Chapter 3 - Rebirth

Two days after the events at the church in Midgar Sephiroth still wasn't the same his entire world had been thrown for a loop he seemed to regain some sense of Direction when Jenova and Lucratia became one but still he was off a bit.

When the two of them became one Lucratia's body changed entierly it went from aging to young and beautiful and when Jenova was in control it changed again. Jenova herself was also a beauty an enchanting being with long brown hair and green eyes. her skin was a light brown similar to the skin tone of the monster form but now she was human in appearance it seemed this was her original form when she appeared to the Cetra. Lucratia gained control when Jenova didn't wish to be bothered and her appearance had become that of her younger years when Vincent had fallen for her her silver hair regained it's shine and her once dulled eyes held a spark in them again. As for Tifa it was decided that they would keep her. She hadn't put up much of a fight about it either especially not after the others in the reactor had awoken from their capsules and were up and about. She knew there was nothing she could do but she had complained that he had said they were done with her. to which Sephiroth simply replied "would you prefer I kill you?" given that option she decided to stay and make the best of a bad situation.

They had moved from the reactor to the remains of Midgar taking residence in the old Shinra building. Now Tifa spent her time conversing with Lucratia when she was available even sometimes Jenova now that she had her body she wasn't so full or rage and hatred it was a rebirth of sorts and her bloodlust seemed to vanish. Now she was calm almost quiet even and there was something about her when you saw her that made you want to talk to her. however soon their plans for Tifa would be made clear.

One day Jenova simply sat down across from Tifa. Which to begin with was not a good sign.

"Tifa..." She began her voice soft and soothing. it was amazing how perfect she seemed. Tifa could understand her fury at losing her body. But then it was always the most dangerous things that hid in the guise of beauty.

"Yes?" Tifa responded staring lazily out the window she had grown a little too comfortable around them however knowing she couldn't go anywhere and there was no hope of fighting her way out and that as long as she behaved she would be ok...well she had no reason to do anything but to just hope they'd decide to release her one day either that or die trying to escape...in this case she preferred the former option as Lucratia was fairly good comapny. Though Kadaj and the other creations still creeped her out.

"Do you want to know why I had Sephiroth keep you here?" She asked

Tifa sat up and looked at her. "I'd love to know actually I'm no use to you and obviously no threat...so why am I here?"

"Because we may be powerful and all but without some women we have no means to reproduce...our kind will die out you see all of the ones we produced turned out to be male not surprising since they were all based on Sephiroth in some way...so you will simply have to serve as a test subject to see if we that is our kind can breed with humans." Jenova said it casually as if she were asking her to scoot over or to borrow a pen.

"w...W...What!" Tifa yelled

"Calm down.. " Jenova said with a glare and Tifa instantly froze she hadn't seen any anger come out of the new Jenova and she didn't want to when she glared at Tifa the entire air about her changed and it suddenly felt cold and she was out of breath as if the world around her air and all was trying to escape Jenova's glare.

"I don't have a choice in this do I?" Tifa asked

"Of course you do...just the alternatives aren't very good" Jenova replied.

Tifa lowered her head with a sigh she felt like crying in her head she imagined Jenova tossing her in a room along with Kadaj and his freinds and...she shivered the thought of being raped by them was terrifying and gross at the same time. "I will not be some breeding machine for your beasts you created those things downstairs you call 'your kind' are horrible monsters and I will die before I allow any of them to get even close..." Tifa was finally getting everything off her chest. But Jenova silenced her by standing and giving her another of those looks this time however it was truly full of fury and Tifa realized she how much she had insulted Jenova obviously not a smart thing to do.

"you...will take all of that back or I will kill you myself slowly and painfully and I'll keep you alive just to torture you again the next day." Jenova threatened her voice was so cold and hateful that Tifa couldn't believe it was the same person but now she figured this was the 'real' jenova the one that destroyed the ancients."you are lucky to be chosen for this we could easily just snatch some woman off the streets and use her. "It is a privelage to be selected to join us and we are NOT Monsters my children are simply still growing all of them will eventually look somewhat like Kadaj would you call him a monster too? or Sephiroth?"

Tifa stood there frozen she didn't know what to say or do she was terrified of Jenova at this moment hell the planet was terrified of Jenova right now she could fell everything in the room seemingly trying to leave.

"I...I...uh..." she stammered stupidly before regaining some sense and finding a line that hopefully would save her, "I'm sorry...I just...I refuse to let you just throw me in some room and let them have at it like I were a piece of meat." She replied as sternly as she could manage.

Jenova almost burst into a laugh. "Is THAT all you were worried about? " she shook her head. "What kind of barbarien do you take me for? I never said anything like that did I? I simply said you will be used I didn't say how."

'wrong choice of words' Tifa thought figuring she had only managed to Insult Jenova more. the bright cheery exterior was in place again and going full blast a fact that troubled Tifa more than anything. "Alright...Alright...I apologise I take it all back I wouldn't call Sephiroth a monster..." 'no he's a monster of another kind...' she thought "

"Of course even you may not produce the best...which is why we're going to subject you to a heavy dose of Mako before anything." Jenova told her. Tifa's eyes widened

"Mako?...but...couldn't that kill me?" She stated trying to convince Jenova to think of something else...or rather nothing at all.

"Possibly yes...but only if we weren't paying attention if it becomes apparent your body is rejecting the Mako we will pull you out. besides that you should be fine and you should be thanking me I'm not only about to give you more power than you ever imagined but I'm giving you a choice among the most powerful men on the planet." Jenova said sipping a cup of cofee.

"You're forgetting something..first all of them would sooner kill me than anything and second the feeling is mostly mutual." Tifa said

"That may be...but that is only because they've assumed you belong to either Kadaj or Sephiroth since the two of them are the only ones who speak to you however in the case of Sephiroth none of them would dare touch you but in the case of Kadaj you're not so invincible. I suggest you pick wisely because once word gets out it's open season." Jenova warned.

Then Tifa had an Idea. "Alright I'll go through the Mako process or whatever you're gonna do..." She had a plan whatever strength the mako would give her may have been enough to get her out...hopefuly.

"Good" Jenova stood and left.

Sephiroth came in shortly after from the door on the opposite side. Whether or not Jenova had sent him in Tifa wasn't sure but it sure was damn convinient.

He stood by the window and didn't speak.Something was in his hand but she couldn't see what.

"Did Jenova send you in here?" Tifa asked suddenly.

"No." He replied

"Then why are you just standing there? it's annoying." She said and almost gasped she was starting to sound like him.

He turned to look at her. "You sound like me. that is annoying." he replied.

"and I came in here to ask you if you knew what Nibelham really was..." He trailed off.

"what do you mean? I know it's a fake town now...Shinra rebuilt it to cover up what you did." She said

"So you didn't know...Neibelham was a Shinra testing ground it's always been a fake town...did you really think they'd build The Shinra mansion there and allow the public to exist in the area? too many people hated shinra for that they'd have been complete fools to have built a place for executives like that and allow the public to get so close. A sniper could have easily taken out anyone staying there." He explained

"but..I thought they stopped using it for that reason...wait...what're you saying?" She asked

"I'm saying that if you lived there you don't know it but you aren't normal...neither is that blonde freind of yours..." He asked

"What're you talking about? we're perfectly normal! we lived normal lives there..." she said

"hah...so you think, I didn't know about it either untill now I've been digging through Shinra's files in my spare time. Which we all have nothing but at the moment untill Jenova announces our next move. It seems you and He were both test subjects the difference is you were experimented on as an infant which resulted in the odd crimson tint in your eyes...however your freind he's a complicated one...there were 3 of him actually the first died before he was even born the second died when he tried to stop me in Niebelham the third is the one you know now but the thing is they grew him in a tube...they merged the second with the third and his memories wound up meshed up that's why he's so screwed up. in additon they modified his body even further trying to create another me. I'd say they did ok." he told her looking her in the eyes. it had a chilling effect on her as if he was looking through her.

Tifa sat there in shock. "no...that can't be true...you're lying!" she yelled

Sephiroth sighed. "Of course I am" He said sarcastically and tossed a file on the table "Read it yourself." Tifa just stared at it the folder was labeled "Neibelham Project" she could see there were labeled tabs with her name Cloud's and a couple others she didn't know.

"Neibelham was a holy place in some religion...they took the name because they tried to create a holy cradle from which divine beings would be born but they failed and If I had to guess I'd say Hojo had it shut down angry that anyone dared try and recreate his work." Sephiroth said.

"So what exactly did they do to me?" Tifa asked

"Alot of things...your appearance was predetermined they wanted a beautiful girl and also it's because of that you have the strength you do now. you have other abilities you don't even know about obviously you've never awakened them because you were never shown how or even told they existed. I suppose I messed that one up for you." He told her.

"I didn't read all of it I don't really care to know your secret past so. I decided to show it to you and let you discover your past for yourself while you have a chance." He told her.

"But why?" she asked

He paused for a moment his face showing the first signs of any emotion other than anger or slight amusement she'd ever seen come from him.

"Because I know what it's like to discover your life was a lie." He said simply and left.

"sephiroth..." She whispered following him with her eyes.

She sat there for awhile staring at the folder unsure whether to open it or if she really wanted to know what was inside it how would she know if it was really true or not? after what seemed like hours she opened the folder hesitantly and flipped through it briefly and stopped when she saw a picture of Zack.

"he's involved in this too?" She wondered aloud. now she was interested she remembered him from Neibelham he had been with Sephiroth when they came but...he hadn't lived in Neibelham so how was he involved in this? as she began to read her eyes slowly widened there was more information there than she had ever imagined could have been hidden about any of them. What really got her attention was when she came across a subfolder labeled "Acension" when she opened it at first she was confused all she saw were pictures of Angels or at least that's what they looked like. then as she continued she came across one she recognized 'Sephiroth' was written below it and sure enough it was the angelic form he had taken in their final battle. what did this mean? had there been others like him? people who didn't even know their hidden power like he hadn't untill he had discovered the truth in Neibelham? if that were the case then there were more than enough walking around out there to destroy the planet many times over if any of them had at least half the power of Sephiroth. She also noted that Sephiroth was not the last picture but there was one more after him, had there been some secret project commissioned after Sephiroth's dissapearance? Then sudden realization hit her and she knew what all of this meant. She flipped forward hoping to find pictures or some documnetation on what these 'angels' looked like in their human forms and eventually she found it.

Pictures acompanied by breif bios and mental and physical evaluations. she wasn't concerned with all that right now though she just wanted to see the last one and sure enough once again there was one right after Sephiroth but when she saw it the picture hadn't been of who she expected. she gasped and almost fainted with shock.

Later Jenova was wandering the halls looking for Tifa it was quite annoying searching for a single person in this massive building. honestly it was larger than she liked but Sephiroth had insisted on coming here and refused to stay anywhere else. She asked a couple of the guys that had come out of the pods most of which were still unnamed as it was decided they would come up with their own names and none of them knew where she was. Finally she spotted Kadaj he would know where Tifa was he always did it was like he kept a tracking beacon on the girl.

"Kadaj do you know where Tifa is? I need to speak to her. Kadaj turned and stared at her surprised Jenova had lost track of their little prisoner not that there was much need to watch her, she wasn't going anywhere, not when most of the others made their homes here on the main floor where all the exits are.

"She was headed towards the roof last I saw of her. I didn't bother to follow her because if you hadn't noticed she doesn't like me much and I'd rather not end up on the recieving end of one of her punches." He replied remembering when she had hit Sephiroth when she first showed up that had been one hell of a punch and he went back to what he was doing, which co-incidently happened to be polishing his blade.

Jenova didn't say anything more and went to the roof walking was so tiring so she levitated her way up through the countless flights of stairs and eventually onto the rooftop level where she found Tifa standing looking out at the scenery.Darkness everywhere you looked the massive growth of trees and other plants had taken over all of midgar except for this one building it was as if they refused to touch it. Like the smooth stone or icy looking windows could sap the very life out of them and perhaps that really was why no plant life touched it however it did make for a good view of midgar...what was left anyway the now forest overrun city was teeming with the sounds of wild life something Tifa never imagined would ever happen in a place like this. She'd forgotten all about that plan of hers more concerned with the new things she'd discovered today.

Jenova simply stood there staring at her for awhile before tapping her on the shoulder she jumped and turned around. expecting to see Kadaj or one of the others but calmed a bit when she saw Jenova she didn't know why but she was oddly comfortable around her she gave off that sort of aura perhaps thats why the ancients had been so willing ot take her in. Likely it was also why she had so easily been able to cause their downfall and there was yet another reason something she'd only recently learned that could explain alot but she would say nothing of it for now. If anyone she would tell Sephiroth simply because he showed her the damned file to begin with and if only to see what he had to say about it he always knew so much more than he let on or was willing to tell.

"Come on It's time for you to keep your word" Jenova told her.

"Already?" She asked and Jenova simply nodded

"Alright...let's go then." Tifa's voice was suddenly full of regret and dread she feared Jenova would try and turn her into some kind of mako being or something which in truth wasn't far from what Jenova wanted but not what she was actually going to do.

"Come on then...I wish I could make you into something greater but that body of yours will simply have to do otherwise I'd end up killing you and that is not acceptable." Jenova told her leading her down the halls.

"uhm...Jenova..."Tifa began she was beginning to think perhaps she should tell Jenova what she had learned.

"What now?" She asked turning to face Tifa impatiently a hint of anger on her otherwise calm face.

"I..I think there's something you need to know..."

Sephiroth was sitting in what once was the presidents office kicked back in the chair he was growing impatient sitting around like this. by now Tifa's freinds obviously knew she was missing and must have been looking for her by now. If by some fluke they decided to come here there would be problems... he didn't like not knowing when they may be coming in the past he had always had an idea as to how long it would be before Cloud showed up and he could simply dissapear and lead the fool along the trail. This time things were different he was hidden and trying to stay that way untill Jenova decided it was time they revealed themselves. Just what it was she was planning he had no idea he didn't care either as long as somewhere along the way he got revenge. Yes Killing Cloud would be good and he'd do it in front of Tifa. Why? Because for some reason he felt he needed to as if he were proving something. Not out of any particular hatred for her. No Cloud was the only one he was concerned with. The only one who would feel the hateful wrath of the great Sephiroth. Now if they would just hurry up and get here...or Jenova allow them to do something...He sighed heavily he was utterly bored and tired of looking through old Shinra files for imformation sure knowledge was power but one only needed so much to acomplish the everything he or she would ever need to do. Still after awhile he found simply sitting still staring at the wall or out the windows was far less entertaining and began he search anew.

About an hour or so later he found one that looked remotely interesting marked "Neo Midgar Project" however as he sat down with it Jenova came bursting into the room "Sephiroth! you simply must see this! it's astounding!" She said in utter excietment Sephiroth had never known her to get like this so immidiately he was intriged and at the same time somewhat worried if she was excited then something had happened. He hope she hadn't done anything to Tifa he still needed to use her as bait. Still he set down the folder without a word and got up to go look in the hall was Tifa or was it? This girl had green eyes Tifa's were a deep burgundy almost red. but then he noticed the familiar glow of mako swirling in them no rather...dominating them there was no trace of her old eye color just pure mako and suddenly he understood.

"What did you do?" He asked his mother without looking at her. as she walked up beside him.

"Improved her." She said simply "Or rather...awakened and just you wait till you she what she can do." Jenova replied with a grin.

END CHAPTER 3

Okay Okay...I know you're all wondering What the heck happened to Tifa and all but don't worry she's still her...sort of...well it's complicated okay! Sheesh...I'll begin to shed light on everything soon enough