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Chapter Five: A Day of Unbelievable Discoveries
"Kadaj," Sephiroth's voice was loaded with disapproval. "He is an experiment like we are. It's rude to treat him the same way we often get treated."
They had sojourned to the sofa in the spacious Living room with Vincent standing against the wall at the door -his usual spot during meetings with his friends. Sephiroth had sat in a reclining chair at the wall opposite the large front doors, glaring at Kadaj and the other two clones. Genesis and Angeal were sitting on a loveseat to Sephiroth's right, while Cloud and Zack were sitting on one to his left. The triplets were on a three person couch across an immaculate glass coffee table from him.
"Yeah, makes you sound kinda like a hypocrite!" Zack was smiling through it all like always. Vincent swore he hadn't seen a sad face on that boy in all the short while he had known him. It was kind of driving on his nerves that they had decided that telling off the triplets was more important than explaining how they had found him in the abandoned lab, in Wutai of all places!
Vincent hadn't been to Wutai since Yuffie…And before that, when his mother had died when he was ten.
Thankfully, the SOLDIERs had taken him back to Midgar while he had been unconscious and he wasn't there, at a place full of bad memories. He wanted nothing to do with Wutai.
"Yeah, but his eyes are red! As in demonic!"
Sephiroth pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. The boys were beginning to show their naivety again. The man was an experiment. His eyes could be fucking rainbow colored and it wouldn't change who he was. The eyes had nothing to do with it. One had to look at the aura of a person to know them at first glance.
Deciding that he'd had enough about his eyes, Vincent changed the subject.
"What do you know of my incarceration at the lab?"
Gaining everyone's attention with his soft words, he stared at Sephiroth intently. As the leader of everyone else here, he would be the one to answer. It was how the military worked, and everyone in the room knew it.
They just didn't know how well he knew it.
"Not much beyond the anonymous tip we received a couple days before we found you," Sephiroth eyed him back, knowing another leader when he saw one.
"There were no clues to the person's whereabouts?"
"None. The only reason we agreed to even check it out was because Zack had tripped on the entrance a few hours previously."
"Then it would appear that I owe you gratitude, Zack," Vincent directed to the brunette youngster.
"How does he even know his name?" One of the triplets asked his brothers in a whisper.
"Don't be stupid Loz. I told him my name when..."
"You didn't. I referenced you to your file I saw, and someone's description of you." Vincent hastened to interrupt quietly.
"File? How'd you get his file?" Angeal asked, worried about his pup.
"I was a Turk. Nothing can be hidden from one, not even one as out of the loop as I myself am."
"Impossible," Kadaj sneered. "If you could access his file, why haven't you turned us in?"
"Simple. I intend to use you for my own plans. As for proving my abilities, allow me to demonstrate. From easiest to obtain to hardest:
"Cloud Strife - Seventeen, Second Class, strongest class was swordsmanship, worst was Logistics, wants to be like Sephiroth and be a great hero, best friend: Zackary Fair, grew up in Nibelheim, being watched for turning traitor with the General along with others by the Turks;
"Zackary Fair - Twenty-one, First Class, Strongest class: swordsmanship, worst: Theory of Materia, follows his dreams to become a hero like Angeal his mentor, friends with everyone he meets, grew up in Gongaga, also a watched traitor;
"Genesis Rhapsodos - Twenty-nine, First Class Commander, No weak classes but hated lessons in manners, has no hero but has a hero complex and wishes to out-do Sephiroth one day, grew up in Banora with Angeal, traitor;
"Angeal Hewley - Thirty, First Class Commander, weak in Swordsmanship but strong in hand-to-hand, believes in following his dreams no matter the hardship, one of the few to befriend Sephiroth, Grew up in Banora, traitor;
"Loz, Yazoo, Kadaj - Twenty, triplets, clones of Sephiroth, no rank, call all of Jenova's spawn 'brother', brought up in a lab in Nibelheim, considered missing;
"Sephiroth - Thirty, General, Weak in mannerisms outside of military, brought up in a lab in Nibelheim to be a war machine for Shinra, Jenova's chosen child, traitor and other things besides. Considered extremely dangerous.
"Is this enough proof?"
This was all said in Vincent's unfailing monotone, to the surprise of everyone else.
"I only have one question," Genesis stated. "If you could gain such knowledge, how did you get caught and experimented on?"
"That is a long story, one I do not wish to tell." Vincent's voice brokered no argument. It was silent for a while as everyone digested this information. Then,
"What do you wish from us?"
Sephiroth had never broken the eye contact that Vincent had established, even during Vincent's monologue, so could see the determination that shone in red eyes without barriers.
The man was so like Sephiroth that he could almost tell what he was thinking from what he hid.
It was there, in his eyes, that which he wanted to hide the most: his emotions. It was intriguing to find someone on his emotional level, to say the least.
"Your experience. Although I am older than all of you, I still have little knowledge about the world as it is now. I have not the time to search it all myself."
"Older? You look in your twenties!" Kadaj snorted.
Finally, Vincent turned his gaze on someone other than Sephiroth, landing on Kadaj.
"How long do you believe I was in that lab?"
Kadaj blinked, suddenly uncertain. "A few years?"
Vincent's red eyes narrowed slightly in amusement. "Try thirty."
Surprise was once again evident in the others, even from Sephiroth. Cloud's eyes widened noticeably and his jaw dropped; Zack resembled a gaping fish; Angeal and Genesis had nearly fallen off their love seat; the triplets sat gaping as well; and Sephiroth's eyebrow raised and his eyes narrowed in thought.
"Then your true age would be…?" Sephiroth asked once the shock had worn off.
"Fifty-nine."