[A/N]: I'm writing a ff7 fic; I'm sure it'll be terrible. For the sake of keeping timelines consistent in universe, POV character (not a SI i swear) is born 1978, Sephiroth is born 1979. Wutai war will start 1993, but Sephiroth will not be sent to intervene until an impasse arises (in this fic, also coinciding with the trial group for SOLDIER). Also it's weird to think about how Reeve is only like 20 in 1992 uhhh
Synopsis: dumb orphan gets involved in dumb monster fight. sephiroth is there
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For most of my childhood, 'try your best and you'll succeed' didn't mean very much. I grew up in the slums of Sector 2, living in between Heating Conduit 32-B and a pipe complex with 'BIOHAZARD' stamped everywhere. My parents died of mako poisoning, working in Shinra's division of high-risk workers, those directly exposed to raw, unprocessed mako. An orphan like any other, but I was determined to live better; I knew I could.
So I started working the pipeworks, as a kid I could reach into crannies the adult workers were too large and inflexible to reach. Sometimes the workers brought me food or cigarettes as thanks. I never smoked them, but I traded the packs for other essentials. A cheap knife would serve me well for most of my younger years. "Try your best and you may survive," was what one drifter told me when he sold me a Restore materia for a pack before he died. "Hope it eases the pain."
It turned out using the materia came easily to me. I made the trek to the Sector 3 library just to look up some basic materia theory. I would continue to go there every other day just to read. Books became an easy escape from the desolate life of a homeless, nameless child. I sometimes even started to sleep in library when security couldn't find and kick me out before closing. Little did I know, the library would present an opportunity that would change my life forever.
# [ μ ] – εуλ 1992 #
My stomach hurts as I turn another page. It isn't uncommon for me; the pain is hunger, or a stomachache, or exhaustion, or something else. I don't know; I'm not a doctor, I've just got marginally better at using a Restore materia. Glancing up and around me, my eyes scan the shelves around the table I sit. No one's in this section of the library. Good. I pull out the materia I have strapped to my leg next to the knife I still carry. I figure it must be close to what the books call 'mastery', when the materia is at its full development and spawns another of itself.
I move the small green orb to my belly under my shirt and cast Cure2. The magic washes over my midsection like minty breath, leaving a tingly sensation instead of an empty pain. I re-secured the materia and turn my attention back to MIDGAR SCHEMATIC PLAN SECTOR 0, a book cataloguing diagrams of the planned completed Shinra complex in the center of Midgar. I had discovered that copies of the architectural plans for Midgar were stored way in the back shelf, looking like they hadn't been opened in ten years. They were probably just extra copies of documents no one had remembered to retrieve, but to me, they were much more valuable; they captured my imagination.
Sure, Shinra was the corporate superpower that dominated above the slums, but I couldn't find it in me to throw the same ire I had against the Shinra family against all the other people who could design the systems that all had to work together to make something like the Shinra complex run smoothly. Most could only do their jobs; in fact, I came to realize that Shinra people and Shinra company were two entirely different things. And while I wasn't about to sing Shinra's praises to the people of the slums who definitely didn't want to hear it, I wondered how many could never consider Shinra as anything other than totally horrible.
Because no slum-rat reads Shinra technical documents for fun, you idiot.
True. Come to think of it, I wasn't really sure when I'd left the library last. Oh well. I closed the book and returned it to the shelf. The librarian on duty waved me out of the main entrance, obviously relieved they wouldn't have to check for me. Walking out onto the street, my eyes immediately went on alert, scanning passersby for anyone that could be looking to cause trouble. It was a learned instinct for anyone living close to the edge in the slums. If you couldn't spot trouble, you were dead and gutted.
The path back to my hole in the wall took me through the junkyards in the north of Sector 3, hills upon hills of discarded garbage from above the plate. It was amazing what people simply threw away instead of recycled. Perfectly good clothes, dirty and worn, sure; very salvageable appliances like the heater and light I had hooked up to the workers' outlets. Interesting trinkets, like worn out paperback copies of LOVELESS (decent enough), or outmoded Shinra uniforms; the pants of which I currently wore.
As I walked through the junkyard, the sounds of a struggle gradually made their way into hearing range. I wasn't too keen on continuing any further until I heats a distinctive cry, clearly not human. They're fighting monsters. Internally, I debated the merits of helping. Of course, it would be the moral thing to do, but also I'm a fourteen year old kid with only a knife and a healing materia. What could I even hope to gain in the long run?
Eventually I settled on at least checking the situation out before running like hell. Turning a few more corners as the trash grew into a canyon, steeper and steeper on either side of me, I found a group of Shinra infantry struggling to fight a group of small green wyverns. Many of the squad lay prone on the ground or in the trash, most of the remaining men forming a circle with guns pointed in all directions. A short distance away was the true show, though. A young swordsman immediately drew my attention, movement graceful, natural, fluid. Taking out wyvern after wyvern with ease. He had neither blood nor guts on his uniform, his silver hair completely pristine. I got the impression he was ready to face the whole lot by himself.
It was only then that I realized I was being surrounded too, there were the flying lizards on all sides as high as the trash went, never ending. Fuck. My eyes scanned the (dead?) bodies looking for anything to help, scooping up a sword and Jackpot! a materia bracer. Strapping it in quickly, I felt the presence of what I thought were Time and Bolt materia. I immediately cast Haste on myself and reassessed the battle that was taking place around me in slow motion.
I'm sure somewhere deep down under the adrenaline and terror I was just the tiniest bit excited that I had picked up a materia I'd only read about, understood what it was immediately, and cast the spell I wanted to as well. Not bad. But for now I needed to figure out how to not die. So. The group of riflemen were currently under siege by the beasts' ice attacks, freezing one after another. Since the Silver Swordguy wasn't frozen yet and actually seemed the most competent, I made an informed choice to help him.
Sidling up next to him with my sword in my left hand and bracer on my right arm, I began to fight the onslaught with the only ally had. Well, not so much with him as near him, he only spared me a glance just to raise an eyebrow at me, and I cast Haste on him as well to bring us both into sync. I noticed that he was left handed as we found a brief Haste-accelerated respite.
"Who are you, exactly?" he asked, bringing his sword up in an arc behind him, slashing through a wyvern without even looking. "It is very dangerous, there is an epidemic outbreak of deenglow here."
"I noticed. I came to help you. You going to fight a thousand deenglow by yourself?" Our respite over, we turned our swords back at the creatures. In truth, I treated the sword as simply a knife with reach, when my form was probably atrocious; luckily an individual deenglow was frail enough to fall from a single stab. I wasn't even left handed, I just needed my sword hand and casting hand to not be the same hand.
"That was foolish of you. The swarm is much larger than predicted. You are also a civilian, with no formal training in these matters."
True, but- "I can fight a monster just fine. I just thought you might need an ounce of help fighting all these. I gestured with the sword to accentuate the point, gutting two more in the process. "Plus, your materia guy died pretty quickly. Need one of them for help."
I tried casting Bolt, but I immediately felt like falling over as something much more powerful was channeling from the bracer through my hand. It vaporized the nearest one, remaining guts flying everywhere in slow motion. Bolt3. Uhh… I blinked, hard, and haphazardly blocked an ice attack from my left. "I'm Asher, by the way. Of Sector 2 Pipeworks.
I could feel my counterpart nod. "I am Major Sephiroth of Shinra Infantry Unit 7B." He grabbed me by the shirt and pulled me down to the ground and slashed upward in a wide arc, killing a half dozen more. His sword must be even longer than the one I picked up. "Could you please search the men's bodies for a curative materia? My focus is beginning to erode slightly after the four hundredth monster. In any case, these wyverns are resistant to electric attacks anyway. Support me and stay alive. Understood?"
I nodded and reached down my pants to pull out the Restore. Sephiroth's eyebrow raised but he nodded once I began replacing the Bolt in my bracer. And we went to work, Sephiroth clearing wave after wave like a demon while I stood behind him maintaining the Haste while occasionally casting Cure to keep him 100%. Several ice attacks eventually made it through and froze Sephiroth's right arm, and my left arm and leg. The rest of the battle was fought with me on the ground, in total maybe half an hour. It felt like days.
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Sephiroth had never fought a battle that long before. One deenglow was almost trivial to kill. When Shinra had assigned him and this squad to exterminate this, supposedly the largest nest below the plate, in a junkyard, it seemed almost banal. But destroying the nest and eggs with C4 triggered the mother of all swarms to descend upon the woefully unprepared squad.
Sephiroth hadn't foreseen the incident ending at all well after that. At one point, he found it difficult to say whether even he would emerge unscathed. He imagined a tabloid headline: Shinra Supersoldier vs 2000 Deenglow, Who Would Win?! Overwhelming numbers were on the monsters' side; the riflemens' attempt to form a defensive circle was completely futile, as their corpses could attest.
But there was one other besides himself who had survived, the key to slaying the rest as easily as he had, this Asher boy. He looked about the physique of a typical orphan below plate: severely underweight with the barest amount of lean muscle, unkempt brown hair, bloodshot dark blue eyes that continued to dart around even as he lay prone on the ground. They were about the same age, Sephiroth supposed. His pants and boots had been Shinra-issue at some point, and the the torn shirt was a faded ugly yellow. Interestingly, the boy had a knife strapped to his left leg, a detail most people didn't have the enhanced senses to notice.
As Sephiroth scoured the bodies for a Heal materia, he thought how the boy fought. Not a swordfighter, certainly, bit then again where in the slums would he learn? He held his own well enough, but Sephiroth truly appreciated was Asher's instinct to stay. For most of the fight, Sephiroth's support put faith in his abilities and was always in the most convenient or safe relative position to himself. He didn't have to go out of his way to protect him, all while he cast useful buffs and heals. Very good for someone without formal training. Which Sephiroth likely thought to be the case; he didn't seem like a gang type nor had the self-control typical of most trained warriors. He found a spare Heal on the corpse of Captain Hillen; strapping its bracer on, he walked back over to the boy.
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My breathing still hadn't calmed down. I couldn't feel half my body as I watched Sephiroth search the dead bodies for… something. Looking at him now, Sephiroth had to be my age. Or younger. My mind reeled at the absurdity of a Major Sephiroth, as young as I was, being put in charge of the big time monster extermination, all while being that deadly with a sword.
He crouched down next to me, examining my injured body. "Anything else injured that isn't apparent? A medic with proper training and a Sense should really look at you." He didn't wait for a response, casting Esuna to unfreeze my arm and leg, then turned it on himself and thawed his arm. Flexing it, he pointed at my bracer. "May I?" I nodded, grateful for his help. I was fairly certain I couldn't cast another spell, I was so depleted. I groaned as feeling came back to my limbs, only left with an overwhelming feeling of exhaustion. Even Sephiroth, as self-assured as I was learning he was, drooped noticeably.
Coming off of an adrenaline high, the urban sounds of Midgar gradually filtered back into my hearing as Sephiroth and I stared at each other. He flinched first. "Ah, thank you. Asher." Sephiroth's gaze dropped to the ground. Embarrassed? My mind raced to come up with a reason why he should be the one acting this way. His pride must have been hurt somehow, was the only conclusion I could come to.
"Hey, thanks. You're a really amazing swordfighter, you know that, right? I'm really grateful." Sephiroth turned to me, seemingly at a loss for words, mouth slightly open.
"Why did you intervene? Why me, and not the squadron?" Self-worth issues, maybe? Oh boy.
"Well," I said evenly, "that circle was full of panicked gunmen. It could've broken down at any moment, and I wouldn't have known how to help them. I heard the noise and rushed in to help; before I knew it we were surrounded. It seemed like the best option, at the moment. Split-second decision, I guess." Sephiroth nodded at that answer.
"It seems that choice was crucial to our survival here. We should not have prevailed, but your survival instinct is peerless among infantrymen I have worked with." He glanced back at the massacre. "Unfortunately for them." I pushed myself into a sitting position, Sephiroth still sitting on his knees as if he were Wutaian.
The bodies were everywhere, some piled on the path, some of those who tried to escape up the trash. Exposed flesh stank. About thirty in all. I wanted to remove the images and smell from my mind. I forced myself to look at Sephiroth. "So what happens now?"
Sephiroth stood. "I suppose I report back to my commanding officer. The mission was a success, although a great many lives were lost." He walked to where his sword lay on the ground and sheathed it at his side. Glancing at my arm, he asked "Is there anyone who can look at this for you?" I shook my head and stood; instantly fatigue slammed into my head and almost collapsed me. I didn't fall over instead feeling Sephiroth's strong grip on my back. "Where do you live, exactly? You said you were of the pipeworks, but…"
"I live in the pipeworks. I'm a slum rat orphan." I said through gritted teeth. That had definitely come out harsher than I'd meant it to, but I could barely think straight anyways. I sighed and started to lean on him a little.
"I don't have anyone to look over me. I live alone." There was a short silence before the response.
"I can have someone in Shinra look you over. He definitely felt me tense up at that, because a follow-up cane quickly. "I will make sure no harm comes to you." He turned to face me, holding my shoulder at a distance. "We have fought together, however briefly. That means something." He looked at me coolly, and I sighed.
"Okay. Thank you, sir." A small smile formed on his lips.
"Please, call me Sephiroth."
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[a/n]: oh boy a chapter thanks for reading update soonish