Sora the Maelstrom

by KHGiggle

Sora is a nice boy. A very nice boy. But what if he was raised by the Tsviets in DEEPGROUND? Slight crossover twist. May contain OOC and butchering of characters. Chapter nine fixed.

20. Chapter 20

Chapter 20 is here! It's the Hades cup. Hopefully I can fit it all into one chapter. I may try to fit in the extra matches as well. I'll probably try skipping past most of the minor matches for the sake of keeping this chapter from getting too long.

Look for a surprise in this chapter!

I still don't own anything.

Chapter Start

"So, you wanna sign up for the Hades Cup?" asked Phil. The boys had just gone up to him after getting to the Coliseum. He easily figured out why they were there.

"Yeah," said Sora. "Is Aladdin still not allowed to compete with us?"

"Nope."

"Then I'm gonna go get some popcorn." Aladdin headed off. Sora doubted he was actually going to get popcorn.

"Try to get some practice in," shouted Sora.

So, they got signed up and headed out for their first match. It was 3 Soldiers and 7 Shadows. There wasn't much that happened there. They're not hard to take care of.

The second match was against 3 Wight Knights and 4 Powerwilds. That was more difficult due to the Wight Knights' long reach, but Donald's spells took care of that problem. The Powerwilds weren't really that much of a problem.

The third match was against a pair of 'Hammer Legs,' 2 Shadows, and 4 Pirates. Due to Sora still reacting badly to any parts of a Guard Armor, he went completely nuts on the Heartless, wiping them out in about a minute.

The fourth match was against a Powerwild and 8 Pot Spiders. Pot Spiders break easily. Didn't really have to put in a lot of effort.

The fifth match was a Rare Truffle. Because Sora was in a hurry, he just bopped it on the head to make it go away.

The sixth match…was Yuffie. "Oh yeah! Rematch time!"

"You had Leon with you last time though," pointed out Goofy. Yuffie sweatdropped.

"I'm going all out right away this time though!" Yuffie summoned her glowing blue remote-control shuriken. She promptly threw it at Sora, who dodged. It came back around and started chasing him as he continued dodging it.

"Goofy! Cover me!"

"Right!"

Sora quickly dismissed the Keyblade and pulled out his daggers. He didn't want to risk doing something…unpredictable to the ninja. Yuffie started tossing shuriken at him. Sora started blocking them and knocking them to the ground. Then Donald shot a Firaga at Yuffie. Yuffie had to jump away to avoid getting hit by it. This allowed Sora to close in on her. He feinted and did a sweep on her that knocked her to the ground. Yuffie did catch herself, but Sora hit her with a Graviga to keep her down and bent down to put his knives on her neck. "Do you give?"

"Okay, okay! I give!" Poor Yuffie. She just can't seem to get a break. She chose to complain about this once they were off the field. "I keep losing to you! Can't I get a break? The only time I've ever gotten a jump on you was when I knocked you out while you were fighting Leon…"

Sora blinked. "That was you?" Yuffie's eyes widened and she giggled nervously.

"Oh, right, I forgot you didn't know about that…" Everyone sweatdropped. "Peace offering!" Then she pulled out something, thrust it into Sora's arms, and ran off.

"What was that about?" asked Donald.

"I'm not completely sure…" Sora took a look at it. It seemed to be a shield made out of bandages with three tomoe on it. It was obviously meant for Goofy. Something else was on Sora's mind though. "Why didn't Yuffie use this in the match?" Then he frowned as he realized something. "Where was she keeping this?" That was a very good question. However, the only one who could answer that was Yuffie, and she was probably sneaking into the locker rooms again.

After the match with Yuffie, the boys had to fight 3 Bandits and 4 Pirates. Not really as difficult as Yuffie. It was very easy to take care of them.

The eighth match was against 1 Defender, 2 Soldiers, and 3 Wight Knights. The Soldiers were easily dealt with, and Sora and Donald took care of the Wight Knights by setting their bandages on fire, which caused them to run around trying to put them out. The Defender was a bit difficult to take care of since they had to get behind it while avoiding the panicking Wight Knights, but they were able to kill it after a couple of minutes and then finished off the weakened Wight Knights.

The ninth match was a Bandit, 2 Powerwilds, a Large Body, a Fat Bandit, and a Soldier. It wasn't that hard to take care of them. They just used magic on the two big Heartless to get rid of them first and then dealt with the others.

The tenth match…was another Behemoth.

"There's more than one of these?" asked Sora.

"I guess it's like Guard Armor," said Goofy. Sora shuddered a bit at the name, but was otherwise fine.

"Let's just do the strategy from last time." With that, Sora jumped onto the Behemoth's head and started attacking its horn. The Behemoth did not like this so it shook its head to try and dislodge the Tsviet. Not only did this not work, it gave Donald ample opportunity to shoot at its horn with his magic. Realizing that just shaking its head wasn't going to work, The Behemoth stomped its foot and started summoning lightning to try and hit its opponents. Fortunately for them, Donald had thought ahead and given everyone an Aeroga shield so it didn't do too much damage if they failed to dodge one. So, like the last Behemoth, this one didn't do anything irreparable and it was taken down after several minutes of attacking, defending, and countering.

The eleventh match was much easier: a Search Ghost and 8 Red Nocturnes. They were easily taken care of with a bunch of Blizzaga spells.

The twelfth match had 7 Blue Rhapsodies and 2 Gargoyles. The Blue Rhapsodies were easily taken care of with some Firaga spells. The Gargoyles were as annoying as ever, but at least there were only two of them this time. It made it much easier to hit and ground them with Graviga.

The thirteenth match was a Guard Armor, 2 Red Nocturnes, and 2 Blue Rhapsodies. Sora reacted to a whole armor even worse than he did two parts of it and started attacking the Guard Armor so quickly and relentlessly that it had no chance to try to retaliate. Donald and Goofy took care of the floating Heartless while Sora was busy with the Guard Armor.

The fourteenth match a Black Fungus and 4 Green Requiems. That was a bit of a problem, simply because of the Black Fungus. Sora and Goofy took care of the Green Requiems while Donald pelted the Black Fungus with spells. It turned to stone after a couple of hits. Goofy and Sora had taken care of the Green Requiems by then so everyone avoided the Black Fungus until it turned back to normal. Then Sora slashed it in two.

The fifteenth match was against 3 Red Nocturnes, 3 Yellow Operas, and 2 Pot Spiders. The Pot Spiders were smashed by Goofy while Sora and Donald hit the floating Heartless with various spells.

The sixteenth match was against 2 Blue Rhapsodies, 4 Green Requiems, and a Stealth Sneak. First, they got rid of the Green Requiems. They didn't want the Stealth Sneak to be healed. Then Donald and Sora each took care of a Blue Rhapsody. The Stealth Sneak took a few minutes to kill, but its attacks didn't give them too much trouble. It was an endurance fight again.

The seventeenth match was a Wizard, 4 Yellow Operas, 2 Blue Rhapsodies, and 2 Red Nocturnes. The lack of physical defense made it easy to get rid of them, although the Wizard did take a bit longer than the others.

The eighteenth match was 3 Wizards and 6 Shadows. The Shadows were easily taken care of. The Wizards were a bit more difficult because they only got rid of one before they started doing the Thunder magic that made it impossible to hit them. After the spell was done though, the Wizards were quickly destroyed.

The nineteenth match was against 4 Wizards and a Heartless that was unfamiliar to the boys. It had four white wings, a white head with a long curl at the top, 3 yellow eyes, and a body that remotely resembled a light bulb and had the Heartless emblem on it.

"Sora, what is that?" asked Donald.

"Angel Star." Sora frowned. "It absorbs Thunder and is invulnerable when covered by its wings." He absentmindedly dodged a Blizzard spell and threw the Keyblade at one of the Wizards. "Can reflect attack back at it? What attack is it talking about?" Then the Angel Star started glowing. A tornado was whipped up, throwing the boys all over the place. They winced as they got up. Sora quickly regained his bearings, jumped up to the Angel Star quickly cut it in two. He didn't want it to do that attack again. The Wizards were easier to take care of.

The next match was a bit of a surprise. It was Cerberus.

"I thought we took care of this thing already!" shouted Donald.

"I guess as the Guardian of the Underworld he has a degree of immortality," mused Sora. Then the three heads tried to take a bite out of all three of them at the same time. They all managed to dodge and Sora and Donald quickly cast Aeroga on themselves. Sora then ran behind it jumped on its back, and ran toward the heads while dragging Oblivion through its body. When he reached the head, he ripped Oblivion out of Cerberus to bury it in one its heads, but had to abandon this plan when it shot shadows out of its mouth and he had to block that. Then he had to try and keep the heads from attacking him. That worked for a few seconds before two attacked at the same time and one managed to bite onto his leg. He winced and hit it with a Firaga, which loosened the jaws enough for Sora to pull out his leg and let himself fall to the ground. Donald quickly ran over and started using Cure.

"You okay?"

Sora nodded. "Yeah, Cure was used pretty quickly so I'll be okay." He gave his leg a quick look over. It was still quite sore. He'd probably be able to move around on it, but jumps like the one he'd pulled on Cerberus were out of the question. "I'm not gonna be able to pull that move again."

That was a real shame. It looked like Sora's stunt had worked very well. Cerberus was now favoring his right side and seemed to be having trouble moving his body. That only made him slightly less dangerous though. Cerberus reared back his heads and started puking up darkness. The darkness started following the boys as they ran around to try and avoid it. They at least managed to avoid that. Donald decided to continue keeping his distance and started casting spells on Cerberus. Goofy decided act as a distraction for Cerberus and ran up within biting range of the dog. Sora ran over to the side where he could get a good shot at the long wound in Cerberus's side. Cerberus didn't notice Sora because it was focusing on Goofy. Sora promptly started hitting the injury with Blizzagas.

Interesting fact: Cold blood can cause your heart to fibrillate. In other words, having cold blood suddenly enter your body can kill you. Cerberus's Sora-inflicted wound was still bleeding. The Blizzaga caused some of the blood to cool off, but it wasn't enough to kill something like Cerberus. Cerberus realized Sora was attacking him and tried to turn to face and attack him, but was given quite a bit of trouble due to the injury. Sora just continued to hit the wound with Blizzagas until the large injury was covered in ice. That seemed to be having an effect as Cerberus was starting to twitch very violently. Then he fell to the ground, causing a tremor in the surrounding area. Everyone let out a sigh of relief.

"Its aura was depleted this time. Hopefully it'll stay dead this time." Sora looked at his leg and winced. He made a note to clean it up…and maybe see if Aerith was willing to patch up his clothes again.

After Cerberus's body was removed (It took a little while due to its size.), the boys' next match was against 4 Air Soldiers and 3 Air Pirates. Sora had to groan at this. Right after his leg got hurt they have to deal with flying enemies. Still, he had his magic and they weren't nearly as bad as Cerberus. He just had to adjust his fighting style to compensate for his injured leg. Not too bad for the most part.

The 22nd match was against 6 Search Ghosts. Not that difficult even if they could teleport.

The 23rd match was against 5 Gargoyles and a pair of floating Gauntlets. Sora once again freaked out and started attacking the pieces of armor. The Gargoyles were actually more of a problem since they could keep their distance and turn into invulnerable balls of fire. It took a bit longer than usual to take care of them.

The 24th match was against roughly half a dozen Shadows. Well, that's what they thought at first. After Sora killed one, another popped up to take its place. Shadows continued to spawn continuously for about 10 minutes. Not that hard to deal with to tell the truth.

The 25th match was against a Bandit, a Wight Knight, a Pirate, a Soldier, and a Power Wild. The biggest problem was the Wight Knight. This wasn't really much of a fight either.

The 30th match was against an Opposite Armor and 6 Darkballs. Sora of course freaked out again and started attacking the Opposite Armor. Donald and Goofy had to deal with the Darkballs on their own. That was difficult, but they managed to pull it off.

The 31st match was against 2 Gargoyles, 3 Air Soldiers, and 2 Air Pirates. Sora was annoyed by the fact that they had to deal with only airborne enemies again. They had to use mainly magic again, but it wasn't too bad. Sora was thankful that he and Donald knew Graviga.

The 32nd match was against 3 Wyverns, 2 Wight Knights, and 2 Search Ghosts. The biggest problem was the Wyverns. Thankfully, the Graviga trick still worked on them.

The 33rd match was against a Battleship, 4 Darkballs, and Wyverns. Graviga didn't ground the Battleship. They had to take care of it with long distance spells and attacks while avoiding bombs. It was more difficult than the previous last few fights.

The next match…their opponents were Cloud and Leon. Seems the two had decided to team up for whatever reason. Donald and Goofy looked quite nervous understandably. Sora was nervous too, but he was trying not to show it. His last fight with Cloud had been ended prematurely by Cerberus, but Cloud had been winning. Likewise, his last fight with Leon would've been a loss if he hadn't had one of his episodes and Leon had forfeited. Now the two had teamed up.

"This…this is really bad…" "Guess I get a rematch with you after all Cloud…"

"I'm not after your life this time, but I'm not going easy on you."

"Gee thanks a lot." "Okay, I'm gonna have to use one of my drives. Which would be better?" Sora had a sudden flashback to the last time he had to fight Cloud and how hard the blond had hit and how fast he'd moved. "Right, Valor it is." He then had to block a strike from Cloud that sent him flying back a few feet. Looks like using his Keyblade in this fight was a good idea. Sora cast an Aeroga to help lessen the blows and promptly had to dodge and block a lot of strikes from Cloud that sent him flying back each time.

Leon seemed to be focusing on Donald and Goofy, mainly Donald since he was the mage. Goofy was keeping Donald safe while Donald tried to cast spells. Donald was getting some spells in, but he had to do quite a bit of dodging when Leon would shoot his own magic past Goofy.

"If we don't do something, we'll lose! I'll have to try something different! What to do…I got it!" When Cloud sent him flying back again, Sora quickly pulled out one of his daggers and threw it at Cloud. He had to block it. That gave Sora enough time to focus and activate one of his drives. He frowned as the smoke started rising. "Wait a minutes. This doesn't feel like Valor or Wisdom."

Then Sora transformed. Cloud's eyes widened. That was not the form Sora had used before. Sora was now completely black except for glowing yellow eyes. For some reason, his clothes had been repaired. The Keyblade had disappeared, his hands were now clawed, and there was black smoke swirling around him. The most noticeable thing to Cloud though was the black feathered wing growing out of Sora's right shoulder. This caught Cloud so off guard that he almost wasn't able to block when Sora suddenly appeared in front of him and swiped at his head. He quickly flung Sora back.

"What's wrong with Sora? !" shouted Leon. The other three had seen Sora suddenly transform and had stopped due to the rather unexpected results. "He looks like a Heartless!"

"How should I know? ! I thought he was just doing the same thing as last time!"

Sora looked around somewhat twitchily before suddenly running towards Donald and Goofy. Leon swore and moved to intercept him, but it seemed this new form was even faster than Valor. He got to Donald and Goofy before Leon could even get in front of them, grabbed them, and ran several feet away from the two opponents. Then the Tsviet dropped his teammates, turned, and hissed angrily at the two older men.

"What's that kid doing?" asked Cloud.

"I'm not sure," said Squall. "He's not attacking his team though so he must not be completely mindless." "Is this a result of Sora becoming a Heartless?"

Sora suddenly stretched his wing out and the feathers started rising slightly. Then he suddenly flapped it towards the two men. This resulted in several feathers getting sent flying towards the two men. Cloud's eyes widened and he quickly blocked them. Leon couldn't block as many since his sword was smaller. As such, he discovered that the feathers were sharp and fast enough to break the skin and lodge in his body. Leon winced and pulled one out. "The feathers are weapons." The feather in his hand suddenly dissolved into black smoke. "Darkness?"

Cloud was holding his head. "Where have I seen that before?"

Sora took advantage of Cloud's confusion to suddenly dash over to Leon. Leon's eyes widened and he quickly brought up his gunblade. Sora did a large number of very fast strikes, most of which got through. Then Sora unexpectedly did a roundhouse kick to Leon's head that sent him flying into the force field. Cloud's eyes widened.

"Leon!"

Leon sat up with a groan. "I'm fine." He stood up leaning against the wall and holding his head. "The kid hits harder than I remember." Then an ice ball came out of nowhere and hit him in the head. This seemed to be too much for the gunblader. He dropped to the ground unconscious. Cloud sweatdropped and looked over at Sora. He was sitting in a crouch with his hands on the ground and looking around like he'd never seen this place before. Cloud directed his attention to Donald and Goofy instead. Goofy was just staring at Sora in confusion. Donald had his staff outstretched. Sora didn't seem capable of magic at the moment so Cloud decided to assume Donald was the one to knock Leon out. Cloud directed his attention to Sora again.

"What's wrong with him? He seems like the type of person who'd never goof off like that in the middle of a fight. Then again, is he in his right mind?" Cloud's wing twitched a bit. "Did he even have that wing before?" Cloud hefted his sword up. "I better knock him out before he hurts someone…or himself." He unfurled his wing as he started floating and energy crackled over him, catching everyone's attention. Donald and Goofy's eyes widened in shock. Sora cocked his head to the side curiously. Cloud flew up to Sora and started slashing at the Tsviet in a very quick succession that normally Sora would only be able to block at best. It seemed Sora was capable of more than that in this form though. When Cloud started swinging the Buster Sword at Sora, his target grabbed onto the sword. This made Sora a hard target for a close-range fighter to hit. Cloud tried to angle the sword so he could hit Sora with a swing. Sora always twisted his body to avoid the swings though. And he was moving his hands to move closer to Cloud. When he was close enough to Cloud, Sora grabbed his face. Cloud had to stop swinging his sword and grabbed Sora's hand to get it off his face. He did manage to get it off, but it left claw marks, and Sora managed to twist himself so that he landed on Cloud's shoulders. Then an Aeroga shield appeared around Sora courtesy of Donald. Cloud let out a yelp of pain and knocked Sora off his shoulders and jumped away. Sora was instantly on him and clawing, kicking, and even biting the older man. Cloud growled and did the only thing he could think of: He grabbed Sora's wing. Cloud knew from personal experience that it was sensitive body part and easily damaged. Sora let out a strangled sound and let up on his assault. Cloud quickly tossed him away. And that was when Goofy hit him over the head with his shield. Seems Goofy had finally come out of his Sora-induced stupor and had decided to start fighting again. Cloud twitched violently. Then he got bowled over by Sora. What happened next, no one could've predicted. Sora started chewing on Cloud's hair. Cloud twitched again. "What the heck is wrong with this kid? !" He tried to dislodge Sora from his body, but Sora refused to be budged even with all of Cloud's mako enhanced strength. To make things even worse/weirder, this was causing Cloud to have some flashbacks that were really freaking him out. "Okay, I give! Now get him off me!" Everyone watching sweatdropped.

After the match, everyone went to the dugout. Unfortunately, Sora was still transformed. He'd changed his position so that he was still wrapped around Cloud but from behind. And he was still chewing on Cloud's hair with an 'om nom nom' sound. Cloud looked like he was about to have a mental breakdown. "He said no powers of darkness! What does he call this? !"

"I think that was an accident," said Goofy.

That was when Aladdin, Yuffie, Aerith, Cid, and a now awake but slightly dizzy looking Leon came over. "Uh, did Sora turn himself into a Heartless again?" asked Aladdin.

"I don't think he's a Heartless," said Aerith. "If he was, he'd probably try attacking us, or if he kept his mind again, try to tell us he's all right instead of…" Here Aerith had to pause as Sora was still noming Cloud's hair. "What exactly is he doing?"

Cid grinned. "He's chewing the chocobo head's hair of course!" Seems he found this funny.

"I think we should be worrying about what happened and why," said Leon. "He's not attacking anything that moves, but he's not acting in a way Sora would if he was still in his right mind. The smoke surrounding him is present in his two limit forms, so it probably has something to do with them. We need to figure out how to keep this from happening again."

"But he's so cute!" Yuffie came over and started scratching Sora behind the ears, like he was a giant dog made of dark energy. "Besides, he's so innocent. Have you ever seen Sora look this innocent before?" Everyone shuddered as they realized Yuffie was right.

"That's creepy," said Donald.

"Can you please get him off me? !" shouted Cloud.

"Maybe he's hungry," suggested Aladdin. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a loaf of bread from his pocket. "Hey, Sora, I got some bread if you're hungry." That made Sora stop noming on Cloud's hair and look up. He had a gold chain in his mouth with a chocobo charm hanging from one end.

"Why do you have a chocobo charm in your hair?" asked Cid.

"I didn't!"

Sora sniffed a couple of times. Then he jumped off of Cloud…and landed on Leon. Cloud took advantage of this to get as far away from Sora as he could. Meanwhile, everyone stared at Sora, who was now noming Leon's jacket.

"Well, I guess Sora wasn't hungry," said Goofy. Aladdin nodded and stuck the bread back into his surprisingly roomy pockets.

Aerith sweatdropped. "I wonder why Sora keeps chewing on people's things."

"Who cares? It's funny," said Cid, with a big grin. "Wish I had a camera."

"Where's his Keyblade though?" asked Donald. The weapon had disappeared when Sora had transformed.

"Maybe it's because he's similar to a Heartless right now?" suggested Aerith.

"If that's it, then just wait until he changes back," said Yuffie.

"But how will he change back?" asked Goofy. Everyone looked at Sora again.

"How did he change back before?" demanded Leon.

"He just changed back," said Aladdin.

"I think he changed back on his own," added Goofy.

"That's not gonna happen this time," said Donald. Everyone sighed.

"Let's just hope he's back to normal by the time your next match starts."

He wasn't. They had to drag Sora into the ring while he was still transformed and acting odd. That match was against 3 Large Bodies and 2 Wight Knights. As soon as Sora saw them, he let out a hiss, pounced on one of the Wight Knights, and promptly ripped it apart. The Heartless spent the entire match running from Sora (seems he scared them) and getting hit by Donald and Goofy. Not too difficult despite Sora's 'handicap.'

The 36th match was against 3 Fat Bodies and 4 Red Nocturnes. Sora once again jumped the first Heartless he saw, which was one of the Large Bodies. Donald focused on the Red Nocturnes while Goofy helped Sora with the Large Bodies. They still couldn't be hurt from the front, but Sora didn't seem aware of it for the moment.

The 37th match was against 2 Angel Stars, 2 Wyverns, and 3 Fat Bodies. Sora jumped one of the Angel Stars while Donald grounded the Wyverns and started hitting the Fat Bodies with spells. Goofy went after the other Angel Star to try and prevent it from using a tornado attack. Sora finished killing his Angel Stars and moved on to the Wyverns. So, while it seemed like it would be a difficult match, it actually wasn't that bad.

The 38th match was against 7 Darkballs. Well, that's what it looked like at first. After Sora killed his first, another popped up. Seems it was like the Shadow spawning match from earlier, except the Darkballs were more dangerous and harder to kill for obvious reasons. It took them much longer to kill the Darkballs, around 15 minutes.

The 39th match was against a Wyvern, an Air Pirate, an Air Soldier, a Gargoyle, and a Search Ghost. The airborne enemies took a bit longer since they were hard to reach, but with Graviga it wasn't too hard to take care of the Heartless.

The 40th match was against 2 Fat Bandits, 2 Wizards, and an unfamiliar Heartless. It was rather tall and black with a heart-shaped hole in its chest and a long tail with a blade at the end. It was floating a few feet off the ground and was holding a large sword. Sora couldn't tell them what it was due to obvious reasons. Instead he jumped a Fat Bandit and started clawing at it. Donald and Goofy decided to just wing it. Donald started sending spells at the other Fat Bandit. Goofy ran forward to deal with one of the Wizards, but the large Heartless with the sword swung out with its sword and hit Goofy, sending the knight flying. Donald quickly used a Curaga on Goofy while Sora switched targets and attacked the unknown Heartless instead. As soon as he grabbed on though, it stuck its sword into the ground and disappeared. Sora blinked and looked around in confusion for a moment before one of the Wizards hit him in the back with a Fire. Sora instantly spun around and growled at it. That was when the unknown Heartless reappeared and hit Sora in the back with a particularly powerful attack. Donald used another Curaga and then hit the unknown Heartless with a Stopga before it could do anything else. Sora was instantly on it, ripping and tearing at its body. When the Stopga wore off, its body almost seemed to explode before disappearing. By that time, Donald and Goofy had taken care of the other 4 Heartless so the group moved on to the next match.

The 41st match was against 2 Large Bodies, 2 Fat Bandits, and a Defender. Sora seemed to figure out that attacking the Defender's shield was a bad idea after it tried to bite him back. Instead, he scurried over it and started attacking the body. Donald started attacking the obese Heartless while Goofy either attacked them from behind or tried to keep Sora from getting hurt.

The 42nd match was against 3 Defenders. Goofy once again took to attacking from behind while making sure that one of the Defenders wasn't trying to bite Sora. Donald had to attack them from behind, but other than that, his strategy was the same as the other matches: Use lots and lots of spells.

The 43rd match was against 2 Angel Stars and 3 of the large Heartless with swords. This was a bit of a problem since Sora kept getting confused when the large Heartless disappeared, which resulted in getting hit by their attack. And the Angel Stars ended up using their whirlwind attack several times. At least after the first couple times Sora decided to attack the Angel Stars first. Yeah, the matches were getting more difficult.

The 44th match was Hades.

"You entered the tournament? !" shouted Donald.

"Hey, I gotta do something with my free time." Sora really didn't like Hades and jumped him. "Bada boom!" And Sora was sent flying by a fireball to the face. Donald quickly used a Curaga on Sora before casting Aeroga on all three of them. It wasn't a moment too soon. Hades sent a wall of fire at them.

"Uh, isn't Hades the God of the Underworld?" asked Goofy.

"Yeah, that's really bad." Donald had a point. There aren't many people who can defeat a god. Not that it's impossible. The Warriors of Light beat Chaos. Terra beat Kefka. Yuna and her guardians beat Yevon. The L'Cie killed several Fal'Cie. Luffy beat Enero, although that last one is up for debate. The point is, it is usually impossible to beat a god. Then again, Sora was a trained killer with a Keyblade. He might actually be capable of it given the right circumstances and/or a couple of years to grow up.

Sora started shooting feathers at Hades. Of course, with all the fire, they should have been burned to a crisp. Thankfully, since they were made of darkness, they made it through relatively unharmed and did hit Hades. Unfortunately, this seemed to make him angry, his fire hair turned red, his skin turned orange, and it looked like his whole body was on fire.

"You little brat!" Then Hades started sending fire all over the place at a speed that even Sora was having trouble dodging. This went on for a couple of minutes before Hades took a couple of deep breaths and smoothed his hair back. "Okay, need to cool down. Need to be cool." The utter strangeness of this statement made everyone except Sora sweatdrop. Unfortunately, Sora decided to jump on Hades and try to either claw or bite the god, which got him angry and throwing fire all over the place again until he calmed down. This repeated again and again until one of the times Hades threw Sora off him and Sora rebounded off the wall. However, one of Sora's claws apparently managed to poke a small hole in the force field surrounding them.

Not much is known about how Heartless get along except that they can move between worlds using innerspace and their own passages between worlds that normal people do not have access to. One thing interesting about them is that the only barriers that seem to give them trouble are the ones between worlds. They can break through other barriers pretty easily. This includes the one surrounding fights in the Coliseum. It's how two of the matches were able to have Heartless continually spawn in. Pureblood Heartless seem to be better at breaking through barriers. At the moment, Sora is, for all intents and purposes, a large Pureblood Heartless in the shape of a boy. This gave him some Heartless abilities, including the ability to break through most barriers. However, only Goofy noticed this.

Goofy managed to avoid some of the fire attacks and slowly made his way over to the small hole. Goofy poked at the hole a couple of times. "Hey Donald! Sora poked a hole into the wall!"

"That's not important!" Donald recast Aeroga and Curage a couple of times. "We need to find a way to keep him from getting Hades mad!"

Of course, that was going to be pretty much impossible until they got Sora to calm down and/or change back. Goofy realized this, so he poked at it a bit more and realized that poking it had torn it a bit more. Seeing that, he decided to see if he could tear it some more. That turned out to be quite easy. Within a couple of minutes of tearing and avoiding getting torched, Goofy had a very large hole that a person could easily go through. What good it was for was anyone's guess. "Hey Donald! I got a pretty big hole here!"

"How's that gonna help us?"

At that moment, Sora skittered over to the hole and looked through it. Outside the torn wall was some sort of area that looked like it was usually barred. Phil said that area normally contained monsters for people to fight. Since the Heartless had shown up, monsters hadn't really been needed so it was empty now. Sora then ran off again actually ran around the area a couple of times before running straight at Hades and knocking them out of the fighting area through the hole.

Off to the side, Phil scratched his head. "Is there an out of bounds rule?" He looked at his tablet. "Eh, it's there for a reason. You two are out of the match!"

"What?" Yeah, Sora was out, but if Hades was out that meant that Sora's team won. Fortunately, before Hades could cause any problems, Sora tackled him again and sent him flying into the barred area.

For the record, Hades is a god, but he's not an expert at fighting. He's more of the scheming type. Yuffie, who'd come out from wherever she'd been to watch the match, ran over and pulled a lever that caused the bars to fall and trap the god. Of course, he's a god so he could easily teleport away. That's what he did, but he didn't reappear outside, so everyone assumed that he wasn't coming back.

"Did we win?" asked Donald.

Goofy shrugged. "I guess so."

Meanwhile, Sora was happily eating a meat bun Yuffie had given him in an attempt to keep him from trying to eat Leon's jacket.

After the semi-disastrous match with Hades (everyone got roasted at least once) they were glad to finally get back to the normal matches. The next thing they had to deal with was 5 Shadows, 3 Darkballs, and 1 of the big Heartless with the sword. At this point the Shadows and the Darkballs were easy to deal with. They weren't anything compared to the angry god they just had to deal with. The disappearing Heartless was more of a problem, but at least Sora had figured out not to stand around when they disappeared.

The 46th match was against 2 Red Nocturnes, 2 Blue Rhapsodies, 2 Yellow Operas, 2 Wizards, and an Angel Star. The only one that wasn't easily taken care of was the Angel Star, and due to Sora attacking it constantly, it didn't get to use its more dangerous attack.

The 47th match was against a Stealth Sneak and 3 of the disappearing Heartless. Donald and Goofy were understandably nervous. Sora just tried to attack what was closest to him, which was one of the disappearing Heartless, but something unexpected happened. After Sora had been clawing at his Heartless for a few moments, he suddenly bit it, and right when he bit it, he turned back to normal.

It took a few seconds for it to sink in that he was biting a large Heartless. When it did sink in, the look on Sora's face was quite comical. He was shocked enough that the Heartless was able to throw him off and Sora wasn't able to catch himself. He quickly scrambled up and looked around frantically, summoning his Keyblade. "What the heck happened to Leon and Cloud? ! What's with these-" Sora took a quick glance at the sword wielding Heartless. "Invisibles? ! And why does my mouth taste like leather? !"

"You went completely nuts!" shouted Donald as he shot a Thundaga at one of the now named Invisibles.

"What kind of nuts? ! I didn't start killing people indiscriminately did I? !"

"You were acting like a Heartless!" said Goofy.

"They attack people indiscriminately!"

"You weren't! Just other Heartless!"

"What the heck happened? !" Sora's current freaked out status caused him to put much more into the attacks than usual. Because of this, after Sora got used to what the Invisibles were capable of, the match wasn't too much of a problem. Now they had to explain what happened. "Okay, what the heck happened? Last thing I remember is trying to activate my drive while fighting Cloud."

"You turned into a Heartless," said Goofy.

"A Heartless? !"

"You looked the same," said Donald. "It's just that you were all black."

"And you had a wing," said Goofy.

"A wing? !" Sora instantly stripped off his vest and shirt grabbing at his shoulders to make sure nothing was coming out of them. He was relieved when he found he had no unusual growths coming out of his body. "It's gone…You're sure I had a wing?"

"Yeah, it was like the one you had in Halloween Town," said Donald. Sora frowned and pressed down on his right shoulder blade.

"Eye candy!" Sora looked up and noticed Aladdin, Yuffie, Aerith, Leon, and Cid had arrived. The one who'd spoken was Yuffie. Sora looked down. He was slightly more muscular than most boys his age, but he didn't think it was to the point he'd be considered eye candy. Riku would probably be called eye candy though. Wait. Riku had in fact been called eye candy by Selphie. Sora decided his train of thought was starting to get weird and decided to focus on the group again and noticed something odd.

"What happened to your jacket?" For once, Leon was not wearing his jacket, just his T-shirt. Sora's question was answered when Leon pulled out the jacket. It looked like it had been shredded to within an inch of being clothing. Sora doubted anyone would want to wear that ever again, Leon included. "Wow, what did that?"

"You did."

Sora blanched. "Say what?"

"When you transformed, you knocked Squall out and started chewing on Cloud's hair," explained Aerith.

"Funniest thing I ever saw," snickered Cid.

"After the match, you kept chewing on his hair," continued Aerith. "Aladdin tried to lure you away with some bread."

"Did it work?"

"Well, you stopped chewing on Cloud's hair, but you jumped on Leon and started chewing on his jacket."

"I chewed on his jacket? !"

"Yeah."

"Didn't anyone try to stop me?"

"I distracted you with my meat buns a couple of times!" said Yuffie.

"…Well, this explains why my mouth tastes like leather…" Sora sighed and buried his face into his hands. "This is the most embarrassing thing that's ever happened to me…"

"You owe me a new jacket," demanded Leon.

"Right, right…"

"Sora, do you remember anything from when you were in that form?"

Sora paused for a moment. "I remember some really creepy laughter. It sounded familiar, but I'm not sure why."

"That's it?"

"Yeah. If I was acting as weird as you said, I don't think I want to remember what I was doing." Everyone sighed.

"Well, maybe it was a onetime thing," said Goofy. They could only hope that it was. They didn't think they could handle a repeat of that.

"One other thing…" Aladdin pulled out two charms. One was the chocobo charm from Cloud. The other looked like the charm on Leon's necklace. "We think these are Keychains."

"Where'd you get those?"

Aladdin grinned and held up the chocobo charm. "This one was hanging out of your mouth when you stopped chewing on Cloud." Sora started to blush. Aladdin held up the Leon charm. "This one fell out of one of the jackets pockets when you tried to run away from it. Leon says it wasn't there before." Sora's blush deepened.

"You gotta be kidding me…" What the heck did he do? He made a note to try and avoid accidentally using that odd form again.

"So, will you show us what they do?" asked Aladdin.

"Let me pay Leon first." Sora honestly had no idea how much a leather jacket would cost. When the Tsviets needed clothes, they were usually made by Seren and Ed. Designing clothes turned out to be one of the things that kept Seren from trying to attack people randomly so she was usually encouraged to design clothing in her spare time using requests from the other Tsviets. Sora decided to just pay 100 munny and hope that covered it. Leon didn't complain so it was probably enough.

That taken care of, Sora decided to see just what the charms would do to the Keyblade. He summoned Oblivion gave it a sort of apologizing look (He wanted to keep using this form for a bit longer.) and switched it with the chocobo charm. The form it took caught Sora off guard. The blade was long, thick and gray with some small holes and large cicular indents. The teeth were some metal somewhat wider than the rest with circular indents in it. The guard was simply brown metal going around a red handle. The chocobo charm was hinging off the end on a simple metal chain. "The buster sword?"

"It does look sort of like it," agreed Yuffie. "Is that its name?"

Sora quickly turned it over looking for the name. He couldn't help but sweatdrop when he saw the name. "It says it's called Metal Chocobo." That made both Yuffie and Cid burst out laughing. Aerith just chuckled. Leon was as stone-faced as ever.

"What's a chocobo?" asked Aladdin. "Everyone's been using that word, but I don't know what that means."

"It's a really big bird that you can ride like a horse," explained Sora.

"They have crests that look like Sora and Cloud's hair!" chimed in Yuffie.

"I do not have chocobo hair!" shouted Sora. "Have you ever seen a brown chocobo with feathers that stick out like this?"

"Calm down!"

"Hey, you guys are up!" shouted Phil. "Get over here if you don't wanna forfeit!"

"We'll check the other charm after this," said Sora as the fighting group hurried over to the arena.

This match was against a Stealth Sneak and 3 Invisibles. That was troublesome. They had to deal with a boss level heartless and 3 tougher Heartless. Sora decided they ought to take care of the Invisibles first if only because the Stealth Sneak's attacks were easier to dodge and the Invisibles were annoying. Goofy ended up having to shield Donald and Sora for most of the match. In addition, Sora had discovered something about the Metal Chocobo that could be a bit of a problem.

"This thing weighs a ton!" complained Sora.

"Hearing you say that is kind of frightening," said Aladdin.

"It must be because it's based on the buster sword. That thing weighs so much, even SOLDIERS have trouble using it." Not wanting to deal with the absurdly heavy Keyblade, Sora quickly exchanged the chocobo charm for the Leon charm. This Keyblade was lighter to Sora's relief. It was the same grey metal color as Leon's gunblade. The handle was simple, the guards seemed to be a simple geometric design that didn't connect with the end of the handle. The lion charm came off the end of the handle connected by a simple grey chain. The shaft seemed to be a simple metal bar with what looked like a black tuning fork design near the guard and a bigger version of the lion head charm on one side of the shaft to act as the teeth. "That's a bit better." Sora gave it a quick look over. "It says Lionheart."

"What a coincidence!" said Yuffie. "Squall's last name is Leonheart."

Said gunblader grunted. "That's Leon."

"Oi! You guys are up!"

"Is it just me or are our breaks getting shorter?"

That match was simple. It was just three White Mushrooms. They decided to take it easy and try to see if they could guess the charades correctly.

The match after that was against five Shadows and five Darkballs. Well, that was what it looked like initially. After killing a couple of Shadows, they respawned. Seems it was gonna be another one of those matches. They spent the next 10 minutes fighting Shadows and Darkballs.

After getting a few minutes of reprieve, they had a match with 2 Stealth Sneaks. Yes, they were powerful Heartless, but after fighting against so many of them, the group had figured out how to defend against the attacks. Really, it was more a matter of endurance to get rid of the two large Heartless.

After that match, they found themselves in another respawning match, this time against Wyverns, Wizards, and Defenders. This was a difficult match. It took 20 minutes to deal with the Heartless because they had to keep dodging all the magic attacks and get into a position to attack the Heartless.

The match after that was even worse. They had to deal with respawning Darkballs, Invisibles, Angel Stars. That match took forever to get through because they had to avoid the dangerous attacks the Invisibles and Angel Stars kept using. This was not easy with the Darkballs. They had to use Curaga a lot, and there were some very close calls. They were all glad when the match was over.

The match after that one was the last match, much to everyone's relief. The opponent looked really dangerous though.

"It looks like a walking mountain with two heads," noted Sora. The Rock Titan probably didn't hear him, but it still roared loud enough to make everything shake, which caused Sora to slap his hands over his ears in pain. After he was sure it was done with the roar, he slipped in a pair of earplugs that Aerith had given him shortly after the Gizmo Shop episode. Sora did not want to go temporarily deaf if it decided to keep roaring.

Sora decided to carry out a rather novel approach at taking on the Titan. He went over to a leg, jumped on, and started climbing up like it was a real mountain. Since this would make it rather difficult for the Rock Titan to attack them without hurting itself, Goofy and Donald jumped on and started climbing as well. Of course, the Rock Titan wasn't just letting them climb up. It just couldn't reach them when they were on the lower parts of its legs. When they got higher up, it could reach them and hit them. Sora was nimble enough to dodge this. Goofy and Donald weren't, but Donald solved this by using Aeroga shield and hitting the hands with spells before they landed. Then they reached the shoulders, which were above its heads and out of reach of its hands.

"So now what?" asked Donald.

Sora took out an earplug. "Huh?"

Donald rolled his eyes. "Now what?"

"Well, I figure it can't do anything without its heads." That was a very good point. Very few things can survive without a head. "I'm gonna go for the one on the right. Can you guys get the other one?"

"Sure thing!" said Goofy.

"I think we need to weaken it a little first," said Donald.

Remember how Sora made those gears brittle in Wonderland? Donald and Sora did the same thing with the heads. It did more damage this time though because the fire would thaw the ice into water, which got into small cracks in the rocks. Then it was refrozen, expanded, and caused the rock to split. You could actually see cracks starting to form on the angry heads. Deciding that was enough, Sora jumped down and bashed at the right head. It broke apart with one hit. That's how much damage frozen water can do to rock. Seeing that Sora's idea had worked, Goofy jumped down and smashed apart the second head. The body started toppling. Seeing that the Rock Titan was one of the many creatures that can't survive without a head, Donald quickly ran down its body when it started tilting over so that he was on the horizontal surface facing the sky when it crashed to the ground.

And that is how our boys managed to conquer the Hades Cup.

"Wow, you guys did great!" said Hercules. "Even I have trouble with some of those matches!"

"I can believe that," said Sora. "It feels like it took hours to do all of those matches!"

"It did take you guys hours!" shouted Yuffie from the sidelines.

Phil cleared his throat and took out a scroll. "In recognition of finishing the Hades Cup, you are hereby presented with this trophy recognizing your efforts." Hercules took out a blue trophy. "And as a reward for managing to defeat such trying opponents, you are hereby presented with these weapons, Save the King and Save the Queen." Hercules took out a fancy looking shield and staff. The shield was blue with a large silver heart design in the middle with a gold crown above it. On either side of the heart were three wings that were the same color as the heart. The staff was blue with a copper top with a large purple jewel set in it. The jewel was surrounded by gold shaped into a curling design. Since the two weapons looked so fancy, Sora assumed they wouldn't be very useful, but when Donald and Goofy accepted the weapons and looked them over, they realized the weapons were actually really good. "In addition, you may now partake in the Gold Match and Platinum Match if you so desire." Everyone paused.

"That's it?" asked Donald.

"What? You think that ain't good enough? Those weapons are one of a kind! If you don't like that, then you can-" Goofy handily interrupted Phil before he could get any further.

"I think Donald was talking about being heroes."

"Yeah, how can we still be Junior Heroes after all that?" said Donald.

"I don't think winning a tournament makes you a hero," pointed out Sora.

"The kid's right. If you still don't know what makes a hero, then you should just give up!"

"C'mon Phil, don't be so hard on them," said Hercules. "They haven't been at this nearly as long as us. I'm sure they'll understand eventually."

"Ah, Donald's just stubborn," said Sora. "Don't mind him. This is more than enough."

"Nice to see someone has some manners."

"So, any of you gonna try the Gold and Platinum matches?" asked Hercules. "The Gold one's hard but not impossible, but even I can't beat the Platinum Match opponent. That guy is strong!"

"We'll think about it. Give us a moment to rest."

After getting away from Phil and Herc, they met up with everyone else in front of the Coliseum.

"I'm thinking about trying those matches, just to see who could give Hercules trouble."

"What about Riku and Ansem?" asked Donald.

"Well, I figure you'll want to wait until tomorrow after the tournament." Yes, the two anthros were tired. It was obvious from the way they were standing.

"Before you decide to go back in there, you might want to take a look at these." Leon held out a sheath of papers.

"What are they?" asked Goofy.

"More reports. We found them in Hollow Bastion after you left, and Hades dropped one when you kicked him out of the ring."

"That's a lot of reports…" Sora took them and quickly skimmed the first few lines. Then he tensed and snapped his head up. "Is this for real?"

"Unfortunately."

"What's it say?" asked Aladdin. "They wouldn't tell me what it said."

"It says he was experimenting on people!" Sora was nearly ripping the papers in two he was gripping them so hard. Deciding to save the papers, Yuffie grabbed them away (presumably using some ninja arts to liberate them from the tight grip) and started reading them out loud for those who were clueless.

"'It is my duty to expose what this darkness really is. I shall conduct the following experiments:

Extract the darkness from a person's heart.

Cultivate darkness in a pure heart.

Both suppress and amplify the darkness within.

The experiments caused the test subject's heart to collapse, including those of the most stalwart. How fragile our hearts are! My treatment produced no signs of recovery. I confined those who had completely lost their hearts beneath the castle.

Sometime later, I went below and was greeted by the strangest sight. Creatures that seemed born of darkness…What are they? Are they truly sentient beings? Cloud they be the shadows of those who lost their hearts in my experiments?'"

"'The Heartless appear in groups, and are multiplying rapidly. I've provided them both living and nonliving samples. They've responded only to the living. They seem to multiply after absorbing something from the living creatures. Their prey vanishes without a trace.

I believe the Heartless are taking hearts. They are born from those who've lost their hearts, and thrive on hearts seized from others. The hearts taken by the Heartless become Heartless themselves.

Though I lack proof, I am confident in this hypothesis. I must also study their behavioral principles. Though they lack emotions, they do seem to have some intelligence. How to communicate with them?

It's just occurred to me: Could they be the darkness in people's hearts?'"

"'A massive core of energy lay beyond the door sought by the Heartless. It may be the ultimate goal of the Heartless. But what is that energy? I have devised a hypothesis, based upon my observations of the Heartless.

The Heartless feed on other's hearts, and they yearn for that energy core. That thing beyond the door must be a heart , too—the heart of this world. There is no proof, but, having felt that immense energy, I am certain. That was the heart of the world.

The Heartless are trying to take hearts not only from all living creatures, but from the planet itself. But what do they mean to do with the heart of the world?'"

"'There is no doubt that the Heartless are deeply connected to the people's hearts. Further study may unravel both their motivations and the mysteries shrouding the heart.

As a start, I have built a device that artificially creates Heartless. By creating the conditions that spawn the Heartless naturally, I should be able to produce them artificially. This device is the culmination of all my research thus far. The machine's test run successfully created a Heartless.

This may be a step toward creating a heart from nothing. The artificially and naturally created Heartless showed nearly identical traits. But the two types remain distinct for the purpose of the experiment. So, I will mark the ones that are created artificially.'"

"'Just as people have hearts, so do worlds. The same can be said of stars in the night sky. And deep within each world lies a door to its heart. The Heartless desire those hearts. Born out of darkness in people's hearts, they seek to return to a greater heart.

Yes that's it. The Heartless come from people's hearts, as does the darkness. Is the core of the world's heart the world of the Heartless? I will pursue the answer there and become all knowing.

My path is set. I shall seek out the wielder of the Keyblade, and the princesses. My body is too frail for such a journey, but I must do this. I will cast it off and plunge into the depths of darkness.'"

"'Upon opening the door of a world's heart, the wall around that world is broken down. This is seen as a shooting star. Through this, I have been able to understand the reason why the material known as Gummi Blocks has the ability to allow travel to other worlds.

A world's wall collapses because of the appearance of the Heartless, but finding a world's door takes time. And robbing a world of its heart is a similar case.

If the door has been closed by the Keyblade, one would probably be unable to reach that world's heart again. Before the Keyblade wielder appears in this world, I must take measures to do something.

Supposing that there is a close relationship between the Princesses and the Keyblade, it seems likely that they will resonate with each other…

I have chosen a special girl. I do not know if she possesses the power of the Princesses, but there is a chance, and this is an experiment. She may lead me to the place where one holding the key is…

I shall send her to the ocean of other worlds.'"

"'I have transcended to an existence of only the heart. I should have come back as a Heartless, but there is no sign of such a transformation.

My body has surely perished. However, I am different from the other Heartless, keeping the memories of before, and I have not taken on the form of a Heartless.

It is evident that there are still many things to be studied.

In order to cross over to the dark realm, which is not this world, you must go beyond the door of Kingdom Hearts, the heart of all worlds.

The core connected to the world's heart, the place that will take me to the world of darkness. (I will record the details in another report…)

There are still so many unknown worlds.

The Realm of the Present…The Realm of darkness. The Realm of light.

And the Realm of in-between.

In which one will I find sanctuary?'"

"'When the heart casts away the body, where does the body go?

Heart and soul are separate, and the soul remains in the body. But can we assume that the remaining body and soul perish?

Certainly when the heart changes into a Heartless, the body disappears.

Or does that apply solely to this realm? Could other beings similar to the Heartless exist in another realm? If we take that to be the case, then there must be another form of oneself elsewhere.

An existence neither of darkness nor of light. An in-between existence. Cast off by the heart, a mere shell, one who begrudges both the darkness and the light.

This mystery cannot be easily resolved. The relationship between the heart and the body is a complex one. But since we exist in this realm, our counterparts of another realm must not be existent.

Therefore I shall call them…

The non-existent ones.'" Yuffie shrugged. "So, yeah, Ansem experimented on other people and himself. And he's responsible for all the Heartless with the weird x-heart thing on them. Sucks, doesn't it?"

Sora was still in the position he'd been in when Yuffie had snatched the reports from him, except he was now twitching and his hands were now in a strangling position. Aladdin gave him a worried look. "Uh, Sora, you okay?" Sora didn't react at all. "Sora?"

"He seems really angry," noted Goofy.

"He's seriously starting to freak me out," complained Cid.

Aerith gave Sora a very worried look. "We better calm him down before he snaps and hurts someone."

Yuffie grinned. "I got an idea!" She grabbed Sora and dragged him into the vestibule. Luckily for her, Sora didn't attack her. He still looked like he was gonna strangle something though. "One Gold Match for Sora please!"

A moment later Sora was out in the arena, still in the same position with a giant humanoid thing made of ice. Phil said the match was too dangerous for the group to watch, so they were hanging out in front of the vestibule while they waited.

"That scared me," said Donald.

"It must be because Sora was experimented on as well," mused Leon. "I doubt he'll be willing to feel anything but animosity for anyone who's experimented on people."

Goofy scratched his head. "So, if Ansem experimented on people and caused all these problems, does that make him the bad guy?"

"Definitely."

"We need to talk about what we learned in these reports," said Leon. "We know that he experimented on people's hearts, but he didn't go into a lot of detail. However, there were a lot of people who went missing not too long before Hollow Bastion fell. It got so bad, that people stopped going outside unless it was absolutely necessary."

"Do you think there were any survivors?" asked Donald.

Leon shook his head. "I doubt it. They were fed to the Heartless. Anyone who survived that would have to survive without food or water for 10 years. It's just not possible."

Everyone sighed. Yes, even Cid and Leon.

"Okay, next subject. Who was the kid he tried to use to find the Keyblade?" asked Donald.

"I'm pretty sure he's talking about Kairi," said Aerith.

"What makes you say that?" asked Yuffie.

"Well, he said that the girl at the very least had powers similar to a Princess of Heart," explained Aerith. "Kairi is a Princess of Heart, and she did just appear on Destiny Islands one day. Since Sora and Riku both used the Keyblade, it would make sense for the girl to appear in their world. Also, when we talked, she mentioned that she thought she might have been born in Hollow Bastion."

"Makes sense," agreed Cid. "We'll have to see if we can find any pictures of her when we go back to the place."

"We still don't know about these non-existent ones Ansem mentioned," mused Leon. "Are they dangerous or could they be potential allies against Heartless?"

"It sounds sort of creepy," said Yuffie. "Alternate versions of us in some sort of alternate reality? What if the two different versions of a person met?"

"I thought it was only if you lost your heart," pointed out Goofy.

"That was the impression I got too," agreed Aerith. "I think these people only come into being if the person they are an alternate version of loses their heart. If that's the case, the two versions can't exist at the same time, so they can't meet each other."

"What about Sora though?" asked Aladdin. "He lost his heart and got it back after he became a Heartless."

"Sora is an odd case," agreed Leon. "When he became a Heartless he wasn't like the others. He could still think. I'm not sure if he'd have one of these alternate versions or not."

"Would we even be able to run into these guys?" asked Cid. "I know I've never seen anything like those things."

"I don't think we can do anything about these guys," said Goofy.

Leon nodded. "You're right. Besides, we have more pressing things to worry about right now. We don't have time to worry about people even Ansem considers non-existent."

And that was when something odd happened. Something rushed past them. Everyone immediately twisted to see what it was. It turned out it was the ice giant Sora had been fighting, only now it was only a few inches tall. Then a fireball went sailing past them and hit it, melting it. Everyone turned back towards the vestibule and saw Sora holding his Keyblade in a casting position.

"Feel better now?" asked Aladdin. Sora nodded.

"Yeah, I do."

Everyone then went back into the vestibule and got the prize from Phil: A snowflake charm with a gold chain. "Is it a Keychain?" asked Sora.

Phil shrugged. "How should I know?"

Sora switched the charm with the Lionheart charm to see if anything would happen. It did change form. Now if seemed to be made of ice with a dark blue handle and hand guards. The blue became lighter as it went up the shaft and the teeth part was a snowflake that extended out of the shaft that was partly gold.

"Holy Shiva!" shouted Yuffie. Sora glanced up and noticed everyone was staring behind him in shock. Sora quickly turned…and found himself staring at a pair of blue breasts. It wasn't his fault. It just happened to be at his eye level. Sora quickly looked up. He found himself lookin at an amused woman with blue skin with a bit of frost forming on it, blue eyes, and blue hair that was in several braids with rings on the end. She was also wearing a blue robe, but it wasn't doing much to cover her up.

"Shiva? !" Seems Yuffie's outburst was quite accurate. "How'd she get here? ! She's a summon? !" Shiva promptly grabbed the hand holding the Keyblade, held it up, and pointed to the inside of a hand guard. "Diamond Dust? Isn't that the name of Shiva's attack?" "Uh, it's the Keyblade?" Shiva nodded and let go of his hand. "I didn't know Keyblades could summon like that…" He closed his eyes to see if anything felt odd. There was a drain on his mana reserves, but it was very small. Still he wasn't sure it would be a good idea to use this Keyblade in a situation that could take a while. "Nice to meet you, I guess." Shiva responded by ruffling his hair.

"Nice prize," noted Phil. Shiva snapped her fingers and froze him solid.

After allowing Phil to thaw and convincing Shiva that Phil was harmless, Sora remembered something. "Hey, wasn't there a Platinum Match?"

Phil sneezed. Getting frozen had apparently given him a cold. "Yeah, but you can't take her in there with you." Shiva just smirked from where she was sitting. Sora turned to her.

"Hey, I'm gonna use a different Keyblade. Do you mind?" She shook her head. Sora switched out the Diamond Dust charm for the Oblivion one and Shiva immediately disappeared. "Okay, I'm ready!"

A few moments later, Sora was out in the coliseum waiting for his opponent to arrive. The others were watching in the stands.

"Hey, who is the guy Sora's fighting anyway?" asked Yuffie. "I don't think I've ever seen him before."

"Neither have I," said Leon. "Looks like we're about to find out though."

Aerith suddenly noticed someone running over to them. "Cloud?" That got everyone's attention. They turned to see the blond SOLDIER running over to them with a panicked look on his face.

"Sora's fighting the Platinum Match? !"

"Yes…"

"You gotta get him out of there!"

"Why? Not like the kid can't take care of himself," said Cid.

"You don't understand! It's against-" Cloud was cut off by an elaborate design appearing in the air above the arena. A beam of light shot out of it, impacting the arena and causing a strong burst of light. When it cleared, a man with long silver hair and a black wing coming out of his right shoulder was standing there. "Sephiroth."

Sephiroth and Sora both seemed surprised.

"Sora."

"You!"

"It's been a while…" Sephiroth looked the Keyblade wielder over. "You've grown." Sora let out a war cry and tried to slash at the older man. He froze before he could take more than a couple of steps. "Behave." To everyone's shock, Sora stood up straight, although he still had the Keyblade in his hand.

"What the fuck's going on here? !" shouted Cid.

That shout got Sephiroth's attention. He glanced up and smirked when he saw Cloud. Then he calmly walked over to Sora and put his hand on the Brunette's head. "Sora is my son."

The audience was shocked by that. Yuffie was surprisingly the first to snap out of it. "How does that even work? ! You two don't look anything alike."

Sephiroth nodded. "Well, he was adopted. However, with the amount of S and J cells in his body now he might as well be related by blood." Sephiroth smirked. "Perhaps I should take him with me."

That spurred everyone into action. All the fighters jumped down to the arena as Phil lowered the force field. After the episode where Sora started stabbing himself, Phil saw about getting that problem fixed. Cloud and Leon teamed up to get Sephiroth away from Sora while the others pulled Sora away. Yuffie frowned as she looked Sora over. "Sora's really tense." She put her fingers to his neck for a moment. "His pulse is racing. I think he's conscious and aware. He just can't move because of whatever Sephiroth did to him."

"How do we snap him out of it?" asked Aladdin.

"I don't know! Aerith's the healing expert!" They looked up to see Aerith was coming down, but she couldn't come down as quickly as the others since she was not as strong as them and was wearing a dress.

Meanwhile, Cloud and Squall were still fighting Sephiroth. Cloud didn't seem to be too far away from Sephiroth's level. Squall was having more trouble and was mainly serving as a distraction. Sephiroth frowned when he noticed that Aerith was heading over to Sora. Sephiroth hadn't been aware of many things when he'd gone to Nibelheim, but he'd become aware of things since then. He knew Aerith was an Ancient and might be able to do something to his control over Sora. He couldn't have that. He made a feint to make it seem like he was going to do an Octaslash on Cloud. Instead, when Cloud blocked, Sephiroth sliced at the air, sending a vacuum blade towards Aerith.

"Aerith!"

Said girl's head snapped up when she heard her name, and her eyes widened when she saw the blade heading for her. She braced for impact. Fortunately, she was close enough to Sora that Goofy was able to run over and block the worst of it with his shield. He turned to check on Aerith. "You okay?"

"Yes, let's hurry!" They ran over to Sora while Sephiroth made a displeased sound at his failure to kill Aerith.

"What the heck's wrong with him? !" shouted Donald.

"Aerith, I'm pretty sure he's paralyzed," explained Yuffie. "Can you do something for him?"

"I'll try. I'm not sure if it will work though. I've never used it for something like this." Aerith put her hands on Sora and started concentrating as a green light started spreading out of them. Sora's body immediately started smoking. Sora screamed in pain. Aerith immediately retracted her hands. Sora was moving now, but he was now coughing up blood violently. Donald and Aerith immediately started spamming Curagas until he stopped coughing and started breathing more normally. He seemed to be slightly out of it though if his half-lidded gaze meant anything.

"Is he okay?" asked Aladdin.

"I think so."

"Why did it have that sort of effect?" asked Yuffie. "It's pure white magic. It shouldn't be able to hurt anyone at all!"

Aerith frowned. "It's supposed to remove anything that might be affecting the body, be it magic or poison. I don't know why it would have that sort of effect on him." Then Yuffie knocked Aerith to the side just in time to keep her from being decapitated by Masamune. Donald, Goofy, and Aladdin had to jump away to avoid getting killed by the angry swordsman. Sephiroth gave Sora a quick look. He wasn't reacting to Sephiroth's close proximity so he was probably unconscious. He went to pick him up, but had to jump back when Hercules suddenly ran in and swiped at him. Even Sephiroth could get hurt pretty badly by one of Hercules's punches.

"What's going on here?" shouted Hercules.

"Sephiroth is trying to kidnap Sora!" explained Cloud. "Get him out of here!"

"Right!" It was too difficult and dangerous for Hercules to try and get close to Sephiroth. It would be best for him to get Sora out of there. He turned to the others. "You guys better come too! He'll probably try to hurt you if you stay!"

"No kidding!" They all followed after Hercules, leaving Cloud and Squall to deal with Sephiroth. He was getting annoyed.

"You ignorant traitors. Do you have any idea what you're doing?"

"What do you want with Sora?" demanded Squall. Sephiroth smirked.

"He's family. Isn't that enough?" Squall gave him a disbelieving look.

"You tried to kidnap him because you're family? But you're not even related!"

Cloud shuddered. "Actually, considering what Sephiroth's like, that's a valid reason."

Sephiroth smirked. "You know me so well, Cloud." Then he looked up with a frown. "You moved him off of this world?" Well, it made sense. They had to do something to get Sora away from the crazed general. "No matter, it will be much easier to find him from now on." Then he got an evil grin on her face as he looked at the other two swordsmen. "I might as well have fun with you two though."

Meanwhile, the other group were in Cid's gummi ship (It looked a lot more high-tech than Donald and Goofy's.) trying to get Sora to wake up. He was generally being unresponsive to anything they did, be it healing magic or slapping him in the face. Right now, Yuffie was slipping ice cubes into his shirt.

"Nothing. That usually works."

"That's it. We're going back to Traverse Town," announced Cid.

"What about Cloud and Leon?" asked Aladdin. "And our gummi ship?"

"I'll radio Chip and Dale and explain things to them. Cloud and Leon can take your ship back when they get out of there."

Yuffie sighed. "If they get out of there."

"I'm sure they'll be fine," said Aerith. "Cloud's fought Sephiroth before. I'm sure of it. He should be able to take care of himself and Leon."

"Do you think Sora's gonna be okay?" asked Goofy.

Donald waved off Goofy's concern. "Ah, if he can survive getting turned into a Heartless, he can survive anything." He still had a worried look on his face though.

"Let's just hope that Merlin can help him."

Shortly after, they were disembarking in Merlin's house. Kairi's eyes widened when she saw Sora. "Sora!" She ran over. "What happened to him?"

"Kid's got a psycho for a dad," said Cid. "Anywhere I can put him?"

"We better go upstairs." Upstairs there was a bed in the middle of the room. Cid carefully put Sora on the bed and Merlin started looking him over.

"Is he okay?" asked Kairi.

"It looks like something damaged his body pretty badly, but that's been repaired. Physically, it looks like nothing is wrong with him. Mentally though…" Merlin trailed off before turning to Kairi. "I think this is something for you to take care of."

Kairi blinked. "Me? What do you mean?"

"You two should have some sort of connection since your heart was contained in his body for a period of time. Whatever is keeping him from waking up is likely to be all in his mind. Someone close to him would likely be the most likely to snap him out of this."

"Erm, okay." Kairi nervously reached down and held one of Sora's hands. "Sora? It's me Kairi. Are you okay?" No response. Kairi chewed her lip nervously. "I'm not sure what to do. What happened to him exactly?"

"Well, there's this guy called Sephiroth," explained Yuffie. "He was a match in the Coliseum, but Phil didn't bother to say it was against him! He just called it the Platinum Match!"

"Who's Sephiroth?" The name sounded familiar to her, but Kairi couldn't remember where she'd heard it before.

"Sephiroth was the general of the SOLDIERS division in Shinra," explained Aerith. "And…he's also Sora's father."

Kairi's eyes widened. "Sora's father? !" The man he'd referred to as his 'evil dad?' "His father did this? !" This was confirmed with several nods. Kairi turned her head back towards Sora. Was it the same man that had been in Sora's head before? Maybe they had some sort of mental connection as well. Kairi moved her hands over his heart and closed her eyes. "Sora, if you can hear me, please let me help you. I don't care what happened to you or what you did, I want to help you."

When Kairi opened her eyes, she was somewhere else entirely. She was standing on a metal walkway over a glowing green pit of some sort. There was a large glass cylinder on one end that had what looked like a blue woman with odd body parts in it. Kairi shuddered and moved away, looking around the area some more. The place was made completely of metal with pipes all over the place. There was a door on the other side of the walkway and there was more of a walkway going around the perimeter of the room. Sitting on this circular walkway was Sora. "Sora!" Kairi quickly ran over to the Tsviet and knelt next to him. "Sora! Are you okay?"

Sora didn't respond. His knees were drawn up to his chest, his hands were holding his head, and his eyes were downcast. He looked terrified. This scared Kairi. She couldn't recall Sora ever being so terrified by anything before. It just made him seem so…vulnerable. She didn't recall him ever being vulnerable before. This was a very scary situation. Kairi honestly didn't know what to do about it. After thinking for a moment, she put a hand on his shoulder. He didn't react negatively to it so she enveloped him in a hug. He tensed but relaxed after a moment. "Do you want to talk about it?" Sora didn't move at all.

Since Kairi couldn't get anything out of Sora, she decided to talk to him instead. She talked about the worlds she had seen through his eyes. She talked about the things she'd learned since being left in Traverse Town. She talked about all the things they'd do once they got back to Destiny Islands.

"I wonder if we'll make another raft. We've already been to so many other worlds. Would either of you want to see any more worlds?" Kairi thought a moment. "I don't think I'd mind, but I think I'd prefer to stay on the islands." She chuckled. "Maybe I'll try visiting your family again." She paused. "I mean the Tsviets, not the guy who did…this to you." To her surprise, she thought she heard Sora say something. "Sora? Did you say something?"

"I hate him!" Kairi jumped. "It's not enough that he ruined my life! Now he can control my body!" Kairi blinked. That's what happened. "Why was he even there? ! He's supposed to be dead! Everyone would've been better off that way! This is all his fault!"

"…Would you like to talk about it?"

Sora immediately clammed up. "The Tsviets know about it. There's no reason to talk about it."

"Sora, I don't know much about the Tsviets, but I know you were in some sort of military. Did you actually tell them about it or did they find out about it from someone else?" Sora's silence was answer enough. "You should try talking about it. Get it off your chest."

"…"

"I promise I won't think any differently of you."

Sora took a deep breath. "I was adopted when I was two."

Kairi blinked. "So this guy isn't really your dad?" Sora nodded. "That's good, right?"

"I dunno. He just found me in Wutai during a war. No one ever figured out who my biological parents are. For all I know, they abandoned me."

"They'd never do that!"

"How would you know? You don't know them either."

Okay, maybe this was going to be a bit more difficult than she thought. "Well, what about Sephiroth? Was he a bad father?"

Sora shrugged. "He was okay, up until he went insane. He gave me everything I needed. He gave me most of the things I wanted too. He didn't give me everything though 'cause he didn't want to spoil me…"

"He sounds like a good father."

"He was. He just…snapped."

Kairi hummed. "Do you know what happened?"

Sora paused. He wasn't sure he wanted to talk about that. Then again…this was Kairi. "I'm not sure what happened exactly. I was only six."

"First, you need to know that I'd been living in a city called Midgar since Sephiroth adopted me. He occasionally left to take care of things in other places, but he always left me with someone he knew."

"He decided I needed to get out of the city so he took me with him on a job. It was supposed to be simple. There was some sort of problem with the reactor, and he was going to see what the problem was. If he could fix it, he would. If not, he'd call for the appropriate workers while culling the monster population for them." Sora sighed. "I don't know what happened, but when he came back from the reactor, he went straight to this old mansion and stayed there for a week. The guys who came with us were worried. Even I was worried, and I was just a little kid!"

"He came back eventually, right?"

Sora laughed. "He came back all right! He set the entire town on fire and killed anyone he came across!" Kairi gasped. "Given, I didn't find out about that 'till later. When he ran into me, he cast Sleep on me and started lugging me around for some reason."

Kairi frowned in confusion. "So he didn't do anything to you? That's good right?"

"No! It's not good at all! He took me to the reactor and stabbed me in the chest when I woke up!"

"Oh…" Kairi though back to the times she'd seen Sora without his shirt. He did have some scars. She wondered if one of them was from that, but figured Sora wouldn't appreciate being asked. "How bad was it?"

"It nearly killed me! I don't know how it didn't! I was in a coma for a month because of it!" Sora's expression was getting darker as he continued on. "And because of the cover up, all of the people who did manage to survive were shipped away to become experiments! Including me!"

Kairi's mouth fell open. Human experiments? But he'd been with the Tsviets, hadn't he? "Wouldn't the Tsviets have helped you?"

"They were being experimented on or imprisoned or both. And it was DEEPGROUND. It was survival of the fittest. They put everything into their own survival. No one cared about some kid!"

"But the Tsviets-"

"Were the elite. They cared less about others than anyone else. They found the situation amusing when they heard about it."

"Even Kimihiro?"

"He had been locked in a cell for a couple of years at that point." Because he was too destructive when he actually let loose, and the Restrictor was worried he'd somehow break loose.

"Wouldn't they want to help other Tsviets though?"

"You aren't just given that title. You have to earn it."

Kairi suddenly felt her heart drop. "What do you mean?"

"In DEEPGROUND, everyone starts at the bottom rung and work their way up in special combat simulations. The environment is simulated, but all the opponents are real and are fellow DEEPGROUND soldiers. The longer you survive and the more you kill the quicker you rise through the ranks. If you're particularly talented and have a useful ability you become a Tsviet."

Kairi suddenly felt sick. "You mean…you killed people when you were just a kid?"

"I hated it! I hated the Restrictor who made me fight! I hated Hojo and the scientists for using me like a guinea pig! I hated the soldiers for underestimating me! I hated ShinRa for allowing all of it! And I hated Sephiroth for leaving me to be experimented on!"

"Sora…" Kairi's thoughts were racing a mile a minute. Sora had been killing people when he was just a little kid. Sure, she'd known about the slaughtered pirate crew, but still…

"I was glad when Weiss killed the Restrictor! I was glad when we slaughtered the scientists! I was glad when the Heartless destroyed my world because it let me escape from DEEPGROUND! And I was glad that Sephiroth was killed in Nibelheim!"

Kairi blinked in confusion. "Wait. I thought he was the one who knocked you out?"

"He was! He's still alive! And he acted like nothing was wrong! Like everything was normal! And as if that wasn't bad enough, the guy can control me because of the S cells!"

"Control you?"

"I wanted to hurt him so much, but when I tried to attack him, he made my body freeze up! I was aware of everything but I couldn't do anything! It was so humiliating! And I'm sure he knew how I felt! I couldn't do anything! I had to be rescued by everyone else!"

Sora seemed to have gotten something out of his system and stopped to take some deep breaths. Kairi meanwhile was going over all of these things in her mind. She'd always wondered why Sora had no problems living with such violent people. It hadn't made any sense to her. Puzzle pieces were starting to fall into place though.

Sora's father had tried to kill him. That was a terrible betrayal. How do you recover from something like that? Could you recover from something like that? Sora did trust some people, but only a few people outside of the Tsviets. Still, that meant he'd recovered somewhat from this, right?

The Tsviets were violent, but they'd never shown any signs of killing Sora that Kairi knew of. Sure they could be violent, but they were violent with everyone, including themselves. And really, several of them seemed to be at least somewhat protective of Sora. Actually, most of them already seemed crazy. Maybe that was why Sora was comfortable around them. If they were already crazy, he didn't have to worry about them suddenly snapping on him.

And it looked like Kairi had been completely wrong about the Tsviets. She'd always considered them a bunch of psychos who'd somehow ended up with a kid. However, she'd just found out that they had all been experiments. Sora had said he was six when these things happened, and she'd been told he'd ended up on the islands when he was seven. That was a year of being experimented on. Only a year and Sora had been changed and traumatized badly. His behavior was different from normal people. Not bad enough to alienate him from other people, but enough to be considered odd. And then there were the mental scars. Kairi had felt the fear in his heart when he'd heard about the mad scientist in Halloween Town. If the other Tsviets had been experimented on for even longer than Sora, then how could they have stayed sane? How could Sora have stayed as sane as he was after a year of experimentation and torture?

Maybe this was another reason the Tsviets tended to stick together. Kairi couldn't imagine what it must have been like. She had an idea, but how could she say she understood?

Who better to understand an experiment than another experiment?

Kairi suddenly let out a sob. Sora gave Kairi a surprised look as she continued to cry. "Why are you crying?"

"It's just…just so cruel. That all of you had to go through those things!" Kairi let out another loud sob as tears started rapidly coming from her eyes. Sora looked at her nervously. He didn't know how to deal with crying girls.

"Uh, it's not worth crying over…"

"Yes it is! It should have never happened!" Well, he can't argue with that. He's always wishing it never happened. "You just refuse to cry about it!"

"Well, it's not like that's gonna change anything." Sora had come to that conclusion within a week of waking up in DEEPGROUND.

"It can make you feel better though."

Sora didn't seem convinced. "I don't know…"

Kairi gave him a sad smile. "You don't want to look weak, do you?" Because if you're in a place where people are killed every day, then you can't afford to look weak in any way. "Tell you what. I'll cry for you whenever you're sad from now on."

"But I don't want you to cry because of me…"

Kairi shook her head. "It's okay. I want to help you however I can." Then Kairi put her head on Sora's shoulder.

Sora looked at her nervously for a moment before putting an arm around her waist. Kairi didn't respond negatively to it, so he relaxed a bit. "How will crying help me? I don't get it." Then Sora felt something wet on his face. With a huff, Sora wiped his tears away and laid his head on Kairi's.

Chapter end

I had far too much fun with Anti-Sora. Did you find it as amusing as I did? I certainly hope so.

The encounter with Sephiroth wasn't anything like I planned it to be. That and everything after it was thought up pretty much on the spot.

I am working on applying to medical school, so updates might be a bit sporadic for a while. I will keep working on them though.

Omake: Aftermath

"I can't believe his dad is Sephiroth and he didn't tell us!" complained Yuffie. After the shock of recent events had worn off, Yuffie had been pissed off by this information.

"Why's that a problem?" asked Aladdin.

"He was the general of an army that invaded Yuffie's home country," explained Aerith. "He was responsible for many deaths and the eventual takeover of her country."

"Guy's a complete asshole," muttered Yuffie.

"You're gonna have to get over it," said Cid. "Besides, I think the kid hates him more than you do." Yuffie just crossed her arms with a huff.

"Who do you think his real parents are?" asked Goofy.

"Oh, right, Sephiroth said he was adopted," said Aerith. "I guess that's a good thing all things considered."

"Sora's unlucky," noted Donald. Everyone gave him an odd look. "What? It's true."

"Now that you mention it…" They paused when they heard a crash from down below. A moment later Leon and Cloud came up from below.

"Wow, you two look like shit," said Cid. It was true. Their clothes were in tatters and covered in blood. There were also some cuts on the visible parts of their bodies. Leon was twitching badly and part of one of Cloud's spikes was missing.

"You guys are both gonna need completely new wardrobes," said Yuffie. "Fortunately, I should have some clothes that fit you back at the hotel."

"Whatever." Leon staggered over to another bed that Merlin had set up and collapsed on it. Cloud didn't seem to be as bad off and took a moment to check on Sora. At some point, Kairi had climbed into bed and now the two were curled up next to each other. Aerith had found it so cute that she'd found a camera and snapped a picture.

"Is Sora okay?"

"They were both crying in their sleep for a bit, but they seem fine now," said Aerith. "I think they'll be okay."

Cloud closed his eyes. "I'm glad. I didn't realize…" He sighed. "I can't believe I forgot Sora was his son."

Donald gave him an accusatory look. "You knew?"

"Yeah…Even if I hadn't, I should have warned him about Sephiroth."

Aerith gave him a sympathetic look. "It wasn't your fault." Cloud just turned, walked away to the elevator, and left. She sighed. "That guy…"

"Well, Sora will wake up soon," said Aladdin. "We should probably stay away from the subject of his dad." Everyone nodded in agreement.

"Let's see if Merlin can summon some more beds," suggested Donald. "I don't think we'll be leaving today."