The laboratory is the most uncomfortable place anyone could be in, especially when you are a test subject. Trust a young boy who is seven years old, and that has green eyes he didn't inherit from either his father or mother's genes, with cat-like pupil slits and telltale metallic silver hair. He had been here for as long as he could remember and there was nothing great about it, that was... until one day.
Young Sephiroth wanders through the halls aimlessly and checks out a few experiments Hojo created with his twisted mind. The scientist allows him move around freely on this one floor only; it was better than waiting in his room or, as he liked to call it, his prison cell.
He stops at the door of a room and gazes in at one of the test subjects, his mind wondering about it; how could it be an experiment when the subject didn't seem to have the appearance of a grotesque monster? He pressed his face against the glass window curiously as the woman turns her head and smiles warmly towards him. Sephiroth suddenly feels something he'd never felt before and was ready to run when she points to the door to her room. She is kind enough to let him in and he sits down on the edge of the chair uneasily.
"What is your name, miss?"
The young boy asks.
"I'm Tanya. What's yours?"
"Sephiroth."
He answers as she looks at him rather inquisitively. She looks at his face a little longer as though she could see some sort of resemblance, possibly of someone she had once known…as she continued to stare, she exclaimed as something else caught her attention.
"Oh!"
She glances down at her stomach and smiles a pleasant smile. The seven-year-old lifts a silver eyebrow curiously as he'd never before seen women like this and walks over to her side then sits down on the bed to take a closer look, curiosity gaining the better of him.
"The baby is kicking."
Tanya then takes his hand in hers and places it over the spot, after a few seconds of nothing something inside push against his leather-gloved hand. The boy who was surrounded by syringes, needles and all sorts of scientific paraphernalia, smiled widely for the first time ever in his seven short years.
"What is the baby's name?"
He asks this question as he looks into her emerald green pools. She laughs light-heartedly before answering.
"Her name shall be Kyra."
From that day on, the silver-haired boy visits Tanya frequently when the doctors give an approval. She talks to him and tells the lad of what lies beyond Shinra's walls. Every time he asks her how she ended up here, she gives a sad smile then changes the subject, and becomes persistent as she vows to protect her child as though she may not live to see her baby grow. The young boy promises he would look after her.
A month passed since his first meeting with the expectant-mother and doctors suddenly run past the seven-year-old boy hurriedly, almost as though if he's invisible to their eyes. A single nurse notices him standing out like a sore thumb, and then forces the seven-year-old down on a chair, subsequently telling him to wait there patiently. Sephiroth waits as much as he could muster, his anxious Mako-green eyes focusing on the doors where he was told Tanya would give birth to Kyra.
He finds himself hoping that the only person who doesn't know is Hojo. Praying to Gaia that this is the one day he doesn't have to receive his daily dosage of Mako. Much as he wants to call it hooky, the boy knew better that were other things more important than himself at that moment in time.
"Sephiroth."
A voice called his name out; causing the boy to turn his head to the owner of that particular voice.
"The patient wants to see you now."
The medical doctor said then stepped aside to let him through. He pushes the door open to reveal Tanya's eyes closed and a light pink blanket wrapped around the small life-form that's sleeping in her medical bed aswell.
"Sephiroth, is that you?"
The exhausted mother whispered the question so softly it was almost inaudible.
"Yes, it is me."
"I've got to--ugh…"
She winces slightly, interrupting her own speech, and then carried on.
"You two are more alike than you think."
She smiles sadly as she looks at his young face.
"You remind me of your…"
"My…my what?"
He asks her frantically as the young woman trails off into silence. Tanya caresses his face softly. That little moment almost made the experimented child feel so innocent and perhaps loved.
He watches in slow motion as her hand drops limply to the side of the bed. He knew what it meant, but he doesn't want to acknowledge it just yet. The seven-year-old checks her pulse near by her wrist with his first two fingers, but felt nothing.
The baby must have sensed her mother's untimely death, because the little one started to cry right at that very moment. Sephiroth picked her up into his young arms and holds her gently as though she were a newborn Chocobo, speaking softly and reassuringly.
"Ssh Kyra. I'm here for you."
The infant girl ceased her crying once the scientists, including Hojo, entered the room. "What are you doing here, boy?"
The bespectacled man with his dark ponytail sneered at the mere child rather coldly.
"I came here to see the main subject but she died."
He answered in an indifferent voice. Just being watched by those black beady eyes made him become more protective of the young and naïve, and orphaned Kyra in his arms.
5 years later…
"Just this once Sephiroth?"
The little energetic girl begs in an angelic voice as she looked up at him.
"No means no, Kyra. No more sugar for two weeks."
"Two!"
"Double or leave it."
Kyra turned out to be a healthy and beautiful child, that any parent on Gaia would want. Despite the fact that looks completely healthy to the rest of the world; little does she, herself, know that there is something special about her. The fact is that Kyra has Jenova's Cells that make young Sephiroth see, and treat her as his equivalent of a little sister. Because they almost have the same appearances, little Kyra tends to follow her older brother, all over the place, trailing him like a shadow, and that's how she met her two new friends, Angeal Hewley and Genesis Rhapsodos.
"C'mon Kitten, come up here with the big kids."
A 10-year-old Genesis teases the youngest one in the group. The silver-black haired girl shook her fist at all three of them in retaliation to the taunting. She had received her little nickname because of her feline eyes that looked uncannily similar to a cat's, also reminiscent of Sephiroth's.
"Just you wait, Genesis, I'll surpass you someday. You'll see."
She said this grudgingly as Sephiroth sighed; this was going to be a long time of his life.
"I believe that is enough fun…"
He turned his head to the dark-haired boy, continuing the rest of his comment.
"Don't you think so, Angeal?"
Angeal looked between the two other kids and then nodded his head in agreement.
"Genesis…"
He sighed the name of his best friend inwardly before carrying on.
"Stop picking on her. As for Kyra, grow some thick-skin."
"Why do we have to go?"
The little girl whined the question up at her figure of an older brother. The silver-haired pre-teen took a deep breath and then replied.
"Hojo."
Her Mako eyes widened with the telltale fear that the three boys knew would result in the following actions from the child.
"After her."
Sephiroth spoke this coolly to his friends. They groan and then jump down from the Banora White tree. The two of them mutter to each other as they follow her trail.
Meanwhile, Sephiroth recalls the first time she entered his lab.
"I don't wanna go."
The young Kyra was going to turn four in two days' time. He'd grown very attached to her ever since her mother had died after childbirth.
All of Hojo's subjects loathed him, and she was absolutely no exception. Kyra had seen that Mako-filled syringe during her visits with her older companion. He didn't want her to see him like that, but he had no choice since he didn't trust anyone with false promises, especially those who work for Shinra.
She now knows what happens once it is injected into the body, but that isn't the reason why she hates to go.
"Sephiroth, I can hear voices every single time. I'm scared."
He held her close to him before she went to bed. Somehow it was a blessing and a curse that the two young ones were destined to live with only knowledge that they were special from the rest of the world. Sephiroth sighs quietly to himself as he tucks her into bed. There's no point getting on his hands and knees in front of high-ranking scientists in Shinra then beg to cancel Kyra's daily Mako shots, then endure the pain alone. She already had enough to deal with as a child, did she have to suffer because of science as well?
He snapped back into reality as the five-year-old began on her second lap while the other two silently traded hand signals to, strategically planning to capture her. Each time they thought they had finally caught her; she was always two steps ahead of them. The small girl grinned happily as she always won in this game even though she was evidently outmatched. The emerald green eyes spotted the environment to her advantage while it becomes more of an obstacle for them. With all the shouting and mocking, the silver-haired youth closed his eyes, then hops off the branch and helps his friends.
11 years later…
The teenager unrolls her sleeves and then positions herself in a battle stance against her sparring opponent. Neither one of them needed a verbal signal as to when they were to start. Both silver-haired fighters kept in mind that they were fighting in reality; anything they broke would be lost completely. In the very end, it was an equal tie.
"Thanks for that, brother."
He nods in reply and then turns his face to the sky, staring upwards at the clouds, speaking lowly.
"It has been a month, huh?"
She withdraws her kodachi then leans against him, not answering the question, just adding her own comment to the silence.
"We should head back now, Shinra can't defend itself without us, right?"
"Yeah."
A/N: Thank you Kisara Strife for beta-ing.