Sephiroth

'''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.'''

Born June 21, 1967

General of the Shinra army and the first of the First Class SOLDIERs, Sephiroth is perhaps the best and most famous thing to come out of the company. A war hero beginning in his teens, he's become a beloved public figure. Although confident in his own abilities, Sephiroth is far less adept at public relations than he is at combat. He remains mortally embarrassed by the fact that he has a fan club and takes no part in it. However, that does not mean he's anti-social. He does have friends- primarily among the troops; he's just not sure what to do with screaming fangirls.

He insists it DOES NOT take an entire bottle of shampoo to wash his hair- unless it's one of those little hotel bottles and then it takes like three- and the perfume thing happened ONCE. Cissnei made him replace the bottle of Herbal Essences that he accidentally grabbed in the locker room shower. Hey, his eyes were shut. It's not his fault she forgot the darned thing and left it out for ANYONE to just pick up.

Early Life
Hojo was “using” before Sephiroth was conceived. Because of this, Jenova was implanted directly into the embryo via the father’s DNA. Sephiroth continued to receive both makou and Jenova infusions in-utero. Gast and Hojo tried infusing Lu with makou and she took that okay, but she couldn’t handle the Jenova AT ALL. She was horribly sick for like a week. She was so bad they honestly though she was either going to miscarry or just drop dead herself. You would think this might get them thinking about the risks of possible eclampsia, but it didn’t. 9_9

Sephiroth was born fully-formed, fontanels mostly fused, and weighing almost 10lbs. Lucrecia managed to birth him vaginally, but it took over 12hrs and resulted in toxemia. She died less than five minutes after he was born.Without Lucrecia, Hojo got by caring for his infant son with a lot of help from Gast and Ifalna. Because of the Jenova in his system, Sephiroth hit all of his developmental milestones months and even years early. He was speaking full sentences at a just a year old, and learned to read at three. He was above-average in every category. Indeed, he even looked considerably older than his chronological age, appearing to be at least three years older than he actually was. Hojo treated him more like an adult than a child, having no real concept of how to deal with small children. However, he was not unkind to his son, and doted on him as best he knew how.

Homeschool
Because there were no signs that he could hear the voice of the Planet, it was suggested that he be put into training with the other Jenova babies that had been bred in Deepground (Weiss, Rosso, and Nero). Rather than risk his son getting pitched into a program that was becoming more and more unethical, Hojo chose to "homeschool" Sephiroth instead. Although it would mean subjecting his only son to rigors that would have been extreme for full-grown men, Hojo thought it would better for Sephiroth to suffer at his hand than the leave him to the mercies of Deepground.

SOLDIER
Legal age across both continents is fifteen. Sephiroth was introduced to the regular army at twelve. Because of his height, strength, and intelligence, only his lack of pop culture knowledge and poor interpersonal skills set him apart from the other teenagers in the Shinra military. Stronger and faster than any of his peers, he wasn't arrogant, though he did have trouble making friends.

The Wutai war broke out when he was fifteen, and he was already a leader among his fellow soldiers. He was given a battlefield commission as captain in the midst of hostilities. From there, it did not take him long to rise to the rank of general. Sephiroth became the literal poster boy for the SOLDIER program, with enlistment rates going through the roof due to capitalizing on his victories.

BFFs
Although he achieved great success with his military campaigns, Sephiroth continued to struggle with relating to his men. Having lived in a veritable bubble for most of his life, and being considerably younger than most of them but also in charge made things awkward at best. Two boys- best friends from the village of Banora- by name of Angeal and Genesis became his closest companions both on the field and off. They could often be seen training together, or just hanging out.

The Clone Wars
The Wutai War dragged on for over ten years. Sephiroth spent the bulk of it overseas, returning home on leave only briefly. There was no one in the Shinra building he particularly wanted to see. The military had become his family, Genesis and Angeal his brothers. He would have rather spent his time with them.

When Genesis defected, taking a third of the arm with him, no one quite knew how to react. When Angeal followed suit a few months later, Sephiroth felt as if he'd lost the only people in the world who cared about him as more than an experiment or a war hero. Getting to know another one of his subordinates- a young Captain named Zack Fair- helped to fill the empty spaces left by his AWOL friends, but didn't make it hurt any less.

Sephiroth did what he could to defend his friends; including reinterpreting orders, trying to capture his friends himself, refusing orders (a privilege of rank), and even going behind his superiors' backs. This was the first instance of him outright defying Shinra for the sake of people he cared about. Sadly, in the end, it would not do him any good. Perhaps aware that he was in a shaky place emotionally, Shinra sent him on a mission to a remote mountain village marked on the map as Nibelheim.

Nibelheim
Oh that fateful day.

He found Vincent and EVERYTHING changed.

EVERYTHING.

Rather than be left to puzzle out the truth of his origins on his own, Sephiroth was given help in the form of one of his father's experiments: one Vincent Valentine. Vincent had been there for the early bits, had known those involved personally, and was able to shed light on events only hinted at in the journals. Most importantly, he was able to tell Sephiroth about his human mother, Lucrecia. With a competing voice to that of Jenova, Sephiroth was able to make a more informed decision about who he was and what he'd come from. He still chose to identify as the son of this mother, but this time, he chose the human one. He chose Lucrecia. This weakened Jenova's hold on him, and though he was still subject to her will, he at least knew what was going on and was able to make an effort to resist her.