They were at the training arena so early that they had to light up the space with the feild lights. This was too early for some of the soldiers in training that they appeared to be falling asleep. Zack was happy as ever,but Eli was grumpy and tried to sleep as he stood their waiting for their Leader to come.
They waited there for nearly a half an hour.Many of them were complaining,shouting out stuff like' If we have to be here EXACTLY one time, then why isn't he?' All were getting restless,handsome sat down,or went back to sleep. Not Cloud.He was thinking about how great it was to have the great sephiroth as his teacher to be in SOLDIER. He imagined all the talented swordmanship he would achieve, and all the skills. As he glanced around, he only wished his teammates would realize how lucky they were.
" Why are ya so happy fer kid?" Karl asked, since he could not sleep.
"HUH?Oh, i am just excited to begin training, that's all" he said.
" Yeah, if he even shows!" Eli said as he mocked their leader.
" I am sure he will show,"
Zack said, who was clearly the optimistic
one. He had remained standing waiting patiently just as Cloud was.
"Yeah," Travis said, "Just
as soon as he pulls himself away from his mirror." All followed in
with a burst of laughter as they mocked Seph, except for Cloud and Zack. They were so busy laughing that they didn't notice the tall man approach.Zack
and Cloud did,but they saw him put his finger to his lips to keep quiet. All that was heard was a very slight bring as he withdrew his sword. faster then the eye can see, he swished it down an cut the ponytail of
Travis. The look on his face was priceless. The laughter instantaneously
stopped, and his Cheshire cat grin slacked, his eyes shot open in surprise,
and he remained completely still. He knew instantaneous who it was. His cheeks reddened as he blushed at his mocking actions. He feared
for his life,and prayed that it would be spared.
"Get up,"the silvered-haired
man said. Travis got up, carefully not to get cut by his sword. "Patience is one skill a fighter must have. Its a quality that shows
strength and determination that one must learn to control. Needles
to say, you failed today's lesson. Now,since you seem so eager to
start a fight, I'll give you one," sephiroth said, as he drew his
sword away and walked into the battle area. He turned back and said
to his challenger" Get your weapon. Choose a sword from the equipment shed and enter when you are ready." He descended into the arena.
Travis was sweating from
being so nervous. All looked at him with sympathy. They were
all happy that he was the one that ended up getting caught. He slowly walked
over tothe equipment shed and looked over the selection of swords he had
to choose from. There were many variations to pick from, but he chose
one that was similar to the one he used to have. It was a broad sword
that was medium in length. He then walked into the field and dreaded
his upcoming battle.
Pressure built up as he walked over to his starting point and stood across from his skilled challenger. He looked into the eyes of his opponent and was struck with fear. sephiroth stood there, glaring at him with his glowing eyes, sword drawn and ready. Travis could just barely gulp and get in his ready position. When both were ready, the game began as the signal went off. Travis wanted to prove that even if he was frightened with the soldier's previous actions that he was capable of winning this battle. He took the opportunity to make the first attack. He ran towards his opponent, brought up his sword,and sliced it down toward the shoulder. Within seconds of impact, sephiroth returned his actions by successfully blocking Travis' attack. The strength behind the older soldier's swing made Travis sun a llitle and loss control.
"Come at me again,"
Different variations of this happened again. Travis soon just kept going at him in his attempts to win. sephiroth never stabbed at him,he just defensively blocked his opponents swings. The audience pondered why he didn't. Cloud knew if sephiroth let loose his power with his sword Travis would not be in anymore. Instead, sephiroth studied the pattern and the style that his opponent fought with. The new recruit's skill with the sword was sloppy. Twenty minutes went by. Travis was in still only because the teacher was letting him stay in. Finally, Seph decided he had enough,and was going to end this. With a few quick swings of his sword, Travis's sword went flying and he was lying on the ground with his face staring at the point of the winner's sword.
sephiroth walked out of the arena and toward his students. Travis got up, and grabbed his sword, and headed back too. "By following the path Travis did, the path of acting first before thinking, is like choosing to fight blind. You will enter with only what you know,and leave the same way . You will never learn by doing so. Over time,and my training, you will learn to be patient, and how to use it." Sephiroth put back in his sword and looked over at Travis, who was very upset that he lost. Seph said to himself,this boy has a lot to learn.
"Man,how do you know?" Travis asked scornfully.
"Do you know who I am?" Seph asked. Travis did know, but chose not to say anything. He just gave off an evil look and looked down at his feet. "I have fought in many battles. I know how you feel with wanting to be so gung-ho. But one of the most vulnerable thing about a new fighter is the fact that they do not know anything about their opponent. Nor do they attempt to try..."
" What? We suppos'd ta ask them about themselves?" Karl interupted.
"No." Seph said slightly agitated. "If you let me finish, you will find out? No more interruptions, by anyone, no matter what." All agreed.
"Good. For those of you who do know who I am, you knew I could have taken him but sooner than I did. Why didn't I? Because I was studying him. Getting to know his technique of sword skill. Through patience, I learned what he knew, and I was able to make a very accurate attack on him. That is what I want you to learn today, or at least work on. Pair of into groups of two. Grab a sword, and practice this with each other. I will be watching you from here."
With the lecture ending, the students stretched, walked over to the weapons, and then then out in the field. Two by Two, people were starting to match up. Mark and Karl were a group, Zack and Cloud were one, and Eli was stuck with Travis. All were practicing, making swings that were in between sucky and decent.
Cloud stood ready waiting. Zack made the first swing. He was swift and had good strength. Blondy blocked him tho, and gave him one back. Many trials and errors were made, but both were open to learning something knew. About and hour passed, and all were getting tired. Many had put up good fights, taking the opportunity to learn new skills through each other. Seph walked into the arena and told them all to stop. " Enough. You all did ok for your first battle practice. Now it is time to move on. Follow me." He lead them into a building that was just over the hill. Once everybody was inside, He gave them their orders. " I want this place to be clean by lunchtime. You have three hours." He then walked but the door.
" Geez, what does this have to do with wanting to be in SOLDIER?" Mark said as he kicked at some scrap metal.
" Looks like this place hasn't been cleaned fer years," Karl added in. No one knew where to start. The place was so big,and so much junk was laying around. They decided to break of into different sections and start cleaning there. Two groups of three were made and they started on different sides of the building. Dust went everywhere as rags were moved over the surface to clean then up.
Meanwhile, Seph wondered around outside. He hated training the new recruits. Some of the previous ones were so stubborn and angry. Shinra always managed to place him in it tho. He guessed it was his superior mastery of SOLDIER. He sat down at what he called his thinking log. It was his favorite place to go when he wanted to be alone, and to think. He rested back on a tree and closed his eyes. His mind wandered to his usual questions. He wondered about his childhood. He couldn't bring much up, just a few bits and pieces.
Walking into a big room, the young boy gazed up at all the big machinery. They were so enormous to him. Many people with white lab jackets on were hustling about their jobs like a bunch of bee's tending the hive. A few bumped into him, but mostly just ignored him as if he wasn't even there. He managed to find the man he was after , and he gave a slight tug on his lab jacket. He turned around and looked at the silver-headed boy.
"when can I see my mommy?"
" Not today, " said Hojo in a nonconforming voice. " She is very busy today, ok?"
"k" the boy said as he turned around to leave. Except that he was not ok. He wanted to see his mother, but this man never let him. He went to turn around, but he was awaken by a voice.
"Excuse me," a girl said. She had a worried voice in her speech. " I am lost, I wondered away, and I have no clue where I am." She just stared waiting for him to reply. Seph shrugged.
" What do you want me to do about it?"
The girl was shocked at his reaction. "Well, can you at least point me in the right direction to get me back home?"
sephiroth sighed as he asked
" Where do you live?" She told him where the town was. "How
did you manage to get all the way out here?"
"I was shopping in the square
this morning, and I got separated from my mom. I love nature, so
I walked about around here, but I got terribly lost."
Lost from her mother, Seph thought, how tragic. Well, he would be nice and at least try to get her back to her mom unlike Hojo never did for him. He stood up, stretched out and started beckoning the girl to follow. He led her down a path that went through the woods. They were so quiet that he wondered if he lost her. Taking a glance back, he noted that she was still there. He couldn't help but notice how the slight wind made her long brown hair flow so pretty. She glanced up and caught him staring at her. He saw that it made her uncomfortable, so he looked away.
" What's your name?" she asked him sweetly.
" sephiroth."
She waited for him to ask for hers, but she realized by the silence that he wasn't. Mine is Aires, if you were wondering..." She said back to him. Silence followed. "What were you doing out here?"
Mindless chit-chat. He was never a big talker. But he didn't want to sound rude so he spoke up. "I work at the SOLDIER recruit."
" You didn't seem hard at work to me..."
"I was on a break," sephiroth replied interrupting her.
" Oh," was the only thing she replied, feeling slightly hurt at the hostility the older man replied in. sephiroth realized he was to harsh sounding, so he tried again.
" I assigned a job to my unit, and I just have to wait for them to finish. I just wanted to go some where to relax."
"Yeah, it i beautiful out here," Aires replied.
They walked for abut 20 minutes and they came to the market place. People were scattered all around, shopping like crazy. Wives dragged their husbands around to do all the bag caring. " Where did you loose your mom at?" Seph questioned the girl.
The last time I remember..."
"Aires!!" some woman shouted. They both located her. She was waving her hands like she was chasing off a swarm of bees. "I'll be right there!" the girl shouted back. " Thank you for helping me"
" No problem," he replied. She handed him a flower that she must have picked on the way back.
"See ya later!" she shouted back as she waved. Seph sensed something unique about this girl, but he couldn't quiet figure it out and he caught;himself waving back. He watched her go until she reached her mother. Turning around to head back,he thought to himself what a pretty girl Aires was. He soon swept that from his mind since he had training to do.
He arrived back just in time to go see how his cadets were doing. They were about halfway done. When the troop saw that he had entered and they were not done yet, some rushed in fear, and others just stopped and stared. " Good enough for now. It is twelve noon now, you have until 2 for lunch. You have to report tothe main hall to hear Rufus' speech."
A sigh of relief came from all the trainees. Lunch at last! They threw down the rags and headed to the mess hall. The lines were average, and it took them ten minutes to get their food and sit down. They started to shovel the food in, but when they actually tasted it, the slowed down.
" Yuck!! This is worse than high school food!" Eli said as he put down his silverware and washed the food down with his soda.
" They sure zipped us on food too," Mark said as he forced the whatever the food was supposed to be down.
"So what did you guys think of training today?" Zack asked.
"eh....it was ok," replied Karl. " the first day always sucks. You have to get the routine down to get used to it." Travis just grumbled in between his chewing.
" I learned a lot today," stated Cloud. "We are so lucky to have him as an instructor."
" Yeah, sure.." said Travis bitterly. " Real lucky. These other guys don't even look worn out."
" Ach! Yer just bitter 'cause
you got beaten'. Not so good are ya, hot shot!" Karl teased as he chewed
with his mouth open.
Cloud yawned. " Man,
I am so tired.
" Gettin' up at the butt crack of dawn will do that to ya," Mark said as he yawned too."
" Don't yawn," Zack said. "its contagious." He then let out a yawn after trying to hold it back .
" I think I am gonna go outside to nap, maybe" Cloud said as he started to get up. " If I am not there for the meeting, some one come get me?"
" Sure," said Eli. " If we remember."
Cloud left and went outside. Most of the other people were heading to all sorts of places for their
two hour break. Some decided to play some games like dodge ball,
or soccer, but Cloud was to worn out to do that. He picked a shaded
tree to lay underneath. Zack soon joined him.
" Do you think Travis is
going to make it?"
"Huh?" Cloud replied, opening his eyes to see who it was.
" Travis doesn't seem to be taking this training well. Do you think he will get into SOLDIER?"
" Oh, I dunno." Cloud said as he sat up. " Man, I would have loved to have the chance to practice against sephiroth like he did."
" Yeah, it would be a great learning experience. Though I would not like to have it under the conditions he had. He had it rough. But did you see his face?"
" Yeah," Cloud replied. " That was so funny! I wish I had a camera.
" I wonder what he does during the break." Zack said.
" Who, Travis?" questioned Cloud. " He is over there pegging people with balls."
" No," Zack said. " Seph. He had three hours. He seems so moody. But he didn't yell when we didn't get the room cleaned."
" He couldn't have possibly expected us to get it all done. It was too big, it would have been impossible."
" Look," Zack said as he pointed. "There he is now." Cloud looked and saw him walking out of his quarters. " I am gonna go talk to him."
" You'll probably piss him off," Cloud said.
" So, then he will challenge
me to a fight..." Zack said as he got up and started to walk towards him. Cloud just sat there watching.
About halfway they met. All Cloud could make out were hand gestures. He couldn't hear anything
for he was too far away.
"So do you have any idea what this lecture Rufus is gonna give us?" Zack questioned.
"No."
" Are you forced to go?"
"Yes."
Slightly erked at his one worded answers, Zack scratched his head.
"What?"
"Huh?" Zack said back kinda dumbly.
" You look as if you want to say something."
Zack looked down and kicked the dirt slightly. " Yeah..." Zack kinda whined that last part out.
"..." Seph waited for his SOLDIER in training to speak out.
" Well.." Zack mumbled. " I would like to have a battle with you. If you don't mind"
"Why?"
Thinking of a smart way to answer, Zack said " So I could learn something from you."
Impressed with his straightforwardness, he decided to take on the challenge. " Let me get my sword. Meet me in the arena right away." He headed back to his quarters, and Zack ran back to Cloud.
Arriving out of breath, Zack managed to speak. " I am gonna duel with him."
"No way!" Cloud said back as he stood up.
" Yes way! He is gonna go get his sword, and meet me in the battle grounds. You want to come watch?"
" Sure!" Cloud said as he
wished he was fighting. Both boys ran off to the arena.