Welcome back! This chapter is a tad short, but hopefully you'll enjoy it despite that. Now, if somebody would...

Xayn Shu: "DarthKingdom doesn't own Kingdom Hearts, Disney, Square Enix, or whatever else he decides to use. He also doesn't own the Star Wars reference."

Anybody who catches it gets a cookie!

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Chapter 54: Imperial City

Sora sat on the south wall of Imperial City, the one with the front gate built into it. His legs dangled over the edge, and he swung them back and forth. His hands supported him, and he alternated between staring into the starry sky, the path leading to the palace, and out at the mountains that could just barely be seen in the distance.

"I should have stayed." He said aloud.

"Please don't beat yourself up over it."

Sora turned his head a fraction, he didn't need to. He knew exactly who was there; he had sensed her.

Kairi was floating behind him, looking at him with infinite care and sympathy on her face. She settled down on the top of the wall next to him, and sat down. She placed one hand gently over his.

"It's not your fault." Kairi said into his ear. "There was no other choice, we had to retreat."

"I just feel like I could have gotten to them if I had stayed." He said, clutching her hand tightly. "I know it doesn't make sense, but still."

"I know..." She leaned her head on his shoulder. "But you can't blame yourself. Nobody else does. Vexen and the Heartless were the ones who caused that avalanche."

They were quiet for a few minutes, before Sora said. "I miss them already."

Roxas and Namine appeared. "Right about now, Nehrut would be making some lame joke and Bariss would be rolling her eyes at him."

Namine smiled sadly. "If they survived, I hope that they admit what they feel to each other. They deserve love so much..."

"Yeah." Kairi agreed. "What if they, y'know, didn't make it?" The thought seemed unbearable to her. "They would have never have admitted it."

As the four of them sat together in silence, pondering the possibilities of Nehrut and Bariss's relationship, Ling let out a shout.

"Heartless approaching from the south!" He exclaimed from the guard post. He then promptly screamed like a girl.

Sora's head shot up, and he looked out at the path leading to the city. Sure enough, a large black mass was approaching from the direction of the mountains, dotted occasionally with little pinpricks of yellow. The Heartless had arrived.

In military terms, Imperial City was an easily defendable place. High walls would prove hard to clear, and also provide excellent vantage points for archers and cannons. And even on the off chance that an attacker could pass those by, the palace was a massive building, heavily fortified and provisioned, and hard to penetrate, and the courtyard was brimming with soldiers.

This was all in military terms, of course.

In Heartless terms, very little of this mattered. At the front of the army of Heartless was a shorter, heavily muscled man with a shaved head.

"Guys!" It was Mulan. She was below them with Donald and Goofy on either side of her. "Come down here! We need to talk strategy."

Sora and Kairi leapt from the wall, and landed easily on their feet, startling some of the soldiers nearest them, who had thought they were suicidal for taking that jump. They ran toward the palace steps, where Shang was standing talking to the troops. The hundreds of soldiers from the pass were clustering together to listen to him.

They stood next to Axel, Yuffie, and Riku, who were at the back of the growing group of soldiers. Mulan walked up to the steps to join Shang. He was saying, "I need all archers to get to the upper walls immediately. Cannons will be brought up as well, and soldiers will take up positions with them on the wall. Foot soldiers will-"

"Captain Li."

Shang stopped abruptly, and turned around to face the speaker. The Emperor of China was walking slowly down the great steps of the palace toward him, dressed in his regal golden robes that flowed past his feet. King Mickey was beside him. They strode calmly toward the captain, and stopped beside him.

"Thank you Captain, but allow me to speak." Shang bowed respectfully, and stood off to the side.

The Emperor looked calmly over the assembled soldiers. "I have been speaking to our off-world visitors. I even have the pleasure of calling some my friends. And I believe that they can aid us here."

The Emperor locked eyes with Sora, and the eyes of all the soldiers followed his gaze. Sora strode calmly up to the steps, his friends following quietly behind him. He stopped between the two rulers, and looked at the soldiers.

"We've seen how you fight. Now let's show you what we can do."

"What can an adolescent and his friends do against thousands of those creatures?" Someone near the back called.

The Emperor chuckled. "My friend, this 'adolescent and his friends' defeated Shan-Yu, and destroyed a massive dragon when it menaced my palace."

Axel clapped a hand on Sora's shoulder. "Yeah, and buddy, this kid once took out a thousand of those things at once. By himself. Got it memorized? I doubt you've ever beat more than two."

"Yeah, Teo!" One of the other soldiers said. "I've seen them fight at the pass! One of them actually destroyed a big one without even touching it!"

Sora was saddened at being reminded of Nehrut, but at least Teo had shut up.

"Sora." The Emperor asked. "Will you help us?"

He had his answer already. He looked sideways at Kairi, she gave him an encouraging smile. He turned the other way toward Riku, who patted him on the back. Donald and Goofy gave him thumbs-up. Yuffie winked. Axel nodded.

"We'll stand and fight."

The audience cheered. Mushu leapt out from under Mulan's collar and exclaimed, "Let's kick some Heartless hiney!"

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As Teo watched Sora agree to the Emperor's request, he couldn't surpress the feeling that they would all soon be dead. He had a very good reason for fearing Xayn Shu and his forces as much as he did.

He was the only survivor of his very first attack.

Teo walked along the Great Wall of China. It was night, and he was on sentry duty yet again.

He really didn't understand the purpose of sentries in this time of peace, anymore. Nobody had ever gotten through the Great Wall since Shan Yu's invasion, which was almost a year gone. And he had taken the secret to breaching it to his grave.

He groaned inwardly out of frustration, and gazed up at the crescent moon high above him, partially obscured by the dark clouds and a mountain. Nothing had happened for months, and nothing would happen tonight.

That was when things went to Hell.

Directly in front of him, a small black mass emerged from the stone where Teo's foot would have been in another second. A small black creature with yellow eyes gazed up at him, as another four appeared behind it.

The sounds of shocked, scared shouting floated to him from the other parts of the Wall, and he knew that the other sentries were experiencing something similar.

Swiping at one of the Heartless with his spear, he rushed past it to the nearest turret, where there was a circular stone platform filled with tar. If he could light a signal fire, then perhaps they'd be able to warn the people of China before it was too late, and they were caught unawares like the men on the Wall.

Narrowly avoiding a Shadow's slashing claws, he scrambled up the wooden ladder, and grabbed the torch that sat on brackets next to it.

He wasn't alone. Across from the stone platform stood Xayn Shu, his amber eyes glinting in the darkness. His sword was not yet drawn, but he was smiling. His nodded his head toward the platform.

Teo plunged his torch into the tar, setting it alight immediately. The burning flames reached high into the sky, and it wasn't long before several similar fires appeared on the turrets on the other parts of the Great Wall.

"Now all of China knows you're here." Teo said to Xayn Shu with a defiant glare.

His valiant act was wasted on a Nobody. Xayn Shu took hold of a nearby flag pole, where China's red and gold banner was waving proudly in the slight breeze. He snapped it off with one quick movement.

He held it over the fire, and watched it burn to a crisp. He was grinning wildly. "Perfect." (1)

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(2)Minutes later, Sora stood outside the city gates with Kairi, Riku, Donald, Goofy, Mickey, Axel, and Yuffie. The army of Heartless wasn't far away now.

Mulan walked through the gates with Shang. Mushu sat on her shoulder.

"Close the gates!" She ordered.

Ling, Yao, and Chein Po reluctantly followed her orders, sealing the giant doors, and then putting a giant slat across both of them, locking it as firmly in place as possible. Nothing would get in by conventional means.

Sora and the others waited patiently outside the gates. Finally, the quiet sounds the Heartless made could be heard. Nothing too noticeable, just quiet slithering noises, or hissing. But only one being came into view.

Though there were a few glaring differences in his appearance, Sora knew him immediately. But Mulan was the one who voiced his thoughts, astonished.

"Shan Yu?"

The man smirked, and continued walking. He stopped ten feet away from them and responded in a quiet, venomous tone, "I was Shan Yu once. Before the Heartless found me."

"If you're not Shan Yu..."

"Surely you've guessed?" He spread his arms wide, smiling a predatory smile. "I am Xayn Shu. His Nobody."(3)

Suddenly, Sora understood why that name had struck a chord within him when Bariss had mentioned it. When a Nobody was made, it was renamed with an anagram of its original name and an 'X' added. The rule held true here.

"It doesn't matter to me what you are. You're an enemy of China, and I demand that you leave this place!" Shang ordered.

Xayn Shu chuckled low in his throat. "I'll leave. If you surrender the Emperor to me, and the Keybearers, then I'll call off my forces, and spare your pathetic capital."

"No deal!" Mulan said, drawing her blade and pointing it at him.

Mushu slithered down her body and onto the ground. He stood on his two rear feet and walked toward Xayn Shu in what he hoped was an intimidating way. "Yeah, so why don't you just take your little pet Heartless, turn around, and take your butts home? Because if y'all don't, we are gonna mess you up SO bad, that-"

The Nobody pulled a black, wave-bladed sword from a scabbard on his back. He stabbed it into the ground less than an inch in front of Mushu. The small dragon looked at his reflection in the black metal, and gulped. He leapt backwards just as he flourished the blade and sheathed it.

"I find your lack of respect, annoying." He looked back at the others. "So, I can accept your surrender, or we can do this the fun way."

"We're not going down without a fight." Riku summoned his Keyblade.

"So be it. The fun way, then." He smirked, and stepped backward into a Corridor of Darkness.

The Heartless appeared, drawn to the power of the Keyblade, and the light in their hearts. Over a thousand charged toward them, surging toward the gates. Only eleven people stood between them and the palace.

Sora was worried. But not too worried.

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Ta-da! I seem to be doing a lot of cliffhanger-ish endings lately, despite my hatred of them. Sorry! Oh, and to altair4003, I can't read your email adress. Space out the words in it, or else I can't see it.

(1) I get that this is a little out of place, but I added it at the last minute upon realizing how dreadfully short this chapter was.

(2) Cue 'Mulan's Decision' from the movie soundtrack.

(3) Le gasp! Like nobody saw it coming. --;

Please review.