The Legend of Oni

By DarkBlacknoid

CHAPTER THREE:

That Day, Long Ago

The morning was perfect. The birds sang, the crickets chirped and the wind tickled lightly through the tall trees of Kokiri Forest. In the not-too-far distance, Ino could hear the Kokiri playing through the trees, picking the fruits, and climbing in joy of the day. The world had been repaired and not much work was left to do except to watch over the children of the world. Ino wanted to make it look just like it did before the First Battle so that when Farore and Nayru came back they would be very proud of him. Though the Hyla, Kokiri, and Zora were great companions, he missed the music and fellowship with Nayru. He learned much from her golden songs and often he would find himself wandering off in the deepest places of Kokiri Forest to play the songs on his ocarina that Nayru made for him. The music Ino made always sounded different than the beyond beautiful songs his Friend, Nayru, would play.

And Ino missed his Mother. She always created such beautiful things. Back then, Farore would always tell Ino that he was the most beautiful of all the things she had ever made. Her goal was to make something different than her, Din, and Nayru; therefore Ino was given life.

He would never say it out loud, but he missed Din, his Mentor, as well. Din was always mysterious to him and he understood her little. Each time he was allowed to visit the Fire Goddess, Ino grew excited because he always learned something from her that was different than what Nayru would teach him. Din had the beauty of lands in her palms and it fascinated Ino. But now she was locked up, and still he knew not the reason.

Ino lay upon the highest tree branch as an eagle in a great birch looking down upon the gladness of the Kokiri. Usually, he would be down there playing with them, but today his heart was somber. He could not help feeling like something or someone needed him but he did not know whom.

"Hey, Ino!" A voice called up to him from the ground and Ino opened his eyes to look at the source. It was the little Kokiri girl with emerald green hair named Saria. Ino had become well acquainted with all of the world's inhabitants over the years and he smiled at her.

"Hi Saria," he squeaked through his eagle's beak. She giggled and climbed up the tree and stopped at a few branches below him.

"Impa* and Sheik* are looking for you," she said, holding onto the branches tightly. Ino looked away for a moment, recalling Impa and Sheik. Of all the people of the world, Impa and Sheik were different. That night long ago, during the Change of the World, he had comforted them and they dared a look deep into his eyes and somehow they had taken away his light. Their hair had been bleached with his light and it became almost as white as his. And their eyes were brightened like the bluest sky. The only difference was Sheik did not look as long as Impa so the light was not as bright in his eyes. They were his special friends and he sought for their company often. But today, he did not feel much like having fellowship with anyone.

"Tell them I shall talk with them later," he said finally to Saria and her smiled disappeared.

"All right, Ino." She was confused but left to deliver his message anyway. Ino just could not shake his feeling of anxiousness.

A few minutes passed with his silent thoughts, when a straight wind came from the west, ruffling his white feathers and Ino closed his keen eyes. He always enjoyed the wind coursing through his feathers and passing below his wings, because it reminded him of his mother. But this wind felt different. An image of a familiar face flashed in his closed eyes and he opened them immediately.

"Din?" He said quietly to himself. The air circled around him, switching now coming from the east. Ino stood on his clawed feet and spread his wings to catch the drift. Was Din his reason for feeling concerned? "Take me there, take me to Din."

The wind held Ino in the air, passing over Kokiri Forest and many puzzled faces and then over the Hyla's Plain, which also housed Zora's River where the Zoras lived. The strange wind started to dwindle when Ino reached Hyla's Plain until he came closer to the Throne of Fire, Din's Mountain, but he surpassed it coming to the Fortress of Light that stood near the foot of the Mountain. Ino landed as the wind died out completely and he felt the presence of Din very close.

The beautiful Triforce glittered high above the grand doors threatening to enchant Ino again, but then a slight nudge of the wind forced him to take his eyes off the object.

Ino dropped out of his eagle guise and approached the doors tentatively. He was not entirely confident that Din had called him there. Everything was so quiet; even the birds had stopped their cheerful songs. Minutes went by and nothing stirred. Ino began to think he had been mistaken and turned to leave when a strong wind punched his face forcing him against the doors of the Fortress.

"Please…"

The voice slithered into his ear, making him shiver; though he knew not why for he knew the sound. The wind died down and he turned to face the Door.

"Din?" He asked, staring, wide-eyed at the pure white light of the doors of the Fortress. Ino's eyes took a moment to focus into the light and he saw a red figure shackled down in the midst of the light. Ino gasped and wanted to bolt to Din's side but something stayed him. It was the warning Farore, his own Mother, had given him before she left him for the heavens. But his feelings for Din, in the time when the Three were inseparable at the very beginning, had been revived and he loved his friend and wanted to understand her.

"I'm coming! I'm coming!" Ino called to Din's form, using both of his hands to force the gigantic doors open. There was much resistance and Ino thought for a moment maybe he should not go in, but finally they gave way allowing him to stumble in. The door slammed shut and suddenly the little God of Innocence found himself in total darkness. The light shining in his face could not even penetrate the blackness of this realm. Ino cried out, scrambling to find the doors again but failed. A flurry of gnarly, black claws spurred into his back, arms, and face. A scream struggled at Ino's lips for the sound of the things in the dark drowned all other sounds. Ino felt helpless, powerless against the dark creatures in this place of darkest Night. They held him down, laughing, spiting in his face, and clawing at his body.

"FARORE!" Ino gasped, trying to keep the blackness from entering into him. "MOTHER! PLEASE!" He choked, feeling a slimy, pimpled hand reach into his mouth and many other hands groping him in their insanity. "HELP ME!"

Eternity passed, and no one came. Ino fought helplessly against the beings in the dark and finally decided to give up. He held his breath, the darkness beginning to creep in when a fiery red hand lifted him up and out of the Black. The creatures of the dark fled away with whines of surprise.

"That's enough…" The smooth voice commanded.

Splattered with dark, disgusting slime, Ino was brought up to a face of shining red light. It was Din, in her greatest beauty, wrapped in the cloth of flame, her sparkling-ruby hair teeming around her bare shoulders and a bright and tall crown of a mysteriously smooth pyre. Ino cried and clung to her, Din's flame flowing around him as she held him. Ino had never felt fear such as that and he coughed trying to remove the mire that covered him, knowing the creatures were still out there in the darkness.

"Din!" He battled with his tongue, willing it to move correctly, but it refused. Din quieted him, hugging him.

"Oh, little one…how sad and unfortunate." She released Ino from her embrace and he looked up at her, shaking.

"I…I don't understand. What is this place? Why are you here? Where is my Mother?" A creature in the background croaked a creepy laughter and Ino jumped back, staying close to Din, whom he perceived as his saviour from the darkness.

The Goddess, his mentor from a time before, looked away and gave out a slow, sad breath. "Only evil things dwell here, little Ino…only evil is allowed to enter…for this is the Evil Realm."

Ino's light was dim, but his eyes were large, reflecting the false light of Din. His heart began to ache and the fear and confusion welled up inside his soul. "Where is my Mother?" The little God asked again, the ache and a new thing came to him that felt something like a strange heat from inside. Din turned away, sadness in her posture.

"Farore has abandoned you, Ino. Just as she has abandoned this world and me."

Ino shook his head in frustration, not being able to quell all these new feelings and all the grime from his body. "What is it? What does it mean! I don't know these words! You must tell me! Tell me! What does this mean!"

"Hear me, Ino." Din lifted her hand and then softly placed it upon his dulled shoulder. "I must ask you this…" Ino breathed heavily waiting. "Do you really wish to know what evil is, what hatred is, what Sin is?" She stared him down intensely, a dark light flickering in the blood-redness of her eyes. Ino dove into those eyes with his own, desperately wanting to gain the knowledge of these things that existed but he did not know of.

"Yes, yes…I want to know." Complete trust was behind those words for he trusted Din with all his heart and soul.

"Very well…" Din turned her bare back to Ino and he followed her anxiously, not understanding. Suddenly, she twisted around with the light of her Fire seeming to be duller. The shine in her eyes a moment ago was gone, replaced with a blackness that stung him like the claws of the creatures from the Dark. "I will tell you what all of this means…" Approaching slowly, with a light movement of her fire dress that dimmed with the movement, Din glared down upon the little God. He stumbled onto his back, afraid of the difference in her gaze.

"This…is what it means…" A blade shot out as a cold barb of Darkness from her hand and it sank painfully deep into Ino's soul. He tried to cry out when the creatures ambushed him again to pin him in place. Ino tried to fight, but he was paralyzed by the coldness of Din's barb. "THIS is betrayal, THIS is evil, THIS is hatred!" She laughed horribly sending more and more spikes into Ino's little body, her appearance black and ugly. Ino writhed in agony, realizing with the last shred of rational thought what had befallen him and what the creatures in the dark were. They were his Sin and he had been betrayed. He realized his folly too late and now the Sin consumed him.

Din watched with delight. A cruel smile on her darkened and ugly face that she hid from Ino until it was too late. "And now…you are these things…you have been changed…" She kept twisting Ino up with her vine of thorns letting him be taken by his Sin. "Now you are no longer the God of Innocence…you are no longer the son of Farore…" Her long, bony fingers brushed against his covered and blackened face. "You are MY creation now…you are…Oni."

A God died that day and a deity of evil was put in his place. Oni* was born and the world changed. Farore and Nayru were kept from entering into the world in fear of perishing from the Sin that now flooded into it. That day, long ago, a Goddess cried.

* * * * * *

A lean, tall woman with shoulder length pure white hair felt a chill run over her bare forearms. Her name was Impa, the Fearless and she was the sister and twin of her brother, Sheik, the Blessed. Their lives had been unending and very content like all other peoples but they were most revered among them all. When being children, Impa and Sheik had been in the arms of the world's guardian, Ino, and it forever blessed them. They shone of Ino's pure light. Their hair had been blanched white and their eyes deep and concerning with the wisdom they achieved in the years since Creation.

And now, they knew something was different.

"What was that?" Impa shivered and looked at her brother, Sheik, who was standing next to Saria, the little Kokiri girl that delivered Ino's message. "Never have I felt such a sensation…my body…feels weak."

Sheik stared at her, looking pained. "I do not know, sister…but I…fear…" Impa swallowed hard. Why would they be feeling…fear? Where was Ino, their guardian whom they had grown so close to?

The twins did not know what the cause of the change was but now their hearts were moved to look for Ino, but they could not find him. No one could. Much sadness there was in the world when Ino disappeared and no one had ever felt so alone. They cried for Ino and the three Goddesses praying for their return, but none came to ease their fear. Little did the people of the world know that when they saw a deity again, it would not be to answer their prayers…

APPENDIX:

Impa: Impa was a Hyla girl that was with Ino during the First Battle. She is the twin sister of Sheik. Her name was changed to Impa after her encounter with Ino and it means 'Light'. Though only a child, she was brave enough to look into the light of Ino's face, which caused her once blonde hair to turn white. Her eyes were before a deep green, but they were changed light blue. After the First Battle, Impa stayed as a close friend to Ino and they spent much time together learning the things of the Deities or as much as they could. Impa was immortal like all the other races before death was introduced.

Sheik: Sheik was Impa's twin brother and like his sister, he was changed by Ino's purity. He was named Sheik, which means 'Dark' in Hyla. Though he did not look into Ino's eyes as long, so his eyes are not as blue as Impa's. He was a great friend to Ino and very insightful to those around him.

Oni: The result of Ino's disobedience against his Mother, Oni was created under the careful eye of Din. Ino died when Oni was born and the world was distraught with Ino's disappearance. Oni means 'Sin' in Hyla.