Nooj moving off the stage is what brings the chanting to a halt. The crowd funnels in towards him, forming a wide circle. They push against each other, reaching, demanding to feel these miracle limbs. Thankfully, Nooj remains impressively calm. He shouts over people, attempting to calm the frenzy and promising that everyone that wants to see the tech will get to before they leave.
"Incredible," Paine murmurs. I remember then that I am surrounded by my friends. Their faces share the same mark of astonishment.
"Incredible is right!" Tidus exclaims. "I lived in cities made totally of machines and I've never seen anything like that!"
"We must congratulate Nooj," Yunie decides. Her voice is hesitant, though, her gaze on the frenzied crowd.
"Those people would eat you alive right now," Paine remarks, "Spira's greatest hero be damned."
"So we'll just wait our turn and then talk to him once all the excitement dies down," I suggest brightly. "It'll be fun to watch everyone go wild, anyway."
"Fun. Right," Paine mutters, shaking her head. She makes fun, sure, but she doesn't argue. We make our way as a group towards the outskirts of the large ring.
"Rikku. 'Ey, Rikku!" I whirl around as the voice grows closer: Gippal, running towards me. He stops short just in front of me. "Can I. Uh. Talk to you for a minute?"
"Uhh. Sure. What's up?"
"No, not. Not." He throws a gaze towards the crowd. "Not here."
"Uuuuhhhhh." I drag out the sound longer than the first, glancing towards my friends. Concern has replaced astonishment for the moment, and it's what makes my choice. "Sure. I'll catch up with you guys later, a'right?"
"Rikku," Yuna begins slowly. I can practically feel her formulating some excuse.
"We'll say goodbye if we finish before you," Paine interrupts. She and Yuna exchange glances for a long moment before the ex-summoner turns to me and nods.
"See ya later!" Gippal exclaims, and then turns to me with a grin. He snatches my hand, entangling his fingers with my own. He tugs me forward at a jog.
"Are you okay?" I ask cautiously. This all seems to be very un-Gippal behavior as of late.
He laughs. "I'm flying! Did you see Nooj? It worked so great! Ah, man, everyone loved it."
I can't help but feel my own mood lighten, suspicion lifting. I'm all over the place today. "You did a really good job up there," I tell him, squeezing his fingers. "Y'know, you can be pretty good with words when you wanna."
"You should hear some of the Al Bhed curses I've come up with lately," he quips. "You really think so, though?"
"Definitely," I agree. We're in the temple, now. I stop jogging, but he keeps tugging. "Whoa, where're we going? The temple's empty."
"Back to the chamber of fayth," he tells me. His voice is a little more serious now, and his pace is slower. "I've—gotta tell you stuff."
Welp. There goes my good mood. Again. "I'm not allowed back there, remember? You kicked me out." I pull my hand back, but he clings to it.
"Just a minute, all right? Hear me out."
"Start talking," I retort crossly.
"Not yet. There're workers in the cloister."
The workers give us a cheery greeting. They don't seem surprised that Gippal's holding my hand after he so rudely kicked me out. Too bad. That would've really made my point. Then again, they're probably used to him by now.
He doesn't say anything as we head up the stairs, and there's no way I'm gonna be the one to speak first. The rest of the walk is all silence.
He glances to me as the lift comes to a stop at the top. "I'm still flying, so maybe this isn't the best idea, but I'm gonna tell you something no one else knows about, 'kay?"
"You are?" What's with this guy? He ignores my existence for months, and suddenly I'm his top-clearance confidant?
"Yeah. And I'm gonna trust you to keep it between us." His look here is meaningful.
"No problem there! I'm the best at secrets." Sorta.
He raises a brow. "Uh-huhh." Ah, there's the Gippal I know. "See, the thing is, when I saw you up here earlier, I panicked."
"Uh. Why? It's not like I haven't been here before."
"That's part of the reason," he says slowly. "See, uh, we had a little—incident."
"An incident?" I parrot.
He nods. "No one in the Machine Faction comes up here, y'see. It's kinda useless to us with that giant hole. Someone came up here a few weeks ago, though."
"An ex-summoner?" I ask.
He shakes his head. "Doubtful. When they come, and it's rare since this temple is all 'defiled with machina' and whatnot, they ask to enter. Whoever showed up didn't ask. They managed to get into the cloister without anyone noticing and hang around this hole." He scratches the back of his neck. "What for, I have no idea. That wouldn't be a huge deal, I guess, except when they got into the cloister, they took some pretty important stuff."
"What kinda stuff?"
He lets out a slow breath. "We had a rough prototype of the bnucdradel. Not even half-finished, but they took it anyway. And they left us a little present."
Are my eyes about to pop out of my skull? Maybe. "Something tells me it's not such a good present."
"Not at all." He pulls at my hand, leading me forward into the chamber itself. "The wall."
"The wall?" He points, and I follow the direction. Straight across from us, in huge lettering, reads: Fa femm neca. How did I manage to miss that before?"We will rise?" I ask, furrowing my brow.
"Yeah. Doesn't sound too good, does it?" It's not really a question. He rubs at his temple with his free hand. "I've been trying to figure out for weeks what it all means, who it could be connected to. You wanna know what I came up with? A big fat load of nothing. So I got a little paranoid—no, a lot paranoid. And then I saw you here, in this room when you shoulda been down in the crowd, and you had the lamest excuse, and I started adding up facts."
"Hmm. Let me guess. I know the place? I know machina? I'm Al Bhed?" I try to play it off lightly.
He must sense the anger, because his face sorta…crumples. "Yeah. I know, I know. But I was totally outta leads, y'know? And there you were, where you weren't supposed to be for no good reason. So I jumped on it. I fumed about it right up until it was time to show off the tech. But then, I got so swept up in the crowd that I couldn't be angry. Which means, of course, that I couldn't be irrational. What finally did it was seeing your face in that crowd, when everyone cheered. I think you took the longest. But the way you shouted my name, and the look on your face—I just. I knew it wasn't you. Think I knew the whole time."
"I was hiding from you," I blurt out.
He freezes. His head tilts to the right. "What?"
"When I ran up here. I was hiding from you. I didn't want to stick around so you could not-talk to me some more."
"Ahh." He wipes a hand down his face. "I—"
"I don't wanna talk about it," I interrupt firmly. "Besides, I've got more important stuff to tell you."
"Oh?"
"Yeah. I think I have your lead."
"My lead? But you didn't even know about it."
"You're right. When it happened, I had no idea what was going on. But it makes total sense, now."
"All right, your turn." He squeezes my hand, and I almost jump. I forgot he was still holding it. Weird. "Spill."
I rotate on my heel to face him, tilting my chin upwards. "When I came back here, I was only thinking about hiding. I figured I might as well go all the way back since I was here, yeah?"
"You never have done anything halfway."
"Hey! Are you teasing me? That's not very nice. This is super serious, remember?"
"Super serious," he echoes. There's a teasing note, but it fades as he adds, "Go on."
"I wasn't alone. As soon as I hit the lift, I heard voices. Al Bhed ones. So I moved into the room right next to the chamber and pressed against the wall to listen. They were saying—weird stuff. There was this one guy with a creepy voice. He called the other guys his disciples, and they called him master. Super weird, yeah? He talked about how he was gonna take care of them. But the most important part is why he was taking care of them. He was all concerned about 'sorting out technical aspects. And his 'disciples'? They were worried about how to transport pyreflies."
"They—wh—what?" Gippal is sputtering. I've only ever heard him sputter once before, and that was at seeing Paine before. "They're trying to. They want to. What, they want to recreate the tech? Fryd dra ramm vun?" What the hell for?
"I dunno! I just put two and two together, like, now. With all the commotion around your big announcement I forgot that this even happened." I scrunch my nose thoughtfully. "Maybe they're trying to make a rival company?"
"A rival company to what, the Machine Faction? There's no rival to that!"
"Yet."
"There's no way they'd succeed," he says stubbornly.
"Maybe not, but wouldn't it make sense? They steal your tech. They have some kinda master. They even have uniforms! They're really weird. They look like robes, but Al Bhed robes? Still, though: uniforms. And they wrote on your wall that they're gonna rise."
"Huh. Maybe you're right. They could be tryin' to outdo us. Not that they'd have much success. I didn't know any Al Bhed had grudges against us, though."
"Some people hide their feelings well," I point out. "So well, in fact, that you think they mean one thing and then suddenly it becomes super clear that they mean something totally different."
He narrows his eye at me. "Are you—"
"Am I what?" I chirp. "Am I saying that maybe they pretended not to have a problem so they could have the advantage? Why, yes, I totally am."
"No. I meant. I meant that." He looks at me for a long moment, and then sighs. "Oh, never mind. There are more important things right now. Like first of all, how did they sneak in? Or out? You said they were dressed weird. Someone shoulda noticed."
"They had this weird machina," I explain. "It looked like half a sphere, and it pulsated all green. He put it in the cloister wall, and it opened up this weird hole. It disappeared when they all stepped through it."
"I've never heard of tech like that," he says, sounding a little awed and a lot envious. "There are more questions, though. For example, if these weirdo Al Bheds with a grudge against the rest of us were right there, how'd you get out without some kinda fight?"
"Oh, that's easy. I hid."
"You hid." He looks at me doubtfully. I offer a nod. He raises his brow and then tugs at my hand yet again, leading me into the next room. "This place is totally empty. Where'd you hide?"
"Against the wall," I reply in a singsong voice. This is a blast!
"Rikku, are you telling me that I have not just competition, but blind competition? They're even trying to one-up me on that?"
"Nooo. They could see." I wink at him. "I've got a few tricks up my sleeve."
"Such as?"
"I'll show you." I yank my hand backwards. This time, he releases it. I wiggle my fingers, getting accustomed to the lack of warm pressure, and toss him a grin. I step backwards slowly, arms flat with my palms facing behind me. I stop when I feel the wall against my hands and then lean my body slowly against it. "Ready? Close your eyes! Er, eye."
"Rikku, fryd dra ramm?"
"Just do it. Come ooon!"
"You're crazy," he mutters, but he obliges, squeezing his eye shut tightly enough that I can see his skin wrinkling.
Okay, dressphere, do your thing. I close my own eyes for a second to find that hum of power, and then let them snap open. I coax it forward. Again, there's the engulfing rush, and then it subsides, still in my bloodstream but not overwhelming me. I peek down to make sure I blend before chirping, "'Kay, you can look, now!"
"This is the worst game of hide-and-seek ever," he announces. He relaxes the muscle around his eye—or is it both of them? Do all of the muscles still work?—and then pivots on his heel to scan the room. "Hey, running away is cheating!"
"I'm not running away," I croon. He whirls around, facing my voice. It's not that weird to see him looking through me instead of at me. This is just the first time I'm really invisible.
Bad Rikku. Don't be dumb.
"What—you-where are you?" he exclaims. He's sputtering again. I think I like sputtering Gippal.
"I'm right here!"
"How're you throwing your voice like that?"
"I'm not throwing my voice."
"You're not there!" He marches forward, sounding exasperating, and comes to a halt about an inch in front of my toes. I hold my breath to keep it from fanning across his face. He narrows that one eye, scouring every detail, and then reaches a hand forward. It doesn't have to travel far at all before it brushes my braid.
The look on his face is practically art. "I've never seen anyone so shocked!" I tease, giggling.
"You really are right here," he murmurs. He buries his fingers into my braid, stopping me mid-laugh.
"Heyy, you're gonna unravel it," I whine.
"How are you doing that?" he asks, ignoring my protest.
"It's a new dressphere. It lets me blend into surroundings. When I stop touching the wall it goes away, though. I can't be invisible in the middle of the room. What a waste." I pout even though he can't see it.
"Huh." His fingers are deep in the braid, now. "Incredible. Shinra's a genius."
"Obviously," I say. "Uhh, what're you doing?"
"Ruining all your hard work." He takes his fingers and twists them downwards quickly before I can say anything. He's managed to get just the right angle, so it all comes unraveled before I even have time to think about it.
"Heyy!" I swat his hand away, my own becoming briefly visible. He doesn't even notice. "How old are you, twelve?"
"Give or take a few years." His hand returns to stroke at my hair. "Tysh, your hair's long."
"Oh, stop. Haven't you tortured it enough?" I grab at his wrist to stop him before he can tangle my hair up.
He takes several steps backward without warning, using my grip on his wrist to yank me into visibility. "Torture," he murmurs, his voice barely above a whisper, "is a word I've thought about a lot in the past year or so."
"Wha'?" is all I can manage. Brilliant. I shuffle back a step and drop my gaze to my boots. A minute ago, we were talking about life-or-death situations, and now all of a sudden he's doing…what is he doing? Is he doing what I think he's doing? Why is this happening? I'd like to go back to the life-or-death, please.
"You don't wanna talk about it. I get it. I'll wait." A finger comes up to lift my chin and holds it there. He waits for me to meet his gaze. "But eventually, you knowit's gonna come up."
"I—don't know what you're talking about." This close, his eyes are almost more grey than green. My hand falls away from his wrist, and he captures it in his own.
"Ah, but you do." He entangles each one of our fingers, slowly but deliberately. "It always seems like only one of us knows about this at one time, doesn't it? But we always know, don't we? Both of us."
"Uhmmmm."
"Don't worry. I won't make you talk about it right now. But listen closely, little dreav." His hand moves swiftly from my hand to my back, pressing me forward until we're toe to toe. "This is not the end of this conversation. This is just the beginning."
"Gippal!" I'm not sure where to go from squeaking his name, but it turns out I don't even have to worry about it. He releases me just as suddenly as he'd grabbed me and steps back.
That stupid smirk is on his face. I don't think I've ever hated it more. "I'll find you soon," he says, offering a wave before turning on his heel to walk out. He only gets a few steps before halting. "Oh, yeah. Rikku?"
"Huh?" I manage.
He starts walking again. "I've dreamed of you with your hair down."