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mmediately after leaving the castle grounds, Link and his allies headed quickly northwest into the Lost Woods, following both the Royal Guard's instructions and the trail of destruction that the wind mage had left in his wake. Vaati's presence in the land, however, was all but a memory, Link unable to find any signs of him at all there at the present moment. Link was disappointed at first, fearing that Vaati would not be an easy capture nor Zelda an easy rescue, but it did not discourage him, for the Triforce burned strong within his hand, giving him courage in the dismal dark of the woods, and so Link set forth with the Four Sword in his hand, running through the trees that would lead him to the outskirts of Hyrule's neighboring land, his three companions following behind him.

The Lost Woods slowly gave way into the kingdom of Artesia, the land westward from Hyrule, but the trees did not simply stop at the fringe of Hyrule, nor did the mysteriousness of the forest diminish as the Lost Woods gave way. Rather, it would merge into a sea of trees that would become increasingly more mazelike, the trunks and roots tangling with the underbrush so thickly that Link could not navigate amongst them off the narrow path that led through the forest. Link plunged through, however, meandering through the treacherous maze, following Vaati's path as closely as he could, having to detour every once in a while whenever Link found the wind mage's path soaring over the trees rather than through them. Monsters lurked along many of the paths Link followed, called forth by Vaati to delay the four Links from pursuing him to his citadel, but they only stood as momentary distractions to Link, each of them falling in turn. Every now and then the trees would break apart and leave a small meadow or field between them, rolling with gentle hills in their centers. Link walked over hill and dale, through moss-laden forestbeds and over tiny creeks, seeking the forest's end. At times, Link almost felt as if he were wandering in circles, finding his own tracks within the soil as he explored, but it did not deter his will to rescue his close friend.

No sooner than did the Link quartet emerge from the trees did a limb from a plant nearby threatened to knock one of them to the ground and chew upon him with the teeth inside its flower's bud. The Link dove to the ground and rolled back to his feet as the limb passed overhead, drawing his sword and holding it defensively. Link could tell right away that it was a adult Snapdragon, a vicious plant that feasted upon living flesh, swallowing it alive if a person was unfortunate enough to be ensnared by its vines. The Four Who Were One brandished their fragments of the Four Sword and took to the vines of the plant, seeking to trim the bushes as sheers would do a hedge. The bark was quite firm though, the sword blades only piercing through the wood slowly, no better than an axe to a tall sycamore tree. They kept dodging the vicious teeth, very narrowly at times, eventually chopping off its limbs and then its head to defeat it as it struggled in pain before finally dying and withering away. The four Links breathed sighs of relief as one, looking at each other knowingly that they had indeed worked as one to defeat the beast.

"So it seems that the myth of old was true..." one of the Links said to himself. The others assented and nodded before falling in line behind him and heading further into Artesia.

The trail of monsters and devastation continued beyond the reaches of the forest into the hilly lands just beyond it as the Links headed in a northerly direction. As they pursued the wind mage, Link could feel the temperatures begin to drop, beginning to chill their bodies to their very cores. Shivering somewhat as the first few snowflakes began to fall over them, the Links quickly followed the path that Vaati had left for them, apparently turning towards a cave buried snugly into the cliffside of the Talus Hills. The Links smiled to one another, believing that the insides of the cavern would be adequate protection from the weather outside, and so they gladly followed Vaati's reign of destruction into the cavern. The cavern floor, however, was covered with ice and snow, blown in from the winds that swept through tiny crevices in the rocks that formed the cavern's interior. The caves, however, held a hidden warmth within them as expected, but the warmth seemed so far away, almost nonexistent, lying somewhere to the southeast. Of course, this hidden warmth made the monsters Vaati had conjured congregate into the depths of the caves, each one taking up a small fraction of Link's precious time as they sought to plunge forward to Vaati's citadel, but the Links forced themselves through both monsters and the frigid, blustery wind, urging themselves deeper underground towards that unknown source of warmth they were seeking, knowing Vaati himself was on his way there.

As they approached the furthest reaches of the caverns, ice began to melt into water slowly, making the ground somewhat damp and moldy beneath the boots of the heroes, and soon that would turn into something of a thick slimy sludge that clung to the Links' boots. The slime was not caused, however, by the melting of the ice, but rather by a giant snail called a Molarsis. The snail was a heavy beast, nearly unstoppable in its momentum, and it would use its weight to trudge forward and slam into one of the four to destroy them. Link noticed that it seemed completely unphased by their weapons, but he also noticed that the monster kept far away from the impeccably slowly advancing glacier at the far end of the room. Calling his companions together, the four Links used their combined weight to run into the Molarsis, knocking it further and further back. The snail panicked and tried to flee, but the speed of the Links overcame its movements, and it was knocked into the glacial wall, whereupon it instantaneously froze into place. The Links took a deep breath as they left the monster there in the cave, the wind from their lungs visible to their eyes from the slight chill in the room, and walked out into the warm weather outside. Neither Vaati nor his palace were yet in sight, but it was clear in which direction Vaati had taken the princess, and that direction pointed back towards Death Mountain.

Link looked up at the expanse of the mountain straddling the border between the lands, feeling insignificantly small in comparison. His eyes rose towards the tall summit above, a summit that crept into the clouds. Taking gulps to quench their fears, the four Links found the urge to move their feet and continue up the hill towards the heat of the mountain volcano, for the northwestern frontier of Death Mountain was more like such than a mere mountain. Fire bellowed down the sides of the mountain, the sheer waves and ripples of heat almost unbearable at times, able to knock Link flat on his back if he ventured too close to the heated magma. The Links continued to jump from cave to cave and cliff face to cliff face, ducking inside and outside on their journey to the top. Monsters tried to fling liquid fire upon them, occasionally catching one of their tunics on fire as they scrambled to put it out, but they were not able to defeat the heroes in their quest. The four Links were quickly soaked with sweat as the heat billowed over and through them, wearily keeping pace with their will to see the top of the mountain and the end of the fiery dungeon, and the mountain's summit couldn't come soon enough for them.

Finally emerging towards the peak of the Death Mountain volcano, the Links relaxed and sat down upon the plateau at the rim of the lava-crusted crater. The cool breeze blew across their moist faces, cooling themselves down in the upper reaches of the sky. However, slowly the temperature began to rise once again, and the Links quickly gathered both wit and sword about them as they saw one more enemy coming to plague them: it was a Vulcanis, a creature born and created of fire, wielding its flames about it through the art of a forgotten black magic. The beast hurled bulbous orbs of fire at the Links, seeking to scorch them into dust and ash to keep them from ascending to Vaati's home; the fire would splatter when it touched the ground, much like how a bubble would pop, and two of the Links suffered nasty burns from the seeping and spreading of the fire. Link, however, soon found out that the fire was the Vulcanis' own undoing, for, unable to dodge one of the orbs of flame, Link threw up the blade of his sword to protect himself from much of the fire, but instead it was deflected and sent back at the demon, diminishing its flame with the heat. The Vulcanis was unable to cope with this newly discovered strategy, and soon the Links utterly devastated the being, sending it back to the fiery pits of the mountain.

As the Vulcanis disappeared, a glimmer of light shone down from the heavens, exposing and guiding them towards a citadel in the sky, Vaati's Palace. The Links urged each other on towards the building within the clouds, walking across the ray of light as if it were solid ground, stepping onto the soft surface of the thick clouds that held up Vaati's Palace against the incessant tug of gravity. There they stood momentarily, gazing up at the walls before them, lips agape to see such a structure this high in the heavens. Surprisingly, as they approached the palace, the main gate slowly descended to cross the moat of sky beneath the clouds at their feet. The Links looked at one another quizzically, feeling the strange sentiment of walking into a trap, but trap or no, they knew they had to proceed, for Zelda's future was on at stake before them. As they stepped into the palace, the drawbridge closed snugly against the stone walls, locking them inside to face Vaati's defenses. The walkways of the castle's interior was stable, but the footing was quite precarious, the far-away ground peeking through holes in the walk at the four would-be rescuers. Monsters approached them from all sides, including the sky, and the Links had to be careful not to fall to their certain doom some unknown distance beneath them. Slowly, Link and his quartet conquered the courtyard outside, venturing into the inner castle walls to find where Zelda lay kidnapped within.

Zelda was not to be found initially within the castle's confines, but rather Vaati appeared before them, soaring in upon the winds about him, holding his body firmly above them in the air. Link held his blade in the direction of the wind mage's heart, but Vaati could only laugh at the Hero of Time, finding his audacity preposterous. "I didn't believe that you would trail me all the way from Hyrule just to stand here before me and pursue she who is mine," he said in a dark, cold, deadly voice, "but apparently your connection to her is greater than I surmised." Vaati flew towards them slightly, daring them to fight him should they be so bold. "And I see now that you have chosen the Four Sword as your weapon to defeat me; a good choice it may be, but not good enough. Such a tarnished blade will not capture me again. Prepare yourselves to meet your own foolish demise, and watch as the hunters becomes the hunted!"

With the wind as his ally, Vaati conjured a tornado in his innermost sanctum, trying to send the Links flying through the windows or into the walls of the room, ripping apart the delicate flooring and carpeting beneath him, a small price to pay in Vaati's mind. The Links scattered into all four directions, contemplating a plan of action as Vaati would send gusts of wind at each of the heroes, trying to suck them into his deadly tornado. Link could tell that Vaati was well out of melee range flying as he was, and so there was little they could do to overcome the distance between them and him. However, one of the Links soon had an idea, taking a bomb he had picked up on the way and lighting its fuse with flint and steel. As Vaati approached him, he threw the explosive into the tornado, causing it to spin upwards in circles, exploding right beneath Vaati and sending him careening out of control to the floor beneath him, his spells winking out of existence as he did so. From then, Vaati never took to the skies again despite the blustery fight of magic he attempted to pose to the heroes for the Links, hovering over him with their swords, would continue to slice at him, running him through repeatedly.

Eventually, as Vaati was stabbed with the Four Sword, his body began to melt into the sword, trapping him within the cursed blade as he screamed through incredible pinprick of pain, cursing his threats of revenge upon Link. In the end, he was gone, lost within the blade to both time and space, both held frozen and meaningless within the power of the sword. In his last moment, a crystalline seal in the room broke free, and Zelda came rushing out of it the moment it was shattered. "Oh, Link! Thank you so much," she said as she ran to the hero in green as she hugged him; "I'm so sorry to have troubled y—" She cut herself off in her own words, noticing suddenly that there were four Links rather than just one, realizing now that Link was carrying the cursed blade of the ancient world. At first she worried for Link, his mind and body fractured and pieced haphazardly together into four beings, but soon she remembered that, according to legend, by having conquered the evil threat against him within the blade, the curse over the hero wielding it would fade, lying dormant until the next time of need.

Zelda hurried her rescuers down from the clouds and back into Hyrule, coming to the chamber of the Four Sword, where it had remained protected all these years. Link and Zelda looked at one another, and finally Zelda spoke, saying to them, "Link, please place the sword back into the shrine, for having destroyed your foe and returned the sword to sleep, the curse over you shall fade, and you should become one body once again."

Link nodded silently as the Four Who Were One raised their copies of the sword high and then thrust them into the hole within the stone shrine, and in so doing they merged back into one body and spirit, the fractures within fusing back together with much the same pain as before. Link fell to his knees, breathing heavily as Zelda came to his side. Link looked at the sword firmly placed within the shrine and then into Zelda's eyes, nodding slowly to her. "It is done. Come, let us go home."

Zelda could only smile. "Yes, to a long-needed break as well. Let's go home."