"You know, I don't recall actually agreeing to come here today, Aeris."
I laughed and nudged the Great Sephiroth along. If you thought Sector five was bad, Sector three was the sticks. It consisted of mainly polluted farmland, long since abandoned by it's tenders. There was the odd hut made from debris of old harvesters and plows to till the fields, and within each was evidence of a firepit, with the ashes mostly blown away by the wind since. Overhead the plate holding up the upper city blocked out the sun, and the smog created by the reactor nearby further darkened the district and gave it a dusky twilight feel, even though it was mid-morning. I always felt sick to my stomach when I was close to a reactor, like something twisted up inside of me, but I did my best to hide it. Sector three was the only place in the city Shinra was willing to put a building that would do some good for the community.
"Don't worry, I won't let them braid your hair," I promised. "... Unless you want them to...?" I teased.
"No thanks," Sephiroth said dryly. "Last thing I need is to walk back into HQ with ribbons in my hair."
"Now what's wrong with ribbons?" I stopped and put my hands to my hips with a playful pout. He turned his head briefly, barely a break in his stride.
"Nothing," he said simply, almost apoligetic.
He seemed reluctant to go to the orphanage today, but at the same time there was an air of eagerness about him. He probably just wants to get this over with, I thought.
I thought wrong. As we approached the gate he froze in his tracks, with the strangest expression crossing on his face. "Sephiroth?" I asked. "Is something wrong?" He didn't answer, just scanned the area with his eyes, almost as if the run down little building infront of us was the strangest thing he'd ever seen in his life.
Just then the matron let the children out to play. They all wore the same sort of dark greys and browns, made out of the same rough material. Some of them looked forlorn and wandered the yard quietly, while others rampaged recklessly across it in hot pursuit of a toy or another child. The matron took note of us and approached. Some of the children took note of her interest and lined up against the inside of the rusted iron fence that circled the building, watching.
As she approached Sephiroth seemed to return to normal. "Matron," he acknowledged with a nod.
She hesitated, looking him over before speaking. "Sephiroth?"
He was a good sport after all.
He spoke with the Matron for several long minutes before finally coming inside the gate, and not two minutes later he was tossing a ball back and forth between a couple children, occaisionally turning to throw it lazily into an old basket mounted to the side of the building, which only came to about as high as his waist. Inside, he was he sitting in a chair reading aloud from a children's book, entitled "My Tonberry and Me", with no less than six young faces watching him turn the pages intently. At their lunch time he helped serve the kids their meager meal, all the while fielding questions about, censoring things where he should and passing himself off as more of a buisnessman than a mercenary. The whole time he had the faint traces of a smile tugging at his face, but there was a shadow over his expression. He was looking at a spot low on one wall in contemplation when I decided to approach him.
"Is there something wrong?" I asked him.
The Great Sephiroth didn't look at me to answer, focused still on the wall. He pointed to it. "There's supposed to be a large hole in this wall."
"What?" I looked at the space. There was nothing wrong with it. In fact, it seemed... Newer, than any other part of the building. "What makes you say that?"
"Because I threw a chair at it." He sighed. "I've been here before. When I was very young." The way he said it he sounded almost sad, and still so far off in the distance. Then his eyes abruptly met mine, edged with anger. "Is that why you brought me here?"
I backed off defensively. "No! No, I had no idea... I mean, well, how would I know?"
He considered that for a moment, and the venom in his expression dissapeared. "I feel... So lost. I don't know anything about my past, I didn't even remember this place."
I touched his arm lightly. "Does this answer anything for you, at least?"
"No. It only raises more questions." He breathed, and I could feel him tense and become frustrated. When he spoke again, he did so to himself. "Why? What does it mean?"
NOT DEAD! Augh, it's been forever. Okay, so my excuse this time is that my computer got virused like crazy, and I couldn't do anything. It was dragged down hard by the stupid little viruses and their little virus-babies mucking about my system in the background and consuming all available resources, so much so I couldn't open WordPad, let alone type a single word without having to wait for the computer to catch up with me --; Thankfully, that crisis is over, as I have a brand new computer now that is at least ten times better than the old paperweight.
Next chapter soon-ish, maybe even tonight.