The rock underneath us split from the column and started it's ascent into space. I held his gaze grimly for several seconds. Then I ran off the edge of the newly created Meteor and leapt for the plateau where Avalanche was still waiting. I figured the fall would kill me, or I would miss it by degrees and hit the canyon floor. It didn't really matter though. My injuries were too severe, and even if I recovered from those, I was already dying. I just figured it'd be faster than suffocation in space.

I looked down. Seemed like I was going to miss.

At the last second, a hand shot out and swung me onto the plateau. I rolled, and heard a couple things snap underneath me, but they seemed distant and unimportant. Who had saved me? Why did they even bother?

The sky was a deep red, on the verge of turning purple before nightfall. A face came into my view. Brown eyes, framed by long black hair. Tifa?

"Thought you would hate me," I remarked softly.

"You just saved the world. Now and forever," she said.

I looked away and rolled my eyes. "By the Ancients, don't try to make it sound noble," I scoffed. "I did it for my own selfish, deranged reasons. Screw the Planet. I always had my own agenda." I licked my lips absently. They seemed dry, and all I could taste was my own blood, but it seemed distantly important. "Oh, sorry by the way. Your Materia is still in my sword."

"We'll get it later. Right now we should patch you up."

"Don't waste your time. I'm in a strong state of shock, but I'm pretty sure I've shattered several bones and have massive internal bleeding. I doubt even Full Cure could stitch that up. I'm done."

"Don't talk like that!" Yuffie appeared. I hadn't even noticed the rest of them had crowded around me. Even Cloud. Red started licking the side of my face. Judging by the texture of his tongue, I'd say the verdict is cat.

"Yuffie," I said. "I was a defective experiment, I have an expiry date and it's soon. I was always going to die. "

Maybe you don't have to.

I closed my eyes and sighed. "You've got to be kidding..." I mumbled.

"What?" I heard Cloud ask, but I felt the wind pick up. I'm sure everyone else did. Then the weird thing was, in the recesses of my thoughts, I could feel the wind itself circling the stone pillar, rushing upwards around it, like it was alive. And I could feel it. Like a thousand gentle voices singing in the very back of my mind.

I was more than ready to let go. I sucked in a breath, and let it out slowly, certain that it was my last. But despite it all, I felt that living wind pour into me.

That's enough Seria, you can stand up now.

"Do I have to?" I moaned. It was kinda nice being stretched out staring up at the sky, just waiting for the end. Romantic. The tiny voice laughed. I sat up and saw everyone staring slack-jawed at the ghost of the real Aeris Gainsborough.

"Aeris," Cloud said reverently. He didn't take his eyes away from her, but I was sure he was speaking to me next. "She looks like she's talking, but why can't I hear her?"

"Seriously? I'm still the only one?" I grumbled. "You have to be part Ancient to hear what she's saying," I clarified as I got to my feet. I ran my hands over my arms and my stomach, then my cheek. No wounds. Nothing hurt, and I seemed whole, so I could gather what had happened; either Aeris or the souls of the Ancients together had summoned the Lifestream to heal all my wounds. "What's the point of healing me, Aeris? I just said, I come with an expiry date."

Not anymore.

I stared at her smiling expression in bewilderment. "What?"

The Lifestream did more than mend your broken bones. You saved the world, you get another chance at life. You get to see old age, Seria.

"What!" I screamed angrily. I scooped up some dirt from my feet and threw it at her. "Are you mental? How is that even remotely what I would want! I don't want a reward! I want to die!"

Hey, at least you get a second chance! That's more than I ever got!

"Screw that! You of all people should understand what it's like, living your life knowing when and how you're going to die!" I ran through her apparition to the edge of the cliff, turning back towards her as I stood on the very edge. "If I threw myself off here right now, what would the Ancients have to say about that, huh?"

Look, with me and my mother gone, that makes you the last surviving Ancient on the Planet. The Planet needs someone to defend it, and there's no one else, Seria.

"I'm the last Ancient, and I'm barely even a real person. I'm the product of a petri dish! What if I said no?"

You wouldn't.

"Try me," I hissed. "Maybe the rest of you were all puppets in this deranged fantasy story, but I lived outside of all that. Shinra forgot about me, I've always lived my own life my way."

You wouldn't, because you know what Anna would say.

I wanted to scream at her some more. If she were corporeal I would want to claw her eyes out until my fingers bled. I wanted to hurt her for saying the one thing that could possibly hurt me. My dead mother's name.

Instead, I fell to the ground sobbing like a traumatized thirteen year-old girl.