The Khronicles of Krio; The boy behind the mask

He was old now.

He had never been a powerhouse, but he had barely a tenth of whatever strength he had once possessed left in his aged limbs. The skin surrounding his thin, pale lips was drawn back, pale and thin as a ghost. Long years of grinning had left his teeth discoloured and cracked. When, occasionally, a lucid thought rose up out of the fetid quagmire of his own madness, he would muse that, maybe, if he stopped grinning, his murky, disgusting teeth would be hidden.

But the Happy Mask Man never stopped grinning.

“Right then, lads. We have a problem.” The rest of the Bombers groaned and rolled their eyes. They knew they had a problem.
They had had a problem ever since that time, twenty-five years ago, when a strange boy from another land had stopped the land of Termina from being crushed under the gargantuan weight of a sinister moon. The festival that year was the biggest Clock Town had ever known. The people were impoverished after the chaos and hysteria of the time, but they rejoiced, happy in the knowledge that they had been given a second chance. For the first time in history, all of the four races of Termina joined hands and rejoiced. A new age of peace was ushered in, a peace that was brought on by the strange feeling of companionship among those freed of their fears. Murder, hate, fear, theft and all other evils were forgotten. The Bombers’ Secret Society of Justice couldn’t make anyone happier than they were already. They were out of a job.

Of course, the original members of the B.S.S.J were grown up, with spouses and jobs. Their teenage children happily took up the vacant positions. And so it was that Fritz, son of Justin, took up his father’s position as leader of the now redundant Bombers. “Like I said, we have a problem. But my friend here can help us.” The rest of the Bombers dutifully swivelled round to look at the newcomer. He was certainly odd looking, older than them, thin, pale, with long blue hair and deep red eyes, which spoke of intelligence beyond his age. He stepped forward.

“Hello. I am Krio, and I am here to help you.”

The cave was like a mansion, yet anyone seeing it from the outside would never have guessed that there was a cavern, let alone a habitation, hidden behind the wall of stone. Even anyone who had breached the camouflaged entrance would be hard put to say that life still dwelt here. It did, though life was too strong a word for the twilight between life and death that the Happy Mask Man perpetually inhabited. He turned his head, more movement in that one action than in all of the previous fortnight, such an emaciated state he existed in. In a rare moment of clarity, he remembered the previous inhabitant of the cavern. Sakon the Thief had been very vocal in his opposition of the Happy Mask Man’s proposal that he leave his hideout. The Happy Mask Man’s grin moved a millimetre higher. Sakon would never oppose anything again. The long-dead monkey stared with hollow eyes from his resting place in the corner. The Happy Mask Man’s gaze left the skeleton, and rose to the rows of masks that lined the walls like macabre ornaments. But these were no mere ornaments. These were masks of power, masks of magic! And none knew this more than the Happy Mask Man. But then, he felt the object that he had been holding for the last twenty-five years. His head snapped back into position, his eyes clouded over, and he was mad again.

“Ok,” said Drudan, a somewhat slow Bomber, “Let me go over this again. You are proposing that we go to Ikana valley, climb up a cliff, find the secret entrance into a former thief’s hideout, and talk to the most insane guy in Termina, just so we can cheer him up? ARE YOU FLIPPING MENTAL??”

Krio just shrugged. “Maybe.” He conceded, with an impish light in his eye. “But that’s what the Bombers do, is it not?” Drudan groaned. “ Damn! You’ve got us on that one.”

“I’ll meet you at the entrance to Ikana at two minutes to midnight. Bring rope, and any weapons you can find. We’re going to need them.”

Sure enough, the motley band of adolescents met at the valley entrance in the dead of night. All of a sudden, Krio appeared, as if from nowhere. (Gwyln, a Bomber who was supposed to be quite stealthy, quietly muttered that it was nothing.) “Good. Everyone is here. What do we have in the way of weaponry?”

Fritz shifted from one foot to the other, the picture of embarrassment. “Well, we have five pointy sticks, two peashooters, and a water balloon.” Krio looked at him with a mix of disbelief and contempt. Gwyln, who was still rather miffed, shouted impudently. “Well, what do you contribute to the group?”

Something shiny shot past his ear at incredible speed and embedded itself in the unforgiving stone behind him. Krio shot him a withering gaze as he pulled his projectile out of the rock face.

“I have knives. And I know how to use them.”

The climb was steep, but Krio could climb like a squirrel. A large, mysterious squirrel with knives. They were soon all outside the entrance to the hideout. Krio directed them to a slightly darker patch, and told them to push. A hidden block inched its way in, and then fell with a bone-jarring crunch. The boys piled in, led by Krio, the only one with a lantern. They walked through the decrepit dwelling, the Bombers slashing at imaginary dangers with pointy sticks. Krio was unaware of their fear, determined to get into the inner sanctum of the cavern.

The Happy Mask Man had odd hands. Though his limbs, torso and head were crinkled, feeble and dry, (like overcooked Crinkle-Cut chips) his hands were as supple and fleshy as they had been when he had retreated from the light. They were like this, because of the arcane power of the thing they grasped. This was it; the cause of the suffering of so many, that now was the cause of his suffering alone.

Majora’s Mask.

The Bombers and their strange guide approached a sinister door. It was actually a normal-looking doorway, but madness leaves a trail. Just prolonged exposure to it could make you see things. It was, actually, the first hallucinogenic piece of wood. As they approached it, nobody noticed Krio’s subtle movement to the back of the line. Gwyln, who was still trying to outshine the newcomer who had stolen his thunder, decided to go first.

A decision that would cost him his life.

The Happy Mask man did not hear the door creak. Conversely, Majora’s Mask did, despite its lack of ears.

The Happy Mask Man looked at, yet did not see the Bombers. He had seen nothing but masks for the last twenty-five years, and a human face meant nothing to him. But then, Krio stepped into the room, quiet as a shadow, and twice as nonchalant.

The Happy Mask Man saw one of his masks walk into the room. But - surely, that was not possible! He looked up at the wall. Kafei’s Mask was still there. However, this youth - he looked just like it!

Krio saw also the mask on the wall. Suddenly, he turned, and with a scream that would have shamed a Redead, he drew a long knife, and leapt at the man on the chair.

In all the years of solitude, layers of madness had covered the mind of the Happy Mask Man. The pressure had forged one thought into solid steel, the thought that had kept him half alive when he should be dead. Don’t put on the mask!

The Happy Mask Man did something incredibly dangerous. He put on the mask.

Majora’s mask flashed. Its eyes met those of Krio. Something that might have been a chuckle escaped from somewhere under it, and Krio’s mind was no longer his own.

The Bombers, who had been watching in amazement, were shocked to see Krio turn around, knives drawn, with an inferno of hatred burning behind his eyes. He howled in an inhuman manner, and attacked his own.

He was as a hurricane, twirling, slashing, and stabbing with his twin knives. Limbs and blood went flying, and though his prey were surely dead, he continued his vulgar assault. All his thoughts were gone, obscured by a red cloud of fury that told him to kill, to maim, to slaughter!!

He sniffed the air, like a tiger on the hunt, and decided that his blades had not bled enough today. Over in the corner of the blood-soaked room, one last Bomber huddled, bent double with fear.
“Please… D-don’t kill me…” he whimpered.

Krio raised his best throwing knife, and poised to launch it. But then his gaze rested on Kafei’s Mask.

The mask of his father.

And then it was not a mask, but the face of his father. One of the faces that he would never forget. And then, he spoke.

“Son! Reach within yourself for the light in your soul! Dispel the anger!”

Krio opened his eyes. He remembered what Majora’s mask had done to his parents. His heart ignited with righteous fury. He knew that he had to destroy the mask. He raised the knife, but then his heart froze. This thing killed his parents! What chance did he have against it!?

The mask continued staring, with malevolent, unblinking eyes. They taunted and teased him, a childish yet unbelievable evil. Then, quite unexpectedly, it groaned and creaked. A voice erupted from under it, cracked with age, yet with an odd degree of smoothness, like an old strip of velvet.

“The mask… it… has no en-energy left… it’s… taking mine! DESTROY IT!”

The Happy Mask Man screamed, a harsh, grating sound that wordlessly spoke of pains and agonies perverse and unnatural. Krio shut his eyes, covered his eyes, and sank to the floor. The situation was hopeless. He was alone, and he had no strength anymore. He didn’t-

“Believe… Believe in your strength...”

The words sounded strange coming from underneath the mask of his nightmares. He knew the cry came from the man behind the mask, but he still couldn’t forget the terrible vengeance the mask had enacted upon his parents, all those years ago…

“NO!” He cried, angry, sad, confused, but most of all afraid. “I – I have faith no more!”

As soon as he said this, he felt a lightning inside. Images flashed past him, warriors from many ages, tall and blue-haired like him, with mighty weapons and courageous souls. Other images revolved around him – two children, one clad in the green of fields, the other in the blue of the midnight sky. They crouched outside the cavern that he was in now!

The blue clad boy turned – and Krio knew it was his father.

Suddenly, the images began spinning faster and faster and faster, orbiting his consciousness like planets in fast motion. They were little more than flashes now – a shopkeeper, a concerned mother, a man in the midst of an enormous argument, another man who lived to a schedule. All these people and things – they span faster and faster and FASTER! He began to feel dizzy.

But then, just as a series of clicks speeded up will begin to transform into one continuous note, the series of faces began transform into one face. It was, of course, his father.

He spoke, but instead of his father, it was a multitude of voices that spoke to him. A choir of voices united by a common belief. A vocal community.

“Krio… have faith… believe in the strength of your ancestors, the strength of your own, and the strength of those who are to come after you! BELIEVE!”

And then, he believed.

And then, he was brave again.

And then, he struck!

With the precision of a surgeon he threw his twin knives into the ancient wood of Majora’s Mask. It split into four equal pieces and fell to the floor.

The Happy Mask Man blinked, stretched his neck, and then, with a strength that defied his age, crushed the shards into pieces.

“Let’s see you scatter those across the land into four temples!”

Krio looked around at the room, which was somehow not as dark as before. He settled on the thing he had came for.

Kafei’s Mask.

He took it down from the wall, and held it close.

The boy in the corner had disappeared, terrified after what Krio had done to his friends-

Suddenly, Krio realised what he had done.

He had killed them.

He had fooled them into coming here, just so he could get his hands on a mask.

He had killed them.

He had killed them.

He had KILLED them.

HE HAD KILLED THEM!

HE HAD KILLED THEM!!!

Krio’s personal demons crept out of the darker recesses of his mind.

LIAR! MURDERER! FALSE PROPHET! YOU KILLED THEM ALL, AND YOU ENJOYED IT YOU LIAR!

Krio couldn’t take it. The overwhelming power of his own guilt poisoned his thoughts, turning him into a weeping, shivering wreck.

Then, as if from nowhere, a song filled his hearing.

It was a soothing, yet eerie melody that restored the light in his heart, and mended his broken soul. A Song of Healing.

“There.” Snapped the Happy Mask Man, putting away a small ocarina, “normal again? Good. As I was about to say, you did these things out of love for your parents, yes?” Krio nodded, uncertain. “Well now, nothing born of love could ever be called evil, could it?”

“But, I killed them…”

“NO!! That was the mask’s power that killed them. Majora’s Mask has killed so many in the time of its existence that these teenagers make no difference. You have slain a force of pure evil!”

“ You mean… I killed the greatest killer in history?!”

“No, though I wish it were so. One man has killed so many more than this mask; Majora’s mask seems like a saint in comparison.
His name is Ganondorf.”

Krio looked up, a light of resolve in his eyes.

“Then I know what I must do. I will-“

“NO! I know what you are about to say. No knife or normal blade can kill Ganondorf! He is vulnerable only to the Master Sword, a blade that can only be used by the bloodline of the Hero of Time. You are not of that bloodline.”

“Then what am I to do?!” Shouted Krio, perturbed and perplexed.

“Well… some say that Ganondorf’s only other weakness is his own dark magic. But that could only be learnt from Koume and Kotake, the twin witches of the Haunted Wasteland, a desert of the land of Hyrule. Hyrule… the world of which Termina is but a shadow…”

“Then I will go there, I will seek these witches, I will learn their magic, and I will kill this “Ganondorf”!”

Seeing the light in the young man’s eyes, the Happy Mask Man conceded. “Very well. I will not stop you. But please, you have freed me from that mask, so I will give you a gift. These masks,” he said, gesturing around the room, “They are yours.” Krio started back, amazed. “But… you’re the Happy Mask Man! What will you be without masks!?” The Happy Mask Man chuckled “A lot closer to the happy part!”

Krio went round the room, gathering up all of the masks. He stopped when he came back to where he had dropped his father’s mask. He picked it up and put it on. “I will not show my face again, until I have cleansed myself of these sins. This is the mask I will wear.”

The Happy Mask Man stared with wild eyes. “Those who wear masks… they lose themselves and slowly become the mask instead…”

“Ha! That would be an improvement!” cried Krio, sullen and enthusiastic simultaneously. “ My father was a great man… I wish that I could be like him.”

The Happy Mask Man laughed reassuringly. “ You will, Krio. I sense great things of you!”

Krio walked out of the room, deeply pensive.

The Happy Mask Man grinned.

But the Happy Mask Man never stopped grinning.

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