Chapter 10 - More than a Hero
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Link's opponent looked straight into his burning white eyes.
He knew what had happened.
"So... you accept your fate at last? You choose the mask, fierce one?"
"Don't you dare tell me about hiding behind masks!" Link shouted, furiously.
"You're seeing my true face, now... But I am yet to see yours, it seems..."
"You've seen me before, for all that you don't realise it..."
The cloak concealing the form of Link's nemesis seemed to dissolve into thin
air. No! That couldn't be...
"Oh, yes, Link! I was the one who gave you the face you bear so proudly..."
The figure that stood there now - was Majora. Of a sort. But not a sort
recognisable as any Link had encountered. The apparition appeared half-way
between the great mask-demon, Majora's Wrath... and a true human being, fused
together in a sickening combination. A true monster, strange and distorted.
"You shouldn't be here!" Link yelled, denying the evidence of his own eyes.
"Thirteen years ago! You..."
"You destroyed me, you thought? Oh, no, you poor deluded fool... You merely
destroyed my physical form, not my spirit. My... call it my essence... was
set free. I could not return to the mask - but I found another home, that
served my purposes for the time... One of the old man's books. It only took
his opening my volume to reveal and release me... And now! I take my revenge
on the little boy who dared ruin my plans, and take out the one obstacle
in my way... Hyrule, Termina, all will become wasteland with their protector
gone... Absolute chaos!"
...The truly evil ones all go on, Link mused, and then they say
the stupidest things... "Hyrule will turn to chaos, you say?"
"Precisely!"
Link grinned. "Then I'd say it's in pretty good hands..."
"What do you mean?"
"You don't get it, do you? Me. Link. The Fierce Deity. Chaos in human
form... I'd have thought you'd know that much. Since you claim to have made
me what I am, surely you should know what you made. But you didn't make me...
you were just a tool of a greater power."
"Never!..." Majora screeched. "Prepare to be destroyed!"
It launched a volley of blinding energy bolts towards where Link stood,
apparently calm and collected. For a second, it seemed they would hit him,
surely...
He leapt skywards, bringing his sword over his head as he landed right in
front of Majora. He smiled strangely, as a stray memory came back to him.
"I know. Let's play good guys and bad guys..." The double blades smashed
into the demon's sides. "And didn't you say I was the bad guy?"
Majora wailed in pain. For a second, Link saw a fleeting glance of a human
emotion in its strange eyes... and suddenly realised.
The human half of this monster was one who had taken him in for two years,
even to reject him at the end...
..."It is not what you have done to me, but what you will do..."... Did he know already that this would happen?...
Majora seemed to sense Link's thoughts. "What? You pity the old man? Why?
He accepted me, as you accept yourself! He and I are one... you cannot destroy
me without destroying him too... Surely, you of all people should understand
that much!" Link stood back, trying to work things out for a second. Could
he really kill someone who... who could even have been a father-in-law, if
fate had turned out differently? Even though this had happened to
him? It was a mistake, and a long, lashing whip thrust out and sent him to
the ground.
...He would see you killed. There is no room for sympathy left. The old
man is gone. You should destroy Majora before he destroys you...
The Fierce Deity jumped to his feet, and sent a blaze of blue light smashing towards his oldest adversary. Sympathy and pity were forgotten as he threw himself into the battle.
...Kill or be killed... Destroy or be destroyed... This is your fate...
could it ever be any other way?...
Even as he fought, he began to forget his old qualms, his old fears over
the future... indeed, he no longer remembered what it felt like to be
afraid...
The two opponents circled. Every attack of Majora's was dodged... but he
moved too fast for Link to score too many direct hits of his own.
It would take something drastic to break the stalemate...
Suddenly, Link stopped in his tracks. Majora didn't notice the faint smile
on his lips, as it sent two whipping attacks straight in...
But that was exactly what he was counting on.
...I could do this back when I was only my old self, it was one of the
first things I learned... Why didn't I think of it before?...Of course, this
time's going to be different...
He dropped down to hit the ground. A bubble of an unearthly electric-blue
flame burst out around him in a perfect hemisphere, illuminating the night
sky. The fire shot up the lashing tentacles, and Majora screeched in pain
as the flames consumed it...
-
"You saw that light? That'll be him! Are you ready?"
"Sure! I'm coming now... wait a minute..."
"There might not be a minute to wait. Hurry up..."
-
...but with its last ounce of strength, it kept attacking. Link was quietly impressed by his adversary's nerve, but didn't show it. One sword strike, one energy blast, after another, he returned any blow aimed. Every nerve in his body burned with a hidden energy.
...This is how it was always meant to be. I spent so long fighting myself, and in the end the favourite was the winner after all...
He vaulted backwards over a spiked, spinning disc launched at his feet - but the blades caught his legs as he jumped. He silently cursed his own stupidity, as he sent his own blades in towards Majora. The wound smarted, and glancing downwards he expected to see blood - but the only sign of the injury was a line of bluish energy tracing the cut. He had no time to wonder what it meant, however, as he kept his assault up...
Blow after blow.
Strike after strike.
Attack after attack.
A deadly dance of skill and cunning.
A lethal game.
And Link was winning.
He never knew which of his blows ended the battle. One moment, he was diving in, helix sword slicing the air into blue light... the next, standing over the fallen body of the demonic monster, his white eyes locked with Majora's strange red swirls.
"...Finish...it..."
What was that? A voice? Again, it came. "End...my torment...finish it..."
Suddenly, he realised what - or who - it was. The last breath of a human
spirit within a monster's frame - as it were, the person trapped behind the
mask...
...End it!...
He closed his eyes, yelled, and thrust the sword downwards. Unseen, the inert
form of Majora dissolved into energy and light, fracturing, fading away into
nothingness...
Empty eyes opened onto an empty vista. He had done his work here. The battle
was over.
He felt weary, fatigued in a way that had nothing to do with his body. The
Fierce Deity had emerged the victor, and would have expected to feel pride
or satisfaction - but the heart that beat within him was still that of Link
of Hyrule, and he could not help but feel a sense... if not of guilt, then
of pity, of sadness. Over a life that had been thrown away. He knew there
could have been no other way - but it didn't make it any easier. He blinked,
put his sword away, and turned to go - but where, he did not know. The first
hint of an unknown future crept into his mind... He looked back towards his
old homes - turning his gaze in turn towards the forest, towards the castle,
and towards the ranch. But none of them was his home now.
He turned to go. But as he did so, he saw two figures on horseback, galloping
towards him as fast as possible -
"Alena? Malon? What are you doing here?"
"We couldn't let you leave... without saying goodbye!" Alena made a clumsy
dismount and ran towards Link as fast as possible, almost oblivious of who
she was running towards. She didn't care that this was a seven-foot-tall,
all-powerful warrior - all she saw was the person she loved. Eyes closed,
she wrapped her arms around his armoured frame. "Link... I am really, really
going to miss you..."
"I'm going to miss you, too. I'll think of you forever..." And, he knew now,
forever would mean forever. He would not cry, would not show emotion in his
snow-white eyes - but he suddenly felt its crushing weight upon him. A long,
lonely future. Until that moment, Eternity had meant nothing to Link. But
now... Infinity was more than just a word. It was his existence. His destiny.
Forever...
Gently, he lifted Alena from the ground and wrapped his powerful arms around
her. "Just... try to remember me... because I'll always remember you." He
lowered her to the floor and walked over to where Malon sat on Epona. "You,
too. But... I doubt you came all the way out here just to say 'so long'.
What's that you've got there?"
"I thought... I thought you might want this. Just in case..." She passed
over the diamond-bladed dagger Link had retrieved from the castle. He slipped
it away, surprised. "And this..." She handed him the ocarina. "Think of me
every time you play our song." Her words struck a strange chord, mirroring
Saria's of thirteen years back so closely...
He blinked. "Thank you." He looked from Malon to Alena and back, and then
to the instrument he held in his hands. It seemed so fragile - and as he
regarded it, it too changed to an instrument more suited to his role. The
wood became a material more like ivory, and gold tracings embroidered it.
"I guess this is goodbye, then. But... there is one thing I can leave to
you too." He pocketed the ocarina - no-one saw where - and wordlessly lifted
his hands to the sky. Between his palms formed a sphere of brilliant, blinding
white light. Slowly, he brought it down in front of him. Alena ran over to
see what was happening - and took a step back as Link revealed what the light
hid.
Link nodded to them both. "The Hero's Mask. All that is left of the Link you know is all that I can give to you. It's yours."
He walked away. One last glance over his shoulder, and a whispered "Goodbye..."
- but somehow, in the stillness of the night, even whispers carried a long
way.
"Goodbye... I thought I'd never lose you again..." Malon stretched out, and
waved until Link was out of sight.
"Goodbye, my hero... you'll always be in my heart..." Alena's voice choked
as she looked out into the distance - and then into the back of the mask.
"Always..."
-
Link raised one hand covered in black and silver armour to white eyes that could see more than mortal man's could, and scanned the horizon. Where would this quest lead him? What was his fate?
He paused, and lifted the ocarina to his lips. The three-note pattern of
the Song of Time flowed out. Each note fell like light through the dark night
- and his path stood out as if the light had shone upon it. That strange
call, leading him to the paths between worlds, between times...
...My future begins here...
The Fierce Deity walked on into an eternity that was his, and his alone, to protect. Now and forever.