When Rufus Shin-Ra turned twelve, he had been taken hostage by an eco-terrorist at his own birthday party and summarily dragged from his father's home by the raving madman and into the Junon Underwater Reactor. In that horrifyingly small amount of time, the blond boy who would one day overturn the world was told many horrible things about what his Father was doing to the Planet.
When Rufus had replied that he didn't care, the terrorist had responded with brutality. By the end of a horrific beating, the Shin-Ra heir had been kicked repeatedly until his small body dangled precariously close to an open stream of mako vapor and the desiccating remains of a large monster corpse under study by the science department. Time had slowed to a crawl in those last few seconds the twelve-year-old was convinced would be his last when the monster suddenly awakened and attacked them both.
Though the man died almost instantaneously, Rufus Shin-Ra was not so lucky. The beast had managed to impale him with a sliver of a scale from its shedding skin and pierce him against that same open vapor of mako. For nearly a full three hours, Rufus had remained pinned there and suffered something which can only be called a blessing by the more spiritual sects of Gaia's followers. In those three hours, Rufus Shin-Ra was shown a terrifying future that eclipsed the very wars and terrors that currently hounded the rest of the world.
In the first vision, he was shown a Goddess of destruction and learned her name. At that time, he was unknowingly infected with the first stream of stagnant Jenova cells more than a thousand years old.
In the second vision, he saw a man trapped in darkness, restrained and screaming in his own soul for a woman lost to her own guilt. Like before, he was grafted with a knowledge that seared deeply into his body and brain. Mako danced with the parasites Jenova had first left behind.
By the time the third vision descended on him, Rufus had nearly gone mad from the pain. He saw things far too quickly that a small boy had no business knowing, and yet that was perhaps the reason he was able to survive and concoct a plan to save the world.
In the end, he could only repeat the Acts of Loveless over and over again. Singing, humming, stalling his own mind from re-entering a body that was rife with pain. In the end, Rufus was shown a glimmering bauble alight with dark and holy light smeared in blood. It was a foretelling of the evils to come. He had no doubt that enemies of his father would destroy everything unless he sacrificed himself to the darkness and saved the world.
His new perception came out with him, and the boy wasted no time in gathering the people he saw in his head. It wasn't easy. The child had used every trick and devilry he could to get his way and won. Luck was with him, and he gave everlasting thanks to the monster that had given him the weapons to save his people.
Little had he known, that's exactly what the Weapon had intended before shoving a small marble of materia into his open shoulder wound and sealing it closed. The Planet had learned from the last go-around that when humanity was involved, the Calamity had nearly destroyed everything, including themselves. She wasn't prepared to take those chances, and so Minerva took the directive. Ordering the Planet's Weapons to find and prepare those most suited for the soul-breaking task of protecting their precious World.
Then came those caught in the crossfires of hell. The ones who were never meant to fall upon the stone of sacrifice like Rufus Shin-Ra, Vincent Valentine, and Sephiroth.
(BREAK)
When he was young, before the freedom of open skies and weeping wounds, Sephiroth dreamed of darkness wrapped in sin. Cloistered breaths and endless whispers of the unredeemable sins of giving in too soon. He heard a woman beg for forgiveness underneath the muffled waves of mako. Green images floated, a smiling face and whimpering tears. He heard the malevolent whispers of something wrong and so many other things.
He retained his questionable sanity through it all and strove to meet the ones on the other end. A monster-man wrapped in the crying darkness of a woman's guilt and his sins. He knew the other boy the same day he met him after the kickback from an old model shotgun nearly took off his shoulder. Sephiroth had smirked in amusement at the blond boy's determination to murder helpless paper targets.
He wasn't much older than the boy then.
It didn't matter, as it turned out.
Sephiroth was just pleased with a playmate who knew the same things he did.
Together they worked out the puzzles of the strange dreams and the endless green that haunted their nights. Time it would seem would play right into their hands. Sephiroth took the time when he was in Hojo's lab to do some research of his own while Rufus dug through the contents of his father's own private files. Neither of their parents caught on to the truth the boys had hidden between themselves in feigned rivalry and malice on the tips of their tongues.
A lie to catch the Destroyers in their own game.
Their greetings hung between them as a truce… a beginning to a game they were determined to win.
"I'm Sephiroth."
The blond boy had looked up at him through lightly glowing icy eyes. Not unlike his own and very different. They shared the same personality traits… "Rufus. My father owns the company."
"Mine made it." Sephiroth had answered.
The ties were formed then, and they soon found themselves sharing secrets in the games they created. They found the man buried in his own sins a year and a half after they met.
He was nothing like them.
(BREAK)
He terrified them the day they came to the lab.
Golden eyes like his did not belong in the face of a human, Sephiroth had stated. Rufus countered that he doubted many humans had eyes like them either. Neither boy seemed willing to relent until the golden-eyed man cracked the prison of his darkness and seized hold of them both.
Fire burned in those eyes, promising nothing but suffering unless they answered his questions.
Just like the monster in Junon and the mako in Sephiroth's veins, Vincent too had dreamed of others and threats to the world. Driven to save it, Chaos had woken up and seized control from his host body. The boys gave him the way out, and he would have delivered them to the life stream if not for the Host's weakness to protect the innocent.
The Weapon had laughed at the Host's weakness for the smaller humans. Not that he considered them to be human. They were too different and only as useful as Gaia had deemed. Sneering into their terrified faces, Chaos took a good whiff of their Jenova-scented blood. His fangs dripped with saliva when he smiled at them.
There was nothing innocent about the Sacrifices.
He made sure the Host knew that.
Vincent had taken his body back, shoving the demon beneath layers of control and calming the boys with soft inquiries of what had happened, who they were, and what was going to be coming. Their resolve to turn themselves into monsters to save a world was maddening to behold. Yet, he understood it at the same time. Still, there was a necessity for one to remain human enough to remind others that even demons had a conscience.
So, Vincent taught them.
He showed them how to survive their own lies with their hearts intact and how to get by when it grew too much. He raised them under the protective confines of his cloak and showed them that just because they were demons, that didn't mean they were any less human.
So, he told them.
How to live a lie and how to die a man.
That was the truth of being a TURK. You sacrificed everything until you became the job and it consumed the last remains of yourself.
Together they discovered new ways and new doors… and would have succeeded if not for the return of the dreams. New dreams meant new plans would have to be implemented. Each took on a task, a new role to fulfill, and pursued a private agenda until there was nothing left to be found from amongst the original ideals. Then, Rufus Shin-Ra held true to his blood and betrayed them to science.
Vincent was the first to disappear, though not without the time to deliver a warning to Sephiroth.
It was destined to be a confrontation weighed only on the scales of their combined destinies.
