BOOK TWO: PURSUIT

TWO

I paused for a moment in my recollection of Nibelheim and took a sip of the drink I'd brought with me. My throat had been getting a little dry with all the talking I'd been doing. And I found I needed to collect my thoughts a bit before moving on to the darker parts of my tale. The others all sat and waited, and I actually found it a little amusing at how drawn into the whole thing they had become.

"So you went to the reactor in the morning?" Aerith asked.

I nodded. "Yeah. But first, we all went over to the field just outside the Shinra Mansion to wait for our guide. That was Tifa."

Aerith grinned. "The childhood friends reunite!"

"I was really surprised with her. I hadn't known that she was going to be our guide. Her dad was there to see us off, since he was the leader of the town. He wasn't happy about it, though."

"I remember," Tifa said. "He told me he had a bad feeling about the mission and hadn't wanted me to be a part of it."

Barret glanced at her. "But you went anyway, I bet."

She sighed. "Yeah…"

I looked at her, noticing how she still seemed a bit uneasy. Tifa had relaxed her fists and had stopped clenching them, but she wasn't acting like herself. She kept biting her lower lip as she sat in her chair, leaning forward as she waited for me to continue my story. I figured something about it was bothering her, but I didn't know what it was, although the story itself was disturbing enough on its own.

In any case, there wasn't much I could do about it at the moment. I took another sip of my drink, set it down on the side table next to me, and prepared to continue telling what had happened all those years ago in Nibelheim. The second day of that mission would see our trek up to the reactor and a horrific discovery within it.

I saw that a small crowd had gathered near the Shinra Mansion as I walked up. Sephiroth and the two soldiers were out there, and so was the martial artist I'd met at the inn last night, Zangan. A photographer stood nearby along with few curious townsfolk, and talking with Sephiroth—or more accurately, arguing with him—was Tifa's father, the mayor. He was clearly agitated, but I didn't know why at first.

He was glaring, a frown creasing his face and causing the hairs of the thin moustache above his upper lip to bristle. "Listen to me, Sephiroth. If something happens up there…"

"Trust me," Sephiroth cut him off, then looked at me as I walked up. "Once the guide gets here, we're heading out."

It was only a moment later that I heard footsteps behind me. When I turned around to see who was coming, my eyes widened. It was Tifa. She wore a white sleeveless blouse, a vest of tooled brown leather with a short skirt to match, a pair of leather boots that reached up to her knees, and a wide-brimmed brown hat sitting on her head. She looked a lot like one of those chocobo wranglers I'd heard about once.

"I'll be alright, Dad!" Tifa said, walking right up to him. "I have two men from SOLDIER with me."

He sighed. "I know, but…"

"I'm Tifa!" she ignored him and turned to us. "Nice to meet you!"

Finally, I found my voice. "Tifa! You're the guide?"

"That's right," she answered proudly, her hands on her hips. "I just so happen to be the number one guide in this town."

"It's too dangerous! I can't get you involved in this!"

Sephiroth's cold gaze swept over me. "That won't be a problem if you protect her. Let's go."

But before we could get moving, the photographer hurried over to us, holding his camera in both hands. "Mr. Sephiroth! Please let me take one picture for a memento!"

Sephiroth sighed. "I don't have time for this…"

"Tifa, can you ask him for me, too?" the photographer pleaded.

She glanced uneasily back and forth between me and Sephiroth and blinked, seemingly unsure of what to do. I took her hand before she could respond, raced over to the fence, and posed with her. I was eager to be in a picture but also hoped this would help resolve things and get Sephiroth to participate. He was still oddly moody, as he had been yesterday, and I hoped this might help him loosen up a bit.

Finally, he walked over and stood on Tifa's other side, and the young photographer grinned and snapped a picture. "Great, thank you! I'll give each of you a copy once I get it developed!"

With that done, we all got ready to leave. Sephiroth started down the trail leading out of town without another word, and Tifa and the soldiers walked slowly behind him. I was just about to follow them when Zangan caught my arm. "There's nothing that'll harm the town, right?"

"Why do you ask?" I wondered.

"The Shinra showed up here to eliminate any information that could damage the company. You pick these things up when you travel as much as I do. Just keep your eyes open."

I nodded. "I will, but it's Sephiroth. He'd never do that."

"Oh, my," he laughed, though there didn't seem to be much humor in it. "You sure do have faith. Just make sure it isn't misplaced."

Of course it wasn't. I knew Sephiroth. He wasn't about to wipe out a whole town. He was cold, sure, and a bit grim sometimes, but beneath all that, he was a good man. Or so I had believed at the time. I should have listened to what Zangan was trying to tell me, but I didn't want to. I just refused to believe that Sephiroth would ever do what he eventually did. I still hate how naive I was, how little I understood.

I shrugged off Zangan's grip and hurried after the others. As we drew near to the mountains, the land steadily rose up, a stony path winding its way through the foothills of the jagged slopes. Pointed spires of dark gray rock stuck out from the ground here and there like monstrous teeth, bent and eerie beneath the overcast sky. An uneasy silence hung over the place as we walked along, and I found myself remembering all the dark stories and rumors about these mountains. The cold air was the same as ever, a chill whisper of wind like the breath of death itself.

I shivered and walked on, following the twisting trail after Sephiroth and the others until we stood at the edge of a deep gorge. A few hundred feet across the gap rose Mt. Nibel itself, a twisting, ugly peak that rose up far into the gloomy sky. A long, narrow bridge of wooden planks fastened with rope hung suspended across the chasm, and for a minute we all just stood there and gazed up at the mountain brooding over us. Somewhere up there was Shinra's mako reactor. It had been built on Mt. Nibel many years ago. I wondered what we would find up there.

Tifa moved first, motioning to us as she stepped out onto the bridge. "It gets harder from here! Follow me!"

"Let's go," Sephiroth ordered.

I nodded and followed him onto the bridge, the soldiers right behind me. The wooden planks creaked and groaned with every step, and I held onto the rope railing and tried not to think about how high we were. As I went along, I couldn't help looking down for a moment. We were about a hundred feet in the air, I guessed, the floor of the gorge far below us, and I looked back up again in a hurry. Although I wasn't as afraid of heights as others, I still knew I'd feel better once we had crossed over to the other side and stood on solid ground again. But no sooner had I taken my next step than there was a sudden snap as one of the rope railings, already old and frayed, flew apart.

"The bridge!" Tifa gasped.

We all held on as the entire bridge suddenly tilted crazily to the side, and then a moment later, the other railing broke apart as well. I tried to keep my grip on it, but the wooden planks under my feet splintered as the bridge snapped in two. I fell, and so did Tifa and the others, and the two halves of the bridge swung away and slammed into the sides of the gorge, hanging limply against the rock as we plummeted down to the bottom of the ravine with a series of startled shouts.

Pain exploded through my body as I landed, and for just a moment I blacked out. When I came to and sat up, I saw that everyone was nearby, either still sitting or already on their feet. I got up and brushed myself off while Sephiroth silently inspected our surroundings. We were at the base of Mt. Nibel, its dark, twisted slopes rising above us like something out of a nightmare. I shivered again, hating this place.

"Everyone seems to be alright," Sephiroth noted. He looked at Tifa as she walked over. "Will we be able to get back?"

She nodded. "These caves are intertwined, like an ant farm. Oh, and Sephiroth… one person seems to be missing…"

I blinked, looking around, and saw Tifa was right. One of the Shinra troopers that had accompanied us was gone. Where was he? I guessed he must have landed in a different spot than we did. I hoped he was alright and that he'd get back to us. These mountains had become home to many strange and deadly monsters ever since the reactor had been built, and it was extremely dangerous for anyone to travel alone in these parts. So far, we had been lucky, but I knew we couldn't count on that.

"It may sound cruel," Sephiroth replied. "But we've no time to search for him. We can't go back now, so we must go on. We'll all travel together from here. Let's go."

Although I didn't like it, I knew Sephiroth was right. We had to get to the reactor, and we had no way of knowing where the other soldier was. I sighed and got moving as we started climbing up the winding path up the mountain. Tifa took the lead with Sephiroth following just a step behind her. I came next, and the other trooper brought up the rear. Before long, I saw a cave entrance yawning open before us.

We stopped for a moment after we stepped inside. Passageways went off in all different directions ahead of us, and the light from outside faded into a cluster of inky shadows not very far away. But it wasn't as dark as I'd thought it would be. There was a strange, pale green glow that faintly illuminated the cave, and I found it oddly soothing.

"What's this?" I wondered.

Tifa looked around. "A mysteriously-colored cave. How pretty…"

"It must be the mako energy," Sephiroth explained. "The mountain is especially abundant in it. That's why the reactor was built here."

We went on, Tifa choosing certain tunnels and passages as she led us steadily upward. We encountered a few monsters lurking about, but they fell quickly enough between me, the trooper, and Sephiroth. Well, mostly Sephiroth, to be honest. He was just too fast, too strong, and the creatures were often dead before I or the trooper could even ready our weapons. It was amazing to watch Sephiroth fight. It really was.

Before long, the corridor we were in opened up into a large, winding ravine on the slopes outside. A few dry, withered trees rose up like lonely sentinels amidst the barren rock and dirt, their twisted, leafless branches stretching out toward the sky like skeletal fingers. That chill, endless wind whispered through the air, cooling my cheeks as I walked with the others up the path toward the summit.

About halfway through the ravine we stopped short and stared for a moment. Just ahead of us lay a low mound of rock surrounded by a pool of shallow water. Nestled within an old tree stump atop that natural dais was a clump of greenish crystal, glowing brightly and bathing the area in a soft emerald radiance.

"And what's this?" I asked.

Sephiroth crossed over the shallow pool to the mound, and Tifa and I joined him as he spoke. "A mako fountain. It's a miracle of nature."

"It's so beautiful…" Tifa murmured. "But if the reactor keeps sucking out allthe energy, this fountain will dry up…"

"Materia," Sephiroth continued, his eyes fixed on the crystal. "When you condense mako energy, it produces materia.It's extremely rare to see materia in its natural state."

I glanced at him. "By the way… why is it that when you use materia, you can also use magic, too?"

"You're in SOLDIER and don't even know that?"

I shook my head. "No, sorry. I guess I missed that lecture."

He sighed. "The knowledge and wisdom of the Ancients is held in the materia. Anyone with this knowledge can use the powers of the land and the planet. That knowledge then interacts with ourselves and the planet, calling up magic… or so they say."

"Magic…" I muttered. "A mysterious power…"

Sephiroth laughed, loud and long, and I nearly jumpedin disbelief. I had never heard him sound so lighthearted before, so humorous. So… so normal. It was almost shocking, and for a moment all I could do was just stand there and gape at him.

"Did I say somethin' funny?" I asked.

"A man once told me never to use unscientific terms like 'mysterious power'," Sephiroth replied, composing himself. "It shouldn't even be called magic! I still remember how angry he was."

"Who was that?"

Sephiroth's eyes narrowed, his lip curling in disgust. "Hojo of Shinra. An inexperienced man assigned to take over the work of a great scientist. He was a walking mass of complexes."

"A mako fountain…" Tifa marveled. "So this is where the knowledge of the Ancients is."

We pressed on, climbing up the rocky, winding path as it twisted and turned its way up the slope. About an hour later, the reactor finally came into view, a tall cylinder of copper and bronze atop a high elliptical stone and metal platform. A network of thick pipes stretched off to the left and connected to a pair of holding tanks, one large and one small, set into the ground. In the front, a long set of metal stairs led up to an open doorway on the platform, and the Shinra logo was emblazoned across the very top of the reactor itself, just under the narrow dome of the roof and the wide ventingpipe rising up from it.

Tifa sighed in relief as we approached the stairs. "We finally made it. We sure took the long way, though."

"Tifa, you wait here," I told her. "It could be dangerous."

She put her hands on her hips. "I'm going inside, too! I wanna see!"

Sephiroth shook his head. "Only authorized personnel can go inside. This place is full of Shinra's industrial secrets."

"But!" Tifa protested.

"Take care of the lady," Sephiroth instructed the trooper.

He nodded and moved a bit closer to her as Sephiroth and I climbed the stairs. Just before we reached the top, I heard Tifa complaining again, and I couldn't resist a slight grin at her words. Of course she was curious, and I knew that she wasn't happy about being left behind. But Sephiroth was right, and it was for the best, anyway. I glanced over my shoulder for a moment and saw the trooper shaking his head at her.

"Mm, man!" Tifa huffed. "Better take real good care of me, then!"

Turning away, I followed Sephiroth insidethe reactor, navigating the maze of pipes, chains, and walkways that filled the core. Far below us lay swirling pools of mako as well as the lifestream itself, and steam filled the air around us. A broad platform encircled by pipes and a railing stood at the far end of the mainwalkway, which was little more than a huge pipe itself anda pair of low railings as it stretched all the way across the room. Set in the back of the platform was another doorway, and a nest of dials, valves, and spinning gears dominated the walls on either side of it. From within the doorway, a soft orange glow spilled onto the platform from the room beyond, and the hum of machinery filled the air.

Within the next room, the floor rose up at a steep angle with several tiered rows of egg-like pods on either side of a central staircase. A thicket of huge pipes covered the walls in ceiling, and they and the stairs were all a rusty, metallic red. The pods were all gray, and each had a single round window in the front. What was inside them? I found I wasn't really sure I wanted to know. At the very top of the stairs I saw another door, but this one was closed, and just above it, a curving sign showed a single word. It was a name—Jenova. Sephiroth stood in front ofthe door, lost in thought as he gazed at it and the sign overhead.

"This is… Jenova, right?" I said, pulling on the door. It didn't budge. "It won't open…"

Sephiroth blinked as though he'd been splashed with cold water, then walked back down the stairs to the first row of pods. I followed after him, hoping he was alright. I hadn't meant to startle him. Why had he been so engrossed in studying that door? What was on the other side? Jenova, but what was that? What did it mean? At the time, I hadn't known. But soon enough, I would find out. All I knew then was that the name Jenova was vaguely familiar, but where I had heard it before, I couldn't remember. It dangled just on the edge of my mental grasp like greens before a plodding chocobo. It was maddening.

"This is what caused the malfunction," Sephiroth knelt at the base of one of the pods and pointed. "This part is broken."

I joined him and nodded. "I see it…"

The valve had burst open at some point, mist and mako flooding the floor around here. No doubt the leak had caused the contamination that was responsible for creating the monsters infesting the region, although I wondered how that alone could do it.

"Cloud, close the valve," Sephiroth ordered.

I did so, snapping it back into place and twisting it until locked with an audible click. After tugging on the valve a bit to make sure it was tight enough that it wouldn't come loose again, I stood back up from where I'd been kneeling and followed Sephiroth over to one of the pods on the other side of the stairs. He still seemed preoccupied, and I could hear him as he muttered to himself whilehe stood before the pod.

"Why did it break?" he murmured.

Then he took a look inside the pod's window. It was a long look, and for several moments, he didn't even move. I saw his green eyes narrow as he stared coldly at whatwas inside. "Now I see, Hojo. But doing this will never put you on the same level as professor Gast."

"What is it?" I asked.

He turned to me, pointing to the pods and pipes all around us. "This is a system that condenses and freezes the mako energy. That is, when it's working correctly. Now, what does mako energy become when it's further condensed. Do you remember?"

After a moment's thought, I did. "Oh, yeah! It becomes materia."

"Normally, yes," Sephiroth nodded. "But listen closely. This reactor is no ordinary power plant. Hojo put something else in there."

"Something else?" I wondered.

He pointed to the pod. "Take a look."

As soon as I did, my eyes widened. "W-What is that!?"

Inside the pod was a nightmare. A monstrous thing that was all hard gray skin, a cluster of horns sprouting from its head, and a face that was vaguely, terrifyingly human, with clenched teeth and closed eyes. I stared for a moment, then staggered backwards a few steps and collapsed into a sitting position, my eyes still locked on the pod and its horrific contents. I couldn't believe it. I just couldn't.

Sephiroth went on. "Normal members of SOLDIER are humans who have been infused with mako. You're different from the others, of course, but still human. But what are they? They've been exposed to a far higher degree of mako than you."

I shivered as I stood up. "Is this some kind of monster?"

"Exactly. And it's Hojo of Shinra that made these monsters. Mutated living organisms produced byprolonged exposure to extremely high levels of mako energy. That's what monsters really are."

"Normal members of SOLDIER?" I mused. "Are you different?"

When he didn't answer right away, I looked over at him from where I'd been staring at the pods. When I did, I nearly jumped out of my skin. Sephiroth was clutching his head with both hands, his eyes squeezed shut as if he were in pain. He trembled and shook with barely restrained rage, and my eyes widened in alarm. "H-Hey, Sephiroth!"

"No…" he breathed. "Was I?"

He drew his katana and started slashing at the pods, his eyes ablaze, and I shrank back. What was going on? What was he talking about? He sliced and slashed, but the pods resisted even his blows, the sound of their impact ringing in the air with each stroke as the bade hummed with the movement. I backed up, wondering how I was going to calm him down. I had never seen him like this before.

"Were you what?" I asked. "Sephiroth, what's going on?"

He kept speaking to himself as if he hadn't heard me. "Was I created this way, too?"

"Sephiroth…" I tried again.

At first, he continued to ignore me, crossing back over to the left side of the stairs to slash at the pods there. But after having no more luck with them than with the others, he finally answered me, though he didn't turn around to look at me yet. "Am I the same as all these monsters? You saw it! All of them… were human…"

I shook my head. "Human!? No way!"

Those things couldn't have been human. Could they? I didn't want to believe it. But that face I had seen in the pod, it had been partly human. I couldn't deny it, as much as I wanted to. And if that was true, what was Sephiroth? Was he right? Had he been made like this in some way? It was a chilling thought, one I didn't care for at all.

"Ever since I was small," Sephiroth sighed, finally looking at me. "I've felt… that I was different from everyone else. Special, in some way. But… not like this. Not like this…"

Just then, one of the pods on the upper level shuddered as a shock of electricity coursed over it, blue bolts sizzling and crackling as the monster inside snarled and woke up. Jets of steam suddenly shot from the pod one after another through seams along the sides, and a moment later, it burst open, the front half falling forward onto the floor and taking the creature with it. It lay there, growling and looking up at the pipes above us. It had a tough gray hide all over its upper arms and body, but its muscular legs were a bright orange, and its fingers and toes ended in sharp claws. This had been human once? I couldn't believe it.

As I watched, Sephiroth slowly climbed the stairs and walked over to the open pod and the monster lying in front of it. For several minutes, he just looked at the thing, gazing down at it impassively as it twitchedand grunted, apparently still not fullyaware of its surroundings. Then it saw Sephiroth, its eyesmeeting hisand holding them for a moment. I found I couldn't breathe, and everything seemed to stop as I watched and waited, wondering what was going to happen next. My heart was pounding, and my feet felt locked in place.

In a blur of motion and steel, Sephiroth slashedhis katana across the monster's chest. I gasped, staring in shock and utter disbelief with my jaw hanging open as the thing gurgled and died. Sure, it had been a monster, but… it had just been laying there, not attacking anyone. Sephiroth kept looking at it, watching it die, his pale green eyes taking it all in. Suddenly I wasn't so sure I knew him anymore.

"Am I… human?" Sephiroth murmured.

I didn't really understand what he meant. But what surprised me as well was the fact that Shinra was producing monsters. Experimenting on people and turning them into horrific creatures. Not to mention what the leaking mako was doing to all the other wildlife, mutating it into vicious and deadly beasts. How could the company possibly allow such a thing? I didn't want to believe it, but it was right there in front of me.

Sephiroth sheathed his katana and headed back down the stairs. He brushed past me without a word and walked out of the room. With a last look around, I sighed and followed after him, still shaken by everything I had seen and learned. Passing through the doorway, I watched Sephiroth return across the main walkway and wondered what was going on in his mind and if he would be alright.

"Them damn Shinra bastards!" Barret swore. "The more I hear, the more I hate 'em!"

I felt exactly the same way. "Who would have ever thought that the mako reactor held such a terrible secret?"

I just… I just couldn't believe it. No wonder Sephiroth had kept me from going in. I wondered then how much he had suspected before he actually went inside. Cloud couldn't have known, of course. But… that wasn't the only thing. And that bothered me. His story, it… well, so far, there was a lot that fit my own memories, but… there were other parts that I wasn't so sure of. But I also knew that he hadn't finished it yet. So I decided to let him do that, first. Then I could take some time to think about the whole thing and go from there.

"Tifa…" Aerith asked me, "Were you waiting outside?"

I nodded. "Yes…"

"We returned to Nibelheim," Cloud went on. "After that, Sephiroth confined himself to the inn. He didn't even try to talk to me."

"Then he just disappeared, right?" I recalled.

"Yeah. We found him inside the biggest building in Nibelheim."

I glanced at the others as I explained. "The villagers all used to call it the Shinra mansion. It was really creepy…"

I had never been in it myself, but I could remember walking past it many times. I had even stopped once or twice to look at it. Standing by the fence and gazing uneasily at the huge old house that had sat empty and abandoned for decades, I had shivered at the thought of what must have gone on in there so long ago. There was no shortage of stories and rumors, of course, but nothing certain. And nobody, at least as far as I had known then, had ever dared to venture inside the mansion to learn the truth. I wasn't sure I wanted to know what it was.

Cloud continued. "Long ago, some people from Shinra used to live in that mansion…"

"You're sure that's where he went?" I asked.

The soldier, my buddy who'd had some trouble with motion sickness and who had returned with us from Mt. Nibel, nodded. "Yeah. I saw him go in there a little while ago while I was on lookout."

I took his shoulder. "Good job. Let's go!"

Together, we left the inn and headed outside. Then we hurried across town to the Shinra Mansion. Gathered around the front gate was a small crowd of people including Tifa, her father, the martial artist Zangan, and the photographer who had taken our picture earlier. They were all gazing at the big old house beyond the fence, but as the trooper and I walked up, they looked at me, my own uneasiness mirrored in their eyes. Motioning for my friend to wait with the others, I went on ahead, walking down the path to the front door, and entered the mansion.

Inside, I stood within the main hall on the first floor and just looked around for a moment. On either side of me were two smaller rooms, and ahead of me to the right next to the wall, an old wooden staircase curved upward to the second floor, where the hallway there stretched off both to the left and the right. Under the stairs was another doorway, and a third stood right beneath the second floor hallway. A fourth doorway stood on the first floor across from the one under the stairs, and above the second floor hallway, light shone in from three stained glass windows. Dust and cobwebs covered everything, including the floor.

A trail of footprints led up the stairs, and so I followed it. The prints didn't belong to Sephiroth, though. I could tell that right away. They were from another soldier, the driver of the truck. He had stayed behind when the rest of us had journeyed to the reactor on Mt. Nibel, and so I guessed he must have come in here not long ago.

I found him just a minute later, in one of the upstairs bedrooms. His tracks had turned right when they reached the top of the stairs, and then right again at the end of the hall where it split in two directions. He stood just inside the room, his eyes fixed on another doorway at the end of the lefthand wall. This was more a sitting room, actually, and I guessed that the second doorway led into the actual bedroom.

"There's no sign of Sephiroth," he said as I approached, "but I know I saw him go into this room…"

I went into the bedroom and looked around. It was empty, as he had said. The full-sized bed sat in the corner ahead of me alongside a pair of small windows, and a bookcase rested against the left side of the opposite wall. Next to it, the stone wall curved around to the window and the iron lamp hanging near it. Where was Sephiroth?

I walked over to the bookcase, not sure what to do, and looked at the rows of leatherbound volumes on the shelves. Cobwebs and dust lay here just as they did everywhere else, but as I looked more closely, I saw it had been slightly disturbed around one of the books near the top. Wondering what that might mean, I reached up and started to pull out the book. But when I did, it only went so far, held fast by some hidden mechanism as a loud mechanical grinding sound filled my ears and the stone wall next to me suddenly slid open to reveal a winding staircase.

Not wasting a moment, I hurried down the wooden stairs, following them as they spiraled down into the gloom. At the bottom, I found myself standing in a long, roughunderground tunnel, almost like a cave. Thick, rusted iron chains hung downfrom the ceiling here and there, and what looked like bones lay strewn across the rocky floor in several places along the walls. I swallowed and made my way down the tunnel, not sure what I was going to find down here but sureSephiroth had been here.

Near the end of the tunnelwas a thick wooden door set into the wall on myleft. I stopped for just a moment, tugged on it, but it wouldn't even budge. Then I saw that it was locked with a large iron padlock. So much for that idea. What was in there? I wondered for a minute, then decided that it didn't really matter. Maybe I would find out some other time. But for now, I had other things to worry about.

At the far end of the passageway was another door, but this one was open. Inside was what looked like a laboratory. Shelves full of books and beakers lined the walls, and in the middle of the room stood a large table covered with papers, lamps, bottles, and other various items. Against the far right wall stood a pair of cylindrical reinforced glass tubes big enough for a person to fit inside, though they were both empty now. To the left, a short tunnel lined with more bookshelves led out of sight.

Sephiroth was there, pacing restlessly across the room, a large leather book grasped in his hands as he read from it aloud. "An apparently dead organism was discoveredin a 2,000 year-old layer of rock. Professor Gast named theorganism 'Jenova'. Jenova confirmed to be an Ancient. Jenova Project approved. Mako Reactor 1 approved for use."

He walked into the short passageway, ignoring me completely, and I followed him, both curious and concerned. What had he found in here? I wasn't sure I wanted to know, but I couldn't leave, either. I needed to find out what was going on with him. Sephiroth paused for a moment within the short hallway, looking up and talking to himself.

"My mother's name is Jenova," he murmured. "The Jenova Project… Is this just a coincidence? Professor Gast… Why? Why didn't you tell me anything? Why did you die?"

I walked up to him, but he shook his head. "Let me be alone."

Reluctantly, I did as he asked. I left the laboratory and made my way back upstairs. But as I did, I decided I'd stay the night here, just in case. I didn't want to go too far. He might want to talk later, and I wanted to be here if he did. I had no idea just how misguided those thoughts were. Not yet, anyway. In any case, I made my way across the upstairs hall and sat down inside another bedroom, worrying about Sephiroth and wondering what was going to happen next.

Sephiroth never left the mansion. He continued to read as if he were possessed by something, and not once did the lights in the basement ever go out. I checked on him now and again but never said anything or even let him know I was there. I would just peek in on him from time to time. Finally, after leaving the manor for a short time to visit my mom and get something to eat, I returned to the upstairs bedroom I had entered earlier and lay down on the bed. It was actually comfortable despite its age, and I fell asleep within minutes, completely unaware of the terrible nightmare that would take place tomorrow.