Author's Notes:

Sephiroth has lines! Yes yes! And Hojo appears again!

"Professor Gast, leader of the Jenova Project and genius scientist, produced me."

Sephiroth strode through the cold halls of Shin-Ra Tower, scattering workers and administrators in his path like clouds of insects. His long black trenchcoat flapped behind him, giving the effect of some dark angel. Silver hair gleamed under the fluorescent lights. The Masamune hung on his side, nearly giving nervous employees a whack on the leg...an extremely deadly whack.

He was going to the Medical floor. Hojo had sent a message that Sephiroth was to report there at noon. The warrior glanced at a nearby clock as he walked through a corridor, and saw that it was ten to twelve. Early, as usual, he turned down the corner that led to the elevator for the Medical, stepped inside, and pressed the button for the correct floor, pointedly ignoring the people cowering at the back of the conveyance like frightened Chocobo hatchlings. Fools. I could decapitate them before they even saw me draw my sword. A grin flickered across his face, almost too fast to see. Only twenty and he could likely kill every member of SOLDIER without a scratch. Not as though he would ever have to fight SOLDIER, but judging how things were going with the Wutese, he'd have to fight the equivalent soon enough. I'll bet that the Wutese are better trained than Heidegger's rabble...

The elevator let out a soft 'ding' and the doors slid open, revealing the waiting room for Hojo's laboratory. Sephiroth stepped out of the elevator, went to the middle of the room, and sat down in one of the plastic chairs that were scattered in the room. They were of the sort that appeared to be amazingly comfortable until you'd sat in them for a few minutes. Sephiroth was heedless of the discomfort. He looked up at the clock, and stood up, preparing for the nightmare that was Hojo's playpen. The twisted scientist had many different 'experiments' going on at a time. His current favorite was some hideous synthesis of man and beast with tentacles coming out of various parts of its body. He saw that there were tentacles protruding from its eye sockets. Twitching tentacles. He shuddered.

Hojo was seated at a microscope, his body contorted into the bizarre position dictated by one of those Wutese chairs with no back that made you kneel. He was mumbling to himself. Sephiroth coughed.

"Eh? What? Oh, it's you. Well, my boy, today is, I believe, a very special day for you. Because, you see, you no longer need to be given that medicine I've been giving you all these years. You're cured."

So the old fool still thinks that I think I'm sick....what stupidity. What does he think I am, some kind of idiot?

Hojo went over to a locked cabinet, opened it using a key he produced from the recesses of his labcoat, and extracted a syringe and a vial of a luminescent green fluid.

"And this, my lad, is the final injection you'll need. I guess I won't be seeing you anymore. Too bad."

Sephiroth realised that Hojo was attempting to make a joke. He laughed, half-heartedly. It was best not to mess around with this madman.

"Now, if you'll just take off that shoulder plate, and roll up that sleeve..." Sephiroth complied, and Hojo swiped the fighter's arm with a cotton ball soaked in alcohol. In went the needle, three inches of glittering steel topped by a tube filled with that mysterious concoction Hojo had always been filling him with. For a moment Sephiroth wondered just what the substance was, it smelled terrible and had the effect upon the sinuses of a large amount of breath mints eaten at once. He remembered that SOLDIER was treating the grunts to something that had actually been cooked at dinner tonight. Probably roast turkey or something....he mentally cursed. He wouldn't be able to taste anything until about midnight because of the stench of the 'medicine'. Ah, well. At least it was real food of sorts.

Hojo finished depressing the plunger on the syringe and removed it, swiping away the tiny bead of blood that rose on Sephiroth's arm with yet another cotton ball, and put a Band-Aid on the pinprick. Sephiroth stared at it for a second. It was adorned with little yellow Chocobos. Hojo noticed his look.

"Ah, yes, the noble Chocobo...they run at amazing speed and shit like nobody's business. If you ever get a job out of SOLDIER, I highly recommend against mucking out Chocobo stables. You see, we haven't got any normal-colored bandages and I have to use ones from the Children's Medical until we get a new shipment. It's not as though it matters. Now run along."

Sephiroth left the lab, averting his eyes from the thing with the tentacles and trying to escape the horrible scent that the room was always filled with...evidently an effect of the disinfectant the place probably had to be swilled with after Hojo had finished with his 'playthings'.

Notes:

I just couldn't do Hojo like he was when Aeris and Ifalnya escaped, it just wouldn't come. Sorry.

But, I'm happy with Sephiroth and they way he thinks...like he does in that famous FMV...you know, about the 'worthless creatures'. Delicious!