A/N/Disclaimer: I’m just playing with Square-Enix’s wonderful toys, I promise I won’t break them or leave them out in the rain….

Okay, here we go. I don’t know where this came from, it just popped into my head. This is what happens when I’m angry, I write fics like this one. Need to get the rage out of my system. Yes, there’s a character death. Don’t like, don’t read. Blah blah. I’m expecting flames, so go ahead…at the moment I don’t care.

I have nothing against Baralai. I love the man to pieces, the lying Yevonite son of a bitch. Heh. Again, I was furious when I wrote this, and I wrote it mainly out of spite. I won’t delve into detail there. Also, I’d like to add that the title is not my own, it is from Lacuna Coil’s Circle. I’ve everything that needs to be said, I guess. Enjoy. I think.

The sun was setting.

Golden, dusty yellow faded into deep, molten orange. The sun bled a cruel ruby, and darkness swiftly followed it. Bevelle’s parapets gleamed like blades against the sky, and from where Baralai stood, the winds howled and screamed.

It wasn’t like this in the desert. In the desert, light held on for hours more, and by the time the stars and the moon came out, a new sky was born. Here in the city, it simply died. Blackness reigned supreme. The ocean sang and whispered and laughed, and no life was to be found anywhere. He hated it. He’d always hated it.

Always it was cold upon the palace roof, but now, the winds were numbing. There was no denying the goosebumps on his arms, or the chattering of his teeth, but he wouldn’t go back down into the temple. He couldn’t. No, it was colder there, with the stone walls, and the scrolls, Yevon, the scrolls; Spira itself wrote those parchments. Lies, everywhere. Masks. He liked it better here, even if the cold cut him to his bones and the wind lamented around him.

He had woken up this morning, and not known who he was. All day he had roamed, a wraith amoungst other wraiths, and seen only death, everywhere. For hours he had wandered through the labyrinth of the palace temple, and rifled through the parchments, and with each word he read, the darkness and misery into which he’d sunk only got deeper.

He tried to explain to those who spoke to him, but none of them, none of them would listen. Why couldn’t they understand? Yevon was death. Everything about it was death. People reveled in it, and yet they did not know what it was they glorified. Ninety-nine summoners, all slaughtered to keep order. Couldn’t they see the blood dripping from the walls, couldn’t they hear Shuyin playing that damnable piano…?

Words had flitted in and out of the void. Delusional, some said. Possessed, others argued. None of it was true. Couldn’t they hear the Hymn? The Maesters had all been dead. He himself, the Praetor of New Yevon, he had tasted it, known its misery and despair. Blood was on his hands. Innocent blood.

It had taken Shuyin being inside of him, all of that ire and suffering coursing through his veins to truly realize what he had done. Everything he stood for, everything he believed in, everything he preached, practiced, and governed was a lie. Had he known it? Yes. Had he been ashamed of it before? Yes, he had. But had he felt it? Had he felt the betrayal, had he known the ill of what he was doing?

He did now.

Bevelle was never beautiful before, and it wasn’t beautiful now. The eyes that gazed down onto the roofs and parapets were angry, derisive. He hated it. He hated it like he’d never hated anything before. Such loathing was above even Nooj’s "betrayal" so many years ago. He wanted to retch as he approached the edge of the roof, knowing where he was, what he was…

As he leapt, he did not think. Blankness. Winds swirling and howling and screeching with glee. He would damage the city. The Heart of Yevon would be shorn in two.

Above the broken, still-warm corpse before the temple doors, the moon shined upon the blood that was steadily dripping down the stairs.