YES!! It's the long awaited chapter of this story.. finally got some
inspiration and... added in a few tiny paragraphs to make it flow
together.. better than it did before.. still isn't the greatest.. I hope
you like it. and thanks for reading.
******
The days of long hours of work analyzing the Materia that had been around the body of Sephiroth were tedious. Kita seemed to complain constantly about Katachi's continual absence from the project that was supposedly his. Paul kept his silence most of the time, and a close eye on the body the rest of the time.
The door of the lab swished open with a puff of fresher air into the rather cold room that was the lab. The lights were off, but two points of light did exist in the darkness. Kita stood in the doorway, staring for a long moment before her hand reached for the light switch. She glanced to the side for a brief second and looked back toward the center of the room- and screamed in terror, backing up a few steps her hand knocked one of the switches up turning one set of lights on. The light flickered on in the room and Kita looked upon a clean (and cold) lab that contained one dead body that to all appearances had NOT just sat up in the dark and looked at her.
Swallowing, she slowly made her way into the room and came to stand over the body, looking at its seemingly blank eyes. "I'm ...just imagining it. I've just gone crazy from exposure to Materia and stuff... that's all." She turned and moved over to her work station to start her filing for the new day's work. Kita jumped slightly once more as the door hissed shut automatically and she glanced back to find everything just as she'd last seen it. Nothing had changed, moved, or shifted. Turning again, she got to work putting things in order in the filing cabinets.
Softly, she muttered to herself, "I'm losing my mind. I've worked with dead bodies before! Why does this one scare me so much? Why does this one keep making me think that it's alive?" She peeked at it once more and shook her head, seeing that it had not moved. Even its hair was in the same position it had been in; braided and under its back. Kita turned her back towards it again and stubbornly picked up a strip thermometer and some tape. She approached the body and quickly taped the strip of paper to the body's chest, taking a step back and watched as the paper reacted to the temperature that the body was by the red color rising up to a degree mark on the edge of the paper. Kita knew that the paper would record the highest temperature that occurred on the surface it was taped to and she would have proof of the body having heat fluctuations.
Smirking at her work, she turned back to putting things away. Once she finished, she looked around, realizing that it had been an hour and no one else had entered the lab, long past time Paul should have come in. Kita began to worry and busied herself with checking over various files kept on the experiments that had been performed so far and looking at the list of tests yet to come. Finally, she picked up a tray of probes and such she had gathered, turning to face the body.
A shriek and clatter of metal and plastic hitting the tiles broke the silence. The door opened and Paul was there looking worried. "What happened?!"
Kita pointed at the body, who's head was turned towards her now. "It blinked at me!" she accused.
Paul slowly and deliberately paced over to the body, looking it over. "This temp-strip says ninety-six." He placed a hand on the body's chest, "Still warm..." he thought he felt a flutter of a heartbeat as well, but he refused to overreact the way Kita had. Instead, he let his hand drop. "Okay," he seemed to be thinking about something. "These lights have motion- detectors," he commented absently, turning and stepping back out of the room a moment and returning with the bag he'd set on the floor to open the lock to the lab when he'd heard Kita scream.
The highly disturbed woman rubbed her arms in the cold that the lab was kept at and moved to the other side of the room so that the body's head wasn't turned towards her anymore. Now, she watched as Paul set up a video camera. "We'll just leave the lights on when we leave tonight... This camera will be set to record if the lights come on." He turned and twisted his thin pale lips into a grin. "Then we'll have hard evidence to show Katachi!"
Kita sniffled, "Yeah.." she agreed faintly. "I need a break." She turned and left the room. Of course, this left Paul to clean up the mess she'd made when the found the body staring at her.
****
The pristine lab, glimmering in the fluorescent light from the ceiling fixtures, showed on the TV screen for a few minutes after the tail end of Kita and Paul's conversation was cut off by the door. The body was still as any dead body should be.
Kita and Paul sat in the lounge, watching the film... after finding the body on the floor, the camera lens smashed, and several drawers in the filing cabinets opened and gone through. Thankfully the vid-disk was alright. They'd replaced the body on the table and removed the disk to the lounge...
The lights went out and a moment after, the camera stopped recording. Once more, light returned to the screen, the same scene, except the body was now sitting up, looking dazed. A hand picked at the paper kilt. Turning, the body slid it's feet off one side of the table, it's back to the camera, a hand lifted and rubbed at his face a moment before it fell, then the body toppled forwards off the table and onto the floor. Darkness descended again.
"Ouch.." Paul muttered sympathetically.
Kita snorted, "I don't think he felt it..."
The other scientist sighed, "Probably not," was the agreement.
Once more, the lights turned on again and this time to find the body struggling to get to its feet. Managing to get vertical, he paused, stared at the camera and frowned deeply in displeasure. Slowly, he moved around the table and to the camera, looking it over curiously before a hand covered the lens and crushed it brutally.
"Double ouch..." Kita stated.
"There weren't any lacerations on his palms though..."
On the screen, there was no picture anymore, but the camera was still functioning, sounds a drawer opening, then a crash. "I guess he passed out again.." Kita stated, folding her arms on her chest.
There was silence for a time, then the camera turned on again, the light sensor function still operable. More drawers opening and mostly silence except for papers shuffling, then another thump. "Well, his time up is getting progressively longer," Paul commented casually. Scientist to the bone.
"I suppose we should get to work now?" Kita suggested, though didn't look like she had much inclination to do so. After a long...long moment, she got up and in companionable silence, they went into the lab to find the body of Sephiroth sprawled on the floor .. again.
*****
Two weeks had passed and Kita and Paul entered the lounge after carefully arranging the body so that it was in a specific and uncomfortable position. She flopped down on the couch while Paul went to the soda machine and getting his and her usual drinks. Sitting down next to Kita he stared at the blank screen of the TV.
"How long do you think we should leave it?"
"I dunno... maybe an hour so it'll get bored?"
Paul looked at her. "IF it's alive even. It could be residual effects of being submerged in Lifestream.. it just couldn't wander around before."
She glared back at her coworker, "It IS! I know he REALLY looked at me the other day!" she seemed to calm down rather quickly though, "He seemed to look confused too..." Of course, this was the third time it had looked at her while she was alone in the lab. And she'd managed not to scream. Instead she'd gazed at him in return until the light seemed to go out of his eyes. But lately they hadn't found the body just lying around as often as they had in the beginning. The last few days it had seemed to calm down.. or something.
"Maybe we ARE going insane?" Paul suggested, staring at his drink. "They say Mako does that to people and we really handled a lot of that stuff that he was encased in."
Kita set her soda aside and looked at Paul, "Have YOU ever heard of Materia effecting people like that?" Her gaze was heavy and he couldn't meet it.
Paul looked off to the side, "Well... I suppose not, but then again, no one can USE Materia anymore."
Sephiroth sat lotus style behind the couch listening to them talk about Materia as he sipped Kita's grape soda off the side table, a soda he'd managed to swipe while neither scientist had been looking. He could understand most of what they were saying by now, having gotten used to the lingual shift that had occurred. He understood very well that he'd been in the North Crater for over two thousand years- something he'd learned from the news reports about finding his body. What he didn't understand was WHY he'd been there.
He doubted either of the scientists knew so he didn't bother asking them. Besides, asking them would freak them out. They all thought he was dead.. So he passed out from time to time, no biggie... he hoped anyway. The one thing he REALLY wanted to know was WHY they had stuck his arms under his back and wrapped his braided hair around his head like a turban. Dimly, he recalled the woman giggling about it. That was before he fully woke up again.
"So do you want some chips or something?" Kita asked, getting up and heading to the snack machine.
"Nah," Paul replied, falling silent. Slowly, he moved and peeked over the back of the couch. He had noticed the door opened again after they'd sat down and started talking. Seph had followed them in and hidden behind the couch, he'd even pretended to not see him swipe Kita's soda. Scientific curiosity had gotten the better of him and he hadn't said anything, instead watched Sephiroth as he just sat quietly behind the couch, rarely changing position and staying almost completely silent.
Kita returned to the couch and blinked at her partner, about to ask him what he was doing when he put a finger to his lips and gestured that she should look behind the couch. She was just in time to see Sephiroth take a gulp of soda and Paul said softly, "Having fun back there?"
Sephiroth's reaction was quite memorable, grape soda came out his nose and he started to cough, dropping the can on the floor and dumping the rest of the soda in his lap.
Kita sniggered somewhat but got off the couch to get the box of tissues from one of the tables in the lounge. She crouched beside Sephiroth and offered one to him. "So how long have you been... fooling us?" she asked softly as she watched him carefully blow his nose and used other tissues to dab himself dry. He flicked his gaze toward her and glared, a slight frown touching his lips. "You _can_ understand us, right?" she asked, tipping her head to the side.
Her only answer was another tissue being taken and the used ones handed to her. She sighed and left the box where it was while she disposed of the used tissues with a little bit of a cringe. "You're going to need a bath or you'll be all sticky," she stated, "and Katachi will have a fit."
Paul and Kita immediately exchanged a glance, "Should we tell him?" The young male scientist asked as Sephiroth slowly stood and dripped grape soda from his paper kilt.
Kita smiled, looking from Sephiroth to Paul and back, "No," she stated. Sephiroth lifted an eyebrow, feeling slightly worried about that look she was giving him. Not much expression crossed his features otherwise. Simply that raised eyebrow.
"What do you suppose we do with him?" Paul asked, rubbing the back of his head some, "We can't just leave him like this now that he's... alive." Paul reached out and laid a hand on Sephiroth's neck, checking for a pulse, once he found one he quickly pulled his hand back, afraid it might get broken from the look the ancient man was giving him.
"Show him the wonders of the new era, of course," Kita responded brightly.
Paul slowly crossed his arms, looking at her firmly, "And how do you suggest we get him out of here?"
Kita smiled even wider, "I'm sure we'll think of a way."
~~~~~~~~
Paul sat in the back seat of Kita's car as Sephiroth was in the front wearing some swiped clothes from a locker room on the second floor, it was only temporary. Kita insisted on getting him something better to wear once they were out. He still couldn't believe how calmly Sephiroth had taken everything, he must have understood them, or maybe he just got the idea of what they wanted and followed their lead. Paul had the feeling that the former was true though, for it was Sephiroth who had taken the lead in the lobby of the building and whenever they'd met anyone. He just... looked like he belonged and was just heading home for the night.
They came to park in front of a clothing store and got out of the car. Kita and Paul watched Sephiroth closely. "Is it me, or does this all seem normal to him?" Kita asked. "When we were driving, he just sat there and flipped through the readers digest that was in the front seat..."
They followed Sephiroth through the aisles of the store as he looked things over and finally picked out an all black ensemble. A black long sleeved shirt, black pants, and a few other items to go with it. A belt was chosen after much testing and Kita finally lead Seph to the shoes aisle. He seemed to understand and Paul and Kita watched as he went about his business of selecting appropriate shoes.
*****
The restaurant Kita had chosen was one of the high class ones with lots of rich people and plenty of money just hanging on the walls in the form of antique pictures and decorations. The three sat at a table near a corner of the huge room. Sephiroth sat with his back toward the wall with a view of everyone in the room. He was wearing his new clothes and the ones they'd swiped were in Kita's car. Kita had to admit that he did look good in black. His manners seemed to be absolutely perfect but he seemed to lack conversational skills, in fact, he hadn't said a word since they'd found out he was alive. He obviously understood the language though.
She watched as he carefully looked the menu over and she wondered if he could even read what the words said. When the waiter came, she realized that she hadn't even looked at her menu and hurriedly picked something. Kita noticed that there were no pictures in the menu and worried that their 'guest' wouldn't be able to pick something. She looked up in time to see Sephiroth point out what he wanted to the waiter and carefully fold his menu and hand it to the man who bowed and briskly walked away.
Soon their drinks came and it turned out that Sephiroth had chosen a soft red wine that was said to go great with steaks. She watched as he sipped and eyed it before setting the glass down with a soft regretful sigh.
"Not what you wanted?" she asked and he shook his head.
"Not what I remember it tasting like." His gentle voice shocked both the scientists. He had an accent, but his words were understandable.
Paul's eyes lit up with interest but Kita cut him off, "So you CAN talk!" Sephiroth eyed her but didn't answer.
"What was it like in your time?" Paul asked and he seemed genuinely interested in talk of wine.
The ancient man's gaze returned to Paul. "It had more of a tang," he replied, "The white from Wutai was the best though."
Paul grinned, "Still is in my opinion."
"So, what do you think of things? Are they anything like what you were used to?" Kita interrupted once more.
With a sigh, Sephiroth slowly replied, "They aren't what I'm used to. I think I liked it better then. The rides weren't so bumpy." Kita fumed at the implied insult to her driving.
"What about the buildings?" Paul asked and sipped his own drink.
"Not much difference from one skyscraper to the next," Seph replied, looking bored. "Blank soulless windows staring at an arrow straight street."
Paul thought about that as Kita spoke, "So you don't like it."
"Scientists are apparently all alike," he replied, "Assuming without facts."
"So you do like it?" she asked.
"I never said that," Sephiroth answered and took another sip of his wine. Kita fumed in silence once more. Paul was amused of course. Their dinner came moments later and Sephiroth had selected a medium rare stake with a baked potato and small carrots. Kita glared at her plate as she chewed her dinner, it wasn't something she would have chosen if she'd been paying attention. Her companions continued to talk now and then about some things. Sephiroth's answers were always obscure and rarely enlightening about his actual opinion of things. Either he didn't care or didn't know what to think of it all. His attitude suggested the former.
The check came and Paul eyed the bill nervously, "Kita, I don't think-" he was cut off by Sephiroth placing his bank card on the tray with a bored look. "How did you get that?"
"It was given to me by Shinra," he replied deliberately misinterpreting the question.
Paul exchanged a look with Kita, he had to agree that the man was slightly disturbing to be around, considering that he never gave any information away without having a reason to. But on the other hand, he was fascinating. He seemed to fit in with everything so well, yet he was diffident of the social world around him. The waiter returned and took the tray with Sephiroth's bankcard on it. Within moments the waiter returned, bowing many times as he returned Sephiroth's bankcard.
"It is a pleasure to have your patronage dear sir! Thank you for coming to our restaurant! Please come again whenever you like!" the waiter said, practically groveling at the man's feet. Slowly, Sephiroth wiped his hands on the napkin before standing and brushing past the waiter as if he didn't exist, almost as if he expected Kita and Paul to follow, which they did.
Kita and Paul exchanged looks, "I wonder.... what happened that the guy was acting like that?"
"Must be his charm," Kita replied sarcastically, gesturing at Sephiroth's back.
******
The days of long hours of work analyzing the Materia that had been around the body of Sephiroth were tedious. Kita seemed to complain constantly about Katachi's continual absence from the project that was supposedly his. Paul kept his silence most of the time, and a close eye on the body the rest of the time.
The door of the lab swished open with a puff of fresher air into the rather cold room that was the lab. The lights were off, but two points of light did exist in the darkness. Kita stood in the doorway, staring for a long moment before her hand reached for the light switch. She glanced to the side for a brief second and looked back toward the center of the room- and screamed in terror, backing up a few steps her hand knocked one of the switches up turning one set of lights on. The light flickered on in the room and Kita looked upon a clean (and cold) lab that contained one dead body that to all appearances had NOT just sat up in the dark and looked at her.
Swallowing, she slowly made her way into the room and came to stand over the body, looking at its seemingly blank eyes. "I'm ...just imagining it. I've just gone crazy from exposure to Materia and stuff... that's all." She turned and moved over to her work station to start her filing for the new day's work. Kita jumped slightly once more as the door hissed shut automatically and she glanced back to find everything just as she'd last seen it. Nothing had changed, moved, or shifted. Turning again, she got to work putting things in order in the filing cabinets.
Softly, she muttered to herself, "I'm losing my mind. I've worked with dead bodies before! Why does this one scare me so much? Why does this one keep making me think that it's alive?" She peeked at it once more and shook her head, seeing that it had not moved. Even its hair was in the same position it had been in; braided and under its back. Kita turned her back towards it again and stubbornly picked up a strip thermometer and some tape. She approached the body and quickly taped the strip of paper to the body's chest, taking a step back and watched as the paper reacted to the temperature that the body was by the red color rising up to a degree mark on the edge of the paper. Kita knew that the paper would record the highest temperature that occurred on the surface it was taped to and she would have proof of the body having heat fluctuations.
Smirking at her work, she turned back to putting things away. Once she finished, she looked around, realizing that it had been an hour and no one else had entered the lab, long past time Paul should have come in. Kita began to worry and busied herself with checking over various files kept on the experiments that had been performed so far and looking at the list of tests yet to come. Finally, she picked up a tray of probes and such she had gathered, turning to face the body.
A shriek and clatter of metal and plastic hitting the tiles broke the silence. The door opened and Paul was there looking worried. "What happened?!"
Kita pointed at the body, who's head was turned towards her now. "It blinked at me!" she accused.
Paul slowly and deliberately paced over to the body, looking it over. "This temp-strip says ninety-six." He placed a hand on the body's chest, "Still warm..." he thought he felt a flutter of a heartbeat as well, but he refused to overreact the way Kita had. Instead, he let his hand drop. "Okay," he seemed to be thinking about something. "These lights have motion- detectors," he commented absently, turning and stepping back out of the room a moment and returning with the bag he'd set on the floor to open the lock to the lab when he'd heard Kita scream.
The highly disturbed woman rubbed her arms in the cold that the lab was kept at and moved to the other side of the room so that the body's head wasn't turned towards her anymore. Now, she watched as Paul set up a video camera. "We'll just leave the lights on when we leave tonight... This camera will be set to record if the lights come on." He turned and twisted his thin pale lips into a grin. "Then we'll have hard evidence to show Katachi!"
Kita sniffled, "Yeah.." she agreed faintly. "I need a break." She turned and left the room. Of course, this left Paul to clean up the mess she'd made when the found the body staring at her.
****
The pristine lab, glimmering in the fluorescent light from the ceiling fixtures, showed on the TV screen for a few minutes after the tail end of Kita and Paul's conversation was cut off by the door. The body was still as any dead body should be.
Kita and Paul sat in the lounge, watching the film... after finding the body on the floor, the camera lens smashed, and several drawers in the filing cabinets opened and gone through. Thankfully the vid-disk was alright. They'd replaced the body on the table and removed the disk to the lounge...
The lights went out and a moment after, the camera stopped recording. Once more, light returned to the screen, the same scene, except the body was now sitting up, looking dazed. A hand picked at the paper kilt. Turning, the body slid it's feet off one side of the table, it's back to the camera, a hand lifted and rubbed at his face a moment before it fell, then the body toppled forwards off the table and onto the floor. Darkness descended again.
"Ouch.." Paul muttered sympathetically.
Kita snorted, "I don't think he felt it..."
The other scientist sighed, "Probably not," was the agreement.
Once more, the lights turned on again and this time to find the body struggling to get to its feet. Managing to get vertical, he paused, stared at the camera and frowned deeply in displeasure. Slowly, he moved around the table and to the camera, looking it over curiously before a hand covered the lens and crushed it brutally.
"Double ouch..." Kita stated.
"There weren't any lacerations on his palms though..."
On the screen, there was no picture anymore, but the camera was still functioning, sounds a drawer opening, then a crash. "I guess he passed out again.." Kita stated, folding her arms on her chest.
There was silence for a time, then the camera turned on again, the light sensor function still operable. More drawers opening and mostly silence except for papers shuffling, then another thump. "Well, his time up is getting progressively longer," Paul commented casually. Scientist to the bone.
"I suppose we should get to work now?" Kita suggested, though didn't look like she had much inclination to do so. After a long...long moment, she got up and in companionable silence, they went into the lab to find the body of Sephiroth sprawled on the floor .. again.
*****
Two weeks had passed and Kita and Paul entered the lounge after carefully arranging the body so that it was in a specific and uncomfortable position. She flopped down on the couch while Paul went to the soda machine and getting his and her usual drinks. Sitting down next to Kita he stared at the blank screen of the TV.
"How long do you think we should leave it?"
"I dunno... maybe an hour so it'll get bored?"
Paul looked at her. "IF it's alive even. It could be residual effects of being submerged in Lifestream.. it just couldn't wander around before."
She glared back at her coworker, "It IS! I know he REALLY looked at me the other day!" she seemed to calm down rather quickly though, "He seemed to look confused too..." Of course, this was the third time it had looked at her while she was alone in the lab. And she'd managed not to scream. Instead she'd gazed at him in return until the light seemed to go out of his eyes. But lately they hadn't found the body just lying around as often as they had in the beginning. The last few days it had seemed to calm down.. or something.
"Maybe we ARE going insane?" Paul suggested, staring at his drink. "They say Mako does that to people and we really handled a lot of that stuff that he was encased in."
Kita set her soda aside and looked at Paul, "Have YOU ever heard of Materia effecting people like that?" Her gaze was heavy and he couldn't meet it.
Paul looked off to the side, "Well... I suppose not, but then again, no one can USE Materia anymore."
Sephiroth sat lotus style behind the couch listening to them talk about Materia as he sipped Kita's grape soda off the side table, a soda he'd managed to swipe while neither scientist had been looking. He could understand most of what they were saying by now, having gotten used to the lingual shift that had occurred. He understood very well that he'd been in the North Crater for over two thousand years- something he'd learned from the news reports about finding his body. What he didn't understand was WHY he'd been there.
He doubted either of the scientists knew so he didn't bother asking them. Besides, asking them would freak them out. They all thought he was dead.. So he passed out from time to time, no biggie... he hoped anyway. The one thing he REALLY wanted to know was WHY they had stuck his arms under his back and wrapped his braided hair around his head like a turban. Dimly, he recalled the woman giggling about it. That was before he fully woke up again.
"So do you want some chips or something?" Kita asked, getting up and heading to the snack machine.
"Nah," Paul replied, falling silent. Slowly, he moved and peeked over the back of the couch. He had noticed the door opened again after they'd sat down and started talking. Seph had followed them in and hidden behind the couch, he'd even pretended to not see him swipe Kita's soda. Scientific curiosity had gotten the better of him and he hadn't said anything, instead watched Sephiroth as he just sat quietly behind the couch, rarely changing position and staying almost completely silent.
Kita returned to the couch and blinked at her partner, about to ask him what he was doing when he put a finger to his lips and gestured that she should look behind the couch. She was just in time to see Sephiroth take a gulp of soda and Paul said softly, "Having fun back there?"
Sephiroth's reaction was quite memorable, grape soda came out his nose and he started to cough, dropping the can on the floor and dumping the rest of the soda in his lap.
Kita sniggered somewhat but got off the couch to get the box of tissues from one of the tables in the lounge. She crouched beside Sephiroth and offered one to him. "So how long have you been... fooling us?" she asked softly as she watched him carefully blow his nose and used other tissues to dab himself dry. He flicked his gaze toward her and glared, a slight frown touching his lips. "You _can_ understand us, right?" she asked, tipping her head to the side.
Her only answer was another tissue being taken and the used ones handed to her. She sighed and left the box where it was while she disposed of the used tissues with a little bit of a cringe. "You're going to need a bath or you'll be all sticky," she stated, "and Katachi will have a fit."
Paul and Kita immediately exchanged a glance, "Should we tell him?" The young male scientist asked as Sephiroth slowly stood and dripped grape soda from his paper kilt.
Kita smiled, looking from Sephiroth to Paul and back, "No," she stated. Sephiroth lifted an eyebrow, feeling slightly worried about that look she was giving him. Not much expression crossed his features otherwise. Simply that raised eyebrow.
"What do you suppose we do with him?" Paul asked, rubbing the back of his head some, "We can't just leave him like this now that he's... alive." Paul reached out and laid a hand on Sephiroth's neck, checking for a pulse, once he found one he quickly pulled his hand back, afraid it might get broken from the look the ancient man was giving him.
"Show him the wonders of the new era, of course," Kita responded brightly.
Paul slowly crossed his arms, looking at her firmly, "And how do you suggest we get him out of here?"
Kita smiled even wider, "I'm sure we'll think of a way."
~~~~~~~~
Paul sat in the back seat of Kita's car as Sephiroth was in the front wearing some swiped clothes from a locker room on the second floor, it was only temporary. Kita insisted on getting him something better to wear once they were out. He still couldn't believe how calmly Sephiroth had taken everything, he must have understood them, or maybe he just got the idea of what they wanted and followed their lead. Paul had the feeling that the former was true though, for it was Sephiroth who had taken the lead in the lobby of the building and whenever they'd met anyone. He just... looked like he belonged and was just heading home for the night.
They came to park in front of a clothing store and got out of the car. Kita and Paul watched Sephiroth closely. "Is it me, or does this all seem normal to him?" Kita asked. "When we were driving, he just sat there and flipped through the readers digest that was in the front seat..."
They followed Sephiroth through the aisles of the store as he looked things over and finally picked out an all black ensemble. A black long sleeved shirt, black pants, and a few other items to go with it. A belt was chosen after much testing and Kita finally lead Seph to the shoes aisle. He seemed to understand and Paul and Kita watched as he went about his business of selecting appropriate shoes.
*****
The restaurant Kita had chosen was one of the high class ones with lots of rich people and plenty of money just hanging on the walls in the form of antique pictures and decorations. The three sat at a table near a corner of the huge room. Sephiroth sat with his back toward the wall with a view of everyone in the room. He was wearing his new clothes and the ones they'd swiped were in Kita's car. Kita had to admit that he did look good in black. His manners seemed to be absolutely perfect but he seemed to lack conversational skills, in fact, he hadn't said a word since they'd found out he was alive. He obviously understood the language though.
She watched as he carefully looked the menu over and she wondered if he could even read what the words said. When the waiter came, she realized that she hadn't even looked at her menu and hurriedly picked something. Kita noticed that there were no pictures in the menu and worried that their 'guest' wouldn't be able to pick something. She looked up in time to see Sephiroth point out what he wanted to the waiter and carefully fold his menu and hand it to the man who bowed and briskly walked away.
Soon their drinks came and it turned out that Sephiroth had chosen a soft red wine that was said to go great with steaks. She watched as he sipped and eyed it before setting the glass down with a soft regretful sigh.
"Not what you wanted?" she asked and he shook his head.
"Not what I remember it tasting like." His gentle voice shocked both the scientists. He had an accent, but his words were understandable.
Paul's eyes lit up with interest but Kita cut him off, "So you CAN talk!" Sephiroth eyed her but didn't answer.
"What was it like in your time?" Paul asked and he seemed genuinely interested in talk of wine.
The ancient man's gaze returned to Paul. "It had more of a tang," he replied, "The white from Wutai was the best though."
Paul grinned, "Still is in my opinion."
"So, what do you think of things? Are they anything like what you were used to?" Kita interrupted once more.
With a sigh, Sephiroth slowly replied, "They aren't what I'm used to. I think I liked it better then. The rides weren't so bumpy." Kita fumed at the implied insult to her driving.
"What about the buildings?" Paul asked and sipped his own drink.
"Not much difference from one skyscraper to the next," Seph replied, looking bored. "Blank soulless windows staring at an arrow straight street."
Paul thought about that as Kita spoke, "So you don't like it."
"Scientists are apparently all alike," he replied, "Assuming without facts."
"So you do like it?" she asked.
"I never said that," Sephiroth answered and took another sip of his wine. Kita fumed in silence once more. Paul was amused of course. Their dinner came moments later and Sephiroth had selected a medium rare stake with a baked potato and small carrots. Kita glared at her plate as she chewed her dinner, it wasn't something she would have chosen if she'd been paying attention. Her companions continued to talk now and then about some things. Sephiroth's answers were always obscure and rarely enlightening about his actual opinion of things. Either he didn't care or didn't know what to think of it all. His attitude suggested the former.
The check came and Paul eyed the bill nervously, "Kita, I don't think-" he was cut off by Sephiroth placing his bank card on the tray with a bored look. "How did you get that?"
"It was given to me by Shinra," he replied deliberately misinterpreting the question.
Paul exchanged a look with Kita, he had to agree that the man was slightly disturbing to be around, considering that he never gave any information away without having a reason to. But on the other hand, he was fascinating. He seemed to fit in with everything so well, yet he was diffident of the social world around him. The waiter returned and took the tray with Sephiroth's bankcard on it. Within moments the waiter returned, bowing many times as he returned Sephiroth's bankcard.
"It is a pleasure to have your patronage dear sir! Thank you for coming to our restaurant! Please come again whenever you like!" the waiter said, practically groveling at the man's feet. Slowly, Sephiroth wiped his hands on the napkin before standing and brushing past the waiter as if he didn't exist, almost as if he expected Kita and Paul to follow, which they did.
Kita and Paul exchanged looks, "I wonder.... what happened that the guy was acting like that?"
"Must be his charm," Kita replied sarcastically, gesturing at Sephiroth's back.