Buster doesn't come out, often. Sephiroth saw her once upon a time a good bit more, when Angeal and Genesis first started making things go their way in Midgar, because it was a necessity... and even then, Angeal always seemed loathe to draw the massive weapon. Best to utilize his fists, instead, or a chair, or a shovel. Anything within easy reach and that could hit hard. Buster, if she is anything, has always seemed to be more of a method of intimidation than anything else. Something to stop the fight before it could really start in earnest.
More sensible souls, not being spurred on by senseless bravado or rage, look at a man who can cart around a giant sword with little trouble and think twice on the choices that have brought them there.
But sometimes, she still finds a use. Sometimes, she still is pulled out when Angeal finds it truly important to use Buster and nothing else. It's just always hard to tell when that moment will be until it happens. So if he has Buster out...
Sephiroth doesn't go inside HQ. Doesn't go back home. Instead, he steps to the side, falling in step with Angeal through simple habit. Behind them, he can feel Zack sticking close almost more than he can hear his footsteps beneath all the bustle of the Market. "Who was it?" Sephiroth asks simply.
"Skuppa, from the gym," Angeal tells him matter of fact, not breaking his stride in the slightest. It's a calm voice, and arguably on as calm expression as can be found on a severe face as Angeal's. However, it doesn't go past Sephiroth that there's a churning sort of darkness in Angeal's eyes. The kind of quiet wrath that is just being held back until it can be set upon the appropriate target. It matches a certain quality in his voice, too, something dark and low that makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Genesis refers to it as growling, although Sephiroth has never heard a definite growl leave Angeal's throat.
There are a lot of people in Wall Market, and more people who work for it beyond the little territory. Getting to know all of them is something that even Sephiroth struggles with, sometime. But he thinks he recalls the name, can match it to some sort of face. A little bit older, the kind of muscular type that some liked.
The kind that people never think would run into trouble, but that's exactly why they sometimes do.
But perhaps just as importantly as Angeal's own quiet fury... Sephiroth glances back past the two of them, taking in the way Zack's fists are clenched, trembling, how they match the rage that's sparking behind his own eyes. Like an ember about to land a little too close to a fireworks stand at a gas station.
Skuppa. Sephiroth had spoken to him briefly at the gym. He'd been laughing about the looks on everyone's faces when Zack had broken a record. Hadn't Angeal just sent him to the gym but a few days ago?
There's no need to ask if Angeal needs any back up. If he felt he did, then surely he would have gotten it already from any of the guards in his employ, or asked for him, or asked Genesis. Maybe once upon a time, Sephiroth wouldn't have thought to ask him. Even so, in the face of all those facts, Sephiroth still asks him, "Do you want anyone to come with you?"
Angeal forces out a steadied breath from between his teeth, finds some sort of center in himself. "I'll be fine," he says after a moment. "Thanks for the consideration. But I do have Zack with me."
Behind them, Sephiroth can hear Zack's steps stutter and stumble for a brief moment. Recognition of his own ability by the boss; what a pleasant thing. And Sephiroth supposes that Angeal does have a point. He chose Zack for a reason... and this, too, is going to be one of the things he will have to deal with as the boss of Wall Market.
"Then I'll be waiting for you when you return," Sephiroth answers simply, before he turns back to Zack. Apparently he's caught him at a slightly inopportune time; Angeal's protégé is still trying to school his expression back when he does so. "We'll be relying on you to keep him safe, then."
They've all paused, now, and Zack stands up ramrod straight. Sephiroth thinks he can see the slightest ghost of the SOLDIER he might've been in that, even if it is just the ghost of an eager young recruit. He thinks he can even see his hand jerk, almost prepared to go straight into a salute. "You got it!" he says, finding some brief measure of excitement and confidence in the situation despite itself. "Zack Fair, here to do the job right!"
Angeal scoffs a little bit under his breath, but Sephiroth thinks that his own ire has lessened a bit. Someone may still very well die tonight, depending on what's happened to Skuppa, but that's none of Sephiroth's concern. His priority is, and always will be, Angeal and Genesis, and Angeal is who is in front of him now.
"Then Zack Fair needs to keep up with me if he wants to do the job right," he says, continuing onwards, stride as long and quick as ever. "Don't lag, Zack."
"I'm not lagging! I'm not!"
Sephiroth declines any other jobs for the rest of the day, once they've disappeared from view - whether that's to use the train or any other questionable form of transportation that Angeal chooses. He's fortunate that he's had nothing else really planned for the day, honestly, although he would have cancelled any appointments even if he did without even a second thought. Instead, he lets himself into Angeal's more private rooms - the little suite, of course, but also his office, the makeshift infirmary that would make any field medic jealous, all sorts of little spaces that once used to be declarations of luxury and now have been transformed into something more in accordance with Angeal's practical nature even if he'd been to cheap to construct over the glintz and gaudiness of it all.
In a way, it's almost amusing. Angeal likes to hang coats on top of a gold-coated monster statue of some sort, "just to hide its ugly face, I do not understand rich people's tastes at all".
It only takes a few hours for Angeal to return in the end, and Sephiroth suspects that most of that was time spent traveling - whether by automated transport or simply hunting through the streets as he tracked down the person who made the ill-advised choice of hurting or taking one of their own. Zack and Skuppa are there with him... Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that Zack and Angeal are with Skuppa, bracketing both sides of him like a pair of guard dogs.
Skuppa's smile is a bit sheepish as he settles down onto an infirmary bed that they stole from the back of a truck, once upon a time. Sephiroth can spot the bruises around his neck even before the other man lowers the coat from his shoulders. "Kinda embarrassing, to get caught like that," he says, while Angeal looks over the medical supplies that Sephiroth pulled out hours earlier. "And I thought it was just going to be normal play."
And that's how so many get them, isn't it? "You wouldn't be the first," Sephiroth tells him, because it's the truth. "I am simply glad the system worked."
The system where any of their people can protect themselves if they want to learn how from Angeal, and Genesis. The system where, even with that in place, everyone is meant to check in so that they can react immediately to the first sign of something amiss. Angeal had insisted upon something like it, ages ago, before he'd even really solidified his standing in the Market.
Of course, with the things they'd seen at the lowest tier in the hierarchy as they'd been fighting... That'd only made sense.
Angeal is the one who tends to him, in the end, because Angeal has a surprising amount of field medic knowledge for someone who grew up in the middle of nowhere, and Genesis is the one who is better at using healing materia. That leaves Sephiroth to step back a bit, and he looks towards Zack.
In contrast to the fire he'd clearly had coaxed along in him when he was first setting off with Angeal, he seems a bit quieter now. Contemplative, perhaps. He almost doesn't seem to notice Sephiroth's approach at first, and only jolts in realization when he takes the seat besides him. "Oh! Sephiroth! You - Uh -" He starts to flail his hands about, seeking to make some sort of understanding gesture, and not making a single bit of sense at all. "Hey!"
While he gets flustered, Sephiroth takes this time to look him over. Angeal, he had only needed to glance at to get a good idea of his state of being. Angeal rarely seems to take damage - or, if he does take damage, it rarely seems to last until the next morning unless the damage is truly serious... and that only seems to count if someone manages to actually stab him.
Magic aimed directly at his face? Blunt force trauma to the head? Sephiroth has seen him take on all of this and more, only to be up on his feet again moments later. In that respect, they seem rather similar. Sephiroth has found that he's rather durable as well.
But Zack? Wide eyed, energetic, prone to impulse and doing before thinking? Someone that Sephiroth has not spent years at the side of? Well... Sephiroth imagines that one can understand why he is a little more interested in checking things over with Zack.
And yet Zack seems to be in decent enough condition, at a cursory inspection. His already messy hair has only been made all the more wild, no doubt from running and fighting, and he's far filthier than he was when he first stepped out from HQ. Quite a tall order; sometimes it can be difficult to stay clean at all when one is doing all sorts of odd jobs throughout the Market's many streets. The inside buildings are often kept as clean as can be expected... but down here towards the bottom of Midgar, all the filth seems to filter down here.
The filth is the worst of it, on some level. Zack doesn't hold himself gingerly, isn't favoring one limb over the other. As far as physical injury goes... there is just a large bruise along his jaw, a mottled sort of yellow that will no doubt bruise into splendid purples and reds, with a cut there in a jagged little cross.
Sephiroth tilts his head towards it. "Injured in the line of duty?" he asks, just to help get Zack's mind focused on something again instead of scattered to the four winds. While Sephiroth may be used to that happening around him, it is somewhat an obstacle here right now when he is just trying to talk to the young man.
At least it's enough to snap Zack's mind out of it, as he had hoped. There are a couple of befuddled blinks, and then Zack laughs a little bit, rubbing the back of his neck. "Oh, this?" he says, hand lowering just so it can jerk up towards his face. Truly, he is a man of near infinite energy that has absolutely no idea where it wants to go. "That's nothing! You should see the other guys! I just got this when I was a little too up close and personal."
Really, he would like to see the other guys, but he doubts there's much more to them that he could really do. Not after Angeal has already dealt with them.
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More sensible souls, not being spurred on by senseless bravado or rage, look at a man who can cart around a giant sword with little trouble and think twice on the choices that have brought them there.
But sometimes, she still finds a use. Sometimes, she still is pulled out when Angeal finds it truly important to use Buster and nothing else. It's just always hard to tell when that moment will be until it happens. So if he has Buster out...
Sephiroth doesn't go inside HQ. Doesn't go back home. Instead, he steps to the side, falling in step with Angeal through simple habit. Behind them, he can feel Zack sticking close almost more than he can hear his footsteps beneath all the bustle of the Market. "Who was it?" Sephiroth asks simply.
"Skuppa, from the gym," Angeal tells him matter of fact, not breaking his stride in the slightest. It's a calm voice, and arguably on as calm expression as can be found on a severe face as Angeal's. However, it doesn't go past Sephiroth that there's a churning sort of darkness in Angeal's eyes. The kind of quiet wrath that is just being held back until it can be set upon the appropriate target. It matches a certain quality in his voice, too, something dark and low that makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Genesis refers to it as growling, although Sephiroth has never heard a definite growl leave Angeal's throat.
There are a lot of people in Wall Market, and more people who work for it beyond the little territory. Getting to know all of them is something that even Sephiroth struggles with, sometime. But he thinks he recalls the name, can match it to some sort of face. A little bit older, the kind of muscular type that some liked.
The kind that people never think would run into trouble, but that's exactly why they sometimes do.
But perhaps just as importantly as Angeal's own quiet fury... Sephiroth glances back past the two of them, taking in the way Zack's fists are clenched, trembling, how they match the rage that's sparking behind his own eyes. Like an ember about to land a little too close to a fireworks stand at a gas station.
Skuppa. Sephiroth had spoken to him briefly at the gym. He'd been laughing about the looks on everyone's faces when Zack had broken a record. Hadn't Angeal just sent him to the gym but a few days ago?
There's no need to ask if Angeal needs any back up. If he felt he did, then surely he would have gotten it already from any of the guards in his employ, or asked for him, or asked Genesis. Maybe once upon a time, Sephiroth wouldn't have thought to ask him. Even so, in the face of all those facts, Sephiroth still asks him, "Do you want anyone to come with you?"
Angeal forces out a steadied breath from between his teeth, finds some sort of center in himself. "I'll be fine," he says after a moment. "Thanks for the consideration. But I do have Zack with me."
Behind them, Sephiroth can hear Zack's steps stutter and stumble for a brief moment. Recognition of his own ability by the boss; what a pleasant thing. And Sephiroth supposes that Angeal does have a point. He chose Zack for a reason... and this, too, is going to be one of the things he will have to deal with as the boss of Wall Market.
"Then I'll be waiting for you when you return," Sephiroth answers simply, before he turns back to Zack. Apparently he's caught him at a slightly inopportune time; Angeal's protégé is still trying to school his expression back when he does so. "We'll be relying on you to keep him safe, then."
They've all paused, now, and Zack stands up ramrod straight. Sephiroth thinks he can see the slightest ghost of the SOLDIER he might've been in that, even if it is just the ghost of an eager young recruit. He thinks he can even see his hand jerk, almost prepared to go straight into a salute. "You got it!" he says, finding some brief measure of excitement and confidence in the situation despite itself. "Zack Fair, here to do the job right!"
Angeal scoffs a little bit under his breath, but Sephiroth thinks that his own ire has lessened a bit. Someone may still very well die tonight, depending on what's happened to Skuppa, but that's none of Sephiroth's concern. His priority is, and always will be, Angeal and Genesis, and Angeal is who is in front of him now.
"Then Zack Fair needs to keep up with me if he wants to do the job right," he says, continuing onwards, stride as long and quick as ever. "Don't lag, Zack."
"I'm not lagging! I'm not!"
Sephiroth declines any other jobs for the rest of the day, once they've disappeared from view - whether that's to use the train or any other questionable form of transportation that Angeal chooses. He's fortunate that he's had nothing else really planned for the day, honestly, although he would have cancelled any appointments even if he did without even a second thought. Instead, he lets himself into Angeal's more private rooms - the little suite, of course, but also his office, the makeshift infirmary that would make any field medic jealous, all sorts of little spaces that once used to be declarations of luxury and now have been transformed into something more in accordance with Angeal's practical nature even if he'd been to cheap to construct over the glintz and gaudiness of it all.
In a way, it's almost amusing. Angeal likes to hang coats on top of a gold-coated monster statue of some sort, "just to hide its ugly face, I do not understand rich people's tastes at all".
It only takes a few hours for Angeal to return in the end, and Sephiroth suspects that most of that was time spent traveling - whether by automated transport or simply hunting through the streets as he tracked down the person who made the ill-advised choice of hurting or taking one of their own. Zack and Skuppa are there with him... Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that Zack and Angeal are with Skuppa, bracketing both sides of him like a pair of guard dogs.
Skuppa's smile is a bit sheepish as he settles down onto an infirmary bed that they stole from the back of a truck, once upon a time. Sephiroth can spot the bruises around his neck even before the other man lowers the coat from his shoulders. "Kinda embarrassing, to get caught like that," he says, while Angeal looks over the medical supplies that Sephiroth pulled out hours earlier. "And I thought it was just going to be normal play."
And that's how so many get them, isn't it? "You wouldn't be the first," Sephiroth tells him, because it's the truth. "I am simply glad the system worked."
The system where any of their people can protect themselves if they want to learn how from Angeal, and Genesis. The system where, even with that in place, everyone is meant to check in so that they can react immediately to the first sign of something amiss. Angeal had insisted upon something like it, ages ago, before he'd even really solidified his standing in the Market.
Of course, with the things they'd seen at the lowest tier in the hierarchy as they'd been fighting... That'd only made sense.
Angeal is the one who tends to him, in the end, because Angeal has a surprising amount of field medic knowledge for someone who grew up in the middle of nowhere, and Genesis is the one who is better at using healing materia. That leaves Sephiroth to step back a bit, and he looks towards Zack.
In contrast to the fire he'd clearly had coaxed along in him when he was first setting off with Angeal, he seems a bit quieter now. Contemplative, perhaps. He almost doesn't seem to notice Sephiroth's approach at first, and only jolts in realization when he takes the seat besides him. "Oh! Sephiroth! You - Uh -" He starts to flail his hands about, seeking to make some sort of understanding gesture, and not making a single bit of sense at all. "Hey!"
While he gets flustered, Sephiroth takes this time to look him over. Angeal, he had only needed to glance at to get a good idea of his state of being. Angeal rarely seems to take damage - or, if he does take damage, it rarely seems to last until the next morning unless the damage is truly serious... and that only seems to count if someone manages to actually stab him.
Magic aimed directly at his face? Blunt force trauma to the head? Sephiroth has seen him take on all of this and more, only to be up on his feet again moments later. In that respect, they seem rather similar. Sephiroth has found that he's rather durable as well.
But Zack? Wide eyed, energetic, prone to impulse and doing before thinking? Someone that Sephiroth has not spent years at the side of? Well... Sephiroth imagines that one can understand why he is a little more interested in checking things over with Zack.
And yet Zack seems to be in decent enough condition, at a cursory inspection. His already messy hair has only been made all the more wild, no doubt from running and fighting, and he's far filthier than he was when he first stepped out from HQ. Quite a tall order; sometimes it can be difficult to stay clean at all when one is doing all sorts of odd jobs throughout the Market's many streets. The inside buildings are often kept as clean as can be expected... but down here towards the bottom of Midgar, all the filth seems to filter down here.
The filth is the worst of it, on some level. Zack doesn't hold himself gingerly, isn't favoring one limb over the other. As far as physical injury goes... there is just a large bruise along his jaw, a mottled sort of yellow that will no doubt bruise into splendid purples and reds, with a cut there in a jagged little cross.
Sephiroth tilts his head towards it. "Injured in the line of duty?" he asks, just to help get Zack's mind focused on something again instead of scattered to the four winds. While Sephiroth may be used to that happening around him, it is somewhat an obstacle here right now when he is just trying to talk to the young man.
At least it's enough to snap Zack's mind out of it, as he had hoped. There are a couple of befuddled blinks, and then Zack laughs a little bit, rubbing the back of his neck. "Oh, this?" he says, hand lowering just so it can jerk up towards his face. Truly, he is a man of near infinite energy that has absolutely no idea where it wants to go. "That's nothing! You should see the other guys! I just got this when I was a little too up close and personal."
Really, he would like to see the other guys, but he doubts there's much more to them that he could really do. Not after Angeal has already dealt with them.