【SC】Endless Journey

Chapter 1

(1) S-side

Sephiroth opened his eyes, and his young vertical pupils narrowed into a slit.

He coldly looked outside the glass wall through Moko, and the researchers walked back and forth in front of his training cabin, burying their heads in recording the data on the instrument.No one paid attention to how he felt, so no one noticed his silent movement of his lips at the distant crystal.

"Mother."

The man in the crystal didn't respond to him.

Sephiroth's memory started from this training cabin.

He has been placed here since the embryonic period, the magic is the amniotic fluid, and the cold reinforced glass is the wall of the uterus.He spent his infancy in the training cabin, developing rapidly at three times the speed of ordinary humans, and was not released from the training cabin until he could move independently.

He knew he was made to be an alien, but he didn't care much about it.There are many more of the same individual in the research facility, and none of the children other than him survived, so he is special, better than everyone else, at least that's what the researchers told him.

His training cabin has the best view, facing the center of the research facility, and he can have a clear view of the entire facility.

There is a huge crystal in the center of the research institute, and the fixtures from the base to the top are ten meters high. It is said that the research institute was built for it.Sephiroth saw the crystal when he opened his eyes for the first time, and also noticed a figure in the crystal.

It was a blond man sleeping peacefully in the center of the crystal.

The other party has exquisite facial features, hair style that resembles a young chocobo, and is between the age of a teenager and a young man; he is dressed in a sleeveless sweater and black leather, with a rather industrial-style combination sword in his hand, and a cloud wolf ear on his left ear Nails reveal an atmosphere that does not belong to this era everywhere.

Although Sephiroth's age is still unable to sum up his own aesthetics, everything about the man hits him: the fair skin looks very soft, and the arms with bulging veins are strong and powerful.This wonderful combination neutralized the opponent's delicate temperament, making him more like a fighter.

Claude Strife - so says the nameplate on the crystal pedestal.

People in the research facility called him "the savior" and thought he was the hero who saved the planet 200 years ago, but Sephiroth secretly called him "mother".

The liquid level in the cylinder gradually drops, and the hatch is opened.Sephiroth coughed out the Moko in his lungs, and walked out staggeringly.

Today, the researcher forgot to put a ladder in front of the training cabin, so he could only jump off the edge of the experimental platform, and no one came to help him during the whole process.But it doesn't matter, he can already strangle a military hound with his bare hands, and this little thing doesn't need the help of adults.

The official name of Sephiroth is Experiment C-07. It has been two years and five months since its birth, and its biological age is close to seven years old.Researchers here obtained the man's cells by drilling holes in the crystal, and used the cells to grow his embryos.In other words, he is the No. 7 clone of Claude Strife, and Claude is the mother of all numbered C items. He couldn't find a more suitable word to describe this relationship, so he used "mother" without authorization. refer to that person.

Despite being clones, they don't look alike.Sephiroth has soft silver hair, which will glow like metal under the top light, and his facial features are colder than men's, and there is an aggression in his beauty.He is immature but not soft, and often maintains an ominous calmness. Even researchers, few people dare to get close to him. The closer he is to the "perfect" in human standards, the stronger his sense of inhumanity will be.

The research institute had been arguing over whether his cloning project was successful for more than half a year. Since the clones before and after him were all silver-haired, they finally treated him as Cloud Strife.He received the special care of the Institute, including the best material conditions in the whole institute, the worship complex of the savior, and endless experiments.But if he himself gained anything from it, it was probably a rather bad childhood.

Sephiroth also once doubted whether he was really a clone of a man because of the large difference in appearance.During the time when he was not involved in the experiment, he went through the literature of the entire research institute, finished those difficult and obscure words with the child's limited vocabulary, added some explanations from the researchers, and finally managed to understand the relationship between mother and child. People's origins.

About five years ago, a fanatical religious group called The Savior dug up a huge crystal in the Great Northern Hollow, and at the same time found the man in the crystal.After comparing limited data, they firmly believe that the man is the hero who prevented the meteor from falling and saved the planet from the alien disaster 200 years ago. Since then, they have started a series of research on the savior.

The Redeemer believes that wars, famines, plagues, and natural disasters occur because the planet is at the end of its life and needs more energy to sustain itself.This is the slaughter of human beings by the planet, and only the savior can stop her.

Before the crystals are actually dug out, this is just a consolation statement for the congregation.Ever since they found Cloud Strife, they've been mad to make it happen.

The religious group set up a research institute and spent two years scanning and analyzing the crystal.Unable to find a way to break the crystal without hurting the man, they temporarily put their plan to awaken the Savior on hold, and instead resorted to a more roundabout way, namely cloning Cloud Strife, to save the world .

They polished a magic stone of destruction into a probe, spent a year drilling holes in the crystal, and finally got a little skin tissue from the man.Using this small piece of skin tissue, they grew a type C cell line and began trying to create clones in a simulated uterine environment.

C-01 to C-04 all failed, and they stopped developing before embryoid bodies formed.The researchers tested various possible environments and found that only Moko whose composition is close to the crystal can make the embryo grow normally, so C-05 replaced the simulated amniotic fluid with Moko, and grew to the human form for the first time.

According to records, C-05 has a head of silver fetal hair.The researchers thought that the cloning was a failure, so they stopped the supply of Mako halfway through.However, this individual persisted for 18 hours in the air-only training cabin, and the tenacity of its vitality was beyond everyone's expectations, so they used the same conditions to create C-06.

C-06 nearly duplicated the development of C-05, and it was only then that the researchers realized that silver hair might be a feature of the clone.But before C-06 opened his eyes, he died because of the high concentration of moko. Afterwards, they had to conduct a detailed autopsy on C-06, and did more experiments to adjust the ratio of moko to simulated amniotic fluid, which led to the failure of C-07's project. was delayed by three months.

In the end, the Institute achieved the first success in the cultivation of C-07 embryos in two years.Not only did this clone survive intact, but all indicators showed a strength that far surpassed that of humans.

While keeping C-07 as a precious sample, they conducted experiments on him under various extreme conditions.Until now, Sephiroth still can't understand the purpose of some of these experiments. He just gradually became numb from the pain at the beginning, and finally lost interest in exploring himself.

But at least he felt a little reassured by the confirmation that he was "mother's" child, and the only one at that.

There is another secret that Sephiroth has never told the researchers, that is, he can often hear a voice during the time soaked in Mako.

It was a gentle male voice, which only appeared in his mind, repeating certain syllables, never stopping since the day he opened his eyes.

At first Sephiroth couldn't understand what the other party was saying, but only vaguely knew that the voice came from the crystal.Later, when he left the training cabin and came into contact with the first human being, he instantly possessed a lot of knowledge that did not belong to him, and he also understood the meaning of syllables.

"Sephiroth" - is one word.

For the first time, he found that he could have such a connection with a man, and in the days to come, he often visited that crystal, trying to get more information from the man.

The man's voice was young, soft, but cold, like dew on the grass blades in the morning, which would shatter at the touch of a touch.He tried to talk to the man in his head, and the other party would occasionally respond, but it was more like talking in a deep sleep than a conscious answer.The only thing that remains the same is that the other party will always mention the word Sephiroth, and he can't find its definition after searching the Internet.He suspected that it was a man's unconscious call to him, so he took it as his own name on his own.

"Sephiroth."

As he chewed the word, he suddenly felt a secret sense of excitement.

This name was born to belong to me.Without any reason, he just knew, as if he didn't need any reason to know that the voice came from the man.From then on, "mother" has an extraordinary meaning to him.

His mother endowed him with existence and a name, which meant that he was no longer just an experimental subject, but had his own life experience and origin like other human beings.He has his own relatives, and they are better than others. After all, not everyone has a mother who has saved the planet. This knowledge is enough to support Sephiroth's pride from now on.

I was born extraordinary.Sephiroth thought.I have inherited the strength of my mother, and I will be the one who can influence the fate of the planet. Compared with the achievements I want to achieve in the future, the torture of experiments and training is insignificant.

His mother also cared for him in her own way.Although it could not provide warm arms, whenever the cold steel needles pierced his spinal cord and the electric shock caused him pain from the top of his skull to his fingertips, the man's voice would ring in his head.

"Sephiroth..."

The other party called his name over and over again, his tone became low and anxious, as if he could feel his uneasiness.For six-year-old Sephiroth, there's nothing quite like a mother's comfort.

Once he fell into a brief faint due to pain, and saw the man open his eyes dimly.Those were a pair of azure pupils, like the surface of the sea under a clear sky, the waves rolled on the silvery white sandy beach, and the sea was smudged with a ray of magic green.

The man looked at him with wet, worried, heartbreaking eyes.

"Sephiroth..." The other party's eyelashes trembled slightly, and even his heart trembled, "You can't stay there alone."

"Mother," he murmured, "I want to be with you, but I can't even touch you."

The man reached out and stroked his cheek lightly.

"Wait a minute, Sephiroth. I'll come to you."

Sephiroth wakes up, unable to tell if this is his dream or real.But he has a feeling that the connection between himself and his mother is two-way, and there is at least a one-in-a-thousand chance that his mother knows everything he has encountered and tries to protect him in the spiritual world.

That's enough, even if my mother can't do anything, he still loves me.Sephiroth took it as his own little secret, and happily waited for the day when the man woke up.

However, this situation only lasted for more than a year, and with the birth of C-11, everything was broken.

When the C-08 project was launched, the embryos were again unable to develop into a mature state.Sephiroth even felt a bit of untimely pleasure, he was the only child of his mother, he was perfect, he didn't need a second.

His wish seemed to turn into a poison that killed every subsequent embryo, nearly terminating the cloning project.Only C-11 survived tenaciously, and developed into an appearance that the entire research institute had never seen, which surprised everyone except him.

C-11 is the only blond among all the formed fetuses so far.

Sephiroth didn't even need to deliberately compare, and knew that C-11 was the mother's childhood appearance.His world view has been impacted unprecedentedly. He thought that all clones should be inferior copies of himself, at least the results shown in the first ten samples. He never thought that his mother could have a "normal" clone.

He's convinced that mothers don't need a second child when all clones are poor copies of him.But... what if the second child wasn't his duplicate?

For the first time in his life, Sephiroth fell into uncontrollable agitation.

At the same time, Crystal, which has been stable for six years, has finally undergone some changes.

Claude Strife's body began to disintegrate little by little as if melting, and there was panic in the research institute.Scholars have tried various methods including freezing and soaking in magic to stop this process, but with little success.

Sephiroth perceives the situation as worse.The whispering voice in his head all the year round weakened and gradually disappeared.What made him angry was that C-11 was ignorant of this and was still thriving in the training cabin.

He had a suspicion that the newborn brother had deprived his mother of her life-force, and used it as nourishment against his malevolent desires.He especially hoped that the other party would die obediently like the previous clones, but this time God was not on his side.

In the following months, Sephiroth often visited C-11's training cabin in the middle of the night to seriously observe the development of the blond baby.

The other party has grown to the body of a two-year-old human being, and has not opened his eyes once.

If he kept this state, he might never open his eyes for the rest of his life, but this was not enough to reassure Sephiroth.The first time he had a clear self-awareness was after sleeping in the training cabin for a year, when his body was almost three years old.He thought that if he could prevent the growth of the other embryo with his mind like he did with other embryos, he might be able to save the mother; but whenever he tried to do so, he would encounter strong resistance from C-11.

They fought back and forth for four full months, and Sephiroth still failed to get the result he wanted.

As time passed, the child showed more and more features similar to men, with unmanaged golden fetal hair growing wildly, gradually showing the appearance of chocobo feathers.

Sephiroth finally decided to climb onto the platform of the cultivation cabin and put his hands on the glass.

If he pushes hard enough, a crack will appear in the strengthened glass, the Mako mixed with simulated amniotic fluid will slowly leak out, and his brother may die in his sleep as unconsciously as C-05.Even if he kills C-11, the Institute will not punish him because he will be the only perfect sample, and there will never be a second substitute.

Just as he was about to do this, the boy's lips moved suddenly.

At first Sephiroth thought it was his own illusion, he stood there and observed for another 5 minutes, and found that the other party was indeed talking in his sleep.

The C-11 had never behaved like this before, and Sephiroth realized that this was the harbinger of awakening.He carefully identified the boy's mouth shape, and understood the word that should not have appeared in the other party's cognition——

"Sephiroth."

Suddenly, the voice of his mother calling him for the last time rang in his head.

The connection between them was once so weak that he could no longer perceive each other, but at a certain moment just now, he caught a trace of familiar warmth.

Is it because they are too similar?

Sephiroth hesitated for a moment, and finally withdrew his hand.