I completely agree, Mimi! Poor Fi, I do feel for her pretty much this entire fic. Hylia... Honestly, Hylia did not think through a lot of the consequences of her actions. As we will keep finding out through the rest of this fic at various intervals... Also, you noticed the tuning-fork hum! Yeah - as she says, Fi can't interact at all as the sword, but I figure she might just be able to use its internal power to vibrate enough to make a sound, like a wine glass when you run a finger around it. This, indeed, was a combination "Master, wake up" and a sound that might have a chance of unsettling the aracha enough to keep them away. Which did likely save Link's left arm from attack.

Hehe, great to hear you like the modified aracha, Birdie! And wow, being excited enough to read that fast is a super compliment! =D

As always, I'm very glad you're all still enjoying!

Chapter 51: On What Seemed the Gears of Time

Master Link, I detect the arrival of the demon Ghirahim.

Link nearly choked, only barely managing to swallow the last of the elixir instead of spitting it everywhere. The coughing fit that resulted at least hurt less and less as the medicine took effect, but he still felt a bit like he'd just been punched as he straightened up.

"Where?" he demanded urgently. "How far away is he?"

He is on a route consistent with his having deviated from the levirail shortly before reaching the station, and is closing the distance rapidly. I detect the use of short-range teleportation. The probability that he has also detected the aura of the spirit maiden is 100%.

"Then we've got to hurry." Even as he spoke, Link was already running, empty bottle still in his hand. The corridor ahead was long and dark, strange lights flickering into being as he approached and illuminating statues in alcoves and walls still painted with murals beneath the dust. At any other time Link would have stopped to look at them; with Ghirahim bearing down on Zelda somewhere outside, he barely even noticed they were there.

It took far, far too long to finally reach the other end, and when Link did he almost ran into the door: he'd felt Fi's attention shift minutely and assumed she was telling it to open, and while he'd been right…

Master Link, this door is unresponsive. You will need to open it manually. The manual operation mechanism is to the right.

Begrudging every second, Link almost scrabbled at the unobtrusive panel that Fi drew his eyes to, yanking it open with a squeal of hinges that had gone unused for more than a millennium.

Rotate the handle 90 degrees anticlockwise, then pull it towards you.

Fi's words were as rapid as he'd ever known them, a single burst of clear thought, and Link acted instantly. The handle seemed stuck; he gripped it with both hands and threw all his strength into it, yanking it around inch by grating, protesting inch until at last the formerly horizontal handle was vertical. He threw his full weight into the pull, and it resisted at first, then snapped out so suddenly that he lost his grip, landing hard on the dusty floor. Instantly he scrambled back to his feet, ignoring the bruising jolt of the impact, to see a new line of golden light shining in down the right-hand side of the door, above a pile of gently spilling sand.

No, no, no…

He could see sunlight; the door wasn't completely blocked. The sand outside looked to be waist-height, maybe, or a little more. He could get the door open, had to get the door open.

He set both hands to the gap, braced his feet against the painted wall, and pushed. Everything he had, all his determination, all his will, all the strength left in him. Link pushed – and slowly, painfully, grating every step of the way and spilling a small mountain of sand to the floor beneath, the door was forced open.

Link stopped the moment it was wide enough to admit him and all his gear, righting himself almost unsteadily, trembling with the effort. But there was no time, no time at all, and he dragged in a desperate breath before scrambling through, having to twist sideways to fit with the shield on his back, slipping in the still-spilling sand and climbing up – up? – yes, up a steep slope with a flight of stairs at its edges. The clouds at its top were coloured like blossom, pink and cream, edged with gold and shadowed with a deep darkness. Sunset, seen from below, and it had finished catching up to him even as he and Fi had hastened as best they could through the mine.

Link reached the top of the steps still panting, ran forwards into the light… and was forced to stumble to a stop. After so long in the dimly lit underground, the full sunset light was dazzling, and he blinked squinting, shading his eyes with a hand, still begrudging every heartbeat wasted.

He could hear… music?

Eyes watering, Link squinted into the setting sun. Silhouetted against it was the incredible, impossible, soaring monument to the goddess, and below that a different light, pale blue as a midwinter sky yet at the same time the infinitely deep blue of the sky after the sun has set. And before that, still another light: as much smaller again as the blue light was than the statue, and shaped…

The sun that slipped through the monument streamed around Zelda, caught in her blonde hair and impossibly white dress, and it almost seemed to frame her as if with vast, radiant wings, sheeting past the tall, thin woman beside her as if she wasn't there. For a single moment, Link stared.

"...Zelda!"

The music faltered, and Zelda turned, looking over her shoulder, the harp she'd been playing still in her hands. She seemed to look at him as if from across an impossibly vast distance – but in the next instant, her expression dissolved into relief and joy.

"Link!"

"Zelda, Ghirahim is coming, he, Fi thinks he knows you're here!" Even as he spoke, Link was running again to put himself between her and any threat: as his vision adjusted he'd seen the bridge across an empty ravine, its bottom dust-dry with tumbled rocks, and Zelda on the other side, and beyond her but before the towering monument an incredible and strange something, at once out of place and yet perfectly right, a great gear etched in shimmering lines turning, turn-stop-turn like the heartbeat of the world, meshing smoothly with what seemed to be parts of others that were there and weren't, shimmering in and out of existence in a way that made his eyes give up. It was the most awe-inspiring thing he had ever seen, even more so than the sword on his back or the building rising from the sand or any of the wild and terrifying wonders of the surface.

And he refused to let himself appreciate it. It was there, it was noted, and it was thrust to the back of his mind though he would never see it for the first time again, because all that mattered was defending Zelda before Ghirahim reached her, no golden door here to bar his way. The bridge was the only way across; that meant he would defend the bridge, and turn his back on all the wonder and all the grandeur and even on his friend herself. He planted his feet and spun, sword and shield in hand, and in the same moment Fi warned him inflectionlessly:

Master.

Link searched the arc of rock and sand and stone visible beyond the crumbled archway that had once been a grand entrance, and at once his eyes snapped to a running figure, pale as ice with red cape fluttering behind like a spray of blood, vanishing briefly before the rubble only to leap up onto it, poised for an instant before jumping lithely down, landing in a perfect crouch.

Ghirahim straightened up, drawing his lethal blade, and the sound he made was one of smug satisfaction.

"Hmm. So… here you are at last. And I see you've arrived to stop me once again." His attention flickered from Zelda to Fi, the Goddess Sword bright and mute in Link's hand. "Normally, I would let you. It is so much more interesting having someone almost worthy to spar with. But, I am not so old that I can't learn my lessons." He was smiling his predatory smile, stalking closer one slow and deliberate step at a time. Drawing it out. "I simply don't have the time right now… so you" and he vanished, and Link spun around sword raised just in time to see him reappear on his other side "will have to wait."

And Link was running, already running as Ghirahim raised his sword and swung it down with a wordless yell; almost on him as a barrier sprang into being before him like darkness and diamond shards and, unable to check himself, he ran full-tilt into it.

It was like hitting a wall, only worse, noisome and wrong, vile as the invisible residue of Ghirahim's grip on Fi's perfect blade and painful with it, like needles in his bones or in his soul. Link staggered back, shaking his head to clear it, and in that same moment Ghirahim charged across the bridge and straight at Zelda where she stood armed with nothing but a harp.

Charged – and was stopped. Unbelievably, the tall, thin Sheikah woman had darted forwards from Zelda's side, so quick Link had barely even registered her motion, and now with all the whipcord strength of her hard life she had caught the demon by the wrist, holding his sword hand at bay, leaning hard against him and braced against the ground, nullifying his motion for a precious, impossible breath.

"Impa!" Zelda cried, as if trying to forbid her or call her back.

"Really, Impa?" Ghirahim asked, tension in his voice suggesting he was pressing against her, though neither moved. "Yes, I know you. I'd recognise the traces of your meddling spirit anywhere. But at last, you're fool enough-" and he twisted and spun, and Impa moved with him, a parody of a dance so blindingly fast Link could barely see it through the barrier's distortion, but at the end of his motion Ghirahim was still standing and the Sheikah, Impa, was staggering back, hand clamped to her bleeding arm "-to come face to face with me!"

"Your Radiance, quickly, to the Gate!" Impa cried, pain and resignation and determination mingled in her voice as Ghirahim drew back his sword and she held out her bloodied hand as if the gesture alone could hold him back.

"No!" Zelda shouted, and it wasn't a denial but a command, her voice ringing with a kind of authority Link had never heard. A shimmering golden shield sprang into being between Ghirahim and Impa, and as the demon hacked furiously at it, Zelda dashed sideways to face Link across the ravine, just past the point where the edge of Ghirahim's barrier would have blocked him from her view.

"Link, take this! You'll need it if I'm not with you!"

Link opened his mouth to protest, but before he could even begin to speak Zelda was already holding the harp out as if she could pass it to him, light shining from behind her, through her – from her? – in a single golden sunbeam. It wasn't just light, but something more, a feeling like an outstretched hand, and Link let go of the grip of his shield – strapped to his arm, it sagged but didn't fall – to hold his own out, palm up. The harp materialised in it like light becoming solid, and Link closed his fingers around it reflexively, the light fading in the same moment.

Master, Fi's silent, rapid voice said, low and soft and utterly toneless, compressed into bare instants, I have completed an analysis of Ghirahim's barrier. When charged with power, your sword will be able to cut through it, at the cost of a significant expenditure of energy. The strength of the barrier is also weakening as Ghirahim continues to expend his own power against the radiant shield.

Link's eyes flicked back to the barrier, and he realised he could see that for himself: the shard-speckled darkness was less complete, more translucent, the shardlike shapes within it smaller and fewer. Gritting his teeth, he raised his blade to the sky-

-the taste of smoke and ash and a battle like an endless horror in which there was no beginning or end-

-and as it shone with light, he drew it back, and drove it with all his strength, all his determination, into the dark barrier before him! The Goddess Sword blazed with power, penetrating so very slowly as if he were pushing it into something only slightly softer than rock, the intangible diamond shards seeming the spray out from it like sparks and fade. Ghirahim screamed in what sounded to Link like rage and frustration, hacking even more violently at the golden shield, which had begun to flicker with every impact, and Link's blade cut deeper, cut through; he forced it down with all his might and it cut a ragged gash into the shadowy barrier! It had taken a supreme effort in more ways than the physical, and there was still more to go: Link drove the sword deeper still, Fi's light burning against the cloying darkness, then threw himself against the tear. It resisted, burning against him, for a moment – then ripped like a piece of fabric, and he stumbled through.

The broken barrier vanished behind him as Ghirahim withdrew the last of his power from it, screaming a curse in a language over a thousand years dead, striking one last vicious blow that sent cracks splintering across the surface of the fading golden shield. Link flung the harp's carrying strap over his head and instantly forgot about it, gripping his shield once more and charging, his every sense fixed utterly on the demon ahead who would all too soon be through the-

The golden shield shattered and Link threw himself at Ghirahim in almost the same moment, the demon off-balance for just – long – enough! Even as Ghirahim twisted, his weight shifting, the Goddess Sword's peerless blade sliced down, slashing across his leg as he leapt away, back past Link to where he could face all his foes at once. Link spun, refusing to let his enemy out of his sight, not risking even one glance back to where Impa and Zelda had retreated to the great, turning, somehow unfathomably deep creation behind them, a backpack in Impa's good hand and some sort of statuette balanced oddly on her shoulder.

"Link!"

Though it was Zelda who called him, he didn't let his eyes waver from Ghirahim even for an instant as the demon's attention shifted slowly from his injury – a shallow cut much like the other Link had caused him, the torn cloth around it far more dramatic – to Link in rage.

"Link, tell the Sheikah what happened! They'll know what to do!" Zelda's voice caught, and Link could hear a farewell in it. With every fibre of his being he wanted to turn around, and with every last scrap of will he forced himself not to. "I promise I'll see you again, Link!"

He heard a note then, a strange sad note like a wind instrument, and then another, somehow dissonant as if conflicting with a melody he couldn't quite hear. The dissonance grew, Ghirahim staring at something behind Link and a sound that was not a sound reverberating through everything: in the sword in Link's hand, in his bones or perhaps in his soul.

The heartbeat snapped.

Something shattered behind him, something huge that snatched the breath from his lungs and felt as though it sent him flying though his body was unmoving, a cascade in his head like a waterfall, a torrent, a shockwave that passed him in an instant and buffeted him for a hundred years. Chunks and shards of dull blue crystal crashed and tinkled and skittered in all directions from behind him, and Link knew that something terrible and irreversible and somehow almost inevitable had happened.

The shock faded from Ghirahim's grey features, slowly replaced with furious frustration. He lifted his empty left hand to his chest; clenched it slowly into a fist.

"Now you've done it… Link." For once, he was Looking at Link himself, not the blade in his hand. Link could feel the weight of his gaze, and the fury of it. Ghirahim pointed his own sabre at him, deadly and unwavering – but made no move to strike, merely silent for a moment, and the rage in his voice when he spoke again seemed somehow leashed. "I blame myself. I should have reprimanded you the last time we met, but instead I was… soft."

Why isn't he attacking? was all Link could think.

No data. Fi's silent voice was utterly flat and still.

"There's nothing I'd like more than to punish you now…" Ghirahim lowered his sword, his stance almost insultingly casual. "But I have no time for recreation. It's quite clear what I must do." He shifted his weight as if to turn away, then paused, pointing back at Link. "But next time, I'll do more than just beat you senseless." For a few moments, his gaze shifted to the Goddess Sword, to Fi. "I won't just cut him down. No…" The cruel smile that spread across his face as he looked back to Link chilled him to the bone. "I'll show you what I've learnt from those Sheikah dogs. I'll make the affair so excruciating you'll deafen yourself with the shrill sound of your own screams. I'll make you wish I'd just killed you when we last met…"

One step at a time, he was backing away.

"Until we meet again… Link."

Sweeping his cloak around himself with a flourish, Ghirahim leapt back up onto the rubble, jumped down on the other side, and was gone from view.

Slowly, shakily, Link straightened, the tension leaving him and all the exhaustion he'd been ignoring crashing in on him. Zelda was gone, again. He'd helped her, or he thought he had, but Zelda was gone. The strange and wondrous thing that had been here was destroyed, by her hand or by Impa's. Ghirahim had sworn bloody vengeance on him. And he was exhausted and almost alone in the desert ruins, and all he knew was that he had to find the Sheikah.

Link walked slowly to the dais where the device had once stood, and sat down hard amidst the rubble. After a moment, he lifted his pristine sword from the ground and rested it carefully across his knees.

"Fi… are you okay?"

I am undamaged, Master. The melody had begun to return to her silent voice. I detect that Ghirahim is leaving, consistent with his statements.

"What… do you think he's… he's going to do?"

I do not have sufficient data to draw a reliable conclusion. I project that he considers himself to have some means of potentially reaching Zelda. Analysis of his aura immediately prior to and during his final speech indicated that he restrained himself from engaging you in combat with significant difficulty. I deduce that the idea that occurred to him was one that he considered to have a probability of success notably higher than any other course of action.

"I guess… we'll just have to hurry, too." Link breathed out slowly, a long and shaky sigh, and for a moment almost felt as though he couldn't catch his breath again. He shuddered, gasping a couple of quick breaths, and the feeling faded. "But we… We stopped him this time… right? We were… fast enough?"

We arrived in time to divert his initial attack and neutralise his assault, Fi confirmed. Had we been earlier, it is possible that we would have gained additional information. However, I do not predict that any material difference would have been made to the battle.

"We were fast enough," Link repeated, whispering to himself. Carefully holding the sword as he moved, he leant back on a chunk of dull blue rubble, cool and still and somehow unsettlingly rock-like, with no sense of power or motion or indeed anything left in it. Above him, the clouds were still reflecting the last of the light, but even the highest point of the great monument to the goddess was in shadow, and he knew the sun had set.

"Fi… What was all this? What happened…?"

This debris previously formed the Gate of Time, as you have guessed, Master. I have been unable to detect Zelda's aura since the moment immediately prior to its destruction. The music that she was playing as she entered it, amplified by the power that has awoken within her, was undoubtedly the cause. The temporal harmonics within it were chosen and timed to cause maximum disruption to the Gate of Time's function.

At last, abruptly, Fi vaulted from the sword, leaning at an unlikely angle to bring her face to a level with Link's. A faint, weak smile crossed his face unbidden.

"I was unable to determine the era to which the Gate of Time was attuned when Zelda entered it. However, the probability that she arrived safely is near 100%, despite the destruction of the Gate in this time period. The means by which she broke it could not have been employed by one unable to perceive and comprehend the interaction. Therefore, her passage is likely to have been controlled."

"Wait, wait, wait… The era?"

Fi nodded smoothly. "The Gate of Time is a means of travelling from one era of time to any other in which that Gate exists. The gate here was built in honour of the Goddess of Time by the robots of the temporal cycle that once governed this region." She looked up, righting herself effortlessly. "No specific reason for a monument honouring Goddess Hylia to have been built here exists in my database. It is possible that this was the only sacred site in this city, and that following the assistance of the goddess' people, the robots who remained in this region constructed it out of gratitude."

Link nodded, the broken chunk of stone or crystal he was leaning on hard beneath his head. "That would make sense… The goddess has always watched over us…"

Considering his exhaustion and fragile emotional state, Fi considered it wisest to make no further comment on that topic.

"…So Zelda's in another time…?" Predictably, Link's thoughts had already turned back to his lost friend.

"That is correct, Master. Since she instructed us to seek out the Sheikah, I deduce that it is probable that they will have further information concerning how to locate and contact or retrieve her. I recommend returning to the Sealed Grounds and speaking to Mahra Impa."

"Okay." It felt a little better to have a more concrete goal. That, at least, he knew exactly how to do.

Fi observed her master in silence for a short while longer.

"Master, I recommend finding shelter. The desert night will become uncomfortably cold if you are not in motion."

Link didn't want to move, but he slowly pushed himself to his feet anyway, looking at the sword in his hand for a long moment before finally sheathing it.

"Lead the way, Fi..."

And now for my favourite boss, even if this isn't a time we fight him. He's grown on me a lot since starting to write this.

I'm also very hyped for the next chapter, we'll start answering some of the questions I've set up soon!

Patch Notes
- Ghirahim no longer wastes power on exploding rubble he will demonstrate the ability to jump over less than ten seconds later.
- Link no longer barred from intervening in cutscene quite so harshly and completely.
- Link given actual agency in the timing of his interventions.
- Proto- Blade of Evil's Bane now also effective against evil shields.
- God-level powers removed from Impa; given to, I don't know, perhaps the actual ex-deity hanging around in this scene? (Seriously, what the hell, game?)
- Swords now have to actually hit people for those people to take injury.
- Secretive ninja no longer tells Ghirahim to his face where Link is about to go and who he's about to want to talk to.
- Effects of breaking powerful artefact now significant.