Loveless

Part 4

It was dark—so dark the silence felt like a weight on her chest. Her body burned with cold, as if someone had dragged her beneath the surface of a frozen lake and left her there. Eloise knew she was unconscious, trapped somewhere between thought and dream, but her eyelids refused to lift. Her limbs felt numb.

Then—light. Sudden, blinding light swallowing the darkness whole. Warmth rolled through her in a wave, soothing her. It looked heavenly, like the kind of light people whispered about in old tales. But the moment it touched her, pain erupted, snapping through her nerves like lightning.

And she woke.

"Is she going to be alright?"

Zack. That was definitely Zack. Eloise tried to answer, but her throat felt raw, as if she'd swallowed sand. She forced her eyes open but all she saw were blurred shapes crowding around her.

"Zack..." she breathed, barely audible.

Her brother leaned closer, worry tightening his expression.

"You're standing on my hand," she added with a sigh.

Zack jolted up like he'd been stabbed and backed off. Eloise turned her head in search of the others, but the movement sent a sharp, stabbing pain through the back of her skull. She squeezed her eyes shut until it settled, focusing on steadying her breath. When she looked again, her vision finally sharpened: Zack, Sephiroth, Angeal, and Genesis—three different hairstyles and one very worried puppy.

"What... happened?" Her voice cracked, dissolving into a cough.

Zack grabbed her hand, trying to steady her. Eloise ignored the ache in her chest and glanced at Sephiroth instead.

"You fainted," he said, tone flat, almost detached.

She looked around and realised she was in the hospital wing.

"Why are you here?" she asked. The question was aimed mostly at Genesis, though Zack was included by default. She didn't want her brother involved.

Her gaze slid toward Angeal in a silent plea. He read her perfectly and put a hand on Zack's shoulder, guiding him out into the hall. Sephiroth didn't move and neither did Genesis.

Sephiroth exhaled and crossed his arms.

"Are you going to explain what happened in the training room?" His voice was cold enough to make the air feel heavier.

Eloise didn't answer, not with Genesis standing there.

Sephiroth followed her eyes, understanding immediately. He turned toward Genesis with a nothing short of a command. Genesis scoffed, clearly irritated, and left the room anyway, the faintest limp in his stride. The moment he stepped outside, Eloise sighed heavily.

Sephiroth turned to Eloise with an expectant look.

"It started a few months after I entered Shinra as an infantryman," she continued. "The men were rough on me, mocking me and provoking me because I was a girl in a "men's field". What a bunch of crap." She added with a glare to the side. "One day some of them planned to ambush me while on a routine mission. It was supposed to be a joke, they said. Ha! I don't even remember what I did, I only know that they were in the hospital for weeks afterwards."

"What is it?" His tone was hard to decipher.

She stared down at her hands, embarrassed. "I don't know. Some type of energy."

Sephiroth stepped closer. "Did anything happen to you before that?"

Her fingers tightened. She rubbed her palms together, feeling the faint buzz just beneath her skin.

"After being accepted as an infantryman, the scientist who gave me a physical also gave me a small dose of mako infusion. Standard procedure, he said at the time. But my body rejected it violently." She swallowed. "They had to flush the mako out and operate. After that... I started feeling strange but nothing really changed."

Sephiroth's eyes narrowed, barely, but enough to show he was listening carefully.

"I can't control it," she admitted looking down at her hands. "There's no pattern. I'm always afraid I'll hurt someone again."

"Did you tell your doctor?"

She shook her head hard. "No. I haven't seen professor Hollander since. I'm just always anxious that if the situation becomes stressful enough, I could do something that I will regret later."

"You won't." His voice didn't soften, but it had weight. "You won't become a murderer. I am your mentor now, much to your luck." He said with the ghost of a smirk.

Even without warmth, the certainty in his tone made her chest loosen.

"Oh—Sephiroth—"

He turned to leave, but she called after him.

"Please don't tell anyone, especially Zack."

His hand paused on the doorframe. He didn't look back, but he nodded once.

The next morning, Eloise woke in her own bed. The hospital was too white and too stiff. Her head no longer throbbed, but something still felt off.

It was barely five. The sky outside her window was still black. She made a quick breakfast—two sandwiches eaten in record time—before heading out. Training was at eight sharp, and she still wasn't sure where the room was.

Luckily, she met two 3rd Class SOLDIERs and they mentioned exactly where they were going.

Training went better than expected. No one seemed to notice she'd missed the introduction. There were only ten of them, and some definitely needed serious work. Eloise held her ground fine—strong enough, quick enough—but she was still just a young girl. Reality was reality. Facing a fully grown man head-on wasn't easy.

And thinking about Sephiroth training her made her stomach twist. He wasn't just a man. He was the SOLDIER. A legend. He wasn't going to ease up just because she was young or a girl.

After training, her squad went to the canteen together. They were more open than the officers she knew, friendlier, less judgemental. They didn't care that she was a girl. That alone made her feel lighter.

"So you became a SOLDIER because of your brother?" one asked.

She smiled faintly. "You could say that. I admire his stubbornness. It got him far. But after seeing how people get hurt I realised I don't want to be a puppet. I want to be able to fight for the people that cannot."

"But Shinra caused the damage in the first place," a blond SOLDIER muttered. "The Turks burned half my town looking for someone."

Heads nodded.

"It happened in my village too," another said. "They said there was an infection. Lies. They forced people to join."

The conversation spiralled from there—company politics, missions, horror stories. They wanted power to protect their families, and Eloise understood since at the core, she wanted the same.

By the time she returned to the lounge, it was four in the afternoon. She collapsed on the couch, absolutely drained.

"Elly!"

She covered her eyes with a groan. "I'm going to ignore you."

"Harsh." He flopped beside her. "How was training?"

She groaned again. That said enough.

"And Sephiroth's later? Ready for that?"

She cracked one eye open and glared weakly. "Do I look ready?"

Zack laughed. "He'll go hard on you. You should prepare yourself mentally."

She groaned as she rolled away from him and on her face.