A gong sounded out throughout the Jade Palace early the next morning and all of the Five darted out of their rooms to greet Shifu. "Good morning Master." They all spoke in union, their hands if they had them behind their backs. Po was a little slower, but he was heavier, so was forgiven for his relatively late wake up. "Mornin' Master..." he yawned, stretching out as he exited his room.

Shifu nodded to all of the warriors present. "As soon as you are able, you are to begin your journey to retrieve the Sword of Heroes with The Hunter." he told his students, all of whom nodded in agreement with that plan of action. "I advise first getting some training in first to limber up for the road ahead." Shifu said and led them all outside. He looked up to Peach Tree Hill, seeing the smoke from the burnt out firepit and the tent that was still there. The sword was gone from the ground and there was no sign of The Hunter...

Shifu began to worry he may have taken off during the night. However, this worry was abated when he pushed open the door to the training room and what he saw inside. All mouths dropped open as they witnessed pieces of destroyed metal and wood brushed to one side, and in one corner was Hunter, punching a piece of metal embedded in ironwood.

He slammed his fists into it again and again using various types of strikes from different types of martial arts, each strike landing with enough force to add another dent in the metal and ironwood. "Pain makes you STRONG, suffering builds CHARACTER. Suffering makes you feel ALIVE, but I don't want to feel ANYTHING. Pain is what you make it, and I make NOTHING of it." he spoke in a mantra to himself, his voice dark and turning to exclamation as he smashed his fists through the wood and metal. To everyone's apparent horror, they saw blood dripping from his hands from the repeated punishment he was seemingly giving himself, his knuckles in particular. Finally, he reared back and kicked out with his leg with a blood curdling yell, smashing the metal and wood to pieces as he had with so many others from the looks of it. Upon doing that, he took a breath and raised his hands apart from each other before bringing them down in a circle to rest in front of his waist, releasing his breath like he was meditating. Hunter then turned his head to see the Five, Po and Shifu all staring at him. Hunter slowly walked up to the group. "Pain makes you strong, suffering builds character. Suffering makes you feel alive, but I don't want to feel anything. Pain is what you make it, and I make nothing of it." He repeated once again in his blank voice. He took a cloth and wiped his bloodied knuckles, throwing the rag to Po, who got hit in the face with it as Hunter walked past, his hands still dripping blood, leaving a trail behind him. "I expected you up at dawn. We leave in two hours. Be at the entrance to the Palace by then, or I leave without you."

With that, Hunter walked out of the training room without another word, still leaving a trail of blood as he walked. Po removed the bloody rag from his face and turned to Shifu. "Does this count as bloodied knuckles?" Po asked him excitedly, holding the rag on one paw and pointing at it with the other.

Shifu, snapping out of it, rolled his eyes at Po's antics. "No. Now get your training in while you can, students. Take an hour to train, and then an hour for breakfast." he told the Five and Po, leaving them to train as he left them to their duties before they left. Pausing for a moment before going back into the Palace, Shifu walked over to the Peach Tree where Hunter was camped and saw Hunter wrapping his odd appendages up in fresh black handwraps, a layer of bandages beneath to absorb the blood. "Why did you do that?" Shifu asked.

Hunter turned his head to Shifu, his mask back up now. "You heard what I said. Pain and suffering make you strong and build character. I've suffered greatly, and I suffer every day still. I hope to one day feel nothing. Not pain, not suffering, not... Anything. To finally become the void of a man I appear to be. To forever remain a freak. The Hunter, The Man With No Name, The Partisan. The... The name Po was about to call me yesterday." he growled a little at that name once more, even without saying it. He had somehow avoided yet simultaneously answered the question at the same time.

Shifu decided not to press the matter for now. "Where did you get your nicknames from?" he asked Hunter, who chuckled a little at that as he adjusted some of his equipment for a journey ahead.

He seemed thoughtful for a second, maybe debating whether to discuss it or not. "The 'first' one was The Man With No Name. Atimes I'd rescue traders and villagers from bandits. I'd collect some small payment, either in coin or food in return. Sometimes more if they hired me to guard them for the rest of the journey. Whenever they asked my name, I just told them I don't have one. So they started calling me The Man With No Name." He explained with a shrug at the rather simple reason. "Years later when I started taking contracts for money, some who survived or escaped since they weren't my prey and got lucky started saying how they were 'hunted' and this 'Bounty Hunter' was terrifying or something along those lines. I started becoming known as The Hunter to most due to my profession and style." The Hunter elaborated further to Shifu. "I don't remember how in particular I became known as The Partisan. Although I do know it was because of my involvement in The Gorilla War..." He said thoughtfully.

Shifu looked surprised. "You were involved in that?" he asked Hunter.

First he got a chuckle in response. "I was contracted by the Gorilla Guerrillas, fought in secret against the occupying forces and they all started calling me The Partisan. I just don't remember if it was the occupiers or the Resistance who started calling me by that name..." he wondered aloud.

Shifu nodded in understanding, remembering hearing about that conflict. "I wanted send the Five to help with the Gorilla War, but Master Oogway forbade it, telling us we could not leave the Valley undefended, and that this was a conflict that would not benefit from Kung Fu's interference." he told Hunter. "And the last name?"

Hunter stopped what he was doing at that question. "That one..." he stated, trailing off for a second. "It's an old nickname. Technically the first. I don't know how anyone remembers or even knows of it anymore. I was called that during my childhood as an insult. A slur." Hunter explained to Shifu. "Due to me not hailing from China, or anywhere that anyone really knew of, as well as not looking like any kind of animal." he told the older Master. "There was only ever one person who could call me that without consequence..." he trailed off once again at that and shook his head. "Anyway, that's beside the point. You should go and make sure the Five and Dragon Warrior are all ready. We'll be leaving in a little over an hour." Shifu, sensing that Hunter wanted to be alone did indeed leave him be, walking back over to the Palace to make sure his students had a good breakfast before setting out, although he was sure Po wouldn't miss breakfast at all nor would he let the Five miss it either.

When Shifu had left, Hunter took out some meat he had stored away and held it over the scorching embers, letting the smoke cook the meat. Once that was done he chopped up the meat with one of his knives and took a bowl from his pack, placing the meat in the bowl. He also took a pot from the fire, pouring some rice he had cooked into the bowl and mixed it with the meat. He also pulled out a pair of chopsticks that looked to be made of bone... Likely more trophies taken from someone he'd fought and killed. Although how he got the bones in the first place could be rather worrying, the fact he'd chosen to make chopsticks out of them was certainly a fascinating choice. Around where he held them was a custom carved ironwood covering with little Hanzi words engraved on them likely to stop the heat from the food conducting to his fingers.

He finished his food, eating rather slowly. He seemed to enjoy savouring his food judging by how he ate it. While the other day he was rather rushed in eating at Mr. Ping's restaurant, now he actually had the time to truly savour the food he was eating. Once he was finished, he took another pot, this one full of water and washed out the bowl before putting it away along with his chopsticks. Once he'd cleaned up, Hunter made his way down to the gate and thrust his blade into the ground before taking position on top of the pommel in a meditative position, the same as last night, to wait for the others to arrive. After some time, the Five and Po eventually came running over and Hunter spoke to them without opening his eyes. "You're late." he stated in his usual monotone voice.

Po panted a little bit from running down to the Palace gate. "Sorry, we uh... We got caught up." he pointed with his thumb back to the kitchens nonchalantly.

Hunter's eyes opened and Po jumped back a little finding them fixed on him. "I only stayed out of respect for Master Shifu. If he hadn't ordered you to accompany me I'd already have left." he stated to the group, his tone unimpressed and holding slight annoyance. Tigress' scowl deepened in response to his rather disrespectful tone. The rest of the Five looked at one another uneasily as Hunter stood at full height atop his blade and stepped down from it with a grace unexpected for someone of his size. He then removed his sword from the ground and sheathed it. "But since you could bother your fucking arses to get down here, let's all go shall we?" Hunter asked with a fake friendly tone, his expression turning overly friendly as he gestured to towards the exit before returning to his usual blank look as he turned around.

Monkey then gestured with his head to Hunter. "Someone's impatient..." he said with a displeased expression and the others all nodded their heads in agreement with him. If Hunter heard him, he didn't bother giving a reply.

Meanwhile, Tigress actually grabbed his arm to spin him back around, only to be shoved backwards by him in retaliation. "You want to fucking go!?" Hunter squared up to Tigress in response, challenging her with a seriously deadly look on his face. "Or would you like to actually get some fucking work done?" Hunter again pointed, this time more aggressively, towards the exit to the Palace. The others looked horrified at the way he was speaking to them all with such... Disregard. For both their positions and his own life from the look and sound of it. After all, no one else would even have the guts to say anything like that to Tigress, for fear of her tearing them out and using them as a necklace. In return, said mMster growled and out of instinct swung overhead with her claws extended, only for Hunter to catch her arm by the wrist. By now, everyone was staring in awe at the confrontation. "Hmm, Kitten does have her claws I see." He spoke to her in a condescending tone.

Tigress felt a pang at that... Something familiar... Kitten... She'd been called that before. Probably an insult early in her youth, which is why it affected her so much. Tigress yanked her arm out of his grasp and marched off past him, trying to calm down before she ended up killing him, although she wasn't convinced that would be a bad thing. "Let's go, before I decide you're not worth the trouble of keeping around." she snarled in response as Hunter simply looked amused by the threat and followed her down the steps along with the rest of the Five and Po in tow.

They started off walking through the village before eventually coming to the end of it. "Do you even know where exactly the Ladies are based?" Viper asked, cocking her brow at Hunter as they went.

However, he didn't turn his head as he kept on walking. "I know where they used to camp out at least. And if they have moved, I'll be able to track them from their old place hopefully." Hunter explained what the plan was for finding the Ladies, and the Sword.

Tigress scoffed at that. "That's your plan? Go to where you know they were and if they're not, just hope?" she asked in disdain with a shake of her head in disapproval.

Mantis then chuckled in his usual manner. "I think it's a purrfect plan." he jokes to try and relieve some tension, although from the looks he got, all he did was focus the hate onto himself instead...

Hunter then turned to Tigress. "I changed my mind, you can go ahead and kill me." he said to her in what actually sounded like an amused tone of voice, although it was rather hard to pick up on.

Tigress almost cracked a smile. Almost. Until she realised who had said that and what they'd done. Instead she rolled her eyes in further disdain at his comment. Po's face had a 'I wouldn't say that...' look on it. "Don't tempt her." he chuckled a bit at that.

Hunter sighed at that and shook his head before looking up with some determination in his eyes. "We head due West." He spoke and took off in a shockingly speedy run. "Try and keep up!" Hunter exclaimed suddenly, and the Five realised they'd have to catch up and tell him to be careful since Po wouldn't be able to keep up that speed for too long...