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When the full force of the Four Swords hit him, burning hotter than sunshine and peeling away his skin, layer by layer, Shadow is pretty sure he dies. The cool mists that comprise his flesh evaporate away, scattered through the volcano's interior. It doesn't hurt, exactly. Small blessings.
When Shadow's mind comes back together, he hears shouting, a voice he's heard before, but never quite… this close. There's always been a buffer between himself and Ganon, whether in the form of Vaati relaying orders or the Dark Mirror being a literal barrier. This shouting is loud, angry, and powerful in a way that makes Shadow shy away. He can't make out words. Is it even a language he understands? It probably should be. He's useless if he can't understand his orders, and uselessness isn't tolerated.
Shadow barely noticed his body reforming out of the darkness of this world, condensation beading on his skin like sweat. He's laying on his side, though he's twisted so his elbows on the ground lift his shoulders. His head falls between his arms, forehead pressed to whatever ground is in this place. It doesn't feel like anything.
He wants to tell Vio about it, he'd undoubtedly be fascinated—but Vio hates him. Vio wants him dead, and had that whole damned time. Shadow vaguely remembers the few moments before the four wretched Heroes pointed their swords at him. He remembers having enough energy to melt back into the darkness in the corners of the destroyed volcano and potentially escape. He remembers his breath ceasing to cycle as his eyes caught Vio's, and remembers the split-second hesitation, long enough to have the choice ripped from him.
Shadow hates them all. He'd trusted Vio, with all his heart, unsure if he even had a heart to trust with, and—
He still trusts Vio. Part of him wants to believe that all of this is a lie, a plot, a double-cross. Vio had sat next to him under the moon and schemed with him. His eyes had glittered with true ambition. Shadow can't actually fool himself into thinking all of that, though.
His chest is empty, a hollow shell, because he'd given away his heart. Vio had taken it and thrown him aside.
Despite the thundering in Shadow's ears, he opens his mouth, his throat caught under his chin, and wails. He is indescribably angry. The feeling courses through him as if his blood is made of molten iron, numbing his fingers and filling his stomach with the need to destroy. The heat forces water to his eyes, and he can't stop them from falling.
He trusts Vio, and he hates him, so, so much. He wants to be Red, to have Vio look at him with that smile again, and to know that it's real. He wants someone to rescue him . Won't anybody rescue him?
Vaati won't. The hinoxes are all too stupid. Ganon's the one raging at him, the words turning to barbs that seem to rip at Shadow's skin. He stings, inside and out. His breath rips at his throat, even as he begins to scream again.
Nobody's going to rescue him.
Would Vio? At one point, yes, Shadow would have responded with the utmost confidence that Vio would come for him, no matter what, just as he'd come for Vio, no matter what. Even though, by all means, that confidence should have been entirely erased, Shadow clings to it. He desperately holds onto the thought that somewhere, Vio's upset that Shadow is gone.
Is he crying, somewhere out there? Shadow hopes he is. Some part of Shadow's mind conjures up the image of Vio sobbing violently, clutching someone's arm, and the thought only makes Shadow cry harder. His eyes hurt with how hard he's squeezing them shut, and he can't breathe through his nose anymore. His screaming has quieted.
He feels a little better.
Vio may hate him, but Shadow doesn't hate Vio, and maybe someday, he can be part of them again. All he wants, all he ever wanted , is to be smiled at. Acknowledged. Make someone proud.
He'll never, ever, make Ganon proud. Or Vaati, though that old coot's going to die soon, anyway. The liquid iron in Shadow's veins floods into his heart, and he knows without a doubt that he wants the four Links to vanquish Vaati, and probably Ganon, too. He wants to see it. He wants to cheer them on, and he wants to participate. He wants to be one of them.
The air of the Dark World is stifling, or perhaps that's just Ganon's presence. Shadow lifts his head, gasping, dripping wet, and looks up at the massive monster who's behind his sentience and all his misery. His fingers curl under his palms, poking claws into his skin. He feels alive, with the desire to see this thing dead pulsing in his chest and shining out into the rest of him.
Ganon's tiny little eyes look back at him. His snout is curled in a sneer, his thundering quieted for the moment.
And then pain rips Shadow open, from under his chin to his knees, and his shoulders give out. He drops to whatever ground this is. Under the higher screams of his pain, he hears hissing and barking and roaring laughter. This isn't the pain of the light, sunlight or radiant, but darkness more concentrated than Shadow has ever encountered. He didn't know it could even hurt him. This darkness is flaying him alive, splitting him open like a puffing fungus, leaving him to writhe like the worm he knows he must be.
The pain is only on the surface. Each thorn that carves his skin pierces just his layers of gauze-wrapped bones, not his core. It's hard to think through the haze, so Shadow doesn't bother. He just feels. He holds onto the embers in his heart, and wonders how he managed to come out of being killed by the Links to being their biggest fan.
He knows they'd love him, if they got the chance, just as he knows that he'll never get what he wants from Ganon. Shadow still can't resign himself to just being their supporter, though. He needs to go ahead of them and act on this drive in his soul. It's been torn and chipped and shattered like a crystal ball, and the pieces give him slivers as he holds them together under the strain of physical pain, but hold them together he does. His head aches from the inside with the effort.
The Dark World's chill means that when the torture stops, and when Shadow is left laying boneless on the ground in front of Ganon, water collects around him. He's more than damp, he's dripping, and Ganon is finally using words that Shadow can understand.
"Go back, and finish your job."
Although Shadow wants nothing more than to flee to the Light World, the portal that opens up behind him brings a fresh new wave of tears to his eyes. Pure sunshine floods through the doorway. Shadow scrambles back with strength he didn't know he had, panic bubbling in him like stars in a galaxy, filling his eyes and his ears and his mouth with any words he can find—
"Not that, not the sunshine, please—"
But because Ganon wants something, Shadow is given no reprieve. He feels like he's been twisted and wrung, but he still has tears left to cry, disguised with all the rest of the water soaking his hair and clothing. Something pushes him, and he falls through the portal, right into the light that had sent him here in the first place.
Shadow hates how warm it is, and how real the stone feels under his hands and knees. He hates how the water in his eyes and his hair begins to evaporate. He wants to hide, but even more than that, he wants to hurry down the tower and—
What does he really think he's going to do? Join the Links? Be on their team? They'd never let him.
(Vio might. Oh, how Shadow longs for several hours ago, before he'd woken up to find Vio trying to kill him.)
A coolness falls across Shadow's bent neck, and the aura makes him shake. Part of him wants to thread Zelda's tattered dress in his fingers and beg forgiveness. Part of him wants her to bring a sword down on his neck. Most of him desperately craves soft words from her, a reassurance that it'll all be okay.
Will anything be okay, ever again?
Shadow grimaces, holding tight to the smoldering coals of desire in his soul, and looks up. Zelda watches him, an unreadable expression on her face.
"Don't look at me!" he snarls, and he withers with the knowledge that it's the entirely wrong thing to say, but… somehow, her expression softens. He feels cold and small.
"Shadow," she says. He awaits her next words—condemnation or salvation—with shallow breaths.
She doesn't save him, and she doesn't damn him. She gives him a choice.