Even more than any of the omakes before, this one was trying to turn into a proper chapter. A chapter full of exposition, but a chapter nonetheless. Why I didn't have the foresight to establish occasional changes in POV early on in FTaBV, I don't know. When I finally get around to my fullscale edit of the story (that I've been promising myself I'd do for ages), I'll probably move these Significant Event omakes into the main story as interlude chapters... I really wish I'd thought to do that before.

And this Significant Event omake in particular has been snowballing on me. As I work on it, it gets bigger and bigger and BIGGER. But I selfishly didn't want to trim out big chunks of it like I should have, since I personally felt that I was getting more insight into the characters than I had when I started.

Therefor, I am embracing the selfishness (it's fanfiction! By nature its creation is going to be a bit selfish!) and posting it up in three parts to make it easier to read. This first part is mostly according to the plan I had when I started, it's after this where I started getting selfish. Part two will wait a few days before going up, and part three will (hopefully) be finished and up a few days after that. ...That's not a guarantee, just so you know. *Looks away sheepishly*

x x x

FTaBV Omake: Hasty Departure - Left Behind

x x x

"Letha, stop!"

Two hands reached out, their owners having the same goal in mind. They reached to grab at the brown clad back turned to them. Both closed on empty air. Chase swore as a few long strands of chestnut hair snagged on his fingers as the rest fell away. With a splash, Letha vanished into the dark water of the harbor.

"Damn!" Lowell spat from next to him, bending over the rail as he tried to see where she'd come up again.

Not wanting to waste time, Chase grabbed the railing and threw one leg up to climb over. But-"Hey!"-felt someone grab the back of his collar and drag him down.

"Are you both out of your-"

The ship shuddered, lurching forward as it yanked their feet out from under them. Chase was just lucky he fell back onto Yuri instead of pitching overboard. Yuri, he was sure, wouldn't count himself so lucky.

"That can't have been good," the other swordsman muttered darkly as Chase rolled off him. The other man gripped the wall of the cabin to keep from falling over as he stood up. Chase had to crawl over back to the rail before he could do the same. A brief flash of pain throbbed in his chest, below the heart and to the side, but he ignored it with the ease of long practice. Even if it was worse than earlier.

Once up again, he could see how the water sped by below them as the Fiertia sliced through the harbor. The boat rocked terribly with its barely controlled speed, timber and ropes creaking from the strain. Chase bit his lower lip as he prayed it would hold together. He could see the row of ships forming a barricade ahead of them.

A white and blue blur from the corner of his eye tore his attention from the Empire's ships. The krityan, Judith, was braving the unstable deck to rush to the stern. Why is she- "Ah, crap! I forgot!" he realized as he noticed the building red glow from behind the cabins.

"Yeah!" a young voice, the boy Karol, shouted triumphantly. "We broke through!" While Chase had been distracted, the smaller boat had managed to slip through a gap between the larger ships thanks to its unexpected burst of speed. Now, if it would just last a bit longer, they'd be safely out of reach even once the ceres blastia was...

"'Forgot'?" a suspicious voice repeated. Chase swallowed, then looked back to meet Lowell's narrowed eyes. "What, did you know something like this would happen?"

"Well..." the Earthling hedged, avoiding the other man's intent glare. A distraction would be great right about now.

"What are you doing?" The princess could just barely be heard from the other side of the cabins. But more alarming was when the mage cried desperately-

"No, stop!"

Not even sparing another glance at Chase, Yuri did his utmost best to sprint for the distressed girls without having the deck drop out from under him again. With less urgency, Chase tried to do the same.

Something exploded. He winced and braced himself as the shock wave set the ship rocking in a different way than it had been previously, hoping it really was only the blastia. The ship's forward propulsion began to slow as it settled down, not dying completely, but enough that he wasn't gonna be dumped on his ass again. He came around the corner of one of the cabins and stopped.

Smoke was streaming up from the ruined blastia, a massive crack dividing it. Sparks crackled and flew wildly from the body that housed the core. Pulling a sour face, Chase reminded himself not to get too close to it by accident. Rita stood next to it anyway, feet wide and hands balled in fists as the horror of what she was seeing sank in. It was, he thought grimly, the same type of expression he'd seen some innocents wear when viewing a scene of carnage for the first time.

The princess, Estelle, was kneeling on the deck not too far away. She cradled Belius' apatheia to her chest, but seemed to have forgotten it as she stared with shock at her friends. It didn't even seem like she noticed when Yuri went to her and helped her stand.

Presiding above the destruction, balanced on the rail with her halberd held loosely in one hand, was Judith. "...This is the path I have chosen." Her voice was gentle, at odds with the destruction she was capable of. And a sonorous voice, like a playback of a whale recording, rang out from over the water.

The mage's head snapped to the side in the direction the call had come from, then her rage fixed on the krityan again. "You're that dragon freak!"

Something pressed against Chase's legs. He looked down and realized the boy Karol was there. The kid's own legs appeared to have given out on him, the Earth man had just happened to be conveniently placed to keep him from falling over entirely. "J-Judith is...? No way..." He reached down and gave the boy's shoulder an encouraging squeeze before returning his attention to the mess before them.

A dark blot in the night sky swept towards them, blocking stars as it got closer.

Yuri was the first to figure out what it was. "Judy! Wait!" Letting go of Estelle's arm, he ran forward to stop the krityan. Rita had also leaped forward but her intentions were less clear.

"Goodbye," Judith said just as the dark shape swooped down next to the ship. She jumped off, the Entelexeia catching her on his back before rising up into the air again.

Oh, hey! Chase shook himself as he remembered. Karol nearly fell on his back as his support disappeared, Chase running back along the shortest path to the ship's bow. "Hey!" he shouted, hoping he'd be heard before the krityan was out of earshot. "Clint and his guys will be after Ba'ul next! Look out for them!"

He thought he saw a glimpse of a smile before Judith was too far away to see clearly anymore.

Hand pressed against his ribs, Chase sighed as he slumped over. His forehead knocked against the polished wood of the rail. What do I do now? This wasn't what we hoped for...

x x x

After all the excitement was over and done with the ship managed to coast along for awhile before it was dead in the water. They were out of sight of land, but at least that meant it would be all the harder for the Empire to find them. Judith's departure had left everyone numb, all the rush of emotions and need to act draining out of them as the shock fully set in. Even when the old man had quietly asked where Letha had gotten to and Yuri outlined her stunt to the others, it barely got a round of "oh" and "why would she do that?" out of them all.

Alright, that was getting them nowhere fast. Acknowledging that was enough for Yuri to throw off the dark mood and get back to matters at hand.

"Rita, anything you can do about the blastia?" When she didn't seem to hear him, he grabbed her by the shoulder and shook her, "Rita!"

The mage made a half hearted gesture to shrug him off and shook her head. "I'll...I'll look at it, but the damage is pretty extensive."

"Good thing we have a genius then," he remarked, hoping it would pep her up. And the corners of her mouth did twitch as she brought up the glowing control panel for the ceres blastia. Leaving her to it, the black haired swordsman looked around at the rest of the group.

Everyone had withdrawn into their own corners, brooding over one matter or another. There was plenty enough to choose from. Some of which, he grimaced to think, were about him and what he'd done on his own. Nothing we can do to change any of that now, not that I would. But he did think it was up to him to try and drag the others out of the doldrums.

Rita would be alright for the moment with something to keep her busy. He'd come back to check on her and her progress later. The old man didn't seem all that badly off; he had his hands full with his own gloomy tagalong. Harry, he thought the guy's name was. No, it was either Estelle or Karol who needed him first.

Although... Yuri eyed Chase, where the other man stood hunched over the rail at the ship's bow.

He'd rather make sure Estelle and the young Captain weren't about to break down, but there were things about this guy that could not be ignored. "Ah, crap! I forgot!" he'd said just before. And Letha had spilled a lot of secrets earlier after Belius-after the ugliness in the coliseum arena, when Flynn showed up. Yuri had a strong hunch that those two both had loads more secrets than they'd let on about.

"I've been dying to be able to talk with someone from Earth again, myself."

Well, he decided, this guy was the first one to bring up their "other world" in the first place. Maybe he's the easier nut to crack.

"Hey, you're not gonna be sick, are you?" the swordsman asked to get the Earth man's attention as he approached from behind. Chase lifted his head from his folded arms to peer back at Yuri in confusion.

"What? I'm not...oh. Nah, I'm not sick." He stood up straighter, as if to prove he didn't actually need the support from leaning on the rail. "Just sorta worn out from all that earlier."

Yuri's fist settled on his hip by habit as he gave the other man a quick appraisal, trying to see if there were any injuries that had gone unnoticed in the craziness. "You need some help from Estelle? If she knew you were hurt, she'd fix you up right away."

"No!" Chase blurted out. Then, less sharply, "No, that's fine. It's not something she could help with anyway. I just need some rest." Yuri didn't miss the way his hand raised up and gripped at his leather coat, roughly in the area below the heart.

"You sure?" he asked casually, pretending he hadn't noticed. "Letha went a little crazy about trying to heal Belius, but other than that she never had a problem with Estelle's powers. So it can't be because of the whole Earth thing."

Chase shifted on his feet, leaning back a bit against the rail as he looked away over the water. "It's...pretty complicated. I've got a small health problem that's a holdover from...another world I've been to." He shrugged, "Al's still on my case about that one."

Al...he means that guy we saw in Caer Bocram, and in Mantaic. "Another world? Besides Earth? Just how many are there?"

That made him shrug again. "Beats me, I just know that there's enough to blow any sci fi geek's mind. I've only been to three, counting Earth and this world." Chase looked back at Yuri again, and then his eyebrows raised. "Woah, maybe you should be the one going to talk to Estelle."

"What?" Yuri frowned. Sure, he was going to speak with her next, but why-?

"I don't know who did it, but somebody must've decked you one in the face pretty hard."

Still frowning, the swordsman raised a hand to feel his face. He winced as his fingers brushed a large tender spot on the right cheekbone. "Ow, that stings." He replayed the fights from earlier in his head, but couldn't remember ever-oh wait. "I think that was your fault, from just now."

With a sympathetic hiss, Chase glanced at the claymore slung across his back. The hilt would be at the right level to have done that. Yuri guessed he should just be glad it hadn't gouged his eye out. "Right, when I was about to be an idiot and jump after her..." And Yuri had stopped him. Apparently thinking along the same lines, a hazel eye fixed on the black haired man accusingly. "Aren't you worried about her at all?"

"Who, Letha?" He was the one to shrug this time. "Sure, but we can't exactly go back for her now. Besides, she knows how to take care of herself. I'd be more worried about anyone who gets in the 'black widow's' way."

"If you say so," Chase accepted with some clear reluctance. "You'd probably be the better judge, having spent more time with her."

"Just wish I knew why she did it..." Any of it. Yuri gave his companion a questioning look. "Anything you'd like to share?"

Chase was silent. After a minute he just shook his head and took a step away from the side of the ship. "I'm gonna go rest up for a bit, get my strength back and all that. You should try talking with one of the others. That kid, Karol, seemed pretty shaken up."

Yuri smirked at him, "That's the second time you've said something like that. You're trying to get rid of me." The sheepish look was all the confirmation he needed. "What, is your red head friend gonna swoop in and pull that disappearing act again once we're not watching?"

The other man rubbed the back of his neck, making an irritated face when he seemed to realize for the first time that most of his hair had come out of the tail he kept it in. "No, that's not it. Al can't even find me right now, let alone come and get me. We're in the middle of the ocean." He spread his arms wide to make his point. "One little slip up and he'd be playing with the fishes." A brief pause, "Dang, now I hope he tries just so I can laugh at him. Maybe a passing shark would want to make friends."

That seemed a bit weird to hope for if they were friends. "You got something against him?"

"Hmm, not really," Chase said slowly. "Not anymore, at least. He'd be fine anyway, Al gets out of hairy situations like that all the time. He feeds the eggbears after all."

"...What?" Yuri must've heard wrong. But in the time it had taken him to catch up with that off the wall image, Chase was already half way to the step down into the small passage dividing the cabins. "Hey!"

"I'm not gonna get far on my own, Lowell!" the Earth man called back. "You can let me have some R and R before grilling me, can't you?" Without waiting for a response, Chase opened one of the doors and shut himself inside.

Shaking his head, the swordsman turned away and looked around for Estelle. He eventually found the princess on the other side of the ship, staring out towards the western horizon. She'd finally put that crystal, Belius' apatheia, away somewhere. Her empty hands rested lightly on the wooden rail in front of her.

Yuri leaned against the rail beside her, back to the open water as he studied the cabin wall. Estelle didn't react to his presence at all. That was no good; if she didn't get whatever was on her mind off her chest, she was liable to think way too much about things again. Thinking about what she wanted to do was fine, but getting depressed and confused over stuff she couldn't do anything about was pointless. "Can you see anything?" he finally asked to draw her out.

"I don't see anything at all..." she said, dejected. "...After what happened with Belius and Flynn..." Glancing out of the corner of his eye, Yuri could see her head bow under invisible pressure. "And Letha, back there I really thought for a moment that she wanted to fight us...and then she just left?" The delicate hands fell from the ship to clasp each other. "Judith too, breaking our blastia and running away... I just don't know what to think anymore."

"Oh yeah?" he input carelessly. Treating something like it wasn't actually that big a deal always worked for him. And trying to figure out what the hell had happened that day seemed a monumental task. Had it only been hours before that they'd all been trying to help that Lloyd guy find his missing swords?

"What should I be doing?" the princess wondered. "I just don't know anymore..."

"I don't think there's anything wrong with what you've been doing so far," Yuri pointed out. "You've helped a lot of people and learned some stuff along the way, haven't you?"

"Maybe," she still sounded uncertain, "When I decided to look for Phaeroh I believed that, no matter what the truth was, I wanted to learn about myself. I wanted to understand why the Entelexeia hate the Child of the Full Moon so much. And now I know...because of this power, to them I'm dangerous. So dangerous that my own friends have to stop me!"

"Hey, hey!" Yuri chastised Estelle before she could get any more wrapped up in thoughts like that. "Belius didn't think you were dangerous. She even told you take good care of your kind nature. And Letha..." he frowned to himself at the harder edge he'd put to her name. He hadn't exactly forgiven her for what had happened back there, even if she'd tried to encourage the princess in her own way. "Well, she did say that you were one of the least threatening people she knows."

A wistful smile flickered across the princess' face. "If only I knew what to do...where to go next."

"I'm sure if you think about it, you'll figure out what you want to do." The swordsman stepped away from the rail, sensing there wasn't much more to do for now. But, just to be sure, he added one more part. "If you're still stuck, it's okay to ask the rest of us for help. We can figure something out together."

Estelle nodded, "Yes. Yes, you're right. Thank you, Yuri," she smiled at him gratefully.

"Hey, don't mention it," he shrugged it off, never quite comfortable with accepting someone else's gratitude. Especially not from someone like Estelle, who he'd always known was a better person than him. He just never felt like he'd deserved it. 'Bout time he went to check on how Karol was holding up anyway.

"Oh, wait!" Estelle stopped him when he started to walk past. Yuri looked at her questioningly, and saw her hands raised and clasped as the light of first aid gathered around them. After the healing arte flashed, he felt the dull aches he'd all but forgotten fade away.

"Forgot about that," he mused. Funny how he'd hardly noticed until they were gone. He grinned at the princess. "See? Nothing bad about that."

Her fingers twisted together shyly, "I can't just ignore someone who's injured in front of me..."

"Right, that's just not you," Yuri agreed. An Estelle that healed people without a second thought was Estelle as she should be. Then a thought surfaced in his mind. "You know, maybe you should check on Chase too. He said he only needed rest, but it looked more serious than that to me."

Estelle's gaze slid past him to the ship's cabins. "I can try..." Before Yuri could say anything to make her buck up again, the princess' jaw firmed of her own volition. "I'm going to try! And I can start learning when my power should and should not be used!" Then she noticed the bemused expression on Yuri's face. "Is something wrong?"

He shook his head, chuckling to himself. "Nope, not a thing."

x x x

I'm not entirely happy with this, I had the nagging feeling that I should skip from the "Judith Leaves" part into the heart of the "Let's Interrogate the Earthling" part. It was what I had planned to do at first. But I don't believe, after all the crap the group had just gone through, they'd be all set to tear into him like that. Not that they wouldn't want to, but they'd all be exhausted physically, mentally, and emotionally. Still, I could have time skipped into the talk, but that's where the selfishness I mentioned kicks in.

I included Yuri's conversation with Estelle because I changed it around here and there. They obviously can't have the same talk as takes place in the game since Letha and I altered the Nordopolica events. For one thing, my Belius somehow neglected to actually mention "Go see Phaeroh," or "Take this crystal to the Don." I only let that go at the time because I have perfectly logical explanations for them to make those decisions, and Chase or Letha could force the issue if necessary.