Izuku sucked in a lungful of air as his body reformed from the streamers of light. The brilliant blue light faded, revealing the Dueling Peaks Outpost. He was also quietly relieved when he heard the accompanying gasps from either side, signaling that his friends had also made it.

"Kpha-ha! So that's what teleportation's like," All Might coughed. "No offense kid, but let's walk next time."

"Yeah, I'm—I'm okay with that," Link groaned. "We really should catch some horses. They'd let us travel much faster."

Izuku shuddered. "I-I'm good to use my own legs, thanks."

After a few moments of sucking in air, Link straightened. "Well, let's start using them then. We've got a long walk ahead of us."

Link didn't wait for Izuku or All Might to respond and instead started off down the road. Izuku rolled his eyes and jogged up to his friend, with All Might bringing up the rear. All Might chuckled as one of the few villagers awake did a double-take as the group passed. "It must be confusing for these folks, seeing people they had seen leave a couple days ago coming from a different direction than they had left, dressed in new clothes."

Izuku laughed, and even Link chuckled. They were a much cleaner group than the one that had first entered Kakariko. At some point during the night, Impa had managed to get together some money and several changes of clothes for them, which Izuku had immediately swapped his warm doublet out for. He was grateful for the warm garment, but he, like Link, had removed the outer tunic to avoid dying from overheating.

The new tunics were light and breathable, a welcome change from the thick wool of the doublet. They reminded Izuku of some of the more traditional clothing from home, reinforcing his belief that he and his friends weren't the first visitors from Japan. All Might looked perfectly at home in his, something that clashed with Izuku's mental image of the hero.

Link, however, was not wearing a Sheikah tunic. When she had gotten to him, Impa had handed him a sky blue tunic emblazoned with the white outline of a sword pointing downward. A Champion's tunic, she had explained—Link's, to be exact. Now that he had returned to fulfill his duty, it was only fitting that he should wear it once more.

And Izuku had to admit, Impa was right. Something about the tunic seemed to draw the eye to him and enhance his charisma. 'Link definitely looks more like a hero now.'

The group left Dueling Peaks behind and followed the road toward the crossroads to Kakariko and Hateno. It had rained the night before, and the road was still a little damp. Izuku didn't mind the mud. It was still firm, and it kept the dust down.

The first of the sun's beams peaked over the mountains as the group reached the crossroads, and Link pulled up to a stop. He slowly turned around, looking carefully at the ground, and Izuku followed his gaze. He didn't know what Link was so interested in; the muddy road was just that—a muddy road. A little turned up, but it wasn't a paved road, so Izuku wouldn't expect it to be smooth.

Finally, he asked, "What are you looking at, Link?"

Link continued scanning the ground as he answered. "Hopefully nothing. Potentially something." He paused and looked up at the two. "Do you see it, Yagi?"

"I believe so," All Might said. "How many, do you think?"

Link crouched down and ran his hand over the mud. "It's hard to tell how many, but I would guess… maybe three dozen? I think a few less."

Izuku stared at the ground, trying to make out what Link was talking about. He ran his eyes along a slight t-ridge, not quite seeing what the two of them were talking about. Then, as Link shifted slightly, the picture suddenly jumped out at him.

The road was covered in footprints. What Izuku had taken as natural dips in the mud were in fact the impressions of dozens of feet. He tried isolating one set, but quickly lost it among the myriad tracks. "I-is that a bad thing?"

"Depends." Link stood up and wiped his hands on his pants. "It could be a merchant caravan that passed through this morning, or just a group of travelers like us."

"But you don't think that's likely, do you, Young Link."

Link shook his head at All Might's not-question. "No. For one, if it was one or the other, they wouldn't have any reason to leave before light, not unless they were trying to hide from something. For another, the tracks split. A few go toward Kakariko, and the rest toward Hateno. No caravan would do that."

"Y-you think it might be monsters?" Izuku asked, tilting his head slightly.

"Doubtful. Impa said that there were a few wandering groups of bokoblins on Blatchery Plain, but nothing this large. What's more, the footprints aren't bokoblin. They look like lightweight boots."

"I had noticed that, too," All Might said. The blond skeleton glanced up the road and then back, his blue eyes glowing within the depths of their sockets. "I believe that the Yiga have caught up with us, my young friends."

'The Yiga!'

Izuku swallowed as Link nodded. "Agreed. With them split up, I think they were planning to ambush us. Knowing that, we should be able to turn the ambush on them and take them out."

"Take them out?" Izuku asked. "You mean kill them? We can't do that."

Link turned to stare at him. "Why in Hylia's name not? These people seek to restore the Calamity, Izuku! They will destroy this country if they can. The more of them that we can remove, the weaker the main threat will be when we confront it."

Izuku vehemently shook his head and glared back at Link. "I don't think so. Back home, heroes don't kill villains, not unless they have no other choice. Killing is not heroic, not right, not when there's the chance that they could be rehabilitated."

"Unfortunately, Midoriya, this isn't Japan! Our enemies are almost innumerable, and many of them can't even properly die." Link blew out his breath and ran a hand through his hair. "I don't necessarily like it either, but if we can take the chance to cut down even a small portion of the odds, we have to take it."

Izuku's face twisted, and he opened his mouth to fire back a retort. Before he could make a sound, a hand clapped itself down on his shoulder. "That's enough," All Might said. "Arguing among ourselves won't help."

Link opened his mouth, but shut it as All Might raised his hand. "Let me speak. You raise valid points, Young Link. We do face insurmountable odds, and it would make sense to remove some of the players. I've had to do so several times during my career in order to protect the innocent.

"However, I believe that we should also consider Young Midoriya's thoughts. Heroes have always been faced with insurmountable odds; killing to reduce those odds, while easier, puts us one step closer to becoming what we fight against. Again, this is a line I've come close to crossing in the line of duty."

All Might let go of Izuku and stepped forward to look at both of them. "I understand that you are a knight, Young Link, and so do not have some of the same predispositions about eliminating your opponents. However, I think we might be able to garner favor by disarming or disabling them instead."

Izuku would have laughed at the look on Link's face if he knew he wasn't making the same one. "W-what do you mean, All Might?"

His mentor gestured for the two of them to follow him as he began walking up the Hateno road. Izuku scrambled after his mentor, slowing to match All Might's pace. Link fell in on the other side as All Might started speaking.

"In my experience, the reason many villains fight so ferociously is because they don't think they have a way out," he said, "or because they think that that's the only way heroes know how to solve problems. They expect to fight, and so they lash out with everything they have. It doesn't happen very often, but occasionally responding with less violence than they expect can get them to start turning things over in their minds. With the right questions, you can turn a villain's whole life around without throwing a single punch."

"Okay, so villains from Earth behave that way. What makes you think the same would work here?" Link asked.

"Consider what we know of the Yiga," All Might said, tracing what looked like a Sheikah eye in the air. "They have fought against your royal family for generations, a fight that has cost both sides a great many lives. The current generation of Yiga would only have heard stories about how terrible the Hylian royal family and their chosen champion are, but have never faced the real thing."

A light bulb flashed in Izuku's head, and he popped his fist into his open hand. "I-I think I understand! They'll be expecting Link to leave no survivors; they won't know what to do if we just knock them around a little. Leaving them alive will confuse them way more than if we just took out a group randomly."

Link closed his eyes and frowned. "It's risky, but I can't say I wouldn't be caught off guard in the same situation. Fine, we'll give it a go." Izuku grinned, but his grin faltered as Link's eyes snapped back open. "However, if this doesn't work, I reserve the right to remove the threats the next time we encounter them."

All Might nodded. "Agreed. And who knows? Maybe it might just be a group of travelers who split up. Best to be wary, but let's not assume the worst."

The group lapsed into silence. Izuku stepped around a puddle in the road and considered Link's statement. If it came down to it, could he kill his opponent? His stomach twisted as he thought about it, and he shook his head. 'No, I don't think I could, not unless I had no other choice.'

The landscape shifted from mountain foothills to marshy plains. Crumbling ruins dotted the valley; along with the husks of the Guardians, the piles of charred stone were the only sign that this region had once been prosperous. Now, their only inhabitants were horses and monsters.

The group did encounter several of the small bokoblin bands that Impa had mentioned, but they managed to dispatch those with ease. Link took the opportunity to experiment with his laser sword, and Izuku couldn't help but feel a little envious as he carved through his opponents. After all, what kid hadn't dreamed of being a Jedi? They were basically space heroes, which made them almost as cool as real heroes.

A little before noon, the group came around a final hill, and Izuku's eyes widened as a massive wall slowly came into view. The structure was situated at the far end of the valley and spanned the entire mouth of the pass leading up into the highlands. The fort had clearly seen better days; much of the upper stonework had been replaced with a rough wooden palisade, and there were sections of stone that had been blasted clean apart. Izuku shuddered as he took in the scorched stone blocks; apparently, Guardians didn't care about canyon-spanning fortifications.

Thankfully, the fort wasn't in complete disrepair. Portions of the wall were covered in scaffolding, and even from this distance Izuku could see figures moving along the structure and hear men grunting and swearing as they shifted stone around. Their task was made somewhat more difficult by several Guardian husks that seemed to have merged with the defensive structure.

All Might whistled. "That's quite the fortification."

"For all the good it did during the Calamity," Link murmured. "We were almost entirely overrun—you can see where the Guardians blasted the wall apart there—when Zelda finally unlocked her Sealing power. She saved Hyrule that day."

"I mean, you were there with her," Izuku protested. "You helped save Hyrule, too."

Link shook his head as they approached the gate. "Maybe, but since I was busy dying at the time, I'm not going to try and take credit for that. Don't worry," he chuckled, raising a hand to forestall any objections, "I'm slowly coming to terms with the fact that I may not have failed that first time. I just need to do my job this time around."

Izuku started to retort, but bit off what he was going to say when a voice called out to them.

"Ho, travelers!"

The source of the shout turned out to be a pair of soldiers standing in the gateway. Though, as Izuku got a better look at them, 'soldiers' might have been too generous. One man was thin to the point of being a stick, the other a bit fat. Neither's armor fit particularly well and seemed to be rusty in several spots, and their spears looked like they'd been resting in a pool of water for decades.

The fat one saw that the group had taken notice and waved them over. Some of the workers watched the group curiously for a few moments before turning back to hammering at the wall. "Now," the fat man said, "where're ye folk off ta taday? No' more o' them monster hunters, are ye?"

The man's thick accent hammered away at Izuku, and he was suddenly immensely grateful for whatever miracle allowed him to instinctively understand Hylian. His accent actually reminded him of Uraraka's accent, though hers was much less raw.

Beside him, All Might shook his head. "We have hunted monsters, but we are currently working as messengers. We have a message for the director of the Hateno tech lab. This is the road to Hateno, right?"

'We do?'

The stick man nodded. "Aye, this be the road to Hateno. Just follow it up through the canyon past Ordon Village, though the rate y'all're goin', you might not make it afore dark."

"Best of luck to ye," the fat one chuckled, "Old Purah's gone a bi' reclusive in her la'er years."

Link nodded back. "You mentioned that some monster hunters that came through? Isn't the region fairly safe?"

"Aye, so it be. They said they were running low on supplies. Isn't that right, Jobol?"

"'Tis Hylia's own truth, Jarra. And with such a band, any monsters in th' area won't be much longer."

Izuku shook his head and looked back and forth between the two men. He'd been so focused on trying to understand what they were saying that he hadn't caught who was who. Was Jobol the large one, or was that Jarra? He was about to ask them to clarify when Link stuck his hand out.

"Thank you both for your help. We'll be on our way now," he said.

The large man clasped Link's hand and shook it vigorously. "No stress off our back, traveler. Ye keep yerself safe."

The thin soldier waved the group through, his expression of interest rapidly changing to one of tedium as he turned back toward Blatchery Plain. One or two of the workers waved at them, but that was all the acknowledgement they received as they passed through the gate tunnel. Izuku's eyes went wide as he stepped out of the tunnel.

Unlike the still-charred, boggy remnants of Blatchery Plain, the region beyond the fort was lush with vegetation. Trees grew within feet of each other, creating a barrier of brown and green that was impenetrable after a few feet. On either side, gray slate cliffs towered overhead, enclosing the hidden forest in its protective embrace. Izuku caught a glimpse of a hawk of some kind before it dove into the tree cover, and while he couldn't see it, he could hear the quiet gurgling of some kind of stream or creek somewhere ahead.

The hard-packed dirt road disappeared into the trees, and Izuku realized with a start that All Might and Link had continued walking and were disappearing into the forest. He hurried to catch up to them—honestly, it felt like he was always hurrying to catch up with someone—and fell in beside Link.

Link, for his part, seemed to know a lot about the area. As they walked, he would point out a deer grazing in the woods, or a bird's nest in a tree. He seemed to know a lot about the different types of mushrooms and herbs that grew in the area too, even going so far as to stop the group for a few minutes to gather some large red and green mushrooms that they found growing along the path. He claimed that they were delicious when roasted with some salt, but Izuku couldn't help but question his friend's judgment as he pocketed another violently green fungus.

It was good to see Link remembering something that wasn't all doom and gloom. While his knowledge was practical, an occasional anecdote would slip in. Never anything huge, but little things like how his dad had shown him how to roast venison or a family friend's advice on harvesting eggs. Little things that helped reassure Izuku that his friend would be fine in the end.

Izuku also noticed several things that Link didn't point out. An hour or so up the road from the fort, the road split in two. The main road continued straight, while on the left, it seemed to run into a box canyon of some kind. Izuku couldn't see all the way in, but he did notice a few odd statues of little men. Something about the statues made his hair stand on end, and he quickly jotted the location down in his notebook on Hyrule, something else that he had been able to fill up as Link talked. He also occasionally caught flashes of red that reminded him of bokoblin hide. 'If monsters do show up, we'll want to investigate. Hopefully the soldiers have already cleared them out.'

This pattern continued for the next several hours until Link called a break for lunch. Izuku breathed a sigh of relief before he collapsed on a rock beside the road. The road ahead of them began to rise up out of the woods before continuing to run along the ridge above them, presenting a daunting task for those hikers running on empty.

His stomach gurgled, and he gratefully accepted the bread and cheese that Link offered him. He tore a bit of the bread off and a chunk of the cheese before looking up. "I'm happy that you're starting to remember things that aren't gloomy, Link."

"It's slow, but I'm starting to get a better idea of who I was," Link said. He cut himself a slice of cheese before frowning. "I just hope I don't have any big memory flashbacks while we're fighting. I get the feeling that I used to be very familiar with East Necluda."

"I don't know that you'll need to worry about that for the time being, Young Link."

Both Izuku and Link turned toward All Might. The pro was scanning the slate-gray ridge above them while absently sucking on some kind of sour-sweet smelling concoction that Impa had made for him. Izuku turned around to look up at the ridge, but couldn't see anything. Before he could ask All Might what he was looking at, Link spoke up.

"What do you mean, Yagi? We still have the Yiga band ahead of us."

All Might shook his head. "I'm not so sure anymore. Have you noticed the monster corpses that have been strewn along the road?"

Izuku frowned. 'Corpses? What's All Might talking ab—Oh!'

Beside him, Link nodded. "I did. You think it was a group of monster hunters that came through here?"

"I think it's more likely, yes." All Might took another drink of his 'lunch' before finally looking at the two of them. "It may still be the Yiga, but wouldn't the monsters be their allies? Why kill them when they could just as easily have recruited them to attack us?"

Link was quiet for a moment, clearly considering the question. His pointed ears twitched, almost like a dog's, as he rubbed his chin. "I guess that's a good point. They could easily have overwhelmed us with numbers."

"Exactly." All Might held up his empty hand. "We'll keep our guard up, but we don't want to go looking for trouble where it doesn't exist."

"…I hate to admit it, but you're probably right," Link sighed. "With the stakes as high as they are, I keep expecting Ganon's forces to show up any second. It's got me a bit tense."

"Th-that's totally fine!" Izuku said. "Who wouldn't be worried in our situation? But being worried all the time doesn't help. One of the big things I've learned from All Might is that heroes should save people with a smile, no matter how scared they are."

"I think what Young Midoriya is trying to say is that it's okay to be worried," All Might said. "Just relax, Young Link, and enjoy the journey. We'll take care of the Yiga when we get to them, whether sooner or later."

Link sighed again before chuckling quietly. "I vaguely remember my old sergeant saying something about stopping to smell the saffina. I also remember him saying something about getting stabbed in the back 'while gawking at some Goddess-forsaken flower.'"

Izuku laughed and reached for another bite of his bread before realizing that he had finished the entire thing. He disguised his momentary lapse in attention by pushing himself off of his makeshift chair. Link stood back up as well and brushed off his hands. "Well, flowers or not, let's get back on the road. Hateno waits for no one."

[:][:][:]

Several hours later, Izuku was starting to wish that Hateno could have waited, or at least was easier to get to. The road had risen sharply from the spot they had stopped at for lunch, and the forest had quickly given way to gray cliffs and sparse patches of hardy grass. On one side, the cliffs had continued to rise for another thirty or forty feet before leveling out, and on the other they dropped away into a deep canyon, the bottom of which was carpeted in forest.

A sort of shelf formed the other side of the canyon, stretching out over the forest in places. Every now and then, Izuku caught sight of holes in the shelf that could send unwary travelers plummeting to their deaths. Occasionally, the shelf connected to the cliff on this side of the canyon, forming little natural bridges over the turning water below.

On a peak to the south across the ravine, another Sheikah tower loomed tall over the surrounding landscape. Small figures swarmed its base like ants, and Izuku was willing to bet that was probably where the monster hunters were headed. A few birds soared above them, probably some kind of crow or raven from the distant, occasional cry carried on the wind.

Thankfully, they were almost done for the day. The setting sun beautifully lit up the valley before them and the city above it, causing the whole hillside to glow. It had been a steep hike, and Izuku was honestly surprised at how much it had pushed him. Even with the occasional stop to let All Might recover, Izuku's legs burned. 'I'm not looking forward to getting up tomorrow morning.'

His growling stomach and a sudden bird call from nearby startled him out of his thoughts, and he chuckled as Link glanced back at him. "G-guess I'm ready for some dinner."

Link laughed. "I know what you mean. Bread and cheese is good for traveling, but it does leave something to be desired."

All Might just smiled. "We'll have some proper food soon. I don't think we're more than an hour from Ordon now."

"Good. We'll get there right as they're serving their main course!"

Izuku and Link started to debate the different types of food that an inn in a farming village might serve, and all Izuku had to admit that they sounded pretty tasty. 'The amount of fresh ingredients available must help. I'll have to remember to ask someone.'

As the group slowly came around a small jetty of rock, Link's voice cut off abruptly, and he held out his hand for the others to stop. The road continued to snake downwards in front of them, winding its way between the cliff wall and a rocky outcropping. Several people—five, Izuku realized after a quick count—were scattered in front of the entrance to the small canyon. Each seemed to be lazing about, sharpening weapons or eating food.

Something about how they were doing it seemed… off. Izuku thought about it for a moment before realizing that they were resting the same way Link did when traveling or camping: tense, ready to move at a moment's notice. He wasn't sure if it was how a round man seemed to consistently check his knife, or how a thin lady kept taking bites of her sandwich without actually seeming to eat it, or any of the other weird little things the group was doing, but whatever it was was causing the hair on his arms to stand on end.

'Are these the monster hunters the guardsman mentioned? That doesn't make any sense though; why rest here when there's a village ahead?'

As the group approached, the round man looked up. "Ho, travelers! You're out mighty late. How have the roads been?"

Izuku nearly jumped over the cliff when All Might clapped a hand on his shoulder and said, "Oh, they haven't been too bad. A few monsters, but nothing we couldn't handle."

The round man nodded and stood up. "Ah, I see a few must have slipped past us. We apologize; it's a long trip from Kakariko, and those encounters must have worn on you."

If Izuku's hair had been standing on end before, it was nothing to the goosebumps that were crawling up his arms and down his back as the man smiled suddenly. His grin twisted, and he pulled a mask out of a pocket and slipped it on, revealing an upside-down Sheikah eye. "Well, why don't you just let us show you the kind of rest Master Ganon offers to his enemies."

The air around the monster hunters—the Yiga, Izuku realized—filled with red smoke. Izuku got his shield up just as one of the Yiga assassins, now dressed in red skin suit and wearing a reverse-eye mask, leapt out of the smoke and slashed at him with a sword. "Sorry about this, kid," said a woman's voice from behind the mask, "but you picked the wrong guy to hang out with!"

"Funny; I could say the same for you!" Izuku channeled One for All and let its energy flow through his body. Green electricity crackled in the air around him as he brought Full Cowling up. The world seemed to slow down just a little, which he recognized as his reaction time going up to compensate for the increase in power.

He didn't hesitate though, instead using his shield to knock the assassin's sword away before jabbing a fist at her stomach. The woman's breath whooshed out of her as she doubled over, and Izuku followed up by side-stepping and bringing his fist down on the back of her head.

Thunk!

The woman crashed into the rocky dirt road.

'Sorry, lady. That probably hurt.' He didn't stop to check on her though, as more of the assassins appeared out of the smoke, forcing him to focus entirely on defense. Slowly, he was pushed back as he deflected weapons and dodged blows from three separate opponents at once.

Snck!

Clack!

Thunk!

Crunch!

Izuku winced as a particularly tall Yiga woman carved away a chunk of the shield dangerously close to his arm. If he kept this up, he wouldn't have any shield left, and then he would be at the assassins' mercy.

It was time to do something desperate.

Izuku deflected the next attack and punched the attacker. The man cursed as he stumbled backwards into his buddies, their assault momentarily halting as Izuku's other assailants dodged out of the way. Izuku shook off his near-useless shield and hurled it into the mix.

Thunk!

One of the Yiga—the round man who'd greeted them—crumpled to the ground as the improvised discus collided with his head. Izuku leapt forward, ducking under a hasty swing from the tall Yiga before kicking her legs out from under her. As she fell, he slammed his foot into the soft flesh of her belly and sent her flying into another assassin fighting Link.

Snck!

As he fell back, Izuku felt something prick his left arm and instinctively lashed out with his uninjured arm and felt his fist connect with something wooden. The Yiga he had stunned before had managed to recover and had waited for an opening in his defenses. The man's mask shattered under Izuku's One for All-powered smash, and he hurled away to crash into the cliff wall before slumping over.

Izuku whirled around, looking for more opponents, but pulled up short when he saw All Might, now in his Muscle Form, slam the last two Yiga together, knocking them unconscious. Both Link and All Might had a few cuts, but neither seemed to be injured otherwise. The ground around the group was littered with groaning, red-clad bodies. Despite himself, Izuku started counting the bodies and felt himself growing more incredulous as he went.

'Eighteen, nineteen—how many of them were there?'

His count was interrupted as lines of fire shot up his arm around where the assassin had poked him. Izuku gasped and jerked his arm around to get a better look at the spot, only to discover that it hadn't been a poke. His entire upper arm was soaked in blood from where the Yiga had cut a large gash. Now that he wasn't fighting, he noticed the blood trickling down his arm and dripping into a growing puddle in the road. He carefully flexed his arm and winced as the motion pulled at his separated muscles.

"Midoriya!"

Izuku jumped as Link appeared at his side and cursed as the movement sent more searing jolts up his arm. Link ignored him and grabbed his arm, carefully turning it and Izuku to get a better look.

After a few moments, he looked up. "It's not terribly deep, but we'll need to clean it and get it bandaged quickly. We don't want you getting sick from blood loss."

"I'll be all right," Izuku said, trying to shrug Link away, "this isn't the worst injury I've had."

The glare Link shot at him would have shut even Kacchan up. "If not treated properly, this could still be enough to kill you."

Izuku winced. 'He's right. There's no Recovery Girl out here to fix me up this time.' He chuckled as the thought of what the elderly doctor would do to him crossed his mind, but his mirth was short lived as Link dumped some water over the wound, causing needles of icy fire to jab into his arm.

"Some warning next time would be nice!" he huffed.

Link ignored him and began wrapping his arm in strips of red cloth that, Izuku realized, had been ripped from one of the Yiga assassin's tops. Izuku sighed and let Link do his thing, wincing occasionally at particular tight wraps. Idly, he noted that while it hurt, the pain wasn't anywhere near as bad as he had expected a large laceration to be. 'Must be from all my other injuries.' His mind flashed back to the doctor who had helped Recovery Girl patch him up after the training camp. 'He was right. I think some of the nerves in my arms may have been damaged.'

That wasn't good. As Link finished patching him up, he couldn't help but wonder how he would be able to fight in the future without destroying his arms.

[:][:][:]

Yneira watched as the Hylian Champion and his travel companions disappeared into the ravine before she clambered down the small cliff from her vantage point on Ovli Plain. She went carefully, as she didn't want to risk drawing the target's attention back to her.

She still couldn't believe how badly the encounter had gone. Her team had outnumbered the Champion's party at eight-to-one odds, and they had been entirely wiped out in the span of about a minute. They had known that the Champion was a skilled warrior, but none of them could have accounted for the way he seemed to anticipate every blow and blur out of existence.

They hadn't known about his companions' strange abilities either. Yneira shuddered as she recalled the look in the decrepit man's face as he had suddenly bulked up into a muscular giant that had taken down almost half the force himself. The kid with the weird green hair was no slouch either. He was still clearly learning, but he was fast, and Yneira had heard the crunch when Corm had crashed into the cliff.

The entire thing was an absolute disaster. Two dozen of the Yiga finest, dead. She would have to return to the Hideout and report—

One of the bodies spasmed before jerking upright with a gasp. Yneira swore and ripped one of her sickles free before realizing that the Yiga was alive. The round, groaning man rubbed at a spot on his face. Yneira could see a nasty bruise forming around an equally nasty looking cut. Hesitantly, Yneira said, "Shar?"

The man jumped and peered up at Yneira. "Arbiter! You're fine!"

"Nevermind me; you're alive! I thought you were dead when that kid got you with his shield. How's your face?"

Shar gingerly brushed the spot on his face and winced. "Hurts like Ganon's own shadowed breath, but my mask took most of the blow, I think."

Yneira breathed a sigh of relief. Beside Shar, a couple of the others stirred as well. Yneira took them in before snapping her attention back to Shar. "I know you're probably nursing a massive headache, but help me check all of the others."

The man grumbled, but obediently knelt down and started shaking on of the groaning bodies. Yneira nodded and started circling through the battlefield herself. And it turned out to be one of the strangest battlefields she'd ever seen. Every single Yiga she checked was alive. Sure, some of them were injured—they would need a cart to help get Corm back home, and Hidra's arm was broken in at least two places—but they were all alive.

It took a little while, but they eventually got everyone roused enough to head back to camp. Some of them probably wouldn't fight again any time soon, but it was better than Yneira had expected. More than she had even dared hope to expect, even.

As she surveyed the subdued group, Shar sidled up to her. At some point, he had taken some time to bandage his face, giving him a grizzled, one-eyed appearance. "We're ready to go, Arbiter. Shall we give chase? The others are willing. Fired up and angry, even."

Yneira blew out a sigh of frustration and shook her head. "No. I appreciate your spirit, but we stood no chance here. I wish I hadn't followed your advice; had I fought, the outcome might have been different."

"I think not, Arbiter," the round man said. "You saw how crowded it was down here. You wouldn't have had no room to maneuver, and you know it. The lot of us would have gotten in your way."

"Still, this plan risked many lives. Corm may not walk again, and Gimido will have to learn to fight with his other hand."

Yneira sensed rather than saw Shar's eye roll, something made simpler than it sounded by the way the man's entire body jiggled when he did so. "It's fine, Arbiter. By all accounts, we should've had 'em. 'S not your fault the three of them are demons. They didn't seem too surprised neither, so maybe them Sheikah rats spied us out and warned 'em."

She sighed again. "You're right, of course. Take the others and fall back to the West Necluda base. Make sure they're taken care of."

Shar saluted her with a brief pump of his fist. "Of course, Ma'am," he said. "What about you?"

"What about me?" Yneira quipped before turning to the east toward Hateno. "I will follow our prey. If I have the opportunity, I will strike and eliminate them."

That wasn't all she would do. As she walked away, Yneira asked herself the same question she had been asking since Shar woke up. 'Why in Ganon's name did they leave their enemies alive?'

Hope you all enjoyed! What could Yneira be thinking? Guess we'll just have to wait to find out.