Author's Note-Sorry for the long wait. It took awhile to actually find all the parts to the rough draft of this chapter… -swirly eyes- I'm so disorganized… -sigh- Anywho, I'm sure that you guys don't want to read the boring author's note and go ahead and read the chapter, so I'm just gonna say that I don't own Kingdom Hearts… And now, on with the fic!

"So, anybody come up with any ideas yet?" Taro asked as the teens huddled in the corner between the fountain and the wall, watching as the giant gargoyle circled ominously overhead.

"Not yet, exactly, no…" Tam replied.

Realization and recollection suddenly dawned on Sora's face. "Hey, wait a second…" he muttered, reaching into his pocket and withdrawing his new black and orange keychain, the Tigerfire.

"What's that?" Tam asked, glancing over.

"My keychain; we got it from the jungle. I think it can help us out," Sora explained.

The red-haired girl rose an eyebrow. "…A keychain…" she repeated cynically.

"Right now it's our best shot," Taro said with a slight shrug.

Sora looked from Tam to Taro before nodding and reforming his keyblade. He grabbed the silver crown from the kyeblade and yanked it off. The reaction of the keyblade was a bit unsettling-as if dying, it seemed to grow heavy and cold…

…Until the Tigerfire was hooked on…

The reaction was almost instantaneous. Sora could feel the keyblade shudder, almost pulse, while gradually growing warmer. Suddenly, a burst of flame! An unburning fire surrounded the keyblade, blazing yet somehow harmless to only the wielder. The silver changed to a bright gleaming orange, black, ghostly ribbons shooting out the tip of the blade and wrapping around both the blade and the hilt and tightening, solidifying into black stripes.

There was a moment of silence as the teens stared, before being broken by Tam saying, "Expecting spontaneous combustion in three…two…"

Taro grinned. "Now that…was frickin' awesome. I think I now have renewed confidence."

Sora nodded, grinning back. "Yeah. Let's defeat this thing…"

"Great. So then…what's the plan?" Tam asked, raising an eyebrow as she reminded them of their lack of a plan.

"Um…to take it down?" Taro replied, as if such a simplistic answer was the most obvious one in the world

"Well of course, I know that much…" Tam replied a bit dryly. She sighed. "Boys, you both really need to learn the art of warfare. Just because we have an upgraded weapon, doesn't mean we'll win." Her green eyes studying the monster, she said, "The most advisable thing would be to aim at the wings. Considering how it looks like Sora's weapon now has more firepower-literally-than before, I think he could manage to take it down. Once it's on the ground, we can take it from there. Oh, and on that note, I think those neon lights are basically like the creatures' arteries-when it hits the ground, aim for those."

"Yeah, okay. Sora, I guess that's your cue," Taro said, glancing over at Sora.

Sora nodded. "Got it," he said, jumping out and aiming the flaming keyblade at the Heartless. "Fire!"

An explosion of flame from the tip of the keyblade! The enormous fireball flew at the monster, hitting its target as it blasted the underside of the gargoyle's large wing. The monster let out a deafening cross between a shriek and a roar as it quickly attempted to regain altitude. However, Sora persisted, unrelenting.

"Fire! Fire!"

Several more shouts of this and the monster crashed to the ground. Tam watched, then turned to Taro. "…Right. Taro, with me. Sora, take a break." With that, she formed a green sword from a rose seed, the blade adorned with thorns, the hilt covered with red rose petals, and charged forward. Taro nodded, forming dual keyblades and following. Swinging at the gargoyle, they found that slashes on its black stone skin seemed to only scratch-but attacks to the neon 'arteries' were obviously weakening it.

After several minutes of struggling from the abuse, the monster decided that it had had enough. It let out a shriek, giving its wings a powerful flap. Taro and Tam staggered back, nearly toppling over from the wind. Realizing that it was his time to again step forward, Sora raised his keyblade, carefully aiming at the rising monster.

"Fire! Fire! Fire!"

With the torrent of flame, the gargoyle didn't stay in the air long. It struggled for a moment, then dropped back down to the ground. As it dropped, Tam and Taro ran forward again to slash at it.

This pattern was repeated several times, until the creature caught them all suddenly off guard with an attack that nobody seemed to expect…

The creature suddenly landed, but on its hind legs and by choice. The skin seemed to suddenly rip open into numerous cuts, the 'arteries' spraying fountains of neon-colored 'blood.'

Ducking some of the blood as it shot over her head and hit the wall, Tam looked over and glared slightly. "Stupid kamikaze Heartless…" she growled. Watching as the 'blood' ate away some of the wall, she then looked over at the boys, who seemed to be just barely faring on their own.

"…Oi! The blood's acidic, so be careful!" she called over to them.

Taro's hand seemed to twitch slightly. "Yeah, we kinda noticed that…" he replied a bit dryly.

"But if it uses up all of its blood-" Sora started.

"Right. This is a suicide move. Kamikaze," Tam finished. "If we can continue to evade the acid until it bleeds itself dry, then this battle is ours."

"Not a smart monster, huh?" Taro commented, raising an eyebrow.

"No, just desperate," Tam replied.

"But what about all the Second District! The monster is gonna wreck it!" Sora exclaimed.

Tam stopped, then sweatdropped and stared at him.

"…Uhm. Dude… I think the collateral damage of just one district is better than the damage of the entire world of Traverse Town."

"Tam!" Taro shouted, suddenly shoving the girl to the side.

Tam hit the stone ground hard, Taro landing on top of her. She glared slightly, shoving the blonde off. "Oi! Taro, what's the big i-" She stopped short and her emerald eyes widened when she caught sight of the red, bleeding burn that marred his pale arm, going from his shoulder, all the way down the side of his arm and stopping at his elbow, then scorching patches of his forearm. The acid had eaten through the fabric of the sleeve of his black jacket. "…Dea…" Tam finished softly.

She frowned. "Taro, why did you…?"

Taro chuckled a bit. Strange…the pain should've been intense, unbearable, even, and yet…he felt only a minor burn. If anything, possibly a major insane itch, at the most, but…all and all, it honestly didn't feel as serious as it should've been, anyway…

…Really. He was tough, but…not that tough…

"Well, I couldn't just…couldn't just let you stand there and get hit…" he replied weakly, smiling faintly.

Tam blinked, surprised to find that his expression of intense pain was extremely lacking. Sure, there was a grimace, but he didn't seem to be showing even half of the pain that he should've been feeling. That could only mean one thing…

"…You're one of us…"

Her tone was soft; a troubled frown was on her face. But…how? she thought. Does anyone else know? Does Taro himself even know, for that matter? But the bigger question was who…who was keeping him alive…

"You guys…?" Sora called over. "Hey! Tam, Taro!" When they didn't seem to hear, he shouted, "Guys, look out!"

That got their attention. Tam's head jerked up, just in time to see a stream of neon pink acidic blood shoot at them, which suddenly was blocked by Sora.

"Sora!" Tam cried, emerald eyes wide.

Sora held his keyblade above him, up into the air. "Defense!"

With those words said, a strong wind suddenly swirled around them, shielding them from the acid.

"Aeroga…" Tam whispered. She then smirked slightly. "Thanks, Sora!" With that, a tiny object-seemingly a pebble-dropped from her pale hand and onto the ground. Pressing her palm to it, she closed her eyes with a pause.

A green spike suddenly shot out from the ground, sticking the Heartless through the chest. The monster let out a final shriek…then shuddered, collapsing to the ground, and dissipated into a cloud of black mist.

Sora blinked, then let out a slight sigh of relief as he lowered his keyblade. Before he could even turn to check if his friends were okay, however, Tam said quietly, without even looking up, "Sora, hurry up and lock the keyhole of this world. I'll make sure that Taro's okay."

Something about Tam's grim tone made Sora frown, but then he nodded. "Okay..." he said, hurrying over to the keyhole. There was a faint glow deep inside, though already darkness was swirling within.

He pointed his keyblade at the keyhole in the fountain. The ornate design around the keyhole suddenly lit up before the stone shifted, moving, growing, and eventually filling in the space of the hole. And that time…there had been no resistance…

Lowering his keyblade again, he scarcely took note of the air shimmering around the square. He turned and ran back to his friends as the others joined them. Kneeling down next to Taro and Tam, he raised his keyblade. "Heal!"

Translucent green leaves floated around Taro, healing the wound. Taro looked down at the fading wound, then back up at Sora and smiled, climbing to his feet. "Thanks…"

Sora smiled and nodded, watching Tam stand up as well. However…Tam wasn't smiling. Instead she seemed to be distracted, watching something off to the side and frowning. Sora's blue eyes followed her gaze in time to see a flash of disappearing gold. Another Heartless…? …Maybe…

His eyes went back to his friends as he took a step away from them. "Hey, you guys? I need to go check on something… I'll be back in a minute, okay?" Before anyone had the chance to protest, he turned and ran off, towards where he had seen the golden gleam.

It wasn't long before he found himself in the gizmo shop. The place was eerily silent, the doors creaking and then suddenly shutting loudly behind him. He tried to push back his nervousness as he walked a bit more inside, looking around.

"Hello…?" he called out, voice echoing a bit throughout the large empty building. "Is anybody here?"

A childish giggle suddenly rang out, echoing as well. "Aw, it seems I have a stalker!"

A small blonde girl wearing a long black coat suddenly leapt down, landing in front of him, a grin on her face. "But that's okay, because you're so cute!" She then sighed and shook her head. "You know…it's really actually too bad…" she said. "But I guess it can't be avoided…you'll have to be sent to the land of fluffy clouds and pink bunnies quite soon!"

Sora frowned, confused. "…Huh?"

The little girl giggled again. "Confused? You're so silly and cute." Two daggers suddenly slid from her sleeves and into her hands. "What I mean is that I'm gonna kill you!"

Author's Note-Thank god! I think most of my battles are finished…or at least those are… Poor Sora has to go getting himself into trouble… -shakes head- But oh well! Moving on… Sorry for not updating sooner. School has got me tied up… -sigh- Not to mention the rut of lacking inspiration and disorganization… But I'm still writing whenever possible! And the fact that I finally got my KH game back helps out a lot… -had lost it and got it back at around Christmas time- As well as the trailers and opening and all that I've found on youtube… Oh, and before I forget…Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! –passes out plushies of the FMA Heartless of the ficceh as well as gold sparklers, lol-

Now, to answer some of these reviews… KHobssessed-13, thankies! Heh, it's nice to know that Yuki-chan has fans… And of course, ya gotta love Edo… -grin- I have to agree, the trailers are providing more questions and answers, but it's still fun to guess… And thanks for being patient. I'm trying to get these chapters out quickly, but these days, it's kinda hard. Good to know that I can take my time to improve the quality of the chapters. –smiles and nods-

Yay! A chance to get more voodoo dolls! –calls the number and gets voodoo dolls- Heheh… Oh, which reminds me. I've got an FMA Lust voodoo doll… -grins and sets her down on the shelf- Sorry, Riku VD, but Doghouse does have point. Even if you did have a say in the matter, you'd be outvoted. Too bad. –grin- And rest assured, the worst is yet to come… -insert evil laughter here-

Kingdom Alchemist, I completely agree. Kairi needs to die…though she probably won't. –sigh- Too bad. Oh, and I agree with Edo, milk's disgusting. –grumbles about why that may be the reason she's seventeen and only 5'2, though-

Namine3419, don't worry. At least you didn't accidentally say 'graffiti' like one person did in a role-play I was recently in… -grin- Yeah, I am trying to at least make Kairi somewhat cooler. I still don't really like her that much, but it makes it more bearable to write her character… -smiles and sweatdrops- And yes, Al ish quite cute. –grin- And he makes a good kitten holder… -cracks up laughing at the image of Riku poking Yuki-chan in the arm with a stick- Poor Yuki-chan! Oh well…that's what he gets for passing out like that around Riku… -grin-

Anywho, I'm gonna try to get the next chapter out sooner. I haven't abandoned the ficceh, so don't worry-I shall update as soon as I can! –nodnod- In the meantime, please review! Ja ne!