"On and on. Sin destroys towns that get big, so we all spread out. Sin says all machina is bad, except the stuff you need to play blitzball. That's been specially okayed. You'd think ..." She pulled his arms a little tighter around her. "You'd think that after a while you'd go, this isn't working. There's just death and stagnation. None of this makes any sense. Instead they were just more and more willing to throw bodies on the pile."

Rikku took another deep breath. "We Al Bhed, we wanted to stop Sin, too. Just because we didn't follow Yevon, that didn't mean we were on Sin's side. It was hurting us, too. We wanted to use machina to destroy it. We wanted to work with the Crusaders, and some of them wanted to beat Sin so badly, they wanted to work with us, too. And we started ... w-we started kidnapping Summoners. Not to hurt them. We kept them in the Summoners' Sanctum. We gave them food and took care of them. We just ... didn't want them to go on the pilgrimages any more."

There was a slight pause. "I know it was stupid. But Pops ... he found out Yunie was going. And that was ... he snapped, you know?"