Chapter 11


Everyone nodded at Leon and ran back to the house. Kalista ran upstairs to her room and grabbed her two sai and her belt, which carried various magic potions. Then she ran back downstairs. She walked out the door and saw everyone else, now equipped for battle. Now that everybody was here, Leon started giving directions.

"Ok, listen up," he started, "our main goal is to figure out exactly where these heartless are coming from. In order to do that, we have to split up. Groups of two or three will be best." He looked around at them, trying to decide who should go together.

"Naturally, Sora, Donald, and Goofy will be a team. You guys will head to the path leading to the castle. Yuffie and Aerith will go to the shops, and Kalista and I will head toward the ruins. Let's go!"

Teams broke off and went toward their assigned places. Kalista followed just behind Leon, her weapons in the ready position. They had only gone a little ways when a huge number of heartless jumped down from the surrounding buildings and attacked. At once Leon pulled out his gun sword. Kalista turned and put her back to his, and once the heartless had closed in, they both jumped and took out the heartless in their sight range, so not a single one was left.

"Nice work, Kalista," said Leon.

"Thanks, you're not so bad yourself."

He smiled, then looked up overhead. "It looks like staying on the streets isn't the best idea. We'll have to get on the high ground to avoid any more ambushes." He jumped up on one of the buildings, and Kalista followed. Now on the roof, she was again amazed at the sheer number of the heartless. They were everywhere, crawling over the streets like swarms of black ants.

"What are they doing here?" she asked Leon, "what do they want?"

Leon shook his head, "I don't know, but whatever it is, we need to stop them."

The two of them ran and jumped from roof to roof, heading for the older part of the city, where most of the buildings were just rubble. Along the way, heartless kept coming out of nowhere, and in huge numbers. But Kalista and Leon made a good team; they were able to wipe out the heartless every time and keep going. Finally, they made it to the ruins. At the moment, it was deserted.

"We'll rest here for a moment," said Leon, who was breathing hard, "We need our strength to fight more heartless."

Kalista wasn't about to argue. She was also pretty tired. Leaning against a wall, she tried to regulate her breathing and relax her body. There were so many heartless! 'It's ok,' she thought, 'just a few minutes rest, and I'll be fine.'

She closed her eyes for a moment, concentrating on slowing her breathing down. Suddenly, something didn't feel quite right. Kalista opened her eyes and looked at the wall she was up against. It looked perfectly normal. But it felt strange, not like a brick wall should feel. She ran her hand along it, and realized it felt soft, almost squishy. She looked intently at the color. Maybe it was just her, but it seemed to be getting darker. It got darker and darker, until it looked like a black sphere in the wall.

Then, without warning, the blackness shot out of the wall, grabbed Kalista, and pulled her into the sphere. She struggled hard, but it was no use. It felt like chains were rapped all over her body. Then, everything went dark.

"Kalista!" she heard Leon yell her name, but the sound was faint.

She couldn't see a thing, and she couldn't move. She tried to scream, but no noise escaped her mouth. It was beginning to get hard to breathe. Kalista started to panic. Was she going to die here, without even knowing what killed her?

But then, just when she was starting lose hope, the darkness started squirming around her. She felt two arms grab her around the waist and pull her back the way she had come. The blackness around her became lighter, and all of a sudden she was back by the wall in her rescuer's arms. Kalista took a huge gasp of breath. She was shaking all over.

"Kalista!" she heard Leon's voice again. "Is she alright?"

"She'll be fine; she wasn't in there long. But it's a good thing I got here when I did."

Kalista looked up in surprise to see that her rescuer wasn't Leon. He was about Leon's age, with blond, spiky hair and a black outfit. Kalista almost dropped her jaw. He was absolutely gorgeous!

He bent his head down close to hers. "You ok, sweetheart?" he asked.

Kalista felt blood rush to her face. "I..uh...um...I'm.. fine," she finally managed.

He smiled. "That's my girl. Here..." he slowly helped her to her feet.

She felt so stupid, shaking like some sort of scared mouse, and hoped he hadn't noticed her blushing. "What... what happened?" she asked, trying to get over her awkwardness.

"You were attacked by a special type of heartless," the blond guy said, "they attack by pulling you into darkness and choking you to death. Luckily, that's the only one I've seen in the city as of yet."

"Well," said Leon, "I'm just glad you got here, because I had no idea what to do. So no that you're here, will you help us, Cloud?"

"Why do you think I came here in the first place? The heartless are all over the place, but that's not the only problem. Nobodies are starting to appear, too."

"Heartless AND Nobodies?" asked Leon in disbelief.

Cloud nodded, "and they all seem to be coming from the direction of the old castle. Oh, and one more thing. I saw Sora, Donald, and Goofy heading in that directing, but they met up with an Organization member, and it looked like they were having some trouble with him."

Leon looked down, thinking. Then he turned to Kalista, "Kalista, go after those three and help them out. Cloud and I will head to the old castle. When you're done with the Organization member, meet us there."

"Right," Kalista answered. This was going to be interesting. She was curious to see how well this Organization member fought. She did a back flip and landed on one of the roofs. Then, on a defiant whim, she put her hands on her hips and looked straight at Cloud.

"Oh, and by the way," she said, "I'm not "your girl"."

Then she turned and bolted away, hearing Leon's laughter behind her.


Kalista raced along the rooftops in the direction where Donald, Goofy, and Sora were fighting; trying to avoid the heartless. Strangely enough, however, there weren't nearly as many as before, and Kalista had wondered where they'd gone. She spotted nobodies, too, just like Cloud had said, but not as many as she'd expected. She jumped down from the roof and kept running along the street.

Finally, she turned a corner, and just ahead of her were steps that led to a giant sphere in the street. In the middle of the circle she saw Sora, Donald, and Goofy fighting a guy in a black cloak with dirty-blond hair. He was using a blue guitar as a weapon, and was hitting them again and again with powerful water attacks. Kalista recognized that he was strong, and the other three looked pretty worn out. Circling behind the Organization member, she waited for the right moment.

"Take this!" the guy was saying. He played some chords on his guitar and a huge wave formed, crashing down in his opponents' direction. Her friends started to dodge it, but Kalista knew they wouldn't be able to in time. She quickly muttered a spell over her sai and threw them at the oncoming wave. They hit the wave and instantly froze it in midair. Then she ran up to the Organization member and struck him hard from behind.

Now preoccupied with her, he was distracted long enough for Donald to hit him with a lightning attack. Sora then sprinted forward, and Kalista jumped out of the way just in time before the keyblade struck through the enemy. He let out a cry, which started loud, then slowly faded to nothing. Sora pulled out his weapon, and the enemy fell to the ground. As Xaldin had before, the Organization member began disappearing into darkness.

"I... I told them I was the wrong guy for the job," he said, and then vanished.