Chapter 1
His eyes burned. The pages stuck together. Sephiroth snapped the book shut and hurled it across the room.
Nothing. Hundreds of these volumes and nothing to give him the answers he really wanted.
What did it mean to be a Cetra? Where was he meant to go from here? Was it his mother behind that sealed door in the reactor, and could she really be alive in any meaningful way after so much time? Could she tell him what he should do?
It was plain that Shinra was his enemy. They'd imprisoned and tortured her, they'd concealed the truth from him, they'd abused his gifts for their own petty human squabbles. They deserved to have their creation turn all his wrath back on them.
And yet...
There was Gast.
Gast had led this Project. He'd known everything, and yet he was one of the few people Sephiroth had ever thought well of. Gast alone had treated him like a person, coming to read to him in his room or take him on walks through the Shinra building after hours, when no one would see him. It was with his small hand in Gast's that Sephiroth had first seen the sky through the building's windows. Seen the sprawl of the city below, more people than he could imagine. Gast had introduced him to the library, though he said those books weren't suited for children, and he'd bring in other stories. Stories that his young mind had lacked the context to understand. What were princes, or faeries? What were dragons, that they needed to be slain?
Monsters, Gast had said matter-of-factly. They were monsters.
Had Gast been a monster? Had Gast meant to tell him any of this, once he was older? Sephiroth had been only six, after all, when the professor had vanished from the lab, and Hojo had told him gleefully that he'd died, and that Shinra had assigned him to continue the work.
Hojo. There was a monster. Sephiroth imagined wringing the man's neck until his windpipe gave, until his neck snapped, letting go and watching his body drop as nothing more than a sack of meat.
But he wasn't here.
Growling, Sephiroth kicked a pile of discarded journals, sending a few flying out into the hall.
A laugh bubbled up from his chest unexpectedly. What was he doing? Throwing a tantrum, like a child? He ran a hand through his hair, pushing it out of his face, and stepped out into the hall to collect the wayward volumes.
That was when he saw the other door.
How had he forgotten about the other door? He must have walked past it a dozen times by now. A vague memory--it was locked.
He stepped over the fallen books and tried the handle again. What did a locked door have to mean to him? There could be something in there. There could be answers.
It was a heavy door, and even with his strength, it took more than one kick before the wood even began to splinter, but at last it tore free from the bolt entirely. Its hinges screeched as Sephiroth shoved it open.
Red eyes stared at him from the darkness. His Mako eyes adjusted quickly to make out the figure of a man, sitting up in a coffin. Messy black hair and a deep cowl obscured the man's face, but those features still telegraphed shock.
Sephiroth glanced around the room. More coffins, containing only skeletons. No books here. Nothing but this man who'd been locked up amid corpses.
Man, or monster?
Sephiroth narrowed his eyes. "Who are you?" he demanded.
"I... My name is Vincent," said the stranger. "Are you... Who are you?"
It wasn't only shock on Vincent's face, but recognition. That wouldn't have been surprising--Sephiroth was used to being recognized--if not for a similar feeling nagging at his own mind, that there was something familiar about that face, too. But he was certain they'd never met. He would have remembered.
"Sephiroth," he answered. "What are you--"
"Sephiroth?" Vincent repeated, interrupting him. He rose from the coffin. "You are Sephiroth?"
"That's what I said."
"But you're... How old are you?"
"What difference does it make?" Sephiroth snapped, growing annoyed. Why was this stranger wasting his time with pointless questions? What a worthless discovery.
"I did not think I had slept so long... as to see you grown," said Vincent, and Sephiroth blinked. "Where is your mother? How is she?"
Sephiroth's hands unclenched. "My... You know my mother?"
"Yes," Vincent confirmed, and before he could speak another word, Sephiroth closed the distance between them and took him by the shoulders.
"Then you must tell me," he said. "Tell me about Jenova."
Vincent stared at him. His body had tensed at the contact, but he didn't pull away. Face-to-face with him now, the familiarity was undeniable. Had they met? Perhaps when he'd been a child? But Vincent looked no older than him, so how could that be? How could he know Sephiroth's mother?
"Jenova?" Vincent repeated at last in confusion. "You want to know about Jenova?"
"Yes," Sephiroth insisted. "Tell me about my mother."
Vincent shook his head slowly. "But your mother's name... is Lucrecia."
Sephiroth's grip loosened. "Lucrecia?"
"You don't know her?"
"No..." Sephiroth pulled away and turned from Vincent, his mind reeling over one simple name. He put a hand to his head. "Hojo told me... that my mother's name was Jenova. That she died giving birth to me. But that was a lie, because Jenova wasn't human, and I wasn't born like a human..."
"You were," said Vincent, "born like a human, from a human mother. They implanted you with Jenova's cells, but that doesn't change those facts."
Sephiroth glanced back at him. Could he be lying, too? Trying to impose some new reality on him, just when he'd finally uncovered the truth about himself? What for? Who was this man and what drove him?
"How do you know me?" he demanded. "Why do you... What do you have to do with all of this?"
"I was... a friend of your mother's," said Vincent. "She was a biologist, working with Professor Gast, and I was a Turk, assigned to their protection for the duration of their work here."
"You can't possibly be old enough for that."
Vincent expression grew stony. The fingers of his left hand--a hand that Sephiroth realized was not flesh, but metal, sharp and claw-like--twitched. He lifted his other hand and ran his fingers over his own face, as though he didn't know what it looked like. "...this, too, must be Hojo's doing," he said. "I was twenty-seven when you were born. It wasn't long after that that he locked me away."
"Hojo put you here? Why?"
Vincent hesitated. "I suppose I was a threat to the Project," he decided. "Lucrecia... became very ill after your birth. She couldn't care for you, and I worried that was just how Hojo wanted it. That he would let her die to keep you from her. I wanted to stop him, but if you don't even know her, then..."
"I've never heard of her," said Sephiroth. "You failed."
"...I'm sorry."
"You're sorry?" Sephiroth repeated. "Is that all you have to offer me? An apology and a story about a woman I never knew existed? But what more could I have expected from a stranger I found in a coffin? Maybe you aren't even real..."
"Sephiroth... When was the last time you slept?"
Sephiroth gestured vaguely. How long had he been in this basement now? There was no way to measure the time.
"I know you have questions," Vincent went on gently, "and I promise I will help you find what answers I can. But I think you should rest, first."
"Rest will get me nowhere."
"It will give your mind time to settle. You might find you think more clearly, and... you'll know I am no hallucination."
Sephiroth wanted to argue. Did Vincent seek to keep him from searching further? To lull him into a vulnerable state? Maybe he'd presented a different sort of threat to the Project. Maybe he hadn't wanted it to happen at all, maybe he wanted to put an end to it, to Sephiroth. Maybe he was an enemy to the Cetra and Sephiroth ought to kill him and move on.
If there were no more answers in this place, then he would go to the reactor. He would find Jenova and she would tell him what this stranger could not.
But he did feel... so tired. And he could see no threat in the way Vincent watched him. He only looked... sad.
"A few hours," Sephiroth decided brusquely. "And I'm..." He nearly said he would lock Vincent away again, but he'd broken the door, hadn't he? There was no confining him here. "My men will watch you," he finished instead.
"All right," said Vincent.
Sephiroth made the man walk ahead of him out of the basement, back to the mansion bedroom where he'd found the secret stair. A pale light drifted through the windows; it was early morning.
The surviving infantryman waited outside the room; Sephiroth couldn't recall if he'd posted him there or not. The boy looked up with a start on seeing him return with Vincent. What was his name again? Didn't matter.
"Go find Zack," Sephiroth told him. "I've got a job for him."
"Y-yes, sir," said the boy, and he hurried off.
"You're with SOLDIER," Vincent observed.
"Mm," Sephiroth confirmed absently. He hadn't expected even that dusty bed to look so inviting. He resisted the urge to sit down on it, for fear he would be asleep before Zack showed up.
Vincent went to the windows, squinting out into the daylight. "How long has it been?" he wondered. "Twenty years?"
"Twenty-five," said Sephiroth. "I am twenty-five."
"I wish..." Vincent began, but he trailed off without finishing, and Sephiroth didn't push him to. It didn't matter what he wished. His wishes weren't reality.
The boy returned with Zack, who stopped in the doorway to stare at him.
"You look like hell, man," he said. "And who's this guy?"
"This is Vincent," Sephiroth said tiredly, knowing it was no explanation at all. "Don't let him out of your sight. I... am going to rest."
Zack hesitated, but occasionally, very occasionally, he knew when not to ask questions. "Got it," he said. "Uh, Vincent? You wanna come with me?"
Sephiroth shut the door behind the three of them, and his weight swayed forward, his forehead pressing into the wood. The pressure didn't feel real.
He pushed himself back and turned around. Finding the bed, he let himself collapse onto it. His eyes fell shut, and sleep overtook him.
It was dark when he woke. Not an overcast sky, but the dark of night. A streetlamp was on in the town below. He'd slept much longer than a few hours.
His body felt heavy as he dragged himself out of bed, and his head throbbed, but his thoughts came clearer.
Vincent... Sephiroth didn't know whether to trust him, but his story didn't exist in a vacuum. If there had ever been a Turk by that name, or a scientist called Lucrecia, there would be record of it at Headquarters. There was a phone at the inn, though whether anyone would relate to him the truth of the matter... How much of Shinra knew what he was? How many of them participated in the deception?
No one was waiting outside the bedroom when he left it, and Sephiroth went first to the bathroom down the hall. Catching himself in the mirror, he could see what Zack had meant; rolls of dust had caught in the tangles of his hair, decades-old grime smudged his forehead, and even after sleeping, dark circles shadowed his eyes.
He was about to bend down and wash his face when he stopped, and looked harder.
It couldn't be...
But he tried to imagine himself with dark hair, red eyes. Vincent's features weren't familiar because he somehow recalled meeting the man as an infant. They were an imperfect mirror of his own.
The bathroom door slammed as he left it, and he stalked the halls of the mansion until he found them. Zack and the boy sat in the candlelit dining room with the remains of a meal while Vincent stood staring at something on the wall behind them. He turned as Sephiroth entered.
"My mother's 'friend'?" Sephiroth demanded without preamble.
Zack glanced between them uncertainly. The boy pushed to his feet as if to leave. Maybe Sephiroth should have ordered them to, but what privacy did he really have when others knew more about him than he did?
Vincent met Sephiroth's gaze without flinching. "...not only her friend," he admitted.
"All this time," Sephiroth said bitterly, "I thought he was the unfortunate bearer of that title. My father." He scoffed, shaking his head. "Is this any better an option? A freak? A freak who lied to me."
"Seph?" said Zack. He got up from the table and took a step towards him, but Sephiroth held out a hand.
"Don't start," he said.
"It was never my intention to lie to you," said Vincent. "I only thought, a stranger, claiming to be your father..." He shook his head. "I don't know for certain, anyway."
"Do you suppose I look anything like him?"
"...not really."
Sephiroth fisted his hand in his hair. Gods, his head hurt.
Could this man really be his father? Hojo had never claimed the title nor taken the role, but rather he'd claimed ownership; Sephiroth was his property, his creation, and no one had disputed that. He was the one who had given Sephiroth the one scrap he thought he'd known about his mother, but dismissed any questions about his father, as though the entire concept were unnecessary. It had been enough that he thought he'd put the pieces together.
Sephiroth glanced back at Vincent, and then his gaze slid past him to the picture he'd been staring at when Sephiroth came in. A framed wedding portrait. Sephiroth hadn't paid it any attention before, but he realized now that the man looked like Hojo. And the woman...
"This is your mother," said Vincent, catching the direction of his gaze. "I can see her in you, too."
Sephiroth stared into the portrait. Her cheekbones, the shape of her mouth, even the way her hair fell...
"This is insane," he said.
"I'm sure it's a lot to take in," said Vincent. "Believe me, I... am struggling with it myself."
At that, Sephiroth barked out a laugh. If all of this was true, then his father had been in some sort of hibernation all his life, and was scarcely any older than he was. Was Vincent meant to have some parental wisdom for him? Be a voice of experience and guidance? How laughable.
"You're struggling," he said. "Oh, I'm certain it's disorienting to miss twenty-five years, but it was hell to live them. Twenty-five years knowing nothing but scraps of my origins, which you've undone in moments. I knew not a single thing about myself."
"You know now," said Vincent. "I promised you, I'll answer anything you want."
"You don't have the answers I want. You have another story."
"This one is the truth."
Sephiroth stared him down, and he never looked away. Could he trust anything about the steadiness of that gaze? Did it mean anything?
He scoffed and turned for the door. Zack started after him, and Sephiroth shot him a look over his shoulder. "Back off, Zack. I'm not in the mood for you."
"You're in some kind of mood, that's for sure. Where're you headed?"
"That's no concern of yours."
As he took another step, Zack caught his arm. Sephiroth grabbed him by the collar and slammed him into the doorframe.
"I said, back off."
"Zack!" The boy was on his feet again.
Zack waved a hand at him. "I'm okay, Cloud," he managed, sounding winded. "You wanna do me a favor, actually? Why don't you take our new friend and check if the inn's kitchen is still open? I'm betting Sephiroth hasn't eaten in a while."
Sephiroth slowly released him, taking a step back. He hadn't meant to shove him so hard.
Vincent faltered, looking to Sephiroth. "But, I..."
"Go," Sephiroth said hoarsely. "Please."
Vincent nodded slowly, and reluctantly walked out the door past them. Cloud looked uneasy, and he paused as he reached Zack.
"I hope you know what you're doing," he said.
"Trust me," said Zack. "I've got this."
The two of them disappeared down the hallway, leaving Sephiroth standing just outside the dining room with Zack. Sephiroth threw him a look, then stepped back inside and let himself drop into the nearest chair.
"Sure you don't want to throw me around some more?" asked Zack. "Or maybe you wanna go downstairs and beat up some more bookshelves?"
"Do you have a point?" Sephiroth asked tiredly.
Zack approached slowly, staying in his line of sight, and sat down at the table with him. "I'm worried about you, man. You said you wanted some space, so I gave you some space, but... it seems like you're just driving yourself nuts."
"What would you do, Zack, if you learned your parents weren't really your parents? If they and everyone else had been lying to you about your origins, manipulating you to their own purposes?"
"I dunno," said Zack. "That's... a tough one to wrap your head around. I'd probably be pretty upset. But, you know not everyone's been lying to you, right? I sure didn't know about any of this."
Sephiroth narrowed his eyes. Zack was the last person anyone would suspect of subterfuge, but maybe that was the point. What if it was all an act? All those overtures of friendship, just ploys to get close to him? He was certainly more persistant than he ought to have been.
"What?" said Zack. "You're really gonna suspect me now, too?"
"Is there some reason you should be above suspicion?"
"I'm- I mean... Aren't we friends?"
Sephiroth looked back at him, unable to discern any ulterior motive in that face. What if he was just a kind person, a simple fool? Couldn't Sephiroth allow that those existed?
With a sigh, he let his head drop into his hand. "Who knows," he said. "I don't... know what to think about anything, right now."
"...you wanna try talking through it?" Zack ventured.
"Talking? With you?"
"Hey, I've got ears. And plenty of dumb questions, you know that. Maybe it'll help if you've got to explain every little thing."
Sephiroth hesitated. Zack was the closest thing he had to a friend, but this wasn't something they did. Certainly Zack would talk to him about anything that happened to cross his mind, but Sephiroth didn't make a habit of reciprocating.
"That, or I can offer you a hug. Your choice."
Sephiroth snorted.
"Yeah, I didn't think option two was gonna go over so well."
"Did Vincent tell you anything?" Sephiroth wondered.
Zack shook his head. "Nothing but questions out of that guy."
"What did he want to know?"
"About you, mostly. I didn't tell him anything that wasn't public knowledge already. SOLDIER, war hero, huge fan club..."
"Do you always have to do that?" said Sephiroth.
"Do what?"
"Turn everything into a joke."
Zack shrugged. "Just trying to lighten the mood a little. Besides, if you really hated it, you could've picked somebody else for this mission, right?"
Sephiroth didn't answer. He could have. He hadn't.
Maybe they really were friends. Was that what friendship was? Wanting someone around?
"So if that guy's your dad," Zack went on, "then I gotta say, you really lucked out on the aging genes."
"I don't think I'll inherit that, Zack. It seems he became an experiment himself, after I was born." But, would he age like a human? The Cetra were ancestors to humans, but had they had the same lifespan? He'd started life with grey hair, maybe he would die young.
"Well," said Zack, "you wanna start at the beginning? Tell me about this Jenova Project thing. Let's see if we can figure it out together, okay?"
Sephiroth met his gaze with skepticism. If he hadn't been able to make sense of it, he doubted Zack would, but... Could it hurt, to review the facts? Maybe in saying it all aloud, he would realize something he hadn't before.
At the least, it wouldn't all be stuck inside of his head, a riddle with no answer slowly driving him mad.
"All right," he said. "From the beginning..."