Disclaimer: Chapter 1, people. Chapter 1.
Okay, either we can all this an early update, or just a bonus update. I don't know.
I just felt like putting this chapter up, to get the story going a slight faster, to get the next chapters coming earlier. I don't know really. I apologize for my earlier behaviour. I was in a really bad mood, and somehow I still am. I turned 15 yesterday, it was rather boring. And today just seemed that it couldn't get anymore worse. But yeah, I'm not gonna freak this time like last time. ThePirateJilt somehow cooled me down with all that honesty. Thank you, and I will try to improve! I have noticed my faults somehow in this. Hopefully I will get this story to really start soon, as I do have a plot thoughtout. Just really hard with details and all having to be explained. Please, do enjoy Chapter 12 - Awakening of Once More and do review. Knowing that people are reading and appreciates what's being written is one of the most important things to keep a writer going.
Enjoy!
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Chapter 12 - Awakening
As they neared Guadosalam Gippal and Baralai were engaged in a heated conversation about the trio that was so well known througout Spira. Nooj walked a bit ahead of them, only hearing the words that were spoken with a solemn smile carried across his face.
"You can't be serious" Baralai uttered in mockness and surprise.
"Better believe it. They brought it down without so much as a sweat drop being formed on them." Gippal admitted rather embaressed.
"Oh, well. I must tell you that I somewhat understand it. I myself met them in a fierce battle, with me being on the losing side right from the beginning. They're not to play with."
"No kidding, a whack from them across my face would probably leave me unable to speak for at least a couple of days." Gippal sighed while dropping his head. "Women, I tell you."
Baralai turned his head to his friends direction and sighed as well. "I agree."
"But even so, you can't stop loving them, can you?" a voice from ahead asked them simply.
"Joy of you to join in on our conversation, Nooj." Gippal answered with a shake of his head. A smile evident on his lips as Nooj's words seeped in. 'I guess he's right.'
"I may be the serious one here, but I do know how to enjoy myself as well." Nooj answered with a mixed up smile of cleverness and seriousness. "So, any of you going to answer?"
Baralai let out a small laugh. "Alright, Nooj. You're right I guess, at least for my part. Whatever women may do, I will never stop loving them nor their perspective on this world and time we live in."he said truthfully while now walking between the two others.
"You might say that time does change as do people. I think this will be an era where the women's will take a hold of their rights and live openly. Meaning that if they have to, they will prove their beliefs in what's right for Spira and entering a battle against a praetor such as myself, and of course smash up some Machina over at the Djose Temple." he said while letting his gaze fall upon Gippal at his left side. The smile on his face never faltering.
"No doubt about it now, Nooj. Paine has certainly got Baralai here wrapped around her finger." Gippal declared in utter shock at Baralai's little speech not even a few seconds ago. "I mean, did you just hear what the guy said?"
"Being that I'm walking no less than a few feets away from you guys, yes I heard." Nooj stated matter of factly before continuing. "And however cheesy it might've sounded like, I have to agree with him. And I think that you do as well, even though you're not admitting it."
Gippal laughed Nooj's words off. "Eh, very funny, Nooj. Really funny, but no. I don't admit it 'cause I for one do not see it like that."
"How do you see it then?" Baralai went to ask simply, fully expecting Gippal to answer his perspective on the world's way of life.
"I, uh. I, argh! What does it matter how I see it? It's good to go with me just saying that I don't agree on how you guys see it." Gippal stammered in nervous anger at them, but only recieved smirks.
"What?" he questionened harshly.
"Nothing." both of them answered shortly. Leaving Gippal confused and lost.
"We'll talk about it later, we're here." Nooj said. They all now stood in front of the opening of Guadosalam, preparing to enter it. But the horror stank that lingered throughout the very opening caught their attention fiercly. "What is this smell?" Nooj found himself asking as he quickly put his hand over his nose together with the others.
"I was about to ask the same." Baralai choked in a sick voice. "Guess we'll have to enter and see for ourselves." and with that said, the three of them entered the city of Guados.
The silence was more than what they were expecting, as was the coldness together mixed with the uneasy darkness. It was somewhat soothing, but more than that frightening.
But what they felt and saw now did not in a million years prepare them for the awful seen they were to witness as they entered the heart of Guadosalam. It was awful, sickening and stomach-wreaching. In other words, it was cruelty in its highest point. The bloody and somewhat rotting bodies of women, men and children lying at every possible place around the city was not a sight for the eye to see. The splattered and almost dry blood across the walls indicated the fact of pure evil.
Baralai couldn't take it at all. "This is horrible, this can't be. It has to be wrong, it can't be real bodies lying here." he panicked. He had seen death before, but not like this. This wasn't just death in an ordinary way. This was a slaughter without mercy. "All these people..."
"Calm down, Baralai." Gippal tried in a soothing voice, going against all of this himself in disgust.
"Calm down! Having to see all of this in front of us, all this death, the blood, the stank of their rotting corpses. With all this lying in front us us, and you're asking me to calm down?" Baralai asked ridicously while raising his voice as his panic rose.
"Keep it quiet!" Nooj whispered harshly back to them. Fearing that whatever or whoever had done this might still be lurking around. He took hesitant steps as even more fear crept through him as he caught a glance of something he wished to be an illusion. But what he wished to be an illusion turned out to be reality, and it frightened him as much as it hurt him.
There, in front of him laid the broken corpses of the soldiers he had sent out. In front of him laid the dead bodies of Laq and Aiko, and it disgusted him. They died by his hands as he sent them out on this mission, and their death was nothing short of cruelty to the core of its meaning. Never did they get the chance of ever dreaming of a full-fledged life and later die peacefully in a warm bed.
Instead they got this, and it couldn't hurt Nooj more than knowing that it was his fault. He swore to himself in front of their crippled bodies that he would avenge them no matter what. He would find the one responsible for this.
"Let's get out of here, now!" Nooj ordered both Baralai and Gippal who had stood by him in silence. They were all to sick to their stomach's to even think of speaking. However, Nooj managed to keep his senses cool, even though the scene sickened him as well. So many innocent children, women and men, all of them slaugthered. "We need to get out of here in case whatever responsible for this decides to add us to this fate as well."
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"They're dreaming again, of Tidus. A dream of him becoming a real human, and not a dream anymore. But somehow their dreams were shaken, and many of them are on the brink of not dreaming at all. Many of them are on the brink of awakening. The more they start to awake, the weaker their dream will become. Resulting in Tidus being weakened." Yuna explained to them all.
"Their dreams were shaken you say?" Wakka questioned her quietly.
Yuna nodded shortly. "Yes, it seems that when this powerful force I explained earlier of shook them up in whatever quest it was in for."
"What happens when they all wake up then?" Rikku chirped in askingly.
Yuna looked over at Tidus beside her who still laid unconsciously on her bed and sighed before turning to meet them again.
"As I said earlier, if they awaken their dreaming will end. The dream will fade, and Tidus together with it for eternity."
"For eternity? How come, why can't they just dream him up again as they're doing now?" Paine asked from where she sat.
"He said that they can only dream one dream once. Their dreaming before was about Tidus being in Spira to help us defeat Sin, this time they're dreaming of recreating him to fully be alive and not a dream anymore. This is the only chance of a full life that Tidus will ever have, if we lose this we will in the end lose him as well." Yuna explained sadly. A sudden yawn came out of her as well.
She had obviously had a hard night, and it was now obvious for them all to see. Every muscle in her body felt tight and unrelaxed and she inwardly groaned to herself in pain.
"You're tired, Yunie. We should let you get some sleep, we'll talk about this later." Rikku said in concern for her cousin.
"No, no. It's fine really, I'm,-" Yuna tried before Lulu's soft voice broke her off gently.
"No, Yuna. You will do us all good and not to forget yourself if you just rest for a while. Okey? We'll be back in a few hours, just rest for now."
Knowing fully well not to object whenever Lulu insisted on one resting Yuna just smiled in appreciation as she really felt tired and said a sweet "Thank you" before following them all downstairs and out the door. She then closed and locked the door as she always did out of habit and went for a quick stroll into her kitchen where she went to get some cold water to cool her troath with.
Taking a seat on one of her kitchen chairs she tiredly sunk down on it with a heavy thud and placed her water-filled cup on the table.
Everything was just so tiredsome and helpless. She still awaited the Fayth to return with more information and some kind of hope of saving Tidus from truly leaving her side against both their wishes and will. But now she feared the information to come as well. With this force being unleashed or whatever the Fayth had said Yuna feared for the fate of Spira once again.
It was less than 2 days ago that she feared for Spira as Shuyin planned on destroying it all in his grief. If the information she recieved brought what she thought it would, she would have to fear for Spira a third time, and against her wishes of living peacefully and quiet, she would once more leave her home in Besaid to find a way to save Spira from another treath.
Slowly the apperance of a transparent boy started to form in front of her on the other side of the table. Being caught off-guard Yuna quickly acted on instinct and stood up, ready to defend herself if needed. There after her facial expression turned into a nervous frown when she was meet by the transparent image of Bahamut's Fayth.
"Oh, it's just you.." she mumbled from where she stood.
The Fayth nodded. "Were you expecting someone else to form before your eyes out of thin air?"
Yuna frown did not leave her face. "Cute... now tell me, did you manage to get anymore information?"
"Very well," the Fayth replied at her answer. "and to answer your question. Yes, I do have some news. But I can't really say that I've brought any good news."
"No worries, I wasn't really expecting any good ones either, seeing that Tidus is in a coma, that you're here and some unknown treath walking around Spira." Yuna answered sarcasticly.
The Fayth's gaze never left her eyes as his displayed nothing short of sadness. "I'm sorry you feel that way,"
"How else am I supposed to feel!" Yuna cut him off angirly. Her eyes flamed in anger as tears stung the corners of her eyes.
Bahamut's Fayth remained silent at this as he never really could pull a lie such as saying that he knew what she was going through. He could never know, he hadn't known anything else but dreaming for the last 1000 years. However his latest dream together with the other Fayth's had been more than what they had expected. Their dream had been touched by love, and touched love back. And when it came to end it all, it wasn't all that possible.
Their dream still lingered on the feeling of love, it was too intangled in emotions and too much involved in other people's lives. All the Fayth could do was to stay quiet as Yuna shot spitful comments and shouts all over him in anger and pain. After all, it had been his fault together with the other Fayth's to begin with.
"Never mind," Yuna calmly said after a while when her nerves had cooled down. "Tell me of these news you carry."
"Spira is indeed threathened by another evil, an evil far more greater than anything you've come across before. But as we know, everyone has a weakness. Good or evil, we all have our weak spots.
So does this evil as well, all you have to do is to find out what it is. And maybe then, somehow you might be able to defeat it. But I'm also concerned, this amount of evil in Spira has never been felt before. I do not know what high power you're up against, but I'll advise you to be cautious if you plan on defeating it for the safety of Spira." The Fayth said with concern in his voice. His eyes focused on Yuna's total facial expression. Her expression was nothing less than undreadable, and the Fayth awaited her answer.
"I will defend Spira once more. Even if it is the last thing that I'll ever do..."
"Very well, I have more to tell you though. This time about your love," he started when Yuna's eyes shot up in attention at the mention of Tidus. "Some of us in the Farplane has agreed to sacrifice a few more weeks of dreaming. It was said that our dream would be done by the time Tidus arrived back in Besaid. But seeing it as to what's been going on and how much you've had to sacrifice for us, we've decided to sacrifice something as well. By delaying our time of eternal rest and dream on more forceful. For a few weeks we will dream intensely and harder to keep Tidus strong and in an awake state." he spoke.
Yuna's face lit up in a small smile as she couldn't believe what she was hearing. The ghost boy in front of her had just made her the happiest woman on Spira at that moment.
"Thank you" she said with passion and gratitude. But when the Fayth's expression did not change one bit, she doubted what she had heard.
"I'm sorry, but I don't think you shall thank me yet. Tidus will be allowed a few weeks of normal living, but there will be side effects. Such as moments where he might feel somewhat dizzy, headaches or maybe short moments of fainting and such. That will be because of us forcing an already forced dream into a deeper level. As we dream, it will grow intensely, aggressively almost. Which may cause Tidus some of these side-effects that I've just told you about. Also one more thing, if our sleep by any means gets shaken, we will continue our dreaming with as much strength that we can meassure up. But we can not promise you that we will succéed. This is where it stands to be a 50-50 chance of winning, or losing. Not to forget that you only have a few weeks to stop whatever it was that escaped into this world from the Farplane and send it back. Whenever something slips in or out of the Farplane that's not meant to stay there or leave from there changes the balance within the Farplane, thus so weakening everything. To restore the balance, you have to get whatever it was back. Before it's too late..."
"I see." Yuna muttered in understanding from where she still stood. "When will Tidus awake?"
"Not long after I've gone back to the Farplane. When I arrive there, that's when we will start dreaming forcefully. But I will return whenever I recieve some news, since I'm not going to be one of the dreaming ones. Rather I shall search for information about the Farplane escape."
"Very well, I will tell my friends about the situation and hope for them to join me in this." Yuna concluded finally. She watched the already transparent boy turn even more transparent as his outlines became faint to see.
"Until next time, Lady Yuna. I wish you well on this journey." He said normally as he faded into the nothingness around him, leaving Yuna alone in her kitchen.
She soon left the kitchen herself for she hurriedly went for the stairs up to her room where she would await Tidus awakening.
Arriving by the door step of her room she could not in a million years be more disappointed when she didn't reach the room in time to see him awake when her eyes fell upon his cerulean ones.
It took her breath away when she saw him in an half sitting-position on her bed with the most gorgeous look on his face when he recognized her presence. It seemed that he was half way through sitting himself up when she entered the room in haste. Yuna quickly sprinted the distance between them and knocked him back down onto her bed when she entered his embrace.
Pushing his body hard beneath herself she refused to let go of him as she silently cried in his embrace.
Tidus was beyond shocked and nearly terrified when he heard her soft cries. "Yuna, please don't cry. I-I'm sorry that I lied, but please don't cry." he begged, not at all knowing what to say or do.
"It's true, that you lied to me. But that's not why I'm crying." she replied in between her cries as tears softly ran down her smooth face and down onto Tidus's shoulder.
"Why're you crying?" Tidus carefully asked from beneath her as he went to carress her back in comfort. "Tell me."
Yuna sniffed before answering. "I was worried about you, and with the news that I carry... it will only make things harder for us to be together."
"Why do you say that, Yuna? Of course we're going to be together, can't you see the way I am now? I'm feeling stronger than ever, I don't think we have to worry about whatever has been going on with me." he tried smilingly as he indeed felt a strength coursing through his veins that he had never felt before. "It's all going to be okay now."
That's when he felt Yuna stiffen in his arms as she shook her head in the most negative answer that he had ever seen.
"But it's not okay! You don't understand, you didn't hear what the Fayth told me."
"What? The Fayth! Come on, Yuna. They're gone, remember? You put them to rest when you defeated Sin 2 years ago!" Tidus stated in what he thought was original fact.
"We, when we defeated Sin. I couldn't have done the job without all of you, and no. The Fayth's were supposed to be put to rest, but they haven't. During the time of Shuyin they were still there, guiding me somehow. I even meet one of them before your return... but that's not the point! The point is that they're not resting and everything is not going to be okay." Yuna exclaimed in such hurry that she lost her breath for a moment and had to pull herself out of Tidus embrace and sit up on her bed to breathe rightly.
"Spira is threathened again...and this time it's more powerful than ever."
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Okay everyone. That's it for this chapter. There might be an update in Saturday (European time) as well. I don't know, awaits to see if I have the time. The story wil start to form itself from now on, I think. Hope you all enjoyed, don't forget to review!