch and made contact with Ruili's chest. The otter flew into a shelf that splintered and collapsed on her. As the shelf fell apart, Ruili fell out of the wreckage and tumbled to a stop.
Tigress cautiously approached the otter, but her enemy hadn't moved.
Ruili chuckled.
"How proud you must be," she said. "You just saved the Valley... but you haven't saved yourself. I knew I would die... I only wanted to get that poison racing through your veins... Now you'll die, too... You will all... die..."
She attempted to laugh, but lacked the energy. She fell silent and unmoving.
Tigress gasped for breath. She felt like her heart was going to pound out of her chest. She looked at the dead otter and then at the wreckage that kept her friends from getting through. She took a step and fell forward, losing the strength to proceed.
"H-hurry," she said weakly.
She watched the broken planks and other debris shift slightly as her sight began to fade.
"Come on!" Vixey cried. "We need to get through! Mantis, did you find a hole?"
Mantis grunted with exertion and tumbled forward as the debris finally let him through. He rolled to his feet and jumped toward Tigress. He was shocked to see that she was bleeding from a wound in her abdomen.
"Tigress! Come on! Wake up!" Mantis told her.
Tigress's gaze went from him to the wreckage in the doorway and back to him.
"I've done my duty..." she said weakly and promptly fainted.
"It doesn't look good!" he cried, trying to revive her. "Hurry!"
"We're trying!" Po shouted.
The debris shifted enough for him to see. He nearly fainted. Tigress was bleeding a lot. When he saw what was causing the bleeding, his heart nearly stopped.
"She said that wasn't bleeding!" he cried.
"What?" Vixey asked. "What wasn't bleeding?"
"She got cut when she pushed me away!" Po told her. "Rong Da almost got me with an axe, but-!"
Vixey turned petrified.
"She's poisoned," she said. "Viper! She's poisoned! Hurry!"
"I'm on it!" the snake replied.
She climbed over the debris and slid through the hole Po had found. As soon as she was near enough, she shot forward and sank her fangs into Tigress's wrist. When she let go, she began helping Mantis try to wake her up and get her to stop bleeding.
"I'll get the healers!" Crane cried before flying out the wrecked Palace wall.
"Jin!" Monkey said. "Get Shifu! He needs to know!"
Jin nodded and also fled the Palace.
The remaining Masters finally cleared the wreckage and rushed to Tigress, who remained unresponsive. Vixey checked her pulse and breathing.
"Please don't die on us, Tigress!" she cried, tears falling down her cheeks. "Please don't!"
"Master!"
Shifu turned to see Jin sliding down the mountain from the Palace. The young tiger's expression worried him.
"Has Ruili been defeated?" he asked.
"Yes," Jin said, out of breath. "But it's Tigress! She was poisoned and Crane is getting the healers! We're not sure if she'll make it..."
He was sure Shifu would have fallen down if he weren't holding his staff. He caught a movement a distance behind the old Master and saw Tian race off toward the Palace.
"Did... did Viper..." Shifu began to ask.
"Yes," Jin told him. "Viper bit her just before I left."
"Then let us pray that was enough to keep her alive," Shifu said. "Assist the villagers. Many of them were wounded."
"I'll see to it," Jin answered.
Shifu took a moment to gather himself before racing after his sister. Jin watched him go and then realized - Xinli! She had wanted to speak with him! He ran to find her.
"Jin! Where have you been?"
Jin stopped running to find Huo Zhang.
"Where is she?" he asked him. "Where's Xinli? She wanted to talk to me!"
His friend looked shocked and a little scared to tell him.
"She's... she's over here!" he said. "Come! Quickly!"
The mood scared Jin. He followed his friend to a house not far from Mr. Ping's restaurant. He ran up the staircase after his friend and stopped in the doorway of a room.
Xinli lay on the bed on the far end of the room. Hei'an knelt next to the bed and laid his head on her chest, looking as if he was crying. Zhu sat next to him, tears in her eyes, and rubbing her husband's back.
"Jin," she said, "I'm sorry. She just passed."
At first, Jin couldn't believe what he was hearing. She was lying. She had to be. He felt frozen as he looked at his beloved girlfriend, laying on that bed with her brother and sister-in-law crying over her.
Then the dam broke.