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sephirthoughts · 6 months ago

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Father: Verb

Chapter 10: Father, Verb

Summary: 11 year-old WMD Sephiroth is assigned a new handler/bodyguard, named Vincent Valentine.

(prev chapter and ao3 linked at bottom)

rating: teen and up CW: major character death but he has it SO coming

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY HERE IS THE FINAL CHAPTER!!!!!! I SOMEHOW DID IT ON TIME…ISH Thanks to everyone who has commented and supported my story, even though there's no naughty stuff at all! You're the real heroes!!! ♥️⚰️🪽♥️ PS: Stay tuned for the epilogue and a silly side-story!!!

Vincent staggered, clutching his abdomen, where a long, thin blade impaled him, all the way through, sticking out of his back. He stumbled forward, as Sephiroth yanked the sword out. Sephiroth caught him, before he fell, and Vincent leaned heavily on him.

The sword wounds all over his torso were oozing a black, tar-like substance, that must be his blood. The ragged holes in Sephiroth’s chest, torn open by shots from Cerberus, had already begun to knit back together.

“Vincent…do you love me?”

A sea of flames billowed and roared all around them, accompanied by screams and wails, and the muffled thunder of explosions in the distance.

“Yes. I do.”

Sephiroth smiled. A sad, wistful smile, not that deranged one that had been his only facial expression, since he learned the truth of his origins. “You are the only person who ever has.”

“What has…my love…done for you?” Vincent rasped, between labored breaths. “Did it protect you? Did it stop you being tortured and brainwashed, by that monster?”

“No. But it’s not because your love wasn’t strong enough. I know, now, that you were only a chained dog. And that I was the whip your masters used to control you.”

Vincent convulsed and doubled over, coughing up a mouthful of black blood. Sephiroth steadied him on his feet, as he wiped his mouth with the back of his gloved hand.

“I w—I was going to kill you,” he panted. “Hojo told me you were my son. I was going to kill you, anyway.”

“I know.”

“Your mother…came to me. In my dreams. She showed me…her visions. The world on fire. Millions dead. And you responsible. She begged me to kill you. To save the world. I thought I could. But…then I saw you, face to face. You weren’t a god of destruction or a fallen angel. You were just a little boy. You were my little boy. How could I kill you? How could I not…how could I not fall in love with you, instead?”

“You came to me, in my dreams,” Sephiroth answered. “Before we met. I felt your killing intent, but also your hesitation. And I felt you change. That night when I first asked you, I already knew you loved me. I always suspected that you were my father, especially since the old man was always so insistent that you were not. But…then he showed me the report. Whether or not it was true, I knew it meant that you were gone. It broke me. I shut myself down. Became a compliant machine. Spent ten years convincing myself that I believed you had betrayed me. And yet, there was something always nagging at me. Wherever they sent me, I quietly searched for signs of you. Listened for rumors of your activities or whereabouts. But I never found anything. A few months ago, I used my position to demand access to Shinra’s physical archives and I had a look, for myself. There you were. Your entire career and life, boiled down to a few pages and photographs, in a faded folder. Medals, distinctions, honors…killed in action, in March of 1977. The year I was born.”

“I’m so sorry, Seph,” Vincent shuddered, clenching his teeth against a stab of pain. “I’m sorry that I…that I couldn’t protect you. I wanted to, so badly, I almost made myself believe that I could. But in the end, I failed you. I was never your father.”

“Father, verb: to take responsibility; to care for someone, as a father might,” Sephiroth said, as if by rote. “The act of love that makes one a father need not be any great, heroic deed. It may be something as simple as holding a child’s hand, when he’s afraid. Or teaching him to eat spaghetti.”

Vincent looked up at his son, who had grown into a man, in his absence. The boy who had been only chest-high, when they met, was now a full six inches taller than him, and a good deal broader in the chest and shoulders. A strand of silver hair hung in his seraphic face. Vincent reached up and brushed it back.

Sephiroth grabbed the wrist and dragged him into an embrace, clutching him tightly against his chest; holding him, as he had once been held by him.

“Vincent, you are my father,” he murmured in his ear. “You are my father, and I am not your fault. You did everything you could. But I was born to be a monster. I never had a chance.”

“No!” Vincent said, pulling away. “You are not a monster, Seph. Not until you choose to become one.”

Sephiroth laughed bitterly. “As you can see, I have already chosen.”

“Will it do any good to beg you to stop this? To come away with me, somewhere they can’t find us, and leave all of this behind? The way you always wanted to?”

“It is true. That was all I ever wanted. To have a peaceful life, with you. Such a pretty dream.”

“It’s not too late,” Vincent persisted. “We can have that. We can leave, together, right now, and never look back.”

“It is too late, for me,” Sephiroth sighed, looking out over the blazing inferno he’d made of the once idyllic little town. “But it won’t be too late for him. When we find him, it won’t be too late, anymore. Then, we’ll set all of this right.”

Vincent shook his head, not understanding. “What do you mean? Find who?”

Laying a gloved hand on his cheek, Sephiroth leaned down and pressed his warm lips to Vincent’s, waxen and icy cold. A single, chaste kiss. A punctuation mark, on a lifetime of grief and longing, and love obstructed. A kiss goodbye.

Then his hand dropped from Vincent’s cheek, onto his chest, laying over the place where his heart would be. “I am afraid I need…one last thing from you.”

“Seph, don’t—don’t do this!” Vincent gasped, struggling to wrench himself free, but Sephiroth held him fast. “Please don’t do this, I’m begging you!”

“I’m sorry, father. It’s the only way.”

Sephiroth curled his gloved fingers, and little wisps of pale light began wafting up from Vincent’s chest. Vincent twisted and convulsed in Sephiroth’s iron embrace, roaring with agony, as the white-hot razorblades of pain rent his body apart.

With a sickening, wet, cracking sound, a glowing orb burst through his ribcage, and landed in Sephiroth’s palm. One could see that it had been beautiful, but now it was severely damaged, from being torn forcefully out of his body, and there were stress cracks all over the luminous surface.

Viscous, black tears spilled down Vincent’s white cheeks. “Seph….please.”

Sephiroth closed his gloved fingers around the orb and squeezed. With a blinding flash, it exploded into glittering dust, releasing a shockwave, that fanned the raging flames in the village, and made even Sephiroth stagger.

Vincent’s body went rigid in his arms. Sephiroth watched as it began to warp and twist. Massive wings, black and crimson and membranous, burst out from his shoulder blades. Black blood poured from his mouth, all over Sephiroth’s bare chest, as his teeth lengthened into cruel fangs.

Suddenly unfurling its wings, the demon broke Sephiroth’s hold and threw him off with ease. Its face was still Vincent’s, but its skin was ash grey, and its eyes blazed like twin suns, below the jagged crown of Chaos.

“You dare summon me, bastard whelp of the plague mother,” the creature snarled, in a monstrous, hyper-resonant distortion of Vincent’s voice. “Here I am. Stand forth and be purified.”

Sephiroth extended his arm, holding Masamune out before him, horizontally. The he opened his hand and dropped it into the dirt, between them, with a ringing thud. “Chaos. I will not resist you. The corruption in me runs too deep, to be purified. I have come to surrender myself, and accept your judgement.”

Chaos looked down at the blade, and back up at his face. “Then I shall grant you a quick death.”

In its clawed hand, it held the weapon called Death Penalty. Legend had it that in the creature’s original incarnation, its weapon had been a reaper’s scythe, which would deal death with a single stroke, to any being, god or mortal, that Chaos judged to be guilty.

In its current incarnation, the scythe had taken on the aspect of Vincent’s gun, Cerberus, making itself into a heavy, black hand-cannon, with ornate, silver filigree work, and three massive barrels.

The demon raised its weapon and leveled the barrels at Sephiroth’s face.

Sephiroth smiled and closed his eyes.

The thunderous report split the air, echoing for miles around, as Death Penalty delivered its judgement. Since the accused surrendered willingly, death was clean and instantaneous, leaving no gore or anything so vulgar behind. Only a fine, crimson spray, like mist.

Sephiroth’s headless body fell heavily to the ground, where it lay prone, atop Masamune, in a rapidly spreading pool of crimson blood.

Chaos hovered in the air, observing, as the spirit left the body, and began to slip into the lifestream. At the last moment, the ancient demon heard an echo of laughter, and a cold voice on the wind, speaking strange words, which seemed to hold no particular meaning. And yet, those words would alter the fate of the world.

Chocolate chip cookies.

The same three words the older version whispered to him, before plunging Sephiroth back into the sea of memory, where he experienced the entire sequence of events, up to his death, in a split second, and finally understood what to do.

Vincent staggered, clutching his chest, where the long, thin blade impaled him, all the way through, sticking out of his back. He fell backward, as Sephiroth yanked the sword out, but Sephiroth caught him, and lowered him gently to the ground, cradling him in his lap.

The wounds all over his torso were oozing black, tar-like blood. The ragged slashes in Sephiroth’s face and chest, torn open by the beast’s claws, had already knit themselves back together.

“Vincent…do you love me?”

Dirt and bits of masonry rained down, around them, accompanied by the muffled thunder of explosions, somewhere high above.

Viscous, black tears spilled down Vincent’s white cheeks. “Yes. I do.”

Carefully wiping away the tears, Sephiroth leaned down and pressed his warm lips to Vincent’s, waxen and icy cold. As he did, he laid his hand on the bleeding wound in his chest, over the place where his heart would be.

“I am afraid I still need one thing from you.”

“Seph, don’t—don’t do this,” Vincent murmured. “Please don’t do this, I’m begging you.”

“I’m sorry, father. It’s the only way.”

Sephiroth curled his gloved fingers, and little wisps of pale light began wafting up from Vincent’s chest. He gave a shudder, then his eyes fell closed and he went still in Sephiroth’s embrace, as a glowing orb slipped easily through the extremely precise wound in his ribcage, and landed in Sephiroth’s palm. It was pristine and beautiful, like a galaxy of stars, contained in a snow globe.

“Be careful, you idiot child!” Hojo bellowed, from a few meters behind him. “Don’t play around with that, it’s volatile and extremely valuable!! Give it to me!”

Laying Vincent’s body down carefully, on the rubble-strewn concrete, Sephiroth staggered to his feet and turned around, to stand between him and Hojo, who had approached and held out his hand expectantly.

“You know what this is?” Sephiroth asked, holding the orb up, so that its glimmering light illuminated his dirt-streaked face.

“Yes, yes, of course I do,” Hojo said impatiently. “It’s the protomateria that woman put in the dead dog, to bring him back to life. The only way to kill him is to remove it, so well done. Hurry up and give it to me, before you break it.”

To his annoyance, Sephiroth only laughed. “Ah, is that what she told you? That removing the protomateria would kill him? What a clever woman Lucrecia was, to leave her lover one last insurance policy, against your malice.”

Hojo’s face went red, contorted with sudden fury. “How dare you!! How dare you speak her name with your worthless mouth! That dog was not her lover! She was mine! She was my woman and you are my son! Mine! Not his!!”

“Your jealousy and malice always were your blind spot,” Sephiroth observed, as he absorbed the radiant orb into his palm. “Knowing that you’d want to kill my father, eventually, she left you the ostensible method to do so, scattered through her notes, seemingly unintentional. Which was the only way you’d trust it.”

“What are you yapping about, brat?” Hojo said irritably. “I don’t know where you heard all of this nonsense, but that dog was not your father! I am! I have the legal documentation to prove it. Now, get that materia out of your body and hand it over, before it causes some kind of��”

He broke off and his expression changed. Behind Sephiroth, two enormous, black wings suddenly unfurled. For a moment, it looked as if they belonged to the boy, making Hojo squint and push up his cracked spectacles. Then his eyes went wide.

“No. No, I don’t believe it! The protomateria—how can he be alive?!”

“Were you paying attention to anything I said? Lucrecia tricked you. The protomateria was never keeping him alive.” Sephiroth smiled eerily, as the demon rose into the air behind him, looming over them, wings spread and eyes ablaze. “It was holding him back.”

“Ch—Chaos!” Hojo gasped, stumbling backward and sitting down hard, in the loose rubble. “What have you done, you idiot child! The demon can’t be controlled! It’ll kill us both!!”

“You dare summon me, bastard whelp of the plague mother,” the creature snarled, in a monstrous, hyper-resonant distortion of Vincent’s voice. “Here I am. Stand forth a—”

Sephiroth held up a hand and its voice choked off, strangled in its throat. As he slowly lowered the hand, the demon descended, as if pressed down by some invisible weight, until it was forced to kneel at Sephiroth’s side, eyes blazing with fury, its jagged crown bowed low, till it almost touched the ground.

“Fascinating, fascinating,” Hojo muttered, always the scientist, in spite of himself. “He has the creature under control, using the influence of the protomateria from inside his own body. This is groundbreaking. If we can harness the power of Chaos, it could change everything! Boy! How are you doing that? How did you know to do it?”

Sephiroth turned to him, with an expression of supreme disdain. “Are you aware that you have never once spoken the name you gave me?”

“Ha! The name I gave you, indeed!” Hojo scoffed. “Sephiroth was never a name, it was a project designation. It was only put on your birth certificate because the registry office wouldn’t accept ‘Asset S’. Would you like me to call you that?”

He staggered under this revelation. None of the future versions had known, either. That they never even had a name. For a beat, there was stunned silence in his head.

Hojo sneered, seeing his reaction. “Are you going to cry? Just when I thought you were through disappointing me.”

Sephiroth stepped forward and brought his foot down on Hojo’s shin, snapping the bone like matchwood. Hojo gave a shout and began howling in pain, rolling back and forth in the dirt and debris.

“Are you going to cry?” Sephiroth asked icily. “Just when I thought you were through disappointing me. Chaos, take us to the reactor. It’s time we put an end to this.”

“Th—the reactor?” Hojo sputtered. “What the hell do you want with the reactor! There’s no reason to—AAAAHHH!!”

Hundreds of meters above the deep sub-basement arena, at ground level, Shinra troop transports and helicopters were parked haphazardly about, and uniformed Shinra troops had swarmed the place like ants.

Some had cordoned off the area and were standing guard, keeping all the curious civilians from the town away, some were picking carefully through the blasted remains of Shinra manor, searching for any survivors, and some were guarding the ominously black and yawning elevator shaft, into which the asset had been last seen falling (or jumping, depending on who you asked).

Other units had been sent to recon where the evacuation tunnels surfaced, several kilometers down the road, but since the asset was rumored to possess the ability to fly, it was necessary to guard the elevator shaft as well.

Suddenly, to the immediate discomfiture of the soldiers standing guard, the ground began to buck and rumble, beneath their feet, and a strange sound came echoing up through the shaft.

Before they’d even had time to raise their weapons, an enormous ball of whirling shadows and purple lightning exploded out of the elevator shaft, throwing them all to the ground, before it shot away like a bullet, toward Mt. Nibel, making a strange, nasal wailing as it went.

“What the hell was that!” one of the commanders demanded, of no one in particular.

“It…sounded like Director Hojo, sir,” his second-in-command ventured, earning himself a glare from his superior.

Hojo was still howling and cursing, when Chaos dumped him on the floor, outside the steel doors, deep inside the Nibel reactor, with the word ‘Jenova’ emblazoned above them, like a shop sign.

“Mother, father and I have come for you,” Sephiroth said, spreading his arms. “Open the way for us.”

There were a few beats in which nothing happened.

“It seems mother is not eager to see us. Father, if you would.”

Chaos stuck its claws through the blast doors like they were made of tinfoil, and ripped them out of the frame, letting them fall crumpled and torn, to the floor. Then he and Sephiroth strode into the dark chamber, full of huge, black pipes connected to a brightly glowing tank. There was a metal figure mounted on a pedestal in front of it, attached to winglike protrusions of tubes on both sides, so that it looked like a grotesque sculpture of an angel.

“What do you think you’re doing! You can’t go in there!” Hojo shrieked, crawling after them, dragging his broken leg behind him.

“Chaos. Here is your old enemy,” Sephiroth said to the demon. “You are the only one who can truly destroy her, and erase her foul legacy from this world.”

“No! Stop it this instant, boy!!” Hojo roared from behind them. “You’ve had your tantrum, now this is going too far! You have no idea what you’re doing!!”

Sephiroth hopped down from the pipe he and Chaos hand been standing on, and dragged Hojo up, holding his jaw and forcing him to look up at the tank.

Chaos ripped the metal figure off the mounting and tossed it away, revealing the mutilated creature in the tank; half humanoid, with bizarre, calcified protrusions, and mottled, rotted hide. There was a mechanical apparatus on its head and a huge tube sticking out of its torso. Its dead face only resembled Sephiroth’s by four parts out of ten, but its long, silver hair made the resemblance seem far more pronounced.

“Witness the end of this ancient monstrosity,” Sephiroth said to Hojo. “Witness the end of all the suffering you have caused. At the hands of the man you murdered, and the child you destroyed.”

Chaos drew the Death Penalty and fired a slow-moving ball of purple-black plasma, that struck the tank and exploded the thick glass, sucking everything into a roiling mass of darkness, with a roar like a jet engine, as matter was obliterated, faster than air could rushed in to fill the vacuum.

That was it. A few seconds, and it was done. The dark mass collapsed on itself, taking the creature they had called Jenova with it. Total annihilation, leaving only a cleanly empty space, inside the shattered tank. Hojo cursed and raged, beating Sephiroth with his gnarled fists, to no avail.

Chaos floated down from the scene of Jenova’s demise and alit in front of them.

“So, it is done. We should leave this place, quickly. The reactor is unstable, without her, and will melt down soon.” Sephiroth’s glowing, green eyes turned on Hojo. “But first, I will deal with him. Hold him.”

“W—what do you think you’re doing now!” Hojo demanded, as Chaos took him by the arms and held him upright, in front of Sephiroth. “You can’t kill me! Shinra will never let you go! They’ll hunt you to the ends of the earth, you stupid brat!!”

“Kill you?” Sephiroth’s silver eyebrows went up. “Death is too good for you. You deserve to be mutilated and crippled, to lose everything you have ever cared about, and to live on, in misery and hopelessness, till decrepitude and disease waste your pitiful body, and you die wretched and alone, vainly clinging to the life that is so hateful to you.”

Hojo glared at him, baring his teeth fiercely, but failing to entirely conceal the trembling of his body, in fear of the cruel and coldblooded young monster he’d raised, with his own hands.

“However,” Sephiroth said, drawing Masamune from thin air. “There is no telling what schemes you might cook up, to escape punishment and make others suffer, if you’re allowed to live, and I don’t think tormenting you is worth risking another innocent person’s pain.” He leaned closer and lowered his voice to a gentle register, stroking the old man’s weathered cheek, in a mockery of tenderness. “You’re just…not all that important, to me.”

“You imp!” Hojo roared. “You ungrateful, worthless, spawn of that scheming bitch and her—”

There was a flicker of light, and Hojo’s voice cut off, mid harangue, as if someone had flipped a switch. His mouth hung open and his eyes went wide, in an odd expression of perplexity and surprise.

Then his head slid neatly from his neck and bounced across the floor, rolling to stop, a few meters away. The cracked spectacles sat somewhat askew on his face, before his dead, unseeing eyes, forever frozen in that puzzled expression. It was a rather ridiculous end, to the life of a man who had brought so many other lives to ruin and desolation.

Chaos tossed the body aside, and stood looking down at Sephiroth, with its blazing, yellow eyes, fangs visible between its parted, grey lips.

“I know. There is still a remnant of her,” Sephiroth said, with a rueful smile. “A fragment of her will, which she attached to one of my other versions, before he died. It mimics our voice and pretends to be one of us, but she overreached. I knew it was her, the moment she urged us to kill you. With that piece of her will, and her cells in my body, she could rebuild herself in me, and make me her vessel. You must purify me. That is the only way to truly rewrite destiny, and change the fate of this world.” He laid his hand on his heart. “I am the variable. I always was.”

The Death Penalty appeared again, in the clawed hand of Chaos.

“When I’m dead, the protomateria will return to you, on its own. I’m sorry I took it by force, father. I couldn’t let you be in control. You’d never be able to kill me. I’m sorry you’ll remember my death, but there’s no other way. No one else can do it. Here.”

Dashing away the tears that had begun rolling down his face yet again, despite the fact he never cried, he drew out his locket, which he pulled off his neck and put into Chaos’ other hand.

“My mother’s body is in a cave just southwest of here, crystallized in mako. Go and visit her, for me. Tell her I’m sorry I couldn’t come see her. Tell her you did what she asked, and that she can rest in peace, now. The cycle of bloodshed and destruction ends here. With me. The future will be a clean slate, now. Whatever happens to this world, everyone will be free to write their own destiny, without the interference of gods and monsters.”

Alarm klaxons began blaring outside the chamber, along with a mechanical voice announcing an imminent meltdown, and advising all staff to evacuate promptly. Amber emergency lights could be seen flashing in a rotating pattern, through the torn open doorway.

“Well. I suppose it’s time,” Sephiroth sighed. “Chaos, I am ready to accept your judgment. Purify me.”

Chaos raised the Death Penalty, leveling the massive, triple barrel at the child’s dirt and tear-streaked, but still divinely beautiful face.

Sephiroth smiled and closed his eyes. “Chocolate chip cookies.”

There was a loud, echoing bang, in the Jenova chamber. But it wasn’t the obliterating thunder of the weapon of Chaos, he’d experienced when his other self died.

Sephiroth’s eyes snapped open, to see the Death Penalty lying on the floor, where it had fallen, then he gave a startled cry, as a huge, clawed hand took him by the throat.

Chaos dragged him close, baring its long fangs. A thick, purple-black miasma poured from its maw like heavy smoke, and entered Sephiroth’s mouth and nose and eyes. He didn’t have time to wonder what was happening, before soul-rending agony was threshing his insides, shredding his muscle and sinew and bone, ripping his body apart, cell by cell.

He felt his consciousness depart the material world, and slip into a place he knew well, from the memories of his future selves. The Edge of Creation. Before him, stood all his older versions, in a protective ring, surrounding one—the false self, that was the will of the creature called Jenova.

The nihility of Chaos burst in and raged like a storm around them, tearing out the will of Jenova by its roots, while it clung to the child’s body in animal desperation, determined to save itself, or drag him with it, into annihilation.

But for all its power and cunning, it was just a primitive beast, and a multitude of Sephiroths—an army of himself—had it caged within their superior will. In the end, all it could do was scream and howl in wordless fury, over losing the game it had played for tens of millennia, as its old enemy finally devoured it.

The older version from eleven years in the future turned to him and smiled, then gave him an abrupt, hard shove, sending him plummeting backward into a dark vortex of pain and confusion. But at the end of that black tunnel of madness and anguish, Sephiroth came out, alive and intact.

Almost intact. He was missing something essential, the loss of which he could feel keenly, a hollow ache, in his whole being. He was alone, he realized. Jenova was gone—not only its will from his mind, but all its corrupt cells from his body, as well.

His other selves were silent, because they had never existed, now. Fate had been changed. Destiny had been rewritten. And yet, he was alive.

In his bewilderment, he became gradually aware of another voice, calling to him, from outside himself.

“Seph! Seph, are you alright?” It was still the resonant, inhuman rasp of Chaos, but it was also Vincent’s voice. Sephiroth looked up into the demon’s molten-gold eyes.

“F—father,” he faltered, through choking tears. “Why am I alive? What happened?”

“Chaos purified you, just as you asked. I saw…but I won’t ask. You can tell me, when you are ready.”

“But you’re still Chaos. How are you…you?”

“Because you have my heart,” Vincent said, laying a clawed hand on the boy’s chest. “Keep it with you, from now on. You are a better protector of it, than I ever was.”

Vincent lifted him in his arms, and Sephiroth buried his face in his father’s chest, not the slightest bit repulsed by his twisted, monstrous form, and broke down into deep, racking sobs, as if making up for all the years of stifled grief and tearless suffering, all at once. Finally, worn out with weeping, and with the tremendous strain of the literal world-changing events of the day, the boy passed out, with his silver head on his father’s shoulder.

Late that night, amidst the canopy of twinkling stars, Vincent slowed his flight and looked out over the world far below. He was free. Finally free. Of Shinra, of Hojo, of Chaos, and most importantly, of the chains of guilt and self loathing, that had kept him paralyzed and submissive—only a passive participant in his own life, for so many years.

“I didn’t do what you asked,” he said softly, looking back the way they’d come. “But I think you knew I never could. I’ll take care of him, for you. And I’ll never let anyone hurt him, again. You can rest in peace, now.”

Wrapping his arms more tightly around his sleeping son, he pressed a kiss to his silver hair, then spread his magnificent demonic wings, and soared away, into the boundless, starlit sky.

SHINRA INTERNAL MEMO DATE: Oct. 14, 19XX DEPARTMENT: Public Security Division SENDER: Head of Department of Administrative Research RECIPIENT: President Shinra SUBJECT: SHINRA MANOR AND NIBELHEIM REACTOR INCIDENTS Mr. President, I have received your orders to expedite this investigation, and am taking all necessary steps to do so. Remains of Director Hojo and Asset S have yet to be recovered, but both are presumed dead. Preserved remains of the JENOVA life form have not been located, due to the high contamination levels at the site, but recovery appears unlikely, given the thoroughness of the destruction, caused by the uncontrolled fusion reaction in the mako core. If I may be frank, sir, we are looking at one hell of a mess, over here. The reactor meltdown was contained within the sub-levels, by an unknown magnetic field anomaly, which the science folks are calling an ‘act of god,’ without a hint of irony. The outer structure is sound, but the whole thing will have to be gutted and rebuilt. Whether it’s worth the cost, is up to yourself and the board. Regarding Shinra Manor, human casualties are estimated in the hundreds, including military and civilian personnel. The few witnesses left alive claim the fourteen-year-old asset went berserk and destroyed the Manor, singlehandedly. Shinra troops responding to the distress call witnessed the asset leaping down the elevator shaft, as they arrived. Evacuated manor personnel also attest to Director Hojo’s presence in the sub-basement emergency shelter, shortly before the entire sub-structure collapsed, burying him, the asset and whatever else he was keeping down there, under thousands of tons of rock. The logistics people estimate it’ll take years to excavate and sort through. In my professional opinion, the reactor and manor are a total loss. Recommend disposing of remaining eye-witnesses, disseminating official version of events through the usual channels, nominal compensation to Nibelheim residents, and standard relocation packages to local reactor employees. Regarding former Special Security Agent Vincent Valentine: it is the opinion of this agency that he poses no material threat to Shinra or its interests. We will be keeping an eye on him, from time to time, just in case. —Veld

THE AUTHOR HAS SOMETHING TO SAY VELD CAMEO FOR THE NERDS!!!

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