New Friends, New Enemies

A FFVII Fanfiction

By: ArcaneWeapon

First off, I have to say I'm quite surprised that I'm actually writing a HS fic, I never really thought I would. I love the Cloud/Aerith pairing, but I was getting tired of bringing Aerith back to life. After all, there's only so many times you can do that before the stories all start blending together. So, stepping away from Lost Love and A Love Lost, I came up with this idea and ever since then it's refused to leave me alone. While this is a HS fic, it is still based in the FFVII world, so I'm not taking the characters and dragging them into a modern day high school. Regarding the characters, I tried to keep them as intact as possible, the largest change I made was obviously their ages, and even in that regard I tried to keep them as similar as possible. I.E. Aerith is still older than Cloud, and Tifa is still younger. Other than that, I hope you enjoy reading this. I'm certainly looking forward to writing the huge story that's slowly expanding in my head and demanding to be written down.

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters mentioned in this fic, they all belong to Square-Enix.

Chapter 1: The First Day

Cloud stepped off of Fenrir and raised his shades to rest on the top of his spiky blond hair as he examined what was to be his new school.

'Damn, why the hell did Mom and Dad have to choose now to move to the big city? I wonder if they even thought about my life when they made the decision.'

Cloud knew his parents were eager to take up the new, better, job positions they had been offered here and he also knew, despite his negative thoughts, that they had definitely taken his feelings into consideration. He was just pissed off that he'd been pulled away from his senior year of school at Junon High, and now had to start all over at some strange new school.

'Nothing to be done about it now, besides sucking it up and dealing with it,' he thought sullenly. 'Although starting senior year without knowing a single person is going to be really unpleasant.'

His parents had tried to make it up to him with the present of a brand new motorcycle, his very own, and he had to admit it was a pretty awesome gift. He glanced down and smiled at the bike that he had christened "Fenrir" after a wolf spoken of in legends, a name he felt fit it quite well.

'I better hurry up or I'm going to be late' he thought as he headed towards the stairs that lead up to the entrance of the building.

He couldn't help but compare the building to his old school as he approached. Instead of bricks, this one was built of concrete, and it only had one floor instead of the two that Junon High had. All in all, it just felt way smaller than what he was used to.

'That's right, Mom said this was the private high school in Midgar, the public one must be larger than this for a city of this size.'

As he stepped through the glass doors, Cloud looked around for the office, figuring that would be the best place to start. Spotting it to the right of the entrance, he headed over and glanced at the nameplate outside the door before stepping into the room.

Barret Wallace

Principal

The office was pretty small with only one window, a desk filling up half of the room, and papers strewn across the rest of the room with some vague attempt at organization that was clearly failing miserably. The man sitting in the chair behind the desk currently working on some of the paperwork, seemingly unaware of Cloud's entrance, definitely did not match Cloud's idea of a principal.

'What kind of school is this?'

He was huge. Muscles bulged everywhere, especially in his arms, and his hair was cut leaving only what was on top in addition to a short beard. There was a small, silver earring in his left ear, as well as a tattoo of a skull breathing flames on his left arm. He wore a ripped, un-buttoned, brown vest, a belt containing various types of ammunition, and baggy green pants. By far the most unusual and striking part about him was his right hand. Or actually it was his complete lack of a right hand and in its place, of all things, a gatling gun.

'Oookay, this is definitely a principal I do not want to get on the wrong side of.'

Cloud cleared his throat before speaking up to introduce himself, "Excuse me I…"

"Who the fuck are you," Barret roared at him, instantly raising his head and glaring at the intruder.

"'m Cloud Strife," Cloud finished, his eyes widening as he unwillingly flinched backwards at the anger in the man's voice and eyes.

'Great, it looks like I've already managed to get on his bad side. That or he doesn't have a good side…'

"So you're the new student ehh?" Barret replied, noticeably calming down. Somewhat. "What do you want with me?"

"Well, I figured seeing as how I'm new and all this would be the best place to… start… out?" Cloud faded off as the look of anger in Barret's eyes increased once more.

'Damn! How does this guy manage to keep his job? On second thought maybe I'd rather not know…'

"I don't know how you're used to having things run," Barret growled, "but I'm not here to help walk you through your day. If you have questions then find a student and ask them. I'm busy trying to run this damn school. Now if you'll excuse me, kindly leave my office before I'm forced to do something I think we'd both regret."

Not wanting to upset the man, Cloud quickly backed out of the room and tried to come up with a new plan.

'Great, that went amazingly well. I can't believe he treated me like that!' Cloud fumed. Against his better senses, Cloud decided to go back into the room and get the answers he was looking for. Before he could take a single step, however, a voice spoke from the shadows behind him.

"I wouldn't go back in there if I were you."

Cloud spun around to see a boy roughly his own age leaning against the wall, looking at him in amusement. He was dressed mainly in black, with a red cape draped over his shoulders and a red band tied around his shoulder length night black hair.

"The name's Vincent," the boy said.

"Oh, hi, I'm Cloud," Cloud responded as he took in the strange metal claw on Vincent's right arm and the gun holstered at his belt.

"I take it you're a new student? Don't worry about Barret, he's always like that around people he doesn't know. Once you get to know him better I'm sure you'll like him a lot more."

'Hah! Right…'

"Anyways, I suppose I should help you out with the basics, come on, we can talk as we head to morning class, otherwise we'll be late," Vincent said, heading off down the hallway without looking to see if Cloud was following or not.

"Uhh, morning class?" Cloud asked, confused, before hurrying to catch up. "I haven't signed up to take any classes yet so I have no idea where to go."

"I suppose this would be a good place to start explaining," replied Vincent as they turned down another hall. "As you've probably already noticed, this isn't really a normal school. Instead of periods of classes, our days are split into two halves, morning class, and afternoon class. Morning class is pretty standard I suppose, we cover math, history, English, all the basics."

"And afternoon class?" Cloud asked, noticing a sparkle in Vincent's eyes as he started speaking.

"Ahh, afternoon class makes morning class worth sitting through. After lunch we move on to weapons and Materia training."

"What!?" Cloud exclaimed in surprise.

Vincent nodded in confirmation before continuing on. "First, Cid trains us in our weapons and then afterwards Bugenhagen teaches us to use Materia. To tell the truth though, I'm not totally sure how this year is going to work out."

"Why's that?"

"Well, the first two years here are entirely devoted to morning classes, the freshmen and sophomores don't do any weapons or Materia training. Juniors get introduced to weapons, but only the seniors get to use Materia. So that's going to be new to everyone this year."

"Just how big is our class?" Cloud asked.

"Oh right, that's also something different with this school, class sizes are all super small, ours is thirty students I think. Since they're so small, everyone is pretty much together always. It can get annoying at times…" Vincent trailed off.

The two walked the rest of the way in silence, Cloud thinking about what he had just learned.

Well at least if the class is that small I'll get to know people pretty fast. Weapon and Materia training though! Maybe this new school won't be so bad after all...

Vincent stopped in front of a wooden door and turned to face Cloud again. "This is where we have class in the morning, it starts in two minutes at nine o'clock, you should try and get here earlier though." He waited for Cloud to nod before continuing, "Most classrooms have a small room right before the actual classroom, for weapon storage, okay? Never bring a weapon into a classroom unless it's Cid's."

Turning around again, Vincent opened the door and stepped through, Cloud close on his heels. He glanced around the room, inspecting the various weapons as Vincent placed his gun on a stand next to a few others.

'Guns, swords, even a staff, but nothing close to my sword,' Cloud thought, regretting leaving his blade at home as he'd figured it wouldn't be allowed on campus.

He noticed Vincent leaving, and followed him into the classroom, the small amounts of chatter that had been going on cutting off instantly as the two of them entered.

"Well, well, well," said a middle aged man with short black hair, wearing a blue suit at the front of the room, "who's your friend there?"

Vincent merely grunted, "New student" before heading over to a desk in the middle of the room and sitting down.

'Oh, thanks a lot, friend.'

"Uh, hi… I'm Cloud," he said in introduction, slightly uncomfortable with thirty pairs of eyes staring at him.

"That's nice," the teacher drawled, "but please go take your seat, class should have already started, you can meet everyone at lunch."

The desks were arranged in six rows of five with a pathway down the center to get to the back of the room. The only empty spot Cloud could see was a single chair in the back corner of the room so he headed over to it, avoiding looking at anyone in particular.

'Great, what's this? The dunce chair?'

Cloud could hear people whispering about him, but he completely ignored them, trying to focus on what the teacher was saying.

"We'll be starting this year focusing on Calculus and some of the more abstract history of the world…"

The teacher was speaking in a monotone, however, and Cloud was already bored by the brief introduction.

'Now I see why Vincent said the afternoon made sitting through the morning worthwhile, this is horrible.'

Deciding this would be a good time to get a first impression of his fellow classmates, Cloud started looking around the room. By the way people were whispering to each other and passing notes, he could tell he wasn't the only bored one.

Other than some guy with ridiculously long silver hair and Vincent, everyone else pretty much looked like normal high school students. For some reason, he felt his attention drawn to a girl sitting in the front row. She was wearing a red vest and had her hair done up in a ponytail with a large pink ribbon tied into it at ear level. Other than that, he couldn't tell much since she was sitting down, as well as the fact that the guy sitting behind her was slightly blocking Cloud's view.

He saw the girl sitting to her left, who had long black hair and seemed to be wearing black as well, pass her a note, which she carefully unfolded and read before raising one hand to her lips to muffle her laughter. She then quickly turned around to smile at the guy sitting behind her before turning back around, still giggling softly.

When she had turned around, Cloud had seen her face and he still felt stunned, his eyes wide open. Her pale skin was perfect with nothing marring the surface, her eyes were a brilliant emerald green, and her lips were a faint shade of pink.

'She's… beautiful…'

"I hope you're paying attention, new student," he heard the teacher call out annoyed, "This material will be covered on your tests as well you know."

Cloud flushed in embarrassment as he heard people laughing at him, and he bent down to his bag to grab some paper and a pen. He spent the rest of class taking notes, but he couldn't get the girl's face out of his head.

The bell ringing to signal the end of class couldn't have been a more pleasing sound. Glad to be finally done with this part of the day, Cloud quickly stuffed his notes into his bag and stood up to stretch.

'Three straight hours of class is brutal, I can't wait to see what the afternoon is like though.'

Noticing that everyone else was filling out, Cloud joined them, looking for Vincent. Figuring the best pace to meet him would be in the hall since he couldn't find him in the press of people, Cloud quickly walked through the weapons room. To his surprise, the girl in black who had been sitting next to the one girl was already standing in the hall, tapping her foot impatiently.

"Oh, are you new here too since you don't have a weapon?" Cloud asked, trying to strike up a conversation.

Before he knew what happened, he felt his back hitting the wall followed by two impacts on either side of his head as she punched the wall to lean in, her striking red eyes glowing hotly. This close, he realized her hair wasn't actually black, it was just a really dark shade of brown.

"I'm not some helpless girl that needs your protection," she growled softly, "and no, I'm not new, this is my fourth year."

"You show him Tifa!" someone called out behind her.

'Great, another scene, just what I need.'

"These are my weapons," she continued, removing her hands from the wall and taking a step back as she patted something behind her.

'Her ass?!' Cloud thought in confusion at first, before he noticed a pair of black gloves tucked in her belt.

"Come on Tif, leave the poor guy alone," Cloud heard a girl say and Tifa nodded as she turned away.

"Let's go get some lunch," Tifa replied to the girl who had spoken, and Cloud realized it was the girl who had been sitting next to her.

As he watched them walk away in the direction the other students were heading, he was better able to see what the girl who'd caught his attention was wearing. Under her red vest, she wore a white and pink dress that went down to the middle of her calves. He also noticed that she was carrying the staff he'd seen in the weapons room.

Cloud felt someone prod his shoulder and he turned to see Vincent standing behind him.

"I see you've met Tifa," the boy said with a small smirk.

"Yeah…" was the only reply Cloud could come up with.

"Don't mind her," Vincent said as he headed in the same direction the girls had gone, gesturing for Cloud to follow. "Tifa's always been the youngest one in the grade and she hates it when people judge her based on that. Regardless, she's damn strong so no one ever messes with her."

"I happened to notice that," replied Cloud as he rubbed his chest, feeling the bruise her blow to knock him into the wall had left.

Cloud followed Vincent in silence as they got into line in the cafeteria before getting their food and heading over to a table in the corner. He noticed Tifa and her friend sitting at a table on the other side of the room and started at them, completely forgetting about his food.

"I see you've also met Aerith," Vincent said, laughing softly. "Don't get any ideas."

'Aerith? Is that her name? And what the hell does he mean "Don't get any ideas"?!'

Noticing the guy with spiky black hair who had been sitting behind her join them at their table, Cloud asked Vincent who he was.

"That's the reason you shouldn't be getting any ideas, his name's Zack."

"Oh… So they're like… together?" Cloud asked, feeling something stir inside him as he took a bite of his meal.

'What? I can't be… jealous already? Can I?'

"I'm not sure anyone really knows, even those two. I think they're still just really good friends at this point."

Cloud smiled and ate with more enthusiasm at hearing this. "Thanks a lot for all your help Vincent," Cloud said between bites. "If you don't mind, I have a few more questions about who's who if you don't mind."

"Sure, although I'm probably not the best person to be asking."

"Oh? Why's that?" Cloud asked as he stopped eating to look over at Vincent.

"Well… you see I'm…" Vincent started hesitantly. "Well, I'm really a loner. So I don't know anyone very well, but I'll do my best to answer your questions."

'Vincent? A loner?" Cloud would have never been able to guess from what he'd seen of him so far.

Cloud gestured towards the boy with the long silver hair who was sitting alone at a table, "Who's that? He seems like more of a loner then you."

For a moment, Cloud thought he saw a faint flash of fear appear in Vincent's eyes before he responded. "That's Sephiroth… You're right, he is a loner and no one really knows much about him at all. He transferred to this school around the middle of last year, and ever since then he's never tried to make friends with anyone. Other than that, he's probably the second best student in our class, only behind Aerith, and a master of that sword he carries."

Deciding not to ask about the look he had seen in Vincent's eyes, Cloud pointed to a group of five people at a table making the most noise in the entire room. "And who are those guys?"

"They call themselves the 'Turks', I suppose you could consider them as the school's gang. They're remarkably good at not getting caught, so they've never really been punished, but whenever something crazy happens around school everyone knows it was them."

"Rufus is their leader," continued Vincent, pointing him out. "The others are Tseng, Reno, Rude, and Elena," he finished, pointing to each of them in turn.

Cloud nodded his thanks and went back to eating his meal, glad that he at least knew who some of the people in his new class were.

When he finished his food, he was surprised to see Vincent point back to the table Aerith was sitting at and speak up. "Since I can tell from that look in your eyes you're not going to give up so easily, that girl that just joined them at their table is Yuffie. She's in the grade below us, but is still good friends with both Tifa and Aerith. Being around her can get annoying after a while though, she has far too much energy."

Cloud glanced over to see a smaller girl wearing a green shirt that revealed her belly, short brown pants, and some kind of unusual arm guard on her left arm had joined the table. Strapped to her back was a large shuriken.

"And just as a final warning," Vincent said firmly as the bell rang, indicating the end of lunch, "Don't get on Zack's bad side, he's not as good as Sephiroth but he's still pretty good with that sword of his."

"Thanks for the warning friend, but I can hold my own ground in a fight."

"I suppose we're about to see about that," replied Vincent, smiling as they headed to their next class.

"No weapon you say? Why the fuck not?" Cid demanded.

"I'm sorry sir, I didn't know I'd need to bring one. I'm new," Cloud finished.

"Well I suppose I could let you borrow one then," Cid replied. "What kind of weapon do you prefer?"

"Do you have a storage room for them that you could show me? I'm… rather picky about my swords."

Not questioning this strange statement, Cid gestured for Cloud to follow him into a back room. Once inside, Cloud was surprised to see every single type of melee weapon he'd ever seen arranged around the room, and even a few he wasn't familiar with. His eye was only drawn to one of them, however, and he slowly walked to stand in front of the massive blade hanging on the wall.

"Ahh, a greatsword," Cid called out. "So you like something slow that hits really fucking hard, ehh?"

Cloud reached up and lifted the sword off of its wall mount with one hand before turning around to face Cid, noticing a slight look of surprise in the man's eyes.

'Slow? Yeah right!'

Swinging the sword up to rest on his shoulder, Cloud walked out of the room. "This will do nicely," he said as he passed Cid.

As he left the back room, Cloud walked over to Vincent who also seemed to be surprised by something.

'Damn, what's gotten into them all, it's not like this thing is anything special. It's a piece of junk really, compared to my Buster Sword.'

"Well, now that that's over with, I just have a few things to say before you begin," Cid announced to the class as he closed the door to the back room.

"Most of you know the rules already but I'm going over them again just to make sure. You're allowed to train on your own or in pairs, I don't care which. I'll be walking around the room helping and giving pointers. Unlike last year, there's no scheduled lessons, most of you have already become quite good with your weapons of choice so from this point on it's just perfecting your fighting style."

"One last thing," Cid growled, his voice dropping angrily. "If you do decide to train with another student in a duel there will be no fucking contact, do I make myself clear? No. Fucking. Contact. Break that rule and I'll haul your sorry ass to Barret and let him deal with you."

Seeing that his students had gotten the message, Cid gestured for them to begin.

Cloud glanced around the room, unsure of what to do. He knew a duel with Vincent wouldn't really work, but he didn't know anyone else well enough to ask them. Deciding he might as well train on his own he was surprised when Sephiroth stepped in front of him.

"I challenge you to a duel," the silver haired boy said in a low voice.

Cloud noticed Vincent over Sephiroth's shoulder, his eyes were wide open in alarm and he was violently shaking his head. "Yeah, sure," Cloud replied smiling as he lowered the sword from his shoulder and gripped it with both hands, shifting his feet to enter a fighting stance.

Scanning his eyes around the room to make sure he knew where everything, and everyone was, Cloud was surprised to notice that everyone had stopped whatever they had been doing and were now watching him and Sephiroth.

'Okay, so either I kick his ass and impress everyone, or I get my ass kicked and earn everyone's sympathy. Either way it's a win-win situation… right?'

Focusing his thoughts on the man in front of him, Cloud mentally gauged up his opponent.

'He's older then me but that doesn't mean much, he's taller which might give him a bit of an advantage, but then again it might make him a bit slower since he's bigger than me. That large black trench coat might work in my favor, although the fact that its sleeves are tucked into his gauntlets, and his pants are tucked into his boots, indicate that he's well aware of how hindersome flapping clothing can be. Those shoulder pads would protect from blows to the neck, but since this is just a duel they don't really matter.'

"Well, are you going to draw your sword and fight, or are you just gonna stand there staring at me?" Cloud shouted, trying to provoke him. He heard whispers pass among the other students and even thought he heard "Oh wow, Sephiroth is going to kill him!" from one of them.

'Damn, everyone's terrified of this guy, just what exactly have I gotten myself into?'

"Well, it seems you have more courage than the rest of our fellow classmates," Sephiroth smirked. "Since it looks like you're not going to run, let's have some fun," he said as he slowly drew his sword.

Cloud's eyes widened involuntarily as he watched Sephiroth draw his sword. 'No way, that thing has to be around six feet long!'

"I wonder how long you can last against my Masamune?" Sephiroth mockingly questioned as he charged.

'He's fast.' was all Cloud was able to think as he swung his sword to block the blow.

Sephiroth quickly stepped to the right and swung at Cloud's other side, figuring he'd never be able to move his huge sword to block him in time. To his surprise, however, Cloud easily managed to block this attack as well.

Cloud could hear the other student's talking much louder now but he completely ignored them as he focused his attention on Sephiroth, trying to learn how he fought. Once he thought he'd figured it out well enough, Cloud launched his own assault.

As the battle continued on with neither of the combatants able to touch the other, Cloud noticed a look of deep hatred filling Sephiroth's eyes. He realized that Sephiroth's blows were coming in much harder than they had before, and with much less control.

'Damn, what's he trying to do? If I missed blocking one of these attacks he'd… Oh shit,' Cloud realized.

He wasn't the only one who noticed, however, as members of the class started yelling.

"Alright, that's enough you two, stop this at once," Cid shouted angrily. "I know you can hear me, stop fucking fighting!"

"I'd stop," Cloud growled in response, "but then I'd die."

As the fight continued, the two involved were surprised to see a spear suddenly stabbed between them, interrupting them and preventing them from continuing.

Glad to see his plan had worked, Cid glared at Sephiroth, "You're coming with me, the rest of you had better be training on your own when I get back you hear? And no more fucking duels for today," he finished as he grabbed Sephiroth's arm and dragged him out of the room.

Cloud dropped to one knee and planted his sword into the ground to lean against it, ignoring everyone else in the room as he caught his breath.

'That's probably the closest I've ever come to losing my life. I can't believe he lost control like that…'

He felt a hand rest on his shoulder, and looked up to see Vincent standing above him.

"That was incredibly impressive Cloud," he said in admiration, "I've never seen someone move a sword that large so fast, much less someone actually hold Sephiroth off in a duel. I'm afraid you've made yourself a new enemy though. Sephiroth was always proud that he was the best swordsman in the class, he's not going to like competition for that position."

"I could hardly care less about being considered the best swordsman or not," Cloud muttered, still recovering from the fight. "What I do care about, though, is the fact he completely lost control and tried to actually hurt me!"

"I don't think anyone, especially Cid, saw that coming. Honestly I can't believe Sephiroth did it, he had to have known there would be consequences."

"Such as?"

"Well, I'm sure Cid took him to Barret, you can guess what that conversation will be like," Vincent replied, raising one eyebrow.

Cloud smiled softly as he thought about that encounter. He hoped never to be in the same room with both Cid and Barret pissed off at him.

"I doubt they'll do anything severe since nothing really happened," continued Vincent, "but I'd bet on them putting him in detention for the rest of the day."

"Vincent, I told you to train, Cloud, come with me," Cid said from behind them, startling the two of them.

Cloud watched as Vincent walked off to join the other students around the gun targets, before getting to his feet and following Cid into the back room.

"Are you alright Cloud?" Cid asked him when they were alone.

"Yeah, I'm fine, thanks. What happened to Sephiroth?"

"That's none of your concern. Don't worry though, Barret's taking care of him. I have to say though, I'm quite impressed, I doubt even I could have held off Sephiroth for that long."

Cloud looked up at Cid to see if he was serious, but didn't reply.

"I'm not joking," Cid said laughing. "That kid is far too good with his sword. You two will never be dueling again, however, I don't want a repeat of today, you understand?"

Cloud nodded. "I'm sorry," he apologized.

"Nah, it wasn't your fault, I could tell you fell back entirely on the defensive once he got out of control. I'm just glad you're so damn good, so I didn't have to call your parents to let them know their son had been mutilated on the first day of class."

Cloud laughed with Cid as the older man told him to put his weapon back and to just spend the rest of class watching the others. "That was more than enough training for the day, you deserve a break."

As Cloud relaxed on a chair in the corner of the room, watching the other students practice, he couldn't help but feel his eyes drawn to Aerith practicing with her staff. He didn't know much about fighting with a staff, but what he did know about fighting told him that she wasn't very experienced with it.

'It would seem that the other students aren't as crazy good with their weapons as Sephiroth is, that would explain why they seemed so afraid of him."

He watched as Tifa walked over to her and the two of them started talking. He was too far away to hear, but to his surprise, by the way they kept quickly glancing over towards him, he guessed he was the topic of conversation. Glancing around the room, he realized most of the class was actually shooting him an occasional look.

'Well I guess not everything about that fight was a bad thing…'

After several more minutes, the bell rang, signaling the end of class. The students filed out and headed next door to where the Materia classroom was. Cloud could almost feel the excitement in the air as everyone talked about what this new class would be like. He glanced around to see if Sephiroth had joined them, but he couldn't see the silver haired student anywhere.

'Damn, if that fight didn't make him hate me, then missing this class sure as hell will.'

As the students entered the classroom, they saw that instead of desks, there were blue cushions laid out on the floor, each with a candle and a small green orb lying on the ground in front of them.

Cloud glanced to where Aerith was sitting, but all the seats around her were taken so he randomly picked a place in the middle of the room and sat down.

Once all the students had taken their seats, a door at the front of the room opened and a small, elderly man floated out.

'What the!?'

"Welcome to Materia training," the man said in a kind voice. "I'm sure most of you have seen me around, but for those who haven't, my name is Bugenhagen and I will be your teacher."

"In front of each of you is a candle, along with a fire Materia. For today, all you need to do is to try and light your candle. For some it will be easier than others, but for your first day don't worry if you can't manage the task."

"Uhh, sir? How do we… use them?" a boy Cloud didn't know asked.

Bugenhagen blinked at him in confusion before responding. "Simply hold the Materia in your hand and focus your thoughts through it into the wick of the candle. It will take practice, but hopefully you should start feeling energy building up inside the orb." Following this statement, he floated over to the light switch and flicked it off, engulfing the room in darkness.

Along with the rest of the class, Cloud reached down and carefully picked up his Materia.

'Huh, fire? Doesn't feel hot, it actually feels rather cold. Focus my thoughts through this?'

Cloud tried to do as Bugenhagen had described, but he couldn't feel anything happening at all. His concentration was broken by a small squeak of surprise, followed by astonished gasps from other students. He looked up and over to where the sounds had come from, and was shocked to see the candle in front of Aerith glowing brightly.

Bugenhagen floated over and looked down at her, stroking his beard thoughtfully. "Have you used Materia before my dear?"

"No," Aerith replied, shaking her head. "When I followed your instructions though, it just felt completely natural and then the candle lit up."

"I see…" Bugenhagen mused. "Such amazing natural talent, quite impressive." He reached into a pouch of his lab coat and handed Aerith another Materia that looked identical to the one she was already holding. "This is an ice Materia," he explained. "Use it to put out the candle and then continue to rotate between the two. You seem to have a firm grasp of basic energy but extra practice never hurt," he said with a smile.

Turning to the rest of the class he frowned. "I don't see why you're just staring, if you want to light your candles and get your next Materia you better get to work!"

Cloud returned his focus to his own Materia, but for the rest of the class he and all the other students minus Aerith were unable to create so much as a spark. When the bell rang, signaling the end of class, Bugenhagen gestured for them to stay sitting as he turned the lights back on.

"There are a few things I need to say before you all rush off back home," he explained. "First, don't get discouraged. It takes a while to learn how to use Materia, but once you get the hang of it the pace picks up quickly. I want you all to practice hard and by next class be able to light your candles. Second, you actually aren't quite done for the day yet. I can't explain why, but you all need to head to the gym for a special event."

Cloud could tell from the surprised whispers coming from the other students that something like this had never happened on the first day of class before.

As the class entered the gym, they were surprised to see Barret standing there, holding what looked like a black box. Behind him were their other teachers, Reeve, Cid, and even Bugenhagen had somehow managed to beat them there. Sephiroth was already there as well, sitting on the floor in front of the teachers.

Barret gestured for them to sit on the floor as well before he spoke. "I'm sure you're all wondering what the hell is going on," he said, continuing when he saw their nods. "This year we've changed the way tests are going to work, it's going to be like nothing you've ever done before and we hope not only will they be more enjoyable, but you'll learn a lot more from them."

Cloud could tell from both his own feelings, as well as the other student's faces, that no one was very enthusiastic about new tests.

"We're going to leave it a mystery until the first one," Barret said, grinning evilly. "We don't want you to start preparing in advance. However, we do need to reveal one, key, part today. You will be taking all of your tests, and finals, in pairs."

This statement caused the class to erupt into noise as people lunged towards each other, trying to claim partners. Cloud knew who he wanted to pair with, but he also knew that wasn't going to happen. Instead, he glanced over at Vincent who seemed to be one of the few still calmly sitting, and received a slight nod in response.

"Calm the fuck down!" Barret yelled, glaring at them all. "I never said you'd get to pick your partners! We're going to call out names randomly and those students will come up in turn and draw a name from this box, that person will be their partner for the rest of the year."

Grumbling angrily, the class settled down and watched as the first student, a girl Cloud didn't know, walked up and drew a piece of paper from the box. She called out a name he didn't recognize, and another girl stood up and walked over to her smiling. The two of them moved off to the side and sat down next to each other, away from the main group.

'I just hope I get someone I know…'

"Tifa," Cid called out.

Cloud watched as the girl in question bounced to her feet and went to draw a name.

"Vincent…" Tifa called out, looking at him slightly surprised as he stood up and went to join her. The two of them joined the others who had already picked, but didn't talk.

As the pairing went on, Cloud largely ignored most of the names since he didn't already know them. Rufus was paired with Elena, Reno with Rude, and then…

"Zack," Bugenhagen called.

Cloud watched as the boy shot a smile over at Aerith before walking up and picking a name. He looked at it for a while before saying who it was. "Tseng."

There were only fifteen students left now, and the only ones Cloud still knew were Aerith and Sephiroth.

'Wait, fifteen? We have one too many to perfectly match up, what happens to the last student?' Cloud wondered in concern.

"Sephiroth," Barret called out, breaking Cloud's thoughts.

'Alright, I lied before, this is the one person I know I definitely don't want as a partner.'

Sephiroth walked up and drew a name from the box but he just stared at it without saying anything.

"Well?" Barret growled, prodding him with his gun arm.

"It's blank," Sephiroth said in a low voice. "There is no name."

By the shocked looks on the teacher's faces, it was immediately clear to the students that this wasn't supposed to have happened.

"I know I didn't put in a blank card," Bugenhagen said.

"What do we do?" Cid asked.

"Fuck," cursed Barret.

To Cloud's surprise, he saw Sephiroth point directly at him. "It's his fault. The new student made us odd."

'Yeah… he hates me alright…'

"It doesn't matter to me, however," Sephiroth continued, "I'd rather work alone then with any of these weaklings," he said as he walked over to join the rest of the students who had already picked.

The teachers went over to a corner where they spoke privately for a while before they came back.

"We will continue," Reeve announced. "Aerith, please come pick a name."

Cloud felt a knot tie itself in his stomach. This was the last person he knew as well as the person he really wanted to partner with. He watched nervously as she reached into the box and slowly drew out a piece of paper. She looked at it in confusion before he saw realization spread through her eyes.

"Cloud," she heard herself say. At first she hadn't recognized the name, but then she realized who it was.

'That new student…'

She watched as he slowly stood up, surprise clearly evident in his eyes as well. She noticed they were a bright sapphire blue, something she hadn't realized until then, as she hadn't really been paying much attention to him that day. He had spiky blond hair, strangely similar to Zack's, other than the color, and was dressed entirely in black. His shirt had a left sleeve, but no right sleeve for some reason, and there was a shoulder pad on his left side. His pants were baggy, but tucked into his boots, just like Sephiroth's.

'Well I was hoping for Tifa, or maybe even Zack, but I suppose this will have to do.'

She smiled softly at him as he walked up to her, and was surprised to see his cheeks redden slightly, causing her to blush a little bit as well. They walked over to the group of paired students and stood next to each other in silence as the rest of the class finished pairing up.

Cloud was in a daze. Sure, he had hoped to be partnered with her, but now that he actually was he couldn't believe it. By the looks of jealousy some of the other guys were shooting at him, he could tell they were wishing to be in his place. He noticed Zack, in particular, shooting him a rather nasty look.

"Get to know your partners well," Barret announced. "Practice and learn together, on tests you will be working together and you will be graded together, so you gain nothing if you refuse to take advantage of that. That's all for today, we'll see you later," he finished, and the teachers left the gym.

Cloud was still deep in thought as Tifa and Vincent walked over to join him and Aerith.

"Wanna trade partners?" Tifa asked teasingly, making sure the other three knew she was just joking. "I think Vince and I will do just fine though," she continued. "He can blast things from far away and if anything makes it too close I can beat the living daylights out of em."

Cloud saw Vincent's eyebrows jump upwards, as well as his eyes slightly widen, at what he assumed was directed both at the nickname as well as the unexpected praise.

Not noticing the effect her words had had on Vincent, Tifa continued. "And you two will make a perfect pair too!" she exclaimed. "Cloud's a great swordsman and you just proved that you're excellent with Materia, Aerith!"

Both of them flushed slightly at the compliments and thanked her, before Aerith made the suggestion that they head to the parking lot to go back home.

"I'm exhausted, I can't believe we have to go through this much school every day," Cloud thought.

"Oh, didn't you know?" Aerith responded. "We only have school on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, the other days we have off to study and review."

"Oh right, I forgot to mention that part," Vincent added as they walked through the doors of the school.

Cloud was surprised by these responses, until he realized that he was so tired he had actually spoken his thoughts out loud.

"Well my car is over there," Tifa said pointing over to the left. "Let's share phone numbers Vince, so we can contact each other about meeting up sometime tomorrow, okay?"

Vincent nodded in agreement. "I'm parked over there as well," he said as he pulled out his cell phone and walked away with Tifa after they had both said goodbye to Cloud and Aerith.

"My bike's over there," Cloud said pointing. "Where did you park?"

"I'm actually that car right next to you," Aerith said in surprise, as they both headed over to their vehicles.

"I uh… guess we should share phone numbers as well," Cloud said, breaking the silence once they had reached her car.

"Sure," Aerith replied, as she pulled out her phone and gave Cloud her number while storing his own.

"I guess I'll see you sometime tomorrow, then?" Cloud asked, once he had finished entering her number into his phone.

"Don't get any ideas," he heard a voice growl behind him as he felt something sharp poke into his back.

"Zack!" Aerith exclaimed, "What do you think you're doing?"

"You don't seem very upset to be partnered with this new guy," Zack replied, not removing the point of his sword from Cloud's back.

Deciding it was better not to get involved, Cloud simply stood there as the two talked through him.

"Should I be?" Aerith asked, a hint of anger entering her voice. "Cloud's done nothing wrong, why are you so angry at him?"

'Zack isn't… jealous, is he?' Aerith wondered.

"I'm not angry at him," Zack lied. "I was just wondering why you took this so in stride and didn't even try to change partners. I talked with Tseng, and he doesn't care if he's with me or Cloud."

'He is!' she realized.

"I'm sure we can't change our partners Zack," she replied. "That's why we had to randomly draw names. I'm sorry I'm not your partner but there's really nothing I can do about it. Besides, it's not like I can't still help you practice," she finished.

"Well, Cloud here had better not get any ideas," Zack said, removing his sword from Cloud's back. "Lay one finger on her though, or anything else for that matter, and I'll cut it off," he threatened.

"ZACK!" Aerith yelled, mortified, her face going completely red.

"I'm just warning him," Zack smirked as he walked around Cloud to stand in front of her. He bent down slightly to kiss her cheek, but she turned her head and gently pushed him away.

"I'll… see you later you two," she said, as she unlocked her car and got in the driver's seat before turning it on and backing out of her spot.

"Don't forget what I said Cloud," Zack called back over his shoulder as he walked to his car.

'Well that certainly was a rather interesting end to a remarkable day,' Cloud thought as he lowered his shades and hopped on Fenrir. 'I wonder what tomorrow has in store for me,' he thought, as he revved the engine and headed back home.

End Note: I know it's long, too long, but I couldn't find a good place to cut it in half. I can most certainly promise future chapters won't be this long. I hope you enjoyed it though, and please take a few seconds to leave a review letting me know what you think. I don't normally do stuff like this, but in this case, based on the amount of reviews this chapter gets, I'll decide if I want to continue the story or not. Presently I really don't have a lot of free time, so I'd prefer not to write something that no one is interested in.

Update: I must apologize to all my readers. Due to various reasons I'm not going to be updating this fic for a very long time, possibly never, I'm really not sure. And it's not because of too few reviews (Many thanks to those who have left them, I really appreciate hearing from you), I just realized that right now I don't have the time among other things to be writing a massive chapter fic. I do hope to get a few one shots out though.

Update 2: As of 11/09/07 I am back to working on this story, expect an update soon!