A/N: This is shorter than HAZE →A↓→A↓. It will be only two chapters, and is inspired by Yobanashi Deceive (although it's almost unnoticeable XD ).
[EDIT]: Yeesh... Had to re-upload two seconds after posting dude to a weird uploading/formatting issue. Hopefully, I caught all the errors.
While not originally intended to be, this wound up being a side story to HAZE →A↓→A.
Liar's Game
Sheik had spent a lot of time thinking recently. He twirled his hair idly between his fingers and chewed on the inside of his mouth just to give himself something to do as he thought. With his vision so completely fogged by his own mind, he didn't even see when other competitors walked into the lounge room and eyed him sideways for taking up the entirety of the couch.
A voice Sheik didn't recognize right away boomed across the room with tones of disgust. "It's hotter in here than it is outside! Why's the AC off, Sheik?"
He let his red eyes shift in the direction of the sound and, after passing over Peach and Kirby, they rested on Snake. "It's not that bad."
"Yeah, if you consider Hell 'not that bad'."
Sheik looked away and stared back up at the ceiling as Snake moved to turn the air conditioner back on. Kirby began making incoherent noises that Sheik was reluctant to even consider a language, but Peach didn't move from her place on the lounge chair opposite of Sheik. He bit down hard on his cheek, the action completely going completely unnoticed underneath the cloth concealing his face, and closed his eyes. He tried to go back to thinking, but the princesses eyes bore a hole into his head and let all of the thoughts spill out.
"Yes?" Sheik asked without looking. "Is there something you'd like, Princess Peach?"
She smiled and answered with a playful laugh. "I was wondering if you'd like to have tea with me?"
He turned to face her slowly. "Me?"
Peach nodded with a grin stretched from ear to ear.
As politely as he could muster, Sheik shook his head. "No, thank you. I don't care much for the stuff."
The princess blinked and then laughed again. "So you're doing that again today!"
"Doing what?"
Peach stood from her chair and scooped up Kirby in her arms, a goofy smile still plastered on her face. "Oh, nothing, Sheik."
She left the room without so much as a glance behind her and left Sheik and Snake in the room alone. The latter having decided to smoke near the open window, Sheik choice to ignore him and finally return to his thoughts. The princess had given him something else to think about.
Sheik. Why had she said it like that? Like it was some sort of secret joke between the two of them that he should have picked up on. Link had said something similar earlier—not so much verbally, but with his facial expression. Sheik had approached the Hylian man in the hallway and suggested a practice match between the two of them. The two had known each other for a long while now, but they had never exchanged blows. Sheik figured it was about time that they—
—But Link only rose an eyebrow and starred at Sheik quizzically. Is this a joke? Sheik figured he'd meant to say. Sheik's red eyes locked with Link's blue ones until the latter shook his head awkwardly and turned to leave.
Ever since he'd woken up that morning, Sheik realized, people seemed to be acting very odd. The people that met him did so with hesitant, outstretch hands and wary eyes. The people that knew him looked at him like he was insane.
Later in the evening Sheik decided to take the opportunity to utilize the Alloy system. He'd been to other Smash tournaments prior, and, even though he'd never done much outside of the actual fights, he was fairly certain that this was a newly added portion. A Committee member kindly explained the idea to him as she typed in sample match information into her computer and brought up a display on a larger screen on the far wall. Although Sheik didn't find her explanation of "it's like fighting, but not!" at all satisfactory, or even remotely accurate, he watched the display with interest as what appeared to be mechanized fighters held together by magic fizzled on the screen. Their match began, and the two fighters leapt after each other without hesitation, only for the loser to be replaced with another Alloy and allowing the match to carry on.
The Committee member gushed with enthusiasm. "These matches can carry on indefinitely if you want." She paused and pointed to the characters on screen. "They're based after some of the actual competitors—with permission, of course! The blue one is based off of you."
Sheik blinked. He didn't recall giving permission for that. His focus zeroed in on the blue alloy, and Sheik narrowed his eyes. "It's female."
The Committee member nodded as if she completely missed the point of Sheik's comment. "Yep!"
Sheik tapped his fingers on his thigh. "And I'm not."
The Committee member turned around in confusion. "Um…"
Silence flooded the room for seconds that felt like hours. Sheik was staring like he had at Link—his gaze not wavering for even a second as the Committee member's eyes darted around for an excuse to avoid conversation. When no distraction offered itself, she turned back to the screen and locked her fingers together.
"Sorry. I… Eh…didn't know."
The corner of Sheik's mouth twitched downward. As far as he knew, he hadn't given anyone any reason to question his gender. With an inaudible sigh and acceptance of the apology, he turned to face the display screen again and further examine the blue Alloy—the gender was wrong, but they couldn't possibly have altered the fighting abilities.
Or so Sheik thought.
His interest in the Alloy quickly became nonexistent as he crossed his arms and continued to watch. Granted, some of her movement reminded Sheik vaguely of himself, but she moved far too slowly and…
"Is she using magic?"
The Committee member's eyes snapped back in Sheik's direction. "Yeah."
"If I may ask, why?"
The Committee member made a face that reminded Sheik of a pouting child. "What? No way, you can't do that twice. I almost kinda believe that 'not-a-woman thing' … kinda… but I'm not also going to believe that you don't use magic!"
"And why not?"
"I've seen you use magic, like, a million times!"
"When?"
"What? What do you mean when? Are you kidding me?"
The Committee member's sudden rise in volume must have attracted attention, for several people—more Committee members with Ike and Meta Knight tailing behind them—came into the room.
"What is going on in — " before the man was able to finish his sentence, the woman with Sheik changed her tone to a whine.
"Zelda's being weird!"
Sheik's fingernails dug into his arms, and he nearly choked on his own spit. "Excuse me?"
The woman pointed at him. "First she says she's not a girl, and then she says she doesn't use magic!"
"Zelda didn't say that, I did!"
The woman's volume increased loud enough to make everyone wish they had covered their ears. "What? You are Zelda!"
Sheik felt his face grow hot and was thankful it was covered. He didn't suffer from embarrassment very often, and it was extremely overwhelming. He didn't need twelve pairs of eyes all catching the red that likely overtook his skin.
His voice didn't hint at his embarrassment but carried an eerie calmness. "No, I'm not."
Out of the corner of his eye, Sheik noticed Ike glancing at Meta Knight. The mercenary looked just as confused as Sheik felt. Meta Knight, expression concealed completely behind gleaming metal, spoke. "Sheik is an alter ego of Zelda's. They are both separate and exactly the same."
The Committee woman appeared to calm down a bit and rejoin the mass confusion. Sheik could hardly believe what he was hearing.
"No, we're not." he said, quickly biting the side of his tongue to remind himself that he was awake and not trapped in some horribly awkward dream.
Meta Knight's tone didn't change. "It's what you registered with the Committee. It's written in the match records."
Sheik managed to politely excuse himself from the room. With a nod of thanks to the member who excused him, Sheik left slowly and calmly shut the door behind them to lock the confusion in the room until it died. The second he heard the door click shut he bolted as fast as he could towards his room and flipped open the computer.
But come to think of it, he'd only just convinced the Committee to give him the room just this morning. Where had he been sleeping before? He wracked his brain for a moment and felt stupid when he remembered that it was in the lounge room. It was where he had woken up that morning.
But he couldn't remember for the life of him why he had been sleeping there.
He temporarily shook off the thought and, for the first time since his years at the tournament, Sheik scrutinized his own information.
ZELDA/SHEIK
But he knew for a fact that couldn't possibly have been right. He had his own memories stretching as far back as childhood—
—but not memories of sleeping in a bed at the competition.
He slammed the laptop closed and tapped the desk with his left hand. The more he thought about it, the less he realized he could actually recall about his time at the tournament. He knew he'd been there before, but that was about all he could recall. Why hadn't this bothered him until now? Why hadn't he noticed?
His fingers dug into the wood of the desk and left marks. He needed to see Zelda.
As he left his room, he began to wonder if he had even met Zelda before.