#btw in case you didn't know almost all of these short fics get uploaded to my ao3 eventually

[gintrinsic-writing]

Trust, and Its Destruction

CW: violence

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Lightning streaked across the sky amid black, cascading clouds. Where it struck, no living thing remained. 

“Fall back!” Warriors roared over the clamor—over hungry gibdos’ screeching, thunderous booms, and ringing steel. Burn marks covered nearly half of his torso. They promised to be lethal if not treated soon. “Four! Fall back!”

But how could he? How could Four simply run when it was a friend—a brother—whose blood fed the darkness they faced? Never again, came the thought, and it echoed in his mind four separate times. 

Eyes flashing violet, Four slashed through the belly of the nearest monster, then raced toward the center of the courtyard. Fire singed his hair as dodged magical attacks, and he struggled to breathe through all the smoke. Not thirty feet to his left, Wind tried to drag Legend’s unconscious body away from the mayhem. Time covered them, dimly lit by Nayru’s Love. Even from a distance, Four thought he could make out Legend’s left lung in the crater of his chest. 

“Four, you can’t save him!” It was Sky, this time, who called for a retreat. Sky, who fought swiftly and brutally, but who couldn’t last against the sheer numbers sent their way. Defending Sky’s back, drenched in the blood of monsters, Twilight snarled like the wolf he was as he decapitated a bokoblin. Wild was nowhere to be seen.

Can’t save him, can’t save him, can’t save him! It lingered like a curse, a seed sprouting past and present failures, dooming Four to grief before he even had a chance to make a difference. Still, he didn’t let it stop him. He slashed his way to the courtyard, using the Roc’s Feather to leap past debris in the way. Forks of lightning struck at his heels, near-deafening in their proximity.  Four ran, and he stabbed, and he hoped, and then he came face-to-face with the person at the center of it all. 

Sparks ignited above each of Hyrule's fingers as he prepared another devastating attack. His sword still dripped with Legend’s blood. 

“Snap out of it!” Four pleaded. “I know you’re still in there, Hyrule!”

Hyrule paused, tilting his head to one side. His dispassionate eyes stared from within a haze of dark power. “It makes no difference,” he said simply. Uhurried, unbothered.

“It makes all the difference!” Four argued, unable to keep from flinching when he heard Warriors cry out in pain from somewhere behind him. “You aren’t Ganon’s puppet. Fight him! I know you can.”

Hyrule smiled, and somehow that was worse than the emptiness he’d shown before. “I’d always thought that my blood could revive the King of Evil…” Suddenly, the sparks above his fingers erupted into white-hot flames. “But as it turns out, power like that can attach to any soul.”

Dread pooled in Four’s gut. “No. No, this isn’t you! I refuse to believe it.”

“Believe it or not,” Hyrule purred, and the darkness around him surged. “I’ll destroy you all the same.”