Chapter IV

I watched a scene supposed to drive me off my guts – Yuna kissing Maester Seymour, both in wedding clothes. At least everyone else was shocked, and I felt some disgust in the back of my consciousness – after all, I did care about Yuna and Seymour disgusted me more than anything.

"Muug! Dryd'c Yunie! Fryd'c cra tuehk eh dryd uidmyhtecr tnacc?" Rikku said to her relative Cid whose airship we were travelling with.

"Ed'c y fattehk tnacc," Cid knew.

"Ed'c y fryd!" Rikku freaked out.

"What? What are they talkin' about?" Wakka wanted to know.

Of our bunch, the only ones familiar with the Al Bhed language were Rikku and I. Rikku of course was fluent in it, but I was still a student. However, I had understood her conversation with Cid.

"Eh, Wakka... It's bad news. Even worse than those you see in that sphere."

"What could be worse than Yuna kissing Seymour?"

"Wakka, calm down. Just calm down, okay?"

"Okay okay, I'm calm now! So what's the big news?"

"Um, Rikku asked what's Yuna doing in those weird clothes, and Cid told her it's a...err, that it's a, um, a wedding dress."

"It's a what!" exclaimed Wakka.

"That's funny. Rikku said the same thing when she heard that," I said dryly.

Obviously the situation wasn't already bad enough, since a businessman Rin walked in and told us there were some fiends in the airship.

"Fryd? Veahtc? Tyssed!" was Cid's reaction to Rin's news.

We had slept in Rin's Travel Agency in the middle of the Thunder Plains. We had crossed the Plains on our way from Guadosalam to Macalania Temple. In Rin's Travel Agency I had first seen a dream about Lulu...no, not the first dream but the first wet one. The thought still made me feel embarrassed somehow, though I sometimes went through the plot of my dream to recall everything as I had seen it. A precious memory, when it was all I had.

I stood in a shower after a rough blitzball game back in Zanarkand. This was what had happened in real life. The rest...well. All my teammates had already left, so I stood there alone, just enjoying the cool water easing my hot and sweaty feeling and healing all my bruises. I always went to shower when everyone had left – there were female blitzers, yes, but I didn't want to be one. The guys were the heroes. The girl blitzball fans fell in love with male blitzers. The star players were never female. That's why everyone thought that the star player of Zanarkand Abes was the son of Jecht, not the daughter.

My hand found my belly muscles. I was proud of them. Well who wouldn't be? I carefully touched the bruise I had in my lower belly. That was done by a member of the opposing team – but I had caught the ball anyway. We had won the match, though it had been close. 2-1. A great game.

My eyes were closed, and I was obviously deaf aswell. I didn't know I wasn't alone before I felt a hand touching my cheek. I opened my eyes in terror, and saw the most beautiful face I had ever seen. Long black hair framed – and partly covered – her face, her brown eyes with a shade of red were a few inches away from mine, her pale skin was a great emphasis for her violet lips. In one word, she was perfect. I realised she had no clothes on. Well of course, what kind of a dumbass would wear something when entering a shower? I had never seen her naked before.

I took my time studying her body with my eyes; the breasts I had been looking at during the battles, the waist and the stomach muscles that I simply adored, her wide hips that her dress too often covered, her firm legs and her entire body as an entity. She allowed me to look at her, wearing an amused smile on her lips.

"You like it Tidus? You like what you see?"

I was too stunned to answer. She gave an amused laugh.

"I know you like it. I've seen you watch my breasts during a battle..."

I gasped. Suddenly I realised I was naked, too. I tried to cover my body, doing the best I could in the circumstances. This seemed to amuse Lulu aswell.

"It's very flattering, the way you look at me..." she said, stretching out her hand and touching my face. Her hand felt gentle, warm, and wet due to the shower under which I was still standing.

She stepped forward, her entire body now touching mine, and came under the shower aswell. Soon her wonderful pale skin was shining wet. Stuff from the adult magazines.

I realised I no longer possessed a woman's body. My every dream had come true, so this one had aswell. I was a guy. Now I could fulfil Lulu's every wish the way she wanted to be pleased. I no longer had to explain why I had the right to fall in love with her.

She smashed my back against the wall, not being too gentle anymore. Then she kissed me fiercely, passionately, her tongue exploring me. Her hands kept mine against the cold tile wall while she went on kissing my chest (a male's great chest muscles, I remind you) and belly, making her way down little by little. I glanced down and thanked my god – I did have a penis aswell. Lulu took it in her mouth and – oh my god. I don't think I really have to say more about it.

I woke up in a rather frustrating condition: sweaty, exhausted, yearning. For a while I thought I'd make a visit to Lulu's bed and confess her everything, but then came to my senses and decided against it. I slept again that night, but not very peacefully. I tried not to dream about Lulu anymore.

While travelling to Bevelle, which was where Yuna was getting married just then, we fought some disgusting many fiends on the airship. We even had to climb on the roof and fight a fiend that was considerably bigger than the airship – Evrae, the guardian wyrm and protector of Bevelle, a great sacred beast. As Auron said, the red carpet had teeth.

We got rid of the beast and exited the airship rather extraordinary way: sliding down metal harpoon strings towards Seymour and Yuna. Cid had shot the harpoons into Bevelle. I even flipped from one string to another, risking my life but having hell of a lot of fun.

We landed, seeing Seymour some 500 meters away from us with Yuna, amidst a sea of soldiers and guardians.

"Yuna!" I shouted spontaneously and began to run forward. The others followed me, and of course we had to fight several soldiers and machina before we reached Seymour.

"This has gone far enough!" Maester Kinoc pointed out to us.

All the guardians lifted their rifles, and we stood there looking at each other. Maester Kinoc pointed at my face with a rifle, which felt a little disturbing.

"You would play at marriage just for a chance to send me?" Seymour asked Yuna a rhetorical question.

I wondered how had he realised what Yuna was up to.

"Your resolve is admirable," Seymour went on. "All the more fitting to be my lovely wife."

I hated to hear him say that. It made a slight, loathsome worm of disgust creep up my spine. I would not want my worst enemy to be 'Seymour's lovely wife', let alone Yuna, whom I considered a very good friend of mine.

Yuna surprised us all starting to send Seymour to the farplane, but Maester Mika got in the way.

"Stop!" he yelled. "Do you not value your friends' lives? Your actions determine their fate. Protect them, or throw them away. The choice is yours."

Slowly, Yuna put down her wand. She dropped it, and it went all the way down the stairs.

"You're wise," Seymour pointed out. I was ready to kill him at once.

But the worst was yet to come. Seymour approached Yuna, holding her shoulders as if trying to prevent her from fleeing, and then moved in for a kiss. Rikku and Wakka gasped, Lulu looked away. I saw Maester Mika nodding his head, and I heard wedding bells ring. People started to clap their hands. I saw Yuna's hand turn into a fist. Then, Seymour ended the kiss to say,

"Kill them."

"I am sorry, but it is for Yevon," said Maester Kinoc.

"Aren't those weapons forbidden by Yevon?" Auron wanted to know, referring to the rifles.

"There are...exceptions," Kinoc replied, sticking a rifle in Auron's face.

That was when Yuna decided to interfere.

"No! Throw down your weapons! Let them go, or else..."

Without anyone noticing, she had moved away from Seymour. She was now standing a few steps away from falling from the edge, kilometres of empty air behind her back. Sure Seymour could not enjoy his lovely wife if she was just a wet spot on the ground of Bevelle. Maybe that's why he lowered his hand, and the rifles copied the move. I ran up the stairs, but Yuna had other plans for us.

"Leave now! Please!" she begged.

"You're coming with us!" I demanded.

"Don't worry! Go!" was Yuna's reply.

"This is foolish. If you fall, you'll die," noted Seymour, as if Yuna wasn't aware of that.

Yuna decided to play a lunatic, I believe.

"Don't worry, I can fly. Believe," she said as she leaned back and fell off the edge, smiling.

I shouted her name aloud once more in a short time.

We all looked down where Yuna had fallen. While descending, she summoned an aeon called Valefor. The aeon came down and Yuna landed safely on its soft stomach, flying away.

"Cover your eyes!"

Rikku had shouted that. Suddenly, she threw some sort of a grenade, but nothing seemed to happen. Seymour looked at the piece of metal lying on the ground in front of him. But then the grenade exploded, and some sort of white gas exited it. I quickly covered my eyes as I had been told. After the smoke had faded a bit, Wakka wanted to know what had that been.

"It was an Al Bhed flashbomb," Rikku told us.

I barely listened. I had something else on my mind.

"Let me go! I'm gonna kill that Seymour!"

Despite the fact that Seymour was already dead, I was so insistent about this that Kimahri had to crab me and carry me away.

"Yuna said leave. We leave," Kimahri said to me. This was the first time ever that he spoke to me without me speaking to him first.

"We'll join up with Yuna later," Lulu told me.

Lulu was the only person that could bring me back to Earth...err, Spira again. I looked at her, and she looked back as if trying to say I should calm down. I stopped resisting and calmed down.

"Where'd Yunie go?" Rikku wanted to know. Kimahri took a look at her.

"Bevelle Palace is temple. Yuna goes to one place only," he said.

"The Chamber of Fayth!" I realised.

So, if that was where Yuna went, that's where we went, too.

I stood on the door that led to the Bevelle Palace. The others had already entered, but Lulu looked back from inside the Palace and came back to me when she noticed I wasn't moving.

"What is it?" she asked me.

"I know we sort of don't have time for this, but..." I shrugged. "I just wanted to say that...in case this is the last time ever that I'll get to speak to you..."

Lulu shook her head, then placed her hand on my shoulder, silencing me with that.

"Come on Tidus, it's not that bad."

I looked at her, but her face revealed nothing of her thoughts. And I had thought that I was the hoping-beyond-hope optimistic one of our party.

"Please, Lulu, hear me out. I don't like the way things are going now. And, I feel I might not get another chance to say this..." I breathed slowly in and out. "I love you."

Lulu turned her face away, looking to the horizon. I could see she was blinking her eyes more often than usual. I looked down to the ground. Suddenly, Lulu turned her brown eyes to me again. I had never seen her crying. I had never imagined she would ever cry.

"Tidus, I... I don't know what to say..."

I felt that the expression on my face turned to be somewhat gentle. I smiled at her.

"Don't say anything, then."

I took her hand, giving her a loving look. I captured her lips to a tender kiss, still giving her a chance to retreat if she didn't want this. But, I was not disappointed; she answered my kiss just as tenderly, her hands going through my hair. I opened my eyes and saw the tears that slid down her cheek from under her tightly closed eyelids. That made me want to cry aswell.

I retreated slowly. Lulu just stood there for a while, looking into my eyes, trying hard to stop crying. She stroked my face, and I closed my eyes, trying to maximize what I was feeling: a soft, warm hand against my cheek. My idea of heaven.

"I love you too," she said between her tears. "I love you too."

I opened my eyes and looked at her. Now, this was my idea of heaven. A smile spread across my face.

"I think we should go. The others will come to look for us."

"Yes," she said. "Let's."