Chapter Text
Ryunosuke’s Journal
Lady Rei graced us with her presence at the castle this past week. Lady Susato always has a vibrancy to her, but whenever she’s around Lady Rei, she seems to just glow in an infectious way—it’s apparent just how much she misses her friend’s company, despite how composed she presents herself. And it pleases me to see it reciprocated so: Lady Rei’s bubbly smile, her eyes alighting in admiration.
Though, Lady Rei grows quite shy and flustered at some of the most peculiar moments. Lady Susato very swiftly caught her when she misstepped and she became beyond animated: Lady Rei was apologizing profusely, while at the same time adulating Lady Susato’s gallantry and dexterity with much vivacity. All the while, Lady Rei’s face was as red as the plumage of a Hotfeather Pigeon, with the blown-wide eyes to match!
Speaking of, I’ll sooner die than forget the wide-eyed stare she gave me before quickly averting her gaze, cheeks rosy as can be and face half-covered behind her sleeve, after Kazuma reached over and wiped my face while we were eating lunch in the Castle Gardens—some traitorous sauce atop the Mushroom and Greens Skewers we were partaking in, no doubt. Ugh, how utterly embarrassing and unbecoming of me! She must be horrified to think that the Prince of Hyrule cannot even maintain proper eating etiquette! …Why am I even recording this account on paper? I shouldn’t have even
Iris and Lady Rei took to each other perhaps even faster than Iris did with Lady Susato. For all she’s been doing with the ancient technology, I almost forgot that Iris is a fully-realized doctor. They immediately began discussing a whole slew of medical intrigue that went right above my head. I tuned out completely once they started speaking in-depth about death and corpses—along with Champion Wilson, Lady Rei has also apprenticed under Dr. Sithe, a Zora coroner with seemingly high accolades. Why anyone would willingly choose to work with the dead is beyond me. The corpses are already terrifying enough, but how could you not fear coming face to face with a disgruntled Poe? (…Kazuma still doesn’t believe they truly exist, but I know very well that ghosts are not to be underestimated! Mind, it’s not as if I have any proof myself, but…)
I also saw—please don’t judge me, it wasn’t my intention to snoop and I never would intentionally read a young woman’s diary!—a page fallen open of Lady Rei’s diary when I accidentally bumped into her bag and sent the contents spilling all over the floor. (Kazuma saw it all happen, too—he’ll never let me hear the end of it!) Something caught my eye when I tried to close it: a rumor that the Zora princess, Princess Rutipha, is looking to be betrothed soon. I hadn’t heard anything of the sort, but if she’s to be requesting attention from suitors soon… Well, it makes me nervous to think of it, truthfully. These sorts of processes are always quite overblown and more involved than they really should be.
Anyway, I hope my journal doesn’t accidentally fall open to this page while someone whose name starts with an “S” is near to read it. The Susato Toss I’d experience would be one most grievous, I fear! (Again, if you do happen to somehow see this, Lady Susato, I must press the fact that I didn’t mean to read Lady Rei’s private thoughts on purpose and that one sentence was all I saw!)
The sharp crack of a branch underfoot makes Ryunosuke jump, squeezing Kazuma’s hand tighter. Ryunosuke can register Kazuma looking back at him, but his expression is unreadable—the murky darkness shrouding the forest is as imperceptible as staring into the depths of the Dragon Bone Mire. There’s something in him that tells him Kazuma’s frowning.
“We need light,” Kazuma says, voice dry and brittle. “The longer we stay in the dark, the more energy it drains from us. You need to use your light power.”
Ryunosuke’s stomach drops. “I can’t,” he rasps, and the words burn out of his throat like he’s been running a marathon. Just how long have they been walking through this forest, anyway? Despite his best efforts, he can’t seem to recall what was happening before this. “We just need to light a torch and then—”
“No, that won’t work. The darkness snuffs out any fire—you know that.” Ryunosuke mashes his lips at this, swallows down the lump in his throat. “Just use your powers!” Kazuma growls, but his voice is grittier, older sounding. “Quit treating this as though it’s some sort of childish game!”
The words ring in Ryunosuke’s ears, grating and dissonant. “I’m trying as hard as I can! And yet, no matter what I do, I still can’t—” He sucks in a stinging breath. Goddess, it’s so hard to breathe.
A low mutter, but the words are keenly clear: “Then you’ve cursed us all to die.”
There’s a loud squelching noise, followed by a hiss from Kazuma. Ryunosuke crashes into Kazuma’s back, smashing his nose into his shoulder. He squeezes his eyes shut and wheezes out a curse.
“S-Sorry…” Ryunosuke mumbles through gritted teeth. But when he opens his eyes, the air around him feels cold, his hand empty. He extends his fingers out, searching for anything at all of Kazuma’s, but all he grasps is bare air. The sinking feeling in his chest confirms that unmistakable feeling of loss. “Kazuma?!” He whips his head to the side, but it’s all just an endless, inky black in front of him. He wheels around and—
Ryunosuke stands at the entrance of the Throne Room, but it’s different—the size is all wrong and the layout is amiss, yet it feels distinctly familiar in a way that leaves his heart twisted. Outstretched before him is a navy blue carpet, adorned with gold filigree trimmings, laid over marble tiling. The light is low, oppressive; he pulls out the Slate and uses it as a light source. The room stretches on into a giant chamber of thick, marbled pillars and florid window panes that hold ruddy skies between their fingers. He wades through the black and magenta tar that coats the floor.
As he approaches the center of the room, he examines one of the three massive statue heads that lie against the tile, marble features chiseled into the Goddess Hylia’s placid face. When he sees what’s behind it, his mouth goes dry; he stops in his tracks.
Bodies. In piles, spread out over the steps that lead to the throne. Covered in that accursed murk. They’re all too easy to recognize as Ryunosuke’s heart tries to smash through his rib cage.
The women from the dango stand, Malia, Nikolina.
With trembling limbs, he wills himself to step around them.
Ursavra, Jigoku, Wilson.
Red fog rolls in, filling the chamber. Its haze casts a dark film, yet it does nothing to obscure the scene, the faces.
Soseki, Hosonaga, Gina.
Even the smoke that arrives with it can’t mask the putrid stench of blood that fills every crevice of this chamber. Ryunosuke’s head feels dizzy.
At the throne, King Naruhodo is slumped across the side of one of the arms, crown fallen to the ground beside it. Fanned out at the foot, like a macabre collapse of a card tower: Iris, Sholmes, Susato, Elder Impa. It’s difficult to tell where the deep red that pools underneath them begins and the onyx mire begins—all he knows is that he can’t breathe.
He tears his eyes upwards, away from the sepulchral sight. Onto the towering decorative stone figures that climb skyward, onto the headless statues of the goddess that orbit the massive Triforce affixed to the wall, onto—
Kazuma’s limp body hangs in the hollow space between stone triangles.
Ryunosuke drops the Sheikah Slate and with it, the rest of his body follows. He doesn’t even feel it when his knees slam directly into the marble, head hammering with a searing heat that makes him see double.
It’s a trick of the light, surely, when the cloud of inky magenta swirls up from the floor, around the throne, then forming into the shape of a snouted beast, its single horn a spectral lance. It’s his brain fooling him—trying to distract him as he processes oblivion staring him in the face—surely, when he hears the ticking of clocks, of time slipping through his fingers.
Too late, too late—
The apparition cocks its head—jeering, almost. In its eyes, he sees himself reflected in amber grime, sees only the face of fear. The energy around the specter roils and pops.
—have yet to find it—
Calamity Stronghart lunges.
Ryunosuke shoots up out of bed with a scream that leaves his throat feeling raw. His chest heaves, clutching the blankets with shaking hands. Despite the summer heat, he feels the shock as the night air makes contact with his soaked shirt, his hair matted against his forehead.
“Ryunosuke…” Kazuma murmurs beside him, stroking soft circles against his back. He’s lit a candle already, left on the bedside table. The warm glow grounds Ryunosuke to the present, if only just a bit.
Ryunosuke’s eyes grow wide. “K-Kazuma!” he cries out, throwing himself around Kazuma in an uncoordinated leap. His fists bunch into the back of Kazuma’s shirt; he buries his face into Kazuma’s shoulder. “Thank Hylia you’re—” A sob escapes him, so violently, it aches in his chest.
He feels Kazuma still in his embrace. Instant recognition. A low whisper, cautious and fearful: “Was I…?”
“Yes,” Ryunosuke ekes out. “You, you were dead—everyone was dead—I—” He pulls Kazuma closer, tries to capture his warmth and not let go. If he could stay in the safety of this bed just to make sure this reality of Kazuma alive in front of him would be preserved, he would without question. “And it’s all my fault that everyone’s going to die—”
He feels Kazuma’s arms envelop him, press him tight against him. Kazuma’s heart thuds erratic in his ears, and the guilt of frightening him during these episodes makes it feel all that more bitter. But Kazuma’s voice is soft, and yet unrelenting when he says, “Your dreams are not prophetic… We’ve already established this when you were adamant on making me bet on that blue dog and it got last place.”
Ryunosuke chokes out a half-laugh that feels more like another sob. He’s grateful for the small distraction of levity, even if it comes at his expense. “But Sir Barksalotl was so confident in my dream…”
Kazuma sighs, then whispers in exasperation, “He was lapped by the winning dog…”
Ryunosuke feels the hand that rested on his shoulder trail up his neck, curl into the short ends of hair there at the nape. And he can’t suppress the shiver that courses through his body when fingers stroke through that unruly mat of damp hair, again and again. But it passes, it passes, when the stark novelty morphs into comfort—again and again, the repetition soothing. His breathing begins to level; he feels his muscles relax.
Kazuma murmurs, like a song, “Right, then…”
When Ryunosuke feels Kazuma pull back, he releases him from his own grip with some reluctance. Kazuma’s actions are as smooth and practiced as a dance: retrieve a Fire Fruit from his bag, start a fire in the fireplace, place the tea leaves in a cup, heat up the specialized kettle Iris invented which cuts the time it takes to boil water by three-fourths. Then, he fetches the notebook and pen from the side table, and sits back down next to Ryunosuke on the bed, so close his thigh presses up against Ryunosuke’s own.
“…The dreams are getting worse,” Ryunosuke mutters, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Alright,” Kazuma says, pen and paper at the ready. “Tell me what happened.”
“Hey!” comes a booming voice from Ryunosuke’s left, deep and approaching with all the urgency of a speeding wagon trying to beat a town’s drawbridge being lifted. “You’re the Prince of Hyrule, ain’t that right? Full flesh and blood and everything?” A sturdily-built man with a thick beard is jabbing a finger when he walks towards him; the aggression in his words are rivaled by how deeply knit his eyebrows are.
Kazuma steps between them, wrapping an arm to push Ryunosuke behind him. “Sir, please calm down.” He’s gone stone again—monotone and authoritative.
“I’ll calm down”—his voice rises and, with it, comes the attention of the others around them—“when I get some Hylia-damned answers! The Crown said they’d be sending us rupees and laborers to rebuild the ships we lost during the storms in the winter! And where the hell are they?!”
A woman just as strapping charges out from the nearby house and yanks the man’s arm, but he doesn’t budge. “Quit it, will you?!” she hisses. “Have you left your damned brains at the kitchen table too, you idiot?! Yelling at the prince like that!”
Ryunosuke’s mind goes blank—only the hammering of his heart filling the empty spaces. “I-I apologize, but I don’t—” Kazuma has shuffled him back a step, hand on his sword. “Those things take time. Th-There’s long processes to make sure funding gets approved and allocated and I’m sure they’re working on it and—” The words that spill out are the only things he can think to say; he doesn’t have any knowledge of this town’s request or how the financial departments operate to be of any use.
The man scoffs and the woman succeeds in pulling him away, if only for a moment. The space is short-lived, as it’s filled with a rushing crowd of people Ryunosuke didn’t notice approaching from all sides. It’s frenzied and cacophonous—any sense of control lost in seconds. His head spins.
“Raiten Menimemo, from the Daily Akkala here!” a man with thick sideburns and a paperboy cap yells over the increasingly louder crowd, notepad and pen clutched tight in each hand. “The Yiga Clan have been ramping up assaults across the kingdom, most recently in the bomb set outside Akkala Citadel. Yet, the spread of this news has been silenced outside of Akkala, seemingly from influence from the very top. How has the Royal Family planned to address these attacks and what steps have been taken in safeguarding the citizens from them?”
“When will the price of Voltfruit go down again?” Another voice.
“The tax increase on stuff coming from Castle Town is robbery!”
The comments and questions overlap over one another, without a single breath between them. The pounding in Ryunosuke’s head worsens as comment after comment melt into an incomprehensible din of shouting.
“Everyone,” Kazuma yells, “give some space!” He’s backed Ryunosuke up against the side of a house, shielding him as best he can. The scratch of peeling paint under Ryunosuke’s fingertips is the only thing that grounds him to the present. “Any questions or grievances regarding the Crown and their procedures need to be formally filed to the Council of Inquiry. If you wish to request a personal audience with the King of Hyrule, then you may also file a formal request with the Council of Inquiry. The prince will not be taking direct questions at this time! There are proper channels for these things; bombarding the prince will get you nowhere!”
Something bright and shiny blinds Ryunosuke from the side. Held up to his face are the gilded wings of the Royal Crest wrapped around a small jar. The woman lifting it has rough, strong hands and humble clothing patched together with a kaleidoscope of squares of different fabrics; the disparity between the woman’s appearance and the heavily decorated jar is as stark as blood on snow.
“My son…” she croaks out, voice jagged and fragile, “he was recruited by the knights within Akkala Citadel as an apprentice…”
Ryunosuke’s eyes shoot open when the pieces fit together and the once blurry haze of panic clears into pure, crystallized terror. The jar she’s holding in her hands—he recognizes it. He’s seen them displayed in ceremonies, at funerals. An urn. He tastes metal on his tongue.
“They said he wouldn’t ever see combat! That he was safe! He was only sixteen! That was the only reason I agreed to letting him go!”
“I’m—I’m so sorry for your loss,” Ryunosuke says. The words are stripped raw. “I’m sure you can take solace that his sacrifice was made honorably—”
She looks taken aback. “Honorably?” she scoffs, tone dripping with bile. “What honor is there in shoveling horse shit in your final moments?”
So he wasn’t in training to be a knight himself. The realization sears even worse. He knows he needs to say something, to assuage her grief—say anything at all—yet nothing comes out when he opens his mouth. Out of all the times his inner monologue has slipped out against his will, why is it now they’re both bereft of any words?
He feels pressure wrapped around his arm and air whizzing around him and wet colors streaking by and when he’s finally able to breathe again, he registers that Kazuma’s brought him inside the small cottage they’re to be lodging at for the next couple of days. And when the sobs escape him not a moment later, he knows it’s not merely the disappointment of the earlier visit to the Spring of Power that is the cause.
The Tumlea Valley is just as beautiful in person as it’s been described in text: striking trees suspended in autumn’s vivid auburn hues throughout the entirety of the year, fertile grounds as a conduit for a bevy of colorful and eclectic vegetables and fruits, the clear waters of the Akkala Sea as far as one can look. Tumlea Town may be small in population, but it’s anything but in its importance. Its close proximity to the sea, coupled with the protection of the Tumlea Heights around the Bloodlake River, made it one of the first population hubs of Northern Akkala. It’s an agricultural town through and through—the Akkala region relies on the food produced in this valley.
If the circumstances were different—if he were a different person entirely—then Ryunosuke would be content spending more time here, sampling the local delicacies and taking in the scenery. They had only just arrived, but he’s already anxious to leave.
He tightens his grip on his crossed arms as he leans against the window sill. “…I don’t want to become the king.”
There’s silence for a long beat and Ryunosuke can’t help mashing his lips together, cursing himself for announcing it like that. Then, the sound of a book slowly closing and the creak of the bed, the rustling of sheets.
“Don’t underestimate yourself,” Kazuma says with a low gentleness that’s revealed itself more and more often—careful and considered. “You are intelligent, possess great integrity, and are able to hold onto your convictions of what’s right even when other people are pressuring you to drop them—though, that part did take a bit of cultivating.” Ryunosuke can hear the chuckle lifting the end of that sentence and he dips his head to the side to look at Kazuma behind him. Kazuma’s sitting at the foot of the bed, eyes grown as soft as the smile he wears. “And, above all, you are kind. I’ve said it before: you have all it takes to become a good leader.
Ryunosuke bites his lip and his gaze falls to the ground. “Thank you, Kazuma, truly… But that’s not—”
“Say no more, partner!” Kazuma lifts a hand up. Despite the patient carefulness he’s been exhibiting more as of late, he still falls into his habit of interrupting when he’s made up his mind. He lifts two fingers to his temple and slips his eyes shut. “No more talk of these insecurities. If you’re worried about what happened earlier today when we arrived in town, that has nothing to do with your—”
“Kazuma!” Ryunosuke slams a hand on the window sill and Kazuma stills, eyes grown wide. “That’s not what I mean.” A sigh, a “Sorry,” then he’s slumped back against the wood frame. It’s quieter, coarser, when he continues: “It’s not about me worrying if I’m good enough to become the king, it’s—” He sucks in a breath. “I don’t want to. That’s all. It’s not me. That’s not the life I wish to pursue.” He holds himself high when he declares it, but the weight of it makes him duck his head, too heavy to carry.
Of course. How could he have not made the connection sooner? That nameless, extra anxiety whose thorns tore up his gut and constricted his heart like a vice—it makes all so much sense now. Priest, king—why are all of the roles given to him by fate ones he detests pursuing?
He feels Kazuma’s hand on his shoulder, feels it slowly move down the length of his arm and rest there at his elbow. “…I see,” Kazuma whispers. “I trust your judgment. You know I’ll always be there to support you.”
Ryunosuke lifts his head and sees those dark brown eyes of Kazuma’s staring right back, gaze gentle yet unyielding, like Ryunosuke is the only thing that is worth his attention in the moment. Heaven knows Kazuma is for him right now. He opens his mouth to speak, but the sound that ekes out is wet and thick and incomprehensible.
“I said I would protect you, after all,” Kazuma murmurs again. His thumb presses at the crook of Ryunosuke’s arm and he swipes across, stroking slow lines against the fabric. “No one believes in you more than I do. We’ll figure it out, just like we always do.”
It’s heavy and weightless all at the same time; Ryunosuke lets his leaden head slump forward, pressing his forehead into the warmth of Kazuma’s shoulder. He doesn’t cry, but it’s only just barely so. He releases a sigh that shakes like a gust against a metal roof. It’s not a deliberate decision when he grips the back of Kazuma’s tunic, but it’s one that feels instinctual. And he’s not surprised when he feels Kazuma wrap his own arms around his shoulders in kind, and they stay there, breathing in the spaces left between them.
“I’m sick of it all,” Ryunosuke mutters after a few moments have passed, “of being treated like some unfeeling object, or some walking replica of a goddess that can’t ever hope to meet anyone’s expectations.” The frustration is scalding, slowly and persistently simmering under the surface. “I just wish—” The tremor of his voice cuts him short. “I wish that I could just be seen as a normal person.”
Kazuma hums, low and deep into Ryunosuke’s ear. It’s dangerous when he gets like this: shrewd and calculating and, above all, impossible to expect what’s coming next. “Well,” Kazuma begins, an entertained drawl to the word that makes Ryunosuke’s hair instantly stand up in defensiveness, “if you’d like to be treated like an everyday person, then you can be the one to fetch more water from the well.” He wears a facetious grin when Ryunosuke pulls away.
“Haah… You just don’t want to do it, do you?” Ryunosuke cavils, eyes narrowing in accusation.
Kazuma’s only answer is to shrug, then laugh—not even attempting to put up a defense.
“Hello, Prince of Hyrule,” comes a tinny voice from behind Ryunosuke that almost makes him drop the bucket of water he’s filled.
“G-Good afternoon!” He tries to stifle the yelp, but the lack of confidence in his voice is not nearly as concealed.
Standing there is a young Hylian woman—taller than him, he can tell even without rising to stand. She wears adventurers’ clothes, more padded and sturdier in construction than the everyday wear of even the laborers in town; she’s a sentinel that roams outside of the town and wards off any stray monsters from approaching or something of the sort, he presumes. It would explain why she was wandering around up on the more rural hills above Tumlea Town like this.
“Is your guard not with you?” she asks. There’s a stretched out grin across her face, yet her eyes are like Kazuma’s in that keen and perceptive way, and the smile doesn’t seem to quite reach them. He feels his hair stand on end. “We don’t get your kind out here much, but I thought the two of you are s’pposed to always be together… That’s what I was told, at least…”
He supposes it makes sense for the town to gossip about such topics. “No, I’m just getting water by myself.” He lifts up the bucket for emphasis, never breaking eyesight.
The woman cocks her head slightly, the smile dropping. “Playing at being a commoner isn’t gonna make up for all you’ve done, y’know?” It’s a grumble, low, but barbed—he’s not sure if he was even supposed to hear it.
Ryunosuke tightens his grip on the bucket. “Excuse me?” Is this how everyone else feels when his thoughts slip out inadvertently? Whatever the woman’s problem with him, he doesn’t enjoy the callousness she’s giving off while they’re both alone, on top of a hill, with no easy exit route. He’s had quite enough people yell at him for grievances for the day—for the next few months, truly.
He moves to go around her, but she side-steps along with him. The words are quick out of her mouth, frenzied: “They said it’d be hard with the guard around. Must be my lucky break, then—guess they were wrong about you guys being joined at the hip all the time!”
It’s an explosion of red smoke and flash paper, and the glint of a blade.
It’s his personal brand of clumsiness that saves him: he slips backwards on the grass so suddenly that the Yiga’s sickle only cleaves air, sending water in a cascading arch up into the sky. Down the side of the hill he skids, the abrasions and burns against twigs and rock only a flicker in his consciousness as his heart pounds prominent in his ears and drowns out everything else.
“Kazuma!” he coughs out through a mouthful of grass and dirt when the world stops spinning, voice hoarse. It’s a futile effort—Kazuma wouldn’t be able to hear him where he’s at even with his full vocal capacity—
Where is he at, exactly? He scans the hill that he was just on the top of—or no, perhaps it was this other hill? He can’t see the well from here in the trough between nondescript, rolling hills of green grass and sienna leaves that all blur together. The lurch in his stomach when he realizes he doesn’t know which direction the cottage is in doesn’t help things, either.
It’s when his fingers graze against a smoothly lacquered surface that the anxious fog dissipates, just enough for a flash of clarity. The Slate! And all at once, he feels it: that spark of hope and a tug of something deep inside his ribcage. Yes, the direction where Kazuma is; he feels him slowly moving closer, no doubt impatient at Ryunosuke taking too long to come back—he’s never felt more relieved for Kazuma’s stubborn restlessness.
Or maybe he also felt that lunge when Ryunosuke fell down a hill too fast to be anything but suspicious.
“Kazuma!” he yells again, though he knows he’s still too far from Kazuma for him to possibly hear. He snatches up the Slate, scrambles to his knees, then onto his feet with a wobble, but his movement is curtailed when a kunai zooms past his head and sticks into the ground in front of him. He could only hear the sound of it gliding through air before it had already penetrated deep into the dirt.
He counts his luck—that the Yiga assailant he’s dealing with seems inexperienced and imprecise enough to miss the slow, vulnerable target he’s made of himself. But one look at the sheen of razor-sharp metal and how easily it lodged itself into the soil makes him swallow down the relief along with the lump in his throat. It’s a very real weapon and Kazuma’s a couple minutes away at best and Ryunosuke still can’t possibly take someone—no matter how amateurish they may be—in a fight and maybe he can try to use the kunai to defend himself to buy more time but it’s still a blade and—
And a blade can be stopped in time.
It was what he had learned about the Stasis rune on the Sheikah Slate that Kazuma had acquired while in the shrine’s trial. He had worked with Iris testing out this peculiar functionality—how it could still inanimate objects, as if suspended in time itself. The tests weren’t extensive enough to know the full scope and limitations of the power, but small weapons made of steel were proven to be affected—he would think even mighty Karuma couldn’t overpower it, if only Kazuma would allow them to experiment with her first.
He spins around, Slate clutched to his chest in a death grip, and backs away. The Yiga seems to care for neither stealth nor agility as they brandish their sickle again. Their slow, sauntering stride betrays what has to be a self-aggrandizing grin hidden behind their upside-down-eyed mask. Playing with their prey. Savoring it.
Ryunosuke taps the screen with such force, his finger stings with the impact. He swipes—no, that’s the camera, no, that’s the compendium— The Yiga’s shadow grows ever larger and larger. Even just a couple seconds with their weapon suspended in midair will make all the difference in running away.
There’s cackling. “Justice for Lord Stronghart!” The tone takes an upward pitch as the Yiga rears back.
Ryunosuke can see the afternoon sunlight reflect against the metal, down onto the screen. And he aims the Slate up to the Yiga and he flings a pointer finger against the screen and—
It’s a rush of wind, then a flash, then yellow chains burst out from the Yiga in all directions with a reverberating schwing. The weapon is cast in the rippling, amber glow of stasis, but it’s not isolated: the Yiga themself is also caught in its bind, trapped in that giddy pose of imminent murder.
Ryunosuke counts the seconds. One, two, three: he taps into the Slate and extracts a hefty, wooden rolling pin from his inventory of miscellaneous items stored within. He takes a step forward and swings, leaning into the motion with his entire body. He recalls Sholmes discussing the power of potential energy and the force of inertia in this suspended state—or something like that. If that rolling pin almost broke his toe when he dropped it while trying to pass it to Kazuma, he can only imagine getting slammed with it across the torso.
Four, five, six: he stores the rolling pin back into the Slate before clipping it back on his belt, turns on his heel, and runs towards where he feels Kazuma at. Orange and burnt red leaves toss up in the air under his feet.
Seven, eight, nine: he skids down the embankment and hops over the side of a low, roped fence. It’s a miracle how he doesn’t catch his foot in some way and eat another mouthful of grass in the process.
Ten: there’s the sound of chains breaking behind him, followed by a sharp grunt and a loud thump to the ground.
He gets a few extra seconds of distance from the downed Yiga before the flaming aura surrounded with scattered paper seals cuts him off. He side steps around the laughs that ring out and the smoke that follows, digging his heels into the meadow and pulling the Slate out again, high and ready. When the Yiga materializes again, they hold their low crouch, unmoving—not even trying to launch a surprise attack.
Ryunosuke can’t help the confident grin that worms on his face as he holds the Slate in front of him. “You’ve made the correct decision to be hesitant,” he says, the words rolling out as smooth as flowing waters downstream. “The next time, you might be facing something much worse than a mere rolling pin while you’re frozen.”
The Yiga flinches, ever so slightly—and then their limbs begin to quiver? They lower their sickle when they take an apprehensive step back, then another.
A sharp bubble of a laugh escapes Ryunosuke. “Not quite so pleasant when the victim can defend themselves, is it?” He plants his fists on his hips, chest open wide. It’s a new sensation, this confidence; he feels the heat of it coursing through him with each racing heartbeat, like an animalistic desire to take down his prey—addicting, almost. After everything the Yiga have done to him—done to the innocent people across Hyrule itself—he feels a sense of wicked pride at being able to offer some retribution in his own way. He can’t wait to see that shocked thrill on Kazuma’s face when he tells him.
It’s an instant series of events—so fast, it’s a muddled blur in Ryunosuke’s awareness. The sun gets blotted out. The Yiga disappears in a flash of smoke. The air chills. Ryunosuke feels a dry, torrid breath blast from behind his head that leaves the skin of his neck tingling.
It takes a moment for him to register—that the rest of the meadow hasn’t equally been darkened by a clouded sky, that the shadow’s silhouette has a sharp end point against the grass in a shape much too massive to be his own, that he hears the low rumble of a growl coming from behind and above him. He blinks and slowly cranes his neck around.
A shock of a wild, red mane; a towering torso of pure muscle; four hooved legs that could crater the earth as easy as stepping on rotting fruit. The Lynel stares down its broad snout at him, eyes a piercing jade that makes Ryunosuke’s stomach drop from its clarity: pure and utter malice with a single look. It yanks out a sword more than twice Ryunosuke’s size from its holster—and probably twice as heavy as him, too, though the Lynel wields it like it’s made of paper.
He’d heard stories of Lynels, seen their depictions: as intelligent as a human scholar, with twice the endurance and three times the strength. He’d been there when the banners were raised and the trumpets were sounded—squadrons of Monster Specialist Knights, assisted by the best of the Field Knights, deployed to neutralize a single one. And he’d been there when they returned, numbers a meager fraction and a requiem on their tongues.
The tales don’t do its size nearly enough justice.
The Lynel snorts and the sound is like cannon fire. The way Ryunosuke’s mind has gone blank tethers him to the ground, content to stay frozen in terror, but the little mouse running in the wheel that powers his will triggers that innate sense of self-preservation. The Lynel rears back and he slaps at the screen of the Slate with all the coordination of a toddler. It works, thankfully enough, and as soon as he hears the rattling of chains locking into place, he stumbles backward and bolts. Ten seconds of distance between them can easily be closed by a monster with hooves as thick as tree trunks, but it’s a small assurance he’ll take.
That is, until he hears the chains break only after a few strides. He doesn’t dare stop moving, but he looks back with a gaping mouth: the Lynel, unencumbered and shaking its body out like a dog coming out of water. It doesn’t immediately surge forward at him; the way confusion sculpts its face feels wrong to Ryunosuke, somehow, but he won’t debate a small blessing given to him.
Was Stasis weakening after multiple uses? No, when he was testing it with Iris, it was consistently ten seconds no matter how many times it was used in a row. Then, was it something to do with the Lynel itself…?
The Lynel recovers itself to send out a roar that leaves Ryunosuke’s ears ringing, that pelts him with pebbles and sharp bark lifted off the ground. The electricity of it throws him off equilibrium and he can’t help but wonder if this is how those knights felt right before meeting their end: balance off-kilter and dread heavy in their bones.
He tries to continue running, but his limbs feel leaden and unreliable with each step, teetering about like wading through sludge. He watches as time slows to a crawl: the Lynel puffs out its chest and sucks in a massive breath. He’d heard the warnings about trying to run: as if its physical and mental gifts weren’t enough, it was an elemental monster at its core. He remembers the one knight who broke down at an audience with his father post-mission, screaming that he couldn’t escape the fetor of incinerated flesh.
Just as the steam begins to billow out of its mouth, there’s a spark and the Lynel’s face is enveloped in a flurry of explosions and dark fumes. The creature shrieks, lurching back and pawing at its head.
Ryunosuke watches Kazuma lower his bow, peeking out from the backside of a tree. Then, his eyes are on Ryunosuke with a frantic edge, and he’s rapidly gesturing with his hand to move closer. Ryunosuke doesn’t think twice; he makes a beeline to the tree cover.
“What happened?!” Kazuma yells as Ryunosuke approaches, the urgency making his voice pitch wildly. Ryunosuke opens his mouth to reply, but he can only manage an out-of-breath wheeze in its place—far too much to condense in this precarious time frame, anyway. Kazuma slings the bow across his chest and snatches Ryunosuke’s hand, pulls him in the opposite direction Ryunosuke had come from. “Fighting a Lynel without a squad is a death sentence—we have to run!”
It’s weak, disguised under years of practice and an inherent undercurrent of overconfidence, yet Ryunosuke can feel it against his skin. Almost imperceptible: Kazuma’s hand trembles.
They run towards the edge of the tree line, right where the hill crests over the steep side of the cliff. Kazuma stops so suddenly, Ryunosuke smashes right into his side; without diverting his gaze from down the slope, Kazuma releases his handhold and steadies him from falling over.
“No,” Kazuma murmurs to himself. He turns to Ryunosuke and shakes his head with wide eyes, red fabric flinging about. “We have to fight it.”
It doesn’t register. “…Sorry?” Ryunosuke has to blink, has to clear his mind of the terror thrumming in his veins and dulling his senses because he’s obviously hearing things wrong now. That has to be it because if what he thinks he heard Kazuma say is true, then he was seriously suggesting that they—
Kazuma pinches the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut. “Our only option that remains is to fight it. Hand me another bomb arrow, will you?”
Ryunosuke can feel his cheeks flare. He has to lean on the tree to balance himself, since the whole world seems to go off-kilter. The words are as fast as his hammering heart: “But, but you just said that fighting was a death sentence!” Yet, his shaking hands extract the bomb arrow from within the Sheikah Slate and pass it to Kazuma—the last remaining.
“There’s no other—” Kazuma sputters back before his eyes shoot open and in a smooth motion, he reaches down and scoops Ryunosuke up by the backside of his belt.
Ryunosuke’s stomach drops when he feels his feet lift off the ground with ease. “…Huh?” It’s an embarrassing squeak of a noise.
Then Kazuma tosses him deeper into the forest like he weighs nothing at all.
The trees are a blur when he hears the blistering crack of electricity, like a thunderclap. When his arms scrape against the dirt and the rest of his body collides with the earth again, the acrid smell of sulfur and burnt wood assaults his nose. Through the smoke and the tears lining his eyes, he spots Kazuma knocking a sizzling arrow and letting it loose—sending it directly into the head of the Lynel with a blast that makes the Lynel drop its own massive bow as it rears back in pain.
By the time Ryunosuke registers this in front of him, Kazuma’s back at his side and pressing the bow into his hands. “Lynels have three weak points: face, underbelly, and their back,” Kazuma recites, so fast it’s a whirlwind in Ryunosuke’s ears. “I need you to shoot at its face to allow me an opening.”
“But I’m not—I can’t—”
“Say no more, partner!” Kazuma claps his hand on Ryunosuke’s shoulder and squeezes. “You’ve been progressing well in practice. I know you can do it.”
Ryunosuke swallows thickly. It’s the first time he’s noticed just which bow Kazuma’s been using: a Phrenic Bow, a Sheikah speciality. The magnification scope attached to it reduces manual aiming errors—exactly why Kazuma never let him use it while practicing before. It’s beautiful, the craftsmanship—sleek and svelte. His fingers curl around the dark oak, yet he can’t limit the shaking.
“Stun it with an arrow to the face,” Kazuma says with haste, moving forward. “I’ll get close enough to get a couple swings in. I need to get onto its back.”
Ryunosuke’s head shoots up, eyebrows pinched in a high arc. “But, but its reaction time! If you get too close, it’ll retaliate with its sword and—”
“And I’ll dodge it.” The words are said with such a straightforward, easy confidence that it cools Ryunosuke’s fervor—just enough to not fall directly into a pool of dread. “Lynels are fast and hit hard, but they follow predictable patterns with attacks that can be avoided if you just time it right. You know I’ve improved my Flurry Rush.” A short pause, then quickly tacked on: “And parrying as well.”
Ryunosuke knows he has. The parrying continues to be a struggle point when it comes to the Guardians’ lasers, but he’s been a first-hand witness to the leaps Kazuma’s made since he started.
A beat, then: “Do you trust me?”
“Of course I do.” The words come out of Ryunosuke’s mouth like they’re automatic, like there’s no other possible answer it could’ve been. He grips the bow with newfound resolve; he won’t let Kazuma down—no, not here.
Kazuma gives him a smile, eyes soft. “Whatever you do, you must stay protected behind cover. Don’t follow me out into the open. And if it shoots arrows into the sky, run further into the forest.” Then, he turns to face the grassland.
“Kazuma, wait,” Ryunosuke says. His hand catches Kazuma’s arm. “The Slate—it’s not for long, but I can buy you some time with Stasis, too.”
Kazuma nods. “I trust your judgment.” He says it like it’s the simplest thing in the world.
And off he goes. The Lynel scrapes its clawed hand against its eyes to displace the soot and ichor from the bomb arrow. Kazuma readies his hand on the hilt of Karuma and when he gets within range, draws her from her sheath with all the ease of cutting through butter with a hot knife. The Asogi Sword-Drawing Technique in action: he sends an arc of shimmering light into the Lynel’s chest.
This ignites a fire within the Lynel. It charges and with an easy single trot forward, it’s already closed the gap—just a blink, and you’ll miss it even moving. It pauses, rears back on its hind legs, and diagonally slashes down with its massive sword.
Kazuma keeps his feet planted, knees bent, headband flowing in the wind like a distinguished flag leading an army to battle. Despite its size, the Lynel’s blade swipes down in an instant and a sharp, little sound peals out of Ryunosuke. Then—like it’s nothing at all—Kazuma pushes off the balls of his feet and flips back. Ryunosuke’s eyes can’t even track it—he never can, no matter how many times he’s watched him do it—he just hears the whistle of a sword moving imperceptibly fast and cleaving through leathered flesh.
The Lynel lets out a bellow that quakes deep inside Ryunosuke’s rib cage and flees—no, it runs a rampaged circle, regrouping itself before lifting its sword to the heavens and lurching forward with an agility that belies its bulk. The sword skims across Kazuma’s shield—he’s actually using his shield for once—before the Lynel skids in its momentum to slow, ripping the grass out from under its hooves.
Ryunosuke nocks an arrow, though his palms feel slick. The Lynel turns around slowly; it huffs a rough blow of air from its snout. Kazuma was correct: for how otherworldly powerful they seem, there’s patterns to their movements that Ryunosuke is just beginning to decipher. Here, the Lynel always seems to take a moment to gather itself before launching a barrage of attacks—an opening for them.
The scope on the bow is incredible—he can almost see the individual hairs that make up the Lynel’s fire-red mane. He draws back the bow string with a deep nasal inhale and anchors, lines up the center above its forehead—right between its twin horns. Exhale, steadies. Then, he lets the arrow fly.
It barely scrapes the tip of his nose on release, but its trajectory is thankfully unaltered enough to hit its target. Somehow.
“Nice hit, partner!” Kazuma yells and, in the Lynel’s pain, carves a line across its legs, sending blackened crimson splattering against grass and dirt.
The Lynel yanks out the arrow and crushes it in its hand. Then, it falls back yet again, running circles and flourishing its sword before charging with a horizontal strike. Kazuma drops low, dodging it entirely. The Lynel plants its hind legs and spins, swinging the sword downward. Again, Kazuma times it perfectly—waiting just for the right moment to jump to the side and initiate a Flurry Rush that even the Lynel can’t track.
They have luck with this pattern: Kazuma’s fairing well dodging and allowing the hits to add up. Ryunosuke gets in another shot to stun the Lynel. It’s a sound game plan, but—
Each time it gets struck with an arrow, the Lynel grows more and more frenzied. (Not that Ryunosuke can blame it—if he was getting shot repeatedly in the face, he’d be angry, too.) And although Kazuma has been able to get close enough to slash when it’s distracted, a clear path to getting onto its back has been hard to establish. It’s making Ryunosuke antsy—how long can Kazuma keep this up?
The Lynel jumps back and fully inflates its chest. Kazuma must notice it, too, because he sheathes Karuma and sprints away from it. It pulls in a fiery breath and then sends a plume of flame towards Kazuma, then another, then another—Kazuma barely managing to evade each as they alight a smokey trail behind him. Ryunosuke can feel the air around him spike in temperature, oppressive.
The Lynel rears back on its hind legs, kicking its front legs up into the air with a guttural roar, before rushing towards Kazuma again, sword raised high over its shoulder. Kazuma skids to a stop, regains balance against the sudden change in momentum. It’s telegraphing its swings, even Ryunosuke can tell now, though most people wouldn’t have the athletic acumen to capitalize on that knowledge—but Kazuma isn’t most people. The first swing from the Lynel’s right deflects off of Kazuma’s shield—a necessary tactic to slow down the Lynel just a bit for Kazuma to dodge the backhand swing that’ll come from its left. Kazuma’s head tracks the movement of the arm as it pendulums back and his hand reaches for Karuma, waiting, waiting—
Until the Lynel kicks him.
It’s not a direct hit—its hoof grazing against the edge of his shield—but it clips him on the side of the chest with enough velocity that sends him flying into the air and slamming onto his side a few feet backwards, skidding against rock.
That’s it: the Lynels’ intelligence, far exceeding even the most shrewd of the other monsters. The tales stressed their power—their ability to level untrained armies in a few seconds flat—yes, but it’s their intellect that was noted as the most unnerving of the entire encounter: the way they would watch and analyze movements. The way they’d strategize.
Even a Lizalfos doesn’t feint.
“K-Kazuma!” Ryunosuke screams and he has to use all his might to not do something foolish like run out there in between him and the Lynel. He hasn’t felt his powers since their encounter with the Frost Talus; it may have worked out in his favor then, but miracles come scarce for someone like him—that much wisdom he has. He tightens his grip on the bow. If he can stun the Lynel again, then maybe he can extricate Kazuma from out in the open—
“No!” Kazuma rasps from the ground. He puts weight on his forearms and lifts his torso up, body quivering underneath him. He stares daggers, eyes alight with a vicious ferocity. “Stay back!” It’s a growl, gravely serious; Ryunosuke can see his teeth grinding as he speaks. Trust me, are the unspoken words. And Ryunosuke’s frozen to the spot. “I’m fine—just shoot it!”
Ryunosuke swallows down the lump lodged in his throat. No, he realizes, he can’t. Hit it with an arrow now and the Lynel will go into an uproar again—it’s much too dangerous.
The Lynel’s hooves beat across the field like war drums. Kazuma lifts off the ground with shaky knees and Ryunosuke sees it: the mess of red against the side of Kazuma’s face, the cut fabric of his tunic sleeve exposing bloodied skin below. He prays it’s not as bad as it looks, yet he still tastes metal on his tongue at the sight of it.
Ryunosuke releases his grip on the bow and slaps his cheeks so hard, he sees sparkles in his vision. His hands fly to the Slate.
The sound of chains restraining and a cloak of gold. The rush of air that flings Kazuma’s headband high into the sky. The Lynel’s face, frozen mere inches away from Kazuma’s, and sword poised to strike.
Ryunosuke makes sure to count: One. Kazuma unsheathes Karuma. Two. He grips the Lynel’s midsection strap and ducks under its arms. Three He leaps onto its withers. The golden chains snap.
And Kazuma drives Karuma’s blade deep into its back.
The Lynel wails, a low rumbling that reverberates down the entire length of Ryunosuke. It falls to its knees on one side. Kazuma carves a line down parallel to its spine, sword searing as it travels; Ryunosuke watches wisps of smoke billow out as steel scores through muscle and sinew with little resistance.
It’s a frenzy of red fur and flailing limbs: the Lynel writhes and bucks again and again. Karuma dislodges, the black ichor spewing out an ooze that sizzles and pops when it makes contact with air—thicker than any blood Ryunosuke’s had the displeasure of seeing. The blade shines bright even against the midday sun; she pulses, almost, as if thrumming along to the energy of her wielder.
Despite how much the Lynel thrashes, Kazuma’s able to backflip off it with a balanced poise, keeping his eyes trained on it for the entire motion. Midair, he reaches into his bag and pulls out a blade—a precision strike thrown into the back of the Lynel’s head. The grace is unlike anything Ryunosuke’s ever seen.
When Kazuma lands, it’s as if his toes barely skirt the surface before sprinting forward again in an upward strike with Karuma across the Lynel’s flank, featherlight in his mobility. Ryunosuke’s eyes flick between him and the Slate’s screen, watching the agonizing seconds tick by as Stasis recharges.
The Lynel twists, paws at empty air like someone trying to snatch an annoying gnat flying about. But Kazuma’s too agile, escaping its frantic swats and swings of its sword.
There’s something to the movements of the Lynel that gives Ryunosuke pause. They’re erratic, frenetic motions, mirroring the churning anger in its viridian eyes—a depth as dark as the blood that spills viscous into the burnt grassland. Desperate: it’s overextending.
He remembers a hazy memory of the world titled upside down and the crick in his back screaming. Of Susato peering down from above, telling him one of the most important things to remember in a fight is to stay balanced—keep your movements close to your body. Once you lose your balance, you lose your reaction time. Once you overextend, that leaves an opening for the enemy to capitalize on. It didn’t seem helpful at the time; he didn’t even know he had to be anticipating a surprise attack while just standing next to her in the Royal Library.
The Lynel is lunging with its sword with urgency, making sweeping motions that pull its center of gravity off balance. It’s hungry for it: revenge, for a belligerent survival. Stretching out its arms with each swipe, just to land a single hit—and a single hit is all that it needs. Kazuma dodges and dodges.
Ryunosuke sees the Stasis symbol flash out of the corner of his eye, the ten seconds of cooldown like five lifetimes have passed. He holds it up and aims. The Lynel raises both its arms in the air, then cross-swipes downward. Ryunosuke taps the screen.
The chains bind the Lynel mid-movement, its arms a perfect X-shape towards the ground. Kazuma plants a foot on its fist, leverages himself up its arms. He’s quick; Ryunosuke marvels at how he keeps his balance. His boots find footing in the mess of the Lynel’s mane, like standing on flaming grass. He flips Karuma down and breathes in a breath that Ryunosuke can hear reverberate against the trees.
Karuma plunges into the Lynel’s forehead.
Right between the horns, it’s as if she pierces through damp paper—no resistance against the gleaming blade. Ryunosuke’s heart thuds in his chest, bangs around between his ears. It’s a direct hit—no monster can survive that.
But that alone isn’t what makes Ryunosuke’s face grow hot with a breathless wonderment. Kazuma, there, standing on top of the beast—one of the most feared monsters in all of Hyrule—with a sword at his fingertips. Triumphant. It’s unheard of for one man to vanquish a Lynel. What a victory.
“Incredible,” Ryunosuke breathes out, delirium rattling his brain. He doesn’t even fully realize that his hands had moved on their own, capturing the scene with the camera in the remaining seconds as Stasis crumbles away.
Sure enough, the Lynel collapses into a heavy heap that quakes the ground. Red leaves tumble off the trees. There’s just a single, gutting rattle of a breath it sucks in before complete silence. The only sound left is that of a blade’s deafening squelch as it extracts from ichor and monster guts. And yet, the blade almost seems to hum—a sound far more pleasant than the blood that wicks off and steams against the steel. It sounds like metal and bells. It sounds like a celebration.
Ryunosuke walks forward. “Is it…?” He inspects the emptiness in the Lynel’s glassy eyes, the way its tongue lolls out of its mouth. His throat feels as dry as the Gerudo Desert when he swallows. “…Is it dead?”
“Yes,” Kazuma breathes, shaky. The whole of him is shaky—he’s trembling as his head hangs low. He wraps a hand around one of the Lynel’s horns.
Ryunosuke mashes his lips together. Kazuma’s drenched in sweat and gore; he can smell the acidic odor from where he’s standing, yet it’s not that which gives him pause it’s—
“Y-Your arm—” Ryunosuke croaks out. It’s a weak sound, as crepitating as stepping on the leaves underfoot. He stares at the exposed wound—at how his ripped tunic hangs loose off his bicep, at the blood trickling down his arm. He feels lightheaded. “It’s, it’s b-bleeding.”
“Oh,” Kazuma says, tone so airy, it’s a wonder that he’s even still grounded in conversation. “Is it?” His gaze falls slowly downwards, yet it seems to not register. Ryunosuke can hear Kazuma’s heart pounding rampant, like the hooves of the Lynel bounding around just before.
Ryunosuke lifts up the Slate and begins swiping through the inventory space. He keeps his eyes glued to it; he doesn’t dare to look up again. “H-Here, come down. You have to put pressure on it—that’s what Lady Rei said, is it not?”
“Wait,” Kazuma says. There’s a sharpness there, suddenly lucid. “I have to first—” He lifts Karuma up against the Lynel’s horn and saws. It slices cleanly off, with just the barest hint of resistance. “The horns, they—” He sucks in a breath. “Shaving even just a little off into an elixir recipe can have huge medicinal benefits. They’re beyond rare as a resource, as you can imagine.” Then, he removes the other. “The heart too—”
“No,” Ryunosuke retorts. He’s staring at Kazuma now, his expression resolute, steely. “Absolutely not.”
And Kazuma, after everything, has the gall to laugh. He slides down the side of the Lynel and hands Ryunosuke the horns, though his arm tremors. Ryunosuke grimaces at the touch of it—at the stickiness, at the smell; the extraction was clean, but the grime and blood continue to cling to its surface. He hopes that when the Slate stores it, it has some mechanism to isolate it from all else in there. And it all catches up to him: the stench of the Lynel—of the rot and viscera, heavy and thick with iron—begins to make him queasy. He gets Kazuma to move further away into the forest, but not before letting the Slate scan the Lynel into the Compendium.
“Thank you,” Kazuma says quietly when he’s sitting under a tree, pressing soaked gauze against his right arm. His shaking has stopped and his breathing has become more leveled, but his heart still beats loud; Ryunosuke can hear it as if it’s his own.
Ryunosuke tugs off the remainder of Kazuma’s undershirt sleeve. He had cut off the rest of what was still barely hanging together by loose stitches, along with the tunic sleeve. When they get back to the castle, the shirt will have to be replaced, the tunic repaired. He tosses the stained fabric into a pile next to Kazuma’s vambrace and cloth arm guard. “Hm?”
“For your help. Now”—he gestures at his arm with a jerk of his head—“and back there. You made the right call to use the Sheikah Slate when you did.”
Ryunosuke ducks his chin and grumbles, “I just wish I could have contributed more. I don’t know why it only lasted three seconds…” He pulls a cloth bandage taut around Kazuma’s arm.
Kazuma winces with a sharp inhale, then continues to press his hand against the bandage. “Three seconds can be the difference between life and death.” He looks off, down the row of auburn trees, and his mouth sets into a tight frown. “When it rushed me—right after I was hit—my timing was off; I still felt dizzy from the blow. Yet, that little extra time allowed me to recenter and use your opening to get on its back, instead of becoming a smear on its sword. Plus, your Slate has allowed us to take all of these supplies. Despite it being magic, my bag isn’t bottomless.” His gaze drops back to Ryunosuke and he smiles. “You’ve contributed plenty.”
Ryunosuke stares at him, at the pride that shines in his eyes. “...Thank you.” He feels he can still do more, but Kazuma’s right: that control over time, no matter how short, feels powerful in his hands.
Ryunosuke tips the vial onto the gauze, watches the shimmery water—or, whatever it is: it’s viscous, thicker than any sort of natural water he’s ever seen—dampen the cotton. He shifts closer and peels back the split clothing on Kazuma’s side, right along his waist. Ryunosuke tucks his bent knees under the weight of Kazuma’s legs, and there’s a safety there—security being cradled under the warm press of his touch; it’s comforting and something wholly familiar.
“You truly don’t feel it?” Ryunosuke asks as he tries to swallow down the burning sensation in his throat when some blood weeps on his fingers. He looks up at him through his eyelashes. “It—It doesn’t hurt?”
“Thankfully, not yet,” Kazuma says, quietly. “It feels dull—achy. Stings a bit. I’m unaware of how long it usually takes adrenaline to wear off.” He takes a deep breath, then mumbles: “If only the professor was here…”
Ryunosuke’s eyes wander back down to the task at hand: clearing the area of fabric. Aside from his arm, Kazuma’s injuries don’t look nearly as alarming as he thought before. His face is scratched and red—swollen a bit very soon, he assumes—but the bleeding has stopped. The Lynel must have swiped at Kazuma to leave this gash at his side, but it doesn’t look too deep.
Or, he thinks, at least; it’s not as if he has any real medical knowledge. Lady Rei had given him the kindest of crash courses on first aid when she visited (Ryunosuke swears that she is one of the very few pleasant medics around—besides Iris, of course). For small accidents. Like caring for a split open knee when you trip on the road or bandaging a small cut on your hand—not dressing combat wounds you get from fighting a Lynel, of all things. As far as he’s concerned, any amount of blood actively coming out of the body is no longer a small accident.
Ryunosuke presses the gauze to Kazuma’s side and Kazuma lets out a small sigh. “What is this, anyway? It feels soothing, like ice almost.” He lets out a little laugh, more bitter than joyful, when he continues, “I was worried it’d burn like an antiseptic.”
A beat, then: “I…don’t quite know.”
Kazuma makes a confused, strangled sort of noise that makes Ryunosuke bashfully look up at him, cheeks growing hot. Kazuma enunciates slowly: “…You don’t kn—”
“Hold it! I-I mean, Champion Sh-Sholmes gave it to me! H-He said it was medicine!” Ryunosuke really feels the embarrassment now, notices the tips of his ears starting to burn.
Kazuma levels him with a skeptical look. “Should we really be trusting Sholmes with this? Just how many times has that Rito almost blown himself up in our presence alone?”
Ryunosuke sighs, shakes his head. “Yes, I know! But, he is a master at creating elixirs, after all…” He continues to apply pressure. “He said he found some sort of cave spring hidden in the mountains above the Temple of Time. And he spoke with a doctor, who confirmed that it, in fact, had healing properties—extraordinary properties, actually, almost unthinkable! You see, it’s imbued with something that not only stops bleeding faster, but also speeds up the healing process. With this, it would reduce the need to ever see a doctor tremendously! …Though, I would presume that you’d still need stitches on your arm…” He shivers at the thought.
Kazuma’s brow furrows. “Your bias against doctors aside…is it magic, then?”
Ryunosuke purses his lips. “Well, you see, the liquid isn’t magical, but it’s not not magical, either. I believe it’s not entirely natural, either, yet it’s not synthetic—does that make sense?”
Kazuma gently thumps him with his leg, though the action holds no true heat. “You never do when you start muttering a mile a minute like this.” A smile, fond.
“Ah.” Ryunosuke shakes his head. He’d slap his own face to focus if he could. “The doctor said it was the result of a Sheikah invention. It merely mimics healing magic, but it’s created using machines—”
“You’re saying this is from ancient Sheikah technology?”
“Yes, it seems so.”
Kazuma hums, leaning his head back against the tree trunk. He murmurs, “‘Things tend to be more connected than you’d realize,’ huh?” There’s a moment of silence, just the sound of the wind soughing through the trees. “…For something so valuable, should you be wasting this on me?”
Ryunosuke sputters, at a loss for words. It’s almost ridiculous what he’s asking. He thinks, Do you need to be reminded you just fought a Lynel—
He’s pulled out of it when Kazuma cradles Ryunosuke’s jaw between his fingers, twisting it ever so slightly in his hand like picking ripe fruit off the branch, careful not to bruise. “Just look at you,” Kazuma sighs out, voice tinged with a wry exasperation. “Can we truly spare even a single drop with you around, as clumsy as you are? What even happened?” His thumb brushes along Ryunosuke’s cheek—a ghost of a touch that makes Ryunosuke shiver. “Did you fall down the hill running from the Lynel?”
“Haah…” Well, he’s only half right. With a pout, petulant: “…No, of course not.”
“You’re a terrible liar, partner.”
“I’m fine,” Ryunosuke mutters, shifting his gaze away. “Keep putting pressure on your arm. I don’t know if I tied it tight enough.”
Kazuma’s hand slides off his face without objection or further snarky comments, and he obliges.
“You were amazing back there, you know,” Ryunosuke says, then. “To think that one person could ever go toe-to-toe with a Lynel like that… I still can’t believe it, even for you. The Knight Academy really teaches you that much about Lynels?”
Kazuma shakes his head. “No. My father was a monster specialist. He had…” Kazuma trails off, a forlorn look settling across his face, yet his voice is dyed with pride, his smile wistful. “He had these notes, leather-bound into a small book he always carried with him whenever consulting with fellow knights. I would read them often during my time at the Academy—studying the words my father left behind about these illusive, highly dangerous monsters. It was a microcosm of who he was: a skilled knight who wanted to share his knowledge in order to best protect everyone around him.”
Ryunosuke shifts, feeling his knees begin to tingle. He can’t suppress the smile that twitches at the corner of his lips, at the way Kazuma speaks of his father. The topic doesn’t surface often, but Ryunosuke is honored to be witness to it when Kazuma feels like speaking about it. “Yes, we’re lucky to have such a valuable resource. Even the Slate didn’t have that much information on Lynels.”
“Yes, well, it’s not as if they’re particularly common to find. Even my father’s notes only had as much as I told you. You would know how rare it is for specialists to be sent out to try to dispatch one, after all. They don’t tend to come out in the open where people are around much…” He grunts out a sigh, lifting his arm with a cringe.
“Oh!” Ryunosuke unclips the Slate and, with it balanced on his lap, taps through the inventory with one hand. What materializes: an elixir, deep red and smelling strongly of durian and ginger and sharp medicinals. “Take that,” he urges with a wrinkled nose, carefully uncorking the vial while still pressing the dressing to Kazuma’s side, “Lady Rei said it would help with pain relief.”
Kazuma blinks at it, brow furrowing. “You had that the whole time?”
Ryunosuke wilts. “Well, I—You see, I might have forgotten…”
Kazuma just laughs, then winces at the movement. “Ryunosuke, you’d make a terrible nurse, you know that?”
Ryunosuke’s sweating. “Urk… But—but you said it didn’t hurt!”
Kazuma returns another small laugh. “I’d prefer to get the pain relief before the pain starts flooding in, thank you. As much as I’d love to have you as a caretaker when the hospital needs extra volunteers, your bedside manner is atrocious.”
Ryunosuke closes his eyes, pushes his lips into an as exaggerated pout as he can get, and tilts his head. “Well, seeing as how awful I am at this”—he motions towards getting up, makes a grand show of it—“I suppose I should then leave—”
“No,” Kazuma says quickly and there’s an arm wrapped around Ryunosuke’s shoulders, pulling him closer. If the motion causes him discomfort, he doesn’t let it show. With another giddy laugh: “No, please stay Nurse Naruhodo.”
And Ryunosuke can’t help but laugh alongside him—at the absurdity of it all. Kazuma hasn’t even drunk the elixir yet; he has no excuse for being under its influence yet. Bedsides, it’s ridiculous to think he’d ever willingly step foot in a hospital; no, not after the kind of torture doctors put you through under the guise of “treatment.”
“Help me?” Kazuma asks, motioning with his chin.
Ryunosuke sighs, but the annoyance is dispassionate and placid, like a rose stripped of all its thorns. He brings the elixir up to Kazuma’s lips and tries his best to not spill it on him.
It’s one mouthful, and he hisses out a breath like taking a shot of alcohol—and perhaps it’s close, with how it reeks of something resembling it, mixed with the pungency of durian. Ryunosuke doesn’t envy him; in his opinion, the price of pain is worth it to avoid the bitter sting of even more bitter medicine. Even the most unorthodox of non-medicinal elixirs never had that horrendous taste to them, coating your tongue in a lingering way as if it’s taunting you while you’re already low.
“Sorry,” Ryunosuke says as he again helps Kazuma empty the remainder of the vial.
“Not the worst I’ve had,” Kazuma responds after clearing his throat. “Despite its smell, using the Hearty Durian helps mask the flavor of the medicinal herbs. It’s a smart design, especially considering the boost in vitality the fruit provides.” He lolls his head back against the bark. “Are you aware that durian is quite the delicacy in Zora’s Domain, especially for the Zora royals?”
Ryunosuke’s breath catches. His voice grows chalky, brittle. “O-Oh, is that quite so?”
“Mhmm,” Kazuma hums. Then, after a small laugh: “When we were younger, I found myself as the designated test subject for a whole host of experimental medicinal elixirs Royal Advisor Susato would cook up. Her father is a highly decorated field medic, you know. Though, nowadays he spends most of his time teaching at Hyrule University.”
This is a rarity, even more than him speaking about his father. Kazuma’s not often this forthright about sharing anecdotes from when he was younger, especially unprovoked. It’s something that Ryunosuke’s come to cherish—he feels honored to be allowed some access into the private life of his past, though he never tries to pry too much despite how his curiosity gnaws inside him and his nosiness threatens to win out.
Yet, there’s something other than mere curiosity that nettles his mind now.
“Oh, yes… Professor Mikotoba?” Ryunosuke asks. He remembers the mustached man with the enigmatic smile alongside Susato, but not much more than that. “I believe we’ve met a few times, but never for too long…”
Kazuma nods, then glances back up to the treetops. “The man is very busy. For a span of time while he was gone on a research trip, Royal Advisor Susato took a shine to scouring through his books and coming up with all sorts of herbal concoctions—nothing dangerous, of course.” There’s a beat, then he grimaces, some sour memory bubbling to the surface. “…Some more successful than the others, mind you. Despite how gentle she looks, she didn’t always implement quite the soft touch when choosing her ingredients. I suppose I’m lucky that her dear companion seems more forgiving in that regard, at least.”
Ryunosuke’s stomach twists as he watches Kazuma chuckle. He still doesn’t know; he never felt right to ask—either of them. All that he’s aware of regarding Kazuma and Susato’s relationship is that their fathers were friends and that they spent significant time together while younger. But besides that…
“You and Lady Susato are quite close, isn’t that right?” Ryunosuke bites his lip, looks at him out of the corner of his eye.
Kazuma slowly lowers his head. He watches Ryunosuke for a bit, brows drawn as if in careful sort of confusion. Ryunosuke averts his gaze. “…I suppose.”
Ryunosuke recognizes it—knows he’s being outrageous to think it. After all, Kazuma’s really much too old for her, anyway. But with such a prestigious professor as a father, coupled with her many ties to the Crown… Arranging for the Royal Advisor and the Hylian Champion to be wed wouldn’t be too out of the ques—
“You’re correct,” Kazuma snaps, “it is outrageous to think that!” He hooks the arm that was previously hanging slack around Ryunosuke’s shoulders tighter, pulling Ryunosuke down loosely by his neck. “There’s nothing of the sort even remotely going on, so rid it from your mind entirely!”
“Urk!” Ryunosuke can feel the heat flooding to his cheeks as he’s yanked forward, embarrassment like a brand across his face. He tries to retain the pressure against Kazuma’s side, yet all the jostling has made it difficult. “S-Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply—”
“You did much more than imply while you were outright mumbling if we were arranged to be married, of all things!” He huffs out a frustrated sigh directly into Ryunosuke’s ear before loosening his grip. “What’s brought about all this, anyway? Did your father speak to you about arranging a marriage or something?” His tone’s turned serious, tight concern in the tenor.
Ryunosuke looks up at Kazuma, sheepish. There’s a tension to the way Kazuma stares back, eyes narrowed with a trenchant focus, jaw clenched.
“No, not at all! I just… Ugh…” Ryunosuke’s shoulders slump and, with it, his head falls. “There has…been increased gossip that Princess Rutipha of Zora’s Domain is going to allow for the attention of suitors soon, though there’s yet to be a formal announcement. Of course, many of the nobility and high-rank people around Hyrule have already made their interest known.” His wide eyes dart around. “I…simply fear that Father might put me on that list.”
Kazuma looks pale all of a sudden—probably from the loss of blood, Ryunosuke figures. He just continues to stare at him, then finally sucks in a sharp breath. “Do you wish to be?”
Ryunosuke’s mouth falls open. “O-Of course not!”
It’s like the tension slowly melts from Kazuma’s posture. Then, his eyes wander, searching through the forest, contemplating. Finally, he speaks, “I mean no disrespect, partner, but the prince whose powers to save us all from ruin are inconsistent at best isn’t the most attractive profile for a potential suitor, surely?”
Ryunosuke feels himself deflate further. He mutters, “Oh, that’s you not being disrespectful now, is it?”
Kazuma shakes his head. “All I’m saying is that I think your father has more pressing issues to worry about than arranging you in a marriage right now, no matter how politically advantageous it would be in the future.”
Ryunosuke can always rely on Kazuma’s ability to get straight to the heart of an issue, at least. He inspects the gauze he’d been holding against Kazuma’s waist and, sure enough, the bleeding has stopped—the potency of the medical fluid a true wonder. He tries to ignore the blood, the disgusting, sticky sensation left over on his hand, yet the nausea lurches his stomach all the same. With his cleaner hand, he extracts a Splash Fruit from the Slate and scrubs.
“So you’re saying that I should deliberately continue to mess up to avoid getting paired off against my will?” Ryunosuke asks.
This draws a heaving laugh from Kazuma. “Yes, quite!”
Ryunosuke smiles, lets the laughter flow through him and lighten the worry—even if only for the interim. He stows away Kazuma’s arm protectors into the Slate. “Can you move?”
Kazuma replies with an affirming grunt, shifting his weight. He takes Ryunosuke’s outstretched hand and, with a spinning head, is helped lifted onto his feet. Ryunosuke totters back with the moment; Kazuma clasps Ryunosuke’s arm, less to steady himself—though, he needs it with how wobbly his legs become as he stands—and more from stopping Ryunosuke from falling over himself. He drapes his good arm over Ryunosuke’s shoulders for support and Ryunosuke takes care to hold him close above his wound, feels the way his ribs bump under his fingertips.
Ryunosuke lingers when they pass by the Lynel, its corpse oozing under the late afternoon sun. Even felled, the way its massive eyes, glassy and hollow, stare forward is enough for him to hesitate, for a chill to travel down his spine; one blink, and it’s as if it’ll rise again like a cruel nightmare. You only truly understand the gravity of what’s happened to you after it’s well over.
“Why did you change your mind?” Ryunosuke asks, tracing the wicked curves of the Lynel’s face, its disheveled mane. “Why didn’t you run away from it?” He tightens his hold on Kazuma’s wrist. “Bravery or not, there’s a fine line between courage and recklessness, you realize.” He doesn’t know where it comes from, this anxious scolding that spills out.
Kazuma’s quiet. Then, “There wasn’t a choice—not here.”
Ryunosuke’s eyes flick back towards Kazuma, who stares at the creature in front of them, face full of steel. “What do you mean?”
“Just think about it,” Kazuma says, but it’s neither barbed nor teasing. Ryunosuke does—tries really hard to fit together the pieces—yet he can’t follow. “Why is it that you never see a Lynel in the wild?”
Ryunosuke squints, mouth drawn tight. “Because they stay far away from civilization.”
Kazuma hums, a deep trill into Ryunosuke’s ear. “Exactly. Lynels are highly territorial monsters who prefer isolated locations—up on Kamah Plateau or deep within the hinterlands of the Akkala Wilds. And yet, look where we are.”
Kazuma points a finger over the fall of the hill and Ryunosuke follows it. Ryunosuke shuffles them closer to the edge until finally, finally it all makes sense: there, directly below the cliffs are a string of houses, a town square, a glistening lake. He can see the smoke billowing out from chimneys right below him, hear the quiet bustling of activity echoing against the escarpments. He hadn’t realized just how close they’d gotten.
“Tumlea Town…” he breathes out, automatic.
Kazuma nods. “And unless the Lynels have recently gotten more friendly—doubtful, considering just how viciously the one attacked prior—its proximity to people is troubling… Either something is pushing them out of their territory or they’re getting more aggressive like other monsters recently. Whichever it is, a Lynel roaming free in the North Akkala Foothills is an extreme liability.” He sighs, a full-body motion that moves Ryunosuke along with him.
“As you know, Lynels are extremely intelligent,” Kazuma continues. “They know better than to pick a fight where humans are congregated—not out of fear, necessarily—but provoked enough… There’s very little guarantee a Lynel wouldn’t then charge the town. Or attack a child accustomed to playing in the woods above their house. The sentries around here aren’t trained to take on monsters of this caliber and any response from Akkala Citadel would be far too late.”
Ryunosuke gulps. He fills in the gaps: “…So you felt you had no choice but to fight it.”
He looks sidelong at Kazuma—at his steely face, forged in resolve and rigid benevolence. The red of his headband is like a bleed across his forehead, trailing down the side of his cheek where his wound presents, bright and raw. (Ryunosuke had been rebuffed, earlier, when he tried to remove it in order to better clean his face; it didn’t come as much of a surprise.) Ryunosuke’s heart swells, with pride perhaps—though, it’s always with pride that he holds for Kazuma: he’s his pride and joy, after all, that much is certain—but it also strains against the pressure of it, straining with that fear and worry.
What a burden to have to carry alone. It’s Ryunosuke’s wish to lessen the load, even if all he can do is buy him three seconds—to be there to help him with whatever he faces, for however long he’ll have him. For forever, even, if Kazuma allows it.
Kazuma turns his head towards Ryunosuke. “If you were in that position, would you have done anything different?”
Ryunosuke breathes in; he feels the weight of the Sheikah Slate on his hip—as heavy as responsibility, as featherlight as hope. He doesn’t even need to contemplate it.
“No, I wouldn’t have.”