Not much to say about it. I kind of ran out of teacher Ideas. I want a lot of these characters to remain kids in Cloud's new school. Rufus is the Superintendent at the school. But anyway. I hope you enjoy it!

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Gym was the easiest class by far, but complete and utter hell for any and all participants. Cloud was thrown into a hellish game of floor hockey but an extremely large, buff, black man who told him to call him Mr. Wallace. He looked like he could kick anyone's ass with his hands behind his back. There were a couple of kids he recognized from his first class but one kid in particular stood out. He had long, flowing silver hair down his back and emerald green eyes. They didn't look soothing or beautiful like Cloud usually thought green eyes did, but his looked hard, vicious.

The whole way through the game the silver haired teen just kept glaring at Cloud and it was driving him insane.

Afterwards, the blonde headed back to the locker rooms to change and get Mr. Wallace's signature. He walked up to the man's office and rapped lightly on the solid wooden door.

"Come in," the teacher called out.

Cloud did as he was told and heaved the heavy thing open.

"Ah, new kid, Clyde was it?"

"Cloud," he corrected the man, "uhm...Mr. Highwind told me I needed to get your signature on this?"

The heavy set man reached out a hand and Cloud placed it in his waiting palm. The teacher put on a pair of reading glasses. The blonde thought he look comically out of character. A big, muscular black man sitting behind a desk with reading glasses on? It almost made him chuckle a bit at the sight.

"So, Cid's your dean, eh," he asked, taking off the glasses and searching for a pen. While he was doing so, he gestured to the chair in front of his desk. Cloud groaned inwardly as he realized this was going to take longer than a moment. "Nice guy, you're lucky to get him. I've known Cid for many, many years and if you have any problems," at this, Mr. Wallace had managed to find a black pen and looked back up at Cloud, "any problems at all, you just go to him. Or me. We're really here to help you, you know."

"Thank you, Mr. Wallace," Cloud replied under his breath, not really comfortable in the small chair and stuffy gym office. He waited for a prolonged moment to hear him finish signing the sheet before he look up.

"You can call me Barret if you like," he told the boy, handing him back his slip of paper.

"Thanks," Cloud repeated. He rose from his chair, withdrawing his slip from a watchful Mr. Wallace. An idea had been toying in his mind for a couple of hours. He felt like he needed to ask the man a question just for Mr. Wallace's sake and not his own. He came up with a different question. "Who was that silver haired kid?"

"Oh, the really moody one," Barret replied, almost slightly relieved that the kid had asked him something. He felt like he was doing some sort of unspoken good, "name's Sephiroth. Not the nicest kid around. Watch for him, don't piss him off, ya hear?"

"Yeah, thanks again," Cloud said, high tailing his way directly out of that office and into the open hallways.

But just as he merged with the scarce traffic in the barely used hallway, he was run down by some unseen force from behind. He fell forward, throwing his arms out to catch himself on the carpet, earning a rug burn or two on his arms. His back pack had gone flying a few feet from him.

"Oh my gosh," he heard a girl's voice shout, "I am so sorry! Here, lemme grab your bag!"

From his position on the floor he could see as two white boots came in to view. An arm extending lithely to the ground that had a black sleeve covering from her elbow to her wrist and fanning out like a bell bottom.

Cloud continued to watch until she picked up his back pack and ran over to him. He could only see the bottom part of her shoes. He picked himself up off the floor.

"Here," she said, extending a hand, which he gladly took, and hoisted him back into a standing position. Blushing, she handed him his back, "sorry about that, I was kind of in a hurry. Have to run half way across the school to make it to my next class, much less be on time. I've never seen you around here before, you new?"

"Yeah," Cloud replied, slinging his back pack over his shoulder and extending a hand which she happily accepted, "my name's Cloud Strife, I'm a new sophomore here."

"Wow, really," she shouted, eyes lighting up, "I'm a sophomore here too! Well, I'm not new or anything, I'm Yuffie Kisaragi. Nice to meet you! So what class did you just have? What class are you going to? Where are you from? How old are you?"

"Uhm," Cloud paused for a moment trying to think of all the answers to her questions in order, "Gym with Wallace," he had to pull out his schedule for the next one, "Art with Mr. Valentine, Nibleheim, and I'm 16."

"I just came from gym with Wallace," Yuffie sounded ecstatic, "maybe we were just on different teams and not playing against each other. Plus I didn't know you until now. Oh! I have Art with Valentine next too! I'm only 15 though and i've lived here all my life. Never heard of Nibleheim, where is it? Come on, walk with me, we're going to the same class anyway. So what's Nibleheim?"

Cloud's head was spinning at all the words she managed to get out in just a couple of breaths. Damn, this girl could talk. "Uhm, well, It's pretty much in the middle of no where, only a mako reactor out there. A quiet place."

"Wow, this must be a huge change for you, what coming to live in Midgar and all," she commented. She had no idea how true that statement was, "so have you made any other friends today?"

Cloud thought of Zack. "No," he lied.

"What a shame," she sounded so sympathetic to his situation, and she was really peppy and nice. Though her energy just about wore him out. "well, you can sit with me at lunch, we'll have it right after art class, I mean, that is, if you'll want to."

"Yeah, that'd be great."

"Alright!" She shouted, punching a fist in the air. Cloud jumped at her sudden outburst. "This is gunna be a good semester! I can feel it! Yeah!"

The rest of the day passed by, Mr. Valentine, Vincent he learned was his first name, seemed really dark and distant and quiet. Yuffie had told him not to worry, that he doesn't grade harshly at all. The rest of his classes were pretty much free of a familiar face, unfriendly or not.

He had gotten his slip signed by all of his teachers and left it on Miriam's desk. She only looked up at him through her hideous glasses before returning to her computer screen. It took Cloud literally forever for him to figure out how his lock worked. He was starting to get a little worried too, the hallways were pretty much clearing out, only a couple of laughing kids left here and there, which meant the buses would be leaving soon. And he had to be on one of them.

Finally, he yanked his locker open and stashed a few books inside and slammed it shut. From there he made a mad dash for the front entrance to the horrid building, freedom swelling up in him, he was about ready to burst free, fly away into the sky like a bird.

He barreled his way through the front doors and out onto the side walk where he found the most confusing bus chart he thought he had ever seen. He didn't know how the numbers worked in correlation to it's position on the pavement. It was just then that he realized he didn't know what bus he was supposed to be on.

The engines roared high and Cloud panicked.

He practically ripped his schedule open looking for the number.

It was no where to be seen.

He looked, frantic, as he watched the first few buses leave. He looked around skittishly from left to right to try and find someone to help but only a couple of teenagers were left walking out to their cars. No teachers or anything.

Before he knew it, every single bus had pulled out of the parking lot, leaving the circular area empty save for a few older looking kids walking away from the building at their own pace. Cloud sighed angrily and walked over to one of the brick columns next to the building, punching a fist into it.

"Well, well, well," came a taunting and familiar voice, "if it isn't our little genius from first hour."

Cloud whirled around to find Reno and the black kid, he thought Zack had referred to him as Rude, an asian kid and a blonde girl standing behind the red head. The blonde boy watched as Reno advanced on him, coming closer than the others. A slight smirk was on the teen's face.

"What the hell do you want," Cloud spat at the kid, throwing in as much venom as he could muster. He was tired from a long day of school and was not in the mood to deal with this bully's shit.

"Don't you know," he asked the blonde patronizingly, "don't you know why you were accepted here from Nibleheim of all places? Why you were pulled from the middle of no where to go to one of the best private schools around?"

Cloud looked at his shoes.

"Apparently not," Reno answered for him, "let me enlighten you. This is one of the main schools in Midgar they pull SOLDIERs from. This is basically the training school where they knit out the best. You're pretty much the talk of the whole school, it's common knowledge around here that Cloud Strife was taken from Nibleheim and transfered here due to his amazing success at his old school. You have the most potential of becoming a first class SOLDIER than anyone here."

"What the hell," Cloud shouted, "I've never tried to join SOLDIER! why would they randomly pick me?!"

Reno shrugged, "but you're taking the spotlight away from us Turks. We do the dirty work of the city, cleaning up here and there after SOLDIER's messes. But we will become 1st class. But with you in the way, that's hardly going to happen."

"We've been waiting too long, trying too hard," the blonde girl behind him said in a sweet sounding voice filled with snark.

"If you were out of the way," Rude left the sentence open ended.

"We would have a better shot," Reno finished, advancing towards the blonde, "guess fear is the only way to push you out."

Cloud back up against the stone pillar as the red head and black kid started to advance towards him. He closed his eyes and waited for the oncoming pain, terror and torture to hit him.

What he heard instead of a fist crunching into his jaw, was a loud thud in front of him followed by a softly muttered, "God dammit!"

Tentatively, Cloud opened his eyes. He found Zack towering in front of him, blocking him from Reno and Rude. Both of his arms were extended out to his sides as a protective gesture. The blonde stood there is shock.

"Fuck, what the hell do you want, Zack," Reno shouted.

"I want you to leave the kid alone," he replied.

"No can do."

"Look, it's not his fault he kicks ass," Zack said in a harsh voice, standing up for a cowering Cloud behind him, "he was pulled from Nibleheim due to Rufus's request, and if I recall correctly Rufus is the one helping your sorry asses get in good with the Shinra company. Cloud did nothing wrong but tried his best and that landed him here. You shouldn't pick on him because it's not his fault. If I catch you trying to lay another finger on this kid, I swear to god your head is going straight up your ass."

Zack relaxed from his defensive position and turned to face Cloud. He smiled lightly at him and said, "Let's go."

Before Cloud could even nod, Reno kicked Zack's legs out from underneath him, sending him crashing to the ground, knocking his head on the pavement.

The blonde boy watched in horror as Reno made a dive for the recovering Zack.

He plunged at the red head, punching him square in the face and knocking him back a few feet away from Zack. The red head managed to finally pick himself up as Cloud helped up the raven haired senior.

Once the Turks had left, Zack was able to stand up right again, "Thanks for that. I guess I should stop trying to protect you, you can take care of yourself."

Cloud chuckled a little, "yeah, I can, but I like that you care."

"You got a ride home?"

"The bus."

Zack looked out at the bus lot, "Want a lift?"

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You should all review. They make people soooo happy. If every person who read a story reviewed that story, the world would be a much happier place.

So! Some ZackxCloud moment awaiting in the car ride home? I think so. ;)