Chapter Text
Zelda supposed that chucking a priceless artifact from the side of a Sky Island was, in fact, a terrible idea when it came to archaeological conservation. It was almost funny to consider how, back under the castle, the oils on Link’s fingertips had concerned her so much where as now potentially mangling Mineru’s mask caused no such alarm. The thought should frighten her—archeology, research, academia, that was her soul. Treating an arifact with so little care should horrify her, but instead here she was, treating Mineru’s owl-like mask as little more than a piece of a puzzle she could force into any available place. Which, she supposed, it was. The mask was one more thing between her and Link, and she would force it to fit into any gap before her if it meant getting the answers she wanted.
Ere was screaming in her ear, clinging so tight to Zelda that her nails left crescents on the flesh of Zelda’s arms. Zelda was deeply glad she had cut her hair off long ago as Ere’s long hair ripped free from the ex Yiga’s bun, her wet strands cutting into both their cheeks.
Carefully, being sure to keep one arm tight around Ere’s waist, Zelda awkwardly flicked open her paraglider. It yanked painfully on her one arm, not quite catching the wind, but thankfully Ere seemed to understand the plan. She wrapped her arms tightly around Zelda, who let go of the other woman and grabbed the other paraglider handle. Immediately, their descent slowed, the wind around them no longer howling, simply singing as it carried them down to the ground where Mineru’s mask waited. The mask pulsed softly, a green beam of light shining from the third eye on its owl-like forehead, right towards a collection of ruins Zelda didn’t recognize.
Tobio's Hollow had apparently changed drastically since her and Link last scouted out here. The bottomless bog that had surrounded the Hollow and served as a hunting ground for a hinox had retreated, giving way to clear, clean water, and, just barely under the waters, the feathered tips of a bird statue. It was easy to tell it was Zonai in origin, given how close it appeared to the other Zonai ruins that peppered Faron, but didn’t seem to have fallen from the sky, instead pushing up out of the waters like a sapling. The air seemed to carry an electric charge, like the ringing of bells in the wind. Zelda landed, her footsteps quiet as they hit the ground, and Ere swore, flopping down. With the rain gone, the blood on her clothes was obvious, as was the rip in her tunic, long and clean from the sharp edge of the flux construct’s cube, right across her kidney.
Ere could have died, should have died, yet didn’t, all because of Zelda. Because of Nayru’s gift, the Triforce of Wisdom blooming inside her, golden and brilliant and terrifying.
Triforce. It felt strange to finally think of the word, to label the power inside her, but it was a good strange.
Zelda leaned down and picked up the mask. It buzzed in her hands, its light flashing toward a stone pedestal before them. Cautiously, Zelda placed it down on the pedestal, jumping back as soon as she did. She doubted it was dangerous, but better safe than sorry. The mask trembled, then, with a mighty shiver, left out a beam of light straight into the submerged forehead of the bird. The bird’s stone eyes fluttered open in a shower of dust, glowing green, before raising its wings. The stone groaned, and as the wings rose, so did the pedestal. Zelda took a step back, and suddenly the pedestal was rising faster and faster until it was no longer a pedestal, but the entrance to a… cave?
Zelda took a step forward. The smell of gloom was faint but present, clearly coming from the cave. Not the cave—the chasm.
“Woah…” Ere breathed behind her, and Zelda couldn’t help but agree. This had been here, under the sludge, for all these years, long before even the Calamity’s resurgence, long enough for the ruins to be forgotten all together. Though maybe a wisp of a memory had still held on—Tobio’s Hollow. Hollow. Something carved out and empty, carved out and waiting.
Zelda straightened and picked up the mask when it began to let out a soft whirling sound, like a bumblebee or a hummingbird.
“Are we headed down there?” Ere asked.
We. Are we headed down there.
Zelda nodded, hoisting the mask above her head, and moved forward into the dark. Behind her, Ere groaned, but still stood and started after her. The dark stretched on and on. The smell of gloom was thick, but the whisps of deadly smog were absent, not curling around their feet like it did other time Zelda neared the Depths.
“The last time we were this close to a chasm, you tried to make me go splat.” Zelda called over her shoulder as darkness overtook them, and Ere let out an uneasy laugh.
“I did, didn’t I?”
Zelda tried to reply but found her mouth too dry to make words. Ere had tried—and almost succeeded—in pushing her to her death. And now, Zelda was exposing her back to her, as if it was water under the bridge. She shouldn’t be this trusting. She should still be on her guard. What would Link do? Frankly, Zelda didn’t know.
A light flickered to life in the corner of her left eye, and Tulin’s vow, soft and cerulean, chirped silently beside her. Zelda sighed and ran a hand across the strange, not quite solid feathers. Almost as if it was jealous of the attention, a crackling golden light flared up at Zelda’s right, and Riju’s vow took Zelda’s hand. Ere stifled a yelp—yep, there was Sidon’s vow, its trident in hand, left most prong resting a little too close to Ere’s thigh for the ex-Yiga’s comfort. Zelda couldn’t help but wonder just how aware Sidon was of what his vow had seen over these past few weeks: saving Zelda from a long drop and a quick death, forced to watch as Ere thrust and curled her fingers inside Zelda’s leg, listening beside the other vows as Sayuri spoke of Link and dragons. Sidon, Riju, Tulin… how did her world appear to them, all the way back in their hometowns and domains?
The three figures of light and magic seemed to glow brighter as Zelda and Ere moved further down, as if Mineru’s stone was calling to them, drawing forth their power. The increasing downward slope of the chasm came to a stop. There was no drop, no hole, no entrance to the Depths, no matter how much of a chasm Tobio’s Hollow clearly was. Zelda squinted in the dim light. The ground below was stone, not rock, worn smooth by the deft hand of a carver. It was man made.
Riju’s vow let go of Zelda’s hand and stepped forward, raising its swords. The light of its lightning exposed a white floor, flush with the walls but clearly not a part of them, and another pedestal.
“Zelda…” Ere said wearily, “Are you sure we shouldn’t—”
“What, turn around? What other choice do I have?”
Ere bit her lip. “I just… we seem a little underequipped to keep moving forward, ya’ know?”
“You might be, but I have her.” Zelda placed down Mineru’s mask and slipped the Purah pad from her hip. With a flutter of her fingers across the screen, Fi was in her hands once more. The Master Sword’s glow, brighter than it ever had been before her nap in the silent dragon’s skull, illuminated both women’s faces—Zelda’s pale determined one, and Ere’s bruised, nervous features. The sight of the fresh bruising in the Master Sword’s glow had Zelda wondering just what Ere went through to find her. Just who she fought, which Clan members she raised a weapon against. Zelda swallowed. There was time to dwell on such things later.
“We haven’t much time.” The mask said, its strange, melodic voice echoing against the man-made floors. Both girls jumped. “My apologies for startling you, but I can no longer sense the body left waiting for me— Zelda, Link’s Chosen Princess, something is very wrong. I fear we have little time. Place me in the pedestal.”
Ere glanced at Zelda, eyebrow raised, but the other woman had already begun latching the mask in place.
“What exactly do you think we are walking into?” Ere asked. The room trembled, and she stumbled back away from the cavern walls as the floor began to sink down. The little light from the entrance of the cavern disappeared as the floor dropped, moving down, down, then sideways and opening into a world of black.
The smell of the Depths, the smell of gloom, was overpowering, as was the blackness, but Mineru’s mask kept its headlight shining, exposing the occasion flash of an otherworldly tree or gloom-covered collum, before the light of fires began to glow ahead of them, followed by the glitter of zonaite, bringing a truly breathtaking building into view. Multistoried and beautifully carved, decorated with zonaite, the construct forge was the biggest collection of Zonai ruins Zelda had ever seen, most notably because they weren’t ruins. Despite being clearly Zonai in design, they were intact, with forges lit and fires glowing as constructs worked to process the zonaite around them on each of the four floors.
The forge sprawled, the building breaking into four pieces connected by running water lit by artfully carved lanterns, but clearly all was not well. The constructs on the ground floor had hidden themselves in their own bodies, while a shrill alarm blared. The floor had been trashed, Zonai construct pieces strewn about and smashed, but the floor was empty of combatants. Where were the monsters?
Mineru’s mask gasped. There, in the center of the first floor, was a strange glowing mechanism in the shape of a lotus. In it was the outline of a robotic body, but wires spluttered and frizzed around it, like something had been ripped free. Whatever it had once held, it was long gone.
“No…” Mineru said, voice tight despite the lack of body. “I fear we are too late. Millenia ago, I had my forge constructs craft a physical form to house me once you freed me from the Dragonhead Isles. It should be here, safe from the Demon King’s minions, yet still…”
“Zel…” Ere’s voice called out from behind them, wobbly and unsure. “I, I think I know who our minions are.”
Zelda turned. Now that she was really looking, she could see drag marks coming from the empty lotus, clear enough to be sure that whatever this ‘physical form’ was, it had fought back. Footsteps occasionally stumbled around the deep grooves, and packed patches of dirt painted a picture of bodies thrown prone. Ere knelt at one such patch. Even in the dim light, Zelda could make out a splatter of something darker and redder than the Depths’ soil. Blood—and crushed to pieces, but still recognizable, shards of smooth, polished wood, painted white with a red design across the grain. Zelda knelt beside Ere, who, with trembling hands, picked up the pieces of the broken Yiga mask and reassembled them on the bloody soil.
The Demon King. Ganondorf. My Master is building this, this thing, this mech or construct or whatever, and he thinks if he gives it to the Demon King to use as a new body that he’ll avenge us…
Kohga wanted a body for Ganondorf. Mineru had a body waiting for her here. If he had gotten a hold of a construct as well-made and powerful as the one Mineru had made for her was, then who knew what he could do with it. Who he could hurt with it...
“My best guess,” Zelda said, standing and turning back to Mineru, “an adversary of mine, Kohga of the Yiga, took your body. But we have a whole forge here! Surely, we can build you a new one!”
“Hmm..." Mineru pondered the idea for a moment, before making a sound of agreement.
"Place me in the head of the lotus.” Mineru said. “Do you see the storehouses connected by the waterways in this area? Each one had pieces needed to build a body for me. Please, I know my people have already asked so much of you, Link’s Chosen Princess, but we must prepare me a body. I am far too weak to take you to the secret stone’s hiding place without one. Take a piece from each storehouse and bring it to me. I’ll help you attach them when you arrive.”
“I understand,” Zelda said, hoisting Mineru off the pedestal and hauling her up, over her head, and into the lotus. “I shall do as you request.”
Zelda swore the mask smiled down at her. “You are as brave as he said. Go. Please.”
---
They followed the waterway to the first storehouse, which smelled of brimstone and radiated a strange heat that sis not seem to affect the water, leaving sweat on Zelda’s brow but not burning her skin. Once she and Ere entered, the source was obvious—a winding river of faux lava, trailing from a workshop bench to the waterway. Zelda stepped closer. Zonai contraptions in various states of repair were spilling from floor-to-ceiling shelves, and signs of chaos coated the room. Crushed boxes, spiled zonaite, shattered crystalized charges—even the remains of a forge construct, ripped to pieces and left twitching and sparking on the floor. The room smelled sickly sweet from the left-over banana peels scattered across the room and left to rot, like this piece of living history was the Yiga’s personal trash yard. Zelda rushed to the remains of the forge construct. It let out a mechanical warble but managed to half open one stone eye.
“Y…ou are not… an intruder…” It managed to chirp out. “I was… instructed… to wait for one such as yourself…”
“I’m sorry I didn’t get here soon enough,” Zelda said. Behind her, Ere shifted awkwardly. The three vows had surrounded her, their white eyes hovering on her trembling shoulders.
“The… terminal…”
Zelda glanced around; there, knocked free from the wall, was a sparking terminal with a strange arm-like appendage encased in mesh. Zelda stood and moved to it.
“Is this the arm we need? For Mineru’s body?” She called to the construct. The construct did not answer.
Zelda took a deep breath, forcing the anger in her stomach out through her lungs and into the air where it could harmlessly disperse. A beautiful, sentient piece of history, destroyed, and for what? All this history, all these near perfectly preserved ruins—tainted, ransacked, riffled through, and stolen from like it was common pirates’ booty and not all that was left of long-forgotten society. Had they no shame?!
“… ‘M sorry,” Ere said softly, and Zelda shook her head.
“You didn’t do this.”
“I—still. I’m sorry.”
Zelda freed the left arm from the mesh and turned it this way and that. It was sparking, twitching, the fingers’ beautiful zonaite dull and absent of the electricity that flowed above the elbow. The wiring was complicated, but not completely foreign. If she used a bit of imagination, it almost… it almost resembled…
“Are there any tools on that bench? Screwdriver, soldering iron?”
Ere nodded, running to the table beside the fallen construct and scooping up every tool in sight, as well as any blueprints she could see, rushing over to Zelda, and dumping them in front of her.
“You know how this stuff works?” Ere said, and Zelda made a so-so motion with her hand as she began flipping through the blueprints.
“I studied the guts of guardians a lot before the Calamity, and when we deconstructed the Sheikah tech around Hyrule to use for rebuilding efforts, I learned how the guardians that had been hidden below the Castle worked. And Robbie and Purah—well, you can’t have family like that and not learn a few things. I always wanted to be a researcher, a scientist. Looks like all that ‘playing at being a scholar’ is going to good use.”
Ere looked at her curiously, then kneeled down.
“What do you need me to do?”
Zelda passed her the arm and, slowly but surely, the two worked, Ere holding the arm while Zelda screwed something here, re-routed a wire there, and soldered zonite across strange not-metal. The blueprints proved invaluable, and even if the language was too old and too strange for Zelda to translate herself, the diagrams were beyond useful. Riju’s vow held its electrified sword into Sidon’s vow’s bubble, the brilliant electrical light refracted through the room by the water, allowing for perfect visibility. Finally, the left arm creaked, then groaned, then lit up all the way and flexed its fingers. Zelda shouted in glee, and Ere dropped the arm to pull her in for a hug. The feeling of Ere’s squeeze, the tickle of her hair under Zelda’s nose—it was nice. Nicer than Zelda would ever admit. How old was Ere? No way she was older than Zelda, that was for sure. Had the woman ever spent this long with someone outside her cult? Had she ever hugged someone who wasn’t Yiga? Zelda wasn’t sure if she really wanted to know.
Zelda pulled away and stood, hoisting the arm on her shoulder.
“Shall we?”
Ere looked through the grates that made up the windows of the storehouse. The waterway stretched back into the main factory, moving briskly.
“Ya sure you can carry that the whole way?”
Zelda frowned. It was awfully heavy.
“Maybe we can find something to tie it to and float it down the waterway…” Ere said. She began to pick through the garbage and destroyed artifacts left by her ex-brothren. “But the current… we’d never beat that current.” Sidon’s vow stepped forward. Ere flinched, and it squeezed her shoulder with surprising gentleness, flashing her a smile, and, with a wave and a flex of its hand, the construct arm in Zelda’s arms was engulfed in a glowing bubble of water. When Zelda placed it on the ground, it hovered, the walls of the bubble cushioning it. Tulin’s vow bobbed up and down on its talons and, with a quick burst of speed, sent a gust of wind towards the bubble, sending the arm rolling merrily into the waterway where it bobbed easily against the current, further and further down stream.
“Well come on!” Zelda called over her shoulder as she bolted out the door, careful of the forge’s lava flow, back towards the waterway. Ere followed after, unable to take her eyes off of the vows, who seemed to be doing the same.
They reached the lotus in no time, Sidon gracefully maneuvering the arm through the air with its bubble, and Zelda skidding to a stop before Mineru with a beaming smile.
“We got the left arm!”
“Fantastic. The other three storehouses should have the other arm and legs. Here, let me talk you through how to attach the arm—” But, before Mineru was able to finish, Zelda was already settling the arm into place and lighting the soldering iron she’d brought with her, quickly connecting wires and screwing together bolts and springs. Mineru let out a surprised hum.
“Link said you were smart. He called you a scholar. Yet still, I hadn’t expected such quick learning from you, Chosen Princess. Forgive me.”
Zelda shrugged. “Most people see the crown before they see the brain.”
Mineru laughed. “You remind me of my sister-in-law. I think you would have liked her. Her child bore your name.”
“… That’s what the Priestess said as well. Zelda.”
“Sayuri is a… difficult person to get along with. She and I… when Link proposed his plans, well, her fingers tainted every word he said to me. It may have been millennia, but bitterness, anger… it still threatens to rise on my tongue. Quickly. We haven’t time to talk. My body.”
“… I understand.”
---
They moved even faster after that. Riju and Sidon’s vows would light up the dark storehouses with their electrified bubble, followed by Tulin and Sidon working together to send the arm or leg down the waterway to Mineru, where Zelda would quickly put it into place with a few tips from the spirit sage. What Zelda feared would take hours instead too only a little more than one, and soon Mineru’s body was complete, each limb brought to life by Zelda, with Ere’s fumbling but appreciated help. Zelda’s hands were slick with otherworldly grease, and her bangs stuck to her forehead with sweat—she hadn’t realized how much she missed getting her hands dirty. She loved teaching, adored the children of Hateno, but still, she had been more than just the slightest bit bitter that Link had been so set on deconstructing the Sheikah tech and leaving nothing behind to be studied. So much information, lost… even if she agreed that if anyone had a right to want a fresh start, it would be the man killed by the mechs, Zelda couldn’t help but feel cheated out of a dream she’d never had the chance to actualize, that century ago.
“I didn’t think you’d be so…” Ere started, passing Zelda a different screwdriver head, “hands on?”
Zelda tightened a joint screw on Mineru’s right leg. “I actually dreamed of being a scholar or an engineer when I was younger.”
Ere laughed. “You were already a princess—wasn’t that good enough? Every little girl wants to be a princess.”
“Did you want to be one as a child?”
“I—no. I didn’t really think about what I wanted to be.”
“Nothing at all?”
Ere took back the screwdriver head Zelda passed her. Zelda slid the fixed leg into place and began the attachment process. “… I had this one thing, I guess, as a kid… but it was stupid.”
“Nonsense!”
Ere’s skin flushed. “I remember—I… I was with a foot soldier doing reconnaissance on Kakariko, back when I was really little, and we stayed at a stable to wait and sky on traveling Sheikah. There was this horse… it was blue. I’d never seen a blue horse before. And it was so soft… the stable hand let me feed her and showed me how to brush her down. She was so big but so gentle… I thought that, once the hero awoke and we killed him, and you died and the Calamity rose, and the modern Sheikah returned to the old ways with us… well, then there wouldn’t be a need for the Yiga Clan anymore. We could just be the Sheikah again, and there would be no more masks and no more hiding, and I could work at a stable with blue horses.”
Zelda blinked. She hadn’t realized she had stopped blinking as she listened, or that she’d zapped her finger on an exposed wire, just that Ere, in that moment, sounded so young that it hurt.
Objectively, Zelda knew she and Link were far too young for the job put before them. But to see someone who might be even younger talk of a world where her only dream was to work at a f*cking stable was grim in a way Zelda didn’t want to dwell on.
“I know what we’re going to do when we get out of here,” Zelda said, and Ere furrowed her brow.
“Stop the Demon King?”
“Well, yes, of course, but I’m getting you a horse. A blue one. Maybe even a foal, so you can raise it! And a job—Dueling Peaks is always hiring, regardless of experience, and with Kakariko nearby, you’ll be protected!”
It was Ere’s turn to blink at her, white eyebrows up to her hairline. “Zelda…”
“Don’t ‘Zelda’ me, it’s decided. There!” Zelda crawled out from her precarious place half under Mineru, grinning. She gave Mineru’s leg a final thwack and ran a greasy hand through her hair. “That should do it, more or less. How does it feel, Mineru?”
The construct shuddered mechanically as light flushed through the exposed wiring. Not Zelda’s best work, but better than nothing.
“Mineru?”
Mineru’s whole body shivered again, before suddenly lurching forward. The hips freed themselves from the lotus first, then the shoulders, and then each arm and leg fought against the magnets and wires as they pulled themselves free with agonizing sluggishness, before finally, finally, Mineru’s owl-like head popped free. She stumbled forward, her massive feet sending up dust clouds, before dropping to one knee. She grunted and slowly managed to right herself on two feet.
“Forgive me,” she said, “Having a physical form again may take some getting used to.”
Mineru towered. Her arms dragged on the ground with massive fists, her chest bulging and electrified. Her head was aglow with crystalline charges, and she was as beautiful as she was terrifying.
“Damn.” Ere breathed. Damn indeed.
Zelda stood. This was Rauru’s sister, his twin, one of the last people to see Link, to have the answers she needed. The mask’s glowing, hollow eyes seemed to hover on her, and Zelda tried to imagine Zonai eyes in their place.
“Thank you,” Mineru said. “You proved to be a quick learner. I am glad. It would have been frustrating to find Link’s Chosen Princess inadequate when so little time is left. He placed much faith in you, and lofty expectations on your shoulders. Him and Sayuri both. I’m sorry.”
Zelda straightened. “I would do anything for—” Link “—Hyrule.”
Mineru seemed to smile, even without the ability to do so. “I am sure you will. I have the utmost faith in Link’s judgment. Now, we must go. I can sense my secret stone, but the connection is weak. I will need it if I am to continue inhabiting this body much longer.”
Zelda nodded. “Where is it?”
“Hidden away in a temple not far from here—I can take you. But the way is treacherous. The Depths of this time are so different from the mines and factories that the humans and constructs in my time stewarded.”
“When you say, ‘your time’,” Ere said, taking in the towering construct, “How long are we talkin’? The Sheikah first sealed Calamity Ganon 10,000 years ago—”
Mineru shook her head. “Link spoke of a Calamity once, and it ended in quite an explosive conversation between him and the Demon King. The Sheikah are few and far between amongst the followers of Hylia—or so I have been told. Little is known of them.
Ere’s eyes were wide. “So you’re before the 10,000-year slumber of Ganon… I… uh. Wow.”
Mineru laughed. “Wow.”
“How did you stand it? Being locked away for so long?”
Mineru’s shoulders shifted minutely, but enough for Zelda to pick up on her discomfort.
“It was a struggle.” She said stiffly, “But necessary. The Demon King must be stopped. My brother must be avenged. Link’s sacrifice must not be in vain.”
It was Zelda’s turn to stiffen. Link’s sacrifice…
No. No, no, it was pointless to dwell on possibilities that likely weren’t even true when there was a job to be done. She squared her shoulders.
“So, how to we reach this temple? Do you have a map?”
Mineru knelt on one knee. “I shall take you. Climb on my back. The way will not be without struggle, but this body you have made for me is far from helpless.”
Mineru’s back shuddered, her shoulders sliding deeper into her back and out further into her sides, exposing a handlebar and foot grips.
Zelda took a deep breath and hoisted herself up. The strange not-metal-not-stone that made up the construct was warm to the touch, and she was careful to avoid the electric stream between the plates. The crystalized charges inside the electrical stream were a beautiful pale mint green, and she was tempted to touch it, even if she was sure that was a terrible idea.
“When you say ‘far from helpless’—” Ere started, and Mineru cut her off by raising a mechanical arm and forming a strange-shaped fist. The plates around her forarm shifted, clinking together softly, and pulled back, exposing blinding light from a charge. Wires and plates lept free from the innards of the arm, and in a flash of green light that left Zelda squinting her eyes, they came together, barbs and spikes poking through until they formed a massive ball of spiked metal the size of Zelda’s head, clearly heavy enough to crush bone with a strong enough hit.
“Woah.” Ere breathed, stepping closer and poking it, and Mineru snorted.
“This body can do far more than that.”
“Really? Holy sh*t, Goddesses above, like what? Can you blow up things? Can you fly?”
Mineru’s laugh was as bright as it was elegant. “Both, to an extent. I have a canon on the left arm, though it needs ample time to recharge between uses. A rocket can propel us upward from my back, and I can shield for a limited time.”
Zelda twisted around and offered Ere a hand. “Come’on. There isn’t much time.”
Ere grinned, taking her hand. “Let’s ride a robot.”
Mineru’s shoulders shuddered for a moment as Ere clambered on, before moving slowly and wrapping around the women’s backs like a shield. The plates didn’t cover everything, but they would ensure they didn’t fall, and, if it held, should deflect a blow or two thrown their way from behind. Not perfect, but definitely better than nothing.
The ride was bumpy and slow. Mineru apologized, saying that without her stone, it was becoming harder and harder to ensure her strength and vitality, and Zelda truly meant it when she reassured the Zonai that the slow speed and nauseating turbulence were fine. Mineru had been a spirit possessing a Zonai artifact for millennia, her sheer determination keeping her from fading away as the centuries passed, and now she was controlling a whole new body without the aid of a secret stone. The woman had real determination, and an unwavering spirit, to be able to do such things, and Zelda deeply respected that. She was sure Link would respect it too.
“Were…” The word slipped out before Zelda could stop it, and Mineru’s owl head co*cked.
“Yes?”
“You and Link. Were you close?”
Mineru did not answer. It was painfully quiet for one minute, two, five, until Zelda began to accept Mineru would not answer her. But finally, she spoke, quieter than Zelda had ever heard her.
“I wish we had been closer. He was family, to my brother and sister-in-law, and the baby. Our friendship never bloomed in the same way it did with Queen Sonia, and now, I wish desperately it had. I was so angry after Sonia’s death, after Rauru’s death, when he came up with his asinine plan with the stone…I turned cold towards him. He deserved better in those last days. Grief is, as they say, a bastard. But that isn’t to say there was no warmth between us. I built his arm, after all. And he inspired a new love for learning in me that I hadn’t felt in years on the day he showed me the Master Sword. For so long, Hylia, the Golden Goddesses, the Master Sword—all of it had been frivolous Hylian fluff. But to see it in his hand, to witness its power… it certainly left me with a reignited desire for discovery. If only we’d had the time for me to do so.”
Zelda swallowed. Sonia’s death had been horrifying to witness, and objectively she knew Rauru had died, but when she tried to picture the Zonai failing, falling, it felt near impossible.
“My people,” Ere said softly, “likely took your body. They’ve been attempting to locate and serve the Demon King. I won’t let them give it to him. We’ll get your body back.”
Mineru all but growled. “If Ganondorf were to ever go near my tech, I’d smash his hands to pieces before he even had the chance to touch it. He has no right to anything of mine, not after what he’s done.”
Ere shifted uncomfortably in her perch on Mineru’s back. “I saw a vision, of him fighting. Back on the knoll. It was… was unlike anything I’d ever seen.”
“That battle was a painful failure. We should have taken it as a sign that we, as we were, even with the stones, were far from prepared, or that we didn't have what it took to take the Demon King on. That last fight, deep in the Depths…”
Mineru took a shuddering breath.
“Medoh fell first, right from the sky. Ruta and Rudania not long after. Naboris… she held on for longer than the rest, but not long enough. I was… one of Twinrova bested me. And all that was left then was Link and Rauru. We knew then, there was no winning. Rauru knew.”
Despite her lack of a throat, Mineru choked down a swallow. Her whole body shuddered, the crystalized charges flickering.
“He saved us. He sacrificed himself. My brother… he had the power to purify evil, a mighty and genuine power of light, increased by his secret stone. He knew that he and Link would be unable to take down the Demon King. The Demon King had grabbed hold of Link with these hands, these vile hands made of gloom, ripped his prosthetic clean off—my brother… my brother… he…"
The crystalized charges in Mineru’s body glowed brighter, brighter, until Zelda couldn’t see, a strange ringing in her ears growing so loud that her teeth hurt. A voice, two voices, echoed in her head, and she squeezed her eyes shut, slamming her hands over her ears, gritting her teeth together.
“I am going to kill you slowly, and enjoy every moment of it. I’ll make you beg, beg, for death, and deny you over and over. Maybe I won’t ever kill you. Maybe I’ll dangle it over you, a treat never to be given. I will make your body the mascot of my rule!”
“That pride will be your downfall, Ganondorf!”
There was a sudden feeling of holy purity, the otherworldly light washing over Zelda, so close to Hylia’s own that it brought tears to her eyes. A weight pressed on her chest in the shape of a massive hand, then a horrible pain, and Zelda choked as she felt something sink into her and wrap around her heart with a sickening crunch. The holiness continued to pulse inside her, growing heavier and tighter until she couldn’t breathe.
“Stay down,” a soft voice called, so far away but so close. Desperation poured over Zelda, and she longed to reach out to the voice, to beg for, for, for something, though what she didn’t know. “I know what I’m doing.”
“You bind my heart and steal my magic. You plan to hold me here… what a clever way to solve your problems.”
“Link, go get Mineru and the others. Do not wait for me. I know what I’m doing. The miners had been in the process of bringing explosives—they should be here any moment. Go.”
“Are you ready to pay the price for this?”
“Link. Please, hurry. They need medical attention.”
A laugh echoed, pained and weak but so filled with hatred.
“Don’t be so smug. I know exactly what this will cost me—cost us.”
“Thousands of years will pass in the blink of an eye. You only delay the inevitable.”
“You’re wrong”.
“A millennia from now, a woman will appear with power from the Gods, a holy power unlike any other. The woman who will gladly smite you—Zelda. Remember… that... name.”
The ringing in Zelda’s ears faded. The light of the crystalized charge did as well, and the holiness she felt slowly slipped away.
“Zelda?” A voice called, a tight, panicked hand on her shoulder, “Can you hear me?”
Zelda took a shuddering breath and nodded. “Y-yeah,” She forced out, and Ere looked unconvinced.
“Stop,” Ere called to Mineru. “Let her catch her breath.”
Mineru came to a stop. Zelda hadn’t even realized they’d been moving.
“I’m sorry,” Mineru said softly. “I… I got caught up in memories, and my magic—as a conductor of spirits I can sometimes brush too closely to another’s soul. I… I am out of practice. I should have been more careful.”
“It’s fine,” Zelda forced out, and Ere crossed her arms.
“I heard him,” Zelda said softly. “The Demon King. And Rauru.”
“The Imprisoning War.” Mineru spat. “What a thing to call it. Two battles and a failed climax. Far from a war.”
“You won, in the end.” Zelda said, and Mineru shook her head.
“Did we?”
No. No, they did not.
The trek through the gloom was quieter after that, just the clink and clank of Mineru’s plates hitting one another and the whirl of the vents on her lower back panels propelling them faster than if she had been walking. The Zonai’s mechanical body shuddered more with each step—without Mineru’s secret stone, Zelda doubted it would hold together much longer. It wasn’t a surprising observation, but it made Zelda’s heart ache. She remembered the ache in her very bones when she returned to a fully mortal form, after Link and her defeated the Calamity. Her muscles had atrophied, her bones growing brittle and weak, her hair falling out from malnutrition after her skin burned to a crisp from malice exposure. Hylia and Nayru, the Triforce, they had all kept her soul safe as she battled the Beast but cared little for her body. Zelda still marveled at the fact that she’d had a body intact enough to return to, once it was all over. Mineru didn’t have that. Even the false body she had created for her had been taken, ripped from its resting place by the Yiga’s creeping hands. Zelda’s body may have been broken, but Mineru’s had been stolen, and Zelda couldn’t imagine how the Zonai woman must be feeling.
“Wasn’t this supposed to be a treacherous journey?” Ere asked after ten minutes of silence. Mineru hummed.
“I had expected it to be,” she said. “When we first descended into the Depths, my brother and the other sages, we were met with great opposition from the Demon King. I had expected his kind to linger.”
“Wait—there!” Zelda patted Mineru on the shoulder. The construct came to a stop, and Zelda hopped out. There, among the dirt, was a decayed knight’s broadsword. It’s blade was covered in gloom, yes, but also dark blood. Zelda picked the sword up gingerly, careful of the gloom.
Why would a sword be down here? The Yiga used very specific weapons, blades with ties to the Sheikah of old, duplex bows and eightfold blades. This was not a Yiga weapon. Zelda swiped her thumb down the bloody blade, being careful of the gloom and decay, and popped it in her mouth. The tangy copper was disgusting, but was not the foul, rich blood that came from a boko or a moblin. No, this was humanoid blood. Yiga, most likely. A steward construct wouldn’t ever wield a sword, meaning this had belonged to a monster and had been drawn in combat against one of the Yiga. Zelda stepped further out of Mineru’s headlight, even as both women called for her to come back, and felt around the puffshrooms and muddlebuds on her hands and knees. Soon enough, her fingers caught on cold, clammy skin and the sharp edge of a horn.
Bokoblins. Dead ones. The Yiga had definitely been here. But why drag the monsters out of the path? Zelda turned back to Mineru and Ere. The packed footsteps of Mineru’s stolen body moved on, surrounded by scuffled movements in the dirt. Maybe…
Maybe Mineru’s previously built body, being so old, couldn’t maneuver as quickly as this one could, and had to have the path cleared anytime it wanted to move forward. Good. That would make it easier to take it down if they came into contact. Zelda weighed the knight’s sword in her hand, spinning the hilt over the back of her hand, just as she’d seen Link do so many times. If they were going to go head to head against meched out Yiga, they needed to be prepared—all of them.
Zelda squeezed the hilt, mind made up. Moving back to the mech, she presented it to Ere, who looked at the blade with pure confusion, before her eyes widened in understanding.
“Zelda--"
“Take it. It’s dangerous to be down here without a weapon—you know that as well as anyone. Your bases were down here.”
“But I... I could stab you! Or slit your throat, or disembowel you, or—”
“Or behead me, or cut my arms off, or, I don’t know, gut me and eat my liver. It’s dangerous to go alone. Take it.”
Hesitantly, as if the blade might bite her, Ere took the hilt.
“Are you sure?” She said softly as Zelda hoisted herself back on Mineru.
“Are you going to give me a reason to regret this?”
“No!”
“Then yes, I’m sure.”
“Are you ready to proceed?” Mineru asked, and Zelda nodded, slotting her hands into Mineru’s not-metal-not-stone panels and giving them a squeeze.
“Yes.”
“Good. I am sorry to say so, but my power is greatly waning. If we do not hurry, then I fear I shall fade away before we reach the stone.”
The walk, which had become a jostling run with the help of extra fans sprouting from Mineru’s back panels, was eerily uneventful. Zelda kept waiting for monsters to make their presence known, but over and over all they found were piles of bodies on the edge of Mineru’s headlamp beam. The Yiga had been brutal and thorough, and Ere couldn’t seem to take her eyes off the blade in her hand. She had no sheath or harness, meaning she couldn’t let go, simply held it with an experienced grip in her left hand.
Huh. Link was left-handed too. Zelda wondered if Ere would mind the comparison. The two were nothing alike, but Zelda hoped that, once this was all over and Link was back, they would get along well enough. Well, as long as Link never heard about the ‘pushing to your death’ or ‘sticking your fingers in and reopening a healing wound for information’. Zelda didn’t think he’d take too kindly to that.
Oh well.
“There,” Mineru said, voice strained. “The Spirit Temple. The secret stone of spirit’s resting place.”
The building was massive. White stone and zonaite formations glittered under torch light from Yiga guards. Some Yiga foot soldiers had tied ropes around the zonaite statues of elegent Zonai, each holding a secret stone carved from jewels, and had managed to topple the statues to harvest the zonaite inlaid in them. Scattered through the base of the temple were groups of Yiga, gathering crystalized charges and Zonai deceives, hoisting them on backs. They were ransacking the place— no. No, they were making room, preparing to build a new fort in the temple, not unlike the one in the Gerudo mine. Which meant, if they dug down deep enough, they would find the secret stone.
That wasn’t an option. Zelda had to get to it first.
“We need to utilize stealth,” Zelda said. “There is no way we make it out of this if we go in swords swinging.”
“I am not the best built for stealth,” Mineru said, her body clanking with each word.
“We can’t leave you behind—we need you to guide us to the stone—”
“I know. We’ll have to fight our way through.”
“No,” Ere said softly. “We don’t. I’ll get glamoured up and get you a uniform, and we’ll present Mineru as a mech we found while searching the perimeter that we wanted to show the Big Banana. I know the codes and the passwords, as long as they haven’t been changed yet—I’ll be able to convince them. Once we’re in, Mineru will show us to the stone and we can get the hell out of here.”
Zelda frowned. “Are you sure? I don’t want you putting yourself in—”
“What, danger?” Ere shot her an uneasy smile. “I betrayed the Yiga Clan. I’ll be lucky if my execution is swift and clean. Until then, let me do what I can to make up for what I’ve done.”
My execution. Ere spoke the words with such certainty, such conviction, like she really couldn’t imagine a world where she outlived the Yiga Clan. Itwas almost as unsettling as it was heartbreaking to hear from such a young face.
Zelda and Mineru clung to the shadows, watched, and waited as Ere hopped free of the mech, rolling her shoulders and cracking her neck.
“Stay put. I’ll be back soon.” She said, before straightening and closing her eyes. She brought her hands in front of her, close to her chest, and made a few short, sharp signs that Zelda recognized as vaguely Sheikah, but too old or accented to be translated. Ere seemed to melt away, her brown skin replaced by pale flesh with blue undertones, her bruises melting away into freckles. Her long silver hair was short and red, curling around her temples, and she filled out, her already broad shoulders and hips taking on fat as glamour fluttered around her. Her tattered tunic was clean and whole, with a red detailing on the pockets. At that moment, Ere was gone, replaced by a whole other woman—until she smiled, winking towards the shadows, and Zelda could see Ere again in the upturn of her lips and the gleam in her eyes.
“Be careful.” Zelda pleaded. Ere gave her a quick two finger salute, and then she was gone, slinking into the torchlight as a foot soldier began to make rounds along the parameter. It was almost hard to locate her, even in the fire light, as if the shadows from the flickering flame were attracted to her very movements, wrapping around her like an old friend. She moved like she was herself but an extension of the darkness.
The Sheikah, back in the beginning of the world, having been Hylia’s right hand, hid in the shadows cast by Her glorious light, so close to Divinity that, should they have chosen to step out of the darkness, they would have burned to a crisp. The first Sheikah, the first Impa, covered her face, as she could not look upon her beloved’s Grace any other way, and to this day, Paya, Dorian, the other more traditionalist Sheikah covered their own faces in a show of remembrance of their history and reverence for their Goddess. Hylians and Sheikah had been tied together ever since the beginning, Hylia’s Chosen People and Hylia’s Shadowy Protectors, destined to care for one another and defend one another.
Care for. Defend. A fat load of good that did the Sheikah. They’d lost everything, everything, even while most still served Zelda faithfully. They were more than shadow people— they were her very shadow, following alongside and responding to any order she gave, even if she was sure not to give them.
If she gave Ere an order, a proper order, would something in the woman’s very soul sing out to follow, as the legends claimed? If she took the title of Hylia before the ex-Yiga, would the millennia of servitude boil to life in her blood? Would those who had come before both of them, Ere and Zelda, been happy in such roles, or would Ere’s ancestors fight against the Hylian expectation of themselves, just as the Yiga did?
… Just how many generations of Ere’s family lived alongside the Yiga? Surely, if she was raised in the Clan, her parents must have been members. Were her grandparents? Great grandparents? The Sheikah lived a long, long time—had Ere’s bloodline been a part of the Yiga before the return of the Calamity had even been foretold? How many branches of her family tree were twisted around Master Kohga?
“Thank f*ck!” Ere shouted, and Zelda nearly fell off Mineru’s back in surprise. The Yiga foot soldier shining a torch on Ere’s magically changed face seemed equally taken aback to see her. “I’ve been lookin’ all over for y’all!”
“Keep your voice down!” The foot soldier hissed, shinning the light closer to Ere’s pale cheeks. “Do I know you?” The foot soldier asked, nasally voice tight with annoyance, and Ere co*cked her head.
“Duh? Kuzia, right? The one that told me the old bastard’s tech lab was ready for an opening? Said I should put in an application?” Zelda couldn’t pinpoint the accent Ere had chosen, but it sounded nothing like herself.
“What? I—”
“So I hike aaaaall the way up there, but nope, no opening, just a bunch of dead Yiga. Some ‘monster hunting crew’ decided to—”
“Shut up,” The Yiga, Kuzia apparently, said, voice low and dangerous, and Ere blinked stupidly up at him.
“What? Why?” She whispered, her voice about as obnoxiously loud as a whisper could get.
Kuzia muttered something under his breath that likely was not very nice. “We’re busy here, kid. Go bother the Gerudo branch if you wanna job so bad.”
Ere frowned. “Aw, man. But I’m here now!”
Kuzia sighed. “Listen, kid, I appreciate the enthusiasm, but the Big Banana has something big going on inside and we need all hands on deck—”
“Then why are you out here?” Ere asked sweetly. Kuzia spluttered. “I just mean, it’s dangerous to patrol without a buddy. That’s one of the first rules, ain’t it?”
“I’m perfectly capable of—”
Kuzia never had the chance to finish his sentence, and never would. Ere’s blade, so far unnoticed in the shadows, whipped up, and Kuzia gargled out something lost to the stale air as he swallowed blood from the slit in his throat. Ere knocked his feet out from under him and without so much as a twitch in opposition, the foot soldier went down. Ere made quick work of stripping the body, grimacing when she pulled the white mask free.
“You always were an asshole,” Ere muttered, but still took a moment to kneel beside Kuzia. Her hand brushed over his open eyes, sliding the eyelids closed, and Zelda could make out the movement of lips, a whisper on the wind, as Ere breathed out a prayer that Zelda didn’t recognize. Ere swallowed, took a deep breath, and stood, jogging back to Zelda and Mineru and tossing Zelda the gear. By the time Zelda was dressed, the ex-Yiga had wrapped herself in a new film of magic, this time a perfect replica of the uniform Zelda now wore.
“Shall we?” Ere said, and Zelda took a moment to steal herself.
“Let’s go,” She replied. She thought Ere might be grimacing under her mask.
Care for. Defend.
Ere had just spilled blood, her people’s blood, for Zelda. She’d slit the throat of someone she knew well enough to recognize behind a mask. Maybe she hadn’t done it for Zelda, done it instead to save her own skin from the Demon King’s wrath, not at all for the good of the Continent, but regardless, she’d done it.
Zelda didn’t know how to feel about that.
Care for. Defend.
“Let me do the talkin’,” Ere whispered in Zelda’s ear as she walked past, and Zelda nodded mutely. Mineru hung back as Ere took on a swagger Zelda didn’t recognize—she realized this must be the woman’s interpretation of the Yiga man she had just killed.
Zelda wished Link was here. She wished he could be holding her hand right now, giving it a tight squeeze as he looked up at her with eyes that always seemed to be so unbelievably understanding. But Link wasn’t here. Link was somewhere, and Mineru knew exactly where that somewhere was. They’d get the secret stone and then, as much as it made her sound like a mustache-twirling villain, Zelda would get her answers whether Mineru wanted to give them to her or not. Zelda was done being in the dark.
“HALT!” A voice called. Two Yiga foot soldiers came into view as Zelda and Ere moved closer into the torchlight and out of the shadows.
“It’s just Kuzia,” the leftmost foot soldier drawled. Her gaze seemed to slip right over Zelda, lingering on Ere instead, and Zelda wondered if Ere enchantments had something to do with it. The first foot soldier’s mask was slightly more detailed, her uniform marked with a symbol signifying an upper rank. Was that something to be concerned about? Ere didn’t seem phased. The rightmost soldier crossed their arms.
“It’s not his shift! We’re supposed to be—”
“Aw, chill, mate,” Ere said, “I was just taking a walk along the parameter—found something too! Is that such a crime?”
“Yeah, mate, chill,” The decorated soldier said to her partner, who uncrossed their arms just to make a show of crossing them again.
“Newbies,” the decorated soldier said, and Ere laughed, slapping Zelda on the back.
“I know exactly what you mean, Sal. Somebody has been sneaking banana chips out of my hiding spot.” She gestured to Zelda, and Sal laughed.
“That’s Blademaster-in-Training Sal to you, punk!” The solider—Sal—said, punching Ere on the shoulder. “I got promoted! Didn’t you hear?”
“What? By the Calamity, B.I.T, that’s amazing!”
Sal preened. “I managed to alert the Big Banana to that bitch before she set off her little explosion in the Hatamoto dorms,” She said, smoothing back her ponytail. “The Master Kohga was most pleased.”
“Oh.” Ere said, shoulders stiff. “So that was you.”
“Y-up!” Sal said with a pop of her lips. “If only I’d gotten a swipe at Ere too. Filthy traitor.”
Ere nodded, but whatever she said was cut off by the rookie foot soldier.
“The Boss says whoever can bring her in alive will be promoted to Hatamoto, regardless of current rank. Can you imagine? Direct access to the Big Banana whenever you wanted!”
“Alive?” Ere squeaked, and the rookie nodded.
“I think he’s gonna make a beautiful example of her,” they said. “Knowing Master Kohga, it will be particularly elegant and inspiring.”
“Here, here!” Sal said. “May his reign beside the Demon King be long and glorious. Under their combined power, Hyrule’s will will break with mere pitiful resistance—”
“We found something,” Zelda blurted out. All three masked faces turned to meet hers and Zelda cringed internally. She should have let Sal wax poetically about Yohga a tad more, but Ere’s seemed so stiff under her glamour, her left fingers tapping on her thigh. Had she really tried to blow up a superior’s dorm? In her head, Zelda had pictured Ere’s escape as one of stealth and deception, slinking out of Yiga barracks in the dead of night or slipping away when her ‘boss’’s back was turned. Not, well, explosives.
Behind Zelda, Mineru loomed into the torchlight more than she did move into it, and Sal swore, lifting a serpentine spear that barely came to Mineru’s chest.
“You just found that thing?” Sal said, voice high in disbelief and surprise, and Zelda nodded.
“Out on the edge of the building. It took a few, uh, kicks but we got it going again?” Zelda said, wincing at how her statement curled up into a question. Sal co*cked her head.
“You got that thing working again?”
“Well, I—” f*ck, “I just meant that…”
“We got ourselves a f*ckin’ prodegie here!” Sal said, lowering her spear and slapping Zelda on the back. “This is amazing! The Boss will be thrilled! The thingie he found has been giving him trouble. Hey—I bet, if you got this one working, you could get that one too! Right, Kuzia?”
Ere glanced between Sal and Zelda. They didn’t need ot see Kohga right now—frankly, that was the last thing Zelda wanted to do. What they needed to do was get inside and get out as quickly and clandestinely as possible. Zelda looked to Ere, channeling every ounce of feeling she could through her mask.
Do not ask about Kohga, she silently pleaded. In and out. Get us in and out.
“I…” Ere swallowed minutely, “I mean, uh—of course she can! My girl is bloody brilliant, I tell ya’ that! Give her some zonaite or a crystalized charge and you’ll be amazed!”
Great. Now get us in and out. In and out. In and—
“Hey… Sal… if you’re, ya know, a B.I.T. now, you have access to the Big Banana, right?”
f*ck.
Sal’s whole demeanor darkened. “No one’s allowed to see the Big Banana right out, Kuz. Not while he’s working.”
“But we’ve got someone who can help him with his work—”
“And a rouge Yiga who could have spilled any number of secrets to the Sheikah. We’re on high alert…” Once again, something ominous shifted in the Yiga foot soldier’s stance, far clearer than before. “You should know that, Kuzia. I know you know that.”
f*ck.
Still, Ere stepped forward to Sal’s chest, not shying away from the woman’s presence. “I only want what’s best for the Yiga. With an extra mech, we can stomp any opposition out! I’d like to see anything go against the Boss when he has two marvels of innovation under his control! Unless, of course, you don’t want the Big Banana to have access. Or maybe, you want to keep this mech all to yourself? We’ve already had one traitor. Why should it surprise me if another wants to take the Boss’s tech for their own?”
Ere drew her sword slowly, pointing it at Sal’s stomach.
“I bet you used the explosion as a front—hells, I bet you are Ere are in cohoots.”
“What?!” Sal scoffed. “That’s ridiculous. Put that thing down.”
Ere pressed the blade closer. “What are you going to do? Kill me, traitor? Kill the three of us and take this thing back to your precious Princess?”
“I’ll do far more than kill you if you don’t choose your next words carefully—”
“Enough,” the rookie growled, stepping between them. “Stop it, both of you. Now is a time for comradery and brotherhood, not throwing around accusations. We’ll take you to the Big Banana—he’s right, Sal, that thing could prove useful, and I for one, am sick and tired of infighting.”
Sal huffed, and the rookie looked at her, clearly glaring under the mask.
“Stop.”
Zelda could tell the look Sal was giving them was withering.
“I’m sorry.” Sal grit out, jutting out her chin. “Things have been tense. It’s wearing on me more than I’d like to admit.”
Ere lowered the knight’s broadsword. “Fine. Apology accepted.”
“Good. Now let’s go. The Depths still give me the heeby jeebies.” The rookie said, spinning on their heels. Sal’s gaze lingered on Ere, but eventually, she turned with a huff, waving Zelda, Ere, and Mineru on.
“What happened to in and out with Mineru leading the way?” Zelda signed to Ere, being sure to keep the hand motions small enough to not be seen from the corner of Sal and the rookie’s eyes.
“The situation simply changed. We’ll work with it!”
“Work with it?! Work with it!?!”
“Hush. The Yiga are more observant than you think.”
With that, Ere glanced once over her shoulder at Mineru, back at Zelda, and jogged closer to Sal and the rookie, making awkward small talk between the two.
Zelda kept her eyes solely on the square of Ere’s back as they went deeper and deeper into the temple. It was smaller than it had first appeared, and filled to with signs of life. A box was overturned against one wall, becoming a makeshift table for a group of Yiga playing cards. Some Yiga sparred in the halls, and laughter, both adult and child, echoed through the stone hallways. A blademaster was curled up in a corner, using a B.I.T decorated foot soldier as a pillow as the B.I.T. wrote up some kind of report. Somewhere, Zelda could smell hot oil. Someone was frying bananas.
Ere was stiff as a board in front of her. Zelda reached forward and subtly squeezed her hand; Ere went even stiffer for a moment before squeezing back, so hard Zelda’s knuckles creaked.
The base was so much more empty than the one Zelda had been taken to before. As lively as it was, there were fewer children, and fewer families. Everyone was armed to the teeth, and clearly on high alert. They, Zelda realized, were frightened.
After a short walk down three staircases, deeper into the bowels of the temple, the group came to a massive stone door. Behind Zelda, Mineru began to whir. They were close.
“You Banana-ship,” Sal called, knocking on the door. “Some scouts have found something you’ll like.”
“Good news?” Came a painfully familiar voice beyond the door. Sal straightened. Zelda worried Ere wasn’t breathing.
“Great news, Boss. A new mech.”
“Hm? Bring it in.”
Sal took a deep breath, cracked her knuckles, and dug her fingers into the groove in the middle of the door, slowly prying it open. It was dim inside and stunk of gloom, with water softly sloshing around a large arena-esc platform. There, on the far wall, was a Zonai lock, clearly hiding away something of great importance. The stone. Zelda stepped closer to Ere, letting her shoulder brush reassuringly against the other woman’s.
Sitting in the center of the room, back to the door, in front of a truly massive mechanism, was Kohga.
“Leave the mech. And you, Foot soldier Kuzia, stay. You as well, Kuzia’s… friend.”
“Sir—” Sal started, but Kohga held up a hand.
“I did not ask for your input, B.I.T. Sal.”
“… Of course, Master Kohga.” Sal finally said, bowing at the waist, before dipping back out of the room with her rookie. The door rumbled shut behind them. Kohga continued tightening a screw on the construct in silence. It resembled Mineru’s own, but bigger, far bigger, with four arms and the symbol of the Yiga Clan draped across it. It was clearly more rundown, touched by the millennia spent in the Depths, but a majestic construct nonetheless. Kohga was silent, his back to the women, moving with precise movements. The silence dragged, before, finally, Zelda took a step forward.
“Master Kohga—” She started, pitching her voice as low as she could naturally make it sound, “my friend and—”
“I’ve been waiting for you,” Kohga said with a hum, finally putting down the construct’s arm.
“Sir?” Ere squeaked, and Kohga held up a hand.
“Disguises will do you no good, Princess.” Kohga stood, rolling his neck and popping his shoulder, before cracking his spine and turning. There was an almost gleefulness coming off his mask, a sinister excitement as he took in the two women. Ere’s glamour flickered away as her concentration broke, and now that Zelda could see her normal face, the woman looked positively green. She was shaking, terrified—for all the love and adoration the Yiga spoke of Kohga with, Zelda had never thought of them being frightened of their Master.
“It is done,” Kohga said, patting the crumpled mech at his feet. “We had enough crystalized charges to fix what time had done to this beauty, and now, we’re ready. Our gift to the Demon King, a weapon—no, a body—beyond compare, perfected and readied to be presented to his glory.”
“Let’s not—let’s not be too hasty, Master!” Ere squeaked, “I mean, that looks like a lovely construct, I’m sure it could be of far more use for, for, taking back the Hideout, or storming Gerudo Town, or even Kakariko!”
“Shut it, pest.” Kohga spat, and Ere flinched, taking an involuntary step back as her shoulders curled around her. “Today will go down in infamy as the day of the beginning of the End! The Demon King’s resurrection, the triumph of the Yiga! Behold! My ultimate feat of engendering! My unstoppable Zonai construct!”
As he spoke, the construct slowly rose to its feet, higher and higher, until it towered over all of them, even Mineru.
“Holy f*ck…” Ere breathed, and Kohga laughed.
“This time, I will gadly bury you, Princess, and then I will take this glorious body down under Hyrule Castle, where his Majesty waits..."
Zelda paled. Had Kohga managed to find Ganondorf so quickly with so little resources? If he could do that, who else could? Oh f*ck, f*ck--
"Oh?" Kohga said, glee curling offhis tongue, "Did you not know? We found him, under all that rubble when we went looking for your beau. And what lovely murals were there, such beautiful artwork! They told of such things, such terrible things.”
The Yiga mech moved faster than Mineru, that was certain. It raised its decorated arms, exposing electrified sockets as hands, and sent forth a volley of blasts of energy, ripping the stone floor to pieces as Mineru flung herself in front of both women. Ere yelped as she was knocked backward against the makeshift electrified fence Kohga had built around the water’s edge.
“Ere!” Zelda screamed, but Kohga was already in between them, the construct's four massive arms swinging.
“The Imprisoning War, when the Zonai sealed the Magnificent One away! Their failure, as their leaders fell. A swordsman, adrift in time.”
Zelda swallowed. Ere was likely hurt, but Mineru was presenting her back for Zelda to climb on. Ere might be okay on her own, but she certainly wouldn’t be if Zelda let Kohga keep swinging.
“Be careful!” Zelda yelled to her friend, before hoisting herself on Mineru’s back.
“Did you know, Princess, that your little friend saw it all? The glory he witnessed! The strength! The battle prowess! But he’ll never be able to tell you, because he ate his fancy magic rock and now, he’s a f*cking worm in the sky!”
“Shut up!” Zelda maneuvered Mineru closer, and the Zonai woman quickly began working in tandem with her, as if she knew Zelda’s very thoughts. She likely did—Zelda could feel a presence pushing against her magic, Mineru’s spirit magic entangling with Zelda’s soul, working together with her very essence. Mineru slammed into the construct and it went skittering into the electrified fense. Kohga laughed despite the smell of burning, electrified flesh, and Zelda no longer found herself able to think of Ere, or even Mineru underneath her, just finally ridding the world of this monster. A canon ball burst forth from two of the construct’s four arms, catching Mineru in the gut and knocking Zelda clean off. Mineru cried out for her, but was quickly tackled by the construct. It slammed her into the ground, lifting her up and pounding her mechanical body onto the ground over and over. Zelda forced herself to her feet. She needed to do something, anything—
A hand grabbed her ankle. Ere, still prone but having ripped herself from the electrified fence. Zelda knelt to help her up only to be tackled. Ere pinned her to the ground, a knee on either shoulder and her sword pressed close to Zelda’s neck. Zelda thrashed, snarling at the woman above her.
Ere was crying. Zelda couldn't bring herself to care, not when Ere's hands were centimeters from her jugular.
“How could you?” Zelda screamed as the blade drew a droplet of blood. The power of the Triforce lept to meet her, ready to burn the Yiga to even less than carbon and ashes. Ere stammered something, her hair smoking and her tears dripping on Zelda’s open mouth. Beside them, the construct and Mineru continued to wrestle, ripping at one another’s wires and exposed mainframes, but Kohga had left his mech behind.
“Wonderful job, Foot Soldier Ere,” He purred, taking his sweet time to saunter over. “Go on. Give me her head and all will be forgiven. Your little stunt will simply be a… crisis of faith, cleansed by your dedication to the great good of the Sheikah deliverance."
“I…” Ere glanced between Kohga and Zelda. “Don’t you think killing her is, is a little, little excessive?”
Kohga went terrifyingly still. “Don’t try my patience, girl.”
“I just mean, Link’s what, dead? So she’s no real danger, is she? Right?”
“Foot soldier.”
Ere didn’t answer. She was shaking, visibly trembling, and Zelda swallowed.
“What would you name the blue horse?” She whispered, and Ere stared at her with wild, tear-lined eyes. “My horse is named Goldie. It’s stupid, but it’s cute. Link named his after a flower.”
Ere let out a particularly thick sob, and Zelda felt the blade prick skin.
“If this nonsence was all over a f*cking horse then I’ll buy you a whole stable." Kohga seethed. "Kill her!”
Ere jerked forward. Zelda slammed her hands against the Yiga’s chest, calling forth a protective barrier from the Triforce, but nothing collided with it. Above her, Kohga choked. Ere panted, standing between him and Zelda, the blade of the knight’s broadsword in her hand buried hilt deep in Kohga’s massive belly.
“You—you—”
Kohga slumped forward, grabbing at his stomach, and with trembling legs, Ere kicked him off her blade, where he rolled into the electrifed fense with a horrid bzzt.
The Yiga Leader’s mech went still. Ere proceeded to empty her stomach all over her front, shaking even worse, if that was even possible. Mineru turned her flame emitter, safety still on but seconds from being deployed, at Ere, who had already dropped to her knees, burying her head in her hands. Zelda hadn’t heard someone cry this hard since the Calamity. Carefully, she waved Mineru to lower the emitter and toolk a step towards Ere. Ere keened and turned her head away.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Zelda said softly, sitting down beside the sobbing woman.
“You should,” Ere all but wailed, and Zelda shook her head. She pulled Ere against her chest. The woman froze for a painfully long time before all but collapsing in Zelda’s arms, chest heeving and face covered in snot.
“I’m sorry,” Ere choked out, “Oh Gods I’m, I’m, I’m—”
Zelda shushed her, holding her even closer. They needed to leave, to get the stone and get the hell out of here before someone realized what happened. But right now, there was no way in hell Ere could stand on her own, let alone get out of the building. Zelda just held her, and tried not to think about the electrified corpse that had caught fire just meters away, or the confirmation of what—who—was flying high above her, too far out of reach to ever be held like this ever again.
