I don't own anything except the Takahari family, their Dragoon Spirits, Kenji Okamura, and Cassius
***
My surroundings were surreal, a castle were the walls were fluid and nothing was as it seemed. Coffins lined the walls, flowing with them. Mocking laughter came from nowhere and everywhere.
I moved as if mired in sand, struggling to get to the throne at the other end of the room. Something or someone important was there, I knew. But I didn't know how I knew or what it was I was struggling to reach.
"I'm coming for you, Takahari," came the voice from the throne. "Soon, you'll belong to us…"
"Never!" I heard my voice say. "I am not like you, Cassius! I will not be turned!"
"Ah, but it has already begun, and you know it. I'll be waiting for you…" The world begun to melt away around me…
***
"Ian, wake up. Wake up!"
I awoke with a start, Raiden-Ken flashing in an arc even before I became fully conscious. Another blade clashed against it. "Whoa, Ian, relax, it was just a dream! You were having a nightmare, okay?"
My eye focused. "Ryan? What's going on?" I carefully sheathed my katana, confused. Was that a dream?
"You were having a nightmare, Ian," he said sheathing his own blade. "It sounded like you were arguing with someone."
I narrowed my eye. "I was talking in my sleep?"
Ryan chuckled. "More like shouting. But the only intelligible thing you said was the name 'Cassius'. Who's- Ian?"
My face had paled, and my blood ran cold. Cassius. After all this time? This is just what I do not need.
"Who's Cassius, Ian?" Ryan asked quietly. "And don't try to tell me you don't know. I've never seen you that scared."
"With any luck, Ryan, you'll never have to know that." And I said no more. Cassius was the name I hated and feared more than any other.
I shook myself. "Anyway, how long till we reach Kilika?"
"We dock in about ten minutes." Ryan had apparently realized he wasn't going to get anything more out me about Cassius. "Thing is, it looks like we didn't distract Sin for very long. From the looks of things, Kilika was hit pretty bad."
"Wonderful. Got any more bad news, or is that it?"
He shrugged. "Just odd news, if that's any help. Yuna said something about performing a 'sending' once we arrive, if there's no other summoner in the area."
"A 'sending'? I guess this is a weird place. Well, I suppose we're gonna find out, but I don't know if we're gonna like it."
***
A pair of villagers were waiting for Yuna when we debarked. "If there is no other summoner, I will perform the sending," she said to them.
"Thank you, my lady," one of the villagers replied.
"Our loved ones, we feared they would become fiends," said the other.
"Please, take me to them."
What followed was one of the most surreal sights I have ever seen. Yuna walked calmly off the pier, literally walking on water.
"What's a sending?" I heard Tidus ask Lulu. "Are we going somewhere?"
Lulu sighed. "You are clueless, aren't you? Are you sure it's just your memory that's the problem?" She sighed again and went on. "The dead refuse to accept their fates, and long to live on. They envy the living, and gradually this envy turns to anger, and even hate. If they are not sent, they become fiends which pray on the living. The sending takes them to the Farplane, where they may rest in peace."
I paid little attention to the exchange; my gaze was riveted to the bizarre ritual occurring on the water. Yuna had begun some kind of dance, and I could feel the magic forces moving.
When the surreal dance was over, I was almost as in the dark on the subject as before. As I prepared for sleep a few minutes later, however, I thought on another matter. I had a bad feeling about how my night was going to go. If the dream came again…
***
I awoke the next morning gasping, already on my feet and holding Raiden-Ken in my right hand. And I was terrified. The previous time was not a fluke; and if the dreams were coming again, it could only mean that Cassius, the terror I had long thought dead, was still alive. The dreams came only by his will, when he was near.
Of all the things and being I had encountered in twenty-four years, the only horrors that I feared greater than Cassius were those of Mayfil, and Mayfil at least had the virtue of being rooted to the ground. The great legionnaire, known long ago as Centurion Cassius, had no such limits.
I kept these thoughts to myself as we set out for the Temple, though I was sure my companions knew me well enough to know I was ill at ease. Fortunately, they also knew that if my problem became theirs, I would say so immediately. Until then they would leave me in peace.
Not far in, Yuna's group paused. "Huh? What's up?" Wakka asked.
"Yuna says she wants Tidus to be her guardian," Lulu replied.
I raised my eyebrows. "I wonder what's up with those two…" I murmured to Rose. "As far as I know, Tidus has only been around here for a couple days. Isn't she a little too trusting?"
Rose shrugged. "Dart, Lavitz, and Shana trusted you right away. Just as you trusted them."
"I guess you're right."
I turned my attention back to the others. "Me? A guardian?" Tidus sounded confused.
"I'm sorry," Yuna said. She appeared to be the sort that apologized for everything.
"It's nothing to apologize about. I'm just not really sure what's going on."
"We're all heading for the temple anyway, yah?" Wakka said. "Let's worry about this later."
As we continued on, I wrapped an arm around Rose. "I think that guy remembers more about himself than Wakka said."
She leaned against me. "What do you mean?"
"It's like he's hiding something. Something that he thinks either no one will believe, or would… isolate him, I guess, from the rest of the group. And…" I paused. "There's something not quite right about him. Almost as if he's not really here."
Rose looked up at me. "An illusion?"
"I don't know. But I've seen a lot of strange things over the years, including some pretty mean apparitions. I don't know what to make of Tidus, though. I've never encountered an illusion that could actually interact with the physical world, but it's pretty clear Tidus can do just that. Remember our fight with Sin." I smiled. "But I don't think it's anything we need to worry about, my love. I could be completely mistaken anyway."
***
Shortly after that, we ran into a monster called Lord Ochu. A group called the Crusaders, apparently also from Besaid, stayed well away from it. It seemed they had lost people to this fiend before, and weren't willing to risk it again.
I stepped toward it. "You guys are afraid of that? I was killing things tougher than that years ago. Admittedly, it's ugly enough to throw you off a little, but afraid? Give me a break." I glanced back. "I'll handle this."
After drawing Raiden-Ken, I began by slicing off its tentacles. That done, I launched into a fearsome combination attack that reduced the mighty plant to compost.
The leader of the Crusaders, a man by the name of Luzzu, walked up. "Well done. We'll have no more trouble from this fiend."
That's an understatement, compadre. I just pruned the thing.
His second-in-command, Gatta, lead the other Crusaders forward, chanting. "Young Crusaders, gather round, we'll beat Sin into the ground…" His voice faded in the distance.
Tidus fell in with us as we moved on. "So you guys really don't age?"
I nodded. "That's right. Like I said, Ryan and I are twenty-four, and Karen's twenty-two."
"What about Rose?"
I laughed. "Rose? You wouldn't believe me if I told you, kid. Suffice it to say that she's a lot older than you are." I glanced at him. "So what's on your mind, Tidus?"
He looked around, apparently making sure the rest of his group was out of earshot. "You're not from around here. Do you know anything about a place called Zanarkand?"
I thought for a moment. "No, can't say that I do. Why?"
"Well, Wakka and the others don't believe me, but I'm from Zanarkand. Since coming to Spira, I've heard that it was destroyed a thousand years ago. But if that's true, how could I be from there?"
I nodded thoughtfully. "I see a couple of possibilities. First of all, it could just be some place with the same name as your home. Where I come from, there are quite of few places whose names are shared with other cities. It's also possible that you're a thousand years old yourself."
Tidus blinked. "A thousand years old!? No way."
"Actually, it's not that farfetched." I smiled at Rose. "I know of quite a few ways to survive that long. There's the magic that keeps me from aging, for instance, or you could have been in suspended animation. Being frozen in ice will do it, and certain types of magic will cause it, too. So don't despair yet, kid. You might not be able to go home, but at least it's highly possible that you're not crazy." I thought back, to the events of six years before. "I voluntarily gave up my home. I found a better place."
***
From there, the journey was uneventful for a time, until we reached the top of the steps to the Temple. "Sinspawn!" Wakka shouted.
Ryan shook his head. "Can't a guy take a simple walk without running into monsters?"
I drew my blade. "If you were that concerned about it, Ryan, you should have stayed home!"
He knew I wasn't referring to Endiness. "There's nothing for us there now, like you said. Anyway, I could use the practice." Ryan pulled out Soul Cleaver. "C'mon, let's do this."
I fingered my Dragoon Spirit beneath my coat, considering. I promptly discarded the notion; this "Sinspawn" probably wasn't dangerous enough to require Dragoons, and this wasn't the time to reveal our powers. Not yet. "Non Doragon Supirittsu!" I spoke in Japanese, so as not to overly puzzle our Spiran companions.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Just let me kill it, okay!?" Karen, typically impatient, leapt up the remaining stairs, then stopped dead. "What's that!?"
It consisted of a pair of tentacles and an ugly egg shape. I didn't know anything beyond that, but I did get the idea that it wasn't here to borrow some fertilizer.
Wakka was responding to Karen. "Didn't you hear me? That's Sinspawn, yah!?"
"I don't care what it is!" I snapped. "It's in our way, so we kill it!" I jumped at it, then faltered as an image sprang to mind: a vampire, showing its fangs. I'm coming for you, Takahari…
I fell back a step, then shook myself and resumed my battle stance. This wasn't the time to worry about Cassius.
Tidus had drawn his sword and was racing to one of the tentacles. "Spiral Cut!"
Lulu raised her odd doll. "Fire!" A blast of magic, not unlike Dart's fire magic or a kuji spell, struck the other tentacle.
It had no effect. They seemed to absorb magic. Ryan apparently realized this and struck at the base of one, trying to sever it, while Rose gracefully swept her rapier at the other. "Demon's Dance!"
Wakka's blitzball sailed past me, followed by Kimahri with his spear. Then, having regained my balance, physical and mental, I rejoined the fight. "Raiden Kai!"
I cut down my target tentacle, but the other retaliated by picking me up and throwing me into a wall. "Ugh!" To top it off, I landed on my head, narrowly avoiding a near-fatal neck-break. Only nearly fatal, of course, since I still wore the ring Charle had given me years before.
Yuna, thus far silent, twirled her staff. "Cure!"
I hauled myself back to my feet. "Thanks, Yuna." By this time, both tentacles had been hacked down, and the egg was opening, to reveal something even uglier. "Enough! I've had enough of this thing!" I jumped into the air, raising my sword before me. "Rakurai!" A bolt of lightning connected Raiden-Ken with the Sinspawn for a split-second, and then there was a crackling as the fiend fried like an oyster.
I hit the ground near Rose. "What are you looking at?" I demanded of Yuna's group, now staring at me. "It's dead, so now we can move on to the Temple."
***
When we reached the Temple itself, we found a team of blitzball players leaving it. Judging from the reaction Wakka and his team, the Besaid Aurochs, these rivals were not well-liked.
"The Luca Goers," an Aurochs murmured.
Wakka walked right up to them. "You guys here to pray for victory too?"
The lead Goer laughed. "We don't need to pray for victory. We're praying for some decent competition this year." He looked derisively at the Aurochs. "So, you gonna 'do your best' again? Too bad you best isn't good enough."
"Actually, we're playing to win this time," Tidus said.
The Goers laughed openly. "You've never even won a game!"
I stepped forward and scowled at them. "You are falling prey to the twin errors of overconfidence and underestimating your opponent."
"And I suppose you're a big, bad warrior, huh? Don't make me laugh."
"Then perhaps I can make you scream," I said. My blade was abruptly at the Goer's throat. "You need to learn to overcome your arrogance, baka." I let him worry a moment longer, then snapped the blade away and let the now-shaken team pass.
After they left, I bowed to Yuna and gestured for her to pass, then turned to my companions. "I'm staying out here. Anyone going in?"
Karen and Ryan chose to, while Rose remained outside with me. "What's wrong, Ian?" she asked. "I've never seen you hesitate in a battle before. And you clearly haven't been sleeping well."
I sighed. "You know me too well." I leaned back, organizing my thoughts. "I've been having dreams. I know, dreams don't necessarily mean anything, but these do. They only come when Cassius is near."
Rose frowned. "Cassius?"
"Two thousand years ago, during the reign of Julius Caesar, Cassius was a centurion in the Roman Legions, on Earth. The day Caesar was assassinated, Cassius was bitten by a vampire. It was thus that he became one himself, and for two thousand years, he preyed upon humans. Ten years ago, I had the misfortune to encounter him. I had just begun my own vampire hunting career, and was not yet knowledgeable enough about his kind. He bit me."
Her eyes widened. "What? But you're not a vampire…"
I sighed again. "It didn't quite take. It gave me their strength and regenerative abilities, without their thirst and other weaknesses. But if Cassius manages to bite me again, I'll be lost. I thought I killed him a year before I arrived in Endiness, but he somehow survived. And he is literally the most terrifying being I have ever encountered."
"And he's coming…" Rose slowly nodded. "And he sends you the dreams to unsettle you."
"Basically. My only chance is to kill him. If I can manage that, the bite marks-" I pulled at a disguised bandage on my neck, revealing the fang marks "-will fade, and I'll be a normal human again. But I don't know that I can do it."
Rose laid a hand on my arm. "You won't be facing him alone."
I pulled her close. "I know."
***
Author's note: Chapter 3 complete. First, to answer Dragon God I's questions, I tend not to start a fic at the beginning of a game because it's usually easier to introduce an OC at a later point. As to your other points, yes they did bring their Dragoon Spirits, Ian's siblings did receive magic artifacts from Charle as well, and I haven't yet decided about the other Dragoons.
The translations for this chapter: "Non Doragon Supirittsu" roughly translates as "no Dragoon Spirits", and "Rakurai" means "Thunderbolt".
That should about cover it. Read it and let me know what you think. ~Solid Shark
