There was something wrong with Prince Sephiroth. He was off-putting, uncanny, and everyone knew it.
So it wasn't a surprise that all of Sephiroth's guards abandoned him during an assassination attempt. All but one. Cloud, loyal despite the prince's reputation, saved Sephiroth even when he didn't need saving, sparking an obsession he never could've prepared for.
Genesis, the Crown Prince, didn't know what to do when Sephiroth's attention suddenly wasn't solely on him. When he found out what had caught Sephiroth's eye, he knew he'd do whatever he could to get in between his brother and the sweet little guard he was obsessed with.
None of them could have predicted how entangled they would become... (Except Sephiroth, who maybe had planned for it all along)
Written for Summer Holestice 2026 as a gift for the wonderful @time-official <3
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I READ THIS MAGNIFICENT FIC BY A FRIEND OF MINE (NOT ON TUMBLR) AND IMMEDIATELY LOST MY MIND AND MADE THIS IN A LIKE EIGHT HOUR FUGUE STATE. GO READ SAPPHIKURA. GO READ IT RN
"the devil was an angel first" by LilPrinceNoodie, E - F/F - Sefikura
AHHHHHHHHH
(mixed media - prismacolor, archival ink, digital. click for better quality)
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Posted: 20:45 UTC 31 July, 2026
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After some thought, it's probably best that SE gave Sephiroth a source of regret that influenced his future life. It is consistent with the events unfolding in Crisis Core and provides more insight into his state of mind following Genesis' desertion.
In Ever Crisis: First Soldier, Sephiroth was faced with a choice: either follow the request to kill someone or allow the people he had grown to care about to die. The decision resulted in a squabble with Glenn and a degree of estrangement. Later, EC Wutai segment shows that the event had left a lasting impact. Not only does Sephiroth appear to be more reluctant to resort to violence first thanks to Glenn, but he is implied to lament the fact that he couldn't save everyone (Rosen).
This contrast is evident in the inner conflict of being praised as a 'hero' (a manufactured image) versus the reality of being one. Sephiroth resolves to embody a true hero, striving to uphold strength and 'save everyone,' avoiding the difficult decisions of choosing who lives or dies as well as the burden of killing or witnessing death under his command. Sephiroth failed to convince Rosen and failed to find another way that brought about no casualties. Even ten years later, he pushes himself to clear a path for cornered grunts, fueled by his insecurity over past failures.
This insecurity also connects nicely to the events of Crisis Core. Sephiroth pushed those missions on Zack because he had a history of failing to persuade someone (Rosen) to change their minds, and the prospect of reliving the same situation while confronted with someone he cared about was unthinkable. It demonstrates that Rosen's case affected Sephiroth, leaving a lasting impression on his actions and decisions.
Even further, the desire to save and prevent casualties is evident in FFVII Rebirth, when the ShinRA squad, led by Zack and Sephiroth, is flung into the mountain stream after the rope bridge collapses. Sephiroth successfully grabs younger Tifa, but is unable to reach another grunt in time. The camera stays on the scene for a while, focusing on his slightly haunted expression.
Following the cut, Sephiroth spends hours looking for his washed-away squadmate. Allow it to sink. After two hours, the rest of the company was still recovering from a dip in a harsh stream, but he was up and about, scouting the cross-country area and going out of his way to find the missing rank-and-file. It's a testament to more than just physical endurance. It strikes a stark contrast to how the episode concluded in the original game, where Sephiroth chose not to search for the missing person, leaving them potentially stranded or deceased. In the remake, it was clear he disliked losing people.
And yet, despite the efforts, it just kept happening. He couldn't save Angeal, he couldn't sway Genesis. By the time he arrives at the Nibelheim reactor, his confidence in his ability to save the day must have plummeted.
It oddly echoes what Cloud goes through at the beginning of Advent Children. And, chillingly, an illusory Sephiroth in Sector 8 in the first part of the remake delivers a biting remark to Cloud:
“You are too weak to save anyone. Not even yourself”.
Which sounds almost projection-like in the context of a broader compilation.
imma say it. i think they should retcon how Angeal and Genesis treated Sephiroth in crisis core. after the release of FS it just feels so out of character that Angeal just ... Leaves like that. Like what happened to "I don't care if sephiroth won't listen to me, I'll keep talking until he does"?? like?? I really think Crisis Core deserves a PROPER remaster with longer chapters and more cutscenes/gameplay that dives deeper into the friendship of AGS and the tragedy of them being torn apart. Because now it just feels so... flat. and empty.
i'll be controversial and say that maybe them being "out of character" in cc fits well with the narrative cc — and later on rebirth with cloud — is trying to tell; that you don't really act like yourself under the effects of degradation/jenova. (and depression/suicidal ideation, which is pretty much angeal's case.)
the way genesis acts in that flashback and the way angeal reacts to him leaves this energy that something was already wrong there.
angeal feels like he's constantly surprised/baffled by the actions of someone he's supposed to know, while sephiroth doesn't seem to really suspect much about it; it's just like how in fs, angeal is quick to suspect alissa, questioning her at every turn, but sephiroth is in the process of falling under jenova's influence and doesn't really see it.
but also, and probably one of the saddest things about angeal, is that he puts the safety of others over his own: he's quick and ready to support allies in a crisis, but he doesn't give himself the same grace.
genesis is in a crisis, quite similar to what sephiroth experienced in robio (obsessed with one specific goal, seemingly uncaring of who he may be hurting in the process, etc), but expanded into a war. he's pulling innocent people into it and he needs to be stopped.
best course of action is that someone who's closer to him should try to talk him out of it or show the way out with actions instead, rather than trying to go right into combat, which is angeal's area of expertise, so he initially goes for that.......................... but doesn't expect to have a crisis of his own. he goes and doesn't really come back for a long time.
they get into a reversal of robio, then: sephiroth is the "sober one" while angeal is thinking of himself as a monster and threat to humanity who can't really save anyone; genesis keeps doing his thing in absolute insanity, beating into his head that they're both monsters and angeal is absolutely failing at doing what he's best at, being there for others.
but sephiroth is a very insecure person with abandonment issues. he can't pursue angeal back to do for him what angeal did in robio. his immediate reaction to them leaving is feeling betrayed and refusing confrontation. he can't be a support in a crisis like this because his usual mo is to bottle up and carry on.
so when they meet again, it's almost a parody of their usual from robio: angeal tries to care for sephiroth ("hey, you look thin?" as in "i worry you're not eating well") and sephiroth huffs about it, but the overall energy isn't there, angeal doesn't push further than that, he just sends sephiroth away from hojo.
the real tragedy with ags here, and that i think fs greatly enriches, is that robio happened before; angeal has already experienced a friend (or potential friend, at the time) going through a crisis, succeeded in helping him back then and thinks he can do it again, without involving sephiroth into it to spare him of the nasty parts of that... but not just he fails, he spirals hard into existential crisis without anyone else there to help him out of it because he won't let them carry that weight for him. (and meanwhile, sephiroth is suffering and questioning their friendship.) it's full of miscommunication and it doesn't end well at all: sephiroth can't handle a degrading genesis who acts petty about things. he can't save him without any support to fall back on. (no, zack isn't enough, because if anything... zack is a reminder of what was lost due to being too similar to what angeal should be like.)
it's not something that should be retconned because it's brutally raw to see someone like angeal (an absolute beam of sunshine to others) collapse so hard to the point he doesn't seem like himself at all. to the point he's saying stuff to the effect of like "i shouldn't be alive" or "i feel that my mind is mirred in fog". saying self mocking things about a monster's desire for revenge or world domination. saying he's a "perfect monster", while losing his mind over maybe not having been human at all to begin with. while having to deal with the fact that the father who died for him wasn't his bio dad and that, instead, it's some inhuman bastard with a thirst for revenge, and that his own mother was involved in this.
but i do agree that we need an expansion on cc, in some way, preferrably one that DOESN'T take on zack's pov, because... hell, no offense to zack, i love him, but he doesn't have A LOT of the previous context for what happens in between ags from the sources themselves, and that harms a lot what he set out to do (being a stand in for angeal's role as a support for others).
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