Sorry this one took some time to finish. Been busy the last few weeks with summer events and such.

But as they've now passed, let the journey continue!

Making the Cut
Chapter 10
Talk of the Town

As I got up off my bedroll I felt like had walked into a brick wall. My muscles were sore from immense strain and my bones were bruised in more places than I thought were even possible. I couldn't lay on my chest all night because of the cut from the tiger. Last night when I had retrieved my bag and walked far enough to convince myself I was safe, I set up my bedroll and ripped a piece of cloth and tied it around my chest to stop the bleeding. I looked down at it now. The blood had seeped through showing its color on the other side.

On my way back it was impossible for me to fathom what I'd done.

I was a killer.
Killer
Somehow after the defeat of Park and Tai Lung I had never associated that word with me. This time it was different. There was blood on my hands now. As much as I tried to wash it from me, there was nothing that could change that.

Well you should have thought about that before you knifed him, genius

Hey, he was gonna kill the masters if I didn't do something. And me.

Yes! That is true. I have to remember that.

The knife.
The knife seemed to grow sharper with every cut. The blood had fed it. It was a black ocean of unexplored depths. Beneath its glassy surface was a deep impenetrable darkness. The only thing that could penetrate it was the dagger itself.

Saxon Zadora: "even the devil will flee from this dagger"

Even now as I looked at it, I saw my black reflection
Reflections
A darker reversed image of myself

What I couldn't get out of my head all night was what Keen Lee had said.
He was right.
I had thought "it would be that easy." I couldn't just run in some place expecting to get answers. It couldn't work like that. It shouldn't work like that.

There were things to learn:
This wasn't negotiable. Saving the masters wouldn't be a calm exchange of words.
My intensions couldn't be revealed from the beginning.
I had to have a plan before I made any move

Knowing that I could learn something from this didn't help everything.

The biggest factor that I hated was that no one was here. Po wasn't here to tell me everything would end up fine. Master Shifu wasn't here to tell me what I needed to do. At this point I would have gladly welcomed Tigress's harsh criticism in place of the taunting silence.

Lord, what I would trade for one of those moments with Po or just one of his hugs.

Now the problem remained; where to start next? What was my next plan of action?
I had no idea where the Masters could be if not at the school. Obviously "The Wolf of the Black Mountains" had something to do with it but that barely lent assistance.
What had I learned even going to Keen Lee Academy?
I learned why Master Oogway had dismissed the two others.

I had once read a survival story about a girl. Near the beginning of her survival she realized that her worry about the future was causing too much stress on her body. She eventually decided she would take things as they came.

So that's what I needed to do.
Take things as they came.
First things first.
I'd worry about where I was supposed to go next for the masters later.

I needed to treat the cut from the fight. That was imperative. I delicately touched the cut with the tips of my fingers. I immediately drew in air through my teeth. Just this was sending branches of pain across my chest. Although I hadn't noticed it at the time, the kick to the chest I'd received just after the cut had apparently opened it more in the process.

I decided to take a walk through the village. It was possible I could find a treatment for the cut there, besides, my food supply was running low. I had hopes that there might be a restaurant in the town, possibly even a noodle shop. I had long grown tired of my daily meal of bread and dried beef.

I followed the road that lead to the village. The walk was hard enough, the night's rest seemed to amplify the pain in the bruises which seemed to have multiplied from the amount yesterday evening.

A few minutes later I was entering the village, The real heart of Pearljing.
The village was rather urban in style. More than the village in the Valley. Tall buildings and shops lined either side of the streets. There were more varieties of shops and restaurants. And there were fewer kids in the streets. I wondered if the majority of kids in the village were students at the school.

After a little more walking I found what I was looking for. Above the door of a small building hung a sign: Hanz' Clinic

As I walked in a tiny bell hooked on the top of the door signaled my entry. A red panda emerged from the back room into the small waiting room. He was taller than Shifu by maybe half a head. His figure was heftier too, but not what you would define as fat.

"May I help you?" he asked quite animatedly.

"Um, well yes. Are you the doctor here? Can you see me now?" I asked.

"Ah yes, depends do you have an appointment? What am I saying? There's no one else waiting, come, come." He gestured me through the raised swinging doors into a separate room. There was a counter with a mortar and pestle and assorted labeled bottles and papers on it and several tall cupboards undoubtedly filled with more.

"Name's Hanz Amm." the red panda said holding out his hand.

"Xanidor," I said shaking it.

"If I may make a guess," he said, "I assume you want that cut treated." He had a way of saying words as they were thought.

"Yes, you guess right." I said chuckling.

"Sit down let me have a look at it."

I hopped up onto the elevated padded bench in the room. I gingerly removed the makeshift bandage slowly peeling off its surface damp with blood. Part of the cut had started to scab but most of it was pretty fresh.

He gave a low whistle. "That's a nasty one." He shook his head. "You kids at this age, getting yourselves roughed up." He was starting to take notice of the several bruises slightly concealed by my fur. "How did you get this piece of work?"

"I just fell down," I said trying to sound innocent. "Got scratched on some rocks."

He nodded "That's a common one I hear."
I knew then that he wasn't fooled, but he had a paternal instinct that came with not prying.

He walked over to the counter and looked through some of the bottles. "'specially with that Lee Academy nearby." he added after a considerable gap in words.

My heart slowed as if pondering. "What do you mean?"

"Do you not know about Keen Lee Academy?" he asked looking up from the bottles.

"I'm not really from around here." It is the truth.

"I should have known. We don't have many badgers in Pearljing."

EVEN HERE?

Still rummaging through the labels he began "Keen Lee Academy is a kung fu training school in Pearljing. That school, I don't like it. It's something our town considers worthy of bragging about but it's terrible. These kids are practically being taught to be killers. Students at that school are constantly stopping in for injuries. Usually it's minor things, cuts and bruises like yours, but every once in a while a kid comes along with a broken wrist or ankle. I don't understand how people can let this sort of thing go unnoticed but I'm guessing that the school does a good deal of hushing things up."
He finally turned back around holding a tiny corked bottle. "But I'm just rambling now."

He uncorked the bottle and poured a tiny bit of ivory colored liquid on the tips of his fingers. "This may sting a bit at first." he warned.

He dabbed the cut with the ointment and I clenched the edge of the bench trying to restrain showing signs of pain, but the feeling was quickly replaced by a soothing sensation at the cut's point. Afterward he wrapped the cut with a clean bandage.
He went back and rummaged through a drawer before taking out an assortment of bamboo cups that ranged in sizes from thimbles to mugs.

"What are those for?"

"Buhang," he said. "Also known as fire-cupping."

"Fire cupping? For what?"

"Your bruises." he answered. "I assumed you'd wanted those treated too."

"Oh yes I do, but I didn't know you could do that. How does this fire-cupping work." I asked nervously. "Do you... burn the skin or something?"

He chuckled. "No. I'll show you. Lie on your back."

I lied down on the padded bench as he had said. A second later he was holding a stick with a burning piece of cotton on its end. My body tensed up as it did when he applied the ointment. He then held the flame inside one of the bamboo cups and then removed the cup placing it on a bruised area of my skin.

"The fire creates an area of low pressure inside the cup." he began to explain. "When it is placed against the skin the air inside cools causing a slight suction drawing the skin in. This causes the bruises to subside."

"You've explained this to people before, haven't you?" I said smiling.

He smiled back. "Many a time."

He repeated the treatment with efficiency on every bruise I had then asked me to lie on my stomach, much easier now that the cut was properly bandaged. By the time he was finished I could hardly believe the sore wakening had been this morning.

"Apply that ointment every morning and take the gauze off at night, and it should start to go away in a few days." He said.

"Thanks, Mr. Hanz." I handed him some money for the ointment.

As I was walking out the door he said "Watch out for any more sharp rocks."

As I strolled through the town the streets were considerably busier than when I had walked in. I passed a large crowd outside one of the shops. The sign outside the shop said The Pearljing Gazette. Everyone was grabbing papers off a cart like crazy. The news was apparently what drew the crowd. I made a glance at a paper being held by one of the citizens but the front page brought me to a complete stop.

I weaved through the crowd and came out with a paper in hand.

The headline in large block letters slammed me in the gut like a spectral fist.

MASSACRE AT KEEN LEE ACADEMY

Civilians were flabbergasted at the unbelievable act discovered at the renowned Keen Lee Academy. The morning of July 11 each of Keen Lee's 52 students were found wounded or injured at the academy quad. "It can't really be called a 'massacre' as there was only one fatality" states Felix Yen, a farmer neighboring the school. "But this happening is just too unimaginable for words. The city of Pearljing hasn't ever seen an incident like this before." While authorities initially assumed the mayhem was performed by an elite force of trained fighters, the majority of students claim that the act was carried out by one person. Head of Security, Commander Jaro, recounts the scene: "They were all sprawled out in the courtyard. No broken bones but they were all beaten to a pulp. Some of them were knocked unconscious. It is highly improbable that the effects were done by a single perpetrator, but with this many witnesses saying the same thing, I'm not sure what to believe."

As if this were not unthinkable enough, the only death was that of the academy's headmaster, Master Keen Lee.

The 55 year old was found stabbed repeatedly in the chest apparently being killed some time in the late hours of the previous night.

Keen Lee Academy was founded by Master Keen Lee nearly 30 years ago. Keen Lee started the institute shortly after he left the Valley of Peace where he was one of the three apprentices under the Valley's Master Oogway. He had trained along side his then partners Master Shifu and Master Montenegro since childhood, but a disagreement over training techniques led to Montenegro and Lee leaving. The two continued to train as partners until they themselves went their separate ways. Montenegro chose to be selective in kung fu training as to give precise attention to students where as Keen Lee wanted a large number of trainees to develop a wide ambit of kung fu. Prior to his death the two still cordially worked together on infrequent occasions. Valko Montenegro currently resides at his manor in the Black Mountains where he continues to train a select few.

One thing is certain, citizens agree the work of Master Keen Lee still lives on. Plans for his funeral are still yet unknown.

I leaned back against the wall of a nearby building trying to comprehend what I read.

Well what did you expect?

That no one would notice the death of a renown martial arts trainer? Or the defeat of 52 kung fu trained students?

A new perspective was just put in place.

52 students? 52 students trained extensively in kung fu by one of the best kung fu trainers in China? All of them defeated by one person. Had this seriously been me, or was I reading a report about some adept fighter that no one knew?

No, it was me.

Despite the heavy remorse I had last night, I couldn't help but feel a little… I don't know... empowered. I didn't know if it was right to feel like this.

But the paper held more than a renewed sense of confidence. It held important information. I finally had the name of Oogway's other student.

...a disagreement over training techniques lead to Montenegro and Keen Lee leaving.
Apparently Keen Lee got his fake side of the story known by the public beforehand.

... Master Valko Montenegro currently resides at his manor in the Black Mountains...
So this was him then. Valko Montenegro; The Wolf of the Black Mountains.

Laid down before me on a piece of paper, I had gotten my next lead.

"Well then, the Black Mountains it is."

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