Hey everyone, this is a rather long chapter, but it's very important to the events that are going on in the story. Once again I must say, I loved writing in Tidus' POV. It was so much fun! Much different than writing for Yuna. Okay, that's all for the author's notes for this chapter...I hope you enjoy!!

2. Back To Bevelle/A New Discovery

Bevelle had certainly had us frequent it lately with everything that was going on. I felt like we just left Bevelle, yet here we were, back in the Temple of New Yevon. Gippal and Rikku stayed on the Celsius to watch over Yuna because we figured it wouldn't have been smart to bring the High Summoner unconscious into Bevelle. It would've caused people to go somewhat amok, thus initiating more problems than we needed right now.

We all followed Baralai to his office, with me thinking about Yuna with every step I took. He unlocked and opened the large mahogany doors to reveal his remarkable office. Everything was spotless, save for a few papers that littered his desk. He had two of his walls dedicated to bookshelves covered in glass, and the other two contained pictures and framed documents. I felt awful walking on the thick, plush carpet with my boots on, but Baralai didn't seem to care. I just prayed they weren't full of mud and dirt.

As Baralai used his keys to open one of the glass bookshelves, I walked over to look at the things that adorned his walls. I admired his diploma, many awards he had been given, and the like. He had accomplished so much, as did many of the other people that stood around me. I was standing in the presence of the Praetor of New Yevon, the Meyvn of the Youth League, and the leader of the Machine Faction was in the airship watching over the most beautiful girl that I have ever met. Even Yuna had accomplished so much; she now carries the title 'High Summoner' and has saved Spira twice in her life.

So much happened during the time I was…nonexistent. I honestly don't know where I was. I'm assuming I was somewhere in the depths of the Farplane, floating as a single pyrefly among billions. I don't recall anything that happened to me over the past two years. It seemed like one second I gave my father a high five and the next I blinked… and I was surrounded in water, hugging my knees, with a couple of pyreflies around me. I'm assuming they were pyreflies from the Fayth that brought me back. I stretched and swam back up to the surface to see the small village of Besaid. Yuna…she was the only thing I could think of as I placed two fingers in my mouth and whistled. I was back.

I was home.

Seeing the airship hatch open and Yuna jumping out made my heart leap practically out of my chest. She looked outstanding. She was a new Yuna; independent and more mature. However, it almost didn't seem fair. She spent two years trying to find me, having some hope that I was still alive somewhere…yet I wasn't aware of it. I couldn't help but look down at my hands to realize that I was standing here in Baralai's office and I was alive.

"Hey, Tidus!" I whipped my head up to see everyone staring at me. They were obviously ready to go, but I was off in my own little world again. "You alright?"

"Yeah, sorry," I said as I snapped back into reality. I walked over to Baralai's desk, picked up a few books, and followed the others outside of Bevelle. "Hey, guys, this might sound like a crazy thought, but why are we leaving Bevelle when we have to go to the Via Infinto to do the exorcism, when it's right in Bevelle?"

"I need some preparation time, Tidus," Baralai said, a slight edge in his voice. My blood actually chilled for a moment when he snapped at me like that. Geez, I didn't know. I guess that just proves how much of a hurry I was in to have Yuna healed and baby free.

"Oh," I said simply as I shut my mouth and we walked out of the Temple in silence.

/--/--/--/--/--/--/--/--/--/--/

We reached the cabin of the Celsius approximately ten minutes later, and we dispersed when we walked on the bridge. Baralai, Paine, Nooj, and Leblanc started cross-referencing Baralai's notes with the text from the books, and I walked back onto the cabin to see how Yuna was doing.

The door to the cabin opened as I approached it, and Gippal whipped his head up from the bar where he was sitting. He was tapping his fingers against the wood as Barkeep washed several dishes and hummed a random tune. I gently waved to him and he nodded in response.

"Hey, man," he said as I patted him on the back as I started to walk toward the stairs. "She's the same."

"Damn," I said under my breath. I ascended the stairs to see Yuna still lying in the bed I placed her in with Rikku sitting on the next bed over, holding her hand. Seeing Yuna proved Gippal's statement correct, she was still the same. Still unconscious. Still possessed. Not to mention, her belly was becoming even more noticeable. I swallowed hard as I looked how the sheet over her was slightly moving.

Rikku looked up at me with tired eyes and I sat down next to her. She placed her head on my shoulder as I gently rubbed her back. "Yunie's going to be okay, isn't she?"

"I sure hope so, Rikku," I said honestly as she handed me Yuna's hand. I rubbed the top of her hand with my fingers gently and sighed. "I sure hope so."

"Did you find everything in Baralai's office?" She asked as I nodded. "Is he going to find the spell?"

"They're looking over everything right now, but Baralai has about eight hundred pages of notes that he's taken down from this one theory so it will probably take a good amount of time." Rikku exhaled the breath she was holding and sat up straight. I could hear Gippal walking up the stairs, but neither of us turned toward him. "I just wanted to see how she was doing. I'm going to go help them look through stuff."

"We'll come, too," Gippal said as he handed both Rikku and I glasses of water. "The more people who look through this stuff, the faster we can get this all resolved."

"Thanks, you guys," I replied as I took a sip from the glass. "I guess she's not going anywhere."

"Yeah," Rikku said as she stood up and slightly stretched her legs. "Let's go back to the bridge."

/--/--/--/--/--/--/--/--/--/--/

"Hey, I know a way to make looking through a zillion papers even more boring!" We could hear Leblanc's whining all the way from the elevator, but none of us were necessarily surprised. We entered the bridge to see Nooj, Baralai and Paine giving her an irritated gaze as she added, "On second thought, no, I don't."

"We're here to help," I said as I grabbed a handful of Baralai's papers and sat on the ground. Rikku and Gippal did the same, and I queerly looked at the pages. I blinked a few times to see if my eyes were just tired, but to no avail, I couldn't read it. "Why can't I understand this?"

"It's in Latin," Baralai replied simply as I slightly groaned. "What's the matter?"

"Latin," I said again as I threw my head back. "It's one of those dead languages that I've always meant to learn, but never have taken the time to do so."

"Here," Baralai said as he handed me a few books. "These aren't in Latin, but you're going to need to go through the pages carefully to look for mentions of this process."

This was going to be a great process, I could already tell. The man takes his notes down in Latin; definitely proves that he is an overachiever. There was silence in the bridge, and I have to admit that was the first time I have ever heard it. Usually people were talking, or in Rikku and Brother's case, bitching at each other in Al Bhed. Now, the only sounds that were heard contained the wind passing around the airship, us turning pages, or Leblanc's constant impatient sighing. Nooj and Leblanc were such an interesting couple. I have no idea how he could even tolerate her. Also, what was that threat that she constantly gave him? 'The heel?' What the hell was that all about? Every time she mentioned that to him, he became strangely quiet. Part of me wanted to know, but the other part (the larger part, may I add) was too afraid of the answer.

"Ah ha!" Baralai said as he quickly looked between the book in front of him and his notes. We all looked up at him and Paine leaned toward him to see what he made his exclamation over. He fingered the words on the book to make sure that he was reading them correctly. A smile broke out on his face, and he even chuckled. "Yes, yes, yes!"

"What is it?" Paine asked, not seeing the connection between the book and the pages.

"Once again, I say, 'ah ha!'" He stated again as he flipped over a page and started to mutter something. I couldn't understand him, so I was assuming that he was reading his Latin notes. I stood up with a book in my hand so I could look at it. All that was on it was a cluster of words and a symbol of some kind.

"We got that part, B, now what is it?" Gippal asked as he and Rikku stood up as well. They put their hands on the table as we all huddled in toward each other.

"Look at this!" He pointed to the symbol that was in the book, then pointed to the same symbol on his notes.

"It kinda looks like a chocobo riding a hover," Rikku said as she scrunched her nose. None of us saw the connection between the symbol and what Rikku said, so we all gave her confused looks. "Or not."

"I think it looks like a snowflake attacking a Ronso on Mt. Gagazet during a snowstorm in the middle of—"

"Explain to us what it is, Baralai," I said as I impatiently cut off Leblanc's ridiculous statement. Okay, I guess it did kind of look like a snowflake, but there was no way it could look like a Ronso as well.

"It's the Emblem of Imasakiza," he said as he pointed to it in his notes.

"Okay, but what is its purpose in this whole ordeal?" I asked as I took the book in my hand to read the words that surrounded it.

"It's an old magical symbol that basically means 'cleansing.' An old mage about sixty years after the first mage thought of the idea tried to think of a way to make the exorcism work, and he came up with this symbol. You see, when people die, their souls remain intact in their bodies. If a summoner does not perform the summoning dance, the souls begin the envy the living. The envy turns to hate, and eventually the souls transform the dead into fiends, which prey on the living." Hearing all this again made me feel like I was talking to Lulu at the beginning of Yuna's pilgrimage. She explained this whole process to me before I first saw Yuna perform the sending dance in Kilika. I remember standing on the deck as she walked on water and danced so gracefully. Everyone just stood there watching her. It was strange, and somehow…horrifying. I knew I never wanted to see it again, but unfortunately, I saw it several times. First in Kilika, then after Operation Mi'ihen, then finally when we defeated Sin. The aeons, Sin…even Auron…bursting into pyreflies to find their way to the Farplane.

I knew how much it hurt Yuna to watch those pyreflies fly out of everyone's bodies….to see the crying faces of the loved ones of the departed. Yet, that was the path she chose. How could anyone live a life like that? I remember thinking after Operation Mi'ihen, 'People die, and Yuna dances. When will she stop dancing? When will it stop? Yuna won't stop dancing—not until Sin is gone." But now, Sin is gone. The teachings of Yevon never explained what would happen to all the souls when Sin was defeated. No one knew that the good in souls of dead people would deteriorate the same way; still hate, still turn them into fiends.

I didn't realize that I stopped listening to Baralai until Rikku waved her hand in front of my face. I guess that proves that I've been thinking too much lately and not paying attention to the important matters at hand. I was still trying to adjust. Like I said, I was gone for two years and so many things had happened. Now, it was as if I was remembering everything that happened during Yuna's pilgrimage, and now I was taking bits and pieces from then and applying them to a new puzzle. I blinked several times, shook my head, then looked back at them all. "Sorry," I apologized quietly as I put the book back down on the table. "So what needs to be done?"

"The emblem was actually inscribed in a beautiful crystal globe that was handed down for generations through the royal family of Yevon," he said as he flipped to a new page of his notes and pointed to something. "Look, see? The Grand Mage of the court, who figured out the power that this emblem could possess, presented the orb as a gift to Lady Yunalesca for her birthday. He was secretly in love with her and did not want her to go on her pilgrimage and die, so he explained to her that he was doing an investigation to find another way to do sendings. She laughed at him and told him he was being absurd, hurting the Grand Mage so deeply that he stopped his research. However, she did like the gift, so she kept it and turned it into a family heirloom. When she did leave for her pilgrimage, she gave it to her sister, then she passed it down to her daughter, and so on and so forth."

"I never knew that Yunalesca had a sister," I said as Baralai grinned.

"There are a lot of secrets about the royal family of Yevon that no one knows about except for the people who have taken time to read these books. Yu Yevon had several wives, which resulted into having many children." I could tell he wanted to go further into some of the details, but he knew it wasn't relevant to the things that were currently going on. "I'll save it for another time."

"What's the significance of this crystal globe thingie?" Rikku asked as she took the book out of my hand and tried to find the answer to her question.

"Well, it has the power to extract the souls from the bodies of the dead and guide them to the Farplane," he said as he pointed to the spot in the book and looked back at his notes. "Yeah, it basically has the same power that summoners had when they performed sendings. The only difference is that the person saying the spell doesn't need to take on the emotional stress of the procedure. I guess I can't confirm that though."

"So if this globe was sent down through generations, how are we going to find it?" Gippal asked as Baralai slightly blushed.

"I have it. I received it as a present from the previous successor of New Yevon when I was called into office as Praetor. I've kept it in my office ever since. I've, um, been using it as a paperweight. It's been so long since I've read over these notes that I just forgot that it actually has a meaning to it." He flipped to the next page in the pile of notes that was in front of him and nodded again. "Okay, here's the story where a mage actually tried this course of action and claims that it worked. Here's the spell that he used."

"Oy, more Latin!" Rikku said as she looked over Baralai's shoulder.

"Yeah, it's no problem though," he shrugged as he looked up at us all. "I'm fluent."

"So, back to Bevelle then?" Paine asked as she shut her book.

"Yeah. We don't have time to test this though," Baralai said as he swallowed hard. I could tell that he was happy that he figured out what needed to be done, but also terrified that he would have to be the one trying this out.

"What happens if, um, it doesn't work?" Rikku said nervously as she started to play with the scarf that hung from around her neck.

"Let's not try to think about that," Baralai said as he stood up and slightly stretched.

"That's not very comforting," I said with a slight laugh.

"It's the only hope we've got," he said as he scratched the back of his head. "However, Tidus, I have to tell you something that you're probably not going to want to hear."

"What's that?"

"In order to rid Yuna of the baby that she's carrying, she has to be close enough to Shuyin and Lenne to be in the light of the Orb of Imasakiza." My eyes widened and I let out a scoff.

"How close are we talking here?"

"I'm assuming within three or four yards," he said as he nodded.

"You've gotta be kidding me!" I exclaimed as I threw my hands in the air. "What happens if the spell doesn't work then? She's going to be so close to Lenne and Shuyin, and if we piss them off, she'll be their first target!"

"But you have to do it, okay?" He ordered as I looked up at the ceiling of the Celsius in disbelief. "Tidus, listen to me. I don't want anything to happen to Yuna either, okay? I will do everything in my power to protect her from harm. You have to trust me on this."

"Okay, fine, I trust you." I looked down at my shoes as Rikku gently patted my arm. I tried to let out a small smile, but only the corners of my mouth perked up. The rest of my face was downcast.

"Okay, let's go back to Bevelle, grab the orb, then go down the Via Infinito," Baralai said as he walked over to Brother to give him the command to fly back to Bevelle.

I wanted to trust him; I wanted to believe that she would be okay. But there was something in the back of my head telling me that this wasn't going to work. Baralai was talking about things that were based on theory, not fact. So one mage claimed that this worked. That's one opinion. You would think that more people would've tried it if someone got it to work! The whole process seemed really suspicious to me, but there wasn't anything else I could do but hope that it would work. Baralai was right, we didn't have any other choice.