Chapter Five

'One solid hope is worth a cartload of certainties.'

Cloud came to lying on his back on something cold and uncomfortable. Bright lights were glaring in his eyes, and he went to press a hand to his eyes to block them but couldn't. His arms were strapped down.

He opened his eyes and looked around – as best he could, considering that he was tied to a table.

Reno and Zack were either side of him, also bound to tables. Zack was awake, but Reno was still unconscious, and snoring softly. By the looks of it, they were still in the lab. That wasn't comforting in the least.

With a snort, Reno woke up.

'That took a while to wear off,' someone with a high, nasally voice mused from nearby. If Cloud hadn't been worrying already, he began to now. 'Next time I think I'll use a weaker dose.'

Footsteps tapped closer at an uneven pace. A wrinkled white face, framed with strands of greasy hair, came into Cloud's view and sneered at him. Apparently unimpressed with such a lowly creature, Professor Hojo turned away and limped over to Zack.

'I've known about you sneaking into my lab every month,' he said. 'I honestly didn't care that much. Nothing of great value was ever left in your reach, and the security footage has only ever shown a few idiots getting shitfaced and drinking chemicals.'

He hunched a little closer to Zack, who tried very hard to sink through the table.

'So what were you doing today, rifling through my computer? Hmm?'

'I didn't,' Zack said, a picture of innocence but for his record of breaking and entering.

Hojo sniggered.

'You know,' he said conversationally, 'Scarlet had a break-in today; the second time this year. She was very concerned about it. So concerned, in fact, she decided that it would be best to wake up everyone on the board of directors so that we could check our own workplaces.'

He turned away from Zack and walked around Cloud towards Reno, who seemed surprisingly comfortable for someone in his position. Cloud wondered if Hojo had experimented on Reno before. It would certainly explain a lot.

'Well it's a good thing she did,' Hojo said with a triumphant laugh, 'or I wouldn't have caught you.'

The smirk slipped off of his face so fast it was like he'd ripped off a mask.

'What do you want with Lucrecia?' he snapped. 'What do you know?'

Reno tipped his head sideways to simulate a shrug. Although Zack appeared to have sobered up, Reno still seemed quite tipsy.

'Don't ask me, yo. I wasn't fuckin' with your computer; that was the kid.'

Cloud glared him with all the fury he could muster.

I am going to kill you, Reno. I am going to get back to the present where I can actually pick up a sword, and then I am going to kill you.

Hojo turned around to face Cloud agonisingly slowly. His black eyes were narrowed to sharp lines behind his glasses: he didn't really believe that the boy in front of him was capable of so much as using a keyboard.

'You,' he said. 'What were you looking for?'

Cloud swallowed.

'Um—'

There was a hissing sound as the laboratory door opened. Hojo frowned even more deeply than before, which Cloud might have found this impressive, if not for the fact that he was still focused on the organs Hojo was most likely to remove and whether he could live without them.

'What do you want?' Hojo snapped at the intruder, whose brisk footsteps were now approaching the professor and his captives. Cloud twisted his head around enough to see a black coat.

'These are my subordinates,' Sephiroth said. 'You can't have them.'

Hojo sneered.

'That one's a Turk.'

'True,' Sephiroth admitted, 'and I will be contacting Veld shortly so that he can decide whether you may dissect his subordinates, but the other two are mine and will be joining me in a meeting with Director Lazard in exactly ten minutes, if you'd be so kind.'

There was no mistaking the tone of his voice. Cloud was only glad that he was being rescued for as long as it took him to realise that he was just stepping out of Hojo's wrath and straight into Sephiroth's instead. Out of the frying pan and onto the seven-foot long katana.

Hojo hesitated for a while, but must have come to the conclusion that he could not keep hold of Zack and Cloud without divulging to Sephiroth what it was he wanted them for. Much as he might have liked it otherwise, Shinra didn't actually let Hojo chop up anyone who wondered his way. They had to have done something pretty damn annoying first.

Cloud hoped dearly that he'd never get blamed for those dildos.

Giving in, Hojo dug a scalpel from his pocket and started cutting at the ropes around Cloud's body. It took a while to release him, because it was a very small scalpel and there was a lot of rope. Before he got up, Hojo leaned over and hissed,

'I will be watching you.'

Suddenly the size of the scalpel in his hand didn't matter so much. It was big enough to get Cloud up on his feet and fleeing behind Sephiroth. He didn't look him in the face, just in case he remembered him – or realised that, not being in SOLDIER, he technically wasn't Sephiroth's subordinate after all – and decided to give him back to the scientist.

Hojo cut Zack free and stood grumbling as two of his specimens started for the door. Sephiroth nodded to Reno.

'I'm sure Veld will be along shortly,' he said. Reno snorted.

'Sure.'

Sephiroth ushered the two that he could rescue out. The door whizzed closed behind them and he slumped slightly.

'One of these days, that Turk is going to cause a major catastrophe,' he said. Zack rolled his eyes.

'He's not as bad as his reputation. None of them are.'

'No, they are much worse,' Sephiroth snapped. 'And you are not going to say another word until I've decided whether or not to cut your head off.'

Zack rolled his eyes at Cloud behind Sephiroth's back, but did actually manage to remain quiet for the whole walk to the Turk's department (where Veld was, indeed, duly noted of Reno's predicament – it seemed that Hojo had not been lying about Scarlet waking the whole board of directors) and beyond that, to Floor 51, where he and Cloud followed Sephiroth meekly into his office.

Sephiroth went behind his desk, but didn't sit down.

'Zack, you are an idiot,' he said at last. Zack tried his very best to look apologetic, which still wasn't a very good impression. Sephiroth sighed.

'How many things did you break?'

'Nothing!' Zack said quickly. Sephiroth raised one silver eyebrow and looked to Cloud for verification.

'Nothing,' Cloud said, very quietly, to his toes.

'Well, that's a pleasant surprise. Where is your sword?' Sephiroth asked.

'In its locker, in the barracks.' Zack chuckled. 'I thought it was safer there; I'm never letting Cloud touch it again. He'll hurt himself.'

'How considerate,' Sephiroth said flatly. Cloud began to wish he had his standard-issue rifle on him so he could start shooting a hole in the floor to disappear through.

Sephiroth took a very long breath. He paused for a moment, and Cloud wondered if he was counting to ten in his head.

'So,' he said at last, 'you haven't broken anything, you haven't lost anything, and no one has been injured or died?'

Zack thought for a moment.

'Yes.'

Sephiroth lifted his arms up before him and tipped his head back as though he could feel beams of sunlight on his face.

'This is a miracle. It must be a message from God. I must leave Shinra and become a holy man,' he said.

Sephiroth's moment of enlightenment ended abruptly when there was a knock at the door. Lazard poked his head in.

'Sephiroth, could you sign some paperwork for me?' he said. 'Scarlet's just called in sick and I've got mountains to get through.'

Zack let out a howl and doubled over in hysterics. Cloud started eyeing Masamune where it was resting on the wall above Sephiroth's desk and wondered if he could lift it up long enough to impale himself on it. Sephiroth's eye twitched but he managed a polite tone with Lazard.

'Put them on my desk.'

'I'll get them out of the cabinet.' Lazard nodded his thanks and retreated. A few moments later there was a loud squawk from down the corridor, a yelp and some crashing noises. Zack fell to one knee laughing.

'Go to the barracks and go to sleep,' Sephiroth said. 'Now, or I swear to the merciful god that kept you from breaking anything tonight that I will start cutting parts off of you.'

'He's cheered up,' Zack said to Cloud brightly in what he probably thought was a whisper. 'He doesn't specifically want my head anymore, just parts.'

'Out,' said Sephiroth, and Zack left with a grin. Some way down the corridor, Reno's voice could be distinctly heard delightedly crying,

'Dude, she totally took the day off sick!'

'I know!'

Sephiroth finally collapsed into his chair and put his head in his hands, letting his hair spill over his face. Cloud watched him for a moment, and then, deciding that he definitely couldn't see through all that, began to sidle towards the door.

'No,' Sephiroth said. 'You stay here.'

Cloud stopped and sagged. So close.

Sephiroth sat up and pushed his hair back. He looked a little more haggard now than he had the last time Cloud saw him, but nothing like as awful as he would in a few years' time, with Jenova screaming in his head.

'What's your name?' Sephiroth said.

'Strife, sir,' Cloud said. Sephiroth raised his eyebrows.

'Just Strife?'

'Uh… Cloud Strife, sir. Cloud Strife, Shinra MP Infantryman, new recruit from Nibelheim.'

'Nibelheim,' Sephiroth mused. 'I've never heard it. Can't be that important.'

Cloud was surprised to see a small smile on his face. Sephiroth gestured him closer and he stepped forward, more out of confusion than terror now.

'Unlike Mister Fair and the Turk, you do not appear to be intoxicated,' he said. 'In which case, I have to wonder what exactly you were doing running around with the pair of them all night. It's no fun to be the only sober one at the party.'

'I'm fourteen,' Cloud pointed out.

'I highly doubt that would stop Reno from buying you alcohol,' Sephiroth said. 'Or Zack, for that matter, once he is drunk enough. You appeared to be deeply uncomfortable even before the Hojo debacle, when you had the chocobo, so I will ask you again: what were you doing with them?'

'Umm…' Cloud said. Sephiroth sighed.

'I could always transfer this conversation along to your own boss. You're not in SOLDIER, after all; you're nothing to do with me. Who is in charge of the infantrymen anyway? Heidegger?'

'I was, uh,' Cloud thought wildly, 'I was trying to get my name on the list for mako showers.'

'Mako showers,' Sephiroth said flatly.

'I wanted to get in to SOLDIER,' Cloud shrugged. He wasn't completely lying.

Sephiroth stared at him so hard Cloud thought he might burn a hole through his skull.

'Mako showers,' he said again.

'Yes?'

'You put up with Zack and Reno, drunk, all night, so that you could get a mako shower?'

'Yes,' Cloud said. He wondered how much the future would change when he died now, for trying to lie to Sephiroth. Maybe someone else would kill Sephiroth later. Maybe Barret.

Sephiroth sat back for a moment, and then opened a drawer, pulled out a piece of paper and started scribbling. He folded it meticulously and held it out. Cloud took it, face blank.

'What…?'

'One order for a mako shower,' Sephiroth said. 'It will be a very mild dose, considering your age and stature, but still a perfectly good mako shower. You might even be able to lift Zack's sword afterwards. You won't be able to swing it, but you won't drop it on your toes if you try to pick it up.'

Cloud stared at the paper.

'Why?'

'Because if you were desperate enough to spend the evening with those two for it, I dread to imagine what you'll do next,' Sephiroth said. 'Also Zack seems rather fond of you, which no doubt means he'll be dragging you into more of his nonsense. I'd only have to fill out more paperwork if he squashed you.'

'Thank you, sir,' Cloud managed eventually. Sephiroth nodded and gestured towards the door.

'I suggest you go the same way as Zack.'

Cloud checked his watch.

'Actually, sir,' he said, 'I have to start work in ten minutes.'

Sephiroth looked surprised.

'No, I don't think you do,' he said. 'Not today. Go.'

Cloud fumbled a salute and hurried from the room. His head was throbbing and the floor felt like it was tipping slightly, and that was probably the effects of whatever Hojo had put in those darts, but he was smiling nonetheless.

He hadn't known Sephiroth the last time around; not really. He hadn't spoken to him once, right up until that day in Nibelheim. This time, though, Sephiroth already knew his name, and seemed to have an ounce or two of respect for him. Enough to pull strings and get him that mako shower – which, all right, didn't matter all that much to Cloud really – but the thought meant something that Cloud hadn't been sure of before:

Sephiroth was not irredeemable.

He couldn't kill him, and he couldn't get any information to prove that Jenova wasn't his mother, but he could do other things. He could throw hints, give advice, be a shoulder to… well, Sephiroth was probably incapable of crying, but a person to direct grievances at.

This was how he was going to change everything. He was going to make sure Sephiroth never went crazy, even if it took him two years to do it.

First of all, though, he was going to have his first mako shower. He gripped the paper in his hand a little tighter and grinned.

[AN: Emriel, You wanted more Sephiroth? Here, have some Sephiroth! Have lots of Sephiroth!

Actually, a few people have messaged/reviewed me about things pertaining to Sephiroth. Considering how little we see of him before he got Jenovaed, I'm interested to see how many people see him as a pure villain vs just a very unfortunate, misguided character. Cast your votes, I guess?

Also, Hojo, to whom every bad thing that happens for basically the whole of FFVII can be blamed. Seriously. Everything.]