"All right, babe, let's get straight into it. I'm going to turn you into the best fighter you can possibly be. By the time I'm done with you, you'll only be semi-useless instead of full-on useless!" Even at times like this, Xigbar never passed up the chance to crack a joke or two at the girl's expense.

The brunette rolled her eyes before summoning her Keyblade. Calling forth her sacred weapon had already become like second nature to Reina, and the steel hilt felt nice and cool in her grasp. "Wow, Xig, thanks for the encouragement."

"I'm just telling it like it is, sweetheart."

The Freeshooter could be a real jerk at times, but at least she knew she would be learning how to fight from someone that actually knew what he was talking about. The way he handled his Arrowguns and the fact that he could wipe out massive groups of monsters with ease made her almost jealous of his skills and experience. Hopefully, he could end up teaching her a proper battle technique or two to help her get strong enough to fight on her own. As long as he was offering to teach her some valuable skills for free, she'd be a fool to turn down his lessons.

"Before we touch on the things that you don't know, what can you tell me that you do know? We'll start with magic spells. Which ones have you been taught?"

"Well…" Reina tapped a single digit against her chin in thought. "Merlin taught me how to cast Fire, Thunder, and Blizzard. He had attempted to teach me some healing spells, but I never got the hang of it. I've never been able to properly cast Cure before."

"Basic magic spells are something just about anyone can do," Xigbar began. "You're essentially channeling your own aura into an element that can be directed outwards. The more energy you exert into a spell, the stronger it will become, but in order to exert more energy, you need to gain experience. Think of it like going to the gym. Someone your size who's never really exercised much can't be expected to deadlift one-hundred-pound weights on their first try."

"Bold of you to assume I can deadlift anything over twenty pounds on my first try!" She flexed her right arm to show that she had very little muscle in her scrawny limbs.

"The cool thing about your body is that you can eventually train and discipline it enough to push it past its usual limits. If you were to go to the gym every day and start practicing with twenty-pound weights, you could easily start doing thirty-pound weights in no time. You'd gradually train your body to handle more and more, and soon deadlifting one-hundred pounds would be a walk in the park." Xigbar reached out a casual hand to squeeze her bicep playfully. "Even these twigs could lift two-hundred pounds if you worked hard enough at it."

His grip on her arm tickled, and Reina lightly giggled as she pulled her arm away from him. "Yeah, but it would take years to turn these twigs into rock-hard muscle! I imagine it would take just as long to build up my magical strength as it would my physical strength."

"Unfortunately, that's how it usually goes," Xigbar shrugged his shoulders. "But something tells me we don't have years to train you."

Years? She needed to find all the Keys of Radiance within the next few months. Her initial plan was to get the First Key in Wonderland before moving onto Olympus Coliseum to get the Second Key. Her father's journal had mentioned a satyr named Philoctetes, who trained heroes of all shapes and sizes. 'Phil' was a professional coach and could make even a helpless weakling become a capable fighter strong enough to take on beings from the Underworld. He was supposedly picky about who he'd take in, though, and Reina had a feeling she'd have a hard time convincing him to let her train underneath him. Besides her ability to summon a Keyblade and sling around a few lower-level magic spells, there really wasn't anything special about her. His last pupil was the son of a god, and the last time Reina checked, she didn't have a lineage quite as impressive as that. It didn't matter, though. She would find a way to get him to teach her to become a better fighter. How else would she be able to enter the Olympus Coliseum games to get the Second Key of Radiance that was embedded into the golden trophy?! At times like these, she wondered what her father could have possibly been thinking when he decided to hide one of the keys in such a crazy place. Did he think that no one would even notice if he sealed one of the keys in a trophy? Or was it all carefully planned out in such a way that Ansem the Wise could almost guarantee no one would be able to win the tournament where the trophy was even offered as a prize? There were just so many questions, and she was nowhere near closer to any answers than she was when she first received the journal.

"No spacing out on me now, princess." Xigbar knocked his knuckles against the young woman's head to bring her back to his current lesson.

Reina hadn't realized she had slipped inside of her head until she felt his fist tap against her forehead. "Oh! Sorry! I was just thinking about how I'm going to get the Second Key of Radiance…"

"Why are you thinking about the Second Key when you haven't even gotten the First? One step at a time, babe. If you look too far ahead, you'll trip over your own feet," he advised with an outwards dramatic sweep of his hand.

"You know," Reina smirked, "I didn't think you'd be a good teacher, but you've actually got a lot of good advice. I guess wisdom comes with age. And judging by the grey in your hair, you must have a lot of years on you—"

He knocked on the top of her head again, this time hard enough to give her a knuckle sandwich. "Maybe we should skip the lessons on fighting and instead teach you a thing or two about respecting your elders!"

"All right, all right! I'll knock it off!" His playful roughhousing only made her laugh harder as she tried to shove him away from her. Xigbar could be infuriating to deal with at times, but at least his impish personality made things fun and interesting. He could sometimes be funny when he wasn't being downright cruel and insulting towards her.

"Anyways, to get back on track… Basically, we need to get you a lot of experience in battling Heartless in a short amount of time if we want to juice up your magic enough for you to fight the Drainer. It may sound like a drag, but we'll have you practice fighting some weaker enemies first, and I'll teach you some new offensive and defensive abilities that will make fighting a little easier for you. Afterward, we'll amp up the difficulty and have you burn away some stronger enemies until you become more accustomed to exerting more magical energy. We'll see how your training goes, and if you don't die fighting the wimpy Heartless today, you can take your shot at fighting the Drainer tomorrow."

Did he really think she'd become an expert mage in just a day's time? He seemed eager to rush this just as much as she was, but expecting her to "get good" in less than twenty-four hours seemed like a stretch.

"Are you absolutely positive you don't want to just ask Luxord for help after all?" Reina mumbled, looking down. "I don't know why you guys don't get along, but don't you think relying on someone in the same organization as you to fight the big, bad Heartless would seem like a better idea than asking some pathetic chick like me?"

"Do you want to know the truth? Why I really don't want Luxord's help?" Xigbar cocked his chin up, all signs of joking gone from his face. When Reina nodded, he continued. "It's simple. I don't trust the guy. I don't know what his agenda is. It makes no sense to me why he'd come all the way out here just to "help" when he has his own daily missions he needs to focus on. I think he's plotting something, and I want no part of it."

Jade eyes blinked in confusion over his statement. "You don't trust him? But you all work together, right? I thought you all shared the same goal. Explore words, fight Heartless, save people…"

"Whether we work together or not doesn't have anything to do with it," he replied, rubbing the back of his neck. "It's just complicated, okay? Let's just leave it at that."

Luxord hadn't seemed all that bad to Reina, but if Xigbar didn't trust him, then he must have had a solid reason not to do so. She may not have known the man with the eyepatch for very long, but after he saved her ass numerous times and almost got himself killed in the process, the very least she could do was trust his judgment on this and not press the issue any further. If Xigbar said Luxord was suspicious, then he was suspicious, and that was the end of that.

"Fine…I won't pry into your personal business," she sighed. "If you think I can fight the Drainer without Luxord's help, then I guess I have no choice but to trust you know what's best."

This brought forth another fox-like grin on Xigbar's face as he leaned towards her. "See? Aren't things just easier when you behave like a good girl and trust my guidance?"

His words were meant to be sarcastic, almost mocking, but they ended up having a different effect on Reina. Instead, she shivered involuntarily from the way he practically purred out the words "good girl," and her cheeks began to flush. She hastily stepped away from him, hoping he didn't notice the reddening of her face as she turned her head away from him.

"You do know that if I fail to kill the Drainer, you and I will both probably end up dead, right?" She grumbled.

"Guess you better work your ass off then. I don't know about you, but I'm not ready to die yet."

Could she really pull something like this off? She'd never know until she tried, though. Who knows? Maybe she'd end up surprising herself. She had managed to inflict some damage to the Drainer with her fireballs yesterday, so with a bit of practice, maybe her chances of victory weren't as slim as she thought.

"Teach me your ways, Master Xigbar! I'm ready to learn how to fight Heartless!" She saluted him like a soldier, an excited smile on her face.

That smile, of course, was quick to disappear once the training began.

"Nope. You have bad form. Correct your posture and try again…. Nope. Still not good. Are you even trying to hit your target? You missed it by a mile! Nope... Nope... Nope again! You're doing it wrong… Jeez, girlie, have you listened to a word I've said this entire time?!"

Working with a Keyblade wielder as useless as Reina was proving to be harder than he had counted on. He had been training her for hours, forcing her to practice amplifying her Fire spells by battling a few weaker Heartless in Lotus Forest while also attempting to teach her new offensive techniques to use in battle. Shadows, Soldiers, and Blue Rhapsody Heartless were a dime a dozen- the perfect targets for a newbie to fight-but Reina was undoubtedly the worst fighter he had ever truly laid his eye on.

"If you stop nagging at me so much, maybe I'd be able to concentrate more!" Reina huffed, readying her Keyblade for another attack. A flying blue Heartless with a yellow witch hat upon its head kept buzzing around her, taunting her with its low-level ice magic as she tried to land a hit on it. No matter how hard she swung, the little pest kept dodging her attack, flying just inches out of reach for her blade to touch.

"What did I say about not using your Keyblade like that?! This isn't badminton, for god sake!" Xigbar fussed, watching as the girl scrambled around in circles, waving her weapon above her head like a tennis racket as she desperately tried to knock the creature out of the air. "I swear, it's like everything I say goes in one ear and out the other…"

Frustrated, Reina realized she was getting nowhere with the Blue Rhapsody. If she couldn't kill it with a direct, blunt hit, she'd have to result to magic. "Thunder!" She cried out as zaps of lightning emerged from her Keyblade, only to fry the Heartless in one hit, making it burst into an explosion of green health orbs. Something else had flown upwards upon its death, something pink and shiny like an oddly shaped gemstone, but she didn't get a good look at it before it vanished into the sky. She had vaguely remembered seeing something similar emerge through the faded puffs of darkness from other Heartless she had killed on her own since yesterday, but she had yet to catch a full glimpse of whatever it was. Heartless were always leaving behind objects upon their defeat, whether it was restorative orbs or even little treasures like Potions and Ethers, but she had never really stopped to question how or why it happened.

Figuring Xigbar would know more, she was just about to turn and ask him directly about it before she watched him stomp towards her with his brows tightly knitted forward.

"I thought I told you to try and kill this Heartless without using magic this round! You can't always rely on your spells in battle, especially since it's easy to run out of Magic Points! Every time you use a spell or ability, your MP depletes. Magic isn't unlimited, you know!"

Reina picked up one of the green, glowing spheres the Blue Rhapsody had left behind and felt some of her strength and energy return. Its restorative effects relaxed her just enough to reply to her mentor calmly. "Yeah…Sorry about that. I just got a little frustrated trying to land a hit. Can't you give me a break, though? We've been at this for half the day. My arms are getting tired."

"I'm not going to give you a break until you learn to follow my instructions." He walked straight up to her, hands on his hips as his long ponytail swayed behind him. "This isn't a game, princess. I'm trying to teach you how to hone your skills so you can get better at using your Keyblade. Do you have any idea how painful it is watching you try to chase a Heartless like it's a butterfly? It's a Keyblade, not a flyswatter!"

Losing a grip on her rising temper, Reina let out a loud, exasperated groan as she wiped away a few beads of sweat from her forehead. "Are you forgetting that I only just discovered I have a Keyblade a day ago?! You can't expect me to be a pro at this yet!"

"Oh, please, I've seen kids younger than you get their hands on a Keyblade and be able to exterminate hoards of Heartless in minutes!"

She rolled her eyes. "Oh yeah? And how long ago was that? A thousand years ago? Man, you must be older than I thought."

He knew it was just a joke as her voice dripped with heavy sarcasm, but the girl had no idea how accurate her statement truly was. Xigbar placed both hands on her shoulders before whipping her back around so she could see a new set of three Blue Rhapsodies that had appeared right behind her. "If you have time to run your mouth, then you have time to kill more Heartless. Hop to it, missy! We don't have time to mess around."

Easy for him to say! He was doing nothing but standing around on the sidelines, barking orders at her from a distance while monsters kept swarming her like bees to honey. Even with the constant supply of HP Orbs that emerged from defeated Heartless, Reina was getting more and more exhausted with every spell she cast and every hit she suffered at the enemy's hands. Fighting with a Keyblade was a lot harder than it looked, and they were fooling themselves if they thought she'd ever be worth anything on the battlefield after just one day's work.

Reina stood her ground, waiting for the three blue Heartless to make their move. Their specialty was ice-based attacks, and luckily the frozen shards were easy to avoid now that she learned their fighting patterns. The first Blue Rhapsody spat a dizzying flurry of icicles in her direction that she dodged with ease using the newest technique Xigbar had taught her—Dodge Roll. Avoiding their attacks was easy enough, but managing to land a hit with her Keyblade was proving to be the most challenging part since they would always fly in the air just out of reach. If she wasn't supposed to rely on magic to hit enemies above her, then how was she supposed to defeat them?!

"Channel all your energy into your legs so you can reach greater heights when you jump," Xigbar instructed her from the sidelines. "While you're in midair, swing at a precise angle to land a hit in the middle of its body. Focus on keeping yourself elevated, and don't slacken your posture!"

God, why did he have to make everything sound so easy? She was only human! It's not like she could ever just fly in the air! Still, it was worth a shot. The Blue Rhapsodies just kept dangling their tiny bodies above her head, continuously firing ice shards at her without letting themselves get close enough for her to smack them.

With both hands clutched tightly on the hilt of her blade, Reina bent her knees and began to focus her energy on her legs. Whenever she cast a magic spell, all she had to do was envision a specific element, whether it be electricity, fire, or ice, and picture it flowing through her body long enough for her to feel the warmth building up. The last step was to just release the pent-up energy in the form of flames, icicles, or electrical currents. Could channeling her magical force into different parts of her body help her move in ways she had never believed was possible for someone like her? There was only one way to find out.

She closed her eyes and let out a deep breath of air she was holding in. She could feel the heat radiating from the hilt of her Keyblade down to her bent knees, and without hesitating, Reina pushed off the ground with all of her might. When her eyes opened again, she saw that she was no longer standing on solid ground but had instead leaped up almost twenty feet into the air. Her body felt weightless, similar to how it felt being submerged in a pool of water, and she kicked her legs quickly to keep herself afloat. Adrenaline rushed to her head over the extensive height she had reached, and the blue Heartless were now underneath her as she continued to hover above the trees.

No longer able to keep herself suspended above the ground, Reina's body began to fall downwards at a much slower rate than gravity's usual pull. Before getting too close to the ground, she swung her Keyblade to hit one of the Blue Rhapsodies with all her strength. The creature squeaked as it exploded in puffs of darkness and green orbs, and just before her feet gracefully touched the ground, she caught another glimpse of a glimmering object swirling towards the clouds. This time, she could clearly distinguish its shape—it was a heart. A shimmering, pink heart that twinkled in the air before vanishing into the sky.

Reina's attention returned to the battlefield as the other two Heartless charged at her. They were at a close enough range for her to not need to try and leap upwards again, and after just two swings, she managed to land fatal strikes until they were nothing but black dust in the wind. Just as the other two Blue Rhapsodies, crystallized hearts danced upwards towards the sky before disappearing in the blink of an eye.

"Atta' girl! Well done!" Xigbar applauded, a proud grin stretching across his handsome face. "You jumped higher than I thought you could for your first time. See what happens when you just listen to me?"

Suddenly out of breath, Reina turned to her partner as she panted heavily. She had been so distracted by the floating hearts that she had almost forgotten she had nearly flown to the sky herself! "What was that?! It was so cool! It was…It was like I was flying!"

"Almost. It looks like you acquired the skill known as High Jump. By concentrating your magical energy on specific parts of your body, you can teach yourself all kinds of new tricks. That one will surely come in handy. Although, an average person probably wouldn't have been able to jump as high as you did just now…You just might have some real hidden potential within you, after all, kiddo." He gave her a thumbs up to congratulate her, and Reina could feel a bashful blush sneaking up her neck.

"So what you're saying is that I'm not so useless after all?"

"Eh, I wouldn't go that far. But you're definitely making progress! You just need to practice more with your swings so you can start mastering combo attacks. You need to get better with your aim, too." Any kind of progress was still a massive step for her. Learning two skills in just a few hours was nothing to sneer at, but they still had a long way to go before she could go up against something as powerful as the Drainer.

"Hey, Xigbar? Can I ask you something?" Reina asked before he could try to push her onto the next lesson. "There's something I just noticed about Heartless. Whenever they die, these bright and shiny heart gems appear for just a second before flying away. Have they always done that?"

"Heh, I should have guessed you'd ask me about stuff like that sooner or later. Most Keyblade wielders have a master or something to pass down this kind of knowledge to, but I guess you missed out on that part," he scratched at the back of his head, taking a moment to decide what was safe to reveal to her and what was better left unsaid. "Well, for starters, you know what a Heartless is, right? It's a creature of darkness, as you can already guess, but what I bet you didn't know is that there are two types of Heartless—Pureblood and Emblem Heartless."

He knew he had captured her full attention as she made her Keyblade dematerialize from her hand so she could step towards him to listen better.

"Think of Purebloods as more natural, primitive creatures—your standard Shadows, for the most part. They are born straight from the darkness of people's hearts, and they mostly thrive in the Realm of Darkness and use portals to infiltrate worlds in hopes of stealing people's hearts and taking over worlds completely."

Heartless were such nasty vermin. Reina had read about them in her father's journal, but the information had been so vague and didn't divulge enough about them to satisfy her curiosity about humanity's greatest enemy. Traverse Town had been flooded with them over the past year, but Leon and her other friends did their best to fight them off to protect the town. Nowadays, they hardly ever roamed the streets. If they did, Leon and the others were quick to take care of the problem.

"Emblem Heartless are a different story," Xigbar continued. "You can tell the difference between an Emblem Heartless and a Pureblood by the markings on their chest. Those Blue Rhapsodies you just fought are Emblem Heartless. The Soldiers, Large Bodies, Red Nocturnes, and Yellow Operas are also Emblem Heartless. Those will be the most common ones you see in Wonderland, and luckily, they aren't too tough compared to other Emblem Heartless."

Reina almost wished she had a notebook of her own so she could jot everything down. This was all very important knowledge since she could only guess there were millions of different Heartless infesting the worlds like nasty bugs. It would be wise for her to familiarize herself with all the different types of Heartless and develop adequate strategies for handling them.

"So what's the difference between a Pureblood and an Emblem?" She asked.

"Emblem Heartless aren't born naturally. The original species of Emblems were artificially created by mankind for research purposes. Rumors say that there was a machine in a lab somewhere that could create these Emblem Heartless," he answered, knowing this was about to spark more questions.

Reina's brows raised in suspicion before she snapped. "What?! You mean humans actually created certain kinds of Heartless?! You've got to be kidding me! What kind of sick, demented person would want to create monsters with a machine?!"

It was impossible for Xigbar not to laugh at her reaction. The poor little princess had no idea that the sick, demented person who helped create mass amounts of Emblem Heartless with a machine was standing right in front of her. He had spent so many years cooped up in the lab below the castle in Radiant Garden along with Ansem the Wise's other apprentices to study the darkness that lurked in people's hearts. Too bad the Sage King himself had chickened out before he got to see all the fruits of his labor come to life. If he hadn't forced them all to discontinue their research, then maybe the old king could have stuck around a little longer. It was Xehanort's idea to lock him away in the Realm of Darkness, but it wasn't like any of the other apprentices had tried to stop him, either. In the end, getting rid of Ansem the Wise was in everyone's best interest, although he doubted Reina would see things that way. Clearly, she was better off not knowing the truth.

His loud snorting only drew out a puzzled gasp from the Keyblade wielder as she crossed her arms. "I fail to see any humor in this matter!

"Yeah, yeah…" Xigbar straightened his spine and tried to swallow the laughter in his throat. The grin, however, remained cemented on his face as the golden specks of his eye twinkled in the afternoon sunlight. "Sorry, sweetheart. Your reactions are just always so cute. It's hard not to laugh. You just get so worked up over everything."

"Well, can you blame me?! You essentially just told me that humans are responsible for the existence of the Heartless!"

"For some of the Heartless," he corrected her. "Only the Emblem Heartless."

"That's beside the point! Why would anyone create creatures of darkness in the first place?! Did they want people to die?!" It was hard for her to wrap her head around a bunch of scientists playing god and creating Emblem Heartless.

Xigbar could only shrug his shoulders. "Who knows? I'm sure they had their reasons. At least they were kind enough to mark the Emblem Heartless with a specific symbol so you can tell the difference between what is a naturally born Heartless and what was artificially made in a lab."

"It just makes no sense why someone would try to make something as scary as a Heartless," she grimaced. "The Heartless can steal people's hearts, right? And people can't live without hearts."

"That's where things get kind of complicated. Emblem Heartless steal the hearts of people and claim them as their own," he scratched at the scar on his cheek, deciding on how to best phrase his explanation. "Those pink, shiny things you saw floating to the sky? That was someone's heart that the Heartless stole. When you kill an Emblem Heartless with your Keyblade, you're releasing the captive heart."

Her eyes nearly bulged out of her head over his words. "Woah, what?! You're going to have to back up a bit there. This is all news to me!"

"Ha, of course it's news to you. I doubt dear ole' daddy had any real clue about what goes on with Heartless. Lucky for you, it's my job to learn as much about the Heartless as possible," Xigbar proudly stated.

"So…Let me ask you something else then." Reina fidgeted with the black wristband around her wrist to give her anxious fingers something to fiddle with while she tried to wrap her head around the new influx of information. "What actually happens to people who lose their heart?"

"Some say that when a person falls to darkness, they lose their heart, and a Heartless is born. Sometimes, a person will just completely cease to exist upon losing their heart, or maybe they'll fall into an empty, catatonic state for all eternity." Xigbar explained, watching as her expression contorted from a look of confusion to a look of genuine concern.

A year ago, Reina had seen people in Traverse Town who had their hearts stolen. She had spent a lot of time in the local hospital to take care of her mother during her final days, but people were constantly being rushed inside the emergency room. Doctors were baffled over what to do with all their new patients who had supposedly fallen victim to the Heartless's endless hunger for hearts. Their eyes were empty, and their bodies motionless. They were alive yet broken inside. It was an awful sight, but she had never truly understood what it meant to have your heart taken away.

"What happens to people who lose their heart varies from person to person. Individuals with a strong will, for example, won't fade away into oblivion. They end up suffering a fate worse than death and completely lose their humanity. They might even turn into something completely different."

"What do you mean?" Reina asked, unsure if she even wanted to know the answer. If the grin on his face was any indication, she could only guess he was about to relay some grisly, possibly even gruesome, information she was probably better off not knowing. It was too late now, though; her curiosity was already overflowing and getting the better of her.

"When a person with a particularly strong heart loses that said heart to darkness, their whole body can change. They'll lose their former human body and leave behind something else instead. They essentially become a creature that defies the laws of existence; an entity that is made of only body and soul." He paused for a dramatic effect, gaze locked intently on her face. "We call them Nobodies, beings that are not meant to exist. Just empty shells that roam the worlds without a real purpose."

"N-Nobodies?" She repeated.

Xigbar nodded. "Yep. Lonely, empty beings without a heart that lets them feel. They're void of any true emotions and lack empathy. Most people will lose their memories during the transformation and become your average, simple-minded Dusk. They're like Heartless, only a lot more dangerous. Honestly, becoming a Dusk is probably the better alternative. Without your human memories, you won't even realize what all you've lost. A monster like that really shouldn't exist, don't you agree?" He finished his sentence with an upturned smirk as if there was something strangely funny about this whole ordeal.

Reina swallowed hard. Beings not meant to exist. It sounded horrific, like something straight out of a horror movie. The existence of Heartless was bad enough, but now she had to worry about this other brand of monster with a creepy name like Nobody, too?! The image of a ghost came to mind first, but maybe zombies could more accurately describe these Nobodies if they were the bodies people left behind.

"Nobodies sound so scary…" Reina whispered as she hugged herself for comfort, shuddering at the very thought of such an unusual creature. "What do they look like? Are they sentient? Even if they don't have a heart, can they still think?"

"Hmmm, are you sure you want to know? I wouldn't want to give you any nightmares, princess, but I've seen my fair share of Heartless and Nobodies. I've seen monsters that would make you tremble in fright, ones that you'd never even want to see in your dreams." To spook her even more, Xigbar reached out and spider-crawled his fingers up one of her arms to offer her a creepy, unsettling sensation on her skin.

"St-Stop trying to freak me out!" Reina hissed, promptly rubbing at the goosebumps that Xigbar's touch had left behind. "You can tell me what they are without being so creepy about it! I mean… This is all so new to me. But there are a few more things I'd like to know… For starters, you said most people will lose their memories when they turn into a Nobody, so does that mean some people will keep their memories when they become Nobodies?" Her voice trembled a bit as she asked this. There was no mention of Nobodies in her father's notes, but something told her Xigbar wasn't just making this stuff up to frighten her. She could hear just how serious he was by the tone of his voice.

"Yeah… Some people that turn into Nobodies may even keep their human form along with all their memories. They'll look like ordinary people, and hell, they may even act like normal people," he said before shaking his finger in the air to signal a sense of warning. "But they aren't normal. Their powers and strength are no longer hindered by the fragility of their human bodies, but even worse, they lack hearts to feel fear, concern, sadness or even love. Their memories of the past will forever haunt them, yet they don't possess the ability to feel even happy or sad about them. They're unable to even care."

The more he explained the concept of a Nobody to her, the less frightened she felt as a wave of sorrow and pity replaced her initial fear. "When you put it that way, that's really, really sad… I can't imagine what it would be like if I wasn't able to feel anything."

She brought up her hand to place over her chest where her own heart should have been beating. There were times when she had once wished she lacked the ability to feel. Losing her mother had been so painful, so traumatizing, and the grief felt like it was going to swallow her up each time she was reminded that her mother was gone. Being unable to feel the pain sounded like bliss, like a breath of freedom, but in the end, her sorrow was proof of just how much she loved her mother. She needed the pain to remind herself of that happiness she once had while her mom was still around.

Reina wasn't sure if she had ever encountered an actual Nobody before or not. If they could look like ordinary people, how would she be able to know the difference if they possessed a heart or not? There was just so much she wanted to know about them.

"Can a person still regain their heart even after they turn into a Nobody? Is there any hope for them to be able to feel something again someday?" She asked, egaer to keep picking his brain for more answers.

"Lucky for you, I'd be happy to explain a little more, but—" He leaned forward and flicked his finger against her forehead, making her wince in response. "It will have to wait until later. Looks like we got company."

Reina looked behind her to see that they weren't alone. Three more Heartless had emerged—Large Bodies. Great, these fat jerks just had to show up now. Of all the Heartless she had faced so far, Large Bodies were her least favorite.

"Try to knock these guys out without my help this time," Xigbar said before taking a step back.

"As if I have much of a choice," Reina mumbled, Keyblade in hand.

Unlike her last showdown with Large Bodies, this fight went a lot smoother. She had her new abilities to thank for that as she managed to leap up high into the air with her High Jump technique to avoid their hits.

"Freeze, you scumbag!" Reina cried out while rapidly casting ice spells until one of the Large Bodies was frozen solid. Now that the Heartless was an icy glass sculpture, all it took was one direct swing from Reina's Keyblade to shatter its body into a million pieces.

A pink heart dangled in midair from where the Large Body had once been before it shot towards the sky. It distracted her, leaving her to ponder on all the new information Xigbar had relayed to her. Was that really a captive heart that the Heartless had stolen from someone? Now that it was freed, would that person it initially belonged to be okay now? If, by chance, the person that heart belonged to had become a Nobody, would they regain their humanity?

"Stop spacing out! You still have two more enemies!"

Xigbar's voice cut through her thoughts. Oh, crap, she had nearly forgotten the battle wasn't over yet. There were two Large Bodies left, but she had been too distracted by the floating heart the first monster released and hadn't picked up the MP Orbs before they melted away into oblivion. She had cast Blizzard several times in a row to annihilate the first Large Body, and while her magical energy wasn't completely gone yet, she could only guess she had one more good spell in her before her magic needed to recharge.

"Xig! I don't think I have a lot of MP left!" Reina called out to him without taking her eyes off the two fat Heartless in front of her. "What if my spell misses them?! I don't think I can handle them on my own without magic!"

Xigbar didn't respond, and at first, she wondered if maybe he hadn't heard her, or worse, perhaps he had seen how hopeless the fight was and decided to take his leave. Jumping into panic mode, the brunette took a step back and used both hands to hold out her Keyblade. She'd only get one shot at this. If her magic spell missed, or if she didn't put enough power into it, then she'd be screwed. Her shaky hands made it hard to steady her Keyblade as she began to channel her magic into her weapon.

Just as she took a deep breath to call out her spell, she felt something warm and firm press against her back.

"Relax, kiddo. You got this."

Xigbar's arms wrapped around her from the back as he placed his hands atop of hers while she held out her Keyblade. He guided her movements to help her point the tip of her blade at the two Large Bodies running at them.

Her back was pressed firmly against his chest as he made her lift her Keyblade and steady her aim. "X-Xigbar?! What are you doing?!"

"Since you seem to like drifting into Lala Land so much, I figured I'd lend a hand the only way I know how." His hot breath tickled against the shell of her ear, and Reina had to bite back another gasp as heat began to rise inside her chest.

"Now on my count, I want you to cast the strongest Fire spell you can manage. Don't worry so much about aiming since I've got you covered. I want you to just focus on the strength of the spell so you can knock them both out in one hit."

Reina couldn't think of anything to say in response to him as she felt his hands tighten around hers. It was hard to focus with him holding her like that, but they were running out of time. The two Large Bodies were about to strike!

Closing her eyes to help her focus better, Reina let Xigbar guide the direction of her Keyblade while she conjured up every last drop of magical energy she had building up within her. She vividly drew up an image of a fiery vortex in her mind as she felt heat spread from her fingertips and into her mystical weapon.

Words were forming of their own accord inside her throat as the fire burning within her threatened to overflow. It was now or never. "FIRA!" She shouted out, her voice loud and commanding as flames burst from her Keyblade and fired from the tip like a swirling bullet of deadly heat.

She opened her eyes just in time to see that the fireball she had sent hurdling towards the Heartless was five times the size of her usual Fire attack. The two Large Bodies were engulfed by the scorching flames and ran around mindlessly in circles for a moment until their bodies could handle the painful burns no more.

They both popped like balloons, exploding out MP and HP Orbs as all remnants of their bodies faded away into nothingness. Two pink, crystal hearts were freed and ascended into the sky, and Reina could feel her own spirit floating inside of her as she watched them disappear over the top of the trees.

"Well, whaddaya' know? Looks like you're capable of some pretty intense magical power after all."

Xigbar still had his arms wrapped around her, the warmth of his body enveloping the young woman. Now that the battle was over, she could push him away and force him to give her some space. Her head, however, was starting to spin from the overexertion of her energy, and her vision blackened with dark, hazy spots. Her Keyblade vanished from her hands in a flash of light as she no longer possessed the strength to keep it materialized. Instead of pushing Xigbar away, Reina ended up losing her footing and fell back further into his arms, using him as a pillar of support. Had he not already been settled behind her, she would have fallen to the ground.

"Woah, there, sweetheart! You okay?!"

He felt her body grow limp inside of his arms as he held her steady.

Reina mumbled something intangible under her breath before her consciousness was swept away from her.

"Hey! Kiddo! Wake up!" Xigbar tried to shake her awake, but it was no use.

She was out cold.