Post by Nero on May 29, 2008 4:03:18 GMT -5
((Still under construction: everything is done except the personality.))
Name: Nero the Sable (漆黒の闇ネロ, Shikkoku no Yami Nero, literally "Nero the Jet-black Darkness")
Age: 23 in Dirge of Cerberus
Gender: male
Height: 175cm (5’7”)
Hometown: The closest thing he has ever had to a home would probably be Midgar’s Deepground complex.
Appearance: A lean man with long, unkempt black hair. Perhaps because he was created using stagnant Mako, his eyes are crimson rather than Mako-blue, with cat-like slit pupils. His most striking features are perhaps the pair of mechanical limbs, often referred to as “wings” due to their appearance and position on his shoulder blades; however, they function mainly as an extra pair of arms. His own arms are kept restrained in straight-jacket-like attire, and much of his face is obscured by a mask / muzzle, giving him the appearance of a madman. When he releases his arms from his restraints, it is revealed that they are covered with intricate tribal tattoos, the full extent of which are unknown.
Personality: Nero is a mysterious young man whose dark powers match his rather dark personality. Very much an introvert, he is the exact opposite of his brother, Weiss, tending to be quiet and pensive, and apparently impassive and unemotional about the majority of things. That’s not to say he’s emotionless— far from it. In fact, he has an almost obsessive and utterly blind love for his older brother, who is the only family he has ever had, and the only one who has ever treated him as anything more than a monster, and is prone to surprisingly potent explosions of anger and aggression should anyone or anything threaten Weiss’s plans, or Weiss himself. Whether Nero has any personal ambitions or beliefs remains to be seen, as he has a tendency to agree with Weiss’s view on anything and everything, and dedicates himself entirely to protecting and achieving whatever his brother’s goals are.
Many aspects of Nero’s personality seem strangely conflicting, and indeed, Weiss is at the centre the most contradictory aspect to his nature. His older brother’s strength of mind and body balances out Nero’s own weaknesses and instabilities, but simultaneously inspires in him the extreme weakness of utter dependency, and a certain lack of emotional control. This bizarre, almost paradoxical temperament can make Nero extremely unpredictable, and all the more dangerous for it.
The restraints he wears certainly give him the appearance of insanity, and although it is true that he is as mentally unstable as anyone could be expected to be after being created as part of what is, in the end, amoral bioengineering and human experimentation, he is without a doubt (and once again rather contradictorily) one of the more level-headed of the Tsviets. He bears the same loathing and deep-rooted mistrust of humanity as many of the Tsviets — in his eyes, it is humans who are the monsters; those who created him to satisfy their own selfish whim; who treated him as little more than a beast, looking upon him with distrust, and abhorrence; who seemed unable to understand why their creations eventually turned on them, burning with indignation and driven to madness by the injustices suffered, and who acted as though they were the victims when such a thing happened — yet, he is not as prone to mindless slaughter as one such as, for example, Rosso the Crimson. Naturally, he’s perfectly happy to kill as long as it benefits his brother’s plans, and does seem to gain some pleasure from it, but he is far more controlled in his manner.
Weapons and Abilities: Nero's weapons of choice are handguns, one pair of which are carried by him in holsters at his hips, and used by his mechanical hands (on his mechanical “wings”), and a second, identical pair drawn from darkness, which he uses with his real hands. His mechanical wings are also effective melee weapons, bearing a blade at the tip of each prong. He may look frail, but Nero has surprising physical strength – though it cannot compare to Weiss, and certainly not to the likes of Azul.
His greatest strength, however, lies in his power to control “darkness”, which is more accurately described as an extension of his own being, born of tainted Lifestream. He can use this darkness to teleport between locations, transport people, or objects, and also absorb them into the darkness and trap them there. Within his darkness, there are what have been theorized to be the remains of the souls of his victims, unable to return to the Planet, as they have been polluted by tainted Lifestream. Corrupted and vengeful, these take the form of dark orbs, which appear to actively hunt down and “devour” those absorbed into the darkness. Nero also uses these corruptions in a technique he calls “Dark Rain”, in which he fires the dark orbs at his opponent.
His dark powers are apparently so extreme that they require him to be kept under restraint in order to prevent him from going out of control. It is also interesting to note that Nero’s dark power is the only power of all of the Tsviets’ which Weiss does not possess.
Background: !!!SPOILER WARNINGS FOR CRISIS CORE, DIRGE OF CERBERUS AND DIRGE OF CERBERUS: LOST EPISODE!!!
The Tsviets were offshoots of Dr. Hollander’s “Project G” (the rival project to Dr. Hojo’s “Project S”), which was named for its main test subject, Gillian Hewley (though it was mistakenly thought to be called “Project Genesis”, by Sephiroth himself). The creations of the Project G experiments included Angeal Hewley, Gillian’s son, and the man known as Genesis Rhapsodos.
Having only been injected with Gillian’s Jenova-infused cells (know as the “G Substance”), in comparison to Angeal, who was born directly from the G Substance, Genesis began to degrade, and required the S Cells of Project S to survive. In spite of the clear failure of the test subject, Genesis’s genes were spliced with the genes of the Tsviets, perhaps in the hope of developing powers to match his, but in a more stable host body. It is stated in the G Reports, and in Scarlet’s private files, that the Tsviets are the results of the evolution of Genesis.
The scientist Grimoire Valentine theorised that life was created by a stagnation of the Lifestream. By way of experimenting with this theory, the Deepground researchers planted stagnant Mako in unborn foetuses, with no real understanding of what the results of their experiments would be. Although a few hundred such experiments were carried out, Nero is generally believed to be the only successful test subject. The biological younger brother of the leader of the Tsviets, Weiss, Nero’s birth resulted in the death of their mother, who was consumed by her newborn son’s uncontrolled darkness upon his delivery.
What happened during Nero’s childhood is a mystery. It is known, however, that he was SOLDIER 1st Class by the age of 15, as he, together with Weiss, were seen briefly in Crisis Core, after being sent to collect Genesis upon his defeat by Zack Fair. At this time, Nero did not possess the mechanical wings seen in Dirge of Cerberus, nor was he wearing the restraining gear required to force control of his darkness. Indeed, his darkness did not even seem to be present, as it was, visibly so, at all times in DC. This may be due to the simultaneous factors of his control having grown naturally with age, while having not yet reached the stage where his power grew so strong as to become uncontrollable once again.
Weiss and Nero brought Genesis to Deepground for a short time, and attempted to persuade him to join their Rebellion against the Restrictor, who at that time held Deepground under his complete control. Genesis, however, refused their offer, believing, now that Sephiroth and Angeal were dead, that it was up to him to protect the world, and sealed himself in the flooded cavern beneath Midgar to prepare for such a time.
The Restrictor was a member of the 14th force of SOLDIER, “Lost Force”, which was known for destroying “Ragnarok”, the 13th and previously strongest force of SOLDIER in a single night. Governing over Deepground, the Restrictor was responsible for implanting chips into the brainstems of all DGS recruits to ensure they would remain under his control. At some point between their appearance in Crisis Core, and the events in Dirge of Cerberus, the Restrictor had chained Nero up, as he considered him far too dangerous to be allowed to be free. It is presumably around this time that Nero gained his restraints, and also the mechanical “wings”. Around the time of the beginning of Dirge of Cerberus, however, Weiss managed to free himself of the implanted chip’s controlling effects and kill the Restrictor, and the Tsviets took over control of Deepground.
During Meteorfall, when Vincent Valentine and Yuffie Kisaragi were overseeing the evacuation of Midgar, Vincent discovers Hojo, apparently alive, at the computer terminal where the party had defeated him earlier. However, before Vincent could take action, Hojo seems to simply disappear. In truth, refusing to just give up and die, Hojo had run a “Fragment Program”, effectively digitizing his consciousness and allowing him to survive inside the worldwide network.
At the time of the beginning of Dirge of Cerberus, the network, which had been broken since the time of Meteorfall, had been fully restored. The fragments of Hojo’s digitized mind invaded Weiss’s body, as the leader of the Tsviets was performing a Synaptic Net Dive to find the cure to a virus, which had been intended to control him – it would kill him in three days of the Restrictor’s signal disappearing – that the Restrictor had planted in him before Weiss managed to kill him. Hojo’s consciousness took complete control of Weiss.
Determined to continue with his research, Hojo, in the days before the virus finally kills Weiss, teaches Nero of Lucrecia Crescent’s theorem of the Planet’s final, and ultimate, Weapon, Omega, and its Herald, Chaos. Although Nero’s only real interest in the theories were the prospect of being able to bring his brother back from his imminent death, he obediently went about ordering the Tsviets and the DGS, in his brother’s name, to make a pure stream of Mako (in Hojo’s own words; Lifestream untainted by either Jenova or G Substance) and to search for the Protomateria to bring about and control Chaos. Shelke’s findings of Lucrecia’s data eventually led to information about the ex-Turk, Vincent Valentine, whom the DGS were ordered to pursue.
As the second-in-command of the Tsviets, Nero seems the most dedicated of all to their cause (unlike certain others of the Tsviets who obviously have their own agendas). Oblivious to Hojo’s control over his brother, he is simply entirely devoted to achieving everything “Weiss” wants, that being, bringing about Omega’s awakening.
Although, for the most part, he seems to avoid fighting directly, he is present during the attack on Edge, where his darkness is seen consuming a small group of WRO troops, and he delivered the same fate to one of the Cait Sith robots on Mako Reactor 0 at the centre of the Deepground complex. During the WRO assault of Midgar, rather than fighting on the frontlines, he used his darkness to get on board Cid Highwind’s airship, The Sierra / Shera, and wreak havoc in the engine room by absorbing the engine room’s crew into his darkness. Confronted by Shelke, he easily evaded her attacks, releasing some of his restraints, and absorbing her into the darkness, also.
Defeated by Vincent Valentine in the Deepground complex, Nero taunted Vincent about Shelke’s fate and tried to absorb him into the darkness. However, Vincent emerged from his darkness moments later, with Shelke, and Nero realises that the ex-Turk is immune to the effects of his darkness, thanks to Chaos— a “soul wrought of terra corrupt”. That “terra corrupt” is tainted Lifestream; exactly the same thing that Nero’s darkness is formed of. Interrupted by Yuffie, a somewhat bemused Nero vanished through a portal of darkness, claiming that his brother was calling him.
In Weiss’s chamber, Nero was watching over his dead brother, who had finally succumbed to the Restrictor’s virus. Although obviously pained by his brother’s death, Nero knew that shortly, Weiss would be reborn, and Omega would finally awaken. Enraged by Vincent and Yuffie’s attempt to attack his brother, Nero draws both of them into the darkness. However, reminded once again of Vincent’s immunity to his dark powers, Nero realised he must fight the ex-Turk directly, and transported Vincent to a hellish world, which lay somewhere within his darkness. At first fighting in a peculiar form where he seemed to be merged with a large, spider-like machine (“ArachNero”), this is destroyed by Vincent. Consumed by agony and anguish, and desperate to buy time for his brother’s awakening, Nero unleashed the full power of his darkness, as “GorgoNero”, against Vincent Valentine… to no avail.
Defeated and exhausted, Nero returned to Weiss’s chamber, where his brother had finally become “reborn”. Still oblivious to Hojo’s control over his brother, Nero rushed over to him, embracing him and begging him to never leave again. “Weiss” simply sneered, telling Nero that he had no further use for him, before plunging his hand into Nero’s chest and flinging him across the room.
Moments before his death, as Hojo’s involvement is finally revealed, Nero used his dark powers to extract his own soul from his body, and proceeded to “infect” Weiss’s body. Hojo/Weiss was defeated by Vincent, and a shocked and confused Hojo wondered why Omega’s power had begun to wane. Nero, in a spectral form, appeared, begging his brother to merge with him so that they may never be parted again. Hojo, realising that Nero’s tainted Lifestream is polluting Omega, ordered Nero to leave, but his control over Weiss was already beginning to wane. As the brothers merge, Hojo is finally destroyed. Weiss, still bearing the compulsion to bring about Omega, vanished in a flare of light.
Nero’s life was linked to Weiss’s, and what became of him beyond that is uncertain. Weiss was is presumably not killed in the destruction of Omega, as during the secret ending of Dirge of Cerberus, Genesis retrieves his body from the flooded cavern beneath Midgar. So it is possible that Nero still existed as part of him. It seems more likely, however, that Nero was destroyed when Weiss became part of Omega Weapon, as he was a corrupt existence, tainting the purity of his brother.
Now, of course, he has returned, in the manner in which many others who should be dead have returned. As apparently the only Tsviet now alive, he seems to be more interested in trying to resurrect his brother once more, than in any of the current happenings involving Sephiroth, his Clones, the Four Fiends, and the Black Materia.
Name: Nero the Sable (漆黒の闇ネロ, Shikkoku no Yami Nero, literally "Nero the Jet-black Darkness")
Age: 23 in Dirge of Cerberus
Gender: male
Height: 175cm (5’7”)
Hometown: The closest thing he has ever had to a home would probably be Midgar’s Deepground complex.
Appearance: A lean man with long, unkempt black hair. Perhaps because he was created using stagnant Mako, his eyes are crimson rather than Mako-blue, with cat-like slit pupils. His most striking features are perhaps the pair of mechanical limbs, often referred to as “wings” due to their appearance and position on his shoulder blades; however, they function mainly as an extra pair of arms. His own arms are kept restrained in straight-jacket-like attire, and much of his face is obscured by a mask / muzzle, giving him the appearance of a madman. When he releases his arms from his restraints, it is revealed that they are covered with intricate tribal tattoos, the full extent of which are unknown.
Personality: Nero is a mysterious young man whose dark powers match his rather dark personality. Very much an introvert, he is the exact opposite of his brother, Weiss, tending to be quiet and pensive, and apparently impassive and unemotional about the majority of things. That’s not to say he’s emotionless— far from it. In fact, he has an almost obsessive and utterly blind love for his older brother, who is the only family he has ever had, and the only one who has ever treated him as anything more than a monster, and is prone to surprisingly potent explosions of anger and aggression should anyone or anything threaten Weiss’s plans, or Weiss himself. Whether Nero has any personal ambitions or beliefs remains to be seen, as he has a tendency to agree with Weiss’s view on anything and everything, and dedicates himself entirely to protecting and achieving whatever his brother’s goals are.
Many aspects of Nero’s personality seem strangely conflicting, and indeed, Weiss is at the centre the most contradictory aspect to his nature. His older brother’s strength of mind and body balances out Nero’s own weaknesses and instabilities, but simultaneously inspires in him the extreme weakness of utter dependency, and a certain lack of emotional control. This bizarre, almost paradoxical temperament can make Nero extremely unpredictable, and all the more dangerous for it.
The restraints he wears certainly give him the appearance of insanity, and although it is true that he is as mentally unstable as anyone could be expected to be after being created as part of what is, in the end, amoral bioengineering and human experimentation, he is without a doubt (and once again rather contradictorily) one of the more level-headed of the Tsviets. He bears the same loathing and deep-rooted mistrust of humanity as many of the Tsviets — in his eyes, it is humans who are the monsters; those who created him to satisfy their own selfish whim; who treated him as little more than a beast, looking upon him with distrust, and abhorrence; who seemed unable to understand why their creations eventually turned on them, burning with indignation and driven to madness by the injustices suffered, and who acted as though they were the victims when such a thing happened — yet, he is not as prone to mindless slaughter as one such as, for example, Rosso the Crimson. Naturally, he’s perfectly happy to kill as long as it benefits his brother’s plans, and does seem to gain some pleasure from it, but he is far more controlled in his manner.
Weapons and Abilities: Nero's weapons of choice are handguns, one pair of which are carried by him in holsters at his hips, and used by his mechanical hands (on his mechanical “wings”), and a second, identical pair drawn from darkness, which he uses with his real hands. His mechanical wings are also effective melee weapons, bearing a blade at the tip of each prong. He may look frail, but Nero has surprising physical strength – though it cannot compare to Weiss, and certainly not to the likes of Azul.
His greatest strength, however, lies in his power to control “darkness”, which is more accurately described as an extension of his own being, born of tainted Lifestream. He can use this darkness to teleport between locations, transport people, or objects, and also absorb them into the darkness and trap them there. Within his darkness, there are what have been theorized to be the remains of the souls of his victims, unable to return to the Planet, as they have been polluted by tainted Lifestream. Corrupted and vengeful, these take the form of dark orbs, which appear to actively hunt down and “devour” those absorbed into the darkness. Nero also uses these corruptions in a technique he calls “Dark Rain”, in which he fires the dark orbs at his opponent.
His dark powers are apparently so extreme that they require him to be kept under restraint in order to prevent him from going out of control. It is also interesting to note that Nero’s dark power is the only power of all of the Tsviets’ which Weiss does not possess.
Background: !!!SPOILER WARNINGS FOR CRISIS CORE, DIRGE OF CERBERUS AND DIRGE OF CERBERUS: LOST EPISODE!!!
The Tsviets were offshoots of Dr. Hollander’s “Project G” (the rival project to Dr. Hojo’s “Project S”), which was named for its main test subject, Gillian Hewley (though it was mistakenly thought to be called “Project Genesis”, by Sephiroth himself). The creations of the Project G experiments included Angeal Hewley, Gillian’s son, and the man known as Genesis Rhapsodos.
Having only been injected with Gillian’s Jenova-infused cells (know as the “G Substance”), in comparison to Angeal, who was born directly from the G Substance, Genesis began to degrade, and required the S Cells of Project S to survive. In spite of the clear failure of the test subject, Genesis’s genes were spliced with the genes of the Tsviets, perhaps in the hope of developing powers to match his, but in a more stable host body. It is stated in the G Reports, and in Scarlet’s private files, that the Tsviets are the results of the evolution of Genesis.
The scientist Grimoire Valentine theorised that life was created by a stagnation of the Lifestream. By way of experimenting with this theory, the Deepground researchers planted stagnant Mako in unborn foetuses, with no real understanding of what the results of their experiments would be. Although a few hundred such experiments were carried out, Nero is generally believed to be the only successful test subject. The biological younger brother of the leader of the Tsviets, Weiss, Nero’s birth resulted in the death of their mother, who was consumed by her newborn son’s uncontrolled darkness upon his delivery.
What happened during Nero’s childhood is a mystery. It is known, however, that he was SOLDIER 1st Class by the age of 15, as he, together with Weiss, were seen briefly in Crisis Core, after being sent to collect Genesis upon his defeat by Zack Fair. At this time, Nero did not possess the mechanical wings seen in Dirge of Cerberus, nor was he wearing the restraining gear required to force control of his darkness. Indeed, his darkness did not even seem to be present, as it was, visibly so, at all times in DC. This may be due to the simultaneous factors of his control having grown naturally with age, while having not yet reached the stage where his power grew so strong as to become uncontrollable once again.
Weiss and Nero brought Genesis to Deepground for a short time, and attempted to persuade him to join their Rebellion against the Restrictor, who at that time held Deepground under his complete control. Genesis, however, refused their offer, believing, now that Sephiroth and Angeal were dead, that it was up to him to protect the world, and sealed himself in the flooded cavern beneath Midgar to prepare for such a time.
The Restrictor was a member of the 14th force of SOLDIER, “Lost Force”, which was known for destroying “Ragnarok”, the 13th and previously strongest force of SOLDIER in a single night. Governing over Deepground, the Restrictor was responsible for implanting chips into the brainstems of all DGS recruits to ensure they would remain under his control. At some point between their appearance in Crisis Core, and the events in Dirge of Cerberus, the Restrictor had chained Nero up, as he considered him far too dangerous to be allowed to be free. It is presumably around this time that Nero gained his restraints, and also the mechanical “wings”. Around the time of the beginning of Dirge of Cerberus, however, Weiss managed to free himself of the implanted chip’s controlling effects and kill the Restrictor, and the Tsviets took over control of Deepground.
During Meteorfall, when Vincent Valentine and Yuffie Kisaragi were overseeing the evacuation of Midgar, Vincent discovers Hojo, apparently alive, at the computer terminal where the party had defeated him earlier. However, before Vincent could take action, Hojo seems to simply disappear. In truth, refusing to just give up and die, Hojo had run a “Fragment Program”, effectively digitizing his consciousness and allowing him to survive inside the worldwide network.
At the time of the beginning of Dirge of Cerberus, the network, which had been broken since the time of Meteorfall, had been fully restored. The fragments of Hojo’s digitized mind invaded Weiss’s body, as the leader of the Tsviets was performing a Synaptic Net Dive to find the cure to a virus, which had been intended to control him – it would kill him in three days of the Restrictor’s signal disappearing – that the Restrictor had planted in him before Weiss managed to kill him. Hojo’s consciousness took complete control of Weiss.
Determined to continue with his research, Hojo, in the days before the virus finally kills Weiss, teaches Nero of Lucrecia Crescent’s theorem of the Planet’s final, and ultimate, Weapon, Omega, and its Herald, Chaos. Although Nero’s only real interest in the theories were the prospect of being able to bring his brother back from his imminent death, he obediently went about ordering the Tsviets and the DGS, in his brother’s name, to make a pure stream of Mako (in Hojo’s own words; Lifestream untainted by either Jenova or G Substance) and to search for the Protomateria to bring about and control Chaos. Shelke’s findings of Lucrecia’s data eventually led to information about the ex-Turk, Vincent Valentine, whom the DGS were ordered to pursue.
As the second-in-command of the Tsviets, Nero seems the most dedicated of all to their cause (unlike certain others of the Tsviets who obviously have their own agendas). Oblivious to Hojo’s control over his brother, he is simply entirely devoted to achieving everything “Weiss” wants, that being, bringing about Omega’s awakening.
Although, for the most part, he seems to avoid fighting directly, he is present during the attack on Edge, where his darkness is seen consuming a small group of WRO troops, and he delivered the same fate to one of the Cait Sith robots on Mako Reactor 0 at the centre of the Deepground complex. During the WRO assault of Midgar, rather than fighting on the frontlines, he used his darkness to get on board Cid Highwind’s airship, The Sierra / Shera, and wreak havoc in the engine room by absorbing the engine room’s crew into his darkness. Confronted by Shelke, he easily evaded her attacks, releasing some of his restraints, and absorbing her into the darkness, also.
Defeated by Vincent Valentine in the Deepground complex, Nero taunted Vincent about Shelke’s fate and tried to absorb him into the darkness. However, Vincent emerged from his darkness moments later, with Shelke, and Nero realises that the ex-Turk is immune to the effects of his darkness, thanks to Chaos— a “soul wrought of terra corrupt”. That “terra corrupt” is tainted Lifestream; exactly the same thing that Nero’s darkness is formed of. Interrupted by Yuffie, a somewhat bemused Nero vanished through a portal of darkness, claiming that his brother was calling him.
In Weiss’s chamber, Nero was watching over his dead brother, who had finally succumbed to the Restrictor’s virus. Although obviously pained by his brother’s death, Nero knew that shortly, Weiss would be reborn, and Omega would finally awaken. Enraged by Vincent and Yuffie’s attempt to attack his brother, Nero draws both of them into the darkness. However, reminded once again of Vincent’s immunity to his dark powers, Nero realised he must fight the ex-Turk directly, and transported Vincent to a hellish world, which lay somewhere within his darkness. At first fighting in a peculiar form where he seemed to be merged with a large, spider-like machine (“ArachNero”), this is destroyed by Vincent. Consumed by agony and anguish, and desperate to buy time for his brother’s awakening, Nero unleashed the full power of his darkness, as “GorgoNero”, against Vincent Valentine… to no avail.
Defeated and exhausted, Nero returned to Weiss’s chamber, where his brother had finally become “reborn”. Still oblivious to Hojo’s control over his brother, Nero rushed over to him, embracing him and begging him to never leave again. “Weiss” simply sneered, telling Nero that he had no further use for him, before plunging his hand into Nero’s chest and flinging him across the room.
Moments before his death, as Hojo’s involvement is finally revealed, Nero used his dark powers to extract his own soul from his body, and proceeded to “infect” Weiss’s body. Hojo/Weiss was defeated by Vincent, and a shocked and confused Hojo wondered why Omega’s power had begun to wane. Nero, in a spectral form, appeared, begging his brother to merge with him so that they may never be parted again. Hojo, realising that Nero’s tainted Lifestream is polluting Omega, ordered Nero to leave, but his control over Weiss was already beginning to wane. As the brothers merge, Hojo is finally destroyed. Weiss, still bearing the compulsion to bring about Omega, vanished in a flare of light.
Nero’s life was linked to Weiss’s, and what became of him beyond that is uncertain. Weiss was is presumably not killed in the destruction of Omega, as during the secret ending of Dirge of Cerberus, Genesis retrieves his body from the flooded cavern beneath Midgar. So it is possible that Nero still existed as part of him. It seems more likely, however, that Nero was destroyed when Weiss became part of Omega Weapon, as he was a corrupt existence, tainting the purity of his brother.
Now, of course, he has returned, in the manner in which many others who should be dead have returned. As apparently the only Tsviet now alive, he seems to be more interested in trying to resurrect his brother once more, than in any of the current happenings involving Sephiroth, his Clones, the Four Fiends, and the Black Materia.