Davis and Rex had left early in the morning for their mission, leaving Cloud and Roy to make their way to the debriefing room to meet Lazard by themselves. Cloud looked beyond nervous – probably because he was going on a mission which Sephiroth would be overseeing – and Roy tried to help him relax slightly by chatting loosely as they walked.
They had almost reached the debriefing room when a familiar face appeared around a corner in front of them, lighting up immediately in excitement.
"Hey!" Zack said, quickening his steps to reach them. "Heard you're going to Kalm?"
"That's right, Sir." Roy said with a nod.
"Awesome! Have fun, and don't annoy Seph too much or he might drop you out of the helicopter. Hey, I'm joking, Spike! Relax." Zack laughed at Cloud's horrified expression and shook his head.
"We need to be briefed..." Roy muttered, grabbing Cloud's arm and leading him to the door, going inside before Zack could say another word.
"Ah, there you are." Lazard said, standing from where he had been sitting at the head of the table in the room.
"Sorry Sir," Roy said, taking a seat with Cloud beside him. "We met Zack Fair outside."
"Well that definitely explains things." Lazard said with a smile. "Now, on to business."
Lazard sat back down and leafed through his papers for a moment. Sephiroth was sitting across from Roy and Cloud, his emotionless face staring at the wall behind them.
"As you all know, today you will be setting off for Kalm. I have already briefed Sephiroth on his role in this mission, so now all that is left to be said is what you two will be doing." Lazard began. Roy glanced at Cloud curiously, wondering what Sephiroth's job was. "Part of the wall surrounding Kalm has crumbled at one side, allowing the possibility of monsters to get in and attack the people. When you're not at the inn you will be guarding the wall as it is rebuilt, simply to ensure that no work men are injured. Clear?"
"Yes, Sir." Roy and Cloud said in sync. Roy was feeling a bit disappointed and worried – disappointed that all they were needed for was to guard a wall and worried that he wouldn't be able to fend off any monsters that tried to get through.
"Then you're dismissed." Lazard said. "Sephiroth, I'd like a full report on my desk two days after you're back."
Sephiroth stood and nodded at Lazard before leaving the room silently. Roy and Cloud then also stood up, saluted, and left.
"Guarding a wall?" Cloud asked once they were out.
"I know, great first mission, don't you think?" Roy replied sarcastically. Cloud sighed and Roy chuckled.
"I wonder what Davis and Rex will be doing in Modeoheim." Cloud muttered as they headed outside.
"Probably something really boring." Roy laughed. "I mean, we got to go with the more important SOLDIER so our mission must be more exciting, right?"
"You've got a point, I guess." Cloud grinned slightly.
"Of course I do!" Roy slung an arm around Cloud's shoulder and they stayed like that as they walked until Roy finally moved away out of awkwardness. He hoped Cloud wouldn't notice anything.
"Roy..." Cloud said thoughtfully, and Roy hoped desperately he was going to ask something else about the mission. "Why don't you want people to know you're going out with Davis?"
Roy stopped walking and slowly turned his head to look at Cloud, who after taking a few more steps had also stopped and turned to look. They stared at each other silently for a while until Roy frowned and folded his arms cautiously.
"What makes you think that we are?" he asked in what he hoped sounded like a casual tone of voice. Cloud shifted awkwardly.
"Well, just the way you interact I guess. And that morning when Rex was singing about it you kept shooting Davis looks and it seemed like you were communicating that way." Cloud shrugged and fell silent, looking as if he now felt silly for choosing to speak up in the first place.
"Look, Cloud," Roy said. "I would love to explain things to you, but you wouldn't understand."
"I'm smarter than I look." Cloud mumbled, an angry look crossing his face.
"That's- that's not what I meant." Roy said quickly. "The only way I can explain things wouldn't make sense to anyone okay?"
Cloud sighed but nodded.
"Let's just focus on our mission, alright? Sephiroth's probably already wondering whether we've gotten ourselves killed before even reaching the helicopter." Roy tried to laugh but found nothing very funny about their situation and ended up pretending he had coughed.
"Yeah, okay, let's go." Cloud moved to continue walking and Roy followed, the two of them now silent.
Roy and Cloud sat close together in the helicopter while Sephiroth sat up the front with the pilot, talking in a hushed voice.
"How long do you think it's going to take to get there?" Cloud asked quietly.
"I have no idea, but it shouldn't take too long." Roy shrugged. So far Sephiroth had ignored the both of them but he felt that sooner or later the General would single him out to have a little chat.
"We won't crash, will we?" Cloud whimpered. Roy grinned and put an arm around his shoulders comfortingly.
"Of course not. And even if something does go wrong, Sephiroth will get us all out safely. What do you think the parachutes are for?"
Cloud just nodded silently, staring at the floor. Roy found it amusing how scared he looked but didn't say anything, knowing it would only agitate the blond even more.
"Alright,"
Roy jumped, not having realised that Sephiroth had entered their area.
"We'll be there in five minutes..." Sephiroth narrowed his eyebrows as he noticed Roy's arm around Cloud's shoulders and Roy hurriedly removed it. "...So get ready to leave."
"Yes Sir." Roy said with a nod and Cloud murmured the same words in a bit of an echo.
"Once we're there I'll take you straight to the inn where you can dump your bags and then you'll be lead by one of the workers to the wall where you will be stationed for the rest of the day. The workers will provide lunch for you as well."
Turning, Sephiroth went back to the cockpit to talk to the pilot again. Roy was slightly miffed as he got the feeling Sephiroth found the pilot to be better company than they were.
"I'm glad we're gonna be there soon." Cloud mumbled.
"Yeah, and I hope we get good lunches, too!" Roy said, frowning.
"Roy," Cloud whispered. "Can you push your bag in front of the window?"
Roy's frown deepened and he glanced at Cloud before kicking his leg out to push it in front of the window, sealing off the view of the land which they were flying above.
"Are you okay?" Roy asked.
"Yeah." Cloud nodded.
"You sure?"
"I just don't like heights."
"Oh, okay." Roy left it at that, now also glad that it would be less than five minutes until they landed. He didn't want Cloud becoming a nervous wreck on him, as he was sure Sephiroth wouldn't hesitate in dangling him out of the helicopter by one leg just to make him conquer his fear.
Yeah, fine. Roy could admit he was slightly bitter towards the General.
When they finally reached the ground, Roy quickly unbelted himself and grabbed his bag, heading over to the door. Sephiroth came back from the cockpit and went out first, waiting for them on the ground.
"Stay close." he said before heading over to the gate and speaking a few words to the man who stood there. Soon enough the gate was opened and they were allowed to walk in.
Sephiroth obviously knew where he was going because he didn't falter as he began walking through the streets of Kalm. Roy and Cloud kept looking around them in awe, taking in their surroundings.
"Your room is the third on the left." Sephiroth said, as they entered a small inn. He let them go past and waited near the entrance.
Roy and Cloud quickly found the third door on the left, going inside and dumping their bags. They then strapped on their guns which had been left off so as not to be uncomfortable in the helicopter and moved out to Sephiroth again, following as he left the inn.
"There were no locks on those doors." Cloud whispered to Roy as they walked.
"I doubt anyone will steal our stuff, relax." Roy replied. Cloud frowned but nodded, staying silent.
It wasn't long until Sephiroth brought Roy and Cloud to the crumbling wall where many men were already working hard to fix it.
"Alright, Strife will be stationed on the outside of the wall and Peters will be stationed inside." Sephiroth said. Cloud's eyes widened. "If you have any questions ask them now."
"Why aren't we both going to be stationed outside?" Roy asked instantly.
"If a monster does attack and manages to get past the person on the outside, the person on the inside is the next line of defence. It's up to you to stop it getting any further." Sephiroth replied. "Anything else?"
"No, Sir." Roy said. He glanced at Cloud, but the blond boy definitely did not look like he was about to ask any questions. It looked like if he tried to speak he would vomit.
"Very well, I'll come back to relieve you of your posts tonight." Sephiroth said, turning and walking off, quickly disappearing behind a building.
"Don't worry, you'll be fine." Roy said comfortingly to Cloud. "You wanna be a SOLDIER, don't you? This is training for it."
Cloud squared his shoulders, nodded, and walked past the workers to scramble over the lowest part of the wall, standing on the other side. He glanced back at Roy once before focusing his eyes outside to search for any signs of monsters.
Roy began slowly pacing past where the wall was crumbling, his ears straining to hear every sound and his eyes taking in everything he could see. He made sure to keep a constant watch on the gap to see if Cloud had spotted anything, but also allowed himself to look around at the other buildings occasionally.
His mind wandered to Sephiroth and he wondered what the General could be doing here in Kalm that was so important it required him to do it. Was he getting information? Or searching for someone?
The whole day went smoothly, but it left Roy and Cloud grumpy when Sephiroth came to retrieve them just as darkness was beginning to fall. He left them at the inn, but when they asked why he was leaving again he asked them if they honestly expected the wall to be left unguarded during the night.
"Great, what now?" Cloud grumbled.
"I guess we try and sleep?" Roy shrugged, looking over at the two beds in the room. They didn't look comfortable at all and the two infantrymen weren't too eager to get into them.
"I still wish we knew what Sephiroth was doing here." Cloud said, yanking his boots off and then wiggling his toes.
"I doubt he's about to tell us and I don't really have any suggestions of how we can find out, sorry." Roy sighed. "I don't think we're supposed to know, seeing as Lazard specifically briefed him before we got there."
"It sucks." Cloud grumbled, a cute frown creasing his face.
"Anyway, no matter how horrible it is I'm gonna try and sleep." Roy said bravely, heading over to one of the beds, yanking off his own boots, taking off his gun-belt and dumping it all with his bag before lying down.
"What's it like?" Cloud asked cautiously, slowly moving over to the other bed and looking down at it as if it was a bit of muck.
"Not too bad, but ShinRa obviously don't care about our comfort." Roy replied, shifting around to try and find a comfortable bit of mattress he could lie on. "I bet Sephiroth's room is better than this."
"Wanna go see? The doors aren't locked and he's guarding the wall." Cloud said, a twinkle in his eye as he glanced over at Roy.
"If we get busted I'm blaming you." Roy said with a chuckle, but gladly sat back up and pulled his boots back on, walking with Cloud out the door of their room to the room they had seen Sephiroth enter briefly before when he had been about to leave again.
Cloud glanced around before grabbing the door handle. Roy moved closer to him, eager to see inside the room, when Cloud groaned and backed away from the door.
"What?" Roy asked, frowning at him.
"It's locked! Sephiroth gets a locked room!" he whined, sighing loudly and trudging back to their room. Roy couldn't help but let out a small laugh. It was typical. Of course the 1st Class SOLDIER would get a locked room.
The two boys got into their beds again, shifting awkwardly for a while until they finally drifted off to sleep. Cloud's angry mumbling died off as he sunk into a deep sleep and Roy dreamt of Sephiroth's head being eaten by a monster while he guarded the wall.
When the morning came, they were both mercilessly woken up by Sephiroth.
"There's breakfast downstairs." Sephiroth informed them as he headed back to the door. "Then you'll be needed out at the wall. I'm sure you can find your way there by yourself this time?"
"Yes, Sir." Roy and Cloud mumbled at the same time. Sephiroth disappeared outside then and Roy flopped back against his hard pillow again.
"This sucks."
"Majorly." Cloud groaned, rolling out of bed and fumbling to pull on his boots. Roy yawned before forcing himself to get up again as well and then the two of them went together to eat breakfast before heading out to the wall.
"It's a waste of time," Roy muttered quietly to Cloud as they reached the wall. "I bet the monsters will only attack at night, so Sephiroth'll be able to take care of them anyway."
"But if we assumed that and then a monster attacked during the day we'd look pretty silly, wouldn't we?" Cloud asked, turning to Roy and shrugging before climbing through the now slightly smaller hole and standing on the other side.
"Uh, Cloud?" Roy said, glancing around at the workers before moving close to the hole again.
"What?" Cloud asked.
"You should come back through. Otherwise by the time Sephiroth comes for us the hole will be too small to get back through." Roy explained.
"But Sephiroth said I had to-"
"Maybe this is a test? He could be trying to see whether we're smart enough to realise this." Roy replied quickly, cutting Cloud off. "Just come back through before you're forced to walk all the way around to the gate by yourself."
"Oh, fine." Cloud sighed, pulling himself back through and standing with Roy. The workers continued to go on with their job as if they weren't even there and they stayed silent as they looked as closely as they could through the gap in the wall to see if there were any monsters approaching.
By the time lunch came around, the hole was only double the size of Roy's head. Sephiroth was on time and handed them some food which was much better than the lunch they had gotten yesterday and then told them they could go back and wait at the inn. He didn't mention anything about finding Cloud on the inside with Roy instead of on the outside.
"The hole should be gone by tonight so I'll call and have a helicopter pick us up then." Sephiroth told them right before they left again.
Back in their room, Cloud turned to Roy. "Halfway through the second day and it's almost done! We didn't even do anything."
"Yeah, I'm actually beginning to think Davis and Rex are having more fun than we are." Roy agreed sadly, making sure all his things were together.
"If we knew what Sephiroth was doing here maybe things would be different, but because we're only stupid grunts we don't get to know anything." Cloud grumbled.
"Look on the bright side," Roy said. "One day we'll be SOLDIERs and get great mission and locked doors." Cloud laughed at that and Roy grinned, glad that he had been able to lighten his friends mood slightly.
Just as the afternoon was coming to an end the sound of fighting reached their ears and they met each others eyes with a look of shock. Was Sephiroth fighting a monster?
"We shouldn't-" Cloud started but Roy had already gotten to the door, peering out of it and waving for Cloud to follow.
"It sounds too loud to be just a monster. Sephiroth would finish off something like that in no time at all. This has to be something else – maybe connected to what he's doing here that we weren't told?" Roy said quietly, shrugging slightly as they crept out of the building and went in the direction of the noise.
It didn't take too long for them to find it. Sephiroth was engaged in a battle with three men all dressed in what looked like foreign solider uniforms.
"Are they-" Cloud whispered.
"Wutai soldiers." Roy nodded slowly.
In the next second, the three Wutai soldiers fell to the ground and lay still. Sephiroth dusted his hands off as if he had just done nothing which required an effort of any sort and turned back to face the wall, boredom clearly shown in his stance.
"Why were Wutai soldiers here?" Cloud asked.
"They're..." Roy couldn't stop staring at the three bodies. He knew they were dead and even while Sephiroth was fighting he had known they would end up dead, but for some reason he felt ill looking at them.
"Roy? Are you okay? Maybe we should go back to the inn-"
"Have you ever seen anything like that before?" Roy asked, turning to face Cloud. His face showed the horror he was feeling and Cloud looked down.
"Yeah," he mumbled, grabbing Roy's arm and dragging him back in the direction of the inn. "I watched my dad die when I was young."