He recognized that face, those eyes; similar to his own and yet so much different.

It had been years ago. He was still a cadet, bottom of the ladder, aspiring to be a SOLDIER. Standing in a room with dozens who held the same goal yet deep in their hearts they all knew, most of them would never make it; perhaps succumb to weakness, enemy fire, or collapse under the weight of their own minds.

Each recruit had heard the horror stories; the brutal training, the tough schedules, the mysterious and risky surgery they'd get upon making third class; yet in his heart he knew he could do it. He could do anything. He had the same silly old ideas that every young man from a small town had when joining up with Shinra: he wanted to be famous. He wanted to be a hero.

And that was why, despite being so scared and nervous, despite feeling as if he'd melt right down into those slightly oversized standard-issue boots, the tightness of the standard-issue gloves and helmet suddenly bothering him, he was still moved by what the older first-class had said to them that day.

'Embrace your dreams,' he had said. 'Never forget your SOLDIER honor.' He had said it so solemnly, so seriously. An order, he said it was.

He would remember that day. He would remember that face for more than five years. And he never thought that now, so many years later, he would still be a useless infantryman.

And he never thought, after all these years, he'd be pointing a gun at the head of that same man; the man who stood for something so important, yet became nothing more than a fugitive wanted dead or alive.

"I said fire at will!" the commander barked. The other cadet had backed away and left this terrible task to him as the closest thing he had to a mentor, albeit for just a short time long ago, lay before him helpless; exhausted and bleeding and his eyes begging for mercy. Why?

Why?

Why?

This…this was not honorable. This was not right. This was not his dream; heroes do not kill the innocent, they save them. Heroes climb castle towers and rescue maidens from serpents; heroes save small children from the blind fire of an adult's war; heroes defend that which is right.

Heroes do not murder in cold blood.

Still, he was weak. He always had been. Honor and dreams, they meant nothing to those above him now, and that was why he had never been promoted into SOLDIER. He would never amount to anything, and no matter what his ideals were, he was too weak to do anything but fire a gun at whatever his commanding officer told him to.

He winced, meeting the gaze of his one-time mentor once more, a cold feeling running down his spine as he lifted his gun.

He couldn't. He couldn't. He couldn't do this. No.

Not right.

Heroes do not kill.

He turned his head away, and pulled the trigger.

And even hours later, the gurgled scream that followed would haunt his mind, the image of an innocent man pooling in an endless stream of blood, his body left to die in the bleak mud outside the city… the image of that man would never leave him. And neither would the thought that he had been too weak to stop this.

He was weak. Too weak to be a hero, and too weak to live with the choice he made that day.

And days later, when they would find his body hanging from the ceiling fixture of his dormitory, they would find a small piece of paper hanging from his cold hand.

It read, 'For my honor.'


A/N: I noticed that in part of the ending, the infantryman that delivers the final shot to Zack hesitates before doing so. Even though his face is covered partly by that helmet, you can almost see the regret and shame he feels. And I thought about the scene where Cloud and other infantrymen are standing before Zack as he recites what Angeal had taught him.

So, this came to mind. Just a little one-shot.