Chapter 8

Sephiroth rose even before Jenova the next morning, and let his mother go on sleeping. It would be good, he thought, to have some time to himself to practice what he had learned. He wanted her to know that he was ready for more than 'tricks'--he wanted to know the real magic, magic integral to the Cetra way of life.

The innkeeper, an early riser himself, hailed him as he came down the stairs.

"Ah, good morning!" he said. "You've got to tell me, is it true what they're saying?"

"I don't know," said Sephiroth, supposing some nonsensical rumor had spread about how he had dealt with the monsters the other day. "What are people saying?"

"That you're actually an Ancient!"

Sephiroth froze halfway to the door. He turned, slowly. "...where did you hear that?"

"Birgit told me when she came in just now. Apparently everyone's talking about it."

"Everyone..." Sephiroth repeated, his own voice sounding distant. The innkeeper was saying something more, but he didn't hear it.

He stepped outside.

Next door, the couple who owned the general store stood outside, and their eyes fell on him as though they'd been waiting for him to emerge. Across the street, Lockhart was talking animatedly to Cloud's mother. Another woman watched him from her window. Sephiroth turned away and started walking, not thinking of a destination, not thinking of anything.

From somewhere, Tifa ran up to him and matched his pace. "I'm so sorry," she said.

Sephiroth managed to look at her. "What...?"

"I told Papa you probably didn't want people knowing, but he's been telling everyone about it."

"Telling... what?"

"That..." Tifa lowered her voice, as though there might be someone nearby who hadn't heard yet. "That you're an Ancient. Like Zack said."

Sephiroth felt himself coming into focus. They had just passed through the southern gate into town, and he stopped and turned to her. "Zack told you that?"

Tifa nodded. "At dinner last night."

"What, exactly, did he say?"

"Well... we were talking about SOLDIER, and he said how you were different from the rest of them. That you were descended from the Ancients, and that's why you're such a powerful fighter." She paused, her mouth twisting anxiously as she looked up at him. "He also said... that those monsters at the reactor... that Shinra was trying to make Ancients. But I don't think Papa's been spreading that around. He and Zangan have been trying to keep that stuff about the experiments quiet."

Sephiroth broke her gaze, looking past her into town. Not the whole truth of it, not exactly. Zack hadn't mentioned the Jenova Project, or exposed his mother along with him, maybe because he realized that that would be an entirely unforgivable betrayal.

But not more than an hour afterwards, Zack had assured him that he would never reveal this secret. He'd seemed so earnest when he'd said it.

He was a better liar than Sephiroth gave him credit for.

"That's why you got so upset, isn't it?" Tifa asked quietly. "Because of what Shinra was trying to do at the reactor?"

Sephiroth looked back at her. "You shouldn't believe everything Zack says."

"Then it's not true?"

"How could it be?"

Tifa tucked her hair behind one ear. "Well... You aren't exactly normal, are you? I mean... your eyes..."

There was no taking it back, was there? They had already recognized that he was different, and they readily accepted an explanation where he wasn't even human.

"So, the entire village knows?" he asked.

"I think so," Tifa said ruefully. "Word spreads fast when everybody knows everybody else."

"Thank you for telling me," Sephiroth said perfunctorily. "Now I need to go have a word with Zack."

Tifa looked as though she wanted to say something more, but instead she just nodded, and she didn't follow him as he turned and strode back towards the inn.

He took the stairs two at a time and slammed open the bedroom door. Zack leapt up and tumbled out of bed. Jenova sat up calmly.

"Mother, if you wouldn't mind," Sephiroth said carefully through his teeth, "I need a moment alone with Zack."

Jenova looked between the two of them and nodded. "Of course," she said.

In the time it took Zack to pick himself up off the floor and push his hair out of his eyes, Jenova had straightened her covers and walked to meet Sephiroth at the door. She offered him a rueful, knowing smile before she stepped outside. Sephiroth shut the door after her.

"What's going on?" asked Zack.

"Don't play dumb," said Sephiroth. "It might suit you, but I don't have the patience for it."

Zack looked bewildered, and his brow furrowed as he pretended to rack his brain over what Sephiroth meant. "I... I really think you need to spell it out for me, Seph. Everything was fine last night, wasn't it?"

"You neglected to mention you'd been talking about me with Tifa and her father."

"Uh... Tifa asked about you, sure. I guess I shared a couple stories. I may have told her about your shampoo usage. Thought you two could compare notes."

Sephiroth approached him slowly from across the room. "I'm not talking about any of that."

"...did I make a dumb joke?" asked Zack. "If I did, I'm sorry. I don't remember."

Sephiroth stopped scarcely a foot in front of Zack, and looked hard into his eyes. Nothing. There was nothing. "You don't remember telling them that I'm descended from the Ancients," he said.

Zack's eyebrows shot up and he put up his hands as if to block Sephiroth from advancing any closer. "Woah, woah, woah. I don't remember that because it didn't happen! I'd never do that to you."

"Do we have different definitions of 'never'?" Sephiroth asked archly. "The entire village is talking about it."

"Well, it wasn't me."

"No one else could have told them. Vincent and Cloud aren't here, and Tifa says she heard it from you at dinner."

"Wait, what?"

"When you had dinner with her and her father."

Zack shook his head vehemently. "But I didn't. She invited me, but I turned her down. Thought it'd send the wrong message, having dinner with her dad. I ate here. You saw me."

"I've also seen your appetite."

"You can't condemn me based on that!"

Sephiroth fairly snarled. "I'm condemning you based on the fact that you told everyone what I am! I didn't do that myself."

"But I didn't do it either!"

"Then how would you explain it?"

"I..."

Zack's mouth worked as he tried to come up with something, anything. Or was this fumbling, too, a pretense? Sephiroth didn't know anymore. He had thought Zack an honest, loyal friend, the only decent human being he'd ever known, but he wouldn't even admit to running his mouth.

What was the point in lying about it now?

"Jenova," Zack said suddenly, his eyes widening with realization.

"What?"

"Seph, she's basically a shapeshifter."

Sephiroth's jaw set. "A shapeshifter who is using that ability to hide herself among humans, because she's afraid of them. She would never, knowing that fear, turn around and reveal me."

"She didn't do it to herself," said Zack.

Zack backed away as Sephiroth advanced on him again. His legs hit the edge of his bed and he sat down hard. Sephiroth stood over him.

"How dare you insinuate that she would do this to me."

Zack looked up at him. "Seph... You've only known her a couple days. You've known me for years. You really think I'd do something like this? Does it seem like me?"

"She is my mother."

"She's..." He was going to say she wasn't; Sephiroth could practically feel the words die in Zack's throat. Instead he said, "Just because someone says they're your parent, it doesn't necessarily mean they'll be good to you. You oughtta know, right?"

Sephiroth bristled at the reminder. How many years had he thought Hojo was his father? A father who had treated him like a possession, like a prized pet to be broken and trained. A father who had lied to him and used him for his own benefit...

Zack went on quietly, "I know you wanted things to be different this time around, but..."

"Stop," Sephiroth interrupted, turning away from him. "I don't want to hear it."

"I don't like saying it. But I think she's messing with you."

"No. You... You're human. Betrayal is in your nature."

Out of the corner of his eye, Sephiroth saw Zack slump forward, his arms on his knees, a posture of defeat. But what kind of defeat? Was it because he'd failed to turn Sephiroth against his mother? Or... because he was telling the truth, and Sephiroth wouldn't believe him?

But what motive could Jenova have for telling the villagers about his heritage? It only made it more likely that they might in turn find out about her, too. After what humans had done to her, after the decades she'd spent in Shinra's captivity, she'd never risk it.

No. Zack couldn't be telling the truth.

At best, he'd spoken carelessly and didn't want to admit to the mistake. At worst, he was a plant. Someone Shinra had placed near him to watch him, all the while pretending to be his friend. Zack wanted to separate him from Jenova because Jenova wanted revenge on Shinra, and together they would present a significant threat to the company.

At last Zack lifted his head. "I'll talk to everybody," he said. "Tell them I was joking."

Sephiroth turned back to him. "You admit to it."

"No. But if they think it was me, too, maybe it'll work."

He wouldn't even admit it. "It doesn't matter what you do. We're done."

"What do you mean, we're done?"

"We aren't friends. I'm not your superior officer. There's nothing to keep you here any longer."

Zack's lips parted, his mouth hanging open in disbelief for a moment before he spoke. "You want me to go?"

"Yes," said Sephiroth.

"...well, I can't do that."

"You can walk to the next town and--"

"That's not what I mean." Zack got back to his feet, looking determined. "We're not done. I'm not abandoning you just 'cause you're pissed at me right now. Jenova's up to something, and somebody's gotta watch your back."

Sephiroth stared at him, torn between frustration and... he wasn't sure what. "I don't want you here," he said.

Zack spread his hands. "Well, like you said, you're not my superior officer anymore, so you can't order me to leave. Tough break there."

Sephiroth grit his teeth. "Zack..."

"Look, I'll... give you some space to cool down. See if I can do any damage control, like I said. Maybe it's not as bad as you think, you know? Just lemme get a shirt on first."

Sephiroth took several steps back, allowing him to move about the room and dress. Zack left with a rueful smile and a wave. As though they were still friends.

Was that supposed to impress him? That Zack wasn't willing to give up on him?

He didn't know what to think of it. Why had Zack lied to him? What was the ulterior motive? Why did everyone have to have an ulterior motive?

Sephiroth pressed a palm to his forehead. He didn't feel so angry anymore as he had, but something twisted in his gut like a poison. Every time he thought things were beginning to go right, that the lies of his life had revealed themselves and he could move past them...

Maybe it would be easier to give up on ever knowing the truth. Hojo and Gast and Vincent and Zack... they were all liars. What could he hope to gain from them? At least now he could recognize the people around him for what they were.

A soft knock on the doorframe drew his attention. Jenova stood there, brow drawn in concern.

"I saw Zack leave," she said. "What happened?"

Sephiroth looked away. "You know, don't you?"

Jenova approached, walking back into his line of sight. "I thought you might want to tell me, in your own words."

"He told the villagers about me," he said. "They know I'm not human."

"I see..."

"But he won't admit to it," he went on, balling his hands in frustration. "He insisted it wasn't him, even in the face of all the evidence. He blamed you. As if you would impersonate him to play this cruel trick on me."

Jenova touched his arm. "I'm sorry," she said. "I know you trusted him."

"I thought... In all the world, I thought I at least had one friend. It's pathetic, isn't it?"

She shook her head. "No. It's only natural to want connection. You never had a community of your own kind, so you had to look for it elsewhere. And maybe it was true enough, for a time, while he thought you were like him."

Sephiroth felt something in him sink. Was that it? He had believed that what he was made no difference to Zack, but what it if it had? What if Zack felt he no longer merited the same level of consideration or loyalty, because he wasn't human? Their supposed friendship became a game, played at Sephiroth's expense.

It was worse, somehow, than the thought that that friendship had never been real to begin with.

"What was it like," he asked, "to have a community of your own people?"

"We were never lonely," she said, "and no one was outcast. We all understood each other, implicitly."

Sephiroth shook his head. "I don't know if I understand you that way."

"Keep your mind open, and you will, in time."

"...you must be lonely now," he said. "Everyone you knew died millennia ago, and now, all you have is me. A half-breed, raised to think like a human."

"Don't call yourself that," she said. "You are my son."

A selfish son, he thought. He did want her to be perfect, to be everything he had ever wanted in a mother, and he wanted her all to himself. He had brought her back to the village on the pretext of showing her this new world and helping her to experience her newfound freedom, but it wasn't what she had wanted. It was what he wanted, to bring her into the life he already had, and the world he knew.

"...would you like to meet the rest of your children?" he asked her.

Jenova's expression softened in surprise. He could tell the proposal pleased her, but she asked, "Are you sure? You told Vincent you would wait."

Sephiroth shook his head. "Vincent would prefer we never went. He was only trying to stall me. Let's go. They've suffered long enough, alone in those pods."

Jenova nodded. "They have."

Sephiroth retrieved the Masamune, and together they left the inn. Zack was nowhere to be seen--seeking comfort with Tifa, perhaps, friendly as he was--but more villagers now stood in the streets, clustered in little groups. Their voices lowered as Sephiroth walked past. He heard them anyway.

"I did think there was something odd about him," said one.

"Makes you wonder if there are any others living among us," said another.

"I'm not sure we could handle more than one. I'm starting to think those stories about him in the war weren't exaggerated, you know? Scary thought."

Not one of them would look him in the eye. He was no longer a person but a curiosity. A thing on display.

It hadn't taken much, had it? All these years he'd spent among humans, trying to hide the strangeness of his upbringing in that lab, trying to learn their ways and fit in... All of it was undone once they learned he wasn't really one of them, and they put him right back there. They may as well have been observing a specimen behind glass.

At least now, he could leave them behind.

"This is the unfortunate truth about humans," Jenova said softly. "They're cowardly creatures who think only of themselves. That hasn't changed in two thousand years."

"Two days ago, they were ready to celebrate me for saving their village," he said bitterly. "Now they worry about more of my kind hiding in their ranks, plotting them harm."

"They worry about me, as they did in the time before. You know that if they thought they were any match for you..."

Sephiroth looked at his mother. "Did they attack you, all those years ago?"

She nodded. "I was discovered. And... confined. Ironic, maybe, that that allowed me to outlive the rest of my people."

"They were cruel to you... and I won't allow them to repeat it." He lifted his gaze to the mountains ahead. "It makes me wonder, about their so-called 'monster problem.' They say these creatures attacked them, but they've never detailed their casualties."

"You think they were the aggressors," Jenova concluded.

"Maybe," he said. "Those poor creatures can't disguise themselves, as you have, to be more acceptable to human eyes."

"It wouldn't surprise me at all, if that's what happened."

And acting on their false claims, he had killed one of his own misbegotten kin, taking it for a violent creature that needed to be exterminated. Even these things that had been human, now that they were something else, their own kind turned on them. Humans couldn't be relied upon to do anything else.

After a long climb, they reached the reactor, finding it the same as they'd left it. And yet, it wasn't the same. Jenova's pull was absent, but something new brushed against his mind. He was aware of the creatures within, as he hadn't been before.

"I can sense them," he said, looking to Jenova.

"Your mind is more open now than it was even a few days ago," she said. "You're learning."

They entered the chamber, and Sephiroth approached the nearest of the pods. His gloved fingers traced the line where he had scored it with the Masamune the first time he had come here, when it had terrified him to have anything in common with these monsters.

He laid his hand flat, and instead of looking into the window, he tried to reach out in search of a connection. It didn't scare him now, not to be human. To be human was to be flawed, cowardly, traitorous. It was better not to be. These things had been forced to leave humanity behind; they hadn't chosen it, but he wondered if they would understand. Did they even remember what it was to be human? How much thought remained?

Sephiroth thought he could sense the agony, and very little beneath it. The mind he found was weak... pliable. He drew his hand back.

"They would have had me kill all of these creatures," he said, lifting his head to take them all in. "Blood on my hands at their behest."

"We can't allow them to get away with it," said Jenova.

Sephiroth nodded slowly. For a short time, he had entertained the notion that not all humans were as awful as those who worked for Shinra, but there wasn't really any difference among them, was there? The village boys here had gone off to join Shinra, and those who remained were complacent, if not complicit. He wondered if, when Gast had run the Jenova Project, the villagers had understood what was happening at that mansion, and had allowed it to go on, uncaring. Anything was permissible, as long as it didn't disturb their way of life.

They had never expected there might be consequences to their selfishness.

Footfalls on the catwalk outside. Sephiroth turned as Zack burst into the chamber and stopped at the bottom of the steps to catch his breath.

"What are you doing here?" Sephiroth demanded coldly. The villagers must have told Zack of his departure, but for him to follow, knowing he wasn't wanted...

Zack straightened up, still a little breathless. "To stop you... from making a mistake. You can't let them out, Seph."

"Why, because they're monsters? Inhuman? Would you lock me up if you could?"

Zack shook his head. "It's not like that."

Jenova joined Sephiroth at his side, looking down at Zack. "Then why don't you explain what it is you're so afraid of?" she asked.

Zack looked back at her, his brow knit, actually seeming to debate whether to speak his mind or not. "It's you," he said at last. "You wanted this from the second we let you out. I don't know what you're up to, but I don't trust it."

"You're the one who can't be trusted," Sephiroth stated.

"Why do you have so much faith in her? You've never been like this with anyone."

"The only people I knew until now were human. They weren't worthy of it."

"I thought we trusted each other," said Zack. "I thought you trusted me."

"I was a fool to think I could."

That wounded look on his face again, but Zack looked between Sephiroth and Jenova and seemed to understand that it wasn't going to work. His gaze moved past them, skimming over the rows of pods, and then suddenly snapped back to Sephiroth.

"You still owe me that favor, right?" he said. "Well, I'm cashing it in. Don't do this."

Sephiroth faltered. The favor...

You don't owe anything to a liar and a traitor.

He wanted to agree with her, but he'd given his word. Even if it was to a liar and a traitor, he was bound by it, as long as he was different from what Zack was.

But this was something he owed to his mother, and to the name of the Cetra. He couldn't leave these pitiable creatures trapped here, beholden to Hojo. Not for anyone could he do that.

"That's a favor I can't grant you," Sephiroth said, shaking his head. "But I'll honor the debt by sparing you."

"Sparing..." Zack repeated slowly, and his expression slackened in a dawning horror. "Spare me from what? What are you going to do?"

"The people of Nibelheim have stood by while horrors were committed before their eyes," said Sephiroth. "And then they had the audacity to ask that I murder these creatures whose only crime was not being human enough. Creatures made to be like me... They deserve their vengeance."

"Sephiroth, that's not vengeance. The villagers didn't know what was going on here. They don't know what you've been through. They're not plotting against you. They were just scared."

"Ignorance is no excuse. They'll reap what they've sown." Sephiroth turned to Jenova. "Step back, Mother. It's time."

But before he could raise the Masamune, he saw Zack's hand reach for his sword. Zack hesitated, gripped the hilt, and then drew it. He held it firmly in front of him, the blade pointed at Sephiroth.

"...I suppose I shouldn't be surprised," said Sephiroth, but somehow it still hurt to see it. The last pretense of friendship, stripped away.

"I don't want to fight you," said Zack, "but I can't let you do this. I can't let you hurt the villagers."

"You know you're no match for me."

"Maybe not," Zack said, and his smile was grim, "but what kind of guy would I be if I just stood aside?"

"Well... I see where your loyalties lie." Without taking his eyes from Zack, Sephiroth nodded to Jenova. "Stand clear, Mother. This won't take long."

He and Zack had sparred many times before, but Zack's initial behavior was unusual: he ran. Sephiroth didn't understand it until Zack struck his first real target: a tube feeding power to one of the pods. Of course. Zack might play the fool, but he was no idiot. He knew he couldn't defeat Sephiroth, but he might manage to take some of the creatures down with him.

Not knowing how long the pod would support the creature without steady power, Sephiroth diverted his attention from Zack long enough to strike open the latch. The pod burst open, the creature tumbled to the floor, and Zack hurled a Bolt spell at it. Sephiroth raised a barrier, reflecting the spell back on him, and Zack dodged out of the way behind the next row of pods.

Zack made a good run of it. He sabotaged three more pods before Sephiroth forced him to engage. The chamber grew loud with the hiss of the severed pipes, the clash of blades connecting, the clatter of their boots across the metal floors. Zack quickly fell to the defensive, and Sephiroth pushed him back, and back, but instinct left him failing to take advantage of the openings he saw.

This man had been his friend, his loyal subordinate. They'd never fought with deadly intent.

Sephiroth's gaze landed briefly on Jenova, watching them from just inside the doorway of the chamber that bore her name, cornered there by their violence. It had been people like Zack who had attacked her, people like Zack who had confined her. Even now Zack sought to kill the creatures he'd freed, the closest things Sephiroth might ever have to kin.

He had to remember that. This was a traitor, not his friend. Zack had never been his friend.

When the Masamune sliced a gash down his arm, Zack stumbled backwards and grit his teeth, but he didn't cry out. He adjusted his grip on his sword and kept fighting.

It was impressive, really. Another blow, and another, and still he kept on. But the wounds began to take their toll. His reactions slowed, he grew clumsy. Sephiroth at last struck Zack's sword from his grasp and kicked him hard in the chest, sending him tumbling down the stairs. The first of the creatures he'd released had recovered itself, and as Zack landed at the base of the staircase, it leapt for him.

"Stop," Sephiroth commanded, and it paused, crouched over Zack, to look up at him. "That isn't necessary."

"You still mean to spare him?" Jenova asked, stepping out from the doorway.

"I mean to keep my word," Sephiroth answered her. "He's in no condition to hinder us now."

Zack lay groaning, but he didn't get up. His blood had started to pool on the floor beneath him.

Or might he die from his wounds?

If he did... If he did, well, it would be his own fault for getting in the way.

Sephiroth turned to the nearest of the remaining pods and broke open its latch. Soon. Soon they would descend united upon the real monsters, upon the people capable of this level of cruelty. People who had made it seem like something desirable, to be one of them, who had planted it just out of his reach to make it all the more seductive. It had to be worth something if it was so hard-won.

But it wasn't. Just fool's gold. Finally he could see it. He had been born of two worlds, but he could choose one over the other, and at last, he was making the right choice.


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