Summary: I was in a really bad mood when I wrote this, and somehow got to pondering some of Seph's reasons for why he so readily accepted Jenova's lies. So, here's the end result: a soliloquy from Sephiroth that is pretty damn angsty, even for him. He's talking to Cloud right before the final duel, when Cloud's careening towards him and everybody else is fleeing for the Highwind. I still think that, despite the things he's done and the way in which he was brought about, that Sephiroth is really just like you and me. You like, you tell me, ok?
Disclaimer: Lemme check real quick. Hmmm... Nope. I still don't own Final Fantasy VII or Sephiroth. He visits me from time to time, but I don't own him. Truth be told, I don't think Square Enix really does either. They just say they do.
Dreams
So you claim to know who I am. Even as you battle against my control, you still think you know my motivations and innermost thoughts.
Well, you are wrong.
Do you know why I entered that chamber and stripped away the metal covering that hid my mother from view? Do you know why I never truly opened up to you or anyone else? Do you know the real reason I have called Meteor down upon this planet? You believe me insane, I know.
But would you believe me if I told you that I have a heart?
Of course you wouldn't. You have never seen any real evidence of it. All you have ever seen is my callous disposal of those who get in my way. Well, it is true. I have a heart. I have emotions, feelings. Once, I dreamed the same dreams any young man would entertain.
Would you believe me if I told you that once I wanted nothing more than a wife, a home, children? It's true. I did, once. Late at night in the barracks, I would lay awake at night and dream of what would happen when I left the miltary behind. I wanted to find the perfect woman, to share the deepest love with her. And bed-shaking nights, of course. She was always beautiful and intelligent, in my musings. I dreamed that once I had found her, we would fall in love and wed, and together raise a number of children. Children who would hold the future of Midgar in their hands, who would change the world itself. Sometimes when I was sent out on tours of duty, I would look around at the cities and imagine what would happen if I were to settle there, wonder if the woman of my dreams was somewhere therein, watching me at that very moment.
It was a very rude awakening when I realized that I was the only one of my kind in the entire world. That was before the clones came into being. I had inquired as to why Hojo wanted genetic samples from me, and he informed me that I was unique, and he wanted to grow more SOLDIERs like myself. People with my speed, my skill, my intellect. People who resembled me almost to the last detail.
I can remember that I asked Hojo what that meant for my reproductive abilities. He scoffed, informing me that no woman alive could possibly bear my children and survive.
I relinquished my dreams that day. And it killed the man that I was.
The emotionless General you know only came about when I lost my dreams. He was born not out of necessity, nor out of adaptation to his surroundings. He was born because everything I had ever hoped for had been revealed to me as impossible. The military was all I had left. I had no friends, no chance for a legacy of anything other than violence. There was no one I could relate to, no one I could talk to. I was alone in the world, and no one was willing to try and understand.
The renowned General Sephiroth was brought about through sheer loneliness.
Do you know how many times I lay awake at night, wishing I did not exist? Praying that it was possible that somewhere out there, there was another like myself who was alone? Someone as lonely as I. Someone unique, with no one else to turn to.
But there was no one. And hope can only exist for so long before it finally dies.
The only person who tried to break through the barrier, the protective wall I had constructed around myself, was a single SOLDIER: Zack. And he succeeded, for the most part. I suppose you could say we were friends. He always dragged me out around Midgar with him when we had some sort of free time on weekends, came to my office and annoyed me at random times throughout the day. He was the first person to make me laugh in a very long time.
Problem was, Zack was no more than a friend. I still wanted someone...more feminine.
But I couldn't sire children. I didn't want to settle down with a woman if I couldn't give her children. So I denied myself the company of the same women I used to spend my nights with, before the cloning project came into being. More than that, I still wanted someone to talk to, someone who could understand how lonely I was.
And when I found Mother, I found what I had been searching for. Someone unique in this world, who had no one else. I wanted to be there for her. I am her son, am I not? I had to protect her. From Shinra, from Hojo, from curious passerby.
From you.
And now, here you stand. Ready to kill me for simply trying to make her happy. Mother wants this world destroyed. I want Shinra to pay for all that they put me, put her, put us through. And even if it costs us everything, I will succeed. For Mother. Because if I can make her happy, all the pain will go away. I won't be lonely anymore. Mother has told me that she'll give me the perfect woman. She'll take one of the human women, whichever one I want, and make her her daughter. And because she'll be genetically compatible to me, it will be possible for me to give her children.
That is all I want, more than anything else. For my loneliness to end, and my long-ago dreams to resurrect and become reality. And if destroying the planet is what it takes for Mother to be happy, for me to achieve my dreams and our revenge to be realized, then so be it.
Come, puppet.
Come, and let us see whose dreams are the stronger.