Chapter 2: The Blood Pact
The mud sucked greedily at Johnny’s boots as he plunged deeper into the pine forest, rain lashing his face like cold needles. Every jarring step sent bolts of agony through his dislocated shoulder, a grinding counterpoint to the throbbing ache in his ribs and the steady pulse of pain above his temple where the blood mingled freely with rainwater. He didn't care. The drag marks were his only compass – wide, brutal trenches gouged into the forest floor, churning mud and pine needles, punctuated by snapped branches and that sickening scrap of blue oxford shirt snagged on bark.
"LaRusso!" Johnny bellowed again, his voice hoarse and raw against the drumming downpour and the fading roar of the plane fire behind him. Silence answered, thick and oppressive. Only the creak of sodden branches and the hiss of rain filled the void. Panic tightened its fist around his heart. Daniel wasn't crawling. Someone was dragging him. Fast. Purposeful.
He pushed harder, shoving aside dripping ferns and low-hanging boughs slick with wet bark. The forest swallowed him whole. The weak, flickering light from the burning wreck was gone, replaced by a suffocating twilight gloom beneath the dense canopy. Shapes loomed, indistinct and menacing. The drag trail veered sharply around a massive, moss-covered boulder. Johnny followed, slipping on wet stone, catching himself with his good arm against the cold granite. Pain exploded in his shoulder as he jarred it. He bit back a curse, teeth grinding.
Beyond the boulder, the trail ended abruptly in a small, muddy clearing. The gouges in the earth stopped dead. Johnny skidded to a halt, boots sinking into the mire. His breath came in ragged gasps, misting in the chill air. He scanned frantically. To the left, thick undergrowth choked the path. To the right, a steep, rocky slope slick with runoff. Ahead… nothing but more dense, dark pines. The trail vanished as if wiped clean.
No. He stumbled forward, eyes raking the ground. There – near the base of a thick cedar trunk – flattened ferns. A faint scuff mark in the moss. And a darker patch staining the wet earth near the roots. Blood. Fresh, diluted by rain, but unmistakable. Daniel's blood. This was where they’d stopped. Briefly. Where they’d… repositioned? Covered their tracks?
A cold dread, colder than the rain soaking through his clothes, clamped down on Johnny’s spine. Whoever had Daniel knew these woods. They moved like ghosts. They didn’t want to be followed.
He crouched, ignoring the scream from his shoulder, fingers tracing the edge of the bloodstain. It trailed towards the rocky slope. He looked up, squinting through the rain. The slope was treacherous, wet stone gleaming dully. But halfway up, a cluster of younger saplings leaned at odd angles, their branches broken and twisted. Something heavy had crashed through there.
Before he could move, a sharp SNAP cut through the rain-hiss behind him. Loud. Deliberate.
Johnny froze. Every muscle coiled, every nerve ending screaming. Adrenaline surged, momentarily overriding the symphony of pain. He didn’t turn. Slowly, achingly slowly, he shifted his weight onto the balls of his feet, ready to pivot. His good hand clenched into a fist, knuckles popping. Miyagi-Do defense, Cobra Kai offense – decades of instinct screamed at him to strike first. But the gunshot wound… Daniel bleeding out… he needed information more than he needed vengeance. Yet.
Silence stretched. The rain drummed on leaves. Johnny forced his breathing to quiet, straining his ears. He heard it then – the soft squelch of a boot sinking into mud. Close. Off to his right, near the thick undergrowth.
He turned his head, just enough to see the periphery.
A figure stood partially obscured by a dripping curtain of cedar boughs. Tall, lean, wrapped in a dark, oilskin coat slick with rain. A hunting rifle, low-slung but unmistakable, was cradled casually in the crook of one arm. The face beneath the hood was shadowed, unreadable. Not moving aggressively, but not friendly either. Just… watching.
Johnny straightened slowly, deliberately, keeping his injured shoulder angled away. He met the shadowed gaze head-on, his own eyes narrowed, a predator assessing another. "You see where they went?" Johnny's voice was gravel scraped raw, devoid of anything but urgency. No pleasantries. No preamble. Just the desperate core of his need.
The figure didn't move. A long moment passed. Rain dripped from the brim of the hood. Then, a low, gravelly voice answered, thick with a local mountain accent. "Saw 'em." The word was flat. Uninflected.
Johnny took a half-step forward, ignoring the mud sucking at his boot. "Who? How many? Where'd they take him?" Each question cracked like a whip. "He's hurt bad. Bleeding."
The figure shifted slightly, the rifle moving almost imperceptibly. "Two men. Draggin' one." A pause. "Towards the old Skidder Road. North ridge." The hood tilted slightly. "Your friend?"
"He ain't dead yet," Johnny growled, the possessive pronoun slipping out unbidden. "Where's this road? How far?"
The stranger lifted a hand, surprisingly steady, and pointed a gloved finger towards the rocky slope Johnny had noticed. "Up. Over that spine. Mile, maybe. Rough ground." The hand lowered. "But you don't wanna go there."
"Why the hell not?" Johnny demanded, taking another step. The pain in his shoulder flared, a sharp reminder of his vulnerability. He didn't flinch.
The shadowed face seemed to harden. "Place ain't friendly. Men up there… they don't like visitors. Especially ones askin' questions 'bout their business." The words hung heavy in the damp air. Poachers? Drug runners? Something worse? The implication was clear: dangerous territory. Organized. Armed. "Your friend's likely dead already. Or soon will be. That kinda wound..." The stranger trailed off, letting the grim prognosis sink in. "Best turn back. Wait for the search birds."
The image flashed in Johnny's mind – Daniel's pale face, slack in unconsciousness, the obscene metal shard embedded in his side, pumping out his life onto the cold mud.Amanda. Sam. Anthony. The names echoed like a drumbeat in his skull. Waiting wasn't an option. Turning back
Daniel was able to get up but collapsed looking for Johnny. Before he closed his eyes. “Johnny, I love you.”
The words hung in the rain-lashed air, fragile and utterly alien. "Johnny, I love you." Daniel’s eyes fluttered shut, his head lolling back into the mud, the last of his strength gone. The unnatural stillness of his body was more terrifying than the wound itself.
Johnny stared down, frozen. Rain plastered Daniel’s hair to his forehead, washed pink streaks from the blood soaking his side. Love? Now? Here? After decades of rivalry, resentment, cheap shots and grudges held like trophies? The word echoed, discordant and wrong, against the drumming rain and the distant crackle of the dying plane fire. It felt less like affection and more like a final, delirious goodbye.
"LaRusso?" Johnny’s voice cracked. He dropped to his knees, mud surging up around him, ignoring the white-hot scream from his shoulder. He pressed his good hand hard against Daniel’s neck, slick with rain and blood. A pulse. Thready, erratic, but there. Barely. "Hey! Wake up! You don’t get to drop that crap and pass out!" Panic, cold and sharp, sliced through the shock. The love confession could wait. Bleeding couldn’t.
He ripped off his already ruined t-shirt, wincing as the movement torqued his dislocated joint. The sodden jacket he’d used earlier was useless. He balled the thin cotton, pressing it firmly around the base of the embedded metal shard. Daniel didn't stir, didn't flinch. The blood flow seemed relentless, darkening the fabric instantly. Too much. He’s losing too much. The hunters were gone, vanished back into the pines like smoke, leaving only boot prints churned deep in the mud.
"Alright, tough guy," Johnny muttered, scanning the dark, dripping woods. Shelter. Now. He needed to stop the bleeding properly, get Daniel out of the rain, figure out where the hell they even were. The firelight was gone, leaving only the oppressive gloom under the canopy. He spotted a tangle of roots and earth beneath a massive, leaning pine a few yards away – a natural depression, partially shielded from the worst of the downpour. Better than nothing.
Getting Daniel there was agony. Johnny looped his good arm under Daniel’s armpits, gritting his teeth against the grinding protest in his own shoulder and ribs. He dragged, inch by excruciating inch, Daniel’s limp body a dead weight through the sucking mud. Every jolt felt like a betrayal. "Come on, LaRusso, work with me here," he grunted, breath fogging in the cold air. "Don't make me carry your deadweight alone." Daniel’s head lolled against his chest, pale and slack.
He half-dragged, half-shoved Daniel into the shallow hollow beneath the pine’s massive roots. The air was thick with the scent of wet earth and decaying needles. It offered scant cover, but the rain lessened to a steady drip. Johnny immediately re-applied pressure to the wound, using the balled-up shirt. He needed something tighter. A belt. His own belt was gone, ripped or lost in the crash.
His eyes darted to Daniel’s waist. The expensive leather belt was still buckled. "Sorry, man," Johnny mumbled, fumbling with the clasp one-handed, his fingers numb and clumsy. He yanked it free, then struggled to thread it under Daniel’s back, above the wound, using his knee for leverage. He pulled it tight, cinching it over the wadded shirt, praying it would slow the flow. Daniel moaned, a low, guttural sound of pain, but didn’t wake. His skin felt dangerously cold beneath Johnny’s touch.
"Stay with me, Daniel," Johnny ordered, his voice rough. He settled back against the cold, wet root, keeping pressure with one hand, his own body screaming from the effort. He scanned the dripping darkness beyond their meager shelter. Two men. Old Skidder Road. North ridge. The stranger’s words echoed. Organized. Armed. Unfriendly. They’d just dumped Daniel? Or were they coming back? His gaze snapped to the tree line, every shadow a potential threat. He had no weapon. Just pain and decades of muscle memory.
Daniel stirred weakly, his eyelids fluttering open to slits. Confusion swam in the unfocused depths. "J-Johnny?" The name was a raspy whisper. "The... the plane... Amanda..."
"Yeah, the plane," Johnny cut in, his tone deliberately harsh to cut through the fog. "We crashed, genius. You got skewered. Quit moving." He adjusted the pressure, feeling the sickening warmth seep through the cotton. "Just hang on. Help'll come." He had no idea if it would. The chopper sound earlier felt like days ago.
Daniel’s brow furrowed with effort. His hand twitched, lifting weakly towards Johnny’s arm where he applied pressure. "You... you okay?" he breathed, the question absurd in its timing, his gaze drifting towards Johnny’s clearly damaged shoulder.
Johnny barked a short, humorless laugh. "Peachy, LaRusso. Never better. Worry about the hole in your gut." He caught Daniel’s drifting hand, pressing it back down onto his own stomach near the makeshift bandage. "Here. Hold this. Press down. Hard as you can. Pretend it's one of my Cobra Kai trophies you stole." The old jab, automatic, a reflex from a lifetime of friction.
A ghost of a smile touched Daniel’s bloodless lips, gone as fast as it came. His fingers trembled weakly against the soaked fabric. "Didn't... steal it... Won it... fair..." His voice faded, his eyes losing focus again, drifting shut. "Johnny... I meant..."
Johnny stiffened. "Don't," he interrupted sharply, looking away into the dripping forest. The word 'love' hung between them again, heavy and awkward as a stone. He couldn't handle that now. Not here. Not while Daniel was bleeding out in the mud. "Save your breath. And keep pressing." He covered Daniel’s weak hand with his own, adding his strength to the pressure on the wound. Daniel’s skin was like ice.
Silence settled, thick with rain, pain, and the unspoken. Johnny watched the shallow rise and fall of Daniel’s chest, counting each labored breath like a prayer. His own body throbbed, a symphony of injury. The cold seeped deep into his bones. He strained his ears, listening past the drip-drip-drip of water from the pine boughs. Listening for footsteps. For engines. For the distant, hopeful thrum of rotor blades. For anything.
A twig snapped. Sharp. Close.
Not an animal.
Johnny’s head snapped up, eyes locking onto the shifting shadows beyond the roots. His grip tightened on Daniel’s hand over the wound. Every muscle in his battered body coiled, ready, the decades of combat instinct surging back, pushing the pain aside. The hunters? Coming back to finish the job?
He saw movement. A dark shape, resolving into the silhouette of a man, stepping cautiously from behind a thick pine trunk, the barrel of a rifle clearing the edge of the tree, pointed not at the sky, but directly towards their pathetic shelter.
The rifle barrel gleamed dully in the rain-filtered gloom, unwavering. Johnny’s body locked, coiled springs ready to unleash decades of muscle memory. He shifted minutely, placing himself squarely between the threat and Daniel’s prone form beneath the dripping roots. Every nerve screamed danger. "Don't move!" Johnny snarled, his voice low and lethal, cutting through the drumming rain. His good hand hovered near the muddy ground, fingers spread, ready to grab a rock, a branch, anything.
The figure paused, half-shrouded by the cedar boughs. The rifle lowered slightly, angling towards the sodden earth. A familiar gravelly voice emerged from the shadowed hood. "Easy, city boy." It was the stranger from the clearing. He stepped fully into view, his oilskin coat dark with rain, eyes scanning Johnny’s defensive posture, then lingering on Daniel’s unnervingly still body. "Still breathin'?"
"Barely," Johnny bit out, not relaxing his stance an inch. His gaze flicked past the man, searching the dripping trees behind him. "Where's your buddies? The ones who dragged him?"
"Gone." The stranger spat a stream of tobacco juice into the mud. "Back to their hole. Saw 'em dump him here like trash." He gestured vaguely towards Daniel with the rifle muzzle. "Figured you'd be trailin'." He took another step closer, his boots squelching. "That belt ain't stoppin' much."
Johnny glanced down. The leather belt Johnny had cinched tight over the wadded shirt was saturated, dark blood welling steadily around its edges. Daniel’s skin was waxen, his breathing shallow and wet. Panic, cold and sharp, pricked Johnny’s spine. He needed help. Now. This guy, whoever he was, was the only option. "You know how to fix this?" Johnny demanded, the desperation raw in his voice.
The stranger grunted, lowering himself into a crouch a few feet away, keeping the rifle angled down but ready. He pulled a worn hunting knife from his belt. Johnny tensed, but the man just used it to slice a strip of cloth from the hem of his own oilskin coat. "Pressure ain't enough," he muttered, his eyes assessing the wound with a detached, unsettling calm. "Gotta pack it. Tight." He tossed the strip of oilcloth towards Johnny. "Use this. Jam it in deep around that metal. Stop the bleedin' channels."
Johnny stared at the dark cloth, then at the horrific wound. Jam it in? The thought made his stomach lurch. Daniel whimpered softly, his eyelids fluttering open. Confusion swam in the unfocused depths. "J-Johnny?" His voice was a threadbare whisper. "The... the plane... Amanda..."
"Yeah, the plane," Johnny cut in harshly, grabbing the oilcloth strip. He couldn't afford gentleness. "Hold still." He pressed the stiff, rain-slicked material against the wound, near the base of the protruding shard. Daniel gasped, a wet, choking sound, his body arching weakly. "Easy! Easy, damn it!" Johnny growled, forcing himself to push harder, wedging the coarse fabric deeper into the torn flesh around the metal. Fresh blood pulsed against his fingers. It felt monstrous.
Daniel’s hand fluttered weakly, landing on Johnny’s forearm. His grip was ice-cold. "Hurts..." he breathed, his eyes wide with pain and fading awareness. He looked past Johnny, towards the looming trees, the gray sky. "Johnny?"
Johnny kept packing the wound, his jaw clenched so tight it ached. "What?" he snapped, not looking up, focused on stemming the crimson tide.
Daniel’s gaze drifted back, struggling to focus on Johnny’s face. His voice was faint, drifting. "Tell the kids... tell them I love them..."
Johnny froze. The strip of oilcloth slipped from his blood-slicked fingers. A cold wave washed over him, colder than the rain. "No," he whispered, the word sharp as broken glass. He grabbed Daniel’s shoulders, ignoring the scream from his own dislocated joint. "No, no you aren't leaving me alone!" His voice rose, raw and furious. "How dare you tell me you love me and just decide your time is up!" The accusation hung heavy, absurd, ripped from somewhere deep and primal he didn't recognize.
Daniel’s eyes widened slightly, a flicker of something unreadable amidst the pain. He weakly raised his trembling hand. It brushed clumsily against Johnny’s rain and blood-streaked cheek. His touch was feather-light, chillingly cold. "I love you, Johnny," Daniel breathed, the words barely audible, yet echoing with impossible clarity in the dripping stillness. A ghost of a smile touched his lips, fragile and fleeting. "I have... since '84..."
Time stopped. The rain, the pain, the lurking stranger, the forest itself – it all vanished. Johnny stared into Daniel’s pale face, seeing not the rival, the enemy, the car salesman, but the kid from Reseda who’d kicked him in the face at the All-Valley. Decades of resentment, competition, petty victories, and shared, unspoken history crashed together in that single, devastating confession. Johnny caught Daniel’s cold hand, pressing it against his own rough cheek. His own voice, when it came, was thick, choked, stripped bare. "I love you too, you stubborn bastard," he rasped, the admission tearing free like barbed wire. "But don't you dare die on me."
Daniel’s eyes softened. The ghostly smile lingered for a heartbeat longer. Then his eyelids fluttered, heavy as stone. His hand went limp in Johnny’s grasp. The shallow, wet rasp of his breathing hitched… paused… and stopped. Johnny felt it – the faint tremor of life beneath his fingers, the subtle rise of Daniel’s chest beneath his own pressing hand… gone. Utterly still.
Silence roared in Johnny’s ears, louder than the storm. He stared, uncomprehending, at Daniel’s peaceful, bloodless face. The rain traced clean paths through the grime. "Daniel?" Johnny whispered, shaking him gently. "Hey. LaRusso?" No response. No flutter of eyelids. No ragged intake of breath. Just stillness. Absolute, terrifying stillness. The pressure Johnny had been maintaining on the wound slackened. His hand, covered in Daniel’s blood, trembled violently.
The stranger shifted behind him, the sound jarring Johnny back to the nightmare. "He's gone, son," the gravelly voice stated, devoid of sympathy, merely stating fact. "Told you. That kinda wound..."
Johnny didn't turn. He kept staring at Daniel’s face, the words since '84 echoing like gunshots in his skull. A low growl started deep in his chest, building into a raw, animalistic roar of denial and rage that ripped through the forest, silencing the rain for a terrifying instant. He surged to his feet, whirling towards the stranger, his eyes blazing with a grief-stricken fury that erased all pain, all caution. "Who were they?" Johnny demanded, his voice a deadly rasp. He took a step forward, fists clenched, blood dripping from his fingers onto the sodden earth. "Where's their hole? Tell me now." The rifle barrel snapped up, centering on Johnny’s chest. The stranger’s eyes narrowed, cold and assessing behind the dripping hood. He didn’t flinch. "Or what, tough guy?" he asked softly, finger tightening on the trigger. "You gonna make me?"