Chapter 47 – To Live Again
Baralai's body crumbled to the ground. Rikku pumped her arm, having defeated Shuyin—temporarily at least. With Shuyin's host unconscious, she darted for the temple entrance. Rumbles continued jostling the temple every few seconds. It sounded like a war outside, which she believed couldn't be possible. The colossal fiend battled in the Farplance, not the desert.
To the light at the end of the corridor, she ran with all the haste her legs could muster. Emerging from the temple, the deathly sight of Lenne pummeled by the Angra Mainyu greeted her. Rikku shrieked when she saw Lenne slide hard into the desert sand. Then she darted her eyes to Paine, who screamed just as Rikku did.
Lunging into the sand outside, Rikku took a few steps toward Lenne before pausing. Keeping her focus on the bigger picture, she instead altered her path to the Celsius. Bolting inside for the lift, she went down into Shinra's laboratory. Luckily Shinra neglected to lock the doors of the lab; she ran in with a singular focus. Neatly laid out on a long workbench were the fourteen uncovered spheres from the temple he studied for analysis. Gathering them up in a backpack, she took them from the lab and ran back out of the ship.
"Frana yna oui kuehk fedr druca? Huf ec hud dra desa . . ." Brother barked.
She ignored his question, continuing out of the ship, passing right by his squabbling. Rikku hoped she came to the correct conclusion. The commotion outside hadn't quelled, but everyone, including the Angra Mainyu, paused as if time itself stopped. Rikku witnessed Lenne grasping something close to her chest.
"Please hear my call! Help me Yojimbo!" Lenne called to the sky.
Rikku gasped, dropping the backpack containing the spheres down by her feet. With the fayth gone from Spira, summoning was not possible, yet Lenne called out the great aeon's name—one of Yuna's aeons. A blast of bright light surrounded Lenne, followed by a shroud of darkness. Around the whole encampment, the sky turned midnight blue. A gust of wind blew cherry blossom pedals around Rikku's face.
Shielding her eyes, she witnessed standing resolutely next to Lenne, the aeon Yojimbo. Lenne knelt down to pet his dog. He had heard her plea and answered to Rikku's astonishment. In a split second, the world had turned back to normal. Except now, Lenne summoned forth one more great ally to aid them. At first, the Angra Mainyu hesitated to take action, merely snarling at Lenne and Yojimbo.
Yojimbo unsheathed his sword faster than anyone could see, pointing it directly at the beast. "I have heard your call Yuna, and I will honor my word. Foul being . . . you will be vanquished!"
Rikku almost fell over by his words. Lenne called forth Yojimbo, but why did he call her Yuna? Snapped out of her daze by the fiend's roar, Rikku picked back up her backpack with the spheres. She ran to the left side of the temple, sporadically digging in the sand near the foundation. Sweat poured down her face while she anxiously cupped the sand with her hands. To her relief, she discovered what she searched for.
Buried beneath the desert sand rested a small pedestal. After she dug some more, she found a small hole, the size of one of the spheres she carried, cut into its side. She giggled to herself—her assumption about the stone carving had been correct. While she worked with the ancient spheres, she kept glancing back to watch the battle unfold.
Yojimbo sped towards the Angra Mainyu, which took a gigantic swipe to deflect him. The aeon flashed from one side of the fiend to the other, as he was no more than a faded afterimage by the time the fiend's hand crossed with Yojimbo. Utilizing his great sword, he stabbed into the right torso of the fiend's body, piercing deeply through its scaly skin. Rearing backward, it stumbled away from Yojimbo. Daigoro sat comfortably on the ground next to Lenne lying in wait. He leaped from behind a dune and attacked the backside of the left head.
Confused and furious, the fiend shot blasts of fire randomly at the ground attempting to burn the aeon. Yojimbo nonchalantly sidestepped the firey blasts that impacted near him. He countered with another stabbing strike. The Angra Mainyu anticipated this and quickly spun out of the way. It took a crack at Yojimbo, slapping him on the side. The aeon stumbled back, kicking up clouds of sand into the air.
He quickly recovered, standing straight and tall in the face of the fiend. He drew a trio of short knives, splitting them apart in his hand. With a lightning-quick flick of his wrist, the three knives flung toward the fiend, piercing its central body. The Angra Mainyu growled, using its giant hand to pull out the knives like needles, flicking them away from it into the sand below.
By the time Rikku watched Yojimbo antagonize the fiend with his knives, she had just placed her third sphere into the recesses of the pedestal. Locating the pedestals proved difficult, as she didn't know exactly where to dig to uncover them. Rikku furiously clawed at the desert floor, flinging lines of sand behind her.
"This is taking way too long," she grumbled to herself.
Looking beyond the duel between Yojimbo and Angra Mainyu, she spotted Paine standing frozen, glaring at Lenne.
"Hey, Paine! Come here!" yelled Rikku.
At first, Paine didn't acknowledge Rikku's call. She remained dead focused on Lenne. The thunderous calamity unfolding before Paine obscured Rikku's voice.
With a grunt, Rikku stood up and started to jump in the air, waving her arms. "C'mon, Paine! Over here!"
Finally giving Rikku a sidelong glance, Paine shifted her attention over to her friend. She gave Rikku a bewildered expression before running over to her.
"What is it?" Paine asked.
Rikku pointed down to the pedestal and spheres. "These! We need to find the other pedestals and put the spheres in them."
Paine shrugged. "Huh? Why?"
"Because that's how we beat Shuyin and destroy the Vegnagun soul thingy. Just do it!"
Rikku's loud commands were great enough to break Paine of her indecisiveness. Cupping her hands, Paine gathered up a handful of spheres and ran around to the other side of the temple foundation. Rikku explained that the pedestals were buried near the temple's base, but she had no idea precisely where. Rikku leaned on her lucky streak to find the right places to dig.
Mounds of desert sand exploded into the air in the contest between fiend and aeon. The Angra Mainyu circled with Yojimbo, both locked in a deadly dance. The relentless assaults by both adversaries resulted in little damage to either one. Yojimbo's nimbleness allowed him to dodge most of the magic attacks made by the right head. All the energy he spent made it increasingly difficult to keep up. The beast was also not without its injuries. Yojimbo had managed to weaken the left head from repeated blows.
Feinting an attack on the left head, he briskly slid over towards the right one. He sliced away with his sword, cutting the monster's tough skin. It screeched and swung its arms at Yojimbo in a reflexive jerking of its body. He barely deflected the first hit, but the second strike found its mark. Yojimbo rocketed backward into the desert sand. With the aeon buried in a pile of sand, the fiend charged up a quick fiery blast. In a desperate attempt to rescue his master, Daigoro launched himself at the fiend and grappled the left head with his teeth. Angra Mainyu shuttered violently, trying to shake him off.
Keeping the battle in the corner of her eye, Rikku stood up to leave her digging and engage the fiend. Lenne leaped into action to engage the beast, seeing her aeon fall to the ground, giving Rikku enough confidence to resume her excavation. A round of shots blasted from her pistols. She popped open the barrels and reloaded her rounds. Flipping the pistols back, she put her fingers back into position, ready to reengage the fiend. Underneath her mask, Rikku heard a muffled scream.
By now, she had plugged in another two spheres. As far as she could see, Paine had accomplished about the same. They were halfway finished, she thought. The sweat in her eyes stung, but she didn't stop to wipe them away. She would rather permeate to death than be beaten by Shuyin and Vegnagun. She prayed Yojimbo could hold out until she finished. Digging deeper than the other holes, the pit she created nearly engulfed her body. As she finished locking her third sphere in place, a wave of sand blasted her in the back of the head.
Yojimbo had shoved Angra Mainyu back into the temple, toppling a large portion of its façade over. The pressure of the concussion dropped the fiend into the depths of the complex. Though out of sight, the fighting raged on within the confines of the former Yevon temple.
With a huff, Rikku slid the twelfth sphere, with only two more pedestals to locate. Rikku had just one more sphere left in her possession. Even from the depths far below her, she could hear the bellowing of the battle. The piercing sunlight pushed Rikku to her limit, but there was no time for a reprieve. Her heart pounded in her chest, sweat pouring down her brow—she raced to see who would complete their objective first. Either they win and kill the second soul of Vegnagun, or the Angra Mainyu conquerors them, and Shuyin rises from the Farplane with Vegnagun.
Rikku found the last pedestal she needed. Completely engulfed in the large hole she formed, she swept away sand in any place she could. The walls of soft sand kept sinking back in on themselves, slowing the process down. Her muscles ached as they cramped from dehydration, but the stinging only made her drive farther and faster. She knew she could be only inches of sand away from stopping the greatest threat to Spira. Her eyes widened when the top of a pedestal cleared the line of sand, exposing its sphere housing. Clicking the sphere in place, she threw her arms into the air and cheered.
Climbing out of the sandy hole she dug, Rikku ran over to the opposite side of the temple. Only one sphere remained without a home, firmly grasped in Paine's hand. Its resting place proved to be the hardest of all to find. Rikku and Paine joined together to unearth its hiding place. In both of their work, the hole became so deep, that they would need help climbing out. Tossing sand left and right, Rikku tried her best to go further.
"You guys look like you could use a hand," called a voice from above.
Standing at the top of the hole, Buddy waved down at the girls. Helping the exhausted pair out of the hole, he led them over to Brother, who drove over an excavator he discovered left from the campsite.
"That might be the best machina in Spira right now!" cheered Rikku.
Brother laughed insanely while racing the rig over to them. Kicking up a tremendous cloud of sand, he went to work immediately, carving much deeper than Paine or Rikku could ever hope to have dug. A small mountain of sand piled up around the temple base. Rikku watched on, hardly keeping back her nervous impatience. Intermittent rumbles reminded her that the battle below had not finished.
"Dig faster!" she yelled to Brother. "We don't have much time!"
Pouring another bucket full of sand collected with the excavator, Brother leaned out of the cab to look around. Rikku bounced left and right, tensed to the point of exploding. Glaring at the reflection of her nervous self in the gloss of the sphere, she wanted so desperately to jam it in something.
"Rana! Rana!" yelled Brother, waving his arm at Rikku.
She darted over to the hole, peeking down into it. Sure enough, the final pedestal jutted out of the sand about twenty feet down. Not waiting for help, she slid down the wall of sand and plopped herself down in front of the pedestal. Her mind was a blur, with only one thing clear—placing the last sphere.
Brushing sand out of the sphere slot, she blew out a long breath, hoping that this was the answer she sought. Closing her eyes, she injected the sphere. For a second nothing happened, just the whistle of the desert wind above. A sudden, luminous burst of light beamed up into the air. A second beam followed, as well as a third—fourteen beams connected in the air above the temple.
An area of sand and stone rose from the peak of the temple, revealing the glowing spirit chained inside a cage. Crawling out of the hole, her brother and Paine lifted Rikku to the surface. Just as depicted inside the temple, Rikku watched the soul elevate toward the sky. Captured by the beams of radiant energy, the soul twisted around, cursing out in agony. In an instant, a blinding light flashed in the sky. The soul vanished, erased from existence. Rikku flopped on the ground in a heap of sweat and joy. The rest of the Gullwings cheered.
"Hey, where's Lenne?" asked Paine, glancing around the group.
Once Rikku realized she wasn't on the surface, she raced back into what was left of the temple. Between the fighting and the energy beams, not much of the structure remained. As they entered, they heard the sounds of battling below.
Yojimbo continued to fling the fiend around, knocking as much life out of it as he could. Lenne chased after them, following the two down the temple, eventually dropping back into the Farplane.
She witnessed the duel intensify. The left head of the fiend wilted, succumbing to Yojimbo's repeated thrusts. Only the right head remained alive, and it viciously unleashed attack after attack of magic. So many barrages that Yojimbo could not avoid them all. His saving grace, Daigoro, absorbed the brunt of the dark magic. Slumping over, he breathed heavily, hurt too badly to move. Yojimbo knelt by his dog, patting him gently while whispering into his ear.
Getting up, he snapped his sword toward his adversary, who partially healed its other head during the pause. "This will be our endgame! Only one of us shall leave alive!"
Lenne fired a bullet at the left head, which still drooped down. While turning its frame away from the gunshot, it flopped its giant fist around wildly, trying to hit the agile aeon. Only the right head proved a challenge, as it was still healthy and angered. In one swift strike, Yojimbo managed to stab a fairly deep puncture into its midsection, injuring both sides of the fiend.
Continuing her battery of bullets, Lenne fired her remaining rounds into the left head. The fiend squealed, its left head slumped over dead. She took this time to treat Daigoro, who barely clung to life. Kneeling down, she pulled from her suit a small blue container. Carefully she lifted the dog's head and poured some of the liquid into his mouth.
While smiling she spoke, "There, now you can live too. I can't run anymore because my friends need me. It's time for me to live again."
Yojimbo shielded his body from another icy blast, as the Angra Mainyu refused to surrender. The ancient warrior Yojimbo turned to face Lenne, and he knelt on the ground. His hand gripped his sword handle tightly.
Swirls of white energy gathered around his body. A glow flickered in his eyes. His back foot turned, whirling a small cloud of dust around his boot. Propelling himself off his knee, he accelerated like a flash, pointing his long sword straight out at the fiend. Twirling like a tornado, Yojimbo spun his body, and the force of his sword blew the pyreflies surrounding him away with a strong gale.
Rikku and Paine arrived just in time to see Yojimbo make contact with the Angra Mainyu. The swirl of magical energy blazed around his body, followed immediately by a gush of wind. Lenne watched in awe as his lightning reflexes sliced into the fiend. Cleaving the monster in half, its left head split into two, toppling over. Fading away, its pyreflies fluttered away to the far corners of the Farplane. Yojimbo stumbled for a moment before falling to one knee. Lenne observed Baralai's body glaring at her from a distance.
"Why? Why! How could you do this to me?" Baralai raged, tears forming in his eyes.
She paused but didn't respond. Before she could answer, Baralai raced off into the muted distance of the Farplane, fading from view. Surprised he was conscious already, Rikku started to chase after him, but Paine grasped her arm. Lenne stood there, silent and still, with only her hand extended. Yojimbo limped over to her.
Facing her, he said, "We have won this battle, but your story is not over yet."
She nodded. "I know, and I plan to finish it."
He laughed lightly. "You have regained your strength, Yuna. You have conquered the shadow cast over you."
Lenne smiled and touched Yojimbo's hand. He and his faithful companion faded from sight. The Farplane returned to a tranquil silence with only the trickling of the distant waterfall sounding in the background. Rikku dashed over to where Yojimbo had just stood, facing Lenne. Her eyes were seeping with tears as she stared at her. Lenne took a step toward Rikku, embracing her in her arms.
Then she took a step backward and unfastened her mask. Dropping it to the ground, she exposed her face. Rikku gasped when she looked up at her shimmering green and blue eyes.
"Hi, Rikku," smiled Yuna to Rikku. "There's no reason to cry. You saved us all."
By this point, everyone had run up to Yuna. She turned her head around, examining all the people she loved. Watching Rikku's face turn from astonishment to disbelief, Yuna reached for her hand. Rikku flinched and pushed Yuna away.
"No, don't touch me!" she sobbed. "I know you're going to disappear!"
Reaching out with her hand, she touched Rikku's cheek. Yuna could feel the heat from the desert still radiating off her skin. Her green eyes swelled with tears, distorting her swirled pupils Yuna loves so much.
Yuna hugged Rikku. "I won't go away anymore. I am alive, and that's how I will remain. I've missed you all so much."
For a moment, Rikku tried to push herself away again before relenting and burying herself in Yuna's chest. Her fingertips dug into Yuna's skin. The dim glow of pyreflies shined upon them, encircling the two cousins.
"But how . . . how are you alive Yuna? We watched you die. You burst into pyreflies," asked Paine, trying to squeeze out the words.
"No. When the fayth Kinoc controlled told me he couldn't bring back Tidus, I wanted to die. He made a copy of myself to take my place so that I could die without any of you being hurt. But I couldn't bring myself to . . . so I shot the duplicate of myself instead. I thought if I ran away—"
Rikku shook her head, still buried in Yuna's chest. "It doesn't matter! All I care about is that you're alive, Yunie."
Paine nodded to Yuna, hinting a smile at her. The Gullwings, all of them, huddled around Yuna. She smiled wide at all of them, happy to feel complete again. Nooj and Gippal watched over their happy moment.
"You're certainly full of surprises," said Nooj, walking up to the Gullwings.
Gippal strolled directly behind his comrade. "You're exactly what we need, Yuna. Someone who can do the impossible."
"Thank you," replied Yuna. "I realize there is more to do. Shuyin still possesses Baralai."
"Indeed he does," Nooj sighed. "And he still has Vegnagun. While it may never possess its full strength, it's dangerous enough in Shuyin's hands."
"So, what's the next play?" Paine questioned.
"Hard to say. Maybe Shuyin will lay low, maybe he won't," replied Gippal, rubbing the back of his head.
Nooj nodded. "We'll handle things topside this time."
"If you need us, you know how to find us," Yuna spoke, flashing Nooj a smile.
Chuckling to himself, Nooj adjusted his glasses and motioned for Gippal to follow him out of the Farplane.
Finally removing herself from Yuna's chest, Rikku brushed away the many tears on her face. Paine approached now, resting her hand on Rikku's shoulder. The three girls all smiled at each other.
"Well, where to now, Yuna?" she asked.
Pausing for a moment, Yuna answered, "Home. I'd like to go home."