Aerie Elf here. This is my first Tales fic and I haven't quite finished the game yet so there may be a few mistakes in the background of the story. If there are and you can correct them, please let me know so I can amend them; I love this story so I wouldn't want to discredit it. This story is set after the World Regeneration, where the two worlds have been united. Please feel free to review and give me some pointers, or any other comments you'd like to make about the story; any sort of feedback will help ^^.

Disclaimer: I do not own Tales of Symphonia, its' characters, or any affiliated items [even though I would love to take the credit :'(]

Only Your Love Can Save Me

Aerie Elf

..oOo..

The Failure and The Saviour

..oOo..

Sheena's back stiffened and all of her muscles tensed as she forced all of her concentration to channel through her body and flow into the magic within the cards. Eyes squinted in pure focus; she didn't notice the shudder of the card in front of her.

"Ugh! I can't do it!" She pummelled her fists hard into the ground and growled almost wildly.

After five minutes of soothing herself and drawing on all of her Mizuho taught techniques in self control; Sheena began attempting to command the card again. Failure was the result, as it had been every day since the World Regeneration. Another vexing and hissing sound could be heard from the grassy knoll where Sheena had been practising her cardistic ritual arts every day for five years.

"Sheena, dear, are you alright?" One of the ladies from Mizuho called to her. She scoffed, 'No. I'm Pathetic!' but quickly forced a smile and nodded enthusiastically – well, fake enthusiasm was still enthusiasm as far as she was concerned. The woman smiled; genuine and pure, then walked on towards where her son was helping her to carry wood for a fire.

Sometimes Sheena could envy the simplicity of her life; she would get up of a morning, feed her family, raise her child, perform her duties as a Mizuho house maiden, and then sleep; repeating this cycle every day as though it had just as much meaning as the day before it. Sheena felt that her life had always been a little bit more complicated than that; Summon Spirits, assassination, World Regeneration – all of them the summary of her life thus far. All of them to some degree or another told tale of her failure - ALL of them.

"Take a break Sheena, you've been working at it for years, it won't kill you to give it a rest for five minutes" Konid was new to the ways of Mizuho, and as such he didn't know a great deal about Sheena's past; he didn't harbour the same silent hatred and anger towards her as the other villagers, to him, she was just another Ninja.

"Look, I know you're trying to help, but don't; this is something I used to be able to do, I can't just let it go without trying to bring it back. Corrine didn't do what he did so that I could give up that easily…" Sheena felt her heart crack just a fraction more every time she failed to channel her power; every failure to attain and train her power, was a failure to Corrine.

"I haven't been here long enough to know what you're talking about, and I can't pretend that I know what you are trying to do, but…" He trailed off, evidently left without any further positive comment to make. Sheena could truly despise him for his ignorance; it seemed that everyone else was well aware of the times she had failed. But that in itself was a reason that she should at least try to like him.

"Sheena…"

"A long time ago – a lifetime ago – I could turn paper into cards with magical blessings. It is an old Mizuho ritualistic power that has protected and aided our Ninjas for centuries. I was the last one who could do it; but I did it better than most of the legends. Not only could I create the cards, I could control them; releasing my power and energy into them and moving them with my mind. I could hold a card in the air with my hand, then let it go, reaching out to it again, I could move it with my hands without disrupting the energy flow that maintained the levitation. But that was a long time ago…" Her sentence trailed off into many great, but painful memories.

Konid gaped at her in amazement. His mouth opened and closed as though to speak, but all that escaped his lips were uncontrollable squeaks and mutters. Sheena placed a finger to his lips, ensuring that he would give himself some time to compose and start talking coherently. His reaction was somewhat different to what Sheena had expected; he blushed.

It was like a vortex opening and threatening to suck you in, after so many years of being the failure you would almost jump willingly into a painful and half-real experience. She wanted to be appreciated, she wanted to feel special, and she wanted to be… loved. But not by him, that would be too easy; it would be wrong.

"Konid I didn't mean… Well the thing is…" She stuttered and tripped over her own words; it was hard to refuse the type of unconditional sentiment he was offering; he was young, naïve, and she could tell from the look in his eyes that he thought it was love. But it wasn't – it couldn't be – not with her.

"I know I'm not good enough for you, you're mesmerising, funny, smart, and more beautiful than any woman I have ever seen, and I… well I…" Sheena finished for him "are too young, and too pure to be with someone like me" She smiled though, she couldn't help it; he was sweet.

His face looked horrified however, as though he had just heard the most disgusting thing had happened, Sheena had to backtrack to come up with some explanation for his reaction.

"Are you saying that you… with another man… you can't…. I thought… the vice – chief assured me that you…" So that was what he thought she meant. She placed both hands firmly on his shoulders, his continuous babble however forced her to reconsider and place one hand over his mouth.

"You misunderstand. You have a pure heart; you have only loved with pure loyalty and devotion before. My heart is not that healthy, and it probably never will be. I could not take a pure heart such as yours, and make it the semblance of mine. You must understand, I wouldn't do it on purpose, but I would do it. I'm sorry" Her words stung her as much as they stung him. His face was a mask of disappointment, and without doing so intentionally, she had already made his heart a fraction more like hers. Retreating swiftly within herself, Sheena removed her hands from Konid's body and let her legs carry her across the field, over the wooden wall around Mizuho and into the surrounding planes.

She needed to be alone.

The air was stagnant; nothing was pushing against her will to flee from Mizuho. From Konid. From herself. Arms spread out like a bird and back parallel with the ground, Sheena moved with frightening speed; creating her own wind as she flew across the open planes.

Reaching the outer areas of the forest, she found her favourite tree. Standing at the base of the tree she could crane her neck right up, and still not be able to see the tallest branches. It reached to the heavens, and that reassurance comforted Sheena's mind. She took on step closer to the tree; standing on top of the roots that grew wildly at the base – not a metre from the trunk – she used them as a launch pad as she leapt to the closest branch. Reaching out with both hands, Sheena grabbed the branch with both hands, pulling herself up with enough force to spring into a standing position.

As a ninja, Sheena had more than mere balance; she had been trained heavily in these aerobatic techniques and rigorously drilled to be flexible, agile and swift. She reached a branch almost three quarters of the way up the tree, were two branches intertwined forming a comfortable area where Sheena often came to sit and think, or even sleep on certain nights.

She lay on her back in the nook between the two branches, arms and legs crossed neatly without thought. Staring straight ahead, she could see through the canopy of the tree, to the sky which was beginning to cloud heavily. Sheena smiled with great joy; Volt.

Although she had failed him once before, the years after their pact they came to understand each other and spoke through action. Now, whenever lighting covered Tethe'alla, Sheena knew that volt was watching over her and protecting her. On the nights of Volt's storms, Sheena slept in the tree so that she could be as close to the spirit that was still with her, as possible.

For many years the other Summon Spirits were quiet. Light breeze and calm waters were wonderful for the rest of the world, but for Sheena they were loneliness and pain. The earth needed something more than just meek and mild; it needed the dangerous and the wild to demonstrate the full meaning of life and living. Now, Sheena lived for the storm, its danger and its strength; it was Volt.

As the storm came over, the tree pulled tighter together to keep the rain from Sheena's face; everything in this world was magic when you could understand its power, and the spirit behind it. The full rage of the storm would scare most people, but it helped Sheena to clear her mind and think about things separately. Now she could give thought to Konid.

He was only young, and younger than she was was quite young. He didn't understand the world yet. He hadn't faced disappointment. He hadn't felt the harsh criticisms that followed drastic failure. He hadn't felt the pangs of unrequited love. But she had, she had loved so naively before. So wholly did she give herself to someone; pinning all her hopes and dreams on them. But her pursuit of that love, her ability to make someone love her back, to convince them that she was the one they should really love, were just more failures to add to the list.

She couldn't explain well enough to Konid, but she wanted him to understand that unless she could be loved by this man, she really couldn't be loved at all. She couldn't return the love, because she wouldn't feel it the way he did. It had to be him. It couldn't be anyone else.

With that thought, the raging thunder rolling over the lands, and lightning lighting the skies, Sheena fell into a deep slumber; the last one she would have for a long while.

..oOo..

"Sheena" A whisper, young and gentle; but mature.

"Sheena" It roused Sheena from her sleep. Looking around, she could see that the voice hadn't belonged to a human; it was Sylph. They were trying to tell her something, but she couldn't hear them anymore.

Holding up her last card of summoning, Sheena held it high to the heavens, calling upon the power of wind to come to her. The card floated into the air, glowing lightly. Hovering for a moment, the card's glow began to falter, and Sheena's heart cracked in despair; the card began to emit smoke, and fell to the ground – black.

"Sylph!" She screamed to the summon spirit.

"Sylph, please! I'm trying to get to you! I'm trying to hear you, please speak to me!" Sheena's voice called out helplessly to thin air. "Sylph…" She had tried to get to them, but she had failed; just like the million times before.

Hanging her head in despair and shame, Sheena's tears slid cool and slick down her cheeks. She could taste the salt from the ones she didn't wipe away, and feel the slippery moisture that began to cover her neck. She couldn't bear this disappointment, she couldn't take this neglect.

Leaping from the branch where she was, Sheena plummeted to the ground, swift and soundless. She did not scream or yelp, and she was not afraid of hitting the ground at maximum acceleration. She was worried that she couldn't fight her basic human instinct; survival.

Falling swiftly, and almost gracefully, Sheena couldn't stop herself from holding out her arms at the right moment to grab the branch closest to the ground, force her body to swing around the branch like an acrobat, and land on her feet. Or, that was what normally would have happened. This time, there was an obstacle in the way of her feet and the uneven roots of the large tree.

Sheena saw red, and then felt herself fall hard into something and go flying into the undergrowth of the tree. Doing a mental check before pulling herself up, she deduced that she was ok, but what was…?

"Sheena?! What were you thinking?!?!?!?!?!" An angry growl came from the male laying almost beside her. So that was what she had hit.

"Look Konid wasn't doing anything stupid alright; I was just trying t-"

"Konid? Ummm…" Confusion was more than present in the somewhat familiar voice. Sheena turned towards the voice she had fallen into to. Her eyes were wide with surprise; he was really here with her. She hadn't seen any of them for years, and yet here he was…

"Lloyd?!"

..oOo..

So there is the first chapter, it's kind of short, but I needed to get it started so people could read it and let me know whether or not it was worth writting. Please review and let me know what you think, what you do/don't like about it, and any constructive criticism you may have. Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it :D

Aerie Elf