Link held his hand to his wound, the blood was flowing freely now and he could feel it running into his armor. He tore the thick cloth of his cloak and attempted to staunch the deep gash in his shoulder. His vision dimmed and he had to keep blinking to clear his eyes. He scarcely noticed that he'd reached the temple until he felt hands gently taking him off of Epona.

Someone was calling his name, "Link..." he could hear the desperation in their voice, "LINK!" He started back to full consciousness. The princess had her arms around his shoulders and he'd been half lying on the temple lawn in a haze of pain.

"He's coming!" He spoke before he remembered exactly who he was speaking of and when he remembered it spurred him into action. "Is the door open?" He asked as he made towards the temple.

"Yes, but..." The Princess began.

"Good."

"Link your shoulder." she protested.

he waved away her concern, "It doesn't matter."

His footsteps echoed in the resplendent marbled chapel. He needed only to cross that hallowed hall and take up the power to smite his foe, and this time he would do everything in his power to make it permanent.

He had just set his foot on the bottom step leading up to the sacred Blade of Evil's Bane when the hall shook and the ancient wooden door fell from their hinges to crash down into the chapel. Link didn't need to look to know what that meant, he leapt up the steps four at a time but before his fingers could grasp the blued steel hilt a blast knocked him away from the plinth and he tumbled back down the marble steps. He struggled to his knees, blood dripping from a new cut on his lip and his shoulder screamed in pain. Zelda lay crumpled against a pillar near the door. He looked up at the plinth if he could just reach... his thoughts were interrupted as Gannondorf planted a heavy boot on his back.

"I am sorely tempted to let you claim that blade, just so I could crush all the hope out of this land and plunge it through your heart...but I think not. I think your struggle ends here, hero." He stooped and picked Link up by the throat.

Link gasped for air, "The struggle...for Hyrule...will...never...be over!" He drove his fist as hard as he could into Ganon's jaw. His enemy's grip loosened and he fell to the floor and immediately kicked him in the gut sending the Demon King sprawling. He scrambled towards the plinth, his hand closed around the sacred brand and his vision dimmed, his grip loosened unbidden, a deep and unwholesome pain forced him to his knees. He looked down, a blade blackened with blood protruded from his gut. As he watched it was wrenched free and a spurt of blood splashed onto the marble plinth.

"LINK!" he heard the princess scream. He reached again for the blade and the dark steel came down piercing his hand and pinning it to the stone.

"I admire your will, boy. When they tell of the day that Hyrule fell your bravery will not be forgotten." Gannondorf's hated voice floated over him. He pulled the blade free again and picked him up by the front of his armor. The next thing he knew he was sailing through the air, the back of his head struck the black granite altar and stars burst in front of his eyes. He rolled to a stop in the midst of the knights of Hyrule. He coughed and blood splashed over his chin.

In a moment the ones surrounding him were flung aside and Gannondorf stood over him, gloating and terrible, his hands crackling with dark energy. "Now it ends..." he raised his fist but before anything could happen his face twisted in pain, the shining point of a thin sword pushed through his breast. He spun striking the princess to the ground.

"Just die!" she cursed spitting at him through tears.

He reached back and drew the ornate sword from his back, the wound closing instantly, "You thought this would kill me?" he asked, as though he found the thought offensive.

The princess still fights, get up you fool, if you are to die here her last memory of you will not be lying on your back, He coughed up more blood and raised his arm. He felt someone take hold of it. He could barely see anything but he recognized Keith's voice as he whispered, "For Hyrule."

"For Freedom." he whispered back and more blood dripped off of is chin. He had exausted his energy, he couldn't move he could only stand his arms hanging uselessly at his sides.

Gannondorf looked at the princess's shining blade in his hands, "This is the cost of your insolence..." he said darkly to the princess leveling her sword at the hero he drew it back and drove it forward.

For a single moment Link locked eyes with the princess and then he felt a cold shiver pass through him and his vision blinked out.

The hero's back arched as he fell, so slowly it seemed, to the floor. A scarlet streamer flowed from his chest like a ribbon. As his body hit the stone the Princess had already fainted but she heard, she heard the echoing thud of her heart dying, heard the sound of all of Hyrule's hope crumbling, it was such a soft and unremarkable sound she thought

As Gannondorf stood over the hero's lifeless corpse all he could think was that this was not how he'd envisioned it. As he scattered the remaining guards with a single blast of his dark magic, he envisioned a heroic rider, wielding that hated brand charging with the hopes of Hyrule riding with him. He imagined himself shattering that shining blade forever, of soiling the fields with that hero's blood and watching the cursed Hylians wail in their despair as he smote their blessed land once and for all. He looked down again at the dead hero, this was reality now, another hero at another time and maybe his vision could have been true but the boy had too strong the stink of destiny around him, he had doubted it once and had it not been for the Triforce of power it would have been his ruin. He had come to the realization during his long imprisonment that if he were to ever bring destruction to Hyrule then her hero could never lay his hands on that blade.

He lifted the unconscious princess and vanished before the knights could regain consciousness and annoy him further.

His dark powers had done their work in his absence, his tower again clawed at the skies of Hyrule, a bastion of darkness where he could work the destruction he would visit upon this land so blessed by the gods that had scorned him.

"Now begins the age of Darkness." His voice echoed darkly in every corner of Hyrule and everywhere it was heard there was fear.

Black clouds covered the land, stretching out like an infection from the tower.

Doctor Mizumi, looked out from the observation deck at the top of his laboratory, he saw and trembled at the shadow on the horizon, but more troubling and closer at hand was the orange haze that had appeared over the Gerudo desert. He walked slowly back into the lab and locked the door and shuttered the windows. He lowered himself slowly into his chair and resumed his work, all the while telling himself it was likely nothing.

In the secret recesses of Hyrule's forest the child-like Kokiri tremble in their homes. They can feel the threads of darkness being woven and it had been long since they had heard from their guardian spirit the Deku Tree or their friend Saria.