'That wasn't necessary, Reis,' Yuna wept, over the crumpled body of Auron, 'You didn't have to kill him. He's a fellow guardian as well,'

'I'm only protecting you,' Reis shrugged, 'And if he got in the way, he's dead as well. Simple as that,'

'You're only protecting your pride, Reis,' Yuna cried, 'We've got feelings too—and so do you; but why must you murder others to protect your own feelings? Your own opinions?'

'My opinions? You've never respected them before; I wanted to leave you to your journey and get on with my own before; and what did you say? That I was a guardian and needed to protect you until you completed your journey. You, you, you. It's only you,' Reis hissed vehemently, 'And here I am, serving away to your highness and your majesty, and you refuse to accept what my job is,'

'Your job? It was to protect me, Reis; and not to destroy all in your path,'

'If it were done for your good, you should be happy,'

'My good? It's for your own ego and pride, Reis. You didn't have to kill Auron,'

'Listen,' Reis said, so quietly she almost whispered, placing the tip of her sword at Yuna's throat, 'I do not want any further speech about this. Is that clear?'

'…'

'Good. Now let's get going,'

'You're not going anywhere,' a cold voice said from behind the two bickering women, 'Under the name of Yevon, I arrest you for the crime of massacring the Guado!'

'Maester Seymour,' Yuna pleaded, 'These unnecessary events have not been performed by my orders, I assure you,'

'Silence. Under Guado law, all perpetrators of this heinous crime are to be executed on the spot. However, I have been kind enough to bring you out here—so that you may choose your grave,' Seymour said, beckoning to his guards, 'You will be killed. Here and now, without any further questioning. Be grateful for I have let you choose your own grave,'

He thinks I'm a flea. Well, I'll show him.

'Reis, calm down…' Yuna whispered from the corner of her mouth, her eyes still fixed on Seymour's cold, unfeeling ones.

'Nothing more—and nothing less—than an immediate execution will suffice. Guards, at them,' Seymour commanded, his mouth curling in a sneer of cold laughter as he watched Yuna's fear-filled face.

Unleash the power of the dragons!

Her eyes filled with fiery fury, Reis lunged forward at the closest Guado that she could reach; her blade piercing the flesh and bone of his chest. Snatching the shining sword out of his unmoving, limp body, she deflected a club directed at her head by the Guado to her left. Staring coldly into the Guado's face, filled with the intent to destroy, Reis whipped her blade downwards, tearing through his thin steel breastplate; knocked backwards, stunned and horrified by the force of the blow, he let out a terrified scream, only to be silenced by Reis' slash, delivered across the throat.

'How now, Seymour?' Reis spat, half-laughing, 'Is this what you would call an immediate execution?'

'I will deal with you, later,' Seymour said, his expression unfathomable, 'Infidels. Unbelievers of Yevon,'

'Then your followers shall feel my pain! The pain of one who has lost of all that she had cared for! Flare!'

A seething, swirling mass of searing hot air surged through the crowd of cowering Guado guardians gathered in front of her; uttering one hellish scream as all were incinerated in the inferno. Lowering her still-glowing hand, Reis watched the piles of smoking skeletons vanish in the flame; some lying flat on the ground in a desperate attempt to alleviate the blazing heat. Amplified by rage and the will to destroy, the flare spell cast by Reis had destroyed all in its path, leaving only a thick blanket of dark smoke over the area.

Yuna clung on to Reis' leg, weeping. Would she be branded a heretic, an unbeliever, and infidel? A honorable and upstanding lady, a summoner, a priestess of Yevon; one who had served him unquestioningly for years, whose reputation would be destroyed by a chaotic guardian.

It was a mistake to take her in, Yuna thought, If only I'd listen to Lulu…or Kimahri…they were right after all…she's not a good person, this Reis; no matter how great she is at fighting, close to invulnerable.

'No way…' Reis muttered, grasping her sword again as the form of Seymour remained standing in the place of the once-been inferno; shielded by a sphere of magical protection, he had survived Reis' amplified flare.

'You are indeed no ordinary person,' Seymour sneered through gritted teeth, 'And one…such as you…is fit to be my wife. Yuna; you will no longer be my bride,'

Stunned, Reis looked on as though in a trance as Seymour lifted the sobbing Yuna into the air with one hand and began to choke her throat; remembering her duty, Reis' blade ripped into the flesh of Seymour's back, the red blood streaming into the charred earth.

'You too? You resist me too? Very well…this leaves me no choice but to destroy you both from the face of Spira,'

He's insane…thinking that I would be his wife. After he had condemned me to be executed. Tch…insane bastard…

Standing on the riverbank, Seymour began to chant words that Reis could not understand; drawing a circle of light on the ground, he pulled down a chain of darkness from the sky. Screams of pain pulsed from the chain, blood pooling at the surface of the ground where it met; pulling up some unseen load, it creaked and rattled as it ascended back into the heavens.

'Anima! Finish them,' Seymour cackled madly.

This…is beyond unreal…a corpse, in a half-shut coffin, uttering screams of pain and agony, its eyes gleaming with an arcane red shine…

A flash of red light, the sound of roaring energy…and the body of Yuna was vaporised in an instant by the gargantuan creature; charred pieces of flesh remaining where her leg once was. Looking up, Reis knew that this was…a battle that she must complete or perish in the process.

'What? Sin!' Seymour yelped, leaping forwards as the gigantic form of Sin rose out of the river behind, a grey mass rising out of blue water.

This is it. The creature is distracted as Seymour is distracted.

'Might of the heavens and of the underworld, of dawn and dusk…' Reis chanted, plunging one sword into the ground, 'When the dark and light shall unite, the union shall be destruction,'

'What are you saying, foolish woman,' Seymour mocked, 'You are but nothing to the might of the immortal Anima,'

'Power of the soul and of the body, the sun, moon, stars and sky,' Reis continued, her knee-length hair rising, her eyes glowing an intense blue of arcane energy, 'All shall combine to destroy one! Omega Flare!'

Beams of light rained down from above, illuminating the maester's summon, the maester and Sin in a dappled golden glow; flames hailed down among shards of molten reddish rock, a very form of the phoenix shooting downwards with fiery rage, crushing the evil man in one fell swoop; Maester Seymour had been summarily killed, his charred, burning body shown no remorse by the might of the heavens above, the earth underneath opening wide to swallow the flayed, burning corpse into the bowels of hell.

The bombardment of stones and fire continued, matched equally by a fountain of flame from the furnaces of the underworld; meteors fell and blazed large holes into the scaled hulk of Sin; drawn inexorably towards the gaping chasm in the ground, Sin was consumed by a final blast of blazing flame from the hells; its remains shot high into the sky by a towering column of searing hot rock, to return back in ash and cinders.

It's all over now…Yuna…Kimahri…the guardians…

Collapsing on the ground, Reis sobbed into her folded arms, realising the enormity of what had happened. She had murdered a guardian loyal to Yuna; she had failed her duty to protect her, and on her own ego destroyed one of the rulers of Spira, and also the scourge of the Spirans, Sin. It was all too much.

I can't believe this is happening. I've killed a fellow guardian out of a rage I shouldn't have; I've allowed Yuna to die at the hands of Seymour and I've then destroyed both Sin and the Maester with a spell I wasn't supposed to use…

You've broken a promise, Reis. Your journey shall not be as smooth as it should be from now on.

There's no use sitting here crying either. Go to the Farplane, now, and free the wrongly-accused dragoners and your beloved. Go now. By the order of Lord Glabados.

'You're right,' Reis mumbled to herself, 'I've got to go on,'

Moving away from the closing rift in the earth, Reis began to move towards Guadosalam; gritting her teeth knowing that she would have to face bitter opposition there. The Farplane was her only objective; and no other. Trudging through the town, the cobble-stone road clicking beneath her leather boots and the bodies of the mutilated Guado townspeople strewn across the length and breadth of Guadosalam, Reis felt a sense of delirious shame for once in her life—the sin of murder, committed in the mass numbers.

Surely this would constitute the end of the 'purity' of soul that people have always said I had…

…In fact, what is 'purity of soul'? There isn't a single person in this world entirely good. There isn't a single soul entirely evil, on the other hand. I'm just like anybody else—slightly tainted by evil, and on a base of goodness. Nothing more. Nothing less than that.

I don't understand…what is it about me, that lures people to say that I am pure? I see the ravages of my own acts, acts of destruction enough to make the savage weep. Enough to make the savage weep. To destroy an innocent life…is a sin most unforgivable. And yet I have committed that right here, an hour ago, on a rampage blinded by rage, a massacre driven by anger. Look here; a decapitated body of a Guado child, who has done no more harm to me than he has done to the man with the slit throat next to him.

Forgive me, lord Glabados, for all the evil I have done to me. Punish me, destroy me, do what you will; but don't harm my Beowulf. I ask only that of you.

Kneeling before the entrance of the Farplane, Reis wept over the threshold of the glowing portal to the otherworld; sparkling fragments of spirits floated by into the glimmering windows circling the portal, vanishing with a slight hiss as they passed through the lustrous circles. Taking a deep breath, she dashed into the portal, appearing on the platform on the other side.

Standing on the edge of the floating rock platform that was the living beings' territory of the afterlife, Reis reached out over the rim of the stone floor; a staircase materialised out of thin air, descending down into the unknown…

A/N

End of Act 3.