Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ Price for a Memory ❯ R.1.K.U. ( Chapter 15 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]
15.

Boredom etched across the blond’s face. Another boring lecture about the potential uses of materia. Cloud sighed softly so as to not be caught and shouted at again.

He let his mind drift back to the talk he had with Zack and the General. Could they be right about his father? What experiments were they talking about? Were they really as life threatening as they had made out? What was the deal with the General’s wing?

So many questions best left alone.

“Strife!”

Cloud snapped back to reality upon hearing his name being yelled out.

“Y-Yes Sir?!”

“What was I talking about there?!”

Cloud paled. He didn’t have a damn clue what the old arse was talking about. Personally he didn’t care. He knew how to use materia. After all, he wasn’t an idiot. Better think up an answer quickly though.

“You were talking about….how….certain….”

“Get out boy.”

Cloud growled under his breath as Cadet after Cadet sniggered at him for being thrown out of class yet again. Slamming the door behind him, Cloud slumped his slim body against the wall outside the room.

“This stinks.”

Reaching up he took hold of the pendant around his neck. Clicking it open he stared at the figures in the small picture.

“Miss you mum.”

He did miss home and his mother. Even though he had no real friends there bar Tifa.

Glancing at the face of his father, his stomach flipped.

“What are you trying to tell me?”

“Hey Spiky! You talking to yourself again?”

Cloud snapped his head up at the sound of the rambunctious voice rapidly approaching him. The bounding figure matched the voice perfectly. Flame red hair accentuated the voice and body.

“Hey Reno. You been thrown out your lecture too?”

“Me? I am an angel….HAH! Launched a paper rocket down the lecture hall and smacked my instructor in the head. Got bored standing outside the room so I’m taking a walk.”

Cloud couldn’t help but smirk at the red heads behaviour. He couldn’t work out why he had not been thrown out due to his constant bad behaviour and blatant disregard for authority. He had even stuck his fingers up at the General behind his back.

“Wanna come with Spiky?”

“Ummmmmm……”

Cloud weighed up the pro’s and con’s about bunking out of class. He only found one con which was being sent to the General for discipline.

“On second thoughts that isn’t really a con.”

“What isn’t?”

“Nothing. Lets go.”

Both blond and red head sprinted down the corridor and out the main front entrance to the compound. Both snuck behind large vans as they waited on their chance to shoot out the front gates. The second both guards on duty turned away, a flash of yellow and red shot past them and out into the city.

Aquamarine eyes followed the two blurs as they flew from the compound before turning and heading down towards the laboratories.

Sephiroth descended the many stairs towards the labs. Damn how he hated being there. Although he did not admit it, he quivered every time he heard that mad man’s name.

Drawing in a shaky breath to try and calm him self down. Sephiroth, as calmly as he could slid the door to the lab open.

“You wanted to see me Hojo?”

“Ah yes. Come sit.”

Shaking legs guided Sephiroth over to the table he had to sit on.

------

“So Spiky? How you liking it here?”

“I would like it much better if you didn’t refer to me as Spiky.”

“Fine then. Blondie.”

Cloud glared over at the male walking just to his left. Both had made it out of the compound and were currently strolling through the different sectors that made up the slums of Midgar.

“Yeh its ok. Kinda miss home though. Miss my mum. I sound like a kid but hey….”

“I know how you feel. I miss my home too. Miss my brother most though. He’s cool. He wanted to come here but failed the exams and just didn’t want to try again.”

“What’s he like?”

“He’s my twin. Axel. You’d get along great with him. He’s just like me!”

Reno burst out laughing as Cloud visibly squirmed at the thought of another person on the planet being like the fiery red head beside him.

The two had walked and talked for what seemed like hours before Reno grabbed the blond and pulled him backwards into a wall.

“Reno?! What is it?!”

“Shhh….look there.”

Cloud peered round the corner to spot his commanding officer Zack perched on top of a wall chatting to a pretty brunette girl. One of his arms draped over her shoulders. One of her hands rested on his knee. His heart seemed to sink slightly on noticing them. The same male he had quite passionately kissed weeks previous.

The girl burst into fits of giggles. Her voice floated through the air like little tiny angels singing.

“She’s pretty hot.” Reno exclaimed in the blond’s ear. “I’d do her.”

“Reno!”

The two continued to spy on their superior as he continued to chat up this girl. Both males cringed when Zack whispered something in her ear making her immediately blush and look away.

------

Sephiroth sat atop the sterile table in the lab nervously watching the Professor Hojo shoot about the place mixing this. Jotting that down. Eyeing up the next thing.

His guts churned inside him. He had no idea why he was so scared to come here. The great General of ShinRa was not supposed to be scared of anything. And here he was, scared of the very table he balanced on. Running seemed to be very appealing to the silver haired male.

“Ok. Now where were we? Coat off.”

Damn. Too late.

Sephiroth quivered slightly as he removed his leather coat revealing his bare torso and arms. A shiver crept up his spine leaving tiny goose bumps in its wake. A dull ache spread across his right shoulder.

“Not now.” He willed strongly to himself.

“No need to look so panicked boy. All I need is a simple blood test.”

Sephiroth said nothing but presented his arm. God’s curse him for having such enticing veins. He hated blood tests. They hurt like hell.

Sephiroth looked away to the other side of the room as the needle came ever closer to his creamy white flesh. His gaze caught sight of something quite familiar.

Aquamarine eyes widened as they caught side of a small glass canister with the name R.1.K.U. attached to it. The canister was smaller than the one he had found, but the name? Just the same.

“What are you looking at boy?”

Silver hair whirled round his face as he whipped his head round to look at the face presented before him.

“N-nothing. Nothing at all. Is there anything else I am required to do, or can I return to my duties? I have a couple of Cadet’s to chase up.”

“That’s all.”

As Sephiroth pulled his coat on, he kept one eye on the scientist.

Hojo emptied the syringe with Sephiroth’s blood in it into a test tube and swirled it around a few times. Next he pulled another frozen looking test tube from the canister Sephiroth noticed earlier. Taking the two and pouring them into one, both mixtures swirled together before turning a vivid, pulsing, almost beating aquamarine green.

Sephiroth mentally noted everything before slipping out the lab unnoticed.

“Perfect. You will be mine.”

------

Cloud was bored. Watching two people from a distance and not being able to hear them, had lost its appeal ages ago.

“Come on Reno. Lets get the hell outta here. This is getting old….fast.”

“No….wait, wait. It’s getting good!”

Both watched as the raven haired male closed the gap between the two of them. Cloud’s face reddened slightly as he noticed his Commander’s hand edging up from the girls knee.

“Lets go. I don’t think he will be chuffed if he catches us perving over him and his girl friend.”

“Tch, fine. Spoil sport.”

Both males slunk away from the wall and headed back the way they had came. Reno seemed to have something on his mind. He kept pulling faces which seemed to indicate he was thinking about something or generally just being stupid.

“What’s wrong?”

“Hmm? Oh nothing. I just always thought Zack was….you know? Into guys?”

“Maybe he goes both ways?” Cloud immediately cut in mentally kicking himself for even answering Reno.

------

Hojo still hovered around his lab. Something had gone wrong. The previously “alive” mixture had turned black and had died.

“I need something more than blood. I must need….”

He scratched his greasy hair covered head before slapping his hand on the work top in stark realisation.

“I have it! That’s what I need!….Now, if only I could find another vessel for 5.O.R.A., everything would be perfect.”

His maniacal laughter reverberated throughout the lab.