My first day of school came on a bright and sunny day, as bright and sunny as it ever got in Midgar, where the roiling clouds were forever hanging greenish gray in the skies, and even above the plate it felt like having a ceiling pressing down upon you.
Veld, the hapless bastard, walked me the six hundred meters between the house I was living in and the school. My luxe mansion and this school had both been build for the ultra-rich, and thus both occupied the same circle of buildings closest to the Shinra Building. Veld briefed me on my instructions as we walked.
"-in the kindergarten section three times a week. You should have no cause whatsoever to cross paths with him. If he takes an interest in you, be polite but don't encourage him. You are not to single him out. If you come across him, do not acknowledge him unless he acknowledges you first. You are not to fawn over him. You are to show deference, but no favouritism."
I hummed in acknowledgement, staring intently at the display on my PHS. Despite having a 16 segment display instead of even the most rudimentary dot matrix, it was somehow capable of receiving and displaying GPS data. More specifically, I could look up where the Turk tracker in my arm was as long as I was within Midgar. It displayed the coordinates as a grid whose divisions were based on the sectors of the plate. As far as ways to ensure a kid didn't get lost on the way to school, it was probably on the grimmer side.
"Sephiroth," Veld said.
"No, I'm listening. Don't bother Rufus. Mind my own business. Don't divulge company secrets. Don't bother Rufus. Don't mention Jenova. Don't mention where I live. Don't talk about the science department at all. Don't bother Rufus. If someone tries to kidnap me, scream and also hit the emergency button on my PHS. Don't show off my PHS. Dont bother Rufus. Oh. And don't bother Rufus."
Veld sighed.
He held out a dagger and a child sized holster for it. I hoped that someone had made that custom, because if Shinra had cause to be mass manufacturing weapons holsters in these kinds of sizes, I'd actually give up on my plans and just sprint at President Shinra with a dagger. This dagger, even.
"If someone tries to take you, defend yourself at all costs except-"
"Don't endanger Rufus, yeah, I get it." I snapped my PHS shut and stuck it in my pocket, then picked up the dagger and gave it a twirl, replicating the little flippy sequence that I'd practiced endlessly in order to be execute stylishly since I'd first been allowed practice daggers. Listen. Mind controlled unstoppable supersoldiers with longer than usual hair under the control of tentacle adjacent entities were appealing, and even though Remake Sephiroth had replaced the other guy in my esteem, the knife flippy thing was still badass as fuck.
Veld looked at me, frankly aghast.
"I know you've been taught weapons safety and handling! I had to type up your certificates into the database! Sephiroth!"
I shrugged. I stabbed the dagger back into its sheath, then strapped the thing to my thigh, where it was concealed by the long hem on the jacket of my uniform, which stretched down halfway to my knees.
I flailed my arms and wiggled about a bit to make sure it was well concealed and wouldn't hamper my movement. Then I beamed at Veld.
"Thanks Mr Veld! I'll defend the company research with my life!"
Veld looked pained, but ploughed on through.
"If you can take them, take them. Lethal force if you must. But if there's more than two of them, play dumb and try not to get yourself killed or dismembered. Someone will come for you, always, but it's up to you to make sure that you're still alive when we find you."
I looked at him. The abyss yawned beneath me, a silent shrieking. I swallowed it down with the ease of long practice.
"Can I have a gun?" I chirped, beaming extra hard.
"No!" Veld shouted almost before I finished speaking. "No," he repeated himself. "No guns."
"I bet Doctor Hojo would give me a gun if I asked," I pouted.
"No he wouldn't," Veld refuted firmly. "The licensing of firearms to non-combat personnel is under the jurisdiction of the Turks."
I looked at him doubtfully.
"That doesn't see right, but I don't know enough about the Turks to refute it," I said. I took my phone out again, navigating the limited menu to the Tracking option, then entering the number of the tracker in my necklace and my access code. The phone beeped and returned a string of numbers.
"Can the Turks access my other trackers?" I asked, gesturing expansively at my whole person. "Say, for example, in the case that I planted my necklace somewhere to leave a trail?"
"Yes, but it takes an astonishing amount of red tape, so don't count on it."
I hummed. I touched my upper arm gently. The small bump of the tracker could still be faintly detected through my shirt and thin jacket.
"Doctor Hojo's monitors give more than just positional data, you know," I said. "They use the fluids and electricity of my body for daily power, but each contain a miniature mako capsule battery in case they are removed from the body. They keep transmitting even after being removed. They're networked to each other and to a receiver and have a multitude of anti-tampering measures. They monitor my temperature, blood pressure, and various kinds of data unique to each type of tissue they are implanted within. If I have the opportunity to leave a signal somewhere before any kidnappers can find and deactivate my trackers, I am supposed to dig out the ones under my skin to start with. But these hurt a lot more being implanted than the ones you gave me so I'd really prefer it if I could start off with the necklace and the one in my armpit first. You can't use anaesthesia for most of these or the baseline doesn't calibrate right, and since they're thin and flat you have to flay open a pretty big area to get them to lay flat and attach properly."
Veld massaged the bridge of his nose. "Stop being horrible, Sephiroth," he said. "I know you're doing it on purpose. And especially don't do it in front of the children."
"But Mr Veld," I said slyly, my smile not showing even a millionth of the venom I felt, "I haven't even told you how Doctor Hojo got them into my internal organs yet."
Veld made a firm "cut it out" motion with his hands. "I really don't want to know." He glared at me, genuinely angry with me.
"It was actually just regular old keyhole surgery," I muttered petulantly. "He's not going to risk me dying of shock for a couple of stupid trackers. He doesn't deny me anaesthesia when he doesn't have to. Doctor Hojo is a competent scientist, he wouldn't do that to the pinnacle of modern scientific achievement. "
Veld continued giving me the evil eye. He knew I was backtracking on purpose to make him feel bad for making me shut up. And he knew I only picked on him because he was a soft touch. I didn't really feel that bad for taking it out on him though. He got paid to murder and/or purchase and/or steal babies on Shinra's behalf often enough. Specimen acquisition was the Turks' job.
Veld had gotten wise to my antics pretty quickly, but I guess that was because he was the first person outside of science that I saw regularly. Hmm, I guess I was being a little unfair. I'd never be this horrible to Hojo, since Hojo held the power of life and death over me.
"Oh I'm sorry," I muttered to my shoes. "I shouldn't tease you. I just got excited because you're my first friend outside of Nibelheim and the science department. I didn't know that my jokes would upset you this much, and I'm sorry that I made you feel bad."
Veld looked even more pained. He probably thought I meant it, that I thought he was my friend. Good. Stew in that, you corrupt immoral baby murdering perpetrator of Shinra hegemony.
I slipped my tiny hand into his big gun-calloused one, and we walked in stony silence the rest of the way. His hand tightened and didn't let go until we were there. He was an okay guy. When he plopped me in the solicitous clutches of the gentle fourth grade teacher and left me to the tender mercies of bratty schoolchildren, I waved goodbye to him with a genuine smile. He was still grumpy, but gave me a begrudging smile anyway. As a father, he knew the importance of the first day of school.
The first day of school was the first day of school. I gave the pre-approved responses to my classmates - I was a ward of Shinra, I didn't know who my parents were, and I was under the jurisdiction of Science because they were treating me for my rare from of albinism. My eyes were shaped like that as a result of a surgery that helped with my photosensitive eyes. I tried to not stick out. Several of the nine year olds in the class clustered around the new exciting transfer student, and the teacher encouraged them to help me get around and to hang out with me at lunch. I toned down the weird factor and the genius factor, and with all the tenderness of my heart and what little remaining genuine good will I could dredge up from the very depths of my abyssal tar-pit soul, I was polite and played nice and did my damned best to engage with the kids on their level. I tried so hard not to be off-putting and condescending that it gave me a physical headache. We were learning about adding fractions. And for reading time, we sat cross-legged on the carpet while the teacher read to us from what appeared to be this world's equivalent of James and the Giant Peach. It was a story of a kid being carried from Gongaga to Cosmo Canyon by a behemoth with reading glasses and a penchant for quaint spoonerisms.
I was picked up by Shrove, who walked me to the Shinra Building, where I ate a yogurt parfait from the Science cafeteria. I was then delivered to Hojo, who had ostensibly scheduled a checkup for today, but who probably just wanted to find out about my first day of school.
I trotted into the examination room, took off my jacket and shirt for the automatic blood pressure cuff, and started begging him to at least put me into high school before the cuff even finished inflating.
Hojo, who was typing on his computer while his latest lackey did the grunt work, sighed and removed his glasses.
"Sephiroth. Don't be childish."
"Doctor," I implored earnestly. "The class is learning about fractions. Fractions! I have been helping Ansel and Miele do statistical analysis for project S and project Y's mako exposure tests for the last seven months!"
Hojo's frown deepened.
"I will speak with Tachibana and the president about having you moved up," he said at last, saving his file and turning towards me. "But nevertheless, you are to be on your best behaviour. Your purpose there is not only to be educated. I could assign someone to see to that internally. You are there to learn how to socialise and to work with others. You will be a commander and a tactician, not just hired muscle or a simpleminded assassin. Your social intelligence is not nearly advanced as your other strengths. And the president likes to know that you are an extra layer of support for young Rufus while he's off away from the protections of the main building."
"Yes Doctor," I agreed, now that I'd gotten what I wanted. "Of course, Doctor. I always strive to better myself, as you have taught me to."
Hojo's face drew into an unpleasant smile. I'm sure his other experiments saw that smile in their nightmares. He was my biodad though, so that smile just meant that he was feeling paternal and proud of me. I tried not to shudder. Ugh.
"Now," Hojo said, "enough trivialities. Once Yeager here has finished taking your vitals, we will move on to some Reunion tests. I'm sure you've been missing your Subject Y."
"Yuuki!" I brightened. I hated seeing this Yuuki, half boy, half puppet, never all the way there, but it was whatever. If I wasn't please to see him, he'd probably never be let out of his cell at all. "He's here too! Can he come over and play with me?"
Hojo sighed. "No, Sephiroth," he said. "Project Y is in a delicate stage. He is not to venture outside of the sterile testing rooms. You will not be in the same room as him today. There will be a glass barrier between the two of you."
"Yikes," I said. A kid had said that at school today, so I felt comfortable adding it back into my vocabulary. "That sucks, Doctor. I'd guessed as much from the data, but I'd hoped it was a different project Y specimen."
Hojo shrugged. "He has served his purpose in making you stronger," he said. "His contributions to project J and project S have been invaluable."
I felt vaguely ill. He'd never made a secret of how he saw project Y, but the reminder wasn't exactly welcome. All Yuuki's suffering was to make me a better product. Most of the death and pain in Shinra Mansion had at least ostensibly been for my sake. I had spent years telling myself that it was not my fault, that I was not responsible, but I would very much benefit, when Hojo started modifying me in earnest instead of doing little tests here and there. Project S was approaching the next step in the timeline. It would start soon.
Hojo instructed me to leave my backpack - still the fat chocobo, now bulging even fatter from my books and pencil case - and to change into a paper gown, then to follow him. From one of the many boxes of half unpacked things in the office, the assistant produced my flip flops with the big letter S that I'd made out of glittery hot glue and stuck to the strap of the right sandal that I always wore for tests that needed me naked.
Hojo made a face. "I told you to get rid of those," he snapped at his hapless assistant. I flip flopped as obnoxiously as humanly possible in protest. "Sephiroth, stop that and walk properly, or I will ground you and send you to specimen holding," Hojo threatened.
Sullenly, I trundled along behind him, now utterly silent as I applied my ninja training. Specimen holding was the only thing Hojo needed to threaten me with when my daily acts of pettiness tore too far on his fraying nerves.
Specimen holding was full of abused animals and humans that made it emotionally horrible to witness, as well as full of a truly disgusting odour of unwashed creatures whose cells contained open toilets two meters from their drinking water. Hojo thought I hated staying in a specimen cell because of the squalid conditions. I mostly hated it because I had a sensitive nose and also most of the specimens were full of mako and unstable J cells, a cacophony which grated on my nerves like a thousand nails on ten thousand chalkboards. Also because of the misery and suffering. That too. Maybe there were more non-project J related specimens in the Midgar version, but I doubted it.
Neither Hojo nor I ever gave any indication this could have been a reminder that I was nothing more than a specimen. I was the specimen. My importance was assured. Entire subdivisions of Science were pulling months of consecutive overtime because Hojo was dissatisfied with the already tiny margins of error on my proposed modification plan. In a very real way, all that mako going into the hapless creatures in specimen holding was for my sake.
I gave Hojo a strained smile. Yuuki was deteriorating, whether because of genetic instability or because of some of the things they did to him for my sake, I wasn't sure. But I had to at least see him.
Hojo and I made our way to an empty room with a clear pane of glass in place of one of the walls. On the other side of the glass Yuuki was sitting in a wheelchair, looking small and thin next to the adult scientists bustling around the room in three full layers of protective equipment that made them look more like they were handling hazardous materials or nuclear waste than a little kid with tentacle legs and a sad featherless chicken wing for his left arm.
"Hi Yuuki!" I bounced over to the glass wall and pressed my hands up against it. "Hi Yuuki! Hi Yuuki!"
Yuuki perked up. "Hi Sephy," he said weakly. The system of speakers and microphones that connected the two rooms was barely sensitive enough to catch his voice. He smiled at me. When he blinked, his eyelids were slow and heavy, and he seemed to fall asleep for a brief second before he collected himself and opened his eyes again.
"How is mother, Yuuki?" I cooed at him.
"She wants... R-reunion," Yuuki said, but more life seeped into his fluttering voice. His listless gaze sharpened. "Y...you know... She is... Always calling us... Sephiroth..."
I didn't let my visceral disgust show.
"Yes, she is, isn't she?" I agreed. I stared at him intently, not daring to reach out in the limited telepathic senses I was developing. "And how are you, Yuuki? How have you been finding Midgar?"
"It's all... The same..." Yuuki answered vaguely. He'd been kept in sterile conditions in Nibelheim too, and one white square room full of machines was the same as the next, probably. One of the scientists in the room held up a beaker with a straw in it, and Yuuki obediently sipped at the murky liquid. He shivered, turning green then purple in quick succession. Then the red flush of health entered his face, and his glazed eyes sharpened.
"Ew," he complained. "Ew Ew Ew Ew Ew! Sephy! I hate it! The brown goo is always so disgusting! Come on this side and play with me! I wanna go outside! Tachi and Hojo won't give me back my Sephiroth either! This sucks!"
He sprang out of his wheelchair and pressed his face up against the glass. He huffed on the glass until it fogged, then drew an angry face on it.
'His Sephiroth' referred to a demented little doll that I had made out of hair collected from my hairbrush, which I'd sort of scrunched up again and again until they'd matted into one big loose-ish tangle, like a hair rat. It was vaguely human shaped and extremely challenging to look at. I had made it as an arts and crafts project when completing a homeschooling module on textiles and natural fibres of ancient civilizations, in a bid to disgust everyone forced to supervise me. Yuuki had taken to it immediately, and the moment I finished it he snatched it away from me.
"Sephiroth, take another step to the right," directed Hojo. I obeyed, but didn't look away from Yuuki. On his side of the room, several machine arms swivelled and whirred into place, measuring devices mounted on them and being rearranged around Yuuki like moons orbiting Jupiter.
"What is school like?" Yuuki asked me, a look of longing on his angular face.
"School sucks," I answered. "We are learning how to add fractions. It is a nightmare. All the children are nightmares. I'm sure you'd love it."
He scowled at me. "When I get out of here, I'm going to join your class, then tell everyone at your stupid school about how stupid you really are, Sephy. You can't fool me. You just want to keep the fun all for yourself."
I softened and smiled at him. "When you're out of here, I'm making you come with me, whether Tachi approves or not. I'm not letting you leave me alone to suffer in that stupid place alone, Yuuki, and I need company that isn't one of those drooling imbeciles."
"Thirty," called one of the suited scientists on Yuuki's side of the screen.
"Alpha phase seven, beta phase two point eight," answered the assistant on my side of the barrier.
"Initiating in three, two, one," one of the hazmat suit dudes fired off a machine that allegedly could capture the flow of psychic data from one telepathic individual to another.
"When I'm in a healthier body," Yuuki said, "I hope Tachi won't make my drink the brown goo anymore. It sucks."
The temporary vitality of whatever unholy mixture the scientists had given Yuuki was fading fast. I could feel his body consuming the vitality of the S cells in that disgusting mixture.
"He's flagging," shouted the scientist monitoring Yuuki's vitals. "Wait! His heart rate and his blood oxygen are-"
"Hurry up, Corin!" Hojo thundered. He elbowed his assistant aside.
"Alpha phase twelve, beta phase sixteen point five!" Corin shouted on Yuuki's side of the glass.
"Three, two one!" Hojo slammed his palm onto the big green button of the machine he was operating and fire off a blinding blast of white light. I was blinded by the glare, but I could hear the shriek of machinery and the screaming of Yuuki's various monitors. I blinked my eyes furiously, trying to recover my sight. Through my watering eyes, I could make out the blurry outline of Yuuki slumped down in his wheelchair. His hair was standing on end, and something was tugging against the back of his hospital gown.
"The readings came out clear, start stabilising him," Hojo ordered, speaking calmly now that he'd gotten his results.
Just as Hojo finished speaking, a huge mass of feathers exploded from Yuuki's back. His left arm, which had previously been a sad featherless chicken wing of a limb, was now sporting a full coat of luxurious feathers, black mottled with occasional streaks of white. The riot of feathers in his back resolved into five more wings, each of them a different shade of muddy gray. His tentacle legs melted away and turned into yet more wings, these ones full of white downy feathers that made him look like he was wearing a fluffy miniskirt. His cat slit eyes, usually red, turned green and started weeping mako.
He screamed, a horrible choked wheezing sound that was barely audible over the rest of the cacophony, and fell limp. The machines' rhythmic shrieking fell into the unwavering note of a flatline.
Hojo clicked his teeth in irritation.
"Sephiroth, go home and do your homework," he said. "Come back in two days and we will continue testing with the next Subject Y."
"Yes, Doctor," I said, and stumbled out the door. I changed, picked up dinner from the Science cafeteria, went home, did my homework, and did not sleep that night.
So much for the first day of school, I guess.