Sorry for taking so long, but I get side tracked a lot when it comes to writing. And I have a tremendous amount of stories I'm trying to write, all at the same time. And about half of them are original works, so you will have to wait until I get them published before you even have a chance at reading them.

Well, I hope you like the chapter, even if it is a bit short.

Chapter 5

Cloud knew that Chaos' new pets were awake, and moving about the cavern much quieter than he thought a human capable of. No doubt they had found their 'hidden' weapons. Chaos really needed to learn to hide things properly. And to tie up new slaves that would very much like to kill them all.

As soon as his eyes popped open, he saw that the humans were indeed moving about. He also noticed that the youngest was standing at the head of his bed, staring at his sword. He seemed rather fascinated, tracing the edges of the connected swords.

For some reason, he didn't feel like any danger was going to come from letting him study the fusion sword, and turned most of his attention to the other three, who were looking around the cave, periodically glancing at the slumbering demons. Eventually, the redhead met his gaze, his eyes narrowing in anger.

"Zackary, get away from him!" he hissed.

"Huh?" was the very intelligent reply as the one looking at the sword switched his gaze to the redhead.

Cloud decided that it was no use to pretend to be asleep and sat up, causing Zackary to yelp in surprise, falling back. He just glanced at him, keeping his gaze mostly on the other three. His gazed past them long enough to notice that Vincent was awake; his breathing was too shallow.

The three older humans pointed their blades at Cloud, backing away so they could see Vincent and Chaos as well, as the youngest scrambled over to them. "Don't try and stop us," the redhead threatened.

Cloud shrugged, scooting back on the bed so he could lean against the wall. "I don't care what you do as long as your actions don't threaten me or my family."

His eyes narrowed, anger flashing through them. "That is exactly what you did for us!"

"You came into our territory and accused us of something we didn't do. I'm sure it would've been amusing to do, but not for as long as you make it sound like it's been happening."

"Then who is doing it?" Zackary asked.

Cloud shrugged again. "I don't know. I do know, however, that there is no one this far up the mountain besides us. You would have better luck finding your perpetrator going the other way from the village."

"So … you're not going to kills us?"

"I don't know. … I haven't decided yet."

"Um." He glanced back at his friends, but slowly stepped forward, causing his friends to tense. "Well, I'm Zack. That's Angeal, Genesis, and Sephiroth." He pointed to each one in turn, but only Angeal even attempted to be friendly by smiling.

Cloud was okay with that. He didn't need anyone acting friendly when they actually despised him. It just made them look stupid. And he just didn't want to deal with people like that. He much preferred people act like themselves and show how they feel about him instead of acting like they liked him and getting his hopes up. Only to break off a little bit more of his sanity when they showed their true disgust.

"Cloud."

Zack grinned, perking up for some reason. "Cloud! That's a beautiful name! Your eyes look like the sky. No, deeper. I don't even know what they look like …"

Cloud briefly wondered what was wrong with him. No one, not even Vincent or Chaos, had said they liked his name. And his reaction seemed genuine, but he guessed it was possible that he could be really good at hiding his real emotions.

Suddenly, a loud yawn sounded from the other bed. Cloud glanced over to see Chaos shifting and somewhat snuggling into Vincent's chest. The four humans froze, staring at him, seeming to wait with baited breath. Finally, Chaos settled back down and fell back to sleep. But it caused Vincent's eyes to open, his gaze, which met Cloud's, sparkled with amusement.

Immediately, but silently, the humans' weapons pointed at the both of them, Zack once again running back to the others. Vincent's eyes flicked over to them, not showing any signs of sleepiness, nor reaching for his gun to shoot any of them.

"Vincent."

"Cloud."

"Have you been awake this entire time?" Zack asked. When Vincent nodded, the other three tensed. They tensed even further when Chaos shifted again, burying his face in Vincent's neck.

Taking the cue, Cloud got up, strapped his sword, First Tsurugi, to his back, and started to walk out. "Come on. Unless, of course, you want to watch them. But that would probably end up getting you involved." The humans were quite willing to follow him after that.

They seemed to want to stop at the entrance, but Cloud kept walking, knowing how loud the other two demons could get. He walked through the trees to his usual 'sparring-by-myself' spot, not caring if the humans followed him or made a run for it. As it was, he could hear them arguing about it. It seemed that Zack wanted to stay and get to know Cloud—which just made Cloud really want to know what was wrong with him. One of older ones wanted to kill all three demons. Another one wanted to do the same but also agreed with the last one, who suggested that they just make a run for it and try to get back to Nibelheim before the demons noticed.

Cloud didn't worry about if they made a run from it, Chaos would just have to deal with it.

"Cloud," Zack suddenly called out, scampering over to stand in front of the demon. "Are you sure that you don't know who is hurting the villagers?"

Cloud shook his head. "I don't care if anyone wants to wipe them out. It's a waste of time, in my opinion."

"Why do you not care about them? I get that you're different than them, but surely that can't be the only reason you despise."

"I don't despise them, I just don't see any reason that they should have my sympathy when they would immediately call me a monster the second they caught sight of me."

Zack's face fell slightly. "Oh … Maybe that's just the people around here. In Midgar, the city where we come from, the people are a bit more accepting and not as superstitious."

"A bit?"

"Well … there are always some people who are like that. But the people I'm usually around are used to weird and unusual—"

"Usually caused by you," Genesis muttered.

"—So, it surely wouldn't be too hard to accept what you are," Zack finished, ignoring the redhead.

Humans that can see past differences from themselves? Cloud didn't think it was possible. Never in his life had he ever met a human that could do that. But these ones, particularly Zack, seemed to be able to see past what so many others could not. It was very hard to wrap his mind around.

Cloud shook his head, desperately wanting to believe the porcupine-like human, but he knew that more than likely, he would be deceiving himself. He had spent too much of his life as a non-human outcast to be able to trust so easily.

"I doubt it."

He turned away, drawing his sword and proceeded to start with his kata, special for a sword like his.

Zack watched as Cloud swung his unique sword. He really wanted to ask why his sword looked like that, but he was more concerned on why he didn't believe him. Why did Cloud think that all humans would persecute him? Surely, if he tried, the villagers would accept him.

Glancing back, Zack saw that the other three were watching just as the demon's sword made a strange sound for not hitting anything. Turning back, he saw that the blonde's sword had split in two. And for some reason, as Cloud continued to twirl, he stuck one in the ground and separated another one and continued.

"How many blades does that thing split into?" Genesis muttered as he stuck that one in the ground, too, and pulled out another one.

The four of them watched until Cloud ended up with two blades in his hands, arms stretched out to the side after having created two more gashes in the tree in front of him. It was evident that the one in his right hand, the one that the others had broken off of, was only one blade now. The other four that made up the unique fusion sword stuck out of the ground in a jagged line behind him.

Suddenly, Cloud started moving again, after having been standing in the same spot for a few moments, and did the kata backwards, picking up his discarded blades, and ending up almost exactly where he started, calmly placing the sword back in the harness on his back. He stared at them, meeting each of their gazes before turning away again and walking off.

"Let's follow him!" Zack said, already taking a set to go after the blonde demon.

"Puppy, stop," Angeal said, grabbing the collar of Zack's shirt before he could run off. "We need to figure out what we are going to do. Cloud may have been nice enough to let us out of the cave, but what about the possibility of him dragging us back there if we stay with him?"

"I kind of want to follow him for a bit," Genesis put in. He was staring after the demon with a strange look in his eye, one that Angeal and Zack had only seen in his gaze when he looked at Sephiroth. They wondered if Sephiroth would be jealous because of this, but when they looked, he was watching the demon too, except his eyes showed no emotion.

For the barest second, Sephiroth's eyes switched to look at Angeal and nodded at him before going back to staring at the back of the demon walking in the other direction. Zack squealed with happiness before turning and scampering off after the blond demon.

"Cloud! Wait up!"

The demon didn't stop, nor did he slow down, but he did turn his head slightly to indicate that he heard the man.

"Cloud, wait! Can't we just talk for a little bit?"

"Why would you want to talk with me?"

Hope you liked it!

Me and my friend started an Ask Final Fantasy VII blog on tumblr. Basically, you pick a FFVII character, though we aren't doing all of them, only the ones we actually know, or you can ask all of them. You send an ask and we will get back to you, having whatever character(s) you asked answer. Sometimes, if your lucky, you will get a picture to help answer it. Please check it out.

Askffvii . tumblr . com

(remember to take out the spaces)