Chapter 61 – The Past is the Present
Scrunching her eyelids together, Yuna stretched out her legs. What felt like a bolt of electricity shot down her back. With her eyes still closed, she rubbed her aching head. Her fingers grazed the scratchy cloth of a bandage on her forehead. Creeping open her eyes, she left the darkness and found herself lying on a round canopy bed with navy blue curtains drawn around it. Big, white hearts sewn into the sheets encircled her.
Attempting to sit up, she let out a sharp groan from the pain shooting in her shoulders. Blowing out a stream of air, she breathed through the pain to look around the room. Through the sheer curtains, she spied a tacky dark pink sofa with someone sitting on it.
"Leblanc?" she whimpered.
The figure stood up and walked over to the bed. With a worried frown on her face, Leblanc drew back the curtains and sat on the edge of the bed. She patted Yuna on the head.
"I'm glad to see you're awake now, love. You took a nasty spill," she said while checking the bandage on Yuna's forehead.
"How . . . how did I get here?" Yuna asked.
"Lucky for you, my two bumbling associates weren't crushed by those falling balls of fire. When Ormi saw you lying lifeless on the ground, he scooped you up and ran out of the ruins."
Yuna's eyes widened. "Oh, and Logos, is he alright, too?"
Leblanc nodded. "Don't worry. He made it out as well."
"I owe them my life."
"I feel partly responsible for all this catastrophe. If I had known the ruins were that dangerous, I would've sent more of my associates along with you."
Yuna shook her head. "I don't think it would have mattered. I'm sorry we failed."
"It's okay," said Leblanc. "You can't win them all. I'm just glad you're all back in one piece."
The heartfelt words Leblanc spoke filled Yuna with comfort. It still amazed her to hear Leblanc talk with such kindness. Usually, her words were filled with overconfidence at best, and sarcastic beratement at worst.
Yuna asked, "How long have I been out for?"
"Oh, about two days now," Leblanc answered while fluffing the pillow propping up Yuna.
"Two days?" Yuna cried.
"As I said, you took a nasty spill."
For a while, Yuna lay in silence. Content to see her still alive, Leblanc left her room to allow Yuna to rest. Though the details were fuzzy, she recalled her encounter with Omega. He most certainly possessed the sphere she sought. He had tested her worth with a battle with his hatred incarnate. Though parts of the battle eluded her memory, the fiery meteors raining down on her still burned brightly in her mind. She could still feel their heat on her skin.
The specter of doubt slinked into her mind. In yet another fight, she nearly died. If it wasn't for Leblanc's two henchmen, she might have been resigned to roaming the Omega Ruins as a fiend for the rest of eternity. She questioned her ability to adventure again.
How useless am I, she thought to herself, if I can't even succeed at my first mission.
Rolling over onto her side, she sensed a hard object pressing against her ribcage. Reaching down to open her pouch, a subtle magenta glow shined out from it. She had forgotten about the mysterious sphere she discovered in the cavern wall.
Pulling it out from her pouch, she examined it. Like in the ruins, it radiated a beautiful glow and still held warmth to the touch. Perfectly smooth, she saw her reflection on the glassy surface of the sphere. Though the same size as all the other spheres in Spira she had discovered, none had this enigmatic color or vibrance to it. Whether that made this sphere special remained to be seen.
She continued to lie in bed, holding the sphere up above her. Her brows crossed and she could no longer resist the urge to find out what this sphere contained inside. Wincing from the pain, she slowly rose out of bed. As she got herself upright, Leblanc entered the room holding a tray of food.
"Whoa, what are you doing, Yuna?" she asked.
Quickly setting down the tray, she rushed to Yuna to stabilize her. She replied with a pained smile.
"I'm okay . . . but thank you," she said.
"There's no rush to get up, love."
Yuna held up the sphere to show Leblanc. "I wanted to see what's on this. Sorry, but I got impatient."
Leblanc scrunched her face. "Where did you get that sphere at?"
"I found it inside the ruins. It was hidden behind a stone wall where we fought Omega's offspring."
"Is this the sphere we need?" Leblanc leaned her face closer to the sphere.
Yuna sighed. "Unfortunately, it isn't. The Ultima Weapon still has it. I have no idea what this sphere contains."
Leblanc grinned at Yuna. "Well then, let's find out."
Handing the sphere to Leblanc, Yuna sat back down on the bed. Her entire body ached from head to toe. She watched as Leblanc rested the orb on her makeup counter. The magenta glow from the sphere reflected in the mirror. For a moment, Leblanc grumbled to herself while she fidgeted with the sphere before it activated.
For a few seconds, its light flickered and dimmed before projecting the contents locked away in its watery body. Something inside Yuna compelled her to rise and limp closer to the sphere. The scene it projected bewildered her mind.
With a click, into view came a messy laboratory. Parts from various machina lay scattered haphazardly into piles along the back wall. A long, narrow table full of beakers containing bubbling liquids was scattered in amongst opened books and folded papers. The view panned to a trio of pedestals, each containing a single sphere in their possession. Each sphere, snuggly lodged in the pedestals' housing, glowed a drab olive green.
"I think, no, I know I've done it!" a baritone voice behind the camera declared. "That's why I must document this!"
The camera zoomed in on the sphere farthest to the left and slowly drifted to the right. Each sphere got an equally extended amount of limelight.
"After decades of work and decades of failure, er, trial and error, I've completed my life's work. With enough power from the Farplane, these spheres will make time travel possible!"
For a moment, the picture faded to black before restarting in a new location. A tall flight of stone stairs ascended upward as if reaching to kiss the heavens. The backdrop of a morning or evening sky cast much of the grass and trees lining the stairway in shadow. The picture jostled around as the unknown man walked up the stairs.
Into view appeared a tiny obelisk-shaped pillar jutting from a spherical platform. Suspended high above it, a massive machina-like structure loomed overhead. The unfathomable triangular and spherical shapes forming this fabrication of metal defied normal construction.
A giddy laugh echoed. "You've outdone yourself this time, Iutycyr! It's time to perform the final test!"
The sound of electricity crackling belted from the sphere before the picture ended and it clicked off. Leblanc held her hand up to her mouth before she let out a short sigh.
"That might have been the weirdest thing I've watched on a sphere," she commented.
"Iutycyr. I wonder if he is related to the tower outside of Luca," Yuna pondered. "It looked a lot like the top of the tower there at the end."
Leblanc shrugged. "Unfortunately, some weirdo talking about time travel isn't going to help us. This sphere is a dud I'm afraid."
"I know, sorry." Yuna frowned while folding her arms together.
Leblanc picked up the sphere from the counter, turning to hand it to Yuna before she noticed tears streaming down her new associate's face. Not attempting to hide her sadness, Yuna's sobs increased into a swell of tears.
"Hey, it's okay. Don't be sad. You didn't know what would be on this sphere," whispered Leblanc before taking Yuna into her arms.
"It's not that," Yuna responded. "It's everything."
"What do you mean?"
Taking time to regain her composure, Yuna wiped away the tears rolling down her cheeks. She sniffled before letting out a sharp huff.
"I've been trying to find my way these last two years. And I just keep coming up empty."
Leblanc patted Yuna on her head. "Why do you feel that way, love?"
Though her muscles were still tense, she pushed away the wave of sorrow grappling her. Without even thinking about it, Leblanc led her back to the bed, where she sat down. She wiped away another tear streaming out of her green eye.
"After what happened in the Farplane with Shuyin and Vegnagun, I thought I just needed peace. A little solitude to figure out what to do next. Instead, I've just been lost," whimpered Yuna.
"I don't claim to know a lot about your past, Yuna, but I can imagine you've been through more than most people go through in a lifetime. Maybe even two. I just . . ." Leblanc's words trailed off.
"What?"
She bit her lip. "Nothing. I don't want you to take it the wrong way."
Yuna shook her head. "No, it's okay. You can be honest with me."
Though she still hesitated, Leblanc continued, "You were the one to finally defeat sin after a thousand years. And you also defeated the second greatest threat to Spira in Vegnagun. For all that you've done, and all that you've been through, it's just . . . it surprises me how little you have to show for it."
Her watery eyes burst open in reaction to Leblanc's words, and Yuna's chest stung with immense pain. Like a dagger plunging into her heart, all the scars she held inside from her past ripped open at once, spilling their misery over her again. Her eyes fell to her lap.
"I have so little?" Her words mumbled out coldly.
Leblanc tapped her finger against her thigh. "Sorry, I hate how harsh that sounds. Well, how can I say it better? People around Spira adored you. You have so many friends and the Gullwings, too. Yet here you are, the greatest summoner of all time, all by yourself working for me. I take in the misfits, love. You shouldn't be one of those."
Yuna looked up at Leblanc with tearless eyes. "That's because I'm not as great as everyone thinks I am."
Swallowing hard, Leblanc leaned down and embraced Yuna. "Don't say that! You've earned being a hero. Everyone in Spira should know who you are. I'm sorry they don't seem to anymore. I'm sorry you've separated from your friends."
"Please don't kick me out," cried Yuna. "I'll try harder on the next mission."
"Don't worry about it. You're welcome to stay for as long as you like. I just hope someday you'll be ready to move on to where you truly belong."
Tucking Yuna into her bed, Leblanc stood for a moment, staring at Yuna in silence. Pulling the sheets up over her head, Yuna wanted to disappear into the black void underneath the covers and stay there forever. She kept the sheets clenched tightly in her hands until she heard Leblanc's footsteps leave the room.
Her heart hadn't ached this strongly since Lenne's consciousness joined with hers. A thousand years of old wounds still bled. In her mind, she played back long-dormant memories of her worst days until she cried herself to sleep.
Sitting by the supposed secret doors leading to the underground portion of Leblanc's château, Yuna sat, holding her CommSphere in her hands. Her finger hovered over it, hesitating to initiate the call. Still simmering on the blunder that her mission to the Omega Ruins ended up being, she desperately needed to talk to a friend.
Though Rikku was the logical choice, an urge inside Yuna wanted to try to connect with Paine. The same apprehension gripped her, just like every time she built up the urge to speak with her old friend. They hadn't talked for nearly two years, and Yuna knew she did too little to try to keep connected to Paine.
Closing her eyes, she breathed in and out, using the controlled rhythm of her breaths to clear her mind. With a flick of her finger, the CommSphere flickered. A light buzzing sound hummed off and on. Her eyes lit up when she heard a loud click.
"Oh, Paine—"
The sphere shut off before any picture could be displayed. Yuna sat silently, staring at the sphere before her mind went crazy. Did Paine just hang up on me without even saying hello, she thought to herself? A thousand possibilities raced through her head, all of them stinging her like tiny needles.
When she felt tears welling up in her eyes, she quickly reactivated the CommSphere to call her cousin. The sphere blinked and buzzed again for what felt like an eternity to her. To her great relief, the sphere clicked, and Rikku's face appeared.
"Geez, did I—oh, hey Yunie!" Rikku yelled.
"Hi, Rikku. I'm glad to see you. I . . . I need to talk with you."
Rikku grinned. "What's up? Hey, where are you at?"
"Oh, well, that's part of why I need to—"
A loud crashing noise surprised Rikku, who barked, "Tet oui zicd pnayg dryd ykyeh? Oui'na cilr yh eteud!"
"Is everything okay?" Yuna asked.
Rikku rolled her eyes. "It's just Gippal being clumsy again. Anyway, I gotta go. Sorry!"
The CommSphere clicked off again, and Rikku's bubbly face disappeared. Slumping back in her chair, Yuna closed her eyes. She didn't feel hurt or pained, just empty. With nobody left to call who could help her, she aimlessly wandered out of the room.
Traipsing around the main hall of the château, Yuna nearly bumped into Ormi, who barreled in from the city. In his hands, he carried a large box of undiscernible contents. Peeking his head beyond the side of the box, he apologized to Yuna.
"You're looking a lot better now," he said to her with a smile.
She flashed him a half-hearted grin. "Believe me, I'm feeling better, too. For the most part, it doesn't hurt when I move."
He nodded his head in approval. "Once you're feeling one hundred percent, I'm sure the boss will have us out hunting somewhere."
"Right," she murmured while she started to walk away before stopping herself. "Hey Ormi, do you know if it's possible to get into the Farplane?"
He nearly lost his balance while thinking about Yuna's question. "You know, I'm not sure. Nobody has tried since I've been here. Guess since the Guado have been gone, it's not so stable. That's what I've been told at least."
"Maybe I'll go and see for myself," said Yuna.
"Do you want someone to go along?"
She shook her head. "No, I'll be fine by myself."
Waving goodbye to Ormi, she walked out of the Syndicate's base and into Guadosalam proper. A pair of fem-goons stood guard at the entrance like always. Unlike in the past, they warmly greeted Yuna when she appeared—a welcome change to her. Outside of herself, only a few people milled about the city. A far cry from when she originally arrived in Guadosalam, fewer and fewer denizens chose to live here than when Seymour lived over the city.
Making her way up to the entrance to the Farplane, no guards or watchers stood out in front. Peering around, nobody at all came into her view. The familiar woody staircase ascended into a giant hole of wispy blue light. Stray pyreflies fluttered around the cavernous space housing the entrance. Standing before the way to the Farplane, she shifted her weight and rubbed the sweat off her palms onto her shirt. It had been a long time since she sought after the spirits of those she cherished.
The shadowy veil separating the worlds reacted to her crossing. Beyond the veil, she found herself on a circular stone platform. A neutral sky filled with sepia clouds greeted her. Faintly in the distance, she heard the rushing waterfalls and singing pyreflies of the Farplane. The fresh scent of blooming flowers filled her nose. Even though she couldn't see them with her eyes, she remembered all of what they looked like.
She held her hands together over her heart. The Farplane had remained too familiar to her. What would she find here? Her heart thumped in her chest, even though she knew what she wouldn't find here.
She hesitated before walking up to the edge of the platform. The figure of a short-haired Al Bhed woman formed into view. Her welcoming green eyes met Yuna's surprised gaze.
"Mother?" she gasped.
She rushed to the end of the platform, reaching out to take her mother's hand without thinking. Her hands went through the apparition in front of her, starkly bringing Yuna back to reality. Taking a step back from the edge, Yuna bowed her head.
"I've missed you, mother. A lot has happened since I last saw you," she whispered, keeping her head bowed. "I kinda saved the world again. Spira is finally healing and coming back together."
She looked up and met her mother's sparkling eyes once more. Perhaps her imagination molded this feeling inside her, but her mother's eyes held a gentle pride. Yuna recounted what had transpired with the Gullwings and her adventures, and the emptiness the past two years had been for her. Though it did little to heal her wounds, the one-sided talk expunged some of the grief bearing down on her in recent days.
Content to have seen her mother again, Yuna stepped back from the edge, and her mother vanished into the ether. She paused to contemplate. Though her legs wished to leave the Farplane, her heart still wondered if she could conjure Lenne if she hoped hard enough. She had so much to apologize for.
Yuna reapproached the edge again. She held her breath, her chest tightening in anticipation. A trio of pyreflies flew overhead, garnering her attention for just a second. By the time they passed, the image of a vaguely familiar woman stood in front of her, but this woman wasn't Lenne.
This woman had short brown hair that tickled her shoulders. She wore a cream-colored jacket and cropped blue pants. Her beautiful blue eyes and facial features reminded her of Tidus. Yuna swore this wasn't the first time she had seen this woman before.
"Oh, I remember now! You're Tidus' mother," she said, giving a slight bow.
"And you're the pretty girl my son somehow stumbled into," his mother responded.
Yuna gasped and stumbled backward. "Wait, you can speak?"
Breaking across the invisible edge between the platform and the greater Farplane, Tidus' mother walked up to her. Her eyes scanned up and down Yuna as if she was trying to decide whether to approve of Yuna or not.
"Tell me, did my son love you?" she asked.
Yuna blushed. "I, um, yes. We both loved each other."
Tidus' mother beamed. "I'm so glad to hear that. I regret not showing my son more love. Life wasn't great after his father disappeared."
"You couldn't have helped that," said Yuna. "But know that Tidus still loved you. Sir Jecht, too."
"It's hard being young and in love. I was so infatuated with Jecht, that I sometimes forgot I needed to be a mother as well."
"Flawed as his childhood was, Tidus was a great man. He saved the world. He saved me."
His mother cupped her hand around Yuna's cheek, staring into Yuna's eyes with a penetrating gaze. "But he's gone. I can see that in your eyes."
Yuna diverted her eyes. "Just like you and Sir Jecht, he was a dream. And the dream is over."
Rising her head up to look at the wonderous sky above, Tidus' mother smiled. "Have faith. For me it is, but not for you and my son perhaps."
Confusion washed over Yuna. "What do you mean?"
"This is still your story. Are you really finished telling it?"
Removing her hand from Yuna's cheek, Tidus' mother walked back to the edge of the platform. She dissolved into a cloud of pyreflies, their crystalline glimmer shedding trails of rainbow light in all directions. Left alone, Yuna wrestled with fathoming what she just witnessed. Did his mother try to tell her that she could still be reunited with Tidus?
None of what just transpired made any sense to her. She turned to walk away, her mind lost in thought. A sudden chilling wind rushed across her body, snapping her back to the world. Behind her, a high-pitched wail cut through the whooshing of the wind. When she turned around to identify the source of the wail, she let out a cry.
With light bending around the form of a man, his messy blond hair and red, yellow, and black clothing came into focus. The impossible conjured into reality in front of Yuna. Holding a mysterious orb in his left hand, Shuyin's eyes narrowed on her.
"Your story isn't the only one left incomplete," he growled.
"No, it can't be!"
Balling his hand into a fist, he marched toward Yuna, stopping just a few feet from her. His eyes, sharp and full of the same despair and hatred as in the past, glared straight at Yuna. He gritted his teeth, still clenching his hand tightly together.
Yuna held her hands up to her mouth. "How? I watched you plummet away with Vegnagun."
"You thought you disposed of me," he said under his breath. "You thought I was discarded to the dark depths of the Farplane. I told you before, nothing will keep me from my love!"
Guilt took hold over Yuna. "You don't know what happened to Lenne, do you?"
His expression softened. "She was in the sphere."
She tried to speak, but a lump formed in her throat. Images flashed in her mind of Lenne's sphere flying through the air, landing below the platform she battled Shuyin on. Vaguely she recalled Rikku or Paine being nearby where the sphere landed. Whether Yuna conveyed this to either one, she no longer could remember. She could only assume Vegnagun's explosion destroyed the sphere.
"Yes, I was telling you the truth." She nodded.
This truth wiped away the anger seething in Shuyin's eyes, replaced with cold anguish. "Then I have to assume she is gone."
"Yes," choking back a tear, she said. "I . . . I'm so sorry."
Shuyin looked away from her, staring into the nothingness of the sky. "I don't blame you. My rage blinded me."
"I did not mean to deceive you. I tried to get you to listen."
His eyes shifted from the sky to his feet. "For Lenne to trust you with her feelings, you must be a special person yourself. You know, up on top of Vegnagun, when both of our eyes met, I knew you and I shared a common bond."
Her mouth agape, she asked, "Bond? What do you mean?"
"You've lost someone you loved in the past, just like me."
She stuttered, "I, um, yes, I did. But how did you know?"
"I can see it in your eyes. You hold the same look as I do. Don't you think I haven't seen a reflection of myself in the past thousand years?"
Her mind brought his observation into her consciousness. She glanced into his eyes again and saw exactly what Shuyin described. A bitter glimmer of loss and solitude haunted him, just as it did her.
In his hand, he raised the object obscured by his grasp. It glowed dimly, just enough light shining through his fingers for Yuna to identify it as a sphere. Unlike any other sphere she witnessed in the past, it emitted a dull radiance, not a bright light.
"The results of two years ago matter not. I will have Lenne and my revenge on Spira," said Shuyin, staring lustfully at the sphere in his hand.
"How will you? Vegnagun is destroyed and Lenne is . . ."
Shuyin smirked. "That is what reality is now. What I seek is in the past, and that is where I will go to claim it."
Just then, it all clicked for Yuna. The sphere he possessed looked like an oversized olive, just like the spheres she watched from the ancient sphere in the Omega Ruins. Their inventor claimed it made time travel possible. Could it be true?
"Wait, that sphere! Do you know—"
Shuyin interjected, "If you're wise enough this time, you'll stay out of my way. For both of us, we have a chance to reclaim the love that is rightfully ours. I will right all the wrongs of the past."
Before Yuna could speak again Shuyin spun himself around. He raced to the edge of the platform and leaped off. Running after him, she leaned over the edge to see where he went to no avail.
He had vanished into the Farplane again. She grasped the sides of her head, her wide eyes darting across the land below her. Searching all around, she saw no sign of Shuyin. Her heart raced. If he could go back and undo everything that happened two years ago, he would be able to fulfill his wish to eradicate Spira.
Yuna blamed herself, knowing that she set him on this path. She had to stop him.