"We are a monster," the voice was familiar, "we're all of us monsters."
Sephiroth ran a hand over his face as he stared in the mirror, dripping ice cold water down his cheeks to soak into the t-shirt he'd fallen asleep in. He'd slept on the couch the night before, and fallen asleep sitting at his desk the day before that.
He hadn't slept more than a handful of hours at a time all week - eyes closing and head nodding and then plunging immediately into nightmares.
Bad dreams weren't an uncommon issue for him, but these were the worst he'd ever suffered. They had begun not long after they'd returned to Midgar. He dreamed of a horrific version of himself, eyes crazed with madness and pale as the dead. Something about this monster - which he seemed to be proud of the title - horrified him more than any other dream he'd had in his life and that included the dreams he'd had in Wutai.
He stumbled back to his bedroom and climbed back into bed with a quick glance at the alarm clock. It was only two in the morning, he had to try and sleep more. The three of them planned to begin their campaign to de-throne Heidegger and Scarlet, working their way through the worst members of the board and replacing them. He needed rest. He needed to be on his toes.
"Face yourself," the monster said, white teeth flashing in a pallid face against bloodless lips. Black tears seeped down from venomous eyes - slit pupils never shifting in the low light the way they should.
"This is all you were made to be, this is all you ever were, this is what you will become."
Fire burned all around him, he could feel its heat but not see its light. Screams echoed back and he knew it was Nibelheim. He hadn't done that, not now. Not this time! He never would.
The screams and shouts became a battlefield, and oh yes he had done this - the voices of the soldiers and civilians they had taken in Wutai. He'd been barely more than a child, and if he was honest with himself he had been a child. They'd all been children, not even legal to drink in Midgar but sent out to murder for Shinra.
They'd done it better this time, minimal casualties and no more civilians. They'd mitigated the horrors they had committed in the past. He and Gen and Angeal had done so much better, had brokered peace instead of breaking the country the way they'd been ordered to. Genesis had called in reporters and made a spectacle of the peace talks to keep Shinra from going back on the promises the three elite SOLDIERs had made.
"Stop it," he hissed, "I'll never be you. I was never you, and it will never happen."
"You and I are one and the same, created to be abominations and fated to destroy this pathetic world. What have humans ever done for us? Nothing, they've taken everything you could have been and left nothing but ash for you to choke on."
Sephiroth shook his head, "Maybe that was true, once. But I make a choice every day - we all do. We could have become monsters, and in another life we did and we own that. But now, every day, we choose to help. We choose to heal."
"You are nothing but a shadow of what could have been," Masamune appeared in his hands and he pointed it towards his monstrous mirror, "and I choose to be human, even if I'm not. Even if I was born something else, I choose who I will be and what I will do. And I will never be a monster."
He stepped forward and slashed down, slicing through the image and splitting it apart as though it were mere paper.
"I can't change anything I have done," he whispered, blinking awake and staring at the moonlight splashed across the ceiling, "but I will be none of the things I was created to be. Maybe I was destined to become a monster, but I'm moving my own piece across the board now. We all are."
A warm arm wrapped around his waist as Angeal tugged him back against him and Genesis pressed his cheek against Sephiroth's chest.
"S' too early for metaphors," Angeal rumbled in his ear, "go back to sleep ."
"Sorry," Sephiroth's voice cracked as he closed his eyes, "love you…"