Here's a chapter for all of you Rikkumour fans out there =)

Chapter 5

"Yuna's getting married?!"

Lulu nodded as she spoke to Wakka, and Wakka remained speechless at Rikku's outburst. Rikku racked her brain and tried to figure out why Yuna suddenly wanted to marry Maester Seymour after all that has happened.

"But isn't the guy dead?" Tidus asked as they stood in the command center room about two hours after escaping Home. "How can he still be here?"

"He is dead," Auron confirmed, "but he still has connections to this world, so his spirit has remained here."

"Oh, that's so scary!" Rikku said and shivered.

"Are we close?" Tidus asked Cid.

"Not yet, kid, be patient. We'll get there soon enough."

"Oh, poor Yunie..." Rikku whined. "Why would she agree to marry someone like him?"

They all looked at one another, as if searching for the answer in one of them. Rikku's gaze landed on Auron and stayed there. He met her gaze and he read her pleading look.

"She wants to send him," he revealed, not leaving Rikku's gaze. "She may be waiting for the right moment."

"Hey, what's that?!" Wakka exclaimed and pointed out the window. A rather large red monster resembling a dragon flew through the sky.

"The gaurdian to Bevelle," Auron said, then chuckled. "The red carpet has teeth."

The group ran out to the top of the ship and fought the monster, and once the monster was defeated, Cid called over an intercom that Bevelle was in site, and that they were close. The next thing Rikku knew, she and her friends were sliding down cables to get to the alter where Yuna was to marry Maester Seymour.

"This is a pretty place to get married, but you have to be marrying the right person," Rikku said as she slid down the cable, and the wind whipping her face. She tried her hardest to keep balanced. "Whoa!"

She and the others landed on the walkway up to the alter, and saw Yuna wearing a feathery wedding dress, standing next to Seymour who wore formal wedding robes. Rikku accidentally landed on one of the hundreds of the several guards there, and the group battled many of them to get through to the alter.

"Seymour!" Tidus shouted as they were through, and more guards stopped them as both Yuna and Seymour looked down at them. The half-Guado man rose a brow at them, and Rikku's heart jumped when he met her eye.

"Oh!" Yuna gasped, and Seymour held her back as she tried to go to them.

"Let Yuna go!" Tidus shouted at him.

Tidus about went for them again, but was stopped by the guards. Lord Kinoc came up to them and pointed a gun at Tidus. Rikku gasped, and Yuna screamed.

"These machina are not supported by Yevon," Auron commented as a guard pointed a gun at him as well. Rikku covered her mouth in fear that the guard would shoot without having any qualms about it.

"There are exceptions," Lord Kinoc said.

The priest at the alter started to talk and the wedding ceremony proceeded. Rikku winced in revulsion when Seymour leaned down and kissed her cousin. He pulled his new bride away and Wakka shouted,

"Send him, Yuna!"

She released herself from Seymour's grasp and held out her staff. Seymour chuckled. "That is not wise, Lady Yuna. If you send me, then my guards will have their way with your friends. You really do not value your friends' lives?"

She paused, holding out her staff, fighting an inner battle. It suddenly fell from her hands and tumbled down the stairs and fell near Rikku's feet. Seymour grabbed hold of his bride and commanded his guards,

"Kill them all."

"No!" Yuna wailed, and she was pulled of by her new dead husband. Rikku's heart raced. She had to do something.

She pushed guards out of the way by kicking them, or using one of her battle attacks on them. She came up to the stairs to the alter and called out,

"I'll do what you asked!"

Seymour glared down at her as he held fast to Yuna's wrist.

"I'll do what you asked of me in the Macalania Temple," she said again, balling her fists tightly and trying to keep her cool. "I'll do it if you let Yunie and the rest of my friends go."

"Rikku, no!" some of her friends begged her, but she stood firm and serious. Seymour smirked evilly.

"You will give yourself in exchange for your friends' lives?" he questioned.

"Yes. I'll do that, just… let them go! Don't kill them!"

He held tightly onto Yuna's wrist, so much that it made her wince. He released her suddenly, the resistance causing her to fall to the floor. He walked down the stairs and grabbed Rikku by the arm and pulled her down a walkway away from the alter. She looked back at her friends and saw that they were battling the guards and Lord Kinoc. The last person that she saw as she left their view was Auron, taking down one of the guards with a swift move of his massive sword.

Seymour pulled Rikku down a hallway and up a set of stairs, and she winced at the tightness of his grasp. She knew what she did was insane, but she made a vow to protect her summoner in any way possible, as well as the other guardians when she become one herself. Tears stung her eyes as Seymour pulled her along and stopped at large set of double-doors at the end of a long hallway. Seymour opened them to reveal a large room with a canopy bed and large window facing it.

"You will wait here," he said and shut the doors behind her and locked them. Rikku stood there, staring at the blue rug covering most of the stone floor.

"What have I gotten myself into?" She shook her head. "No, this is for them. They'll come back to get me."

Rikku ran to the window and saw a clear view of the alter, but the people on it were rather small from her vantage point. Her friends were still battling the guards, and her father's ship was in the distance over the water.

The doors to the room suddenly opened and Rikku looked to see Seymour walk in, not dressed in his wedding robes, but in his Maester robes. Rikku stood tall as her petite form would allow as he walked up to her slowly, his hands behind his back and his features etched in seriousness.

"You know very well what you have requested, Rikku," he said in a smooth voice that made Rikku's skin crawl.

"Yes, I knew," she answered. "I would do anything to save my friends."

He took a step closer to her, one brow up. "Anything?"

"Anything."

He rose a hand and pulled the band holding her hair up out of her hair so her straight blonde hair dropped to her shoulders. One of his long fingers traced the line of her jaw and touched her bottom lip. Her pulse rose at knowing what he was going to do. She stood firm as he took the back of her neck and kissed her.

Her hands balled into fists as she had no choice but to allow this dead man to pine at her mouth, making her feel dizzy and sick to her stomach. She wanted to run, to escape, but her friends' lives would be in jeopardy if she moved.

Her friends…

One of them came to mind and her stiff muscles started to relax. She saw his face in her mind's eye and imagined him standing before her, doing exactly what Seymour was doing. Her eyes drifted shut and she responded.

She suddenly felt an arm wrap around her slender torso and pull her closer to a strong chest, one she imagined covered in a red cloak. Feeling heat rise on her neck to her cheeks, she took in a breath through her nose and grabbed onto muscular arms. Hot breath entered her mouth and the soft lips she felt were not surrounded by scruff as she has seen on the man she imagined in her mind's eye. Alarm shot through her, and she unhooked her mouth from Seymour's.

Bile rose in her throat and she turned away from him, covering her mouth with both hands. She couldn't believe what she had just done.

Large warm hands took hold of her shoulders and she felt a looming presence behind her. She shivered when she felt lips against her neck.

"Please..." she began, near tears, "stop."

"It is what you agreed to," he said and bit at her neck.

She stood away from him and away from the window. Even if they were far away, she didn't want any of her friends to see… especially one. She felt her cheeks heat up more intensely.

"I didn't agree to that kinda thing! I just wanted you to leave my friends alone. I can't believe you were dumb enough to fall for it."

He walked up to her, his penetrating gaze never leaving hers. She took a breath of courage as he stood before her.

"It was not foolishness," he confessed, "but desperation."

She wasn't expecting that one. "D-desperation?"

"Yes." He took a step closer to her and she gulped. "I am in love with you, Rikku, and even in death."

Her mouth dropped open. That was the very first time a man has ever said that to her!

"And," he continued, "you seem to feel the same way on account of your response to me."

"I wasn't responding to you," she blurted out. "I just imagined you as someone else so I could get through it. I would never feel that way about you! You are a man who murdered his own father and betrayed Yevon!"

His facial features remained calm and he turned and walked back to the window. "You still believe that horrible rumor that my father told about me?"

"I believe it, yes. You wanting to kill us all is evidence of how black your heart is."

"But it is not evidence that I killed my father."

"I don't think that sphere lied."

He remained silent and continued to stare out the window. Rikku looked over at the double-doors, and her hands balled into fists. She desperately wanted to leave Seymour's presence and find her friends. Were they looking for her? Was Yuna safe? Were all of them safe?

"I would like you to remain here," Seymour said after a few moments of thick silence. "Then when the time comes, come back with me to Guadosalam."

Rikku felt as if she were going to be sick. She held her stomach as her chest tied into knots.

"Why?" she asked. "Why did you want to marry Yunie and be with me?"

"I have told you why."

"I mean the real reason. Why do you need Yunie?"

He clasped his hands behind his back and continued staring out the window. "Do you know of how The Calm is produced?"

"Yeah, by defeating Sin."

"And how is Sin defeated?"

"Um… by the summoner using the Final Aeon."

"Correct. Sin is vanquished when a summoner chooses someone to be the fayth for the Final Summoning. That person will give their life so Sin can be defeated… and that person will become Sin."

Rikku didn't know that the summoner had to chose someone! "So, what does that have to do with you and Yunie?"

He turned from the window and faced her, his gaze firm. "I want to be that person for Lady Yuna just has Yunalesca used her husband, as you saw in the vision in Guadosalam. I wanted to recreate that relationship so Lady Yuna will choose me to be the fayth for her Final Aeon so I can become Sin."

"What?" Rikku asked, bewildered. "Why the heck would you want to become Sin?"

His purple eyes turned icy cold and he said with conviction, "So I can have the power—the power to rid Spira and its people of all pain and suffering."

"How are you going to do that as Sin?"

"By killing them all."

A scream escaped her, and shock and repulsion filling her system. "Are you out of your mind?! Killing someone doesn't get rid of pain and suffering, it produces it."

"That is where you are wrong," he said strongly. "The pain and suffering acquired during one's life can end quickly by ending their life. Do you not agree?"

Rikku couldn't believe how twisted this man's thinking was! "Killing someone is terrible, and while it may cause a person to stop suffering… well… that's no justification for killing them!"

"Wrong again, Rikku."

"Is that what you did to your father? Kill him to put him out of his misery?"

"That was part of it. He was in my way."

She stared at him, shocked and disgusted. "You horrible, evil man!"

He turned to face the window again as if she had said nothing. She glanced at the doors in desperation to get out of this insane man's presence, then glanced back at him. She started walking slowly to the doors, but stopped when he said,

"You cannot leave."

"Then I'll fight you myself!"

"If that is your wish." He turned to face her as she stood near the doors. "You are quite brave. I admire that." He turned to face the window again. "Go on, leave. No doubt your friends are looking for you."

She started. "You're letting me go?"

"You said yourself that you merely wanted to save your friends. Go."

Not wanting to question his sudden change of mind, she grabbed hold of the door and ran out of the room and bolted down the hallway, then another one. She looked both ways, down two long hallways.

"This place is a maze! Where the heck is the exit?!"

She ran down another hallway and heard voices…

"Go down that way, and I'll go this way!"

Tidus's voice!

Rikku ran in the direction she heard Tidus shouting, turned a corner, and ran head-on into someone. Someone with a familiar scent.

"Rikku!" exclaimed the gruff voice.

She gasped when she saw who was steadying her. "Sir Auron!" She flung her arms around his neck and selfishly kept hold of him, as if her life depended on it. "I'm so glad to see you!"

"You foolish girl, what were you thinking?" he demanded and pried her arms off of him and looked her in the face, his look fierce. "Do you have any idea what could have happened?!"

"I saved you all, that's what happened!"

He held her arms tightly as he glared at her. "You put every one of us in danger, as well as yourself. Do you even know what Maester Seymour is capable of?"

"Yes, I know! I just tried to take advantage of the fact that he has a thing for me. And it worked! You should be thanking me!"

"We would have been able to get out of the situation without you putting yourself in danger with a murderous man!"

Tears stung her eyes as she stared at his aging face twisted in anger. "Aren't you glad that's I'm alright?" she asked in a small voice.

He glared at her a moment longer, then he released her arms. He stood away from her and let out a heavy sigh. "Yes, I am. Just don't ever do something like that again, understood?"

"Yes."

The two stood there in the long empty hallway in silence for a moment, and Rikku noticed her free hair. She didn't dare go back there looking for her hair tie.

"Where are the others?" she asked.

"Tidus is down the other hallway looking for you, and the others are with Yuna in the temple."

She nodded. "Okay. I suppose we should go to them now."

They walked on in silence, and Rikku glanced at Auron periodically. Why was he so mad at her? Her heart sank. He probably saw her as his daughter or a child, acting out and then needing punishment after.

"Did you find anything out?"

The sound of his voice made her jump. "What?"

"When you were with Seymour just now. Did you find anything out from him?"

"Um..."

Should she tell him all that Seymour revealed to her? About his plans to become Sin and kill all of Spira?

"Yes, he did," she confessed, "but it would be best to tell everyone all at once."

He nodded. "Very well."

They walked on and someone ran out from behind a corner. When he saw them, he beamed and ran up to them.

"Rikku!"

"Hi," she greeted Tidus.

"You're alright! Wow, you were out of your mind, going off with Seymour like that. You've got guts!"

"Um, thanks. I guess it wasn't one of my better moves."

"Let's get to the others," Auron said and they eventually made it to the temple, but stopped abruptly when they saw guards and Lord Kinoc in the room, spears and guns pointed right at Lulu, Wakka, and Kimari who was holding am unconscious Yuna in his arms.

"What's going on?!" Tidus shouted, and everyone looked at him, and a gun was pointed at him, Rikku and Auron, each.

"We're in a heap of trouble," Rikku surmised, staring in fear at the end of a shotgun.

Rikku could not look at him. She could not look at the dead man who she made out with up in that room shortly after he married her cousin, and who confessed to wanting to murder everyone in Spira. Yuna stood on a floating platform in front of Maester Kelk Ronso in a massive temple trial room.

"Summoner Yuna," he began, his booming voice echoing in the trial room, "you have sworn to protect the people of Yevon, correct?"

"Yes," she responded. "I have."

"Then consider this—you have inflicted fatal injury on Maester Seymour Guado, conspired with the Al Bhed, and joined in their uprising. These are traitorous and unforgivable crimes that disturb the order of Yevon. Tell this court what made you participate in such violence."

Rikku balled her hands into fists at seeing Seymour smirk. She wanted to punch him out, hard enough that he flies off to the Farplane.

"Your Grace," Yuna began, "the real traitor is Maester Seymour! He killed his father Lord Jyscal with his own hands!"

Maester Kelk Ronso gasped, and demanded how that could be true. Rikku stood at the railing and about shouted that it was indeed true, just so there could be a second voice. Auron put a hand on her shoulder, stopping her from disrupting the trial.

"It is true," Seymour said cooly. "Haven't you heard?"

He made a glance at Rikku, and a shiver ran through her body. She looked away from him at Yuna's serious face. Rikku went to the railing again and, despite Auron trying to hold her back, she shouted,

"Maester Seymour is already dead!"

"It's a summoner's duty to send the souls of the dead to the Farplane," Lulu said. "Yuna was only doing her job as a summoner."

"I wish to send Maester Seymour to the Farplane where he belongs!" Yuna exclaimed.

"Send the unsent where they belong?" the elderly Maester Mika said, then chuckled grimly. His body started glowing and little white lights started to fly around him. "Then you would have to send me, too."

Everyone gasped, and Rikku held a hand to her mouth, and annoyance pulsed through her. She had enough of these dead people who were causing problems.

"Send them, Yunie!" she shouted.

"Rikku!" Auron chided.

"They need to leave this world! Do it, Yunie!"

"Calm yourself, gaurdian Rikku," Seymour commanded. "Silence."

She glared at him and sealed her mouth shut. Maester Mika continued speaking, saying that many things die, and by dying, nothing changes.

"What?" Rikku questioned, shocked. "Then how…?"

"Summoners give their lives to defeat Sin," Yuna said, tears in her eyes. "Are you saying they died in vain?"

"No matter how many summoners give their lives, Sin cannot truly be defeated," the unsent maester said, and Yuna gasped, and Rikku saw tears stream down her cheeks. "But them fighting and giving their lives brings a moment of peace and hope. The summoner's death is not in vain."'

"That's messed up," Rikku muttered, shocked at the realization that Yevon and its teaching, everything about the religion… was a hoax—a ploy to only bring peace to Spira for a short time without really saving it.

"That is the essence of Yevon," Maester Mika finished.

Thick silence encumbered the room, aside for the quiet whimpers Yuna was producing. Rikku wanted to jump onto that platform and hug her cousin, but she stayed put, glaring at the maesters and priest who have lied to all of Spira.

"Take them all away," Lord Kinoc said, and the struggle began as Rikku and her group were pulled away from the trial room. Rikku screamed when a big burly guard dragged Auron away, giving him a good sock in the gut, making him buckle over.

"No!" she shouted, and was dragged away herself. The guards took her and Wakka away and threw them into a pool of water with spikes surrounding the edges of it.

"I can't believe it!" Wakka shouted and slapped the water. "All this time, Yevon has been lying to us all. Dammit!"

Rikku kept silent and tried her hardest not to burst into tears. They dragged her friends away. What happened to Yuna? Lulu? Kimari? Auron? Tidus?

"Hey, watch it!" she heard and saw a guard poke Tidus with a spear. He pushed Tidus into the water.

"Hey, you alright?" Wakka asked when Tidus surfaced.

"Yeah, what was up with all that? You guys alright?"

"Yeah," Rikku said. "I guess they want us to drown down here."

"Well, that's not going to happen. Let's find a way out. We always do."

"Right," Wakka said.

They dove down swam on and on, through underwater tunnels and passage ways. Rikku could not hold her breath for much longer. Finally, they made it up to the surface and climbed out of the water. Rikku collapsed onto the cold stone, taking deep breaths and trying not to pass out.

"Hey, you alright, Rikku?" Wakka asked, and she glared up at him as he stood before her as she sat on the stone.

"What would you care? You still hate me, don't you?"

He pursed his lips and folded his arms. "I don't hate you. I was just shocked, that's all. How could I be mad at you now after learning that Yevon and those priests and maesters have been lyin' cheats?"

She stood up, hope in her eyes. "Your really mean that? We can still be friends?"

He shrugged a shoulder. "Why not? I mean, yeah, it wasn't your fault that Sin kept on coming back."

"Yay!" she squealed and embraced him.

"Okay, okay, I get it, you're happy," he said, and pried her arms off of him. She giggled joyously.

"I told you Wakka, Rikku's Rikku," Tidus said.

"Right," he agreed.

The three were off to find the rest of her friends, and Rikku's heart pounded hard inside of her, fearing that those evil maesters did something to Auron.

"Hey, Rikku, it'll be alright," Tidus assured her as they ran through hallways and corridors.

"I know, I just… I'm worried about what they did with the others. I hope they're safe. Do you have any idea what they did to Sir Auron? They took the two of you away together after punching him in the stomach."

"Lord Kinoc said he wanted to take Auron away for some private business, whatever that was. Auron thought the guy was going to kill him, but he said he wouldn't hurt an old friend."

"Oh, no!" she exclaimed. "He's going to kill Sir Auron?"

"I don't know, it might've been just talk. I hope not."

Tears stung her eyes the three of them ran, and Tidus eyed her. "Why're you so concerned about Sir Auron?"

She gave him an incredulous look. "He's our friend! Aren't you worried about him, too?"

"That's not what I meant, Rikku."

She read the look in his eyes, and gasped. She couldn't question him on how she was found out since they ran into a corridor and saw Yuna and Lulu there. With Sir Auron! She wanted to crumple to the floor with relief and sheer joy that the man who had unintentionally caught her heart was alright.

"Yay!" Rikku screamed, and almost went to Auron, but saw Yuna smiling at her. She went and embraced her cousin. "Yunie, you're alright! Oh, we were so worried about you!"

"I was worried about all of you as well." She embraced her back warmly. "I'm so happy."

"Uh… guys?" Tidus said, and they all turned. Coming to them down the eerie walkway in the temple was Maester Seymour, Lord Kinoc, and three other Guado men with a human guard. Said guard dropped the limp Lord Kinoc to the floor.

"Kinoc!" Auron exclaimed, and Rikku covered her mouth in shock. The chubby priest was dead.

"Why you…!" Tidus said to Seymour through clenched teeth.

"He was a man who had great power," Seymour began, referring to Kinoc, "and he had great power, but he feared losing it. He trembled at unseen enemies, and spent far too long scheming schemes of little value. Now… he has entered into rest eternal, no worries, no fear, and no more suffering. It has all been swept away."

"You think that is reason to kill someone?" Wakka demanded, and Rikku's breath hitched when Seymour's glance turned to her.

"Yes," he agreed. "Guardian Rikku… you know of this way of thinking. I told it to you."

Everyone looked at Rikku in shock, and she wanted to shrink into a tiny bug and crawl away.

"What is he saying, Rikku?" Wakka asked, disbelief in his eyes.

"Please, Rikku," Seymour said, extending his arm in her direction, "explain what I told you earlier today in Bevelle."

All eyes were on her, and her heart pounded like a hammer in her chest. She didn't want to tell the group this way, with Seymour present, and with the pressure of a load of rocks on her shoulders.

"Tell us, Rikku," Auron demanded and she met his gaze. She gulped back emotion and nodded.

"Alright. Well… in Bevelle, Seymour took me to this room and he told me some shocking and scary things…"

"Go on," Auron prodded.

She took a large breath to muster her courage at revealing such horrible facts. "Master Seymour told why he wanted to marry Yunie. He wants to create a union with her like Yunalesca had with her husband so she would choose him as the fayth for Final Aeon in order to defeat Sin. Maester Seymour wants Yunie to choose him so he can become Sin and… destroy all of Spira! He thinks that killing all of Spira will save them from any more pain or suffering!"

"That's completely nuts!" Tidus shouted.

Rikku glanced over at Auron, and saw the look he was giving her. She wanted even more so to disappear at the anger etched in his features.

"Thank you, Rikku, for your explanation," Seymour said. "Yes, by destroying Spira, I am saving it. Lady Yuna, come with me to Zanarkand and we can defeat Sin, and I can become him!"

Yuna frantically shook her head, and Rikku screamed when Kimari suddenly jumped forward and plunged his spear into Seymour's chest. Seymour merely chuckled at the action. "Unpleasant. Very well. If you want your death, I can give it to you."

He suddenly changed into glowing white monster.

"Run!" Auron shouted, and the group ran from Seymour and down a hallway. Yuna stopped and said she wanted to go back, and in turn, the rest of the group followed her. The group battled the Seymour monster, and Rikku fought with all her might, using the intense desire to get rid of this evil man once and for all. When the battle was through, and Seymour died a second time, they ran from the temple and got picked up in Cid's airship.