Author's Note: Sorry it's a few days late. I was away from the internet over New Year's.

On with the Saga!

Ryn became aware of being awake.

Exhaustion. His body weighed ten tonnes. He wanted to sink back down into sleep immediately. Sweet sleep, sweet rest, sweet respite from the tiredness of being alive. But something itched at his mind.

Something had been happening before he fell asleep…a battle!

He opened his eyes.

Empty grey sky greeted him. He was lying on his back on a hard, flat surface. He was sodden, and dripping, and cold, water still sliding down his cheeks.

That was right—it had been raining; there had been a storm. He hated rain. It had started to rain, and then the Empire had attacked!

Ryn wrenched himself onto his side with a grunt, then forced himself up. He had been lying on the stone floor of the Tenkachi arena, near the tunnel entrance to the fighters' dugout.

Not far away lay the black-armoured bodies of a good deal of Imperial soldiers. Ryn winced. Steam was still rising from some of them, and he could see one unhelmeted soldier's breastplate had actually melted and fused with the ground.

What did this?

What had killed all these Imperials, with enough power to melt their armour and wipe out what looked like practically a whole battalion all at once?

Then he saw the airships.

Ryn gasped. Whole airships lay amidst the rubble of what was now the ruins of Tenkachi. The gargantuan sky-vessels lay strewn on their sides on the smashed arena viewing platform or against half-demolished earthen buildings, their blimps deflated like giant burst blisters, their prows split, their hulls cracked apart, some of them still burning in places.

He couldn't see any Imperials moving on or near these either—none of them appeared to have survived the crashes.

What did this? he thought again. Had the Farrians employed some sort of superweapon while he had been unconscious? Had the One himself intervened to repel the Morekemian invasion force, this time? If so, then why hadn't he done the same in Cleasor, or Ast?

Ryn looked around for his companions.

"Nuthea!" he said as soon as he saw her lying on her side not far away, arms spread and hair over her face.

He dashed over to her, heart in his mouth, gritting his teeth against the strain in his legs at running, cursing himself for not having thought to look for her sooner.

He reached her side and pushed her wet hair out of her face. Her eyes were closed. He put an ear to her mouth. His ear got slightly cooler at intervals.

She was still breathing, though lightly.

"Thank the One!"

"She'll be alright, lad," said Cid weakly.

Ryn started. The Healer was standing over him. In his desperation to make sure that Nuthea was alive Ryn hadn't even noticed him come over.

"How do you know?"

"I made sure of it." Cid was shaking gently. "I checked that she was alive when I got to her, and made sure she stayed that way. Ryn lad, I think… I think that all this—" He gestured to the soldiers, the downed airships, "—may have all been Granddaughter Nuthea's doing."

Ryn's jaw dropped. "Nuthea did this? But…how? I thought she was still 'blocked'?"

"It would appear she finally found a way to become…unblocked," said Cid. "I think somehow she harnessed the power of the storm that the Morekemians came in on and managed to channel the lightning from it to kill all these soldiers and destroy their airships..."

Ryn glanced at the charred and smouldering airship wreckages again, then back at Nuthea's sleeping face. "Woah."

"She must have broken her limit several times over," Cid went on. "It wouldn't have been possible for her to wield that much energy were it not for the presence of the storm. The Morekemians inadvertently gave us an advantage there. But it did nearly kill her. I managed to get to her before she slipped away and broke my own limit to give her a little more life force with the last remains of my mana reserves." That was why he was shaking, and talking so quietly, Ryn realised. "She will recover. Sadly, I didn't make it in time for everyone…"

The old man looked meaningfully to one side, and Ryn followed his gaze.

His throat tightened. Also lying on the ground were Sagar, Elrann, Vish, Riss, Quel, and the woman whom Sagar had fought in the tournament. "Wh—?" Ryn's breath caught in his chest as he tried to ask Cid who was dead, but then he saw that Sagar, Elrann, Vish, Riss and Quel were all breathing or stirring, beginning to grumble or fidget where they lay. They must be waking up with the dawn and the ceasing of the rain, as Ryn had done. Had a whole night passed while they had been fighting?

The Farrian woman Sagar had fought, however, was not moving. She lay perfectly still in her green garments, her short dark hair immaculate, looking up unseeing at the sky.

Just then Sagar sat up and blinked a few times. He looked about himself, saw the woman, then exclaimed and rushed to kneel at her side and put his ear to her mouth, just as Ryn had done for Nuthea.

A terrible moment passed, and then Sagar said "No! No!"

The sound hit Ryn in his guts, plaintive and tragic.

The skypirate cast about desperately, then saw Cid.

"Old man!" he cried. "Old man! Help! She's not breathing! You have to heal her!" There was trembling in his voice. "Please! Heal her, please!"

Cid shut his eyes. He couldn't look at the skypirate as he said, "I am sorry, Sagar. She had already gone by the time I got to her. I managed to save you—but not her."

Sagar stared at Cid open-mouthed, eyes blank, as if he hadn't understood what the Healer had said. Then his features formed a vicious scowl. "No," he said. "You're lying! Don't lie to me, old man! Save her! You've got to save her!"

Cid took a couple of steps towards Sagar, holding out his hands in a pacifying gesture as though approaching a spooked chocobo. "I'm afraid I'm not lying, young man Sagar. I am so so sorry. The Imperials threw the two of you down in front of us when we met them here at the exit to the dugout. You were both unconscious. I managed to touch both of you before I passed out too, but she was already dead when I touched her. I can't bring people back from the dead. She'd sustained a massive flesh wound to her stomach, and she bled out. She's been dead for hours now. I'm so sorry, Sagar."

Sagar's scowl tightened further, but then his bottom lip started to wobble, and then his whole face trembled. He looked back at Hiuna—Ryn had remembered her name, at last—and the dam burst. The skypirate put his forehead to hers and covered her with his tears as big, heaving sobs convulsed his body.

Ryn had never seen him cry before. Even when he had lost his ship and crew. He couldn't bear to watch for long, so he averted his eyes.

Elrann, Vish, Riss and Quel were climbing to their feet. They came over and stood in solemn attendance too.

Nuthea gave a quiet moan near to Ryn. She was stirring too, shifting where she lay on the ground. She opened her eyes, sticky with sleep, and looked up at Ryn, the pools of them catching the pale dawn light.

"What's that sound?" she asked vaguely, puzzled that something was disturbing her sleep.

"It's… it's Sagar mourning," Ryn said quietly. "The woman he fought in the tournament and then went off with afterwards…she didn't make it."

"Oh…" said Nuthea sympathetically, shutting her eyes again. "That's sad…"

"Why does the One let things like this happen, Nuthea?" Ryn heard himself ask her. "Why doesn't he stop them from happening?"

"Ours is not to know the whys or the wherefores," Nuthea recited in a whisper, eyes still closed. "But to believe in the One is to believe that there is a Purpose in everything, even if we can't see it yet. The One is Purpose."

Even half asleep after a cataclysmic battle in which she had wiped out a whole Imperial fleet and almost died, she still had an answer for everything. That must be some Oneist saying she had memorised, firmly etched in her mind to be brought out even now.

Now she fell completely back asleep, her breathing growing heavy and slow again.

"There they are!" a harsh male voice shouted. Ryn whirled.

Coming at them across the smashed-up arena was the Governor of Farr, flanked by about a dozen fighting monks, all in their green robes which were wet right through and clinging to their muscled bodies.

Ryn recognised Huld at their head, at the Governor's right hand, the biggest monk of all.

"You!" the Governor spat as soon as he reached them, jowls wobbling. "Look what you did! Because of you the Morekemians attacked us in full force, with Jewel-sorcery we didn't know how to counter! They were only trying to get to you! They only wanted you! You will pay for what you've brought on us! Monks, seize them! I want them imprisoned and put on trial for what they've done!"

Ryn was ready, fresh fire kindling in his belly at the injustice of what the Governor was saying, mindful of the advancing monks.

"Hey!" he yelled. "That's not what happened here! They were after the Earth Emerald, and you know it! It was your arrogance in telling the whole of Mid that you had it and not caring whether they challenged you for it that brought this on!"

Ryn held his fists up and lit them on fire. His sleep and Cid's healing touch seemed to have rejuvenated just enough of his mana for him to show some fire. But his arms throbbed at the effort and he wasn't sure he had the energy to do anything more. They don't need to know that, though.

"Nonsense!" said the Governor. "Why would they attack us now, after years of peace? It was your arrival that coincided with this attack! You're to blame! That's what the people of Farr will see! Monks, I said seize them!"

The monks, who had temporarily halted, started forwards again, and Ryn made his fire flare up for a moment, the flames around his fists burning white hot, which he paid for with a constricting pain in his chest. The monks stopped again. Some of them took steps backward.

They must know that earth is weak to fire.

Next to Ryn, Nuthea had gotten to her feet. The commotion must have woken her.

"You know that is not true," she said. Her voice, though weak and quieter than usual, still carried the authority of royalty. "They came for the Emerald. Their Commander confronted me himself. He was looking for it. Finding me and my other Jewel-touched friends here was only an added bonus."

"Yes, that's right," spoke up Cid from behind them. "And were it not for Princess Nuthea here, they would have got it, too. They attacked you with Sapphire-alignment, obtained from the One knows where, and in the end the only thing that stopped them was her lightning limit break. You have her to thank for thwarting the invasion, and for blasting the Morekemians' ships out of the sky. She harnessed the power of the storm they created to obliterate you and turned it back against them. Were it not for her, not only would you not have the Emerald, but you would have been completely overrun! You would be dead! Farr might belong to Morekemia by now!"

The Governor was stone-faced. A muscle in his jaw twitched.

What could he possibly have to say back to that? The evidence of the downed airships was plain enough by itself.

"You lie!" the Governor erupted all of a sudden. "It was our monks, the monks of Farr, who brought down the airships! That is what the Farrian people will believe and the tale that history will tell!"

Ah.

He looked left and right at his monks. "What are you waiting for? Have I not commanded you? Seize! Those! Foreigners!"

The monks came on once more and Ryn dug deep and flared his fire one more time too, exhaustion threatening to pull him physically down to the ground.

"Don't you take another step!" he said to them as boldly as he could. "You saw me in the tournament! You know that earth-alignment is also vulnerable to fire-alignnment! And our new friend Quel here is water-aligned—the same element that the Empire nearly defeated you with! Isn't that right, Quel?"

"Indeed it is, Master Ryn," came Quel's calm voice from behind him. There was an ice in it that Ryn hadn't heard before. This was becoming a day for new things.

The Governor bared his teeth in a furious scowl like a baited bulldog. "We did see you fight Brother Huld, foreigner, but we also saw him beat you. Huld, deal with this insolent matchstick Efstanish boy so that the rest of you can bring in the others! Put him out of his misery!"

"No," said Huld.

"That's it!" continued the Governor. "Seal them up in solid rock! Kill them! Don—"

He stopped, registering what Huld had said.

He turned to the tallest of monks.

"What did you just say?" he said, voice vibrating with astonishment.

"I said 'no'," Huld said. "You heard me, Lord Governor. I will not deal with them, or kill them, or bring them in."

Ryn let his flames die down, and the pain in his arms and chest eased a little. He couldn't have sustained it for much longer, anyway. But he sensed something monumental was taking place.

The Governor's face was fury personified. "How…dare you?! How dare you betray your country? You do yourself a great dishonour, Brother Huld! How dare you?!" he repeated, jowls shaking. "How can you say this?"

Huld took a few steps forward, positioning himself between his Governor and the companions, turning side-on to address the Farrian ruler.

"Here is how I can say this, Lord Governor: All my life I've been taught that foreigners are filthy, evil and treacherous. We let them come to our cities to buy our goods, and we trade with them, but we don't let them come up to the higher levels—normally. We live above them, we look down on them, because we think they are beneath us. And for many years—all of my life, until recently—I thought these things too. Why would I not? It was what I had been taught." Ryn had never heard Huld say so many words before in his calm, controlled way of speaking. This truly was a day of firsts.

Huld levelled a finger at the Governor. "Then you sent me on an excursion with these foreigners. At first, yes, I was disgusted by them. Their crass way of talking. Their disrespect for the Earth, and for one another. Their complete lack of discipline and organisation." Did this list have to go on quite so long? Where was Huld going with this? "But then I fought alongside them. And I discovered that they were people just like me—and even good people, or as good as a person can be. In fact, without this 'matchstick' Efstanish boy I wouldn't have made it out of the Shrine to Eto alive. He, and the others, saved my life multiple times. I wanted to tell you this in the training rooms before, Lord Governor. Yes, they may speak profanely, and they may blaspheme, and they may smell terrible…" Ryn sniffed his armpit. Sour milk. When was the last time he had had a bath? "...but these foreigners are people too. And then I fought against them in the tournament. You told me that their fighting skills were worthless, that Earth-manipulation would crush them easily. But the Frikian I fought in the Quarter Finals was highly talented and almost defeated me. And that Imfisi,"—Huld pointed at Sagar, who was still sobbing over Hiuna's body—"apart from being the most insufferably rude person I have ever encountered, is actually a highly skilled hand-to-hand combatant, and almost gave me a challenge until he decided to forfeit. And this Efstanish"—now Huld pointed at Ryn—"he gave me such a fight in the Tournament Final as I have never had in my life. He gave me the fight of my life. And he almost beat me! These are not vermin, or filth. They are people. And they are not beneath us. They are on the same level as us." He thought for a moment. "Or at least, only just below us…"

Huld finished for now, and Ryn waited with everyone else to see how the Governor of Farr would respond.

The Governor regarded Huld with a tight mouth. His quivering rage had been replaced by a stone stillness which somehow conveyed even more fury.

Eventually he said quietly "But he didn't beat you, did he, Huld? That is because Farr reigns supreme. And nor will he or you beat the rest of your former brothers. MONKS, I WILL NOT COMMAND YOU AGAIN!" he bellowed. "SEIZE THESE FILTHY KUFEING FOREIGNERS! SEIZE THE ETO-DAMNED TRAITOR TOO!"

"No!" shouted Huld as the other monks advanced on him, and lifted his hands, and with a scraping noise stone from the arena floor rose up around all of the advancing monks' legs and encased them, trapping them in place—the same technique Huld had used on Ryn and his companions in the Govenor's reception chamber.

"I have the Emerald," Huld said, and now Ryn saw that the monk clutched the Jewel in his right hand, having produced it from somewhere within his robes, which glowed a brilliant green even in the grey dawn light—the element of earth, of plant matter, of growth. "It augments my earth manipulation abilities even further than those who are merely emerald-touched!"

The monks Huld had trapped in the stone wriggled and strained against their encasements, teeth gritting and neck muscles sticking out, but Huld gripped the Emerald tight and clenched his other hand into a fist, and they did not succeed in freeing themselves.

So physical possession of a Jewel makes you even stronger in its element? Ryn hadn't realised that before, but it made sense. Vorr had been a terrifying opponent when he had had the Fire Ruby. And Nuthea had done…..all of this while carrying the Lightning Crystal. And that meant that Ryn was potentially the most powerful fire-wielder in all of Mid, including any others who had once been touched by the Ruby. Had Huld worked this out for himself, or had he been told it?

The Governor's furious frown did not break—if anything it intensified. "That may be, Brother Huld, but even so, do you really think that one Jewel-wielding monk who has had the Emerald for a week is going to be a match for a dozen of his comrades, and for me, a veteran in the use of earth-manipulation?"

The Governor's hands shot out of their brown sleeves and he made a flicking motion with his fingers, opening up his palms.

The stone encasements around the other monks' feet shattered into dust.

Oh poodoo, Ryn thought. Of course the Governor is emerald-touched as well. Probably always was.

The monks shook themselves down and ran forwards yet again, pulling back their fists to attack.

Ryn tried to find some more fire, but he couldn't. A band of pain ached around his chest.

"Please, Lord Governor!" rang out Huld's desperate voice. "I will keep the Emerald safe! It will be much safer with me on these people's airship than remaining in Shun Pei!"

"HALT!" the Governor shouted. The monks froze in place, poised just on the point of attack in various fighting poses, some with fists still drawn back, some crouched low about to launch into leaps. Their obedience to their master's command had been instantaneous and unthinking. As Huld's had been, until recently. But no more.

"What did you just say?!" the Governor asked Huld for the second time that day, and nobody had even had breakfast yet. "You mean to say that you would join this miserable band of misfits and travel with them on their airship?"

Slowly, carefully, Huld dropped out of his own hands-held-up fighting stance. "Yes…" he said simply, then half-turned to look back at Ryn and his companions. His so-often-smiling features were now stone serious too, three wavy furrows chiselling in his monolithic forehead. "I would go with them to take the Emerald away from Farr, where it, and Farr, will be safer, and to ensure it remains in the hands of a Farrian. After all, I won it in the tournament, did I not? And I would take it with them…that is, if they will have me."

The monk's enquiring eyes were, quite fittingly, leaf-green.

"Foreigners…" the Governor said carefully, "what do you say to this?"

"Of course we'll have you, you big hunk of lunk!" Elrann called from somewhere behind Ryn, at the back of the pack.

"Yes," confirmed Nuthea a moment later from at Ryn's side. "If you bring the Emerald, Brother Huld, then of course you can come with us." She coughed into her hand, then put an arm out to hold on to Ryn to steady herself, still wobbly on her feet. "We are merely seeking to keep the Jewels from the Emperor. It does not matter who their guardians are, as long as they are true to our cause. And you have proved yourself to be that, Brother Huld, by being willing to defend us against your own kin."

Has he? thought Ryn. Yes, I guess he has.

"You may come with us," concluded Nuthea.

They looked to the Governor. His scowl was finally falling, his hard expression turning smooth, though weary.

"So you don't want to keep the Emerald for yourself to rule over Farr with?" he asked Huld.

"No…?" said Huld.

"And you would make sure that the Emerald remained in the hands of a Farrian, and keep it safe, and keep it away from Farr?"

"Yes," said Huld.

The Governor let out a huge sigh, a geyser releasing gas, finally giving something up.

"Alright. If that is what you want to do, Huld, I will let you go with them."

"You will?" said Ryn and Nuthea at the same time.

"I will," said the Governor. "For as long as I can remember, the Jewel of Eto has caused us no end of problems. The power it bestows is immense, and successive Governors have not known whether to wield it or hide it, parade it or protect it. Governor Restra thought to hide it away where nobody would be able to retrieve it. When you turned up, I saw an opportunity to take it back, and to put it to use to display the dominance and supremacy of Farr. But I see now that that was misguided. The Empire have grown too powerful, and they have more resources at their disposal than I could ever have imagined. Take the Jewel away with these foreigners, Huld, and keep it safe for Farr. Farr will be better off without it—at least until this Morekemian threat has passed, if it ever does. Maybe you will even be able to assist them in acquiring the other Jewels before Emperor Qivvest does."

Everyone seemed to breathe out relief all at once, including the monks who had been about to assault one of their own brothers. Or former brothers, Ryn thought, now.

The tension broke.

"Thank you, Lord Governor, said Huld. "I will not let you down. You will not regret this decision."

"Ensure that I do not," said the Governor. "Now come, all of you. You will need healers' attention, food and rest before setting out again in your airship. My attendants will see to you."

And with that, the party began to make their way slowly after the monks back towards Tenkachi town-proper, to be attended to, all save for Sagar, who Ryn could not pull away from Hiuna's side, and who remained there to weep over her for as long as he would.

END OF BOOK TWO