C-1.19

One tasty meal later and we were back on our track. A few hours after our short break we followed the way in between two mountains. And surprisingly we were able to see someone walk towards us.

"Hey, Linkle. I'm not hallucinating, am I?" I said pointing in front of us, the direction from which I saw someone walk into our direction.

"No, you aren't. I can see him, too." She answered me, after which I started looking at the person coming towards us.

As Linkle already said, the person was male. He had short hair and a backpack on his back. Naturally, he also had pointed ears, just like Linkle, and everyone else of the Hylean race has. Besides that, he just wore regular traveling clothes. And that was it nothing special about him, no weapons, no nothing... but there was something weird about him. I just can't put my finger on it...

"Linkle, I don't know how to say this, but there is something about him that bothers me..." I whispered to my companion. Hearing me, she once more looked at him, but soon shook her head and replied to me.

"I can't see anything weird about him and I kind of want to talk to him, maybe he knows something about what happened in the last hundred years? But if you say that there is something weird about him, let's not drop our guard just yet..." After that neither of us spoke anymore and we simply walked towards him.

Soon we were close enough to him that we could hear him start talking.

"Hey, you there. You are quite far away from any settlement, is everything ok? If you need something maybe I can help you? For a price of course..." So, he is a merchant? Let's see if he has anything useful... if I remember right some merchant can have pretty nice stuff.

I looked towards Linkle, only to see her looking towards me with an untold question, to which I simply shrugged. She then nodded and started talking.

"Sure, let's look at what you've got."

The man then started pulling things out of his backpack. And after he crouched down, I noticed what bothered me about him... even now with him directly in front of me, I wasn't able to hear him crouch down...

"So, I've got a few supplies and a few types of arrows. My name is Zack, by the way."

"I'm Linkle, and this is Cid. And I'd like to see the arrows you have, you can never have enough of those." After finishing her sentence, she helplessly shrugged her shoulders. Meanwhile, I moved a bit closer to her, especially after seeing him blink in surprise after hearing Linkle's name.

"Linkle, you say? Could you be the hero of Hyrule?!?" She seemed a bit surprised to see him recognize her.

"Eh, yes, I guess..." He visibly brightened up after hearing that.

"Oh, that's perfect! If I am completely honest, I was kind of hoping to meet you. Someone gave me something that I should show you... now where did I put that thing again?" He then started searching around inside his backpack. 

Until suddenly, he pulled his hand out, holding some kind of sickle in hand, and swung it at Linkle. She tried to bring up her hands to block the attack, which in hindsight wouldn't have changed a lot, but I didn't let his attack hit her and immediately willed my hand to change into a shield and blocked his attack. Instead of being surprised, he just jumped back and held one of his hands in front of his chest, after which smoke appeared around him...

After the smoke disappeared the man from before was gone, in his place a red figure which wore a white mask, on top of which an eye with three triangles under it was drawn. I heard Linkle gasp.

"A Yiga Assassin..." She said and I remembered them from the game, I think they had some kind of boss and I think that guy was kind of obese if I remember right... 

I shook my head and concentrated on the fight. Only to see the assassin already dashing toward Linkle. 

So, his priority is taking out Linkle, huh? 

I step in front of Linkle and concentrate only to instantly notice the world slowing down. But even though everything else was in slow-motion the assassin was still relatively fast. Not as fast as me, mind you, but still enough to pose a danger if he reached Linkle...

Which is why, I didn't let him approach her at all, and simply dashed toward him. I sharpened both of my hands and slashed at his weapon, not willing to instantly kill him... 

But instead of me just destroying his weapon he dodges my hand, takes a step to the side, and continues to run toward Linkle, while completely ignoring me.

Did he really just dodge my hit? Did he really just dodge ME?

Someone dodging anything I did was something that hadn't yet happened to me. After all, I was so much faster and stronger than everything I met, the Stone Talus being the only thing I didn't completely obliterate in one hit. So, I hadn't even thought about him being able to dodge anything I could do, which is why I was left in quite the weird position after that.

But instead of further dwelling on this, I recovered my balance and turned around...

Only to see him attack Linkle, and while she was able to somewhat react to his attack and bring her hands up, he still drew blood on her arm. 

"Linkle!"

I once again punched out, having already changed my hand back to normal, aiming for his head and, again, he dodged my attack. But this time I expected it, so I simply opened my fist and grabbed his head. I then brought up my other hand to make sure he didn't escape.

I then pulled him down and my knee up. I felt him try to wiggle out of my grip, but I just tightened it and then, his face met my knee...

crack

Which didn't end well for him... I felt his whole face give in after the hit and looking down, sure enough even his mother wouldn't be able to recognize him. I simply let him fall to the ground and then moved towards Linkle.

But immediately after I was in front of her, I noticed something... what do I even want to say? I mean yes, I wanted to know whether she was fine, but how should I do that?

And not coming to having a better idea I simply said the first thing that came to my mind.

"Ehm, Linkle, everything ok?" I saw her roll her eyes.

"It's just a small cut. I will be fine after a day or two..." I looked towards the 'small cut' only to see a semi-long line along her right arm, blood pouring out of it.

I looked at her with the most deadpan look I could muster.

"That doesn't look like a small cut. Come on. Let's see if he had anything with which we can bandage your arm."

She didn't seem to be too happy but nodded anyways. I then walked towards the Yiga assassin's backpack and searched through it. He did, of course, not have any bandages with him. But I did find a shirt, which I then promptly ripped into strips, that we could use to patch up Linkle's wound, or at least start to.

I then simply gave her the cloth, as I obviously didn't know how to bandage anything, much less a cut this big.

She simply gave stared at me.

"You want me to do something about this?" She pointed at her arm. I nodded as an answer. "Well, I can't really do anything about it with just one arm. So, you got to help me there." Well, she does have a point...

"I don't know how to bandage anything..." I drawled on. She gave an exasperated sigh. 

"Come here, I will walk you through it." She then gave me a quick tutorial on how to do it, which I was able to kind of follow, and I didn't need to understand everything, I just needed to be able to follow what she did.

Which I was able to, after a few minutes, her whole forearm was covered in cloth.

"Not the best I have seen, but good enough, thank you." I heard her say. I simply smiled.

"No problem, it was kind of my fault if I am honest. I shouldn't have let him past me." She shook her head.

"No, it isn't. I haven't taught you anything yet and it is quite easy to see where you are going to punch, even I would be able to evade a few punches... as long as you don't pull off the move that you did at the end. And now that we are talking about him. What should be do now?" She asked looking at the now very dead Yiga assassin...