The Fahrenheit hovered over the dead city of Zanarkand.
"Ready to go home?" Auron asked.
Tidus laughed. "You and me both."
Auron shook his head. "No. I have to go back to the Farplane."
"You got brought back for a reason, Auron. Don't you think you should stay?"
Auron grunted. "We'll see." With that, he jumped off the front of the airship, his boots meeting the cold chain of the anchors. Across his back, Masamune was strapped, along with his own sword.
"Are you prepared…?" Auron's question was cut off as he jumped over a kink in the chain. "…to do this, Yuna?"
"Of course."
"You always were determined."
"Hey, Auron."
"What?"
"Where did my dad go after we escaped from here?"
"He was still unsent. Once his business here was finished, the Farplane called him back."
The group of three found their feet on the ground. After the collapse of the dome, the path was much rougher, but at the same time, easier. The gaping holes in the main path had been covered by rubble, leaving a smooth trip.
Auron casually flipped both blades off of his back.
"Nice." Tidus muttered. "How long have you known how to use two?"
Auron grunted, slashing a fiend in half. Sliding his blades back over his back, he continued on his way. After a quick, knowing glance, Tidus and Yuna followed.
- - - - -
"Are you sure you know where you're going, Rikku?" Lulu inquired of the group's pilot.
"Absolutely!" She muttered, ramming controls on the Celsius back and forth. Slowly, the red airship made its way toward Bevelle.
"Why does he want us here anyway?" Paine asked.
"Beats me." Wakka muttered. He sat on the edge of a seat on the airship, holding Vidina in his arms. "But… we can go faster, right?"
Rikku slammed her fist onto the speed control. She was the only member of the group who didn't end up on the floor.
"We okay, daddy?"
"Yeah." Wakka muttered.
Paine fingered her sword from over her back. Then, out of the front screen, she saw.
"Impossible… It can't be!"
"What?"
Paine pointed up to a screen above the navigator's seat. A single black mass occupied the entire space.
"What?" Wakka muttered, rubbing his head. Then he saw the screen. "No way, brudda… No way…"
Then, slowly, Sin turned to face the airship.
- - - - -
"Well, well… If it isn't the Legendary Guardian. I have been waiting a long time."
Tidus drew Brotherhood from his belt, but Auron held up a hand.
"This is my fight. You two help Braska."
"Help?" Yuna asked.
"Kill him. It will free him from the magic." With that, the man walked toward his foe.
This will be my last fight… one way or another…
His swords slid off his back.
- - - - -
Yuna followed Tidus through the pair of doors deep within the ruins of Zanarkand.
"How do you know he's here?"
"Because this was my house."
Yuna opened her mouth to argue, but was cut off.
"Yuna… and Tidus." Braska smiled, until his arms lifted his staff. "Please, forgive me."
Yuna lifted her guns, emptying both clips at her father. Bullet after bullet rang out, but all bounced away from him at the last moment, seemingly from some magic.
Braska lifted his staff from the ground, pointing it at Yuna.
Tidus dove in front of her, just as a bolt of lightning flew clear of the High Summoner's weapon. Brotherhood swung straight into the lightning bolt, and a small shock traveled quickly up arm. He grunted in pain, and the smell of burnt flesh permeated the small room.
"Tidus!" Yuna shouted.
"I'm fine." He muttered, dragging himself to his feet.
Yuna tossed her guns aside, drawing her own staff from her back.
"I'm sorry father."
"Don't be."
Then it began.
Magic flew madly from father to daughter and back. The room erupted in flashes of light. White balls surrounded Braska, piercing him from every side as a massive set of swords sliced through Yuna's shoulders, barely missing her head.
She quickly put up a simple shield, guarding her from being caught unaware again. The blue, curved wall of magic would save her against other weapons, but her father's mastery of black magic was too great for her to counter directly.
Suddenly, she found herself watching as Braska worked in slow motion. She looked around to find the answer.
Tidus stood behind her, Pyreflies leaking away from his fingers.
Of course… Tidus' magic…
Focusing once more on her father, she pressed the advantage. Blast after blast of glowing energy shot toward him, putting holes in his arms and chest.
Finally, he slowed in his assault.
"I'm so sorry father…"
"Don't stop, Yuna! Don't!"
Braska's staff was rammed straight into the ground. Around him, three black circles opened in the ground.
"What the…" Tidus muttered.
"Aeons." Yuna answered.
Tidus braced himself. It was time for a Guardian to do his duty.
- - - - -
Auron's blades cut a swath through a forest of Yunalesca's vile tentacles. One after another, they became stumps, but there were always two to replace every fallen one. Auron could feel his breathing getting heavy.
"Now you understand, Auron." Yunalesca's voice carried over the room. "This is why I gave you your life back. You are far more dangerous as an Unsent, but as a man, I can kill you again."
Auron spun his blades, slashing off a dozen more tentacles. Then, in an instant, the tentacles were gone. Yunalesca stood, as human as she had been the day he first died.
"Well, come at me." She muttered.
- - - - -
The Celsius flew in wide circles around the giant monster, trying to draw its attention away from the city.
"This isn't working, Rikku. Fire some more missiles." Lulu yelled from her place atop the deck.
"We're out, Lulu!"
Wakka swore gently, bouncing his bladed Blitzball again and again off the inky black skin of the creature.
"The people are gonna die… what do we do?" Rikku shouted helplessly.
Then, slowly, a smile spread across Paine's face.
"Cover me."
"What?" Wakka asked, confused. Paine took a running jump off the side of the airship. She landed perfectly atop Sin's back.
"'You insane?"
"We did it once." Lulu muttered, following her companion's example.
Wakka sighed, following his wife off the edge.
- - - - -
Far below, on the streets of Bevelle, Kimahri gripped his spear in his hands, fighting off fiends and Sinspawn one at a time.
"Elder!"
Kimahri turned slowly as he yanked his spear free of its newest prey.
"You seek Kimahri?"
"No. Ronso seek Kimahri." Behind the speaker stood several hundred well armed Ronso warriors.
"Good." Kimahri then began to shout. "Ronso! Today, we fight! Kimahri may die! Ronso may die! But Ronso will die with honor! Let Spira see Ronso might!"
A thousand roars echoed into the air of Bevelle. Then, as a single body, the Ronso charged.
- - - - -
Tidus found pause in his charge when he saw the Aeon that appeared from the holes.
"Father?"
Braska smiled as his body faded away into Pyreflies.
"You have made me so proud…"
Yuna ran toward her father as he faded away. She was stopped when Tidus dove in front of her, barely managing to knock away a blow from Jecht's sword with Brotherhood.
"Yuna… a little help…" He muttered, struggling in vain to hold off the massive Aeon.
Yuna nodded, drawing back her staff.
Pyreflies gathered around her, forming together in a single brilliant white ball on the end of her staff.
Tidus knocked away blow after blow after blow.
Yuna brought her staff toward the Aeon.
"Forgive me, Sir Jecht."
With that, she released her control of the magic.
- - - - -
Auron felt the cold handles of his blades as he spun them in wide circles.
"Come on! A cowardly Legendary Guardian!"
Auron settled his one-eyed gaze upon her coldly, and for the first time in a thousand years, she felt fear in her heart.
"My name is Auron, and this is my story." The Legendary Guardian threw away Masamune, holding his own blade in both hands, exactly the way he had sixteen years before.
With that, he charged.
Yunalesca lifted her hand, channeling again the same fatal blow that had killed him sixteen years before.
Auron did not smile at his revenge, as his blade sunk into her chest. Instead, he grabbed onto her shoulder with a firm grip, pulling her further up the blade.
"How did you… survive…" she gasped, blood leaking down her body.
Only then did Auron smile.
"True power in Spira lies in the hands of the living."
"You can never keep us dead." She wheezed.
Auron tore his blade free. Then, carefully, he opened a small bag on his belt. Out of it he pulled a white robe.
"This was what I was given, more than a lifetime ago. This is the robe of the Commander of the warrior monks." He held it gingerly in his hands, pausing to admire the golden guards on each shoulder. Then, carefully, he wiped his blade across its surface. The white was forever stained red. He shook the garment carefully, before slinging it over his shoulders.
Yunalesca gasped.
"That jacket…"
Auron glared at her fading corpse, slinging his left arm casually in his new red robe.
- - - - -
Tidus stared in awe as a beam of solid Pyreflies tore through the Aeon.
Yuna cried tear after tear as she destroyed the massive creature before her. Finally, it too began to leak Pyreflies, and her own magic faded away.
"It is done." She muttered, falling backward into Tidus' arms.
- - - - -
Wakka stared in awe as Sin's body began to break into a thousand tiny pieces.
"Um… girls…"
"Yes?" Lulu asked.
"Maybe we gotta' go…"
The massive red Airship pulled up beside them, and the group of three ran towards it, taking a running jump onto its deck.
For the second time in their lives, Lulu and Wakka got to watch as Sin exploded in a shower of color.
"Have we won?"
"I think so." Paine answered, walking casually inside.
"Cool." Vidina added, walking up to his mother and father slowly.
- - - - -
"Auron? Auron? Auron!?" Tidus shouted, running through the ruins.
Finally, Tidus darted out into the dome of Zanarkand.
"Tidus." Auron muttered. The boy turned to look at the man who had for so long been his father. The elder of the pair leaned against the wall of the enormous building, exactly the way Tidus had known him to a thousand times, with one leg stuck out just a bit further than the other, and his left arm slung uselessly in his jacket.
"Thanks, Auron."
Auron pushed himself off the wall slowly, turning back toward the Zanarkand Ruins.
"Come with me."
Tidus lifted and eyebrow, but said nothing.
- - - - -
"What is this place?"
"The Den of Pyreflies. The original path to the Farplane, before Guadosalam."
Tidus stared in awe at the room. He could barely see Auron, a mere five feet away, for the thickness of the Pyreflies.
"Now… remember Zanarkand. Your Zanarkand."
"Our Zanarkand." Tidus muttered, remembering the way it had been.
Auron smiled to himself.
Zanarkand belongs to you, Tidus. No one else but you.
- - - - -
Tidus opened his eyes in amazement. He stood again just outside the door of his house, that night…
The night before Sin…
He felt Yuna shifting in his arms, and quickly rushed inside to set her down on a bed. For some reason, it seemed like a good idea.
"Hello…" She muttered, her eyes slowly focusing. "Tidus!" She bolted upright, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. "We did it!"
Tidus smiled, matching her embrace.
"Yeah… we did it."
Then Yuna looked around the room.
"Where are we?"
"You remember my promise?"
Yuna thought for a moment, before gently whistling.
Tidus laughed, scratching his head. "Macalania."
Yuna's eyes widened.
"This is…"
"Zanarkand." Tidus answered, helping her up from the bed.
Then came the cheering.
"Come on." He muttered.
Yuna followed him slowly outside the door.
An army of raging fans cheered his name, but it didn't matter to him the way it had the first time he had heard it.
Tidus walked forward slowly.
"Will you sign these?" Three little boys asked.
"Sure." He muttered, giving each ball a quick scrawl of his name.
After seeing Yuna, the two girls refrained from making the same request.
"Come on." Tidus muttered.
"Where are we going?"
"My Blitzball game."
The pair ran wildly through the streets of Zanarkand.
- - - - -
The Guardians of Lady Yuna sat around the campfire of Besaid. On their minds lay a single question, but none had the courage to ask it.
Instead, they exchanged awkward glances at each other as they made unnecessary talk, as though it would somehow make their last three companions come back faster.
"Kimahri is glad Spira is safe."
Finally, Rikku cracked.
"Damn Spira! Why do we always pay the price for Spira to be safe? We've watched them die once and now… now…" Tears rolled down
Rikku's cheeks as she sat back down, her anger lost in a see of
rolling confusion.
- - - - -
Yuna cheered madly with the crowd. None of them had ever heard of her. The name 'Yuna' bore no weight. For the first time in her life, she lived a normal life, without a Ronso bodyguard, or a crowd of people who somehow felt that her dying to give them a reprieve from worry was somehow right. Instead, she could simply relax and watch as Tidus played his game. She could think of nothing that mattered more.
The game was tied with ten seconds left. Tidus had the ball. Quickly, he bounced it off two enemy players, and then threw up into the air, spiraling around for a beautiful kick. It soared straight past the goalie with a second left, winning the game.
Yuna shot to her feet cheering. So did three surprisingly familiar faces to her sides.
Tidus jumped out of the pool, landing on the edge of the seating blocks. Quickly, he pushed his way through a crowd of avid fans, walking toward Yuna.
"Well, kid… you finally nailed it. I'm proud of you." Came the unmistakable, gravelly tones of his father.
"An excellent game of Blitzball." Braska muttered.
Auron grunted to himself.
"Does this mean we're dead?" Yuna asked after a moment of awkward silence.
"You? No, of course not. This is the Farplane, though." Braska explained.
"To go home, just think of Spira." Auron added gruffly.
"What about you, Auron? Will you come back with us?"
Auron paused for a moment, before shaking his head.
"But…" Yuna began. Tidus placed a hand on her shoulder.
"You're sure?"
"This is your world now, Tidus. You know where to find me."
- - - - -
Wakka tossed a Blitzball around with his team, but somehow it didn't seem to matter anymore. The only think that gave him happiness was his son, and even then his thoughts always wandered to having chosen Vidina over Yuna.
"'ey!" the boy shouted.
"Vidina?! Come here!" Wakka called, picking up his son. "Now, do you wanna play Blitzball?"
"'Ya!" The boy shouted enthusiastically.
"Right… toss me the ball."
The team slowly stopped, turning to watch Wakka.
"Now, here's how you play. First thing ya gotta' master's kicking. Watch this." Wakka tossed the ball in the air, before slamming it as hard as he could with a smash from his foot. It flew off, deep into the ocean.
"Slick, Wakka." Rikku muttered from the shore.
"Ah, shut it."
Then, slowly, the ball came flying back. Wakka ducked away from it as it flew straight at his head.
"'Ey! Look, Daddy!"
Wakka lifted his head to see that Vidina had somehow managed to catch the ball.
"What do you think of that? It's the Supremely Magnificent Jecht Shot Mark I. The real original."
"Tidus!" Wakka and Rikku shouted together. "Yuna!"
There, on the beach, the group was together again.
- - - - -
Later that night, around the campfire, they met again.
"So… Auron…"
Tidus sighed. "He made the same choice as last time. But then again, it is his choice."
Kimahri sighed. "Auron good man."
"Yeah, but you could never get him to talk." Rikku added jokingly. The group laughed as one.
"Better too little than too much." A gruff, sarcastic voice echoed over the quiet village. One by one, the group turned.
Then, softly, they began to laugh as Auron walked into the light of the fire.
"So… you changed your mind?" Yuna asked.
"Only on one condition."
"Yes?"
"No-one calls me Sir Auron."
That night was the first night that the group truly felt together again. Later, Yuna snuck up on Auron, who was leaning quietly against a pillar.
"Why'd you come back?"
Auron paused, and then turned to her slowly.
"I spent my whole life… and death… fighting for the Calm. It would really be a shame if I wasted it on the Farplane. Your father told me that."
"And…"
"What do you mean?"
"You can't fool me, Auron. I know you well enough to know that no one can convince you of anything."
Auron paused, before sighing again to himself.
"I spent my whole life trying to save Spira, but I never really got to know the world. That's what I want. To be able to go out and actually be a real person, instead of some sort of legend who no one thinks of as a human being."
"So that's why you hate titles."
Auron laughed. "I heard you were a sphere hunter."
Yuna could read his face from a mile away.
"We'd be glad to have you."
- - - - -
The next morning, Paine and Rikku walked slowly to the beach. Auron leaned against the side of the airship, talking to Tidus.
"Here to see us off, old man?"
Auron flipped his massive sword around in his left hand like it was a feather.
"Just like Djose…
"What?" Rikku asked.
Auron smiled, walking up the ramp to the interior of the Airship.
"As soon as Lady Yuna fixes her hair, we leave…"
- - - - -
"Yuna!"
The High Summoner stopped dead in her tracks.
"Yes?"
"I… I wanted to ask you this before you left…."
Yuna turned slowly.
"Yuna, will you marry me?"
Yuna smiled, taking the ring from Tidus' hands. It was a thin gold band with a single beautiful crystal set in the middle. The edges were engraved with beautiful script.
Just Whistle
"Of course." She answered, embracing him. "Wait, aren't you coming with us?"
"I'd love to, but the Blitzball tournament…"
"Oh…" Yuna stared at her feet for a moment. "I'll meet you in Luca."
"Then we can go back to Zanarkand."
Yuna kissed Tidus gently.
"I'd love to."
- - - - -
Yuna walked slowly into the main flight-room of the Celsius.
"Was it your hair again?" Auron asked. "… or your jewelry?"
"Jewelry." She answered.
"Congratulations." The Legendary Guardian walked up to her, whispering his own sparse words into her ear.
Welcome to your story.