Living With Myself

Chapter 39

Oni Link looked at the darkness flowing from the cracks in the sky and the way it flowed towards the castle. He couldn't expand his senses the same way as before, or he ran the risk of his mind touching Link's. He gritted his teeth.

Of course, he had known that Farore would know about him right away. After all, Link was nothing if not Farore's pawn.

And yet...and yet he had let himself get too familiar with him. Had left him an open road into the infinite awareness that was his own divine awareness.

And now Farore had had enough, and snatched Link back. What silly hopes he had entertained by thinking that she would side with him against Nayru.

A light shone bright and purple down from the sky, and Nayru floated in front of him, wearing the body of princess Zelda.

"They call you the Fierce Deity now," laughed Nayru. Her vessel held up better than the last one. Only the tips of her hair started losing their color, fading into white. It would start cracking from the inside soon though, no matter how compatible with her the spirit of the princess was.

And yet not soon enough.

"They have called me a lot of things throughout the years," said Oni.

Nayru smiled. "Nuissance is as good a name as you need," she said.

Nayru lifted a hand, and the very earth cracked under Oni's feet. He hovered in the same spot. Waiting.

He needed an entrance. He needed a breach in her defense, which he could see swirling like purple lights all around her.

"You disrespect me, Nayru," said Oni, calling forth his power, and feeling the limitations of his current vessel. It would crumble if he put too much pressure on it. "Do you think I am a simple mortal that will bow to you as soon as you stomp your feet down?"

"You might as well be. In that wooden puppet you copied from Farore," she said, swatting him away.

Oni teleported away from the spot, just as it crumbled, as if an explosion had taken everything away, leaving nothing but a great hole.

Oni called forth his sword and slashed at Nayru, who dodged it with a single step, so that only the tips of her hair were cut off. The hair sizzled and flared as it burned off, released from Nayru's control.

Barely more than a simple shove to Nayru, Oni was sure of it.

It was too much. Zelda had been created for her just as Link had been created to contain Farore. Oni simply couldn't compete with the power they could channel through their vessels. He would never win if he kept being constrained by the law.

Especially not when he didn't want to fight her.

Oh, he wished he could strangle her and rip her apart. He had cultivated his hatred for thousands of years, watching her laws rule the world below. He wanted to land a thousand stabs throughout her body.

And yet, when he saw the hylian face looking back at him, with that pale golden hair floating about, he would stop himself. He would slow his slashes and still his hand.

"Has your imprisonment turned you weak?" asked Nayru, with the same mouth that had dared Link to drinking contests, and blown him kisses from afar. From the same mouth that thanked Link for giving everything he had done to save the world. "Or could it be something else?"

Oni Link saw the purple sparkle in her eyes, wanting to shout to Link's stupid heart that that wasn't princess Zelda. She couldn't be.

"Leave my world," said Nayru, the energy around her expanding and burning away everything in her path.