God knows I know I've thrown away those graces

Sephiroth heard the gym doors close very quietly behind him, but their two-inch thickness did not prevent him from hearing the frantic whispers and thumping of sneakered feet as the other trainees made good their escape. A muscle in his cheek jumped; he couldn't really blame them for leaving, not after what happened with what's-his-name -- Pendel, that was it -- last week. It was to be expected now, after all.

He sighed inwardly, watching the sand and small pieces of lumpy red brick spill onto the floor like bean-bag blood from a torn doll. Blue eyes travelled up the steady stream of faintly-sparkling stuffing to the gaping hole in the scuffed, dark walnut leather, following individual grains to the polished floor. Better you than them, he thought bitterly at the ripped punching bag. You have less gore to clean up after.

Sephiroth stood there for a long time, waiting, watching, thinking of nothing and everything, until the brick-laden sand had stopped flowing and the bag was spinning crookedly from the chain. Stretching up on his toes, his hands found the release, spun it open with a practiced, almost negligent, flick of slender fingers, took the limp bag down; feet carried him to the dark, musty storage room, then back to the chain with a new-smelling punching bag slung over shoulder; hands raised the new bag to the chain, latched the links and hook together, spun the release closed with another effortless movement of fingers.

As he swept up the debris with a broom from the storage closet, he wondered how many times this made. Eight? Nine? He shrugged to himself as he dumped sand from the dustbin into a nearby trashcan. It doesn't matter. It's definitely not the first time, and it probably won't be the last, either. Bricks tinkled, glass-like, as he dumped more sand into the trash. I wonder if anyone's seen them running for their precious lives yet.

It was only after the mess had been cleaned up and the cleaning implements put away that that last was answered; he was heading for the gymnasium exit opposite the one the others had taken when the doors behind him swung open with an audible click and thump.

"Sephiroth."

Ah, shit. They would have told him first. He stopped in place, rearranged his expression into blankness, then slowly turned around to see Major General Heidegger waddling towards him. When the older man was but a few feet away from him, he affected a polite bow and, tone divulging nothing as he straightened to stand at ease, said, "Good afternoon, sir. What can I do for you?"

Privately, he was amazed at how Heidegger had been able to keep his ranking for so long, let alone made it to that of general; although he was certain that the dark-bearded man had been in fairly good shape at one time, the beginnings of a sagging stomach were plainly visible beneath the dark green uniform, the once-aquiline nose was cultivating a knob at its tip, the muddy hazel eyes sporting ever-increasing purplish circles under them while developing a crow-footed squint.

It's not fair, fumed Sephiroth as disgust rose in his gut. Ever since he somehow managed to save President Shinra's life when the executive meeting room flooded and the wiring in the ceiling broke loose when the pipes went, he's really let himself go. All he did was pull the old man up onto the table with him. He kept his snort of mingled amusement and disbelief silent. They all but share the same bed now, though I've no doubt Heidegger's "borrowed" the use of a couch or floor in some drunken orgy at least once. Anger sparked brightly, quenched itself in careful control. And yet President Shinra sees fit to give the reins of my training into the hands of this neighing booby. Does he think so little of me that he needs must foist me off on this -- this bootlicker? He eyed Heidegger, who had come to a stop before him, with a distaste he could not quite conceal. Or is it that he just doesn't have anyone better?

"Sephiroth," Heidegger said again, oblivious to the glint in the blue eyes looking down at him. The high-pitched nasal whine in his voice, as it always did, made Sephiroth clench his teeth to prevent a reflexive wince from emerging. "We need to talk."

Sephiroth all but forced his jaw to relax. "About what, sir?" he asked, voice polite, tone neutral, just as before.

Pudgy fingers twiddled absently with the ends of chest-length, coarse black beard. "The other trainees," replied Heidegger, whose interest seemed to lay more in a concern for finding split ends rather than the issue he'd come to discuss.

"What about them, sir?"

Heidegger still did not look up to meet his gaze. "I ran into Degan, Erdat, Vasich, Hoskin, Jastyn and Cevin a little while ago. They seemed rather, um, concerned for you."

Sephiroth kept his face expressionless as he glanced at what appeared to be faint floor dust marks on the front of Heidegger's uniform, around the chest and legs. I bet they ran into him. "How so, sir?"

This time Heidegger did look up. "Degan said you appeared to, uh, desire solitude when you rejoined the afternoon exercise session."

How quaintly put. "Is that so, sir?"

The muddy hazel eyes squinted up at him, reminding him of the watery, myopic ones of the lab assistant. "Would you mind telling me how he reached that conclusion, Sephiroth?"

The fingertips of his left hand twitched. Since it was behind his back, Heidegger did not see the motion. Actually, yes, I would mind. "I'm not quite certain. I entered the gym and they left shortly after, sir."

"I see." Heidegger looked down at his beard again, idly picking at a tangle with thick fingers. "Do you know I received an interesting report from Dr. Lundsky about ten minutes ago?"

The scientist. Lips tightened briefly. This keeps getting better and better. "No, sir."

"She said -- " fingers painstakingly separated small knots into individual strands " -- that you appeared to be dissatisfied with the testing methods that the research team has been employing in order to measure your progress." Once more the muddy hazel eyes peered at his face. "Is this true, Sephiroth?"

Sephiroth's chin lifted slightly so he was staring over Heidegger's head at the doors. He managed to keep the anger that rose within him anew out of his voice as he recalled the discussion in the stairwell. "Yes, sir."

"Care to explain yourself?"

"Permission to speak freely, sir."

Heidegger nodded.

"With all due respect to the scientists, sir, the tests they've been giving me to do -- " one eye narrowed for an instant as it twitched " -- are an insult to my intelligence and my abilities. What they want me to do, I could have done before my age was halfway into double digits. I would rather be spending my time doing something a little more constructive, sir."

Abruptly the muddy hazel eyes were unsettlingly clear. "Have you ever wondered why they feel the need to ask such things of you?" Heidegger smoothed his beard back down into place.

Sephiroth's lips tightened again. "Several times, sir. Except no one will tell me very much." A trace of bitterness crept into his tone.

"Would you like me to tell you in terms you can understand?"

Inwardly he flinched away from the scorn in Heidegger's voice even as part of him shrieked with indignation at so being addressed. Rather than displaying any of it, he stiffened to stand almost at attention while keeping his hands behind his back. "That would be helpful, sir."

"Very well, then." Heidegger put his own hands behind his back and looked straight at the tall boy before him. "The reason they want you to do these things in order to see where the limits of your abilities lie is, quite simply, because no one's ever encountered anyone like you. Are you following me so far?"

"Yes, sir," replied Sephiroth stiffly.

The older man nodded and began to walk around him in a slow circle. "You may think that what they ask you to do is stupid and boring, and that may very well be -- for you. I've seen some of the tests they've asked you to perform; has it ever occurred to you that most of the things you've done are beyond the capabilities of most people your age, let alone before those whose ages are yet to reach double digits, which is why they -- oh, how did Dr. Lundsky put it -- ooh and ahh over everything you do?"

It had. On a daily basis. Which is how they make me feel like some well-trained dog performing tricks at a show. "Sometimes, sir."

Heidegger was now directly behind him. "I'm sure you've noticed by now that you're not quite like the other boys around you, Sephiroth. Dr. Lundsky mentioned in her report that she thought this may be bothering you to some extent."

Sephiroth blinked in surprise, then was instantly glad Heidegger couldn't see it.

Heidegger was now by his left elbow. "So I talked to Dr. Lundsky for a little while, and we thought it might be in your best interest if you worked with the research team instead of arguing with them," he said casually. "We thought, instead of the scientists coming up with set tasks that end up being a joke to you, you could help show them what you can do in such a way that both your time and theirs is constructively spent." He paused in front of Sephiroth. "Does that sound like a better idea to you, trainee?"

After a moment, Sephiroth asked quietly, "What would be expected of me, sir?" Mentally, he revised his opinion of the middle-aged, asthmatic woman who had dogged him down several hallways and two flights of stairs. Maybe I was too hard on her. At least someone's actually trying. Then again, maybe this was just what was needed to wake them all up.

Heidegger began pacing back and forth. "For starters, I thought we might work more on your martial skills -- get more into hand-to-hand stuff, weaponry, Materia handling, that sort of thing. The researchers will observe from either their lab or in person from a distance and take notes. About time the damned rats came out of their hole, eh?" Crooked teeth unexpectedly split the beard.

Sephiroth had to fight off a sudden grin of his own. He doesn't like them either. Maybe this won't turn out too badly after all.

"For their purposes, you may or may not be asked to wear a sensor on your wrist; it looks like a watch, so don't worry about it getting in the way or anyone else giving you a hard time about it," the bearded major general continued, still pacing. "The other trainees are, well, understandably squeamish about being around you these days, but they'll just have to get used to it. You'll probably end up working with each other someday." Abruptly a callused finger was in Sephiroth's face. "Which means no more temper tantrums whenever someone makes a few jokes in your direction. You will either loosen up and take it like a man, joke back like the rest of us human beings or ignore them altogether. Do you hear me, boy?"

Sephiroth swallowed. "Yes, sir," he replied through clenched teeth. His forearms had spasmed with staving off an instinctive grab-and-snap koppojutsu movement when Heidegger's hand had come up, and were now throbbing with a palpable ache.

The finger disappeared and Heidegger resumed pacing. "Good. That one time you lost it was once too many." He stopped pacing and gave Sephiroth a hard stare. In that moment, he was very much the general. "Did you know that, once word of that incident got out, the number of applicants to Shin-Ra's SOLDIER program dropped off by almost ninety-three percent?" The angry question echoed in the gymnasium.

Teeth gritted briefly. "No, sir."

"Well, now you know," replied Heidegger sharply. "Do you realize how difficult it was for President Shinra to write that letter to Pendel's parents? Most folks get a letter like that after their son's been killed in battle, not before." Hazel eyes blazed. "We need all the bodies we can get, applicants for special programs and regulars alike. We don't exactly have people pouring into the recruiting office in droves -- " the finger came up again, oblivious to the barely-controlled twitch of Sephiroth's forearms " -- and your childish reaction to Pendel's teasing did a fantastic job of scaring most of them away. From now on, try to be significantly less fantastic in at least that one regard, hm?"

Sephiroth's face hardened until it felt carved from granite. "Yes, sir."

"Good." The glare faded, finger dropping back to Heidegger's side. "The new program for you starts tomorrow after breakfast. In the meantime, I want you to think very hard about what we've discussed here. Just so you know, you'll probably be asked to go with the research team to their lab from time to time to verify conflicting results -- I don't want to hear any more reports of you storming off in the middle of anything, no matter how banal it seems, do you understand?" Heidegger didn't wait for an answer. "Your full cooperation, and nothing less than your full cooperation, is expected of you. Am I making myself clear, Sephiroth?"

This time, Sephiroth did stand at attention. "Yes, sir."

Heidegger nodded to himself, then glanced down at his chronocomm. "There's twenty-five minutes before supper mess. You can do, oh, twenty laps around the Midgar city circuit before then, can't you? Without disturbing anyone or knocking stuff over," he added idly.

Each lap through the maze of streets and humanity-clogged neighborhoods was ten klicks, and if he was so much as a minute late getting into the mess hall, he wouldn't be let in to eat. It'll be a bloody miracle if I make it in time 'without disturbing anyone or knocking stuff over', Sephiroth thought bitterly. And Heidegger knows that. "Yes, sir."

"Good boy. Get to it, then. You're dismissed."

Sephiroth saluted crisply, then immediately turned and walked out the doors he'd been heading for, closing them quietly. A quick glance through one of the windows overlooking the rest of Midgar showed a steady drizzle coming down, prompting him to grab a black sweatshirt with hood from a hook beside the gym doors. He pulled it over his head as he took the rest of the corridor leading outside at a run.

As the first fat, salty-smelling drops splattered onto the hood, Sephiroth quietly made a promise to himself.