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holly-fixation · 1 year ago

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Listen to the Cries of the Planet

Artwork by @winter-doggo

Summary: What if Jenova successfully copied Cetra DNA, and Sephiroth truly was part Cetra as a result? How would the Planet react? How would mako treatments change? Would he hear the planet? Would they be clear enough to understand? Or would the faintest tune curse him for being one of all: Human, Cetra, and Virus?

Sephiroth is truly chosen by the planet, but it came with a side effect no one expected. He doesn’t hear the voices of the planet. He hears their songs.

Trigger warnings: Medical abuse, child neglect, torture (Violence / abuse, Blood / injury, Medical / hospital imagery, self harm)

Author's note: There is a translation at the end for the 'musical lines' and a link here to listen to them. I describe what the songs should be in the paragraphs before and after them, but if they are confusing or there's not enough context to understand them, check out the key at the bottom with a quick Ctrl+F. They are listed in order of appearance.

Please enjoy.

…

Despite the strength they wanted him to have, they always treated Sephiroth like a failure. They always asked questions he did not understand. They always poked, and prodded, and sampled any part of him they saw fit. It wasn’t always this way. It wasn’t exactly this way.

One scientist used to protect him. Kind and old. Professor Gast. The name still rang bitter sweetly in his mind.

Professor Gast left him here with Hojo. But he said he’d be back for him. He promised.

A little over a year later, the small regulations and limitations Gast barely convinced Hojo to implement completely fell through. He knew it. He knew he didn’t have much time before they put more mako in him.

They said it made him stronger. They told him to stop struggling. They told him it didn’t hurt nearly as much as he claimed.

The pain he could deal with. But it was so, so loud.

He didn’t know why. They never stopped him or told him he was wrong when he explained it. But they seemed disappointed in something about it. Every time they gave him mako, his ears rang painfully with unidentifiable clamors. He couldn’t understand anything within the cacophony. He could barely see from the overstimulation.

Mako hurt Sephiroth in ways he did not understand, and only when Professor Gast was there did anyone try to stop the treatments.

But it was more than that. It wasn’t just mako. It wasn’t just ringing.

Sephiroth heard things all the time. Heard things no one else did. And he had heard them since the day he was born.

“Professor?” He asked softly, his head all but tilted in curiosity at the sounds the man was making.

“Hm?” That sound was different from the rest, meeting his reptilian eyes with spectacled ones. “What is it, Sephiroth?”

“What was that sound?”

His brows knotted and he turned a bit more to face the boy properly. “Which sound?”

“The ones you made with your mouth closed,” Sephiroth answered simply.

“Humming?” He almost chuckled at the thought, shaking his head softly. “I apologize. That song’s been stuck in my head for the past week.”

This time he really did tilt his head like a perplexed puppy. “What’s a ‘song’?”

He took a breath, trying to determine the correct explanation for the child. The boy understood this, watching and waiting quietly. “Songs are a combination of patterns and pitches, usually rhythms and notes.”

“Like the notes you write?”

He smirked softly with another shake of his head. “Musical notes are very different from my notes. I promise.”

“‘Musical notes’?”

Professor Gast nodded. “The parts that make up music.”

“What’s music?”

He frowned empathetically. The last time Sephiroth heard music, he was less than two years old. Hojo only permitted it due to studies showing it aided the intelligence of the developing brain. “I’m not sure if I can bring some in to listen to. It’s hard to explain exclusively with words.”

His little silver brows creased as he analyzed. “Music is something you can only hear?”

He rocked his head. “Technically you can read and write it. But if you can’t play some sort of musical instrument, then you usually only hear it. It’s meant to be heard.”

Sephiroth nodded in understanding, slowly looking down in thought. It took a few seconds before he looked up again. “Is there music now?”

Another shake of the head. “No, Sephiroth. All you’re hearing is the air in the vents. That’s not music.”

The boy chewed his lip as his eyes met the ground again. “Okay… But you said you'd try to show me music, right?”

He gave a sad sigh. “I’ll see what I can do.”

A few days later, Hojo agreed to allow the boy the same classical pieces of his development under the condition of a single warning to the man that suggested it.

“Do not taint the boy’s interests with this. I will not have him waste his potential on something so frivolous. He will either lead them to The Promised Land, or become a soldier. Do not make this more difficult than it needs to be.”

With the usual level of pressure from Hojo, Gast finally showed the little boy the combination instruments, sounds, melodies, harmonies, and all he could gain from the pieces.

In three words, Sephiroth ignited his hope in this project.

“I hear that!” He announced with wide eyes excitedly, pointing at the speakers after the song ended. His reptilian eyes met the glasses happily. “That’s it! That’s what I hear all the time!”

He smiled at the boy’s excitement, but the confusion and restraint showed on his face. He needed proof before he could let the possibility of finding something consume his rational thoughts. “Do you make up songs on your own?” Perhaps it was only the subconscious memory of those early days that ignited the boy's excitement.

“They’re not made up,” He tried to explain, relief in his breath. “I hear different music… in my head. Sometimes it’s people. Sometimes it’s places.” He looked away. “Sometimes it’s Hojo’s tests… but his tests and experiments are two different songs…” He suddenly hugged the scientist he trusted with all of his little heart. “You have one. Not everyone has their own. But you have one. It’s happy… slow, but happy…”

The possibility of this admission being another rabbit hole remained fairly high, but with just enough room for doubt, both scientists agreed to test this. Hojo sneered, relenting for the sake of the experiment, and bought the boy a full sized electronic keyboard. How long it would take the boy to use it was unknown.

Sephiroth joyously spent his alone time learning and adjusting to the instrument with his unpracticed hands, his little fingers trying to move as fast as the neurons in his mind.

He figured enough out after a few days, enough to play the tune he heard the most:

B flat - A - F - D - B flat - A - F - D

Everyday those four notes looped in Sephiroth’s consciousness, slowly circling him each moment he existed in this lab, always descending, always even, in time, predictable, echoing like a call. Sometimes it was calm and slow, usually in the morning, like the strings of a harp threatening to lull him back to sleep. Others, it was fast, quickening, pulling all his attention to whatever the current source was. Usually monsters, or extremely specific procedures. The incompleteness of the tune, how it only repeated various versions of that chord, sent a chill down his spine. Yet sometimes, it did soothe him, the predictability of the coming sounds. What was the true source of those notes?

He simply didn’t know.

However, this skill, ability, talent, whatever it was, aided him many times throughout his life. Too many times. No creature or machine could ambush him no matter the test. He heard the low pulse of stalking and the loud blasting the second before it attacked, letting the battle begin with the same rhythm as always:

1 - 2 - 3 - 1 - 2 - 3 - 1 - .

He tried to read between the lines of these tunes, but he always needed time to learn what they were connected to. The discovery period of that learning curve decreased as he aged, but it remained a bump in his path, required to climb without fail.

The allotted learning time crumpled to less than a fraction after Professor Gast left. They used to test him, showing him images and asking if they sparked songs. A place with white trees. A crater. A forest. A village in snow. It always took ten minutes to figure out a single phrase of the melodies he heard, always stuck chasing after the previous part when the next section began, forced to wait until it looped before attempting again.

But the snow and Professor Gast shared the same song. Neither scientist spun a logical explanation for that. Gast never lived or desired to live in the cold. That discovery halted all resources wasted on this useless ability. They allowed the boy to keep his keyboard, the only connection remaining for transcription of any ‘new’ songs, in a desperate attempt to prove it was worth the money.

Professor Gast left three days after the comparison. Sephiroth was left completely alone as a result, his only solicases the withering chocobo plush the professor gave him and the keyboard that always calmed him when he played well or even just figured things out.

He ran out of time. He avoided it for so long, agreeing to suffer through as many injections as possible, forcing the ringing blood of the planet to scratch and claw through his veins. If it kept Hojo away from those. If he pushed his results high enough, following whatever command, or test, or experiment, or trial, or battle. Whatever it took to keep those glowing green tanks full, sealed, and away from him. Whatever it took. Whatever he could do.

It wasn’t enough. One morning rang his struggle worthless.

The door slid open and thin cloths flew at him, flung from the hand of the only ‘guardian’ that remained.

“Put these on and come out when you’re ready,” Hojo spat.

Sephiroth ran to catch the clothes before looking up. “Why?”

“Don’t ask questions, just get it done.” The door slammed closed without another word.

The song was different. An upward scale that never completed.

D - . - E - . - F - G - A - B - C sharp

Never resolved. Never complete. Always reaching for more, greedy and detached. He always heard it when Hojo forced him to stand in front of the president and the higher ups. When he was told to stand still while they watched him and asked him questions. He knew it well, but he rarely heard it from Hojo alone. This was bad.

He took a deep breath before changing into the odd clothing. It was large, but not large enough to slip off. It stayed attached to his body, but air flowed easily through the cloth itself and its massive gaps between his skin, almost as if wearing nothing at all. He didn’t like this. He hated everything about this, but he had no choice.

The moment he opened the door, Hojo grabbed his arm like a vice and pulled him across the lab.

“Where are we going?” Sephiroth asked hesitantly, willing himself to allow the nearly painful grip on his arm without complaining.

“I told you not to ask questions.”

“But what did I do wrong?” He ignored the statement, his mind too fuzzed by befuddlement to understand the request. “I thought I was doing good…”

“‘Well’,” Hojo corrected the child’s grammar before answering, “And the board doesn’t agree.” Even through his cold tone, the boy heard the slightest tink in the song. A simple note telling him that the scientist agreed, or he did at some point agreed, that Sephiroth was doing well with obviously improved results.

He didn’t speak again until he saw an empty mako tank, a portable metal stool resting from the floor to the open glass door as a poisonous invitation. Two velcro cuffs laid chained to the bottom, open and ready for the next victim.

No!

Sephiroth froze and his feet rooted to the ground. Hojo was jerked back by the sudden immovable object.

The scientist's frustrated stumble earned the boy a venomous glare.

He shook his head, denying what he saw with his own eyes, hoping it was a lie, a test all on its own. “No…”

“Boy,” Hojo seethed, grabbing the child’s chin. “Don’t give me any trouble. Get in the tank.”

“No no no no- you promised!” He yelled, trying to pull away. Too much panic disordered his mind to comprehend the threat.

“I changed my mind.”

The beat of the song and his pulse accelerated together, rapidly searing in alarm. “But I did everything you asked! Why?!”

“The board expects higher results, and this is the only method we have not implemented that your body can handle, boy.” His black eyes blazed with cold indifference, an icy burn that pierced the little boy to his soul.

“Don’t do this… Please don’t do this…” The repeated descending notes of the lab circled faster and faster like moving in a vortex, pulled underwater by a whirlpool.

“Oh come on,” He let the boy’s face go, and the child held a hand to the assaulted skin unconsciously while he gestured to the tank. “You’ve never been in one. You have no idea if it’s better or worse than the injections. With this we can halve your injections and still have better results. Don’t you want that?”

He shook his head like a wet dog, denying every word out of the scientist’s mouth. “Hojo, please, I’ll do anything! Anything at all!”

“You are limiting yourself with a fear you cannot justify. I will ask one last time.” He almost bared his teeth as he growled at the child. “Get in the tank. Now.”

Sephiroth’s breath hitched, a pained gasp as the last of his supports collapsed to the ground. No one protected him anymore. No one cared. And he wasn’t strong enough to fight against them or make them happy. Tears fell down his cheeks, one each, before he swallowed the welling in his eyes deep inside him. His lip quivered without his control as he looked down, trying to hide, trying to escape, but Hojo jerked him toward the ladder before letting him go, waiting impatiently with crossed arms.

He took a painful breath to restrict his shaking. Each step thumped deeply against the tile floor as he stepped forward slowly, trying to ignore the sting of Hojo’s glare. He climbed the ladder and looked around the empty tank, the clear edges, the locked drain, the seal on the cap.

“Get in.”

Sephiroth’s brows knotted before he turned back slightly. “There are no tubes…”

“Of course not. You don’t need any.”

“I’ll drown!”

Hojo groaned and held the bridge of his nose. “Mako carries oxygen the same way air does. You can breathe it with time.”

Sephiroth didn’t believe him, but he didn’t have a choice. He stepped into the glass tank. He felt Hojo's glare burn his back as he attached the velcro restraints to his ankles. A lab tech removed the ladder as he did before the glass closed and sealed him in.

He hated the glass. Something deep within him hated the inside of the clear tube.

Without warning, the rushing green liquid began filling the tank, the song in Sephiroth’s mind whirled with the same six notes over and over and over again.

D - A - D - B flat - G - A

Despite his panic, the song was slow, unrushed and unhurried like tides following the moon, natural and calm, foreboding and dizzying. Sephiroth backed away as far as he could, but the mako already claimed his ankles. It didn’t hurt, yet, but it felt wrong. Like he didn’t belong. Like it rejected him. He kept shaking his head, silently begging Hojo to release him. That he won. That he had the results he wanted already. That he should let him out before something bad happens.

Then it claimed his knees, and his rapid breathing claimed his rational mind, his hands itching to break through the glass as they twitched weakly.

“That tank is designed for monsters.” Hojo spat, reading him like a book as always. “Don’t bother wasting your energy.”

Then it swallowed his hips, and he sobbed. He couldn’t stop himself. It hated him, the mako. It gave him bad feelings. Bad sounds. The smell. The radiation. It hated him. It wanted him out. He knew it by the flow along his skin and the foreboding repetitions in his ears.

Then his chin. He took the largest breath his lungs could contain as his sight flooded green from the filling container.

He held. Mako curtained his eyes with a green hue, but his sight remained perfectly clear despite the liquid.

Don’t breathe.

He read about breathing techniques once, one of the books he was given for new combat strategies. Yet he was too afraid. The books said to release all breath before holding to minimize strain on the body. But if he let it go, he wouldn't be able to stop himself from-

Don’t breathe.

He snapped his eyes to Hojo, still begging, silently pleading through the mako. He took a step closer to the glass, desperate to call on the aid of anyone nearby. Someone to help him. Anyone before this stuff hurts him-

Don’t… breathe…

His chest ached, forcing the over-contained breath into bubbles that floated playfully to the surface as he panicked. He clasped his hands over his mouth and squeezed his eyes shut, trying with everything he had to hold the air in.

But it kept leaving through the mako around him, escaping straight through his fingers.

Don't breathe!

His lungs screamed. His body cried against his mind. Mako didn’t want him. He didn’t want mako. It’s bad! It’s bad! But every cell in his body strangled against his last command.

DON'T-

* * *

One gasp, one step forward, and in three bangs Sephiroth shattered the glass, his tiny hands piercing the material like bullets before the brittle fracture destroyed the container. Hojo glared as he coughed and collapsed to the floor with a painful crush upon the shattered remains and wasted enhancement slowly flowing down the drains. The boy’s eyes glazed with the remnants of mako as he gasped the basic and useless air around them.

His body stuttered, struggling as he tried to hold his head. His body ever so slightly rocked back and forth as he curled into himself.

“Prepare the next tank,” Hojo commanded nonchalantly, as if asking for a glass of water, as if he expected the child to break through the limits of his power in an attempt to hide from the gift of more. “And use proper restraints this time.” He clearly overestimated the boy’s loyalty, and giving him simple restraints was his own mistake.

Two of the lab technicians knelt down to the boy, routinely synchronized as they grabbed his arms and tried to lift him up.

Tried.

Like a machine, like a hydraulic press, he crushed both of their hands slowly, thoughtlessly, jerking and fighting to remain on the ground. The technicians grasped their own hands and ran off to medical with a few others following and helping along.

His panic only allowed soft moans and pants to leave his lips instead of any true explanation, unstable and unnatural.

Hojo groaned at their immediate surrender and approached the boy himself. He knelt down and turned Sephiroth by his shoulder, unalarmed and barely controlled. Unlike the two technicians, he remained unharmed, not a single attempt to attack. But this close, he heard whispers through the boy's panting breaths, unclear and impossible to translate. Repetitive, terrified, and desperate by the look in his wide open eyes.

The child continued rocking against the shattered glass, each chip piercing through his back, drawing the faintest blotches of blood to stain his thin clothing. Yet each wound healed as he tipped off the ground before his back hit the glass again, a perfect negative feedback loop, perfect equilibrium as the only damage truly sustained were the green and red stains and holes that grew in his clothes.

Hojo should've thrown the boy in the next tank immediately, but at the thought alone the child cringed and tensed, ready to pounce, ready to attack. The moment he focused on the boy’s condition rather than fate, the child relaxed ever so slightly, relaxed enough. Instead, Hojo leaned closer and closer until he understood the desperate whimpers.

“No I’m not… I’m not… I’m not… Why…? Please… Please…” Nonsense poured out of the child’s mouth, and the scientist almost denied the boy a chance at rest, until he heard the next cry. “I’m not a monster… I'm human… I'm human… I was born here…”

What the hell was he reacting to? What was wrong with his mind? Mako osmosis in this state could permanently damage his brain. The boy was losing it. He needed neurological testing. Now.

* * *

The MRI scans showed nothing, not a single change beyond the expected results of mako intake. Neither did the EEG or PET or CT scans. So why was he still rocking like that? Why was he still muttering and stumbling through nonsense?

Sephiroth was on his bed at the far end of his room, rocking against the wall with his knees held close to his chest. He did not react to any commands they gave unless they physically pulled him. He would walk when yanked, sit when pushed, and follow when guided. But gods forbid they dared turn towards an empty tank. When even the slightest inkling of returning to the tanks passed through his mind, he attacked. They quickly found that leaving him in his room was safer for everyone, including himself.

Hojo did not leave the observation glass, his eyes analyzing the boy no matter how much time had passed. What did he know?

What is he hearing?

For hours, all the boy's whispers were the same as if caught in the crest of insanity. Again, and again, and again he repeated the same phrases, the same exhausted pleas of what he suddenly thought was true.

“I’m human… I’m human… I’m not a monster… Not an-an abomination… please…”

The scientist sighed again, rubbing his eyes. A small part of him wanted to believe this was his Cetra power awakening. They boy had some traces of Cetra genetics, he tested them himself, but how long was this going to last? He couldn't find a justified solution beyond knocking the boy unconscious until this episode passed. Hopefully, he would retain a small fraction of this possible communicative ability. Disrupting it now could cause irreparable damage.

“...I don’t know… I don’t know…”

He should sedate the child soon. Compliant or not, potential or none, this was wasting too much time. At least then the boy’s body could regulate and remove these abnormal mako effects without making noise.

“Lu…” Finally the boy started saying something new. “Lucre…cia…?”

Hojo's indifference vanished. His body flooded in alarm, his aghast eyes targeting the boy's in a silent demand to repeat despite the one way glass. How did he know that name? Surely he misheard it. There was no way he knew that name. Unless the Planet-

“Who- who’s Lucrecia…?” His panicked breath returned with a vengeance. “V-Vincent? Who's Vincent? I don’t understand... I-I don’t understa-” Something cut him off and he stared directly into Hojo's black eyes.

The scientist jerked back at the sudden movement and the desperate, pathetic expression on his son's face.

“...are you my father…?” At first, he barely whispered. “Are you my father, Hojo…?”

The scientist said nothing, entrapped by the boy's challenge.

“Professor Hojo, Are you my father?!” The boy shouted desperately, persistently, as if trying to prove something, as if everything in this deranged episode depended on that answer, clawing his own nails into his arms and drawing blood without reacting to the pain. “Hojo! Who’s Vincent?! Who’s Lucrecia!? What happened to Professor Gast!? Hojo! HOJO!”

“Knock him out. Now,” was his only order. Hojo did not move from his place behind the window, watching silently. Questions and theories and hypotheses he needed to prove rapidly generating in his mind.

Technicians began rushing the room and restraining him for sedation.

“ARE YOU MY FATHER!?” Sephiroth demanded with crazed eyes, twisting and arching only to escape the needle, yet not harming a single hand on his body. “HOJO, ARE YOU MY FATHER!? I KNOW YOU’RE THERE, HOJO! HOJO-”

Finally he reacted to some outward input, wincing with a single grunt as the needle slipped through his skin, crashing his assault as it instantly circulated his veins. A small shaft of metal somehow pierced him back to reality despite the greater wounds he caused himself without reaction.

Yet he still struggled against it, battling futilely but battling nonetheless. “Hojo- Hojo please… who’s Lu-... who’s Lucre-...” He forced his final inquiry through his failing body. “...wh-who’s my mother… who… who’s… Mo…ther…”

The chemical claimed the last of his consciousness, and the technicians carefully laid him in the bed, placing his head on the pillow before wiping away the drying blood on his arms.

The next day, the boy recalled nothing. Not a single order given or taken, not a word out of his mouth, not a single question or reaction. He only remembered the pain of the mako, the terror of that first breath, and the eerie sense that something was different now.

They never put him in a mako tank again.

* * *

Years passed. So much had changed. His training continued and mako injections were a daily affair, but something was off within the past few months. Hojo finally took interest in someone else, splitting his attention throughout the day. Someone like him, the boy assumed at first, yet he could not be more wrong. Hojo didn’t train them, or use mako with them, or present them to the board. They just existed, with one going for backroom testing and the other remaining in their cell all day.

That ‘other’ was a girl. And that girl had a mother. Aerith and Ifalna. He heard their names a few times through the hallways during his transitions between training, mako treatments, and medical examinations.

He despised them, both of the useless women.

He caught enough moments of them together to know what they did, how Aerith was a complete chatterbox and Ifalna always smiled when she held her. He didn’t care that they were ‘unique’ according to his guardian. Each time he saw them, he felt angry. He wanted to be as far away from them as possible, to never hear either of their songs again.

Hojo, however, gave Sephiroth no choice.

Sephiroth and Aerith had already spent several hours of the last few days ‘playing’, which usually amounted to Aerith doing something childish and annoying while he gave one word responses to whatever random topic she was on about. Houses, flowers, the outside, her drawings. Gods he couldn’t care less.

At least her song was nice.

It always started calm, almost ‘pretty’. It was high pitched for most of the notes, but it was both fast and slow at the same time. High yet deep. Ugh. He hated trying to describe songs with words. It was just weird. Why couldn’t he just say Aerith’s song was nice and then move on? Why did the lab constantly question him about this? They hadn't asked him in a few years about his pieces, but it was still inconvenient. It wasn’t like they let him practice anymore either.

Ifalna’s song was very different, bouncy and foreboding at the same time. He always found himself rigidly at attention when he heard her labyrinth-like piece. It vaguely reminded him of unsolved puzzles, ancient and hidden, but that was only the vibe he felt. With the puzzles came uncertainty, so he always kept his eye on the mother when she came close.

A - A flat - G - G flat - F - . - E - E - C - . - A - . - A - . -

That song circled constantly, a different kind of dizzying than the one he heard in the lab. Rarely though, but it did happen, her song was snow, just like the photos the technicians showed him when he first discovered his ability. Luckily, today she was as far as she could be, on the other side of the room with a guard on each side, so Aerith’s song took over completely. Songs never played over each other, but if they were strong enough and close enough, they ‘mixed’. They weren’t bad together, but it was dizzying. He was just exhausted, and it was easier to focus on a single piece at a time.

“Sephyyy-”

He felt the pokes at his cheek and he swatted her away with a small groan. Why couldn’t she be quiet? Her song was the only good part about these wastes of time. She only caused more stress. “Don’t call me that and stop poking me.”

“But you weren’t answering. Why are you so sleepy?”

Probably because I actually do things and not just play all day. The dark bags under his eyes were merely a fraction of what he felt. “I’m really busy. That’s why.”

“But we’re playing. This is supposed to be fun!”

He winced at her volume. “Fun…” He muttered, the word practically separate from any true meaning in his mind.

The little girl with brown hair scratched the back of her head and looked away. “Well I guess that’s not completely true. Sometimes having fun makes me tired.” She shot her gaze back to him. “Are you doing anything fun to get tired?”

He shook his head, then shrugged.

“What does that mean?”

He shrugged more. “I’m not supposed to spend time on ‘fun’. I’m supposed to be perfect.”

“Why are perfect and fun two different things?”

Sephiroth groaned, putting a hand on his head. She wouldn't understand. She didn’t have any kind of purpose like he did. She just wasted space. Gods he was tired. “Aerith, please, just let me rest. It’s loud enough without talking all the-”

Her eyes went wide when he accidentally let that comment slip. He tried to cut himself off, but there was no denying what she already heard. She definitely had no idea what he was talking about. No one heard anything like him. So why was she excited again? “It is pretty loud in here. I hear things all the time-”

“Aerith,” Her mother cut her off. Ifalna rarely spoke when the two children were forced to interact, probably under the threat of Hojo’s gaze.

“Sorry, Mama…”

But all of a sudden, Sephiroth’s interest sparked his exhaustion away. He knew to everyone else these rooms were silent beyond the air in the vents. “You hear things?”

She nodded before her eyes widened and she nearly jumped in excitement. “You hear things too!”

“What do you hear?”

“What do YOU hear?!”

“I asked you first.” Sephiroth hated stooping to her level with the same childish mannerisms she used against him, but it was the fastest way to an answer.

“I hear voices in my head. Nice voices! But Mama says I’m not supposed to talk about them…” She giggled nervously, swinging her arms to release a bit of energy. “...oops. What about you?”

A bit of his hope crumpled at her explanation. He crossed his arms softly and looked away, but he answered honestly, “I hear music. All the time. Sometimes it’s places, or battles, or people.”

“People?” She perked up, her bangs bobbing with her sudden movement. She leaned closer to him, and he leaned back as far as he could against the wall as she excitedly invaded his personal space. “Do I have one?”

Why was she so excited about this? He frowned and turned away, her green eyes bearing into his soul from her lack of distance. “...Yes. You and Ifalna have separate songs.”

She gasped, a giant smile on her face. “Can you sing it for me?”

He glared silently, cringing away from her suggestion with disgust.

“Oh come on! If it’s my own song I wanna hear it!” She grabbed his arm and looked up innocently. “Pleeeeeaaaase.”

He flicked his arm to push her off softly. She was unbelievably fragile. He always needed to be careful around her. “No. I don't sing and I don’t have time to learn it.”

“Learn it how?” Gods her eyes were wide. Can she please stop looking at him like that?

“I. I can play the piano.”

She literally jumped up and down. “You play an instrument?!”

He winced. “I already told you I don’t have time to figure it out.”

Aerith turned to her mother and the guards. “Mama, can he figure out my song in here? I wanna hear it!”

Sephiroth didn't see Ifalna's nonverbal response. He was too busy holding his hand over his eyes in embarrassment.

Eventually Aerith chose a different topic for the rest of their little session. He wasn't sure if he was more or less grateful for it, but at least it changed the conversation. All he really wanted was some actual rest. Yet once he left their cell, Hojo grabbed him by the arm and pulled him aside.

“You knew they had songs?” The scientist questioned sternly. Sephiroth couldn't figure out why. These songs were only a talent, useless and pointless to his worth just as Hojo always told him. They didn’t mean anything. And he already explained their songs to one of the orderlies. Why did he have to say it again?

“Why do you care?”

“Don’t be smart with me, boy.”

His brows furrowed and he stared for a second, Hojo’s gaze challenging him beneath the black glasses. He felt his resolve waiver under the burning sensation before he answered in defeat. “Yes, they both have songs…”

“Then learning them sounds like a good bonding experience.”

Sephiroth shook his head. “I genuinely don't have the time. Not with my current schedule.”

“If you remain diligent in your duties, I can adjust your daily routine to allow extra time. But you better use it, or so help me, boy-” Hojo kept speaking, but Sephiroth almost rolled his eyes as he ignored the man. He was already being lectured for future disobedience. What was the point of complaining before anything happened?

A little over two weeks passed after Aerith’s request before he learned her tune ‘well enough’, as he called it. His adjusted regimen gave him about half an hour a day of well used time. He truly spent all of his given time at his old keyboard, though Hojo always seemed reluctant even after their little agreement. With this simple adjustment, Sephiroth’s results were undeniably better. Though obviously awake as he learned more of the tune, he felt calmer, more rested. Something about the exterior sound or the focus of the skill or maybe the lack of danger significantly lowered his overall cortisol levels.

Despite only being allowed to learn her piece to have a bearable bonding experience with the little girl for once, he was not prepared for her reaction when he entered her room with the keyboard and its stand. She touched and dragged her hand across every inch of his inventory before he even had the chance to set up. He literally had to shoo her back so he could play at all.

“But I wanna hear it!” She yelled excitedly, excitedly jittering in her spot.

“You won't hear anything unless I plug it in first.” He knew how to assemble his instrument quickly, but that did not help a single shred of calm enter Aerith’s body.

She questioned him about literally every step. Why was the stand so high? Why couldn’t he play on the floor? What was that black thing he left on the floor? Why did it have so many buttons? Sephiroth tried hard to answer her questions enough that she’d leave him be. She, in fact, did not leave him be. She stayed right next to him even as he turned on the instrument and immediately did the worst thing she possibly could:

She smacked the high keys, repeatedly, inconsistently and dissonantly, each electronic pluck twitching his eye. He hadn’t touched a single key yet and already she found a way to make this miserable.

“Aerith, stop it. You don't know how to play.” He couldn’t stop his snippiness. Something about that sound irked him to no end, the faintest memory of discipline ghosting the back of his mind. His hands hovered above the keys like the drawn claws of a cat, trying not to give into the temptation to push her invasive hand off the board.

“But this is fun!”

“I don’t care. It’s my keyboard.”

“Can you teach me how to play?”

“What? No, absolutely not.”

“Why nooooooot?”

“If you keep complaining, I won’t play your song.”

Somehow, thankfully, that got her to stop completely. She even stopped talking, giving him a moment to breathe deeply and wait for the song in his mind to restart before joining it on the board. Though at this point these chords and movements were quite simple to him, the little girl watched with enthralled wide eyes.

F sharp - A - D - C sharp - E - D - B - C sharp - A - . - . - . - E - . - . - . -

As he played, he remained completely focused on the task of Aerith’s song yet also utterly calm at the same time. Even the most intense pieces helped him… ‘relax’ a bit.

Clearly Aerith’s trance-like state while watching was a side effect too. She didn’t say a single word as she observed his skill and listened deeply to what he called her song. She loved it. She immediately asked him to play it again when he stopped. That was probably the first good idea she ever had, in his opinion. Sephiroth never forgot that day or the look in her eyes. He actually caved and taught her the very beginning of the melody. It took a week or two before she could finally play it to any recognizable degree.

Those were the best days of his memory with them. Soon an incident pulled Sephiroth away before he even left for Wutai. He never saw the mother or daughter again, but he never forgot Aerith’s song.

* * *

SOLDIER First Class. The Demon of Wutai. The Silver Soldier. The Silver General, dubbed as a term of endearment by the public. Though he was top of his craft, Sephiroth was not a general. He could command without hesitation, but such authority came from being a First Class SOLDIER, no other title required. He was one of the very first members of the program, a poster child for recruitment as well as a tactical prodigy on the battlefield. His reputation, unlike most, was entirely true. Rumors about entire battles won alone, monsters taken down in a single blow, enemy generals hesitating under his gaze alone. Every word of it was true.

Yet for reasons far beyond him, Shinra occasionally demanded he show a more ‘personable’ side. He found himself obligated to go to the various ‘optional’ galas and parties, usually to celebrate some holiday or some breakthrough in mako production or some other mundane event. His superiors quickly discovered these dances were the only public promotions he joined without creating incredible discomfort and awkwardness around his image, though it took many failed talk shows for that decision to be made. Even then, he could not dance. He didn’t have the care to learn. He had the necessary manners and formal attire to blend in well enough, but these were not the reason.

They let Sephiroth play the grand piano that Shinra only displayed on special occasions as a main event, a silent audience watching the skill of the First Class outside the battlefield. The public ate up every scrap of the seasoned warrior creating such beautiful music every blue moon. Videos, photographs, onlookers, playing his instrument was the only time these things didn’t annoy him. Playing was the only true escape he had. His friends certainly helped, but the instrument even aided his growing insomnia, letting him play for late hours into the night under the dim light of the mako reactors against the dark sky. It was his only ‘hobby’. His only ‘relaxation’.

However, the day of the training incident, that freedom shattered. He damaged his friend in an easily avoidable scenario, using far too much strength in a simple training simulation like a child without a shred of self control over its limits. He tried to avoid the mako blue gaze with his back turned as the friend rambled on with the expected poem. Yet the friend wouldn’t heal. The doctor wouldn’t let him donate a single resource to heal the friend he injured. He spent hours waiting against the wall for any and every update.

Only a few days later, the friend abandoned Shinra. Abandoned him. Then his only other friend abandoned him as well, leaving a barely functioning puppy of an apprentice in his wake. No matter the emotion in the songs he heard, Sephiroth only felt a growing weight in his chest. He had no desire to use his sword or even play his instrument. He spent most of his time in the data room searching for answers.

Why did they leave? Why did they go?

The song felt louder and louder with each word he read in the archives, the same song as the lab, as his childhood. Fast falling notes circled him constantly, screaming more secrets he did not understand. There had to be something, anything this talent was good for beyond battle. No one could ambush him, these songs always warned him, but that was the only good result from this genetic defect. He desperately needed answers, yet all he received were the same four notes. A warning. A calling. A curse. It didn’t matter.

Sephiroth never convinced his friends to return. One begged for death from the puppy that deserved far better than this life. The other ambushed him and vindictively drilled what he knew to be true down his throat.

Poor little Sephiroth… You’ve never actually met your mother. You’ve only been told her name, no?

That memory pushed him to keep reading.

She’s a monster.

They used the remains of countless failed experiments to create the perfect monster.

Some tiny part of him cowered in the corner of his mind, begging for a different truth to reveal itself. Crying that every word had to be a lie. That this wasn’t fair. That there must be something else. Yet every word in the basement of Shinra Manor tore that shriveling desperation into complete despair.

The Jenova Project. Professor Gast. Mako testing. SOLDIER.

Over the course of his descent into each report, the song around him changed despite the static time in this windowless lab. The manor first sounded uneasy, unsettling in its plucking, lonely nature. Never in his life did a song change without new scenery or new people approaching, but he did not care. The foreboding piece quieted, replaced by a heartbeat and a single chime. A bell. A warning. An omen of death. Yet he still remained with the books, the truth, the horror of reality:

He’s a monster.

He’s a Monster.

He knew of some cultures that believed a bell toll marked when death itself came for one’s soul. Death was far from a terrible fate, however. Death was a mercy. Death would at least protect him from this. He never needed to know about this. He never wanted this.

He was a monster just like his mother, a being that according to these reports still lived to some extent. Living cells were injected into multiple test subjects, including him: a Human-Cetra hybrid that couldn’t even hear the planet, only the heartbeat and toll in his ears. They did this to him. Scientists. Shinra. The public. Humanity. Everything around him was fabricated to make a new specimen just as worthless as the monsters he fought.

Sors immanis…

Sephiroth shot to attention, his head instantly out of the latest book to target the source of those words. He never heard that voice before. Where did it come from? Who in all the gods-?

Et inanis…

It wasn’t one voice. It wasn’t real, at least not to anyone except him. There were multiple speakers, singing in time with the song like a choir.

A song.

He had never heard lyrics before. His voice caught in his throat with his silent questions.

Was he losing his mind? After everything he'd been through?

Sors immanis…

You did not choose your monstrous fate.

He dropped the pages with a loud clunk to the ground as his catlike eyes widened in desperate search for the source of the words. But her- Her?- ‘the’ voice came from everywhere all at once.

Et inanis…

Emptiness and loneliness were thrust upon you.

Despite his bated breath and panic infected body, the faux heartbeat and bell kept their same languid time, twisting his heart further and further within his chest.

Will you continue down the same path?

Sors immanis…

He grabbed his head, his silver locks leaking through his fingers as he pushed back against the shelves. What was happening to him? What was wrong with him?

Is there anything left waiting for you?

Et inanis…

His friends were gone. He lived every day trapped in routine and missions to hide from the weight in his chest. The sting. The pain. The ache.

They made you. They use you. What is it worth?

Suffering. Loss. A terrible fate to all he’s ever met.

Sors immanis…

“What’s happening…?” He forced the broken question to the air, to the spector, the soft yet consuming cosmic voice. “What are you…?”

You know the answer. It hasn't come to you yet, but you know it.

That made absolutely no sense to him, his brows knotting painfully on his terrified face. The heartbeat. The toll. Every sound ricocheted in his skull, compounding with each impact.

You’ve always wanted me. And I’ve missed you so much.

Veni veni venias…

He forced his inhuman eyes closed against the noise. He couldn't think straight, his senses overwhelmed.

I’ve been waiting. It took so long to reach you.

“Who are you…?” His weak voice barely floated over his breath.

Ne me mori facias…

“Why are you dying…?” He didn’t even notice his sudden understanding of the unknown language. “Why do I need to save you…?”

Veni veni venias…

He slid down the shelf, his will and sliver of remaining strength slowly leaving his body as a coil around his chest tightened his very breath itself. His majestic black coat fell to a puddle of tar and mercury on the ground. “No- I won’t, not until I know what you are…”

Ne me mori facias…

Everything burned, every voice searing his mind as they grew louder and louder and louder. They kept chanting for eternity, his sense of time shattered, trapped in the cycle of the same two phrases until he couldn’t take it anymore.

Veni veni venias…

Make it stop…

Ne me mori facias…

Make it stop.

Veni veni venias…

Make it stop!

Ne me mori facias…

MAKE IT STOP!

S e p h i r o t h . . .

The choir and the voice came together for the single call of his name, and suddenly everything clicked together, pieces falling into place, finally revealing the picture. The pain flushed away and his eyes opened again. He slowly looked up, his head slightly tilted like a begging puppy. A desperate, pleading puppy. Terrified of rejection and acceptance all the same.

I’ve always wanted her…

“...Mother…?”

He felt the warmth of his admission wash over him like a calm shower of rain.

Yes, my son. I am here. I am so close.

Veni veni venias…

He began to stand at the repeated commands of the song, beginning to obey. He didn’t even question her. Her ‘death’ was just another lie from the swines that raised him. She was here. Only that mattered. “Where are you? Where do I need to go?”

You’ve been there before. You were so close, just one room away.

The reactor. The monster pods. The marquee.

Ne me mori facias…

“You’ve been alive this whole time…” His suppressed guilt bubbled to the surface. She died in childbirth. But she was here now. Close. Alive. “Then why are you dying?”

Humans. Humanity itself. They kept me locked away. They kept us apart to torture us. They knew we'd be too powerful together.

How dare they. Sephiroth seethed silently, his mind rapidly believing every word. They took his life. They stole his mother. Did they torture her the same way they tortured him? Were they selfish enough to throw her in a mako tank too? How dare they. How Dare They! “How do I save you?”

You are so close. You know what to do. Do it. Do it and find me. Do it and we will reign together.

Veni veni venias…

“They deserve to suffer,” He stated as his eyes twitched in covered rage, like boiling water covered by a lid, pressure building and building. This anger wasn’t for her. It was for them.

They do. Make them. Take all the rage you’ve stored for so long and unleash it. Your loneliness. Your despair. Your pain. You're the only one who can, my son.

Ne me mori facias…

“I’m coming, Mother. I’m coming. Wait for me just a moment longer.”

He left the library. He left the basement for the first time in days. He left the manor and stared at the town of worthless creatures that stood by and did nothing while he and his mother were tortured.

They all. Deserved. To burn.

The choir sang him on, encouraging his vehement rage and fury suffering as he charged his materia.

Estuans interius

Ira vehementi

Estuans interius

Ira vehementi

Sephiroth!

In a single cast, the entire village went up in flames, his weapon twitching at his side with the first bloodlust he relished to bring to the world before him.

* * *

The choir didn’t stop. It only muffled a bit when Mother spoke. Yes. His mother. After all this time he finally got to be with her. He finally saw her, trapped within the tank in the catacombs of the reactor. He could finally reach her, no more lies, no more fakes, no more boundaries. Only a single pane of glass remained and the joy he felt when he reached for it was unparalleled.

Yet the worthless creatures tried to stop him. They all tried to take him down head on, but only when he was so close, so close to mother’s embrace did some nameless cadet stab him through the back.

He was dying. He was weakened. He didn’t have the strength to save her, so he brought her with him for his ultimate revenge before his heart gave out and his body collapsed.

When he stabbed the boy through the chest, the child somehow had the strength to overcome him. In his mindless moment of shock, his grip locked to the blade as if his life depended on it, and that single decision had him fung across the bridge to the wall. His body peeled off the metal indent before he was falling through the air into a sea of mako below.

Mako.

No no no no- you promised!

Hojo, please, I’ll do anything! Anything at all!

Even with his mother’s mission, their mission, that terror remained. The memory of the mako tank. The green fluid that dangerously infected his very being.

Don’t breathe! Don’t Breathe! DON'T BREATHE!

The last rhythm of his heart pounded rapidly and painfully through his body. He cradled Mother’s head close to his heart, pleading silently to speak to him, to protect him. Begging quietly because his voice already failed him. He crashed into the deadly green with an agonizing splash, and though he could not protect Her, he kept her against him. He held his breath in his shattering lungs until he was forced to take his final breath of the planet’s Lifeblood.

He waited.

He winced.

He knew it was coming.

…but it didn’t. Not a single note or instrument or voice of the planet tainted his mind.

It was silent. Peaceful. Loving. Caring. Though Mother wasn’t speaking yet, She gave him the first silence he ever experienced. It was so calm, so different. Rarely he heard the four notes from the lab circle slowly, but he learned the piece was truly his Mother’s, not Shinra’s, not Hojo’s, not the labs. It was Her single signal that She was there for him always, since the very beginning, since he first learned of this ability, since he first learned to talk.

She was with him. She helped him. It was so calm, so freeing. His fear of this green prison faded as Her occasional notes gave him the strength to rebuild and carry out their mission. She aided him. He aided her. The music was merely a lullaby now, and he drifted tranquilly along the Lifestream with his unbroken embrace around Her.

Thanks for reading!

Songs in order of appearance:

JENOVA: B flat - A - F - D - B flat - A - F - D

Let the Battles Begin: 1 - 2 - 3 - 1 - 2 - 3 - 1 - .

"Shinra, Inc.": D - . - E - . - F - G - A - B - C sharp

Listen to the Cries of the Planet: D - A - D - B flat - G - A

Forested Temple: A - A flat - G - G flat - F - . - E - . - C - . - A - . - A - . -

Aerith's theme: F sharp - A - D - C sharp - E - D - B - C sharp - A - . - . - . - E - . - . - . -

One Winged Angel (translated):

Sors immanis - Monstrous fate

Et inanis - And empty

Veni veni venias - Come, come, O come

Ne me more facias - Don’t let me die

Estuans interius - Burning inside

Ira vehementi - With violent anger

Sephiroth - Sephiroth

Author’s note: Can you tell I play an instrument?

Well, this is it! The long awaited submission for the Sephiroth bang. This was my first Fandom event and I had a fantastic time. I truly chose something I would call purely my own idea. I hope you enjoyed it!

Again a big Thank You to @winter-doggo for the artwork and @sephirothevents Twitter for pairing us up!

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