Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Sunk-cost fallacy was a rather aggravating thing. 

It was right, after all. 

In hindsight. 

But it was still foolish to assume- as calling it a fallacy would- that he could simply walk back what he'd done already just because it was not working. There weren't alternatives. Hah! All the costs in the world would have sunk, when going into a cup which could not be filled!

She was right, of course. Being right made her right.

And everything he'd ever done sank to the bottom of the harbor he met destiny on.

It was a death he marched headlong into without ever wasting time considering a branching alternative path. 

And it was one that came without conquering the whole world, yes, but all the damage to his family legacy, history, the city’s architecture all around, the harbor itself, meant he left the mortal world scarred and let it decide whether or not those could just fade- just heal from Shen, until it was like he'd never existed to be so hated at all.

What fitting irony!

What terrible terrible truth, that he found his peace in the shape of his ruined weapon as it crashed upon his head.

And now, like that, with a brief sense of relief from destiny playing out, he could die and take his ever-scarred thoughts with him.

…

…Any second now.

Why was he still blasted thinking? This was not what death did!

Could nothing get it right? He knew destiny in and out. He knew what defeat, and demise, and death would amount to. He knew as well that he'd run from that fate for so long for multiple reasons, not the least of which being that- yes, old goat- he was reasonably afraid. He rather liked himself. Having that mind turn to darkness was undesirable to him, regardless of how his energy might return to the universe and fill a new body in time. But at the very least, since he did have to die, he'd like to get on with that darkness already. 

Instead, Shen’s eyes opened once more and they beheld anything but the dark.

There was a Spirit Realm.

It was the talk of kung fu masters during his lifetime, yes. He knew of it and all. He didn't care for the stories because they were only talked about by said masters and that made it all feel rather exclusive. Certainly not a thing for a simple creature of nobility like him.

But-

Oh.

Well.

What's to know.

It wasn't that Shen was angry to still be his normal self. He rather liked being alive. Except that he was not alive. He was dead.

It felt similar enough. He sniffed.

A few less aches and pains, no change in senses, a pleasant glow near-burning on top of him that left him feeling a warmth comparable to living. He could see no dirt on him when he looked around, but he also looked a little less like himself altogether. He lacked the metal claws and buried blades. He lacked his deathly white, this glow filtering the feathers beneath in gold instead. It minimized the striking red of his train’s patterns. All in all, he was quite torn. He'd never liked white or black as colors, not when the presence of one then made it twice as easy, as likely, for the other to come complete the combination. At the same time, his silks were silver by intention. Warm tones did not agree with him. 

Everything seemed rather warm around here. 

Empty, too. 

Altogether, he barely felt different, and at the same time, he very much did. It came in how oddly nonchalant he felt. He'd spent so long denying destiny and dodging death. He'd assume that would mean he would want to be alive by all means available. Instead, since it felt familiar enough, and since he'd already discovered what it was he was so afraid of, Shen couldn't find it in him to actually want to be alive again. This was close, and it had a stasis on the anxieties and physical aches. 

And as empty as this odd bay of sensation-less water seemed, there would be others in this realm.

What a double edged blade that was.

Very few would be pleased to see him. He'd be pleased to see very few. 

There was nothing to do but get a look at the place. But if he so much as spotted the likes of Master Thundering Rhino, he would not be volunteering for a spirit’s revenge. 

And if he saw the likes of-

There was no reason to get hopes (or dread, whatever the feeling was) up. Existence was a clear, shallow harbor. Temples hovered in the sky. Mountains and staircases wound around, visible deep beneath the water or whatever equally clear ground was functioning to keep the liquid in place. It was vast, it held few scents, and it was very, very quiet.

If the only spirits to exist as such were kung fu warriors, then none of those who wronged him or that he'd wronged would be here. (Thunder Rhino didn't count, because Shen only cared about those that mattered.)

If the only spirits to exist as such were kung fu warriors, then something somewhere had messed up along the way, because here he was.

It was not very crowded from what he'd seen so far, but those few spirits he did spot here and there were either recognizable kung fu masters from history or they were built and dressed enough to assume they were.

He saw two sparring once, their power great enough to break the hovering mountains that they darted between.

He saw a figure of ancient legends, performing tai chi on a long, empty pavilion. 

And yes, at one point he did spot his first proud kill with his weapon. Shen slid far, far away from the amphitheater he'd seen that show off in. 

At another point, he wandered too far and began to wonder if there was a too far, because it started feeling very strange and his mind considered the possibility of a wall, a cliff, an end. Shen didn't see signs of others. But he heard chains at one point, shaking in a rhythmic pause-rattle pattern, and the green of the air was oppressive. Rather than trying to continue going through that to see if there was an edge to the Spirit Realm, he made the executive decision to have nothing to do with any of this.

There was a small village, hanging upside down upon a great slab of rock. Most things he'd come across were singular. One temple. One hall. For as small as it was, it was almost like a city in comparison. He was too far away to see finer details like movements. He did not know if a single spirit was occupying the place, let alone if, perhaps, there were many there. Commoners- hah! All he'd seen for certain so far were sparse spirits of clear fighting background. 

So he did not try to shoot down-up in airless air to reach the town. It was empty, for all he knew.

Better not to rush things. He could gather information first, in lieu of physical resources. 

And that was why, when he saw the next spirit- a large bear with a stripe of white across their chest and hostile looking spikes on their belt and pants-, Shen moved boldly into the open.

“You there.” His yell carried up to where the bear was presumably meditating. It did not carry forever, instead swallowed up, fuzzy and moved in the distance. A mercy. He didn't need the entirety of this realm hearing him shout, and he certainly didn't need to constantly hear other people talking in conversations that had nothing to do with him.

The bear jolted upright. Their pointed head twisted until it found him. 

Shen’s eyes narrowed. He was pleased at this reaction thus far. It'd likely mean the startled being would jump down here, all bristled and on guard, and- oh, yes, there it was! The jump!

The bear landed some short ways away on the open pavilion Shen himself had spied on them from. Everything about them screamed they too were one of those braggart kung fu masters. How predictable! And here he was, finally about to discover how predictable, in fact, it actually was. 

Shen folded his wings in his sleeves comfortably and twisted his neck as he took a step closer. There was no need to yell this time. No, no, just a comfortable conversation between peers. Hah! As if they were. Spirits they both may be, but something had gone wrong if this world considered them peers. 

“Tell me: is this realm for warriors only?”

The bear took their own step, to the opposite side of his. They'd settle into circling each other if that kept up. Shen took another. 

“Is that what you have heard?” the bear asked instead of answering. 

Hm. Strong tone. To match a strong form. It would splatter quite easily enough with a shot near point blank. Shush, mind, that wasn't what Shen was here for this time. 

With as peaceful as this realm was, he really did need to find a place to settle and start pulling apart the architecture and engineering of so that he might start building again. Not weapons, silly. There was no need for that. And that metal was far too heavy for him to lift around. 

Ah, right, this was a conversation now. Not a very useful, straight to the answers one, but he wasn't as irritated as he could have been. That was nice. There was so very much that was aggravating in the living world. He couldn't figure out why he'd insisted on trying to stay there so long. 

Shen took three more steps, to match the warrior’s and keep their circle moving. 

“In rumors, yes,” he said, and flourished a wing at the land-skyscape around them. “And it certainly seems empty enough.”

Which was not a cause for despair nearly as much as he'd have guessed. It likely would have been a different story, if he actually was completely alone in a place as vast as this. Dissipating into energy put to other use sounded better than that. Exile only wasn't unbearable because he took more than half the city guard with him. 

The bear was smiling as they matched those steps.

“It can feel that way,” they agreed. 

Even that, that, patronization didn't ruffle him. It could almost be believed as just actual useless agreement from someone who wasn't internally thinking about how superior to Shen they were (incorrect thoughts anyway, but it never stopped the likes of warriors). 

“Hm. So you confirm it.” Shen matched the stranger’s smile. “Yet it cannot be true.” 

“What makes that so?” the bear asked. Playing the fool, were they?

“Ha! Because a realm of warrior spirits? A place for masters of kung fu to persist? It can sound reasonable.” Shen stopped moving and laughing at once. “But I am not a warrior.”

He said it quite seriously.

So yes, it was offensive that this total stranger immediately started arguing.

“Aren’t you?” they asked.

Tsk. The spirit was either before his time or had never been near his province. It was clear they knew nothing about him. 

Then he would have to educate them on his inadequacies that their living peers so often reminded him of. 

The memory of Master Rhino standing proud and defensive in front of his weapon instead of attempting to become a mobile target flooded Shen’s mind. It was quite welcome there. He was fond of that whole interaction. It’d not been one he could fully practice because he wouldn't know who would be present and how they'd reply to him, but his improvisation was so satisfying that it might as well have been staged all the way through. 

Shen watched the glowing spirit and let them renew the pacing. It was more cinematic this way. 

“I am no practitioner of kung fu. No match for it, indeed,” he said casually.

And the bear?

The bear smiled.

“Is that so? Let us try.”

One paw went into position in the air. The other lowered near a leather belt and pulled a small club out. If Shen was to guess, they didn't primarily fight with weapons, like Master Thundering Rhino or Master Croc. The bat was there, but hardly a blade and far from something that could seamlessly be integrated as an extension of the arm alone. No, the primary weapon would be their fists or kicks and Shen could have guessed either since neither seemed blatantly stronger. Those striped bears were not common in the lands he'd wandered and so he knew little about them in generalizations. They did not lose too much if they lost their legs, was that it? Was he remembering correctly? Then it would be arms that would carry the most discipline and power.

This total stranger was striking a defensive pose as though they expected Shen to actually go along with a fight.

What an odd fellow. 

It did not aggravate him as much as he expected, either. If anything, he found himself passive about it. And that was at the most neutral. In truth, he leaned more towards approving than disapproving. With a total stranger! A kung fu warrior, dead or not, among those he held such mutual distaste for! And the first thing this meathead thought of when Shen was just asking simple questions was that they should bash each other apart?

Funny.

It really was rather peaceful here. This did not feel as if it was set in stone. If he drifted away, if he desired to be somewhere far from this fighter, he imagined he'd open his eyes to a totally new and surreal sight. 

Eventually, his mind settled on going with this strange flow. Why not? He did not hate fighting by any means. With the amount of effort he spent learning to defend himself and kill with skill, he found practice in anticipation for a potential deadly, dismissed, yet fated threat rather enjoyable.

His wings uncrossed. He felt existence warp until a glaive like his own was held in his grip. It glowed in falsehoods and it was quite solid. What was a lie in the mortal world was not automatically false here. No, for the dead, it was real enough. It was all very real. It was the living realm which had so many oddities and flaws, in hindsight. This glaive may not be able to exist there, but it belonged in his grip with immediate familiarity.

The warrior’s eyes looked to it, analyzed it, before returning to meet Shen’s own. 

His twitched, waiting.

In an instant, they were upon one another.

Shen fell into a rhythm as if it'd only been a day since he last fought the panda on the boat. By all living logic, he would need to keep up daily or regularly before he could slip into battle. The dead did not care for the living's logic. 

He struck, swung his train to block, distract, then sweep at feet while he retreated. This glaive was not weightless, which was good. It meant he knew exactly how to swing and stab with it. 

The bear did indeed use the bat with less care than he would his own weapons. They used it like a distraction, an irritant indeed. But it was their arms that did the most damage. Shen felt a blow rattle through his skull down his neck, pain, for the first time here, as odd as that pain was for fading as quickly as it had. He traded it with a stab to the bear’s shoulder, which drew a roar. No blood, though. Between all of that, one would think exhaustion would be just as much of a nonconcern.

It was not. Shen could feel himself growing slower, sloppier. Tripping and failing to dodge. His strikes were slowing too much. Stamina was never exactly his forte.

Still, he let the fight continue even after he was struck to the ground the first time. And after the second, where he was swung by his own train overhead and slammed into flooring so hard it broke. 

It wasn't as if the stranger was volunteering to stop. So they continued, and Shen continued to lose until the fun of fighting wore off and all that was left was him being sick of this. 

The bear had just given him a blow that sent him back, claws scraping to slow him and find angry purchase. When he did finally stop, it was to lean lower and send the glaive away into the essence it had come from. His opponent watched him; hopefully, they got the message that he was done now. Not all kung fu masters were idiots. 

It'd not been a very evenly matched fight. Even with all he had learned to use to his advantage over the years. 

You are no match for our kung fu -

Oh, yes, yes, he was aware that he wasn't. He'd never argued on that point. 

“As I said,” he panted, eyes narrowed, “I don’t know your kung fu.”

The bear leapt to the top of a broken pillar, balancing there. It was a fairly unreasonable jump. The gravity of this realm-...Well, it wasn't exactly more unpleasant than the alternative world. Shen could nearly seem to fly here, just by how up and down flipped depending on how high one managed to glide. By jumping off a high point and hovering down, he could ultimately find himself flying up. Or down once more, but down to a ground that was high above him in the sky. 

The arms of the spirit clung to the pillar as they curled over their new perch. “No indeed,” they agreed. 

Cocky little show off. 

“Regardless, you are a warrior,” the spirit added calmly. 

Shen blinked.

He stood up, caught between doing so out of indignation and perhaps confusion, though that implied a doubt in a compliment and he deserved such. 

“What?”

“You are a warrior,” the spirit repeated. “Your form is coiled, sharp, a dancer willing to use many means to twist battle in your favor. Your spirit, then, matches. Congratulations.”

Shen’s beak opened and no words came out for a moment. 

“C- What?” he eventually settled on. 

Elegant wording. 

The warrior didn't answer him at all, which just figured. “Did you lead wars in life, by any chance?” they started blabbing about instead. “You strike me as one of the warlords here, scant and scattered as they might be.”

What was this blasted bear talking about.

He blinked again.

“Warlords?” Shen repeated. 

He'd meant to be one, he supposed. He'd the army and the fleet and, loaded with his weapons, those boats would have brought China to its knees. Once he had its throne, once he'd subjugated the world, as the Soothsayer put it, then he'd be a lord or emperor, simply. That would be his fame. Not some little armies. Those would be his titles. Not a term meant for the intermissionary stage preceding his rise to the throne. 

He had died before that. So perhaps he'd died a warlord. But that certainly wasn't how he thought of it. 

The spirit didn't care. “Yes,” they said. “There are several, though it is not as if that is their profession now. Some will talk for an age, some will snap at you for existing, it is always an experience to run across one. Out of those I know, I recommend speaking with Master Oogway, if you can find him. As I understand it, he can only be found by those who actually wish to hear his wisdom.”

What rambling was this about now? 

Shen squinted out into the distance. He spoke as much to the air as he did to this exceptionally helpful spirit, and he predicted his chances of getting a clear answer were about equal from both sources. 

“I belong,” he repeated, “Because I am a ‘warrior’.” It still did not sit easy with him. “So does this mean no others who aren't warriors are spirits like me? Or do they exist elsewhere, as their own form of spirits unlike us, unrecognizable?”

Up above, the spirit piped in. 

“You'd have to look. We cannot know what is there until we seek.”

Shen returned his glare to them.

“How helpful.”

The master shrugged. “I have been happy with everyone I find. I have not searched for more. We warriors are used to great spaces of time spent alone, honing our arts and finding peace.”

Hah. Peace again.

“And is that what it means, to have a spirit of a warrior?”

Was he supposed to go meditate and train forever? For what purpose? To what end? More paltry battles between spirits like this one? Was existence as a spirit then limited to only thinking about tactics and techniques? That might grow very droll. 

Shen wasn't entirely sure he wanted to be a warrior’s spirit if it meant such limited company and even more limited hobbies. Perhaps this wasn't a moment of congratulations at all. Maybe he’d rather have been the spirit of a royal or civilian or inventor and whatnot, if those existed. 

Yes, it did tickle his pride a little that all those masters of life who discounted him apparently now would be forced to see him as a peer. 

Still.

The spirit shifted to sit comfortably upon an undoubtedly not comfortable rough broken edge of a stone pillar. “To me, yes,” they said. Their ugly mug became a smug smile. “To you? That is your answer to give.”

Perhaps it meant he ought to seek the dead of the past. Perhaps it just meant that if he stumbled across them, it was because he'd wanted to after all, or they'd wanted him to, or some other vague, wishy-washy reason. It wasn't as if this spirit was telling him much of anything concrete.

Hmph. It had always irritated him, how confusing the practitioners of kung fu loved to be.

At least there was nothing forcing him to be around such ‘warriors.'

Chapter Text

Shen was quite content as a dead man. 

Yes, it wasn't bad at all. 

It was adjusted to almost immediately and any lingering adjustments finished up just by him finding the answers to his questions.

There wasn't much to do, but it wasn't boring. He crafted things he'd never be able to when limited by the rules of the mortal world. He laid around in revivatalising water or upon clouds, simply resting and finding it funny that he could, when he supposedly kept so many others from getting to rest in peace. 

It was nice.

And then one day, he was yanked out of a beauty nap by headache-inducing light. Really. He'd been planning on his break (much desired between his palace imaginings for far, even though that wasn't actually exhausting) lasting far more consecutive days.

The energy may have appeared like a gateway from the other side, but when it had grabbed Shen, it did just that: no door appeared that he walked through willingly. No, he was minding his own business and then something yanked him into honey gold, where he sank to freedom ever so slowly. 

It was incredibly rude.

Not even the fact that the voice he heard ringing faintly referred to him as Lord Shen could negate that. Though it did do the mystery culprit a small favor in terms of being a surprise. It had been a very long time since anyone called him that. 

The favor was immediately thrown away by a tongue- a disgusting peasant tongue!- hitting him in the face.

Everything moved quickly after that. He felt something (that he couldn’t even identify) leave a hole behind as it tore away from him. Any energy that being present in the living world gave him was sapped away. 

To add insult to indignity and strange, spiritual injury, he next found himself in a cage like he was a show bird.

He would not stand for this!!

“What? You there-” Shen twisted around to see a hulking leopard sitting in another cage. Perfect. “Explain. What is going on?”

How dare any of this indignity occur. He was not going to let himself sit in a cage. Unfortunately, he barely fit in it and had no leverage to pry metal with his wings. And he'd not be caught pecking on it. Besides, it became obvious that physical struggling would not have done anything. There were rows and rows of these cages around him and slowly, one by one, figures were knocked into them. When they fought the bars, all that happened were blue sigils brightening. Magic. He didn't have much to do against magic. 

Most of these rows were empty. The snow leopard was here before Shen discovered himself in this embarrassing situation, and another cage held what looked like a mass alone until that lump began to twist and move. Shen would have felt his heart stutter if he had a living body. But he didn't. So why the hell was he here? He did not ask to be here. 

The shadow turned into the light enough for him to see it become a beast, a giant of a beast at that.

But the leopard didn't even look over and so did not get concerned about the monster casually stuck in this same situation. No, that smaller beast was busy glaring at the lower floor of the room where the gateway loomed brightly and that appalling creature who'd used a tongue on Shen’s head was standing. 

“She is stealing the experience and memory of kung fu of those faced by the ‘Dragon Warrior’.” Well, tone of voice alone told Shen how this brute felt about that title- or person, rather. Likely the person. It did not even require the accompanying air quotes. “Because that idiot got his highly important master weapon stolen from him first.”

Dragon warrior? …Wait. The panda? Was at fault for this? By sheer ineptitude? He needed more details than this. 

“He's what?” Shen squawked.

“She’s what? How dare she!” the giant beast said. 

The seated leopard twisted around a bit to look at that nobody. Shen was paying just enough attention to notice the glare. Barely. He had better thoughts to be focusing on. But just enough. 

“Oh, like you’re one to talk,” the leopard was replying. “I’m almost alright with being here just to see your face now.”

“She’s not even stealing chi! Honestly, it’s like no one remembers how I was the world’s biggest threat because of that.” The giant slumped back to wave down at little miss tongue far too casually for this rather emergency situation. “The least some kid could do is go straight for the chi.”

“Do volunteer that. I’d pay to see you turned into a little amulet before I go home.”

Both their voices were so loud. It was like they thought people wanted to hear them. 

Shen had enough of a headache. 

Their blabbering meant nothing to him. Shen tried to bristle in offense, and only grew more righteously angry when the cage was too small for his tail and wings. No. Nope. No he was not going to sit back and take this.

“You’ve got to be joking!” he shrieked. “I don’t know any kung fu!”

First the Spirit Realm itself apparently made that mistake, but it got the excuse of ‘warriors’ being unspecified enough. But that speck down there outright claimed it was the art of kung fu she was after? 

Shen kept raging. “That was my whole deal! Rebelling and swearing an end to kung fu, pah.”

Pah indeed. The other two weren't even listening. Some komodo now in the cage next to him was, chin on his hands, expression dreamy, but who care about some komodo. 

Shen decided to follow the giant stranger’s lead and slump with his wings crushed together and his offense made very blatant on his face.

This was so rude. People needed to stop assuming they had any right to kick him out of homes. He was dead, he had no patience for this nonsense anymore. 

The gateway closed and he was still here. Oh, absolutely not. 

He wanted nothing more to do with the living world, except for wanting to stab this chameleon person once he got out. He thought he deserved to get that. At least one stab.

Eventually, the panda-

(because of course this had something to do with him …Shen wasn't even mad, he thought it rather fitting that the one ghosting his mind for thirty years, the one destined to defeat him, would remain important for the living's history.)

-showed up and started chatting away with this sorcerer creature. About similarities, of all things. A dumpling for every time an opponent told him that? Well, no dumpling from Shen then. He'd never compared them at all. 

Not out loud. There was the matter of scars and shared sides of destiny and parents that hated children enough to abandon them but actually did not, supposedly, apparently, really, Shen was fine with it all by now. 

So there, panda, be pleased: he cared about what scars did after all. Mostly because they did fade, it turned out. 

Or they got ripped open again by some rude little mortal who thought it her right to drag a spirit out here without even asking first.

This reptile was clever enough. He had to admire the levels she took her magic to, in order to compensate for what she lacked, and not just compensate, but surpass the ruling power of kung fu masters. Sorcery was a far cry from the magic he saw in black powder as a youth. But so long as it did the trick, it and his weapons were on par. 

This cage was uncomfortable. He wasn't getting any bruises and he wouldn't get sore even from sitting in this position so long. But every part of his form was protesting for other reasons. Far more ethereal ones. It quite knew it wasn't supposed to be here and every minute here was annoying for it in a fuzzy, sharpened way. Those spirits that insisted on sending messages to the living meddled on their own prerogative, but he judged them for it because he found touching the other realm more trouble than it was worth. The past belonged to the past indeed now. 

Bah. At least he had something to watch. He did not attend the tournaments held by these types of spirits, so he did not observe fights like this. 

Ah, right! Because he did not like those meatheaded, arrogant kung fu masters! 

For goodness sake, this was surely common knowledge.

Someone had not done her research.

He in turn did not respect a single bit of this. He should just stare away in protest until the panda did his duty and got Shen home. He should. It would make his thoughts on this matter more obvious.

But he did look closely, for two reasons.

First, simply put, his fate rather hung in the balance. For all this creature talked to explain what she had done to them, she failed to share what she intended to do in the future. That was unsatisfactory. He’d certainly not stand to sit in a magic cage where she could keep draining energy that was not hers to take. And that was a tame enough prediction for what someone mad might do with feasible spirits. Most didn’t get to see the Spirit Realm until they died. He certainly hadn’t, so no one else should. They ought to struggle and make their terrible decisions and get it all out of their systems early, rather than dragging those from the Spirit Realm back to this dusty place. Did no one understand that the dead did not belong in their present? This disruption was truly audacious already. It need not start extending into days. 

That was already a reason enough to at least watch, if not be invested, in seeing who would be victorious below. 

Then the other, equally simple. Since he was going nowhere, he might as well see how much the panda had improved since their own fateful encounter. The brute picked up new tricks, and a protégé while he was at it. What? Did he and his own masters not expect him to live on, infallible, forever their ‘Dragon Warrior’? That sounded about right. All these annoyances, preaching about the inevitabilities of death and the need to stop pursuing a dream so that someone else could instead. They were right, of course, but that should be something figured out while being dead. Like this audacious thief was going to learn soon enough. Please, the panda had fate on his side. He’d pull some unheard of grand stand and the only difference here from the last battle Shen witnessed him in was that rather than the audience being a city full of nobodies who’d all clap, it consisted of people who all had reasons to be quite mad at him. 

Impress them enough and maybe they’d bother to clap anyways. 

Shen settled back in the spirit-capturing cage and demanded the panda and company to impress him. It was the least they could do to make up for this irritating interruption.