Disclaimer: You can find it on Chapter 1
Hello all! Merry Christmas is in order from me! Heh, this chapter comes as a christmas-present from me to you all, especially my wonderful reviewers such as: 'Nikki of Spira, Warui-Usagai, Jiahao, TgliDgUiS, Kyritawuv, Darkmichaeal etc. If I've forgotten any of you, please don't be afraid to tell me so ). As I said earlier, a christmas-present. I wasn't intending on posting Chapter 3 so shortly as 6 days after Chapter 2. But since if was so that I recieved this wonderful new laptop as a christmas-present yesterday from my mom. I sat up hours straight typing Chapter 3 & 4 done.. So yeah, Chapter 4 is even done and waiting to be posted later on when I get the time to. Thank you all for reading and please continue reviewing, keeps me going! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Please enjoy this chapter
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Chapter 3 - A Dream Of Love
"Can you tell us what happened now, Yunie?" Rikku's curious voice asked as they had settled Tidus down on Yuna's bed. With a tired sigh Yuna walked over to the small table she had in the room and pulled out a chair before settling her tired self on it.
"I-I really don't know myself, Rikku.." she muttered in a tight voice. "He seemed fine for a minute... and then, I saw some oddness in him... He told me he was fine," Yuna continued, her voice shattering with each word that left her. "and then he just collapesed into my arms, unconscious..." she ended in sadness. Sadness that turned into a small fit of anger a moment later. "He told me that he was fine!" she uttered in her anger, voice slightly raised.
They all stood in silence after Yuna's outbreak, looking on with sad faces at their beloved friend that hurted so much. Niether one of them really knowing what they could possibly say to ease Yuna's pain.
"I'm sorry that I yelled... I had no right to...""Yuna, there's no need to be apologizing to us, ya?" Wakka spoke in with a glance at Lulu for backup.
"Wakka's right, Yuna. You have the right to be off edge, you've had that right since your journey to vanquish Sin 2 years ago."
"Our..." Yuna corrected, confusing them all in an instant with the simple word she had let slip out of her mouth in the calmest voice she had managed to muster up during that moment.
"'Our' what, Yunie?" Rikku asked after a while.
"Journey...Our journey. It was all our journey to defeat Sin 2 years ago." Yuna replied shortly after, still hanging onto the calm voice she had used earlier. "I could never have done it on my own, not without my friends by my side. Having you all there... Tidus, Sir Auron, Kimhari," Yuna looked up at the ones in front of her as she continued "You, Rikku, Lulu and Wakka... You all were there for me...Withour journey." me.. Making it
Lulu watched on as she took in Yuna's every word with care and love, oh how she loved this young woman who sat in front of her, bearing the most unbareable pain possible. How she deeply longed for just to cradle Yuna in her arms and whisk away all her pain with divine promises. How she longed for the impossible. And through all this, she only stood by her husband's side, watching as Yuna quietly ate her heart away from the inside.
The slight movement of Paine moving from where she had been standing, back against a wall beside the bed where she had helped the others to get Tidus in, made everyone take notice of the 18-year old's cautious steps towards where Yuna sat. Taking out the second chair by the table and settling herself upon it before turning her fiery red eyes to meet Yuna's empty bi-coloured ones.
"Yuna..." she softly spoke, Yuna's facial expression remained the same, and Paine decided to continue on. "I know I didn't know you back then, or any of you for that matter...but I do know that you must've been very strong in order to handle Spira's hope upon your shoulders and refusing to lose your control or temper back then." Paine still saw no change in Yuna, as she continued to carry the shell of emptiness in her eyes. "And I know for a fact that you still have that strength and will within you, I know this because I myself witnessed it merely a day ago when all stood side by side before Vegnagun and Shuyin's rage. I saw that strength in your eyes when you told Nooj off that you disliked his plan... I saw that strength and determination in your eyes when you spoke of how you had stood by and watched your Aeons die, and how you didn't want friends to die or fade away... Even when we stood face to face with Shuyin, I saw the resolve and strength within you when you went as far as to fight Shuyin off even though you knew of his terrible past."
Silence was between all of them as Paine ended what she had wanted to say. All waiting for Yuna's response. Yuna made a move for the first time in a while, she had turned around in the chair she sat in to softly lay her eyes upon Tidus still form on her bed. Leaving her eyes to trace every inch of his face for a while before turning back to face Paine, quietly asking:
"Why are you telling me all this?"
"Because you can't lose hope nor strength now, Yuna! I'm telling you this, because I want you to know that even though your opinion on things may have changed, your strength has still remained with you through these years...Your strength and your resolve will always be a part of who you are, Yuna. I'm telling you this, because...You're a strong woman, Yuna...much more stronger than I could ever hope of being." Paine answered.
"What does it matter if I'm strong or not? I'm not the one unconsicous and unable to tell what's wrong with me. What can my strength possibly do to help Tidus out of this?" Yuna questioned a bit harsher than meant to.
"It matters because he loves you, Yunie..." Rikku cut in, finally understanding Paine's point. "It matter to him that you stay strong, and not just for him, but for yourself too, Yuna. Find the strength to believe, Yuna. Use your strength and believe that things will work out."
"Believe in what, Rikku? Believe as I believed in Yevon? Believe as I did when I thought it was Tidus in those spheres? Tell me what to believe in, 'cause frankly everything I've come to believe in for the most part of my life has come to be nothing more than a lie!" Yuna stated in the most tormented way possible. She sounded almost like someone that had given up on life completely.
"Believe in love, Yuna..." Lulu softly answered "Believe in love."
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"What do you mean someone's managed to break through?" Nooj's distressed voice asked as panic started to rise within him.
"We can't really tell sir, the Guado's are bewildered over this event as well." One of the underlings working under Nooj's watch informed in haste.
"Well, would you please explain this event as well Soldier?" Nooj unpatiently ordered
"Sir, we haven't recieved much information. What we managed to recieve from the distress signals coming from Guadosalam was that some malfunction was occuring. We didn't manage to pick up the signal telling us exactly what as malfunctioning, only that someone was able to break through whatever was malfunctioning."
"I see..." Nooj muttered under his breath as he thought over the information he had just recieved. "Either way, based on the little information we've recieved I can't call in a squad from their sphere-searching around Spira for this just yet. But a distressed signal like this can't be ignored either. Information or no information, I ask of you to head over there along with Aiko and look things over. You're desmissed." Nooj said from where he sat, holding the information documents in his hand. A document with almost no information at all.
"Yes sir!" bowed the soldier before finding his way out of the headquarter, leaving Nooj alone to his thinking.
Nooj let out a deep sigh after a while "What's going on?"
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In silence many people find it easy to go through hours of thinking about things going on around them and within them. In that time when everything is just quiet people get to notice and think over points and parts of their lives that they usually hasn't payed much attention to, or things that they've just pushed so far and deep within themselves that they've forgotten about it. Small things such as a high school joke, or larger things like feelings, moments and memories. Mostly during a moment of silence people tend to think about their problems and that part of life that they're not happy with, or wished could be more delightful. Yuna thought of this very thing as she sat in the quiet room where only she and Tidus were in. She found herself thinking of her whole lifetime, of how life had been for her since her earliest memories. How life had been in Bevelle with her parents, how life had been living with only her father by her side, how life had been while living without her father by her side in Besaid.
She thought of how her life had been in Besaid, surrounded by Lulu, Wakka and Kimhari who had come to be like her family. Life as she practised to be a summoner, life as a summoner. Yuna then thought most of all, how her life had come to be with Tidus in it, and how it had come to be a life with him ripped apart from it, only to return again, in a frightening state that scared her right into her heart's core. What she felt now, was how her life was on the edge of returning to how it had been for the last 2 years. A life, with Tidus ripped apart from it all over again. She often did manage to think of these things whenever she found herself in a place and time of silence, she found the silence a comforting phase of time to think clearly and alone.
A moment of pure silence in a phase of time, where she could be herself, ingulfed in her own life, sorting out the good and the bad parts. For her, a moment of silence, was a moment of herself.
It had been around 2 hours ago that she had been talked to from anyone. She remembered the words from that last conversation so clearly still. Every word, every feeling, and every movement still lingered inside her head as a movie.
"Believe in love, Yuna..." Lulu softly answered "Believe in love."
"I do believe in love, Lulu. It's all I've ever been doing these past 2 years while having him apart from me..." Yuna said after a while.
"Then what's wrong, ya?" Wakka asked in a concerned voice
"Oh Wakka, what's wrong is that I've just gotten him back, only to have him ripped away again? I mean, who knows what's wrong with him? Who's to say it isn't lethal? And who's to say that it's fine?" Yuna explained heartfully as she casted her eyes back at Tidus quiet form on her bed. All she ever wanted to do right then and now was to throw herself into his embrace and plead for him to return to her. But she only looked away from him, looking away from them all and down to the floor.
Where she hid herself, her face, her eyes and her soul. "I''m very grateful for all your help, but I really want to be alone in here with Tidus for a while," Yuna softly spoke. "please..." she added afterwards as she had noticed them all still standing there.
"Okay, Yunie. But call us if you need something, okay? We'll have our mics on if there's anything.
"Yeah, thank you, Rikku. I thank all of you, I am...truly grateful to have you all as my friends and family" Yuna said in honesty with her face still looking down to the floor. How much she had meant those words, but she still couldn't face them just yet.
"I'm such a fool..." Yuna sighed as she remembered her shameful act hours earlier. Her friends had done so much for her, and all she could do was sulk and treat them as she had done. She was truly ashamed of herself now that it was too late.
"N-no..you're n-not..." she heard a weak voice call as she sat with her hands covering her tired eyes infront of the bed on the chair she had been sitting on earlier. Thinking this was her inner conscious speaking she quietly added.. "Yeah, right. As if anyone would believe that..."
"They wouldn't?" the same voice came, in an asking weak manner. Yuna strangely thought of this being wierd, talking to herself and all. "Ow, quit playing games with my head!" she snapped at herself in fustration, totally unaware of the being laying in her bed, thinking she had meant him. "I-I'm sorry!" he muttered out sadly.
Then it registered in Yuna's mind that the voice she heard could not possibly belong to herself, even if it was her inner conscious speaking. The voice was too masculine to be hers. "W-what?" she confusingly said as she started to remove her hands from her face.
"I-I said that I was s-sorry..." the voice of Tidus broke through the air in the room as she looked down at this half awake state, too stunned to react the first moments.
"T-Tidus?" she hesitantly asked, scared that it was all a play of her mind, or even worse...a dream...