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Chapter Six

Kilika Sunset

Tidus groaned with boredom. The sun beat down hot on the ship as it cut through the water. It was only noon. Wakka told Tidus that they wouldn't arrive until sundown. That was hours and hours away.

"Come to think of it," Wakka said about an hour into the journey. "First to Kilika Island, then we change boats and head for Luca. 'Fore that, though, Yuna's gotta pray at the temple. I'll be guarding. We'll be praying for the Aurochs' victory, too, so you come along, ya?"

He'd tried to amuse himself. He'd swiped a pair of binoculars from the look-out and used them to gaze at the passengers on the ship. Lulu had glared at him, and Yuna had waved enthusiastically, but no one else seemed to notice. He walked all over the ship, the deck, the cabin, everywhere, twice. He inhaled the salty sea air until he was dizzy. He counted the seconds it took for someone to walk by. And still. it didn't seem like any time was passing. It would be hours before they reached Kilika.

However, the below-deck power room was very interesting to him. "Wh-What the heck is that?" He exclaimed when he walked in. There were two large, yellow birds running on some sort of conveyor.

"Wh-What the heck is what?" The female engineer in the room asked, mocking him.

"What's with the big birds?"

The woman gave an odd laugh. "What's so strange about chocobo power?"

"Chocobos?" He repeated, the word sounding strange on his tounge. "Those are chocobos?"

"You've never seen a chocobo before?" The woman was obviously surprised. "What kind of backwater island did you come from?" Miracles and oddities seemed to be a daily routine on this trip.

He returned to the deck and found the summoner. Yuna stood at the front of the deck, Kimahri by her side, with the Aurochs and crewmen surrounding her. They talked stupidly, asking her questions, calling her, "Dear Lady Summoner." Tidus felt disgusted at their stupidity. Yet, one of the crewman said soemthing that stopped him dead.

"Word is, that's summoner's got noble blood!" The crewman was softly saying to another.

"I hear she's Lord Braska's daughter!" The other one responded.

"Lord Braska's...daughter?" The name was familiar. The statue of the summoner in the temple. The one who'd become "High Summoner" ten years ago.

"Is Yuna's father famous of something?" Tidus asked when he found Wakka and Lulu conversing near the cabin entrance.

"She's the daughter of High Summoner Braska, you saw his statue at the temple. Lord Braska defeated Sin ten years ago. Yuna's the heir to a great legacy!" Wakka said, proudly thinking of the summoner he was guarding.

Tidus thought of Jecht and sighed. "It's tough...when your father's famous."

Wakka gave him a slight, confused stare. "Wakka's...a bit lacking in the imagination department." Lulu explained.

Tidus chuckled. "Thanks, Lulu, I'll keep that in mind."

The crowd near Yuna was dispersing. The Aurochs had to practice, and the crewmen had to do their routine inspections on the ship. Yuna stood at the very front of the ship, if she fell forward, she would tumble from the boat and splash into the water. Kimahri stood protectively nearby. He decided to take this oppourtunity to talk with Yuna, like she'd asked him to.

When Yuna turned around and saw him coming, she flashed him a kind smile. "The wind...it's nice." She said softly, her ash-brown hair whipping in the sea breeze.

He tried tot hink of something to say, but only laughed at his stupidity. He then felt stupider. Luckily, Yuna laughed for no reason with him. "You're a blitzball player?" She asked. "From Zanarkand...right?"

"You hear that from Wakka?" Tidus asked. He sighed. "Wakka doesn't believe me at all."

"But, I believe you!" Yuna said excitedly. "I hear in Zanarkand, there is a great stadium, all lit up even at night!" She was smiling broadly, her eyes lost in a daydream. "Great blitzball tournaments are held there...and the stands are always full!"

"How do you know that?" Tidus asked, he had figured that the history of Zanarkand was lost with the destruction.

"A man named Jecht told me. He was my father's guardian."

The shock hit Tidus like one of the sea waves that lapped against the side of the ship. Jecht? Did she say Jecht? Not his father, right? Not his Jecht. 'He's dead.' Tidus reminded himself. 'It's not him. He's dead. He died in Zanarkand. He's never been here.'

"Jecht..." He repeated the name outloud, in disgust. "My...my father. His name was Jecht."

Yuna's eyes and mouth grew wide, and she jumped up in excitement. "Amazing!" She breathed happily. She graciously did the prayer gesture. "You know, our meeting like this, it must be a blessing of Yevon!"

Tidus pondered the thought in his head. Could it be his father. He hoped not. He enjoyed his life much more, knowing that his father was gone. Totally vanished. Assumed dead.

"It sounds like him. But it can't be."

Yuna frowned and tilted her head. "Why not?"

Tidus clamped his eyes shut and let the memory flood through and out into the open. "My old man, he died. Ten years ago off the coast of Zanarkand. He went out to sea for training one day, and never came back. And no one's seen him since then."

"I'm sorry." Yuna whispered. She looked disappointed. But it quickly faded, and more happiness took it's place on her face. "Why, that's the day that Jecht came to Spira!"

Tidus looked at her in shock. "It's true!" She added. "I first met Jecht ten years and three months ago! The date fits, doesn't it?" Tidus thought. Yuna was right. It was ten years and a little over three months since Jecht vanished. "I remember...that was the day my father left." Yuna said softly, staring at the sea.

Tidus tried to laugh off the revalation. "Yeah, but how could he get here?" He was only trying to convince himself that it wasn't him, but in his heart, he knew. He knew that the man Yuna spoke of was definetaly his father.

"Well," Yuna said. "You are here, are you not?" She chuckled softly, as Tidus thought it over. He didn't have time to reply before a lurch rocked the boat, not unlike the one that had signified Sin on the Al Bhed's ship.

The vessel rocked violently, and Yuna fell backwards in surprise. Tidus reached out and grabbed hold of her wrist, hoping to keep her from sliding off the boat. He held on tight, begging himself not to let her go against the brisk rocking of the boat.

A sudden jolt flung Yuna from his grip. She slid across the deck on her hands and knees towards the edge of the boat. With a squeal of fear, she grabbed hold of the handles of the harpoon launcher bolted to the deck. Kimahri sprinted over and grabbed Yuna's shoulders, pulling her away.

Waves as large as the boat itself crashed onto the deck, making it slippery and confusing. Tidus tried to stay ont he deck, but the water splashing made it too hard to stay calm and focused. And then he saw it. It was a fin. A huge, pointed fin, bursting from the water. It towered above the waves, it's size envying the height of the boat's mast. The owner of the fin was still underwater, but Tidus knew right away what it was. He'd seen it before with his own eyes, that horrible night in Zanarkand.

"Sin!" One of the crewmen screamed. The passengers and crew were in a panic. One crewman ran to the harpoon launcher where Yuna had grabbed on to save herself and prepared to fire.

"What do ya think you're doing?" Wakka screamed. "Stick a harpoon in it and we'll all get dragged under!"

"Sin's headed for Kilika. We've gotta destract it!" A crewman trying to hold footing on the slippery deck explained.

"Our families are in Kilika." Begged the man at the harpoon launcher. "Forgive us, Lady Summoner!" And then he fired. The harpoon dug sharply into Sin's fin, and it let out a thunderous roar of displeasure.

Sin suddenly burst in the opposite direction. The harpoon launcher was ripped from the deck of the boat, bolts flying, and it went sailing off, still attached to Sin's fin. The fin disappeared underwater, and the waters were calm once again.

The town of Kilika was a peaceful seaside town, built on along an inlet of the sea, forming a small bay. Beyond was a rich, tangled forest known as the Kilika Woods. Beyond was the Kilika Temple, a large, stone building, intricately made to look like a giant flame-like design. Eternal flames that were blessed so that they would never burn out shone brightly all around the temple. It was always calm. But on that one afternoon, Kilika would be calm no longer.

The massive tidal wave, similar to the one that had led to the destruction of Zanarkand was quickly approaching Kilika. By the time the residents noticed the wall of water, it was already too late. The wave crashed down. People ran in every direction, wondering why Sin would choose their peaceful village to destroy. Their little wooden houses all on the water were ripped up in seconds. Wood and other debris from the houses littered the air and floated down and into the water. So did many, many corpses. When Sin turned and left, all was peaceful once again.

When Sin attacked Zanarkand that day, Tidus woke up in Spira. He kept hoping it would work in reverse, too. He was just fooling himself. Maybe it was that day out on the sea, under the burning sun that he started to give up hope. He was in a foreign world, He wasn't going home. This was his new reality and he was stuck in it for good.

"I will defeat Sin," Yuna kept saying over and over again as the sun began to set, and the island of Kilika grew bigger as they grew closer. "I must defeat Sin."

The boat finally pulled into the port at Kilika just as the sky was beginning to grow a yellow orange. As soon as the crewmen lowered the ramp to disembark onto the port dock, Yuna ran and disembarked. Tidus frowned at the detroyed port town. "It's...not supposed to look like this, is it?" He asked Wakka.

"Let's go see what we can do to help in town." Wakka suggested. He and the Aurochs disembarked and ran off.

Yuna approached a man and woman waiting on the dock for the boat. "Greetings. I am the summoner Yuna. I have come from the temple in Besaid."

"M'lady Summoner!" The woman greeted. Both did the prayer.

"If there is no other summoner here, please allow me to perform the sending." Yuna asked, speaking calmly and assuredly, as though she was trying to fix the broken town with her words.

"Thanks be to ye!" The man said, looking at Yuna with the highest regard.

"Our loved ones," The woman said, a slight panic in her voice. "We feared that they would become fiends!"

"Please take me to them." Yuna said softly. They led her off along what was left of the smashed and splintered wooden walkways. Tidus, Kimahri, and Lulu followed.

They reached part of the walkway that stared into nothing but the calm, slightly moving ocean, and the softly setting sun which hung over the ocean, casting yellow and pink lights that danced on the water.

"What's a 'sending?' Are we going somewhere?" Tidus quietly asked Lulu once they were standing in front of the water where Yuna had been lead to, where most of the town seemed to be standing as well.

"You truly are clueless." Lulu said, her voice annoyed, "Are you sure it's just your memory that's the problem?" She stopped and pointed to Yuna, who was standing at the walkway's edge, near the water. Many of the villagers were in or near tears. In the water, and he felt strange for not noticing it before, were several dozen wooden body-shaped caskets. They were painted elegantly and adorned with bright tropical flowers. They were the ones Sin had killed. Their loved ones were the ones standing on the walkway in mourning.

"The dead need guidance." Lulu explained. "Filled with grief over their own death, some of them refuse to face their fate. They yearn to live on, and may even begin to resent those still alive. You see, they envy the living. And in time, that envy turns to anger, even hate." Lulu's face looked grave and solemn. "Should these soulds remain in Spira, they will become fiends that prey on the living. Sad, isn't it?" Tidus nodded, unsure of how to react. "The sending takes them to the Farplane, an eternal paradise, where they may rest in peace."

"Summoners do this?" Tidus asked, wondering how the whole thing would work.

"Hmm." Lulu said with a nod. They she gestured to Yuna, who had removed her black boots and was preparing to step into the water. She held her staff firmly in one of her hands. Kimahri stood near, on the walkway, arms folded, eyes watching.

But, she wasn't in the water, she was on top of it. Tidus couldn't have explained it. Soft ripples, similar to when raindrops dimple stillwater, resonated from the steps her pale feet took. Her back was turned to the mourners. She held her staff, pointed out to the side. She stood in the center of the caskets gathered underwater. Seeing her reminded Tidus of a water-lily, so delicate and beautiful, floating above the water, without a care in the world. Then, suddenly, she began to twirl, like dancing. Twirling her staff above her head, she danced atop the water, like she was alone, like no one was watching her. So confident, so graceful.

She danced longer, twirling her staff so it brushed the top of the water, as if blessing the underwater coffins. Finally, something happened. Out from underwater burst a strange sort of thing. It looked almost like a faint star in the night sky, only it floated heavenly around, following the direction of Yuna's staff. It glowed a strange sort of blue, pink, and yellow, and behind it it trailed a sort of energy, perhaps, Tidus thought. It made the world surrounding it blurry. He got a sense from it that it was actually a living thing. A creature of some kind. More of them had burst from the water, following Yuna's staff. As they all floating, they made a strange sound. Sort of like a choir, singing faintly, from far away.

Maybe it was from the magic of the sending, or maybe it was from the force of the glowing light creatures coming up from the water. Whatever it was, a small sort of geyser had begun to rise from the water, twirling as Yuna did, and she was atop it. The light creatures swirled around her. And something about the whole image was terrifying to Tidus.

Eventually, the geyser died. All the glowing light creatures had vanished. Yuna slowly sank into the water. She trudged through the water and climbed back onto the walkway. Kimahri walked protectively behind her as she approahed Tidus and Lulu.

"It must be tough...being a summoner." Tidus said, still in wonder and shock of what he'd just seen.

"Yuna chose her own path. She knew from the beginning what it meant. Lulu said in response. "All we can do is protect her along the way. Until the end."

"The end?" Tidus repeated. "What's the end?"

Lulu sighed and was visibly frustrated. "Until she defeats Sin." By then Yuna had approached them.

Lulu embraced the young summoner. "I hope...I hope I did okay." Yuna sounded so sad.

"You did very well." Lulu said in a calm, soothing voice, not at all the tone she used with Tidus. "They've reached the Farplane by now. But no tears next time, hm?" Yuna backed away from her guardian, and Tidus saw her face. It was red, streaked with soft tears. Her eyes were puffy. She gave Lulu an sad smile, and her and Kimahri turned and walked away.

He wished there would never be a next time. No more people getting killed by Sin. And that would hopefully mean, no more sendings for Yuna. Everyone had just stood there, watching her. It was so strange to him, and somehow horrifying. He never wanted to see it again.