Neo-Genesis

(Prequel to "Spira's Dream" and "Spira's Sphere")

by M'jai

Written 9/2005

Revised 16 July 2010

Revised 31 January 2020

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This is the third story in my series of fanfictions from the Final Fantasy X/X-2 games. It is the prequel to Spira's Dream and Spira's Sphere; it would be best to read those stories first. This story is heavily dependent on the concepts originally presented in both of those. This story is primarily about Shuyin, but Tidus comes into play later because the tale is ultimately about how Tidus came to exist. Since it breaks away from the current timeline, I've tried to write this story so that it is not necessary, although it is helpful for reading book four in the series (which picks up the current timeline again).

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Disclaimer:

The setting, characters, and inspiration for the plot all belong to Square Enix. Fans of the FFX and FFX-2 games will recognize which content is not mine. I do not even pretend to take credit for it. My appreciation goes out to Square Enix and their wonderful game designers for giving us such memorable, entertaining games.

This story is my imaginative take on what could have happened before the events in the games. Any resemblance between my fan-fic and others is unintentional. We are all playing the same game, after all, so it's pretty easy to draw some similar theories out of it.

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"... Snakes and snails and puppy dog tails. That's what little boys are made of." - Old English nursery rhyme.

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Chapter 1: Born to Blitz

Though he was far from excited to be there, four-year-old Shuyin followed his father toward the indoor pool for his first day of swimming lessons. Shuyin grew up on a houseboat in the city of Zanarkand, which sprawled along the shore and into the sea. The bronze-skinned, blond-haired little boy frequently visited the beach with his parents. And his father, a sports legend in the underwater game of blitzball, had the boy playing in the tides before he could even walk. But something happened last summer that changed his opinion about water and made him shy away from it ever since. Needless to say, this was an embarrassment to the blitzball champion.

Jecht resolved to remedy his son's fear, but the more he pushed, the more the boy protested. Finally, when Shuyin ran crying to his mother, Dannae insisted that someone with more patience teach the boy how to swim. So, here they were at the local recreation center, ready to begin - or at least Jecht was ready. Little Shuyin still wanted to run the other way.

"Oh my!" The instructor beamed as Jecht strolled down the poolside toward her. "Wow, it really is you! I thought someone had made a mistake when I saw your name on my registration list. It's such a pleasure to meet you! My husband and sons are big fans of the Abes. They'll just die when I tell them your son's in my swim class," she swore, laughing with embarrassment.

Jecht grinned. "Always nice to meet an Abes fan."

"And you must be Jecht, Jr." The swim instructor joked as she crouched and held out a hand to the little boy hiding behind his father's knees. The boy didn't respond until his dad thumped the back of his head to prompt him out of his shyness. When he slipped his small hand into hers, she shook it. "Are you wanting to swim so you can play blitzball like your daddy?"

"No," the boy answered honestly in a quiet voice.

Jecht's grin turned into a strained smile, but he kept his composure. "Last summer at the beach, he was trying one of my trick shots when a wave pulled him under. He won't go anywhere near the water now. I tend to have a sink or swim philosophy, so the wife insists he might respond better to someone else's way of doing things."

The instructor nodded in understanding and looked to Shuyin. "Well, have a seat on the side of the pool with the other kids, and I'll be there in a few minutes."

Jecht bent hands-to-knees, eye-level with his son. "Do what she says, and no crying. I mean it. You're the king of the tidal waves, remember? King Tidus! Compared to tides, pools are easy. I'll be sitting over there." Taking the boy's towel, he gave the boy's back a light push and slapped his backside to send him on his way. Then he headed to the benches near the wall where the other parents were seated.

With his head hung low, Shuyin walked to the end of the line of children sitting along the poolside. All of the other children paused at splashing their feet in the water to stare at him as he sat down next to a girl about a head taller. He dipped his feet into the pool, too, but then lifted them back out and watched the water bead and run down his ankles. He really didn't want to do this. And it made matters worse that this girl was still staring at him.

"What's your name?" she asked.

"Shuyin."

"Mine's Kaila. How old are you?"

"Four."

"Me, too. So is my brother. We're twins. That means we were born at the same time." She pointed down the line to her brother that was talking to some of the other boys. The fraternal twins both had dark brown hair and eyes of hazel flecked with green and gold specks, making them look almost identical. "Are you scared?"

He frowned at her assumption. "No."

"You look scared."

"I'm not scared." He puffed out his ribs and folded his arms over his chest, then turned away. But his defiance only made the girl giggle.

The instructor slipped into the pool from the edge and stood before her young swimmers. "Hello," she greeted everyone with a friendly smile. "My name is Miss Naori, and the first thing I want to talk to you about is how to safely enter the pool." She began her instruction by laying down rules about not running or jumping. Next, she helped each child enter the water and hold onto the non-slip rail along the side, just below the surface. But when she came to Shuyin, he backed away and drew his knees to his chest. "It's okay," she assured him. "I'll hold onto you, and you can hold onto the rail."

The boy shook his shaggy mop of hair in protest.

"You won't have any fun sitting on the sidelines."

Shuyin stood to walk away, but Jecht had already left the benches to intercept. "Get back over there."

"I don't want to."

"Well, you're gonna." Turning the boy's shoulders, Jecht pushed him back toward the pool.

Over his shoulder, Shuyin gave his father a pleading look. "Please, can't I just go home?"

Disgusted, Jecht picked him up and set him back down on the pool's edge. Miss Naori reached to help the boy into the water, but he wrapped his arms around his father's leg.

"No! I don't want to!" Shuyin tried not to cry, but tears started to form in spite of his effort.

"Let go of me and get in the water," Jecht ordered through gritted teeth, trying to keep his waning patience in check.

The boy didn't care that his behavior was humiliating his father. He just knew he didn't want any more water up his nose or down his throat. "But, my leg hurts!"

"Your ass is going to hurt too if you don't do as I say." Jecht pried Shuyin's arms away and picked him up again to make him face the instructor.

Shuyin turned to run, but he was snatched up by his strong father and deposited back at the pool's edge. "Get in the damn water!"

"It's ... okay." Naori tried to keep the situation calm. "If it scares him that much, he can sit and watch this time."

"If he whines his way out of it once, next time it will be worse. He's got to learn how to face his fears." Jecht crouched and roughly turned the boy's shoulders around to face him. "You live on a houseboat, for crying out loud. What if you fall off the pier or deck when your mom and I aren't around? You have to learn how to swim whether you like it or not."

Through his tears, Shuyin could see Kaila laughing at him. That made him even more desperate to go home. He started to tug, hit, and kick to escape his father's grip on him. He hated Jecht at that moment. He hated him with all his little heart.

Jecht looked to the instructor with disgust. "Looks like we're going to have to do this the hard-headed way. Ready?"

Naori stretched her arms out as Jecht lifted the squirming boy and gave him a toss.

Shuyin started to cry out, but water filled his mouth and nose, choking any further protest. It was only a second before the instructor lifted his head and shoulders above water and wrapped his shivering, rigid body securely in her arms, but the trauma of that second lasted for several minutes as he coughed and gasped for air. Blinking chlorinated water from his bright blue eyes, he coughed violently and clung to her neck with white-knuckled strength. Now all the children were laughing at him.

"I've got you. You're okay. What was it your dad called you? King Tidus? My, that's a courageous name. It sounds like the name of an ocean god, doesn't it? Tidus, I promise I won't let go of you, okay? But if you let go of me, you'll go under again. So, hold onto me nicely until I can show you how to blow bubbles under the water, okay?"

Shuyin continued to cry in anger and humiliation as Miss Naori's attention shifted to instructing the other children. When it came time for him to stick his face in the water, however, she had another struggle on her hands. Eventually, she gave up trying to accomplish anything else with him that day. Getting him into the water had been enough of a challenge for both of them.

Jecht struggled to remain on the sidelines during instruction, but even from the pool, Shuyin could see the anger written all over his father's face. He knew what that scowl meant for the ride home.

By the end of the class, the boy was worn out from the ordeal, and Miss Naori carried him out of the pool to set him down at his father's feet. She remained calm, but Shuyin could tell she was upset with him too.

"I agree with you that he does need to be in the water, even if we can't get him to do anything else, but I can't hold him like that in future classes. If he refuses to hold onto the rail next time, you'll have to get in the pool and hold him so I can work with the other kids."

"Go get your towel," Jecht gruffly told his son and turned to speak some more with the instructor.

The boy gladly left to grab his towel and wrapped the bulky, warm thing around his shivering shoulders. His eyes, nose, and mouth all burned with chemicals now.

Kaila tapped his shoulder and held out two treats. "Want a piece of candy? You can have butterscotch or strawberry."

Shuyin sniffled and rubbed his runny nose with his fist, but who was he to turn down candy? "Strawberry?"

She deposited the red-wrapped treat into his prune-wrinkled palm. "You were really funny today. When I'm scared like that, my mommy always gives me a kiss." She leaned forward and kissed his cheek, startling him into wide-eyed disbelief. Giggling at his reaction, she then patted his head as if he were a puppy.

"But I wanted the strawberry one," her brother complained as she gave him the butterscotch instead. "Hey, are you going to cry like that again tomorrow?" the other boy asked Shuyin. "Because you were really noisy. Mama says I'm noisy, but that was really, really noisy!" He rolled his eyes dramatically.

Shuyin's brows knit together in determination. "I'm not coming back."

"But then you won't learn how to swim." The brown-haired boy struggled with his candy wrapper, but eventually freed the piece and popped it into his mouth. "I want to learn how to swim so I can play blitzball."

This again. Shuyin scowled at his cold toes. "My dad's a blitzball player."

"He is? What team is he on?"

"Abes." Shuyin unwrapped his piece of candy and ate it, taking care to lick his fingers where some of the powdered sugar rubbed off on them.

"I went to some of their games. My name is Koji. What's yours?"

"Let's go, King Tidus," Jecht sardonically ordered his son as he passed, anxious to leave.

Koji's nose scrunched up. "King Tidus?"

"Sometimes, my dad calls me Tidus. But my name is Shuyin," the boy firmly corrected, balancing for a moment on one prune-wrinkled foot to inspect the bottom of the other.

"Oh. Okay. See you tomorrow, Shuyin." Koji waved. His sister, Kaila, waved beside him.

"Shu! Some time today would be nice," Jecht called from the door.

"I gotta go." Shuyin ran on his toes across the rough tile to where his dad was waiting.

"What's in your mouth?" Jecht held the door open.

"Candy. Kaila gave it to me."

"You've got to be kidding. You don't deserve candy after that pathetic performance."

Shuyin stopped and turned to wave at his new friends before following his father outside. He decided he would give this swim thing another try. He wanted to see Koji and Kaila again.

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Word spread that Jecht's son was taking swim lessons, but to blitzball fans, he might as well have started the boy's spring training for the major leagues. Each time Shuyin passed a new level, people praised him for taking to water like a little eel. People expected great things from him, especially his father. After all, he was the son of a blitzball champion. The only person who didn't seem to care whether he passed or failed his swim tests was Koji.

As their skills grew, the boys began challenging one another to breath-holding contests. Within a year, both joined the local mini-league team, the Zanarkand Sea Stars.

One weekend, Jecht invited Koji's family to join theirs for a deep-sea fishing trip. After Dannae and the twins' mother rubbed all three children from head to toe in sunscreen, Jecht and Koji's father showed the kids how to bait their hooks, then sat on the deck supervising their lines, drinking beer, and discussing blitzball while they waited for some fish to bite.

Shuyin tired easily waiting, so he propped his little fishing rod and returned to one of the bait buckets. Squatting to study the bait, he pinched one of the longest worms and took it to Koji. "Look how big this one is. And it has no eyes or anything."

Equally bored, Koji propped his rod the way Shuyin had and stood to inspect the worm. "Let me hold it."

Shuyin dropped the wriggling creature into his friend's cupped hands.

"Uwa! It tickles! Aaah!" Koji laughed and swung around, opening his hands to drop the thing wherever it happened to fall. Wherever just happened to be on his sister's shoulder.

Kaila screamed and scrambled away from the worm, letting go of her fishing rod and losing it over the side of the boat as she ran to her mother. Koji rubbed his palms on his shorts to get rid of the tickly sensation, while Shuyin cracked up in a fit of giggles.

"What the ..." Jecht and Koji's father looked over their shoulders at the frightened girl and the laughing boys.

"Shuyin and Koji threw worms at me!" Kaila wailed.

The two men glared at the boys.

"It was just one," Shuyin corrected, still giggling. "And it was an accident."

The two men exchanged glances of doubt.

"You did it on purpose!" Kaila countered.

"Did not!" Koji argued.

Koji's mother stood from her deck chair, gave her boy a scolding glance, and transferred his fishing rod into his sister's hands. "Well, you can just claim whatever fish he was going to catch."

Kaila stuck her tongue out at her brother and happily took his fishing spot and rod.

"I said I didn't do it on purpose!" But the battle was lost before it barely started, so Koji made a face at his sister, then turned around in a huff to face Shuyin.

Shuyin, still giggling, picked up the worm that had caused the stir and took it back to the bait bucket. "You can help me catch my fish, Koji." Shuyin's curiosity moved him to another bucket, where he untied the rope and pulled up the lid. "Ugh!"

Koji drew near to see what else Shuyin discovered. "Crabs! Look at those pinchers. I wouldn't want to be pinched by one of those."

"My dad said they pinch off fingers and toes," Shuyin told him as he put the lid back down. "One time, when we were at the beach, this big blue crab came out of the sand and almost bit me right here." Shuyin pointed to his foot.

"You've got a bite, boy!" Jecht interrupted the adventurous tale. "Come reel it in!"

Excited, Shuyin ran to his dad's side and grabbed the rod. He started to wind it in quickly when Jecht stopped him.

"No, no, no. Not like that." He demonstrated a better way to pull the fish up without losing it, then passed the rod back to his son.

"You said I could help," Koji reminded him of his promise.

Shuyin reluctantly passed his fishing rod to his friend.

"Pull easy. Keep it tight." Jecht helped Koji reel it closer.

"My turn! My turn!" Shuyin reached for his pole, unable to let his friend have all the fun.

"Musical fishing poles," Jecht commented with a chuckle to Koji's dad behind him as he shifted the rod into Shuyin's hands. When the fish came to the surface, Jecht raised the boy's arms until they were way over his head and leaned over the rail to grab the line before their catch could wiggle off the end of the hook.

"I caught one! I caught one!" Shuyin jumped up and down and reached for his fish.

"What did I tell you about grabbing?" Jecht warned. "You want a hook through your thumb?"

Shuyin obediently stepped back and stopped reaching but still jumped up and down as he impatiently waited to be handed his fish.

"Kid's going to make us look like a couple of losers," he joked over his shoulder to Koji's dad. "Hey, toss me another beer, will ya?"

"Sure thing." With a chuckle, Koji's dad headed to the cooler.

"All right! Biggest catch for you yet, I think. There you go. It's a live wire. You got it?" Jecht asked as his son cradled the large fish in his arms against his chest.

"I got it!"

"Yay! Good catch!" Dannae clapped and held up a memory sphere to record it.

Shuyin turned to show the fish to Koji. "See, these red feather things are his gills. And he has little teeth." He ran his finger over the inside of the gasping jaws.

Koji touched a hand to the fish's rainbow scales and cautiously stuck a finger in its mouth.

"And if you poke their eyes from one side, they'll turn inside out," Shuyin informed him.

"That's gross." Kaila had come to see the fish too. "Poor fish. Why would you want to poke its eyes inside-out?"

Shuyin shrugged. "They're dead anyway after they've been out of the water for a while. It's kind of cool to see what's underneath. You want to hold it?" He held the fish out to her, but as he released it, it found some more energy and flipped and flopped out of his arms onto Kaila. The girl screamed again and ran back to her mother, leaving Shuyin and Koji to try to grab the thrashing fish.

"Knock it off!" Jecht pulled his son's shoulder away from the fish. Koji stepped out of the blitzball player's way. Jecht snatched the fish by its tail and carried it to a cooler filled with water. "If you can't behave nicely to Kaila, I'm shipping your ass back inside, got it?"

Shuyin blinked in surprise at the scolding. "But -"

"No buts!" Jecht scowled, pointing a can of beer at his son. "Little hellions," he grumbled under his breath, returning to his own fishing reel.

Shuyin stared at the closed container, lower lip sliding into a pout. How dare his father ruin a perfectly good day by taking away his fish and accusing him of …

"What's a hellion?" Koji asked.

"I don't know, but it means he's mad." Shuyin sat down on one of the insulated buckets and dropped his chin into his fists to sulk.

Koji sat down beside him in the same pose. "It's all Kaila's fault."

"Stupid Kaila," Shuyin agreed.

Kaila came to them, giggling behind her hand. "You're sitting on the crabs and worms, you know."

Koji's and Shuyin's eyes widened before they yelled in horror and jumped off the insulated buckets. The buckets tumbled sideways and the unsecured lids fell off, spilling worms, water, and small blue crabs onto the deck. All three children screamed and tumbled over each other running toward the cabin door, seeking safety from the finger-and-toe-stealing pincers.

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Jecht cursed under his breath and whipped the towel from around his neck that he'd been using to dry perspiration. "Sweet Mother of Baaj on a hot summer day! I'm gonna be stringing that boy up by his ankles before we dock again!" He and Koji's father worked quickly to scoop the crabs back into the box before they could scuttle away, hopefully without stepping on any of them.

Laughing, Dannae turned the sphere recorder on. "Like father, like son. I seem to remember your father telling me about a time when you went shrimping and knocked over the -"

"Don't even go there! That is your kid, not mine." But Jecht laughed despite his denial. "You had fun with the ice cream man while I was at a game or something."

After the last of the loose crabs was stuffed back into the container, Dannae turned off the sphere and gave Jecht a big hug and a kiss for saving her. "My hero." Yes, Jecht was gruff, arrogant, and easily annoyed. But he could also be funny, warm, loyal, and honest. He was a hard worker, full of passion, giving everything he had to whatever challenge he took on, until he had nothing left to give. Jecht was one of a kind in her eyes. That was why she loved him so.