Author: Silverhair Theory

Disclaimer: Everything belongs to Square-Enix or Squaresoft or whatever they're calling themselves these days. Even I belong to them. Sephiroth, however, does not belong to them as he is untouchable

Chapter 12: Combat

Cloud was outside the door to Sephiroth's office. It was time for his impromptu swordfight with the general, and Cloud was feeling increasingly nervous. He somehow doubted that Sephiroth would go easy on him.

Sephiroth opened the door. "Greetings. I thought we could use one of the private practise rooms." He lead Cloud down to the weapon quarters, and found them a free room. They went in, and Sephiroth closed the door behind them.

"Now, as I said yesterday, we have to fight with mako enhanced swords, otherwise the mako cannot flow between us. I have here a sword for you to use, and I will use my own." Sephiroth said, holding up a sheath with a sword inside it. "It's valuble, so be careful with it."

Cloud took the plain black sheath with reverance. He could feel the power and balance through the leather and knew that he was in possesion of a powerful blade.

"What's its name?" Cloud asked. He knew that almost all magical swords had specific names, also that most other people didn't. He had a feeling Sephiroth knew though.

Sephiroth turned around, a puzzled look on his face. "How did you know it had a name? I've never known anyone younger than sixteen who knew that Mako Swords had names. It's name is Platinum Heart. I think it'll suit you." He gave an almost smile and turned away.

Cloud grasped the handle of the sword and pulled. The sword slid out of the sheath. Cloud gasped. It was beautiful. It was made of the most beautiful metal, which shimmered in the light. It was perfectly balanced and sat neatly in his hand. He gave a few experimetnal swipes with it and smiled with the feel of it. It made him want to close his eyes and drift away with the movement of the sword...

"Wake up." Sephiroth said. Cloud opened his eyes. He was lying on the floor looking up at the figure of the general standing over him. "You fell asleep. The mako in the sword can do that, just knock you out, make you feel warm, safe."

Cloud nodded as he got up. That had been exactly what he had felt like. "Does your sword do that?" He asked.

Sephiroth held out his hand and a sword appeared in it.

It was long, taller than a man. It was brilliantly silver and seemed to be humming slightly in Sephiroth's hands.

"The Masamune..." Cloud whispered, just loud enough for Sephiroth to hear. He gave Cloud a sharp look.

"Where did you hear that?"

Cloud felt a blush creeping up his cheeks and turned his head away. He didn't really want to tell Sephiroth about the poster of him in his room, or of the number of times he had run his hand along the blade in the picture, imagining holding it, using it. "It was...on a poster."

"A poster? You mean the old recruitment posters? Gaia, I didn't realise they even made them any more." Sephiroth said.

"They don't." Cloud muttered.

"They don't? Then how can you have seen one? They went out of circulation over five years ago, you would have still been ten!" Cloud nodded. Sephiroth frowned.

"Can we get on with the fight? I'd like to get it over with." Cloud said. It was true, every muscle was wondering what it would be like to fight the strange, strong man in front of him.

"Yes, of course. How much has your Sensei taught you?"

"I've almost mastered Swordfighting level 1. They were moving me after the winter. I know basic blocks, thrusts, parries and swipes." Cloud said, trying to remember what the Sensei had said.

"Right. So you haven't been taught slashes yet?" Sephiroth asked.

"Slashes?" Cloud said. Sensei had mentioned something about them, about them being started only in level 3. "I think I'm a bit inexperienced to learn slashes..."

"That's wrong. Level 2 is just practicalities for fights, conduct and where to stand. The only time people use them are in duels, and a real monster is never going to bow to you before he tears your throat out, is he?" Cloud shook his head, slowly. "Slashes are like this."

Sephiroth raised his sword and brought it sweeping down. Cloud only just had time to raise Platinum Heart and block the attack before it rearranged his face. Even so the shock as the blades clashed jarred his whole body.

"Very good." Sephiroth said. "I would have stopped before I hit you anyway but you blocked me instead. On instinct I presume, since blocking slashes doesn't come until when you're learning them."

Cloud nodded, breathing hard. He had only blocked one attack from Sephiroth and his whole body was shaking.

"Raise your sword, and try to attack me." Sephiroth said. "I intend to teach you for two reasons. One, because I enjoy a challenge, two because the only way I am going to have a decent time with you is if you can put up a reasonable fight."

Cloud obediently rasied his sword and tried to slash at Sephiroth. The general easily deflected his blade with the Masamune and once again Cloud felt the jolt through his body.

"Too easy. You're not putting your energy into this! You have to really believe you want to fight me, try as hard as you can to hurt me!" Sephiroth spread his arms. "Go on, slash. Right across my chest."

Cloud rasied the sword and brought it down but couldn't quite bring himself to hurt his idol. Sephiroth flicked his sword out and Platinum Heart fell to the floor with a clatter, Cloud's wrist twisted painfully.

"You see? You don't hate me enough to hurt me! You've got to focus your anger on me, think about nothing except to cause damage to me!" Sephiroth said.

"How can I?" Cloud said, angrily, adrenalin surging through him. "I'm too frightened and impressed by you to hurt you!" He shut his mouth, blushing. Sephiroth looked slightly taken aback.

"Frightened? Why?"

"Because you're strong, and powerful, and have that amazing sword, you're a General and have been fighting for years. What am I? I'm a runty SOLDIER 3rd who can't slash and can't control my own body!" Cloud yelled.

There was a long silence. Sephiroth had his head turned away, face hidden by silvery hair. Cloud was trying not to look at him and was staring down at the Platinum Heart lying where it had fallen on the floor.

He bent down and picked it up. He looked down at his face in the reflection, pale from the shaking but flushed from shouting. He looked along the blade, then brought it up and slashed downwards, hard.

It flashed through the air like a beam of light. Cloud saw Sephiroth look up and then Platinum Heart bit into his arm. Sephiroth gave an intake of breath and pulled away, ripping his flesh across the blade. He put his hand to his shoulder and it came away dripping with blood. Platinum Heart was red too.

Cloud and Sephiroth stared at each other for a second, then Sephiroth did somehting Cloud did not expect in the slightest. He started to laugh softly.

"Well done, Cloud." He said, still laughing softly. Cloud noticed he had said his name, he had not heard Sephiroth say it before. "The last person who spilled my blood was...well, Hojo. That was fifteen years ago."

He crossed the room and tapped on the keypad beside the door. A slot opened in the wall and Sephiroth took it out. It was a Cure materia. Sephiroth pressed it into his arm and touched his shoulder, closing his eyes.

Green tendrils came from his fingers and surrounded the cut Cloud had made. They sank into the skin and it closed and sealed, until there was nothing but ripped black material there.

"Now then." Sephiroth said, putting the Cure back in the slot and and closing it with the keypad. "I see you have mastered the art of the pre-emptive slash. Now that you have hurt me once, I do not see why you will have any qualms about hurting me again. Try slashing me again."

He laid his sword ready and Cloud focused on Sephiroth, his black swirling cloak, the blade held by his long slim fingers. He moved and slashed at Sephiroth. The Masamune came up and the swords clanged. But this time Cloud was able to keep it there, holding the Masamune still. Sephiroth let go.

"Good. That was better, much better. You need to work on your movement, not make it so obvious where you are going to attack. Try again."

They practiced for ages. Cloud never managed to hit Sephiroth, and he couldn't see any difference in his movement, but Sephiroth kept saying he was improving so he was doing something right. When the sky outside the tiny window was pitch black, Sephiroth called the practicing to a halt.

"You've made a lot of improvement today. We've also clocked two hours of swordplay, so thats two hours knocked off the total of twenty-four. Although the swords werent touching for the whole two hours, so we won't have done quite that long. I suspect we won't be able to tell when we've finished the program, but if we keep doing this until after the winter we should get it all done." Sephiroth was packing away the swords.

Cloud was standing still, half listening. He was drenched in sweat, his hands slippery and his hair plastered against his face and neck. His whole body ached. While he had been fighting he hadn't noticed it because of the adrenaline rushing through his body but now he could feel his arms ache, his legs felt like they were going to collapse and he could barely hold his head up.

He stepped backwards on shaky feet and suddenly the floor rushed up to meet him. But before he hit it a strong arm wrapped around his waist, holding him a couple of feet from the floor. Cloud could feel the heat of Sephiroth's body through his cloth tunic and the leather jacket the other man wore, and as Sephiroth set him sitting against the wall he felt the compulsion to get closer to that warmth, to snuggle into that heat.

Sephiroth's low baritone jolted him out of his slightly disturbing thoughts. "I suggest you have an early night. You have another appointment with Hojo in a couple of days and you don't want to be in less than peak physical condition. That's the only way you have a chance of remaining consious through what he's going to do to you."

"Why? What's he going to do?" Cloud asked weakly. "And how do you know?"

Sephiroth sighed slightly. "Hojo talks to no-one, because he doesn't trust anyone to keep his secrets. The only time I hear him talk a lot is when he is talking about his latest experiment to himself, and he was talking about you during my weekly 'checkup'."

"Checkup?" Cloud asked.

"Hojo is fascinated by my abilities. He loves to put me thorugh gruelling and often cruel physical tests, to try and discover my limits and understand my powers. He fails miserably, of course, because he never gives me anything hard to do."

"Oh." Cloud said. "But what did he say he was going to do to me?"

"Hojo has a test he often does on new or new-ish experiments. He gives them a drug which, if given in the right dosage, will knock them out. He then hooks them up to a rather unpleasant machine which basically keeps them unconsious by means of a poisonous gas known as Makothene.

"Makothene basically numbs your brainwaves for ages after you have ingested it. That means you don't think, you don't speak, you don't register anything around you, the only things you register are pain and endorphins, literally happiness hormones. So you are almost completely unconsious. Then the machine tests your pain levels by electro-shocking you until your brain short-circuits.

"This is extremely painful and also very dangerous. If the machine doesn't release the correct amount of endorphins into your system in time, your brain doesn't recover and you basically become an empty shell.

"Now, this experiment takes twelve dark hours to complete. In other words, twelve hours of darkness, in the night-time, as sunlight dilutes the makothene and can cause it to become explosive. What Hojo will do is concoct a fake illness which means you need to spend at least twelve hours in the private section of the hospital. He will then take you to the lab and knock you out, then hook you up to the machine. When it gets dark he'll turn it on.

"What you need to do is to stay awake when he gives you the drug. This is extremely hard to do and practicaly impossible if you aren't in peak physical condition. All you have to do is pretend to go to sleep and then Hojo will hook you up and turn the machine off just before he goes to his quarters in the evening.

"Then you have to get away from that machine. Just move yourself slightly out of the way and it won't affect you in the slightest. Best of all, Hojo will just think that he aligned you wrong and will leave you alone. He only ever does it once as you know what's going to happen the second time and so will not let him drug you."

Sephiroth picked up the sheaths of the swords and opened the door of the practice room, as Cloud slowly, painstakingly got to his feet. They walked in silence back up to Sephiroth's office. Sephiroth turned as he entered.

"Be careful of Hojo. Good luck, Cloud." He said, and closed the door behind him.

Cloud made his lonely way back to his dorm. He kept thinking about the test Hojo was going to try and perform on him.

Cloud he run away? Stop Hojo from drugging him? No, Hojo would be suspicious and something bad might happen to Sephiroth. He would just have to let Hojo take him and then try to stay awake.

Cloud noticed he was getting weird looks as he reached the dormitory corridors, and realised why. He was still soaked in sweat, and probably looked like he had taken a shower with his clothes still on.

He entered his dormitory and found Reno and Zack there.

"Yo! How was the practice?" Reno asked, raising a hand in greeting.

Zack jumped up off the bed and came over. "Gaia, you look like you went swimming with your clothes on! What did he do to you?" Zack picked up a strand of Cloud's usually lovely spiky hair and let it go. It fell, limp, down and landed on Cloud's nose. Cloud brushed it aside.

"Only made me fight him for two whole hours. Gaia, I'm exhausted. I just want to go to bed." Cloud went over to his bed, which Reno was sitting on the end of, and slumped onto it.

"Yo, you fought the General?" Reno said, looking awed. "Isn't that a bit unfair? I mean, he could like, totally toast you!"

"And did. Or would have, if he had been trying to. He was just keeping me at bay. He's so strong..." Cloud said, crossing his hands under his head.

"Did you hit him at all?" Reno asked, grinning.

"Well...not exactly..." Cloud said.

"Not exactly?" Zack said, coming over.

"Yeah. Near the beginning he told me to slash him and wasn't defending himself, so I did." Cloud said.

"You actually hit him? And with a slash? They're the hardest type of sword manouvre to do, and you don't learn them until Level 3! How did you manage that?" Zack said, looking with awe at Cloud.

"Dunno. He showed me how, and I did. I cut him too." Cloud said, remembering the feeling of the sword biting into Sephiroth's arm and wincing.

Both Reno and Zack's mouths dropped open.

"You...you cut the...General?" Reno stuttered. Zack was mouthing wordlessly like a fish.

"Yeah." Cloud said. "I was as surprised as you are, I tell you. I think he was too."

"What...What'd he do?" Reno whispered.

"Laughed." Cloud said.

"Laughed?" Reno said, giving Cloud an incredulous look. "Laughed?"

"I know." Cloud said, shaking his head. "Weird isn't it." He didn't mention why Sephiroth had laughed. That was private for those who had been under Hojo's influence.

"Whoa. Maybe he is mad, after all." Reno said, leaning back and looking up at the ceiling.

"What do you mean?" Cloud said slowly.

"Oh, some of the SOLDIER 2nds think he's insane, going out day after day, taking absolutely crazy risks, it's like he's got a suicide wish or something..." Reno trailed off, seeing the look in Cloud's eyes. "What?"

"...Nothing." Cloud said. He looked at Zack, who was still opening and closing his mouth like an idiot. Cloud whacked him round the side of the head.

"Huh?" Zack said, his eyes clearing.

"Nothing." Cloud said. He sighed. "Look guys, I'd really like to get some sleep. Sephiroth beat me real bad."

"Sure mate." Reno said and pulled Zack up. They exited the room, turning down the light as they went.

Cloud took off his still-damp shirt and lay back on the bed. He closed his eyes and the world drifted away into bright dancing lights on a black background...

And so the weeks went by. Sephiroth and Cloud duelled, and Cloud sometimes managed to off-put Sephiroth once or twice. But he never hit him again. Cloud improved in his classes until he was all set to move up to the next set. He mastered more materia, learnt diagrams of motorbikes and airships, practiced kata and even duelled with Zack sometimes. Zack wasn't nearly as good as Sephiroth, but Cloud still fought him and even managed to land some blows with the practice swords, though Zack won all their matches. Being so much bigger than him did have its advantages.

Winter was upon them and the air outside turned icy. Junon was right next to the sea and every day cold sea winds would whistle through the hallways. Cloud had his fights with Sephiroth and his trips to the lab, but gradually the talk he had had with Sephiroth faded from his mind. Hojo hadn't done anything for ages, nothing except the now-familiar enhanced mako injections.

It wasnt until about three weeks before the end of winter that he found out about the exams. The 2.5 exams, which SOLDIER 3rds took, supposedly to signify that they were halfway to becoming a SOLDIER 2nd. No-one had told Cloud about them because he was considered too young but Sephiroth mentioned them to him in one of the fighting sessions and Cloud decided to find out about them.

They were apparently taken by all SOLDER 3rds that had reached the level 2 in all subjects. Cloud had done that ages ago, but apparently they had dismissed him as being too young. The upcoming ones were to be taken by Zack and Reno as well and Cloud applied to take the exams.

Cloud was allowed in, albeit reluctantly, by the secretary Leila, and went off to celebrate with Zack and Reno. They had a celebratory party in Zack and Cloud's dorm and Reno smuggled in some alcohol from somewhere and they all got heavily drunk. As Cloud was passing out on the floor of his room he thought he had never been more content in his life.

It was only a couple of days before Cloud got the Coolant-induced urges again. He made his customary trek up to the lab and eagerly drank the wating blue liquid. However, when he came to, after the experiments, he was not, as he had expected, on his bed, but still in the lab.

Hojo was standing in front of him, wearing his customary slight smile. Cloud looked around.

Most of the lab was empty. The many assistants who usually thronged the place had petered down to just a few. Most of them were finishing up their experiments.

Into Cloud's mind flashed Sephiroth's description of the special test Hojo had planned for him, spoken ages ago in a small training room and thus far forgotten.

"Good evening, Cloud." Hojo said. "Something a little special is happening tonight. Don't worry, your friends will not come looking for you. They believe you to be carrying a highly contaigous virus, which is why you are being kept in isolation for the night."

He smiled wider. "Relax, Cloud. This won't hurt a bit." He produced a syringe filled with a dark liquid which might have been anything. As he approached Cloud's arm Cloud tensed. "Don't tense, you fool. It will hurt more and it's not going to make a difference."

Cloud reluctantly relaxed. Hojo inserted the needle and Cloud had to bite his tongue to stop himself from crying out. It hurt. A lot. But as soon as he took the needle out there was a different feeling.

A slow, easy feeling. This is alright. Cloud thought. No! I mustn't fall asleep! He pretended to flutter his eyes like he was trying to keep them open, but inside he was shouting DONT FALL ASLEEP! DONT FALL ASLEEP! like a siren. He relaxed his body and heard Hojo fiddle with something mechanic. A metal disc was placed on his arm and then footsteps echoed away and a door clanged.

Cloud lay still for a few seconds. Then he cracked one eye open. There was no-one around. He opened both eyes wide. All the assistants had left. There was no-one in the lab except for him.

He looked down at the small metal plate that was attacthed to his arm. Connected to that was a nasty looking machine with too many wires and tubes. He tried to pull away but stopped when a searing pain came from the small space of metal.

He looked closer.

Oh, Gaia. He thought. This is not good.

Author's notes: Yay! Another chapter! It took a while for me to update this because I was busy on the last chapter of my other story, but that is now completed so I should have a lot more time to spend on this story instead! We are now approaching the end of my pre-written chapters and will have to start buckling down and write some more on the end. Reviews are very much appriciated, same again, the next chap goes to the beta after 10 reviews! nn