Honestly? I'm not sure he does. Could be he's new enough that no one's given him that memo. We don't actually get a lot of deaths happening in this world.
[The last time it felt like his life was truly in danger - and the last time a trial had a legitimate body count - was months ago. Been a lot of psych drama since then. He died during the fae attacks and he can't even say the new stuff is better.]
I'll let him know, if nobody beats me to it. Pretty sure he won't be attacking you again either way, unless you do something to set him off. ...I don't actually know how easy that would be, sorry. Guy's still a stranger to me.
I received four warnings in my first two weeks here that death doesn't stay dead, and I haven't even tried to kill anything besides monsters. Surely someone would have told him.
[Maybe it was some kind of instinct that tipped people off as to where the danger might come from. But someone was going to have to tell Vincent, or it might happen again, and everyone would be wasting their time.
Maybe he'd do it himself, when moving too much didn't have such an obnoxiously high cost. After all..]
The next time I'll be able to handle it, so I'll tell him myself. I need to find him anyway, easy or not to set him off; he has my things, and ... I think he knows my mother. Or knew, at least.
[Everything else is terribly morose, but that is a little bright spot. A tiny bit of hope. He might finally get some real, substantial information!]
Did Vincent seem like the kind of person who socialized? You probably got told because you talked to people. I think he just lurks and says cryptic shit.
[Vincent is welcome to try and prove him wrong, but he's doubtful it'll work.
Zack does sigh, though, because at the mention of his mom, he's reminded that it's... probably time to come clean. If they keep all these secrets he's just going to ask these questions to the wrong people, probably. Like maybe people who don't want to deal with him, people who shouldn't have to.]
He does know her. We talked on the train. And... truth is, I know a little more than I claimed, back when we met. I'll tell you if you want to hear it, but I hope you'll understand why I kept it to myself once you know. [He pauses, then adds reluctantly,] The future's really ugly.
[One pale hand rises, hospital bracelets dangling, to make a so-so gesture before dropping back down. Vincent seemed perfectly normal to him but Sephiroth also understood that his grasp of social mores was weak at best, therefore he's probably not the best judge.
But lurking and saying cryptic shit did sound on point for pretty much any Turk too.
Oh but then there's confirmation that he's on the right track and -- on its heels follows much more ominous words. Zack was from the future, he knew that. They were SOLDIERs, killers by trade, weapons to be pointed at an enemy and told to remove all threats ... what could be uglier than what he was already doing in Rhadore?]
.... I won't blame you if it's not rainbows and good times. I know what we are.
[He really doesn't. Not like that.]
But if.. ..anything's better than nothing, Zack. A lot of people come from ... terrible families, or bad circumstances. But at least it's something.
[There's a part of him, small and unhappy, that feels a bit stung that all this time Zack might have already had the answers he'd wanted and said nothing. But ... late was better than never, right?]
[Yeah, he really, really doesn't know. But at the same time he does, in a way. They're SOLDIERs. They're not meant to live rainbow-good-time lives. Just because Sephiroth has more Jenova-juice in him doesn't change what he is. Tragedy follows them. A den of monsters.
Just sucks that this poor kid is about to find out he's gonna grow up to be King Monster.
Zack rests his elbows on his knees, hands clasped together, chin balanced against them, and for a long few moments he says nothing, just thinks. He thinks really hard about how he wants to share... well, any of this.
Maybe start with what he knows Sephiroth wants the most. It was in many ways the beginning of all of this, and it might lighten the sting of Zack keeping quiet about it before.]
I didn't lie to you, when you showed me that picture, [he begins, slow and careful.] I'd never seen that woman in my life. Whoever gave it to you lied about her name, though. It's not Jenova. Jenova's an alien, your mom's human.
[That was. Odd. He had thought his mother was human, she certainly looked it in the photograph. But in turn Zack knew about the .. alien? And not the woman.
This is mulled over. That there's an alien at all is certainly a thing, but with more relevant things at hand, it's dismissed. If jenova isn't his mother, then so be it; there were other names to be uncovered.
[It's weirdly comforting that he went directly for her identity, and not info on Jenova. Sure, it was his goal from the start, but it's still... sort of a relief? A Jenova-crazy Sephiroth probably would have pivoted. He sure hadn't cared about any human mom in the Nibelheim reactor, but the basement books probably had erased the woman as much as the rest of Shinra had.]
Vincent said her name was Lucrecia Crescent. She was a Shinra scientist who worked with Hojo.
[He'll get there, because there's got to be some kind of reason why he was told that name and not her real one. Aliens being involved somehow didn't really bode well. There's a flash of visible dislike at the mention of Hojo.
After a moment of silence, he picks his relic up off the side table; it's a bit of a stretch but he can do that much, even if it's very uncomfortable to do. He's dealt with far worse pain than pulling wounds.
Once more it's set to record. Sephiroth was pretty sure there was a reasonable chance he'd just pass back out at some point, so having something for later..]
It's probably too much to hope if you know she's still alive. By your time, that'd be.. [Math is in fact, hard, when on as many things as he is right now.] ...Twenty five, thirty years after I was born? Shinra's people don't go missing that long without..
[Zack's gaze drifts to the relic, quiet for a moment, then shrugs and refocuses. Not like he'd planned on lying, so a recording isn't a problem. He just has to be mindful of doing or saying anything suspicious, even accidentally.]
I can't tell for sure on that one. Shinra has a habit of saying people are dead so no one looks for them. Doesn't matter if they're actually dead or not.
[Judging by Vincent's vague but emotional response, the verdict so far isn't great. But Zack suspects he's the only one who can answer for sure.]
Just in case. I don't know what the medicines here are.
[By way of explanation, when Zack glances at the relic. He didn't want to forget any of this, and some, like simple anesthesia, he knew could play merry havoc on normal people with regards to memory.
Better safe than sorry.]
.. I'll ask the Turk. [Surely there WERE more answers to get!] I'm going to have to one way or another. And even if the answer's bad, at least.. I'll know for sure. Based on how he acted.. how I think he did, anyway, he wasn't going to be the one who killed her. If she was killed at all.
[It would leave him exactly as he was now, without kith or kin.]
If ... her name is Lucrecia. Why did the professor tell me it was Jenova? She's.. an alien?
[Zack shrugs. It's fine to record, whatever his reasoning is. Probably for the better anyway, in case he has more questions later. There's bound to be stuff they both miss, or stuff Zack can't help him with (and Vincent or even Cloud might).]
I don't know why he lied. Probably wanted you to think that you were something you're not, if the truth ever came out. [He hesitates, still reluctant to cross that line, but... waiting will just delay the inevitable. He has to say it. The question won't go away just because he doesn't want to answer.
So, finally:] Jenova's an alien that Shinra found a long time ago. They thought she was an Ancient, but she's more like... a parasite. And some genius decided it was a good idea to inject her cells into people. Starting with you. That's what your mom and Hojo's big experiment was. I'm... sorry.
[Whatever Sephiroth's thoughts or assumptions about this mystery woman may have been, it can't be a good feeling to get told your mother was probably just as science-crazy as Hojo.]
[It took Sephiroth a week as an adult to break under the strain of what Zack tells him now, and he'd had to do all the research himself. Significantly younger, and in no real shape to get up and do anything about it, there's surely plenty of time.
There's no immediate follow-up question, and no surprise really, since that's going to take a few to work through. But it's easy to see when some small fragment of hope simply withers and dies.
As soon as some Shinra science lady came into the picture, of course it'd involve Hojo. Even then he could hold onto the idea that maybe his mother had still cared and ... strange experiments with alien parasites were to try for a better life for her child, but that was a stretch. He'd never known her, he had nothing to lose, and yet.
And yet. He'd never had a chance at having any kind of family, did he?]
Dunno the goal. Make the ultimate SOLDIER? Revive the Ancients? That's a Vincent question.
[He at least seems more in the know when it comes to the early days, anything related to Lucrecia or the experiment itself. He barely understands the Jenova stuff, nevermind Hojo's wild ramblings.
That last question, though... he can't help wincing.]
I watched him discover it all- the Sephiroth of my time. He spent a week straight researching Jenova and the Cetra. He wouldn't sleep or eat, just paced the lab reading the whole time. When he finally came out, he'd lost his damn mind.
[There's no hiding his tone: it pains him to remember it, just as much as it angers him. So many people hurt or killed, innocent lives cut down for no good reason. He thought they were friends. In the end, he hadn't mattered a single bit.]
[It's not hard.. to guess why his older self went crazy. Be it alien or be it scientist, the truth is a terrible, poisonous thing with no happy outcome or reason behind it.
He's paying attention enough to see the wince, and begin the careful process of trying to remain as neutral as he possibly can seem to be. Seem to be is the important part, the monitors still betray it with every heartbeat, but he's going to make an effort at it. He can worry about being a ... deliberately engineered monster. A part parasite creation, as designed by his own mother. ...
... He can worry about it on his own time. Later.]
I'm sorry. This is upsetting you.
[It's quiet. Steady. There's no need to be loud, this close.]
You don't have to say anything else.
[He wants to know. That's how he dies, isn't it? That's one of the reasons the Firsts were past-tense, he's willing to bet. All dead. Did he kill them? That sounds like pain. Deep, personal pain.
No, [He's quick to shake his head.] That's the easy way out. All this happened because no one told him the truth- the real truth, and all of it. Secrets aren't gonna help you. And I dunno if anyone but me can explain.
[Cloud was there, but why would he want to? Tifa's not here. No one else was there to witness it. He's the best suited. Anyway, there's no way to share this that won't end in someone getting hurt. He's always carried it. He can carry it a little further.]
I'm sure you can guess, he hurt people. Killed a lot of 'em. Set Nibelheim on fire. He... wanted to take over the planet. For Jenova. Because he thought it's what she wanted, or because Shinra locked her up. I dunno. He said a lot of nonsense. Jenova was still alive, I think, and she gets into peoples' heads. I never knew how much was him, and how much was her.
[He glances sidelong at Sephiroth, then away again.]
[Nibelheim. A strange place to begin world conquest.
It seems strange and ridiculous at first flush. Burn down some nowhere town and declare planetary takeover, for an alien parasite? Then again, if the alien parasite was alive, and could get into another's mind, if she cared where his actual parents did not.. maybe it wasn't so ridiculous.]
I'm pretty sure the only person in my head is me.
[That's what that look is for, isn't it? The teen's smile is brief and terribly bleak. It doesn't last, and the far wall is studied instead.]
But if you're hoping to avoid that killing a lot of people thing. My team and I are the reason there's one Rhadoran left. It's too late for that.
[He's fourteen and genocide had been carried out with very little hesitation by any of them. Sure, there'd been a bit of protesting but orders were orders. Killing didn't bother him. It's a SOLDIER's profession.
There's exceptions, by the slow query that follows.]
[Zack snorts a half-laugh; it isn't funny, it's just one of those things.]
There's not a SOLDIER in the world that doesn't have a body count. Usually you can pretend it's for a good reason.
[Not... so much, in this case. Or many other cases, in retrospect. That's the problem with Shinra. Everything looks clean until you peel back the layers.
At the very least, for the last question, he can shake his head.]
It wasn't you. Or... him. We fought, and he took me out, but I didn't die. You don't have to worry about that.
... He isn't, at all. He'd wanted answers, he'd been chasing them his whole life, but as fantasies went he'd always dreamed of better, not somehow impossibly worse. And nothing he can think of refutes any of it. He'll find a way to verify, one way or another, and be absolutely certain.. but it fit, uncomfortably well.
Why he didn't look much like the picture of his mother. If he was part alien experiment, he wouldn't, would he? Why would his parents stick around if he was just..]
Jenova. The alien. [Quieter still.] Can she control people? Get inside their minds. Make them do things.
[It could be some hope that maybe he doesn't go mad, he just loses control ... but Sephiroth is thinking of the angry, hostile man who confronted him on the road between the Burrows and Kuma Lisa. I know exactly what you're capable of. Better than you.
If she could do it.. And he'd been combined with her cells, some inhuman awful hybrid.
Even the Turk was frightened when he'd first approached. Frightened? Angry?]
[Zack hesitates, looking deeply uncomfortable. Is this too much? Opening a door that can't be shut, once the words are out. Or maybe the door's already been left ajar by someone else. He got that idea from somewhere.
He'd said it was important to get the truth out. He can't back off, now.]
It's never happened to me, [he admits,] But I've been told that it's... possible. Those who carry her cells can be, uh. affected.
[He scratches at his hair again. Auuugh, he hates this so much.]
You don't have to, though! She's not here. She can't order you around or make you do terrible things. You have the choice, to be good, or... to be a monster like her. It's wrong to control people.
[The hesitation is telling in of itself. Not only is it possible, it's something he's done before. It's both a relief and profoundly unsettling to finally have a reason for why that man acted the way he did, the things he said. Sephiroth would never be able to provide assurance that he wouldn't, because that too could be manipulation, couldn't it?]
Your .. blond friend. He's one of them, isn't he.
[He didn't have a choice about being a monster. That was decided for him before his birth, and through any incarnation, in any time, it's agonizingly painful knowledge. Even at fourteen, he's struggled with who he is, what he's supposed to do, where he comes from. Why he was different.
Now he has those answers. At least some of them.
But there was still no great pull towards doing terrible things for the sake of being evil. There's little temptation to try to control someone else, at least right now. He was wrong about Vincent, the Turk wasn't from the past at all, it had to be the future. Just like Cloud, and just like Zack. The wing not damaged by gunfire moves beneath comforting blanket, to rise and drape across his head and chest like an arm thrown up, neatly obscuring almost the entirety of him from sight. Blanket, bandages and feather conceal everything else.]
Thank you for telling me. For what it's worth.
[Points to him for sheer self control, that sounds almost normal.]
[Zack doesn't - can't - answer the first question. He doesn't know what Cloud did or how they met, but it's not his place to give anything away there. Maybe his silence is answer enough, but he's not going to say it.
"For what it's worth"? He wonders about that. What could this do? Would it be enough to prevent anything? Here, or back home? Or is history doomed to repeat itself? Are they doomed? He feels badly, seeing Sephiroth close himself off. That, too, is a repeat. Finding out the truth leads to isolation, pushing people away. It fills Zack with a quiet, helpless fear, the memory of those frightful days in the mansion library buzzing around in his mind.]
You had a right to know, [he manages to say weakly, anyway. It's the truth. All of it is. He may not like it, but still.]
[Silence is confirmation, but it drives no sudden desire to put Cloud's words to the test and see if he can control anyone. The idea is nauseating. All of it was. He's a little hoarser when he speaks again, struggling around the tightness in his throat and the burning blur of vision. He will not cry. He won't. He's not a child. He will not.]
Is there anything .. else. I should know.
[He'd asked. He'd wanted answers. He would have pursued them through whatever avenue he could get, beneficial or not, friendly or not. It's already more than he can sort out immediately, everything he'd thought about himself now in doubt. Everything he'd wanted, now forced to be looked at through a filter of is it him, or is it the monster he really was?
There was no point in pursuing his mother, she's another Hojo, and he the grand experiment; there was no loving maternal figure who'd simply been taken from her child, no miracle reunion one day against all impossible odds. No bright future, just more death. Beneath his shroud of feathers and blanket, the shame of hot tears drawing lines down his face can't be seen, the hitch in his breathing muted.
How long did it take last time for revelation to turn into destruction? A week? He wouldn't be in top fighting form by then. An easier conflict, should it happen again. A recovering child is not the menace a grown man is.]
[Good question. Is there? He could provide a hundred more details - the people who got hurt who might also come after him, the cascading effect of all those experiments and what it had done not just to him and Cloud but anyone unlucky enough to carry Jenova's cells, his eventual return years later and another attempt to destroy the world, his sword cutting down the life of the person he and Cloud love most, so much more - but it's all hearsay from Cloud and he's already provided the broad strokes, enough to paint an ugly picture. The kid deserves time to process. And maybe taking it slow, instead of a week of constant doom-spiralling, will help prevent the worst that could in theory come.
More than that, though... looking at Sephiroth, this small, kid version who was only looking for his mom, for the first time freed from the leash of Shinra he's probably known his whole life, drowning in the awful revelation of his future... Zack doesn't want to say more, even if there was anything. The time for big reveals and talking is over.]
...Just one thing. Back then, he ordered me out. Made me leave. I thought he'd be okay, even though he'd never acted like that before. I've... always regretted that.
[Could he have done anything to stop it? Interfered with the madness? Maybe, maybe not. It could have been too late from the start. But the what if always bothered him. He should have been there for his friend.
He reaches out, sneaking under the wing-and-fabric blanket Sephiroth has created to touch his shoulder.]
I'm not going anywhere this time. You're not alone.
[Years ago, doing such a thing as reaching out a comforting touch to someone like Sephiroth, fifteen years further grown and further isolated, might have changed everything or changed absolutely nothing, in time such weakness would be even more taboo than it was now. But he's not there yet. For all that he resented how people treated him because of it, he was still very much an adolescent with painfully little real experience with anything outside of Shinra; people do not by and large touch Sephiroth unless they're actively trying to harm him, or are scientists. Kind touch was even rarer; exceptions were so few that he could probably count them on his hands with fingers left over for his entire lifetime til now. Although there's a subtle flinch on contact, Zack isn't snarled at or swatted away, but somehow it makes it that much harder to maintain anything even remotely like composure.
It fails, by the low sound of misery that follows.
Speech had been uncomfortable enough in the wake of the ordeal he'd been through at the hands of Vincent, but now it's all but impossible, unhappy revelations succeeding where pain did not. What could he say even if he could? Apologize for people not yet killed, terrors yet unleashed? Ask what happens next? Request he not be treated like the monstrosity he was? Zack already knew what he was when they first encountered each other here, and hadn't rejected him outright even though he'd had every reason to. That meant something, didn't it?
Pale fingers close around Zack's wrist, already calloused in spite of habitual gloves, feather light instead of the force he could likely bring to bear even now. It would be effortless to pull away and shake him off. Nothing is said. Not aloud, not through some strange alien communication cells-to-cells. But it may as well have been anyway, unspoken but clear regardless.
[Yeah, no link required, there. He gets the message loud and clear. Zack shifts in his chair, not pulling away from that soft grasp. Instead he scoots the chair a little closer, leaning in.
And he does exactly what Sephiroth does yet does not ask for: he stays. He doesn't leave.
This time he'll be right here, where he's needed. With his friend.]
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[The last time it felt like his life was truly in danger - and the last time a trial had a legitimate body count - was months ago. Been a lot of psych drama since then. He died during the fae attacks and he can't even say the new stuff is better.]
I'll let him know, if nobody beats me to it. Pretty sure he won't be attacking you again either way, unless you do something to set him off. ...I don't actually know how easy that would be, sorry. Guy's still a stranger to me.
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[Maybe it was some kind of instinct that tipped people off as to where the danger might come from. But someone was going to have to tell Vincent, or it might happen again, and everyone would be wasting their time.
Maybe he'd do it himself, when moving too much didn't have such an obnoxiously high cost. After all..]
The next time I'll be able to handle it, so I'll tell him myself. I need to find him anyway, easy or not to set him off; he has my things, and ... I think he knows my mother. Or knew, at least.
[Everything else is terribly morose, but that is a little bright spot. A tiny bit of hope. He might finally get some real, substantial information!]
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Did Vincent seem like the kind of person who socialized? You probably got told because you talked to people. I think he just lurks and says cryptic shit.
[Vincent is welcome to try and prove him wrong, but he's doubtful it'll work.
Zack does sigh, though, because at the mention of his mom, he's reminded that it's... probably time to come clean. If they keep all these secrets he's just going to ask these questions to the wrong people, probably. Like maybe people who don't want to deal with him, people who shouldn't have to.]
He does know her. We talked on the train. And... truth is, I know a little more than I claimed, back when we met. I'll tell you if you want to hear it, but I hope you'll understand why I kept it to myself once you know. [He pauses, then adds reluctantly,] The future's really ugly.
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But lurking and saying cryptic shit did sound on point for pretty much any Turk too.
Oh but then there's confirmation that he's on the right track and -- on its heels follows much more ominous words. Zack was from the future, he knew that. They were SOLDIERs, killers by trade, weapons to be pointed at an enemy and told to remove all threats ... what could be uglier than what he was already doing in Rhadore?]
.... I won't blame you if it's not rainbows and good times. I know what we are.
[He really doesn't. Not like that.]
But if.. ..anything's better than nothing, Zack. A lot of people come from ... terrible families, or bad circumstances. But at least it's something.
[There's a part of him, small and unhappy, that feels a bit stung that all this time Zack might have already had the answers he'd wanted and said nothing. But ... late was better than never, right?]
no subject
Just sucks that this poor kid is about to find out he's gonna grow up to be King Monster.
Zack rests his elbows on his knees, hands clasped together, chin balanced against them, and for a long few moments he says nothing, just thinks. He thinks really hard about how he wants to share... well, any of this.
Maybe start with what he knows Sephiroth wants the most. It was in many ways the beginning of all of this, and it might lighten the sting of Zack keeping quiet about it before.]
I didn't lie to you, when you showed me that picture, [he begins, slow and careful.] I'd never seen that woman in my life. Whoever gave it to you lied about her name, though. It's not Jenova. Jenova's an alien, your mom's human.
no subject
[That was. Odd. He had thought his mother was human, she certainly looked it in the photograph. But in turn Zack knew about the .. alien? And not the woman.
This is mulled over. That there's an alien at all is certainly a thing, but with more relevant things at hand, it's dismissed. If jenova isn't his mother, then so be it; there were other names to be uncovered.
But why was an alien involved at all?]
..Do you know her real name?
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Vincent said her name was Lucrecia Crescent. She was a Shinra scientist who worked with Hojo.
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After a moment of silence, he picks his relic up off the side table; it's a bit of a stretch but he can do that much, even if it's very uncomfortable to do. He's dealt with far worse pain than pulling wounds.
Once more it's set to record. Sephiroth was pretty sure there was a reasonable chance he'd just pass back out at some point, so having something for later..]
It's probably too much to hope if you know she's still alive. By your time, that'd be.. [Math is in fact, hard, when on as many things as he is right now.] ...Twenty five, thirty years after I was born? Shinra's people don't go missing that long without..
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I can't tell for sure on that one. Shinra has a habit of saying people are dead so no one looks for them. Doesn't matter if they're actually dead or not.
[Judging by Vincent's vague but emotional response, the verdict so far isn't great. But Zack suspects he's the only one who can answer for sure.]
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[By way of explanation, when Zack glances at the relic. He didn't want to forget any of this, and some, like simple anesthesia, he knew could play merry havoc on normal people with regards to memory.
Better safe than sorry.]
.. I'll ask the Turk. [Surely there WERE more answers to get!] I'm going to have to one way or another. And even if the answer's bad, at least.. I'll know for sure. Based on how he acted.. how I think he did, anyway, he wasn't going to be the one who killed her. If she was killed at all.
[It would leave him exactly as he was now, without kith or kin.]
If ... her name is Lucrecia. Why did the professor tell me it was Jenova? She's.. an alien?
[Satine was an alien. She was normal.]
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I don't know why he lied. Probably wanted you to think that you were something you're not, if the truth ever came out. [He hesitates, still reluctant to cross that line, but... waiting will just delay the inevitable. He has to say it. The question won't go away just because he doesn't want to answer.
So, finally:] Jenova's an alien that Shinra found a long time ago. They thought she was an Ancient, but she's more like... a parasite. And some genius decided it was a good idea to inject her cells into people. Starting with you. That's what your mom and Hojo's big experiment was. I'm... sorry.
[Whatever Sephiroth's thoughts or assumptions about this mystery woman may have been, it can't be a good feeling to get told your mother was probably just as science-crazy as Hojo.]
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There's no immediate follow-up question, and no surprise really, since that's going to take a few to work through. But it's easy to see when some small fragment of hope simply withers and dies.
As soon as some Shinra science lady came into the picture, of course it'd involve Hojo. Even then he could hold onto the idea that maybe his mother had still cared and ... strange experiments with alien parasites were to try for a better life for her child, but that was a stretch. He'd never known her, he had nothing to lose, and yet.
And yet. He'd never had a chance at having any kind of family, did he?]
What .. was the goal?
[Any of it. All of it.]
How did you find out?
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[He at least seems more in the know when it comes to the early days, anything related to Lucrecia or the experiment itself. He barely understands the Jenova stuff, nevermind Hojo's wild ramblings.
That last question, though... he can't help wincing.]
I watched him discover it all- the Sephiroth of my time. He spent a week straight researching Jenova and the Cetra. He wouldn't sleep or eat, just paced the lab reading the whole time. When he finally came out, he'd lost his damn mind.
[There's no hiding his tone: it pains him to remember it, just as much as it angers him. So many people hurt or killed, innocent lives cut down for no good reason. He thought they were friends. In the end, he hadn't mattered a single bit.]
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He's paying attention enough to see the wince, and begin the careful process of trying to remain as neutral as he possibly can seem to be. Seem to be is the important part, the monitors still betray it with every heartbeat, but he's going to make an effort at it. He can worry about being a ... deliberately engineered monster. A part parasite creation, as designed by his own mother. ...
... He can worry about it on his own time. Later.]
I'm sorry. This is upsetting you.
[It's quiet. Steady. There's no need to be loud, this close.]
You don't have to say anything else.
[He wants to know. That's how he dies, isn't it? That's one of the reasons the Firsts were past-tense, he's willing to bet. All dead. Did he kill them? That sounds like pain. Deep, personal pain.
Did he kill Zack, too?]
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[Cloud was there, but why would he want to? Tifa's not here. No one else was there to witness it. He's the best suited. Anyway, there's no way to share this that won't end in someone getting hurt. He's always carried it. He can carry it a little further.]
I'm sure you can guess, he hurt people. Killed a lot of 'em. Set Nibelheim on fire. He... wanted to take over the planet. For Jenova. Because he thought it's what she wanted, or because Shinra locked her up. I dunno. He said a lot of nonsense. Jenova was still alive, I think, and she gets into peoples' heads. I never knew how much was him, and how much was her.
[He glances sidelong at Sephiroth, then away again.]
Kind of hoping we never have to find out again.
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It seems strange and ridiculous at first flush. Burn down some nowhere town and declare planetary takeover, for an alien parasite? Then again, if the alien parasite was alive, and could get into another's mind, if she cared where his actual parents did not.. maybe it wasn't so ridiculous.]
I'm pretty sure the only person in my head is me.
[That's what that look is for, isn't it? The teen's smile is brief and terribly bleak. It doesn't last, and the far wall is studied instead.]
But if you're hoping to avoid that killing a lot of people thing. My team and I are the reason there's one Rhadoran left. It's too late for that.
[He's fourteen and genocide had been carried out with very little hesitation by any of them. Sure, there'd been a bit of protesting but orders were orders. Killing didn't bother him. It's a SOLDIER's profession.
There's exceptions, by the slow query that follows.]
Are you one of them? Do I kill you too?
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There's not a SOLDIER in the world that doesn't have a body count. Usually you can pretend it's for a good reason.
[Not... so much, in this case. Or many other cases, in retrospect. That's the problem with Shinra. Everything looks clean until you peel back the layers.
At the very least, for the last question, he can shake his head.]
It wasn't you. Or... him. We fought, and he took me out, but I didn't die. You don't have to worry about that.
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[He seems to be taking it well, all told!
... He isn't, at all. He'd wanted answers, he'd been chasing them his whole life, but as fantasies went he'd always dreamed of better, not somehow impossibly worse. And nothing he can think of refutes any of it. He'll find a way to verify, one way or another, and be absolutely certain.. but it fit, uncomfortably well.
Why he didn't look much like the picture of his mother. If he was part alien experiment, he wouldn't, would he? Why would his parents stick around if he was just..]
Jenova. The alien. [Quieter still.] Can she control people? Get inside their minds. Make them do things.
[It could be some hope that maybe he doesn't go mad, he just loses control ... but Sephiroth is thinking of the angry, hostile man who confronted him on the road between the Burrows and Kuma Lisa. I know exactly what you're capable of. Better than you.
If she could do it.. And he'd been combined with her cells, some inhuman awful hybrid.
Even the Turk was frightened when he'd first approached. Frightened? Angry?]
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He'd said it was important to get the truth out. He can't back off, now.]
It's never happened to me, [he admits,] But I've been told that it's... possible. Those who carry her cells can be, uh. affected.
[He scratches at his hair again. Auuugh, he hates this so much.]
You don't have to, though! She's not here. She can't order you around or make you do terrible things. You have the choice, to be good, or... to be a monster like her. It's wrong to control people.
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Your .. blond friend. He's one of them, isn't he.
[He didn't have a choice about being a monster. That was decided for him before his birth, and through any incarnation, in any time, it's agonizingly painful knowledge. Even at fourteen, he's struggled with who he is, what he's supposed to do, where he comes from. Why he was different.
Now he has those answers. At least some of them.
But there was still no great pull towards doing terrible things for the sake of being evil. There's little temptation to try to control someone else, at least right now. He was wrong about Vincent, the Turk wasn't from the past at all, it had to be the future. Just like Cloud, and just like Zack. The wing not damaged by gunfire moves beneath comforting blanket, to rise and drape across his head and chest like an arm thrown up, neatly obscuring almost the entirety of him from sight. Blanket, bandages and feather conceal everything else.]
Thank you for telling me. For what it's worth.
[Points to him for sheer self control, that sounds almost normal.]
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"For what it's worth"? He wonders about that. What could this do? Would it be enough to prevent anything? Here, or back home? Or is history doomed to repeat itself? Are they doomed? He feels badly, seeing Sephiroth close himself off. That, too, is a repeat. Finding out the truth leads to isolation, pushing people away. It fills Zack with a quiet, helpless fear, the memory of those frightful days in the mansion library buzzing around in his mind.]
You had a right to know, [he manages to say weakly, anyway. It's the truth. All of it is. He may not like it, but still.]
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Is there anything .. else. I should know.
[He'd asked. He'd wanted answers. He would have pursued them through whatever avenue he could get, beneficial or not, friendly or not. It's already more than he can sort out immediately, everything he'd thought about himself now in doubt. Everything he'd wanted, now forced to be looked at through a filter of is it him, or is it the monster he really was?
There was no point in pursuing his mother, she's another Hojo, and he the grand experiment; there was no loving maternal figure who'd simply been taken from her child, no miracle reunion one day against all impossible odds. No bright future, just more death. Beneath his shroud of feathers and blanket, the shame of hot tears drawing lines down his face can't be seen, the hitch in his breathing muted.
How long did it take last time for revelation to turn into destruction? A week? He wouldn't be in top fighting form by then. An easier conflict, should it happen again. A recovering child is not the menace a grown man is.]
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More than that, though... looking at Sephiroth, this small, kid version who was only looking for his mom, for the first time freed from the leash of Shinra he's probably known his whole life, drowning in the awful revelation of his future... Zack doesn't want to say more, even if there was anything. The time for big reveals and talking is over.]
...Just one thing. Back then, he ordered me out. Made me leave. I thought he'd be okay, even though he'd never acted like that before. I've... always regretted that.
[Could he have done anything to stop it? Interfered with the madness? Maybe, maybe not. It could have been too late from the start. But the what if always bothered him. He should have been there for his friend.
He reaches out, sneaking under the wing-and-fabric blanket Sephiroth has created to touch his shoulder.]
I'm not going anywhere this time. You're not alone.
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It fails, by the low sound of misery that follows.
Speech had been uncomfortable enough in the wake of the ordeal he'd been through at the hands of Vincent, but now it's all but impossible, unhappy revelations succeeding where pain did not. What could he say even if he could? Apologize for people not yet killed, terrors yet unleashed? Ask what happens next? Request he not be treated like the monstrosity he was? Zack already knew what he was when they first encountered each other here, and hadn't rejected him outright even though he'd had every reason to. That meant something, didn't it?
Pale fingers close around Zack's wrist, already calloused in spite of habitual gloves, feather light instead of the force he could likely bring to bear even now. It would be effortless to pull away and shake him off. Nothing is said. Not aloud, not through some strange alien communication cells-to-cells. But it may as well have been anyway, unspoken but clear regardless.
Don't leave.]
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And he does exactly what Sephiroth does yet does not ask for: he stays. He doesn't leave.
This time he'll be right here, where he's needed. With his friend.]