2023-04-21: If...

• Log: If...
• Cast: Yuna, Tidus, Leon Albus, Rikku, Lulu, Fei Fong Wong, Citan Uzuki, Elhaym van Houten, Xantia, Cyre H. Lorentz, Ethius Hesiod, Jacqueline Barber, Seraph Boudicca, Emeralda Kasim, Pearl, Paine, Billy Lee Black
• Where: Sin
• Date: April 21, 2023
• Summary: Yu Yevon is finally killed, and with him, Sin. The fayth, Auron and Tidus depart. Everyone else is left behind...

---

=============================<* Great Spiran Sea *>=============================

The Spiran archipelago is, unsurprisingly, composed of a series of islands. One is large, some are fairly big, the rest are quite small. Travel between the islands is accomplished by a series of small, local ferry runs between Spira's major seaports. Each of these ferries is pretty much like the rest - a large two-masted brig equipped with a pair of paddle wheels that allow the vessel to run on chocobo power whenever the wind is low.

Because all of the ferries are basically the same, this is the one you're on. Whatever one that is. Wherever it's going. You're on it.

BGM: Final Fantasy X - The Sight of Spira
<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed.

Feathers and scales fall like rain.

From the first moment that the counterattack begins -- smoke rising off their bodies as they emerge from an explosion designed to make them the first victims of the latest and greatest Sin -- that is how it happens. There is no single decisive strike; there are many. So many. All of them decisive. All of them deadly.

Let the rain fall.

It falls from Bahamut's head, where Leon chops once, two-handedly, and Fei punches once, two-fistedly, and Tidus strikes four times with one.

It falls from Bahamut's chest, where Elly's screaming sun-white lance and Boudicca's tonfa pierce and strike, where Billy's greatest ARM slugs and slugs and slugs away, one bullet and then fifty.

It falls from them both, a rain brought on by a storm of Rikku's thunderblast mix and Lulu's million fourth-tier ice blades; from Xantia's all-direction assault of her slicing red energy; from Jacqueline's sweeping omni-elemental beam.

It falls from Valefor's chest, where Ethius explodes dust, all the dust in the world, smothering and brutalizing, into the space of the spirit of the sky. Where Pearl reaches out and, with a single touch, provides a lethal injection of poison ki.

It falls from Valefor's wings, as Paine climbs them, Gravestone her stepladder, and the next step, and the next, and the next.

But each feather and scale, dislodged by this desperate and necessary violence, is... transformed.

In midair, Yu Yevon's possession, which had rendered them ashen and gray, had painted them a sickly zombie green, or a muted corpselike purple... recedes.

The rain that falls is scarlet. The rain that falls is violet. The rain that falls is golden. Gilded, from one end of a feather to the other, until it shines with all the vibrancy and life of its true source. Not a mad summoner enslaving all others beyond time and beyond thought. A girl from an island. A boy from a city. And the lady summoner who loves them both.

Each scale, each feather, is full of glorious, radiant color before they hit the ground.

Each one is free.

And then, just before they might have made impact, each one is a pyrefly... a single ghostlight, bobbing and flitting away.

"It ends NOW!!" shouted Tidus -- and shouted Auron, too, their two voices unconsciously raised as one, as he struck with such a mighty slash that it caught all three Magus Sisters and reduced them to pyreflies, too. Wakka sinks into a weary crouch. Kimahri is supporting himself with his halberd, both hands clutching the haft for dear life.

The five silvery figures -- avian, dragon, and insect-fairy -- join the others, floating off the side of the sword-platform, overhead, beneath, and all around. They are vague and indistinct shapes; they give no sign of consciousness. And yet there is the vaguest, hair-on-the-back-of-the-neck sense that they are watching...

...as Yu Yevon finally emerges from the shimmering and disintegrating corpse of Valefor.

He has become Sin a dozen times in just a few minutes, only to have been struck down at each turn.

He has been denied all succor.

There is nowhere left for him to flee.

The mysterious Yu Pagodas, which have surrounded each possessed aeon, now flank him instead. They loom huge and strange, segmented and runic, like spinning puzzles that he cannot solve -- always a little bit out of alignment.

And he lacks even the crackling veil of shadow that had obscured his finer details; without an aeon to be drawn to, even that power is stripped from him.

All that is left is the soul.

It is scarab and it is tick. It is blacker than night; blacker than space; an emptiness made from too much fullness; a horror. His rune -- the Yevonite rune, the original, not Bevellian but Zanarkandian -- spreads out along his abdomen, wrought in chitin. It is white but it does not glow, as it fades in and out of view like a pulse. Nothing about him shines.

Nirvana is the summoner's Celestial Weapon; a great symbol of the office, a sacred relic, empowered by the Moon, by the love of the Sun, and by the soft, slender and pale hand that grips it now.

Yuna -- Yuna in singular! many-armed with multi-summoning no longer, back in the ordinary flow of time, yet never more a goddess of destruction than at this moment -- Yuna spins -- spins into her blow, the sea hibiscus on her skirt swirling, her sakura-ombre sleeves fluttering -- as she smashes into the side of Yu Yevon with a sickening

CRUNCH
"--nnnngh!!"

made with all of her strength.

A modest strike, to be sure, from anyone else. She is no warrior, at least by the measurements of the Leons and Xantias and Paines and Tiduses present.

But it is more than enough.

Yu Yevon's bug body crushes beneath the weight of Nirvana, the weight of Yuna, the weight of everything she carries. The weight of two worlds that would be free of Obsession at last.

Maybe it's not so surprising, then, that that really IS enough.

It isn't Yevon's mercy, that his thousand-year watch is ended in a single blow. But it is mercy. Mercy for Yevon. Mercy for Spira.

Mercy for us all...

Yu Yevon went quickly but he does not go quietly. His rune bleeds permanently into view, waxing, and more runes burst off of him in strange and arcane circles. One, two, three spinning circles, and various strange energies are flowing out of him like blood -- scarlet and violet and gold, how about that -- until

one little pyrefly

all that was left of the memory of Yu Yevon

flits upwards, out of the corpse

and into nothing.

And the Yu Pagodas rise with what's left behind. Absent his influence they can solve their own puzzle at last -- they can ALIGN -- becoming, very clearly, two halves of a whole, separated for an age by a power that

finally

no longer exists.

What happens next is as natural as it is inevitable.

The power of attraction between these halves makes itself manifest as they slam into each other -- slam SHUT.

Briefly, it looks like an immense stone sword too -- the very surface they fought upon, seen from another angle.

And then it looks like nothing at all, as it detonates into a brilliant white light. A light that fills the whole space of Sin, and beyond.

A light that just a little bit of black dust falls out of... as the very very last remnants of the Clysmian disintegrate. And with them, a sound, a noise -- warped and warbling. The cry of one man? Of a million? But this too passes.

---

<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed.

 <SoundTracker> Someday The Dream Will End - Final Fantasy X - Nobuo Uematsu - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRGAhKXbbIo

The remnants of the Crusaders ultimately reformed on the Isle of Besaid. It was safest from Bevelle -- as far as you can go, without leaving Spira entirely, and even in their excommunication and disgrace, they would never abandon their beloved home. Theirs has been a mostly quiet existence since then. Fishing and gathering and healing their bodies, their minds, their spirits. The villagers took them in with the same open arms and communal gladness as they did a Ronso and two orphans at the start of the last Calm. There is only one fire, and it is big enough for everyone.

Crickets chirp softly beneath the palms. The stars are out, and here, far from the lights of Luca and Bevelle, there are so many of them.

"...look!" cries a child, not as small as she once was, when she and her dog dug up a mystery from behind one of the huts.

Everyone looks.

Sin comes into view, high above. It is listing... its great cursed whale-bulk unthreatening for the first time in its existence... not chained by song but... empty, truly empty, empty like a balloon. Collapsing in on itself, until, at a critical mass, it ruptures--

--and explodes--

Everyone sees the stars multiply, then again, then again, countless, beyond counting, a million million million million...

...pyreflies...

...not white, but golden, golden with, most of all...relief.

Even the chocobo joins in the cheering and, in the case of the Crusaders, saluting. The town priest makes the sign of Yevon. Maechen, old beyond measure, does not tell him why that might be wrong. He is too busy staring at a light show covering all the skies of Spira... and smiling.

And behind him them... in the deepest part of Besaid Temple, in the Chamber of the Fayth...

...the beautiful winged statue of the girl, the girl whose face, whose name, whose existence was given freely in the manner of her village, of her people...

...the statue that could not be said to be living, but also could not die...

...transforms, at last, at LONG last, to lifeless gray stone.

As does every statue. In EVERY Chamber.

And the hymn of the fayth is finally silent.

---

Inside Sin, Yuna dances.

The ruins of Zanarkand -- not the real ruins, or the real Zanarkand, but the ruins they've made of a memory of Zanarkand that no longer has Yu Yevon to sustain it -- surround them once more. The sword-platform-dimension ceased to exist when Yu Yevon did.

All that remains is... the Sending.

Yuna knows the steps by heart. But this time, it feels like each step is being engraved on her heart. She sweeps her rod with such gravity, wrist unflagging in its control. She bends a knee, she curls a foot, an arm, her whole body into a spin so totally unlike that spin that crushed Yu Yevon. It is beautiful. She is beautiful.

And she is so, so sad.

Yet for Yuna, to Send is to commune. And while she is accustomed to sending those slain before their time, alone and in enormous numbers, this is different. Their feelings pass through her with a howl of joy that is unfair and unkind to Yuna's own heart. But the triumph, the ecstasy, of the release of the souls of Sin is her burden to bear too. She will not fail them now, by failing to embrace all of them, and all the complexities of the moment.

'No tears next time, okay?' chided Lulu, after she danced for the mass slaughter at Kilika. But that edict is impossible to follow today -- and anyway they've all changed. She does not think Lulu would say so now. Tears bead at the corners of Yuna's eyes, though her body does not falter. They track down her cheeks...

...and then fall upwards, into the false sky, because the gravity of Sin is failing, as the great corpse beast is also failing, is coming apart...

...it's impossible to distinguish them from the pyreflies.

As she draws the rod downwards vertically, across her face, she sees everyone --

-- she sees Auron.

 <SoundTracker> Auron's Theme - Final Fantasy X - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WR2xtVvUIX8

His pyreflies, too, are joining the dance. Escaping his vast and tough frame, which has stood sentinel over her and Tidus and everyone else more times than they can count, and far more times than they even know.

"Don't stop," he says, and if his voice is gruff, it's because it's HIS voice. He is himself, to the very end. And gruffness and kindness can be difficult to distinguish in Auron.

"But I--" Yuna hesitates, pausing both mid-sentence and mid-step.

"It's all right," Auron insists. As Yuna waits, reluctant, a new grief flowering in her to join those she was already burdened with, the samurai -- old only in death, he was so young when he died -- takes a step towards her, then looks away. Looks upon the others, one last time.

He taps Kimahri's chest. Touches Lulu's shoulder. Salutes Paine with an eyebrow. Ruffles Rikku's hair. Stops, to stand by Tidus. To stand by... his son. He looks sidelong at the rangy boy, who has become a man under his watch.

"It's been... long enough."

Another step takes him past Yuna.

Auron hefts his katana over his shoulder like a worldly traveler with his knapsack, and looks back, over his shoulder and over the rim of his dark glasses, at all of them. At everyone. And his gift to them all, his ultimate triumph, escapes from his lips on the wings of truth:

"This is your world now."

He disappears into pyreflies right there on the platform--

--exactly where Jecht did.

It doesn't feel like coincidence.

It was definitely a choice.

Yuna resumes her dance, a dance for and of and to guide a million souls... plus one.

---

<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed.

The golden cloud is so thick and so vast, so massive, that it's almost a nuclear winter of pyreflies across Spira, which is an unfortunate analogy. Let us call it the opposite instead: it is a summer aurora of life itself, of midnight made noon by the release of Sin's victims into the peace of the cycle so long denied them.

They blot out the entire sky. To those within Sin it is recognizable as the same strange sword-platform dimension they only just left; Yu Yevon must have drawn their final battle into himself somehow, or at least, into his enormous and atrocious cache of souls. It is the same prismatic storm that surged and raged as they executed the enslaved aeons. Only instead of being frightening, this celestial expanse is unspeakably lovely, as it is finally allowed to spread and spread and spread across the world, like golden oil upon the water.

The pyreflies shine downwards upon Bevelle, where the priests and warrior-monks, hoarse from the Hymn, still find the voice to shout their joy. They turn the blue-white Macalanian glaciers a brilliant gold as two daughters of the Guado quietly link hands and gaze upwards. The shoopuf startle at their posts along the Moonflow, trumpeting. Rin bends an ear, craning to hear nothing, nothing at all. The Thunder Plains are silent for the first time in memory.

The waves that crash endlessly at the Djose shore -- that claimed the bodies of so many people, Al Bhed and Crusader and Guard -- who died for this, who died for THIS -- are gilded with the light above, straight to the horizon. Pyreflies explode over the steaming hot night jungles of Kilika, bring sound and shock to the quiet Calm Lands. The Ronso, on Mt. Gagazet, roar, and the crowds at Luca roar too.

And they sparkle over the sands of Bikanel. They fall like snow and rise like spring. And, as the uncounted souls contained in Sin flow past them, Belize is able to count two of them.

They feel the presence of Ryuggu and Cambria, for the first time in so many years.

---

Cid's airship rises up from beneath the group just as the core of Sin becomes too insubstantial to stand upon, catching everyone safely on the top deck. The Fahrenheit floats on the golden cloud bank, the darkness of night made brilliant above them all by the phenomenal light show still spreading out underneath.

The aeons, insubstantial and silvery in their final death, patient, already much more ghost than beast, surround the ship... Anima and Leviathan and Bahamut's, almost as big as it; Shiva and the Magus Sisters', very small. They rise up to something like a level height, relative to each of their centers of mass.

And then, with the next spin of Yuna's dance, they too join the pyrefly horde. Yu Yevon was just one pyrefly in the end. But each aeon is thousands. Hundreds of battles with a dozen dozen pilgrimages. Memories made in the hearts of everyone who witnessed the union of their fayth and their summoner.

Of everyone here.

People died, and Yuna dances.

Just as Valefor peacefully dissolves into the stars, the very last aeon to go, there is a vision, just the very briefest, of someone else inside of her.

A ring not of beasts but of people, with those who granted their final wish held safely inside.

A bob-haired teenaged girl joins hands with a Crusader joins hands with a fisherman joins hands with a priestess joins hands with a little boy in a hood joins hands with a pirate joins hands with a mercenary (and his dog! his dog, a shaggy golden retriever, is there and happy, tongue lolling from his mouth) joins hands with a dark mother joins hands with a sister joins hands with a sister joins hands with a sister joins hands with a bob-haired teenaged girl...

The people who once were fayth, they do not bow to their summoner, nor to their saviors.

They stand tall -- they stand united -- they stand proud -- and they stand free.

And they fade away together, hand in hand.

<Pose Tracker> Tidus has posed.

    Following his whirl of blows from all directions--an omnidirectional slash, or an omni-slash, you might call it for short--Tidus kicks off of Bahamut's throat and backflips to land at the massive Aeon's feet. He looks up sharply in case that's not enough... but everyone's bringing their A-game today. If this *were* a blitzball match, they'd have crushed their rivals. He smiles to see the scales fall, for it means that the little boy with the hood has finally seen peace. They weren't exactly friends, but... he's been showing up to him so long, Tidus feels like they're something like it, at least.
    
    Taking a deep, slow breath, he rises to his feet, watching as not just scales but beautiful multi-colored feathers fall, and the last of Yuna's Aeons--the last of *all* the Aeons--finally vanish into their component pyreflies. He's on guard for any final tricks... but it turns out to be unnecessary. Yu Yevon shows up at last, just a tiny little slimeball compared to the Aeon's he's been mindlessly controlling all this time, and Yuna crunches him under Nirvana like the bug he is.
    
    It really is over.
    
    He finds he's surprisingly okay with that. But then, he's had plenty of time to come to terms with it.
    
    White light explodes, and Tidus raises an arm to shield his eyes. When he lowers it what feels like an eternity later, Yuna--only Yuna, even if one could never say Yuna is 'only' anything--is dancing the dance of the Sending.
    
    At first he says nothing as he sees Auron starting to come apart. He'd known already that Auron intended on leaving once the final battle was over. He wonders if he'd told Yuna, and the way Yuna reacts tells him that he didn't. It really is hilarious to Tidus that Paine thought Auron would've told everyone about Zanarkand being a dream, but somehow, he can't bring himself to laugh.
    
    When his former lower-G guardian stops nearby him on his way past, Tidus murmurs, "Hey, Auron? ...Thanks. For everything."
    
    He doesn't expect a verbal response. He simply watches him go to the spot where Jecht had fallen and say his own form of goodbye, before at last he moves on.
    
    Then at last, it's the fayth--not just the fayth of the Aeons, but those embedded in the side of Mt. Gagazet, overlooking the ancient Zanarkand. Their thousand-year dreaming, finally at an end. The Aeons, hand-in-hand, finally at a true rest.
    
    Someday, the dream will end. That day is today.
    
    Tidus takes another deep breath. Lets it out slowly. And carefully sets Caladbolg down on the deck. "You're welcome," he murmurs under his breath, and stands back upright to face everyone for the last time.

<Pose Tracker> Tidus has posed.

    Elsewhere...
    
    On the isle of Bikanel, Belize pauses in their singing as a massive whale-like figure lists through the skies. Their heart no longer beats, but they clutch a hand to their chest anyway as it bursts apart into millions of motes of golden light.
    
    The Summoner Belize died years ago on the seas, full of anger and grief and regret. Seymour had found them that way, his salvation a little too late. They'd lost everything to Sin, and nothing short of Sin's own death would ever cleanse their negative feelings.
    
    Now, at last, as the statue of Leviathan's fayth slowly goes dim behind them, they smile with all their lingering soul.
    
    The summer of life flows through the world, over the sands and along the waves, and they are ready.
    
    "Lady Yuna... Lady Pearl... thank you," Belize murmurs. They raise their arms and clasp the hands of a pair of figures that seem to form in the dazzling cloud of pyreflies. With a smile, they murmur, "Cambria, Ryuggu... I'm coming."
    
    They step forward into the ether and join the cloud of pyreflies.

<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.

The Aeons fall.

Leon stares at them for a moment -- not saluting or anything so obvious, but regarding them. He is silent, for a moment, as he watches them disperse. Then, he turns; his eyes look back to Yu Yevon.

It's over so fast. As it should be; something so reduced, ended quickly with a single smash of Yuna's rod. Leon looks down at the remains, crushed in a moment.

He stares at the pyrefly for a moment.

From here, he sees Sin collapse apart into pyreflies. Countless golden pyreflies, swirling about them. He watches as Auron melts away with the rest -- and he sets down on the deck.

Leon glances over his shoulder. He sees, at the door to the deck, Cid looking out. The Al Bhed has a worn look on his face; Lilka Eleniak, behind him, watches with a sad expression. Leon nods to Cid.

And Cid returns it.

A job completed, but they both paid for it. Leon turns his head, and then looks back towards Tidus.

'Did I pay enough?' Leon asks himself.

<Pose Tracker> Rikku has posed.

It's a difficult thing to watch. Valefor and Bahamut were their comrades in a sense, but more importantly, they were Yunie's friends.
 
Deeper than that even, Rikku doesn't always entirely get it. But she can at least perceive the impossible difficulty, the sacrifice in this moment.
 
Summoners are all about sacrifice, she always hoped to spare her cousin of it, even before she met her.
 
"Bye." She says quietly, as Valefor goes, as the Magus Sisters are finished off. Just this simple, soft farewell.
 
Posture drooping, ragged, she watches as Yuna, still standing, walks up to the strange form of the source of Spira's spiral of death. It's strangely pathetic, to think this thing was the cause of so much death, so much suffering.
 
That this thing shaped the world of Spira, their entire lives for so long. When it dies, they have to take the scary next step. And even with a vague plan in her head...
 
... it's still terrifying, exhilarating to know that as Nirvana cracks it open, as it bleeds that they're going to be able to take it now.
 
An era dies, before her very eyes. It dies at Yuna's hands, and now something new can form, as it disintegrates. She's torn between revulsion, sadness... apprehension, and wonder.
 
Over what comes next. As with all battles, it is the dance. The realm around them begins to fade, as she watches Yuna dance, there is a sense of wonder still, as she watches, but ultimately, her eyes move over to Auron.
 
"You gave us the chance to take it back." Rikku says quietly, "Thanks for that and... take care of yourself old man."
 
Their world is bright, luminous, fading. More and more it feels like it doesn't exist. And then, "Uh - we're!" Falling. A little bit, but only for her feet to come rest safely on the deck, "Hela lydlr Bubc!"
 
She calls out, but her cheer at the small victory is momentary, because it's time to face reality. Rikku looks to Tidus, and for once in her life...
 
... for once, the motormouth that is Rikku is entirely speechless. She doesn't know what to say. How long they have. If her calling attention to it could cause him to just, vanish at any moment.
 
So for once in her life she doesn't.
 
She waits, throat working as if to contain what she feels in this moment. In the end, it's mostly sadness.
 
... She doesn't want to say goodbye to her friend, and knows its coming.
 
This is reality. She just wishes their first step into this new world didn't have to start with this.

<Pose Tracker> Lulu has posed.

Lulu, too, stands and watches the Aeons. She watches all of them. All of them, she has seen at Yuna's side, even if some are more personal to her than others. They have all been indispensible companions on this journey... This final journey for them. For many. And she says her goodbyes to each, but in particular...

Yojimbo, the one whom Lady Ginnem sought at the cost of her life, setting into motion the chain of events that would dominate Lulu's own for the decades to come.

Shiva, the first Aeon she ever saw, whose power was as brilliant and shining when she was a part of Yuna as her mentor.

And Valefor... For whom Besaid prayed. Besaid will have to find a new 'heart' now, in the people who will live for tomorrow.

But there are others who they stand to lose now, too. Lulu stands, despite the terrible battle, because this is a moment she will do nothing less than stand for. She will not have Tidus's final sight of her be tired, leaning.

She will send him off better than that.

Lulu falls to the deck, with the others. Floats, more like. She can 'feel' the sheer power all around her, but... it is not her focus, not at this time.

Auron said that this is their world now... He disappears where Jecht did, and Lulu nods. "...We will care for it," she promises him, as he fades.

"...Tidus," she says, because she believes it must be close, now. He did not suggest he would hae much time.

"...I'm proud to have been your friend." She does not step closer. She does not crowd his space. She knows her voice is not the one he most yearns to hear. But she will say this much, at least.

This much, for a Guardian.

Either way.. Lulu does not chide Yuna for her tears, now. She simply looks to her, in love and in encouragement.

As Auron put his hand on her shoulder, Lulu puts hers on Rikku's, in silent support.

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

It's over.

This is something that will stick with him forever, he thinks. He doesn't think he could ever forget it. Just one eternal cycle punishing the world again and again for crimes they couldn't even remember. He feels like he has more in common with Jecht than he does Tidus, frankly, despite the sons having similarities of their own. Sometimes he feels like he's just here to punish the world, that like Jecht no matter how much he resists the Sin within him, it will always bubble up again and again to destroy innocent lives even if he doesn't want to.

He knows what answer the Demon would give. They can never pay enough. The world, after all, has to be worthy of kindness, it has to be worthy for that kindness to have any meaning at all.

But Fei's not sure he thinks the same way anymore. Maybe he never really did. He sees Xantia's empathy for those around her, enough that she fought for the Crusaders well after their war had ended. He sees Elly and Emeralda's kindness to the common folk of the world, common folk like he once thought he himself was, that he still can't pull away from.

He feels more like those fayths, ceaselessly fighting for a cause that he just wants to rest from. He feels more like Yuna, in not wanting to see at least one of those dreams in its ending.

He thinks of how much he just misses Leon. And how even though he never knew his father, he did have Doc--and anybody'd be lucky to have as much of Doc in their lives as he did.

It isn't fair, he thinks, but he doesn't want to bury Tidus in how it isn't fair, in his own feelings. He doesn't want to see him off with pain, but he can't manage warm acceptance at all. He just can't accept it. He never could.

Tears starts to well up in his eyes again.

A Crybaby in Arms, perhaps.

"I'm really ... jealous," He manages. "You didn't just get to show it to your old man, you got to show it to the Oldest Man."

He nods to where Yevon was.

"...I'm going to try..."

He heaves out an unsteady choking breath.

Someday the Dream will end.

Maybe that isn't only a sad thing. Sometimes it's good for something to end, he knows. He knows that down to his bone.

He knows he has to make something end.

He raises his head again. "I am going ... to draw strength from my memories of you, Tidus. Not Power. I'm sick of Power but..."

He manages a smile that looks like it would be bowled over by a stiff breeze. If he can't be selfish now, when can he be?

"Those memories won't end any time soon. So... Thank you, Tidus. For being my friend."

He hsakes again, rubbing his eyes furiously. He doesn't quite believe his words yet, but maybe one day he will think back to this moment and remember what he could be--the day he is ready to be that.

He doesn't dare ask anything else from Tidus.

<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.

    And at last, it comes to an end, as all things must. The Aeons fall. With one quick strike -- and the chain of events that follow -- Yu Yevon and Obsession are no more.

    And Yuna, as she must, begins her dance. All of the Pyreflies that make of Sin -- each a life? each a desire, a wish to carry on? -- begin to come free, released at last from their eternal moment.

    His gaze settles on Auron, Auron, about whom he had only known -- from Tidus' words at that -- that he and the man had a few traits in common. More than a few, he had thought, as the battle against the Aeons had begun. He sees, now, one particular fact about Auron made painfully plain...

    ...And what can he do but bow his head as the man acknowledges that he's lived long enough, that he has no regrets, in a sense. That it's time to go.

    When the time to make his own decision comes, he can but hope that he will be able to make it without any regrets.

    None of them can afford to be chained to the past -- whatever it had been. Whatever the future might be.

    He is aware but a moment that even the place upon which they now stand is coming away, but before there is even time to begin to plummet, there is the Fahrenheit, catching them up without so much as missing a beat. Sigurd would have been envious, Citan thinks, glancing towards Cid for but the moment, before his gaze turns first towards Fei and then to Tidus. When the dream comes to an end, then...

    "It was not long enough," he tells Tidus, because it is true -- because it's not fair that it wasn't long enough. Yet, there is pride to be had, even in spite of the few too-short years: "But... you have accomplished more in that time than many ever will. I am... proud to have known you, Tidus."

<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

 
The great wyrm falls. The beautiful bird falls.

Elly doesn't. They shout and they cry but as her thermal lance fades, Elly finds herself panting for breath. Standing. Coughing. Her vision swims as she shakes her head once. Tidus is shouting. Bahamut is struck, and Yu Yevon --

Has nowhere to go.

Elly sees it land. Yuna swings up - and the bug is crushed. The pain of aeons is ended. It's a small thing, but ah, how hard to get to this place where the small thing could happen?

It breaks and the world begins to rise and to fade as the Fahrenheit rises from the dissolving hyperdense material construct of compressed pyrefly that was Sin and replaces that diaphanizing material with firm metal. Elly feels herself falling, but only a little bit. The lights are still there.

Elly sees Auron and his motions. She has only seen the man in the distance. She swallows once. Then towards the final vision. Towards the ones who once, perhaps, were the Fayth, and now, are here, and able at last to move on.

Elly gazes at them.

For a moment, somewhere deep inside, she feels -- envy?

She stands up straighter, afterwards, her expression growing calmer.

-=-=-=-

Somewhere out in the wilderness surrounding Bevelle, a hermit steps out from the rude shelter she had made from sticks and tree leaves when the world did not hurt too much and the screaming faded. She looks upwards, shading her eyes at the wonder of the great mass of Sin, unmoving.

And then she watches it dissolve.

The sixty-one-year-old elf woman, Silf, does not know the context. Spira was a hateful place to her but all places were hateful and everything was hurtful, but this isn't. To a woman wracked by grief even now, it seems to be peaceful.

Silf remembers the last person she met and spoke to - and the pain comes back, as it always have, but it takes a full three pulsebeats to do so, and even if she cries out, it isn't as bad. She shakes her head once, and she crouches back. But it had eased. And it may get easier, yet, as the hours and the days and the weeks move on.

-=-=-=-

Elly shakes her head slightly. A slight pain in the left side of her head. Well, Elly thinks, I suppose that's lucky. She rubs the side of her head, stepping forwards. Nearing to Fei. She reaches for his hand.

It's Tidus she speaks to, though.

"They say in Nisan that every sorrow has seeds of joy, if you can find them," Elly starts to him, pursing her lips. There's an opposite form of that aphorism, but Elly doesn't bring it up. "So, I suppose, there's this; that we can speak a little, and we're both here. There's no pain, or shock, or -- I mean, I hope there isn't..."

Elly takes a deep breath, a huge breath, and lets it out. Her eyes crinkle up and puff a little. She doesn't start sobbing but she had to take several seconds to not do it. She speaks with a quaver, but no hitches, afterwards.

"Thank you for being my friend, Tidus. I'll miss you. I'll try to look after everyone, when I can, so you don't need to worry. It's not fair, that it's like this, but it meant I got to meet you." Tears wet her cheeks. She looks away, a little.

<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.

When the last remaining Aeons are dispatched, Xantia remains where she is, breathing heavily. She wasn't certain whether or not there were going to be yet more after this. But when that creature, the parasite known as Yu Yevon, is decisively crushed by Yuna, she realizes that it's over. Against all odds, they've won. Accomplished what was thought to be impossible. Those that are gone may never return, but...

"...With this, we've made sure... it wasn't for nothing."

She can manage no more words, after that. It was important that she do her part, see this through to the end. That she didn't let down her friends, risking them coming to harm when there was something she could have done. Even though she realizes, it's not something she should have done. It's not even something she could have done, without Citan's timely assistance. She's been on the verge of collapse this entire time, forcing herself to keep going by effectively using Ether to fool her own body. Now that there's no more need... the effort subsides quickly.

She was always kind of unnerved by pyreflies. But now, seeing this huge cloud of them... it's a beautiful sight, and she finds herself smiling. It's the last thing she sees, before she closes her eyes, slipping into unconsciousness. She'll be fine - she's just finally allowing herself to get the rest she's needed for a long time now. The Al Bhed will make certain she'll be able to do so comfortably.

<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.

It is... at last, done.

The final two aeons fall. Bahamut and Valefor are free. Free, at last, from the monstrous parasite that has plagued two worlds for far too long. The great tiger of wind is all that remains standing of a subspace once so filled with the essence of the divine.

Well.

No. Not quite.

Yu Yevon emerges. Obsession emerges. It is as ugly as he had imagined when Cyre had first caught a glimpse of it. Now, stripped of protection, of the shadows and the gravitas (perhaps even of the gravity) it had wrapped around itself like a celestial robe, it is nothing but a grotesque insect. A true parasite. The wind stirs as Cyre moves to strike it down-- but another is faster, and another deserves it more. Yuna slays the final manifestation of Yu Yevon-- The first summoner is finally ended by the last. And...

The world breaks. Specters of the Aeons manifest. The air thrums with gratitude and sorrow and relief in equal measure. Another light joins the blizzard of pyreflies-- this one, motes of green and gold. Unbidden, a triumphant roar bellows out of the Nahual of Wind-- a rush of purest emotion and genuine elation from the part of it that is Guardian...

...As the Shintai dissolves, and Cyre stumbles, exhausted, covered in bruises and utterly spent from its heart.

"...It's done. It's over," he breathes, rolling onto his back just as the Fahrenheit rises underneath him. He watches the sky as it fills with a brilliant and ever-expanding aurora. Free. They're all finally, finally free.

With a groan, the shaman pushes himself up-- not upright, his legs are too weak for that right now. But, up.

Auron disappears. Cyre never really knew the man, but he could recognize someone who was worth a lot to people regardless. He... never really, properly knew a lot of these people. But they are without gods, now. Without the faith that they built their lives around for so long. They'll need... help. Maybe not these people, but others here in Spira.

And Tidus... prepares to say goodbye.

Cyre fixes the young blonde with a sad smile. "You did good. You did really good. If what you were aiming for was fame and legend, I think you got them. But even if you weren't... I hope you had a good time of things, on these messed up worlds of ours. On behalf of the Guardians, thank you, Tidus. Obsession... finally, finally, has returned to the Sea of Mud."

<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.

    The matter appears to resolve. Blindingly, brightly, loudly, and overwhelmingly - but decisively. It takes Ethius a few moments to blink out the residual discoloration in his eyes from the brightness, and another to cough and breathe. He's not even sure how he goes through that brief fall to land on his feet in the middle of all this, but, nonetheless - he witnesses, and lives to see what will come of it. He rides off the adrenaline of that strange re-raising sorcery that has kept him - and others - among the normally living to stay upright rather than feel the creeping pains and aches of inflicted wounds.
 
     'His' gods from childhood disappeared into nothingness when he was removed from the world of his upbringing. To see such closure and acknowledgement of what unfolds of those strange forces that were harnessed to the ends they were... not just for cruel, selfish, obsessive perpetuity but also enduring companionship along the way, well. The era he watched end in his childhood - an era of an entirely different world far from here - did not find its new chapter ushered forward on a hopeful note, to put it lightly.
 
     The strange man from beyond the stars has his head bowed, one hand on the opposite elbow, the other over his face. He nonetehless holds to the usual discipline he does, in trying not to intrude or take up more space than necessary - even a step back, once he confirms there is space to do that. It's a years-practiced habit.
 
     By the time he looks up, Tidus just happens to be looking his way. (This is also because Ethius is still standing with everyone despite his best efforts, but he's always grappled with some nervousness as regards being observed at all.)
 
     "..."
 
     Ethius straightens out, arms behind his back, expression about as neutral as it can be as time is unwittingly bought through those presently speaking their thanks and goodbyes.
 
     Until he can't coast on staying silent.
 
     "Your considerations for all involved were... appreciated." It's a struggle to keep to his usual manner of speaking. He's not even meant to speak goodbyes in his line of work.
 
     "Are. Appreciated." He corrects himself. He struggles again knowing that (by taking it at his word) Tidus has limited time and he doesn't want to take away any of it from those closer to him, but...
 
     "It's not easy to walk away from all you've known, all you could have kept and loved, for the sake of something you believe would be worth far more." There are parallels here with his own circumstances - of walking away from a more leisurely life as a promising football athlete - that he wasn't expecting to have to grapple with.
 
     That he says this without stumbling might be a slip unto itself.
 
     "..."
 
     "I will not keep you further," he leaves it at that.

<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

The Aeons are defeated - no, freed. And as they join the rest... once more, Yu Yevon emerges.

"...It's him." Jacqueline murmurs. ...Now what? What comes next?

Next... comes a single, sickening crunch. That's what it takes. A single action - and from this action, everything changes.

Yuna dances. A Guardian goes to his rest. And Sin begins to vanish.

...Jacqueline's thoughts go back to Lunata. Will she be alright, through this? Her situation... A part of her wants to go to her, right away. But for now... she can only trust in her. Trust that she'll see her face again, after this is all over. She isn't ready to let go yet.

Jacqueline stumbles a little as the ground beneath her feet grows more and more insubstantial - but before there is a risk of falling, the Fahrenheit surges upward. She lands, and casts her eyes about.

No sign of Sin. Only the clouds around her and, for a moment, lets her body sag. She falls backward in a controlled manner, landing in a sitting position and heaving an exhausted sigh. She only sits there for a moment before forcing herself back up to her feet, brushing off her dress as she does.

"Tidus, I..." Jacqueline starts. She pauses, removing her glasses and taking a moment to clean them off. ...She's done a good job of hiding it, but tears are starting to collect on the lenses.

"...I-I guess this is it." ...She already said all that she meant to during the fight. So for now... she manages a weak chuckle. "It's a shame. I-If I knew this was coming... I would've... made sure to license some merchandise in your image."

It's an attempt to lighten the mood, just a little... but it's clear that her heart isn't entirely in it. She looks away for a moment, putting her glasses back on as she attempts to put her metaphorical face back on.

"...You'll be missed. I'm... glad I got the chance to know you, even if it was only for such a short amount of time. It's been an honor."

She looks toward Cyre, then, as he thanks Tidus on behalf of the Guardians.

It's strange to think, that Obsession, which has rampaged for so long, has finally been quieted...

And then, Ethius. Jacqueline observes him for a moment. As he stumbles over his words - and then, as he doesn't. Wordlessly, Jacqueline moves to stand next to him.

<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.

    Obsession is ever-grasping. "The Clysmian," Boudicca hisses, in warning -- Filgaia's foe, Spira's foe, and, in turn, Lunar's foe just the same.

    But all of Yuna's strength is enough to save the world; enough to Send them onward, those souls who've stayed here overlong.

    Even... Auron, Boudicca realises, with a numb little taste at the back of her teeth, which she imagines is what the emotion must feel like. She bows her head to him, in silent thanks for his vigil, as he stalks on and dissipates just as Jecht did.

    The Fayth, as well, and they do not bow but she does, not in the manner of Yevon but with her hands clasped at her heart.

    All of Sin -- all of Sin! -- Sent, from here to thereafter, and the rest of them safely delivered onto the deck of the Fahrenheit. The rest of them, and... Tidus.

    "I do not think... even yelling real loud will help, now..." She calls back to his advice, when they were rotting away in Yevon's jails. She scrubs at her own eyes; they're quite teary. "But be well, will you not? Cyre is correct! You are truly a star... I am proud to be your fan as well, Tidus!!"

    She smiles, but it's complicated by the grief in her eyes; glad to have these moments to speak with him, confronted with how few they are. Boudicca has never claimed that mortals ought to be immortal, but her recognition of the worth of a natural death hardly means something like this isn't still so, so... sad.

    "And -- and you are my friend," she insists, framing for those tears, as she shakes her head. "I meant what I said. I will remember you until I am dust. I will tell your story when the children of today are grown, and in long years to their children, just the same. These worlds will not forget you, Tidus."

    Sniffle... even if it's a metaphor, why does her throat have to get so choked up?!

<Pose Tracker> Emeralda Kasim has posed.

Emeralda promised, more than once, that she would come all the way to Sin, that she would help, that she would do whatever she could.

Well, now that's happened. Sin itself is... gone. Yu Yevon is gone. The Fayth, too, have left; a remnant of the past no longer trapped in the present, even by their own will. It's a beautiful sight, but she doesn't really have eyes for it, beyond the first few moments of wide-eyed wonder.

Because now it's time to say goodbye. To Auron, who she's met only once or twice, but also to Tidus, who she's spoken to more often. Someone who could have been from her *own* forgotten history.

"..."

And she doesn't know how.

It's not fair! she thinks to herself. She doesn't know what to say or how to say it but she is absolutely convinced of that. Why does he have to go? He's from the past, but he's not the *only* person from the past. He belongs here as much as anyone! He should get to have a life, to do what *he* wants, to explore or experience or just plain live. She *likes* Tidus. They weren't that close, but they weren't that far, either.

But she can't put it into words, and so what Emeralda actually does is cry. "I'm sorry!" she blurts out, before trying to get control of herself. She takes a deep breath, holds it, straightens up, red-eyed.

"I'm sorry... and I don't know what to say..." She sniffs once more. "I guess... thanks. For... everything, for what you said to me and what you did for everyone... at least you get to be a hero!" Emeralda starts to say something else, but it won't come past the lump in her throat, so she doesn't.

Instead, she rushes forward, pushing past others to attempt, just once, to give Tidus a hug. (She squeezes too hard, and has to consciously remember that Tidus isn't quite as sturdy as she is.) And then she darts back, behind Fei, behind Elly. Her hair keeps trying to move in front of her eyes to hide them, as if she didn't quite want to meet Tidus' gaze, or anyone's.

But she's still looking up. She's not going to look away.

<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.

    And so the era of sin ends with nothing more than a sad, weak crunch.

    When Pearl lands, that horrid corrosive ki is still leaking off her. Controlling it has gotten much, much harder. With nowhere else to go, the last of it eats inward at her as the emotions she used fade. It hurts, but it's a pain she's used to- and will endure for this moment.

    It is immediately clear to Pearl why Yuna is the one who has to send them. She is the only one who can bear the burden in this moment. The crushing burden of so many farewells.

    The pyreflies around them fly away, and Pearl watches this final sending- this dance of mourning. They succeeded. A god- a clymsian- has fallen and Spira goes free. Spira's dead go free. She stands there, watching- until they fall.

    The landing is rough for Pearl. No elegant landing this time, more a thud- and blood spurting slightly from her many wounds. She pulls herself up to her feet in time for the Aeons to pass them as she turns away. She has already sad goodbye to Leviathan. Further goodbyes would be pointless.

    And her once soul companion would surely laugh at her for her tears.

    It is when the fayth themselves she looks- and she sees the person who became the Aeon in full. A pirate, amongst their comrades. And then they are gone.

    Tidus turns to them all. He says his goodbyes. She feels inadequate here. Like she doesn't know what to say, to a man who threw his own existence as a worthy cost in a way death does not match. She turns briefly to look at him with her bloody, tear streaked face. "It was an excellent final chapter." The story metaphor seemed to work the first time. Her voice has lost much of it's emotion- but it's not the near monotone it was before. "We shall write you a fitting epilogue." Another long pause. "Thank you."

    She looks away again and focuses now on pulling herself to her feet- something taking extreme effort. Her oath is truly fulfilled, her duty done. She is unbound once again.

    She never received the training for a time like this.

<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.

    ELSEWHERE IN AND ABOUT GUADOSALAM
 
     Much of the Guado who dwell about Guadosalam do so with existential dread for what comes next, in the hand they played in trying to realize Seymour's extinction event. There aren't many able-bodied Guado Guardians after so many were injured or lost across the myriad incidents in which they troubled Spira.
 
     A junior scout runs back on the length of their legs, covering greater distances at speeds none of the other dwelling races of Spira could compare, relaying the sight of it to his seniors - and to one Gon Guado, who comes out to join them.
 
     "Should we all stand before the Farplane?" One asks, of the majestic event and its seeming consequences.
 
     "...No," Gon, the veteran Guardian, speaks. "There is no danger," he says, as warmth fills all of Spira... and the dread of the guilt his people bear, for the moment, lightened and lifted before the miracle that has transpired.
 
     Elsewhere... Timu and Pani, who ventured further out without reservation nor fear, keep their hands joined. For one of them, a dream life they wished to pursue has ended before them, but as far as Pani is concerned... what she is 'waking' up to is far brighter, and greater, than any dream she may have had of her place in Spira's world of endless death and destruction.
 
     For Timu, the older, she's the one whose composure breaks into tears first of the two of them. For someone being trained as a professional healer, this sight is the healing she needed for all the stresses of an uncertain world bearing down upon her - and everyone.

<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed.

 <SoundTracker> Ending Theme - Final Fantasy X - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYhsp-0vT18

Beneath Besaid and atop Kilika, in Djose and Macalania and Bevelle, in lost caverns of the Calm Lands and the vast deserts of Bikanel Island, in dark Baaj and light Remiem, the fayths' statues have transformed to lifeless stone.

But this, too, is the fate of the fayth atop Mt. Gagazet. The ones seen by even fewer than most, for one must be truly far along their pilgrimage to ever bear witness to this sacrifice and this strangeness. The inexplicable horde of them -- a mass gravesite, if they had been ever allowed the dignity of death, which of course they had not. A small army of people, backs exposed, faces lost inside the rock, crowned by three complex runic circles of increasing complexity.

Yevonite circles -- Yu Yevon's.

There is a spring in this holy place, a sacred pool.

For an age, the waters in it have been drawn upwards, endlessly upwards, more and more tightly. Into a column. Into a needle.

And, high above all Spira, higher even than the summit of Mt. Gagazet, where it can overlook what once was Zanarkand with a fully unobstructed view -- into a sphere.

But now, as gray slate paints the backs of the fayth who had not ever agreed to summon Sin -- who had been promised something else -- to stop time itself, to freeze it forever, to preserve and protect their precious and beloved city --

-- and everyone who had lived in that city --

-- the sphere dissolves --

-- and inside of it, countless thousands of bubbles are released.

Reflected on the surface of each bubble is a face. Everyone's here. The old and the young, the rich and the poor. Everyone anyone could remember, and more besides. They've lived for a thousand years beneath the lights of a city that never sleeps.

Because the fayth slept instead.

The fayth dreamed...

*pop*
*pop*
*popopopopopop*

One at a time, then faster, the bubbles glint beneath the light of the true sun. Buoyed by the breezy, cool mountain air, some rise and some fall.

But none of them will last for much longer...

---

Yuna has finally stopped dancing.

There is... no one left to Send.

An astonishing new reality.

As others bid their farewells to Tidus -- as they ACCEPT what's about to happen, with enormous compassion and dignity -- everything he deserves and more -- she gathers herself, separately. They had given her room to dance. Now, she has room to breathe.

Only she can't. She can't breathe; she can't think. Her heart is pounding kettledrums in her throat where her own gentle, kind acceptance should be, and every beat, every single beat, might be the last. His last. And she just -- she can't.

She isn't ready.

She was, perhaps, the least surprised of anyone by Tidus' big mid-battle announcement; just as well, as she was lost to Yu Yevon's temporal machinations and the executions of the aeons, and thus barely present when it happened. But even having known in advance -- not because she was told by his lips, but because she was told by his gestures, written between the lines of his words on the line of his brow, by the tautness between his shoulderblades, in the silences between each of the words of their last dozen conversations...

...silences she recognized from the start, with the terrible clarity of the mirror gone through darkly, from their FIRST dozen conversations...

...she doesn't want to let him go.

She won't.

She has lost enough today.

She is alone; alone in a way she has not been since she first became a summoner. Alone inside her own head; inside her own heart. And she finds, adrift in that enormous internal quiet, unaccompanied by even the friendliest and most generous of the ghostly patrons of Spiran sacrifice, something that had mostly eluded her on their journey:

The courage to be selfish.

She isn't any good at it. She's clumsy. Unpracticed.

Alone, she stands between Tidus and the end of the Fahrenheit's deck, like a one-girl barricade. She is shaking her head, slowly, then more quickly, like someone making up her mind. Someone resolved. Her hair, mussed to spikes by long battles and high winds, shakes with her in silken brown fans. The beads beneath her ear clatter like funeral bells. Her eyes are dark and desperate.

"No," she begs him, so softly that she can barely be heard at all. So sweetly that the word might be mistaken for something more affirmative.

But the shape of her parted lips is unmistakable.

And the agony in her face -- in her whole body, vibrating with grief, grief she was supposed to have defeated today, grief she told Yunalesca she would end! End finally and completely, for all of Spira --

-- is even moreso.

<Pose Tracker> Tidus has posed.

    *Did* Leon pay enough? Did any of them? It's hard to say. What's the measure of a life, after all?
    
    Leon is silent, but he's not the only one. Rikku, of all people, can't seem to find the words. Tidus offers her a smile to see it, rueful and grateful. He knows she's not the type to get bogged down for long by sad things, but it makes him feel a little better seeing she's sad to see him go. It might be a terrible thing to feel, but it's real all the same. Leon... well, Leon's always been a jerk. He'll get by. As *that* throught crosses his might, he laughs a little as he smirks at the mercenary.
    
    It fades into a look of worry when Xantia collapses--but a closer look tells Tidus that she's just fallen unconscious. He breathes a sigh of relief. They hadn't talked a lot, but Xantia seemed like a good person. He's glad she'll get the rest she needs.
    
    His gaze softens when Lulu and Citan both tell him they're proud to have known him--the latter, that the time wasn't long enough. "It really wasn't. All that time since I came to Spira feels like it passed by in a blur. Weird to think it's all over now," he tells Citan. He turns his head to look at both of them. "But thanks, Lulu, Citan. I'm glad... I'm glad I managed to grow up into someone you guys could be proud of," he murmurs. He pauses; then he focuses on Lulu. "I don't know where I'm going after this, but if I run into Ginnem, I'll let her know all about who you grew up into, too."
    
    Fei and Elly express their gratitude over their friendship. Tidus grins and ducks his head a bit, rubbing the back of his neck. "Right back at you two. There were a lot of rough times, but there were good times too, huh? Dealing with Sin and Solaris both were a lot easier because we had each other's backs." He focuses on Fei. "And hey, you know... if you feel like crying, it's okay. From one crybaby to another," he says with wry humor. To Elly, he says, "There isn't, don't worry." Any shock or pain, he means. "And thank you too. It's a relief knowing you'll be watching out for everyone."
    
    Fame and legend? Tidus smiles back at Cyre on that. "Maybe if I were still living back in Zanarkand--my Zanarkand, I mean. But that didn't matter so much here in Spira. Here, I just wanted to do what I could to help make things right." He pauses. "...I'm really glad I did. So thank you too, Cyre. I hope you and the Guardians can make things right in Filgaia, too." He laughs a little at Jay's attempt at a joke. "Man, what a missed opportunity! I coulda given you plenty of great glamor shots," he jokes back. "But... it's okay, Jay. Like I told Cyre, I wasn't doing this to get famous or anything. It was an honor knowing you and everyone, too." His smile rests on Boudicca as she announces tearfully that she is and will continue to be his fan. "Heh... Then I'm glad I could go out with a bang. Give you and everyone a match to remember," he tells her. "Maybe you and Jay can do something about that merch after all, huh?"
    
    He laughs again, this time in sincere appreciation, at Ethius's awkward attempt at a good-bye. "Man, you never change, huh, Ethius?" he says, setting his hands on his hips. "But... yeah." His eyes soften as he lowers his hands. "I know you know how it feels. So--I really appreciate it too, actually." He offers Pearl a smile next, as she speaks of writing a fine epilogue. "Yeah. I'm counting on you guys. My story might be ending here, but yours and everyone else's are gonna keep going. So you better make sure to keep writing it even after that epilogue's done, all right?"
    
    He blinks down at Emeralda when she blurts out her apology. "For what?" he wonders, mystified. That, too, softens--but before he can say anything else, she runs forward and squeezes him in a hug. She *does* squeeze too hard, getting a low 'oof!' out of him, but he doesn't mind. It's weirdly comforting to feel something so solid now. He does the only thing he can, which is pat her on the head--a gesture soft enough that it *doesn't* go through--and lets her dart away again. "You take care of Elly and Fei, y'hear? They're gonna need you more than ever," he tells her gently. "I'm real glad for you that you've got parents as nice as them, Em."
    
    That hug is just in time, too. The dream has ended; the fayth of Mt. Gagazet grow cold; filmy bubbles pop in rapid succession under the light of the dawning sun.
    
    Somewhere, far away, the dream Zanarkand goes pale and translucent. Here, right here on the Fahrenheit, in the dawn of pyreflies and a new beginning for Spira, Tidus begins to go translucent as well.
    
    "Oh," he utters, lifting both arms, clenching and unclenching his hands as he realizes he can see through himself. "You know, even though, deep down, I knew it was gonna happen... part of me kept hoping it wouldn't. The fayth told me that me and my old man were more than dreams now, because we'd been touched by Sin. So I was hoping, maybe... maybe that'd be enough. To let me stay."
    
    He looks up to meet everyone's eyes, his smile rueful. "Guess that would've been too easy, huh?"
    
    'No,' says Yuna.
    
    Tidus meets her gaze, and there's something just as agonized in turn. He wishes he could just say 'no' to his fate, too. But he can't. There's nothing either of them can do about this. "Yuna... I'm sorry I couldn't show you Zanarkand," he tells her quietly. "It's gonna be all right, okay? Everything's gonna get better from here on out." He offers her a smile. "We made sure of that. All of us--" He spreads his arms, whorling with iridescence like an oil slick on water. "And you and me."
    
    He turns slightly to one side and walks quickly for the railing of the Fahrenheit's deck, passing by Yuna. "I have to go now. Good-bye!"
    
    It's abrupt, but he can feel himself fading more and more. It doesn't hurt. It hurts so much. He doesn't want to linger. He wants to linger forever.
    
    Either way, if this is the end, he wants to go out diving like a blitzballer into the oceans he's always loved.

<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.

The Wolves say their goodbyes.

And Leon stands there, stone-faced. Does he accept this?

He does. He can't do anything less. He doesn't find words for Tidus, though. It is nothing more than a nod. But he doesn't turn away; he stays to witness. When Tidus smirks, though, he cracks a smile.

And he nods to him.

He doesn't need words. His eyes turn towards Yuna, seeing where she moved -- as if she could stand between Tidus and destiny.

He watches Tidus walk away. Walk past Yuna, with his last words to her. Will she really hear them? He can't know. He crosses his arms over his chest.

Behind him, Cid watches from the doorway. He rests one arm against it, leaning against the door. His eyes linger on Tidus -- but there aren't any words to call out. Because he doesn't just look at Tidus. He looks at Yuna, at the pain on her face.

And he looks at the sister he lost, too. He hears Lilka's stifled sobs behind him, and a part of Cid thinks he should go check on her. But he keeps watching, if for only a moment.

<Pose Tracker> Rikku has posed.

It's difficult to know what to say in these moments, as Lulu puts her hand on her shoulder, she doesn't feel especially brave right now.
 
This wasn't how it was supposed to go. Whatever anger she might feel at the thought of Tidus holding it back, melts away at the thought of how he must have felt, making the decision to keep all of this to himself.
 
His smile almost makes her want to cry, just seeing it. Perhaps its Yuna's 'No' that spurs her to act. Her pleading with him in such a simple way.
 
It's only after he apologizes to her, after he turns, that she reaches out a hand, his form turning more ephemeral. "Tidus..." A beat pause then she steps forward, hands clasped together, "We're gonna see you again"
 
One might wonder at her tone whether it's a question, or a declaration of fact. And the answer to that is.
 
Rikku doesn't know.
 
She doesn't know the answer, to whether she was asking him a question, or whether she was telling him they will. She has no idea how to express her feelings in this moment.
 
In the end, she watches one of her best friends run towards the edge of the deck.
 
She can't bring herself to say goodbye. Not while she doesn't know what she was saying. She doesn't want to say goodbye. She locks these moments within her memories, and says one quiet thing.
 
"See you later."
 
Unable to keep the tears out of her eyes.

'I'm glad I met you.'
'You were the best friend I could have asked for.'
'Thank you for everything.'
 
Her mouth can't form any other words, because all of them imply the same idea to her. That this is the end.
 
She just can't.

<Pose Tracker> Lulu has posed.

They all have more to say. Lulu hears the way that Tidus has touched the people here, Spirans and Otherworlders alike. She sees it, in their gazes, though she focuses most on him, as if she could record these moments as surely as Paine with her sphere recorder. ...She is not one to live in the past.

But this isn't the past just yet, is it? No, not yet.

"You did," Lulu answers Tidus. And then he makes an offer. "...Thank you," she says quietly. "I hope that you get that chance. I think she'd like you."

It is the closest to sentimentality she is likely to get of that in the moment. And so, as Tidus talks, Lulu looks to Yuna. Yuna, who says...

Who does not 'accept'. Lulu looks softly at her, at the two of them, as Tidus speaks his comfort and she shakes her head and then he goes past. He has to go...

Yuna, and Tidus. Lulu wanted to see them together for longer than this. She saw how happy they both were, even on their missions, but...

"...You don't have to be brave right now," she says to Rikku, as if she can hear what she was thinking earlier. "You don't have to do anything. ...Just who you are."

She does not interfere with Yuna and Tidus, for now. Whatever Yuna has to say, or do, in these moments...

It belongs to her. Lulu will be there after.

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei is plenty blubbery and wordy. You'd have expect him to pull up a chair and start monologuing his feelings.

He feels like he'd lose it, he feels like the only reason he isn't losing it is because there's nothing he can destroy to stop what's about to happen.

And there's nobody to get revenge on either. Not anymore. It's like feeling empty at achieving your vengeance before the event that you're getting vengeance for happened.

Tidus speaks to him. He squirms a little but forces himself to look at Tidus. He doesn't want to be completely lame and run away. Well, he DOES want to run away right now, but for the moment his love of Tidus is still stronger than that urge.

He manages a smile when Tidus hugs Emeralda and laughs bashfully when he goes 'oof!'. Tidus even says she has nice parents...!!

Damn it, he thinks. He can't even stop it now. His nose has started running.

"Okay..." He says softly. "I won't hide my tears anymore." Did he EVER really? Well he tried. Maybe he'll stop trying.

"Thank you, Tidus. For everything."

It WAS a lot easier, he thinks. And after today it's going to be a little harder.

Rest well, Kid.

He doesn't hear the Demon say something quietly, buried by a Coward's Will. Tired, and Accepting, and knowing too well what it's like. Maybe even the Demon knows better than to give his Host grief right now.

But the Demon wonders.... Is it this outpouring of love that makes Tidus capable of making this choice?

He wonders what that feels like.

Fei goes quiet as Tidus speaks to Yuna. He doesn't say anything. He just feels this dull ache within his soul, a wound that has long since scarred over--throbbing anew.

<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

 
There is no one left to Send.

What profit ye, if you gain the world, but lose what you cherished?

Elly sniffs at what Tidus says. It's a big, ugly sniffle. Her eyes spill over but she's smiling. "He's right," Elly tells Fei, quietly. "I'll never think less of you for it. Ever." She squeezes his hand. And then she looks back towards Tidus and she smiles again. He has others to speak to, so to Tidus Elly says no more.

Emeralda is coming forwards, and even runs past her - "Oh," Elly says in momentary surprise as Emeralda bursts forwards and then back. Elly shifts herself, brushing against Fei, to hold out her other hand, a bit, towards Emeralda.

She's bigger now, of course. Once upon a time Elly would have taken her hand, and perhaps crouched down, but such days (long delayed though they were) are past. Now the offer is there, but only its offer. Her eyes, wet but somehow clearing, turn forwards.

Elly thinks she can see it. He's beginning to glimmer. He must be made out of that same stuff, she thinks: the stuff of dreams. Are all dreams composed of the bits of the past? Perhaps they are, Elly thinks; someone must have had the first dream, but even they arose from the seas and the ground and the skies of a world, somewhere out there, be it lost or found or unlamented. Even they were the stuff of something beforehand.

Yuna approaches. It isn't fair, Elly thinks, in a nebulous way; the thought sort of dissipates in a silent inner breeze as she watches... and she does seem slightly surprised when Tidus simply breaks and makes his last run.

<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.

    To Tidus' last words to him, Ethius only offers a nod. Like he said, he won't keep him. Watching Tidus get to share his peace and last words with everyone, looking from the outside in, he might think he was given a kindness to have that much time in which to speak to everyone...
 
     But to not get to enjoy the fruits of a hard-won victory is always cruel.
 
     In the aftermath of Emerelda's hug, Ethius knows his eyes aren't playing tricks on him. He's not going to steal away those final moments from any of Tidus' closer travel companions, but nonetheless he is left to reflect upon this as he watches things unfold. It wasn't so much more than maybe a year ago, he might have just pragmatically walked off, spoken about the next agenda on the list, and hurried off to whatever other series of actions and lengths would best suit that agenda.
 
     No more than maybe a year ago, he would've envied the ability to simply disappear out of the lives of others like Tidus is doing right now - something he can no longer achieve.
 
     He keeps watching, with eyes open, until such time Tidus disappears - under his own volition or otherwise.

<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.

    There's nothing more to say now, in Pearl's mind. There's nothing to accept.

    This is an ending- and Tidus wishes to have it on his terms. There is nothing more to it than that, and it is his to take.

    Below them, below the cloud of pyreflies, the waters of Spira are still and calm, as they have not been in an age. It is a mourning- and a moment of peace.

    They await the last of the Zanarkand Abes, when he is ready.

<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

...Everyone's hurt by this. Their wounded bodies will heal, but this is something that'll never quite close. She can see it on Yuna's face, hear it in Lilka's sobs. Even so... Tidus laughs, and that gets a small, genuine, laugh out of Jacqueline, too - though that, in turn, makes the tears she's been holding back start to flow.

"Yes, it's a shame... but, I'm glad." Jacqueline replies. She chuckles, glancing Boudicca's way. "...Maybe so."

...And, soon enough, Tidus begins to turn translucent. He'd been hoping it wouldn't happen... but in the end, here he is. Jacqueline meets his rueful smile with one of her own. What can she say, to his hope that he might've been able to last...?

"...Farewell, Tidus." Jacqueline murmurs as he turns to depart. She makes no move to stop him - or to interfere with Yuna.

<Pose Tracker> Emeralda Kasim has posed.

Emeralda can't manage to say much more. What is she sorry about? ...A lot.

Her hand slips up to grasp Elly's, despite everything. With her other hand... She waves, a too-big wave from chest-high to over her head and back.

And yes, she's still crying, though she's quieter about it. Saying goodbye is harder than losing someone suddenly.

<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.

The end has come. For this era of Spiran history, for the Fayth, for Dream Zanarkand, and...

...For Tidus.

"We'll do what we can," Cyre answers with a reassuring smile, "You helped to give us a better chance. With Obsession no longer drawing power from the Ley to sustain itself, the Guardians will have more to work with. Nevermind the suffering you've prevented. Thank you again, truly. We'll... do what we can for Spira while you're away." The Caravan Kinship still has a deal with Rin, after all. And it's not like they can just... abandon this place, now.

...

 It's cruel, maybe, to act as though this goodbye is merely a wistful one instead of a heartbreaking one. Parting, farewell, they can often be such swift and sudden things. Especially on Filgaia. To have a chance to say goodbye in the way of one's choosing is a gift few can really experience. But...

This goodbye-- it's more final than most, isn't it?

Do dreams... have souls with which to reunite in the hereafter...?

Yuna goes to be with the one she loves-- even as he begins to fade away. The miracle doesn't come. All dreams are destined to end eventually. Cyre lowers his eyes and forces himself to rise on unsteady legs. "...See you, Tidus. Safe travels." he turns and hobbles after Jay. Yuna and Tidus deserve their space.

<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.

    What does it mean to save the world but lose everything? What you love, your own life...

    It is an answer that Citan dreads he will come to find, himself. But that day is still but a long way off.

    Today is a day for celebration. Today is a day for tears.

    He nods but the once at Tidus' acknowledgement, his smile tightlipped. He means it, even if he had only known Tidus in passing -- more than many of the other Wolves had. But it had still been enough -- he had been present for enough of the tale to see the young man struggle, find his place in the world, and succeed.

    Not only did he succeed, but he found satisfaction. Though he does not speak it, Citan knows full well how rare an accomplishment that is.

    It is but a shame that this... is where the tale ends.

    "Go, and be at peace."

    It is rare indeed to be able to express such a sentiment, he reflects. In fact, this may be the first time he has managed it, ever too late to the tragedy.

    One hand will find its place on Fei's shoulder if but for a moment. Fei's reaction has not gone unnoticed, after all, and the two young men are similar in certain regards. He cannot deny that...
    But he lacks the correct words to say to him -- to Fei. Perhaps there are none.

    Perhaps only Emeralda has the right of it, now.

<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.

    "P--perhaps it is an idea," Boudicca tries to joke along, anyway. She makes... an attempt. Maybe they can sell t-shirts, she thinks... ha...haha...

    She tries to laugh, but it isn't very convincing. She'd like to be able to laugh, like Tidus is laughing. It's just... not how she feels, right now.

    "I'll tell your story," she says, again, more quietly.

    Even as it fades.

    Even as he fades.

    Yuna can't accept it; Boudicca can see it, in the shake of her head, in the way she stands between. Will everything get better for her, with Tidus gone..?

    She can't say that. That's not her decision to make.

    Even after so long in Spira -- something like her gut lurches, just a little, seeing him walking so quickly towards the railing. Even knowing how strong Blitzballers are, in the water, there's a thread of anxiety to her.

    She clutches her hands to herself, to stop herself from trying to catch him -- she can't. She calls out, instead, with that same anxiety: "Farewell..!"

<Pose Tracker> Paine has posed.

Has it been long enough? Paine finds, rare though it is, that she disagrees with Auron.

It took a while for Paine to feel she had anything in common with anyone here, but when she did realize it, she found commonality for parts of her personality in Lulu... and for much of what remained in Auron. Auron, the stoic with a dark wit, the edgy outsider, the haunted warrior. Well, turns out he was doing the haunting now. When she invoked him to argue against Tidus disappearing earlier, she did not expect this to be the reason Tidus was right and she was wrong.

What recourse does she have to religion right now, when history (hers) fails her? She has no idea what to say, but to invoke Yevon with that foxhole reflexivity. But while cursing or exclaiming with His name has not stopped her so far, bidding permanent farewell to a friend is different, especially given the circumstances. She tries to develop some thought or feeling, as Auron makes his way through various small farewells.

Her own is suitably muted. She nods at him in return. Is that all she needs to do?

He's gone before she figures it out.

Paine exhales regret she knows she will keep tasting later, and she knows too that worse is yet to come. It turned out quite apt that Auron always felt like an old man, though his physical age did not bear it out. And the old are meant to pass, in Spira especially where the gift of old age is appreciated every day, every year, as it slowly drapes its grey mantle over your shoulders. It is not less bitter. It is not less wrong. But it is a... knife, up under the ribs. It is a clean pain. Even in Spira, the death of a young person in love is something unthinkably ugly.

<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed.

 <SoundTracker> Ending Theme (con't) - Final Fantasy X - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYhsp-0vT18

ZANARKAND?

In Yuna's face is searing, miserable indifference to Tidus' failure to take her on his ultimate, promised date.

She would have gone anywhere with him so happily. She would have gone everywhere.

The only place she doesn't want to go is nowhere.

And that's the only place left for him.

For them, and for their being together.

Nowhere.

But... the apology -- he's trying. And then he smiles, too, he smiles for her, and she knows what she's supposed to do now -- what she has to do, for him --

-- she tries to smile back, she tries so hard, but the best she can muster -- she, Yuna, Spira's beloved celebrity summoner, trained almost since birth in the art of the believable fake smile --

-- is a terrible grimace. It cannot possibly be mistaken for an expression of happiness. In the same way does the wounded soldier in her cot bare her teeth when the surgeon cuts. Pain. So much pain.

With absolutely all of her strength she lets him walk past her. She does not move a muscle, rooted to the spot like a fayth statue herself. He dashes off a quick farewell and she stares not at his departure, but at the faces of her friends.

The faces of her Guardians, who let her go just like this. One foot in front of the next, towards the inevitable demise of the summoner. One aeon after the next, to let fate carry her away.

They were so... strong.

And she feels both enormous affection for each of them, and enormous regret for putting them through her pilgrimage. Kimahri, her lower-g guardian. Lulu and Wakka, her sister and brother. Paine and Rikku, new family she never imagined she'd meet. And the many others she met on her journey, who respected her choice, who supported her in so many different ways, large and small, all the way here.

But one of them... was even stronger.

One of them shouted, even to the very end of the pilgrimage. One of them complained relentlessly -- one of them risked ridicule for behaving childishly -- one of them saved the world.

They all saved the world today -- they broke the cycle -- because HE had the courage to be selfish.

And now he's walking towards the edge just like she did.

She has to -- she has to stop him --

-- her body's moving without knowledge, without forethought, with uncharacteristically instinctual grace, fleeting light across water --

-- she sprints towards him, DIVES, to clasp him from behind, to hold him back not with force but with a loving embrace --

-- his love was enough, right? His love made a miracle, THIS miracle, so maybe her love --

She passes straight through him--!!

Yuna goes down hard. REALLY hard. She faceplants straight onto the deck of the ship with an unceremonious smack that is painful just to hear, let alone watch. She had committed totally to the dive, as close to a blitzball tackle as she's yet come in this lifetime; and this outcome, totally unforeseen. She'd noticed the way he was becoming iridescent, of course. But Emeralda hugged him just a second ago. Just a second ago, while she was wasting time arguing.

She lets that truth sink into her along with the coolness of the Fahrenheit, as it rises into her cheek. The blood on her tongue tastes like defeat. From her prone position, she closes her eyes for a long moment, then reopens them, and gazes out across the remaining, too-short expanse of deck at the cloudscape -- at the place he was trying to go -- at the beautiful realm of sky and sea that the two of them made together.

As she staggers to her feet, knees already bruising beneath her skirt -- she feels the sunlight mercilessly hit her face. Above the clouds, a new dawn has come. For Spira and for everyone in it. The blue sky feels almost as wrong and unfair as what's about to happen.

But now, at last, she finds that she's able to feel just the slightest bit grateful for it, too. As last looks go, it's a gorgeous one. And it's better than nighttime. Daytime always suited Tidus better. And he deserves that warmth, too. All of the warmth the world can muster for him.

All of... her warmth.

She can't bear to look at him, let alone at the others behind him. If she turns back, she'll fall apart all over again. And there's something that she needs to say to him, before he goes. Before he's gone forever.

She holds onto that gratitude for dear life. It is easier than she'd feared. It fills her like even the true sunlight can't. These feelings are about to be unbearable torture.

But for just one second -- one sentence more -- she can share herself with him freely. Unresentfully. Without hesitation. Without regrets.

She always has known how to give herself away.

No one, not even Tidus, gets to see Yuna's expression when she speaks. Only her back, bare but for the ribbon tie of her black undershirt, which crosses beneath her shoulder blades, and the rise of her (crumpled) yellow obi's bow. It is pale and trembling. But her hair barely brushes her shoulders, so her head must be held high on her neck. And her hands, at her sides, are loose fingers and palms, not fists.

Her voice is clear, somehow. Clear like the miraculous waters below. Crystalline like the waters that surrounded them, when they drifted in one other's arms. Replete with emotion, but unclogged by tears.

She does not cry.

"Thank you," she tells him.

"I love you," she adds.

It is difficult to say which phrase was the more unnecessary. She has said both to him before. Moments ago, even, when she passed straight through him, she said them with her entire body.

But then -- things are like this now because the two of them chose not to talk about it. Chose not to have to face it, to make it real with acknowledgement. So now she leaves nothing unsaid. And both sentiments, to her, are very, very necessary.

Listen to her, Tidus. This may be your last chance.

<Pose Tracker> Billy Lee Black has posed.

Billy watches in silence as the final blows land. As it all falls apart and comes together at once. It's not, despite his thoughts earlier, the life or death of a god. It is simply a horrid little thing, pretending with others' hearts, and its nearly silent death and subsequent explosive release from the unfathomable oceans of souls tormented under it....

Billy silently signs the cross, and contemplates the aurora as it paints in all directions. The commission of sin cannot be undone, the blood and sorrow extracted from it cannot be wound back into their wounds. So for all that these mountains of liberated souls make him think first of the people victimized by Stone and his cronies, he forces himself to smile yet, thin and thoughtful. They're free now, at least. Their tyrant is broken.

And then, of course - the remaining price. Billy had a rough grasp of what would come, but still, seeing Tidus unravel so is...

He dips his head. "Go in peace," he says again. A potent phrase, to an Etone, but even just as words, they hold at least some meaning.

He strides up to Fei and Elly, watching Tidus make his final dash.

At the last, he releases his grip from his pistol.

<Pose Tracker> Paine has posed.

"You were right," Paine says mutedly, when she gets her moment. "Guess... I owe you some goals." She lifts a finger towards the sky. "This one's for Tidus..." Despite her lack of suntan, Paine's oddly good at blitzball.

She looks away. "Damn," she says, for lack of something better.

There is one recourse left, for Paine, other than god. One muscle memory, one thing she knows how to do, unlike hugging, crying, promising, or reminiscing. She's not stupid, she knows it's a risky thing to do at a moment like this. But when it's not the worst thing to do, often it's the best. And it's all she's got between her and the regret she feels about sitting idle while Auron faded.

So when Tidus begins to turn away disappear, Paine thumbs on her sphere camera. She had promised herself to turn it back on later, after she refrained from using it earlier, at a historic moment, out of a coy respect for Tidus and Yuna's romantic privacy. But Yuna is already opening her rib cage like the doors of a cuckoo clock and her heart is completing the metaphor. One more eye will not hurt more than all the others. Even if it is made of crystal.

She can always crush the thing under her boot later. But she cannot always go back and record again, if the party needs it, if Yuna wants it. It's now or never.

And Yuna is choosing now. Yevon bless her. It stings just to witness, but Paine feels herself urging Yuna forward in her heart nonetheless. Go, young lover, go while you can.

<Pose Tracker> Tidus has posed.

    It really is hard to say goodbye. At the same time that Tidus is glad he got to make them, he doesn't want everyone to be watching when he fades for good. He gives Rikku a bittersweet smile at her half-statement, half-question, as if she herself doesn't know which it is. He understands that hope bitterly well, having carried it himself for ages now, and he's not about to tear it from her.
    
    In the same way, he gives Leon that single, simple nod back, letting that silent understanding do the talking for both of them. He knows that he and the Wolves will have each other's backs--already sees Citan, Billy, Fei, Elly, and Emeralda coming together to comfort each other, sees Cyre going to Jay and Ethius bearing witness. Lulu's going to Rikku now, even. Paine... well, Paine always was the stoic one. He's betting she's having a moment of her own right now. And that's... fine. He gets it. He gets it all so much it hurts too much to bear.
    
    And so many of them promise to remember him, to tell his story. Boudicca and Pearl... Boudicca's always been a true and stalward friend, and Pearl turned her back on her own to fight alongside them.
    
    "I really am lucky I got to know all of you," he says--his last words to the group before he focuses in on Yuna.
    
    Before he hurries for the rail; before he has to look overlong at her miserable grimace.
    
    Before Yuna leaps for him, *dives* for him, as if she could ground him reality with her touch, only--cruelly--for her to pass right through him.
    
    "Yuna!" he shouts, reflexively, as he twists her way. He doesn't feel it. That's the worst part of all. She passes clean through him, faceplants into the deck, and there isn't so much as a twinge to him. It's a shock even to him--after all, Emeralda had managed to sneak in a hug in the end, hadn't she?
    
    But that was before the dawn had begun to break on his skin.
    
    She does accomplish one thing: he stops for her. He waits for her to collect herself, to pull herself back up onto her feet, even as his image fades steadily, more and more, before everyone's eyes. She doesn't face him--gazes out at the rising sun--and he understands.
    
    Daytime suits him better, but the night and its softness has always been better for Yuna. She's so dignified... so beautiful. And for all that she's always given up so much of herself, she tried so hard for him. Seeing it makes his heart break... but it also makes him fall in love with her all over again, one last time. It's fitting that they part here at the edge of night and day. But he doesn't care about that.
    
    'Thank you,' she tells him.
    
    He steps up behind her...
    
    'I love you,' she adds.
    
    ...and, light as a feather, light as a pyrefly, wraps his arms around her and rests his head on hers. It's a gesture that seems effortless, but contains so much effort--to stay there, to stay on her, to stay *with* her, rather than simply passing through as if it (he (they)) were nothing.
    
    To give her that last embrace that she deserves. Because from now on, this will be her story.
    
    She leaves nothing left unsaid, for they've left too much unsaid up 'til now. Tidus could repeat those words back to her--he means them every inch as much as she does. That 'thank you.' That 'I love you.' He's always been falling in love with her all over again, time and time again, during their travels together. He's always been grateful to her for giving him so much of herself, for letting him so deep into her heart. He could repeat those words back to her, but he wants to give her something new. Just like this world is new. Just like this day is new.
    
    Thank you.
    
    I love you.
    
    "Always," he murmurs back, right next to the beads that hang over her ear.
    
    A heartbeat later, and he moves through her, this time very much purposeful--to let them *be* one for the next heartbeat. Then he sprints into the glittering sun--
    
    He leaps up to the rail, and kicks off into a perfect dive--
    
    And below, past the clouds of pyreflies, the placid surface of the ocean welcomes him home.
    
    Tidus never surfaces again. There are no bubbles that rise in his wake. That's because all the bubbles have popped.
    
    But as Tidus sinks further and further, kicking his way deeper into the depths, it feels like he passes by friends and companions he's known, and more who've paved the way. Past Braska, past even Auron...
    
    Until he reaches his father. Jecht turns to him with a proud grin, one that Tidus shoots right back like a blitzball, and they greet each other with a victorious high-five.

<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed.

                            ~ Final Fantasy X ~

                                 2019-2023

                             Dream Chasers MUSH

                https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwmlmqbMo0Y