Author's Note : I've introduced some OCs in this chapter. They're not really important to the story, but I did want them there, mostly to develop Cloud's personality a little bit further.

Counter-Productive

Cloud, 22

It was still dark when Cloud woke up. It took him a moment to remember where he was and what he was supposed to be doing. Returning the concerns of his mission was nearly impossible. His mind kept on returning to that night, the feelings he never knew he had…

Clearly Zack mustn't have ever found how he felt about him. He didn't remember any awkwardness existing between them.

Did Zack know now? The question made him feel momentarily embarrassed. He didn't really want Zack to know about some crush he'd had on him when he was sixteen. Their friendship, the things they had endured together, was much more important then a teenage crush.

"How many times did you safe my life?" Cloud wondered aloud.

"I'm sorry?" Cloud started and turned around. Yuffie was standing in the doorway, looking confused.

"What are you doing here?" Cloud asked sharply.

"I wanted to apologise," Yuffie said. "I heard you pacing so I figured now was the best time." Cloud sighed.

"Look, I'm not happy about what you did. I would have helped Wutai anyway, so it was unnecessary. But what's done is done. You can't fix it, so just forget it."

"No," Yuffie said emphatically. "I want to explain. You see, I didn't tell Dad so he could blackmail you. I told him because he wouldn't have let you help, if he didn't think he had some hold over you. I couldn't let Wutai fall into darkness because of one man's stubborn streak."

"I'll deal with it, then," Cloud said. "If that's all you wanted to say, you should probably get some rest now."

"I can't. I was just going to explain what we're going to do today and then we had better get going."

"Already?" Cloud asked. Couldn't she tell it was still dark?

"We're going to be climbing the mountains today. We'll want to make an early start," Yuffie said defensively.

"I guess that make sense."

"People haven't been able to go up to the Leviathan in ages. It's filled with monsters. I want that to change, so we have to make a start of that as soon as possible."

"What else are you planning on getting done?" Cloud asked.

Yuffie thought for a moment.

"I need the mountains cleared, hopefully we'll get time for some rebuilding, then we should probably visit some of the villages further away. The lack of transport means we haven't seen them in ages. You'll also need to meet with some of the more powerful families in Wutai to secure their alliances and hopefully encourage them to mobilise their men."

"All that, in a week?" Cloud asked incredulously.

"I know it's not likely," Yuffie said. "But we need to try. I'm hoping that if we start the job, the combined forces of the WRO and Wutai imperial army can finish it."

"I'll get my gear. Could you assemble everyone and have them ready to go?"

"Yes, sir," Yuffie mock-saluted. She ran out of his room.

Cloud got dressed and gathered his equipment. Most of his materia was old, mastered during his long attempt to stop Sephiroth. His sword, however, had been made especially afterwards.

It was thinner and far lighter then Zack's had been. It was perfectly designed to suit his height and weight but he still struggled to use it properly. He'd had to develop his own technique, from scratch. He had wanted to prove that he was his own person, but it had taken him nearly the whole six months to be able to use it without feeling self-conscious.

He checked that the materia was all correctly fitted and ready to go. The last thing he needed was for the materia to fall out in the middle of a battle.

Everyone was waiting for him out the front. The sun was just rising over the town and few people were out and about.

"We'll split up into two groups. Yuffie, you can take Orwell, Young and Carter up. The rest of you, with me. We'll meet at the bottom of the mountain at sunset."

The troops quickly moved so they were standing behind their respective leaders. The trio had sent off with Yuffie looked resentful.

'I'll need to swap teams, then,' Cloud thought to himself.

The walk up the mountains was just as arduous as Cloud remembered.

younger recruits tired out constantly, meaning they had to take frequent rest breaks.

Cloud was impatient at the delays but tried hard to stop it from showing. Remembering his own past, he knew he would be mortified if he thought he was slowing everyone down.

When they stopped, he would ask Yuffie about the route, or the monsters present or incidents which had occurred here. Most of things she told him were as he remembered, but she made the trip sound a lot more perilous then when he had first attempted it.

Eventually they reached the first split. Yuffie took her team right and Cloud went left into the caves.
"Stand behind me," he commanded tersely. They walked slowly, constantly scanning the area for monsters.

It wasn't long before a gigantic hoard of insects descended on them.

'These are the scary monsters?' Cloud thought to himself. Well, it wasn't his job to question orders, but….

"Th-they're huge!" Cloud looked behind him. One of the recruits, Jack Brooks, was cowering in fear. The other two, Lillian Powell and her brother, Alexis, were trying to comfort him.

"Makes them easier to hit," Cloud assured them. He charged forward, leaving the rest of his group to gape at him.

Eventually, he saw Brooks use a poison spell on one of the bugs. As if his bravery had inspired the others they began to back him up with long ranged support.

'Not that I need it,' he thought.

He was covered in bug-ichor by the time he was finished. Lillian looked at him with open admiration.

"That was amazing, sir!"

"Cloud," he corrected her. He had told them all to refer to him by his first name. Hearing them call him by a title made him feel even more like a fraud.

They rested for a while before setting off again. As they encountered more easy monsters his team became more and more overconfident. He'd had to stop them from charging in by themselves several times.

They were a strange team, Cloud reflected. They didn't work together well, but then again they didn't really work well on their own, either. Overall, they were more of a hindrance then a help.

He had worked with them all individually before, but this was the first time he'd worked with them in a group. They were probably the most useless recruits the WRO had ever hired. Still, he supposed they'd only been working for a month or so. Hopefully they would get better in time.

'I warned Reeve about this,' Cloud thought. 'I told him to be careful, putting green recruits on the field. We shouldn't be like Shinra, sending wave after wave of good kids to their death.'

The only thing the three recruits had going for them was pure determination. Lillian in particular was determined to single-handedly bludgeon everything to death with her partially blunt sword. Cloud supposed being one of the few girls the WRO taskforce hired would mean she'd have to prove her worth.

It was a shame she was so clumsy, he reflected. Her brother was more cautious then she was, but when he did manage to get a hit in, he usually managed to inflict some damage. As for Brooks…hopefully he would improve in time.

When they reached the top of the mountain Cloud called for yet another break. They hadn't seen or heard Yuffie's team, but he supposed that was to be expected considering the size of the area they were patrolling.

He wondered why they hadn't encountered any difficult monsters. Sure, he was stronger then the average citizen, but Cloud was relatively confident that Wutai forces alone should have been able to clear these mountains out easily.

"What's that?" asked Brooks nervously. Cloud looked up. There was a large creature rapidly descending on their location.

"I don't know, but it's heading straight for us. Get ready!"

"Bet it's a dragon," Lillian said happily.

"It is not a.." Alexis began.

"Get down!" Cloud cried out, finally recognising the creature.

A stream of fire past right over their heads. Brooks, who hadn't been quick enough, was mildly singed. Cloud sighed and activated his restore materia.

"It's a dragon," he confirmed as he got up.

"We can't deal with this," Alexis said, eyes wide with horror.

"You might be right," Cloud admitted. "Call someone on Yuffie's team and tell them to get up here, now."

Back when he was travelling with Avalanche, a dragon like this would have presented a slight difficulty. Now he was hampered by three recruits on top of bare cliff. Well, he would have to do his best.

He pulled his sword out and made an opening move. He needed to draw the creature's attention. If it went for one of the recruits, they would probably die. The trick with dragons was to be fast and strike sparingly. They had a few vulnerable spots which were easy enough to strike, if you knew where they were.

He kept a partial eye on the recruits, making sure they were staying back. On one of these checks he was a little too slow noticing the dragon's claw. He was sent flying back onto the edge of the mountain.

Cloud went to activate his lightening to stop the rapidly approaching dragon. Before he could stop her, Lillian had dived right on the dragon. Without even stopping the dragon bit into her arm. She screamed and fell down.

Cloud swore. His lightening spell hit the dragon, momentarily stunning it. Alexis had run up to his sister, but he couldn't use or didn't have restore materia, so he wouldn't be much help. Cloud would just have to hope she could hold for now. They were in too much danger for him to stop fighting.

The familiar 'whoosh' of a shuriken alerted him to Yuffie's presence. The dragon turned to face the offending object. While it was distracted Cloud made a final strike and pierced the artery under its neck.

"Is she okay?" Yuffie asked, gesturing at Lillian. She rushed over, pushing Alexis aside. Cloud watched as she used her materia to heal Lillian. The younger woman got up, looking somewhat sheepish.

"That dragon sure was fast," Lillian said.

"Don't do that again," he scolded his younger sister.

"You're not the boss of me," she replied childishly.

"Are there a lot of dragons up here?" Cloud asked Yuffie.

"Just the one. We took out the other nasty critter. We should be right to go back down now and get the stragglers."

"You take everyone else down, as safely as you can. I'll clean up the rest."

"You sure?" Yuffie asked.

"Yes."

"I'll have my PHS. Contact me if anything goes wrong, alright?"

Cloud left the other group to go back down the way he came. To be honest, it would be quicker and easier if Yuffie took them down and he was able to take everything out by himself. Looking after those kids was hard work.

He left a trail of blood through the mountains. Every creature he came across died almost instantly. The combination of real and mako-granted experience made fighting nearly as natural as breathing for him. It was disconcerting to be so good at killing.

The sun had well and truly set by the time he was down the mountain. Yuffie and his squad were waiting impatiently for his return. The team that went with Yuffie originally were still asking for details about the dragon fight.

"You're back," Yuffie said. "Ugg…You better take a shower before walking all over my house."

"Like you're any better," he pointed out.

"That's mean!"

They began the walk back to the village.

"You're probably going to have to do some boring ceremony with dad tomorrow. I'll have everyone else rebuilding. It's easy enough work."

"Great.."

Their group was oddly jovial. Cloud was the only one not caught up by the positive vibe. He watched distantly as everyone joked with each other. Yuffie had already integrated herself well with them all, mostly by telling stories from their Avalanche days. He noted that these stories seemed to imply that Yuffie had done most of the work, while dealing with an obviously incompetent Cloud. Well, she did always like 'exaggerating' the truth.

After a quick shower and a simple dinner, Cloud had retired for the night. Yuffie had offered to show the others her materia collection, which they had been very excited about. Cloud wondered if they realised how much of said collection had been stolen.

As Cloud lay down, he tried to remember his own past. He could remember up until his agonised flight from Zack's apartment and then…nothing. It was if he'd stopped existing until he'd arrived at Niebelheim.

'I guess I'll have to find out what happened the hard way, huh?'

He was sitting in Seventh Heaven, only the bar was entirely empty. This wasn't the new bar, he realised, but the original that had been destroyed by Shinra. He was surprised that he even remembered it, considering he'd only seen it a few times.

Cloud kept his gaze fixed firmly on the wooden table as he heard a voice to the left of him.

"The first time I saw you in this bar, I thought it was funny, because you were underage. But then I realised you weren't, really. I still can't believe you're twenty-two. To me, you never stopped being sixteen."

"You saw me here?"

"Of course," Zack replied. "There's a connection between the two of us. Like it or not, I'm going to be looking out for you. Or over you. Whatever you want to call it."

"It must have been weird for you," Cloud mused.

"Mostly it was just frustrating," Zack admitted. "I wanted to tell you…"
A loud noise interrupted their conversation. Cloud instinctively ducked as the ceiling began crumbling in on itself. Cloud shut his eyes as his world came crashing down around him.

Cloud, 16

He dreamed of Zack that night and woke up miserable. In the three weeks since he had started avoiding the SOLDIER he had dreamed about him four times. They had been good dreams, where Zack had held him close and loved him the way Cloud desperately craved.

They only made facing his bleak reality even harder. As he got up and readied himself for training he couldn't help but wonder what Zack was like with Aeris. Did he kiss her? Whisper sweet nothings in her ears as they lay together at night? Did he promise her a future together?

Cloud walked towards the training room, trying to focus himself on the task at hand rather then his jealous thoughts. His squad was practicing hand-to-hand combat today. Cloud privately thought it was useless, as they didn't do enough training for them to be any good at it.

He supposed the sergeant used it to keep them hoping they could make it into SOLDIER. If they worked hard, if they got stronger…It was all an illusion, to keep the grunts happy and complacent while Shinra worked them to the ground.

When he walked in the sergeant was already in the middle of explaining the drill. The sergeant gave him a dark look before resuming his explanation.

'He really doesn't give a damn about me, does he?' Cloud thought. 'Though that's hardly surprising seeing as nobody else does…'

Cloud was paired up with a boy nearly twice his height and weight. He gave Cloud a pitying look, apparently writing him off.

"You ready for a world of pain, pretty boy?"

"Whatever."

They were supposed to be practicing talking techniques. The 'assailant' was meant to tackle the defender to the ground, who was then meant to attempt to break free. Personally Cloud doubted he'd survive past the first stage.

The sergeant yelled out at everyone to start. Cloud readied himself as his opponent sprang at him with all his might. Cloud was just able to twist himself so that he wasn't completely crushed when he fell to the ground.

'At least he isn't fast. If he was, he would have made SOLDIER for sure,' Cloud thought as he regained his breath. The boy pinned him to the ground with his hands grinned at him maliciously.

"You seem to be having a little trouble there, Strife." Cloud went to lever his arm off of him, but they were at a really awkward angle.

"Fine, you win. Let me up."

"Are you sure? You look like you're enjoying yourself there."

"I can barely breathe," Cloud said irritably. His tormenter leaned down until their faces were nearly touching.

"Admit it, you're enjoying this. It's alright, from what I've heard your SOLDIERs ditched you anyway…"

Cloud punched him in the stomach, hard. The older boy collapsed and Cloud was able to get up.

"You little shit!" His opponent staggered to his feet and pulled his fist back, ready to strike.

"Strife, Griffin, what the fuck do you think you're doing?"

"He started it!" Griffin called out. Cloud sighed internally. Of course he would take the blame for this.

"Is that true?"

"I suppose so, sir," Cloud said. His sergeant made an exasperated noise.

"What do you mean, suppose?"

"I punched him, sir."

"I don't know what this was about and frankly, I don't care. Spats should be resolved in your own time, not on the floor. You're out of the session today and I'm giving both of you dawn duty for a week, starting tomorrow. If I see any repeats of this incident, from either of you, the punishment will be much more severe."

"Yes, sir." Cloud turned away.

"You're still expected to be at practice this afternoon. I won't tolerate any slacking off," the sergeant called out at Cloud's retreating back.

Why did that creep have to bring up Zack now? For the most part, any rumours about them had died down when Zack had stopped hanging around. There had been a couple of jokes, of course, but for the most part no one cared enough about Cloud to bully him persistently.

This guy was different. Cloud wondered if he had been serious in his lewd suggestions or if he'd just wanted to wind Cloud up. That moment when he'd leaned in, Cloud had been so frightened and upset he'd reacted on instinct.

'And now I've landed myself a week of torture..' Dawn guard duty was the most horrible shift. Mostly infantrymen never got more then one of them a week. Now he was supposed to do seven in a row.

Hopefully the sergeant wouldn't make him work next to the psycho boy. If he did…Cloud wasn't sure he would survive that shift. The look in his eyes had been frightening.

Cloud walked into the cafeteria. It was surprisingly quiet for this time of day, because the lucky people who had holidays over Christmas weren't back yet. Cloud had wanted to apply for holidays, but the trip to Niebelheim was still too long for him to take with the two measly weeks he had saved up.

He spotted Witman sitting with Ludwich, of all people. He had noticed that the older boy had lost a lot of his attitude problems following their mission. He looked up to Zack now, telling everyone about the events of the mission and how the SOLDIER had saved them all at the last minute.

Cloud wondered what had happened between them on the mission, but decided not to ask. Doing that would mean asking about Zack, which might invite awkward questions.

He picked up some burnt toast from the front and sat down by himself. He picked at it morosely and then pulled out his PHS. No messages from him, of course. He hadn't sent any messages for three weeks.

If you need to talk, I'm there. All you have to do is ask. It had been the last message Zack had sent him, the morning after Cloud had ran out of his apartment. Since then, Zack hadn't tried to contact him in anyway.

Cloud knew he should be grateful, but a part of him wished that Zack would force the issue a bit more. It almost felt to Cloud as if he didn't really care whether Cloud talked to him or not, as if he only tolerated his presence out of pity.

'I don't have the courage to even try to talk to him,' Cloud admitted. He abandoned his piece of toast and settled into the dull drudgery of his every day routine.

There was equipment to be checked, odd jobs to do, then practice in the afternoon. Even when they weren't on missions, Shinra made sure its army stayed busy. Lounging about just wasn't an option.

Cloud went through his day in a haze. Everything he did was boring and mostly pointless. The endless drills and chores were all meant nothing, taught him nothing and did very little to benefit the company he worked for.

By the time he arrived back from his afternoon drills it was well and truly dark. His fingers had nearly lost circulation out in the cold, because his gloves were too small and worn nearly all the way through.

As he was walking back to his dorm, he heard a familiar voice coming from an office nearby.

"Hey, how's it going? Things have been crazy busy here at the moment." There was a pause and then he said, "You're right. I'll come down and see you as soon as I can." It took Cloud a moment to realise he must have been talking on the phone. If he was talking about 'coming down' then he was most likely talking to Aeris…

There was a click as Zack hung up. Cloud quickly moved around the corner. He had thought, just for that one moment, that Zack had called out to him. Just for that one moment…

But he had been talking to his girlfriend. His perfect, 'angelic' girlfriend. The girlfriend that Zack could boast about loudly to whoever happened to be around, the girl he could marry one day and possibly have the world's best looking children with.

Cloud clenched his fists. This jealousy was pointless. Of course Zack wouldn't want to be with him. Zack wasn't plagued with desires that most of the world believed to be unhealthy and unnatural.

'Even if he did happen to be into guys, why would he be interested in me? It's not like I'm anything special.' Bitterness choked him. Everything he felt - everything he tried not to feel – was tearing him up on the inside.

He was tempted to punch the wall, but he had a better idea. He made for the gym, which Shinra happened to keep open nearly 24/7.

Once he was inside he went straight for the sand-bag. His fist connected with a satisfying 'thud'. The pain rocketed up his arms, but he didn't really feel it. He continued to throw punches furiously, until his arms began to burn.

He moved until he stopped thinking, until the only pain he felt was physical. He could deal with that pain, had dealt with it nearly every day for the past two years. He could continue on like this…

"If you continue punching like that, you will most likely break your knuckles," came a calm voice from the other side of the room. Cloud turned around. The General was watching him curiously, like a cat might watch a toy.

Cloud couldn't speak as he was struggling for air.

"Hold out your fists," Sephiroth instructed him sternly. Cloud held them out, trembling from nerves and overexertion.

Cloud looked down at his hands. The skin on his knuckles had torn, revealing red skin in places and bleeding in others. Sephiroth made a disapproving noise and healed them, until there was no evidence of his reckless stress relieving session.

"I think it's time you went back to your dorm," Sephiroth continued. "This exercise is counterproductive."

"Yes, sir."

"Try to keep yourself out of trouble." This was less of a kind suggestion and more of an order.

"Yes, sir."

Cloud was conscious of the General's eyes on him as he left the gym. As he walked back to his dorm, he was still shocked that the General had spoken to him.

'Why was he there? And why does he care about my welfare. He didn't seem like the sort to worry about grunts when I first saw him…'

'I guess I did get to speak to Sephiroth, after all,' Cloud thought as he entered his dorm. 'It's a shame that's as close as I'm ever going to get to my hero.'