"Are you sure, Cid?" Leon questioned the man, who nodded his head vigorously.

"Ya I am positive about it. I reconized the big one as the beast who ripped open my damn shop. The foul thing almost got me, but I always have a bit of protection around as you know

already, Leon" Cid said with a smug grin, the man then pulled a large handled object out of his back pocket.

"That big dummy didn't know what hit him when this baby gave him a good smack in the face" Cid continued with a good natured laugh, but Leon had not time for jokes.

"Ok, enough storytelling Cid, We have got to --" Leon began reprimanding the man, when suddenly a window leading onto the room's balcony just behind them shattered.

Glass shards sprayed everywhere as a creature familiar to the boy entered into the room, its armor clanking as it stepped through the broken window.

"Heartless" Sora cried, bringing his Keyblade to bear as he went into a fighting stance.

"Yuffie, make sure Aerith gets out safe. Cid --" Leon ordered, turning to the man, however Cid was already out the door a few steps behind Yuffie.

"I know, you and the kid just be careful" Cid called back to them, Leon then took his place beside Sora.

"You ready, kid?" Leon asked, glancing over at the kid, who nodded his head.

"Then lets do this, I lost one home and their is no way I will lose another" Leon shouted, throwing himself against the tide of Heartless who had begun to pour into the room like

a torrent of dark water.

Donald and Goofy were startled when the room's door burst open to admit two figures, one a dark haired girl and the other an older man with sandy blond hair.

"Yuffie, Cid?" Aerith said, surprised to see the two in such a rush.

"Come on Aerith, we gotta move!" Yuffie said quickly to the girl, grabbing her by the arm and pulling her toward the room's exit out into the Hotel hall.

"Wait, the --"Aerith tried to tell the other girl, but the dark haired Yuffie shook her head.

"No time, come on!" Yuffie ordered, and then the three were gone.

Meanwhile Goofy picked himself up from where he had fallen behind the room's bed.

"Donald?" Goofy said, looking around the room for his companion. The room's door then swung back to reveal the duck pressed into the room's red wall, his bill open in mid shout.

Leon and Sora used their combined might to fight through the bulk of the Heartless that pured outward from the window of the small Hotel room. Sora felt relief only when he no longer

felt his Keyblade cutting through the creatures of darkness.

"I think thats all of them" Sora said with a sigh of relief, but Leon only shook his head.

"That was only the first wave, more will continue to come if we do not find and destroy the large one controling them all" Leon explained to the boy, who groaned in annoyance.

Suddenly the two heard a scream down by the waterway alley below, both rushed out onto the balcony which just moments before had been filled with Heartless.

The two looked around for the commotion and Sora soon spotted its source. The boy reconized the rotund figure of Jonas standing down by the waterway, his body completely still.

Sora then watched in horror as Jonas's heart drifted out of his body and transformed into another of the clanking armored Heartless. The newly created Heartless than took off down the

alley without a single glance back.

"Come on, the leader is probably the one calling them all away from this district, if we follow we might just be lead straight to the master himself" Leon told the boy, and then without a

further word, the man swung down from the balcony and landed in the alley below. Sora looked down at the man, who gazed up at him with an expression of haste.

"Come on aren't you coming?" Leon called up to the boy, who then let out a breath to calm himself just before throwing himself off the balcony to land beside the man in an awkward

tumble that sent him crashing into the waterway with a tremondous splash.

Leon could not hide the smile that played upon his face as the boy waded out of the waterway with his clothes soaked and his hair sopping wet.

"Better luck next time on the landing kid" the man said with a smile upon his lips, he then took off in the direction of the Heartless.

"Wait for me!" Sora called, shaking out his wet matted hair and chasing after the man.