Sabaody Archipelago, Island 72, Hotel Street.
In the basement of a luxurious villa, Sephiroth stood before a cylindrical glass container. He reached out with his right hand and pressed several buttons on the control panel beside it.
Click—!
As the glass container opened, a cloud of white mist drifted out. A fat young man in a white robe stepped out from within and stood before him. He had black wings on his back, a long pointed nose, and long black hair.
"Seraphim Hogback No. 118, enter debugging mode."
As Sephiroth's words fell, the Seraphim standing before him suddenly lost focus in his eyes. His head tilted to the left, and a data port opened on his neck. Sephiroth plugged in the data cable he held in his left hand.
The other end of the cable had long since been connected to a computer device specially used for program debugging.
Sephiroth then turned around and began debugging the Seraphim's programming through the computer control panel, modifying its data.
Many years ago, after Sephiroth obtained the Op-Op Fruit and began researching the Perennial Youth Operation, he had used Umbrella Corporation's ability to win people over with money to easily recruit Hogback, the West Blue doctor known as the "genius surgeon" yet infamous for his greed, into his ranks. Hogback had become a senior supervisor in the company's medical department.
During Sephiroth's research into the Perennial Youth Operation, the doctor had unknowingly provided him with considerable help through his own knowledge and skills. Sephiroth had also secretly cloned Hogback for use in experiments researching the Perennial Youth Operation.
This Seraphim Hogback No. 118 was the 118th experimental subject Sephiroth had created using Hogback's Lineage Factor...
As for where the previous 117 clones had gone?
The Op-Op Fruit had reincarnated in Sephiroth's hands 117