Name Me
The Middle
By FullMentalPanic
Sephiroth stalked in the area before his desk, stamping on the wish that their current undertaking was more combat oriented and less...social in nature. He was good at fighting, excelled at it. He even enjoyed it, when he could engage in a spar or show off with some of the very few friends he had, instead of performing before cold or biased observers who had never handled a blade in their lives. Unless you counted a scalpel, which he didn't. If the current situation had been more immediately lethal he could have handled it himself, or at least been a more active participant beside his two covert allies. The fact remained that however accomplished he might be in battle tactics and execution, there were fields where others than himself had a much higher chance of success. One of those areas was decidedly public relations.
A metallic scrape touched softly on his attention. It was barely distinguishable from the regular creaks and strains the building produced as it minutely shifted itself, but he recognized the intent behind this one. He easily reached the vent opening and flipped the cover clear. A height adjusted Zack immediately stepped out and slid down the wall. He was too close to the surface for the maneuverability that would allow for a comfortable landing. Sephiroth was on the verge of intervening when Zack kicked off the wall, was briefly suspended in the foot of open air between the wall and Sephiroth, then snagged an edge of leather coat. The, currently, respected Shinra General looked down blandly as Zack swung briefly then released with a neat back flip to kill his momentum as he stuck the landing, noting that he was moving as he normally did. Sephiroth briefly considered complaining, but it wasn't as if anyone was around to see that, and it was a creative use of the environment.
"Report." He let the grating swing back into place as he turned fully toward Zack.
"Lovely to see you too, General."
Sephiroth frowned. The status effect resulted in a subtle change in Zack's voice that was definitely unsettling. He removed a remedy from inside his desk and poured the contents on Zack who burgeoned back to his usual dimensions.
"Oh, man," moaned a now normal sounding Zack. "Vertigo takes on a whole new meaning when you're coming off a mini spell."
Which was the other, unvoiced, reason Sephiroth had delegated prisoner interrogation. Thinking of prisoners...
"Was Aerith Gainsborough forthcoming?"
"It took me a while to get her to admit to her name," muttered Zack, still blinking rather woozily.
Sephiroth felt his easily kindled caution stirring. "Perhaps she isn't trustworthy." He slid into the high backed, swivel chair behind his desk where he could access the pen and paper he'd set out for notes. "Did she try to deceive you?"
"Perhaps she was just skittish because she's recently been kidnapped," intoned Zack drily, apparently shaking off the last bits of motion sickness as he propped an arm on the back of the chair. "Anything in or around Shinra isn't going to be viewed very kindly."
He wasn't exactly imparting revelation-worthy information, but Sephiroth still sketched out a few details in his slightly shaky handwriting, as he liked to do when he had the chance.
"Want to dictate and I'll write what we need?"
"The notes are for personal use, not public record; neatness isn't a necessity."
Sephiroth been conditioned and medicated since birth, and even before, to live in a state of constant anticipation, awareness, physically poised for violence. It did wonders for his combat reflexes, but it wasn't nearly so beneficial for fine motor skills. The stiff gloves he wore were usually enough to conceal that near constant tremor in his hands, if he made a conscious effort to keep them still by his sides.
"Anyway, the point is: she told me her name with only minimal prompting."
"Was she as lucid about the reasons for her capture?"
"Well..."
"She lied about that?" Words rapidly scratched into existence concerning his speculations.
"More like she was evasive. There's a difference."
"The same complications - such as death - can result from evasiveness as they can from a lie."
"Overreact much, Sephiroth? She - "
"Shall I cite you some relevant examples?"
"Fine, evasive maneuvers can have the potential for ending in bloody death, but she did tell me she was an Ancient. I just had to reassure her about what a good person I am first and explain why we needed to know."
He wouldn't. Sephiroth slowly laid aside the pen and said evenly, "What exactly did you tell her?"
"Y'know, " he said easily, sitting on the edge facing Sephiroth and bracing one foot on the opposite knee. "That we had to be - "
"You said 'we' and she is now aware that you're not operating alone."
"Yeah, let me finish. I told her we needed to know she wasn't with one of those unsavory groups that could challenge Shinra for misdemeanors."
"Zack, telling the necessary expectations for acceptance make it easy for anyone to say they conform to them."
"How's she supposed to be honest with us if we don't at least tell her who we are?"
"You told her our affiliation with Shinra." Slamming his head against the desk suddenly seemed like an appealing idea.
"Only mine. You're still safely shrouded in mystery."
"You told her your rank and name, didn't you?"
"You realize it's hardly fair to ask for her name without introducing myself first, right?"
"You're nothing but fair," he said acidly.
Zack only laughed.
"She has all the information she needs to betray you. You can't tell random strangers sensitive information until they've proved themselves!"
"You're something of a hypocrite, Sephiroth. You get all huffy about her being leery of us, but you want me to lie to her about who I am."
"Omitting the truth is different from lying."
"I've heard you refer to them as the same thing."
"More discretion than you've been exhibiting is required for dealing with uncategorized persons."
"We're considering her as a potential ally! That means you must have some basis for trusting her!"
"Potential allies still have the potential to become enemies."
Zack was inhaling for a rebuttal when Sephiroth lifted a hand, his attention focused elsewhere. With an annoyed grimace, Zack tilted his head to the side, and then a smile sparked across his features.
"Cloud's back," he stated, and launched himself off the desk.
Sephiroth pulled open the drawer again, half glad for the distraction.
"Anything in here you don't want thrown up on?"
Glancing wryly at the container plopped on his desk, Sephiroth said mildly, "Anything in the wastebasket may be considered waste."
His dark haired friend grinned and went to open the vent.
"Zack!" The low voice was urgent.
"Hop on, buddy." Zack lifted the grate slightly, so Cloud could drop onto his palm, before letting it swing closed again.
Normally deeper and softer than the SOLDIER's, the mini spell affected Cloud's voice even more weirdly than it did Zack's. Sephiroth tossed another remedy, which Zack snagged with his free hand. It would have been more cost-effective, and less nausea inducing, to use a cornucopia, but he didn't want to deal with the speculation that might arise if someone found his desk stockpiled with status-specific cures. Remedies were much more nondescript.
Sephiroth stood as Zack placed Cloud on the ground, keeping the abbreviated figure in sight.
"General Sephiroth, I was able - "
"Chill for a sec, Cloud," said Zack, unstopping the vial. "You know how he freaks out over how we sound when we're small."
Cloud rapidly regained his regular stature, and Sephiroth gave him an assessing look. The young man was still rather small, but he wasn't old enough to have achieved his full growth yet so that was subject to change. He looked about as he normally did, which was to say he still retained the qualities that had struck Sephiroth as unimpressive the first few times he had seen the boy. Undeveloped build, less than stellar performance in training and on most missions. He'd incredulously said as much when Zack suggested Cloud be included in their subversive scheme.
"That's why he's perfect!" Zack had enthused. "Absolutely no one will suspect him!"
He'd agreed to accept Cloud almost solely because of his confidence in Zack. Sephiroth eventually had been able to pick out some of the qualities that the less-experienced, but not less perceptive, of the two of them had seen in the infantryman.
Cloud's official assessments were mostly unremarkable, but from personally observing him, Sephiroth had seen noteworthy leaps in his performance. The boy had very good retention for someone who hadn't undergone the SOLDIER treatment. There were two isolated incidents where Cloud had demonstrated a resolve, and improvisation in combat to a degree that had convinced Sephiroth of the genuine promise contained in the person of Cloud. What was even more valuable was Cloud's unswerving loyalty.
Soldiers and SOLDIER were drilled into compliance and deference for their commanders. As long as soldiers did as they were ordered, it was considered reciprocating good form for the administration to feign oblivion if officers were verbally maligned behind their backs. Cloud never engaged in this. On the occasions he was observed by Sephiroth, Cloud hadn't interacted extensively with his fellow combatants, tending to hang around the edges. However, whenever talk turned disparaging toward their superiors, Cloud never took part. He drifted away, not even condoning it by his presence.
There had been a time when the peacekeepers that Zack had, not entirely intentionally, alienated were muttering about their most unifying sentiment: their hatred of Zack. This lingering dislike was neither healthy nor safe, and Sephiroth worried that it might eventually erupt in some kind of mass violence toward Zack. By virtue of superior hearing, Sephiroth was often privy to what the uninformed or unobservant thought was secret. Catching the harsh words from across a large room, Sephiroth had darkly been considering putting the infantrymen in their place when Cloud stepped in on Zack's behalf.
Lower-ranking, less-experienced Cloud had confronted and contradicted those higher-ups on the Shinra totem pole. He was not eloquent or objectively convincing in his assertions that basically amounted to "No, you're wrong." Nonetheless, his stubborn faith impressed Sephiroth more than anything else he had seen from the soldier. It reminded him of a dark haired Second Class who had staunchly defended a deserter to the face of the General of all of Shinra. Sephiroth was convinced Zack was more worthy of the devotion than Angeal had proven himself to be.
There was that twinge of multilayer betrayal. Sephiroth had much experience with persons of the highest skill and talent, and had seen those same capable, supposedly reliant people lose their minds. He was ready to place his confidence in someone who displayed trustworthiness first and depend on tactical skills to develop afterward.
As it was, Sephiroth considered Cloud worthy of investment and Cloud himself was the only member of their group who had doubts about his usefulness. Either causing those doubts or springing from them was the fact that Cloud tended to under-perform in vital situations.
Sephiroth was fairly sure the situation would be resolved as Cloud stacked up more experience, but the cadet remained anxious. Zack was the only one completely confident.
"Don't worry about it," he'd assured a depressed yet hopeful Cloud. "It's only because you haven't figured out what it is you're protecting yet. Once you find that you're going to shock yourself with the chops you've got."
Now, watching Cloud across the desk and waiting for the easily induced motion-sickness that had caused Cloud to vomit every time they'd practiced this procedure, he came to the pleasant realization that Cloud wasn't going to empty his stomach into the trash bin. Looking at the tightly maintained resolve, Sephiroth concluded that Cloud might have found what it was he was willing to live and die for.
"General Sephiroth, contact was successfully and...amicably established."
Zack, deciding Cloud wasn't going to need the services of the wastebasket, slid it back to its designated corner.
"You were able to convince her of your identity?" Unlike the anonymity he'd been planning for Zack to maintain with Gainsborough, they'd been counting on Cloud's past relationship with the other prisoner to aid their interaction.
"She recognized me."
His gaze shot to Cloud's wildly distinctive hairstyle. Less than a hand in height and in a dark room it was apparently sufficient for identifying the infantryman. Still, Sephiroth counted it as a point in the girl's favor.
"Told you she remembered you," grinned Zack with a congratulatory nudge.
"Yeah." The stiff military stance relaxed minutely and a smile lurked on his face.
"The rumors we heard surrounding this situation, were they correct?"
"Yes, sir."
The fact was added to his sprawling network of notes, and they might have left it at that if Zack hadn't felt the need to elaborate.
"Shinra Jr. really is looking to set himself up in a more permanent relationship?"
Cloud jerked his head in affirmation, face reflecting a darker version of the determination it had already shown.
"Is there a reason she's in the prison section instead of somewhere more befitting her conceivable status?" Sephiroth directed.
Cloud's face went through a curious performance, looking torn between laughing and exploding in anger.
"Feel free to summarize, Strife."
"Thank you, sir. To summarize, Tifa Lockhart was placed in Rufus Shinra's level of the Shinra family apartment floors. Now, he's in the medical ward and she's in a prison cell."
"Damage incurred?" Sephiroth inquired, scribbling on the paper again.
"None."
He raised an eyebrow and waited for Strife to realize what he'd meant.
"Oh. No damage for her. Rufus Shinra is being treated for two dislocated shoulders and extensive bruising."
"She dislocated both his shoulders?" asked Zack irreverently. "Was he really that determined?"
"More like she was that annoyed."
There was an appreciative whistle. "You definitely know how to pick 'em, Cloud. That is one dangerously impressive lady."
"Yeah," he muttered fondly while his expression took on a decidedly dreamy quality.
What was impressive was that they'd had someone in their group who was already acquainted with the young lady who harbored no reserves or ability for putting one of Shinra's highest ranking members in the hospital. Which meant that the person who really 'knew how to pick 'em' was Zack. Coincidental or not, Sephiroth gave him full credit for nominating Cloud as a likely member of their alliance.
"Miss Lockhart is agreeable in regards to our plan?"
Cloud nodded and Sephiroth braced himself before asking the next question. The answer seemed glaringly obvious, but considering the theoretical status the young lady would gain, inquiring seemed like the only even-handed thing to do.
"She won't regret abandoning the possibility of becoming the wife of the heir of Shinra Manufacturing?"
He didn't bother answering and the look he gave Sephiroth reminded the General that, though insecure, Cloud was far from spineless. His expression clearly showed the low opinion he had of the the fledgeling Shinra and everything associated with him. Still, Cloud was young, and Sephiroth wanted to be sure he understood everything this entailed. Ignoring Zack's derisive splutter that clearly aligned him with Cloud's opinion, Sephiroth pressed on.
"The position would certainly come with benefits; wealth and fame - "
"Or at least notoriety," muttered Zack.
Cloud leveled an all-too-knowing look at Sephiroth. "Rufus Shinra is not a faithful man."
Sephiroth felt inclined to echo Zack's low snort. That was putting it mildly. Even before his father had commissioned him with engaging in the means for a legal successor, Rufus had been lasciviously free with bestowing and collecting 'favors' from every female who caught his eye. The public was carefully shielded, but everyone within the company was aware of the situation. Now, with the commission to procure an official bride, Rufus had been taking the opportunity to test drive as many candidates as possible. No one suffered from the delusion that the company heir would suddenly transition into a chaste lifestyle when he settled on a woman to marry.
No man would be willing to let any woman he was even mildly fond of fall into the hands of such a person. Cloud Strife's feelings toward Tifa Lockhart were considerably more than fond.
"Cloud, you understand fully what a union with the Shinra scion entails and see a life apart from it as infinitely preferable even if hardship is involved. The most relevant question now is whether Miss Lockhart is entirely of the same opinion. Will the day arrive when she wishes she had not lost a life of riches and prestige even if it compromised her personal honor?"
In other words, would there ever be a day where she grew to hate Cloud or the lifestyle she would be embarking on with them when contrasting it to what she stood to gain living under Shinra? He didn't like to think that she was that type of girl, and Cloud's approval of her spoke well of her character, but Sephiroth was familiar with scores of men and women who had sacrificed their scruples, friends, and own bodies in the pursuit of power and pleasure. At the very least, he wanted Cloud to be prepared for the possibility that Miss Lockhart would eventually regret choosing him over Shinra.
"She didn't seem all that impressed from her personal experience with Shinra," Zack said cynically.
"It doesn't matter. " Cloud looked at Sephiroth with soul-deep confidence. "Because we're going to take down the company."
Sephiroth's expression stirred. He wouldn't be trying this unless he thought their success was more than likely, but he'd seen and experienced too much to rule out the possibility of failure. Cloud's unbending belief that they would win was both encouraging and...worrisome. Zack typically had a mindset that overlooked the likelihood of failure, but Zack also had a buoying optimism and was adept at improvising when the official plan went south. Cloud had few things he believed in wholeheartedly, and while the situations he had performed best in had been desperate, things had to get quite bad before his survival or protective instincts kicked in. In short, it was one more reason they would succeed and succeed extravagantly.
"Is there a deadline for when any sort of retribution may be exacted against Miss Lockhart?"
"From what the guards who put her in her cell said we figure they're going to move her someplace else or...do stuff to her tomorrow morning."
"She'll need to be removed tonight."
Zack shot him a speaking look. Once they broke the Lockhart girl out, that was it. They would need to commence with their plan; all of them were leaving the company and there would be no turning back. If they were freeing Gainsborough, it would have to be tonight.
He tapped the pen once against the paper and shifted slightly to allow Zack room as he half sat on the arm of the chair to read over the notes. He glanced up at Cloud's stunned expression and said wryly, "Comments, Strife?"
Cloud stared at him fixedly for a moment before hastily shaking his head without losing the vaguely horrified look stamped on his face. Good. Not just anyone could lean on Sephiroth's furniture, or himself for that matter. Zack was literally the only person he permitted the behavior from.
"So, uh," Cloud floundered, the shock apparently losing its edge. "We're breaking them out then?"
"Them?" Sephiroth queried.
"Yeah, the girl that Zack went to talk to. We're getting her out, too, aren't we?"
There was silence as both of the younger men waited for Sephiroth's response, who suddenly stood. There was a coughing gasp from Cloud and a strangled squawk from Zack as he found himself roosting on a massively unbalanced perch. Sephiroth was unworried. Zack had always managed to react quickly enough to keep himself and the chair from upending on the floor.
Sliding open the relevant drawer, Sephiroth appropriated a leather packet with a selection of cards and more traditional keys. Tossing it to Cloud, who fumbled but managed not to drop it, Sephiroth said, "Retrieve the disguises. Be sure they're concealed in one of the packages we set aside."
"Sir," said Cloud, looking more at ease. With straight-faced excitement, he nodded to Zack, and left.
While they would all effectively be losing their official rank once they made the break from Shinra, military habit died hard. Officers did not enter into arguments in front of the lower ranks.
"Disguises plural?" Zack questioned.
Sephiroth swiveled his stance to face Zack, who now fully occupied the chair, leaning against the desk in the process. It made his skull itch to put his back to the door, but Zack was completely capable of keeping an eye on the doorway while they hashed this out.
"Having all necessary equipment here will save time if we decide to allow the Gainsborough girl."
"I've already decided."
"You are only half of 'we'."
"Cloud doesn't count?"
"One third then."
"He's on my side. Feel like coming over to the majority?"
"Democracy is rarely a pragmatic option for the military," he smiled faintly. "Are you even sure this girl is the Cetra we're seeking?"
"You are unnaturally suspicious."
"It's a conditioned response," he murmured with calm bitterness.
"She was in the right cell, she matched the description, and her name and history were what we've heard. You really think someone got wind of what we're doing and set up a double as a trap?"
Sephiroth gave him a piercing stare that showed he was considering the possibility.
"She told me the truth."
Sephiroth's gaze tightened. "Was she pretty?"
"Very," Zack grinned.
Green eyes rolled in exasperation and Sephiroth smothered a groan.
"Don't be so biased, Sephiroth. Pretty people are just as capable of honesty as the ones who aren't so easy on the eyes. Take me for instance," he preened.
"As a representative of the honest and homely category?"
"Ouch," he chuckled.
Despite the ticking time-frame and their still unresolved discussion, Sephiroth felt himself easing. Zack kicked his legs up onto the desk and Sephiroth smirked. He liked putting his feet up on the desk himself and didn't mind when Zack did the same. After an interminable childhood of brutal sterilization, it was nice to flaunt some needlessly sanitary conventions.
"I promised." The soft tone didn't quite conceal a steel strong seriousness.
All the earlier tension returned. Zack's sense of honor was at least as deeply entrenched as Angeal's had been. "Promised what?"
"That I would come back."
Relaxation flowed back. "We can deal with that."
"But you still don't want to take her with us," he said looking at him with SOLDIER blue intensity.
"I don't think we have enough reason to trust her."
"You trust me though," Zack smiled matter-of-factly.
Sephiroth returned the gesture wryly. If there was anything that marked the way they interacted, it was trust. It had been nearly automatic for both of them. With the desertion and betrayal of Genesis and their mutual friend Angeal, Sephiroth had found himself abandoned by the only friends he had while Zack was assaulted by the reality that his mentor had deserted the company and him. Amidst the confusion and swirl of possibilities and actions that followed, by respect for the man they had both been friends with and almost by necessity, they had become allies. It had been that tacit support that had seen both of them through. Whatever the turmoil and uncertainty of that time, they'd each guaranteed themselves one other person who wouldn't betray them.
The conflict with Angeal and Genesis had been especially deconstructive for Sephiroth because he could understand why they were doing it. In the aftermath, he'd done some investigating and uncovered enough disturbing facts to be willing to do almost what they had. However, he wasn't going to do it with the same disregard. So he told Zack.
After briefly proposing his plans, he'd abruptly found himself intimidated to voice the rest of what he'd planned to say. Will you come with me? Zack hadn't been raised in this lifestyle like he had, Zack had chosen it. How could he ask Zack to give it up just so he wouldn't have to leave his one friend behind? He was far from Zack's only friend. Zack had friends everywhere, and he'd be leaving all of them behind if he broke from the company.
As Sephiroth hadn't asked, Zack didn't answer. He'd stepped forward looking intently at Sephiroth before sweeping his gaze into the distance for several pounding heartbeats. Then he'd nodded and said, "Can we take Cloud with us?"
From that point on, it hadn't been about simply leaving Shinra, but about how to dissemble the company.
"So Cloud's girl is a sure thing."
Apparently Zack was switching topics. Verbally stating their plans and their consequences did have some benefits. "Miss Lockhart's combat aptitude is an added bonus to the objective of pointing out to Shinra their non-omnipotent status." Which was the part he kept mentally savoring. "Strife's relationship to Miss Lockhart adds a dimension of necessity to her removal as well as another benefit for accepting her."
"And we'll be getting an innocent girl out of a bad situation?"
"There's also that," he acknowledged.
"Aerith's innocent too."
He frowned over the usage of the first name. Zack attached himself to people much too quickly. "Are you basing that innocence on something objective?"
"Have you ever been a believer in 'innocent until proven guilty'?"
"Never." He stepped to the open floor, the possibility that the girl in the cell wasn't the Ancient prickling around his shoulders.
"Sephiroth." Zack was out of the chair, leaning forward with both hands flat on the desk. "Nothing's changed for why we should get her out. We get to stick it to Shinra by rescuing her and we'll have the last known Cetra on our side. Whether they can get the Promised Land through her or even use it the way they want, we can't let them keep her. You know what they can do."
He looked at the door. He did know. He'd personally experienced what they could do to their own children. He felt the light touch of his abnormally pallid hair on his face and neck. His head had been shaved on a daily basis for every moment of his childhood that he could recall. It had been for sanitation, and to allow for easy access to his scalp and the often invasive methods for tracking the development of his brain. When his permanent residence had finally been moved from the scientific department to the military division, he'd promised himself he would never let his hair be cut again. Now it streamed past his knees, and only one scientist dared lay a hand on it.
When the length of his hair had started causing confusion regarding his gender, he'd simply further customized the cut of his uniform across his chest so that anyone with a basic understanding of anatomy couldn't possibly mistake him for female. Along with his face and throat, it was the only skin he showed.
The standard SOLDIER uniform was sleeveless for breathability, mobility, and intimidation. Although it was the reason for it, his 'special' status had given him the clout to refuse anything that revealed the marks that had been left on him. Skin grafts, biopsies, localized vivisections, PICC line injection sites, frequently left raw and uncovered to measure his recovery rate, had left a history of scars across his body.
There should have been more. Combat had pierced him many times, but those wounds had been quickly closed by potions or materia so there was nothing permanent to show for it. Recovery items had no effect if the flesh had already stitched itself back together. The fresh injuries disappeared, but the white smoothness and discolored roughness of imperfectly healed skin remained.
He turned back to Zack's earnest face, marked by intersecting lines from a scar the younger man had deliberately kept. The slit skin that had been inflicted by Zack's own mentor when Angeal had been trying to coerce Zack into striking him down. He examined Zack's steadfast face, truly sincere in its estimation of Aerith Gainsborough. Zack had been equally adamant concerning Angeal, believing until the very last in the chance that their friend could be saved.
Sephiroth had shoved that mission on Zack both because of the conviction that Zack had a better chance of success and because of the crippling thought of having to kill an old friend. Sephiroth hadn't had to kill Angeal or Genesis. Zack had killed them both.
Of everything that had stampeded through him when he found out, most prevalent was the thought that he would've cut down Angeal himself to prevent the look that was on Zack's face when the SOLDIER came in with Angeal's sword on his back and clotted blood nearly obscuring the gashes on his face. There were very few things Sephiroth wouldn't be willing to do to prevent that expression from returning.
He would not allow Zack to invest himself in someone who would betray him again. Slowly, Sephiroth shook his head in a negative.
With a nonsense exclamation, Zack swung over the desk, slamming to his feet deeper inside Sephiroth's personal bubble than anyone he wasn't fighting dared to get.
"She's what she says she is. We leave her behind and we're letting Shinra have their twisted way with her and giving them the means to be a whole lot harder to take down when we make our move. She did not lie!"
"You're repeating yourself, Zack."
"You apparently weren't listening the first time. She's a fellow human being in a nasty place and we can save her. Why don't we!"
A fellow human being. He bit back the childish statement that Gainsborough was an Ancient, and flashed on the not so distant past when the universal appeal wouldn't have affected him. Shortly after he and Zack had determined that they would leave the company, he'd dug around for enlightenment regarding the course taken by Angeal and Genesis, and found things that made him doubt his own humanity. It had been enough to knock him off the foundation of his general actions and processes, but Zack had been encouragingly disbelieving. Without any evidence to support him, Zack had been unswerving that Sephiroth wasn't a mere creation of deranged science. Lacking motivation of his own, Zack's had been enough for Sephiroth to doggedly continue through the documents where he'd eventually been rewarded with the knowledge that experimentation had begun only after he'd been conceived. His soul had breathed again. Altered he might be, but his beginning was natural and human.
Much like now, at that time Zack had stubbornly taken a side on an issue without evidence, and been proved right.
Despite himself, the mute appeal of Zack's grip on his arm was calming. He hadn't had the opportunity to develop a resistance to positive physical contact. Angeal had nearly always maintained respectful boundaries in his interactions with others. Genesis had often invaded his space, but it was more to prove he could than to display affection. Zack had a tactile streak a mile wide.
The first time he had seen Zack, the then Second Class had a very loosely applied headlock around Angeal's neck. Angeal had tolerated it for a few seconds before throwing Zack off with a cursory, and unheeded, admonishment. Sephiroth had been fascinated by the unhesitating contact and the utter lack of apprehension surrounding it. Enough so, that he'd looked into the mentor program himself before he realized that candidates like Zack were in a nonexistent supply.
He had never experienced non-hostile physical closeness. Scientists and fans were in the same abhorred category of people who would rip off his clothes to have access to skin he wasn't at all inclined to share with them. Undemanding, companionable contact was more relaxing and fortifying than he'd allowed himself to hope.
He read the expressions his friend had never had a reason to learn how to hide. Zack was still completely convinced the girl in the cell was everything they'd heard, the actual Cetra in question and not a decoy. The possibility that she wasn't, or even that she was and might not be an individual of upright character, weren't making a dent in the sable haired man's belief. He also saw that if he absolutely refused to take the girl, Zack would agree, because Zack trusted him too. He'd be insane not to strive to be worthy of that.
"You may go back," he said distinctly. "But you will ask her two questions, delivered only in the manner I dictate, and you may bring her only if she answers both questions correctly..."
A/N: I went through a struggle deciding who to put as the primary character for this fic because Sephiroth so decidedly dominates the middle of it and Zack is the only character to appear in all three chapters (though fortunately there's been a site revision that allows for the listing of more than one character from one side of a crossover), but starting with Aerith gave her a leg up in the competition and I figured it'd be best to give her top shelf. At this point, the FMA version of this fairy tale/parody is decisively in the lead, which surprised me a bit, as I haven't done anything in the FMA-verse up to this point and didn't know what to expect. Thanks for reading the (statistically) lesser of the two tales!
