Most people will not understand why I did it, why I threw my whole life away for her, Jenova, my mother. I think even an orphan would have trouble understanding it. Orphans will never have their mothers back, but I did. That day, when a lifetime of lies told to me by Shinra fell away, when I finally knew the truth, I got my mother back. How could I deny her anything she wanted after that?
It's something we all want, you see, a mother to love us. Mother is the one person who must love us. I spent my whole life without that, but wanting it always. Longing for it, really, though I hid it from everyone. I had been told she was dead, and yet I still longed for my mother, the person to whom my differences from everyone else wouldn't matter.
When I found her, I had to rescue her, had to take her away from the prison they had condemned her to. Her sweet voice filled my head as I stood before her, telling me how strong and intelligent I was, how happy she was that I had finally seen through them. I would have done anything for her in that moment, I was so overjoyed at her approval.
She whispered softly to me, take me away from here, my son. Yes, Mother. We will be together, always, and we will make them pay for keeping us apart. Mother, I've had an epiphany. We will take this planet back from them. We will take back what is ours. These were the promises I made to her.
Yes, my son, she answered. Destroy them all, for me, Sephiroth, for me. They will regret imprisoning me, she raged quietly, as did the last ones who bound me. You will make them regret it. Yes, Mother, yes, anything for you. Your son is here, and I will avenge that wrong. I have already begun. The town burns, Mother, and soon, the whole world will burn. They will pay, Mother.
A sound behind me, a footfall on the plate floor, a mere annoyance, I thought at the time. My one real mistake, made while so wrapped up in the joy of Mother that the whole world seemed a little unreal, distant. I heard someone calling my name, not Mother though. Why do they insist on intruding, I thought. I turned to face Zack, who could never understand what this moment was to me. All I saw, as our eyes met, was a traitor, one among the ranks of those who had imprisoned Mother. Kill him, Mother whispered to me, as Zack babbled words at me I couldn't really hear and didn't care to listen to. He stands between us, my son, as they all do, she whispered. I raised my blade to do battle, Masamune, who had never failed me. It was over quickly. Zack had never been a match for me, though we were both Firsts. As I threw him from the room, I heard Mother almost purr with delight at my triumph. My heart soared.
Turning back to her, I realized that the contraption in front of me was not Mother at all, simply a statue, a ruse to hide her from me. Enraged by this, I tore it away and saw, behind it, at last, my mother. They had imprisoned her in a glass tube, tied her up and taken from her the deepest essence of herself, but I was there now to put a stop to it. I could see her eye glowing as she regarded me, pulsing with happiness at her son's return. I reached out a hand to her, intending to break open this tomb in which they had trapped her. Instead, I felt a burning tug in my middle. The glass cracked in front of me. I looked down to see the tip of Zack's sword, Angeal's sword really, sticking out through my stomach, point buried in the glass in front of me. Impossible, I had thought, it cannot be Zack. Angeal? Could it be, I wondered as I felt the sword pulled out. I turned around to see who had struck me.
The blond man standing before me was only vaguely familiar. One of the guards, I thought. He too started screaming at me, more words which were meaningless to me, lost in the hiss of Mother's lust for vengeance. They dare to attack you, she screamed at me, they dare to come between us! Kill them all, she ordered. Yes, Mother, of course. But when I tried to walk toward the scurrying insect before me, my knees buckled. The injury was far worse than I had realized. I fell to the floor in a heap and saw, distantly, the man walk from the room.
Mother kept screaming in my head for me to get up, to strike him down. You cannot fail me now, my son. It cannot be, her voice raged over and over again in my head. I had to act, for Mother. Healing myself the little that I could, I rose and turned to her. Still bleeding a little from the wound, I appealed to her. What would you have me do, Mother? You are in no shape to carry me now, she fumed. They will take me from here if we do not move now, hide me away from you again, she raged. You must take me with you, now, my son, she commanded.
She was right, of course. I could not carry her. It took me several tries to break the already-cracked glass, I was so weak from the wound I had taken. With her shrieks mounting in my head to the point of pain, I made a decision. I took with me the most important part, though it pained me to desecrate her so. I took her head from her body and carried it with me from the room. It is all right, my son, she cooed, the rest of me will join us in time, in a glorious reunion. The important thing is for us to leave this place now, she assured me. I stumbled from the room, Mother's head hanging at my side.
I saw Zack lying on the stairs, feebly trying to rise. The blond man was at the bottom of the stairs, crouched next to the girl who had been our guide, who had attacked me with her puny strength and lost. Zack moaned something about finishing me, calling the other man Cloud. Cloud stood, picking the sword up, raising it and then running up the stairs at me. I wanted to laugh. Even in my weakened state, I parried the blow easily and threw him back from me. Stabbing him with my sword and raising it so his feet dangled in the air, I heard Mother gloating. They cannot stop you, my son. We must go, quickly, she insisted. I agreed.
In that moment of distraction, Cloud had done something strange. He was now gripping my sword with both hands, forcing it downward somehow. I was frozen in shock. This could not be possible. I heard Mother screaming in my head as Cloud used my own sword, still stabbed through his own body, to pull my feet off the floor. He twisted, throwing me from the room and into a wall over an open pool of pure Mako energy, my sword sliding from him as I flew through the air, the handle still clutched in my hand. No, this cannot be, Mother and I moaned in unison. How can you fail me so, just when I need you, Mother screamed at me. As I slid down the wall, her continued screams in my head causing the purest agony, I thought, this is not the end, it cannot be the end. We are together still, Mother, and we can still make them pay. We just need time. We just need the reunion. Mother stopped screaming at me then. That moment of silence was the sweetest I've ever known, and the last. Yes, my son, she purred back, and then they will all pay. Cloud particularly will pay, I promised her. We sank together into the Mako pool, into the Lifestream itself, momentarily content with each other.