Aloha, keikis! I was going to publish this yesterday, but doc upload got all weird on me. Anyways, I make it a point to write always a fanfic about a game I finish (something I still need to do for Final Fantasy VII and Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep), so here's one for Final Fantasy X. I'll have to admit, I really didn't like most of the characters (Lulu and Auron were the only ones I really care about), but near the end Tidus and Yuna started to grow on me due to their romance. It's the best I've seen in any media form in a while, and I just had to honor it with some sort of fanfic, no matter how bad. I think I started to slip near the end, but I couldn't really do any better due to lack of sleep. Oh, and as a side note, I'm writing this as if X-2 didn't exist (haven't played that yet, either; I literally can't scrape up ten bucks). Pop-star Yuna just lost all possible character interest for me. Anyway, enough of my rambling, and here.

Image

She was much slower to enter, compared to the others, who entered freely. Rather, she wouldn't have entered the Farplane at all: her legs had given out at the entrance when her willpower had suddenly cracked. It was only at Kimahri's gentle urging that she has been able to struggle to her feet, however long it had taken.

Wakka had already begun chatting animatedly with the assembling pyreflies by the time she'd drawn herself together again, and Lulu with him. All the better that there were two of them, as they blocked who they were talking to from sight: as Chappu looked so much like him, even a glimpse of Chappu's image would doubtlessly have caused her to falter once more in her unpreparedness, a state she didn't think would ever be reversed.

She took a few wobbly, awkward steps towards the edge of the precipice. It was odd: she'd thought that at the very least she'd come to terms, if not peace, with the fact that he was gone. Quite evidently though, now that she had a chance to see his image, however briefly, it was clear that wasn't the case in the slightest. She paused briefly, swallowed, and continued.

A few pyreflies began flitting about in what was probably preparation as she moved closer, and were joined by more and more from all around. She closed her eyes and took a couple of deep breaths. There was an eerie silence hanging in the air, save for the lowered voices of her companions from her left and right. When she finally summoned up the courage to open her eyes again, she had to restrain herself from gasping on meeting the pyreflies' shape. It was him floating there, assembled in perfect detail, right down to the clouded streaks in his clear blue eyes. She'd expected it, of course, but nothing could have prepared her for the sight. A tear rolled down her cheek inadvertedly, and she wiped at it furiously.

The image seemed to be smiling, but she knew him, or rather, had known him well enough to tell that it was a fake one. It was a perfect smile, but his eyes betrayed him, as they had done while he was still with her. They seemed almost sad, somehow. "You always were a bad liar…" she whispered without meaning to. The image didn't hear her: or, if it had, it made no acknowledgement of it. She sighed and shook her head.

"Well… It's been a month," she managed to stutter slowly. Rikku had insisted that talking would've helped at least slightly with the crushing weight she'd been feeling inside since then, but the current situation suggested anything but. She shifted her weight nervously, putting her hands behind her back, sifting through her mind for something to say to his image. "…Wakka and Lulu are going to be married." Again, his image lacked any sort of reaction.

The words seemed to come out slightly more easily as she talked, thought she had yet to help her hollow voice. "Not much else has happened; we've mostly been helping out with rebuilding wherever we're needed, mostly in Kilika. It's coming along fairly well. We'd just finished the main port before we left for here."

"I remember when we were in Kilika, how Dona pushed you down to the Cloister… It was nice, being able to see you when I came out from the Chamber. Come to think of it, that was the second time in a row that you'd entered one without permission, wasn't it? Lulu minded both times, of course, but I… I felt happy to know that you cared enough."

"I- I miss you. It's been lonely here without you. I don't cry as much anymore, but it's still painful. Everyone else is starting over again and moving forward, without Sin or Yevon, but sometimes I just can't bring myself to face anything without you here. Am I a coward?"

"I miss you so much it hurts… You said that you weren't anything more than a dream. I can't pretend to know if that's true or not, but you weren't a dream to me. Please, come back, whoever you are, or wherever you are."

She started to choke up again. Tears began to flow freely, and her words were barely able to get out of her throat.

"Please… I love you."

No response.

She broke down crying, collapsing to the ground. Kimahri finally carried her out when she had run out of tears. Behind her, the image frowned and dissipated.