"I wonder." Sephiroth still isn't looking at Cloud, but he doesn't seem to be intentionally looking elsewhere; he seems, rather, as though he's looking at nothing, perhaps because he's looking inside himself instead. "I wonder whether I'm truly not a monster...or if I am a monster, and perhaps what I'm meant to do is redefine what that means. Not every monstrous thing I've done was because of Jenova. At what point do one's actions define one's nature? And if they do...then I suppose the only hope one has is that you can change how you are defined by what you do, and so long as one is in control of oneself, you can choose to do things differently."

He shakes his head. "But...mostly I try not to indulge in those thoughts. Genesis and Angeal...they think of themselves as monsters, too, for their own reasons. Reasons even less their fault than my own. And Angeal, in particular, doesn't think of being a monster with any nuance. Rather than let themselves consider themselves monsters if I think of myself as one, and see that hurt them...I will continue to say that none of us are."

He glances up at Cloud again at last. "But monster or not...you deserve what has happened to you, what has been done to you, as little as anyone can deserve it. And Jenova has...focused on you, on tormenting you, in ways it hasn't with anyone else. Perhaps killing the perfect vessel Hojo created for it, dealing it the immense setback it suffered in needing to find a way to exert its influence through the Lifestream...maybe that explains its fixation. But certainly it targets you in a way it hasn't anyone else. So while there are many victims of me, and of Jenova...in many ways, I feel you have been put through the most. And anything I can do for you seems like not nearly enough."