It didn't take long. The entire operation had begun and ended in what must have been less than ten minutes. But it didn't feel that way. It felt like it had been an entire day. I felt exhausted, drained of everything I had in me. I was stuck there on the ground, feeling empty and depleted. A light breeze had picked up, blowing the tears of fabric on the beach as if they were flags of surrender. Some people on the beach below had begun to rise in disoriented panic, but most lay still- either dead or dying.

I knew I had to move- Gippal was somewhere near here and he might need my help. And whether I was able to find Gippal or not, I knew that every second wasted was one more that Yuna moved further down the road and away from me. But it all seemed like too much. I was afraid of what I would find… and what I might not.

I slowly forced myself to my feet, unhappily facing the reality before me. If I was going to find Gippal, I needed to know where he was stationed. But how could I know that? Someone had to know, right? Someone had to be in charge.

I started to walk down the road towards where the command center was. My walk quickly became a run, and that run turned into a sprint. I hurried down the road past fiends and monsters, and quickly came upon a magic lift that had been installed in the stone long ago. I rode it up a level, then hurried through the labyrinthine rocks to find a machinated lift further up. No one was minding them; I wasn't able to find a single person along the entire road. I got on the lift and rode it to the next level. But once the lift stopped, I felt my breath catch in my chest and I froze stiff.

The machinated cannons that had been firing only minutes ago were all busted, thrown on their sides and into other machina; some had been thrown on top of people, crushing them. There were bodies everywhere, and none of them moved. With my hands clasped in front of my chest, I apprehensively stepped off the lift. I knew I needed to check the bodies to see if any were Gippal, but the task seemed too daunting. I heard voices approaching and I tried not to shrink away; I was scared, but I couldn't allow just anyone to see it.

"..happened with the squad…"

"We heard firing from inside the Den," I heard a man clearly say.

"What happened?"

"Only three soldiers emerged, their report was…" the first man said again.

"Who is monitoring the Den now?"

"Lo-" as the group rounded the corner and spotted me, they abruptly stopped speaking. The group consisted of some Crusaders, what looked like Bevelle soldiers, and a Maester. Having not really paid attention to Yevon politics too much (you know, being an Al Bhed), I didn't know what the Maester's name was; I knew it wasn't Mika, though, or the half-Guado one, or obviously the Ronso one. I always forgot the other one's name.

"What are you doing here?" one of the soldiers abruptly asked me, pointing his gun at me. I raised my hands in submission.

"I- I'm looking for someone," I said. The soldiers waited silently for further explanation. "My friend fought here today and I don't know where he was stationed. Can you help me?" I asked innocently. It wasn't an act, either; I was desperate for help and hopeful I wouldn't have to look at every dead person's face to know if it was Gippal or not. The soldiers looked to each other, then back at the Maester. The Maester waved at the soldier's gun.

"Enough people have died here today," he said, and the soldier lowered his gun. "I'm afraid not many that fought here today have survived. You'll have better luck going to the temple and waiting for survivors to arrive."

"But there might be people here that need help," I said. "Shouldn't we all stay here and try to help them?" The Maester shook his head.

"Your faith is admirable," he smiled at me. With that, he walked past his soldiers and past me to the lift. They followed him and they started to board.

"Wait!" I called after him. "Can you tell me where my friend was stationed?"

"Probably not, dear," the Maester flippantly replied. "I don't typically get such detailed information."

"Please, could you try? His name is Gippal, he's Al Bhed, he's one of the best machina wielders we've ever had," I tried to describe him. A soldier quickly leaned over to the Maester and whispered something. The Maester hesitated, then looked back to me with something like anger in his eyes.

"You'd do best to count him among the dead," he said. It made my stomach feel heavy. He flipped the lever to lower the lift. "Any Al Bhed with machina talents were on the distant shore, and no one escaped that." I turned around and looked at the mess of metal and rubble that was left of the giant machina. I had to try. I had to at least look and see if I could find him.

I walked along the Mushroom Rock, the bodies strewn everywhere. It was hard not to cry. When I could feel a tear escaping, I'd hurriedly brush it away. I walked through what must have been their command center, but it was all in disarray now. Tapestries had been left on the ground in piles of cloth. The furniture that had been brought was toppled or crushed. I could see the carcasses of two large Sin Spawn beasts resting not far apart.

Past them, I climbed down the rocks at the far end of the command center to get to the lower beach. Though I felt the urgency of someone that should be running, I could only force myself to march along at a slow walk. Already, my boots were crunching over metal shrapnel. I tread carefully closer to the debris field and surveyed what I could hope to look through. I couldn't really get into the thick of everything- it would take weeks to clear the rubble in hopes of finding anything or anyone amongst it. I knew Al Bhed were likely to come and salvage as much as they could, but I didn't want to wait. I couldn't wait. If Gippal was here… I wanted to know. I began to stagger through the debris, knowing I was about to uncover bodies and hoping I'd know none of their faces.

"Gippal!" I called. Only silence and the sound of my faint echoes answered me. I bent over and hoisted a large metal panel up and over. Underneath were someone's legs… a woman's. They didn't move. "Gippal!" I called again, climbing over more debris. I pushed a sharp metal fragment away from a small gap to see another body pinioned below, their hand stretched upwards as if someone would take it, but they too were long gone. I stepped back, feeling tears trickle off my chin and a lump in my throat. "Gippal!" I screamed as loud as I could, my voice cracking. I climbed over another pile of rubble, growing closer to the collapse of the main gun. I cringed as I realized I had stepped on someone's hand, but the hand didn't move or seem to care. Someone's head drooped out of a pile of debris, blood dripping from the ears and the mouth agate. Another Al Bhed was impaled on a sharp metal rod sticking out of the debris.

It was too much, it was too much, I couldn't do this.

"Gip…" I tried to call out again, but it came out as a whisper. I closed my eyes and my chin dropped to my chest. There, in a graveyard of my own people, I realized I had no hope of finding Gippal. Not for a long time.

If he was even there.

I quickly made my way back out of the piles of rubble and debris. I couldn't bear to look at those faces anymore and search for Gippal's features. Every hand, every mouth, every leg I saw, I instinctively believed must be his. In my mind, he was dead until proven living. I hated it. I hated that I didn't know.

I made my way back to the main beach. Here, among the bodies and rubble, there were somehow a few living Crusaders and Al Bhed staggering up the beach towards the temple. But I didn't follow them. Not yet. I instead stumbled past the piles of bodies, and one man that had been torn in half, looked out at the water, and allowed myself to sit down, my knees tucked to my chest. The sun was starting to set. It was like the pyreflies somehow turned the color of the sky darker. The usual sunset colors of pink and yellow seemed somehow muted; more gray; darker. The water calmly lapped up against the shore as I sat there, resting my chin on my folded arms over my knees.

I remembered back to when Gippal and I were still… Gippal and I. When we were us. I remembered being at Home with him, fixing up the sand mobiles- the way he'd always do something dumb like try to paint my face with the grease on our hands. Or when we went away to the Moonflow together, so we could see the moon lilies. That night was perfect: whether we looked down at the river or up at the sky, all I could see were stars. Or when he would take me out to party with Buddy and Brother- it always got messy, and sometimes a little ugly, but those nights are some of my fondest and foggiest memories.

I missed the way he put his arm around me. He was so much taller than me that I always fit right into his arms. And the way that he could make me blush just by smiling at me- he had that crooked smile that just made me melt, even when I was mad at him. I somehow even missed the way he'd tousle my hair; even though I hated it, I knew that no one else would ever do that to me again. Not like he did.

As relaxing as the sounds of the waves were, I couldn't stop crying. I wiped my cheeks on my shoulders, which wound up getting sopping wet. I sat there until the sun had dipped below the horizon, and the darkness began to creep in quickly.

"Miss?" a soft voice called from my side. A young woman in religious garb was standing near me, bent over to try to see my face. "Are you alright? Do you need healing?" I forced a smile and shook my head.

"No. I'm fine," I said, wiping my cheeks again. "I didn't fight. I was just looking for someone."

"I have been healing the soldiers all day- maybe I've seen them?" the woman kindly offered. I was doubtful, but I stared out at the waves as I answered.

"His name is Gippal… he's an Al Bhed, with spikey blond hair. He has an eye patch over his right eye," I described. She put her finger to her cheek.

"Hmm… that doesn't sound familiar. I'm sorry," she softly said. I shook my head.

"It's alright," I looked down at my hands.

"May Yevon be with you, in these trying times," she said with a small bow before turning and hurrying off. I scoffed a little at her prayer for me but was secretly thankful for it. I felt like I needed someone right now- but all I wanted was Gippal. I just wanted him to talk to me, just to hear the sound of his voice again.

"You're a force to be reckoned with, you know that?"

"What if I die out there on Operation Mi'ihen?"

"Fishermen could see the pyreflies from miles away…"

"Some things never change."

"I want this, Rikku."

"I'll be back in no time."

"I won't be anywhere near Sin. I promise you."

Those last words stuck with me. I didn't believe him then, but I wanted to believe him now. Did he somehow manage to get away? How could he keep that promise?

I sat up straight and told myself to stop questioning it and to believe in Gippal. If he promised me he'd be nowhere near Sin, then he was nowhere near Sin. Gippal had never made empty or broken promises to me before, and this would have been a terrible time to start. I had to believe that Gippal had a plan, and that somehow, he followed through with it. I had to have faith in him. It was the only way I was going to be able to get myself up and going again. I looked up at the stars above me and held my hands together in front of my chest.

Somewhere, Gippal was looking up at the same stars. He had to be. I had to believe it.

I laid back in the sand for a long time, just staring up at those stars. For a little while, I pretended we were back on that date on the Moonflow. It was a nice memory to linger in. But after a while, as the glimmer of stars started to dim but before the sun began to creep over the horizon, I made myself stand. I had to hurry if I was going to catch up with Yuna- at this rate, she could already be nearing Guadosalem. I had to keep moving.