The biggest problem with the mushroom Heartless was its ability to regenerate very quickly. Luffy punched off chunks, it grew them back, Sanji burnt it, the seared pieces were shed and replaced, Zoro took out the legs, it squirmed around and out popped another set. It just kept growing and replacing and mutating. Worse yet, as it did this, its spores were covering the air in a black mist and growing along the ground. They were surely all infected by now, but while they put their best effort in the creature would regrow whatever they did.

Another problem that developed during the fight… when Toshiro went to freeze it, it did not take kindly to the cold and revealed how the Stigma affected a Nobody. Black mist was rising off his left arm as it hung limply at his side, immobilizing it. The black scars where the smoke billowed from bubbled grotesquely, and by the tense expression on his face, it was extremely painful. Needless to say, it was hard for him to even move.

'So this is why I couldn't summon the Keyblade then, huh? It took care of that first chance it got…' He thought, scowling, realizing this was why his charm was black as well. Unable to cover the area effectively, he had no way to stop the morphing and changing the Heartless kept doing to avoid the solid strikes the others dealt, making it much more difficult than it needed to be. It wasn't strong, but it was terrifyingly smart.

Law had hung back when his first attacks didn't help much. Splitting it apart with his ability wasn't useful when it could just grow itself back together, and he wasn't getting close enough yet to try any shocks or heart stealing, not until he was sure it was immobilized. Brook hung by Toshiro to keep back the minions that still skulked from the shadows when they could.

"This is quite the tricky duel we have here." Brook's teeth chattered nervously. "Are Heartless normally this robust?"

"They can be. The stronger they are, the more unique they get, and this one was watching us the whole time." Toshiro answered with a growl. "I'm sorry for letting things get this way."

"Just figure out how to stop what's on your arm." Law pushed aside the apology. The Nobody's arrival may have turned the interest of these creatures to this world, but he by no means could have predicted these kinds of events, and they needed him to get back in the fight.

A few more Heartless sprung at the trio but Law and Brook were having none of that.

"You're starting to really make me mad!" Luffy's shout caught their attention, the young pirate crouching down. His body rippled oddly before steam rolled off his skin as it turned a bright red from heat. Just after this, Luffy was springing around faster than an arrow, his punches hitting harder. The high increase in heat staved off any infection as well, better than any fever while making the rubber man tougher.

With a screech the Heartless did its best to defend itself, more mushrooms growing along its body and hardening in response to the intense punches, shielding and replacing whatever was lost. It couldn't dart around as fast as Luffy could but it tried, and it was enough to prevent serious damage. It charged at Sanji.

"Your mistake, champignon." The blonde scoffed, landing a solid kick to the creature's head as it tried to ram him, sending it skidding back a few feet. Stumbling a bit from the impact, the Heartless was open to a pounding of wind from one of Zoro's sword strikes. With the enemy off balance, Sanji charged it in return and gave it a few more powerful kicks, launching it up into the air.

Luffy went for his strike as he pushed off the ground hard enough to make the stone crack, but it was as if the mushroom creature wanted to be in the air. Its spiny arms latched onto the rubber boy like a mantis, and with a victorious cry several blackened vines sprouted from its underbelly and attached to the rooftops, suspending it above them like a spider.

"It certainly is adaptable." Toshiro grumbled as he watched the fight unfold.

Luffy was NOT happy with his current predicament, squirming in the spiny appendages that kept him from twisting out even with his flexibility. The poison didn't affect him, which confused the Heartless. The human should definitely be paralyzed by now, even the Reaper would have been affected, but this feisty pirate was very active and becoming quite the bother. Luffy's high resistance to even the deadliest of poisons was hard earned, he wasn't going to let this spider mushroom stop him, and eventually he got himself released from the spines and returned to the ground, if with some nasty scratches.

"Man this thing is annoying." Zoro growled between the sword in his mouth.

Deciding he'd been kept out of the fight long enough, Toshiro did a risky move, something he had to do or remain a burden in this fight. Dark blue ice formed over his arm, the scars sizzling slightly before going quiet as they were suffocated by a thick layer of frost. It stung harshly for a bit, the Nobody sucking in a breath as he endured it until it all went completely numb.

"Oh my, are you sure you want to do that?" Brook looked concerned by Toshiro's new 'glove'.

"I am ice; it won't cause any more damage than whatever that thing already did to me." Toshiro replied through gritted teeth. "It's all I've got for now if I want to be able to do anything."

Now that he wasn't having to focus on keeping the pain back, he could move more freely, zanpaktou in hand again. The chain was shortened and wrapped around his arm so it wouldn't get in his way, seeing as he couldn't use his other hand to throw it as he normally would. It would have to just remain wrapped for now. He stepped over to where the other three were.

"You sure you want to be over here?" Zoro asked the small figure.

"It's not the first time I've been down an arm in a fight and I doubt it would be the last, Soul Reapers fight until their last breath." Toshiro replied coldly. "Besides, I can do more than sword play."

Seeing the fourth member below it, the Heartless grew quite restless. It had already been forced into this new stage by the first three, and now it had a new one in the mix. The other two from behind were stepping up as well, not good for it, it understood it was in trouble now. It eyed the vial in Law's hands with anger. If it could just destroy that and disappear, it could wait until they all died and became Heartless. Patience was its strong suit. Then it could nab the small one for the mistress who gave it life here.

Just before this stalemate, when chaos had occurred inside the infirmary of the Heart Pirates' ship, the chaos spread outside in the form of more Heartless rising from the shadows. Nami and Usopp both gave frightened screeches while Jimbei and Franky jumped to their feet with scowls, Penguin and Shachi just reeling back in surprise.

"Whoa, hey, where'd they come from!" Shachi yelped.

"Get out of here, shady rats!" Franky thrust a fist out, which sprung out and began firing rounds at the small creatures. A good many of them were blown back and popped into black mist and a floating heart, but were quickly replaced by more.

"These must be the Heartless the small Reaper spoke of." Jimbei growled as he used powerful martial arts to keep the ones that jumped back from the ships. Shachi and Penguin brought out guns and made to shoot, but unlike with Franky there was little effect from regular bullets. They nervously kept back at this revelation, leaving it to the Straw Hats.

Though numerous, the creatures by the individual weren't all that tough, giving Nami and Usopp reason to step forward and help, Nami with her special climatact that let her mess with small weather systems of her own and Usopp with his special slingshot to unleash an assortment of deadly plant bullets.

Before they could make their entrance, however, a blur rushing out of the submarine made them and their other two companions pause in their fighting, at first worried of a new threat and instead gaping at what they saw. Dextra the harpy launched right at a Heartless, carrying it up into the air as she crushed it between her talons before swooping straight down for more, landing this time to slice at any of the creatures in her range. Unlike the child they were used to, her eyes were hard and focused on vulnerable body parts, a predator through and through, making a few of them shudder nervously. Even if the Heartless barely had necks between their round little heads and odd bodies, she sliced at them with her hands. Even if there was no difference between stomach and back strength in their forms, her feet gutted them in one swipe. Even though they had no physical vulnerabilities like normal living things, she had the strength to slaughter them in one fell strike. The horde kept rising and falling around her, a constant threat she would fight until she fell, whatever it took to keep them from her home, from her family.

"Well damn, better do something about her." Franky looked very concerned about the orphan's state. Of the straw Hats that had helped in getting her back for Law in the chaos of Dressrosa that felt so long ago now, only Luffy knew of this form, so the rest of his crew remaining here was reasonably startled by her current behavior. Nami looked quite horrified, having taken a liking to the quiet but ever helpful and curious nurse-in-training, not sure what to make of this very different side of the girl.

As Dextra was clawing down one, another two jumping at her managed to get to her just fast enough to land a scratch across her hip. She gave an awful sound of anger at the attack and took care of the assailants, but it was clear even an adept predator like her was being overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of shadows. She jumped into the sky momentarily to keep them off her.

"Come on, she'll get hurt!" Usopp was the first to rally his friends back into the offensive. He'd enjoyed the company of the orphans, even quiet little Dextra always glued to Law's side, it was a bit upsetting to see her this way. He took a few shots at the Heartless coming after the harpy, carnivorous plants growing extremely rapidly and snapping at more of them. Confused by the attacking flora, the Heartless at first just kept a wide berth from the new threat, their scrambling giving Dextra a chance to kill several more.

Robin hurried out of the ship at this point, spotting the trouble and gasping at the numbers flowing from the shadows.

"Mille Fleur!" She shouted, crossing her arms. Copies of her arms sprouted from the ground and latched onto as many shadowy bodies as she could and holding tight until they burst, though some escaped back into the shadows of the ground if they could touch it.

Even with Robin outside and Dextra going after them like a wolf in a hen house, it was not any easier of a fight.

And neither was the one with the main 'queen' Heartless. Its patience was slowly being rewarded as the polluted air was starting to get to the fighters. Zoro was tenser than he normally would be in an attempt to hide the increasing weakness in his muscles. Sanji was breathing a little heavier than he would have been after such a short fight. Law had a hand to his chest and used his sword to keep himself from swaying, hiding it well like Zoro. Luffy was grumbling, among the least affected, but along with all those already mentioned was showing patches of black on parts of his skin. Brook was the only one free of illness and quite infuriated at the state of his comrades. Toshiro, too, was looking tired, the arm covered in ice restricting his movements.

The web it had created to keep itself above them was giving them the most trouble. They could get high enough no problem, especially Toshiro and Sanji since they could pretty much stand on air, if in different ways. Their obstacle lay in how much faster it could move along the tendrils of black vines. When they went up, it flipped upside down. They even tried a pincer from above and below, but parts of the web would snap off and attack back like thorny snakes, allowing the fungus monster to escape. It was only running away at this point, waiting, careful.

Though tired, Toshiro felt he had no choice but to try Kido. His sword skills were handicapped anyway, and freezing the web turned out to be too slow, as it would shed the frozen pieces and replace them, just like it had done with its body armor in the fight before this. The Nobody jumped up onto the web. Anticipating an attack, the Heartless skittered to the other side.

"Someone be ready." He called below before laying his hand on the vines. Before anyone could ask about his intentions, he began a chant. Letting out a garbled hiss, the Heartless tapped a foot and a vine sprung up next to the Nobody, but he did not pause even as he glared at it.

"Hey, get out of there!" Luffy called out, shocked. His shout was ignored.

"Hado number eleven," Toshiro was forced to pause as the vine pierced him right through the left shoulder since he could only allow himself to duck a bit. He winced, his voice carrying pain but still refusing to stop, ignoring the angry yells of the pirates. "Tsuzuri Raiden!"

The black vines instantly came aglow with bright lightning that raced across the web in seconds. It was either jump or be fried, and the Heartless chose to leap. Toshiro was left to take his own attack, gritting his teeth. The worst of it wasn't so much the lightning as the flashbacks to a world he'd been to, a digital one where a rogue AI electrically tortured him for information. He was able to still brace himself until the Kido ran its course, but the memories of that horrible world still made him shake a bit. He wondered if he would ever get over that, one of the horrible times Hyorinmaru had been forcefully separated from him and his skin charred from electric shocks. At least then his dragon was still with him, could still return, not like now. Part of him knew that memory, and others like it, may always plague him even if he did become whole again.

The Straw Hats fortunately took the opportunity given to them, Zoro and Sanji furiously leaping after the creature and double-teaming it to slam it into the concrete below, making a small crater with the force of their attacks.

"Gotcha now Bugshroom!" Luffy spoke the nickname he gave the creature with great distaste as he pummeled it further into the ground.

Leaving them to it, Brook hurried to stand below where Toshiro was as the web started to break apart in charred pieces. The spike in his shoulder broke away, letting the Nobody fall below. But as in pain as he was, Toshiro still landed on his own instead of letting the skeleton catch him, stumbling a bit but stubbornly remaining upright. He may not be in the greatest of conditions but his pride refused to let him look any weaker than he already did to these pirates. The ice crept further up his arm, up to the new wound in his shoulder, to stop the bleeding. Everything felt so heavy, but he wasn't done yet.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Brook was concerned about the slight shaking in Hitsugaya's free hand, which quickly tightened into a fist to still that shaking.

"I've had worse." Toshiro responded coldly, a shortened version of what he'd told them before after freezing his arm the first time.

"You keep going like that you'll die before the fight is over." Law countered with an irritated tone, if a little short of breath from the Stigma creeping over his chest. He would deny it if anyone said anything, but he'd been holding back his own shakes, the patches a glaring reminder of a past he wanted to move on from. Though unaware of the other's traumas, both Toshiro and Law were mentally out of sorts for this fight, both facing obstacles of harder times they refused to let stop them, but still painful in many ways.

"Good thing I'm already dead." The Nobody shot back.

Law glared at the other but held his tongue. This was not the time, and if not for the smaller figure's sacrifice they may have never gotten the annoying Heartless down before the Stigma took over. He couldn't quite understand why Toshiro wanted to keep fighting so much, yet he also felt it wasn't his place to stop him.

That said, even down from its web the Heartless was still giving them a hard time. A mouth had split open across its body, taking bites at anyone who got too close, mainly Sanji and Luffy. The latter's nickname for it definitely fit now, as it had hard beetle-like armor from the mushrooms across its back, spindly spider legs letting it run around quicker, horns grown from its head like a stag beetle battling off Zoro's swords. It now regularly let off puffs of spores like a squid let loose ink, blocking their sight long enough for it to push them back. Since it was no longer able to just dodge and wait, it would do its best to take them down with it.

Watching the trio continuing to try and break it down even as the Stigma sapped away their energy, Toshiro looked once more at his left arm, ignoring when Brook zoomed off to aid his friends, and even ignoring Law when the pirate glanced at him before rushing off as well.

'If I could just use the Keyblade. Or just my arm in general, dammit, even if the ice keeps off its Stigma I'm so much slower.' He mentally cursed to himself, scowling outwardly at the dark blue ice handicapping him. He closed his eyes as he tried to hold back the fury. Of the few emotions he could still bring up, that wasn't one he needed right now. 'This isn't their fight, these pirates, but I've dragged them into it anyway. So many people have become Heartless… I should be stopping this… some guardian I am….'

Are you giving up?

Startled, Toshiro opened his eyes not to a battle, but to an endless darkness around him. That voice… a voice echoing in his head yet not there at all. The voice that had helped him before when he first awakened the Keyblade, the voice of the Heavenly Guardians before him, his predecessors and guides in one being.

"…. Where?"

Do not worry, within your mind thoughts move much faster than outside, the battle can wait. The voice responded. But not for very long. So… are you giving up?

"No way!" Toshiro denied with little hesitation, rather insulted it would ask such a question.

Being a Heavenly Guardian does not mean saving all from darkness, same as being a Soul Reaper does not mean saving all from Hell, whether literal or figurative.

"I know that." Toshiro gave a slight huff at the apparent lecture.

Then why let the loss of a few stop you from moving on to the rest? Did you not lecture Sora on the very same idea when he questioned his ability as a Keybearer?

"I…" That made the Nobody pause for sure. He DID give Sora quite the hard lesson on the truth about being a warrior, that there was no avoiding death no matter how much you might try to save everyone. There were just too many. Yet… he could only feel guilty, knowing the people of this world would have been safe had he not stumbled his way here in a panic. He knew he couldn't save everyone, but he also knew it was his fault the Heartless were even here in the first place. "This is different…"

The door was opened early, but with the darkness growing in strength, it was inevitable for even worlds like this to find themselves in shadow. The voice corrected, and Toshiro looked out to the void in confusion. There is a great darkness coming, new guardian, and you must be there to stop it. This is but a step in your journey, a steep climb, full of slippery trails and hungry animals. But at the top awaits a great power only you may awaken. You may slip, you may be hurt, but if you allow yourself to fall, another will steal that throne from you and the worlds will be lost.

"That's a lot of responsibility…" Toshiro looked back at his arm in shame. In his mind, the ice did not cover, the sleeves of his coat and shirt torn off up to the shoulder where he could see the blackened scars of the Stigma across his skin and the wound through his shoulder. They did not bleed or fume, but they were no less painful to look at. "Especially when I'm so much weaker than before."

A minor setback. The entity spoke with confidence; a confidence Toshiro didn't share. Your fear is overriding your judgment, new guardian, and that is why the Keyblade denies your summons.

"I doubt any of you had to deal with being a Nobody." Toshiro scowled out to the void, not denying his fear. Of course he was afraid. He could no longer control a power he'd known since childhood, a power now turning on even him when the darkness clung to him. That same darkness still continued to eat away at him, his focus, his thoughts, his ability to fight soundly. It was all off balance and he felt so lost. How could he not be afraid as he slowly lost everything he ever was to the nothing of being a Nobody?

Are you accepting your fate then? The voice questioned.

"Like Hell I'd ever allow myself to fall into their trap." For a moment confidence did shine through in Toshiro's response. He surprised himself even, expression softening as he questioned his motives.

Another question then. Whoever said darkness was evil?

"What?"

Riku, Demyx, Axel, many people you've met on your journey had ties to darkness and yet were among your greatest allies. Darkness itself is dangerous and in the wrong hands produces great and terrible power. But there is no rule stating it is inherently evil. Just as light is never inherently good. The Heavenly Guardian is neutral and seeks only to help the worlds in a balance of light and dark.

Never did we say it is darkness itself you should fear, only those who use it in evil ways.

Stunned, Toshiro had to take a moment to think about what he was told. Many months back, when first facing Maleficent… she had called out a darkness in him, and he had shrugged her off. Back then he had known what the voice was telling him. Back then he knew there was no harm in having to be a little dark when it came to what needed to be done.

It was sometime during his travels fighting for the light alongside Sora and all the others, seeing his enemies shrouded in darkness and terrible power, that he'd come to change his mind…

"That's what ended up getting me in the end… isn't it?" Toshiro muttered aloud in realization.

There is a darkness plaguing you, one you must be wary to let in, but there is no need to let it consume you in fear as it has been. The voice said reassuringly. Those you know did not escape the darkness, rather, they accepted it, did they not?

"To an extent…"

Be the owner of your darkness, not let it own you. You can follow a stream but avoid the falls if you control the flow. The Keyblade will be your guide through the darkness, not the blade to destroy it. Often it is the deepest shadows that hide the strongest light, and the strongest light creates the darkest of shadows. Holding too tightly to one makes the other tug harder.

"These are all great metaphors… but I'm still not understanding." Toshiro shook his head. "It's like you're going in circles. The darkness isn't bad, the darkness is bad, stay with the light, accept the darkness, don't accept it…" He put his hands to his head and shook it again in frustration. "What am I even supposed to believe anymore!?"

You are the Heavenly Guardian. You are the balance. If you truly believe you can return to yourself and awaken who you truly are, you must first accept where you have been. Find your balance, new guardian, none of us before you were ever purely light, even if Kingdom Hearts is. Follow your heart, even just the memory of it, and you will return from this stronger than you have ever been.

The presence of the voice was beginning to fade from his thoughts and he could begin to hear the fight outside again.

"Accept where I have been… I guess that makes more sense, I've been in some dark places before this." Toshiro heaved a sigh. "Doesn't make this any less terrifying, feeling myself slip away… I guess I better stop drowning and learn how to swim."

Light flooded the void as he was returned to the real world.

Here's the chapter, though I'm still open to ideas on who can get a Keyblade, I've got a couple I'm thinking about. Don't expect it anytime soon though, this is an idea for much later in the story, cause remember I have a back log of chapters to post that you'll have to read through before any new keybearers.