The Dark Beast Ganon's body shuddered, barely containing the vastness of its power. The day darkened to night above it, as if the sun were dying. Every step it took was an earthquake, its tread heavier than any of the Divine Beasts. When it screamed at the heavens, the sound it produced wasn't even recognizable as a roar: it was too deep, too loud, too explosive, and sent out physical shockwaves that flattened the grass for kilometers around. It was like being near a volcano as it erupted.

The gathered multitudes of the blood of the royal family were a crowd before the beast, and the light they gave off did not waver, but Ganon's hate was more towering by far. Its howl ended and the Calamity lowered its head, staring at the blood of the goddess with golden eyes much, much larger than a person.

Zelda stood at their head again, the Bow of Light still in her hands. She watched calmly as the Calamity reconstituted itself. A knowledge deeper and wider than a single person could contain spoke perspective in her ear: though this was particularly terrible, as Ganon's forms went, it was not new. Not really. It was more of a logical conclusion of the arc that Ganon had started in the distant past. Threatening, yes. Destructive, certainly. If it was not stopped here, then it would shake the entire world to ruin, making the events of a hundred years ago seem small in comparison. But it was not new. It was not beyond her understanding.

She felt very little fear.

Ganon exhaled, and she was buffeted by the gale of its breath, hot and acrid and smelling of Malice. Her skin burned; if not for the protection of Hylia's power—her family's power—she most likely would have been suffering much more than a general irritation. Its very body was corrosive. It ate at the world simply by existing.

Its eyes picked her out of the crowd. Oh, yes, it could see her. Could see as she glared back at it. Let it see, then. Let it see that breaking a projection or leaving discarded weapons on ruined ground was not the same thing as breaking the indomitable spirit of the courageous.

She reached out with her thoughts. Distance was nothing; it was so easy, now, to reach across the plains of Hyrule, to the Necluda range and to Death Mountain and the cliffs of the Gerudo Desert and the southern end of the Hebra snowfields. To touch the hearts that waited there, that had been waiting for so very, very long. To speak the single word:

"Now."

Daruk laughed from atop Death Mountain, slapping his broad stomach as Vah Rudania's targeting laser settled on Ganon's flank. It wasn't much of an adjustment, was it? And really, who could miss a target that big in the first place? The ghost fires danced around him, echoing his mirth.

Now.

He thought of Link, and Zelda, and Paya, and Yunobo. Of a land that was not plagued by Calamity. Of a land where children could grow safely, and strong, without living in the shadow of their parents' failures.

"Hold on, everybody," he said. "Help is on the way." He spread his feet, lowered his arms to his sides, breathed deep though he didn't need to breathe. Opened his eyes. Grinned. Thrust forward his fists. "Open wide, Ganon!"

Urbosa did not laugh atop Vah Naboris; her eyes remained locked not on Ganon, but on the distant glow that was spread before the beast. She could not reach that far, though in that moment she might have.

"Are you with her now, I wonder? Fighting with her? Watching over her?" She let herself sigh; no one was watching. "Of course you are. I suspect you have been all along. I'm sorry that I couldn't protect her in your place. I'm sorry for so much."

Now.

She smiled her destroyer's smile.

"Well, we'll talk it out soon. I'll be with you as soon as I've had vengeance… for both of us."

She held her hand up. Snapped her fingers.

Revali took no time for sentimental reflection; he still smarted from how firmly Ganon had struck his physical projection. It wasn't as bad as dying had been, of course, and even if it were he could have easily withstood it, but it rankled. Not enough to have died at some ancient, mindless monstrosity's hands, but to have participated in a battle simply to buy time for a too-important girl to remember things she should have never forgotten? That was almost arbitrarily inglorious.

So really, he just wanted to fire, to lay pain on Ganon equal to what Ganon had laid on him. He knew it had to be simultaneous. He certainly wouldn't be the one to fire out of order. But it worried him. If he was so tempted, how much must the other Champions have been? Not everyone was so patient, so doggedly reliable, as himself.

Now.

Ah, there, see? Patience rewarded. He didn't have to adjust Vah Medoh; his aim, of course, was perfect.

He said nothing. Artistry, after all, spoke for itself.

He held out one wing.

Mipha had stood a lonely vigil for a hundred years, even bound, eyes always turned toward Hyrule Castle. Freedom had not changed that vigil. Not even the battle itself had done so. She was always free with her tears; she was free with them now, too.

She had felt it, three days after forcing the Calamity back into Hyrule Castle, when Link's heart had stopped. She had not screamed; he had kept fighting past that point, never faltering, never missing a beat in the rhythm of his battle, as if he hadn't even noticed. That was when her imprisonment had truly become her vigil, and ever since, she had not lifted her eyes from him. As his body had worn away, she watched. As his soul fought on and forgot the heartbreak that would drag him into true oblivion, she watched. As his battle had ended, still she watched.

And she watched him now as his connection to the world grew thinner and thinner. If she had been there with him, all of her healing magic would have been useless; even if Zelda had leveraged it, Hylia's power through the language of Mipha's could not have restored his body. He would still have slipped closer and closer to true death with every moment.

"Please," she said to him, even though he could not hear. "Please get up. We still need you. Please. I've broken so many promises, we've all broken so many promises—please let us help you. Please be all right. Please."

She watched. He did not rise.

"Please. You promised."

Now.

She drew herself up. Turned her eyes, for the first time in a long time, toward Ganon.

"If I can keep no other promise to you, then I will keep this one: we will not fail!"

She thrust out her hands.

The Dark Beast inhaled, and locks of Zelda's hair were pulled forward by the wind, though she remained anchored. It did not gather power, as before; it stoked the power within its own chest, breathing terrible life into the devastation that suffused every fiber of its being. Its chest glowed with a smothered red-and-purple light, and that light slowly crawled its way up the Calamity's throat. Its inhalation ceased, and the power built to a perfect crescendo just as the darkness of the night air around it lightened to the color of morning, to noon, and then to a blinding white inferno. It tilted its head, as if in recognition.

Four burning pillars of blinding light smashed into Ganon from four directions, and the sound of the impact was high and electrical, and beneath that there was burning.

The weapons of the Divine Beasts had been created to suppress the power of the Calamity, and within their field of effect the Malice hissed, boiled, dissolved into evil smoke that twisted and faded to nothing. The Dark Beast staggered, enveloped in the radiance, and sank down to the earth as its strength failed it.

Its burning, golden eyes were focused on Zelda, and she met its gaze. The beam splitting the air above the crowd should have obscured its face completely, but the faintest outline of its head was visible through the brilliance and its eyes shone as plainly as if they stared through empty air. Through the light and the burning and the high electric roar and the force driving it into the ground, its attention never wavered.

It collapsed, and the earth trembled, and the weapons of the Divine Beast kept pouring on.

Ganon towered over everything. Everything. Paya tried not to focus on it as she ran. She focused on her breathing. She could run for a very long time, but Hylia had moved the site of the battle by kilometers and that was a very long way to sprint.

That wouldn't stop her. Nothing would stop her.

He tried to rise.

"My child," a voice said. Not his father's voice, or his mother's. Unfamiliar. Strange. But comforting, somehow. A voice born to command, tempered by real tenderness. Raspy, as if it hadn't been used in many years.

He couldn't flex his left hand, either to open it or to close it. His right hand was locked; he couldn't tighten his grip and dared not try to open it for fear that he would succeed and be unable to hold the sword again.

"You have fought for so long."

He tried to rise.

The weapons were spent, the mighty beams of light dwindling until they were gossamer strands and then vanishing. The Divine Beasts retracted their firing mechanisms, entering into a long recharge state. The wind blew across Hyrule Field, and tufts of uprooted grass danced in front of Zelda's face.

She knew that Ganon could not be defeated in this way, especially not in its current form. The Divine Beasts were designed to drain it, not to kill it.

Only the Sword is designed to kill it. She shoved the intrusive thought away. Looked up at Ganon, at the enormous golden eyes that had fallen closed as it lay upon the ground. It lived still, yes, or else it would not have retained this body. Still. Standing amidst the spirits of her foremothers (and Mother is here and I have so much that I could ask her, I want so desperately to speak to her that I would kill Ganon just to have the opportunity) she allowed herself to hope that killing Ganon would be simple, now. It was easy to believe.

Then its eyes opened. It was no longer looking at her.

It shoved itself to its feet, and smoke rose from all over its body where the Divine Beasts' assault had battered it, but the light in its chest and its throat had not dimmed at all. It was facing to the east when it opened its mouth and sounded the clarion call to end the world.

The beam of purple-and-white light that shone from its mouth was narrower than the blasts of the Divine Beasts, but Zelda understood that it was no less destructive—in fact, as was made clear in the next moment, it was much worse.

Mipha had moved Vah Ruta away from Zora's Domain partially for a better targeting vector and partially so any attack on the Divine Beast would endanger neither the Domain nor the reservoir. It was this fact and this fact alone that protected Hyrule from its end.

The beam struck Vah Ruta, and Zelda saw as the castle-sized machine was rocked by a series of explosions along the length of its body. The initial impact severed its trunk, which gout flames as it fell to the earth. Its left ear shattered with an eruption of blue fire, sending a hail of shrapnel to the south as its sides erupted outward in geysers of purple and blue flames. The Divine Beast staggered, its roar high and pained, and then the motivators controlling its legs cracked on the left side and Vah Ruta fell to the earth, burning.

Zelda and all of her mothers tore her eyes from the carnage to look back at Ganon, which still did not look at them. It was turning to the north. To Vah Rudania. To Death Mountain. The earth shook, not from its tread but from the gathering of its power, and the light inside of its chest threw a terrible purple radiance on the ground beneath it.

Thousands of voices held parliament within her and around her. It should have been cacophony, but it was not; each woman of her blood heard her mothers and daughters and sisters, and each was heard in her turn, though it was simultaneous. Among them all, Zelda's voice was loudest, most insistent.

If it fires on Death Mountain then Death Mountain will erupt. Daruk is already positioned at the top of the crater; any attempt to retreat will bring the attack closer to the volcano's magma chamber.

Vah Naboris is positioned in a neutral space, like Ruta was. Medoh isn't. Revali has to take it away, has to fly.

If Ganon fires on Vah Rudania then it won't matter.

Every woman there spoke together: Do not let it. Give it another target.

Zelda agreed. She lifted the Bow of Light, drew taut the string, and traced the wide course of Ganon's turning. Its head was so vast that it was difficult to judge distance or speed. She had no choice but to feel it.

A thousand lifetimes and more guided her aim. Princesses and queens laid their hands on hers. She felt her mother's arms around her.

She fired. The arrow soared, its trajectory perfectly straight. The dark beast turned directly into its path.

Ganon bellowed its fury as the light arrow struck its right eye.

"GANON!" she called in uncountable voices. "FACE ME!"

The burning pupil of that golden eye bled as it homed in on her, and the force of its hate was a physical blow that stirred the dust beneath her feet. Its tread was halted, and the earth shook as it shifted its weight. It reversed its turn, bringing itself around to face the gathered blood of the goddess.

With the goddess's knowledge and the perspective of her ancestors Zelda understood what she could not alone: Ganon's evil was a self-contained totality, perfect in a way that could not be encapsulated by physical description. An attack from without would, alone, be useless. She could fling Ganon into the very heart of the sun and it would eat the star unless some weakness was written into its body first.

We have to write that weakness into it, her mothers told her.

Would that work? If she had been the one fighting Ganon for a century, then—yes. Yes, the shape of it was clear to her. Disembodied, she might be able to craft the weaknesses that Ganon itself didn't possess, creating vulnerabilities where the light would be able to penetrate—and, when the light within Ganon matched the light without, it would be destroyed.

I am not within Ganon.

You do not have to be. Distance is nothing.

The power that it would take to do that—we would need to be able to strike its body seven times to completely open its weakness.

There was a moment of silence, as if the voices of her ancestors were conferring without letting her hear. That frightened her in a way she had never been frightened before.

Finally, her foremothers spoke to her: Use more than you think. Use it all. Take advantage of the Divine Beasts' assault. Reduce the requirement to one strike.

She tried to resist the idea, understanding what it would cost her, but unbidden her mind with Hylia's perspective was already sketching out the arcane formula necessary. The shapes of power that would be traced inside of the storm, the radiance unleashed at specific angles to part the dark toward the wounds of the four cardinal directions of its body, and one last target… it would work. It would work.

"I don't want to lose you," she said aloud as Ganon faced them all.

We will always be with you. Not many voices. Just one. Her mother's.

The light in Ganon's throat reached the apex of its radiance and Zelda drew taut the Bow of Light. She closed her eyes, willed her power into the arrow. More, and more, until she was left with dregs, until her connection to her ancestors was a frail and unlikely thing, until she could feel Paya more clearly than she felt her own mother, and all of that power she shaped into the arcane forms that would write out the law of her enormous purpose. The crowd around her faded and vanished, the energies that allowed them to manifest now invested elsewhere. The light of that arrow was the very light of Hylia, and the world was divided into brightness and darkness by the two powers on that field.

Ganon opened its mouth, screaming the end, and Zelda loosed the arrow.

The arrow struck the ray of Ganon's power—and punctured it, punching through it as if it weren't there, shattering it like glass. The arrow flew unimpeded, making no sound as it soared through the air and then disappeared down Ganon's throat.

The Calamity closed its mouth. Looked to Zelda, who now stood alone in the field. She stared back. It made a sound, almost inquisitive. A sun blossomed in its abdomen.

Then the power exploded.

Magic circles of golden light connected by glowing chains sprouted all over Ganon's body and then erupted into burning pillars of plasma, and Ganon's roar became a choked scream as holy power rocked its entire body. It did not fall; Ganon would never allow itself to fall in the critical moment. It attacked, spewing death from its mouth, but its legs gave out and it poured death directly into the ground.

That destruction spread through the earth, and the spreading heat created an enormous updraft. Zelda unfurled her paraglider, and the wind lifted her. She soared up, up, higher than the castle, higher than the Calamity, and she saw as the Dark Beast's body was split open by the power she had unleashed inside of it. Its back opened along the line of its spine, and inside of it there bristled a field of glowing, staring, hateful eyes, all focused on her.

There. The seat of Ganon. The very heart of its awareness, hidden by the storm, shielded by the body of the Dark Beast.

She folded her paraglider, and as she began to fall she drew the Bow of Light. Pulled taut the string. Aimed directly into the cluster of eyes that glared at her for her defiance.

She loosed the arrow, and unfurled her paraglider again just as it struck home.

"You have fought longer than any of us. Than all of us. You have earned your rest."

He did not know the voice; he did not care what it was saying. He tried to move and couldn't, couldn't command even the least part of himself. When he had been very young, he had had dreams in which he could feel his body but was trapped within it, unable even to breathe by his own command; this was like that.

"But you cannot rest yet."

The sea of eyes within Ganon boiled and then exploded. Malice and fire ejected into the atmosphere in every direction as the Dark Beast's body burned and dissolved. It tried to stay standing and failed, its legs giving out under it even as it tried desperately to regain its footing.

Zelda landed in front of it.

Ganon collapsed in full, staring at her, unblinking, uncomprehending.

Zelda reached within herself.

Ganon's body dissolved, flesh once more becoming the burning cloud of the storm of the Malice, and the Calamity swirled in the air as a formless hatred.

There were two powers that Zelda carried: the power of her blood, the power that had founded Hyrule, the power that she had used in her battle with Ganon, was the power that Ganon so hated. It had prevailed against the Blights, and against the Yiga, and with the help of every ally she could gather it had prevailed against Ganon itself. But it was the lesser power by far. She reached now for the strength she had kept hidden beneath her own amnesia, which Hylia had only whispered of, which her blood had guarded for so long against a world that might misuse it. Against Ganon.

The very engine of creation was hers to call upon, only in the final moment. The moment had arrived. She lay her hands on the power of gold, and the cosmos shifted, sitting up in anticipation of the heart that would soon command it.

She touched it, and that power manifested in the world: three golden triangles, arranged to form a single, larger one, standing proudly half a meter above the grass. The world was quieted as its keystone was made real for the first time in ten thousand years.

Zelda realized too late her mistake.

Only for the final moment; only when Ganon had been utterly defeated; not one instant before. That was when the goddess had told her to unleash the true force. That was the point she believed she had reached.

But Ganon was not done. The massive boar's head split, and the silhouette of a man built of Malice careened from the maelstrom. Its hands reached.

She was between Ganon and the golden power. She would not reach it before the beast, though she need travel only a tenth as far. She turned.

The Calamity slammed into her. She grappled with it, using all the power that remained to her. It was so little. So thin. Ganon hissed and writhed and roared in her grip, and the Malice of its skin burned at hers.

Not like this. Please. Please.

She was praying to no one. Hylia could not help her; all of the goddess's strength had been used up destroying the Dark Beast's body. Her foremothers could not help her; she did not have enough energy left to hear their voices, much less call upon them for help. The dragons were still unconscious; the remaining Divine Beasts were still recharging; she couldn't help the Champions manifest now; the Koroks had fled.

There was just her. Just her, and Ganon, and her arms wrapped around it, holding it as it fought against her, and she had brought it down to the lowest point in its existence but its eyes burned in its face and it didn't seem to even notice her, only reached for the thing behind her.

The power in her guttered, and Ganon forced her back a step. She screamed in panic, scraping against the interior of her soul for all the strength that remained to her, and flared momentarily, stopping the beast's progress. It heaved, and she knew that she couldn't hold it.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I've failed you all. I—

Behind Zelda there was a sound, one she had never heard before, as far removed from a bell as a dragon's voice was from a human's. The Calamity ceased to struggle in her arms, and instead screamed in anger and outrage. Zelda dared to look over her shoulder.

And Paya looked back at her. The Sheikah's left hand rested on the Triforce.

"You think that you are broken because the beast has destroyed the sword. Because you cannot hear her voice, calling you on to battle."

The words washed over him, and he did not process them at all. He was sinking deeper. The dark pulled at him. It would be so easy to rest, wouldn't it? To stop struggling.

"But the sword is not the soul of the Hero, Link. It never has been. Since the goddess put her blessing on it, since it was forged in celestial fire, the Hero's soul has always invested the sword with its courage. You are not strengthened by the Master Sword; it draws its strength from you."

He had been fighting. He had been fighting for so long. He was finished, now. Wasn't he? He must have been. He couldn't remember what he'd been fighting.

He couldn't remember why.

Ganon howled in outrage as Zelda held it back. Paya's princess looked so small, then, penning in the Calamity with arms that could barely encircle its waist, and the light of her power was nearly out.

The secret power had been forgotten by the rest of the world many thousands of years ago, to protect the royal family and every other living thing from its misuse. Hyrule had forgotten; the Zora, the Gerudo, the Hylians, the Gorons, the Rito, even the Yiga, had all forgotten. But the Sheikah remembered. The Sheikah, first servants of the steward of the Triforce, had long kept the secret.

The golden power would grant any wish to the one who touched it.

It was smooth and warm under her hands, its surface humming like a living thing, with no texture that she could discern. She felt its promise, unspoken. It beckoned her heart to wish. She closed her eyes.

Save Zelda. Destroy Ganon.

She felt the leylines of the universe glowing beneath her feet. Her wish manifested.

Ganon screamed.

She opened her eyes.

The beast writhed in Zelda's arms, and golden lines of power glowed on its body. That gold spread like cracks in the frame of the Malice, fissures that would bring perfect obliteration, and they spread, and spread, and—

And they stopped.

And as Paya watched, as Zelda's power guttered once more, the Malice ate the gold, and Ganon's power exploded around it like a flare.

No. That's impossible! Did my wish not register? What did I do wrong? I—

"The stronger the heart that makes the wish," Ganon said, and its voice came up from within the earth and it was looking at her, not at Zelda or even at the Triforce but at her, "the mightier the expression of that wish. And your heart—" It stopped, shrieking with laughter. "Your heart cannot destroy me! No one can!"

The air around her ripped as if the world was being torn asunder. She looked up. The ghost fires were burning.

Mipha's hand was laid on hers. Then Urbosa's. Revali's wing. And Daruk's palm covered them all.

"Champions!" Her own voice, rallying the dead.

They five stood together, the living Champion and her predecessors, and the Triforce flared with the strength of their hearts. Together, they wished:

Destroy Ganon.

A flash of light. A flare of brilliance. Ganon's scream, etched out in golden lines of power across its skin.

And then its laughter. The burning of its power.

"You have to get up. One last time, my child, you have to fight."

There was nothing left of him; there had never been anything of him. He was dead, he realized; he had spent so long trying not to realize that. Now that the truth was on him, it was comforting.

"Link."

Was that so wrong? To accept death? Was that not the privilege of the dead, even to those who denied the dying? He had fought. Hadn't he fought? He had fought. He had fought for someone. He was forgetting. Why was he trying so desperately not to forget? Why was she so sad? Who was it that he felt across time, as if he had never been parted from her?

"Zelda needs you."

Zelda.

He opened his eyes.

Behind her the Triforce rang and within her the power was going out and there was nothing left of her and every second, every second Ganon was growing stronger. She had reduced him from a nation-devouring inferno to the barest cinders, and now those cinders were regaining their ferocity with every passing moment. She would lose.

The Champions—and some remote, quiet part of her was so happy that Paya was counted in that number—wished. And their wish was not enough. No one's wish could be. It was impossible. There was nothing they could do, unless the cinders went out.

She was holding back the Calamity, but when it took a step forward she couldn't forestall its progress. She pushed back with all of her strength, but now that strength was almost entirely physical. It took another step. It thundered laughter as she shoved back against it, forcing it back a step. She was counting down the seconds until the end of everything.

Another wish behind her. Another wave poured into Ganon. It staggered back another step, but it no longer voiced its pain.

If they wished for my strength to return, that would not be enough either. By some trick Ganon would gain advantage. I don't know how, but I know that it would. Could they wish to destroy the Triforce? Would that be any different, leaving us without the means to kill the Calamity?

She could never have won this. It had been impossible from the start.

How many moments did she have left? How many moments did the world have left?

She should have been exhausted; she should have felt nothing; she should have been courageous; she was none of these things. She could not even feel shame as tears of frustration and anger and fear ran down her face, as she heaved and tried to use leverage against her opponent.

I will die fighting. We will all die fighting. Let that be enough. Let that—

Thunder.

"Zelda!"

She was sixteen years old and riding through the forests of Akkala. A bokoblin with a crude wooden bow had come roaring out of the woods, frightening her horse. She saw it drawing the arrow as a figure moved in front of it, shield ready. He called to her.

"Get down!"

Zelda let go of Ganon and threw herself to the ground.

Thunder crashed above her, a single bark. Ganon's outraged howl was cut off.

She lifted her head and saw a ribbon of light tracing an arc through the air, an arc that passed through the Calamity's throat. Ganon was clutching at its neck as Malice and flame spouted from between its fingers, and at the end of the ribbon of light was a man whose body was like looking into a field of stars.

Link was a blue flame that burned as insistently as the light of the gods, his soul tinged in flecks of cerulean and red and green and gold, the same colors that swirled over the blade he held in his hands. That sword, Zelda saw, was broken—but where the shattered blade had once been there burned a fire, an extension of Link's spirit.

Ganon took one step and then Link was on it, and the song the Master Sword sang rang out in high, clear notes, the roar of its power a percussive undertone as it cleaved apart the deepest darkness in the universe. Ganon staggered again, tried to fight, and it was rebuked instantly, its arms cloven from its shoulders. New arms exploded from the stumps, flaming, and these held swords, and with desperation and fury did the Calamity meet the Hero in open combat. It was not fast enough. A slash across its face sent it reeling backward.

As it stumbled Link looked over his shoulder and shouted to her, "Go!"

She ran. She didn't feel herself rising but she was running. A flash of silver. The Triforce was shining in front of her. And behind her was Ganon.

And.

And—

The vastness of that dark place where souls communed was more pronounced, now. Something in it had grown more profound. Darker, even. Perhaps it was that her power had gone out. Perhaps it was that the Triforce was no longer resting there.

"But if my power is gone, then how did I come here again?"

"Zelda?"

Her heart froze. Her mind, too. It was only by the grace of her feet, turning of their own accord, that she was made to look at what had been behind her.

And, on the other end of the void, she saw Link.

"Oh," she said.

He said nothing. Looked about himself, as if curious. He wasn't—he wasn't alive, exactly. But she saw him as if he had been. Maybe it was her memory filling in the gaps, making it so easy to see the cool blue of his eyes, the crease of concern in his brow, the way that he held himself so that he seemed so large in spite of being even shorter than she was. This was the first time she'd seen him since she had died. He looked so much the same, as if he hadn't—as if the past hundred years—

She would not let herself cry, but she held one hand over her mouth for a moment and took a long steadying breath through her nose.

When she lowered it, she said: "I'm so sorry."

He looked at her again, and now his forehead was smoothed. He was listening. He returned so easily to that role.

"I laid all of this on you. I… I used you as a shield against the Calamity. I used you, to buy time for my return. You've suffered so much, I—"

He held up his hand. She stopped herself.

"I can't remember everything," Link said. "I… actually remember very little. But Ganon is here. And you were fighting it."

"Y-yes."

He didn't seem to have anything to say. He wasn't very eloquent at even the best of times, and now was not the best of times. Finally: "Thank you for coming for me."

"Link…"

"I don't remember clearly, but… I knew you would come. I've been able to fight this whole time because I knew you would. That if I could hold on just a little longer, then you would have the time you needed. To recover. To gather your strength."

For a hundred years. 'Just a little longer,' over and over, for a hundred years. The idea was enough to drive her into the earth.

"And here you are. You… allowed me to keep my promise. Thank you."

He was so perfectly happy when he said that that the happiness crashed into her, and that was more than she could take. She felt herself buckling. "Please don't thank me. Please. Anything else. Hate me, hold me to account for setting you on this terrible path, haunt me until I join you in death, but… not this. Not this…"

"I said we would see this through to the end together," he said. His expression betrayed nothing, but his voice spoke his hope, his devotion, his loyalty. To the task. To the kingdom. To her. "Now we will. If I can see you safe… if I can see you looking out over a world free of Ganon… then I will have no regrets."

She had to fight for the words. "How can you promise such things? How can you suffer as you have, and then be willing to suffer all over again?" How can you expect me to continue without you? "How can you do it?"

At the last question, he smiled.

"For you," he said.

His hands flexed, as if gripping a sword that wasn't there. A shape manifested beside him: a young woman with metallic skin, whose steel-like hair fell down to her shoulders and beyond to form a protective mantle. There was a horizontal fracture along her diaphragm, which glowed with the same blue-star glow as Link's soul. Fi hovered over him like a protective shadow in that vast place, and her eyes met Zelda's, and something in those eyes was achingly familiar.

Link turned back to his war. Fi followed him.

The darkness fell away.

The Master Sword roared as steel clashed on steel and Paya ran past her at full tilt and Zelda scrambled toward the Triforce. She felt Paya's determination, like iron turned to steel, through the thin link that ran between them.

There was no strength left in her legs. She stumbled as she ran, tried desperately not to fall, and had to scramble at the ground with her hands so that she stayed even halfway upright.

Ganon bellowed behind her. The Master Sword was still singing the song of the Hero, and the sound of it clashing with Ganon's swords and Ganon's flesh drowned out the Calamity's voice.

Like water, Paya's voice echoed in her mind, and she knew that her attendant had joined the fight.

She looked back. Just for an instant.

Ganon's left arm was missing, its right raised to strike from on high. Its eyes were huge and wild and she realized that besides its eyes it didn't really have a face, just the outline of one, like its body was the outline of a man's. Link was in front of it, the glittering arc of the Master Sword carving canyons into Ganon's torso, and Paya was beside him, her right fist striking a blow against the Calamity's throat, fighting with her bare hands against the end of the world.

Zelda looked away, and she was running.

Paya's breathing was in her ear and she could hear Link's exhalations with every blow and Ganon bellowed and steel hacked into bare, open flesh. The Triforce loomed in front of her but it never seemed to draw closer, as if the act of running wasn't real.

He died for me. She'll die for me, too.

I can't let this be for nothing. I can't.

The gold was before her.

She reached out, taking her connection with Paya, the last shred of her power in the world. She was alone in her mind, but she had the golden thread in her hand, like a spark. She fanned it into a conflagration. Poured herself into it. Called out to the parliament.

Link was behind her. Paya was behind her. Ganon was behind her, reaching, screaming, hungering.

Zelda's vision darkened as she reached out. She laid her hand on the Triforce. She felt all the legacy of her blood funneled down to this moment, to this one act.

With the strength of uncounted hearts, she wished.

Link drove the Master Sword into Ganon's chest.

There was a light where Zelda's hand touched the Triforce.

It started out as a tiny thing—the barest spark, almost invisible to the eye. But it grew. In a span of time that ran between instants, it grew. A sphere of light that went from a speck to the size of Zelda's hand to the size of a person, enveloping her, enveloping the Triforce, and expanding beyond it.

Ganon exploded. The conflagration born of it became the storm, and the storm bellowed. The light kept growing, and the storm was pulled toward it. The Calamity reeled toward the sky, but the light grew more quickly, and Ganon was drawn into it. It roared, it fought, and still it was pulled in. Its golden eyes looked out from within the radiance, which swallowed them.

The light shrank. Collapsed. Everything it had touched was left as it had been, save Ganon.

The orb shrank, and shrank, and shrank, and as it shrank it was filled with swirling light and dark. The power of the Triforce contracted, becoming an infinitesimal point—and then it vanished.

Ganon was gone.

The Triforce was gone.

The wind blew gently over Hyrule Field.

It is so quiet. Why am I noticing that it is so quiet?

It was more than just an absence of noise; yes, things had been loud before, but that was not the sort of quiet Zelda was experiencing now. This was something… deeper. Like a quiet in her thoughts, where before there had been noise.

The power is gone.

She opened her eyes.

She was lying on her back in green grass. The sun was high and warm upon her face. The power was gone.

Slowly she worked her way to her feet. It wasn't just the power. Everything was gone. There was a silence inside of her where before there had been a hum. Her mother was gone. All of her foremothers. She was deaf to the spirit world, as she'd been a century ago. What did that mean?

Ganon.

She raised her head, looked about herself. The field was empty and quiet. Had she killed Ganon? Had the wish worked? Was it over?

To the south she saw the ghost fires. As she looked, they resolved themselves into four familiar shapes. Mipha, Daruk, Urbosa, and Revali hovered in a loose circle some distance above the ground, as if standing vigil over something. Or someone. She saw a flash of silver hair.

The four Champions all looked up simultaneously, as if noticing her together. She was not close enough to read their expressions, but something about them seemed warm… and sad.

They bowed their heads to her. And then they were gone, their duties fulfilled, as if the ghost fires had never hovered in the air at all.

Zelda swayed on her feet. It was all happening too fast. She hadn't been able to say goodbye to them. She had wanted to say goodbye.

She was running. Running toward the place where they'd been, even though she had no strength, even though gravity pulled at her as if she'd never used her legs before, and she couldn't stop. She had to say goodbye. She had to. The world was safe and Ganon was gone and Hyrule was whole and would recover and it didn't matter, none of it mattered because none of this was fair, and if she couldn't at least say goodbye then her heart would die, would go into the spirit world to follow her Champions, to follow—

Then Paya stood up. And she was helping another figure to their feet.

And her heart beat stronger.

The sword was still in his hand, its blade gleaming and long and whole. When he nodded his thanks to Paya his expression was clear and alert, his gratitude written in the lines of his face. When he looked up, she saw him in truth—as he really was, at the strength of his bearing, the set of his shoulders, the vitality and concern and deep, empathetic love behind his clear, blue eyes.

Paya lifted Link to his feet. Both of them stood in the sunlight. They noticed her together.

Her legs were stronger, then, and she ran to them.

To her wish, fulfilled.