Chapter 2: End of the Shining City

"….Sounds complicated." Shadow, the black clad Ninja of Fantasy Falls, enunciated. It was only ten minutes after he and Zidane had been appointed with the mission of finding King Grifeth of Fantasy Falls, and Zidane had explained everything he'd read in the letter left by the King. They had quickly found themselves in the looping building of the Gundam Storage Facility, where all the Mobile Suits used for fighting and getting around in space were kept safe and sound, sometimes in transportation shuttle, sometimes outside of one. They were waiting for a requested pilot to show up…

"Damn it Kira!" Zidane had opened his mouth to speak, but a bitter swear word had stopped his comment. He and Shadow looked around the dusty, and (what they previously thought was) empty warehouse, specifically towards a huge, black, almost humanoid machination that had a rifle in its right hand and the wings of a jet magnified many times to satisfy its 16.9 meter height sticking out from behind. The ends of the wings and a bit of its shoulder area were grey colored instead of black. Two boys hopped from outside chest of the machine onto the ground with ease, despite the great distance. They'd just leapt from the cockpit of the Mobile Suit known as Aries.

"It's an eye for an eye! Haven't you heard of that, Yuy?!" a long brown haired, violet eyed boy yelled to the boy apparently called 'Yuy". His eyes were large an emotion filled, though the emotion was anger. "You got my Gundam dismantled, so I took the liberty of-" what liberties he took, Zidane and Shadow didn't find out, for as he was talking in an airy over confident voice, the boy was quite simply full faced punched by Yuy, making him stumble back and onto the foot of the Aries Mobile Suit. Zidane looked at Shadow and though only his eyes were showing beneath his Shinobi outfit, Zidane plainly saw that Shadow didn't want to try and break them up.

"Well I'm not about to let our rides kill themselves! I'm going to stop them," Zidane stated with a bit of exasperation, charging towards Yuy and the other boy. "Kira, Heero!" Zidane yelled. The two boys stopped bickering, and twisted around to face Zidane with a bow.

"Yes sir, what can I do for you?" they mimicked each other. Zidane sighed.

"First off, stop fighting, you're getting your coats dirty," the blond said, pointing to the blue and white coat that all inhabitants of the Castle Fantasy wore, which was a trench style coat with a coat of arms in the upper left and right sides which had four symbols; a crystal of each blue, red, white, and brown. The two boys obliged a bit grudgingly, and swept the dust that had clung to their coats away.

"Okay, now why don't you two tell me exactly what happened." Zidane said, acting as though he were talking to small children, though the two brown haired boys were no younger than he himself was.

"This idiot," began the Kira, the boy with longer brown hair, "smacked me one, as I'm sure you saw! Why do we allow this guy to be on the fleet at all, much less the advanced military fighting squad?!"

Zidane looked on at Kira, who was still rubbing his face, and was about to reply when the boy was forced out of the way by an abrupt push, which sent him banging into the foot of the Aries mobile suit again, headfirst.

"THIS idiot, went and dropped my Mobile Suit in a pile of these weird ships, and got it obliterated!" the other boy, Heero Yuy, countered. Kira stood up, now looking flat out pissed and stomped over.

"Yeah, but it wasn't for no reason, he did the same thing to my suit with the same guys last week! Surely you heard about that, sir?!" Kira asked, shoving Heero away (though not as far or forcefully as Heero had shoved himself).

"You don't understand, though, I accidentally dropped that lame thing he calls a Gundam, he purposefully out of spite dropped my precious, powerful, and worthy of its name, Wing Zero Gundam into the horde of ships that obliterated it!" Heero finished, Zidane sweat dropped, but Shadow looked away and put a hand to his chin thoughtfully.

"Okay guys, mind telling me why you're still fighting? After all, what's done is done," Zidane began. Heero and Kira looked at him as though they weren't willing to do anything near, and as though they still had a few more violent methods they'd like to try. However, Zidane was a tad higher up in the court than them, namely he was a protector of the Queen, self appointed and thus he held VERY high status in the court. Shadow was the same, only he was an "Interpreter" as they came to declare his job, which was basically spying on everyone in the Kingdom and keeping people out of the way of treason…Sometimes this required some forceful persuasion. Due to the fact that, outside of their Gundams, Kira and Heero were pretty weak, they chose the second route and grudgingly agreed.

"Yeah, you're right." Heero said with a twitch.

"Sorry for the trouble, Zidane sir." Kira finished.

Zidane smiled at his success, and tromped over to his subordinates. "Now, we have a pressing matter, one directly from the Queen that we'd like to discuss with you," he began, removing the letter from the black and white coat of the same pattern and coat of arms as Kira's and Heero's, "namely, it's a matter of finding the King, who, I'm sure you all know, has disappeared recently." He finished, holding out the letter for the two brown haired boys to read.

Heero was about to grasp the letter, when it was snatched from the space between Zidane and himself in a flash. Both boys blinked.

"Not yet, first, I have a question." Shadow, the black clad Ninja said, he'd easily snatched the letter from the two, and was now looking intently at Kira and Heero, who'd dropped their outreached hands and put on puzzled expressions.

"Like what?" Kira queried.

"The mysterious enemies." Shadow said quietly and deliberately. No one seemed to get his meaning, as everyone blinked stupidly. Shadow sweat dropped, then dashed over and smacked Heero and Kira on the back of their heads.

"OW!" both yelled out in unison.

"You just mentioned them! The mysterious enemies that blew your Gundams apart. What were they?!" Shadow asked, now seeming plainly impatient.

Heero snapped his fingers. "Oh, that's…Er…We never really found out," he grinned a bit sheepishly after saying this. Kira frowned in thought, and then snapped his own fingers and a look of dawning comprehension came to his face.

"Ah, they had this weird thing on their ships, it was a symbol!" Kira said proudly. Zidane looked at Shadow, who grasped his chin in thought again.

"You think they might be connected to the King, Shadow?" the blond monkey tailed boy questioned. Shadow shook his head a bit, and then half nodded. The other three boys sweat dropped at this gesture, but didn't have time to comment before Shadow walked over to the Sign-in desk of the Mobile Suit hull. Upon reaching the desk, he thumbed through the papers and objects on it; as it was a Friday and no one was working late (at least, no one that wasn't allowed to be in the hull without a Sign-in), there was no one there to stop his leafing. The three boys looked at each other, all wondering the same thing: 'What's he doing?"'.

Just as they were about to lodge a question, however, Shadow stopped his leafing and turned around with a notepad and a pen. "Draw it." He said simply, passing the items over to Kira and Heero. Kira looked at Heero and Heero did the same to Kira.

"Well, I guess I might be able to…" Kira said, quite flustered by his expression. He grasped the notepad and pen and began to write. A few minutes of silence later, and he held up the notepad to reveal…

"Whoa" "Weird" "Hmm". Various replies from Zidane, Shadow and even Heero, though he'd seen it before he still had to wonder why it looked like that. The symbol was a spaded black heart, the spade end being the bottom, and going through the black heart, were diagonally crossing, jagged lines.

"Yeah, I thought so too. The edges and the lines going through were red, if I remember correctly, but you only gave me black," Kira said with a bit of a shrug. "but they weren't problematic, or anything. They came in a lot of different kind of ships, but didn't really pose much of a problem in any of them. I do wonder why they attacked twice in one week though." Kira finished, looking up thoughtfully.

"Wait, all this happened in one week?!" Zidane's eyes went wide as he looked. "Wait, this week?!" his eyes were now the size of saucers as he looked at Kira and Heero expectantly.

Both brown haired boys nodded a bit sheepishly, but they were spared answering because at that moment, a blue robed man wearing a yellow straw hat entered. He carried a staff as tall as he himself was (which was a pretty meager 5'4") strapped to his back. He seemed to appear from nowhere at all, and took even Shadow by surprise when he spoke.

"The Heartless," he began, the four centered their eyes on him quickly, a bit apprehensive at first, but they dropped their guards, and their bodies into a bow, when he continued, "are a rash on the backside of all things peaceful. Beings that have lost their hearts to Darkness, consumed completely by it, become these ravenous creatures. They are mindless and raging, but, overall, a lethal, ravaging force, ripping from any world that is unprotected billions of hearts, and, if they can manage it, the Heart of the world itself. Placing the world into the depths of the Darkness." The man finished. He surveyed the room and scratched beneath his hat his blond head. "No, no, no! I keep telling you guys there's no need to bow!" the serious tone he'd previously taken disappeared and was replaced with one of exasperation and almost whining as he yelled.

"I'm sorry, Master Egam, it's just, well, you all always tell us that, but it feels wrong to not bow before one of such stature!" Kira said, still bowing. Heero seemed to favor his opinion, but Zidane and Shadow stood up, after he relieved them of bowing, to ask questions.

"Whoa, so these things came here, to Fantasy Falls?" Zidane queried. The man, Egam Black, Highest Black Wizard of the Court, nodded.

"Why?" Shadow added.

"Just as I said, to destroy the wor- I told you two to stand up!" Egam cut off his statement to point his staff at Kira and Heero. Both boys instantly felt their spines forcefully curved upward and they yelped in pain, but were now in a standing position so they could look at Egam almost head to head (as they were only slightly shorter at 5'1"). "Now then, where was I?" Egam questioned, taking no notice of the annoyed looks given to him by Heero and Kira.

"Explaining their reason, or, their likely ones, anyway." Zidane supplied.

"Ah, yes. Well, you see, the Heartless deal in absolutes. Being made of complete darkness, they have to return everything, all the worlds, to the darkness as well. Once this is done is the only time they can truly obtain inner peace. Or so we're lead to believe."

"If they can destroy freaking Gundams in minutes, do you think the King really stands a chance, or, better yet, do you think that's the 'mysterious enemy' he's going to fight?" Heero asked. No one had ever seen the King fight, though it was rumored that in his younger days he was…Well, lethal would be putting it nice.

"Well, those are just the Heartless's ships. In person they ARE quite powerful, depending on the person that became a Heartless, but still very beatable by a weapon and a warrior of light. Like the King." Egam finished. Zidane placed his hand to his chin in deep thought this time. Heero, Kira and Shadow mimicked him, but it was Zidane who spoke next.

"I got it! The King says he's going to find out a way to protect our world, meaning even he needs help, probably because they outnumber him, but whatever the reason, he needs more warriors of light with these weapons of light," Zidane said, very fast without taking a breath between, "so basically, all we have to do is find a place with a lot of weapons of light-and the warriors to wield them- and we'll find the King!" Zidane finished proudly. Kira and Heero blinked, and then sweat dropped.

"Uh, Zidane, sir…How would we find a place like that?" Kira asked. Silence reigned as everybody looked at Zidane, who began to grow red in the face upon the question. After a few moments of silence, Zidane looked down and trudged over to the Aries Mobile Suit.

"Just get the MS ready." He said dejectedly.

"Actually," Egam interjected once more. Everyone focused back in on him as he said, "I might know a place…"

And so, only about twenty minutes after the conversation had taken place, a blazingly fast Aries Mobile Suit (MS) swept through the surrounding stars, in search of a far off world, but one that was known for its great diversity and, perhaps, would hold the mysterious King of Fantasy Falls.

"Whoa, is that a shooting star?!" Ryouji, who had seen the MS sweep past his planet from the sky, asked his best friend.

"Probably not, but maybe it was a comet or meteor." Saito replied. The two boys had finally met up, after their mysterious encounters with the dark hooded man were driven from their minds, and were in the midst of the festival celebrating the Stars and the Gods they represented. Neither had put on their costumes; it was a week long festival and since they could only be there for a few hours that Friday, they decided they'd keep the creative designs stowed away in their backpacks, a surprise for tomorrow.

"I don't even know the difference…" Ryou sweat dropped a little, and began to head towards the booth from their starting position of the Ticket gates. "Hey, let's go see the Fireworks!"

Saito looked towards the North end of the city, about two miles away from the two, where the bare hill they had sat upon two nights before was, and also where the committee of the Shining Star Festival would be firing the fireworks off into the air.

"Hm, I think I'll go see the booths, actually," Saito said, pointing to the west, where only a quarter of a mile away were huge booths being set up. The theory was to have novelty items and once a year events held there while a huge parade of people representing one of many Gods would meander through the city every night. The parade for the day was over, but the fireworks had yet to be fired off (as Ryou pointed out) and the booths were still, for the most part, up and running.

"Aw, you won't see the fireworks with me?" Ryou said in mock sadness. "But I don't want to go all alone!" he finished with a smirk.

"Well if you could successfully ask a girl out, you wouldn't have to go alone. Mr. 'Oh, look, you dropped your pencil!" Saito countered.

"Shut up!" Ryou muttered, looking away. Saito laughed and slapped him on the back.

"I'm just joking, Ryou. You know that. But I think we can meet up again tomorrow. Everything's pretty dead anywhere here today anyway." Saito said. Ryou nodded.

"You're right, let's just chill for tonight, tomorrow I'll show you up at the parade, and then Sunday the Costume Ball!" Ryou said, referring to the Sunday Ball that was held every year. It would bring together anyone and everyone that had a costume and allowed them to have fun dancing, eating, and drinking while the best costume would be picked out by a strict panel of judges for originality and style. Saito and Ryou had one four years in a row, now, Ryou wearing the costumes that Saito designed.

Saito nodded at Ryou's sentiment, then flashed the thumbs up and dashed towards the booths. "I'll meet you here tomorrow, see you Ryou!" Saito yelled as he was dashing away. Ryou nodded, then swept his eyes across the area of the city he was in.

"…Wonder if they have a bus…" he pondered aloud, not looking forward to having to walk 2 miles to see the fireworks. After a few minutes of looking around in the area, he determined he would be trekking it. "Ah well, at least I'll get some exercise." Ryou thought with a sigh. He turned on his heel from his position and walked towards the hill. No one took notice of the dark sphere in the sky, as it twirled around, growing bigger and bigger in preparation to claim the planet's heart…

"I'll take five of the Gummis, please!" Saito said. He pulled from his pocket seventeen munny and placed it in the outstretched palm of the owner of the shop, who graciously accepted it and gave him a bag of Gummis in the shapes of cars and planes.

It had been half an hour since the two split, and Saito could honestly say he was having the time of his life. Even though Ryou wasn't there with him, he was still seeing a lot of interesting things that his best friend might've bought had he been there. It was around this time, however, that he saw someone who he'd resolved to hate: Sayu Minakawa. He looked at her, walking with her friends, as though she were a horribly disgusting bug. He crushed his bag a bit, then shoved it in his pocket, resolving to avenge his friend's unnecessary embarrassment.

"I know! He was such a loser!" Sayu was saying to her black haired friend.

"He really said you dropped your pencil?!" the black haired girl asked. Sayu nodded fervently, then they both through their head back and laughed. Saito, meanwhile, was looking around for something to put his plan into action… He spotted the fish catching stand, where anyone who paid 10 munny was given an elastic handled, flat, and paper net. The elastic was just soft enough for maneuverability, but held fast for the catch, and paper would break pretty easily, but only underwater… Saito smirked, pulling out ten more munny. He rushed up to the stand, cut several kids (who began to throw fits and call for their parents) and dropped the money in the bowl while grasping a net.

"Can I borrow this? Thanks!" Saito said in a rush without waiting for a reply to his question before thanking the startled booth owner. He dashed across the field, searching, searching… "Ah, yes!" He smirked upon his find: an anthill. The ants surrounded the hill, ready to attack any predator that came too close. Because of this, Saito placed one of the Gummis in front of the nest, where the ants were mostly concentrated. At first it was a panic for the ants, having a huge anything placed in front of them would do this, so they didn't register it was actually edible until a few moments later, where several hundred climbed aboard and began to break it up to carry it back to the nest. Saito smirked, twisting his head around to find the girl named Sayu again, figuring she'd gone quite far from her original position.

Luck was with him, she had hardly move. Saito smirked, and pulled on the gloves that went with his costume, which were tight, black, and fingerless only at the tip. He grasped the Gummi, maneuvering it around so that the ants wouldn't get on himself much, placed it on the net, then took of his glove and set it down to let the ants remove themselves while he picked up the net with the ant infested Gummi. 'Here goes nothing!"' Saito thought, pulling back the net with as much force as he could without outright breaking it, and then he released, aiming directly at Sayu.

"EW!" Sayu shrieked as she was hit by the whizzing gummi, directly in the side of her head! Her long blond hair was now crawling with very confused ants. Sayu, however, didn't notice the ants, only the sticky green plane shaped Gummi. Saito figured that would happen, and laughed silently to himself, waiting….

"AH! Sayu! ANTS!" her friend yelled not ten seconds after the gummi had impacted upon Sayu. Sayu blinked for a minute, then she paled as a few of the ants found their way out of her blond hair and onto her face…

"AHHH!" Sayu erupted in fear and shock. She dashed away from the clearing she and her friend were at faster than Ryouji had lost his nerve to ask her out earlier that day. Saito never felt so great.

'Now that's taking care of business! Man, Ryou,"' the blond boy began thinking cheerfully, 'you so owe me after that!"' he rounded up his thoughts, dashing away from the 'Scene of the Crime'.

Saito had about two minutes of uninterrupted and undisturbed glee in the forest area around where the Festival was taking place before he calmed himself down enough to notice that the night had become pitch black. It held an eerie darkness instead of the expected darkness for night's arrival. 'That's weird…How long was I fooling around?"' Saito questioned himself mentally, looking around a bit nervously. As he was looking around ahead of himself, the shadows beneath his very feet were slowly swirling and seeping out from beneath the ground.

"I guess it's a hint, I should get back home," Saito said aloud. He sighed, shoved his hands in his pockets, and began to walk away. Before he took ten steps, however, the Shadows finished their forming, and beneath him in a circle, several dozen pure black creatures pulled themselves from beneath the ground. Saito, not having superb eyesight, didn't seem to notice…At least, not until he heard…The scream…

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" A high, bloodcurdling shriek resounded through the crowd behind him. Saito twisted around, pulling his hands from his pocket and holding them at his sides as he looked in that direction, now a bit apprehensive. Then, from the corner of his eye, he saw the Heartless symbol, and a black claw stretching out towards his chest….

Ryouji, meanwhile, had heard the same bloodcurdling howl on his silent walk through the city. He twisted around the same way his best friend halfway across the city did, surveying the area for only a split second before it registered with his brain that a miniscule black blur with claws was speeding towards him. "WHA!" Ryou yelled out in shock, dodging to the left of the claw, only to feel another two scrape his right ankle and cheek. He flat out rolled after that, straight behind a large oak tree on the sidewalk.

"Wh-what was that?!" Ryou asked the air, looking at the minor scrapes he had from the beasts' claws. The shadows; small pure black creatures with little antennae on their foreheads and glowing, demonic, yellow eyes, were now surrounding him. It was about 30 to one, by what Ryou could see. "Ah crap!" Ryou thought, looking at the Shadows surrounding him. 'What am I supposed to do now?"' he thought to himself as they began to go into their hunting postures, crawling on all fours in a zigzagging pattern around him.

'Am I, going to die?"' Ryou asked himself, as the creatures claws looked far more than threatening to him, and he had no defense against them but his bare skin…

Saito, meanwhile, was bleeding profusely form the shoulder, cheek, and his right leg. His breathing labored from all the attacks he'd tried to dodge and failed, or only halfway succeeded in some cases, he backed up and leaned against a tree. 'Crap, what the heck are these things?! Why are they here?!"' he was constantly asking his weakened body. He knew he'd never get an answer at this rate. Another Shadow lunged at him, he clumsily leapt to the side, moaning from the pain upon landing. "Agh!" he squeezed his eyes shut in pain as he landed on his side, thinking only one thing.

'I wish I could fight…I wish I could…KILL!"' Saito thought savagely, peaking open an eye…Which now had a blood red iris instead of his usual grey.

"Do you want…Power?" a voice echoed, Saito didn't care to try to locate the owner he was in so much pain.

'Yes!"' he thought, not able to talk anymore. The voice somehow knew his answer, as it asked:

"Why do you want, power? For Revenge? For Survival? Or for Supremacy?" the voice queried, deep and mellow. It was awfully familiar to Saito, but the bleeding boy didn't care. Even now, the Heartless were slashing at his body, playing with him like a bag of meat and flesh; like a toy.

It was then, that Saito felt it, the reason he wanted-no-held power: Vengeance. He'd always gotten back at anyone that pissed himself or Ryou off, even just before now, he'd just avenged Ryou's embarrassment. It was so obvious! "I want power…For myself and those I care about…I want power, to give their offenders vengeance. I want the power of Revenge!" Strength had come back to him. Saito leapt up, his body erupting with power, he stood up, no more than stood, he floated up; flipping around in midair and landing on the ground with an even deeper darkness than what surrounded him emanating from his body. He had claimed his power.

The Dark orb in the sky suddenly doubled in size, no, quadrupled. Now it seemed to take up the entire sky of the city; it was also now a perfect replica of a vacuum, draining in small things while slowly pulling apart the large ones. The 'smaller' things being cats and dogs. Ryou noticed this, but didn't have much time to ponder upon it, as he was now almost in as bad of shape as his best friend. 'Darn, what now?!"' Ryou asked himself again. He looked at his surroundings, and realized how useless almost infinite darkness would be in a fight against components of it.

"Well, I would've liked to have gotten some answers…But I guess I won't get any, huh?" Ryouji asked bitterly. The black haired boy shook his head, laughing to himself almost directly after that statement. "Heh, what the heck am I talking about?" he asked himself, placing his right foot in front of him along with his right hand. "I'm not going down…Without a FIGHT!" Ryou yelled, launching himself straight into the…light?!

"Do you want… Power?" the same voice-no- one far softer and less bored, asked. Ryouji found himself surrounded by light, and he pondered where he was for a moment, making him miss the question at first.

"Huh, what?" the boy asked.

"You want power, correct?" the voice asked, though it didn't sound annoyed. Ryou blinked, then shrugged.

"Well, I never really thought about it before, but yeah, I guess." Ryou said, placing a hand behind his head and scratching it a bit sheepishly. "I mean, being strong would allow me to help Saito more, right? Then again, maybe he doesn't need protection-" Ryou didn't get to finish, for the voice cut him off.

"Then you want power for…the protection…of others?" the voice asked, it sounded mildly surprised. Ryou looked around the white void; for now its corners were blurring with darkness and Ryou didn't like that one bit, however, he felt a heavy presence in his hand, and he looked at it just as the voice finished its statements with: "What a strange thing, for the weapon of Darkness, to be wielded by one of such Light."

The realm of light dispersed, but not before Ryou had gotten a good look at the weapon. It was a long, sharp Katana. The blade was a pure black, and it had an odd handle that was a full pentagon, the same fashion of pentagon as Superman's chest pattern. The blade also had a chain going off the bottom of which there was a pure, deep blue Crystal hanging. Keytana. Ryou knew the weapon's name, just as he'd known the name NullVoid in the dream…

BOOM! The streets rumbled darkly. Ryou jumped, looking around to see that the Heartless around him had stopped attacking as he studied the weapon. Behind himself and the Heartless, was a towering creature that was now all too familiar to Ryou: the previously mentioned NullVoid himself. "Think of the Devil." Ryou snickered; he twisted around, and held the Keytana forward, filled with a will to fight now that he had such a weapon. "Let's get started!" Ryou said, charging into the horde of Heartless.

The first ones he took out were easy; he blindsided them with ferocious volley of sword strikes and kept away from their claws by rolling or jumping. After taking down a third of the Heartless horde; an even ten, he'd been forced to get more creative as the Heartless adapted. He rolled beneath two, but this time, as he stood up from the maneuver he saw 2 Heartless leaping at him. "Whoa!" Ryou ducked under one and slashed the other from behind. Immediately after doing that he back flipped and stabbed downward to kill the creature of darkness that he'd ducked under. He landed easily on his feet, then pressed the Keytana against the ground from his position. He quickly spun around, making a few sparks leap from the street as he slashed four more Heartless that had leapt in foolishly to dust.

"Man, this thing makes it easy!" Ryou smirked, slashing his blade through another recklessly leaping Heartless. He then rolled forward through three more, coming out of the roll a second later and spinning around to cut all three of the clueless creatures into pieces. 'Ten more to go!"' Ryou thought to himself. Now, however, things were even trickier; 9 of the last ten heartless were circling in their normal pattern, but one leapt at him up high. He easily upper slashed that one into oblivion, but six of the nine left then sank into the ground as shadows, something he'd not expected. "What the-ARGH!" Ryou yelled as the three that hadn't sank beneath him leapt at him when his guard was down. He pulled one off of him, tossing it into the wall. He stabbed upward and killed one that had leapt on his head, then slammed his foot by the side into the building he'd tossed the other Heartless on, crushing them both.

Two of the six sinking Heartless leapt up and came at him from two sides, left and right. Ryou quickly devised a plan and put it into action; he stabbed the Keytana into the ground and pulled off his backpack, unzipping it in the same fluid motion he removed it from his back. He then opened the bag fully and held it out to his right side, where the Heartless had leapt from and, being that it was in midair, couldn't change its direction. As a result of this, it landed squarely in the backpack. "Got ya'!" Ryou smirked, zipping it quickly while he ducked beneath the Heartless coming from the right. With another incredibly fluid charge, he pulled his backpack back with all the force he could muster, and crushed the two Heartless; one was crushed while inside the backpack, the other was flattened against the street. However, he wasn't fast enough to avoid two claws to the stomach when he did this, and so he ended up stumbling back and almost dropping his backpack, now devoid of Heartless.

"Hey, that's playing dirty!" Ryou yelled, rubbing his side. He ducked a midair claw from another Heartless, then performed another magnificent roll which got him over to the Keytana. "Time to end this!" Ryou smirked confidently, pulled the Keytana from the ground with his left hand, and slashed one of the three Heartless now above ground in half. The other two were zigzagging again, so he took the opportunity to toss his backpack up, turn his Keytana to the flat side of the blade, pull back as though he were playing baseball while the backpack went up, and, as the cloth bag was coming back down, yelled "Batter up!". He slammed his Keytana's flat side into the back pack and hit a Heartless head on, crushing it with ease.

"You know I rock!" Ryou smirked, slicing the final above ground Heartless into dark wisps when it had foolishly charged. "Now it's time for WHACK-A-MOLE!" Ryou's comments never ceased, as he raised his Keytana above his head, tracked the only moving shadow, back flipped through the air right above it as it was beginning to emerge from beneath the concrete street, and stabbed the Keytana down hard enough to cut through the cement as well as the dark being emerging from it. "Game over!" Ryou smirked. BAM! It felt like he'd been hit by a sledgehammer.

Right after he'd banished thirty Heartless, he'd been punched head on by the building sized NullVoid, and bounced back into an actual building, cracking the concrete when he hit. "Uh!" Ryou moaned, falling onto the ground and rolling over in pain. "Th-that…hurt…" the black haired boy stood up shakily, then his eyes went wide as he saw the sky.

Now the entire sky was an orb of pure darkness, draining in structures as large as houses, buildings, and, worst of all, it drew in people. "No way!" Ryou said. He looked at the Keytana. "This must protect me…" he guessed. His eyes narrowed and he felt rage as he looked at the sky again. "Alright then, if I'm the only one who can fight…I'll fight…Saito, don't get killed!" Ryou yelled, charging in for an attack.

NullVoid didn't seem to remember Ryou, for its opening gambit didn't give way to any rage it might have been feeling. However, it didn't make it any less lethal. Ryou ran as fast as he could, dodging and swerving away from shadow spikes that had just ejected out of NullVoid's shoulder armor. "Come on, that all you got?!" Ryou asked, a bit angrier than when he'd taunted the Heartless previously. He looked at Null Void, wondering how to harm something so big… 'I've got to bring him down to my level!"' the black haired boy thought. He steadied his backpack with that plan in mind, and dashed towards the giant's feet.

NullVoid's eyes glowered, and it raised a spiky hand, sending it crashing down towards Ryou. Ryou put on a burst of speed he'd been saving just in case NullVoid attempted something like that. It was enough to get him directly out of the fist's way, but not enough to counteract the shockwave it made. Ryou stumbled back a bit, and ended up leaning against the fist. However, he didn't have long to regain his composure as NullVoid had drew back his fist, and raised it just as quickly.

"WAH!" Ryou yelped, rolling under a car and narrowly avoiding the fist. 'This isn't working! But how else can I get in a lethal shot?! There's no way I can jump up there..."' Ryou thought. NullVoid was now searching the expanse of the city with his glowing red eyes, seeming to wonder where the boy with the Keytana was. Ryou bit his thumb nail. 'There's nothing I can do…Unless I want to die…"' the boy thought bitterly. 'Too bad I can't just hand him a present and make him-"' Ryou's thoughts began, but they cut themselves off s he realized one word in the sentence solved his problem.

'That's it! NullVoid's hand! Why didn't I think of it before?"' Ryou asked himself, slamming his hand against his head and sticking his tongue out to symbolize a big goof. 'Well, now all I have to do is make it work! Jeez, I really hate my life!"' Ryou thought with a sigh. He closed and re opened his eyes, then forced himself into action. "Hey, ugly!" he bellowed as loudly as he could. NullVoid twisted around, raising its fist as it searched. It's ugly red eyes narrowed as they locked onto Ryou, waving his hands brazenly. It seemed to growl, then brought its fist down directly on Ryou. The resounding shockwave sent the car Ryou had hid under flying into the back alley to its left.

NullVoid was satisfied. It lifted the fist attached to its body, and looked towards the ground where it expected to see Ryou's crushed body…Nothing close was there. It blinked, but didn't have to ponder long, as a loud voice rang out: "Hey, ugly! Time for you to go Bye-bye!" Ryou yelled from the behemoth's hand. The beast twirled around to look at its fist with surprising speed, but it was already too late, Ryou had leapt off the fist with as much force as he could, he raised his Keytana, pulling behind him as he held it with both hands, he then gritted his teeth, willing himself to do every bit of damage he could in one hit… The blade slashed through NullVoid's still surprised face, and extended through its entire head. The beast flat out roared this time; the planet seemed to roar with him and Ryou, who had faded through the whole in NullVoid's head, was now realizing one fatal flaw in his plan: he couldn't survive landing from 200ft. in the air.

'Crap!"' Ryou thought, his eyes closing as he realized his screw up. 'Oh well, at least I put up a fight!"' the boy thought. The planet seemed to think the same. The buildings now crumbled with increasing speed, and in the split seconds of Ryou's fall, they had been reduced to all around nothingness, they'd been absorbed into the darkness. Ryou looked around at his planet what he thought was one last time, before he saw a blinding flash of something that was neither Darkness, nor Light, but just pure undisturbed energy, blowing his precious planet into smithereens. Then, everything went white…

From his keep on Castle Fantasy, Master Egam Black, Highest order Black wizard of the Court and sister to the very Queen of Fantasy Falls, Gema White, was looking across at the stars, and saw one in the far distance blink out of existence. He sighed, and adjusted his straw hat. 'Another star, ceases to shine… Hurry, King Grifeth!"' he thought, praying with all his might that the Heartless wouldn't claim any more of the precious Universe.

A/N: Well, another chapter completed! Next time we'll find out where the adventurers from Castle Fantasy went; not to mention more on Saito. Interested yet? As always, read and review! Next chapter is when we'll REALLY be out of the introductory stages…Well sort of… Thanks for all my reviews so far, and I hope to receive many more, after all, I won't be able to improve greatly without them! Until next time!