This is a sequel to my FFX fic 'Just a Dream Away.' Thank you to everyone who enjoyed and asked for part two. It's been twelve years since I wrote part one, so this may be a little different than you're expecting. I hope you enjoy.

DISCLAIMER: Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy X-2 and its characters, places, and situations are (C) copyright Square Enix. They are reproduced here for non-commercial entertainment.

Almost all of the Al Bhed words in this fic are swearing from Rikku and Auron. If you really want to know, there's a translator online.

Listen to my story.

There may not be much time left.

In fact, it may already be too late.

Hard to say when the story started. There are obvious beginnings, such as when Yu Yevon created Sin, a creature that would ravage this world for a thousand years, aided by a network of lies perpetuated by Yevon's followers.

There's the day I was made a monk of Yevon, pledging to uphold the teachings and defend Spira in Yevon's name.

I cannot forget when I met Lord Braska, nor the day I resolved to accompany him on his pilgrimage to defeat Sin, nor the day we bailed a drunkard named Jecht out of jail to become Braska's second guardian.

Yet this story would have been a much different story if not for the day everything changed, on the south shore of the Moonflow, when Jecht attacked a petite Al Bhed spying on our pilgrimage in the bushes, and she kicked his ass.

We had our third guardian. Most people don't know this part of the story. Along the way Rikku also became a summoner, unheard of for an Al Bhed, a user of machines forbidden by Yevon. She turned everything I thought I knew about the Al Bhed on its ear. Even more unexpectedly, we became friends. We fought Sin side by side, that day that Lord Braska and Jecht sacrificed themselves.

She saved my life one final time and then vanished before my eyes.

"Auron, listen carefully," Rikku said in a rush. "I need you to remember what happened, so you can tell the next summoner who comes this way. I need you to remember that the final summoning is a lie, and that the only way to end the tyranny is to defeat the evil within Sin. You have to crack its shell and go inside! Do you understand?"

I didn't. "But… you will tell them… Lord Braska charged us both to find a way!"

"Listen to me!" she said, grabbing the lapels of my robe. "This is very important. I can't stay. I'm out of time. Never forget what I've said to you today. It's our only chance." She half-turned. "Just another minute, please…!" she said, as if to someone else. I glanced around, confused, and saw no one else in the empty Chamber of the Fayth where we had just defeated Yunalesca.

She tugged harder on my jacket, her voice even faster and shriller now. Her urgency frightened me. "Don't forget to take care of Yuna and Tidus! Jecht will help you get to Zanarkand! One more thing, and please remember this!" She had to pause to take a breath, then hurried on. "Ten years from now, on the twenty-third day of the third month, a friend of yours will be missing. Come to this very place," she let go of me to jab a finger down at the floor, "and use the potion that you find here on your friend…"

Abruptly her body seemed to dissolve in my grasp. Later, I went over that horrifying moment, my useless hands grabbing at an image fading like a dream, but I could remember no pyreflies. I asked myself, again and again, Was she unsent? My heart said no, but I wondered—was that because I wanted to believe I could find her again?

"Remember…!" her voice echoed as if from underwater as she vanished before my horrified eyes.

"Wait!" I screamed. "Rikku! Don't leave me alone!"

And then I was alone. I had lost all three of my closest friends, to forces beyond my control and comprehension, in the space of a few hours. I felt powerless. My grief mingled with anger and shame at my own failure.

In the ten long years that followed I took up three hobbies in earnest: sake, learning the Al Bhed language to search in vain for Rikku, and finding out what the hell had happened that day.