Hojo hurled the glass sphere into the wall, frowning as it shattered into millions of tiny shards. It was wrong. All of it was wrong! Stalking over to where the fragmented remains lay on the floor, he swept them up and dumped them in a bin that was already almost overflowing with similar rejects. Failure in and of itself didn't bother him, it was an essential part of science after all, but what did frustrate him was that after all this time he'd made no discernible progress towards creating a magical sphere of his own.

Pulling the orb of healing out of his pocket, he stared into its depths. Hojo had never expected this to be easy, but with a fully functioning example to work off of, it had at least seemed plausible. Instead, he'd been met with failure after failure, year after year. Once he'd switched over to infusing the spheres with pure mako, things had seemed to take a huge step forward, except even that hadn't been enough. The mako had at least turned the ordinary-looking glass balls into something much closer to the orb, including the constantly shifting movement inside, but there was still no actual magic.

He walked back over to his desk where another of the prototypes lay on a black cloth and set the orb down next to it. Closing his eyes, he switched their positions over and over until he lost track of which was which and then inspected them. It took him all of ten seconds to reach out and grab the one on the left—a familiar green glow emerging from it a moment later as he focused on it.

Despite seeming visually identical to the untrained eye, Hojo was easily able to tell the fakes from the original. It had to do with that strange motion, the way the essence of whatever was inside shifted around. The magical orb's swirls were steady and calm, always in perpetual motion. On the other hand, the mako-infused spheres were more sluggish, usually moving in erratic bursts of sudden movement before slowing to a crawl and then repeating the cycle over again.

The similarities ended there. He'd never felt anything from the spheres he'd created, no matter how hard he focused on them, much less seen even the faintest glimmer of light emerging from their depths. They were nothing more than fancy glass baubles, capable of only looking somewhat special—something children would enjoy playing with, but had no real purpose. What had seemed like the verge of a breakthrough had instead ended up completely stalling out.

What he really needed, more than anything else, was to be able to question someone capable of making these magical orbs—through whatever means necessary. That had also proven completely impossible to his immense disappointment. The Ancients had to be out there. Scouts had reported as much—sightings of people deep in the forests around the city—and yet no matter how hard they searched, they'd never managed to discover any signs of where the Ancients lived.

Hojo had expected them to do something after he'd destroyed their Barrier, but to his frustrated surprise, there had still been no contact whatsoever to this day. The only good news in that regard was that his fears about the President losing interest in the Ancients at least hadn't come true. Despite the complete lack of any response from their side, the man was convinced they were still hiding secrets that would allow Midgar to flourish. While this had initially worked out in Hojo's favor, the President was now becoming more and more upset with his lack of progress.

Returning his attention to the two spheres, Hojo tried to come up with a new explanation for why the internal motion between them was so different. It was almost as if the one with magic was more . . . alive. Its steady rhythm was like a heart beating, whereas the artificial ones he'd created were just imitations of life. He needed some way to not only infuse mako into the glass but also to give it more.

Thanks to this new line of thought, an idea slowly dawned on him, something wild and dramatically different from what he'd attempted so far. It was extreme, even by his standards, but if it worked . . . no price was too high to pay in order to bring his dreams into reality. Walking over to the door, he poked his head out into the hallway and beckoned the new guard stationed outside to come closer—for some reason they never seemed to last longer than a month. This new one seemed particularly skittish as the man hesitated for a brief moment before slowly approaching.

"Can I . . . help you, sir?"

Hojo knew the soldier was only a grunt, someone with no real authority or ability to get anything done and most likely didn't even want to be here in the first place, but he would have to do, at least for now. "Yes. I need you to go out into the city and fetch me some subjects for an experiment."

The guard hesitated, blinking several times before responding. "You mean something like . . . chickens?"

Resisting the urge to throw his hands up into the air, Hojo shook his head. "No, not animals you buffoon, I need people. Young or old, male or female, it shouldn't matter. Just bring them—" He cut off, realizing that bringing any number of people into the tower would likely raise unwanted questions from a variety of sources he didn't want to deal with. "I'll find a location for you to store them. In the meantime, gather some more soldiers and await my instructions."

To his growing frustration, the man didn't rush off to carry out his instructions and instead continued to stand there, looking somehow more confused than before. "I'm not sure I fully understand, sir. What should I tell the people they're volunteering for?"

Hojo ground his teeth. Why was everyone around him always so incompetent? It's not like he expected them to match his towering intellect, but was it really so much to ask that they could have more than two brain cells? "You. Don't. Need. To. Tell. Them. Anything," he said, speaking sharply and making sure to clearly enunciate each word so that the idiot could hopefully understand. "Just grab people and take them where I tell you, it's really not that complicated."

The man paled, taking a step backward. "Are you asking me to . . . to kidnap people? I'm sorry, sir, but I can't just—"

"Fine," Hojo snapped, completely fed up. "You're fired then. Give me your badge. And I'll make sure to see that you'll never work for Shinra ever again."

The guard's mouth dropped open, raw panic filling his eyes. "Wait, sir, please, I need this job. My wife hasn't been doing well lately and I have two children. My family is relying on me to take care of them."

Now that, that was something Hojo could work with. "How unfortunate. Do this for me and I'll triple whatever paltry wage they're paying you. The same goes for anyone you get to help you."

"I can't—Triple? You're serious?"

Hojo smiled, knowing he'd already won. "Of course I'm serious. Fair compensation for your labor. Shinra is always generous to those who help it to achieve its goals." He still had enough research funding to be able to handle the cost fairly easily, although he'd need actual results within a somewhat short timespan before being able to request more from the President. "Your work will be of the utmost import, with the potential to shape the course of history. Do we have an agreement then?"

Opening his mouth, the man slowly closed it before nodding firmly once, his eyes remaining fixed on the floor.

"Good, I'm glad to hear that you've seen reason. Gather up some help you trust and I'll get in contact with you on where to store the goods. Expect to start within one to two days." With that matter taken care of, Hojo returned to his office, closing the door behind him and walking back over to his desk. He was still waiting for good news on a separate issue and he hoped it wouldn't take much longer. They should have already been here by now, but maybe the delay meant things had gone better than expected.

Just as he was reaching for the orbs he'd left on the desk, there was a knock from behind him on the recently closed door. Hojo spun around, ready to chew out the guard for interrupting him, but paused as his son stepped into the room instead. Exactly who he'd been waiting for. "You're late," he snapped. "Did you find them at last?"

Sephiroth shook his head, his face completely neutral. "No. They're surprisingly good at noticing my presence and I'm positive they're using some type of magic to conceal both themselves and wherever their city is."

It was an effort not to rage, but Hojo knew that, unlike the Shinra soldiers, his son was actually somewhat capable. If he wasn't able to complete this task then no one else would be able to either. "But you still think they're close?"

"I do. There are too many of them around for it to be long-distance patrols. They have to have someplace nearby where they're stationed. My best guess is two separate villages, one to the north near the new reactor and another off to the east of Midgar."

Hojo drummed his fingers on the desk. "Then we should get a squad of soldiers out in both of those locations and have them comb the forest. They can't hide from us forever."

"It won't help," Sephiroth replied, shaking his head once again. "I've already covered every inch of the area, there's nothing there."

"But you just said—"

"I know, hence why I mentioned the magical concealment. Unless you've finished your experiments and have a way for us to remove that, then I don't think we're going to find anything."

"How am I supposed to do that when I need their knowledge in the first place?" Hojo snarled, glaring at his son. "If you would just do your damn job already and capture one of them then I'd be able to complete my research!"

Sephiroth didn't reply to his outburst, he only stood there, staring with frustrating calm back at him.

"Whatever. Get back out there and find me an Ancient. I'll continue pursuing my new experiment, but I expect some actual results from you in the near future."

"Yes, father." With that, Sephiroth turned and left as silently as he'd arrived.

While it was certainly encouraging to hear that the Ancients seemed to be closer than he'd initially expected, that knowledge didn't do him any good if they couldn't be found. Given the lack of progress on that front, he couldn't afford to allow it to distract him, not when he might be on the verge of finally completing the process of creating a magical orb of his own.

First things first, however, he needed to get that warehouse established. One large enough to store all of the equipment he'd need along with the test subjects while also being in a more private, remote location. As tempting as it was to get the President to handle it for him, this was something he needed to take care of himself. If the end result lived up to his dreams, then it would be worth the extra effort.

We're back in Hojo's head, I'm afraid, although I do have some good news this time: it's going to be *quite* a while until we're stuck with this lunatic again. We get a bit more info here, that even with the time that has passed, there's still been no contact between the Humans and the Cetra. In the meantime, Hojo has been busying himself trying to replicate a Materia but has so far come up emptyhanded. He sets in play the major plot driver for the teenage years here though, with a plan to somehow complete the missing element that the mako-infused spheres are missing. Meanwhile, Sephi has been hunting the forests for an Ancient but also has had no success so far.

Now, for the truly good news, we've got a pretty hefty chapter coming up next, and I feel like it's been far too long since we had some Clerith content, don't you agree?

Next Chapter: Visit