By: Albedosreqium / Soyna

Warnings and Genre:
Teen. ANGST and ANGST. Angsty Sephiroth. You will want to huggle him after this.

Setting:
Before Before Crisis and Crisis Core.

Disclaimer
All related Final Fantasy names and characters are copyrighted by the almighty Square Enix©.

Summary:
ANGST! Song ficlet… based off of 'One of Us' from Lion King 2 for an art trade with Lady-Yuna7. I hope you like it. You wanted angst, I hope I delivered.
Beta: The lovely and wonderful Ziggy Pasta

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DECEPTION

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Sephiroth always knew that he was different from the others, and lived a special existence and purpose. He had been told so since he was a child. Those words had always run true to him, even if he did feel separated from those that were around him.

'… he is not one of us ... '

"How old are you?"

"Are you fifty?"

"What is with the grey hair?"

"You look like a little girl."

"What's with the clothes?"

Their laughter had been painful. It was his first time that he had been around other children. He had been told that it was going to be fun and that he would be able to play. He had asked what he would be playing, and Gast had just smiled at him and told him that whatever the kids wanted at the time.

The doctors had all assumed that he would make instant friends with the boys and girls. Sephiroth had wondered what kind of games they would play and if they were more interesting than the block games or the mind puzzles that the doctors had always put him through.

He didn't understand what games when one of them threw a ball at him. He had thought that he was supposed to dodge it. That was always what they had told him to do and here these boys wanted him to catch it and throw it back.

He didn't like them laughing at him, and it confused and hurt him.

'… He has never been one of us …'

"You need a bow for your hair."

"Ah, the baby is gonna cry."

"Can't even play catch."

The laughter hurt and he didn't understand why.

He ran to the bathroom because he was going to cry and he didn't want the other children to see him. He didn't want them to know that they were doing things that were causing him pain. The pain in his chest was different than what he was used to enduring. This pain was not physical, like when they stuck him with a needle or from the extensive physical workouts that he was asked to do. He could control the tears from the physical pain and exertion; not being able to control the emotion that was created from the rejection scared him.

He didn't like being scared and he didn't like the pain. Those were bad things and he had to get rid of the feelings that were being caused by the words and laughter of those children.

'… He is not part of us …'

It was his hair. They called him a girl and old. He was certain that it was because of his hair. The doctors always said that his hair grew rather quickly and they didn't bother to cut it that often. Someone had once called his long hair adorable and he liked the feeling he got from those words. But his hair was causing him to hurt so he had to remove it to stop the pain.

He had never equated grey with old before. He was surrounded by people who all had grey hair, so he didn't know that it was odd until he was around those that were supposedly the same age as him.

None of them had hair like he did.

So he sought to remove the things that made him different.

The other children had said those things because he was different, so he changed himself so that he would be the same as them. them.

There was always scissors around and he used them. He cut all his hair off to the point that he was nearly bald. They had to accept him after he changed himself and asked for normal clothes.

'… Not our kind …'

But it didn't matter. They taunted him further and tried to hurt him again; hurt him with their mean taunts and jeers. Gast pulled him aside after and told him that everything would be okay.

He believed him too.

He had cried and begged that he didn't want to play with them anymore and to go back to reading in his room. It was safe in his room and away from them. Written words never hurt him and the books could only tell him new things and new truths. He wanted to remain safe and hidden away from those mean spoken words out of the mouths of those children. He would rather do the endurance tests that Hojo wanted him to do than deal with those children again.

Gast had told him that he needed to get used to talking to people his own age. It would be good for him to have friends.

Of course, that was when Gast left and left him with no one to talk too and no friends.

'… Someone once lied to us …'

Friends.

They had been nice while they had lasted and he even enjoyed having friends who looked at him like a person, not a subject, but a person. His first real friends didn't look to him as a person raised by Shin-Ra and property of the company.

They were lies too, even if they didn't know it at the time.

Angeal and Genesis.

They were the first people not to shy from him or be intimidated by him at all. It was refreshing to be challenged by Genesis for the role of the hero, even if it turned bitter at times. Angeal was the one that balanced them out and kept things even.

He had cherished that delicate friendship, and didn't realize how precious that balance was until Genesis started to walk to the end of the scale and sent everything into a spiral.

'… Now we're not so blind …'

He let the book that he was reading drop to the floor. He ignored the dust that it stirred as he stared around at the room; a room full of deception, deceit and traitorous thoughts.

His whole life had been nothing but that, and this room contained all the truth of what he truly was.

"They lied to me," he whispered into the dust-filled air of the old lab. There was no one to hear his voice. He had sent them all away, including the one man that he may have considered a friend if he would have let him in. Everyone sought his friendship now if he would allow them in, and he would not after the pain of losing the ones that he was closest to.

He stood alone amongst the stink of old books and mako that would have overwhelmed anyone else. He was used to the smell, as this was the smell of his childhood that hung in the air. It was a smell that he should have remembered because he had been here before, or at least in a very similar place.

He brought his black leather-covered hand to tug at his silver hair that had fallen in front of his face; his hair, which made him different for his whole life and even more so when he had started to let it grow again to its current astonishing length.

'… For we knew he would do what he's done …'

Gast and Hojo's notes were spread about him, telling him that Genesis was right; telling him that he had been lied to all his life.

He was deceived. He was no better than that atrocity that fell out of that pod in the mako reactor. He was not human. He was a disgrace.

He was nothing more than a monster.

'… And we know that he'll never be one of us …'

"Did everyone deceive me?" He picked up another book and went through the pages, but the written words were lost in memories that swirled in his head. The memories were giving him words and images that he had thought he had long ago - buried and forgotten.

The memory of Hojo looking at his clipboard and saying the words, "Excellent progress, Sephiroth. You have shown the best promise out of all the subjects."

'… He is not one of us …'

He had been proud when Hojo had said that. He remembered smiling brightly at those words because Hojo never gave praise. It was rare to get a positive response out of him at any time, so hearing him say that he was showing promise was a feat.

He should have paid attention to the word 'subject'.

Subject 'S'. Specimen 'S'. It was all he really was to the man. He didn't even write his name down in the books and notes that Sephiroth now was reading. It was always 'S', 'S', 'S', never 'Sephiroth'.

What did those words really mean? What was he? Was he more than Angeal and Genesis? What kind of monster did they make him into? Was he a monster reborn that should have remained fixed within Gaia?

Was he nothing but a toy to Hojo?

"What am I?" he whispered.

'… Born in grief …'

The only thing he really knew about his mother was her name, Jenova –- a name that was inscribed over the door in the reactor.

Genesis had asked him once about his mother and all he was able to do was say her name. She died when he was born; at least that was what he was told. He wasn't sure that he had never even seen a picture of her. The picture of the woman with the long brown hair and yellow ribbon was probably a stock picture that Hojo showed him to appease his childhood curiosity. The man was not known to divulge information freely and knew it was most likely something he did just to shut him up.

He had asked others about who his father was, but only received laughter, a pat on the shoulder or a sad look as an answer.

He never dwelled on it. He didn't have time to deal with the same thing that the other children did, as he learned later.

'… Raised in hate …'

He had to deal with the expectations that were set for him; the expectations that Hojo had set for him after Gast left him without any notice. He was left to Hojo's whims and experimentation practices. He had to learn to endure, and quickly.

He didn't have time to worry about things like family and friends like the people that tested him. He had to worry about the expectations that Hojo had set out for him. He was his most prized specimen and he had to keep that title if he was going to make it in SOLDIER, like they had planned for him.

He chuckled at the thought. "A prize indeed."

'… Helpless to defy his fate …'

He had to do as he was told, and he achieved beyond the expectations of all that were around him. He was going to be the best SOLDIER, just as he was destined, and he had finally become that.

He had become a killer at the age of ten.

He no longer cut his hair after he had blood on his hands. He no longer had to worry about being different because he would just kill them if they decided that he was not good enough to be part of the group. He no longer needed to be a part of them. He was better and being different than all the others now earned respect and fear, and no one ridiculed him.

'… Let him run …'

He still followed orders that he was given. He had to remain the best and there was no one that surpassed him. He was allowed more freedoms. He was allowed to be away from Hojo and he found his first real friends at the age of sixteen with the arrival of Genesis and Angeal to the ranks.

Boys that showed as much promise as he did, as they moved through the ranks fast to meet him at the age of 18 as First Class SOLDIER's. The first people that were not scared of him and the first people that he counted as true friends.

They had accepted him and he had been comfortable for once in his life.

'… Let him live …'

He was able to live like the other people around him for that short period of time, but it was not nearly long enough.

He had dinners and went to movies and did all sorts of mundane things that he had never done before. They would talk and when they laughed, they laughed together.

He did start to question his childhood that he had been trying to forget when Angeal and Genesis would talk about what they used to do as children with their families. He was amazed at how different things were in how he grew up.

He had never realized how odd his life really was before he had friends and how he was grateful that part of his life was over. He had had friends and he had been happy.

'… But do not forget what we cannot forgive …'

The basement that he now stood in, surrounding him with the records of his childhood, his birth – no ... not his birth - his creation and the lies that he had endured all his life.

Everything had been small windows that only glimpsed at the larger truth; the larger truth being the information that gathered in this room and the truth of what his life was really about. Even more could open up to him when he thought about the word written over the heavy metal door at the reactor at the top of the mountain.

The answers to everything would be in that room that was surrounded by monsters and mako.

"Monsters," he whispered as he let another book fall from his fingers onto the dusty floor. "Brothers," he added and then chuckled. Was he any different than those creatures? He was beginning to think that he was nothing more than the first monster. He was just a subject that was above the expectations that were set for him. He would be like them soon, or maybe ... they would be like him.

His laughing grew harder, louder, and he was unable to control it any longer.

Everything that he understood of what he had been was nothing more than a deception. He was a disgrace if he did not see this before with the clues that were in front of him his whole life. The books that he had read through had just put all the pieces finally together.

It wasn't him. He was not the outsider that he always thought he was. It was a freeing revelation to realize that it wasn't him that was the problem ... but them. They were the outsiders. They were the ones that didn't belong; they were the traitors. They were the ones that were causing all this trouble and pain. They were the ones that should be pushed aside and left to ponder their traitorous thoughts … they could ponder their traitorous thoughts from the lifestream.

It was finally clear to him. After all these years of not really understanding and feeling like he had not achieved his true goal, he had finally found it.

His mother was behind that door. She would not shun him and she would understand what he had been through.

His shoulders shook with laughter and he picked up another book, but he understood enough now. He didn't need to read anymore. He knew all the secrets that he needed to know; all the things that they had kept from him.

He knew what he was and what he was supposed to be and what he was supposed to do.

But first, he had to get Mother out of her cage to help him destroy the traitors that had kept them separated all his life. He would make them pay for deceiving him for what he really was.