Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ Misunderstood ❯ Paternity Paradox ( Chapter 4 )

A lot of what is explained here does not seem to directly coincide with Shattered Ice or Shattered Dreams, but it in fact does. This story line is meant to be a bonus storyline, some facts will only be revealed here and nowhere else.

 

Also, you have to remember, everything is written as if from a memory, people recalling something. There are bound to be discrepancies. After all, how many of us can remember an event that accurately, recalling each and every word in proper succession?

 

Episode 04: Paternity Paradox

 

What is there to say about I man I have never actually met? The only true and clear memory I have of him is the final battle. It was him that turned into the creature that destroyed me. Though I do distinctly remember my `father' - Hojo - mumbling about a man named Valentine. Also, when searching the many texts and research notes in the library before the incident, the name Vincent Valentine came up several times.

 

I suppose that is what the two of us have in common. Our lives were ruined by the insane dictations of one man. I, for simply being the unlucky one to be granted the dishonor of being Hojo's son; he, for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I cannot think of a person who has ever been happy for crossing paths with Dr. Hojo.

 

In fact, I don't think I even connected the man `Valentine' from Hojo's notes to the man that fought along side my former subordinate until I saw him transform in battle. It was then that I knew… this man suffered from that scientist's taint. To be honest, it was somewhat gratifying to be killed by one such as he. As if he were doing me a favor by ridding me of my life; I would have done him the same courtesy.

Yet, the thing that puzzled me the most, what I pondered on for my three months spent in the Lifestream after that battle was the last thing Vincent Valentine said to me before he ended my life. Even in that form, in those startling coal crimson eyes, there was a slight trace of humanity, and it was that part of him that forced through the madness to speak one phrase to me.

 

With the killing blow, his eyes locked onto mine, and for a brief moment time stopped. The insane laughter and derision disappeared from his tone, even after he had exclaimed that I had no choice but to die.

 

“Forgive me…” he spoke, in a voice that sounded nothing like what belonged in that body. “Should have been mine…”

 

Before I could remark anything, he removed his claw from my beaten and battered body, eyes again clouding over with hatred and maniac glee. He cackled loudly as I slumped to the ground, and my vision faded before he turned and began to taunt those that had come to defeat me.

 

That was the last I saw of Vincent Valentine. I assume him to be dead, much like I was. Then again, if I can return to life in atonement thanks to Gaia, what is to stop him, the reluctant hero?

 

Yet, it was his words that stuck with me, his words that puzzled me again and again. I mulled over them as my consciousness floated in the Lifestream, occasionally passed by those that had gone before. I was alone even then, as I had been much of my life growing up… because of who I was, what was to be expected of me, ostracized and set apart; it was the life I knew… before Zack entered my life and became the only true friend I ever knew.

 

“Forgive me,” he had said.

 

For what reason?

 

Forgive his killing of me? Would the others he fought with agree to the same? Would they have apologized as well? After what I had done to them, after what I and Jenova had put them through and caused them sufferance, I highly doubt they would feel the need to apologize for taking my life.

 

Why this man? This dark-haired stranger that suffered through the same fate as me, that was tainted by one sick and twisted man, whose work could not even be called science. What was it about Vincent Valentine that he felt the need to make amends for his actions?

 

I read the notes in the ShinRa mansion; I knew what had been done to him.

 

It would have taken him great lengths to revert to that control, as deep beneath the conscious of the Apocalypse demon as he had been buried. Why did he waste his last strength, his last will power to break through and speak those words? I wondered if we were connected in a way that I didn't understand, and I hated Hojo even more for what he had done.

 

Although I did not know this stranger, I was outraged on his behalf. I know of that man's cruel nature and his imaginative mind, especially considering punishment and discipline. Hojo was a man to be hated, despised, and he deserved nothing more than the death he had been given.

 

“Should have been mine…” Those words were even more confusing than the previous claim. I couldn't help but question what exactly he meant.

 

What belonged to him? Did I have something that was once his? Was there an even deeper connection between us than I had originally guessed?

 

The implications were astronomical.

 

The answers were no less understandable than the first. I spent much time mulling over what I had learned when I was in that mansion, replaying my childhood over and over, as if I could recall one little tidbit, one little memory that might explain the enigmatic words of my killer.

 

At first, I drew a blank, recalling nothing of life as a child but pain and loneliness, a haunting, mocking voice and always been cold and somewhat hungry. I remembered the mako injections and the tests, always the tests. So many of them I couldn't count the days as they all faded from one to the next.

 

I recall that the mako always burned, feeling as if there was a flame within me, blazing away my veins from the inside out. I would writhe in pain, screaming, and sobbing when I was younger, as I was shackled to the lab table. They were afraid I would fall to the ground and hurt myself… as if what was already being done wasn't agony enough.

 

I quickly learned that crying and screaming had no effect, only earned me words of encouragement such as `you are pitiful' or `becoming such a failure'. Yet, even as I recalled what I had gone through, outrage filling my soul, as well as an innate desire to kill the man who had been my father in name only, other insane mutterings and mumblings became clearer.

 

Through the haze and the pain, the training and endless nights of lying awake in dread of what was to come, I somehow knew that I was not alone in my sufferings. Even as a young child, I was always bright, quick to learn and understand, quick to comprehend and figure out my surroundings. It was at three when I first heard it, the faint sound, barely a whisper that carried through the vents. And by the age of four, I heard it no more.

 

At the time I had attributed the sounds to an active imagination, being afraid of the monsters in the dark, ones that were possibly even worse than the ones I faced daily. Certainly, I knew enough to fear such monsters, I had one for a father, and I dare say, true creatures would have probably been more appealing.

 

However, now that I think about it, I realize it was the sound of a man muttering to himself, words that I didn't understand sometimes, and in other moments, words that rang clearer to me than anything, though they made little sense.

 

`Lucia', `the winged darkness', and `scarlet dreams of me' were some of the more common, though I can't say even now that I know what they mean. Although some of them, recalling the Vincent Valentine that had killed me, seemed to relate to him.

 

I wondered if the voice I heard in the night, crying softly to myself in my sleep, the voice I heard that gave me comfort simply because I was not alone, was the same man - the one who had suffered at Hojo's hands. It was a possibility given the timeline, and thoughts of that voice invariably brought me to a memory of a day that I thought I would never forget but inevitably had because of the frightening experience I had associated with it.

 

Then I realized, I did know Vincent Valentine. Though at the time, I didn't know him by that name or form. I only knew him as the dark beast that must atone for his sins because he killed my mother. I was so young then, not even four yet, too young to be seeing the sights Hojo put before me. In fact, I was always too young for anything I was subjected to.

 

Yet, this day, that I thought I would never forget, is now refreshed in my mind. I was told I was to have a lesson but of what, he never explained. I simply took his words at face value and followed the oddly grinning scientist as he led me into one of the back corners of the lab, a place I never dared tread as it was always locked. To be honest, I feared that room. It was where he performed his experiments on recombining monsters; sometimes, I could hear them.

 

He mumbled to himself as we walked, though I mostly tuned him out.

 

I remember shaking in fright, believing that he was going to throw me to the creatures and expect me to fight my way out, or perhaps he truly thought I was a failure after all. Either way, I was frightened, and rightly so.

 

I remember he showed me a cage, enclosed by thick glass and within it were a few monsters, nothing but some Nibel wolves. They weren't particularly scary. He pushed me towards the glass, indicating I should watch as he moved to the control panel and selected a button. A panel within the room slid open revealing a wretch of the man, at least, at the time I thought it was a man. His hair was long and scraggly, his body a mass of bruises and injuries, and he stumbled, looking very gaunt and thin. I thought for sure that he would be killed.

 

He kept his head down, his face hidden to me behind a curtain of dark hair. The wolves snarled before attacking, leaping at him unarmed and undefended. I thought for sure, he was going to die. Until I saw the rippling of his flesh as he changed into something grotesque and monster-like, ripping into the Nibel wolves with such fury and blood lust that I took several steps back from the glass, eyes wide in surprise and horror.

 

Hojo was muttering as he turned to him, laughing at my shocked expression. “This is what happens if you try to take what belongs to me, Sephiroth,” he said to me. “This man tried to steal you, and your mother, invariably killing her in his jealousy.”

 

I did not respond. I couldn't. There was nothing to say. I felt sick on my stomach and so I let it out, vomiting all over his clean floor and staring with frightened eyes at the beast in the room, stalking around as if searching for more prey.

 

The memory is so clear in my mind now; I wonder how I had forgotten it. Perhaps it was Jenova that did something to me, that woman who I now know was not my mother. Hojo's words of thievery…

 

The last whispered words of a man who claimed… “Should have been mine…”

 

I wondered if when he said that, he meant my mother and I. Is it possible that Hojo was not my true father? This thievery that he spoke of… did Vincent succeed? It would certainly explain that man's hatred of Valentine, and perhaps a little of his hatred of me. But why lie? Why tell me he is my father? What can I believe; what could I trust?

 

I wanted to hope that my lineage did not include one Hojo, but I was also trying to be realistic. He would gain nothing from lying to me… then again, he had lied about my true mother. It was possible that he was lying about his fatherhood. However, he would be proud if it were true; he would gloat over it, making it seem as if he had accomplished something.

 

There was nothing in the notes. Nothing in the papers in the basement that spoke of my lineage. Not even some that confirmed that Hojo was my father.

 

So do those words - forgive me - should have been mine - do those words have any bearing on who I am, on my family?

 

I cannot say. It is a paradox. Who can understand the mind behind the monster that was Dr. Hojo?

 

I know nothing of Vincent Valentine, save that he was a man ruined by Hojo. Yet, I can guess that he was once a good man, a man that loved and hated, had dreams and goals, a family, and wanted a better life for himself and those he cared for. I can assume that he wasn't the type of man that wanted to have his life ruined by Hojo, and I can speculate that he was someone who understood what it meant when something needed to be done.

 

I can guess that he was an honest man; someone who knew the right thing to do and didn't shy away from following his path, and if I know anything of the products of Hojo's labors, he probably curses his own existence every day of his life, much as I did mine.

 

Like me, he would find someone that would make it all seem worthwhile, that there was a light at the end of the torture tunnel, like Zack - my best friend and brother - was for me.

 

I would like to believe that I know him from his actions, this man that could be my father. I would like to think that maybe he and I have more in common than Hojo's taint.

 

Yet, I suppose, some questions are better left unanswered.

 

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