"It's true I was not given...choices," Sephiroth says, somewhat reluctantly, as if he grudges himself any grace at all. "Or any guidance that could be relied on to be worthwhile for many years. But even on my very first deployment...perhaps even before..." He lowers his eyes. "I knew something was...wrong. That I was wrong. That what I was doing felt - terrible, and I hated it. But - I made myself do it anyway, because I was afraid. Afraid of being weak, old-fashioned...worth leaving behind. Everything I was told soldiers with compassion were. Afraid of abandoning the only instructions I'd ever had, the only way of being I was ever told was correct. Afraid of having nowhere to go and nothing to be, if I stopped being ShinRa's perfect weapon.
"But I knew, still, that I was wrong. From the first. And I only realized it more deeply the more years passed. And yet I kept doing what I knew was wrong, for selfish and cowardly reasons. How can that be excused so easily? If I can be considered...less responsible for the atrocities I committed when my body and mind weren't my own, how is my responsibility not mine when they were?"
He sighs, shaking his head. "Forgive me. I know...these aren't questions you can really answer for me, about events you had nothing to do with. I don't...believe you undertook enough missions for ShinRa, certainly not the kinds of missions I did, to be haunted the way I am by what you did in their name." This is Sephiroth, very delicately, navigating around the fact that he doesn't even know what missions Cloud did undertake as a trooper, if many at all, and certainly none of them major or glamorous. What missions Cloud may have done other than the Nibel reactor mission, Sephiroth wonders if Cloud's memory has even retained them. But certainly Sephiroth is certain Cloud never slaughtered civilians for ShinRa. "But it's difficult to know the extent of what I've done - with a clear head, as you put it - and accept those weren't the actions of a monster. To the people of Rhadore, of Wutai...I was a nightmare. No malevolent demon could have done worse to them. Does my reluctance and regret change that?"
He shakes his head again. "You don't have to answer. Again - it's not an answer you can give me. But...you've always had a kind heart. Don't let it be so quick to absolve me."
At Cloud's acknowledgment that he hasn't felt Jenova in this world, Sephiroth nods slightly in agreement without lifting his head. "Considering I don't even feel it active within my own mind...I doubt it's active in this world at all. You don't feel anything like its oppressive presence because it's not there to feel. Only the echoes of its pull." Then, a touch hesitantly: "I worry, at times, that its obsession with you is that it wishes to make you its new host. With my own body dead, it would no doubt benefit from a living vessel. In my own timeline, in your initial encounters with it, your fractured mind was...rather weak to its influence, which would only have encouraged it.
"But if it's any comfort in the wake of such a disturbing suggestion, you also become uniquely resistant to that influence over time - especially when your memory issues are addressed. Even if I wished to tell you why that is, I can't - I simply don't know what allows you to shake it off where others can't. But the fact remains that whether or not Jenova wishes to make you its vessel, I don't believe it could succeed - regardless of whatever it may think, or want."
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"But I knew, still, that I was wrong. From the first. And I only realized it more deeply the more years passed. And yet I kept doing what I knew was wrong, for selfish and cowardly reasons. How can that be excused so easily? If I can be considered...less responsible for the atrocities I committed when my body and mind weren't my own, how is my responsibility not mine when they were?"
He sighs, shaking his head. "Forgive me. I know...these aren't questions you can really answer for me, about events you had nothing to do with. I don't...believe you undertook enough missions for ShinRa, certainly not the kinds of missions I did, to be haunted the way I am by what you did in their name." This is Sephiroth, very delicately, navigating around the fact that he doesn't even know what missions Cloud did undertake as a trooper, if many at all, and certainly none of them major or glamorous. What missions Cloud may have done other than the Nibel reactor mission, Sephiroth wonders if Cloud's memory has even retained them. But certainly Sephiroth is certain Cloud never slaughtered civilians for ShinRa. "But it's difficult to know the extent of what I've done - with a clear head, as you put it - and accept those weren't the actions of a monster. To the people of Rhadore, of Wutai...I was a nightmare. No malevolent demon could have done worse to them. Does my reluctance and regret change that?"
He shakes his head again. "You don't have to answer. Again - it's not an answer you can give me. But...you've always had a kind heart. Don't let it be so quick to absolve me."
At Cloud's acknowledgment that he hasn't felt Jenova in this world, Sephiroth nods slightly in agreement without lifting his head. "Considering I don't even feel it active within my own mind...I doubt it's active in this world at all. You don't feel anything like its oppressive presence because it's not there to feel. Only the echoes of its pull." Then, a touch hesitantly: "I worry, at times, that its obsession with you is that it wishes to make you its new host. With my own body dead, it would no doubt benefit from a living vessel. In my own timeline, in your initial encounters with it, your fractured mind was...rather weak to its influence, which would only have encouraged it.
"But if it's any comfort in the wake of such a disturbing suggestion, you also become uniquely resistant to that influence over time - especially when your memory issues are addressed. Even if I wished to tell you why that is, I can't - I simply don't know what allows you to shake it off where others can't. But the fact remains that whether or not Jenova wishes to make you its vessel, I don't believe it could succeed - regardless of whatever it may think, or want."