The Magical Author's Note: I'm happy now because I finally started xlightfromabovex's 50 Shuffle Challenge! :D So this is the first of fifty and I hope that the others will come out fairly quickly… Maybe…

Song: Had Enough by Breaking Benjamin

Warnings: Angst, slight yaoi, male/male, slash, whatever you want to call it, and a reminiscing Genesis. Anything else? Nothing too major…

Disclaimer: Do I need to say I don't own anything or is that implied in the fact that I'm writing FANfiction?

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I am a monster.

That much had already been deduced, but it is the single thought that keeps pounding against my head, telling -no urging- me to give into the four words completely and forget everything else, to just leave it behind.

Sure there is the textbook definition of monster, the one that seems to appeal to me the best at first glance, the one that makes me feel like I play more of the part of a hero trying to overcome an obstacle that has the potential to turn them evil than the antagonist. But no, it can't just be the damned black wing protruding from my spine, it has to be so many other things: the hurt I have caused those I care about, the way I turned on my own company, the way I believed in something that was never there and was the cause of my blindness, of all the mistakes themselves. It wasn't just a sudden event either, one of the reasons my revelation hurts so much. Mistakes have been made many a time over the past few years.

The first major screw up: Joining SOLDIER.

The glamour had seemed absolutely stunning; the attention was always focused on the ShinRa Golden Boys, the ones with pretty faces, a way with words (even though in a particular person's case, all they needed to say was seen in those perfect emerald eyes), even ones that could barely fight, but strategized. I wanted to be one of them a few years ago. A taste of what it felt like to be adored by many would have been satisfactory, but I was always outshone. Outshone by one of the men that had meant so much to me and still holds a majority of my passion with him today, no matter how I had made his life miserable, made him believe there was no love.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I wanted to be the hero for once. Not the small town boy known only as the Governor's son. Grand title, wasn't it? Hero, savior, Commander. Funny how I can look back and scoff at that label now, knowing how it was what I desired, but by the time I had obtained the name, I could care less about being someone that others looked up to. By then I was just ready to forget the life of the battlefield and return to Banora, as crazy a sentiment as it may seem. Returning to Banora was absurd, yes, but I was naïve and decided that a simple life was a nice one and that I had gotten the attention I sought. Yet the small little voice in the back of my head told me there was still more left to acquire.

And I listened to it, my greatest downfall.

The lust for more power and popularity overcame me, ruling above all emotions I had at the time. I was controlled by that hunger for more, even when I couldn't begin to imagine what else I needed. Love was present, albeit I threw that away as well (one of my larger missteps), and it was something that I didn't want to give up, but I hadn't known that then. I had felt the reluctance to leave him behind, but had passed it off as a wish to keep at least one tie to my former life.

And yet again, that bastard of a General keeps making me get off topic. Might as well make him the topic of conversation then.

The great Sephiroth had been mine. Mine and only mine; no one else was near touching him, or even addressing him whist I was around. He was clearly the one that I loved, and still do love believe it or not, but the public appeared to be far more ignorant and biased to see that he was more to me than a friend. That was best in a theoretical manner, but not in the manner of what I felt. I had wanted everyone to know that he was mine, to let them see that the perfect Sephiroth could feel and wasn't completely alien. But theory had always overruled passion.

Especially with the almighty General. He was a true poster boy for ShinRa, like the ones I had admired for so long. He would have been perfect had he been more social. Angeal and I were the only ones able to penetrate that iron clad shell and it was one of the best things I had ever weaseled myself into. I had only regretted the decision to force my way into his life when I saw Seph's face at the mako reactor in Nibelheim when he had seen and understood what had happened and how I had completely succumbed to temptation. How I had left him behind for a damned fate… and it was worse to see him suffer from it. I should have never come to him, I shouldn't have asked for help that one last time.

And 'Geal was just as bad. He had followed me loyally, letting me know that I wasn't alone, but he was never cut out for the life of such… dishonor, I should say with cruel amusement. Honor was all to him. Once that was gone, so was his life. He had provoked the stupid puppy to destroy him, and in that he also destroyed a part of me. He was the only person who was my friend for who I was my whole life, not just in Banora, not just in SOLDIER. Angeal was there for me up until that day he had used his own protégé to finish his life.

That must have been one of the major reasons I decided to leave behind everything I knew. I had lost one influential person in my life, why would I want to loose another? So I left before any more misfortune could befall me and ran. I had run away because I didn't know what to do. The feeling had been so foreign to me, so completely strange. I was used to deciding a path to take and following through on it, no problem. But that time I didn't know what my options were and fate made up the unspoken choice for me.

In the end, I had been rejected by all I held dear, even the Goddess I had so loyally followed, but I had brought it upon myself. I had set myself up for self-destruction and it had initiated and now I was just the bare shell that finds himself looking back rather than trying to decode the future. Besides, the last time I had tried to foretell what would happen, everything crumbled before my eyes. I have nothing left to lose now, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm still afraid. Afraid that I had found something to hold onto and was going to lose it as well. I can't let that happen again solely for the reason that I don't think anything will be left of me afterwards.

"Forgive me," I muttered to all of them, the first hint of emotion that I had shown in months hinted in my words. The blank stares given to me by the remnants surrounding me did nothing but fuel the feeling that everything was over, but I would find a way to begin anew.

And I would start by reclaiming all I had lost.