The first time Sephiroth saw him was at his quarter-year checkup.

It was just a routine appointment with Professor Hojo, where he got his blood tested and his Mako shots shot and was essentially poked and prodded about and around the place like the good little specimen that he was. It was also something he had been dreading all morning ever since he woke up, leaving him in an even more awful mood than usual. And a cranky Sephiroth was a scary Sephiroth, and that meant that it sent all the people he passed in the hallway scampering out of his way and nearly gave his poor secretary heart failure.

His office that morning was undisturbed, as everyone in the department knew that when General Sephiroth was like that, he preferred his solitude. And so it was in blissful silence that he did his paperwork, looked over a few mission reports, frowned at a missive about a group of rowdy cadets loitering near the second floor bathrooms, and glanced at the clock at precise ten-minute intervals. He was due in the laboratories at eleven-thirty sharp. It would take approximately seven minutes to get there, with an additional two in case of traffic. (Hojo didn't like tardiness.)

At eleven twenty-one on the dot, Sephiroth left his office and took the elevator down to Shinra's underground laboratories. He arrived at exactly eleven-thirty, where he was ambushed by a scientist who ushered him to another room further in, despite the fact that he already knew where to go.

(Sometimes he felt that they treated him like he was something that would wilt and break if he didn't constantly live in an isolated, controlled environment. It didn't matter that he had mutated monsters twice his size at the time sicced on him during his early developmental years, or that he was unmatched in terms of combat ability and Mako enhancements.)

But as he progressed further into the massive laboratory, his enhanced hearing began to pick up the sounds of talking. And it wasn't Hojo who was speaking, which would have been nothing surprising since the professor was known among his department and his subjects to mutter aloud quite a bit.

It was- Sephiroth continued to get closer- a young voice. One that was most certainly not Hojo, not unless he somehow found a way to reverse the effects of aging since Sephiroth last saw him, and even then he doubted that the professor's de-aged voice would sound like that.

"...oh this one's rather polka dotted, don't you think?"

(Dear Gaia, Sephiroth hoped for the sake of whatever mutated experiment the voice was talking about was not actually polka dotted.)

"Get away from that cage, before it takes off a finger. The test subjects are not to be petted."

Ah, there was the good doctor. But who was the owner of the young voice? (And what, they were petting the experiments?)

Sephiroth arrived at the examination room at last, and the first thing he noticed was the small boy perched on a metal table next to a more familiar figure in a white lab coat. Hojo turned to him as soon as he entered, and said, ever in that terribly grating voice, "Ah, there you are, Sephiroth. Why don't you take a seat over there while I finish this up?"

Silently, Sephiroth settled himself on one of the exam tables, ignoring how the smell of disinfectants and antiseptics (and, of course, there was the Mako) burned his nostrils with each intake of air. Instead, he turned his attention towards the other occupant in the room.

The boy couldn't possibly be older than fourteen, and seemed even younger with delicate features and skin that looked as if he hadn't seen the light of day in all his life. Which, Sephiroth allowed, was entirely plausible. But if that was so, why hadn't he seen this boy before?

Hojo wrapped up whatever he was fiddling around on the table and turned to him. Having done the exact same routine countless times before, Sephiroth knew by heart what was to be expected of him, and Hojo took the proffered arm, already in the motion of binding it with a rubber tie. The professor didn't say a thing to him.

"You should really do something about that gray in your head."

Sephiroth turned his head, and came face to face with the unidentified boy. Half a second later his brain finished analyzing the question, and concluded that he needed further inquiry. "Pardon me?" He asked.

"Clouds are a great way of getting rid of the gray. You should go find one before the gray eats up all the yellow," the boy continued. He blinked at the General, the odd glaze never leaving his eyes, which were an impossible shade of magenta, the hue somewhere between a vibrant red and lavender purple. "How is it that you speak in yellow? It's a very pleasant yellow, so you should be careful to keep it. I don't think you can get it back anywhere else if you lose it."

By now, it was all but confirmed to Sephiroth that this boy was another one of Hojo's inhumane experiments, but... he couldn't help but stare.

"Subject VII, occupy yourself somewhere else," Hojo said clinically, like he'd had to tell the boy this many times before. As the boy, now dubbed 'Subject VII', skipped breezily out the door, he added almost in afterthought, "And no petting the test subjects."

"Don't worry, professor, there are no clovers growing here," was the only reply, as nonsensical as everything else that came out of the boy's mouth before he disappeared out the door.

There was a moment of silence between Sephiroth and Hojo, who had finished taking his blood and was currently running tests on it. Then, as if sensing the questioning gaze on the back of his head (as he was still studying the electronic screens and taking notes in neat script, and therefore could not actually see the other man), Hojo suddenly said, "That was Subject VII. We had him transferred here from the Junon facilities two months ago. Fascinating, isn't he?"

All this was said with the prideful kind of tone that one used when boasting about a prized possession to its audience. Sephiroth said nothing, knowing that Hojo had more to say and didn't appreciate being interrupted. Especially when he talked about his projects. The professor liked to tell his most prized accomplishment all about his other experiments whenever there was a checkup.

"He's such a beautiful specimen, reared in our laboratories since infancy, you know. The things he says are complete nonsense, but tolerable enough if you ignore it. His ability to utilize magic from the very atmosphere around him far outweighs any instabilities in his psyche, after all."

Sephiroth almost raised his eyebrows in surprise, but refrained from doing so because Hojo disapproved of displays of any emotion. But there was still surprise, and something akin to amazement as he considered the boy with a new perspective. (And, what was that tone in Hojo's voice... was that... fondness? Yes, strangely enough, Hojo was fond of his test subject. Sephiroth couldn't tell whether that was a good thing or not.)

"We call it natural magic," the professor rambled on, preparing the Mako shots now, handling the bottles and syringes with practiced grace. "It's a phenomenon, something that's never been seen in all of humanity's recorded history. Just imagine it- an army full of natural magic users... and with Mako infusions, it would be practically invincible. SOLDIER with natural magic. Shinra would be able to take over the world twice over."

This time, Sephiroth did narrow his eyes. Hojo couldn't possibly be planning on...

"You will not be experimenting on SOLDIER." It was the closest he could get to an order.

The hand that was tapping the bubbles to the top of the needle froze mid-flick, and Hojo slowly turned around to face the stoic man sitting on the exam table. "Hmm?" The scientist's voice was even more grating on the ears than normal, and fluorescent lights glinted in glasses over dull grey eyes. "You have no control over me."

Sephiroth steeled himself inwardly, but remained unmoving in his seat, ever conscious of his location in the laboratories, surrounded by white walls and steel. "As General of SOLDIER, I am on equal terms as you, Professor Hojo, Director of Science and Developmental Studies. You have no jurisdiction in the affairs of my SOLDIERs."

"But you forget... Who is more important to the President? You, or me?" The needle was jabbed into his flesh not so gently, and pain blossomed and spread as Hojo pushed the treated Mako into Sephiroth's bloodstream. "Who made the SOLDIER? Who is responsible for the enhancements that these soldiers are given?"

Sephiroth let out his breath slowly through his nose as the Mako spread throughout himself, burning like acid the entire way. His teeth unconsciously clenched. A movement that Hojo easily caught, having spent twenty-two years studying his body and everything it does. A smile curled over lips stretched thin over sharp bones, and Hojo sneered.

"Without me, your SOLDIERs would just be mere infantrymen, no different from the bumbling men that fool Heidegger presides over. Without me..." The scientist leaned over and Sephiroth could just barely smell the toothpaste mixed with sour breath through his Mako haze. "You wouldn't exist. We're done here."

And with that dismissal, Hojo returned to the station he was working at before, Sephiroth apparently forgotten.

The General sat frozen on the table a few moments more, but started moving when his desire to get out of the laboratories overpowered the growing pain in his muscles. He stood as gracefully as he could with new Mako coursing through his veins. It felt like fire. No matter how many times it was done to him, he would never get used to it- there was no becoming immune to Mako.

As he crossed the main laboratory to the entrance on the other side, he caught a glimpse of a small white form out of the corner of his eye. The boy that Hojo called Subject VII was sitting on one of the heavy steel cages that held something that looked to be a cross between a massive bull and a bald jaguar. It was sleeping, which was something Sephiroth felt somewhat grateful for. Hojo's mutated experiments never seemed to like him.

"Did you get a cloud yet?" The boy stared at him with those wide brilliant eyes as he approached. Then he frowned sadly. "Oh. No, you didn't. There's red in you too, now."

The boy's hair was absolutely flyaway, Sephiroth noted, idly amused. He had never seen anything like it before, the white wispy tufts that stuck out of his scalp like some sort of strange fae straight out of a fairytale. It was far worse than even Angeal's student, Zackary Fair, with his own mess of shaggy spikes.

"What is your name?" He asked the boy, simple curiosity driving him, though it was likely he didn't know any other name apart from 'Subject VII'.

But to his surprise, the reply was, "Icarus."

Sephiroth considered the irony of the name, familiar with the greek mythological story of the son of Daedalus who tried to escape his father's castle on a pair of wings made of feathers and wax, who died when he went too close to the sun and the wax holding his wings together melted. He asked, just in case, "Just Icarus?"

The boy, newly dubbed Icarus (because Sephiroth much preferred that name than the dehumanizing one that Hojo gave his subjects), nodded. "Just Icarus."

"My name is Sephiroth," he offered, if only to be fair. Perhaps he felt pity for this young creature trapped in the laboratories at the scientists' mercies, just as he had been in his own youth.

Icarus tilted his head to one side in a rather endearing way. "Just Sephiroth?"

"Just Sephiroth."

"Just so." Icarus nodded sagely to himself again, as if all was right in the world. Sephiroth wished it was true. Still, this had to be the most serene of Hojo's experiments he'd ever seen. He studied the boy, and the dazed set to his dainty features and the glaze to his eyes, looking as if he was stuck in a perpetual dream while simultaneously interacting with the waking world.

It was right around this time that Sephiroth realized it was likely that Icarus was not entirely sane. He couldn't honestly fault him for it, given how the boy was probably brought up. (And imagine that, still sustaining his presence of mind even during the things that the scientists put him through. It was probably a mercy to lose one's mind instead.)

He found himself caught by those wide magenta eyes once again. Icarus smiled dreamily. "Your one-and-a-half sun is waiting," he told the bewildered man, making gentle shooing gestures with his hands. "Go."

So Sephiroth went, finding no further business with the boy. He found Angeal waiting just outside of the doors, and wondered just how Icarus somehow knew about it.

By Angeal's insistence, he was sent back to his apartment to take the rest of the day off with reassurances that all his paperwork would be made up for him. Halfway to his destination, he came to the possibility that perhaps, just perhaps, Hojo was wrong about it all being nonsense.

(And, if it wasn't nonsense, he went on to think about the meaning of the one-and-a-half sun and how it was related to Angeal.)