24. Anima Sola (1/2)

my dear son.

(nay, lady, i am but a son of spira. yet i would be honored to bear your pain.)

my dear,

ave son. this time of the spiral, we shall not be sundered. do not weep, seymour, for soon all spira shall recognize you for what you truly are...

(...a monster!)

(the memory flashed from isaaru's mind to hers with the unshrouded immediacy of fayth's communion — no smile, no politic speech, no polished gesture to soften the blow — a field of blood-red snow, mangled heaps of ronso warriors tossed like

oken trees in an avalanche's graveyard. the bodies were gutted and limp as if seymour had spirited away their very bones, not just their souls, to fashion ghastly armor. surely, sin was built in this way. there had been precious few to send, and none to heal.)

a banshee scream of pain tore through coherent thought. no, no, no, you must live, you must die, you must be spira's savior! redeem us, avenge us, atone for our sins! all shall love and weep for thee, yevon's true son!

(isaaru felt arms of steel tightening around his neck, chains digging into his throat. burning feathers flared and fell, prickling his skin...)

"mother!" isaaru's eyes snapped open. he found himself weeping.

"er... not exactly, sir." the anguished face whose eyes

immed with blood transmuted into elma's concerned features.

isaaru wiped his eyes, dismayed to see red soaking the cuff as he drew his hand back. the world was red, too, but that was only the dull glow of a solitary kilika sphere, pulsing weakly as if it might give out at any moment. the chamber had darkened considerably. the other spheres must have been damaged by gunfire.

"phew. it was phoenix down." elma

andished a phial. "i always wonder who has to pluck the bird these come from."

"what did you think i used on you?" said a dry voice. "motor oil?"

"sorry, sir. i don't trust anything i found on an al bhed ship."

"a thief talking trust." nooj laughed. "yevon hasn't changed a bit, has it?"

"somewhat." isaaru found the strength to smile, despite the howling wraith in the back of his mind. "you have my thanks, commander."

"don't thank me, sir. thank nooj. he had sense enough to lay low after you revived him." she waved towards the man sitting propped in the doorway, watching them over the rim of his spectacles. "he found my field medicine kit."

"and appropriations," nooj said.

"right." she blushed. "i'll see to the others now, sir."

"please do." isaaru surveyed the bodies scattered around the dark chamber, fallen friends and allies lying in the shadows of guado demons graven in stone. "i pray to yevon we're in time." he crawled to the nearest victim, shinra, whose shallow, rasping

eaths sounded like sandpaper through his respirator.

"take good care of him," nooj said. "kid's a genius...except in choosing his friends."

"so says a friend who saved us all," isaaru said, removing the young man's mask with care. apart from pale skin the color of shell, hair white as snow to match, there was no obvious impairment to explain his head-to-toe garb. thrusting curiosity aside, isaaru placed his hands over shinra's forehead and heart, invoking yevon's blessing for one who stood outside its spiral.

elma and isaaru executed triage in tandem, fighter's and priest's paths converging in the aftermath of slaughter. the crusader dispensed phoenix down, while the summoner attended to burns that the restorative left half-healed. the murmur of summoner's prayers and the faint crackle of sparks were soon masked by expletives and staccato conversation.

"th' hell? isaaru, are you all right?"

"vilgehk cred fedr y puucdan bylg... aaaah. thanks, yevon-babe. hey! just a dang second! you swiped that from my cargo hold, didn't you?"

"kad yfyo vnus sa!"

"er, yeah. sorry i hit you earlier...whoa! no punching the medic."

"this is bad, nooj. servos fused. i'll have to replace the whole joint."

"just splint it, kid. give me a pin to stand on. save the engineering miracles for later."

elma saved auron and rikku for last, enlisting maroda and gippal to help her roll him off the woman. elma pressed a phial into auron's hand as he stirred.

"all clear, sir. wanna help your friend?"

auron grunted and sat up, popping the cap and shaking out wispy feathers in an economical gesture that spoke of too many years of practice. glowing filaments rained down on rikku's face, flared

ightly and winked out. after a few seconds, she gasped and rolled over, biting his knee through his pants to keep from whimpering. her arms wrapped around her stomach.

auron handled her gently, coaxing her to uncurl. he held her while isaaru tended reddened skin.

"rikku," auron said. "your father wasn't in control of his actions."

"gee, ya think?" she said. "ow ow ow i think there's something i hate more than lightning."

"i hear ya, rikku," gippal said, rubbing his shoulder. "yo, shinra, wasn't that energy blaster one of your inventions?"

"don't look at me. i'm just a kid."

a curaga or two later, rikku scrambled to her feet using auron's coat as a ladder. "well, that sucked. did anyone see which way pops went?"

"no," nooj said, "but i heard an airship's engines fire fifteen minutes ago. it sounded like the fahrenheit."

rikku pressed a fist to her forehead in a gesture reminiscent of lulu. "oh, great. well, um... eh... heh. gippal, you goin' anywhere? we could use a ride. like, pronto!"

"oh, sure," gippal said. "so we can get blown out of the sky? remember, cid's got the big guns."

"but we can't just let him get away!"

"we can't go after him." maroda spread his hands as several pairs of green eyes turned towards him. "rikku, look. i know you're worried about your dad. i'd be worried sick. but there's thousands of other lives at stake. if we don't get to bevelle before sin gets there—"

"we follow cid," auron said.

maroda was not the only one who gaped. "you've got to be kidding."

auron stooped in the doorway, raising nooj onto his good leg with a scrape of metal on stone. "family comes first. let's go."

"awww," rikku gave a little hop and tagged after him. "so youcan teach an old yevonite new tricks."

"i've got an ugly feeling about this," gippal said, following her.

"damn him," maroda said, picking up his spear. "i swear, sooner or later, i'm going to take this and just—"