Like I said, this fic is going to be very sporadically updated, due to me having two other fics to update, and the fact that this was only intended to be a one-shot originally, but you lot convinced me to go on. Don't expect regular updates like Diamond Dust had.

Events and scenes have been changed to accommodate Rikku's new status. Dialogue also, because I refuse to re-play the game for the sake of accuracy. I will follow canon for a while, but I have some new scenes in mind, and a new slant on Seymour.

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Darkness Falls

Chapter 3: A Strange Conversation

Rikku shivered in the cold, although it was (according to the others) pleasantly warm in Guadosalam, she couldn't help but feel chilled. The place was almost imbued with coldness. She felt a tap on her shoulder, and looked across at Lulu. 'Are you alright?' The Black Mage whispered to her. Rikku nodded. Lulu smiled at her and turned back to face the Maester's mansion. They were waiting for Yuna to emerge from the house, and Rikku would be glad to be rid of the place. Everyone who passed, Guado, Human and Ronso alike, looked at the curiously, as if she was some sort of carnival attraction. In all fairness, she couldn't really blame them. In this village (she had to call it something, and 'burrow' probably wouldn't help) of straight backed men and haughty women with flawless features, she stood out a mile. Obviously branded Al Bhed by her clothes and thigh holster, and distinguishable even more by the scars from her accident that marked her legs and arms, plus the single line on her face, she was greeted with either curiosity, disinterest or outright hostility by the other inhabitants of this place. There had been a particularly nasty incident a day after she had been pronounced fit to walk by Lulu, where some Guado youths had happened to choose her as their hate-object for the week, and had nearly mobbed her. The Guado: In touch with the Farplane, calm and collected to a tee, but all that stored up hatred had to go somewhere. She turned to look at Lulu. She felt indebted to the older woman after she had helped nurse her better, and much preferred her conversation to Wakka's, who seemed to have a major hang-up about the Al Bhed. She had little reason to care for the blitzer herself.

'What's been going on?' She asked. Lulu bent down next to her ear and started whispering.

'After we were sure you were going to be alright, we were summoned to Seymour's mansion, and he and Yuna started talking. She's been going back there for the last few days, we don't know what they talk about, although she seemed quite flustered when she came out yesterday.' Lulu replied. They heard a noise from the direction of the mansion, and both looked up see Yuna emerge. 'Well, speak of the...' Lulu got up and started to walk towards the young summoner. Rikku shrugged mentally and also stood. She heard a snatch of conversation.

'...marry him...' She heard Yuna say. Rikku blinked and began to jog over to the rest of the group. Then she heard the minor explosion of Mt. Tidus.

'You cannot be serious! Does he know you have a pilgrimage? Do you even love the guy? Yuna? Yuna!' He nearly shouted, drawing annoyed yet oh-so-superior glances from several Guado. Rikku knelt down by Yuna and tried to look into her face, noticing Khimari draw ever-so-slightly closer to Yuna as she did so. She put it down to nerves.

'What did you say?' She asked her, as no-one seemed to have done that yet. Yuna did not look up. She seemed positively shell-shocked to her.

'I told him, I would think about it.' She said. Then Rikku remembered why she had offered to go with Yuna. To protect her.

'Why don't you just quit your pilgrimage?' She asked in as casual a voice as she could manage. To her surprise it was Auron who replied.

'The pilgrimage takes precedence. If Sin is dead, then would be the time to marry.' He said in that monotone voice of his. Tidus didn't seem to care though.

'But what about love?' He asked. Rikku could see where this was going to go. Having said what she needed to say, and fearing her cause was a lost one, she walked off towards the shop, and perched herself on the railing. After everything she had promised her father and herself, to stop Yuna's pilgrimage and prevent her death by Yevon's sick rituals, she was going to help Yuna kill herself anyway as one of her Guardians. She would have laughed if it hadn't been so depressing. She felt footsteps approach her, but did not turn around.

'Khimari not trust Rikku.' Rikku whirled around, and her the blue monolith of the Ronso stood behind her. She smiled wanly at him, but he didn't change the expression on his face. 'Rikku not want Yuna to travel.' He said slowly. Rikku just nodded at him. 'Rikku think Yuna throw her life away.' She nodded again, tears in her eyes. 'Khimari think Rikku good person not to want Yuna's death.' Rikku blinked. Oh... Kay... 'Khimari think Rikku will try and stop Yuna travelling. That Yuna's choice, not Rikku's. Khimari think Rikku will make good Guardian, guarding family.' She blinked again. How the hell had he found that out? 'But Khimari still not trust Rikku. Am watching you. Do not try anything, understand?' Rikku hesitated, then nodded again, slowly. Khimari nodded back, once, then turned to walk back towards the group.

Now, what was that all about? Rikku thought to herself. The message was obvious, but something about the way he had done it. He had waited until she was away from the others before approaching her, and Ronso were not known for their subtlety. Lulu had told her that Khimari had stated, quite simply, that he did not like Maester Seymour, in earshot of half the Guado populace. Something had happened there and she wasn't sure what, and that bothered her. She stared after the Ronso, then got up and walked back to the group in time to hear Yuna's proclamation.

'I'm going to see my father. I'm going to the Farplane.' She said, determination in her voice. Rikku's heart would have stopped, if it was still beating. As it was she merely went pale. Up until now, she hadn't really thought about her... condition. What would happen when she went to the place where the dead traditionally went? She didn't know, and had no wish to find out quite yet. Lulu noticed her and looked across. Her eyes widened when she saw Rikku's face, white as a sheet.

'What's wrong?' She asked. Rikku saw the others staring at her and quickly her brain went into overdrive.

'Nothing. Just a headache, it'll pass.' She said. Accepting her excuse, the others began to prepare to head off. Rikku remembered the Al Bhed explanation for the Farplane; 'It's not the dead, just your memories of them.' At that moment, if she had been a believer, she would have been praying it was true.

'Fine,' said Auron. 'we leave as soon as Yuna wishes it.' Tidus still wanted to press the argument though.

'But Auron!' The old Guardian merely shrugged.

'It is Yuna's choice, as long as...'

'I will not quit my pilgrimage.' Yuna said sharply.

'Then it is decided. We go where Yuna wishes.' Auron said. He motioned towards Yuna, who nodded at him and walked off towards the doorway. The others shrugged, glared or merely followed after her. Rikku shrugged, and walked off to join the others. She could face whatever the Farplane threw at her.

'Guys! Wait up!' She shouted, and started to walk just a little faster.

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Maester Seymour Guado watched the group leave through the archway to the Farplane, looking at Yuna, with that expression of confusion that seemed to suit her so well. He smiled. She would do. With her help he could finally achieve his dream. His gaze wandered across the group, and fell onto the small blonde girl who had not been to his mansion. He had not seen her in person yet, but he had heard from the rest of the Guado about her, the 'Wounded Al Bhed' as they had almost universally dubbed her. He would have to correct that. He smiled. Her friends might not be able to put two-and-two together, but he could. He smiled again, but softer this time. When his moment came, and Yuna had helped him with is ambition, he would be lonely again. Just like when his mother left him. The Summoner Yuna was merely a means to an end.

But this one, this one had potential.

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It was short I know, but I want to start a new chapter for the farplane sequence.

I've semi-started work on my FFVIII AU at last. Check my profile for a full run-down of the plot. Here's a quick teaser.

In this segment, Squall and the virtual program of Quistis have been told that the key to the information he is carrying is held by an Artificial Intelligence named 'Eden,' so they decide to go take a look...

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Light and Magic

Squall jacked in. He felt the ice-sharp coldness of the amps translate the Network into something his neural pathways could understand. The usual disorientation as senses figured themselves out. He smelled sound and tasted colour. Then as soon as it had started, it was over, and Squall Leonhart, cyber-merc of the new millennium, opened his eyes to stare at a cityscape made up of the huge geometric shapes that composed the virtual representations of every organisation, company and home on the planet. And they weren't where they were supposed to be. And they were surrounded by a blue field he recognised instantly as a password-protected gateway. He sighed and looked across to his left to see a disturbance in the air coalesce into the recognisable form of QT.

'Where the fuck are we?' He asked tiredly.

Don't have a clue. The construct replied. Your new girlfriend seems to have jacked us in to the wrong server.

'Her name's Rinoa, and she isn't my girlfriend.' Squall replied testily. 'Can you get past this damn gateway?' The construct's image smiled at him.

Sure. There are advantages to being a computer program. She said. Her image closed it's eyes and vanished.

Yeah, well tell me when you opt to stay in this virtual hell, I'll be happy to off-load you... About a second after he thought this the field in front of him shimmered and fell. QT's image appeared in front of him and he raise his hands and clapped slowly. The image of the woman bowed. 'Are you going to tell me how you did that so fast?' He asked, not really expecting an answer.

When you're a piece of software, You tend to think faster than your average human. She replied. Now lets go. We have a job to do.

Squall nodded, and back in the real world his fingers operated the keys that would move him through the Network, Rinoa standing close by on the main cut-out buttons, ready to rip the wires from his skull if anything went wrong. If he had had one of the new Ono-Sendai cyberspace decks, he would have merely to think it and it would happen, but he wasn't that rich, and so they were stuck with a good old-fashioned keyboard-and-headset combination that made him look like an extra from the Lawnmower Man. Anyway, QT had heard that Ono-Sendai hadn't got all the bugs out of the operating system before they released it, and when people punched deck into cyberspace very rarely, but often enough to make people cautious, not all of that person's mind had come back. Even if it only had input for four senses (smell wasn't much good in cyber-space) his old keyboard-and-headset combo was serviceable. It would do. He felt the wind brush his face as they flew through the tall corporate cylinders of the Balamb mainframe, watched the huge white pyramid that represented the Garden Military Academy slide past them, and the cool hues change to red and orange shades as they left the Balamb servers and entered the Galbadian Central Government section of the 'Net. Here everything was violent colours and sharply defined shapes and lines. He looked around, and above him was what he had been looking for. Eden.

There is she... QT said from his left.

Eden floated above them, a simple white cube. It was featureless and completely flawless. Squall could move around it and his reflection wouldn't even waver. That very simplicity hinted at amazing complexity on the inside.

Looks harmless, but you just try and hack it. AI's are humourless bastards when they're pissed. QT observed.

'I'm going to take a pass at it, any reason why I shouldn't?' Squall asked.

As one of my old friends used to say: Not unless you got a morbid fear of death, no. She told him.

'I'm going for it.' He floated up to the same level, and reached out his hand to initiate his ICE-breaking software. Immediately, the surface of the cube shimmered, and a single point emerged and began to move towards him. He felt watchdog programs lock onto him and freeze him to the spot.

I don't think it liked that... The spike grew larger. Rinoa! Get him out of here! Squall, why aren't you running?!

'Because I can't...' The spike grew into a tendril and suddenly flew towards him. 'Any chance you can get these programs off my back?' He asked in a voice edged with panic.

Working on it... Try it now!

Squall felt the invisible vice on his shoulder lessen, and back in the real world he bashed the short-cut keys for 'Escape.' His virtual image turned and ran. He felt the tendril of black ICE chasing him as he weaved through corporate databanks and home-grown websites. He risked a glance over his shoulder, and saw it tense as to lunge at him.

Tenacious little bugger isn't she?

'Just shut up.'

Squall raised his fists in a completely empty gesture as he felt the energy spike wrap around him, waiting for the shock that would send an electric current through his synapses and fry his nerves. But nothing happened, and then his brain felt like it was yanked out of his body as Rinoa pulled the wires from the port he was jacked into. Squall came to with Rinoa staring at him, and the ear-piece in his left lobe screaming abuse at him. Rinoa looked pissed.

'And just what the fuck was that all about?' She asked crossly.

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And there you go. Actual, real, work will be started on this at some point in the future, so don't bug me about it.