| Two Hylian Warriors |
 

It was a calm and sunny morning and the town was just beginning to wake. Normally, there would only be the occasional person walking down the street. But this morning a crowd of early risers had gathered in the town square. Two young men were standing off, swords raised and sweat rolling down their faces. One was clearly in a worse position than the other, however, barely holding on to his breath and quivering slightly.

"Hey, you give up yet?" Sain laughed, pointing his sword as his opponent.
His opponent scoffed and yelled back, "Not in a million years!"

The young man suddenly rushed at Sain, his sword coming down in a rather unorthodox manner due to exhaustion. Predicting his movements, Sain quickly stepped to the side and dodged the swing. As the boy took another step forwards to stop his momentum, Sain spun around and elbowed him in the back. The boy tumbled forwards and Sain swung his sword at his back. He had no intention of causing serious harm, and the blade just barely scratched the boy's skin as he went down.

The boy was obviously done now, grasping at his back and slowly crawling out of the battlefield. When he reached the edge of the 'circle' formed by the crowd, he got to his feet and slowly made his way home, defeated.

Sain smiled and raised his sword in the air. "Ha, I'm unbeatable! That was barely a warm-up!" he laughed, reveling at the crowd's expressions. Some were in awe, others rather uneasy, and others, friends of the defeated man, angry. "Hey, old man, I thought you said that he was your strongest prodigy." Sain continued, throwing a look at an elder to his left. The man grunted and began walking away. The crowd followed suit, and began to disperse, many of them ready to begin their day.

Sain walked over to a nearby bench and sat down. He leaned back and beamed even more than he had been. "Man, at this rate I could beat anyone! Even the Hero of Time couldn't win against me!" he boasted rather loudly.
Still reveling in his win, he noticed a man with a cart full of water jugs slowly going by. Sain just now noticed how thirsty he was, and promptly jogged over for a drink. He took the largest bottle of water he could find and chugged it down, water running over the sides of his mouth. The man pulling the cart was put-off by Sain's sudden arrival.

"H-hey! That costs 30 Rupees!" the man scolded. Sain stopped drinking and wiped some of the excess water from his face.

"You can't really do much about it, you know?" he said, showing off his blade. He wouldn't normally do something like this, but his confidence was so high at the moment and his ego so boosted that he'd lost sense of his moral compass.

Link had entered the town from the Hyrulian fields, his face covered by a black handkerchief so no one could recognize him, "its been a while since I've been home, hardly anything has changed" he thought to himself. Link couldn't help but notice Sain and his overconfident attitude harassing a water jug seller, he grabbed one of the daggers attached to his side belt and threw it. It cracked the jug in Sain's hands, splashing water everywhere, the dagger had bounced off it and spun in the air, Link caught it by its handle and put it back.

He reached into his wallet and pulled out a red rupee with two blue ones and tossed them toward the seller. Without saying a word the seller grabbed the money and ran off, the jugs clattered against each other as he got away. "Hello Sain, been a long time, huh? About two years, in fact" you could see the anger in his pale blue eyes as he grabbed both daggers from his belt and braced to fight.

Surprised by the sudden explosion in his hands, he turned to see who had thrown the dagger. He didn't recognize who it was immediately, but soon realized after seeing the daggers. His confidence level dropped.
"He-hey! You're..." Sain started, but stopped his tongue. His sword was already drawn; His opponent was ready to fight. "Alright...!" Sain's pride and confidence welled up inside him once more. He took his sword and pointed it at his dagger-wielding foe.

"I'm unbeatable! I won't lose, not even to you!" he shouted.

In a flash, Sain ran towards him and slashed in a downwards motion. It was similar to his previous opponent's final attack, only more accurate, faster, and powerful.

Like lightening Link dodged the attack by jumping to the side, slicing Sain's hip in the process, not enough to be fatal but enough to make him bleed a little. He skid across the ground to a stop and stood there, waiting for Sain's next move, keeping his guard up. "Surely you can do better than that..." he said, mocking Sain.

Even though they just started fighting, the town's people noticed instantly, they started to watch and gather in a crowd once more, they knew it would be a good fight but this didn't stall Link's focus one bit.

"Rgh..." Sain grit his teeth due to the pain in his hip. He turned to face Link, and like him also noticed the crowd.

"(Damn...)" he whispered to himself. If he got beaten after all the boasting he had done, he would be a laughingstock! It would be impossible to become famous after a defeat like that.

Shaking off the pain from his wound, Sain dashed at Link, his body low to the ground. He stomped his foot down to stop as he performed a quick horizontal slice, not as powerful as his last attack but a great deal quicker.

Link used his daggers to guard against the attack, he pushed back Sain's sword as hard as he could, open up his opponent's defense, he did a couple quick swings, slicing an 'X' mark into Sain's chest. He jumped over Sain's head, landing behind him and he gave him a good kick right in his back, knocking him down. He jumped back a good distance and hit his weapons against each other to make a loud 'clang' sound, taunting his opponent, "come on, you're not even trying!" He yelled.

"Quiet! I'm... gauging your skill." Sain snapped, slowly picking himself off the group. It was more an excuse to the crowd than anything. Now back on his feet, he looked at his sword for a moment then looked back at Link.

"I'll stop holding back, now!" he yelled, the smile returning to his face. Without warning, he dashed once again at Link. His sword was drug along the ground, creating sparks along the metal ground, and he slashed upwards as soon as he was close enough. Using the inertia from his slash, he spun around and tried to back-hand Link's face.

Using his speed to help him, he hopped backwards, almost getting sliced, just a few hairs hanging out of his hat got cut and fell to the ground. Link kicked Sain's wrist, loosening his grip on his sword then he kicked that high in the air, it spun wildly and as it fell he grabbed it by the handle and swung it. But he stopped just before he could slice Sain's neck with it, "I think thats enough for us both, don't you?" His grip on the sword wasn't very tight, he just wanted to see what Sain would do next. The crowd grew anxious and a bit worried, the tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife.

"I....ah..." Sain stuttered, frozen out of shock. He was... beaten. Defeated. AGAIN! It is as if nothing had changed since their last encounter!

Calm down, calm down, he knew he had to calm down. His arms were still raised, so he let them down to his sides and he looked at the ground. His mentor had always taught him to think things through; Yeah, like he hadn't been doing this entire time.

Taking precious silent seconds, Sain began to think. He hadn't gotten any blows in. Why? So far, all he had done was rush in and attack. Now they were close together... he could get in a risky but critical strike.

He wasn't beaten. Not yet.

"I'm... not done yet!" he smiled. With a quick motion, he ducked sideways, pushed the blade up and away from his neck with one hand, and snatched the hilt back with the other. It literally flipped back to his control. He continued his movement, dashing to Link's side and slashing at his rib as he went.

(I'm getting really tired, its 1:30 am here, this'll be my last post till I get some sleep anyway)

This time he was actually hit, but it just cut his shirt, yet it revealed his fatal wound, exposing his right ribs and blackened lung. The crowd gasped, thinking Sain had done that much damage to him, however Link ignored their reaction, put away his daggers and got his two handed sword ready. This time he got serious and swung his sword at Sain, slicing his cheek, though he intended to do more damage that that.

He was holding back a little, because if he attacked with his full strength he would've surly killed Sain already, if it kept going like this he'd need to settle with his last resort.

((Roger, roger.))

Upon being hit, Sain did a bit of a tumble-roll and skidded to a stop. Grasping his cheek, wincing, he noticed the wound on Link's right side.

"D-Did I do that!?" Sain exclaimed, more surprised than the rest of the crowd. It seemed as though his attack had been far more effective than he had anticipated. Blood trickled down the wound on his cheek.
He hadn't meant to do that much damage, that was for sure, and almost felt like apologizing to Link. But then he saw his sword drawn instead of his daggers.

This was bad; he knew that his opponent was now about to go full out. Did he stand a chance...? Of course! He'd just hit a major attack! He can do it again, he thought! He stood tall and took a defensive position, bringing his sword out straight ahead of him.

Link quickly put away his sword, he had something different in mind, though it sickened him to use the Triforce's power like this. His left hand began to glow, soon it spread all around his body and he began running toward Sain, Sain's sword stabbed Link right in his fatal wound, between his ribs and just missing his lung. It didn't show him down, he kept going till the sword went all the way out the other side of his body and he punched Sain in the stomach, launching him backward into a wall. The impact almost made the building collapse but it wasn't enough to kill Sain, Link pulled out the sword slowly, feeling every bit of pain yet he tried to not show it, the blade had his blackened blood all over it. The crowd was in pure awe at what had just happened and they looked at Sain, hoping he wasn't killed, "the Hero of Time has returned?!" One of the towns people yelled.