Note: NC-17 again. I felt I needed to get back at chapter seven, because in real life, you don't just "live on" over that kind of things.

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Chapter XIII

I feel like being tied up, though I'm not. I can't move, I can't close my eyes, so I just have to sit back and watch. Seymour gives me an amused look.

"Do you have an interest for someone of these three?" he asks me.

I remain silent, wishing to be anywhere else but not just here. He asks me the same question again, this time caressing Lulu's breast with his hand.

"They are...all my good friends. You know that, Seymour," I say, struggling to keep my voice steady. The truth is that I want to scream.

"Oh? That is...interesting, Tidus," he says. "So, tell me, which one of these ladies would you save if you could?"

You bastard, I think, but there is absolutely nothing I can do.

"I will save the one you choose. And should you not choose...well, I could as well get them all."

"I can't make this choice, Seymour! You know that as well as I do!" I cry out.

"No," he says, suddenly sounding cold. "You shall choose. Or otherwise..."

"Or otherwise what? You will rape them all?"

"Yes. I could...have fun with all of you, should I please."

All of us? I don't want to finish that thought. I feel a teardrop falling down my cheek.

"I can't choose. It is impossible now. You have already raped Rikku."

"Yes. So we have three left, as I told you."

So whom do I want to save? Whom indeed? Just when I had thought it couldn't be any worse.

"I want you to save Lulu," I say after a long pause, and I can't stop my voice from trembling.

Seymour arches an eyebrow.

"Lulu? The black mage?"

"The same girl," I say, trying to sound humorous but failing.

"That is interesting. So you wish me to play with you a little, do you Tidus?"

I swallow nervously.

"I only wish that you'd not rape Lulu," I reply quietly.

He gives a laugh.

"So you are a chocolate boy, Tidus, are you not? A cute little fag, right?" he teases me.

"Don't you mess with me, Seymour," I reply, "for you do not wish to encounter me when I'm not paralysed like this."

He looks at me and laughs.

"Oh really?" This seems to be the best joke he has ever heard. "Know this, you stupid mortal: I could finish you off with a single move of my hand."

"Let's test your magic against my sword!" I challenge him. I don't really care if this will lead to my death. At least this is a chance to distract Seymour, to let the girls escape. I would die for Lulu, and I would be glad to do it.

"In your dreams, boy," Seymour says coldly, and then turns to Lulu.

His back to me he adds,

"I am sorry, Tidus, but I have no interest for men. That would be against Yevon's teachings. Hmm... One more cause to have you killed, you...homosexual."

Despite the awkwardness of the situation, that makes me laugh.

That is the best insult you could come up with? The funny thing is that he is right – I am a homosexual, though I have no interest for men either.

"So, what do we have left then? Summoner Yuna, and the black mage Lulu," Seymour says.

In a second I'm back to Earth.

"Leave them alone!" I cry out.

But he isn't listening to me anymore. He approaches Lulu, and his hands find their way under her dress. Lulu can't hold back a whine when his hands grope her. I struggle to get free.

Seymour leans forward to be close to Lulu – too close, much too close. He grins, and I see Lulu's eyes widen with fear. He breathes hard, then says in a quiet, husky voice,

Oh yes..."

Then, he thrusts fiercely into her. Lulu lets out a scream of pain, and I would give my life to be able to close my eyes. I feel her pain in my own body, a new wave of agony washes over me with every thrust. I can hear Seymour's breath in my ears, too close, much too close, I feel the pain that seems to much to bear, a pain that is going to make me faint, and I feel it all with her. Tears blur my vision, is he never going to stop, oh God why is he not going to stop?

He comes, splashing his white fluids all over her dress, obviously enjoying the pornographic way to drown the lady in his seed.

"Hey brudda! Get up, time to go, ya!"

The voice came from outside my tent. Lord give me strength, I thought, I do not wanna wake up hearing that voice. I opened my eyes, and I could still feel that I had cried last night. I wished it didn't show. For a moment I quite seriously considered giving up and going back -- going back to where? To Zanarkand? I would if I could. To Besaid? Not a chance. I wondered if I could go and live in Luca, the big blitzball-city, but I couldn't quite finish that thought since I got a visitor.

"Hey, wassup with you, boy? C'mon get up now, or we're leavin' you here, ya?"

I took a look at Wakka's red-haired head poking to my tent. I guess my eyes showed something to him, since he backed up a little and said,

"Easy, boy. No one's gonna murder you here, eh?"

Yeah well someone might be murdering you here.

"Five minutes," Wakka said, and then went away.

I was ready in less than that.

We crossed the calm lands, not talking much, and took off between two cliffs. When fighting fiends, I had to constantly battle against the temptation to slice Wakka a little with my sword. A sword he had given me, I reminded myself.

We saw a wooden bridge, and crossed it.

"Halt!"

Two Guados blocked our way.

"Summons from Lord Seymour. Come with us!"
Yuna was the first one to speak.

"We have nothing to discuss with Maester Seymour!" she announced.

"Yeah, so out of our way!" I said.

"Lord Seymour's commands must be obeyed," they told us. "You will come!"

We all looked at them sternly. We disagreed.

"I warn you, the maester doesn't need you alive," they added.

Well that's a good point. Now we really really can't miss a chance to meet him, right?

There was a second wooden bridge ahead of us. From the path underneath it emerged a huge stone robot-creature. Its steps made the ground shook underneath our feet.

"W-what the hell is that?" I asked.

"Guardians should fight, not think. That's what you've said yourself, I believe," said Auron.

"All right. So bring it on, fellows!" I said cheerfully.

Sometimes, I was tired to play my part as a teenage boy with no instinct for self-preservation.

The stone robot completed a move called haymaker, which was just what it sounded like. He shot his left hand towards Auron, knocking him out by that one single move. I gave Auron a Phoenix Down, and he stood up still feeling dizzy. Rikku ran towards the opponent, stealing a Lunar Curtain from him and mugging him at the same time. The robot seemed unaffected.

"Rikku!" I cried out exactly at the same time as the robot tried his haymaker on her. She fell down on the ground, letting out a scream of pain. This time Auron used a Phoenix Down, and as Rikku got up, I advised her to let go for a while. Gratefully she went to the back row, and Lulu took her place in the fight. That place was actually between Auron and me. I preferred having Lulu on our party now, since she could relieve people who had passed out without using Phoenix Downs. But, her magic was not too effective against the robot, so I had to do the actual fighting with Auron.

When I noticed the robot getting a little slower, I concluded we were getting the better of it. I ran fiercely towards it, and sliced it many times with my sword. Then I stick my sword in the ground and, stepping on it, jumped up in the sky. I made a volt up there, and Lulu threw Wakka's blitzball to me. This was a move I had done in the sphere pool many times enough to call it my show. The ball arrived exactly at the right time exactly at the right place, and I kicked it to the robot. The ball hit him, and I landed just in time to see him fall down on his knees and break.

We were tired, stained and hungry, but we were alive. So, our straining journey continued. We walked to the wooden bridge, under which the robot had emerged.

"This isn't the way in?" I asked.

"That way leads down into the valley," Lulu said.

"Wow, you know your way around, ya?" Wakka admired.

Don't you dare to talk to her, you son of a bitch, my anger flared inside of me. I had to physically struggle to prevent myself from punching him. Lulu just ignored him and walked away.

"Huh?" Wakka was left to stand and scratch his head.

We headed down and came to a valley. First, we found out that this was a proving ground for the Crusaders, and found a rusty old sword. Then we came to a cave. Some sort of purple mist exited it, and Rikku ran inside straight away. Then she came back to ask us,

"Where are we?"

"The fayth is inside. As are the fiends," Lulu answered her.

This information made Wakka gasp.

"Hey. This where...?" he asked.

Lulu nodded.

"Where what?" I demanded.

"The summoner I guarded on my first pilgrimage...died here."

We were all silent for a while. I suppose the rest of us were quiet because of what she had said. I was quiet because she had actually spoken. She had again answered my question.

"Yuna, let's go. The fayth awaits," Lulu broke the silence, sounding fatal.

We all went into the cave, except for Wakka and Lulu. I noticed them exchanging a few words outside, before following us. I was dying to know what had the discussed.

We walked through the cave, fighting a few fiends as well as finding things in locked chests that Rikku could easily open. More than once I thanked my god we had a thief in our group.

"Hey guys, I'm wondering who put all these treasures here," I said conversationally.

"They are what is left of summoners and Crusaders who died here," Yuna answered my question, and I was relived to hear her talking. She certainly didn't talk much these days.

"If a summoner dies here, it is a tradition that their guardians put all their possessions into a chest and lock it up tight, and then leave it all here. Actually, opening those chests is sacrilegious," she went on.

"Well, we already are traitors, so..." I comforted her.

She gave a sad sigh.

"Yes. I guess so."

"...And we certainly need all those weapons left here more than those dead summoners do," Wakka chided in. Everyone gave a laugh, except me.

"What's a fayth doing in a place like this?" Rikku asked suddenly.

"Don't ask me!" I exclaimed. I guess I was a little tense.

Lulu was in the role of the encyclopaedia here.

"They say it was stolen from a temple long ago," she said.

"Huh?" I said, fantasizing I was having a conversation with her.

"With no fayth, summoners cannot train," Auron enlightened us. "Without training, they cannot call the Final Aeon. Without the Final Aeon, they cannot defeat Sin. That is why."

"'Cause then the summoner won't die!" Rikku exclaimed.

"That must be what the thief was thinking," Wakka muttered.

We were all silent again.

"I kinda agree with him," I finally said.

Rikku nodded. No one said anything anymore, so we just walked on. In the next room, we encountered a weird sight; a pack of pyreflies surrounding a faded image of a woman.

"Peh! Another Guado fiend?" Wakka got irritated.

"No. An unsent," Kimahri said.
Lulu took a few steps forward.

"It is...It's you, is it not, Lady Ginnem?" she said, looking down to the ground. "Forgive me. I was too young."
Auron gave Yuna a look. She stepped forward, and started sending Lady Ginnem. But the dead summoner cast some sort of a spell, and Yuna stopped the sending.

"There is no human left in you now, is there?" Lulu went on talking to the dead.
Ginnem lowered her arm, as if to say no. I'm not sure if it was just a coincidence.

"Very well, then," Lulu said. "Allow me to perform my last duty to you. My last as your guardian." She sounded fatal again.

Of course, we had to fight this summoner now. I suggested that I fight her with Auron and Rikku, because I thought that killing a summoner you have once guarded is not too good for your mental health. But Lulu wanted to fight. She insisted on it.

Obviously, even though dead the summoner could still summon. And she summoned an aeon I had never seen before. It was a young, approximately seven feet tall soldier, and a dog. For a while I just stared at him.

"This aeon is called Yojimbo," Lulu told us.

"Oh. Nice. How do you fight a...er, a Yojimbo?" I asked.

"How do you repair a heart that is broken?" Lulu answered me with a question.

I had no time to wonder what the heck had she meant. I had a fight to win.