Quantum Fluctuation

In mid-May Lazard vanished from the ShinRa Corporation and Midgar altogether, two days ahead of Turk auditors who had numerous very pointed questions they wanted to pose the man regarding his expenditures. Despite being warned a good long time in advance that this might happen, Sephiroth was extremely irritated about it. The Silver General made his ire abundantly clear when Heidegger attempted to abolish the position of the Director of SOLDIER and fully subsume the division to his personal authority.

"SOLDIERs are more than just infantrymen with a Mako boost," the elite First-class said icily, glaring at the bearded jackass with slit-pupilled eyes. "They are an elite unit with specialised training and particular requirements in both tactics and morale that are necessary to fully achieve their full potential. Lazard understood this and granted me and my subordinates the leeway to act accordingly."

"What do you recommend then, General?" Reeve Tuasti inquired as Heidegger bristled at the implicit insult and the rest of the board shifted in their seats.

"I will assume the role of Director of SOLDIER," Sephiroth said calmly. "Zackary Fair will take over as public face of the Department and the internal command will be split between Fair, Antonin and Devlin, who will between them complete the paperwork and oversee training."

"After Director Lazard's... indiscretions perhaps it would be wise for there to be a third party to hand to keep an eye on the cash flow," Veld said dryly. "Simply as a precaution, you understand."

Sephiroth twitched at the slight but said nothing, keeping his eyes on the President. The Silver General desired nothing more than the opportunity to skewer the fat fool whose rampant egomania was the source of his family's misfortunes, but he could wait a little longer to fulfil that fantasy.

"The position of Director of SOLDIER is hereby abolished," the President said eventually, "but as General of SOLDIER Sephiroth is granted a seat on the board, full independence in strategic matters, power of veto over missions and all of the other duties and privileges the former Director enjoyed. Your other recommendations are approved, Sephiroth: you have a week to put them in place and a month to get SOLDIER running at peak efficiency once more." The short, tubby and balding blond paused, frowning. "However I will be assigning accountants to keep an eye on the cash flows of each Department. Squandering company funds is not something I will tolerate."

In other words, Sephiroth mentally translated, President Shinra did not appreciate other people making off with his money.


Sephiroth's takeover of Lazard's duties went smoothly, largely thanks to Cloud, Zack and, unexpectedly, SOLDIER second-class Kunsel. The Silver General had learnt to tolerate his mother's boyfriend but this was the first time he'd really spent time with the slightly older man and he was pleasantly surprised by Kunsel's level of awareness of anything and everything even remotely related to the SOLDIER program. With the Second-class- help Sephiroth was able to update the cadet program, streamline the training for new third-classes and instate a proper protocol for promotions and to gauge suitability for officer training rather than having to rely on word-of-mouth and nepotism. While Zack had turned out to be excellent officer material, his rapid promotion had occurred largely due to Angeal's influence rather than the lilac-eyed First's own merits. Zack had grown into the role eventually, but in a truly fair environment his promotion would not have gone through until later in his career.

Sephiroth would have had Kunsel promoted for his invaluable assistance, except that to do so would mean his mother's lover would be infected with the JENOVA virus, which Chaos would react extremely badly to. Valentine herself would also be extremely displeased, so it was better by far to not even go there, no matter how deserving of promotion Kunsel was.


The Silver General sighed, shifting another stack of paperwork to his 'out' tray. Cloud had given Valentine a rather large data packet the last time she'd dropped by to check up on him, which had resulted in his mother vanishing for a day and a half before walking in on Sephiroth in the shower and bluntly informing the shocked General that she was going to kill Hojo before Christmas, so he had that long to plot his own revenge. Learning exactly why his mother had stepped up her timetable had utterly infuriated Sephiroth and provoked a rash of insidious and occasionally outright nasty pranks on the Science Department that had Hojo frothing in rage. ShinRa office policy was now to blame such outbreaks on 'gremlins', as the culprits were no nearer to being discovered than they had been two years previously. Sephiroth had been a master tactician then and constant practice had only honed his skills. Pranking held many similarities with guerrilla warfare, which the Silver General had seen enough of in Wutai to successfully plan and enact his own campaigns.

Rude was, as ever, a willing accomplice. The large, quiet man was now very highly placed in the Turks, proving that tactics and strategy were universal, no matter what you happened to be using them for.

Cloud was still recovering from his shots and alternated between training, going on local monster clean-up missions around Midgar and training the rookie Thirds. He was smart, patient and very dangerous, which meant his students paid attention and learned things. The Silver General's blond protégé now won two out of three of his spars with Zack –to the brunet's dismay– and just under half of his fights with Sephiroth himself. More, the short SOLDIER was still improving, his swordsmanship gaining polish and fluency as he gained experience. Sephiroth knew he'd be outclassed in a few more years and wasn't sure how he felf about it. True, he himself had improved more since taking on Cloud as a student than in the previous four years together, but he had always been the best. That Cloud might take that title away from him... he really did not know. Maybe it was time to start exploring in earnest who Sephiroth Valentine, son of Vincent Valentine, really was beyond a swordsman, a SOLDIER and a General.

His philosophical pondering was cut short by blaring alarms: Hojo's test subjects from the main laboratories were loose in the building. Sighing, Sephiroth issued orders to his SOLDIERs over the intercom, grabbed Masamune and headed upwards. The President would want his assurance that the problem would be promptly dealt with and the security of ShinRa's most powerful SOLDIER in his office as monsters roamed the halls.


Lazard leaves, Cloud tells the Valentines about 'Project C' and AVALANCHE lets loose Hojo's monsters. A General's work is never done.

Yes, it's been a while, but I am still writing. I'm just doing a lot of other things as well.