Chapter Six
Visions of the Past


I know that you’re hiding things,
Using gentle words to shelter me.
Your words were like a dream,
But dreams could never fool me,
Not that easily.

I acted so distant then,
Didn’t say goodbye before you left
But I was listening
You fight your battles far from me,
Far too easily.

“Save your tears, ‘cause I’ll come back.”
I could hear as you whispered as you walked through that door.
But still I swore,
To hide the pain, when I turned back the pages.
Shouting might have been the answer
What if I cried my eyes out and begged you not to depart?
But now I’m not afraid to say,
What’s in my heart.

‘Cause a Thousand Word,,
Calling out through the ages,
Will fly to you,
Even though I can’t see,
I know they’re reaching you,
Suspended on silver wings

Oh, a Thousand Words,
One thousand embraces,
Will cradle you,
Making all of your weary days
Seem far away
They’ll hold you forever!

Yuna woke with a gasp, her chest heaving as she swallowed air. Beside her, Tidus stirred, muttered in his sleep and turned over and resumed snoring.
Yuna looked around, her eyes scanning every shadow. The air was stuffy in the tent; the cause was the hot air outside and little wind. Yuna looked at Tidus, who seemed determined to stay asleep. With a sigh, she took the light sheet that was a blanket off and got up, her nightclothes moved without rustling. With another look at Tidus, she took a small Garment Grid from the table, the Highroad Winds Garment Grid. The Garment Grid had four, small spheres embedded in it. Yuna silently touched one, and several small lights called pyreflies surrounded her, blocking her from view. Magically, her clothes changed, turning from a simple nightgown into a thin skirt and a small top that clung to her. A staff suddenly appeared from nowhere and she had a tall witch’s hat on her head. A circle of flame appeared around and the pyreflies suddenly disappeared, leaving no sign they had even been there, apart from Yuna’s clothes, nothing had changed.
She sighed deeply. These were clothes she could easily breathe in!
Making no noise, her footsteps light with long practice, Yuna left the tent and silently made her way out of the village of Besaid. As she climbed the hill that separated Besaid Village from the beach, Yuna thought about the strange turn her life had done. Ever since becoming the Grand Summoner when she defeated Sin permanently, everyone had treated her as a kind of god. Add to that, being inhabited by the soul of a Songstress and uniting Spira simply by singing a song, defeating Vegnagun and other such things and people almost worship the place you had walked twenty years ago.
A Dingo fiend suddenly leapt from the bushes to her left. From reflex, Yuna pointed her staff at the small, dog-like fiend and muttered “Thundaga’. Several thin lightning bolts appeared from the sky, circling around the fiend before every single one connected with it at the same time. The Dingo disappeared in a cloud of pyreflies, which streamed off towardsa the sea, towards Luca and Guadosalam.
The river was one of Besaid’s main sources of water and fishing. Yuna had gone swimming in there many times, usually with Wakka around to make sure she didn’t drown. Wakka, being a Blitzball Player could hold his breath for ages. Tidus could hold his breath even longer than that.
Blitzball was a sport that was over 1000 years old. It involved a gigantic sphere that held over a kilolitre of water. The players would swim around in the sphere, knocking around a ‘Blitzball’ and trying to get it into the opposing team’s goal. Blitzball had been Spira’s main source of entertainment until Sin had been defeated.

Reaching the top of the hill that looked upon Besaid Village; Yuna paused and stared at a small shrine, tucked into a small crescent near the edge of the cliff. It was here, five years ago that she had left on her Pilgrimage. The original goal of the pilgrimage had been to obtain the Final Aeon, a creature of incredible power. But that goal had changed as Yuna had started to achieve that goal. In the end, it turned out that the Final Aeon was a weak creature, but one that would end up becoming a new Sin, after it became processed by Yu Yevon, an ancient summoner who had never gone to the Farplane, but had remained in Spira, trying to summon something. A summon that would go on for eternity. And Yu Yevon, the one who had caused all of the sorrow in Spira even had a religion, one that many people followed.

Suddenly Yuna blinked. One area of the shrine was lighting up, an orange symbol appeared. Intrigued, she edged closer to it, before briefly touching.
The thought of Tidus entered her mind in a flash of white light. Blitzball, a sword, his love for his friends and Yuna and his care for all of Spira, a world he had been taken to by his father. Other memories flashed in her mind, ones of when Yuna was on her pilgrimage.

Yuna suddenly wretched her hand away from the orange symbol, staring at it apprehensively. Its centre then hollowed out, to show her what looked like the sphere screens at Luca, the second largest city in Spira and home to the Blitzball Stadium of all of Spira.

Images flashed past, Rikku, Wakka, Kimahri, Lulu, Yuna herself, Tidus and Sir Auron.
To that were added Cid; Yuna’s uncle, Shelinda; a woman who was bound to the culture of Yevon, Rin; an Al Bhed, Belgemine; a Summoner who had died trying to defeat Sin and Seymour Guado. Yuna’s blood ran cold at the sight of Seymour, who had forced her to marry him.

Abruptly, the landscape around Yuna went completely black. Another symbol, black edged with white was just visible against the darkness. As Yuna looked upon it, memories of Seymour forced their way out of her mind. As Yuna started struggling against her own mind, the symbol started to go blacker, its edges whiter. Deeper and deeper went Yuna’s struggles, when a glyph appeared in front of the black one, Seymour’s, she realized.

The new glyph was purple and shone with a purple light. It battled against Seymour’s, when the orange symbol joined it. Together, they drove the black symbol back into the darkness. When it was gone, the orange one disappeared as well. Yuna only had a fleeting impression of her own symbol before natural darkness overtook her.



(I’ve run out of songs for some now. Instead, I’ll be putting quotes)

“……. I choose you!”