"For myself, I hope it is." Sephiroth looks down at his chicken again, who seems to have comfortably settled back in after her little demonstration. Is shitting on someone a power play? Possibly, for a bird. Sephiroth certainly wouldn't rule it out. "I certainly don't have anything to go back to. Even if I could somehow go back to our world alive and sane, which seems unlikely and hardly worth the risk my continued existence would pose...almost everyone I cared about was dead even before Nibelheim.

"To be myself again, with friends, free of ShinRa...in both the simulation before this and now, it's more than I ever believed I could have. More than I deserve, perhaps, but...no matter what punishment I may or may not deserve, Genesis and Angeal deserve happiness. And they want it with me. Even if it might please others to see me suffer, even if it's what I deserve...I won't grieve them to suit other people." A pause. "That's why I defended myself, when you attacked me. If anyone has a right to strike me down, if not an imperative, it's certainly you, but...for them, I have to live. The world may be better off without me, but they would suffer, and they've suffered enough."

If this sounds like something Sephiroth has thought a lot about, has had to justify to himself over and over again...well, that's truth in advertising.

"But for however long or short a time we have here...I'll do whatever I can to demonstrate to you that their happiness doesn't need to come at anyone else's expense. That I'm not a threat to the world as I am now, that I have no wish to harm anyone or do anything beyond having the sort of quiet, peaceful life I always thought was beyond my reach. I had a taste of it, in the simulation. It's all I want now." A beat. "That...and to have back a few others I have lost. But that's not up to any of us, I suppose."