A/N: Braska is still 27 in this story but Yuna's mom is 25. I decided to go against staying faithful to their canon age difference.

She did not understand why this was happening. The horror was too much for her eight year old mind to reason out. She heard stories about people who hated those of her kind and knew why her kind had to live isolated from the rest of Spira. But never once had she imagined that it would go this far.

Only people with the darkest of hearts, who rejoiced at the pain and sorrow of others would ever do this. The world had seemed too good for her to believe that such people did exist.

Now she sat surrounded by bodies lying motionless with their empty eyes, their slightly gaping mouths and their twisted limbs. Their open wounds leaked an endless flow of blood, tainting the ground with the last traces of their life. Among them was her mother, who protected her from the rain of bullets that had slaughtered others who had no one to fend for them.

Numb with shock and grief, she had momentarily lost her voice. Her throat felt like it had shrunk to a size too small to let her speak. Only the sound of other children screaming and weeping over the dead bodies of their loved ones could express her own anguish.

As her hands clung tightly to her mother's blouse, her eyes flitted about, searching for someone to help her – to tell her that this was all just a nightmare.

Some distance away, there was her brother… on his knees and as frozen as she was. He had his head down, obscuring his face from her view.

"Brother… brother!" she called, pushing her small scraggly legs to stand despite her buckling knees.

Her brother's silence distressed her. She stumbled her way to him, desperate to prove that he was as alive as she was. Relief washed over her as she learned that her brother was indeed still breathing… until the sight of something else rattled her again. Sprawled ahead on the ground was their father, eyes wide open but bleak. A little touch was all it took for her to know that he was cold and there was no longer a soul left in his body.

"He… saved me. He… he protected me," her brother stammered, forcing words out of him while grinding his teeth.

Sobs soon wrecked his body, reminding her of her own sadness. Tears soaked her eyes and cheeks, and she wanted to wail but exhaustion would not let her. Instead, she looked around her, trying once again to come to terms with what was happening.

Blazing sea of fire licked tall concrete and soft flesh into nothing but burnt scraps. All that managed to slip away were ravaged by bullets and explosives. None was spared except a 'lucky' few like her and her brother. The city she, her people, called Home was no more. When she gazed up to the sky, all she saw was red… as red as the pools of blood that had drenched the city.

Just when she thought that it was just her and her brother left alone in the world, she heard the yelling of a familiar voice, "They're here! They're here, father!"

Beyond the swell of grey smog, she saw figures sprinting after them – a shorter one, followed by a tall one. Their forms grew stark as they were nearing for her to figure out that it was her dear friend Nhadala and Kappa, Nhadala's father who were coming to their rescue.

"Cid! Yahna!" cried Kappa before falling onto his knees, gathering them into his arms and caressing their heads. "Thank goodness you're both still alive!"

He quickly withdrew but still had his hands gripping on their shoulders. "We have to leave. It's not safe for us to be here."

She nodded, ready to go but her brother remained wordless. His reluctance did not go unnoticed by Kappa who stole a glance at their father's body before reassuring, "We won't be away for too long. We'll return to give them proper burials… I promise."

Kappa's words were seemingly enough to convince her brother. They left and immediately went to the port where they were placed with other children and adults who survived in boats that would soon float away along the sea. They waited solemnly as Kappa and others who still had some strength left in them fought to quench the fire that had razed their Home.

Hours flew by until they were brought back into the city just to say their final goodbyes. Bodies of the deceased were carried one by one to the sea for them to be ceremoniously sunk. Pyreflies had sprung out of the surface of the water and roamed the sky as if the dead had found another way to live. After the last of the bodies had disappeared into the water, she sang together with everyone else the song that held them together in times of ease and hardship:

Ieyui

Nobomeno

Renmiri

Yojuyogo

Hasatekanae

Kutamae

The Pyreflies began circling them, urging her to reach her hand out as she hoped to be taken away.

"We have to split," she heard Kappa say.

There was so little of them left that it made no sense to tear them further apart. How could they survive without each other in a world that despised their existence?

Her feelings must have been reflected on everyone else's faces because Kappa went on to add, "We have to or else the Yevonites will come after us again and succeed in killing us all."

"I agree," echoed Lilis, the young woman who was set to inherit her father's weapon store before the attack on their city. "It's easier to hide if we live in smaller groups."

An argument broke out when those who disagreed let their grievances be known, dividing them into two camps: those who would follow Kappa and those who would not.

Following Kappa was almost inevitable for her and her brother. The older man and his wife were adamant about raising them along with Nhadala. They left on boats to an unknown place that would soon become their new Home.

As the boat drifted away, she gave the city one final look and burned the image of what she saw at the back of her head. All her grief had been exhausted; left behind was only her thirst for vengeance.