Disclaimer: All "Kill Bill" characters are the property of Miramax and Quentin Tarantino

A.n.:

I wanted to remind you that this story is only interesting if you saw both parts of "Kill Bill". So for those of you, who haven't yet seen the second part, this contains spoilers.

In contrast to the previous chapter, this one's more lightweight.

-

Slowly walking up the odious stone steps, Bill felt the wind stroke across his coarse, long hair, as if recognizing Pai Mei's best student who spent so much time here, running his bare feet to waste. He had made it through his dreaded training, not failing once at any of his lessons.

He had left the lonesome man with content and sour likewise. The Chinese master had taught him the secrets of his technique but left out just as many. Then, he felt like a music fan, walking out of a concert of his favorite band that decided to leave out his most beloved songs.

"Disciple!" A loud voice shuddered from above. Bill turned his head upwards, just in time to react to Pai Mei, coming down on him with his feet forward. He rolled to his right, holding his balance on the stairs while the most radical contrary to a paragon of virtue managed to slow down his flight and land onto the edge of a step, standing perfectly straight, as if he hadn't just fallen several hundreds of meters downwards.

Veering his quaint face towards his gifted old pupil, he fondled his white beard with overindulgence, grinning at Bill's confused face. With completely ravishing finesse, the legendary martial artist approached him, posing on the stony brink and chuckling slightly.

"You had luck that I warned you, otherwise you would be on ground level with most of your bones broken by now." The kung-fu master rattled off a quick comment.

Bill merely shook his head with a barely visible smile on his face. "I never did get your peculiar humor, Pai Mei."

His opposite smirked at the sharp remark. Pai Mei had learned to speak English many years ago, simply out of boredom. But he preferred speaking Chinese to new students, no better than just to annoy the living hell out of them.

"Have you come to finally learn to fight or are you just unimaginably attracted to me?" Pai Mei asked, faking a bad accent.

"To our mutual relief, nor the one nor the other." Bill laughed. "I want to ask a favor."

The Chinese made an ugly face – as always completely ruining the image of the wise and sagacious Buddhist. "He wants a favor?" He asked, following the question with a loud, shrill laugh.

"Yes, I ask for you to accept a friend of mine as your student." Bill got straight to the point, visibly annoyed with Pai Mei's fatuous display of bad style. "A female."

Having heard Bill's plea, the master almost lost his equilibration. "A woman?"

"That's right, old friend – a woman. A gorgeous, white blonde, to be a little more exact." Bill said, pleased with the Chinese loosing all his attitude at the sheer mentioning of a delegate of the opposite sex.

"Thanks, I appreciate it." He relieved Pai Mei of affirming to his wish. The master snorted, outraged by him being treated like an old fool, desperate for sexual contact, but gave in to his avidity.

Bill had only one more question to ask his old teacher – a personal and meaningless one, in fact. "Pai Mei, why?" He asked, an ironic smile adorning his face.

The master bowed his head in shame, but still admitted his reasons. "The seclusion in this place has the most to do with it." He gazed up, not pleased with Bill's reaction to his confession – he laughed, quickly restraining his smile as the master's eyes went red with anger.

Bill shook his head, looking at the ground, the smile not fainting from his face as he cleared his throat and rephrased his question. "I didn't mean that. I wanted to know why you refused to teach me your most difficult techniques when I was ready to learn them."

Pai Mei relaxed, returning to the hygiene of his beard. "Let me ask you a question." He said, his face turning unusually serious. "What would you have done, the moment you mastered them?"

Bill never thought of the solution being so logical. Of course, the problem lied not within the fact that he wasn't good enough. It was the contrary. And it didn't take him more than a second's time to retort to Pai Mei's question, with utmost and sincere honesty.

"I would have killed you."

The Chinese nodded, chuckling slightly in apprehension of his future task – teaching young Caucasians the way of the warrior.

"I didn't come here in vain, Pai Mei. Thank you. I'm looking forward to seeing you again someday." Bill admitted his contentment with their conversation, as he turned back, following the stony steps to the fresh, green grass beneath them.

It was their last personal meeting. Pai Mei would die by the hand of the blonde, foolishly thinking she would be as wise as her female predecessor, who made him radically change his mind towards women in general.

Beatrix Kiddo remained the only human being to ever learn his deadliest techniques, because she had been the only person that he trusted. Trust, is what makes a human being most vulnerable – this remained Pai Mei's personal lesson.