Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It always surprised Sephiroth that the light beneath the plate was surprisingly bright, and even more surprisingly warm. He glanced up at the array of sunlamps overhead, wondering how much electricity it must take to keep them running, and how much heat such a thing must generate. It was almost as bright as real sunlight, steady as a cloudless day, he thought. 

He hadn’t spent a great deal of time out of the lab in the last several months, and before that his excursions had been watched and scrutinized by no less than two Turks and one scientist. The unwavering attention had left him sweating and nervous, knowing that each of his minders was watching and waiting for any small mistake. Even the most minor missteps had resulted in harsh correction, for embarrassing the professor and making a fool of himself. 

Sephiroth felt a creeping sense of unease, turning and looking about himself as he stepped away from the train platform and moved to put his back to a wall at the far end in what he hoped was a nonchalant manner. After having been watched so closely every moment of his life, it was incredibly hard to believe that he was trusted enough to take this mission alone without observers.

He had been well trained, by the Turks themselves, in how to detect someone attempting to follow him. That did not mean that they wouldn’t hold back their own personal secrets of surveillance, but Sephiroth was fairly confident that he wasn’t currently being watched. He took in a breath, regretting it a little as the already overwhelming scents hit not just his nose but the back of his tongue. 

It wasn’t as though everything in the undercity was unsanitary, but without the open air of the plate or constant air filtration of the lab, it was an assault on his senses. The smell of stagnant water and chemicals was predominant, and as he began to move further into the sector it was mingled with the smell of moldering garbage and the clashing scent of cooking food from the numerous stalls and open-sided trucks selling meals around the entrance to the train station. 

His steps slowed as he passed one of the trucks, the smell of spices and sugar catching his attention before he forced himself to walk away. It smelled a bit like the little pot of scented wax that doctor Rivers had in her office, but even more pleasant. As unbecoming as it was, he wondered what something that smelled so nice would taste like. He didn’t require such things, but he was… curious. 

Pulling out his PHS, he scanned the information he had been given as to where he needed to go. The streets of the undercity were rarely named, and even if they were there were few signs. Maps were equally unreliable, with buildings being torn down, or falling apart, or being constructed without any regard for permits or zoning laws that… didn’t really exist in the undercity in the first place. 

His map of Sector Seven was only a photograph of a rough sketch, in grainy black and white on the small screen, but he thought it should not be very difficult to find the entrance to the collapsed expressway. The ‘map’ as it pertained to the tunnel was much more of a squiggly line with random X marks where monster dens had been sighted. There were only two official ways into the area, one in Sector Seven and the other in Sector Five, watched and guarded by public security, but numerous ‘unofficial’ openings had been made that were constantly being sealed up, only for a new one to replace it within days. 

Sephiroth replaced his PHS back into his pocket and zipped it shut, raising his head and trying to project confidence as he made his way to his objective. It was a little ironic, he knew, that he was more concerned about being followed than he was about fighting monsters solo with only his sword and Materia.

Beyond merely disliking being observed as such, he felt an overall sense of dissatisfaction at the thought he wasn’t trusted enough to handle so minor a task. There were few things in the area that could pose more than a small challenge, and none of them were likely to be in the area he headed to. Doom rats, terpsicolts, and hedgehog pies were the biggest problems, according to the report. 

A ‘dire’ variant of the rats might be interesting, but he wouldn’t count upon it. Truly, the only thing that concerned him was whether or not he would come into conflict with human beings. The construction efforts to make something worthwhile of the passageway were constantly in flux, due to both incursions by monsters and the ever present risk of machinery being dismantled and stolen overnight…

Sephiroth had heard more than once that they might simply cave in the entrances to the area and have done with it. He couldn’t blame them as he made his way into the dark recess, blinking rapidly at the drastic change in lighting. The sunlamps' steady glow and resultant warmth was stripped away by dimly lit shadows and cool dampness. 

Here and there a few shafts of light from gaps in the tunnel’s ‘roof’ made it to the rough ground, but it only made the shadows deeper and darker by contrast. The chains on the door they closed behind him rattled as the troopers snapped them back into place. His exit would be at the far end of the expressway, in Sector Five. 

At least there was no particular train schedule to keep track of in his head. It only went one way, after all, at regular intervals, a looping trek up, around, and spiraling back down endlessly.

It didn’t take him long to find the first nest, throwing the lowest level fire spell at the scraps of wood and metal the monsters had piled up around the hole they’d burrowed in the wall. 

The doom rats swarmed out, snapping and snarling with a vengeance as he drew his katana and began to cut them down. It wasn’t even close to his first time hunting real monsters, but the past several months had involved fighting against simulations rather than actual creatures. It was messier, and easier, in some regards. The simulator had no limits upon how many monsters could continue to surround him, but kills were cleaner. In the sims, there was no blood to cake on his blade, no foul stench as the monsters were cut to pieces. 

He grimaced as he shook off his sword, bringing up the Materia again and burning off the disgusting residue before he could slide it back into its sheath on his back. 

Really, he shouldn’t have bothered, he realized. It was barely a few more steps before a terpsicolt wriggled out of a gap in the ground and threw itself at him. Afterward, he didn’t bother putting his weapon away. 

There were eight particular spots marked upon the map as being problem areas, but Sephiroth simply didn’t need to check it at all. They weren’t difficult to find: nests of doomrats, two of the reported dire-rats, schools of terpsicolts, and a particularly stubborn clan of sahagin that meant a manhole had somehow opened into the sewers. 

Sephiroth didn’t really need to hunt them down.

The monsters came to him. 

They always did. 

According to the professor, lesser monsters sensed that Sephiroth was himself an apex predator, but if that were true wouldn’t they want to flee his presence rather than seek it out?  It was a fact that monsters and some animals tended to gather around the places Mako came to the surface, and Sephiroth had a great deal of the substance within his body. It was his own theory that this was a cause of their interest. Indeed, it seemed as though minor injuries or even a great deal of sweating seemed to draw them faster, the Mako in his body fluids drawing their attention made more sense to him. 

There were ways to test this, but Sephiroth was leery of doing so with no one present in case the experiment went too well — it would require passive bloodletting, which could be dangerous if too many monsters homed in on his location.

It didn’t take long to get into a rhythm, mind wandering where it would as he mindlessly took care of the infestations. The only tricky parts were maneuvering through the half abandoned construction sites, scrambling down into open pits full of equipment and making his way through them. Twice he found evidence of human encampments, and an entirely dismantled excavator that had been stripped for what must be the most valuable parts that could be spirited away and sold. He ignored them. They weren’t part of his mission parameters, after all, and he wasn’t certain what he was meant to do about human adversaries in the first place. 

He knew it wouldn’t be much longer before he was set against other people… but he tried to push that out of his mind. He would do as he was commanded, he knew. What else was there but to serve Shinra, when he owed them everything? They fed, clothed, housed, and trained him, after all. He had seen the numbers on a spreadsheet, how he would never be able to pay off his debt in his lifetime.

Sephiroth’s scattered thoughts were almost his undoing as something small scrabbled out of a hole in the wall, and something larger chased after it. His muscle memory worked quicker than his conscious mind, bringing down his razor sharp blade in a quick movement that would have cut what he assumed was an enemy into two neat pieces. His own grunt of surprise mingled with a sharp, high sound of alarm as a small, a very small, child brought his arms up to protect his face as he sprawled on the ground at Sephiroth’s feet.

A cold sweat broke out all over his body as he stumbled back, the hilt of his katana dropping from numb fingers as he sprawled on his behind on the dirty pavement. He sat stunned for a long moment as the boy in front of him uncurled, then leaped back to his feet and flung himself in the direction of whatever it was he’d been chasing. Half a moment later another slight figure wriggled through the gap in the wall the first boy had slipped through, so focused on chasing the first that he paid no heed to Sephiroth at all.

“Wedge!” the older boy called out, voice high and thin with panic. “Get back here! Your grandma is gonna kill me!”

“But-but-but!” the smaller boy stammered as he lunged to grab something small and fuzzy, falling backward just as the other jerked forward to catch him. “I got her!”

“Yeah yeah, good job buddy,” the older boy let out a gusty sigh, dragging the smaller boy away from where he’d nearly fallen into a ten foot deep pit filled with discarded wreckage and chunks of shattered concrete. 

“You okay?” the smaller boy, Wedge apparently, twisted to look towards where Sephiroth was still laid out on the ground where he’d landed. 

“I’m fine,” the older boy said, and was cut off.

“Naw, I mean him!” Wedge gestured with the cat in his arms, swinging it a bit towards Sephiroth — the momentum turned the older boy, whose eyes widened in alarm. 

“Oh shit, is that a real sword!” the older boy said, turning and hefting Wedge with him, holding him under his arms and nearly off the ground. 

Sephiroth wasn’t particularly skilled at estimating the ages of other children, but he did know for certain that neither boy was of an age to be wandering in such places without adult supervision — or even with it.

They were both dressed in clothing that was clean, although heavily mended, and Sephiroth had to hope that they were not, in fact, secretly living in the tunnels. The little one, Wedge seemed like an odd name but it may perhaps be a nickname, wore a white t-shirt that was a bit too small, the cartoon cat printed on it stretched over his stomach. His cargo shorts were an eye-smarting shade of neon blue, and his plastic sandals were an equally bright orange.

The older boy was dressed in more subdued colors, dark gray pants that reminded Sephiroth of the scrubs he wore when he was confined to the lab but with pockets all over them. His red shirt was too long where Wedge’s had been too small, and the hem was repaired with thick stitches of white thread. 

Wedge seemed disinclined to let the animal he’d captured go, clutching it to his chest in almost the exact same pose as he was being held himself. 

“That’s a bad word!” Wedge admonished, eyes wide and mouth falling open.

“Yeah don’t say that,” the older one said, “Holy crap, are you a SOLDIER or something?!”

“Biggs you’re gonna get in trouble!” Wedge insisted, burying his face in the multi-hued fur on top of the cat’s head, “Mawmaw says that’s a bad word too!”

Biggs answered in the same firm tone, “I’m too smart to say ‘shit’ in front of the grown ups and ‘crap’ isn’t even that bad.”

“I won’t tell,” Wedge nodded solemnly before turning back to Sephiroth. “Are you okay?”

Sephiroth grabbed his weapon as he got back to his feet, slipping it over his shoulder into his scabbard once he was steady. His muscles felt watery, legs shaking slightly. He couldn’t get the image out of his head, what might have happened… He’d let himself be distracted by trivial things, and nearly killed a child! He could see it in his mind’s eye, blood on the ground and on the horrified face of the older boy as he came to collect his charge… 

He shook his head slightly, trying to clear it of the waking nightmare that he knew would invade his dreams the moment he closed his eyes that night. 

“I am alright,” he murmured when it became clear that the children were waiting for a response. “I apologize.”

“You’re a SOLDIER, right?” the older boy asked, excitement lighting up his expression. “Guess we should let you do what it was you were doing? You fighting monsters here or somethin’?”

“I am a SOLDIER, yes,” Sephiroth replied, bemused.

“What’s your name? I’m Biggs, and,” he hefted the little boy so his feet left the ground, his plastic sandals nearly falling off as he was swung back and forth with a giggle, “this is Wedge.”

“And this is Patches!” Wedge pronounced, holding the cat up for Sephiroth’s inspection. 

Indeed, the animal was covered in blotches of orange, white, and black fur. She was rather large, and looked disgruntled in the extreme at being manhandled so — and yet she didn’t scratch or bite when Wedge nuzzled his face in the fur atop her head again. 

“My name is Sephiroth,” he answered, following the boys toward the gap in the wall they had entered through. “Are you brothers?” he asked suddenly, curious. They looked similar, with dark hair and eyes, although Wedge’s complexion was much fairer than the older boys.

“Naw,” Biggs said, “I live at the Sector Five House, which is a place they leave kids who don’t have parents, or if they can’t feed you, or just don’t want-“ Biggs cut himself off, before he could finish the sentence, “you know, it’s like, whatever. But anyway, Wedge’s place is like practically right next door and his grandma gives the house mother some money so she’ll watch him at night while she works at the clinic. She’s a nurse, which even down here isn’t too bad for making money so she can afford it when he’s ready to learn to read and shit, uh stuff and he’ll spend the morning in class with the little-little kids.”

Sephiroth was uncertain how to answer. There were so many things that he hadn’t considered as it pertained to civilians. His own life was so different, and he had known from time he was able to comprehend it that it wasn’t ‘normal’. It was painful to think of children being abandoned by their parents, but he couldn’t help but compare his situation to Biggs’. He pressed one hand against his heart, feeling for the little metal locket hidden beneath his uniform, his mother’s picture feeling heavier than usual.

He had thought over it often, how his life might have been different if she hadn’t died. But now, he wondered what might have been if she had merely… not wanted him. If she’d given him up to someone other than the scientists, would his life be better? It might be difficult in other ways — it wasn’t lost on him that Biggs’ clothing was nearly worn out, his hair was a bit unkempt, and his boots looked a few sizes too large. Would that be worse?

“Uh oh,” Biggs’ groan pulled Sephiroth out of his spiraling thoughts as he set Wedge back down on his feet, one hand grabbing the back of his t-shirt in a move that seemed automatic. Clearly, the smaller boy tended to wander.

It was easy to see what had concerned Biggs. Whoever had breached the metal and concrete that separated the tunnel from the sector beyond couldn’t have exited through the same way either. Jagged sheet metal and rebar was pointed inward, the edges threateningly rusted. It was a wonder that neither boy was injured, but it was a clear fact that trying to leave through that hole would be ill advised.

Even Sephiroth, who healed quickly and had been recently inoculated against tetanus, would have second thoughts about it if there was any other option.

“Hmm…” Biggs crouched down, the long shirt puddling around him and nearly covering his scuffed black boots, “I don’t think we can get through…”

“Are we gonna get in trouble?” Wedge asked, and Sephiroth noted the slight wobble of his lower lip with trepidation. He wasn’t certain what he would do if the boy began to cry.

“We don’t have to be back til six o’clock,” Biggs said in a considering tone, standing up again and brushing himself off, one hand still grasping the other’s t-shirt. “I’m sure we can find another way out of here, right?”

“Which sector do you live in?” Sephiroth asked, uncertain how the map of these ruins related to the rest of the undercity. This hole could have been created in Sectors Five or Seven, possibly even the Wall Market, although he was uncertain if there were residential areas there where children might live. It had been described to him as a ‘den of iniquity’, although no one would explain what that meant. Looking up the word in a dictionary hadn’t helped at all.

“Over in Five, it’s not too far from the train station,” Biggs said, “and the hole there goes right near it.” 

He shifted his attention back down to Wedge, who was looking more and more worried. His shoulders hunched and the cat squirmed a bit as he hugged it closer. “I’m sorry, I just wanted to make sure she was okay. It’s dang-er-ous.” The last bit was pronounced carefully, and he watched as Biggs sighed and rubbed the back of his head.

“Yeah, duh,” Biggs said, “it’s dangerous in here and not good for kids to be wandering around.”

“Seph’roth is a kid too and he’s in here,” Wedge said, lips pressing together in a downward arc as he glanced up at him, “how old are you?”

It wasn’t as though Sephiroth didn’t know that he was, by Midgar’s standards, just shy of the age of majority. That is, the age that a person might submit an application for employment by the company and thus the mark of adulthood, but he had never truly thought of himself as a ‘kid’ in the usual sense. He adjusted the sword on his back, and straightened his uniform before considering his answer.

“I am thirteen,” he admitted, “but I will be fourteen in December, which is only three months away from now.”

“Oh,” Biggs raised his eyebrows, “yeah okay, I guess that counts cause you’re a SOLDIER and all… but I thought you couldn’t join up til you were fifteen anyway?”

“I am a special case,” Sephiroth said, then attempted to redirect them away from questions of his competence and relatively young age. “How old are you?”

“I’m nine,” Biggs said, coughing to hide a laugh as Wedge answered by shifting the cat to dangle from his left arm as he held up three fingers and announced that he was ‘this many’.

The older boy reached down and took Wedge’s hand in his own, gently manipulating it so that four fingers were displayed, “You’re this many now, remember? You’re four, and that’s one, two, three, and four.”

Wedge nodded solemnly and held his hand up for Sephiroth’s inspection once more. “This many!”

Sephiroth bit the tip of his tongue, hidden inside of his mouth, so that the boy wouldn’t think he was laughing meanly at him. His face was too bright and open, too innocent. The grin, showing a gap in Wedge’s teeth, was so artless that it made something in Sephiroth’s chest pinch. 

“I believe the only answer to your problem is to follow along with me,” Sephiroth said slowly, “I will be exiting at the end of the expressway in Sector Five, although I am uncertain how long it might take us to arrive at your destination… since my mission is to find and destroy the various monsters that have seized the area as their own.”

“You talk like a grown up,” Wedge noted, his tone admonishing as though he thought Sephiroth should be less articulate as a matter of course.

“Don’t be rude,” Biggs scolded, “Sorry, um,” Biggs was unskilled at hiding his apprehension as he chewed on his bottom lip. “Are you sure? I mean, we won’t get in the way or anything I promise!”

“Promise!” Wedge repeated, then yelped as the cat suddenly squirmed its way out of his arms and made its escape. “Oh no, Patches… Come back!”

Wedge was less adept at getting away from Biggs, who still had one hand wound into the back of his t-shirt, and he came up short as he lunged towards the fleeing animal. 

“At least she’s going in the same direction we are, right?” Biggs said, his free hand ruffling Wedge’s hair, “we’ll probably find her along the way.”

“Perhaps, yes,” Sephiroth said, attempting to sound comforting. He sincerely hoped that the cat was as stealthy as it was quick. If his progress so far was any indication, there were a great many monsters between their current location and the exit. Any one of them would probably have no problem adding a cat to their diet… 

He pulled his PHS from his pocket to check the time. If they continued to make the same amount of progress that Sephiroth had made so far, they would have no trouble making their way to Sector Five in enough time to not be reprimanded for tardiness. He could easily make it to the train station as well, before the last train made its journey back to the Plate. 

“I would ask that you please stay behind me, and out of range of my sword and any hostile creatures that attack,” he said, very seriously, trying to impress upon the children that they should do as he said. It felt strange giving someone any instruction, although the professor had said that his next mission would involve taking charge of a small group of SOLDIERS. It was one thing to give orders to someone who was being forced to do as he said, and another to attempt to get undisciplined civilians to do the same. 

And they were children, at that. 

He understood from overhearing others' conversations about their own offspring, that children were highly likely to get into trouble in a myriad of ways. It concerned him greatly that he had once heard nurse Lindhall say that children of Wedge’s approximate age were, in her colorful description, ‘little suicide machines’, as they had no proper fear of what dangers surrounded them.

“Got it!” Biggs nodded an affirmative, crouching down beside Wedge. “Come on and get on my back, it’s piggy-back time cause you got little munchkin legs.”

“M’not a munchkin!” Wedge whined, but did as he was told. 

Biggs grunted as he hefted the younger onto his back, hands hooked under Wedge’s knees and the boy’s arms wrapped around his neck in a way that couldn’t be comfortable. As short as Wedge was, he was stocky and likely weighed more than half of Bigg’s body weight. The older boy didn’t complain however. 

“Alright, I’ll stay back out of the way,” Biggs said, giving Wedge a slight jiggle, “and you watch for your kitty-cat, and you can be our lookout too if you want. If you see monsters, you just holler, okay?”

“Okay!” Wedge’s sullenness at being reminded of his small stature disappeared into fresh enthusiasm, as though this were all merely an adventure. “I’ll be the best lookout ever!”

Sephiroth had doubts as to his effectiveness, but he politely kept that to himself as he began to move down the tunnel with his blade drawn once more.

From behind him, Biggs softly whispered, “That’s so cool…”

Sephiroth pressed his own lips together, even though he wasn’t being observed. It should be beneath him to be so pleased at the compliment, but he told himself it was perfectly alright when the praise was for his weapon rather than himself. He didn’t think he’d have ever used such a phrase, but… the katana was cool.

Chapter Text

Sephiroth hadn’t been in the least winded or sweaty for the first half of his mission, up until he’d suddenly been escorting two helpless individuals along with eradicating the monsters that were in their way. It wasn’t just that he was worried about them becoming injured or lost whilst he did his utmost to protect them. The problem was that even the most minor of wounds he, himself collected were met with gasps and words of concern. 

Wedge had actually burst into near hysterical tears when a sahagin’s trident had opened a relatively shallow wound in his bicep, not even painful or damaging enough to hinder Sephiroth’s movements as he then cut the monster down in turn. It bled a great deal, yes, he supposed. Anyone who wasn’t used to seeing blood or encountering dangerous monsters would, he considered, be more concerned about it…

He’d shown both boys his Materia, casting a cure upon himself and cleaning away the blood with the bottom of his shirt to show them that he was perfectly alright. He didn’t like having to utilize it, as he would be required to add such use to his report. SOLDIERS didn’t need to use Materia for such minor damage, not when their enhancements would heal the injury within an hour or two, and he was supposed to be the best of all of them. It was beneath him to desire the relief of such an inconsequential thing as pain but… Sephiroth told himself that, if it made them feel more secure, he would lower himself to such depths. 

When the first grashtrike appeared, Sephiroth wasn’t particularly worried — although its ensnaring threads were a problem with two civilians to keep safe. It was a constant dance, to keep his body between the monster and the children. He ordered them to huddle behind the meager shelter of a tangle of wires and shredded metal, warning them to avoid the projectile webs the monster spat from its caustic maw.

With his enhanced strength, the webs were easy to break, and one grashtrike wasn’t much more dangerous to him as a small party of sahagin, but when they began to swarm in twos, then threes, then fours, he began to worry.

Aside from the first he’d cut down, the rest were mostly small, for grashtrikes. He’d fought them before, when they’d infested one of the reactors on the plate, but they’d been much larger. A breeding pair, he remembered, and he had destroyed their nest long before their eggs would have been viable. 

The eggs he soon came across had already hatched.

He grimaced as he realized he might have a larger problem on his hands. He wouldn’t be having so much trouble if the children weren’t looking to him to protect them. But they were, and he ignored the niggling voice in his head that sounded like Hojo telling him he should have left them behind as their wellbeing had nothing to do with him.

It would have been easier if he didn’t have to think about them… It would have been wrong to abandon them. 

He had seen the propaganda packets that were being distributed in preparation for his debut, and the word ‘hero’ came up more times than Sephiroth was comfortable with. He’d had no practical experience in anything regarding heroics, although ironically he knew that saving children from monsters would be something the PR department would salivate over.

He pulled his PHS from his pocket, knowing that he might be reprimanded for calling in backup when he should have been able to handle the danger on his own. If he called the Turks first, if he could speak to them before Hojo, maybe they’d be happy to spin this as some adventure to add to his imaginary prestige?

All of that introspection was moot, however when he stared at the screen. A red circle with a line through it was in place of the little bars that should have shown how much service he had. 

Sephiroth didn’t swear like Biggs had, but he did think words he wasn’t permitted to use as he rolled his shoulders and shoved the useless device back into his pocket. He listened carefully, half closing his eyes as he tried to make out the sounds of whatever might be ahead. 

The chitter that grashtrike made was distinctive, and he didn’t like that he thought he might hear some of it behind them, distantly, as well as ahead. It seemed as though going back was also off the table of options he was trying to assemble. 

There was little they could do but to continue on, and Sephiroth hid his anxiety well enough that at least Biggs didn’t mention it when he turned a speculative look his way. 

“I believe there might be more of these the further we go,” Sephiroth said slowly. “Please, do not go too far from me in either direction unless I tell you specifically where to hide, alright?”

“Yup,” Biggs nodded, hiking Wedge further up onto his back and giving an approximation of a salute with two fingers flicked towards him. Sephiroth hid his smile, or tried to, but the answering grin from the boy made him think he might not have been successful.

Two more juvenile monsters barred their path, but Sephiroth had gotten into a sort of rhythm by then — he knew how they moved, what their tells were, now. That angry clicking preceded the spray of web-fluid, that twitch meant it was going to rise up on its hind legs and slash at him with its forelimbs. He might have felt accomplished if he hadn’t been so wary of what he suspected would come next.

And come next it did. The queen was quite a bit larger than her brood, and a great deal larger than her mate if it had been the one Sephiroth had killed first. Females were more dangerous, and Sephiroth felt sweat drip down the back of his neck as he considered his angle of attack.

Her back was to him, and she was bent over digging into a crevice in the wall with one forelimb and chattering with what sounded like interest rather than threat.

A small sound caught his attention, squeaking sounds that he realized must be from a nest of small creatures hidden in the gap in the wall the monster was attempting to reach. Sneaking up on it while it was distracted was his best bet, he knew. Even if the queen sated her hunger, there was no way they could sneak past it… particularly since he could see the pulsating sac of eggs clinging to her back — already territorial, she was close to the point of dropping her new clutch and would stringently defend them.

There was a pile of rubble to the left, a possible haven for Biggs and Wedge to hide behind, and he half turned to see the older child put Wedge down and begin pulling him into the shelter already.

Something had caught its attention, and it turned in their direction. Advantage of surprise lost, Sephiroth settled his weapon in his hands and moved to attack.

“Patches!” Wedge suddenly shouted as the cat that had escaped him darted across their path and directly towards the monster.

“Don’t!” Sephiroth shouted as Wedge lunged out of hiding, but Biggs was faster than the four year old and had him by the back of his shirt before he could get away from him.

With a diminutive snarl and spitting hiss, Patches the cat threw herself at the back of the queen. The distraction was just what Sephiroth needed, trusting Biggs to keep the little one safely out of sight as he joined the cat in battle.

Sephiroth darted forward, webs still clinging to his sword where he’d poked at the empty egg sacs. They were sloughed away as the blade became drenched in the insectoid’s fluids.

He was careful. So, so careful, not to strike the cat where she clung to the monster’s back and dug her small claws into the spaces between the segmented plates of its hide. 

His arms and legs trembled slightly once he was done, dropping down to one knee and pushing energy into the cure materia in his bracer. They were almost to the end of the tunnel, he thought, and he knew he shouldn’t heal his own wounds — it would be impossible to hide that he’d been injured, with the tears in his uniform and blood still clinging to his skin. But the Cure he cast wasn’t for him.

The cat’s sides were heaving and painted red and green. He couldn’t tell how badly she was hurt, when half the stuff sticking to her fur belonged to the monster, but he quickly cast again and wished he had a Cleanse. He had no idea what getting grashtrike blood in a wound might do…

Gently, he ran a hand over her head, eyes widening as a little humming sound rose and fell when he did so. Patches blinked up at him, easing herself onto her feet and stretching as she flexed her claws on the ground.

Patches’ ears perked up as the squeaking sound Sephiroth had heard before rose again. She was up and away instantly, leaping and bounding over the monster’s body and squirming into the gap in the wall. 

Biggs and Wedge were close behind as Sephiroth went to inspect the space in the metal, and his eyes widened as Wedge cried out.

“Kitties!” Wedge bounced on his feet and pointed, “Biggs look, Patches has babies!”

“She sure does,” Biggs sounded tired, picking Wedge up under his arms and lifting him so he could see better.

There were, indeed, kittens. A little heap of fluff nestled in rags that chirped almost like birds as Patches sniffed and licked their heads frantically. 

Sephiroth felt something in his chest ache. She’d been so brave, he thought. She was so small, but still willing to take on a monster many times larger than her. It was something full grown humans would fear, but she hadn’t even hesitated when it meant protecting her babies. He turned his head to look at the monster, and the egg sac that had been sliced and crushed during the battle. In her own way, hadn’t the grashtrike been doing the same? It was an odd consideration he’d never thought of

He pressed his fingers against his chest where his mother’s picture was hidden beneath his shirt, feeling out the square edges of the locket. Would she have defended him so stridently? Would she have protected him, if she’d needed to? It wasn’t lost on him that she wore a scientist’s coat in the little picture, would she have scolded him for wasting Mana on an animal as Hojo certainly would if he knew? It wasn’t something he would ever find out, not unless he could find anyone who had met her. So far he’d asked forty-seven people, and none of them had ever heard of Jenova before and no one had recognized her image either. Hojo always promised that one day he’d tell Sephiroth all about her, but he’d come to think that time would never come.

“We can’t leave her!” Wedge was saying, shaking his head back and forth as Biggs crouched down to try and comfort him.

“I know you want to,” Biggs said, “but we can’t carry all of them between us. There’s six kittens and just two of us.”

“Three of us,” Sephiroth found himself interjecting, sliding his sword into its scabbard with a faint grimace at the reprimand he would surely suffer for putting it away still filthy. According to the map he had memorized, they were close enough to the exit into Sector Five that he surmised they wouldn’t come across any other enemies. The grashtrike queen would have killed or run off any other monsters and vermin when she’d prepared to lay her eggs, so he was fairly certain they were as safe as they could possibly be.

He ignored the impulse to check the time on his PHS. He knew already that he was running behind — the mission had taken at least twice, perhaps three times as long as it had been scheduled. But SOLDIERS couldn’t always predict such things, he reminded himself. He had a great deal to report, and the horde of grashtrike and their queen and consort would be a fine excuse. 

He hoped. 

Patches made an inquisitive mew, but didn’t swipe at him with her claws as he began removing the kittens from their nest. They were very small, scrawny, trembling things, but their minuscule claws were sharp as they protested being taken from the warmth. He handed three of them to Biggs, instructing the boy in how to turn the shirt he wore into a basket to hold them, with Wedge copying him as the next few were brought out.

An even quieter squeak came as he took what he’d thought to be the last kitten from their hiding place. A smaller kitten, this one completely white amongst its multicolor siblings, looked up at him blearily as he gently picked it up and cradled it against his own chest. 

“Make that seven kittens,” he said, with a touch of wonder at how small it was, how warm as it clumsily clawed its way up his shirt to nestle its face into the hollow of Sephiroth’s throat.

Patches jumped down, winding between his legs and meowing inquisitively as she looked up at him.

“Will she follow us?” Sephiroth asked, wondering if he should have picked her up as well.

“Prob’ly,” Biggs said, “she’s a good mama, aren’t you girl?”

As if to answer, she rose up and pricked Sephiroth’s thigh through his cargoes as she pressed her paws in little kneading movements. She dropped back down and turned away, taking a few steps towards the Sector Five exit as though she were their escort… or perhaps she saw them as her entourage, her tail a flag as she walked ahead of them. 

There was a sharp yelp when he tapped his fist on the locked door, followed by the click of a key and the rattle of the chain holding the gate closed. 

The two troopers on the other side gaped at them, eyes flicking from Sephiroth to the children, and from the children to the kittens and one snorted as Patches passed him and turned to meow at them as though saying to hurry up. 

“Scared the sh- crap out of me,” one of them said, “weren’t you supposed to be out like four hours ago?”

“There was… a detour,” Sephiroth said, warmth flooding his face as both men took in the children and kittens, but neither seemed inclined to take him to task for it.

“How the fu-“ the other trooper coughed, “fudge, did they get in here?!” 

Sephiroth fought down an urge to roll his eyes, “Because the walls down there are more like a sieve, and I would recommend a team attempt to seal the ones at least large enough for a child if you can not seal them all.”

A little nervousness prickled the back of his neck with sweat as he realized how sarcastic that statement must have seemed, and how pretentious he must seem himself through giving orders to adults. He knew he would be required to do so sooner than he would like, but he waited for the men’s angry recriminations that he knew should be expected.

Instead, somehow, both men’s faces… softened. Their tense shoulders dropped, the leftmost man who had been the first to speak shrugged and his partner mirrored the movement. 

“If you can put in a good word with urban development it’d probably do better than telling Heidegger,” the leftmost trooper said.

“Just so you know,” the other added.

“I will do what I can,” Sephiroth reassured as he followed a weary Biggs and made certain that Wedge was between them both. Wedge’s energy level still somehow matched his enthusiasm, but then the littlest boy had spent most of the arduous journey riding upon Biggs’ back, and wasn’t nearly so exhausted, although he had lost both of his sandals at some point. Walking barefoot didn’t seem to faze him, deftly skipping over and walking around obstacles that might hurt his feet. He hoped that Wedge’s guardian wasn’t terribly angry with him about it. He would do what he could, wondering if himself taking responsibility would keep the boy from any reprisals. 

When he said so, Biggs shook his head.

“Naw, she won’t get too mad,” Biggs reassured him, “that’s why he’s got flip-flops instead of reg’lar shoes, cause he somehow managed to lose two pairs of sneakers and a whole-ass pair of boots in a couple months.”

“Biggs… that’s a bad word,” Wedge helpfully reminded him, as he’d done upon their introduction.

“Yep,” Biggs replied, then snorted and quietly muttered an extensive list of swears, followed by, “there, see, got it all outta my system.”

Sephiroth choked on the laugh he tried to suppress, and Biggs’ own smile was bright and cheerful as he met his eyes. Then they were both laughing together when the sound had bubbled from Sephiroth’s chest uncontrollably.

“Home’s this way,” Biggs said, walking just slow enough to let Wedge keep up and with the kittens occasionally attempting to make a break for it out of their shirt-nests. 

Sephiroth followed them, his own feet hurting from so long a trek in boots that he rarely wore for so long a time. His training was grueling, yes, but it was usually broken up in chunks with all of the other tests and procedures. Most of the time he was relegated to wearing sticky-soled socks throughout the lab, although the last weeks had seen him in the simulator or with the Turks on short excursions of no more than two or three hours more often than not.

There was something brewing in the south, that he’d barely managed to glean any information on, and the professor had been advocating to send Sephiroth to ‘take care of it’. 

If anyone noticed Sephiroth’s uniform or weapon as he followed two children, and one cat, through the undercity, neither were remarked upon. Biggs’ steps slowed the further on they went, but Sephiroth wasn’t about to complain when he too was weary.

The orphanage Biggs lived in wasn’t so dire a place as Sephiroth had been led to believe such places were. The building was run down, certainly, but none of the children milling about the small outdoor space were too thin or filthy enough for concern. Several of the children were gathered around one of the tables, a spread of what looked like playing cards and dice laid out in an irregular pattern across a game board chalked onto the table itself. The players cheered or groaned depending on their luck or skill as a move was made, although Sephiroth was too unfamiliar with games of any kind to figure out what they were doing.

“Where have you been!” a woman’s voice caught Sephiroth’s attention as quickly as the crack of a whip, and he automatically cupped his hands over the tiny kitten sleeping against his chest protectively. The woman’s mouth was set in a flat line, and her hands were propped on her hips, but her posture wasn’t as threatening as he might expect. He watched as something… softened… around her eyes as she caught sight of what lay within both Biggs’ and Wedge’s shirts. 

“We can’t keep all of those,” she said, but she crouched down and began running a finger over one of the kitten’s head, scowl turning into a smile when it began to purr.

That seemed to be a sign, as all of the children abandoned their game and came to make soft noises at the kittens and all attempted to pet them at once.

“Now, now, you can’t pick them up, they’re too little and need their mama,” the woman said, pulling one very determined toddler away before he could snatch a kitten from Wedge, “we’ll put mama and her babies in my room alright?”

“’Kay!” Wedge agreed, surprising Sephiroth with how easy it was. He would have assumed the child would want to keep them all for himself, but perhaps he was wise enough to know they were in danger of being trampled if they weren’t protected.

Sephiroth trailed after the woman and two children, Patches at his heels and voicing increasingly loud meows until the kittens were placed in a cardboard box lined with towels. She leaped into it, flopping down on her side, and was immediately swarmed. Sephiroth was the last to put his burden down, the tiny scrap of mortality he’d been cradling to him making a little squeak as he placed it with its siblings. 

“Alright boys, go wash up for dinner please, and help Grace and Jamal get the table set,” she began to nudge Biggs and Wedge towards the doorway, and both of them were clearly too tired to argue.

“Do I want to know how you got roped into this?” the woman asked, twitching her head and indicating the hallway. 

Sephiroth obediently followed, giving one last look at the pile of kittens with an odd, empty feeling in the bottom of his stomach. It must be hunger, of course what else could it be? He hadn’t eaten since that morning, after all. 

Uncertain how to answer, Sephiroth fought down the urge to give a shrug. It was improper in the extreme and always led to more punishment than whatever he’d been prevaricating about.

“It was entirely my fault, I am sorry” he said, and it was mostly true so far as he was concerned. He had realized after it had been too late that the more logical choice would have been to take them back to the entrance in Sector Seven where they would have been able to safely return home. 

“Somehow I doubt that,” the woman answered, “knowing the boys the way I do I’m pretty sure I can guess how things went. And hey, whatever little adventure you had didn’t seem to leave any of you the worse for wear anyway.”

She held out one hand, “I’m Nelda, thanks for getting them back in one piece.”

Sephiroth took her hand carefully, noting that she was missing the smallest finger of her right hand and being especially gentle as he shook it, “I am called Sephiroth.”

“Fancy name,” she said, startling him by reaching out and twitching the lapel of his jacket, “fancy Shinra uniform too.”

Sephiroth suddenly felt as though he should apologize for that. He was well aware, through his many tutorials with the Turks, that the people in Midgar’s undercity, the slums in local parlance, did not care much for the company that loomed over them. 

“Nah, not your fault, you’re like what thirteen?” Nelda said, “I know how they are up there — my brother says if you get recruited instead of applying they don’t really take no for an answer.”

“Yes,” Sephiroth breathed in relief, and Nelda tapped him on the pauldron with her hand and nodded.

“Wanna stay for dinner, Sephiroth?”

Sephiroth should have said no, should have insisted he needed to report back from his mission. If Hojo knew that Sephiroth was sitting at a table with two dozen children, with one of them sitting in his lap, and eating macaroni and cheese and chicken salad sandwiches, he would be furious. The professor would degrade the food as processed garbage full of things that he hadn’t approved for Sephiroth’s nutritional needs. 

For the last few hours though, Sephiroth felt as though he’d stolen a moment from someone else’s life, and the knowledge that he would never have something like it again made him stay longer than he should. So he sat in the plastic chair, wearing borrowed clothes with his uniform and armor tucked into a large plastic bag since they were dirty and had blood on them, and ate the macaroni. He’d enjoyed the sandwich, with the crunch of pickles and onions that exploded flavor on his tongue totally unlike his usual ration allotment. He didn’t much care for the overly sweetened red drink, but he was too polite to refuse a second cup when it was offered to him.

He knew that this was an overwhelmingly generous gift, from people who had to scrimp and save every gil and make it stretch to cover food and electricity. The house subsisted on donations, Nelda had explained, as well as payments from those like Wedge’s grandmother who needed someone to watch him overnight. Only half of the children sitting around the table lived there full time, the others coming for lessons or to be cared for while their parents worked during the day or night. 

“I’m done,” Wedge announced, twisting around and showing Sephiroth that his face was covered in cheese. He hid a smile, not wanting the little boy to think he was making fun of him, and carefully used the little pile of paper napkins to help clean him up. 

“Nelda!” a harried looking young man rushed into the room. He wore a blue jumpsuit, Shinra’s logo on the side pocket and an identification card dangling from a cord around his neck that meant he worked in one of the reactors. Two small children jumped up from their seats and ran to him. They clung to him with their arms around his neck and legs wrapped around his middle as he lifted them automatically. 

“What’s up,” Nelda looked up from where she was holding the smallest child in the home, who was young enough that he needed to be fed by hand, “did you miss your train?”

“Everybody’s missed their train,” he said, heaving a sigh, “it’s broken down halfway between here and the plate and they’re saying it might not get fixed til tomorrow.”

“Oh those poor people!” Nelda shook her head, wiping the baby’s chin with a napkin, “stuck in there all night!”

“Well,” the man hefted his children up as they began to slide down, “at least I’m not stuck on the plate, that would be worse really. I feel bad for the afternoon shift, where are they going to sleep? It's not like Shinra is going to put them up for the night somewhere.”

Sephiroth felt all the warmth drain from his face. 

Chapter Text

“Your excursion should have taken half as long as it did, if you had been dedicated enough there would have been no question whether you would make it on time.”

Sephiroth could easily see the sneer on professor Hojo’s face as he continued to reiterate his many faults, how Sephiroth should have been quicker, how he would be in such trouble in the morning, that he could fend for himself in the slums if he was going to be so stupid as to miss a train that would have left hours before the break down, that Sephiroth’s next mission might very well be canceled if he was so useless.

He stared down at the screen of his PHS as the professor hung up on him, uncertain now what he would do for the night. He had never spent a night outside of the lab, and just as the man had said earlier, there was no one who would likely ‘put him up’ for the night. 

The slums were dangerous, especially once the sunlamps were doused for the night, and a single afternoon in urban survival training hadn’t prepared him for such circumstances. He looked about himself, the tunnel between the orphanage and the rest of the Sector wouldn’t be a terrible place to spend the night. He supposed it would get colder, but he would need to return the borrowed clothing and re-don his dirty uniform regardless. His jacket would be more than enough to keep himself warm. 

He put his forehead down on his knees for a moment, then jerked and nearly went for the sword that wasn’t strapped to his back when a hand fell on his shoulder

“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare ya,” Nelda smiled, but it was odd around the edges, “I also didn’t mean to listen in, I was just coming to see if you were alright. So… it sounds like we’re having a little sleepover, yeah? It's Friday night even, so we’re going to watch a movie and have popcorn. How’s that sound, kiddo?”

Sephiroth wasn’t certain how he felt about being called a child — she couldn’t understand that he had never been treated like one, and would have no idea how to behave as one must, but it somehow widened that empty place in his stomach into an aching chasm he didn’t know how to traverse. 

Nelda held out her hand to him, and for lack of any other idea of what to do, he took it. 

It wasn’t long before a sleeping bag had been procured from a storeroom and set up in the same place that the male residents of the home shared. Biggs had shouted ‘dibs’, and dragged the sleeping bag to lay on the floor beside his bed and offered Sephiroth one of his own pillows. 

Wedge seemed intent on adhering himself to Sephiroth’s side as a television was set up in what must usually be their classroom. Folding tables and chairs were stacked in the back of the room, with pillows and blankets spread out in their place and filled with chattering children who seemed to have no hesitation to make space amongst themselves for the wayward SOLDIER in their midst. 

“Alright, it’s Folia’s turn to pick the movie,” Nelda waved her hand and one of the girls jumped to her feet. Her yellow dress was the brightest thing he’d ever seen, Sephiroth thought, with pink and green clips in her short braided hair. She crouched down to examine a collection of VHS tapes stored in a cardboard box beneath the television on its rolling stand for a moment, humming beneath her breath as she considered.

“This one please and thank you ma’am!” She pulled out her selection and carefully pulled it from its battered paper sleeve and slipped it into the slot on the front of the TV. The little clips in her hair bounced as she ran back to her pillow and plopped down onto it with a grin that showed two missing teeth.

Sephiroth had never watched a film before, as the lab did not have any video tapes that weren’t educational. He had no idea what to expect, and the sudden desire to see what the fuss was about was so incredibly indulgent that he fought down a spike of guilt. He had seen posters and advertisements of course, for both movies and theater productions, but the only one he was even remotely familiar with was ‘Loveless’, and then only because the text it was based upon was a classic and thus reviewed in his abbreviated literature lessons. 

Nelda pressed the buttons to work the VCR, fast forwarding through what looked like a series of advertisements for other films before letting it resume at a normal pace as the actors on the screen burst into motion with little fanfare. The actors were children, the main cast consisting of two girls and a boy, wearing what looked like very good renditions of child-sized Turk suits. It was quickly apparent that the similarity was fully intended. The title of the film splashed across the screen as a building dramatically exploded behind it: Kidspionage 3: Undercover & Over It!

Sephiroth was… transfixed. There was something captivating about the bright colors, the percussion heavy music, the way everyone on the screen took even the silliest things with deadly serious gravitas. The story itself was slightly incomprehensible at first, and when he asked Biggs what he must be missing he nodded along as the boy explained.

“So the kids are spies in a secret organization thing called the Cooperative Of Shadows,” Biggs whispered under his breath as he leaned close to Sephiroth, their shoulders pressed together in a way that made his whole chest warm at the casual camaraderie, “and, like, in the first one they had some really cool adventures and went up in a hot air balloon and stuff so they could see a hidden message on a mountain. They got to be heroes and save a bunch of people in the end, but they didn’t get any kind of party or nothin’ because you know it's all a secret and all.”

Sephiroth nodded, fully understanding why that would be a requirement of such a profession. He realized he’d never wondered how the Turks felt about the times they did things that saved the company from harm and were never mentioned afterward.

“But then in the second movie,” Biggs continued, “right at the end they found out that the Cooperative was just using them and didn’t actually care what happened to them, they were just pretending so the kids would do what they wanted. And so now they have to figure out how to get out without getting caught because it’s not like you can just quit or something cause they’d keep coming after you.”

Sephiroth… also fully understood that concept as well. The excitement of a moment ago dimmed slightly as he watched the children whisper to one another across a table, what looked like MRE meals on trays in front of them. The camera panned across the room to show adult watchers, the children’s eyes flicking up to take stock of visible cameras in the corners of the room.

“I fell asleep last time,” Biggs said, with a muffled yawn into his hand, “so I only saw the first half, so we’ll see how it ends together!”

That raised Sephiroth’s spirits a tiny bit, that warm feeling returning as Biggs leaned his weight fully against him for a few seconds before sitting back up again. Experiencing something new, alongside someone else, just for enjoyment was so totally novel that he could forgive some of the less convincing acting and did not let himself think overmuch about how unrealistic some of the effects were. He pressed his lips together and held back the bubble of sound that threatened to leak out improperly when something scientific was explained so very incorrectly that it was comical. None of the other children laughed, so Sephiroth had to assume that it wasn’t meant to be funny. 

The paper bags filled with popcorn made the room smell warm and buttery, and Sephiroth knew without a doubt that this was also something incredibly forbidden. He felt unaccountably rebellious as he ate his portion, the salty and savory flavor lingering in his mouth long after it was gone. 

For the second half of the film, Sephiroth spent leaning forward and watching with an avid fascination as the children put together their plan of action and then began to put their espionage and escape skills to the test. They were nearly caught numerous times, barely managing to scrape by each instance through wit and skill against much better trained and experienced operatives. 

As the names and titles of the performers and crew scrolled up the screen to cheerful music, Sephiroth barely managed to restrain a smile when he saw that Biggs, and Wedge curled up in his lap, were both already asleep. Gently, he nudged them awake and Biggs grumbled about missing the end again, but said he was too worn out to care. 

Wedge, on the other hand, begged Nelda to allow him to see the kittens before he would agree to go to sleep. Sephiroth trailed after him, a little embarrassed at the desire to see them one more time before he would have to go to the train station before its first run of the day in the early morning.

“You wanna name one?” Nelda asked suddenly, and Sephiroth glanced up at her, startled as she ran a hand over the top of his head in a strangely soothing movement. “You helped save them, right? So you should get to give one of them a name.”

Sephiroth copied her gesture as he petted down the tiniest white kitten’s back. It was, apparently, the only male in the litter. Some sort of genetic anomaly prevented male cats from having that mottled coat of black, orange, and white, and so he’d come out with no color at all. 

He wasn’t certain what was on his face that made the woman give a soft sigh, but she was smiling when he glanced up at her. Her eyes were gray, and somehow sad even with the smile crinkling the corners of them. He felt empty, looking away and focusing on the small creature leaning into his touch. Nelda didn’t look like his mother in any possible way, but somehow it felt as though their eyes were the same.

“Go ahead,” she nodded towards the pile of sleeping kittens, “you wanna name the little guy?”

Sephiroth swallowed, his mouth very dry. He thought for a long moment, trying to decide what would be appropriate. He had one name in mind, but the name was for a female and thus he supposed it would be unsuitable… He closed his eyes for a moment as he gave it some thought, before the answer came to him.

“Will you call him Nova for me?” he asked, feeling heat suffusing his cheeks for some unaccountable reason.

“Nova it is,” Nelda nodded, “I’ll make sure whoever adopts him knows that’s his name.”

The woman’s hand stroked his hair again, her smile tightening around the edges and her lower lip sank in as though she were biting the inside of it. “How about you get some sleep? It’s getting late, and the first train leaves before the sunlamps even come on.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Sephiroth reluctantly stopped petting the kitten, letting Nelda lead him to the boy’s room and the sleeping bag and pillow waiting for him there. 

Sleep entirely eluded him as he lay as still and quiet as possible, listening to the soft breathing and occasional mutters and snores from the beds around him. Wedge’s arm dangled from the bed, curled up with Biggs as the others beds were all occupied already. Hesitantly, Sephiroth reached up and stroked the back of the soft and pudgy hand, that empty hollow in his stomach he’d mistaken for hunger back in full force as the little boy turned his hand and clutched Sephiroth’s fingers in his own. The tiny palm was warm and a little damp against his fingers.

Wedge had wrapped his arms around Sephiroth’s neck for a moment brfore the lights had been turned out, mumbling a sleepy 'good night' before climbing up into the bed. Sephiroth had been painfully gentle as he'd returned the embrace, fearing his own strength might do harm accidentally. 

Sephiroth was supposed to be deployed soon. He had been given his orders already, although the precise location and date of departure had not yet been revealed to him. The most stringent of the parameters he had been given were that there were to be no survivors in the location he was to be directed to. ..

The Turks’ recently deceased director, Hildrun, and professor Hojo had explained to him that it did not matter whether or not his enemies were active combatants. It did not matter whether his opponents were elderly. It did not matter if they were fathers, or mothers, or children. His orders were to obey their directives and wipe out all opposition to the company’s goals. 

That empty space in his stomach began to spread, leaving him feeling numb and heavy as Wedge squeezed his fingers once more and then went limp again in sleep. He wasn’t certain why he did it, but something made him reach up and press a finger to Wedge’s wrist, feeling his heartbeat there at the pulse point and counting the sleepy rhythm, warm and steady beneath his touch.

The breath felt punched out of him as he silently got to his feet and rolled up the sleeping bag in the dark, his enhanced sight more than good enough to do it neatly and slide it into the sack it was supposed to be kept in. His own clothing and armor were in a garbage bag near the back door, tied tight to not attract pests to the smell of blood. He stared hard at the line of shoes there, biting the tip of his tongue and thinking desperate apologies to the unknown owners as he stepped up to each one in turn and picked the ones most likely to fit him before shoving his feet into them. Where he was going, being without shoes was not an option.

He paused as he saw a paper bag hanging from the door’s handle, the words ‘for Sephiroth’ written in neat black marker across the front of it. Slowly, almost reverently, he lifted it from the latch to peek inside. It was filled with little plastic bags - a sandwich with some mysterious filling that must be shelf stable if it wasn’t refrigerated, a bag of what he thought must be cookies, a package of potato chips with the character ‘Stamp’ printed on it, and a little box of juice with a purple apple on the label.

The bag containing his uniform, armor, and boots, seemed so much heavier than he remembered it being the day before as he picked it up and hefted it over his shoulder. He clutched the gift to his chest as he slipped out, carefully making certain the knob was locked before he pulled it shut. 

Chapter Text

It wasn’t the hundredth time Veld had fallen asleep at his desk, it wasn’t even the fourth time in the past week, but it was easier to find the bugs in his office than it was to sweep his entire apartment every day. It seemed that when you were forced to execute the former director, and incidentally assumed their position, there were quite a few people who didn’t trust you. He wasn’t worried about his Turks, not when he’d killed Hildrun to protect Cissnei from her machinations, but the rest of the Shinra board were more cut throat than a band of territorial sahagin.

The phone on his desk ringing at, he glanced at the clock over the door, near exactly midnight, was not a sign that his week was going to get any better. Only a handful of people had this particular number, and any one of them calling at such a time meant trouble. 

The small voice on the other end was not the one he expected to hear. Veld’s heart seized in his chest at the unfamiliar note of fear that came through clearly enough even with the signal being so choppy.

“Mr Verdot sir, forgive me, but I am uncertain where I am at the moment,” Sephiroth said, so painfully polite even with his breath hitching and the sound of running feet on what sounded like stone, “I am… I am being pursued and I do not know what to do!”

The sewers were inadequately lit, even for Sephiroth’s eyes, and his gaze darted about the tunnel as he searched for a place to hide. His hands were sweating, the plastic trash bag over his shoulder feeling wet beneath his fingers and the PHS felt like it might slip right out of his grip as he gasped into it. His footsteps sounded so incredibly loud in the echoing chambers, and crouched down in the first alcove he came to that would conceal his body and his burden alike.

The words spilled out of him, and he wasn’t certain whether the new director of Administrative Research would even believe him, but he had to try. It wasn’t as though he could call Hojo… even if he did, he knew the professor would only be angry with him again. He might ignore him, would probably turn off his own PHS and leave Sephiroth to figure things out on his own. Veld Verdot, however, would have a duty towards him, at least as an important asset of the company, Sephiroth was certain. 

He bit his lips nervously, chewing on the inside of his cheek as he almost never did these days. He tasted blood and spat it out onto the ground with a grimace as he glanced out of his hiding place and tried to think.

Veld leaned forward, the hand gripping the phone’s receiver tightening as the other slapped the desk as he rose to his feet. A dozen questions sprang to mind and he rattled off the first two that seemed most pertinent at the moment.

“Why aren’t you in the tower?” was the first one. The second, “what was the last location you were certain about?”

“I… I couldn’t get back to the plate after my mission,” Sephiroth said, and Veld remembered that little training wheels job he’d been sent on in the slums, but the kid should have returned hours ago. The sound of heavy breathing was the only thing he could hear for a long moment before Sephiroth spoke up again. 

“The professor was displeased with me,” Sephiroth said, the bad connection crackling as he explained, “and there was a malfunction with the train, and it would not be able to run until the morning… and…”

For some reason the director made a sound that Sephiroth couldn’t quite parse, he sounded angry, and he grumbled something under his breath. Sephiroth clutched the front of his borrowed t-shirt over his hidden locket as he waited to see if Veld would hang up on him after all. 

“You could have called us for a pickup,” Veld’s voice was soft, not sounding as angry as he had a moment ago.

Sephiroth wondered if the professor would get into trouble, but as Sephiroth himself was in a great deal of danger himself, he didn’t particularly care.

“Sir,” Sephiroth lowered his voice to almost a whisper, afraid how he might be perceived. He did not want to seem as though he were whining. Whining only got you corrections and lectures upon lectures while the corrections were administered. They were more painful, the more he’d seemed to complain. “The professor said I was fully capable of fending for myself until morning.”

Fuck.

Fuck, shit, fuck! Damn Hojo all to hell. 

Of course he’d do that, of course he’d think that. Veld had only had access to high profile files and information for three months and he’d be punishing himself for the next three years for not looking closer at Hojo’s bullshit. Sephiroth had seemed alright, better than Cissnei had at least, which he knew didn’t mean a great deal. He seemed fed enough, and had no wounds or scars visible the few times he had trained him. Quiet, reticent, certainly, but he had never seemed afraid and his psychological exams hadn’t been particularly notable… but Hojo was the one administering them, wasn’t he?

“Just breathe for a second,” Veld instructed, “Where was the last place you recognized?”

“Sector Five, sir” Sephiroth said, “I descended underground because I thought I was being observed as you taught me, sir. And I was, I am so sorry-”

There was a soft gasping sound, and Veld thought his grip might actually be enough to break the phone as the familiar sound of flesh on flesh was the last thing he heard before the line went silent. More scraping sounds followed, before the call ended with the sound of something breaking. 

Veld grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair and rushed out of his office, the door bearing the brunt of his rage and worry as he slammed it open hard enough to make it bounce off the outside wall. He had a scientist to drag out of bed and an army to co-opt from Heidegger to send on a rescue mission. 

Gods, let it be a rescue. Veld wasn’t ordinarily the praying sort, but he had some soft spots that were bruising easily these days. Shiva, please, he thought, don’t let this be a retrieval.

Sephiroth stared down at the remains of his PHS, his heavy breathing not nearly as false as he’d meant it to be. There had been something weirdly satisfying about bringing down a loose brick onto the device, and he stepped up to the filthy channel running down the middle of the tunnel and dropped it into the water with a plop. He flung the brick further along the path, trying to distance it from its purpose. 

He wasn’t entirely copying what he had seen in the children’s spy movie, although he had taken a great deal of inspiration from it. He thought the correct term was ‘artistic license’, in the changes he had made. Without the fictional wrist mounted video screen and camera, he was happy not to have had to worry about schooling his features into the proper expressions, The gadgets and tools the film had showcased were things more relegated to science fiction, or at least devices that had not yet made it out of the technological development arm of the Shinra Corporation. 

Crouching down, he caught his breath for a moment. He wasn’t sure how much time he had to stage the ‘crime scene’ as it were, but he had enough to do it properly. 

The smell of blood was almost unnoticeable with the other that permeated the sewer when he began to pull his uniform and armor out of the garbage bag. He couldn’t have planned that part better, that it hadn’t had a chance to be cleaned since he’d been wounded the day before. Blood still stained the cloth, dried onto his pauldrons and arm guards. 

He would miss the boots, he knew, once he made his way out of the city. The canvas shoes he’d stolen were a little too big, although he supposed it was better than too small, and wouldn’t last long trekking through the Midgar wasteland. He fished around inside the garbage bag for a moment and pulled out his Materia bangle and his katana, leaving the rest inside and hiding that in the alcove — a guard hound would easily find it, and leaving it in the nondescript bag would look appropriate for someone leaving it behind. 

Another thought occurred to him as he tried to think of other ways to ‘sell’ his disappearance or demise, whichever way the Turks decided was correct. He had been warned multiple times of the possibility he might be taken, for the purpose of corporate sabotage, and he thought that would be the most likely assumption. There was one thing that the professor would look for, that would give away the possibility that he was not a victim but an accomplice in his own theft. He pressed a hand against his chest.

Sephiroth closed his eyes and, before he could convince himself otherwise, pulled the locket from its hiding place and gave it a yank to snap the chain. He opened it and carefully pulled his mother’s picture out of the metal before snapping it in half… another thought had him tearing off the smallest corner from the image and tucking it back in place before flinging the pieces close to the edge of the channel filled with reeking sewage. Hopefully it would look as though the image was merely lost, but he thought better and tossed the bit with the scrap of paper into the water just in case. The photograph would be quicker to deteriorate in the effluvium.

He knew he had one last chance here to give up, to put his uniform back on and claim he escaped with only minor injuries, to go back to the tower and succumb to the will and whim of his superiors and become what they wanted. 

He remembered how soft and fragile Wedge’s hand had been in his, how the boy’s heartbeat had been warm and steady under his fingers. That had been the moment Sephiroth had realized he would rather die than be sent to kill innocents who would look at him like the monster they demanded he become. 

Sephiroth walked away, leaving the bloody uniform behind and feeling lighter than he’d ever known. 

It was easier than expected to get out of the city, people were more likely to be noticed trying to sneak in than they were to sneak out, but only the six major entrances were truly surveilled in a meaningful way. It was harder to get across the wasteland than he expected though, the distance much further than it seemed on a map. 

He hadn’t been certain where he might escape to when he had formulated his plans, but now that he thought about it he had a destination in mind. When he had been very young, they had resided in a laboratory on the Western Continent. The laboratory itself had been concealed beneath a large manor set a ways apart from the village that huddled at the base of Mount Nibel, and he had a very distinct memory that was now drawing him towards it. 

The first time he had learned his mother’s name was the last day they had spent in the mansion, packing up professor Hojo’s most valuable equipment and his personal effects, Sephiroth had been allowed to wander about the building to stay out of the way. There had been a portrait, a rather large one, on the second story… Professor Hojo had stood beside a seated woman, her expression so soft and kind that Sephiroth had been instantly transfixed. As they’d left the place behind, he had asked after the woman in the portrait… and professor Hojo had told him she was his mother, Jenova.

He’d been gifted the locket not long after they had settled into the lab in Midgar, the first material possession he had ever received that was his alone to keep. He’d never taken it off except when he was receiving Mako showers and submersions, or after he had bathed, putting it back on as soon as he could.

Touching the place where the locket had been, Sephiroth sat down in a bit of shade beneath a rocky outcropping and pulled out the paper bag he had concealed within his tucked in t-shirt. He stared at his mother’s photo as he ate the packed meal, eating only half of the food and sucking down the small box of juice to hydrate himself for the long journey. He put the rest of the cookies in the same plastic bag as the sandwich and turned the empty one inside out to rid it of crumbs before placing the photo into it. It would be waterproof, and much safer to keep the picture in, and he felt a little better as he got to his feet and continued on his way.

The sound of a vehicle startled him, and he nearly leaped out of his skin as he realized the noise of the engine had been growing steadily closer — he blamed the sheer weariness of two sleepless days made up of battling monsters and anxiety, cursing himself for being so stupid as to be caught now of all times.

A swell of relief left him feeling almost lightheaded when he turned to see a battered truck pulling to a stop beside him, rather than a Shinra military vehicle. The man behind the wheel was scruffy and a little past middle age, a dingy bandana holding back hair that was more gray than brown and his eyes were sharp as he took in Sephiroth’s equally scruffy state. 

“Hey kid, get your ass on up in here,” the driver demanded, “come ‘round the other side, back’s fulla stuff.”

Sephiroth hesitated, wondering whether he should prevaricate and avoid the man, but whether he fled the stranger’s presence or not he would have been seen by him regardless. Would it be better or worse to go along with him? Worse, probably, he realized. If he refused the man’s assistance, he might call and report a lone traveler in the wasteland without supplies and thus theoretically in danger. 

“Yes sir, thank you very much,” Sephiroth said as he circled the truck and climbed up into the passenger seat. The stranger took in the katana Sephiroth slotted between his knees to keep it close, and he wondered if the man was gauging whether or not the weapon could be drawn in the close confines of the truck’s interior. 

“Ain’t nobody calls me sir,” the man cackled, turning his attention back to the road and putting the vehicle into gear, “name’s Bill, you just call me that. How’s about you, son, you gotta name?”

Sephiroth’s mind went utterly blank for a few seconds before he blurted out the first thing that came to mind, “My name is Nova, Mr. Bill.”

“Smart-ass,” the man was grinning as he said it, cutting the insult into something less rude somehow, “I ain’t a mister either. Let’s get goin’, Nova.”

Inexplicably, Sephiroth found himself dozing as they drove through the dusty wasteland, falling asleep long before they reached the distant band of green that marked the end of the dead zone around the city. It seemed as though he merely blinked tiredly, and when he opened his eyes he was surrounded by green.

“Ya sure you don’t want a job?” Bill asked as he forced two bottles of water into Sephiroth’s hands, “could use a hand for a bit around here.”

Sephiroth was almost tempted, almost. It was so peaceful out in the grasslands, even with the occasional monster he knew would be lurking in the wilder areas of the plains. It was a foolish thought, staying so close to Midgar would be a terrible mistake, he knew.

“I am alright,” Sephiroth said, after another moment, “I am going to see my mother and I would like to get there as soon as possible.”

“If you’re sure,” Bill looked skeptical, “but if you ever change your mind you can come back and give me a hand around the ol’ place.”

Sephiroth nodded gravely as he left the chocobo farm behind.

Chapter Text

A very different boy walked through the gates of Nibelheim, a dark green bandana concealing his closely cropped hair with better clothing and proper boots for long treks. It hadn’t taken him long to realize how he might make his way, the Healing Materia in his bangle maturing and budding as he’d made his way across the Eastern Continent. It had been a simple thing to sell the mastered orb, keeping the new one for himself after he’d purchased the appropriate supplies, and keeping some back to pay for passage on a fishing vessel in Junon. He’d kept the Fire, of course, as artificially produced orbs never advanced past the single spell it could cast.

Sephiroth adjusted the strap he’d bought to carry his sword across his back, a bit uneasy as eyes turned on him from every passerby in the small village, wondering if he should ask where the mansion was located or whether it would be better to simply search for it himself. He decided on the latter, vaguely recalling that it had been some ways uphill from the village square, and began to walk.

He hadn’t gone far out of the town before concerning noises reached his ears and he hesitated only a few seconds before going to find the source: scuffles, a yelp, the sound of fists on flesh that meant a fight. 

“Stop it!” he found himself yelling as he came upon the startling tableaux — three older children, one nearly a teenager, had a very small boy between him that they were shoving back and forth. The boy’s blond hair was dirty, a cut on his lower lip bleeding down his chin and his clothing covered in dirt. He looked younger than Biggs, perhaps seven or eight at a guess, and he looked far more angry than afraid, even so outnumbered.

As the three boys spun to gape at Sephiroth, the smaller boy took the opportunity to leap up and punch his oldest assailant in the back of his head — the blond grunted and Sephiroth was well used to the sound of a finger breaking from how hard he’d struck. 

Caught between Sephiroth, one hand reaching back as though he might draw the weapon sticking up over his shoulder, and the little boy who seemed fully intent to keep fighting even with his injuries, the older boys fled.

“Come here,” Sephiroth twitched his fingers towards the boy, “allow me to heal that.”

The boy bit at his lip and winced as the cut there bled fresh, “I’m okay, for real, you don’t have to.”

“If you let me heal it,” Sephiroth said slowly, “I could…”

He wasn’t sure why he offered, perhaps it was only that he remembered how frustrating it had been to be so much smaller and being trained by full adults who didn’t care if they broke his wrists when he couldn’t block their blows, but he added, “I could show you how to throw a punch without breaking your fingers.”

“Okay, thanks!” the boy said as he held his hand out, barely flinching as Sephiroth pulled the broken digit straight before casting a Cura that took care of the split in his lips as well as his finger, “I’m Cloud, do you wanna come home for dinner?”

“I’m Nova,” Sephiroth answered, giving the name he had used for his entire journey. He should go find the mansion, he reminded himself, but it was nearly evening, and he was still uncertain where to begin looking… He nodded, and the boy's face lit up. “I would like that, Cloud.”

Veld stretched his legs out in front of him, the warm weight of his daughter curled asleep on his chest and his wife dozing off beside him. The movie Felicia had been begging to watch was still playing on the television, and he couldn’t reach for the remote control without waking her. He resigned himself to his fate and turned his attention back to the poorly acted children’s movie, the uninspired script and cheap special effects at least a distraction from his messy thoughts. 

He rested a hand on Felicia’s back, feeling her heart beating against his palm and relaxing by degrees. She was drooling on his shirt, fingers curled into the t-shirt he’d changed into, face completely peaceful. 

Every day since Sephiroth’s disappearance, he’d called his family and listened to his child’s innocent babble about anything that crossed her mind. The past few days had been the first he’d been able to make it to their shared home in Kalm, and every night he’d found himself standing over Felicia’s bed and watching her breathe, sleeping safely beneath his protection. 

In the months since the incident, there had been no sign of Sephiroth, no ransom demand, and no body turning up. They’d found his bloody uniform and armor shoved into a trash bag, the clothing too battered and armor too distinctive to keep or sell. The Materia and bangle were both missing, along with the sword, both far too valuable to leave behind no matter who was responsible. 

There had only been a small amount of blood at the scene, which fit what was likely a sucker punch to the face or head that he had heard the boy receive on the aborted call for help. Hojo had explained the broken remnants of a locket on the scene, one half of it dredged from the sewer water along with a broken PHS, and that had stopped the man’s ramblings of Sephiroth having absconded on his own. Veld had already discarded that theory before they’d even found Sephiroth’s gear. Like Cissnei had been, Veld was certain he was too well conditioned to attempt anything of the sort. 

Veld had several theories, but the one he found most likely was that the boy had been taken in order to reverse engineer the SOLDIER process. If such a thing was possible, it would take years for his abductors to come up with a prototype of their own, and there was no way of knowing whether Sephiroth would have survived whatever they’d done to him.

After Hojo had been terminated for incompetence, literally so, at Veld’s hand as he couldn’t be allowed to leave with the knowledge to create SOLDIERs for their enemies out of spite, whatever Sephiroth’s abductors might do with him might be kinder than what Shinra had. He’d been wrong about the boy’s supposed welfare, the paper and video records of his upbringing enough to make the agent responsible for going through them beg Veld to take her off the case. Veld had assigned himself to the job afterwards, and understood quickly why she’d been unable to continue.

Lost in thought, Veld was only half paying attention to the plot unfolding on the TV, and it was only the fact that the scene looked incredibly familiar that he was drawn back into the story. The children on the screen skulked through a large sewer pipe, plotting quietly as they evaded the villains and left metaphorical breadcrumbs in their wake. 

One of them used the contrived plot device of a wrist PHS with a video screen to make an impassioned report of pursuit, smashing it against the wall halfway through a plea for assistance before hurling it into the water and breaking into muffled giggles alongside her friends. 

He felt his face go pale, hand stilling from where he’d been rubbing between Felicia’s shoulders. 

“Fuck,” he hissed under his breath, but all the tension melted out of him as he watched the kids shove their little suits into a drain pipe and slip away. He was still shaking his head and occasionally swearing quietly as the film came to its conclusion and the credits began to roll.

“Keep running,” he muttered, understanding just how much he’d been played and breaking into an almost hysterical fit of coughing laughter that nearly woke both of his girls.

“I don’t even care you got me,” he whispered under his breath, carefully getting up to put Felicia to bed and more than ready to get the best sleep he’d had since this fiasco started. “You fucking earned it kid.”