Disclaimer: Square-Enix Incorporated owns all copyrighted material this fanfiction may include. All other materials, such as characters, events, dialogue, et cetera, all belong to Zeshin-kun.

Author's Note: Thanks for all the reviews guys!

To Forbidden Smiles and Dominican Angel: I sense that you guys aren't really that thrilled about this fanfiction. Well, hopefully you'll have a change of heart by the time I'm through Chapter 2.

To Akksgurl: Lol, yea I guess Yunie's one lucky lady what with all the cute blondes poppin up all over the place. Anyway, yup, Tidus is back just like the Perfect Ending thing already happened. By the way, I tried to hint at Shuyin's return being just like his.

To StoryWeaver1 and ShadowSin: Thanks a lot for the comments. I'm no genius at writing though. You wanna see a genius, read I, Lucifer by Glen Duncan. Now that's a genius.

Anyway, enjoy Chapter 1!

Spira: The Eternal Discord

Chapter 1: The Man that Dreams are made of

Yuna

"Yuna, we have a problem." His lips stated, eyes showing the same darkness it had before.

"Shuyin… How can this be?" I asked, my voice coming out in more of a squeal that I'd wanted.

"This is Shuyin? The guy you saw in that sphere?" My love asked me, not knowing exactly what Shuyin had done the last time I'd seen him with Rikku and Paine.

I never told him how Shuyin had been an evil shadow, trying to destroy all of Spira to quench his grief. I never told him that he was the heartbroken spirit who lost his way for one thousand years, ultimately destroying the man he once was. And I didn't tell him that he was the soulless monster that possessed both Rikku and Paine and forced me to fight them, almost to the end. Although I knew he wasn't truly evil, just seeing Shuyin again was enough to make me cringe in fear. I thought I had left all that behind me after I saw him and Lenne disappear into the Farplane together. I thought I would never have to feel this way again, this despair that I had felt ever since my meeting with him. His words were filled with hatred toward Spira and anguish for what he'd lost. I never wanted to have to deal with it again.

"Yuna, I know what I've done to you. I'm sorry. Fact is… well, nobody could ever understand." Shuyin said softly, his tone the same as before. He'd called me Lenne back then. Though his words were gentle and loving, his message was filled with a darkness I'd only seen in one other person: Seymour.

I shook my head to lose those horrible memories, "No. This was supposed to be over and done with. You went away with Lenne and that was it. You can't be back. I don't want you to be back. You've caused enough harm!"

I tried to run, but I had to stop the man who I mistook Shuyin for, "What did you do to Yuna!" He was very forceful in saying this. It reminded me of being in Bevelle that day, over two years ago. He'd become furious when Seymour kissed me.

"Look Yuna, I know this must be hard for you. It's not like I treated you all too well before. Thing is, this time, I don't even know why I'm back or how it's possible that I'm alive again. But, I am alive and that's a problem." Shuyin said to me, completely ignoring his double.

"Hey! I don't know what you did to Yuna, but she obviously doesn't want anything to do with you. Back off or I'll have to hurt you." He said to try and get Shuyin's attention.

I turned to see Lenne's lover scowling his duplicate. I knew that expression, too. He'd given me that same look just before he was about to plunge that sword into me back when we were trying to stop him. It was a look that brought impending death and I wasn't about to lose my love again. "Stop! Please don't attack!"

Shuyin ignored me, "You… You think you can hurt me? I'd like to see you try, you fake!" He glared at us both, unsheathing his sword… His sword… It looked different from the last time we'd fought him. It seemed renewed and… Shuyin didn't have pyreflies circling around him. Was he really alive again? Could I trust him? No, it had to be another trick.

"You think that sword scares me?" The star of the Zanarkand Abes exclaimed, pulling out the sword Wakka had given him, "Take a good look at my weapon because soon it'll be in your head!"

I pulled at his arm, but he forced his arm free and clashed blades with Shuyin. I knew he was a good fighter and he'd grown much from the pilgrimage, but Shuyin was far more skilled with his weapon. We had only defeated him before because he paused his attack when Rikku begged him not to kill me. I managed to shoot him and that seemed to be all that we needed to win.

"Ya know, throughout my lifetime, I've killed a lot of people. One more won't make a difference to me." Shuyin threatened, his eyes growing darker as he made a sneer.

I knew that he'd killed everyone besides Nooj, Baralai, Gippal, and Paine in the Crimson Squad, but I hadn't thought of how many he could have killed in life. Zanarkand had been in a war and he was a part of that war. "You must stop! He's more dangerous than you think!"

I watched as Shuyin shook his head gently, a frown forming on his features, "Yuna… I was dangerous. You fail to understand that…"

"Yunie! How's… Ahh! It's him!" Rikku said, running up to us. As soon as she saw Shuyin, she took out her daggers, "What do you want this time? Haven't you hurt enough people?"

I half expected him to kill us all right where we stood. If the fayth couldn't stop him and we nearly died the last time, what was to stop him from finishing the job now? He sighed, "Look, I'm not here to fight. I'm not here to kill. I'm not even sure why I am here to begin with. Fact is, I am here and there's a problem."

"Yea, that problem's you, buddy!" Both Rikku and my love shouted together, never letting down their guard for a second.

"C'mon Yunie, we could use some help here!" Rikku added.

"You just don't get it, do you? I'm not an unsent and I'm not here to blow up Spira." Shuyin grunted, putting a hand on his blade, "If you won't believe my words, perhaps you'll believe this." With that, he removed his glove and slid his hand across the weapon, wincing as blood seeped out of the cut that formed. "Can an unsent bleed?"

Rikku immediately went over to him, "Wow, you are bleeding! This is disasterrific! You're bleeding! We gotta do something!" I smiled at my cousin. She always cared too much about other people.

"Don't worry about it, Kirin… uh… Rikku… It's only a small cut. It can't kill me." Shuyin said, smiling after he finished, "Can't kill me… I never thought I'd get to say that again."

"Whoa whoa whoa, so we're all supposed to be friends now? I don't buy it. Yuna was really freaked out by you. Something's up and I wanna know what!" Shuyin's better half exclaimed, pointing the tip of the Brotherhood at him.

Rikku squeaked and scurried back to him, screaming, "Wow, was I just tending to his wound! Wait… did he just call me Kirin again? Why do you keep screwing up people's names?"

Shuyin smiled again. I noticed something, though. His smile wasn't like the ones from before, full of evil intentions. He was genuinely smiling about what Rikku was saying. "Well, if you can get my twin here to stop sticking his twerpy looking sword in my face, I could tell you."

"No chance pretty boy. I let down my guard and you're gonna do something just like that Seymour."

"Maester Seymour? Well, our goals might have been the same, but understand that I'm not some guado and I didn't turn my mother into an Aeon." The former shadow replied.

"Well, I don't think you'll get this guy to put down his sword, but I still wanna know why you keep calling people different names." Rikku said forwardly while still taking shelter behind my blitzer's back.

"You know, if you wanna sound tough, you shouldn't hide behind him. Anyway, with calling Yuna Lenne, I was trying to actually talk to my love. Lenne's presence was in your cousin so pardon me if I creeped you out with that. Also, I wasn't really my old cheerful self back then, if you hadn't noticed. Sorry to say this Yuna, but I was rather pissed with you dawning Lenne's clothing. I felt it was disrespectful. Calling you Lenne did seem to get you on edge so I figured that was a bonus. Anyway, calling you Kirin, Rikku, was simply my millennium's worth of memories catching up with me. You have no idea how much you're like Kirin." Shuyin seemed to be captivated by my cousin, staring at her through my love's body. It made him quite flustered.

"Hey, stop looking at me like that!" He told Shuyin, sticking the sword out further.

By my guess, Shuyin grew tired of having the Brotherhood in his face. In a split second, he lunged forward before any reactions could be made and flipped his double onto the sand, snatching the sword from his hand as he did so. "Listen to me next time."

Rikku squealed at Shuyin's closeness, but I still couldn't move. I still didn't know if I could trust this man or not. "Please don't hurt me!"

"Rikku, I'm not gonna hurt you. How many times do I have to say it before you'll believe me?" Shuyin said exasperatedly.

"How about as many times as it takes for you to stay dead!" A familiar voice growled from afar. Paine charged at Shuyin, trying to stab him through with her sword.

She was the one with the most hatred for him. He'd ruined her life by shooting her and two of her friends by using Nooj's body. If I couldn't forgive Shuyin, there was no doubt she'd never be able to. She extended her weapon, but Shuyin was too fast and nabbed it between his arm and waist, twisting to force Paine to let go.

"You know, if I hadn't done what I did and dodged instead, you would've stabbed right into Rikku's heart." He told the silver-haired warrior, stepping aside to show her just how close she had been.

"You'd love that wouldn't you!" She screamed at him, "What are you two doing not trying to kill him? Do you want him to possess you or make you kill each other?"

Paine was ready to sphere change when Rikku stopped her, "No! He's not like that now. He's…"

"I don't want to hear it. If you guys want to trust him, fine. But don't come crying to me when he rips out your heart and crushes it." She shouted, storming off.

"Shuyin," I finally said, my voice as shaky as every, "If what you say is true, then I believe I can trust you. I don't know what you want from me, though."

"Yuna, I don't want anything from you. Actually, I guess that the only thing I was looking for after seeing you again was your forgiveness. I never wanted to cause you so much pain. I was just… bitter." He told me.

"Well, a thousand years of regretting stuff will do that to you." Rikku chimed in, putting an arm around Shuyin's shoulders. It was a little funny to see because Rikku was much shorter than Shuyin and reaching her arm that high put her in an awkward position.

"Okay, so I'm just supposed to forget this whole episode and think Shuyin's a good guy? What gives?" My love said in all his amazing purity.

"No." Was Shuyin's reply, "I don't expect anything from anybody. I turned Spira upside down and nearly blew it to itty-bitty bits. I don't think anyone would understand why I'd do something like that."

Rikku came in then, patting Shuyin on the chest with both hands, "Well, I like to think that what's in the past is in the past. C'mon, you can't get anywhere if you keeping looking behind ya all the time!"

Again Shuyin smiled warmly, "That's exactly what Kirin would have said. You'd both be right, too. I'm just not that kind of person. Isn't that right Shuyin?" He directed that last comment to his look-alike, but why he'd refer to him by the same name, I didn't understand.

"Shuyin? Are you talking to me? My name's not Shuyin." He responded with that adorable confused look he'd shown many times during my pilgrimage.

"Well, you are the fayth's creation in my image. If they don't call you Shuyin, what else… oh, that's right… I forgot all about that." Shuyin said, snickering to himself for a little bit. I didn't know what was so funny, but I decided I'd want to know.

"What seems to be so amusing, Shuyin?" I asked him. Actually, now that I think about it, it is strange how my star blitzer's name isn't Shuyin's when the fayth did say that he was a dream. Shuyin was also from Zanarkand and looked almost exactly like Shuyin so he was probably created to be the dream's Shuyin. I never really gave it much thought before, but unless there was someone else in the real Zanarkand that looked like Shuyin, my love had the wrong name.

"See, I wasn't known by Zanarkand's people as Shuyin. No, that was my birth name. I didn't have much of a childhood. Daddy might have been famous, but even his son, only after I became a big star did people acknowledge me as Jecht's son. Before that, I was just the bastard kid. Dead father, dead mother, and raised by the family of a friend. Oh, that friend would be Kirin, by the way. Yea, dad and Kirin's parents' used to be Abes so when mom and dad died, Kirin asked them to take care of me, too. Of course, that never worked out. I didn't want to live with anyone after mom died. The only person who I'd let see me was Kirin herself and sooner or later, Shuyin was pretty much a street rat. So, one day Kirin had this idea that I should just forget my problems and join the Abes with her. I thought it'd be the perfect way to spite dad so I agreed, but I didn't want anyone to know I was Shuyin. That when I came up with Tidus and sign up with that name because I thought I'd shame my family's name if I didn't do well." He smiled a little after that, "From then on, I was Tidus of the Zanarkand Abes. I was the star player and Jecht's son again. After that, I stayed Tidus not to hide the fact that I was Jecht's son, but that I was Shuyin, the one they'd all cursed at. I basically figured they had no right to know me as the person I really was. After that, Tidus just became this shallow blitzer character I used whenever in public. Kirin accepted that and just played along." He finished it up and seemed to be reminiscing about his friend. Rikku stared at him, probably thinking the same thing.

"Wow Shuyin, I'm sorry… I didn't think you'd had such a hard life." I said to him gently.

"Heh, don't worry about it. Besides, it did make me kinda tough, right? I think it's the hardships in life that make us stronger." He replied, giving me the same sweet smile his double always had.

"Wait, if I'm him, shouldn't that mean I would know stuff like this? How can we be sure you're not lying?" My love questioned him.

Shuyin only grinned, "You, my friend, are a dream of the fayth, no?" He nodded. "As a dream of the fayth, these fayth being the former citizens of Zanarkand, you'd have the same memories as they would have or think I should have as Mr. Shallow Zanarkand Abe, Tidus. Well, there's your answer right there. I'm a lot more complicated than the people of Zanarkand think and they never got to know that. Sorry to say it Yuna, but your guy is only a shell I concealed myself in."

"Hey, don't sell me short like that! I'm deep and complicated, too!"

"Really? How?"

"My dad died, too and so did my mom and I felt the same way you did when I lost them both."

"Great, so you know that little bit about my past that I let Zanarkand know about. Big deal. Everybody knew I wasn't too much of a Jecht fan and that I blamed him for mom's death. So what? Did you have to go through people, my peers and even adults, call you a bastard and an urchin for most of your childhood after you lost them? Who took care of you? I told you already that I practically raised myself given the exception of Kirin. Who took care of you?" Shuyin returned.

"Auron did, but I wouldn't count him as much of a caretaker. He was more interested in scolding me than anything else.

Shuyin huffed, "So you can a mentor. I know Auron. He's Braska's guardian and a warrior monk. He's very good if you ask me."

"Okay, if we're done with this macho fight, I really don't want to be here all day hearing you to brag about how bad your childhood was…" Rikku interrupted, but was cut-off herself.

"Wait, you actually think Auron's a good chaperone! Man, I feel for you. He was so strict!"

"He's a monk, what did you expect? Heck, I think if I had someone like that around, I wouldn't have gotten into so many fights. Well, Rothel's got a bit to do with that, too, but I think one long-winded story's good enough for one day, right?" Shuyin finalized the conversation, "We'll just leave it here. I was brought back for some reason or another, but whatever the real reason, I've been able to make peace with at least two out of… all of Spira. Anyway, maybe that's why I was brought back. Maybe I need to set the record straight. Whatever the reason…"

"I'm sure the future will hold the answers you seek." I finished for him. Even if I was still afraid of him, I couldn't let my fear of actions made in the past stop me from accepting the possibility that Shuyin wasn't like that anymore.

Author's Notes: So how's my Yuna personality? For the girls, if anybody thinks this was a little off, just tell me in a review, kay? I'm trying to make this multi personality but I've never written what a girl might think or do so I'm not sure if I'm coming off too stereotypical or anything. Chapter 2's coming soon! Until then!