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He was not nervous. Not at all.
A bolt of lightning shot towards him, the King of Thieves grinning with an outstretched hand. Thunder rumbled across the make-shift stage that they’d built just for this match, the very ground they stood on trembling as Kenma slashed his sword and deflected the bolt at the last moment. He was unscathed by the hit, the energy of his blade powered up by the magic.
“Get him, Kenma!”
A voice that sounded far too squeaky yet far too rough - an enigma all on its own - cheered him on from the sidelines. Out of the corner of his eye, he could just barely see a sparkle of light floating by Prince Kuroo’s head. Typical. The fairy wouldn’t go near the orb of lightning, of course, so he had opted to stay by the prince’s side - leaving Kenma to deal with the final boss without the help of targeting. But that was fine. This was fine.
Besides, he didn’t have the need for any more tricks - glitches, he reminded himself, the term he’d coined - in this final fight. It was just him and the boss now, only a few more blows before Kenma would win. The fate of Hyrule - nay, the world - rested on his shoulders.
Hinata never predicted that lightning would be redirected at that moment, despite the countless times he’d done so before. By now, Kenma thought that he would have been able to foretell the trajectory of the orb, to deflect it in time rather than be shocked by the fact that Kenma knew the rules of the little game they had made together. With a howl of pain, the Boy King of Thieves dropped down from where he was levitating, onto the make-shift platform in the ruins of his castle.
Still, as much as Kenma questioned the sanity of Hinata Shoyo, there was no doubt in his mind that this was the most fun he’s had for a while.
Two hours and twenty minutes, in fact.
Panting, Hinata stared at Kenma with wide eyes. The lightning orb had been the final key to defeating the evil. One misdirected attack from his own power. Kenma lowered his shield, stepping towards Hinata. The king failed to stand up, lowered to his knees.
“You’ve won again, Kenma.” Hinata’s voice came out in ragged breaths. “What’s… the score now?”
Kenma came to a halt just before him, grasping the Master Sword in hand. “It’s six-hundred-and-eighty-seven to seven-hundred-and-one.”
“I’m winning… right?”
“Nah,” said Kenma. “I am.”
A bright grin lit up the final boss’s features, and he looked up at the sun, shining bright through the parting dark clouds, for the last time that day. “Next time… I’ll beat you.”
He was encased in a pillar of black light - Prince Kuroo’s power - and paralyzed. Kenma looked down at his blade, his body trembling and Tora cheering somewhere in the sidelines, and delivered the final blow.
FINAL TIME - 2 HOURS 18 MINUTES 54 SECONDS.
New Personal Record! Previous attempt: 2 HOURS 35 MINUTES 10 SECONDS
Kenma woke up.
It was not a dream - he’d learnt that long ago, when the first few cycles of this game started. This was just the passing of time, like the seasons, stuck in a constant loop for all eternity. Some might call it hell. Kenma didn’t think of it as such yet; not while he was still having fun with it.
That being said, it did get a little frustrating to wake up and have all your items disappear. At least if he was lucky, he’d be able to get another few minutes of sleep.
“Oi, isn’t it about time you woke up?”
His time wouldn’t start until he got out of bed. The talking alarm would harass him for a few minutes, so he’d have at least a few moments more of rest before his feet touch the floor. The daunting 0 HOURS 0 MINUTES 0 SECONDS lingered in his mind.
Kenma heard Tora huff. “Can Hyrule’s destiny really depend on this shortie?”
A moment later, the fairy was cursing and biting at his hand while Kenma held him in a tight grip. It wasn’t tight enough to suffocate Tora, but it was enough to make him shut up about starting this early. Not that Tora exactly knew what it would take for the end of Hyrule to begin. Over one thousand attempts taught him that fact.
“You’re shorter than me…” Kenma muttered.
This seemed to anger Tora further. Sighing, Kenma let go of him, and was soon covered in glitter. He sneezed.
“Hurry up! I’m Tora! The Great Nekomata wants to talk to you!” said Torz, trying his best to push Kenma out of bed. It didn’t do much, and seemed like far too much effort for Kenma. “The kingdom is in danger!”
“It always is.”
Kenma jumped down from his bed to the floor, and, with the speed of a cat, sprinted for the door. On all fours. Tora stared in shock, still hovering by the bed. There was just the slightest possibility that Kenma was insane.
In reality, he just liked to go fast.
He was soon followed by the fairy, who - despite his small stature - was able to follow him with relative ease. Kenma knew that no matter where he went or how fast he’d go, Tora would always be close by. Unfortunately. Still, the nuisance did have his uses, and he was pleasant company from time to time. There was just one problem.
“Hey! Nekomata is that way, y’know! That way!”
When Kenma described him as an alarm, he wasn’t exaggerating.
“It’s faster if I go this way,” Kenma said, running backwards through the Village of Nekoma.
“That’s the total opposite direction of - why are you walking backwards?”
“It’s faster.”
What sounded like a howl of anguish, confusion and frustration bundled up in a tiny package erupted from Tora. Not that Kenma expected anything less - sometimes the cycles repeated exactly the same way. Kenma once thought that Tora had a limited vocabulary (which he did) which would explain why he repeated the same sentences over lifetimes. But perhaps this time would be different. After all, he had a brand new strategy.
After slashing at the wall nearby a very frightened Haiba and escaping from the starting area (followed by Tora tugging at his hair and screaming at him, “ STOP TRYING TO STAB THE INNOCENT! ”), Kenma mused over his new plan.
Because, yes - he was always learning strategies to go faster. That’s all this game had become to him. Going as fast as he can, so he didn’t have to sit through the hours upon hours of people drawling at him to save the world; what he referred to as cutscenes. There was one thing he would miss, however.
Volleyball. What he and the thief king had referred to when they finally confronted each other, both aware of the loops they both were forced to live through for eternity. At first, Kenma had disliked the thief king - Hinata, his name was, and he made sure no one forgot it - but overtime, their mutual experience had led to them coming to an understanding: their situations sucked, and they might as well make the most out of it. So, they came up with a game when they saw each other in their preordained destinies. Hinata would make an orb, a ball of lightning, and then the two of them would proceed to volley said ball back and forth until it hit one of them or the floor.
The final boss being the one thing nowadays that gave him joy was probably the reason he began to ‘speedrun’ his life. At least he had something to look forward to now.
But - Kenma’s lips were pulled into a tight line as he sprinted backwards towards Hyrule Castle - things must change, and options must be weighed. Go faster, or share a fun match with the Boy King of Evil. The lower time, or the fun time. It pained him to even think about it.
He was a pragmatic boy, however, and in the end he chose victory over his own personal enjoyment. After all, that 0 HOURS 5 MINUTES 28 - no, now 29 SECONDS was looming over his head, and with every second wasted he was further and further away from getting a new personal record.
Finally, just as the sun was setting down on Hyrule, Kenma reached the bridge leading to the castle market. Tora seemed almost impressed with the fact that he had travelled across the field without encountering any foes. Just before he could turn to give Kenma something resembling a compliment, the young hero jumped into the moat.
“Where are you going now?” Tora cried out in anguish. The little fairy flew down to Kenma’s head, which bobbed out of the water, and tried to drag him by the hair to dry land. “This ain’t the time for a swim - I’ll bite ya, I swear it!”
Kenma’s reply turned to bubbles in the water.
He dived down further into the shallow depths, swimming to the far east end of the moat while Tora tried to bite him. It didn’t take him long to find what he was looking for: a hatch in the water, leading down the sewers of the castle.
“You’re not seriously going in there are you?” Tora twisted his face into a disgusted expression. He was, unfortunately, able to talk underwater - a unique property of fairies. “That reeks!”
Kenma pulled open the hatch. The retching stench of sewage filled the water, and he swam inside, used to the smell by now. Tora protested and screamed, trying to fly away, but an invisible force tied him close to Kenma. The pair traversed through the drain, finally reaching air and the inside of the sewage system when Tora was a few sentences into cursing Kenma’s entire lineage. Kenma coughed and spat out the water in his mouth, grimacing. Tora spat on Kenma’s hair.
“That’s disgusting,” Kenma said.
“Alright then, Mister-I’m-Going-To-Swim-Through-Shit!” Tora yelled. “I’ll keep that in mind next time I decide to waddle through the sewage!”
“Language.”
“I’ll use whatever Din-damn word I want,” Tora snapped back.
Kenma looked at his surroundings. He knew about this area, of course - usually he’d arrive here much, much later in the cycle, due to the monstrous beings that roamed here being far too tedious to kill with just the starting dagger. Oh, he could beat them easily, but he might as well be throwing sticks at an iron wall. It would just take way too long to beat them.
That is, unless he tried a different approach: stealth. He worked it out earlier. There was a wall - a corner, really - where he could clip out of bounds if he backflipped onto a chest and then jump-slashed at the corner. Why a corner of the castle dungeons wasn’t completely physical was completely beyond him, but he’d take it all the same. Anyway, it was time to try out the new glitch, and see if his theory would be right.
“Oh, a chest! Surely there must be a - do you just hate having fun?”
Tora floated, his hands on his hips, nearby Kenma as he readied himself atop the chest.
“This is fun,” said Kenma, completely deadpan.
“THEN WHAT’S IN THE CHEST?”
“Just some rupees.” He almost slipped off the chest, failing his arms to keep himself balanced. “Nothing useful.”
“Rupees - rupees can be exchanged for goods and services!” Tora shouted, almost half-sobbing. “I don’t understand you at all…”
Paying no attention to the utterly befuddled fairy, Kenma jumped and slashed at the corner of two walls. A moment passed, and — lo and behold, he was inside the very walls themselves. Tora, at this point, seemed to have resigned himself to this fate. Kenma would have sympathised lifetimes ago, but now he didn't so much as regard the fairy.
In the walls, he was able to access parts of the castle he never could before. He traversed through them, reaching to the courtyard of the palace. Black petals bloomed in the moonlight, a regal cloak laid discarded by the pond and a boy dressed in a red garment sat beside it. Kenma rushed over to him.
The prince - Kuroo - looked back at him, a sheepish grin upon his lips. "You've got a fairy. Are you -"
"Yep."
"I have dreams. In them, I see -"
"I've come to warn you about Thief King Hinata."
"How did you know what I was going to -"
Kenma held out his hand. "Ocarina."
Prince Kuroo blinks, staring at the open hand for a moment before settling back into a lazy grin. “You know how to get things done. Here’s the Ocarina of Time.” The fabled instrument was handed to Kenma. “Before you go, you should know that -”
But the prince never got to finish his sentence, as usual — Kenma, staring straight at Kuroo, sprinted backwards and never bothered looking where he was going. Tora flew desperately after him while Kuroo doubled over, holding in his stomach and crying with laughter.
At least the prince had a sense of humor.
Now, with the Ocarina of Time, Kenma was able to complete the rest of his quest with relative ease. In fact, he could skip straight to the ending.
He brought the ocarina to his lips, and, just at the moment as he was about to enter the throne room, played a melody he’d learnt long ago. An instant of time in which nothing happened, for a moment - and Kenma was oh-so terrified that he’d done so wrong. But, a thunderous crack boomed across the suddenly night sky, and Kenma, Tora, Kuroo and Hinata - who had, somehow, ended up in the castle - stood around the ruins of the castle - which had, somehow, turned into ruins in a moment.
Tora dropped his head, dejected. “I give up.”
“Oh, you beat him,” Prince Kuroo said. “Good job, I guess. Shame about my palace.”
“You’ll get a new one.” Kenam stared at King Hinata, his expression becoming more and more guilty as time went by.
Hinata looked back at him, with the wide eyes of a crow, and fell to his knees. “You - you didn’t -”
Kenma swallowed. “I wanted a better time.”
“Kenma, that was our thing. Our thing .” Hinata’s voice came out in a whine. “We’re supposed to - it’s volleyball!”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“Wasn’t he trying to destroy my kingdom?”
“You can’t just skip volleyball!”
The 0 HOURS 28 MINUTES 15 SECONDS loomed over his head like a guilty sentence. Kenma grimaced, and tried as he may he couldn’t shoo it away. Nor did the time reset, or the cycle - no, he was stuck here.
Stuck facing his own problems.
Life was much easier when it was a never ending cycle of a game.
Hinata was, somehow, too injured to move. As if they had fought a battle before this conversation, as if Kenma hadn’t just played a song at the right time and landed everyone here. The King of Thieves stood up for a moment, staggering to Kenma, before dropping face-first on the ground.
“Ow,” Hinata said.
“I don’t know what’s going on between you two,” Prince Kuroo announced, resting his elbow on Kenma’s shoulder, “but this is just depressing. Reconcile, do whatever it is you need to do.” He bit into an apple. “I’m just here to enjoy the party.”
Kenma swallowed.
“Next time. Next time, I swear, I’ll find a way. A way for us to play it together.”
His and Hinata’s hands were curled into tight fists, tears threatening to fall from the corners of their eyes while a bewildered Tora and slightly amused Kuroo watched.
“I swear, I’ll never forget volleyball again!”
Hinata was silent. Then…
“This doesn’t count as a loss,” he declared. “I haven’t lost yet.”
Kenma grinned, wiping away the corner of his eye. “Bring it on, cro -”
They were all gone. He was no longer standing. The world was no longer at the cusp of devastation.
“Oi, isn’t it about time you woke up?”
0 HOURS 0 MINUTES 0 SECONDS.