"Stop."
He ignored the voice behind him and kept walking.
"Stop!"
Lips pressing into a thin line, he quickened his pace, deliberately stretching out long legs, fully knowing the person following him would have to run to keep up.
"--stop--"
His mouth twisted wryly. When was body language not sufficient answer when speech was obviously not forthcoming? The white-coated and civilian-clothed people in his path could decipher it well enough, apparently; most of them darted out of the way to the relative safety of the research wing's bland white walls upon seeing the black mood manifesting in his thunderous expression.
"Wait you -- please -- " Shoes clattered on the polished floor, tapping out an erratic staccato as she hurried after him.
He heard the desperation in her tone and debated slowing down, though he had no idea where he was going and really didn't care at the moment. He just needed to be away.
"Please, Sephiroth -- " She was breathing heavily from her efforts to follow him now. A faint squeak, stumble and muttered curse indicated one of her heels had broken loose in her pursuit; the staccato, when it resumed, was now missing a beat.
"Why should I stop?" he grated through stiff lips, having no similar trouble with the waxed floor. "So you can make me go back there and finish those ridiculous -- exercises -- " he spat it out, making it an epithet "-- like a good little boy?" His posture, already rigid, stiffened further. "I think not."
"But -- they're necessary -- " she managed between gulps of air.
Scientists, he sneered to himself. Reaching the stairwell at the end of the level, he yanked open the heavy door angrily, taking some small pleasure in hearing it slam loudly against the wall and the short, rectangular glass pane imbedded in the door's center shatter into tinkling fragments with the impact. "Necessary? For who?" he said tightly, taking the steps down two at a time.
Her strained breathing echoed in the stairwell behind him as the limping staccato patter-thumped down the stairs. "Please -- slow down -- "
He saw the number painted in peeling red on the rust-speckled wall when he'd gone down two flights of steps: 37. "You have thirty-seven floors to explain to me just why I should bother with this nonsense any further." His ears then picked up the wheezing in her lungs, and, out of faintly guilty deference to her asthmatic state, lessened his downward stride to one step at a time, as well as his pace.
A few steps above him, she coughed and fumbled about in her pockets. Keys and loose change jingled mutely as her questing hand searched for something in the fraying, stained lab coat; the hiss of compressed gas discharging told him she'd found her inhalant medication. There was a pause in the noise of her half-heeled shoes, a long exhalation as the medication cleared her bronchial passages, then a frustrated sigh, followed by more uneven tapping of sole on concrete. "Sephiroth -- "
"Fine," he snapped, his tone unintentionally harsh with self-recrimination for making the weak-hearted, middle-aged woman suffer; she'd just been trying to do her job, after all, and it wasn't her fault he was going through this. He stopped on the stairs so abruptly she nearly stumbled into him. "Tell me why this is so necessary, then."
The watery hazel eyes behind thick lenses blinked in owlish surprise; even though he was three steps below her, he stood yet taller by a full two inches. They were standing almost close enough to knock gray-fringed forehead into silver-framed brow. Certainly they were close enough to see the other's expression clearly. "We -- we require these done to complete the test -- " she stammered.
"Test!" he spat, whirling on his heel and continuing his march downstairs. The wall that met his eyes at the bottom of the flight sported a '36' in fading green. He ignored the door set into the chipped stone beside it and began descending another set of steps. "You lead me to believe I'm nothing more than some fascinating specimen with all these tests! Always 'ooh'ing and 'ahh'ing over everything I do -- " he spun on her abruptly, only her hand on the thin rail avoiding a nose-to-nose collision " -- do you realize how that might make me feel?"
She blinked and swallowed heavily; clearly, the idea had never occurred to her, and if it had, it was in passing speculation. Her mouth, painted crookedly with smeared, day-old blood-red, worked for a moment, but no sound came out save for labored breathing. Pale fuzz smudged her upper lip, which gleamed faintly with sweat.
Ice-blue eyes glared into myopic hazel. "I thought not," he gritted. "Has it ever crossed your factoid mind -- " he jabbed an accusing finger at her head, ignoring her instinctive flinch away from it " -- that I might be sick of all these tests because they're so far beneath me? That I could have done all these nice little tasks when I was three?"
She tried to speak, failed; swallowed audibly and tried again. "We -- we had no idea how quickly you could adapt to new situations -- that's why we need to do this, to measure your abilities -- "
"By everyone else's yardstick," he interrupted coldly.
One of her knobby-fingered hands fluttered in the air at her side helplessly, rustling against worn fabric. "What else could we do?" she protested, finally gaining enough air into strained lungs to speak without wheezing. "You're so far ahead of everyone else that anything we think of proves inadequate to previous studies -- "
"Then rewrite the damned manuals," he snapped. "I don't much care how -- guess if you have to. Most of your current studying -- " his lip curled in derision at the word " -- is guesswork anyway. Why not keep on guessing and leave me out of it?" Teeth ground in barely contained frustration as he turned and began heading down to the level 35 landing, marked in scratched blue. "You might actually get something right for a change that way."
She patter-thumped after him, still trying valiantly to stay with him. "But -- " the word came out throttled with panting " -- but, Sephiroth, we need -- "
"I'm sick of hearing about what you need!" he exploded at the hapless lab assistant, jerking the level 35 door open roughly with a squeal of neglected hinges. His shout reverberated throughout the entire stairwell and most of the level beyond, causing curious heads to peer out of doorways to see what the noise was, then disappear just as quickly upon seeing the source. "In which millenia will what I need start mattering to anyone?" he demanded angrily. His eyes all but pinioned her to the wall.
Momentarily taken aback, the trembling woman asked faintly, voice rattling in her throat, "Well, what do you need, Sephiroth?"
For you to stop making me feel like a freak. But he did not say it aloud. He refused to give anyone the pleasure. Instead, Sephiroth leaned very close to the woman shrinking against the cold wall. Although only fourteen years old, he already dwarfed everyone from his height of six feet; such height at such an early age proved intimidating to some, and he used it in full measure now. Anything to get her to shut up and leave him alone. "Hasn't it occurred to you," he asked in low, dangerously calm tones, "that it might already be too late to ask me that?" With that, he carefully closed the rust-spotted door behind him, the hinges not even grinding as the door swung shut with a soft click.
The woman stared through the small, rectangular window after the tall figure in black as it receded rapidly down the hallway. Then she closed her eyes and leaned weakly against the 35-painted wall, sliding bonelessly down to a splayed-legged sitting position. Her hand fumbled in her pocket for her inhaler, and after she had taken another dose, released a shaky sigh that hissed into the emptiness of the stairwell.
Hojo was not going to be pleased.
