Disclaimer: I still don't own Final Fantasy. Though, if I owned Google or something like that, I'd sell it and use the money to buy Final Fantasy 7.

Final Fantasy Advent Children spoiler warning: only the fight between Cloud and Sephiroth. When you get to this scene in this chapter, you can safely skip it if you don't want FF Advent Children to be spoiled for you!)

Nibelheim – and the Time Skip

The next day passed with himself only seeing and experiencing everything as if through a veil. He had not slept that night – instead, under the guise of 'looking around', he had been thinking. Every thought ultimately made him dislike Shinra more. In the end, too much suffering was directly or indirectly caused by the greed of Shinra. The one mainly responsible was the President. Eventually Sephiroth had made a decision, one that was foolish in almost every aspect, yet still seemed perfectly reasonable to him; When he returned to Shinra, he would submit his resignation. Then he would take his leave. There would be no need for him to even speak a word, nor give them any sort of reason. There would be no return.

This plan (including his resignation - on paper, at least) had been put on permanent hold when they went to the reactor.

On the way a bridge had fallen away under their feet which resulted in loss of one man. Yet again Shinra was to blame; The reactor belonged to the company, and therefore they also held the responsibility of keeping the road in order. That included the bridge, which had broken without warning. Had Sephiroth been able to concentrate more, he might have flown or used his levitation ability, but he had chosen not to do so because the fall would simply not do him any harm. After realizing they had lost a guard, on the other hand, Sephiroth wished he could reset the mission and redo it - something he had wished numerous times in the past, too. They had continued up nonetheless, through materia caves with larger and smaller monsters – fiends that were no match. He still recalled answering questions about the frozen Mako while passing through the caves: "The knowledge and wisdom of the Ancients is held in the materia. Anyone with this knowledge can freely use the powers of the land and the Planet. That knowledge interacts between ourselves and the Planet, calling up magic." He had spoken these words with remarkable composure, informing and impressing those who were with him.

But now that they finally entered the reactor, wherein secrets lay that stirred his anger yet again, he found it increasingly hard to keep him calm. There were tubes in the main room. Some broken, others still functional, but all were occupied. They held mutated monsters, some which he had never seen before. He could sense that the substance they were bathing in was Mako, and he could see that they all held certain resemblances to humans.

Mutated humans? And Mako?

During his childhood, he too had experienced the use of... Mako...
After that moment, it became hard for him to think clearly. He spoke, apparently without registering what passed his lips.

"Was I created the same way... as these monsters?" He no longer paid any heed to the others.

Hojo's brows were arched, but his eyelids were heavy, showing his tiredness. Despite his lack of sleep and his displeased face, he was quite content.

He had retrieved the keeper of Nova; The person who was named Rimm, and who was presumed to be dead. What a mess. She was not dead – Hojo had only made it look like she was dead. The reason was simple. He was not yet done experimenting with her. The Nova cells had taken a long time to manifest properly in her body(as opposed to Sephiroth and Jenova's cells, which had not at all taken long). Now for the second part of the experiment: He needed to add Mako. It would not make this Rimm character some sort of superhuman – not at all. Whereas Sephiroth had received Mako when he was in his mother's womb, and thus was able to grow with the cells of Jenova and learn her abilities, it would be too late for Rimm to do the same. She would only function as a container, a host.

"Can you see this, Lucrecia? What you started is coming to a conclusion. This specimen will complete it." He placed a slender finger on the Mako tube. It was hidden out of sight from the other scientists, as he feared a few of them might recognize her. She had, after all, delivered food to some of them for some time now. Of this reason he had covered her face and head in simple, loose bandages. She still wore a white hospital gown. The bandages on her head did not keep her hair from floating, however.

"Sephiroth was injected with Jenova's cells, and the other with Nova's cells," he said quietly, as if to himself. It was a part of a very well planned, long-term plan. Never had his patience gone through such a test. It was highly unlikely that potential offspring of the two of them would end up mutated, like what kept happening when two species with only Jenova cells mated. Instead, a far better, stronger, creature would come into being. A specimen hopefully as powerful as a resurrected Jenova would have been had she been alive; Not only with a living spirit and a few cells, but a whole, living body. Rimm only had the strength of an average person because her cell injection had happened late in her life, and Sephiroth was strong because the injection of Jenova cells had been arranged early in his life. However, if the two were to harbor affections for each other, potential offspring would carry Jenova's cells (and Nova's, of course) at an even earlier stage than Sephiroth. What would become of such a specimen?

Why, it would become something terrific.

Pretending Rimm was dead was only temporary – something that gave him time to finish the experiment by adding Mako. Also, once Sephiroth found out she was alive, surely that would only make him even happier to see her..?

They had left him alone. He was in the basement of the Shinra mansion in Nibelheim now, having already read through enough material to make him chuckle sadly, sarcastically, by himself many times. Jenova was his mother. He did not know who was his father. But he had, at the very least, always believed his mother was a human. But she was not. She was something more superior by far.

Something told him he was not alone in the old building, that someone stood behind him and watched him in his attempts to stitch together the pieces of his past that he had discovered. He paid no heed to the presence. He was occupied.

Ever since I was small...
Ever since he was small, he had felt different from the others... Like he was special in some way.

But not like this. His mother was, as far as he could make out from the reports, an Ancient. Not human. His fame, his power, his strength, were not something he had achieved on his own. It was something he had been born with, something he had been destined to do. That meant that on his own, if he were a normal human, he would never have gotten this far. Was that not correct? He had relied on his heritage all of his life, without knowing it. And he was certain that Hojo had known everything from the beginning. That hunched man whose greasy hairdo was always the same and whose smirk and frown would never cease, would stay like that until his death. He was yet another person who could laugh silently behind Sephiroth's back... And yet another person who had used him. He had been Shinra's puppet for so long without being aware of it, and for that, he had come to despise them all to the core.

And now he understood everything perfectly. He knew what to do. His uncertainty was no more.

Just as Shinra had oppressed him, Sephiroth would crush them all. There would be no escape, and no mercy. If he could not end their lives, he would break their souls by ending the lives of those around them. If he could not crush their souls, he would tear their bodies apart until they would plead for him to kill them - and when they did, he would either burn them or refuse to do end their suffering. To him, they were all fiends. Long ago humans had stolen the entire Planet and used it for their own benefit, sealing away Jenova for a long time. Jenova, his mother - an Ancient - was the rightful owner of the Planet. And with her dead, Sephiroth was her heir. The Planet was the inheritance she had left for him. Its fate was in his hands. There was now a weight on chest, a responsibility heavier than any other he had had before. One which would hopefully lighten if he justified matters.

From that moment and on, countless stories about this man travelled the Planet. Sephiroth left, and with him, he took the future of the world.
He was – in many ways – so unnaturally strong that when he fell, his fall was said to be greater than that of any other person, of any other era.

The fire spread faster than the people could move. In only minutes Nibelheim was engulfed in flames that ravished the buildings with their every lick. None of the villagers died of suffocation, as was usual in fires – they burned to death, drowned in flames. Those who made it out could only witness that the fire was spreading on the ground too – ground that was not even flammable in the first place. Not only the houses, but the well, the surrounding trees, the running people, even the rocks were lit. In the middle of it all, only a very select few made it out and away. Saving others proved to be close to impossible, yet they tried nonetheless. Two of them were young Tifa - the guide - and her coach.

She left for the reactor in despair, hoping with all of herself that her father was all right.

...Moments after she found him, he died in her arms.

In blind rage she pulled Sephiroth's Masamune from her father's stomach and ran into the reactor, crying, glowering, and moving without pause until she saw the General standing on top of the stairs - in the red-lit room wherein the Mako tubes were kept. Her attempt at hurting him was futile; He seized the sword and shoved her down the stairs, then turned to the door blocking his way. From then on she barely heard or saw anything. She registered Zack arrive, and even blamed him for all that had happened, but he remained quiet and flashed one of his sadder smiles. Then he left for his old comrade.

She could hear them fighting. Feeling the pressure, she heard Zack yell at the person who used to know him, and who had once been his friend. In the end he was sent flying though the wall and did not move again. Only silent, almost coaxing words could be heard from then – Sephiroth's voice within the chamber he had broken into. To whom he spoke, she didn't know.

Then Cloud came. Seeing his two friends - who were among those who had made the biggest impacts on his life - he seized Zack's sword. Had Tifa been able to stand and move about, she would have seen Sephiroth impale Cloud with his Masamune and hold him in mid-air, the General standing on the narrow bridge in the brightly lit chamber. Underneath, there was a hole so deep the bottom was not visible to the naked eye. On the bottom was living Mako – spirit energy, or Lifestream – the knowledge of the Planet. If Cloud were to fall into the abyss, he would die. But he didn't fall. Instead, he pulled himself closer to Sephiroth, impaling himself further with the Masamune, and the second his feet touched the bridge, Cloud made an attempt to push the swordsmaster and his Masamune into the depths below. Sephiroth fell, or jumped on his own – none saw and none would be able to tell anybody about it later – and as he plunged down into the darkness, he held in his right hand Jenova's head. Behind Cloud, on the other side of the bridge in the chamber, were the remains of Jenova's tube and her headless body.

Then Cloud collapsed, bleeding and hurting, knowing little that Zack and he, too, would suffer from Hojo's peaking interest in them from the very moment they were found.

But Sephiroth was gone. As a result, Hojo would have to change his plans. Postpone them.

Just when time became a blur to him, he was not sure. But time was of no consequence. Where he was now, in the Lifestream, knowledge was the only thing overflowing his mind. Things he had experienced in the past (and words he had spoken before and after he found the truth about Jenova, whose head he had consumed in order to reunite with her) were playing in his mind time and time again:

"In my veins courses the blood of the ancients... I am one of the rightful heirs to this planet."
"Out of my way. I'm going to see my mother."

"So cold..."
"I am always by your side."

He became a traveler of the Lifestream and gained the knowledge of the Ancients and the distant past. He also gained the knowledge and wisdom of those after the extinction of the Ancients - the humans. And soon, he would create the future. By merging with all the energy of the Planet, he would become a new life form, a new existence. By melding with the Planet he would cease to exist as he was now. He would forget all humiliation and unnecessary pain. Emotions were trivial and not needed, for they only served as a hindrance. Time did not matter. Whether years or weeks passed was of no consequence, either. His plan would eventually be completed, no matter how much time passed. There was no stopping him. Whoever stood in his way would be eliminated without hesitance, for his revenge would be achieved no matter what.

The first step was to rid Shinra of its useless President. After a long sleep, the time had come.

In this very moment he was in Midgar, inside the Shinra Headquarters. To describe it quite precisely, he was in the office of the President himself. Judging the looks of the man, some years had obviously passed.

"...Sephiroth?!" the man said, shocked and not believing his eyes, but still keeping his face – he was full of authority. But only in appearance.

How he had longed for this.

"Die in obscurity." Then, with one heavy thrust of his sword, a stream of blood colored the President's otherwise spotless desk and left him there, dead, with his eyes wide and bloodshot and his mouth open. The man did not look shocked, not even frightened – only furious, even in death.

From there, events melded even more. Only important matters, but also - at times - things that were less important, and even unusually so, were left in his mind:

Him meeting troublesome people.
Him killing said people.
Him gaining greater powers and knowledge.
And, on occasion, him thinking of persons he should not be offering thoughts at all.

"You are just a puppet... You have no heart... and cannot feel any pain. How can there be any meaning in the existence of such a being?"
Cloud. Sephiroth could not recall whether that was the man's true name. He was simply too unimportant.
"What are you saying? Are you trying to tell me you have feelings too?"
...Too? Too? Indeed, Sephiroth was aware that he still had feelings. A fact he felt Jenova detest, yet at the same time a fact that he himself could not deny.

"Ha, ha, ha..."
"What I have shown you is reality. What you remember, that is the illusion."


"After a long sleep, time has come..."
"They... These worthless creatures are stealing the Planet from Mother."
"...My sadness? What do I have to be sad about? ...I am the chosen one. I have been chosen to be the leader of this Planet. I have orders to take this planet back from you stupid people for the Cetra. What am I supposed to be sad about?" ...Indeed...
" Only death awaits you all, but do not fear. For it is through death that new spirit energy is born. Soon, you will live again as a part of me. "

Yes. Cloud meant nothing. His friends meant nothing.

That is, until Cloud defeated him and sent him into the Lifestream in the form of spirit energy. His six newly forged wings were deprived from him then, never to return to him. At least not to the same degree of perfectness.

He had never given in, even after his defeat, and immediately began his search anew as a spirit, a wandering soul, this time aiming to find a suitable physical host for himself. A host with the cells of Jenova. He would not die completely before all things hosting Jenova cells were killed. Still, it took him longer than it should to find one. Not a single human carried within his body the amount of cells Sephiroth preferred. Meanwhile Jenova arranged for diseases to strike the humans, effectively weakening and killing them. Geostigma. Only when one of the potential hosts, a pitiful, yet effective person named Kadaj, got hold of some entirely unused cells, was Sephiroth given the chance to return. Once again face to face with the blond-haired man whose sword had sent him to his death in the past, Sephiroth reappeared with new knowledge.

"It has been a while, Cloud..." he greeted the man, their swords grinding against each other as Cloud's eyes widened. To him, it most likely looked as if Kadaj and Sephiroth had switched places rather than Kadaj having transformed into the former General.

They then jumped apart, Cloud frowning and Sephiroth smirking as he with landed with great grace before the younger man.

"Have you lost the geostigma? ...What a disappointment." Yet, what a thrill it was to meet his killer again like this.
"What the heck is it that you want?"

...

"My desire is this, Cloud. To use this planet as a ship to travel the darkness of this universe. Just like Mother did, long ago. We will eventually create a new planet... and imagine the possibility of a promising future there." That was right. Sephiroth cooperated with his Mother. She did not control him, yet he followed her suggestions because the Planet had been stolen by the humans from her and his own ancestors.

"And what will happen to this Planet?" Cloud demanded. This planet? It had always been filled with despicable sinners.
"Who knows. It is all up to you," his taunting reply sounded.

They had then fought for a fairly decent amount of time, destroying buildings and ruining houses while interacting – Sephiroth taunting Cloud, and Cloud retorting to the best of his ability:

"Interesting. What made you stronger?"
"I don't want to tell it to the likes of you!"

...

"I was thinking of a present for you." At times, when Cloud did not reply, Sephiroth continued baiting:
"Shall I send you some despair?"
"Kneel down, and show me the sight of you begging for mercy."

He pierced Cloud's shoulder and relished in his expression as he did. But...
...He found he could have pierced his heart with the same sword.

"What is the most important thing to you?" he asked, thinking that killing only Cloud would not be enough.
"Will you give me the happiness of taking that away from you?"

Angered, startled into action, Cloud pulled the sword out of his shoulder and got to his feet. The two fended each other off, watching each other's eyes more than observing their weapons. Then, after having jumped apart, a pause ensued that was long enough for the youngest of them to speak back without losing his breath.

"How pitiful. You don't understand anything at all," Cloud spoke. Sephiroth charged, while Cloud continued speaking-
"There's nothing that isn't important to me!" They forced each other off, Sephiroth jumping backwards into the air. And so he stayed there, floating.

Then... Cloud used that cowardly powerful attack of his.
...Again.

A number of swords, each of which pierced, cut and stabbed him, yet leaving no wounds visible to the naked eye...

"Please stay quietly in my memories..."

It was with more than just a hint of bitterness that Sephiroth smirked at Cloud's words. But this time, he knew he could return. One day...
While thinking this, a lone dark charcoal wing rapidly grew from his shoulder, until it was larger than himself.

"I will not become a mere memory..." With those words spoken confidently, yet silently, the ex-General let his wing envelop him. And as his physical body was returned to Kadaj, Sephiroth's spirit energy dove into the Lifestream once more.

With the fall of Sephiroth, things shattered into pieces. The man who had been trusted with the safety of not only the population of the entire city of Midgar, but also the rest of the world, had turned his back on his status as a hero. There was nothing more he wished for than the death of those who went against his will. The rumors and tales of him were true: Sephiroth was strong. So strong that when he fell, his fall really truly was greater than that of any other person. These tales continued to flee the Planet, and every time they were spoken or mentioned, the faces of those who had experienced the great downfall were haunted by shadows. Each of them had, to some extent, felt that their lives were influenced by Shinra's rapidly changing policies and desperation in the wake of Sephiroth's choices. Especially after Sephiroth returned - as a villain feared beyond words, a complete contrast to what he had been before. That was also why the the peace was still strained, even after he was defeated again.

Feared as he was by his enemies Sephiroth continued to live, though only in the shape of pyreflies in the Lifestream. It was an odd thing for such a stained person as himself to admit that he relished in those moments – feeling not only the knowledge, but also experiencing the opinions and thoughts of those who were dead. The Lifestream kept flowing, always. A dark joy came upon him on the few occasions he 'met' President Shinra, whose presence was only despair and anger. He felt nothing at all, however, when he came across the others he had killed. At one time (in the very distant past, when he was still a General) he had felt no hate against them. Later, however, after his 'fall', he came to slowly start disliking them and eventually despising them.

But not now. Now he was merely indifferent.

Even when he came upon the souls of Zack and the woman Sephiroth had stabbed – Aerith – he remained cold, suppressing all emotions. He left them before they could communicate with him in any way. On another occasion he was taken to a woman named Lucrecia(he knew not how her name was so clear to him), but she vanished before he could determine exactly what she was. It was as if she was still alive, only visiting the Lifestream like he had once done himself. He had also been followed for a while, though peacefully, by the samurais, ninjas and warriors of Wutai. They had displayed their feelings of honor and pride to have fought him, but they also made no attempts whatsoever to hide the fact that they were highly... displeased with his downfall – apparently he was staining their pride, because in their eyes, they had lost and been killed by one who was now a great threat to humankind. And in a way, he understood. For now, the only person whose presence he had yet to detect was Rimm. But she was not one he should be thinking of.

While he was in the Lifestream absorbing knowledge, a numb sensation was making him reluctant to move by himself, so he gave in to the currents and let the Lifestream show him memories of places and times he had not experienced during his own lifetime.

When he finally found another physical host for himself, he quietly ascended upon the Planet once more.

And as coincidence wanted it, the place that appeared before his eyes when he opened them, was Gongaga. Zack's hometown, and also Rimm's.

R.R.
Well, the time skip had to be done. I'll make up for deh shortness later.