Tourniquet. The word seemed foggy, distant even as they came in with the crystal clarity of the screen that had shown the narrow escape of two l'Cie from authorities in Palumpolum. That had been all that the world had seen, two l'Cie fighting and killing PSI-COM soldiers. They hadn't been able to see two people whose lives had been irreversibly altered by the appearance of the Fal'Cie, two people who fought against all odds just to survive without plans for destroying Cocoon. Despite how close she had become with everyone, a family with enough baggage to bog down even the most efficient of rail stations, she'd never felt so alone in her life.
There had always been Serah. Serah who had made her life worth living reminded her why she strived to achieve. Serah who loved her unconditionally even when she'd closed her heart off and become Lightning. Serah who was marrying Snow, moving on with her life, leaving her behind the soul deep ache inside of her had blinded her to the truth. If she'd been able to just accept that her sister was happy with Snow, that she was moving on with her life then she wouldn't have seen Serah's admission of being a l'Cie as some ridiculous scheme to move in with Snow. Things would have been different if she hadn't been so blind to something so obvious.
The naïve part of her soul had so foolishly believed that they could continue on with that life: that she could climb through the ranks and achieve Captaincy like her father and Serah would continue to go to school and depend on her. A foolish dream, nothing in the world could ever be the same as it once was. She was holding onto the last bit of her life, her need to save Serah was the only thing holding her together most days. The crushing possibility that she may never see her sister again, that there could never be any happiness in her life after this was growing exponentially with each passing day. Seeing Oerba had made it worse, brought everything into startling clarity.
Her eyes fell upon the picture of Fang and Vanille on the mantel, once so thick with dust it had appeared as if it was an empty frame. She had lost it then and started cleaning every picture frame in that room, faces of people long passed from the world that had lived in this now dead village. Fang and Vanille had been gone for five hundred years, their lives destroyed so utterly by the Fal'Cie that it would've been a mercy to find that Oerba was completely gone. How much could one person really take? How much could you push someone before they stopped fighting and just collapsed? Everyone reached that point and she felt as if it was coming up on her soon.
She didn't have an anchor like the others that had been so deeply afflicted by this misery. Snow had Serah, Sazh had Dajh, and Hope had his entire life ahead of him but even then the three hadn't been cut to the soul though Sazh had come to closest. He would have his son back when this was all said and done, just like Fang would have Vanille. Even if they succeeded she would be alone, lightning was always alone in the sky flashing brightly and disappearing many times faster than the mind could perceive its appearance.
She wondered if she would one day become just like the people in the pictures, forgotten in memory in a place without people, she wondered if they made tourniquets for the soul. She wondered if there was a cure for the heart and the heaviness caused of inflicted pain, the word retribution came to mind as she stared unseeing at the hands that had undone any hope for the future.