Tigress sat in front of the Sacred Peach Tree, trying her best to meditate. She couldn't figure out what was wrong with her and it wasn't settling well in her stomach. Her kung fu had improved over the course of two weeks and she was back into action with her kung fu skills. They may have been slightly rusty in an area or two, but nothing to cause much alarm. However, the nightmares of Gongmen City still plagued her every other day no matter how much she tried to avoid thinking about it and now, on top of it all, she was getting heavy eye and a dizzying head illness.

Something's wrong, she told herself again. But what is it?

She leaned back against the tree, trying to meditate and get herself back into balance again. The master took in a deep breath, allowing the scent of the blossoms to relax her as she sat amongst them. The sun began to slip down the longer that she sat there, casting a shadow around the peach tree. Tigress felt the shadow cast over her, her mind flickering back to the nightmarish vision of being helpless during Shen's attack.......

Lord Shen fired a cannon at the bridge as the people who were on it quickly evacuated for fear of being killed while on there. Tigress looked at the scene in horror, anger rising in her chest. She turned back towards Shen, screaming, "You coward!"

She could see Shen smirking in triumph and she struggled to break free of her chains, although she knew that she wouldn't be able to do so. I can't let Po die in vain! she thought in disbelief. She wasn't quite sure what to do, her attempts lessening as she thought about what else she could do to save the people they fought so hard to free. But the harbor was coming close into view and they were running out of time before their ultimate demise was upon them....

"Tigress?"

Startled, Tigress snapped out of the memory, breathing heavily as she tried to remind herself that the trials of that fight were far away. She turned her attention to Master Shifu, who was standing behind her with a concerned look on his face.

"Master Shifu!" she exclaimed in startledness. "How long have you been standing there?"

"Not long," Shifu assured her. "I just came by to invite you inside for dinner."

"Oh," Tigress said flatly. "Alright."

"Is everything okay?" the master asked her. "You look disturbed."

"I'm fine," Tigress lied, standing up. "I'm just trying to meditate."

As she began to walk away, Shifu called over to her, "You've had another vision of our fight with Shen, haven't you?"

Tigress froze, trying to keep another memory of the evil peacock out of her head.

"Tigress?"

"Yes, but I'm perfectly fine," Tigress told him.

She headed towards the kitchen quickly so as to focus on something else besides the bad memories. Master Shifu let out a small sigh and followed after her so as to grab some food. He had noticed lately that she hadn't been acting like herself and it mad him a little bit worried. During her training, she was normally very focused and let nothing get in the way of a victory unless of course Po happened to focus and dominated the round. For the past few weeks however, especially the last few days, she hadn't been completely with the group. She seemed very dazed, she still frequently had flashbacks and nightmares of the battle in Gongmen City, and she would try to keep things to herself every once in a while despite having become more open in the past few years.

As they walked into the kitchen and grabbed their food, Shifu thought about how much she had changed over time. He knew that none of that was thanks to him however. He hadn't done too much to help her develop good people skills. I am the worst parent, he couldn't help but think to himself. First, he overpraised a child which led to rebellion. Then, he under-praised a child which led to hard-core mental isolation. He took some slow bites of his soup, thinking about Tigress in the orphanage. Even though he was still raw from Tai Lung's rebellion, he didn't want to leave her alone in the orphanage. The day that the parents came to adopt a child, he had stayed back a little bit in order to make sure that she got a family. When the parents still didn't want her, he had decided to take her home with him instead. He could see that she was upset and he had wanted to give her a good home where he knew that she would be taken care of. Her first few days at the Jade Palace weren't all that bad. She was quick to adjust to the large grounds, took a strong liking to Oogway upon first greetings, and became immediately interested in kung fu the moment that she saw the training hall. Shifu had no problem helping her to adjust into the kung fu art, although he was a little bit shaken up from Tai Lung's recent betrayal. After a few days of adjusting into the Jade Palace and learning some beginning kung fu moves, Shifu grew afraid that Tigress would turn into another Tai Lung if he praised her as much as he had praised him. So, he therefore cut off all praise from their sessions in the hope that she wouldn't develop any self-destructive pride.

Reflecting on it now, he wished that he would have thrown a few more compliments of praise for her seeing as how isolated she became as she grew older. He didn't hang out with her as much as he had with Tai Lung as a child since it always brought up painful memories that he kept trying to forget. Tigress wound up having to entertain herself and trained even harder in order to become excellent at kung fu, making time for nothing else as she grew older. She heard about Tai Lung from Oogway as Shifu found it difficult to discuss openly and he could see that she was trying to work hard to make up for the student he had lost. At least, that's what it had seemed to him. Shifu hadn't noticed how much she had changed from the sweet, playful child he knew her as until one day, about two years prior to Po's arrival, he had found Viper in a bad mood. (Which was rare for her). The serpent master related, when asked, that Tigress refused to take a break from her training in order to eat dinner and asked to not be disturbed. Shifu wound up having to go to the training hall in order to get her to give her muscles a chance to breathe, a task Tigress was extremely reluctant to comply with. Shifu then followed her to the kitchen to eat, noticing that she did not interact with anyone at the table, and when asked anything, her comments were short and normally tried to drag everyone back to a kung fu related topic. He hadn't realized how deep into her training and away from interest in socializing she was until that moment, and he began to feel guilt about how he had raised her.

Despite not having much father/daughter interaction over the course of twenty plus years, Shifu still considered Tigress as his own child. He wasn't much of a father to her, so he imagined that she didn't feel the same way back and considered him simply her master and the man who helped her in the orphanage. However, Shifu couldn't help but feel that small connection to the master, wishing that he had been easier on her over the years. She had still been raised by him: he had fed her, clothed her, taught her kung fu, homeschooled her, and even comforted her whenever she would be down. (Which was rare). But that stubborn fear of a pride growing within her held back any other affection he would have shown her. By the time he came to his senses and realized that Tigress wouldn't be rebellious as well as long as he balanced everything out, it was too late. Tigress had become unreceptive to a social life and only valued kung fu and the title of Dragon Warrior. However, Shifu trusted her to not be rebellious and became thrilled when she took the naming of Po as the Dragon Warrior alright. (Better than rebelling against the valley, anyway).

It took some time to adjust to Po being in the Jade Palace, especially since he wasn't used to kung fu traditions that Tigress clung on to with her life, but after a while, everything was fine. Tigress took a little longer to get used to Po since he had a personality completely the opposite of her own. Over time though, Shifu noticed that she got used to him and he sbegan to realize that her personality was slowly beginning to change. While she had initially been very stubborn in keeping to vigilant training, even after the title of Dragon Warrior was given to Po, after about two years or so, she became a lot more social with her friends and with those in the valley. She still trained hard, but now she enjoyed walks around some of the trails in the valley, she attended gatherings with her friends, (and even danced as he recently heard from Zeng attending to the masters), and she smiled and laughed a lot more than she used to.

 It's Po, he thought to himself. He's always the most determined to try and strike up a conversation with her. And it was true. While the others knew when to back away from the ferocious tiger whenever she got in one of her moods, Po risked a scratched face to tell her what he thought about a situation or about her. He was the only one bold enough to define orders and go fetch her back from Mistress Mugan over two years earlier. He was the one who dared to try and hug her or touch her despite her voicing her disgust at being shown any affection. He wasn't afraid to offer her advice or try to get her to smile and he was always trying to impress her with something. (Although initially, it never really worked). Over time, he and Tigress began to form a strong friendship, a bond that Shifu could see grow stronger as the years passed by. Tigress began to lighten up a little it as her and Po hung out more and she began to grow closer to her teammates as well. Eventually, she had become a lot happier than she had been in years. Shifu wished that he had shown her more affection so that she did not have to endure all of those trials, but in a way, he was glad things worked out the way that they did as her bonds seemed to be stronger due to her having to trust people more in order to shed her hard-core shell that she had grown over the years. I have a lot to thank that panda for besides defeating Tai Lung, the master thought to himself. If it weren't for him, I don't know where my daughter would be today.....

The masters talked for a while about the training that they did that day, Tigress managing to push her thoughts of the battle away in order to focus. She still couldn't understand what was wrong with her, but the sooner she figured it out, the better. In the meantime, she was perfectly content with talking to her friends and trying to forget the horrors of the passing fight.

"So," Po piped up as the meal began to draw to a close. "What do you guys say to a nice quiet game of mahjong after dinner?"

"I have training to make up," Tigress reminded him. "So you can count me out."

"How about when you're done with the crossbow training?" Po asked.

"We'll see."

"Mahjong sounds good to me," Viper said. "It'll give us a chance to wind down for the day."

"I take it you'll be in the game, Crane," Mantis told the avian.

"Actually, I wanted to work on a picture later," Crane corrected with a scowl. "So I'm afraid I'll be depriving you of my company."

"It's cool," Monkey said with a shrug. "There's always next time."

"Are you two playing?" Po asked Mantis and Monkey.

"We're willing to take you on any time!" Monkey exclaimed, grinning at the idea of beating Po at mahjong.

The masters quickly finished their dinner and cleaned up, heading out of the kitchen and towards the barracks. Tigress, who had training to get to, headed over towards the training hall with Master Shifu in tow. They reached the area and proceeded to walk into the training hall where Tigress could see many cross-bows lined up alongside the walls.

"The ordeal of a hundred arrows?" she asked.

"Yes, we didn't get to cover this one as you well know," Shifu reminded her. "What with us getting distracted with Mei Ling's arrival."

"How is she, by the way?" Tigress inquired. The fox had gotten locked up in Chor Gom a few months before Tigress went to Japan, Shifu having limited visiting hours with her due to a crackdown on the prisoners. He tried to have her released several times, but to no avail.

"She's alright," Shifu assured her. "We're still working on clearing her name without Jungie interfering...again...but she's getting along well."

"I still don't understand why you never told us that you were getting back together," Tigress said.

"I didn't think you would understand, "Shifu explained. "Considering the fact that the first time you all met her, she tricked you into stealing the emperor's crowned jewels." He eyed the master. "I am a little confused as to how she tricked you since she didn't know your names."

"You've sometimes acted...bizarre," Tigress explained. "Whether under too much medicine or from being paranoid about not being...cool enough. So when you didn't refer to us by name and Po called code-names...it didn't really occur to us to think it was someone else. Plus, you never told us about the Soul Gem, so it didn't cross our minds."

"Hm, I suppose you're right," Shifu admitted. "Remind me to go over the artifacts in the Hall of Warriors sometime this week."

"I will, master."

The two walked over to where the arrows were neatly set up.

"Now I've demonstrated this before," Shifu reminded her. "But it's been a while, so would you like me to demonstrate it again?"

"I remember the sequence pretty well," Tigress assured him.

"Alright then," Shifu said. "Pull the string and block the arrows and I'll evaluate how you did."

Tigress bowed and waited for him to move out of the way before she pulled the string. The arrows came flying at her and the master quickly began to block them, knocking them out of her way. She gracefully cut through the air, sending arrows scattering in all directions. As she landed on the ground and prepared the final blow, an arrow flew towards her that she didn't see and the master, in surprise, struck it towards the front where it broke right before reaching its target. She let out an irritated growl, upset that she hadn't been paying any attention.

"Not bad," Shifu told her. "You lost your focus right at the end, but I think another round or two would perfect that last blow."

"I can't believe I just shattered that arrow!" Tigress scolded herself. "How does that even happen?!"

"You are very strong, Tigress," Shifu answered. "And you channel that strength well. But sometimes when you get angry or if you get out of focus, you unleash the full power of that strength which is what results with things getting demolished or simply broken."

Tigress sighed and went to clean up the arrows from off the floor. She wanted to do the move again so that she could smash the crossbow and not the arrow itself. As she finished putting the arrows back into place though, she heard, "Tigress, what's bothering you?"

The master turned her head towards Shifu who was looking at her with concern. "What do you mean, master?" she asked.

"I couldn't help but notice that you've been very out of focused today," Shifu explained. "And I want to know what's been troubling you."

"There's nothing wrong," Tigress lied.

"Nothing wrong?" Shifu repeated.

"Yes. I'm perfectly fine."

Tigress got into a fighting position, but Shifu hopped down and walked over to her to prevent her from doing anymore fighting. "Tigress, I may not know you as well as I'd like," he admitted. "But I know you well enough to know that your behavior isn't normal."

"Of course it isn't," Tigress told him. "I've lightened up a little bit more."

"I'm aware of that. But that's not what I mean," Shifu stated.

"Then what do you mean?" Tigress asked.

"Lately, especially today I noticed," Shifu told her. "You can't focus for more than a few minutes at a time, you're becoming extremely flustered, you've been meditating a lot more and have been having quite a bit of trouble with it, you've become very quiet and reserved...." The master eyed her and added, "Should I continue?"

"There's more things wrong with me?" Tigress asked, trying to not panic.

"I'm asking you what's been troubling you," Shifu said. "Since you've been showing various signs of absent-mindedness and distress."

Tigress didn't say anything for a moment, unsure of what to say. "I..." she stammered. She sighed and said, "I...I don't know."

Shifu glanced over towards the door and said, "Why don't we go to the Hall of Warriors to discuss this?"

"Um...sure," Tigress responded.

The two left the training hall and walked across the grounds until the reached the battle arena. The two then walked up the stairs and entered the Sacred Hall of Warriors where they quietly went inside and over towards the moon pool. Shifu and Tigress sat down by the waters, not saying anything for a moment.

"Master, can I ask you something?" Tigress asked.

"Of course," Shifu told her.

"It doesn't really have anything to do with...what's been wrong lately, but...did you ever care about me growing up?"

Shifu did a double take, extremely surprised by the question. "What do you mean?" he questioned.

"Well, you cared for Tai Lung when you took him in, but while you took care of me and all, it didn't seem like you cared nearly as much," Tigress explained.

"Oh," Shifu said. He let out a small sigh. "I can see why you would think that," he murmured.

"So you did really care?" Tigress asked.

"Of course I cared!" Shifu exclaimed. "I admit, I was probably the worst father figure to you growing up, but that didn't mean I never cared for you the same way I did for Tai Lung. I just...I had more trouble showing it. And I was afraid that if I raised you the same way I did him, you'd have the same destructive pride he had." He sighed mournfully. "I hope that you can forgive for that."

Tigress smiled at him and reached over to tightly hug him. "I do," she promised. "You still gave me the home I needed, even if it was a little...isolated."

"I am sorry," Shifu apologized.

"It's alright," Tigress assured him. She grinned and added, "I'm still calling you master, though."

"If you prefer to," Shifu said with a smile.

Tigress released him and sat back, still noticeably worried.

"So what is troubling you then?" the red panda asked.

"I've just had a lot on my mind lately," Tigress told him. "Like the battle in Gongmen City. I think I'm the only person who hasn't stopped getting regular nightmares and daymares from the incident."

"That one I believe I can answer," Master Shifu told her. "We've discussed these various flashbacks quite a few times, and after carefully thinking them over, I do believe that they have to do with the fact that you are afraid to let us down."

"But Po helped me to get over that!" Tigress exclaimed. "Why should those memories still bother me?!"

"Fears can take time to overcome," Shifu told her. "And you were the one who took a lot of the blows to protect your teammates, so perhaps those memories are the ones that keep causing it."

Tigress sighed. "I just hope they become nothing but faded memories soon," she grumbled. "They're really starting to bother me."

"I have no doubt they'll fade into distant memories," Shifu assured her. "But perhaps they'll take some more time."

"I suppose."

The two fell silent again, Tigress staring into the water deep in thought.

"There's something else bothering you, isn't there?" Shifu said worriedly.

"I...I think there might be something wrong with me," Tigress admitted quietly.

"What do you mean?" Shifu asked her.

"Lately, I haven't been feeling a hundred percent," she told him. "I mean, not all the time, but every once in a while."

"Not feeling a hundred percent," Shifu repeated. "How exactly?"

"Sometimes I get a little dizzy and my head gets really heavy," Tigress explained. "And it's like time seems to just freeze and I'm not even a part of what's going on."

"And when did you experience these symptoms?" Shifu asked her.

"During the festival dance a few days ago," Tigress told him. "And then yesterday when we were splashing around in the lake."

"Hmmm," Shifu thought aloud. After a moment he asked, "What were you doing when these symptoms occurred?"

"Well the first time I was dancing with Po," Tigress said, adding quickly afterwards, "Just because we had a bet and he beat me."

"That's fine, Tigress. And the second time?"

"We were splashing around in the lake and someone knocked Po into me and we both got knocked underwater."

Shifu blinked. "Both of those situations were around Po?" he asked.

"I guess you could say that. Either that's a weird coincidence or he's eating some weird noodles. Or I'm sick."

Shifu shook his head. "I don't think you're sick, my child," he told her. "But I admit I'm not a hundred percent sure what this is."

"So you can't help me?" Tigress asked in worry.

"Not necessarily," Shifu corrected. "I have an idea as to what might be the problem, but I need more time in order to correctly diagnose you. If it's what I think it is, I can well assure you that you have no need to worry."

"What do you think it is?" Tigress asked him.

"If it's what I think it is, I think it would be better if you found out on your own," Shifu answered.

Tigress eyed him curiously, but then said, "So there's nothing seriously wrong then?"

"No," Shifu assured her. "You're not in any danger from these symptoms."

Tigress let out a sigh of relief. "Well that's good to hear," she said.

"Does this ease your mind a bit?" Shifu asked her.

"It does. Thank you, master."

"Any time, Tigress."

The tiger master then stood up and walked towards the door. She stopped and turned around, saying, "Should I practice The Ordeal of a Hundred Arrows again?"

"If you wish," Shifu called over.

Tigress bowed and walked out of the Sacred Hall of Warriors. Shifu sighed and stared at his reflection in the moon pool. He remembered having experienced some of those symptoms once: the world stopping, looking into one's eyes and feeling heavy-headed and dizzy. But as they hung out more, the symptoms faded a bit and it became easier to lock eyes and pay attention to surroundings. Granted, not all first love experiences were the same: Po mentioned that when he first met Lu-Shi, he felt his heart rate speed up and his palms sweat like mad and Tigress had blushed like no one's business around Yijiro. But those were key symptoms of one thing that Shifu knew very well: love. Shifu was a bit shocked that Tigress didn't pick up on it, but considering the fact that Po was the one she got the symptoms around, it wasn't too surprising. Those two are very close friends, the old master thought to himself. And that friendship may be the very thing that's preventing Tigress from seeing how much her feelings for him have changed.