21. He's Not Fscking Dead Yet?

"Ganondorf, pitiful man,"" Zelda said, looking toward him. "Without a strong, righteous mind, he could not control the power of the gods...and... Wait a second." She stepped away from me and peered at the ground where he'd fallen. "Where is he?"

"What?" I looked too, Ganondorf wasn't there. "He's gone!"

The ground shook again, insistently. "And now he's trying to bring the castle down around us!"

"What!" I exclaimed again.

"Here," Zelda took my hand and closed her eyes, and I felt a wave of soothing energy roll through me. My hands weren't shaking anymore, my muscles weren't so tense they felt like they might pop, I just felt…good.

"I didn't know you could do that," I said, smiling at her.

Zelda smiled back, and I noticed she hadn't released my hand. Then the castle rumbled again and she swore.

It startled me at first, hearing Zelda swear. She looked like a princess, not the type of person you expect to hear muttering curses under their breath as they pick their way through rubble to the edge of a tower. But she was doing exactly that, with her skirt hiked up almost to her knees.

"Come on!" she called. "There's a path!"

I followed after her, and sure enough there was a path, a very dangerous-looking one that wound its way around the outside of the tower without anything to stop someone from simply going over the edge. "We have to go down that?" I asked, dismayed.

The tower rumbled again.

"Never mind." I grabbed Zel's elbow and pulled her after me. "Let's get out of here."

Zelda laughed merrily, but stopped when pieces of the wall started falling around us.

After that, we just ran. I was careful to stay on the outside edge of the path, between Zelda and the drop. It was an unconscious thing, I didn't even notice it at first, but it felt so natural to protect her.

The path curved through the castle at one point, but it was blocked by iron bars. Zelda paused and did something magical, and the bars rose up. We charged through the castle, paused while Zelda raised some more bars, then kept on charging.

The next time we had to go indoors I accidentally got ahead of Zel, but stopped when I heard her swear loudly behind me. I turned and saw that she was surrounded by fire, but before I could do anything TWO Stalfos appeared and tried to kill me. I got rid of them as fast as I could, then rushed to Zelda.

"Damn," she muttered, trying to beat out some flames on her skirt. "This was brand new."

"You okay?" I asked.

"Fine, come on." She grabbed my hand and pulled me to the next set of bars.

Then we went back to charging through. We were going so fast, so intent on escaping, that I didn't even notice the ReDeads on the bridge above the Water Hall until we were past them.

Finally we reached the exit, and ran as far from the castle as we could without taking a lava swim. Then we turned and looked back as Ganon's Castle shuddered, fell to pieces, and collapsed in on itself, leaving nothing but black ruins.

"It's over," Zelda sighed. "It's finally over."

Then she looked at me, and I looked at her. She reached out and took my hand, and we stepped closer together.

"Zel, I was…so worried," I said.

"So was I," she replied. "You've taken such huge risks…" She bit her lip, before saying, "Link, I-"

There was a sound from among the ruins, of something large toppling over.

"What was that?" Zel exclaimed.

I drew my sword and released her hand. "I don't know." I walked out among the ruins, on alert. There didn't seem to be anything out there, so I started to turn back.

Then something struck me hard from behind and sent the Master Sword flying. It stuck in the ground, not far from Zelda, and was immediately surrounded my flames.

"Oh hell," I muttered. I clambered to my feet and looked behind me. "Oh hell," I muttered again. What I can only describe as a gigantic pig of evil stood behind me, wielding two enormous swords.

"There's no way he's going to hold me back again!" Navi cried. "This time, we fight together!" She bobbed off behind him, leaving me to dodge.

Ganon, for that's who it had to be, roared and swung at me with one of his swords. I managed to roll away, but things were looking desperate. If Ganon had survived both being run through and the castle collapsing on him, what hope did I have to defeat him like this? All I could really do was dodge.

"Link!" I rolled away from another attack and popped up beside Navi. "His tail!" Navi said. "It's his weak point!"

"You're the best Navi," I grinned. Then I pulled out my bow and shot a Light Arrow in his face.

While he was temporarily blinded I ran around behind him and slashed at the ball on the end of his tail with Biggoron's sword. He bellowed with rage and pain and whirled around, where I was ready with another Light Arrow. I got a couple of good blows in on the tail before Ganon recovered this time, but instead of turning to face me he swung with his sword first and I had to dodge. But I dodged into a better place to shoot his face.

After a few more blows I somehow wound up close to Zelda and the Master Sword. "How you doing?" she asked.

"Not bad. Not really," I answered. "Can you do anything to get the Sword out?"

"I'm trying," she said. "If you keep him busy I should be able to bring down the flames."

"Thanks," I flashed her a smile then ran back close to Ganon, to draw him away from her.

For what seemed like hours I fought Ganon. I was getting winded, and though he hadn't landed many blows, the ones that had landed had done a fair amount of damage. He was taking damage as well though, my pounding on his tail couldn't be helpful and he seemed to be getting slower. It was a very good thing he was slower, since my feet were dragging, and every time I went down I just wanted to stay down, but I wouldn't.

Finally, when I had started dreaming about running down the castle, I heard a shout. "Link!" Zelda called. I turned and saw her holding the Master Sword. "Catch!" she chucked it at me and automatically, I caught it.

"Ancient Creators of Hyrule! Now, open the sealed door and sens the Evil Incarnation of Darkness into the void of the Evil Realm!" Zelda shouted. Then she turned to me. "Link! Finish him off with the sword of time, the Master Sword!"

Ganon was looming over me, but I now held the instrument of his defeat. I leapt in to the air, higher than I thought possible, and brought the sword that can destroy evil right down between his eyes.