"...your Zanarkand is so fucking weird. I know you know that, but. So weird."

If he noticed Tōkan's moment there, he did not react to it.

No, Zei totally noticed. Whatever. He just shrugs. There's no... he got what he wanted, right, the fact that his head is still swimming with grief is not actually affecting their conversation so it's... fine.

"—anyway," he continues, correctly interpreting Tōkan as not wanting to talk about whatever just happened in his head there, "Lady Yunalesca is said to have taught Bevelle the arts of summoning and Yevon's philosophy, claiming that only once we all atoned for the sins of those nations and achieved purity as all peoples would Sin be able to be truly defeated. Until then, it would always return. But it could be temporarily stopped by us, at the cost of sacrificing the summoner who did it."

Tōkan has already informed the audience of his opinion about that last bit and will not bore them with a rehash. It doesn't interact particularly well with the state of mind he's trying to recover from, though.

"The pilgrimage ends in Zanarkand. There, we somehow learn to summon the Final Aeon. It differs from every other aeon—physically, no two of them look the same, and in level of power. The teachings do not clarify why, or how—only that a summoner who successfully completes their pilgrimage will be rewarded with the Final Aeon. And when they summon it, it has the ability to pierce through Sin's carapace and destroy it. It also kills the summoner as well as anyone who happens to be nearby, so these fights have historically typically happened in unpopulated areas."

"—ah." A note of—not brightness, exactly, but at least the system is not—inherently rigged. It's circumstantial. "So it's not that the summoning inherently kills the summoner, the Aeon is just so powerful that the summoner is caught in the destruction."

Shrug. "That's the going theory, yes, but no one who's seen a Final Aeon in action has survived to tell the tale, so."

"No Unsent, either?"

"...no, no Unsent, either. This is... probably not a meaningful fact, like I said they're pretty rare, and Sin's only been killed five times."

He shrugs again. "Was just a thought."

Zei nods and spends a few seconds in silence under the water, thinking.

Then: "So, I guess maybe I can tell you about the thing anyway, this conversation was quicker than I'd expected, but... also I think you may need a bit to get recentered?"

"Maybe. Maybe you could center me."

Zei sporfles and looks out at Tōkan from the corners of his eyes. "You're insatiable. Maybe I should invite Jassu with us just to get you down for a while longer."

"I knew he was into dudes. —wait, you're allowed to flirt with him?"

"I'm not on the team even not-technically-officially. Besides, we were raised together, there have been off-season months here and there, you know!"

"That is so unfair I would never forbid my teammates from flirting—"

—but his brain is ahead of his mouth and he's thinking of all the times he did flirt with his team, with the way Yama just went along with it for the free dinners and never actually went any further than that and it was a lot of fun anyway, with the way Inochi melted under his fingers when they got alone in one of their bedrooms, with the way Hitomi would yell at them to get a room whenever he made Inochi blush but the three of them also had so much fun together, and with the way he matchmade Yama and Sayu, and how he met Hitomi's wife Yua one time and the two of them spent a whole night making sure Tōkan regretted meeting them very much (he loved every second of it)—

He went to Hitomi's wedding, two years ago. She was so happy, he had never seen her wear such a radiant smile, not before, not since. He understood the word 'radiant' as a descriptor of people then, the idea that someone could look so joyous they shone like the sun.

He recorded Yama's proposal to Sayu, six months ago. At Yama's request. Sayu went red as a tomato and took nearly a minute of stammering her "I do" but it's not like anyone doubted she was going to say yes. And when she did the whole team jumped out of where they were hiding to applaud and congratulate them and she meeped and she was crying and she kept punching Tōkan on the arm but she was jubilant, she was so happy that her chosen family was there to share this joy with them.

And Hideo, who was extremely ace, and who watched all of this in such amusement and exasperation. All the times he pulled Tōkan and Inochi by the ear from the locker room so they wouldn't be late for practice, all the times he flirted just to be a little shit, all the times he made Inochi and Sayu blush and laughed at their expense. He was a bit mean, and Tōkan would not have traded him for anything in the world.

Tōkan couldn't stop the tears, this time, they came unbidden and overflowed with no respect for his image or his dignity, with no respect for where he was or whom he was with. He turned around so Zei wouldn't see it, but damnit Zei was going to know, and, and was going to pity him or, or, damnit—

Zei—falls silent, and politely looks away anyway. "We can talk about that later," he murmurs, grabbing his clothes to run the magic water through them and rub them together to get rid of the accumulated grime that the laundry spell was not quite able to get rid of.

Tōkan wants to, wants to, wants to say something, but everything he can think to say is stupid and useless and pure lies like "I'm fine" or "You shouldn't worry about me" or, or whatever. And he's not sure he can even bring himself to actually say any words, so instead he just nods because actually he does need a bit to recenter.

Zei's shower sphere runs out, its water vanishing into pyreflies leaving him and his clothes perfectly dry. He steps into them and walks over to the door and says, "Take all the time you need. We'll wait for you downstairs." And downstairs he goes.

Damn it.

Damn it.

He takes another ten minutes to feel properly presentable. He's still not in the best of moods but he thinks he'll be able to catch it if something triggers him again. At least for now. He's sure he'll lower his guard at some point later and then be overwhelmed by feelings because that's very entertaining for the audience but for now he's... mostly fine.

Zei, Wakka, and Lulu are seated at the table talking about nothing in particular, and no one comments on his tardiness. Zei smiles pleasantly at him and gestures at the food on the table still in the process of being eaten then returns to discussing the finer points of setting things on fire with Lulu.

—oh, of course the people from the world with the rampaging kaiju know how to deal with grief. That makes a lot of sense. He'd honestly expected Wakka to get on his case but it seems he'd underestimated him.

Tōkan wonders idly what exactly Zei told them, and decides to ask later. For now, putting food inside himself is probably a good idea; they have a long day ahead.

That they do.

Once they're done with breakfast, they rejoin the blitzball players and make their way north towards the village gates. Kimahri joins them at some point, though he wasn't inside the inn when they were having breakfast.