Aaaaawwwww. A sweet, tender chapter for those of you who've already endured the pain of the first two chapters--all nineteen of you. *blinks* …Thanks. I love your reviews and appreciate the support!


Final Fantasy X: Apocalypse

Chapter 3: Reunion

She woke up gradually, lulled by the feel of water swirling across her flesh. A cool breeze swept across her flesh, ruffling her hair across her face. She wanted to stay here forever, with the wind and the waves and the warm, grainy sand beneath her feet…

Forever?

She sat up with a start, her delicate brows drawn together in confusion. She cast her two-toned gaze across her surroundings, suddenly realizing that she had no idea where she was, or why she was there, or how she had gotten there. The last thing she remembered…

High Summoner Yuna laid her forehead on her knees, her eyes squeezed tightly shut. She remembered Cid flying the airship straight into Sin, the bizarre landscape inside the monster, the storm that caused them to crash, and--

Seymour?

She shuddered, finally remembering the details of that extensively strange journey. They had crossed the Sea of Sorrows, fought Seymour, and braved the Tower of the Dead. They had tried to defeat Yu Yevon, they had tried so hard to bring an eternal Calm, but they had failed. She had failed.

And that was why she was standing here, on the Farplane.

She rose, making a frustrated gesture with her hand. All right, she thought with some annoyance, I'm on the Farplane. But where? And why aren't there any people here?

She thought about that for a moment, then shrugged it off, deciding she wasn't concerned. The Farplane was built on the memories and desires of its inhabitants and their visitors. All she needed to do was determine where she wanted to go--or more importantly, to whom she wanted to go--and the Farplane would guide her there. Somehow. She wasn't sure how this worked; she simply knew, somewhere deep in her mind, that it was so. Thus, she found herself walking aimlessly along the beach, carrying her waterlogged boots in her hand, the relaxing atmosphere soothing her frazzled nerves.

After a few minutes of wandering, she began to notice how similar this place was to Besaid, and she couldn't help but smile. She had visited the small, peaceful island with her father when she was very young, before he became a summoner. Apparently, the island and its people had made an impression on her father, because at some point during his pilgrimage he had asked Auron to take her back there after Sin was defeated. She wasn't happy about it at the time, but as the years passed, she had come to think of Besaid and its people as her own. It turned out to be for the best, she now concluded, considering her later relations with the priests in her hometown of Bevelle…

Yuna was so engrossed in her thoughts that she saw neither the small house she was approaching nor the woman coming out of it. The two had a rather violent collision, which left them in a tangled heap on the ground.

"Oh!" Yuna disentangled herself quickly, helping the older woman to her feet. "I'm so sorry! I was thinking, and I wasn't watching where I was going, and I'm really, truly sorry!"

The woman laughed, a throaty, pleasant sound.

"It's quite all right, dear, I'm afraid I'm quite the klutz myself." She paused, eyeing Yuna closely. "Say, what's your name?"

"I am Yuna, daughter of--"

"Braska," the woman finished, a sudden smile lighting up her sun-darkened face. "Braska and Kelanna, is it?"

"Yes," Yuna replied, astonished. "But how--how did you--"

The woman laughed again. "They live just up the road, child. In fact, I think they're waiting for you."

Tossing a hasty thank-you over her shoulder, Yuna charged up the grassy path, her heart filled with a childlike joy. Forgetting the dignity and maturity of her seventeen years, she fell into the arms of her parents with an overjoyed "Mama! Daddy!"

And then she burst into tears.

* * * *

"Well," Braska said softly, a small smile playing across his lips. "It seems you had quite the pilgrimage…High Summoner Yuna."

Yuna nearly dropped the cup of herbal tea she'd been holding. Up until then, she had been completely focused on her failure to defeat Yu Yevon. It hadn't even occurred to her that she had, in fact, done what most summoners set out to do: obtain the Final Aeon, defeat Sin, and usher in another decade of Calm. Granted, she'd hardly gone about this in the typical fashion—she was quite certain that she was the only summoner who had ever created her own Final Aeon, other than Lady Yunalesca herself, and she was most definitely the only one to defeat Sin while inside it. But the end result had been the same, hadn't it?

"I suppose I did," she said at last. "But how will other summoners fight Sin? We defeated Lady Yunalesca."

"Yes, that does make things a bit more complicated," her father conceded calmly, "but don't count out those guardians of yours. They're resourceful people, and I doubt they'll be giving up any time soon."

"And," Kelanna added, taking her daughter's hand in hers, "you showed the people of Spira that there are other possibilities. You gave them hope, and that's really all you need, oac?"

"Perhaps."

She sat silently for several minutes, a troubled expression clouding her features, before asking the question she hadn't been able to shake from her mind.

"How did Seymour get off the Farplane? Was he even here?"

"He certainly was," Braska replied grimly. "Yuna, you did nothing wrong when you performed that sending. Seymour simply had an obsession, one so strong that he was able to return to the living world, much as his father was."

"Except Jyscal didn't force anyone to turn him into Sin, so tayn." Kelanna skipped back toward the kitchen, assaulting Braska's highly ticklish belly on her way past.

Yuna laughed as her father darted after her mother, wrapping his arms around her waist, placing a gentle kiss on the top of her head while moving his hands stealthily toward her ribs. She squealed with Rikku-like glee as the hands found their target. "Braska! Not in front of the--"

"Hey! What's goin' on here?"

Yuna spun around, stunned and delighted to see Sir Jecht, of all people, standing in the doorway. He was glowering at the trio, his muscular arms crossed over his tattooed chest. Kelanna grinned brightly, Braska gave him a solid clap on the back, and Yuna clapped her hands together in delight. He wasn't nearly as intimidating as he tried to make people think he was.

"Sir Jecht!" she said happily.

"Nice t' see you too, Yuna, but enough with the 'sir' crap. We're all dead here."

Braska nearly choked on his tea. "Jecht! That's not polite."

"Well, it's the truth, ain't it?" He paused, staring hard at Yuna. "Wait a minute. You ain't supposed to be here, kid."

"We weren't able to defeat Yu Yevon," she explained quietly. "I'm sorry."

"Ain't yer fault. Yu Yevon's one tough--" He stopped himself, seeing Braska's eyebrows rise. "Eh. Well, don't worry 'bout it. Yer friends'll find a way to take that wacko down. Now, what's to eat around here?"

Braska and Jecht immediately stampeded toward the spacious kitchen, clearly grateful for the change of topic. Yuna and Kelanna followed them, dissolving into helpless giggles as Jecht wrestled Braska into a headlock and gave him a brotherly noogie, only to have a giant snowball appear out of nowhere and soak him. Kelanna recovered just enough to yell, "You're gonna have to clean that up, you know!"

Yuna smiled. She had plans--oh, yes, she had plans. She knew she couldn't simply stand by and watch while her friends continued her battle. She intended to do everything she could to help them. But now, at this moment, she was home, reunited with the parents she had lost to Sin so long ago, and that was enough…for now.


See? Tender chapter. I just had to do a reunion scene with Yuna and her parents, considering the amount of death I'm going to have to deal in The Final Summoning (shameless self-promotion, my first ever!). Plus, it sets up some things I might do later.

Thanks to the reviewers:

Rin,

Refugee,

FF Fanatic (you have a point, by the way--lol),

Noacat,

RocketGurl,

star (broken space bar, bummer!),

alnykleo,

Sakura,

Sephira,

Mugen, aaaaaaand

Any newcomers I may have missed. :-)