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: 01habbo/habbo, no worries on the updates. This time, I set a few things straight and have ample time to spend writing this for a while. Anyway, about Yuna versus Lulu, xD for how you put it, and you never know. That just might be the case, but you guys aren't gonna know unless you stay tuned.

Still, if it was Lulu versus Yuna, I'd say Yuna'd have the advantage. I mean, she's fresh, young, and would have heavy back-up. Seymour, if I remember, was still stronger than Lulu even at her best. Not stat-wise cuz he's a boss and all, but attack-wise, Lulu needs to overdrive to multi-cast. Seymour has the "Multi-" spells and Requiem looks like a bigger badder Ultima. =P Oh, speaking of Requiem, you know, Lulu's unconscious, but you'd think she could handle one Requiem, right? Well, maybe anyway. Just something to think about.

Also, just to clarify, that "Yuna..." at the end was Lulu thinking so it could be like habbo said, or it could mean something else. It's more fun that way. ^_^

Either way, that stuff's on hiatus until Lulu wakes up. For now, we're off to the Celsius to check up on Tidus and Shuyin. Remember that? Remember how that kinda exploded a chapter back? Yea, Seymour made sloshpuppies of his brain. =P So now, he's going World War Hulk on the poor guy. And they say siblings can't get along. Well, if you were hoping dream-made clones were any better, you were wrong. It's a good thing we don't get to play with weapons in the real world. Yeesh…

Spira: The Eternal Discord

Chapter 13: Warring Blitz Aces

Yuna

"Tell us the truth!" My blitz ace growled, supplying force behind his words as he shoved his other self into a wall.

"Exactly what truth were you expecting?" Shuyin mused, taking his eyes off his assailant and casually shrugging.

"You know what I'm asking you. You show up out of nowhere and now Seymour's around. It can't be a coincidence and you're the guy who'd benefit from this most."

"How do you figure that?"

"Do you really need me to spell it out for you or are you stalling? Why does Seymour want Lulu, Wakka, and Kimahri? What're you planning?" My love added, emphasizing how serious he was being by throwing a fist Shuyin's way.

Not surprisingly, he caught the punch, but made no additional move. Instead, he just spoke, "That's not a great way to interrogate. Besides, I thought our heart-to-heart before the blitz game settled any suspicions you had about me. I didn't come back by choice, you know?"

That wasn't enough for my love. He broke from Shuyin's grip, elbowed him in his chest, and flipped him onto his back more aggressively than he'd been for some time. Of course, he also didn't know Shuyin as well as I ended up knowing him. For him to be beaten so easily, I believed it was deliberate, a way for Shuyin to show his pursuer that he had been candid with us. The awkward situation continued like this for a while, Shuyin apparently going for an almost Sir Auron-like session. While I had decided to trust Shuyin, his better half did have a point. It was a mess, I had to admit. To many things happened at once and there weren't answers to any of it. Shuyin coming back was already mysterious enough, but then Seymour had to come back. I hated to think about more problems ahead, but the turn of events did appear to help in what Shuyin's motives were in the past. No, thinking like that didn't solve the matters at hand. There couldn't be tension within the group as long as Seymour was out there. Lulu, Wakka, and Kimahri were in danger and everybody was needed to save them.

"Stop! We can't be fighting like this. Not right now! The top priority is for us to make sure Kimahri doesn't get taken by Seymour. We need to rescue Wakka and Lulu. None of that's going to get done if you two keep at this." I finally said.

"I know! That's what I'm trying to get out of this guy!" The blitz ace told me, his strong arms still pinning Shuyin to Shinra's old seat.

"Yunie's right, though! We're not going to get to the bottom of this by fighting each other!" Rikku added.

"Not to mention…" Shuyin was about to start.

"Did I say you could talk?" Sometimes, he can be so hotheaded.

Not that the original was much better. "Actually, you did imply conversation when you asked me to tell you the 'truth', now didn't you?"

"Okay, enough, both of you!" I demanded, stamping my foot on the ground to get their attention.

"Yuna, I'm trying to get to the bottom of this!" He argued.

"Well, your idea is obviously not working so stop!" I retorted.

"Why are you taking his side in this? What about what you told me he did to you?"

I wouldn't be the first to answer him, "Oh, so that's what this is about? I thought I cleared my present name of that already. Yuna would've told you same. That wasn't me entirely." Then, he took a moment to blow a huff, "What was it L said? Can't put blame of the actions of a broken heart?"

"Wrong, I can and I will. They were still stuff you did so you're still responsible."

"I wouldn't disagree."

"No, blaming each other isn't going to get Lulu or Wakka back. Blaming each other isn't going to get us to Mt. Gagazet any sooner. Please calm down!" I interrupted.

"Yea, and besides, Shuyin's different now. He's on our side. You can't just…" Rikku tried to say.

"I'm going to the cabin." He grumbled, pushing past Rikku to get to the lift.

Shuyin stood from Shinra's seat, straightening his collar. He wouldn't look at either of us, walking sternly to the lift himself after it returned from the cabin. "Don't worry. I'm going up top. I think you guys could use less of me for a while."

I sighed after he left. It was amazing how much influence Seymour still had over us, even though we defeated him so many times during my pilgrimage. No matter what, the way he carried himself, the way he spoke to us, it was a lingering scar, I suppose. In any event, I needed to get those two back in order. We had to be united if we wanted to get through this. Seymour was awful while he was alive. He was horrible when he became an unsent. I did not want to think about where he was as he was now.

"Rikku, Shuyin trusts you. Maybe you should talk to him. I'll go get his better half. We have to get past all the finger-pointing." I told my cousin.

"I know. Things just got really messy for everybody, huh?" She replied.

"Yes, but we have to work with what we've been given and Shuyin was just as bad an enemy as Seymour ever was, probably worse. Now that we've got two of him, maybe Seymour won't be half as hard as he was back then."

"Well, guessing what ifs aren't helping. Let's go with your plan, Yunie, and hopefully those two dummies will get the message before we have to save Kimahri."

I nodded to her as she departed before turning my attention to our overly stoic pilot. She'd been the most apprehensive about Shuyin's return and with good reason. Her life was thrown into madness at a whim just because he felt like messing around with someone. Seymour had chosen me to be his summoner so he could take Sin's power for himself. Because he desired this, he used us, he murdered and manipulated, and he wouldn't relent no matter how many times we eventually overcame him. After sending him while we were all inside Sin, I thought that would be the end. He was at peace from all the plots and pain of losing his mother. Shuyin had done the same to Paine, but it was worse for her. Shuyin was hardly as direct as Seymour had been. With the Maester, we knew our enemy. Shuyin let Paine believe for two long years that the person who had hurt her was one of her most trusted friends. What was worse, Shuyin was holding that friend under his control the entire time, breaking up their group and spinning lies all under an innocent name. He had forced Paine to hate someone she cared about and didn't even show sympathy. Just like Seymour, we thought Shuyin was put to rest forever, but he came back, too. It took a lot for Paine to accept his return, but she put her doubts behind her to accept that Shuyin came back as his former self, back when he only cared about protecting his love. Now, with what's happened, what was she thinking? Did she still trust her decision?

"Paine…" I started.

"It'll be just a little longer before we get to Gagazet." She immediately responded.

"Oh, that's okay. I wanted to ask…"

"I'm not really sure. I tried to put it behind me, you all should know I tried. It's hard to believe he would change, but he did show it." She interrupted again, still not turning to face me.

"We can't keep going like this. He's been with us a month already with no incident. If we can't trust him, we're playing into Seymour's hands, but if we do trust him and he turns out to be running his old show again, we'd be playing into his hands." I noted with a sigh.

To this, I finally got Paine to hit the auto-pilot and come to me, "Seems like quite the conundrum then."

"You've suffered from his games the longest, Paine. Does this seem like something he'd do?"

She only shrugged, "To be honest, this Shuyin's done a lot of things uncharacteristic of him. Actually, I've been doing a lot of things uncharacteristic of myself since he's come back."

"Do you think he poses a significant threat?"

"Right now? Right now, I think we started off the right way. Shuyin wouldn't dare pull anything with us questioning his loyalties. He spent an entire month making us believe he was the guy from before the Machina War, the tragic hero. The way his twin's been pointing a finger at him, I think he's going to try and build up our confidence in him again." She suggested.

"So, you do feel that he's up to something?" I asked, noting her words.

"Well… yes and no. I'd love to say for sure that he's up to something. I'd love to tell you that we can trust him. The truth is that he's manipulative, so much so that you can't be sure what he tells you is the truth or what he does is out of penance." She explained, moving to Shinra's monitor, "I want to believe that he's Lenne's Shuyin again and Seymour showing up was just some random thing, but coincidences don't often happen to us, huh?"

"Spira always has to give us a global epidemic, doesn't it?"

"Life's not worth living otherwise." She shrugged again, "Well, like you said, we'll need him to stop Seymour and save the Ronso Elder. I'm gonna go talk to him."

After she said that, she immediately took off for the lift. Not wanting her alone with her feuding thoughts, even for the brief moments going up top, and hoping to gain some inspiration off of her when I went to speak with Shuyin's better, I hopped into the lift with her. We were quiet for those seconds, which made it seem a lot longer, but I prayed my presence kept her from wavering in her decision. As soon as the doors opened, she exited and found Rikku, putting a hand on her shoulder to show she wanted to talk to Shuyin herself. Rikku moved off to the side and pretended not to pay attention to their conversation, though her incessant glimpses at the two gave her motives away easily.

"So, what brings you up here? Ready to take off my head already?" Shuyin casually asked.

"Ready? Always. But not before we make sure that the Ronso Elder and the other two guardians are safe from Seymour." Paine replied.

"Hmm? How can you be sure I'm not with Seymour? You know he'll be there when we reach Gagazet. If your buddy's right, that would be a good time for me to betray all of you."

"If that's the case, you wasted a lot of time gaining our trust to just throw it away like that. Not very smart of you."

"Excellent deduction, Dr. P. So, what do you propose?" Shuyin said with a smirk.

"Seymour, then we'll figure out what's going on with you." Paine scoffed, crossing her arms.

I decided that would be all I needed to hear and I didn't want to keep the other blitzer waiting. Both were ill-tempered and we didn't need one more problem to add to the list. Closing the lift doors, I took a few moments to prepare what I wanted to make him understand. Oddly, when I went to have the lift go to the cabin, it stalled for a bit, something it never did before. Perhaps, it needed some maintenance since Buddy and Brother left. Rikku was our only remaining engineer and she had been preoccupied lately.

When I got to the cabin, I noticed he wasn't at the bar or the floor. I went to ask Barkeep if he'd seen him around, to which he replied that he had spoken to him for a while. My blitzer was quite beside himself, thinking Shuyin had turned us all to his side and blind to what he felt was actually going on. Barkeep said that he was rambling and raving about what Lulu and Wakka might be going through, what Shuyin and Seymour might do with Kimahri, even going so far as to worry about Auron's safety given those we thought were deceased had revived. There was worry in his tone and confusion with what he detailed to Barkeep, which only worsened as he became frustrated. Staying in the cabin had been a bad idea on his part because then he began accusing Shuyin of lots of things, most of which didn't make sense. Seymour was very hard on him when he was guardian to me on my pilgrimage. He worried about me a lot then, always thinking about the end result when we would reach Zanarkand. Having the added irritations by Seymour's persistence, I think it only made him blame every trouble we encountered on the guado Maester to simplify circumstances. However, by doing that to himself, Seymour coming back only gave him that much more anxiety than it gave the rest of us.

"Barkeep, where is he now?" I asked.

I wouldn't need an answer from him in the end. Paine contacted me via speaker to tell me that my love had had enough and decided to engage Shuyin before dealing with Seymour. My guess was that he didn't want the possibility of a team-up posing a danger to us. Quickly, I headed back for the lift and got it back to the deck. When I got there, I saw that both of them had their swords drawn while Rikku and Paine were trying to defuse the situation.

"Shuyin! Don't encourage him!" Rikku whined.

"It's the only thing he gets. Don't worry, Rikku, I'm not gonna hurt him. Maybe a little embarrassment instead, eh?" Shuyin replied, slamming his blade into Brotherhood.

"Oh? I think you're the one that's gonna be embarrassed, gramps!"

Paine intervened with her own sword by then, "Oh, this is productive. We do have other issues right now, or is impending doom not really a big deal?"

"Well, I'm not gonna let him add to that 'impending doom', Paine. Nobody's going to manipulate Yuna again."

I gasped from where I stood, finding myself only watching the scenario play out. Behind everyone, I could see Gagazet looming in the distance. We were closing in on it so time wasn't something we had as a buffer to figure the current brawl out. I didn't really know what to say if the reason for his aggression was to protect me.

"Rikku, Paine, stand aside. It's obvious you two aren't getting through to him with your words so let me with my sword." Shuyin calmly stated, diverting his block to unsteady my love.

He regained his footing easily, which seemed to be just what Shuyin wanted. The fight didn't look to favor Shuyin, but that was probably the point. The last swordfight those two had ended quickly with the warfare experienced swordsman coming out on top. Victory wasn't what he was after this time. He wanted time to make his points and have his double warmed up when we were to face Seymour.

"You're sloppy, you know?" He told my love, parrying but not capitalizing.

"You've made a mess of things. I won't hold back!"

"Then, you'll lose. Paine already sees it. I thought you were one of the people who stopped Sin, so if she can see the flaws in your attack patterns, why can't you?" Shuyin questioned, making an approach of his own.

It was blocked, but the blitz ace wasn't done yet. "So, I'm making mistakes. It can't be helped with you."

"It had better be helped. From what I hear, you've already lost two of your friends. The ronso, Kimahri, needs you right now and you're stuck focused on beating me. I don't care whose side you think I'm fighting on, fact is, I'm fighting on yours right now. Seymour should be your target in this mission, but you're only going to end up getting in the way if your eyes are trained on me." Following that statement, he ducked one more slash, rolled to the side for another, then pulled in very close to prevent a lunge.

"What? You're a little close for comfort."

"Yea? What are you gonna do about it? You see how I did that? I can see what's going on in that blockhead of yours. I also know that your heart's in the right place. You want to protect Yuna, I get it. Focus on what's harming her then. Right now, that's not me. Right now, that's the fear of Kimahri being hurt. There should be nothing else going on in your mind besides that." Shuyin stated, a stern visage glaring into my love's eyes before he casually turned, looking into the distance, "And I'd suggest you hurry up."

I wouldn't need to wonder why he said that. Seconds later, the Celsius was rocked by a tremendous force. Paine immediately left for the bridge, but Rikku's gasp let me know where I was needed. Looking over the side showed me that Seymour was expecting us. He had summoned Anima to attack the airship while he proceeded to fend off the juvenile ronso defending Kimahri.

"If you'll excuse me." Shuyin abruptly added, leaping from the airship to the battle below.

Author's Note: So, before things really explode, Shuyin takes off. Will Tidus get a clue? Well, he had better. After all, they need the "dream that can end dreams" or they're sunk. *sigh* These athletes can be a wee thickheaded, eh?

Another note, where have my reviewers gone? :'( Come back! I miss you! I do appreciate the reading and all, but it'd be cool to get feedback, as well. I'm a loon for crazy ideas from fans. =P Anyway, hope this chapter gets you lot enthused enough to leave a few words. =D 'Til next time, don't sweat the petty things and don't pet the sweaty things!