-Chapter Five- Besides the sleeper, the tailor had also designed a jumpsuit for the baby which was covered with pictures of little mogs. The jumper had six little appendage-coverings where the legs would normally be, to keep the baby's lower appendages nice and warm. The were sewn closed at the end in place of shoes. The right arm, like the sleeper, was made looser than the left to accomodate the baby's wing. There was also a similarly designed t-shirt and overalls set, and t-shirt and jeans set. Elena smiled at the outfits. "Tseng," she told him, "that was incredibly nice of you. But..." "Don't worry," Tseng assured her, "one thing I know is that people down by Wall Market don't pass judgement unduly. When I told him about the baby, the tailor was just very excited at being given such a challenging assignment. Oh, he did ask how you were doing." 'I guess I'm getting used to Little Seph." Elena admitted, meaning the baby. "You're naming the baby Sephiroth, then?" Tseng asked. "No. Little Seph." Elena replied. Tseng started to laugh. "What's so funny?" Elena asked. "I'm just imagining him fully grown, at whatever height he happens to be with his lower appendages stretched out fully and their tips touching the ground," Tseng explained, "and having the name 'Little' Seph." "I like 'Little Seph'," Elena shrugged, causing the baby in her arms to gurgle happily. She kissed the infant's nose. "After all, he is Sephiroth's child." "But, Sephiroth was human." "Hojo did so many damned experiments on Sephiroth, who knows what he was." Elena sighed. "All I know is that there is no way in hell Shinra is going to get a hold of this kid." ***** "Sephy, what's wrong?" "My name is Sephiroth," the silver-haired man glared at the girl who was stoking the campfire. "You don't have to be so sensitve." Priscilla pouted. Her smile returned a moment later. "I'm sorry, Sephiroth. But I still want to know what's the matter." "Hojo is an idiot." Sephiroth grumbled. "Oh," Priscilla had heard of him, the man who made monsters for Shinra. "I knew that already." ~Hojo, your idiocy is the thing of legends,~ Sephiroth thought, a laugh almost escaping from his lips, which did turn up in a brief smile. "You look so handsome when you smile," Priscilla told him as she let the stoking stick drop, and snuggled up to him, drifting off to sleep with her head resting on his chest. "I love you." Sephiroth's face felt suddenly warm, and not because of the fire. ~Why the heck am I blushing?~ He looked down at the scrawny girl. She was short, scraggly, and had no visible muscle-tone. He hadn't expected her to be as strong as she had turned out to be. The fact that she'd been able to keep up with him during the journey had impressed him. He'd figured she'd wear out in the first five miles. But here they were, about twenty-five miles from her home, and she had kept up with him every step of the way. She'd even held her own in a few monster fights, which had surprised him. "You're tougher than you look, girl," he told his sleeping companion. "You could make an interesting secret weapon. Pity Shinra would take one look and dismiss you out of turn." ***** Elena carried the baby out of the hospital surrounded by the other Turks. The baby wailed at all the new sights and sounds as it beheld the world it had been born into for the first time. His mother had him dressed in his specially made t-shirt and overalls and was holding him very carefully, so she would not hurt him. Some people turned and stared, but when they saw who Elena was with, they quickly decided to mind their own business. One person did not turn away. Instead, she stared with eyes full of stunned horror. Elena saw her and recognized her. It is, after all, hard to forget a person one has been hung upside down with. The two women made eye contact and Elena was about to alert the other Turks when the baby started to cry in earnest. By the time Elena had gotten the pocket of her maternity blouse undone and a nipple exposed for the baby, the young ninja was nowhere to be seen. ***** Yuffie Kisaragi didn't stop running until she reached the town of Kalm. Her lungs were raw and she was panting breathlessly as she knocked on the door of the home where Cloud Strife and his wife, Tifa, lived. "Yuffie?" Tifa asked. "It was..." Yuffie tried to get the words out, "it looked like... He's a...." "Slow down, Yuffie," Tifa suggested. "Here." she poured the frantic girl a cup of tea and handed it to her. "Thanks." Yuffie sipped the tea and tried to compose her thoughts, which was incredibly difficult after what she had seen. "Tifa, remember when we fought Sephiroth and he had that weird winged body?" "The One-Winged Angel," Tifa recalled. "Yes, I remember. Why?" "I saw a baby shaped just like that." Yuffie replied. "The wings were all covered up, but you could tell they weren't tentacles because they didn't move the way tentacles would. And the baby's hair was silver, just like Sephiroth's." "What about his eyes?" Tifa asked. "I couldn't see them really well." Yuffie admitted. "He was all squinting and crying and fussing." "Dear gods," Tifa sank into her chair as Cloud walked in. "Tifa?" Cloud looked over at Yuffie. "I assume you didn't just tell her she's won the Wutai Sweepstakes." "Wutai doesn't have a sweepstakes," Yuffie replied. "Sephiroth's a father." Tifa's voice was barely more than a whisper, but the horror was more than apparent. "You told her that?" Cloud demanded. "I only told her about the baby I saw." Yuffie replied. "What baby?" "The baby that was shaped like Sephiroth's One-Winged Angel body." Yuffie explained. "Would woman in her right mind would have a baby with that monster?" Cloud snarled. "He must have raped the poor woman." "I doubt it." Tifa remarked. "Cloud, a woman who I was talking with when I ran Seventh Heaven once told me that some people tried to attack Sephiroth once. I mean, they tried to rape him and she'd heard him say that no one was going to take his virginity from him. I think that's the one thing he prized to the very end." Cloud considered this. "So, how do you explain the baby Yuffie saw?" "One of Hojo's twisted experiments." Tifa suggested. "So, what do we do?" Yuffie asked. "We have to find the others and tell them." Cloud decided. "I want Barret, Vincent, Cid, and Nanaki to have a say in this also." "What about Cait Sith?" Tifa asked. "I don't know," Cloud admitted. "We've been away from him for a while now, so its possible he could've come back under Shinra's influence. His access to Shinra documents could prove invaluable. But would the benefits outweigh the risks enough to take the chance?" "We'll gather the others and then decide on that issue first." Tifa suggested. "Barret first. He lives right down the street with his new wife, after all." Yuffie chuckled. "I still can't believe he married Aeris's mom. I guess its not really too surprising. They both love little Marlene." ***** Elmyra Wallace finished packing Marlene's lunch and handed the lunchbox to the little girl. "Now, be a good girl in school today," she told the child. "I will, mommy," Marlene promised. She opened the door and saw Yuffie standing there. "Auntie Yuffie!" "Oh, hello." Elmyra told Yuffie. "Please, come in. Barret's in the shower but he should be out soon. Marlene, you get to school, now." "Okay, mom," Marlene was disappointed that she couldn't stay and play with her 'Auntie Yuffie'. She gave the ninja girl a brief hug, then hurried off to school. Barret walked into the room wearing a towel, saw Yuffie, and walked back out again. Yuffie nearly fell over with laughter. "I still can't get over you two being married," she told Elmyra as they waited for Barret to get some clothes on. "I couldn't help falling in love with him when I saw what a good father he is to little Marlene," Elmyra smiled, thoughtfully as she went into the kitchen and returned with a plateful of cookies. "Thank you," Yuffie took one of the offered treats. "Delicious." she said, after she'd swallowed the bite of cookie she had taken. "Thank you," Elmyra beamed. "Marlene and I made them yesterday." "What the heck are you doin' here?" Barret asked, grinning , as he walked into the room, now fully dressed. "Oh, yeah," Yuffie replied. "Cloud sent me to get you. He says Avalanche needs to get back together quick so we can figure out what to do about Sephiroth's kid." "That maniac got some woman pregnant?" Barret ranted, waving his arms about frantically.. "I doubt that," Elmyra said, trying to calm her husband down. "Its more likely she was experimented on at Shinra, the way he and his mother both were." It was no secret to Elmyra that Sephiroth had been a human experiment. She had suspected ever since she'd first adopted Aeris that Shinra had been planning to breed Aeris with a male Ancient they were creating for that purpose. That was the reason she'd been so protective of the girl. She did not want her daughter to suffer the humiliation of being treated like nothing more than a breeding animal. Sephiroth, Elmyra guessed, had been the male they'd been planning to breed with Aeris. That wasn't too hard to figure out. Only someone who had been genetically engineered could have been as fast or as strong as he was. And it was the only explanation for his ability to naturally perform magic that normally required the use of materia. Shinra's goal, to find the Promised Land, had so obsessed them, that they had wanted to repopulate the Cetra to ensure that if it wasn't found in Aeris's or Sephiroth's lifetime, that their son or daughter would guide them to it. But the plan had gone horribly wrong. Jenova, the lifeform whom Shirna claimed to be Sephiroth's mother, had turned out to be not a Cetra, but the Crisis From The Sky which had all but wiped them out. "So, what do we do about it?" Barret slammed his gun-arm down on the table. "Cloud wants us to meet." Yuffie explained. She turned to Elmyra. "Think you can spare him for a little while?" Elmyra nodded. "Just see to it that he comes home safely to me and our little girl." "Why don't I have Cloud and Tifa pick you up tonight?" Yuffie asked. "No way," Barret shook his head. "We'll stop by Marlene's school and I'll say goodbye to her there. "If Sephiroth is a father, then we've gotta take care of dis mess as soon as possible." ***** Priscilla woke and found herself lying on the ground near the smoldering remains of her and Sephiroth's campfire. Tears welled up in her eyes as she realized that she was alone. They were about to spill over when she saw the glint of the Masamune. It flashed nearly in the morning sunlight, then she heard Sephiroth laugh. Sephiroth returned to the camp a few minutes later with four freshly caught fish skewered on the end of his sword. "Breakfast?" he offered, casting a first level fire spell on the burned out campfire. He removed the fish from his sword, then tossed each one upward, expertly filleting them in mid-air with a skill that would have turned every swordsman and sushi chef green with envy. ~What the heck am I doing?~ he asked himself, as he caught the the last piece of edible fish-meat on the end of his sword. He rested the sword over the fire to let the fish cook while Priscilla cleaned up the bits they couldn't eat. Priscilla didn't mind cleaning the mess up. She had always wondered what hit had been like to be a fisherman. Now, thanks to Sephiroth, she had experienced at least something about it. "Thanks," she kissed him gratefully after she'd washed her hands in the stream and had returned home. Sephiroth was non-plussed. He'd never expected anyone to thank him for letting them throw out fish-guts. ~What have I gotten myself into?~ he wondered.