Best Kept Secret
The documents were opened quickly. If only the president had known sooner; Hojo's mission was suicide. He hadn't planned on everything the way they turned out, but rather led them to this culmination. The notes started from the very beginning; only a few days after the passing of Professor Gast.
"This building rejects me. There are things here that repel me, perhaps for my intentions. I need to know what happened here. Why would he keep something from me? Stupid old man, you knew I'd find out eventually."
The building referred to was the ShinRa Mansion. It was home to the secret laboratory of Gast; the company also decided to hold his funeral there. The building was one big cover-up, and everyone knew it. They didn't know what exactly was being hidden and by the time Rufus became president, all who knew the mansion's true secrets were long deceased. Only two people remaining knew the truth; professor Gast and another man, a former Turk who met his final resting place within the mansion, long taken care of.
"How curious! I found a little man in the basement…. Beyond a hidden staircase by the upstairs fireplace." Hojo walked the route to the cavern deep below the building. It led him to a treasure trove of the planet's secrets. There waiting for him was a desk surrounded by a small library of forbidden information.
The terms flooded Hojo's mind, from the Temple of the Ancients to Sephiroth. So much time had he spent in the Science Department away from the light of the outside world, he had let his teacher wander on these journeys of information that nobody knew of.
Sephiroth and Jenova… and the man who had tried to put a stop to this all, Vincent. He studied them all. He read the truth about all the rumors that had circulated past his office; of a top-rank Soldier just vanishing; of a senior Turk being fired for insubordination. This Vincent, he found out about Jenova and Sephiroth and tried to kill them both. He was found out and his former team had been ordered to punish him. The man still lived in the room next to this one, but why wake someone with that many demons? He can't possibly live much longer without decomposing!
Then he found it; documentation of extra-terrestrial life. He had hit the jackpot. It was one of the darkest secrets, all there before him in a twenty-four page biological report. JENOVA. A living being thousands of years old, found and imprisoned in the Nibel Mountains. Gast called it the Calamity of the Sky. He concluded that this being, returning to our planet, was the cause of the destruction of the ancient race, the blood-heirs to the planet. Hojo thought to himself what kind of weapon could be created from this alien.
He did not have to look hard to find the answer right in front of him. Who was Sephiroth? He was somehow linked to Jenova, but how? The realization hit him hard in the face. Gast did create a weapon; the ultimate Soldier, the very first. Only one survived the experimentation. Only in this particular host, had the cells of Jenova mixed freely with the pure Mako energy infused within; a terrifying result.
The power to rule worlds; the power to destroy worlds. Hojo wanted this power, but before he could begin his search for Gast's weapon, he read about Ifalna. This woman was a survivor of the Ancients. If there was anyone that could provide him answers to the secrets of the planet, it was her.
The address was vague. Gast mentioned her living "somewhere on the northern continent." He was hiding her. The old president of ShinRa was willing to give Hojo all the resources he needed to pursue the Ancient, sure that it would hold the key to many riches; the Promised Land being the ultimate goal.
Icicle Town was empty, however. Videos of Ifalna and Gast could be found. Somewhere in time, the woman had fled the town. She would not be die so easily and must be hiding. Hojo decided that it was time to put the Turks to work. They would find the woman and hand her over to Hojo for interrogation; experimentation.