About

My name is Zakkusu, and this is my story... 12 years before the events in Advent Children...10 years before Meteor almost struck Midgar...5 years before Sephiroth went mad...that's where my story began as a SOLDIER. To take it even further back, well...I was born in Gongaga Village, a little backwoods area out of the way of civilization. The few people that lived there were farmers by trade, at least until the Shinra Electric Company found us. Promises of a better life and easy living prompted the village to agree to allowing the Shinra to build a Mako reactor nearby. It was one of the first, a prototype almost, and my hometown would have been more popular today if things hadn't gone awry. That reactor exploded when I was still just a kid, still dreaming of becoming a SOLDIER. Still idolizing Sephiroth, the Great General.

It was after that incident that I realized I had nothing left for me there. I was 13 when I left home for Midgar, the metropolis on the other continent, and took my chances to fulfill my dream of being in SOLDIER. It paid off. I worked as hard as I could, and rose to the top. I was 16 when I made it as a SOLDIER 1st Class, the highest rank attainable next to General. I couldn't have made it without Angeal though, my mentor, my leader, and my friend. He was the one who gave me the Buster Sword...a sword I would weild for the rest of my life. During these 5 years in SOLDIER, I made a name for myself among the eyes of Shinra. I was considered one of the best SOLDIERs, if not only second to Sephiroth.

It was during this time I met a young recruit by the name of Cloud Strife, who became my friend as time wore on. The poor kid lacked confidence, and blew his chance at making SOLDIER, but in some small way he reminded me of myself, so I did what I could to help him and even trained with him. I met Sephiroth as well, and oddly enough, became his peer, and somewhat of a rival, at least in my eyes. His strength and skill were both beyond my own, but despite this, I continued training for the sole purpose of besting him one day, and he welcomed the challenge. My chance came sooner than I would have hoped. 5 years after I had joined SOLDIER...the Nibelheim incident. Both myself and Sephiroth were assigned to investigate a malfunction at the Nibelheim reactor, as well as the appearance of powerful monsters in the area. Cloud went on that mission with us, as an MP, while a local beauty, aka Tifa Lockheart, served as our guide to the reactor. Nothing could have prepared me for what we discovered there.

Professor Hojo, a mad scientist put in charge of Shinra's Science Department since the death of Professor Gast, was creating monsters from Mako energy and...something else. Sephiroth made a discovery of his own: That he was a product of Hojo's insane experiments, an offspring of the Jenova Project. I didn't know what any of it meant at the time. Sephiroth went into the Shinra mansion, and didn't come out for quite a while, burying himself in the books of the basement, written by Gast and Hojo, detailed depictions of the Ancients, and of Jenova. When he emerged, he had changed into something else altogether. He set Nibelheim ablaze, and had attacked a few of the locals before disappearing into the mountains by the time I arrived on the scene. I gave chase, determined to stop him once and for all. By the time I had arrived, he had already killed Tifa's father, and wounded Tifa herself. I went after him, finding him in the Jenova Project containment room of the reactor, mumbling words of insanity. I should have attacked him while I had the chance, while his back was turned, while he was raving. I gave one last feeble attempt to persuade him to stop...and he attacked me instead. It was all I could do to fend for myself, and in the end, my best wasn't enough. Bleeding and battered, I fell, defeated. The last thing I remember before losing conciousness, was telling Cloud to take my sword and finish what I couldn't...to defeat Sephiroth. When I awoke again, I was in familiar territory, but not in a familiar environment. I wasn't sure what had exactly happened at the reactor, but now I was living in liquid, contained in a cage of glass, my only friend being Cloud, who lived in the container beside my own in the basement of the Shinra Mansion. For 4 years we endured his experiments. Injection of Mako to levels beyond normal. Even Jenova cells. My will to live was what kept me sane, kept me alive, kept me from succumbing to the mad experiments. Cloud didn't fare as well. Day by day his health deteriorated...he gave into Mako poisoning, and something else. And after 4 years in the tube, Hojo had abandoned us. It was the first chance I had to escape, and I used it. Cloud was about as lively as a vegetable, but I wasn't going to give up on him. I dragged his half-dead, limp body with me out of that mansion, with both SOLDIERs and Turks in hot pursuit. It wasn't until we reached Junon that I procurred a motorcycle to aid in our escape, but that ran out of gas halfway to Midgar. In the end we hitched a ride on the back of some guy's pick-up truck, our destination Midgar, with dreams of just us becoming mercenaries in the big city, our ties with Shinra severed. Maybe I'd even get to see my girlfriend again, Aerith. It'd been so long...and I never got the chance. I knew something was wrong as soon as Midgar came into view. A Shinra helicopter whirled by overhead, and I had barely a second to react as gunfire split the air. Poor Cloud was defenseless, what else could I do but take the hit for him? I told him to run. Like that meant anything to him...he was a vegetable. That bullet was the last thing I felt and then...darkness.