Chapter 5 is here! Thank you to everyone who has been reading our story here. We hope you are enjoying it!

Ch.5

A little over a year had passed since Cloud had become apart of the Fair family, but it felt like hardly any time at all. Though not much had changed besides both of the boys growing a little. Cloud of course though still followed Zack around everywhere, always wanting to stick close to him whenever he could. The two were practically inseparable. Everyone in the village always said how they were the cutest and sweetest brothers around.

Though the hardest parts of any day was going to school. At first it was pretty hard for Cloud, to watch Zack go off to school each day and then wait for him to come home. But he easily got use to it and the days went on as normally after that. But now Cloud was now 6-years-old, which meant he was old enough to attend school. The only downside that he saw was that for most of the school day, he didn't get to see Zack.

Since Zack was two years older than him, that meant he was also two grade levels above him. There were only two to three kids per grade level, out of nearly twenty kids total. However, despite the small numbers, the classes were still split accordingly to accommodate for the variations in learning from kids of differing ages.

The school was compact in its setting, though it was held inside a larger building near the center of the town. Upon reaching the structure, anyone could tell that it was unlike any of the other buildings in the village. Instead of the normal single cylindrical wall all of the houses possessed, this building had four walls, which were actually made from the same material as the other houses and sported the same color. The roof angled upward and ended in a single point, and instead of a blue color, the roof area was solid white, which was most likely to distinguish it from the rest of the buildings.

The end of the school day was drawing near though. It would only be a far more minutes before the children were released for the day to go home and have fun. Cloud sat in his seat quietly as the teacher was wrapping up the lesson. His legs swung back and forth in the chair he sat in as his feet couldn't reach the floor yet.

Every few seconds Cloud would glance up at the clock in the room, watching the second hand slowly tick by. Cloud tried his best to still listen to the teacher though. He didn't want to be scolded again for not paying attention in class. Cloud sigh as he looked back at the teacher in the front of the room. She was just explaining the last few points of the day's lesson when the bell finally rang.

As soon as the teacher said goodbye to the class Cloud grabbed his bag and headed out of the door. He ran outside and stood in front of the school as he watched the other kids exit out soon after him. Within less than a minute Zack came out of the door and ran right up to Cloud.

Before Zack could do or say anything though Cloud threw his arms around him. "Hi Zack! I missed you."

Zack laughed as he returned the hug. "You say that everyday."

Cloud smiled as he looked up at Zack. "I know. But I do really miss seeing you when we're in class."

"Haha. We've been over this every day since you started. We have to have classes like that. When I started my second year of school last year, I didn't like being away from you either. I still don't, but it's not too bad once you get used to it. Look at me. I did it," Zack said proudly, pointing at himself and giving a grin.

Cloud continued to hold his smile as he let go of Zack. "Okay Zack! I'll try to be more like you! I can do it!"

Zack grinned back at Cloud as he patted his head. "Yeah! You're my brother after all. Just do what I do and you'll be okay. You can be strong."

They each stood there for a moment before they decided that they should start to head home. Luckily, it wasn't too far away for them. The boys were resolved with Cloud trying to better himself as they happily walked side by side on the path to their house. The house was not too far from the school, but on the way, there was a path that forked to the right that led up to the Mako reactor they had visited when Cloud first arrived.

As Zack and Cloud passed near that turn, something on that road caught Cloud's eye as he turned away from Zack to look. Zack stopped walking and looked down the path. His eyes light up with surprise and wonder. It wasn't too often that there was people actively walking around it. The longer Zack stared and looked though, he saw that the people there were far from just ordinary village folk.

"Hey Cloud," Zack said in a more hushed tone, "Let's go check those guys out. I've never seen anything like them in the village before."

Cloud looked for a second as he wondered if it was okay to go. "But, shouldn't we be getting home Zack?"

"Well yeah, but it's just a quick detour. We'll be back before it's nighttime. Come on," he insisted as he held Cloud's hand tighter. "I'll be here so you don't have to worry."

Cloud pondered it for another moment, but he figured that if Zack was going to be with him, then it would be okay. After all, Zack did just tell him a short while ago to follow him and do what he does. Cloud then nodded and allowed Zack to string him along as they started to move slowly and carefully towards the mysterious people. Upon getting closer, the boys were finally able to see what the people looked like.

There appeared to be a varying amount of appearances among the people that were approaching the Mako reactor, and their uniforms resembled that of soldiers. Zack counted about eight people in total, though they were of varying colors and slightly different designs.

Four of the soldiers were wearing navy blue sleeved tunics combined with the same color of baggy pants. Stretching from the top of the shoulders to the waist area was what appeared to be brown shoulder holsters that then attached to similar colored belt that wrapped around the tunic. They also wore brown gloves, which appeared to be made of leather as did the other brown accessories. Metal spaulders adorned their shoulders and metal knee guards were positioned around the knees, and just below that they wore brown boots that were laced around the pants. Looking back up, their faces were mostly hidden by a metal helmet that wrapped around the head and had two red dots in a triangular pattern on it. They seemed quite impressive.

The others uniforms seemed similar, but had different, more simplistic designs. They each wore the same baggy pants, but the tunic for these appeared to be a sleeveless, skin-tight sweater almost with a collar around the neck. Two of the uniforms were navy blue, and the other two were a burgundy red color. They also were sporting the same brown shoulder holsters, but what they attached to was a larger brown belt that sat just above the waist of the pants. Below that belt was the actual belts for the pants, which appeared to be black in color. They wore the same metal spaulders, but they had no knee guards. The brown boots were larger as the pants were tucked into them on those people. They also wore metal helmets, though they were different in appearance and were an odd shape.

Zack and Cloud stood in awe as they watched the soldiers get to work. Zack wanted to get closer to them, however, so he tried to slowly move as to not make too much noise, or they would be found out. After a few minutes of sneaking, Cloud ended up not paying attention as he accidentally kicked up some rocks, causing a small sound to be heard. They both froze as they saw a couple of the soldiers turn toward the noise and land their eyes squarely on them. It was the smallest of sounds, yet somehow these guys had heard them.

"Hey! What are you two doing here? You children should not be playing near the reactor," one of the men stated sharply.

Cloud scooted back and hid behind Zack, clinging tightly to his shirt. Zack looked down at Cloud and placed a hand on top of his head. He tried his best to calm his brother down with a smile.

"Hey Cloud, don't be scared too much," Zack said reassuringly. "I'm sure they won't hurt us. But I am curious though about all this. Do you wanna just stay here or something?" he asked of his brother as he looked down at him and waited for a response.

"I'll stay with you Zack," Cloud replied quietly.

Zack nodded at Cloud as he looked back up at the soldier that had yelled after them and he started to move a bit closer. "I know but I saw you strange guys and all. I've never seen you around the village before. Who are you anyways?" he said in a loud voice towards the group of men.

The few men near them looked at one another and then at the children. "You mean you haven't heard of Shinra and SOLDIER?"

Zack tilted his head to the side. "Well I figured you guys were soldiers of some kind. And I've heard Shinra too. But what do you mean by SOLDIER?" he asked more curious than before.

One of the men in the blue with the red, triangular-dotted helmet spoke up. "SOLDIER is the elite fighting force for Shinra. We handle all the big jobs, even things like this," he stated with a small smirk coming to his face as he tried to look impressive.

Before Zack had a chance to speak, another man in the burgundy outfit with the oddly-shaped helmet spoke up from behind the other man. "What are you talking about? You're not even SOLDIER. You're just a simple infantryman. Stop trying to impress these kids and get back to work," he spoke in sharp tone, making his superiority over the others apparent.

Zack wanted to snicker slightly at the comment that was made but decided against it. He was intrigued by what was said though. "Wow that sounds really cool. So you guys help people and all then?"

"That's none of your business. Now you two kids get of here and let us do our job," the rude one from before said.

Zack felt Cloud's grip tighten on his shirt. "Zack… Can we go now? I don't wanna be here anymore…"

Zack glanced down at Cloud, who looked to be starting to shake slightly. He wondered if it was the soldier's words that had scared him, or if it was something else entirely. "What is it Cloud? Was it something about the soldiers? You can tell me," Zack suggested sincerely to his brother.

Cloud became lost in his thoughts for what seemed like a eternity as what seemed to be pieces of memories started to enter his mind. The words "SOLDIER" and "Shinra" seemed so familiar, but he did not ever remember hearing of them before since Zack didn't even know. Also, there was something about the way that the one called an infantryman appeared, but Cloud could not quite think clearly on the matter. When he did, his head began to hurt again.

Cloud managed though to shake his head back and forth. "No. I just wanna go. My head hurts…"

Zack looked mildly worried at what Cloud had just told him. He took his eyes off of Cloud to glance up at the soldiers, including the one in front that had just yelled at them, and then he darted his eyes back down to Cloud. After a couple of times doing this, Zack finally settled on what they needed to do.

"Okay Cloud. We'll go toward the house. Come on," Zack said lightly as he took Cloud by the hand once more and turned around, not looking back at the soldiers again as the two boys strolled back towards the initial fork in the road in order to make their way home.

As they walked back Cloud gripped his head with one hand and held Zack's with the other. The pain still wasn't going away. Cloud tried to rub his forehead, hoping that would help, but it had no affect. Cloud closed his eyes and something flashed through his mind.

"SOLDIER is like a den of monsters. Don't go inside."

The words echoed deeply in his head. That voice… it was familiar to Cloud. He knew that voice… it sounded so familiar but he couldn't place his finger on it. Though as he thought over the words he shuddered slightly and clung to Zack's side. Whomever said it to him did not seem very happen about SOLDIER.

"I don't like those guys…" Cloud muttered quietly.

Zack spoke up as he was pondering Cloud's response. "Why not? They didn't seem too bad, except for that one rude guy. They seemed like they were trying to help...in a way."

"They're scary though… their faces were covered by those weird helmets," Cloud replied.

Zack raised his head in thought for a moment. He liked hearing about SOLDIER and what they seemed to do, but he did not like that it scared Cloud. He thought carefully over his next words. "Maybe you can try to just ignore them for now. We don't have to see them again, okay?"

"But… but…" Cloud started to say. He wanted to tell Zack what he remembered. What the voice he had heard had said. But when he tried to remember the exact words, it wasn't coming to mind anymore. Cloud frowned as whatever it was he had remembered was gone just as fast. Though there was only one part of it that still seemed to linger. "What if… What if they are monsters though? We can't see their faces and… and…"

Zack thought of something upon hearing the way Cloud sounded and what had just happened to him. He stopped walking as they reached the fork in the road. He turned back towards Cloud to be able to look at him directly. "Was it something that you remembered? Like last time? You know you can tell me," Zack said with reassurance before he continued. But...I don't think they're monsters. They didn't look like monsters at least. You can trust me on anything."

"I… I don't know. I thought I did. Something someone said, but I can't remember now," Cloud said as he let out a sigh. He then looked up at Zack though. "Thank you Zack. I'll try to believe you, maybe I just imagined it." Cloud then wrapped his arms around Zack and gave him a hug.

Zack returned the hug to his brother. "You're welcome. I'm sure you'll remember it though. Let's just head home now. I hope mom is not worried too much," he said as he scratched his head slightly.

Just as they started walking Cloud pulled on Zack's shirt. "Hey Zack. Can you give me a piggyback ride back home?"

Zack stared at Cloud for a moment before a smile came to his face. "Of course! Come on, hop on then," he said to Cloud as he slightly bent down enough for Cloud to climb onto his back. Cloud giggled happily as he climbed on and held on tightly as Zack stood back up and they started on their way home.

Finally getting into some more interesting stuff. Hmm poor Cloud is remembering somethings but doesn't know what they mean.

Well anyways, thank you all for reading and see you next chapter!