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‘It is just another Mako infusion ’,
They had said.
‘We’ let you sleep until it's over again’, They had said.
‘ Nothing major, just a few screenings while you are asleep, then you can be on your way’, They had said.
‘ Do your medications need to be raised again?’, He had asked in that snide, condescending tone when Sephiroth's anxious ticks had begun to surface again.
Sephiroth hated that man with every fiber of his being. He wished he could put Hojo through every bit of suffering he had been put through at the bastards hands. The poking, the prodding, the endless tests, exams, and barrages of needles. The fucking mako infusions that left him violently ill and curled up pitifully in his apartment's bathroom.
The second after he had been escorted home, Sephiroth had fitfully and quickly stripped down to only his underwear. He felt as if he was burning, and his skin was absolutely crawling, a positively loathed side effect of any mako treatment he received.
Reluctantly he holed himself up in the bathroom for what he was sure was at least a few hours. His stomach never could deal with mako treatments well, even when he made a point of not eating if one had been scheduled. Though it certainly didn't help this round of prodding and IV’s hadn't been planned. They had just suddenly told him to go down to the labs as soon as he was free for the day. So rather than actually enjoy his rare free time, he got to sit feeling utterly miserable and puking his guts out every 15 minutes. Not to mention sit and enjoy hypersensitivity and sudden onset bouts of anxiety and just an amazing fucking roller coaster of hormonal hell.
Why they always gave him such high amounts of mako he would never understand.
By the time he could feel the muscle aches and fatigue begin to set in, he knew he was safe enough to go try and go to bed and attempt to get some water back into his system. By then the burning heat in his skin had abated, but he still felt that uncomfortable crawling through his skin, which wasn't helping the anxious paranoia he was struggling to press down and ignore.
So, with a weary groan, the General rose to partially steady feet and held still for a minute as his body had to decide what it wanted to do. His stomach remained still enough, the tingling in his legs grew slightly worse as he held his weight, but his head thankfully remained level, and no other vertigo crept up.
Stepping over to the sink, Sephiroth braced his hands along the cool black marble and let his head hang for a moment in exhaustion before bothering to look in the mirror. As expected he looked like death warmed over. His hair hung in sweat dampened strands about his face, his already pale skin was blanched and ghostly, and his eyes were mako drenched. Everything, including the whites of his eyes was covered in a green haze that seeped along his eyelids as well, his body trying to process out at least some of the extra toxin through his tears it seemed.
Letting out a sigh, the man turned on the cold tap and splashed some cold water on his face, but paused when he ran a dampened hand over the back of his neck. He knew he had a scar or two back there from previous lab tests, but he felt...something different. He could feel the tender skin of a new scar just at the nape of his neck. It was sensitive and actually hurt a little yet, despite anything the scientists had done should have healed by then.
He almost swore he could feel...something hard sitting under his skin. Had they broken a needle and not realized it? No...they wouldn't have had to make an incision to do anything involving needles, especially not at his neck.
Frowning Sephiroth warily probed at the area with his fingers until he was almost certain he could feel something small stuck in his flesh. Though, he couldn't guess what it was… a stray piece of bone that simply remained after an accident? Shrapnel perhaps? No, that couldn't be it.
Though, after a minute of silently standing in confusion Sephiroth could feel the crawling in his skin begin to worsen, and the pressure on his shoulder and chest grew heavier. He had been suspicious of the Company for years but...it couldn't be…
The times he had been extracted from Wutai without having relayed coordinates to any rescue teams...how he had always been caught within a day of running away when he was a child...it couldn't be. They wouldn't actually do that would they?
He needed it out. Whatever it was buried in his neck, he didn't want it there. It needed to be gone .
Breath quickening as his chest tightened in a dull panic, Sephiroth quickly left the bathroom, striding across his apartment to the kitchen to retrieve a small knife. He knew it was stupid, he knew it was reckless, but at the moment, he didn't care. Whatever he felt buried in his flesh needed to come out. He needed to see what it was, if only to prove to himself he wasn't becoming paranoid for no reason.
Walking back to the bathroom with a small paring knife in hand, the General set the blade aside to tend to his hair. The mane of silver would only get in the way for this. He tied it up into a high tail, and parted the excess length to rest over his shoulders away from his neck.
Once that was done, Sephiroth took up the small blade once more, and felt for the worrying space with his empty hand, quickly finding the raised scar and unknown object once more. Setting his fingers on either side of the object as a guide, he craned his head forward then set the sharp length of steel to his skin.
Letting out a hiss as he pressed and dragged the blade a short ways, Sephiroth grit his teeth as it laid open his flesh and let warm blood begin to run down his spine. It hurt, but he had dealt with far worse in the past. This was no different than extracting embedded shrapnel or bullets. He had to get it out .
Keeping the knife in hand in case his healing factor took effect too quickly, Sephiroth probed around the wound, trying to see if he could get whatever was embedded there to move. Though, when this yielded few results, the general clenched his jaw and resorted to digging with his nails. There was something there. He could feel it, hard and his nails constantly slipping on it before he could get a decent grip.
He could feel the blood trickling down his back now, and he was surly doing more damage to himself than any good, but he couldn't leave it. Finally with a pained growl of frustration Sephiroth threw the knife to the counter and used both hands, pinching and digging harshly into his bloodied neck.
Finally after almost 10 minutes of frantic digging Sephiroth managed to get a firm hold on whatever it was he felt, and pulled, picking it from his body. It hurt, and he knew he had skin and tissue caught under his nails, but that was a minor concern when he let the tiny item fall to the palm of his hand to inspect it.
It was entirely smooth, and not much bigger than the size and length of a rice grain, the outside a dense clear glass like material. Closing the drain and turning on the sink to a trickle, he quickly washed his fingers and the item clean of blood. There was something more inside of whatever it was. Looking closely he saw black, dark green and spots of silver within the tiny capsule. He held it closer, moving to better light, trying anything he could to tell what the thing was. He was certain it wasn't shrapnel anymore. In truth...the inside of the thing looked awfully like a condensed computer chip…
By now Sephiroth's breath was unsteady and he could tell the only reason his hands weren't shaking was because he was focusing on what he held. His shoulders were tense, his chest was tight and he knew all too well he was edging closer to a melt down, but at the moment he couldn't help it.
They actually did it. They had actually fitted him with a fucking tracer . They implanted some sort of tracking device like he was nothing more than some sort of animal! But...there was only one, right?
Setting the wretched thing on the counter, Sephiroth began checking himself over. Slowly running his hands over his shoulders and back, he tried to feel for any new scarring or anything else suspicious. He looked carefully over his arms and found nothing more than old and new needle marks. His chest held nothing more than faint battle scars, old bullet marks and silvery lines earned in the war. Down at the level of his stomach, he stopped.
There, just below his ribs along his right side he felt tender healing skin, and saw a small scar that would have easily been overlooked. It had almost healed through entirely, but he could tell it was recent. After a minute of prodding, he could feel it. Another hard pit resting just under his skin.
This time he didn't hesitate to take up the knife and lay open his skin. At least in this position he could see more clearly what he was doing.
As he worked to extract the second tracer however he could feel himself become eerily calm, more numb than anything. Apparently his mind had finally decided rather than allow him to slip into a complete anxious panic driven attack, it opted to make him detach again, at least for now. He knew he was likely to flip right back into a breakdown eventually as his emotions and hormone balances always spiked and dropped at random after Mako treatments. It was nothing new to him at least. Disassociating was half the reason he swore he made it through the war. It certainly wasn't healthy, but it was a way to survive.
It didn't take quite as long this time to remove the glass capsule, though his side still looked like a raw bloody mess by the time he had the offending object in his hand. Silently he washed off his hands and the item once more, setting it far off to the side with the other before he reopened the drain and turned on the warm water. Fetching a dark washcloth from beneath the sink, he went about washing the red that had run down his side, and what he could reach along his back. By the time he was mostly clean he could feel his body begin to mend the damage he had caused, the familiar itch of skin and tissues knitting back together.
Once this was done he took the tracers and the knife with him, walking back to the kitchen and setting the capsules on the kitchen table, and opting to throw the knife into the sink for the time being. He would deal with it later. Wandering out of the room for only a minute, he went to fetch his PHS from his discarded pants before returning and settling at the table with a heavy sigh.
For a long while he simply sat there, silently looking at the tracers and his phone, debating if he really wanted to call anyone. He could just try and sleep and tell someone come morning when he felt more stable, though he had a feeling that sleep would be impossible now, even if he did still feel ill. As predicted however, as he sat there he did feel his emotions creeping back into place. He really didn't want to be alone with all of this.
So only looking at his phone a minute more, Sephiroth set his jaw and forced himself to hit one of the few contacts on his speed dial. He could feel his heart thudding in his chest as each ring chimed in his ear.
After about four rings he heard the line cut and a shuffling noise before an incredibly sleepy voice mumbled out, “Seph? Shiva’s tits it's almost 3 in the morning, what do you-”
“Genesis.” The general cut in, his tone unsteady and quiet. “I know it's early, and I'm sorry but...I need you over here, now. Something…something happened.” He said, struggling not to let his voice break as he spoke.
“Do you want Angeal over too?” The commander asked, suddenly sounding much more awake.
“...yes.” Sephiroth sighed.
“Ok, I’ll get him, you take it easy alright? We’ll be over in a few minutes.”
“Alright. Thank you.” He finished weakly.
It was going to be a rough long night...