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“Rot….Rot….cut out the rot”
When he awoke, it was to an incessant drumbeat in his head.
“Cut it…. Purge it…. Grow anew…”
His crystal prison shattered around him and he stepped down to the stench of decay.
“Find it…. Cull it…. My knight… My Champion…”
He followed the insistent pull into the remains of Deepground. The people were gone, the laboratories lay in ruins all about him. But still, life remained. The strongest of the creatures that had been left behind, prowling and starving.
He was easily able to follow his goddess’s first command. The beasts craved release, the madness leaving their eyes as their bodies returned to the lifestream. There the rot within them, Jenova’s final legacy, would be purged forevermore. The planet was stronger, now, and wished to purge itself of the pall that Jenova had cast. That meant finding the sources of the taint and returning them to the lifestream where the rot would be eradicated through the Goddess's will. Genesis had no choice but to comply.
From the remains of the laboratories the pull drove him across the length and breadth of Gaia. Many of the beasts he slew were just mindless creatures, but some had been driven mad by Jenova’s legacy. The alien itself might be long dead but while its cells remained the rot would linger on.
He travelled here and there, following his goddess’s commands.
Except… except for one.
Because the greatest pull of all was singular. One single concentration of Jenova’s rot so potent that it almost drowned out the others. He ignored it for as long as he could, but when there was nothing else left he had no choice but to follow its call.
However, the small figure he spied in the distance was not the one he expected.
In the place of long silver flowing hair he had thought to see was instead a shock of bright blond, on a figure whose stature was shorter than expected. He watched on as the blonde man travelled by bike around the ruins of Midgar and the shanty town that had sprung up on its outskirts, seemingly ignorant of Genesis’s presence there.
It took longer than he would have liked to realise that he recognised the man as the trooper that Zack Fair had insisted on dragging around with him. And when he saw the shrine inside the church that included Angeal’s sword, he realised that Zack must have followed his mentor into death’s embrace. Truly the end of a hero.
The knowledge did not stop him from following the goddess’s call, but he did feel a twinge of regret. Regret that he could not do this one thing for the sake of the hero to whom he owed his own salvation and whom he did not save. But he could no more avoid his goddess’s commands than he could avoid drawing breath, and so his hunt went on.
However, when he finally approached the blonde man with his flaming blade in hand, the fight did not go as Genesis expected. For he could not defeat the small, blonde warrior. The man’s blue eyes took on a look of steely determination as he fought with everything he had, bringing them to a bloodied draw. Genesis landed, at last, facing him across the wasteland.
“Why?” Was all his opponent would ask him, blue eyes boring into the heart of him.
“Because I must.”
And thus their routine began. They met, and parried, and swung, and danced, and yet neither would give in.
And every time they met on the wastelands the man grew a little wearier, a little thinner as he gave his all to cling to the life that he had built for himself. And every time Genesis felt the hatred for his goddess-given task grow a little stronger as he watched the life leached from his opponent.
Until one day, it did not end in a draw. That day, Genesis’s blade bit true and the man crumpled to the ground.
For the first time since he had awoken form his exile, Genesis did not hasten the end. Nor did he walk away. Instead, he fell with the man, cradling his head within his arms.
“Why?” The man asked, for one final time.
“Because the goddess wills it.” Genesis answered truly, his voice cracking on the words. “Because the rot must be purged for life to begin anew.”
“Jenova.” The man breathed, closing his eyes for one final time. Genesis bowed his head, his task completed at last, but he could find no satisfaction in it. There was no more pull to follow but he felt empty and wrung.
“To spare the sands, the seas, the skies, I offer thee his silent sacrifice.” He murmured, unable and unwilling to halt the tears that began slowly to trickle from his eyes and fall on the body of the man he cradled. Where they fell, they washed away the dirt and dust from the wastelands and revealed the man’s blond hair once more.
But unbeknownst to Genesis, where they fell they also leached the dullness from the man’s skin. They leached the poison from him, dripping down onto the wasteland where the lifestream rose to greet it. And then the man took a great, shuddering breath as for the first time in many years he too was free of the rot that had nearly brought ruin upon all.
Genesis’s eyes opened wide with wonder, as he gazed upon the bright blue eyes of the man he had come to care for above all others. And the man gazed back, the wonder reflected in his own. For the goddess rewarded those she deemed the most deserving, and this hero had given more than anyone. For them, too, life would begin anew.
When the war of the beasts brings about the world's end
The goddess descends from the sky
Wings of light and dark spread afar
She guides us to bliss, her gift everlasting.