Shen didn't know what he should feel, nor if he should feel at all. He figured this was a result of him hearing the news that he heard, which was something he most definitely did not want to hear. Something like this was the last thing someone like him needed to hear. Not after all that's happened, after everything that's been thrown his way. He at least wanted one victory to make his entire series of endeavors not feel so pointless...but it was far too late for that. The last person who meant something to him, someone who was truly and genuinely close to his heart...has left this world. Had he not been so focused on his loss, he probably could have done something about it. But the fact was that Soothsayer, his precious mother figure, was gone. Their last conversation didn't even end on positive terms, which made this an even worse experience for him. Not only can he not properly say goodbye to her, but he can never properly reconcile with her for hisnpoor treatment of her.

Fate seemed to be treating Shen's life as if it were some sick joke without a punchline. There couldn't be any other reason for this line of misery to keep building up. He tried to defy it with everything he had, and all it did was make everything worse for him in the long run. In all honesty, it would have been infinitely better if he was dead. Then he wouldn't have to deal with this.

He REALLY wanted to be dead at this point. But he was not cowardly or weak enough to take his own life. He wasn't in too deep despair to commit such an act, but it was definitely enough for it to pass throough his mind a couple times with irritable persistence. He really wanted to give into it, but his pride-what's left of it-wouldn't allow it. Shen would not die in such a cowardly fashion. Though because of that blasted panda sparing his life and insisting that he live, no one would be very insistent on killing him themselves, no matter how much they want to. The very person whom he was so determined to kill ended up persuading the people far more than he ever could. Not even Tai Lung, Fenghuang, or Tigress would kill him, no matter how much the matter two might want to, even though he's the reason Po's been put in a permanent disadvantage.

He just couldn't understand how the panda thinks. Why would he spare him? What could bring him to make such a foolhardy decision, and so confidently? Why must he be so much stronger than him? He could have killed the peacock and have been completely justified for it, but he chose to save him from drowning instead. It couldn't be as simple as just not wanting him to die. No matter how dumb the panda looked, there was no way that he was sparing someone as dangerous as him for simply the reasons he presented to him. There was something much deeper, something he just couldn't understand. And he wanted to know what it was, so he wouldn't be burdened with these accursed thoughts. It's a bit tormenting to have this type of wonder hanging over his head after it's been confirmed that Soothsayer was dead. He was sure that he didn't do it out of cruel mercy to know all of this and have those answers. The panda just wasn't that kind of person. Then again, he doesn't know the panda much at all, so he couldn't truly know.

So...why? What's the REAL reason?!

Shen soon stops in his tracks as he could hear someone following him. It didn't take too long for him to figure out who it was. He slowly turned around and glared at the trio in front of him. Tigress looked ready to defend Po and Mr. Ping just in case. The two men just looked concerned for Shen's state. The latter didn't even look angry with him anymore, as if his grudge against him was nonexistent. Now he was just worried about the peacock's state.

Why?

Shen slowly turned his head towards the ground, blinking his eyes slowly as he softly touched the scarred side of his face. "...I bet you're pleased with how things turned out for me...aren't you?" Tigress could sense the despair in his voice, but it no longer had any emotion behind it. She could tell he wanted to be angry. He wanted to yell, scream, kill, and maim. But after hearing such terrible news...he simply didn't have the spirit in him to do anything worth meaning. This type of atmosphere made Tigress cautiously lowered her guard. "Look at me. All Hail Lord Shen. The supposed supreme rule of Gongmen City. And China itself afterwards. It's...it's quote ridiculously how this turned out for me. Things went so terribly...and all because of you..." Shen shook his head. "All of my hard work...all of my plans...all of my ambitions...rendered moot. It was all incinerated by the flames of my own vengeance. As well as you. Because one survived. You survived." Shen pulled his wing away from his face and clenched it tightly. "One panda. Just one. That was all it took for it all to be rendered pointless. The moment I discovered you, I threw EVERYTHING I had at you. And you were somehow able to return it a thousandfold and beyond. One by one, everything I worked for became pointless, and I was so desperate to hang onto whatever was left. I kept trying to defy you, and it only made things worse for me."

Po quietly listens to Shen's disturbingly tranquil rant. The peackock noticed how he never interrupted him, and also didn't blink at all. He was paying full and genuinely paying attention to him despite not having to do so.

"...Why...? Why did you have to be here...? Why did you have to survive? If you had just died along with the rest of the pandas...but know. You still survived despite all of that, and I'm trying to figure out why and how? Everything would have been fine. I would have proceeded through my plans without fail. Everything would have been perfect. I would have WON. I would have proven myself worthy of ruling China the way I see fit!"

"...Would that have made you happy?"

Shen blinked, fully raising his head to meet the panda's curious eyes. "...Wha...what did you just say?"

"Would going through all of this...all this pain and suffering, the loss of innocent lives, losing all of your friends...would all of this had actually made you happy?" Po asked again. "Because I have a pretty reliable gut feeling that's telling me that you're not very happy with all of your decisions."

"What would you know about how I'm feeling?"

"Shen, you knew what you were doing was evil, insane, and outright wrong. But you keep feeling the need to justify yourself for those wrongs so you won't have to feel guilty. You don't want to feel guilty. Because if you were able to fully and properly comprehend what you were doing, and realize that it was wrong, you would have stopped a long time ago." Po pushed his hat behind his neck and placed his paw on his chest. "But now that all of the distractions are out of the way, you realize that none of this madness was worth what you were trying to gain. You ended up losing much more than you tried to gain, and then some. Something that could have been avoided if you just realized you were in the wrong."

"You don't know anything! My accomplishments...my parents...they should have been proud of me..."

Mr. Ping shook his head solemnly. "Shen...you killed off a majority of my son's kin...in what sort of dark and twisted world would that make ANYONE'S parent's happy? No one's parents would be happy with their children attempting genocide, should they! What kind of pride were you trying to instill in them, taking taking innocent lives?"

"That's one of the main things that you might be refusing to comprehend. That attack was completely unprovoked. Many innocent lives were lost because you refused to understand and accept your folly." Tigress narrowed her eyes. "You should consider yourself fortunate that Po chose to spare your life. Because after all the things you've done-"

"Tigress...dont." Po shook his head towards her. Tigress was briefly surprised by this, but she nodded and didn't say anything more.

Shen didn't take this lightly, however.

"No. She's entirely right about that, panda." Shen said bitterly. "You realize the sins I've committed against everyone, especially you. And you're fully aware that most of them are out of complete selfishness and the need to justify all of them. When it reality, there is no fair justification for any of them. And despite all of this, you chose to spare my life. What is the true reason for you wanting to keep me alive?" Shen narrowed his eyes in suspicion. "Did you want me to continue my suffering? You want me to live with my sins as a constant reminder of my eternal shame, knowing they everyone else who knows me will forever deem me an irredeemable sinner? Or...are you perhaps waiting for a chance to end me yourself?"

"Hell no." Shen was taken aback by the scathing retort Po delivered, seeing the panda narrow his eyes. "Shen. I know you regret your actions. And I have a pretty good grip on why you're doing all of this in the first place. While those reasons certainly don't justify your actions, I can at least come to an understanding on why you would feel the way that you do."

"Then tell me, you blasted panda...how is it that you're able to understand me better than you used to before?"

"You just really wanted your parents to accept you, because you felt like no none else could. Peacocks are supposed to look vibrant and colorful, and yet your feathers were completely white and colorless, except for bits of red and black. Despite this, you wanted to prove that you could really succeed at something. But you went about it in a seriously messed up way. No sane parent can be proud of their children attempting genocide." Po shook his head. "Shen. They didn't banish you from the city because they didn't want you around, they didn't abandon you. Sending you away, literally killed them. That doesn't sound like parents that didn't care about you, they were just in redibly saddened by your heinous decisions. They hoped that sending you away would set you straight someday..."

"Is that so? They did a lovely job succeeding at that plan, did they?" Shen thought bitterly, turning his head towards the ground with an incredibly winded sigh. "It's not that it matters, anyway. If they wished to seee me at my lowest so that I would see the error of my ways...well, it worked. Each sin I've comitted for my own gain...each life I took was completely for the success of my conquest. The more I continued, the less sane I became. And the less sanity I had, the more willing I became for drastic decisions. Every decision I made distanced everyone away from me. Soothsayer was he only one who still had faith in me...but now she'll never know for sure whether I'll be on a brighter path or not...and does it really matter either way? Without her...I..."

Mr. Ping could only imagine how difficult this was for Shen. Everything he had worked for was for nothing, and he had genuinely thought he was in the right, even though the truth was that he knew he wasn't. But he had went too far to stop. He was sure his fate was sealed, and decided to just endure it until his inevitable end. Po discovering a loophole in their shared destiny has left an even more damaging impact on mental and spiritual levels, because he has no idea what to do next. He had no one and nothing to guide him.

Shen wasn't just broken, he was lost beyond recognition.

He slowly gazes at Po, the hostility behind his eyes putting Tigress in guard, but Po called her with a pat of her shoulder. "Tell me, Panda. Do not dodge my question, and give me a full answer. You knew what was waiting for me if I was left alive. You knew what I've done to you. I've done horrible things to everyone, especially you. And yet still you chose to spare me. I want to know why. Why did you let me live?"

The two warriors of black and white simply stared each other down as the wind harmlessly passes by them. Po's face returned to a tranquil calm, while Shen's was full of anger and confusion. The former was towards himself, and the other was caused by Po. All he wanted to know was why. What could have caused him to keep the peacock alive, despite how many peoppe would be sarisfied seeing him dead.

Po lightly tilted his hat down with his one paw. "If you genuinely regret your actions...that means you can still clean yourself up. You can still become a better person. I really don't want to waste that kind of potential just because it might make me feel better to wipe you out. Because the truth is, it really won't. All I wanted to know was the truth. That's all I wanted from you. Not your death, that won't make feel better at all. You oughta live with your mistakes and try to learn from them, let them help you lead you to bigger and better things."

"...How...how did you do it...?" Shen asked softly. "How do you keep thinking like this despite what happened to you? I took away your parents. Everything. I scarred you for life."

Scarred for life...something else we have in common... Tigress muttered sadly.

Po rubbed his neck. "That's...a bit hard to explain, really. I mean...geez,I'm trying to figure out how to do this...um...oh! I know!" He nonchalantly pointed at his stump. "There's a pretty high chance that I'm not gonna fully heal from this. Because...y'know, panda's can't regenerate. Did it hurt like hell? Yeah it did. Is complaining about it every day of my life gonna make it go away or make me feel better? No it won't. So instead of complaining about it and letting it slow me down, I gotta adjust to it and keep on moving forward. Because no matter how busted up I get...at the end of the day, forward is the only way I can go. Fenghuang says not many of us have time for regrets. Sooner or later, I gotta get over it and focus on what's ahead of me." Po nodded. "In a weird sorta way...I think scars are a necessary part of someone's life. At least lives like ours. They can fade until they're almost completely unable to be seen...but they'll never fully go away. A guy like me can forgive...but that doesn't mean I'll forget. And I don't want to forget. At the end of the day, this experience will only make me better as a person, and a warrior. So I'm grateful for it."

My baby... Mr. Ping mentally thought as Po's solemn look brightened up a bit. He was glad that his son was strong enough to endure whatever was thrown at him, but a father still tends to worry.

Po looked towards Shen with a much lighter look than before. "Shen...of course I'm upset about what happened to my people, and my mother. But constantly spending every day of my life going back to that day, hurting myself even more in the process...that's not what she would have wanted for me. That day, it was either me or her. And she chose me. She died for me, died so I can have a chance somewhere else, and to live a life where I can be happy. Guess what? I am happy. At this point I can't fully imagine my life going any other way but this one. My life is are me the way it is, and I don't want to change any of it. Except, you know...my arm...but like I said before, I'll get over it." Po shrugged. "Anyway...there's your answer, Shen. One of the biggest reasons that I was able to achieve Inner Peace was that I can't let the past determine my future. I can determine my own the and live my life the way I see it, much like Master Fenghuang does. The thing about my mom was sad, and I'll never forget what she did for me...but I also can't afford to let it slow me down. She would want me to keep moving on despite what happened. Allowing the past to keep me from living my life would be a desecration to her sacrifice, and I definitely don't want that."

Shen...didn't know what to say after that. The panda had just admitted that he achieved Inner Peace because he accepted that clinging to the past would not get him anywhere. He wanted to keep moving forward despite all the troubles thrown his way. He didn't allow his past to shape who he was in the present. The past was something he accepted, something he couldn't forget...bit it didn't matter in the present. Because that's where his life currently was, and he wanted to focus fully on that. And the part where he considered allowing the past to hinder him from living in the present to be outright disrespect to his mother's sacrifice...

If the peacock didn't feel like scum before, he definitely did now. He wanted to hate the panda...but he lost the will to do so. He was much stronger than he was on all accounts, even on the spiritual level. And this was just one of the reasons why the panda proved himself to be superior, even if he wasn't trying to be. He was outright obsessed with the past...while Po let's his go for his own sake, and everyone else's. Shen was...he was weak.

"...Maybe you'll be able to learn from this as well, Shen. Your parents, nor the Soothsayer would want you to feel miserable like this. They'd want you to redeem yourself, and keep on living, like they always hoped you'd do." Po said, walking up to Shen and gently patting his shoulder. "I probably won't be reaching you at this very moment, but I do hope that I was able to convince at some point. There is a line that's crossed when redemption is outright impossible for someone...In know you're not one of them. Take advantage of that, Shen. You've sunken so low, you hit rock-bottom. Allow yourself to help us lift you back up, because that's the only direction you can go from there."

Mr. Ping slowly stepped forward. "He is right, Shen. Fenghuang was someone no one could trust. Everyone was wary of her, thought she couldn't be trusted, and was completely incapable of feeling regret. But she was lonely. Po was able to connect with her this way, through their desperate need for companions to be around them. Po was able to convince her to give the world a second chance, instead of hiding from it for the rest of her life. He's the reason why she could smile much more easily than she ver has before. The immense warmth of his heart melted the icy prison that encased hers. And it remains in effect to this day." Mr. Ping smiled. "Perhaps spending time with my son for yourself can do the same thing for you. The Kung Fu Council made you Po's responsibility, so you can count on him trying his best to be your friend despite your previous conflict."

The panda keeps becoming some sort of enigma that Shen found himself unable to solve. Mr. Ping basically summed up the reason why Fenghuang hung around the two of them...they showed kinder to her. Something no one would bother to offer her in decades, yet they were the first ones. There's no way that could possibly be enough. Though the owl did seem viciously protective of the two of them...

Tigress shook her head, closing her eyes. "Po sparing you has given you a chance st atonement, Shen. I suggest that you take it." Just lke how Tai Lung wished to atone for attacking the Valley of Peace and emotionally damaging her. She wasn't entrely satisfied, but she still at least had to give him a chance. He was family. Shen was not family to her or Po, which made her much more hostile to him. She kept telling herself that she hsd to trust Po's decision, and hope that it doesn't result in anything terrible. Because if it does, Shen WILL regret crossing her.

Po turned around and nodded towards Tigress. "Don't worry, Tigress. Shen will take the chance. After all, he doesn't have much else to lose by grabbing it. The Kung Fu Council deemed him to be my responsibility, so I'm gonna have to do my best to make their trust in me worth it!"

"If that's what you want, Po."

"It is." Po reassured her. He then blinked slowly, rubbing his eye. He then yawned as he plopped down on his butt, blinking slowly. "Wow...I suddenly feel tired...very tired..."

That moron...Shen mentally said, his eye twitching with an aggravated sigh.

"Po...?" Tigress asked, kneeling down before him and holding him by the shoulders. She then gasped as she could see his bandaged arm still seeping slightly with blood. "Dammit! How could I let myself forget?! You still need newer and cleaner bandages for that arm! We also gotta stop infection as soon as possible, before it gets worse! Mr. Ping, go get the others!"

"Oh my son! You're still badly hurt!" Mr. Ping wailed, rubbing his eyes and flying off to get some assistance.

Tigress nodded strongly as she turned towards Po, trying to keep him sitting upright. "It's going to be alright, Po. We can simply meet them in the middle and get you help faster that way. Just try not to move too much, okay? We don't want to make it worse." Po is going to need more than a couple days to recover from this. A couple weeks at the shortest, a month and a half at the most. Maybe more.

"Yesh...you're right, Tigress. I gotta take it easy..."

"That's right, Po. You've done a lot already. Don't push yourself too hard."

"Hah...thanks for looking out for me, Ti...man...I sure feel sleepy...the room is spinning a little...think I'm just...gonna...take a bit..of a power nap..." With a woozy yawn, Po closed his eyes and fell forward...right into Tigress's chest.

Tigress blinked for a couple moments...then blushed madly with widened eyes as Po wrapped an arm around her. Her response? Becoming stunned and rigid with shock and surprise. What?! P-P-Po...?!

"Hah...Tigress...it's pretty cool to know that you're always there for me. Don't mind me...I'm just gonna take a quick nap right here, okay?" Po mumbled, not completely aware of what he was doing, or that he was nuzzling her chest with a happy smile. "And you say that I'm pretty warm...you're not too bad yourself...snuggles and hugs...they're so nice..."

"Ah...ah...a-ah...!?"

Shen wouldn't have believed it if he was told that the same powerful feline capable of decimating a majority of his men by herself and be smart enough to organize ways to do it efficiently...could end up in such an awkward psoiton and have close to NO idea what to do. She wasn't reacting violently, she just didn't know how to react. This wasn't like last time, when Po was in need of her comfort. Now he was just incredibly dizzy from the blood loss. Shen wondered how such a strange group managed to stay together for so long. It must have been dumb luck that they haven't gotten themselves killed.

...or maybe they're just that powerful together?

Away from their position, as Mr. Ping was trying to get assistance, Shifu's ears twitched. He was confused by his sudden, inexplicable urge to beat the hell out of Po...