Author: Alright, where did this come from? I wrote it as a second submission for the deviantART united contest of the three canon fanclubs: Red Leather, Silver Elite and Keepers of Honor, themed no less than: "WHO'S GOT THE MOST FANGIRLS?" So read it at your own risk. Oh well, maybe you shouldn't eat or drink while reading...
Disclaimer: Angeal, Genesis and Sephiroth belong to Squeenix. At least as long as the cursed bugs won't reach Japan too... /goes away cackling/
HOW WE WON THE WUTAI WAR...
(excerpts from Angeal's journal and mail archive)
** Monday, 5th of MAY **
„This could be really interesting to know, I tell you." Genesis mused, resting his chin on one hand as the three of us sat in the ShinRa cafeteria sipping the local slop pompously called Corellian coffee, and contemplating the dessert consisting of some unidentified mixture of which I wasn't even sure I really wanted to know what it contained.
Now Mom, I know what you're gonna say and there's no need, you're right: we step in that lair as rare as we can, believe me! You taught me how to cook well enough and we made a point in cooking our meals ourselves, in our own quarters, from the best ingredients we can find on the market. And yes, I know you have always insisted that we should never touch a dish if we can't name the things that went into it, but you gotta remember that we're at war here, we had just returned from a mission in Wutai, hungry like wolves and we couldn't go back to our quarters because the president wanted to see us as soon as he was out from some meeting he had.
So there we were, getting bored in the cafeteria, all three of us – me, Seph and Gen – surrounded by piles of plates already emptied of the most edible things we could find there and making small talk to kill our time.
„I mean," Genesis went on ranting „that's really something, huh? We actually have fanclubs!"
Oh goody! One way or the other, this didn't sound good to me. He looked too pleased about this nonsense.
„How on Gaia did you find out about this anyway?" I yawned, slumping in my chair with tiredness.
He just threw me one of his „duh!" looks, rolling his eyes.
„How do you think? Something reached my ears through the local rumours, so I grabbed that annoying Kunsel brat by the neck and asked him in my most menacing tone to spill the beans right away..."
„Who's Kunsel?" Seph mumbled, his head already fallen on the table over his crossed arms.
Genesis grimaced.
„Oh you know him for sure. It's that lil bugger always sporting a helmet to conceal the fact that he doesn't have a brain behind his face."
„And why him?" I wondered.
Genesis rolled his eyes again in mock exasperation.
„Duh, Angeal, use that head of yours! It's because he sticks his nose in friggin' everything on a daily basis, so he was bound to know something of course!"
„And?"
„And so I found out that we do have FANCLUBS for real! Yeah, you better believe it! We do! There are actually FANGIRLS after us!", Genesis chuckled in obvious delight.
„What's..." came another muffled mumble from Seph, whose eyes were closed by now.
„It's alright Sephy-boy," Gen patted him on the shoulder, still grinning, „you don't have to know the meaning of these words, I'm pretty sure they're not even in your dictionary."
„And the point in knowing all this is...?" I asked blandly.
„Oh c'mon Angii! Figure that out! We have fangirls, like some rock stars or something! Who would have thought? Now wouldn't it be cool if we found out just, say... how many they are?"
I backed away immediately.
„Nope. Not interested."
„C'moooon!" he poked at my ribs, while I crossed my arms raising one eyebrow. „Like... to know which one of us has more?"
I just felt like smacking my face. You know how he is, Mom, when he gets himself started on something. We never get to see the end of it, most of the time.
„Oh yeah?" I mocked him trying to cut this whole thing down while it was still young, „And what are you planning on doing? Find'em, line'em up and count them one by one?"
He rubbed his chin with a thoughtful mien. Really Mom, he was already taking it seriously! I could almost hear the thoughts buzzing in his nutsy head! You realize that by then I was already deeply sorry for even letting me dragged into this silly conversation in the first place, especially that Seph, „Mr Cold Shower" as it was, had already sunk into slumber by the look of it.
„Hmmmm..." Genesis mused, „That might not be such a big problem after all."
And he elbowed Seph, then shook him by the shoulder.
„Hey Seph! Remember that „dA" site I showed you about a week ago, with all kinds of art and stuff?"
„Mmmmmhmmmphhh... Something like „delusionalART or „defectiveART", uh?..." gargled poor Seph from the table.
„It's dementialART, buddy. And yeah, that one! Well, according to that lil Kunsel scum, all of our three fanclubs have galleries there, where the members can post all kinds of shit about us, fanart and stuff. Now think about it, if we only look on the site and see how many members each group has... and watchers too... and how many pageviews they get, we're gonna have a pretty good idea of which one of us has the most..."
At this point Seph's head shot up from the table and, looking much more awake than I would've thought, he interrupted Gen stating calmly:
„That won't work. It would only if the three groups were created at the same time, which won't be the case most probably. Only then the number of members and whatever else would be conclusive, otherwise it doesn't mean a thing."
I hid my face in my hands. Darn this math head! He should have stayed asleep, gah! And me thinking he would help chilling Gen down. Now we really aren't gonna see the end of this, ever...
„Well then," Mr Trouble kept on drilling, „We're gonna have to find something else in this case. Like..."
At that point he just remained there stilled, hand in the air and mouth half-open, his eyes glued on one of the screens hanging all around...
I've never been interested in the news, as you know. Everyone in ShinRa is very much aware of the fact that they're just a huge pile of crappy lies, nicely trimmed and adorned for the large public to swallow. But we still pay attention to them every now and then, if nothing else then to see what goes around beyond politics. So I followed Gen's look only to see some reporter speaking about an accident or such. Genesis watched mesmerized as a doctor, interviewed by the reporter, was giving an account on the number of the hospitalized victims. Then his eyes flashed shortly with a menacing surge of mako...
... And that's pretty much how it all started, I guess.
** Tuesday, 13th of MAY **
Dear Mom, war goes on just the same for now. Well, not exactly goes, more like drags on. We don't even need to fly there to Wutai too often lately, so these days we were mostly in Midgar, resting and taking care of the local tasks.
This day I'm talking about, me, Seph and Gen were somewhere up the Plate at The Apple Dome, our favourite pastry'n'coffee place, sitting at our table on the private section of their terrace. Gen was having the Apple Snapper – a sort of apple pie of course, with lots of cream topping and chocolate splinters. Seph was peacefully enjoying his favourite dessert, the Vanilla Blast, that makes me think of a pagoda made of sweet biscuits and fruits and a whole mixture of different sorts of icecream, the vanilla-flavoured one being the main variety of course. As for me, I just went for the pancakes, well-seasoned with Banora's Deep Purple, Gen's juice. You know, this is the only place in Midgar where you can actually find the real thing, as in products based on our dumbapples and, understandably, it's the only place where Gen accepted to have his own stuff sold.
I must confess he talked me into betting with him about the sales of these three treats we were having taking off in a few days. I know, I know Mom, you told me often enough not to bet with Gen ever again, ugh!... Believe me, I lived to regret it soon enough, cos the sales exploded sky-high only the next day and don't even ask me how much this cost me already.
So, as I told you, we were relaxing up there, enjoying one of the so rare clear days in Midgar and having fun talking about girls, girlfriends and other such stuff.
No, we don't have any, Mom. No girlfriends for us so far, eh. Gen pretends there's a whole herd after him and I'm telling you, when he passes on the ShinRa halls, every woman in view, be it a secretary or whatelse, makes eyes at him and bats her lashes in the most ridiculous way and every time he goes out he's with another girl, but a permanent girlfriend? No.
And Seph... can you even imagine Seph chasing the tail of a girl? That would be the day! Well yes, it's true there's this flower girl he buys flowers from quite often, but that's all there is to it, believe me. I know you're gonna say that's how it usually starts, today you buy a flower from the girl, tomorrow she's already the flower of your heart or something, eh! But I've seen her too a couple of times and she's merely in her early teens, a little child in a white dress with some blue frills.
Funny thing my pup bumped into her too and they seem to have become some friends of sorts. She even asked him to make her a trolley for the flowers so she could carry more with her – and he did, but when it was ready, the little vixen said something like:
„Is this a flower trolley for real? It looks more like a garbage bin on wheels to me!"
Understandably poor Zack came back all withered, slumping and wailing about how it's absolutely impossible to fulfil a girl's wishes and I felt really sorry for him, but if Seph is already involved in all this in any way, be it by just buying flowers from this girl and nothing else, then I don't think the poor pup stood any chance in the first place. Like, you know, what girl would look at anyone else in the world when Seph is around in the picture, with his gorgeous looks? Duh!
As for me... well, you know.
Then Gen just had to drop the bomb:
„Hey guys, remember that talk we had some time ago about seeing which one of us has the most fangirls?" he chimed.
My back stiffened instinctively while Seph just raised one eyebrow and asked, still digging in his icecream pagoda at the same time:
„What's into you? I thought you've gotten over this already."
Gen just grinned misteriously.
„No way, the fun has only just begun!"
Has. Not „is". It already has. Damn it, I should've paid more attention to this.
„What are you talking about?", Seph asked innocently, popping into his mouth another frozen cherry.
„I'm talking about discovering how to keep an exact count of them fangirls AND differentiate them by fanclubs, mwahaha!"
And he released a short evil laugh, which sent shivers down my spine.
„And how exactly are you going to do that?" I asked warily.
Genesis looked at me and I swear to Goddess Minerva herself, Mom, that I could see the dark pits of Hell in his eyes and Ifrit howling with joy. Heavens above protect us all!
„Ahem!", he coughed. „Well, where should I start? I don't suppose that a few days ago, when we talked about this for the first time in the cafeteria, you happened to notice that around us there were quite a few girls from the staff, huh? Well, dismiss my question, I'm sure you didn't even notice them. But now put your minds to it and add two plus two: what do we have? We have a company full of women. We have three fanclubs that don't seem to have any connection with ShinRa, but still post on their sites all kinds of trivia about us that can only be known by some ShinRa employees. So we have the system. And we have girls in and we have girls out. Girls in that know things, girls out that find out about things they shouldn't know. Ergo, girls in give or sell the info to girls out. It's as simple as that."
„Hah, but then," he chuckled deviously, „we also have shrewd, cunning, bright-minded Genesis Rhapsodos, who of course figures out this whole scheme in the blink of an eye. So what does he do? He takes Reno, another fair-minded redhead, and starts chatting with him in the very same girl-populated cafeteria about, say, his and his friends' dessert preferences and the only place in the city where you can find the real things – which is this one, of course – and they make sure to have this very interesting conversation precisely at the peak of the lunch hour, when the place practically swarms with ShinRa female staff. Now add for good measure the fact that at the nearest table no one else than that Kunsel weasel has his lunch too and he's all ears under that stupid helmet of his. Come to think of it, I suspect in fact that he must have some amplifying device hidden under the thing, to catch the slightest whisper. Hmmm..."
He stopped talking and his eyes narrowed while he pulled at a nail with his teeth.
„Should put Reno on his tail." he mumbled. „Have him tamper with that device, maybe turn up its volume to blast the stupid bugger's tympan. Though if he goes deaf, that would render him useless for future info intoxication. Huh. Gotta think about this later."
Me and Seph looked at each other. Seph even rolled his finger around one ear in a very meaningful gesture. As in „he's nuts". No news, huh?
„Anyway", Genesis went on ranting, „Imagine that the day before all this, the same bright-minded SOLDIER 1st Class – yours truly that is! – together with Reno, launches a joint operation between SOLDIER and Turks and together they sneak into some despicable places ruled by those two skunks that like to call themselves scientists. Hojo and Hollander by their names. Aaand what business do they have there, going in those lairs of doom by their own will and not dragged forcefully? Well, they, hm... borrow some stuff. Various slops'n'dusts. They carry their loot somewhere else and, putting their creative minds to use, they cleverly mix the things."
My eyes fell on Seph, whose spoon had remained in the air for the last few minutes while he was listening and I realized that in the meantime I myself had unconsciously torn a pancake to tiny crumbs that filled the plate in piles.
„Well now," Genesis shrugged, „Do I have to do the math for you guys? Genesis Rhapsodos, father of Banora's Deep Purple, has access to this place's stores and cooking spaces, so he makes sure the recipes of the three awesome desserts are slightly changed to contain some small additions he worked so hard at with Reno. Don't worry, they won't be lethal of course. Just... bothersome enough as to clearly tag aaaall the people that eat them, heh heh! Each dessert – a different outcome. Now all we have to do is watch the news and keep count of the girls hospitalized for each kind of symptoms and voila! There's the most accurate score you can get. Am I a genius, or what?"
And he sat back in his chair with the most pleased grin splitting his face.
Sweet Minerva, I just knew it wasn't Tuesday the 13th today just for nothing...
At this point you can tell me and Seph were frozen in our seats. I could see in Seph's eyes that suddenly the icecream pagoda didn't seem so enticing to him anymore; then he just pushed it away with a pained look. As for my pancakes, they were throwing dirty glances at me, sneering with their juice drop fangs in a very telltale way, while my stomach curled in terror inside me. Ten Wutaian warriors dressed to kill wouldn't make me bat an eye, but my childhood friend Genesis? He could scare the lights out of me any given moment.
„What should we expect?" Seph asked with a tiny shred of voice.
Gen watched him blankly for a moment, then sneered.
„Oh, relax! We're stuffed with mako, nothing can happen to us. We can eat loads of the stuff."
„Right! I don't trust anything that comes out of the labs...", Seph wailed, slumping in his chair.
(„Especially messed with by you and Reno of all people.", I would have added)
We went back home in a funeral silence, furtively rubbing our bellies at times and expecting the worst. Gen was unfazed and he had the rest of his pie wrapped up to take it with him for later.
** 14th of MAY (the next day) **
We're fine, thank Goddess! At least he was right, this psycho. It didn't seem to harm us in any way. But the TV programs are flooded every hour with news about some mysterious medical conditions that affect mostly teen girls. The hospitals are already threatened to get crowded. There's a variety of loose bowels, one that makes the poor girls croak instead of talking and one that causes them to get covered in feathers on the upper part of their back. In the worst cases some of them even sprouted remnants of wings!
Genesis just shrugged and said they would disappear in a few days.
How can he know for sure? ?...
** End of MAY **
Hospitals can't face it anymore. The number of victims increased to hundreds! Alright, this is crazy! There can't be that many of them, can they? ? Fangirls I mean...
** 1st of JUNE **
They're thousands! ! ! Mom, what do we do?
** 3rd of JUNE **
Genesis dances with delight. Now he started to speak about extending this line of products to the other main cities, renamed after us. Seph chased him with the Masamune.
** End of JUNE... I think... **
Mom... I don't really know how to break this to you. I mean it's better to hear it from us than someone else, but still...
Erm...
We sprouted wings. Big ones. Reaaaally big... umm, gotta go
** 2nd of JULY **
Sorry for the gap, I know you waited for the news but these days I was too busy tailing Seph, who was intent on killing Genesis. Not that I blame him. Eventually they collided with each other and Gen swore on his life that our wings had absolutely nothing to do with his chemical fun. We went to confront both Hojo and Hollander and eventually, after a bit of lab trashing, the two creepos admitted that they had received an order from the president himself for more enhancements of the SOLDIERs to help in their war efforts in battles and of course lucky us got to be the test samples chosen for this stupidity. More airborn time for a larger impact area would be good, the fatso said. The stupid asshole, as if we aren't practically flying already, wings or no wings! Anyway, the two creeps went to work and the result is that all three of us are sporting now a wing on one side. Just one. Oh well, I have two, but still on one side. WHAT THE HELL WERE THEY THINKING? ? ?
Seph beat the hell out of both of them, with Gen's happy contribution, and threatened to kill any living being that would hand them a Cure Materia, so there have been three days already since Hojo drags himself in crutches on the halls, seeing with just one eye because the other is black and swollen to an unimaginable degree, and with mere patches of hair left on his skull, while Hollander has to wheel himself in a chair. With one hand only, cos the other one is plastered. Come to think of it, today I haven't seen them yet. Word goes around that Reno contaminated their food with the „loose bowels virus"...
** AUGUST **
Yes Mom, my wings are white. Seph's and Gen's are black. And don't you even try to tell me they're nice when you'll see them! ! !
Okay, should calm down now.
Been in Wutai for quite a long time. We're back just for a few days and then we'll take off again to the military operations area. Me and Seph are planning on going to Junon or maybe Costa Del Sol for the weekend for some beach time and resting, but Gen refused to come with us. We don't even get to see much of him, buried as he is in his computer, studying all day long various statistics on his viruses' development based on the ever-increasing number of victims. He already has a list with all the girls from the ShinRa staff that contracted whichever of the three viruses – proof, he says, about them being part of the fanclubs targeted by the respective viruses.
** Beginning of SEPTEMBER **
We're doomed. The viruses have spread beyond Midgar, carried by the travellers, and somewhere on the way they mutated to more aggressive forms. That lunatic Genesis has now a Gaia map with red flags on it for the contaminated areas. The ShinRa space is already half-reddened!
Everywhere on the news there are reports about masses of people covered in fluffy feathers or croaking all over the place while they fight diarrhoea. And the cursed bugs keep spreading.
Laugh all you want, Mom, but I think this nuthead is much more dangerous than all the Wutaians put together!
** 16th of SEPTEMBER **
Now he says he found a cure: he pretends that the viruses can be annihilated if the victims are turned into his clones – or ours – to share our mako immunity.
This is crazy. I am NOT going to have an army of Angeals marching all over the place!
** OCTOBER **
Bugs got to a part of the SOLDIERs, especially the younger 2nd and 3rd Classes who didn't have enough mako in their systems to fight them. A few thousands caught every each kind of the plague.
** OCTOBER (about a week later) **
Genesis cured them by turning them all into his clones and off he went with the whole bunch. Now they've been declared MIA and the president doesn't know if he should decorate the freak or whatever else he should do with him. If and when he comes back. I could smack my head on every wall, really!
There are some ups too, at least in military terms: most of our enemies have been contaminated too by the viruses carried by our army and are croaking already or flapping tiny wings covered in fluff, while others we don't even have the chance to engage in battle because they drop their weapons and run to hide behind the bushes lest they shit their pants – and not because of fear, believe me! They're brave, the poor souls, but... eh, you know.
** NOVEMBER **
I was sent to replace Genesis and his men and the puppy had to come with me. Seph will arrive later too with even more SOLDIERs.
I think I should better find that psycho redhead before he does Shiva only knows what...
... ... ...
Oh no! No-no-NOOOO! ! !
He's going home to Banora with all those clones of his! ! ! I swear to Goddess, if he spreads the plague there too, I'm gonna strangle the bastard with my bare hands! ! ! ! ! ! !
Mom, if you have the slightest sign of the symptoms, you're gonna tell me that very instant, right?
I'm going after him! ! !
** FEBRUARY, the next year **
I don't even want to remember how the last months have been, ugh! Having to face the whole darn Banora village deserted of its population that literally flew away in the woods filling the air with their croakings while Genesis was curled in laugh, stuttering that this should serve them right, because they had all been ShinRa spies put to keep an eye on us two – he's paranoid, I know! – then getting a black eye from my own puppy because he saw you, Mom, fallen on the floor with the weakness after that loose bowels fit and he thought you were dead, killed by me!... I mean, has the whole world gone mad? Then Genesis taking off with his „army" to have more fun with the clones, as he declared... Don't ask me please, I have no idea where the psycho is right now, he and his ever-increasing number of clones. Now seemingly his fangirls have flooded him too asking to be turned into his clones so they would become immune to the plague and also experience first-hand the life, feelings and other such crap of a war hero like him...
He even managed to splice some monsters with my cells to see if that would work on animals too, bleah!
Now we have flying monsters with my face and wings like mine! Don't you even dare to laugh at me, Mom! !
Ahem! What was I saying?
Oh right: I'm in Wutai now with Seph and Zack, taking part in the peace negotiations. The Wutaians were brought to their knees by Genesis' devilish bugs and eventually there was no one left afoot to fight with us. So, after eight years of gloriously resisting to our awesome army of invincible mako-enhanced SOLDIERs, they were defeated not by us SOLDIERs but by loose bowels, uncontrollable croaking and itchy feathers brought on their heads by a mad guy who wanted to count his fangirls. All hail ShinRa's victory!
I just feel like digging a hole and burying myself in it instead of facing these brave, innocent people's misery. And in the last months I had enough time to discover that my wings keep popping up whenever my stress reaches a peak. At least Seph seemingly has more control over the phenomenon.
We are just about to enter the hall where the negotiations are held, which is not the ceremony hall but a smaller one that has the advantage of being closer to a bathroom... The doors are opened and, as I can already see Godo Kisaragi, Wutai's ruler, sitting with a strained face on his throne, a small kid in a ninja outfit springs out of nowhere and, jumping right in front of us, howls, shaking her tiny fist:
„I hate you! All of you! It's YOUR fault! And I'll never eat anything with vanilla again, just so you know!"
I was staring blankly at the whole scene trying to understand what was happening, when Zack lighted up and blurted:
„Oh, look Angeal, she's Yuffie Kisaragi, Godo's kiddie!"
Then he bend to her height and ruffled her hair grinning and squealing:
„Hiiiiii, Yuffie!"
The little girl went cherry-red with outrage and then just squashed in his face the empty can of vanilla icecream she was clutching in one hand, running away after that just as my wing was snapping out of its shell with a flat sound. I hid my face in disgrace. Seph just smacked Zack roughly on the back of his head, sighing at the heavens above.
Believe me, you don't even want to know how the negotiations went after that.
But at least the war is over, Mom.
** Sometime in MAY **
It's already been a year since this whole madness has begun. By this time the wings have already become the last on my list of concerns. Genesis is still nowhere to be found and the contaminated variety of the cursed slops he and Reno used from Hojo and Hollander's kitchens of Hell has infested the world all the way to its lastest nooks, like Icicle Inn or... Nibelheim. Really, who the heck even heard of this Nibelheim place before? I mean we seemingly flew over it multiple times on our way to Wutai, but we never even knew this place was on the map. And now we find out that there, beside the already known type of loose bowels every local experienced AND the fluffy wings disease AND the hellish croaking, it also sprouted another virus stem that attacked some nasty monsters called „the Nibel wolves"! We were supposed to go there and solve the problem – me, Seph and the puppy with a few MPs – and, having our necessities packed, we were ready to board the chopper, when news came that the things had already escalated to unimaginable degrees: a huge pack of winged monsters and Nibel wolves, some maddened by diarrhoea, some by the itchy feathery fluff, had roamed the town, got into some ShinRa manor-like building and trashed the whole place to useless scrap. The rest wasn't too clear to me, just that the whole mess had ended somewhere up at the reactor in the Nibel mountains with a terrible scuffle between the monsters, the wolves and a strange red creature with large bat-like wings, everything climaxing in a huge blast that wiped the entire reactor out of the earth's face, together with all its content AND the monsters around, only the red-caped batlike creature managing to fly away mostly unharmed at it seemed.
„Well then, Nibelheim's out the priority list." Sephiroth stated blankly and turned on his heels, walking away from the chopper.
To tell you the truth Mom, I felt relieved, as we had enough to keep our hands filled around here without needing to cross the whole darn planet to that godforsaken place.
I think Seph must've felt relieved too, because on our way back to the tower, he told me that he felt as if a huge weight had been lifted off his entire being.
Funny thing, the news about the Nibelheim incident's outcome had the strangest effect on that Hojo slimeball! He suffered an insanity fit of sorts (not that he'd been any saner before if you'd ask me) and he banged his head on every wall around for a few good hours, trashing his whole lab in the process. After that he tried to attack the president with a broken bottle while ranting something unintelligible about a thing called Jenova if I remember well, but Reno tripped him in too good a time. He still managed to throw at the old fat... uh, president, a vial of a stinky stuff that burnt his hair and colored his whole skin in blue like in that 'Avatar' movie and eventually, to everyone's delight, the despicable scarecrow just jumped through the president's window and flattened himself onto the ground dozens of stories below, at the main tower's base.
May he rest in peace in a pool of... ahem, whatever.
In conclusion, on the whole the world is moving on, with a very happy Hollander as the new head of the Scientific department of ShinRa. Don't we all know how he hunted this job his entire life! The war is over, umm... one way or another. Genesis came back from his spree after a few days, declaring that he had never had so much fun with his clones in his entire life. Seph suffered a noticeable change of personality since the Nibelheim incident, meaning that he laughs more and his sense of humour has increased considerably (I'm afraid he might take on Genesis', Goddess help us all if that happens! But I know you'll like this new Seph, eh...).
So until next time we come in our holiday, I'm sending you all my love, dear Mom, and hugging you from afar.
Love, Angeal
P.S.: Erm... as for the fangirls... ... ... We're still counting."
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.
AUTHOR AGAIN: By the way, I should probably mention that Seph buying flowers from Aerith is canon. Or at least was, in an earlier version of FFVII. Yeah, believe it! Squeenix considered initially making Seph Aerith's first love and only later they created Zack for this job. And another earlier version was of them being brother and sister, thus both Cetra (hahaha!), hence giving Aerith green eyes too and the trademark bangs that are very much like Seph's. Yup! There are even artworks of them together, drawn by Yoshitaka Amano.
And the dates I used follow pretty close the Official Timeline of the FFVII Compilation. Except for the final part after the war's end. You can check for yourselves. :)