"Lulu! Wakka!" yelled Yuna as she pounded on their front door. "Please let me in!"

She could still hear the Thundaga spells. Lulu was now belting them out at such speed and ferocity that it was likely no serpent stood a chance. She could hear the ruthless sound of Wakka's blitzball hitting flesh and scales and the unmistakable haunting drone of Pyreflies exploding from within the beasts.

She tried the door and found that it was unlocked. A momentary relief swept through her but diminished instantly as thoughts of Tidus' fate struck her like frozen waves on a bitter sea.

Every person she had ever met had told her how full of optimism she was. They were right, too. But he was dead. She had witnessed death in all its forms and she knew what it looked like. The empty eyes. The stillness of the body. Even the colour of the skin as the blood slowly seeped away. And even in death, the monstrous fiends were still ravaging his body.

What would she do without him by her side? Her son or daughter growing up without a father? She would have to send him, and fast, but right now she had to focus on her best friends.

She rushed through the door. Wakka was on his knees in the lounge, his blitzball out of his reach. He was panting and clutching at a wound on his chest.

"Oh, Wakka!" Yuna cried, unable to grasp the severity of his injuries. She clasped a hand over her cheeks and mouth.

"Help Lulu!" he gasped, breathing rapidly, but Yuna had composed herself and had already raised her hands to cure him. Streams of white light surrounded him and then dissipated in an instant. He fell to the floor in a daze, his superficial wounds closing up as the magic knitted through the wounds, healing them. The wound on his chest was still large and gaping though and looked like it might be fatal.

"Lulu… help… Lulu!"

Yuna felt torn. She looked down at Wakka, lying there like a wounded puppy. She cocked her head towards the kitchen where she could hear Lulu's ferocious magic ricocheting against the walls. She looked down at Wakka again. He was trying to move, but couldn't. He groaned in agony.

"Don't move!" she yelled at him. "Lulu's fine. She's the fiercest black mage I have ever known! Please lie down, so that I can cure you! Do it!"

Perhaps it was the fact that Yuna was trying to shout at him, something that had never happened before and probably would never happen again, but Wakka began to laugh. It was guttural, from the heart. Even as he hung at the threshold of death's door, Wakka always had time for laughter.

His breathing was laboured though and Yuna's magic strength was weakening. Even though his laughter endeared her, she couldn't lose focus. Gathering as much strength as she could muster, she was able to surround the wound with a Curaga spell. It fizzled on the surface of his injury and then spread to each corner of it, cocooning it in a blanket of bright, warm light.

Lulu! She thought. Even though she was a black mage, it would be churlish for her, as a friend, not to lend her a helping hand, whether she needed it or not.

"I'll be right back!" Yuna told Wakka as she rushed through the lounge and into the kitchen beyond. "Don't move! Save your strength!" she called back to him.

Pots and pans lay scattered across the floor. The table was upturned and the lights flickered. Lulu unleashed a final bolt of thunder magic at a lone serpent. The beast exploded into a thousand Pyreflies as soon as the magic touched its skin. Lulu let out a pitiful moan and then fell to her knees.

"I think… that's the last of them," she muttered under her breath.

She turned around and saw her boyfriend lying haphazardly in the lounge.

"Wakka!"

"He's going to be fine," Yuna assured her as she knelt down beside her. She saw three gashes on her arm and face. "My energy's weak, but here, let me cure you."

"No," replied Lulu sternly. "Thank you, but Wakka needs your help more than I do."

"Okay," Yuna replied. "Let's go to him. I'm sure he would like to see you."

Yuna helped Lulu to her feet and supported her as they walked into the lounge. Wakka had managed to climb to his knees and was massaging the wound on his chest. Yuna was thankful that her white magic had not let her down; the wound had started to close up nicely.

"Thought I was a goner…" He looked up at Lulu and smiled warmly at her, albeit a little sheepishly. "You mad at me for being so weak, Lu?"

"Mad? At you?" she replied, sarcastically. "Never! Honestly, though? I'm just glad you're alive."

Yuna's heart dropped so forcefully she felt like she was going to pass out.

"Tidus…" she cried, dropping to her knees. Lulu clutched her shoulder with her hand and massaged her gently.

"Yuna, is he hurt?"

"I… I think he's…" She found that she couldn't finish her sentence. Instead, she wept. Lulu's gentle hand tightened on her shoulder. Wakka dragged his weary body over to hers and put his arms around her. He leant closer to her and said, "We'll go with you. He might still be alive. He might be waiting for you."

But Yuna couldn't get the vision of his clear blue eyes, blinded by eternal sleep, out of her head. She couldn't stop picturing his lifeless body just lying there as the serpents bit into his flesh. She needed to go back home, with her friends by her side. She needed to send him.