Chapter 6
A few weeks before meteor was due, Rikku headed to the information centre, in the inner sanctum of Djose Temple. It was here that all the machina was kept that detailed all their plans. She was here to make sure that everything was cross-referenced appropriately, that no one was left out, that everyone was provided for.
It was quite routine work. Anyone could have done it, although only a few had access to the systems. Shinra and Gippal had built the things, Rikku helping occasionally, and sometimes suppressing a smirk as the two duked it out for the unofficial title of machina master. Though serious about their work, the two always found time to smile a trait that Rikku found curiously endearing. She had caught herself watching Gippal more than once, remembering how much fun they had had when they were young. He, Buddy and Brother had always gone around together, her trailing after them, begging to join in. He had been nice to her then, being closer to her age than Brother or Buddy. It was him who had fished her out of the water after Brother had hit her with that lightening spell. As they grew older, Buddy and Brother had started teasing him about her being his girlfriend. To prove them wrong he started ignoring her. They had begun to grow closer again as they had matured, but then he had left to join the crimson squad and she had gone to help Yuna. And since then they had both been so busy with their own lives they simply hadn't found time for each other anymore. As the leader of the machine faction he was always roaming around Spira, while she spent some much time visiting her friends and relations around the world…their paths must have crossed hundreds of times, but they never seemed to be in the same place at the same instance. And time had gone by.
Rikku logged onto the computer, and began the dull task of double-checking everyone else's work. She had nearly finished when she saw a name on the mage list. A name that must have slipped her notice before now. The name of her cousin, whose life she had managed to save before now, but whom she might not be able to protect again. Yuna.
Angrily, she used the Comm sphere to contact Besaid. She asked Yuna why. Why was she doing this when everyone had risked so much for her before now?
And Yuna replied that she could not live with herself if she didn't. She was one of the strongest mages in Spira. How could she ask others to do what she would not do herself?
Unable to find an answer, Rikku went back to the computer. Hands shaking, she entered her own name. It felt like signing her own death warrant.