Hey guys! Well, this is my second multi-chapter fic. Hope you all enjoy! :)
Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy, but Demetri is mine XD
It's not as easy as it looks. Becoming insane, that is. At least, it wasn't for me. I'm still not certain I'm all the way there, seeing as how I have moments of clarity, times when I realize what I've done and am struck by the full force of my actions. Those, to me, are almost more unbearable then the memories of my madness.
It hasn't always been this way. I haven't always been plagued by this psychosis. It is more or less a recent development. As Genesis would say, stories always have a beginning.
I held my ground and stared my opponent down. His eyes flashed with barely concealed mirth as he kicked out a leg. I blocked it and dealt a blow to his abdomen, but my heart wasn't in it.
"Aw, come on Sephiroth," Demetri said, rubbing the spot. "You're hitting like a girl."
"You've never met one," I said. "How would you know?"
"I wouldn't," he responded, assuming a fighter's stance again. But I saw things that most ten year olds don't catch. The way he swayed to keep his balance, the new pallor of his face, the sweat that he normally didn't acquire until hours into a fight.
Demetri wasn't well.
I let him land a few more blows to keep his score up. In this place, for this particular project, scores were everything. They meant the difference between surviving the project and being "expelled" from it.
Needless to say, expulsion was a death sentence unless Hojo found some other use for you.
"Time!" Hojo's voice rang out from the speaker on the wall. Demetri and I stopped our fight. I crossed my arms and backed away while Demetri remained where he was, planting his hands on his knees and panting.
Hojo came hobbling into the simulation room, looking all the world like he had dislocated something in his neck. Demetri always insisted he resembled a camel. Hojo stopped before us and peered over his clipboard, giving me a strange look. Not that he had ever regarded me with anything akin to respect. It was always like he was gazing at an intriguing specimen, but he had never been particularly surprised by anything I had done.
It made me nervous. Change in Hojo never meant anything good for us specimens.
"Something wrong?" Demetri inquired from behind me. He used that snide voice he seemed to reserve especially for Hojo.
Demetri, like me, was a fellow specimen, but that is where our similarities end. I am tall for a ten year old. He is shorter than average. I am well muscled for a boy that hadn't even hit puberty yet. He is thin and wiry. I have green eyes glowing with Mako and silver hair that hangs between my shoulder blades down to my thighs. He has bright emerald eyes and black hair he wears swept up in a short tail. I am quiet and reserved. He is loud and outspoken.
Yet despite our differences, he is the closest thing I have to a friend.
Hojo glared at Demetri, but he had learned long ago that punishments never did anything for his attitude and rebukes seemed to spur him on. "It would seem that S I has improved his score in the simulation yet again. You, on the other hand, D IX, have experienced a decline in yours."
Demetri stepped up beside me and arched a single brow. "Fascinating," he remarked, his tone informing that he found the information anything but.
Hojo's scowl deepened as he scribbled on his clipboard. "You haven't been doing well in any of the physical evaluations recently, D IX. Do you have an excuse for this?"
"Sure," Demetri nodded.
Hojo looked up from his notes when no explanation came. "Well?"
"It's the food," he informed bluntly. "I can't take much more of it. I may stop eating all together."
Hojo wasn't impressed by the boy's overdramatic display. "Get back to your room. Both of you. I'll send an aid for you when I'm ready."
"Sure thing, Professor," Demetri said with a grin, waltzing out of the simulation room like he owned the place. Like he wasn't just a specimen.
I followed behind him at some distance, afraid that if I traveled too close I would be hit in the abdomen by one of his wildly swinging arms.
"You shouldn't goad Hojo," I admonished once we were well down the hallway and out of earshot.
"It's good for him. Character building and whatnot." He stilled his arms and slowed his pace to walk beside me.
"He'll have you beaten. And you're not well. What if he finds out and sees no value in keeping you around?"
He shrugged. "Then I'll get out of this place. It doesn't make too much difference to me if it's in a uniform or a body bag."
"Don't say things like that!" I admonished sharply, pinning a glare on him.
He chuckled at my scolding. "We all lose the game at some point or another. And at the moment, there's not much here to be attached to. At least I have something to look forward to in the next life."
"Like what?" I demanded. "Floating around in the planet until your soul is recycled?"
He laughed again. "There's a bit more to it than that, Sephiroth." I waited for him to elaborate, but he didn't.
We reached the room Demetri and I shared. It wasn't a large room, by any means. It contained two cots, two desks, two dressers filled with our meager belongings, and a small shower room connected to the far wall. Art projects from our younger years served as the only decorations on the white paneled walls and the only color to be found. Everything else was white.
"How are you feeling now?" I asked my friend, seating myself on my own cot and stretching across it.
"Peachy keen," he responded, collapsing on his own bed. "Just because I don't seem to have the endurance I used to doesn't mean I'm an invalid. I practically beat you today, if you will recall."
I could hear the smile in his voice and almost didn't want to burst his bubble. Almost. "I let you."
"Irrelevant," he responded with a wave of his hand. "If you weren't under the influence of my vastly superior intellect you wouldn't have allowed it. I bent your will to do my bidding. You can start addressing me as 'Master' now," he added as an afterthought.
I snorted, a smirk of my own tugging at my lips. "You're ego is almost intolerable."
"It's part of my charm. It's why Molly likes me."
I propped my head on my arm so I could get a better look at his face. "Demetri, Molly is a bird."
"And she loves me. You really can't blame her, though. With all of this wit and charisma, I'm irresistible."
"She's also mentally impaired from Mako Poisoning."
"Don't be so shallow," he admonished. "Have you seen that new cat they brought in? I think his label said 'Red XIII'."
I shook my head. "Professor Gast said something about it, but I haven't seen it myself."
"I heard a few of the white coats talking about him. He's supposed to be the last of his species."
"Then why is he labeled 'XIII'? Shouldn't he be 'Red I?" I asked with a frown. Generally the numbers we were given represented our order in the project. I was S I because I was the first to undergo what Hojo called the 'Silver Project'. Demetri was IX because he was the ninth to undergo the 'Super Soldier Project'.
Demetri shrugged his shoulders. "Beats me. Wanna have a look tonight?"
"No," I responded in a flat voice. Unauthorized outings with Demetri usually ended poorly.
"Don't be such a kill joy, Sephiroth," he complained. "How do you expect to have fun if you never try?"
"I don't expect to have fun, Demetri. We live in a prison," I pointed out. In case he was having trouble with his grasp on reality.
"Of course. But that doesn't mean we can't work with what we've got."
"No."
"Please?"
"No."
"What if I do your next history assignment? Free of charge?"
"No."
"I'll throw in Literature and even clean your half of the room for a week."
"…Deal."
Well, hope you enjoyed chapter one! I must say I haven't ever attempted writing a character like Demetri, but I will do my best not to make him irritating. He probably won't stick around very long unless people like him. He's basically there because I thought the first half of Sephiroth's life would be boring without someone else to make things interesting XD
Thanks for reading chapter one! I hope to have an update out in about a week.
God Bless,
-RainFlame
