“Hey!” exclaimed Navi, abruptly flying over to a metal object sticking out of the ground on the other side of the room. “Look at this, Ryouga! It's a switch! Try stepping on it!”
10-year-old Ryouga, having not yet had the unpleasant experience of dealing with pressure sensitive traps, saw no reason not to do so. Jumping across the room, Ryouga landed on the metal switch. To his amazement, this caused a nearby torch to ignite, incinerating the cobwebs that had been covering it. Fortunately, the flames died out before they could spread to the wood around the torch.
Ryouga's eyes widened. “You can burn them,” he muttered with a grin. He also subconsciously noted that stepping on switches caused good things to happen. This unfortunate subconscious conclusion would eventually cause all kinds of hell for him later on in his life.
“Ryouga, go kill a Deku Baba!” instructed Navi. “If we can get a Deku Stick, we can use the torch to light it and-”
Navi was interrupted by the sound of Ryouga ripping the lit torch free from the ground.
“...Or that. That works too,” mumbled the fairy.
Before Navi could say anything else, Ryouga turned and jumped to the other side of the room. Raising the torch, he prepared to ignite the web covering the hole. But to his shock, the hole was gone! “No! Where'd it go!?”
“Over here!” cried Navi. “The hole is over here!”
“Stupid moving holes,” grumbled Ryouga as he jumped over to where the hole actually was.
“Alright, Link,” said Mido. “Before you can go help the Great Deku Tree, you've got to be properly equipped. So, where's your sword and shield?”
Link just stared at him dumbly.
“...You don't have any, do you?”
Link shook his head. Mido groaned. He could already tell this was going to be a long day.
As the flames of the torch met the web covering the hole in the tree trunk, it burst into flames, much like the webs that had been covering the torch to begin with. And once again, the flames died out once they consumed the web, not having time to burn hot enough to ignite the surrounding wood.
Looking down, Ryouga couldn't see much. The hole in the trunk wasn't so much a hole as it was a tunnel, leading down into an open area. Vines covered part of the tunnel, leading all the way down to the bottom, which appeared to be filled with water. Unfortunately, Ryouga couldn't see enough of the surrounding area to determine if the water just was around the bottom of the tunnel, or if the whole room was filled with it.
If Ryouga was smarter, he might have asked Navi to check for him. If Navi was smarter, she would have done it without being asked. Instead, the pair of them stared at the surprisingly well lit watery area that was visible at the bottom of the drop. After a moment, Ryouga set the still burning torch aside and prepared to jump down.
“Wait!” yelled Navi, as the boy jumped down the hole. “The vines! Climb down on the vines!”
But it was too late. Groaning in frustration, the fairy flew down after the impulsive boy.
“Alright Link,” said Mido, doing his best to impress the seriousness of the situation upon the fairyless fool before him. “The only sword in the village is the Kokiri Sword. You may borrow the sword for the sake of helping out the Deku Tree, but you need to return it afterward. And be careful with it. The Kokiri Sword is an important piece of Kokiri history, and it needs to be treated as such. You can't just keep it forever for your personal use. And you especially can't have some blacksmith alter it for the sake of making it a more effective weapon. Even if the alteration does involve gilding the blade.”
Link gave him an odd look.
“...Yeah, I don't know where I was going with that one either,” admitted Mido. “Anyway, the sword is in the training grounds. You go get it, and I'll go buy a shield. We'll meet back here when we're done.”
Nodding, Link set off.
With a loud splash, Ryouga landed in the water at the bottom of the hole. The disturbingly shallow water at the bottom of the hole. In hindsight, jumping down the hole into the water of unknown depth probably hadn't been the smartest choice of action, especially since the wall behind him was covered in the same easily climbable vines as the area near the entrance of the Great Deku Tree, but at least he'd managed to avoid injuring himself. Still, he decided that next time he would remember to look for a way to climb down first. For some reason, Ryouga had the strangest feeling of deja vu, but he quickly brushed it off.
Turning, he faced the wall. “...” Turning again, he faced away from it.
Not far from where he floated, the water gave way to shore. At the end of the room stood a door, guarded only by three bushes.
“You idiot!” shouted Navi accusingly as she flew beside him. “Didn't you learn anything from the last hole? What if there had been rocks just under the water? Or sharks? You could have died! Then who would help me save the Great Deku Tree?”
“Sorry,” replied Ryouga, mildly embarrassed. Now that Navi mentioned it, he did remember thinking something similar regarding the last hole. “Anyways, I didn't die, so let's get going.” With that, Ryouga began wading toward the shore. However, as he reached it, the three 'bushes' suddenly stood up, revealing themselves to be odd wooden monsters with leaves growing out of their heads, red eyes, and short, pipe-like trunks.
Ryouga froze in place. Unfortunately, that was just about the worse choice of action he could have made in the situation. Simultaneously, the three bush monsters turned to face the boy, raised their trunks, and fired large nuts at him.
“Ryouga!” yelped Navi, snapping him out of his shock. The boy burst into action, attempting to dodge, but it was too little too late. Despite his effort, he only avoided two of the nuts. “NO!” yelled the fairy, as the third Deku Nut nailed Ryouga across the chest, directly over his heart. And bounced off, causing a painful stinging sensation.
“Ow,” said Ryouga, rubbing where he'd been hit, but not seriously injured.
Navi fell silent, feeling moderately embarrassed at her overreaction. Taking a direct hit from a Deku Nut could kill a fairy, but not a human. Not with a single nut, anyway.
The bush monsters proceeded to fire more nuts at the Ryouga. The boy dove to the side, this time successfully evading the Deku Nuts. Rolling to his feet, Ryouga raised his arms to protect his face, a plan already in mind.
Link looked around the training area. There were several fences, some rocks, some grass, and a fellow Kokiri who was busy training. However, no sword was in sight. Link waved at the nearby Kokiri and started to walk over to him, but paused halfway there.
In the wall next to him was a large hole. A very large hole. In fact, it looked like it was big enough for him to crawl through. Instantly forgetting his intent to ask the other Kokiri for help, Link got down on his hands and knees and crawled through the hole.
On the other side of the hole was what looked like a maze of some sort. Link loved mazes! Charging forward, the boy rolled through the grass, finding a few dropped rupees, the local currency of the land, on his way through. However, as he rolled, he caught sight of something else rolling toward him from behind. Specifically, a rather large boulder.
In an instant, he was back on his feet, fleeing as fast as he could. The maze turned left, and so did he. And so did the boulder. Yelping, Link ran faster, losing any sense of enjoyment he had felt from his discovery of a maze hidden in the Kokiri Training Grounds.
This time the maze made a two-way split, the left leading to either a dead end or another turn, and the right leading to a dead end with sign and a large chest. Link turned right.
Diving behind the chest, Link waited for the boulder to slam into the chest and hopefully stop before it crushed him. But the boulder never came. Looking out from around the chest, Link spotted the boulder rolling the other direction. Standing up, he walked around the chest.
Link wondered what could be inside it, as the sign next to it gave no hint as to what its contents could be. With a shrug, Link opened it up and looked inside.
With a cocky grin, Ryouga bulled forward through the barrage of nuts, ignoring the annoying sensation caused by them bouncing off his iron-like hide, straight toward the one in the middle. Tackling it to the ground, the boy proceeded to wail away on it, each blow launching leaves into the air, while the other two monsters continued firing at him, unable to so much as slightly hinder the beating he was delivering to the bush monster he had pinned to the ground.
After a few seconds of pounding while the other bush monsters ineffectually fired nuts at him, he deemed the bush sufficiently mulched and turned to his left. He then charged the next monster, vigorously repeating the process.
A few seconds later, he turned to the last of the bush monsters. “So, are you ready to become fertilizer?” he asked. The monster looked at him, then at its pulped comrades. With a wail, it took off, opening the door it was guarding on its way out of the room, opening the path for him.
Yes, thought Ryouga. That's exactly how it'll go. And with a cocky grin, the boy charged forward, arms raised to protect his face. Doing his best to ignore the trio of painful stings he received in response to his reckless plan, Ryouga lowered his arms and prepared to beat the bush monster into submission. But when he looked up, it was gone.
Another pair of painful stings reminded him that there were several of the bush monsters. Turning to the nearest remaining monster, he lunged at it, only to be left grabbing at leaves while another pair of nuts impacted his back.
Standing up, he spun around. The missing monster was back.
“Ryouga!” shouted Navi. “Those are Deku Scrubs! They'll hide in the grass if you get close to them. Bounce the nuts they spit back at them!”
Taking a fighting stance, Ryouga waited. And the Deku Scrubs didn't disappoint. Both of them fired at him, and the boy grinned. With a kick, he launched the seed back at Deku Scrub. And missed. To add injury to insult, the second nut hit him across his right butt cheek.
“Ow!” yelped Ryouga, clutching his buttocks in pain as he fell to the ground. Rolling back to his feet, he prepared to try again. Only to take a Deku Seed to the side as the scrub he'd been standing on fired at him.
“Ryouga! This isn't working!” wailed Navi. “You need a shield!”
With a grunt, Ryouga ran forward. And past the Deku Scrubs toward the water. Navi was right. This wasn't working.
