"I'm not officially on the team!"

"Wait 'til later!" Wakka declares. "For now we focus on the game!"

Luzzu comes over from the gates, does a headcount, and nods. "We're all here. Let's go." He and Gatta go ahead of everyone to clear the road of most fiends, but with this many people going in the same direction it'd be easy to deal with them anyway.

"Are fiends that much of a problem here?" Azym asks no one in particular.

"They're not," says Lulu quietly, "but Luzzu is using them as field training for Gatta."

Oh she speaks! In his presence even! He feels like he's been Accepted.

"Besaid is far enough away from the rest of—well, everything—that most fiends that form here are pretty weak."

...why would stronger fiends exist more in some places than others—actually this is probably a dumb question that he'll ask later, when he's expositing on his backstory.

The party spreads along the path, with the blitzball players in the vanguard and the summoner and his guardians lagging behind by a bit. At some point Kimahri shows up out of nowhere, and just quietly stalks them as they walk.

When they get to the zenith of the short hill, Zei stops walking for a bit to just look at the village from this vantage point.

"Stay as long as you like," says Lulu when she notices this, and she, too, stops walking.

Wakka, of course, also stays behind with them, although he goes over to the stone monument and kneels in front of it.

Azym is getting increasingly certain that this pilgrimage is a lot more dangerous than the priest led him to believe.

He leaves Zei to his contemplation and walks over to where Wakka is to examine the stone monument in more detail. It's sufficiently ruined that it's unclear what it was originally meant to represent, and honestly looks only like rocks that were vaguely purposefully put together in a weird way.

Monument

Wakka notices him and, without looking up, says, "It's an ancient custom. People leaving the island pray here for a safe trip." He takes a deep breath then adds, "My brother didn't pray. On the day he left. Said he'd miss his boat."

Man what part of "not touching this with a ten-foot pole" does the plot keep missing? "I'm sorry," Azym says, and he does mean it. He was very young when he lost his parents, so he can't really know what that's like, but he did just lose literally everyone he's ever known literally yesterday OKAY NOT THINKING ABOUT THIS RIGHT NOW.

When Zei pulls away from looking out at the village he also kneels in front of the monument, and Lulu mimics him.

But he only stays there a moment before standing back up and saying, "Onwards, then."

Azym is relieved that Kimahri did not participate in the whole kneeling thing, either. He'd have felt a lot guiltier about it if he'd been the odd one out.

He's also kind of curious about the whole "how dangerous is this pilgrimage, really?" thing but probably the boat will be a better location for this kind of question.

The way back to the beach is uneventful—if there were any fiends prowling the road, the advance party has dealt with them. When they get to the docks, they're empty save for the party and the people manning the boat. It's still early, and probably most villagers who didn't sleep in after last night's bonfire figure they've already said their goodbyes and it'll only make it feel harder to be here when Zei leaves.

Azym is told that the boat is going to Kilika Island, which is part of the same archipelago that contains Besaid itself. There's another temple there which Zei plans to visit to get his second aeon, and after that they're going to Luca, where hopefully they'll find someone who recognises Azym and that will help with his memories.

Yeah, right.

The boat is sufficiently unoccupied that everyone can have an individual cabin for themselves if they want to rest. The trip will take about half a day; they should arrive in Kilika just after sundown.

"Alright, boys!" says Wakka to the Aurochs (plus Azym) who are assembled on deck. "We got all day long with nothing at all planned. Know what that means?"

"That we can rest and relax for a day?" asks Keepa.

"Funny! No. We gotta practice. Now that we got the new guy here you need to get working together. Got a feeling that we have a real chance this year!"

"You said that last year," puts in Botta, but he withers under Wakka's glare.

...this team is a bit dysfunctional. That'll explain why they've never won a tournament, if it's been like that.

"If I may," he says, stepping forward and turning around to face the rest of the team. "Do you guys like blitzball?"