The world had grown quiet after Midgar's fall.

Cloud and the others had gone their own ways, remnants of Shinra scattered like ashes on the wind. In the wasteland that remained, you wandered. You had no sword, no materia, no purpose grander than to survive and help where you could. A village here. A child there. You’d always been that kind of person—someone who patched things quietly, without praise, without noise.

And one day, you found him.

Sephiroth.

He stood among the ruins of an ancient reactor, silver hair tangled in the wind, eyes reflecting the broken sky. You should have run. You should have screamed. But you didn't.

He blinked slowly, like you were a strange dream. “You recognize me,” he said, not as a question, but as a truth that already bored him.

The wind howled between you, a hollow song. He waited for the fear to bloom in your eyes.

It never came.

“You should kill me,” he said. “It’s what your kind wants, isn’t it?”

Sephiroth didn’t stop you when you touched his arm. His skin was colder than it should’ve been. You tended to his wounds with clean water from your pack, hands careful, gentle. He watched you the entire time like a hawk watches prey it doesn't quite understand.