XXXVII

Out of Time

He found stillness to be useful for a time, until he was made to squirm, fidget and roll by the swirling nausea demon. This was a hangover for the ages, compounded by the inescapable heat. It seared through his new portal window and slow-cooked the forearm he had pressed against his eyes. Jecht was sprawled on sweated sheets, between being on his back and his left side. Morning crust glued the corners of his mouth as his tongue, fetid by bacteria, stirred like a drowsy cave bear. He had taken to mouth breathing because, while last night's vomit had died and hardened, this morning's still emitted its sour, cheesy odour.

The door fell to with the creak of unsettled new wood and Braska eased into the room, having to stoop to avoid knocking his pronged helm on the architrave. The summoner's hand soared to his nose.

"Oh, dear. I hope this is the part where you say, 'Never, never again.' "

"Never, never again." Jecht croaked.

Jolting him, an elastic thud impacted his stomach, just below the sternum. He inched his forearm up enough so that through a tiny fissure in his self-made cavern, he could see a Blitzball outside.

"I stole it." Braska spoke in a pixieish voice. "From an Al Bhed tent."

Jecht chuckled as hard as a morbidly hungover man could.

"I take it then that you watched the sphere?" Braska continued. The faintest of nods. "Well, what think you?"

"...How long have you known this thing will kill ya?"

"Since I knew how to read."

Jecht gyred his neck anticlockwise as to see Braska in the wicker chair, sat legs crossed in his slavishly upright posture. The light met his sandalled feet.

"The teachings of Yevon are clear on the Final Summoning. If I am worthy, the Final Aeon will form a bond with me as I have with the other Aeons, a bond that is powerful enough to defeat Sin. Alas, that bond ultimately cannot be survived by a human mind."

The delay reminded Jecht of his movie sphere. "After it is done, and if mankind is pure, if we rely on our connections with each other and we never again use machina to war with each other, Sin will never return. We will enter a period known as the Eternal Calm. This is the core tenet of my faith."

"I thought you and Yevon didn't get along no more."

"No, no, no." The words were released as whispers. "Let us just say that I have had my... disagreements with the clergy, but I do believe in Yevon's teachings. They represent the constitution of my life. Yevon was a great man, a saviour, the first of my kind."

"Do you think this is what Jinni would want, for you to leave Yuna an orphan?" Braska's eyes said 'Don't'. "At least my boy still has, still had, his mom."

The future and the present collided again, like in the movie sphere. He was a man out of time and a man out of time.

"Jecht," Braska said his name firmly enough that it punctured the space between them. "Is what I have done to Yuna any worse than dying there and then on that boat?"

"Don't make it sound like you're dead already, man."

"When I was training," Braska's eyes staggered away like the swing of a rusty door. "A priest recited one of the teachings to me that I had overlooked. He told me that even if a guardian's head is cut off, he should be able to perform one last vengeful act with certainty. If I am dead already, then I simply must take Sin with me. Even if the result is a broken family."

'Family' was pruned as the summoner visibly struggled with a spike of pain. "I've made a sacrifice, and I didn't make it lightly. It was the single toughest decision I have ever made. I feel terrible over it, but it pales next to the guilt of letting Jinni on that boat by herself."

The summoner held a protracted smoker's breath before he went on. "I made a vow after that. I would not be a coward again. But I also vowed once that I'd stay with her, always. So that makes me a liar, doesn't it. A breaker of my promises.

"That makes the life I live a lie. All this, the sea," He aimed a well-groomed hand at the small circle of blue pocking the omnipresence of wood. "The sky, the ship, even you, it is nothing but a purgatory to me, and no matter how much you inspire me to hope for a happy ending, I will never enjoy life like I once did. I am sorry if all that offends you."

"Stop apologisin', dammit."

"Sorry."

A small smile fleeted across Jecht's face as he tucked himself back into the clammy fold of his elbow. "Must have given you the itch, huh? Yevon says machines are evil and all that jazz. But you wanna see my Zanarkand so bad you can taste it."

"Yes. Whenever I imagine your City that never sleeps, the celebrating fans, the neon lights shimmering, even at night, I must admit I fantasise about it, because it's forbidden fruit. I am a dreamer, always have been. And after all, what harm is there in a fantasy?"

"Fantasy... Heh. But what if the Al Bhed are right, about the Farplane bein' just your interpretation of loved ones and not actually them? You know, their souls?"

"I only ever argued with Jinni over one thing, and that was it, until I was blue in the face. 'Memories are nice, but that's all they are', she would say." He scoffed. "She was wrong, she has to be. She'll be there."

"Ah, finally, a smile." Jecht traced it with an aberrant forefinger in the air before it vanished in diminishing echoes.

"Summoners are Spira's one ray of hope. We have to smile. Even fallen ones."

The release of creaking wicker gave Jecht the conviction finally to sit up. Braska was at the door and almost through it as he turned back. "You never showed me Jecht Shot marks one and two, you know."

"Maybe one day, I will."

Moments following the click of the door, Jecht tasted copper. His first two fingers ran against the grain of his philtrum up towards his nostrils and on the pads were two drooping red stains.

He had tried to sit in seiza as instructed, but his bum knee screamed at him, so he had legs crossed in compromise. He might have been mistaken for the figurehead, draped in dusk at the fo'c'sle of the ship. All was silent but for the gentle push of the Discovery through peaceful ocean. No gulls squawking or bombing, no whales venting the geysers of their spouts. It was mercifully quiet, and Jecht required it. He knew nobody would return to the deck for the night.

A book was resting in his lap. He had purchased it in a flight of fancy at some bric-à-brac stand in Luca's marketplace. To be on Spiran land again, he had to conjure distant memories and even a little bit of his imagination, it had been that long. Longer still when he was on home soil. He swatted away the vexing thought.

There were yellowy spots in the coarse grain of the pages. Jecht thought there was something wrong with his sight, that the squatting sun had dazzled him, but it was decay of the book. He placed its rim on the bridge of his nose. The pages smelt nearly sweet with age.

His eyes swept along the title, scribed in leprous gold: THE KATA FOR BEGINNERS by IAIDŌ. Auron's daft little dance routine represented the discipline he needed to carry this pilgrimage through to the end, and hungover or no, he would nail the fifty four steps of the Kata if it would take him all night and he had but the pale moonlight to read it.

It was not long after and a long, long time before Jecht would finally perform the steps that he nodded off, for when he came to, the sun was at the starboard side, rising. The book was strewn just beyond his reach, a naked page swaying in the breeze like a charmed rattlesnake. There was indeed a breeze and a notable dip in temperature. Clouds bunched in the north-east, dirt clinging to the bottom of them. He watched with early morning eyes the alternating light show of nature's fury, imagined it as a cypher that could grant its interpreter a glimpse of Godhead. From the way off, a growl of thunder came rushing to meet him and Jecht had never been so delighted to hear the sound.