Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters mentioned herein. They are all the rightful property of Square Enix.

A/N: This will be the last chapter of the story, and so I will say thank you to everyone who read this and reviewed it, as you gave me the motivation to continue, even when it looked like I wouldn't be able to. I hope you all enjoyed reading this story as much as I enjoyed writing it, and please leave a review to tell me your thoughts. Sometime in the future I may revise this but nothing is certain.

Again, Thank you all,

Enjoy the chapter,

icedragon6171

Saviour No More

Chapter 5 – Last Breaths

Bevelle had found them. After all their effort, they had been found with ease.

Yuna made to gather her things, but Tidus pulled her to her feet before she could get anything. Yuna looked to him in confusion. He was as white as a sheet, lips merely a grey slit and eyes darting about frantically.

"Leave it!" He said tersely, dragging her out of the clearing. He had also dropped his weapon. "It'll only slow us down."

The two of them took off at a mad sprint. Yuna was barely able to keep up with Tidus's long strides, as he pulled her down the left path. Their pursuers burst around the corner behind them, hot on their heels.

 Thunder cracked ominously in the distance, rolling over the forest canopy and echoing between the trees. Rain began to splatter down in large droplets, and within minutes both Yuna and Tidus were soaked, and the paths were running with water. The weather helped the two to an extent, as it slowed down the soldiers running after them, and soon they were lost from sight. Nevertheless, the sound of booted feet splashing through puddles was always present. They couldn't rest yet.

Reaching a junction, Tidus took a decision he would likely regret. He turned right, down the path which led to the one place they were trying to avoid. Bevelle. However, oblivious to his error, Tidus pressed on, Yuna's hand clasped tightly within his own.

The straight path led up a hill, and the crystals of the forest became few and thinly spread as they exited Macalania. Here, the rain fell heavier without the shelter of the canopy, giving them impression that they were being pounded with lead pellets. The muscles in Yuna's legs began to burn with fatigue, despite the exercise she had gained from her various adventures. Tidus seemed unaffected to the strain of running up a hill, but then again, he was a sportsman.

They crested the hill, and seeing the city that lay before them, - red spires gleaming, almost menacingly, in the rain, below an ominous sky, almost black - and they halted, the weight of their mistake dawning in their terrified minds.

The soldiers clattered into the mouth of the path, at the bottom of the hill, and one drew his gun, aiming for Tidus's chest. Tidus sensed the danger, and bolted down the slope of the hill on the other side, Yuna stumbling after him. The gun fired, hoping to catch one of them before they disappeared from sight. The bullet ricocheted off of a nearby boulder, gouging out a hollow and causing fragments of rock to fly in all directions.

The path was perilous in the rain, and once or twice Tidus lost his footing on the fine shale that littered it, only managing to save himself at the last minute. He was glad he had some luck left.

Highbridge stretched before them, it's lurid colours blending strangely underfoot as they whizzed past several shocked townspeople, knocking over one or two in their hurry, but neither Tidus nor Yuna had the breath to offer apologies.

The doors into Bevelle stood open, for which Yuna was grateful. They rushed through, and Tidus gave a glance over his shoulder. The soldiers were nowhere in sight.

"They're gone." He gasped to Yuna, who had gone to call the lift. His heart was crashing around in his chest, like a caged animal driven into frenzy. Yuna looked as Tired as he was.

"We'll go to the lower levels." She informed him. "They're almost endless. You can easily lose someone down there."

Tidus only nodded in reply.

~*~

The trip down was long, and the lift travelled slowly, giving the two of them ample time to regain their breaths, and calm their shaken nerves. Even so, Yuna's gut feeling wasn't terribly comforting. She felt bad about coming down here, but it was the best option they had, and so she ignored it for the time being. Of course, the gloom of the Bevelle Underground did nothing to gladden her spirit either.

The lift came so a slow stop, and once off, Tidus began to search for something. Yuna looked on in curiosity.

"What are you doing?" She asked finally, watching Tidus crawl about on hands and knees.

"Might as well delay them a bit… get a head start." He said, running his gloved hands over the smooth blue surface of the lift's floor, the luminescent light illuminating his face. Voicing a small 'Ah', he prized a panel off to reveal the workings of the lift. A glowing blue phial greeted him. He yanked it from its socket and threw it to the floor, grinning with satisfaction as it shattered on the hard surface, the blue liquid inside making a messy puddle. The lift lost its glow.

Tidus once again took Yuna's hand and led her at a steady jog through the tunnels, despite having never been here before. Yuna didn't offer to lead, reasoning that perhaps her could get them more irretrievably lost than she could, which was exactly what they wanted.

They trotted through the halls in relative silence, the only sound greeting their ears being the fall of their footsteps on the stone floor beneath them. Yuna began to relax. Perhaps there was more hope for them than she had initially believed.

Suddenly, an alarm erupted through the tunnels of the Bevelle Underground, making the very walls shake with the force of the sound. Soldiers sprung out of nowhere, and in an instant Yuna felt her relaxation dissolve like a lump of sugar in a pan of boiling water. Tidus was just as shocked and unsettled as she, and at once he flew into full sprint, almost unbalancing Yuna in the process. However, she persevered, using her fear as fuel, and soon enough her pace matched that of the man before her. Even so, no matter how hard they ran or how many turns they took, the group of soldiers behind them always kept at a distance of at least ten metres, running at an unrelenting rate. Things were looking grim.

Tidus suddenly took a sharp left turn, sending Yuna crashing to the floor on hands and knees. She could feel the skin being torn open from the impact with the cold stone surface. Tidus helped her back to her feet, an apologetic look in his eyes. The soldiers were now a mere five metres behind now. They continued on, tiring by the second, but refusing to give up. Yuna could feel her lungs shudder with each ragged breath. Tidus was also suffering, she could tell, as his feet were beginning to get clumsy, and once or twice he almost tripped because of it.

A doorway emerged from the gloom ahead of them, and Yuna knew Tidus intended to go through, although she had a bad feeling about going in. She made to pull away, but Tidus had already dragged he in, and now there was no turning back. The sound of the soldiers pursuing them drew closer.

The room was pitch black, as no lights illuminated it. Yuna saw a pyrefly out of her peripheral vision, and suddenly realised why coming in here felt so wrong. They had come to a dead-end; a platform that lead to nothing, above an endless abyss. Tidus stopped at the edge, realising that there was no solid ground ahead of where he stood.

Bright spotlights snapped on, startling Yuna with the sudden, intense light, revealing the truth to her suspicions. They had, indeed, come to a dead end. However, what surprised Yuna most was the looming colossus to her right. Vegnagun. But what was it doing here? Hadn't she destroyed it? Obviously not, although Yuna could see that the giant weapon was still damaged from their encounter.

To Yuna's right, the guards were lining up, drawing weapons, and taking aim.

Yuna turned to Tidus, who was gazing at Yuna solemnly. She knew what he was thinking. This was the end. She held his beautiful cerulean eyes, feeling oddly tranquil. At least they would go together.

The rifles clicked, cocking the bullets which would spell their end. Silence stretched out for an eternity, but Yuna only kept her eyes on the man who meant the world to her.

As Yuna began to open her mouth to speak, the rifles fired, the bullets shooting towards them, faster than the eyes could see. Pain didn't register in Yuna's body until a second after, as she flew to the floor of the platform. Six distinct rings of fire marked the location of the bullets in her body. One had just barely missed her heart. She would be conscious for a few seconds yet, until blood loss would lead her into coma; already she felt faint.

She landed on her side, the jolt sending and intense wave of pain through her small body. Looking with blurring vision across to where Tidus lay sprawled on the floor, she saw that had already surrendered to the eternal sleep. A tear slipped down her cheek. She hadn't been able to speak to him, and now he was gone.

The pain faded. Tidus disappeared from view, replaced by an endless field of black. Her last breath wheezed from her punctured lungs.

I love you…

~*~

A/N: I'm sorry if you didn't like the ending, everyone, but it was an intended part of the storyline, and I didn't want to change that. Anyway, please leave a review, tell me what you thought of the story, and so on.

I thought that perhaps when I got time in the future I could perhaps write a sequel to this, also, focusing on the Vegnagun idea, although, again, nothing is confirmed.

Thank you all for reading this far, I hope you enjoyed my work.

Yours,

icedragon6171