Heeeeeh, I split this in half because I figured it was too long for one chapter.

He had to do this. This was death or life, he knew, and he wanted to live.

He wanted to live. That much he knew. Did he really want to live, or was it just an instinct thrown in for good measure, like the instinct that made him eat or made him fight when he was attacked? He didn't know, and he didn't want to know.

He looked behind him at the prisoners bewilderedly, and then where Zelda had disappeared into the ceiling in that diamond casing. Ye gods, where had she gone?

He pivoted on his heel and walked into the middle of the gates. Already some people at the end of the hallway had uprisen and grabbed a pair of keys left behind. But from where? With a startled look, Sheik realized that all of the guards were gone. The jail was completely deserted but for the prisoners inside the cells. This was why he and Zelda had been able to escape so easily, he suspected.

There was another shake of the walls, and Sheik held together this time, bracing his feet against the stone. There was an onslaught of prisoners around him, rushing, escaping, fleeing in every way.

And where had Zelda gone?

He turned to one side and ran down the passageway which looked most familiar. If he was right, then this would lead to the old Royal Chamber, which was exactly where he wanted to go. Up a flight of stairs, around a curve, up another—and now into a long hall, and he was almost at the door now.

Suddenly a sharp pain wracked his body and his bones turned to liquid again, forcing him to his knees, clenching his head in agony.

Somebody was drawing on his power. And not just anybody; it was Ganon, he knew. It just felt like Ganon. Whatever this chain inside him was, it was also a power-drawer, and it was soaking all his strength up like a sponge. He forced himself to stop shaking when the strongest wave of it had passed, and it began to ebb slowly. Whatever kind of spell Ganon was using, he was doing it in bursts.

He came to the end of the hallway and found what he was looking for: a window. Outside it was quite hot, due to the fumes from the magma and lava below, but as he thrust his head and part of his shoulders through his eyes caught something spectacular: an enormous rainbow bridge, stretching from the castle entrance to the cliff on the opposite side.

Link was in the castle.

An onslaught of shudders and pains hit him again and his knuckles turned white as he grasped the windowsill with both hands. Damnit, I will not go down. Not now.

He pressed himself off the sill and then passed up another flight. Ganon was using his power up like crazy, and in a minute or so he'd have nothing left at all.

He half walked, half ran to the next staircase, and when he'd reached the top of this, found his way cleared. Where Ganon's door had been there was only a blown-open crevice about five feet in diameter, and some jagged edges where the rest had been. The sages were here too, then, because Link couldn't have done this by himself.

He gripped a jutting piece of diamond-laced rock as another spasm hit, and he rode out the pain without so much as a grimace, though his face did turn quite pale.

"Time to get revenge," he muttered, and made his way to the center of the room.

And stopped. There was a pillar in the way. Now what was he supposed to do? All his Sheikah instincts kicked in and urged him to get to the side, to get a better view of whatever was at the top. He could hear someone yelling, as if they were about to strike, and a low current of maniacal laughter on top of that. There were various flashes and noises drifting down from the top of the pillar.

All of a sudden it was as if a great hand had been lifted from his chest. He gasped with effort as energy filled and consumed his body, and he was enlightened. Yes, he's won! Ganon is dead, he must be! Sheik's mind screamed at him. But his reason said otherwise.

Because quite clearly, the sky was falling.

Literally. Stone caved in upon itself and the walls that Ganon had boasted about being so very sturdy were falling like a child's play-bricks. Sheik sprinted from the room just as a block of stone covered the entryway, and two more sprang out on either side from a lower level. He leapt to another surface, scrabbled on top of it, surveyed his surroundings. And here was an entrance that was just barely large enough for him to crawl through, where he could see another entryway, another archway beyond that…

…and four Lizalfos.

Two of them wailed something at him in Lizalfian and leapt at him, teeth and claws bared. But he was invigorated, and pushed on by the thought of seeing Link again, and they were no match for a battle-hungry Sheikah. He dodged to the side of the first attack, snatching one of their weapons as he passed, and clobbered one on the back of its ugly head. The other he took head-on and snapped out at its arm before landing a kick in the middle of its torso. The slight creature stumbled back a few paces, giving him enough of a window to smack it straight across the head.

The other two seemed to have disappeared. But there was suddenly a clamoring cry, and he looked to the side, through the archway. His heart stopped.

Link was there, the Master Sword little more than a blur as he wielded it expertly. And there was Zelda, trapped behind a barrier of some kind of witchfire. Link ran one through the heart and the other he simply beheaded. It was magnificent. Both lizalfos fell to the ground, dead, and he leaned on the sword slightly, not even breathing hard.

"Zelda, you all-right?" he called, turning. The barrier dispersed and she bustled over, a worried look on her face. "I don't know where he is! I can't sense his presence at all… just Ganon, Ganon, Ganon! I don't think he's dead, Link, but…"

"He's in here somewhere," Link said, looking around with slightly narrowed eyes. He looked desperate. Sheik chose now to make his appearance from between two fallen pillars. He didn't say anything, but simply moved into the clearing, feeling very, very naked without his proper Sheikah garb. Not even a cowl. He was filthy from head to toe, covered in blood and muck and Lizalfos scales. His hair was disheveled, his eyes were red and his face was probably one enormous bruise.

Link dropped everything and with a cry, threw his arms around Sheik.

Zelda crossed her arms. "Hey, boys? The castle's still falling."

Link didn't budge. "Thank the Gods," he whispered to Sheik's shoulder.

A boulder fell from the ceiling and sprang into a thousand shards just to Sheik's left, jarring them from their reverie. "Time for that later!" Zelda screamed over the din as the castle continued to shake. "Let's go!"

The way down was a blur. Sheik didn't even remember coming out into the fog of night, just behind Link, who had the Master Sword in hand. Zelda had both hands raised and both were glowing with an ethereal light.

Just as they made it out, the front archway sagged and broke down. All around them, prisoners were running across the rainbow bridge, screaming and whooping with elated joy. Nobody stayed anywhere near the castle longer than they had to. Suddenly Sheik stopped and keeled over, gasping for breath. It felt as if there were two hands encircling his neck with an iron grip….

Don't let me die here, damnit! I want to live!

"What? What's happening to him?" This was Zelda, in her high-pitched voice.

"I don't know. Sheik, are you…?" Link's hand gripped his shoulder as he knelt on the dusty ground. Zelda clasped her hands: "Oh, oh! Ganon's put some kind of spell on him! I know he has!" she said anxiously. Sheik tried to get his breath, to no avail. It was being squeezed from his body slowly, and his breathing was becoming shorter and shorter.

Link lifted him up in his arms as if he weighed nothing. He'd gotten strong, hadn't he? Well, he was wearing the golden gauntlets too. As Link walked back towards the remains of Ganondorf's castle, into the center of where the main courtyard had been, Sheik's lungs and trachea untightened and he could breathe again in half-gasps. If only he wasn't so weak, if only, if only…

"I can't go past the castle grounds while he's alive," Sheik said, one word at a time. "And he draws his power from me. I felt it."

"So that's how he was shooting those energy balls at me," Link said, and his brows knitted angrily. He looked positively murderous now. It was a frightening thing. "He was stealing from you."

Sheik nodded and focused on staying conscious. Impa had taught him various breathing exercises for low-oxygen situations, but this was draining from his soul as well as his body. But Sheik could feel something else there, like an invisible rope linking his heart with something else, something malevolent and very, very close…

"He's still alive," Sheik gasped.

"What?" Link looked around. The place was deserted but for those three.

All of a sudden there was a massive explosion, and a hideous screeching of rock meeting rock—and something else. Zelda shrieked and leapt to the side as a haze descended, and through it, an enormous figure was barely visible.

It wasn't human. What the hell was this thing?

Sheik bent down into a battle position, but a claw swept out and threw him aside. He landed against a nearby concrete pillar and heard a sickening thud as his arm broke his fall, and then a crack. Broken. Useless. He heard more screaming (presumably Zelda; she had become a teenage girl now) and a sudden clang of metal as Link's sword was thrown away from him. The blade fell and stuck into a patch of dirt, where Zelda was crouched not five feet from him, and another witchfire barrier rose around them both.

When he roused himself from the pain and forced it to the back of his mind, he took note of the creature Link was fighting. It was Ganon, surely enough, but he had become something entirely different. A bull? Dog? Dinosaur? It was hideous. This was Ganon's true form. This was what he had become.

But he wasn't dead. No, Ganon was very much alive.

"Hey, over here!" Link shouted at it. The thing had only half of the Dark King's intelligence, it seemed, because it actually turned and bared its horrible fangs at Link. Fairy-bow raised, Link unleashed a few blindingly lit arrows at it, and it screamed in pain.

Suddenly Sheik was being drained of energy.

"He's doing it again," he said to Zelda, teeth gritted.

"What? Oh, oh dear, hold on, Sheik!" Zelda said, and looked at Link anxiously. Link, meanwhile, was in the process of duck-rolling between the thing's leg and tail, where he proceeded to shoot it in the face again. This happened over and over, this dance, and Sheik watched, entranced by both Link's form and the anger that was coming off him in waves.

"He's angry… for you, Sheik," Zelda said, clasping her hands together. "You give him strength. Hold out a little longer."

Sheik gave a barely perceptible nod and then took a deep breath, clenching his fists and closing his eyes. Breaking a power-link was messy, and possibly fatal, but he had to try it, or else…

He suddenly felt himself up against an iron wall in his mind. Another consciousness was pressing onto him, surrounding him like water…

Get out. You don't belong here anymore, Ganon.

I'll take what I want from you.

No!

You'll help me kill him, whether you like it or not.

NO!

Sheik steeled himself and wrenched his mind out of Ganon's as far as he could. Pain overwhelmed him, almost, and he felt like the insides of him were being flipped inside out and exposed to the wind and pelting rain, but he continued. There was a note of mild surprise from the other consciousness, and then it twitched and doubled its hold on him. He fought on, his face white and pallid, his teeth gritted nearly to shattering.

"Link, quick! The Master Sword!" Zelda shouted, and Link sprinted over, snatched up the blade. The witchfire barrier was gone for the moment.

Zelda's hands twined and a current of light came from her outstretched palms, straight to Link, up his arms, and to his sword. His sword was Redemtion; it was Victory, and Purity, and Truth, and every virtue in the book. Sheik wondered if he was going delirious. There was another blinding flash and Ganon's head was split in two by this awesome power, this virtue.

Link was truly a sight to behold, covered in blood, his cap slipping over his brows and his aquamarine eyes wide and nearly brimming with tears. He left Ganon's body where it lay in two pieces and sprinted over to Sheik, crouched next to him.

Sheik suddenly felt power rush into him like he'd felt before. This time, however, it was twofold, because Ganon was really dead.

"He's dead," Sheik said in disbelief, lifting his head to meet Link's eyes, which were not three inches away from him.

"Yes," Link said. He was crying. Not just one tear, but lots, and they were making his face all wet as they mingled with the rain. He extended his hand and Sheik took it with the arm that wasn't broken (funny, he felt much too warm inside to consider that his arm was shattered) and they looked at each other, standing.

No words were needed. Link wrapped one arm around his shoulders and another around his waist, and held him closer than he thought was possible. Zelda looked away, as if maybe she was embarrassed to be staring at them, and turned towards the rainbow bridge, walking towards it.

"What… how could you have let yourself get captured for me, you idiot?" Link said at last, and pressed a kiss to Sheik's neck. Sheik sighed. No matter what, he didn't want Link to know what had gone on. He didn't think that it mattered, and that was a part of his soul that he couldn't share right now. Maybe someday, but not right now.

Someday.

"I didn't want Him to hurt you," Sheik said in a very quiet voice.

And this was true. Sheik would have given anything to take Link's place in what he'd gone through during his stay in that castle. Anything in the world.

"I… I love you, Link. More than you know," Sheik added. "And I didn't want you to have to do that."

"You… are so… so… " Link couldn't find the words. Sheik gave a grin, a flicker of humor coloring his face, and kissed Link. Right there in the rain, in front of all the sages and townspeople and Zelda herself. Ruto was furious, Rauru rolled his eyes, Nabooru smiled tiredly, and Impa? Well, Impa just shook her head.

Sheik grinned against Link's mouth. How's this for Sheikah stealth?

Two Weeks Later

"He has some incredibly bad wounds, and not all of them external," the market square doctor pronounced. Zelda and Link were in the anteroom of his home-practice. There were lots of home-practices springing up, and just within two weeks' time, Hyrule Market had become a place of joy and color once again. Most of the townspeople had made it out of Ganon's castle, no sweat, though there'd been deaths as well. But Hyrule was changing, rebounding, bouncing back and returning to what it had once been, though it was now tainted with the shadow of Ganon's memory.

Sheik hadn't wanted to see a doctor, and had protested loudly the entire way, saying that his arm was "just fine" and that he could treat it himself. Link and Zelda had had to force him to go.

"So what do we do?" Link asked.

"With trauma like his? Time," the doctor said. "Time heals all wounds, they say."

Link and Zelda shared a look.

"And how much do I owe you, then?" Link asked unsurely.

The doctor laughed. "Hero, it's a pleasure to treat the Acolyte. I'd do it for free anytime, and you couldn't force me to take payment. You'd best take a quick walk, though; I set his arm with a healing spell and slipped him a sleeping potion to keep him from messing with it. Sheikah have a very… different idea of medicine," he said, and smiled. "He'll rouse in about an hour or so, I don't doubt."

Zelda and Link rose at the same time and trudged outside dutifully, whereas Zelda dragged Link into an alleyway just behind the shop.

"Link. He might be changed forever," Zelda said, pale.

"He's been having nightmares," Link agreed sadly. "He talks in his sleep, too, sometimes. God, when I think about it…" he grimaced. "I wish I could kill Ganon over and over again, just to repay what he did."

"What he did to Sheik isn't important now," Zelda said. "I have a plan."

"What?" Link's eyes widened. He was interested.

"The realm we sealed Ganon in is timeless, thanks to the Master Sword. So I've been doing a little research, and I think that… I think I could turn us back in time, all of us, all of Hyrule. We could go back to being kids again, Link! And we wouldn't have to worry about this happening, none of it! Sheik would be back to normal, and we could just live our lives the way we were supposed to."

"That's insane, Zelda!" he exclaimed.

She got a knowing look in her eye. "No, it's not, when you think about it. It'll be easy, Link, for me! We both have parts of the triforce inside us, anyhow. You know that. And if we do this, then we'll make sure Ganon will never come to Hyrule again... not for thousands of years, at least. I can erase everything that happened."

Link stood still. "… but our memories?"

She frowned. "Well, they'd be gone. Mine would stay intact, because I'd be the one casting the spell. But everyone else in Hyrule…"

Link closed his eyes, seeming to consider. "Would… would it help him, do you think? He hates being like this, I know. He hates feeling like he has a weakness. Sheik isn't the vulnerable type."

"We'll find each other," she said. "I'll make sure of it."

Link pressed his mouth into a very firm line. He looked back to the door of the doctor's office, and then back to Zelda.

"Come on, Link, trust me," she whispered, pressing a hand into his shoulder.

"Do it," he said finally, his voice carrying a note of sadness. "For him."