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: Hmm, methinks there be little fancy for another emo Shuyin episode. Well, how about psychotic Shuyin versus his dream twin?

Spira: The Eternal Discord

Chapter 25: The Tormented Warrior

Tidus

The first strike was surprisingly dealt to Rikku. After he lunged, he rushed her and slammed his jagged claws down at her. Being in her Thief default, she was able to get out a dodge to let the guy bury his talons into the earth. Not skipping a beat, Shuyin just plucked it right out and swiped at me, to which I blocked with my sword. Eventually, after knocking Paine away into Yuna and taking a few more swings at me, he took one more look at Rikku before howling and running off to kill more fiends. Being a Berserker, he rammed straight into them and began ripping and biting them apart. Catching up to him proved difficult, too, because his movements were erratic. He just passed back and forth between us, looking for fiends arbitrarily, sometimes even skipping some that would've been closer.

Eventually, without any more fiends near enough to get to, he turned his attention to the next closest thing: the Travel Stop. The moment we noticed what he was targeting, we ran interference, but he just barreled through us, butting me with his head and sending me crashing into one of the supports keeping the tent up. For the next segment, I would be struggling with the ropes and cloth of the tent, trying to get myself untangled. Meanwhile, YRP recovered and surrounded him.

"Strategy?" Paine asked, spherechanging quickly to her special dressphere, Full Throttle.

"Knocking him out is always a good idea to start!" Yuna shouted, ducking a horizontal swing and pulling out her pistols.

"This is disasterrific!" Rikku added, spherechanging to Alchemist.

Yuna took to firing a barrage of bullets, but just like he could do with a sword, Shuyin just swiped them away with his claws and charged her. Full Throttle's Dextral Wing helped distract him from going after her, but Shuyin managed to grab on and start chewing and scratching at the bladed armor. Paine struggled, but couldn't shake him off of the armor, the system controls on the central apparatus starting to flicker and die. Yuna stepped in with her Thief dressphere, jumping in to pull Paine out before Shuyin could reach her. As they watched, the rest of the armor fell apart from the continuous abuse, finally exploding in self-destruct. In Berserker form, Shuyin's defense against physical injury was rather good and he pulled away from the wreckage nearly unscathed, but further enraged. He galloped straight into the two and tackled them to the ground, but Rikku placed a well-timed White Hole mix and knocked him back, dealing a good amount of damage at that.

The Berserker was thrown for a loop and Rikku quickly got in a Mega Potion for Paine and Yuna before switching to Black Mage to take advantage of its mostly physical power. Yuna changed to Dark Knight and Paine reverted to Warrior and positioned themselves for Rikku's magic.

"On you, Rikku." Paine stated.

Rikku concentrated on a third tier spell, but that would take a bit of time to get done so Yuna stepped in for Shuyin's next pounce, deflecting it with my Caladbolg. Shuyin reeled, but howled and charged again, this time catching the swipe in a claw and locking himself with Yuna. With her arms pinned to the sword, Shuyin began biting at the thick armor, cutting his mouth in the process, but he was beyond caring. After a few bites, even the black armor began to crack, but Rikku was ready with a Firaga, knocking him back a few feet. But before they could react, Shuyin recovered and bounded for Rikku, knocking her staff away and taking another swing, which Paine took in her place, being knocking out in the process.

"Paine!" Rikku screamed, ducking under the next attack and going back to Thief to get away.

Yuna lunged again with her damaged Dark Knight and caught him in a lock again. By this time, I was free from the tangle and moved toward her with Brotherhood at my side. Since he was still pushing against Yuna's sword, it gave me the chance to land a strong hit. What I didn't remember was that there was still a tactical mind hiding under all that blind rage, so the moment I got close enough, he slid his weight and pulled Yuna off balance, sending her careening right into me. Then, to add to the counter, he gripped both of us tight in a crushing clinch. The air was pressed out of me and I could feel Yuna losing consciousness. Taking deep breath to concentrate, I charged energy into Brotherhood and let it scatter around us. The burst was enough to alert Shuyin into letting go and seeking safer ground, which allowed me to take Yuna and get her to safety with the other girls.

"Rikku, look after them. I'll go it alone." I told the only conscious YRP member.

"But you're no match for him!"

"It's not like we have any other options." I replied, "Just take care of them and get them to safety if I fall short."

Before she could make any more protests, I sped off and met the feral former unsent in battle. Immediately, he set off, lunging at me with tremendous speed. I barely pulled off a dodge before he was already turned and headed back my way. I would parry the next pounce, but he quickly countered that counter and sent a foot into my gut while I tried to capitalize. It didn't help that right after I opened my eyes, his intimidating gaze left me partially paralyzed and my movement only slowed further. Once he figured out what he did to me, he just circled me without actually making any advances. My guess was the feral side to him liked toying with his prey, which didn't surprise me considering what I'd heard so much about his unsent days. I followed his eyes and knew they would tell me when he'd make a move. It was a better option than to just brace for him to make the sudden leap.

"Taking your time isn't the smartest idea." I grinned, lifting my sword when I saw the shift in his gaze.

He made the dash into me very low to the ground, making it harder to counter, but the small jump was all I needed to get on his back, locking my legs around his neck and sending him for a ride. As soon as he hit the ground, though, he was back up swiping madly. It was what I was hoping for. In his blind rage, he couldn't control himself to think about restraint. He was just as he was just before activating the sphere: lashing out and that would be my advantage. While he tore at the dirt and air, I snuck up behind him and smacked him hard with the flat end of Brotherhood. Recovering from that one put him over the top and he began charging like a bull, making his straight-line assaults very easy to evade. Lucky for me, he wasn't of sound enough judgement to realize it and just kept going.

"Yoo-hoo, over here!" I waved, spanking him in the rear when he made his pass.

"Aw, so close."

"Nope, not yet."

"Really, is that the best you got?"

Finally landing a solid hit on him, my kick sent him flying back, though it was still ineffective. Slicing through a few wayward fiends, he just dashed at me again in the same direct fashion and I just had to sidestep again, but I knew I was actually getting tired while his stamina seemed to be in limitless supply.

"Wow, calm down already!" I groaned, clubbing him in the back of the head.

"Still not getting it?"

"Geez, it never took the girls' this long to get out of Berserk mode."

"I can't keep this up for much longer…"

And that's when he finally caught me, slamming straight through my form with his skull before catching his step and slashing twice and ending it with a grab and bite. Blood poured out of my shoulder as I made a slash of my own to get him off of me. The attack carried with it an added effect of poison as I felt my vision cloud and a pulse of pain surge inside every few seconds. Taking in ragged breaths I could feel him coming again until he just froze in place mid-lunge. Looking further on, I saw Rikku now in her Psycher form, obviously using Time Trip to save me. Seeing the outfit flicker, I knew it was still in disrepair from the earlier encounter with Dark Shuyin so I rolled to the side to let her shift into Alchemist, shooting me with a few capsules to heal my wounds. As the Berserker rolled out of the lunge, it sniffed the air to relocate my position so I simply whistled and waved to let him know. Obviously, his next move was to charge again, but this time I had an idea. Since time magic worked well on him before, and since my own Something Unique Garment Grid had a fully functional Psycher dressphere, it was about time I gave it a go.

"I need one point twenty-one jigawatts! Stat!" I yelled, activating the sphere.

A stylin' pinstriped blazer fell over my off-white muscle shirt and leather pants adorned my lower half while I set a pair of shades over my eyes, lowering them just enough to peek out over the top at Shuyin. Flicking them back up, I waited for the right moment and sent another Time Trip his way, freezing him in midair with a click of the fingers.

"Phew, just in the nick of time."

Floating over, I first cast Express on myself to remove the effects of Intimidate from before, then went to work with my Mazer Eye and Psycho Bombs. Once time resumed, Shuyin was thrown for a loop, losing the benefit of all the feral instinct he had before and becoming disoriented by the reality warping dressphere I was using. Trying to coordinate himself again, his eyes darted around me before focusing and he snarled to ready his next assault. A quick Teleport threw him for a loop again, though.

"Don't worry, you weren't sure what you were looking for." Waving my hand at him when he turned around.

He growled, trying to shake off the earlier effects and jumped at me. My Telekinesis stopped him cold and I flung him a few yards away, floating towards him as he tried to recover. Before he could make another lunge, I picked him up with my mind and threw another Psycho Bomb at him. As soon as I left him land, he Mad Rushed me, this time hitting his mark with an Unhinge to boot. My sight clouded from the hit I took , but I knew what I needed to do. Without even taking the time to locate him, I activated Excellence and just waited. As soon as I felt him brush against me in his pounce, I grabbed him with Telekinesis and flung him into the ground. His next attack was Hurt, but with my current status, it was a waste of time and I just hurled him again. This went on for a few more rounds until my vision started to clear.

"You just keep going, don't you? Well, I'm ready to finish this." I said with a grin.

The next Mad Rush he made, I lifted him off the ground high and deactivated the dressphere. Taking out Brotherhood, I jumped up to him, kick-flipped off him when he struck at me, and slammed down with Spiral Cut, sending him soaring down into the ground hard. When I landed, the dressphere dissipated around him and an unconscious Shuyin was left laying in his small crater.

Walking over to Rikku, I asked her about Yuna and Paine who were still under. She was more concerned about Shuyin and told me the two were fine before rushing over to tend to the guy. I went to Yuna's side and picked the two girls up to take them to the… well, what was left of the Travel Stop. Seeing Rikku struggling to get Shuyin up, I let her take care of Paine instead and threw one of his arms over my shoulders and walked with him, Yuna in my free arm.

"Well, we really didn't need that." Rikku groaned, lying down next to Paine as soon as she got her down.

"No kidding, but it's over now. Who knows, maybe it helped him let off some steam." I suggested after putting the two down, shrugging.

"Do you really think so?" Rikku asked, a sarcastic tone in her voice.

"We can always hope something good might actually happen."

Rikku just sighed and put an arm to her forehead to show she stopped hoping a long time ago. 'Yea, you and me both, Rikku.'

Author's Note: Well, all in all this chapter was just for battling fun, though it also developed the characters of Tidus and Shuyin as separate individuals, also to show that Shuyin may yet have someone to pass the torch to in the future... though, will that be necessary with the situation as is? Tune in next time to find out!