[A lie. Would it be so simple, so easy to believe, if Hojo were a single-minded, spiteful man. And spiteful he can be — but the scientist’s mind is complex and calculating in its obsessive cruelty. Telling him his mother is a monster is subtle and insulting; perhaps he thought it amusing, but Sephiroth knows through experience that nothing is done without forethought. That it all has a reason behind it, steeped in science, even if it is to feed his megalomania.

Cloud steps forward, and Sephiroth is the first to break his gaze, as though his mind has begun to wheel elsewhere.]

You don’t know him like I do. There’s always meaning to his madness.

[Cloud didn’t grow up under the supervision and constant observation of that man; didn’t make his home in the labs, didn’t adhere to a constant routine of bloodwork, training, and number crunching to test his efficacy. He knows him more than he likes. It’s indelible at this point.]

This monster, how did you encounter it? Where?

[Not the twisted vision of it in South Sister.]