Cloud (or time traveler Cloud) secretly entered the lab, searching Sephiroth to kill him (he thinks he's here because someone told him) but hear Hojo speaking about him in a degrading way, like if he was a stupid child or a lab animal.
Cloud, hearing Hojo speaks about Sephiroth in that way for 3 hours:
Cloud, attacking Hojo: IT'S NOT SEPHIROTH'S FAULT, IT'S YOUR!!YOU RUINED HIM!!
Cloud: I'LL KILL YOU SO ANGEAL, GENESIS AND ZACK CAN REPEAR HIM BEFORE HE BROKE!! IT WILL ALSO SAVE THE WORLD!!
*Cloud is rifling through Hojo’s desk when he hears footsteps. He panics and dives under the table just as the door opens*
Sephiroth: But I’m not asking for a complete exemption from my duties. It’s just a minor adjustment to the schedule.
Hojo: What you’re actually asking for is to be locked in a monitored cell for a month and treated like the specimen you are. Have you forgotten your place?
Sephiroth: It’s only for a single weekend in Banora. Genesis and Angeal have invited me—
Hojo: Ah, Hollander’s little errors. I should have guessed. What have I told you about forming sentimental attachments, Sephiroth? You never learn.
Cloud, internally: Is this how he talked to him??
Sephiroth, sighing, looking away: Professor Gast once noted that subjecting me to this specific type of psychological degradation would have severe, long-term consequences for my stability in the future.
Hojo: Keep whining about your feelings, boy, and I will personally lock you in the isolation tank until winter.
Sephiroth: But Professor Gast explicitly wrote—
Hojo: Gast was a weak-willed sentimentalist who fled because he couldn’t handle the work. What did he know of the future?
Cloud, jumping out: A WHOLE LOT—
*Hojo screams and immediately drops unconscious from shock*
Cloud: I’m... I’m your... guardian angel...?
*Sephiroth instantly exudes exact energy of a newborn baby duck imprinting on the first moving object it sees*