Anabasis

Chapter 1: Bloodhound

"You called, Mr. President?"

The voice was calm, quiet and composed, but it still managed to force the old Shinra to hold back a shiver. Rufus watched his father sidelong from his position in the corner of the room and smirked; it was always fun watching the old man quake underneath his fat.

"Yes, I did, Sephiroth," the elder Shinra replied easily, after he'd regained his composure without missing a beat. "I know you just got back from the campaign in Wutai, but I'm afraid you're not going to be able to enjoy that much furlough time after all. We just got a lead on a stolen item of ours that went cold a few years back, while you were still out west. I need you to get it back for me, soldier."

"And where exactly does the lead point, Mr. President?" the SOLDIER asked, assuming from the older man's recalcitrance that he wouldn't like the answer. Sephiroth's suspicion was proven right a few moments later as Rufus picked up his father's slack, stepping out more fully into the light.

"Right back into the heart of Wutai, Sephiroth," he explained, carefully studying the SOLDIER's face for a reaction and failing to find one. "Word is, some black marketers picked up the item in question after it escaped from Professor Hojo's laboratory. One of my sleeper Turks just informed me that it was last seen on the outskirts of Wutai, heading towards the center along with the merchants."

Sephiroth's heart rate jumped slightly as he heard Hojo's name mentioned, but he forced it back down and willed his expression to remain stoic.

"An escaped experiment?" he asked. "That's interesting indeed; does it have a number?"

"C-54AR1," Rufus replied, a curious edge to his voice. "Why do you ask?"

The SOLDIER barely kept his eyes from widening at the influx of memories that came rushing back to him along with the mention of that all-too-familiar serial number, closing the eerily green orbs slowly and shrugging.

"No reason," he answered, quietly drawing in a calming breath before opening his eyes once again and continuing.

"Am I to assume I'm going in under deep cover, Sir?"

Rufus nodded, his disgruntled father now relegated completely to the sidelines.

"Quite so, Sephiroth. No Materia, no Masamune, and nothing else that could give you away. Use guns or a normal katana if you must, but for obvious reasons we'd prefer if this exchange was solved without bloodshed."

"Understandable," the SOLDIER replied levelly. "Regrettable, but wholly understandable."

"I'm glad to hear that," Rufus replied with a slanted smirk. "As profitable as war can be, General, peace is much more lucrative."

Sephiroth simply nodded; the part of him that was put off by Rufus' blatant amorality was overruled by his deeply-rooted psychological detachment that came with being trained as a First-Class SOLDIER. Psychological detachment that he would need every ounce of if he wanted to complete this mission successfully and without incident, considering what the objective was.

Or, more accurately, considering who the objective was.

C-54AR1, otherwise known as Aeris Gainsborough. The last of the Cetra, and the girl who had been locked in the cell across from Sephiroth's in Hojo's fetid laboratory for years. But then his training as a killing machine had begun, and he was taken away from the emotionally suffocating lab and thrown into an emotionally suffocating battlefield. He hadn't seen her in years, and all of a sudden she had just waltzed back into his life. How typical.

He could only hope that whatever Hojo had done to her wasn't as scarring as what the insane bastard had done to him.

Dragging himself out of his thoughts, Sephiroth saluted his superiors, turned on his heels and walked out of the room without another word. As soon as he'd left, the President sighed and shifted his attention to his son.

"The arrangements with that bastard Godo are finalized, Rufus," he said gravely as he lit up a cigar, taking in a slow drag. "I'm counting on your Turks to finalize the hit once he's far enough into enemy territory. Make sure they don't fail."

Rufus' hard eyes flared at the veiled accusation

"They never have, Mr. President."

The elder Shinra was decidedly unmoved by his son's calm reply.

"There's a first time for everything, boy," he shot back, "and if anyone is an expert at breaking with trends, it's Sephiroth."

Rufus simply nodded and remained silent, inwardly dumbfounded by the blind stupidity of his father's paranoia. It was true that soldiers who were forced to re-adapt to society in peacetime were more prone to mutinous behavior or disorderly conduct, but the President's idea that Sephiroth presented a threat that needed to be put down was simply absurd. If anything, attacking the preeminent SOLDIER would only provoke the warrior's anger.

And yet such a situation would work quite nicely in his favor, Rufus had realized, and so he was content to let things play out for now. He had waited years to make his move, after all; what were a few more weeks?

Sephiroth had felt a prick of annoyance when the President had told him about the assignment, but it had been quickly overruled. First, by the realization that he would be bored out of his skull sitting around doing nothing, and second when he'd heard that the 'item' in question was in fact Aeris. But as he sat on the deck of a boat bound for Wutai, a heavy cloak covering his features and feeling oddly disarmed with a normal katana by his side, another problem floated up into the forefront of Sephiroth's mind.

Once he'd negotiated to get Aeris back from whichever scum had picked her up in the first place, what was he going to do with her? Clearly, bringing her back to Shinra and Hojo was out of the question; he could only imagine what horrors the mad scientist had visited upon the Cetra after he had been forced to abandon her for military training. He had usually traded a longer turn under the knife for a reduction in Aeris' turn, but even then Hojo had made up for the loss by making his time spent with Aeris all that much more intensive. Without him there to bargain, though, it went without saying that Hojo would have made Aeris' life a living hell.

But regardless, the SOLDIER told himself as he forced the ghosts of Aeris' screams out of his head, those times were long behind him; dredging them up now did no one any good. And neither did letting himself get emotional, for that matter. In the end, if he refused to bring Aeris back to the Shinra they would come and take her by force. And even as talented of a warrior as he was, Sephiroth had no illusions about the fact that Shinra could find a way to kill him if they felt there was no other choice.

So, the SOLDIER decided as he closed his eyes and attempted to drift off to sleep, he would find her, re-acquire her and return her to Shinra. At least that way, her trauma would be kept at as minimal a level as possible.

Until Hojo gets her hands on her again, his last remaining sliver of conscience spat back at him. Gaia knows he's going to want to make up for lost time. How many organs do you think he'll harvest from her living body before she succumbs to the pain and dies, Sephiroth? Cetra have quite the endurance, you know.

Sephiroth squinted his eyes shut against the condemnation, retreating back deep into the emotional limbo he'd been taught to create as a member of SOLDIER. Here, there was no pain. No suffering, no conscience, no qualms, no memories and no scruples. There was only the mission, the directives it entailed and the ultimate objective. It was in this limbo that Sephiroth thrived, even as he felt his heart wither beneath his armor. But a SOLDIER, as his friend Angeal had told him once, had no place for a heart anyway.

Perhaps once he handed her back over to Shinra, the last shred of his nagging sense of right and wrong would finally disappear for good.

Yeah, go ahead and see how that works out for you, the voice of his conscience parried faintly through the barrier of Sephiroth's denial, before falling silent— for the moment, at least. The SOLDIER allowed his thoughts to become preoccupied with the particulars of the mission rather than the end result, focusing on the tedium of the specifics long enough that he was lulled into a mercifully dreamless sleep.

That respite didn't last long at all, though, as the chattering voices of excited passengers dragged Sephiroth out of his mental refuge at the crack of dawn a few hours later. He supposed that it was what he deserved for sleeping out on the deck, but it was still a hard struggle to keep from drawing the pistol at his waist and sending all of these idiots right into the Lifestream.

"I wonder what it's gonna look like now, being a tourist attraction and all," one of the civilian passengers mused. "Hopefully I can see some of the temples before those brutish SOLDIERs show up and stomp all over them for kicks."

"Dear, don't say that so loudly!" a woman replied harshly, whom Sephiroth assumed was the man's wife. "For all you know, one of these people could be SOLDIER!"

"So what?" the man groused back, his expression contorting in distaste. "All of the powerful members deserted bar-Sephiroth, and he's probably back in Midgar getting fat off of his blood money. I just hope that when the time comes, Shrina does to him what they do to everyone else who outlives their usefulness."

"Why would you wish that on him?" the wife rebutted. "Just because you weren't strong enough to make it into SOLDIER doesn't mean you didn't also fight in the War, and if I remember correctly it was Sephiroth's division that saved your corps from being totally wiped out. And in case you forgot, it was him who ended the War altogether!"

"It was men like him who started the War," the man replied bitterly, "and men like him who fought it. The world would be much better off without Shinra, and especially without their bloodhounds."

At those words, Sephiroth couldn't hold himself back any longer and he rose to his feet, speaking with quiet force as he did so.

"So, when they're taking lives to save your own, it's something you're grateful for; something you collapse down on your knees to praise as you weep like a pathetic child," he began, walking slowly towards the man who had so fiercely denounced him.

"But when that same brutality is applied to ending the War completely," he continued evenly, "it becomes something reprehensible, just because your life is no longer at stake? I'd always heard your division was a cancerous lump full of cowards and opportunists, Colonel Durand," Sephiroth finished as he turned and walked away, leaving the other soldier standing mute in shock,

"But it still pains me to learn just how right those whispers were."

Durand was silent with shock for several more moments, and by the time he shook himself out of his stupor the cloaked man was nowhere to be seen.

"Honey?" his wife broke in, her voice urgent and concerned. "Honey? Are you all right? Who was that?"

The former Colonel shook his head, as much to banish the memories of the War that rose up in his head as to erase the image of the cloaked man who had cut so deeply with nothing but words.

"No one, dear," he replied gloomily, turning his eyes back over to regard the sunrise.

"No one at all."

Sephiroth felt slightly apprehensive about the possibility that Durand had recognized him despite his shroud, but shook it off in short order as the boat pulled into port at his destination. Soon he would be gone from sight, melted into the hustle and bustle of noise and lights and tourists that was the reformed Wutai. The thought that not too long ago this very soil had been the site of a brutal, glorious proving ground filled Sephiroth with an odd combination of bitterness and nostalgia, but it faded away as he sunk deeper into the mass of people crowding the streets. He took two left turns followed by three right ones until the SOLDIER was certain he'd moved far enough away from the main thoroughfares to find what he was looking for.

The black market always dwelled in the dark corners, the crags of society where all of the undesirable elements were swept and left to fester and be forgotten. Those crags were where Sephiroth would go, those dark places; it would be simple enough to glean at least some information out of a few drunk gangsters at the saloon up ahead. And then he would vanish once again, back into the crowd as he moved on like a shadow in search of his next lead.

The silence of the narrow street outside the building was shattered as the SOLDIER kicked open the thick, reinforced door of the saloon, lights and shouting and cursing rushing out to greet Sephiroth like old friends. The General made his way purposefully up to the bar, rapping on the wood with his knuckles. The barman squinted oddly at the cloaked newcomer, nervous that he couldn't see his face. He got over his anxiety quickly enough, though, as Sephiroth produced some coins from a pouch beneath his cloak.

"A beer," he said tersely. "Tap. Best you have."

The SOLDIER was halfway through his glass when some drunken idiot decided to have some sport as his expense, walking up behind Sephiroth and clapping his hand on his shoulder.

"Lookee 'ear, boys," the drunkard crowed. "We got oursel's a freak, it seems. Why else'd you wear a cloak li' that, huh? C'mon, show us whatcha look like under that hood, ya weirdo!"

Sephiroth was utterly unfazed by the words, taking another long pull of his drink before setting the glass down gently on the bar and replying.

"If you wish to keep that hand," he said evenly, with the barest undercurrent of a warning, "I suggest you remove it from my shoulder."

The drunk snarled at the implied threat, not even bothering to reply with words before he cocked his fist back and let loose with a blow aimed square at the back of Sephiroth's head. The SOLDIER felt it coming long before it landed and reacted instantly, his years of training and experience moving his hand to the grip of his katana before he'd even consciously thought to draw the weapon. Turning around and unsheathing the blade in one smooth motion, Sephiroth watched dispassionately as the drunk's entire arm was separated from his body at the shoulder and fell to the ground, blood seeping from the severed limb's stump out onto the already-filthy and cracked wooden floor.

Dread silence settled over the bar in the wake of his counter-attack, and it was a few heartbeats before Sephiroth felt that his hood had been swept back away from his face during the strike. As he realized that everyone who had seen his face would have to be eliminated to ensure that he remained unknown, the SOLDIER allowed his muscles to relax and readied himself for the slaughter to come.

Brandishing his katana in a tightly-controlled movement, the SOLDIER quickly took stock of the room: Some thugs with guns, a few with blades and one or two with some paltry Materia. Sephiroth smiled, feeling the thrill of battle beginning to flow through his veins once again.

This was going to be fun.

A/N: So that's it for Chapter One, ladies and gents. Final Fantasy VII recently sunk its fangs back into me after many years' absence while I was looking for something with which to take a break from Bleach fics for a little bit, and this story is the result of that. I hope you enjoyed it, and please review.

And in case there's any confusion, this is set before Sephiroth finds Hojo's documents and goes batshit insane, which is why he doesn't act like a total monster with a God Complex.

For now, anyway.