Prompt No.5
Word count: ~1315
Universe: Majora's Mask
Pairings: None
Rating: T for blood and character death
Themes: Character death, gunshot wounds
Gunpoint
"Yesss! My security system is impenetrable!"
The Sun's Mask tumbled off the edge of the conveyor, and Kafei blanched. The grinning thief's laughter filled the cavern, an unexpected baritone sound that lilted gently like his prancing. It disappeared into nothing like the mask had.
"...We're locked in," Kafei murmured, meeting his eyes sadly, penitently, through the panes of glass separating them. "I'm sorry you got caught up in all this."
Link sighed. He knew there was nothing he could say to temper Kafei's regret. He knew he wouldn't even remember it, come the next dawn. He knew he was going to try anyway. "I know you think Anju won't accept you without the mask, but she'll understand—"
"If you can get out, then do it," he growled, and then regretted the burst of anger and sighed. The hollow silence in that cavern felt like another trap. "Anju is already fleeing to Cremia's ranch."
Tatl alighted softly on his shoulder. She wasn't much for comfort, usually, but she knew that there was something more pushing Link into this quest than merely helping someone in need. She saw the way his eyes changed when he watched Kafei; she saw the way he stared at him as though he were staring into a mirror.
"Let's go back," she murmured into his ear. "You know about the rigged switches now. You can warn him next time."
He nodded, reaching gingerly for the Ocarina. One more cycle. He would get it right. He refused to believe that their story was doomed to play out this way—refused to believe that, no matter how hard Kafei fought, he would never be able to dispel the misery in Anju's eyes. Never be able to keep his promise...
The Ocarina was gone. He whirled, searching the floor, the walls, the ceiling. Then the door to Kafei's side of the room opened, and Sakon sauntered inside with that stupid grin on his face.
"You," Kafei roared, launching himself into an attack, but Sakon waved something unfamiliar in his face.
"Ah ah!" he berated him, and Kafei skidded to a halt, narrowing his red eyes.
"What's that supposed to be?"
"Something I, heh… acquired from the Bomb Shop in town. A delightful little invention, actually," he murmured, grin widening, and got down on one knee to show him the smooth, glistening metal. "A little gunpowder here, some very dangerous bits of metal go there," he gave the barrel a spin and then snapped it shut with a flick of his wrist. "They called it a revolver. A little less ambitious than bomb-powered space flight, but quite a lot more practical, if you ask me."
"What are you talking about?" Tatl crowed.
Sakon snatched Kafei by his hair before he could get any ideas, laughing gently at the way he kicked and threw punches with limbs that were too short, and Link's stomach roiled, getting that look in his eyes again—the one where he was looking into a mirror.
"And you," he grinned through the glass. "I don't suppose you were looking for your instrument? That delicate little ocarina?"
Link gritted his teeth. That place was full of booby traps and strange mechanisms, though exactly which one had distracted him so thoroughly he lost that precious key to time itself completely eluded him. Sakon produced the ocarina from his belt. It glinted in the lantern light like the sacred thing that it was, silently condemning him for being negligent enough to lose it in the first place.
"It's precious to you," he mused quietly, tilting his smooth head. "It isn't plated with gold like the Sun's Mask, to be sure, but it must be worth something. I've seen you change shape and summon Garo, and even appear out of thin air…"
Sakon tossed Kafei forward, raising his new weapon meaningfully to the back of his head, and Link frowned. He had been careless, reasoning that no one would remember what they had seen. He never guessed that it would come back to haunt him in the short span of one cycle.
"Tell me what the ocarina does," he demanded quietly, "or I'll have to do some persuading."
"It doesn't do anything," he murmured, his voice gravel.
"Then why is it so precious to you?"
"It's sentimental."
All at once his face changed, pupils constricting and mouth pulling down into a hideous snarl, the way the Happy Mask Salesman's did when he was angry. And in the span of a breath he had pulled the revolver away from the back of Kafei's head, angled it toward his calf, and pulled the trigger.
The deafening peal of the weapon and Kafei's scream as the bullet ripped through his leg blended into one terrible noise that jarred him down to his bones and sucked the air right out of his lungs. Tatl shrieked, her sun-gold glow turning pale as moonlight. Sakon grabbed Kafei by the hair again, lurching him forward until he was pressed against the barrier, and as he caught himself with his hands, wrapped protectively around his injury seconds earlier, they smeared red on the glass.
"Tell me how to use it, or the next one goes through his head!"
"Don't give him what he wants!" Kafei shouted, voice breaking through the pain. "Now that we know about this place, he'll never let us go!"
Link pounded a fist uselessly against the glass, breathless and dizzy with dread, and stared at his red-eyed reflection on the other side. They were both men trapped in children's bodies; both consumed by their unfulfilled promises; both chasing after something precious that always seemed just out of reach.
He had to believe that Kafei's story wasn't doomed to play out this way, because it was too much like his.
"I need that ocarina!" he cried, too desperately. "The moon is about to crash into the world, and I'm the only one who can stop it!"
"Don't test me, boy!"
"It's the truth! The Ocarina can call the Four Giants from where they sleep—"
His mouth pulled into that hideous frown again, and Tatl screamed.
"Link!"
There was another earsplitting peal of thunder, and this time Kafei didn't scream.
The air sucked out of the room. It tasted like static and hot metal. He was laying in a pile on the floor, his face hidden beneath a spill of purple hair, and all at once Link was staring into a mirror again.
"The glass—" Tatl's frantic shriek broke through his stupor, "the glass!"
It had cracked. Link barreled headlong into it, following Tatl's green glow as it bobbed around the hole and spidery tendrils, and the barrier shattered under his shoulder. He plowed into Sakon before he could fire another round, clambering after the Ocarina as it spilled out of his hand. He flipped onto his back and played with tremoring fingers, the song whistling out of the instrument in a gasping whirlwind, and as the last notes erupted from the voicing Sakon whipped the revolver towards him and fired.
His scream was lost in the roar of time unwinding around him, pulling him upstream in the unending river and dropping him breathlessly into nothing at once.
It was dawn in front of the Clock Tower, and his hands flew to his middle, where the bullet had torn a hole right through him, both moments ago and three days in his future at once. He held his breath, waiting. A purple-haired boy wearing a Keaton Mask emerged from the Laundry Pool, holding a letter.
Link loosed a shaky breath and collapsed at the door, and Tatl wilted onto his shoulder, squeaking with tiny sobs.
He stared through the colorful Clock Town banners, painted with too much red.
He wondered if his story was doomed to play out that way—wondered if he was doomed to never fulfill his promise after all.