A one-shot written for a Livejournal prompt community.

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Uncontrollable laughter echoed in the basement of the old Shin-Ra mansion. Somehow, all this was funny. Too funny. The voice grew louder, almost maniacal, and rung out down the halls. Who would have guessed that this would be the reaction to finding out your life was meaningless?

Sephiroth stood leaning against a bookcase in the very back room of that cold, damp basement. The journal he had been reading was in one hand, dangling at his side, and shaking slightly as his body convulsed in rhythm with the hideous laughter. This was perfect. He'd known when he walked into that room in the reactor that something was wrong with him. Something was wrong with the entire situation.

Jenova wasn't exactly his mother, but she was the closest thing someone that had been born in a lab could call such. As far as he knew, he was a child of science and nothing more—Jenova was the closest thing he had now to family. Not Hojo, not Shin-Ra, not ANYONE could fill this new-found void. Only she could: Mother.

He had been a toy all along, just another toy for Hojo to play with.

Fury boiled within him, but the laughter would not cease. He threw the scientist's journal forward at one of the other bookcases in the room. Then, he just ran across the room, tearing books from the shelves and clawing at the wood. His whole life had been a joke! His whole life had been written in these books, by people that he didn't even know! But he couldn't stop himself; emotions cascaded from his being and he ran on, ripping pages out of journals and cackling something terrible.

Tears ran down his face, but he couldn't understand it. The amalgamation of feeling in his brain was too powerful to handle. Sephiroth had snapped; he hated this world! He would do anything he could for Mother, the only one who hadn't betrayed him.

Wiping the unnecessary tears away and dropping the final book to the floor, he slumped down into a heap, sitting against one of the old oak bookcases. The SOLDIER stared forward across the room, but those brilliant eyes could focus on nothing. He could hardly breathe. He couldn't think.

All he could do now was laugh.