The absolute last thing I want to hear after a night on the town is a phone ringing.
Reno had invited me out, saying he absolutely had to talk to me about something he found out, and we ended up drinking. Reno went on and on about... Something, I can't remember what, and I doubt he'd even remember considering he probably drank more than I did. I remember him snickering about it most of the night.
The ringing of the phone seemed to be in tune with the pounding of my head from my hangover, so finally, I bit the bullet and answered my cellphone.
"Hello?"
"Sephy's right about you Zack, you're hopeless."
"... Shut up... Wait, who is this?"
"That's rude. How many flower girls do you know?"
Whoops. "Sorry Aeris. Had a long night. What's up?"
"Sephiroth asked me to make sure you wake up on time for training. Also, I was kinda worried about you."
"Worried? What for?"
"Well... I guess you don't remember then?"
"Remember what?"
"You called me last night, asked me something weird. Then you started crying."
"Err, yeah. Sorry about that. Doesn't usually happen." Damnit, I cried?
"You're just lucky I was awake at three in the morning. If I had been sleeping, I get real mean and stuff."
I grinned to myself trying to picture Aeris' tiny fists of fury, then my brain complained that I had put it to work and I recoiled in pain. "I don't know about that Aeris. I find you about as threatening as a baby chicobo. Say, what did I ask you last night?"
"I barely remember it. You slurred and tripped over the question, and had to restart a couple times. And even then it didn't make much sense." She was laughing at me on her end. "Hey, but before you get to training, I wanted to ask you something."
"Sure. What's up?"
"Are you available later tonight to go on a date with me?"
"... That's kind of out of the blue. You only just broke up with Seph..."
"Yeah, but... I want to get to know you. I mean, we've been sort of hanging out all this time, but we don't really get to talk, so I want to talk with you."
"I don't really have much to say. I mean, what could we talk about?"
"Oh, pshh. Everyone's got a story to tell. Come over to my house tonight, okay? I'll make you dinner."
"Aeris, you don't really have to..."
"Nuh-uh, you're not getting out of this one. I insist. Besides, who's going to help me eat the chocobo wings I bought today?" Seph must've told her my weakness... Damn him.
"Alright, fine! You've convinced me. I'll show up around seven."
"Sounds great. Now, aren't you a little late for training?"
I looked over at the clock. It was about nine-thirty. Sephiroth had probably gone down to the training room an hour and a half ago. "Err, yeah. I'll see you later, Aeris."
"Okay. Take care Zack!" She hung up the phone. Time to go get my ass kicked...
"You're late."
"I know, I know..." He was roughing up the training room something fierce. "Say, how long have you been at it this morning?"
He decapitated a mannequin before turning to face me. "Since... Yesterday morning, I think."
"Seph, you didn't sleep?"
He turned back to his immobile victims. "No." He cut one clean through vertically. "I had to vent some frustration."
"What's eating you, man?"
He made a sound like a snarl as he went about redecorating the training room. "I managed to get some info out of the computer..."
"You're still on that? I don't think Aeris has any dark and dirty secrets." I shrugged. "Did you even consider that maybe she just never bothered to get ID..."
"Personal database files catalogue everyone from the day they're born, ID card or not. She wasn't anywhere on the personal files. But she was in Hojo's secret files."
"Look man, I think you're obsessing a little too much over this. How did you even get into Hojo's files, anyway?"
"... I asked him nicely, and promised him a new scalpel. Zack, listen. Do you even know what that means? She was filed under his 'experiments'."
"That is... Moderately scary. Are you trying to say she has super powers or something?"
Sephiroth hesitated his carnage for a brief moment, to look towards the ceiling in thought. "I don't know about her, exactly, but... Still, there's something strange going on. Between her and Shinra." He began to pace back and forth. "There's still a major piece of the puzzle missing; Why would Hojo, or the Shinra company as a whole, take an interest in her..."
"Seph... Seriously man, I think you're getting crazy over this. You need, like, a hobby or something. Count some bottlecaps. Start a collection of your own paraphenalia. That sort of thing."
Sephiroth answered me with a scowl. "Zack, this is big. This 'mission' I selected for us - find out what Aeris is hiding from the world at large - has led me to the soldier program and something called the Jenova Project. Weirder still, her father was apparently Professor Gast. I knew him. It seems like I only find more questions to ask." He sighed under his breath. "And... This line of inquiry has led me to at least one thing about my own past. I was in an orphanage."
"Did you find out who your parents were?" I asked carefully.
"No. The Matron there had no records about my parentage. But I was there."