Author's note: Before we begin, I'd like to point out that this is a chapter I've been very excited to write since a long time. I was supposed to write a chapter about Shining Eagle training with Master Shujinko before this one, but no matter how hard I tried to focus on it yesterday, I couldn't find a way to make it work. So instead, I decided to move on directly to this one. It's gonna be divided in two chapters due to its length. Enjoy!
A beautiful day in the Valley of Peace. With summer having finally arrived, the civilians could go out and enjoy the natural warmth and clear blue skies to do picnics, go on walks in the green hills, and watching movies outside. Of course, there were those who preferred to stay inside to keep themselves cool and watch television or play video games. And then, there were the Kung Fu masters who patrolled around the city to make sure everyone was safe or taking on missions both in and out of the valley. Thanks to them, the civilians could live in peace... and they were very grateful for it.
What they didn't know was that they would receive a special visit today. A certain bird with black feathers arrived at the entrance of the city and looked around with his dark brown eyes. "So this is the famous Valley of Peace, huh? It sure is as beautiful as I've been told," he mumbled with a smile on his grey beak. "I wonder if they have good vodka around here?"
#
Meanwhile, on the rooftop of one of the valley's most famous Kung Fu academies, the Frog Dojo, two masters were about to clash. These were Yukan Tori, also known as Master Sunbird, and Master Kivuli, one of the greatest swordsmen - or swordswomen - in the valley. Many other students, including Master Kodok, Master Shining Eagle, Akoni, and Master Golden Cat, were sitting on the sidelines to assist this interesting sparring match.
"I bet one sandwich that Yukan is gonna win!"
"A cake that Kivuli will kick his feathered butt!"
"A whole dinner at a restaurant that they will end in a tie!"
Shining Eagle couldn't help but giggle a bit at how enthusiastic the students were about this whole ordeal. "They sure are excited, she remarked."
"Let's go, Yukan! Show them what you can do!" Akoni cheered for his orange feathered friend.
"Do you really wanna see him win or is it just as a revenge for when Kivuli knocked you out?" Kodok asked with raising an eyebrow.
"... Honestly, both," the simian admitted with a chuckle.
"Say, Mei Ling, is it true that Kivuli got new swords?" the frog then asked his friend.
"Yes; I was with her when she got to the Silver Blade and bought them," the golden cat confirmed with a nod. "That was right after her encounter with Bosan Miyamoto, the Sword of Heaven."
"So Kivuli really clashed with the best swordsman in the world?" Shining asked with a look of surprise.
"She sure did. Of course, she lost, but Miyamoto was so impressed by her determination that he asked her for a rematch in the future. You should have seen it; it was amazing!"
"A rematch against the Sword of Heaven? Good luck with that," Shining Eagle mumbled before looking back at the duel at hand. "Let's see what she can do with those new swords."
Not paying attention to the excited students around them, Yukan and Kivuli glanced into each other's eyes, ready for action. "Ready to get your butt kicked, Yukan?" the martial eagle asked with a grin.
"Not if I roast yours first," the sun parrot replied as he took his Reverse Praying Mantis stance.
"You can always dream. Come to me, Great Fire Sword!" Reaching her wing upward, Kivuli summoned her purple seal that pulled out a new sword. A two-handed one with a glowing orange blade that emanated heat. The avian took the handle in her two wings and then took her fighting stance. "Here I come!"
Charging forward, the martial eagle started swinging her burning blade at the sun parrot who did his best to dodge as trying to block the sword would certainly result in him getting burnt. Kivuli was a bit slower than she usually was with Purple Rainmaker, giving Yukan a good advantage. Ducking one horizontal slice, he planted a good punch into Kivuli's stomach, pushing her back a few feet away.
"What's wrong? Losing speed, Kivuli?" the orange bird taunted with a smirk.
"You'll see if I'm slow!" the martial eagle replied as she regained her stance. "However, I cannot deny that this sword is indeed heavier than Purple Rainmaker. Time to try something new!" With a swing of her blade, she sent a fire slice towards her opponent.
Despite not having expected this, Yukan still managed to break the attack with his wing due to being a fire master. However, the strength of the impact caused him to slide back a little. "So you have a fire sword now, huh? That's cool, but...," Yukan narrowed his emerald green eyes, "don't go thinking it can replace a true fire user!"
As Yukan charged forward, Kivuli kept sending fire slices which all missed their target. This combined with her lack of speed with her giant sword allowed Yukan to hit a dive kick in her chest and knock her back a few feet away, ending on her back.
"This Great Fire Sword looks strong, but it's never a good idea to sacrifice speed in favor of brute strength," Akoni remarked.
Recovering from the hit, Kivuli attempted to send another fire slice, but it didn't work. Looking down, she saw that her sword was no longer glowing orange except at the base and the heat seemed gone, but slowly recovering. "Crap, I used my sword's fire energy too quickly. It's gonna need time to recover." Summoning her purple seal, Kivuli pulled her Great Fire Sword away. "Come to me, sickle!"
The purple seal gave the martial eagle a sickle with the blade being curved into a half-moon. Flapping her wings, she charged at the sun parrot once again and started swinging her new weapon at him. Unlike the Great Fire Sword, this one was very fast - even more than Purple Rainmaker - and actually brushed against her opponent's orange feathers a few times.
Not wanting to finish into slices of orange, Yukan managed to grab the martial eagle's wing and flipped her over his shoulder before getting on top of her, his wing pressed against her neck to neutralize her down. He had won this match.
"Alright! Nice one, Yukan!" Shining Eagle beamed while the others clapped and cheered too.
The sun parrot turned his head and gave them all a smile before getting off Kivuli and helping her back up. "You said you were going to kick my butt, right? It doesn't seem like what happened to me," he boasted with a grin.
"Don't laugh too much, feather bag; the only reason you won is because I'm not used to my new swords yet," the martial eagle replied with pulling her sickle away into her magical seal. "If I had used Purple Rainmaker, you would have lost."
"Of course," Yukan scoffed with rolling his eyes. "Wanna go drink a little bit? Loser's the one to pay."
"With pleasure. You might have won against me in this match, but the one who will break my record of alcohol drinking isn't born yet," the purple bird declared with pride.
As if on cue, one of the Dojo's students came rushing on the rooftop with a shocked expression. "Kivuli! Kivuli! Your record of alcohol drinking is about to be broken!"
In a split-second, all the eyes on the rooftop turned toward him. "What did you just say?" the martial eagle asked in disbelief.
"T-There's a new guy that arrived in the city moments ago! He went to a bar and he's... he's drinking like he has a bottomless stomach! You have to see this! Follow me!" As the young student ran down the rooftop, the others exchanged looks before following him.
#
A few minutes later, the student led Yukan, Kivuli, Shining Eagle, Kodok, Mei Ling, and Akoni to a little bar located a few streets away from the Frog Dojo. When they arrived, they saw a large crowd already gathered inside and they seemed excited.
"You're saying he's in there?" Kivuli asked.
"Yes. Go see; you won't believe it!" the student said in excitation as he rushed inside.
"Someone who drinks more than Kivuli? That's a bit hard to believe," Kodok said with rubbing the back of his head.
"Let's get inside to find out!" the martial eagle said with a frown as she started pushing her way through the crowd in the bar. Her friends followed closely behind, excusing themselves to the excited crowd.
As they walked, Yukan looked at the ground and couldn't help but notice many bottles lying around everywhere. He took one of them and saw that it was... a bottle of vodka? In fact, now that he noticed it, all the bottles were vodka bottles. "So this guy is a vodka drinker? Could he be... No, that's impossible. He cannot possibly have come here," the sun parrot thought.
Eventually, the masters made it close enough to see the drinker in question. A male avian with black feathers who was currently drinking straight from a vodka bottle, gulping it to the very last drop before tossing it away. "Another one, please!" he called the bartender.
"If you keep this up, I'll run out of vodka for a long time. Good thing my producer gave me some extra barrels for this month," the bartender remarked as he brought another bottle of vodka to the avian who immediately started gulping it down.
"Hey, you!" Kivuli said as she walked over to the drinker and placed a wing on his shoulder. "Who are you? How can you drink so much?"
The bird turned around, revealing himself to be a black hawk with brown eyes. He wore brown jean pants and a vest open to left his strong torso exposed. "What do you want?" he asked with a clear tone, not looking drunk at all.
"Sorry if we're bothering you, sir, but we heard that you were drinking a lot more than our friend. Is this true?" Kodok politely asked.
"That depends. Has your friend managed to drink 40 bottles of vodka before?" the black hawk asked.
"No, but I managed to drink 50 cups of sake," Kivuli replied, crossing her wings with pride.
"Really?" the male avian asked with a smirk. "Because I'm only getting started. I'm capable of ingesting a whole lot more alcohol than this." The black bird then turned his head and showed a surprised expression upon seeing Shining Eagle and Mei Ling. "... Wow, those are quite the beauties we have there. Are you free tonight?"
This sudden question caused Shining Eagle to blush a bit and Mei Ling to giggle. "WHAT KIND OF QUESTION IS THAT?!" Akoni shouted in a scolding tone.
At the same moment, Yukan finally managed to break through the crowd and join the others. "I'm here! What's going on, guys?" However, his emerald green eyes suddenly widened as far as they could go upon seeing the black bird. "Y-You?!"
When he turned his head and saw him, the black hawk gave the exact same look of shock and surprise. "T-Tori?"
The whole bar fell silent as the two birds looked at each other. Everyone gazed alternately at the two of them with confused expressions. They didn't understand what was going on, but the tension was very heavy and they could hear a fly buzzing.
"What's going on? You know that guy, Yukan?" Shining Eagle decided to ask after a moment.
The sun parrot narrowed his eyes into a glare before replying. "No, not an idea. This is just nobody."
"What is a scumbag like you doing in here?" the black hawk asked after narrowing his eyes into a glare too.
"Hey, watch what you're saying!" Kodok said, not liking how he insulted his friend. "Yukan is not a scumbag; he's a master of the Frog Dojo and a hero of the Valley of Peace!"
This caused him to widen his brown eyes a little bit. "A master of the Frog Dojo?" He then turned to look at Yukan. "So you joined a new Dojo, huh? I'm not really surprised coming from someone running away from challenges."
"Shut up, Black Hawk!" Yukan angrily yelled, finally revealing the black bird's name.
The more they talked, the more the Frog Dojo masters did not understand what was happening. Who was Black Hawk? How did he know Yukan? And why did it seem like there was a huge hostility between the two of them?
Black Hawk crossed his wings and looked at the masters. "Do you at least know who this bird is?" This question earned him confused looks from Kivuli, Shining Eagle, Kodok, Akoni, and Mei Ling.
"SHUT UP!"
Suddenly, Yukan charged forward out of nowhere and delivered a violent punch across Black Hawk's face, sending him flying across the bar and through the room's wall, piercing a big hole through the bricks. This made everyone jump and most of them ran away, having not expected such reaction from a Kung Fu master. "Yukan! Why did you do that?" Shining Eagle asked in a shocked tone.
However, her orange friend did not answer and simply walked forward in a firm way, crossing the hole he broke through the wall. Black Hawk crashed into a pile of garbage outside, but that didn't stop him from getting back on his two feet with his eyes half-closed, as if uninterested. "I already lost everything once; I won't let that happen again because of you!" he declared in a hateful voice.
Black Hawk scoffed. "You have no one to blame but yourself for what happened!"
"Come at me! I'm gonna kick your ass once and for all to prove that I'm not a weakling like all of you believed!" the sun parrot declared as he took his Reverse Praying Mantis stance.
"I see no interest in fighting you: you just want attention and you won't get any from me," Black Hawk simply said with looking away.
Groaning in anger, Yukan launched himself at full speed toward his opponent. "ROARING FIST!" Black Hawk simply moved his head to the side to avoid the burning fist at the last second and then planted his wing into Yukan's chest. He created an explosion that sent the orange bird flying back and crash into the street, forming a crack below him.
"YUKAN!" Shining Eagle exclaimed in shock.
"Did he just create an explosion with his wing?" Akoni asked.
"Yes; it's the elemental power of combustion," Mei Ling said. "It is one of fire's secondary elements; Master Shujinko told me about it once. But I've never seen one user in real life."
"Hold on, Yukan! We're coming!" Kivuli said, ready to jump in action.
"NO!" Yukan firmly said, stopping his friend with a wing as he stood back up. "This is my fight and mine alone!" He then glared back at Black Hawk. "I'M GONNA KICK YOUR ASS!" As he shouted this at the top of his lungs, the sun parrot's body erupted with fire that caused the ground around him to melt a little bit.
The black bird sighed in annoyance, cracking his wings. "Alright, if that's how you want things to be, so be it."
The two birds glared at each other for a moment before charging forward at the same time, Yukan setting both of his fists on fire. Black Hawk launched one of his wings forward and created an explosion with it. Yukan, however, managed to duck it and hit his burning fist into his opponent's stomach, making him spit saliva, and sending him flying back.
He used his two feet to hit the wall of a building and stop himself from crashing. Just then, the sun parrot arrived and hit him with his two burning fists, creating a fire explosion. The heat wave it caused forced the Frog Dojo masters to cover themselves with their arms/wings.
"Dang it! Is he always so aggressive in battle?" Akoni asked, surprised by Yukan's brutality.
"No; that's the first time he's like this," Mei Ling replied. "I don't understand. Even when he fought against Temutai, he didn't display such anger and aggressiveness What does he have against this Black Hawk guy?"
While her friends talked, Shining Eagle watched the fight unfolding before her eyes. "Yukan..."
Just then, the two fighting birds came jumping out of the building with Yukan hitting a Roaring Fist across Black Hawk's face. He attempted to follow with a burning kick which the black bird blocked with his wing. Jumping back, the two charged again, Yukan going for a Roaring Fist and Black Hawk for a combustion hit. As the two attacks touched, they cancelled each other. They kept attacking over and over again, neither attack touching the other.
"Decidedly, you haven't changed at all, Yukan," Black Hawk criticized as he kept attacking. "You only attack without thinking and you let your emotions get the better of you."
"SHUT UP!" Yukan went for another Roaring Fist. However, his opponent crouched down and delivered a devastating uppercut across his beak, sending him up to crash on the floor a few feet away. As Yukan got back up while rubbing some blood off his beak, Black Hawk rose his wing and three little lights sparkled in succession out of thin air. Widening his eyes, the sun parrot jumped away just as explosions appeared on the spots of these three lights.
"W-Where did these explosions come from?!" Kivuli asked in confusion. "Black Hawk was many feet away from Yukan!"
"That's the power of combustion; it sees its user focusing his energy on a particular spot to create an explosion," Mei Ling explained. "Black Hawk must have focused his energy on these three spots to create these explosions."
"Are you saying that he can attack Yukan from wherever he wants?!" Kodok asked in shock.
Black Hawk kept creating explosions on Yukan's positions, trying to hit him. The sun parrot, on the other end, ran continuously and jumped around to avoid the explosions. Eventually, he jumped in the air and charged fire energy in his lungs. "PHOENIX BREATH!" The jet of fire he spat forced Black Hawk to jump up in order to avoid being turned into a roasted chicken.
"Now!" Yukan thought as he saw his chance. While Black Hawk was in midair, he flapped his wings to dart at him and went for a spin kick. The black bird blocked with his wings, but was still sent crashing into a nearby building.
"Alright, enough playing!" Black Hawk jumped out of the building as fast as he got in and managed to land a big combustion hit in Yukan's torso, sending him to crash back on the ground. He coughed a bit in pain, feeling like his bones were about to break. Just then, he saw a shadow growing on the ground and rolled out of the way in time to avoid Black Hawk, who planted his wing into the ground for another combustion strike, forming a little crater.
Unfortunately, if Yukan thought he would get any time to rest, he was wrong. Black Hawk got after him again, hitting an uppercut to his chin followed by a spin kick to his stomach that made him spit some blood. Then, Black Hawk grabbed his head into his wing, lifting and slamming it hard on the ground.
"You wanted this fight? Then I'm gonna satisfy your blood lust!" The black bird then started causing one explosion after the other with his wing while still holding Yukan's head. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! The Frog Dojo's masters watched the scene in horror. If this kept going on, Yukan would get his whole head carbonized.
"STOP!" Not taking time to think, Shining Eagle charged and hit a dive kick across Black Hawk's beak, making him stumble back and let go of Yukan's head.
Understanding that their friend had already lost anyway, the others joined as well, taking a defensive formation around Yukan. They saw that their friend was out cold with burnt marks all over his face. "What's wrong with you? What do you have against Yukan? Explain!" Kodok demanded.
Black Hawk stared at them for a moment... before sighing. "Just ask him when he awakes; I think it would be better if you heard it from his beak." He then opened his wings and flew away. "Sorry for the trouble."
The friends watched the black figure flying away for a while before Shining Eagle went to take Yukan in her wings, looking at his roasted face in worry. "Yukan... We must get him medical attention!"
Author's note: This is why I was so excited to write this chapter: we will finally get to learn about Yukan's past. It's a subject I've brought to the table many times in the past, but never really took time to explore. It's in the next chapter that the truth will finally come out.
I seriously hope all the build up I've done up to that point will pay off. Stay stunned and may the gods watch over you all.
