Note to self: no more of that special Besaidian hard cider before bed. Yuna thought as she pried open her heavy eyelids. She must've hit her head much harder than she originally thought because as soon as her vision began recharging, she thought she could see pyreflies floating away. No, not pyreflies. Fireflies. A sight she couldn't say that she'd seen since she was a mere child wandering through the now-fading Macalania forest. Her head rushed and her limbs throbbed as the white stars clouding her eyes became brighter. The aeon! I gotta control... the aeon!

The reason for her assumption that she'd just summoned a particularly powerful aeon was because the same physical and mental experience was shared with that event. Locked into a haze while the aeon stood out in the open, struggling to harness its magic and power; it was a somewhat difficult experience to overcome, even after the battle was over. Her limbs were numb at first until circulation eventually made its way back into them. Various thoughts were scattered throughout her brain and she worried she might've been losing her marbles because of how bizarre they sounded.

Rikku's gotta... meet me... on the edge of the world. Her arms trembled as she pushed her torso off the unusually hard and cold surface. Wakka... Lulu... where are my chocobos? I gotta... fly away... To Zanarkand...

The "pyreflies" she believed she was seeing became clearer into view, and they weren't what they appeared to be at first. No, what Yuna was actually seeing was a cluster of streetlights, bright enough to keep all of Spira lit up.

To... Zanarkand?

Only once has a scene such as this was captured by her eyes. When Seymour shared the spheres of the dead reflecting off of the Farplane that projected memories of the city. Yuna had the distinction that she might've been in that sphere, or maybe she was inhaling too much of Sin's toxin. Wait... Sin is dead. We killed it over a year ago...

Zanarkand looked exactly how it did in Seymour's presentation of the sphere. Everyone looked the same - literally everyone was wearing the exact same style of clothes as each other, and could've been taken as clones - and she could still hear the announcement on an intercom. Possibly it was the transportation routes between cities.

This is a dream. This is a dream. This is a dream.

In the case of a nightmare, the way Yuna pulled herself back into consciousness was by taking a piece of her skin between her thumb and index finger and pulling it hard. All it did was leave her with stinging pain in her forearm.

This is definitely a dream.

She tried her best to suppress her current adrenaline rush to find the others. It wasn't clear why, but she knew she wasn't in this city alone. At least, she hoped she wasn't. However, it was much more difficult than it needed to be because every now and then her head caught onto something more interesting. Digital screens were absolutely everywhere. On the sides of buildings, shifting from one advertisement to the next, on billboards overlooking the city. Speaking of which, when her eyes gazed at the enormous florescent board, his prideful smirk and pose was plastered on it. The star of the glorious Zanarkand Abes.

"Three time championship winners, the Zanarkand Abes!" Tidus on he screen flexed his muscles and kicked the blitzball onto his head and sent it soaring into the air.


Yuna always thought that move must have been painful. When he tried showing her how to do it, she ended up falling back on her rear.

"I'll never get it right!" she said, pursing her lower lip outward as she ran her hands through the long grass. Her bottom was throbbing and her head ached from making contact with the ball. Tidus laughed, not mockingly, but in his playful, endearing way.

"It just takes practice!" he said as he offered a hand to her and pulled her up. "I wasn't good at it when I first started.

"It seems to me that you were practically born good at it…" she said, glumly. Tidus sat beside her as they watched the sun sink below the ruins of the machina halfway sunk below the ocean's surface. If it weren't the sight of a doomed operation and violent death by Sin, Mi'ihen Highroad would've made the perfect tourism area. The pastures were absolutely stunning during the summer and spring days and there was plenty of room for chocobo riding. Yuna wished that she and Tidus would partake in the activity at least before the end of this pilgrimage.

"Nobody's born being good at anything, Yuna," Tidus said. "And there are lots of things you're better at than me!"

"Like what?" She said, sounding curious.

"Summoning! You're way better at summoning than I am, and you just started!"

Her laugh was like music to his ears. "I'm sure if you became a summoner, you'd be pretty good at it, too."

He shrugged and made circles in the dirt beside him. "Nah, I feel like I have to be good in general to be a summoner."

"What do you mean?"

"Like," he leaned backward on his palms, watching the wonderful pink and orange shades. Sunsets like that never happened in Zanarkand. "Like you, Yuna. You're a good person, and you're selfless. You wanna fight the biggest and scariest thing in Spira to keep people safe. I just wanna win at blitzball."

Yuna scooted closer to him, her eyes sparkling. "I think… you're a good person, too."

"I may be good but I wanna be… I wanna be better than good," he said. "I wanna be great. I mean, you're doing something great and honorable, but I can't say that about myself."

Yuna wished she took his hand in hers right then and there and reminded him of all his wonderful traits. But because of her coyness and worry of pushing through boundaries if she would've done so, she sat and watched the clouds with him. "You will do a great and honorable thing. I believe you will. I think playing blitzball is also something important. I mean, it's important to you and you following your father's path of-"

"See, but that's the thing." Tidus sat straight upwards. "I wanna be better than him! Like I said before, there was nothing honorable about my old man."

"But you don't just think about winning blitzball games," she told him. "Someone who only thinks about winning blitzball games wouldn't fight those fiends at the stadium. Or risk their life to battle Sin. Or…" She locked her eyes with his deep blue ones. "Become somebody's guardian."

Tidus thought for a second, and to be honest, he was relieved she said so. He was glad she considered him to be more than a blitzball star with his eye always on the prize.

"Well, I know I can't be as awesome and great as you, Yuna," he said. "But hey, I can try."

"Well," Yuna stood up and held the blitzball in her hands, beaming. "You can start by showing me how to do that move."

Tidus leapt to his feet. "Alright, let's take it from the top." He took the ball and balanced it on the top of his head. "The trick is to jump up and hit it as it's falling down."

He demonstrated it a couple of times flawlessly. First, he bounced it no more than two feet, then five, then finally he sent it far enough upwards to tell Yuna, "Try it now!"

She did and she jumped higher in the air than she ever had and sent it far in the sky. She landed on her feet without losing her balance. Tidus watched, blocking the sun with his hand as they both lost sight of the ball.

"Woah!" He turned to her and had to resist the urge to hug her because at that point, both Auron and Wakka came out from the Inn.

"Uh, guys?" Wakka asked. "Have you seen my ball?"

Both of them turned to each other, at a loss for words on how to answer this. Then they both burst out into a genuine laughter.

"Man, I'm serious!" Wakka said. "Where's my ball? That thing's my prized possession, ya?"

It only made them laugh harder and roll over on the grass as the day turned to evening and Auron demanded they head inside.


"HELP!"

Yuna was shaken from her daze as the crowd changed course in front of her and began heading her way. She dodged the incoming people and headed forward to see what the commotion was. A fiend a bit larger than Valefor but smaller than the largest Sinspawn she'd faced appeared out of nowhere. It's wings were like evil eye wings, leathery and unsettling. There was an eye on its forehead and a small horn poking out of its head. Its eyes were white and lifeless and two fangs popped out of its mouth. Some of the security guards pulled out their guns and began shooting at it, but they were no match. The monster flapped its wings forward and sent a forceful wind their way and wiped them out from battle.

They can't stop it. Yuna thought. She walked forward, readying her magic. In all of the lessons Lulu gave her on black magic spells, one important fact was kept in mind: to cast a specific spell, one must learn to harness the emotions that ignite them. Fire spells were passionate, impulsive, and oftentimes angry. Water spells were tranquil and focused, blizzard spells were calculated, logical, and strategic, and lightning spells were anxious, fearful, and unconfident. At that point, Yuna couldn't control the rise of her nerves and sparks emitted from her fingers. The electricity ran through her limbs, through her head, and her eyes glowed as a Thundara spell projected from her hands.

Whoops. She meant to cast a different spell. The fiend flinched but retaliated with an attack from its one eye. It wasn't an evil eye spell where it directly struck the mind. It was one that caused her to drop to her knees and give out for a second as she felt the wind knocked out of her. The fiend was about to attack again but was stopped by a much stronger lightning spell from someone else.

Lulu appeared by Yuna's side and gave her a potion. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah... I'm fine..." Yuna breathed as she was brought to her feet. The fiend growled and casted Reflect on itself. It spun around and the force from its winds affected both of the girls with Confusion.

She's out to get me! Yuna thought as she attacked Lulu with her fists. Lulu must have had the same thought because she sent her Onion Knight on Yuna. A small, metal container rolled out from between them and when it arrived underneath the fiend, it exploded, causing major damage to it. Rikku arrived with her Godhand and targe ready.

"Guys! Are you okay?"

Yuna and Lulu leered at Rikku. Must kill her!

"Woah, hey, don't come after me!" Before either of them could lay a hand on Rikku, she threw an Al Bhed potion and cured both of them of their Confusion.

"What just happened?" they both asked each other.

"No time to explain!" Rikku said. "Fiend!"

Its Reflect was a pain to deal with, as Yuna and Lulu both spent that time healing each other. Rikku's grenades weren't doing much damage to it until she mixed her ingredients to build a Hazardous Shell. The fiend had spent the past minutes charging up for an utterly powerful attack and that specific move shook the ground vigorously, throwing the three women back.

"Take that!"

The fiend shifted its attention to the flying World Champion that made direct contact with its eye. It screeched so loud that a few windows on the nearby buildings shattered.

"Lu, Yuna, are you okay?" Wakka said as he stood them both up. "Rikku?"

"Look out!" Rikku said to him. The fiend pulled the spiked ball out of its eye and threw it back at its owner. Luckily, Wakka's hand-eye coordination was on point and he caught it with no problem. The battle was about to be won because the fiend was flying much lower and its arms became limp. It was defeated with Wakka's icy cold Element Reels and exploded into a cluster of pyreflies. Once everyone was healed and came to terms with reality, they all gathered together.

"What happened?" Rikku asked.

"I don't know, I was just walking and all of a sudden this fiend appeared." Yuna replied.

"That's not what she means," Lulu said. "Why did we end up here of all places?"

"Yeah, I was just minding my own business in Besaid and then I woke up here." Wakka said. "This isn't some kind of bad toxin dream, is it?"

"I thought it was, at first, but I don't think we'd be having the same one if it was. And we probably would've woken up when we got hit by that fiend." Yuna said. Trying to remember the event prior to this one brought the pain back into her head. As she rubbed the back of her head once more, she observed the area around them. The citizens were cautiously approaching the four of them, murmuring to each other about whether or not to alert the Zanarkand security system. That was before realizing that all of the security guards were knocked unconscious against the streets and the sides of the buildings. Their glares specifically rested on Yuna and she could hear them debating on "turning her in".

"We should get outta here..." Rikku said, feeling uncomfortable by the amount of eyes glued on them.

"Right," Yuna said but felt as though she was frozen for a second as the crowd gathered together like pyreflies composing a fiend. They jumped up and down, chanting "Abes! Abes! Abes!" and flailed their arms around. The players in their black and yellow uniform waved to their fans and posed for pictures and Yuna was overwhelmed by the constant flashing of cameras. She went a little closer without the others to get a better look of the players. Trying to make her way through the crowd was like traveling through a heavily dense forest with branches poking out and animals lurking around. Elbows jerked into her side, she was bumped into she didn't know how many times, and she was starting to feel a bit claustrophobic.

"Hey, watch it!" someone yelled, knocking her down to the ground. The others were about to wade through the crowd and help her up but they stopped a few feet behind when they saw who was generous enough to beat them to it.

"Hey, are you okay?" the person answered.

"I'm fine," Yuna lifted her head up and her blurry vision focused. "I'm..."

The lights above casted a halo outlining his head and his skin was absolutely perfect under it. His voice was like silk and she was speechless as he offered a hand to help her up.

It's him. He's real this time. Say something or he'll notice you staring!

"I uh..." she wrapped her fingers around his gloved palm and his other hand gently grasped her forearm. "Th-thank you..."

"Sorry about that, these crowds can get pretty crazy!" Tidus took in her different colored eyes, ones that she assumed he'd never seen before in his whole life. Now he was the one that tried to look like he wasn't staring. "Uh... I don't think I've seen you around here before. Are you coming to the game?"

Game? "Oh, yeah, I'll... I'll be there!" she laughed nervously and brushed the hair from her face behind her ear. "Always going to your games, all the time! All day and night! Every day!" She bit her lip. Maybe I should stop talking...

Tidus didn't seem to mind and he laughed heartily. "I don't think we have games that often, but hey thanks for being one of our awesome fans!"

Yuna smiled awkwardly. "Oh, well, y-you know me!"

That one actually made Tidus give her a puzzled look. She thanked whatever divine figure this world worshiped when one of his teammates called to him.

"Quit flirting, we got a game to play!"

Tidus waved him off, a blush spreading across his cheeks. "Right!" He turned back to her. "So... guess I'll see you around?"

Yuna's laugh was pretentious. "You know it!"

His smile widened. "Cool, uh... bye."

"Bye." Hers left her mouth before his even ended. The thing was that she'd already humiliated herself enough and wanted the talk to be over already. She sighed, feeling sorry for herself as he wandered off with his team. "I don't even know where he's going... I don't know where I'm going either."

"Weeell, that was an interesting interaction." Yuna jumped when Rikku appeared by her side. She smirked and nudged Yuna's arm. Yuna was too mortified to react, anyway, though normally her reaction to comments like that was exactly as it was at that moment. Flustered and at a loss for words. She was more than glad Wakka ignored Rikku's statement.

"Wait... but if he's here, and we're here, does that mean... we're in the fayth's dream?" he asked.

Lulu was pensive. "I don't think so." But she didn't have the answer either.

"Maybe we're in the Farplane." Rikku said. The thought made her shudder, thinking that they would probably run across every unsent enemy that they've fought.

"No," Yuna said, and her voice was grim. They all focused on her as she tensed a bit. "If we were... he probably would've remembered me."

Rikku came up and wrapped her arms around her cousin. "It's okay, Yunie."

As much as Yuna would've rather felt sorry for herself, she couldn't because a figure with a perilous-looking black cloak was stealthily making his way towards the stadium ahead. He stood out as much as Yuna and the others did with his black cloak, nobody seemed concerned about it.

"I'm not the only one who can see that person, right?" she asked the others. The cloaked figure was strangely invisible in their eyes. She started towards the stadium and the others traded looks with each other before following. The cloaked figure slipped through the crowd effortlessly. They weren't phasing through the people, but the way that they moved in between every tight space was unusual. The stadium was separate from the city on an extended port overlooking the sea. It was three times the height and width of the Luca stadium and the announcer could be heard from many miles away. Well, maybe that was also the case in Yuna's world. Apparently, she truly was the only one seeing the person because the guards didn't even bat an eye when they passed through the entrance gate.

"Guys? I think I'm going to go inside." she said.

"Yunie, wait, are you sure that's a good idea?" Rikku said. "I mean the person might actually not be real."

"Even so," She walked up to the entrance gate but the guards blocked the area with the ends of their long guns.

"Stop right there!"

"Is-is there a problem?" Yuna asked.

"Mages aren't allowed inside the stadium!" one of them said. "Magic inside crowded places like this is prohibited!"

"Uhh..." Yuna thought for a minute. "What if I told you I don't have my magic tools that allow me to... do magic?"

"Beat it," the guard said. "This is Zanarkand city law, and besides, we can't actually trust that you won't perform any spells inside."

"You have my word." Yuna said.

"Leave the premises or we'll report you."

"But-"

"Now." The guard was pointing his gun at her now.

Defeated, Yuna hung her head and went up to join with the rest of her friends. "I don't understand... somebody else did something extraordinary a few minutes ago."

"Maybe those bozos didn't see it," Wakka said with his arms crossed.

Lulu knew that Yuna was no liar, and when she was, she had many giveaways. Right now, she was more than sincere when she was showing distress about this person entering the stadium. Not only that, but Lulu was feeling more enlightened about the reason for their arrival in this city that existed one millennium ago. It wasn't as clear as she would've hoped, but something was telling her that it was urgent for Yuna to stop that cloaked figure.

"I think I know how you can get in," she said.

She guided them to the further side of the stadium behind one of the pillars. They all made themselves hidden and Wakka was hovering over Lulu as he watched the entrance.

"Nobody's looking." he breathed. She turned her head when she felt his hand unwanted on her shoulder. He noticed she was sneering at him and removed his hand before she bit it off. "Sorry..."

"Wait for the right moment," she whispered to herself. Yuna watched as she counted a few seconds and waved her swift hand in the air, muttering intelligible words. "There."

Yuna looked and both guards had a dark mist clouding their eyes. They didn't seem to notice a Darkness spell put on them. To be fair, the only time when Yuna and her crew noticed, it was when they were battling fiends, because they were actually trying to see what was in front of them as they fought. That was probably the same for anyone defending themselves.

"Woah, look at you, all devious!" Rikku said, admiring Lulu even more.

"It's not like me, I know, but this is important," Lulu said. "Besides, when it wears off, they won't even know it happened."

"Let's just hope they don't have any trouble going on in there, ya?"

Yuna had to make sure not to be seen when she waded through the stadium. The area wasn't completely desolate but it wasn't as crowded as it was outside, either. Everyone most likely were already in their seats, or trying to find them. The hooded figure wasn't anywhere to be seen and Yuna had to make herself scarce as she heard voices of the other players coming down the hallway.

They must be from Bevelle. She thought, assuming this because of their red and black-colored uniforms, resembling that city. The symbol on the front of their uniforms were also recognized. It was atop of St. Bevelle and printed on banners that hung from each building.

Also in the temple. In the Chamber of the Fayth, too.

Suddenly, a flashback entered her mind about Bahamut's words before she was sucked into the reality of one-thousand years ago.

Be careful what you bring from your world into that one. Time is fragile when you fiddle with it. Your actions could cause devastation in the future.

Yuna sighed. Isn't that what I'm doing right now? By trying to talk to him? Although she was telling the truth when she said she wanted to stop the hooded person, she felt guilty as she thought of the real reason she wanted to be there. How many chances was she going to have to talk to him again? Especially now that Sin was no more, and the dreaming came to an end? None. But then she asked herself how many chances would there be that a dream would be transported into her world, motivated by a hatred, or hidden sympathy, for his father?

The fayth really did want the suffering to end. Maybe they would have to work hard to make that happen again. She felt as though she was being selfish. It wasn't just his existence that was sacrificed to bring the Eternal Calm. Jecht, the fayth, Auron, and many other summoners to bring a shortened version of the peace. She wasn't sure if her actions one thousand years before would be so significant that they could change everyone's fate. With that thought, she decided to press forward, finding that person. Perhaps it was someone that could answer her questions. Or maybe they were just here to start a fight. Either way, Yuna didn't want making herself scarce to be harder than it already was.

Someone's coming... She turned her head side to side. Where do I go? Where do I go?

She scurried away into an empty room where a couple of tall, open lockers were ahead of her and she hopped into one, closing the door behind her. She looked out through the three holes in the door as the team assembled themselves. But it was only the male players that were there. Oh no... don't tell me I'm in the men's locker room...

They weren't doing anything particularly alarming to her, just conversing about random topics. Tidus didn't say much as he made his way to where Yuna assumed the showers were because she could hear the sound of water falling against a hard surface. Yuna closed her eyes and tried to calm her breathing down as the men began stripping off their uniforms. She wasn't sure why, but remembered that Wakka often participated in warm-ups before a match.

"Did you see that chick with the captain over there?" one of them said.

"Which one?" another said, causing a laugh from the other. "They get stranger every time."

"She kinda looked like one of those magic people."

Magic people? Mages?

"Nah, can't find those magic people over here," one sitting on the bench said. "That's a round trip halfway around the world. I dunno about you, but I sure as hell wouldn't wanna go that far anywhere."

Another player whacked that same one in the head with a towel. "Dude, we do that kind of travel every time we have a game."

The person shrugged. "Either way, hope cap'n knows what he got himself into. Those people can't be trusted."

"What y'all talking about?"

Yuna peeked with one eye through her fingers at Tidus, and felt her cheeks get hot with a blush. Shirtless, with water running down his abs and a towel draped over his shoulders. In all the time that she'd been around him, Yuna had never gotten the opportunity to see him without a shirt. Tidus towel-dried his hair and walked forward.

"Eh, nothing you probably don't already know about," one of the players said. "Can't-Catch-A-Ball-Because-He-Got-None Boy."

Tidus threw the damp towel at him. "I can handle flak from my old man, but I'm still your captain. And I can punish you for that."

What were the odds that the locker Yuna was hiding in the one that Tidus was about to open? Apparently very high.

Nonononononononononono...

Yuna felt her heartbeat accelerate and held her breath. But before Tidus could even touch the handle on the locker, shouting could be heard down the hall.

"Guys! Fiends!"

Without hesitation, Tidus threw on his dirty uniform and ran with the rest of his teammates. Yuna exhaled sharply and calmed herself down before exiting the locker.

Winged fiends, cockroach-like fiends, and tall fiends invaded the vicinity. The two guards blinded with Darkness couldn't fight because the spell lasted longer than any of them suspected. Yuna hid behind them as she hit them with Eye Drops and when they came to they began shooting.

Where are my friends? Yuna ran forward and her path was blocked by a reptile-looking monster. She was now less fretful than before and was able to cast her spells more effectively. She casted a Watera, followed by a Blizzara, and then ended the fiend with Holy. Holy was the one that drained more energy from her than the other typical spells. Hence why she often saved it for later. Her friends were nowhere to be seen as she fought her way through the arena.

A person bringing fiends into a place? The only people she thought of that were capable were the Guado. So... the person is a Guado?

They could be tricky with their magic and difficult to fight, but now that she had more information about the person, she was more prepared for her encounter with them. The fiends were arriving in higher numbers, but their levels were low and Yuna eliminated them like bugs. Her friends were nowhere to be found and she braced herself for a six-legged, ten foot tall monster with thick horns and sharp fangs. Immediately casting Shell on herself, Yuna held her position and readied her magic hands. Holy magic was intact, but she used the move enough times to feel exhausted. The monster took advantage of this by charging into her, sending her on her knees. She drank a Hi-Potion and stood back up but she was lacking the vitality to cast powerful spells. She threw one last middle-tier elemental spell and it drew enough out of her that she couldn't cast anymore. She fell on her bottom, breathing heavily and feeling her body pulse. She was fortunate that the fiend was on its last breath because the same guard that was blinded to allow Yuna in fired one bullet, taking it down.

That seemed to be the last of them. Yuna's vision was covered by opaque dots that grew larger and larger.

When did the place get so... dark...?

The last thing she saw was the guard overlooking her, muttering something about her being taken into custody.

Then she blacked out.