The Legend of Zelda, its characters and locations are all property of Nintendo. Any and all OCs and original locations belong to me unless specifically stated to belong to someone else.
The Voice
Chapter 71 - Deceptively Flat
It was one of the few occasions on which Sheik gave thanks to his lucky stars for not having a normal, biological brain. They were marvellous things, for certain, but processing time was not their strongest suit. At least, not compared to Sheik's synthetic mind, which could, when properly motivated, perform millions of calculations and operations in a single second.
If he chose to use most of that processing power to think up new and creative insults and nicknames, it was no one's godsdamned business. What else was he going to use the extra cycles for? There was only so much time he could spend imagining the horrible deaths he'd put his creators through, and the lovely things he could get up to with Link and Sidon.
Well, at least he never grew bored with the last bit, but he had a feeling if he spent all his time doing it, he'd easily be the biggest pervert in Hyrule.
...then again, whose business was that? No one's, that's who.
What would be someone's business, however, was what would happen if he didn't sort out the problem of having activated the Sheikah Network's single-body teleporting function with two bodies entering the stream. In this, time was of the essence, and he'd already wasted a lot of it yelling incomprehensible insults at Paya as they were quickly broken down into billions and trillions of their component atoms before being hurled miles away.
That was the easy part. The Network didn't care if there were one or more entities entering the stream. It'd happily dismantle any entity that found itself in the entry zone, no matter how many there were, mercilessly ripping them to pieces and throwing them into the figurative wind. No sweat. All the pieces would even arrive at the target destination, not a single packet lost.
The problem was, the Network didn't particularly care in which order the particles arrived. And that's where Sheik's work began. A hasty login, and a mad scramble to open up the teleporting process monitor, and he was dismayed to find that his and Paya's particles were already intermingling, dancing around each other in what could easily be called a beautiful display of physics...though the end result would be anything but pretty.
The best-case result would be that they both arrived unharmed, but in different bodies. It'd be interesting, inhabiting Paya's body, but he was already getting used to Stabby's and he wasn't particularly willing to start the acclimatisation process again...even if he was a little curious about how certain, er, assets would affect his sense of balance.
An experiment for a later date, that. Perhaps when his current body wore out, he could convince the Shrine to make him another one with different...bits.
Argh, he was getting distracted!
Opening up the controls, he took a few nanoseconds to read the documentation and learn how the damned thing worked before getting started. It was a painstakingly frustrating process, manually picking out which particles belonged to him and which belonged to Paya, and arranging them in a somewhat suitable arrival configuration.
The biomarkers for his and Paya's bodies were (blessedly) different enough to be recognisable, easily plucked and rearranged in the stream, diverted into dancing with their appropriate partners.
Their equipment...not so much. Sheik could probably guess his way into a proper configuration, but seeing as steel and fabric molecules were, more or less, identical, he had to guess based on their age and oxidation levels. The world's worst puzzle, and Sheik had never had the patience for those.
Oh well, he figured. If a few clothing fibres or bits of steel ended up in the wrong clothes or weapon, it was hardly a problem.
Or so he hoped.
He'd happily buy Paya new weapons and clothes later...provided she survived the haranguing he intended to put her through for doing something so stupid and putting them into this situation in the first place. He was already writing the manuscript he intended to use for it.
The cycles ticked past as he worked meticulously, desperately trying to make sure he and Paya would arrive as themselves and not some horrible amalgamation of the two. It was the equivalent of going to a beach and sorting the grains of sand with a pair of tweezers, though doing it wrong could result in a biological monstrosity the likes of which not even the cruellest gods could envision.
The universe was quite good at coming up with those on its own, as it turned out.
He was definitely going to make Paya walk home after this, he decided and focused all of his processing power on this singular task.
Now, whose idea was it that hair and fingernails should be made of the same fucking stuff, anyway?!
Paya liked to think of herself as a reasonable, well-adjusted Sheikah. Impa had raised her to not rush into things in a foolhardy manner, to actually take a step back and consider her options before committing to any possible action. A Sheikah's life always rested on the edge of a knife, and a single misstep could easily lead to getting cut. Paya had tried to take these lessons to heart, and so far she had succeeded.
Until now, that is.
One minute she'd been watching the signal fire that heralded an attack on her village, her home, her family...and the next she was hurling herself into the pillar of light that had suddenly surrounded Sheik.
Who now had a body.
There was a lot to take in that afternoon.
She'd have to unpack that little nugget of information later, when her pulse wasn't racing, when panic wasn't filling her chest, her mind screaming at her to get to them, to help them.
Being teleported, unlike what she'd believed, was barely an event at all. She couldn't even feel herself being torn to a billion little particles, like Robbie had described it, and hurled a vast distance in a matter of seconds.
And that's just what it took. A few seconds. One second, she was standing on one of the decks of the Domain, a few later she was standing outside the shrine that overlooked the Sheikah village...which was burning.
The air was thick with smoke and the smell of burning wood filled her nose, burning its way down her throat with every breath. Her ears were filled with the crackling sounds of burning wood and grass, metal striking against metal, screams of pain and rage. Below them, among the burning houses, she saw shadows, dancing around each other, darting in between moves to strike at the nearest target. Some fell and went still, others danced out of the way, out of reach.
There was a loud, shrill noise coming from her side, but she was too transfixed by the sight of her home being consumed by flames to pay it much attention, muffled as it was. Only when a hand gripped her shoulder harshly and forced her to turn to face them did she realise who it was.
Sheik had pulled down his mask, but the novelty of seeing his face again was ruined by the absolutely furious expression on his face. His mouth was moving, opening and closing rapidly, teeth (so white) bared in a snarl. Slowly, her focus returned, and his words became clear.
"...any idea how fucking stupid that was?! What the fuck were you thinking?!" he screamed at her, face twisted into a horrendous grimace. His voice had an odd quality to it, like there was two of them layered on top of each other, at slightly different pitches. His single visible eye was blown wide open, the pupil shrunk to a tiny black dot, barely visible in the red. "I had to manually pick our atoms apart, otherwise we'd have been combined into some horrible fucking fleshbeast! It took me ages!"
"B-But...it only t-took a f-few seconds?" she replied weakly, a particularly loud scream fighting for her attention.
"Maybe for you," Sheik growled, but his attention was drawn by the scream as well, and now he too saw the destruction below. "Right. Attack," he said, looking back at her. "Got your weapons?"
She nodded, patting the dagger on her hip. Her sword was still sheathed on her back, a comforting weight. "Y-Yes," she replied.
"Good," he replied, drawing the Sheikah blade he had sheathed on his hip. It was the one the village had bestowed upon Link the first time he'd come to them. "I'm going to put this lecture on the dangers of fucking around with quantum physics on hold for now, but you'd better believe I'll be yelling at you a lot later, got it?"
"G-Got it," she said, nodding, anxious to get started. The smile that came to Sheik's lips was almost frightening at that.
"All right then, Paya-nee," he said, stepping off the shrine platform. "Let's show them what it means to screw with us!" As he did so, there was a bright, blue flash, and he was suddenly holding an orb of some sort in his left hand. It looked vaguely like a...a...
"Is th-that a b-bomb?!" she exclaimed, racing to catch up with him. He still had that unsettling smile on his face.
"Oh-ho, you'd better believe it is," he replied with nothing but glee in his voice. "Let's go!"
His emotional response to seeing a village he'd visited only twice before and barely had a familial connection to in the first place under attack was surprisingly strong, Sheik would later reflect on.
His nerves were already on edge from the extreme puzzle session his dear cousin had just put him through, but seeing the burning houses and still bodies on the ground, their vitals flat, had immediately filled him with a type of anger he had hitherto only felt on a few occasions.
He was no stranger to the bright, explosive rage that had him screaming at the top of his lungs at the nearest fool at this point. If anything, it was his default setting—the baseline at which he felt most comfortable. After all, it meant he had some idiot to develop and correct, and Sheik was nothing if not an eager teacher.
What he felt now, however, was something he only felt whenever Link was in danger. It was what he'd felt when someone looked down on Link, when the Hero was in danger, what had driven him to scream at the Hylian army leaders in King Dorephan's throne room, what had filled his very being when Stabby had run Link through inside Vah Naboris.
It was a white-hot fury, silent in its appearance, blanketing all around him in quiet, tranquil red. All he saw, felt, heard, was his clan—his family—being attacked...and an overwhelming urge to annihilate whoever was responsible.
He charged down the hill towards the village, Paya keeping step beside him, zeroing in on the largest cluster of fighters near the edge of the main street, close to the entrance to the graveyard. The shapes were familiar—Yiga, Sheikah, bokoblin, lizalfos—all mixed in a messy clump, no defined lines, no easy targets.
Too risky for explosives.
Fuck.
Growling, he instead drew his left arm back and hurled the bomb as hard as he could into the back of the group, detonating it at a safe distance. It was loud and flashy, and that was almost as good. It drew the attentions of the fighters as one, and by the time they recovered, Sheik and Paya had entered the fray, blades flashing in the firelight as they weaved and cut their way through their enemies.
He really, really, really wished he'd had more time to get used to how this godsdamned body worked, the many little idiosyncrasies it had in its movements, mastering the sheer challenge of weight distribution... As it was, he felt a bit like an awkward drunkard stumbling his way through the fight.
It was difficult to focus on one opponent at the time, downright impossible since everyone seemed to be attacking everyone, with little rhyme nor reason to their actions. There was little cooperation between the bokoblins and lizalfos, no greater strategy deployed. Almost like the Yiga had just press-ganged them into service, pointed them in the direction of the village and told them to go wild.
There was more coordination between the couple of Yiga he could see, but they seemed to have few numbers in comparison to their allies. Made sense, with their leader dead, there probably was no single person in charge, no grand plan.
Revenge, Sheik thought, ducking under a clumsy swing of a bokoblin club and cutting the creature's throat open with a single swipe of his blade, surprised at the ease of which he did it. That's what it all comes down to, isn't it? Petty revenge for Kohga, that banana-gobbling piece of shit.
He lurched aside, barely avoiding getting a lizalfos' sword tip in his side, and countered with a badly-aimed kick that, if anything, only seemed to anger the thing further. It came at him with another stab, which he knocked aside with his own blade, smashing the pommel into its face. Its globular eyes were locked on him, and it suddenly reared its head back and tried to stab him with its horn. It would have worked, too, if Paya hadn't suddenly been there with an overhead strike that cut the bony skewer right off, following up by ramming her dagger into its neck, killing it instantly.
"Good one," Sheik commented, looking down at the dead, twitching body of the giant lizard. That had been too close.
"Come on," Paya said, her eyes already zeroed in on her next target: a big, fat moblin that was giving a pair of Sheikah trouble. They were old, all grey hair and beards. Had no business fighting a monster like that. "Time's wasting!"
"Right," he said, following her closely.
It was interesting, in his opinion, how Paya's stutter disappeared in the heat of battle. Just like Link's, really. Maybe there was a common issue at the bottom of it all. He made a note of it for later, just to be sure.
Dividing their forces had been a mistake. Paya knew that, had known it when Impa had first ordered it, but she was not one to speak against her grandmother. Who was Paya to argue against a century's worth of accumulated leadership experience?
The only one who didn't believe in the supposed stealth of the Sheikah, in hindsight. Impa was confident their village was hidden well enough that the Yiga would never find it. They'd had encounters with their archenemies in the field, certainly, but the enemy had never found their home.
If anything, that meant it was only a matter of time before they did, Paya had wanted to say, and therefore all the more reason to relocate the whole village instead of just the fighters, but something in her had refused to let her speak up against Impa.
And now they were all paying for that mistake dearly. The village had been discovered, and the only fighters that remained to protect it were the older generation; those who for various reasons could not make the journey to the Domain, either because of age (like Impa) or other obligations such as looking after the village children. To be sure, the remaining fighters were far from helpless, but they were horribly outnumbered, barely able to hold back the tide of enemies that the Yiga had summoned to aid them.
Already Paya had spotted several familiar faces lying on the ground, expressions frozen in grimaces of pain, eyes wide open and unblinking, dull and unseeing.
Eigi, who'd been like an uncle to her and taught her archery, his head resting several feet away from his body.
Kel, whose lyrics could put a blush on even the most grizzled veteran's cheeks, with a voice as smooth as sandpaper. Pinned to a wall by a moblin's spear.
Ulran, who'd scowled and complained whenever the kids knocked on her door, but still handed out delicious, baked apple treats in exchange for stories of their adventures. Her throat cut, stuck beneath a huge, dead Yiga who'd run afoul of her poisoned daggers.
Dead. Dead. Dead.
Never to be seen or heard again.
She bared her teeth beneath her mask and charged forward, slamming her shoulder into a bokoblin trying to smash the head of a Sheikah whose face she couldn't see, knocking it aside and finishing it off with a swift slice across its neck.
She thought she heard the Sheikah call her name, but she was already moving on to the next enemy, a huge moblin that was knocking people aside easily with each swing of its massive battle axe. Not particularly clever, though, and definitely not quick enough to notice her approach. Her dagger cut through flesh easily, severing the tendons of its ankles, leaving it to topple with a pained scream.
She moved to finish it off, but another blade sank into its chest before she could, finishing the thing off with a twist. She looked up, and found Sheik's single visible eye staring back at her, seemingly looking for...something? Approval?
Gods knew, but Paya appreciated the support either way, nodding. He withdrew his blade in a motion that was just a little unsteady—enough to draw her attention to the rest of him. He was shaking, she realised. Either from the exertion of fighting, or from something else. Fear, perhaps. She had no idea her little (big now, she supposed) cousin had even the capability of feeling it, except for when Impa had him in for one of her infamous little chats.
"Come on," she said, motioning towards the biggest house in the village, nestled against the rocky walls near the waterfall. "We need to check on Impa!"
"What about the others?" Sheik asked, looking around them. The fighting was still fierce, but the Sheikah line was holding steady for now.
"They'll hold until we're back," she replied. "We need to know if everyone else is safe!"
Standard protocol during an attack was to evacuate the children and others who are unable to fight to the clan leader's house. There was a hidden cellar, there, which would keep them all safe. Paya had no doubts they would be safe in there. Impa, on the other hand...
"Shit," Sheik curse under his breath. "Fine!"
"Follow me," she ordered, surprised to see him do just that, without a single complaint. Either this wasn't Sheik at all, or something had happened in the desert that had changed him drastically...and given him a body in the process. She was going to have a nice and long interrogat—er, conversation with both him and Link later, she decided.
They ran through the burning streets, dodging clumps of fighting, only interfering when necessary, heading for Impa's house. There were more bodies along the way.
Rika, once the strongest fighter in the village, now older than even Impa, and sadly reduced by gout. She'd never even seen the arrow coming, her basket of laundry that she always refused to let anyone else do for her trampled in the dirt.
Cire, hunter by trade and one of the finest bowyers in Hyrule in her latter days, who'd taught Rola everything she knew. She'd given as good as she got, surrounded by dead lizalfos who'd failed to take her speed into account, putting arrows in anything that came too close. No less than three spears had been needed to take her down.
Paya felt tears gathering in her eyes, blurring her vision, and she blinked them away angrily. They would pay for this. They would all pay. The Yiga, Ganon, everyone.
Next to her, Sheik cursed and stumbled, nearly falling on his face in the road. She took him by the arm and pulled him up, surprised by both his weight and the odd shape of the arm she'd grabbed. It felt a normal arm for the most part, but it was oddly...solid? Not like muscle-solid, either.
"Are you okay?" she asked.
"I'm fine!" Sheik barked, jerking his arm out of her hold. "Stupid fucking uneven road tripped me up!" He kept looking away, brushing dirt off his uniform, whose stitching looked quite a bit like that of Gerudo tailors rather than Sheikah work. His eye refused to meet hers.
Paya decided not to point out that this particular stretch of road was about as even as it could possibly get, being the main thoroughfare of the village, pounded down by decades of trudging feet, hooves, and cartwheels.
"Er, yes," she said, anger at the Yiga momentarily forgotten. "It is...deceptively flat," she finished lamely.
Was he...embarrassed?
Yet another emotion she'd thought him thoroughly incapable of experiencing.
Her cousin was growing up, it seemed.
"Exactly," he intoned. "Deceptively flat."
The odd moment over, they continued on their way, turning the corner and pounding down the slight decline, past the tiered houses and small gardens, tiny pumpkin plots and cuccoo coops. Past the small pond on which the Goddess statue stood on its little island. An axe had been buried in its head, as if the attack itself wasn't enough of an insult.
The space in front of Impa's house was surprisingly quiet. There'd been fighting here—the bodies littering the ground, most of them belong to enemies—were evidence of that, but the battle itself had moved to the edge of the graveyard by now.
Paya hoped that they hadn't fallen, but her wishes were soon crushed when she spotted the familiar, bearded face of Dorian, his mutton chops red from blood, among the bodies. Cado lay near, never far from his brother in arms. The two had fought back to back, and laid waste to a great number of enemies trying to reach Impa. Cado's eightfold blade was buried in the back of a moblin who'd attempted to climb the stairs to Impa's home. Till death, as they'd sworn.
If there was ever any doubt that Dorian had firmly turned his back on the Yiga, it was certainly gone now. Never mind the fact that he'd purposefully fed them false information for years, pretending he was still loyal.
Paya had spent much time with the him and Cado, asking them to teach her their way of fighting, which they'd been all too happy to show her.
"Her bodyguards..." Sheik said quietly, staring down at the carnage around them.
"Our family," she said through clenched teeth, turning her attention to her grandmother's house...and spotting the broken door. "No!" she shouted desperately, climbing the stairs three steps at a time and stubbing her toe against a splintered board, not even noticing the dull throbbing pain.
"Paya!" she heard Sheik shouting behind her.
She rushed through the door, gripping her sword painfully tight in her right hand, fearing the worst. Images of her grandmother's dead bodies already flashing before her mind's eye, of all the horrible things the Yiga would have done to her before finally finishing her off. She would never forgive the Yiga for that, she would destroy them all, rip them out root and stem—
"Ah, hello Paya. I didn't expect to see you here so soon."
She came to a stumbling halt, looking at the bodies that littered the room. All enemies—a mix of bokoblins, lizalfos, and a few musclebound Yiga. All dead from precise cuts and stabs in vulnerable areas. The wooden floor was slick and sticky with their blood...and there, at the very end of the room, on the raised platform, on a mound of pillows covering the entrance to the hidden cellar, was Impa, looking just as peaceful as the day Paya had left for the Domain.
There wasn't a drop of blood on her skin or clothes, but Paya knew there was only one person who could have done this.
"G-Grandmother," she said, rushing forward to kneel at her side. "Are y-you a-all right?"
Impa gave her a scrutinising look—checking for injuries, Paya knew—before nodding.
"I am quite well, Paya," she said. "Is the fighting contained?"
Blunt as ever. Impa in a nutshell, really.
"I...y-yes, it h-has m-moved to the g-graveyard," she said, to which Impa nodded approvingly.
"That is good," she said. "The they can focus on fighting off the enemy instead of worrying about us." She paused, staring at something behind Paya. "And who is this? I do not recognise you, young man."
"I...er..." Sheik hovered awkwardly in the doorway. "It's...me."
"Who?"
Impa played ignorant, but Paya saw the slight twinkle in her eye, the one she got whenever she was getting altogether too much amusement out of her senile old lady act. She knew exactly who he was but was clearly not going to make it easy for him. Or Paya, for that matter.
"It's Sh-Sheik, grandmother," she said hurriedly. "L-Link's f-friend."
"Ah, I see," Impa said, waving him closer. "Grown up, have you?"
Paya had always known her grandmother to be a stoic person, but this was reaching new heights. She really had no other questions than that?!
"Something like that," Sheik said, approaching in a timid manner Paya would never have imagined her cousin adopting...until she remembered exactly how Impa had adopted Sheik in the first place. He even knelt in front of her! "Are you all right?"
"It's going to take more than a few overgrown pigs, lizards, and dumb muscle to finish me off, nephew, worry not," she said, adjusting her position on the pillows.
Few people realised that being able to sit comfortably on a mound of pillows like that was an incredibly difficult exercise in balance. Impa had never been one to let old age lull her into complacency, and had no intention of being anything but a hundred percent combat effective until the day she died.
That didn't mean she wasn't above messing with the heads of people who assumed otherwise, though.
"Paya, do you have a body count?" she asked, turning her attention to Paya, apparently not even interested in asking Sheik how his sudden...corporealness came into being. "How many have we lost?"
She didn't want to know, but Paya's treacherous mind tallied up the dead Sheikah she had seen, along with their names. Impa's face fell more and more with each name, and at hearing of her bodyguards' deaths her shoulders slumped and her eyes closed, a shuddering breath escaping her.
"I had assumed, since the enemy made their way inside my home," she said. "But to hear it confirmed...Dorian, Cado..."
"Th-They fought b-bravely, grandmother," Paya said.
"Till the bitter end," Sheik agreed, looking entirely unsure how to handle the situation, still kneeling awkwardly before Impa. His skin was shiny with sweat, limbs still trembling. Exhaustion, then. His voice was too steady for fear. Paya had a feeling her cousin would need a lot more exercise in order to keep up with the rest of the clan.
"They will be honoured," Impa said, nodding to herself. "They all will be." She looked between them. "I don't know how you managed to get here so quickly, but it is clearly a blessing. I need you to—"
Paya heard the knives before she saw them, and threw herself forward, pushing Sheik and Impa out of the way of the pair of daggers that had suddenly come flying from somewhere beneath the rafters. One struck the wooden platform with a loud thunk, while the other sliced through one of Impa's pillows, which spouted feathers every which way.
"Ah, so close," a female voice said in a disappointed tone as a red-clad Yiga detached herself from the ceiling, landing gracefully in crouch near the door, blocking the exit. "Guess I underestimated you." Her face was hidden behind one of those infernal masks, but her amusement was plain in her tone. "Be a good girl and die this time!"
She lashed out, and another pair of daggers were flying through the air. Paya threw out her sword arm, knocking one of them out of the air and ducking beneath the other just in time to hear it cut through air next to her ear. The blades glinted with something oily. Poison.
"Sheik, protect grandmother!" Paya barked, charging forward and striking at the woman with her sword before she could ready more daggers. The Yiga clicked her tongue with annoyance and drew her sickle-like sword, meeting Paya halfway.
They were wicked weapons, designed to still be dangerous even if blocked by the opponent's sword, curving around it to potentially cut them when they assumed they'd successfully stopped the attack.
Paya felt the tip of it graze her cheek, cutting through her mask and the skin beneath. She disengaged, wary of that monstrous weapon, stepping out of its reach, reaching up to wipe away the blood that was already running down her chin. The Yiga followed, however, dancing over the bodies of her fallen comrades like they were nothing, laughing eagerly.
"Running away already, little girl?" she asked with a cackle. "I expected a fight from the clan heir, not a game of tag!"
Moving around was difficult because of the bodies littering the floor. If she took her eyes off the Yiga for even a second, Paya knew she was dead. If she stumbled on one of the bodies, she would also be dead. If she tried to run...indeed, dead.
Lots of ways to die in this room, and for once pissing off her grandmother wasn't one of them.
"Paya, let me—"Sheik began from somewhere behind her.
"Stay out of it!" she snarled. "She's mine!"
"Remember your training, Paya," Impa called out, sounding calm. "Rule number one."
Never stand still
She dodged a strike from the sickle-blade and stepped out of its range again, forcing the Yiga to follow. Never stay in one place for too long—it presents too easy a target for the enemy. Keep moving at all times—the enemy will tire themselves out chasing you.
"Rule number two," Impa called out, as if this was a simple sparring session.
Never be predictable
The Yiga attacked again, but instead of stepping back, this time Paya dodged towards her. If she'd kept up the game of chase, the Yiga would have gained the upper hand sooner or later, forcing her into a corner. This way, Paya forced her on the defensive...and her sword was too big for close quarters, forcing her to reach for one of the daggers.
"Rule number three."
Strike fast and decisively
Paya already had a knife in her other hand, and she went for a cut aimed at the woman's jugular, moving too fast for any conventional enemy to block.
Too bad her opponent was a Yiga, and very much trained in the same fashion. She twisted out of the way of Paya's strike—not enough to prevent getting cut at all, but moving her jugular out of the way, leaving Paya's knife to skim across her shoulder and clank harmlessly against her mask, though hard enough to cause cracks to form along its surface.
Protocol stated that a Sheikah should strike fast and decisively, and then pull back and wait for another opportunity to attack. Paya preferred falling back on rule number two in this case, forcing her weight forward instead, knocking the Yiga back and, after deliberately dropping her sword, following up with a right hook that shattered the already weakened mask. She felt the pieces cut into the skin of her hand, but it was worth it to see the Yiga woman stumble backwards, shrieking with pain as she pulled jagged pieces of her mask out of her bleeding face...and eyes.
"You bitch!" the Yiga shrieked, blinded in one eye by a particularly large piece of mask, bringing her sickle sword around for a wide strike, aiming to disembowel Paya. It was fast, too fast. No time to step back, Paya let herself drop.
The air was knocked out of her as she landed on the knobbly back of a bokoblin, but she'd take that over losing her guts any day. Her sword was gone, but the pig-like creature had a rusty short sword in its hand, which she grabbed and brought up to knock aside the following overhead strike from the Yiga.
She dodged to the side, lashing out with the rusty blade again and managing to cut the Yiga's shin, causing her to shriek again and aim a vicious kick that struck Paya right in the nose, which felt like it exploded, causing her to see stars. Blood filled her mouth, every nerve in her face screaming at her to disengage, but she knew doing that would mean death.
She fought through the pain, vision swimming to the point of barely being able to see her target...but that was fine, because the Yiga was just as visually impaired as Paya at this point. In the corner of her eyes, she saw that Impa had put her hand on Sheik's shoulder, forcing him to remain at her side, crouched uncomfortably.
"Finish it, Paya," Impa said calmly.
"You're dead!" the Yiga shouted in-between whimpers of pain. "You and your miserable village will be wiped from the map! Kohga's death will not be in vain!"
"Oh, shut up!" Paya growled, running at her with a low profile, satisfied to hear the wheeze of her opponent when Paya's shoulder connected with her stomach, her momentum taking her off-balance and unable to counter what came next. Paya's dagger found flesh, easily slipping between ribs and cutting through the vulnerable organs behind them. The Yiga wheezed again, and Paya wrenched her blade out of her chest, sweeping across her throat and silencing that voice forever.
She looked surprised, gripping her bleeding throat before her single remaining eye rolled up in her head and she fell dead, body still twitching with muscle reflexes.
"...damn," she heard Sheik mutter behind her.
"Well done, granddaughter."
Paya had barely any time to reflect on her victory or the praise from Impa when the sound of voices and frantic footsteps approached them rapidly. She found her sword and pulled back from the doorway, ready to fight off whoever thought they'd be easy targets, pausing when the harrowed, bleeding face of Claree, panting in the doorway.
"Impa!" she exclaimed, panting. "Enemy...reinforcements!"
"Fuck! How many?!" Sheik demanded.
"Too many," Claree said. "We can't hold...them back!"
Paya crouched down on the floor, making futile attempts at stemming the flow of blood coming from her nose. It didn't seem broken, but it'd definitely be sore for a while. Not that it'd matter, if Claree's words were true.
"Pull everyone back," Impa ordered, all traces of her age gone. Her posture was straight, her hands clenched firmly around a pair of daggers Paya knew she kept hidden up her sleeves. "We make our final stand here."
"Understood," Claree said with a bow, running back outside to pull the other fighters back to the house.
"You've done well," Impa told Paya and Sheik. "Both of you. However, it is time for you to leave now. Sheik, I understand you have a way of transporting yourself and another instantly."
"Yeah, but I don't—"Sheik began, but Impa cut him off with a firm glare.
"Do as I say, nephew," she said. "You will take Paya back to the Domain."
No. Enough was enough.
"I'm not l-leaving, grandmother," Paya said, standing up and glaring back at Impa. "We stand together."
"Need I remind you who is the clan leader, Paya?" Impa asked, giving her a none-too-amused look. "Last I checked, it was still me. Are you really going to disobey my orders?"
"I d-deferred to your decision on not r-relocating all the villagers," Paya said, her entire body shaking with...something. Anger, and something else. Conviction, possibly. "And l-look what happened."
It gave her no pleasure to see the slight tightening of the wrinkled skin around her grandmother's eyes at that, but it needed to be said.
"I am not l-leaving you or anyone else here to d-die," she continued. "And n-neither is Sh-Sheik!"
"Right," the angriest Sheikah said, nodding in agreement.
Who was this person and what had they done with the real Sheik?
Impa looked like she wanted to argue, but eventually she removed her large hat and hung her head, rubbing at her eyes with her knuckles, sighing deeply.
"Spare me stubbornness of foolish children," she muttered before looking back up, eyes blazing with determination. "Very well, granddaughter, nephew! We shall fight together—but if things start to look bad, you will return to the Domain immediately. They will need to know what happened."
"Won't be necessary," Sheik grumbled.
"You have your orders," Impa warned, "disobey them at your own peril."
She led them out of her chamber and out into the burning village. The remaining Sheikah had pulled out of the fight, and were now regrouping in the open space, forming an orderly line, ready to meet the enemy once more. Claree was calling out orders, adjusting the formation.
The enemy was taking their sweet time, a hundred of them marching (or attempting to march, at least) forward, the disorderly lines of lizalfos and bokoblins directed by what seemed to be the remaining Yiga. Seven in all, led by what was positively the biggest man Paya had ever seen, easily dwarfing his companions.
They stopped at the edge of the open space, the big man marching forward alone to stop about twenty paces away from the Sheikah line.
"I invoke the right of parley! I would speak with Mistress Impa!" the Yiga's voice boomed.
"Oh, I'll give you parley, you murderous piece of shit," Sheik said, fiddling with his cloth eyepatch, his shoulders brushing up against Paya's in the tight formation. Did something glint beneath the eyepatch? "I'll shove it so far up your ass you'll be tasting—"
"Shh," she hissed, following Impa closely as she walked through the formation, which parted for her. Sheik was right on her heels.
"I am here," Impa announced, stopping just in front of her formation. Far from foolish enough to get any closer to the enemy. "What would you like to discuss, young man? Your unconditional surrender?"
Paya would have given anything to see the man's undoubtedly incredulous expression, which was unfortunately hidden behind his mask. He probably had a whole speech prepared, demanding the same of the Sheikah, but Impa had already gotten the upper hand of the conversation by demanding it first.
"That...are you insane? You're the ones who have to surrender!" he exclaimed, looking down at the diminutive form of Impa. "You are outnumbered, you are all injured, and your village is in ruins!"
"One Sheikah is easily worth a dozen," Impa said easily, looking amused. "Our injuries are all but scratches, and the village can be rebuilt. None of these are compelling reasons to surrender, especially since I know we will all be executed without mercy if we do."
"Old woman—"
"Young man," Impa cut him off. "Whatever delusions you had of bringing me to Ganon in chains will not come to pass. Your little assassin fell to my granddaughter—what makes you believe you will even get close to me?"
On cue, the Sheikah raised their weapons threateningly. Behind the Yiga, the lizalfos and bokoblins looked eager to throw themselves into the melee.
"You are willing to sacrifice your own people just to make a point?" the Yiga asked. "It is a senseless slaughter!"
"We are Sheikah," Impa said. "Sacrifice is what we do." She hummed. "But, since you seem like a such nice boy and so overly concerned with our wellbeing, I am prepared to offer you a compromise. A trial by combat. We each name a champion, and whoever's side loses will surrender."
The Yiga exchanged a helpless look with his companions, who all shrugged. "I...suppose that would be acceptable," the large man said, nodding. Clearly not the sharpest tool in the shed, this one.
Paya rolled her eyes. As if they would have any intention of surrendering even if the Sheikah champion won. She knew what Impa was doing, however.
Stalling.
The signal fires would have alerted a nearby Hylian cavalry unit, who would come to their aid. It was just a matter of time, and Impa sought to make sure they wouldn't arrive to a destroyed village.
"I will be our champion," the Yiga announced, unsheathing the huge blade on his back. "Name yours, old woman."
"Hm," Impa said, turning to regard the Sheikah formation, rubbing her chin thoughtfully.
Paya considered the Yiga carefully. He looked phenomenally strong, but that usually came at the cost of speed. A fast opponent could probably dance circles around the big bastard, who'd tire himself out trying to get at them. Strike the right spots swiftly and precisely, and the Yiga would go down like a tree. If he got his hands on you, though...well, he'd only need one good hit and you were done.
Paya's entire face was throbbing, and her limbs were shaking from her previous fight. In a pinch, she could probably (possibly) take him on, but she wasn't confident, perhaps someone else could—
"I'll do it," Sheik said, stepping forward, looking at Impa. "Pick me, aunt."
"And why would I do that, nephew?" Impa asked.
"Because I'm the only one not injured or horrendously old," he shot back, which drew gasps from the entire Sheikah formation. "It has to be me. Plus, I've been wanting to shut his banana-cramming face up since he started talking."
Impa scrutinised her adopted nephew for a long moment before nodding. "Very well," she said. "It is about time you started pulling your weight around here anyway, now that you have hands."
Sheik chuckled. "Oh, I've got more than that."
Paya touched his arm. "Are y-you sure?" she asked.
"Trust me, Paya-nee," Sheik replied, flashing her that frightening grin once again. "You're about to see something special." He stepped forward, raising a hand. "I'm your opponent, fucker!"
The Yiga stilled for a moment. "As you wish, boy! I am Caga, son of—"
"Oh for—I don't give a shit who you are, Muscles, just get on with it!"
The Yiga—Caga—deflated visibly at being denied his boast, but he seemed to move past it quick enough. "To the death, then," he said.
"To the death," Sheik agreed, stepping forward until he was standing in front of Impa. "Just one question."
"Yes? What is it?"
"What's with the bananas?"
The battlefield fell silent at that. The Sheikah gave each other confused looks, while the Yiga did much the same. The bestial enemies did not seem to understand the conversation at all, but they remained where they stood.
"E-Excuse me?" Caga said.
"Bananas," Sheik repeated slowly, as if that would clear it up. "What's with them? Or more accurately, what is with the Yiga's obsession with them? Why do you people go absolutely, heh, bananas for them? It's like the one thing you care about apart from sucking up to Ganon or sucking your dead leader's dick!"
More silence, and Paya found herself wondering what exactly the deal was with the bananas as well. It was something that cropped up in field reports often, but she had brushed it aside as unimportant up until now.
"Now that he mentions it..." one of the Sheikah said quietly to another.
"They've always got a few on them, don't they?"
"Do they use them for sorcery, perhaps?"
Even Impa looked to be considering the question, rubbing her chin in thought.
"I, er..." Caga said, seemingly unable to even answer the question. One of the Yiga in the back raised their hand.
"Yes, you there, skinny, weak-looking one in the back," Sheik said, pointing at them.
"They're...They're an excellent source of potassium?" the Yiga tried.
Now it was Sheik's turn to deflate with disappointment...along with the entirety of the Sheikah formation—Impa included.
"I'm...I'm not sure what I expected," Sheik said weakly. He shook his head. "All right, fair enough, crush my dreams and fantasies with the most mundane of answers, why don't you? Let's do this, Muscles."
"Caga!" the Yiga insisted.
"Fine, Caca, whatever."
"You will regret your words, boy!" the muscular man said, stepping forward and twirling his sword in a complicated, well-coordinated series of blade acrobatics. "Your death will be slow, and painful. I will make you scream for mercy but will not grant it until I am satisfied! Until you have paid dearly for your insolence!"
Sheik was nodding along with the man's words, his gloved fingers gingerly touching the left side of his head, poking and prodding just under his eye.
"Yeah, uh-huh," he said. "Could you move a little to the left, please?"
"...your innards will—what? No!"
"That's fine, I'll do it," Sheik replied, taking a single step to the right. "There, perfect alignment. Go ahead, keep doing the thing, Caca," he said, giving Caga an up-turned thumb.
"Your innards will be displayed for all to see!" Caga continued, still twirling his blade, "Your head will be placed on a pike as a warning to all who stand against the might of Lord Ganon and the Yiga!"
A steady thrumming sound had begun to fill the air, so deep Paya could feel it in her stomach. A blue glow seemed to emanate from beneath the cloth of Sheik's eyepatch, but Caga didn't seem to notice, too deep into his rant on what he would do to Sheik once he won.
"We will raze the Domain and dye the rivers red with Zora blood!" Caga screamed. "We will bury the Goron in their caverns! The Hylians will beg and grovel at our feet! The Rito will—"
It happened in an instant. One moment the air was thrumming and glowing, the next a bright, blue beam shot out of Sheik's left eye with a deep, bass note...and struck Caga right in the chest. The next second was too graphic for Paya's mind to remember, scrubbing what she saw directly from her memory as it happened. All she knew was that when the booming died down and the light faded away, there was a smoking crater where Caga had stood, and the man himself was...everywhere.
"Who's next?" Sheik asked, his left eye glowing and swirling madly, just like a...a...a Guardian?!
He let it sweep across the enemy lines, which were suddenly a lot less steady than before. Allies or not, they had all seen the wrong end of a Guardian Cannon and were heavily reconsidering their opinion on this attack.
Paya was unable to look away from the display, watching as Sheik took a threatening step forwards...and noticed how his entire body was shaking once more, definitely from exertion this time judging by the sheen of sweat that covered his face.
"Who's next?!" he repeated, shouting much louder than a normal person should have been able to.
...but then, her cousin was far from a normal person, Paya reminded herself.
The enemy line looked ready to break as it was, but then a horn sounded across the village, and the thundering of hooves grew louder and louder, just as a large group of mounted soldiers appeared at the other end of the canyon, charging directly at the enemy. The last straw that broke Naboris' back, as it were.
The bokoblins broke first, turning and running, dragging their lizalfos allies with them. The remaining Yiga made to run as well, but by now the Sheikah had broken their formation and surged forward, quickly surrounding and neutralising them, dragging the captive Yiga aside to let a portion of the cavalry pass, chasing off the beastly enemies properly.
The only ones who remained standing were Sheik, Paya, and Impa.
Paya and Impa exchanged a look before Impa nodded towards Sheik and stepped away, heading for the spot where the commander of the cavalry unit had dismounted and was already coordinating the effort to put out the fires.
Paya stepped up to Sheik's right side, careful to make her presence known. "Sh-Sheik?"
His head turned slowly to look at her. No doubt about it, that was the eye of a Guardian...and seeing it in the socket of a person was unsettling as hell. The wires that ran into and underneath the skin around the eye didn't help either. A metallic mechanism opened and closed around the Guardian eye in time with his normal eye's lid, and it was a little fascinating to see it so synchronised.
"We win...yet?" Sheik asked, sounding strained. His shaking grew worse.
"I th-think so," Paya said. "Y-You can r-relax now."
"I suppose...you have questions?"
She nodded. "M-Many."
Too many to count, really.
"That's…fair. Gonna have to...wait, though."
"Why?"
"Because that took...a lot more...energy than I...thought..."
And then his eyes rolled shut, and his body collapsed into the dirt like a ragdoll, leaving Paya to stare in bewilderment at her cousin.