The Uchiha compound was silent, illuminated in the light of a red moon.

Blood pooled beneath Sasuke's feet as the boy ran from shadow to shadow, not daring to look at the creature that loomed behind him. Instead frightened coal eyes met uncaring crimson ground as the image of familial genocide was burned once more into his memory.

It was an abstract scene born of a traumatised child's nightmares mixing with the horrid reality that spawned them. It was a scene that had reappeared to Sasuke nightly for the rest of his life. He would never be permitted the ability to forget it. Every day, the people of his village would whisper their gossip as he walked past. Every day, the ghosts of his family would whisper in his ear their hatred of his weakness. How had the village allowed him to escape, the villagers would wonder. How had he not avenged them, his family would accuse.

Every day, he stared himself in the mirror and was glared back at by the memory of his younger self; a testament to his failures. Why was he so weak? Why was he so pathetic? Why was he allowing himself to become content parading around in a facsimile of a normal life with an idiot and an annoyance when Itachi yet lived.

Why was he smiling when the rest of his family wept in rage from within their place in the Impure World?

A single Sharingan eye whirled dangerously as the eighteen year old Uchiha gazed upon a scene he had not viewed in five years. For five years he had allowed himself to languish within the illusion. For five years he had ignored his duty to his village, his family, and himself.

He would find his way back to the Leaf Village. He would track down Itachi. And he would kill him.

"Foolish little brother."

Why was it then, that he felt unbearably sad?

[Break]

Sasuke awoke to find himself floating amongst the sunken rubble of some kind of large building. Taking a moment to heft himself up out of the water to stand atop of it, he began to scan his surroundings; he hoped that he could find some semblance of familiarity among the scattered remnants of a broken civilisation.

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, Sasuke could not recognise any of the wreckage. It looked nothing like the architecture of any of the shinobi villages he'd seen – detailed records aging back to before the villages even existed meant that he had seen every village in existence (bar any that might have appeared following the sudden case of massacre his clan had contracted). Nor did any of it resemble anything he had seen in Zanarkand.

Once more, Sasuke was lost and alone in an unfamiliar world. This one, for his not at all dwindling sanity's sake, was quite thankfully not inhabited by millions of illusionary people he could not interact with. It was instead merely filled with copious amounts of water, cold and darkness.

It felt like he was back in the Land of Waves again.

Treading carefully along the much too still for his liking waters, Sasuke kept a sharp Sharingan inhabited eye out for any out of place movement that might appear below him. Almost equally sharp ears – thanks to a copious amount of chakra powered reinforcement – kept him aware of any clatterings and crawlings that might indicate something more dangerous than whatever small animals that subsisted of the ruined environment.

The due diligence of the young man paid off when he was able to safely step back to dodge the gaping jaw of the aquatic beast aimed for his throat. He had not been able to recognise the shape of the creature while it was beneath the water, and the glimpse he got of it above did nothing to remedy the situation.

"Great. More weird animals."

Not allowing himself to relax simply because of one miss allowed Sasuke to slice the next one to leap from out of the waters beneath him in twain. He was briefly surprised when instead of being coated in viscous liquid he instead received a face full of ghostly multi-coloured light. Ignoring the bizarreness of it, the Uchiha instead was thankful that he didn't need to bother cleaning the blood from his eye covering.

It made it much easier to sidestep the next creature that longed for death and deliver it it's much sought after desire. Tiring of having to evade the incessant attacks from below, Sasuke began to channel chakra to his hand, shaping it into lightning and elongating it across the surface of his blade. Watching the flickers and flashes of electrified chakra dance along his blade, the youth allowed a smirk to cross his otherwise impassive face.

Said smirk widened when he saw the much larger beast that swam past him, seemingly preying upon the weakened herd of smaller creatures Sasuke had been dodging.

"Chidorigatana."

Sasuke plunged his electrified blade into the water, and watched in sadistic delight as all the annoying beasts that had been wasting his time quickly turned into squirming, screaming pieces of flesh. Pieces of flesh that were quite gleefully swallowed whole by the much larger creature that had appeared; a creature that seemed to be completely shrugging off the effects of swimming in electrified water.

His smirk vanished, leaving in its place a contemplative scowl. For the large beast to have been able to resist his technique so easily meant that its hide must have been incredibly thick. While Sasuke was sure a true chidori would be able to piece the beast easily, that would require allowing him to sink within the beast's domain for no reason. He'd also end up electrocuting himself.

No, he was quite content not sinking to a level of idiocy not even Naruto would consider.

Maybe.

He did have clones after all.

Regardless, Sasuke was not an idiot, nor was he crazy enough to bet his life on chasing after the large creature for no other reason than it had resisted one weakened attack. Instead he fixed his gaze upon the crumbling but still mostly whole building in front of him. If nothing else, it would protect him from whatever weather that might appear. The last thing he wanted was to get rained on.

[Break]

Carefully trekking around the perforated pillars, weakened walkways and fractured facades, Sasuke slowly studied and investigated the dilapidated dwelling he was now within. From what he could gather the place had once been a place of worship. He had found innumerable wooden pews littered amongst the sides of hallways, artworks littered the walls themselves – frescos, he believed he had heard them called in Zanarkand. There were also the occasional bouquet of dead flowers here and there in vases.

Whatever had happened to the place, it had not occurred long ago, Sasuke decided. The wood was still freshly rotted, the frescos still quite visible and the flowers not long deteriorated. He was hardly an expert, but he'd estimate that it had only been ten years, approximately, since whatever had happened, happened.

His meanderings throughout the deserted temple came to a halt when he felt a peculiar, and quite large, chakra signature brush against his senses. It was strange, a chakra signature could only belong to a living human – numerous testing had been conducted on the phenomenon since before the founding of his home village, much of it he had read – and as far as Sasuke could tell no human had lived in this place since its destruction.

Sasuke allowed his mind to be filled with all the he knew on chakra signatures as he attempted to locate where the one he was sensing originated from. First, only humans had them. Some philosophers had tried to claim it was the existence of the soul that created it, most called those philosophers fools.

Next, any person with access to their chakra was able to feel them. It was a form of symbiotic empathy the latest findings had revealed. Chakra was emitted in minute, almost undetectable, quantities from the body and latched onto another's, as such people sensitive to changes in their own chakra (i.e. anyone with the slightest bit of access to the supernatural force) were able to feel this intermingling and subconsciously trace it to its source.

Chakra signatures were also able to be masked, by taking active focus on the chakra located in the body and suppressing it – forcing it to permeate and disperse inside of the body's cells, rather than the air. Sasuke remembered being surprised that something so basic had needed study; every shinobi worth a damn knew how to do it after all. Further reading had enlightened him on as to why it was studied. Chakra suppression could cause long term side effects to the mind. It could cause major mental instability and had been linked to more cases than anyone had cared to count of psychotic breaks.

The leading theory suggested that that was the reason most high levelled shinobi were so terribly… quirky. Psychologists had seemed eager to test said theory.

It was all very interesting, and Sasuke had been sure it would prove important someday; hence he had committed all that he could on the subject to memory. It was really too bad that all of that study seemed to be wrong, because Sasuke was quite sure that the signature he was sensing was being emitted from the six strangely shaped yet immaculate statues arrayed in a room in the temple's deepest depths.

Also, there was quite a large glyph in all its glowing glory hovering in quite the splendorous fashion in front of the opposite wall. It too had quite a large chakra signature. Confusion constituted a good part of how Sasuke felt as he gazed around the room. As did anger. Generations of his people, of his family, had wasted entire lifetimes forming their theories on how chakra worked, and how chakra signatures existed. And yet here, in this room, in this recently abandoned temple, was proof that it was all for naught and that the entire basis on which their theories was build was wrong.

It almost made Sasuke want to cry.

And destroy things.

Before the somewhat sanity deprived teen could act on anything he was feeling, his attention was pulled away from the room by the sound of a distant explosion. Sasuke gritted his teeth, desire to know what was so special about the room he was in waged war against pragmatic sense that whoever had caused the explosion was probably the only way he was finding transport away from the temple.

Pragmatism won in the end, but Sasuke vowed that he would return one day and investigate the source of the chakra. He quite hoped it was linked to destruction. Or fire, he'd always loved fire.

[Break]

Walking along the ceiling above the explosive intruders, Sasuke was frustrated to find that they spoke yet another language that he didn't recognise. He watched for what felt like hours as they searched the temple high and low, yet somehow never seemed to look straight up.

From what he could determine from the words that were constantly repeated, the temple was named Baaj, and they all answered to someone named Rikku. Also, they were all related to the man on the radio – it was either that or someone had decided to name their child Brother, and he doubted anyone could possibly be that daft.

Growing tired of looking at them look for something, Sasuke instead chose to spend his time observing them to assess their capabilities. They had chakra signatures, which apparently didn't mean much – with those masks they were all wearing it wasn't impossible for them to be golems of some kind. The signatures were ridiculously small, however; all of them combined might reach the strength of signature the average housewife emitted. The weapons they carried (guns, he remembered them being called) he surmised to be attempts to make up for such a drastic weakness.

Not that those guns would do them much good; he had seen their capabilities back in Zanarkand and had been left wanting. The projectiles they fired were small, and faster than the normal human eye could see. So too were genin fresh out of the academy, but at least the genin could do more than run in a straight line. Sasuke had promised himself that if he had ever managed to get so much as touched by a bullet he would hug Naruto and smile.

At the same time.

The leader, Rikku, was quite easy to spot. She was the only female in the group, and the only one with something other than a gun to defend themselves with. In fact, she didn't even have one; instead she appeared to have some form of studded glove and a bandolier of explosives.

With the blonde hair on top of her head and the cheerful attitude she displayed with her team Sasuke was left feeling as though he were looking back into his memories to when Naruto was first allowed to use explosive tags during training.

Naruto had never again been allowed to use explosive tags during training. Kakashi had claimed that the experience had given him flashbacks to a period of life better forgotten. Sasuke had assumed he meant the war.

Shaking off the traumatic memories of a horde of blondes grinning as they ran through a series of never ending explosions, Sasuke saw that the intruders had apparently found what they wanted. Or given up.

Either way, they were headed back for their boat, which meant it was time for him to introduce himself and request help getting somewhere that wasn't empty or filled with ghosts. He could of course simply sneak aboard, but he really didn't feel like hiding from people he didn't have to. He was a loner, but being alone for five years had a way of making even the most introverted want some form of human contact.

Dropping from the ceiling he landed in a crouch in front of the tense and armed men. He was surprised that he only got a pair of barrels shoved in his face, rather than have to show them just how horribly outmatched they would be by dodging their bullets.

"Fryd ec drec," one of the people said. Sasuke's eyes narrowed in irritation that he couldn't understand the man. The further pressing of the gun barrel into his cheek wasn't much appreciated either.

"Y fiend, eh risyh teckieca!" The reply from the first man's friend, standing behind the two wielding guns and thus safe from Sasuke's ire seemed to egg him on into doing something stupid. At least, that was if the way his fingers tightened around the trigger was any indicator. Maybe he was trying to calm the fool down.

"Fyed! Fryd ev ed ec risyh?" Perhaps seeing the way Sasuke was eyeing her friends in contemplation Rikku interjected. Whatever she said managed to get the two to hesitate slightly, which in turn caused Sasuke to hesitate in counting how many ways he could kill them before they noticed.

"Drao yna dra cysa eh taydr," the yet unspoken gun wielder said as he drew his weapon back from Sasuke's face, waving it in the air. His words must have been quite morbid, judging from the horrified look that marred Rikku's face. Sasuke had a feeling he might like that one, he'd always been a fan of morbid humour.

Having had quite enough of kneeling before a man with a loaded barrel in front of his face, Sasuke rose to his feet and gave the gun a light tap to move it from his face. He ignored the way the man seemed to freeze in horror as his gun impacted on the ground; it having been ripped from his weak hands and whatnot.

"My name is Sasuke. I'd like you to take me anywhere that is not here."

He couldn't exactly see their faces, what with the masks and goggles in the way, but Sasuke assumed they couldn't understand what he said. Something about the long awkward silence following his words was telling. He took a small moment to revel in someone else feeling the same annoying confusion that he'd had to endure before letting irritation settle in. It seemed that he'd once more be stuck trying to learn a new language.

"Fryd tet ra cyo?"

"Hu etay."

"Hajan raynt dryd myhkiyka eh so meva."

"Faent."

"Damm sa ypuid ed."

"Ra'c gehty lida."

"Naymmo, Rikku?!"

Listening on as the group in front of him decided that having their own conversation was more important than him, Sasuke decided that he didn't like them. Them or their language. He was Sasuke Uchiha, a genius to be marvelled at. Not to be ogled, as the young blonde leader was doing. Years of childhood spent dealing with the obnoxious affections of his female classmates had instilled in him a knowledge of just what that grin and nodding head meant.

Narrowing his eyes in frustration, Sasuke decided to try something Naruto had recommend.

"My name is Sasuke. I want your help." The words were heavily accented, and stilted, but they came proficiently from his lips. Understandably too, if the sudden change in demeanour the group had. They tensed and trained their weapons on him again. Judging by the angry snarl on the visible faces, he'd said something wrong. This was why he never listened to Naruto.

"Tuk uv Yevon! Rikku, fa cruimt gemm res huf, pavuna ra dneac yhodrehk!"

The words came from the man he'd disarmed earlier, having scrambled to pick his gun back up and aim it between his eyes. Figuring that talking wasn't going to work, Sasuke allowed his uncovered eye to bleed red and aimed his own weapon, the formidable sneer passed from Uchiha father to Uchiha son for generations, back at the man.

"Try it, moron." The man's body language seemed to indicate he didn't know whether he should be violently angry or violently ill. Sasuke was content to sneer at him until he chose but Rikku decided intervention was needed.

"Fyed! Wait!"

Sasuke directed his eye towards her, weighing up whether or not talking was worth the aggravation.

"You want help right? We can do that," she said. That decided that then, Sasuke thought. "It won't be free, but if you help us out, we'll do the same. How does that sound?"

[Break]

Rikku had seemed panicked and flustered when she proposed the deal, and hadn't talked about it more while she guided everyone back to the ship. From what he could see she made a good leader; her team respected and listened to her, and she'd been able to prevent them from swimming into an ambush of, from what he'd heard them exclaim, fiends.

Once they'd reached the ship, she'd left Sasuke outside under guard while she went to explain things to, and get permission from, the one everyone had been calling Brother. Which was fine by Sasuke, because it gave him time to look around the ship with his Sharingan, capturing as many details as he could that would allow him to distinguish the ship in the future. It wouldn't do if they decided to toss him overboard at some point and he wasn't able to recognise the ship to get his revenge later.

The door to the inside of the ship opened and captured everyone on deck's attention. A tattooed man with a strip of blonde hair emerged, closely followed by Rikku. Sasuke assumed that this was Brother.

Brother marched steadily yet fiercely towards the Uchiha, stopping short only when he stood a hairsbreadth away. The man's goggled eyes scanned Sasuke routinely, looking for what he couldn't say but it was apparently found. The man nodded with a grunt and motioned for the men surrounding Sasuke to back away.

Pulling a pair of goggles from his pocket he handed them to Sasuke before turning and marching back inside, pausing only to give Rikku a significant look.

The blonde girl smiled and gave her commander a salute, before facing Sasuke and beginning to explain.

"We've found some ancient ruins right beneath us. It's not active now, but there should still be some power left. We're gonna go down there and activate it…and then we should be able to salvage the big prize! You help us do that, and we'll take you anywhere you want, got it?"

Sasuke nodded, it was an easy enough exchange. The only difference between this and the normal C-ranked mission he would undertake on behalf of the Leaf Village was that the village wasn't getting a cut of the reward. And the reward was transport, not money.

"All right, let's go!"

Rikku dived overboard, and Sasuke quickly followed. They moved swiftly through the water downwards, following the large chain attached to the boat that stretched on into the dark; presumably towards the ruins she'd said were there.

There were a couple skirmishes with the aquatic fiends that lived in the waters, large piranha-like creatures, but they were handily exterminated between Sasuke's sword and Rikku's gauntlets.

Arriving at the ruins they quickly found a hole in one of the walls, presumably a former window and made their way inside. It had been a while since Sasuke had had to hold his breath for so long, he'd stopped practicing the skill back in Zanarkand once he'd managed to reach an hour without issue. But he hadn't practiced fighting at the same time, nor had he been quite this deep into the water to have to handle the pressure. It was taking more chakra than he expected to continue going.

He could feel his respect for his blonde companion rise with every passing minute, she didn't seem to have any issue with the task and unlike him wasn't utilising vague chakra techniques to strengthen her lungs and cardiovascular system.

He watched as she interacted with the semi-active machinery, activating doors and switching the generator on as he fended off the infrequent attacks from the piranha-like fiends. Time passed without issue, and soon enough they were heading to secure the last objective – the generator itself – when everything went wrong.

A large squid creature had apparently decided to make the generator room its den, and didn't take too kindly to two humans disrupting its peace. Lamentably for Sasuke and Rikku, they had been underwater for quite a while at that point in time, and were both exhausted from the strain their bodies had endured.

To make matters worse, underwater as they were Sasuke couldn't exactly use any of his techniques. Not without electrocuting the both of them or scalding his own face, at least. Rikku, taking a look around the room they were in, seemed to hatch a plan; she motioned for Sasuke to fight the squid on his own before she swam off in the opposite direction.

At least, Sasuke hoped she'd formed a plan and wasn't just running away.

Regardless, Sasuke positioned himself in front of the squid and fended off its tentacles as well as he could. With every swing at him they earned a new scar as his blade dug deep into them. But, limited in movement underwater as he was, he couldn't manage to deflect every blow. The blows came from every direction, and he simply couldn't defend his vitals from all of them.

It was as he was recovering from the latest blow – one that had caught him in the temple and thrown him into a nearby wall – that Rikku seemed to initiate her plan. A pair of explosives sailed through the water, each impacting on one of the squid's eyes before detonating.

The shockwave ripped through the water and pressed Sasuke back against the wall. Feeling a welling of blood inside his throat, Sasuke recognised that he had to finish the fight quick – before the internal bleeding reached a point where it would need immediate medical attention. As it was, his desire to be taken anywhere that wasn't here had become anywhere with a functional hospital.

Pressing his feet against the wall, Sasuke channelled chakra through his legs before pushing off. He surged through the water towards the large squid, he's strengthened push propelling him through the water as though it were air. Quickly breaching the panicked guard of the blinded creature, swinging its tentacles in every direction hoping to catch one of them, Sasuke utilised his momentum to cleanly slice through it.

The bifurcated squid gave off a wailing death cry before it scattered apart into the glowing pyreflies all the creatures of this place were apparently made of. Sasuke felt a need to give off his own wailing cry, as more blood welled up in his body, forcing its way up through his throat and out his mouth, tinging the blue waters around him red.

Seeing that, Rikku pulled a bottle of… something out of a pouch she had before passing it to him. She motioned for him to drink it before swimming away to do whatever it was she needed to do with the generator. Not trusting it to not be poison, Sasuke instead placed it within his own pouch as the world lit up around him – various lights among the ruins coming to life.

The ascension back to the ship was a slow process, needing to pause every dozen or so feet for minutes at a time. Every pause led to violent expulsions of blood from his mouth, and every expulsion of blood had Rikku grab another bottle of whatever to pass to him and motion to drink. With every new bottle the motion became fiercer, which Sasuke couldn't decide was because she was worried if he would live through the ascension or if he would die. Either way, Sasuke simply pocketed every new bottle he was given.

Finally breaching the surface of the water, Sasuke vomited yet another torrent of blood. Without wasting a single second Rikku proceeded to grab another bottle and force its contents down his throat.

"Fryd geht uv eteud yna oui?! Tnehg druca tysh budeuhc un cu ramb sa E'mm syga oui fecr oui tnufhat eh ouin ufh pmuut!"

The angry tirade in a foreign language did little to impress upon Sasuke' weary and blood deprived mind anything. He did however manage to commit to memory what he would later learn were some quite inventive curses towards him and the intelligence of his forebears. As it was at the time however, Sasuke could only wish to know just what 'Malboro' meant.

Heaving himself up on the deck of the ship, Sasuke rolled onto his back and found himself on the receiving end of a goggled glare. Reaching under his tattered makeshift skirt, she pulled the dozen or so bottle out of his pouch before dropping them on his chest. A finger pointed in his face stopped him from opening his mouth to comment.

"Quiet." The finger moved from his face to point at the bottles. "Drink." It then moved to point towards several tarp covered boxes. "Rest."

She proceeded to spin on her heel and storm inside. Seeing little else better to do, Sasuke shrugged and did as she had bade. If it were poison, he'd already had one bottle of the stuff. Better to drink more and go quickly than try and fight a losing battle.

[Break]

Hearing the door open, Sasuke looked up from where he was resting against the crates he'd been directed towards. Seeing that it was Rikku, he didn't bother looking away. The only real reason she had to be up on deck was likely him, so there was no point in trying to ignore her. Especially since she was carrying a tray of food.

He did however ignore the way her eyes scanned the half dozen empty bottles and several puddles of blood scattered around his figure. He also ignored whatever it was she muttered under her breath. It contained that Malboro word, not that he would know since he wasn't' paying it any heed and all.

The blonde took a deep breath to calm down before smiling and setting the tray down in front of him.

"Here, eat up." It was more a command than a suggestion. He couldn't quite remember the last time he'd seen such an eerily repugnant smile.

Sasuke once more did as he was bade by the blonde, taking his time to make sure he didn't end up choking. Pausing for a moment from his meal, Sasuke directed his gaze at the empty bottles before looking at Rikku.

"What was drink?" he asked.

"Those? Those were potions," she responded. Sasuke's blank gaze revealed exactly how much he knew what a potion was. "Y'know, liquefied White Magic? The all-purpose great restorative gifted to us by his divine great godliness Yevon?" The last question was spoken in the type of sarcastic tone that implied that whatever a potion was even a child knew it.

Unfortunately for Sasuke, he didn't. Nor did he know what White Magic or Yevon were. He also didn't appreciate having that tone used on him. It was a tone he'd held in great reverence as the one to be used on Naruto whenever he said something exceedingly stupid. To have it used on him was… unpleasant, to say the least.

"Honestly, did you hit your head or something?" Rikku's continued use of the tone baited an acerbic reply out of the stoic Uchiha.

"Yes. Many times," he directed a dry glare towards the suddenly somewhat sheepish blonde. "Last one, your fault. Shockwave from boom into wall."

"Oh," Rikku appeared not to know what to say in reply to the accusation. "Sorry about that." She scratched the back of her head and gave him a rueful grin. It was a habit that he had seen Naruto do too many times in the past and he found their images overlapping.

Sasuke feared the level of idiocy that might be produced were the two blonde fools to ever meet.

"Anyway!" Rikku attempted to steer the conversation on to something else, "How did you end up in that temple in the first place?"

"Don't know," Sasuke said. "Woke up there after Sin attacked."

Rikku's expression morphed into one of shock.

"Did you say Sin?" she asked. Sasuke replied with a short nod. "No wonder you don't know anything! They say Sin emits a toxin; anyone who manages to survive a close encounter with it ends up with their mind all messed up."

Sasuke strongly doubted that that was what had caused his lack of knowledge. He could quite vividly recall the thirteen years of his life lived in the Leaf Village, and the five years of subsequent loneliness in Zanarkand after he'd tried to leave. Most of all, he could remember the massacre of his clan, and the nightmares of having been made to relive it endlessly for 72 hours. Twice. There was no way this Sin was strong enough to implant such graphic horrors into his psyche. There was nothing more monstrous in this world than Itachi.

"Well, don't worry. I'm sure you'll be better in no time!" Rikku seemed to take his silence regarding Sin's toxin as him attempting to remember things forgotten. He had little desire to dissuade her of that opinion. It would do nothing to help. "Anyway, where did you want us to take you? As a warning, we're Al Bhed, so not a lot of places are gonna be welcoming, exactly."

"Al Bhed?" Sasuke asked.

"You don't know who the Al Bhed are either? Geez, next you're gonna say you don't know Yevon!" Sasuke was sure she meant it in jest, but shook his head anyway. He had a convenient excuse in Sin's toxin, and he wasn't going to waste the opportunity to learn more about wherever he was.

"Oh. Oh wow. That's… do you remember anything?" She looked honestly crestfallen when he shook his head yet again. An honest, kind soul. She really was a female Naruto.

"In that case, I guess we'll just head for Luca. No way someone won't recognise you there." Before Sasuke could ask why she was so confident he'd meet someone in Luca, she rushed off back below deck. Alone once more Sasuke began to pick at his food again.

So many places and things he had no idea about. A whole knew… race? Nationality? Humans that were different from, and seemed to be at odds with, whatever this Yevon was. And magic? What kind of tribal people were these, to believe in magic of all things. There was chakra, and chakra. That was the only supernatural force that existed in the world.

Just like humans were the only ones to emit chakra signatures.

Finished with his food Sasuke groaned as he pulled himself up on to his feet. His legs had begun to grow numb from being in the same position for too long and needed stretching.

As he began to pace along the deck of the ship he was caught off guard when the whole thing suddenly shook. Using an application of chakra to his feet to stay clinging to the deck, he barely paid attention as a group of Al Bhed raced out of the hold onto deck with him.

"Sin!" he heard one proclaim. His eye widening, Sasuke began to run over to the railing to get a look at the monster himself. To encounter it twice in as many days… he was sure that it was no coincidence.

Caught in his speculation as he was, he didn't pay enough attention to his surroundings. One of the crates he had been crouching against not five minutes before came loose, impacting against his back and knocking him overboard.

The last sight he saw before hitting the water was Rikku, hand outstretched towards him with a look of panic on her face.