The Legend of Zelda: Wisdom and Courage

Chapter 21: Legends Reborn

Before he could do anything to defend himself, the sacred blade was ripped out of the hero's grip by the sheer amount of force that the rebel leader had thrust against it with her own duel knives. The sword clattered to the ground only a few feet away from him, and even though it was the hero's first instinct to hurry and reclaim it, but the sword spirit let out a warning call to him nonetheless as he started towards it.

"Master!" she called out with worry for him, knowing well what could happen if he didn't make haste. "Please hurry and reclaim the Master Sword as soon as possible! Without it in your possession, you are fully susceptible to corruption once more!"

The hero took heed of her words, but as he was only a few feet away from the purifying blade, the familiar, but still agonizing ripple of another spell of corruption ripped through his body all the same, causing him to collapse to the ground from the crippling pain it was forcing him to endure. He wrapped his arms around the heavy cut across his chest as it reopened itself once more, light crimson blood spilling from it and staining both his clothes and the otherwise immaculate temple floor around him.

"Foolish hero…" the demon taunted him cruelly from inside his own mind once more. "You thought a simple sword could free you from my grip? You know that no matter what you do or where you go, in the end there is no escaping your fate! You shall be my slave for all eternity, and there is nothing that you or anyone else can do to stop it!"

As the demon let out a menacing laugh, the hero began to feel his senses shut down once more, but he knew that to lose control of himself now could prove to be fatal, especially when he heard the Sheikah leader cry out his name worriedly nearby. And so the hero fought back against the unending anguish that the demon was pressing upon him, shutting his eyes tightly as he used every ounce of his wavering strength to try and will it away. He knew that he could not give up, especially since so many things were at stake and so much depended on him, specifically, the fate of the girl whom he loved more than anyone else.

After what seemed like hours of struggling and getting nowhere with breaking free from the corruption, the hero finally felt a burst of relief as a pair of gentle hands helped him up into a sitting position and placed something into his hands. Almost instantly, the purity of the blade of evil's bane drove the presence of the demon away temporarily, but even so, it's cold words echoed ominously throughout the hero's mind as he was released from the still-firm grip of corruption once more: "You will never be free… No matter how hard you try to fight it, you will be mine eventually… There is only one thing that you are destined to be, hero, and that is my eternal slave of destruction and chaos. Know that, at my command, your hands will be the ones that will usher in an age of darkness and destruction unlike any ever seen before, one that will never end for as long as time remains…"

This vision of the distant past gave way to a more immediate one for Hero of Time as the sound of melodious plucks of harp strings began to sound all around him. Opening his eyes, he found that he was somehow within the same elegant yet simple temple he had seen in his most recent dream, only instead of being the battle ground as it had been there, the area was peaceful instead, as rays of sunlight streamed in through the mostly-open roof. The place was clearly holy, but nothing seemed to be really holy when compared to the almost-glowing figure who was positioned only a few feet before Link as he stood within the otherwise empty, ancient temple. From what he could tell since their back was turned to him, the figure was a young girl, about his age, with long, golden blonde hair that ran down her back in shining curls. She wore a simple, immaculate, pure white dress that flowed perfectly with her soft, thin figure and she seemed to be the source of the mysterious, beautiful, almost haunting melody that bounced around the temple's walls. She was singing along to the harp's song with perhaps the most beautiful voice that Link had ever heard, more lovely than Zelda's, or even Malon's. And despite the fact that she sang in a strange language that the hero couldn't understand, both her voice and her song were simply entrancing all the same as her melody rung throughout the temple: "O iuvenis, ducti a servo deae, uniat caelum et terram, et illumina super terram..."