"Yukan! Yukan, where are you?" Shining Eagle called, running her way across the arena's backstage corridors. She, Kodok, and Master Shujinko had been searching for their friend for a few minutes now. They wanted to find him and find out why he decided to throw his match away. The golden eagle soon turned around a corner and spotted an orange figure approaching the exit doors leading out of the arena. "There he is! Yukan!"
Upon hearing this familiar voice, the sun parrot froze in his tracks. However, he did not turn around to look at them, even as they arrived behind him. "Yukan, there you are! We've been searching for you all around!" Kodok said. "What happened back there? You were about to take Daito out, but you decided to throw away the match."
Yukan frowned while hanging his head low, though the others could not see it. "I... I couldn't win... You saw the extend of his strength: it was way bigger than mine. I just... There was no point in continuing..."
"Don't give me that excuse!" Shining replied in a serious, firm tone. "That's not you, Yukan; even when your opponent is stronger than you, you still continue fighting until you win. You showed this when we faced Temutai in the Evergreen Village." She softened her expression and pulled her wing on her friend's shoulder. "Please, tell us what's bothering you..."
Somehow, the sun parrot managed to lift his emerald eyes to gaze into his friend's golden ones. "Is there something disturbing you, Yukan?" Master Shujinko asked carefully. The sun parrot took a moment before answering.
"It's just... I... It's hard to explain..." Yukan could only look at the floor and rub his eyes. He didn't know how to explain it. Was there even a way to tell them everything? No. He could not: they would get mad at him and kick him out of the Frog Dojo, and then... he would be alone again...
Master Shujinko couldn't help but smile. That's why he always felt Yukan was different from your typical Kung Fu student; he always carefully thought about how to approach a situation instead of making up lies. He was wise, brave, compassionate, and strong... but maybe a bit stubborn and impatient. In fact, the old frog would go as far as saying that Yukan was just like him when he was a young frog learning Kung Fu. And he was glad to have everything to teach him.
"We should go back to the stands now," Shujinko softly said with putting his hand on Yukan's leg. Before his other two students could protest, he talked again: "We can wait for Yukan to take his time and decide when to explain everything to us once he's ready for it. There is no point in urging things in life. Now come on, I really wanna see the Dragon Warrior in action."
"For the next match, I call the following participants: Dragon Warrior Po Ping and Kira Lee!" Nunzio announced.
"Awesome! It's finally my turn to fight!" Po beamed with jumping on place.
"Just be careful around that guy, Po. You remember what he did to Viper," Tigress told him.
"Bah, no worries. I'm sure I can handle it," the panda replied with a wave of his paw as he made his way down in the fighting zone.
"This is going to be good," Mantis chimed from the audience.
"Let's go, Po!" Monkey cheered. "I'm sure you can win, right, Viper?" As an answer to this, the snake looked down at her stomach and remembered the violent hits she took during her fight with Kira. This made her shiver.
Kira Lee jumped down as well, sweating a bit on his neck. He was going up against the legendary Dragon Warrior who saved the Valley of Peace from Tai Lung, one of the strongest Kung Fu warriors to ever live? This would not be an easy fight.
Po and Kira stood on opposite sides of the fighting zone, emerald eyes meeting red ones as the atmosphere got tense around them. "I just want to say that I'm really excited to face you. I saw your match against Viper and it was too cool!"
"Really?" the little blue and black dog asked with blinking his eyes. "But... aren't you a bit mad that I hurt your friend so badly."
"Nah, don't worry about that. That's part of the tournament, and besides, she's still alive, right?" Po asked with a wave of his paw.
Kira couldn't help but blink his eyes again. He heard that the Dragon Warrior had a great and compassionate heart, but not to that point. Any other warrior would have held a grudge against him and do anything to kick him out of the competition.
Meanwhile, back in the audience, Master Shujinko and his three students went back to sit at their place, finding an open one for Yukan. "There you are, guys!" one of the Frog Dojo's students said. "Say, why did you throw the match-" he asked, only to get cut off by Shujinko who rose his hand and shook his head.
"So, did we miss anything?" he asked.
"Well, you missed the previous match between Kivuli and Hong Ze."
"Oh no! Did Kivuli win?" Shining Eagle asked in worry.
"Yup; she won her match and moved on to the next round." Hearing this, the friends minus Yukan all sighed in relief. "The next match is about to start: it's between the Dragon Warrior and Kira Lee."
"Really? This should be interesting," Shujinko said as he sat down and took his teacup to drink again.
"Are both fighters ready?" Nunzio asked.
"Always ready for action!"
"Yes, sir!"
"In this case, let the third match... BEGIN!"
Both fighters took their stance, Po cracking his neck while Kira tensed his muscles, waiting for the right time to strike. He closed his eyes, focused... then lunged forward when Po least expected it, throwing a flurry of punches and kicks. The panda managed to dodge and block the little dog's paws and feet, but not without difficulty. He waited for Kira's attacks to slow down a bit before allowing himself to be hit in his stomach.
"IRON BELLY!"
As the panda's plump stomach bounced back, the hit caused Kira to get knocked back. Po attempted to follow with another belly strike. Since he was too small to block it, Kira avoided it by performing a cartwheel and then went for a roundhouse kick to his opponent's head. Po managed to rise his arm in time to block the hit and then grabbed the dog's leg before he could follow with another attack. Smirking, he started spinning before tossing Kira toward the arena's wall. However, he managed to stop his crash course by planting both feet into the wall and then jumped down on the floor.
The dog panted a bit, looking up at his opponent who smirked at him. "Looks like I may have to fight harder than I did with Master Viper...," he thought.
"Come on, Po! Kick his ass!" Monkey cheered.
"I just hope Kira won't use his aura power as he did against me," Viper mumbled.
"GET READY TO FEEL THE THUNDA!" Po shouted as he charged forward and sent many strikes and kicks toward Kira who switched to a defensive stance. He managed to either dodge or block all of them, but found himself getting backed up dangerously close to the wall. Not wanting to get trapped, he performed a graceful moonsault to jump over the panda, but in the process left himself open for an attack. Po saw this and hit the dog with his rear end, knocking him a few feet away again.
"Did he just used his butt as a weapon?" Siax asked.
"Yup...," Kivuli replied.
Kira groaned while looking at his opponent with a glare. "I can't just lose like this! Otherwise, Xue and my friends will all be disappointed!"
"Here's another specialty of mine. PANDA ROLL ATTACK!" Po launched himself forward and started rolling like a bowling ball toward his opponent. However, if he thought his opponent didn't have a counterattack, he was wrong. Kira dropped himself on his back and used both his paws and his feet to push the rolling panda in the air.
"Finesse over brute strength! This counter was impressive!" someone in the audience complimented.
"And doing this despite the size difference. This little Kira deserves some respect," someone else said.
"Didn't see that coming," Po admitted as he got back up and rubbed his head in pain. As he did so, Kira used his chance to charge and hit a palm strike right into his stomach, knocking the air out of his lungs and making him spit saliva.
Unfortunately, the little dog did not stop there and kept hitting the panda's stomach over and over again, leaving some bruises. Soon, Po managed to block by catching his opponent's arm, lifted him in the air, and then slammed him hard on the floor. Kira groaned in pain because of this. Not wanting to give him time to recover, Po then jumped as high as he could and pulled his stomach forward.
"PANDA QUAKE!"
Kira widened his red eyes and rolled out of the way in time to avoid getting turned into a pancake. It was at this moment that he realized he would need to fight hard to win and created a glowing blue energy ball between his paws. "AURA SPHERE!" He shot the aura ball that flew right into Po's face, smacking him like a punch that stunned him out.
"Not that again!" Viper gasped with her tail on her mouth.
"Po, look out!" Tigress screamed.
The panda cleared his vision in time to see Kira launching another Aura Sphere toward him. If this little dog could unleash his hidden power, then so could he! Po rose his fist and charged his energy into his wrist. "DRAGON SHIELD!" Much to Kira's surprise, Po summoned a golden energy shield with the pattern of a Chinese dragon over it with his wrist and used it to block his Aura Sphere.
"What?!" he exclaimed.
"H-How did he do that?" Kivuli asked, blinking her eyes in surprise.
"What? You didn't know that Po also has powers?" Tigress asked with a grin.
"FLYING RING OF ENERGY!" From behind the blue mist caused by the Aura Sphere came a ring of green energy that slammed into Kira's midsection, the impact being strong enough to send him flying across the whole fighting zone and right into the arena's wall.
Master Shujinko blinked his eyes in surprise. "T-The Flying Ring of Energy? Did the Dragon Warrior really just pull one of the Twelve Impossible Moves?"
"The Twelve Impossible Moves, Master?" Kodok asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Yes. Those techniques were created by the late Grandmaster Oogway to defeat stronger bandits and criminals. Originally, there were only seven of these, but Oogway's former student, Fenghuang, managed to create five additional ones, bringing it to a total of twelve. I didn't expect Master Shifu to teach these to the Dragon Warrior," the old frog explained.
"Just don't overuse these, Po, or you'll tire yourself out fast," Tigress mumbled. She turned her head and saw Kivuli with her eyes wide open as if she saw a ghost. However, she shook it away before anybody else could notice.
"Alright, I'm gonna finish this now!" Po declared as he brought his paws together and used his energy to create a fireball similar to the sun. "MONGOLIAN FIREBALL!" The panda tossed the burning sphere toward Kira and the particles around it started getting sucked into its fire. He hoped to suck Kira into the fireball and burn him enough to leave him out of condition to continue fighting.
But it did not happen as the little blue and black dog used his aura to create claws, which he planted into the floor, holding himself in place until the fireball faded away. As soon as it was done, the little canine charged toward his opponent again. The problem was that the use of two Impossible Moves along with his Dragon Shield drained a lot of energy out of Po. He could barely stand on one knee.
"Oh no..."
Kira used his aura to form a big sledgehammer which he smashed across the panda's face, knocking a tooth out of his mouth, and knocking him to the ground. Since the shock seemed violent, Nunzio quickly went to check on him. Po assured everything was fine and rose to his feet, ready to continue... just before collapsing on his face. "Participant Po Ping is no longer able to continue the fight! Therefore, the winner of this match is Kira Lee!"
"No! Po!" Tigress exclaimed, not believing that her panda friend actually lost the match. Kivuli was pretty surprised too, judging by her expression.
Kira panted in exhaustion and rubbed sweat off his forehead. Ignoring the cheering crowd, he looked at the Dragon Warrior who laid on the floor, unconscious. He fought well, but the use of Impossible Moves drained too much out of it, and Kira's attack was the finishing blow. The medical team soon arrived and pulled the panda (with a lot of difficulty) on a stretcher to take him away.
"There goes the best representative of our palace," Crane sighed sadly.
Even Grandmaster Shifu could not hide his disappointment. He would have liked so much to see the Dragon Warrior winning the Legendary tournament and bringing prestige to the Jade Palace. Now, he could only hope that Tigress would be the one to achieve this...
Author's note: Both Yukan and Po eliminated in the first round of the final phase. Surprised? I bet most of you thought that these two would meet in the final match for a typical anime rival fight. Sorry if I disappointed you, but I didn't want to make this predictable.
Also, for those of you who don't remember the Impossible Moves, they were used by Fenghuang in the LOA episode "Owl Be Back". Po was also able to use them and matched Fenghuang with their use. However, I didn't want Po to be OP, so I gave them a high price in terms of energy.
So now, Daito Shun, Kivuli, and Kira Lee all qualified for the next round. There is one place left for either Tigress or Siax. Who will take it? Stay stunned to find out! And, as always, may the gods watch over you all.
