Anzi didn’t like what was going on. Jyscal refused to tell her what was going on. He told her she wasn’t allowed in the main rooms.
She didn’t tell let him know, but she felt a chill go down her spine. Jyscal had strengthened his militia, and put the leader of the Al Behd in charge of strengthening it more.
Something was going to happen. Anzi tried to get something out of Seymour, but he had no idea what his father had been doing since he had allowed a marriage in place of an execution. He reminded her he wasn’t even told of the assassins until one set the palace on fire.
Jyscal was up to something and Yuna and Seymour were clueless. That meant they were in danger.
There were guards keeping her out of the rooms. So she pretended to comply. She took a large kitchen knife with her wherever she went, looking for a way to sneak out and meet Seymour. It wasn’t much of a replacement for the last knife she gave him, but it was better than risking him getting separated from Yuna, which Jyscal would certainly do.
She was in the laundry room when she heard footsteps coming closer. At first she thought it was Jyscal. Perhaps she was too late. They were coming closer…closer. Jyscal would have said something by now… unless…
Whoever they were, they were a threat.
She spun around, swiping with her blade at the person before caring who they were.
They made no noise at the attack, but she would feel she hit something.
She gasped and almost dropped the knife. She couldn’t believe who it was. She wouldn’t believe what had happened, how she looked, that she had come back.
"Jyrrin?"
"Anzi…" Jyrrin said, pleading for something. She reached out to Anzi.
Anzi lifted the knife to Jyrrin’s face, but she kept leaning closer. She pressed her lips against the blade, kissing it. Blood welled up on the wound, but didn’t flow. She was dead.
Anzi had prayed she had been deceived by her senses, but that wasn’t the case.
"Come with me…"
"What happened to you?" Anzi asked.
"It hurts… It hurts and I’m dead. Come with me so I can rest. So we can both rest. Come with me…"
"Jyrrin," Anzi repeated. It was all she could say.
Jyrrin reached for her again, petting her hair.
"It hurts to touch… hair’s dead… like me… it’s still so beautiful Anzi… please… I did this for you…"
Anzi looked down, at Jyrrin’s enlarged abdomen.
"…For you, Anzi… I saved the world. Come with me… We’ll be together… just us…and I can rest, and you can rest, and we’ll be together in love."
"Where?" Anzi asked.
"To Zanarakand," Jyrrin answered. "We’ll make it Holy again, you’ll see. I did it all for you, don’t refuse me…I love you. You know that."
"I’ll go with you," Anzi said, slipping the knife in her pocket. One way or another, she’d follow her lover, and make sure she would be put to rest from her pain… one way or another.
And so she left, no thoughts to tell anyone in any way. She complied, no knowing in the slightest about the dead guards that had gotten in Jyrrin’s way, of the kitchen, silently destroyed in a fit of rage when she could not find her lover, of the thing changing or the power held within Jyrrin’s dead body.
……………………………………………………………………………………………
"Just in time," Buddy said, as Yuna arrived on the bridge.
"We found it," Shinra informed her.
"We gonna kick some not-gonna-be-Sin-butt!" Brother exclaimed.
"You’re not going," Buddy said.
"It’s a trap," Paine said.
"So we’re just gonna leave Anzi there?"
"Anzi?" Brother asked. "I am now going!"
"What’s a trap?" Yuna asked, startled by how quickly she was ignored. She expected it from Shinra, whom she was surprised hadn’t glued himself to the seat in front of the computer.
"We found her," Shinra said. "Just as we came back from Beseid, we got some waves from an old commsphere of mine. Someone stepped on it, so all we got was audio. Anzi’s definitely there. And she said Jyrrin’s name."
"Too easy," Paine said.
"I agree," Shinra said, crawling ont the back of his chair.
"I’d have thought she’d have gotten a bit farther in all this time."
"Daddy had the towers shut down," Rikku said. "And he was already trying for a barricade at both ends of the city."
"That one… didn’t really go over well. She got through," Shinra said, letting o of the chair and slumping back into his seat.
"And Anzi got injured," Buddy said. "They were talking about her being wounded on the sphere."
"Anzi hurt?" Brother asked. "I’m gonna go get her!"
"No you’re not!" Rikku yelled back at him.
"They wandered into some bad weather," Shinra said. "And that’s bad weather for the Thunder Plains. They said they planned to hide in the cave."
"And it’s not a hoax, we contacted the hotel, they haven’t seen ‘em go by," Buddy said.
"And they didn’t set off the waves from the Macalania commsphere," Shinra said.
"Trap trappity trap trap," Paine said, not quite in a singsong voice, but the closest she’d put effort into doing.
"Well, duh," Rikku said.
"So?" Brother asked. "We know it’s a trap so we gonna be fine."
"What’s this ‘we’ business?" Buddy asked.
"He’s right though," Yuna said. "We know it’s a trap, we’ll be prepared. Besides, if we wait ‘em out, she might get mad and kill Anzi, or someone in the hotel."
"Or just destroy the place and a bit of the landscape," Paine added. "I don’t like it. For a trap, it seems pretty stupid."
"Well, it’s the first time Sin ever set a trap, it never was very smart," Yuna said. "Besides, it was a trap with that lizard and we killed that."
"This isn’t just a lizard," Paine said. "And it has a hostage."
"Why does Sin need a hostage?" Rikku spoke up.
No one said anything. Brother shrugged. An Al Behd crew wasn’t the best group of people to ask about Sin, Yuna realized.
"I don’t think we really have a choice, Paine," Yuna said. "The more we stand here talking about it, the sooner that storm’ll pass and the more time we’re gonna waste. She already took out all the guards at the palace and the barricade."
"I guess it’ll keep at least one casualty from happening," Paine said, looking at Brother.
"What?"
…………………………………………………………………………………
Cid may have taken over, but Jyscal was never one to let anything get in his way. He didn’t even let dying get in his way and he had managed to get a rather nasty revenge on his son despite it.
Since Cid was using everyone he could get his hands to try them at a weapon, the jail was empty, save for it’s single occupant.
"Bored enough?" Jyscal asked.
"I am going to fucking kill you!" Maln yelled.
"Now, now, that’s not very nice," Jyscal said.
"Fuck off!" the juvenile said, not bothering to move off the bunk or turn from the ceiling.
"Is that all you ever say?" Jyscal asked.
"Up yours."
"Well, at least you have a bit of variety," Jyscal said. "You still angry at Al Behds?"
"Damn straight I fucking am!"
"Three expletives, one adjective, and a short verb. A simple ‘yes’ would have sufficed," Jyscal said. "Unfortunately, I’m not in charge, so ‘I can’t really pay you anything and I can’t supply you with weapons. You see, the farplane’s in danger, and so is a friend of mine."
"Not my fucking farplane, not my fucking friend."
"No, I wouldn’t think you had those," Jyscal said. "Pity I can’t do anything… such as tell you where that half-breed Al Behd woman and all her blonde friends are and how to get there…"
"You want it not to blow the fuck up any where around here?"
"Well, I was thinking that if you see a rather dead woman with bright pink hair, she’s target practice… or cannon fodder… expendable, whichever. The woman with purple hair that’s with her… bring her back alive and with all her limbs, please."
"And I can kill all the Al Behd cock suckers I want if I do, right?"
"Oh, I couldn’t possibly let you do that," Jyscal said, producing a key from his pocket. "I’m not in charge of Guadosalam… that mean old bastard Cid the Al Behd took over and I’m in no position to do anything anymore." He tossed the key into the cell.
Maln caught it, grinning form pointed ear to pointed ear.
"Now how did that happen?" Jyscal mocked.
"Fucking accident… you don’t give a shit about anyone else, do you?"
"Well, myself of course."
"Of fucking course."
………………………………………………………………………………
"Anzi…" Jyrrin whispered. "Forgive me, Anzi… please…"
Anzi didn’t answer. She was asleep, resting from a slight wound she’d earned as they’d broken through Cid’s attempt to stop Jyrrin. There were survivors. None of them seemed concerned that a civilian had been injured and Anzi had fallen asleep wondering if she were the only one of the two worried about it.
"They want me dead… stupid, stupid people… they want to take you away from me… I won’t let them hurt you… forgive me for drawing more blood…"
Jyrrin reached for her lover's face, to caress the lines on her face as she slept, forever a lover, forever a protector—she drew back and Anzi woke up, yelping in pain.
The touch of the two lovers burned.
Jyrrin held her injured finger and Anzi rubbed her face as she sat up.
"Are you well?" Jyrrin asked.
"I’m better."
"We’ll go slower. Zanarkand is waiting… always waiting… it’ll be there for us. We’ll stay here. It is our turn to wait, first."
"Wait for what?"
"Someone will come for us…"
"Who will?"
"I don’t know. I haven’t seen enough… but I’ve seen it. They’ll send someone for us. And then I make them leave."
"How?"
"You’ll see…"
"Who will come?"
"Wait and see Anzi… wait and see… I already have… and yet, I’ve seen too much. We’ll see."