15 Selfish or Selfless

I started to roll over, but something hard and sharp dug into my shoulder blade. I forced myself to sit up, blinking in the early morning light. I stood and looked around, dusting the leaves and dirt from my blitz uniform, remembering where I was. The sharp thing which had dug into my shoulder was just a rock, lying on the jungle floor. I had fallen over the night before, too tired to take another step...or maybe I had passed out, I don't know.

Yuna's guardians all lay near me, Yuna was near Wakka's feet. She looked much older than she really was, her eyes sunken into their sockets, her skin shriveled with the same green tint, only it had grown worse. I decided that I'd better wake the guardians up, so we could go on. I approached Wakka, my stomach growling loudly, pangs of hunger making it hard to stay upright. When I got close to him, I could hear Yuna's gurgling, rattling breaths. I shook Wakka, while keeping my eyes glued to the summoner lying near his feet. She looked so sick. Doubt overtook me. I feared that there wouldn't be any healers at the temple, that all this was for nothing.

My stomach growled at me again, and Wakka groaned a little, sitting up, rubbing his eyes. "Eh? What's goin' on?" "Wakka, uh, can you wake up Lulu for me?" The man's tired grimy face changed into a slightly amused grin as he pushed himself to his feet. "Hehe, it wouldn't be a good idea for ya ta try and wake her." His grin and joking manor disappeared, when he saw the girl lying at his feet.

He walked over to the sleeping mage, and I took a closer look at the woman, seeing that she did not look nearly as tough as she acted. Everything written in her features told me that she was exhausted. Her once neatly braided hair was now a mess, spread out everywhere, tangled and filthy. The rest of us were no better, small cuts, bruises and burns marked all of us, all under a layer of caked dust and dirt.

Wakka's red cowlick, which was always neat and straight for the first week or so that I knew him, now stuck out in every direction, but he didn't even notice. I cautiously approached the large blue cat-man lying on the ground, near Yuna.

I had never seen such a creature in Zanarkand, and it still kind of creeped me out, especially when he kept growling and purring from the pain of his injury. It looked serious, obviously pretty deep, and though Lulu had sealed it with her fire, it still looked agonizingly painful. It had an ugly bright red shade, the skin and fur on the jagged edges were charred and crusty. I slowly reached down, poking my finger at the creatures shoulder.

His eyes opened quickly, and he turned his head, growling softly at me. He pushed himself into a sitting position, then he stood, though his movements were pained and stiff. He took in the surroundings, and his eyes rested on Yuna for a moment, and he seemed to make a decision, one which he did not like."Wakka carry again, not Kimahri. We go."

Wakka understood, going over and lifting Yuna, grunting a little, probably sore from carrying her all day and half the night the day before. He then turned in a circle, a look of true fear coming into his eyes. "I-Lu…which direction were we going in?" Lulu frowned, slowly turning her head one way, then the other. She was silent for a moment, before finally sighing in defeat. "I don't know. Kimahri, do you?" There was a hint of desperation in her voice, and I was suddenly very confused. I hadn't even really thought about it until now, but I had no idea how we knew where we were going, I just figured that they knew what they were doing.

Now, I find out, they didn't even know were to go. I put two on two, and figured that it must have been only Yuna who knew how to get there. I searched with my tired eyes in all directions, but it all looked completely foreign to me. Kimahri took in several long, deep whiffs before speaking.

"Kimahri smell. Close." Relief flooded me, and I also heard Wakka and Lulu's comforted sighs. Lulu spoke up, a bit of hope in her voice. "This is good. We can get Yuna there, and-" She didn't get a chance to finish. That was the moment we were ambushed by several large, green lizards. They jumped from the bushes with no warning, with only one target: Yuna. I grabbed my sword, hacking at a particularly big one of the dull green fiends, as one was suddenly frozen by Lulu, another was hit by Wakka's blitzball, also being frozen, an explosion of ice hitting and immobilizing a lizard nearby. Kimahri threw himself on one, letting out a roar, half of desperation, and half of pain. More kept coming, as if we had stumbled into a nest the night before, and they had just woken up. When they saw that their target was protected, they began to turn on us, two leaping at me, and several swarming the guardians. I wildly slashed my sword, managing to knock away one, but the other landed on my chest, savagely biting my face, digging its nails into my stomach. I dropped my sword, clawing at it, managing to rip it off, and throw it to the side. Its teeth had torn some of my skin off; blood ran down the bridge of my nose, and some into my eyes, but I tried to keep my bearings. It was now going for Yuna, and I ran up to it, grasped my sword from the air, and stabbed it through. I swung around, ready for more, but saw that we had won…well, sort of. Wakka sat on the ground, his right arm mangled and almost unrecognizable as a human limb. Lulu was also injured, but not as badly. Kimahri's wound had partially reopened, and was also losing a small amount of blood. I pressed my hand on my face, now that the moments had slowed, I actually started to feel the pain. Wakka groaned, clutching his forearm, and standing up.

"We need ta go. The faster we get ta the temple, the better." He winced, and looked at Yuna.

"Ah…I don't think I can carry her…" He looked at his arm, obviously embarrassed, but I knew that it would be excessively painful, if not impossible, to carry her in that condition. When Lulu saw his eyes come to rest on me, she marched forward, and leaned down to pick up Yuna.

"Oh, NO!I will carry her!" She grunted and huffed, stumbling forward clumsily, before leaning back down again, putting Yuna down a few feet from where she'd started.

"Uh…I must be losing my edge." She breathed hard, and I could tell there was no way we'd get to the temple anytime soon with her carrying Yuna. My blood rushed to my face, causing more of it to run down my nose and cheeks. "Uh-I could um, carry her…" Lulu looked excessively annoyed, but nonetheless, she knew what was at stake here. She huffed a few more times, before frowning and marching forward. "Fine. Hurry."

I gently picked up Yuna, her frail body felt cold, dead. It scared me even more than just seeing her lying there, limp and green and…dead. I mentally yelled at myself that she was not dead, not yet. And it was up to me to keep it that way. Kimahri gestured in one direction. "Smells mile from here." I became angry with myself. It was only a mile away! Why couldn't I have just gone a little longer the night before?"

I felt stupid, hoping that my sleeping wouldn't end up costing Yuna her life. I got going pretty fast, and all of us were breathing hard after a couple minutes, but I knew if it was only a mile, we could keep it up. We walked on, and I grew progressively more tired as the moments passed, but with each one, I forced myself to walk a little faster.

After about fifteen minutes, I saw a horrible, and yet beautiful sight: in the distance was a very big staircase. I was exhausted just looking at it, but I stepped up the pace even more, knowing that we were almost there…hopefully.

"Is that it?" I asked, glancing at the ragtag group of bloody guardians. "Yes. That's the gateway ta tha temple, brudda. We're gonna make it." Wakka seemed too tired to even put enthusiasm into his voice, his words were weak and quiet.

I smiled, and glanced down at the girl in my arms. Seeing her there made my cheeks flush again, my blood running down my face and dripping onto her once-lovely garments. I raised my head, keeping my eyes on the destination, and trying to do the same with my mind. I wasn't used to carrying girls around, needless to say, it was an interesting situation.

Soon, we had reached the stone steps, which looked even bigger, when I was right at the bottom, looking up the many flights. I took a deep breath, and started up. One flight, going strong. Second flight, I was getting a bit tired. Third flight, my legs were starting to hurt. Fourth flight, my legs were definitely burning. Fifth flight, I was getting there. Sixth flight, I only had one more! Seventh flight. I was exhausted, my legs were shaky; I'd never carried someone up seven flights of stairs before…actually, I'd never carried anyone up any stairs before, actually. I looked down to the bottom, we were now high above most of the treetops. I could see much of the jungle from there, and the destruction from attack was even more evident looking down.

It was almost dizzying, but I blinked, and then hurried forward, my destination was only thirty feet away. I stumbled into the temple courtyard, and saw a few people milling about. The temple seemed to have been hit by Sin's wave, but was less damaged then the rest of the island, because it was so high up. Several people rushed over. Apparently, a filthy group of badly injured people staggering up the temple steps was unexpected.

"Oh! Are you okay?! What am I saying?! Of course you're not okay!" "Our summoner is poisoned. Are there any summoners here?" Lulu cut the flustered young woman off, looking around the temple courtyard. There were a few people here and there, but only about ten, altogether. Another woman spoke up, her eyes glued to Yuna.

"Y-yes, there's a summoner here, she arrived last night. She's and her guardian were resting, but she may be up by now, I can go check!" The woman ran off, entering one of the two smaller doors, flanking one large one, which looked like it was the main entrance to the temple.

"Is she…still alive?" A boy of about twelve spoke tactlessly, grimacing at the sight of Yuna's sickly body, even stepping forward, reaching out a finger to poke at her. Something flared up in me, and I scowled at him, pulling Yuna away.

"Yes, she's alive!" I hissed. Apparently, this was enough to scare him off, as he backed away, before scrambling away to a man, who was sitting in a corner, a mournful, vacant expression on his some reason, the other people who had taken interest in us also backed away, returning to whatever they had been doing before, mostly twiddling their fingers, waiting for who knows what. I was growing impatient. In my heart I was yelling for them to hurry up. Yuna only had a few minutes left, she was slipping away, I could feel it.

I marched resolutely towards the door which the girl had disappeared into a few moments before, but then she returned, being followed by a woman who appeared to be rather annoyed, with an incredibly muscular man in tow. "Well, what is it?" The woman's voice was hard just to listen to, she sounded ready to hit somebody, probably for waking her up. I was on edge, and wanted to snap something back, but I paused, trying to think of a kind way to ask for the help that we so obviously needed. I thought that it must be obvious what it was! I was only carrying a girl who was about to die!

Lulu beat me to it, her voice clipped, but not angry. "Our summoner is poisoned. Please heal her."

The woman scoffed, spinning on her heel, and sauntering back to where she came from.

"I don't think so. I don't take orders from guardians." That made me snap. There was no way she was gonna walk away and let Yuna die, just for her pride."Get back here!" I shouted, not sure what to say after that. She stiffened, slowly turning around, and stalking up to me. Regardless of the fact that I was at least eight inches taller than she was, there was something menacing about her, she actually reminded me of Lulu.

"What." It wasn't a question, it was a statement. "You dare push me around, boy?" I took a step back, remembering that Lulu could zap me, there was no telling what a summoner could do. I looked back at the others, hoping for someone to help, but was shocked to see both Kimahri and Wakka lying thirty feet away from me, passed out at the top of the steps.

Wakka had made it a few more feet than Kimahri, but they were both unmistakably unconscious. I couldn't do anything for them at the moment, and I was thankful when Lulu stepped forward to defend me, or rather, Yuna, almost before the summoner had even finished the last word in her sentence.

"You will heal her." She commanded, getting in the woman's face.

"If you don't, you can be sure that you will be ex communicated." The summoner seemed to ponder this for a moment, before sniffing at Lulu, turning back again to the room from which she'd come. Almost as if it was a great accomplishment, she declared,

"I can't."

TidusxYuna Always