A/n: third times a charm.

Chapter 1

Alone I stay, waiting for you. I just watched when I should've stopped you. That was my sin. My punishment is being here.

A loud explosion cleared the ear of many bystanders. Various bodies were scattered across the sandy shore line. Tidus lifted his head out of the rubble and looked around. He rose to his feet and navigated through the still steaming demolished parts of different machina that were resting in the sand. He saw someone huddled next to a rock in the side of the cliff.

"What's going on?" Gatta said. Tidus looked at him and recalled the previous events that had lead up to then. A great monster in the sea… sin. Sin toxins must have gotten inside of Gatta's head, confusing him.

Tidus balled his fists at his side, head arced downward in anger. "Don't you run away from me!" He called out as he ran for the water. Without thinking, he dove into the ocean and started swimming after sin.

"Everyone stand back! I'll summon." The soft spoken female, Yuna shouted.

"You won't hurt it!" A large blue haired man standing behind him said. "You're powers are still too weak."

"But I… must do something!" She pleaded. The blue haired man shook his head to deny her statement.

"You can't!" He repeated once more as Yuna raise her staff in the air to start summoning her aeon. She sighed but lowered her staff, she knew he was right. She couldn't defeat sin just yet.

Tidus same back to shore. It was stupid to go after sin like that, he thought. He sat quietly on the shore, lost in his world of thoughts. Behind him. The others. Wakka, Auron, Lulu, Kimahri, Maester Seymour, Maester Kinoc, and the few remaining Al Bhed and Crusaders left watched Yuna perform the sending of those who had died in battle that day. She shed no tear this time. Wakka bowed in respect for the dead. It was when he stood up that he noticed something that hadn't been there before Operation Mi'hen had commenced.

"Where did that come from eh?" Wakka pointed to the large opening that had appeared in the cliff. Everyone turned to see what the red haired man was talking about.

"Let's check it out." Tidus got up and wiped the sand off himself.

"It looks like… some sort of home ya?" Wakka said as him and Tidus got closer to the gap in the cliff. Sure enough, a large building was lying inside. The window panes were all broken and that wood and brick the house was made of had long since started to decay. The two men wandered inside the house, weary of the fact the any minute it could collapse on them. The 2 staircases leading upstairs had been shattered into thousands of pieces.

"This place looks so old…" Tidus said as he stepped over a broken door that lead to a staircase going down.

"Be careful." Lulu said. Both men turned around to face the black haired woman and found that Yuna, Auron, and Kimahri were also standing there. Tidus carefully made his way down the stairs, followed by Wakka.

"These stairs are fine-," Wakka let out a gasp of shock as he fell through the third step from the bottom. The other went down to the basement of the manor also, avoiding the third step from the bottom.

"Look at this…" Yuna pointed out some large tubs in the room that were big enough to fit some one inside. Tidus entered one room that was completely trashed. There were books everywhere that were either torn up or had been thrown at something. Broken test tubes, research tools, filing cabinets, etc. were scattered all across the ground. There was a thick layer of dust on everything and millions of cobwebs all over the place. Then, Tidus saw something on one of the walls.

Hey!" He said so that the others would come take a look at what he'd seen.

"Das freaky ya!" Wakka exclaimed when he looked at what Tidus was pointing at.

The wall had been slashed with a massive claw. It had gone right through to the other side of the wall.

"What is all this?" Lulu asked.

"It looks like a laboratory." Auron interjected.

Kimahri went through another door which led to a vast room with grey, cobble stone walls. The entire floor was covered with odd shaped trunks that had cross symbols on them. Lulu, Wakka, Tidus and Auron entered the room also.

"Coffins?" Wakka Scratched his head. There was one lying on a large concrete slab in the far right corner of the room. It seemed to stick out so Tidus went to go peak inside.

Tidus approached the large wooden both and opened the lid to check out what was inside. "Gahhh!!!" He shrieked and dropped the lid of the coffin. Tidus quickly backed away from it.

"Something in the right?" Wakka trotted over to see what all the commotion was about. He opened the lid slowly and was quickly taken aback. They both stared into the coffin. A man lay inside, the lower hair of his face hidden by the large collar of his blood red cloak he was wearing. A matching bandana covered the his forehead that also seem to keep his wild, lengthily raven hair in place. His skin a was a ghostly white, as if it had never seen the light of day. His paleness seemed even bolder because of the black leather cloths he was wearing underneath that were covered in buckles. Lulu and Auron now stood behind Tidus and Wakka while Kimahri remained at the door watching Yuna in his peripherals who was still looking around the room they had first entered.

"Hey, you alive?" Wakka poked the man.

"Wakka!" Lulu snarled.

The body's eyelids flipped open to reveal a pair of deep crimson eyes.

The man eyes slowly drifted throughout the room while he remained motionless. Then the man quickly grabbed the lid of the coffin and closed it. Tidus had a confused expression on his face.

"Hey, you in there. Who are you?" Auron shouted at the coffin. There was no response to Auron.

"HEY!" Tidus kicked the coffin.

A gloved hand slide the door of the coffin back against the wall. The man's face was hostile as he climbed out of the coffin. His shiny metal boots clanked against the cold, hard floor.

"I found a whole bunch of spheres," Yuna walked into the room with a crate carrying about 10 of them. In a split second the man with the red cloak was standing in front of Yuna. Yuna was staring down a triple barreled gun, frozen in surprise.

"Yuna!" Tidus yelled as he dashed to her side. Kimahri thrashed his spear at the mysterious man. The man quickly dodged it by stepping to his right. Wakka, grabbed his blitzball and launched it at the dark haired figure. The man ducked, the ball hit the wall, and reverberated back and hit Wakka in the head.

"Wait!" Yuna dropped the crate and threw her arms in the air. The man lowered his gun, however the rest of the group remained on balls of their feet, ready to strike if need be. "Are these yours?" She handed him the crate, not breaking eye contact. "I'm sorry, I didn't know." She bowed her head. The man took the crate, without any hesitation. The man relaxed and put his gun back in his holster that was situated just below his right knee.

Why can I hear your thoughts? Who are you people?

"I don't know…" Yuna frowned. "Oh, I am Summoner Yuna and these are my guardians."

Summoner…? Where is this place?

"We were on our way to the Temple of Djose to pray to the Fayth when… well, we came into a run in with Sin. We found this building inside of an opening in the side of a cliff," Yuna said.

Djose…? Fayth…? Sin…?

"Come with us," Yuna smiled. "We'll take you to Djose when you can find some one you know."

"What?!" Lulu and Wakka gasped at the same time.

"Are you kidding Yuna?! He just pointed a forbidden Machina at your head!" Tidus yelled.

"He can hear my thoughts…" Yuna said. "We should help him." She turned and left the room.

"Keep moving." Auron said as he started walking away. "We need to continue the pilgrimage."

Auron, Kimahri, Lulu, and Wakka all left the room and headed up the stairs. Tidus stayed behind to talk to Vincent.

"Who are you? You pointed a weapon a summoner? Who do you think you are?" He folded his arms over his chest.

The black haired man stumbled back clutching his chest.

"Hey man, you're not from around here are you?" Tidus helped him stand up straight again.

"My name is Vincent Valentine." He said.

"Where do you come from?" Tidus asked.

"This used to be called Neibelheim…" He looked around.

"Let's talk more along the way to Djose." Tidus insisted. Vincent nodded and followed the young blond man out of the mansion.

I let the one I loved…

The one I respected most…
face the worst…

That was my sin. It appears… that some of my feelings vanished into thin air in my long slumber. Things fade with time, as do many things in this world… but, there are some things that we cannot let disappear.

However, my feelings towards you will never fade away.

Although the moments we spent together were brief, they are meant to be cherished, not forgotten.

The other waited outside for Tidus and their newest companion to rejoin with them. Vincent, still holding the crate of various glowing orbs swiftly walked up to them with Tidus standing at his side.

"Hey! How much longer till Zanarkand?" Tidus cheered.

"Still a ways right?" Wakka said, sounding more in the form of a question then a reply.

"First down the Moonflow, to the Guado city Guadosalam, then we cross the Thunder plains to the Temple of Macalania," Lulu said.

"Oh boy…" Tidus groaned.

"And before that, we get to pray in the temple in Djose!" Yuna laughed as she began to walk ahead. The others walked on after Yuna while again, Tidus and Vincent were at the back walking slowly to stay out of ear shot from the rest of the group.

"So you were asleep in that coffin? For how long." Tidus questioned.

"Hard to say…" Vincent replied in a deep voice. "I was asleep, after all."

"Ah, right. I think I know what you're going through. I woke up in a different time also. One day I was playing Blitzball for the Zanarkand Abes and then boom!" Tidus threw his arms up as if to reenact the boom part of his sentence. "I woke up a thousand years later in this place, Spira. I guess you don't know anything about this place, huh?"

"Not a clue." Vincent said. "But I can hear the summoners thoughts, that's helpful… to an extent."

"Huh? You can really hear her thought?!" Tidus asked.

Vincent Nodded. Along the long road to the Temple, Tidus explained as best as he could to Vincent about Spira, even though he himself knew very little. He explained a bit about Sin. Vincent didn't say anything while Tidus was talking.

As they walked across a bridge, they found themselves at the bottom of a large cliff.

"Is that the Djose Temple?" Tidus asked. An electric shock burst from the cliff and the rocks at the base of it burst apart to reveal the entrance to the temple. "Aw-some!" Tidus gaped.

"The Lightning Mushroom Rock. It only open when a summoner is addressing the fayth." Lulu told Tidus.

"That means another Summoner's already in there, ya." Wakka piped up and joined the conversation.

"Another Summoner?" Yuna asked, more to herself then anyone else.

"What if it's Dona?" Tidus voiced his disgust.

"We have to hurry…" Yuna said turning towards the temple entrance once again.

I'll wait outside.

Yuna looked over her shoulder at Vincent and nodded. Yuna and Her guardians entered to the Temple while Vincent remained in place. Vincent looked around for a spot to rest. He found a spot near a tree where he sat down and examined the contents of his crate.

"Sphere…?" He picked up a yellow orb with his gloved hand. He hand used his other hand at all yet, thought he might scare people with his claw. He looked closely at the orb and sawn a miniature thunder storm inside of it. Lightning thrashed around in the small ball. Vincent Pulled up his gun and melded it with the orb. He did the same with another orb that had flames wildly burning inside of them, and an orb that looked like a snow globe without a stand that had winter wonderland inside of it. He put his gun and in its holster and sifted through the rest of the orbs.

"Quake…" He mumbled to himself as he inserted a yellow-ish brown orb into a slot on his gauntlet. "Jump…" He took two of similar colored orbs and put them in sockets on his metal boots. "Curaga…" He took an emerald green orb and placed it into his gauntlet also. There were two more orbs left in the crate. A baby blue orb and a large teal colored orb that was 3 times as big as any of the other orbs. He picked up the large teal one and looked at it angrily. "Lucrecia…why…?" He spoke quietly to the orb. After a few moment of contemplating in silence, he tightened his grip on the orb and pushed it deep into his chest. He gasped for air and fell backwards, laying his back on the grass.

Is it true? That Lucr -ehm, Dr. Crescent is to take part in this project?" Vincent asked Professor Hojo.

"It's true." Lucrecia walked into the room where the two of them were.

"But…" Vincent tried to speak.

"If you have something to say, then spit it out boy!" Hojo snarled from his seat at the end of the table.

"But using your own child? As an experiment?!" Vincent asked.

"We are both very capable scientists. And it's the least of your business!" Hojo said.

"Are you sure…this is what you want?" Vincent asked Lucrecia.

"Am I sure?! Am I sure?! If this only concerns me then yes I'm sure!" She yelled at Vincent, choking back her tears she turned away as if disgusted by the sight of him.

Vincent looked down at his feet.