Epilogue I

It was early autumn by the time Link reached the Yiga hideout. By now, he'd had all the time in the world to change his mind and turn back, abandoning this reckless quest. By now, he could have been the bigger man and let things be. But he couldn't keep standing by, watching the Yiga Clan, his clan, destroy any more families. In the short time Calamity Ganon was gone, they really had no purpose; they had turned to thievery and waylaying, being the pests they'd always been capable of. Every time Link saw a Yiga on the road, whether uniformed or in disguise—which he could see from a mile away—they reminded him of the Clan's fall from grace, and how they had once been so promising, loyal, and honorable, in their own twisted ways. They'd had a purpose, a drive.

No longer. Not under Kohga, who Link refused to refer to as "Master." He was never Link's master, and he didn't deserve the title.

The hideout was easy to spot once one knew where and how to look. All one had to do was follow the blowing red flags, and they would lead right to the doorstep. Link didn't bother with finding the back entrance, the one Shara had showed him all that time ago. Instead, he followed the flags, and he imagined a time when he would walk this same path one hundred years ago, when he was still a member of the Clan. How often had he walked this road? How often had he been the one wreaking havoc on innocents? He shuddered, ashamed.

Thoughts of Shara entered his mind. Was she also capable of being a bother? Link didn't think so. He had watched her grieve not only over him, but over being rejected by the one family that had raised her, her clan that left her for dead. She had dedicated herself to the Clan's cause, and to Link. Had he ever told her how he felt? He knew now that they had a special bond, and now he was the one grieving over the lost time. They had meant worlds to each other, and she had suffered because of it, shut out from her supposed family.

Link didn't bother trying to sneak into the hideout. He didn't care if anyone was home; he was going to find "Master Kohga," and take care of him once and for all, and would not be stopped. He'd come all this way, and he would find his retribution.

The main entrance to the hideout was littered with boxes, as if someone tried building a shoddy wall, but the boxes were thrown together haphazardly enough to render them ineffective. More flags bordered the semicircle of stone walls that formed the entrance to the hideout. There was no Yiga in sight. Where were they all? Weren't they supposed to at least defend their base?

He walked right in, underneath an arch made up of red fabric and clay pots covered in Yiga symbols. In a flash of inspiration, Link hefted one pot lying on the ground and hurled it at another nearby pot with all his might. The crash echoed throughout the canyons around him, but it was the most satisfying crunch of clay he'd ever heard. If that didn't get someone's attention, he didn't know what would.

Still, the place seemed abandoned. No one came to greet him, or to stop him, or to even attack him. It was frankly disorienting, so he just went inside, shaking his head at the insolence. It was dark, dirty, and quite cool under the cover of stone. There were a few torches burning along the walls, which Link found curious. They weren't made of wood, but were glowing rocks hooked to the walls. There were hordes of bananas everywhere, and Link couldn't help but chuckle as a thought came to him. He wasn't entirely surprised—from what he'd been told, the Yiga had loved bananas and practically treated them as currency. He pulled one from its bunch and peeled it, intrigued by the sweet taste. Link's adventures in the desert, though grief-torn and tinted with bad memories, told him that good food was aplenty here. The hydromelons, the voltfruit, all of it. He snacked on the banana and wandered around the maze-like halls of the base. There was not a soul to be seen.

As he rounded corners of walls made of draped red fabric, Link wondered what his life was like here. Did he have his own room? Did he have other friends besides Shara? Or was he an overachiever who was disliked because of his "perfectness?" And Master Gehrik—had Link been on good terms with him? Or had masters of the Clan always had questionable work ethic and cluelessness? No. That wouldn't be right. He'd seen Shara's memories of Master Gehrik, and he didn't think that was true. Master Gehrik was a man who demanded, and deserved, respect. It was earned, not forced. Kohga, however, had done nothing of merit in Link's eyes that deserved respect.

Link passed by a room that looked like it had been a smithy, but was now abandoned, the forges cold and unused for a while now. Curious, he went in and found an array of weapons lining the walls. None of these were the typical Yiga fare, and Link concluded they were either outdated or stolen. Shamelessly, he took one of the old duplex bows and a knife that looked well worn but practical. These weapons obviously weren't getting used, so he might as well give them something to do.

"Are those yours, Hero?" a voice commanded from the doorway behind him.

Link spun and found himself face-to-face with Kohga himself. He was wearing his Yiga mask and red Yiga regalia, bulged at the stomach though it was. His arms were folded across his chest, and he was leaning against the beam of the open doorway.

"Were they yours?" Link asked in return. He stepped back, his shoulder gently bumping the cold forge.

The Yiga chief guffawed. "Are your expectations of us really that low?"

Link didn't care to keep answering questions with more questions, so he waited, knowing Kohga wouldn't be able to help himself to the silence.

"Okay, okay, fine. They're not ours. Take them. That knife is hideous, anyway," he said, pushing off from the wooden beam. Then he beckoned to Link and faced the hall. "Come. I have something you might find interesting."

Link's brows knit together as tight as they could go. This man was unstable at best, but Link found places on his person for the bow and knife, taking hesitant steps out of the room.

Kohga casually led Link through the curtained halls of the hideout, his back to him, ready to be stabbed. Link refrained for now and kept his distance; he may be walking into a trap, but there was an off chance that Kohga was right, and something interesting was at the end of their little walk.

They ended up in the large room at the hideout's center, where Daren had brought Link all those months ago, and where Shara had led him in her memories. There was still a general disarray to this room, signs of slothfulness everywhere. At the back of the room, Kohga stood at a small table, which was covered in shadows and littered with schematics of plans that didn't work. Link paused as Kohga held up a small leather-bound book, about the size of his hand and as thick as Link's thumb. The binding was worn to the point of falling apart, and pages threatened to fall out.

"I studied this. Night and day," Kohga said, an odd visceral emotion in his voice. "To try to see how you operated. This is one of our last records of you being in the Clan. Yet it says nothing of your treachery."

Puzzled and unafraid, Link stepped closer.

Kohga held it out. "Take it. I have no use for it anymore."

Slowly, Link reached for the book, and at that moment, Kohga took that split second to punch Link in the gut. Link doubled over, mostly out of panic than of pain.

In response, Link's only instinct was to get up and get away. He pulled himself up, more frustrated than anything, and snatched the book from Kohga's hands.

Then he ran.

He ran, hardly remembering where to go. He ignored the pain in his gut, knowing only that he must get out of there. Kohga could face retribution later. He exited the hideout into the open air, but what he saw wasn't the front entrance or the back entrance. It was a spacious arena of some sort, encircled by high canyon walls.

Kohga was quickly on his heels. For all his heaviness, he could still run like a racehorse.

Outside, in this arena of sand, there was an impossibly large hole in the ground. Link had to skid to a stop before he ran straight into the pit. Kohga laughed at him from behind.

"Do you like it? It's a recent addition. A meteor fell from the sky a dozen or so years back. Went straight through the ground. Odd, don't you think?" Kohga steadily ambled towards the hole, making sure to keep a reasonable distance from Link.

What an unstable man, Link thought. First he punches me, then wants to chat?

Inconspicuously, on Link's right side where the chief couldn't see, he slid an arrow out of his pack, then slowly unhitched the stolen Duplex Bow from his back. He twirled the arrow in his fingers. Once. Twice. Three times. On instinct, knowing his fingers would know where to go, he knocked the bow, quickly aimed, then fired. The arrow landed in Kohga's shoulder, directly on an artery.

Fingering the arrow with futility, the Yiga Clan chief fell to his knees. They both knew that he would die from the blood loss, and quickly. There was no one here to help him. His face turned pale and his eyes went wide as his blood drained. It wasn't long before he slumped entirely, and too close to the edge of the pit. He couldn't control his center of gravity in time before he slipped into the abyss with one last failed grasp for the edge.

Hyrule's depths claimed Kohga, ending his stained reign over the Yiga Clan.