A/N: For anyone who was wondering, since a reviewer asked but disabled PM replies, Rufus and Cloud's final half-sibling, the mentioned 8-year-old in the last chapter, was named Evan Townshend and lived on the Upper Plate in Sector 6 (would have at 8, he moved to a different place when he got older). He was in the FFVII light novels "The Kids are Alright: A Turks Side Story," and Rufus did eventually find out about him, but by then, Evan was around 18, I think? It didn't matter because both already had their own lives which had nothing to do with one another. Right now (or probably ever), he's a non-entity in the story, other than this brief mention. It was just to make the point that none of Rufus' half-siblings are actually fit to take the Company.

Note: Cloud misses Zack-as-Fenrir's point here (and I think some of my readers will, too, by the way it sounds), so don't take offense! This will be properly explained next chapter.

Pain and Pups

Vincent and the other Turks had finished their discussion, and some had gone on to other tasks while Cloud stayed in his seat with his head resting on his crossed arms and Rufus sat across from him. It surprised him on some levels that Rufus wasn't pushing, but he was thankful for it—dealing with The Nightmare was never easy on him, and adding Scarlet's situation to that...It didn't go well.

:Cloud, next time you have to fight him, call for my help,: Fenrir said into his mind.

:Assuming I have enough time to focus...: Cloud replied bitterly.

:Assuming you stop thinking you have to do it alone and think to call me,: the man-made-Summon replied flatly. :You didn't. You only thought of the spells you could cast, not what I could do to help you—didn't even hear me calling to you, as far as I could tell, your focus had narrowed so much to him. Are you sure that obsession of his isn't running both ways?:

Oh, that was painful, and insulting, to hear. It made him hurt, and left a bitter taste in his mouth. :Fenrir, that was cruel!: He couldn't get any more out, just having to struggle to keep from crying. It really hurt to hear Fenrir say something like that, knowing it wasn't true and that Cloud would be happy to have nothing further to do with The Nightmare if he'd just stop showing up everywhere...

:Maybe it's painful to hear, but I don't take it back. The only thing you managed to register while you were fighting him was a peripheral thought about Tifa maybe being there, and you were even distracted easily enough from that. Your focus was never on anyone but him and it was pure luck you two didn't kill any civilians—but you were literally within an inch of killing two of them. Did you even notice that?: Fenrir returned.

After pausing to recall the fight against his will...Cloud realized he hadn't noticed the civilians he'd already known were scattered around that floor. He had no active visual of having been close to any—but a second review showed him he had, barely, and really had been within an inch of killing two of them. Not The Nightmare—him. He suddenly felt sick, and clenched his hands into fists as he gritted his teeth and tried not to cry.

"Cloud, I just got a message from Commander Hewley asking that you, or us both if Dark Nation is now attached to your pup—go to his place to...apparently show the mother two of her pups are still alive, not just one," Rufus said, cutting into his thoughts. "I'm not entirely sure now is the best time, but that's sort of your decision."

It took Cloud over a minute just to process the words and realize what they meant, but before he could answer, there was a hand on his arm and Sephiroth's familiar—and very worried—voice asked, "Cloud? You met him, yes? How are you managing?"

That took a minute to process, too, even as Fenrir sent him a worried feeling, but then he lifted his head to stare up at the older man. Who wasn't the child Nightmare, and he was suddenly thankful he'd started separating them out. "You—why do you know that?"

"He came to introduce himself to me," Sephiroth replied sourly. "And made an attempt to kill me, calling me weak. Thankfully, our Flower Girl gave me some information which allowed me to counter, but...If an attack like the one I managed barely wounded him..."

Cloud blinked as Fenrir commented into his head, :I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have left a competitor for you alone if the attack had really done so little damage...:

:Competitor for me?: the boy asked in confusion.

Fenrir sighed. :He's obsessed with you. His 'other self' is competition.:

Rather than reply to that, Cloud clarified, "He left after you injured him?"

"Yes," the older, silver-haired man agreed.

"Then you did him more damage than he cared to admit—if you were really weak or the attack damage had been minor, he'd have pressed his advantage and killed you," Cloud answered flatly. "But—why did you apparently come right here—to me—after he left?"

"Because I suspected he had already attacked you, and after our earlier discussion, I did not feel leaving you alone would have been a good idea," Sephiroth replied evenly.

Looking past Sephiroth, Cloud saw Kal and Akira in the door to the room, watching them with mild curiosity and confusion. She hadn't realized he was heading to the Turks' office first to check on Cloud. His gaze returned to the sliver haired man's. "But you could have filed your report first."

"He blatantly said—in front of many others—that he is no normal being, certainly not the 'soul' that body should have had, and knows you—intimately," Sephiroth told him flatly. "And this is the only place where it is safe to speak freely. While Turks alone hearing that would not be troublesome, the number of SOLDIERs who witnessed the event is more worrying. Much more. If others who are neither heard it...As we were in the Slums to route the Restrictors and Fuhito..."

Cloud winced as Fenrir sighed tiredly into his mind. "I see your point. Did he happen to say anything about my current status?"

"No, but he did give your name, and Cloud is not a common name. All those who have met or heard of you would think of you first," Sephiroth shrugged. "However, that was only part of what brought me here. How are you feeling—and dealing with me—after meeting him?"

"General, the situation here is bigger than that," Rufus sighed, and Sephiroth turned to look at him in confusion. "Apparently his match with your clone landed him in just the right place to see Scarlet being sexually assaulted, and it was only his timely arrival which spared her the worst. And he's still avoiding it—as he said to me, he's still trying to process the fight, let alone that."

The silver haired man's eyes widened, as did Kal's, then he turned back to a pained-looking Cloud to rest a hand on his shoulder. Somehow, it was both terrifying and comforting, and in the end, seeing the worry and pain in Sephiroth's gaze turned it to the comforting side. No, this man wasn't The Nightmare. Now, with the two effectively living side-by-side, it was obvious. What would become a problem was people being unaware of the other Sephiroth...And Cloud was sure the next time they'd see him would be when he was the real Sephiroth's age.

His gaze met the General's as he said, "Sephiroth, the whole population of the world needs to know there's a clone of you running around, one who is psychotic and will kill as he pleases. I don't think it'll take long for him to reach your age—what do you think would happen if people weren't aware of him and he started using your name to kill random civilians?"

All three of their eyes widened as Kal actively joined them and said, "I hadn't thought of that before. Our problem would be telling them apart, so how could we do that?"

"Besides his expression?" Cloud asked bitterly, and the others blinked. "Unless Sephiroth—the real one—first wanted to establish a persona not taught to him by Hojo, and let people get to know him by it before The Nightmare shows up again, there really isn't one, Kal. And the only other options are either for me to be strong enough to beat him again before he leaves the Labs again, or for Vincent's arm to be properly fixed by then so he can do it."

His gaze then lifted to Sephiroth's with a sudden thought and he slowly offered, "Or, if you could become strong enough to defeat your—well, doppelganger—it would mean people would see you fighting yourself, and would know for sure there were two of you until the battle ended and one was dead."

"Sorry...What is a doppelganger?" the General frowned in puzzlement. Rufus and Kal also looked puzzled.

"It's a word in Nibelheim which refers to a 'dark' version of you," Cloud explained. "It's like...There's good and bad in everyone, but in our legends, it's possible for the good and evil to split, and the evil part forms the doppelganger, which represents things like your fears, your jealousy, your hatred—it forces you to face and overcome your own negativity. In a way, The Nightmare is your doppelganger—he's everything you would be if you let your negative emotions run wild. Just maybe...That would actually be a kind of poetic justice. Assuming he'd let you interfere in his obsession with me."

Sephiroth leaned back with a thoughtful expression, then slowly nodded and agreed, "Then, because he will attack you, your own strength would be required, and you would need to train with us to achieve it. However, if there is any possible way for me to reach you at that time, if I have become strong enough to defeat him then, I would very much like to lay that part of me to rest, to prove to myself I can choose more than destruction."

The words actually made Cloud smile a bit, and allowed some of his tension since meeting The Nightmare to loosen...Which then allowed those few moments as he'd looked around the room and seen the position Scarlet was in to come crashing down on him, and he was suddenly shaking and actually trying very hard not to cry. No matter how hard they'd tried, they hadn't been able to help her before something like that happened! How was it that he was always too late to really help anyone he cared about? He 'felt' Fenrir sigh and shake his head, but the man-made-Summon didn't get to speak because someone else did first.

"Cloud?" Scarlet's voice asked worriedly from right beside him as her hand—smaller than Sephiroth's—rested on his shoulder.

"I couldn't get there soon enough to save you..." he managed to mutter.

She sighed faintly, almost seeming amused, but told him, "Cloud, I'm not sure you realize what would have happened to me if you hadn't gotten there when you did, or what would have happened to me—to my mind—if you hadn't been there to remind me there are people who care about me." She turned him to face her and used a hand to make him look up at her—and she looked surprisingly calm and relaxed. "You had no idea anything was even happening until you ended up there, and then, as soon as you realized something was wrong, you acted. Because you did, I'm all right—all I had were a few bruises. Thank you so much for being there. That means everything to me right now."

She then reached forward to hug him, and he—actually started crying softly on her shoulder, just releasing stress he hadn't even realized had been building up since he'd gotten to Midgar. He hadn't expected to care about her the way he cared about his other friends, or a friend who was closer to him, like Tifa. Well, he never really thought he'd care about anyone else the way he did Tifa, but that didn't mean Scarlet didn't come close, in another way. And she was his half-sister, so he was justified.

The culmination of the feeling of stress, what had happened to her, and everything else in the last several weeks...Even though he wasn't one to cry, this time, he couldn't stop it. His younger soul probably helped with that, because he'd noticed it sometimes made him do things he wouldn't have as 'Cloud the adult.'

It was actually a relief to let it out, he was surprised to find.

When he stopped and pushed back from her to wipe his face, she rested her hands on his shoulders. Once he'd rubbed his eyes to wipe away the dried tears, he looked up at her searchingly and asked, "You're really okay after that?"

Her gaze was even and normal—it wasn't even stressed. When she smiled, it was a real smile, and she nodded. "I'm okay. I wouldn't have been without you, but—after how close that was, when Veld came to ask me who the third of my attackers was so that could be taken care of, I told him. A Turk already left to handle it. Hopefully, that will be the end of it, other than the President."

"And I have a goal to be sure he can be removed as soon as possible," Rufus told her, then looked at Sephiroth to ask, "How much do you trust your mentee's discretion?"

"Absolutely," the silver haired man answered, and Kal blushed a bit.

Rufus' brow rose, but he nodded and told Kal, "You don't ever repeat what you're about to hear, all right?" She gave agreement, so Rufus turned back to Scarlet and said, "While it took awhile to get the data, and Cloud only knew a short time ago, himself, apparently we're all half-siblings, the three of us. I have no interest in leaving a man like him—who would treat his own daughter like he is—in power any longer than I have to, and unlike him, I have no problem leaving you as the head of Weapons by your engineering skill alone. You deserve your place, no strings attached, Big Sister." Her eyes widened as several emotions crossed them, but then he commented, "I even suggested handing the company to you, but Cloud made the point of saying you probably didn't want it—you're good with Weapons Head."

That actually made her chuckle and say, "That's true. I make weapons—I couldn't even bring myself to transfer to Urban Development to get away from the abusive head of Weapons when I first joined. You're really not bothered by having siblings?"

Rufus' gaze turned sour. "I honestly don't care. If anything, being my siblings and having proven skilled at your jobs should guarantee your positions and safety here—I could do with the support when I take over. My father was the one who took exception to my various half-siblings he produced, then thought he should kill after he made the 'mistake' on purpose. And, just—you're family. Sleeping with family is disgusting. That man—I feel sick knowing what he's been doing to you."

She gave him a small smile and said, "Even if you can be an annoying brat...You're a better man than our father, Rufus. Thank you."

He blushed faintly and cleared his throat, then looked at Cloud to ask, "So, can you now answer me about taking your new pup to the Commander's to meet its mother?"

Cloud blinked and peered around his desk to see Dark Nation drowsing as he waved his tentacle and the now more active pup tried to catch it. He then looked up at Rufus and said, "I think Dark Nation has to come, too. And yes, I can answer that now. We'd better so we know if this pup is really the suspected mother's. But why does Angeal apparently have the mother?"

"We'd have to ask them," Rufus replied, rising with a leisurely stretch. "Anyone else joining us to visit Commander Hewley's place?"

"I shall," Sephiroth agreed, then looked at Kal questioningly.

"I'd like to find out what's up with that, too," she agreed, patting Akira's head.

"It should be fun," Scarlet smiled in amusement. "I have to wait for Leana to finish the new dress she was going to make for me now—even a rush job takes a bit of time, and she really didn't have long to work before this happened."

"Let's go, then," Rufus agreed, and Cloud rose to pick up the pup. Dark Nation roused at the pup being lifted away and got up to stay close to the pup, which made Cloud feel very amused for some reason. "Rufus, how are you going to take Dark Nation home with you if he's so attached to my pup?"

The man blinked, then frowned and turned to call, "Verde, you wouldn't happen to know a solution to this, would you?"

Verde looked up from his papers dazedly, then blinked at the two animals Rufus was pointing to...And his brow furrowed. "They can only be separated for short periods of time until the pup grows up unless the pup's mother is the one the Commander has—if she is, it's expected he'll be away for some extended periods. If it's not the mother, you may need to borrow a room on the Turks' floors to sleep in while Dark Nation stays at Cloud's with the pup. Of course, if the mother and Dark Nation like each other, you may have a different sort of problem to deal will come mating season..."

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Rufus just sighed and said, "We'll see what happens, then." He then headed out as the others followed in some sort of bemusement at the realization that more pups might well be on the way next year if the mother and Dark Nation liked one another. Unless that could be stopped by spaying or neutering—an experimental dog having pups was probably not the best idea, especially while they were still trying to figure out what had been done to them.

It didn't take long to get to Angeal's, and when they knocked, Zack pulled open the door—with a tiger-striped puppy tucked under one of his arms, tail wagging happily. The pup then gave a happy yip when it saw the pup Cloud held, and Cloud's gave an answering one.

"Okay, we get it!" Zack laughed as his puppy tried to get out of his arm to go to the other one. "Come in, guys! We're having fun trying to get Sierra and Genesis' chick to not fight with this little one, and vice versa." His gaze fell on Scarlet in her Turk uniform curiously for a moment as he stepped inside and gave them space to enter, but he said nothing.

What surprised Cloud as he stepped inside was the sound of two girls giggling, but he almost died on the spot when he saw a younger Shelke and Shalua sitting on the coffee table. Shelke had the chick in her lap while Shalua dangled a string for the kitten to play with, distracting her from the puppies. The two girls looked up at them curiously, then saw Dark Nation, the puppy Cloud carried, and Kal's fox.

"Was that the fox you thought we might have liked?" Shalua asked curiously, turning to look at Genesis, who had draped himself across one chair, legs dangling over one armrest while his head rested on the other. Kunzel sat in the chair beside Genesis', and Angeal was in the kitchen, fixing food for everyone.

Opening his eyes drowsily, Genesis turned to look, then grinned and called, "Hi, Seph!" He then looked at her and said, "Yes, that's Akira, Kal's pet."

"You're right, he's really calm," Shalua commented as the group stepped inside. She then looked at Scarlet with a confused frown and asked, "Who are you, though?"

"She's the head of the Weapons Department," Genesis answered, not looking up.

"Dressed like a Turk?" Shalua asked in even more confusion.

"There was an incident during the monster break-out here in the building which resulted in some damaged clothes and a need for something else to wear for awhile," Rufus answered smoothly before anyone could say anything. "The nearest item at hand happened to be a Turk uniform, nothing more."

"Oh," Shalua blinked, but the small frowns the others could see on Genesis' and Kunzel's faces told them the two men knew what kind of 'incident' Rufus meant. "And the—is it a Guard Hound or a Blood Taste?" she asked then.

At some puppy yipping as both tried to get down to the floor, a white-gold, furry head lifted up on the far side of the coffee table to look over the top of it, and white wings spread for a few moments before relaxing. Cloud, stunned at seeing a 'dog' like that without Angeal having made it (the lack of face on its body sort of told him it wasn't Angeal's creation), set his own puppy down, so Zack did, too. Both pups ran over to the winged adult. Dark Nation followed, paused before passing the Coerl kitten to sniff her (Sierra 'thanked' him by smacking his nose with her paw, which apparently didn't phase him at all), then approached the mother and pups more slowly.

"Dark Nation is my pet. He's one of the rare, black Blood Tastes. Unlike that one or the pups, some Blood Tastes are naturally black," Rufus offered to her, and she blinked, but nodded acceptance. "Though, while he has a bit of enhancement, it isn't much, and the rest is from training."

Otherwise, they all watched curiously as Dark Nation approached the white-gold, winged female. When he was close enough to sniff her nose, she daintily returned the favor, and Dark Nation sniffed both pups thoroughly before laying down nearby—and letting both pups play at trying to attack his tentacle.

Which produced several tired sighs.

"Okay, so how do we fix this when it's not as simple as Dark Nation staying with my new pup?" Cloud asked tiredly, picking a place to sit and just lean back to close his eyes. Which was on the currently vacant couch.

"I actually don't think it's that big of a problem," Zack commented. "Their new adoptive dad can come and go, though we probably want to arrange a daily visit for them if it's possible. Cloud can stay here for awhile until his pup is old enough to leave with him. I mean, he already lives in the building, and it's not like he's a stranger. The pups probably only need a few more weeks to be good without their mom, so it wouldn't be all that long."

"And the sticking point to that is all of us going to Wutai to stop the War," Angeal commented as he returned with a tray of various snacks. Sierra immediately spun and pounced on one as he set it down, pulling it onto the coffee table and holding it between her paws as she ate it, producing laughs from everyone else.

"Give me the recipe for that one, Angeal, since it's pretty obvious she adores it," Kunzel called over to the older man.

"Will do," Angeal agreed in bemusement as the pups both put their paws on the edge of the coffee table to sniff the tray, too, tails wagging eagerly. "Zack, Cloud, come feed your pups."

Zack grinned and immediately picked something to pass to his pup, but turned to look for Cloud when he realized the blond wasn't right beside him.

Rather, Cloud's expression was a cross between intent and puzzled as he thought hard about something, but then he blinked and said, "But if Veld's right, then I'm going to Wutai, too, so we wouldn't have to separate the mother and pups right away—that would only be a problem depending on the plan for the extraction of a particular runaway kid who needs a rescue." By then, Akira had snatched a treat off the tray, too, but once Cloud had said that, he moved over to the tray to pick something up and offer it to his pup. The humans then began taking treats off the tray.

"Why would you be going to Wutai?" Scarlet asked in alarm.

"To find a girl and get her out of there and away from the War," Cloud answered dryly. "I know who, and have a pretty good idea of where and how to find her, but Veld's idea was to have me, as a child, find another child, because I'd be less threatening to her than an adult. And yes, she's important enough to retrieve and hide until things settle down after the War. I just have to be there to find her. And it's way safer for me to go than for someone like Tifa to—I have actual training in combat I can use if fighting is needed, and Tifa still needs to train up."

"A battlefield's no place for a child," Scarlet scowled.

"I was twelve the first time I was sent to Wutai," Sephiroth commented flatly.

"I never agreed with that, either," she informed him plainly. "But Hojo and the President decided it was time for you to fight, and no one but myself and Reeve's predecessor thought anything was wrong with that. I'm sure Reeve would be on your side, too, and would have spoken against sending you to war if he'd been an executive then. In the meantime, only two of us were overruled. Children still shouldn't be on battlefields."

"Which is why we're trying to get a seven-year-old off it," Cloud informed her dryly, and she turned back to him to stare.

"Wutains don't send children onto battlefields...?" she asked slowly.

It was Kunzel who said, "That depends on who's in charge of the area." When she looked at him, he looked up at her evenly. "I know some of their Court Nobles send children into enemy camps as spies, and I know three by name who conscript children as young as six to fight. It's their older war-fellows who push those children into background positions—quartermasters, cooks, and so on—so most of them won't have to in the active sense. Most of the ones they take are boys, but they sometimes take girls, too, especially if they're running short on boys. Those same 'Nobles' send their daughters to the battlefield. If that's who Cloud's retrieving, is one of those..."

"Sort of?" Cloud blinked in amazement, having not realized that. He wasn't sure Tseng knew it, either. "She's a noble, but it's not her father who's shoving her onto the battlefield, it's other people who are encouraging it. It may even be...Depending on how long ago her mother died, she may be trying to drown out the combined pain of that and of her father ignoring her in favor of his work because he can't deal with his wife's death. And she still shouldn't be out on a battlefield, so getting her off it and getting her help is the only real option."

"Especially since I'm sure she isn't 'giving her guards the slip', they're letting her go," Genesis commented, though his eyes were still closed. The others blinked at him, and he somehow realized he had to clarify, so said, "Wutains see virtually everything. She couldn't be skilled enough to get past them unnoticed all the time as a seven-year-old, so the only other explanation is that they're letting her slip away. If so, you're right, they don't want her where it's safe. Which probably means they're looking for a chance to kill her, and she just has Hades' luck to avoid it every time."

At that, Scarlet sighed and said, "If that's really the case, then you're probably right to risk going there to get her, Cloud. As much as I don't like it, I like a seven-year-old being treated that way less. Just be careful when you go, all right?" she asked the blond boy.

He smiled and nodded.

They were interrupted by laughs as Sierra dove down on Dark Nation from the coffee table to try to catch his tentacle, too, and he apparently didn't mind.