After getting a little tired of torturing Link, I was looking around for another victim to ranmarificate. Then I remembered, Gerudo are hawt.

Finally I could take no more. I collapsed to my knees and wretched my rotten guts out of their ruptured, pulped torso. Lumpy green slime dripped down the front of my armour, pooling around my knees, and soaking into the faded crimson fabric of my cloak. I kept on vomiting until my chest was empty, until something still beating passed my lips and plopped onto the floor of my chamber. Then, vaguely surprised that there had still been a heart in there, I fell forwards on the floor and waited to die.

I wasn't expecting to have to wait long.

How had things gone so wrong? It was madness! What chance did a boy from a forest with the useless Triforce of Courage stand against the Great King of Thieves, wielding the Triforce of power and a lifetime's arcane knowledge. I added this to the list of inexplicable and unpleasant events in my life, above getting dumped by Nabooru but below finding out my mother was a couple of 400 year old witches.

-sigh-

Zelda was standing just beside my head. I wished I had just the energy to stand up and give her a good, solid punch.

"Poor man. Without a pure heart, you could not control the power of the Triforce of Power."

Yes, well, it's easy to grow up pure-of-heart when raised in a Castle of gum-drop smiles and lollipops, isolated from the realities of life. Let's see you grow-up pure-of-heart when raised in the Fortress, where stealing is surviving.

I listened as Link calmly cleaned his blade and slid it back into its sheath. He was calm, unaware that my final spell was about to bring the entire Castle down on top of him. With my cheek pressed to the stone, I could feel the vibrations build to a tremor then to a violent shaking. Zelda screamed.

"With his last breath, Ganondorf is trying to crush us in the ruins of the Tower! Link, you need to hurry and escape!"

Impressive. Such a perceptive girl. She hadn't inherited the Triforce of Wisdom for nothing, had she? Her order struck me as a little odd however. If anything, it should've been the guy with the lump of pure condensed courage implanted under his skin saying it.

"I'm not leaving without you!" yelled Link.

"Don't worry, I'll be fine. I have to stay here and use my powers to cast Ganondorf into the Sacred Realm."

There was scuffling, as if Link had tried to drag her away by the arm and she'd resisted.

"Zelda, he's dead!"

"No. I have to make sure he can never trouble anybody ever again."

"I can make sure right now," the young man declared angrily.

The cold blade of the Master Sword settled against the back of my neck. I could feel the goodness of it burning into my skin.

"Just leave!"

"… As you wish, Princess."