Disclaimers
I do not own the Kung Fu Panda franchise
I reference many cultures, languages, beliefs, etc that I know very little about so please forgive inaccuracies.
This story contains strong language, adult themes, gore, and drug use.
Prologue
In an infinite void, a small spark appeared. The spark grew more and more unstable until it exploded leaving a being where it was. This being was The Great One, the first being to exist. It existed before time and will exist after.
The Great One, born of The Spark of Life, knew only to create the first universe.
In this universe were six beings, each imparted with a god-soul. These beings were created to bring life and balance to the universe. Kairos, the God of Entropy. Seeth, the God of Eternity, Iirkan, the God of Chaos. Mynr, the God of Order. Enkii, the God of Creation. Faokon, the God of Destruction.
Each god balanced one other god. Entropy and Eternity, Chaos and Order, Creation and Destruction.
The Gods all existed in peace, the light gods (Eternity, Creation, Order) creating cycles and the dark gods (Entropy, Chaos, Destruction) ending them to start anew.
Eventually, the gods created the Satiens, primordial beings that command and guide time, destiny, life, and souls. The Satiens and the gods formed The Divine Republic, and the gods commanded the Satiens to create souls, the foundation for life as well as an infinite residence for the souls to exist in.
Each soul was unique and flawed. This allowed for the idea of relationships to be formed as certain souls were drawn to others based on these unique characteristics. In the modern era the term "soul-mate" is quite literal, being that those two people's souls had become romantically involved long before they had ever lived. The gods shared this same characteristic leading to a romance forming between Kairos and Enkii and other relationships among The Divine Republic.
After the creation of souls, the light gods made what could be described as an algorithm to create physical lifeforms for each of these souls to reside in. These bodies were modeled off of the appearance of the gods who walked on two legs and stood upright.
Eventually the universe as we know it had been formed, brimming with planets and solar systems, and two of the gods, Seeth and Mynr, had grown quite fond of this universe.
Soon, the pair grew spiteful of the dark gods as they were tasked with refreshing the cycle thus destroying this version of the universe to start anew.
Seeth, being the co-leader of The Divine Republic and the second most powerful god, commanded the dark gods to cease destroying what they had created. This was, of course, met with a no, so Seeth decided to seek audience with The Great One, asking it to end the existence of the dark gods. The Great One, ever the pacifist, refused and told Seeth that they were necessary for the balance of the universe.
Angry, Seeth organized an expedition into The Astral Frontier, the infinite plain where all universes reside, to seek out The Spark of Life. When they found it, they ran experiments on it until they figured out that they could use it to give them temporary omnipotence. Seeth used this omnipotence to condemn Kairos and his lover to a runt planet called Earth where they would eventually die and fall into oblivion without their god-souls.
In his spite, Seeth had sent Kairos to an abusive father and Enkii to a tiger clan. Both of them to be subjected to terrible lives.
Iirkan had a different plan though. He sent their two god-souls to hibernate deep within the Earth's core with the hope that they would one day rediscover them and take back their spots in The Divine Republic.
Chapter 1
The Condemnation of the Magi
In the Lu Shi Village, a bear couple was expecting a child.
"Quick! Quick!" Sao yelled urgently to the doctors as he bursted into the medical hut, "My wife is about to give birth!"
The doctors jumped into action immediately, guiding the female bear to the delivery bay. Sao knelt next to her, holding her paw.
"Come on Mei, you can make it through this!" he said as she wailed in pain, blood pouring from between her legs.
A snout began to show as Mei wailed again, squeezing her mate's paw.
Soon the whole head had appeared, the doctors prompting her to push.
After two gruelling hours the screaming child had finally been born, immediately being wrapped in a blanket and brought to Mei. Breathing heavily, she cradled her child in her free arm, the other still holding Sao's paw, sighing weakly. She turned her head to her husband and he smiled at her. She smiled in turn before her eyes glazed over and her arm went limp. The smile was wiped from Sao's face and replaced with a look of shock.
"Mei. Mei!" he yelled in a panic as he held his dead wife's paw. Tears began streaming down his face when the realization hit him.
*Two years later*
Sao had grown resentful of his child, irrationally blaming him for the untimely death of his beloved. He only allowed his son to survive, giving him just enough food and water while spending the rest of his budget on booze and at brothels. His son slept on a blanket on the ground and he didn't even call his son by his name, Kairos. Instead opting to call him boy, or kid.
He had also formed a habit of beating Kairos for anything he deemed bad. This ranged from breaking something valuable to entering his room unannounced.
The beatings only got worse and more frequent over the years, his father's justification for it being that his son was "growing stronger" and therefore needed "fairer punishments". Multiple times, Kairos had had to walk himself to the medical hut because of how brutal his father's punishments got. After every beating his father would squat down and put his hand on his son's shoulder, and in a sympathetic tone say
"You see kid, daddy wouldn't beat you if you stopped disobeying him and doing things he doesn't like."
These words echoed in his head for his entire childhood, bringing him to obsessively try and get into his father's good graces, but it was never enough.
One night, after a particularly terrible beating, Kairos had begun his walk to the medical hut. The injuries he sustained included a broken arm and a deep, vertical cut across his left eyelid. When he arrived at the hut, the doctor let out a sad sigh, immediately recognising his regular patient. The doctor greeted him then smiled and patched the child up.
"So what happened this time?" he asked Kairos.
"I uhh fell off my uhh roof while I was playing." Kairos said, unconvincingly.
The doctor eyed him suspiciously as he equipped him with a bamboo splint for his arm.
"You fell off the roof huh." he said, unconvinced as he looked at the cut across his eye.
"You know you can tell me." his tone was suddenly concerned.
"I already told you, I fell off the roof." Kairos responded, not making eye contact.
The doctor let out another sigh as he stood Kairos up.
"Ok… Well, you had better get moving along kiddo, it's not safe for you at night." he said, smiling.
Kairos hurried out with the doctor watching him leave, his smile replaced with sadness.
When Kairos arrived back at his house, he was met with a horrifying sight. His father was flat on his back, completely motionless, with vomit slowly streaming down the sides of his mouth. There was a bottle of rice wine in one of his hands.
Kairos ran over to his dad's corpse in shock. He sat next to his father for a time staring blankly at his dead father unsure how to feel.
Eventually Kairos stood up and walked out of his house. He began wandering the village, completely aimless until he stumbled across a small building with a tapestry above the door.
"Martial Arts Academy" was all it said. Something told Kairos to knock, so he did.
A few seconds later a tall, young wolf came to the door holding a dagger.
"WHO IS IT?!" he demanded as he threw the door open. His gaze softened as he saw who it was.
"What do you need, kid?" he asked impatiently, lowering his dagger.
"Can I join your academy?" Kairos asked.
"Kid," he said shaking his head at the stupid request," you come banging on my door at ungodly hours of the night a-" he stopped as he noticed the splint.
He sighed
"Okay, where's your mom?" he asked.
"She's dead, she died right after I was born." Kairos responded blankly.
The wolf's face softened more.
"W-where's your dad then?" the wolf asked, growing worried.
"He's dead too, I found him dead earlier tonight…" he responded, a little sadder.
The wolf sighed again and directed the child into the academy.
The inside was dark and smelled a bit dank as if the wood it was made out of had begun to rot. There was a soft mat covering the whole floor of the main room, in each of the corners were punching dummies and assorted weaponry.
"What's your name?" the wolf asked.
"Kai." he responded, preferring the nickname he had given himself.
"How old are you Kai?"
"Five." Kai responded.
"My name's Zhikan." he said as his face grew more sympathetic. Zhikan grabbed a blanket and pointed towards the mat.
"This is your bed, kid." he said as he walked towards his room.
Zhikan laid in his bed, thoughts running through his head.
Fuck, only five. Poor kid…
What was with all those injuries…
How the fuck am I gonna take care of this kid, I barely make enough to take care of myself…
Did he say he found his dad's dead body…
Meanwhile Kai began to get comfortable on the mat. Compared to his usual sleep situation, the soft mat was luxurious and he fell asleep quickly, feeling lucky to have found such a sympathetic host.
The next morning Kai woke to Zhikan poking his arm.
"Wake up, kid."
Kai sat up and rubbed his right eye, unable to rub the left due to the cut.
"What is it?" Kai asked sleepily.
"We're gonna lay down some ground rules if you're going to stay here alright." Zhikan stated.
"Ok." Kai responded, listening.
"Ok number one, you will be cleaning the mats after each of my classes, number two, you may not go into my room without permission, and number three, you must train here and train hard. Understand?"
"Yes sir." Kai responded enthusiastically.
Zhikan smiled.
"Oh, I almost forgot. Here you go." he produced a bowl of steamed vegetables.
Kai took the bowl gratefully and began wolfing down the vegetables, not having had a meal of substance in months. The wolf stood up and walked off the mat towards a small kitchen that Kai hadn't noticed before. Kai finished eating and set his bowl into the sink.
Kai couldn't help but feel a bit ecstatic as he thought about his future here.
"What martial art do you do here?" Kai asked.
"Ehh, I've taken elements of multiple and formed them into, probably, the most efficient fighting style in China." he said proudly.
"Huh…" Kai breathed surprised by the wolf's confidence, "So when can I start?"
Zhikan chuckled, "You aren't gonna be starting for a while buddy." he gestured at Kai's arm which, now in the light, was obviously broken.
Kai sighed.
"You can watch my first class if you want to see what you're gonna be doing." Zhikan offered.
"Sounds good." the bear responded.
The six o'clock bell rang and the first wave of students began trickling in. When the class had started thirty minutes later there were only eight students. Zhikan entered and everybody bowed. Zhikan returned the bow before addressing the class.
"Today we will start off with thirty minutes of conditioning. Get to it." he commanded
The whole class groaned as they began jogging around the large mat.
"Inside!" Zhikan yelled after five minutes.
All the students began to skip sideways facing the inside of the circle they were making.
As soon as they did, Zhikan yelled, "Sprawl!"
All the students suddenly dropped their hips to the ground, then did ten push-ups before getting back up and skipping more, Zhikan yelling sprawl every minute or so for ten minutes.
"Alright everyone to the end of the mat. Shrimps, shoulder walks, front-rolls, back-rolls, and inverts." he yelled
Everyone went to the other end of the mat and started. The movements they called "shrimps'' were basically just them laying on their sides, pushing with their legs until they reached the other end of the mat. Shoulder walks were them laying on their backs and arching until only their feet and upper back touched the ground, then walking with their shoulders to the other end. Front-rolls were just somersaults that they did on either shoulder from standing. Back-rolls were the same, just backwards. Inverts started from a sitting position, rolling sideways over one's shoulders and neck.
After they finished the conditioning Zhikan yelled, "Alright, everyone get some water and do stretches for Judo tosses. You have five minutes!"
Zhikan walked over to his room while all the students began talking and grabbing water out of skins they had brought with them.
When Zhikan had returned all the students gathered around him in a circle.
"Most of you are already familiar with the o-goshi, correct?"
Some of the students nodded, but most just looked confused.
"Jin, come here." he said pointing to another tall wolf, "O-goshi means 'hip-toss' in Japanese. Based off of the name, obviously you are going to be using your hips to throw your opponent. So, step one, grab his arm and drag him towards you, step two step your right foot across to his right foot as you hook under his arm, step three, step your left foot next to your right foot and lift your opponent onto your hips."
The wolf then performed the move on his partner who hit the mat so hard that the whole building shook a bit.
The next hour of the class was spent drilling the o-goshi as well as a few other throws.
"Alright, partner up! We will be going for six five-minute rounds!" he yelled as he flipped an hourglass.
Everyone partnered up and began. The sparring was not grappling like Kai thought it would be. Instead it was a mix of both grappling and striking as the students moved at blistering speeds. After the six rounds were up Zhikan and his students bowed to each other before they stepped off the mat.
"Here kid." the wolf tossed Kai a mop, "Hey DO NOT miss class tomorrow! We are going to be expanding on the o-goshi into side control!" he yelled as the students left.
Kai began mopping the mat now even more excited to begin.