MONSTERS (A Final Fantasy 7 Fanfic)

IX: Rebirth

He had no remorse for the actions he took that day. That terrible, beautiful day. Zack had visited him on the seventh day he'd spent holed up in the library, but nothing he said could've changed what Sephiroth was going to do.

"Out of my way. I am going to see my mother," the silver abomination had told him, voice slick with venom as he pushed him aside and left to do what he should've done a long time ago.

He was alone in this world. The last Cetra (((the only experiment of his kind)) ). With mother, he'd take revenge against the humans for their cowardice and arrogance ((( for creating him, using him, and abandoning him ))). Walking out into the village in the dead of night, under a black void of darkness, he allowed flames to form and wisp around his fingers. What started as a single spark, he nurtured into an inferno.

Standing in the heart of the screaming blaze, he burned the village with draconic rage. Whatever pain twisted and writhed in his chest; he ignored as he focused on destroying any figure that stood in his path of devastation. What was he to do with his pain, but to lash out and destroy as he'd been taught to do?

Shinra would no longer control him. No one would ever use him again. Every human had looked upon him with fear or superficial admiration, and the few he believed worthy had all betrayed him. They all deserved to burn indeed.

Blood flecked against his pale, white skin as he tore through crowds of men, women and children. Their screams fell upon deaf ears. Not even Mother's voice was getting through to him as She tried to compel him to come to her. His eyes were weary and blank as he just killed, and killed, and killed. With every life taken, his heart would swell with indescribable joy. All these years, controlled and used, lied to and manipulated... now he was free. And no one could stop him, for they'd so perfectly trained him into a killing machine.

He cornered a frail woman as she pleaded with him, but not to spare her. No, she was begging for the life of her precious son. "Not him," she whimpered, trembling hands clasped together as she prayed for a God who would not listen to her pleas.

"You have to leave..." she wheezed, barely audible as she reached out her hand. "You have to live."

Tears streamed from her eyes as she looked on ahead, past Sephiroth. He glared with narrowed eyes glowing with ecstasy before thrusting the Masamune straight into her heart. The screams of despair danced around him, and he revelled in it all.

He looked up, locking eyes with the person she'd urged to escape. It was one of the infantrymen that had accompanied him, fallen to the ground. He was still as the rest, not a sound coming from his limp body.

The silver soldier paid him no mind. He looked upon the dead and dying with cold, remorseless eyes. They all deserved this. They were traitors.

And it was time to fulfil his destiny, and go to his own Mother.

He turned away, and marched past the flames like a phantom. They licked at his skin and brushed against his fingers, but he remained unburned. The only sounds were the screams of those crawling closer into the frigid hands of death. He loathed to leave such a satisfying landscape behind, but there were more important things to attend to.

He left the village covered in blood and cleansed by flame.

***

Mother had thought she could control him too. Perhaps, to an extent, she had. She fed those lies about him being a Cetra, that she was one of them and that he was a chosen one who's purpose was to destroy humanity in the name of the Cetra they'd abandoned those thousands of years ago.

But he knew better now. Mother– or, better yet, Jenova– was a calamity that fell from the skies. He was no Cetra, no chosen one. He had no purpose, save for that which humans had forced him into. Having fallen into the lifestream, he had come to accept the truth. He was nothing more than a product of human arrogance. One they only sought to use, not respect. Professor Gast abandoned him because he'd not be able to fulfil the purpose that scientist had wanted him to fulfil. And, oh, how foolish he'd been to think Zack would be any different. To think he'd once harboured such gentle feelings of such... affectionate nature towards one who'd been so quick to abandon and turn against him... he'd never make such a mistake again.

He had to rise again. Rise above his circumstances. Prove to the humans, to the planet, to himself, that he was more than a mere experiment. He was more than anything this universe had ever seen.

Most who fell into the lifestream would disperse into its viridian waves, their soul to be recycled into another body in a circular cycle of rebirth. But Sephiroth was not ready to die. No, he couldn't afford to die. He would be reborn in a different way, rising from the ashes of the truth. No more would he be used and exploited as Shinra's precious puppet.

He was going to become a God.

Humanity was not the only one in danger. All life– even the planet itself– would become one with him. He would cause such damage to the planet that it would have no choice but to try heal itself with lifestream, and as it would gather around the festering would, he'd be there to consume it all. In the end, there would be no life left but his own. And he would be eternal, ascending above his original purpose as a mere experiment, to become the One and Only.

He'd made mistakes before. He'd not made sure everyone in the village was dead. In the reactor, there had been others trying to stop him– some foolish young girl who'd thought she could use his very sword, which only he could wield, to get revenge for him killing her father. And Zack, so determined to stop him, and with such rage in his eyes, rage he'd never seen in him before. It was almost amusing, how quick he'd been to forget the bond they'd once shared. (((How little he cared to consider the pain Sephiroth was in))).

Sephiroth had no body to express his annoyance, but if he did, he would've snorted in frustration. It had been that infantryman from before who'd, somehow, managed to defeat him. How shameful. He'd let his guard down and the boy had managed to throw him off the reactor's platform. Sephiroth fell into the lifestream with Jenova's decapitated head clutched against his chest. It filled his heart with rage, that one as great and indomitable as he had fallen to the blind determination of a mere human– and not even one that had been enhanced.

Funnily enough, it was that very act, of him getting thrown into the lifestream, that gave him the power he had now. It had been five years since that day. In those five years, he'd travelled the lifestream, crystallising what remained of his body, in the crater that had formed upon Jenova's arrival. He travelled the planet to uncover the truth about the Cetra, Jenova, and himself. Whatever influence she'd had on him back then, he had stamped out now. He was no longer to be anyone's puppet– now, she was to be his own.

With all this knowledge, an acceptance of what he was, and what he strived to become– Sephiroth had now been reborn.

He would not die merely a monster, feared and hated once the humans ran out of ways to use him. He would rise again as the God of a new, beautiful world.

He thought carefully of those who deserved to suffer. All the humans had to suffer for what they'd done to him, but there were some who needed to experience agony much more than others. If only Doctor Gast was alive, for it had been his idea to craft a being as wondrous and terrible as Sephiroth. The root of his own suffering was borne from his mere existence, so who better to target than his very creators?

Something had tried to reach out to him on his journey. A warmth, subconscious and weak, yet almost inviting. A type of which he'd yearned for so long, yet had never known. But it was too late now, far too late– he ignored the strange presence, rejecting the warmth, and moving along his way.

He knew, once the time of confrontation would come, he'd not be ready yet to face his mother first– his true mother, not the extraterrestrial that formed his flesh and had so foolishly believed that he could be controlled.

It was Professor Hojo he had to deal with first. The man who deserved no less than to die by the hands of his own monster.