Chapter Text
"There's nothing wrong with you, sir."
Sephiroth frowned. "You're sure."
"Completely," the scientist said, glancing between her clipboard and the screen still monitoring Sephiroth's heart. "Pique physical condition, just as always."
"But the headaches..."
"Stress perhaps?" She shrugged. "Have you been sent out on a lot of missions lately?"
"The opposite. The most strenuous activity I've had outside of training has been paperwork."
"Some fresh air, then," she continued blithely, removing the cabled pads attached to various parts of Sephiroth's body. "Tension headaches are fairly common for those who are desk-bound, and you're probably just not used to it. A little exercise and you should feel fine."
Sephiroth wanted to argue but allowed himself to be shooed and slipped on his coat. But even as he made the long march from the science lab to the SOLDIER floor, he was far from soothed.
For weeks now, he'd been plagued with headaches, ones that fluctuated from a barely-there soreness to spikes of incredible pain. Coming to the lab had been a last resort, but after taking what felt like his body's weight in pain relief pills and casting enough Curagas to revive a dead behemoth, the last thing he expected was to be told, more or less, that it was all in his head.
I'm not crazy. It was the mantra he'd told himself for the better part of a week now, and some days it felt less true than others.
Even now, it flared again, of course when he was no longer attached to any monitoring equipment, and he heaved a great sigh of frustration. He'd have to go back to his room, draw the curtains, and hope a few hours of solitude and darkness would alleviate—
Like fire igniting in his head, Sephiroth felt an agony he'd never even approached before, sharp and severe enough to feel as if his skull were splitting.
He collapsed against the wall, one hand desperately trying to find purchase while the other flew to his head, mindlessly searching for the wound, for blood, something—
—a blade gleaming bright beneath the harsh lights, then the poking, the needles, the table was so cold and no one was picking them up and his brothers were crying, why are they hurting me?—
—Sephiroth gasped, confused and shocked by feelings that weren't his, by the visions and memories he'd never seen—
But, no. That wasn't right, was it? The lights, the table, the sterility—Sephiroth knew exactly where that room was, and he wasn't far from it.
Mouth set into a grim line, Sephiroth stalked purposely forward and into the nearest lab.
Hand already on the hilt of the Masamune, Sephiroth only thought to end the pain, to solve this confusing problem, to make it stop.
The last thing he expected, however, was to meet his own eyes.
The same unmistakable color of glowing green mako, eyes that set him apart even from other mako-enhanced SOLDIERs. Eyes that labeled him as something higher, something more, something set forever apart.
And yet, there they were. Meeting his in the face of a child.
There were three, to be exact. Nearly identical, all with deathly pale skin, silver hair, and Sephiroth's eyes.
All had been crying, silent tears pouring from their faces, but there was an almost preternatural stillness to them when Sephiroth entered the room, as if they were just as taken aback by his sudden appearance as he was by theirs.
After a moment of shocked staring, Sephiroth took the room in at large and saw the lab coat, the man holding the first babe's arm by the wrist. He saw the syringe, the needle just a breath away from piercing soft, vulnerable skin.
Masamune was flashing and only a hair away from the exposed neck of the scientist in less time than it took to blink.
"Remove yourself," Sephiroth ordered softly, voice like ice.
The scientist started to swallow, but his adam's apple touched the blade and he froze further, eyes wide and terrified.
Even still, he dared to protest, "B-But—I—I have orders, sir—"
Sephiroth twisted the blade, angled it to tip up the trembling chin.
"Ordered by whom?"
"By me."
Sephiroth didn't lower his blade, but his eyes cut to the corner of the room, where Professor Hojo was stepping away from the two orderlies cowering by the counter.
Hojo looked unimpressed—almost disdainful—of Sephiroth's prescence, like his interruption was somehow embarrassing or inconvenient.
"Is there any particular reason you've interrupted our work here, Sephiroth?"
"Your 'work' includes abusing children, now?"
Hojo's frown deepened. "These are not children, Sephiroth. Surely you can see that?"
Hojo approached, uncaring of the Masamune's proximity, and plucked at one child's arm.
"They are experiments." Hojo showed him the tiny wrist, the stark black numbers tattooed on white skin. A wave of nausea rolled through Sephiroth at the sight. "Failed, experiments, at that." He gave the little wrist a shake for emphasis, and the babe began crying.
The stab of a headache reared its head and Sephiroth simply reacted.
"Release him. Now."
Hojo did as he was told, his frown shifting into something more confused.
"Don't tell me you're getting attached?" Condescension dripped from his voice.
Sephiroth ignored him. "And what were your orders?" he asked instead, tilting the offending scientist's head up at an angle that had to feel uncomfortable.
Hojo shrugged. "To do what we always do with failed experiments: discard them."
The creaking of Sephiroth's glove was audible as he tightened his grip on the sword.
His voice reached sub-zero temperatures as he said, "You were going to euthanize babies—"
"This argument again?" Hojo shook his head, as if wearied by Sephiroth's ignorance. "A collection of cells, recovered genetic material—just things, Sephiroth, nothing more."
Just things, maybe, but they were things that were undeniably human, things that had Sephiroth's hair, his eyes, who were the only living creatures on this planet he might have something in common with, that might one day understand him.
The only things that kept him from being overwhelmingly, mercilessly alone.
"If they're really of such little consequence, release them to me."
Hojo's brow lifted, a rare expression of open amusement on his wrinkled features.
"Release them to you?" he echoed, chuckling. "You've been trained expertly in many things, Sephiroth, but child-rearing, I'm afraid, falls very short of your particular skill set."
"But they're not children," Sephiroth cut in brutally, eyes meeting Hojo's calmly, challengingly, "So there should be no issue."
Hojo simply looked at him for a moment—sizing him up, perhaps, or drawing out the moment before he denied Sephiroth even this.
The brittle silence was finally shattered when Hojo gave a superfluous wave of his hand.
"Very well, very well, take them; they're yours." He smirked openly, and as irritating a sight as that was, he'd at least conceded to Sephiroth's will. This could have turned out much differently.
Sephiroth finally tore his eyes away from Hojo to watch the scientist finally back away, his syringe of poison a safe distance away.
"Do they have clothes?"
Hojo beckoned over his shoulder and one of the orderlies snapped to attention, practically flying to a nearby cabinet to retrieve three small, white paper gowns.
It felt wrong to sheath the Masamune, but he needed both hands free.
It was a challenge, wrestling chubby, flailing limbs, but Sephiroth had faced the most legendary of warriors in the field and hunted creatures whose very sight could kill full-grown men; he would not be beaten by fussing.
He tried to ignore the staring of the small crowd, his skin crawling as the harsh lights, sterile atmosphere, and the misplaced sight of such pure innocence made an acute paranoia rise up within him; getting these children safe away from this room—from this floor—was paramount. Hojo had never been known to be fickle, but Sephiroth wasn't about to test that attribute now.
Without much thought to finesse, Sephiroth gathered the children, two in one arm, the one he'd nearly lost tucked in the other. They all stared up at him, unblinking, tear tracks stark on their faces.
"I'm afraid there is one condition to your new acquisition," Hojo cut in.
It was a physical effort not to tighten his hold.
"Oh?" he asked, ready to run. Whatever Hojo's plan, he'd made the mistake of letting Sephiroth get a hold of them; only death would pry them from his hands.
"It wouldn't do for you to neglect your duties simply because of a new hobby you've picked up. As long as you continue to perform at your usual level, there should be no problem."
The threat was heard loud and clear. Sephiroth did nothing to keep the warning from his voice as he asked, "And if I don't?"
Hojo smiled blithely. "Then I believe we'll skip the formalities. The Turks are more than capable of handling this kind of disposal."
It would be wrong to say that Sephiroth feared the Turks; there wasn't a person alive that he feared. But, for the first time, he truly feared for another. For these babies, who were perfectly defenseless, who—thanks to Hojo's threat—Sephiroth was only now realizing would need constant care and supervision, something that he'd be hard-pressed to find between a life already crammed tight with his work and missions.
But he wouldn't take it back now. He would make it work.
Sephiroth said nothing more. He strode from the room and didn't look back.