Hell Mask

'''This is not FF7 canon. Well, some of it is. Most of it is not. This is mostly me trying to keep my notes straight. Spoilers abound.'''

AKA: Masuka Hell Mask is a Deepground reject. Sephiroth was not the only experimental baby being bred in the Shinra labs. The SOLDIER project is actually slightly older than he is, despite his being the first successful super-soldier. Masuka was a POW from an early skirmish in Wutai. She was not badly injured and was one of very few females captured. Because of this, she was deemed suitable to act as a surrogate. She came down with Geostigma a few weeks in and suffered a miscarriage. Indeed, there were a rash of Geostigma cases, but no one knew what it was. It was assumed that she- the foreigner- was the source of the disease. She was put in quarantine and kept for observation. Everyone who contracted Geostigma died, including Masuka. Her body was preserved for study; the scientists had by this point determined that Geostigma was not transmitted by casual contact or even aspiration. Because Vincent had survived Geostigma himself, Hojo used some of Masuka’s tissue to repair an injury Vincent had sustained during “testing”. His body accepted her contaminated tissue, and Vincent got a new headmate.