Volume Three: Deng Wa

Chapter XXXIV

One Scroll

"One?" Tigress stiffened her inquiry as her amber eyes skimmed at the librarian. Beside her, her nephew broadened his silver eyes.

"Ancient monks created twenty-seven scrolls across dynasties, and these parchments do not replicate, Master Tigress. Their writings may fade during those years of the old age," Bingwen elucidated.

"What happened to all 26 of them, Master Bingwen?" Chen Xing inquired.

"Long gone, ripped apart, burned into ashes, and those ashes buried underneath the soil, never again to grow back," the librarian said. "Only one remains, and it is within this room, waiting for you, my child. The truth about those eyes behind victims awaits."

The librarian witnessed all four warriors gaze at themselves with concerns, undeniable as the tiger drowned his cold breath under his lungs. A sudden crash outside the fifth platform introduced a goose messenger in silver garb, whose head wobbled; Bingwen's messenger pardoned and stormed into the chamber. "Intruder! Jombies are on the march!"

Fragments of wood and flesh of ripping paper snapped underneath the floor. "LOOTERS!" Bingwen's messenger gasped.

The librarian pressured his gruff muzzle. "Jade Warriors are about to break through the city walls, and my customers are willing to snatch many ancient scrolls as possible!"

Bingwen fastened his brown eyes at the group. "By any means necessary, find the scroll shell with a yin-yang symbol and get out of Wukong," the librarian sprinted to the fifth platform's door and turned to the four. You find the bovine's view rested on yours with caution. "Child. You bear those extraordinary gifts, and you are not who you used to be. Please, be sensible regarding your adventures, as I have children's blood of Almighty Liu Bong Shien. An old friend of your ancestor."

Quite certain to recognize the librarian's gifted sensation from the roots of Tai Chi founder, the Nine's Leader wanted several questions but attempted to offer his respective nod at the librarian. Bingwen was now fixing on his former competitor. "And Tai Lung. I wish we had more reunion time. It's wonderful to see you again. Please give my regards to Master Shifu," the bovine showed his hoof flattening on his heart with care. "Good luck, all of you."

The door bolted shut, the silhouette of a buffalo librarian sprinting down the stairs as they heard him thunderous bellows. Chen Xing extended his lantern across bookshelves, flipping down the cape's hood. Tigress looked at all three next to her leopard brother. "Split up. Monkey, Xing, go to one and two. Tai Lung and I will skim the other."

Two groups spread into sections, one way and the other side.

The smell of parchments, books, and scrolls swarming within the leopard's muzzle was such spirit to him, as he was into reading, more likely the power of knowledge. Wood, earthy, and smoky thrived as he motioned his paws fiddling with crinkled papers on the top shelf. Rather than untieing ribbons, many parchments branded with titles, making enough haste to search and go. As all four wandered on these bookshelves, many scrolls were random, as they found several books disorganized in sections. Around the peak of the sixteenth path, Tigress skimmed her paw on several titles: Western Han, Eastern Han; Wang Mang; Zhou Dynasty.

Farther down to the fifteenth section, Tai Lung made his way to stone tablets, all written with something sharp that was slightly tricky, many centuries ago. The leopard could not comprehend how essential these tablets were, but poems and messages were left. He caught most verses about what he reminisced on before and remarkably watched one who documented antique tablets.

Left with curiosity moments entering the Jade Palace Library, the young boy of purple trousers, whose flashes of butterscotch eyes intensified, searched for his adoptive mother sitting behind the table. At this small, he could not understand among top words to describe the amazement as the child crept to the side, avoiding his mother's sight. Her hums were forgiving, precisely how she placed her son to rest in his chamber. Tai Lung was closing into her mother's left side of the table, finally broadening his eyes on what his striped feline mother was gesturing on the surface.

Sounds of clacking tapped countless times, marking on a hardening texture; the leopard boy kept his black ears flickering. Finally, begging for more than a million attentions by the eyes of a Great Dragon, his mother reached for his paw; chuckling with all of her strength, mother fiddled her soft paws on his weak points, starting on his love belly and her silky black lips bursting air on his stomach. Loud giggles thundered before Tai Lung toned down his laughs once more as his cheeks bumped on her jaws.

The boy commenced tittering on his mother's arm while she presented the stone tablet to him, indicating basic character strokes Tai Lung could scrutinize her writing well. Despite Chen Ming's passion for poetry, which was not exactly what the boy could read more, his birth name was on the introduction verse, knowing two nouns. Tai Lung.

"Mama."

Chen Ming chuckled once more, her fingers stroking his head as she embraced her adoptive son fully.

The night lurked with the azure horizon, filling white dots behind the silver moon. Tai Lung mounted on his adoptive mother behind as she strode across Masters Garden, observing the blossom falls float on Hippo, Gorilla, Elephant, and Porcupine. No other words to describe how marvelous the boy could marvel at statues, these honorable warriors who followed the Magnificent as he reached for the Elephant, and so did she. Upon the ridge that a tree with blossom flowers stood on the flat cliff, the mother and son fiddled on foliages in the air with tortoise grandfather and red panda father. Oogway, Shifu, Chen Ming, and Tai Lung sat on the lime rug next to the Peach Tree, meditating with a drumming breeze. The boy's curiosity was a spirit to ponder what his family was doing after work and parenting hours. He believed that Tai Lung was flying with spirit warriors once he reached the sky with swarming clouds of foliages.

Three masters and one child observed the eastern sky, painted royal blue heaven with fading stars among them. Tai Lung questioned his adoptive mother about why the sun always rises. Chen Ming expressed to her son that many dragons blessed us from cloaking nights we sleep. The morning made us sure to live again. And so, a lemon light behind the blue bathed with warmth on all the children of the universe.

"Tai Lung?"

After flattening his paw on a stack of antique stone tablets, the Great Dragon left a single tear under his eye. Tigress, who led beside her brother, asked right on before he soothed his breaths in and out. Tai Lung stroked his tear out after sniffing once. "Let's keep searching."

Monkey mounted on the fourth section's shelves, which stacked most of the intricate scroll shells with fading title names on crimson bow ties; he perused most on top books before leading to the bottom within each counter. "You found anything there, Xing?" a langur asked.

The tiger was mounting on a bookshelf from the third section behind Monkey. Chen Xing had almost finished browsing on the last shelf of a wrapped textbook, which wood and black strings layered. The front page of it only indicated fading inks. "Here is the last scroll from section 3, Master Monkey."

Xing tossed the book to Monkey, who quickly caught it with his hand while holding himself from falling. Monkey found his feet to stand on the gaps in old-fashioned scrolls, finally opening the front book. "Nothing here. This one is —" Monkey's ocean eyes widened. "Kid, you found the history book. It's The Art of War."

"What? No way!" he gaped. "That warlord's book is well known. That one needs to get a new copy."

"While you are into reading, something to reflect about war, you should keep Sun Tzu's book. Your student is going to love it."

"I know Kai will," Chen Xing said.

By the time the four continued skimming all four bookshelves on both sides, mumbles of yells and collisions intensified underneath the floor. Monkey flipped his body backward as he sprinted to the solid structure, sidling next to the door. For a moment, a langur opened a small by squinting his eye in a gap; Tigress and Tai Lung rushed on to the thirteenth and twelfth sections. "What do you see, Monkey?" Tigress uttered.

Around the middle of these sections, Chen Xing fiddled on one of the small cloth bags once he placed Sun Tzu's book on the flat table. "Jombies are barging in the front border, Tigress," Monkey proclaimed. "They're on the move!"

Double time.

Without anything to find, Chen Xing snatched one pack with cloth patches and forced the warlord's textbook in; Tigress was near the fourteenth just as she sought her nephew, who was grabbing his lantern into the following passage, Xing barged through.

Tai Lung mounted on the bamboo ladder at the fourteenth passage, with Tigress farther down to the end, who scanned wooden textbooks sewn with black strings. Volume rolls of bamboo slips gathered ancient lore of the three kingdoms, rival states of Wei, Wu, and Shu Han, several decades before Jin conquered the whole. Neither of the textbook rolls did match any scroll shell with an icon Bingwen described, just as the Great Dragon examined all thirty scroll icons of "San" sigils. And finally, giving sorts of nodding to each other, moving on to the next bookshelf, Tai Lung and Tigress caught their surroundings; the fifth floor's light torches hazed while flickering with dying embers.

The two felines left their luminance of amber and chi eyes, having both warriors made their leisurely way to cross paths. They leaned in between two bookshelves as both ears registered soft pulses of embers, coughing torch lights underneath harsh slate ashes. Next to their heads, after giving strange glances at each other, peach hues from one's lantern illumined, their eyes following where the light presented. Tigress and Tai Lung remained still, their backs fastening against shelves; the lantern lay in front of Chen Xing's left foot. Ahead emerged miniature swirls of blurriness, slowly emanating to a substantial figure.

"Kid?" Monkey crept amidst two felines.

The three warriors watched as their striped feline colleague remained still, whose paw grip fastened chokuto's tsuka. Ahead of the Nine's Leader, which neither Tai Lung, Tigress, or Monkey would be able to see, blurs of ghastly gray mist towered, puffing strident snouts in between the ink muzzle. The sights of berry condensed from the intense haze, radiating glares into the tiger's silver eyes. By the next, as the tiger remembered the smell of harsh smoke, charcoal breaths stormed by, the same scent he encountered in his dreams. Despite being ready to banish the bovine spirit away by drawing his straight katana sword, the tiger was willing to embrace the next anxiety attack, exactly how the cave happened. However, an abnormal activity from the spirit's hoof commenced. The Ox demon trained his eyes, reaching for the bookshelf's eighth counter; the ghost pulled out the colossal scroll cover — two gold knots and an intricate emerald cover, including the yin-yang sigil in the middle.

Dammit. You found it.

Chen Xing gave out his revulsion gaze toward his worthy opponent, whose hoof seized Bingwen's giant scroll, reaching down to the tiger's height. At first, this was not precisely that the episode could harm him for good. Now that his hoof started to beckon with a sharp throat buzz? The tiger extended his paw underneath once haze blurs slithered on his waist, fiddling his fur. With a slight confusion insisting on the spirit, Xing shuddered his head. It's a trick. I will not fall for it again.

At a simultaneous act, the Nine's Leader unsheathed a quarter of his chokuto, his paw snatching the scroll with robust force. The Heaven's Wrath shrilled its sharp reverberations of metal poundings as the raging ox phantom stormed away into banishment. For a moment, with a sigh of relief by beholding Bingwen's scroll shell scathes of eyes, Chen Xing firmed his stance as he reached out his limb behind him, offering one of the three warriors. Shaking his grip twice, the tiger pivoted and—

The truth is inevitable.

The Prince of Darkness grumbled in his coarse voice, launching his body in him.

Chen Xing gasped in fright as her aunt called him. He fully awakened his surroundings, which had not happened to his view, he glared at all sides, bookshelves, and the three staring at him. Tigress went to her nephew, extending her paw. "Hand the scroll over."

Xing submitted to her as she offered Bingwen's scroll to Monkey. Tai Lung had himself watched his sister aiding her nephew; Xing flattened his back against the bookshelf, his breaths gripping in and out.

"Did you see him?" Tigress asked.

For a moment, the tiger's breath loosened before he opened his eyes that were clenching. The Nine's Leader nodded with haste. "Did you?" he asked her with intense fright.

"No. Po told me what you are going through," Tigress flattened her paw toward his chest as Xing shivered his head, ravenously filling his vibrate breaths under his throat. Intense echoes of fragment woods and chiming metals flooded his ears. Those sounds made the tiger clench his eyes again, contemplating the monster of four arms who roared at him.

"Breathe, Xing. Look at me. Listen," his aunt maintained her paws that barricaded his shoulders from trembling. "Your worthy opponent is gone. You had no choice but to destroy him. Even if he is still inside your head, you must master your fear."

Master my fear.

His apprehension was grueling to cease; the Nine's Leader pressured his mind from disruptions. What was finding the only path to relieve his anxious feeling had him reminisce about one who presented him to ease his emotions. The Dragon Warrior guided the tiger through his meditation, a simple way to neglect behind him from turmoils. Breathe in. Breathe out. Po's voice soothed Xing's silver eyes; the tiger repeated the panda's method, breathing in his muzzle and exhaling from his lips. Each of his breaths stirred from the grip of his muscle to relaxation, his clenched sights releasing.

"While we are in a tight spot, Wang and his army of Jade Warriors are on their way here," Tigress told him, her amber eyes radiating. "We cannot let Iron Antlers know about what we are doing. Are you with me, Xing?"

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Attaining in relief of sighs, Chen Xing looked upon his aunt with aid, knowing the Dragon Warrior's strategy worked too well. "I'm with you," he nodded, straightening his back. "While we are in a hurry, let's get the scroll and get out of—"

"Tigress, Xing, you need to see this!" Monkey uttered.

Two striped felines reached for the two warriors in front of the flat table with a wax candle after Xing grabbed his lantern; Tai Lung spread a sheet as Monkey stretched the other, his fingers planting on edge. A painting of a red panda figure in orange-crimson garb, two shade paws casting a fabric light of chi was in the text's introduction, leaving the title above the yin-yang of gold and black dragons.

"Followers of Realm by Master Wuxi," Tai Lung read. "Behold the eight of twenty-seven scroll endures the generation line of masters. The five students adapted passages that contain doorways of the Wuxi Fingerhold." They began to give their glimpse at themselves before Monkey pulled the scroll, had Xing unwrap the other, giving the introduction sight of Master Wuxi's pupils.

Farther on mountains and close on hills stood most of the completed and under construction of various architectural buildings: pagodas, temples, palaces resting on ridges and meadows. A forger, carving the dragon stone on its lengthy body, emerged an ox with wide iron horns in harness beads and dark brown trousers. Wuxi's first student was named Diqiu. The gardener of architects.

Merging to the next page presented a striped feline in amber tunics, a blue lotus flower on her ear, and a crown of lily blossoms. The background beyond the creature rested towering mountains with a burst of sunrise behind the scenery. Upon her paw formed a dazzling pulse of dusk, the mark on a wounded goat's wool pulsing its sparkle waves over the soul. Wuxi's second student was named Lily. The beauty of healings.

Passing on the next rested a thousand specks of white pulses, swimming in the bronze haze and ebony webs. The next horizon arose dawn from debris fields of land and temples, finally cast a black leopard in voluminous gold robes and a headdress, her garb floating across as the leopard meditated. Wuxi's third student was named Xiuying. The believer of constellations.

The following page introduced the goat in a violet garb, who crossed her knees on a rug with her sip of tea. The hissing stream from her cup swam onward to hundreds of children and their parents, blooming flowers upon specks of white sparkles above them. Wuxi's fourth student was named Chaoxiang. The teller of all beings.

Tai Lung and Chen Xing lowered their paws on a rolled parchment, which followed the tiger's silver eyes broadening. A sense the tiger could not define on his own was strapping his lungs. What is that feeling? The tiger's paw stroked on quiver silks as they slowly expanded the next disciple, whose background of snow mountain temples lingered with panda soldiers in scathe armors. Long before the prospering village temples that rested on rime ridges, an Asian badger with a conical hat in flowing outer tunics of emerald wielded a dagger-ax halberd, whose spirals of yellow dust cast against the army. You sought a slight grin and emerald eyes behind the front hat. The fifth disciple now exposed the name Wang mentioned, delivering Chen Xing fill his breath under his cold throat, his silver eyes churning to snow eclipses.

Who are you?

A majestic dragon in silver and white scathes swam above the snow mountains. Underneath the flat ridge of bellowing black smokes thundered roars — there were various people in battle armors and robes. Ones that she recognized all were her children of all beings, and the dragon was the only one. Before the whole army, onward to the sea of dying gray to shrouds of shadows emerged the dark creatures of crimson eyes. The dragon tumbled her great height down to the flat battleground and gorged her snarling mouth wide open, devouring the scream of glooms into her belly, leaving trails of charcoal embers behind. The rest of the shadows in her stomach dissipated, allowing her next dive against the greater army of—

Demons! The panda monks shouted under her while swimming in the air with snappy glides, dodging black spears that launched from the rime mountain ridges. Somewhere beneath the majestic creature, infused a dazzling maelstrom of green cloud and spread toward her allies, her living children soldiers sobbing before the webs and shrouds snapped in their flesh. "No!" the White Dragon wept. She found a demon that was no longer her child, whose sights of emerald, drenched gore under those eyes behind the creature's conical hat. The face of white and two ebony stripes was the shape of a downward triangle, and the straw garment rippled in the cold breeze.

"I KNOW YOU ARE IN HERE!"

"The door!"

Interference of muffled shouts clapped but had the White Dragon's eyes continue speculating her child. Something gripping on the warrior's opening limb, drenching with cherry splatters, radiated a firm grip of dagger-ax, which the blade engraved a shape of a serpent. The White Dragon could see the embedded dye of velvet green in her Asian badger child. His scream amplified in the air before the warrior upheaved his dagger after the black leopard lady in front of him wailed.

The warrior's dagger plunged into the snow, angry charcoal emerald beams snapping to zig-zag cracks. Ruptures spread and narrowed across the battle, filling her children's horrors with his sinister glare.

The Nine's Leader had found him. He was the master of blades himself, those emerald eyes staring at him, but the fifth disciple's eyes were only cinnamon in the scroll.

Deng Wa.

The Library's door banged twice. "OPEN UP!" a harsh voice intensified behind the shoji wall. "I KNOW YOU ARE IN THERE!"

"The door!" Monkey shouted.

Tigress snapped her nephew out of distraction. "Xing, come on! It's time to leave this Library!"

"Alright, let's get out of here!" Chen Xing quickly wrapped and placed the scroll back in the emerald shell. The three sprinted down to the door after the Nine's Leader was behind, but—

The fifth floor's door blasted into fragments. Silhouettes of four Fire Clan bandits, Takin, two cloud leopards, and argali barged in with roars.

Author's Note:

— I left a few sentences bestowing my support to one country facing difficult times since the final week of February. Know that we are all souls here who do not want the war. Stay strong, Ukraine.

— I could not help myself hearing quotes from the Witch Queen (Destiny 2), who said, "The truth is a funny thing," and Neo (The Matrix), who also spoke to Agent Smith, "It's inevitable." So I combined the two into one ominous quote the Prince of Darkness uttered to my boy. What truth does Huoju mean by that, you asked? Good question. I don't know.

— Deng Wa's name only belongs to DreamWorks Animation when Po only mentioned the blade to Shifu, the Dagger of Deng Wa, before his teacher gave him a trowel. As only a fan concept, my mystery character was going to be the panda, which would have been a comparison of him and the Dragon Warrior as a hero vs. villain type. Instead, I found some ideas for Deng Wa's species that writers from Discord prefer: go for mustelids. So there you have it, pandoms! I introduce you all to my Asian badger original character, part of a Mustelidae family, and he is the main player behind my boy Wang and our Mightiest Warrior friend, General Kai! What comes next to the White Dragon's flashback discovery? Stay tuned during V3 chapters.

— While there's somewhat rare to find fanfiction stories about Deng Wa in the KFP universe (I am not the only one mentioning the blade and the character), I strongly recommend reading my friend's fic "Winds of Change" by The Dragon Chronicle. Drags's tale steers you toward an arduous adventure with Po, Tigress, and Crane to find the ancient weapon before it delivers to the wrong hands!