"This is not going to work," Hapi grumbled.
"It could," Ashe said.
"We are all going to die," Hapi said.
"If we don't try, we won't succeed," Ashe said.
An arrow hit the ground between them. "Halt!" A Yiga Clan member showed his masked face from behind some rocks. "Wait, I know who you two are! You're with the Rising Sun Company! Prepare to die!"
"If you kill us, you'll miss your chance to remove Link as a threat," Ashe said before the Yiga assassin could shoot at them.
"What are you talking about?" the assassin asked.
"We're here to issue a challenge," Ashe said. "A one-on-one duel, the Hero against the Yiga Clan's choice of champion."
The assassin hesitated. "I don't know, I'd have to ask Master Kohga..."
"We'll wait here," Ashe said. "Bring our terms to him."
"The Hero wants a duel?" Master Kohga asked.
"That was what their messenger said," the guard told him. "Their terms were that if the Hero wins, the Yiga Clan is to release all prisoners we may have taken, and surrender ourselves to the custody of the Gerudo. But if our champion wins, we may keep the Master Sword."
"That's absurd! Tell him that we refuse!" Kohga shouted.
"Wait," Wizzro suggested. "The Hero doesn't realize he walked himself and his allies into the perfect trap. Simply allow them into the fortress, and..."
Sooga drew his sword. "Coward! Honorless cur! Such a trick is..."
"A great idea!" Master Kohga said.
"No! No, it is not!" Sooga protested. "Master Kohga, if we are to answer their challenge, let us answer it with honor!"
"I see. You want your duel," Master Kohga said. "Okay, Sooga. You can fight the Hero, one on one. But if you want to preserve the Clan's honor, you had better win." He turned to the guard. "Tell the Hero's friends that we accept their challenge."
Hours later, Sooga led the Rising Sun Company through the Yiga fortress. "I will be the one facing you, Hero," he said, a begrudging tone in his voice.
"Gee, big guy, you don't sound happy," Claude said. "I would have thought you would be excited to fight the Hero. Wouldn't it bring you great honor?"
"There's nothing honorable about this," Sooga snarled. "Master Kohga plans to set the entire Clan upon you if I lose."
Claude glanced at Yuri. All was going as planned. "That doesn't sound very honorable of him. Is it possible that Master Kohga isn't the man you thought he was?"
"I did think better of him," Sooga said. "But I cannot break my oaths to him. I shall simply have to kill the Hero, and ensure the Clan's honor cannot be besmirched."
"It sounds to me like the Clan's honor has already been besmirched," Yuri said. "Are you really going to fight for someone you aren't proud to serve?"
Sooga said nothing in response.
In a few minutes, he led them to an underground arena with a pit in the center. Throughout the stands were hundreds of Yiga assassins.
"Well, well. Look who we have here," Master Kohga said. None of the Company had been expecting him to be so...fat. "You're here for your duel, aren't you? Well, Hero, you'll get that much. We have room in the stands for your friends, don't worry."
Once the rest of the Company had taken their seats, only Link, Kohga, and Sooga were left in the arena. "All right, Sooga. Kill this meddler for me."
Sooga hesitated. After a few seconds, he turned to Master Kohga. "Do it yourself."
Gasps could be heard across the stands. "Have you turned coward, Sooga?" one Yiga clansman asked.
"I have not," Sooga insisted. "But I believe our beloved leader has." He stared down Master Kohga. "You kill the Hero. Prove you truly deserve to be the leader of the Clan. And before you call for aid, if you try to order anyone else to fight for you, I will kill you myself."
The Yiga were shocked by this display. But then some of them began whispering to each other.
"Sooga, you turncoat!" Kohga snarled. "Fine, I'll kill the Hero myself! Then, once everyone sees how much of a coward I'm not, I'll have all the Yiga here kill you!"
"Let them try, if they dare to," Sooga said.
Master Kogha turned to look at Link, cracked his knuckles, and pulled a pair of daggers from his belt, then vanished in a puff of smoke.
Link had chosen to eschew the use of the Master Sword for this battle, instead using Zimmer's curved sword. He blocked a strike from behind, but Master Kohga retreated before he could retaliate.
Kohga then teleported to the pit, levitating over it while levitating two stone spheres with the Yiga eye on them near him. He used his telekinesis to throw one at Link. Link just barely dodged, but he saw that the other was over Kohga's head. He fired an arrow at Master Kohga, who used his telekinesis to deflect the arrow...but he dropped the boulder on his own head as he did so.
Link then tried using the Sheikah Slate's Stasis rune to freeze Master Kohga in place, but it didn't work. "You think the Yiga wouldn't have came up with something to counteract that, especially after you used it to ice Flagg?" Kohga asked.
Next, Master Kohga summoned a huge spiked metal sphere, and used a Magnesis rune of his own to try to hit Link with it. Link countered with his own Magnesis rune.
Either Kohga's was cheaply made or Purah's upgrades had been better than Link realized, because his Magnesis rune won out, and he slammed the spiked ball onto Master Kohga, where it exploded.
"YOU'RE...MAKING...ME...MAD!" Master Kohga shouted, and a beam of red energy blasted at Link from his face. Link, however, managed to block with his shield, then in the same way he had deflected the Guardian's energy blasts in the Labyrinth, he deflected the blast back at Master Kohga, knocking the Yiga leader down.
Master Kohga got back up. "No! I'm not going to lose to this chump! I need a plan...yes! That'll do! I'll bust out my secret technique, invented by my father's mother's father!" He pointed at Link. "It...will destroy you!"
He summoned an even bigger metal, spiked ball in between himself and Link. "Only the master of the Yiga Clan can use this secret technique..." he trailed off as he realized the ball was rolling toward him.
He backed up, but his foot fell on the edge of the pit. As he tried to catch his balance, the ball rolled over him, ball and Kohga falling into the pit.
Link looked over the edge. He couldn't see the bottom.
"Master Kohga lost..." one of the Yiga gasped.
"Revenge!" three Yiga Clansmen shouted, jumping into the arena...only for Sooga to cleave all three of them in half with one swing of his sword.
"Stay your hands!" Sooga shouted. "I am the leader of the Yiga Clan now!"
"You can't expect us to let this slime live!" one Yiga shouted. He wasn't wearing a mask, so it was clear to see it was the same Yiga clansman whose face Hubert had scarred near Kakariko Village.
"That is exactly what I expect!" Sooga shouted. "Master Kohga promised the surrender of the Clan if the Hero was...what is that?"
Everyone was interrupted by the purple smoke entering through the room's vents.
"Manhandla miasma!" Sooga shouted. Too late, everyone realized that Astor and Wizzro were nowhere to be seen.
"The exits are locked!" a Yiga clanswoman shouted.
"Astor and Wizzro must answer for this treachery!" Sooga shouted. "My first command is this! Find and kill them!"