- "Cadet Strife was an unmitigated nightmare of the likes which had never graced Shinra's doorstep either before or after his employment. Sephiroth couldn't shake the overwhelming sensation that Strife was perhaps a little too knowledgeable about the company's inner workings for a cadet only a week into his employment with the company."
After the end of the world, Sephiroth drags himself and Cloud Strife into the past, must to Cloud's consternation. They end up as entities in the past version of Cloud Strife. This results in Cloud ending up as something of a Cloudcuckoolander.
The fanfiction Cadetship Calamity is written by AMournfulHowlInTheNight, author of Conversations with a Cryptid, Cardiac Arrest, and Sith Lord Swell. It can be read here
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Cadetship Calamity contains the following tropes
- Adaptational Heroism: Sephiroth, who ends up much more well-adjusted, thanks to the efforts of Cloud. After hearing about Jenova from Cloud, he plans to torch it with his Phoenix summon.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Cloud. He beats up all of the other cadets, breaks Hojo's arm, kills a monster with a plunger, tongs, and a soap dispenser, poisons Hojo with the residue of the monster left on the tongs, and befriends multiple monsters.
- Disappeared Dad: Cloud was told that his dad died in the war and never questioned it, but as Not-Sephiroth notes, Cloud's dad was obviously important, as he was different even before falling into mako and surviving.
- Insane Troll Logic: Nibelheim's adults run on this, aside from Claudia Strife, if Sephiroth is to be believed. They see Cloud falling into a pool of mako as a child as his fault, instead of a sign of neglect on the sign of the adults.
- Jerkass: It's no surprise that Hojo is this.
- Mad Scientist: Hojo is widely acknowledged as one, and once he and his second-in-command are removed from their ability to lead the Science department of Shinra due to their stomachs melting, the department's overhead reduces threefold.
- The Nicknamer: Cloud gives nicknames to the future versions of himself and Sephiroth, calling them "Spiky" and "Not-Sephiroth".
- Oblivious Adoption: Cloud doesn't realize that Sephiroth is adopting him until Spiky points it out to him.
- Super-Soldier: Sephiroth, Genesis, and Angael, the by-products of Project S. It's a general point that anyone at the level of a First-Class SOLDIER has mako enhancements, with the only person ever compared to them being Cloud, who fell into a pool of mako.
