His heart pounded in his chest in rhythm with his footfalls as Sephiroth plunged through the dark forest. The path ahead of him was clear, the trees to either side indistinct and unimportant save for the enemies he knew lurked behind them. His katana was heavy, his palm slick against the hilt, and he neither startled nor hesitated as he slashed through the chest of the enemy that lunged out of cover with a much rougher blade than his own.
It felt like nothing as the figure faded behind him, his pace barely slowing before he picked it up again. It was reflex now, the blade flicking out to the side in the sharp and precise movement that Krono had taught him to clear it of blood.
Krono… Joel. It had been two years since the SOLDIER had become his trainer, a year and a half since he'd become something more. It had been four months and six days since he'd allowed himself the audacious familiarity to think of the man by his given name. Sephiroth had long cured himself of the desire to be praised by the scientists, but Joel's approval was everything. He couldn't fail, couldn't fall as he'd done once before.
The treadmill beneath him ramped up in speed with no warning, but he'd been expecting it at some point in the exercise. The VR helmet on his head weighed him down, the cord swinging above him attached to a hook on a cord strung from wall to wall in the open space they used for weapon's training. They'd learned the hard way to not have it dangling where it might foul his swings or be cut in half by the sharpened steel. He'd not even been punished for that, the tech who'd set it up had been the one to be reprimanded.
"Swap to your right hand," Joel called out, voice rising to reach his ears through the helmet, over the sound of the whining treadmill, breaking through the harsh noise of his own breathing and sprinting steps.
Sephiroth obeyed, needing to twist his body just so and still avoid crashing to the floor as one of the faceless programmed enemies aimed a pixelated axe at his left side just as he'd made the switch. Behind the helmet that completely concealed his face, he felt his lips twitch into a hidden grin that turned into a grimace when enemies came at him from both sides at once — he knew Joel wouldn't have programmed something he wasn't capable of defeating, but he was getting a little tired. The thought of disappointing the SOLDIER was enough to keep him going, knowing he was going to do well and impress his trainer enough to give him a second wind and an extra boost of energy. He ran on, fought on, even if all he earned was a nod that looked curt and perfunctory to the scientist, the truth was known between Sephiroth and the man who had become his elder brother.
The wind that drifted over Cloud's face smelled like flowers and something indefinable that he might have called sunshine if such a thing actually had a tangible scent. The golden rays beat down on his back as he lay flat out on a little ridge not far from the mansion. He could hear the footsteps of the infantryman doing his rounds, alternately crunching gravel and scuffing dirt and grass. He'd spent enough time lying in wait, sometimes several hours a day, that he'd long since memorized the route the man followed endlessly.
He breathed out slowly as he waited for his earpiece to crackle when Joel gave him the order — it was different every time, even if he hadn't gone out and reset the tiny targets in new positions he never had Cloud hit them in the same order. He'd spent the morning looking through his scope to re-familiarize himself with their locations, noting that two of them had changed just slightly.
He never knew how long he'd be waiting, which was to get him used to the possibility of his target never even getting into position. Those were the worst days, the disappointment soothed over dinner and discussions about the unpredictability of life outside of the lab. Here, everything happened the same, and changes to the routine were always jarring, whether on purpose or if something had gone wrong.
He shifted slightly, relaxing tense muscles for a moment before resuming position with the rifle braced firmly against his shoulder. He wasn't afraid of the recoil anymore, even though it had dislocated his shoulder the first time he'd shot it — Joel had fixed the injury then and there, and ruefully gave him a gentle 'I told you so' that made sure Cloud never made the mistake of underestimating it again.
A new sound came to his ears. Footsteps, but not the trooper doing his slow circle and not Joel or any of the scientists. The steps were too light, too many, and Cloud snatched up his binoculars and aimed them towards the road on the other side of the fence that led up to the mountain.
Around the bend came a handful of… children. Actual children, not like himself and Sephiroth, smiling and laughing as they trotted up the path. Two girls and three boys, the latter swinging sticks carved vaguely into the shape of swords. If they noticed the guard on the other side of the fence, they didn't seem to care, but then they didn't come close to the barrier anyway so the trooper probably didn't care either.
Cloud watched them with a strange feeling in his chest, something heavy he couldn't explain. One of the boys was gesturing wildly with his sword, bumping it into one of the others without a care. If it had been a real blade the other boy would be on the ground bleeding, maybe maimed. The girls gave little bubbling laughs at whatever their… friend, he supposed they'd be friends right? Whatever their friend said must have been funny. Cloud wondered what he'd said, and if he'd understand the joke in the first place.
Two of the boys were older than the rest, one of them the youngest in the group. He'd catalogue them as about Sephiroth's age, the smallest boy and girl both three or four he thought. He wasn't as good at guessing ages, not as skilled as Sephiroth was, but he thought the second girl was about his own age, dark haired and dark eyed. He swept the binoculars over their faces, wondering what their lives were like that they moved, and smiled, and laughed so freely. He was aware that he'd come from Nibelheim as well, as Sephiroth had once told him everything that had happened the day he was brought to the lab. pHe couldn't help but wonder if they'd have been his friends too.
Somehow he'd made a mistake, the lenses he'd held up to his face catching the light. They turned and looked up where he was hiding. He scampered back out of sight, shoulders hitting the rough stone behind him with a little clack of impacting armor from his uniform's pauldrons.
"My position is compromised," he said, pressing a finger to his own mic to contact Joel where he was hidden somewhere else out of sight, "civilians in the area."
"Copy," Joel answered immediately, "stay in place and pack it in once they've left so as not to gain their attention."
"They already saw me," Cloud admitted, hating to do so but knowing the way the children had looked up at his position would be caught on the many security cameras posted outside the mansion and the hidden lab below.
Joel didn't answer for a moment. "Orders are the same, they'll move on eventually. We'll talk it out over lunch."
Cloud let himself breathe easy, relaxing a little as he settled in to wait, no matter how long it might take.
"There's a difference between village children in your own environs spotting you," Joel explained over the steam of heating MREs, "than those in enemy territory who might report their findings to those who will make use of it."
"What's stopping them from finding someone to report it to anyway?" Cloud asked, arranging all of the little packets in the order he intended to eat them. Beside him, Sephiroth did the same, holding the package containing the dessert portion beneath the table as one of the techs wandered in to take a chilled water bottle from the refrigerator and leaving again. Cloud's was stuck down into the ration heater along with his 'main course' to heat up. It would be messier that way, which Sephiroth loathed, so he always ate his cold just to avoid getting melted chocolate on his face or fingers.
"It wouldn't generally occur to them." Joel shrugged. "And there's actually a good outcome to your own civilians noticing you at that sort of thing. It makes them feel safer."
"How would knowing that someone with the ability to kill them instantly is nearby make a child feel safe?" Sephiroth asked, voice dripping with skepticism.
"Because they'd know you're there to protect them," Joel pulled out his own ration from the heater, pinching corners as hot water rolled off the plastic and pushing the heater itself away from him as he dabbed off the contaminated water with a paper towel. He handed the whole roll of towels to Sephiroth as he pulled out his own.
"One of the reasons guards get posted visibly instead of always out of sight is so that whoever you're protecting knows you're doing so."
"What if it was somebody who had stolen one of our uniforms so they just ignored it?" Cloud asked thoughtfully, pouring out the hot food that smelled a lot better than it looked. He speared a vegetable on his spork and nibbled at it. Mushy, but not too bad. The taste was still infinitely preferable to what he'd spent the first almost four years of his life eating, so he was pretty forgiving about things like texture.
"At that point you'd have a series of failures to deal with, ranging from a spy in your ranks to a patrol taken out and replaced by insurgents before they were noticed missing." Joel leaned forward, voice going a little bit quieter. They glanced out the door, making certain no one else could hear out of habit.
"One thing that Shinra doesn't do well," he revealed, "is making certain all uniforms and sets of armor are where they should be, how many we have in stock, and who has access to things. Weapons are better kept under surveillance, but it isn't unheard of for those to walk out of the armory as well."
As though he hadn't dropped valuable and startling information, Joel moved on to assessing Sephiroth's performance of the morning.
Between finishing his meal and worrying about being assigned the exercise himself soon — he'd be expected to join Sephiroth on the treadmill, staying at his back and out of the line of fire in order to make sure he had potions and other curatives when needed, as well as back him up with a certain amount of the spellcraft he'd been learning. Not that he'd be permitted actual Materia during the exercise, neither of them had been allowed to do so outside of strict supervision of Hojo, who was studying their progress before and after Mako treatments to see if there was a measurable difference in various spells depending on Mako absorption.
It was very strange to think of Shinra not keeping track of valuable equipment, almost incomprehensible in fact.
Everything in the lab was so regimented, he knew exactly how many changes of clothing were stocked in the room next to the one they slept in, down to how many pairs of socks he had. Every piece of lab equipment was inventoried constantly, to save money and time. Time especially, as things they needed in quantity like needles and disinfectant were impossible to come by anywhere close to Nibelheim. They had a strict budget given to them by Shinra, although it must have been raised recently, based on the new shipment of equipment and materials that had been carted down from behind the mansion on the freight elevator.
The virtual reality equipment and eight foot long treadmill were only part of that, and Cloud couldn't help but wonder a little nervously about the even bigger boxes that had been taken into the lab proper. He'd seen the wooden shipping containers in the area with the Mako tanks where they had their showers, unable to linger and try and anticipate what would likely change. Change was never a good thing.
He was distracted from his musings at the realization that he was running out of time if he wanted to enjoy his cake before Rivers came to take him to the examination room. Cloud nipped off one corner of the packet, squishing it up until he could eat it as he squeezed it out. Sephiroth made a disgusted sound, he hated the idea of being messy or dirty in any way if he could help it. Cloud did have to quickly wipe his face after he cleaned up his tray, although he might have got chocolate on his hands as well if he'd tried to use a spoon.
He would stringently argue it was more efficient to eat it like that, even though he knew it was just one little eccentricity that he allowed himself. He checked his reflection in the restroom mirror before dutifully waiting to be collected.
Cloud didn't like having the EEG electrodes on his head, they always left a sticky residue that was hard to scrub out of his hair. He knew better than to complain, firstly because complaining only annoyed the professor into assigning mandatory pain tolerance assessments, and secondly because if he said anything they might shave his head again. It had come in slightly more manageable once it had grown out after the first time, at least it didn't attract static electricity and float around his head in messy wisps that made him look like a seeded dandelion.
He sat obediently still as the electrodes were removed, not wincing as they yanked on his hair. He'd been through this four times this week, which he wasn't certain was a good thing or not. Each brain scan seemed to please the professor more, and doctor Rivers was constantly scribbling things down as she watched the readouts and snatched the results up to study them in a different part of the lab. Things that made Hojo happy were usually not… pleasant things. The opposite was even more true though, so Cloud supposed he would take what he could get.
They didn't exactly tell him what they were looking for, but Sephiroth had explained to him in secret that while he was being scanned in room two, Sephiroth was being asked a great many questions in the other. It had something to do with what Sephiroth had done in the cave a couple of years ago, when he'd made Cloud move the way he wanted him to when Cloud had tried not to do it.
Sephiroth hadn't done it again, not consciously anyway — Cloud had experienced many periods of losing time, almost always during their physical exams but also several times when he was doing something he didn't really want to do, often something particularly painful.
Sephiroth was afraid of what the professor would do if he found out that he could use his power over Cloud at will, that he could consciously and deliberately take control of Cloud even if he fought it. They both had a bad feeling about it, although they also both knew that one day there would come a time where Sephiroth would either have to lie about it or confess the truth and prove he could do so.
Cloud knew in his gut that the time was going to come sooner, rather than later. He'd already expected the next day of Mako treatments would be a grueling ordeal as it always was. He couldn't have anticipated that the 'sooner' he'd been considering would come quite so fast.
His footsteps slowed as he walked into the room that had, until now, contained the Mako storage and shower hookup. It wasn't a pleasant procedure, but it was one he was well used to enduring. Things that were new were dangerous, as he had reminded himself only a day ago. He'd wondered what the mysterious wooden boxes had contained, and now he knew.
On the floor lay two metal tubs outfitted with blinking lights and switches along the sides. They were long enough to fit a full grown man inside. The shower apparatus had been reconfigured, the hoses and nozzles feeding into the tubs rather than faucets overhead that had drizzled carefully calibrated Mako solutions over their bodies.
The tubes leading into them were glowing virulently green, more so than any of their showers had been before. It looked close to pure, not as mixed into a saline solution as they'd had a week ago. He didn't let himself stop in the doorway the way he wanted to, not really needing the tiny nudge to his back from Sephiroth to keep walking forward. Even if it was a little bit more hesitant than usual.
"By the end of the year," Hojo said as they moved to stand in front of him, "you will be promoted to Second Class, S, and C will, of course, be a Third instead of a mere cadet. But that means you will both need to surpass where your theoretical peers are. You must be the best, to set the ultimate example for those who are naturally beneath you to strive for."
He waved a hand toward the huge tubs. "I didn't believe it was necessary to send for two full upright tanks, as we will, hopefully, be moving to the Midgar laboratory within a very short time." The scientist wrung his hands together as he watched for any reaction, black eyes behind smeared lenses intent as though he expected them to do something untoward.
Cloud braced himself as doctor Ballard reached for his arm and slipped ahead of him to one of the tanks rather than let himself be dragged. Even if he hadn't planned to resist, the man would have grabbed him anyway and forced him to go faster. He might not be permitted to complain, or fight in any way, but sometimes doing what he was told faster than he was expected to annoy the man even more. It was a tiny way that Cloud could assert control over the uncontrollable because Hojo had, more than once, reprimanded Ballard for making assumptions as to Cloud's level of compliance. Although he'd yet to find an opportunity to do so, Cloud knew that one day the doctor would find some way to bring a reprisal for circumventing his authority.
It was only when he'd climbed in and realized that there were reinforced restraints in the bottom of the tub that Cloud, against all reason and logic, began to panic.
The last time he'd plunged into liquid, covering his face and trying to get into his lungs, he'd nearly drowned after falling from a bridge into an icy river. His palms slicked with sweat, and he clutched at the front of his scrub top in a way he never did now. His chest burned with a memory of how it had felt when his body had wanted to instinctively suck in a gasp when he'd slammed into the freezing cold water.
All he could see in front of his eyes was darkness, and some small part of him was trying to make him breathe because he was going to black out, he was on the verge of it, you had to breathe to live, but you couldn't breathe if you wanted to not drown.
Ballard grabbed him then, rough hands shoving him down into the tank and trying to wrestle the restraints onto him.
"Stop!" Sephiroth called out, voice muffled over the ringing in his ears, and Cloud sucked in a breath to tell him to stop himself, that Cloud was just being stupid, but his body wouldn't cooperate.
"I can make him be good!" Sephiroth was yelling, and Hojo made some kind of sound more than words, and Ballard stepped away from Cloud and the tank with his mouth twisted into a scowl.
Cloud couldn't stop himself from wrenching out of the one restraint the doctor had managed to get on his wrist, wanting to tell Sephiroth not to tell them the truth about what he could do, but it was too late. His fingers dug into the side of the tank, the metal humming beneath his palms where the Mako churned against the port that would fill it and drown him all over again.
"Ah," Hojo was smiling, but it was one of his nastiest because it showed teeth. "Have you been holding out on me, S? Experimenting on your own, perhaps?"
Sephiroth drew himself up, hands folding behind him properly. "Yes sir," he said, shoulders twitching up and then dropping in resignation.
"What exactly did you think you were doing, interfering in such an important project by concealing abilities that are vital to my research?" Hojo asked, words coming out slow and enunciated with cold precision. When Sephiroth hesitated, he added, "Explain yourself."
"I was afraid," Sephiroth admitted, and Cloud held in the urge to cringe. When Hojo continued to simply stare at him, eyes hard and focused on every minute twitch and shift of his posture, Sephiroth continued. "I was afraid of hurting him. If I do it wrong, what will happen?"
"The scientific process should never be contained and obstructed by fear, S," Hojo snapped. "Fear of the unknown is anathema to experimentation. I was going to sedate you once you were in place, if only because that is what the average SOLDIER receives during their submersions. Needless struggling," he aimed a sneer towards Cloud as he continued, "is a waste of time and materials when so many men are lining up for the privilege.
"But, if you believe you can control C's unprecedented and unwelcome rebellion from proceeding or recurring, you will, of course, need to remain conscious. It's entirely up to you whether Subject C is aware of his surroundings."
"I understand, professor," Sephiroth said, and Cloud hoped he was the only one who noticed his hands twist together behind him.
"To make up for interfering in the progress of my project through falsehood, you will also remain in the tank for twice as long as Subject C. If you want to become stronger more quickly, if what you desire most is to protect your subordinates, then you will need to suffer quite a bit more to gain what you want."
"I understand, professor," Sephiroth said again, no inflection in his tone.
Hojo nodded, twitching two fingers towards Cloud over his shoulder. "Proceed."
Back stiff and straight, Sephiroth walked around Ballard, leaning down where Cloud stood inside the tank and put his hands on his shoulders.
"It is going to be okay," Sephiroth whispered, one hand coming up to cup the back of Cloud's head the way he'd done the night he'd erased their names from his memory. It had felt strange later, when he'd given them back. He hadn't been able to recover the memory itself, only able to tell Cloud that it had been there before.
Sephiroth pressed their foreheads together. "Just relax, trust me."
"I trust you," Cloud said, as warm darkness spilled into him from the hand cupping his head. It was just as nice as that first time, calm and qui…
Hojo watched as Subject S pulled Subject C into an embrace, noting carefully that his hand instinctively curled around the boy's medulla. His own hands were shaking, clutched together behind his back as he watched the culmination of the experiment that had consumed him for nearly seven years begin to take full effect. C had been strangely distressed by something, although what it might be would need to be picked apart whenever they had the time. He'd not struggled against anything since he was able to reason and understand, doing so even younger than S by following his example. Some combination of things, perhaps, some psychological strain that he had somehow failed to notice and train out of him.
They might not even need to train this out of him, not really, not if this panned out the way Hojo anticipated. His fear could simply be eradicated.
He didn't like the fact that S had been performing his own clandestine experiments, not when he preferred to have been involved in the process and watched his power grow and mature, but the fact that he'd done so at all whilst being nearly undetected was still impressive in its own way. He could see how much he'd strengthened the ability on his own as C's expression smoothed to familiar blankness, then further into some far more explicit docility. He strode forward as Subject S released the boy, pulling the penlight out of his pocket to shine it into C's eyes. The pupils were slightly dilated, barely reacting to the light, although they followed S's movement when he stepped aside to allow Hojo to inspect his work.
"Rivers," he called out to his assistant, holding out his hand and twitching his fingers, "bring me a stethoscope." He snatched it out of her hand and pressed the diaphragm against C's chest, listening as his rapid heart rate slowed down to levels more appropriate for sleep while his breathing likewise deepened.
Curiously, he snapped his fingers in front of the subject's face, eliciting not even a blink — his focus was entirely on Subject S who was hovering to one side. It was fascinating. It was perfect.
"Subject S," Hojo spun to look at the boy whose expression was just as empty as C's although more deliberately, "If you can help him maintain this state of relaxation and obedience for his entire submersion, I'll allow you to do so each subsequent time."
"Yes, professor," S nodded, elbows hitching as though he grasped his hands too tightly behind him.
"Good, tell him to lie down and strap him in — whether or not he struggles he must be restrained so that he remains entirely covered by the Mako and doesn't drift to the surface."
Another perfectly polite acquiescence had Subject S leaning in and guiding C down to the bottom of the tank. He did not miss the way S's hands trembled as he buckled C in, but he couldn't yet make a determination whether it was merely psychological or caused by some psychic strain from maintaining control over the younger subject.
S accepted the oxygen mask handed to him by Rivers, strapping it onto C's face and carefully checking the seal around his mouth and nose before standing back up at proper attention.
"Subject C will be immersed for two hours," Hojo instructed as S climbed willingly into his own tank and lay down. He put the straps on his own legs and around his waist, complying as his arms and chest were likewise bound, "and you will be so for four. I expect you to maintain the same level of control over him for the duration of your own, so that we can monitor his brain activity until your time is up."
He nodded to Ballard, and the other doctor began turning the valve to release a steady stream of Mako into C's tank. The subject's expression remained peaceful, the nearly undiluted substance turning his skin pink in its wake before he was completely covered. It was over twice the dose he'd been given a week ago, as they simply didn't have time to go as slowly and steadily as they had been the last year.
The tensions between Shinra and Wutai were at a standstill for now, the tiny country ceding some temporary measures of capitulation that Hojo suspected would fall apart the moment any moves were made towards installing a reactor. Rhadore, however, had become a more immediate problem. They'd gone from hesitantly agreeing to allow Shinra to explore their islands to demanding they retreat. It was a small area, but like Wutai the islands were all incredibly rich in Materia and Mako, but the locals were far more rabid about defending it than even the Wutaians. Some religious nonsense and ancestor worship — such things were always a hindrance to scientific progress. It would be a perfect testing ground for his theories, especially with this invaluable breakthrough. The next few days could mean everything to his goals, and if he could quickly obtain new subjects to test the S-Cell control theory on, well… S could soon be assigned his own small team, infected beforehand with his cells
It could be the difference between remaining here with a moderate amount of funding and control over his division of the Science Department, and the kind of financing a Shinra director could command and complete power over the department the elevation to the board would bestow.
Hojo took the oxygen mask that Rivers held, and reattached it to the hook it had been hanging from on the side of S's tank. "Mako is oxygenated enough that you don't need this, I only allowed it for C because I'd rather not have to suction it from his lungs and possibly cause a delay in hooking him up to the EEG — I don't want anything to interfere with the results of course."
Subject S's body twitched, his mouth opening slightly and then snapping closed again before he murmured an appropriately respectful agreement.
"I suggest you breathe in deeply the moment your face is covered," Rivers spoke up as she finished noting the change in protocols on S's chart and clipped it back to the side of the tank, "taking an incomplete breath might cause you to choke and vomit and then the entire experiment will need to be started over to remove the contamination and refilter it."
S gave a small nod, fingers flexing against the metal beneath him before going limp and submitting as Mako began to pour in. He stared straight above himself, breathing shallowly until the substance rose to engulf him. As ordered, always as obedient as possible, save this one tiny rebellion, he opened his mouth and let the Mako fill his lungs. He was so far beyond reacting to pain even more intense than this level of Mako that Hojo knew S's thrashing was an involuntary reaction — a physiological response to the body and brain believing it was drowning.
Hojo hurried back over to C's tank and peered in, wondering if S's state might affect the other subject's. C was still completely motionless, unreactive to his surroundings. He couldn't wait to get a look at his brain, nearly giddy with the anticipation of comparing it to those of future subjects… It was one thing to take control of a young mind already pliant and conditioned to obey all orders without question, it would be another to take over the mind of an adult, and yet another to do so with an entire squadron…
That was a little ambitious, he knew, especially as Subject S was still growing. His mind had not completely matured as it would be in ten years or so, but Hojo knew exactly what he needed to obtain next to continue. Those two were only a little older, still not fully mature themselves, so as to raise the difficulty incrementally. He'd need more room, of course, they were terribly cramped here already. There was no space for more subjects, for one thing, and for another he direly missed having access to materials that could be delivered in hours instead of days or even weeks depending upon such vagueries as weather and hostile monsters.
Hojo rubbed his hands together as he began to speculate on the most viable next step to prove his hypothesis. He would certainly need those new subjects, for one thing. The next phase of the experiment was on the brink of being realized, he only needed something more visibly impressive to bring to the president's attention to see it come to fruition.
Sephiroth's lungs ached, feeling heavy in his chest even as the Mako was suctioned out of them. It was a horrible feeling, something he never wanted to experience again, but he knew the punishment would resume in seven days. His mind felt just as seared, a deep weariness that dragged at his consciousness even after he was given a shot of epinephrine when his lungs were completely clear.
He could feel Cloud still, but he must be resting. He knew he himself hadn't been in the tank for more than the prescribed four hours, even though it felt as though it were ten times as long, but Cloud would be worn out after only his two. Sephiroth had drifted at some point, consciousness fading in and out, and he was sure he'd lost Cloud somewhere in there. The younger boy must have woken up, and then possibly been sedated? Cloud felt sleepy in his mind. Sephiroth could relate.
The decontamination shower was blessing and bane all at once. Sloughing off his soaked scrubs and letting the lukewarm spray pound his skin was painful, the soap stinging against the chemical burns that would take longer than usual to fade after being covered in Mako for so long. He met his own eyes in the reflection of one of the metal fixtures and watched them go wide. They glowed green, burning far brighter than they ever had before. He looked away, scrubbing at his hair. The pain faded as he continued, skin still irritated but much less uncomfortable once he'd managed to get properly clean again.
He hoped no one watched how much he struggled to get back into a fresh set of scrubs, glancing around and finding himself unwatched by anyone in particular — which didn't mean much, with the security cameras pointed in every direction. He'd been dismissed, but that didn't mean that he wouldn't be taken back for more correction if he lingered or did anything they could even begin to interpret as rebellious.
Sephiroth kept his head down as he made his way to their room, trying not to let his feet drag as he did so. His stomach rolled, which was familiar and expected. He didn't know if he could even keep down water and a nutrition drink, and decided he didn't mind if they didn't offer it. Ordinarily both of those things were waiting in their room for them after their Mako treatments, and even though they now knew how much real food could be enjoyed, neither of them were ever interested in anything more solid than a tasteless protein shake on those days.
Standing in the doorway, he clutched the frame as he saw Cloud's still perfectly made bed. There was nothing that showed his brother had been here since they'd left in the morning for the educational modules they went through on treatment days. His overwarm body went cold, and he reached out as he'd been learning to do. Cloud felt asleep, he wasn't in pain, but he was still in the lab.
Even though he knew better than to run in the lab, running was only allowed in the training room and on the treadmill, it was a strain to force himself to walk sedately back to where he'd just left.
Professor Hojo stood in the middle of the room, clearly waiting for his return.
"Good," he motioned for Sephiroth to follow him into one of the examination rooms, "let us proceed with the next part of today's experiment."