"The village," Yuna gasped, taking off through the trees, Tidus one step ahead of her. Already she could see the terrible scarlet glow of fire and smell the acrid smoke. Already she felt the ground rumble beneath her feet. The screams . . .
When they made it to the tree line, Tidus' arm shot out to stop her from continuing further. Yuna's mouth dropped, and her eyes were wide.
The village was being razed to the ground. Giant globes of fire came hurtling out of nowhere, crashing into the huts and igniting the thatch roofs. The brick walls collapsed instantly under their force. Black shadows of the terrified villagers darted here and there, appearing as nothing more than dark shapes.
Yuna tried to hurry forward, every fibre in her body compelling her to help, but Tidus held her back firmly.
"Don't be a fool!" he warned, his eyes fixed in horror on the chaos.
"We must do something! We can't let this happen, it isn't their fault!" Yuna cried, trying to pull away from him. But Tidus was adamant. The rational part of his mind had not yet been smothered by boundless emotion.
"Yuna, we cannot!" he said quickly, gripping her shoulder. "We must leave now!"
"You coward!" Yuna screamed, swiping at his face. Her palm collided with his cheek with a loud smack, but Tidus ignored it. "You fiend! I will not let them die for us!"
Wordlessly, Tidus wrapped both arms around her waist and began pulling her back into the trees. It would not be long before the Yevonite warriors, who were no doubt the cause of the destruction, would begin appearing over the hill overlooking the village's ruin. Yuna kicked and struggled wildly, completely driven by her protective nature. Every single particle of her body was desperate to help, to keep the damage from spreading.
The heat of the flames was almost unbearable. Another blazing sphere, launched from one of the many catapults set up on the hilltop, came crashing down, smashing the small mud hut nearby. It was alarmingly close. Tidus continued dragging Yuna backwards, startled by her sudden burst of strength.
"Yuna, listen to me!" he said, releasing her only to spin her around, making her look him in the eye. "We can do nothing for these people, and we have to leave now. For the greater good of Spira! Do you understand?"
"I understand that these are innocent people," Yuna said frantically, turning towards the smouldering village. She hurled herself forward faster than he could catch her, and with disquieting speed she hurried towards the mayhem.
She had no idea what she planned to do. Any sense or reason that she had ever possessed seemed to have fled. All she felt was a mind-consuming rage, a sense of despair and helplessness.
A dark form limped was limping towards them, and Yuna instantly recognized the shape of Mistress Lulu, still adorned with her High Priestess headdress and makeup. Yuna stopped, ignoring Tidus as he caught up with her. She was leading their horse, whose wound had been patched up after she was rescued from the field. The saddlebags looked stuffed with supplies. The priestess' face was hard with wrath and sorrow for her people.
"Lulu," Yuna gasped, horrified to see a fierce wound in the woman's side, leaking down her dress. "You're hurt!"
"Tidus, take her and go!" the woman said sharply, throwing the reins at Tidus. He caught them swiftly with one arm, while keeping Yuna still in the other. The horse was tossing her head and stamping her hooves nervously, alarmed at the sounds of destruction all around.
A fireball of monstrous proportions broke itself over the guesthouse next to them. Both Tidus and Yuna jumped in surprise. It was then that Yuna realized that there were dark shapes moving down the burning hillside in perfect formation. There were many of them, at least three hundred. Yuna did not have to look at the dark red tunics to recognize the Yevonite Warriors. Her very soul knew it on sight. After all this murder and chaos, it was too late. She and Tidus would be captured, and the horrible Children of Light ceremony would continue undisturbed, claiming another life every year. All their efforts would have been in vain. All these lives will have been taken needlessly.
Her ears pounded with the sounds of marching booted feet. Every now and then a loud order was shouted, and another wave of flaming spheres descended upon the terrified village, and a volley of guns cocked at the ready to fire upon more innocent people.
Both Yuna and Tidus, while backing up, tripped over something on the ground. Upon looking down, Yuna had to cover her mouth with a hand to stifle a cry. It was Kohan, her beautiful dancer, dead on the ground. His soulful eyes stared emptily up to the sky. There was an arrow protruding from the centre of his smooth forehead, oozing crimson blood.
"My lady!" a voice shrieked. Yuna felt Tidus turn slightly, and she too looked to see the source of the voice. Lulu was already staring with agonized eyes. With a start, Yuna recognized the girl who had kissed Tidus, running towards them with a look of pure panic on her face.
"My lady, save m-"
She was forever silenced by the bludgeoning arrow that shattered the back of her head, sending the hapless girl flying to the scorched ground. Never would she rise again. Tidus was staring numbly at her body, his cerulean eyes wide with shock.
Somehow managing to straighten herself in spite of her injury, Lulu whirled around to face the oncoming soldiers, and Yuna could have sworn, even in that terrible moment, that she had never seen anyone look more terrible with rage than the High Priestess.
"Run. Both of you, now," she said in a dangerous voice. Even above the boom of explosions and the piercing screams, both of them could hear her.
Limp with defeat, Yuna allowed Tidus to lift her up into the saddle, mounting behind her. In an instant, he whirled the anxious mare around and sprinted into the welcoming gloom of the forest.
Desperate for one last glance at the place she had grown to care about, Yuna turned around to stare over Tidus' broad shoulder. All she could see was the heroic silhouette of Mistress Lulu, solitary against the wall of fire. She could see the pale blue Waterga spell gathering in the woman's hands. It was the last thing she would ever lay eyes on of the happiest place she had ever seen, as the peaceful village was brought to its knees in the still of the night.
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Minutes flew by like centuries. It seemed that no matter how fast and how long they rode, the screams and thundering explosions would never be driven from Yuna's ears.
"Stop," she whispered, her voice barely more than a hoarse whisper. She was going to be sick, and she knew it. "Please stop, Tidus." She did not care how far away from danger they were.
Immediately Tidus slowed the mare, but before the creature could even stop, Yuna had already slid down and staggered on her feet. She retched violently off to the ditch away from the path. Tidus dismounted silently, waiting for her to finish. He looked faint.
When at last Yuna ceased, she began taking slow, unsteady steps back to the waiting horse and young man. She didn't make it all the way to him before the overwhelming sense of anguish flooded through her.
Yuna sank to her knees and voiced a strangled cry. She buried her tear-streaked face in her arms, feeling as though she could barely breathe.
"They were innocent!" she choked, her voice uneven, uncontrolled. "Those people were innocent!" Her eyes lifted to the stars that peered so unassumingly down at them. She wished vehemently that her words could somehow reach the soldiers responsible for all the unnecessary death.
She wept out of grief for every life tainted by the sickening lies of the Children of Light ceremony. She wept because of fear for her life and Tidus', fear that they would fail this mission, and that anyone ever killed because of them would have died needlessly. She wept because she was sick and tired of running, of hiding. She wept for the faces of the people cut down before her, good people who had done nothing but open their arms to her with love.
She cried because she wanted more than anything to fade away rather than face the enormity of the task, placed on her young shoulders when it could have been anyone else in the world. It should have been someone else. It should have been someone stronger, wiser, and braver than she. She cried because she felt weak, unable to go on. She did not want to go on.
Tidus suddenly knelt down in front of her and placed his hands on her arms gently. She lifted her head slowly, motionless as his hands moved up to cup her face. His eyes too were sparkling with tears.
"Yuna," he said in a wavering voice. "I swear to you that I will not let us fail. I will not let those people die for nothing. We will complete this mission together. Do you trust me?"
She swallowed thickly and nodded. "I . . . I trust you." To her own amazement, she meant those words. There was no lie in Tidus' moist azure eyes, no shred of doubt.
"Say it with me. We will not fail." He tried so hard to steady his voice.
"We . . ."
"Say it."
"We will . . . not . . . fail," she said, forcing the statement through clenched teeth.
"Again."
"We will not . . . we . . . will . . . not . . ."
But she couldn't go on! She couldn't keep the sobs at bay, didn't have the strength. She released a broken hearted whimper and lowered her face again.
Tidus could not stand it any longer. He pulled her close in a desperate embrace, holding her against his chest for lack of any other way to comfort her and himself. He pressed his face into her hair, letting his own tears fall unchecked for the first time in years. Before long he too was shaking, sobbing quietly, unable to escape the guilt of what had happened to the villagers.
She slipped her arms around him and cried into his neck, grateful, eternally grateful for his presence.
Any social barriers that remained between them disappeared instantly. There were no more boundaries, no more formalities. He was just Tidus. She was just Yuna. And this night, of all nights, they needed each other. Titles and status were only memories of the past. There was no more Lady Yuna, daughter of High Summoner Braska. There was no more Sir Tidus of the Yevonite Warriors. The two of them were completely exposed to each other, naked with raw emotion. Nobody else would ever understand just how great and terrible their suffering was for the bodies of blameless victims that lay burning for a cause they would never have known about.
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When at last Yuna found some shred of strength left inside, she managed to pull herself from Tidus' arms. She wiped her wet face with the back of her arm and allowed him to help her to her feet.
They said nothing to each other. There was no need for words. Rather, Yuna was relieved to simply bask in the silence, however sombre it felt.
For the rest of her waking years, Yuna would remember the night the village fell. She would remember the emptiness of Kohan's brown eyes, the terror on the girl's face as the bullet blew open the back of her head. She would remember the lone shadow of Mistress Lulu, standing bravely against an army of advancing Yevonite Warriors.
Yuna was faintly surprised to see the silver light of dawn spreading across the horizon to the east. She did not realize how exhausted she was. It seemed that all she felt was cold and hollow. It would be a while before she would allow herself to feel anything.
Tidus sat behind her in the saddle, stonily silent, as was to be expected. Yuna knew how difficult it must have been for Tidus to resist throwing himself forward to help the villagers. She knew how strong his protective instincts were. It was a miracle he had found the strength to pull both himself and Yuna away from danger. He was well equipped for a task like this . . . he knew to avoid the real threats and stay focused on the main priority. Yuna was too emotional. She knew it well enough without it needing to be said.
"Tidus," she said suddenly. "Thank you for keeping me safe. If . . . if it hadn't been for you, I would still be back there now."
"It's all right. I . . . know how hard it was for you," he said slowly. "It was hard for both of us."
Neither of them felt the urge to talk about their conversation at the hot springs before they were interrupted by catastrophe. Yuna wondered if they would ever touch on that subject again. Her face burned with the memory of Tidus' fierce eyes boring into her moments before they heard the screams coming through the trees.
Yuna closed her eyes tightly. The quiet solidness of him behind her, coupled with the gentle rocking of the horse's stride, was suddenly very soothing. Before she knew it, her eyelids had dropped, and she was lost in a deep dreamless sleep.