A/N:
—shuffles in quietly—
Umm…Hi. It's been a while, hasn't it? College and life stuff has kept me busy, but I did say I would finish my stories no matter what. Keep an eye out for more updates on all my works. I have some catching up to do.
Rating (chapter): PG-13
Word Count: 2292
Disclaimer: Do I really need one at this point? It's pretty obvious at this point only the plot is mine.
Not Again!
By Catsitta
Chapter Seven: Hojo
"You could have cut the tension with a knife in there," Zack said once he and Sephiroth were in the elevator. "What did you do to piss off two Turks?"
The silver-haired teen suddenly found his boots immensely interesting for a while as he mulled over his current situation. Valentine wanted to pull him from SOLDIER. Tseng thought Sephiroth was a spy. Strife was General. And Zack Fair was apparently his mentor. Couple all of that with Tifa, faulty genetics and a missing mother, and one had a curious situation sitting on their shoulders. Every instinct demanded he keep aware and do all that was possible to remain in SOLDIER, if only for the mako treatments. However, nothing could be simple and the Turks were mucking up his plans.
Was it wrong of him to simply want to take a nap?
Glancing up at Zack, who was wearing a strangely serious expression, Sephiroth let out a resigned sigh. "It is a long story," he began. "I'm not certain if I've made sense of it yet myself."
"I love stories, Seph," Zack grinned. "And while I may not look it, I'm pretty dang smart!"
Deciding he had nothing to lose, Sephiroth allowed the past few weeks to pass freely from his lips. He confessed to his attempted escape, his finding Tifa and the peculiar incident at the shooting range. The First goggled at him when he briefly mentioned his escapades with the virtual training room and why he was carrying around a sword when no Cadet was actually allowed to wield one.
By the time the pair reached the training gym, Zack was silently staring at Sephiroth as if the teen had sprouted wings.
"You hacked your father's security system?" Sephiroth nodded. "You nicked a broadsword to use in the VR Room, which you never said how you gained access to, and you regained pieces of your memory while shooting a gun with Tseng?" Again, Sephiroth nodded as Zack shook his head in disbelief. "How have I never heard of you before, Seph, with all the hell you raise?"
"Apparently my memory loss altered my behavior patterns," Sephiroth said, wishing he could wake up from this nonsense and return to being a General. He was not meant to be this pathetic little weakling who the Turks sniffed around like bloodhounds. "I can assume before the accident, I was not as…insubordinate."
Zack ran a hand through his hair, "Woah."
They watched each other, both with accessing gazes, for what felt like a long time. Would the First retract his offer? Would he continue to ask questions? Zack did neither. Instead, he stretched his arms out, fell into a couple quick squats, before clapping both hands together.
"Let's get started on your training!"
Sephiroth was not sure why, but he felt his lips curve into a genuine smile.
.x.
They started with running. Endurance was a key part of SOLDIER. Even those who were enhanced needed to keep at the peak of physical shape to maintain optimal performance. Thus Zack jogged backwards around the track as Sephiroth fought to keep pace. Sweat beaded on every inch of skin as time was dragged by, kicking and screaming in agony. Silver hair soon turned grey as it plastered itself to Sephiroth's scalp and neck. His muscles burned as the lactic acid ate away at the oxygen-deprived fibers. His lungs ached with every forced inhalation of air. His heart drilled against every pulse point, desperate to escape Sephiroth's overexerted body.
When the First at last came to a stop, the former-General nearly collapsed at his feet. As it was, he could barely remain standing as his numb legs began regaining feeling and caused his whole body to tremble. How many laps did they run? After the VR Room, he had not felt this exhausted! Pathetic, useless body! No, he could and would overcome this weakness. Bracing himself mentally, same as he did when he was Hojo's lab rat a different lifetime ago, Sephiroth pushed away the pain and focused on the objective. Mako enhanced or not, he would not quit.
"Next exercise," Sephiroth said in a breathy command.
Zack cocked his head to the side, "You look ready to fall over, kid."
"Next. Exercise."
Teeth gritted together, fingers curled into the tender flesh of his palms, Sephiroth remained standing, his tone and posture proud and demanding. He would not falter. Not again. Failure may have been part of this body's previous vocabulary, but it was not part of it now. He was the Silver General. He was World's End. Mako, Jenova, Hojo—all of it be damned.
Recalling the incident in the tunnels where he fought beside Tifa with a broken arm and a duffel bag slung over his shoulder, as well as the ensuing revelations, Sephiroth found himself all the more determined to earn rank again. Without Mako, without SOLDIER training, how would he ever get around to killing Strife? How else could he fix this broken body?
"Push-ups then," Zack said, breaking the teen from his wandering thoughts. "Drop and give me fifty."
Sephiroth dropped and complied. His left arm gave out half-way through, still too-weak from disuse, but he continued onwards, used to doing the exercise one-armed because of the cast. Somehow, he lost count around thirty-five, his mind muddled by a black fog of fatigue. He kept going, despite the growing numbness. He would have continued until Zack stopped him but the world took on a precarious slant and tossed Sephiroth to the side, pulling him into the darkness completely.
.x.
He woke screaming.
Burning. His blood was on fire!
"Sephiroth!"
"Hold him down!"
"His vitals are off the charts. We need to slow his heartbeat."
He couldn't see. So dark. It was closing in.
"He's not reacting. We're going to lose him."
"Are you blind? He's reacting too much."
"Cadet Valentine…"
"…mako…"
"…ma… Val…in… "
Sephiroth succumbed to the darkness again.
.x.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
What was that noise?
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Gaia, it was annoying.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Blearily, Sephiroth shook away the vestiges of sleep. Whatever was making that atrocious sound needed to be destroyed, slowly and violently. Sitting up, he opened his eyes, and immediately, he regretted his actions. Memories, old but far from forgotten, caught him in their thrall. A childhood of torture. A prevailing demand for perfection. The ultimate weapon.
The beeping became faster.
All around him were mako tanks and unforgiving metal instruments of pain. A computer took up the southern wall, the keyboard littered with paper. Above, florescent lights glared down at him, harsh and unforgiving. Sephiroth shifted, but various wires and tubes prevented him moving too much. One was obviously an IV and another was monitoring his vitals, but the others…he did not even want to know.
Instinct bred from years spent under the "loving" hand of Hojo, Sephiroth began to free himself, heedlessly yanking out anything inserted beneath the skin, content with ignoring the blood dribbling from pierced veins as well as the unholy shrieking the machines began to make.
As soon as he was free, the silver-haired teen pushed himself off the edge of the metal table and onto the steel floor. Cold kissed bare skin as Sephiroth padded through the familiar hell, desperate to escape despite the weakness crawling up and down his spine, and his current state of dress. He was used to being nude whilst suspended in pure mako; a flimsy hospital gown was more than enough for his non-existent sense of modesty.
"What is going on in here?"
That voice…Sephiroth froze. He had yet to catch even a glimpse of the mad scientist since arriving in this world, and was thankful for it. But his luck had run dry. The rat-faced man stood less than three meters away, clipboard in hand, glasses perched precariously on a crooked nose. Yellowed, bloodshot eyes regarded him as another might an insect. Worthless and easy to crush under a shoe.
"You should be in bed, boy." Sephiroth shook his head. Professor Hojo scowled. "Get. Back. In. Bed. Now!"
"No."
Well-aware of the man's enhancements, the silver-haired teen sidestepped his advances, mindful that if Hojo managed to grab an arm, he would over power this body. As a child, Sephiroth learned very quickly how strong the scientist was and was incapable of fighting back efficiently until he was on Second Class mako treatments. At age fifteen, when he became a First Class and a General, he finally was able to gain independence from the bastard through beating the man half-to-death. It was then he began to become the arrogant weapon of war the world would fear. No obstacle in life proved more difficult than Hojo…until Strife. However, even Strife fell second on the hit list in his head when put beside Hojo.
Unconciously, Sephiroth clenched his fists, aware of the blood slowly dripping onto the floor.
"You try my patience," Hojo snapped, adjusting his glasses in agitation.
"I'm leaving."
"Security!" Startled by the mad scientist's shout, Sephiroth glanced towards the single door leading out of the room. It was electronic and the light above glowed red. He could not get out without the proper credentials. Hojo, even more paranoid than Valentine on a bad day, never kept his password the same for more than a few hours and would certainly not part with his identification card without a fight. Uncertain, the silver-haired teen backed away from Hojo, his path parallel with the door, prepared to bolt at first opportunity.
Then, the door slid open.
And Sephiroth's hope for escape fled.
Standing in the portal was none other than Strife, in all his copy-cat glory.
"Is something wrong, Professor?" asked Strife in a drawl that used to belong to Sephiroth. He crossed both arms as he flicked his gaze from the teen to the scientist, a frown growing on his angular face. "Why is Valentine here?"
Hojo's eyes narrowed, "Valentine? This is Valentine's progeny? The anomaly…" Realization shuttered his features and he began to mutter incorrectly to himself. "Ah, yes, that explains it. Specimen S. After all these years."
"Explain yourself, Professor," Strife suddenly demanded in a snarl. "You know the rules about…"
"Human experimentation, yes, yes, I do indeed know the rules." he waved off the General with a careless flick of his wrist. "If you must know, I was saving the boy's life. The idiots in the medical ward misdiagnosed an ailment the boy suffers as well as mistreated him for the diagnoses they assumed. Fools, the lot of them. Nearly gave the boy mako poisoning believing they were treating a SOLDIER instead of a normal. Fields interrupted my research when he discovered the, ah, mistake of his co-workers."
A weird glint glittered in Hojo's yellowed eyes as he continued, "However, if what you say is true and the boy is the offspring of Valentine…then it explains so many things. I would love to continue my research…"
"NO!" Sephiroth shouted, cutting the scientist off mid rambling.
"If you knew the extent of—"
"—no. I will not. No," Never again. Sephiroth shuffled towards the door. He could feel Strife's gaze hot upon him.
Hojo threw his hands in the air with a grunt of disgust, "It doesn't matter. Once you enter SOLDIER, I will be able to conduct my studies. All candidates are screened and treated by me, boy. Take him away, Specimen C."
"His father recently submitted paperwork which leads me to believe Valentine will react poorly to the mako shower," Strife said once he opened the door and motioned for Sephiroth to leave, apparently believing the teen to be out of earshot. "What do you say to that, Professor?"
"React poorly?" Hojo let out a bark of laughter. "Valentine is an ignorant fool. Any child of Lucrecia is destined for great things. Great things indeed. Now be gone, I have things to do now that the boy is, ah, stable."
.x.
He felt strange. Cold and hot, weak yet strong…he wanted the world to stop tilting.
Sephiroth braced himself against the wall, uncaring that Strife was less than a few feet away, leading him from the labs back towards the infirmary. He shuddered, allowing the nausea to flow through him. The symptoms would pass. If Hojo was speaking the truth about the doctors nearly giving him mako poisoning attempting to treat him using SOLDIER medication, then it would be a matter of time before his metabolism burned the poison out of his bloodstream. Becoming one of the elite was a painful process of immunity building and cell mutation. There was a reason most people could not become SOLDIERs.
Breathing through the discomfort, the silver-haired teen tried to regain control of his body.
"The good Professor seems particularly interested in you, Cadet Valentine."
Goddess, did the blond nitwit honestly want to talk right now? Sephiroth wiped his brow with one hand and pointedly refused to look at the General.
"First you survive the attack by AVALANCHE. Then you start commotion amongst the Turks." Did everyone know about that? "Now Professor Hojo has become involved." Strife's tone caused Sephiroth to glance up. It sounded worried, pitying even. "I am signing your dismissal this evening, Valentine. Leave Midgar if possible. For your own good."
"What?"
"Did I stutter?" Strife soon loomed over Sephiroth. "If you stay, if you become a SOLDIER, the good Professor will…" He paused, clearly conflicted on how to continue. "It doesn't matter. Go to the hospital wing, retrieve your belongings and return to your father's quarters. I will speak to him myself on this matter."
And just like that, Strife put a giant crack in Sephiroth's dreams of becoming a SOLDIER and recovering a piece of his former identity.
TBC?
A/N: (It's been a while since I've posted any fanfiction, much more since I updated this story. Feedback would be loved! So, review please. It keeps hungry writers writing.)