Sephiroth knew the answer.
He knew every guided decision. He knew every debated decision. He knew every decision he and he alone conjured and fulfilled.
Clinging to memories in the Lifestream. Clinging to Cloud and Geostigma. Clinging to M o t h e r.
The Cetra severed his connection, the connection to Jenova.
She couldn't change his divine cells, but she blasphemously managed to cut communication.
No, it was more than removing Jenova.
He awoke with wet skin and tattered clothing. He saw the remains of wooden pews and the sky through a massive hole in the roof. Flowers swayed with his every movement, surrounding his body.
Her church. The cetra resserected him and threw him in her church.
Alone, he stayed frozen on the ground.
With regret, he knew the damage was his fault.
Through greif, the city around him crumbled by his choices.
Silently, he lamented the lives he ended as well as the insanity lost to the Lifestream.
Why bring him back like this? Why make him suffer in a world against him?
He questioned his new life, but without Jenova, knowing she was not his mother, he had no purpose. He wanted no purpose.
He just wanted to be left alone with his head in his knees until starvation stole him just as he stole so many other lives.
Maybe a day passed before he learned he was not safe.
Why can't that group leave this church alone?
Sephiroth did not look up at the sound of the door opening. He did not turn or great. He stayed down, in ragged clothing in a curtain of his own silver hair.
No. He didn't want to control anyone.
Just help us both and let me rot, he screamed internally.
He killed so many people, by both Shinra's order and his own choice. Would this be his final death?
A sword rang through the air, multiple blades clicking together.
He may have heard footsteps, the creaking of leather gloves by another.
He believed her name was Tifa, a fact he couldn't confirm due to his previous fixation on Cloud.
They approached cautiously, each footstep ready to bounce into action at the sound of a leaf crushing beneath it.
He was a threat to them, after all. Even in this miserable, curled up form.
Cloud had launched first.
"What if this is his latest plan?"
No. No, please no. He had no plan, but every word out of his mouth would be tained and false in their ears.
"We have to think about this carefully."
"When has he ever made it easy for us!?"
He said nothing as they argued.
They called in friends, thankfully saying "Rufus won't be able to help himself". That should mean the rich bastard who caused a hatred so deeply ingrained it continued even through his single moment of divinity should never cross paths with him again.
The only person on the Planet capable of causing blood thirsty drive in his broken actions.
First cursing and the smell of cigarettes.
Then talk of the planet and returning to a guardian post.
Then bullets by his feet, making him flinch to his own dismay. The crowd shouted and debated immidately.
"He's causing problems!" Barret announced.
"He hasn't moved, dumbass!" Cid countered.
"We must be cautious," Red persisted.
"Let's just kill him already!" Yuffie yelled.
"Aye. What a big mess ye all got us stuck in..." Cait Sith, the cat, complained.
All names he learned throughout their discussions.
Even now, every memeber of Cloud's crew kept their distance. He could draw an exact circle on the ground where they never chose to cross.
The last member of Cloud's team arrived late at night. Cloud, of course, was the only one keeping watch that night.
He was so tired of Cloud. Their combined memories served only to torture them both.
This last member was the gunslinger in red, the only one to genuinely approach, Despite the leader's comment of "Don't get yourself killed for this, Vincent."
A nod, he assumed from the slight movement.
Something touched his shoulder, cautiously applying the weight of the whole mass.
He didn't mean to look up, for any of them to see his misery. The team could asume vindictiveness or malice, but not if they saw his sunken eyes, pale skin, and barely visible veins.
"Are you alright..?" Vincent asked genuinely, almost naively, but there was far too much experience in every movement for the question to be a mistake.
Sephiroth turned away, not saying a word.
He grabbed his own hair like a hood to shield himself from these pointlessly painful questions.
Take it as defiance, he prayed. Take his movement as a reason to leave or end this.
But the man in red disagreed.
"He needs food and water." Vincent stated to the group.
"We are not helping him regain any strength," Cloud seethed.
"This is not the person we fought seeking world domination."
Sephiroth heard something unclasp before a warm fabric embraced him.
He didn't mean to relax into it, a hand pulling the crimson to spread the warmth across his bare skin between the rags.
"He's throwing a tantrum. This silent treatment won't last forever and we'll be lucky if he speaks before he tries to escape."
Vincent went quiet. "...Come with me."
"No. You answer this here, in front of him."
Sephiroth didn't want to hear anymore.
"You claim this is all an act. If he hears this, he will snap-"
"Try it," Cloud refused to budge.
Red eyes glanced back apologetically before meeting the glare behind blond bangs. "He's acting like his mother."
His stomach twisted painfully.
Cloud questioned, "Jeno-?"
"No. Lucrecia. His human mother."
"Any part of him that is human is long dead. Jeno-"
He fell to his side, his hands and knees on the ground for balance until a lurch made him grab his mouth shut.
"I don't think so. Not anymore."
Vomit splashed on the ground. He couldn't focus on their conversation as through his own retching. His body trembled from the force.
Another mother. The thought alone treated to kill him.
Cloud and the other man readied weapons against each other.
Sephiroth wiped his mouth with the back of his hand before speaking for this first time since this rebirth: "Please... stop saying that word..."
He couldn't see what they were doing, but at least one weapon was pointed at him.
"Finally decided to talk?" Cloud spat.
Vincent said nothing, but he felt a hand on his back.
If a lie ended in his own death, it was a tempting offer rather than a threat.
But why lie? He had no plan, and he had nothing to protect.
Now the blade was against his neck. "How dare you-?"
An impact of the other man came as a warning.
"...She severed Reunion..." His own words stung more than the blade. "He winced. "Mother- Jenova- We're separate..."
"You don't get to blame-"
"The goal was hers but the decisions were mine." He wouldn't deny anything. He didn't care to use their emotional connection against him. "...Either you kill me... or I leave this church and you never hear of me again..."
An emotional tactic, not a real threat, but that knowledge didn't stifle his rage. "I will not go back there, Cloud..."
"You don't get a choice."
Masamune appeared in his hand.
"Stand down," Vincent's voice boomed. "I will take him."
Gods, they were arguing amongst themselves again. Masamune vanished as he leaned away from the vomit and found himself against a pew.
Cloud calmed down quickly, the simple conclusion lying in wait. "Everyone gets a say in this. We'll take a vote in the morning."
Time ticked painfully until dawn. Cloud remained on watch. Vincent stood by Sephiroth's side.
Sephiroth stayed on the ground.
No one, not even Tifa, voted to sick Shinra on him.
He found himself following to a small house outside Kalm with Vincent leading the way.
Sephiroth barely spoke, communicating mostly through nods, shrugs, and shakes of his head. Vincient established a routine of household tasks such as laundry, vacuuming, cleaning dishes.
With his hair tied back, a pair of glasses, and civilian clothes, Sephiroth was occationally permitted to aid the locals for a few hundred gil: the chocobo rancher and the windmill engineer usually top of his list. Though he communicated normally with the civilians.
Normal. This is what normal life was like, right?
Vincent rarely pushed, but Sephiroth knew it was a matter of time before more questions came.
He didn't expect it to come in the form of irresitible pumpkin soup.
"This was your mother's favorite recipe."
He nearly broke the bowl at the word.
"Your human mother. Not Jenova."
He pushed back from the table.
"She's alive." Vincent always understood his silent questions.
The hole in his heart where Jenova once festered begged to be filled.
Another mother to abandon him.
"When you're ready, I can take you to her."
Vincent only glanced at the newly summoned Masamune. "Only, when you are ready."
Life was easier when he didn't know for the first time in a long time, he had a goal.
But every mention of his supposed mother either brought Masamune to his hand or left him violently ill with vertigo.
Cloud's team, on their scattered visit, tested him. Baited him. Pushing him to react. So far, he had not hurt anyone, but he always had the potential to do so.
"Vincent," he called, so tired of this agonizing loop, "what did she look like?"
Vincent's description matched memories he thought lost to the Lifestream: a locket and a mission in Wutai.
When he finally convinced Vincent to escort him, the entire team waited at the entrance.
"There is one last condition," Vincent stated before they entered. "She thinks you are dead. Do not wake her, or you will explain everything you've done."
To see a woman behind glass was nothing new to him.
But Sephiroth wanted to see her, even if his severed Reunion made him kill her.
