Tidus holds onto what Esteban offers as a retreat, a return, a means of getting back where they need to; focusing on the one in front of him, the hand held, while acknowledging Esteban at his back. It's a stone path that should be walked, but Tidus can't quite force himself to take that way of travelling a space that reminds him too much of being led without physical decision (too much like being under Sin, dragged up and led elsewhere; the emotional bleed that clung to him, a loneliness bone deep, but not so unfamiliar).

But he has all the confidence - the belief - in returning, still. Clinging onto it as he does Inigo, even as-- as their surroundings change, or the images that swarm Tidus's mind. Both, it seems; as he becomes to the viewer to this history, all the emotions pushed down inside his throat, refusing to let them drown him, but their levels never dropping, never leaving.

Tidus grips the hand he knows he's holding tighter, a plea almost forming in his mind as Inigo's senses threaten to drag him in. He remembers who he is, a belief that doesn't waver, too certain to be reckoned with directly.

You're still fighting for everyone, even now. You have friends and family to still save - and yourself, too. We're going to save them-- together!

Images flitter, the woman seen in the memory - pink-haired, younger, kind-looking and shy; a redheaded man with a mask obscuring his face, quiet and distant; a waist-high white duck-person with a metal peg leg, a strong-willed mother; a young girl, a friend of a friend who needs to find her way back home.

You never give up. A belief directed, pressed without words. The task that Tidus knows Inigo won't give up on, the people he won't stop trying to save. The promise of a better future, and the people he'll have with him. Tidus, Esteban, everyone--

You're not alone.