He's not, and he might, but hell if he's going to sit here and admit to it. It's just a bunch of words, he shouldn't need breaks.
The file begins with a summary of his childhood. How he was too shy to fit in, fearless enough to save a friend doing something dangerous but unable to convince anyone he wasn't the one to put her in danger in the first place. How he covered up his loneliness and lack of self-esteem with arrogance and hostility, which didn't help him or his single mother, whom the village looked down on for not getting re-married after Cloud's father died when he was an infant.
Starting off strong for the Strifes, apparently.
Present-day Cloud folds his arms and looks down while she reads, brow slightly furrowed. The truth is, there's a lot about his early life he doesn't remember very well even now - some of it was just irretrievable, especially the details. But he still remembers the feelings. He remembers the loneliness, the longing to be a part of Tifa's friend group, the way he blamed himself even then for being an unlikable weirdo. He remembers getting into too many fights despite being smaller than the rest of the boys, and how losing or getting hurt never stopped him from doing it again. He remembers convincing himself he was better than everyone else so he could pretend he was always alone by choice.
Maybe that's why he developed such an obsession with joining SOLDIER, Shinra's elite fighting force of supersoldiers - the best of the best. And the best of those was Sephiroth, the Demon of Wutai, the hero of Midgar. Everyone loved Sephiroth! If Cloud was a hero like that, then everyone would have to love him, too. Especially Tifa.
So as soon as he was old enough - the spring before his 14th birthday - he left his village behind and moved to Midgar, the biggest city in the world, to join Shinra Public Security as an infantry trooper. He intended for that stint to be short-lived, but when he applied for the SOLDIER program once he turned 14, he was turned down. He studied hard, trained hard, tried again and again and again, but was rejected every time.
Needless to say, his self-esteem sure wasn't getting any better.
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He's not, and he might, but hell if he's going to sit here and admit to it. It's just a bunch of words, he shouldn't need breaks.
The file begins with a summary of his childhood. How he was too shy to fit in, fearless enough to save a friend doing something dangerous but unable to convince anyone he wasn't the one to put her in danger in the first place. How he covered up his loneliness and lack of self-esteem with arrogance and hostility, which didn't help him or his single mother, whom the village looked down on for not getting re-married after Cloud's father died when he was an infant.
Starting off strong for the Strifes, apparently.
Present-day Cloud folds his arms and looks down while she reads, brow slightly furrowed. The truth is, there's a lot about his early life he doesn't remember very well even now - some of it was just irretrievable, especially the details. But he still remembers the feelings. He remembers the loneliness, the longing to be a part of Tifa's friend group, the way he blamed himself even then for being an unlikable weirdo. He remembers getting into too many fights despite being smaller than the rest of the boys, and how losing or getting hurt never stopped him from doing it again. He remembers convincing himself he was better than everyone else so he could pretend he was always alone by choice.
Maybe that's why he developed such an obsession with joining SOLDIER, Shinra's elite fighting force of supersoldiers - the best of the best. And the best of those was Sephiroth, the Demon of Wutai, the hero of Midgar. Everyone loved Sephiroth! If Cloud was a hero like that, then everyone would have to love him, too. Especially Tifa.
So as soon as he was old enough - the spring before his 14th birthday - he left his village behind and moved to Midgar, the biggest city in the world, to join Shinra Public Security as an infantry trooper. He intended for that stint to be short-lived, but when he applied for the SOLDIER program once he turned 14, he was turned down. He studied hard, trained hard, tried again and again and again, but was rejected every time.
Needless to say, his self-esteem sure wasn't getting any better.