cw for canon-typical racism


When they returned to Luca, there was still no word on where the fiends had come from, but everything had been cleaned up and things were back to business as usual. They took the opportunity to stock up on supplies. "From here on out, it gets pretty quiet," Jounouchi explained. "The only cities beyond here are… Guadosalam and Bevelle, right, Honda?"

"Yeah." Honda nodded, stuffing his satchel with plenty of ammunition. "Everything else is just kind of… inns and rest agencies until we get to Mt. Gagazet, then we're completely on our own. Good thing Ryou's a pretty good cook, otherwise we'd starve out there."

Ryou turned to look at them over his shoulder with a beaming smile. "I try!"

"So coming up is… the Highroad, right?" Iah asked once they'd finished up their shopping and regrouped in the square. "That's a hell of a hike."

Ryou's smile grew wider. "Well," he sang, tucking his hands behind his back as he started to lead the group towards the northern gates of Luca. "We'll have to hike the first stretch, but there's a travel agency ahead that should have chocobos for rent!"

Yugi shook his head with a soft smile. "And that's going to be the highlight of the whole pilgrimage for you, isn't it?"

"I take joy wherever I can find it."

Something about those words struck Iah like he'd just heard some hallowed piece of scripture. 'Take joy wherever you can find it,' Iah mused to himself with a smile. 'Good advice.'

His legs were burning when they reached the top of the stairs, and Iah doubled over to catch his breath. "Those stairs are killer," Honda groaned right next to him, but then he stopped upon actually seeing the Highroad. "Whoa…" The Mi'ihen Highroad stretched out before them, a long and winding dirt path surrounded by lush greenery. It seemed to continue forever, and it looked peaceful.

They all took a moment to stretch their legs, drink some water, and prepare themselves before they set off. Dirt crunched under their boots, birds chirping in the fields around them. "At least it's a nice walk," Yugi said, pausing to let Aaru do his thing and wander off. "Still, be on your toes."

Sure enough, not even a few minutes later, Aaru came screeching out of the brush again and everyone jumped into position. Nothing could have prepared them for the fiend that came charging out of the brush: it was a quadruped creature with a wicked set of teeth and two large horns growing up out of its shoulders. It didn't stop upon seeing them, lowering its head to charge Anzu. She only had time to twist to avoid being gored by the horns before the fiend collided with her, and she flew backward with a scream, hitting the ground with a hard thud. The fiend kept going, though, pinning her to the ground and raising a clawed paw to swipe down at her.

"Hey!" Jounouchi bellowed, and the fiend stopped to look up at him with a deep, rumbling growl. "That's right, I'm talking to you! Come and get me!" The fiend took the bait, turning away from Anzu to charge at Jounouchi. Honda took some potshots at the thing, but it kept going, not even registering the hits as it tried to impale Jounouchi on its massive horns.

Ryou quickly cast a healing spell on Anzu as Jounouchi barely dodged the charge with a little yelp. The fiend stopped to turn and correct its course, which was when Iah charged in and slid underneath the thing to attack its underbelly. He managed to get a good hit in along its belly, but that seemed to only aggravate the fiend as it tried to stomp on him. Iah rolled out of the way as Jounouchi saw an opening, slashing at the thing overhead and leaving a deep gash in its left shoulder.

The beast roared and swiped at Jounouchi, hitting him with one of its horns and sending him sprawling to the ground. Iah cursed under his breath. "Ryou! Aeon!" Honda called out as he stopped to reload. "We'll buy you time!"

"Okay!"

While Ryou focused on summoning, Honda loaded a rather hefty-looking bullet into his gun. "Okay, you want some?" Honda yelled, taking aim and firing. This bullet finally did something, tearing into the fiend's body. The fiend howled, the only sign that it felt any pain at all, and reared back as it faced him and shot a bolt of fire at him. Iah was close enough to pull him out of the way, the heat of the blast knocking the air out of their lungs.

Movement from above caught Iah's attention, and he looked up to see something falling towards them - and fast. He could only watch as the thing expanded, sprawling out two massive wings as it hit the ground next to Ryou, who stared up at it in awe. It was a massive avian thing with a long mane and a distinctly humanoid chest that stared down at Ryou with a soft clicking sound. "Hello," Ryou said, pausing before addressing it by name: "Valefor. Please help us!"

Valefor bobbed her head in understanding before taking flight again, swooping down upon the fiend and tearing into it with her massive talons. The fiend screeched in pain, thrashing against Valefor, and Iah was stunned; between him, Jounouchi, and Honda, they'd barely done any damage, but this thing - the aeon, Valefor - had nearly decimated it with one attack. Valefor pulled back just as Jounouchi rushed the fiend again, raising his sword to cut into its neck.

The fiend wobbled for a moment, but as Jounouchi freed his blade from its flesh, it gave one last pitiful howl and collapsed, disappearing into pyreflies.

They all took a long moment to catch their breaths, staring in awe as Valefor came to rest at Ryou's side again. Ryou smiled up at her, reaching up to place his hand along her beak. She clicked at him again gently. "Wow," Anzu breathed with an awed smile. "That's the Besaid aeon?"

"Yes." Ryou patted Valefor on the beak one last time, and she took to the air again, flying off to disappear into the horizon. "Is everyone okay?"

"Just some bumps and bruises," Jounouchi said breathlessly, waving his hand. "Damn, that one was tough! Gimme a second to catch my breath."

As they settled on the side of the Highroad, some passersby stopped to pay their respects and admiration for a well-fought battle. "So, Yugi," Iah asked curiously, biting into some mildly-spiced jerky. "Aaru's a scout, isn't he?"

Yugi nodded, setting aside some nuts and berries for Aaru at his side. Aaru started picking at the nuts without a care in the world, chittering contentedly. "I'm not much of a fighter, but I've always been good with animals, and Aaru can get around better than I can. I do know a little bit of magic, though."

They only rested for a few precious minutes before standing and getting back on the road. Thankfully, aside from some minor fiends and one strange, jelly-like thing that Anzu quickly disposed of, there weren't any other hiccups. They eventually happened upon a clearing with a building and some large, yellow-feathered birds prancing around. "Chocobos!" Yugi said in delight. "This must be the rest agency."

"We can pick up some more supplies," Anzu said as she strapped her staff to her back. "Rest our legs, then maybe rent chocobos for the next stretch."

"We're still not done?" Honda whined. "How long is the Highroad, anyway?"

"There's not too much left, but we still have to get through the Djose Highroad after this," Iah said. Everyone turned to look at him, clearly not used to him being the knowledgeable one, and he smiled. "I've looked over a lot of maps. Trying to figure out if anywhere in particular sounded familiar to me."

"Well, hey, we've got a walking map," Jounouchi teased with a grin.

They restocked and spent a few minutes recuperating while Ryou put together enough gil for them to rent chocobos. A few people came by to pay their respects and best wishes to Ryou, who absorbed the compliments and blessings with a mildly stilted politeness. "He doesn't really like being the center of attention," Yugi whispered to Iah as they watched the scene. "At least, not like this."

"And he became a summoner anyway?"

"Because it was the right thing to do. I think he was hoping that people would admire from afar." Yugi laughed quietly, shaking his head. "Although he's not good with that, either."

The last of the admirers passed Ryou by, and Iah could see his shoulders relax substantially. Ryou looked up at him with a weary but relieved smile that turned shy the longer they made eye contact. It was absolutely adorable. Iah realized, giving him a warm smile of his own, that he could no longer say that he was just intrigued by Ryou - he was now, in fact, tragically enamored with him.

Of course, the feeling quickly fell to the wayside with a pair of gossiping travelers, a man and a woman, that wandered into the agency. "…why the teachings are irrefutable!" the woman was saying.

"I suppose so," the man replied, his voice mournful. "But still… not even heretics deserved that fate. From what I heard, their deaths were painless, at least."

"It's all because of those Al Bhed. What did the Crusaders expect, trusting the inventions of those heretics?" The woman scoffed, shaking her head. The venom in her voice was palpable.

Iah's shoulders started to climb up to his ears with tension. Yugi noticed and called out, "Excuse me? What are you talking about?"

The woman turned to them, her eyes locking onto Iah. "Ask him," she sneered, nodding at him.

"Contrary to popular belief," Iah said coolly, tilting his head slightly. "Not every Al Bhed knows what the other Al Bhed are doing at any given moment. So watch your tongue, eteud. You wouldn't want to piss off the wrong one, would you?"

Yugi turned back to Iah, eyes wide as he made a gesture for him to stop talking. But it was too late; the woman huffed and fled the agency, the man trailing after her with a perplexed look at Iah. "Oh boy," Yugi groaned, resting his head in his hands.

"Iah…" Anzu sighed. "Next time? Passive aggressiveness, not… aggressive aggressiveness."

Iah stared at her in disbelief, gesturing to the door. "So what, I was supposed to sit here and take that? I don't even know what she was talking about!"

"No, it's good to stand up for yourself. But you're a guardian; everything you do and say reflects back on Ryou. It's the same for all of us."

"She was out of line anyway," Ryou said after a moment, frowning to himself. "But… I wonder what happened." His curiosity went unanswered, and they sat in uncertain, uncomfortable silence for just a few minutes longer before they decided to resume their journey.

The tension of the rest agency incident passed pretty quickly once they'd rented their chocobos, and Ryou's delighted smile was a welcome distraction as they took a casual pace toward the southern gate. It had been a little more expensive than they'd been expecting; apparently, there had been a rather formidable fiend hunting down and eating all of the chocobos until summoner and her guardians had put it down, so there weren't as many to spare as usual. Still, it beat having to walk the last stretch of the Highroad.

But the closer they got to the northern gate, the more the air grew heavy. Scattered soldiers were walking through the gate from the Djose Highroad, looking battered and broken, and more than a few bodies were covered with burial shrouds. They had to leave their chocobos at the gate, and as they dropped off with an agency attendant, Anzu asked, "What's going on here?"

"You didn't hear?" The attendant shook her head sadly. "Operation: Mi'ihen. It was a joint operation between the Crusaders and the Al Bhed to defeat Sin without the use of summoners. It… ended badly. The path should be clear by now, but do be careful, and avoid Mushroom Rock Road if you can."

Iah tensed a little, remembering the accusations of the woman in the agency. "I think I heard some folks talking about that operation in the cafe back in Luca," Honda said as the green fields of the Highroads faded into flat rock faces that shelved out like mushrooms on a tree. "They were going to use machina to try and tear Sin a new one."

"Why not just leave it to the summoners?" Jounouchi asked. "If there was another way, someone would've found it by now."

"It was brave of them to try," Ryou said softly. "Even if it ended badly."

And 'badly' seemed to be an understatement. As they continued through rock formations, they saw more and more abandoned weaponry, ruins, and even an occasional body buried underneath rubble. The trip down the Highroad was eerily still, with only the occasional flying eyeball fiend or mutated mushroom rearing their heads at them. Even Aaru was quiet, sticking to Yugi nervously and only going to scout when Yugi explicitly asked him to.

But eventually, they hit a barrier. The path was completely blocked by a ruined pillar; a pitiful amount of workers were trying to demolition it, but it was slow going, so Iah scouted ahead. He eventually found a stack of boxes that they could use to climb over the pillar, reaching down to give the others a helping hand. They stopped to rest on top of the pillar - the workers were at a completely different end, so they had a little time. "This place just feels horrible," Anzu said wistfully, leaning her head against Jounouchi's shoulder.

"You can feel it," Ryou agreed, his expression far-off and wistful. "How many people died here?"

Iah reached over to wrap his arm around Ryou's shoulder, and Ryou accepted, pressing against him. "I think we're about halfway down, right?" Iah asked, partially to change the subject but also to gauge how much longer they'd be subject to such a somber mood.

"Yeah. The temple's at the end of the Highroad, then it's onto the Moonflow."

Ryou nodded, pulling away from Iah to start making his way off of the pillar and down onto the beach below them. They continued onward, the path narrowing out into an almost complete tunnel. Rocks jutted out above them, leaving only one side exposed to the sea, and the sounds of waves lapping against the cliff-face below them. It sounded peaceful, and as the tunnel opened up to a fork in the path, the somber mood started to lift. "Here we are," Honda said, pointing at a sign at the center of the fork. "Djose up on the right."

As they took to the right of the fork, they passed a couple, a man and a woman. The woman had a severe expression, staring Ryou down for just a moment as she passed, and the man was big, pure muscle with not a single thought behind his eyes. Ryou paused to watch after her, brows furrowing. "I… think I know her."

"Yeah, she looked familiar," Jounouchi agreed, scratching his head. "Definitely another summoner, right?"

"A summoner with only one guardian? Talk about confidence," Iah commented as they continued forward.

"Dona!" Anzu blurted, snapping her fingers. "She's from Kilika, too! It's probably a good thing she didn't stop to chat, she's kind of a bitch."

Iah snorted a laugh. "Is it a big deal to see another summoner out here?"

Ryou nodded as they approached a giant rock formation nestled in a gap between massive cliffs. An inn sat to the right of the formation, and there were more injured soldiers milling about outside of it. "Some summoners can get… competitive. As long as we keep to ourselves, we should be fine. It's not really in anyone's interest to pick a fight."

They stopped before the rock formation, and Iah craned his neck to stare up at it, furrowing his brow. "And… there's a temple here?"

Ryou knelt to pray before the rocks. Suddenly, Iah felt the earth shifting and rumbling underneath him, and the rock formation exploded outward, the fragments suspended by bolts of electricity as they gravitated a temple. Anzu gasped in awe at the sight. "Whoa! That's so much cooler in person."

The awesome sight was mildly stifled when, upon entering, a priest took to watching Iah curiously. Iah kept his gaze to the ground, refusing to make eye contact until they'd entered the Cloister of Trials. This Cloister was a bit more complicated than the one in Besaid, and it took Yugi a few minutes of observation before he figured out what they needed to do. "I think…" he said, pointing to a glowing symbol on the floor. A pedestal sat on top of it, holding a green sphere with the same symbol engraved on it. "We need to light that up using these spheres."

Things got a little exciting when a wall panel slid up to reveal a pit of lightning with a recess for a sphere on the other side. Iah managed to get across after shoving the pedestal into the pit to act as a platform, earning some anxious gasps from the others, but his sense of balance prevailed as he inserted a sphere into the recess and hopped back to them. "Easy," Iah said confidently.

"You've got guts, Iah, I'll give you that," Honda said as he inserted the last sphere. The symbol on the ground lit up entirely, and a platform rose from the ground. It took them upstairs where, after linking spheres up to create a circuit of electricity, a door opened to a set of stairs leading up. "Another Cloister down!"

"These are getting convoluted, don't you think?" Iah commented as they headed up the stairs and towards the sound of a deep baritone voice singing to them.

"Probably to test our convictions." Anzu stopped, crossing her arms as she leaned against the wall by the stairs. "But now that you mention it… that one was pretty tricky."

Ryou disappeared past another shield-like door, leaving them to their thoughts. Iah stretched out his legs, sitting on the floor and idly humming along to the song. "Hey, Iah," Jounouchi said, sitting down next to him. "Sorry about that lady back in the agency."

Iah stopped humming and blinked at him, mildly confused. "Why? You're not the one who tried to blame a massacre on me."

Jounouchi sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "No, but… the teachings go pretty hard about how the Al Bhed are heretics and whatever. We don't really buy that, but a lot of people go hard on blaming everything on you guys. So… sorry about that."

Iah shook his head. "Ah, whatever. There's always gonna be someone that hates me. I know you guys aren't like that."

"It just seems silly to blame all the world's trouble on specific people," Yugi chimed in. Aaru had curled up on his lap and he was petting him idly as he sat on the steps leading up to the chamber. "Atonement is on all of us."

Iah frowned a little. Right; what little he'd read of the teachings mentioned that Sin would only disappear once people had properly atoned for their wrongs. Which, frankly, seemed like rubbish to him, considering that Sin had been around for the better part of a thousand years now, but he wasn't about to say that in a room full of devout followers. Not after they'd so nicely accepted him into their group.

It took Ryou the better part of an hour to emerge from the chamber, stumbling and woozy. "His name's Ixion," he mumbled right before falling to his knees and faceplanting on the floor.