Edited 7/9/14

MAKING THE CUT

"Three friends go into battle. One is captured, one flies away, and the one that's left becomes a hero." ~ Genesis Rhapsodos

DAY 3

9:30.

Genesis began to count silently in his head. One of the more pressing items on his 'To Do' list was to fix Cadet Strife's habitual tardiness. The boy was constantly late to his classes. It was only by three or five minutes, but, like a splinter left untreated, it could escalate into something worse. The sooner the problem could be solved, the better.

The training room door opened and Strife staggered in, still limping noticeably.

"You're late," Genesis snapped, startling him.

Strife glanced at the clock above the door. "Sir? I-I'm not on time? It's just nine-thirty..."

"You are exactly forty-three seconds late. The only way you could be on time is if you arrived at the precise moment it became nine-thirty. Beyond that you are considered tardy, as it is past the appointed time."

"But that's impossible!" Strife squeaked.

"Then I suggest you make adjustments to get here earlier. Twenty pushups."

Strife's mouth opened and closed a few times before he uttered the one thing Genesis did not want to hear. "I'm sorry, sir."

"Stop wasting my time. The only thing worse than those who don't have to courtesy to keep their engagements are those who apologize incessantly." Genesis jabbed a finger at the floor. "Push-ups, now."

Dropping to his knees, Strife planted his hands on the floor and began his push-ups. His position had improved tremendously from yesterday's atrocity; his arms were in the correct places, but he was still depending on his hips to bring himself up. Genesis moved to rest his foot on the his lower back.

"Keep your body still," he instructed, quieting his tone. "Just move your arms."

Strife shuddered underneath the extra weight and his push-ups became considerably slower, face turning red with effort. It was obvious even a simple exercise was difficult for the boy. He flopped to the floor after the twentieth push.

Genesis removed his foot. "Since I expect you are sore today, we'll start out with something easy." Walking to the wall, he pulled a tennis ball out of the bucket he'd brought. "Catch with your right, throw with your left."

"Yes, sir," Strife muttered, stiffly rising to his feet. They quickly fell into a methodical rhythm.

"Did you do this after I left?"

"Yes, sir."

"How?"

"I bounced it off the wall."

Today Strife seemed subdued, as if his aching muscles were beginning to wear on him. Genesis wasn't looking for subdued, though. He didn't want the cadet to simply comply with his wishes, regardless of however ridiculous they might be. Ever since seeing that stark determination flash in his eyes, he knew Strife had fire. And who better than the Crimson General himself to feed the flames?

"Switch hands," he ordered. "What else did you do?"

"I jump-roped, then did twenty push-ups before bed."

Even though he was a smidgen impressed by his initiative, Genesis wasn't about to show it. Strife hadn't the slightest clue how hard he was going to make him work to squeeze a compliment out of him and he desperately hoped the boy was up for the task.

"How many jumps could you do in a row?"

Fumbling, Strife barely managed to catch the ball, still not quite confident with his left hand."Forty-six. It's hard to do them with boots on, sir."

"I want one hundred jumps, no trips, forwards and backwards by the end of the week." He would not have Strife tripping through his testing again. Sephiroth was going to have to find something else to pick at.

Strife looked like he wanted to protest, but wisely chose to remain silent. Finally, Genesis caught the ball and held onto it.

"Go jog around the perimeter of the room," he said, jerking his head to one side.

He watched as Strife reluctantly moved out to a slow trot along the wall. There was no denying he was most definitely sore. The back of one shoe scraped just a little too hard on the floor, making him stumble.

"Pick up your feet!"

Relying on his enhanced hearing, Genesis paid close attention to the sound of the Strife's breathing. It had quickly become ragged after the length of one wall, which only served to reinforce the need to build up endurance. Much to Genesis' surprise, Strife continued to keep going after three laps. His breathing had become quite harsh and the room was by no means a small one. Genesis was half tempted to see how far he would go before he stopped, but with what little he knew about the cadet, that would likely be until he collapsed.

Finally, Genesis flagged him down. "Alright, that's enough." When Strife clumsily slowed to a walk, he motioned for the cadet to stop. "Stay at that wall."

Strife did as he was told, bracing an arm against the metal to catch his breath. Genesis allowed him a few moments. Strife was not a SOLDIER. Not yet.

"Run as fast as you can from there to the opposite wall," Genesis pointed, "and back again."

Red-faced and sweating, Strife lowered himself slightly and took off. Genesis was unable to hold back his smirk. His assumptions had been correct: Strife was one hell of a sprinter, and would probably have no trouble keeping up with an enhanced SOLDIER were he more fresh. In a lot of ways, Genesis reflected, Strife was much like himself. Up until a sudden growth spurt in his late teens, he'd been petite, too. Even though his height now had him only an inch shorter than Sephiroth, he still remained more slender than either of his friends and most of the other SOLDIERs. Speed was his greatest asset, and so it would become Cloud Strife's as well.

"Come take a walk with me," he said, starting off at a brisk pace around the room. When Strife had to trot to keep up, Genesis slowed for him. "I read in your report that you don't feel safe behind a gun. Why not?"

A flush crept up to Strife's cheeks. "I have terrible aim, sir," he mumbled. "I'm always afraid I'm not going to hit whatever I'm shooting at. It doesn't feel reliable."

Some cadets were crack shots and couldn't understand why SOLDIERs used swords. But for the ones like Strife, who shied at every shadow, a gun was borderline useless.

"Do you feel confident fighting hand-to-hand?"

"No, sir. Everyone else in my class is taller than I am, and I always end up getting beaten."

Genesis sighed. "Fighting with a sword is similar to hand-to-hand combat in the way that it becomes an extension of oneself. Have you started melee training yet?"

"No, sir," Strife shook his head.

"You come from Nibelheim. Did you ever partake in any kind of physical activity there?"

"Hiking up the mountains, not much else."

That sounded like something Angeal would enjoy. Genesis rolled his next question around in his head, debating whether or not to ask it. "When you face an opponent, what do you feel?"

Strife was silent while he organized his thoughts. "Mostly fear, sir." His voice had dropped to a near-whisper. "I know I can't beat them, and they know it too. I just... I wish I knew what to do, but I don't. And that's really scary, because that could cost me my life someday."

"What do you mean you 'wish you knew what to do?'"

"They say 'go out there and kill a monster,' but shooting at a target is a lot different from shooting a monster. I know some cadets who can pick up a gun and hit anything that moves, but I can't. I just... don't know what I'm supposed to do."

"And that scares you?"

"Wouldn't it scare you?"

Genesis wasn't sure if he'd ever been asked if he was afraid of anything before. As a First, it was expected that he was not. "I suppose it would," he said. "Do you ever improvise?"

"...Sir?"

"Make something up when you're not sure."

"I-I don't know. Mostly I freeze up and get yelled at."

"When that monster had you down during your test, you took your gun and walloped that thing as hard as you could. What made you do that?"

"I... I'm not sure," Strife said, shrugging. "I just did it."

"That," Genesis emphasized, "is called instinct. It's your brain automatically compensating for what you're not sure about in a tight situation, and it can save your life."

Strife nodded, lowering his eyes. "If I may ask, sir... What do you feel when you're against something stronger than you?"

Unbidden, the image of Sephiroth flew into Genesis' head. "Anger." He hadn't meant to say it, but there wasn't any taking it back. "I get angry because my enemies are only as strong as I let them be. Because strength doesn't have anything to do with it, it's how the game is played. And I will not allow myself to lose."

Genesis wasn't exactly sure why he was opening up like this, but in a way he was glad. Strife had no prior knowledge of his character, therefore could make no judgment of him based on past actions.

...And it felt good to be looked up to instead of down upon.

"Brother's not here again."

A quick sweep of the room confirmed that Zol was indeed correct and Cloud hadn't shown up for combat class, yet again. It was odd, because as far as they knew, he hadn't been sent home. And yet, for the past three days there had been no traces of him, save for those few minutes in the hallway the first day. Brother was getting pretty good at avoiding them as of late, but they usually managed to catch him at some point. Never had he just up and vanished like this before. Jadak sighed. Combat class wasn't nearly as much fun without him.

"Maybe he got switched to a different group," Jadak suggested off-handedly. Pulling his rifle up, he fired a few rounds into the target on the wall. The cadets stationed next to him looked on jealously; they hadn't had much luck hitting their own targets.

Zol's expression morphed from disappointment to sadness and he hugged his gun to his chest, letting out a choked sob.

Yuza, who'd been reloading his rifle, brushed by and took up Jadak's spot facing the target. He gave Zol a condescending look as he passed. "Don't cry, Zol."

"I am not crying," Zol insisted even as he wiped his tears. "I'm just gonna miss playing with Brother."

Ignoring Zol's melodrama, Jadak watched the bullets from Yuza's gun fly into the target, all of them hitting dead-center. His own shots had hit in the middle ring, but weren't nearly as consistently accurate as Yuza's. He was like a machine. Out of the corner of his eye, Jadak caught sight of the other cadets, jaws agape and eyes shining with admiration. It was no secret Yuza was a good shot. Biting his bottom lip, he reached underneath Yuza's rifle and tipped it ever so slightly off-center just as he pulled the trigger. The shot flew wide, hitting in the very outside ring.

It was the only one of any of their shots that had landed that far off the mark.

Jadak felt the icy trickle of Yuza's glare, but didn't take his eyes off the target. "Yeah." A faint smile ghosted across his lips. "I will too."

RegenesisX