#i will make actual proper gifs soon i promise XD;;;;;;;;;;;;

[prismaticpichu]

If Sephiroth lost his mind in a less destructive way and just reverted to the mentality of, say, a 3-5 year old, would Zack take care of him himself in Midgar, spirit him away to the countryside, or take him to a nursing home and visit him a lot? Would Cloud join them?

Either way, I demand Genesis come around to apologize and Sephiroth stick his tongue out at him and go ppbbttthhhh. And maybe eventually hug him, that's negotiable.

What he looks like to Zack:

What he actually looks like:

THE GIFS ddgdgdggcc xD

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If Sephiroth were to somehow get reverted to a childlike state, I do actually imagine him taking on some animalistic tendencies. Not a feral child or anything--but just tapping in a LOT more to those alien instincts as a kid than as an adult.

Altho it would be... very awkward at first, I do think Zack would take care of him <3 Sephiroth probably wouldn't even recognize him at first, all those books having completely warped his mind into something vulnerable and splintered and instinctive. Zack would have to approach him calmly--like taming a scared, bristled animal. Seph might back away as Zack tries to step forward, eyes wild and frenzied and unseeing. But Zack would keep going, would take it step by step. He would extend his hand and talk in a low, hushing voice. Talk to the friend that he knows is in there.

"C'mon, buddy... you know me. We're pals."

Sephiroth's breath is labored, a book skidding across the floor as he backs away.

“Please, bud... Don't let them turn you into a monster."

It takes time, it takes patience, but eventually Zack makes a break through. He gets close enough to Sephiroth to place a comforting hand on his shoulder--a gesture of affection that Sephiroth displayed to Zack countless times in ShinRa. Sephiroth doesn't speak, can't find the will to make a coherent sound. But Zack understands from the look in his eyes that Sephiroth remembers him--somewhere in the tangled web of confusion and truth and lies. Somewhere within the threads, there's a part of Sephiroth that knows he is safe.

The bond is fractured, of course, and it takes days upon days of care for Sephiroth to fully trust the person that he's with. They bade Nibelheim and ShinRa goodbye as soon as they left the library, stopping at Cloud's house one last time to have a proper goodbye. Needless to say Cloud is... startled by the drastic shift in his commander. Sephiroth is practically hiding behind Zack the whole time, unwilling to step into the house or even the porch. It's a saddening sight--and Cloud is very confused--but Zack assures his friend that Sephiroth is safer if they leave, even if it's in this condition. The boy understands, sharing a hug with Zack. And, promising not to return to Shinra himself, he watches the two depart into the outskirts of Nibelheim.

What proceeds in the following days is essentially how Zack took care of Cloud--except Sephiroth is conscious on most levels. Zack brings him food and water to eat when he can find them, having to urge Sephiroth to have some H2O and actually digest some nutrients. He's a picky eater, but Zack is always ginger, and ultimately nourishes his friend. They spend the days trekking across the continent, Zack making sure to have his sword ready and always keeping an eye out for helicopter-shaped shadows. At night they sleep under trees--unless lightning storms calls for other arrangements. Separated by a few feet at first, Sephiroth insists on sleeping closer and closer to Zack as the days pile on. His back would be pressed to the other's, just to always ensure that his friend is there. That he hasn't left him. Left him like... like the people in his mind that memory couldn't quite reach, but their spirits still loom in his mind. He's afraid of being alone. Of being abandoned. And every night, feeling the way his friend's body tenses, Zack mumbles to him that he's not going anywhere. And he mumbles it as many times as he needs to until he feels those muscles relax.

This arduous routine carries on for weeks--almost months, And while Sephiroth is nowhere near his normal self, bits and shards of his humanity begin to break through the surface again. He doesn't sleep coiled up anymore, but instead on his side; he stands up straighter and eats with far more care. Once, Zack even hears him trying to croak his name--like he's remembering he can speak, trying with strenuous effort to form the syllables and remember which order they go. Tears nearly welled in his eyes when he recognized the vague sound of a "Z..." pushing its way through Sephiroth's teeth. He's coming back to himself, piece by piece. And with each recruited fragment, the hope in Zack's heart burns even brighter. The hope that everything is going to be just fine. That they won't go back to that hellish life. That nothing is going to hurt them.

Until that day.

One afternoon, when the glaring orb of the sun is blazing high in the mountains, it's not the shadow of a helicopter that Zack spots. No. It's something... sharper. More arched. Almost like--

And the feathers begin floating to the ground.

Zack sprints to where Sephiroth is resting--currently eating a piece of meat that he had used his own Firaga to cook. The warrior hardly has time to register why his friend is so frantic before Zack is standing over his body like a shield. And he hardly has time to register that before a red-cladded figure descends before them--Rapier flaunted, eyes glimmering with vulpine intent.

Genesis laughs that he has finally found Sephiroth after all this time--taunts Zack for being his little guard dog. But what Genesis can't see behind guard dog!Zack is the way Sephiroth is reacting. The way the man is bristling as he listens to his voice, the way his muscles are tethering into knots and the embers purring in his eyes--ready to be ignited. Something inside of him is being stirred; something visceral, something raw. A flash of something that extends beyond his earliest memories of the library--beyond the books and shelves and sickening splatters of words. Something that transcends all of that. Something that catalyzed it. Something that he remembers.

And he hisses.

The conversation--argument--that Genesis and Zack are having is cut short, severed mid-sentence. Genesis initially thinks it's a monster--some piercing sound made by some animal in their proximity. But it's not. Of course it's not. And as Zack sees the look in his eyes, the confusion--all those horrifying feelings he felt when he first found Seph in the Nibel library--he decides to show Genesis the full consequences of his actions.

Visage stern, Zack steps aside, and reveals the hunched, dehumanized Sephiroth behind him. Seph's eyes are blazing--more wild than they hd been in month; his lips are pulled back in a vicious snarl; his muscles are tauter than rope, almost ready to snap at the faintest quiver of his limbs. He looks insane, rabid. Dangerous. Monstrous.

And Genesis is horrified.

He tries asking what the Hell happened to him, tries to get through. But he can't. There's no response--which is somehow the loudest answer he could have been given. Zack takes the reins then and explains exactly what happened--how he found Sephiroth in this state in the Nibel library, all after what happened in the Reactor. After what he learned; after what he was brutally told. Genesis can't speak, is unable to grasp onto any semblance of coherence. He can only take step after step back, staring at his friend--gaping, the glimmer in his eyes extinguished--unable to tear his gaze away from the sight of his old friend.

Of his old friend...

Of his old friend...

His old friend....

The first words he sputters are messy, broken. Pained. They're laden with something--heavy with some ghostly form of regret and sorrow. They're words that are sunken deep, poisonous and dry in his throat. But he gets them out anyway. He needs to. He needs to, because they are eating his voice away.

"This.. this isn't what I wanted..."

But it's what he got. It's what he did. The words are no more healing outside his lips than they were inside his body. He continues to stand there, staring at his shattered friend, feeling so incredibly caged amid the endless swaths of stone and mountain surrounding them. He drops his sword, lets the echo ripple and rattle. He wants to clutch his chest; he wants to fall to his knees. He wants to say something that matters.

He... he wants to...

"Can... can he hear me?"

Zack, recognizing the genuine swarm of emotions consuming the auburn, lets his visage soften. His eyes lose a lot of their malice, his heart slackens from its vengeful grip. And he responds to the question honestly.

"I don't know, really... but I think so."

It's all Genesis needs to hear. With a lump of iron in his throat, he begins to cautiously approach the snarling Sephiroth--step by step, inch by inch, like he was barefoot and walking on a sheet of flaming coals.

"Sephiroth... it's not true, okay? I was wrong. Do you hear me...? I was wrong."

Sephiroth doesn't take his eyes off of him.

"Don't listen to what I said... please. I was angry... so angry. And i just wanted your help. And... and I didn't know what to do when I couldn't get it."

A flicker, distant and almost imperceptible. A glimpse of something. A response.

'You're not... okay? Please, just listen to me. You're not one. Okay? Okay..?! Do you hear me?!"

Sephiroth closes his mouth, loosening... listening. Watching as the red-cladded figure grows closer and closer. Closer and closer. Zack doesn't intervene, doesn't say a word. He recognizes the shift, can feel it in the air--the faint shadow of a smile falling onto his lips as Genesis continues to approach him.

"Please... you're not.. you're not a monster, Sephiroth. Don't do this. Please. I'm..."

A deep, broken breath rattles through the air. A swallow. A choke. And the unmistakable shimmer of a teardrop.

"I'm sorry, my friend. I'm... I'm so sorry... for everything"

He is practically standing in front of Sephiroth now, legs shaking. Weak. The air had grown significantly thicker, a dense and heavy pressure weighing on all three's shoulders. Sephiroth has gone completely silent--his mouth closed, his muscles untethered, the embers controlled and purring. He stares at the red-cladded man for a long stretch of time, not saying a word. Almost like he's thinking. Considering.

Until. suddenly, faster than the speed of a bullet, the man pounces.

"Seph, DON'T!--

....

....

...

But he hadn't pounced to attack; he hadn't pounced to kill.

Instead, the man had lunged forward, and wrapped his arms around the winged SOLDIER.

"...F... forgive."