Beneath the plate of Midgar there was neither day nor night. Living always in perpetual shade, the denizens of the Slums tried their best to survive amongst the scraps and Mako runoff from the magnificent city above.
A young woman recently relocated to this Slum after an accident claimed her hometown and all of her loved ones. She adapted to the life in the city rubble and shacks called Sector 7, employed as a bartender at the 7th Heaven Tavern, which was owned by a man named Barret.
She felt, for some reason she could not quite explain, very comfortable around Barret in spite of his violent outbursts and his threatening demeanor. Maybe it was their similar pasts, or maybe it was the fact that he never let life in the Slums corrupt his morals, or maybe it was the orphaned girl from his old home that he took in as his daughter. Either way she respected him, even when he would take trips to the Upper Plate and come back with the barrels of his gun-arm smoking and lined with gunpowder residue.
Her name is Tifa, and in spite of her comfort in this lifestyle she felt constantly alone. Five years ago a great warrior destroyed her home, her family, and everyone she loved. He was a monster who the world knew as Sephiroth, a world-famous first-class member of the Shin-Ra Company's elite SOLDIER program.
Shin-Ra Company began as a humble energy supplier, but eventually grew to monopolize the industry after discovering how to harness Mako energy from the very Lifestream of the planet itself. After that, the company's influence spread far and wide as they bought Mako-rich land from other nations all around the world. And when they couldn't have the territory they wanted, they would take it by force.
The company grew to be an empire, with its own military force and political structure free from foreign intrusion. However a conflict arose between Shin-Ra and an ancient island nation called Wutai over the trading of territories, and war erupted.
It was then when the company made public a special branch of their military called the SOLDIER branch, an elite military force whose members are infused with Mako energy straight from the Planet. From this group one warrior shone through all the rest as a war hero.
However, his birth was one of the company's darkest secrets. The Shin-Ra Science Department had discovered an ancient meteor impact site during an excavation in the northernmost region of the planet, which housed an ancient creature that had thereby been named JENOVA. Initially mistaken by those who discovered it to be a member of the ancient former dominant species of the Planet, it was discovered to be an alien life form by Professors Hojo and Hollander.
They began experimentation almost immediately, taking cells from JENOVA and implanting them in other organisms, which created mutated beasts mainly. After a disagreement the Doctors split up the Science Department into two separate teams, Hojos' Project S and Hollander's Project G. Both scientists sought a common goal, to create a superior human warrior, but they both went mad in their studies, Hollander resorted to injecting JENOVA cells into his own infant sons and Hojo introducing JENOVA cells directly to a fetus whilst in the womb, and raising the baby free of the donor mother's body.
Hollander's Project G was deemed a failure and he was expelled from the JENOVA Project, although later his test subjects produced results. Hojo, however created a superior being straight from infancy. They named him Sephiroth and raised him behind closed doors within the company, and when he came of age he was enlisted as one of the founding members of SOLDIER.
However, Sephiroth was blind to his creation and upbringing, and when he would later discover how he came to be his life would end by the hands of a young infantryman in the Shin-Ra Army. Those who knew him considered him to be dead, including Tifa.
However one day he would find his way back into Tifa's life on the platform of the Sector 7 Slum Train Station, limping and incoherent as if he were inebriated to some extent. She would run to him, she would call his name, he would begin to shake and grab his head and he would answer "I…. am… Cloud…"