OMG guys! Chapter 30! I never expected we would ever make it this far. But here we are! Thank you ALL so much for the support so far. We love seeing your reviews and everything. It means a lot to us.

Ch. 30

"You of course know of our number one 1st class SOLDIER, Sephiroth," Lazard said to Cloud as the tall man walked into the room.

Cloud could not take his eyes off Sephiroth, nor could he even find any words to say. He couldn't even move from his spot that he stood. He had always heard about Sephiroth all the time, but he had never seen him once before. Not at least… until now. Being in the same room as the famous man brought a different atmosphere. It felt almost colder than before as he saw Sephiroth eye him carefully.

Once again Cloud felt that slight tugging in the back of his head. Now seeing Sephiroth in person, there was clearly something about him that his mind wanted to tell him. Yet nothing came to him, and he continued to stare there like a statue. He could almost feel the blood draining from his face as he kept staring, almost unblinking, at Sephiroth.

Thankfully Lazard clearing his throat was enough to snap Cloud back into reality. "Cloud… Are you all right there?"

"Y-Yeah," Cloud said as she quickly shook his head, trying to gather his thoughts. "I just didn't expect it… I mean I didn't know that…"

"You did not expect, that out of all the 1st class, for it to be me, correct?" Sephiroth asked in a matter of fact tone.

"Oh uh… n-no. Erm… No sir I mean," Cloud replied quickly.

Sephiroth rolled his eyes a little. "You do not have to be formal with me. There is no need to refer to me as 'sir'."

"Oh okay," Cloud replied meekly gulping slightly, hoping he had not upset Sephiroth. At least now he knew what everyone was talking about. Just his mere calm and collected presence was extremely intimidating.

"Now that you two have met, I can let Sephiroth take it into his owns hands," Lazard said as he gestured to the 1st class. "Though you still will go on some missions, most of your days will be spend training under Sephiroth. He has the say in what most your days will be like, understood?"

Cloud opened his mouth to reply but, combined with his heart now pounding and feeling the cold gaze from Sephiroth, he found he had no voice to speak. So he closed his mouth, stood up straight, and nodded at Lazard. He then slowly directed his gaze back to Sephiroth. He could feel his body becoming tense, but he tried to take in deep breaths to calm himself down. He knew Sephiroth was intimidating, as he had heard the stories of the man being very unapproachable, but also Shinra's greatest SOLDIER. But that wasn't the main thing that bothered Cloud. For some reason there was this strange feeling Cloud couldn't explain to himself. He couldn't understand why, but he felt rather apprehensive next to Sephiroth without even having seen him in person before.

"If there is nothing more that you need from us, then we shall go," Sephiroth said as he turned to head out the door.

Cloud stood there though, watching Sephiroth exit the room, but before the man could he stopped. He turned around and glanced over to Cloud. "Are you going to follow or not?"

"Uh, yeah, sure thing," Cloud replied hesitantly as he then proceeded to follow behind the legendary man. He really was unsure what was going to happen now, but that uneasy feeling just would not go away. What could be causing it?

The two of them walked quietly down the hall. Cloud trailed behind Sephiroth as he lead the way. Cloud kept wanting to glance at Sephiroth, but each time he did he ducked his head back down. He knew it was foolish to do so. He was only looking at the back of Sephiroth and it wasn't like Sephiroth could see that. He didn't have eyes on the back of his head after all. But there was still that uncertainty and nervousness in his gut. That strange feeling he couldn't shake off. He tried to breathe deeply though. As much as he felt unnerved by Sephiroth, he had to try and overcome it. That was what he knew he had to do. He was working hard to improve himself so he couldn't let it all fall away cause he was supposedly afraid of Sephiroth.

"Now that you are under my tutelage, I feel that we should start by testing your strengths. I've seen the records of how you perform, but I wish to see it personally."

Cloud was suddenly snapped out of his thoughts as he turned his head up towards Sephiroth. He breathed in one good time to try to gather his words.

"Okay then, we can do that. Training is something I usually enjoy anyways, so I am ready to try to prove myself." His voice sounded confident, though he knew that some of it was forced; however, in his mind, the same nervousness lingered. Was he truly ready for this training? He had done it before but this was with Sephiroth. He was worried that he would disappoint but tried to not show that.

"I applaud your determination, but do not become overconfident. Now that I will be the one instructing your training, do not expect any of it to be easy. It will not be as simple as you've done before, I can assure you that," Sephiroth stated in a cold and dry tone, not once glancing back at Cloud as they neared the elevators.

Once they were in the elevator, the ride down was awkward with Sephiroth as the two of them were eclipsed in silence the entire time. Cloud thought to himself as they were on the way down. "I really hope the elevator doesn't mess up like it did that one time… " He then thought back quite a few months back. "Marcus was right, it ended up being awkward being stuck in an elevator with this man."

Thankfully the elevator came to a stop and opened up on the correct floor. Cloud breathed a heavy sigh of relief once he was out of the there. Even thought it was less than a minute, he had never felt more awkward in all of his life. He swore that he was going to get claustrophobic if he had stayed there any longer with Sephiroth looming above him.

As they both exited from the small metal box, Cloud did wonder what kind of training they were going to be doing. There was only one way to find out too. "So, uh… what are we going to be doing for the training? Exactly."

"You will be set up in one of the higher level simulations of my choice, so I may see how well you can handle it," Sephiroth replied simply, saying not a word more.

The two of them then reached one of the simulation training rooms. They entered inside and Cloud glanced around. He had been in the training rooms before, but never had actually done a true simulation training session. He had always just trained with Zack so they only set it up as a environmental simulation. They did not have the authority to set up actual training simulations anyways.

But now he stood there waiting to see what would happen. As he did Sephiroth came up to him and handed him a pair of large, strange goggles. The simulation goggles. That way all he would be seeing would be the simulation that Sephiroth would set up.

That was another thing Cloud began to wonder about. Just how tough was it going to be? He had been in here doing simulations a couple of times before, like when Zack would sneak him in. But neither of them would ever get overworked while training. This, however, felt different than those times though. After mulling things over in his head, Cloud figured he was going to be in for a rough ride.

Right after he was able to get the simulation goggles on with the headpiece, he decided it would be best to take out his sword too. Cloud was still slightly anxious about the simulation still, but he readied himself the best that he could. "So, when are we going to begin?"

"In one moment. Please prepare yourself in whatever way you know how. The simulation will begin and I will evaluate you as you proceed."

Cloud really didn't know what he would do to prepare himself, but the only thing he knew he needed to do was to try to calm himself more. He closed his eyes and slowly breathed in and out, making sure to attempt to clear his mind. As he was relaxing, that familiar cold voice broke through his concentration.

Sephiroth smiled almost coldly. "Okay, you've had the time. Now, prepare yourself. Let's see if you're really SOLDIER material."

The simulation started up and Cloud found himself to be in a town. He seemed to be in what he could only assume would be the center of the town. There was a large fountain that was in front of him, and then in either nautical direction was a road that led straight down, with wooden houses and buildings of different shapes and sizes lining the sides. In the distance, there appeared to be some taller, metal-looking buildings that decorated the horizon; so, it must have been some sort of more modern city, almost like Midgar, but just a bit different.

It surely wasn't any town he really knew, but he knew that was part of the simulation. To be honest, he had no idea what he was supposed to be doing now that he was there, but his assumption was that he would receive some kind of orders on what to do just like he always had. So he decided he should wait until that happened.

"You will be encountering some monsters with in this simulation. Deal with them however you can, and take as much time as you need."

"Wait I'm just on my own here? What about telling what I am up against?" Cloud asked, only feeling half surprised by Sephiroth's comment.

"That is the purpose of this. Without help I wish to see how well you fair against a challenge such as this. So now proceed forward until you encounter your first obstacle."

Cloud did not respond as he felt like that there would be no need. He had a feeling that Sephiroth was not going to allow him to back down anyways. With that now in his mind, he began to proceed through the simulated town, keeping his eyes and ears sharp for anything that could try and get the jump on him.

He decided to walk down the road that going towards the massive skyline of buildings, thinking that would most likely be where he would end up needing to be. As he traveled down the singular pathway, he started to think.

"I wonder if Zack had to go through anything like this with his mentor? Or maybe this is just how Sephiroth does things. I mean, after all he is the general and the most famous and powerful SOLDIER… so what did he see in me then that wasn't seen in Zack? Zack is much better suited for these things than I. I don't know… Everytime I think of that silver-haired man, I just get this feeling. Like I already know how he is, or what to expect. Like I know I've never met him before, but it's like I-"

His thoughts were cut off abruptly as he heard a crashing sound and began to look around. Then, something large collided with his side, knocking him into one of the buildings for a moment.

"You're too distracted. Get your head out of the clouds and focus. You're on a mission, not a leisure expedition."

Sephiroth's cold voice echoed those words as Cloud wondered where it had come from, but he soon found that there was a listening device on his person through which the man was communicating with him. Which meant of course, that Sephiroth would be able to hear everything that was going on at least. But, the question Cloud wondered briefly was how did he know that he was distracted?

He had no time to answer that question or even ponder it for any longer as a large, wolf-like beast was staring at him, having crashed through one of the buildings. It must have been what knocked him away earlier. The creature allowed him time to raise himself back up to his feet as it bared its fangs at him. As soon as Cloud was up, he placed his sword in an attack position out in front of him and the creature charged.

After a few minutes of fighting though, Cloud had defeated the beast, suffering no injuries, save for the bit of bruising that happened from earlier. "Well, at least that wasn't too bad."

"Don't relax now," Sephiroth cut in over the radio. "You still have much more to go. The further you go, they will get tougher. There is a ranking system by which I measure their strength. There are classes: S, A, B, C. There are lower ones, but they are not included in this simulation. What you just fought was only a C rank, so be prepared for more trouble later. Don't disappoint me," his cold voice finished, a hint of definiteness in his voice.

"O-Okay," Cloud replied before he moved forward, ready to see what other challenges awaited.

Cloud, now a 2nd class, is being mentored by Sephiroth. And Sephiroth's training isn't an easy picnic. We all know that it can't be that easy.

But that is all for next time! Thanks again for reading!