Yes, I do realize this might be considered a 'boring' chapter by some, but I honestly struggled something awful with it for the past two months, ever since I posted chapter 9. It's a turn-over point where nothing really happens and as such, writing slowed to a crawl. And of course it didn't help that I'm immersed into writing Oblivion stories, as those who visit this journal know. I'm hoping chapter 11 will be better...once I can figure out what happens. I've got the whole ending of the bloody story planned out, or mostly. I know what happens there. It's just this middle area that's unsure. Sorry it took so long to post, and I'll try to work on it more frequently, but in the midst of 3D modeling and other stuff, I forget a lot. :P

Thank you to those that kept adding yourselves to the watch-list of this story and those that reviewed. Every time I got an email telling of a new review or new note for this story, I felt a surge of guilt and hurried to work on this chapter :D

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Sephiroth had never been fond of Costa Del Sol. Too many gawking tourists and the heat always made him irritable. Even Zack kept his antics to a minimum, not wanting to rile the silver-haired General into a bout of irritation that would only end up with several bruises on his head, among other things. It was supposed to be a thinly veiled 'vacation' for the star of ShinRa, but the bigwigs had no idea that it was the exact opposite to Sephiroth.

Zack usually took the brunt of his friend's bad mood, but on this trip he had decided to do something different. Usually he tried to distract Sephiroth with sparring, but this time he had another option available: Cloud Strife. He'd been working hard, exceptionally hard, at getting the close-lipped man to tell him what happened that night before they left, but Sephiroth had always waved him off before with a blurb about duty and all that.

Now that they were in Costa Del Sol, though, they both knew that technically they weren't on duty. It wasn't that he thought Sephiroth was trying to evade telling him what happened, but his friend was the General and took his responsibilities seriously. Because of his focus on what he had to do, many trip-ups by executives trying to make him look bad had been thoroughly trounced by the facts.

"So, Sephiroth." A wary glance was sent at him as they made their way to the mansion that the company owned. It was technically the President's, but nobody ever told the man that they used it whenever they were in Costa Del Sol. Even the Turks appropriated it when they were in town and since President ShinRa rarely left Midgar, he never knew.

"What is it, Zack?"

"You gonna tell me what happened now with Cloud or not?"

Sephiroth sighed, keeping Zack in suspense until they were inside the mansion and their small platoon of soldiers were squared away in the guest rooms or the sofa. Every trooper knew better than to mention to anyone else that they'd been in the house, because if they did and someone who wasn't supposed to hear caught wind of it, there would be no nice trips through and they liked their rare comfort.

"There is not much to say, Zack. He came up, we talked, I sent him back when it was late."

"Then why, pray tell, was Cloud's face red and he wobbled a little when he came back to his room, huh? I was there waiting for him and he looked like a cherry! Even my teasing didn't get a reaction, so you must have done something big." He didn't think it had been anything physical, it wouldn't have occurred to Sephiroth to do anything, really, but Cloud had locked himself in the small, adjoining bathroom to avoid Zack's questions, so he knew it was something 'important'.

There was a slow dawning of realization of what Zack wanted to know about on Sephiroth's face and he shrugged. "I kissed him."

"You what?!" Seeing heads turn at his loud, incredulous voice, Zack tugged Sephiroth to a small corner to continue the discussion. "Say that again."

"More accurately, he kissed me first. Seeing the awkwardness of it and lacking finesse, I showed him how it was done." A faint smile touched the General's lips. "It was quite...nice."

"You can't be serious!" Zack muttered, brain spluttering to a halt. "Cloud kissed you first?! The little chocobo head? The one who doesn't talk, the one who thinks over for a year before he does something, the one that practically worships the ground you walk on, that Cloud?"

Sephiroth sighed and rolled his eyes. "Private Cloud Strife, yes."

Zack giggled with glee that turned into howling laughter and he had to clutch the taller man to keep from standing. Suddenly the young cadet's reactions and what he had done made so much more sense. Cloud was never going to hear the end of it, ever.

Not if he had anything to say about it.

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Cloud was rather proud of how well will could play a part in something. He wasn't sure if he'd be able to hold First Tsuguri for any length of time, but sheer will amid the slow toning of his body during basic training had allowed him to get the entire full sword into the air for a minute or two. Many might not consider it a great achievement, but considering what he'd started out from, he was quite happy.

And more than determined not to let what happened before happen again. He wouldn't be unprepared this time. Even if it happened again, even if they were sent to Nibelheim again, if he was a good enough fighter, he might be able to at least keep up with Sephiroth a little. Between himself and Zack, they might have enough expertise to bring Sephiroth down enough to get through to him before his mind was completely corrupted.

He wasn't entirely sure what it was that JENOVA had done to Sephiroth really. Naturally knew that his mentor had gone insane, but he wasn't sure of the specifics to combat them. What should be done differently? Would, for example, having a 'lover' make any difference at all, or was it something else that JENOVA exploited, promised to Sephiroth that the Great General never had?

For all that everyone thought Sephiroth was more than privileged with what he was given, Cloud knew that the man he looked up to had less than most normal people. Material things he was given after he'd proved himself during the war, but before that, it was just years of torture in the name of science at the hands of Hojo and nothing given to him that he had as his own. Constantly told he would be a weapon, allowing no one but Hojo to see said weapon when he was young and easily influenced... There was so much that Sephiroth never had.

It just made Cloud want to kill the scientist even more. He'd entertained the thought of putting Hojo through all he'd given to everyone else, but he wouldn't put it past the greasy man to enjoy being tortured or even ordering others around for their incompetence while being strapped to a table with needles sticking out of every part of his skin and orifice. Seemed like the kind of thing that would get Hojo off.

Cloud had never really remembered what happened during his training because of his incarceration at the hands of Hojo for five years; it had made his memory more than a little hazy, but even if the experiments hadn't happened, there was hardly anything to remember. Day after day passed by without so much as a blink, like a gray endless cloth with no designs or landmarks to identify that space as any different than the one preceding it or after it.

By the time two weeks had passed, he was near climbing the walls. He hadn't realized how...dreary life was in the ShinRa military without a smile around. Zack gave life to the place, which made it small wonder that next to Sephiroth, the black-haired man would be next in line for being the ShinRa's poster boy in terms of recruiting others. Zack had a natural charm that he was quite willing to spread on anyone regardless of rank or duty. Very rarely had he seen that smile waver or an angry expression or harsh words on his lips.

Nor had Cloud been able to deny that he missed seeing that flash of silver hair around a corner when he might be walking in the hallway at the right time. For the past few months, he'd gotten rather used to being around the General. It wasn't quite so hard to talk anymore, at least if he wasn't looking at the handsome man. If he did, though, he'd get tongue-tied as always, like he had the night before the two had left with a small platoon on their field mission.

Thinking about it, naturally, led him to think about the kiss and he blushed to the roots of his hair again. He might not be so in body, but his mind was that of a twenty-three year old and still he blushed over something like that! There was just something about Sephiroth that always got under his skin. He was never able to ignore the man, before his insanity or after. Jibes always found a mark and he was never able to look away. Even being calmer and older in his head, knowing the horrors that he'd gone through that had aged him exponentially and took away a childish innocence, if he'd ever possessed one, could not change that fundamental reaction. He felt young around Sephiroth, yet that all-encompassing aura of the General's was so confident that you were sure nothing could ever happen to you around him.

His lips tingled a bit in remembrance of a strong, chiseled mouth against his own. Never, even with his long hair, could Sephiroth be called anything but masculine. He was handsome, not pretty. The sharp features, the strong bones, and eyes. He was gorgeous but nowhere near feminine. Nor, he thought idly, was that body anything close to it. Muscles were sharply defined, with a chest that was rather incredibly deep and impressive, and still he managed to look sleek. There was no one on the planet that looked even close to Sephiroth. Even Vincent, who Cloud had considered to be one of the most 'handsome' men in terms of elegance, paled to that of Sephiroth. At least to Cloud.

He wasn't sure if it was because he was lost in thought or because SOLDIERs were trained to be quiet, but he didn't even know he wasn't alone in his little spot out by a tree, the barracks building behind him. It wasn't until violet eyes were suddenly staring at him that he blinked and realized he had company. Spiky black hair seemed exceptionally lively that day as Zack asked instead of hello, "Thinkin' about that kiss?"

"GAH!" To Cloud, such a startled shriek was a rather justified reaction, but Zack laughed so hard he landed on the ground at it. He kicked his bigger friend repeatedly for both scaring at him and cackling before something else hit him.

If Zack was back, so was...

"Hello, Cloud."

Swallowing, he looked behind him. There was no wind to blow silver hair out like a flag, nor ruffle the black leather coat like he thought should have happened, but the General still stood there, watching them calmly. And he swore there seemed to be a hint of amusement at the edges of cat-like green eyes.

"Hello...sir..." It was clearly obvious, by the duffel bags at Sephiroth's feet, that Zack had forced them to detour from their heading toward their apartments upon seeing a spike of blond hair amid the grass. Zack wasn't able to resist any impulse, like that of a child, so it was at Cloud's expense that he was currently finding severe amusement. If that was the right term for his friend laughing so hard that he was crying.

"How was your mission, sir?"

Sephiroth shrugged, stepping forward to join the two on the small hillside that could be considered part of the training grounds if it wasn't so far away and too hard to get to with a regiment of forty clumsy teenage recruits. "There was nothing particular to report. The reactor is functioning well, most of the inhabitants of the town accepting of it." Though nothing was indicated toward it, there was a faint air as if Sephiroth believed it to be a waste of effort for the travel.

"Come on, Seph," Zack contradicted, seeming to at least get control of himself. "You know it was an exercise so they could rightfully consider giving you a 'vacation'."

"I would hardly consider going to Costa Del Sol as a vacation, Zack."

"Everybody but you would, Seph. That's why the morons upstairs sent you there, because they don't know you." Turning to Cloud, he grinned. "See, Seph hates Costa Del Sol. Too hot and noisy and every other bad thing someone could possibly hate he considers is there. Except Hojo. If Hojo ever vacationed at Costa Del Sol, that would mean the world was coming to an end."

Remembering finding Hojo surrounded by three 'beauties' on the beach in his lab coat at said resort town made Cloud snicker, much to his own surprise. For so long, everything regarding saving the world, even the happiest of moments when they tried to forget about the reason they were all together, was such a serious affair to him. It was hard to imagine laughing about anything until now, and he still wasn't sure why. Maybe it was because, being in this time, he was so far removed from it.

One day, he thought as he watched Sephiroth corral Zack into picking up his bag and beckoning Cloud over as they headed back to the cluster of buildings in the ShinRa compound, he would allow himself to forget. When everything was over, when the most critical of time was passed. If he could pass through the age of sixteen and the incident with Nibelheim never happened, then he could allow those awful memories of death and horror and grief to fade.

Yes, that will be a wonderful day indeed.