Mirror Image

by T'Shael

Chapter Three

"No! That can't be true!" Sephiroth held his head in both hands. "It's not true!"

Professor Gast laid one hand on a trembling shoulder. "I'm afraid it is true Sephiroth. Hojo is your father and the bastard never told you himself."

"No!" Sephiroth pulled away and raised his head to the sky. He screamed again. The anguish in that cry brought fresh tears to Aeris's eyes. Sephiroth stood up and started pacing again.

"Sephiroth, please-" Aeris stepped toward him, but Professor Gast held her back.

"Leave him be," he told her, "He has to work it out of his system."

A memory came back to Sephiroth of a young boy strapped to a gurney in a sterile white laboratory. Hojo was preparing another injection. The injections made him stronger but each time his strength increased, Hojo increased the strength of the bonds. The boy was unable to free himself. His face was red and streaked with tears.

"You wouldn't do this to me if my father was here to stop you!" he cried. "He would never let you hurt me like this!"

Hojo started laughing. He laughed so hard he had to lean against the gurney for support. When he could control himself again, he wiped the tears from his eyes stood over the boy with the large hypodermic needle.

The boy saw the needle and blanched. This needle was for the injection that hurt the most. Hojo would plunge it deep in his chest and to release its contents near his heart. With that done, he would get another needle and the next injection would be in his inner thigh, close to his groin. The boy put all his strength into straining against his bonds hoping to find just a little more power to break them, but he failed. His muscles quivered in exhaustion. He stopped struggling and glared at Hojo.

"My father would kill you for this," he said.

His throat sore from laughing, Hojo managed to chuckle.

"On the contrary, my young guinea pig," he said. "Your father would do the same thing I'm doing."

"Liar!" the boy cried as the needle came down.

"You'd better believe me because I am telling you the truth young Sephiroth," said Hojo, "Now lie still you little brat or I'll really give you something to cry about!"

Sephiroth tried to block that memory but it would not go away. "It's not true! Hojo is not my father! Lucrecia is not my mother! You're lying! Both of you!"

"I would never lie to you Sephiroth," said Professor Gast sadly. Tears flowed down the older mans face. "How could I lie to you when you were as much a son to me as Aeris is my daughter?"

An icy hand clutched at Sephiroth's heart. He stared at the Professor in shock. "Aeris is your daughter?"

"Aeris is my daughter," replied the Professor nodding.

"I-I killed your daughter?" Sephiroth looked horrified. His face went pale as he stared at Aeris.

"I forgive you for that. You didn't know and you weren't in control of yourself." Professor Gast sighed. "I never dared to mention my family around the lab because Hojo was searching for a Cetra to experiment on. Ifalna was a Cetra. I couldn't let Hojo hurt her. I couldn't let him hurt my daughter. It was bad enough that he was hurting you."

"Before I left to hide my family, I was plotting to kidnap you and take you along with me, but I think Hojo caught onto my plan. Remember the last few times I saw you? There was always another lab assistant present. Those were Hojo's orders. He didn't trust me. The day before I left, I almost got to you, but one of Hojo's spies caught me disarming the alarm to your holding cell. Hojo had just given you more injections and you were asleep."

"The assistant was just about to sound the alarm when I bashed him over the head with a microscope. I knocked him out. I thought I still had a chance of rescuing you, but then I heard Hojo himself coming down the hall arguing with President Shinra about my relationship with you. He was telling the President that he felt I should be held in a cell whenever my services weren't needed. From what I heard, the President agreed. I had to flee while I still had a chance. It broke my heart to leave you behind, but I had no choice. I had to move my family before they came looking for me. I'd hoped that you and Aeris could grow up together. As it was, Hojo found us in the end. When I tried to protect my wife and child, Hojo had me killed."

"My father-Hojo had you killed? He said you died of a heart attack!"

"Hojo would say something like that," scoffed Professor Gast. "A SOLDIER shot me on Hojo's orders."

Sephiroth was shaking with rage. "He lied to me!"

"Hojo would do or say anything for the sake of his experiments. His experiments were more important than anything else on this world."

"His wife and child." Sephiroth closed his eyes as tears streamed down his face. "I am his son. He was my father. I HATE him!"

Aeris and Professor Gast waited. After a while Sephiroth opened his eyes. He looked sick to his soul.

"I killed your daughter," he said. "You were the only one whoever showed me any kindness. I used to wish you were my father."

"I'm sorry Sephiroth," Professor Gast was crying openly now. "I failed you."

"No," said Sephiroth. "It was I who failed you. If only I could have retained enough of your kindness to fight Jenova's will when she wanted me to kill Aeris. How can you be so nice to me after I killed your daughter? Why would you ever want to help me now?"

Professor Gast moved closer to Sephiroth and held him in his arms again. Sephiroth leaned against him and wept. Aeris watched them while tears streamed down her face.

"I forgave you a long time ago Sephiroth," said Aeris. "Jenova used you when you were at your weakest moment. How could I hold that against you?"

Aeris moved close to her father and Sephiroth. She laid her hand on his silvery head. He did not pull away.

"You're not alone anymore Sephiroth," she said. "You don't have to be alone ever again."

Sephiroth raised his head and looked at Professor Gast. "Did my mother love me?"

Professor Gast smiled at him. "Your mother loved you very much. She was too weak to hold you after you were born. The Jenova cells that made you strong, took a lot out of her body. The doctors did everything they could to save her, but they failed. She died a few days later. Her last request was to see you before she died, but Hojo, that bastard . . . "

"What did he do?" Sephiroth looked haggard.

Professor Gast released Sephiroth and put his hands in his pockets. "He kept right on giving you Jenova injections after you were born. He gave you injections on the day your mother died. He was running tests on you to check the results. He refused to take you to Lucrecia. He said he couldn't spare the time to take you to the infirmary because timing was important. He said his tests would have been invalid if he allowed any extra time into his precious computations. He let Lucrecia die pleading to see you. Until she breathed her last, she kept calling your name."

This news brought started a fresh flood of tears from Sephiroth. Inwardly, part of him was amazed to express his emotions through tears. He hadn't cried since he was seven years old. This wasn't the way of a SOLDIER, yet somehow it seemed as if a valve had opened and the pressure was bleeding out. He needed to let go of it.

"I never got to see my real mother," sobbed Sephiroth. "I thought I was the child of an alien monster! I let Jenova use me. I always wanted to see my mothers face, but I never even had a picture of her. I don't know what she looks like."

"Then turn around," a voice said behind him. "Turn around and see."

Three heads turned toward that voice. A woman in a white tunic and yellow slacks stood before them. Her long brown hair was caught up in a yellow ribbon. Her eyes, behind the gold rimmed glasses, were filled with love.

Sephiroth took a hesitant step toward her. "Who are you?"

"I am Lucrecia, your mother," she said. "Hello Sephiroth, I've been waiting a long time to meet you, my son."

Later, he wouldn't remember rushing toward her waiting arms and burying his face against her shoulder. This was his mother! This was the woman he had dreamed about as a child. This was the embrace he craved. How many times had he seen Shinra parents hug their children while he stood back longing? He closed his eyes in contentment. His mother's embrace was all he'd ever dreamed it would be. He felt a second of panic. What if this was just a dream? What if he woke up and found he was in a Shinra lab? He held her away and stared into her face trying to memorize every detail. She smiled at him and he crushed her to him again.

"Sephiroth, Sephiroth my baby. My baby!" Lucrecia held him just as tight. "I've met my baby at last!"

"I'm here mother," he whispered. "I'm here."

Aeris and Professor Gast clung to each other watching Sephiroth and Lucrecia. Lucrecia stroked Sephiroth's hair and murmured to him. After a while they pulled apart.

"There is something inside me that I've never felt before," he said.

"It is love my son. It is the love between a mother and her child. I am so sorry I wasn't there to make sure you were loved. I never thought your father would treat you the way he did," said Lucrecia. "I never saw how evil he was. He didn't love you and he didn't love me. He used both of us."

Sephiroth dropped his head. "I've been so wrong. My whole life was a lie."
Lucrecia held him in her arms again.

"It's not your fault my son," she said, running her fingers through his hair. "You never had a chance to live a normal life. Hojo is the one who set you up for Jenova. Raised without love, treated like an object instead of a person. How could you help but to feel less than human even when you knew you weren't like those around you? Jenova could never have used you if Hojo hadn't paved the way."

Sephiroth gazed into his mothers eyes. "The only time he ever touched me was to inflict pain. I learned not to cry. I learned not to care what he did to me. I didn't care about anything!"

He turned to look to look back at the Professor and his daughter. "The only one whoever treated me with kindness was Professor Gast, and I repaid his kindness by killing his daughter!"

"I forgive you Sephiroth!" said Professor Gast. "Aeris forgives you! We don't hate you for what you did."

Sephiroth pulled free from his mother. He began to pace in frustration, pulling at his silver hair. Lucrecia wanted to touch him but she waited. Sephiroth stopped and hung his head.

"I exterminated an entire village. Those who didn't die in the flames, died by my sword," he said. "I didn't feel remorse even though some of those people begged for mercy. I put my sword through children and babies! I grabbed a pregnant woman by her hair and thrust my sword right through her stomach. I killed her and I killed her unborn child. I even laughed when I did it. How can anyone ever forgive me for that?"

Aeris left her father side and went to Sephiroth. Hesitantly she reached up and touched his face. He raised his tear stained face and flinched away from her touch. Aeris reached for him again. He fought the urge to pull away. She brushed his hair out of his face and smiled at him.

"When you thought you found out who you were, I wish you had handled it differently," she said. "But once I talked to my father I understood why you were such easy prey for Jenova. How could you not believe you were an imprisoned Cetra being used for experimental atrocities? You always knew you were different from everyone else, but you didn't understand why."

"No," he whispered.

"When you read the notes in the Shinra library, you thought you'd found the answer at last. You thought both you and Jenova were Cetra. You thought the people on this planet were aware of your origins and were in agreement with Shinra and their evil experiments. You thought they stole your world. You were fighting to regain what was you thought was rightfully yours!"

"I was a fool," he said turning away.

Aeris would not allow him to shy away. She moved to stand in front of him.

"You were lied to," she said. " Hojo could have prevented this whole mess if he had just told you the truth. You are not an evil man. You could have had a life just as normal as anyone else if you had been given the choice."

Sephiroth gazed deep into her green eyes. It was like looking into her soul. He could see tenderness and forgiveness in her eyes. He felt that fluttering in his heart again and wondered vaguely if something really was wrong with his health. He didn't feel ill. Somehow looking into her eyes was pleasant. How could he think that when he'd been ready to strangle her only moments before?

"Let me explain it this way," said Professor Gast startling Sephiroth into breaking off looking at Aeris. He pulled away from her to look at the older man. "Each part of Jenova is alive. When Jenova's body is separated into parts, each part of her body is alive. That is why Cloud and his friends had such a hard time killing her final metamorphosis. Jenova's body parts can live separately, but they have no direction. No mind of their own."

"Without a mind to guide them, they probably wouldn't live very long. Jenova has the mental ability to call her parts back to her. When Hojo injected you with Jenova cells in your mother's womb, Jenova's cells had to adapt to your body to survive. The only way they could do that is to become part of your DNA. Normally a human body will reject a foreign cell structure, but in your prenatal state, your body's natural defenses were no match for the Jenova cells. The Jenova cells forced your body to accept and absorb them. That is why you are so different from a regular human being. You were born stronger, faster and much more intelligent than the average man. The injection's Hojo gave to you later only enhanced these skills and others."

"Is murdering an entire village more intelligent, or is it merely a special ability?" Sephiroth's smile was bitter.

"Let me finish," said Professor Gast holding up one hand. "When Jenova tried to call back all her body parts, she couldn't retrieve her cells from you, but somehow, because her cells were a part of your DNA, she was able to communicate with your mind. To your knowledge, did Jenova communicate with anyone other than you or your clones?"

Sephiroth shook his head. "Not that I know of. Only my clones . . . including Cloud. He was supposed to be the failure."

"I thought as much," said Professor Gast. "Imagine how pleased she must have been to find herself part of you. She needed help to destroy this world and you were the perfect tool. A small mistreated boy. She must have seen what you experienced through your eyes, but she chose to wait until she felt the time was right to make her move. When you found my notes in the library, my notes and Hojo's, you must have been in a state of shock. Jenova took that opportunity to take control of your mind. You were in no condition to fight her. She knew you had misinterpreted the data you found but she used it to make you believe what she wanted you to believe. You never even realized you were listening to her then. I'll bet it's safe to assume you remember only small parts of what happened in Nibelheim?"

Sephiroth looked at the Professor with a look of surprise on his face. "That's true. I remember some things yes, but so much of it is blank!"

"I was right then, " said the Professor rubbing his chin. "You couldn't have been yourself, not completely."

"How can you be so sure?" asked Sephiroth. "Maybe Jenova waited until I acted on my own and destroyed Nibelheim before she took over. I could have done that all on my own. I was very angry that night."

"From what I've seen of your temper," replied Professor Gast, "I think you would have reacted in a very different way if Jenova had not been pulling your strings. If I were you and I learned what I thought was the truth in that library, I would have probably have stood in shock for all of five minutes, then the first thing I would have done would have been to go to the Shinra labs and get my hands on that miserable weasel Hojo!"

Sephiroth looked at Professor Gast and nodded. "I do remembering thinking of wanting to hurt Hojo, but everything is scrambled from that part on."

"You probably wanted to go after Hojo and wring his scrawny little neck," replied the Professor, "But Jenova jumped in the driver's seat and took control. She turned your anger at Hojo into anger against the world. What with trying to deal with the shock of what you discovered, trying to deal with your own demons and Jenova's meddling, it's no wonder you went insane!"

Sephiroth looked troubled. "Am I still insane?"

"No," said Lucrecia. "You are sane. Holy was able to heal your insanity after Cloud and the others defeated Jenova. These outbursts you are having are remnants of the anger you felt from the discovery of your supposed origins and what Jenova told you to feel. Think about it. Do you REALLY want to take over the world?" Sephiroth thought about it for a moment then shook his head. "I have no desire to take over the world or to be a god. The only thing I ever wanted to do, the only

thing I was ever good at, was being a good SOLDIER. That was the only time anyone ever treated me as if I was worth something."

"Jenova made you do it all," said Aeris. "She convinced you that you were doing the right thing. You thought I was a threat only because Jenova knew I was. You wouldn't have killed me on your own. You didn't take Clouds group seriously. You would have ignored us unless you were forced to do otherwise. Jenova knew I had the white materia. She saw it in my hair through your eyes that day you made Cloud give you the black materia at the Temple of the Ancients."

"She thought the Red Dragon or the Demon Wall would finish us off, but when that didn't happen she made Cloud beat me. She thought I would be so heartbroken, I would run away and leave the group. She thought I would never use the white materia to call Holy. I did leave Cloud and the others but I didn't go home. I went to the City of the Ancients. Jenova must have been furious with me. She sent you to kill me, but she was too late. My prayer was done."

Sephiroth looked at Aeris with pain etched on his face. "It was bad enough she made me kill you, now I find she made me kill you when you didn't have to die. If it was already too late, there was no point in your death."

"Jenova killed me, not you," she corrected him. "She was too late, but she didn't know that."

"It's good to be dead then," said Sephiroth, wiping the remains of his tears away. "If I had regained my sanity while I was still among the living, I couldn't bear it. No one would believe that I wasn't in control when I caused so much destruction. There is no way to redeem myself in eyes of the people of this planet."

"I'm afraid it's not that simple Sephiroth," said Lucrecia.

Sephiroth turned to look at his mother. "What do you mean?"

"You're not really dead," she said.

"Professor Gast just explained how I came to be here," said Sephiroth patiently. "I am a spiritual body, therefore a ghost. That means I'm dead."

"Lucrecia is right," said Professor Gast. "It's not all that simple."

Sephiroth shrugged. He sat down in the flowers and made himself comfortable. He spent a little time brushing pollen off his pants legs before he looked up at the three of them again.

"I suppose you have an explanation as to why I'm not dead?" he asked, arching one eyebrow.

"You have to remember Sephiroth," said Professor Gast, sitting down next to Sephiroth. "You are human yes, but you have been infused with Jenova cells. Technically, even with two human parents, you are part alien too. Your powers go beyond magic. I believe, as Aeris said, you would have been impossible to beat if you hadn't started using your powers so soon. I think your powers will go on getting stronger. How strong is anybody's guess. We don't know anything about Jenova. Mastering materia is something any human can do, but not as fast as you did. You also transformed your body twice and you were damn hard to beat because you kept regenerating. Those powers weren't given to you by materia. Those are alien powers."

Sephiroth looked puzzled. "Hojo tried to make clones from me. Except for Cloud, all of them were weak. None of them developed my powers and none of them could regenerate. What happened?"

"That's easy to explain." The Professor tucked his legs under him. "Hojo started giving you injections while you were still in your mother's womb. Jenova's cells became a part of you. When Hojo made clones from your cells, he didn't feel it was necessary to inject them with Jenova cells, since both cells had become one in you. He thought all he had to do was implant your cells into fertilized human eggs to produce more Sephiroth's."

A thought occurred to Sephiroth and he looked troubled. "Those embryos, who was the sperm donor? I hope it wasn't me."

Professor Gast frowned. "Hojo was the donor for every embryo. He thought it wouldn't hurt to pass his "genius" along, since you were such a success. He thought your Jenova-Sephiroth cells would be enough. If you hadn't turned against Shinra, when you did, sooner or later he would have used you as a sperm donor too."

Sephiroth closed his eyes and ran his hand over his forehead as if it pained him. "Did Hojo rape his "volunteers?"

Lucrecia answered for the Professor. "A few," she said. "Hojo likes pretty girls, but most of them were artificially inseminated."

Sephiroth made a sound of disgust.

"Hojo's experiment failed," continued Professor Gast. "The other clones didn't look anything like you. They all seemed promising in the beginning but as they matured they became weaker physically and mentally. President Shinra lost patience with Hojo and kept cutting his funds for the project. By the time the clones reached puberty, it was hard to ignore their flaws. Hojo finally dropped the whole idea and released the clones to make lives of their own. Each clone was able to live as a normal man, but they all seemed to fall apart when they were called to the Reunion."

"They were worse than useless. All they did was say my name over and over," said Sephiroth. "I had to use Cloud because he was the only one who could still function when he heard me call."

"Cloud's birth was similar to your own," replied Professor Gast. "One of Hojo's assistants was having an affair with a SOLDIER. He got her pregnant and abandoned her. She didn't know what to do. She hid her pregnancy for a time, she was a heavy girl, but then she caught Hojo's eye. She was just a convenient pregnant woman. When he approached her with his idea, she turned him down flat. Hojo had her confined against her will. He gave both her and her unborn child daily injections of Jenova-Sephiroth cells."

"He was worse than any of his monsters!" said Lucrecia, clenching her fists.

"Yes he was," agreed the Professor. "But this time, his plan didn't work so well. The girl escaped after he'd given her only a few injections. It was weeks before his spies found her hiding in North Corel. He had her brought back to his lab. With less than one month of gestation remaining, he began giving her double strength Jenova injections to make up for the time she was gone, but the damage was done. When the baby was born, his mother died, just as Lucrecia did. Hojo tested the baby and deemed it a failure. His test showed the baby would be strong and intelligent, but to a lesser degree than you."

"He ordered the baby to be taken to Nibelheim and abandoned on a doorstep. His orders were carried out. A woman who lost her SOLDIER husband in the service of Shinra, took the baby in and raised him as her own. She named him Cloud. Years later, when Cloud went to join Shinra and become a SOLDIER, Hojo knew who he was. Cloud was infused with Mako, as all SOLDIERS are but he didn't have what it took to be a first rate SOLDIER. Hojo had him taken to the lab for study. Cloud was able to escape with the help of his friend Zack. Since Cloud never lived up to Hojo's expectations, he was the only clone never given a number."

"In a way," said Aeris, "You and Cloud are brothers."

"I am sure he would be happy to learn that," smirked Sephiroth. He turned his attention back to Professor Gast. "How could you know this? Didn't a lot of this happen after you died?"

"Yes, but through the Cetra who still watched the events on this world because of Aeris, I knew what was happening, although I was powerless to stop it," said the Professor. "I didn't become part of the Lifestream. The Cetra took me to the Promised Land with them because of Ifalna. They knew Hojo would kill her. The used their powers to heal my body and

take me into the Promised Land to wait for her. They would only allow one of us to come here today. I was the logical choice."

Aeris explained. "The Promised Land isn't some mysterious place hidden somewhere on this planet. It is another life on another level of existence. That is very difficult to explain. The easiest way I can put it is, when the Cetra leave this planet, they actually move on to a more advanced life form on another plane of existence. That's kind of like being on another planet to us. What is thought of as "dying" on this planet is only the next step of evolution for a Cetra. From that point they look for another planet to settle. I chose not to go on to the Promised Land because I knew Cloud would defeat you. I waited for you so I could tell you the truth about your birth. The Cetra sent my father back to help me explain things to you."

Sephiroth turned to Lucrecia. "Are you with the Cetra too?"

Lucrecia looked away. "I'm one of those psychic bodies trapped between this world and the next."

Sephiroth was alarmed. "Why?"

"The Jenova cells that became a part of you as a baby didn't react the same way in me," said Lucrecia. "I didn't get stronger, smarter or faster. I just got sick and died. Jenova took what she wanted and threw the rest away. I was too weak to use my psychic body to go to you in Hojo's lab. I died, but I'm a special case. The Jenova cells in my body won't let me die completely and they won't regenerate me. In this state, I can't be absorbed into the Lifestream. The Cetra tried to restore me and take me to the Promised Land like they did with Professor Gast, but whatever the Jenova cells did to my body, it changed me somehow. The only thing the Cetra could do was make a place like this, for me in the Lifestream because I have no where else to go."

"You're alone here." Sephiroth stood up and took her hands in his.

"I greet others who come here," said Lucrecia. "I'm not always alone."

"This is my father's doing." Sephiroth looked into his mother's eyes. "If it were possible to turn back the clock, knowing what I know now, I would kill him for what he did to us. How could he do this to you? How could he do this to us?"

"He was a sick man Sephiroth," answered the Professor. "A sick demented man."

"I still don't understand why you think I'm not dead," said Sephiroth. "Holy healed my essence. I'm here as a spiritual body. If I am a spirit, I'm dead."

"No you aren't," said Aeris. "When Holy caught your essence, part of it began to solidify."

"I may have the intelligence of an alien," said Sephiroth, "But none of what you're saying about me not being dead makes sense."

"It means part of your essence broke away from the rest and began to reform," said Professor Gast. "Your body is regenerating, just like it did at the northern crater."

Sephiroth didn't react.

"Did you hear what I said Sephiroth?" asked the Professor, "Regeneration is almost complete. You will be able to return to your physical body. You can live again."