Thank you, thank you, thank you, so much to all of my wonderful reviewers *_* You know you're awesome and you're what keeps this story going!
Eh, I only read this one through once and very fast at that. It might have a few more mistakes than what I usually do XD
"He doesn't trust me!"
Angeal startled at the unexpected sound of his friend's voice, but Sephiroth paid him no heed starting to pace in the tight confines of his living room. It wasn't really that he wasn't welcome and Angeal always left his door open when he was home so his friends could walk in whenever they wanted, it was just that he wasn't quit prepared to face any of them yet. It was his luck that Sephiroth was so agitated he didn't notice how spooked his friend was.
"I don't understand it," Sephiroth continued. Angeal blinked, realising he had been standing still and just staring for the last three seconds. Shaking himself out of his stupor, he turned back to the kitchen counter to chop carrots. "I've never met a SOLDIER, who wasn't unquestionably loyal to me. Hasn't he heard the stories? Doesn't he know who I am?" Angeal hid an amused smile, despite his trepidation. Whoever Sephiroth was talking about and he had a fair guess who that was, had just shown the general what it was like to be human. What it was like to not earn friendship and trust on merit of his reputation alone. It might even be a healthy experience for the somewhat socially stunted man.
Unaware of Angeal's thought-process, Sephiroth ranted on. "I've never even met the kid until he got into SOLDIER, so it can hardly be something I've done!" He paused, taking a few agitated breaths. He didn't usually lose his temper and only ever when he was with Angeal or Genesis or when he was alone. Losing his temper anywhere where Hojo might see what agitated him was just not going to happen, hence why he had calmly finished work in his office, stacked the paperwork neatly and calmly made his way to Angeal's quarters before he allowed himself to vent. "The single most interesting SOLDIER since you and Genesis joined, and he actually distrusts me." It hadn't bothered him much at first, but the more his thoughts lingered on Strife's reaction to him, the more... disturbing it seemed to him. Disturbing and just plain wrong.
"I guess you're just gonna have to do it the old-fashioned way," Angeal commented, frowning slightly. It was strange how agitated Sephiroth seemed over such a small matter. Had he really never met a SOLDIER who didn't trust him wholeheartedly from the start?
"The old-fashioned way?"
"You know, how other people gain friends? By spending time with them and showing that they're trustworthy." Sephiroth's eyebrows wrinkled, as though Angeal had just given him a particularly difficult puzzle.
"But I can't just spend time with someone I don't know and besides, he's only a Third. It would be... unfair to show him such attention."
"Hm, yeah, you may be right. You gonna ignore it then?"
"Well..."
"The war is about to start up again. The rainy season is just about over and we can move again. You could arrange for Strife to be assigned together with you. It is Strife we're talking about, right?" Sephiroth nodded. "By now, the entire city must've heard of his prowess, no one would find it too strange that you show some interest." Even if you've never done it with anyone before.
"I suppose that wouldn't be too difficult," the general conceded, already drawing up the necessary paperwork in his mind.
"Mh, are you staying for dinner?"
"Are you making enough?"
"I always make enough, you know that." Sephiroth allowed a rare smile to grace his lips and Angeal responded with a genuine one of his own before a sudden prick of guilt could have made it into a grimace.
"Enough for me too?" Genesis interrupted, luckily causing Sephiroth to turn his head before Angeal's thoughts became apparent.
Sephiroth scoffed, directing a playful glare at the redhead. "With you, it's more a question of whether he's got enough napkins."
"That only happened once and only because a certain tramp put her dirty fingers on me. Or are you saying that you're gonna try your luck?"
"No, no, you don't have to worry. Unlike Scarlet, I have taste."
"If you call it that. Too bad your intended doesn't trust you," Genesis added with a smirk. He hadn't been anticipating to be able to work this comment into their game of bickering this soon. It was a rare treat to be able to one-up the Silver General quite this thoroughly.
"What, Strife?" Sephiroth asked, genuinely taken aback by the insinuation.
"Mmh, you better be quick, half the regiment's eyeing him and the other half's only not doing it because they're taken."
The thought, somehow, seemed laughable. "I can't imagine Strife wasting his time like that."
"You mean if he was with you, he wouldn't be wasting it?"
"Well, that goes without saying," he couldn't help but interject, not that he had ever even contemplated a sexual relationship with the small new SOLDIER. Somehow, the blond's attractiveness had seemed much more... intimate. At the very least to him. "However, what I meant was that I can't see him participating in the meaningless relationships most people seem interested in."
Genesis nodded, agreeing. Part of the reason Sephiroth and Genesis got along so well, despite both being so strong-willed, was that either could manage to concede a point when the other was right. Another was that they both appreciated being told the truth, no matter how unpleasant it may sound, rather than a pretty lie.
In the background, Angeal was finishing up dinner, trying to get his emotions under control. It had been pure luck that Genesis had interfered before he had 'spilled the beans' so to speak. It had been fine, while he had been distracted and the secret he was keeping from his friends hadn't been at the forefront of his mind, but the reminder that Sephiroth trusted him made him realize that he was no longer sure that he was worthy of such trust.
Sephiroth and Genesis had already resumed their banter, now with Sephiroth on the offensive, but Angeal hardly paid them any mind. Not that that was unusual, really, he never participated in their verbal spars, but if any of them realized just how distracted he was, then they were likely to question him on it and he didn't think he would be able to lie to either of them.
Their bickering continued, though, far longer than usual, possibly, probably, because Genesis for a change had found a topic he could truly needle the stoic general with. The silver-haired SOLDIER replied in kind, his lips twitching with amusement but his voice cold with reproof as he asked whether Genesis was hiding something, since he didn't seem able to talk about anything but the latest SOLDIER wonder.
At the end of the evening, Angeal breathed a sigh of relief. Genesis had so persistently been needling Sephiroth over wanting Cloud's trust that neither of the two had spared him much more words than to agree that his cooking was as good as ever.
He might normally have minded, might usually have reacted and forced them to have a more civilized conversation, but tonight he had just been too relieved that none of the heat was on him. He wouldn't be able to keep it up indefinitely, of course, but at least he had made it one night without causing a disaster.
The cadet quarters were buzzing as usual right after dinner; teenagers running from the mess to their quarters, to the library or one of the training rooms at their disposal. Even hurried as most of them were, they allowed themselves to pause and stare as a SOLDIER Third Class made his way through.
As for the SOLDIER, he resolutely walked first to room 06C, found it empty before he proceeded to the library, which wasn't empty, but the person he was looking for wasn't there either. With a sigh he decided that he might as well do a thorough search now he was here anyway.
He found Adulio in the second training room he looked into, lying face down on one of the benches, training shoulders and neck. It was a rather startling discovery that when he noticed the weight the Latino was training with, his first thought was that that hardly counted as training at all.
He rechecked with his head and realized that Adulio was training with more than he himself would have before he got his shots. That was... a weird thought. And it seemed like the memories of his second childhood were fading.
Cloud reached over his shoulder and fiddled with his sword. Normally, he would feel too self-conscious to reach for his blade every five minutes, but he had noticed that all the other recent SOLDIERs tended to do the same and he desperately needed to get used to reaching over his shoulder again.
After another fifteen lifts, Adulio put the weight down and made ready to change arm when he finally noticed Cloud standing there.
"Cloud!" He exclaimed. It was a measure of exactly how surprised he was, considering that the dark-skinned teenager was usually so calm and composed. The SOLDIER had to hide a smile at his flustered... acquaintance? Friend? "So you really did become a SOLDIER." Adulio, as usual, got his composure back fast, faster than anyone else Cloud knew, save perhaps Vincent. Assuming Vincent even ever lost his composure in the first place.
"I guess," the blond answered, uncomfortable and for the first time since his promotion feeling like a fourteen-year-old, who had reached a goal ahead of all his peers. At the same time as the feeling filled him with pride, he also felt a smidgeon of guilt, illogical but undeniable.
"Well, congratulations." Adulio smiled and held out his hand, which Cloud took, unconsciously adapting his strength so he wouldn't crush the other's hand, feeling even weirder over getting a handshake from someone who'd been his peer not too long ago.
"Uh. You know, you really don't have to be so formal, Adulio. Really."
Adulio looked at him, eyes widening as though he was surprised that he could speak normally. He gave a weak laugh, before shaking his head ruefully. "I apologize, Cloud, but you're standing here in front of me in your SOLDIER uniform and I suppose it's a bit difficult to ignore."
"Huh." Cloud rolled his shoulders, then reached up behind him and ran a couple of fingers over the hilt of his sword. He was wearing his uniform, as Adulio had pointed out, with both pauldrons but he had foregone the helmet. "I guess you're right." He hadn't really given it all that much thought, assuming they would treat him as usual, since he was still, well, him. Presuming you couldn't see it in his face that he really wasn't. "So how are you doing? Has anything happened while I've been... away?" Preoccupied, more like.
"Not anything of any importance to you. There's been a great deal of talk of you, but that can hardly be considered as new. Or surprising for that matter. The instructors has become a bit more aggressive after you guys were taken and there were a few more drop-outs this year than usual, I've heard, but that can't be surprising either, so everything is as usual."
Cloud grinned. "Yeah. I don't know why I expected anything to be different, either. It just feels like the world's been upended, you know?"
"You certainly are more talkative than before. I would never have expected you to come seek me out like this."
"Hmm, no I guess I'm not really the type, am I?" He let a smile steal over his features, so Adulio wouldn't think he minded being thought of as anti-social. It was the truth, why deny it?
"So how does it feel to be a SOLDIER?"
"Uh. I don't know. I haven't been on any missions yet, and they won't likely put me on any until I've had my second check-up, to ensure nothing went wrong after I had my shots."
"Really? When is that?"
"Another few days."
"And, pardon me for asking, but what are you supposed to do until then?"
"Get used to my enhancements. Train, practise." The simulation room was practically reserved for the new Thirds, these days. And when they weren't in the simulation room, they were in the gym, testing out limits of strength and endurance both.
"I see."
"I don't suppose our old friend, Carman, has dropped out yet?"
Adulio snorted. "Not likely to happen, is it? He seems determined to prove that SOLDIERs are all brawn and no brain, but unless I miss my guess, even our sword instructor is losing hope in him. Sparing against him is decidedly simple; he lacks... creativity. He relies on brute force alone." Adulio didn't say that he was getting worse. The idiot had clearly become stubborn about the matter.
"Heh, no surprise there. Wanna try sparing against me?" The smirk accompanying his words warned Adulio that that was probably not such a good idea.
"I must decline your offer, gracious as it may be," he answered, smiling lopsidedly. "As good an experience as it might turn out to be, I would hate to end up in a hospital bed because you spent the time you were supposed to use to get accustomed to your strength to pay social visits to lowly cadets."
It was rare indeed that Adulio gave voice to his exceptionally dry humour, but that only made it all the more amusing when he did. Cloud turned with a low chuckle, heading back towards the exit. "Sorry, Adulio, I gotta go now. It was nice seeing you again." And with that he left.
Adulio, shook his head, chuckling a bit at the abrupt departure, not at all surprised.
Half a second later, though, Cloud poked his head back in through the door. "You know, you'll be a great SOLDIER, Adulio. Catch up," he quipped, before leaving for good.
Adulio stared long after his friend. A compliment like that was rare from the blond. Any compliment, now that he gave it thought. The fact that Cloud had openly declared that he would be a good SOLDIER just like that was bordering on a miracle.
Cloud spent another five days pretending to get used to his new enhancements. Not that he was pretending per se, he was testing his strength, perhaps even more vigorously than his peers. In short order, he had beaten all of them in any competition they could think of; he was stronger, more enduring and had better control than any of them, but still he pressed himself. His control needed to be perfect and he needed to know the exact limits of his strength and endurance. Even calculating that he could perhaps perform a little better when there was real risk involved, he was still not quite as strong or as fast or as enduring as he had been before he jumped back in time.
He sometimes took himself in completely forgetting his second childhood. When he did, his mood plummeted and he would snarl at anyone daring to approach him, even Zack, if he bothered to answer at all. It felt a little like betraying his mother again, forgetting her and all she had done for him even though he could hardly have been the easiest child to raise. He didn't understand why the memories before he was sent back was so strong. It was almost as though they were pushing the new ones away, and now only certain key-points remained. He remembered waking when he was five, finding his mother again, he remembered Tifa crying into his shirt after he had saved her on the bridge and the catastrophic fight with Wel, Dan and Meiday that had resulted in being banned from playing with Tifa forever. He remembered deciding to get into SOLDIER and he remembered his meeting with Zack. He remembered Patrick and Martin and... people, but for the life of him, any situation involving them was dim at best. Instead he easily remembered Marlene's long list of favourite foods, Denzel beaming as he helped unloading Fenrir after one of Cloud's longer deliveries. Tifa's endless smile. He remembered a million little situations with his family, things he had held precious when he still had them and things he still held precious for all that. But they were pushing newer memories away.
It was nerve racking and it made him feel guilty like nothing else. He knew he had sparred with Zack any number of times in the past few months, but he could only remember one or two situations where it actually happened, he knew he had spent hours upon hours upon hours with Adulio, labouring over homework or training in hand-to-hand. He visited Adulio twice more, just seeing how he was doing an trying to spark his memory, to force it back so he could remember being a cadet.
He avoided Zack. Or tried to, without being too obvious. It was difficult, facing the Second Class, when you knew what awaited, what might await him in the future. When you saw his face, older, and bloodied, dying, superimposed over the happy, ignorant sixteen-year-old. It made Cloud feel fifty rather than twenty-seven. Or fourteen for that matter.
Another thing that was bugging him was the fact that Angeal had told him, with excellent logic to back him up, that they couldn't move too fast or be too aggressive or they would be found out. They had to be careful, move slowly and be on their guard always. Even if Cloud suspected that part of the reason why Angeal wanted them to go slowly was so he had less to hide from his friends, it didn't make it any less true that a wrong step would bring disaster.
Cloud might even have been willing to risk it, if it had only been his own hide in the bargain, but it was also Angeal's. And Zack's. He didn't think his village (his mother! Tifa!) was in danger yet, but even the thought that failure now meant they would be sacrificed eventually was enough to curdle his stomach until he thought he might be sick.
His peers quickly learned to recognize when he was in one of his moods and even quicker learned not to try him when he was. One had tried to challenge him, while he had been trying to just not bother anyone with his foul temper, trying not to think about how little was being done to prevent what was going to happen eventually. The guy had not been on his team while on the preSOLDIER mission and apparently took the talk of Zack's defeat as grossly exaggerated.
By the time the guy had proven himself sufficiently annoying to provoke Cloud into fighting him, the blond had been ready to grind silver spoons to dust. With his teeth. Needless to say, the fight had been very short and very, very effective in dissuading anyone else in their little group of new SOLDIERs from provoking him.
The final medical check was clearly only following procedure for the sake of it, a mere formality at least for him. They tested his reflexes with some kind of hyper-sensitive electronic apparatus. They didn't tell him the numbers and even if he had, he would probably not have understood exactly what they signified. They looked impressed though.
When he had been thoroughly poked and prodded, half of it, he suspected, just because they enjoyed it, they signed the paper that gave him up for active duty and clicked a few buttons on the computer. No one cared to explain to him why he needed the paper when they had done it electronically, but sometimes the ShinRa Corporation could be such sticklers for bureaucracy and form it was a wonder they ever got anything done.
The morning after, he was deployed.
Cloud shifted uncomfortably. He really didn't know what to think. On one hand, he knew that with his abilities and enhancements, he was considerably superior to most of the other SOLDIERs, so his current position was maybe not quite that surprising, but on the other hand being picked out by Sephiroth himself made him feel like the general was on to him and that fed his burgeoning paranoia. In short, he was tense, jumpy and slightly nauseous.
To top it all off, he was in an aircraft carrier on his way to participate in the Wutai War. Joy.
Around him were a few Firsts and Seconds, ten in all including him, but no other Thirds. They would have back-up from a platoon of thirty regular army grunts, however the way the other SOLDIERs were speaking, the regular soldiers were more there as cannon fodder and to provide ready hands for menial labour. A sentiment Clod found rather arrogant, distantly remembering his own life as a trooper.
Sephiroth, sitting next to him on his left since he was officially here as the general's 'personal aide', didn't call anyone on their cruel jibes, but neither did he participate. At least the regular troops were being transported in another carrier, so they didn't have to listen to these crude comments.
He might have said something himself, but the air was thick with the smell of sweat and Cloud could hear the elevated heartbeat of the First sitting to his right. If making idiotic jokes to bolster the confidence in their superiority made them feel better, then he could hold his peace.
Cloud had at first been a little puzzled that they were entering with such a, well, small group, until he remembered that even just this amount of SOLDIERs counted for a veritable army and that they were fighting in Wutai, where the land was rocky and uneven, covered in lush forests, and that the Wutaians were using guerilla tactics. An army moved slowly, especially in terrain such as that on the Wutai Islands, it required a longer chain of command and regular provisions, and it made for a much too easy target for hit-and-run type ambushes.
This small group wouldn't fall to complacency, would be able to move relatively quickly without being too visible, and would be able to change direction or tactic in a matter of seconds.
It was almost like SOLDIER was made to counter guerilla tactics.
Huh, how long had plans to find the Promised Land been in the works, anyway? Maybe that would be worth looking into some time. Some time when he was not sitting in a helicopter on his way to slaughter people intent on protecting their land.
Holding in a sigh, he finally allowed himself to contemplate whether he could bring himself to kill the Wutaians. On one hand, he had killed plenty of times in the past, future, whichever, and while he wasn't a mindless killer, he could hardly claim that taking a human life bothered him any more. On the other hand, he really wasn't a mindless killer and the Wutaians were only protecting their lands after they had been attacked for no good reason whatsoever.
Could he seriously justify killing them just so he could keep his cover?
Yet he knew that he would follow his orders. The Wutaians would lose the war, regardless of his efforts, and once he had destroyed ShinRa, the country would regain independence.
It was a shame, though. He liked Lord Godoh, and the loss of life was regrettable.
They touched down in a small clearing as planned, two minutes before their backup. Three Seconds immediately left through the tail end to check and secure the perimeter, since they had landed in the middle of the long peninsula where Wutai City was situated, far from the bases ShinRa held.
ShinRa already held Wutai City of course and quite a few forts around the island, but unless Lord Godoh and his main forces were caught, it would make little difference. The civilians didn't resist, but neither did they really acknowledge ShinRa as rulers, they just went about their lives as though ShinRa troops' presence were nothing more than a mild annoyance. No matter what, you had to admire pride like that.
Godoh himself held few forts by now, and he seemed always to move between them, never staying anywhere long enough for any useful intel to get back to ShinRa in time, but until he either gave up or his forces were eradicated, ShinRa would be unable to bring in construction workers to build a reactor.
Cloud spend a few seconds, as he disembarked and got a good look at the dense jungle, shadowy in the midday sun, regretting that he didn't listen to Yuffie and her many, many While Wutai Was at War stories. There must have been something to learn in those, even fraud with exaggerations and pure imagination, there had had to be some truth to them.
Then again, it was Yuffie. In the only story he had halfway listened to, she claimed to have beaten a SOLDIER in a one-on-one duel. At the age of nine. Right.
The three SOLDIER scouts returned, reporting all clear, and the forty men set out. They marched until the sun set, half the SOLDIERs free with their luggage carried by the other half. Ninjas were fast. They struck fast and they left fast. To catch them on their home turf, it was definitely advantageous to have freedom of movement and even SOLDIERs took advantages where they could. At the end of the day, they had marched close to twenty miles and not even glimpsed the shadow of a ninja.
Cloud carried his own and Sephiroth's belongings, not that it was particularly heavy. They were both light packers and Cloud knew his modifications made him able to carry something close to three times his own weight for pretty extended periods of time. Sephiroth had told him in an even tone that he, himself, would be carrying the pack the following day, something Cloud found weird, considering that he was the general, but not unwelcome.
Once the day ended, all the other SOLDIERs dropped their packs and spread out into the undergrowth in pairs, clearly used to the routine. Cloud cast a questioning look at Sephiroth, but the minute shake of his head made him simply drop his pack and search for something he could help with while Sephiroth merely supervised.
Setting up camp didn't take long, the infantry were all veterans, and had tents up in record time. Low tents, covered in camouflaging nets, as though they were actually trying not to be noticed.
There was no way, though, that the trail of forty men trampling through the undergrowth, no matter how careful they were, could be masked from ninja trackers. They were here to find some secret hide-away, Godoh appeared to have, somewhere in the region. A fort that could not be detected by flying over it, suggesting it was underground and considering the vastness of the area it could be placed, they hadn't a chance of finding it unless they were led to it. The plan was to let themselves be ambushed and then following the ninjas' trail back to base. If they could follow it.
The plan Cloud thought, was quite simple, but it depended heavily on the ninja that ambushed them. And whether they could believably wound the ninja enough to make them clumsy and subsequently leaving a trail, and whether the wounded ninja would run back to base at all.
It wasn't reliable at all, but the only other alternative was to simply trek the area until they just so happened to stumble on the entrance. And ShinRa couldn't afford that Godoh had bases like this where he could hide his main forces, a place where the SOLDIERs couldn't reach him.
So they gambled and they hoped.
The SOLDIERs came back shortly, all reporting no sign of enemies. They ate, set guards with at least one SOLDIER at each watch and went to sleep, SOLDIERs simply rolled up in their sleeping bags while the regular soldiers took to the tents.
It was a little funny to see the general braid his hair up before going to bed and it was more than a little disconcerting to realize that in the limited space inside the camp, they slept close enough together that he could smell the older man. Or, wait, how old was Sephiroth at this time? Mid-twenties? That would make him a younger man, wouldn't it?
With a sigh, Cloud resolved that he would have to get used to thinking of himself at being fourteen, not twenty-seven. Older man it was.
Night, too, was uneventful. They weren't even bothered by the few monsters who had tried ambushing their scouts during the day, evidence, if any, of what ShinRa's reactors were causing on the mainlands, considering how many monsters had ambushed Cloud and his party on their test-run to Midgar.
In the morning, Sephiroth's hair was slightly wavy from the braid for all of ten minutes before its own weight had pulled it straight again. It was also remarkably free of twigs, leaves, insects and any other stuff that had magically found its way into Cloud's own spikes while he slept and while a casual finger-brushing got rid of most of it, it was still amazing how the general could just avoid it altogether.
They ate lunch walking, simply taking ration bars out of their packs. Cloud would have suggested hunting if they hadn't been intent on covering as much ground as possible and if there hadn't been forty mouths to feed. They'd have to down a cow to feed them all. Well, maybe a deer would do, but they would still need time to track and hunt and Cloud might be able to run the animal to the ground, but he wasn't counting on anyone else to. Except maybe Sephiroth but the thought of Sephiroth hunting was just a touch too sinister to bear contemplation.
The ambush hit them just before Cloud finished his second cardboard-tasting energy bar.
The Third had been walking in his own thoughts, only keeping a casual eye on the surrounding greenery trusting the SOLDIER scouts to alert them should anything, or more importantly anyone, come close when a shrill hum hit his ears just before General Sphiroth, walking a few steps behind and to his left clasped a hand to the side of his neck. When he withdrew it, a small blow-dart, its tip covered in blood that dripped off like water rather than drying, was clasped between his fingers.
"We're under attack!" He yelled, unsheathing his sword before even the first syllable was out of his mind. Sephiroth looked at him, a touch of surprise in his eyes, before drawing Masamune and turning to meet the enemy.
When his legs gave out under him, it seemed like for just a second all activity ceased. Sephiroth was down, clearly the poison on the dart was working, and SOLDIERs, those not already out among the trees, and soldiers alike stopping in shock. Luckily, they were too experienced to let the shock immobilize them for more than a second.
Cloud deflected three shuriken aimed at his legs and two bullets aimed at Sephiroth, who by now was down on one hand as well, shaking his head as though to dispel grogginess, clearly though he wasn't succeeding. His eyes were unfocused and even though he held Masamune off the ground, his sword hand was wavering.
Cloud wasted no time checking the general's condition. He couldn't possibly do anything about it, not with what looked like half a dozen ninja moving through the undergrowth and treetops, just waiting for his guard to drop. Where was everyone? Why weren't they closing ranks so they could protect the general, who, if Cloud had heard right since he didn't dare spare a glance behind him, had collapsed completely. He was circling around Sephiroth slowly, continually, eyes roving, every line in his body proclaiming that if anyone wanted to get through him, they would pay dearly for it.
The ninja didn't wait long, he heard the soft whistle of fresh leaves rustling when a ninja jumped from a branch behind him, and had whirled and killed the masked man before the meaning of the sound even consciously registered. The man fell, the tanto he had clearly thought to attack with cut in two from the force of Cloud's slash.
The young Third heard the tell-tale sounds of people stopping and retreating, as the other ninjas intend on him realized that despite his Third Class uniform, he was not to be trifled with.
"To me!" He called, annoyed that he had been left to protect the silver-haired lump of poisoned dead-weight alone. Where was Sephiroth's second? Surely someone had been appointed to give orders and stuff in case the general was incapacitated or just unavailable? Or one of the Firsts in the group had to have the presence of mind to realize that if the ninja had blow-darts that could down he general they had to stay together, because if that was the case then they sure as hell could down the rest of them and they had to be able to guard each other's back.
When the whistling hum of another dart reached his ears, rather than look to dodge it, Cloud simply threw himself down, received a hurtful yet far from crippling bruise across his spine from a protruding root, and was up again before the Wutaians could have realized that he had avoided the projectile. He spotted three ninja nearby, clothed in drab colours that blended easily with the foliage and dead greenery on the forest floor, but decided against hunting them down. He went back to the downed general's side, still guarding.
"To me!" He yelled again, putting more than a bit of snap into the order. "Get your asses down here and protect the general, you idiots!" There was no way to put proper force into such a long sentence, but it didn't take long before the Firsts and Seconds he could see began falling back. A few that he hadn't been able to see appeared as well; regular troops giving long-distance cover for the enhanced SOLDIERs, who protected both themselves and their companions as well they could from shuriken and bullets alike, swords whirling.
When the ninja surrounding Cloud realized that the diminutive kid would have back-up in just a few more seconds, they abandoned caution and came at him all at once. Or maybe they had just used the time until then to coordinate themselves. Four ninja attacked, coming into melee range, while the rest provided a brief hail of shuriken. No blow-darts, luckily enough. Strangely enough.
The seemingly young SOLDIER stepped across Sephiroth, standing astride the limp body. The sword, while far from having the Buster Swords or First Tsuruki's reach, was still enough that he should be able to protect at least the fallen man's most vulnerable parts. And it wasn't like the ninjas were going to start hacking off his feet while Cloud was standing there close by.
Cloud would have attacked first, if not for the fact that he had to protect his fallen commander. He would have attacked and drawn the four of them away anyway, if there had been someone close enough to protect Sephiroth from the ninja, who were currently providing cover. Instead he lunged, quick as a viper, his sword darting in under the guard of one ninja to nick him in the stomach. The ninja wouldn't die all at once, but it would slow him down while Cloud fought the others.
As fast as he stepped forward, he was back in place, whirling to meet the two coming at him from behind. They had seen his lunge as an opportunity to get closer with their kodachi, maybe even to stab him from behind, but they had not been able to count on the experience Cloud had, and the blond had no mercy as he first forced one to let go of his weapon through the sheer force of his chop, then easily skewered the second through his gut and decapitated the first, who had only just had time to reach for a secondary weapon, a one-edged dagger of some sort, before it no longer made any difference. He had barely managed to sidestep three throwing stars while incapacitating those two, and had only succeeded because he had already been moving. Even so, one had cut a long gash down the front of his uniform, nicking his skin twice, and another had lodged itself in the top of his boot.
Even as he whirled again to face the last two ninja, one bleeding steadily from the wound he had caused in his initial lunge, both eyeing him even more warily than they had before, he heard a bullet ricochet off one of his shoulder pauldrons.
Suddenly, six more ninja dropped from the trees and Cloud felt immensely grateful when he finally heard two or three SOLDIERs coming up behind and completing a circle with the fallen general in the middle.
Cloud smirked, when a quick look around confirmed that the rest of the SOLDIERs had done the same; completing a small circle to guard each other's back, the regular troops in the middle, providing cover fire.
The Third Class smirked. And charged.
TN: I.. I don't know where Genesis and Seph's conversation came from, it just... appeared. I swear, I was gonna hold this strictly het with a dash of Seph being socially awkward and now, suddenly everyone's lusting after Cloud. I swear, no planning! Argh *flails* It's just all the planning on how I imagined SOLDIER functioning in this fic decided that if I was gonna do that then I would -have- to do this as well. It wasn't on purpose! Really! *whimpers* Oh, but there's a reason for it, not just random attraction for little boys XD (oh, ew)