Disclaimer: Final Fantasy X, X-2, and all related nouns and pronouns appear courtesy of Square-Enix.

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The Most Excellent Way

by Kairos27

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1. Party-Pooper

For a long time—almost ten years to be exact—I believed that being Sent would be the most appealing things that would ever happen to me; after all, I could not think of anything that could be better. Back then, it almost made me smile to think of it: your tortured, tired soul finally letting go of its prison of stagnant flesh and blood that does not flow anymore, bursting into little blinking lights that rush into the sky, guided by the swirling magic of your master's daughter.

The Sending meant that I could rest in peace. That is what it should have meant, at any rate. Whoever thought of that nonsense, I am sure, has never died before.

Because I am not resting in peace.

I want my money back.

"Ha, ha! What's that you said, Sir Auron?"

Did I say that out loud? I could not have—I cannot have. I'm dead; I don't have any more vocal chords.

"But I heard you. Wait—we heard you."

I know that voice. I've heard it before. It's the boy. No, no…not Tidus. It is the boy, the fayth of Bahamut. But I can't see him. I was never able to see anything once I entered the Farplane—a burst of pyrefly light with enough brightness to blind me for eternity, and that's all I ever saw. I can't see anything now. And what does he mean by "we"?

"Open your eyes."

No, no…no. "Stop telling me to do something I cannot do."

Look at me.

Damn. Not this…not this…no, no…

"Open your eyes!" This voice is female, and sounds older than the boy.

Open your eyes.

No, Rikku, I will not.

As I thought.

The female sighs. "Fine, we'll open them for you!"

Suddenly I feel very, very hot. Before this, I had been, more or less, lukewarm, a shapeless mass floating in a black sea occasionally pierced by black-and-white memories, both vivid and faint. And for the first time since my Sending, I am aware of a faint spot of light. The light gradually grows, until I find myself standing on...nothing.

"I can see," I mutter to myself, as I look up and all around me. Tiny points of light, billions of them, surround me where I am standing. It reminds me of Seymour's sphere, when he was showing Yuna what Zanarkand looked like. Majestic planets soar above my head. For a moment, I look at the sky above me in interest.

Then, I manage to look down at myself. I'm…just the same. I should have known. My right eye is still closed.

"Of course you can see. You just weren't trying the first time." It is the boy-fayth again. I turn to face him, expecting to see a little boy standing in front of me. Imagine my surprise when I find, not a little boy in purple, but the lordly black dragon himself, arrayed in all his tacky plumage.

This is Bahamut, and he really is enormous. I seem to have forgotten.

"Yes, it's me, Bahamut," said the dragon, and it's very queer to hear a little-boy voice coming from a huge scaly beast. Even Tidus' voice wasn't that high. And apparently I've lost all sense of fear in the Farplane because right now I seemed to be inclined to insult one of Yuna's most powerful aeons.

"However, I'm not the Bahamut you really knew."

What?

"I'm the real Bahamut, Sir Auron. This isn't any of Yevon's ieyui nobumeno crap here. I'm not some little boy's dream. I'm the real thing. The one, the only, the bona fide King of Dragons. Capeesh?"

The boyish voice fits his boasting very well, I think.

"Bahamut, I think the song goes ieyui nobomenu, not nobumeno," the female voice that I had recently heard, speaks up. I try to catch a glance of who owns that voice, and I don't have to look very far; atop Bahamut's ridged back is a female with a long, thick braid of bluish hair falling down her back, and she has silvery skin. She is unmistakable, as well.

"Shiva," I say aloud.

"Yes, that's me, Sir Auron." Shiva hops off Bahamut's back and walked towards me. She was actually fairly decent, with her cloak around her, and not in the two-thirds-naked costume that she had worn when she had served Yuna. "And I'm the real Shiva. Trust me, despite what the fayth wanted you to think—I don't give people free peep shows. That's just disgusting."

"Hmph," is all I can say to that.

"Sir Auron, you probably can see that you aren't on the Farplane anymore," Shiva continued. "We brought you to…ah, how should I say this…"

"It's a different plane of existence that only aeons usually inhabit," Bahamut put in smoothly.

I stare at the dragon, who begins preening his gaudy wings. "And why am I here?"

"We invited you. Or rather, we wanted you to come," Shiva answers. "Bahamut sensed that you weren't very happy in your eternal rest, so we decided to have some fun."

Fun? What fun? "What do you mean by that?" I snap at her. Disrespecting two aeons in five minutes: that must be a record.

"You are not happy with the Farplane," an older male voice joins in the conversation. I look around, and approaching me is the familiar fire demon, Ifrit. "Is that true?"

Before I can answer, Shiva rudely interrupts me. "Yes, yes, he said he wanted his money back," she says, and giggles rather girlishly. Impertinence.

Ifrit nods sagely. He seems to be the sanest out of this trio. "If he wants a refund, he'll have to take Hades up on that. But in any case—now, Sir Auron, you are not happy with your current existence. As for the cause …it appears to us that you have deprived yourself of ten years."

"What?" I ask, and I am admittedly bewildered.

"Ten years—you could've rested on the Farplane for ten years longer than you have, and gotten used to it instead of griping—or, you could've left Queen Bitch alone and live for God knows how much longer," Bahamut sneered.

I have never seen such childish aeons in my life. Not that that means much, anyway. "I had promises to keep," I snap.

"Trying to kill the former Miss Zanarkand wasn't part of the promise, was it?" the dragon snaps back. "Thought so. You totally deprived yourself."

Shiva leans toward me. "Yunalesca was Miss Zanarkand for two years running," she explains, and then snickers.

"Anyway," Ifrit continues calmly, as Bahamut cackles loudly at me, "although you became an Unsent, the promises you made to your friends gave you your life back, or as much as an Unsent can have."

I am not following this… "I got my life back?"

"Because," Shiva adds, "you made the promise out of love. That love kept you grounded. It kept you…alive, sort of. Though you were technically Unsent, you were as alive as anyone could be. Do you get it?"

No, I do not get it. "No."

"Most Unsent do not have feeling. We saw you bleeding, we saw you feel pain." Ifrit bows his furry, flaming head. "Most Unsent do not feel pain, just weariness. If they bleed, they bleed pyreflies. You did not. You bled blood."

"The only one who's held out as well as you did has got to be that old geezer Maechen," Bahamut puts in. "And he's just come into the Farplane."

I blink. This is news to me. The hunched scholar all dressed in green—he has also gone to his rest now? I wonder to myself how that might have come about.

"Returning to the topic at hand," Shiva says, tossing her hair, "What we're saying is, Sir Auron, you weren't really dead at all. We think that's why you're still not able to rest properly on the Farplane, and why you're always so cranky instead of just letting it go, like everyone else. You still have a really strong connection to the living."

"Yeah, you're considered a real party-pooper down there," Bahamut chuckles. "Everyone else is just 'peace out, we're dead and we don't have to worry about living anymore.' Even by that creepy pedophile half-Guado…Seymour, was it? Yeah…even he's totally 'peace out.' You, on the other hand, well…"

I grit my teeth. I have died and gone to the Farplane, only to discover that the so-called King of Dragons is really a disrespectful little boy. The universe should take note.

"Something is keeping your mind attached to Spira," Ifrit says. "It cannot be your promises to Braska and Jecht. Those you have fulfilled."

"I know jolly well what it is," Shiva says cheerfully. I do not like the tone of voice she is using. Surely she isn't insinuating…

Swirling pupils in a green iris.

As I thought.

"As I thought," Ifrit murmurs, and I hear him smiling, although his face structure does not give him the ability to smile properly. "It is the little bnehlacc."

Bnehlacc. Princess, in Al Bhed. She always did like calling herself that. Even though Cid is not a king.

"Awww," Shiva coos. "That's soooo sweet."

And now I am to be humiliated. Again.

"Ewww," Bahamut snorts, and smoke drifts out of his nostrils. "That's gross."

Shiva turns on Bahamut in irritation. "What do you know, stupid? I think it's cute!" She stomps a silvery foot on one of Bahamut's feet. "So shut it!" Bahamut whines loudly.

"But he's so old."

"I said, shut it, you lousy dragon!" Shiva shrieks, getting ready to punch him.

"Stop it!" Ifrit booms, banging one of his massive fists on the nonexistent ground. Shiva and Bahamut stop their squabbling and glare at him. Ifrit clears his throat. "Sir Auron, I apologize."

"So it's true?" Shiva presses, coming over to me and scrutinizing me closely.

I refuse to answer her. If it is true…what of it? What can I do about it now? I chose to give her up the moment I realized that I wanted her the most. I can't have loved her. I shouldn't have.

"Oh, you did," Shiva says, and she looks pleased with herself. "You tricked yourself into thinking you didn't love her, but it wouldn't go away. She's alive, and you aren't, and your spirit wants to be alive again so that you can see her again. Ooh, that's so cute!" Shiva lets out a melting sigh and pinches her face in a saccharinely cute grin.

"In other words, that's why you are unhappy in the Farplane. You shouldn't be feeling anything at all, just 'peace out'. But you can't, and you won't," Bahamut adds smugly.

This has gone far enough. "Stop it!" I shout, furious at them for taking my best-kept secret and making jibes about it in my face. "I did what I had to do! I couldn't let it distract me! I was old, and tired, and dead. She didn't deserve me," I end up muttering.

Thankfully, that shuts Shiva and Bahamut up. Ifrit takes up the conversation.

"Sir Auron, I will ask you one question, and only one. You only need to answer 'yes', or 'no', but we would like it if you answered truthfully."

I think I can guess what that question is going to be.

"Do you love her?"

The one question that I cannot answer truthfully.

The three aeons stare at me expectantly. "Take your time, Sir Auron, we have all the time in the world," Bahamut supplies helpfully, and Shiva nods.

Do I love her? I cannot say yes, but I will not say no. They won't accept a 'perhaps', I can tell.

Shiva takes out a pack of cards. "Anyone for Go Fish?" she asks. "This is going to be a while."

Bahamut growls low in his throat, and moves over so that Shiva can deal the cards between them. Ifrit refuses to play, instead choosing to sit down and stare at me.

I stare at them in disbelief. They are willing to wait around for my answer? Aeons are certainly odd creatures. Especially these three, who consider themselves the 'real' aeons and outside of anything related to the fayth.

"Got any fives?" Shiva chirps.

"Go fish," Bahamut replies.

I sigh. For a while this goes on; the sound of cards slapping the nonexistent ground, and Shiva and Bahamut quizzing each other about what cards they have, and Ifrit looking sternly at me. They actually do have all the time in the world.

And I find that, to my dismay, I am beginning to question myself.

Now I swore that I would never, ever let anyone know of my attraction to the young Al Bhed girl. No one would have ever guessed that she would have caught me, anyway. I like things to be muted and quiet. She absolutely refused to do that; she wore bright colors (she must have known that the color orange makes my eye hurt, and worn it to spite me) and spent most of her voice screaming at the top of her lungs. She frayed my nerves; she was an annoying, greedy, cowardly thief. That was my impression of her for a long time.

But in battle, those things never really mattered any more. She proved herself versatile, even strong. Stronger than the rest of us, sometimes: there would be a monster that couldn't be hurt by a sword, and yet it would easily succumb to her grenades. She refused to be left behind, despite being a shrieking coward, despite being an object of Yevonite persecution, despite having her Home blasted to smithereens. She was intensely loyal to Yuna although she obviously didn't like what was going on. Her reasons for joining the pilgrimage were, in some ways, purer than mine.

As in much of life, the worst brought out the best in her, and I simply had to be fool enough—and alive enough—to notice.

I think it was somewhere between the Al Bhed Home burning to the ground and the foot of Gagazet that I began dreaming about her. And I was—I still am—horrified at myself. She was so young, too young to be subjected to an old man's dreams of romance. If it could be called romance. Despite her petulant nicknames of "meanie" and "old crab" for me, I could tell that she liked me anyway, and wanted to impress me, and that, to my shock, made me happier than I want to admit right now.

I wanted her to notice me. I wanted her to look at me more often. Many times I would go into a shop and watch her eagerly looking at things that cost more Gil than we had, and then watch her groan about how I would never let her spend the Gil on such and such a thing that she wanted. And then I would be tempted to buy the things once she had left, and surprise her later on, just to see her smile brightly at me.

But if I did that, she would begin to suspect. I could not afford any suspicion. I wanted it to stay a secret. I was dead, after all, and she was alive. The dead shouldn't disturb the living. I broke that rule, and I had to pay for it.

But I still wanted her to notice me. I still dreamed up ways to make her smile, and then refuse to carry them out for fear of discovery. I still grit my teeth when she flirted with Tidus. I still wondered if she would cry when I was gone.

I wonder a lot of things about her.

I wonder if she remembers me.

I wonder if she would returned my love the way I wanted her to.

Wait…did I just say that?

Did I just say I love her?

I look back at the aeons. Shiva and Bahamut, from the sound of it, have given up on Go Fish and are now playing gin rummy, or something. Ifrit is still looking at me, and in his eyes is the question he asked me, Do you love her?

"Yes," is the answer I find myself giving to him.

Yes.

I wanted her to notice me. I wanted her to be happy for me, and because of me. But I was selfish (says my blasted, traitorous, second-guessing brain)! I could have bought her something that she wanted. Just a little thing; she wouldn't have immediately jumped to the conclusion that I was out to ravish her!

I could have loved her better than I did, and I wouldn't be regretting it, and wasting my well-deserved rest on the Farplane.

Bahamut and Shiva are looking incredulously at me. Shiva drops the cards. "Did you hear that?" she squeaked.

"He said yes!" Bahamut yells, throwing his cards down. "Woo-hoo!" he shouts, and he and Shiva begin a celebratory dance. They look ridiculous, a black dragon and a silver lady prancing around a pile of playing cards. Just what are they so happy about?

Ifrit rumbles, "Your response, Sir Auron, is much welcomed." He grins toothily at me, and it is like seeing Kimahri trying to smile, only much worse.

"You know what this means, don't you, Sir Auron?" Shiva sings out to me, even as she links arms with Bahamut and twirls around in a ludicrous happy dance.

No, of course I don't. That's why I'm wondering!

"We are going to take your connection to the living world—which is as strong as it was when you left it, unfortunately for the Farplane—and use it to return you to Spira," Ifrit explains. "But since you were Sent, you will not return as an Unsent."

"That means you're going to get a second chance! A second chance at life!" Bahamut crows, nodding his scaly head at me. "You can't rest, so we aren't going to force you to. So live it up! Ha, ha! Get it? Live it up!"

"And the best part about it is, we're going to go with you," Shiva adds slyly, hopping over to poke her perfectly manicured finger in my face. "That's what we meant when we said we were going to have a little fun."

I shake my head. This is not happening. Normally, being given a second chance at life is supposed to be a good thing, right? But not when you have three pushy aeons telling you that they are coming with you, and two of them dancing around in jubilation at the fact.

No, this is not good news at all. "What are you going to do?" I ask warily.

"Well…there is a catch." Shiva frowns. "You can't return to Spira as…well, you can't be yourself. If you did, that means we would have to make exceptions for every dead person in the Farplane, and Hades will have a cow. No, we only want to make an exception for you, so we engineered it this way. So, sorry to say, Sir Auron, but once you're back in the land of the living, you'll be someone else entirely…sort of."

"But don't you worry, your new body will be much improved," Bahamut says proudly, "if I do say so myself. I had a hand in making it."

"And we'll be going with you, to ease the transition," Shiva puts in, nodding away at me like a bobble-head souvenir that Tidus had kept on his shelf. "It'll be fun for us, and you'll get a second chance to get the girl." Shiva seems awfully pleased with herself.

Ifrit merely looks at me and shakes his furry head. I firmly believe Ifrit is the only sane one in this trio of aeons, I really do. Then he stands up to his full height, and asks me, "Are you ready to return, Sir Auron?"

Am I ready to return to Spira? I don't think so. I don't like that mischievous look in Bahamut's eye, or that smug smile on Shiva's face.

But then I look back at Ifrit, and once again I see the question in his eyes.

Do you love her?

And what else can I say but, "Yes."?

"Very well," Ifrit rumbles. Bahamut draws himself up to his full height, and Shiva takes my hand. I repress a shiver—her hand is as cold as ice.

"Let's go!" Bahamut whoops. "Yee-haw! Next stop…Spira!"

A wild wind picks up around us, and I find myself clinging to Shiva's chilly hand as a cloud of pyreflies, carried by the sudden windstorm, surround us with light and sounds and colors…

--

I find myself standing on a dimly lit, circular platform with the circumference of a blitzball sphere pool. Blinking multi-colored spotlights are practically the only light here. The stands—why are there stands here?—are filled with wildly screaming people, mostly female.

Where am I?

"You're on stage!" a familiar female voice calls out to me. I turn around to look at her. It is Shiva, but…it isn't. Her skin isn't silver anymore, but there is not enough light to discern what color her skin actually is now. And…she's standing behind a keyboard? Behind her is a hulking man sitting at what appears to be a drum set. He looks at me briefly, and I know by the eyes, the gaze, that somehow, he is…Ifrit.

Next to me is a young man, with black hair falling over his face in a rakishly foppish manner, dressed in what appears to be black snakeskin. There is a microphone standing in front of him. He winks at me and…is that a machina guitar in his hands!

This is not good.

I turn my head to look in front of me. A microphone is standing there, in front of my face.

This is NOT GOOD AT ALL.

Before I can do anything, the young man, whom I assume by his presumptuous manner must be Bahamut, speaks into his microphone. "Good morning, Luca!" he says, and the mostly female audience screams.

Luca. We are in the Blitzball stadium. Could things get any worse?

"We're all so glad that you all came here to listen to us. We wouldn't be here if it weren't for you guys." Bahamut seems to be enjoying the adulation he is getting. So does Shiva, who is grinning from ear to ear in a most cattish fashion.

"So, we're going to start off with one of our favorite songs. Just for you guys. Are you guys ready?" he cries out, and the crowd shrieks back. I think I see someone fainting in the third row.

Bahamut then sidles over to me, and then whispers into my ear, out of range of my microphone. "Just grab the mike once the music starts. You'll know what to do." And then he goes back to his own microphone.

As Ifrit begins banging on the drums behind me, and Shiva and Bahamut begin pounding out chords, I begin to feel something...that I have never, ever felt before in my entire life. The feeling...it's swimming through my limbs and crawling beneath my skin.

Stage fright.

With nothing else to cling to, I grab the microphone and pull it to my mouth. The music seems to rear like a pouncing coeurl, and then—

To my amazement, I start singing. Singing like I've never sung before. (I never truly sang before, except for a dozen choruses of the Hymn of the Fayth, and that was a long time ago.)

Someone… find a machina pistol and shoot me now, please.

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FIN part 1

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And now…presenting our Special Feature: The Aeons Have Their Say!

(We are in that Special Plane, the plane of existence which only the aeons usually inhabit, and which the reader should have seen in the story. Valefor enters the scene.)

Valefor: We're supposed to be telling you the moral of this chapter, and explaining stuff, but right now, most of us are really jealous of Shiva, Bahamut, and Ifrit because they get to be a part of the story and we don't. According to the author, she chose those three because they are well-known and popular characters. She adds that if we have any complaints, we should go complain to Tetsuya Nomura and Yoshitaka Amano for not designing us early enough.

(The Magus Sisters appear.)

Mindy: That's a lie. We were in Final Fantasy IV. So we're soooo much older than you and Anima and Ixion.

Valefor: (looks at paper which someone off-screen has handed her) According to the author's research, Shiva and Ifrit first appeared in Final Fantasy III, and Bahamut appeared in the very first one. They beat all of us out. Sorry, girls.

(The Magus Sisters groan.)

Sandy: I was hoping Yojimbo would go so we won't keep tripping over his Blitzball Illustrated magazines. There's got to be a reason why they're all swimsuit editions.

(The Magus Sisters leave.)

Valefor: Ahem. Anyway, the moral of this chapter is: "There is more to Sir Auron than meets the eye," or something like that. I don't know, Yojimbo's dog ate the script—and also my tuna fish sandwich, damn him. Keep in mind that we are not dreams of the fayth—we're REAL, bona fide summons—or else we wouldn't be here taking to you. Hopefully the author will explain that further as the story goes on. There is, after all, more to us aeons than meets the eye. I think that should be the real moral of the story. Until then, we'll see you next chapter.

--End, for now.