"I have this memory," Cloud began, his words so softly spoken that Reno almost didn't hear them. "I'm five years old or so. I am sitting on the knee of a man with long black hair. He's bouncing me up and down, like I'm riding a horse, and I feel sick to my stomach. My mother is sitting across from the man. I can see her bright eyes sparkling in the light. She's smiling at me… or is she smiling at him? I can't tell. No. She's smiling at him. That man…" He trailed off and his body shook with stress. "My uncle. 'Hojo,' my mother says to him. 'Hojo, stop doing that. He has terrible motion sickness. You will make him sick.' But he doesn't stop. I vomit on him and he flings me from his knee in disgust. He's standing. He's pissed."
Reno felt his heart stop beating.
"He screams at me, and I'm cowering on the floor, my arm is raised to deflect a blow that I can feel coming before it even strikes me. My mother, she's not smiling anymore. 'Hojo! Leave now!' she's screaming at my uncle. I've never seen her this angry before. He stepped away from me and adjusted his glasses. He's wiping his brow. I made him break a sweat. He leaves and my mother helps me into a hot bath. 'We mustn't let your father know about this, Cloud. You know how much he hates my brother. Please, Cloud.' She's begging me to keep quiet."
"My father comes home a couple of days later. He was in Kalm on business as usual. He noticed the bruise on my arm. 'What is this?' he asks my mother, and she tells him that I had fallen while playing with the kids in town. He believed this blatant lie, and no further questions were asked. This is all I remember from that time. My father died shortly after. Mom said he was attacked and eaten by Kalm wolves, the body was never recovered."
"So, Hojo was your uncle on your mom's side?" Reno asked, making sure he got the details correctly. Cloud nodded. "Yes."
"Sephiroth is your cousin, then?"
Cloud ignored the question and kept his words flowing, trying to let it all out. All of it.
"Mom told me a few years later, 'Sephiroth is making a big name for himself. Wouldn't it be something if there were two members of the family in the army?' I'm thirteen years old, mom… Do you really want me to leave home? If it would make you proud of me, I will gladly do it…" Cloud trailed off, and Reno said nothing, as Cloud seemed to be completely re-living the conversation with his mother. "But mom, I can never be as good as he is. I will try, for you…"
The blond shook his head as tears began to roll down his face. "Zack…" Cloud shuddered upon saying the man's name, and Reno swallowed hard.
"Zack was so beautiful, such a good friend. He was a kind soul. He never hurt anyone on purpose. Zack kept me safe as well as he could, but when we were captured and taken to Uncle Hojo's lab, he couldn't protect me. Zack… I never blamed you for that." His shoulders shook as hot tears fell onto the palms of his upturned hands.
"Forgive me, Zack. Forgive me of the fact that I did not have the strength to protect you. Forgive me for what my uncle did to you."
Reno couldn't hold himself back any longer. He wrapped strong arms around Cloud and held him tightly as his body trembled.
"Reno, I killed my uncle. I killed my cousin. During the events surrounding Meteorfall, no one ever stopped to ask me just why I was so quiet all of the time. It wasn't just because I was confused or angry. How do you think everyone would have reacted if I had said, 'No, sorry guys. Can't kill my family today, I'm not in the mood to feel like shit for the rest of my life'…? Hojo was an evil, evil man. I knew this even before he experimented on Zack and I. But Sephiroth… Was he really so evil after all? Wasn't he just as confused and angry as I was?"
"Yeah, but you are completely different from the way Sephiroth was. He turned evil, Cloud," Reno said. Cloud shook his head violently, startling Reno. "No!" he shouted. "No! Don't you get it, Reno? I have the same blood as Sephiroth; we come from the same family. I… I can feel him, Reno."
He turned around to face Reno and looked him directly in the eyes. Reno felt like his heart would beat completely out of his chest.
Staring into his eyes was a pair of cat-like eyes tinged with green.
"...Oh gods."
