Work Text:
“We are strong, together,” he said, winding up his prepared remarks. “We can win this fight, together.”
The crowd burst into wild applause. Flash bulbs slapped his retinas, like the muzzle flashes from automatic weapons. Clapping became the staccato reports of machine-gun fire and cheering became the screams of the dying. He smelled cordite and blood. The earthy scent of wet ash. Nausea twisted his gut. He kept smiling.
“General Sephiroth will now take questions,” Shinra’s PR manager said, into the ancillary microphone.
A forest of hands shot up instantly. Sephiroth chose a pretty young reporter, in a crimson blazer, with dark brown hair and black framed glasses.
“Olivia Chang, Midgar Mail,” she said. “Isn’t all this teamwork and togetherness rhetoric a bit hypocritical coming from you, general? According to Shinra’s own records, you’ve taken more solo missions in your career than all the other SOLDIERs, combined.”
The crowd rustled and muttered, and many unfriendly looks were cast in her direction.
“You are correct, Ms. Chang,” Sephiroth said, silencing the other voices. “I have taken a lot of solo missions. But I have never gone on a mission alone. The tip of the spear is nothing, without the strength of the arm behind it. When I take a solo mission, the whole Shinra family goes with me. My brothers and sisters in the intelligence division, who verify information, scout mission locales, and make sure I’m not walking into a trap. My brothers and sisters in the airlift squadrons, who fly the aircraft in which I travel. My brothers and sisters in supply and logistics, who make sure the vehicles are fueled, and that I have food to eat and a blanket for my bed. The medical division, the weapons division, the meteorology division, the satellite systems division, right down to the troopers who keep Midgar’s streets safe, so I have a home to come back to—all of them go with me.”
The young woman looked a little taken aback, but refused to be flustered. “Are you saying you’re not as strong as Shinra would like us to believe?”
“Probably not as strong as they’d like you to believe, but I stay in pretty good shape,” Sephiroth smiled, at which the crowd laughed like it was cleverest joke they had ever heard. “My point is that, no matter how strong a soldier is, he is never as strong on his own as he is with someone he can rely on, to watch his back. I would not be standing here, today, without the support of all my brothers and sisters in the Shinra family. Next, uh, you, miss. In the green sweater.”
“Trisha Alvarez, Junon Intelligencer,” the woman said. She was a good deal older than the first, and had soft, matronly features. Her question, however, was anything but. “General, you claim Shinra is a family, but what about the families in Wutai that have been shattered by this war? What would you say, to the thousands of Wutaian children—”
There was an uproar of indignation from the crowd, but Sephiroth raised his hand. “It’s alright. Ms. Alvarez, please continue.”
“What would you say to the thousands of Wutaian children, who have become orphans, because of what you and your fellow SOLDIERs have done? Children whose parents you have killed?”
Sephiroth lowered his head. “I would say…I’m sorry.”
There was a rumble of confused murmuring in the crowd. The Shinra PR manager and Sephiroth’s handler appeared to be conferring hastily on whether to cut his mic, and neither of them looked happy.
“I would say I’m sorry,” Sephiroth repeated, in a softer, but still resonant voice. “I’m sorry that anyone in this world has to suffer. I’m sorry that violent conflict exists, as a means of settling differences between nations. If I could end war, as a concept, I would do so without a second thought. All I have ever wanted is a peaceful life. But, there’s something my mother used to tell me, growing up, that comes to mind, when it seems hopeless and I want to give up. She said, ‘Never fight, if you don’t have to. But if someone wants to hurt you, or the people you love, you stand up for yourself, and you don’t back down.’ I don’t want to fight, but I refuse to back down. I refuse to allow our innocent civilians to die, rather than stand up to our enemies. I refuse to sacrifice the lives of Midgar’s children, to an abstract ideal of peace, when there is someone out there who wants to hurt them, and I have the power to stop it. So, I will continue to fight for my family and for all of yours, because it’s the right thing to do. Just like my mother taught me.”
“General, you’ve never mentioned your mother, before,” Ms. Alvarez said, scenting the more sensational scoop and rapidly shifting tracks, to chase it. “No one knows anything about your family, or even where you’re from. Are you planning on breaking your silence, today?”
“Unfortunately, I’m not at liberty to disclose my hometown, or the names of my relatives. Wutai’s spies may seek to harm them, or use them against me, and I can’t take that risk. But, when this war is over, I’ll finally be able to go home and see them, and everyone will know who they are. I promise, my mother is absolutely dying to tell you all my embarrassing childhood stories.”
While the audience was laughing, Sephiroth turned to the nearest camera.
“Mom, I know you’re watching. I love you and I…I miss you.” He swallowed hard, like he was choking down his emotions, then he smiled. “And yes, I remembered to pack extra socks.”
The sprinkle of laughter became a flood, along with some sentimental tears, over the idea of this brave boy’s mother, waiting at home, worrying about him, while he was far away fighting a war, to protect all of them.
“That’s all the time the general has, for today,” the PR manager said, addressing the ecstatic crowd. “Thank you so much for coming, ladies and gentlemen. Be sure to grab a Shinra gift bag, on your way out.”
Sephiroth wore his placid smile like a flak vest, ignoring the reporters who were still shouting his name, pelting him with more questions, demanding more of his attention, as he stepped down from the platform and exited the press room. The moment he passed through the door, the smile dissolved, but his upright, heroic posture never faltered.
“You’re an inspiration, sir!” some Shinra troopers said, as he strode down the hall. “ A real hero! You mother must be so proud, general!”
A small cadre of people walked with him, including security, assistants, and his handler; a woman in a grey skirt-suit, with a data pad perpetually glued to her hand.
“Good speech, general. And good job handling those gotcha questions, the way we planned. The bit about your mother humanized you, and made you seem much more relatable and sympathetic. Your public approval rating is already climbing.”
“Yes, it would seem that the journalists Shinra bought were worth every gil,” he said aridly.
“We’ll be setting up some blind casting calls, soon, for the role of your mother. You won’t need to meet with her, till closer to the end of the war,” she said, still tapping her data pad, as they walked briskly toward the elevators. “You’re due at the lab, for your medical exam, and after that you’ve got an appearance at the Shinra Aerospace Academy, for the Girls in STEM event.” She frowned up at him. “You look a little pale, general. I’ll have someone from makeup touch you up, in the car, on the way to the academy, if that’s alright.”
He didn’t answer. She wasn’t actually asking for his opinion, she was telling him what was going to happen. He had learned at a very young age, that such equivocations were social performance, to make the speaker appear less domineering and more agreeable. Otherwise, they meant nothing.
The group disembarked on the sixty-sixth floor, but no unauthorized personnel were allowed into the Science and Research Division, so the handler and her assistants remained in the lobby, talking amongst themselves, tapping their phone screens and exchanging information, regarding the general’s scheduled activities. No one even looked at him, as he walked away through the big, steel, sliding doors.
In the large, ultra-modern exam room, four lab techs were waiting. Sephiroth held out his arms. Two of them removed his pauldrons, then slid his leather coat off his shoulders. One carried those away, while the other undid the harness straps, that crossed his chest, and removed his waist armor. He lifted his feet one at a time, as the other two tugged off his thigh-high all-weather boots.
The boots had to look perfect, and not be spattered with mud and blood and bits of bone, so he was given a new pair, after every mission. Since he never had a chance to break them in, they were too stiff and narrow, and gave him severe blisters on his feet. His superhuman healing factor made the skin regenerate so fast, that the cells would sometimes get enmeshed with the polypropylene weave of his socks.
This was one of those times. The socks had to be ripped off, taking skin with them. His bare feet bled, leaving smudged footprints on the white, tile floor. But only for a moment. By the time the techs had peeled off his trousers, they’d already begun to heal.
He was naked now, since he wore no underwear. Instead, the custom-fitted leather trousers were lined with a mako-powered cooling mesh. This prevented sweating and kept him relatively comfortable, but that was only an add-on effect. Excessive heat could significantly impair the production and motility of spermatozoa, and his were valuable, proprietary Shinra technology.
Having been long accustomed to being naked in the presence of scientific personnel, he thought nothing of it, and stepped onto a metal circle, in the center of the floor. He stood there, staring into the middle-distance while a green beam passed over him, several times. After a moment, the scanner chimed, and his biometric stats popped up, on a large display screen, along with a full, three-dimensional rendering of his body.
While the lab techs were poking and prodding him all over, inspecting his person for minor damage, he heard the hiss of a door sliding open and closed, followed by soft, unhurried footsteps. At the same time, the unpleasantly sweet, medicinal odor, created by the mingled scents of a specific hair pomade, and a certain type of antiseptic soap, invaded his nostrils and made his stomach turn. He tensed up all over, but betrayed no outward reaction, and kept staring at the wall.
“There’s blood on my lab floor!” a harsh, nasal voice snapped.
The lab techs jumped and whirled around. “P—professor! The general’s socks were—”
“Revolting! Get over here and clean this up! And the towels go straight into the incinerator! Not a single red cell leaves this lab!”
With a chorus of “Yes, professor,” and “Yes, sir,” three of the techs scurried away, to do the man’s bidding.
The man in question, was a wire-thin scientist in a white coat, with skin like saddle leather, a hawkish nose, and a slight stoop to his back. He wore round spectacles, and his long, black hair was greased back into a ponytail, with that malodorous pomade. Without greeting or permission, he grabbed Sephiroth’s jaw and turned his head from side to side.
“Dark circles under the eyes, cheeks hollow, general pallor,” he said to the tech, who was taking notes on a data pad. “Looks like fatigue and dehydration. Nothing to worry about. Open.”
Sephiroth opened his mouth. The man’s gloved finger slid in and pressed his tongue down, then pulled his cheeks to the side, one after the other.
“Teeth and gums healthy. Feet apart.”
Sephiroth widened his stance.
The gloved hand hefted and palpated his testicles. “Nominal, no change. Urine sample collected?”
“No, sir,” the tech answered.
A specimen cup was brought and handed to Sephiroth. The lab techs turned away, but the professor watched impatiently, while his subject struggled to produce a small trickle of yellow-green urine, that barely filled the cup to the ten milliliter mark.
“Dehydration, just as I said,” the professor chuckled, seeming to think it very amusing. Pushing up his spectacles, he examined the biometric display. “Weight…147.87. Down 4.8 kilograms since yesterday. Boy, what have you eaten, in the past twelve hours?”
“Shinra issued bottled nutritional beverage, two-hundred-thirty-seven milliliters, consumed at 0507 hours,” Sephiroth answered.
The professor waited. “And?”
“Nothing additional, sir.”
“Why?”
“I…didn’t have time, sir.”
“What about the supplemental nutrition bars you were issued? You didn’t have time to eat one of those?”
“No, sir,” Sephiroth answered, lowering his eyes guiltily.
The professor stepped closer, peering up at him from behind those round lenses, with a smile that was not a smile. “So, am I to understand that, between showing off for Heidegger’s little sluts, and parading yourself around in front of news cameras, like a conceited show-pony, you didn’t have time to maintain the very valuable and extremely vital weapon, which you were given by this company? Is that what I am to understand, SOLDIER First Class Sephiroth?!”
Sephiroth stumbled on his words, rushing to defend himself. “N—no, sir, what I meant was—”
His voice stopped abruptly, cut off by a ringing, backhanded slap across his face. “Don’t talk back to me, boy! When you fail to maintain your required nutritional intake, first body fat, then muscle tissue, then bones and organs are consumed, by your metabolism. You are eating your body, every single cell of which belongs to me! If you fail to maintain your weight, I’ll have no choice but to report you for dereliction of duty, as well as theft of company property. You will be punished and have your pay docked, accordingly. Do I make myself clear?”
Sephiroth attempted to swallow in a throat that had been dry since noon. “Yes, sir.”
“I.V.! Now!” the professor barked, at the techs.
They hastily wheeled the I.V. stand over and the professor stuck the needle into Sephiroth’s arm, right where he stood. After a few seconds, he felt the odd, cold sensation as the pale-green electrolyte-glucose-mako solution diffused into his veins. It took his body about twelve minutes to absorb one bag, then a second was attached. The whole time, he stood meekly in the scanner circle and kept his eyes on the floor, while the professor busied himself with something at the computer.
Sephiroth had been assigned to give a CQC demonstration to the new batch of infantry recruits, this morning, among which there were a disproportionate number of females, due to Shinra’s most recent recruiting blitz. That’s why the professor called them Heidegger’s little sluts.
He always referred to any young females in Sephiroth’s orbit as sluts, and warned him strictly against letting any of them get close to him. He claimed that they all wanted to use Sephiroth’s naivety and inexperience of the ways of the world to manipulate him, and would pretend to like him, in order to use his clout to further their own careers, or to gain celebrity status.
The greedy, almost hungry expression he saw in most women’s eyes, when they looked at him, led him to believe the professor was correct in his assertions. Some men looked at him that way, too, but he wasn’t afraid of men. He would teach them a quick and brutal lesson, if they tried to get away with any disrespect.
He was forbidden to use physical force against any female not deemed an enemy combatant, though. Before security put a stop to it, and established a perimeter around his person, whenever he went out, a lot of women touched him and groped him, when he’d get caught by crowds of fans. He wasn’t allowed to forcefully resist, so he had to grin and bear it, till his handlers could extract him.
A few of the more rabid fans had even tried to rip out strands of his hair, but Sephiroth’s hair was nearly impossible to pull out. The samples the professor occasionally collected had to be surgically removed from his scalp. Even cutting the follicles required mako powered, diamond-bladed shears, and was generally a lot of trouble. It had been done only twice in his living memory.
Between the interviews and press conferences that had filled the rest of his morning, today, his stomach had been too knotted up with anxiety to eat the dense, unpleasantly metallic-tasting nutritional bars, which gave him stomachaches and made acid come up his throat, sometimes.
He had planned to eat one while in the car, but the oily, salty smells of the support team’s breakfast sandwiches, from some dubious drive-thru establishment, made him sick to his stomach. The only reason he didn’t actually vomit, was because he didn’t dare show that kind of weakness, in front of all those people.
He was brought out of his thoughts by the brief sting, as the assistant removed the I.V. needle. The professor had a fresh pair of exam gloves, and a cruel gleam in his eye. Or, in the lenses of his spectacles, at least.
“Rectal exam,” he said. “Hands on the table, knees apart.”
Sephiroth turned and walked mechanically to the exam table, where he bent over it, palms flat on the shiny surface, with his bare feet wide apart.
“I want a semen sample, too. Get the probe and a specimen cup,” he heard the professor saying to a lab tech.
His heart lurched and thudded, and his palms immediately went clammy. Semen specimen collection was the procedure he feared most. It was deeply humiliating, and excruciatingly painful. He used to pass out from the pain, when the professor did it to him, as a teenager, but he was far stronger and more resilient, than he’d been back then.
In the intervening years, he had been subjected to every kind of torture imaginable, over and over, till it had become routine. There was no amount of pain, now, that could cause him to lose consciousness. No matter how much he wanted to.
Isolated and strictly monitored as he was, Sephiroth was completely unaware that there were many, far less cruel methods of semen collection, and that even when this one was used, it was always done under general anesthesia, unless the subject had a spinal cord injury that caused total loss of sensation below the waist, or was already deceased.
As always, however, there was a method to the professor’s monstrousness. By training the boy since puberty to associate ejaculation with powerlessness, humiliation, and nearly unbearable pain, the professor had been building in yet another failsafe, against his precious subject becoming too willful. Particularly with regard to his extremely classified DNA.
When the mate the professor had chosen was brought in to breed with the boy, he would make sure the process was as degrading and impersonal as possible, to prevent any troublesome attachment forming, between the two. His current idea was to put the pair in an MRI machine, for mating, so the insemination could be thoroughly observed and documented.
The boy could no longer achieve erection, due to the torture he’d been meticulously programmed with, but there were drugs to amend that, when the time came. As for the girl, she’d be sedated, so it didn’t matter how her body functioned, so long as it was fertile.
The machine was wheeled over to the exam table. A rubber mouthguard was pushed between Sephiroth’s teeth, so he wouldn’t bite off his tongue. The pencil-width metal probe was lubricated, then inserted into his anus, by the professor, who sat on a rolling stool, behind him.
It was ice-cold, and slimy from the surgical lubricant. When the blunt end pressed against his prostate, Sephiroth flinched reflexively, at which the professor muttered a distracted chastisement.
A lab tech knelt down to hold the specimen cup in position. The professor’s latex-gloved hand gripped the shaft of Sephiroth’s flaccid penis, aiming it into the receptacle.
“Administering stimulus cycle on three,” he said lazily, as if he could barely be bothered to pay attention to the process. “One, two, three.”
Blinding lightning bolts of white-hot pain obliterated Sephiroth’s senses, for two seconds that felt like life-ages of the planet. When the voltage cut off, he expelled the turbid breath he’d been holding, without realizing it. That was just the first shock, and he was already panting and shaking all over. The shaft of his penis felt strangely heavy and swollen, in the professor’s firm grip, and his testicles ached, like they’d been kicked.
“Administering second stimulus cycle. One, two, three.”
Sephiroth’s long, muscular body went rigid. His powerful hands clenched spasmodically. Pain. Searing, mind-destroying pain. For an instant, his vision whited out, and he entertained the very brief fantasy that he’d died and joined the lifestream. When he came out of it, two seconds later, he found that he had crumpled the side of the steel exam table in his fists, like paper.
“One more should do it,” the professor announced. “Administering third stimulus cycle. One, two, three.”
The shock struck Sephiroth’s gut like a thunderclap, knocking the breath out of him. His abdominal muscles racked and seized. His powerful calves, thighs, and gluteal muscles flexed taut, like steel cables, his weapon calloused hands still twisting and rending the steel table. A strangled, gurgling sound was forced out through his clenched teeth. The mouthguard was bitten to pieces. Mercifully, his penis convulsed this time, releasing rapid pulses of viscous, milky-white seminal fluid, into the specimen container.
The probe switched off and Sephiroth collapsed onto the half-ruined table, trembling all over, sweat slick and panting like he’d run a marathon. Drool trickled from his open mouth, and pooled on the cold steel, under his cheek, as the professor’s stringent hand milked every drop of semen from his tender, hypersensitized penis.
His eyes were wet and red-rimmed, with involuntary tears. The professor cackled with laughter, when he saw it. That was his usual reaction to Sephiroth’s tears. Once in a while, he’d slap him in the face, till he stopped crying. If given the choice, Sephiroth would prefer the beating, to the ridicule. Being slapped didn’t hurt as much.
“You melodramatic brat,” the professor sneered, with a palpable note of disgust in his voice. “What the hell is there to cry about? You’re going to fall apart like this, over a little pain? But, I suppose it’s no surprise. You were always weak. A failure. An embarrassment, to me. The only reason you hold your position at Shinra, is because those idiots on the board were in a rush to publicize the SOLDIER program, and I haven’t presented a superior subject, yet. But I will.”
He leaned down to speak directly in Sephiroth’s ear.
“You are not special. You are as replaceable as any other piece of equipment. Keep that in mind, next time you decide to throw a tantrum and starve yourself. Now, get dressed and get out of my lab. And if you lose any more weight, there will be consequences!”
With that, the professor swept out of the room, carrying all of his lab techs in his wake, leaving Sephiroth alone, to deal with the aftermath.
He spat out the fragments of the mouthguard, but continued to lay there listlessly, for several long minutes, in a swiftly cooling puddle of tears and saliva. Shinra’s perfect SOLDIER. The reason every young person in Midgar wanted to be a SOLDIER, too. Their famous war hero general. Only Sephiroth knew what a cruel joke that really was.
When he’d gathered the strength to move, he pushed himself up and walked unsteadily, to the sink, where he lowered his head and drank ravenously from the tap, like a dog. When he’d finished, he pulled some of the rough, brown paper towels from the dispenser, and cleaned the surgical lubricant from the cleft of his ass, as best he could.
He winced, as he straightened up, to throw away the paper towels. He had a dull, throbbing pain, inside, from the electric shocks to his prostate. That would last about twenty minutes, in his experience, but he'd urinate blood for the next day or so. On wobbly legs, he made his way to the tall, white lockers, on the other side of the room, still gingerly cradling his abdomen.
The techs threw away his ruined socks, so after he got back into his leather trousers, he sat down on the floor to pull the cumbersome, thigh-high boots on, over his bare feet. The blisters would be much worse, this way, which meant more pain up-front, and walking around with blood in his boots, for the rest of the day, but at least there would be no socks to tear out of his skin, later.
He belted on his waist armor, easily enough, and his harness fastened with snaps, but he fumbled with the smaller buckles on the front of his coat. When it came to putting on and buckling his belts, he nearly gave up, in despair, utterly unable to make them work, with his clumsy, shaking hands.
To make matters worse, his eyes kept stinging and blurring with tears, no matter how many times he took his calming breaths and blinked them back. He needed help getting dressed, but there was no one to ask. He wanted to be held and consoled, but there was no one who cared. Many years ago, a young man had wrapped his big arms around him, and said comforting words. It was the first and last hug of Sephiroth’s life.
Ever so briefly, sunlight glinted off the surface of a silver locket, in his memory. He felt a balmy breeze and smelled the salty, sea air. But he couldn’t see the face in the picture inside the locket, anymore. Only a hazy and indistinct impression of mother.
Then the scene flickered and he saw the locket’s silver glint, once more, as it slipped down a yawning fissure, and was swallowed into the earth. His slit pupils contracted imperceptibly, and his blue-green eyes hardened. The tears receded.
“Sephiroth, SOLDIER First Class. Sephiroth, SOLDIER First Class,” he repeated softly to himself, as if the words were a mantra.
Gradually, his expression smoothed itself into a placid half-smile. His posture straightened. With steady hands, he deftly re-wrapped and buckled his belts, strapped on his pauldrons, and pulled on his gloves.
Last, he clapped the magnetic mako cuff around his wrist. The right one, because he almost exclusively used his sword left-handed. Then he went back over to the sink and rinsed his face in cold water, erasing the evidence of his shameful emotional display. Sephiroth, SOLDIER First Class, does not cry like a child.
He appraised his reflection, while patting his cheeks dry with more of those awful, scratchy paper towels. His face was flawless. His hair was as lovely as always—silky and supple, and never even a bit out of place. Perfect.
Sephiroth, SOLDIER First Class, strode purposefully out the steel doors, of the Science and Research Division, shoulders back and head high, impossibly tall, seraphically beautiful, and with the proud and spirited bearing of wild horse.
The waiting gaggle of assistants jumped to their feet, and his handler came hurrying over, looking like she was about to have a stress induced heart-attack.
“General! There you are, thank the goddess. I was about to call the Aerospace people and tell them you had an emergency mission and had to cancel. Wow, you look a lot better. Did they give you an IV? Come on, people, move! We’re late, but we can still make it! Let’s go inspire some kids!”
Once he was seated in the vehicle, downstairs, Sephiroth pulled a nutritional bar out of his coat pocket and peeled off the metallic wrapper. Expression blank and catlike eyes gazing fixedly ahead, he calmly ate it, bite by meticulous bite.