:The next day:
The Furious Five and Po woke up as usual to the gong, the Five in perfect unison with Po slightly lagging behind as he usually did. Passing near Peach Tree Hill on their way to breakfast, this time the Five and Po spied Hunter making his way down the Hill as they got closer to the kitchen from their sleeping quarters. Hunter eventually reached the group and bowed slightly to Shifu with a slightly weary expression. Tigress' nose visibly twitched as he got closer to her. "You smell like alcohol." she commented offhandedly, not meaning much by it from the tone of her voice and expression on her face.
Despite this apparent lack of hostility on her behalf, Hunter snorted dismissively at her words. "Well, maybe that's because I was drinking alcohol, you fucking genius." he spat back in response. Everyone was completely shocked at the rather unearned venom and the sheer bitterness that was laced in Hunter's words as he pushed past the group and walked down the steps without even looking back at any of them as he just kept going. Tigress was, for once, shocked into inaction and silence. While she definitely hadn't been all that nice to him since he'd arrived, she didn't expect him to just insult her without some form of provocation from herself... Everyone stood there for a good few seconds and watched after Hunter as he still continued on without looking back at any of them for a second. They more slowly made their way up towards the training area now for their pre-breakfast training, although Po was hanging back a little from the looks of it.
Meanwhile, Hunter kept on walking until he came upon a natural spring with a waterfall running into it and water pouring down into another spring below, so it was self-cleaning. Sighing in relief, Hunter had luckily found somewhere where he could relax a bit on his own hopefully for a little while. He was sure that display back there would hopefully discourage any curious enough to come snooping. Deciding this would suffice for what he was intending, Hunter stripped out of his clothes and placed the pack he had brought with him against a rock that was close to the spring.
He then took out some cleaning supplies, put them next to the spring and slowly lowered himself into the water with a groan of pleasure. Quite a few scars were visibly scattered along his rough skin, denoting his years of being a warrior and a few close calls or failed sidesteps. His muscles were also rather obvious out of his usual clothing and had clearly been worked on to fight with and weren't just for show. As to be expected he was incredibly fit and had clearly been in many brutal fights if the severity of several of the scars littering his body were anything to go by. He even had some tattoos inked across his skin from the looks of it.
Along his right arm was a coiled red dragon, its head stretching over his shoulder and coming to its end with a roar just above his right pectoral facing his left. Along his left arm was a green snake running his arms length, its head like the Dragon's coming over his shoulder above his left pectoral where its head rested as if hissing at the dragon on the right, while the dragon was roaring at it in turn in some form of symbolism known only to him. Lower on his left arm above his wrist were, painfully from the looks of it, branded Hanzi words in a straight line up:
惡魔
殺手
Which roughly meant 'Demon Slayer'. On the right side of his neck was a Camellia flower, the green leaves of which spread to the top of his shoulder leading to the blooming flower on the side of his neck. At the bottom of his back was depicted half of two flags merged into one flag. One half was China's flag and the other was the Rìběn rising sun flag. On his upper back was an incredibly detailed Oni Mask that was looking slightly to the side. Lower on his right arm slightly above his wrist was also branded, painfully from the looks of it in Kanji:
浪
人
This was the word 'Rōnin' and above that halfway down from his elbow in Hanzi once again was branded
贼
Which meant 'Thief'. Usually ink markings like this were only used by rhinos or other species with no fur on their bodies, and although that also applied to Hunter, it still looked rather different than usual. Most of the time their ink markings denoted some kind of rank or honour they'd been bestowed by official authorities, whereas one could definitely question the origin of at least two of the brandings he had...
Moving over to stand beneath the waterfall, he let the crystal clear water pour over him and begin washing away the smell of alcohol and yesterday's long run and the fight with Su and her bandits. He took a moment to try and relax, to feel the beauty of nature around him, the tranquillity that the Jade Palace emanated... to try and feel some semblance of peace in an otherwise turbulent few days... Or a turbulent life in general. He very rarely got to just... relax for a good while, whilst also having a nice soak and getting clean at the same time.
"You know the Palace has its own bathhouse, right?" came the voice of Po from beside the pool.
Aaaaand moment ruined. And here he thought he'd scared them off from wanting to interact with him for a good while, although he didn't actually intend to snap at Tigress like that... Gathering the wherewithal needed to reply, Hunter opened his eyes with a very heavy sigh. "What do you want, Po?" he asked the Dragon Warrior, his tone having returned to its usual blank state. Hunter turned to the Panda, seeing him also stripping his one item of clothing and joining him in the water.
However, before Po could give a reply to him, the Panda made contact with the water and quickly leapt into the air before landing in the water again. "ANCESTORS, IT'S COLD!" he yelled out and shivered a little while hugging himself. "How are you so okay with this!?" Po asked as he began moving around the spring to warm himself up. He eventually shrugged at the question Hunter had asked once he'd finally stopped shivering and got used to the low temperature. "I dunno. Guess I just wanna find out more about you, since you don't really hang out with us at all and you're gonna be staying for a week." he stated to Hunter who rolled his eyes at the Panda's attitude towards his own distant attitude. He should have guessed he wouldn't understand.
Hunter just accepted the situation at this point, deciding the sooner he answers the Panda's questions, the sooner he'll go away. "Can't imagine why..." he mumbled to himself then, although which part of Po's words that particular reply was directed at was anyone's guess... Part of Hunter wondered if Shifu had put Po up to this himself, but then again he figured that Shifu would just approach him personally instead of getting Po to do his dirty work for him.
"Don't be too hard on Tigress." Po suddenly said to him in a serious voice, causing Hunter to stop in his tracks and look at Po curiously. "I know she's a hardass an' all, and it can really get to you sometimes." He spoke sympathetically as he began washing his pits along with Hunter. "But she's just... Super protective since the Palace is her home, and she's supremely hardcore. She's also been through a lot of hard stuff." he mentioned to Hunter, attempting to defend his friend's actions and attitude towards him.
Hunter then turned to Po, who stopped talking after seeing his reaction. "You think she's the only one?" The bitterness in his voice returned then, although he took a breath in an attempt to control his emotional outburst and remain calm and tranquil. "I know she has." Hunter stated then in his usual monotone before continuing to wash himself thoroughly without another word.
Po looked at Hunter as they both stood there with nothing on, Hunter's modesty concealed by the disturbed water by the waterfall, as was Po's. Although if Hunter cared about not being clothed around the Panda he didn't seem to show it at all. "I don't think I've ever seen markings like those... Are they naturally occurring?" he asked, trying to find a suitable topic of conversation before it got too awkward.
Hunter turned to him with a 'Really? Do you really require an answer to this stupid fucking question?' expression before groaning a little realising he did indeed want an answer. "No. I earned these." he stated to the Dragon Warrior. "No, I won't tell you how." Hunter pre-emptively answered the next question before it was even asked.
Po seemed thoughtful and then gave a small smile to Hunter. "Hey, I have an idea. Why don't you have breakfast with us today? The Five are still meditating before breakfast, so there's still time to finish up and join us." he suggested, getting excited at the possibility of Hunter joining them this time.
He got a shake of the head to denote an approaching answer that would be in the negative. "As I said before, I have my own food." Hunter replied simply to Po as he finished washing himself. He then walked over to the edge near his pack and took out his still bloodied sword and a clean dagger. He dipped the sword in the pool and scraped it carefully with the dagger, moving the dried blood from the blade and cleaning it off in the waters. Once he was happy with it, he then took out another dagger that was previously used to slash the throats and pierce the skulls of the bandits in the Valley. Cleaning his equipment thoroughly, he replaced the cleaned weaponry where he had stored it before cleaning it.
Po in the meantime seemed to be trying to figure out what to say to convince Hunter to join them for breakfast. "Well, not to say you can't cook, but I make a mean noodle soup... and my bean buns aren't anything to scoff at either." he chuckled a bit nervously at that, as he didn't really like bragging about his cooking too much, but he thought it was worth a shot.
Hunter sighed and looked down in what seemed like mild frustration before turning to Po, who got excited thinking he had succeeded in changing the man's mind. "I know you're trying to get close to me, befriend me or whatever, but don't bother." he said to Po, whose face dropped at his blunt and tactless words. "Another week and I'll once more be off your map and I'll hopefully fade into relative obscurity again. Wasn't it you who pointed out the fact that I'm cursed so that anyone who gets close to me ends up dying?" Hunter reminded Po with a voice that was again monotone, his face blank. Despite that, the words still felt scathing.
Hunter realised that Po was likely not going to go away unless he got what he was after or Hunter told him to fuck off, but he'd already snapped at Tigress and he didn't fancy snapping twice in the space of an hour. Instead, he simply lifted himself out of the water and took a towel from his pack, wrapping it around his waist to protect his modesty and packing his dirty clothes inside it to take them away.
Po stayed in the pool and watched Hunter get out, looking away before he wrapped the towel around himself and looking back when he was finished. "You've already decided to leave?" he asked Hunter in a slightly surprised, saddened and disappointed tone of voice.
For his part, Hunter didn't think that he really needed to answer that question given the conversation he'd just had, so he simply just walked back up to his campsite on Peach Tree Hill. This left Po alone in the spring to think to himself. As he walked away, Hunter felt rage welling up inside him again as he reflected on his situation at the Palace a bit more as well as everything surrounding it, although the cause of this rage was still a bit of a mystery to him. After dropping off his cleaning supplies at his camp, he also dropped his clothes in the cleaning basket in the sleeping quarters that held the Five, Po and Shifu's clothing to be cleaned. At least, those that wore clothing that is. He placed a note atop his clothing and closed in some coins with the note to compensate whichever servant ended up with the extra workload due to his presence.
Hunter then went over to the training area and walked inside, prepping a routine for the day before the Five got there and started their own training for the day.