The doorway closed behind him the second Link was inside the fortress, leaving him in near complete darkness, with a single lit torch mounted on the wall to his right providing a bit of light.

He stayed put for a moment, letting his eyes adjust. It was chilly in here, a stark contrast to the hot summer morning outside. It was humid, too, enough for Link to hear occasional drips of water falling from the ceiling and walls.

He was soon able to see a door on the far wall, blocked by metal bars right in front of it. He took the torch from the wall next to him and set about looking for a locking mechanism or a switch. Some of the stones making up the walls, ceiling and floor weren't quite as fitted as the others, or looked a bit off, so he poked and pushed at them. When that didn't work, he tried pushing on every single one he could reach. Nothing happened.

"Doesn't help that I can't see shit…" he muttered to himself. "Maybe with more light…"

There were two standing torches by the barred door, one on each side of it. He lit them up. With a creak, the metal bars blocking the door retracted upwards into the wall. Link groaned and rolled his eyes: the fortress was not only dark, and cold, and humid, it was also going to have magic locks activated in even more stupid ways than hidden switches.

"Great," he muttered. "Fucking great..."

He opened the door and stepped into the next room, torch still in hand.

This room was better lit: there were large lit torches in all four corners, and another one in the middle of the room. The reason was obvious: it made the eight skeletons hanging from the ceiling perfectly visible, a little visual distraction to horrify unwanted guests.

And, as it turned out, to distract those same unwanted guests. Link only just noticed the three Stalfos Knights that were also in the room when they moved, charging straight at him.

They crumbled as soon as he hit them with the sword, but by the time the third one was a pile of bones on the floor, the first one had put itself back together and the second one put its head back on right in front of Link, as if taunting him.

"Oh, fuck YOU," Link said. "You're dead anyway, can't you just STAY dead?"

He reduced them to piles that just put themselves back together a few more times before he happened to strike one right in the head, causing it to finally dissolve into dust. He made short work of the other two now that he knew what to aim for, and cast his eyes back to the hanging skeletons, half expecting them to attack next.

They didn't. Instead, a ghostly form suddenly appeared in front of Link. It looked like a cross between the monsters Link had been fighting all over Hyrule and something uglier: its shape was best defined as an armored random mass with several appendages fading in and out of existence around it. Link didn't hesitate: he charged at it, slashing it several times with the Master Sword before he registered that whatever the ghost-like thing was, it wasn't material enough to hit, and it was laughing.

Link stopped, backed away, and glared at the apparition. The thing giggled. Link snarled.

The apparition bent in two in something vaguely resembling a bow. "Welcome Hero," it said. It had a rather high pitched voice that didn't match its size. "Pleasure to have you here. Your presence gladdens. I am the Unnamed. I have no name, I used to have several different ones and I tired of them. I am not really in this room, I am elsewhere. I wanted to talk to you. To chat. To have a conversation."

Link's hands tightened on the handle of the Master Sword and on the torch he was still holding.

"I must ask, I wonder, I'm curious," the Unnamed said. "Hero. Little Hero, little child... do you recognize them? Do they look familiar? Do you know?"

Link frowned at the apparition. "I have no fucking clue what you're on about. Come here for real, why don't you? We can have a nicer chat then. With my sword planted somewhere it hurts."

The apparition laughed. "The skeletons, boy. The remains, the bones... I wonder and I wonder, every time I wonder. Do you recognize them? Can you tell? Do you know?"

Link's scowl deepened.

"No? Of course, you never do, you never remember. They're you, child! Vessels for the Spirit of the Hero, your past selves... again and again you all come here to die!"

Link's eyes widened and drifted to the skeletons. The Unnamed cackled.

"Celebrated afterward, as if you won. Big party, honored for your victories. I don't mind. Your death is all I want, all I desire, all I request from Hylia's corrupted blood. Once I have it, it's over for a time. All done, no more monsters, Hyrule saved! The corrupted ones give so willingly, so I play along, I agree to the deal. A bit of waiting between each of you, it doesn't matter. I get you, I get to hurt you and I get to kill you, and they get... whatever it is they get out of it. A speck of power that only lasts while they live their little mortal lives? It doesn't matter. They give you up so nicely. Send you here like a lamb with your little sword."

Link swallowed. The eight skeletons were the last eight heroes? If you went by the official record, the last several heroes had lived the rest of their lives in luxury after their fight, rewarded for their service. That was a lie, obviously: the Royal Family wouldn't have been so generous. But even people who realized that and who guessed that the last several heroes had actually been executed or exiled so that they wouldn't be a threat to the monarchs of their time didn't usually entertain the thought that those heroes had all lost their final fight.

"Be a dear, be nice, be courteous," the Unnamed said. "Don't make me wait too long. Hurry to me, hurry to death."

The apparition disappeared, leaving Link alone with the eight skeletons that were supposedly his eight predecessors. He shuddered. How did this keep happening? Why was the Unnamed winning every time?

Unless of course the monster was simply lying. It was entirely possible the eight skeletons were not the last eight heroes, or that if they were, their remains had been brought here after their deaths, years after their fight with the Unnamed.

But if they were the last eight heroes, why had they all lost?

Link took a deep breath. He'd just have to wait and see. He walked to the stairway on the right side of the room, which appeared to be the only other exit.

Link breathed a sigh of relief as he turned the key he'd just found (in a vase of all things) and the lock clicked, the sound echoing ominously through the room.

He didn't care how ominous it sounded, he just couldn't wait to get this all over with and he was almost certain that this was where the Unnamed was: the red rug in front of the door was sort of a giveaway, but also, the hole in the ceiling showed darkening blue sky, making it clear that Link was at the top of the fortress. The room he'd just unlocked was literally the last one that Link had not already been in.

He had been in a lot of rooms. And in every last one of those rooms, the walls were cut stones shining with humidity, the floors were cut stones slippery with humidity and the ceiling was cut stones dripping with Nayru forsaken humidity. The whole fortress seemed to be humid on purpose and absolutely reeked of death, decay and filth. And it was cold, too. The only thing keeping the place from being freezing cold, in fact, were the many lanterns that somehow controlled several mechanisms because apparently, whoever had built this place had been fucking nuts. And not a single one of all the rooms Link had gone through on his way here, other than the very first one, had been empty of monsters. Even the many stairways had been crawling with various pests. Anything from keeses to gibdos to Darknuts. The journey through the fortress had been non-stop fighting in a dark, damp, and cold place. The trek had been exhausting but beyond that, it had sucked ass.

The only good thing that could be said about the fortress was that it had done a fantastic job pissing Link off, and Link was reveling in his anger right now. Being angry dulled everything else, it was wonderful. He kicked open the door he'd just unlocked.

The room was a stark contrast to the rest of the decrepit castle Link had just been forced to visit and do pest control in: the walls had wood paneling polished to a beautiful sheen, half of it hidden under luxurious brightly colored tapestries of various battle scenes (red was a recurring color) and the floor was entirely covered by a plush rug. The only thing in common with the rest of the fortress was the distinct lack of any kind of furniture.

Even more shocking than the beauty of the empty room was the fact that by all accounts, the room couldn't possibly be in the fortress, or inside of any building Link had ever seen: it was impossibly long. Link couldn't see the end of it, it continued beyond the horizon. It was a relatively normal width, a bit on the large side but nothing unnatural, but it just didn't end.

The Unnamed stood several paces in, in what would have been the middle of the room if the room had been a square. It looked just like its apparition had, except very, very black and solid. It was wearing some kind of armor that seemed made of liquid darkness, with no visible seem or joint: just a solid mass that completely covered the Unnamed' body.

Link's upper lip curled and he unsheathed the Master Sword.

The Unnamed chuckled. "There you are. Here at last. Finally the Hero visits! Oh, I have a secret. I know something you don't know... Oooh! I know TWO things you don't know!" He chuckled again.

Link charged.

The Unnamed just stood there and when the Master Sword rebounded uselessly on the dark armor, not even making a noise, he resumed talking.

"Well, now you know one of them, I think," the Unnamed said. "Yes, you've probably figured out one of my secrets, you surely grasp the truth of this fight!"

Link tried hitting him again before jumping back, sword in front of him. He needed to find the weak spot, the sword couldn't penetrate the obviously magical armor. The Blade that Seals the Darkness it might be, but it seemed that the Master Sword still had its limit, and that liquid darkness armor appeared to be it.

"I'll say it anyway. The Master Sword cannot harm me!" the Unnamed cackled. "That's the first secret! Master Sword, Shmaster Sword! Oooh, do you believe me now, about your past selves? They all made it here. They all tried so hard! And there was nothing they could do! They were doomed from the moment they claimed that sword!"

Link's heart skipped a beat. If that was true, if the Unnamed literally could not be hurt by the Master Sword, it was entirely possible that the last eight heroes really had lost their lives to him. And that Link would, too.

His eyes narrowed. That wasn't going to happen, not before he killed the King. He jumped at the Unnamed again and started hitting every bit he could while circling him.

The Unnamed let him, laughing all the while.

"Don't be so upset," he told Link, in a suddenly completely different voice, lower and far more serious. "You have already saved Hyrule by coming here. It's part of the deal: I get to hurt Hyrule for a while, then I get to kill you, and then I go away until the next time the corrupted blood summons me."

He then picked Link up by the throat, completely ignoring the Master Sword hitting the limb that had done the grabbing, and tossed Link straight into the nearest wall.

Link grunted and got up gingerly.

"Do you want to know my second secret?" The Unnamed said. Its voice was back to the higher pitched one. "Are you curious? Do you want me to share? I can't even be wished away. No wishing for you! No wishing for anyone! I... have... the... Triforce!"

Link's eyes widened before narrowing again. The Triforce was an all powerful wish granting gadget that showed up in some legends and stories, usually to make everything worse or fail to do anything useful. Sometimes it was because someone bad made a smart wish and sometimes because someone good made a stupid wish. The moral usually was that good smart people don't try to wish their problems away.

"Yeah, try again," he growled. "What's next, you're going to tell me that the Three Golden Goddesses are your fucking girlfriends? You can't KEEP the Triforce, you overgrown deformed shitty Chuchu. Everyone knows that. As soon as you make a wish, it vanishes."

The Unnamed laughed. "Never said I made a wish," he cackled. "Why wish when I can deal? The corrupted blood gives so nicely. But the Triforce is dangerous in your hands, little hero, so I like to know where it is. I like to know where it isn't! I like to know you don't have it!"

Link dismissed the matter of whether or not any of that was true. He had no use for the Triforce, so it didn't matter if the Unnamed had been hoarding it for who knew how long. He wasn't even sure why the monster had felt the need to brag about it – maybe he had a higher opinion of it than Link did.

Either way, it didn't matter. Link snarled and launched for the Unnamed again, this time missing on purpose to end up behind him, still looking for a weak point to the armor. He didn't see any so he just hit every narrow part he could see of the Unnamed' body.

The Unnamed swatted him, sending him careening to the other side of the room and hitting a wall again. Link jumped back to his feet only to find the Unnamed right in front of him. He was pinned to the wall by his throat before he could make a move. He kicked and slashed uselessly, his feet not even making a noise as they hit the darkness that covered the Unnamed and the sword still having absolutely no effect.

"Time to die, little hero," the Unnamed said, using his lower voice again.

The pressure on Link's throat increased.

Link snarled, furious. He couldn't die here, because if he did, the King lived. And the next hero would die and THAT King would live, and it would just keep going.

He was left with no choice but to listen to his mother.

He lifted the hand that was holding the Master Sword and put it on the part of the Unnamed that was holding his throat, and with all his heart, silently begged for light to fight the darkness.

For the second time in his life, the world went gold. The light was even brighter this time, blinding even Link.

The Unnamed screeched and was thrown backwards, the body part that had been holding Link by the throat outright dissolving. The monster's agonized howls lasted right until the golden light died away.

Link wasted no time, rushing The Unnamed as soon as the light had faded enough to let him locate the monster. The Unnamed was struggling to get back to an upright position, and the black liquid armor was gone: the monster was still black, but it was the same dirty, furry black as the monstrosities Link had been fighting.

The Unnamed managed to teleport away and Link's sword hit air. Link frantically looked around and located his foe leaning against a wall some distance away, panting and wincing on every breath.

The Unnamed hissed. "No. NO NO NO! You worm," he panted in his lower voice. "You mortal insignificant mammal!"

He was interrupted by a fit of coughing. Link was reminded of his own difficulties badmouthing the King after a week in the dungeon and felt zero sympathy. He walked towards the Unnamed, glaring at the monster. They both knew the battle was over. The Unnamed was about to finally die.

The Unnamed's eyes widened. He continued in a barely audible whisper, in his higher pitched voice again. "Insignificant! Tiny mortal! Yes… yes! Small! Easy to overfill! A gift, Hero: Yourself! Every version of yourself that ever was. Have them back!"

Link dove to dodge the magic spark the Unnamed had just sent his way, intent on rolling back to his feet and rushing the monster to finish him. The spark changed its course and hit him anyway.

Suddenly, the room was hundreds of rooms and open spaces all at once. Link's eyes widened briefly as the knowledge of what he was even doing here, wherever here was, was suddenly drowned in a seemingly infinite surge of memories that all felt completely real and current as the past and the present become one.

He's just been given a shitty sword by an old man who told him it was dangerous to go alone.

He's killing a guard who'd been a friend the day before, in self-defense.

He's sleeping.

He's enjoying a meal with a cute girl.

He's dancing with a cute boy.

He's a baby and he's laughing for the first time.

He's an older woman enjoying the peace she bough with her own blood and sweat and he's the girl that she was.

He's a broken man and he's a happy man.

He's fighting and he's not, he's in cave and he's in a field and he's flying through the sky and he's digging a tunnel.

She is dying, impaled by one of the Unnamed's claws. He's dying, his throat crushed by the Unnamed.

He's being launched out of a canon. He's talking to a fish person.

He holds on to the one fact that matters with every bit of will all those multiple versions of him can summon: there is an enemy that they need to kill. They can't see it anymore, or at least they can't see any one thing that's not constantly appearing and disappearing in a storm of sensations that renders their senses useless, but they have to kill it.

With no better option, they rush forward, slashing wildly with the Master Sword. It fails to hit the trees and walls that keep fading in and out of sight, it goes right through countless monsters that they barely see before they're gone again, but it does hit something. They hit the same spot a few more times with diagonal swipes, each time hitting something relatively soft near the floor.

They stop when exhaustion wins out and their limbs fold under them.

They don't lose consciousness. They can't. Their mind has more going on than it ever did, they're thinking every thought they've ever had, they're seeing and hearing everything they've ever seen and heard.

The world is swimming in and out of focus. Each time it seems clear, it's different from the last moment of clarity. It doesn't stay that way for long anyway. In or out of focus, it doesn't actually matter. It's an everchanging mess and there is no making sense of it.