"DAMN IT! Why won't you go down?!" Xigbar shouted as he jumped back, narrowly missing the impact of one of the monster's long, slithering tails as it shot towards him. While the Drainer was slow to move, slow to run, and slow to punch, its tails were frightfully fast. He almost had the tip of its appendage smack against his scarred cheek, but Xigbar had zipped backwards in the air, dodging its fatal touch by a single stroke of luck.

His bullets were useless against this thing. His attacks should have at least done a little damage to the Heartless's health, but it was still carrying on as if the lasers from his Arrowguns were nothing more than pebbles hitting its skin.

Xigbar knew he was in a pickle, but he still had a few more cards to play. So far, everything had gone according to plan, and he wasn't about to let things go awry now. He had counted on the Drainer being a tough opponent for him to beat on his own, but he didn't think it'd be this difficult. A good challenge every now and then was exciting—it'd be far too boring if he never had to expend any real effort to beat down an enemy—but so much was weighing on this "mission". Losing wasn't an option for him, and he had to make sure absolutely no harm came to the girl.

He glanced over his shoulder to see that Reina was far enough out of reach, but she was still able to see the battle unfold from where she stood. Why couldn't she have ducked for cover some place farther, or better yet just exit the damn Bizarre Room and go back to the Tea Party Garden? He didn't want to have to summon his underlings with her nearby, knowing that she was bound to have questions about them once the battle was over, but he was running out of options. Calling for back up was essential now.

"All right, Snipers. Time to lend this old-timer a hand," Xigbar cracked his knuckles before summoning another Corridor of Darkness right beside him. The black portal ripped through the open space, opening a gateway to the dark abyss so Xigbar could draw out his Nobody underlings. Three mysterious figures briskly leaped out from the corridor, ready to aid their master without hesitation.

Still watching from a safe distance, Reina gasped as she saw three new players enter the battlefront. All identical to each other in every way, the beings that emerged from the darkness were all human in shape, wearing to be what looked like white helmets concealing their faces and lavender coats that covered their entire bodies. Each one carried a weapon that resembled a crossbow, and Reina might have thought they were human had they not started twisting and contorting their bodies in the air as they fired arrows at the Drainer. Were they Heartless? No, although they were ominous creatures, there was something about these three that separated them from the Heartless. Her new partner had called them from the depths of the unknown portal, and Reina truly didn't care what they were as long as they helped Xigbar destroy the Drainer.

Xigbar stepped back as he let his Nobody minions take over for him. They began to buzz around the Heartless's head like flies, shooting their arrows in all directions. Just like with Xigbar's own bullets, their weapons had little effect on the Heartless which only proved his theory that his foe was immune to regular, physical attacks.

This complicated things for sure.

The Snipers, although typically strong against weaker Heartless, just couldn't hold their own against the mighty bearer of darkness before them. Lacking the ability to think and strategize, each one of Xigbar's minions let themselves be touched by the Drainer without realizing the consequences. The first one had been snatched up in mid-air, only to be squeezed and crushed by the Drainer's hand until its body was nothing more than a pile of dust. The second Sniper had been knocked against a wall after being smacked with one of the beast's tails while the third had its life sucked away by a single, gentle touch of one of the Drainer's fingertips until it faded out of existence.

With barely any effort, the Drainer had wasted each of Xigbar's Snipers. The man shed no remorse for his brainless servants—he could always get more of them later—but since the Drainer had absorbed one of the Nobody's essences, it now possessed a dangerous new ability.

Xigbar had to use his own Arrowguns to block the barrage of bullets that were being fired back at him, cursing as the name Drainer had new meaning. It copied the powers and abilities of everything it "drained", and it suddenly made sense as to why everyone in the Organization who had already faced this meddlesome Heartless had struggled so much against it.

Maybe I should have thought this through a bit more, he thought to himself. Just a little more, though. Just a little more and Phase One of my true mission will be complete.

Even from where she stood, Reina could see her partner was struggling. The three creatures he summoned to fight alongside him were no match for the Drainer, either, and while neither Xigbar nor the Drainer were injured yet, all it would take was one hit for the Freeshooter to go down. This was the kind of battle he couldn't do on his own, and she couldn't just sit around and wait for him to get hurt and have his life sucked away by the Drainer's touch.

"Sorry, Xig, but I have to break my promise," the brunette whispered under her breath before she came out of hiding. She was soon jumping into the battlefield, her Keyblade out and ready for a taste of the action.

"Fire!" Reina shouted as she pointed the tip of her blade upwards, conjuring up the elemental spell of fire. The monster was tall and wide enough for her to easily aim a fireball at, and soon the ball of brightly burning flames was flying towards the Heartless until it hit its upper shoulder.

For the first time since the battle started, the Drainer made a noise. It hissed in pain despite not having a mouth to open, and Xigbar sharply turned to look at the foolish girl who had dared to defy his orders and put herself in harm's way.

"What the hell are you doing, Reina?!" Xigbar snarled, teleporting in the air only to hop down in front of her a millisecond later. He was fuming, his golden eye burning with anger, as he snatched up her wrist. "I thought I told you to stay back, dumbass! Do you not listen?!"

While she had never seen him this furious before, she didn't back down underneath his incandescent gaze, trying to yank her arm away from him. "Your bullets aren't doing anything to it! Let me help you!"

"Get back, Reina! You'll only get it the way!" He barked back at her.

While the two bickered, the Drainer was recovering from the burn on its shoulder. In a fit of rage, it swung one of its bulky arms at the pair, but Xigbar was still on guard and saw it darting towards them out of the corner of his eye.

He pulled the young woman against his chest, only to teleport further away with her wrapped tightly in his arms. They reappeared on opposite side of the room which put enough distance between them and their shadowy opponent for now, and Reina knew she wasn't going to hear the end of it now that she had broken her promise to him.

"Damn it, I fucking told you to let me handle this and to stay back!" He snapped at her once they were back on solid ground.

Wiggling free from his arms, Reina placed both hands on his chest to push him back so she could have some breathing room. "You can't do this alone, Xigbar. Your bullets are useless against this Heartless, but Fire magic seems to hurt it! Maybe I can—"

He interrupted her by grabbing both of her shoulders, shaking her violently to help get his point across. "No! You might have gotten lucky with that one shot, but that thing's defenses are out the roof. Your Fire magic is to too low of a level to do any real damage. I need back up—someone like Marluxia or Axel- to do some heavy elemental damage until my bullets can pierce through its skin."

Still not giving up even after seeing the rage on the man's face, Reina kept trying to squirm away from him. His thumbs were digging into her flesh in a bruising manner, and she could tell he was seriously concerned over the outcome of this battle if he didn't find a way to get some assistance from his other comrades.

"Look, your other friends aren't here to help you but I am. I can do this! Just let me use some more spells and then you can blast it away with your—"

"NO! Don't you remember what happened earlier when you tried to fight something out of your league?!"

He had a point, but if they worked together, she was confident that the two of them could strike it down. "But, Xigbar, what if we—"

He didn't let her finish. "We have to fall back! We can't do this ourselves, do you understand?!" For someone as cocky as the second member of Organization XIII, he certainly doubted his ability to bring down this shadowy nightmare. Reina had never seen his confidence drop so low, and it was a little unsettling to see Xigbar wearing something other than an arrogant smirk on his handsome face. Maybe he just needed a push, to have someone show him that he didn't have to face this Heartless alone, so he'd realize that he was stronger than he gave himself credit for.

He just needed to let her help him.

"Come on, Xigbar! The First Key of Radiance is right there!" The brunette insisted. "We can't fall back and give up now! We can do this if we work together! Don't be such a coward!"

"I'm not a coward. I've just survived this long by knowing when to stand down." The older man's fingers dug into her arms even harder until he was leaving painful indentions in her skin, but Reina didn't even flinch. She was more stubborn than he thought. Either that or she was just outright stupid. Hadn't she seen for herself just how insanely strong the Drainer was?! She had barely been able to hold her against regular Shadows, but she foolishly believed her magic could seriously defeat this big guy?!

The two of them kept staring each other down, neither willing to back down, until the Drainer brought their staring contest to a halt.

With movements faster than before, the monster was now closing in on them. Xigbar had no choice but to release his hold on the stubborn girl and materialize his Arrowguns once more. He chose to stand directly in front of her, ready to block her from any attacks. He wouldn't let the Drainer touch her, even at the risk of his own life.

His trigger finger went wild as shots blasted out from the barrels of his guns, hitting the Heartless in the chest to slow it down just enough. While the bullets just bounced off the Drainer like nothing, there was something unusual that he noticed while taking aim. The burn on the monster's shoulder from Reina's fireball hadn't healed up. He could plainly see the scorch marks on its thick, dark skin.

Without breaking his focus from the Drainer, he spoke to the girl standing behind him. "Come on, Reina. We're getting out of here and falling back. Forget about your damn key for just a second and step into the portal behind you!"

To give them both a secure exit route, he had opened up another Corridor of Darkness behind them. "Here's the plan. This portal will take us somewhere safe, somewhere far away from the Drainer, and then we can take the time to come up with a better battle strategy. We can wait it out until someone else from my crew shows up and—"

"Take that, you creep! FIRE!"

Reina hadn't listened to his orders. She hadn't jumped into the Corridor of Darkness, but was instead leaping out from behind Xigbar, conjuring up another fire spell to carelessly blast a fireball at their opponent.

She was a moron! A total fucking moron in every way!

The fireball shot through the air like a flaming bullet, hitting the Heartless square in the face. Her aim, for once, had been impeccable. Smoke surrounded the creature's face as it let out a howling scream of pain, and for a moment, Reina thought that maybe she had temporarily blinded it since a pair of hands flew up to its face to cradle the burning skin around its eyes.

She got it. She actually got it! Xigbar had been wrong; her magic was strong enough to do some major damage to its health! She could do this! She had only used two spells so far, but she had enough stamina to keep going. With an excited glimmer in her jade eyes, Reina was holding up her Keyblade, ready to fire another ball of flames, but she had made a grave mistake.

She hadn't been paying attention to the creature's tails.

It came at her from above, ready to smack her down to the ground and crush her underneath its weight. It was lightning fast, using a speed her human eyes hadn't quite captured in their sight, but it wasn't as quick as Xigbar.

The Freeshooter only had a second to plan his next move. He had chosen to shove the girl with rough force, knocking her down and out of the way, so that he would take the direct hit from the tail in her stead.

With his arm held protectively over his head and his feet planted firmly on the ground, Xigbar braced himself for impact. It slammed against his arm, making his knees buckle as he pushed back against it. The tail's strength had enough force to make him stagger backwards, but it hadn't been enough to knock him completely off balance. He withstood the attack, barely taking any damage from the direct hit until he felt the full effects of the Drainer's hidden ability.

It was a pain unlike anything he had ever felt before. Electrical shocks surged through his veins, burning him from the inside and making him jerk and twitch as if he had just rammed a fork into an electrical outlet. His insides burned as if someone had just injected hot, boiling acid into his body, and there was nothing he could do to make the pain subside.

Being a Nobody meant that he didn't have a heart to experience true emotions with, but that didn't mean he was exempt from feeling raw, searing pain. It was like his very soul was being sucked out of him with every breath he took, and the only sound he could muster was a strangled grunt as he used the last bit of his energy to knock the Drainer's tail away from his body.

"XIGBAR!"

The man fell to his knees, only to look over to see his partner staring at him with a horrified expression on her face. He had suffered a direct hit from the Drainer's touch, and he couldn't even manage to open his mouth to speak. He wanted to shout at Reina, to tell her to get away, but it was like he had lost his ability to move. Speaking was impossible. He only hoped the panic in his golden eye would be enough to urge the girl to run as he slumped forward until he fell forward to the cold, tiled ground.

Everything was going black, the world fading around him. Was this what death felt like for a Nobody? No, there's no way he could die from something like this. This wasn't supposed to happen! Not like this. He still had so much more he needed to accomplish; this was only the first phase of his mission and for it to be over so soon…

"Xigbar! Just hold on! I'll get us out of here! FIRE!"

His senses were still working—he was still alive. He could hear Reina struggling; the stupid girl hadn't tried to run away like he told her to. Didn't she realize that all of this would have been for nothing if she died right here?! No, of course she wouldn't know that. She didn't know anything.

Damn, he really did fuck up. Again. All he could hope for was that one of the other Organization members would step in and fix the mistakes he made and set things right. Xigbar had thought he was the perfect man for the job—the only man for the job—but he had been so careless, so unprepared, and now the mission was going to fail. He was going to fail.

The smell of burning flesh reached his nose, triggering more of his senses, and he wondered if maybe the girl's spell had backfired. It was an awful stench, like a barbecue gone wrong, but the sounds of the Drainer shrieking in agony let him know she hadn't missed her mark.

"Xigbar! Oh my god…I'm so sorry! Are you okay?! Please, say something!"

Crouched over his limp body, the brunette tried shaking the man as he lay on the ground. He was breathing, that much she could tell, but he wasn't responsive to her words.

"Just hang on!" Reina leaned down to sling Xigbar's arm over her shoulder as she hoisted him up and off the ground. Despite his lean build, he was heavier than anticipated. He was as motionless as a ragdoll, his body completely numb and immobile. He wasn't making it easy for the Keyblade wielder to lift him up, but she wasn't about to give up and leave him behind.

While the Drainer was distracted trying to shake the embers from its body, Reina was doing her best to drag Xigbar towards the door.

Damn it, I told her to leave me behind…It's not necessary for her to risk her life like this for me. She…She has no idea what's happening here.

"R…Rei…" He tried to speak, but the girl couldn't hear him over the Drainer's loud, dramatic cries.

Their progress was slow, but Reina didn't let herself stop for a second to catch her breath. The door was just ahead. All they needed to do was keep moving forward, keep inching towards the door. Xigbar was heavy, there was no denying that, but the adrenaline coursing through her veins helped her pick up the pace.

"We're almost there…Just hang on, Xig—"

Before she could finish her sentence, a deafening roar boomed throughout the entire Bizarre Room, knocking Reina off balance as the ground began to quake.

She toppled over, Xigbar's weight finally crushing down on her as she crumpled to her knees. Her partner's arm was still slung around her shoulder as his body leaned into hers. She cuddled close to him, clutching on tightly to his cloak. The roar was loud enough to make her eardrums bleed, and she shut her eyes tightly, waiting for the thunderous outcry to cease.

It finally subsided after the longest five seconds of Reina's life, and soon the Bizarre Room was silent. Dead silent.

Green eyes flew open as Reina glanced back at where the Drainer had once been crying out in pain, only to see that there wasn't a trace of the Heartless lingering in the room. The fog that had once filled the atmosphere had lifted, and the room looked exactly like it did before the creature first arrived. It was no longer cold, and all traces of darkness had evaporated. It was as if the Drainer had never been there at all.

"Wh…Where did it go?" Reina asked, still holding Xigbar's limp form closely to her.

A deep, low groan rolled out from the man's throat, drawing her attention back to him. The Drainer was gone—for now, at least—but there wasn't any time to waste. She needed to get Xigbar out of there in case it came back. It didn't matter where they went as long as it was far away from the Bizarre Room and far away from danger.