😀 ) Years passed as quietly as the drifting mists around Mt.
Nibel.
For secluded Nibelheim, life remained as peaceful as ever.
Tifa Lockhart had grown into a graceful young woman.
She had inherited both her mother’s beauty and her skill, and she kept the village tavern running flawlessly.
She had lost most of her childhood memories, remembering only a vague boy who had once promised to become her hero.
But that memory was like an old photograph left too long in the sun, faded until only a hazy outline remained.
For Cain, however, those same years had brought earthshaking change.
He had successfully joined Shinra.
With his inborn monstrous strength and unyielding will, he stood out even in the company’s brutal training program.
Yet he had not become the SOLDIER he had dreamed of being.
His power was too raw, too violent, too incompatible with Shinra’s standardized materia combat system.
In the end, he had been assigned to the ordinary infantry ranks, just another unremarkable trooper, a nameless recruit among many.
But he had not given up.
As long as he remained in Shinra, he believed he would eventually find a way to reach greater power.
So he carried out his missions in silence, honed his combat skills, and waited for his chance.
That chance came in the most unexpected way possible.
A Shinra military helicopter roared down at the entrance to Nibelheim, the wind from its rotors forcing the villagers to shield their eyes.
When the hatch opened and two figures stepped out, the entire village erupted.
The man in front had silver hair flowing to his waist.
He wore the black long coat of SOLDIER and carried an impossibly long katana, Masamune.
He was so beautiful he looked almost godlike, yet his eyes were so cold they kept the world at a distance.
He was Shinra’s strongest warrior, the legendary hero, Sephiroth.
Following behind him was a young man with black hair and blue eyes, bright and full of life.
He wore the uniform of SOLDIER as well, with the enormous Buster Sword strapped to his back.
His name was Zack Fair, a SOLDIER 1st Class famous for both his overwhelming strength and his easygoing personality.
And behind them, among a group of helmeted Shinra infantrymen whose faces could not be seen, one man stared through the narrow slit of his visor at the sign hanging outside the village tavern.
Cain had come home.
He had returned to the hometown he had once sworn to revisit as a hero, but in a way that was both pathetic and bitter.
He was not the hero everyone was staring at.
He was only part of the background behind the heroes, a faceless trooper who could not even show his face.
He saw Tifa standing in the crowd.
She was even more beautiful than he remembered.
Curiosity and a hint of nervousness were written across her face as she looked up at Sephiroth and Zack.
Her gaze swept past the line of soldiers where he stood without pausing even for a moment.
Cain’s heart was filled with emotions too tangled to name.
There was the nervousness of returning home, the shame of failing to keep his promise, and the quiet relief of seeing that she was safe.
All he could do was bury those feelings deep inside and keep playing the role of a nameless nobody.
Their mission this time was to investigate the strange malfunction at the Mt.
Nibel mako reactor.
Supposedly the reactor core had developed problems, and monsters had begun emerging from inside.
For Sephiroth and Zack, it should have been a simple walk in the mountains.
Tifa had been chosen as the guide for the mission.
No one in the village knew the terrain of Mt.
Nibel better than she did.
“Then we’re in your hands, Miss Tifa,” Zack said with a dazzling smile, like a dependable older brother.
“Of course.
Please follow me,” Tifa replied, nodding as she took the lead.
Cain stayed at the back of the group, following in silence.
He watched Zack and Tifa walk ahead, keeping a respectful distance between them.
Zack chatted with her naturally, asking about little things in the village.
The mood was relaxed and pleasant, but there was nothing overly intimate about it.
It felt more like an older brother looking after a girl he had just met.
“By the way…” On a relatively easy stretch of mountain path, Tifa seemed to remember something.
After hesitating for a moment, she quietly asked, “Mr.
Zack, while you’ve been in Shinra…
have you ever heard of someone named Cain?” At the very back of the line, Cain’s heart lurched so hard he almost stumbled.
Zack blinked, scratching his head as he searched his memory.
“Cain?
Hm…
that does sound familiar.
Was he the guy with ridiculously crazy strength?” “Yes!
That’s him!” Tifa’s eyes lit up at once, and there was a trace of hope in her voice she did not even seem aware of.
“He was my childhood friend.
He left for Shinra years ago and said he’d come back after becoming a SOLDIER, just like you.” Understanding dawned on Zack’s face.
He suddenly remembered the legendary recruit from training, the one everyone talked about because of his unbelievable strength.
To save the guy’s pride in front of his childhood friend, and maybe to encourage the girl standing before him too, Zack flashed his usual easy grin and said, half truth and half lie, “Ah, right, now I remember!
That Cain, yeah, he’s a seriously impressive guy.
His training scores were incredible, and the higher-ups have high hopes for him.
Last I heard, he was carrying out a really important secret mission.
Wouldn’t surprise me if he gets promoted into SOLDIER as soon as it’s over.
At this rate, you’ll probably see a full-fledged hero come marching back before long.” “Really?” Tifa’s eyes widened with delight, and a sincere smile spread across her face.
That blurred promise from so long ago suddenly seemed clearer and more real than ever.
“Of course.
Zack Fair never lies,” Zack said, thumping a hand against his chest.
Privately, though, he was thinking that once they got back, he absolutely needed to have a talk with this Cain kid.
He could not let down the expectations of a girl like this.
At the rear of the group, Cain stared at Tifa’s radiant smile through his helmet and felt countless emotions churn inside him.
Gratitude.
Shame.
Bitterness.
He was grateful for Zack’s well-intentioned lie, but at the same time, he felt a humiliating sense of inadequacy.
He clenched his fist and swore to himself that he would make good on that promise as soon as possible, even if someone else had just spent it for him.
The road to the reactor passed the same cliffside trail where the old suspension bridge had once stood.
By now, the rotten wooden bridge had been replaced by a brand-new iron chain bridge, sturdy and secure.
When Tifa reached the bridge, she unconsciously raised a hand to her forehead.
A scar had once been there, though now it had faded until it was almost invisible.
A trace of confusion flickered in her eyes.
“I think…
I’ve been here before,” she said softly.
Walking beside her, Zack asked casually, “Really?
Does it bring back any special memories?” “No…
I can’t remember.” Tifa shook her head and pushed the strange feeling away.
At the back of the group, Cain saw every bit of that scene clearly.
His heart twisted sharply.
That bridge, that scar, they were wounds in his soul that would never heal.
How badly he wanted to rush forward and tell her everything, to tell her that he was the boy who had made that promise with her, to tell her that he had finally come back.
But he could not.
The man he was now would only cause her trouble.
The group reached the reactor without incident.
Inside, the air was thick with mako, heavy and oppressive.
In the deepest part of the reactor, they found enormous containers filled with glowing mako fluid, with strange sleeping creatures suspended inside.
“What…
are these?” Zack frowned.
But Sephiroth’s face had changed completely.
He walked to one container marked JENOVA, and in his eyes Cain saw an expression he had never seen before, a mix of confusion, obsession, and feverish longing.
“Mother…” Sephiroth murmured.
The investigation itself ended quickly, but afterward, Sephiroth locked himself inside the Shinra manor in Nibelheim and spent days and nights buried in old basement documents about the Jenova Project.
A few days later, when he emerged again, the entire world would tremble.
It was a stormy night.
Cain was standing watch when the doors of the manor suddenly opened and Sephiroth stepped out.
The coldness in his eyes was gone.
In its place burned the fire of madness.
“I am the chosen one,” he said in a low voice, yet every single person present heard him clearly.
“I will inherit this Planet from you thieves who betrayed my mother!” Before anyone could react, Masamune became a silver flash.
The village was swallowed by fire in an instant.
The screams of the villagers, the crackle of burning homes, and Sephiroth’s deranged laughter twisted together into a symphony from hell.
“Sephiroth!
Have you lost your mind?!” Zack roared as he charged forward.
The Buster Sword collided violently with Masamune, throwing off a shower of brilliant sparks.
Cain’s mind went blank.
He watched the hometown he had sworn to protect vanish into flames before his eyes.
He watched familiar faces twist in terror and disappear in the fire.
He rushed into the inferno to save whoever he could, but against the catastrophe Sephiroth had unleashed, his strength felt laughably small.
Then he heard a sound that nearly tore his soul apart.
Tifa’s scream.
He turned toward it and saw Mr.
Lockhart collapsed at the entrance to the reactor, Masamune run straight through his chest.
Tifa, tears and hatred all over her face, had seized the fallen Masamune from the ground and was rushing at Sephiroth.
“I’ll never forgive you!” she screamed, driving the blade toward his back with all her strength.
But the difference between them was absolute.
Sephiroth did not even bother to turn fully around.
With one casual backhanded strike, he sent Tifa flying.
She crashed hard onto the steps, a gash tearing across her abdomen so deep it nearly exposed bone.
Blood instantly soaked through her clothes.
“Tifa!!!” At that moment, something inside Cain snapped.
The promise of childhood, the regret from the cliff, the shame of returning home like this, all of it exploded into endless fury and power.
He threw away his rifle, ripped off his helmet, and sprinted toward the reactor.
“Sephiroth!!!” His roar drowned out even the crackling of the fire.
When he reached the steps and saw Tifa collapsed in a pool of blood, not moving, it felt as though his soul itself had caught fire.
He dropped to her side, carefully lifting her into his arms, feeling her life slipping away faster and faster.
“No…
no…
I won’t let you get hurt again…” he whispered, tears spilling down his face without restraint.
He gently laid Tifa down somewhere relatively safe, then slowly rose to his feet and faced the silver-haired demon with his back still turned, the man preparing to walk toward Jenova.
“You…
deserve to die.” Cain’s voice was hoarse and low, filled with a killing intent that no longer sounded human.
His right arm, silent for years, erupted once more with blinding blue light.
This time the glow was even fiercer than before.
Blue streams of energy slithered around his arm like living things, finally gathering into a grotesque demonic claw crackling with electricity.
“Hm?” Sephiroth finally turned around, clearly surprised by this ordinary trooper who had appeared out of nowhere.
He could feel the ominous and powerful aura rolling off him.
“Who are you?” “The one who’s going to kill you.” Cain did not say another word.
The ground beneath his feet exploded as he vanished into a blue afterimage and appeared instantly in front of Sephiroth.
His right fist, transformed by that demonic arm, carried all his rage and regret as he drove it straight at Sephiroth.
A flash of surprise crossed Sephiroth’s eyes as he raised Masamune to block.
Clang!
The deafening impact echoed throughout the reactor.
Sephiroth was actually forced half a step backward by the force of the blow.
The hand gripping his sword went faintly numb, and for the first time, a serious expression appeared on his face.
“That strength…
you’re no ordinary trooper.” But Cain had already lost all reason.
There was only one thought left in him, tear apart the man who had hurt Tifa.
His attacks were savage and formless, driven only by instinct and that impossible power inside him.
Every swing of the demonic arm left a streak of blue light in the air.
Every collision with Masamune made the entire reactor shudder.
Even so, Sephiroth was still Sephiroth.
After the initial shock, he quickly adjusted to Cain’s rhythm.
His swordsmanship was too refined, too precise, always deflecting Cain’s furious assault with the smallest possible movement.
As the battle raged on, new wounds opened across Cain’s body again and again, but he seemed incapable of feeling pain.
If anything, his attacks only grew more violent.
He managed to force Sephiroth backward, keeping him away from Jenova’s container.
At that moment, the badly injured Zack staggered back into the reactor.
The sight before him left him stunned beyond words.
An ordinary trooper was actually fighting Sephiroth on equal footing?
“Nice one, kid!” Zack shouted.
Dragging his wounded body behind him, he threw himself back into the fight.
With Zack’s interference, Sephiroth finally showed an opening.
Cain seized it.
The blue light around the demonic arm flared brighter than ever.
Letting out a bestial roar, Cain poured every last bit of strength he had left into one final punch and drove it into Sephiroth’s abdomen.
Sephiroth grunted as his body flew backward and slammed into Jenova’s container.
But just when Cain thought he had won, Sephiroth did something none of them expected.
He sliced through the container’s connecting pipes with Masamune and pulled Jenova’s head into his arms.
“Mother…
let’s go…” Dragging his heavily wounded body, he walked step by step toward the reactor core.
“Stop!” Cain tried to chase after him, but his body was too damaged, too exhausted.
His vision went black, and he dropped to one knee.
All he could do was watch helplessly as Sephiroth, clutching Jenova, fell into the churning Lifestream below.
Silence returned to the reactor.
Cain remained kneeling there, gasping for breath as the blue light around his demonic arm slowly faded and his right arm returned to normal.
He turned to look at the fallen Tifa and Zack, and the fury in his heart was replaced by endless despair.
Had he won?
No.
He had not protected anything.
His hometown had been reduced to ash.
Tifa hovered between life and death.
Just as his consciousness was about to fade, a man in a white lab coat and glasses entered with a group of Shinra researchers.
He looked over the horrific scene with no pity at all, only the feverish excitement of someone who had just discovered a priceless specimen.
It was the head of Shinra’s science division, Hojo.
Hojo’s gaze passed over the gravely injured Zack and finally settled on Cain.
He crouched down and studied Cain’s unusual right arm closely, a sick smile spreading across his face.
“A perfect sample…
truly a perfect sample!
An ideal host for Jenova cells, and on top of that, this unknown demonic power…
magnificent!
Simply magnificent!” He waved a hand, and the researchers immediately stepped forward, lifting the unconscious Cain and Zack onto stretchers.
Before Cain completely lost consciousness, the last things he saw were Hojo’s twisted, excited face, and Tifa lying nearby in the place where he had set her down, alive or dead, he did not know.
“Tifa…” It was his final whisper.
The hero’s return had ended in the cruelest fall imaginable.
He had failed to become a hero.
Instead, alongside the real hero, he was cast into an even deeper hell, one called experimentation.
The flames of Nibelheim burned away his past, and in doing so, lit the fuse on a future ruled by an unknown and terrible fate.