Well, I was originally going to do this explanation differently, but seen as how this way will be easier and I've had a number of questions as to what is happening in Spira all this while, here it is! The Meanwhile!

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Inside the Celcius, Buddy, Brother and Shinra were waiting for The Gullwings to check in after their battle. It was getting late in the day, and Buddy headed to the cottage to ask Bud and Lisa when they thought the others would get back. He slipped inside and found the two of them just hanging out around the table. He smiled at them.

"Hey guys."

"Hi Buddy." Lisa greeted him, not looking up from the paper she was writing on. Bud grinned at him.

"Hey Buddy, wanna play cards?" He asked eagerly. Lisa rolled her eyes. Buddy shrugged.

"How long will everyone be at the tree?" He asked, instead over answering.

"They'll probably be back by dusk, or a little after, depending on how long they fight for." Lisa answered, still not looking up. Buddy nodded.

"Okay." He looked at Bud. "Want me to go get the other guys to play cards too? I'm sure they'd be happy to come play here instead of sticking around in the ship." He offered. Bud nodded vigorously. Within minutes, Buddy was back again, this time with Brother and Shinra trailing behind him. The four of them sat down at the table, avoiding Lisa and her work, and started to play cards. Shinra decided to teach them to play euchre. It took a lot of explaining for Bud and Brother to understand, Buddy picked up pretty quickly. Lisa kept glancing up at them, and then sighing. Bud looked at her.

"Wanna play Lis?" He asked. Lisa sighed again.

"I really shouldn't…" She began. Bud raised an eyebrow at her, and she grinned. "But what I should do and what I will do are two totally different things." She finished, pushing her work off the table and onto the extra chair out of her way. She scooped up her hand and grinned. They played hand after hand after hand. Shinra beat them again and again and again. Lisa crossed her arms.

"Can we play something else?" She asked, sounding frustrated. Everyone but Shinra nodded in agreement. The child genius sighed.

"Alright, how about sphere break."

"What?" Bud and Lisa asked at the same time. Shinra smiled, pulling out the game. They spent the next little while teaching Bud and Lisa to play. They practiced, and it turned out they mostly spent their time playing on a team. Bud had the speed and Lisa the logic, so by the time the moon had risen, Bud and Lisa were getting good enough for them to nearly beat even Shinra when they worked together. Suddenly, Buddy jumped to his feet.

"It's almost midnight!" He said. The others blinked in surprise. Then Lisa realized what he was talking about. She froze. Struggling to find an explanation, she smiled nervously.

"Don't worry, it's probably just taking them longer than we expected." She said slowly. Then, Brother caught on.

"Is Yuna okay?" He asked hurriedly. Everyone ignored him. Shinra sighed.

"We haven't lost a connection with their comm's yet, so they can't be in that much trouble. I'm sure they'll be fine. It's like Lisa said, it's just taking them longer than we had previously anticipated." He didn't seem worried. Buddy tried to shrug it off, even if he still had a bad feeling.

His hat fluttering behind him in the wind, his green poncho flying out behind him, he ran as fast as his legs could carry him. Breathless, Niccolo stumbled up to the door of Bud and Lisa's cottage. He took a moment to catch his breath, and knocked. The door opened, and the fat rabbit stumbled inside.

"They…they….they're gone!" He breathed. Buddy and Brother stood up and helped him into a chair.

"Take a breath." Lisa ordered. Niccolo sighed, breathing deeply. Buddy crossed his arms.

"Who's gone?" He asked sharply. He somehow could guess.

"All of them!" He said, wheezing. Brother blinked at him.

"Who is all of them?" He asked dumbly. Shinra elbowed him.

"Your sister for one." He answered. Brother blinked.

"Rikku? Rikku is gone? Where is she!" He shouted. Buddy glared at him.

"Calm down Brother! They're all gone, gone where?" He asked. Niccolo sighed, aggravated.

"Come with me! Pokiehl will explain!" He told them hurriedly, pulling himself to his feet and walking towards the door. Buddy groaned.

"We don't have time, we have to find them now, if something's happened." He answered. Shinra nodded.

"He's right. A human can only be revived within four minutes after death, and there's only a very slim chance of that." He told them. Niccolo waved his hands desperately.

"Then we'll never get to them in time!" He shouted. Then, everyone froze. The fire in the fireplace started glowing unnaturally bright, and started becoming a bluish-colour. Then, there was a flash that blinded all of them. As they regained their sight, they saw a transparent image of a woman standing before them. She held a sword, that was much more real than the rest of her. She smiled sadly and walked up to Buddy, who was standing closest.

"Take this." She said, handing the sword to him with a bow of her head. Buddy bowed low, even if she wasn't sure why, though it seemed natural. He took the sword and watched her, not sure he wanted to hear what she was about to say. "I come to deliver you some distressing news. You're friends fought valiantly, for my sake and the sake of this entire world. They did fall, but will be remembered and honoured. I wish you to know that they were excellent fighters and had the purest of hearts. You should be proud to have been their friends." She stated. Then, offering them another smile, she took a step back, there was another blinding flash, and she was gone.

"…who was that?" Bud asked slowly. Lisa bit her lip.

"…I think…that was the Mana Goddess…"

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Not long after that, the two Al Bhed men and one Al Bhed boy genius were back on their ship, gliding back towards Spira to deliver the bad news to their home world. Shinra hit a couple of buttons, and started talking.

"Listen, we have some bad news, our girls didn't survive the fight. I think a memorial is in order. Before we get back, we'll be stopping off in the Kingdom to deliver the news to Sora and Kairi's friends, and we'll need to find out where Emma's from to tell her friends as well." He pushed a few more buttons and sat back with a sigh. Brother and Buddy were staring at him. "What?" He asked. Buddy blinked.

"What was that?" He asked.

"I sent a radio message to Cid on Spira. He'll arrange for everything by the time we get back, after going to the Kingdom." He answered. "Oh, and I think we need to get Leblanc and Nooj, too."

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Selphie sat on the beach of the Destiny Islands. She seemed contented, working happily on whatever was in front of her. Only the sharpest of eyes would see the tears streaming down her cheeks. There was a bowl sitting in front of her. Inside, there were thin slices of dried paopu fruit. She picked a handful out of it and crumbled it in her hands and stood up.

"We'll never forget you. Sora, Kairi, Riku. We miss you every day, and if you're out there somewhere, if there is a heaven, please know that if you ever find yourselves back on these beaches, you'll always be welcome." With that, she tossed the dried paopu dust into the air, along with the leaves from the stem of the fruit. She watched as a gust of wind lifted her offering high into the air, and kept her eyes on it until it passed in front of the sun and she couldn't see it any more.

……………Months Later……………

The Celcius glided in silence over the turquoise water between Luca and Kilika Island. Shinra sighed. He'd been avoiding the question, but, as always, his curiosity got the best of him. He had an idea what the answer would be, and it hurt, but he still had to ask.

"So, why are we going to Besaid?" He asked quietly. Brother groaned, covering his face with his hands. Buddy shook his head.

"It's Yuna's birthday today. She was supposed to have turned 20, and Wakka and Lulu were going to name her and Tidus godmother and father to Vidinia. They're going to put on a memorial for her and everyone. There was only more silence as they approached Besaid. They landed, and the whole island seemed to be in silence in honour of the dead. Solemnly, the three Al Bheds walked off the ship. Shinra was the last one out. As he left, he heard a beeping. Normally, he would have ignored it, the memorial was much more important, but the beeping signaled that they were receiving a distress signal. He paused, considering it, and turned around to slip back into the ship, for just a moment.

Buddy and Brother walked into the village, where Wakka, Lulu, the young Vidinia, and everyone else from the village were gathered around a huge bonfire. Wakka and Lulu were telling stories of the pilgrimage, how brave Yuna, Tidus and Rikku were. Nooj and Leblanc were sitting off to the side. Nooj had his hands covering his face, and Leblanc was trying to console him. Nooj was often upset at these memorials, he often blamed himself for their death, saying that things might have been different if he was there to help them fight the goddess. Buddy walked over to him.

"Hey, Nooj, don't be so hard on yourself. The best you can do for anyone is keep the memories alive. I'm sure we'd all like to hear stories of the other worlds you traveled to." He said quietly. He refused at first, but with a little bit more coaxing he agreed. So, he and Leblanc took over the story telling. A few minutes later, Lulu leaned over to Buddy.

"Where's Shinra?" She whispered. Buddy blinked.

"I don't know, I had assumed he was following us…" He strained to look down the path to see if the young genius was on his way. He saw nothing.

Shinra sat down in his chair, and hit a few buttons. A window popped up on the screen. Message will be decoded in 4 minutes, 24 seconds. The numbers counted down. Shinra groaned. He didn't want a full analysis, he just wanted to know who was sending it and where it was from. He hit a few more buttons, and the little window disappeared, to be replaced with a screen full of 1s and 0s. He scanned over it, searching for the signature. Once he found it, he stared a moment, confused. He had to be wrong. But no, Shinra knew everything, he couldn't be wrong. Maybe his goggles were fogged up. He pulled them off, cleaned them, and put them back on again. Still, it made no sense. He hit a few more buttons, just to make sure, and the binary was replaced with a jumble of letters and numbers. He scanned over the screen again, until he found the signature again. No, there was something very weird going on. The signature stated that the signal was coming in at a .4 strength, so low that it couldn't possibly be coming from anywhere on Spira with even the worst conditions. Besides, the location of the source was supposed to be almost exactly straight up. Even more strange however, was that the Celcius signature was encoded into it. He couldn't imagine who but him would know that code. Rikku maybe, but… Then he froze. It couldn't possibly be coming from Rikku, could it? He scanned over the rest of the code. The signal was fine tuned to the frequency that the Celcius comm. system worked on, it was clear that the sender of the distress signal knew the workings of the Celcius and had intended for the message to get to this ship and get the attention of the remaining Gullwings as quickly as possible. He hit a handful more buttons, and a little window popped up in the screen. Connecting… He waited impatiently. He could hear a strange buzzing sound, and then a click.

"he--o?" A voice came through the speakers, layered with static and barely understandable.

"This is Shinra of the Al Bhed air ship Celcius, currently landed on Besaid Island. Your distress signal has been received." He spoke slowly, knowing that his voice would sound very fuzzy on the other side.

"Shi-ra?" Another voice was speaking now, a female one.

"Yes, this is Shinra." He answered. He was tempted to speak Al Bhed, since the language was designed to carry better over airwaves, but he knew that few people could speak it, much less people on another planet. Or, that what he thought until he heard the stream of it coming over the speakers.

Running as fast as his still rather short legs could carry him, Shinra came racing into the village. Gasping for breath, he slowed to a walk as he approached the bonfire. Everyone had stopped talking to stare at him. Buddy was glaring.

"What took you so long?" He asked sharply.

"We've received a most unusual distress signal." He answered. Buddy looked like he was going to yell at the younger boy, but Wakka spoke first.

"From who, man?" He asked. Shinra faltered.

"From…uhh…Rikku. And Gippal and Tidus." He answered. No one said anything and the silence was unnerving so he continued. "Well, those are the only people I talked to, but the rest of them are probably there too." He answered. (AN: stuff written like "this" means it's in Al Bhed)

"Don't fool about this kind of stuff Shinra! It's not funny!" Brother scoffed angrily. Shinra looked offended.

"I'm not fooling!" He shouted. There was silence again. Everyone knew Shinra didn't shout. Maybe he wasn't kidding. Buddy sighed.

"Alright, show us." He said reluctantly. Shinra took a deep breath, and started off at a run again, back towards the ship, this time with Buddy and Brother following. In the village, Shinra's arrival had signaled the end of the memorial, and no one was really sure of what to do, until Lulu started shooing them back into their huts, telling them that life must go on.

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There ya go! Now, as a warning, the beginning of the next chappie will overlap some with this one, so, just be prepared I guess. RnR!