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Sephiroth sat in the library, frantically flipping through pages, reading musty old texts.
There was so much he hadn’t known. How dare Hojo hide all this from him? Gast, too. He’d pretended to be a friendly, fatherly figure, making Sephiroth feel like an actual person, instead of a ruthless killing machine. Sephiroth used to remember Professor Gast and the part of his childhood spent with him with fondness. But no more. These journals were proof that Gast knew so much more than he let on. He’d hidden crucial parts of Sephiroth’s identity from him.
Sephiroth had spent most of his life unmoored, feeling alone and out of place. He was different from others, and most of the time, he was proud of that fact. It made him special, exceptional. Others envied him and could only dream of possessing his strength and abilities. But there were also times when it was a detriment. He could never work well with people. A cyborg, Glenn had called him. Others had called him inhuman, a demon, a monster. He was always left on the outside looking in. He’d observe people bond and grow close while they gave him a wide berth. They either feared, hated or envied him, and usually all of the above.
The situation never bothered Sephiroth, not really. It wasn’t as if he’d wanted to spend time with people and make friends. Angeal and Genesis had been enough. And even with them, Sephiroth was a third wheel most of the time. The two had grown up together, and while they tried to include Sephiroth and make him feel welcome, his own reserved personality, combined with the fact that their friendship had exited for years before they’d met, always made him feel like he didn’t truly belong. Later, when the two deserted together and left him, his feelings proved true.
But now, he finally had something of his own. He finally understood what had made him so different.
He was a Cetra!
Sephiroth pored over the texts, soaking it all in. Seeing those monsters at the reactor had made him think he might be one of Hojo’s terrible experiments, that he might be a monster himself, but he knew now that he was so much more. Not just more than those monsters, but more than these pathetic humans who’d looked down on him his entire life.
“You are special, my darling boy,” a female voice whispered inside his mind.
Mother.
Sephiroth closed his eyes and smiled.
He’d spent so much of his life looking for her. With nothing but a photograph to go on, he’d longed to meet his mother for as long as he could remember. And to think that she’d been here the entire time.
“I’ve been waiting for you to come, my son.”
The words filled him with warmth. He’d always believed that a mother’s love would be special. Unconditional. That it would be a feeling unlike any other, and he was proven right. Sephiroth hadn’t even met her yet, but from her voice alone, he could tell how much she cared. She wanted him to go to her, as much as he wanted to see her.
But first, he needed to get through these texts. He needed to understand who he was and how he came to be here. Then, he would go and see Mother.
Sephiroth heard the door to the library open and felt a flicker of irritation pass through him. Damn Zack and his persistence. He’d told him time and time again to leave him alone. Time was of the essence, and there were so many texts to get through!
“Leave me,” he ordered, without looking up.
The footsteps echoed, getting closer instead of moving away. Sephiroth frowned. Finally, he raised his head.
To his surprise, it wasn’t Zack. It was one of the troopers.
Frown deepening, he observed the blond man moving closer with a resolute gait.
“I told Colonel Zack that I was not to be disturbed. Leave, now.”
Most of the men in Shinra’s army feared him. Even members of SOLDIER tried to stay out of his way as much as possible. That anyone would dare disobey a direct order was unthinkable. Yet, this ordinary trooper kept moving, ignoring his words and forging ahead.
“Didn’t you hear me? Leave!”
Sephiroth raised his voice and got to his feet. He was half a foot taller than the man and he wanted to use his stature to his advantage. He straightened, towering over him.
Without uttering a single word, the man pulled back his arm, swung, and slammed his fist into Sephiroth’s jaw with all his might.
Sephiroth’s head reared back from the intensity of the blow. He blinked a few times, trying to clear his vision, the left side of his face pounding.
Sephiroth was stunned, unable to believe what had just happened. It wasn’t like he hadn’t had time to evade the punch; his reflexes were unparalleled. It was simply that no one had ever tried to attack him with their bare hands before, so the disbelief at what he was seeing dulled his reaction and made him stay still.
“How dare you?” he growled, but the trooper stood his ground. “I’ll have you court-martialed for this.”
“You need to stop reading those stupid books.”
The man finally spoke, but the words that came out of his mouth were just as startling and nonsensical as the punch had been.
“What?” he asked, feeling thrown. “That’s none of your business.”
The man snorted rudely and glared. “Yeah, I wish that was true.”
Sephiroth looked at him more closely for the first time. Did he even know this man?
“Aren’t you that sickly trooper who spent the whole trip throwing up?”
The man threw him another glare. “Yep. That’s me.”
That made no sense. Sephiroth remembered him; he’d seemed pathetic, but polite and almost sweet. He’d barely said two words to Sephiroth, yet he’d caught him staring more than once. His eyes held an adoring, worshipful glaze whenever they landed on him. Sephiroth had dismissed him as yet another fan. But now, here he was, being rude and insubordinate. Not to mention that inexplicable punch.
The whole situation was so bizarre that it distracted Sephiroth from what was actually important until his mother’s voice spoke to him again.
“Get rid of the boy, Sephiroth. He is nothing but a distraction.”
He nodded to himself, feeling chastised. There was so much to do; he shouldn’t allow insignificant creatures to get in his way.
“You will face consequences for your actions once we return to Midgar. But for now, leave me be.”
“No.”
Sephiroth blinked, unsure he’d heard correctly. Once again, he was completely thrown by the gall of this little trooper.
“That wasn’t a request. Get out before I throw you out.”
The moment the words left his mouth, the man pulled out his weapon and pointed it at Sephiroth’s chest. He looked down at the sword, then at the trooper, and then he threw his head back and laughed. His shoulders shook, and he fought to catch his breath.
“Don’t you know who I am?” he asked, still chuckling.
“I know you, Sephiroth, better than you can imagine.”
The words sounded ominous and somehow made Sephiroth’s skin crawl. He barely knew this trooper, yet he acted like they’d known each other for years.
“Put that thing away before you get hurt.” Sephiroth slapped the sword away with his hand.
But the trooper didn’t use the opportunity to back down. As soon as Sephiroth moved, he swung his sword and went straight for his neck.
Sephiroth dodged, jumping back at the last moment. It was only his enhanced reflexes that saved him. Not giving him time to collect himself, the man attacked again, and this time, Sephiroth had to call on Masamune. The sword materialized in his hand and he parried the blow. It was unexpectedly powerful, making his arm shake at the impact.
The trooper looked unremarkable, even weak. The strength of his blows came as a complete shock, as did his technique. He was very skilled with the sword and knew precisely what he was doing.
The crammed space of the library was no place for a fight, but the man didn’t leave him any options. They chased each other around the desk, Sephiroth fighting back a flurry of attacks. When he was pushed back towards the door, the trooper summoned an enormous fireball. Sephiroth prepared himself, taking a defensive position, but then he realized that he wasn’t the intended target.
“No…” he whispered.
It was all he managed to do before the fireball struck the desk, incinerating all the books on it. He followed up with a quick Blizzaga, trying to douse the flames. The fire went out quickly enough, but the damage had already been done. All the books Sephiroth had intended to read were charred and illegible. He turned on the intruder.
“What have you done?” he growled, tightening the grip on his weapon.
“Saved your life, maybe,” the man sassed him, completely unrepentant.
“Those books were invaluable. They held information a simpleton like you couldn’t begin to comprehend!”
“I know what was in those books,” he said, sounding bored. “It was all lies. But you were stupid enough to believe them.”
“You take too many liberties,” Sephiroth said, voice shaking with barely repressed rage. He raised his sword and pointed it at the man’s face. “Get out of my sight before I change my mind. This is your final warning.”
Of course, the man wasn’t sensible enough to take it.
He attacked instead, and the fight started anew, this time with even more vigor. The man didn’t appear to be holding back at all. His blows were strong enough to maim, possibly even kill. Sephiroth defended himself easily, confident in his abilities, certain of his victory. But as the fight went on, he found himself having to use all of his strength to fend off the attacks. How could that be possible? This man wasn’t even a Third Class; he was just an ordinary trooper!
But the power he possessed was truly exceptional. Sephiroth couldn’t remember the last time he’d had to work up a sweat against someone like this. Certainly not since Angeal and Genesis had left. No one else at Shinra was a match for him.
No one, apparently, apart from this undistinguished trooper.
Sephiroth had to admit that he was curious, fascinated even. Who was this man? How did he manage to hide such talent?
“Stop playing around, Sephiroth. There is no time to waste. I am waiting.”
That’s right—Mother.
Sephiroth had once again allowed himself to become distracted. This man had taken his thoughts away from Mother twice. He wouldn’t let it happen again. Whoever he was, it didn’t matter. He just needed to leave and let Sephiroth return to the task at hand.
However, this man wasn’t someone easily ignored. In his confidence, Sephiroth had allowed his thoughts to stray; he’d focused on Mother instead of the fight in front of him. And the man was too good to let such an opportunity slip by.
Before Sephiroth realized what had happened, Masamune flew out of his hand and pierced the bookshelf. The trooper held his sword at Sephiroth’s throat, pressing it into the tender skin.
“You’re going to leave now,” the trooper was saying, but Sephiroth was still too stunned by the fact that someone had managed to disarm him to focus on his actual words. “You’ll leave and return to Midgar without us. We’ll handle the rest of the mission without you.”
Sephiroth blinked and refocused, looking at the trooper as if seeing him for the first time. This whole situation felt surreal. Like a dream, or a nightmare.
“You’re in no position to be giving me orders,” he said, trying to maintain his authority.
“I think you’ll find that I am.” The man pressed his sword deeper into Sephiroth’s skin, drawing a trickle of blood. “You can either leave for Midgar willingly, or you can die here. Ultimately, the choice is yours.”
“I have business at the reactor. I cannot simply leave.”
“You can, and you will. You can come back and finish your business another time.”
Sephiroth narrowed his eyes. “What are you playing at? Why are you trying to get rid of me?”
“You’ll find out in due time.”
“Are you planning to help terrorists destroy the reactor?”
The man looked surprised for perhaps the first time that night. “No,” he said honestly. “What I’m trying to do is save your life and the lives of everyone in this town. So, do as I say.”
The man’s voice had turned almost desperate by the end and that was what finally made Sephiroth pause.
He’d had no intention of leaving or listening to some random trooper, just because he had him cornered. But the urgency with which he spoke sounded genuine. There was no telling whether his words were true or not, but the man clearly believed them, at least.
As Sephiroth paused and considered, Mother’s voice inside his mind grew frantic. She demanded he come to her straight away. The pleas soon turned into insults. She started berating, even insulting him for allowing himself to be swayed by such a puny creature. As the rants went on, Sephiroth found himself shaken. He’d believed his mother’s love to be unconditional. That she would accept him, regardless of his shortcomings. Yet it had taken so little for her to turn on him.
It made him want to take a step back and rethink things before seeing her.
Looking at the trooper in front of him, seeing the determination and desperation in his eyes, he found himself relenting.
“Alright.”
The man’s eyes widened in shock. “Just like that?”
“Did you want me to argue some more?” Sephiroth asked, sarcasm underlying his voice.
The other man didn’t find it funny. He narrowed his eyes instead. “You won’t try to trick me? You’ll really leave?”
“I’ll leave tonight,” he assured. “But when you return to Midgar, I expect a proper explanation. Can I hold you to that?”
“Yeah,” the man mumbled. “I mean, yes. That sounds fair.”
“Then we have a deal.” Sephiroth headed for the door, but then he paused. “What is your name, trooper?”
The man gaped at him, seemingly shocked that he didn’t know. Perhaps he’d told him on the ride over? But Sephiroth had been preoccupied with so many things. He couldn’t be expected to remember the name of every single trooper he’d been on a mission with.
“Strife,” he rasped, then cleared his throat. “Cloud Strife.”
“Alright, Strife. I’ll await your contact as soon as you return.”
And with that, he turned around and headed back to the inn.
“You traitorous little monster! You would leave your mother at the mercy of these hounds! I never expected you to be so weak. It shames me to have my blood running through your veins. No son of mine can be such a weakling.”
The raging went on, making his head pound. It made his heart clench, too.
He’d waited his whole life to meet Mother. He believed that together they would be unstoppable. This whole world would be theirs for the taking. He’d get revenge for all the injustice he’d suffered throughout his life. He would never be alone again, for Mother would always be by his side.
But Mother had turned on him so easily. There was so much hatred in her words. It made Sephiroth question everything.
It would have been so easy to head to the reactor and go back on the word he’d given. But after the horrible things she’d said to him, he no longer wished to see her. He still intended to meet her one day, but right now, all he wanted was to get away.
When he returned to the inn, Zack was shocked to see him and pestered him with questions. Sephiroth ignored him. Instead, he took out his PHS and made a call to have a helicopter come pick him up.
“We’re leaving?” Zack asked in disbelief.
“No. I’m leaving.”
“What do you mean? How can you leave without us?” he asked, sounding even more confused. “Are you pushing yet another one of your missions onto me?” he cried out, pointing an accusatory finger at Sephiroth. “Hey, Sephiroth, I’m talking to you!”
But Sephiroth was done talking. Mother was still raging inside his head, making it throb. It was difficult to focus on conversations outside of his head, when the words inside it were impossible to tune out. Not to mention that they were incredibly hurtful. The insults cut deep. Deeper than anything ever had.
“What happened to your neck?” Zack asked, reminding Sephiroth that he probably still had blood on it from the wound the trooper had inflicted. “Did someone attack you?”
“I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine. You look like shit. You’ve been stuck in that library for days. When was the last time you ate?” He grimaced. “When was the last time you showered?”
“Leave me be, Zack.”
Zack huffed and crossed his arms. “If I’m to take over this mission, I need to be briefed. You gotta do that much, at least.”
“Talk to Strife.”
“Cloud? What does he have to do with it?”
“He’ll be in charge.”
“You left him in charge over me? What the hell, Sephiroth?”
Sephiroth stretched out on the bed, turning his back to Zack and the rest of the room, tuning him out. The helicopter would be there in three hours. He genuinely didn’t know if he could put up with Mother’s raging for that long. Unlike Zack, she was impossible to ignore.
Still, Sephiroth closed his eyes and tried.
By the time he boarded the helicopter, Mother’s threats had grown increasingly desperate.
“Do not leave me here, Sephiroth! Come back this instant!” There was a slight pause, like a lull before a storm, and Sephiroth felt himself tense. She hadn’t stopped screaming for hours. Why would she go silent now? “They’re here,” she gasped in a horrified whisper. “They’ve come for me! Do not leave me, Sephi—“
What followed was a deafening silence.
“Mother,” Sephiroth murmured, trying to reach her with his mind, but there was nothing there.
He felt empty, bereft. Like a part of him had been ripped out and destroyed.
For hours, he’d wished for her to shut up, but now all he wanted was to hear her voice again.
They’re here, she’d said.
There was only one person she could have meant, Sephiroth realized, and felt his stomach drop. He’d allowed this to happen when he’d agreed to leave. This was why Strife had wanted him out of the way.
But why?
Beyond wanting to hurt Sephiroth, what possible reason could he have had to attack Mother? And why did he say he was saving his life?
Clutching his head in his hands, Sephiroth groaned. Strife better have a good explanation for this.
It took another week for Strife to return.
Sephiroth found out about it when Zack burst into his office, full of stories and impressions.
Apparently, he’d been friends with Strife for some time, and the man had miraculously changed over the course of the mission. He became a lot more confident and immeasurably more powerful. Zack had seen him take down Nibel dragons on his own, which wouldn’t be so surprising if not for the fact that he was at the bottom of his class. Until a few days ago, he was nothing more than a mediocre trooper. Now, he was suddenly strong enough to defeat Sephiroth.
It was highly suspicious.
Sephiroth had so many questions, and he was itching to ask them. He eagerly awaited the promised visit.
But Strife never came to see him.
A day passed, then another. Soon enough, a week had gone by, and the trooper made no attempt to reach him.
Fury rose within Sephiroth. He’d honored his part of the agreement. He’d left, just as he’d promised, leaving his defenseless mother all alone. And now, Strife hadn’t even come to explain what had happened.
So, Sephiroth sent Kunsel with a message—Strife was to come see him post-haste.
With his order delivered, Sephiroth waited in his office that day, and the next, but Strife never came. He’d even ignored a direct summons.
Finally, Sephiroth’s patience ran out and he decided to ambush the trooper himself. He checked Strife’s schedule and made sure to be in front of the VR room just as his training ended. As soon as he spotted him, Sephiroth was upon him.
“Strife, my office, now,” he ordered.
The man scowled, clearly reluctant to obey, but not wanting to make a scene in front of all his fellow troopers. Wordlessly, he followed Sephiroth to his office, where they finally found themselves alone.
“You were to come see me upon your return.”
“Yeah,” Strife agreed, not even trying to sound apologetic or offer any excuse.
His lack of respect incensed Sephiroth. The man was an enigma in every single way. Ever since Nibelheim, Sephiroth hadn’t been able to get him off his mind.
“Well? Care to tell me what happened?”
“I think you already know,” Strife mumbled.
“That you killed my mother?” Sephiroth asked and Strife lifted his chin defiantly, not denying it. His stomach lurched. “So it is true…”
He’d suspected it since that night, but having it confirmed was a different matter. His knees felt weak, and he sat down. After all those years of searching, just as he’d found her, she was taken from him again.
Sephiroth glared at Strife with a burning hatred.
“You will pay for this,” he vowed.
“I know the grief of losing a mother. I will not begrudge you seeking revenge. But, Sephiroth… That was not your mother.”
Sephiroth glared at the man, not comprehending the words. Grief, pain, and fury clouded his mind.
“That creature wasn’t human. It tried to manipulate you by telling you things you wanted to hear.”
The sweet, loving words of a mother. The promises of their future together. The end of his eternal loneliness. It had all sounded too good to be true, and perhaps it was. Yet he’d believed it, because he wanted so desperately for it to be true. Even now, his first instinct was to lash out at this man and distrust him. To accuse him of killing his mother and robbing him of a future with her.
But then, those last few hours of her unbridled rage and cruelty made Sephiroth pause. For what kind of mother would say such horrible things to her child, even in anger?
“I could hear her,” he said slowly, with a frown. “She spoke to me inside my mind.”
“I know. But everything she told you was a lie. The things you read in Professor Gast’s journal weren’t true either. He meant well, but his research was wrong.”
“How can you know any of this?”
The man folded his arms across his chest in a defensive gesture. He looked away.
“I can’t explain it. And I can’t make you believe me. But I just know.”
That was nowhere near good enough. Sephiroth had so many questions and he needed at least some answers. Being told to trust someone he didn’t even know, the person who’d potentially killed his mother at that… It was too much to ask.
And yet, somehow, Sephiroth felt a connection to this man. It was inexplicable and subconscious, but he felt a pull, down to the core of his being. His entire body felt electric when they were in the same room. Some base instinct within him told him to trust Strife. And Sephiroth always trusted his instincts. They were impeccable and saved his life countless times in a fight.
So, yet again, Sephiroth found himself agreeing to follow this man’s lead. To take another leap of faith and trust him.
However, Sephiroth wasn’t someone who trusted blindly or unconditionally. He dismissed the man and used the first opportunity to return to Nibelheim himself. This time, when he arrived, there was no headache and no voice inside his head to greet him. There was only silence.
He made a slow trek up the mountain, fighting monsters along the way, before finally reaching and entering the reactor. It looked just like he’d remembered, except for one small difference—the door to the room labeled Jenova was now wide open.
Taking the stairs two at a time, Sephiroth ran for the door.
He hadn’t really thought about what he might find inside. Perhaps his mother in a cage. Or her broken, dead body on the floor. Or maybe just a bloody, gruesome scene, with her nowhere to be found.
It was none of that.
Instead, there was only a broken mako pod, with pipes and tubes leading away from it. There was some green goo around the pod that didn’t look like mako. Sephiroth kneeled down and smeared some of it between his fingers. With the way it was splattered around, it almost looked like blood. Unnatural, green blood of something alien.
It wasn’t enough to prove what Strife had said, but it certainly went in favor of the creature not being human. Sephiroth looked around the room, hoping to find more clues, but there were none.
So, instead, he headed back to the library, hoping that some of the books had survived the fire.
They hadn’t.
At least, not any useful ones. Sephiroth had picked out everything he might need and placed it on the desk, which Strife had incinerated. There were plenty of other books on the shelves, but none contained information he might find useful.
Filled with frustration, he hurled one of the charred books against the wall. It exploded in a cloud of soot and dust, leaving a large black stain on the wall.
“You must be Sephiroth,” a mysterious male voice said from behind him.
Sephiroth spun around, prepared for a fight, but the man was causally leaning against the door, observing him. He didn’t appear to be holding a weapon. The fact that he’d managed to sneak up on him unsettled Sephiroth, instantly making him cautious.
“You seem to know who I am. And who might you be?”
“My name is Vincent Valentine, a former Turk.”
A Turk, here in Nibelheim. That certainly explained the stealth. What it didn’t explain was what he wanted with Sephiroth.
Valentine was a strange-looking man, with messy jet-black hair obscuring his eyes. He was wearing a red coat, buttoned up all the way to his chin, and hid the lower part of his face behind its collar.
“Do you have some business with me?” Sephiroth asked after it became clear that the man had nothing more to offer.
“I was told you might come here in search of information regarding your mother.”
“Told? By whom?”
“A mutual acquaintance.”
“Wh—“
“Come,” Valentine interrupted him. “Let’s find a more suitable place to talk.”
Without waiting for Sephiroth to reply or acknowledge his words, he turned on his heel and left. Sephiroth was tempted to just let him slip away and be rid of him, but in the end, the curiosity and the need to learn more about his mother won out. With a muttered curse, he set out after the man.
They didn’t go far. Valentine led him to another room inside the Mansion.
It was a small space with bizarre décor. There was a coffin in the middle of the room, which undoubtedly had a whole story behind it, but Sephiroth didn’t care enough to ask. All he wanted were answers pertaining to his own life.
“You said you had information for me.”
Valentine walked over to a desk and pulled out a folder. Leafing through it, he picked up a few photographs and offered them to Sephiroth.
They were all photographs of his mother. He’d only ever seen one photo of her, the one he used to carry everywhere throughout his childhood, but he would recognize her anywhere. Some showed her alone, working, others with Hojo, and some were with Valentine himself. In some, she was wearing casual clothes instead of her lab coat, relaxing and smiling during her time off. Sephiroth gripped the photographs, a slight tremor in his hands.
“The woman in those photographs—your mother—is called Lucrecia Crescent.”
Sephiroth’s head snapped up at that. He opened his mouth, mind swarming with questions, but Valentine lifted a hand, telling him to wait. He embarked on a long tale about Lucrecia, Hojo and himself—how they came to know each other, how their research came about, and finally, how Sephiroth was conceived. It was then that Jenova’s name was finally mentioned. And while it could certainly be argued that Sephiroth was also her son, in a way, the truth was unlike anything he could have imagined. Possessing the cells of an alien creature made him feel more inhuman than ever.
He thought back on the monsters he’d found in the pods at the reactor. After getting to hear Jenova’s voice, he’d believed himself superior. But the truth was far more cruel. In the end, he turned out to be just another one of Hojo’s bizarre experiments.
Sephiroth used a lull in Valentine’s recollection to pose his most pressing question.
“What became of her?”
“After you were born, after Lucrecia got a chance to meet you, she changed her mind. She was no longer willing to let Hojo conduct his experiments. But by then, it was far too late. He’d invested too much of his time and money to let go of what he called a ‘perfect specimen’. So, when she stood up to him, he decided to get rid of her.”
“She is dead, then?” Sephiroth asked, feeling himself grow numb. He’d believed he’d lost his mother when Jenova was destroyed, but in truth, his real mother had been dead for who knows how long.
“Not quite,” Valentine said, reeling him in, stopping his mind from spiraling. “She’s been unconscious for years, trapped in a crystal, but she is alive. I could take you to see her, if you wish.”
Sephiroth did. He wished it very much.
Trying to maintain his composure and not appear too desperate, he told Valentine he’d take him up on his offer. The man simply nodded, as if he’d expected such an outcome.
Things happened quickly after that. They set out for the mountains the very next day.
They moved in silence, which hung about them uncomfortably, since neither of them was very talkative. Sephiroth kept casting furtive glances at the man. In many ways, they looked quite a lot alike. The man’s story had left a lot of gaps, but it was clear that he and Lucrecia had been close. And they’d known each other around the time of Sephiroth’s conception. He looked at the man closely, comparing, cataloguing, searching for similarities.
“You could just ask me, you know,” the man said, startling him. “But the answer is that I myself don’t know.”
“How can you not know?” Sephiroth asked, sounding doubtful.
“It was a strange time. Lucrecia and I… We used to be together, but she left me for Hojo. For years, I believed you were his son. But I’m not blind, and I can see how similar we are, which makes me question what I thought I knew.”
Sephiroth had spent his entire life looking for his mother, but he’d never spared much thought to his father. He’d believed it to be Hojo, whom he knew well. Many times, throughout his childhood and adulthood, he’d thought that he’d rather not have a father at all than have someone like Hojo. And now, unexpectedly, it turned out that his father might be someone else entirely. He was on his way to meet his real mother, with the man who might be his real father. A lump formed in Sephiroth’s throat. That sounded too good to be true. He refused to believe either of those things would happen, not until he saw proof with his own eyes.
Luckily, he didn’t have to wait long.
They reached Lucrecia’s cave by nightfall and Sephiroth stood in front of the crystal, watching the sleeping face of his mother. She looked exactly as she did in the photographs. Beautiful and timeless, and not a day older. He shivered at the enormity of what was in front of him. So much of his life had been a lie, and now, finally, he had some answers.
This was undisputable proof that Strife had been telling the truth all along.
The voice inside his head hadn’t been his mother. His real mother was right here, asleep.
“Was it Strife who told you to seek me out?” he asked, needing to know.
“It was.”
Valentine confirmed what, deep down, Sephiroth had already known. Not only had Strife saved him from falling for that creature’s machinations, he’d given him this precious gift. He’d given him his mother, and perhaps even his father.
“Thank you,” Sephiroth said to Valentine, his voice unsteady.
They walked back in silence, but this time, it didn’t feel as oppressive. It felt much lighter, even comfortable, filled with mutual understanding.
After returning to Midgar, Sephiroth couldn’t stop thinking about Strife.
There was something strange about that man. He knew things he had no right knowing and possessed the confidence and skill of someone far older than he was. He was a mystery, a puzzle Sephiroth wanted to solve.
So he observed him. Day in and day out, he tracked the man’s movements, waiting for him to slip up and reveal more about himself.
Weeks passed, then months, but Sephiroth was no closer to understanding him. He’d memorized the man’s schedule, and often made it a point to pass by Strife’s class just as it was ending or found himself in the VR room in time for his training. Sephiroth even started eating in the mass hall, in order to keep an eye on him during his meals.
Whenever they met in the hallway, Strife would tense and turn away, ignoring him. He never tried to antagonize Sephiroth, but he absolutely refused to acknowledge him, either. That insult stung worse than any open animosity would have. No one had ever tried to ignore Sephiroth before. People either hated or worshipped him, there was no in-between. Yet this man was treating him like a worthless piece of dirt, not even worth his time. He saw Sephiroth as an inconvenience and tried to avoid him to the best of his ability.
This behavior drove Sephiroth crazy. It only made him more obsessed with the man.
It didn’t help that he still felt that strange pull he’d experienced back in Nibelheim. Something primal was drawing him to this person. Sephiroth craved Strife’s presence in a way that was entirely foreign to him. He was a solitary person, and preferred to be alone, yet he wanted to have this man by his side.
Sephiroth watched him in an effort to understand him better. To try to get a glimpse of the real man behind what must certainly be a mask. But the mask never slipped. He never appeared to be anything more than an ordinary trooper. His skills and grades had improved exponentially after they’d returned from Nibelheim, but that was the only marked change.
The man wasn’t friendly—he was cold and aloof—but he had no enemies and appeared to get along with everyone. With Zack Fair, especially.
It didn’t take long for Sephiroth to notice their friendship. It stood out more than anything else in Strife’s monotonous life. The man went through life frowning, always too serious or downright rude. But whenever Zack was around, his whole demeanor changed. He would smile and laugh, exuding warmth and happiness. It was remarkable to watch. Something dark and ugly coiled inside Sephiroth at the sight. What was so special about Zack Fair?
After he’d noticed their closeness, Sephiroth paid special attention to their relationship. Sometimes, seeing them together enraged him so much that he would approach them and order Zack to follow him, giving him a made-up mission as an excuse, just to take him away from Strife.
Whenever he did that, Strife would glare at him in silence, anger and hatred swirling in his eyes. Yet he still never tried talking to him. Not even to argue or call him out on his behavior. And it was clear that Strife knew exactly what he was doing. Zack, in his kindness and naivete, never suspected anything. He always eagerly ran off to help, telling Sephiroth to take it easy and not overwork himself.
Zack had always been a good friend. They were never particularly close, but he was the closest thing Sephiroth still had to a friend, after his actual friends had abandoned him. So he never wanted to be unfair to Zack… But seeing his and Strife’s growing closeness made Sephiroth resent him. It made him want to take Zack out of the picture and send him on a long mission, somewhere remote, where he couldn’t be around the trooper.
But in the end, even Sephiroth wouldn’t abuse his position to such an extent. So he allowed the two to bond and grow even closer, as months slowly crawled by.
He’d believed his own interest would wane in time. It did not. Instead, it only grew stronger.
Sephiroth tried to lose himself in his work, as he always had, but the distraction proved insufficient. At work, in his office, or at home alone in his bed, his thoughts inevitably strayed to Strife. He wished to spar with the man again. The feeling of crossing blades with someone who could match him, and even best him, had been truly exhilarating. He wanted to learn the man’s technique, to test his skill and discover what made him tick.
One of the rare distractions in Sephiroth’s life was his continued correspondence with Vincent Valentine. They’d exchanged numbers when they parted, but Sephiroth never expected anything to come of it. To his surprise, Valentine reached out to him a few weeks later, and they continued to exchange brief messages ever since. They never talked about anything important, but it was nice knowing that the man, who might or might not be his father, cared enough to stay in touch.
A year after the events in Nibelheim, Sephiroth decided to try something different. After giving Strife space for a whole year, even after the man had passed the SOLDIER exam and became a Third Class, he chose to approach him. One day, Sephiroth cornered him after his training.
“Strife,” he said, and the man froze. Slowly, he turned around to face him. “I need a new PA. I decided to give the position to you.”
The shock on the man’s face would have been funny, if not for the nervousness turning Sephiroth’s stomach to acid. Strife opened his mouth a few times, expressions flitting over his face too quickly to make out, before he finally settled on a glare.
“Thank you for the offer, sir, but I’m not interested. I have too much on my plate as it is.”
“It wasn’t an offer. It was an order,” he pointed out firmly in a voice that left no room for argument.
They were in a public hallway, and their exchange was already drawing curious glances. Strife clenched his hands into fists, looking murderous.
“Yessir,” he spat.
“I’ll expect you in my office starting tomorrow at eight-hundred hours, sharp.”
And with that, Sephiroth turned around and left.
Time would tell if this had been a good idea, but something had to change, for the sake of his own sanity.
Forcing Strife to become his assistant was supposed to change things. To move them from the standstill they’d been stuck in for more than a year.
And yet… surprisingly little had changed.
Strife came to work every day, doing everything he was told, but even in his presence, he refused to acknowledge Sephiroth. This only served to infuriate him further. It made him focus on Strife even more, obsessing to an unhealthy extent.
Having Strife in his office also gave him front row seats to his relationship with Zack, which was the last thing he wanted. Since they were all friends, as Zack so eloquently put it, he never hesitated to come to Sephiroth’s office to hang out with Strife. Sephiroth felt like an intruder in his own space. More than once, he wanted to throw Zack out and tell him not to come back, but he held himself back. Showing such a level of emotion would be a weakness, and he wouldn’t demean himself in such a way.
But as time went on, the situation frayed his nerves more and more.
He’d thought that being alone for hours every day would finally give them a chance to talk. But Strife only answered direct questions in the curtest way possible.
“Gods, will you stop that?” Cloud snarled, snapping him out of his thoughts.
“What?”
“You’re staring at me again. It’s creeping me out.”
“I was not.”
“Yes, you were! And you always are!” Strife turned on him, throwing down the folders he’d been sorting. “I get that you don’t trust me, and that you brought me here to keep an eye on me, but can you at least try to be less obvious about it?”
Sephiroth froze, shocked by the outburst. This was probably the most Strife had sat to him in months. That alone was surprising enough, not to mention that the accusation itself made no sense.
Trust wasn’t the issue. He’d trusted Strife since that day in Lucrecia’s cave. In Sephiroth’s mind, that had confirmed everything Strife had told him, and he’d had no reason to doubt him since. But it did nothing to assuage his curiosity, nor his fascination with this man.
“I don’t distrust you,” he said at length, unable to deny the staring.
Strife snorted rudely, clearly not believing him.
Sephiroth opened his mouth to argue, but then the door opened and a smiling Zack burst inside.
“Cloudy! I was looking for you. Did you want to—“
“Out,” Sephiroth growled, feeling rage blind him.
He and Strife were finally having a proper conversation, after all those months of waiting... How dare Zack interrupt?
Not to mention Strife’s reaction at the sight of him.
At the sound of Zack’s voice, a smile appeared on Strife’s face, and he turned towards the door like a sunflower turning towards the sun. He was glowing.
Sephiroth wanted to destroy them both.
Zack paused at the anger in his voice. His smile flickered, but it held. “Hey, Seph. Do you wanna come with us to—“
“Get out!” Sephiroth snarled, losing the iron grip on his control. “This is a workplace, not a playground! You can flirt in your free time, not here!”
Zack gaped, frozen in shock.
But he still wasn’t leaving, so Sephiroth jumped to his feet and growled darkly, pointing at the door, “Out!”
Lifting his hands in a placating gesture and nodding, Zack ran.
Sephiroth gripped the edge of his desk, feeling the wood bend and crack beneath his hands.
“What to fuck is your problem?” Strife demanded, getting into his face. “Zack’s never been anything but nice to you! Do you even know how much he likes you? He always has something nice to say about you. Planet knows why…” he grumbled under his breath.
Sephiroth closed his eyes and took several deep breaths, trying to calm down. But Strife wasn’t done.
“You need to back off. If you have a problem with me, don’t take it out on Zack. He gets hurt easily, and can’t take your cruelty. So if you wanna fight, I’m right here.”
The more Strife spoke, the more enraged Sephiroth became. Why was he defending Zack? Why, after months of not speaking to each other, were they talking about Zack?
Zack, Zack, Zack…
The bitterness and anger made Sephiroth’s insides curdle.
The words slipped from his lips before he could think them through.
“What does he have that I don’t?”
The statement hung in the air, leaving behind it a deafening silence. Strife looked at him as if he’d grown another head.
“What?” he rasped when he’d managed to find his voice.
Sephiroth pulled himself up to his full height and met Strife’s bewildered gaze directly. He could try to deny it, take back his words, but now that they were already out, he decided to own them.
“You heard me.”
Strife’s eyes widened, and he shook his head. “Have you completely lost your mind? Where is this coming from?”
“It wasn’t distrust that made me watch you, Cloud,” he said, trying out the name and tasting it on his tongue for the first time. With fascination, he observed the man shiver at the sound of his own name. Sephiroth made a note to use it again, as often as possible. “I’ve been interested in you for the better part of a year.”
Cloud kept shaking his head in utter disbelief. “No… This can’t be real.”
“I feel a connection between us. A pull. You must feel it, too.”
That earned him a flicker of recognition, and Cloud finally stopped shaking his head.
“What you’re feeling is the pull of reunion. It’s related to Jenova, and it’s not real. You need to resist it.”
“No, it’s more than that. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you since that day.”
Sephiroth moved, feeling disconnected from his own body, like wading through molasses and moving in slow-motion. He approached Cloud, who looked like a deer caught in the headlights, his breaths short and fast, his irises blown wide. Was it fear, or something else?
He reached out a hand and cupped Cloud’s cheek; the man didn’t move away. Not at first.
But then he did.
Taking a few steps back, Cloud put some distance between them.
“Look, I’m sorry I treated you like shit. But whatever you think you feel towards me is not real. You’re just obsessed with me because I ignored you, and you’re not used to that.”
It was the exact idea Sephiroth himself had entertained on multiple occasions. It made sense.
But it didn’t explain the jealousy he felt towards Zack, nor the need to have Cloud by his side. It didn’t explain the need he felt to taste those lips and that sharp, scathing tongue. Nor the tendrils of excitement he’d felt under his skin as he’d touched Cloud’s cheek.
“I’ll stop ignoring you, so you can stop obsessing. And I’m not dating Zack, we’re just friends. There’s no need to worry about me picking him over you.”
“Do you know what I think?” Sephiroth asked, ignoring his words and advancing on Cloud. The man moved back, but he matched him step for step, until Cloud’s back hit the wall and Sephiroth’s hands rested on either side of his head. “I think you feel it, too. I think all that anger and animosity were just a front to create distance between us, to stop me from coming after you.”
“That’s ridiculous!” Cloud insisted, but his voice was pinched, unsteady.
“You were so good at faking it that I never doubted it. Despite all the time I spent watching you, I never even considered that you might not hate me.”
“I do hate you,” Cloud growled, and this time there was conviction in his voice.
“Maybe you want to, but I don’t think you actually do.”
When Sephiroth's hand moved to Cloud’s cheek again, the man closed his eyes, hiding the turmoil in them, but not before Sephiroth saw. He was torn, conflicted, for reasons Sephiroth couldn’t understand. But one thing was clear—he was as affected by whatever this was as Sephiroth.
Unable to hold back anymore, Sephiroth brought their mouths together in a searing kiss, making Cloud gasp, a tremor running through his entire body. He expected to be pushed away, but after a few tense moments frozen in time, Cloud melted against him... and kissed back. Heady and dizzy with relief, Sephiroth pressed Cloud into the wall and deepened the kiss.
Before things could progress, Cloud gently pushed him away.
“I’m not the right person for you, Sephiroth.”
“You are the only person for me,” he replied with absolute conviction.
Cloud made him feel things he never thought himself capable of.
“There is too much about me that you don’t know. We have a past you know nothing about.”
Cloud said it sadly, almost apologetically, running trembling fingers over the side of Sephiroth’s face.
“So tell me what it is and we can move past it together.”
“If only it were so simple.”
“It could be,” Sephiroth insisted.
Cloud bit his lip and looked away. But then, slowly, he lifted his eyes and met Sephiroth’s gaze from beneath his lashes. There was something small and fragile in his eyes. It was hard to believe this was the man strong enough to defeat him; the man who’d spent an entire year ignoring and dismissing him. It had taken so little for him to crack and show the fragility he carried on the inside.
Sephiroth simultaneously wanted to protect him—and break him.
But what he knew for certain was that he had to have him.
Cloud was still looking up at him, searching his face. Reaching a decision, he stood up on his tiptoes and captured Sephiroth’s lips with his own. Sephiroth responded instantly, wrapping his arms around Cloud’s waist, crashing their bodies together.
They had so much to talk about. Sephiroth still had so many questions, so many things he didn’t understand. But now wasn’t the time for words. Their bodies spoke in a language of their own, and after so many months of repressed desires, they were no longer willing to wait. Everything else would come after. But now that the walls between them had been torn down, Sephiroth knew they would be just fine.