Final Fantasy X-2 story

Prologue[]

The game begins in the context of events featured in Final Fantasy X: Eternal Calm', an extra cutscene originally included with Final Fantasy X International.

Two years after Sin's defeat, Yuna, now a high summoner, led a quiet life in Besaid when Rikku presented her with an ancient sphere recording discovered by Kimahri. It shows a captive man, strongly resembling Tidus, demanding to "see the summoner". Along with Rikku's encouragement, the sphere inspired Yuna to seek adventure and a purpose for herself, and she joined Rikku as a sphere hunter.

Yuna, Rikku, and their new friend Paine are members of a sphere-hunting group called the Gullwings, led by Brother. Brother's friend Buddy co-pilots their airship, the Celsius. Shinra is an Al Bhed boy prodigy who devised the girls' dressphere system to enhance their battle abilities. Yuna, Rikku, and Paine go out to sphere-hunting missions as a trio dubbed "YRP". They travel a world that finds itself amid a clash of factions that have established themselves since the coming of the Eternal Calm, unearthing hidden legacies from Spira's ancient history.

The New Spira[]

Leblanc, a rival sphere hunter, has stolen Yuna's Garment Grid, allowing her to perform a concert in Luca under Yuna's guise. Rikku and Paine disrupt the show while Yuna wanders Luca incognito. When Rikku and Paine confront Leblanc on stage, she flees. They chase Leblanc to the docks, where Yuna joins the fray and reclaims her Garment Grid. Yuna finds herself overcome with someone else's excitement and dances uncontrollably after switching to the Songstress dressphere, both frightening and intriguing her.

Back on the Celsius, the Gullwings use the Sphere Oscillo-finder to detect hidden spheres throughout Spira. They pick up a signal from the recently discovered Floating Ruins at Mt. Gagazet's peak. Yuna, Rikku, and Paine compete with the Leblanc Syndicate for the sphere but emerge victoriously and take it onboard the airship. The sphere is a recording of ancient Zanarkand but brings the team no new information, and Shinra turns it into a new dressphere for the girls to use in battle.

Free to travel the world on their airship, Yuna can visit Besaid Village to apologize for her sudden disappearance to her friends, Lulu and Wakka, who served as her guardians on her pilgrimage two years ago. The two are now married, and Lulu is to give birth to their baby any day. YRP can help Wakka look for a sphere in the Besaid Cave and learn of his anxiety toward fatherhood as he never got to know his parents.

If the party visits Mt. Gagazet, they can meet up with Kimahri, now the Ronso leader, struggling to decide on a new path for his people as many swear vengeance on the Guado, who were exiled from Guadosalam and now hide in the withering Macalania Woods. YRP can also find O'aka XXIII, the traveling merchant who previously helped Yuna during her pilgrimage, running from his Al Bhed debtors.

As the YRP investigates the sphere waves emanating from the Zanarkand Ruins, they discover the locale has become a tourist attraction promoted by Rikku and Brother's father Cid and the former summoner Isaaru, much to the team's disapproval. In an underground ruin, the Gullwings discover the sphere they were after, but it's only a fragment and useless for viewing or as a dressphere. YRP can sabotage the attraction by spreading monkeys around the ruins to dampen tourists' interest in visiting it. Cid, upset at learning of Rikku and Yuna's scorn toward his enterprise, leaves the ruins to Isaaru to oversee.

Uncovered Secrets[]

The hostilities between Youth League and New Yevon build to a head as an "awesome sphere" is discovered in the rebuilt Kilika. The two factions compete over it, but the Gullwings claim the sphere. It contains images of a weapon called Vegnagun hidden beneath Bevelle, a machina unable to distinguish friend from foe once activated with enough power to lay waste to all of Spira. The sphere also shows the man who resembles Tidus, mentioning someone named "Lenne".

Over the evening, the Gullwings celebrate their success with Yuna singing for everyone in the Songstress dressphere. Afterward, she gets angry, pondering who Lenne is, and storms off to bed, where she dreams of herself and Tidus stuck in an underground passage and shot by guards before Vegnagun. When she awakes, Rikku blames the nightmare on Yuna having worn the Songstress dressphere while asleep.

The Gullwings return the sphere to either the Youth League or New Yevon and gain allegiance with their chosen faction but become enemies of the opposing one. While the Gullwings are out to deliver the sphere, Leblanc breaks into their airship and steals the half-sphere YRP had found in Zanarkand. Intent on reclaiming it, YRP scours Spira to locate Syndicate members to steal their uniforms and infiltrate Chateau Leblanc, the Syndicate's HQ in Guadosalam discover Leblanc had the other half of the sphere and stole theirs to restore it.

Leblanc explains she hunts spheres to gain the affections of Nooj, the Youth League's leader. After discovering the Gullwings support her cause, they join forces to investigate the Bevelle Underground, a secret, ancient mechanical complex hidden beneath Bevelle containing Vegnagun as per new information gained from the restored sphere. Discovering a tunnel in the weapon's chamber floor, they realize Vegnagun has moved to the Farplane at Spira's core.

Disagreements between Spira's factions escalate after Baralai, Nooj, and Gippal—the leaders of New Yevon, the Youth League, and the Machine Faction, respectively—go missing. Returning to the Bevelle Underground, the Gullwings discover the missing faction leaders discussing Vegnagun and learn the machina's artificial intelligence allows it to detect hostility and respond by activating and fleeing. Previously, Nooj came to Bevelle to destroy Vegnagun, prompting it to escape to the Farplane. Yuna and Rikku learn Paine had once been friends with the three men; she was assigned as their sphere recorder when they were candidates for the Crimson Squad, an elite group intended to receive leadership of Crusaders chapters—Yevon's military—across Spira.

Two years earlier, in a cave beneath Mushroom Rock Road called the Den of Woe, before the failed Operation Mi'ihen, the squad conducted its final exercise. Pyreflies, the energy that composes all life in Spira, swarmed the candidates, who became driven to kill one another. The only survivors were Paine, Baralai, Gippal, and Nooj. They were targeted by the Yevon order when they revealed having seen images of Vegnagun while in the cave. Even after escaping the predicament, Nooj shot his comrades, and although all parties survived, it severed the group's friendship. Unknown to the others, Nooj hadn't shot them of his own accord as a wicked spirit had entered his body in the cave.

The feelings that drove the squad members to kill one another were the despair of Shuyin, a young man who died 1000 years ago. Before the four survivors could leave the cave, Shuyin's spirit—requiring a host to interact with the physical world—had possessed Nooj and forced him to shoot his comrades. In the time since, Shuyin has been goading Nooj on a subconscious level, coercing him to approach Vegnagun so he could use Nooj's body to control it.

Nooj's will was too strong for Shuyin to be completely controlled, and his desire to destroy the machina prompted it to flee. Desiring a new host, Shuyin leaves Nooj's body and possesses Baralai, pursuing Vegnagun to the Farplane. Shuyin's despair corrupts the former aeons' spirits, which emerge from the former temples' Chambers of the Fayth with an outpour of fiends.

YRP visits each temple to quell the fiend outbreak and save Wakka from the Besaid Temple, where he had gotten stranded during his attempt to stop the fiends. Everyone scolds him for putting himself in danger when he is about to become a father, and he gains new resolve regarding his upcoming parenthood. One of his biggest detractors is Beclem, a Youth League member sent to Besaid to train the Besaid Aurochs team, who have all joined the faction. He also disdains Yuna as a relic of the past, saying the time of summoners in Spira is over.

After defeating a possessed Ixion in Djose Temple, its surprise final attack sends Yuna falling into the hole in the ground that once held the temple's fayth statue. She emerges in the Farplane wearing the Songstress dressphere and meets Baralai possessed by Shuyin, who mistakes her for Lenne because of the dressphere. Feeling affection toward him that is not her own, Yuna listens Shuyin describe waking after dying, alone and unable to find Lenne. After a millennium, he is angry that Spirans haven't understood the heartache war can cause and plans to use Vegnagun to destroy the world, ending the possibility of another war. While the possessed Baralai continues farther into the Farplane, Yuna meets Nooj and Gippal, pursuing their friend, and they ask Yuna to keep things under control on the surface. Yuna is angry and confused by the revelations but finds her way out of the Farplane by following a familiar whistle.

A Wish that Spans the Ages[]

The cross-factional strife escalates with their leaders missing, and Yuna decides to honor Nooj and Gippal's wish of her to "take care of things topside". The Gullwings organize a concert with the promoter Tobli's help to which everyone in Spira is invited, Youth League and New Yevon supporters alike, to foster a sense of kinship. It turns out the Songstress dressphere Yuna wears during the concert holds Lenne's memories, and it reacts to the sphere screen Shinra had built to display the show for the spectators. It projects Lenne's recollections of her and Shuyin's last moments for everyone to see. Witnessing the images, Spirans come to understand the unproductive nature of their disagreements. Yuna learns it was because of Lenne's memories that Shuyin had mistaken her, and she had felt affection toward him.

The wise man Maechen comes aboard the Celsius and explains everything to the Gullwings. A thousand years ago, Shuyin lived in the high-tech metropolis of Zanarkand and was the lover of a popular songstress and summoner, Lenne. The two lived during the Machina War, Zanarkand's war with the more powerful Bevelle, and Zanarkand ordered all summoners to the front lines, separating the couple. Shuyin thought the only way to save Lenne was to infiltrate Bevelle, commandeer Vegnagun, and use it to destroy Zanarkand's enemies. Lenne perceived Shuyin's intentions and followed him.

When she caught up to Shuyin in Bevelle, he had begun to operate Vegnagun, but before he could use the cannon to destroy the city, Lenne pleaded for him to stop. Bevelle soldiers shot the couple, and Shuyin failed to hear Lenne say she loved him before they died. Over the following 1000 years, Shuyin's lingering despair and resentment over his failure to save Lenne bonded to pyreflies and made him re-experience the anguish of that moment. His pain became so powerful it began acting on its own, and he came to believe that—in addition to helping the world—he would fade away with Lenne if he destroyed Spira.

During her travels, Yuna has a chance to better many people's lives: reconcile Cid and his children's relationship after Cid gives up on monetizing the Zanarkand Ruins; witness Wakka let go of the past and grow into his role as a new father and name his newborn son, and even gain some respect from Beclem; encourage Isaaru to reunite with his brother Maroda in Bevelle; for Maechen to recall his true self; help O'aka and his brother Wantz's fledgling business by becoming a recurring customer at their shop after assisting O'aka to pay back his debt to the Al Bhed; catch chocobos for the chocobo-enthusiast Clasko to set up a ranch; excavate parts for the Machine Faction to build an an experimental machina robot while saving a nation of cactuars from an ancient fiend; witness former summoner Dona repair her relationship with her former guardian Barthello; solve Rin's Mi'ihen Highroad Mystery of machina going haywire; and help the Ronso settle their feud with the Guado bloodlessly, allowing for the Guado to return to Guadosalam with the musicians of the dying Macalania Woods, among other deeds.

Although the factional fighting has ceased, Shuyin has nearly carried out his plan to use Vegnagun to destroy Spira from beneath. Joining forces with the Leblanc Syndicate, the Gullwings make their way to the Farplane and find Gippal and Nooj battling Vegnagun. They disable the machina before its cannon can fire at Spira, and Shuyin's spirit abandons Baralai, becoming corporeal before battling the Gullwings. Lenne's consciousness emerges from the Songstress dressphere to convince Shuyin to forsake his mission and be at rest.

Endings[]

Final Fantasy X-2 features multiple endings. Depending on specific criteria, the game will feature additional cutscenes before or after the regular ending FMV.

The standard ending features Nooj, Gippal, and Baralai addressing the people of Spira in Luca's stadium, announcing the dissolution of their respective factions for the peace of the world. Yuna and the Gullwings depart for Besaid on the Celsius, and Yuna's story will continue as she embraces her new life.

Completing the game with <75% storyline completion, or without achieving specific criteria, plays a short cutscene before the ending. As YRP departs from the Farplane, Tidus's spirit bids Yuna farewell as she accepts she will always love him.

Completing at least 75% of the storyline, and fulfilling specific criteria, plays an additional FMV after the credits roll. The fayth have located Tidus's scattered pyreflies and sent him to Besaid, where he surfaces from the water. Yuna and Tidus reunite while Rikku, Paine, Wakka, Lulu, and the people of Besaid celebrate.

Should the player achieve 100% storyline completion, a final cutscene shows Tidus and Yuna traveling to the Zanarkand Ruins. Tidus wonders if he is still a dream of the fayth and in danger of disappearing. Yuna assures he won't and stands in the same place Tidus stood two years before, bringing the story around full circle.

In the International and HD Remaster versions, achieving 100% in the Creature Creator locks out the Zanarkand reunion scene permanently in favor of the Creature Creator ending.

If the party fails to defeat the fourth and final part of Vegnagun in time, or the party is KO'd, Shuyin fires Vegnagun's cannon and destroys Spira.