A/N: SPOILER ALERT! This chapter contains a spoiler from the original Final Fantasy VII game. Read on at your own discretion. Don't say I didn't warn you. Because I just did. Like, right now. I mean, you're reading this, aren't you?
…Carry on.
Chapter 16
"For the last time Kunsel, I'm fine. Stop worrying so much."
Zen was starting to feel irritated by the brunette's constant nagging about her health. It's been two weeks since the mission to Wutai when she was forced to give some of her blood to the Third Class SOLDIER member, Sebastian. Kunsel had every right to be worried, though. Zen fainted during the procedure and it took the on-call medics almost everything they had to revive her. He had never seen a human being so pale in his entire life and it scared him half to death. He couldn't fathom how Zen could just continue on so casually after going through such a life-threatening episode.
"At the very least, you should've mentioned that your body can't handle being relieved of that much blood," argues Kunsel upsettingly.
"Well sorry, I was a little more focused at whom the blood was going to," sulks Zen, pouting her mouth in annoyance.
"Regardless," returns Kunsel. "If you had mentioned that you faint from giving too much blood, we would've tried to find another donor."
"But by then, Sebastian could've died!" Zen places a hand over her face as she struggles to compose herself thinking about Essai's feelings. "Look, what's done is done. Can we just forget about this whole thing?"
"No, Zen," answers Kunsel with much resistance. "This is important. If you continue to be reckless like this, you'll die!"
Kunsel was taken aback when Zen suddenly starts laughing at his prospect. He was about to yell at her when she puts her hands on his shoulders to make him face her.
"Kunsel," she began with an assuring smile. "I already got it taken care of as soon as we got back."
"What?" Kunsel raises an eyebrow.
"Shin-Ra has access to very good resources," clarifies Zen, giving him a confident thumb up. "So you don't have to worry about another fainting spell from me."
"I don't… I don't understand," stutters Kunsel in confusion.
"After we came back, I asked someone in the science department if it was possible to do something about my anemic condition," explains the girl, interlocking her fingers behind her head. "And all it took was a single shot to the arm. So no more fainting and I feel about ten times better than I ever had before."
Kunsel was rather amazed that Shin-Ra had access to such enhancing procedures. Mako treatments were one thing, but a simple cure to anemia? It boggled his mind. He didn't realize that Shin-Ra was that well off a company.
"Well, if you're really all that better…" he began.
"Sure I am!" Zen exclaims gleefully. "In fact, I feel like going a round or two in the training room. You up for it?"
Slowly, but hesitantly, Kunsel lets out a smile. "Okay. Race you to the SOLDIER floor!"
The setting sun painted the sky into a mix of warm colors over the Junon harbor. High atop the Mako Cannon sat Angeal, Genesis, and Sephiroth, all enjoying the view from the best vantage point in the area. Well, it was as much enjoyment that could be had with Genesis reading from Loveless out loud yet again.
"Genesis, I swear, you should just plaster that thing to your face," jests Sephiroth with a smirk. "I've never seen you without that book on your off-duty periods."
"I can't help it. It speaks to me," responds Genesis, still holding the playbook up with one hand.
"Then marry it," banters Angeal, nudging the book gently with his knuckles. "Genesis, you're my best friend and all, but even I'm getting sick of seeing that book's cover instead of your face."
"Well now, if I have to choose between seeing Genesis' face and the Loveless cover, I'd rather be staring at the Loveless cover," banters Sephiroth with a playful smile.
"If only I had something else to throw at you other than this book…" retorts Genesis as he glared at the silver-haired man.
Angeal and Sephiroth simply laugh at Genesis' obviously empty threat.
"Anyways," began Angeal after he finishes laughing. "Sephiroth, how was the recent mission to Wutai? Heard you got quite the surprise attack."
"If anything, I'd rather not fight the Wutanese on their home turf," replies the First Class SOLDIER member, crossing his arms. "Those mountains give them the best advantage when it comes to us invading them."
"You lost some SOLDIER members?" Genesis raises his eyebrows as he peers over his book.
"There were only a handful of infantry casualties. The rest suffered flesh wounds and the like," says Sephiroth, lowering his eyes as he reflected upon his failure to succeed in the mission with no casualties.
"Nobody's perfect, Sephiroth," notes Angeal. "Not even us."
Genesis raises his book over his eyes in an attempt to silently disagree with that sentiment.
"I don't know what to make of your protégé," remarks Sephiroth, preferring to turn the conversation elsewhere. "He's either very good or stupidly lucky to manage to get this far."
"Are you doubting my mentorship abilities?" says Angeal with a smirk. "Besides, I can say the same for your little intern."
Sephiroth frowns deeply upon hearing that. "She's not a member of SOLDIER. I don't see how that is relevant."
"Do I sense a nerve being struck?" says Genesis, closing his book and putting it away. "First Sephiroth and his little pet and now Angeal and his successor-in-training. I'm feeling a little left out of this mentorship club."
"There's always that Zen girl," chuckles Angeal.
"Goodness, no," Genesis cringes and shakes his head. "Anything, but her."
"Now that's not very nice," Angeal smirks, even though he somewhat agrees with his friend. "She's as capable a SOLDIER member as Zack. You should consider it."
"I don't think so," replies Genesis. "I don't have the patience you two have when it comes to being a mentor. Besides, Zen's a bit too wild to be mentored by anyone, as far as I can tell."
Just then, a beeping sound came from Sephiroth's pocket. Angeal and Genesis look on as their fellow First Class takes out his phone and reads the text message he just received. They could tell it wasn't good news as Sephiroth frowns even more so than before after he finished reading it.
"Him again?" Genesis wonders curiously, though he has a pretty good idea of who the message came from.
"Sephiroth, you should seriously consider putting in a request that'll keep you as far away from that man as possible," suggests Angeal.
"Come now, Angeal," began Genesis, standing up to stretch himself out. "We both know very well Sephiroth won't do that considering who it involves."
Angeal looks down at the ground as he silently admits his agreement.
"If you're quite done making fun of me," exclaims Sephiroth with irritation. "I'm heading out now."
With his cell phone still flipped open, he goes through a menu and suddenly their world breaks away into bits and pixels until nothing was left but three First Class SOLDIER members and the interior of a high-tech virtual reality training room. Once the simulator was completely turned off, Sephiroth flips his phone closed and heads out the sliding door.
The air was filled with an intense silence as Sephiroth made his way to the Shin-Ra's main laboratory via an elevator. At his side was a teenage girl in infantryman attire, her helmet planted firmly upon her head.
"You don't have to go with me, sir," she remarks formerly. "I can get there on my own."
"It's no problem," replies Sephiroth as he stared straight ahead.
"It just seems very out of the way for you, sir," adds the girl.
"Zero, I assure you it's not out of the way for me at all," asserts Sephiroth very firmly.
Zero falls quiet as she continues to stand tall alongside the First Class SOLDIER. After a few more minutes, the elevator finally dings to their destined level: Floor 68.
Upon entering the laboratory, the two of them spot Professor Hojo checking on one of the numerous specimens that were being housed in what was pretty much a glass prison. As they got closer, the black-haired scientist stops what he was doing and turns to see them.
"Experiment Zero," he addresses the female infantryman rather nonchalantly. "Take a seat and I'll be right with you as soon as I finish filling out this chart here."
Sephiroth frowns deeply as Zero did as she was told and sat down on a nearby stool. He didn't like this man at all. In fact, almost everyone Hojo came across ended up not liking him period. Hojo is a brilliant scientist in his own right, meaning he is a valuable asset to the Shin-Ra company. And any valuable asset to a powerful company is going to get the best protection possible. That protection would be from SOLDIER and since Sephiroth was a First Class SOLDIER member, there wasn't much he could do to avoid having to interact with the scientist.
Not only that, he really doesn't like it when Hojo keeps referring to his escort as an experiment every time she goes in for these checkups. He doesn't know why it bothers him so much; it just does.
"Take off your helmet and pull back your hair," commanded Hojo with some files attached to a clipboard.
Obediently, Zero removes her helmet, revealing shoulder length dark brown hair that looks as if it was fixed from being hastily cut with a knife. A good portion of her bangs covered up her right eye, which is the portion she was instructed to pull back. Underneath is a rather thick scar that ran down her face from forehead to cheek. From the location of the scar, it was easy to tell that she had lost her right eye some time ago. However, something else now occupied the space where her former eye used to be.
"Your new oculus seems to have acclimated quite well to your orbit," notes Hojo as he examines the right side of her face. "Can you see through it yet?"
"No, sir," replies Zero straightforwardly.
"Still?" exclaims Hojo irately. "I don't understand why you can't use it by now. It's been at least two years since the surgery. Then again, considering the source of your new oculus, I should be expecting as much."
The scientist slaps the file folder shut as Zero lets her bangs fall back over the right side of her face.
"Do you really have to keep calling her Experiment Zero?" remarks Sephiroth rather out of the blue.
Hojo pauses in mid-step and slowly turns around to look at the First Class SOLDIER questionably. Zero simply looks down at the ground as the scientist returns to where the two are.
"I don't see why I shouldn't," retorts Hojo with a sneer. "She is what she is. If you care so much about your little pet, maybe you should've left her to die in the slums where you found her… son."
It took everything Sephiroth had to bite back his tongue. There was nothing he hated more than being reminded of his biological heritage. Fortunately, no one else knows about this secret of Shin-Ra outside of him, Hojo, and Zero. By all means, he really didn't have to come here with the girl at all. He was nothing more than the middleman when it came to Hojo getting into contact with Zero as the girl was never given a cell phone of her own for privacy reasons. Not for her privacy, mind you, but for the privacy of the company. At least, that was the answer Sephiroth was given when he inquired about it. He never understood why and was unable to get a clearer answer out of that.
He looks down at Zero, who was still sitting with her infantry helmet on her lap. True, the only reason she was here—and alive—was because of him. On a random outing, Sephiroth wandered into the Midgar slums below the plates on a whim. It was there by chance where he discovered the girl who would be dubbed Zero. When he found her, she was in clothes that were a few days short of becoming useless rags, armed with two katanas, and bloody from the old wound she had on her right eye. She was obviously cold and downright scared of seeing a member of SOLDIER of all people looking at her like a target. Sephiroth mused to himself as he clearly remembers losing a handful of his hair to one of her katanas when he approached her.
Anyone with half a mind would have been wise to move on and forget about that pitiful and seemingly hopeless sight. But for some reason, Sephiroth couldn't bring himself to walk away from her. Something in her remaining eye reached out to him. A kindred loneliness he often felt when fighting on the battlefield.
So it was then that Sephiroth more or less "adopted" Zero. Upon bringing the girl back to Shin-Ra headquarters, Hojo saw an opportunity and so performed the surgery in which he implanted a mysterious eye into the girl's empty eye socket and dubbed her Experiment Zero of all names. Sephiroth didn't exactly have a name in mind to call her himself, but it just seemed odd the amount of attention his father was giving her. Not that he was jealous or anything. Anything but that when it came to Hojo of all people. He didn't question it back then, but now his curiosity was starting to get the better of him.
"Dismissed," Hojo said at long last, waving the two of them away with his hand as he went back to examining his other experiments.
The First Class SOLDIER felt more than happy to leave that forsaken floor of the Shin-Ra headquarters. He motions to Zero and the two head for the elevator. With helmet under one arm, Zero presses the button for the first floor and they were on their way.
"I'm sorry," she exclaims as soon as the elevator door closes.
Sephiroth turns to her calmly. "For what?"
"For being a burden," Zero lowers her eyes, still avoiding the man's gaze.
"You're not a burden," Sephiroth sighs, turning back to the view of the elevator's walls. "I'm doing this of my own free will."
"Why?"
It was hard for Sephiroth to come to an answer to her question. Why is he doing all of this? Because he blames himself for letting Zero fall into Hojo's hands like this? Or because he's starting to feel a little attached to her?
Without a word, Sephiroth simply pets Zero on the head as one would with an obedient dog. Zero says nothing more in regards to the man's reasoning after that. Their relationship was simply a symbiotic one: Sephiroth providing companionship with Zero providing the ears that listen. Sure, Sephiroth could always count on Angeal and Genesis to vent his thoughts on. But for things that he didn't want to be known by his peers that was where Zero came in. He could always rely on her to keep his secrets a secret since she wasn't very sociable with anyone else to begin with.
After some more time has passed, they finally reach the bottom floor. Before they left each other, Sephiroth gives the girl one final pat on the head.
"Sleep well," he bids rather caringly.
"Yes, sir," responds Zero nonchalantly.
Nodding, Sephiroth aims for the SOLDIER barracks while Zero heads for the infantry barracks.
A/N: Yes, sadly Kunsel doesn't particularly stand out as a member of SOLDIER compared to Zack and Zen. However, it does serve him better to be under the radar as anyone who played Crisis Core can attest. ;)
In many ways, Hojo reminds me of my own mom: he's very tactless, could care less about other people's feelings, won't admit his mistakes, and thinks he's the best. So I guess you can say I know very well how Sephiroth feels having to deal with him.
Also, before we go, I'd like to address an issue that I kind of expected to come up. Reviewer OhJay had this to say about my story:
"Well like I said earlier, this is really good, and I like your OC. Speaking of which, this isn't going to ZackxZen is it? I like her, but I can't stand OCxCannon pairings. I support ZackxAerith though! Keep up the good work!"
In response, I can only say GOODNESS NO! Sorry if it seems that way, but their relationship is purely friendship. She's a very important element to my plot so she's not just some random character insert. That also goes for the recently introduced Zero. Also, concerning Zero, I just think it'd make for an interesting subplot that Sephiroth had a capacity for kindness before he went nuts. But no, ABSOLUTELY NO OC pairings are in this fanfic. You have my word! ^^