The Zora armor squeezed her diaphragm, not quite enough to restrict her breathing but enough so that she would not forget it was there. The contours of the armor were sleek, sleek enough that one might be forgiven for forgetting that it was armor at all until striking it with a fingernail, finding that there was little give. Not as protective as plate, perhaps, but this armor would turn aside a claw or spear without too much trouble. The pressure it applied to her shoulders and arms was not restrictive; she could feel the way it pushed in on her muscles, demanding more efficient action out of them. It made her feel capable of things she had not been capable of before. Stories said that Zora-made armor could not make Hylians swim like the aquatic people, but that it could give them a taste of that freedom and power. Standing in her room in the inn, she believed it.

"Is the fit all right?" Paya was fastening the buckles on her own gauntlets; her armor was the color of obsidian while Zelda's was the color of a pearl, and the princess had to admit that Dento's sense of what shades fit them was nearly flawless.

"I think so." She used unsure language because she did not like to make absolute statements, not until she was positive and had tested a hypothesis, but she found herself walking that back. "I suspect that it's perfect, in fact, but we won't know until we use it, will we?"

In answer to this, Paya raised her arms over her head and slowly, slowly lowered them to her sides. She went through several stretches like that, moving her arms up or down or to the sides, rotating her torso, squatting, testing her range of motion by going through warm-ups that Zelda imagined might precede a sparring session. Only after some minutes of this did Paya finally stand, exhale, and nod.

"Dento does very good work. It's not restrictive at all, but there's no friction under the armor, either, so there should be no chafing. The pressure being applied in our limbs is actually improving our blood flow. I don't know if it will be as effective as they say, but I am eager to try swimming in this."

"Your approval is all the confidence I need. It's only a shame that there aren't helmets to go along with the armor and greaves; Cotera's blessing makes my hood effective enough protection, but I worry that it might create drag when we're swimming." There was a badly worn tablet in the Domain that suggested that helmets had been made in the past, but only rarely, as rewards for acts of great heroism. And there will be no time to make an equivalent for us, of course.

Paya's look was thoughtful, and Zelda once again found herself appreciating how seriously her companion would consider these problems. "You should wear it, if you think nothing else will be effective. It might slow you down if you're swimming alone, yes, but that's better than some stray projectile hitting you in the head. Though considering the scale of what we're facing…" She shook her head, her hair waving behind her. "Protection may not matter as much as we hope. I'll be wearing my mask, for comfort's sake."

At this Zelda nodded; she understood the need to feel like some precautions were being taken, to hold to comfortable forms. Still, the mask would not do for her, and the hood did worry her. Speed might end up being critically important in the hours to come, and she did not want to sacrifice that if she could help it. She hemmed and hawed for perhaps fifteen more seconds before reaching into her pack and drawing out the bandana she had been granted in the Ree Dahee shrine; it improved core strength through means similar to those of the Zora Armor. Perhaps it would help in swimming?

Well, even if it didn't, it was still something, and would drag less than her hood. She tucked her hair into a tight bun and tied the bandana around her head, tested the hold, and found it satisfactory. That would have to do. Paya, who was finishing the adjustment of her mask, nodded in approval.

"They'll be waiting for us in the throne room," Zelda said, and the two of them stepped out into the rain together. It felt very different, after having seen Vah Ruta.

People were gathered in the plaza; there were always people in the plaza, but now there were many more, Zora of all ages who were trying their best to go about their normal lives, to pretend that they were not there to see the two women in Zora armor, especially the girl who spoke with the voice of the gods. They tried not to stare, but their regard was still a weight, impossible to get away from or out from under, and Zelda could feel the pressure of it far more acutely than the armor's embrace. Mipha's statue stood in the rain, ever impassive, and Zelda found herself trying to draw strength from the face and demeanor of the woman she sought to free. She had to focus. She had to keep her eye on her goal; if she let herself look at her own feet, or slow down for even a moment, then she would trip and be crushed by the forces pursuing her and the expectations of the people she could not fail.

Zelda and Paya walked the long steps up to the throne room, silent in the rain, and Zelda drew her confidence from having Paya next to her. Was Paya doing the same, she wondered? Was she a burden to Paya, someone to be protected when they acted rashly, foolishly? They had not spoken about what happened on Ploymus Mountain, what each of them could have done differently; did Paya dwell on it, as she did? Were her regrets and doubts self-focused, as Zelda's were, or had Zelda given her cause to look at her charge and wonder? She remembered how Paya had called out her name, the fear and the confusion…

The throne room was full; Sidon stood at the foot of the throne, arms crossed, addressing the gathered guards of the realm: Gaddison was central among them, but almost every guard was there, each listening to their prince as he gave them instructions or encouragement that Zelda was not quite close enough to catch. Muzu, Seggin, and Dento stood around the schematics of the Divine Beast, arguing with each other about the best vectors of approach even though the plan of attack had been decided hours ago. The rest of the council of elders milled about the chamber, mostly listening, some standing behind the guards with eyes closed, perhaps reliving the days of their youth, imagining that it was to them that their prince was speaking.

Dorephan, seated above it all, watched every group and every person from his throne, and was the first to see when Zelda and Paya entered. He cleared his throat, a rumbling like distant thunder, and all conversation ceased at once as the eyes of the room found him and then followed his gaze to the two who had just walked in.

"I believe," Dorephan's voice echoed in that enclosed space, though he spoke only gently, "that we are all familiar with the plan of attack, and that there are no last-minute suggestions regarding deployment." His eyes were on Muzu, who shook his head solemnly. "Good. That is well. Urgency has been a factor in how we address the calming of Vah Ruta from the beginning; after seeing its weapon deployed, I believe that same urgency is paramount. We must act, and we must act immediately." He pushed himself to a standing position, a shifting of mass so enormous that one could feel the breeze as he moved. "Are we all prepared?"

A scattered chorus of affirmatives, the firmest from the prince, but Dorephan was not looking at any of them: he was looking at Zelda, expectant and questioning all at once. "We do need to be prepared," she said, and she tried to project enough that she might be heard, "for the possibility that Vah Ruta will deploy its weapon against any group that approaches it. If it fires in any direction below a certain angle, it will definitely compromise the integrity of the reservoir, and the effects…" She did not have to say, she knew.

"Our destruction will be no less assured regardless of when the reservoir breaks," Dorephan said, and there was another murmur of assent, even from the elders. Zelda felt the truth there, but still feared it. "If the weapon is fired, then we will be lost sooner; if it is not, we will be lost later. We must risk it. Should it attempt to use the weapon immediately." His expression shifted, and though Zelda did not know how to read Zora faces she knew this one, saw written in the lines of his age the same fears and worries that had shaped the ghost of her father. "We must rely on the protection of the gods." I am sorry, his eyes said, though his words could not; they could only place that burden on her.

Zelda understood the love that Dorephan's people had for him; he had been a warrior before a king, and in many ways was still a father before he was a monarch. If it were his choice he would be joining them in the assault, taking to the water and addressing Vah Ruta with the strength of his arms. But that could not be: he was too large a target, too important, too sure to die in the attack, and she could see the helplessness and shame and regret written on the spaces between the lines of his face, where his advisors and son would never think to look. She did not need the goddess's power to see the pain there.

That burden was his; hers was another, and neither could share or ease the other's weight. So be it. The Zora needed something of their king, and something else from her; if Dorephan would give of himself, in spite of how it pained him, could she possibly do less?

"We will have it," she said, and the Zora did not cheer; their collective intake of breath, the hushed awe of their whispers, was far more intense, far heavier on her shoulders.

There was no flash of lightning as the attack began, no roar of thunder to announce them. There was only the rain, the waves thrown up by the shifting of Vah Ruta's legs, and then the earth-splitting roar that went up in answer to their presence.

On the edge of the reservoir they stood, the gathered courageous, silver spears in every set of hands, save two: one that held the Sheikah Slate, and one that held a bow. The spears would be useless, unless the Divine Beast suddenly sent Lizalfos after them; still, they were symbols of power, of training, of courage, and they held to them as if that courage would save their lives. Zelda prayed, to gods whose names she had forgotten, that they were right.

Vah Ruta's slow, ponderous turn brought its side around, and its massive eyes seemed to focus on them. It bugled again, and the force of the sound was like a physical thing that pushed against Zelda's chest.

"Remember the plan!" Sidon's voice was lifted against the storm, crying out to be heard over Vah Ruta's promised rage. "Distract the Divine Beast at all costs! Harry it, if you can!" When he said all costs he meant it, and Zelda could feel the weight of it on him, the pain that flared inside of him as he knowingly threw men and women he loved to what well might be their deaths. He will die before any of them if he can help it. "We want to divide its attention as much as possible. Gaddison, keep to the outside, and give Zelda the best perspective you can! Zelda, we'll be relying on you to stymie its attacks where necessary! Paya and I will be taking every opening we can to bring this thing down. Are we prepared?"

The Zora answered in a wordless call, an ululating wail that put molten iron into the pit of Zelda's stomach. Oh yes, they were ready. "ZORA!" They roared their name, their people, their kingdom, and the strength of their conviction made the Divine Beast seem small and petty. But it was not.

"For Mipha," Sidon said, so quietly that only she and Paya would have heard him.

Then she grabbed onto Gaddison's back, and Paya onto Sidon's, and they were in the water, and Vah Ruta's bellow drowned out the world.

Many were they, the creatures that cut through Vah Ruta's waters, each of them an arrow that left churning white wakes behind them, swimming far faster than a human could run. Many were the paths they cut, their wakes crisscrossing as they moved to surround the beast, to pull its attention in every possible direction. Many were the vectors of attack they would create.

Many were the powers of the Divine Beast.

Water froze and rose into the air in the form of tremendous cubes of ice, each side of them as long as a Zora was tall. Five rose at once in front of the Divine Beast, a barrier that would only work against a much smaller attack force.

Then five more rose at its rear. And five more at each side. And then more, to cover the gaps. And then more, to layer the defenses, and more, until they were coming up in tens and twenties, and the attackers did not stop but their eyes were wide and they felt a deep, physical terror at the hundreds upon hundreds of frozen boulders that hung suspended in the air like winter decorations.

Then all the blocks began to move at once, a hailstorm to shame the gods.

"Hold on to me!" Sidon's voice was unlike Paya had heard it before; she had thought he did not have the capacity for that kind of cold, reacting fear. He barely waited for her grip to shift, and above her ice blocks were exploding into vapor as if being shattered by the raindrops and Sidon dove, pulling her down into the depths of the reservoir.

Zelda's aim was incredible, her speed at using the Sheikah Slate to break the ice blocks almost beyond belief, but still she felt and heard the water above them broken by the collision of tons of ice. The water flowed around her as if it weren't there, feeling no thicker than the air they had been in seconds before, but she had no time to reflect on the fineness of her armor or even the power of the Zora prince whose prowess would determine whether she lived or died in the next few minutes. Sidon wheeled in the water, looking up, and Paya saw the ice blocks did not sink deep; they slowed in the water before pulling back up, their momentum carrying them toward other targets. She had not been really prepared for submerging, did not know how long she would be able to hold her breath as Sidon's better-adjusted eyes marked the path of the blocks, trying to chart a course through them, or see some pattern in the storm…

Then the ice blocks plunged down into the water, driven by some invisible force so powerful that they lost barely any momentum, careening straight toward them.

Sidon dashed with such suddenness that Paya felt the strain in her shoulders as they threatened to dislocate, and it was all she could do to press her face against the back of his neck and hope that he would breach soon.

"Take me in closer!" She could barely hear her own voice over the sound of the Sheikah Slate discharging, and it was taking all the strength in her lower body to hold her balance on Gaddison's back as the Zora woman swam beneath her, cutting in different directions to dodge the rain of ice blocks that Zelda could not see coming. Thankfully Gaddison had been able to avoid submerging as Sidon had, but Zelda did not have the attention to spare thinking about how uncomfortable Paya must have been.

"I can't," Gaddison said, turning back and speaking clearly enough to be heard over the rain and the wind and the crashing of ice against ice. "A triple portion of the ice is being thrown at you, and I can't find a way in unless there's less to contend with."

Well, that wasn't happening. She was having a hard enough time keeping track of the Zora and protecting them where possible, and trying to do that and make a path for Gaddison were mutually exclusive. She had to get closer, though, to be able to address the ice at its source, as it was being summoned, or else she'd never be able to keep up with how quickly Vah Ruta could generate its weapons. More, she needed to be able to shift her perspective, to keep easier track of the other Zora so she could determine who was in most dire need of protection. She'd lost track of Sidon altogether, and he and Paya had to get to Vah Ruta or all of this was for nothing, if only she could see—

Ah, she thought, as she fired the Sheikah Slate into a block that was only an arm's reach away from her face, showering herself and Gaddison in what felt like snow. Of course.

Then she reached down within herself, to the place where her power sat. Neither the woman who woke up in the chamber nor the princess of a hundred years ago balked, now; with all of herself she drew upon the light of the goddess, and it filled her thoughts and made the world into a storm of light.

Everything froze, then; the blocks hung suspended in the air, and Vah Ruta's servos engaged without end, and she saw the Zora swimming wildly, caught diving and breaching, their wakes drawing complex patterns in the water. She saw it all, took it in at her leisure.

But it wasn't really frozen; as she looked she saw water droplets move in relation to each other, and two ice blocks grinding together as they vied with each other to be the ones to smash into Gaddison. She saw Sidon streaking toward the surface of the water, saw Paya clutching desperately to his shoulders as she fought to hold her breath. She saw the battlefield moving slowly, so slowly.

The Sheikah Slate responded in her hand, as if nothing was holding it back at all. Time, it seemed, was less of a concern for the slate as its surroundings.

The world groaned around her, pressing in against the edge of her thoughts, and she felt the pressure of her mind trying to hold up the goddess's power, some fraction of how Hylia saw the world.

I can't sustain this for long, she realized, and "long" meant something very different from this perspective than it had before. Fine. Short bursts. Pick the moments that matter most, draw out a path…

She reached out with the sheikah slate, selected one of the ice blocks, and fired.

Two ice blocks that Gaddison had been swerving to avoid erupted into mist—and then more, dozens more, burst all over the reservoir. She could not look back, didn't have time, but she felt and heard the power as Zelda called upon it, saw golden light thrown onto the water in a brilliant flash.

"Keep going!" Zelda called behind her, and the Hylian girl's voice was breathless, nearly giddy. "I'm going to make a path for Sidon and Paya! Just keep moving!"

"Yes, Your Grace!" Gaddison said, cutting a path nearly perpendicular to the one she had been on before, sweeping in closer to Vah Ruta as the Divine Beast hurled its wrath at them. She was no longer afraid. She had to keep Zelda safe, but the fear that had been layered on top of that duty had given way to something else.

The water was filled with a series of low thumps as the ice blocks exploded and then Sidon shot toward Vah Ruta, truly pouring on the speed, and Paya thought in a distant way that he had more in common with a bird in flight than with a fish. She had not taken a breath in so long that she feared she might forget how; a funny thing to think, a little joke meant to ease her fears as she felt her lungs burn and vision cloud.

"We're going in!" His words were as clear in water as they had been in the air. How could she understand him so well? "Be ready to swim!"

He breached, arcing into the air like a dolphin, and she drew a gasp of sweet, cool air. Her body screamed for more, but she knew that it would have to wait, to be satisfied with what she could give it; they were right next to Vah Ruta, and at this distance she saw that it was as large as a castle, as a mountain, she could feel the power in its profile and in that moment understood how it had obliterated Ploymus. This wasn't fear, at least not as she understood it; it was awe, different from but akin to the awe that Zelda woke in her.

"Jump!" he called to her, and she jumped. Enormous waterfalls fell from Vah Ruta's sides, between each of its shoulders, and into one of these she plunged.

She could not have named the force that surged through her then, whether it came from her armor or was a secret of her body that the armor merely unlocked. The water parted around her as she swam against the current; she fought the flow and gravity together, pulling herself up the stream as if it were ground. It was impossible, it didn't even make sense, it would mean that her body had never known how to swim at all and was only now realizing what it could do. To swim against a waterfall—a Zora might, but she—

She leaped from the top of the falls, sailing high into the air above Vah Ruta, and with a gasp of perfect shock she saw the world laid out below her. Sidon looked up from the water, expectant and unsurprised but cheering, one fist raised in exultant salute, and near the water's edge Zelda was flashing with golden light as the hunks of ice evaporated, and the Zora traced wild patterns in the water as the Divine Beast's defenses whirled like a hailstorm above them, and below her the power generators of Vah Ruta pulsed and burned with a bright and sickly light. She reached the apex of her jump as she drew her bow, nocking a shock arrow in the same motion, and let fly. She watched the shock arrow as it fell, as thunder erupted from the spot where it struck the Divine Beast, as Vah Ruta trumpeted its rage and the light went out.

She dove, then, tucking her bow against her back as she plummeted back toward the water. She slipped in with nary a splash, the water parting around her as easily as air, and as she swam away from Vah Ruta the prince was next to her. She swam at the surface of the water and he matched her, and his exultation was infectious.

"Magnificent, Paya! A perfect shot!" Ice exploded over them as Zelda flashed in the distance. "Are you ready for another pass?"

In answer she latched onto his back, she who was as unsure of herself around him as she was any other young man, and he laughed again as he wheeled back toward Vah Ruta.

In his throne room King Dorephan suffered the torment that is unique to people of action who are not and can not be allowed to act. His domain, the domain of his people of which he should be steward, was in real and grave peril; where was he? Useless king, who could not do battle on behalf of his people, who could do nothing while the brave and the foolish of his guard—many of them little more than children, all of whom he had seen grown up, not least his own son—risked their lives out of love for their people.

He was not a king given to melancholy, but some gravity in his expression had caused all of his advisors (even Muzu) to excuse themselves. So, today he was not merely useless; he was also wholly and utterly alone.

Or nearly, at least.

Mipha was still on the Divine Beast. He knew this truly; the Lightscale Trident, which he kept on her behalf, told that story. The chest in which it was kept sat next to his throne, and every day he would open it and check. Every day it was alight with the same brilliance that told him Mipha was still there. Still trapped. Still waiting.

"But not for me," he said to the empty room, his voice so low that there was no way to understand him even if he was heard. "For a hundred years I've prayed that some part of what I've wrought might be undone… that you might be free. Now the battle is upon us, Mipha. This very hour your brother seeks your release, and with him the princess of Hyrule, and so many warriors of hearts that would put myth to shame. Finally, we act… but not me. I am here, still, and all I can do is pray."

It was possible that he was not truly alone. There might always be somebody nearby that could see him; in truth, there almost definitely was. Let them, then. Let them see him as he took the chest in his hands, as he pressed his scarred forehead against it, as he stopped trying to fight his grief, as he ceased to be a king and was only a failure of a father to a daughter who should have had the world given to her.

"Forgive me, Mipha. Forgive me for not seeing what would happen, for not… not being able to stop it. For being helpless, here, while you have suffered for so long. For my grief, which has not helped you. For not being there for you now, fighting with your brother. For." He inhaled sharply, closed his eyes. He did not have pride, anymore, but he still had his shame. "For believing that I could protect you. Please forgive me."

He had not moved. Still, the latch of the chest opened. Still, as he lifted his head, the lid swung up. Still, a soft and beautiful light poured out over his face.

The third shock arrow struck home, and the sound was imperceptible against the din and the rain. The waters running off of Vah Ruta slowed to a trickle; Zelda's periodic flashes of golden brilliance coincided with the destruction of dozens of carefully selected hunks of mystical ice; the Zora swam over a wider area, and faster, their confidence bolstered. At the strike of the third arrow Sidon cheered, and the guards and soldiers cheered as they swam.

Whatever force was driving Vah Ruta, it could not compensate for the surgical precision that Zelda used in levelling the Sheikah Slate against it. Destruction of certain pieces of ice interrupted the flow of the rest of the extant weapons, making them less precise while more were manufactured. A more skilled pilot, familiar with the subtleties of Vah Ruta's systems and the extent of its powers, might have been able to fight off the attacking force without them getting so close, without losing three of the beast's power regulators.

This force, this Blight, was not a subtle creature. It was turning before Sidon approached it; as Paya swam up the waterfall, it turned to face the edge of the reservoir and the Domain beyond. It shifted as the third shock arrow struck home. The Zora cheer went up as Vah Ruta lifted its great nose.

The red targeting light painted the interior of the reservoir, and Vah Ruta's capacitors charged with the rolling of thunder.

There was no more cheering.

"Hurry! Hurry!" Paya did not need to say the words; they were an expression of solidarity in urgency. Sidon tore through the water with such force that it nearly tore her from his back, regardless of the armor she wore. More than telling him to hurry she was swearing that she would, and she prepared herself to swim with all the power her body could muster.

She pushed the realities of the exterior world out of her mind, because everything depended on that. She ignored the building charge as Vah Ruta prepared to fire, blocked out the sound of the rain and the whirling of the ice, forced herself to even push away the thought of Zelda. She had to focus. She had to act perfectly.

Still. They would not make it in time, she knew. Not quite.

The world slowed to a crawl again, as the red light from Vah Ruta's mouth shone like a beacon for annihilation.

Zelda could easily trace the trajectory of the imminent blast (and it was a beam, unlike the lesser weapons of the Guardians); it would start from Vah Ruta, evaporate an utterly meaningless amount of water, punch through the wall of the reservoir, and strike Zora's Domain beyond it. Most of the city would disintegrate; the remainder would buckle and plunge down more than a hundred meters. It might strike the ground before the reservoir broke and unleashed a flood that would sweep Hyrule barren all the way to the Gerudo Desert. There was a cone of death, starting at the break in the reservoir wall, engulfing all of Zora's Domain, and reaching out well into Central Hyrule, in which absolutely nothing would survive.

She and Gaddison, being directly in the path of the beam, would be instantly vaporized. Not a comforting thought, but at least they would not suffer.

In that space where her thoughts ran wildly quicker than any other person's, the princess and the goddess gave way to the amnesiac woman. She never considered failure, or giving up; without question she would act, even if that act came to nothing.

Did she have enough power to simply stop Vah Ruta from firing? She didn't know. Attacking the Malice that drove it was a dicey proposition and trying to shut down the actual firing mechanism might leave her too vulnerable. Could she block the beam with Hylia's power? If Hylia was that strong, was her awareness at all prepared to channel that strength without burning herself out? If she could, would she be able to contain the force of the beam, so it wouldn't destroy the reservoir anyway? If she did all of that perfectly, could the surrounding area possibly survive the Calamity's retaliation?

The answer to each of those questions may well have been "yes"; but if even one of them was "no" then her attempt would kill them all. She discarded the possibility.

No, she was coming at it from the wrong angle, insisted the princess, the scientist. There were essentially two options available to them: block the beam from striking the wall or redirect it.

Redirect it? How? Force Vah Ruta to aim at her, perhaps, and lead the shot to a less catastrophic (but no less fatal, for her) direction? No, the thing wasn't aiming at her, its target was the Domain and Hyrule beyond.

Consider your tools, she chided herself. She had the power of the goddess and the Sheikah Slate, one of which she could only use just so much. The power that drove Vah Ruta, and the Divine Beast itself, were too enormous for Stasis to matter, even if she placed her strength into the rune. Like the Guardians, Vah Ruta was magnetically inert; she could pour enough of Hylia's power into that rune to lift a mountain and accomplish nothing at all. An empowered bomb might do it, either by damaging the firing mechanism or by knocking Vah Ruta's aim out of alignment, but a blast of that magnitude would send shockwaves through the air and water that would pulverize everyone present...and might still destroy the reservoir, besides.

Only one option, then. She didn't know if it would work, but it was the only way she could act without guaranteeing their destruction. Now it was a question of degrees; she reached within herself, to the dark place where the power sat like a sun waiting to be born. She was not the amnesiac, or the princess, or even the vessel of the goddess; she was one woman, focusing all of herself down to this one narrow point, seeking nothing less than surety. With the incarnate's awareness she measured out her strength, seeking the perfect balance between efficacy and stealth.

There can be no balance here, only precision. Too little and I fail; too much and I fail. I have to use the smallest amount that I am sure will work; that is our only chance.

With all of her focus, all of her intuition, she drew on the power. She poured it into the Sheikah Slate, which hummed in her hands and shone in blue and gold. She did not have to select a new rune.

Hylia, if you can hear me at all, guide me. Please. Whatever you need of me, I need you now. Help me protect them. Help me protect us all.

Zelda aimed at the space beneath Vah Ruta's chin, where crimson death stared out at them like the Calamity's own eye, and fired.

Sidon leaped, and Paya jumped from his back and into the waterfall. She heard a roar, not Vah Ruta's voice or the discharge of the laser but something else, something more immediately physical, and shut it out of her mind as she flew up the stream. It did not matter what it was. Nothing mattered except what she was doing.

A wall of white rose into the sky, filling a corner of her vision, and the roar was louder, and she did not see, did not hear. She sailed into the sky, bow free, arrow nocked. She did not hear Vah Ruta's scream, or its weapon as it discharged.

A white fist the size of a mountain, an iceberg born out of the waters of the reservoir, rose out the depths to smash into the underside of Vah Ruta's head. Ice exploded on contact with the Divine Beast, the tremendous pressure of the frozen wall colliding with the ancient machine sending off splinters of ice the size of houses. There was a moment where Vah Ruta held, implacable, immovable, the ice splitting under its neck and rising in twin spires on either side of its head—but the ice kept pushing, and rising, its roots reaching down to the floor of the reservoir, and from the depths of the waters did it push.

Vah Ruta bellowed, a strangled bugling sound, as the empowered Cryonis forced its head up. It fired its weapon.

The beam of blue death cut through the air above Zelda's head, passed close enough to the top of the reservoir to scorch the stone, and by scant degrees failed to obliterate Zora's Domain. The mountains to the southwest had a burning gouge cut out of them, and that gouge was forced upward as Vah Ruta's head was wrenched further and further back.

The fourth shock arrow hit home. The power regulator on Vah Ruta's shoulder darkened. The flow of water ceased, and the weapons-fire dwindled to a cylinder the width of a finger before winking out. The hundreds of flying cubes of ice fell back into the water and shattered as Vah Ruta went slack, the fullness of its weight resting against the iceberg—which, in a flash, also disappeared.

The Divine Beast sank down to its hips, undefended, momentarily dormant.

The cheer that went up from the gathered Zora was uninterrupted. Paya's voice was joined to theirs; Zelda collapsed against Gaddison's back, shaking, trying to hold in tears of relief. Gaddison offered her no words; she had seen how closely death passed them by, and how the Princess of Hyrule had diverted it. She reached up, laid her hand over the one clutching her left shoulder, trying to communicate through touch the depths of her thankfulness and her awe.

Past that there was no delay. All the gathered Zora converged on Vah Ruta.

Prince Sidon leaped up to the platform that jutted from the side of Vah Ruta. His heart was pounding in his chest, adrenaline running so thick in his blood that he felt as if he was seeing the world through a filter. Paya dropped off of his back and he slowly rose to his feet, feeling her armor and even the rain against his skin in a removed, remote sense. Whatever he was experiencing now, he knew that he was in a place beyond pain. How long would that last? Zelda had said there was a monster within the Divine Beast, one worse than the lynel by far. He hoped he still felt this way by the time they confronted it, that the thrill of battle was still on him.

It had to be thrill. If it wasn't a thrill then he would have to consider how he really felt, what had run through his mind in the moment when Vah Ruta's weapon had fired, how he had felt when the world was ending.

The guards and soldiers, including Gaddison, finally made their approach. He grinned his enormous grin and felt the joy he projected resonate in them, his facade turned genuine by the light in the eyes of his people. They were alive. They had made it. Things might still go wrong, but they would face new challenges as they presented themselves! No fear, then, not now, he would wrestle with that later. Gaddison swam close and Zelda, the savior of their people, was on her back, and Sidon's smile as he offered his hand to her was real indeed. She took it, and her grip was strong, and he helped her up onto the platform. She stood next to him as he turned to address his people.

"From here we must go on without you." None of them liked it, but all of them believed it for the best; save for his father, Sidon was the greatest warrior of the Zora; everyone knew that Paya had held off the lynel on Ploymus by herself; Zelda was Zelda. "You have all performed wonderfully, shown courage fit to honor our ancestors! Our work is not done, but now you must see to the Domain and ensure the safety of our people. We three will free the Divine Beast and return triumphant! Wait for good news from us!"

He did not seek a cheer; their victory was at hand but not yet achieved. Better that they saluted, that their eyes wandered between him and the two women he would accompany, knowing that he was not the whole of this mission. Not that any of them would need to be reminded, now.

Then Vah Ruta shifted, light returning to its body as it lifted itself out of the water. The guards beat their retreat, quick but unhurried, and Vah Ruta lifted the three of them up, up, the water falling away below them, and until this moment he had never realized how enormous the Divine Beast really was. What an incredible device; how incredible that he should be aboard it, and to seek to help restore it to its use against the Calamity!

"My friends!" His address took in both Paya and Zelda, the former whose attention was locked on the latter and the latter who was working up her focus, perhaps even rallying her power for the battle ahead. Faced with the enormity of their devotion, of their courage, how could he do anything but be honest? "Thank you for coming this far for us. No matter what happens next, my people will never forget what the two of you have done on our behalf. Songs will surely be sung of what we've accomplished today!"

"There is still one battle ahead of us," Paya said, the mask she wore making it impossible to read so much of her expression but her eyes burning with determination and another quality he did not recognize.

"I have absolute faith in us." They had to know; he only hoped it would be a strength to them, rather than a burden. "I have absolute faith in you. You can face whatever is before us; nothing in all the world will stand against you, when you put yourselves to the task!"

"I have to save her. I have to make this right." Zelda's words were soft, nearly whipped away by the wind, but they cut to the heart of Sidon like a knife. He looked down at Zelda, and she was not looking at anything; her gaze took in the horizon and beyond it, as if looking at a world that he could not. "There is so much… a lifetime, that I can't remember. But I remember Mipha was good to me. I wish desperately to see her again, to help her as she helped me." She looked up, then, the intensity of her gaze arresting him (and Paya too, he thought). "As much as for Ganon, as much as for Hyrule, this is for her. We will set her free."

Over and over again, without ceasing, he was laid low by these women, by the depth of heart from which they spoke and acted. What could he say to that? Surely there was nothing equal to what he felt, no answer to the enormity of the gratitude and the awe and the admiration that filled him.

"Yes," he managed, because it was as much as he could say.

They three stepped together into the depths of Vah Ruta, the weight of their promises, their duty, and their hopes laying heavy in the air.

In another time, another life, where it was not the princess who woke up in the Chamber of Resurrection, the interior of Vah Ruta was spackled with patches of Malice, the leavings of the Blight as it struggled to grow while choked off from the source of its vitality. There was no interference with the workings of Vah Ruta, only in moving through it, and it would take an engagement with all of its systems to clear the infection, to free it from the influence of the Calamity. Each control node activated, purified by the use of the Sheikah Slate, would force the Blight further and further into a corner; the last would finally drive it into the open, and there it might be confronted. The Blight, cut off from the power of Ganon, would not actively seek its enemy out until forced to, and was utterly stunted in its growth for a century. A terrible enemy, made more destructive to its surroundings by circumstance, but less than it could have been.

This was not that life. This was not that time.

As Sidon, Paya, and Zelda stepped into Vah Ruta, they took note of their surroundings; to two of them they were alien, constructed of two-toned stone more long-lived and durable than metal, but to Zelda they echoed the shrines of the Sheikah monks on a grander, more purposeful scale. Water flowed through the cavernous chambers of Vah Ruta's interior, which was only the smallest part of what the Divine Beast housed within it. The hum of the machinery working deep beneath it, power fit to drive nations (or to level them), lent every step they took an almost dizzying weight.

Two presences filled the air of that place, alike in age and in urgency. One of them was restrained, calling to the gathered heroes as if from across a great distance; she cried out, investing all of her strength in an attempt to reach them, but they heard her not. Each of them, sensitive to her presence in a different way and to a different degree, only shuddered as they felt remote panic and fear wash over them.

If they could have heard her, perhaps they would have turned back; perhaps they would have pushed on, through her warnings. Perhaps a great number of things would have been different.

"Sidon! Zelda! Paya!" She knew them all, of course she did. "Please! You have to hear me!" But they did not.

The second presence noticed them, and the pressure of the air shifted. This one knew them, too; from memory, from an image of a girl carrying the goddess through a blasted wasteland, from the scent of the goddess's power hanging in the air.

"You have to run!"

Gates slammed shut at every entrance to the enormous chamber. The three looked about them; the prince hefted his spear, and the handmaiden drew her golden blade, and the princess sought down within herself.

There was a sound, like the roar of the Calamity in a higher register. Malice and the blight gathered, and the wind began to howl, pulling at the water that flowed through Vah Ruta. Those streams flowed through the air, twisting together into a spiral that drew in the black and the purple of the malice, forming a vortex which bellowed smoke that had no smell but crackled with arcs of dark magic.

"Please! It's been waiting for you!"

The vortex slammed into the floor, and the wind thrown off of it was so strong that Zelda turned her face from it as Paya stepped between her and the emerging threat.

Then Paya's jaw fell slack beneath her mask, and Zelda stared in horror, and even Sidon was left without words, without encouragement, as his spearhead sank to drag against the floor.

The Malice coalesced into a massive, dark shape, which throbbed and pulsated like an enormous heart. That shape rose, it had only been hunched over seconds before, and when it moved its cloven hooves hit the ground with such force that Vah Ruta shook. Its face and torso were armored with stone plates stolen from Guardians, or possibly the Divine Beast, but beneath that armor was the thing itself, bipedal, easily six meters tall, each of its limbs thicker than a man's body and lithe, lithe in spite of that, as if it had been built for swimming. On its head it wore a cyclopean mask made from a single armored plate, and from behind that mask swept out a crown of red hair that waved and hissed and danced like fire. Great, backward-sweeping horns rose from its head, and between those horns was nested a crown of darkness which ate at the light of the room. In its right hand it held a trident of blue light tinged with purple, and that weapon was as long as the beast was tall.

For a hundred years it had waited for them; for a hundred years, drawing on the source of its vitality, it had grown stronger. The resemblance it bore to its previous form was scant, as if the Blight of a century ago had been only the first stage in the construction of this: the death of promise, of duty, of hope.

They all knew it for what it was; there was nothing else that it could be. Still, it was only Zelda, filled with the voice of the goddess, who dared to speak its name:

"Ganon."

The Waterblight roared, and Zelda answered with the tolling of an enormous bell.