A SOLDIER's Weapon

By Oniko

Chapter 4

… … …

Sephiroth may have frozen at the sight of the sustained Graviga effect, but his heart stopped at the doctor's question.

"Cloud mentioned that he had put in a request," he said. He was having trouble reading from the man what the best answer would be, so he hedged. "I haven't heard anything since."

"Well, I'm sure that the paperwork is on my desk somewhere," he said, giving Sephiroth a sharp look. "We've been so busy with the new data stream coming through that I probably just haven't had time to sign off on it yet."

The man was lying. Sephiroth knew it. He knew it by the way the man wouldn't look at him except in quick glances, and the way he fiddled with his glasses, pushing them back up his nose, then edging them down a bit before pushing them back up again. He knew Sephiroth was lying, that there was no paperwork waiting anywhere, but he was going along with it. Why?

"This is the WolfHaven Project," Dr. Weber said. "A sustainable wormhole. You can tell it's an old project with outdated naming conventions."

"Pardon?" Sephiroth asked, uncertain what he was alluding to.

"I understand that ShinRa prefers to simply go with the letter format nowadays," Dr Weber said. "When the project was first started they would use something unrelated that contained key letters of the subject to use as a codename for the project. Wormhole; 'w,' 'h;' WolfHaven.

"We've finally got one that didn't just collapse in on itself after sucking up trillions of gil worth of equipment with it, and we've all been running around here like chickens with our collective heads cut off trying to organize and analyze the data. Come this way, the package I need to get to Cloud is in my office," he gestured and led him along the outside wall.

The wall was not part of the original hanger. It was simply some prefab materials slapped together and showing signs of wear in the chipped and peeling paint. Doors interrupted the plain expanse, some of them had labels with names or numbers, many of them were blank. As they passed one, the door popped open and a frazzled looking young lady appeared, pathetically grateful to see them, or at least Dr. Weber.

"Doctor! The new computer banks aren't coming on line and we…" she trailed off as someone from inside the room called and pulled her attention back.

"I'll be right there," he assured her before grabbing the arm of a freckled young man who was passing by. "Ah, Jens. Just who I needed to see."

"But, I need-," Jens protested, but the doctor cut him off.

"Sephiroth here, needs to pick up a package from my office, see that he gets there," Dr. Weber patted Jens on the arm. "His clearance hasn't been fully processed yet so try not to spill too many company secrets."

"These papers-," Jens tried to object again.

"Good, lad," Dr. Weber said, slapping Jens on the back with enough force that the boy staggered forward a step.

"But, I really can't…" Dr. Weber was already gone, ducking into the room that the young woman came from. Jens let out a deep sigh. "Well, come on then."

He turned around and started trudging along the path Dr. Weber had been taking him.

"Been very busy?" Sephiroth asked tentatively.

"Insanely," Jens said with roll of his eyes. "Ever since the wormhole was stabilized about three months ago we've been totally swamped."

"Analyzing the data?"

"The data's not so bad," Jens said. "The computers do most of the work. We just have to make sure we have enough hard drive space to take it all. It's when they send something else through that it gets interesting."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, see that bank of computers over there," Jens said pointing to a row of imposing supercomputers lit up with a multitude of red and green lights. "Fenrir totally took those out. I mean complete wipeout. Nearly got one of the lab techs too, but she used to work in Hojo's creature lab, well honed reflexes. I was doing the rounds when…" Jens was clearly warming to his story when his PHS rang. He swore, and answered it with a harried greeting.

"Where the hell are you?" a thin voice came from the other side of the connection. "I needed that report five minutes ago."

"Sorry, I got this…"

"Now, Jens!" The line was cut off with a loud crashing sound of the person on the other end of the line attempting to hang up but either bounced the receiver back off the cradle or missed it entirely, before finally disconnecting.

Jens gave Sephiroth an apologetic look. "Sorry, I've gotta get this to Dr. Kirsch." Jens said backing up he waved his hands in broad gestures. "Just keep going along the wall until you hit carpet, then stay there. You can't get into too much trouble being over there unsupervised."

Sephiroth nodded and the young man disappeared, breaking into a jog running back down the way Sephiroth had come. He turned and started towards the office area. He needed to find an unguarded computer terminal, but not here. People were busy and distracted, but even they would probably notice if he started to systematically go through each room and office. After another dozen feet a corridor interrupted the smooth expanse of wall. The narrow hall was carpeted with cheap blue wall-to-wall that was starting to wear through in the center of the walkway.

Sephiroth followed the carpeted hallway to a small waiting room with a couple of battered leather couches, an empty water cooler, and a coffee pot, the contents of which were better off unexamined. There were a few doors and narrow hallways led off into what he could only assume were more office lined warrens. Most of the doors he discovered were locked, requiring a keycard and a passcode. Even ShinRa wasn't this paranoid. He did find one unlocked room, Video Room 3, the lock appeared to be broken and the door opened easily, inside the door was a sign in sheet asking for employee id, name, time in and time out. Jens was the last one to sign out at about five after three.

There was a row of small monitors each above a set of recording equipment and a bank of computers feeding them. Most of the monitors were set to different news feeds. He recognized the ShinRa News logo on a couple of them. A WRO World and Local News was featured prominently on several screens, Sephiroth decided that it had to be an independent station. One video that caught his eye appeared to be a recorded lecture, rather than a news broadcast.

What grabbed his attention was the camera panning over the audience caught Cloud sitting off to the side of an eclectic looking group, made up mostly of men in business suits but also fair number of uniformed soldiers of unknown factions and hardened men that Sephiroth could only label as mercenaries. As he watched the camera returned to the lecturer, a young man in a lab coat with a WRO logo on it. On the whiteboard behind him there was a smattering of letters, numbers and names both familiar and not. Jenova, Gast, Hojo, Hollander, Gillian, Lucretia, Genesis, Angeal, Zack F., and Cloud were all scrawled across the board. Sephiroth's own name was featured prominently in the center. He fumbled with the controls below the monitor before finding and turning up the volume on the silent video.

"There are some who have suggested that Nibelheim and Meteorfall occurred because of Jenova's control over Sephiroth." Sephiroth blinked in surprise at the screen, what? The camera panned back to the audience pointing shakily at a man who looked eerily like ShinRa's New Director of Urban Development Reeve Tuesti, he even managed the same distracted rumpled look in his tailored suit. Around him were a couple of soldiers in uniform, at least one young man acting as an assistant with clipboard and metal briefcase, all were armed with rifles and a few had short swords. The WRO logo was featured prominently. Sephiroth was starting to wonder why he had never heard of this company. "Tuesti" was giving the lecturer a stern and troubled look. "Can you comment on that professor?"

The camera turned back to the young man who didn't look any older then Jens, or Sephiroth himself, certainly not old enough for the title. The young man shifted back and forth a moment as he thought. "It's difficult to offer a complete evaluation of the events, no offense meant to Mr. Strife." The camera panned to Cloud who waved a hand in casual dismissal. "But there are things that someone not properly trained just wouldn't notice. But, given what we know of the Jenova virus' properties it is most likely that Nibelheim was due to Sephiroth suffering a genuine psychotic break."

Sephiroth frowned at the odd statement, unsure what to make of it. It made no sense, so he brushed it aside. The man continued talking about drives, infection, reunion, and Meteorfall and how they all tied together, but it made little sense to Sephiroth.

What kept his attention was the speaker's reference to Jenova. 'Jenova' was his mother's name. Hojo spoke little about her and when asked would sometimes fly into a rage, so Sephiroth learned early on not to ask. He was able to glean some information here and there, and there were some things that he had known for so long he couldn't remember how he'd learned them.

However, he'd never heard that there was a disease named after her, and they were implying that he had it too. And while Hojo may have been a controlling, secretive bastard, surely he would have told Sephiroth if he was sick, especially if it could make him do somethinglike that. The speaker wasn't saying exactly what Nibelheim or Meteorfall were, but there was a tone of awe and horror in his voice whenever the words came up. Sephiroth recognized Nibelheim from the Nibelheim reactor but they talked about it like it was an event or something that had happened. Meteorfall was just a mystery.

Sephiroth's sharp hearing caught the muffled thud of footsteps on the carpeted hall. He didn't have time to sit here and agonize over the lecture, but if he just left it he would never figure out what it was they were talking about, and maybe he could figure out what Cloud was doing there. Before he could think about the possible consequences for what he was doing Sephiroth quickly ejected and pocketed the data disk. He was back in the waiting area, ensconced in one of the battered couches, before Dr. Weber exited the narrow hallway.

"Sorry about that," the older man smiled warmly. "Minor crisis with one of the databanks going offline."

"I understand, Dr. Weber," Sephiroth said standing. "Is there anything I can help with?"

"Unfortunately not, but thank you for the offer." Dr. Weber gestured for Sephiroth to follow him into his office. Sephiroth tried to hold himself with the appearance of calm, even though he felt an itching nervousness crawling up the back of his arms, he felt like he was walking into a trap even though he knew that the other workers here were all unmodified human and posed no threat. On the other hand they somehow made Cloud, so there was nothing to say that they haven't made another one of their alternate SOLDIERs. "Now, I know it's around here somewhere."

Dr. Weber shuffled papers around on his desk and the filing cabinets behind him. Sephiroth wondered if there really was a package and if the man had contacted Cloud yet. The phone on his desk rang. Weber unburied it from a pile of folders and answered it distractedly. "Weber here. Lockdown? Now?"

The phone had directional sound technology built into it and of extremely good quality to be able to block SOLDIER hearing. It was odd for a phone in a private office. Technology like this was used mostly for privacy and sound cancellation in shared offices or calls centers, but what annoyed Sephiroth the most about it was that it meant he was unable to clearly discern what the person on the other end of the line was saying beyond a muffled voice mostly masked by the buzz of white noise. Sephiroth wished that Dr. Weber would turn, just a little, if Sephiroth could get on the other side of the sound cancellation he would be able to hear what was being said. But even when Dr. Weber glanced at Sephiroth, Dr. Weber kept the handset pointed away from him. "No, no he left about five minutes ago….Yup, not a problem. Great, will do. Bye." Weber hung up the phone and gave Sephiroth a worried look. "C'mon, we've got to get you out of the building."

"Why? What about Cloud's package?" Sephiroth asked, genuinely surprised that he was being shuffled off so quickly.

"Hang the package. We're going into lockdown."

"Lockdown?"

"Quarantine against potentially unknown pathogens," Dr. Weber said as he led Sephiroth to a side exit where he swiftly disabled the alarms on the door and shooed Sephiroth out. "It's mostly just a formality, but I don't imagine that you'd be happy being stuck here for the next four weeks."

The mention of pathogens after the talk of a virus that could take over someone's will made Sephiroth's skin crawl, but if it was potentially dangerous. "Are you sure? It might be best if I stay."

Dr. Weber had a momentary look of panic flash across his face before he waved his hand in a casual gesture of dismissal. "Don't worry. The worst thing that we've had to deal with so far was a slightly more resistant strain of the flu."

"But-"

"I'll call you or Cloud if anything actually turns up, four out of five it's nothing," he said giving Sephiroth a small nod he slammed the door shut.

Sephiroth contemplated the door in silence. That was… strange. If they'd wanted him out, it would have been easy enough to just not let him in, but Sephiroth had been too easily led around to believe that it was pure coincidence. On the other hand, he had a little more information on what WolfHaven was up to, and unless there were underground levels that he hadn't seen, they were not capable of producing the same levels of genetic tinkering as the ShinRa's Science Department. So how could they have developed a SOLDIER like Cloud, and whatever Yuffie was supposed to be? Sephiroth decided that he wasn't going to get anything more from the area, so he called in for a pickup to head back to Midgar. Maybe he could find something useful on the data disk.

The trip back to Midgar seemed to take twice as long as it had going down. Once back Sephiroth ensconced himself in his bunk; a tiny little cubical of a room that contained a loft bed with a computer terminal on a cramped desk and locker tucked underneath and barely any room to stand. He popped the disk into his computer's disk drive and waited. The fans inside whirred to life and the desktop with the ShinRa logo went black. A WRO logo came into focus, then a close up to a pair of green eyes.

"Is this thing on? Okay, good." Sephiroth couldn't tell if the speaker was a young boy or a girl, the high voice and fuzzy, too close picture made it difficult to determine gender. The camera spun around, a flash of milling crowd and then focused on the young professor peering out from behind a curtain. "So, how do you feel?"

"I think I am about to piss myself," he said. "There are more people here tonight, then for any of the other lectures in this series. Combined."

"But that's good right?"

The young professor ignored the question, staring out at the audience. "Look at them, there isn't anyone who didn't come." The camera turned to focus on the audience. "ShinRa and WRO, of course, they've been to every single one." The camera panned over to a wide view of a young president Shinra surrounded by Turks talking coolly with the Tuesti look-a-like over their respective lackeys. Both sets of whom were armed to the teeth and eyeing each other warily.

The president was startlingly young, mid to late twenties, and his well toned muscles hadn't yet been subsumed by rolls of fat. Sephiroth would've found it hard to believe it was the same person if not for the same sharp blue gaze, the propensity for well tailored white suits, and Turk bodyguards. Given the age difference- -the president claimed to be in his mid-forties, but Sephiroth would put him at late fifties, and that was as a kindness- -this video must be at least twenty-five, maybe thirty years old.

"And look, there's Highwind Aeronautics" The camera swept over the audience to zoom in on a man that looked out of place in grease stained work clothes amid the suits and uniforms, a cigarette clenched between his teeth and a set of goggles holding back scruffy graying hair. "North Coral." A large black man in rough clothing, flanked by a couple of other miners with him talking and shouting, the mike wasn't focused on them so it didn't pick up actual words but a muffled angry buzz could be heard as the large man spoke. "Wutai." A pair of older Wusheng men each molded after different stereotypes; one portly and sagacious, the other thin and sinister, and Yuffie, grinning ear to ear. "Cosmo Canyo- Hellfire, he actually came."

"Who?" The camera was wrenched back to focus on the young professor, who looked pale and sick.

"Cloud Strife."

"The guy who stopped Meteorfall?" The camera returned to panning the audience, it skipped right over Cloud at first before finally fixing on him. Cloud was talking to another man, dressed in a ragged red cloak with long black hair. Something about the picture didn't seem right although Sephiroth couldn't quite put his finger on it.

"Yes! Meteorfall and Sephiroth." The dark man glanced up at the camera with blood red eyes before dismissing it as unimportant.

After a moment Sephiroth was able to put words to the niggling sense of something wrong. The recording couldn't possibly be twenty years old; Cloud looked the same as he ever did. Sephiroth watched as the milling crowd settled into their seats and turned their attention to the stage

"Oh, crap, man. I think you are on." The camera turned towards the stage and there was a click as the microphone feed opened to record the words of the elderly man currently at the podium.

"…And I would like to introduce the youngest ever to hold the title here at Aerlheim University, Professor Associate Jonathon Dessau."

"Crap, crap, crap. Do I look okay, nothing in my teeth?" He bared his teeth at the camera in an uneasy grin.

"Good, you're good. Get out there," The cameraman said, pushing the young professor Dessau out onto the stage. He strode forward looking more confident than he had a few minutes ago as he shook hands with the elderly man.

"Thank you, Professor," Dessau said as he took his place behind the podium. The whiteboard behind him was blank and there was also a screen to his right that had the WRO logo rotating on the screen. "And thank you to everyone for joining us this evening for our lecture series, the Science of ShinRa.

"I would like to thank first of all, Commissioner Tuesti for sponsoring the lecture." Sephiroth started at the name and was unsurprised when the camera pointed to the WRO group. Tuesti smiled and waved. "And, also, to President Shinra for opening the company's records, though they were incomplete… throu- through no fault of the company, they were invaluable." Shinra lifted a hand in acknowledgement but did not smile. "And thank you to the Aerlheim University librarians, for not burning Hojo's articles on general principals." Weak laughter wound its way through the crowd.

"The lecture today focuses on the primary project that makes the world what it is today. The Jenova Project." Dessau paused a moment to write JENOVA across the top of the whiteboard, with the name Gast underneath. Sephiroth recognized the name but couldn't put a face to the man. He had left the project when Sephiroth was very young. "The project was founded and first headed by Professor Gast. He was excavating in the Northern Crater, the site of the first Meteorfall, during the summer of '59, when the ancient body of a Cetra woman was discovered encased in crystallized Mako. Although it wouldn't be until ten years later when Gast took over as head of the ShinRa Science department that the project really took off.

"It's said that his skill in paper pushing and bureaucratic politics earned him his position, but his first love was archaeology, and mythology. When he found the Cetra woman in the center of the crater the first thing he thought of was the story of the sky-woman. She was spied by a farmer who fell in love with her ethereal beauty, and he stole her cloak of seven wings so she could not leave him to return to the stars. She married the farmer and had children, but like their mother, her children would always yearn for the stars." Dessau stepped back to contemplate the screen behind him as it flipped to the picture of a dead woman's face, a steel plate across her brow read JENOVA, and a single red eye that glared out sightlessly. The other eye was covered by a fall of silver hair. "The myth was often used to explain why other humans were different from the Cetra; they had the blood of the sky-woman in their veins. Gast named his fallen angel after the sky-woman in the myth. Jenova."

Sephiroth yawned. Now he knew where his mother's name came from. He wondered briefly about his grandparents who would give a child a name from a myth like that.

"As more of the body was uncovered it was learned that there was more to it than initially appeared." The picture on the screen pulled back showing a full view of the… thing in a Mako tank. Sephiroth couldn't help the gasp that escaped him. He had seen plenty of monsters, humanoid and other, all in various states of dismemberment but this thing was like nothing else he had ever laid eyes on. She had no arms and stubby leathery wings protruded from her back. Red, fleshy coils of something that might be tentacles but also reminded him of internal organs curled around her legs, some of them leading to a massive dragon's heart below her feet. "The body was a chimera of a dozen different creatures. The study of this body formed the basis of the Jenova Project. Professors Hollander and Hojo, a geneticist and a biologist respectively, were brought in to help analyze and classify what exactly Jenova was.

"They realized fairly early on that the creature was able to copy DNA structures, in part and in whole, from its victims and recombining them into a new form. The last records we have, three years before Meteorfall, list seventeen different species and at least 145 distinct individuals unique DNA within Jenova's cells." On the left hand side of the board Dessau wrote the letter A. "The so-called project Ancient, because at the time it was thought that Jenova was an Ancient and that this copying technique was an obscure talent long since lost, was started in an attempt to recreate and capitalize on this technique."

Sephiroth stifled a yawn as he found himself nodding off, not a safe proposition while sitting on the small, wobbly office chair that came with the desk. Dessau wrote the names Hollander and Gillian on the board. He crossed out the A and wrote G.

"This sub-project was headed by Hollander who renamed it Project G after the surrogate, Gillian, who gave birth to two of the more human results. Hollander used traditional cloning methods, then a scientific breakthrough, to try to recreate an Ancient with Jenova's copying skill. This was done by teasing out a section of DNA from Jenova…"

Sephiroth checked the time, it was well past midnight, and he was tired. And the lecture was... a lecture. He wasn't learning any great secrets about Cloud or WolfHaven. This was a waste of time, and he had to be up in the morning. Sephiroth turned off the computer and hauled himself up into bed where he was passed out almost before his head hit the pillow.

He didn't have much of an opportunity to get back to the disk. Hojo decided he needed some "adjustment" and between his usual missions and stints in the Mako tube, what little free time he had was usually spent either exhausted or delusional. He didn't even have as much time as he would have liked for practicing with Ashura either. Instead he wasted it on things like roaming the Complex for five hours trying to locate a crying girl before he realized that no one else even heard the incessant sobbing.

On the other hand he didn't see Cloud at all. He wasn't looking forward to the fallout for snooping around WolfHaven. For all that Cloud espoused a reconnaissance-heavy approach to nearly everything; Sephiroth couldn't help but wonder if he would make an exception for himself.

Sephiroth had just finished logging yet another kill for a local monster hunt when the call from ShinRa came in. The monster was a small thing and a standard infantry patrol could have probably done it, but Sephiroth needed the excuse to get away from Hojo, even if the farthest he could go was the chocobo ranches on the far side of Kalm. He was tempted to ignore the call. He could always say that he hadn't received it. The reception out here was certainly spotty enough to be believable.

"Sephiroth, here," he answered anyway.

"You are to drop your current mission, and return to Midgar," a vaguely familiar male voice greeted him. He wasn't sure if he was disappointed or relieved that it wasn't Cloud. "Someone will be at your location shortly to pick you up."

"Why? Who is this?"

"You are being reassigned. Your new mission is of the utmost importance." The phone went dead before Sephiroth could ask any further questions. A quick check of his PHS found the small handful of pre-approved missions that he had picked up had all been removed from his queue and placed back in the general pool. He was in On-Mission status but the details were blank.

Sephiroth snapped the PHS shut settled down to wait. It was already fairly late in the evening, so it will be very late by the time he got back, he had been planning to stay out the night and head back for Midgar in the morning.

Four hours later and it was indeed very late, most of the building had already shut down for the evening, but his PHS still rang the minute he hit the ShinRa Complex. This time the number was not blocked. It originated from the ShinRa Building: The Department of Administrative Research, Veld. Turks.

"My office," the voice on the other side of the line said before Sephiroth could even say anything. This was why everyone hated Turks, they were always watching. "Floor 51."

And he was gone. Sephiroth tucked the PHS back away and trudged to the elevator bank. Floor 51 held all the offices for many of the "lesser" directors and sub-departments. When he got there only one door was opened a crack with a stream of golden light spilling out into the dark hallway. Inside both Veld and Cloud were standing over maps of Midgar spread over the massive black desk.

"Sephiroth, I hope you enjoyed your vacation," Veld said. He was a middle aged man, marred with the heavy scars of a hard life, but he wore neat black business suit that was the hallmark of the Turks well. Even the leather gloves he wore at all times were un-creased and well cared for. "It's over and you've been tapped for a top priority mission."

"What is the objective?" Sephiroth asked. Not quite snapping a salute, as it wasn't required for non-military personnel, but standing at attention, stance rigid and straight.

"The president's son managed to slip his caretakers early yesterday afternoon," Veld said with a tired sigh. "They performed a search of the building. When he was not found by 1700 hours, I was notified of the situation. This afternoon review of the security tapes found evidence of the boy getting on a rim-bound train at 2:15."

"The video was found just this afternoon?" Sephiroth asked, he was under the impression that the Turks were usually more on top of things.

Veld gave him a hard look. "The boy has become better at avoiding cameras. So far we've found no record of him getting off the train-"

"Means nothing," Cloud interrupted. "At least a third of the cameras have been tampered with."

"And search of the cars have yielded no additional information." Veld continued on with barely a pause.

"Why was I pulled?" Sephiroth asked. "This sounds like a First Class assignment." Not so much because of the difficulty but due to the sensitive nature of the task, a more important factor then many would consider.

"The president demanded that we have the best on this, Cloud and Hojo both indicated separately that 'the best' would be you." Sephiroth felt a swell of pride. Cloud thought that he was the best. Cloud asked for him as support.

"I will be working with you and Cloud on this case personally," Veld continued. "We were planning on following the boy's movements tomorrow. Right now we are trying to see if we can discern any likely places for him to disembark."

"End of the line," Cloud said.

Sephiroth stepped up to look at the maps. "Why?"

"He's a kid with nowhere to go but away," Cloud explained. He tapped a spot on one of the maps. A train station near the outer edge of the plate. "He'll go as far as he can, before following something else that catches his eye."

"Oh?" Veld asked, breaking the cool profession Turk façade for a moment of open curiosity. "Were you a runaway Cloud?"

"No," Cloud said shortly, he glanced quickly at Sephiroth before looking away. "I was always running towards something. But I used to know a kid like that."

"Alright then," Veld said. "We meet at the station and take the 2:15 rim-bound. And I guess we will see where things go from there."

"Yes, sir." Both he and Cloud saluted at the clear dismissal. Sephiroth and Cloud made their way back to the elevator. They had to wait for the elevator to arrive, it had returned to rest on the first floor while they were in Veld's office. Sephiroth waited for Cloud to say something, anything, about his impromptu infiltration of WolfHaven.

The elevator arrived and they both entered. Cloud hit the buttons for the 15th and the third floors. Sephiroth frowned. Cloud must be very familiar with the building to know that the SOLDIER barracks were on the 15th floor, especially since he wasn't staying there himself. And he still wasn't saying anything. Sephiroth glanced up at the camera in the corner of the elevator, but then Cloud probably wouldn't want to discuss sensitive topics while under surveillance. The elevator dinged and the doors slid open. Fifteenth floor. Sephiroth exited.

"Sephiroth."

He turned to look at Cloud, poised in the door, hand hovering over the button panel. Sephiroth hoped the fact that his pulse picked up wasn't completely obvious.

"Don't stay up too late. You look dead on your feet." The doors slid shut and the digital numbers above them started counting down. Sephiroth let out a sigh and made his way back to his bunk. He certainly felt dead on his feet.

… … …

AN: I've had several people ask is Yuffie is AC!Yuffie and I find myself torn on how to respond to the question. On the one hand descriptions are as Sephiroth sees them, at this point there is no further information I can give in-story one way or the other to make the answer more clear, as those details would completely give the game away too early. On the other hand, while the story is told strictly from Sephiroth's point of view there is a level of information that is given to the readers who have access to more information then Sephiroth. The reader doesn't have to know canon well to enjoy the story (I would like to think) but you would probably pick up some pieces of information easier, like the answer to this question.

Most information can be found at the Final Fantasy Wiki if anyone cares to look, and since the information is already out there, I may as well be up front about it here and save people an extra step. Yuffie was 16 in the original game, and has not been born yet at the time of this story, (in the original game Sephiroth was 32. In this story he's 15. Seventeen year difference), therefore any appearance by Yuffie can only be the version from the future.