Chapter 67 – Reflecting Back to Move Forward (Part 3)


At the end of the unlit hall, the shadowy form of a man paced out of another open doorway. Yuna watched with bated breath as he walked underneath a lit torch, revealing the face of Issaru. A tense, agitated expression grew on his face. He threw a sphere in his hand to the ground. It clanked against the marble before rolling off into the shadows.

When Issaru moved, Shuyin's ghostly form became visible. Wondering how long Shuyin had been controlling him, Yuna felt sorry for Issaru. Shuyin could only interpose himself onto others if they carried a strong feeling of anger or resentment. It had been two years since the last time she had interacted with Issaru. At the time, Cid had ended his enterprise in Zanarkand and left Issaru with no attractions to manage. She wondered if perhaps he felt like he had no direction after that. A drip of guilt stained her consciousness—Yuna hoped she wasn't the cause of his persistent anguish.

She continued to spy on Issaru, watching him walk down the hallway and leave for another room. She turned back to her friends with a cross look on her face.

"How should we approach this? Do we try to sneak up on him, or take him head-on?"

"You know what I'm in favor of," said Paine, smacking her fist against the palm of her hand.

Rikku winced. "Yeah, but what if he has another fiend to summon like last time?"

"Well, then we'll kill it, too."

Yuna shook her head. "Hold on, Paine. We can't kill Issaru. We have to figure out a way to get Shuyin to separate himself."

"Wouldn't knocking Issaru out cold work?" Rikku asked.

Paine nodded. "It did before."

"Right," agreed Yuna. "Let's do it before he finds the second sphere."

Lurching out of the storage room, she led her friends down the dark hallway. The flickering light from the fiery torch overhead caught her attention. It spilled out a warm orange light, in stark contrast to the bleak, green of the walls surrounding her. She hastily activated her flashlight to examine the room Issaru had just left.

Much like in the previous room, empty boxes and their contents were spilled across the floor. Unlike the other room, she spotted no spheres. Instead, jars and vials containing strange liquids were strewn haphazardly around the room. Other small devices lay in random heaps.

"This is strange," said Yuna. "What could all this stuff be?"

Rikku stuck her head inside the doorway. "It's like a bunch of stuff from a laboratory."

"Any spheres?" asked Paine.

Yuna sighed. "No, nothing like that in here."

Continuing forward, Yuna crept up to the door at the end of the hall Issaru entered. A single, towering metal door barred entry. Scanning over it, she located a pull handle attached to its right side. Giving the handle a tug, its immense weight resisted her. Motioning for her friends to help, the three girls combined their strength and slid open the door. It creaked and screeched as it dragged against the floor.

The doorway opened to a vast, circular chamber. Frayed crimson banners with black symbols were evenly spaced around the walls of the upper level. The dark stone walls had an assortment of bookshelves filled with dusty parchment scrolls and deactivated machina resting against them. A winding, wooden stairway led over a gap to a lower stone platform. In its center, a massive crystal jutted up toward the ceiling. It pulsated with a warm, pinkish-yellow light. Rings of glyphs were written on the stone around the crystal.

Yuna drew her eyes all around the room, awestruck by what she saw. The twinkling glow of pyreflies illuminated below the center platform like a milky starfield. As she approached the stairway, she felt the same tingling of electricity nip at her skin like from the crystals outside the complex.

"I see you found me," said a voice from behind the crystal. "Faster than I expected."

Yuna's hand instinctively clutched into a fist. "Shuyin."

Emerging from behind the crystal, Issaru's body wormed its way into view. Shuyin's ethereal imprint manifested itself for a moment before fading. A sly grin crept across Issaru's face.

"How did you find out about this place?" Yuna asked, pointing a finger at him.

He replied, "My time in Bevelle wasn't a complete waste. So many secrets are hidden there. I only wish I knew about them when I was alive."

Out from the shadow crossing over his body, he raised his arm. Grasped in his hand, he held an olive-colored orb. Its soft glow captured all of Yuna's attention. She felt every muscle in her body tighten upon its sight. There was no question in her mind that Shuyin possessed a second time-traveling sphere.

"Hey, is that the sphere we don't want him to have?" whispered Rikku, glaring nervously at Yuna.

Yuna called out to him. "Where did you get that at?"

He grinned. "Doesn't matter. There's enough energy here to activate these two spheres. I'll go back . . . and make everything right."

Her eyes popping open in shock, Yuna tried to process what he just spoke. Did he not realize that there are three spheres needed? Thinking back to the sphere she uncovered in the Omega Ruins, she knew she held information Shuyin didn't possess. How he sought to activate the spheres still eluded her.

Her eyes focused on the sphere. "Don't make us hurt you."

"Don't get in my way," he growled.

Rikku and Paine fanned out on either side of Yuna, waiting for her signal. Frozen in place, she tried to formulate some kind of plan in her head. Not waiting for her to think, Issaru raised his hand and summoned his own aid. Two sizeable spider-like fiends crawled up onto the central platform, their legs chattered against the stone. They took a stance in front of Issaru. Looking between the fiends, she noticed him pull out the other sphere in his possession. She couldn't wait any longer.

"Rikku, Paine—distract the fiends, and I'll take care of Shuyin!" she yelled.

Leaping onto the central platform, Rikku and Paine engaged the fiends. Sprinting down the stairway, Yuna ran for Issaru. He had walked behind the towering crystal, obscuring his actions from her. Quickly glancing to her left and right, she tried to speed between the two fiends, but the fiend to her left intercepted her.

Crashing down with one of its front legs, the fiend dropped its leg in front of her. She deftly sidestepped the leg and unholstered one of her pistols. She fired toward the fiend's head but missed wide. Rikku, who had been attempting to regain the fiend's attention, chopped one of its back legs off with her curved blades. The fiend reared back and screeched, spinning itself around. With the side of its other front leg, it swiped Rikku and knocked her off her feet.

"Go, Yuna!" Rikku shouted while motioning to the crystal.

Yuna nodded and continued to sprint for the crystal. The sound of her friends' battle with the fiends quieted to background noise. When she ran to the other side of the glowing crystal, she witnessed Issaru placing the two green spheres into a panel at the base. She lunged toward him, grabbing his arm just as the second sphere clicked into the round housing.

In an instant, the low, pulsating glow from the crystal burst into a blinding flash of white light. Yuna shielded her eyes with her other arm. An immense pressure pressed against her skull, and her head burned scorching hot. It felt like electricity coursed through her nerves. She screamed from the excruciating pain of a thousand bolts of lightning penetrating her skin.

The white curtain of light engulfed her and Issaru. Her mind blurred to a blank state and her entire body fell limp. In an instant, her eyes snapped open. No longer surrounded by glowing crystals or spidery fiends, she stood on a large hill overlooking a sprawling city. She blinked rapidly many times, her brain not completely registering what her senses were telling her.

In her right hand, she held a summoner's staff. Looking down at her clothing, she wore a blue top with white ruffles and a flowing black lace skirt. Entirely engulfed in her attempt to comprehend her new surroundings, Yuna stood unaware of a legion of machina marching towards her.

A nudge against her arm snapped her out of her daze. A strangely familiar woman had a hold of her shoulder, glaring at her in alarm. She wore a long robe, much like that of a Yevon priest, but the symbols on her clothing didn't match that of Yevon. Her hazel eyes opened wide, fear flooded the woman's freckled face. She turned back to watch the machina climb higher up the hill from the valley below. Metal clattered against metal, and the whirring of engines overtook the natural sounds of the world.

"Hey, snap out of it, Lenne! Are you going to summon or not?"

Yuna stared at her in bewilderment. "Huh? What do you mean summon—"

A series of explosions thundered around her, tearing apart the earth and trees. Clumps of dirt rained down on her head. Some of the machina had started to fire upon her position. Their long, slender cannons housed on their metal backs launched barrages of missiles into the sky.

"Any time, Lenne!" her companion shouted.

Without thought, Yuna held up the staff in her hand and began chanting a call for aid. As she twirled her staff around, she spotted a fiery ball trailed by black smoke hurdling toward her. Too late to attempt to dodge the impact of the missile, Yuna crossed her arms in front of her in vain.

Thundering down from the heavens, a massive creature interposed himself between Yuna and the missile. Saddled on a gallant ivory steed, the armored warrior absorbed the blast with his shield. When the explosion subsided, she peeked open her green eye to see a horned aeon drawing a sword.

"Your lives shall end as rust upon my steel!" the aeon bellowed.

Urging his steed forward, his black cape fluttered in the air while he rode down to attack the machina below. He knocked his sword against his steel shield, clanging it like a bell. The sun's reflection on his impeccable shiny armor blinded Yuna.

The world around her blurred again. When her sight cleared, Yuna found herself sitting in a chair inside someone's home wearing the same clothing as before. In her lap rested a blue and white blitzball. Rubbing her hand over its smooth surface, she caught the scent of food cooking in the next room over. She glanced to her left to see the summoner's staff resting against the wall.

The small, cream-colored abode, covered in worn, cobalt blue carpeting, had sparse amenities inside. A few random houseplants sat around the walls. Worn blitzball uniforms cluttered the floor. On a table beside the chair, a small picture of Lenne rested beside a straggly green houseplant.

Yuna's heart jumped in her throat when she saw Shuyin pop his head out of the doorway. She squeezed the blitzball in a surge of anger until she noticed he bore a bright and cheerful expression on his face.

"Don't squeeze that too hard or it'll pop," he said. "That's my game winner."

Yuna stuttered for a moment. "You won the game?"

Shuyin chuckled. "I did! With just eight seconds left!"

He reenacted the maneuvers from the game. His face and body were so animated, Yuna could hardly react to his story. She had never seen anything but fury in everything he did. Joy seemed a foreign concept to Shuyin, or at least what shadow remained of him in the world. She wondered if she was dreaming.

"Will you come to my next game?" he asked at the end of his reenactment.

Yuna looked away. "Oh, I'm not sure."

"Is something the matter?"

Biting her lip, she responded, "Something . . . isn't right."

Shuyin's joyful expression melted into a stone-cold look in an instant. "No, this was right. You and I together in moments like this was right. Not like what would come."

"What would come?" Yuna questioned, deeply feeling the cutting of his words.

Shuyin didn't respond. His form, like the room around her, blurred away. The light bent and refracted in bizarre shapes until everything became sucked into a vacuum of darkness. Yuna called out but the darkness absorbed her voice. In a panic, she aimlessly ran around the dark trying to find some semblance of reality.

Something caused her to trip, and she fell onto a cold, metal floor. When she looked up, she found herself at the end of a long hallway lit by a line of milky green lights. Banners like those seen around the city of Bevelle hung from the ceiling. Her ears picked up music from an organ in the distance.

At first, Yuna slowly walked down the hall. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up. A piercing sense of impending doom took hold of her, tightening her chest and throat. Although she saw nothing behind her, a spike of fear erupting inside her drove her into a sprint. She emerged from the hallway into a giant chamber.

Playing the organ on top of a monstrous machine, she watched Shuyin pour his emotions into his fingers. A tortured melody echoed throughout the chamber.

She yelled up to him, "Shuyin! That's enough . . . what is happening?"

At the call of her voice, he halted his playing except for a single key he held down—a final cry from a distorted melody. Its sound held in the air for an uncomfortably long time. He turned around to face Yuna, glaring down at her with an expressionless face.

"Everything that is wrong," he explained. "That is what is happening."

"Are these memories from your life?"

He turned his back and smacked the organ with his fist. "They are. But this is not how I was supposed to go back in time! Not to drown in the horrible memories I've already relived so many times!"

The clattering of boots came up from behind Yuna. Looking behind her, she watched a legion of soldiers running toward her from the preceding hallway. In the shadow of Vegnagun, Yuna knew what came next. When she returned her attention to Shuyin, he stood in front of her. Placing his arms around her, he hugged her tightly.

Shuyin whispered in her ear. "My life wasn't always full of hatred. Maybe now you'll understand what drives me."

The contingent of soldiers cocked their rifles with their aim set on Shuyin and Yuna. Looking deep into his eyes, she saw the nightmare this memory inflicted upon him. Even after a thousand years, reliving this memory hurt him just as much as that fateful day long ago. Nothing stopped his pain.

"If only I knew she loved me," he whimpered.

Yuna gasped. "But Shuyin, she did—"

Guns fired, the concussions of their blasts masking the rest of Yuna's words. Their bullets rippled through the air. She turned to look at Shuyin, whose face held no emotion. Sadness swelled up in her, and she shed a tear. A blinding curtain of white light engulfed her again before the bullets found their mark.

Thrown to the floor, she found herself back in the underground chamber. Her head woozy, she grasped her forehead trying to shake off the wave of nausea washing over her. The giant crystal, which had radiated light before, now stood dormant. With the reduced light in the chamber, she couldn't locate Shuyin.

Sounds of battle rang in her ear. Rikku and Paine flanked the remaining fiend on either side of it, slicing away at its body. Yuna watched Paine drive her sword with a glittering array of light into the spidery fiend's head. It gurgled before collapsing to the ground. A shining burst of pyreflies lit up the chamber before dispersing.

Yuna started to move toward her friends before noticing the two empty sphere housings on the panel by the crystal. Before she could react, Issaru darted past her and ran up the stairway.

"There he is! Stop him!" Yuna shouted.

Paine turned to direct her sword at him, but the crystal's bright reactivation startled her. For a fleeting moment, Yuna locked eyes with the ethereal inhabitant of Issaru's body. They exchanged no words, yet she knew he would not stop his endeavor. Perhaps no force in Spira could thwart him.

Streams of hair-raising energy shot out of the crystal. It glowed with streams of bright yellow light. Crashes of thunder bounced off the walls of the chamber. Yuna ran behind her friends from the central platform and up the stairway.

Looking behind her, she saw a litany of pyreflies ball together, forming a new fiend out of thin air. Looming over the crystal, a gigantic metallic beast with four arms and two legs growled. Its round head had two horns protruding out of it.

"This is not good!" shrieked Rikku.

The fiend arched its long neck and opened its mouth, spewing a stream of muddy, toxic liquid in Yuna's direction. Diving out of its path, the stench instantly watered her eyes. Beside her, Rikku began to cough uncontrollably. Some of the liquid had splashed onto her clothing. She fell to her knees holding her throat. Grabbing her by the arm, Yuna lifted her cousin up and dragged her out of the chamber with Paine's help.

Charging after them, the fiend used its triangular arms to smash open the doorway wide enough for it to fit through. Rikku spat on the ground, still trying to stop her incessant coughing. Paine ran up to the fiend, which had just pushed its way through, and sliced at it with her sword. Shielding itself with its arms, it blocked her strikes. Stones from the ceiling started falling to the ground.

"We can't fight this thing here," yelled Paine. "It'll cave us in."

Yuna nodded. "Let's just get out of here!"

The Gullwings sprinted ahead of the fiend down the long hallway. Firing a blast of fiery magic above their heads, it blew out a portion of the ceiling down near them. Yuna did her best to cover herself, nearly struck by a panel of metal thumping off the marble floor. Outside of the domed building, the girls ran behind the bronze serpent statue and tried to catch their breath.

Rikku panted. "Okay, I really don't think we can fight this fiend down here."

"I hate to say it, but I agree," said Paine.

Yuna leaned her head back against the statue. "What should we do? We can't let this fiend get to the surface."

Rikku cracked a grin and pointed to the passageway leading out. "Hey, if you can buy me a little time, I'll set explosives to blow up the way out. It'll trap that stupid fiend down here."

"I like it. How much time do you need?" Paine asked.

Rikku shrugged. "Hopefully not too long."

Darting out from behind the statue, Rikku ran over to the narrow passageway. At the same time, the fiend emerged from the central dome. In a fit of rage, it cast a bolt of magical lightning at the serpent statue. The concussive blast tore the head of the statue, launching it into the air. The bronze head smashed into the ground near Rikku.

"I said buy me time, not get me killed!" she yelled, shaking her fist in the air.

Rolling her eyes before motioning with her head, Paine slid out from behind the statue and chased after the fiend, which had stridden its way toward Rikku. She formed a ring of tiny, black orbs around her before launching them at the fiend. Their impact brought noticeable pain to the creature. Anticipating Paine's exhaustion from using that attack, Yuna sprinted out from the statue and fired a barrage of bullets at the fiend to keep it at bay.

It defended itself against them with its arms, sending the bullets ricocheting off into the walls of the chamber. She bought herself enough time to cover Paine's retreat. Waving her arms at the metallic fiend, Yuna whistled at it to attract its attention. It moved closer to her and attacked her with its massive triangular arms. She artfully dodged both impacts, the pointy ends of the arms digging sizeable holes in the ground.

"Hey, I'm ready!" called Rikku.

Yuna retreated to the passageway, firing another three shots at the fiend to slow its pursuit. Rikku pushed Paine and Yuna through the passage first before activating her bombs.

As she ran behind her cousin, she counted down. "3, 2, 1!"

A series of deafening explosions tore through the stone passageway, shooting a violent tremor through the earth. The stone walls collapsed, sealing the way to the mysterious chamber. The shrill shrieks of the fiend were absorbed by the explosion. Dirt and dust spilled into the air as Yuna ran out of the passage and back into the ruin complex.

After catching her breath, she led her friends back to Clasko's ranch. He helped them climb out of the hole, a bewildered look on his face. One of his chocobos twitched his wings and squawked at Yuna before nuzzling her with his head. She chuckled and rubbed its soft, yellow feathers with her fingers.

Clasko eyes beamed eagerly. "So, what happened down there? Did you find anything amazing?"

Rikku grimaced. "Fiends, lots of fiends."

"Lots of fiends?" Clasko questioned.

Paine wagged her finger in the air. "Yep, you don't ever want to go down there."

Hanging his head, Clasko sighed. "I better get this hole sealed up before they find a way to climb out."

"You better before they come to eat your chocobos," teased Rikku.

"Hey, what happened to Issaru?" asked Clasko.

Paine started to form an explanation before Yuna interjected. "Oh, um, he found another way out. We need to go find him to make sure he's safe."

Accepting her explanation, Clasko bid the girls farewell and thanked them for their help in exploring the ruins. Yuna put on her best face to hide the jumble of emotions she felt stirring inside her. Knowing that Shuyin still aimed to finish what he started two years ago lingered in her mind. Having garnered a glimpse of his past, she began to understand the unstoppable forces perpetually driving him.

On the Celsius, she avoided conveying the specifics of what happened when Shuyin activated the time spheres. She couldn't truly comprehend it herself, let alone explain it. Though she tried to mask the effects of her experience with Shuyin, it still showed on her face. Rikku nudged her in the side playfully.

"Yunie, you're looking like you're thinking too much again," she said.

Yuna frowned. "Sorry."

"Hey, now that we've done our little favor for Clasko, how about we go to Bevelle?"

Yuna tapped her finger against her mouth. "You know, you're right. I think I need a break."

Paine looked quizzically at her. "Why do you want to go to Bevelle?"

"She and Baralai's got a thing going on," Rikku answered with a grin.

Paine folded her arms together. "A thing?"

"A romantic thing!"

Yuna blushed. "Stop, Rikku! We're still feeling things out."

Paine looked away. "Oh, I didn't know you two were seeing each other."

Clasping her hands behind her, Yuna continued to blush. "We've been writing to each other for about a year now, and we had a chance to meet in person in Luca during the blitzball tournament."

"Sounds pretty serious."

Yuna shook her head. "I wouldn't say that. I'm still not sure how I feel about all of it."

"And you won't until we go to Bevelle," stated Rikku matter-of-factly.

"It's not just for me," Yuna said. "I think we all could use a trip there to relax. I'm sorry for dragging you guys around again."

Rikku shrugged. "You're just lucky you have such wonderful people like us around, right Paine?"

Paine, who had been staring at the floor in a daze, snapped to attention at Rikku's words. She mustered a chuckle and agreed while rubbing her forearm. Rikku patted Yuna on the back, proud of her for finally agreeing to meet Baralai again. In the back of Yuna's mind, she had another motive for traveling to Bevelle. The city still held many secrets—and she had other questions of her own that needed to be answered.