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Chapter Text

Death is a release from the impressions of the senses, and from desires that make us their puppets, and from the vagaries of the mind, and from the hard service of the flesh. 

~Marcus Aurelius

In the old legends of Wutai, a boy king was born from the loins of a demon. He drank her life-blood from her teet, a sweet milk only a mother could provide, and grew strong. His blood pumped of Gaia and of beast, and yet he was human, the only hint of his origin the blood on his mouth and the bright eyes of dying stars.

This child was the only monster who could destroy them, bring their empire to their knees, to turn their crops to ash and their rivers to blood.

Bahamut, the villagers named it in reverence and fear.

Bahamut: the demon king.

Leviathan protected them from all. She was their Goddess and offered a life of bountiful harvests, the swollen bellies of their women, and the health of their children. All she required in exchange was the boy king's head presented before her. It was to be an offering of the divine when he came to extract his pound of flesh.

And he would come, for She had wronged the demon and no demon would bare their neck to a God.

And come, he did.

He bathed their soil in blood, slashed babies from their mother's wombs, and burned their crops until the ash fell like a blanket of powder snow. He locked the Goddess in his mother's blood for the eternal slumber, only to take pleasure in Her pain.

Sephiroth could have laughed, had he the throat necessary.

Those stories Genesis filled his head with, what use were they where he was? Where he would stay for all eternity? The fairytale of the boy king was of little use where there was no light, no dark, only the endless sea of nothing.

He knew there should have been pain. Cloud did an awful amount of damage in the last battle. But, more than anything, Sephiroth was weary. While Jenova couldn't reach him here, hidden in the lifestream away from her cells, it was still so empty.

Occasionally, the collective voice of the Cetra rang through his senses and he would curl up in the tiniest recesses of what was left of his shattered soul to hide like a child, like he had when he was four and wanted to stay away from Hojo and his needles and experiments.

It was worse with the Cetra. This was his mind torn to pieces only to be forced back into position through silent screams. This was lifestream exacting its revenge for a pretty girl with a blank stare and bloody pink dress.

Sometimes, he wondered, if the few minutes of sunshine on his skin was worth the intense pain of being killed over and over again. Was the ability to breathe, the feel of supple leather hugging him in an embrace, the blood pumping through his veins for that short moment worth the Planet, worth angering the Cetra, worth the unending torment?

Was this life?

You've been dead since Nibelheim. You have no life.

Sephiroth would have blinked, had he the eyes required for such movement. Had he a mouth, he could have responded, too. 

The lifestream seems to have a sense of humor, Sephiroth thought as he continued to drift. It was true; his body was not his own, mind not his own when Jenova was near. He had given her complete control, once upon a time in a little village at the foothills of Mt. Nibel.

Anything after that he deserved.

Keep it up and you'll sound like Vincent Valentine. 

He continued to drift, yearning for something more than the blankness, wishing the voice of the lifestream would come back, even if its only desire was to taunt and laugh at his foolish mistakes. What had it been that sent his mind into the abyss of Nibelheim? What was it?

Don't you remember, boy king?

Sephiroth was perplexed; he was not the boy king. It was a fairytale, something to tell little boys and girls before bed. Or, in Sephiroth's case, in the middle of a ditch to occupy his mind from the three bloated and decimated bodies rotting next to him. He shouldn't have needed a fairytale to stop his panic, his fear.

Still it was just a story.

The Wutaians were too superstitious; Hojo's God was science and he was its priest.

Sephiroth was the sacrificial lamb.

One of the worst parts of being segregated from the rest of the lifestream was the loneliness. He grew up alone, his only friends the other experiments and his books. It had taken years to open up to Genesis and Angeal, and then Zack Fair. Friendship was still more often found in the comforting embrace of his leather chair and a musty, decrepit book he'd read over and over again. Still those three... they had been his connections to humanity, his friends.

He missed them, more than he cared to admit. The curtain was up, the cast assembled before him, the stage dotted in flowers. If he thought about it long enough, it reminded him of the final showing of Loveless Genesis dragged him to, before the fateful disaster in the training room, before their friendship began to wither and die. Before either turned into a monster.

Sephiroth, if he focused hard enough, could almost imagine the wisp of a smile on Genesis's face as he turned, corners of his eyes dotted with tears. 

Few things could make Genesis weep, but a particularly skillful rendition of Loveless always had a way of bringing a tear to his eye.

How long had it been since he had cried?

You have never cried. You have never been weak.

He could hear the voice, so similar to Genesis's that it made Sephiroth pause. 

Was that true? 

No. It couldn't be. He was human, once. He cried as a child, before he learned tears would only make the bitterness of rejection an even harder pill to swallow. When in Wutai, he had cried. When Angeal died, he had cried. When Genesis left—

Do not lie to me, boy king. You did not weep then, just as you do not weep now. You are a weapon. You have always been a weapon, and you will always be a weapon. Steel does not weep, and nor shall you. Do not now pretend as though you have sadness within your heart. You regret nothing.

That was not true.

Sephiroth regretted. More than anything, he regretted. It wasn't a feeling he was well acquainted with since he allowed Jenova to take him by the hand into the madness, but it burned like mako down his throat.

No matter how hard he tried to hide, his hands were soaked in blood, throat raw from soot and screams. Sephiroth knew what he did, what he damned the world to, but giving Jenova his mind was like ripples on the water's surface. He knew no rest, knew nothing but the taste of regret.

He hadn't felt that way since Wutai, after he murdered scores of men and shed their blood like water from the heavens. Eevery night their mouths would scream in his dreams and even Hojo's concoction of pills did nothing to quell it.

Angeal explained once it was Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, but Sephiroth scoffed. While he understood his men to have these problems, and fought with the President to get the adequate medical care they needed and more than earned, Sephiroth didn't need it. He was fine, he was strong, he was Shinra's prize lamb. All he needed to feel better was Masamune and a good book. He was not broken, for he was the General. He was SOLDIER. He was Sephiroth. 

He did not have feelings. He did not need them.

The boy king, the cryptic voice said again, a whisper through his mind. Sephiroth, Sephiroth. It seems you don't understand me. You do not understand the tale. You don't understand your tale.

Sephiroth could have scoffed, had he the mouth. After being murdered three times, his tale was as clear as the Costa del Sol ocean—die, die, die again.

Always controlled by Jenova, always drowning in her hatred and anger and fear of humans. What else was there to his tale; like the stories Genesis tried to drown him in, there was no happy ending for the monster at the end of the book. It died bloody and alone and the heroes won.

Cloud won, every time.

Sephiroth was okay with it in the way of it ending Jenova. It broke her and Sephiroth would be free until her cells invaded his mind again and again and again for all eternity.

And she would, because Hojo made sure when he made Sephiroth. His body was her puppet.

If you want your own life, then just accept what I'm offering.

"And what kind of offer is that?" Sephiroth felt the words come from his mouth—a real mouth, one with muscles and teeth and by Holy, he could even feel the words on his lips, words he'd made himself. Tongue on his teeth, air in his nose.

An offer for revenge.

"Not interested." The words came unbidden, words Sephiroth remembered hearing time and time again from Strife before, like always, he did whatever was asked of him.

Was the voice even the lifestream? It didn't feel like Jenova, but that wasn't the best way of judging the character of things talking inside his head. "Going after Strife is pointless and I don't want to."

He didn't like the kid; he had spunk and courage, but that didn't change the fact that it wasn't fun to get run through by a six foot Buster sword.

It's not fun to get run through by a seven foot Masamune, either.

Sephiroth conceded. It really wasn't. "And what can I do about that?"

In the Wutai War you were baptized with the name 'Demon' on the alters of Her nation's blood. In Nibelheim, too. Let's not forget Shinra Headquarters or the Ancient in her ancestor's Crystal City. You know of blood, and you know of Masamune's destruction.

"And your point?" It felt weird to be able to speak and hear when he couldn't see. The feeling of his mouth was a creature comfort, one that Sephiroth was already beginning to regret. Once this thing was gone, he would be alone again. Just one more regret.

Perhaps it's time you freed yourself from those regrets. I can offer you the power you need, the abilities you seek. You can destroy her.

Panic struck Sephiroth: an offer.

How foolish could he be? A voice in nothingness offering him freedom... The last time he accepted an offer of power he'd given his control over to the alien bitch in his head.

"No. I won't become your pawn."

You don't understand who I am and what I'm offering. I'm giving you the chance to right the wrongs, fix and weld this broken planet back together. 

"Why would I want to?"

You were planning on abandoning Shinra before Nibelheim. You finally grew the spine to turn your back on a company killing Her. I'm offering you the chance to turn back time, to return to when you could still destroy them. Save the Planet, save yourself. It's a fair deal, boy king.

"I'm not a damn boy king!" Sephiroth snarled. It felt good to be able to make that noise, to feel it rumble in his throat. Yes, he had a body, no matter how disjointed it felt. He had a body...

Sephiroth relaxed his mind and felt out with his power. Years of fine detail to the curve of his spine and the feeling of each finger thanks to his sword training allowed Sephiroth to feel through the nothing for the body he knew was there. A curl of a toe, a shake of the wrist, a phantom breath that took in no air—it was something. He wasn't gone, not completely. Not yet.

The voice, however, did not stop speaking simply because Sephiroth could feel his body. It wouldn't allow him the moment of pleasure in realizing he was still whole and in control.

You aren't, that's quite true. But you're so disgustingly like me that maybe, just maybe, the story was written for the both of us.

"Bahamut?" Sephiroth said, a feeling of wonder creeping into his voice, despite his attempts to cover it. While he didn't have time to believe in gods and goddesses of Wutai, it didn't stop him from knowing of the summons whose essences were crystallized in Mako. It mattered not how they were created, merely that they existed.

And Bahamut?

Bahamut was the dragon king.

Sephiroth only saw the fierce beast once, against him in the middle of the Northern Crater. That was another experience not worth repeating.

Perhaps you do have a brain of you own.

"I don't make deals with false gods," Sephiroth countered, though there was something holding him back... a little part of him want to hear what the summon was saying. It was the same little part of him that fought against Jenova's pull and allowed Cloud to deliver the final blow.

It was also the same part of him screaming against the rest. He wanted nothing to do with whatever revenge Bahamut wanted. This half-existence was better than what awaited him when Jenova got her claws into him again.

What would you say if, by siding with me, I can protect you from her?

"I'd say I'm not..." Sephiroth trailed off and stepped forward into the abyss. There was something solid under his feet, now. Floating for so long, it took a moment to find equilibrium, despite it being the lifestream. Senses worked in mysterious ways. "You couldn't. Her cells run in my blood and nothing can change that."

Bahamut snorted, or as close to snorting as a disembodied voice could. I am a God and she's nothing but a parasite. She's beneath me. Guarding your mind from her would be easier than a walk in a park.

"If that park was in the middle of the swamp in the Northern Crater, I think I'll pass." Sephiroth took another step forward, knees nearly buckling below him. 

Maybe, just maybe, I can walk toward light. There may be something here, something that I can use to get Bahamut to leave me alone, Sephiroth thought as he pushed himself forward, the toe of his boot to the back of his other.

What if I gave you the chance to save your friends?

Genesis... and Angeal, before the madness. They were his only friends. And even Zack, who wormed his way into Sephiroth's office and permanently planted himself on the couch. When he heard of Zack's death from Cloud's broken mind, he thought of nothing at all.

When he was killed the first time, it hit him. He couldn't say it was as raw as Angeal, but Zack's death was certainly a blow.

He even killed the Cetra girl Zack had been so fond of.

And Genesis—

Sephiroth did not miss the feeling of his stomach rolling at the mere thought of Genesis, of his friend... of the person who was so similar and yet so different from himself.

What did I say about guilt? Valentine was difficult enough to deal with. I refuse to do it again. His guilt over your mother made me sick.

Sephiroth stopped, foot hanging in the ether before he moved it back to its prior position. "He felt guilt over Jenova?" Why would Valentine, someone who helped Strife kill him the second time round, mourn Jenova?

There isn't enough time in the lifestream to even begin, but no. Not Jenova. Maybe if you take the offer I'll tell you more. There was slyness to Bahamut's voice and while he did hold all the cards, Sephiroth wouldn't give quite that easily.

"I'm not interested in your petty game. I'm not a puppet." Yet, Sephiroth knew it was a lie. 

This is no petty game. I'm giving you the chance to right things, to finally be free of influence-

"Except for your own."

I'm not asking for anything unreasonable. We want the same thing, you and I. And while I do not have the mortal body to do so, you do. End Shinra, alter this dying planet's fate, and I'll give you want you want...

Freedom.

Sephiroth opened his eyes and found himself in a place familiar to him, his home so very long ago.

The Shinra labs.

He screamed.

Chapter Text

There was a tube down his throat and his nose. Sephiroth could feel the plastic slithering down his esophagus, biting against the soft flesh of his throat. It was something he had taken for granted so many years ago, in the prison that was Hojo's labs...

The ability to feel.

There was something tying his wrists down to the metal table, and from the strength, he knew they were the good cuffs— the ones Hojo would use if he was in a good mood. These there the ones that, though strong adamantaimai, were at least laced with a little animal fur to make the bite on his skin just a touch less painful.

Oh, and how he could feel. He could feel the blood pumping in his ears, the itching in his nose from the smell of alcohol and bleach they scrubbed the floors with, even the coldness of clinical steel under him. It was the kind of steel that was so easy to clean, but Sephiroth always remembered what the feeling of blood and vomit and shit felt like on his back, in his hair. Clean as it may have been, those kinds of memories that stuck to the surface like a sheen of grease.

How was it that this dream could be so realistic that even the damn table below him felt real?

He was dead, deader than anything Gaia had ever shit on before... yet... but... but here he was.

What was going on?

Sephiroth gurgled out his pitiful attempt of a scream. There was nothing else that he could do as the plastic made talking impossible. All he could do was let out painted, guttural noises.

He was like a limp, kicked dog. Pathetic. Useless. 

Oh, what Strife would say if he could see him now, shackled to a fucking table like a common animal, like a beaten and whipped beast.

It would do you good to remember that he very well knows the feeling.

Sephiroth strained against the shackles, trying to pull against the little voice in his mind. It shouldn't have been there. Nothing should have been there. In the nothingness, he was alone and yet free. All he wanted was to be left alone, not hear another monster inside of his head. He couldn't do it again, he couldn't die to Strife's blade again. 

I've already told you, you and I... we are more alike than you would think. Bahamut laughed inside Sephiroth's head, and he did not like it. No, he did not like it one bit. I have more planned for you than letting him kill you again. You and I are going to change the world.

Put me back, now. 

Sephiroth struggled against the restraints, but everything around him was blurred at the edges. Yes, he could hear the sound of his heartbeat, but it was like listening through a vast ocean. His sight was shaky and faded. His skin.... he could feel that sweet bite of metal on his wrists and around his ankles and yet it was.... It was like he was floating.

I won't be putting you anywhere. You owe me. 

Sephiroth slammed his eyes closed as he tried to regulate his racing mind.

I owe you nothing.

But you owe this Planet everything.

Through the haze of his mind, Sephiroth could see the faintest outline of something. It was almost like a whisper of a memory, but that couldn't be it. The only time Sephiroth saw Bahamut was when Strife summoned it in the heat of their battle in the Northern Crater. Even now, Sephiroth could remember the flames twisting and scorching, the bright eyes like dying stars as his world exploded in white hot pain.

That wasn't what Sephiroth could see, fading into his vision like whispers on the wind.

Boy king... truly.

He couldn't have been more than ten, cheekbones slightly protruding the same way Sephiroth's had after his first mako shower. Big blue eyes, blond hair jutted up every which way, a pointed nose that stuck up ever so slightly— and of course it would be Strife who would bring misery upon him. The little brat couldn't just accept that he won three times now, that Sephiroth was so decimated that even the thought of the Buster Sword filled him with cold dread at the memory of being gutted like a fish in a Wutaian wet market.

The image in his mind's eye smirked, and yes... It certainly was Cloud Strife, though in a much more docile frame. 

Sephiroth killed his first man at eight. Docile as he may have looked, Sephiroth could see the burning coldness in his eyes. 

You really are as bad as Vincent Valentine. It was strange hearing such a deep voice reverberating from such a small body.

Sephiroth tried not to choke. One of the worst things that could happen was to vomit while the tubes were down his throat; he'd done it so many times as a child, hoping one day that the scientists would let him drown in his own sick.

Of course, Hojo would have never permitted it... but it had been a fantasy, a dream of escape.

This is cruel, even for the Planet.

Well, I am not the Planet. His voice in Sephiroth's head was so smug it made him bite down on the tubing, hard. Rather than fight it, Let's... enjoy our time together. I do enjoy a captive audience.

Sephiroth growled. It came out more like a gurgle.

That made Bahamut smile, full of sharp teeth. I want you to fix things, make it so that the Planet doesn't crumble to pieces... Do that, and you live. Bahamut's eyes hardened. Fail, and I will watch your destruction through every chasm of the lifestream. Cloud Strife has no problem with killing you for a fourth, and fifth, or a thousandth time. And I will make it so each touch of his blade hits true.

Sephiroth believed it. If there was one thing on the Planet the he knew, was Cloud Strife would always be there, Buster Sword in hand.

It hit him worse than the antiseptically clean smell.

The Buster Sword.

Angeal's sword, before passing it to Zack, who in turn passed it to Cloud. How fitting that the weapon of his best friend would gut him over and over again. After what Sephiroth had done, betraying his friends, not being with them in their time of need, unable to break the collar around his neck... Of course it would be Angeal to do him in, in the end.

Perhaps it would have been more fitting for it to have been Genesis, but the irony was not lost on Sephiroth.

He tried to laugh, but the tube made it more than a little difficult.

You have lost your mind.

Sephiroth felt his body wracked with laughter, even though he tried his best not to move his head or throat. You are the one who took me from emptiness and shoved me here. You don't have a right to judge.

And truly, where was 'here'? Sephiroth wondered. It was very obviously the labs, though Sephiroth could not tell when just from his quick look before his panic. Sephiroth slowly opened his eyes, trying to keep his breathing controlled. The bright lights above burned and he tried to raise his hand to block out the light., but the thick chain around his wrist held him in place.

So, instead, Sephiroth slowly blinked, breathing in rhythm with each blink. It had been a trick he learned in the labs as a way to calm himself from the overwhelming panic of being unable to move. At least when he was a puppet for Jenova he had never needed to breathe or blink. In fact, with Jenova in his head, it was almost peaceful in its enveloping security. He let himself fall into the darkness and didn't think of the consequences.

Sephiroth stopped blinking, stilling himself. He twisted his head to the side, only a little, but it managed to make the lights just a little less blinding.

He was alive and real and he couldn't hear her.

It was like a tidal wave, every emotion grabbing his skin and pulling from every direction. Sephiroth knew it was wrong, that he hated it, but he had become so accustomed to her feeling, her presence since he was been swaddled in diapers, that the lack of her touch almost made him weep. Before Nibelheim he hadn't known what it was, the constant feeling of something just below the surface. It was like a phantom limb; despite the length of time the gangrenous hand had been cut off, he could almost feel her in the background, moving and slithering on her own. He knew she wasn't there, but he almost wanted her to be. It was a tumor, a disease... but it was his disease.

And she was gone. 

It was a slam to the gut, and Sephiroth squeezed his eyes shut. Bahamut, still wearing Cloud Strife's childlike face, sprung forward again.

Of course I removed her from your head, Bahamut said, as if it was the most obvious thing on the Planet. Of course, to him, it was. Bahamut did not understand what it was like to lose part of him, the sweet comforting touch of a mother. He knew it was wrong, knew within every inch of his core that to have her gone was a blessing, and still.

She was not your mother, as you said yourself. She was a parasite who used your skin to destroy the Planet. Don't weep because I made her disappear.

I do not weep. 

Tears, yes. He knew how to cry. 

But to weep? 

And for her? 

Then do not complain that she is gone. This time, Bahamut frowned, his small face contorting into something ugly. She is not completely gone, but she is quiet. She will not be able to reach you, not while I am here. Do not fear, she does not know.

It would have sounded silly but Sephiroth was grateful for those words, for reasons he could not quite grasp. That was his relationship with Jenova, wasn't it? Something so twisted and wrong that even now, knowing what she was and what she made him do, he still yearned for a mother's love?

Blinking his eyes open, Sephiroth found the sharpness of the light was better company than the face of a miniature Cloud Strife staring into his soul.

It took a moment for his eyes to focus and Sephiroth could now understand the strange wave before his eyes; he was in a little plastic bubble? No, Sephiroth realized as he blinked again. It was a glass container. 

Sephiroth remembered these—meant for mako showers and other experiments calling for sedation. Was that what all of this was? A mako-exposure delirium? 

From the way Bahamut scoffed in his head, Sephiroth had his answer. 

Not delirium, then. But then... when was it?

Logically, Sephiroth knew it had to be before Nibelheim. Though he'd done little exploring in Nibelheim and knew there was a lab in the basement, he also knew the Shinra Headquarters labs like the back of his hand. This was... this was his usual room, the gash in the steel beam above his head from an expert slash of his first test sword when he was twelve was proof enough of it.

Quickly, Sephiroth's eyes roamed the glass, searching for what he knew would be— yes. Right there, on the upper left corner. Hojo was always such a stickler when it came to running his lab, making sure to always keep his favorite experiment's cage up to date.

It was εγλ 0000.

Sephiroth choked on the tube.

It was... He was 23 years old again, practically a newborn babe. The Wutai War didn't even finish until late 0001. Genesis didn't lose his mind until then, dragging Angeal into his death spiral. Sephiroth didn't lose himself in Nibelheim until 0002, and with it came his first death. Then again, five years later, only to be squished like a flea at the bottom of Strife's boot. Then, again... two years later? It was difficult to tell time when he was floating in an abyss.

Sephiroth noticed belatedly his hair was wet, and the tell-tale taste of mako in the back of his throat made him fight back the urge to gag. He was right—they must have just finished his mako shower. And that meant—

With a whir, the glass cage lifted and there were hands on his face, pulling the tubing from his nose with practiced dexterity. Sephiroth knew better than to sneeze or cough, biting back any movement at all, lest he earn his captor's ire.

It was if he had done this a thousand times.

No. He had.

Hojo looked uglier than the last time Sephiroth had seen him, which was a remarkable feat considering the state of decomposition Hojo's body happened to be in when Strife and the others killed him. The memory, one of the few he so lovingly sucked from Cloud Strife's brain during their last fight, had brought him more than a little satisfaction. Seeing Hojo consumed by himself, like the snake eating its own tail... he deserved far worse, but Sephiroth remembered clinging to that thought when Strife ran him through. 

At least... At least Hojo received a fitting punishment. 

Except the snake is always reborn, Bahamut stated blankly, and it took everything in Sephiroth not to bite back a reply.

The last thing Sephiroth needed was a reason for Hojo to force the tubes back down his throat and give him in another Mako shower.

Sephiroth needed out. Now.

Hojo pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose like he always did. Something boiled under Sephiroth's skin at the familiarity: the greasy hair pulled into a disarrayed ponytail at the nape of his neck, his back, tilted forward like that of a hunchback, reminding Sephiroth of when he was a small child. How many times had he held open his arms, waiting for Hojo to hold him? To cradle him and tell him that he was a good boy, that he was loved?

It must be a curse, to remember everything in your life with such clarity.

You have no idea.

No wonder you fell straight into her arms.

"Strange, very strange…" Hojo repeated to himself as he finally removed the piece of tubing from Sephiroth's throat. It was amazing, the clarity of that first deep breath, one so large he could have shattered his ribs. 

Sephiroth did not care what Hojo thought was strange, but he knew better. If he wanted to be released, he would need to play the game. Ask the questions Hojo wanted to hear, state the opinions he needed to have stated, and then, with as much dignity and grace he could muster, get out.

"What, sir?" Sephiroth asked, clenching his teeth as Hojo unclasped the restraints from his wrists. Sephiroth dug his nails into his hands as to not reach up and snap Hojo's neck like a twig.

Best not to destroy him yet. We might need him.

Sephiroth bit his tongue, feeling the mako in his blood welling up before the taste of iron assaulted his senses.

Hojo hummed. "Your reaction to the shower was a little strange. Perhaps I will need to adjust the dosage and viscosity for our session next month." Hojo smiled like Sephiroth presented him a particularly nice treat. "Any strange side effects? Nausea? Headaches? Spasms?"

Sephiroth could have laughed. He went in for a mako shower and came out with the memories of his multiple deaths, the near end of the world at his hands on multiple occasions, the slaughter of his closest friends, the slick smell of burning flesh from Nibelheim.

Oh, yes. There were strange side effects.

"None. May I be excused?" Sephiroth deadpanned as he slowly sat up, making sure not to touch his wrists. Any sign of weakness in front of Hojo was an act against humanity. He would not see Sephiroth in discomfort, let alone fear. Certainly not fear.

Hojo made a mark with his black pen on the white paper and made a sound with his nose. Sephiroth could not be sure what it meant, but he knew that it was the closest he would receive to an affirmative.

Not taking a moment more, Sephiroth swung his legs down, the cold tile hitting his bare feet making him bite back a wince. How long was it since he was barefoot? How long had it been since he could curl his toes? 

He did not pause to relish the feeling, instead quickly looking around the brightly lit hospital lab for his clothing. His skin felt itchy, and he knew he would need to bathe the mako off before he would feel normal again. Thankfully, he always brought soft and comfortable clothes for the trip back after a mako shower.

Sephiroth did not dawdle or waste time, throwing the shirt and pants on as quickly as possible. He could feel every thread on his skin like he could feel the air pulsing around him. When he breathed through his mouth, he could even taste the metal of the walls.

Sensory overload. A side-effect, one Hojo would love nothing more than to hear about. 

Glancing at his boots, Sephiroth swallowed a little harder than neccessary before grabbing them. There was no point. He didn't care if someone saw him without shoes, or that Hojo would think it odd. His apartment was close enough to the labs and there wouldn't be many whose pathes he crossed.

Either way, no one would dare say anything.

He slung the boots over his shoulder, quickly scanning for Masamune… he, logically, knew that she would not be there. Hojo had implemented a rule against his weapons as a child after the aforementioned incident when he was twelve. But still, after being able to summon her with nothing but a twist of a thought…

He was vulnerable.

He was weak.

You are many things but weak is not one of them, boy king.

Sephiroth bit down on the insides of his cheeks to keep from screaming. With one last baleful look Hojo's way, Sephiroth made his way out of his own personal hell and into the light.

Chapter Text

Sephiroth knew the Shinra Headquarters like the back of his hand, so even in a half-daze it was just a matter of allowing his feet to follow the well-worn path back to his room. Throughout the years, Sephiroth learned to get back to his apartment drunk, poisoned, exhausted, or drugged from one too many of Hojo's experiments, so this… this was so painfully normal Sephiroth had to stop more than once to rest his hand on the wall to make sure it was real, to feel the hard concrete under his fingertips and know that this was home.

However, there was a problem with this: every time he stopped, it was more likely someone would see him, see his weakness. If that happened, then there would be issues. 

Hojo, undoubtedly, would be the first one to hear about it. That or the Turks. While Veld would brush it under the rug unless he could use it to his own benefit, Tseng was still a stickler for the rules.

A flash of burning pain lanced its way through Sephiroth's head, visions of Tseng on the ground next to the alter, blood pooling like a sickly benediction around him, assaulting his senses. 

Another flash—Jenova's head. The Northern crater. Beings who were him and yet not. Imperfect replicas. More blood, more pain, wings of light and dark spread afar—

No. Not 'Loveless'. Not Genesis.

Not yet. 

This is real.

Every moment he put his hand against the wall, feeling the coolness rushing up his fingers, every slap of his bare feet against the ground, he knew that he was real, solid, whole.

He was alive, he was whole.

And he wanted Masamune, and then he needed...

He needed...

What did he need?

Sephiroth's mind immediately rushed to Angeal and Genesis, so young and untouched by the mess of a future meant to choke the life from them. That stupid, foolish spar. The anger. The jealousy. 

His failures.

Angeal, alive and whole, honor intact.

Genesis, uncorrupted. 

Genesis, still... still...

Sephiroth took a deep breath through his nose, letting it slowly stream from his open mouth. If he thought about Genesis, the center would not hold. He needed to focus on something else—on anything else.

Zack. 

Was Zack in the SOLDIER program, already? 

Sephiroth ran through his memories, trying to put the pieces together of every conversation they had. Zack was young when he became a First—sixteen, youngest since Sephiroth himself. He was already a senior Second by the time the end of the war came around. If it was 2000, then he was still either a trooper or a newly-minted Third.

Sephiroth closed his eyes, sifting through his memories—yes. 

Da Chao.

"I really lucked out. Da Chao happened a few weeks before I got my first mako shots, otherwise I would've been on that field next to you. Probably woulda gone belly-up." 

Sephiroth blinked open his eyes, glancing at the hands pressed against the wall. At Da Chao, when the artillery died out like the light in his enemies eyes and the dripping of blood echoed against the mountainside, Sephiroth remembered looking down to his right hand. During the onslaught, Sephiroth remembered the stinging as he used the palm of his hand against the live edge of his blade to twist Masamune in deeper. 

Over and over, day after day, night after night, Sephiroth gashed open his hand until the mako in his body and the cures no longer had the necessary effect. 

And, every night after, Genesis took his hand in his and cauterized the wound. 

Even now, Sephiroth could smell the stench, so much like Nibelheim. He could hear the skin sizzling and the burning that went down to the bone. 

"It's alright. I have you." 

He had left everything there, and had come back a newborn baptized in not only his enemy's blood.

Shaking, Sephiroth lifted his right hand, scared to turn it and see the proof of the monster in his veins. The scar from Da Chao was one so deep that even after undertaking Hojo's tender care it remained, a single blight on his perfect experiment. 

It was a point of contention, one that took many boardroom screaming matches to come to a resolution. Lazard wanted it to be shown off to the other SOLDIERs, to let them know their wounds weren't forgotten. President Shinra and Hojo vetoed that, because wouldn't it be more powerful for the Planet to see Sephiroth as being so perfect that he weathered the brutality of Da Chao without so much as a scratch?

But it was gone, unblemished flesh never kissed by steel and blood meeting his gaze. And, like a weight lifted off of his shoulders, Sephiroth took in a gasping breath that felt just like when Hojo pulled the tube from his throat.

 How long had it felt like he was drowning? How many years, even before Jenova's so tender touch had he felt inhuman? 

Closing his palm, Sephiroth shakily pushed himself away from the wall. He watched the shadows, waiting for the other shoe to drop. He waited for Cloud to come, smirking as he held his sword over his head, stabbing it into his belly. He waited for the lifestream to rise up out of the ground and to swallow him whole, ripping every tender muscle, eating him down to the marrow of his bones, sucking him dry of anything but the memory of pain.

But the shadows were only shadows, and damned if he didn't know if it was a comfort or even more of a tragedy.

By the time he made it to his apartment door, he could feel the mako in his stomach begging for release. Mako tasted raw like dirt and harsh like a poison.

He knew that there would be no one in his apartment—Angeal and Genesis had keys, but Angeal knew to give him space after mako showers.

Genesis...  He knew when Sephiroth needed him, like a sixth sense. 

Did he need Genesis now? 

A small part of him screamed that yes, he needed Genesis. There was warm friendship, competition, companionship. And Sephiroth knew in his belly that he had craved for it in ways that he had since he was a child, lonely and cold in the bowels of the laboratory. He wanted his friend, he wanted a normal life.

And he was being given the chance at it, wasn't he?

But not yet. Just the mere thought of Genesis's face... it sent a ripple through Sephiroth's body, straight down into the pit of his stomach. 

He wasn't ready. 

March 5th, 1999. 

Sephiroth stared at Shinra's homepage for what seemed like an eternity, the day's news blinking across the bottom of his screen. There were updates about the 'skirmishes' in Wutai, not fit to be called battles but with too many casualties on both sides to not make the news, and an article about Rufus Shinra, who was in his last year of schooling at the University of Junon. He wouldn't be appointed as Vice President for another year, mostly to keep him from trying to throw another coupe. A few fluff pieces on a new breed of mako-resistant trees meant to be planted above plate (they lasted a few months before withering, with Shinra having to quickly yank them in the middle of the night and claim 'proprietary' reasons) and the new, experimental production of 'Loveless' staring a Prince Rosa, followed. 

March 5th. 

Of course—the number on the glass was the date for replacing the container. 

Da Chao... Da Chao wasn't until the summer of 1999. Angeal would be called first, then Genesis, and finally Sephiroth. He should have been called first, but Da Chao started off as nothing more than a skirmish, too. It wasn't until Wutai turned Shinra's own weapons on them that Sephiroth was called in. It wasn't until hundreds of his men were already dead and rotting that he arrived... too late for his men, too late for so many souls.

Sephiroth could smell the blood in his nose, taste it in his mouth, feel it on his hands. That sting of metal through his palm—

He didn't even realize for a long, hard moment that the sting was real. 

Blinking rapidly, Sephiroth looked down at his right hand, noting with almost eerie calm that the half-moon impressions went so deep he could see puffy yellow fat. Transfixed, Sephiroth stared down at his hand until the mako began to work its way through the blood, knitting his skin back together. 

No. This would not work, Sephiroth realized in a moment of clarity. There were too many things for him to do, too many things for him to fix. If he fell into that pit, he would never come back out. 

Using the years of training under Hojo's delicate touch, Sephiroth turned off his mind, opened up the terminal of his computer, and began to work.

 It didn't take long for Sephiroth to get past the security for the World Wide Net, knowing his way around like it was only a few days since he last touched a computer, instead of the years that had flown by with Jenova guiding him around like a puppet. 

Back when he was a kid, Sephiroth took to the computer lessons the assistants in the lab gave him like a fish to water. It wasn't long before Hojo, in a fit of pique after President Shinra said their best SOLDIER should be trained in more than just the art of the sword, allowed Veld to give him further tutelage. He cracked the Turk's special website lock within days of being granted his first computer, and though they hid them well, Sephiroth learned how to hack through a decent portion of Hojo and Hollander's files after Genesis and Angeal's desertion.

Not soon enough to realize what Jenova was.

Sephiroth ignored Bahamut, instead quickly typing in a few key words into the intranet.

If they searched his history, all they would find, no doubt, would be the remnants of searches on children's stories that parents told their spoiled monster to make sure they behaved. No one believed in Bahamut, the internet told him as much. 

The deeper he dug, the more frivolous and useless the stories became. It shouldn't have even been possible for there to be so many damn variations, but there they were, and here he was. 

Sephiroth looked at the clock above his desk, watching in almost rapture as the hands slowly made their way around. Before, when he was still him, the ticking of the clocks in the building drove him to near-madness. 

Now? 

He had missed time. It was like a wayward lover he already said his goodbyes to, only to realize too late that he could not bear to be apart from. That comforting sound that there was life and it continued on, even if Sephiroth did not... 

How long did he stare at the hands, at the seconds and minutes ticking by in a rhythm that reached into his very being and pulled? 

The Planet. The Lifestream. Time. 

It is not an unlimited resource, and the Planet is already running dangerously close to the edge.

He knew what Shinra was doing to the Planet, what the mako reactors were doing, even before Nibelheim. He, Genesis, and Angeal spoke of it in hushed whispers in the Wutaian mountains and rocky beaches. 

Oh, Shinra spun a pretty story about insurgents and protecting its citizens, but the first time Sephiroth saw the mako pools when it rained and the lush, verdant trees in what should have been a wasteland, Sephiroth knew. 

Just like Rhadore—this war was to protect nothing. It was so Shinra could slake its thirst for more and more mako, more and more power. 

Shinra always liked to kill beautiful things. 

When he was in the Lifestream the first time, when he rested somewhere between half-fantasy and nightmare, he could almost feel the mako pumps trying to draw him forward. It was like an incessant pest, like the Wutaian mosquitoes that gorged themselves on his blood before exploding in the air like fireworks. He fought it, fought it hard, but so many wandering souls did not get their final rest and rebirth.

He hadn't had the time or energy to learn much of what happened after the second time Cloud ran him through with a sword, but he knew that Rufus  tried to right some of the wrongs. Still, it was a big undertaking—almost impossible, really—and it had taken Sephiroth summoning down a meteor from the skies to get them to do anything.

No matter. It didn't matter how impossible the mission seemed, now. If he was here, if he was meant to change the past to prevent what occurred in his future, then something would need to be done regarding the reactors. 

Before then, though... 

Jenova. 

Sephiroth steepled his fingers in front of him, staring at his screen. He would have to figure out something, some way of getting there with Hojo none the wiser. A stealth mission could work, perhaps figure out a way of burning her body... if that didn't work, he wasn't entirely opposed to putting her in a fucking rocket ship and sending her off on a one-way trip into the sun. She did want her trip through the cosmos, didn't she?

Sephiroth could almost see her, with her hair as soft as satin, skin so pearly and blue like an opal underneath his hands. An ethereal smile—that was what Professor Gast wrote when he first found her in the permafrost.

The Cetra, when they screamed in his head in the lifestream, spoke of stolen bodies and mimicry of their brethren. Whoever was Jenova's host before him must have been beautiful in whatever life she had once had.

A flash—the woman in the picture with the soft smile and kind eyes. It was the only thing Hojo ever gave him that did not cause him pain.

But it had, hadn't it? 

Sephiroth chased after the memory of the  woman in the picture, asked every person he met if they knew her. She died in childbirth, Hojo told him as much. Was that even true? Had she ever been real? Or was the woman in the picture a fantasy concocted by Hojo to make him weak and pliant when it was time for Jenova to open her arms for his needy embrace?

Even thinking that was twisted and gnarled and so dead that Sephiroth couldn't stomach it anymore and closed his eyes again.

It was Cloud who greeted him, the starved blue-eyed child with a violent shock of yellow hair and twisted sneer. 

There is much you do not yet know, but I will guide you to the truth of Jenova. Then... then we will take care of her. 

And Shinra?

Yes, we will deal with Shinra, but there is something else you will do—no one can know I am here. They will think you've gone mad and they will lock you up and throw away the key. I can't help you if that happens, and I will consider this a failure. I do not accept failure, boy king. You only get one chance.

Sephiroth could hear the threat in Bahamut's voice, and he opened his eyes to escape the chilling stare that tore into him like the Cetra's screams. Of course he couldn't tell. Even if he had wanted to, not even Angeal and Genesis would believe him. In fact, Genesis himself would probably be the one to call down the Shinra doctors to make sure that they detained him—

Sephiroth swallowed the thought back. 

That wasn't true, and merely thinking it sent a wave of shame curling through his core. He could lash out, attacking anyone within reach. It was what Genesis did when the degradation began. 

Or.... he could go and see what he could do with this broken hunk of rock he was sworn to now protect.

Alone.

He was going to need to do this on his own.

Part of Sephiroth wished, futilely, that it had been Cloud who was sent backwards in time. Cloud was the hero and would have no issue with finding a way of fixing things, changing the Planet and all of the terrible things that had come with Jenova and Shinra. But this was penance and perhaps Bahamut was right, he was beginning to sound just a little like Vincent Valentin—

Valentine.

Sephiroth did not know a lot about the ex-Turk, though he intimately remembered having his bullets ricocheting around his internal organs. Other than that... 

 Of course, there were stories of a legendary Turk who was killed on duty years before Sephiroth's time. Sometimes, when Veld and the other veteran Turks got a little too drunk and loose-lipped after a mission, they would tell long tales that sounded more like they belonged in a children's story than from Shinra's filing cabinet. Vincent Valentine, they said, was able to shoot a cricket in a forest with his eyes shut. 

Somehow, some way, Cloud met with Valentine on his travels and corralled him into the final battle with Sephiroth. 

Why? 

Bahamut's words rang crystal clear through him—

Valentine knew his real mother. Not Jenova, but a living, breathing woman. A woman who bore him, who kept him within her womb for nine months. Had she sung him songs, when Hojo filled her with poison? Had she wept at the thought of what Hojo created?

Sephiroth stood from his desk, heading over to his bed. On his side of the bed, Masamune rested in her stand, her steel encased in her leather scabbard. When was the last time he'd seen that scabbard? It must have been in Nibelheim, in the basement... when he nearly killed Zack. 

Idly, Sephiroth took note of the mussed pillow and sheets, a familiar cologne tickling at his nose. It was... It was something he couldn't think of right now, because if he allowed himself to fall into that sweet oblivion, he knew he would never return. Still, Sephiroth couldn't stop himself from running his hand reverently over the pillow, a single hair catching between his fingers. 

Air caught in his throat as he twisted it around his pointer finger, enjoying the slight pain when he wrapped it tightly once, then twice. 

Red like fire.

Shaking his head, Sephiroth rolled the hair from his finger before going to his side of the bed and slid open the drawer to his nightstand. Right on top, like it always was...

She was still beautiful, so alive and real. There was almost a passing resemblance to the being in the Nibel Reactor, but the longer Sephiroth looked at the picture, the more he could see that it was not the same woman. 

Sephiroth caressed the photo, wishing not for the first time that he knew what her skin felt like against his. Bahamut's words... 

They made sense. It was impossible for the being in the Nibel Reactor to carry him to term. He knew he wasn't normal, but he knew that he could bleed and die and be reabsorbed, at least partially, back into the lifestream. 

He was human, at least in some way.

There was nothing human in Jenova.

Putting the picture back in its place of honor, Sephiroth returned to his computer, pulling up the files he knew every Turk had in the system—the hidden system, the parts only the Turks had access to. If there was anything about Valentine, it should have been there. 

Sephiroth frowned.

That didn't make sense. 

The file was empty. The skeleton of it existed—his name, official Shinra ID, and banking information was there. But that was it. 

Sephiroth may not have been a Turk, but he knew what was inside the Turk files. They were dossiers down to the smallest, most minute detail. When he was nineteen, he remembered Genesis betting that he couldn't find out what was in his file. It'd taken a grand total of three minutes to have Genesis's most personal, private information laid out before them: over two hundred gigabytes of data, from video of every single training session all the way to a detailed breakdown of every single purchase Genesis every made—cash and credit, including a rather scandalous payment made to the Silver Elite in the amount Sephiroth knew was the price of a particularly salacious photo set. 

Sephiroth pursed his lips. Was it that the Turks didn't keep files on themselves? 

No. 

With a few keystrokes, Veld's picture flashed on his screen. Over five hundred gigabytes of data, from the mundane coffee orders all the way to classified missions.

Sephiroth returned to Valentine's file, staring at the man's face. The only difference between this man and the one who joined Cloud was his dead-eyed stare. It almost hurt to look at him for too long, and Sephiroth found himself closing out the tab and erasing his computer's cache, then logging out of the secure network. 

You said you knew of my mother. My true mother. Tell me more about her.

Sephiroth waited for a reply, but was met with silence. 

Hello?

Nothing.

Of course Bahamut wouldn't be at his beck and call, though that only made Sephiroth curious. What was Bahamut doing? Exactly how had Bahamut reached him in the lifestream? And how was it possible that all of this was happening? 

So many questions, so few answers. The mere thought of it, coupled with the feeling of Mako still wet on his skin made his entire body itch.

So, he stood and found his way out of his room, looking for his PHS. He didn't bring his phone with him when he went down to the labs, leaving it on the kitchen table.

Sephiroth licked his lips and stared down at the flip phone. What would he say? What would he do?

Bracing himself, Sephiroth snatched the phone from the table and quickly opened it, the bright screen flashing with a small message telling him that there were three voicemails and twenty text messages. 

Hm.

Sephiroth snapped open the first message and stared down at it, realizing almost immediately how much he missed the comfort of his smartphone. Those wouldn't even be released for another two years, though the prototype would be finished soon, if his memory was right. He could probably call in a few favors and get one.

Almost immediately, Sephiroth wanted to laugh at himself. Of all the things to be thinking about, and he was focused on his phone? But no, he knew what this was. He knew it was merely a distraction, because the minute he let himself focus on the words he would fall to pieces. 

Genesis. 

Sephiroth ran his finger across the name, remembering that night in the rain. His sword burned through the carnage of a hundred felled beasts, Genesis's name the only thing on his lips. The tears in his eyes, the heat of that fear seared into his flesh just like Genesis's fire spells against his palm.

Genesis. All of these messages were from him.

One after the other, each message ripped an aching hole open, a hole he'd used Jenova and hatred to fill for so long that for just a desperate moment he yearned for nothing but the ache to disappear. 

Each message dug in just a little deeper. 

~How is it possible these meetings get more and more du—

~Did you see on the news about the new rendition of L—

~She guides us to bliss, her gift everlast—

~Hojo isn't here. Are you well? Do you need me t—

~They're talking about shoring up the battlemen—

~Now they're talking about cutting my leave by a mo—

~At least Wutai isn't as dull as Palmer is every time he open—

~Are you still holding a grudge? 

~This is ridiculous. You can at least reply. 

~Sephiroth.

Sephiroth's fingers pressed against the keypad, hovering over the delete button when a message popped up on his screen, shattering his concentration. 

~Sephiroth? Please?

Sephiroth slammed his phone closed so hard the plastic whined in reply. He clutched it to his chest, feeling the short, rhythmic buzz once, twice, then silence.

Not yet. He couldn't think about Genesis yet. He was barely hanging on by a thread as it was. Should he go off the precipice, dive into that unending madness again... would he survive it a second time?  

Ring. Ring.

Sephiroth's fist tightened, but when he glanced down at the name emblazoned across the front of his phone, he relaxed his grip.

Angeal.

"Sephiroth, are you okay? Genesis called—"

Sephiroth swallowed back the words he wanted to scream into the receiver. 

"I am fine." Even to his ears, he knew he didn't sound it. There was a wet, cloying feeling to the back of his throat. It reminded him of screams. "The shower may have been stronger than usual." 

"I... see."  

There was a question in Angeal's tone, one which Sephiroth ignored. "Due to my current status I find it best to stay within my apartment. The door is unlocked. I need to shower." It was the closest to an invitation that Angeal was going to get.

"Of course, you take your time. I'll be over in a few minutes." 

His shower was quick and clinical, not unlike the thousand others he'd grown familiar with over the decades. He didn't bother to complete the strenuous twenty minutes of conditioner and rinse Genesis regularly forced him to endure, going for the 2-in-1 bottle he hid in the back of his cabinet. 

The water on his skin was like little razorblades, but Sephiroth grabbed the washcloth and soap scrubbed and scrubbed. Only when he finally looked down at his once-white washcloth to see it streaked red did he stop. It wasn't uncommon after mako showers for his skin to sometimes welt and ooze before sloughing off. It would only take a few minutes for the wound on his chest to heal enough for the tissue to grow back...

A monster, indeed. 

Turning off the water, Sephiroth stood in front of the fogged mirror, staring back at his reflection. The welt this time was on his neck, a strip from throat all the way down to his belly. Sephiroth heard the door open as he stood there in the silence, watching skin regrow like a twisted bloom ready to burst. 

How long he stood there, Sephiroth wasn't entirely sure. After being in the lifestream for what felt like nothing and eternity, minutes and seconds seemed almost inconsequential. However, when he did finally step out, most of the water on his skin had made its way to the floor. 

Grabbing one of the bath towels, Sephiroth wrapped himself tightly in it before opening the door. 

"Sephiroth? I'm in the living room." 

"Just a moment," Sephiroth grunted in reply, heading into his bedroom to grab a clean change of clothes. His skin still felt raw, from the mako or the shower he couldn't be too sure, but Sephiroth tried his best not to touch the skin at his throat again. Angeal was almost as enhanced as he was. If he smelled blood... 

Steeling himself, Sephiroth papped out of the bedroom, clicking the door shut before making his way into his living room. 

"I hope I didn't keep you waiting for lon—"

Angeal sat comfortably on the large black leather loveseat, a sight that caught Sephiroth off guard at just how normal it was. Angeal always loved to sit closest to the door, back leaning half on the wall and the arm, his Buster sword seated on his lap like a particularly beloved cat.

The Buster Sword. 

Sephiroth's stomach churned and, before he could so much as make a sound, vomit raced up his throat and nostrils. The mako-infused contents of bile and whatever he'd eaten for lunch painted itself across his heather gray carpet, but Sephiroth could do nothing to stop it. 

Steel. Hard, biting steel. Spine, severed. Sternum, collapsed. Lungs, ruptured.

Twisting, agonizing pain. Blinding. Hot. Excruciating. Burning.

Pain. 

Pain.

 Pain pain pain pain painpainpain—

Sephiroth's knees went weak, but every other muscle in his body stood at attention. That sword—he knew that sword. He'd felt that sword. That sword knew him more intimately than his lover, than his mother, than Jenova ever could.

Even Ge—

Sephiroth gasped in a deep, choking breath. The vomit still in his mouth aspirated back, but he clamped down his lips and slowly, carefully, took a step back. His hand, more feeble than he dared to admit, tried to reach into the ether for the sweet pressure of Masamune, but he was only met with air. 

Weak. He was weak and the Buster was here, ready to swing down on him and end him again. It would kill him, would torture him, would do it again and again and aga—

"Seph?" 

Angeal jumped to his feet, holding Buster in front of him. 

Images flashed like lightning before him: Nibel Reactor. Jenova. Splintered glass and burning mako. The lifestream. The cosmos. Red burning meteor. 

"My little puppet, my darling boy. Mother is here. Mother shall never leave you."

Like a kicked dog, Sephiroth flinched. 

"Get that thing out of my house." 

Angeal's brows furrowed. He took a step forward, but Sephiroth took two backward. His hip smashed into the corner of the counter, nearly sending him staggering back. 

"Get what out of your house?" 

Sephiroth quickly glanced at the Buster, then back to Angeal. 

Something almost too close to pity crossed Angeal's face as he looked down at his hand and the sword still in it. "Oh. Okay. Of course, I can do that. Why don't you go into your room, and I'll—" 

"I'll stay right here." Sephiroth inched around the counter and into the kitchen. He quickly looked over his shoulder,  scanning the room for—there it was, the block of kitchen knives. It wouldn't do much, but Sephiroth was nothing if not adept. There was a training katana under the sink, just in case. The knives would give him enough time to grab it—

"Okay. You do that. I'm going to attach my sword to my back and slowly make my way to the front door. Okay?" 

"Then do it." Sephiroth shuffled back until he hit the sink. Wrapping his hands around the metal, Sephiroth tightened his grip. There was vomit still in his mouth, on his face, down his shirt, but that didn't matter. He could protect himself. 

"Okay. I'm going to go through the hallway. Would you rather see my front or my back?" 

"Back—no. Front. Back against the wall." 

"Okay. I can do that." Angeal's voice, quiet and yet so sure, was a comfort Sephiroth wasn't sure he deserved. When he saw Angeal's face, the worry pulling at his mouth, the fear in his eyes, Sephiroth could only turn his head away. "I'll be back in a minute. Okay?" 

Sephiroth gave a wooden nod, eyes never returning to Angeal. He stayed that way for a good minute, until the door opened and closed.

It was barely a second too soon, as Sephiroth turned and vomited the rest of his stomach's contents into the sink, the metal where his hands gripped warped and broken.

Coffee was something of a luxury Sephiroth took every moment to enjoy, from the imported coffee beans from the hills of Mideel and Gongaga, and Angeal knew just how he liked it.

During the Wutai War, there had been many of these quiet meetings, just cups of coffee and the silence only punctuated by the sound of swallowing and the tinkle of the cup hitting the table. It was a comfort Sephiroth basked in, like a good book or a massage that managed to make his body go boneless and soft under pliant fingers. 

Angeal didn't remember those days, but Sephiroth did. They were just as important as the fairytales Genesis had told him in the trenches. They kept him grounded. Kept him human.

How had he forgotten this and allowed Jenova to take it from him? How could he forget these human encounters, the small, fleeting and fragile things that made him who he was?

Shame hit down to the bone as Sephiroth took another gulp of the rich coffee, feeling it slide down his throat. Some took him for a man who could drink his coffee black, but in reality he enjoyed his coffee with cream and two heaping spoons of sugar. Of course no one would have believed it, but it was the truth... And Angeal, his best friend, one of his only friends, known.

"Angeal... I need to ask you something."

Angeal looked up from his own cup of coffee, worry painted across his brow and his dark brown eyes. Angeal hadn't said anything when he returned to see the mess of what was left of the sink, nor to Sephiroth furiously scrubbing the stains in his carpet. Instead, as he had so many times before, he set a pot of coffee to brew and waited for Sephiroth to talk—if he wanted to talk.

"What is it, Seph?"

The use of that nickname caught Sephiroth off guard, and he had to take a sip of his coffee to stop himself from saying the wrong thing. The moment stretched like a rubber band going taut, but before it snapped Sephiroth finally asked the question echoing like one of Valentine's bullets through his brain.

"Do you think I am a good man?"

Angeal put his cup down on the table, and Sephiroth could see the beginnings of the rings the mugs would make in the future. Not yet, but soon they would become part of the table, like little reminders of Angeal.

Sephiroth took Masamune to that table when Zack called, telling him what happened to his first true friend. And then, after the agony dulled to a quiet roar in the back of his head and his heart, Sephiroth remembered sitting on his floor gluing it back together. He tried to hold the pieces together, to fix what he destroyed, only to watch it fall apart the moment he let go.

He always destroyed. He never fixed. 

Bahamut, you were wrong. You chose the wrong man. I can't do this.

"I think you're a difficult man," Angeal said eventually. "I think that you sometimes forget who you are, and try to be who others tell you to be. But, even then, I do think that you are a good man."

Sephiroth hoped Angeal was right.

--

You can, and you shall. 

Chapter Text

They sat there, in the stillness and silence for what seemed to be an eternity—something that Sephiroth was well, well acquainted with from his time in the emptiness of the lifestream. He knew that Angeal had questions, knew that his oldest friend wanted to know just what was going on to have him respond like that, but there really were no words that could ever encapsulate the last several hours. 

And, even if Sephiroth wanted to tell him, he couldn't. 

No. I wouldn't. I wouldn't wish to burden him with my failures. 

Still, Sephiroth tried his best to ignore the worry in Angeal's gaze every time their eyes met, lifting the empty coffee cup half-way to his lips more than half a dozen times before Angeal took pity on him and got him another cup—a splash of milk and two heaping spoonfuls of sugar. 

"Thank you," he finally murmured as he gripped the cup, enjoying the heat under his fingers. His skin still ached from the mako shower, but there was something comforting in the warmth. 

"You don't need to thank me for a cup of coffee, Seph." 

Words caught in Sephiroth's throat, and he swallowed, hard. "No. I mean... yes, thank you for the coffee. But also..." he trailed off, looking down to his stained carpet. 

"You never need to thank me for that. This is what friends do." 

The words hit him like a punch. Zack said the same thing to him, once upon a time, and the reminder of Zack—dead, dead, dead—pulled at the threadbare grasp Sephiroth had tethering him to his sanity. 

But Sephiroth say nothing. 

Zack.

How old was he? Had he already joined the Company? Or would that happen soon?

If Sephiroth were a better man, he would hack into the database and delete Zack's file, throw up boundaries, prevent him from having any chance to join SOLDIER if he wasn't already in the thick of it. If not, he could easily get him thrown out with just a single word. Zack would able to go home to Gongaga to play in the soft glowing light of the sun breaking through the jungle above. He would live for years, get married, have children, have the opportunity to be happy. He deserved a fulfilling life.

With his flower girl.

Sephiroth shut his eyes and gripped the coffee mug so tight he heard the creak of porcelain between his fingers. 

Aerith. Her name is Aerith. Bahamut's voice sounded like Strife, a bitterness in his tone so strong it made lights dance in front of his eyes, head pounding with each heartbeat. The pain radiated from behind his eyes down to his jaw.

Sephiroth didn't, even now, know much about her; Zack mentioned her so many times in his wistful exclamations about his girl but never once had he said her name. It was always about his girlfriend he helped build a wagon, the sweetheart he bought a new ribbon, the love of his life waiting for him when he got back. Before Nibelheim burned, before he took the Buster sword through his guts, he thought Zack was just careful. SOLDIERs, especially those who were as popular as Zack, had fanclubs ready to detonate with just a whisper of a rumor.

Hells, even in the lifestream as Jenova cocooned him in her comforting prison, Sephiroth never once thought about her. So focused on the hazy desires Jenova whispered in his ear, Sephiroth was numb to anything but his anger and pain.

And he killed her. 

She—Aerith, Sephiroth reminded himself numbly—had been innocent and pure, and he ruined that. The blood against Masamune, the look of horror across Cloud's face as he pulled the blade from her back, the sound of bones crunching as he twisted the hilt just so.

Oh, yes, Zack would have murdered him with his own hands knew what fate he would bestow upon her, the last of her kind. 

And he definitely deserved it. No matter Jenova, no matter the experiments and Hojo...

He had failed.

"Did something happen?" 

"Hmm?" Sephiroth looked up into Angeal's dark eyes. There it was, again—that look of worry, that look of pity. 

"During your tests. Did something happen to make you so...." Angeal began, but cut himself off. He pursed his lips, tapping his foot on the floor before continuing. "You just look a little off. That's all."

"It was just a long day."

Angeal didn't believe him. That much was clear in the way his gaze bore down on Sephiroth, pinning him to his sofa. It was hard to not look too deeply into his friend's eyes, knowing that if he did then it would be almost impossible to hide the truth. Sephiroth knew how to wear his masks, spent his entire life with one to bury himself under, but Angeal always had a way with looking through it. 

The only other person who could do that..

"Have you talked to Genesis? He said you didn't answer any of his texts." 

Sephiroth tilted the coffee back, gulping it down until all that was left was the sugar that hadn't dissolved at the bottom. "He's impatient." 

"He's worried." 

"And why would he worry?" Sephiroth spat, immediately regretting it from the way Angeal all but flinched. "There's nothing to worry about, Angeal. I'm fine. We've all had mako showers—you of all people know what they can be like." 

"Which is why he's worried," Angeal replied, voice even and so very in control. That was who Angeal always was, always would be. "I don't know what your fight was about—and I won't ask. And you know I would never force you to talk to him, but would it be alright if I let him know you haven't grown tentacles?"

Sephiroth blinked. "Why would I grow tentacles?" Yes, it was true that Jenova did mutate and warp SOLDIERs—the phantom twinge in his shoulder where he knew a wing would one day rip its way from his shoulder was proof enough of that—but tentacles?

"Greavers mentioned being in medical a few months back. One of the grunts said he woke up with appendages after his shower." At the incredulous look from Sephiroth, Angeal just shrugged his shoulders. "You know how the men are—one of 'em gets some patchy skin after a shower and by the next week everyone thinks they've been shipped off to the marshes to go mate with the zolom."

Ah. Yes. The infamous Shinra rumor-mill. Somehow, death was more comforting than that.

"So, Genesis believes I have... tentacles." 

A smile quirked at the corners of Angeal's lips. "He mentioned it was in a dream he had. Said your appendages turned into tentacles, which you then used to wrap around his throat and shake the life out of him." 

 "That's... oddly specific." 

Angeal didn't glower, but from the way his brows furrowed it was the closest he was likely to get. "I find it best not to ask Genesis questions when he mentions the word 'appendages'." 

Sephiroth tried not to smile, but it was a losing battle. Genesis... he always was like that, wasn't he? 

"Well, please feel free to inform Genesis that I have not grown any more appendages—whether he takes that as good or bad news, that doesn't have anything to do with either of us." 

Angeal made a face. "You know what, Seph? I think I'll just tell him I checked in on you and you were fine, yeah? Or..." Angeal trailed off, looking pointedly at Sephiroth. "Genesis said he gets off at eight tonight. Was thinking about going down to that little Mideelan restaurant in Sector Five. It isn't the same as Banoran food, but it's a close second." 

It wasn't an invitation, but Angeal was like Sephiroth in that way. Leave the door open, let Sephiroth make his own decisions. 

But... It was too soon. There was someone he needed to see, someone he needed to meet before he could look Genesis in the eye. How could he forgive Genesis when he couldn't even forgive himself?

"I think I'll pass. You two enjoy your night. I think... I think I'll go Underplate—work off some of the mako. Get it out of my system." Even to Sephiroth's ears the comment sounded strange. Since when did he go down to the slums when he could kill behemoths in the VR room? 

"You think that's wise?" 

The stain on the heather gray carpet still stood bare in the foggy light from the window, and Sephiroth could not look away as he replied.

"I'll be fine, Ang. I always am, aren't I?" 

Sephiroth stared at the church before him, the stained glass refracting the sickly green mako-tainted and the few natural sun rays filtered through the crevices of the plate above. Meant for ventilation, to stop the mako from acting as a fumigant to the people of the slums, now it merely allowed the faintest traces of the outside world to mock those drowning in poison.

Still, there was something eerily beautiful in the dilapidated church. Surrounded by trash and debris, heaps of rubble and monster dens, this building stood the testament of time—and it was exactly like Zack described. 

"It's just so peaceful there. It shouldn't be, y'know, with the rocket and everything. But it's so weird, Seph. There's just this sense of peace, like everything is okay because nothing can hurt you in there. It kinda reminded me of my mom giving me a hug. You know what I mean?" 

Sephiroth hadn't known what he meant then, still did not know what it meant to have a true mother's love, but Zack had been right; there was something peaceful, something comforting in the air. This was meant to be a place of refuge, a place of solace—

And I do not belong here. I do not deserve to step within the sanctity of such a place. 

He could feel her there before he could see her.

There was wood and glass and stone between Sephiroth and the little flower girl, but he knew that she was in there. Was she tending to her garden, dirt and soot catching on her cheeks? Was she smiling as she tended to her blooms, only to look up with narrowed eyes as she felt his tainted presence?

Was she wearing her pink dress—the same one she wore when he ran his sword through her belly as Cloud screamed out her name? Would the life leave her eyes at his hand again, as it had before? 

No.  She was still a child, maybe thirteen or fourteen, no more. She wouldn't look the same, and she would certainly not notice him. She couldn't...

Unless she is like me.

Sephiroth tried to reach forward through the ether for Bahamut, but he was met with nothing but silence.

Carefully, oh so carefully, Sephiroth made his way closer to the church. He peered at the front doors, wishing they would open but knowing the he would need to push them, to break the serenity between the present and the past, the past and the future. 

It was only when he felt the presence of eyes—that niggling feeling at the back of his neck that warned of prey— did Sephiroth realize he was being watched. 

Sephiroth laid his hand against the wooden door, closing his eyes to feel the air. There was a sharpness in the air, nearly covered over by the overwhelming scent of flowers and decay. 

Turks. 

No.

Tseng.

Sephiroth did not turn, did not acknowledge the presence boring holes into the back of his skull. Had Tseng drawn his gun? It would have been both logical and illogical, as both he and Tseng knew that if he truly wanted the girl dead she would already be gone, but also that if Tseng did fire his weapon it would do nothing at all. It was futile like so many things in Sephiroth's life. 

Instead, Sephiroth blinked his eyes open before he pushed the door open. It gave a long creak and then, as though mocking Tseng and the lifestream and the bloody past, opened with barely a nudge.

Steeling himself, Sephiroth stepped inside and—

Oh.

Aerith Gainsborough stood there in front of the door, one hand outreached as though ready to grab at the handle. She was a tiny slip of a thing, her too-big green dress seeming to swallow her up and her boots several sizes too large—no doubt hand-me-downs from the well-worn leather and the slightly scuffed heels. Despite there being a blue bow in her hair, it couldn't seem to keep all of her curls in place. Several errant hairs poked out, and yes, there was a smudge of dirt just under her ear.

And Sephiroth couldn't breathe because, as the sunshine brightened her profile, he realized with no small amount of horror that Aerith looked just like her mother.

Sephiroth remembered Professor Gast and Infalna. He knew them...

No. That wasn't quite true, for knowing would suggest a coldness and distance that, even now, he could not assign to Professor Gast, yes, but more so Infalna. 

Inflana... Sephiroth felt the knot in his throat as he stared at the little girl. He could see Gast in her cheeks, in the slope of her brows, but the rest... the rest was all Infalna. Her eyes, the cupid's bow of her lips, the way her eyes opened wide when their gazes met. It was a softness in her, something Sephiroth had not seen after he and Jenova became what they were, what twisted mess of alien and vindictiveness it was. 

And, unbidden, something twisted up in Sephiroth's guts, something he thought he long-ago rid himself of,  like a snake shedding its skin. 

They left me. They left me with Hojo to rot.

"They've gone, Specimen S, and they will not be returning. Perhaps it was your incessant whining that drove them away for all I know. Clean your face off—we will be doing your mako treatments within the hour."

The thought came so suddenly it hit Sephiroth like a punch, and he found himself stepping back from the little girl with too-green eyes. Those eyes, full of innocence and curiosity, were the same eyes that looked at him through the darkness as Infalna tucked him into bed, the same eyes that looked away from him as he begged to go with them all those years before.

The same eyes he snuffed the light from, the same eyes that went glassy and dead as Cloud screamed.

Had Inflana known what he would become? Had she known what monster hide beneath his skin?

Did Aerith? 

"You aren't Tseng." There was accusation there, and Sephiroth had to blink again and again before the images disappeared. She stared at him with a trembling mouth, and though she was clearly nervous and confused, she stared out at Sephiroth as if daring him to try something. 

He remembered Inflana looking at Hojo the same way when he tried to take away the few toys and books Infalna brought for him. She almost never won with Hojo, but she always had better luck with Gast. That memory shouldn't have made him want to smile, shouldn't have made him feel almost happy, but it did. 

"I'm not Tseng, no," he finally replied, watching as her nose flared.

 "Then you should go, there are Turks around here, y'know."

"I know... Tseng is someone I know well. I... I work with him." It was almost surreal, this wasn't what Sephiroth had expected. Not from the little girl. "I was hunting monsters near this area."

"So you're a Turk, too?" 

Sephiroth shook his head. "No. I'm not. But," he continued before Aerith slammed the door in his face, "we both know that I would not be standing here if they thought I posed any danger to you." 

It was a lie, as Tseng wouldn't have been able to stop him with even an entire army, but she didn't need to know that. It was true, though, that he had no ill-will.

Aerith narrowed her eyes, cocking her head to the side as she took in his sheathed sword and the glow to his eyes. She looked over his shoulder, almost as if expecting a Turk to pop out from behind him with a gun, before here eyes went a little wide. There was a whisper in the wind, a magic Sephiroth could feel but not quite place, before Aerith seemed to almost deflate. "Oh. I... I see." 

Sephiroth wasn't sure if she was talking to him or not, but from the way she pulled the door open just a crack, it was the closest to an invitation Sephiroth knew he was going to get. "There aren't any monsters in here."

"That's good to know." He paused, hands tightening just so. "Though, if it wouldn't be a bother... may I come in?" 

Aerith glanced to the sword on his back, then back to his eyes. The wind once again whispered between them before Aerith shrugged and backed up. "Just don't step on the flowers." 

It was much bigger inside, the steepled roof hanging so high that Sephiroth wondered even with his super human strength if he would be able to jump up. The garden was a little to the back, close to the alter, hidden by several rickety pews that had long ago seen their last praying knees. The church was a relic of times long gone, where there was religion in the remnants of an equally dead city Shinra built Midgar over. The air around them hummed, not that of the ever-present mako reactors, but something Sephiroth never really noticed before noticed.

Sephiroth lifted his head and listened closely. What he thought was just the wind was... No. 

Is that a voice?

Sephiroth sucked in a breath between his teeth. Yes, not that he was inside, now that he was surrounded by the stillness of the church, he could hear it. 

Sephiroth stopped dead before the patch of flowers, staring at the leaking green blossoming from the ground. There it was, barely there but still so loud—a stream of lifestream licking at the girl's garden.

Aerith turned, tilting her head to the side. Her eyes, inquisitive, stared at him before finally she spoke. "Can... Can you hear it too?" Aerith asked, voice wary and yet so damn hopeful. 

Yes, he could hear it, the whisper of something against his mind, and Sephiroth knew it could not be Jenova; she was gone from his mind, Bahamut said so himself. He tried to call out to Bahamut, but was met with silence.

Flash.

A crystalline city. 

Flash. 

A pretty pink dress.

Flash. 

A red bloom against pink. 

Flash. 

A tinkering as a green materia falling into the still waters below. 

Flash.

"And if I did?" Sephiroth said as he tugged his Masamune, sheath and all, from his back, resting it down on a nearby pew. He wouldn't have a weapon—that weapon—near the girl in a church the lifestream itself whispered from. 

Not again.

Aerith breathed out so loudly Sephiroth could almost feel it in his lungs. 

"Then... are you like me?"

Sephiroth felt his lips pull together against his teeth. He knew what she meant, even if she herself did not fully understand.

Ancient. Cetra.

He was not one of them, that Sephiroth knew and knew well. Jenova was nothing but a pitiful monster that crashed from the heavens. She was the Calamity from the Sky, and he was born from her monstrous loins. Hojo and Gast had done their damage, the experiment of their own creation, and neither ever thought of what havoc Sephiroth would wreck the planet with. 

Genesis had called him the perfect monster, and Cloud assured him of it three times.

But... why could he hear the whispers?

"I don't know." Sephiroth did not know if she would appreciate his honesty. 

But then she smiled, a true and unadulterated smile. "But you can still hear them." It wasn't a question, and Sephiroth didn't know how to answer. 

After a long stretch of silence, punctuated only by their breathing, he finally replied. "It is likely just an aftereffect of the mako injections."

Aerith scrunched her nose, losing her smile. "Oh... are you, are you one of those... things?"

Her words stung more than Sephiroth would dare to admit. A thing, a nothing, an insignificant test tube experiment. He'd heard that his who like, but coming from the daughter of one of the men to create him? 

It may as well have been a slap.

"SOLDIER. Yes." Sephiroth knew his name and pictures were in the papers and the television, knew that he was used as a recruitment tool. His endorsement was used to market new potions and clothing, his likeness plastered across internet website banners and train ads topside. But maybe things were different in the slums. Maybe... maybe, to her, he was only a man who could hear the lifestream, too. "My name is Sephiroth."

She turned her head and inspected him again, face soft but eyes sharp like daggers. Sephiroth could see why Zack and Cloud both had been infatuated with her. Sephiroth could see the wheels turning over his name before finally her eyes widened. Most wouldn't have caught it, but Sephiroth was trained to look for weakness.

"You knew my mother."

That was not what Sephiroth expected. It was not said with malice or contempt, nor with curiosity. It was stated as though it were a fact no different than the weather or a water cooler topic brought up by the Shinra secretarial team during their lunch break.

Aerith took the opportunity to sink to her knees in her bed of flowers, sitting down on the heels of her boots. She really was small and unassuming, but her eyes studied him with a sharpness; he was not the only one trailed to look for weakness, it seemed. 

Sephiroth stood there awkwardly before, after a long moment, Aerith patted the ground next to her. "It's okay," she said, though for what, Sephiroth was not sure. There were, after all, many things that could be in answer to. 

Crouching down at the edge of her flower bed, Sephiroth traced his fingers against a yellow flower, feeling the warmth of the sun against his ungloved fingers. It was like a kiss. They stayed there in the silence for what felt to be an eternity before finally Sephiroth spoke. "Did... did she ever speak of me?" 

There shouldn't have been a lump in the back of his throat. There shouldn't have been this wistful and aching hope, but Sephiroth was weak. He had always been weak. 

Aerith picked one of the flowers, a white one that seemed to nearly sparkle with life, and spun it between her fingers. "Yeah. When I was little, she'd always tell me stories about a little boy named Sephiroth. She said... she said you were special, like me. That you were good."

Good. 

"She said that?" 

Aerith nodded. "She said you were trapped, too. That—" the girl cut herself off, looking around the church as if expecting one of the Turks to be lurking in the darkness. She leaned close before all but whispering her next words. "Did Shinra keep you in the cage, too?" 

Something warm prickled in the corners of his eyes, and Sephiroth blinked rapidly to clear it away. When he spoke, voice sharper than it should have been, Aerith said nothing. 

"Too?" 

Aerith only nodded her head. "I grew up there, in Shinra Tower. Did you grow up there, too? She said she could feel you, but he never let her see you. It always made her sad. She said... she said they tried to take you, but they couldn't. She regrets it, even now." 

She did not elaborate further, but Sephiroth knew. Of course he knew. All those years and Infalna was so very close? And Hojo...

Rage. Hot, liquid rage boiled in his marrow and Sephiroth found himself sitting down because his feet could no longer hold him. They hadn't abandoned him—not on purpose.

Sephiroth slammed his eyes shut as he felt the wind against his face, the voice in the distance so familiar and yet—

For a second, just a single breath, Sephiroth sat stock-still as the voice of Jenova whispered against his face. It was her dulcet tone, the way she whispered his name like he was the most important thing in the world.

No. 

This voice... this voice was different. This voice was soft where Jenova's was sharp, gentle where Jenova's was like a vice around his brain stem, cradling him so close he could barely breathe. 

Infalna. 

Aerith looked at the air next to his head, smiling sadly. Could she see her mother there? Or was it the same as the feeling running through all of Sephiroth's sense? 

"What happened to her?" Sephiroth asked, though he already knew that she was long gone. She must have returned to the planet to be with them through the lifestream pulsing under the floorboards. 

"We escaped... they shot her." It was not right for any child to say that with her voice not so much as cracking.

"I'm sorry."

"Me too."

Sephiroth sat in the silence, watching the breeze gently ruffle the flower petals as Aerith tended to them She occasionally peeked over her shoulder, almost as if she wanted to ask him a question, but every time she opened her mouth nothing came out. 

Sephiroth wished that he could send her to Gongaga. There, she would be safe. She could live out her life in a little hut just outside the teeming jungle. There would be a garden and chickens, just like the ones Zack would always wistfully yammer on about when he through Sephiroth wasn't actually listening, and Sephiroth could imagine Aerith growing old and gray, could imagine Infalna's face with Gast's brows slowly beginning to wrinkle and morph with time.

Zack could be with her, there. Zack with a streak of gray and laugh lines around his mouth. There would be kids; a whole slew of them with brown hair and and black hair and even a shy little blond with eyes blue like the summer sky—

Just as quickly as the thought surfaced, Sephiroth slammed it down. 

Thinking of Zack always, always, led back to Cloud Strife. 

Sephiroth pressed his hand against his stomach, just under his ribcage. He could feel the metal against them as it pierced the tank, could taste the mako and the blood deep in his throat. He gurgled on that blood, at the tang of death, until all he knew was the blinding hot agony of mako.

Think. Think of what to do. Think of your first move. Think so that you will never feel that pain again. Think so Bahamut will not allow Strife to kill you a fourth time.

Taking in a deep breath, Sephiroth let the world around him fade away as he focused on the impenetrable silence. 

Jenova. Hojo. Reactors. 

The list was both simple and impossible.

Jenova.

Jenova was the catalyst for everything; she was heaven's dark harbinger, the mother of destruction, the calamity from the skies. He would burn her, burn down all of Mt. Nibel and throw himself on the pyre if it meant he could die in peace. 

But there were things that needed to happen before then, things that need to be changed. 

Hojo.

While Sephiroth would have given almost anything to go to the labs now, bypassing security with Masamune just so he could lop Hojo's head off, there were things only Hojo could do. Angeal and Genesis's degradation would happen no matter what he did, and given that Hojo was—no matter how shriveled his black, dead heart was—the only person who could possibly reverse the effects of the degradation. 

Bahamut had given him this chance, this ability to right the wrongs of his past, and Sephiroth wouldn't let them die.

He couldn't let them die. Not again.

If it meant keeping Hojo breathing for just a little longer, then so be it. 

Reactors.

There had been almost no studies when Sephiroth was still sane on the affects of the mako reactors, but there was a reason why they would dig up the mako-resistant trees in the middle of the night. There were reasons why the once lush fields around Midgar had withered into an empty desert, barren of life and hope, why the people even in Shinra Headquarters preferred to use hologram windows rather than stare out into the barren nothingness of a dying land.

Though it was fuzzy and hazy, Sephiroth could remember his time in the lifestream, at the incessant buzzing as the reactors pulled at his very core. It feasted on his memories like a pack of bandersnatch, the memory of Cloud Strife the only thing keeping him glued together. 

If he were going to fix the Planet, right the wrongs he had wrought, then Shinra and its reactors would need to burn as well. While he held no love for President Shinra or the SOLDIER program, he would not allow his men to languish alone. He would not abandon his friends.

He would not abandon...

He could not abandon him, not as he abandoned Sephiroth.

Jenova. Hojo. Reactors.

Sephiroth had been a master at the game of war, a General they had all feared and respected. He could move troops with an ease that had won massive battles against terrible odds. But sitting there, in the church with a girl he had killed so long ago and yet not, he could not even think of a single possible solution to the mess.

Maybe running President Shinra through again wouldn't be a half-bad idea. Rufus was young, easily influenced... If he could plant the seeds in Rufus's head, could convince him to end the Reactors and replace them with an alternative, could end the SOLDIER program and kill Hojo after finding a cure for the degradation... 

Could he kill Jenova? 

Could he end her millennia's torment of the planet, just so Sephiroth could finally be truly free?

The wheels turned in Sephiroth's head until the sun's last few rays kissed the earth and disappeared. 

"Mr. Sephiroth? I need to go home for dinner."

Sephiroth looked up at Aerith, who was busily wiping dirt from her too-big dress as she stood. "Then let me see myself out, Miss...?"

"Aerith... Aerith Gainsborough." Sephiroth watched the girl grab one curl, wrapping the hair tightly around her finger until it went white. "The planet says you can come back next time. Just be careful about Tseng."

Sephiroth almost doubted the veracity of her claims until he felt the wind whisper against his cheek again, the whisper of his name echoing in a long dead voice. He expected hissing, but was met with warmth. What had he ever done to deserve warmth? 

He could still remember his time in the lifestream before, in the eternal nothingness where the Cetra screamed their hatred in a million voices all at once, a cacophony of loathing all for him. Where had that anger gone? Where was the hatred and loathing? 

Why would it kiss his cheek like a mother would its disobedient but still beloved child?

"Then I shall, Miss Gainsborough." Sephiroth wondered if he should offer to walk her home, but she smiled and made a little gesture with her chin to the door, where Sephiroth saw the shadows lurking just outside.

Sephiroth's nostrils flared. He hadn't even realized that there was more than just Tseng in the area, now. There were at least six. Slowly, Sephiroth stood, careful not to step on Aerith's flowers. 

How did I not notice them? 

You are still shaken from the day's events.

Sephiroth resisted the urge to sigh. Of course Bahamut would not leave him be.

"It was very nice to meet you, Miss Gainsborough."

"You too, Sephiroth." Aerith picked up one of her flowers—the yellow one she plucked from her garden—and handed it to him before she headed toward the door. She turned when she reached for the handle and looked at him, almost as though she wanted to say something, before she turned her back to him and slipped out into the darkness.

When the door closed with a loud thunk, Sephiroth brushed the flower against his face, breathing in the scent as deeply as he could. The lifestream still clung to its petals, so very unlike the refined mako bath that he awoke to mere hours before, but there was a comfort in the mild sting against his skin.

Click.

"Tseng."

"Sephiroth." 

Tseng looked too young, younger than Sephiroth could really remember him ever being. His hair was long, almost as long as it was in the Temple of the Ancients, but there was still a softness in his cheeks that spoke of youth not yet lost to Shinra. There was no innocence, as Turks lost that long before Shinra started signing their paychecks, but there was something almost naive in the way his hand rested on the gun in its holster, the safety off. 

It was an empty threat, but Tseng made his point more than clear.

Sephiroth could remember Zack talking about Aerith, about her connection with Tseng, but Sephiroth always assumed it was just a Turk married to his job. But there was something cold and calculating in Tseng's eyes. And, for Tseng to even dare flick off the safety to a gun he would never get to fire...

Well.

Actions did speak louder than words, after all.

"Did the Science Department send you?"

"I am not Hojo's lapdog. You should know that by now." This Tseng was still new, still green enough to not understand the reality of those who went into the mako chambers, particularly those who managed to come out. He did not hold it against Tseng because, had this been his first timeline, neither would he. "Not everything I do is about Shinra." It wouldn't be until after Wutai that he fully swallowed down the bitter poison. 

Though, if he were honest with himself, Sephiroth knew he had been teetering upon the precipice between insanity and sanity long before Nibelheim. He had only kept himself together because he had to care for his friend's charge, he had to protect his men, he had to pray every night that Gen—

Tseng smiled genially, though there was a hardness to his dark eyes that Sephiroth could most certainly appreciate. "Miss Gainsborough is under Turk jurisdiction. I am sure Veld would rather this be kept off the record—"

"As would Lazard." Things had always been tense between SOLDIER and Turk divisions. It had taken years to even put the two divisions within the same handful of floors without causing catastrophe. The sheer number of coffee mugs lobbed at window, let alone the vicious emails or barely-veiled threats had forced even Sephiroth to personally discipline some of the lower rank SOLDIER when all else failed. Hells, it wasn't even the punishment that had led to the terse truce between them, from what Zack told him.

"They just don't want to disappoint you, man. They know what you did for them, know what you sacrificed on that mountain. They'd do anything for you." 

"And what exactly, pray tell,  was your purpose of visiting our target this evening?" 

Sephiroth had the choice to answer; there was nothing Tseng could do if he opted for silence. But Sephiroth passed an olive branch to the Turk. 

"It was of a personal nature." At Tseng's impassive face, Sephiroth added, "I knew Dr. Gast and his wife. I did not know they had a child."

Tseng didn't even pretend to be surprised. No doubt the Turk noticed him sneaking through the Turk's files—Sephiroth was good, yes, but he likely hadn't been half as stealthy as he should have been. Undoubtedly,  Tseng read what was available in Sephiroth's file, though some of the more prickly and sensitive files were only housed in the Nibelheim manor. Mentally adding 'burn the manor down to the ground' to his short and yet very important checklist, Sephiroth pocketed the flower before grabbing his sword. 

Tseng stiffened, hand tightening around the grip of his gun, but Sephiroth ignored it. Instead, he attached the Masamune to his back, deciding to clear out some of the monster dens in the area. Since he was already there, it would cost him nothing but an hour of his time to make the church a little safer.

 "Then we must have an accord?"

Tseng paused, almost as though contemplating his offer, before replying with a cool, "Certainly."

A thought popped into Sephiroth's head, and before he could even filter through the potential ramifications, the words were already spilling out of his mouth. If he was going to burn Nibelheim manor down, then he may as well clear out the basement, first.

"Do you know anything of Vincent Valentine?" 

Tseng said nothing, but Sephiroth knew that he had caught the Turk's attention from the way his back tensed. Turks had no honor, but they did have loyalty. Valentine was one of their own.

Casually, almost too casually, Sephiroth hit his target. "How sure are you that he's dead?"

Sephiroth arrived back at his apartment and knew the moment he opened the door that he was not alone; there was a smell wafting through the rooms, the sound of food sizzling on the stove, a chatter of the television he knew he never turned on.

"Have you slaked your thirst for killing?"

He hadn't prepared to see Genesis there, standing in his kitchen with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows and hair pulled back at the nape of his neck, clutching a wooden spoon like he would his rapier. Genesis always knew when his presence was and was not needed, and at this moment, with his Masamune still covered in monster gore and his head filled with an entire decade of life not yet lived, Sephiroth hadn't realized how much he wanted Genesis.

And it hurt. It hurt like cauterizing his hand over and over until nothing but charred tendon remain. 

Genesis was still young and whole, his auburn hair bright like fire, some of the wisps he hadn't tied back curling around his ears. The piercing Sephiroth bought for his 24th birthday hung starkly down against his pale neck, and there, just at the base of his throat, was a familiar bruise. How many times had Sephiroth kissed that spot, knowing that it both elated and infuriated Genesis?

Genesis's blue eyes stared at him in a way that Sephiroth had pushed back as far as he could into the recesses of his mind, a mixture of fondness and exasperation that made his chest feel as though it were filled with lead.

I don't know what images you've conjured up in your head, but...

A perfect monster indeed.

You will rot.

Genesis scoffed. "Foolish question, I see. I imagine not."

Sephiroth had to physically restrain himself, hands shaking in fists at his side—a sign of weakness he would have never shown to anyone other than Genesis, though it seemed Genesis was oblivious. The man lifted his hand to his eye, shoving the hairs out of his face—such an arrogant move, always having to be the center of attention, damn him, damn him, damn him—before he turned his back to Sephiroth, pushing the food around the pan. 

"Well, you may as well clean yourself up. No point in getting blood all over the floor." When Sephiroth still did not reply, Genesis peered over his shoulder, one eyebrow raised. "Or you can find someone else to feed you. I am sure Sergeant Quen can scrape something out of some lowly recruit's bowl if you don't want Mideelan. Ang said you might not have been hungry, but when have you ever turned down a meal after whipping your sword around."

Sephiroth did not answer, could not answer, because his lips may as well have been sewn shut. Genesis was there, in his kitchen—in their kitchen—as if all of the pain and hatred never existed. If the jealousy and darkness were but a memory.

And that was all it was, wasn't it? 

Genesis's betrayal. His cruelty. His abandonment.

They were only a memory. 

Sephiroth stood there in the kitchen, watching as the ghost of his lover, his only lover, went through the motions of cooking. Blood pumped in Sephiroth's ears, so loud he could feel it pounding behind his eyes. 

He did not look away. He did not blink. He did not breathe.

He only stared.

Genesis, however, was having none of it. Mouth pulled into a deep slash, Genesis tossed the wooden spoon against the stovetop, palming the switch off.  "Or we can continue this ridiculous fight, as it seems you are so very set on doing." There was anger plain as day across his face, the kind of fire that burned hot and fast, and Sephiroth almost felt guilt—guilt that he did not know what their fight was about, what silly and inconsequential thing filled Genesis with this rage. "Make your choice, Sephiroth, but do it quick. I only have a few more days of leave for us to finish this charade. Either way, they will have me on a chopper by Monday morning. So, you have until then." 

Sephiroth breathed in and looked at Genesis, noting the open hands and mouth turned down in a frown.

"Do you remember that story you told me? The story of Bahamut?" 

It was Sephiroth's first mission on his 16th birthday; it was the first time they battled side to side, the first time that Genesis had said a kind word to him. There was a dead body, the bloated corpse of their commanding officer, beginning to rot next to them, and Sephiroth... Sephiroth knew death, had led many back to the lifestream with his blade already, but there was something very different about watching a body decompose before his very eyes. 

Genesis winced. "It isn't something one simply forgets, Sephiroth."

Don't you dare, Sephiroth. You can not tell him.

Sephiroth knew better than to dare go against Bahamut, instead shrugging off Masamune's sheath. "Can you tell it to me again?"

Genesis paused, the worry evident across his face, but he only nodded in response. "If it would end this fight, I'll tell you whatever you'd like to hear. I'm tired, Sephiroth. I don't want to spend my last week of leave fighting over stupid articles. If you still want me to call Boyside and have them remove the quote, I will." 

The memory flitted to Sephiroth's mind—the article. 

Looking back, it was such a stupid thing to fight over; it was one measly article in one girl's magazine. Genesis didn't say anything wrong, but to Sephiroth... he didn't want the world to know his secrets, didn't want them to think Genesis was opening a door to his most private and sensitive thoughts and feelings. 

In the grand scheme of things, it seemed so damn trivial. In four months he would be on the battlefield. In five, Sephiroth would wear blood like a second skin. In six, they baptized Sephiroth as the Demon of Wutai.

By seven... 

Sephiroth shuddered at the scent of cooking meat, feeling the bile working its way back up his throat. 

"Where are they sending you?" The words came out more like a croak.

Genesis blinked. "Da Chao. I thought you already knew." 

Da Chao.

It was too soon. 

Da Chao—

No.

"Sephiroth? Seph?" 

Sephiroth blinked away the memories, but the rotting faces and wet, warm viscera remained.

This Genesis was not the monster Sephiroth knew. He had yet to succumb to his own madness. But they both would, in time. 

Da Chao. 

Was that where the madness began, where the pain took root? Was that the first time Sephiroth truly listened to Jenova's words? 

In that silence.

In that impossible silence.

Masamune hit the tile with a soft clank, Sephiroth kicking books unceremoniously off and into the corner of the front walkway. Ignoring the look from Genesis—because since when was Sephiroth not the perfectly neat man who relaced his boots before putting them in the shoe box near the door—Sephiroth stepped into his bedroom, shutting the door. He rested his head on the wood, feeling every whorl in the woodgrain against his skin.

The silence. How had he forgotten it? 

This was too much. He needed something to ground him, he needed something to pull him back, because there was blood in his mouth and something between his teeth, and there were eyes staring at him and through him and—

Water. 

He needed water. He needed to be clean.

For the second time that day, Sephiroth stumbled into the bathroom. It was sparse, yes, but there were little hints that spoke of a story he long tried to forget. A blue toothbrush sat face up over the sink next to his, the gentle smell of aftershave and mouthwash, the bottles of toiletries Sephiroth never once used, but Genesis had. Even the towel on the floor was wet, Sephiroth's own towel hanging off the back of the door where he always put it. 

But there was blood and mako and shame, thick like bile, and Sephiroth barely managed to take off his clothes before he climbed into the bathtub and turned the water as cold as it could go.

Sephiroth found his knees grow weak, his head pounding, the blood in his ears pumping so quickly that the cacophony of sound made him woozy. His hair was a wet rope around his throat and he couldn't look away from the white tile under his feet and the mako and blood tainted water flowing down the drain. It spun and spun, getting closer and closer.

He braced himself with his hand, but the power left his knees and he found himself crouching his tub, the water running against his head and down the curve of his back, his eyes staring down at the never-ending hole into the ground. 

What had he done?

Sephiroth choked as he felt the bile rush up his throat. The fire from the acid hit the back of his tongue and he gagged, the dregs of his coffee covering the whiteness. His hands grasped for purchase but his nails could not grab anything but his hair. His body heaved and more coffee, bile, blood and that ever-present tinge of mako greeted him.

Pull yourself together. I did not rip you from nothingness to have you give in.

Sephiroth could not even think of a retort as his chest heaved and one of his nails snapped, fumbling like a newborn without a mother. He made a low, high-pitched keen, a sound that Sephiroth would have never admitted he could make. He tried to push himself to his knees but found that the strength bled away and down, down, down the drain.

And then it came, with a clarity that made Sephiroth's entire being break.

When a SOLDIER returned from the war, there were certain things that were never mentioned.

It was not the blood or the gore nor the cries and whimpers of their brothers and enemies in the sweltering nights. There was a stickiness to the humidity of the Wutai jungle that made even the most hardened SOLDIER's  soul sweat, but it was not that, either.

It was the silence.

There was always that one moment in war, and those who survived could recall with perfect clarity when it happened for them, where the entire world would hush. Gone was the sound of the trees swaying, the guns and cannons firing, the screams as the wounded became the dying and then the dead. He couldn't hear the blood in his ears, his heartbeat, not even his own breath.

He could scream and no one would hear it.

After Da Chao, after that very last battle, after the blood dried between his teeth, Sephiroth screamed until his voice went hoarse and his throat bled and he could do nothing but whimper as he choked up meat—

But no matter how loud he screamed, no matter how much he begged, there was only the silence. 

And now... 

Sephiroth gripped at his hair, yanking it as he screamed. The pain laced through him, but it wasn't enough. It would never be enough. He could taste the blood in his mouth, but could not hear it pumping through his head. He could feel Genesis grabbing him and lifting him out of the tub, but couldn't hear the splash. He could even see the words Genesis repeated like a prayer on his lips, but there was nothing in the silence.

The tops of his feet dragged against the tile and then the carpet as Genesis pulled him, naked and trembling, to their room. He barely made it to the bed before the world went fuzzy around the edges—

Da Chao. 

Wutai. 

Nibelheim.

The Forgotten City.

The North Crater.

The remnants of Midgar.

The red rock in the sky, glittering like a mouthful of rotting meat and silent screams. 

And Genesis... his broken and pitiful and vindictive and painfully beautiful Genesis, holding out that fucking apple for him to take a poisonous bite. 

Maybe you are too broken. Too weak.

But there was a hand at the base of his neck, lips pressed against his forehead and though there was no sound, Sephiroth could feel Genesis's mouth, his heartbeat, his shaking arms. 

Sephiroth clung to Genesis—a Genesis who was not yet a monster—and for the first time in his life, Sephiroth wept.