To say that Tidus felt weird would be a gross understatement akin to calling Anima a little homely. He felt...liquid, like his skin barely held his consciousness in. It wasn't painful per se, but it felt so different. It had been that way since...well, since the changes had started; changes he knew he could never really understand; changes that seemed to turn his basic instincts to something not even human. He didn't know how long this had gone on either, as he had no sense of the actual passing of time here. Wherever 'here' was.

He felt other consciousnesses too; some recognizable, others completely foreign. While all of the consciousnesses had their own, distinctly separate personality, they all seemed to run together at some point too.

It will not last, some of them assured him when he began to fear he'd changed so much he'd begun to lose himself, although he never heard words from them. They communicated with thoughts and feelings, something far more personal than anything he'd ever tried before. You will be needed soon, they would continue, and then you will no longer change.

After a while, their assurances began to seem practiced and old. So he fell back on his memories, focused on blitzball, how the ball felt in his hands, how the water flowed around him as he twisted and turned, heading towards the goal, and the elation of scoring a point. He remembered fighting fiends, at first for his own life and then to protect those he cared about...especially her.

Once he reached that point in his thought process, he could always bare the changes for just a little longer. If enduring these painless alterations that had begun to chip away at his very soul meant that she would live, he would do so for forever.

So, while he longed to have some semblance of normalcy again, he still found himself repeating one line over and over, one line that would reject any stability for him ever again.

Don't let her call me!

xXx

At first, he didn't know what to think when she said his name. He recognized her voice instantly, and if he had any blood at all, it froze in its veins.

Tidus, she called, weneed you. Please, come.

NO! he responded. I won't! But he couldn't resist, and he knew it, although that wouldn't stop him from trying. He could already feel his body stabilizing. It still seemed to move in ways it should have and felt incredibly strange to him, but the changes had stopped, or at least slowed.

The closer he drew to her voice, the more he felt connected to her, and the stronger he became; his bond to her so apparent it was almost visible. Still, he fought it, despite knowing she would not have called for him unless she felt she had no other choice.

That's when he heard his father's voice in the back of his head. He sounded old, and tired, even through the insane laughter that otherwise would have shown him to be drunk or on some sort of adrenalin high. Tidus could "hear" no words, only the mad laughter followed by screams of despair. It hurt, and Tidus could feel that pain; the pain of an unwilling murderer.

It wasn't until he again saw the world around him splash into existence that the contempt and pity he felt towards Jecht suddenly rooted into his stomach as fear, because he knew what would be next.

"Forgive me," he heard a soft voice behind him, and whirled around to see Yuna barely standing beside a still utterly stoic Auron. "Please," she whispered, tears running down her cheeks.

What happened? He wanted to yell, but his voice didn't seem to want to work. Not in this formanother thought drifted through to him from the group of consciousness he'd just left. He still seemed to have some sort of connection to them as well. Frustration rose inside of him when he realized he really couldn't speak out loud, but Auron seemed to understand.

"We managed to get inside of Sin," he said, his own voice unusually soft. "We confronted Jecht...and lost."

Tidus looked around again, this time taking in the weakly moving forms of his friends. Wakka and Lulu crouched together, nursing different wounds, one of which showed Wakka's arm at a strange angle and a swollen knee. A trickle of blood came down from the side of Lulu's mouth, and she looked like she was having a hard time breathing. Kimahri leaned on his spear, doing his best to remain standing over an unconscious Rikku protectively. His tail had been damaged and hung limply, throwing off his sense of balance, and his own leg bled profusely. Even through the fur, Tidus could see many bruises, one large one across the chest that undoubtedly meant broken ribs.

"It seems," Yuna whispered, "you were needed here, no matter what."

The final summoning, a loud, multiple voice boomed in his head. Tidus set his jaw and turned, only now realizing that he floated in the air. At last... One voice seemed relieved, while the other held almost no emotion at all. Then Tidus met the darkened eyes of the giant...thing before him, and recognized Jecht.

Dad!He called out, leaning forward.

I'm sorry,the sad voice of his father drifted telepathically to him.

At first, Tidus didn't respond. Then he said the only thing that would come to his mind. Dad, I hate you.

Then the world exploded.

xXx

Auron couldn't help but swear inside his mind over and over again. They'd gone with a back-up plan, just in case, but none of them had wanted to use it. Now they had no choice. Jecht—no, Sin, had simply been too strong. Now history would repeat itself, and he hadn't been able to do anything again!

The dead man watched the new form of the creature that had to be Tidus turn to face his father. His skin shimmered with green and blue, sometimes flashing purple or yellow at the ends as the iridescent colors shifted in the light. His human features melted into fins that shot out from his head in all directions, like a giant fan, twitching and swaying in tune to a non-existent tide. He still had a basic, human shape, two legs, and two arms, although they all ended in long, thin fins.

Truth be told, he looked like someone had taken a human, a fish and a coral and then combined them together, and wasn't sure if he particularly liked the idea. Then again, he'd felt that way when he'd seen Jecht's shape as a large, strange mix between a flying fish and as shoopuff (that grew exponentially when possessed by Sin).

He took all of this in in moments as Tidus faced his father. For the first time since they had entered Sin, the giant calmed down, observing his son with sad eyes. For just that moment, Auron saw his friend again, not the monster he had become. Then, the thing's eyes hardened, Yu Yevvon back in control once again. He attacked, throwing out more power than he should have left with all of the damage the little group had dealt to him.

"Now!" he heard Yuna call out from beside him. Instantly, Tidus reacted, releasing his own form of energy, and everything exploded.

Auron felt himself flying through the air, and hit the ground. Somehow, Yuna remained standing, almost as if unaffected, yelling out commands for a battle he could barely see because of all the light from the pure energy the two beings shot back and forth at each other...just like the previous Sin, Jecht and Braska.

No!he screamed in his mind, clenching his teeth together. He would not watch this happen again! That's when he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. Wincing from the pain, Wakka stood, despite Lulu tugging desperately on his arm. He turned and smiled back at her before walking towards the fight. On the other side of him, Kimahri also began to move.

"Kimahri!" Auron called out to the Ronso.

"Take care...Rikku," the beast-like man yelled back, gesturing towards the unconscious Al Bhed.

"You can't help them!" he shouted, but both ignored him completely. He himself took a step forward, fully intent on stopping those two idiots from killing themselves for no reason, when he noticed several pieces of rubble come flying towards them. For the barest moment, he felt torn between stopping those two and protecting the unconscious girl. It only took him an instant to make his decision.

He heaved his sword forward, sending a chunk of flying material crashing away at an alternate trajectory and then bracing himself against the smaller pieces. They had made their choice. She hadn't. He glanced back at Lulu and saw her down a hi-potion. Almost immediately, her breathing eased, and she regained her feet, drinking another potion even as she began to stumble forward after Wakka.

A sudden shudder drew his attention to the fight, just in time to see Jecht's monstrous body fall to the floor. They did it, Auron thought to himself, feeling a knot form in his stomach. Then he began to realize...we're inside Sin...which is sitting several hundred feet above Bevelle...and like any aeon that is defeated it will disappear...

He didn't think after that, he just acted as he hissed out a curse. He scooped up Rikku, then ran over and grabbed Lulu.

"Wakka..." she muttered. "Yuna...they're gone..."

Pausing for the barest moment, he looked back to see the familiar light had enveloped the other figures. Gritting his teeth, he continued back towards the ship, carrying the smaller girl and dragging the older woman behind him. The very floor had become transparent and the walls seemed to dissolve around them into pyreflies.

The airship came into view just as the ground started to lose its stability.

We're not going to make it!He couldn't help but think. Normally he wouldn't consider himself either an optimist or a pessimist, but a realist; realistically, he couldn't see any way they could cross that distance in-

"Haste!" he heard a weak voice gasp from over his shoulder. Apparently Rikku had regained consciousness. The world around him slowed as he continued to bound across the floor, this time at a much faster pace, vaguely hearing the two girls cry out whenever he jostled them...which meant every step, but he didn't have time to be gentle.

Cid, fearful for his niece's and daughter's lives, had come down to stand on the ramp leading up into the open ship. Auron could hear him yelling through some sort of communication system to get the engines started before he began to run towards them. He'd come out several steps, yelling the whole way before he caught Auron waving him back. The bald man paused for a moment before retreating a few steps so he stood just outside of the ramp door. The bushido blade wielder nodded, impressed with the man's self discipline.

They were only yards away when he felt the floor begin to give way completely. Well, it was now or never. Shifting so Rikku rolled into his hand, he quite literally launched the small girl through the air towards her father, screaming the whole way and waving her arms frantically. She'd probably have a severe fear of heights after this to compliment her phobia of lightning. Then Auron reached behind him, and shoved the sword into what was left of the "ground", using that leverage as a springboard to launch himself directly after her, dragging a strangely quiet Lulu by the arm behind him.

Cid, who also looked like he was having problems remaining standing, continued to keep his instincts in check and stayed within arms length of the ship's ramp, even as the engines revved to life. Gritting his teeth, he stretched out as far as he could, and barely caught Rikku's arm as she fell, clasping onto her wrist. No sooner had she touched him, than the ground gave way completely, the last traces of Sin vanishing around them.

Somehow Cid managed to latch onto the open ramp of the airship that now struggled to stabilize and gain some altitude. Auron desperately reached outward and grabbed Rikku's still swinging leg, causing a chain of whiplash as they swung down wildly from the dropping airship. Cid clung desperately to the edge of the ramp and Rikku, obviously refusing to let go of his daughter.

"Ow, ow, ow! Dad! OW!"

"Ya think it hurts for YOU?" her father managed to grit back. Yeah, the old man had to be holding at least 400 pounds, and he was their lifeline. If he let go, with either hand, they would fall several hundred (if not more) feet onto...

Auron looked down to see what exactly they would land on, and really saw where they were for the first time. The edge of the calm lands?

"Why are we here?" he muttered to himself.

"People better start climbin'!" Cid shouted down to them. Auron grunted and looked down at Lulu. Even from this angle and swinging madly in the air while the ship struggled to not plummet to the ground, he could see and recognize the blank, hollow look in her eyes. And for once, he had nothing to say to her. No words of wisdom came to mind, no calm verbal needles that jabbed at one's pride and prodded them to move on, no subtle hints at the future...he felt just as empty as she looked. But he couldn't climb with her in hand, and he wasn't about to let go, so he had to say something or they would all die.

A sudden jerk and Rikku yelped as their little make-shift ladder suddenly dropped a foot or two. Auron looked up to see that Rikku had grabbed onto her father's legs after their hands had lost grip. This was good. Cid instinctively threw his other arm up and grabbed onto the ledge, now holding on with two hands.

Why wasn't anyone helping them? Why did Cid come down here alone? Shouldn't there be someoneup there? Auron grit his teeth, knowing that he would notlet anyone else he knew die today.

"Mourn later!" he called down to Lulu. She blinked and looked up at him as she hung limply from his arm. "You can climb up, or you can hang there, but I'm not going to let go." He said it with a finality that left no room for argument. "If you don't climb up, it will kill us all."

There, the barest spark came back to her eyes and she nodded. He returned the gesture and then pulled her up with his arm so she could hang onto Rikku's other leg.

"OW!" the girl yelped. "That really hurts!"

Despite the circumstances, Auron almost found himself chuckling. Count on Rikku to bring a smile to her companions faces at dire times. He had to admit, he did find her antics rather amusing, if more than a little annoying at times.

"I'm coming up," Lulu said, calmly as ever, her dress waving and flapping in the wind. Auron didn't look up. It would be his turn soon enough. Of course, he could just drop off and let them live, but that seemed more than a little hypocritical after his little speech to Lulu. Then again, could he really die again...? He could definitely lose consciousness, as their many battles had proven.

"You...better...hurry..." Cid grunted. Rikku winced as Lulu grabbed the younger girl's belt and then her shoulder, before climbing up to do similarly to Cid. As quickly as she could, she latched onto the lip of the ramp and began to haul herself up. Once in the relative safety of the ship, she reached over and grabbed onto Cid's jumpsuit, doing what she could to help keep everyone else from falling.

"Where is everyone?" She yelled down to him, trying to avoid staring at the countryside below.

"I ordered them to stay at their stations! Not gonna do...no one any good if we all die, but I wasn't 'bout...to stand around while my daughter and niece were out there! Figured..." he paused, grunting with the effort, "Figured I could...run it all from...down here."

Meanwhile, Auron swung his arm up and over, following Lulu's latter trail up, ignoring Rikku's calls of "pervert" seeing as he did his best to avoid touching anything too personal. Once he got ahold of Cid's shoulder, he pushed himself up and latched onto the ramp.

Between himself and Lulu, they were able to drag both Cid and Rikku on board fairly easily. No sooner had they done so than the far door opened and Brother ran in with several Al Bhed behind him, all carrying medical supplies of some sort. The group paused when they saw them all sprawled and breathless on the floor at the back of the cavern.

Brother shouted something and the ramp began to creak closed behind them. Hearing his son's voice, Cid's face contorted into a deep, angry frown. "I thought I told all o' you to stay at your stations n' let no one else leave their assigned area!"

Brother rolled his eyes before sprinting forward and yelling in Al Bhed, something about how they weren't just going to stand around when they couldn't reach their captain. Apparently they'd been trying to get ahold of him since they'd begun to gain a decent ascent.

"That's...my family...for you," Rikku gasped, then gratefully took the potion she was offered while they checked her over for broken bones that would need setting before the medicine healed it beyond proper repair.

Auron, used to the pain and bruises, turned to a still shaking Cid (truthfully, he'd been impressed that the man had been able to hold on that long, especially considering his age). "So," he grunted, "why are we above the Calm Lands? Last I knew, we were sitting above Bevelle."

The older man eyed him with a look that clearly stated his annoyance at being questioned while his body remained in this shape, but was obviously too tired to argue. "Dunno. At some point, we felt a jostle, and figured we were moving. No idea why that giant tub decided to up and skedaddle."

"Hmm," Auron responded, contemplating this information.

"Last I heard, you had six in yer group, not three."

For the first time since their escape from the dying Sin, Auron thought back on all of the events that had transpired, and felt a deep depression settle into the pit of his gut.

"We...lost," he said.

"Lost? What do you mean you lost?" The old man could apparently still move very well despite his tortured limbs, because he knelt up and right into Auron's face, glaring at the other man. "Where's Yuna?"

Auron was used to taking his responsibility and meeting the accusations he rightly deserved head on, no matter how it tore him up inside, so he did not back down from the stare.

"We were not enough to take on Sin."

Cid's face suddenly took on a desperate hue. "An what about my li'l niece? What about my Yuna?"

"Wait..." Auron almost winced at the utter anguish in the new voice and turned to see Rikku staring at him, wide-eyed pleading silently, practically begging him to say it wasn't true; to take it all back. "Yunie? Tidus? Wakka? Kimahri? All of them?"

Auron shook his head. "I don't know about Tidus," was all he could bring himself to say.

Someone else spoke up in Al Bhed.

"What did he say?" Lulu asked, her voice once again ringing and devoid of any emotion except utter pain.

"He said," Rikku muttered as tears came to her eyes, "that several objects fell when Sin disappeared. Four of them."

Everyone had stopped and stared at either Rikku or the man who had just spoken while they tried to process this information.

"We'll have to go down and find out for ourselves," Auron muttered, standing up.

"No."

The swordsman turned towards Lulu once again. She didn't move, even to meet his eyes, instead facing the now closed door. "I can't. Not again."

For several moments the dead man considered the woman on the ground beside him. She lay slumped against one of the walls. Her eyes held no tears, but they seemed strained, almost wild. Hadn't this been her second or third trip as a Guardian? In less than thirty-five years she had already been through losing more people than even Auron himself. Worse yet, she had survived every time. Even he couldn't technically claim that. He knew survivors always felt the most guilty, constantly wondering what lucky chance had let them outlive their companions. With a sigh, he nodded and turned to look at Cid. "Can you drop her off at Bevelle before we go?"

"The nearest town, eh?" the man asked, his own voice sober.

Auron nodded. As he watched the older woman for a second, he found himself almost wishing he could do the same and just leave it all. Almost. "We'll drop her off before we go and search for bodies. It's the least we can do."

The old man sighed as someone finally came over and threw Cid's arm around his shoulder. "Yeah," Rikku's father muttered. "You're right."

xXx

He felt a call...a pull almost, but it rang in the back of his disembodied consciousness dully.

So this is what it's like to be dead, ya?he muttered to himself. Jus' sit here like you're floatin'? He shook his head, hearing Lulu's voice in the back of his head telling him to stop worrying about himself and concentrate.

Poor Lu, he sighed mentally, she's gonna kill me. He pictured himself laughing at his own pun, although he quickly sobered. He hadn't told her, knowing she would never understand-could never understand just how determined he'd been. That's why he'd stayed back, to talk to Yunalesca after...

No, he wouldn't think about that right now. All he really needed to concentrate on was maintaining the shield—his make-shift protection. He really needed to focus, seeing as he stunk at protection. When Wakka had heard about Chappu, he'd been overridden with guilt. He was the older brother; the one that should have died protecting his sibling, not the other way around.

Now he had Yuna and Tidus, and he would protect them if he had to give up his life! He mentally chuckled again at that. Guess I already have, ya?

The equivalent of a grunt from the other entity had approval and agreement bursting throughout Wakka's consciousness.

You don' regret it at all, ya? Another affirmative. If Wakka had had his body, he would have smiled. Me neither.