"There is good reason you don't remember much of it. And as you might imagine, that time being boring would have been far preferable to the reality." He pauses, feeling out in his own mind how would be best to proceed.
"You don't remember it yet, but...you have personal experience with Professor Hojo." And he decides to drop a small bombshell - one that doesn't affect Cloud much, but one he supposes Cloud deserves to know, all the same. "My father."
Still...he can't look at Cloud as he says the words, directing his gaze away. The way his lips are compressed in the thinnest of lines communicates just how much he loves that fact...although, as it happens, Cloud also has some actually clear memories of Sephiroth talking about how pathetic and awful Hojo is, so he might even have known without the look on Sephiroth's face.
There's little he hates more than having any connection to Hojo at all.
"Of course you realize that when our group failed to report back from Nibelheim, ShinRa would investigate. Perhaps losing an entire squad might not have mattered to them, but the disappearance of their prize SOLDIER, their perfect weapon...it demanded an investigation. And as the man in charge of the project that created me, Hojo came to Nibelheim personally. Mostly they found corpses...but they also found people like you, injured or dying, but still alive. And when presented with a bunch of people he concluded no one would miss...Hojo was only capable of doing one thing." He closes his eyes. "Everyone who wasn't killed by me at Nibelheim...was turned into one of his experiments. And either out of spite at the loss of his pet project, in some strange bid to replace me, or simply out of his own ghoulish curiosity...what Hojo experimented on you and the others with was my DNA. He had harvested enough of it from me over the years. He injected all of you with it."
He meets Cloud's gaze again. "That is the connection between us you feel. That is the voice in your head you hear. It may take my voice and form to you, but...what you are experiencing is Jenova. Hojo infected you with it...with me. And like me...it is capable of, at times, conquering your mind and dictating your actions. You in particular may be more susceptible than most to its voice, with the way your mind and memory have fragmented; that uncertainty and doubt is ample fodder for Jenova to manipulate you, even at a low concentration. I likely have the greatest concentration of Jenova within me of anyone living, and yet it never took over my mind or my actions until I had a breakdown of my own."
He breathes out. "So while you may well be terrified of the influence it has over you, especially now that you know what it is...take comfort in that within my timeline, untangling the confusion of your memory essentially removed that ability for Jenova to exploit you. Certainly you never fell prey to it again, and there were many opportunities and reasons for it to try pushing you. That is our goal here, as well - to help you piece things together until you are truly sure of yourself - and it will likely shut out Jenova's influence in the same way. Your vulnerability to it is not permanent."
He holds Cloud's gaze. "But that is the truth of that period in your life. You spent much of the four years after Nibelheim floating in a tank of mako, in Hojo's lab in the Nibel manor. Another SOLDIER - one of our squad that was captured alongside you - escaped, and helped you to do so as well. And you needed the assistance, because you had an intense case of mako poisoning and were borderline comatose. I don't believe you fully emerged from your daze until you actually reached Nibelheim...until you met Tifa again."
no subject
"You don't remember it yet, but...you have personal experience with Professor Hojo." And he decides to drop a small bombshell - one that doesn't affect Cloud much, but one he supposes Cloud deserves to know, all the same. "My father."
Still...he can't look at Cloud as he says the words, directing his gaze away. The way his lips are compressed in the thinnest of lines communicates just how much he loves that fact...although, as it happens, Cloud also has some actually clear memories of Sephiroth talking about how pathetic and awful Hojo is, so he might even have known without the look on Sephiroth's face.
There's little he hates more than having any connection to Hojo at all.
"Of course you realize that when our group failed to report back from Nibelheim, ShinRa would investigate. Perhaps losing an entire squad might not have mattered to them, but the disappearance of their prize SOLDIER, their perfect weapon...it demanded an investigation. And as the man in charge of the project that created me, Hojo came to Nibelheim personally. Mostly they found corpses...but they also found people like you, injured or dying, but still alive. And when presented with a bunch of people he concluded no one would miss...Hojo was only capable of doing one thing." He closes his eyes. "Everyone who wasn't killed by me at Nibelheim...was turned into one of his experiments. And either out of spite at the loss of his pet project, in some strange bid to replace me, or simply out of his own ghoulish curiosity...what Hojo experimented on you and the others with was my DNA. He had harvested enough of it from me over the years. He injected all of you with it."
He meets Cloud's gaze again. "That is the connection between us you feel. That is the voice in your head you hear. It may take my voice and form to you, but...what you are experiencing is Jenova. Hojo infected you with it...with me. And like me...it is capable of, at times, conquering your mind and dictating your actions. You in particular may be more susceptible than most to its voice, with the way your mind and memory have fragmented; that uncertainty and doubt is ample fodder for Jenova to manipulate you, even at a low concentration. I likely have the greatest concentration of Jenova within me of anyone living, and yet it never took over my mind or my actions until I had a breakdown of my own."
He breathes out. "So while you may well be terrified of the influence it has over you, especially now that you know what it is...take comfort in that within my timeline, untangling the confusion of your memory essentially removed that ability for Jenova to exploit you. Certainly you never fell prey to it again, and there were many opportunities and reasons for it to try pushing you. That is our goal here, as well - to help you piece things together until you are truly sure of yourself - and it will likely shut out Jenova's influence in the same way. Your vulnerability to it is not permanent."
He holds Cloud's gaze. "But that is the truth of that period in your life. You spent much of the four years after Nibelheim floating in a tank of mako, in Hojo's lab in the Nibel manor. Another SOLDIER - one of our squad that was captured alongside you - escaped, and helped you to do so as well. And you needed the assistance, because you had an intense case of mako poisoning and were borderline comatose. I don't believe you fully emerged from your daze until you actually reached Nibelheim...until you met Tifa again."