Either the Yiga are copying Zelda's tournament schedule again by holding their second event in the evening, or they realized a bit late that if the challenge ends as the sun goes down, they can then have a party. She tries not to be too irritated about their plagiarism, because it actually fits in with their schedule a bit better. They can watch the final two Gerudo contestants fight their moldugas before they have to leave for the Yiga hideout. Riju is overly-accommodating, shifting the last battle forward by a half hour, then looking pleased with herself as her organizers scramble to follow through on her orders.
Zelda thinks this might be an abuse of power, but Link just thanks her and then the two of them huddle together to guess at what the Yiga's next challenge might be and if Link should squeeze any training in during the down time between molduga battles. In the secret quest to become the Yiga Champion, Riju is Link's biggest fan. If they sold pennants with his face on them (like they did of the Gerudo contestants), Riju would have one. Zelda's waiting for the moment Riju announces she's going to come with them to watch the proceedings, perched above the action on her belly beside Zelda.
She insists they sit close to her again so she can dish about all the contestants. Up first is Deltan, and this challenge is her time to shine. Riju bounces in her seat. "I have no idea what she's going to do. This is so exciting! Oh, and look at her. She looks so confident. She really needs this pick-me-up."
Deltan marches onto the sand armed like everyone else, but on her way she chops down and picks up a voltfruit, as if she might have a picnic. When she's in range, she does what Zelda now knows is the traditional molduga calling dance, slapping her spear against her shield and stomping her feet and singing, "Eh! Eh! Ouu!" Her dance is more sinuous than the others, her song more melodic, as if she's done it more than a handful of times. The only thing that makes it less than hypnotic is the voltfruit in her hand. As the molduga turns in interest, then charges forward, she twirls her spear with a flourish and tosses it, so it stabs it into the ground ten feet away. She then tosses the volt fruit high, high in the air, and while it's flying she takes a huge leonine leap to catch the spear without her toes brushing the ground. The leap and catch send her spinning around the spear once. Then, in a feat of athleticism, she holds herself there, one leg wrapped around the spear shaft for support. She's not touching the sand at all.
The voltfruit lands behind her and rolls away, it's odd shape causing it to bounce and skid as it rolls.
The molduga roars forward, and Deltan holds still. Then it charges past her, chasing the voltfruit and the mimicry of running feet. It swims close to the surface, hopping to chase her down rather than burst up beneath her. It's about half way past her when she sets her feet delicately to the ground, stabs the thunder spear into the monster's flank, and holds on for dear life.
They take off together across the sand, the molduga howling in rage. It slows and the wave of sand over it falls away, revealing the shape of the monster. As it slows, Deltan is no longer thrown out behind it, but she lowers her feet to the sand and tucks her shield underneath until she's surfing beside it. She pulls out her scimitar, and carves, a great, thick slash in the beast's side. She works her way forward like a mountain climber, sword and spear and sword and spear acting as handholds. She cuts deep every yard, and the monster rides even higher out of the sand to keep the dirt out of the wounds. They skid in winding circuits around the monster's territory, sand flying in their wake.
The molduga doesn't want to submerge again. It starts to roll, lifting its injured side into the air. Deltan tucks up her feet and slips her shield onto her back, she rides as the molduga rolls until she's lifted and standing atop it, the wind whipping her hair and the loose ends of her contestant sash out behind her.
The crowd cheers, the Deltan pennants flapping from flailing arms. Deltan waits on her next move, riding the monster in a wide, quick circle, until she can time it to so she's right in front of the crowd.
Tucking the scimitar away, she yanks the spear from the molduga's flank. She lowers to a crouch, then runs, throwing herself at the monster's fin, kicking herself up into a flying back flip. The molduga rushes beneath her, speeding under her flight. For a moment she seems suspended, the ends of her sash thrown out behind her like wings. When she lands, it's with the thunder spear buried deep in the molduga's side, aimed perfectly at its heart. Electricity bursts with such a crackling intensity that Zelda can taste it in the air.
The moldgua heaves, its wake of sand sailing past it, its back arching as Deltan clings to her spear. Then she's falling as the monster explodes into a puff of smoke. She lands on one knee, her spear thrown out behind her.
The crowd explodes in their excitement. "Oh, that was wonderful!" Riju says. She's clapping politely as she has done for everyone, but her face is split in glee that makes the gesture pointless. "Truly impressive. But she doesn't look any happier, does she?"
"She doesn't," Link says. And it's true: Deltan is the least excited person within a mile in every direction.
Link shakes his head and turns to Zelda. He doesn't look overly-enthusiastic either.
"What is it?" she asks.
"I feel even worse now about how I did with that big one."
"It was much larger than these."
"I've fought several of the smaller guys. No problem. You're going to have to believe me on that."
"I do."
He gives her a look, and she laughs, reaching up to pat his cheek. "I really do believe that you're very good at killing monsters. I've seen you take on much worse than the modulking."
"That almost makes it worse."
The crowd starts to disperse for lunch, but Riju reclines back in her seat to wait until the crowd on the stairways thin. "I think the next Yiga challenge will be a foot race," she says.
Link says, "I'd expect hand-to-hand combat, but there's only three of us. They couldn't make a good bracket."
Riju shakes her head. "The Yiga wouldn't do a bracket. That's too structured. It'd just be a free-for-all."
"I don't know," Zelda says. "The Rito didn't have a free-for-all brawl, so it probably won't occur to them. I predict the next challenge will be to shoot at Dinraal again."
Link smirks. "You're never going to forgive them."
"Why on earth would I forgive them? They support Calamity Ganon and have tried to kill both of us multiple times."
"But you're not mad about that. You're mad they're doing a tournament and stealing your ideas."
She huffs. "To be fair, I'm also mad that you entered it."
"Why?" Riju asks. "That was a great idea. Now he'll know all the details of their plans to attack Vah Naboris. He can tell us when and from what direction and how many of them there will be. We can have six squads waiting for them."
"I can make sure you're safe and far away from the battle," he adds.
"And, if we know their timeline, we can make sure a Gerudo pilot is installed before they try to pair her with one of their yahoos."
"I'm a bit worried about that," Link says. "They're doing a second challenge today. You're just finishing up the first and then taking a day off."
"And thus, your very important job of delaying them," Riju says serenely.
Their plan actually does makes sense, and it's good that Link has a plan rather than just being his usual rambunctious, nosy self, and it's sweet that he's doing all this to protect her and Vah Naboris. But she can't get past how this plan seems to have developed after he decided he was going to be the Yiga Champion.
"I am going to have lunch," Riju announces. "Care to join me?"
"Maybe in a bit," Link says. "I might...practice running in sand."
"Ha! Well, don't wear yourself out." She stands and straightens her skirt before she and Buliara head down the stairs.
They wait until she's out of ear shoot before Link leans closer. "They're not going to have a Gerudo Champion installed in time."
"That does seem unlikely."
"So that's the other part. With the Yiga tournament. Worst case scenario, if the Yiga succeed and get their Champion paired with Vah Naboris, if I'm the Yiga Champion, it won't be a catastrophe."
She blinks at him.
It's a wild notion. She doesn't care for it at all. For a moment, she just shakes her head, at a loss for words. Finally, she manages, "Riju may like you, but we're going to have serious issues with the Gerudo if you become Vah Naboris' pilot."
"Worst case scenario. It'd be temporary. Just until I have Naboris blow up the Yiga base and the Gerudo get a Champion picked out.
...It's theoretically possible that piloting duties can be transferred from one person to another. In theory, she knows how to do it, but she can't guarantee the transition will be flawless. It will probably be a painful. They'd risk offending Vah Naboris when they rip her pilot away, and they risk forming only a tenuous, begrudging bond with the second pilot.
"Worse case scenario," she says.
He nods.
"You'll do everything you can to not let that happen."
He nods.
She takes a very deep breath. Sitting in the cool shade under Riju's canopy, it's hard to explain why her head hurts like she has sun stroke.
#
They relocate slightly for the final round of molduga fighting. Lashley is up this time. She's a trained and capable soldier, but fighting huge sand monsters is not her forte. Riju predicts she'll do the same as Tali.
Lashley has her hair restrained under an elaborately tied contestant scarf. It's braided and twisted so it looks almost like flowers encircle her head. It does not scream fearsome warrior, and Zelda makes a note to catch her later and find out how she did it.
Her preformance is much like Tali's from the day before, her calling dance a bit stilted, and yet effective. She holds and stays until the beast is right under her. She shifts her feet and rides the monster into the air.
But her footwork is slightly off or her hold slightly wrong. Link shifts forward in his seat a second before the mulduga hits the apex of his leap and Lashley is thrown into the air.
And the monster's mouth snaps closed around her.
Zelda shrieks. Riju and Link are on their feet, Riju shouting orders, signalling the backup troops on the sidelines to rush in and take the beast down. The monster is back under the sand, burrowing one direction then another, unable to pick between the three squads that rush onto the sand.
Suddenly, it shudders, all the sand covering it shivering off as it reveals itself. Electricity skitters over its skin. It moans and shakes its head, then a moment later, there's another burst of lightning.
The troops slow their approach.
The molduga moans and writhes, shaking its head, kicking at its face with flippers that don't reach. It snaps its jaws, and in the flash of sunlight they can see a figure inside, stabbing at the roof of its mouth as its enormous tongue bucks and rolls to dislodge her.
It snaps its mouth closed and tries to bury itself again. But it doesn't get far before throwing its head from the sand and screaming. It's eyes are wide, its fins thrown out, trembling with electric shocks.
It collapses to the ground and lies there. Its jaws slowly open it fits and starts, heaved upward as Lashley lifts them, shifting from one knee to her feet, then throwing her arms up over her head, gasping as soon as she has fresh air, revealing herself to thunderous cheers. She's damp and askew and looks shocked she survived.
The molduga explodes around her in a poof of smoke and she bites off a shriek as she falls to the sand.
Link flops back into his seat, looking a bit pale. She reaches for his hand, her other covering her mouth. She's not sure she's breathing. When she turns to him with wide eyes, he's silent for a long moment as chaos roars around them.
"Now that, I think I could do," he says.
It's absolutely shocking she doesn't kill him.
#
No one guessed the Yiga's second challenge correctly. While the first of the challenges made sense both as standard tournament fare and as a stolen version of the Rito's challenges, their second challenge makes no sense whatsoever.
They have a metal plate about twenty feet long. Beside it is an electric pylon, glowing green with power.
Zelda is very concerned as to where the Yiga found the pylon. How did they get their hands on it? Did they find how to enter a shrine? Did they find one outside a shrine? Where?
She's concerned about that until she realizes what's about to happen with the electricity and the metal plate.
When Link first introduced her to the Goron Blood Brothers, he mentioned that they trained by standing on very hot plates until they passed out. To show their strength and resolve. Link had, of course, cheated. Given how he's slipping on his topaz earrings, hiding them under his scarf, and digging for an elixir, he's about to cheat on this challenge too.
"You can't!" she hisses. "That will kill you."
He shakes the elixir at her, pulls down his face mask, and downs the elixir in a rhythmic series of gulps.
She shakes her head and turns away from him. "I can't watch this."
"You can head back to Gerudo Town. I'll meet you there tonight."
"And leave you alone without backup? I don't think so."
He reaches out and tucks a stray strand of hair behind her ear, even though it doesn't go there. "You like me," he teases.
She corrects the hair placement, untucking it from her ear and smoothing it under her kerchief.
When she looks back at him, he's considering her. "If you don't want me to go, I don't have to."
"And you'd be fine with that?"
"If it makes you happy."
"But it would make you anxious."
"I mean, we could just go get me hooked up to Vah Naboris right now and be done with it." He lifts his eyebrows at her: he won't follow through on this ridiculous tournament idea if she goes along with an even more ridiculous idea of pulling Vah Naboris out from under the Gerudo's feet. There is surely a third option, a better plan that Link hasn't thought of. But, of course, in the moment she can't think of it either.
She rolls her eyes. "Fine. Go get yourself electrocuted."
He kisses her hard through his face mask. She can feel his grin through the fabric.
"Glowing-string-travel away if you need to. I'll find you," he says, and with that he's off, slipping along the cliff edge and dropping to the ground behind the main group. He walks up without anyone noticing.
A while later (and she is not watching the time to see how much longer he has on his twelve-hour elixir, because that would be absurd) the three competitors step up onto the slab. Their feet clunk against the metal.
The master of ceremonies explains that this will be a test of endurance. There will be bursts of electricity, and between each one the competitors can forfeit or pass out. Passing out counts as a forfeit. Each burst of electricity will increase in intensity and duration. The contestants all nod that they understand because clearly none of them value their own lives.
One of the footsoldiers reaches out with a wooden stick with a hook on the end. From the ground, he lifts a metal chain that sparks with electricity. The competitors brace themselves.
Zelda can't watch. She ducks her head into her arms and bites back something between a sigh and a wail. She only lifts her head when there's light applause from the Yiga.
The Blademaster to Link's left is shifting from foot to foot, frantically rubbing away a pain in his thigh. The Blademaster to Link's right is shaking so badly that Zelda can see it from her place on the cliff. He clenches and unclenches his hands. And Link...Link is completely unaffected by any of this.
Her relief that his precautions worked and that this isn't actually going to kill him are immediately wiped away as it dawns on her that he's in danger for completely different reasons. The Yiga are not the most observant, but surely they'll catch on that Link is cheating. At least they will if he doesn't do a better job faking it.
The second round begins, and while the two Blademasters are wracked with rictus, Link just stands there, casually. He's still breathing and easy and it wouldn't surprise her if he reached up and rubbed the back of his neck.
She shakes her head and reaches for the slate. She's here to watch his back, after all.
She gives him one more second to get his act together, then hits him with the stasis rune. His muscles freeze mid breath, his hands stilled at an awkward angle. She bites her lip and checks him against the posture of the two Blademasters.
This whole thing is disturbing.
The stasis breaks, and Link stumbles forward, gasping and clutching his chest. Thankfully it breaks just a second after the current is removed, so his reaction is perfectly timed.
She's not sure she'll luck into such good timing next time.
Link stretches out his shoulder, pulling his arm across his chest. Then stretches his side by twisting at the waist. He shoots a look in her direction, but she has no idea what he means to convey and he can't see her in her hiding spot. She decides to believe he's thanking her for her quick thinking.
The next round starts and she freezes him again. This time, the stasis breaks well before the current is turned off. But this time, he's expecting it and continues to hold still.
When he's allowed to move again, he puts a fist at the small of his back and squeezes it. Hold. It's a signal from the Sheikah and the Royal Guard. She wonders if he knows where he learned it.
The Blade Masters are not doing well. They shake and huff and massage at their arms and chests. Link does a bit of mimicking this after the next round. He's still not great at it, but the Yiga don't notice.
The shocks seem to get worse in a loose exponential. She tries to time them and find a pattern, but there isn't one except they get longer and longer as the Yiga crowd grows more bored. After the fifth round, the Blademaster on Link's left falls to one knee, bracing himself with a hand against the ground. The audience holds their breath, leans forward in excitement. But after a few deep breaths and several shakes of his head, he stands once more. After the sixth round, he collapses completely, and two of the footsoldiers run up to check that he's still breathing. They carry him off and write the number six next to his name.
The Blademaster on Link's right is swaying. After the seventh round, he falls over sideways, hits the ground hard, and tries to scramble up, but his arms and legs are twitching too hard. He tries to stand again. Then again once more. Then he flops onto his back and forfeits. The footsoldiers help carry him away and award him seven points.
Link is left standing alone and untroubled. Zelda sends up a prayer that he won't stand there all night.
After the next round, he falls to one knee, makes a show of pressing a hand to his heart, then he rises again. He does the exact same thing after the next round, where the shock is left on so long that Zelda suspects they are trying to kill him.
After the tenth round, he plops to a seat, wipes his forehead (it's warm enough that he's sweating), and says, "I forfeit."
All the Yiga cheer.
#
It takes him a while to untangle himself from all the Yiga who are rooting for him now. They all want to hand him ceramic mugs of what looks like home-brewed beer that they pour through the small slits in their masks rather than tipping the masks up out of the way like a normal person would. They end up with beer all over their fronts, and their masks will probably smell terrible tomorrow and every day after for a month. They all want to talk to him about what it's like to be electrocuted and where he's from and how he came to join the Yiga. They all want to hear his thoughts about Kohga's teachings, and hear how sad he is about Calamity Ganon's fall, and hear him rage against the Heinous Monarch.
That's what they call Zelda.
Link answers most of these by explaining how obnoxious he finds the Undead Knight. That's what they call Link. He has far too much fun disparaging himself, and his anecdotes of his own irritable qualities are detailed enough that the Yiga assume he has been personally wronged. They love it. His ranting gets him out of declaring his loyalty to the Yiga or saying anything rude about Zelda.
She decides to give him permission to vilify her if he needs to. She won't hold it against him if it's in the name of staying safe.
She rolls onto her back and waits under the stars. After almost two hours, she picks up the thick scent of banana, which she finds odd for a split second before she jerks upright. Link is slipping up to her out of the darkness, his eyebrows drawn in a frown.
"You need to watch yourself," he hisses. "If I were a Yiga I would have stabbed you."
"Why do you smell like banana?"
"Because the beer is banana flavored."
She crinkles her nose in disgust. "I beg your pardon."
He shrugs.
Goddess, she hates the Yiga.
She informs him, "They're not using the proper glassware."
Link blinks at her. He pulls down his mask to heave a deep sigh. "Okay, Zel. Let's get you back to the palace."
He tries to slip an arm around her waist, but she pulls back when her hand encounters his damp shirtfront. "You are soaked in banana beer!"
He looks down at himself and shrugs. "At least it was really easy to not get drunk," he says. "If you just spill the whole thing over your front, none gets in your mouth."
"I'd think you'd be drunk off the fumes."
She really doesn't want to hug him right now, but she has to in order to warp. She compromises by slipping behind him and embracing him from the back. She can wrap one arm up over his mostly dry shoulder and hold the slate in his hand. She can press her face against the back of his neck and hold onto him. He snorts and reaches up to cover her hand with his own.
When they land outside Gerudo Town, he has to peel his clothes off. The Sheikah outfit was already snug, but now it's clinging. He tugs. He almost gets his shirt off over his head, but then he gets stuck with it covering his face. It probably smells revolting, and he staggers and gags as he wrestles with the fabric. Unexpectedly, his sticky chest is one of the least attractive things she's ever seen.
She hates the Yiga.
She pours some water from a bottle onto a clean shirt from her pack, and holds it out to him, her hand extended as far as she can reach.
"Thanks," he says, grinning at her. He wipes himself down to get the yuck off.
And, okay, that's not the least attractive thing.
