Eight Years Prior In the Lifestream

After the last battle of Advent

I can hear a feminine voice; very calm, non-threatening, nothing like the demanding, screeching, and grating voice female voice I'm used to.

I am surrounded by a warm welcoming feeling.

I open my eyes and the same blue-green composition that compose my very eye color itself, sans the slit pupil of course encompasses me.

It is a curious feeling as I have never felt it beforehand, how I know this is the emotion that should be felt at this time is uncanny.

I am swaddled in it, held close to the very bosom of the planet. I am so very, very tired.

I have failed and been played a fool again by my moth-

She-it is not your mother

Who are you? Who are you to tell me who Jenova is-?

That creature a parasitic being from another planet. I should know as I am the one who researched and went along with my horrible misguided husband Hojo to allow for experiments with it. I am the one who bore you…allowed such an evil trifling thing to be thought of as your mother.

I demand you show yourself to me! What is this nonsense you speak and how is it you know of Hojo…and of Professor Gast?

Something in my heart pained me at the mention of the Professor...

As I stated, I am Lucrecia Crescent. I was Hojo's assistant and his wife in the Project S program and I am your birth mother. We experimented you in utero even before you'd taken your first breath outside the womb; such selfish and misguided parents.

The words cut deep and got his attention, though he loathed to admit it.

About time Professor Gast and I found out what sinister entity we were dealing with, Hojo already knew and had been overtaken mentally by her, being promised praise and popularity at the hand of his own wife's safety and still continued to move forward, making me further physically ill to the point of having you early; I only held you in my body 7 months.

Jenova taunted me ruthlessly, stating that I was weak, that she would take my over to rule the planet and use you to repopulate the planet with her kind.

She knew of male/female and she was definitely sentient enough to know about familial relations and how they were taboo. She didn't' care because humans were to be annihilated and she knew that you would be more than just human and even her cells, and she goaded she was eternal, she would wait.

Not ever wanting that evil able to inhabit another body as even 'she' telepathically admitted the form she has was once a Cetran woman she overtook. I locked myself away.

I …I left you because I knew my conscience was fading because of mako poisoning.

We didn't…well, I am sure Hojo knew as a byproduct of carrying you and your direct link to' her', this caused this serious of case of mako poisoning.

I...I'm sure I wasn't meant to survive, purely incubate you to you were ready.

If I didn't lock myself in the pure mako stalagmite 'coffin' as I did, there would have been nothing left of me but it, much like "she" did with that poor woman, and with you, after your first and second "deaths".

I am so sorry Sephiroth, my son…He'd warned me, told me this was an evil, terrible thing I was doing to you…to us.

My resolve was wavering…this woman looked haunted, equally tired.

I won't be lied to. My mother was thought to be a Cetra, but they were wrong she was something more, she was –

A human, nothing more I am your mother nothing will change that.

At that a female with long chestnut hair down to her waist wrapped in a yellow scarf appeared in a white dress. I looked just like the male version of her…right down to the eyes with the exception of the slit pupils, which I assumed was a part of my 'experimentation' along with my hair coloring and overall pigmentation. Otherwise, the similarities were unnerving.

Explain.

My command came out hushed and shaky at best and my anger and ire at this point had fizzled completely. A General does know when he is beaten and when it is time to listen to terms of surrender so to speak.

I carried you in my womb. I selfishly and willfully used you for the project and allowed my wayward husband to experiment on both of us. Then one day, someone very close to me words came back to me, stating that what I was doing was morally wrong and by then I had saw you on the ultrasound scan multiple times and had to agree. I already loved you, the wrong emotion for one's so called 'experiment'. I was in way to deep and I was dying, never to see my son. I cried daily until you were born, almost like a harbinger of what was to come. You were taken from me immediately after, never to lay eyes on you as a babe. Do you know I even had visions from this creature of your eventual insanity at its hands as grown man? All of it, all of it is my fault! What kind of mother cannot shield her child from that kind of pain? I am so sorry Vincent! You warned me I would reap what I sowed and I turned away, for the last time. Goddess, Sephiroth please believe I am so sorry for all that has happened to you!

Though they were in the life stream, Sephiroth could see that the woman, Lucrecia, his real birth mother, was borderline wailing her pained cries for her sins as it cut her deeply. Seeing her face on her child undid her so.

He didn't know how to respond as emotions was definitely not his expertise, just remembering Nibelheim's example actually brought an embarrassed flush to his angular cheeks. He would have laughed had it not been such a waste of life for absolutely nothing. The one he'd been calling a puppet all this time; mocking and baiting and making his every waking moment a living nightmare. He was the true puppet of them all. The ultimate one who'd been manipulated, even before birth. He'd laughed, cried, and screamed all at the same time had it not fueled the flames that he was … unwell mentally. He'd had been insane from these lies that had been fed to him and the lives, yes plural, lives he'd lost in some faceless, nameless, baseless charade of a campaign against the very world itself.

Despite that all, he seemed lighter though for this information. It was like he was breathing for the first time. Seeing things clearly and crisp for the first time as well. Another voice told Sephiroth to reach for her as she continued to weep silently, shaking like wind-beaten tree. He proceeded to wrap his arms around her. He complied with this hidden muscle memory, this want to comfort, though his facial features didn't change by much, he did proceed to hold the woman until she calmed. In the calming depths of the Lifestream, there he began to heal a little at a time. He'd found due to the experiments done on his mother, she was neither dead nor was she truly alive, more or less in a purgatory of sorts; never really able to rest. That was her penance for the time being. The Cetra had healed her as much as they could but for everything else she would be tasked to be the mother she was never able to be to her grown child, a task she didn't mind at all.

Sephiroth had found she could leave the realm, which is how she was able to communicate with the dark-haired one of the puppet…Cloud-Cloud's band of friends and comrades that had taken him down time and time again.

She'd had told him what happened to Vincent and that he was very special to her. She'd truly regretted letting him go fully for the maniacal one, Hojo.

This Sephiroth could understand, even if it would have cost his very existence. After all, nothing good came from that for the years he roamed the planet with entirely too much power for now just a man and a stain of something truly abnormal running through his veins that he literally lurked in the Lifestream. He was snapped out of his internal dialogue as she spoke to him further.

She has stated that if there was nothing more she could impart to him was that if he'd ever find someone to love as she'd loved Vincent, to not let it go. All the while Sephiroth wistfully though fat chance of someone want him in that way. He could see the lines of young women now, if he was forgiven lining up to be with the WORLD'S WOULD BE MURDERER.

Lucrecia saw the sad, wistful look he had. Ah the power of a real mother's intuition. She'd known he'd never think it would happen for him, not after all that had transpired. She had hope, and hope thus far had gotten her very far and kept her peaceful when all seemed lost. Her not pursuing her love of her life literally had cost her son's and her life. Even if there was a way that Vincent could have gotten to them both without Hojo's tyranny, she was certain he would have been the father he needed…

They both knew all they could do is 'live' for the moment of respite the Cetra had given them in their kindness since neither deserved nothing but oblivion which was usually the gift of the most wicked, denied even the melding into the Lifestream.

Lucrecia was happy to be with the child she never knew and had been twisted to never know love and Sephiroth was elated that he indeed wasn't the monster that he thought he was and had had to live with so many years ago. While Lucrecia knew what kind of life Sephiroth had had, it was wonderful to hear from him some of his more wonderful experiences in his first life, such as his friendship with Angeal and Genesis, and the one they called 'puppy', Zachary Fair that had been taken from life too soon at the hands of the same company. Time had no meaning in the Lifestream and they truly were able to enjoy themselves as Sephiroth was able to regale stories to his mother and be proud of his actually proudest moments and know the love of a proud parent back.

As they sit there still embracing, the landscape changed to that of a field of lilies, whites and yellows as far as the eye could see with an infinite white sky that went on and another female voice announced herself to the side of the couple.

"It seems you are ready" the young lady clad in pink with reddish-brown twisted pony-tailed hair binding it stated. Lucrecia lifted her head from Sephiroth's chest and smile the most heartwarming smile ever at the young woman and ran to her embracing her.

Sephiroth slowly turned and his blue-green slit eyes landed on vibrant green orbs once more as they were in life. Something inside him actually felt a twinge of guilt at the vision in front of him and what it represents. In front of him was indeed the planet's last child struck down by the false mother Jenova, Aerith Gainsborough.

Instead of shying away from him, Aerith actually drew closer to the pair as he sit unsure if he should remove himself from his mother to give them privacy. Lucrecia felt this was the time to visit the mortal plane and left them alone.

He could have almost screamed, stepped back, something…the sheer fact that he was terrified of this slip of a woman due to their history infuriated him and amazed him all at once. He was very uncomfortable but then her introductory speech called back to mind and he loathed trying to get clarification since that would require speaking to each other. Now see here he was a General and…and her sight, he found, could be just as unnerving as he'd been told his was and she wasn't even glaring.

With a small imperceptible sigh he started, "What do you mean, it seems I am ready now?" he said with question in his voice.

"I've been watching for a time, we all have, and since you've taken the news of your real existence well, I believe you are ready for more information of your lineage" she said with smile on her lips on and in her voice with not even a hint of nervousness from her.

Sephiroth was both taken aback and at the same time expecting that somewhere the Cetra would be watching, if nothing more than for his mother's safety should he not be…well of mind and heart after the news. Yes it was a lot and it would take time but in the Lifestream it was irrelative.

He'd wondered as for the first time with a clear mind of his friends were near as well or had they melded at this point into the great current knowing peace though their lives were short. As he was there he swore if ever there was anything he could do for those that were directly harmed by him and his actions or those by his mother or father's actions, or their colleague's actions, he would be sure to make good on it.

The Planet, always perceptive, was listening that day and hummed in recognition of that very wish though Sephiroth was none the wiser.

Thus with this over the next seven years, though time flowed differently for them in the Lifestream and didn't seem as long, Sephiroth spent extensive time with his mother as she came and went, he assumed to see the dark-haired man Vincent, the ex-TURK that Hojo too had persecuted as well, going as far as to do his experimentations on him, locking him in a coffin with mental beast for 30 odd years, only to not age past looking that of a twenty-seven year old .

Hojo was such a terrible father and he truly hated that the man had a hand in his conception. The women would lighten his heart though his face wouldn't show it still was difficult with emotions. At times they would giggle like friends and other times, they would be as mother and daughter. He'd even had the actual honor of meeting Ifalna, Aerith's true Cetran mother.

Sephiroth was very intelligent so this why he was very confused as to why everyone was welcoming of him despite the common knowledge of him razing Nibelheim to the ground, possibly killing his best friend, harming an innocent young woman guide AFTER murdering her father, and trying to impale a young cadet that he know had thought the world of him. And then there was Aerith… the young woman that he was beginning to feel… odd around that he'd skewered on Masamune, trying to save the planet for Goddess sakes, and oh calling meteor and calling a alien life form mother- so very many sins…

He'd found out that he was indeed Cetran, albeit very watered down but that with the correct training he could commune with the Planet as well. He then went to seek judgement from the Cetra much like his mother had with Aerith's approval and support. Ifalna served as Planet's counsel next to Aerith as they'd had more human contact. While the Cetra were wary, they also were willing to hear Sephiroth's plea.

Sephiroth relayed what had been conveyed to him from his mother and Aerith to him and his feelings on everything that had transpired.

The Cetra sense he was sane and that Jenova still plagued Sephiroth. As a move of good will, his Jenovian cells were inactivated as much as they could without affecting Sephiroth's health, as unfortunately she was as much a part of him as his mother and father was. Though the cells, were inactive, Jenova would forever be a part of him for the rest of his life as apparent of his hair coloring, slit eyes, and uncanny strength and intelligence. Coupled with being from a Cetran line, he was 50% Jenovian, 25% human and 25% Cetran. All that mattered is that he was one hundred percent remorseful for the lives struck down or affected by his actions. At this, a new voice joined the meeting.

Neither female nor male, the androgynous voice of the Planet itself spoken like a young child who was older than it appeared. It confessed to hearing Sephiroth's wish year's ago and actually confessed to having granted as much as it was able to. Planet elucidated that Sephiroth would find the town of Nibelheim as it was before the calamities interference. The one named Vincent had been released of his sins and also he was again whole. Tears sprang into Lucrecia's eyes. That would mean that they would be able to age and he wouldn't be burdened by the violence done to him by Hojo.

Also, the ones called Tseng, Angeal, Lazard, Genesis, and Zachary had been back on Gaia's surface for about a year or so at this point.

To say that Sephiroth was shocked was an understatement and it actually showed on his normally impassive face.

Planet went on to say it wanted to see it's children again upon it, freely able to talk to it from the surface of Gaia and would be sending back Aerith – and him. It also stated that it had given his mother Lucrecia the freedom to come back to the surface but that she would need to find someone that would be able to find them and care for them until their strength has completely revitalized.

Sephiroth knew who his mother would contact already and knew he would be honorable.

Vincent.

Sephiroth knew also why Aerith would be sent back but was confused as to why it would send him back. Though he knew now that he was of Cetra lineage, he figured he was sterile from the multiple experiments done to his person and surely Aerith or no other woman would want to be with him in a way that would produce progeny.

As if reading his very thoughts, which Sephiroth was sure it did, with humor to its tone of voice "I did say I wanted children didn't I? What better than the last Cetran couple, what better than one that has growing feelings".

Sephiroth' head turned completely around to face a prettily blushing Aerith and then back to face a knowing Ifalna. Ah so he wasn't alone in these growing feelings over this however long period of time that had past. He knew her friends would have a conniption. The meeting was adjourned and Aerith grabbed his hand that had been bare of his customary gloves since almost the beginning. Again he almost ran away. These new feelings were so strong, stronger even still for this one little flower. She went with him as they prepared to leave on their new journey to meet all those in the Lifestream that unfortunately the Planet couldn't bring back.

One by one, he sought their heartfelt forgiveness from those he'd slain along the way while Jenova wore his skin. Some forgave freely, others went with their bitterness and hatred, never to forgive, into the great consciousness that was the flow of the Lifestream. He shouldered them both, good and bad as this here was his true penance.

Finally with the last of those that had not already joined the stream denied or accepted his forgiveness, Sephiroth finally addressed his desire to touch Aerith.

As he reached out to touch her face, caressing her cheek and she leaned into his hand, and finally slowly kissed for the first time. Sephiroth was actually no more than 26 years of age physically. Considering the unnatural revivals and deaths, he was year-wise closer to 33 years of age. He being bred for war from birth did not have the luxury of love. Having Aerith's attention… this was more than what he could hope for. It was a very sweet and very chaste kiss. Even with her own circumstances of fate due to Jenova, she had been taken away from the mortal realm at 19, by the very one she sought attentions from. While she had known 'puppy love' through the solider Zachary Fair, there was just nothing like this to compare it to. She too was closer to 25 years of age and all this intensity was just a new to her.

Aerith admired that about him. She gathered with Hojo continuing experiments on his body as long as he did and literally being a General at such a tender age, where did having time for a girlfriend despite being the most beautiful creature come in at? My heavens, look he even had a small blush. Cloud would have a Nibelheim cow but it would be worth it. Both began to feel the pull of their bodies on the mortal plane both hearing the Planet's bell like laugh as they prepared to wake last …

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