A-Note: I understand that a lot of people aren't fans of Navi, and probably prefer Tatl, or no fairy at all. Unfortunately, because Link doesn't mince words, I need someone who will talk. And besides, Tatl's story had closure, unlike Navi's. She's happy. She has Skull Child and her brother. Navi is the one Link is looking for.

Also, this is a crossover with Soul Caliber 2, sort of my spin on the events of that game and why Link was there in the Gamecube version. Perhaps I'll have cameos by Spawn and Heihachi too, but this isn't their story. And if you're reading a Zelda fic, I doubt you'll mind too much.

The Legend of Zelda: Three World's Curse
Part II

The two combatants circled each other. Link, the Hero of Time. Courageous, green.

Deadly, when he had to be.

And facing off against him, Navithor. An abomination, a corruption of perhaps Link's best friend. Somehow whatever Sin had done to her had caused her body to swell; what had once been a tiny forest fairy was now the size of a Goron, massive razor-sharp teeth jutting from her dark smile.

Deadly. But only because Sin wanted her to be.

The two exchanged no words, but could almost stare into each other's souls. Link hated having to attack Navi, and swore that he would make Sin pay for this. He lunged forward, slashing his blade horizontally. Navithor dodged backwards, but lashed out a sharp tendril from her arm, forcing Link to bring up his shield to block it.

Navithor took the opportunity and blasted a powerful ball of magic fire into Link's shield, and it blasted him backwards, his arm feeling most of the impact. He rolled with the blow and just managed to regain his footing, when he had to slash at Navithor's striking arm—it had extended out, like the tongue of a lizaflos or a frog.

Link rolled under the stretchy appendage and sliced it, Navithor reeling from the pain. The Hero immediately leapt to his feet and followed up with a series of cuts to Navithor's chitinous armor, hacking pieces of it off before a magic flame exploded around her and drove Link back; Link grunted has he fell.

Navithor shot straight up, as if blasted from a cannon, through the leaves and branches above them, and plummeted down, her sharp foot-like appendages plummeting towards Link's neck.

But Link rolled out of the way and Navithor slammed into the ground; Link had felt the attack coming, as if there was a psychic link between himself and his former fairy. While her bladed feet were partially buried, he retaliated by hurling his boomerang. It sliced through one of Navithor's wings and flew off into the woods.

Reacting in surprise and pain, Navithor shrieked and jumped backwards, even as Link rolled over his shoulder and came up into a spinning sword slash, having infused his blade with magic. A ring of fire formed around the Hero, empowering his blade and preventing dizziness.

The attack left several deep gashes in the chitin that protected Navithor's vital organs, but the victory was short lived, as she retaliated swiftly, growing back the tendril Link had cut off earlier, and summoning more dark magic. Her body began to glow red, even as Link felt the dark power swell up in side her. The foliage on the damp ground withered away around her, belying the evil within.

The demon that Link's friend had become hissed something in a language Link didn't understand, a language too horrible to transcribe or translate, and charged at her former ward, pummeling him with a fiery wrath.

Link's clothes caught fire, even as he struggled to free himself from the assault, and he felt his life draining. A slice to the back of the hand caused Link to drop his sword, and the strap that secured his shield to his right arm was melted or burned off, and his protection against the blades and bludgeons of his enemies fell away…

But the barrage of fire ended when he slammed against a sturdy, moss-covered tree. He coughed, ejecting the smoke from his lungs. He realized he was unarmed, but could do nothing to change this status…

SHKUCKH

Link's quandary was interrupted when Navithor slammed a dual-bladed outgrowth from her wrist into the bark of the tree, wrapping around Link's neck, threatening, coming ever so close to decapitating him.

"Sin Ka Rah." Navithor said…

All Link could do was make a faint gurgling sound, afraid to even breathe, lest the blade slip and cut his neck…

Suddenly, a familiar whirring sound echoed nearby, and Link and Navithor turned, one hopeful, the other curious. And curiosity, in the end, killed the demonically corrupted fairy, as Link's boomerang slammed into her hideous face, causing silver blood to explode out of it as it impaled her through the left temple..

Link took the opportunity to reverse the situation. Drawing strength from the golden gauntlets, he yanked, with no small effort, the bladed appendage from the tree, twisting Navithor's arm in a joint lock he'd learned training in Calatia's great monasteries, and then followed up with a one-two kick with his powerful Pegasus Boots, recovered from a deep cave under Holodrum.

Navi flew backwards at the impact of the second kick, rolling over as Link dived for his shield. Navithor also threw herself at the ground, grabbing for Link's blade before he could get to it. But Link was a step ahead of her, grabbing his shield and hurling it across the distance. It slammed into Navithor's neck, driving her back with its momentum and allowing Link to grab his sword…

"HAIYHA!" Link jumped forward and brought the blade down across Navithor's head, even as the silver fairy blood flowed from her neck and face, and Navithor flashed blue as he made contact… Navithor gave half a death rattle and just lay on the peat, whimpering as she bled to death.

The fight was over, but Link was saddened. Navi… his fairy. Was this her fate? Could he do nothing but watch her die?

He fell to his knees over the body, anger swelling up. This was not Navi's choice! Sin had done this to her. Sin was the culprit, and Navi did not deserve to die for the actions of that monster.

Link cursed Sin Ka Rah, even has he struggled to hold back the tears. Searching, Searching the entire world for seven years, and now that he had finally found her, he had been forced to kill her.

Wasn't there something, anything that could heal her?

…Of course! The Song.

Link reached into his bag, which had miraculously survived the fight, and removed the Ocarina of Time. It was a song taught to him by Ping: The Song of Healing. It drew evil or hurting spirits away from their hosts or bodies, and converted them into masks, masks that could have their power harnessed…

Or masks that could be destroyed.

Either way, it was his only hope to save Navi. Link recalled the notes he had learned then, so long ago inside the Clock Tower, a magic place that housed a portal between the two worlds, impervious to the flow of time. It was the place he'd first seen the song's power.

He had long ago sold or traded the masks the song had constructed for him, just to get by in his travels. But he would never forget the song, and never willingly part with the Ocarina, the treasure of Hyrule's royal family.

And, all this swimming in his mind, Link pressed the mouthpiece to his lips and played the familiar notes using A and the four C buttons, even as he did, the magic notes echoing throughout the forest. Navithor's body burst into blue flames, and smoke hovered above her, twisting into a shape…

The horrid, blood-marred visage of Navithor was now only a mask. Link reached out and took it, disgusted by the evil he could feel within. On the ground lay a tiny fairy, barely the size of a green rupee. Navi had lost her glow, and was still dying, but at least she would die now with honor.

No. She wouldn't die. She couldn't! Link had searched for her too long and too hard for her life to end now. He hurled the masked against the ground and drove his sword through it, infusing the blade with the power of the Triforce of Courage. The spirit it contained writhed within the mask, and died, and the mask shattered, revealing the prize: a full heart container, the life essence of the demon. Link sliced the container in two, and took most of it for himself, revitalizing his weary body.

And the remaining Piece of Heart Link held over Navi, whispering a silent prayer as the vitality within washed over the wounded fairy.

In a sudden burst of brilliant light, Navi's glow re-ignited, her wings began flapping, and she hovered off the ground…

"L…. Link?" She said weakly. "Is t…that… you?"

oooo

"You mean you've spent all these years looking for me?" Navi looked down, hiding a tear. "Thank you."

Link nodded at his fairy. He had already explained the situation, and Navi had told him of what had happened to her as well. After departing her friend upon returning from the future, Navi had returned to the forest to await the growth of the new Deku Tree.

But some with dark motives decided this wasn't acceptable, and had burned the original tree, it's dead, rotting wood decaying under a massive fire that had consumed much of the lost woods. While Link was busy saving Termina from the falling moon, dark invaders, pirates from beyond the southern sea had allowed evil men and monsters of all kinds into Hyrule, and though the Knights did what they could to subdue them, Hyrule had changed a lot.

And into this fray had come the being known as Sin. How he had gotten to Hyrule, Navi could not say, but he had somehow felt her great inner strength. Perhaps he envied it, perhaps he despised it, perhaps it's impossible to know, but for whatever reason, Sin chose—in addition to others—Navi as a fallen angel, a demon underling to his devilish lordship.

Hence Navithor was born.

"It was horrible Link. Sin's evil, his darkness. I don't know where it came from, or if it's just innate to his species, but it overwhelmed me."

Link lowered his head sadly. His friend has suffered so much, and Link feared there would be more to come. If Sin was related to Majora, and if he now HAD the powers of Majora, then what would happen now? And what was this new artifact that he sought?

The Triforce of Power was in this world, but there was obviously something else, a third piece of the puzzle.

And if anyone would know, Ping would. Not seeing Epona anywhere nearby, Link decided it would be faster just to go on foot. Navi sat on his shoulder as he silently infused his Pegasus Boots with magic, and darted forward, twisting and leaping through the trees and branches, until he came across the clearly where he had left the Happy Mask Salesman.

Oddly, Ping sat there, poking away half-heartedly at a giant pipe organ that had seemed to materialize from nowhere, just as the one Ping has used to teach him the Song of Healing.

"Ah, you're back!" Ping greeted, turning around. The organ vanished altogether.

"Do I know you?" Navi asked the strange man with the huge burden on his back.

"I have met many forest fairies in my day," Ping said, "perhaps we have. You are not the fairy that Link aided in Termina, I see."

"What?" Navi blurted, fluttering threateningly—well, as threateningly as fluttering can possibly appear—at Link. "You had another fairy after me?"

Link just gave a sheepish grin and kicked at some dirt.

"Well, please," Ping said, "I don't mean to interrupt your happy little reunion, but I must be going. Will you give me my mask? I shall soon be gone."

A dreadful and awkward silence fell over the trio.

"You don't have it, do you?"

Link shook his head and apologized.

"NOT AGAIN!" Ping blurted, shaking is fists at the sky and screaming in rage. "If that dark monster has my mask, I'm afraid the entire world is in great danger… and so is my bottom line!"

After a moment, Link sighed. "I will go," he said. "I will retrieve Majora's Mask again."

Navi stared at Link dumbfounded. "You just spoke! To someone who wasn't me!" she blurted. "I can't believe it!"

Link ignored her. "The monster who attacked you called himself Sin Ka Rah." Link repeated what Sin had said about the three things he needed to attain omnipotence, and Ping took it all in, his expression occasionally flashing from sadness, to understanding, to utter frustration. His ability to move without actually moving was as disconcerting as ever.

"He has gone to the Third World." Ping said gravely. "My world."

Link looked at him quizzically.

"I am not from your Hyrule of Tatl and Tael's Termina. My world is unlike Termina, and unlike Hyrule. It is more logical, more rational. Magic, if it exists, barely does so."

"And if a being as powerful as Sin is there," Navi said… "Then they are doomed."

Link cursed Sin. "Is there nothing I can do?"

Ping smiled. "There is a way to get to and from my world. It's a method of transit that I'm sure you are very familiar with." Ping turned around and suddenly, the organ was back on the mossy soil, The Salesman was hunched over its keys, searching through several sheets of music.

"Ah hear it is," he said at last. "This song I shall teach you is how I work my way amongst the worlds in which I do my business. You still have your Ocarina, I believe."

Link nodded, and removed it from his bag.

"Then learn now the Song of Worlds."

Ping turned, and reading from the sheet music, pressed in a series of seven notes, a magic melody that echoed throughout the forest. And Link played it as well, repeating the notes on his Ocarina….

Soon, the whole forest swam with the sounds of the song, and the air itself seemed to glow around them, the whole wood static as worlds flashed around them. And as the light faded, Link looked down at his instrument, which glowed and sparkled with the acquisition of a new song.

You have learned the Song of Worlds.

oooo

Link waited until the song led Epona back to him before setting off, not knowing what terrain this new world would hold. But the wait gave him time to worry.

"How am I to defeat a monster with such power?" He whispered.

Ping must have heard him, because he strode over and whispered to Link. "You have a powerful mask yourself, do you not? One that can defeat Sin and Majora."

Link looked at the strange little man, his eyes fierce. "I swore to never wear that mask again," he said. "Its evil didn't corrupt me seven years ago because I was a child. I still had much of my innocence. Now, I fear what it would do to me. Wearing it, I could become just like him."

"If you hesitate, if you falter," Ping said, "we will all die horrible deaths. I would rather cower under a fierce deity than be mercilessly hounded by a sadistic devil."

With that, he vanished. Link sighed as he mounted Epona, Navi hovering beside him. "You ready to go?" she asked.

Link nodded. He was ready to do this—to fight and win, at all costs. It was what the Hero did.

He pressed the Ocarina to his lips again and began to play, reality warping around him. He only gave the magic of the Ocarina's music one command: Follow Sin.

And so, the power whisked him away to another world.

Where the Soul Edge awaited.