Hope you guys are liking this! Things are heating up for our characters ;)

Chapter 9

Were they still in the temple or outiside? Rikku couldn't tell as they all stood on what looked like a spacious stone platform. She looked up and saw stars up above, but was that the actual sky?

A woman appeared at the other end of the stone platform, and Rikku looked to see the woman glowing, and balls of light flew around her.

"Have you mad your choice?" Yunalesca asked Yuna.

"May I ask something first?" Yuna asked her. "Could I stop Sin, even when I use the Final Aeon?"

"Sin is eternal. Every aeon that defeats it becomes Sin in its place, and thus, Sin is reborn."

"But… if we atone for our crimes, Sin won't come back, ya?" Wakka asked.

"Will humanity ever attain such purity?"

"What?" Lulu exclaimed. "This is cannot be! It clearly states in Yevon's teachings that once we atone for our Sins, Sin will be no more. It is has been our hope all these years!"

Rikku saw where this was going. She covered her mouth in shock at the realization. Oh… no way…

"Hope is comforting," Lady Yunalesca said. "It helps us accept fate, no matter how tragic it may be."

"NO!" Tidus shouted and bolted forward, himself realizing the horrible truth, but stopped instantly at another transparent memory appearing. Rikku gasped through her hands—it was the young Auron!

"Where is the sense in all this?!" he shouted, waving his sword at Yunalesca. "Braska believed in Yevon's teachings and died for them! And Jeckt believed in Braska and gave his life for him!"

"They chose to die because they had hope," Yunalesca said.

Pure anguish filled the young Auron's features and he shouted with all his might, "NO!"

He lunged forward, his sword held high, ready to destroy Yunalesca because of the pain of his friends dying for nothing. Yunalesca rose her hand and cast a blue spell at him, which repelled him back, causing him to tumble back on the stone. Motionless.

"No!" Rikku belted out and ran forward, but Auron caught her arm.

"That's not really me!"

"But it was you!" Tears filled her eyes as the realization hit her at full force. "You're a…"

"Now, who will you choose, Lady Yuna?" the present Yunalesca asked, and Auron let go of Rikku. She didn't want to believe what she just found out.

"I choose no one," Yuna said. "The Final Summoning… it is a tradition that needs to be abolished."

Several of the group gasped, including Rikku. She came up to her cousin and stood next to her. "Yunie… you're going to change the tradition?"

"No, it is your only hope," Yunalesca said. "Hope that your father wanted to give to the people so that they could forget sorrow."

"No, you're wrong!" Yuna shouted. "My father wanted to make Spira's sorrow go away, not just cover it up with lies. I will be strong and rid Spira of sorrow—without false hope!"

"Oh… you poor creature. Well, I shall make you not suffer anymore. I will be your liberator!"

Rikku stood there, still and shocked as her friends prepared to fight the one person they never though they would fight—Lady Yunalesca!

They all fought with valor, and soon, Lady Yunalesca sat on the ground, dying. "If I die, so does the Final Aeon, and with it, Spira's hope."

"Then we'll find Spira a new hope!" Rikku said.

"There is no other hope, even if you defeat Sin. Yu Yevon will create Sin anew."

"What's Yu Yevon?" Tidus asked, but she didn't answer since she had already vanished from existence.

The group stood there in a shocked silence. Yuna shook her head. "I can't believe we did that."

"And now, we'll do something more unbelievable!" Tidus said. "We'll destroy Sin without the Final Aeon. I'm not sure how yet, but I'll think of something."

"We should leave," Auron said suddenly. "We will figure out our next move later."

They all exited the arena and came back to the same room that they first met Lady Yunalesca in. Auron and Tidus lingered behind as everyone else walked out of the room and into the ruins of the crumbled temple. Rikku remained near the door out of sight as she watched the two.

What she realized in there with Yunalesca had to be a lie. Auron couldn't possibly be… after everything that has happened…

"What is it?" Tidus asked as Auron stood near the stairs.

"There's something you need to know."

"Is it about what happened to you in there? I mean, the younger you? We all saw you get attacked by Yunalesca."

"Yes. She hurt me gravely."

"Is that how you got your scar?"

"Yes, but that is not all."

Rikku held in a gasp. So that's how he got that scar!

"What?" Tidus prodded, and a heavy silence filled the space between them. Auron took a breath and revealed, "I am an unsent."

Rikku suddenly buckled to the floor, her hands covering her mouth as pain gripped her chest to an unbearable degree. She shook her head, not wanting to believe what Auron just revealed.

"When Braska and Jeckt died," Auron began, "I just couldn't accept it, and I went back in to talk to Lady Yunalesca. Unfortunately, it did not end well for me. I was able to leave, and with my strength failing me, I was able to crawl my way down Mt. Gagazet. My strength completely left me just outside of Bevelle… that's where Kimari found me. I told him about Yuna just before I died. I've been wondering Spira every since… never going to the Farplane."

Rikku shook her head frantically, wanting him to take back those words, to say that wasn't what happened to him. Tears fell over her fingers as she still held them to her mouth. Her whole body shook with her sobs. She got up and accidentally tripped over a fallen piece of stone, which caught the attention of both Tidus and Auron in the other room. Her hands left her mouth as Auron stared at her, shock in his features. She ran.

"Oh, blast!" Auron shouted.

"What?" Tidus asked, but Rikku had already left out of sight, and caught up to the others. Wakka was the first to see her in her state.

"Whoa, hey, Rikku, what's…?"

She shoved passed him and stalked through the temple, her heart hurting more than it ever has before. More than when she first found out that her cousin had to die in order to defeat Sin. She left the crumbling building and let out a loud scream as soon as she came outside into the morning sun. A huge monster stood there, staring at her.

Sin.

The rest of the group came out and gasped. Tidus looked up at the beast. "Dad?"

Sin turned and left, and suddenly… a large airship came into view. Rikku wanted to leap for joy at the sight, knowing her father and brother were in there, but her wounded heart would not allow her to. She noticed a presence near her and saw Auron. He looked at her, and she frowned. He took one step to her, but the ship landed and all came onboard.

Rikku had to get away for a few minutes to gather herself. Knowing exactly how, she went and found the platform that could bring her up to the top of the ship. She pressed the button and quickly stood on the platform, ready to go up. She sniffed and wiped another tear from her eye as the platform rose.

The platform suddenly stopped. Startled, she looked down to see who had stopped it. Auron stood there with his hand over the button, his one brown eye gazing up at her with pleading words, words that didn't need to be said in order to relate what he was thinking. He pressed the button again and quickly joined her on the platform. It rose, and doors to the outside opened. Wind whipped Rikku's bangs and loose hair as she walked out onto the flat top of the ship.

She heard his footsteps behind her on the metal. She hugged herself as she forced herself not to burst into tears again.

"I take it you have a mouthful to say to me," he said behind her.

"Is it really true?" she muttered. "Are you really an unsent?"

Silence, then, "Yes. It's true."

She took in a large breath, but it didn't help since the tears still came. "Why… why didn't you say anything to begin with?!"

More footsteps, and she could smell his familiar scent in the wind. "Do you think I could tell you when you were so afraid of spirits and unsents—hated them—and came to me for comfort from them?" he quipped.

She turned to face him with wild eyes, tears falling down her cheeks and dripping from her chin. "It would've been better if you would've said something. I would've known what you really were, and I would've learned how to get used to it."

"Would you have?"

"Yes! I would've learned to get passed all of it."

"You're not doing a good job of that. You never did a good job of it."

"That's because I was scared! Why would you care, anyway? You see me as child, a crybaby, someone who asks too many questions…"

He stepped up to her, and the light of the morning sun shone in his billowing brown and gray hair. "I think it's about time that we had that talk that I spoke of yesterday." He let out an elongated sigh. "Rikku, I don't see you as a child. That was one of the main reasons why I didn't want to tell you, or anyone, the truth about me. I was shocked and bewildered when… I found myself furious that Seymour took a liking to you, and you chose to go off with him, even when you were doing it just for the sake of saving all of us."

Rikku's mouth opened, not believing what she was hearing. "Are you… serious?"

"Yes. It has tortured me the whole of our journey, and there was nothing I could do about it. I'm a dead man, with no life in me… and towards a girl of your age, I…"

He huffed through his nose and looked off at the cloudy sky. The great and legendary guardian Sir Auron fumbling over his words in the presence of a young woman, and was undoubtedly nervous.

"Auron, of course you have life in you," she assured him. "Maybe not in the literal sense, but… you talked with me, comforted me when I was scared out of my wits, and sometimes, you put me in my place when I was about to do something stupid. And sometimes, I did that stupid thing." She smiled weakly and wiped tears from her eyes while the wind blew her hair. "I could smell you and feel your presence… I loved it. Every moment of it. It was really the only happiness I could hold onto during all this pain and sadness."

Auron remained silent as he stared at her, and her gaze went to his collar. She rose her hand and touched it. "Could I… move this so I can see your whole face?"

He said nothing as she unbuckled the holds, and the collar fell to his shoulders. Her heart started to hammer at seeing the full view of his face for the first time. She smiled and touched his sandpaper cheek.

"Wow…" she mused. "You're so handsome. You know… maybe unsents aren't so bad. You're very much alive to me."

He suddenly took her hand on his cheek and she gasped. Alarm pulsed through her at thinking she did or said something wrong.

"Auron, I…"

"You foolish girl," he said and leaned in. Her eyes widened in shock at the sudden contact of Auron's mouth on hers. He grasped her hand tighter and moved his mouth, and she could feel the rough skin above his top lip. Her eyes fluttered closed and she responded, her mind muddled, and her heart thudding hard inside of her, making her limbs weaken.

The feeling on her mouth vanished and she opened her eyes to see one glittering brown eye open. She looked down, her whole face feeling hot. He released her hand and it fell to her side.

"Um…" she began, but he took hold of her waist and brought her to him. His mouth met hers again, and he started pinning at it. Not wanting to waste one moment, she responded and wrapped her arms around his neck and ran fingers through his hair. Tears of joy gathered in her eyes and fell down her cheeks, intermingling with the kiss, making it taste salty.

But she didn't care. The ship flew on, and the wind blew hard against them, but she kept her eyes shut, allowing this dream to continue. She felt his arms tighten their hold around her waist, and she felt his firm chest pressing against her.

The ship suddenly jolted, making their mouths disconnect. She stared at his eyes, and she brought her hand up and touched the scar that was over his right eye.

"Yunalesca did that to you…"

"Yes. You heard the instance when."

"I saw it. I'm sorry."

"It's already done." He let her go, and they stood there as the wind continued to blow and the morning sun gleamed in the distance, giving the sky a golden glow.

"I have a question," he said.

"And you were the one who told me I ask too many questions. What is it?"

"What happened between you and Seymour in Bevelle?"

Of course he would want to know this now. "You don't need to know."

"You basically just answered me," he said gruffly, and Rikku loved the jealous look etching his handsome, yet rough features. She brought her hands up and put his collar back to the way it was before.

"Let us go back to the others," she said, and put her arms back down when she finished. "They're probably wondering where we went."

"Alright."

He turned to go, but Rikku remained there, smiling as she watched is red cloak swish as he walked. At the door, he turned back to her.

"Aren't you coming?"

"Yes, yes," she said and joined him.

They said nothing on the way back down, and Rikku had to purse her lips to keep herself from shouting for joy. She glanced over at him, and he turned his head slightly and met her glance. She looked away. He chuckled.

The two exited the platform and made it to the command center where Cid and Rikku's brother, as well as the rest of the group, were gathered. Tidus was the first to spot them when they walked in.

"Hey, where have you guys been? We found out a way to defeat Sin!"