As the sun rose on the Island of Besaid, Rikku stirred, pulling the covers over her head in one violent swoop. This was the problem with Besaid—those huts had basically no protection against the sun in the morning. Paine, laying on the bed across the room, was having a similar problem. Oh, well—they took what they could get. When you're offered a free hut on the same island as your friends were on, it wasn't hard to accept, despite the lack of cover from the sun.

Paine peered across the room at her blonde friend. "You awake, Rikku?"

Rikku's eyes snapped open. "What do you think!"

"We have to fix this," Paine said, sounding annoyed. "I can't deal with it."

"Let's just throw a giant blanket over the hut and be done with it," Rikku moaned, throwing back her covers and rolling out of bed.

"It would get hot," Paine said. "Duh, Rikku."

Rikku moaned again. "I can't stand it! It doesn't help that the sun is up so early every morning, either!"

Paine cringed. Thought she hated to agree with Rikku, she couldn't help it. Though she didn't know anybody who slept as much as Rikku, she had to agree that it was a little outrageous.

Rikku seemed to draw conclusions from her silence. "Admit it, you agree."

Paine cringed again. "Fine. I wonder if Yuna is up."

Rikku walked over to their small cook stove, and quickly lit it. "I don't know," she replied. "Want your eggs scrambled or in omelet form?"

Paine quickly strode over to the stove, and guided Rikku out of the way. "You sit, I'll cook."

"Aww, I've only burned them once!" Rikku protested.

"Way more than once," Paine corrected.

"What did Brother call about last night?" Rikku asked, running a hand through her shiny blonde hair.

"You don't remember?"

"Of course not," Rikku said in a shrugging tone. "I was sleeping, and you woke me up. Why would I remember anything?"

"Oh, I don't know," Paine replied sarcastically. "He thinks there's another important sphere that we missed around here somewhere."

"I thought we weren't sphere hunters anymore," Rikku said.

"We'll always be sphere hunters," Paine told her. "Do you think you could ever stop?"

Rikku thought about this. "No," she confessed. "I think Yunie is done, though."

"All because of that blonde guy?" Paine asked, eyebrow arched. "I doubt it."

"He's been back for two weeks, and she hasn't hardly left his side," Rikku said. "We can't bring him along. Either we replace Yunie or go without her."

"I vote go without," Paine said. "Otherwise we might end up with Shinra—or worse, Brother."

The piece of cloth which covered the door to their hut flapped open, and Yuna ducked into the hut.

"Morning," she said with a yawn. "Brother called me last night."

"Us too," Paine replied, cracking the eggs into the pan. "He says Buddy found some new sphere waves around here somewhere.

"Really?" Yuna asked in disbelief. "I thought we'd gotten all of them from around here!"

"Apparently not," Paine replied. "It just must be someplace much more secluded and harder to find," she said knowledgeably. "I mean, didn't Shinra just upgrade the machine that searches for sphere waves?"

"Yeah," Rikku answered. "It's like, wayyy more powerful now, and can probably sense sphere waves that are way fainter than before."

"Fainter sphere waves," Paine repeated. "I think maybe that's it."

"Probably," Yuna said in agreement. "I just don't get why they're making us look for spheres on our break."

"Break?" Rikku replied. "I thought you had quit!"

"I couldn't desert you guys," Yuna replied. "I just wanted to take a little break."

Lulu poked her head into the hut. "Anybody else want to go to Luca? Tidus, Wakka, and I are leaving with Brother on the airship right now, so if you want to go, you better hurry." She turned and walked towards where Tidus and Wakka were waiting without another word.

"Going?" Paine asked Rikku.

"Chuh, no," Rikku replied, stretching out her thin frame to its full length. "I'm too tired."

"Besides, I think we should work on this sphere stuff while they're gone," Yuna said.

"I suppose," Rikku said, yawning widely.

Before long, they heard the airship flying off, and knew that Lulu, Tidus, and Wakka were off for a day in Luca, while they were stuck in Besaid looking for a sphere. Great. Just great.

Lulu tired of leading Tidus and Wakka around Luca rather quickly. It was like they were girls or something! They had to stop and look at absolutely positively everything! Lulu patted herself on the back for only going to one store and picking up the stuff for Vidina that she needed, and tried hard not to think of the teenage girl that she had left to watch him. Tidus and Wakka, however, couldn't seem to remember where they were going, since they ended up many places that you wouldn't expect to find guys marveling at the merchandise. For example, a jewelry cart, or a fancy, up-scale shoe store, containing mostly women's shoes.

"Can't we just keep moving?" Lulu practically pleaded as Tidus and Wakka attempted to drag her into a blitzball related store.

"No, because this is what we actually came for," Wakka told her. Lulu sighed as the pushed the door open and entered the shop.

"I'll just wait out here," she called after them. She turned around and walked to a nearby bench. She flopped down, and sighed again. "I will never go shopping with them again," she promised to herself. The warm sun felt wonderful on her face, as she looked up towards the deep blue sky. Shutting her eyes, she took it all in. This sure wasn't Besaid, but it was nice, all the same. You wouldn't hear the noise of bustling people, or of hundreds of different conversations all going on at once in Besaid. Those noises were reserved for more urban areas, which is probably why Lulu found it strangely calming.

As much as she was enjoying just sitting there and taking everything in, she couldn't help noticing after awhile that they had been in there for a long time. She didn't mind that they were taking awhile to pick out what they wanted, but after a bit longer, it became completely ridiculous to Lulu. She stood up with a sigh, and slowly began walking towards the blitzball store.

Grimacing, she pushed the door open, and stepped inside. She expected to see walls covered with blitzball garb, but found the store to be… well… a complete and total wreck. And that was being nice.

Lulu surveyed the scene—someone had obviously been looking for something. It was completely torn apart. Blitzballs covered the floor, along with special blitzball apparel strewn all over the store. Every other sort of blitzball accessory that you could possibly think of, this store probably had, and it was probably thrown somewhere about the room. It was the biggest mess Lulu had ever seen, and, having little Vidina around, she had seen quite a few messes.

"Wakka, Tidus!" she called, picking her way around the completely trashed store.

"Y-Yes?" she heard a timid voice call from behind the checkout counter.

Lulu spun around, and saw a short, frail looking old man standing there, looking terrified.

"Sir, what happened here?" she asked.

"I'm not sure," he said. "One minute, I'm in the back, getting out the new blitzball goggles, and the next, I hear the store getting ripped apart!"

"My friends were in here," Lulu said. "One's blonde, one's got sticking up orange hair, both are obsessed with blitzball."

"Yes, they were in here," the man affirmed. "Talking to the lady that trashed my shop."

"Did you see the lady?" Lulu asked.

"No, but I heard them talking to her just before I heard the shop start to be ripped apart. When I came out from the back, they were crouching down in the middle of the room, trying to avoid being hit."

Lulu's eyes widened. "Are they okay?"

"I don't know," the man answered. "After everything stopped flying around, both had been mostly knocked out from being hit so many times. I saw a lady in a long, black cloak wave her arms at them, and then…"

"Yes?" Lulu asked anxiously.

"They disappeared."