Final Fantasy X-2 : Real Emotion

Chapter One

I whisper his name on my lips... It's awful, I see his figure floating to the surface, and on the other hand I am trapped in the depths. I cry, that's all I can do. No projectile format weapon will send him plummeting down. His spirit is free now, I should feel happy for him even though I know his fate. I know that beyond those watery blues that he presses away from, are arms waiting for him. Arms that will grab him, and mangle him, and shackle him up... Leave him alone....

"Leave him alone!"

I'm sweating, it's a good thing I don't wear those boots anymore. The lacing would really be putting a bind on me... My name is Yuna, and it always has been. It's just now that means a lot more. Now when the name of Yuna is spoken, people hold such revery. I feel like my god has set me up, and that probably was the case before I took to the task of slaying him. I wonder what we should call Yevon... He's a lost soul, but no one really addressed what to call him since faint rumors of the truth spread. No one sat the public down to say "Yevon was a fraud..." But come the crash of Sin, the disappearance of aeons, and all similar magical sources... People began to wonder. The pyreflies weren't as abundant now, especially with their "leader" gone.

Political controversy is all the world really has left. I know this, as I march the seemingly cramped corridors of the ship. I used to think this ship was the biggest place on Spira; this ship had limitless expanses that could take me anywhere I wanted to go. But not so much anymore, now it feels like a coffin. Everytime there is some strange creature that is a biproduct of Sin's abscense attacking somewhere, where I run to the call because I feel responsible... Everytime I watch my pistols rip open the flesh of another beast til it cries in agony like the victims it would have befallen, I start to feel how small this ship is inside.... I feel small as a person too, because now I am just a lone warrior.

I guess I shouldn't be completely depressed. He's alive, and Pine and I spend nights on the ship talking about finding him. Why is it me and Pine? Why this outsider to the group, who has lived in the Seagull Band much longer than I? Who knew Rikku as they were children... Why is it not my darling cousin who calls me "Yunie" when I'm feeling blue, hoping to bring about some whim of happiness, that I talk about the one person I've ever loved to? It's because I don't trust Rikku with it yet, I know that sounds bleak... But Pine seems so much more experienced about these matters, even if we are all roughly the same age.

Pine... Pine's a little different than any person I've ever met, and she feels more sisterly to me than Lulu ever did. Lulu... She must be 7 ... no, 8 months pregnant now? In the wake of the Eternal Calm, she found Wakka. I was really surprised, we only jested about it when she was needed cheering up. We only kidded her; he and I. I never expected anything to come out of it, even when they share a bond so deep...

I really am a different person, and that's why I'm recording this sphere. That's why I keep it in my pocket and reach in and think quietly to myself, all these flashes and instants recorded permanently. It can hold a lot, this little sphere that I have found... That I plunged into the Al Bhed Home Island's deserts, past the horrid Antlion, to get. I can still feel the warmth of its breath... It was so scary, I didn't have any hope, except for the fact that Rikku and Pine were with me. The only reason I lived is because we lay waste to more flesh. How long is it going to be before you start killing people, Yuna?

I'm sorry... Those are awful thoughts to remember... Awful, awful! I need to think about the family I've established, how much I really do love being here in the Seagull Band. You see, before arriving with Rikku to see the group she had established, that would lend itself to help me find my... My... I won't say his name yet, but you know exactly who I'm talking about.... Before arriving here, I was trapped with Wakka on Besaid Island. It was as if I was a child, I was alone with my "Big Brother". No matter how much Wakka looks after me, I know that he really was a hinderance. The only thing he really proved to assist me in was my quest to stop Sin, to ruin the world of it's hopes and dreams. Without religion...

That is why I quest for the spheres. Somewhere in one of these spheres is a memory of hope, a power source to end all famine.. Something that can assist me in my political fairings. I still am a decent power figure, but I'm running from all that until I find myself a decent leader. We can build new homes, new dreams for ourselves... Just like I told all those people in my speech announcing the calm. Sin is finally gone... Why does it just seem so much worse now?

I guess it's because the Guado have had their head cut off with the loss of Seymour Guado... I... I did not love Seymour Guado. I do not love Seymour Guado. But there is some worth in that vile demon for his ability to unite the peoples of Spira. He may have played everyone a fool, but the people of Spira loved him. The Ronso, the Guado, the Yevonites, the Al Bhed even would fall to his will. I want that kind of power, but with better intent and method. I want people to reason with me, not to fall to my will.

These memoirs are recorded in real time... Like, right now I'm sitting in the mess hall, sitting amidst my Haipelo comrade, Master, who's in the actual preparatory section of the room. He's behind the counter, humming to himself in that awful drowned nasal voice that species has. If you've never seen one of them, and you have seen a frog and a man separate... Just combine the two. They are very foreign, and yet... They are very homely... Heh, that's a mean way to put it, and I'm sorry I'm wording this so terribly. I'm just glad that you can see certain images from the sphere if you concentrate. This sphere is meant to be fitted into a projector, and viewed when you have lots of time. I know that I'm doing something worth while... I'm protecting the people like the Crusaders once did, I am stopping any foul beast... I am solving political disputes with great resolve, it's just... Sometimes it doesn't feel right...

I want to record this, especially in times of crisis... I want my adventures, my actions to be known 1,000 years into the future. So that a girl who has fallen in love with the past, just like myself, can read into my exploits... And know that maybe with a little effort she can find her dreams to.

Rikku's entered the room... I have to be really careful that I don't look at her weird, after having been around her so long, she would know that when she called out and I didn't respond fast enough... That I was thinking to myself. Then she would try to cheer me up, because she always thinks something is wrong, and this memoir session would become a jumble of her voice and mine.

"Hey Yunie!"

Too late... Rikku had already made her way over to me... In my mind I voiced over it in past-tense, it was just easier to keep up with my actions after I had done them than to try and run with them. Her attire hadn't changed much in the past few months, but at least her clothes had lost that stain from the other day. She was keeping washed, and I didn't have to complain to her about it as much as I used to. While this crimson shadow we called Celsius was a vehicle of air, it was as confining as a ship lost at sea... Save for our blue was the sky, not the ocean. I never really travelled much at sea anymore, I couldn't stand it when I was there too... I just got sea sick, it's funny... I never used to.

Rikku canted her head at me, why was she on to me today so quickly? My sobering realization finally came to pass, I was still sweating... It never let up from when I had woken up in that horrid heat with those horrid memories in my head. I think that sphere use has residual side effects, I get moody sometimes from overuse, underuse, and from not using them recently enough, and from just having used them. It's perfectly possible, the chemical makeup isn't really well known, at least not to me. I may be bright, but I'm no genius.

I nodded to her, smiling that fake yet pleasant smile I always had pursing my lips. The one where I look down and try to avoid the gaze of the other person, that I hope by now says "Leave me alone, I'm not in the mood." But it never does... It used to mean "Don't worry, everything's okay." but I don't even think I get that much out of it. And I wonder what goes through her head when I have this much thought in my eyes.

"Hey cheer up, we'll find some leads today."

Business has been slow recently, if you want to call it that. We haven't had to kill anything since the Antlion, that was the last little voyage we went on. We were led on that a sphere of great value had been seen somewhere in the desert by an Al Bhed Reconstructionalist, as they call themselves. The Reconstruction movement is towards rebuilding Home, which was sacrificed in the prospect that it would stall Sin for a moment. I really hate that word now, Sin. Apparently, from literal studies that I went through in my youth... There wasn't a word for the act of 'sin' until the being "Sin" came along, and it really makes sense to me now more than ever. But anyhow, now we were floating over the great canyon that had opened up from Penace... Penace is another story that I haven't really told anyone about, that I really should go into... But not today... I will eventually let on about the day that I faced God. I never got a chance to really stop that being, and if I ever see it again, I will... But only with him at my side... That could be the day I was really scarred like this. That I started over analyzing things, and losing track of the point...

"So business is slow, don't worry about it."

I released all that thought in just that simple sentence. I hoped that would get her off my back, but no such luck... She was stopping to eat, I was not. We were both in the mess hall; She wins. So to my feet I rose, and it was time to go to that place again. That place was where I sat silently in Pine's company for hours... Where we went on not saying a word for what seemed like days. Sometimes there was a table set up down there, with a chair pulled out for me to sit and another that she would eventually come to. We never talked much, but she's exactly who I need at a time like this. I wonder why she's always watching out for me... I think an event will come across where our trust is tested, it always does. In his abscense, my trust for him is that I wait quietly and drag along my blood and non-blood relatives looking for him. So there will be a time where Pine is gone, or maybe even worse... Where Pine makes her presence known more so than ever.

The doors quietly opened, they always sounded like calm wind. The Celsius does not roar ever, or clank... It's not like Cid's ship, that had such a loud boisterous engine and voice, similar to the owner and operator of the ship. The Celsius is sleak... The Celsius is almost feminine... For its grace, I really don't mind living here. I have for a good three months now. In my home away from home away from home, I found nothing. The fold-out table was missing, and there were no chairs. I sat down on the floor quietly, leaning against a wall.

"Did you abandon me when I needed you again?"

My voice was not returned, I could just sit alone. I could rest with my thoughts, caressing the orb that seemed to hum slightly as I poured my heart and soul out into it. I stared at the ceiling, even though it was a minor strain on my eyes because I wasn't lying down. Why shouldn't I lie down? I eased myself back, now I was curled up slightly on cold, hard metal. It was comforting, even in it's harshness... Kind of like Lulu, kind of like Pine... I can see why I love the both of them as if they were my sisters... Rikku too, but she's so young... And inexperienced... She just doesn't have the wise air to her like...

Clank, clank. What? I would rise on to one palm to prop myself up... Speak of the devil, and she shall come... It was Pine, even in the blinding light produced by the skylight that obstructed my view, that ebony and silver outline was unmistakable. She offered a hand to me, to help me up, but I just lie there with a blank face. I didn't respond for some reason, I didn't want to get up... I really was comfortable on the relentless cold floor... She would 'humph' a little, turning around and striding towards the door, only stopping to glance back slightly.

"We might have found a lead, get up."