Author's Note- Oh, snap! I forgot to put my disclaimer in here. Anyways, seeing as how I'm writing this fanfiction, you can probably guess that I am not rolling in mountains of cash, and therefore most definitely do not own Final Fantasy 7. I wish I did, what with all the money and that sort of stuff, but I don't. It belongs to Squaresoft. A fine job they do with their games, that Squaresoft bunch (Unlimited Saga not included in this generality)
Life is an illusion, the peaceful lull before its end, what is known as death. But, do we truly die? True, the body decays and decomposes with time, yet the soul, the very essence of life, never truly departs from the Planet. Instead, it comes together with other souls to form the Lifestream, which is then used to give souls to new life. This life is not necessarily human, or whatever type of life the new soul was in its last life, the soul could be given to a deer, or a rabbit, or a bird, or even the inanimate trees and plants. At least, that is how it should be. Now, now Shinra has discovered how profitable Mako energy, condensed Lifestream energy, can be when used as an energy source, instead of its old use, a use rarely utilized, when it was condensed further to form materia. This Mako energy, regardless of how Shinra uses it, is then used up, expired, and the soul energy that is the Lifestream used to make the Mako is gone, and so the Planet dies a little. More importantly, our soul energy dies. So, death is real, we can truly die. Still, death is unnatural if all of this is true, which means Shinra, Mako energy, materia, all of it is unnatural. Yet this contradicts the basic truths of life. Materia does form naturally at points where great quantities of Lifestream gather. And, it is believed by the same people who now fight against Shinra that everything is natural, that nothing can happen unless it is meant to, and is that not the definition of natural?
Indeed, life contradicts itself. There is no truth in life, so life must not be true. As such, life is merely an illusion, made to comfort the souls of men. Why? Why would people need the illusion of life? That is the ultimate and final question of those who grow weary of life and wish to die. More specifically, the question of those who believe there is something better than life. That could only mean the Cetra, or the Ancients, as they are more commonly known, who believe they are guaranteed entry into the Promised Land. Some would believe they are fools. I, on the other hand, know for a fact this belief of the Cetra to be true. I am a Cetra, and I have entered the Promised Land. However, even after being separated from the Planet and its Lifestream, I continue to maintain a presence there, so that one day all my plans will come to fruition. None of them know yet, even the one who killed me refuses to acknowledge the truth. Soon though, very soon they will know. They follow my puppets and my flesh and blood form. Soon the Reunion will occur. The puppets alone would never be enough to allow for a successful Reunion, only his presence. His power may be great, but it is not yet realized. He will follow my command; the Black Materia will be mine. His soul is too weak to resist as it is in turmoil. Killing the Cetra proved more beneficial than I ever would have thought.
Sephiroth then concluded his musings. He always did the same thing after a day of pulling strings to advance his plans. When the flesh and blood form of him that he used to do his bidding slept, his subconscious mind, the only part of his mind that still functioned due to his imprisonment in the Promised Land, thought. Sephiroth was too powerful of body and mind to not notice what happened all around him and inside of him, so even in the deep coma-like condition he was in, he could hear, and sometimes even control, his subconscious mind. Such abilities made his subconscious mind more like a conscious sleeper cell. Still, his control was limited, and after controlling his puppet during the day, his subconscious mind would act independently. Sephiroth used this fact to his advantage, as the subconscious part of him often knew things he did not, and the additional knowledge he gained from listening to his subconscious thought was often what allowed him to succeed in the phases of his plan. The thoughts that the subconscious portion of Sephiroth had recently turned out were filled with knowledge. He could give these to his puppet, perhaps rankle Cloud and his group of misfits. It was quite entertaining, the group Cloud traveled with. A man with a gun for his right arm, a girl who also denied the truth of what had happened long ago, a…wolf-like creature who was the last of his race, a stuffed animal with a cat controlling it, the cat itself being controlled from afar, rather ironically, a Materia thief from Wutai, a place which brought back memories, and then of course there was the pilot, who had the sky and space taken away from him by Shinra. The only one who was even the least bit worthy in Sephiroth's eyes was Cloud, since the Cetra girl was dead.
Then, without any sort of transitional phase, Sephiroth's subconscious mind began to remember the glory days of Sephiroth, his rise to power, and his descent to madness…