AUTHOR'S NOTE: I AM SO SO SO SO SOOOOOO SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG! A lot of stuff happened in my private life in not a lot of time and I have had absolutely no time for writing any of my fanfiction and I hate that. I am so sorry; please don't all hate me!
Thank you to Bloodwitch Raven, Stratos263, fanficlove2014 and A.K.b00m for reviewing the last chapter.
This chapter is dedicated to cleo0421, tigerdude36 and Samantha Vi Tenebris.
And again, I am so so so sorry that this hasn't been updated since January. I do genuinely feel awful…I apologise to all of you.
DISCLAIMER: Final Fantasy is owned by Square Enix; I own Sakura.
Chapter 4 - History
"Do you really think Yuna and the others will be back at Cosmos's throne?"
Lightning shrugged. "We can only hope so kid. We don't have anything else to go on right now."
Normally someone calling me 'kid' would annoy me enough to speak up about it but for some reason when Light called me that it sounded more like a term of endearment than anything else so I let it slide.
We'd been walking towards Sanctuary ever since Kuja and Kefka disappeared, not running into anyone or anything other than more manikins the entire time.
"Light, can we stop walking for a bit?" I asked. "My legs want to kill me."
Lightning looked back at me. "Sakura, we can't afford to stop."
"Then let's do something useful during our break," I suggested. "You promised you'd teach me how to fight, didn't you?"
A small smile started to form on Light's face. "I thought your legs were tired."
"They are but I think they'll survive some training," I grinned.
Lightning smirked and pulled out her gunblade. "Oh, I don't know if they'll manage training with a soldier."
"Oh yeah, I'd forgotten you were a soldier," I replied, pulling out my own sword.
"Want to back down then?" she asked with a glint in her eye.
"Not a chance," I laughed. "I like a challenge."
Lightning chuckled slightly before running at me.
I collapsed onto the ground, breathing hard as Lightning finally sheathed her gunblade. She hadn't been lying; my legs hadn't managed to cope with training with a soldier.
"Well if nothing else, at least you got a good workout," Lightning teased, sitting down next to me.
"That is definitely true," I agreed, sitting up. "So…how'd I do?"
"Eager, aren't you?" Light smiled. "You're not bad kid, but you're not working your sword properly."
I frowned. "What do you mean?"
"You need to think of your sword as an extension of your arm and hand, not just as a tool you use to strike down your enemies," she explained. "You need to trust both it to defend you and yourself to wield it properly. It does take time, but you're already very good with your weapon. Clearly you've had some sort of training already?"
I shook my head. "Not really. My cousin taught me how to fight but with grenades and hand-to-hand combat. He didn't teach me with a sword. This one," I pulled out my red and silver fishhook sword, "was given to me by a good friend. It was his father's sword, then his own and now it's mine. He didn't really teach me how to use it as such; I guess I just picked it up from watching him."
"Well if you got to where you are now without any formal training then you must be naturally gifted," Light smiled. "That's very lucky. Make sure you use your skill for good reasons then."
"Like helping Cosmos?" I asked.
Lightning's face fell for a moment. "I suppose. To be honest though if I'd been drafted to Chaos' side and he was promising me a way home after all this like Cosmos is, I'd fight for him too."
"I understand that," I reassured her. "If I'd lost my memories I'd be desperate to get them back as well."
Lightning stared at the ground in silence for a few moments before looking back round at me. "Tell me more about your world."
I frowned. "Um…sure but why?"
"Maybe hearing about your world will help me remember about mine," she replied.
My expression softened and I nodded. "Alright…well I'm from a world called Spira, and it's pretty messed up. It's tormented by this monster called Sin, and Yuna and I along with some other people are on a mission to defeat it."
Lightning raised her eyebrows. "You're helping to defend your whole world and you're just a kid? That is impressive. No wonder Cosmos called you here."
I blushed slightly, never having thought of it that way, but in a way she was probably right.
"So what about you and Yuna?" she asked. "Are you close?"
"We are since I started traveling with her," I replied. "Before then I hadn't seen her in years."
"How come?"
"I guess you could call it a family feud," I shrugged. "Yuna's father, Braska, married my aunt Lynka. My Uncle Cid, Lynka's brother, disowned her for marrying a human so my cousins and I rarely got to see Yuna."
"Hang on. Your uncle disowned your aunt for marrying a human?" Lightning stared at me with suspicion bright in her eyes. "That means…you're not human."
I sighed heavily and shook my head. "No, I'm not human. In Spira there are four main…well, I suppose you could use the word species. There are humans, which you know about. There are Ronso, which are kind of a human-cat hybrid. There are Guado, who are kind of wooden looking with longer limbs than humans, plus they're a lot faster. And then there are the Al Bhed, which is what I am."
"So what exactly is an Al Bhed?" Lightning asked.
"We're very similar to humans. There's almost no difference physically apart from our eyes; we all have green eyes with a spiral for a pupil instead of a black dot. If you look close enough at Yuna you can see one of her eyes is green with a spiral because she's half Al Bhed. We also all have blonde hair, and we can all hold our breath for an insanely long time under water. We have our own language too, but most of us speak Spiran as well. Other than that the only difference is we use these machines called machina which are forbidden by the main religion of Spira, Yevon. Because we don't follow Yevon a lot of the other inhabitants see us as heretics and they hate us. Actually one of the people Yuna and I are travelling with really hates the Al Bhed. Luckily he doesn't know that my cousin Rikku and I are Al Bhed or he'd probably kill us."
Lightning said nothing for a few moments, taking all of this in. "…I don't know why," she said slowly after a while, "but that all sounds sort of familiar. I'm fairly certain we don't have Al Bhed in my world but I feel like we have some sort of people that the rest of us shun because we see them as dangerous. I can't remember anything else though…"
"Hey, at least that's something!" I smiled. "Maybe more will come back later."
"Maybe, yeah," she smiled back. "So, if you don't mind me asking, where did the Al Bhed come from?"
My face fell slightly and I looked down, remember our history well from the amount of times Uncle Cid had told it to Brother, Rikku and myself. "It's not a happy story," I admitted. "A long time ago there was this human mechanic named Alb. He managed to create a whole new race of humanoids called Bedohls. They couldn't use magic like most humans could, but they were brilliant at wielding machina and other machinery. He used them to fight a very powerful mage from Zanarkand, the biggest city in Spira at that time. The weapons the Bedohls fought with were so powerful that they had to be kept under surveillance at all times. It was said that these weapons kick-started the Machina War, a conflict which nearly destroyed Spira a thousand years ago. During the war the Bedohls were seen as the lowest of the low and were forced to work in factories to make more weapons and machines to fight in the war. Once the war was over we were blamed for it starting in the first place, and since the war was the reason that Sin came most of us were executed. Those who weren't were cast out and our name was changed to Al Bhed, a mash-up of our creator and our original name."
Lightning looked partially in shock as I finished my story. "That's…kind of awful. I'm really sorry that your people are blamed for all that pain when if it was anyone's fault, it was Alb's."
"But I'm not going to let that history be what defines me," I said, clenching my fists. "Ever since my uncle first told me that story I've sworn to myself that I'll be known for something else, for something better than just being another one of Alb's creations. I'm going to do something worthy with my life that people will remember. I want to change people's ideas about the Al Bhed and show them all that we're not the scum they think we are."
Lightning placed her hand on my shoulder and squeezed it gently, gaining my attention. "I know you will," she smiled. "If you're this passionate about it then I know you can do it."
I smiled back. "Thank you Light."
Lightning nodded before standing up. "We'd better get moving again. We need to get back to Cosmos and try to find the others."
Light held her hand out to help me up. As she did I spotted a figure far in the distance. I squinted and when I realised who it was I gasped.
"It's Yuna!" I cried, pointing to where she was.
Lightning whirled round and followed my gaze. "Are you sure? It wasn't a manikin?"
"No, it's her, I'm sure of it!" I insisted.
"Then go."
I looked back round at Light. "Wait, what?"
"Go after her," Lightning said. "Suki, you have your memories. Yuna may have some but she doesn't have all of them. You helped me remember a small something and we're not even from the same world. If you can help me, you can definitely help her. Go. She's your family."
I grinned and nodded. "You're right. I'll go get her and then we'll meet you at Sanctuary, okay?"
"You got it," Lightning agreed, "and remember what I told you about your sword."
"I will," I promised. "See you soon!"
Turning away from Lightning I ran towards Yuna. Stopping half way I looked back to see that Lighting had been running in the opposite direction but had also stopped and was now looking back at me. We both waved one last time before beginning to run again; her towards Cosmos and me towards Yuna.
AN: Again, I am so so so so so so so sooooooooo sorry this took so long. Please forgive me.
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