[There's no judgment in his tone; he'd been looking to confirm it, nothing more. There's little sense in telling Cloud anything he already knows.]
We were there to track and capture - or kill - a group of rebel SOLDIERs who'd betrayed ShinRa. They were on the lam for way too long, summoning monsters in Midgar, creating clones, hurting people... there was a bunch of stuff about Jenova and this hack scientist trying to replicate the experiments that made Sephiroth, but I didn't understand it. Truth is I didn't care. They were hurting people, it's all that mattered to me.
[He pushes off the wall and it's his turn to start pacing, gesturing as he talks, doing anything but look at Cloud. Just... keeping his hands busy.]
Angeal was one of them. My old mentor. I mean- he was with them, but not with them, you know? I don't know what he was doing, but I could tell he was struggling with it. I thought I could save him, bring him back. That was the plan.
[His hand dips into his pocket and feels for his phone- not the fleet communicator, but the one from home, the one that doesn't work. He can still remember all too clearly the plan from back then, vague and uncertain, but one that filled him with a desperate hope: that with the combined efforts of he and Sephiroth, Angeal could be saved. Hell, even Genesis, even if Zack never liked him. For the sake of his friends, maybe he could be brought back.
He'd been so senselessly naive then.]
Angeal... he taught me a lot. About honour, about being a SOLDIER, about becoming a hero... he taught me how to fight, how to survive the mako treatments, how to... grow up, I guess. I left home when I was thirteen, so he was kind of like a second dad. A real strict one, though.
[His voice catches a bit, and he pauses, struggling to get himself back on track.]
He also told me that our enemy is anything that creates suffering. Sounds great, right? Real heroic. And I was fine with it, up until he forced me to fight him, instead. Until he was the one causing that suffering.
barfs exposition
[There's no judgment in his tone; he'd been looking to confirm it, nothing more. There's little sense in telling Cloud anything he already knows.]
We were there to track and capture - or kill - a group of rebel SOLDIERs who'd betrayed ShinRa. They were on the lam for way too long, summoning monsters in Midgar, creating clones, hurting people... there was a bunch of stuff about Jenova and this hack scientist trying to replicate the experiments that made Sephiroth, but I didn't understand it. Truth is I didn't care. They were hurting people, it's all that mattered to me.
[He pushes off the wall and it's his turn to start pacing, gesturing as he talks, doing anything but look at Cloud. Just... keeping his hands busy.]
Angeal was one of them. My old mentor. I mean- he was with them, but not with them, you know? I don't know what he was doing, but I could tell he was struggling with it. I thought I could save him, bring him back. That was the plan.
[His hand dips into his pocket and feels for his phone- not the fleet communicator, but the one from home, the one that doesn't work. He can still remember all too clearly the plan from back then, vague and uncertain, but one that filled him with a desperate hope: that with the combined efforts of he and Sephiroth, Angeal could be saved. Hell, even Genesis, even if Zack never liked him. For the sake of his friends, maybe he could be brought back.
He'd been so senselessly naive then.]
Angeal... he taught me a lot. About honour, about being a SOLDIER, about becoming a hero... he taught me how to fight, how to survive the mako treatments, how to... grow up, I guess. I left home when I was thirteen, so he was kind of like a second dad. A real strict one, though.
[His voice catches a bit, and he pauses, struggling to get himself back on track.]
He also told me that our enemy is anything that creates suffering. Sounds great, right? Real heroic. And I was fine with it, up until he forced me to fight him, instead. Until he was the one causing that suffering.