Chapter 25: Spirit of Despair
Shuyin ran from Bevelle most of the way to Mushroom Rock Road, stopping to rest only after the sun set. The former blitzball player was frustrated this body he possessed was not as capable of the speed or endurance he was used to, and though he felt no hunger himself, he could tell his host needed food and water. On top of that, he was nearsighted. It made Shuyin wonder how the warrior monk managed to aim a gun.
On his second day of travel, he stopped on the outskirts of Moonflow, the city built on high-rise bridges over a river of the same name. Hot and exhausted, he knelt by the embankment to quench his thirst and splash some cold water on his face. In the ripples, he was stunned to see his reflection for the first time since his death. It was strange to see someone else looking back at him with a face so different from his own.
His new host was a man of medium stature, medium skin tone, and medium-length mouse-brown hair that he wore tied back while on duty. His eyes were small and dark like his hair. Touching his cheeks, he felt a light beard scruff that had been neglected for a couple of days. Turning away from his reflection, Shuyin began browsing the surface thoughts of his host's mind to find out more. His name was Sanpul, and he was among those who had their sights on Zanarkand's destruction. He had sided with the Founders during the temple's infiltration, but a previous injury kept him from joining the battle in the grasslands. Shuyin almost immediately hated him, but then decided it was justice to use him for this purpose.
When Shuyin finally reached the headquarters of the Founders on Mushroom Rock Road, he used Sanpul's voice to request an audience with Ambassador Guregohe. He was the man officially in charge of mediation between their former homeworld, Earth, and the governing bodies in each of the cities and towns on the colony space ship. Shuyin could have stopped in at the Founders' representative's office while he was in Bevelle, but with the chaos during his escape, he decided it was best to tackle those on his black-ball list in order of offense. The warrior monks who hunted him and Lenne were now dead somewhere beneath the temple. Maester Renuta, who ordered their execution, was now rotting in his cage. Ambassador Guregohe, who ordered the attack on Zanarkand, was next. Perhaps Shuyin would even hunt down the peon who dared to capture Lenne, or the Bevelle warriors who flew the airships over the stadium. Eventually, he would also take on Lady Yunalesca and Lord Yevon for what they did to Bahamut, Kaila, and everyone else. But first, he would have to figure out how to defeat them without being sent. Perhaps Vegnagun could help with that. He didn't care what else he destroyed now as long as those who made them suffer also suffered. In the lobby, Sanpul sat down and closed his eyes to rest while Shuyin plotted his course of revenge.
After Shuyin was invited into the ambassador's office, he stared hard at the man responsible for planting the seed that blossomed into everyone else's doom. Guregohe had short white hair, a gray mustache, and gray eyes. Instead of wearing robes, like most officials in Spira's political arena, he wore a military uniform more akin to the various soldier factions he commanded—uniforms like the Bevelle warriors who claimed victory after their machina won the battle for them. If there was such a thing as a Founders' Empire here on Spira, the ambassador served as the behind-the-scenes emperor. He was the one who made sure each of the cities governing assemblies behaved. And he reported Spira's progress and news back to Earth.
Guregohe shook hands with Sanpul. "My junior staff counsel says you claim to have urgent news concerning your first-hand surveillance of the Zanarkand ruins."
"The city has been completely destroyed," Sanpul reported. He didn't see anything of the city's destruction to be able to make that claim, but he was not in control of his own body, and there was nothing he could do to counter the strong magic that had taken over his mind. "The only known survivors are Lady Yunalesca and Lord Zaon."
"Excellent!" The ambassador laughed. "That will teach the rest of Spira not to be snide about the Founders' mandates. Have a seat. What was your name again?" Guregohe took his seat behind his desk and offered his guest the chair facing him on the other side.
"Sanpul." Still tired from his run, the warrior monk accepted the seat.
"So, tell me all about it. What did you see in Zanarkand?"
Sanpul's brows rose in indecision. "Do you want details about how Yu Yevon turned himself into an aeon big enough to wipe out all of Bevelle's army and half of their city, too? Or do you mean the details that involve pulling children out of the water from the bottom of a collapsed stadium, only to discover they've drowned in your arms?"
The ambassador's smile fell at the barbed tone of the response. "You were present during the attack?"
"I was enjoying the blitzball tournament."
Guregohe sighed. "Well, I'm sorry to hear you got caught in the cross-fire, but I hope you understand why Bevelle couldn't warn its citizens to stay home. If news leaked to Zanarkand, they might have been better prepared to fight back."
"Oh, absolutely. Best to stab them in the back while they're playing games, right? Winning is what matters in war, and war is not a game," Sanpul added.
The ambassador didn't know whether to be offended or amused at the messenger's bluntness. Apparently, Guregohe decided to ignore the odd tone and comments for the sake of the alliance with Bevelle. Instead, he leaned forward with interest. "Tell me more about this aeon. Yu Yevon turned himself into one of those demons and attacked the army and the city? I wondered why communications with Bevelle suddenly stopped. How bad is it?"
"Bevelle is a disaster, but Lady Yunalesca has control of the temple once more. She delivered Yevon's terms of surrender to Maester Renuta, and he refused to cooperate, so he was executed." Sanpul hid a secret smile to himself. "She's hunting down the other spies, so I have no doubt she'll be coming here soon. She'll try to get rid of the Founders next. That is among Yevon's terms of surrender." His voice was calm. His face showed no emotion as he paused and shifted forward in his seat, resting his elbows on his knees. "Tell me something, sir. If someone threatened to destroy Spira the same way Zanarkand was destroyed, would that be treason?"
Guregohe frowned at the weight of what was happening in Bevelle and tried to read the other man's motive in asking such a thing. "Treason is a grave accusation."
"Was Zanarkand guilty of treason?"
"Yevon declared Zanarkand an independent city. He tried to take control of the ship. And now you say his daughter demands that the Founders leave. Is that their next goal: destroy Spira?"
"No. I thought it was yours."
"Well. That would be treason, wouldn't it." The ambassador began to look like an animal wary of being backed into a corner. "Why would I want to destroy Spira?"
"For the same reason you attacked Zanarkand—to destroy all the summoners and aeons, to cleanse the ship of all alien magic and life. Otherwise, you could have just arrested Yevon and tried him for treason … right?"
"Zanarkand needed cleansing because Yevon was a dangerous man spreading dangerous ideas. His necromancy and black magic infected the city like a virus. Even children were practicing it. And it wasn't enough to infect one of the biggest cities on Spira. His appetite for power was growing. He set up temples for training summoners in Bevelle, Besaid City, and Kilika Port. Now he's even got temples in remote places like Macalania and Baaj."
"Don't those places need help sending their dead?"
"We don't need magic to deal with the dead. Magic is what keeps them here when they aren't wanted." Guregohe tapped his desk with a stiff forefinger to emphasize that point. "Yevon used magic to summon an army of demons. And according to his own temple in Bevelle, those things were created from living, human sacrifices. Allowing that sort of thing to continue unchecked is criminal. And this ship has enough problems with dead things walking around because of that blasted plane of magic at its core. We don't need more magic, and we cannot sit idle while he kills members of his cult to create those undead monstrosities to use on whoever disagrees with his necromantic practices."
Guregohe shook his head with disgust. "The man was acting as if he were a god. People were beginning to believe he was a god. If Spira is to have gods, it will be the gods of the people who created her, not some egocentric lunatic who's learned alien tricks for manipulating life and death. This ship was meant to be a haven for the good people of Earth, a model for surviving somewhere else in the universe. If we give ourselves over to alien influences, we will find ourselves right back under their thumbs again. Spira was meant to preserve humanity's history and environment. But allowing aliens on board perverted it. Ever since alien magic was introduced to the ship, it has been one headache after another trying to keep the colony sustainable."
"Alien magic saved us from certain death, and this ship is now self-sustaining."
The ambassador frowned. "But now the dead walk the land and plague the living. To allow Yevon's cult free access to the Farplane would be suicide for the rest of us. And he had the audacity to command us to return to Earth when he's contributing to this problem by summoning the dead? I think not! I was born and raised on this ship, and my ancestors helped build it. I'm not going to let some cult leader turn this colony into a ghost ship. This is my home, and I'm not budging."
"The people of Zanarkand could have said the same thing if anyone bothered to ask." Sanpul looked up from studying a ring he was unused to seeing on his finger—a golden wedding band. He wondered if his wife had survived Yevon's attack on Bevelle or if she was just another casualty in this war … like Lenne. "My girlfriend was one of the summoners you ordered Bevelle to destroy."
Tension settled between the two men as the ambassador took note of the slant taking shape in this odd conversation.
A knock at the door interrupted.
"Enter," Guregohe responded.
One of the junior aides came into the office. "Sorry to disturb you, sir, but an urgent message just came from Bevelle."
Guregohe raised a hand to halt the news from being told in the presence of the previous messenger. Seemingly glad for the excuse to leave Shuyin's company, the commander followed the junior officer outside the room and closed the door to speak privately.
Shuyin looked again at the wedding ring and considered searching Sanpul's mind to see if he had kids, but decided against it. Instead, he opened his memories of all the children he signed autographs for on paper scraps, programs, and blitzballs. All of those children, including Bahamut, were lost. Sanpul groaned in discontent and tried again to pull free from the spirit within as he was forced to acknowledge their smiling faces.
))((
"What is it?" Guregohe asked his aide.
"We finally got a communication from Bevelle. They were attacked several days ago by a giant aeon that hit them with magical quakes, tidal waves, and typhoon-strength winds. The city is operating on emergency resources right now. It sounds pretty bad, but … there's something else. One of our agents said Renuta sent two scouts to Zanarkand, and only one returned. Supposedly, he went insane and killed Maester Renuta and about a dozen other warrior monks in the temple. Our agent said that when the scout was killed to prevent his escape, something even weirder happened."
Guregohe put his personal definition of weirder on hold. "Go on."
"Witnesses said something came out of him."
"Pyreflies?" he asked with suspicion.
"They said it looked like the magic that surrounds fiends, but it wasn't a fiend. And they don't think it was the scout's spirit because it didn't act like him. They said it went into one of the other warrior monks and possessed him, but when they tried to stop it, it kept taking new bodies. Witnesses say the last monk it possessed got away." The junior officer glanced at the closed office door.
Guregohe glanced at the door, too, and recalled Sanpul's strange comments about saving drowning children and losing his girlfriend. "Thank you. If this messenger from Bevelle is possessed by an unsent spirit, we need to prevent it from taking any more bodies before we attempt to confront it."
"Well, summoners are the experts when dealing with unsent spirits."
"Out of the question. Especially now that Yunalesca has reclaimed the temple in Bevelle. This is a fine example of the very thing we're trying to prevent by getting rid of the magic these undead things feed on."
"Forgive me for being contrary, sir, but I really think this case needs a summoner. Since it can hide inside people and control them, you can't take a sword to it without killing the host. That is … if the host is still alive. A summoner might be able to defeat the dead without losing the living in the process. My cousin happens to be a summoner at the Djose temple, sir. It's a disgrace to the entire family, I know, but he always was a bit of an odd sort," the junior aide muttered. "Still, I think he would know more about this sort of thing than us, and we can trust him to keep mum about it. And Djose is just down the road, closer than Bevelle."
The ambassador tapped his chin with consideration, then sighed in frustration. "Very well. Fetch your cousin from Djose, but make sure he agrees to tell no one. Be quick about it, too. I don't know how much longer I can detain this guy. We should probably try to sedate him, and I want something waiting for him out here in case he tries to leave."
"Yes, sir." The junior aide hurried on his way to set his tasks in motion.
Guregohe situated his uniform, drew a breath, and entered his office once more. Knowing now that he was speaking to the dead, he sat back down at his desk. "Sorry about that. Where were we?"
"My girlfriend died because of you," Sanpul flatly stated with a cold glare.
If the ambassador had any doubts about this being the same warrior monk in the report, he was convinced now. "Unfortunately, all of Zanarkand needed to be cleansed. We cannot allow necromancers and black magic users to populate and take control of Spira."
"Lenne used white magic to heal people. She prevented wandering souls from festering into fiends by sending them." Sanpul rose from his chair. "You complain about Yevon playing god, but when you destroyed Zanarkand, you played god, too. You didn't like how your creation turned out, so you think you can just flood it and start over. But Zanarkand didn't deserve your judgment because of your fear and hatred of magic. If you attempt to cleanse the ship's magic, you condemn the world that exists on it."
Guregohe met the messenger's grim expression with a grim expression of his own. "Not if I can take it safely home to spare those who deserve a second chance."
Sanpul leaned forward over the desk, nose-to-nose with the ambassador, and spoke with a very different, low, menacing tone. "And since you see yourself as the god of Spira, I suppose you are the one who decides who gets second chances? What about me? I'm not a summoner or an alien. Do I deserve a second chance?"
"Only the living have the right to change their destiny," the ambassador tersely answered.
The warrior monk almost laughed. "But, I died because you decided to cleanse Zanarkand." The unsent spirit's amusement that he had been discovered faded quickly, though. "You stole that right from me!" Reaching within himself, he threw his rage toward the ambassador.
The collapse of the stadium, the inferno of the sinking city, the battle on the grasslands, the chase and execution by the firing squad, the pain and frustration of watching Lenne die, finding their corpses on the bottom of the ocean … The ambassador tried to fight it, but the magical despair flooded his mind disorienting him before he could flee.
))((
Reliving the same distress as he invoked it, Shuyin gritted his teeth, raised Sanpul's gun, and fired point-blank at the ambassador's skull. "This time, I'm playing to win, no matter what. … And this discussion is over."
But opening the door to leave, he suddenly found himself facing multiple armed guards. Rather than attempting to fight his way out, Shuyin slipped out of Sanpul's body, letting the man drop to his knees. As an unsent spirit, he rose above the armed guards to seek a new host at the back of the crowd. As soon as his target cried out in surprise at the force of the possession, however, one of the other guards clamped a rag soaked in sleep potion over his mouth and nose. The host's body was immediately overcome by the magical vapors, and since Shuyin failed to free himself before his victim lost consciousness, he succumbed to them too.
))((
The junior aide pointed to the drugged guard on the floor. "Take him to the bunker at the bottom of the cliff. Isolate him as much as possible, but keep him under strict surveillance. And keep him drugged with the sleep potion until our consultant can arrive to deal with him! Hurry!"
He looked into the ambassador's office and saw the man's body slumped over his desk. Having heard the gunshot, he feared the worst and could see the blood puddle from where he stood. Turning back around, he glowered at the warrior monk caught in the clutches of the Founders' guards. Sanpul looked terrified at what he'd just been through.
"What do we do with him?" one of the guards asked.
The junior aide took one more look at the ghastly sight of their fallen leader. What else could he do? "Arrest him for the ambassador's assassination."
Sanpul gasped at the charges. "It wasn't me! He made me do it! I couldn't stop him!"
The junior aide was disturbed at the monk's reaction but nodded in understanding. "I have to follow procedure, but I will stand witness for you at your trial. Meanwhile, I must notify Bevelle. I think we've caught their vengeful spirit. Whether we can stop its killing spree, however, is another matter." He said a prayer for his cousin as the guards whisked away the assassin. Then, he went in search of the ambassador's second in command.
))((
When Midoriha received the distress call from his cousin at the Founders' complex, he advised using magic to sedate the spirit and get it to an isolated location immediately. Then, he promised he would be there right away, assuring him that he had done many sendings before. But he'd never done any sending quite like this. An unsent within a living person?
After rounding up his trusted guardians via com sphere and telling them to meet him outside of Djose, he went straight to the temple library and grabbed a handful of reference books on advanced spirit magic. Running to his hovercar, he dumped his supplies in the seat, but then remembered he needed his staff as well. He was about to lock his door when he also remembered he needed to look the part. He'd been fussed at by one of the maesters for not wearing appropriate attire at the last sending – said it made the temple look bad. So, he grabbed his Yevonite robes and stuck his arms through the sleeves while running back to the hovercar. "Damn it! I forgot to lock the door," he told his friend, giving him a dubious glance. "Okay, nevermind." He waved it off. "This is urgent. And it may be our chance to prove to the Founders that we're here to help."
Pushing up his glasses, he started the engine and sped down the sea-side road toward the canyon of rocks that looked like brown mushrooms. As the wind whipped his somewhat-gathered, straw-colored hair into his face, he glanced once more to his faithful guardians. "Grab those books and look up anything you can on possessions and exorcisms."
"Exorcisms? You're joking, right?"
"It's a stretch, I know, but I think that's what we're dealing with this time. My cousin said they have an unsent soul trapped in a living host."
His friend shrugged. "Kill the host."
Midoriha gave him a tight-lipped frown as his hair blew into his face with the wind. "Yes, that's exactly what I was going to suggest, but I was hoping for a less moronic idea." He spat a loose strand of hair from his mouth and tried to keep his mind on the road.
His guardians didn't find much information on the subject, but what they did find they read aloud to him as he drove. When they arrived at the isolated cavern, the wind-blown, disarrayed summoner pushed his glasses back up to the bridge of his nose and examined the sleeping guard. "Was he violent?" he asked the commander of the unit.
"He killed the ambassador."
Midoriha was appalled. "I'm so sorry."
"He also killed the maester of the Bevelle temple and several warrior monks there."
"Very select victims ..." Midoriha gave that some thought. Then, he set about cleansing the newly emptied bunker with holy water and placed wards around the walls, weaving a net of magical glyphs between the wards to keep the dangerous spirit trapped within. When he was finished, he attempted to smooth his stringy strands of hair back into place with the rest of his loose ponytail and sighed with nervous satisfaction at the stage he had set. Then, he faced his guardians and the armed guards standing over their drugged comrade. "I should give you fair warning. I will attempt to send him first. But if I cannot make him release the body, there may be nothing we can do to save the man he has possessed."
"You'd ... kill him?" the commander of the unit asked.
"This spirit is obviously malicious. We must do all that we can to prevent it from taking more bodies or escaping, even if it means denying him the life of his host. I'm sorry, but like I said, we will consider that option as a last resort. Please, listen very carefully to what I say next."
He showed the commander of the unit the inside of the cavern's door. "I have prepared this enclosure with wards to seal him in once the door is shut. Do not open it, no matter what you hear from myself or my guardians until the glyph that I've placed on the outside of the door fades. That will be your signal that the spirit has been sent, and all is safe. If you do not see that glyph fade within a day, it will be up to you to devise a means to physically lock the door from the outside to prevent anyone from opening it and releasing him. Be certain that the lock is a good one—one imbued with enchantments that abjure spirit magic—or he may come straight for you if he escapes. Spirits aren't material, so they can pass through anything that isn't barred by magical means. Yet they're more likely to manifest physically if there is an abundance of magic available. You must prevent anything from entering or leaving this cavern until it is safe to do so."
The commander of the unit understood the sacrifice the summoner and his guardians were making. It was almost enough to change his mind about magic being a threat to Spira … almost. "Understood," he answered with unease.
Midoriha gave the signal for the guards outside to seal off the bunker, locking himself and his guardians into the torch-lit den with the sedated, possessed guard. His guardians took up defensive positions around the spirit. Then, the summoner clasped his magical staff between his thin hands and began his dance, not knowing what to expect. Yevon's teachings said nothing about unsent who possess the living, but the books warned that unsent taking their former human shapes, rather than that of fiends, were the hardest to destroy.
))((
On the edge of consciousness, as the sleep potion began to fade in his host's bloodstream, Shuyin began to feel himself being pulled away. "No …" He shook his head in groggy protest, trying to wake from the effects of the sleep potion. "No, not ready … Not without Lenne ..."
Midoriha's guardians sprang into action, holding the possessed man down.
Shuyin willed his host to awaken and resist their physical restraint. He had to stop the summoner from sending him. "Let go of me! I've got to find Lenne!" he shouted over his host's voice. "I won't go until I find her!" The living body he invaded gave him just enough shelter to weaken the effects of the Farplane portal opened over him.
Midoriha paused his half-finished spell and allowed it to fade. "Who is Lenne? If you're looking for someone left behind, perhaps we can help you find her or carry a message to her."
Shuyin paused, too, surprised that the summoner was willing to listen. But then he frowned again. "I don't need your help. She was betrayed by Yevon and his temple once already. And you're a traitor just like Renuta if you answered the Founders' call to send me."
"What?" The summoner shook his head, confused. "No. I—no. I'm here because my cousin asked Djose for help. I thought it would show the Founders that summoners mean no harm. I'm not here to betray anyone. I'm here to help you rest."
"Not without Lenne!"
"Please explain, then. I don't understand your accusations. Renuta and Yevon betrayed someone named Lenne? What happened to you? What happened to make your hate so strong?"
Shuyin realized this scrawny, nerdy little summoner was honestly ignorant of what had passed as he exchanged uneasy glances with his guardians. Djose didn't know. How could they not know? "Zanarkand was attacked by the temple in Bevelle. Everyone from Zanarkand is dead. Everyone."
Midoriha couldn't believe it. "Dead? … Bevelle turned its back on Yevon?"
"Yevon was going to turn Lenne into a Fayth for the temple in Bevelle. So Bevelle captured Lenne and was going to kill her. I tried to free her, but … " A tear slid down the guard's cheek for a girl he never met.
"I'm … so sorry."
"Traitors ..." Shuyin bitterly answered. "Murderers ..."
Aghast, Midoriha looked to his guardians. "Do you realize what this means? If Bevelle has betrayed Yevon and destroyed Zanarkand?"
"Bevelle is in ruins, too," Shuyin corrected. "Yevon turned the last of Zanarkand's survivors into Fayth, so he could turn himself into an aeon strong enough to punish Bevelle. If it survives, Lenne's little brother will become the Fayth for Bevelle's temple in her place." Shuyin's tone darkened. "If you let me out of here, I'll let you live. But I won't let you send me without Lenne. I will find her."
Midoriha looked down at the summoning staff in his hands, then he looked at his guardians, all of whom were shaking their heads in silent protest, though they now sympathized with the spirit, grieved for two cities, and feared what this might mean for Spira's future. "I can't let you out of here. I'm sorry. You've taken lives that were not yours to take. I cannot let you hurt anyone else."
"They deserved it!"
"I'm sorry," Midoriha repeated. "But I promise I will search for Lenne. I'll tell her you were looking for her and—"
Shuyin's spirit suddenly flew out of the guard's body into the summoner's mind, forcing his final moments in Zanarkand and Bevelle upon him. You will let me out of here!
Midoriha cried out and fell to his knees, clutching his head. "No!" He struggled against the overpowering emotions and visions, but Shuyin fought for and won control. And there was no way he was going to let the summoner finish that sending spell. Midoriha ran to the door and tried to pry it open. When he couldn't do it, he turned toward his horrified guardians. "Open this door right now!"
They had gasped at his possession but felt helpless to do anything about it. They couldn't kill their own summoner. "We don't take orders from anyone, but Midoriha!" one of the guardians responded. "Release him!"
Frustrated at their refusal, Shuyin scanned this host's talents. Summoners didn't usually know black magic, but this one knew a few elemental basics, so he fired a Thundaga spell at the one that rebuked him.
The guardian suffered electrical burns and nearly passed out, but drew his sword as he stumbled. He started to rush forward and attack but was caught by his comrade.
"Stop! You'll hurt Midoriha!"
"I'll take him down then! I'm getting out of here!" The Founders guard that had been Shuyin's previous host drew his gun and took aim.
))((
Shuyin growled and cast magic back at him—then all of them. Dark, maddening thoughts full of futility and hate consumed everyone trapped inside the bunker. And as they tried to cope with their loss of control, Shuyin tried the thundaga spell on the door. The warded door, however, remained unharmed. He dug at the creases in the rock until his scraped fingers bled. But if the summoner could cast magic-proof glyphs, maybe he could also uncast them. Wondering what spell that would be, Shuyin began to search Midoriha's mind.
Preoccupied with his attempt to escape, Shuyin paid no attention to Midoriha's guardians falling to the wild rages of his madness spell and raising their weapons against one another. Each guardian saw the other as a firing squad, fiend, or monstrous machina. Eventually, one of the guardians pointed his gun at the summoner and pulled the trigger.
Shuyin felt no pain as Midoriha slumped to the ground. He regretted the loss of his ability to throw around more magic, but at least the threat of being sent was removed. Fleeing his dying host, he rushed the door in spirit form. He tried to seep through it, but the chains of hate and despair had grown so strong that he could not break past the wards the summoner set within. Shuyin turned and flew at the other men in rage, entering each one until every host snapped and killed one of the others. When he was down to the last living body, he threw himself against the door until his battered host dropped in exhaustion. Shuyin absorbed all of the frustration and despair of each victim, and it fed his unsent chains until he withdrew from his final victim, set his gun under his chin, and fired one last fatal shot.
Assuming his own ethereal form among the bodies of the dead guard, summoner, and guardians that littered the ground around him, Shuyin tried to go through each of the walls in several places and continued to dig at the embedded glyphs that locked him in. But no amount of scraping would peel away the magic. "Lenne!" he yelled through the door, knowing she could not hear him.
At last, exhausted and unable to stop the memories from replaying in his fragile mind, Shuyin collapsed to the floor of his enforced tomb. Drawing his knees to his chest, he covered his head with his arms and wept angry tears ... alone.
Eventually, the torch burned itself out, and Shuyin was shrouded in pitch darkness as he sat in the pyreflies with nothing but his memories.
It would be almost a thousand years before that door opened again to release his tormented soul.
))((
Yunalesca did not visit the Founders' headquarters to make her demands on their surrender. She did not get the chance.
A few days later, Sin rose from the sea and took flight toward the Founder's headquarters on the precipice overlooking Mushroom Rock Road. It took one last look at the towers, then cast the same magic it had used on Bevelle's army, disintegrating Spira's last visible connection to the empire that thought it could control Yu Yevon.
))((
Beneath the temple in Bevelle, in the Via Infinito, the real Spira, the spirit of the ship itself, could feel the destructive forces of Sin pounding her surface lands. She grieved the loss of Zanarkand and the attack on Bevelle, but the obliteration of the Founders' headquarters was something very different.
Sin had thrust all of Spira into open rebellion against their creators. Fearing the worst for her people in retaliation from Earth, the spirit of the ship followed Yevon's earlier advice and released her orbit lock, severing the last connection to the world that gave birth to her own. She was careful not to let the people who depended on her know that anything was amiss while she fled into an unknown sector of the universe. As long as the Farplane's magic kept their sun shining, their atmosphere circulating, and their gravitational level constant, she could sustain the lives of her people no matter where they drifted in space.
The Founders were gone, and Spira was finally free … or so everyone thought.
