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My soul, corrupted by vengeance
Hath endured torment, to find the end of the journey
When Genesis had awakened from his years long slumber, he’d thought he’d known his exact role. That Minerva had healed and awakened him to be her Champion, a hero to defend all of Gaia.
He’d near immediately been dissuaded of that belief.
Genesis leans his head against the high up ruins of Shinra Tower, on a level he remembers his former apartment being on, studying the utter destruction of the city he’d spent years calling home. Somehow he’d managed to sleep through that, sleep through the collapse of the world he’d known. Slept through the insanity that had swallowed up his once-dear friend.
He tilts his head up, closing his eyes and sighing.
Instead another had done that. Gotten what he’d dreamt of.
Cloud Strife.
He doesn’t really remember the other man beyond the time he’d met him while being dragged around Gaia by Fair, in a mako coma he’d doubted the blond would ever come out of. But Strife had, and Fair had died protecting him. What he’s since learned about him is that Strife had been a failed SOLDIER candidate and a Shinra trooper that had met Fair during Modeheim. That Strife had been one of the troopers at Nibelheim, which had been his hometown, and there…
And there Strife had had his first victory over Sephiroth.
Oh, in that case it had been a matter of pure luck, that Sephiroth’s first fall into his madness had distracted him from a trooper he’d not unreasonably assumed he’d injured enough that the boy would no longer even be close to being a threat. Genesis is still curious how Strife had been strong enough to lift Angeal’s Buster Sword pre-enhancement, but doubts Strife himself knows. But he’d still done it, still managed to kill Sephiroth and avenge his home, all while badly injured and soon ending up in Hojo’s hands.
He’d not entirely clear on what Hojo had next done to Strife beyond an extreme form of enhancement that had supposedly been supposed to turn Strife into some sort of clone similar to what Hollander had done to the SOLDIERs that had followed him. Frankly, in light of Strife’s everything he’s skeptical that had really been Hojo’s intention. Most likely Hojo had somehow known Sephiroth wasn’t entirely dead and wanted to make a disturbing form of gift for his son.
Something that had badly backfired on both.
Instead Strife had been stronger than Sephiroth’s ability to control him (well in the end at least, when it truly mattered). Instead Strife and the team he’d lead managed to win a battle that they should have been slaughtered in, with Strife once more dealing the final blow, earning themselves Gaia’s gratitude Oh, it may have in a sense been a team effort, but without Strife being there they never would have succeeded and it was obvious. Well, that and the Ancient’s sacrifice.
Legend shall speak of sacrifice at world’s end …
Then Sephiroth just a few years later managed to drag himself out of death. Somehow managed to defy death through his fixation on Strife and attempted to destroy everything again, attempted to kill Strife again.
But he’d failed, as he’d failed twice before. Thrice Strife had been the victor.
In doing so, Sephiroth had made it clear that Strife was the only one he’d viewed as a true rival, a true danger to him. Someone to obsess over, while he’d always ignored Genesis’s attempts at a rivalry. Someone the world should view as their hero and champion, and the world did.
Genesis knows it’s wrong to be jealous. That Strife had lost so much that he cared about. Fair, the Ancient, the town he’d grown up in. But Strife had gotten everything he’d dreamt of, everything he’d wanted.
And wrong or not, he resents that.
Resents that he’d been left sleeping, resents he’d been viewed as incapable even by the Goddess to do anything. Resents that by all accounts Sephiroth had never cared to seek him out, the wonder if he could still be alive. Afterall, Shinra had declared him dead before and he’d proven to still be alive…
But Sephiroth hadn’t. He hadn’t cared to check, hadn’t bothered to ever even speak of him. And it’s not like he could have forgotten he existed, for Goddess’s sake Strife had been using Angeal’s sword the first time around. Would that not awaken care or questions?
By all accounts it hadn’t.
He’d only cared about Strife and the abomination he’d called ‘Mother’.
A large part of Genesis is tempted to challenge Strife. To try and defeat him in a duel. In truth, it would accomplish nothing. It would be a hollow (and unlikely) victory, and earn him nothing but the world’s scorn and loathing. Even he’s self-aware enough to acknowledge that.
Even while never fighting him, Strife has already unknowingly defeated him.
He’ll never accomplish the dreams he’d harbored.
All that awaits you is a somber morrow
No matter where the winds may blow.