May 3rd, 2006. I'm not dead, I swear. I can't express the amount of writers block that I have had these past few months, specifically on this fic. Between being in two different rps and school this semester, I have been extremely busy and haven't had a lot of time to write. However, these past few days have been like a writing spree for me, and I'm so extremely happy that I can't explain it. (But it does explain why I updated three chapters in this fic and two new fics!)

As for this fic, I knew that I already had the final chapter and the majority of the epilogue written for MONTHS, but this chapter... wow. I just couldn't find the right words for it and stuff... until today. I spent a very long time on it (from about 2pm until an hour ago, 1pm) and I think it turned out all right. Not the best chapter in the fic... my favorite is definitely the next chapter. Anyway, it gets the point across and connects the previous chapter with the next one! I hope you enjoy the rest of the fic!


9. The Point Of No Return

Baralai, Paine and I ended up waiting in the lobby a lot longer than we expected, but when Yuna showed back up, she came out with Rikku and Gippal. Rikku looked as though she was happy enough to hop up and down in joy for being out of that bed and there was even a little bounce in her step. The bandage around her head was removed, so all she was left with was a few cuts and bruises… and of course, plenty of energy as always. Gippal seemed to be a little worse off; he looked as though he was still in a little bit of pain and had a few bandages on his limbs, but for the most part they both fine, which was a relief. They had only been in the hospital for a day and they were already able to go home.

I looked at my watch and smirked as Ari squealed at the sight of Rikku. I handed the baby to her and said, "Wow, so they let you two out after all. What did Yuna have to say to bail you out?"

"You're making it sound like we were doing time in jail or something," Gippal said, scratching his arm where a bandage was wrapped securely. "Yuna just came back when the nurse wanted to check up on us and Blondie over here whined so much that she checked us over and decided that we could be released."

"I didn't whine, I suggested," Rikku clarified, bouncing the baby on her hip. Everyone knew that Rikku was getting cabin fever by staying in that room for a while and that she would do basically anything to be able to leave, which included whining. I wouldn't have put it passed her. "They're making us go back in for a check up in a few days though just to make sure that we're still okay and our wounds are healing well."

Gippal continued to scratch his arm, then made a face as he started to take off the bandaging. "I don't know why they made me keep this on, I'm not really hurt. Not to mention that it itches like hell."

Rikku gave him a playful glare and poked at the cut that he had around his arm when it was exposed, causing him to withdraw his arm and gasp. "I thought you said you weren't hurt, you baby."

"All right, all right, I'll keep it wrapped up but it's really annoying." He handed the bandage back to Rikku and she helped him wrap it around his arm again. Looking back up at Paine, Baralai and I, he continued. "Anyway, Cid and Brother went out the back way to grab the Rekrfeht and said they'd meet us by the entrance in a bit. Plus, since we're out now, we can go with you guys to Besaid."

"We won't have to stay there long," Yuna stated quickly, walking up to me and motioning toward the area where the Rekrfeht would meet us. "I just need to quickly grab some things, drop Ari off at Lulu and Wakka's, and then we can be on our merry way to Bevelle so we can confront Father Zoram."

I opened my mouth several times to say something, yet I wasn't sure how to form the words without sounding like I had a decent plan. Then again, it didn't seem as though Yuna had one either. After Paine gave me a look that I had gone completely insane by moving my mouth like that and not saying anything, I managed to find my voice. "Okay, so we're going to go find Father Zoram, and then what? What are we going to say to him? You can't just go in there and expect him to confess for everything that he has done."

"He's expecting me to show up."

I stopped in my tracks and I noticed that Rikku did as well. "That doesn't sound very comforting, Yunie…"

"I know, but it's the truth." She stopped walking and shrugged when she faced us all. "I told you that he's been sending me letters. Tidus, you even saw one of them and brought it to me at the hospital."

With a nod, I said, "Yes, that's true, and you promptly ripped it up into a million pieces." Crossing my arms against my chest, I continued, "but all it said was 'soon.' Soon what? It was more of a subliminal message than anything. It could've meant a lot of things"

"It was one that he sent last week." Again another really short reply, so I put my hand on her shoulder. Before I was able to say anything, she shook her head and continued walking. "Don't worry about it. The important thing is that we know that the same man fired Baralai, attacked Gippal and Rikku, and shot at me, so now we go take him down. That's what we do, remember? "

"You can't just go into a situation like this without a plan, Yuna," Baralai said looking between Yuna and I. "It would be like walking into a trap."

"I have a plan," she informed us. We all gave her looks to elaborate on said plan, so she sighed and said, "We drop off Ari, go to Bevelle, confront Father Zoram and then kill him." Letting a small smirk appear on her lips, she chuckled. "Come on, you guys, it's not that difficult of a concept."

I certainly wasn't convinced, and I could tell that the other four people around me weren't either. Unfortunately, before anyone was able to say anything, Brother and Cid began to land the Rekrfeht down. Even if someone was going to say something, no one would've been able to hear it over the roar of the engines and wind.

Ari scrunched up her face at the wind, so Yuna took her from Rikku and put her on her hip to calm her down a little bit. Once the ramp was put down, we all made our way up to the bridge and started toward Besaid. It was a very quiet ride there, for no one wanted to say anything. We all had things on our mind, but no one said anything. Plus, Gippal and Rikku took turns showering so that reduced the noise as well. I love them both dearly, but when they aren't joking around with each other, they're arguing with Brother or Cid.

I was actually rather surprised when Brother said that we were in Besaid already, but before I was able to do anything, Yuna grabbed Ariana and said, "Okay, I'll take Ari with me and I'll be right back." Without another word, she began running toward the house before I was able to protest.

"Well then," Paine drawled as she, Baralai, and I watched Yuna until she was out of sight. "She is something else today."

"I don't know about you guys, but I just don't feel right about this," I said softly. Baralai nodded slowly, then let out a sigh. She could've at least told me to ask Lulu and Wakka to watch Ari while Yuna ran into the house, but I didn't get a chance to say anything. Yuna's plans had too many glitches in it and too many things could've gone wrong, and that made me rather nervous.

I watched Baralai lean against the wall of the bridge out of the corner of my eye, and he said, "I have a very strong feeling that she knows more about this whole ordeal than she's telling us."

"I know she knows more about it than she's telling us." I let out a soft, frustrated 'tch.' "It seems like whenever I try to get more information out of her, she just grows more on edge and more determined to finish this. It's odd."

"It is," Paine muttered, walking over by Baralai and sitting down. "She's usually the first one to be all excited for teamwork and it's unlike her to want to do something solo."

Walking away from the exit a few feet so I wouldn't stare off and wait to see her again so quickly, I tapped my fingers against my arms. "It's obvious that she's trying to hide something from us all, but I just can't find the reason to why. She usually tells me everything."

"There's nothing we can do about at the moment, so we might as well just wait until she gets back," Baralai stated and I agreed with a nod. "Then we can drill her with the questions or at least ask her to go more in detail with her plan."

"That is, if she will go into detail." Paine had a point, but we didn't have any choice but to sit there and wait.

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"She's… been gone for a while," I said, looking down at my watch for the fifth time that minute. It had been about twenty minutes since she left the Rekrfeht, and I was surprised that I was able to wait for that long without freaking out and seeing what was taking so long. However, now I couldn't push that aching feeling back that something happened. "I know that she and Lulu like to talk, but I doubt that Yuna would want to be very talkative when she's in this kind of a mood."

Baralai nodded and had a quick look around the airship. We were the only two on the bridge now; Brother and Cid were in the engine room to make sure that everything was orderly, and Rikku, Paine, and Gippal were in the cabin so Rikku could rebandage him properly. When his eyes met mine again, he didn't even wait for my confirmation as he walked toward the ramp and said, "We should probably go make sure that everything is all right."

We both half walked, half ran toward the house, not Lulu and Wakka's, and my pulse continued to race. I could see that the lights were on in nearly every room and I could see that the door was opened a crack. Baralai and I exchanged looks and I muttered, "this doesn't look good, but I think that goes without saying." I slowly put the palm of my hand against the door and pushed it open.

I froze in my spot when I saw the condition of the house. It was a complete mess… much like Gippal's apartment looked after the attack on he and Rikku. Furniture was overturned, small knickknacks broken on the floor, books and papers everywhere. It didn't take a genius to recognize the brush work in this job; they liked to make sure that they made their appearance known.

"What…happened?" Baralai was the first to find words, but it was exactly what I was thinking. Unfortunately, I knew the answer, but I didn't want to believe it. I think the same went for Baralai.

After finally finding control of my limbs, I rushed upstairs to see if I could find my wife or daughter. I had to hope that they were still in the house somewhere and this happened while we were in Bikinel, but deep in my heart I knew that I was just wasting time by trying to find them. They were probably halfway to the Bevelle temple by now, the Yevonites who took her laughing at how long it took us to realize what happened.

I opened the bedroom door and saw that the room was in the same condition as the downstairs. Obviously, there was a fight but I wasn't surprised. Yuna never would let herself be taken willingly, but I knew that they must've been waiting for her to return. Thinking about it, I started to put some pieces together and walked toward the dresser. Everything was thrown out, and it was clear to me that the black box that was in that dresser was taken as well.

Something caught my eye on the right side of the room and I saw that there was an abundance of papers on the floor of the closet. Narrowing my eyes, I went over there, knelt down and began looking at them. They were all like the letters that I found before; most in the thick envelope that they came in, but some of them were separated from the envelope and loose. I picked one up, and in the same script as before stated, 'Or Else.' I scoffed and mumbled, "What are you, Zoram, six?"

I tossed the paper over my shoulder as Baralai walked in and shook his head. "I looked in both bedrooms. There's no one's here."

"No," I said as I stood up and bit at my lower lip. I looked on the bed to see another piece of paper, so I walked over to it and picked it up. This one said, 'Bevelle Temple.' Crumpling up the paper with one hand, I set my jaw and said, "Let's go back the Rekrfeht. We're going to Bevelle."

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It didn't take us long to arrive at Bevelle, and for that I was thankful. Cid and Brother parked the Rekrfeht far enough away from the city so we wouldn't be heard, and Rikku, Gippal, Paine, Baralai, and I walked the rest of the way. Before entering the city, we stopped several yards away from the Highbridge and peered around the wall. With a sigh, I looked at the front gate of the Bevelle Temple; it was heavily guarded but it wasn't exactly a shock. There had to be about twenty-five guards directly in front of the entrance, not to mention the thirty or so on the balconies, each armed with a semiautomatic gun. I also heard Baralai sigh, so I nodded in the direction of the guards. "Zoram's doing?"

"You know it," he stated, shaking his head at the sight. "I never had this many guards on duty… period, let alone all at the front door like that, it's not needed. Even when we were filtering things when all the mysterious letters were appearing, I didn't want more guards because it would cause alarm for the citizens of Spira. They would think that there was a problem and there wasn't a need for mass chaos when we didn't have any proof that something was wrong." Tapping his fingers against his hip, a small smirk appeared on his face. "It's a little too stereotypical though; all those guards for extra security to make sure that one can breech the barrier. It's proof that he's up to something."

Paine scoffed and said, "Perhaps he was reading Villainy for Dummies while he wasn't planning the mutiny, Lai."

"He skipped the 'How To Be Evil, Yet Subtle' chapter," I murmured, too worried about Yuna's safety to truly be entertained by Paine's smart ass remarks.

Rikku nodded and looked at the garment grid attached to her hip. "Right now he might as well just have a flashing neon light sign pointing to the temple that flashes, 'I have the High Summoner in here, ha ha!'"

"Well, it's a good thing for us," Gippal said, patting Rikku on the back gently. "At least we know that this is where they took Yuna and Ariana."

"Yeah, now the question is," I began, exhaling and watching the guarded entrance carefully. "How the hell do we get in there without getting caught? There's no way that we can all go in there at the same time; it would look too suspicious and we'd be spotted instantly."

"Think we can take them all on?" Rikku asked, inspecting the twin swords in her hands.

Baralai shook his head. "Even if we could, someone would probably let Zoram know that we were going in there to get Yuna back out."

"He would be a moron to not think that we would come in after her," Paine added, putting her hands on her hips.

Rikku brushed a tendril of hair out of her face before pointing her finger in thought. "Then again, you are talking about the man who sealed all the envelopes to Yuna with a wax stamp in the shape of the sign of Yevon. Not the smartest chocobo in the herd."

"And that note did say to go to the Bevelle Temple," Gippal pointed out. "When you think about it, it was basically bait to get us here."

"I wonder if those were his intentions," Baralai said under his breath, the four of them looking around to make sure that no one was around to hear them.

"I'm assuming that it was." I shrugged my shoulders and kept my hand on the hilt of my sword. I was hoping that I wasn't going to have to pull it out any time soon for it had been quite a while since I used it last. Two years, actually. "It worked anyway. But, now we have to get in there somehow. Anyone have any ideas that would work? You know, that doesn't involve dying in the process?"

Baralai bit on the inside of his cheek for a second and then nodded his head. "The Via Purifico."

Lifting up my head, I asked, "You think that'll work?"

"Why not? I mean, it's technically the prison of Bevelle and I'm sure Zoram didn't guard it as heavily as the front entrance. He probably underestimates us and thinks that we'd try to go through the front door and not think of alternate options," he thought, looking down into the water next to the Highbridge.

"It's been a few years, but from what I remember, it wasn't all that hard to navigate my way around down there." I looked at Rikku and she nodded. Between her, Wakka, and I, we were able to get out of there in about a half hour. Of course, someone who wasn't a blitz player or spent a large majority of their life training to hold their breath for long periods of time wouldn't have made it that way, but we three didn't have a problem at all. "Heh, sounds like a plan. All right then."

I started to walk toward the Highbridge, but Rikku and Gippal began to follow me. Turning around, I shook my head and said, "No, you guys stay here with Baralai and Paine."

"What are you talking about?" She asked, putting her hands on her hips. "Gippal and I are the only ones besides you who can hold our breath long enough to go down there, and strength in numbers is going to be the way to do this."

Paine scoffed and walked a few steps closer to us as well, "and what are Baralai and I supposed to do in the mean time? Stay here, knit, and wait to see how dead you guys end up? I think not."

"Look, you four need to band together and find another way into the temple while I go in through the Via Purifico. I don't think it'll be as bad once I get inside and I can handle an occasional guard by myself." At least I hoped that was the case. Looking up, I continued, "Baralai, you were Praetor, you know the place pretty well, don't you?"

He nodded. "I know every inch of the place."

"Meaning you know the hidden passageways, correct?" Again, he nodded. "Good. The Via Purifico is a direct route, so there must be more. Find another one, a safe one, and if you can't, you guys can just wait here."

"We'll find something," Baralai said quickly, probably because he didn't want to sit around and wait to see what was going to happen, or argue with me some more about it. Whether it was a really stupid idea or not, I wasn't going to let them come with me and the longer we stood out here and argued about it, the bigger the chance was that Yuna and Ariana would be harmed. "We have our cell phones on us in case you need anything."

Patting my pocket to motion that I had mine on me as well, I began walking toward the Highbridge again. Looking over my shoulder, I informed them, "I'm coming back in an hour or I'm not coming back." They nodded and then I dove into the water to enter the Via Purifico.