Job: SOLDIER, First Class
Weapon: Buster Sword
Birthplace: Gongaga
Bio:
Zack left his hometown of Gongaga ten years prior to the game, not wanting to live in the country. He joined SOLDIER and eventually worked his way up to First Class. He knew Sephiroth, and they were something resembling friends. Six or seven years prior to the game, he met Aeris, and asked her to be his girlfriend.
Then came the Nibelheim incident. Much of what Cloud recalls is taken from Zack's experience there. He was the one who went into the reactor with Sephiroth, saw him snap, and tried to help those in the fire. Like many that day, he followed Sephiroth to the reactor and tried to kill him, but Sephiroth struck him down. Failing that, he urged Cloud to kill Sephiroth, and Cloud succeeded.
Too weak to escape, he was taken up along with the other survivors for Hojo's Sephiroth-cloning experiment. It was years before Zack managed to escape with Cloud, and they hitched a ride to Midgar. Cloud was near-catatonic, so Zack had to help him with everything. Along the way, he told his friend stories about being in SOLDIER and also about the events in Nibelheim.
Within sight of Midgar, Shinra troops caught up with them. Zack was shot to death while trying to defend Cloud, and Cloud was left for dead. |