"I want it."
The scientists pressed forwards, scribbling madly. It was incredibly rare for the boy to speak. Their subject ignored them, looking to the Turk, Tseng. A steady gaze and an impenetrable suit regarded him emptily. Sephiroth then, without a trace of hesitation, ducked under the velvet rope and approached the podium.
"No," said Shin-Ra employee no. 3207653S, "you mustn't!"
The child touched the plaque with slender white fingers, tracing the word. He thought it -
Masamune
- and the steel reflected in his shining eyes, a fearsome brand across the pupils. He did not hear Shin-Ra employee no. 3207653S protesting, nor did he see Tseng silence the man with a wave of his hand. He did not notice the scientists muttering, writing feverishly. He did not even recognize the unmistakeable sound of Professor Hojo's footsteps three corridors away, because his mind was ringing with clarity for the first time in his five-year-old life. Even She was quiet. She told him nothing, and there was a bright, sharp space in his head where She had been.
Somewhere, some glorious music was playing. Sephiroth closed his eyes and reached forwards, and the hilt wrapped itself around his hand. Masamune melded herself, leather and light, into the delicate, scarred arm of the experiment. Silver liquid spray broke across his consciousness and he did something he had never done before.
He laughed.
Professor Hojo stopped dead in the doorway. Sephiroth was laughing, face upturned to the artificial lighting, the Masamune, she who may not be wielded by mortal hands, tipped lazily through the air as if she weighed nothing, as if she were not more than twice his height in length. His sense of self-assurance faltered, and then shattered completely beneath the suddenly quite insane aquamarine glow in Sephiroth's eyes.
"This is my sword."
And there was not a person present who doubted it.