The sandstone gate was far larger than she'd imagined. Gerudo Desert—one hundred sixty kilometers northwest of Hyrule Castle Town. Beyond two days of walking through rocky wasteland, the entrance stood. Two sandstone pillars, nearly ten meters high, rose on either side like ancient guardians. The surface, worn smooth by wind, bore the faint carving of the Goddess's seal. Beyond them lay a desert where daytime temperatures exceeded fifty degrees. Midna passed through the shadow of the gate pillar and checked the back of her hand once. The pattern on her skin. Less than a full day had passed since the battle in Lanayru Gorge. The pattern that should have glowed in vivid blue-white was now a dull, ashen gray. A sign of exhaustion. Shadow Weaving—the Twilight tribe's technique of materializing shadows into thread-like magical strands—felt heavier each time she deployed it now. *(Well, it's fine. I can manage.)* She told herself that and looked ahead. That was when it happened. The shadow on the ground warped. A ripple, liquid-like, spreading through the sand's shadow—and then an arm emerged. A black arm, composed of nothing but shadow. Then a torso. A neck. A head. Ten of them. Twelve. They multiplied faster than she could count. Shadow soldiers. Zant's pawns—insubstantial beings imbued with Twilight magic. Their eyes glowed yellow, and they carried no weapons. They didn't need to. A single touch from their bodies was enough to strip the souls of those from the light world. Link immediately drew his sword. Zelda retreated backward, light arrows nocked in her right hand. But—none of the soldiers were looking at Link. Not at Zelda. Not at Nocta. All of them surrounded only Midna. A circle. The shadow soldiers quietly completed their encirclement around her. And then the air trembled. Not a sound. Not a voice. Just the space itself warping, an unpleasant vibration. From within it, a familiar voice seeped out. "[cold]My lady. You've traveled quite far." It was Zant's voice. He had no physical form. He was speaking through the shadows from somewhere distant. "[cold]It's time for you to return. To the Twilight." Midna thrust both hands forward. Black threads extended from her fingertips—Shadow Weaving. The pattern tried to glow but remained ashen gray, trembling. "[sarcastic]Sorry, but I'm busy right now." The threads lashed out, binding two soldiers in front of her. She pulled tight. The soldiers scattered like mist. Link dove in from the outside. His sword came down—*CLANG!* The blade passed through the shadow body, severing the soldier's core. It crumbled. Another. And another. Link's movements were flawless. He identified where each core was and struck true with a single blow. Zelda's light arrow whistled through the air, piercing a soldier's head from outside the circle. The three of them reduced the numbers. But—more shadows kept rising. From the ground. From the gate pillars' shadows. From the gaps between grains of sand. *(It won't end.)* Midna clenched her teeth. She was about to deploy another Shadow Weaving thread when— Link's voice came. Not a shout. Just a short breath—the way he called her name. A voice checking her position while cutting down soldiers behind him. That was all it was. And yet Midna almost reflexively turned around. Her concentration on the soldier in front of her broke for just an instant. That instant was enough. A shadow arm grabbed her thread—*SNAP*—and tore it apart. The recoil sent a numbing impact through her right arm. The pattern faded again. The gray deepened a little more. "[angry]...!" It wasn't pain. It was frustration with herself. She'd reacted to the sound of Link's voice. That single moment of distraction had created an opening. She hated herself for it. *A person you care about makes you lose focus—had she heard that from someone once?* Her mind hadn't understood it. But her body had learned it this way, ahead of her thoughts. She clenched her teeth hard. Deployed Shadow Weaving again. The pattern felt heavy. But it moved. She could still do this. Link cut into a large shadow beast from outside the circle. One. Two. Zelda's arrows provided cover. And then Link drove a full-power strike into the last large shadow beast—*SLASH!* The beast collapsed. It vanished soundlessly into the sand. A moment of silence. That was when Nocta, who had stood outside the circle of battle the entire time, moved. There was no sound. None at all. Without even the sound of footsteps on sand, Nocta had slipped behind Midna—into her blind spot. By the time Midna noticed, Nocta was already moving her hand. A talisman pulled from her pocket—*that* talisman. The scrap of parchment she'd gripped alone in the rock shadows that night in Lanayru Gorge. A small, worn charm carved with ancient Twilight script. The shadow character at the center of the talisman glowed faintly. Nocta's lips moved slowly. No sound came out. But the shape of her mouth was unmistakable— It flowed in. Not as sound, but directly into the depths of Midna's ears. Her shadow name. The true name given to every Twilight tribe member at birth, directly connected to the soul. To be known by one's shadow name was to have one's soul grasped. That's why it was never revealed in the light world. Only a handful knew it—and Nocta was one of them. Since childhood, they'd known each other's shadow names, a trust at the soul level. That's what it was supposed to be. Now that shadow name was being used in a forbidden way. All strength drained from Midna's body. The Shadow Weaving threads scattered into mist. Her body wouldn't move. Her feet felt frozen to the sand. Her arms wouldn't rise. She couldn't bend a single finger. As if turned to stone—no, crushed by something even heavier—her entire body felt gripped and compressed. She tried to speak. Her throat wouldn't move. Only a faint breath escaped. *(Why—why—)* Nocta came around in front of her. Her mismatched eyes—left silver, right red—stopped at the height of Midna's gaze. Not her usual carefree expression. Not the light smile from daytime, nor the dark look from that night in the rocks. She was crying. Without a sound, just crying. But her voice was cold. Quiet, cold, and unwavering. "[sad]I'm sorry, Midna." A beat. "[cold]But you need to return to the Twilight. If you stay with that human—you'll break." It was love. There was genuine, deep, serious love there. But that love had taken this form. Link screamed. Sword raised, he charged at Nocta. Nocta held Midna with one arm and stepped on the shadow beneath her feet. Shadow Crossing—a rare ability to traverse the thin boundary between worlds at short distances using shadows as a medium, without needing a shadow mirror. Using it once left the body immobilized for three hours. Nocta used it now. Just before Link's blade could reach them, both figures dissolved into the sand like melting shadows—and vanished. --- Only Link and Zelda remained in the desert. Link's sword cut through empty air. Sand swirled in the wind. The shadow soldiers had all scattered the moment Midna disappeared. It was eerily quiet. Zelda immediately clasped her hands together. The Triforce mark on her forehead glowed faintly. She gathered the light magic—the power of wisdom—in her palms, searching for traces of the Shadow Crossing's opened path. But. The Shadow Crossing's path had already closed. No trace remained in the sand where Nocta had vanished. Zelda's light scattered across the sand's surface and faded away. Zelda knelt down. Her golden hair swayed in the sand wind. Her hands were trembling. Zelda, who usually showed no emotion, was trembling now. "[sad]...I can't follow." Her voice was small. It said everything. A heavy silence fell. Only the sound of two people breathing remained in the wind. Zelda stood up. She brushed the sand away. She straightened her disheveled hair with her hand. Then she stood before Link—and quietly took his hand. "[gentle]We will retrieve her. I promise." Link looked at Zelda's face for just a moment. In that single moment of exchanged glances, in the warmth of their joined hands, beneath the sunset-colored light of the desert dusk, something real existed. --- The twilight space was dark. A sky where orange and purple mixed, leading nowhere. A density thicker than the Twilight's eternal dusk—a space like the gap between shadows. A twilight space opened by Nocta's Shadow Crossing, neither light nor shadow. Midna floated within it, unable to stand or sit. Her body wouldn't move. The shadow name's control continued. The pattern, already faded, was losing even its outline. She could see the bottom of her magical reserves—no, she'd already hit bottom. The sensation was of having nothing left. Her consciousness was beginning to drift away. *(No. Stay focused. Come on.)* She tried to scold herself. But her body wouldn't obey. With each fading of the pattern, the sense of her own existence seemed to thin. That was when, unbidden, a Twilight tribe ability activated. Heart Shadow Sight—the ability to read emotions. She hadn't meant to activate it. The control had slipped because her exhaustion had exceeded its limits. She sensed it. A distant place. The sand of the desert. The emotions of two people there—flowed into her. The warmth of Link's hand. The sensation of Zelda's hand touching his. The warmth of their joined hands. And the quiet, deep emotion in Zelda's eyes when she looked at Link. Something mixed into that single moment when Link looked back at Zelda's face. Something in Midna's chest—shattered. She heard a sound, or thought she did. Nothing actually made a sound. But in the center of her chest, something broke. *(Those two.)* Her thoughts moved slowly. *(They suit each other.)* The light princess and the hero of the light world. Inhabitants of the same world. Two people living under the same light. Their joined hands were natural. There was nothing unnatural about it. That was the right picture. *(I'm just...)* An inhabitant of the shadow world. A body that couldn't function long in the light world. When the journey ended, the shadow mirror would be destroyed. They would never meet again. She'd known that from the start. She'd known, and yet— *(If I'd just never existed in the first place.)* The moment that thought emerged, Midna was startled by herself. She hadn't meant to think like this. Defeat Zant. Restore the Twilight. That was all the purpose was. And yet the lingering image of those two joining hands, mixed with the agony of shadow name control, was tearing apart the softest place in her chest. The last fragment of the pattern changed from gray to a pale white. It was disappearing. She was. In the twilight darkness, the outline of Midna's small body blurred and bled away. Her consciousness receded. But in that final moment before it faded, Midna thought: *(…I'm such an idiot.)* Whether it was an insult directed at herself or words meant for someone else, she didn't know.