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: Let's have a short review of what happened and get right into it. Shuyin brought back Zanarkand to lure Yu Yevon out of hiding and to distract the gang so he could slip into Bevelle and steal back Vegnagun. Cid took the Fahrenheit to try and help the people of Spira since it's far too damaged to do battle with a super Sin. However, the Celsius was finally recommissioned. They did battle with the new Sin and it showed off some neat tricks like summoning forth an army of fiends and sinspawn. Shuyin's answer to that was to hit it with Caelum Denique or "Final Heaven" … actually "Heaven At Last: but Final Heaven sounds more fun ^o^ … then ram the machina into it. Vegnagun was destroyed, but Shuyin got in. That's good on him… but what about the rest of the team? xD

So in this chapter, we will get to that and finally start the big fight. As the title of the chapter implies, there's not much left to go.

Spira: The Eternal Discord

Chapter 47: "Final Chapter"

Tidus

"Shuyin, have you gone mad? Stop!" Paine screamed into the comsphere.

It wasn't going to work; even I knew that. Shuyin had that Vegnagun thing head straight for Sin, the giant machina breaking into bits and pieces every inch of the way. The guy wasn't backing off and we should have guessed he wasn't thinking about coming out of this in one piece when he gave us the thing's shields. Vegnagun smacked right into Sin and it barely budged. The machina, on the other hand…

"We have to go now!" Yuna ordered, going over to Brother and Buddy once we were back inside.

"Fight the good fight again!" Brother said, actually making sense for once.

"Yunie, we've got trouble!" Rikku chimed in, running over to her to show her the overhead screen.

After that super mega Tera Graviton stopped and it spat out that big lightning-hurricane-tornado thing at Shuyin, Sin was staying put, but under it, there was a lot more activity. Instead of coming at us with hordes of fiends, Sin was dropping them down at the ground. From what I could see on the screens, they were curled up Adamantoises only much bigger, rounder, and had spines all over.

"Genbu fiends. Looks like he's taking a page out of Dark Shuyin's book." Paine said.

"How do you mean?" I asked.

"Dark Shuyin made that Byakko thing out of the legends of the four guardians, remember?"

Suffice it to say, we were all staring, but Paine quickly got us back to work, telling us to head back up top while ordering Brother to land. Rikku argued that Sin was more important, but Paine knew, as we all did, that those fiends were going to terrorize everyone on the ground. We had no choice.

"This is one of those times that sucks." Yuna voiced for the rest of us, "But Sin is good at that."

"Yuna, we have to go." Paine pressed.

"No, if we stop Sin, those fiends will go away. If we lose focus now, we may never have the chance to stop it and Spira will be gone."

"We can't just leave them down there. Who knows how much damage they could do while we're off dealing with Sin." I tried to explain.

"It doesn't matter. The planet's at stake now. We have to go." She said, cringing at how awful those words sounded.

"Yunie…" Rikku murmured, before nodding to herself and turning to us, "She's right. We have to fight Sin at all costs because if we don't…"

"Spira's a goner." I said, looking at Paine.

It was what we were really scared about and I could see it in her eyes. After Vegnagun exploded and Sin was still left standing, it was too easy to give into our fears that we'd be next. Fighting some nobody fiends down on the ground was a lot easier to handle than going into the fight none of us were sure we'd make out alive.

"But Yuna's right. This is it. No turning away now." I added, unsheathing Brotherhood and activating Caladbolg from it.

"And you kids don't have to worry about those fiends on the ground." A voice came on over the coms.

"Gippal?" Rikku questioned.

Suddenly, rockets shot up through the air into Sin's underbelly, stopping the flow of fiends from it. Turning back to the screen, we saw Gippal along with Nooj and Baralai, all armed and ready to face the enemies left in the Calm Lands.

"We've got the small fries. Now you go after the big bad!"

Nooj came on next, "Stand strong and vigilant. The Calm is going to continue. A promise is a promise."

"Are you sure you can handle all those fiends?" Paine asked them, though from what Yuna told me, I was sure she was talking only to Nooj.

"Get going, Paine. You've got your mission; we've got ours." Baralai came on, taking out his staff to slice into one of the fiends that had already landed.

"And don't you worry about Noojie, love. We're here to take good care of all of them." Leblanc added, coming on screen with her goons.

"We'll have this situation under wraps shortly." The really thin guy with the guns said.

"Bwahahaha, they're gonna run home to mommy when we're done with 'em!" The fat one added.

The rest of them made this really bizarre high-pitched squeaking sound and then all of them headed off into battle. Most of Leblanc's goons were thrown back right away, but those guys were pretty tenacious and went right back each time.

"Don't have too much fun without me, got it?" Gippal finally said, shutting off the link.

"Well, that settles it." I shrugged, walking over to them.

"Guess so." Paine's voice trailed, but then, "Let's end this."

"Right!" Yuna exclaimed, "To Sin!"

"Roger! Next stop, final destination!" Brother shouted, pushing forward and sending the Celsius straight for Sin.

As soon as we got in front of the thing, Buddy got the wheels ready to launch a couple of energy waves at it. With the shields Shuyin left us still protecting us from the gravity spell, we were totally fine hovering so close. We were so fine, in fact, that Brother's courage points got a major boost and he started yelling ridiculous threats over the external speaker… loudly… However, before he could actually launch any attacks from the airship, we heard a low grumble come from Sin.

"What's that?" I asked.

"Sin's moving!" Rikku squealed.

Paine immediately reacted for the rest of us, heading to Buddy's console and firing the weapons. The waves flew out of the spinning wheels, but they ended up fizzling out before they even got close to Sin. The data stream noted that with the heavy gravity outside the shield, the energy was actually crunched before it could make it all the way to the target. Wow, this was some attack. Then again, it did absorb the whole of Zanarkand so I guess we should've figured one airship wasn't going to put up much of a fight.

Then, Sin did something strange. Instead of counterattacking like it had done with the Crusaders, it just started to open its mouth. Brother was in a panic, thinking it was going to Giga Graviton us like it tried two years ago, but it was different this time; we all felt it. It was like Sin was inviting us back. For a while, all we did was stare into its gaping mouth. None of us could think of what we should do. If we went for it, there was every chance it was a trap. But it wasn't as if we could stay back. We needed to defeat Yu Yevon and we had to do it from inside Sin last time. Finally, as we were taking too long to decide, Paine knocked Brother out of his seat and took the reigns. Carefully, she began steering the airship into Sin, paying extra attention to the distance its sides were to the sides of Sin's mouth. We were going into the belly of the beast so there wasn't such a thing as being too cautious. It was hard not to feel dread.

"Did somebody hear that?" Rikku asked shakily.

And that didn't help. Even though none of us were going to admit it, we all heard what Rikku was talking about. There was a deep rumble as we entered Sin, but it wasn't just that. It almost sounded like someone cackling at us, and we all were thinking of the same person. Yu Yevon was challenging us. We were the ones that sent Sin packing last time. It stood to reason that Yu Yevon wanted to take us on again, to finish what he failed to do last time.

Shifting the Caladbolg in my hand, I exclaimed, "Full speed ahead!"

Paine turned back to me with a glint in her eyes, smiling, "Roger."

The rest of the way, we flew straight through, me waiting for the same cloud of empty space with the glyphs that we saw last time. We weren't new to it, this time. Well, okay, maybe Paine was, but the rest of us knew what to expect. Well, okay, Buddy and Brother were still with the ship last time, but Yuna and Rikku… We knew what we were getting into, alright? Because of that, I wasn't going to be wandering about like last time. To get to Yu Yevon, we needed to get to the mini-Zanarkand inside. Once we got to that massive spire in the heart of that Zanarkand, we'd be transported to the weird Macalania-ish forest that I saw after Operation Mi'ihen and crack those crystals to weaken the illusion. Then…

"What's that up ahead?" Paine suddenly added.

"Weapon!" Rikku blurted out, running into me when she did.

"Paine, stop!" Yuna screamed, but it was too late.

"We're going too fast for that!"

The airship slammed right into the giant fiend, the impact cracking the HUD and shorting the weapons circuitry. However, the fiend was completely destroyed, all of its pyreflies blocking our view of the outside. Buddy quickly ran a diagnostics of the ship's systems, but it was still flight worthy. Brother took back the controls as Paine unsheathed her sword, the look in her eyes telling of her concern. She knew, just as the rest of us were slowly figuring out, that we had arrived at our destination, even if that destination wasn't what we were anticipating.

Outside, a voice suddenly called out, "Took you guys long enough. Thanks for the airship assist."

"Shuyin!" Rikku shouted, running over.

"Arm yourselves! We have other matters to handle besides that weapon fiend." Shuyin warned.

Before any of us could enquire him about it, another voice, one I thought we'd heard the last of, pierced through the veil of pyreflies, "Oh, you are not wrong!"

"Seymour! Just how many times do you have to die before you stay dead?" I growled, readying Caladbolg.

"As many times as he has to." Areth proclaimed, walking out of the cloud.

With a smirk his way, I retorted, "Then, I guess we'll just have to smack you two down each time you sprout back up!"

"Like weeds!" Rikku mused, taunting them before pulling out her daggers.

"We're more rampant than that, I would say." Areth purred.

Shuyin dropped in out of nowhere with a Spin Cut, jeering back with, "Right, like flies. Good thing the Celsius was around to swat at least one of you."

That seriously pissed Areth off and we would find out that the weapon we crashed into was a remnant of that Trista girl we saw before, like the one Shuyin killed and then had confront Areth. Unlike the copy, the real Trista was consumed by her hatred for Lenne so when she died, it mutated her into a very powerful weapon, the Emerald Weapon, but we had taken it down by just striking it with an airship.

"You poisoned her!" Areth roared, while the rest of us were still trying to get all the facts straight.

"Ah, that I did, but you have to admit, it made swatting her a lot easier." Shuyin jeered again, blocking the rising strike.

"That's what you think. But now that she's been scattered, there's another plan in the works."

"This rivalry is surely intriguing, wouldn't you say Yuna?" Seymour interjected.

All of us took our attention to the two enemies standing in our way to facing Yu Yevon. Seymour, as usual, started to transform into a new form. This time, he didn't pull in any pyreflies. Instead, they seemed to shoot right for him, bombarding him with their power. His skin turned black as pitch and his eyes began to give off a bright yellow glow. His wild hair only got weirder, lengthening until it turned into a web behind him. Other webs of hair started to form around us, sealing us in its makeshift arena. With a loud and reverberating snicker, his black body melted away into the web.

"My turn." Areth purred, sheathing his sword.

The pyreflies covering the ship jerked away and swarmed him, shielding him from view. Shuyin tried going through the wall of pyreflies, but wasn't making any progress. He only ended up getting bounced back when the wall started to shine with a bright white light. That light eventually cocooned into a dank green, emanating streams of darkness. When the darkness got so thick it blocked out anything outside the arena, the cocoon cracked and revealed a huge Apopis creature, the human half being Areth, himself, except his eyes were black and his face emotionless. More darkness appeared and Areth's snake body began to coil, eventually turning into a staff. Meanwhile, the darkness formed into a huge centaur, a demonic Ultima Weapon-like upper half mixed with the haunches of a Sanctuary Keeper. It grabbed the staff and Areth's expression on it finally changed to show a wicked grin.

"Now we are one!" It bellowed, though it was as if he had two voices.

"No, more like you sucked out her pyreflies to use in death just like you used her in life." Shuyin corrected, getting into position.

"Silence! You are the adversary. May blight cast you out upon the desolation and war and death be your salvation!" He exclaimed.

Shuyin easily shrugged, "Death hasn't really worked for me."

"It doesn't really seem to work for someone else we all know and loathe, either." Rikku whined, looking at the webs.

"I'm not so easily slain." Seymour proclaimed, his voice coming from all sides, "I have become a nexus to your unending misery and despair."

"Dream on!" I growled, readying Caladbolg.

A moment of silence echoed all of our parts to play in this final struggle. Outside, Paine's old Crimson Squad pals and the Leblanc Syndicate were defending Spira from Sin. As for us, Areth in his new form united with the pyreflies of Trista and the brand new Seymour Nexus barred our way to Yu Yevon. This was it. The lines had been drawn. This was the beginning of the end.

Areth launched himself at Shuyin, bent on skewering him with the serpent staff. Shuyin dodged each advance, but eventually reached the end of Seymour's arena. Areth smirked at him from the other end of the staff, sending one more strike down at his opponent. As soon as he did, Shuyin rolled underneath, getting himself between where the staff landed and the creature's front haunches. Uppercutting with his sword, he sliced at the Ultima Weapon-half's arm, going for a horizontal slash at the knees when he landed. To his surprise, the arm had already reattached and Areth had his legs punt Shuyin directly into the webbing, the tendrils that used to be Seymour's hair electrocuting him when he hit.

"That can't have been pleasant." Seymour Nexus mused, still hiding in the shadows.

Out of nowhere, a black sphere shot out of one of the other webs and nearly hit us. We managed to dodge, but it took hold of Areth and faded from sight with him right away. A short while later, we felt the ground rumble and out came Areth, coming from the web that Shuyin had hit, ramming him from that web to the opposite one. As Shuyin got caught in that one, Areth charged right through, disappearing again into the darkness opposite. Again a black orb shot out of one of the webs, but this time, I jumped right into it, hoping to catch Areth wherever he went. However, as soon as the black hit me, I was thrust forward, finding myself thrown out of another web, before Seymour appeared over me, casting a black fire spell at me and sending me slamming into the ground.

"Dark Firaja! Are you okay?" Yuna screamed, running to my side.

"I'll live, but ow, what hit me?"

"Dark Firaja. Seymour's magic seems accelerated here."

"Just like last time."

"Worse. We need to find a way to beat them fast." Yuna said, helping me to my feet.

"You're not kidding." Shuyin grunted, struggling to get up.

It seemed the web I was shot out of just happened to be the one Areth disappeared into, putting me right near to Shuyin after the Continuous Thundaja cut out from the web. Just then, Areth popped back out of the next web over and we were forced to run. By this time, Paine was in her Full Throttle Dressphere and had Swords Dance skewer the thing from underneath. However, just as the spikes shot up, Areth faded again, this time, without the help of those black spheres. In his place, Seymour Nexus cast Fissure, the resulting shockwaves rippling through the blades. They snapped from the stress, but it didn't stop Paine as she had the dressphere spin, shooting the swords at the top outward and hitting each of the webs, causing a few tears. However, just as she finished, Areth's staff reappeared, but back in its serpent form and coiled around Paine and tightened. Full Throttle was rendered twisted scrap. Paine had just enough time to wrench herself free and Rikku had to "pilfer" her out before the whole thing collapsed. They both spherechanged after that, Paine to Dark Knight and Rikku to Gun Mage. As a Gun Mage, Rikku shot the snake with a Blue Bullet, but that was destroyed by a Flare just before Seymour Nexus continued on with the Multi-Flare, casting it all over. Paine decided to use a "multi" attack of her own, accessing the Dark Knight's power to cast Black Sky. Unfortunately, the small meteors struck randomly, which made it too easy for the snake to dodge and each time one got close to Seymour, he just dispelled it. As soon as the meteors stopped falling, Areth's main body came back and hit us with Darkness.

"I think we need a new strategy." Shuyin admitted, coming towards us.

"You noticed? Geez, when did they supercharge?" I grumbled.

Shuyin seemed to pause at that, looking back at the field, "You're right. When did they supercharge?"

Obviously, that was confusing and neither Yuna nor I got what he was going with it. We wouldn't have the time to figure it out as a couple of black spheres headed out of the webs at us. I managed to dodge one of them just in time, but Yuna was caught by it. Just like last time, it sent her flying out of another web. I raced for her, jumping just in time to catch a Dark Firaja in my back when I tried to catch her. The attack sent me into the far web where I was hit by a Continuous Blizzaja, slowing my movement when I finally freed myself. Yuna had transformed into Berserker while in mid-air, using a Howl to boost her abilities and land safely. At the same time, Rikku changed to Alchemist, firing a mix that gave us all Shells to protect us from the powerful magic of Seymour Nexus, then shooting a Mega Potion into the air and healing us. Shuyin followed from that, changing to Samurai and chucking fireworks at the webs, causing more damage to them. As for me, Paine and I both had the same idea, spherechanging to Psycher and using Time Trip on both our enemies. As soon as the effect took hold, Shuyin bounded for Areth, cutting off his head with a strong twisting slice. The rest of his body shattered like glass before fading away. As for Seymour Nexus, Time Trip quickly lost its hold over him, the magics no match. Before he was completely free, I changed back and went for a Spiral Cut on him with Caladbolg, but he ended up catching my weapon in his claw. Bolts of Dark Thundaja coursed through the metal blade, numbing me to my knees. Paine would quickly save me with her Telekinesis and a well-timed Teleport, but Seymour was ready, sending another black sphere our way. Instead of being shot out like before, we were stuck in it, and Seymour took every advantage, casting Requiem after Requiem until the Psycher Dressphere was destroyed. Paine was forced back into her Warrior form, but we were both out of it after so many rounds of the powerful spell. When I came to, I found the Areth thing back again and Seymour Nexus going after Yuna and Rikku. Shuyin flipped over one of Areth's tail whips, switching it up with Yuna, who went back to Gunner, feeding a Trigger Happy to the creature while Shuyin went for a Zantetsu on Seymour. He would miss and hit the web behind him instead, but the attack was enough to finally take out that side. With Cat Nip equipped, Twin Bee's bullets did enough damage to take out Areth, the staff slithering away as the creature collapsed and faded. However, just as soon, Areth came back out of the web, now wielding a giant Naginata in his free hand. He wrote a death sigil in the air with it, activating Doom. The meteors focused on Shuyin, but he went after Rikku.

"I think I understand! It's the web!" Yuna shouted, having been left open to counter.

She spherechanged to Floral Fallal and performed a Great Whirl, the gusts of energy pounding at each of the remaining webs. Seymour Nexus grew nervous and stopped hiding, his arachnid body crawling at a quick pace. Having recovered just enough, I rolled forward and managed to chop off two legs on his right, setting him off balance. Before he could recover, Yuna hit him with Dream Pollen and gave me my opening. I looked at Caladbolg, lifting it up and thought about using an Overdrive. Then, I got a different idea. Taking out my Something Unique Garment Grid, I changed to White Mage, the pure white tux draping over my blitz gear as it melted away. Yuna looked at me in confusion, but I winked some reassurance at her before working my magic. Much to both their surprise, I cast Full Life on him.

I had a hunch that he wasn't even an unsent anymore. What did he have left to fight for? He wasn't going to be Sin last time when we beat him and had him sent. He wasn't going to kill us all in vengeance with Yu Yevon pulling his strings and now he definitely wasn't going to be anything more than a lackey knowing that his boss's plan was to eliminate the planet and rebuild it. He had to have been a puppet, pyreflies of himself stacked back together just to slow us down. He was broken and Yu Yevon was using it to his advantage, which meant that to stop him, we needed to do the one thing nobody ever tried to do for him in life: Save him. Full Life struck him hard and began purifying his "wounds". His black body disintegrated and his tainted yellow eyes dimmed back to blue. The real Seymour returned, collapsing in a heap before his pyreflies started streaming out of him.

Struggling to straighten himself, his eyes gave me a look of sincerity at last, "Thank you…"

With that, he was gone, the rest of his pyreflies drifting into the rest of Sin's. Meanwhile, Areth had just struck Rikku harshly with a Zantetsuken from his Naginata. Rikku had blocked with her daggers, but the force of it shattered them into tiny shards. Paine changed to Gun Mage, now that Seymour wasn't around to dispel her bullets and hit Areth with a SuperNova. Unfortunately, Areth just absorbed it into the weapon and sent it all over the place in pieces. But, his time was drawing near. After we all dodged the counterattack, I found Rikku with two new daggers in hand, running right towards a surprised Areth. She kicked off him, getting high up in the air before going into a backflip. The whole way down, her daggers left copies of themselves floating. When she landed, they all directed their points at him and shot down, stabbing him several times before exploding. His body exploded, the staff falling from his dispersed hand.

Just then, Shuyin dashed forth and stabbed the staff right in the mouth, "Thought we wouldn't catch on?"

As soon as he said that, the staff softened and rose back as the Apopis it started off as, but Shuyin kept his sword in place, adding, "You've hidden behind illusions all your life. Each time something didn't go your way, you made up a lie to justify it. Each time you did something your conscience regretted, you retreated to those same lies, telling yourself they were necessary evils. Areth, why do you think your illusions keep getting more and more monstrous?"

Before he could answer, Shuyin charged his Force Rain and unleashed the energy through Areth's serpentine form. The blast ripped through as Areth howled in pain, his body returning to normal and disintegrating into pyreflies.

"Areth, you have to accept reality or you'll never be at peace. Believe me, I know first hand." Shuyin told him, going to his side.

Areth collapsed against Shuyin before his body finally gave in, fading away completely. Shuyin took some time to get up, but when he did, Rikku hopped right to his side. The rest of us slowly convened on their location after getting back to our normal forms. Our surroundings were also changing and I had a good idea where we were headed, but we had a few more moments to prepare ourselves for it. It was time for the final showdown and all our friends were with us.

"This is my story." I said in sync with Yuna, surprising us both.

She nodded to me, "And I said I'd make it a good one."

"No." Shuyin suddenly muttered, standing up and walking over to us, "You had your story. So did you. Mine's left unfinished."

With that, he walked over to what looked like a swirling vortex of pyreflies, "It's about time I ended it."

"I want you to know what I really am." Rikku whispered softly, "I never thought I'd feel this way towards you…"

The vortex pushed past us and we found ourselves back on the airship, flying over that familiar mini-Zanarkand from two years ago. The same ominous aura was present. Yuna and I walked to the edge of the ship just as pyreflies started to gather up ahead.

"And if you ever need someone to come along… I will follow you and keep you strong." Rikku finished saying.

Tabi wa mada tsudzuiteku

Odayakana hi mo

Tsuki wa mata atarashii shuuki

De fune wo terashidasu

Inori wo sasagete

Atarashii hi wo matsu

Azayaka ni hikaru umi

Sono hate made

As the pyreflies collected together, our thoughts converged on our future. Together, we were strong, strong enough to rise above Yu Yevon's madness. Together, there was nothing that could prevent the Eternal Calm from continuing. We had a future. Our prayers would be answered.

And every time I see your face,

The oceans heave up to my heart

You make me wanna strain at the oars,

And soon I can see the shore

Unmei no fune wo kogi

Nami wa tsugi kara tsugi e to

Watashitachi wo osou kedo

Sore mo suteki na tabi ne

Shuyin started for the edge, his sword at the ready. Rikku followed at his heels, her new daggers glistening against the brightening light of the pyreflies. The rest of us also stood strong, ready to brave the coming tide. We told ourselves we could take whatever Yu Yevon threw at us.

Dore mo suteki na tabi ne

As Shuyin got closer, the pyreflies finished drawing together and a shape started to form from the light. The clearer it got, the more we wanted to rush in and take it down fast.

The last of the light died down and Shuyin lifted his sword, ready to strike… until, "No…"

Author's Note: No? You'd think after everything they spoke about, the confidence they built up over the last few chapters, Shuyin would go all out. What could have put a halt to his step? O_o

Next chapter is actually going to end it, but in keeping with how Final Fantasy X-2 was, I'm going to be ending this fiction with a Normal, Good, and Perfect Ending. By that, I mean, Chapter 48 is going to feature one ending, then another Chapter 48 will detail an alternate ending, and finally, I'll have an Epilogue in place for a Perfect Ending style concluding chapter. Who will win? Who will lose? Will there be a sacrifice? Find out next time!