Disclaimer: Final Fantasy VII is the property of Square Enix and no financial profit is sought from this work.

Warnings: language, violence, blood, death and yaoi

Chapter Three: Sparring

"-- the search has been completed in the slums of the third sector as well, and we weren't able to locate any trace of the resistance movement, thus we're certain that their hideout isn't located there either," the Wutaiese Turk finished his oral report and standing still, hands clasped behind his back, he held the eye contact with the General sitting behind his massive desk, waiting for dismissal or questions.

After being in the dark for six days, Sephiroth had requested the President to keep him posted on the resistance movement case. At firs, he had felt futile requesting such a thing, since he had one of the Turks wearing a hole on his couch, but every time he asked Reno about the proceedings of the case the redhead's answers were along the lines of "nothing really" or "it's confidential and you're not a Turk". Sephiroth knew that because he had a higher rank than the Turk, the stubborn youth was obliged to answer all his questions, but he didn't bother reminding Reno about that, knowing that there were other Turks he preferred listening the report from.

So after a brief talk with the President, Sephiroth had one of the Turks (preferably and most likely Tseng) delivering him an oral report every other day, this being the first one of them. And it appeared that he hadn't learned anything new from Tseng that he hadn't already pried out of Reno.

It had been a week since the SOLDIERs had raided the resistance movement's hideout in the slums of sector two. After that, the Turks had searched for the rest of the movement from sector one to three, and no doubt searched them well, a hasty job wasn't something the Turks would do, and yet, they hadn't found anything. Sephiroth knew that moving on the plate was out of question, if Reno's report had been accurate there were still 13 people in the movement, and paying them all on the plate was highly unlikely, plus the security was stricter on the upper sectors, if there was an organisation on the plate that planned the assassination of the President, they'd have heard of it. So, the only possible place for the resistance movement's hideout was on some of the remaining sectors under the plate, and the only way to find out where, was to search the rest of them, so keeping Tseng in his office longer than it was necessary was a waste of time.

"Thank you. You're dismissed," Sephiroth said, leaning back on his big leather chair.

The dark haired Turk bowed his head, turned around and started walking towards the door. When Tseng reached the door he almost bumped against another blue clad fighter as he walked into the room with Zack.

Sephiroth had to fight back not to let out an exasperated sigh at the sight of the two men who had became more like his roommates than his co-workers. Sephiroth's secretary had learned long ago that announcing Zack's arrival to the General wasn't necessary, and let him walk into his office without a blink, and apparently Zack bringing someone with him wasn't something the silver haired man needed to know about either.

Reno stayed in the doorway, changing few words with Tseng, about work most likely. But Zack walked straight in and seated on the edge of his commander's desk. "Good afternoon, Seph," he said cheerfully "Did you get all the information you wanted?" he continued, inclining his head towards the two Turks.

"All there's to know. But whether that is what I wanted to know is a different thing entirely," Sephiroth replied, his tone and expression even.

Both SOLDIERs heard the door slid shut in Tseng's wake, but the metallic hiss was mostly lost under an odd noise Reno let out of his throat as he stretched his arms towards the ceiling. "Well, as far as I'm concerned the day's wrapped," he said while walking towards Sephiroth's desk, and taking an example from his friend, sat on it. "So what now?"

"Don't know," Zack said and shrugged. "How's work? Did you find anything?" Zack offered a small-talkish start for a conversation, which made Sephiroth lean deeper in his chair, as if trying to get as far away as possible from the two and their talk, but he had to admit that he would be more than happy to hear a proper answer for the question.

"Nothing much," the redhead said, sounding bored in every sense of the word.

Sephiroth's lips twitched upwards into a sneer. Had he had someone to bet with on the Turk's answer he would be a millionaire. But it was nice to notice that the unveiling answers weren't directed only at him; not even his friend (and Zack was by far one of the friendliest people Sephiroth had ever met) could make him talk. Or there really was nothing to talk about, in which case, Sephiroth could totally sympathise with the Turk's boredom.

"Well, if you're up to it, we could go sparring," Zack said a challenging gleam in his dark blue eyes that the General knew well, and he also knew that if Reno didn't watch it, he was going to be mending his bruises for the rest of the day.

But like the SOLDIERs had learned the day they met the young Turk, he didn't lack confidence. "Sounds good to me," Reno said a lopsided grin on his face, and then his grin and voice turned threatening and no one in the office could argue why this youth had been made into a Turk "I'm gonna kick your ass," Reno exclaimed before jumping off the desk.

"Oh yeah? We'll see about that Turkey," Zack said, trying to mirror his friends expression, but didn't manage to make it as sinister. Apparently Zack didn't believe in threats, then again, he didn't have to squeeze information from people before cutting them in half, so he didn't have the practise Reno had. "You coming?" Zack asked over his shoulder looking at Sephiroth.

"No, thank you," the silver haired man answered as nonchalantly as ever.

Zach sighed, throwing his hands in the air in surrender. "Of course you won't," 'you haven't participated in anything of the things we offer,' "Can we still use your hall?" the dark haired man asked in what was his version of the puppy-eyes, and the look didn't fit in that muscular SOLDIER body at all.

Sephiroth wanted to groan at the look, but suppressed the urge and dug into one of his desk drawers. Just getting rid of that look was worth the use of his personal training hall. After finding his spare key card he threw it to Zack. "Don't make a mess."

"Thanks, Seph. And we won't," Zack said and turned around, walking towards the door where Reno was already waiting.

The comment was obviously meant to be heard only by Reno, but Sephiroth's sensitive ears picked it up as Zack leaned close to his friend mumbling to him: "I knew that would work, Aeris can't resist my puppy-eyes either. She says I'm too cute to be denied anything."

Sephiroth vaguely remembered Zack mentioning something about a girlfriend a couple of months back, so he expected that Aeris was her name, and if so, he had been just compared to some teenaged girl. But Sephiroth let it slip; besides, the door had already closed after Zack and Reno, leaving him alone in his office.

Sephiroth's sharp eyes swept over his desk: it was clean of any paperwork, and since his work with the resistance movement wasn't finished yet, there'd be no other missions for him, so he didn't even bother checking his mail. He turned his head slightly to the left and eyed the white door that led to his condo; there was nothing to do there either.

Defeated, the SOLDIER threw his head back and stared at the ceiling. Why had he turned down the invitation to spar? As much as he disliked most of the pastimes Zack offered, he had never before said no to sparring. When the question had come, Sephiroth had mouthed the answer before he had even thought about it. The answer had been "no" because the Turk was there, that was clear. At the moment the General had told himself that it was because it would be pointless to go spar with an odd number of people. But that wasn't the whole truth, because he could easily fight against two men at the same time, he had done that in the war more than often. The real reason was that he simply didn't want to be near Reno. Sephiroth groaned, he didn't like the idea that someone would have such a hold on him that it prevented him from doing things the way he wanted.

Then deciding that the best way to prove that there was no hold was to go sparring, he got up from his desk and walked out of the office to his condo to retrieve Masamune. Then he left his living quarters through the office and told his secretary that if somebody needed him he would be in the training hall. Sephiroth walked straight down the hall to the elevator and pushed the underground (or in this case, the under plate) floor button and the glass elevator started descending down.

After coming back from the Wutai War as a victorious General and getting his own condo in the ShinRa building, the President had been generous enough to remodel half of the weapons testing area into Sephiroth's personal training hall, so that he didn't have to go to the SOLDIER training centre if he wanted to get some exercise. Other people saw it as well-earned reward, but to Sephiroth it was something completely different.

When he had first met Reno, the Turk had said that the ShinRa was very protective of him. Protective indeed… so protective that they put everything he needed in the same building he was living in, or made someone else get it for him, so he didn't have to leave anywhere even to complete his work (not counting the missions) or go grocery shopping. Once again, someone else would see it as luxury above all, but Sephiroth saw it as a limitation to his freedom, if he ever had such a thing. He had never completely broken out of his little cell in the lab; even now the ShinRa still had him on a leash.

On top of all that, Sephiroth was bored out of his mind. Having spent the first twelve years of his life in the lab, then after three years of training made it to SOLDIER 1st class, he was sent to fight against Wutai in the war, so he had spent his whole life whether studying, training or fighting, and thus he felt extremely bored during peace time. Usually, he would fight against the boredom by going to the plains around Midgar and kill some monsters, but since he was in the middle of a mission and could be needed at any time, he wasn't permitted to do so.

At last the elevator came to halt and the doors opened to reveal a long corridor that had been built to divide the space into the weapons testing area and Sephiroth's training hall. Sephiroth stepped out of the elevator and walked along the corridor until he reached the door that led to his training hall. He pulled his key card through the little slot next to the door and the door slid open.

The SOLDIER was immediately greeted by the familiar sound of metal clashing together, feet stomping against the floor and the small shouts that escaped from Zack and Reno as they hurled their weapons at each other. They both were so enclosed in their little fight that they hadn't even noticed Sephiroth entering the training hall.

The silver haired man stayed next to the door, leaning on the wall and observed the fight between the two. 'Zack is holding back,' he thought, 'but that could be expected, I'm holding back when I'm sparring with him. If I didn't, the fight would be over before it even started. Same situation in here; although a relatively good fighter, Reno is no mach for Zack.' Sephiroth's gaze fixed on Reno, he watched the Turk's every move closely: the way he dodged Zack's attacks, how and when he attacked and the way he carried himself during the fight. 'His moves are a bit raw, but he has potential… self-learned, survival-based fighting before becoming a Turk, I assume. With more training he'll become a great fighter.'

That was when Zack seemed to notice him from the corner of his eye. The SOLDIER turned his head around in Sephiroth's direction. "Hey, Seph! You deci- Ow!" Zack's greeting was cut out short when Reno hit his friend straight on his right wrist with his nightstick, and even from the other side of the hall, Sephiroth could see the electricity running up and down his arm.

"You bastard," Zack snapped at Reno, a trace of a whine in his irritated voice, and rubbed his offended arm, "Why the hell did you do that?"

"Are we sparrin' or what?" Reno said defensively, slightly taken aback by Zack's tone.

"Yeah, but I was talking to Seph in case you didn't notice!" Zack bellowed, pointing a finger towards the man next to the door.

"So? In a real battle the opponent doesn't care if you're talkin' to the freakin' Ancients. Take the chance when ya get it. Or aren't ya SOLDIERs even bein' taught real battle skills in the trainin'?" the redhead replied, eyeing his friend a cocky smile on his face.

"Yes, we are," Zack said evenly and dropped Buster Sword to the floor. "And I'm taking it." Then the SOLDIER hurled himself on Reno and knocked him to the floor. Seconds later the two youths were enclosed in a friendly wrestling match that one could see in elementary school yard. The Turk got over the surprise of being knocked down quickly and for a while it seemed that he was winning, until Zack rolled him over.

Sephiroth shook his head in disbelief at the two; they just couldn't act like normal people, could they? The silver haired man pushed himself off the wall and started walking towards the two fools rolling about on the floor.

"Need I remind you that you're supposed to be a part of the two most deadly fighting forces on the whole planet, so start acting like it," Sephiroth said when he reached the two spiky haired men.

Although The General didn't sound angry, just his normal nonchalant self, it made both of the amateur wrestlers stop their mach and look up at him. And what a sight did they make: Zack was lying on top of Reno, his dark hair a mess (if it even could be messier than it usually was) and he had Reno's left arm pinned tightly to the floor next to the redhead's torso, the Turk himself was sprawled under the SOLDIER, his white dress shirt hanging almost open except for two buttons over his belly, his ever present sunglasses had fallen off his head a long time ago.

"It's good to train without weapons once in a while, Seph," Zack said cheerfully, trying to explain his playful behaviour.

"I doubt that is the correct way to do so," the silver haired man deadpanned.

"I'm improvising," Zack said as he pushed himself off the floor, and Reno, "So, you decided to come anyway?"

"I had nothing else to do," Sephiroth said and turned to look at the abandoned Buster Sword lying on the floor. But he soon lifted his gaze to Reno, who also had risen from the floor, when he heard him talking.

"Ya sure have a nice little place down here," Reno said while tightening his red ponytail that had loosened during his wrestling with Zack, "Hope ya make good use of it, not lettin' yourself get rusty an' stuff like that."

A corner of Sephiroth's mouth twitched up at the comment, it wasn't often he heard that. In fact, this was the firs time, and even though the comment was obviously at least half a joke, he wanted to show Reno something. Sephiroth bent down and picked up Reno's nightstick that happened to be lying next to his feet. He tossed it to the Turk, and then he reached behind his back and slowly unsheathed Masamune. "Lets see how rusted I am," he said lowly and dangerously, half a smile ghosting his lips.

Zack turned to look at Reno, wondering how he would react. Zack had faced his commander in that state of mind a few times, and his ego as a good fighter had been shattered in mere minutes. The redhead seemed to consider the request for a while, most likely remembering his first meeting with Sephiroth. But soon his confident smirk made its way to Reno's face. "Bring if on," he said, lifting his nightstick in the air, getting ready for his new sparring partner.

Sephiroth was already standing concentrated, Masamune outstretched and ready. Then he was moving so fast that Reno didn't even see it coming and swung his sword at the Turk with a force that was enough to cut a Weapon in half. The attack hit Reno's nightstick (a perfect hit, just how it was planned) and sent it flying out of its wielder's grasp. And before the Turk had a chance to react, Sephiroth struck his right elbow squarely at Reno's chin, and the youth fell to the floor defeated.

For a while Reno just stayed lying on the floor, groaning in pain and glaring up at Sephiroth, who had walked next to Reno and placed his sword at the redhead's throat. "How?" he finally managed to say, looking and sounding surprised, "Ya weren't that good before."

"When I killed the firs man in the hideout, I could tell that the fight wouldn't need much effort from me. No use to use all my strength when I can manage with less. You might have been better than the others in the resistance movement, but you're nowhere near SOLDIER 1st class level," Sephiroth said coldly and removed Masamune from Reno's throat and sheathed it.

When the cold, threatening blade was gone, Reno rose to sit up on the floor. He was still glaring at Sephiroth, now even more furiously than before, but the General could see a tingle of embarrassment in his eyes.

"But you aren't completely useless either. I'm sure that soon you'll become a really good fighter," Sephiroth continued, still with the same cold tone.

The silent fury disappeared from Reno's eyes as his eyebrows lifted towards his hairline and his jaw dropped. The utterly surprised look amused Sephiroth somewhat. He didn't know why, but most people tended to react the exact same way when first being criticised and later praised by him. That didn't make any sense to him. Were they expecting that he would leave the other unsaid? That would be stupid, he always only said the truth, nothing more and nothing less, and the truth should be voiced if something could be made out of it.

"Now, if you two will spar with me," Sephiroth said looking from Reno to Zack, "I'll try to make it last."

The light in the training hall stayed on for hours.

A/N: Heh, "Zack was lying on top of Reno, -- the Turk himself was sprawled under the SOLDIER, his white dress shirt hanging almost open except for two buttons over his belly --" And since they had peen sparring before, they must have been sweaty and panting… I so want to get to the yaoi part!

And thanks again to each and every one of my reviewers, especially to those who pointed out things about the Wutai War or informed me about other Sep/Reno fics, I really appreciate it.

And sorry if there are mistakes in the fic, I'm trying my best but grammar still refuses be my friend…