Cloud slowly walked out of the hospital room and through the corridors of ShinRa. He couldn't believe it. He'd only just arrived and he was already half-dead and there had been an enemy within the building. He sighed, glancing down at a map one of the nurses had given him and trying to navigate his way to the sleeping quarters.

"Hey, kid! You're the one that survived the beast, am I right?" Cloud looked up to see a grinning turk with red hair walking over to him.

"Uh, yeah." he nodded.

"What's your name?" the turk asked. "I'm Reno."

"Cloud Strife." Cloud replied. Reno nodded slowly, letting the name sink in and repeating it in his head a few times so he wouldn't forget it.

"Well, see you round, kay?" Reno said, turning with a wave and walking off. Cloud frowned slowly but pushed the thought out of his mind and continued walking.

"Move it! I want to see you sweating!" yelled the instructor, walking around the room and observing the trainee's progress. Someone walked in the door and saluted, waiting for the instructor to come over.

"This letter came for Mr Strife, sir!" the man said. The instructor yanked the letter out of the man's hands and looked it over, taking it over to Cloud.

"Read it quickly and get back to work." the instructor ordered. Cloud nodded, his hands shaking slightly as he opened the envelope and read the letter. His eyes widened. Tifa had written to him.

Pocketing the letter, Cloud quickly went back to training. But he couldn't push the thought out of his mind that Tifa had written a letter to him. She hadn't said much. Just that she was missing him and hoped he'd arrived safely. Oh yeah, and that she wanted him to write back.

After training, Cloud went back to the room all the trainee's shared and looked around. Everyone had already grouped off and made friends. Great.

"I know, I reckon he cheated somehow." someone mumbled to their friend. Cloud inconspicuously moved closer to listen. Who had cheated?

"Yeah. I mean, they said no one had ever survived alone in the forest for that long and he's the scrawniest thing on earth so it's just not possible!" Cloud stiffened slightly. They were talking about him.

"Oh well, even if he did survive the forest there's no way he's gonna survive all the training. I bet he didn't even train before coming here! Probably just wanted to become a SOLDIER to impress someone and hopped on the first train he could get." Cloud turned to face the door and fought to stop himself from going over there and yelling at them. How did they know he hadn't trained and that he wanted to impress someone?

"We're not gonna try and teach him a lesson, are we? You know it'd just waste our time and he'll fail without our help anyway." Cloud began walking towards the door, not wanting to hear any more of it.

"Dude, he's here! You think he heard what we said?" someone else said, trying to speak in a quiet voice and failing.

"Crap!" another said. Cloud ignored them and walked out the door, crashing straight into Zack and stumbling backwards again.

"Woah! Careful." Zack said, looking down at him. "Hey! You're Cloud Strife, right?" he asked, his eyes lighting up.

"Uh, yeah." Cloud mumbled.

"Awesome! I'm Zack." and the rambling began. Zack went off into a spiel about himself and then continued to talk about how amazing it was that Cloud had survived the beast and then he told Cloud about all his friends.

"Wow.. okay." Cloud said slowly.

"Yeah! So, made any friends yet?" Zack asked. Cloud looked down and shook his head. "That's okay! You just have! So, what do you wanna do? We could go terrorise the Turk's, or we could annoy Sephiroth, or, oh my gosh I have a brilliant idea!" Zack grabbed Cloud's arm and began running, dragging the poor kid behind him.

"Um, what's your idea?" Cloud asked, having a very bad feeling about this.

"We'll annoy Rufus!" Zack said excitedly. Cloud could have died on the spot. He was going to get kicked out, he just knew it. "Don't worry, if anything happens blame it all on me." Cloud just nodded numbly.

They rounded a corner and Zack ran ahead, peaking into a room through the window on the door. A grin appeared on his face as he ducked below the window and signalled for Cloud to come closer.

"Do we have to do this?" Cloud whispered.

"Yes!" Zack hissed back. He looked so excited Cloud was amazed he wasn't dancing on the spot. "Okay, I'm going to go in there and start talking to him and accidentally knock his coffee off his desk all over him, kay?"

Gulp. "Okay."

"Good. Then when I run off to get something to clean up, I want you to come in and tell him the other trainees are involved in a really big bad fight. And-"

"You want me to lie!?" Cloud asked, shocked.

"Duh! Don't worry, he won't care." Zack shrugged. "So then he'll probably come running and he'll have coffee all over him and as he walks over the door I'll trip him so he falls flat on his face. Sound good so far?" Zack's eyes were lit up with absolute eagerness and Cloud couldn't help but nod.

"Then what?" Cloud asked quietly, almost scared of the answer.

"Leave it to me." Zack grinned, stood up, and entered the office of the President of ShinRa. Cloud thought about running away, but didn't want Zack looking like a complete idiot. Besides, he himself already knew what that felt like.

"What the heck is wrong with you Zack!?" came a loud yell from the office. Cloud's eyes widened and he heard muffled laughing from Zack.

"Sorry! I'll go get something to clean it." the door opened and Zack walked out, shutting the door behind him and giving Cloud the thumbs up. Cloud slowly walked towards the door, took a deep breath, and walked in.

"Sir?" he said. The President of ShinRa looked up at him with a glare on his face.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Uh, the other trainees are fighting and it looks pretty bad." he said. Rufus Shinra raised an eyebrow.

"And you got out of there unharmed?" he asked.

"I was walking by outside when I heard it. So I looked in to see what was happening and then I came to tell you." Cloud said, making it up on the spot and hoping it wasn't obvious that he was scared out of his brain. Rufus sighed.

"All right, I'll see what I can do." he stood up and walked around his desk. Cloud nodded and walked out the door, falling flat on his face.

"Crap! Sorry spikey!" Zack said, absolute horror covering his face as he realised he had just tripped the wrong person. Rufus looked out at him and if looks could kill Zack would have been dead.

"Zack, I am going to kill you." Rufus said. Cloud scrambled to his feet and started inching away, his eyes showing the pure fear. "Did you get him to come in and talk to me so I'd walk out?" Rufus asked, already cluing in to Zack's plan. Zack nodded sadly.

"It's all my fault, I know." Zack said. "But I was bored! Come on Roofie, you know what happens when I get bored!"

"Zack, what have I told you about calling me nicknames?" Rufus asked, trying his best not to attack Zack and also knowing that if he did he would probably get decked anyway.

"I know, I know. Don't call you anything that your mother didn't name you." Zack shrugged.

"No Zack, don't call me anything other than 'Mr President' or sir." he corrected. Zack rolled his eyes.

"Whatever." he looked up at the glare on Rufus' face and sighed. "Sir."

"That's better. Now, I don't want to see you poisoning the trainees minds and making them disobey the rules when they've only just joined ShinRa." Rufus said.

"So later on when they've been here for a while, then I can poison their minds and make them disobey the rules?" Zack's face had lit up again.

"No!" Rufus yelled. He groaned in annoyance and rubbed his head. Zack was such a handful and the only reason he kept him at ShinRa as a SOLDIER was because he was getting to be as good as Angeal, who wasn't far from Genesis and then in turn, wasn't far from Sephiroth.

"I'm sorry, sir." Cloud said quietly. Rufus looked over at him with a raised eyebrow. "He didn't really give me a choice."

"I said you could blame me, not make me sound like a horrible manipulative guy!" Zack protested.

"It's all right Zack, I already knew you were a horrible manipulative guy." Rufus said. "I'm sick of dealing with your idiocy, so next time you want to annoy someone go annoy Lazard."

"Whoo! Come on Cloud." Zack said, spinning around and beginning to run off. Cloud's eyes went wide and he stepped away slightly. Zack stopped running and looked back at him.

"Come on! We've just been told by the President of ShinRa to annoy Lazard, so come on! This is our big chance! We can't get in trouble this time." Zack urged.

"You're a horrible manipulative guy, Zack." Rufus said, turning and walking back into his office. Zack's mouth fell open as he stared at the closed door and then looked over at Cloud.

"Are you coming?" he asked.

"No, sorry." Cloud said.

"Okay! I'll tell you all about it when I get back!" Zack grinned and took off. Cloud sighed and walked off to the dorms again.

"Dad, please!" Tifa begged.

"What did I say?" her father asked, looking at her sternly.

"You said no, but please! Just think about it some more." she persisted. "I'd go straight to ShinRa and find Cloud just to make sure he's all right and then I'd come straight back!" she said.

"No, Tifa! I don't want you going near Cloud Strife. Personally, I'm glad he left." her father shrugged.

"How can you say that? He was my best friend!" Tifa snapped.

"What about your other friends?"

"What about them? Yes, they're my friends too, but they're not the ones that I always have to stick up for!" Tifa argued.

"Look, you're not going to visit Cloud and that's that."

"But dad-"

"Has he written any letters?"

"Well, no not yet-"

"Until he writes you a letter and proves he actually cares that you're his friend, I will not allow you to visit him."

"Oh come on!"

"No." he walked out of the room and Tifa stomped her foot angrily.

"Please write back to me, Cloud." she whispered.

Reno typed away crazily at the computer, his eyes scanning all the information as it whizzed past and desperately searching for something with the name Strife. Rude was standing at the door with his arms folded and a very bored expression on his face.

"Are you done yet?" he asked.

"You can leave if you want." Reno replied, still focused on the computer screen. "Aha!" he suddenly said, jumping out of his chair and punching the air.

"Remember Reno, don't tell me." Rude said, glancing over at his partner. Reno didn't hear him, he was too busy reading the information on the screen. His expression changed to one of disbelief and shock and he slowly sunk back down into his chair.

"No way." he said slowly. Rude stared out the door, trying not to let Reno's reaction get to him. "Oh the poor kid." Reno said, shaking his head. Rude took a deep breath and rolled his eyes.

"Fine Reno, tell me." he said, walking over to the computer.

"The kids parents were Turks like us!" Reno said. "When he was three they died on a mission but he was told ever since that it was a car crash. They lied to him."

"There you go, are you satisfied?" Rude asked.

"Nope!" Reno said happily. Rude groaned in annoyance and walked back over to the door to continue waiting.