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He still didn't feel entirely comfortable in the uniform, though he'd been waiting half his life to wear it. SOLDIER uniforms were thicker than Shinra blues, the shoulder guards heavier, though the added weight didn't bother him. It was different, that was all. Something to get used to, like the admiring, envious, but unsurprised stares that followed him now.
"Attention!" the drill sergeant barked, and thirty brand-new SOLDIER Thirds came snapping to a salute like a well-oiled machine, Zack standing proud in the first rank. He wasn't First Class yet, but everyone told him he would be, that it was just a matter of time. They'd said the same things when he enlisted, gunning for a spot in SOLDIER.
The summer sun ought to be fierce in Midgar, but it was the yellow haze that cloaked the city that made inspections such a hassle. Some days you never saw the sun at all, but the grimy clouds held in the heat and roasted the city alive. He hoped they'd be dismissed soon; more than the temperature, the smell of the parade ground was getting to him, dust and dirty air and motor oil, the sweat and boot leather of countless others who'd marched this way in the last few days. It was all too new to him, and he wasn't used enough to the enhanced senses to block them out properly.
He continued to stand in perfect, rigid stillness despite all that, not only because he wanted to shine, but because they'd all been talking about this inspection for weeks.
The very first rumors had it that one of the department heads was going to be there--Heidegger, most likely, though some of the guys were pinning their hopes on Scarlet. Unusual, but nothing to get too excited about. A few days later, someone had upped the ante: not just Heidegger--a bit of intelligence that had been upgraded from rumor to fact--but some representative from the real brass would be watching them as they were put through their paces. What made it so interesting was that no one could get a clear answer on who it'd be, whether it was Colonel Rushing from the mobile infantry or Major Zinsner from the Corps of Engineers, though no one was ruling out the mounted or airborne branches, either. Making it into SOLDIER was just the first step; plenty of guys bottomed out at Third Class, transferred wherever there was an empty slot. Knowing when to make a good impression was key.
It was the very silence about the mystery observer that raised expectations to a fever pitch, and Zack was just as susceptible to it as the next guy. That kind of secrecy was way overblown for the average officer; it wasn't exactly earth-shattering to know that Colonel Piper and the Flying Chocobos were sacked out in the stables with their birds like some crazed desert tribe. Zack couldn't think of anyone whose presence deserved to be kept on the hush like that, except for one person.
Footsteps rang out across the oily asphalt, one pair smooth and decisive, their quiet tread nearly drowned out by the stomping shuffle of their companion. The heavier of the two would be Heidegger, but the other....
Zack kept his eyes smartly forward, forcing himself to remain absolutely still until the two men crossed his line of vision.
Heidegger looked as ridiculous as ever, waddling rather than marching, filling out his tent of a uniform like a sausage about to burst. Zack was a firm believer that everyone had some redeeming quality, however deeply buried, but he had yet to find Heidegger's. The head of Public Safety was loud, violent, and his beady little eyes reminded Zack of something he ought to be dicing up on a training maneuver. Maybe Heidegger was kind to his mother or fed stray cats. Zack wasn't about to stalk the guy to find out.
One look at the man on Heidegger's right, and Zack forgot about the overstuffed idiot altogether.
General Sephiroth was a legend in his own time, the Conqueror of Wutai, the Demon General, the finest soldier that had ever lived. People said that he'd been touched by the gods, that the reason his famous sword was so long was because it was Tyr's spear in disguise, that no army could lose while Sephiroth commanded it. Some mothers told their children that the General would get them if they didn't behave; others said that Sephiroth wouldn't let such hellions join his troops if they didn't straighten up.
For all the stories about the man, Zack had had no idea what General Sephiroth looked like. He'd have silver hair, sure--they all knew about that--and he'd be tall, stern-faced, powerful. People tended to get tongue-tied after that, and Zack had always put that down to awe or maybe embarrassment; it'd tarnish the legend if their super-soldier was as homely as a pile of old socks. Frankly Zack had been expecting a tank, or a hard-eyed officer with a face like a chipped blade.
The man that turned to face them was tall, and silver-haired, and definitely powerful, but he was also the single most attractive person Zack had ever seen in his life. It was almost unreal, and Zack had the crazy urge to walk over there and poke the man, because that sort of sheer, unapologetic perfection was the kind you saw framed in an art gallery, not the kind that bawled out orders and lopped off heads.
It was the General's eyes that convinced Zack he was real, eyes green like Cosmo Canyon bootleg, green like materia, glowing even in broad daylight. They weren't cold eyes, though; they were so calm they almost looked mild, a perfect match for his smooth, expressionless face. Sephiroth scanned their ranks, meeting each SOLDIER's eyes in turn, but his own gave nothing back.
Zack was starting to see how someone that beautiful--strange word to use for a guy or not--could command armies. Probably no one dared to talk back to that unruffled mask.
"Well, General," Heidegger huffed and puffed, throwing his chest out as if that would help. "Here's your newest batch of recruits. There's bound to be one or two you can make something of," he added, his tight smile making his soft face look even more like an overripe squash, sagging and sickly. "Don't worry; we've got them half-trained for you already. So far they know 'sit,' 'fetch,' and 'stay.' Gyahaha!"
Heidegger's laugh would have set Zack's teeth on edge by itself; the guy's casual dismissal of them didn't help. He's just a bitter old geezer, he told himself firmly, keeping his gaze fixed on the General, on the one that actually mattered. He'd had his eyes opened months ago when it came to Shinra and the people who ran it; if Sephiroth had answered with a smirk or outright agreement, he would have been disappointed but not surprised.
Sephiroth's face barely changed at all, but as he turned his head to stare Heidegger down, there was a tiny flicker at the back of his eyes that shocked Zack to a stillness more absolute than his parade salute could ever have been. It wasn't agreement he'd seen there, and not anger or distaste either. It was stark bewilderment, like Sephiroth knew Heidegger had cracked a joke but had no idea what it was. Like he'd never had a dog before, never known anyone who'd owned one, like he'd never even heard of any such animal, and how the hell did any guy grow up without driving his parents nuts asking for a puppy?
"Gyaha...ha...." Heidegger trailed off, pinned and silenced by Sephiroth's look, and that bothered Zack too. He didn't get the feeling the General was trying to be intimidating; he looked watchful, not angry, and it came to Zack all at once that Sephiroth was waiting for an explanation, convinced that Heidegger would make some sort of sense if only he were patient enough.
Staring at the mismatched pair before him, Zack was aware that basic certainties were shuffling into new arrangements inside him, that his understanding of what a hero was had just been smashed into tiny pieces and that Sephiroth's unlined, untroubled face would never look the same to him again. What he knew now was that the face was unimportant. It was those eyes, empty and shut away, that he had to watch from now on, because they went against every certainty he still had left, his essential belief in the rightness of the world, that kids ought to have dogs underfoot and know how to answer halfwit bullies like Heidegger, and that no one should ever look as alone as Sephiroth did now.
When Heidegger had been reduced to squirming discomfort, Sephiroth waited a full minute to see if the man would do anything else before turning back to the ranks. The General was so quiet he silenced everyone around him; none of the men flanking Zack were even breathing, and they had to be twice as terrified as Heidegger because he could smell the sharp, bitter sting of their nervousness in the air.
"I am General Sephiroth," the man said, and Zack felt his eyes go helplessly wide, that rich, low voice the last thing he'd expected. It was uninflected, almost a monotone, but Zack would have listened to that voice curse his family back to the first generation and count it a day well-spent. "Of this year's SOLDIER candidates, you were selected as the finest. For the next month, I will be overseeing your training to determine whether you qualify for promotion to a higher class. You will report to me as your commanding officer during this time. Training will begin tomorrow at oh-seven hundred. Questions may be directed to Sergeant Hobb."
Gods. He sounded like a loudspeaker announcement, only sexier.
Oh. He hadn't just thought that, had he?
Sephiroth's eyes scanned them again, and Zack couldn't tell whether the man was waiting for an objection or implying that he was open to questions himself. It was on the verge of being a moot point; if the idiots around him didn't start breathing again, they were going to miss the General's grand exit.
"Dismissed," Sephiroth said at last, turning away with a tiny glimmer of...was that disappointment Zack saw? Frustration, maybe?
Sephiroth's eyes fell on him then, and for a second they seemed to be caught, held. Zack had no idea at all what the General saw in his face, but it jolted the man into a blink of surprise, covered so swiftly Zack was positive now that Sephiroth's inhuman calm was a mask. An old one, maybe, but not as much a part of the man as he'd feared.
That was good to know. It was going to be hard enough to get the guy to lighten up as it was without having to guess whether or not Sephiroth was smiling.