Beyond the Veil

Disclaimer: I only own Ami-kun, the rest of everything is owned by other people, mostly Square-Enix. I'd like to thank everyone who has sent me feedback on this fic- you've all helped me out. I also would like to thank TsubasaWitch and LoreilDarksky00 for the first reviews since I've started the major re-write! Thanks to let me know at least someone reads this. ^_^

Chapter Nine

"Wake up," a voice said, giving her the idea of black velvet- it was soft but also dark and smooth.

"Nn," Ami muttered, rolling in her sleep.

-THUD- and she found herself on the floor. Her eyes opened as pain surged into her skull. Her head ached dully as did her knee. She blinked, seeing feet covered by black boots just inches from her face. 'Just don't look up. You know who it is,' Ami commanded herself. But she just couldn't turn down such a view and found her eyes traveling up the boots to a leather leg then up more, barely lingering on the hips before reaching the end of the expanse of leather to see a rather finely sculpted male chest. Her eyes traveled upwards to a face that was far too perfect. 'Michelangelo's David has nothing on this kind of perfection made flesh. No wonder why the internet is pretty much full of his fangirls. Those legions would give up anything to see what I see or be where I am.'

She watched a silver brow raise as she noticed his mouth curved into a smirk. 'He knows what I'm thinking. And he's absolutely smug about it!' She would have been terrified for her life if his eyes had murder in them and had the Masamune in his hand.

"About time you're awake," he stated before offering a bare hand to her, not needing to verbally mention that he saw that she had gotten a good view of him with how smug his tone was.

"Did you push me off the couch?" Ami asked with a frown as she accepted his offer to help her up.

"You rolled off of it yourself," Sephiroth stated with a smirk.

"What time is it?"

"Five in the morning. I allowed you to sleep in," Sephiroth stated.

"An hour isn't sleeping in. Wake me up in three hours," Ami replied groggily before climbing onto the couch.

"If you go back to sleep, you will find yourself covered in water. I have a water materia and I know how to use it," Sephiroth said, his voice lined with menace.

"You wouldn't."

"And what makes you assume that I won't?"

"That I'm of what some men call the 'fairer sex'?" Ami asked.

"That won't be a factor. You're my student not just another woman. Besides, when you get into SOLDIER, I'll be treating you just like all the others below me in rank. And I expect you to treat me with the same respect."

"Yeah, yeah. Going back to sleep now," Ami stated, rolling over with the clear intent of doing so, moments before she started to snore.

Sephiroth wasted no time to do as he had threatened to do and soaked her using the Water materia. She let out a yelp and jumped up.

"Hmph," he scoffed, obviously smug, "as you were saying about my not doing what I just did?"

"That was cold!" Ami exclaimed.

"Are you awake now?"

"Very. I'll go get dressed for the day and then I'll take care of my bedding," Ami stated with a frown.

"Be sure to wear your battle outfit. We're going on a trip into the wilderness once the sun raises."

"Can't I take a day to rest up?" Ami asked, obviously whining as she grabbed her battle outfit.

"That was going to be tomorrow but since you just whined, you don't get a break this week."

Ami gave him a glare before stomping towards the bathroom.

"Evil, psychotic taskmaster," Ami muttered under her breath before she slammed the bathroom door behind her.

.:.

Ami sighed as she achingly sat down on a chair in the SOLDIER break room. Her muscles felt even worse than they had the first day of training. She crossed her arms in front of her, resting them on the table and felt exhaustion set in, making her sorely tempted to take a short nap before her training in the Training Room.

She had spent all weekend fighting various monsters out in the wasteland surrounding Midgar and a bit out to the wilderness beyond the wasteland. All she knew was that she was still exhausted and needed a break.

She was sawing logs when Zack walked in. He had been a part of the search to find Ami and found her passed out in the room. He felt sorry for the girl- she was obviously being put through an effective torture just by being trained by the most brutal taskmaster around. He wondered if he should lie to the Firsts and tell them that he didn't find Ami, if only to give her a much needed rest. But then he knew that Angeal would get annoyed at him over a lack of honor.

Instead, he walked to the fridge where the cold sodas were and grabbed a cola for him and a ginger ale for her. She could use the energy. He walked over to her and placed the cold can of soda against the back of her neck. He expected her to leap up in surprise. Instead, she lifted her head lazily and looked at him with exhausted and tired eyes.

"Hey Zack," she said lazily before putting her head back down, only to start snoring again.

This didn't look too good in his opinion and felt that perhaps Angeal could convince Sephiroth to give the poor girl a break already.

.:.

Hojo had been working on other projects before beeping from a computer tore his attention to said computer. He went through the pages of information, a frown deepening on his features before slamming a fist on the table the computer rested on, cursing under his breath. This was far worse than he had foreseen. He knew that things would become dire unless he acted quickly.

He tore out his PHS and sped dialed the one person he felt deserving of a verbal lashing.

.:.

Sephiroth grew more worried the longer that Ami had gone missing. Perhaps she had gotten bullied by the men who saw her as lesser than them, but knew it wouldn't happen- her strength and abilities were growing at a rate and he knew that before too long, she would easily match him if not eclipse him completely. He knew she didn't get hurt or else he would be hearing from Hojo- the scientist would use such situations as a reason to verbally attack him.

'Speaking of the devil,' Sephiroth cursed inwardly as he pulled out the PHS, his caller ID saying that it was Hojo.

"I assume you have Ami," Sephiroth stated.

"I wish, you idiot! She needs to be up here five minutes ago!" came the nasal screech of Hojo.

"And you know this because you've implanted chips in her as you did with me?" Sephiroth asked.

"I'd be an idiot if I didn't! Now bring her up now!"

"I might give it a thought if I knew where she was."

"If you don't, she might die! Do you really want that to happen?"

"She'll be free of you."

"If she dies, so do you."

"She is hardly tied to me."

"I will kill you if you allow her to die."

"The President won't allow you to kill me. I'm much too profitable."

He could hear silence before a girlish and nasal scream of anger and frustration rang through the phone, prompting Sephiroth to quickly pull the PHS away from his ear.

Once the scream died off, he placed the phone back against his ear before saying, "you really should be careful about stress. It might give you a heart attack. Perhaps one that can prove to be deadly. It'd be a shame if you died before I can kill you."

"Find her and bring her up here," Hojo spat before hanging up.

Sephiroth barely had a chance to put his PHS away before it rang again. This time, he knew it was Zack calling due to the caller ID.

"Seph, I found Ami, but she's not waking up," Zack stated, "I mean she woke up a tiny bit five minutes ago but she's not responding. I don't know what's going on."

Sephiroth frowned.

"That doesn't sound good. Hojo wants her- apparently he has implanted microchips to monitor her and he believes that she might die without his supervision," Sephiroth stated.

"I'll take her to Dr. Hojo then," Zack stated before hanging up.

.:.

Author's Note: 12/20/10

Well, this turned out a good deal differently than I planned. I might condense the whole bit with Ami getting into serious trouble into the chapter after this one. As for what's happening, something is going odd with Ami. I can't tell you what just yet since I don't want to spoil the surprise. Just that I know what I'm going to wind up doing may screw with continuity but I doubt anyone would really mind since all I know of FF7 is from Crisis Core and Advent Children as well as what I can glean from the Final Fantasy Wiki.

I've got a religious celebration in two days so I really don't know when or if I'll be able to update again since I'm planning on spending the night at my stepmom's place on Christmas Eve. I'm not quite a Christian but I only celebrate it because the rest of my family does. And because due to a family tradition. This time of the year is fairly hard for me because two years ago yesterday, my father passed away.

He was pretty much the only family I had growing up and he had turned 53 less than a week before he passed. Of course, the doctors had been trying to convince him to go on kidney dialysis for a while and he chose not to because his mother did and he didn't want to grow any weaker than he already had due to his heart. I feel like a heel because I see his decision as selfish and that it still bothers me because I won't have him around to do things most fathers do like hand me off to any husband who I choose to marry or be a grandfather to any children I may or may not have. I just feel like a heel because of my opinions of his choice.

So I have that wound that always re-opening during this time of the year. It's just another year of not having a homemade birthday cake or anyone caring about my birthday to the point of being both well-meaning and annoying by singing that song.

I think I've complained enough about my life so I'll get on working on the next chapter.

Later!

~Gregora