At the End of the Line

Sin was abnormally docile. Mainly, it was glaring at the two with somewhat distinguishable eyes. But regardless, Sin was no less of a menace than what it was known for, and its presence always meant trouble. Yuna shifted herself ever so slightly behind the blonde man.

"What do we do?" she asked, her voice barelt a whisper.

"Come on, Rikku…" he replied, indirectly to her question. "We need your help."

He figured Rikku was still slumped over her control panel, drooling in a heavy sleep in a chair before the large window. It seemed as though she wasn't going to wake up anytime soon, as was expected from her. Sin may have held some restraint, but its Sinspawn was spewing from its back.

"Dammit!" Tidus yelled. "Yuna, run and get the others!"

"I'm not letting you fight them alone!"

"It's not a suggestion! Go! I'll handle this!"

Yuna stood firmly on the ship and casted Protect on him and herself. She started the first attack with Holy, all of her might thrown into it. Tidus was fortunate that he could finish them off. More appeared and they killed each of them off without failure. Tidus was surprised the monster didn't try to wreck the airship after what happened in Bevelle. Maybe Sin was just as tired of fighting as they were. Tidus was also feeling something off in the air. His head was hazy and he swore to himself that he could see people standing on Sin's body, staring down at him. But he was doing his absolute best not to let it distract him. After the third wave of Sinspawn, he felt like he was about to collapse.

"There's too many of them!" he said. "We need help!"

Chuami was walking down the hallway to the flight deck after feeling restless for a while. She gasped when she caught sight of the monster and ran up to the sleeping Rikku.

"Hey! Wake up!"

Rikku moaned in frustration and covered her face. "Not time to get up…"

Chuami shook her body. Rikku sat up and looked around.

"What? I'm up! Where am I…?"

"Look!" Chuami yelled.

Rikku jumped out of her chair. "Sin!"

Her hands frantically started pushing on buttons.

"Where's Yunie?!" she asked.

"How should I know?" Chuami said.

Rikku thought for a moment before it struck her.

"Tell the others! Quick!"

Chuami turned around to do so.

Tidus heard the voices again, loud but still incomprehensible. They were just as haunting as the first time, and in that split second against his will, he was suddenly taken by the distorted yelling and groaning. Still in a daze, he became confused and aimed his attacks at Yuna.

"Hey!" she yelled, avoiding the blade.

The fourth wave of Sinspawn occurred and Tidus could not shake his Confusion. He inflicted damage to himself and Yuna while she attempted to cure him. This type of effect was strong and he wasn't coming out of it as easily as any regular battle. Yuna was so busy trying to heal him that she didn't notice the Sinspawn that came dangerously close to her. It slashed at her arm and left a deep wound.

"Tidus!" She yelled as the monster hovered over her. Before it could attack, it was struck with a fire attack and faded away. Lulu came to her and lifted her off the ground.

"Are you alright?" she asked, looking at her injury. Yuna covered it with her other arm.

"Just a flesh wound."

"Sinspawn?!" Wakka said, hitting them with his razor-sharp blitzball. Gaia fired aquatic arrows into the monsters and ignored the minor effects from Sin's toxin. Wakka threw an Elixir at Tidus, but it had no effect. Suddenly, Tidus's body started fading in and out of existence. He felt intense pain shooting through his limbs and fell to the floor. Yuna ran to him and she defended his body from the various monsters.

"Tidus! Wake up, please!" she called.

Her voice sounded so much farther away than it actually was. Events were flashing before his eyes. At one moment, he saw Yuna. She turned around slowly, her eyes sparkling and she gave him that wonderful smile. Then, she was standing next to him, overlooking the ocean view in Luca, her speech inaudible. Tidus saw her put her fingers in her mouth and her whistle is what he'd heard. He saw scenarios when he first met Wakka, Lulu, Rikku, Kimahri, and though he couldn't hear their voices, he could remember everything they'd said. He saw when Auron dragged him from his home in Zanarkand to Spira, when he won the game with the Aurochs in Luca, when he fought Seymour, when he carried Yuna out of the Chamber of the Fayth after she ran from her wedding, and eventually witnessed himself leap off the airship into the cloud of souls.

At the end, it was pitch black and the silence was maddening. Tidus found himself looking at Jecht, who was standing before a massive city, monologuing to himself. Tidus couldn't tell what he was saying, but his voice sounded sad.

"Dad! What's going on?! Where am I?!" Tidus thought Jecht couldn't hear him at first, because he kept the monologue going while he stared out into the city.

"Dad! Please!" Tidus said again, sounding like he was about to cry. The most terrifying situation he could've been in was one where he wasn't sure what was happening, and where he couldn't tell if it was even real. He couldn't feel his body, he couldn't hear himself breathing. He couldn't even pry his eyes from the sight before him. Finally, Jecht turned around, and to Tidus's surprise, his eyes weren't the determined, dark brown color they once were. His eye sockets were filled with the same glow he'd seen in the belligerent sender's, tears trailing down his cheeks, and pyreflies floating around him.

"We need your help."

"W-w-what can I do?" Tidus asked.

"Someone's using us for something bad. The fayth, the aeons, they're in trouble. Their energy is in trouble. Someone's abusing their power, and trying to create something bigger and more dangerous than me. You need to put a stop to it, before it's too late."

"How?"

"You found a way to defeat Sin without the Final Aeon, right? You'll think of something, and you gotta hurry. I'm feeling myself turn into Sin again, completely. Soon, I won't be able to control myself. You probably already noticed I'm having trouble with that."

Tidus had many questions swarming through his mind, but the primal one that he'd been wondering ever since Bevelle stood out the most.

"Dad… please tell me… what am I?"

Jecht looked down at his hands. The pyreflies flew around them, their ghostly moaning loud in Tidus's ears. Jecht sighed.

"I'm sure you will figure that out."

Tidus wasn't satisfied with the answer, but as he was demanding answers, the environment around him began to glow as bright as Jecht's eyes, and he felt himself being pulled from his dream, yelling and screaming for a response.

Gaia felt lightheaded. She heard things, but couldn't put a label to the sounds. She kept firing arrows into the monsters, but her arms and legs were growing weaker. The sound of a screaming baby rang through her ears and she dropped her weapon. She covered her ears as the crying became louder. She turned away from the monsters and dropped to her knees. Then she was petrified at the sight in front of her. A small child, with fiery red hair and sad, brown eyes stood a foot away from her.

"No…"

The child didn't speak. He walked close to her and his cold stare made her feel as though he was staring into her soul.

"I… I'm sorry…" She lowered her gaze, squeezing her eyes shut and her hands covering her ears. Tears ran down her face and her heard beat rapidly.

"Hey, you okay?" Gaia opened her eyes and looked up to see Wakka standing in front of her, a concerned look on his face. Gaia turned her head to look around. The monsters stopped coming and the child was nowhere to be found. She wiped her face and stood up.

"I'm fine." She replied.

Sin was docile for a second. Yuna was leaning over Tidus's fading body, trying to bring him back into consciousness.

"Come on, wake up, please!"

"What's wrong?" Wakka asked.

"I don't know. It must be Sin's doing." Yuna said. Tidus's form stopped fading and his eyes were closed. Lulu knelt on the other side of his body.

"Perhaps I could help…"

"What are you going to do?" Yuna asked.

Lulu put her hands on his chest. She sent jolts of electricity through his body. Tidus immediately woke up from the shock and yelped in pain.

"Ow! What was that for?!" he asked. "Ow! I can't believe I still feel something like that!"

"Are you alright?" Yuna asked.

Tidus looked at his surroundings. His friends were staring at him, worry in their eyes. He looked behind him where Sin was still fixated on him. He stood up on shaky legs, not taking his eyes off the monster. For a brief second, he felt an immense amount of empathy for his father. He may not have known Jecht very well, having lost him when Tidus was only seven, and he may have resented him for a very long time, but even he could agree that Jecht didn't deserve anything like this. Jecht was forced to kill, he was forced to watch his own son destroy him, and now he was brought back to relive the nightmare again. Frankly, it was heartbreaking for Tidus to watch.

"Guys!" Rikku yelled over the PA system. "I'm gonna use the big guns! I think I've finally figured it out!"

"Huh? Wait! Rikku, don't!" Tidus yelled. Missiles fired from the ship straight into Sin's armored body. Sin screeched so loud, it shook the entire ship. The monster slammed its body against the ship and the vehicle tilted on its side. Tidus grabbed Yuna's hand and held onto the edge. The others were hanging on for dear life. Sin roared again and rammed its body into the vehicle. Tidus could feel his body starting to act up again. He lifted Yuna up and she grabbed onto the edge just as Sin hit against the ship a third time. Tidus's hand that was holding onto the ship faded yet again.

Rikku pulled herself up and sat herself in the pilot seat.

"How do I manually fly this thing?!" she yelled. She grabbed the yoke and slowly brought the ship to its correct position. Alarms rang throughout the ship and buttons were flashing on the control pad. She looked at the window. A large crack was directly in the center. Any more damage, and there would be no window anymore. She ran to the back of the ship to look for a couple of oxygen masks and to find Rin.

Yuna felt her fingers slipping from the edge of the ship. Lulu and Wakka came over and pulled her back onto the surface.

"You okay, Yuna?" Wakka asked.

"Yeah, fine…" she said, panting. She turned her head around, looking for Tidus. He wasn't anywhere in sight.

"Tidus?" she called. Wakka and Lulu both looked around.

"Maybe he went inside?" Wakka suggested.

"No… I think… I think he fell!" Yuna said.

"What?!" Lulu and Wakka both turned around to face Sin. The monster dived under the ship into the water.

Tidus was frantically swimming through freezing water. He couldn't tell whether or not he was still hallucinating, but he saw corpses floating underneath the surface, some crowding his path. He swam the opposite direction and his limbs got tangled in tall kelp forests. He saw a clearer path ahead of him and he was free from the horde of bodies and the kelp. Not even a couple feet from where he once was, he almost ran straight into the face of Sin. He turned around and fled. Sin didn't have to put much energy to catch up to him, and when it was only inches away from Tidus's body, it opened its gigantic jaws and clasped them shut.

Wakka didn't know what to do. He was pacing back and forth.

"Should I go down there and try to find him?" he asked.

"No," Lulu said.

"Why?"

"It'll be very difficult to pull you back up." Lulu responded.

Yuna was silent, thinking over and over about how she was going to protect him. Not just from Sin, but from the entire debacle that was his resurrection. He asked her what he was, and she knew she'd already given it away by not answering, and keeping the truth from him for an entire year. That wasn't the only thing she was keeping from him. She was thinking very hard about this fact when Sin appeared back from the water. Everyone prepared for combat. Sin didn't attack, but instead, it spat something onto the surface of the ship. It was Tidus, drenched and coughing up some of the water. Yuna ran to him and wrapped her arms around his soaking body.

"Are you alright?" she asked.

"Yeah…" he replied. "Thanks a lot, Dad…"

Sin growled softly before turning away from the ship and traveling the opposite direction. Tidus watched it disappear over the horizon, where dawn was approaching.

"What happened to you, man?" Wakka asked.

Tidus shook his head. "Not a clue. I must've been having some sort of out-of-body experience. Maybe it was Sin's toxin."

"Did you see anything in this experience?" Lulu asked.

"Yeah, a lot of things."

"Like what?" Yuna asked.

Tidus looked into her eyes, so full of guilt and hope at the same time. He didn't know what to make of every dream he had, but he knew every second of it was significant to him.

"I saw you, and me, and you, and you too." He pointed to each of the crew members as he talked.

"What about us?" Yuna said.

"Everything was happening so fast, I honestly don't know. I think… I need a moment to process all of this." He scooted his body around and he stared out into the sky.

"Well, I guess we'll leave you alone then." Lulu said. She looked at Wakka and gestured for him to follow her. They both walked towards the entrance to the ship. Wakka stopped when he saw Gaia in the corner, a blank expression on her face.

"Hey, you coming?" he asked her.

"I have to go." She said.

"Go? Well, we're all gonna go somewhere once we get off this ship, ya?"

"That's not what I mean…"

Wakka turned his body to completely face her. Her arms were folded across her chest and her body was swinging slightly.

"What do you mean?" he asked her.

Gaia turned around and skid past him, hiding her face. Wakka was about to go after her but he caught sight of Lulu giving him a questioning look.

"I'll go get her." He said.

She held a hand in front of him. "Can you explain to me what's going on?"

"Later, I just gotta talk to her first."

Wakka went back through the entrance, leaving Lulu outside. She sighed and shook her head.

"Later… right." She went inside.

Rikku spent the past thirty minutes going through every compartment to find the oxygen masks. She'd found first aid kits, parachutes, and other emergency supplies, but no oxygen masks. She went down the hall, searching every storage locker she spotted while calling out for Rin.

"Where'd you go?" she asked, quietly. She couldn't find what she needed, but she picked up a couple things she felt they would need on their travels. After looking through each locker, she became frustrated.

"Rin? This isn't funny anymore! Come on out!"

Rikku approached the stairs that lead to the cabin. There were no lights on and the area was pitch black.

"Weird…" Rikku said. She pulled out a flashlight and slowly made her way down the steps. She shone her flashlight around the area. There were several empty crates, and she found the last storage locker she hadn't searched yet. She walked over to it and pulled on the small handle. The door was jammed.

"Oh, come on!" she said. She pulled as hard as she could, putting her foot against the wall. It jerked open and she fell backwards. She heard a loud hissing sound. The air was suddenly filled with the gaseous anesthesia. She covered her nose and mouth with her hands, but the chemical was still seeping through her fingers. Eyes watering and mind foggy, Rikku reached for her flashlight. She saw that it was shining over Rin's unconscious body. She shouted in her mind. She threw open the door to the storage and found that there were no oxygen masks in there either. Her strength was weakening to where she fell onto her knees. She pulled her shirt over her nose and tried crawling out of the room.

Must… warn… everyone! She thought as she collapsed onto the floor.

"Hey, wait up!" Wakka called to Gaia. She sat on the floor with her bag in front of her and looked through her supplies. Within it, she saw the blitzball she kept from Luca with her signature. She stood up and tossed the ball to Wakka.

"Figured you'll find more use of it than I will." She told him. Wakka looked at her scribbled monogram.

"Wait, where are you going?" he asked her.

"I told you I wanna go out there and find my kid."

"What? You're going out there and doing that now?"

"I have to."

"But… you said you didn't know where to look."

"I'll figure it out, trust me."

"But…"

She didn't like the tone of his voice. It was making this harder than it already was for her. She turned around and started getting her things ready.

"Wait, you can't go!" he said.

She turned to him. "Why not?"

"Because… uh… because we need you to help us out!"

"Hmm, seems to me that you guys are doing pretty well without my help."

"Nah, we need everyone to do their part. Come on, just stay and we'll finish this together."

"Wakka, I appreciate your sentiment, but I'm not going to last very long. I'm lucky if I even have tomorrow, or even tonight. Besides, every second I spend on this world brings me one step closer to turning into one of those things. I don't wanna… put any of you through that."

"Please, stay. I… we want you here, ya?"

"Wakka, I've already made up my mind… and… if… you really wanna… tell me not to… you'll have… you'll have… to…" Gaia fell to the floor.

"Gaia…" Wakka's head felt heavy and he saw black. "Are you… okay…?"

His body hit the ground with a thud.

"Wakka…" Lulu was next, and she fell right next to him.

Tidus was pondering his trips through the past. He thought about what he'd previously discussed with Yuna, and how much it hurt him that she was so keen on keeping secrets. He knew she and him were drifting because of heavy responsibilities on Yuna's end, but she was becoming someone he barely knew. Someone that didn't trust him. She really had changed, but not to his liking. After a while, Yuna put her hand on his shoulder and gently squeezed it.

"Tidus? Are you alright?" she asked.

"I don't know…" he replied. "I don't know anything anymore. Nothing is making any sense. I still have no idea why Sin's here, why I'm here, why any of these spirits are here. What's going on, Yuna? Please, just tell me. I'm so confused, I'm thinking so hard about this that my brain's hurting. I'm tired of not knowing anything until way later!"

By that time, he'd stood up and started waking back and forth. Yuna didn't know what to tell him without confessing her own sins. She hated seeing him blame himself for everything that's happened. It wasn't his fault. It wasn't anyone else's but her own.

"I…" she said.

Tidus swiftly turned around. "Yes?"

"I… I… I can't! I just can't!"

She turned around and started walking back to the entrance of the ship.

"Yuna, please… please… just tell me the truth…" he begged. His words were crushing her, and she wished with all her heart that she could tell him everything. She wished she could alleviate the burden he was carrying. Then she thought, she'd been keeping this up for an entire year, and it was far too late for her to be honest without him begrudging her for it.

"I… I'm sorry, Tidus…" she said, walking through the entrance.

Once she was gone, Tidus yelled and started kicking the air. He yelled and yelled until he couldn't take it anymore. He sat on his knees and started to cry, something he hadn't done in a long time. He wasn't going to stay on Spira for very long. He didn't know which fact saddened him more: that if he stayed, he'd become a fiend and endanger his friends, or the time he spent with his new family would be cut short once again. After he promised Yuna they'd be together forever, after he bonded with his surrogate brother, after he'd established himself as a blitzball star of Spira. It wasn't fair. Nothing was for him.

He wiped his face, remembering what Jecht said. He didn't have time to wallow in his self-pity. He didn't have time to feel remorse, or sadness. The world was at stake, and it was up to him to put an end to it. Not only that, but the time he'd be with Yuna wouldn't be too long, and he didn't want things to be the way they were in that second between the two of them.

"Yuna?" he called once he entered the ship. It was eerily quiet and as soon as he stepped through the door, the horrible fumes invaded his nostrils. He coughed violently and held his breath. He walked through the hallway on his enfeebled legs and looked for his friends. He slowly made his way to the flight deck where he saw the others passed out on the floor. His lungs couldn't hold out for any longer and he fell on his side, taking in the gas. Before his vision was blackened, he caught sight of Yuna, who had fallen the same way that he did, tears flowing down her face.

"Yu… Yuna…" Tidus choked. He looked up at the ceiling as a shadowy figure approached him. He screamed and kicked himself internally as he heard the last words of the intruder.

"Such amazing capabilities, such power, and such beauty, and it is all being wasted on such a pathetic creation."