Disclaimer: At chapter 1, A Tired Homecoming :)
Hey y'all! Happy New Year!
Okay, gotta cut this short. My family's downstairs waiting for me for dinner. Can't keep them waiting.
Here's Chapter 4 as promised for New Years Eve. It might have some wrongs here and there in the text, but I'll tend to it later since my time is short. I hope it's okay with all of you. Please enjoy and do have a good new year to come!
Read and review as well would be nice, it will keep me going! With this said, gotta rush.. Bye!
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Chapter 4 - Ghosts
"T-Tidus?"
"Yeah, it's me alright." Tidus smiled, he couldn't really undestand why she was reacting the way she was doing. But he hoped to find out soon enough. And to his dismay, he felt the reason to it in the most unpleasurable way he could think of. His head throbbed as if he had been throw right down a cliff, head first. Not that he actually knew how that felt like, but he had a feeling this was not short off it. He groaned as the pain refused to subside and turned his head from side to side, hoping to shake it off. He forgot all about where he was and that Yuna was right there beside him with a horror-struck reflection on her face as she could only confusingly stare on as Tidus winched in pain over and over on her bed. The thought of calling in someone to help her came across her and she was well on her way to do just that before Tidus seemingly twist-and turns of pain stopped and a sigh of relief was released from the depths of his troath.
A moment of silence occured as both of them were frozen to their places. Tidus, heavily breathing in and out trying to control himself on Yuna's bed. And Yuna not to far from his side, breathing out a small sigh of relief herself as she looked on to Tidus relaxing form. Soon she saw him turn to her, and she saw him smile. She had dreamt of seeing that smile of his so many times over those hours that had passed, she had dreamt of that smile for well over 2 years. And there Tidus, her life, her soul, laid on her bed, catching up on the after-strike of an painful event he had just been through. There he laid, and he smiled. She felt her insides melt, her heart racing and her eyes blurry of threathining tears. And through it all, she managed up a small smile herself before walking closer to him with catious steps, fearing that something would come to happen to him if she was all to hasty, fearing that whatever dark cloud she had hanging over her head, curse or not, would harm her loved one.
Through his cerulean blue eyes, Tidus laid smiling at her. The only thoughts flowing through his head at that moment was to cheer the only person he lived for on. His only priority then and now was to encourage her, and not worry her further. In the depths of his mind he truly wanted to search for the meaning of what had happened to him and why, he had an urge for wanting to find the answers.
But no urge of his was bigger than the urge of seeing Yuna's smiling face. He was soon granted the smile he had been waiting for, and shortly after he found her catiously closing in on him.
His heart sank; she was scared, unsure and frightened. And probably was thinking that it all was her fault somehow. How his heart sank as he felt her pain and uncertainty. He wished that he could reach out to her and tell her everything was going to be alright. But he couldn't, he could not promise her something that he himself didn't even know. He could never bear to make another promise that he probably couldn't keep, like he had done 2 years previous. But back then, he didn't know of his non-existance. He had only found out afterwards, but that was still not a whole excuse for him doing a promise that he later on broke. He would never in the right or wrong state of his mind make another promise that he soon would have to break. Even if it was a promise of encouragement to his beloved. A promise from him from that moment on, would only come out as a forever kept promise. A promise he would and could keep. So on, he could only continue smiling as Yuna came up to his side, looking down to him in a mixture of concern and relief. Now felt like the right time to say something.
"Hey" he said, inwardly kicking himself for being such dorky smooth-talker.
"Hi" she quietly answered, still looking at him instensely, as if she was examining every little part of him, making sure everything was there and that it was real.
He soon saw this, and reacher up to carefully caress her cheek, proving it all to her.
"Does this feel real enough?" he smiled in a charming manner that made Yuna give a heartly giggle of tears before throwing herself into his awaiting arms where he laid on the bed.
He warmly welcomed her, taking this chance when he felt no pain or weakness to express himself and his feelings for her, as well as his memories of their strong relationship that they had build up during their journey. This was all he had ever wanted, someone whom he could care about in a mutual way. Someone to embrace...someone to call home.
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"Are you sure this is going to go okay?" Aiko asked his fellow soldier Laq as they entered the home of the Guado's; Guadosalam.
"Yeah, take it easy Aiko. It's going to be a piece of cake. All we have to do is go in, talk some things over with the Guados and make our way back with the information to Nooj"
Laq answered tiredly. "It'll only take a few minu-... what the hell!" he shrieked as he saw the scene before him. Blood spread everywhere, corpses of dead Guados spread across the whole sofisticated city of Guadosalam in horror. The air was full of death and spirits of the dead, screaming and tearing through the silence of the city in greive of their own deaths.
"Oh my god, what's happened here!" Aiko had to fight a battle with his stomach not to throw up the days meal at the sight and smell of everything.
There was no sign of life anywhere except for himself and Laq. Everyone was dead, every Guado in the city, every man and woman gone, together with all the children as well as their corpses laid in bloody pools of the own blood and their spirits wandering above in agony.
"We gotta report this to Nooj, and fast!" Laq only managed to surpress as he held his breath to not breathe in the horror stank that lingered all around.
'That you wish...' a cold voice echoed through the room, a voice cold as ice that only lingered on in a few people's mind that had gotten the chance to really explore this person's voice.
Laq and Aiko turned around to where it had come from and saw as the spirits around disspatched in fear of the voice's owner. Laq and Aiko's eyes were only fixed upon what they saw, scared and shocked. "T-this can't be! You're dead, they... they killed you! You're dead!" Laq screamed out what he knew was a fact throughout all of Spira.
'My, my... dead? No no no, not dead... only undead.' said the cold voice again in a smirking way.
"No, that can't be! How!" Aiko muttered in fear as he carefully backed away from it all, trying to drag Laq with him. But without much luck, as Laq only stood his ground, eyeing the cold voice's owner in disgust and anger.
"Never mind how! It's not true, and I'll prove it to you!" Laq screamed as he pulled his rifle out, taking aim at the person. And then he pulled the trigger, releasing the bullet. It only went through and hit the wall behind. Laq stood still, in a trance of confusion and doubt.
'That was very...unwise of you... But no matter, no harm done, right?.. ' the voice only muttered. 'Well, not to me anyways. This is the end for you two...'
And with that, it went to attack. The birds fled from their places on the trees together with the wind as heart-wreching screams was heard from the insides of Guadosalam.
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"I've told you this before Jai, I'm not signing those papers for you. That piece of parchment is one of the oldest found in the history of Spira. I'm not signing them over so you can use them for whatever it is you want to use them for." Baralai's voice echoed through the halls of Bevelle as he walked down one of the corridors leading to his office. A second-stage learning priest namned Jai, age 17 on his trail after him. Trying unsuccessfully to get Baralai's agreement on his project after 3 days of trying, yet he showed no sign of quitting either. He really wanted to do this research-project, and for that he needed the parchment he would do the research upon. The only way to get it though, was through Baralai's agreement and signature on a agreement paper that he could take with him to where the parchment was safely stored in the ProSeal of Bevelle. The most safest and tight-secured storage bank in whole of Spira.
"A research my lord. I beg of you to grant me this, if only for a day. Please sir, I really want to do this research, it might help us find out more about Spira." Jai begged.
"No, Jai. I've told you, as a second-stage student you may not access such high valuelated history accessories. Not even sixth-stage learners are allowed to do it. Only a fully-fledged priests or top-ranked learner may request such. And since you're none of those, I will have to be sorry and say this to you once more. You may not access that parchment!" Baralai stated as he made entered his office and went to sit down on his office-chair. A stern look on his face as Jai refused to give up.
Baralai adored the ones learning to be a priest at the temple of Besaid, but Jai was too much. It was a good thing that he had a strong will and refused to give up. But there is certain points where someone has to take no for an answer. And that point of time was now. Jai may have been 17 and well on his way to become a grown-up man. But to request something so high of value and so old containing scripts and secrets since the beginning of Spira was a request not even some fully-fledged priests at the age of 35 had the courage to ask of researching. It had so far been totally unsolveable. And Baralai was on a straight line of wanting to figure it out before his ending day in the far-off future would come. What concerned and bugged him alot as well was how Jai, a biy of 17 years would think he could read it, if not even the most gifted and wise men of Spira couldn't.
"But sir-"
"Enough, Jai. Will you please just take no for an answer. I will not change my mind." Baralai broke him off in a low and calm voice from where he sat on his chair. Jai only stared Baralai down from where he stood, on the other side of the table seperating them. Seperating Jai from wanting to give Baralai a piece of his mind pysically. Jai soon shook that awful feeling off and bowed gracefully in acceptance before finding himself out of the room.
As Jai walked out the door Baralai let out a deep sigh of thankness that he would at least get a few hours of rest before Jai returned with a new excuse or idea of why he should sign the papers. Baralai was starting to see Jai's pattern in this situation, and he every now and tried to sneak out of it all when the time of Jai's arrival was nearing. It was not that he disliked Jai, he only disliked how the guy never gave up on a losing matter. Baralai wouldn't sign those paper on his own will, and even if he were to do it by will. He couldn't do it, as the Praetor of Bevelle, Baralai swore an oath of strength and wisdom. He would keep everything within his promise intact, and by so not letting anyone who's not authorized to access artificial history of Spira's history.
But what he disliked most of all was that he couldn't figure out why someone like Jai, in his early years and beginning of his Priest-studying would want to research something as old as that parchment.
It couldn't be out of order or interest, Baralai thought. No one in his right state of mind would want to spend years of his time just by studying something so old as an parchment that early in his or her life. Baralai could only pounder this question over and over in his mind, disliking that he couldn't find the answer.
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"I don't like this" Rikku's bored and sulky voice said from where she sat in Lulu's and Wakka's kitchen together with them and Paine.
"Don't like what?" Paine asked in the same bored voice.
"Sitting like this, not doing anything." Rikku answered. "I'm worried about Yuna."
"Yeah, me too. Should we head over and see if she's alright you think?"
"I would certainly like to, but she said that she wanted to be alone.." Rikku said in a sad manner
"But you're friends all of you, isn't that right?" Lulu entered the conversation from where she sat feeding Vidina who was in her craddling arms.
"Yeah?" Paine arched an eyebrow.
"Well then, what's wrong with heading over then?" Lulu asked curiously, but obviously understanding their confusion.
"Because she said that she wanted to be alone." Paine stated matter-of-factly.
"So? As friend you have the right to be worried and wanting to check up on her." Lulu continued in a knowing way.
"But what about what she said?" Rikku broke in, really wanting to check upon her cousin. But also wanting to respect her wishes.
"That was almost 3 hours ago, ya?" Wakka tried in an encourage manner. He too was worried about Yuna and deeply wanted to Rikku and Paine to look how she was doing.
"Yeah, but-" Paine started before Rikku cut her off.
"Hey, you're right! We should head over righ away. Come on Paine!" she had said before taking a hold of Paine's arm and dragging her out of the kitchen and out to the door. Totally ignoring Paine's command of letting her go. "Don't be such a pain, Paine." Rikku smiled teasingly as she walked on, her heart filled with hope and force after hearing Lulu's and Wakka's wise words. She could understand Lulu's wiseness. But when Wakka got his, she could only wonder. Either way, she was happy to have them around.