[This younger version of Sephiroth has the same smile, the same eyes. Looks at Cloud with the same half-grin on his features, knowing far too much. But the rest of him is so different, so much smaller — he’s just a child. He has the rounder features of one, and his hair is shorter, barely past his shoulders. His are clothes plain, almost oddly so, as if seeing him outside of military garb is too mundane for a man who would grow up to be a legendary SOLDIER, a war hero, a man who would be god and call upon Meteor to crack Gaia in two.

But he’s getting ahead of himself again.

This memory is so entrenched in the past that its edges are blurry, some of the men faceless, their features fuzzy or altogether missing. One of them, still looking at Cloud, reaches for Sephiroth’s arm. Make a fist, he says, and the silver-haired boy does so, and suddenly there’s a long needle puncturing his skin and drawing blood up into a large syringe.]

Yes. [—the boy says, watching Cloud carefully, as the company takes from him, like they’ve always taken from him.] I remember now. I grew up in a lab like this. On a table like this. In a training room, always the same thing every day.

[Yes, he remembers. Breathe in, says another scientist, or perhaps a doctor, and Sephiroth breathes in deeply, a stethoscope pressed to his back. Exhale. He exhales.]

It’s what I told you. You think monsters are all that ever lived on these floors?