(Untitled)

[moralmisconduct]

Who: Hojo, Sephiroth
When: After Hojo chases everyone out of the room. Seriously people, this is supposed to be an sterile environment okay. :|
Location: Gongaga
Rating: PG mostly for SCIENCE! and NEEDLES!
Summary: We'll call this Phase 0 in our series of Sephiroth torture experiments.

Comments

[sorry if fail! work ate what I had wrote with their silly internet cut-off!]

[sephiroth_san]

Sephiroth wondered idly why Hojo just had to keep talking. Sephiroth had made his feelings well known and clearly, in fact the insides of his own brain still hummed from the outburst. Pulse rate which had been quickened by anger soon cooled off though. He was wrong about Jenova, and Sephiroth would prove it. In terms of doing that though, he had to find her first and getting out of here...well...

A long silence followed. Sephiroth had a lot to consider and, apparently not a lot of time in which to consider it. It was shameful exactly what choice he didn't have in this whole thing. The thought of ShinRa's finest scientists having their hands all over him, giving free reign over to whatever Hojo wanted them to do to him was a sickening thought enough, but what was worse was his useless ability to stop them if it was suddenly given the go ahead. Something, perhaps the thought he'd grazed from Hojo but not really taken in, gave the impression that the Professor was asking him for permission. Permission to proceed with whatever Hojo had in mind which would apparently grant him access to power he didn't already know he had, Sephiroth found it unlikely but what an opportunity to miss should anything of what the scientist spoke of was true.

Hojo wasn't in with ShinRa on this, that could be the only reason or did ShinRa have some other motive to do with him that wasn't obvious? Too much experience and too many secrets within the company told Sephiroth that either would make sense. To take a chance on a chance of being able to get out of here...

Cooperation requires trust, Professor. What reason have I to trust you? Or was this simply a matter of he'd better like it, because there wasn't much other option other than to rot in the containment chamber until someone decided to terminate him.

<3

[moralmisconduct]

Through the silence, Hojo continued to fiddle with the instruments, content that Sephiroth was at last giving his words some consideration. That stubborness had to be partly inherited - or, at the very least let no one say that Hojo did not play a significant role in Sephiroth's upbringing.

He smirked at the question, the outcome of the other man's deliberations. An anticipated query, one which the professor had turned over in his head, running over possible answers. In truth, none of the answers he could give would satisfy Sephiroth, and this he knew as well.

But, the boy was starting to see just how few options they really had.

I've always had your best interest at heart, Sephiroth. He sent the thought down the connection, an indication that he was willing to meet the general halfway on this and future matters. Did my willingness to die for you prove nothing, or were you too absorbed in yourself to even notice all the things I was doing for you? Even now, I'm putting my own life on the line just to keep yours going. Hell, they'd drag me outside and shoot me in the head right now if they knew my true intentions.

Then, he hesitated, suddenly feeling a wave of anxiousness bordering on nausea. But what needed to be said, needed to be said. Hojo was going to give this plan every meagre thing he still possessed.

"There is also the fact that..." He actually looked away here. The words weighed him down more than towers, under thirty years of self-denial and neglect. Spoken out loud, because he himself needed to hear them. "...you are my son, Sephiroth. My responsibility. You trusted that false mother of yours so willingly, won't you give your father an inkling of that trust now...?"

[sephiroth_san]

All true, what the Professor added. Or at least it seemed that way. Hojo's apparent self-sacrifice however remained unproven; Sephiroth would never believe that the scientists compassion stretched that far. It made no sense. How could he have comfortably subjected Sephiroth to all the experimentation if those feelings had been behind the mask all the time, you just didn't do those things to someone you cared for.

Then there was the greatest betrayal, Hojo had NEVER TOLD HIM through the last thirty years and in particular in adolescence when Sephiroth had asked the questions no more truth had been revealed to him. Should all of the silence be forgotten now, for the sake of an experiment that could shape the future. But there was no guarantee to trust Hojo by, neither was there any guarantee that the processes Hojo had in mind would be successful. After all there was not any other specimen he could have tested this on. This was a risky proposition and a difficult one to make a desicion upon considering Sephiroth was not about to sign his whole body away in the name of science. Like Hojo had given his body to Jenova's cells and then died shortly afterward. Of course Sephiroth had noticed, but attention had been rightly fixed on the Meteor and gathering his own energies for the Planet-sized surge of power he would have to absorb upon impact.

Hojo was going to have to learn to see Jenova in a different light, it seemed, should Sephiroth even consider the scientists plot. Sephiroth physically flinched at the small wince which followed Hojo's last spoken words. He still refused to believe that Hojo was his Father. It wasn't true, and even if it was Sephiroth had not had a father all through his upbringing; what made Hojo think he needed one now. Jenova was all the parent that he needed. Mother and Father. There was nothing else. False Mother indeed, Hojo had made her real.

You gave me to my Mother. By that logic I should be grateful, if it were not for all the lies, deceit and half-truths you surrounded me with. Mother left. I need to find her, or at least to know why...you don't understand. This Planet is mine for the taking, but it's all for her...

Late reply is angsty. v_v

[moralmisconduct]

You are resentful because I was not honest. But honesty...in the matter of your birth...would not have contributed to your development. Hojo felt sick. Uncomfortable. An unrepressable image of Lucrecia's face flashed past like an overexposed photograph. I don't hold the delusion that amends are possible. Not in all areas. But to give you a new beginning is within my power.

"And you can repay me afterwards by ending this life," he muttered. "I no longer have any desire to live it."

He shook his head briefly to clear the silence from his mind. This was a tangent he had not wanted to take; personal business should never interfere with work, or the results could be disastrous. Wasn't that one of the reasons he never told Sephiroth of his heritage?

Yes, and no... Fear played a greater part in that decision. But what exactly had he been afraid of? What had made his innards freeze over at the mere idea of confessing anything to the boy?

The sins of the father should not plague the son. Sephiroth should not have needed to pay for the mistakes Hojo had made.

Sins. The professor smiled grimly. He was sounding more like that bastard Valentine everyday.

Hojo breathed in, closed his eyes for a moment to dispel unnecessary distractions. This was not a family moment. There was work to be done.

"I will give you more time to think, but know that time is fast running out," he said, tying a tourniquet around the other man's arm and pressing the tip of the needle to the vein with practiced ease. "Rest assured today's procedure has nothing to do with my proposition. Today, we are going to attempt to save a little girl's life."

The smirk returned. The words were bitter.

"Amaya will be grateful to you."

[ooc: Hojo doesn't actually know you can talk to Maya, don't worry. He just threw that name in there for the personal touch. ^^]

[sephiroth_san]

Something about Hojo's sickly feeling seemed to be contagious. Perhaps this mixture of hearing thought-projection and also hearing vocalization was a little too much for his senses to take in his sedated state. Sephiroth struggled to swallow back the globule of stickiness which had rested in the back of his throat. Put there by hesitation, curiosity and downright anticipation as a result of the situation he found himself in.

All these thoughts which added to Hojo's deluded confession. Sephiroth could listen, but was firmly still of the opinion that Hojo was wrong, who's was that face supposed to be anyway? Some "biological" mother? A host maybe, never his Mother. Sephiroth didn't offer any of these thoughts back to Hojo, the last thing he needed right now was for the deranged scientist to go mental with any of the surgical implements that might well be nearby. One of his visitors had already made that threat. It was curious to think that the containment was for his own good as well as the protection of whomever...may be here...Now that's a tempting thought. But now I need to be patient.

Needle prick, followed by an instant wash of numbness which seemed to contain his whole arm. A hint of panic in a breath which Sephiroth inhaled sharply, but the scientist kept talking as he finished administering the dose.

Wait- procedure? Numbness had already begun to invade Sephiroth's mind, dragging like some heavy weight his consciousness down further into murky water. It had felt like he'd had to shout mentally to get those two words across.

Amaya... Thoughts were unable to be projected, as Sephiroth tried quickly to turn his thoughts towards the little girl he found himself unable to do so. All control had been ripped into a void.

[ooc: end of Phase 0?]