“All we can to do now is trust in Shadow Hyrule to deliver us from darkness...we should trust in the Wind Waker, the Hero of Winds. He doesn’t know it...and I doubt he ever will, but he’ll be saving more than just his sister.”

--Vale

---

Chapter Nine
“Veil of Shadow”


The side of the castle explodes. Vale falls through the opening and lands on the second story roof. She arches her back and screams out in pain. Her eyes open and she sees Link, with his sword pointed down at her, fall towards her.

Vale rolls and dives out of harm’s way as Link’s blade impacts into the roof, throwing dust and particles everywhere.

As the dust clears, Link is seen kneeling, holding two swords: his own Hylian Sword and Vale’s Crescent Moon Sword. He had managed to take it from her.

Vale’s thin blade was never meant to be used in the way Link had wielded it. Cracks begin to weave themselves across the blade’s surface, and finally, the blade breaks off.

Link eyes the broken sword and scoffs, “Worthless garbage.” He tosses it away from him.

Vale takes this moment to try to end it in one last move. She leaps high into the air, using her magic to propel her higher than a normal person could jump.

She held the staff in her mouth as she crossed her arms. Vale closes her eyes as hundreds of cards began to materialize around her. The cards flutter around her wildly.

She opens her eyes and snatches six specific cards from the fluttering bunch without having to think about it. She throws each card in front of her, the cards stick to the air, floating before her. She had assembled the cards in a circle; in the center of that circle was Link. The other cards she didn’t need flashed and disappeared. Each card was a different color, red, blue, green, yellow, and purple. She held the sixth card, a white one. She throws it in the center of the circle of cards.

She begins her incantation, putting her palms together in prayer, her staff fades away into nothingness “Secret Arts of the Clandestine of Dusk!”

The cards disintegrate into pure light. She spins once, and extends her palm out at Link, a white ball pulsating with light in it’s divine form hovers in front of Vale’s outstretched palm, “Bereavement no Jutsu!!!”

Link’s eyes widen as he realizes that this was the exact same spell he himself knew. Was there a connection between the Clandestine and the vampire, Eloquence? But that was impossible, the Clandestine of Dusk was only recently formed. Was the society older than he had originally thought?

Link outstretched his palm and chanted, “Bereavement of the Heavens!” the spell forms in front of his hand, glowing with the same intensity as Vale’s.

Vale smirks and adds the final component to her spell, one that Link’s was missing, “Bereavement no Jutsu: Alpha!” the ball turns an angry orange, she fires.

Link didn’t have time to think as the killer ball of death roared towards him. It wasn’t near him yet, but Link could feel the intense heat of the spell already.

Link yelled as he fired his spell, “Dammit! That’s mine!”

His spell only flew a few inches forward when Vale’s struck with blinding force.

The resulting blast throws debris and brick everywhere. Vale lands on her feet gracefully, her cape slowly lowering itself onto her back, her hat still firm on her head.

She watches the smoke intently for any sign of life. A quick breeze blows and parts the smoke, showing nothing but bricks and dirt. Vale looks on in confusion, “What the...”

She looks up and sees Link falling down at her; he had his sword raised over his head, prepared to slice her in half.

She summons her staff and blocks. Vale’s staff shakes violently and finally gives way to Link’s sword, breaking in half. Vale falls backwards and lands on her back. As she sits up, she sees Link throw a punch at her. The punch stops centimeters from her nose, Vale was paralyzed as her mind tried to register what just happened. Link smirks, “I’ve never punched a woman in my life, I don’t plan to start now. There are other ways.”

His fist suddenly opens as he extends his palm out at her, “Bereavement of the Heavens!”

Vale’s eyes widen as Link unleashes his spell at point blank range.

Vale screams as the deadly spell strikes her entire upper body. She is thrown backwards and lands on the edge of the roof. Her face was scorched, but not much. She luckily managed to block with her forearms. Her arms were in bad shape, they were burned, and had intense scorch marks on them, blood leaked through the parted burnt flesh.

Vale stands up slowly, limping. Her clothes were burned and torn.

Just as she looks up, a knife flies and strikes her in the right shoulder, she cries out and stumbles backwards, teetering dangerously by the edge of the roof. Below her was a moat, but falling from this height was like falling down onto concrete.

She looks at Link with a pained expression, she didn’t want to lose, and she still had so much ahead of her. She refused to go down without a fight.

With her right arm dangling uselessly on her side, she draws a single yellow card from her pocket. She throws it in front of her in a last ditch effort to summon a finishing spell to save herself and take down Link.

The card hovers in front of Link, blocking her view of him.

Suddenly, an arrow rips through the card and strikes her in the stomach, Vale’s mouth opens to scream but no sound can be heard. With her hand still outstretched, she stands there for a moment as the magic card in front of her disintegrates to reveal Link lowering his bow.

Vale falls backwards towards the moat, but Link’s hand grabs her by the Zora Sapphire tied around her neck. Her hat falls off and floats down into the waters below.

Link speaks, “You’ve put up one hell of an effort, I’ll give you that. But like everyone else who had crossed me, I was one step ahead of you.”

Vale whispered faintly, “I swear...I’ll take you down...”

Link laughs, “How cute. The girl’s still got some fight left in her. You say you’ll take me down? Well, let me let you in on a little secret: You’re going to die, theres no way you’ll be able to kill me when you’re sleeping with the fishes.” Link gestured towards the moat below them.

Vale smiled faintly, “I’ll return...you’ll see. Even if you kill me, I’ll be back.”

Link laughs again and replied, not believing a single word she was saying, “I’ll be looking forward to your return then, Vale.”

“Now,” Link looked at the Zora Sapphire in his hand, “I’ll be taking this back!” he draws his knife and places it against the thread which the jewel was tied to. “Good bye, daughter of Saria!” he cuts the thread, setting Vale free for a freefall towards the moat.

There was a splash and Vale sinks to the bottom.

Link watches the bubbles for a moment before turning and walking away from the scene.

Vale opens her eyes slowly, seeing the surface of the water. She saw everything start to turn red as the water mixed with her blood. The water greedily flows into her lungs.

Her hand reaches up slowly towards the surface; it seemed so far to her. She closed her eyes, letting the darkness take her.

A gloved hand breaks the surface a few seconds later and grabs onto Vale’s outstretched hand. It pulls and Vale’s body resurfaces.

Everything was black to Vale, a veil of shadow. She felt herself leave the water. She coughed violently as her lungs rejected the water for air. She tried to open her eyes, but couldn’t. She tried to speak, but managed a faint whisper, “Who...?”

She was surprised to hear a girl’s voice, “A friend.”

Vale gasped for air and asked, wanting to know who her savior was, “...what...do I call you?”

There was a pause. The pause went on for a long time. She felt herself being carried. Vale heard movement, she felt her clothes being pulled off and replaced by a warm blanket. She was too numb to feel anything else, which was, in a way, a good thing, since the girl had to yank out the arrow and the knife from Vale’s wounds.

Vale was about to ask again when she heard the girl’s voice once more, “My name’s Sakura.”