He was so damn perfect, like a pretty marionette doll. The flicker of his eyelids barely gave away the fact that he was human and a consciousness existed within. Not knowing, not caring the rumors and dumbstruck looks that trailed his very existence. From his ramrod posture to gleaming mercilessness of Masamune, he was the perfect soldier.

He was anything but perfect. He knew that. Zack knew that. Damn, all the other grunts knew that, but through some inane brainwashing or sheer force of will, they all seemed to blithely ignore it, much to his annoyance. He let good men…young boys actually, die on the battlefield.

Through sheer necessity, he had to, and he hated himself all the more for it.

A perfect soldier would not allow his men to die under him. Would not stand there, helpless, surrounded by more monsters than he could count, slashing through them like they were no more than flimsy rice paper, and still be unable to reach a boy no more than fifteen with his life before him get clawed to death by the monsters, his hand still halfway to the hilt of his sword at his side. No once he joined the ranks, there would never be anything but death before him.

A perfect soldier should be able to sacrifice everything for the greater good. Let go of all those petty useless emotions, pain, regret, self-deprecation, longing…

Longing…

He longed, to be able to accept what zack had told him once, when after a hard day's of training they had sat around the campfire, canteens of coffee in their hands. It was in these trainings that he slowly learnt to kill the soul within him, and excel as no other human or soldier could. He surpassed them all by virtue of the fact that once he was on the battlefield, he was damn near invincible and he knew it. And this knowledge coupled with his skill made him into a monster as never seen before.

Zack had given him a sad smile and simply said 'hey sephy no matter what you become, I'm still here k?'

It had left him slightly shocked, for zack to know so intuitively what he was feeling at that point in time, and... but then again zack always knew the right thing to say at the right time. It was simply zack.

No. a perfect soldier did not think of such thoughts and drown himself in thirty beers and guilt that never seemed to leave him, even for a moment. It was better to let himself drown like that, locked behind the safety of his office, back against the door. Usually the guilt was a dull ache that he carried with him, a leaden pool in his stomach. From the time he woke up, ate shinra's crap protein bars, trained, fed his chocobo, watched zack laugh, endured zack's insults, signed office papers, brushed his teeth and collapsed on his bed. It was a constant in his life.

A constant that ate away at him, and really killed him.

Sometimes he wondered how zack did it. That constant smile on his smartass face, with those witty comments and sparkling eyes that were brimming over with their own life that wasn't just marco-enhanced, filling the canteen with laughter and boisterous talk when he knew that almost all of them would be lucky if they survived two years. Grunts were expendable.

It was something more than that. It was something he wished he had, but knew he would never have a chance in hell of possessing.

Zack had hope, peace, joy, comfort, and faith. He always had faith. So although he knew that these faces he saw today might not be there tomorrow, he still had faith.

Faith…

He didn't understand how zack could have faith in his humanity when he proved time and time again the ruthless monster that he was capable of becoming. Zack had faith. It was as simple and basic as that. And really, it was these little mercies that counted in a merciless war.

He wasn't perfect. Which was why at the end of the of those thirty beers, and after his marco-enhanced bloodstream had digested the alcohol in a matter of hours, he stood up, cleared away those thirty cans of beers and bent down to retrieve his leather, lying like a forgotten friend on the cold cement floor. Adjusting the straps, he automatically shouldered the burden of becoming the perfect shoulder, schooling his face into a smooth mirror mask. He stepped forward, unlocked the door, and locked his heart.

He was the perfect soldier.