For once, Genesis hadn’t lied. Whatever had happened between him and Zack had been exactly as dramatic as he’d made it seem.

Sephiroth’s eyebrows knitted together as he listened. Hojo. Hollander. Zack and Genesis had battled over them -- protecting one and killing the other. The scene played out in a sickly haze. Genesis, driven by fury and spite. Zack, his naive sense of good will. It could have just as easily been Sephiroth standing in his place, eyeing Genesis over the edge of a sword. Shinra had seized the both of them in its grasp. Genesis had been the only one to break free.

Sephiroth’s eyes flicked back to Zack. He was thinking aloud, and Sephiroth didn't interrupt. He'd learned not to discount his thoughts to easily.

”You would join us?” Sephiroth’s lips twitched with a smirk. He hadn’t been certain where Zack’s allegiances would fall. Despite his damages at Shinra’s hands, Sephiroth hadn’t thought him cold enough to strike in either vengeance or cruelty. When the time came, could he bring himself to spill defenseless blood? Only time would tell.

Zack spoke of others who had fallen to similar hands. Another experimental soldier? Sephiroth's eyebrows raised at the thought. He'd met another -- not one of Shinra’s, but one of a nameless empire with a conquest of its own. The idea unsettled him. There was nothing like Shinra -- no one like him. Zack must have been mistaken.

Zack left. Sephiroth watched him with something between relief and concern. The conversation had been nothing if not painful, and already Sephiroth felt a tinge of exhaustion from thoughts he didn’t want to have. Zack had returned, and with him the complications of morality. And then there was Genesis.

Sephiroth glanced to him sharply. ”Don’t provoke him.” Even as he said it, he felt the intention fall flat. He wondered what Angeal would have told him. ’It isn’t honorable?’ There wasn't any imitating him. Angeal would have wanted to broker peace, and Sephiroth felt almost laughable in his shoes. He needed space. He needed silence.

”I need to think.” About Zack. About Shinra. Could they really work together? A part of him doubted it, but another part -- the stronger part -- told him that a failure was nothing but a sign of weakness. He would do it even if he had to pacify them at the edge of a sword. 

Sephiroth sheathed his blade and sighed. "At least try," he said before he started towards the door. He would strategize and find his plan of action, and when he returned he would have some idea of how to execute it. Until then, there was nothing he could do but trust in Genesis' self-restraint.

'They'll be dead before I'm back.' Sephiroth smirked as he touched the door handle. At the very least, he could trust that Zack would hold his own.

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