A/N: THANK YOU for all the reviews, I know I keep gushing but it honestly helps so much. & TFT, you were right. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Chapter Twelve

When she stepped onto the sunny streets of Luca, it was a bustling and busy as she'd expected it to be, and she couldn't move faster than a snail's pace along the docks. There were people from all over Spira in town for the blitz, Ronso, who all greeted Rikku respectfully, since she was a friend of their Elder, the Psyches all hailed her over, chatting and joking with her. It didn't look as though the Aurochs were here, which since they'd won all their heat matches wasn't all that surprising. The next match for them would be the quarter finals in another couple of weeks. By the time Rikku had evaded everyone else in Luca – who didn't know her, but knew her as a Legendary Guardian – she was hot, and tired, and thirsty. And she still hadn't gotten at least half of the things on Barkeep's list. Why couldn't Brother have done this? Or was the Captain too high and mighty to mingle with the common folk? She was just thinking about heading into a café for a drink when a familiar voice called her name. Two familiar voices, in fact.

"Rikku! Rikku!"

She turned to see Tidus and Yuna waving madly and coming toward her, bright grins on their faces. "Hi," she said, slightly stunned by their sudden appearance. "What are you guys doing here?"

"To see the Blitz of course," Tidus replied. "What about you? I thought you were going to go find-" He cut off after Yuna elbowed him in the side. "Uh, I mean…"

Rikku sighed. "It's fine, don't worry about it. I'm here for Barkeep – he wanted some supplies, but I haven't got it all yet, there are too many vilgehk people."

"Want some help?" Yuna asked cheerfully.

Rikku was about to refuse, since she didn't want to interrupt their couple time and had no desire to be a third wheel, when Tidus answered for her. "Yeah, Yuna, why don't you do that, there's uh, something I wanna get. Guy stuff, y'know."

"Oh, okay…" Yuna said as her boyfriend disappeared in a blond blur. She frowned for a moment and then turned to Rikku, a bright smile on her face. "So, where do we need to go first?"

"I was thinking about getting something to drink," Rikku said, hoping Yuna would agree, since her throat was killing her.

"Sounds great! What about that café over there?" She pointed, and Rikku hid a smile – it was the same café that the Psyches had kidnapped her in over four years ago. They headed into the café together, Rikku's smile beginning to get genuine- when she saw him.

At the entrance to the café, she stopped dead, her fingers grasping Yuna's arm tightly, her eyes wide and fixed on a point in the corner. "Rikku?" Yuna asked concernedly, looking at the ashen colour of her cousin's face.

Rikku did not take her gaze away from the horrific scene before her, now fighting the urge to simultaneously throw up and burst into tears. Yuna followed her gaze, letting out a gasp herself.

Auron was standing in the corner, his back to them, but the red coat and huge muscled form were unmistakable – it was definitely him. But the reason for Rikku's distress was equally evident. A pair of slim, decidedly feminine hands were wrapped around Auron's neck, and whoever the woman was, they were clearly embracing. Then the couple half-turned, the woman's face became visible and Rikku let out a strangled sob, then ran from the restaurant without a seconds' pause.

Giia.

By the time Yuna found Rikku again amidst the crush of people, her cousin was curled up into a ball, slumped at the bottom of a wall in an alleyway. For a moment Yuna thought she'd been shot, or stabbed. Then she moved slightly, and Yuna saw her shoulders shaking. She knelt beside her, uncaring of the filthy ground or the mysterious wet patch just next to her left knee. "Rikku, are you alright?" she asked quietly.

The blonde girl nodded, or it could have just been that her entire body was trembling, and the volume of her sobs increased loudly. Yuna shifted closer and sat next to her, putting an arm around Rikku's shoulders. When Rikku lifted her head, Yuna felt tears of sympathy come to her own eyes at the depth of utter and abject despair in hers. For a long while, the two girls sat there until Rikku felt like she could open her mouth without immediately throwing up. Funny how you could know you loved someone without truly knowing how much for so long. But when she'd seen the two of them together, she had felt a hand of ice reach into her ribcage and crush out her still-beating heart like an old tin can. Even now, there was a burning pain there.

"Yuna…" she croaked out, voice hoarse from at least an hour of sobbing. "Tell that wasn't…"

"I can't," her cousin whispered.

"But how could he?" she whimpered. "How could she? I knew she hated me, but… Why? I…just, why?"

Yuna was unable to answer, but eventually coaxed Rikku into stopping crying. It was another twenty minutes before they were ready to get out of the alleyway. "C'mon," she said. "Let's get back to the Celsius."

Rikku miserably agreed, but they hadn't gotten further than the entrance of the alleyway when a shadow fell over them. "Well, well, found you at last."

Yuna could have sworn Rikku actually growled. She certainly looked ready to pounce on Giia – minus Auron now, but flanked by two of her lackeys – and tear her limb from limb. The High Summoner couldn't honestly say that she would have tried to stop her. "What the fuck to you want, Giia?" Rikku spat, her fists balling.

"Aw, has the Al Bhed scum been crying? Whatever for, Princess? Could it be that you saw something you didn't like? Now what could that be, I wonder?"

Yuna spoke, holding onto Rikku more tightly. "I swear, Giia, you have no right to-"

"Well, you know what they say," Giia replied, still looking at Rikku with a mocking smile. "All's far in love and war." Her face slipped. "And this is both."

With a snarl, Rikku punched her as hard as she could, and Giia went down like a long. Her two comrades uttered battle cries and launched themselves into the fray – but did not last more than ten seconds before the two Gullwings took them out of it again. Yuna wiped the thin sheen of sweat away from her forehead and looked at Rikku. To see that Giia had woken up, but was still groaning on the ground, and Rikku was doing her best to make sure that she not only got knocked out again, but that she never woke up. "You know what they say, Giia!" she said, with a smile that reminded Yuna of a shark. She punctuated every word with another blow. "All's…fair…in love…and…war!"

"Rikku! Rikku, you have to stop!" Yuna cried. "She's out!"

Rikku delivered one more punch to Giia's nose – which resulted in a very satisfying crack – and got up, dusting herself off. "Pedlr."

"Rikku, let's get back to the ship. Before any of them wake up," she added in an undertone. She took Rikku's still trembling hand and led her back to where the Celsius was waiting.

It was both a bad thing and a good thing they left when they had – not five minutes later, Giia woke up, complete with her very obvious bruises, and ran right into Auron's arms. A good thing, because Yuna and Rikku didn't have to face his anger – and a bad thing, because they didn't have a chance to explain, and the way Giia told it, he was very, very angry. And partly in total disbelief. Maybe he'd been more right than he knew; she really had changed, and not at all for the better. The Rikku he knew would never attack an innocent woman for no reason. And as for Yuna…

He put his hands on Giia's shoulders. "Are you sure about Yuna? I can't believe that she'd-"

Giia recognised that she'd have to change tack, since there was obviously no way the infernal man would possibly believe his precious High Summoner was capable of doing anything wrong. She suppressed the urge to sigh impatiently. "Well, it looked more like she was trying to pull Rikku off me, but I couldn't tell, she was hitting me so hard and fast, I couldn't even breathe-" She let her voice break, summoning tears that could have been squeezed from any crocodile, and threw herself at Auron, burying her face in his chest. It had taken her several weeks to try and work out how to snare him, since he wasn't the type of guy that fell for tiny skirts and vast amounts of cleavage shoved in his face. No, Auron was a man trying to find himself. All he had to go on at the moment was what he'd always done; being a Guardian. It was what he knew, where his strength was, what he was comfortable doing. All Giia had to do was be a damsel in distress – it wouldn't interest him for long, of course, but then Giia didn't need it to. It wasn't as though she were planning on keeping him around anyway.

A/N: I know I created her, but even I'm surprised at how much of a bitch Giia is turning out to be. I can't promise she's gonna get her comeuppance soon though.