[Sephiroth doesn’t fall with Cloud. He doesn’t so much as become a part of that color bleeding into itself, only stands on the mountain top, watching as he tumbles down below.

The cold hum of Hojo’s lab, the steel structures and winding tubing swallow the man up, planting him in its belly. It’s only after Cloud has had a chance to take in his surroundings — monstrous in their own right — does Sephiroth suddenly speak up from directly behind him.

Whether or not he’s jumped down and landed silently, or just appeared from the aether? It’s anyone’s guess. The world has a strange habit of bending itself to his own will. Even this place.]

The Shinra building.

[An old life, like someone else had lived it for him. He remembers it so very vaguely, but the shape of it is there. He can hold onto that; this place still exists closer to the forefront of his mind than the years prior, where all starts to lose its coherence.]

They hid so much, and for so long. How strange to walk these halls again, like striding through veins of an open heart about to collapse in on itself.

[His smile widens, and he almost laughs at the nostalgia that doesn’t quite reach him. Sephiroth himself had only recently (again) strode through this place using the form of another, controlling from the outside.]

Look at how many there are.

[A room lined with pods.]