Darunia: Disclaimer! Selphie Louise does not own the Legend of Zelda or any of its characters. They are the property of Shigeru Miyamoto and Nintendo.

Tingle: The characters she does own are Selphie, Iggy, and Jiji. The characters of Kage, Yugi, Mable, and Raven belong to Kearra. The character Ravick is the property of Selphie's friend, Patrick.

Chapter 3

Some time after she'd parted ways with Iggy, Jiji found her rage ebbing away. She dropped herself against a tree along the Zora River and sighed. 'I could so settle here,' she thought to herself. 'Screw Iggy. Let him go back to Ikana… let him become a Garo… like I ever cared…' Closing her eyes she began to drift to sleep again, lulled by the sound of the water flowing through the river.

When she awoke it was to a different sound. Softly padding feet making their way toward her. It was a soft sound, not as that of one wearing boots as all of her friends did. She knew not whether this person was a friend but she knew she did not know them. Her hand drifted slowly to the bow across her back.

As the footsteps got nearer, they paused and another sound was added: the whisper of a blade slowly being drawn from its sheath. 'Not friend!' Jiji rolled away just as the blade swung over her head, getting lodged in the trunk of the tree momentarily. Fast as lightning, Jiji leapt to her feet, twirling to face her foe as she yanked the bow from her back and knocked an arrow. Her eyes widened as she faced a young man in trainee robes, much like the kind she'd worn when she attacked Link.

"What the hell…?" she breathed.

The boy frowned behind his hood, extricating the sword from the wood, splinters falling to the ground from the notch he'd made. Jiji watched him for a few moments, never lowering the bow, all the time waiting for him to say something. "Well…?" she asked when he didn't.

"'Well' what?" the boy asked.

"What are you doing here, and attacking me no less," Jiji expanded.

"Heh…" the boy chuckled. "I don't have to explain myself to a failure like you."

Jiji scowled at him, narrowing her eyes. "For your information, I do not fail: I choose not to succeed," she said coolly. "I would remind you that you're in just as much a predicament as I. Tick me off and I will not hesitate to release this arrow and as many more as I have to in order to defend myself," she threatened. "Now tell me what you're doing here."

The boy rolled his eyes behind his hood. "If you say so… I guess I'll give you the benefit of at least knowing why you're about to die," he said. "But the elders sent myself and my partner to kill you and Iggy."

"Oh, yeah. That tells me a hell of a lot," Jiji sneered. "Care to tell me why they want me and Iggy dead? I know I at least left the Garo. I would think Iggy would have explained that when he got to Ikana."

"Feh, I doubt if Iggy'll even make it to Ikana," the boy said. "You can't just walk away from the Garo. We're a clan built on secrets and clandestine. We trust no one to keep our secrets, and thus if you become an outsider, you will be killed, along with any knowledge you may have had of us."

"And why Iggy? He went back. He didn't quit," Jiji replied.

"He failed, and failure is not condoned among our society," the tyro answered. "You claim to choose not to succeed, but Iggy does not have that luxury. And even if he did, it is not his place to choose where he succeeds and fails. The masters told you to kill the hero of time and you did not. That is why he is probably already dead… though I wouldn't have been surprised if a skullkid had killed him on your way here," he added with a smirk.

Jiji's eyes flashed dangerously and she released the arrow. The tyro started, but raised his sword in time to deflect the arrow. It bounced off the blade and landed in the tree trunk. He glanced at the arrow and turned back to Jiji, crying out as he realized she was delivering a roundhouse kick to him. After her foot crashed into side, audibly cracking a couple of ribs, he flew into the tree, hitting his head and slumping to the ground unconscious, dropping his sword.

Jiji grabbed up his sword and took off across Hyrule Field toward the forest. 'Iggy doesn't know they're after his life…! I gotta stop him from getting to Ikana!'

Several hours later, Jiji had arrived in Ikana, not bothering with stealth, but worrying all about speed. Once she reached the canyon she ventured further in and began heading toward the encampment, figuring she'd run into them at some point along the way. "A…plus…" Jiji turned a corner, eyes widening as she ducked behind a boulder.

'No…!' she thought when she saw Iggy lying there, the young trainee gloating over him. 'He… he can't be…!' As she continued watching, Jiji saw the tyro take out a bomb and bend down to light it. Anger flared inside Jiji. 'Hell no!' She stepped out from behind the boulder and drew an arrow, aiming at the novice.

Apparently the boy heard her, because he put the bomb away and placed his hand on the hilt of the sword. Jiji didn't wait any longer and released the arrow. The boy blocked it, but he now faced her, sword still raised. Clearly he had a few negative emotions manifested about her, but it soon became apparent that he was smirking behind his hood and he chuckled.

"What the hell do you think you're laughing at?" Jiji demanded coldly.

He continued snickering for a moment more before answering. "I was just thinking about the fact that no tyro had ever failed their field assignment before, but suddenly we were about to have three failures…" he answered. Jiji narrowed her eyes further. "Though I guess it's only two afterall."

"It'll be four if you don't explain what you're talking about right now," Jiji said.

"I'm not gonna tell you, but I'm sure my partner is willing to show you," the boy said.

"Partner? I took out your partner back in Hyrule," Jiji scorned. Her ear twitched slightly and her eyes narrowed. "…Or did I!" she shouted as she turned around, ready to send another kick to the sneaky tyro. This time, however, the boy raised his sword. Jiji cried out in pain as her leg came to contact with the cold steel. 'Bastard had another sword…!' She landed, but before she could fall to the ground on her newly injured leg, the boy moved the sword in a horizontal slice across her stomach.

Jiji bit her lip in pain, her teeth threatening to pierce through the skin. She slumped to the canyon floor and stared up at her attacker. "Bastard…" she sputtered before falling forward, dust flying up around her as she landed, sprawled out in the dirt.

The tyro that had taken out Iggy walked over and gave his partner five. "Well done. You had me worried when she actually showed up here," he said.

"She did get me back in Hyrule," the second said. "I have the broken ribs to prove that. I just couldn't catch up until she reached here."

"It doesn't matter," the former said. "We took them out. Time to go back to the encampment and report to the masters."

The latter nodded his head. "What about their bodies?" he asked, pointing at the lifeless Iggy and Jiji. They looked at each other for a moment and came to a silent agreement. Not long after, Iggy and Jiji were floating down the river through Ikana Canyon, and the two nameless tyros were returning to the Garo.

They had succeeded.