Zack walked into Sephiroth's room to find him sitting at the table with Cloud and scrawling notes.
"What are you kids up to?" Zack teased.
"Come join us, Zack. See for yourself," Sephiroth replied. Zack pulled up a chair backward to sit over it with his arms crossed.
"Sephiroth's helping me get ready for school," Cloud grinned, at which Zack cocked his head.
"Wait…So you're not going to be SOLDIER?"
"Oh he's going to be SOLDIER alright. Might even be our boss someday," Sephiroth replied, still writing. "But Shinra has a little-known scholarship program. Enlisted members can go through A-School and be on Reserve status until graduation."
"I'm going to study Business Management and Communications, I can train with SOLDIER on the days I'm not in class, AND they'll pay my tuition!" Cloud beamed. Zack smiled.
"Those one weekend a month, two weeks a year posters weren't kidding! Haha!"
"Don't laugh," Sephiroth peered, "you're next."
Zack wiped the smile off his face.
A knock at the door and the other SOLDIER poked his head in.
"Excuse me, Sir. Private Cloud? Uh, your mom's outside. She has a bunch of your clothes and wants to know what she should do with them."
"AARRGH!" Cloud groaned, darting off with the SOLDIER downstairs. Zack chuckled as he took Cloud's seat at the table, kicking a foot up on the other chair. Sephiroth had a smart look on his face as Zack pointed a leering finger at him.
"You…you're something else alright."
"Really? Enlighten me."
"How…Oh my God…You're deaf!" SOLDIER 1st Class Zack Fair, the sensitivity of a blunt axe.
Sephiroth smiled, brushing his hair behind his ear to reveal what Zack had caught a glimpse of on the train. A cochlear implant. Zack gaped in awe.
"Wow, have you always been like this?"
"Since the day I was born."
"But-but you don't talk like a deaf person!?"
"I had a very rigorous speech therapy program."
"No kidding, I'll bet that implant helps you out a hella ton!"
"Indeed, an invaluable tool…I've had it off this entire time."
Zack's jaw hit the ground. "Wait, but how can you—"
"Your lips, Zack. I can read them."
Zack threw a hand in front of his mouth. "How about now?"
"I can see the outline of your jaw movement and discern language."
He smothered his mouth with two hands.
"Hwff Buff Noff?"
And Sephiroth laughed. Zack sat beaming at the man, a whole new world of understanding opening up between them. He was so excited about Sephiroth he could barely think. There was so much he wanted to ask him, so much to talk about!
"Gosh, I'm learning so much about you that makes sense now. You always seemed so aloof. You'd walk past people talking to you like you didn't even hear them. I never would have guessed you did that because you really couldn't hear them."
"Well…most of the time." Sephiroth smirked, and Zack remembered who he was talking to. A rebel and a hellraiser indeed.
"Hah! Were you always such a troublemaker?"
"Well, more so when I was your age."
"Yeah, what about when you were my age? Was there ever a SOLDIER 3rd Class Sephiroth?"
And Sephiroth flashed a dark smile through downturned brows. He floated back to earlier days, to when he was a younger man like Zack and wore a braid, to when he was a boy like Cloud which seemed like so long ago…like visions of the past…
The Paragon Fighter Mech-Chopper flew in spearhead-formation, an Immediate Need Striketeam en route to Wutai.
Gaze straight, jaw taught, ocean eyes focused out into that deep pool of night, he waited for the op code to jump.
"3…2…1…MARK!"
A boy with a Buster Sword leapt from the chopper.
He landed crouched on the ground. He was still working on getting that Jump right. With black stallion hair pulled back in a pony-tail and bangs like a hypernovic star, he dashed into combat-mode barehanded ready to brawl.
A flying double-kick slammed back-forth into two troops, dropping their halberds. He swept them up at his sides, his weapons now. His sword remained sheathed on his back as he ran on. It was a game he played with himself to see how long he could go without drawing it.
Rotorwash whipped his hair across his face as another SOLDIER leapt from a chopper above him and hovered in the air like an auric ascension. The second boy dawned a Tiamat-red long coat with rust hair that splayed his shoulders in a swooping layered-cut, one side of his head shaved to skin. He summoned a globe of Dark-Fira to shoot down at Angeal in a wave, while Angeal dove under as it swept the ranks of Wutai. Popping to his feet, he chased after the flamewall, he and Genesis putting fire on the ground in a Wag Dodge.
They looked aloft to see a third chopper sweep over their location, banking off to their left for a High-Altitude Low-Opening drop. The silent ghost of a third operator flew through the air, slicing sheerwind with a daikatana. Boots hit the ground that took off sprinting with no impact, footfalls like a cat in the night dashing to a high Pagoda tower in the distance. Angeal was already there.
Two halberds singed the sky, a serrating spiral-slash felled another wave of troops to clear the jump-zone against the tower. Shooting a halberd out like a plank, it caught the boots that landed on it, launching them up to the top floor with his Jump Materia.
The scream of a daikatana crescent-slashed the sentinels on the wall into oblivion, landing crouched on steel toes and flicking the blood off his blade. The third boy stood with a slow eclipsing rouse in his SOLDIER uniform, the cold gleam of death in cerulean eyes and a long silver braid flowing down the length of his back.
Stalking like a Bengal tiger into the gullet of the tower, a fluorescent fulminating arc-slash sliced through a garrison of armed guards. The remaining troops dropped their weapons, fleeing in terror. The Reaper had come to clean house.
A gargantuan Hydra-monster crawled into the passageway. Sephiroth dashed forward raking his sword against the ground in distracting sparks. Heads gnashed while he whipped from side to side in evasive maneuvers, his blade flashing in lines like tangled wire to slice whirlwinds against scaled necks.
A single-slash clear through one and he kept going, wall-kicking into another hyperphonic blade-crash against a ramming head. Leaping onto its back he drove the tip of his sword deep into spinal tissue and dragged, running with his blade down to the tail and diverolling off. He kept running, not stopping to see if the creature had fallen. He knew.
Genesis reached the tower and floated up, while Angeal foot-laced his way up a rope. They found Sephiroth crouching behind a low buffer wall in the tower and spoke to him, but not with words, with sign-language.
"Take care of all the bad guys down here. We'll go after Masamune," signed Angeal.
"No! Don't listen to him!" Genesis turned Sephiroth about, speaking in signs and out loud. "We'll take care of all the baddies, you go after Masamune."
Angeal shot him a flat glare.
"And how's he gonna get up to the roof genius? You've got the Float Materia!"
"That's the plan we agreed on! Stick to the program Angeal!"
"And what are you going to do?"
"I'm gonna hang back and heal."
"Aw, that's so cute, what's wrong? Afraid you're gonna break a nail?"
"Hey! I just got them done! Jerk!"
"Oh yeah? Well you're fat!"
"I am not!" Genesis pat his sides.
Sephiroth's gaze flipped from Genesis to Angeal and back in panic. What should he do?
Angeal laid a big hand on his back.
"…Just do what you do best."
Sephiroth dashed out. Roger.
A vaulted antechamber came upon them, moonlight spilling from an arena sized hole in the roof. That's where they saw him.
Hatori Masamune, a man like a midnight sun, adorned in silver armor speckled with stars like the sky and the horned helm of a Dragon Knight. In his left hand, he carried a 12-foot daikatana.
Sephiroth rushed in, scooping up a fallen guard's saber with a free hand; a little trick he'd picked up from Angeal. He slammed his blade down on a sister blade that waited for him, brushing off to sweep in a wide arc overhead. Sephiroth flipped the saber backhand against his forearm, bracing off his daikatana to block the slice. Sparks flared upon a monumental impact. He struggled against the Dragoon's superior strength as Masamune looked down on the young boy.
"You fight with an odachi in one hand, a difficult style, but all things are difficult at first, no?"
Sephiroth sheered the blade off, driving for him in whipping whirl-crashes. The sheen of moonlight exploded against their laser-edged hits. Masamune's sword flailed back like a thrown cape.
"You're not the first one they've programed to come after me, just the first they've manufactured."
He bashed Sephiroth back as slitting slices whirled on each side of him to keep him off balance. Sephiroth leapt away off a hand to land smooth like a thief as Genesis and Angeal ran up.
"Masamune," Genesis growled, and the man flipped a theatrical hand.
"We know you've turned every warrior who's ever accosted you to your side. You're not going to get us!" called Angeal. Masamune peered at the group, scanning their souls.
"The family that unites together fights together." In a flash he pointed his sword at Genesis. "You! Red-headed stepchild! You will be the skein that breaks apart this brotherhood."
Genesis lurched forward, but Angeal held him back. "No! I would never hurt my family!"
"Easy tiger, he's just trying to get in your head."
The daikatana lowered to Angeal next.
"Ah. The oldest. The honorable one. You will have the honor of watching them die."
Angeal let him go. "Get him Genesis!"
Genesis leapt forward to hover in the air, charging a growing Firaga specter with all of his ridiculously overpowered magic stats. With that same fire in his eyes he cast flaming flare-missiles at the Dragoon, who whipped them away with a starlight daikatana…and vanished.
Sephiroth ran after him, Jumping up through the hole in the roof. Genesis Floated up following fast, while Angeal climbed the walls. They raced along the rooftop to where Masamune stood surrounded by a garrison of Wutai sentinels. Genesis cast a wall of flames to encircle the Dragon Knight, cutting him off from his troops while Angeal bash-tackled the first guard who came at them to sweep up two sabers. He crossed them as Sephiroth leapt at him, catching his foot and throwing him over the wall of fire to face Masamune alone.
Sephiroth called his loyal Summon to his side, Siren. The enamoring mer-creature cast a wave of white-noise over Sephiroth that had no effect on him—he'd turned his implant off—to sweep over Masamune lowering all of his barriers and defenses. He was vulnerable now.
The rush of cured metal bashed against stone and saber edge, flaring shooting sparks like stars in the veiled night. As the flames roared around them, they battled like gladiators whipping and slicing to stalemate or death. Sephiroth shot a fulminating arc-slash that whipped in a white line against the zing of another daikatana. A harrowing slash that followed a line like tangled thread sent him flying back. Sephiroth toppled across the ground like a stricken child.
As Masamune's daikatana fell for the killing blow, a Buster Sword shot out to block it. Sephiroth saw Angeal standing over him, holding Masamune's sword at bay with his own. He'd drawn his sword—for Sephiroth.
The two fighters' eyes flashed fire as the Buster Sword knocked Masamune back. Sephiroth dashed up, leaping over Angeal to flare an arc-slash down in elliptic crashing waves on a blade that crashed back. The floating-foot technique carried Sephiroth into slitting upswipes, flash-searing figure-eight's drawn in the air with his blade. Both fighters' wound up, single-slashing at the same time as blade met blade in a symphonic steel tirade. Sword tips dragging the ground to shoot likewise sparks back at one another, they turned to face each other in the same space between empty heartbeats. The Dragoon saw the boy, standing like the flames belonged to him.
"And you, the youngest, last to be born, last to die. For you, I reserve judgment. We will meet again."
In a flourish of his sword he swept a wave of ice around himself, vanishing. A floating blue orb whisked to the sky in his wake, serrating the heavens in aural Antarctic storms. As the symbologic zodiac lit up under their feet, the orb materialized into a malefic sea serpent that wreathed the sky in icy doom, charging a Lunar Tsunami. Leviathan, the lord of all waters, emperor of the dark ocean depths, looked down upon the world and found it unworthy.
Angeal grabbed Sephiroth and crouched down over him, while Genesis leapt in front of them.
"Do it Genesis!" Angeal called, and a look of fear crossed the eyes of the boy with red hair. He flashed his hands into the proper movements, spoke the correct incantation, calling upon the most powerful magic grimoires he possessed to summon a barrier around them. Genesis' Barrier was the stuff of legends, a hemophiliac couldn't afford to get hit even once, hence his Kevlar-weaved long-coat. As the serpent charged its neon beam to tear the ground asunder, Sephiroth peered up through Angeal's arms.
He saw his older brothers standing over him, protecting him. If this was the last image he was to see in life, he was satisfied.
The megalithic beam blasted down on them from the sky, assaulting the ground with the driving force of four oceans. White flash, enigmatic blast, the tower lurching and shaking under their feet…but when they opened their eyes, they were still alive.
The beam receded and Genesis wobbled like a drunken man, then fell over. Angeal rushed to him, slapping him across the face over and over.
"Come on Genny-G. Quit being a wuss!"
Genesis came back in a blur of sleep inertia.
"Ugh. The world needs a new hero. I quit."
"Wow, you were a cool kid!" Zack gaped, while Sephiroth winced.
"Well, that makes one of us who thinks so."
"Aw gee, you and Cloud, you guys are like self-image Slumdogs!"
"He reminds me a lot of myself. It is so strange to look upon the image of a boy you once were, listen to all the same problems you had, and repeat back all the same lessons you were once taught. However, I'm sure that is how fathers feel about their children as well."
"Well, I wouldn't know about that, but I like hanging out with him, kinda makes me feel like a big brother or something."
"That feeling you have for him, it is the same way that I felt with Angeal when I was small, like I had an older sibling, a looming guardian angel protecting me under his wing."
"Oh yeah? How'd you guys meet?"
"…"
The chopper flew over fields of ice as a SOLDIER 2nd Class complained from inside the cockpit.
"Take this kid out on a training mission, they said, get him acclimated, they said. The guy can't even hear me! Hey!" he tapped Sephiroth's shoulder. "Keep that thing on! We're in the field now!"
Sephiroth tapped the pinhead-sized button on his implant to turn it on, so he could hear the pinhead complaining again.
"Man, I could have been at a barbeque today! Instead they want me run this baby deer around the pasture securing a Mako mine that doesn't even need to be secured! What the heck do they expect us to fight there? Abominable snowmen? At least this guy will blend in!"
The chopper touched down in front of a factory subdivision, letting the two operators out. One-and-a-half operators, by the 2nd's standards.
"Now listen, listen! Dammit, they don't pay me enough for this. We're going to go in there, do a sweep, kill a couple feral cats and come home, got it? They give me peanuts for a gear-stipend, while nobody gets paid a wage, they refuse to promote anyone from the inside and then yell at me to—"
A spear flew straight into his diaphragm. Sephiroth saw him fall in surreal slow motion. He looked up to see an amassing of Wutai troops swarming from the factory.
The sense of the world rushing up on him, his infused pupils constricted in ice terror. Sephiroth flipped into survival mode, and his sword started swinging.
Most people kill one, maybe two people their first time in battle. When the extraction team touched down in the field, they beheld one thousand bodies strewn across the ground.
They found him at the end of a bloody trail inside the factory, convulsing on the ground in mute terror. His eyes were wild and feral, pure horror gripping him in the mortified rind of psychosis his mind had fled to. As SOLDIER's filed around him, his sword tip shot out to keep them away. Inside the whirl of his mind, he was still fighting.
One SOLDIER with a Buster Sword on his back pushed his way through the crowd. He took off his helmet revealing ocean eyes on a face with a youthful glow, the kind of soft brow that didn't furrow in anger or in play. He kept his long hair pulled back with helmet-frizzed bangs that went all over the place like a catalytic explosion. While the rest of the extraction team kept hands trained on their weapons, he saw something different than they did in the slight, emaciated form trembling on the ground.
…A terrified child.
With a cocked eyebrow, he looked at the kid and half-smiled.
"Dang, you look like you just saw a ghost!" Nothing registered on the boy's contorted face as the SOLDIER crouched down to eye level. "It's alright. There aren't any ghosts here. We did a séance on the chopper flying in, black candles and everything."
He kept a cool demeanor, wafting positive energy toward the kid. Tapping the floor with his hand, he edged his way toward him, past the point of the sword and the laser-sharpened blade. Slow now, one flick of the wrist and that thing could go straight into his neck. With patience he was able to sit beside him to drape an arm over his shoulder. The kid crumbled against his chest. He set the sword aside as the lithe, small figure clawed and clung to his shirt.
"What's your name kid?" he asked like they weren't surrounded by cleaved bodies.
"S-S-S-S-Sephiroth…"
The SOLDIER smiled.
"I'm Angeal. Is this your first mission?"
"…mm-hm."
"ICE CREAM!" Angeal threw his fist in the air. It seemed to break the spell a little. "It's a tradition we have in the Unit. Whenever a rookie goes out on his first mission, we take him out for ice cream. What's your favorite flavor? Wait, let me guess, please don't say vanilla."
"What's ice cream?"
"Huh?"
Then another SOLDIER jammed a syringe of Paralyze Materia into Sephiroth's neck, while others tore Angeal off him. They strapped the boy down to a body board, black goggles over his eyes and muffs on his ears—sensory deprivation.
Angeal thrashed behind the restraining troops who managed to hold him back.
"I had him talking you bastards!"
.
[Received Dark Agent]