Shizuroth, part twenty-two
Previous parts: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one
-
Professor Hojo is in the middle of an important experiment, when an overly excitable technician from the SOLDIER floors calls in to disturb him.
"Professor, I am very sorry for disturbing you, sir, but you need to see this!"
That is such an uninformative, insipid thing to say that Hojo mistakenly gives the man the benefit of the doubt and expects him to say more, to explain himself. When the man doesn't, he scoffs. "See what? Be more specific!"
"Yes, sir, sorry, sir - it's SOLDIER First Class, Sephiroth - he's in the training room."
Useless! "Sephiroth is often training, that is hardly anything to get excited over."
"Sir, by our estimation he's held a sustained Limit Break state for the past twenty-five minutes! And he isn't fighting!"
Hojo perks up at that. "Was he fighting when the Limit Break began?"
"No, sir, he's just, sort of… swinging his sword around? There's no enemy AI, he hasn't been in active combat at all!"
And yet he entered a Limit Break state? Sustaining it for twenty five minutes? Setting aside the utter incompetence of the tech for not calling him earlier, Hojo strokes his chin. Limit Break is caused by stress in life and death situations - a surge of strong emotions activates certain chemicals in the brain, which in turn push the body into a higher state of alertness and cause it to use all potential avenues for survival. It can increase a person's power output on all fronts, even doubling it - but only for a brief moment in time. Longer than that, and the muscle strain alone becomes detrimental.
It is a primitive instinct, a last ditch effort in the face of death, which Mako exposure has made slightly more commonplace in humans - and very commonplace in SOLDIERs. Mako acts as a natural stress trigger - and at the same time it acts as a well of power for SOLDIERs in Limit Break to use.
Much research had gone into intentional activation of the Limit Break state, with less than satisfactory results. If Sephiroth has figured out how to trigger the state outside combat…
"I'm on the way," Hojo says. "Do not tell him and do not let him leave."
"Yes, sir!" the overly excitable technician cries, and Hojo snaps his PHS shut.
As he strides to the elevator, Hojo considers the reports he had gotten, of Sephiroth's unusual activity in the last two days. Request for time off, unusual purchases, shopping trip with Hollander's failed project… coping mechanisms, he'd thought with disappointment. Sephiroth had dealt with the incident with a disheartening show of what could only be called mental weakness, striving for some semblance of control by spending money on frivolity.
But though an unusual reaction from Sephiroth, Hojo has seen worse, and so he'd been satisfied letting it slide, for now. If the usual behaviour continues it might require correcting, but only if it affects overall performance, and results are still pending. Further observation is needed.
The elevator carries him down to the SOLDIER floor, and he finds it unpleasantly busy. There is a crowd in front of the training room, SOLDIER Seconds and Thirds vying for a view inside. They're almost all babbling amongst themselves.
"He never trains here - I thought the virtual scenarios were kinda beneath him."
Yes, Hojo thinks with some satisfaction, they usually are. Though Hojo had been thinking about adding to the programming, to bring the virtual training chamber up to actually usable standards, for now it has very little to offer for someone like Sephiroth, a truly superior specimen.
"Do you think they're recording him? Do you think we'll get to see the recordings?!"
A very worthy thought, it's good to see there's some sense among the experimental subjects. There is much the lower ranks of SOLDIER could learn from Sephiroth.
"Did you see what he was wearing?"
Bah. "Will all of you move!" Professor Hojo says, irritated now, and watches with a displeased curl of his mouth as the SOLDIERs finally notice him. "You are in my way."
"Professor Hojo!"
"The professor is here!"
"How scary -"
"Sorry, Professor -"
Hojo waits until they've cleared the way, wondering if he should take a firmer hand in the program. Clearly standards have been slipping since the time he was directing the program personally. Sadly, he doesn't have time to manage grunts these days, there's much more valuable work to be done, but perhaps a message to Deusericus would set things to rights.
Something to deal with later.
Hands clasped behind his back, Hojo enters the training room observatory. The technicians both quickly rush to greet him, and he waves them off, walking up to the viewing window.
Sephiroth is performing Wutai sword forms, slowly moving between stances and attacks, with all the grace and precision Hojo has come to expect from him.
And he is, indeed, putting off enough energy for a Limit Break - even though the holographic setting, the glow around him is visible.
"What have you recorded?" Hojo asks, narrowing his eyes.
"Everything from the moment he entered, sir," the overeager technician tells him while the other one fumbles with a pad, handing over the latest printout. "His level is showing in the low fifties range!"
Low fifties? "Then he's not at Limit Break," Hojo scowls, scanning through the readings.
"But, sir, the signature glow -"
"Sephiroth's resting level is forty eight," Hojo says impatiently. "His Limit Breaks regularly go to the upper seventies and beyond. Whatever this is, it's not a Limit Break."
But it is most definitely something. The energy output of Sephiroth's little session started uneven and then slowly levelled out as he continued. It had even decreased, which normally would be cause for concern, but seeing the steady, regular energy output now…
Hojo smiles, feeling the beginnings of a giggle in his gut.
Clearly, Sephiroth is figuring something out about himself and his enhancements. He has unlocked a new ability, a sixth sense, perhaps even a whole different way of controlling energy. Something he inherited from his mother, but wasn't yet able to use.
There is only one explanation. The incident in the lab has pushed Sephiroth forward. The excess Mako or the moment he was technically dead - one or both together had broken through a human limitation.
The experiment has evolved.
-
Ick.
307 notes
·
View notes