We're getting near the end...and I started this story a year ago...wow. I think this is going to be the last chapter, then I might add an Epilogue, we'll see. Thank you, Rosencrantz, for being honest and finding a pleasant way to do so. As for another review I recieved, I got a nice laugh out of it. Taking time to actually put in a review that they thought it was wierd and other stuff, but gave me nothing to work from. Whatever, I got a kick out of it. Okay, rant over, story beginning.

"Wrong answer, my lord..." Kerra said in an eery tone before the crimson light exploded throughout the room, knocking Seymour onto the floor with a bewildered look.

"How is this possible? I had the sphere, you are mine to controll!" He cried, but not to far out of the usual calm voice. "It's simple really..." came Kerra's reply. "Don't you remember why you wanted to marry Yuna, long ago in the age of Sin? You needed the bond between two hearts to summon the final aeon. Aquestia is no different." She turned to face the half-guado on the floor "and you, Seymour, have no place in my heart." she let the words sink into him like blunt knives. In her hand, Kerra clutched the white sphere pendant. It felt right in her hand, although it would not stay there for long. She knew what would have to be done, and she knew it would cost her life. Aquestria would need to be summoned to mend the boundary that held the farplane apart from the mortal realm.

"I know what you plan to do, Kerra, but I will not allow it!" Seymour attempted to stand again and walk toward her, using the wall that Yuna had been bound to as a brace for his weakened figure. Kerra stood her ground, watching him in the white light the sphere normally gave off. Before either of them could figure out what was happening, they heard an angry voice call out.

"That's not for you to decide!"

Baralai had leaped out from his and Yuna's hiding place with both is duel edge blade and Kerra's own. He knew Seymour couldn't die, he was dead already, but there had to be a way to trap him here. Trap him in this realm where the deceased belonged. Taking a deep breath, he plunged his duel edge blade toward the wall, lodging itself in the gnarled wood. He turned his head then, and didn't look back for he knew be would not yet be able to stomach what he had just done. Seymour now knelt, doubled over against the wall, the sword protruding from his gut. Deep red blood seeped from the wound that held him bound to the wall. Seymour's breathing grew ragged from pain, but in his heart he knew he couldn't die. "You will never again trouble the mortal world, Seymour Guado." Baralai proclaimed, his own breathing was not so steady.

"So..." The half guado's voice gargled. "Even in death it is possible to feel pain? There will be no escape from this agony..." Baralai watched him now, as he closed his eyes and even in a state of unconciousness a vision of pain contorted his features. Pain even in death, and Seymour was to experience it for eternity. Baralai fell to his knees, witnessing the doom he had placed upon the former maester. Nobody deserved eternal pain...

"Baralai..."

Kerra called out to him, before placing her hand gently on his shoulder and kneeling beside him. She took his hand and looked into his amber eyes with her orbs of ocean blue. "It's time..." Standing up, she left the white crystal in his coffee colored palms. He rose up to meet her and they took the same stance as she and Seymour had before, with the crystal in his hands, and her hands on top. She watched as he closed his eyes to stifle a shimmering tear. It came unbidden anyway, and it rolled down his cheek. "You're going to die, Kerra..." For once, she didn't cry. She had been preparing for this her entire life, and she knew it had to be done. Her heart was crumbling within her chest, but still she didn't cry. Reaching one of her hands out, she brushed the unbidden tear away.

"Hold on to me." She said to him. "Hold on to my memory, and I promise I'll never really leave you."

Those were the last words Baralai would here her speak to him. He couldn't even speak to say anything back to her, only nod. The next moments were all a blur to him. The bright silvery light that emitted from the crystal between the lover's palms, tainted blue with his own sorrow, gave way to Kerra's transformation into a beautiful unearthly being. Rings of silver encircled her wrists, waist and forhead, and rich blue robes flowed like water around her purely white skin. She spoke words in a tongue that no one on Spira had ever heard before, mending the spirit boundary with each mesmerizing syllable. The sky around him shimmered until Spira was no longer visible. The light was beginning to dim from his vision, or so he thought. It took him a few seconds to figure out that he was losing conciousness. Through his dimming world, he caught one last glance of the heavenly aeon Aquestria before his world blackened out, and the heavenly angel faded into oblivion.

It all seemed so long ago now, thought Baralai, his amber eyes once again peering onto the courtyard from his private chambers. Funny, this is how it all began. Yuna and company would be here soon for the ceremony, just like last time. Today would be his final day in these chambers, his final day as Praetor of New Yevon. Shelinda would serve Spira well as Praetess, he was sure of it.

He ran his hand through his messy white hair, then caught his fingers in a silver chain around his neck. Tracing it down his neck, his fingers lingered over the necklace that he had worn everyday since the day he woke up un the Bevelle underground. The crystal no longer glowed with it's beautiful luminecence, not without Kerra's life.

"I won't forget, Kerra... I'll hold on to you, and what you brought me, forever..."

That's it! Kinda sad, I know. There will be an Epilogue, so sit tight!