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He retained his innocence.
She existed only as a far-off whisper.
Sephiroth remembered Professor Gast fondly, the man had been the only father figure he would ever come to know. Gast treated him kindly. He treated him with more kindness than Hojo - his actual father as he would later come to learn - would ever dare to bestow upon him. Where Hojo was nothing but the pinprick of a needle and the harshness of insanity, Gast was full of tender hugs and the comfort of knowing there was someone that actually truly loved him even in this Hell called Shinra Labs.
There was a woman with him once, down in the depths of torture. He had been young then, barely four years old but already Hojo had him speaking Wutaiese and practicing battle strategies all while running his endurance ragged. Sephiroth had never known her name, but he had known her to be kind, the same way Professor Gast had been kind. She was kept in a cage, but she was strong. He saw it in her eyes the most. They were green in color, similar to his own, yet where his shown bright with the mako that had been pumped into him from a time before he could remember hers were bright with hope and the wisdom of Gaia.
Gast had been taken with her the second he had seen her. Sephiroth had been brought to see her only a handful of times, and always by the Professor late at night when he knew that Hojo was too busy steadily falling into his insanity to notice that his prized creation was no longer in his room being monitored. She had smiled when she first saw him, and just as Gast had been Sephiroth was taken with her too. He had returned the smile, shy but bright, and the two felt the understanding pass between them. The acknowledgment of two creatures trapped in a cage.
Late one night, later than the Professor had ever come to him before, Gast slipped quietly into his room with the woman following softly but quickly behind him. Gast, ever the father that he had always been, pulled Sephiroth tightly into his arms. The Professor had placed a finger to his lips, urging the boy to be quiet. With Sephiroth held in one arm and the woman’s hand wrapped around the other, Gast led them through the halls of Shinra to what Sephiroth could only hope was his freedom. It’s a shame that they had been too late.
“And just where do you think you’re going?”
The voice that carried after them was the one that Sephiroth had always associated with terror. When that voice spoke, it was yet again time for the boy to be subjected to another one of the mad scientist’s experiments in his goal of achieving weaponized perfection. Sephiroth looked at the woman’s face and saw his own expression of fear reflected there.
“Somewhere you can’t find us. I won’t allow you to continue down this path. It’s inhumane.”
It had been Gast that had spoken, proud and strong. Hojo had sneered, and Sephiroth had known even at the age of four that he was not offended by the inference that his work was morally wrong, for in Hojo’s madness neither he nor the woman was ever once human to begin with, but simply that Gast was attempting to liberate his lab rats.
The scientist seemed to curl in on himself in anger, watching as Gast continued down the hall with his two most prized possessions held gently but protectively in his arms. Hojo let out a yell of rage and launched himself in the direction of Sephiroth, the woman, and their protector. The rest of the events remain a blur in Sephiroth’s mind. There was a scream of terror that came from the woman. Gast let out a startled shout and gasp of pain as he was rammed in the ribs by the madman. Sephiroth was ripped from the arms of the Professor, kicking and screaming as Hojo held him in his tight and bruising grip. Sephiroth liked to believe he was the reason Gast and the woman had been able to escape that night. That his fight in the hands of his captor was what distracted Hojo long enough for them to flee. Gast ran down the hall with the woman in his arms, shouting in agony as she was led farther and farther away from the child with whom she wished to save from the fate they had shared, a fate she would no longer have to know. Gast looked back towards him only once, guilt painted his features as he looked back towards the boy that he had loved and abandoned in the hands of a poor imitation of a father who would only ever treat him as less than a living thing. Sephiroth felt the tears falling down his cheeks as they ran. He would never see Professor Gast again.
He is still lost.
She breathes her first and Gaia sings her joy.
The woman returned again. He was five years old now. Gast was not with her, but in his place was a child. A baby just new in the world with a tuft of hair the same chestnut brown and the same knowing green eyes as her mother. She carried with her the lingering scent of snow and the growing fragrance of flowers. Hojo allowed him to see them before he put them in their cage if only to boast his victory and ensure that Sephiroth understood that there will be no such thing as escape from this place. Everything returned to this hell eventually. The baby smiled up at him, and the crinkle of her little nose reminded him of the Professor. He smiled in return and thought that this small creature before him was too wise for her age. The world dropped away as he felt her mind, still too young to understand what she was asking, brush against the walls of his own consciousness. He closed his eyes and saw the visions she desired to show him. She has not long existed in this world, so the place she showed to him is somewhere he can no longer remember. They floated together serenely in the dark, enveloped in warmth. He realized that she must be showing him the one place that she has ever felt safe, still inside her mother. This was her way of wanting him to feel safe too. He looked down on the face of the child who couldn’t walk or talk but understood that he needed comfort and promised himself that he would give her the same love that she had just given to him. He would do everything within his power to protect her. Sephiroth did not know how wrong he would be.
“What’s her name?” he asked, his fingers gently running over the tip of the child’s nose causing her to giggle at his touch.
The woman smiled sadly as she watched them, knowing in her heart that her daughter would face the same fate the boy had to live.
“Aerith. Her name is Aerith.”
Sephiroth had never heard anything so beautiful.
He grows as her protector.
She grows as his only friend.
Not a day went by that Sephiroth and Aerith did not find each other. He was twelve and she was seven. Hojo had never once found them because they traveled to a place that he would never be able to find. The secret place that she showed him the first time he saw her face smiling up at him. It had changed in the time they have been together. Both Aerith and Sephiroth have never known anything besides the cold sterile walls of the labs of Shinra, so together they built their secret place to their liking. The grass was as green as Sephiroth’s eyes and blanketed rolling hills that continue on forever. Above them was the sun shining brightly in the blue sky, always staying frozen in the same spot. A tree hung over their heads, every branch covered in the pink flowers Aerith insisted upon. Sometimes a swing hung from the branches of the tree, and Sephiroth would hold her in his lap as they swung gently together and recounted to each other the tests that Hojo had put them through, seeking the strength of the other in their shared troubles. Other times a picnic blanket would rest just outside of the shadow of the pink tree, and the two would sit together basking in the warmth of their pretend sun while they told each other of all of their hopes and dreams.
“You’re my best friend, Sephiroth. I love you,” she would say, her voice small as she still held on to the childish wonder he so envied her for. Sephiroth would smile and pull her into his side so that she could play with the silky strands of his silver hair and whisper that he loved her too.
He was to be sent off to war tomorrow, but he did not dare to tell her. He’s still too young to be capable of fully processing what exactly he is being sent into himself. But that did not matter to Hojo and the rest of Shinra. He was a weapon. His only reason for living was to fight. The perfect SOLDIER.
It was a night much the same as the night that the Professor tried to steal him away that Aerith dragged the feather-light touch of her consciousness against his own, and he could sense the panic immediately as he allowed her in. She was crying, the tears in her eyes shone against the green of her eyes.
“It’s Mommy, Seph. You have to help.”
He’s out of his bed without another word.
It has been a long time since Sephiroth has snuck out of the halls of the lab, not since his failed escape with the Professor all those years ago. Hojo had beaten him for it, and for a creature built for strength, he had been left feeling weaker than he had ever felt in his life. But he had a purpose now. Someone else was not trying to save him, but there was someone that he was trying to protect. It’s quiet, almost painfully so, but he continued in his mission, walking as he had been trained to be light on his feet. None of the guards seemed to notice him, almost as though it was through sheer force of will that he remained unseen. The path to their prison is one he still remembered from the time when Gast would bring him to see the woman.
There were no guards when he arrived, and he thanked Gaia before looking over the scene before him. Aerith and her mother were held behind a wall of glass. Aerith knelt before her, brushing the woman’s chestnut brown curls away from her sweaty forehead as she shivered in pain. Sephiroth was not sure what is wrong with her, but he was sure that she was like this because of Hojo, the madman having no sense of when to stop. Aerith felt his presence and turned to face him, placing her hand on the glass wall that separated them. He felt his knees give out from under him as her pain washed over him. Sephiroth placed his own hand to meet hers through the glass. Everything felt so much stronger now that they physically stood together, joined together simply by space and not the mental bond that connected them. When was the last time he had truly seen her? Had it really been the day when she was still just a baby and had been taken into Hojo’s custody?
Her face was wet with tears, and he watched as one dripped from her chin to the floor, his enhanced ears catching the sound it made when it plopped on the floor.
Sephiroth rose to examine the glass that kept him from her. It was the only barrier between them. The only wall preventing Aerith and her mother from their freedom. He was a weapon. Created for destruction. He brought the wall of glass crashing down.
Aerith’s mother perked at the noise, the hope of escape, and the drive to protect her daughter instilled in her enough strength to drag herself from the floor and take her daughter into her arms. She looked beyond the shards of glass and saw the boy that she could not save looking back at her, resolution set on his features as it was now his time to save her.
“I’m so sorry,” she breathed, and let him feel the regret and guilt she has felt all of these years at not having been able to bring him with her when she and Gast had escaped.
Sephiroth only smiled, and helped the woman onto her feet. “Do you remember the way out? I’ve never been able to leave.”
She nodded, and took his hand, still the small hand of a child but he has seen so much in his short life that she felt she has no right to call him such. “Come with us. Let me do what I could not before.”
He only shook his head, knowing if Shinra couldn’t send him off come morning there would be hell to pay. “I can’t. Hojo will only find you faster that way.”
She cried as she knows he is right, and she has a daughter that she must protect above all else. She watched as the boy takes Aerith into his arms and whispered his sweet and innocent feelings, and then Aerith was once again in her own arms, and she looked back sadly as she can only carry the one child to safety.
Aerith came to him hours later in their secret place, the sun replaced with a cloudy starless night sky. Her face was somber, and she could no longer cry any more tears. She told him that her mother is gone, but that she was safe. He held her in his arms, the only place either of them would ever be able to find comfort.
He becomes terror.
She becomes beauty.
Shinra sent him to Wutai the morning after Aerith’s escape. He welcomed the change, if only to escape Hojo who had gone on a rampage now that two of his precious specimens have disappeared. Hojo wanted more than anything to torture the answer of out Sephiroth. To beat and starve and take every last ounce of hope he had ever felt until he was begging Hojo to let him tell him where they have run off if only to stop the pain. But Shinra would not allow it. He was their weapon, and they would only accept putting him on the battlefield in top condition, and they wanted him out there now. Sephiroth smirked as he climbed into the helicopter with a few other members of his squadron, watching as Hojo seethed in anger at being scolded for even suggesting that they delay sending their prized fighter off into battle, none of them cared that he was only a twelve year old boy. It was with this pride in his heart that Sephiroth gladly ran into war.
Aerith called him to their secret place only when he allowed her to do so, and even then it was more difficult for her to reach him. Sephiroth was sure that if she were any other person that they would never be able to caress his mind and ask for entrance from halfway across the world, but this was Aerith. They have had seven years to build their bond to this point, but even still their connection was wobbly, like she’s going through a tunnel while she’s talking on a PHS.
She was upset with him, as he suspected she would be. He’s become the poster boy for SOLDIER, his face plastered in the newspaper on a near-daily basis with snippets about his efforts in the war. Her new mother teased her for keeping a picture of him she cut from the paper pinned above her bed, but the thought warmed his heart.
She asked about Wutai, and if it’s really as savage as Shinra says it was. He told her that it was beautiful, but that it’s people are stubborn to refuse Shinra. He did not tell her that he wished he were like the people of Wutai, free of Shinra’s shackles. He allowed her deeper into his mind as he showed her the scenery he has had the pleasure of seeing, and she grinned in delight when he showed her the sakura trees that reminded her so much of the tree they created together in their secret place. She asked when he’d be able to come home. He told her he does not know, only that he promised that one day he would come home to her.
Every day another life was added to the number that he has taken. He became the Silver General. The Scourge of Wutai. Sometimes he wondered if any of it was worth it as he cleaned Masamune of the blood of yet another soul he has sent to return to the Lifestream. And then Aerith would come to him, and he watched as she grew in the years he is away at war, becoming more beautiful every day as she tasted the freedom he would never be able to enjoy. Always a prisoner. Sephiroth convinced himself that this is for her. That what Wutai desires would only harm the only thing that he has ever loved. He wouldl continue to fight for her to protect her, but he still was never quite sure what it was that he was protecting her from. The blood would continue to spill.
He is found.
She is his keeper.
Nine years since his first departure and finally the war saw an end. Shinra saw to it that their golden boy was no longer kept hidden in Hojo’s shadows. There’s no way to explain the disappearance of a war hero as famous as he. They placed him in a nice apartment, one with two bedrooms and a balcony that looked out over Midgar’s plate. He sat out there often, body lax as he relaxed into the soft plush of his patio furniture enjoying the feel of the sun on his face in a way that he had never been allowed in his life. Shinra had tried to place him in one of their suites in the tower, but he had refused on the lie that he could never accept so extravagant. They gushed at his humbleness and placed him in an apartment building nearby. He was overjoyed. Nearly twenty-one and finally allowed a brief sense of liberation. Not full freedom, as he was well aware, but on a much longer leash.
Aerith came to him that night in their secret place, radiant as always. She grew so much in the time he has been away. A beautiful and bright young woman with all of the world ahead of her. She let out a bright laugh when she saw him standing under their tree. Their connection was stronger now that he was so close, and she was finally able to reach out to touch him after so many years of talking through static. Aerith leaped into his arms, and Sephiroth pretended that he was not blushing.
“You’re home,” she sighed, and twirled his silvery hair around her fingers just like she used to when she was young and they were both still prisoners.
Sephiroth chuckled, deep and throaty, “I promised, didn’t I?”
Aerith hummed in response, still so caught up in the sensation of once again being able to feel him fully through their bond. She’s so much smaller than he remembers, or maybe he’s just become so much bigger. She pulled away from him, and he felt his heart tighten in fear that maybe she has discovered all of the things he has done, all of the horrors that he has committed in the name of Shinra, and that she would tell him that she never wanted to see a monster like him again. But Aerith kept her hands resting on the top of his arms and smiled up at him so warmly he felt for a second that he has forgotten how to breathe.
“Will you come and see me?” The words fell from her mouth in barely a whisper, but she knew that he would be able to hear.
“I want nothing more.”
And he stayed true to his word.
While he was not constantly monitored as he was as a child, Shinra still kept a close eye on Sephiroth, so he must pick the moments to slip down to the slums underneath the Plate carefully. Aerith begged him daily as she waited impatiently for his visits. He was nearly as impatient to see her just as she was to see him, but he understood that if Shinra found her that she would be dragged back to Hojo kicking and screaming and there would be nothing that he would be able to do to save her.
There was a lull in his paperwork one odd day, and he finally saw this as a chance to sneak beneath the Plate to see her. He wore simple clothes with a hood pulled over his head to attract as little attention to himself as possible. He boarded the train that would take him below the Plate and sent out his consciousness towards her, caressing the edges of her own. He used this as a guide, and when the train stopped at the station in the Sector 5 slums, he departed from the train as he can feel that this place was closest to her. He wandered through the slums, watching as the children ran around playing and the adults went about their business trying to make money in any way that they can. He noticed a few Turks wandering around the area, and they sparked his curiosity, but they were not what he has come here for.
His journey to Aerith led him to quieter parts of the slums until suddenly it was just him and the ever-growing feel of her presence amongst all of the scrap. He came upon a church, a beacon of hope in all of this rubble, and opened the doors. She knelt on the other side of the sanctuary, tending to an impossible patch of flowers that grew in the dirt in a hole through the floorboards. He knew that she felt he was here, but she was content with her flowers so he only moved forward to come to sit next to her while she worked, glad to be able to feel her physically next to him. Aerith smiled up at him as the old wood of the floor creaked under him and she moved to pick one of her flowers and tucked it gently behind his ear.
Her hand fell to his shoulder, and then she was moving to wrap her arms around his neck.
“I’ve missed you.”
He breathed in the scent of her, and cannot deny that he missed her too.
The church became their new secret place. He slipped down to see her every chance that he got, and felt every bit the role of her protector, the title he had given himself when he had been so young but understood even then that he would only ever belong to her. He fended off the creatures that live in the slums from coming in to harm her precious flowers. He warded off the Turks that he now knew had been sent to watch her with a glare filled with the promise of murder if they ever so much as dare to try and drag her back to the life he had helped her escape from.
They talked about everything and nothing during their time in the church. Sephiroth complained about the almost never-ending pile of paperwork. Aerith talked about her adoptive mother and how grateful she was to have her. The talking turned into holding, with Aerith sitting on his lap with her head resting on his chest as they talked about their dreams for the future. The holding turned into sweetly stolen kisses that leave him breathless each time, and Sephiroth imagined this was what life would be like when Shinra finally released him from their grasp. Basking in the perfume of the flowers Aerith grew while he held her with every intention of making sure she remembered that she was the only thing in his life that he has ever loved.
It seemed that nothing in their life can stay the same for too long.
Sephiroth was there the day that Zack Fair fell through the roof of their church, ever the puppy that Angeal had described him to be, and it was in that moment that their lives are led to the end.
He becomes darkness.
She tries to hold him in the light.
He was sent on mission, the secret place of their bond the only haven they have once again. But there was something different now, another voice screaming for his attention that he can no longer ignore. It was as they reach Nibleheim that it grew even stronger, maybe even stronger than the bond that he and Aerith shared. Aerith begged him to shut the voice out, that whoever it was that was trying to speak to him would only cause him pain, but he did not feel pain. No, this was acceptance, this was understanding, the voice knew him for the monster he was and her words urged him into action. Aerith wept for him, desperate for him to cling to her, but he couldn’t, not when he knew that if he were to show her who he has truly become she would run away in fear.
It was there in the Mako reactor that he found her. The person he did not realize he had been searching for his entire life. Jenova sang her praises to her son. Whispering in his ear that this was exactly who he was meant to be. He felt Aerith through their bond once again, begging him not to follow the voice, but this was his mother, someone that can love a monster like him. Aerith shouted for him to stop, that her love for him was enough, but he stepped fully into the embrace of his mother’s wisdom and he could no longer hear Aerith screaming for him to let her bring him home. A part of him was terrified. A part of him felt that this was what freedom finally tasted like.
He burned Nibelheim to the ground as his mother commanded, and he could feel the joy that came from her and relished in his power. He seethed in rage when he was stopped short, and by that foolish boy of an officer named Cloud. Sephiroth fell into the Mako pooling at the bottom of the reactor, but he did not scream as he felt his skin burn. He accepted that he has been bested, and felt himself being dragged down into the depths of the Lifestream. But he remained living, too powerful or perhaps simply too stubborn to die.
He is Death.
She Is Life Bringing.
Sephiroth’s mother continued to whisper in his head, seeking out those that are like him. Those that caried her cells inside of her were able to hear her voice, and she urged them to seek her. As god of this new world, he allowed himself the privilege of watching the thing he had once cared about. His mother begged him to let go, but he was to be god, it was his right to watch over her. She was the enemy now. Helping the one that had tried to kill him in his quest to save the Planet. There was no hope for them. He would summon Meteor, and when Gaia called forth the Lifestream to heal herself he would be there waiting to become one with the Planet, and then Gaia would be no more. All that would remain would be Sephiroth and the planet and all of its lifeforce would become his.
Aerith continued to remain in his way. She was unsuccessful in trying to keep him from obtaining the Black Materia. He knew that she wandered off by herself. She knew that he watched her. Knew that they were together in Cloud’s mind as she called her friends to the ancient city of her people.
He is Black.
She is Holy.
She is waiting for him when he arrives, kneeling on the floor with her hands folded in prayer. He drops down, Masamune withdrawn, and falls towards her. He plunges the sword straight through her heart. He hears Cloud scream and his mother praise him.
Aerith drags him to their secret place inside of their minds once again, and he feels as though he has stumbled out of a fog and is able to think clearly for the first time in years. Aerith stands before him under their tree, and he falls to his knees with the realization of what he has done, of the monster he has finally succumbed to.
“Oh, Aerith, what have I done?” he weeps, clutching tightly to her dress as he trembles with the knowledge that he has killed her. He has murdered her .
Aerith smiles serenely, and plays with his silver hair for what he knows will be the last time. “It’s alright. She can’t reach you here. Not anymore.”
He continues to shake as he realizes that he wants none of it. Not the Planet, not the power, nothing if it means that she has to die. But it is only here that he is safe from the whispering voice of Jenova, in Aerith’s final moments where she is pouring every ounce of her love into keeping his mind sane so that he can say goodbye. He knows that when she finally fades, the insanity will return, and Jenova will return to his mind because he can already feel her trying to claw her way in.
“How can you be so calm when you’re about to die?”
“Because I know that I will be with you again.”
Aerith holds his face in her hands and places a gentle kiss on his forehead, whispering for the final time that she loves him before she fades away to greet the Lifestream and their secret place is left empty and Jenova forces her way into his mind once again.
Standing on the altar, Sephiroth smirks as he gazes down upon the one thing that could have stopped him from gaining his godhood. Little does he know that the heavens have already heard her prayers, and the one person who loved him has already been the cause of his defeat.
He is her destruction.
She is his salvation.