Chapter 32: For Those Who Fight

Sora was in for a very rude awakening the next morning.

"Aw shoot!" Cid was shouting. "Not again! This makes twice this week!" His shouts were accompanied with quite a few bangs and crashes. Soon all this noise was accompanied by Yuffie complaining about Cid waking her up. By the time Sora made his way out there, Leon was standing between Yuffie and Cid, preventing them from breaking out into a fight.

"Calm down!" Aerith scolded. "We should be fighting the Heartless, not each other!"

"Does this happen every day?" Sora found himself wondering aloud.

Cloud, who had been standing next to him, watching the scene with mild amusement, just shrugged. "Cid and Yuffie have never gotten along," he replied simply.

A rather large crash came from outside, and the fighting immediately stopped.

"We need to get moving," Leon said quickly, readying his gunblade. "We've got Heartless to take care of!"

"We'd already be out there if little miss hadn't started arguing with me!" Cid shouted, nodding in Yuffie's direction. "Now someone help me get this cannon outside!" When no one offered to help, he glanced over at Sora. "Hey kid, give me a hand here!"

"Uhh… okay…" Sora muttered, heading over to help Cid. Between the two of them, they managed to wheel the cannon out onto the street, where quite a few Heartless were starting to gather.

"What's with the cannon?" Sora asked after a moment.

"Most efficient way to take care of these things," Cid laughed, glancing at the Heartless. He took aim and started charging it up.

"Alright, we'll split up," Leon said. "Aerith, come with me. Sora and Cloud, you two stick together, and Yuffie can stay here with Cid."

Cid's cannon had fired by this point, destroying quite the amount of Heartless and almost hitting Yuffie.

"Hey! Watch it!" she shouted, turning to glare at Cid.

"On second thought…" Leon muttered. "Yuffie, you're with me. Aerith, stay here with Cid."

"Okay!" Aerith said happily.

Yuffie all too happily ran over to Leon and the two of them headed off to a different area.

"Why do you think we got paired together?" Sora asked, glancing at Cloud.

Cloud shrugged, pulling out his sword. The sword was rather large. "I don't know," he replied, sounding as if he didn't care either. "You can fight, right?" he asked, turning to Sora with raised eyebrows.

"Of course!" Sora laughed, drawing his Keyblade.

Cloud nodded. "Just making sure," he muttered.

xxx

Most of the Heartless in the area were Neoshadows, for some reason, though there were a few others. A few that were particularly in abundance were the Morning Stars, which were large and round and liked to drop out of the sky and land on the heads of their victims. There were also Armored Knights, which were pretty self explanatory. To top that off, there were also a few Bookmasters, which liked to stand off to the side and cast magic, and if anyone got too close to them, they would whack said person over the head with their book.

"Hey, Cloud," Sora called, taking out a few Neoshadows. "How do you know everyone here?"

Cloud said nothing for a moment, focusing on a few of the Armored Knights that were coming at him. Finally, he said: "A friend of mine knew Aerith. And well… you know how Aerith is. She introduced me to everyone else."

"Friend?" Sora asked.

Cloud shook his head and continued killing Heartless.

Sora grimaced, now feeling guilty for asking. He continued with the Heartless killing himself, taking out quite a few at once. He laughed slightly at that. It wasn't often he ran across Heartless that were weak enough that he could kill more than one at a time.

"Where'd you learn to fight so well?" Cloud said, pausing for a second.

Sora frowned. He had first learned how to fight because of the darkness. It wasn't really a happy thought. Though, Cloud had asked where'd he'd learned to fight well, so… that would be Castle Oblivion.

However…

"I needed to learn how to defend myself," Sora replied after a moment. "I had a few things I had to fight alone."

Cloud laughed slightly. "Me too," he said.

I wonder what Cloud has to fight… Sora thought, attacking a few more Heartless.

Yuffie mentioned that he was fighting alone…

I wonder if he's like me.

Though, I doubt he has a Shadow following him around and trying to kill him.

That's probably only me…

Sora sighed.

My life is SO weird!

"Watch out!" Cloud shouted.

Sora glanced up just in time to see a Morning Star about to attack him. He got ready to dodge, or maybe block, only to find he didn't need to. Before he could even think, Cloud had eliminated the Heartless for him.

Sora stood there in shock for a moment, actually quite embarrassed. It had been a while since a Heartless had snuck up on him.

Goodness… he thought with a laugh. I'm as bad as Riku.

"Are you alright?" Cloud asked.

Sora glanced up at him. Cloud was looking at him with that intense gaze that he had. He laughed nervously and nodded.

"Thanks," he said.

Cloud just nodded and returned to killing other Heartless. Sora quickly did the same. There were a few Bookmasters hiding in the corners, so he started focusing and on and getting rid of them. Once finished with that, he turned to fight the Neoshadows that had been sneaking up on him. However, quite a few had decided to gang up on him, and started dealing a lot of damage.

And to top that off, a Morning Star decided it would be a wonderful idea to land on top of him, too.

Sora stumbled back in pain. He glared at all the Heartless that stood before him and gritted his teeth, before charging forward. He quickly dealt with the Morning Star, and then continued focusing on the Neoshadows. Once they were gone he stood there for a second, his breath a bit short. Finally, he turned to the next set of Neoshadows and rushed forward.

Well, more of stumbled forward.

"Watch yourself!" Cloud warned.

Energy shot through Sora and he felt his strength slowly find its way back to him.

"Thanks," he called to Cloud, who had obviously Cured him.

Cloud only nodded and returned to killing Heartless. Sora sighed, wishing not for the first time that he knew how to cast magic.

Maybe he'd ask about it.

Someone around here had to be able to teach him how.

In the meantime, however, there was Heartless to kill.

Before long, the amount of Heartless was beginning to dwindle.

"Let's head back to Cid," Cloud said, finishing off the last Heartless.

"Yeah," Sora agreed.

They made their way back in that direction, killing those few leftover Heartless that were still about as they went. They had just finished with a group of Morning Stars when a large crash and the sound of Cid shouting caused them to pause.

Sora frowned, noticing something. The feeling that he got whenever a large Heartless (or anything particularly dark, for that matter) was around had settled into his stomach. He turned to Cloud.

Cloud was frowning. After a moment though, he turned to Sora and nodded.

They took off running.

xxx

A large flying Heartless (known as the Phantomtail) was flying above them all, apparently not wanting to land. Everyone seemed to be doing alright though. Cid could shoot it with his cannon, Yuffie was chucking her shuriken at it. Leon and Aerith were using magic to take it down. Leon fought mainly with fire magic, and Aerith spent most of her time curing everyone.

Cloud quickly took this in stride and started casting thunder magic at it.

Sora sighed, yet again wishing he knew how to cast magic.

"Don't just stand there, kid!" Cid called towards Sora. "Do something!"

"Yeah… about that…" Sora muttered feeling rather embarrassed. "I sort of can't use magic…"

"Can't use magic! What do you mean you can't use magic!" Yuffie shouted, pausing mid-throw and turning to stare at Sora in shock. "I can use magic and I don't even need to!"

"Yuffie!" Leon warned.

She frowned, and then continued attacking the Phantomtail.

"Sora, take care of them," Leon said, nodding in the direction of a few Neoshadows that were still about.

Sora nodded and went to deal with the Neosahdows while everyone else worried about the Phantomtail.

I feel… sort of useless… Sora thought with a sigh. I never expected I'd need to use magic, I guess…

He angrily drove his blade though a Neoshadow. It died almost instantly.

A sense of satisfaction ran through him, and he shuddered. It wasn't like he felt guilty about killing Heartless or anything, but he definitely didn't find their deaths satisfying.

Or… amusing.

Sora frowned, trying to make sense of the emotions that were running through him. They weren't typically emotions he would feel in this situation.

His eyes went wide as he realized something.

"Shadow!" he hissed loathingly.

Now he was wondering if his Shadow was laughing at the Heartless or at him.

"Sora!" someone called, pulling him out of his thoughts. He turned, and found that they had managed to knock the Phantomtail out of the air. Everyone was currently wailing on it with their weapons. Well, everyone but Aerith. Apparently, Aerith's melee attacks didn't do much damage, so she stuck to magic.

Sora was a bit surprised to find that Cid used a spear as his weapon of choice. He had chucked it at the Phantomtail and was now yelling at someone to bring it back to him, as he couldn't walk away from the cannon. Sora laughed and fetched it for him and then ran to attack the Phantomtail before it got back up again.

"Dangit!" Cid shouted, and with obvious reason. The Phantomtail was starting to rise into the air again.

"Y'all get out of the way!" Cid called. "I'll see if I can knock it out before it gets back up!" With this he started charging up the cannon with what appeared to be a really powerful attack.

Everyone quickly got out of the way.

The cannon fired with explosive force (nearly taking out Cid) and unleashed a large blast of energy. Said large blast of energy shot towards the Phantomtail, scorching the air around it as it did so. When it hit the Phantomtail there was a large flash of light and what might have been an explosion or two.

And yet somehow, the Phantomtail was still standing.

Noticing this, Cloud rushed forward and jumped into the air, bringing his blade crashing down on its head. That killed it.

"So you don't know how to use magic?" Leon asked, turning to Sora with quite the shocked expression.

Sora shook his head.

"Well then we'll just have to teach you how!" Aerith laughed. "I'm sure Leon won't mind!"

Leon shrugged. "That… and maybe a few other pointers on how to fight," he said thoughtfully, sounding as if he actually liked (or at least approved of) the idea. "We could get started on that now, if you-"

"Leon!" Yuffie shouted suddenly. "I think that's going to have to wait!"