Well, here I am, my darlings. Writing my story once again. I know where this chapter is going but unfortunately I have no idea how to start it, so I'll probably be going back and changing the beginning a thousand and two times before I finally get one that I like. But the rest of the chapter I pretty much know what I wanna do, but brace yourself for a long one… or longer than usual, anyway, seeing as my chapters have averaged 4000 words or more. Enough of my blabbering… allow me to get to writing.

Disclaimer: If I have to disclaim these characters one more time I believe I may actually succeed in blowing the top of my head off.

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Chapter 17

Lost and Found

Yuna decided that staying after school and not being terrified out of her mind was definitely a new emotion for her. She hadn't had much of a choice this time—she had a test to make up and a project to finish and she couldn't get both in during her lunch period. She sighed, hunched over a book about the mythical monster called Sin. Normally things like this fascinated her, but as of right now, facts about it were practically pouring out of her ears and more than anything she wanted to up and leave the library and go home.

She began to slump and fall asleep with her head up on her fist when she dimly heard the librarian behind her murmuring, "Miss? Are you finished?"

A groan escaped her throat as she jolted awake and cleared her vision. She wasn't totally done, but for now it would have to do. She didn't think she'd be able to stand another hour in the library.

"I think so," she said, stuffing her papers back into her bag and standing up. One of her feet was asleep because she'd been sitting on it. Silently, she trudged back to the front of the school.

Graduation was in about two weeks. Senior exams were in only a few days but they never worried her. She passed exams before and she never studied for them. Rikku had repeatedly said, "I hate you," to her about her abilities to pass tests without any studying.

Speaking of Rikku… was she here? She hadn't mentioned staying after school today, but Yuna thought she could hear her cousin speaking Al Bhed. Due to her lack of linguistic skills, Yuna had no idea what she was saying. Instead she followed the voice and managed to track her cousin down. She was sitting on some stairs talking to Wakka and Tidus. Both boys had wet hair, suggesting that they'd used the sphere pool after school.

"Hey, it's Yunie!" She heard Rikku yip. "Come on over here, Yuna, come talk to us!"

Yuna did so, a little confused about why Wakka was standing there listening to someone speak Al Bhed. Then again, he'd found out that Rikku was Al Bhed and had remained friends with her despite his hostilities to them.

"What's going on here?" She asked, leaning on the wall.

"Rikku's talking dirty in Al Bhed and we're trying to figure out what she's saying," Tidus said with a wink in her direction.

"No, no, no, no! I was just trying to teach them a few basic things, that's all!" She yelped in her defense.

"I wasn't going to say anything," Yuna told her, waving her off airily. "Why're all of you here after hours? I had a project to read up on."

"Wakka and me were practicing blitz in the sphere pool. Wakka's got into BIU on a blitz scholarship!" Tidus said, smacking his friend on the back between his shoulder blades, making him cough up some soda. "Sorry…"

"Just warn me next time, ya? Or just don' smack me when I'm drinkin' anything!" He snorted and cleared his throat.

"I just stayed after because no one interesting would be at home, and I figured it'd be more fun to hang around here and wait for you guys to get out," Rikku admitted with a small smile.

"We're the most interesting people you know?" Yuna asked. "Wow, I feel sorry for you."

Tidus snorted and started to laugh and Wakka choked on his soda again. Yuna's lips curled up in a smile.

"I've found what appears to be a bunch of little lost puppies," a voice said behind them. They all recognized it as Lulu.

"Lu, what're you doin' here? You didn't mention stayin' after," Wakka said, frowning. He didn't go over to hug her, since he had learned long ago about what Lulu thought of being affectionate in public.

"I was held up in my last class. I don't know why I'm still taking these complicated math courses, they've never made much sense to me and all they ever do is give me headaches." She sighed, and glanced around the corner to check if anyone was coming.

"No one's here, Lulu," Yuna told her. "You can wake it up."

"Thank you," she said, flapping her dress until a little blue Space doll flopped to the floor. Clumsily, it tried to regain its' little feet until Lulu lifted it up and held it on her arm. "I like to let them out as soon as possible. I feel sorry for making them stay there all day, but I feel even worse when I'm unarmed."

"It doesn't really bother me anymore, ya," Wakka said. "I've gotten used to it. It's somethin' normal for me now." He shrugged. Apparently over the last few months since he'd started dating Lulu, he had come to learn and understand a great deal about magic and mages and discovered that the Yevon Catholic perception of a witch was different than the mages born with magical abilities. Yuna and Lulu were both somewhat taken back by the fact that he'd accepted it so quickly.

"So d'you guys wanna wander out of here or wander around the building and then leave?" Rikku asked, breaking the brief silence.

"Either one is fine with me," Tidus said with a shrug.

Walking and talking at the same time, they found themselves standing in a long, empty hallway with a freshly cleaned floor. Tidus stopped in his tracks and stared down the length of it with a goofy little grin on his face. Suddenly, he dropped his backpack on the floor and sat down, tugging off his yellow and black boots.

"Tidus, what are you doing?" Wakka asked.

"Uh, lets see… empty hallway, and socks. You know what that means don't you?"

No one answered. They were looking at him oddly, standing there in his socks, and he was looking at them oddly, passing up such an opportunity.

"You guys have never done this before?" He asked.

"Done what?" Rikku asked, confusion evident in her face and tone.

Tidus sighed, and took a few steps back and got a running start, and then sliding a distance on the floor. "Free-range sock skating! I used to do this all the time in Zanarkand."

Everyone was looking at him as if he'd lost his mind.

"You guys are so boring…" he murmured, taking another running start and sliding again, this time further.

"Hey, who're you calling boring?" Rikku yelled. With that, she, too, took her shoes off and started sliding across the floor. Even Wakka joined them, leaving Yuna and Lulu standing at the side of the hallway, watching them.

"They certainly look like they're having fun," Lulu said.

"Yea, they do, don't they?" Yuna said, watching them. Tidus and Rikku were the goofy type—the stereotypical blondes. Wakka was mostly serious but he knew when he could cut loose and have some fun.

Yuna merely watched them, not feeling comfortable joining them but having a good laugh just looking. It felt good to smile. She wasn't scared anymore. An alien feeling to her, but nonetheless, a good one.

She was jolted from her thoughts when someone bashed into her shins. Tidus. She looked down at him and bit her lips to try not to laugh.

"Hi! I didn't do that on purpose, I swear," he said, pushing himself up and bushing his shorts off. "Come join us." He extended his hand.

Smiling, Yuna shook her head. "No thanks, I'll just watch."

"Come on, Yunie!" Rikku called. "It's fun!" She took another slide and hit a soda machine.

"Hurting yourself constitutes 'fun'?" Lulu asked, raising her eyebrows slightly.

"You don't wanna join in, Lu?" Wakka asked. She gave him a withering look and he shrugged. "I knew you'd say no, but I figured I'd ask anyway." He slid away and slipped on the floor, crashing into the soda machine.

"Come on, Yuna. Don't make me drag you!" Tidus started pulling on her arms. "Come on! Please?"

"Hey, stop pulling or I'll fall over," she tugged back, but instead of letting her go, he lifted her up and slung her over his shoulder and held onto her legs. She gripped the back of his shirt of dear life. "What are you doing?" She hissed.

"I've got my Princess Charming, so I guess I'll just be on my way home, now," he said, slipping his boots back on and picking up his backpack.

"Tidus, you're cutting off the circulation in my legs," she said. He ignored her and she wasn't sure if he'd even heard her. "Tidus?" she said louder. No reply. "Tidus, I know you can hear me, put me down!" He kept walking. "Put me down!" She growled. When he ignored her again, she whacked him on the butt.

"Hey!" He stopped walking and put her down. "Aren't you frisky," he murmured quietly.

"Whatcha do that for anyway?" She asked, looking him square in the eye. His lips crashed down on hers.

"Because I knew you wouldn't let me do that while someone else was watching," he admitted. He draped his arm over her shoulders.

"You're insane," she told him.

"Yes, I know," he said back. "But you like that about me. Go ahead, admit it!"

"Of course I like your lunacy. It makes me feel considerably smarter. And more mature. And a bit more collected. And less obnoxious." She grinned at his mortified expression—he thought she was serious. "I also like your gullibility."

"Lets talk about your other personality traits for a minute, Yuna," he growled.

"Hey, whatcha talkin' about over there, huh?" They hear Rikku yell. Yuna winced.

"I hate her sense of timing," she growled. Lulu and Wakka also appeared behind Rikku. Lulu had picked up her backpack and was dragging it behind her.

"Yuna, in case you'd forgotten, I've already asked you to help me plant flowers," the mage said. Yuna could sense there was something else that her friend wanted from the tone in her voice, so she nodded.

"Sorry, I did tell her I'd help," she said to Tidus apologetically. "I'll see you later tonight, all right?" She kissed his cheek and trotted off to get her backpack from Lulu.

Yuna began the walk home with Lulu, feeling a bit peeved that her friend had interrupted her and made her leave.

"So what's this all about, Lulu? What's going on? Why'd you ask me to leave—you knew I'd've come home with you whenever we left," she said.

"Yuna, I had to talk to you is all and I need to do it private without letting anyone else on," she said. She often played the "older sister" role to Yuna, even though they were only a few months apart. "Besides that, it's been quite some time since the last time we've talked like this. We don't walk home together a lot anymore and since we've both got boyfriends now, we don't really spend a lot of time alone together."

Yuna nodded. Before she'd gotten to know Tidus and before she'd stopped being such an introvert, she and Lulu had been near constant companions, and while sometimes they had fights, they were always close friends. She felt a bit guilty about not spending enough time with her—after all, Lulu was the one who made her tell someone her problem to begin with.

"So you're feeling a lot better these days, I see," the mage commented again on Yuna's radical change from being quiet and very antisocial to spending a lot of time with Tidus, Rikku, and sometimes even Wakka. "Getting out on your own. Doing things. Seeing people."

Yuna felt a pang of guilt.

"I'm glad, honestly," Lulu surprised her by saying. "Truly, I am. For so long I was the one person you could confide in. And now, you've spread your wings. And I'm very happy that your experience with Seymour Guado hasn't deterred you from Tidus. He's a catch. Of all the people you could have been with, I'm glad it was him."

Bicolored eyes opened wide. It was unexpected for Lulu to talk like this. Then again, she hadn't had a heart-to-heart in a long time. "Thank you, Lulu. Your approval means a lot to me. I didn't think you liked him at all, though."

"I didn't at first, you're right," she admitted. "I thought he was a bit immature, a bit of an idiot. But then… then you got to know him, and so did I. He turned out to be sweet, just trying to make you happy. And that's what you need, Yuna. Someone to make you happy."

"Isn't that what you need, too?" She asked with a smile, thinking of the times she'd seen Lulu drop her defenses and smile when Wakka said or did something silly.

"What I need is someone who is tolerant of both magic and cynicism," she said shortly, turning her gaze forwards again.

"And you found one."

"Yes, I did."

Yuna snickered a little bit. She'd half expected Lulu to give her one of her withering looks. "I think I hear the pitter-patter of little feet."

"Yuna, stop that. I'm eighteen. Too soon for me to be thinking about that."

"No, seriously. I hear the pitter-patter of little feet," she motioned towards her friends' runaway Space doll. "Look, it got away."

"Come back here and stop playing in traffic!" Lulu yelled, pulling her dress up and running to catch the Space doll before it got hit by a car.

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Graduation was in a few days. Yuna wasn't thinking about it much, or she hadn't been, until Kimahri had come to stay with her so he could come and see. He and Cid were butting heads constantly, arguing about everything they could, and when there was nothing to argue about, they argued in order to find something.

Yuna sat on her front porch, listening to the bugs chirping, and staring into the sky. It was hard to believe how much had changed since this time last year. She remembered the raw terror she had felt when Kimahri told her that he was going to have to serve his tribe on Gagazet for a while, and that she would have to come with him. Although she was uncomfortable here in Besaid with the state of things, she wasn't ready to move. She had never taken changes well unless it was her idea. She didn't want to go to Gagazet and she really didn't want to have to go live with Rikku and Cid and Brother in Bikanel. So after about three weeks of arguing, long-distance phonecalls, and a considerable amount of begging, the arrangements were made and things ended up the way they were now.

Soon, the arguing from inside was beginning to drown out the sounds outside, and she got fed up. She knew Cid and Kimahri were two very different personalities, but she didn't think they'd be at each others' throats like this constantly.

"Of course they would be… after all, what I want is peace and quiet!" She heaved a sigh and lowered herself to lay down on the concrete step and closed her eyes. Maybe she could just go out for dinner tonight…

"Hey, Yuna."

She sat upright, bashing foreheads with someone. She turned around to see who it was—blonde hair and an eye-patch came into view. Gippal.

"Don't scare me like that!" She yelled, putting a hand of her forehead where she'd hit it. "If you're looking for Rikku, she's inside trying to stop Cid from fighting with Kimahri."

"Is that what I heard over the phone? It sounded like someone had a wrestling match turned up too high." He looked at the door, trying to see inside, but the yelling explained a lot.

Yuna turned over so she was on her stomach. They were still at it. She had no idea what they were arguing about and she doubted that they even remembered what they were arguing about. She was actually quite ready for graduation, just so that Kimahri could get back to Gagazet and things could resume as normal around here.

Rikku appeared at the door. "Hey, Gippal. I'm sorry about all of this but I've gotta get out of here before they drag me into it."

Yuna watched her cousin leave and stared back into the house. It had gotten quieter, so she assumed that Kimahri and Cid had stopped—for now.

"Whatcha lookin' at?"

Again, she jumped, turning to her right to see that Tidus had taken a seat on her front porch and was looking in through the front door.

"Why does everyone feel the need to frighten me?" She asked with one hand over her heart.

"It wasn't on purpose," he said. "What's goin' on in there?"

Yuna sighed. "Kimahri and Cid were fighting. I think they're giving it a rest for now."

"Still?" He asked. He'd heard an argument in the background on the phone a few days before. He had no idea that they'd fight like that. "I guess this means I should rescue you, huh?"

"Maybe… then again, it's not like I'm in any real danger."

"Yuna, who is that with you? That better had not be who I think is!" Brothers' screeching voice came from an upstairs window.

"I, however, am," Tidus murmured. From inside, he could hear someone stampeding down the stairs and pushing open the front door.

"What are you doing to Yuna?"

Yuna took a deep breath. Several. She hated it when Brother did things like this. "Brother if you don't get out of my sight by the time I count to three, I will not be held responsible for my actions!"

"But Yuna, I just look after you—"

"NOW!" She pointed to the door and glared at him until he backed down.

As soon as Brother had disappeared, Tidus looked at her. "You were right. You really are a bitch when you deal with family members." He paused. "And for someone who's always so quiet, you could break a window with that scream."

They sat together for a while, just talking quietly and occasionally looking back to see if they were being spied on. Satisfied that they were relatively alone, Yuna got up the courage to ask him.

"Any news?"

He paused. "Yea, a little. They've just looked through his car and stuff," he said. "To see if he wasn't going to do something dangerous. They found a lot of personal records on you—it's how he found out about your being half Al Bhed, and about how you're a mage. You know, classified stuff."

"How did he get it?" She asked.

"Bribery I think. They also found a pair of binoculars and bunch of photographs of you in the glove compartment. School photos, and a lot of candid shots he must've taken while spying on you." He sighed heavily. "I still can't believe he was trying to blackmail you with your own bloodline."

"People hated me already," she said quietly. "The knowledge of me being a halfblood would only have made things worse for me. He was trying to make it so that my only alternative would have been to move in with him. Rumors spread fast… maybe he just mentioned once that I'm a witch and it snowballed from there…" she took a shuddery breath. "It was him. This entire time, it was him." She clenched her fists at her sides. Things were falling into place. Seymour Guado was the reason that she had been miserable all these years. He'd made sure that she wouldn't fit in. He made sure that people would despise her. He'd made sure that she would have been so miserable and lonely by this time that she would have no alternative but to leave school and live with him.

But instead of crying, she thought of something. Was it Lulu who had told her in the past, "People fear what they know nothing about. If you take away the haze, then you take away the fear, and the menace is gone." People here hated her because she was a mage and because she was half Al Bhed. But… what if they learned that there was nothing to fear of either? What if they knew that mages walked among them all the time, without scorn or contempt or a demon on a leash? What if they learned that the Al Bhed were regular people, who lived much the same as they did? What if they learned—

"Hey, Yuna, you okay?" Tidus gently shook her by the shoulder.

"Huh?"

"You looked like you were in a trance. What were you thinking about?"

"People need to know the truth," she said finally. "I hate being despised for who and what I am, and I don't want anyone else to live like this." Besaid was such an isolated little island that the majority of the people here still lived as if time had stood still for the last fifty years. Gender roles were mostly the same, the importance of religion, and the hatred of anyone who did not practice the Yevon Catholic faith.

"So what're you gonna do about it?" He asked. He was glad that Yuna wasn't going to hide away in her shell anymore, but he was also a little taken aback by her sudden need to talk to the world. At his question, her head immediately sank.

"Well, that didn't last long, did it?" Despite the disappointed look on her face, her voice held some humor. She felt him put an arm around her shoulders.

"Hey, don't worry about it, Yuna. You'll think of something. You can do just about anything."

"You really think so?" She asked.

"Definitely," he said.

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Two more days to graduation. And people were playing senior pranks at every opportunity they got. Cellophane across open doorways, toilet-papered trees in the front of the school, books in the library all flipped backwards, and someone had loosed two dozen chickens in the school. But the best prank went to Tidus and Wakka, who went to school early one day, took out the metal dividing poles between the double-doors in the front entrance, and drove Tidus' car into the building and parked it in front of the office. The teachers were all laughing too hard at them and enjoyed their creativity so much that they didn't have the heart to get them in trouble for it.

Yuna was staying after school every day, trying to finish up last-minute projects and sorting through the back room where unclaimed projects were kept and throwing most of them out. When the shelves were clean, she gathered up all of the clay that had been fermenting in a water-filled trash can for the last week and wedged it until it was solid, folding them into plastic bags for the next school year.

By the time this task was complete, her hands and arms nearly up to her elbows were covered in white clay. She sighed and went to clean her hands.

"Hey, Yunie," Rikku said, walking into the room with Tidus behind her. "Whatcha doin'?"

"Just cleaning up, now," she said. "Clay dried on my hands."

"You look like a limestone statue from the elbows down," Tidus commented, leaning forward next to her at the sink.

"Does that mean you want to take me home and prop me up on a fountain?" She asked smartly.

He thought about that for a second. "Well I don't have a fountain, but I could prop you up in my bathtub. Would that work?"

Yuna stood looking at him strangely for a moment before shaking her head and sighing.

"Hey, Tidus, I think you finally got her to where she can't say anything!" Rikku said happily. "My cousin is speechless! Yahoo!"

"And your father wonders why I beat up on you the way I do," she snorted. Tidus was laughing at the comment. She patted him on the behind, leaving behind a white handprint on his black shorts.

"Thanks, Yuna," he tried to wipe it off but it only made it worse. "You know, most normal girls just leave hickeys."

"I know, but where's the fun in that?" She asked, washing her hands and drying them on her pants. "Can you two lunatics stay in here and not hurt yourselves while I go and stash these last bags of clay in the art supply room?" She picked up the remaining two bags that wouldn't fit in the closet in the classroom.

"I suppose if we have to we can be alone and not do anything stupid," he said, sitting up on a table.

"I'll be gone for five minutes. Just… I dunno, name your toes or something until I get back." With that she left the room with the key to the art supply room in her teeth and a huge bag of clay on either hip.

The art supply room was a closet with a window on the door located halfway down the hall from the art room itself. She juggled the two bags and unlocked the door, holding the keys around her neck. She pulled the chain for the light, and then found a place for the new bags of clay and sealed them up. That done, she brushed her hands off and turned to leave, but the door was closed. She frowned. Hadn't she left if open when she came in? Maybe it closed on its own. She thought nothing of it and went to leave.

"You have a lot of explaining to do, Yuna Bamarre."

Yuna froze in place, going ice cold and hot all at once. She knew that voice. She hoped she was dreaming. She had to be dreaming. She got her breathing under control and opened her eyes, looking around. Standing in front of the door was Seymour, with a look in his eyes and she had never seen before.

"You thought you had it well off, now that I was gone, didn't you?" He asked, stepping closer to her. She backed up instinctively. She didn't want him to touch her. "You thought that I was gone for good. You thought that you would live your 'happily ever after' and I would be something of the past."

Without a word, she narrowed her eyes to show her resolve. He'd terrified her before, but she would not allow him to scare her this time. Not after she'd done so much to get him to leave her alone.

"You're being brave, Yuna, but I know it won't last."

She took a deep, shaky breath. "It was you. All these years I thought everyone hated me for being a mage, it was you. You made them think I was a witch and you made sure that I'd be miserable. You wanted me to be this way. You thought you could make me an easy target."

"So… you've finally found me out." He showed no remorse as he spoke. "Yes, it was me. Or partly me, and partly the prejudice of this island. The Yevon Catholic image of a witch."

"But I'm stronger than that. I'll never sink that low!" She held her ground, but was uncertain what she would do. She had to get out of here. If she could just get out of the door long enough to scream someone would come running.

"Ah, but do you really think that? Or are you just playing hard-to-get?" He smiled and reached for her. She lunged forward to bite his hand but he pulled it away and she slapped him.

"Leave me alone!"

He stayed turned to the side, with a hand on the bruise on his cheek. Then he grinned wickedly and slapped her back, making her take a few steps backwards. Eyes wide, she realized that Seymour was no longer a teacher and she wasn't protected by the prospect of him losing his job. She was completely vulnerable.

She reached to hit him again, and he caught her by the wrist and bent her arm behind her back, making her cry out.

"You've reached my last nerve, Miss Bamarre. Now you'll see what the price to pay is." He forcefully backed her onto a table, bending her back against it and making her lower back hurt. He forced his lips on hers, snaking his tongue into her mouth. She bit down hard until she tasted blood and he pulled back and hit her again, this time harder.

When she flailed again, he caught her free hand, pining her back against the table with one hand and working at her shirt with the other, and Yuna realized something.

'I'm scared,' she thought. 'Scared… scared…'

"Leave off!" She yelled, biting his neck until she could taste blood, but he did not stop. He wouldn't stop. He knew what he wanted and he would get it even if it killed him. He was already sentenced to a prison sentence. He'd been allowed to go back and get his things from his classroom but he'd waited where he knew Yuna would be alone. This wouldn't do anything worse. He was already fucked, he may as well get what he came for.

She crossed her legs firmly and made sure he wouldn't be able to get into her pants. It was all she could think to do now. Dimly, she heard her shirt tear and felt cold air on her bare skin.

'I'm scared… so scared… so frightened…'

"I'm gonna go look for her. She's been gone an awful long time," Tidus said, sliding off the table and heading for the door. Somehow, he had a funny feeling in his stomach and he couldn't quite put his finger on it.

"Okay, if Yunie comes back I'll tell her," Rikku said. After a pause she, too, slid off the table and followed him. "Hey, wait, I'm coming too!"

They walked towards the art supply room and heard some scuffling inside from a distance. Tidus swore he heard someone yelling inside, but his suspicions were confirmed when he came close to the door.

There was an obvious struggle inside. One voice he knew as Yuna, struggling to make sounds to attract attention; the other he was pretty sure was Seymour Guado. He reached hurriedly for the door, but it was locked.

"Rikku, go get help," he told his companion. Rikku, eyes wide, turned stiffly and did as she was told, running down the halls to find someone. Tidus once again turned his attentions towards the door, now frightened. After listening to the ruckus inside, he knew for a fact that Yuna was locked in there with Seymour, and he felt sickeningly helpless out here by himself.

The narrow window caught his eye. About six inches wide and eighteen inches high, if he could break it, he could open the door from the inside. He quickly stripped off his shirt and wrapped it around his arm to protect it and took a swing at the window as hard as he could, putting a huge crack in it but not breaking it. The sounds inside quieted briefly, and he tightened his fist and resecured the shirt around his arm. He punched it again, putting two more cracks in it but still not breaking it.

He heard a feral screech and a loud "smack" from inside, followed by a second "smack" and a female voice crying out in pain. He hit the glass one more time, breaking it all the way up to the top, and shoved open the door. The broken glass had torn his shirt and scratched up his arm in several places, and it stung but he ignored it. Glass had sprayed several feet ahead of him in large and small pieces.

Instinctively, Seymour turned when the door was opened, but Yuna was pinned against the table, unable to get up. Her shirt had been torn off and lay discarded on the floor by Seymour's feet. He glared at him while she gave him a pitiful, pleading look. When Seymour turned his attention briefly back to Yuna, Tidus knelt and grabbed a shard of glass. So much for a knight in shining armor…

"Reina, you've interfered for the last time," Seymour hissed. He knocked Yuna back against the table and turned to face Tidus, an icy look on his face. He slowly reached a hand in front of him and it began to glow green, which he recognized as a trait of black magic.

"You're a…" Tidus frowned. "A mage." He nearly dropped his glass shard—his only weapon, but he kept his hold on it. It's not like it would help him, though.

Yuna recovered herself and saw what was happening in front of her. She had to do something to stop him before he loosed the spell on Tidus… but what? She rose to her knees on the table and slid her belt off from around her waist, and wrapped it around both hands. In a flash, her hands were on either side of his neck, the belt strangling him. He gasped and choked, the spell disintegrating. He turned quickly to throw her balance off, but she leaped onto his back, keeping her legs around his waist and thrusting her heels into his groin as she pulled back on the belt. Tighter and tighter and tighter…

WHUMP.

Yuna found herself on the floor, still grasping both ends of her belt and quite confused. Seymour was face down on the floor, his face a little purple. But when she took the belt away, he turned slowly back to his normal, pallid color. He'd hit his head on the table on his way down, splitting the skin above his left eyebrow.

Three teachers appeared at the door, Rikku behind them, looking scared and shocked and relieved all at once. Somebody led her from the closet and gave her a sweatshirt to put on over her bra, since her shirt was shredded.

"Yuna?" Tidus stood in front of her grasping her shoulders, looking worriedly into her eyes. "Yuna, say something. Anything."

She took a breath and exhaled slowly. The knowledge that Tidus had saved her along with the fear at what had happened and what would have happened made her choke slightly, tears welling in her eyes.

"I'm… scared. Oh, God, Tidus, I'm so scared. What could've happened? You… oh, God…" She buried her face in her hands and sank to her knees, crying softly. He knelt beside her, his uninjured arm around her shoulders, comforting her. Eventually, she stopped crying, and by that time, two men had taken Seymour away on a stretcher, and a familiar man in a uniform came forward.

"I was afraid of this," Auron said, looking down at Yuna, who had stopped crying but was still shivering. "I told them not to let him in here but they did anyway. I am sorry, Yuna, I should have made them listen."

She looked up at him with red, watery eyes. Her face was beginning to surface bruises, as well as her shoulders and her arms and her upper back, from where he had grabbed her and slapped her around. She looked back at Tidus, who was using his shirt to stop the blood from dripping onto the floor, now that the cuts had opened further. She looked over and Rikku who was hurriedly and apparently not very coherently giving some details to an officer.

Then she looked at the men carrying Seymour off. Even unconscious, Seymour frightened her. The scene from moments before was fresh in her mind, the feel of his slimy lips on hers and his tongue in her mouth, his hands roaming her body as she screamed for someone to help her. She could feel the dull throb in her hands from the many times she'd hit him and she still clutched her belt in on hand. Everything hit her at once, and she wasn't sure what had happened next, but later someone told her that she'd fainted, but she didn't even remember hitting the ground.

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Longer chapter than most of my others! I told you it would be longer, and I'm glad I've finally gotten it out of the way. I'll make longer notes the next chapter, but I will say this—the thing with the VW Beetle in the building was a stunt my mom's friend pulled in high school. That's why I gave Tidus the bug. Hehehe. Anyway, I leave you here since I really have to go, but I do wanna get this posted. Please review and make me happy!

P.S: Thanks to Deplora. She made me update.

P.P.S: For whatever reason my scene breaks didn't show up! So I reloaded this chapter, put in NEW scene breaks and I hope that they work. If they don't then I'll try it again. Sorry if this caused any confusion! It sure as hell made ME upset!