Tangency Point

Cloud was totally exhausted. The war in Wutai was finally properly over in spite of all the wild-eyed fanatics trying to infiltrate Midgar to stage a last stand, so Sephiroth -and therefore Cloud as well- had finally been allowed to return home. The blond had no idea however where his General was at the moment: Cloud had been accosted as soon as he got off the Gelnika by his Mako technician, escorted to the Simulation room and ordered to fight off illusory monsters without even getting his lunch first. He'd been in there for five hours, powering through test after simulation. Cloud really didn't like training in the virtual reality generator as the monsters created didn't ping his sixth sense until the very last moment, forcing him to dodge faster and keep a much closer eye on his surroundings than was the case in real life.

When he was finally allowed out Cloud had been unnerved to find Hojo outside the Simulation room talking to the technician. All the blond had heard was the tail-end of the professor's spiel, but even just that had made his skin crawl:

"... very promising indeed; he proved worthy of my greatest work's attention. Alert me when he is awarded promotion to second-class."

Cloud knew that Hojo's 'greatest work' was Sephiroth and made a mental note then and there to put tabs on Hojo's files just in case the amoral scientist decided that Cloud would be a handy test subject for a new project. Chaos had assured the blond he was JENOVA-proof, but that didn't mean he wanted to spend a week in bed vomiting black goop after having the latent Chaos potential the WEAPON had laced his DNA with activate prematurely.

After Cloud had discovered Vincent was female she'd been slid out of his father-figure slot and gradually replaced by Chaos himself, which had resulted in the quasi-summon demanding to adopt him. The procedure had happened after his last Mako shot; Chaos had infiltrated his bedroom in Wutai and done something. What, the blond had no idea: Chaos swore up and down that what he had done was not harmful, would not involve any extra limbs appearing out of the blue, would take several decades to fully activate and would not change who he was as a person in the slightest. Vincent hadn't been happy -Chaos had snuck out while she was sleeping- but Cloud had calmed her down eventually. Chaos was, well, unpredictable was understating it, but he did care.

Putting his new stepfather aside in his mind as the technician gave him the heartening news that he wouldn't have to see another scientist for six months, Cloud set about going home. While he did have a room in one of the four-bedroom apartments all the third-classes shared with their peers, on this occasion the blond decided he preferred to crash in the apartment Vincent owned right on the edge on the Plate in Sector One, chosen for its balcony over the massive drop that doubled as a landing spot for Chaos and any other winged visitors. Going there would also give him a chance to ditch his blue-suited tail: the curly-headed blond Turk with the nuchaku was a newbie and easily spotted, but Cloud knew that his more discreet watcher was none other than Seto, his own first swordsmanship teacher. He'd been expecting the quiet, bespectacled man to approach him asking for a spar for ages.

Losing the distracted blond would be easy; Seto however would have to be removed with considerably more care.

With all this in mind Cloud wasn't really paying attention to where he was going and walked right into someone whilst turning a corner.

"Watch it, SOLDIER," said a familiar voice. Cloud looked up through the visor of his helmet to see Zack, himself looking rather distracted. Very distracted to have missed the highly distinctive sword hilt protruding over the third-class' shoulder and how short the younger SOLDIER was.

"Hi there, Zack," Cloud said happily, removing his helmet. "It's been a while."

"Spiky?" the second-class blurted out. "Shiva it's good to see you! When did you get back?"

"Late this morning; I had my post-Mako evaluation over lunch," the blond explained. Zack looked very unhappy underneath his thin mask of determined cheer; Cloud couldn't leave his friend to suffer like that when he suspected he knew what the problem was. "How about we go for food and you tell me what I missed while I was getting dragged thither and yon all over Wutai by his Generalship hunting down ninja?"

Zack's eyes lit up with genuine pleasure. "Great idea! Not the canteen though; the food's been crap lately. I could cook-"

"No," Cloud interrupted firmly, "I'll cook if one of us has to; I know better than to allow you within ten feet of a stove unless field rations are involved!"

The second-class laughed, wrapping an arm around the blond's shoulders and ruffling his hair with his other hand. "Shiva I've missed you, Spiky. Kunsel's missing his girlfriend when he isn't dashing out early to take her on a date, everyone's on missions at all hours and I haven't had a decent conversation in months. Months, I tell you! Any longer and I would have gone looking for Tseng!"

"How about we go get takeout and you give me the lowdown," Cloud suggested, letting Zack sweep him off towards the elevators. The blond generally preferred to take the stairs, but Zack loved the glass lifts. "I'll trade you stories from the former front for the latest company gossip and corporate stupidity."

"Great! Were you in Wutai -the town I mean- for the peace treaty?" Zack asked as they entered the lift. Cloud sensed rather than saw his Turk stalkers heading for the stairs; he would have to lose them completely in order to have a proper heart-to-heart with Angeal's protégé.

"Seph had to go and he dragged me along so he didn't have to suffer alone," Cloud answered as the glass doors slid closed. "It wasn't all bad: I got to meet Lord Gordo's daughter, who has the worst case of sticky fingers I've ever seen. A superb escape artist as well, for all she's only nine."

"Hey, I might have met her in Fort Tamblin: Yuffie Kisaragi, 'Wutai's greatest warrior'?"

Cloud chuckled. "That's her. I told her I was an environmental activist infiltrating the company to bring it down from the inside and won a lifelong admirer."


Instead of letting Zack drag him to the second-class' own tiny apartment in the official ShinRa residence halls after they'd bought wutaian takeaway, Cloud steered his dark-haired friend out towards Vincent's place on the edge of the Plate. As they wandered down alleys and across roads the blond palmed his Seal Materia and surreptitiously cast Sleep at Seto who was shadowing them across the rooftops. 'Take out the backup first' was one of the Turk maxims Vincent had drummed into his head; it was after all the backup's job to call for reinforcements if they were overwhelmed. Once Seto was confirmed out for the count Cloud continued on a little further then sped up, jogged around a sharp corner and stopped in the shadows, a finger to his lips. Zack looked perplexed by the blond's erratic behaviour but kept his mouth shut as Cloud armed himself with a Time.

As the soft sound of expensive shoes on tarmac drew closer the Turk-trained SOLDIER tensed, ears working overtime. Give it a few more seconds...

The blond Turk was hit by the Stop spell before he even noticed Cloud was there, toppling forwards on the asphalt as stiff as a board. Then the two SOLDIERs ran for it.

"Spiky?" Zack asked once they were far enough away to safely slow down a bit, "Why do you have Turks after you?"

"I am too interesting for my own good," Cloud replied glumly. "Come on; I'll tell you all about it when we get home."

"You'd better," Zack said firmly, "I'm sick and tired of being left in the dark."

"Let's keep moving then; we don't want the food to get cold, do we?"

They reached the apartment without running into any more Turks, which was a relief. It had been a test rather than real surveillance, Cloud decided. The next step in this particular game would involve getting approached by someone further up the ladder -potentially Tseng, the Turk Zack had gone on that high-level mission with- who he would politely exchange threats with and compare agendas.

Once they were safely inside Zack turned around and stood in the middle of the living room, arms folded across his chest.

"Talk, Spiky," the second-class said, voice even and eyes as serious as Cloud had ever seen them. "What the hell is going on with the Generals? Why do you have Turks after you? What's the deal with Genesis' family -the whole story please- and where in Ifrit's burning hells did the supposedly dead feral SOLDIERs come from?"

Cloud dumped the takeout on the coffee table, kicked of his boots and dropped down onto the sofa. "You may as well sit and start your food, Zack: this is going to take a while if I start at the beginning..."


Cloud returns from Wutai after meeting Yuffie, bumps into Zack, takes out a pair of Turks and prepares to tell all...