Hey guys! Welcome to chapter 9 of Tainted Tale! (Nearly 10!) Now I'm starting to write this at 2:30 because I am ill as heck and I type as slow as a snail with a broken ... whatever they have for legs when I'm sick. I really hope it doesn't effect the quality of this chapter, just be prepared for a lot more typos then usual!

As always thanks for all your wonderful reviews! 8! Wow when did I start getting so many :D I mean seriously we went from being at 20 to 43 in 3 chapters! (Oh My God!) Big thanks to the wonderful Roowbin, increak96, ShatteredShapire, Princess-of-your-doom95, Eyalane, WolfRunner326 and Dark Link! I'm so glad to here you all love it so much I really am! I'm also relieved that the blood thing gave you the shivers, I was afraid it might be a bit to much but obviously not!

I also don't do this often as I like to give everyone equal feedback but I would just like to say an extra thanks to Roowbin. She/He has been reading this since the start and I'm so glad they enjoyed it enough to stick around. But you also said this is your favourite Zelda story, and you really don't know how much that meant to me, so thank you so much :)

As always sorry for spelling/grammar errors! Nintendo owns everything, except my flu. I got that all by myself :P


Link had been trying to find his tunic for the last five minutes. It's not that he was going blind or anything. He could clearly see the crumbled, torn and bloody remains of his green tunic on the floor. (Although it was now more red and black from the trauma he had endured in it then its earlier green colour.) He had simply refused to believe that it was his. It was a stupid thought, I mean who else could it belong to? It's just Link knew he had been through a lot in the past few days. Every burn and tear on that tunic he could pinpoint to when he must of gotten it he just couldn't believe he had been through that much.

After finding nothing else that he could even think about putting on his back he approached the tunic. He grasped it firmly and saw as black specks of burned material fell to the floor as he shook it out. Most of it was black, and if it wasn't it had been stained a green-red. Link put a hand inside it, tracing up the cuts and scrapes and putting his fingers through the holes in the tunic. His own hand reached for his back. Most of it was smooth now but if he placed a hand where one of the bigger gashes on his tunic was he could feel even smoother skin. The skin of a scar. Unable to grow hair or repair of any other things the rest of his skin could do it just sat there. Distinctly different.

Link didn't want to think about what he would of been like without the help of two fairies. For a start he wouldn't be standing right now but that's all he let himself think about. He was getting out of this temple today, all these injuries, all this torture he could put behind him and forget. He could go back to Skyloft, buy a new shield and bottles and pay for the whole bowl of heart potion so he could go and have a nice long bathe in it and sleep. Ghirahim would still have Fi, and all his items but it wasn't like he could do anything about that right now. He would just have to get a training sword, ask the mechanic in the plaza to replicate as many of his items as he could remember and ask for the assistance of his fellow knights.

Then he could come back and get Fi and continue in his search for the flames. Slipping back into his tunic he noticed has much bigger it was. Links ribs poked out against the fabric when he raised his arms to get into it and Link felt a little sick at the sight. He added 'stuff his face' to the mental list of things to do in his head and proceeded to the room on the opposite end of the floor he was on.

Now he had time to look around he recognised the place. The circular stone on the floor had the same design as the circular door he had been trying to find the key to and Link was convinced he was on top of the Buddhas head. Glancing at the pillars around him , he took notice of a rotating switch that Ghirahim had probably opened with his whip. He wouldn't need his whip to close them back in though and so he got to work, rotating the switch on the first pillar and then the second and the third until finally he was finishing off the fourth. He glanced down at stone. Had he done anything?

The ground beneath his feet rumbled slightly and he stepped off the stone as it glided open. Bingo.

Link peered down at great drop beneath him. The floor at the bottom imitating him not just because it promised pain if he fell but also because of the floor it opened at. Well the floor it had opened at. The building would of had to rise to get to a new floor and as Link remembered how big the gap above the Buddhas head had been he wouldn't of been surprised if that bottom floor now opened to the main floor. The floor with an exit.

Link grabbed for his sail cloth and folded it open. Gutted to see this also had been stained in his blood. The one thing he had of Zelda's and Ghirahim had ruined it. Ghirahim obviously hadn't meant to but it still angered Link. A tear could be sown back together, a single burn in the corner replaced. But his blood would never wash out. It may of done if the cloth was any other colour but the cloth was white.

Ignoring his annoyance for the moment Link sat down on the edge and slipped off, opening the sail cloth almost as soon as he had fallen off to make sure he had a gentle landing at the bottom. He felt incredibly fragile, as if if someone came and patted him on the back he would crumble to pieces and he guess the only person he could blame for that was Ghirahim.

Link opened the door to the bottom floor. Immensely relieved to see the floor he wanted. He peered around for any of Ghirahims minions before leaping across the two Lilli pads in front of him, landing at the base of the steps led led to the temple door. A great instinct to just run up the steps and run as fast as possible coursed through Link but he ignored it. He wanted to be absolutely silent. If Ghirahim caught him now ... No Ghirahim wouldn't catch him now... but if he did Link could only blame himself for giving himself away because of noisy feet.

The lanterns that had lite these stairs where blown out now, Link expected to see the light coming in from outside but never did. As he continued walking he wondered if he might be in some sort of trap of Ghirahims. Walking up an endless passage in the dark. Then he walked straight into stone. Links nose clicked and warm pain spread underneath it. He grabbed it quickly, only managing not to cry out because he had felt much worse then that lately and he was used to it.

Getting used to pain was never a good sign. Once Link let go of his throbbing nose he searched the walls in panic. Surely he had just swerved into the wall, he couldn't be at the door. If he was at the door then the door was closed and if the door was closed... he was in a lot of trouble right now. Link turned and ran down the stairs as quietly as possible. There had to be another exit. Another way out somewhere. Link glanced for a hidden passage, unable to check his map because it had been burnt to ash under his tunic.

He couldn't see any. He slipped down to the water, diving in when suddenly a hand grasped his leg. His head missed the water and swung back round, narrowly missing the edge of the platform he had just dived off. Link opened his eyes to see who had him. He already knew really but he was still terribly disappointed when his eyes revealed it had not been a bokoblin that grabbed him.

"Well, well, well." Ghirahim purred, but Link could hear the strain in his voice as he tried to control the anger. "Here I was deciding that after our last visit you had suffered enough but obviously not if your still cocky enough to try and escape." Ghirahim wasn't purring anymore, Link doubted he could with the amount of held back anger he could see drawn into the tension lines on the demons face. "Well if you want to go the the forest boy, I'll gladly bring you to the forest.

Ghirahim let go of his leg and he braced to hit the floor. But the floor tore into diamonds, rearranging into the pointed shape of grass and Link tumbled onto it painlessly. He was... outside? The grass here was soft unlike the sun deprived grass that grew in the temple and Link snuggled against it, letting genuine sunlight warm his back as he led there for a few careless seconds. Before realising it was Ghirahim who had brought him here.

He jumped up, recognising the place immediately. This was the little hid hole Link had found one of the kikwis hiding in ages ago. The only difference was now diamond raised bars blocked the entrance and exit. He glanced at the tree. A deku hornets nest rested cosily of the branch he had knocked one of last time. The bees payed him no attention and Link was certain he was safe. His eyes never left the bees nest as he glanced for an exit. There was a bar by the corner that he may now be runty enough to fit through. He shuffled towards it and hoped it wasn't to close to their nest.

Deku hornets could easily be collected with a bug net and their poison was even used in some healing potions. But lucky him had no bug net and if he got stung by them now the dizzying effects on his brain would cause him to collapse.

But if the whole nest stung you the amount of a foreign element in your body could cause immense pain. There had even been a story of one boy in Skyloft who had been stung by the whole nest, his little body couldn't handle that much poison and he had died. There was a reason people told you not to throw stones at hornets nests.

And speaking of stones... A deku nut glided between one of the bars in the small enclosure and the deku nest swayed as it was hit. Link looked in panic to where the nut had come from in time to see a smirking Ghirahim click his fingers and teleport Links sling shot away. The sling appeared in the boys hand and the deku hornets saw it there before Link throw it away.

And they swarmed. Link ran between the gap in the bars, swishing the left half of his body threw the bars, face turned away from the swarm. But before he could squeeze threw his right side he was stung in multiple places on his side and arms. The pain caused him to tense and he fell back into the enclosure. Deku hornets swarmed around him, there content pricks did not hurt him but he was very aware of the pain their poison could cause. He laid on his back, kicking away dekus with his feet and shielding his eyes with his feet. He was actually doing well before a spasm erupted in his legs, forcing him to curl in in pain.

Shoots of pain swarmed threw his insides and he cried out when the worst of them hit. His legs were kicking out, hitting the odd one that tried to go for his face but most of them stung his back. The pain intensified and he felt like he was going to be sick. His stomach twisted and heaved but there was simply no food to be brought back up. His stomach erupted in a painful hunger pang like the rest of his body and he was almost scolding it mentally in his head.

What a great time to pick stomach, lets add to the my pain shall me?

Link moaned and cried and rolled in on his stomach as the last of the stings hit his back and he froze in is spot rocking every so slightly. Hornets could sting more then once but not until at least another hour after they had stung once. Link crawled to the gap in the bars, wiggling his front half through before his body erupted into more spasms, digging his skin into the bars. If he could wiggle through he could lay hidden in the bushes underneath until this passed. But as if some cruel trick of fate the second his body was about to fall down his eyes rolled up and he spasmed in pain again, so intense that he passed out. Still squished in the bars, in full view of Ghirahim when he returned to check on him.


Is that close enough to freedom for you? :) So sorry if the ending feels rushed. I fell asleep half way through writing this chapter and when I woke up my head was so bad I hardly found the willpower to continue. Luckily I only had the torture to finish so that wasn't that bad to write (sadists FTW)

I now have to sadly announce that this is the last torture themed chapter before I continue on with the plot. Links still going to be in pain and there will still be his torture in future chapters but the chapters will be more plot based then torture based.

Hope you enjoyed it! Please read and review whilst I sleep some more :P (at least there is one benefit to being ill!)

-Nicolette x