The insides of the truck rattled as it drove along the winding path, through green woods and sloping hills. The mountain village of Nibelheim was its destination, transporting a couple of first-class soldiers and infantrymen to investigate and deal with reports of monsters growing more populous and aggressive in the area.

"Are you all right?" Sephiroth whispered to one of the infantrymen, a close friend of Zack's. "You seem rather pale."

"Y-yeah," the young one stuttered, panting and appearing rather sickly. "I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm just–" he quickly covered his mouth with a fist, as if he was about to throw up.

"I've not packed anything for motion sickness," Sephiroth murmured with a hint of regret. "Look out the window. Into the distance. You might feel better then."

The silver-haired soldier stood slightly hunched over. It was uncomfortable; the ceiling was too low for his stature, but there was little he could do but endure. He looked over to Zack, who was carefully studying a crystalline ball of pure power, held in his gloved hands.

"Hey, uh, Sephiroth? I got a question."

Sephiroth shifted over to Zack, looking at him expectantly. The man gestured at the green ball he was holding.

"Where did Shinra get all this materia?"

Sephiroth regarded the sphere– the materia– with cold eyes.

"Some of it was crafted by the planet itself, around places plentiful with lifestream– it's essentially crystallised mako. But most of it, now, is created artificially by Shinra."

"Huh. Our company's pretty amazing, right?" Zack grinned innocently at him. "All the stuff it's made, especially managing to make artificial materia. I don't think I can call it anything but amazing."

"Our company, you say..." Sephiroth looked out the window. The forest outside was withered and dreary, the trees bare of foliage as their twisting branches reached for salvation that would never come.

"Have you not ever considered leaving soldier?" his eyes narrowed. "No... leaving Shinra?"

When he looked over to Zack, his friend's expression was one of melancholic concern.

"Why?"

***

((("How does it feel, to be home after all this time? I have no hometown, so I wouldn't know.")))

((("My mother's name was Jenova– she died shortly after I was born. My father... ha ha ha. Why am I talking about this? Come now– we have work to attend to.")))

((("Hojo... a walking mass of complexes.")))

((("The mako reactor is our destination. Something must have malfunctioned for these monsters to be thriving so.")))

((("This is a top-secret facility- only authorised personel are permitted. Keep the young lady safe. Zack and I will go in to assess what's happened.")))

***

The reactor was smothered in dust. The two soldiers marched through the door and entered a room with walls of rusted metal. Countless pods were neatly lined up, looming next to stairs that led up to a foreboding sealed door, situated right below thick letters that spelled out– 'JENOVA'.

"Zack. This section is broken," Sephiroth said, almost absent-mindedly. "Go seal the valve."

As his friend, in tense silence, went off to twist it shut, Sephiroth could not stop staring into the pod. Though neither had spoken a word of it, they'd both noticed what was displayed above the sealed door. Sephiroth had rarely, if ever, been taken off guard by something– and this was one of those moments. His heart had dropped when he processed the supposed name of his mother being that which was above the door. It had to be a coincidence and nothing more.

And yet, there was something very strange about this place. About this village, in fact. From the moment he'd set foot in it, there'd been an odd... familiarity to it. As if he was experiencing some kind of déjà vu. It was even worse when he'd set eyes upon the dark mansion that overlooked the village.

He felt like he was sinking. Gazing through a small window into the pod, a blank face gazed right back at him. Eyes frozen in time, displaying an emotion that he felt only he could understand. His own reflection in those pale pools were beginning to horrify him.

Sephiroth glanced back up to those words, Jenova , then back at the face in the pod. The creature was not human– humanoid , but with twisted crowns of calcified flesh, exposed fangs jutting from lipless jaws, and skin that looked almost as thick as a dragon's.

He stumbled back, wandering over to another pod. It housed the same kind of creature, kept in stasis within its cramped confines. He gritted his teeth, there was no doubt that this was the work of Hojo. He was painfully familiar with the scientist's cruel endeavours.

"To play God is not what makes a great scientist, Hojo," Sephiroth muttered to himself, brow sharply furrowed. "You'll never be half the man Doctor Gast was, no matter how many abominations you craft."

"Sephiroth...?" Zack trotted over.

Sephiroth stepped aside and watched as Zack peered through the glass– and his face melted into one of shock.

"What?" he whispered in horror, appearing almost entranced by the sight that greeted him. His mouth hung open in fear. He could not understand what he was looking at, and the look in the paralysed creature's eyes was not one he could comprehend.

"What is that!?"

Sephiroth scanned Zack's body language carefully. His hackles were raised, and limbs were stiff. A bead of sweat trickled down from his black hair.

"The average member of soldier is put through procedures to enhance them at a biological level," Sephiroth said, trying to ignore the feelings of pain that began to form in his chest as he focused on his words. "Specifically with controlled levels of mako. However, they are still human. But this is what happens when one is given too much– more than the body can take. With such exponentially high mako levels, the form twists and mutates into what we know as monsters. Over-exposure to mako is a risk to all forms of life."

He stumbled back. Zack took a step forwards, reaching out– yet he hesitated. Never had Sephiroth felt this before. It was like his world was crashing down upon him, and he could do nothing to endure it. Jenova, the monsters, Hojo's unstoppable ambitions...

((("Sephiroth... you are a very special child.")))

It cannot be.

It fits together too perfectly. It cannot be.

His hands instinctively snaked up towards his eyes.

Has my entire life been a lie?

He remembered how easily he'd snapped that child's arm between his fingers. Before he'd even had a lick of training, he was powerful enough to do that without even realising.

The way they'd looked at him.

The way Zack looked at the monster.

The look in the eyes of the countless beasts he'd killed, carrying a pained agony that he, from deep within his soul, could understand– but other humans never did.

"Sephiroth, you've... never been average," Zack shuddered.

It clicked.

His eyes were burning. Reaching for his blade, he snarled in anger, starting forwards and blindly attacking one of the pods. Zack jumped back, exclaiming in wordless terror as the silver-haired soldier thrust his sword, over and over, against the metal capsule.

"Was I created the same way!?" his voice was raised into an enraged growl. Zack trembled and froze up, he'd never heard Sephiroth raise his voice , let alone lose control over himself and his emotions.

"Is this what I am!? Am I the same as these monsters!?"

"Sephiroth!" Zack rushed forwards, grabbing his shoulder. Sephiroth planted a hand on his chest and pushed him away. He was not trying to do so roughly, but this revelation was too overwhelming for him to realise he'd not monitored the level of strength he'd used. Zack was thrown off and groaned as his back hit a nearby wall, hard enough to leave a small dent. Were he not enhanced; this would have almost certainly killed him.

"Am I an abomination too!?"

With one final blow of his sword, he cleanly sliced through the top section of the pod. The metal fell away, the liquid inside seeping through the scars he'd already inflicted– and the head of the monster tumbled down to his feet, looking up at him with those melancholic eyes.

He exhaled audibly, hand over his chest as he tried to keep his breathing under control. When he blinked down at the decapitated head, he quickly averted his gaze.

"Sephiroth," Zack wheezed, stumbling away from the wall towards his friend. Under any other circumstance, with a clearer mind, Sephiroth would've checked on his friend, or apologised, or at the very least experience some pang of guilt. But there was none of it now. He was choking on the smoke of the truth.

"Ever since I was a child, I'd known I was different," Sephiroth slowly began to turn to face Zack. "I was not like the others. I was supposed to be special. But this...? No... not like this."

Zack gasped. Sephiroth's cheeks were glistening with tears.

"Am I... a human being?"

(((I am the perfect monster))).

***

When Sephiroth returned to the village, he'd rushed far ahead of Zack, the infantrymen, and the young girl who'd guided them to the reactor. He'd not gone into the hotel they stayed in, no– he'd rushed into the Nibelheim mansion. Something told him he'd find his answers there. It was an old place used by Shinra scientists many years ago, surely there had to be something?

And he was right. In its basement was a secret lab, and a huge library full of countless books. He grabbed them one by one and read the truth that had been hidden from him all his life.

Jenova, unidentified life form uncovered from a 2,000-year-old stratum. Believed to be an Ancient. More testing must be done to confirm. They are believed to have been wiped out by a calamity that fell from the skies, thousands of years ago, around the time Jenova would have lived.

"Dr Gast...?"

I am strongly confident that Jenova is an Ancient. Shinra has commissioned an experiment to remake this race using a human child. This will be known as Project S, under Project Jenova.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

Project S is a failure. Jenova is not an Ancient, but the very calamity from the skies that almost annihilated all life. And from her flesh, we have crafted an abomination. I don't want to know what Shinra intends to use him for, but I have made a grave mistake with my complicity in his creation. God help us all.

"Why did you die?"

Sephiroth looked down at the words etched onto the page, his hands almost shaking, and his eyes blurred with tears he refused to shed. Zack entered the room, approaching and uttering words Sephiroth did not hear. He was insecure. Afraid. He could sense his fear.

Did Zack, the only human that he was close to, see him as an abomination too? And, if he did... would he hate him for it? Refuse to accept him, out of fear of what was different? Doctor Gast certainly did. Why else would he have left when he realised Sephiroth's true nature, as if everything that came before had meant nothing to him?

He sent him away with the request to leave him be, refusing to look him in the eyes. He feared to know what expression they'd hold. Part of him almost wanted Zack to refuse, but the man left and did not return. Abandoning him to his own rising madness. Perhaps now that Zack knew just how unlike others Sephiroth was, he'd succumb to that oh-so human hatred of that which was different. How ironic it was, that he'd once thought Zack to be the one person to harbour unconditional love for him.

For days on end, he would read and read and read the murky story of what he truly was. A failed experiment. An abomination. A tool. And nothing more than that.

He'd not eat. He'd not drink. He'd not even sleep.

He could hear Her voice too. An otherworldly, alien voice ringing softly in his mind, claiming to be this 'Jenova'– his mother. Claiming to be of the Ancients that once roamed the planet, until they sacrificed themselves and died as humans just watched on, not lifting a finger to help. She denied that She was this so-called 'Calamity'. She denied that he was a freak of nature. She tied thin, inviting tendrils around his mind. No, he was not some artificially created weapon that only existed to be used. No, he was an Ancient after all– or, in Her words, a Cetra.

For seven days, the lights in that mansion never went out. It was only him holed up in the library, occasionally caressed by Jenova's soft voice. She called him her one and only son. And he began to refer to her as Mother. After the first day, Zack never checked on him again. And why should he be surprised? The humans had created him only to use him. Why would Zack regard him any differently? Truly, Sephiroth was alone in this world.

No... Jenova was there for him. He was no abomination, everyone else was wrong; he had a place in this world just as every other being did. He was no amalgamation of earthly and cosmic flesh, he was a Cetra. Doctor Gast was still right, he was special, not an abomination, of all the things in this world, not an abomination.

Either way, Shinra had used him. The humans had used him; not even Zack was different from the rest. To them, all he'd been was a tool and a weapon to be used.

For that, they all deserved to burn.