Author's Note: Chappie three redone. twirls a flag unenthusiastically

Summery: A few months after X-2. Rikku opens up to a Guado man about why she is the way she is, showing him how things aren't always what they seem

Rating: PG-13/R (Nope, still don't know)

CHAPTER 3: Emotional Rain

By:Mazzie May

I swung hard. The blade of the hoe caught the left side of his head. The thick metal cracked his jaw on impact. I could feel it. He staggered and hit the ground will an unbelievably loud thud. He began to fail on the floor in pain; his legs kicking, on of his arms waving franticly, the other groping his face as he howled with the pain. Well, tried to howl in pain, anyway. His crushed jaw and him chocking on his own blood sort of interfered. I took very vague notice that one of his eyes was now misshaped due to my blow.

But you know what? It wasn't enough. I brought my newly found weapon above my head and with everything I had, began beating his face, body all of him over and over again. I felt and heard his ribs cracking. The sounded like weak and brittle twigs when you step on them. He dragged his arm over his face, tried to spare it anymore pain. I wouldn't let him; I slammed the blade of the hoe on his arm snapping the bone completely, it just tangled in the air when he held his arm up.

I continued to beat at his body. After a few minutes, the force of which I was using broke the handle in half; splintered wood clacking against the ground. Some of it finding its way into my exposed skin. Little did I notice.

I dropped unto my hands and knees, grabbing the largest pieces that were around me; the bloody metal slate and what was once the end of the gardening tool. Now, it was a piece of wood with huge and sharp points all over the side that was broken off. I scuttled over to him. I wrapped my hands around the splinted wood and drove it into his body. Into his torso, his legs, his chest, his intestines. I just stabbed his as much as I could. But, the wood got stuck.

It was after I'd stabbed in his leg again that it became immovable. I'd rammed it into him so hard, it went clear through to the ground. As I tried franticly to get it back out, I began to calm down. I was using up my energy to pull up a stupid piece of wood out a blood and unidentifiable mess that I think was his leg. It looked like ground hamburger meat.

I was slightly aware of my grunts and groans as I tried in vain to free it from the red heap. But, I wasn't so angry now. No, I was doing it out of fear. Fear of what, I don't know. Not even to this day. But I do know I was scared. I started to hit the blood pulp with my hands. Why was this happening to me? I was doing so well.

I was just about to beg Yevon for help when I saw my sister. There she was. But, she was different. Her blonde hair wasn't in a braid, it was all disheveled with strands going ever which way, large clumps of her once smooth hair was ratted up in knots. Her once lovely green eyes were rolled way; her left eye was directed like she were looking down and her right eye was facing directly to the right, as if there was something there. In two different directions. Her head was laying on her shoulder, her neck an awkward angle. Broken

I stared at her. I remembered that look. When he first started to beat and maim her, she looked just like that...and suddenly, a new anger flared in me. Before, I was getting pay back for hurting me like this, but now...Now, I remembered Serret and I remembered Mom and all the other people he'd killed. I'm sure they wanted a piece of him, too. I had to beat him for then, too.

"I know, most people would've said I was hallucinating. That my delirium had reached it's max." I began to get that hot feeling in my stomach again. I brought my hand back to where it was before. It must've dropped from there at some point in my story. "And you know, they're probably right. I probably was out my mind. Crazy, hysterical, a lunatic, nuts, wacko, bonkers, whatever. I still felt the need to...HURT him ...for them." My eyes became wider and my last words hissed through my teeth. I felt angry and scared all over again. But then, I'm rarely one without the other.

On a count of the fact that I never knew this phrase because I hadn't met him when I was thirteen, I couldn't have thought it about it, but it's just like Auron said, you know? "This! Is for the fallen!" It's just like that. Because, it IS for the fallen. All the people who fell before him. I would help them get pay back. It was all I could do, really. Some of them died because I didn't tell. I suppose, that's apart of my handy work, too, isn't it? I helped murder twenty-eight of the thirty-two people he killed. It was my fault. This was the least I could do to apologize .

"I leaned back" I continued. I had leaned back. I'd been on my hands and keens before, trying in vain to remove the chunk of wood I had so lovingly placed into his spaghetti-like leg. I brought myself back up to where I was standing on my knees, and slowly sank back down. My legs tucked under me, I turned my head slowly and locked my eyes on my new target; the flat metal head of the hoe. I reached out, slowly, almost gently and picked it up. The blood from the first couple of blows was beginning to dry, flakes of it chipping off as I lifted it.

Wow, I'd been hitting him for long time. But I was doesn't yet. The new blood, which had been flung onto it, slid off lazily making plopping noises as it hit the ground. I stroked it tenderly; this was going to be my new best friend.

I raised it above my head, my arms quivering, my whole body shaking, and brought it down. His ribcage was first. The crack of bones echoed in the ally, his muscles and skin ripping and tearing, trying to fight the blade. Then, I hit his abdomen. "And that's the messy part" It's true, ripping that thing open was almost a mistake.

His intestines were a sick pink color, blood around. But I didn't stop. I hacked into them repeatedly. Once the hoe cut through some, little chunks began to fly about. Some even hitting my face. But I just wasn't stopping. The ally was filled with a few noise; the metal sliding into the blood and vital organs made a soft suction sound, almost like someone blew a really big bubble, and it popped. Over and over and over again.

"I started to get sick" I said in a low voice. I'd started to pace a bit a go. Now I was practically jogging back and worth with hysteria. "I...I started to realize what I was doing"

The emotional high began to fade again. The realization that I had not only maimed a person, I had murdered them. I had willing beat someone until they were beyond human recognition. You couldn't tell what he used to be. I messed him up so bad, worse than what he'd ever done.

A smile twitched at my lips "I had single handedly fucked up one of the biggest serial killers of all time." At the time, I hadn't been so proud. When the emotional have left me, the power one began to leak out, too. The power high was there because I had the power to kill something. You've felt it. When you kill a spider, you do it because you have the power to do it. And they're icky. But, the little spark there when you reach for your shoe, that's the littlest form of the power high. I'd just killed the biggest damned spider in Spira. Imagine how big that power high had to be.

But it was fleeting fast. And the panic set in. What was I doing? What was I going to do? How was I going to do it? Where should I go? Should I go? Should I stay and wait to see what happens? Should I run? Run? Run where? Where do you go when something like this happens? What do you do first after you've killed someone? Wash the blood off? Or hide the body? Should I hide Mom's body? How do I clean up the ally? What if I get caught? Can I call it self defense? But he wasn't going to kill me, was he? He just wanted to kill mom? He was leaving, right? So, I would get in trouble? Attacked him...?

"'I attacked him', Three words that would echo in my head for the next few years to come." I whispered loudly, spinning on my heel to return the other side of the room and back again. The Guado was just looking at me. Like he couldn't believe what he was hearing. Lady Rikku, the cute, bouncy, smiling, chipper, happy Lady Rikku had witnesses a murder and partook in one herself. He wiped the sweat of his brow; it was getting thick. Not from fear anymore, I don't think, but from guilty excitement. Things you find entertaining, but at the expense of others. But I let it go. I'd talked to him about it later.

I stumbled to my feet, trying to get away. All I wanted was out. Out and away. I looked around wildly, trying to decide a direction to go. But I couldn't see again; my anger blinded me before, now it was my fear. I charged out of the ally, just as the desert rain began to fall. Oh man...Maybe there was Yevon. Because somebody was looking out for me. All the blood, or most of it, would be washed away. Finger prints and all. But I still had to get away.

The rain started lazily enough, a little drizzle, nothing special. As I rounded another corner, I could feel the blood running off me. I didn't dare a chance to look back, I'm sure that I had a red trail in the rivers that began to skitter across the ground. The rain picked up. Everything was in a white haze, and this time, it wasn't because of my emotions. My brain was over taxed; I don't think I was even aware of where I was going. I was just running.

The rain came down harder. It began to hurt. I don't know where I got the energy to keep running, and at the speed I was going, my legs felt like jelly. I kept running some more. I ran around all over the place. The rain hard begun to come down so hard and fast, I could only see a few feet in front of me. Everything else was a dark grey color.

I ran until I hit the door to my family's complex. I just stood there, heaving the liquid air and staring up at it. I couldn't see it all that feel, since the rain was in my eyes. I couldn't go home. How could I go home and explain to Cid what I had just done? That I was single handedly responsible for his wife's death? That I was the reason so many people died? That I ruined his name? His life?

The machina that controlled the door began to work. I could hear it. The door was opening. It slide to the right smoothly and I was face to face with Brother. He was surprised to see someone he was looking for right in front of him, I suppose. He squinted his wild, blue, swirling eyes at me, the blue tattoos under eyes screwing up to make wrinkles on his youthful and constantly excited face. He stepped out a bit, rain flattening his mo hawk almost immediately. His blonde hair turned dark with the thick water coarsening through it. He yelped and jumped back in to the door way.

He opened his mouth and I think he said something. I wasn't really with it, so I didn't understand. And the rain was so hard, it was loud. I couldn't understand him. I think he got the picture. Instead of walking out to me again, he'd rather stay dry. He jumped up and down yelling again. I still didn't understand. I think I even raised an eyebrow. He kicked the wall in aggravation. He turned to me and huffed. Cupping his hand over his mouth, he howled as loud as he could, "Rikku! Frana ryja oui paah! Fa muugat ymm ujan vun oui pavuna dra nyeh!"

I began to fiddle with my hair again. I wiped the thin layer of sweet that had begun to coat my neck. I smiled a little. Nervous? Me? Nah, never. I began to smile a bit more. "You see..." I began slowly. "Brother is a moron. Too easy to fool." I brought up my left hand and extended my slender index finger and moved it in a circle at the side of my head, making the 'Loco' action. "He's not all there either!" I giggled again. Remembering how dumb he was through it all.

My smile grew so big, it was almost like I was happy. "I mean, he was our pilot!" I jumped a bit in the hair and began that little dance I always did. You know the one; where I bounce back and forth with one hand in the hair, finger pointed up, the other arm drawn up to my side, hand curled loosely. That dance I did when something special or exciting was happening. It was habit.

The poor Guado man was even more uncomfortable now. I guess he felt better during the story. I physically shrugged. I was ready to continue if he was. He seemed to have read my mind; he nodded a bit, as if answering the question. His squinty and pinched features wear pink, instead of the feverish red they had begun as. He was calming down. Props.

I must've spaced a bit longer than I thought, because I heard his voice clear and my eyes refocused. I shifted my gaze to his, but I didn't move from my position; at some point I had bent my knees so they were touching my chest, my butt just above the ground and my hands flat, palms on the ground for balance. "Where was I?" I asked casually, as if I had just gone to get a cup of tea, not visit another world.

He cleared his through again, his long, disgusting fingers white knuckled as he gripped his soggy clothes. You could see the sweat leak out of his robes as his hands worked and wrung at the weak and tattered cloth. "Y-you were, um, ah-you were with y-your b-brother and-and-" He stopped his painful stuttering to in hail through sweaty and chapped lips an almost equally painful breath.

I waved my hand lightly through the hair. "Ah, yeah. Well, there's not much else to say there." I looked up at the natural, rock ceiling, watching the shadows. It was true; there wasn't much else to say.

I had stared at Brother through the horrible white haze. He was squinting to see me, but my eyes remained big and unblinking. True the water burned my eyes as it slide near and around my swirling green orbs, but I didn't care. Couldn't care. I had realized something; I couldn't go home. I didn't feel safe there. And most of all, they couldn't love me anymore. I killed a man. I killed Mom. It was all my fault.

I spun around quickly. Ignoring the multiple call of my name, I dashed down the street, flying over the pavement. It beckoned to me. For me to fall, spread across it and just lay. Lay like Mom. Sprawled out lazily, pelted by water bullets. They stung so bad, those water bullets. I ran against them, everywhere they touched me, flaring read, angry marks appeared. The crept across my skin, cracking dry blood and shoving the blackish red flakes away. At was a horrible, stinging, bleeding, burning sensation all across my skin.

I took so many twists and turns. Again, I didn't know where I was going. I was vaguely aware on an extremely basic level that I was still moving. But I hit a slick service, and my legs went under and behind me. I fell forward, the world with all it's pain and destruction and terrible white color, flew about me as I crashed onto a set of steps. I felt my skin break somewhere, but I could pin point the locations.

My vision was slushy. I'd have hit my head. As I lifted my head slowly to find where the annoying white static, buzzing sound was coming from, when I was struck by my surroundings. This area...These stairs...

Gippal's...I was on Gippal's front step.

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Translations:

Rikku! Frana ryja oui paah! Fa muugat ymm ujan vun oui pavuna dra nyeh! Rikku! Where have you been! We looked all over for you before the rain!
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Well, another redone. Par-tay. Usual rules apply; R&R if you want.

PS – Mint, I still love you.

PPS – TheDonutMistress rocks my socks.