It took him an exceedingly long time to formulate an answer that makes any sense. How do you say (without sounding completely INSANE) that you actually miss the one person who once stole everything from you? Your family, your loved ones. Your own identity. Your life. What mind can be so sick and twisted to cherish memories of a Murderer? The answer is simple: His mind… Cloud’s own sick and twisted mind can.
“No.” He finally said, lying as his eyes shifted down and back up.
VERSE NAME.
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VERSE NAME.
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VERSE NAME.
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VERSE NAME.
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VERSE NAME.
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VERSE NAME.
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VERSE NAME.
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VERSE NAME.
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VERSE NAME.
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"I'm the chosen one. I have been chosen to be the leader of this Planet."
biography
Birth and early life
Sephiroth was born to Professor Hojo and Lucrecia Crescent approximately twenty-seven years before Final Fantasy VII (exact date of birth unknown[2]). Hojo and Lucrecia were working as assistants to Professor Gast, Shinra Electric Power Company's top scientist, on the Jenova Project that studied the remains of an extra-terrestrial entity known as Jenova. Jenova was mistaken as one of the Cetra, an ancient people who had the power to "talk to the Planet." Hojo injected cell samples from Jenova into the pregnant Lucrecia and her unborn baby. She carried Sephiroth to term, his fetal form merging with the Jenova cells as he developed. After the baby was born, he was taken away by Shinra scientists and Lucrecia never even had a chance to hold him.
Sephiroth never gained the ability to talk to the Planet, as he is not a true Cetra descendant, but Shinra found another use for him and raised Sephiroth to be a super soldier. They told him nothing of his true parentage, instead saying his mother's name was "Jenova" and telling him nothing of his father. Sephiroth felt different from other children but didn't know of the experiments that had created him. Sephiroth came to respect Professor Gast until he left Shinra, and considers Professor Hojo a hack scientist in comparison.
Sephiroth joined SOLDIER, and during Wutai War was instrumental in ensuring Shinra's dominance. He rose to the rank of SOLDIER First Class and was admired and respected as a great war hero, while those in Shinra considered his strength unequaled even by other First Class SOLDIERs. Many young men, including Cloud Strife and Genesis Rhapsodos, idolized Sephiroth, and sought to join SOLDIER to become heroes like him, making Sephiroth useful for Shinra as a propaganda tool.
Genesis war
Near the end of the Wutai War Sephiroth has only two close friends within SOLDIER, Angeal Hewley and Genesis Rhapsodos. When Genesis and Sephiroth duel in the virtual reality Junon, Sephiroth seems to be the strongest, but the fight ends inconclusively. Angeal stops the fight before either hurt each other too badly, although the small wound Genesis takes does not heal. Sephiroth offers his blood for a transfusion, but is told it is not compatible. Shortly before the Wutai War ends, Genesis vanishes and is declared missing in action.
In the months after the war, the anti-Shinra group AVALANCHE intensifies its actions, raiding Junon. Sephiroth engages the AVALANCHE leader, Elfé, who asks whether he wants to "fight for a reason," which has a profound effect on Sephiroth; the results of Sephiroth choosing to fight for a reason would one day threaten the Planet's existence. Meanwhile, it is discovered Genesis has defected with a Shinra scientist Hollander, creating an army using copy technology to graft Genesis's cells onto other traitor SOLDIER members with which to rebel against Shinra. Angeal goes rogue torn between his loyalties, and the two are declared killed in action.
As Sephiroth participates in the AVALANCHE Insurgency and Genesis War, his loyalties and emotions continue to be thrown into turmoil leading to him refusing missions concerning Genesis and Angeal, and on a later assignment he allows them to escape. Zack Fair, one of Sephiroth's SOLDIER First Class comrades, kills Angeal and apparently Genesis, but the latter resurfaces several months later. Sephiroth participates in a mission to "rescue" Professor Hojo who had almost defected with the AVALANCHE forces attacking the Shinra Headquarters. In September of 0002, Sephiroth tells Zack he is considering retiring from Shinra, and their next mission together will likely be his last.
Nibelheim incident
On September 22nd 0002, Sephiroth arrives at Nibelheim to investigate a monster outbreak believed to be connected to Genesis near the town's Mako Reactor. He arrives with a small entourage, including Zack and two Shinra infantrymen, one of whom is the sixteen-year-old Cloud Strife. Upon arrival Sephiroth asks Cloud how it feels to be back in his hometown, as he lacks one. When questioned about family, Sephiroth explains his mother, Jenova, died during childbirth, but stops short of mentioning his father before proceeding with the mission.
At the Mako Reactor Sephiroth finds several pod-like chambers containing monstrous creatures who used to be human, mutated by exposure to Mako. He finds a chamber labeled "JENOVA" containing a feminine-looking creature. When Zack suggests a connection between SOLDIER and the creatures in the tanks, Sephiroth flies into a rage, horrified the reason he is "different" may be because he was created similarly to the monsters in the pods.
Crisis Core -Final Fantasy VII- shows an expanded version of events at the Nibelheim Incident, and Genesis plays a part in inciting Sephiroth's madness by telling Sephiroth he was born from the Jenova Project, its goal to produce a "monster." Disturbed by the creature in the reactor having the same name as his "mother," along with the once human monsters in the pods, Sephiroth makes his way to the Shinra Manor that had been occupied by Shinra researchers, and pores over the research notes in the basement library wondering why he was never told the truth of his origins. He comes to believe Jenova is a Cetra, and therefore he, as Jenova's "son", is the last Cetra survivor. He falls into insanity and comes to believe the human race had betrayed the Cetra 2,000 years ago leaving them alone to defend the Planet from a calamity (eventually revealed to have been Jenova itself), and resolves to take vengeance for his "ancestors."
On October 1st, Sephiroth destroys Nibelheim, setting the town on fire and killing many of the townspeople, before returning to the reactor to claim Jenova's remains. He is pursued by Tifa's father, Tifa, Zack, and Cloud. At the reactor, Tifa, a girl living in the town who had been Sephiroth's group's guide up the mountain, takes up Sephiroth's Masamune from her father's corpse and attacks him, but he disarms her and cuts her down. Shortly after Sephiroth enters Jenova's chamber, Zack arrives and attacks him.
Zack fights Sephiroth but is defeated and tossed out of the chamber. Cloud reenters, picks up Zack's Buster Sword, and rushes after Sephiroth. Caught off-guard, Sephiroth is impaled from behind through the abdomen and collapses. As Cloud leaves to tend to Tifa, Sephiroth slices off Jenova's head and stumbles from the room. Cloud attacks him again, but Sephiroth impales him with the Masamune.
Out of sheer force of will Cloud pulls the sword out of his chest and uses it as a lever to hurl Sephiroth into a pool of Mako below the reactor. Sephiroth vanishes with Jenova's head still in his grasp, apparently falling to his death. In Last Order -Final Fantasy VII- the scene depicts Sephiroth jumping into the pool of Mako willingly, having noted he is unable to defeat Cloud. Following the Nibelheim Incident, Shinra seals the records on Sephiroth, declaring him killed in action, and rebuilds Nibelheim to cover up the incident, populating it with Shinra employees paid to act as the villagers.
Sephiroth fell into the Lifestream, his willpower too great to allow himself to be consumed. Over the next several years Sephiroth travels the Lifestream, the Planet's life energy and the afterlife for its spirits that contains the summation of all the cognition its inhabitant have ever accumulated. Growing in power and knowledge, the fragments of his body congregate at the Northern Cave inside the North Crater, joining to recreate Sephiroth's physical form in a cocoon of Mako. Sephiroth's new goal is to merge with the Lifestream and seize control of it to become a god.
Though his physical body is encased in Mako, Sephiroth can control Jenova's cells as an extension of his body and thus act out his plans through the remains of Jenova's body. Hojo has injected Zack, Cloud and the survivors of Nibelheim (save for Tifa who was rescued by her mentor Zangan before Shinra found her) with Sephiroth's cells, turning them into Sephiroth Clones: people whose wills have been over-ridden with Sephiroth's will. Hojo believes the Jenova cells within Sephiroth would call for a "reunion" of those who shared its cells, and wishes to see his theory put to test.
The reunion
During Final Fantasy VII, approximately five years after his supposed death, in December 0007, Sephiroth enacts his plan and puts out the call for the reunion to summon the Sephiroth Clones to the North Cave. Jenova's remains, which had been moved to the Shinra Headquarters in Midgar, shapeshift into Sephiroth's form and break out of containment. Jenova/Sephiroth releases Cloud (who had escaped Shinra Manor with Zack but has forgotten many details about it due to amnesia) and the members of the second reincarnation of AVALANCHE, who were being held prisoner. Sephiroth kills President Shinra after declaring Shinra should never acquire the Cetra's fabled Promised Land. Cloud, seeing Sephiroth's Masamune left at the scene of President Shinra's death, suspects Sephiroth is alive, and sets out with AVALANCHE to find him and settle the score for what happened to Nibelheim.
The party finds Sephiroth on the cargo ship headed to Costa del Sol, where he alludes to the reunion and leaves an arm of Jenova behind that transforms into Jenova∙BIRTH. He appears some time later in Nibelheim Shinra Manor basement, where he mentions the reunion and calls for Cloud to follow him. At the Temple of the Ancients Sephiroth reveals the full extent of his plans—the Planet relies on the Lifestream to heal itself when wounded, and the North Crater, where the Lifestream is abundant, is where Jenova fell two thousand years ago.
Meteorfall
Using the Black Materia, Sephiroth plans to call the Ultimate Destructive Magic—Meteor—to injure the Planet and place himself at the center of its impact zone as the Lifestream emerges to heal the Planet's wound. Sephiroth plans to merge with the Lifestream, becoming a god.
Cloud acquires the Black Materia first, but Sephiroth exerts his influence over Jenova's cells within Cloud's body and takes control of him forcing Cloud to hand the Materia over to Jenova. Aeris Gainsborough, the true last survivor of the Cetra and a member of Cloud's party, uses the White Materia to summon Holy, the only power able to counter Meteor. During her prayer to call forth the Ultimate White Magic, Sephiroth (or rather, Jenova transformed into his image) impales her with his sword, killing her. Though Aeris had successfully called Holy, Sephiroth holds it back within the Planet. Cloud and his allies continue tracking Jenova's remains in Sephiroth's form to the North Crater.
Cloud and his party kill Jenova in Sephiroth's form and reclaim the Black Materia. Cloud entrusts it to a party member for safekeeping while he and Tifa continue deeper into the crater and find themselves in an illusion of Nibelheim's destruction that Sephiroth conjured. Sephiroth wants to break Cloud by making him believe he is but a simulacrum created by Professor Hojo with false memories. Sephiroth deceives Cloud into thinking he is a mere cluster of Jenova cells that assumed the identity of a boy named "Cloud." Tifa tries to tell Cloud Sephiroth is lying, but cannot deny that she never saw Cloud at Nibelheim during its destruction.
Tifa's words along with Sephiroth's manipulations take their toll and shatter Cloud's fragile mind. Sephiroth projects an illusion of Tifa before the party members left behind to bring the Black Materia to Cloud. Once Cloud takes back the Black Materia he hands it to Sephiroth's true body residing within a Mako cocoon. Sephiroth summons the Meteor, which awakens the Planet's defense mechanism, the Weapons. The walls of the area crumble as the Weapons, colossal monsters, arise from their slumber, and Sephiroth's Mako cocoon falls into the crater. Cloud's allies flee with Rufus Shinra, the new president of the Shinra Company, on the airship Highwind while Sephiroth erects an energy barrier over the crater to keep the Weapons from detecting him.
Sephiroth is mentioned frequently in Hoshi wo Meguru Otome, as the deceased Aerith's spirit observes the effects Sephiroth's actions are having on the Lifestream and the Planet.
Sephiroth begins shapeshifting his body into a form befitting a god, awaiting Meteor's arrival. Cloud recovers upon discovering the truth about his past. In late January 0008, Shinra fires the Mako Cannon, known as the Sister Ray, at the North Crater, piercing Sephiroth's barrier and allowing Cloud and his allies to enter the crater and reach Sephiroth.
They find Sephiroth at the Planet's core, blocking Holy. Emerging from his larval Bizarro∙Sephiroth form upon defeat, Sephiroth becomes the angelic Safer∙Sephiroth, a being with seven wings. Cloud and his allies destroy Sephiroth, but his mind endures. Pulling Cloud into a metaphysical final battle, Sephiroth attempts to take control of him, but Cloud's mental defenses have grown, and he defeats Sephiroth, who dissolves into the Lifestream, seemingly destroyed. With Sephiroth gone, Holy is released from the Planet's core and Aeris helps the Lifestream emerge and keep the Meteor at bay for Holy to destroy it.
Geostigma crisis
Sephiroth is the focus of the On the Way to a Smile novella "Case of the Lifestream - Black" where he uses the Lifestream's emergence to fight Meteor to infect the Planet with Geostigma, dispersing his memories among the Lifestream to spread the disease. Sephiroth avoids dissolution into the Lifestream by focusing on his hatred of Cloud, which allows him to maintain a core sense of being and remain separate from the other spirits. With his peripheral memories, including those of his personal appearance, stripped away over time, he uses memories of how others in the Lifestream see him to craft his avatars and sends them to find Jenova's remains to reform a true body for himself.
Post-crisis
During the events of Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children in 0009, Sephiroth remains an active force terrorizing the Planet. Geostigma has spread throughout the world, afflicting many with extreme fatigue and skin sores. The plague is caused by Jenova's remaining consciousness in the Lifestream, and primarily affects children due to their weaker immune systems. Cloud has also contracted the disease and experiences visions of Sephiroth.
The now-reclusive Cloud finds himself confronted by a trio of silver-haired men who are physical manifestations of Sephiroth's will. The three, Kadaj, Loz and Yazoo, believe they are guided by their "mother" Jenova, but rather, it is Sephiroth himself who forces their actions. The three seek Jenova's cells to be reunited with her, unaware of Sephiroth's ultimate plan to recreate a new body for himself using Jenova's last remnants.
When Kadaj absorbs Jenova's cells Sephiroth exerts his power over Jenova to shapeshift Kadaj's body into his own visage, restoring him to life. Sephiroth faces Cloud and reveals his plan to taint the Lifestream with those dead of Geostigma to the point he is able to control it, and use the Planet as a vessel to travel space and find a new Planet for him to rule.
Sephiroth and Cloud fight in the ruins of Midgar that was never rebuilt after being ravaged by the Meteor. Sephiroth gains the upper hand before Cloud is reinvigorated by memories of his friends and family and destroys Sephiroth with Omnislash Version 5, utilizing his Fusion Swords to assault him from all directions. Sephiroth's final words are "I will... never be a memory."
His black wing folds around him and he fades away leaving a weakened Kadaj to die and fade into the Lifestream as Aerith's spirit calls healing rain to cure the Planet of Geostigma.
