I really like this story and i want to get as much published as i can before school starts up again so here's chapter 3! I hope you enjoy and PLEASE review! I really want to know what you guys think of it. I encourage any sort of review even wholly negative.

DISCLAIMER~ I do not own ffx or any of its characters. enjoy!

Chapter 3

I awoke to the smell of vegetable stew and the soft feel of a bed below me.

"Yunie! She's awake!" Rikku called. She was standing in a corner of the room. She fidgeted like a child standing there smiling at me.

"I'm coming!" Yuna answered as she rushed in and thrust a bowl of stew in my hands. "eat! We were worried about you. Even Paine, she wouldn't let either of us carry you. She said we were too weak to do it…" she said nervously as Rikku appeared to sulk at her mention of Paine's words. "I'm sorry, I'm rambling. And I'm sorry I was insensitive before…"

"No, it's okay. I was just hypersensitive. Mom was all that I had left."

"Oh, I'm so sorry… So where do you come from. Maybe we can take you all the way there." Yuna said trying to change the subject.

"Kilika. Or at least I used to. After dad died we just kinda roamed…"

"When did that happen?" Rikku inquired, letting curiosity get the better of her without realizing how insensitive it sounded. Yuna flashed her a look that said she realized her mistake.

I had gotten prepared for this question though. People had asked mom and I where dad was often. They didn't seem to think two girls could get along very well without a man there. They always asked where he was, or why he was gone and every time it added to my feeling of guilt. I decided not to give these two the short version and to explain my whole predicament. "When Sin destroyed Kilika. He was on his way to find me when he was killed. I was off swimming with a friend when Sin attacked. I was lucky that my friend decided not to go to the ocean that time otherwise I would be dead. We were supposed to be near the other kids and the daycare leaders but she had found an oasis a ways off into the woods. I didn't tell mom or dad because I wasn't supposed to be in the woods at all without them, much less going somewhere off the path. I have no idea how my friend found the place."

I paused as I remembered the next part of my tale. I tried my best to bite back my tears. "He didn't know that we weren't at the ocean, so that's where he went. He died because he was trying to find me, his disobedient daughter. There was a woman near him when he died. She managed to get away. She later told my mother and I his last words, she thought it would cheer us up, but it only gouged a hole in my heart. His last words were 'Praise be to Yevon, she's safe!' It was all my fault he died. All my fault. If I had been where I was supposed to be then maybe-"

"You would have died," Paine said unsympathetically. She had apparently walked in during my story.

"But that one woman survived, there was a chance that-"

"No. I was through that area not long after Yuna and her guardians. There was no surviving that. That woman had extreme luck; she lucked out on a one-in-a-million chance. That area was reduced to dust." She was right of course, but I couldn't accept it. I should've done something. I should have stayed home, then mom wouldn't have lost her baby looking for me and dad would be alive. Memories of mom's fall and her miscarriage still haunt my nightmares from time to time. Everything was my fault.

~flashback~

"Kira, where are you?" I heard my mother call for me.

"Mommy! Mommy!" I cried back. She had found me. My friend had run off when she heard the screams and the destruction start, but I had just frozen. I waited out all that torment waiting to be found like all the hide-and-seek games I played. The little oasis my friend and I were playing in was up a steep and rocky incline, made slick with water that trickled down. Mom was afraid for my safety and so she didn't ask me to climb down, instead she tried to climb up. She had made it half-way when she slipped.

"Mommy!" I panicked. I had no idea what to do as I watched my mother tumble down the rocks and land at the bottom, bleeding. She had been knocked out on the way down and I stumbled after her to see if she was okay. She wasn't. I ran to the town to get a family friend who happened to be a doctor. He followed me back all the way until we reached the woods, I was too slow going over the roots and branches that he hoisted me on his shoulders and asked me to point the way. When we got there he hastily put me down, accidentally scraping my knee in the process. I would have cried, but I noticed mom was lying in a red puddle. The doctor carried her back to Kilika with me following close behind. I was only able to keep up because he was slowed by mom's weight.

Back at the village, I overheard him saying to a fellow doctor that she had been pregnant and lost the baby in the process of falling. I knew that it had been my fault. From that moment on, I was no longer allowed to think like a normal child should at that age, I was obsessed with thoughts of every fault I made until it drove me into depression. Mom's smiling face was all that kept me happy.

~end of flashback~

It was my fault. All my fault. Always.

"Hellooooo! Yoohoo! Kiraaa!" Rikku was waving a hand in front of my face.

"What?" I said snapping back to the present.

I'm sorry to make you think about all that again. I was just curious." She explained. I had a suspicion that either Paine or Yuna had chastised her while I was zoned out.

"It's fine," I said tiredly, "where are we?"

"Rin's Travel Agency. It's a nice place I found on my pilgrimage!" Yuna said almost too cheerfully.

"Oh! Mom and I stayed here before! We loved our visits! I exclaimed. I then rediscovered my bowl of forgotten stew in my lap and ate hungrily.

"At least she's got an appetite." Paine said eying me warily.

"So where are you guys headed?" I asked between mouthfuls.

"To find our friends and defeat Sin, again!" Rikku said cheerfully. It's so weird how cheerful these two could be. Paine seemed the only normal one to me. Not that I'd ever tell any of them that.

"I'm in." I said with confidence. I didn't need to think about it. That thing killed my mother, so now, I'm gonna go after it! Revenge for mom, no matter the cost.

"No. You'll stay here," she saw my look of protest and added, "Have you ever even fought anything?"

"…No" I admitted.

"Then you can't come with us."

"I'll learn to fight; all of you guys had to be taught too!"

Yuna chimed in a defense for me, "she has a point there ya know."

Paine opened her mouth to reply when Yuna added in one more shot on my behalf. "Let her come. She has the same determination I did. Plus I get a good feeling from her." It was impossible to tell Yuna no. I was so glad she was on my side.

"Fine." Paine turned to leave, "But I'm not babysitting," she offhandedly commented over her shoulder.

"YAAAAYYY!" the room was filled the sound of the girls' cheering.

And so it all began for me. My adventure kicks off with an excited celebration of new friends.

Yay! adventure! I'm thinking of adding a character in the next chapter, but I'm not sure... hmmm to add or not to add, that is the question. haha i know im a geek. -_- but oh well. R&R PLEEEEAAAASSSEE!