Lucrecia Crescent

Lucrecia Crescent (ルクレツィア・クレシェント, Rukuretsia Kureshento) is a non-playable character from Final Fantasy VII. Though she is a kind and beautiful woman, a fatal flaw of her character was to focus too much on her mistakes and at times, to act too impulsively. Her ambition was one of her greatest drives, yet one of her greatest short comings.

Story
She was once a Shinra scientist working as an assistant to Vincent's father Grimoire Valentine. During the time spent with Grimoire, they both then discovered two WEAPONS developed by the planet, both used as part as the Lifestream's emergency function. Together, Grimoire and Lucrecia were able to discover the Crystal Cave, where it was thought that Chaos would awaken at the appointed time. Grimoire, however, was killed in an attack by the newly discovered Chaos, and Lucrecia's research was discarded as pure nonsense.

Later on, Lucrecia is appointed to work on the Jenova Project along with Gast and Hojo. During this time Vincent Valentine, a member of the Department of Administrative Research (later known as the Turks), was assigned to supervise the Jenova Project. Lucrecia immediately recognizes Vincent as Grimoire's son, being quite shocked that Shinra would assign the son of her deceased mentor to supervise her. In spite of this, she still warmly welcomes Vincent, and even began spending time with him when the two were not working, although she kept the fact that she even knew his father a secret. Over time, Vincent and Lucrecia seemed to have either become romantically involved, or had become close enough that they were near that point. However, this all fell apart when Vincent found a document pulled up on Lucrecia's computer telling of her time working with Grimoire. When Vincent confronted Lucrecia and asked her why she never told him about this, she reveals to him that she was the one responsible for his death. Vincent—not seeming to think that Lucrecia was responsible for Grimoire's death as much as Lucrecia did—attempts to counsel Lucrecia, but this attempt was in vain as Lucrecia now felt more guilty for Grimoire's death than she ever did before. This even put a strain on Vincent and Lucrecia's relationship, causing her to seek Hojo for comfort.

Lucrecia eventually became romantically involved with the insane Hojo, eventually marrying him. During this time, she becomes pregnant with Hojo's child, who decides to use her (apparently with her consent) as an experiment subject, injecting her and her unborn child with Jenova cells. However, the cells had an unexpected side effect. Lucrecia started to have visions about Sephiroth and the future atrocities that her son would commit, these visions were also extremely painful and Lucrecia often collapsed in pain, much to Vincent's despair.

When Vincent tried to confront Hojo about Lucrecia's condition, Hojo shot him mortally and used the corpse as an experiment, only to label him as a failure and discard him. Lucrecia, devastated with Vincent's death, used her knowledge about Chaos to resuscitate him by infusing pure mako into him. The procedure worked, as Vincent's body, due to Hojo's previous experiments was strong enough to become a Chaos vessel, however, Chaos was completely out of control and only stopped when the Protomateria had a reaction to Chaos. The Protomateria, which had been discovered by Grimoire alongside Chaos and theorized by Lucrecia to have been created by the Planet "out of necessity as a means to control Chaos and prolong it's own inevitable fate," had been in Lucrecia's laboratory. She put it inside Vincent's chest, and thus Vincent was able to control Chaos to a degree. Unfortunately, while it halted Vincent's decay, it did not resuscitate him.

At some point around this time she gave birth to Sephiroth, but the child was taken away without Lucrecia even being allowed to hold him. Hojo either leaves her, or she leaves him afterwards. Either way, Hojo was completely unaffected emotionally. Overcome with sadness and sorrow, Lucrecia tried to kill herself, but not before she left her thesis about Chaos and Omega for Vincent, who was still unconscious. Thereafter, due to the Jenova cells in her body, Lucrecia was unable to truly die. Shortly after this, Lucrecia leaves her old life behind, seemingly vanishing without a trace. It is unknown where she went immediately following her desertion of Shinra, but she eventually ended up in the Crystal Cave, back where it all began for her.

Years later, when the planet was faced with destruction at the hands of her own son, Lucrecia was once again found by Vincent when he was traveling with Cloud's party. Attempting to approach her, Lucrecia warns Vincent to stay away from her. It is then that the events of what had happened with Vincent and Lucrecia are recounted for the rest of the party (and for the player). Lucrecia goes on to say that she felt so much guilt for all that she had done that she wanted to disappear, she didn't want to be with anyone, and she wanted to die. Lucrecia then tells Vincent that she had been dreaming about Sephiroth a lot lately, and asks him if her son his still alive. Vincent, not having the heart to tell her of all the horrible things that Sephiroth had done, and was planning to do, told Lucrecia that Sephiroth was dead. Later, when Vincent revisited the cave he finds that Lucrecia seems to be unconscious. His memories of Lucrecia, however, somehow caused Chaos to awaken inside of him once again.

She lingered on in the Crystal Cave until the events of Dirge of Cerberus -Final Fantasy VII-. A major event in Dirge of Cerberus, the unification of Lucrecia's data, it is speculated she had feelings for Vincent. This is made abundantly clear throughout the game, but even more so during the seemingly random words flashing across the screen, during which she says "Vincent" and "I loved..."

Etymology
Lucrecia is a Spanish name and is a reference to the mythical Roman figure Lucretia, who was infamously raped by Sextus Tarquinius. It is possible this allusion is a hint that Lucrecia's relationship with Hojo was less consensual than it appeared, or it could simply be meant to emphasize the perverse nature of Sephiroth's conception.

Trivia

 * Lucretia can be the name of a Viera character in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. Names for most characters are chosen at random from a pool of names.
 * In Dirge of Cerberus, Lucrecia's birthday was revealed to be July 22, and her bloodtype to be B.
 * Dirge of Cerberus contains some concept artwork for the picnic basket that she carries to Vincent in a particular flashback, and the concept artwork quite clearly shows the basket containing red wine. The opening FMV sequence shows a wine glass in Vincent's room containing a red liquid some decades later.
 * The ponytail of her "crystalized" sprite is several inches longer than that of her "scientist" sprite, indicating that her hair, like Vincent's, has indeed grown during this time.
 * Interestingly, she shares a physical similarity to Yuna from Final Fantasy X, as well as a very similar voice, despite the fact the two characters have different voice actors.
 * It is interesting to point out that Vincent gets his Chaos limit break upon meeting Lucretia which takes place on disc 4. However, Hojo tells Vincent that; "three years ago when you transformed into Chaos right before my eyes, I must say I was shocked." The fight with Hojo  took place on disc 3.

Lucretia Crescent