Nexus: Heroes Will Rise

by tmb1112

Universal borders have been erased and beings from thousands of universes now live on the same world: Nexus. In the first Saga of Nexus, Awul was saved, but the mysteries of Nexus remain. Now our heroes sail across the sea to Aebrith to search for lost loved ones and save the world. MCs from DBZ, KH, Soul Eater, FT, Blue Exorcist, Bleach, 7DS, OP, Ben 10, SAO, HxH, and many more!

44. Nexus HWR 8-6 The Dread Fort Part 4

A/N Hey guys! A few days break comes to an end as I finally finished up this chapter! I know a bunch of you still haven't read the last few chapters because of Fanfic's email problem right now, but a few of you noticed the lack of updates and figured it out. I doubt this update is going to send anyone an email either, so whenever the problem's fixed it'll be fixed, and maybe once it is that means you'll get to binge a bunch of chapters in a row XD! Anyway, here's one of the longest chapters so far in all of Nexus. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: Still don't own any of the characters from the medias I received them from. Short list off the top of my head, I don't own: Greek Mythology, Princess Mononosuke, Black Lagoon, X-Men, Kingdom Hearts, Yu Yu Hakusho, Soul Eater, Hunter x Hunter, Blue Exorcist, Fairly Oddparents, RWBY, Seven Deadly Sins, One Piece, Fairy Tail, DBZ, SAO, Ben 10, the Incredibles, Fairly Oddparents, Avatar the Last Airbender, and many many more! I don't own any of it!

Nexus HWR 8.6 The Dread Fort Part 4:

"Whee hwoo," Demyx had a hand held out against his forehead and he looked into the distance where he saw a bright red light flash near the Dread Fort. The ground shook under his feet and he chuckled nervously with a bead of sweat rolling down the side of his face. "I would love to come back and help you out boss," he began, but slowly turned his head and looked behind him off the top of the building he was standing on and into the street. He stood on a flat roof twenty feet above the ground, and he frowned as he watched the two pirates in the street below taking out dozens of Dusks that were coming for them from around the city.

"You doing okay back there sis?!" Franky yelled. He did not turn as he was under constant attack from strange monsters he did not recognize. He rose up his left arm and shouted, "Weapons Left!" He dragged his arm across the front of his body and railed machine-gun fire into the enemies that swerved around on skinny legs and dodged many of his attacks. Even those that were hit by bullets were not destroyed easily, and Franky frowned before popping his left hand back altogether. The hole in the center of his hollow arm glowed blue and he yelled, "Franky Super Blaster!"

A blue ball of light shot out right in between three Dusks that had just dove towards the cyborg. The explosion hit behind them but it surely was "Super" as the edge of the blast caught the escaping silver enemies in it. Franky smirked, then his lips curled back down and he let out a groan as five more Nobodies emerged on the street in front of him. "Oi, you don't think these things are attacking us for any reason do you? Maybe because a certain someone pissed off the people in charge of this city."

"It is not fair to assume," Robin said, though her lips did curl up into a knowing smile. "I believe Luffy may not be fully to blame however, as Sora was intent on facing this Saix person as well."

"Sora's in the city?!" A voice shouted from the side of the road that made both pirates spin in surprise. The Nobodies around them vanished into the floor while the man in a cloak on top of the store jumped down. He landed in front of the pirates who looked at him hesitantly, not knowing what to think of the young-looking man holding up what looked like a musical instrument. Demyx's sitar did not just look like an instrument however, it also appeared to be a weapon of some kind if he intended to use it as such. "Hey there, the name's Demyx."

His black cloak gave himself away, but Robin questioned anyway, "Are you a Nobody?"

"Got me," the guy admitted and put a hand up facing the sky like he got caught. He chuckled, though a bead of sweat rolled down the left side of his face. Sora's here? No way am I going back there. He calmed himself down and gained a smug look as he gazed at the black haired woman in front of him. His eyes narrowed and the sweat on his face was gone, "You sure look a lot like Bronxi."

"Bronxi," Robin repeated calmly. "That was one of the anagrams I deciphered for my own name with an 'X' in it. If my Nobody is your purpose for being here, then I assume you are preparing to attack." She crossed her arms, but as she did, Demyx swung his sitar up in front of him and slammed his hand down on the strings. A loud blast of music came out of the instrument and out from the ground on all sides of Demyx appeared over a dozen Dancer Nobodies. The thin figures looked almost human, light-skinned figures with long legs and arms, and pink coverings over the top parts of their heads that did not cover their menacing smirks.

"Sorry lady," Demyx called out from behind his Nobodies. He strummed his sitar hard and a funnel of water ten feet in diameter formed around him and shot up over fifty feet into the air. The Dancer Nobodies sprinted forward and around the funnel of water appeared clones made of water who appeared similar to Demyx in appearance. "But I've got my orders, and I'm sure Bronxi's looking forward to getting her Somebody!"

"Franky Radical Beam!" Franky fired at the base of the funnel the enemy's voice was coming from, and Demyx screamed as the explosion blasted through his fast-moving water wall.

"Cien Fleur! Clutch!" Dancer Nobodies were cracked by Robin's arms, but her eyes opened wide as the figures did not have spines for her to crack. Instead, they just swiped at her individual arms and got back up, looking like very little damage was done to them by her last attack. "Franky," she called out as the cyborg used his Franky Boxing on water clones attacking him. She looked ahead at Demyx who was getting back to his feet behind all the other enemies, "Take on the small ones. I will go after Demyx." She crossed her arms and wings sprouted out of her back, happening so fast that this time Franky did not even see arms appear first to merge into wings. She was becoming much better at creating them, and just yelled out, "Dos Cien Fleur: Angel Wings!"

Robin's wings snapped down and shot her off the ground and over the Dancer Nobodies that just pounced at her. As soon as she was off the ground, Franky opened back up his arm and yelled, "Franky Super Blaster!" He fired another blue ball of light into the crowd of Nobodies Demyx controlled. The blue explosion behind Robin gave her a blue glow as she shot towards Demyx. He looked a lot more serious suddenly unlike his playful attitude from when he landed, and he slashed his sitar in front of him and made a jet of water fly up at Robin. She did a barrel-roll in midair to her right while crossing her arms in front of her body. "Diez Fleur!"

Ten arms sprouted out of Demyx's own arms and grabbed the weapon, tugging it and trying to remove it from the Nobody's grip. "Little help," he called out, and two water clones on his sides ran over and slashed at the arms that were preventing him from defending himself against the woman now dive-bombing him. Robin's arms vanished, but the woman created more all over Demyx's body when he thought he had regained control over his weapon. He struggled against her arms and lost focus on the woman for a second which the woman noticed and smirked. Robin swooped down and brought up her right knee, and at the speed she was flying at it slammed into Demyx's face hard enough to crack the man's nose and lift him off the ground.

The guy with dirty blond hair rolled back on the ground then after a second snapped his head up. "Get her!" Demyx yelled, his voice angry but high-pitched and nasally while blood came out both his nostrils. Three dozen water clones appeared around Demyx, but the woman who kneed him was standing on the ground where he just was and glaring his way with her arms crossed.

"You can tell Bronxi," Robin began, while a huge shadow cast over Demyx and his summoned creatures. The man turned around and the Nobodies and water clones all turned their heads as well then slowly rose their gazes up. Two giant white legs were behind them with thighs sticking right out of the ground, and the legs were over a hundred feet tall. They bent at the knees and Robin did not yell out her move, instead stating calmly, "That if she wants my heart, she will have to come take it herself. I wish to have a talk with her."

The giant legs started stomping all over the ground and Franky whistled in amusement behind her. Dust rose up on the street and people who were nearby and came to watch ran the other direction at the sight of something so crazy. Robin grinned at the dust cloud under her stomping feet and she dropped her arms, finally making the giant legs vanish into flower petals. She let out a breath as she used a lot of energy with all those rapid-fire attacks, but as she let out that deep breath her eyes opened wide at the feeling of something coming fast with her Observational Haki.

Out from the dust rushed Demyx, sitar held over his right shoulder and a pissed-off look on the man's bruised face. He yelled out and slammed his sitar down at the woman who did not leap back in time, but right before he hit her, a tiny black ball appeared in front of his vision and slammed into his face. Boom! The tiny ball exploded and all of Demyx's momentum forward jolted to a stop, making his legs swing out in front of his body and hit Robin anyway. He fell back to the ground and reached both hands to his face, rolling around in pain as his hair was all singed and he was covered in burns now. "Oh man! Ahh! Ouch that hurts!" He pulled his hands down and jumped up to his feet, then stared forward nervously as Robin got back up with a dark look on her face and Franky pointed his weaponized hands towards him as well, angry that he just knocked Robin to the floor.

Demyx did not know what to do as he was feeling exhausted, and could feel something inside of him that made him want to run as far away as he could. "I haven't felt like this," he began, taking a step back as he did. He held up his hands defensively so they would not attack him as he backed up. "Since Sora killed me," he continued, and he liked the shocked reactions on their faces. He only mentioned it because they mentioned Sora and he figured bringing it up would stop them from attacking him, at least for a second.

"Sora killed you?" a voice asked from behind the two oldest pirates on the Straw Hats' crew. The voice came from the youngest member, the muscular man in a pair of overalls stepping forward behind them with the Black Kabuto slingshot in hand that he used to stop Demyx from getting a direct hit on Robin a minute ago with his sitar. "I don't believe it, Sora's so… what?" Usopp asked, getting between Robin and Franky and gaining a confused expression as Demyx stopped backing up and was just staring at him in shock.

"What the- I don't get it," Demyx scratched the back of his head in confusion. "If you're here, then why did Saix have me going after Bronxi's… Actually, it makes sense," he grimaced while looking at the sniper, and finished darkly, "who would want him getting any stronger?"

Usopp's face was full of confusion but Robin darted her eyes to the side and looked at the younger man. He looks just as young as he was when we got here. If my Nobody Bronxi was only created after my defeat in Port Royal, then perhaps his has been around for… "Explain," Robin demanded and stepped towards the mysterious man. "What did you mean by that?"

Usopp turned to Robin confusedly wondering why she seemed so serious all of a sudden. Demyx chuckled though and a black portal opened out of the ground under him. "Wouldn't you like to know?" He remarked snidely. Robin glared at him and he took another step back with sweat forming all over his face. No way I'm taking all three of them on in this state. I'll just tell Saix I wanted to check how he was doing after that explosion. Demyx grinned while an oval of darkness surrounded him. He faded away inside it and the pirates watched as the portal closed, and he was gone.

---

Inside the Dread Fort, inside one of the lower levels, an explosion had just billowed down a hallway and blasted full force into an open room. People were still screaming from burns and others who were farther in the room when the explosion destroyed the entrance to the hall it came down were mostly knocked to the floor. Sanji was down on his butt, his crossed arms in front of his face, covered in burns. He was breathing deeply but his thoughts were jumbled as he sat there with his eyes clenched shut. He just kept thinking of those people sprinting towards him down the hall, their bodies melting as soon as the powerful flames hit them, how fast that explosion moved, and then that flash of black as he got thrown back by the blast.

What the Hell? He thought, his breathing ragged and his ears ringing. The screams of people around him were muffled and the ground below him kept shaking for some reason even though the explosion had faded. Sanji's eyes opened and everything around him was blurry. He was in pain, and his ears stopped ringing so much so he could start hearing humming of people's voices. Sanji stared in front of him at the hallway that was still full of flames, even though the ceiling of it was ripped completely off and the walls were crumbling or gone altogether. The fact that entire sections of the Dread Fort were blown apart by that explosion just made Sanji's flesh wounds all the more confusing, as to him it seemed like he should have been incinerated.

"Oi, you alright? Hey," a hand shook Sanji by the shoulder and he turned right with wide, confused eyes to see Ban down on a knee next to him. The man with spiky white hair had pulled Sanji back fast and got some pretty bad burns on his face, but Sanji just watched in confusion as the burns healed and Ban's skin regenerated. The chef saw Ban nod at him like the man with red eyes was checking to see if he was okay, then Ban turned with a grimace as he looked back towards the hall. Sanji turned to the hall too, and his blurry vision focused on something right in the entrance that was much wider than a minute ago. As he saw it, his ears stopped ringing as much, his breath caught in his throat, his vision was no longer blurry, and his eyes shot open wide.

The black that filled Sanji's vision the second the explosion hit was not a trick of his mind like he thought it might be. Standing there was a short figure with blond hair, a white shirt and torn black vest waving around in tatters off his body. A lot of his torso was exposed, letting Sanji see that the entire right side of him was a deep dark purple that was nearly black. The dark coating covered up his skin from his right leg up under his shorts, then came back out above his waist and stretched up to his neck where it broke off a little to reveal more light skin. It looked like a spiderweb of blackish purple aura stretching over his shoulder and then over the other one. The speckled darkness got thicker down the short man's biceps, turning solid near his elbows and stretching all the way to his hands.

Once Sanji saw his hands, the chef gulped at the sight of huge black hands with wisps of darkness coming off of them. Each hand was almost as big as the man himself, and he had them held out to his sides, shaking for a reason other than the entire Dread Fort shaking. Sanji looked down at the flames burning the ground past the man's feet, but not inside their room behind him, He stopped the explosion, with his body?! Sanji put his hands down on his sides and winced. He looked down and grimaced deeply at the sight of burn marks on the palms of his hands, Shit. I need Sora or Riku to heal me before these become permanent. A chef needs his hands.

Sanji got up to his feet and Ban was semi-impressed as he thought he had not gotten Sanji away from the entrance to the hall in time to prevent serious injuries. The pirate was durable though and despite the powerful explosion, and the fight he got into with his Nobody already, he was still standing strong. Sanji stared straight ahead with a dark look on his face. The thing in front of him just saved his life, it saved everyone in the room by the looks of it, and yet… "That you, Meliodas?" Sanji questioned.

The short man in front of him slowly turned his head and the entirety of the room behind him stared at the blackish purple markings on his face and his cold, dark eyes. He did not answer Sanji, but then again, Sanji did not know if he could. Ban's eyes were huge as the shorter man turned around, but not for the same reason as everyone else in the room. "Oi, Captain, are you-" Ban stopped as the small man with bad burns all over the front of his torso lost his black aura. Meliodas's skin under the aura that faded was perfectly fine, but it had not covered the majority of his torso and face, so his entire left side and most of his face were covered in second and third degree burns.

Sanji's nervous expression at the feeling of the man in front of him snapped off his face as Meliodas smirked wide for a second, then fell forward without saying a word. Ban ran forward and caught the Captain of the Seven Deadly Sins as he was halfway fallen. "What the-" Ban lifted the shorter man and he stared in shock and confusion at how bad he appeared to be damaged. Ban lifted up his gaze back to the flaming remains of the hall out the huge entrance and he muttered, "What the Hell was that explosion?"

"Hey! We need to get going!" Weiss shouted towards the other side of the room and the three men over there. She looked behind her at all the slaves she freed, then continued, "We'll get all of you out of here, and get you out of the city. Make sure you make it south."

"You can't do that," a man near the stage began in a deep voice. Weiss turned and looked down at the man, then frowned as the figure was one of those sitting at the table with Meliodas and Ban outside, showing he was over rank orange at least. He looked behind her and said, "I bought three of them. You can't take them with you." The slaves all tensed up and three of them in particular let out yelps or whimpers of fear.

"You can't buy people," a man said from right behind the dark-skinned figure who was glaring into Weiss's eyes again. Her eyes widened and the man who had bought slaves at the auction narrowed his own and turned around. He glared behind him and people around the room stared at the two men standing ten feet apart, both with harsh gazes on their expressions. The fort was constantly shaking and it sounded like more explosions were going off nearby, but the blond-haired pirate could not run off to find the others he wanted to search for until this was done. Sanji lifted a lighter and ignited the cigarette in his mouth, then narrowed his gaze at one of the men he had sat with out in the courtyard while Mephisto questioned him about the Battle of Metropolis. The thought that everyone at that table was stronger than him no longer mattered to the chef who just glared into the dark figure's icy blue eyes.

"I can't?" The man questioned. He took a step towards Sanji, "Is that a threat?" The next step he took made the entire room shake but Sanji managed to keep on his strong facial expression.

"Make of it what you will," Sanji said. He took another puff of his cigarette then dropped the butt on the floor and stomped down on it hard, so hard in fact that the floor beneath his foot cracked out in four different directions. Sanji's right foot turned black and he lifted it off the ground that cracked so bad beneath him that the floor actually began feeling not so sturdy. His foot burst into flames and the room filled with an orange glow as Sanji lifted up his leg and growled, "Diable Jambe."

The darker figure narrowed his eyes at Sanji and his fists balled up, then he froze as he spotted the figure behind Sanji. Ban had the shorter man who saved them all wrapped in an arm over one shoulder, but his other hand he balled into a fist while standing next to a wall near the entrance. With little effort at all, Ban tapped that fist into the wall and the entire thing started coming down, and at the same time flames from the hallway on the other side of the entrance started filling up that side of the room. The flames put a shadow over Ban's face while his red eyes seemed to glow, and the darker-skinned figure who saw those eyes glaring straight at him knew that Sanji was not his only opponent should he choose to fight now.

He spat to his side then glared back towards Sanji. "You watch yourself, and pray we don't meet again." The man bent his knees, then leapt straight up and smashed a hole through the ceiling with a punch. He left and Sanji let out a deep breath as his Observational Haki was telling him the person he just made an enemy of was barely human at all.

"Alright, can we go now?" Weiss asked in an annoyed tone, though for the first time as she looked at Sanji it was not with as superior an expression as when she first noticed how perverted he was, three seconds after they met. The slaves behind her were all in agreement and Ban gave her a small nod before looking back at his shoulder and wondering what was so strong that even Meliodas could be knocked out.

While Ban looked at the man on his shoulder, he noticed a figure walking towards him and then right by his side. "Oi, what are you doing?" Ban questioned.

The blond-haired man stopped at the edge of the flames, and Weiss called his way, "Where are you going? Aren't you going to help us get these people out of here?" She thought the pirate stopping that man from taking his slaves showed what Sanji intended on doing, but the chef was going the wrong way now, towards a section of the Dread Fort full of flames where they could see pieces of upper floors falling down into their basement.

Sanji chuckled under his breath, "Good luck with that," he said. He turned to Ban and looked at the shorter man on his shoulder, "Tell Meliodas thanks for me, because I've got my own stupid Captain to help." The blond chef who already looked pretty injured turned back to look into the flames with a serious look on his face. He took a deep breath, then without saying another word he leapt straight into the burning hallway and kicked the hot air below him to stay above where the tops of the flames were licking his shoes. What the pirate just did and what he was about to do left his mind however, for as he flew towards another battle all he could think about, was, Jixsan.

---

"Vexen, if you would," Saix ordered.

The scientist with long blond hair frowned but nodded as he turned back towards a different Nobody in the deepest basement of the Dread Fort. He pulled a device out of his pocket and tossed it to the man with huge spiky red hair, who snagged the device out of the air and smirked at Vexen. "Thanks," he said, though his voice was smug and mocking. Axel put the device close to the torture bracelet he had on and pressed a button on it, one which unlocked the bracelet and made it fall right off. It would have made a loud metallic clank on the ground if Axel did not swing his fiery Keyblade forward and slash straight through the device. He smirked at the skin beneath the bracelet as it was not even chafed thanks to his entire body healing during the integration process.

"Hey Sora, why does he have a Keyblade too?" Luffy wondered over at his spiky-haired friend who shook his head slowly in response.

"I, don't know," Sora responded. "Axel, since when could you-"

"Axel, Roxas, Vexen, Malx Lewx," Saix interrupted Sora. As he did, he glared at Luffy who noticed the man's gaze and snapped his own attention back to him. Saix continued to the four of his subordinates inside the room who were all waiting for his orders, "Capture Sora. We will have to return to Twilight Town with him." Saix rose up his claymore and narrowed his gaze at Luffy, "I will take care of the other." As Saix said it, ten Nobodies formed around him. They had thick arms and legs and were holding long, silver, hammer-like weapons over their shoulders. Each one was eight feet tall and had pitch black faces along with silver cross markings on their thighs, shoulders, and on the sides of their heads.

The Berserker Nobodies gathered on either side of Saix and looked ready to attack on command. The four Nobodies with faces in the room all turned to Sora who snapped his gaze around to look at each one of them. "My name," Luffy growled. His enemies all spun to him and Luffy's black irises became larger only for smaller white circles to appear on the insides of them. "Is Monkey D. Luffy," he continued, and out from his body exuded a translucent aura that slammed into every person around him all the way to the walls and through the opening on the roof that was completely blown apart and gave them a clear view three floors up in the Dread Fort. All of the Berserkers exploded in puffs of white light, and Malx Lewx stumbled to his left before his legs came out from beneath him and he fell with his eyes rolled into the back of his head. "And I'm the man who will become the Pirate King!"

He yelled this at a shocked Saix then punched his right hand out and made forearm pump and all of his skin turn red. Luffy covered in steam as he yelled, "Gear Second!" Then, he shot forward and appeared in front of Saix with a fist punched up, "Jet Pistol!" Saix went flying through the hole in the ceiling, then spun around in midair and tried swinging his claymore down at the pirate, but Luffy was no longer beneath him, instead appearing directly in front of him three stories higher than the basement. "Jet Spear!" Luffy kicked his legs with the soles of his feet pressed together out and nailed Saix in the center of his gut, sending him flying so hard towards the entrance of the Dread Fort that he flew right over a few demons who looked up and went wide-eyed at the sight of the Lord of the Dread Fort smashing through the top of the entranceway. They were even more shocked as the man crashing outside the fort surrounded in chunks of debris was suddenly joined by another man, floating above Saix with his arms thrown up high in the sky, his hands coated in Haki, his entire body steaming as he yelled, "EAGLE BAZOOKA!"

Luffy's blackened hands slammed down straight into Saix's chest, and the Nobody's eyes opened wide and he gasped out in pain. Saix shot out of the air so fast he was invisible to most, even the rank orange guests of the Dread Fort's feast who were watching from near the entrance where the demons who were facing off all were. Saix hit the ground of the courtyard and instantly made a hole in the middle of it, then the four chunks the courtyard split into all lifted up towards the middle while the outsides of them closer to the walls dipped down. The steps leading up to the fort itself covered in cracks and crumbled as a huge section of earth lifted up right beneath them and then dropped back down with twice as much force and shook the Dread Fort even worse, making cracked walls around the entrance Saix was smashed through start collapsing.

Inside the Dread Fort, down in the deepest basement, Vexen kicked the unmoving man with black hair on his right side. "Idiot," he growled at Malx, then snapped his attention back to Sora in front of him. "That pirate may have saved you the trouble of fighting four ranked members, but you will be captured nonetheless." Sora frowned back at Vexen before darting his eyes left at Roxas then right at Axel.

Axel had a smirk on his face like the one he had since coming out of the Integration Chamber. "You sure about that Vexen?" The scientist glared at Axel, but the spikier-haired man continued, "Shouldn't one of us go make sure Saix is doing okay. He might not be able to-"

"Quiet!" Vexen yelled at Axel. The smirking man held up his hands defensively towards Vexen who was shaking in rage. "You have no idea how strong Saix became when he merged with Isa. A rank orange like that man above is no match for him." Sora was feeling pretty confident about Luffy's chances, but the idea that Saix was any stronger than the last time the two fought was a scary thought to him. He risked a dart of his eyes up towards the hole in the ceiling, Luffy, don't bring the fight outside. It's too clear of a night.

"You should pay attention Sora," a voice said in front of him. He snapped his gaze down fast while bringing up his Keyblade and barely got it up in time to block Axel's slash. He jumped backwards but grimaced as there was now a wall to his back, and all three of the black-cloaked figures in front of him stepped farther forward. Roxas had an angry look on his face as he was backed up into as much of a metaphorical corner as Sora was in a literal one. He darted his gaze towards Vexen then to the other side of the scientist at Axel who was smirking menacingly. Axel, what are you doing?!

Vexen stood directly in front of Sora who took another step back and found the back of his feet pressed against the wall. My Drive Gauge is still low. Roxas is almost as strong as I am, and he can't hold back in front of the others or Naminé will pay the price. Axel has a Keyblade, and Vexen… well Vexen's not that strong, but the others have to listen to whatever he says! Vexen lifted off the floor in front of Sora, levitating there while the temperature of the room around them dropped ten degrees. Vexen rose his right arm and a blue shield materialized that covered in ice, and the dark blue spikes sticking out of the shield's edges glowed light blue too with shards of ice sparkling off them.

Axel's Keyblade covered in flames, and Roxas rose his left hand and another Keyblade formed in it. "I'm sorry Sora," he said, regret filling his voice and showing Sora that his Nobody would not be going easy on him.

Axel turned in towards Roxas and he smirked towards the teenage Nobody. His eyes shifted off Roxas to Vexen, and Axel opened his mouth as Vexen pointed his left hand forward to yell to attack. "Hey, can I get a piece of this action?" All three of the Nobodies froze, and Sora's eyes grew huge as well. Axel's smirk wiped off his face and he frowned, while Vexen looked back in semi-surprise, and Roxas just grimaced even deeper than before. Sora looked behind the three of them at a black portal that opened up on the unconscious Malx Lewx's side. A figure with dirty-blond hair stepped out of the portal in a black cloak that looked singed, and he had some bruises on his face too. He ignored the looks his fellow Nobodies were giving him though and looked right past them all at Sora who got a bead of sweat on his face at the sight of another face he recognized. "What? You aren't happy to see me again?" Demyx asked in a mock hurt tone. "It's time I got some payback for what you did to me."

"Demyx," Sora mumbled in a quiet voice. "Vexen," he turned to the other Nobody, then shifted his gaze more, "Axel." He remembered all three of them and it made him sad thinking about how they all died. "I'm sorry," he whispered. He looked away from Axel and back to the two men who were now right next to each other between Axel and Roxas. Demyx's eyes grew huge while Vexen just frowned deeper at Sora. "I, never wanted to destroy you all. But, what you were doing to the worlds." His face gained a more serious look and he rose up his left hand, like Roxas creating a second Keyblade in it without going into Drive Form. "I couldn't let it continue! You were covering the worlds in darkness and I had to stop you! I never wanted to hurt anyone, but I had to, to stop you from damaging the worlds. And if you plan on doing the same things to this world," Sora's blue eyes got more narrow and Demyx's face covered in sweat as the teen finished, "I'll destroy all of you again."

Vexen was shaking the entire time Sora spoke and he snapped as soon as the kid finished, "There are four of us and only one of you! You are all talk!"

"'Only one of him' my ass," a voice said behind the Nobodies. They all spun around and standing farther back in the room than them was a blond-haired pirate in a burnt suit jacket with pretty bad burns on his arms and some on his face too. He did not look that great, but he stood sturdy on both legs and stared at the figures ganging up on Sora. "Covering the worlds in darkness?" "I'll destroy all of you again." Sora, what the Hell are you? The chef tried to get his mind off the insane end of the conversation he accidentally just listened to and really wished he hadn't. Instead, he glared at the scientist who was just taunting Sora and said in a pissed-off tone, "Sora's not here on his own. You Nobodies would be smart to remember that."

"Who the Hell is this now?" Axel muttered with a bead of sweat coming down the side of his face.

"Jixsan's Somebody," Demyx said in surprise.

"Where is Jixsan?" Vexen growled. "He was supposed to take care of you. Where is he?"

Sanji remembered his Nobody holding Larxene as he stepped into a portal to flee the Dread Fort. Out loud though, the chef just growled back, "Hell if I know where that shitty-bastard is. Probably trying to re-capture all those slaves I just let free." His words had the exact desired response as Vexen snapped his gaze behind him and yelled out in anger, too much going wrong for him to hold it in anymore. He spun back and Sanji's eyes widened at the sight of Vexen's light blue glow and the large mounds of ice appearing between the two of them.

"Take care of Sora!" Vexen yelled. He shot through the air at the surprised blond chef who thought there would be a more organized plan to these Nobodies' formation. Mounds of ice ripped out of the floor between the two of them and then right before Vexen reached him with his shield, ice came out of the ground right beneath him and he did not have time to let out a yelp of shock before he was completely frozen solid. Vexen slammed his shield forward and all the ice around Sanji shattered while the chef himself was thrown back coughing as he could not breath there for a second.

"Sanji!" Sora yelled out. "Curaga!" He swung his Keyblades above his head and green light surrounded the chef bouncing away. Sanji's eyes snapped open wide and he rose his hands above him as he bounced, seeing the burns from the explosion before fading off of them as Sora's powerful healing magic hit him. Thanks Sora, he thought, before flipping up in the air to dodge as Vexen tried slamming the shield down on him, then kicking forward with his left leg and nailing the scientist in the chest.

Sora wanted to run after Sanji to keep helping him out, but the ground behind his three opponents covered in water clones of Demyx who smirked at the teen who was still outnumbered. "I'm getting my revenge here Sora," he said, not sounding like his usual self at all as he glared straight into Sora's blue eyes.

"Sounding pretty tough there Demyx," Axel remarked with a chuckle. "Does that mean you've got your Somebody back too?"

Demyx frowned deeply and Axel laughed louder, "No? And you think you can take on Sora? How about you let the big boys handle this?" He stepped in front of Demyx who snarled at Axel's back and sent his water clones forward anyway to attack the teen.

Sora slashed his Keyblades in front of him so fast that every water clone that approached was shredded into water droplets within seconds. As the water from the exploded clones was still rising up, Sora sprinted through the veil of water and leapt with his Keyblades risen. Roxas tssked, then leapt up and crossed his Keyblades as Sora swiped down hard with both of his. The two of them pressed into each other, then Axel rose up behind Sora and Roxas's eyes went wide as he made eye contact with his best friend. He wanted to shout at Axel to stop, but a blonde girl's face appeared in his mind and he held his tongue, only to wince as Axel nailed Sora in the back of the head with an elbow and sent him tumbling through the air over Roxas's head.

Demyx watched all this with wide eyes, They're in a different league! He gulped but strummed his sitar anyway and created a dozen Dancer Nobodies around the room. As soon as he did, he started panting heavily as he was running out of strength. He felt that feeling in his gut again, but he ground his teeth and ignored it for now. There's no reason to be worried! We still outnumber them, and we've got home field advantage! Jixsan and Larxene are probably getting those slaves back right now, and maybe they'll go get Nico Robin for me too. "Heh heh," he chuckled and turned to watch as Sora got up with a bloody cut across his left cheek and turned to look Roxas and Axel in their eyes. He heard an explosion above him and glanced up, Actually, where the Hell is Saix?

Outside of the Dread Fort, Luffy had landed at the bottom of the courtyard where the steps used to be and stared forward at a hole in the ground that he sent the Lord of the Dread Fort smashing into a minute ago. Something was seriously wrong though. He thought he hit the man hard enough to knock him out, or at least weaken him, however the presence he felt with his Haki was getting stronger every second. A bright glow emanated from inside the hole, then the man with aqua blue hair came floating out of it. He had his hands risen above his head pointed at the sky, and Luffy could see a bright white glow covering those hands that were getting brighter every second.

"Hey! What are you doing?!" Luffy shouted over at the guy who was confusing him with his current actions. Saix lowered his head that was snapped back and he looked towards Luffy with glowing white eyes that somewhat unnerved the pirate. "In the light of the moon, I become stronger. And you picked such a bad night to face me, a clear night with no clouds, while both moons…" Luffy lifted his head and heard Saix finish in front of him, "are full." Luffy stared at the two large white circles in the sky then lowered his gaze back to Saix who covered in an even brighter white light now, making an aura around his entire body. He dropped his arms back down and out from the hole below him floated up his claymore, Lunatic. The weapon looked different, as soon as Saix gripped it by the shaft, a white aura surrounded the weapon and made translucent spikes stick out of it on all sides.

Saix rose up higher towards the moon and he shook violently as the white aura around him flared. He snapped his head back and roared, "RaaAAAA!" As he yelled out, his teeth sharpened, his eyes glowed brighter, and his long hair waved violently behind him inside his aura. Luffy frowned deeply as he had seen stuff like this before. He had seen his good friend Gohan do something like this on a few occasions, and every time he witnessed it, immediately after he bore witness to incredible feats of strength like nothing he had ever seen.

The pirate smirked though as Saix snapped his head back down and bared his fangs at him. These Lord guys really are strong. He lifted up his right hand and balled it into a fist in front of him, his right bicep flexing and veins appearing on his skin. His right fist turned black and the Haki stretched down to past his elbow up onto his bicep, and Luffy narrowed his eyes as he glared into Saix's glowing ones. "Bring it on!" He yelled, then leapt off the ground towards the man in the sky.

---

"Was that Luffy?" Rin mumbled as he looked behind him towards the entrance of the Dread Fort. He thought about going out there and seeing what was going on, but he had something else to do first and snapped his gaze back to his front. He rose up Kurikara in one hand and pointed the tip of his sheathed blade at the two demons in front of him who were looking over his head in surprise too as they saw who just flew over head as well. "Mephisto!" Rin yelled. The two demons looked back down and Rin shouted, "Tell me where Yukio is! Where did you take him?"

"Rin," Mephisto began, sounding like he was about to go on a long lecture.

Rin swiped his sword across the front of his body and yelled, "I'm not playing games! Tell me where he is NOW!" He brought his sword back and gripped the hilt tightly, grabbing the sheath with his other hands and narrowing his eyes to show he was about to take the demonic weapon out.

"I would not do that if I were you," Amaimon warned. The shorter demon with green hair darted his eyes to the left where a decently large crowd was watching. Those who did not run to the entrance to watch what was happening with Saix were staring at them and waiting to see how this turned out. "A lot of people here probably have a problem with father," Amaimon looked back into Rin's eyes, "so I would be careful with drawing your sword on a whim."

Rin opened his mouth to shout at the Demon King of Earth, but the taller demon continued before he could, "Rin," Mephisto sounded more serious now and Rin looked into Mephisto's eyes to see them dark, and they looked almost like they were, pitying him? Mephisto stared straight into Rin's eyes and said darkly, "You have no chance of saving your brother. Give up." Rin's eyes popped open huge and his entire body started shaking as he filled with anger.

"There it is," Amaimon said, a smirk coming to his face. He bared his teeth showing off his fangs and he called out in a high-pitched voice, "There's the demon I wanted to see! Have you accepted who you are, brother?!"

"I may be part demon," Rin began in a deep growl. He knew there were eyes on him but he did not care what they thought anymore. One muscular man with long curly black hair was going wide eyes and Theseus's eyes widened even more as the teenager yelled out, "but I'm also half-human!" He ripped the hilt of his sword one direction and discarded the sheath in the other. His body flashed blue and covered in flames with two solid flames on the front of his hair sticking up like horns. His entire sword was covered in blue flames like his body and those watching him dropped their jaws and many of them started sprinting away without pausing even a second.

Rin's body was covered in satanic flames but the boy inside them did not look all that more demonic. Theseus leaned back and the woman next to him tugged his arm with sweat all over her face, but he did not budge. He stared inside those flames at the teen whose teeth were sharper and ears were pointier, but kept the same human-like appearance, and sounded just like a human as he shouted, "Now tell me Mephisto! Why did you tell me to come to Aebrith if I wanted to find Yukio, if you weren't going to tell me where he is?! Where did you take my brother?!"

Mephisto continued to frown for a few seconds, but in the corner of his eyes he could see Amaimon itching to charge forward. "I know you want to take another shot at him," Mephisto began and started turning around. He looked back into the Dread Fort and smirked at a giant hole in the floor behind him that Saix came flying through a few minutes ago, "I will meet up with you later. Have fun with our little brother."

"Hehehe!" Amaimon cackled and started marching forward. "Thanks!" He started sprinting and Rin yelled out furiously before charging forward as well. The short demon with green hair slashed his claws forward and Rin swiped his sword. The two of them dodged side to side and clashed claws and blade over and over, making blue flames fly around them from their collisions. "I've been training Rin! Watch!" Amaimon leapt backwards and as he did a backflip, his body covered in a white aura. "Tetsuo and Trunks were good sparring partners," he remarked with a huge smirk, then shot forward at twice the speed and Rin had to dive to the left as he was not expecting the claws that suddenly came down for him.

Rin rolled away then as he jumped back to his feet he was immediately rushed by Amaimon. He slashed back and forth, but Amaimon leaned backwards and the sword went right over his head. As the slash went over, flames flew off Rin's sword and slammed into a distant wall, shattering that wall on contact and making the ceiling on that part of the fort start to fall. The flames missed Amaimon though, allowing the demon to stand fully up within two feet of Rin, looking into Rin's bright blue eyes that were full of shock at how much faster Amaimon was than the last time they fought. Amaimon slashed both arms down and Rin leapt back too slow to avoid being cut from his shoulders down his entire chest before he gained enough distance.

Blood splashed out of him as he skid back on the soles of his feet. His entire body covered in brighter blue flames, blue flames that filled up those open wounds on his chest that was before only shrouded in a blue aura. The flames covered more and more of him more solidly and Rin could feel himself slipping. "Call yourself a human?!" Amaimon cackled over at his brother whose expression was starting to scare him as last time he saw it Rin almost burnt him to a crisp. A bead of sweat formed on the left side of Amaimon's face but he yelled out anyway, "Because to me, you just look like a demon!" He charged forward as Rin's eyes were losing their defined irises, as his teeth sharpened even more and the blue flaming horns on his head ignited brighter and twisted around.

Amaimon was right in front of Rin and the teen brought his sword up above his head with both hands on the hilt. BANG! On Amaimon's left, and Rin's right, a yellow beam came into their visions. It flew straight into the side of Amaimon's head and then out the other side. The demon with light green hair in a single spike over the top of his scalp and dark green around the rest of his head went flying to Rin's left where he tumbled across the ground before coming to a stop. The shock of seeing Amaimon get shot in the face snapped Rin out of his rage just enough for him to realize how close he was to losing control, and start taking deep breaths to calm himself down. He turned his head right a little and twenty yards away from him he spotted a woman with purple hair half tied into a ponytail and the rest messy around her head holding up a sniper rifle with a smoking barrel. Revy had a smug look on her face and lowered her rifle a little to nod over at the teen, though she had a bead of sweat rolling down the left side of her face as she did.

In between Rin and Revy, a muscular man walked forward while taking his shirt off. He had a furry beard and a friendly face as he smiled at Rin who he walked right towards. "Calm yourself brother," he told the younger man who stared at him in utter confusion. Theseus walked right up to Rin's side but was looking past him. Rin heard growling on his other side and spun to look back where he saw Amaimon pushing himself back up on his feet. The Demon King of Earth had a nickel-sized hole in his left cheek and another matching it on the other side of his face as the beam had gone through and through. He glared past the men in front of him all the way back to the woman with many guns strapped to her body who gulped at this demon's fury-filled expression.

Amaimon took a step, then froze and snapped his attention to the floor that was shaking beneath him. Rin looked down too in shock as a thick metal pipe ripped right out of the floor. The pipe busted open and hundreds of gallons of water shot out of it and slammed into the surprised demon who was thrown back by the force of it all. "Hahaha!" Theseus laughed heartily as the demon slammed into a wall on the other side of the grand entrance hall of the Dread Fort.

"Who are you? Why are you helping me?" Rin was too confused and he spun from Amaimon back to the older man next to him. He looked back Amaimon's way and watched as the demon slashed his claws down to separate all the water around him, only for the water that splashed to his sides to morph into three dozen fists. Amaimon's jaw dropped, then the solid water fists shot towards him and started beating him from every angle.

"I am Theseus, son of Poseidon," the man next to Rin began. "And from that conversation you had with Lord Pheles, I believe I heard you say you are half human, did I not?" Rin looked confused but nodded his head and Theseus laughed again. "I did not know Satan had any children with humans!" He patted a hand hard on Rin's back and grinned as the blue flames did not hurt him, though Rin had to make sure they did not in the very short time he had before Theseus touched him. Theseus grinned because he felt them being hot as his hand was on its way but also felt that heat vanish right before his hand entered the flames. "I feel a kinship with all fellow demigods." Theseus grabbed Rin by the shirt and pulled him to his right, surprising and confusing the teen who stumbled and almost fell from the heavy tug.

"RRAAAA!" Amaimon roared and all the water around him exploded outwards. The demon inside where all the fists were just punching snarled out at Theseus and the woman behind him with a furious expression, and Theseus rose up his fists as he looked back into Amaimon's demonic eyes.

Theseus spoke and made Rin stare at him in shock, "Go on ahead. I believe you never received a clear answer from Lord Pheles. I shall hold Amaimon here."

Rin glanced back at Revy and though the woman did not look happy about it, she nodded at the teenager covered in blue flames. Damned Gods, Revy thought in aggravation. Always getting me caught up in things I don't want to be a part of. I bet you're laughing it up right now San, though I wish you'd have stayed after dinner for this.

Rin turned back to Theseus, then looked towards Amaimon who he did not know if the other man could handle. Yet, even as he wondered if he should stay and help, a much bigger part of his mind told him to listen to Theseus. "Thank you," Rin said, bowing his head a little as he meant it with his entire being. He spun around and glared towards the hole he saw Mephisto drop into before. Mephisto! I am going to make you tell me where Yukio is!

"Hey! Get back here!" Amaimon yelled at Rin. He started sprinting forward, but a whip of water grabbed him by the leg and made him trip. He tumbled forward but jumped right out of it and slammed a fist forward at the demigod who punched towards him at the same moment. The two of them collided fists and a shockwave rippled out from the connecting, before Theseus grunted in pain and his arm bent behind that fist, then the fist hit him in the chest and sent him flying backwards with a loud grunt of pain. Amaimon charged after him to finish him off before going for Rin, but the woman far behind Theseus dropped her sniper and as she sprinted forward she whipped the twin submachine guns off her sides. She pointed them forward and fired dozens of yellow beams in Amaimon's direction and the demon yelled out in pain as there were too many to avoid.

"Damn it!" Amaimon yelled as he dove to the right and got behind a pillar that shook violently as Revy's beam bullets slammed into the other side of it. Amaimon snapped his head back angrily and roared, "RIN!"

---

"Ugh," Malx Lewx stumbled into a room and he stared forward in surprise as he stumbled upon a fight. The two figures fighting were pressing a leg into a shield and the wind coming off of the collision slammed into him making him cross his arms in front of his chest.

Vexen's eyes darted to the side of the room and he smirked, "Malx Lewx! Come here!" The mutant Nobody looked over and nodded his head. He lifted his hands and lights shone in either of them, making Sanji look over too and see a pair of cutlasses appearing in midair. Malx swung his hands forward and grabbed both curved weapons, then spun them around in his hands, twirling them and spinning them around his body, masterfully dual-wielding them. He sprinted forward and his entire body covered in sharp quills making Sanji grimace even more as he kicked off the shield and landed away from Vexen.

How the Hell do I kick that guy? Sanji thought as the man's body was covered in a seemingly-impermeable defense. Sanji was panting heavily and he cursed under his breath. Jixsan and that explosion took too much out of me. Even if Sora healed my physical wounds, I'm too tired for a two-on-one against these Nobodies. Vexen smirked as he could see how tired Sanji was, and Malx Lewx chuckled too as he pointed his curved swords forward at the pirate chef. Sanji took another step back, then out from a hole in the ceiling right above him dropped a figure who landed in front of him a few feet.

The smaller figure who landed on the ground stood there on two feet, arms crossed in front of him, spiky white hair above his head, and a smug look on his face. He opened his mouth to say something but sniffed a few times and snapped his gaze down in surprise, before panicking as his right sleeve must have caught on fire as he made his way through the flaming basement above. He patted that sleeve down fast and then took a deep breath before turning sideways and smirking at Sanji, "Could you use a hand?" It was not the entrance Killua wanted to make, but Sanji let out a deep breath before grinning himself like the kid already was.

"Thanks Kil, my bad," he said. Killua nodded as he thought Sanji meant about getting cornered like this, but Sanji continued, "It was stupid to doubt you. You really are a good kid." Killua turned away from Sanji fast and a deep frown came to his face. First Rin, now Sanji. I told them I was Luthor's spy! What the Hell are they talking about?! Killua shook the thoughts from his mind as Vexen was glaring in a very angry way in his direction.

"Grr," Vexen growled gutturally. Malx looked confused and Vexen explained, "Another of the ones who entered the city with Jixsan, Xirn, Swixes, Manix, Bronxi, and Xoupps' Somebodies." Malx's eyes opened huge as Vexen mentioned that final name and he gulped, something both Sanji and Killua caught onto and seemed very strange to them. Vexen continued, "Take care of him, I can defeat the pirate on my own." Vexen lifted back off the ground and shot forward faster than before.

He thinks that guy can take me on? Killua wondered, a smug smirk coming to his face. He raced forward, then stopped himself and dove to the right as fast as he could as all the quills surrounding his opponent's body shot out at once. Killua swerved around some of them but one nicked his right arm and he winced in pain. He stopped and snapped his gaze back to the mutant with a furious expression, but Malx Lewx's body had already re-covered in quills that provided him with more than just a defense apparently. Killua frowned and in the corner of his vision he saw Sanji and Vexen go smashing through a wall into a different part of the basement that was even darker than the one he was currently in.

Malx walked over towards that hole in the wall then turned towards Killua, standing in his way in case the kid wanted to go after Sanji. "You do not want to do this," Killua warned, his appearance looking terrifying all of a sudden with a dark purple aura around him. Malx spun around his cutlasses and slashed them across each other in front of his body to create sparks, then he slashed those two blades down at the ground. Once they hit the floor, the ground in front of him spiked up, and the ground past that spiked up, and the entire floor between him and Killua covered in thin, sharp stalagmites. They shot up and Killua jumped back then jumped back again as they kept rising towards him. Damn, these Nobodies have too many powers.

Almost as soon as Killua thought it, Malx rose his hands that continued to hold his sharp swords in them, and out from the ground on either side of him arose eight Nobodies, sixteen in total. They were three feet tall, short and pudgy, but had arms covered in sharp spikes as did their legs, making them look almost like short silver cacti. "Go," Malx ordered, a smirk coming to his face as Killua's scary aura was gone and he realized it really was just an intimidation tactic the kid had been trying to use.

Killua glared at the man who was smirking like he was in control of the fight, and he reached down to the floor that he felt would spike up soon and try to catch him off guard. Killua's fingers dug straight into the ground and the kid lifted up, making Malx drop his jaw as Killua ripped a huge section of the ground off of the, ground. He lifted it up, then punched the back of it and sent huge chunks of cement flying through the room, smashing through Nobodies, spikes of ground, and towards the Nobody himself who tried slashing the rocks apart with his swords but wound up getting pushed back anyway.

Not far from the room Killua and Malx were fighting, another fight was causing a lot of shaking inside the Dread Fort. Holes were opening on the ceiling for reasons other than the raging fires on the floors above, and walls were cracking from the collisions every time these two attacked each other.

"Diable Jambe!"

"Ice Barrier!"

Sanji's fiery kick slammed into a wall of ice so thick that the longer he pressed into it, the colder his foot got. The ice is too strong! I can't break through!

Vexen smirked on the other side of the ice and Sanji saw it through the veil. He realized it too late and leapt backwards as the wall of ice shattered, and inside the wall were over a dozen swords of ice that locked onto him and shot after. He landed on the cracked floor of a darker part of the basement far from the destroyed Integration Chamber. The chef held up his arms crossed in front of his body and yelled out in pain as the swords slammed into him.

He was slower now than earlier and Vexen grinned as he stepped towards the pirate. "Hmm, seems that Jixsan managed to hurt you after all. However, your damn useless Nobody is nowhere to be found, and in this situation, I suppose I could not be blamed for using, excessive force." Sanji lowered his bloody arms and stared forward while panting at the scientist who had a dim light cast over him from holes in the ceiling that revealed a flaming upper floor of the Dread Fort.

"You're going to take away my Nobody's chance at becoming whole?" Sanji wondered between staggered breaths. "Unless you've already merged with your own Somebody, that doesn't seem like a smart idea." Vexen froze and thought about what Sanji was saying. The pirate trying to catch a break smirked and continued, "I'm a pretty vengeful guy, so if you take me out, I wouldn't be surprised if Jixsan went straight for your Somebody's throat if they meet."

Vexen's teeth ground against each other and he snapped his gaze to Sanji angrier than ever. "You think you're so smart?" He snapped in a snide, furious voice. "If your Nobody can't accept it, I'll kill him too!" Vexen roared and a wind rushed around him as he rose his arms. Sanji tried jumping, but he only made it five feet up in the air before the glacier that suddenly emerged from the ground below him caught his legs. It was meant to capture his entire body, but he rose high enough that it only got his legs up to his upper thighs trapped in a thick coating of ice.

Sanji tugged as hard as he could but he was frozen still. A larger hole opened in the ceiling near them as part of it fell into their dark room. The chunk of ceiling was covered in flames on the top side, making a flickering flame light the brightest thing in their dark basement. It cast a dark red light on Vexen's face as the Nobody lifted off the ground and floated towards Sanji, the air getting colder and making Sanji shiver even worse than he already was. He tugged more and Vexen laughed at him straight to his face as he floated closer, lifting up his shield and pointing one of the dark blue spikes on it straight at Sanji's chest while the chef leaned back to get away from it.

"Excuse me," a voice said behind Vexen. Vexen froze and Sanji's eyes opened twice as large as the annoyed Nobody's did.

Vexen was shaking with rage and he spun around while shouting, "Will somebody just let me finish killing this bastard alrea-" Vexen stopped shouting and his entire body tensed up. Sanji's jaw continued to drop as the figure that floated down from the ceiling landed at the base of the glacier, down below where Sanji and Vexen were in midair. Vexen held his shield in front of Sanji's chest and he really wanted to jab the point through the pirate already, but the look on the man below's face had him hesitating.

The purple-haired man in a white top hat and white cape smirked up towards the two of them with a smirk and a confident expression on his face. "If you could please hold off," Mephisto began to the scientist. He held up one hand and continued, "I believe we can settle this in a different way. Let me-"

"You have no say here," Vexen snarled. The Nobody lifted his head and looked down his nose at the figure below who he was already looking down at before this. "You were invited to the Dread Fort as a guest. Do not overstep your bounds, hellspawn." Sanji's eyes opened wide as he noticed a twitch on Mephisto's face at that word, almost like it was some sort of derogatory slang and Vexen knew it because the Nobody scoffed at the demon who started frowning up at him. "Now if you'll excuse me," Vexen continued and started turning around, pulling his shield back as he did, "I am going to finish off this scum!" He jabbed his shield forward.

Sanji watched as the shield neared him, and continued to get closer, and got closer for almost five seconds. Vexen's face turned to an expression of shock, slowly. As it was only halfway to looking shocked, Vexen dropped from the air like a rock and slammed into the ground with a heavy thud. The ice beneath Sanji shattered an instant later and the chef dropped down to the ground. He shook his legs off which were stiff after being frozen for some time, then he stopped moving altogether as fear filled him. The room had been decently lit because of the holes in the ceiling and the flaming chunks of upper floor that had fallen through, but that light suddenly vanished and was replaced with a dark purple color that surrounded everything around them.

Sanji lifted his gaze from the man being flattened to the ground by some unknown force. He followed up the white cloak touching the floor up the man's legs to his face that at that moment looked truly terrifying. There were few things in Sanji's entire life that scared him more than what he was seeing right now. "The only scum I see," Mephisto began in a dark voice that echoed around the darkness, "is the Nobody in front of me."

Mephisto looked up and still with that demonic expression on his face continued, "I have become rather fond of Sanji in our short time talking in the courtyard earlier." As Mephisto looked back down, Sanji thought, Holy shit. Thank you God. How the Hell did I get lucky enough to make friends with this demon? He was panicking mentally despite how it seemed like he was safe from this demon's wrath.

Vexen pressed his hands down on the ground below him and he struggled to lift up even the tiniest amount. He lifted his head and looked up at the demon with a scared look on his face, "Just, who are you, Mephisto Pheles?"

Mephisto chuckled darkly and Sanji's body drenched in sweat, as did Vexen's. "Ha ha ha," he chuckled darkly. "You think Mephisto Pheles is my real name? I am the King of Time, Samael." The statement had Vexen trembling in terror and Mephisto continued loudly and hatefully, "Second most powerful of the Eight Demon Kings of Hell. I am the embodiment of time itself, and you, are no one." Flames suddenly appeared all over the darkness, the only spot they were not burning was directly beneath Sanji and around him in a five foot radius. The chef covered in even more sweat from all the heat around him, but he did not complain as he could have been caught in the center of the flames like his enemy who writhed around on the ground as demonic flames surrounded him. Vexen screamed out in agony and his skin started melting, and Mephisto continued casually, "Tell Saix I appreciate his hospitality, if you ever make it out of Hell."

"AAAHHH! EEE! HELP ME!" Vexen's sizzling skin got darker and wisps of black came off his skin and floated above him. "NOO! I DON'T WANT TO DISAPPEAR!"

Mephisto frowned as Vexen started to be destroyed. The demon spoke darkly, "Do not worry, I will not let you fade like other Nobodies." The floor ripped open and the flames around Vexen grew higher while arms came out of the ground and grabbed onto him. Vexen started screaming even louder and Mephisto finished as he was dragged down into Hell, "After all, I am a demon. That fate, would be too kind." The floor closed back up and Vexen was gone, the flames vanished, the deeper darkness disappeared, and Sanji stood motionless in front of the demon that was now easily the most terrifying thing he had ever seen after that display. Mephisto lifted his gaze to Sanji who flinched, and the demon did not laugh as flinching was an expected reaction that a human would have after witnessing something like that.

The Demon King of Time reached up and tipped his hat to the pirate. "I hope we meet again, Sanji of the Straw Hats." As soon as he finished the word 'Hats,' Mephisto was gone. Sanji did a three-sixty spin wondering where he went but there was no sign of the purple-haired demon anywhere. Sanji looked down and watched as a blue shield lying on the floor burst into a bright white light and then the light particles faded away, leaving nothing left of Vexen. Sanji stared at the undamaged floor and imagined what he saw when that floor ripped open a minute ago, That was, Hell? That was Hell. That's what a demon is? Rin, is a demon like that?

A figure dropped down from a hole in the ceiling and Sanji took a step backwards with huge eyes. There was a teenager standing in front of him, covered head to toe in blue flames, those flames brighter on the front of his hair where they spiked up like horns. "Sanji!" The figure yelled in a furious voice and Sanji's face covered in sweat. "Did you see Mephisto here?!" Rin roared. "He knows where my brother is!"

In a hoarse voice, Sanji muttered, "You just missed him."

"RAA!" Rin roared in anger. He looked back up and jumped straight back out of the basement. The look on his face was not one showing that he had completely lost himself, but he looked so angry that Sanji did not know what else to do except answer his question. Once Rin was gone, Sanji let out a deep breath and calmed himself down. It was only the fact that he was thinking about Rin being like Mephisto right before the teen dropped down into the basement that Sanji got so afraid, but now he chided himself mentally for looking at the teen that way. Wait a second, maybe… Sanji gulped, but allowed himself to continue the thought, maybe, if Mephisto, or Samael, or Time, if he really is the physical embodiment of time… Sanji got too off track with his thought and shook his head to re-focus. Maybe, since he really does seem to like me, I could get him to tell me where Rin's brother is. It's worth a shot, though he thought it, the idea of searching back out that demon made a pit so large form in Sanji's gut that it weighed him down. He looked up and grimaced while thinking, Damn, why do we have to travel with so many crazy people?

---

"Move!"

"Everyone off the street!"

Luffy slammed down into the ground and rolled legs over head several times over the road. He felt Saix coming down and pushed his right hand down hard, sending himself flying back up in the air. Saix flew right past him and even the extra length that being in his Berserk form gave his weapon Lunatic, the sharp edges of his claymore missed Luffy. He smashed the blue spikes at the end of Lunatic into the floor and the entire street under his weapon broke down. Chunks of pavement flew to the sides of the road and smashed through windows and walls alike and screams rang out from those buildings.

Saix snapped his head up and glared his glowing eyes at the pirate rising in the air above him. "Twin Jet Pistol!" Luffy yelled and punched down twice. His fists slammed into Saix, one in his chest and the other on the left side of his face. Saix got pushed back a foot from the first one, and his head snapped a little to the side with the second, then he glared back up at Luffy and snarled with a mouth full of sharp teeth. The pirate's eyes were huge as he dropped down to the ground and Saix shot towards him. He crossed his arms while Berserk Saix rose up his weapon, and Luffy's feet only touched the ground right when Saix brought the claymore down so he had no time to dodge. Luffy turned his forearms black with Haki though, and when Saix hit the point where Luffy's arms crossed, an enormous explosion of white light went off around them.

Lightning crackled in the air and Saix's bright aura flared, while Luffy's dilated pupils shook and the aura that exuded off of him lifted rocks and made them swirl around him. Windows of buildings in a mile radius of Luffy shattered and the glass flew outside in a twister with a center on the destroyed road Luffy and Saix were standing on. The pavement beneath Luffy's feet pushed down, but at least it stayed beneath them unlike the rest of the road around them which broke apart then flew away because of the swirling wind the two of them were creating with their fight. Luffy uncrossed his arms and punched a steaming, black fist up into Saix's face, but Saix pushed his cheek the other way into the fist and he swiped Lunatic across his body, nailing Luffy in the side of the head with it and making the pirate cough up blood.

The sharp white aura on the edge of the blade cut into Luffy's rubbery skin for a millisecond before he hardened his head with Armament Haki to avoid getting hurt worse. He still got lifted off the ground by the force of the hit though, and thrown into a building on the side of the road that he broke through, then smashed through the one behind it which was an apartment building full of people who screamed as Luffy flew through one wall and right out the other. Luffy flew over a half mile before spinning and hitting the ground that he did cartwheels over uncontrollably until he hit a hard cement wall that stopped his momentum, but did gain a Luffy-sized indent in it.

Luffy gasped out in pain as he finally stopped moving, but he ground his teeth and snapped his eyes back open angrily and looking okay. All the bouncing around the city did not damage him as much as it would someone else, because he was made of rubber. He pulled an arm out of the wall and muttered, "That weapon he has though. Ugh," he yanked his other arm out of the wall, then kicked both his legs out, before smashing them back into the wall his whole torso was lodged in. The wall crumbled and Luffy fell with the debris down to the floor. He landed on his feet and looked up and down the road to where he saw Saix floating down from above a building he just flew over. Saix stopped when he touched down, and the man with spiky blue hair held his arms up to the sky. His eyes were back to normal, so were his teeth and his hair, and now he looked to be regaining the strength he was just at as a white light surrounded his arms and looked thicker near his fingers while a thin white veil moved from the air onto him.

Luffy snapped his gaze up and frowned as there were no clouds in the sky, so it looked like his opponent had a limitless amount of energy. But, he has to absorb more every once in a while. When he's like he is now, I should attack him. Luffy pumped his legs again and took a deep breath to calm himself as he did, as using Gear Second so many times was going to be exhausting for his body. I can handle this much though. He breathed steadily and glared forward with a body completely covered in steam. He shot forward while leaving one arm far behind him, then stopped ten feet in front of Saix and yelled, "Gum Gum Jet Bullet!"

Saix did not lower his arms, but he did not need to block Luffy's attack. Out from thin air in front of Saix appeared a Berserker Nobody with his hammer weapon held in front of him. Luffy's powerful blow knocked away the hammer easily, but when it hit the Nobody it stopped moving altogether. The Berserker exploded into light, but when the light had faded, directly behind that vanished light was Saix, smirking with sharpening teeth and a body covered in a white aura again. Luffy's eyes went wide and he shot up in the air right as Saix brought his arms down and smashed his weapon. He smashed it on the floor, then smashed it again and again in the same spot in a rage while his eyes glowed yellow.

The rubberman in the air yelled out, "Hawk AXE!" The leg he threw up in the air turned black and he slammed it down into Saix's back, making flames shoot out of the man's front as it slammed him into the ground he had just annihilated. The entire street below and the buildings on either side of it were collapsing, but on top of all that falling rubble, Saix got to his feet and glared up with his glowing eyes at the pirate whose own eyes opened wide at the sight of the Nobody looking fine even after that.

Saix shot up in the air and Luffy threw his fists forward at the same time while Saix swiped his weapon. The claymore knocked Luffy's punches aside, then Saix swiped up to knock Luffy higher in the air as the pirate could not fly himself and thus had less control up here. Saix hit Luffy with the flat side of his weapon, then did a full spin with it and hit him again with the same side, knocking him higher and higher up in the air. Luffy finally moved to the side as he felt it coming again, but Saix stopped before spinning it all the way, and brought his weapon in the direction Luffy dodged. Luffy knew this was coming too though, and though unable to avoid it, he yelled out, "BELL!" He slammed his head forward with a black coating on his forehead and this time Saix's head got snapped back and he flew away in the air, the edge of the sharp white aura only nicking Luffy's front, ripping his shirt and slicing his chest with a shallow wound that still made Luffy yell out, "Ahh!"

On the southern edge of the city, a man in a black suit and sunglasses stood outside of a giant pyramid. His thoughts wandered to what was going on behind him inside the Ca$ino, and mainly the lowest floor of it. Junior sighed and took a puff of his cigar, "Stupid woman should have known not to mess with the Peacock Queen. What a damn fool," he tssked and looked up in the sky, and the cigar dropped out of his mouth. He was looking up to stare at one of the full moons, when he spotted a figure floating between him and the moon with his arms raised. A glow surrounded that man, and Junior gulped as he got a better look at him, It's Lord Saix! But, what is he doing- Another figure shot towards Saix while his arms were still up, and a foot slammed into the Lord's face faster than Junior could follow.

"What the Hell?!" He exclaimed. Junior Xiong watched the two figures in the air crash into each other over and over, then Saix swung his huge weapon down and slammed the other man out of the sky and into a four-story tall building. The wall of that building closest to the entrance of the pyramid shook and a thick crack went through it from top to bottom making Junior drop his jaw even more. He noticed in that exact moment too that a different tall building he should have been able to see from that angle was no longer where it should be. "This is madness, I need to go tell…"

"Who? The Peacock Queen?" a voice asked behind him, one Junior recognized well. He started to turn and his eyes widened much, much larger at the sight of the two people behind him. He opened his mouth but instead of getting any words out, he just got a blue staff right between his top and bottom rows of teeth as Nami smashed her Clima Tact into his face. Junior did a full flip and Nami humped as the man landed flat on his face. "Serves you right," she said while he moaned there on the floor.

Riku looked at Nami and was about to ask what that guy did to her, when he caught a glimpse of what the man was looking at in the sky. He turned and lifted his gaze before dropping his jaw at the sight of who it was floating there with an aura around him. "Saix," Riku growled in a deep voice. Nami turned to him and saw Riku raising a hand and creating a Keyblade in it.

"Who is he?" Nami questioned.

"Saix," Riku began while glaring up at the man who looked like an animal in the moonlight. "The Demon Dancing in the Moon, second-in-command of Organization XIII."

"COME!" Saix shouted down and his voice echoed around the entire Dread Fort. All over the city, people stared in shock at the Lord who up until now had never acted anything but calm, cool, and level-headed. His fangs bared and he snapped his head up while roaring, "Monkey D. Luffy! Come and DIE!" Riku and Nami went wide-eyed at the sound of that then snapped their heads down to another shadow in the night sky. Luffy leapt up in the air but at that moment Saix pulled Lunatic back, and threw it at his full speed down at Luffy. The pirate lifted his arms to catch the weapon, but it was moving way too fast and pushed his hands back when he tried grabbing it by both sides.

"AHHH!" Luffy yelled out in pain as he was smashed out of the air straight into the ground. At that moment, an explosion went off at the actual fort of the Dread Fort and huge chunks of stone went flying up in the air in every direction. Many of those stones rose over the outer walls and flew into the city making people who were already running away from their shaking buildings scream in panic as giant rocks started smashing into apartments.

Beams of yellow light shot out holes in the Dread Fort's roof, and some people standing on top of a green hill in the market of the Dread Fort stared over with huge eyes. Weiss closed her dropped jaw and stepped closer to the edge of Mama Hawk, "What are those idiots doing? Do they plan on destroying everything?!"

"Hehe, seems like it," a voice said behind Weiss that made her spin around fast with huge eyes.

"Captain!" She exclaimed as he was back to his feet and not looking too bad, even his wounds seemed to have faded a little. Behind Meliodas, Elaine was feeling dizzy and Ban held out her arms to let her drop lightly into them. Weiss turned back the other way as Meliodas walked towards her, and the two of them looked off the side of the huge green boar they were standing on along with all the slaves they freed. "Is that-" Weiss began, before dropping her jaw even more as she definitely recognized the man's rubbery powers as he threw hundreds of steaming punches at Saix in midair. Meliodas scratched his chin but winced as he did and started swinging that arm he scratched with around as he continued to watch the amazing pirate in the sky. The Hawk Gattling Gun was making nonstop flames shoot out of Saix's back, but the man in Berserker form was only getting pushed back with not much damage to speak of on his body.

Luffy finally stopped, and he was panting hard as he dropped out of the air. He landed on the roof of a five story building and he frowned deeply up at his enemy. Saix glared down at the steaming pirate who managed to take Lunatic thrown full force at him and still come out of it with only a deep gash. I meant to cut through him completely! "RAAA!" Saix roared, then his eyes lost their glow and he calmed down a little as he started panting. "Moon, give me more power!" He threw his arms back up and light from the moon came down and started surrounding him again.

NOW! Luffy stuck both thumbs in his mouth and bit down on them hard. He blew in and yelled, "Third Gear: Bone Balloon!" Anyone watching the fight or thinking about jumping in froze and their eyes opened huge at the sight on top of that tall building, one of the tallest ones in the Dread Fort. Two hands emerged, each one wider than half the building so that they were hanging off the sides, and both of those giant hands were steaming as Luffy did this still in Gear Second. He started panting heavier and his chest was puffing out as he took staggered breaths. Luffy snapped his gaze up and then leapt towards Saix, leaving his arms right over the building as he did so that his arms stretched out long and thin between him and his massive hands.

He rose towards Saix who glared down at him as his entire body covered in a thick white aura again. "ARMAMENT- HARDENING!" Luffy's fists turned black and they continued to steam as he rose even higher towards Saix so that he was only twenty meters away, then fifteen, ten…

Saix lowered his arms and Lunatic reappeared in his hands. His blue hair stuck up behind him and waved around in the strong wind that whipped around him, his eyes glowed bright like the two moons high above him, and he opened up his sharp teeth and yelled, "GET OUT OF MY CITY!" He rose up his arms and his entire Lunatic glowed so bright that it was impossible to see the silver and blue steel of it anymore. It looked like a seven-foot long, glowing-white, melee weapon with a dozen sharp points at the end each one a foot long themselves. His weapon got longer and glowed brighter, and he brought it down the same moment Luffy threw both of his arms up at him.

"FLAMING GRIZZLY MAGNUMMMMM!" Luffy's giant black fists shot up as his long extended arms retracted. He threw his hands in front of him and right as they passed the sides of his body they burst into flames. A huge white slash came off of Saix's glowing weapon and flew down at Luffy's hands, flaming hands that shot up so fast that they pushed through the slash without pausing a single moment. Saix's moon-like eyes widened, a second before the huge fists both much larger than his own body slammed into his weapon, pushed it aside, and smashed straight into his own body. "RAAAA!" Luffy yelled as he pushed harder and harder, and the white aura that surrounded Saix and protected him in his Berserker form flickered, flickered, and went away causing the man to open his clenched sharp teeth and let out a blood-filled gasp.

Luffy's fists collided with Saix and all around the city people watching dropped their jaws in shock. The Lord of the Dread Fort's weapon lost its glow and fell out of the air on the side of Luffy's long arms that kept extending up for a few more seconds before finally coming to a stop, a stop which did not stop Saix's momentum at all. The blue-haired Nobody went flying off Luffy's hands, flying up into the sky beneath the moon and casting a shadow down over part of the city below. Saix's eyes lost their glow and he coughed, blood splattering out of his mouth. He stared up at the moon he was soaring towards, I, am not ready, to die. I don't, want to.

---

"Where the Hell did that kid go?" Malx muttered as he treaded through the lowest basements of the Dread Fort. He had a huge number of quills sticking out of his body for protection and every step he took he made spikes shoot out of the ground in case the extremely fast kid tried ambushing him from one of his sides. He did this for over a minute, before coming to a stop and looking around him confusedly. "Yo, you even still here?" He was in a lit up room and could see all the walls, and the kid was nowhere in sight. "Huh," he mumbled, a bead of sweat dripping down the left side of his face.

Two rooms away, Killua leapt in front of Sora and punched his fist into the sitar being swung down at him. "Killua!" Sora exclaimed in surprise as the kid showed up out of nowhere.

"I'll take this guy Sora, you focus on the others," Killua said in a confident tone. He pushed Demyx back and smirked thinking about that guy he left nervously wandering around in a different part of the basement.

Demyx groaned loudly at the appearance of another fighter to stop him from taking his revenge on Sora and make the odds look a little more even. "Axel, take care of this guy alright?" Demyx told the red-haired man on his left.

Axel looked his way and chuckled, "Do it yourself Demyx, rank IX of the Organization." Mentioning Demyx's rank made him drop his jaw as minutes before Axel was not even a part of the Organization, yet he was already pulling the rank card.

"Man this blows," Demyx mumbled. He glared ahead at Killua though and suddenly looked serious which made the kid tense up as he wondered what powers this man had. "Alright, take this!" He strummed his sitar and five whips of water shot away from him in every direction, then curved in towards Killua. The kid raced forward, but three Dancer Nobodies emerged out of the floor in front of Demyx and got in his way. The kid leapt up in the air to dodge the Nobodies and the water whips, then he pulled out a steel yo-yo from his pocket and flicked it down at Demyx. The Nobody looked up and the yo-yo hit him in the face, crushing his already-broken nose in one blow and cracking some of his teeth.

"AHHH!" He yelled out in pain as he slammed into the ground. Killua's left hand's fingernails extended and he dropped towards the man lying on his front, but Demyx snapped his bloody face up and roared, "RAAA!" Around him formed a dome of water that expanded ten times and slammed into a stunned Killua who got knocked back by the force of it all the way into a wall he slammed into. The wall started crumbling but when Killua opened the eyes he closed in wincing pain, his eyes shot open wide at the sight of ten whips of water curving in towards him. He crossed his arms, but the whips slammed into him forcefully anyway despite the Nen barrier he surrounded himself with.

"Kil!" Sora yelled towards a wall that collapsed around the falling kid and flaming debris from above fell down on top of him. Sora took a step, then his eyes opened huge as two Keyblades were swinging towards his face. All he could do was let out a half-yelp before getting slammed by Roxas's weapons and knocked back so hard he slammed into the wall on the opposite side of the room as Killua.

The wall was already mostly broken, so Sora's body lay half over a broken piece of it and he slowly leaned up to look in front of him where Roxas was marching his way with Axel standing behind him with a deep frown on his face. Roxas yelled as he marched towards his Somebody, "Damn it Sora! Pay attention or I'm really going to capture you!" He shot forward and slammed his Keyblades down, but right before they hit the teen with spiky brown hair, Sora shot his hands up and caught both of the Keyblades by the shafts.

Roxas's eyes opened huge as Sora stood up to his feet, and from only a foot away looked him in the eyes. "Roxas, who are you trying to fool? Me? Yourself? I can't tell anymore." Roxas's enraged expression faltered and Sora released Roxas's weapons, allowing the other boy to lower them down to his side. Roxas had a defeated look on his face and could not say anything back to him. Sora put a hand on Roxas's right shoulder and looked over it towards Axel who smiled smugly at him again. Sora shook his head at Axel but that only made the taller man chuckle darkly his direction.

"Oi," a voice called out and everyone in the room turned. Axel looked behind him and Demyx turned away from the pile of rubble to look towards the hole in the wall a figure in a torn up suit walked through. Sanji pointed a thumb over his shoulder and said, "Vexen's gone."

Demyx's eyes popped open wide though Axel just smirked some more as he made eye contact with the pirate chef. Sanji was confused at Axel's reaction, but the red head said smugly, "Wish I could've been the one to do that."

"Oi Axel, this isn't funny," Demyx said and spun fully to look at the man a rank above him in the Organization. "If Vexen's been destroyed, we're running out of help here! We should return to HQ before-" Squelch! Demyx froze mid-sentence and everyone looking his way dropped their jaws. He lowered his gaze down and stared at the hand with sharp nails sticking through his chest. He turned his head sideways and in a raspy voice began, "What the, fuck," he looked into Killua's eyes but the kid was not grinning, he lost the smug look he had at catching Demyx off guard.

Kil pulled his hand back out of the man's body and looked at it hesitantly. The red on his arm sizzled black and disappeared, and Killua gulped as he looked back at the man's body in front of him. The guy stumbled away and Killua muttered, "I, didn't feel a heart." He had tried piercing it, but when his hand went through he did not feel anything inside Demyx's chest. The hole in Demyx's chest was not bleeding red, but black, a black ooze that came out of him and started surrounding his body.

Demyx stumbled away and fell to his knees between Axel, Sanji, and Killua. "No, no no," he brought his hands to the side of his head. "Not again. I, I didn't even, get to, find, my heart," a tear came out of Demyx's left eye, then he snapped his head back and yelled a heart-wrenching yell, right before the ground opened up with darkness and he faded away inside it.

Axel was the first to look away from the fading blackness on the ground. He turned to his left and saw through another hole in the wall, a man covered in spikes who started running towards him. "Hey," Malx Lewx began as he jumped between Axel and Roxas. He made a triangle formation with them and had some sweat all over his face. "This is bad. We no longer have a number advantage," there were three Nobodies in the middle of the room, with Sanji, Sora, and Killua on the sides. Malx looked Sora's way, and he said seriously, "The boss wants us to bring Sora at all costs, but we should-"

"Just shut up already," a voice said behind Malx. He opened his eyes wide and spun around, then gasped and hunched forward. Everyone else in the room stared in shock at the man with large spikes of red in his hair who had his Keyblade stuck forward with the point straight in Malx's chest. Axel narrowed his eyes into Malx's and began in a low voice, "Do you remember my friend Black Star? The one you tortured for fun when you first captured us. It's time for a little payback," Axel twisted the Keyblade in the Nobody of Quill's chest, then yanked to the side and Malx stumbled backwards with darkness seeping out of him.

"No, you can't," Malx lifted a hand and his sword was shaking there, then his sword fizzled away into light particles and he stared at his hand in horror. "Why?" Malx whispered, then just like Demyx, he faded away.

Axel stared at the spot the mutant disappeared from for a few seconds, then heard someone behind him say, "Axel?" He turned back and saw Roxas looking at him confusedly and Sora walking up to his side with just as confused a look.

"Oh come on guys," Axel said and he laughed out loud. "I'm hurt at how easy it was to trick you! I would have thought you'd have some more faith in me." He lowered his Keyblade and Sora and Roxas's eyes were turning huge, and Sora had a huge smile brimming on his face. "We're friends, got it memorized?" Axel asked.

"Axel!" Sora yelled happily.

Killua stared at the man hesitantly for a few seconds. Could he just be tricking us because he realized he was on the losing side? Sora seems to trust him, but Sora's a trusting guy. Killua glanced towards Sanji to see what the pirate thought of this, but Sanji, seeing that the fight was over, closed his eyes and fell right down on his back in exhaustion.

"Axel, you," Roxas began. "What are you doing?" He questioned.

"I'm helping you guys out, isn't it obvious?" Axel asked back. He stepped forward and pulled Roxas towards him to pat him on the back. "But man, you haven't grown at all! You're still just a squirt!"

"Hey! I'm taller than I was before!" Roxas yelled at the man who was just unnaturally tall. "Besides, I'm still growing anyway!"

"Yeah yeah, barely," Axel teased, and Roxas fumed.

"So Axel, when did you get a Keyblade?" Sora wondered.

Axel opened his mouth, but Roxas interrupted, "Wait, first," he looked around and spoke in a lower voice, "what are we going to do? I mean, Saix is still around. He knows Sora's here, and if I don't capture him…"

"Then Naminé gets it, right?" Axel asked. He caught some of what Saix said to Roxas earlier and he understood now why his best friend was here. "You really like that girl, huh?" Roxas nodded seriously at him and Axel sighed, scratching the back of his head. "Well that complicates things doesn't it?"

Killua walked towards the three Keybearers in the center of the room with hesitation in his step. What King Neptune 1 said to Sora about fixing the worlds, what I know about the Keyblades, these three right here are insanely powerful, they must be. Killua saw them all turning towards him and he tried not to let it show how important he thought they all were. "So, what are we going to do?"

"Who are you?" Roxas questioned the kid.

"This is my friend," Sora began before Killua could introduce himself. "Kil, meet Axel and Roxas."

The younger kid nodded at the Nobodies and said, "Killua." They nodded back then Killua repeated, "So, any ideas on how to fix this problem we have?"

Axel and Roxas looked stumped, but Sora started laughing and they looked at him confusedly. "What problem?" Sora wondered. "The only ones who saw me besides Saix were Vexen, Demyx, and that Malx guy. And since Saix isn't a problem, you'll be able to head back to your HQ without raising any suspicion."

"Wait wait," Axel looked confused and tilted his head at Sora. "What do you mean by that? Why won't Saix be a problem?"

Killua realized what Sora was saying and he chuckled himself, "Oh, so that's where Luffy's been."

"You think that rubber guy was able to handle Saix on his own?" Axel asked. "He has absorbed Isa," he reminded in case Sora forgot.

The spiky haired teen scratched his chin then shrugged his shoulders. "Why don't we go find out?" He offered. He jogged to the other side of the room and reached down, picking up Sanji and putting the unconscious pirate over his shoulder. "Nice job taking out Vexen," Sora told him, and Sanji was not awake to tell him what really happened in his fight. "Come on guys," Sora called out, not waiting for anyone to second guess him as he did want to see if Luffy needed help anyway. He leapt up through the holes in the ceiling and kept rising until he was on the main floor of the Dread Fort.

Roxas, Axel, and Killua all decided to just go with it and they jumped up as well. Roxas did a frontflip in midair on his way up and Axel hovered his way once his jump lost momentum, while Killua just put enough force in his hop to make it in one leap. They landed behind Sora who walked to the side of the huge hall they were in and put Sanji down next to a few injured people with burns on them. There was a muscular man with long black hair who looked badly wounded with deep gashes on his arms, exposed chest, and back, but he was the only one standing in the group and was moving around water with motions of his hands. That water wrapped up the wounds of other people on the main floor of the Dread Fort and Sora watched in surprise as those wounds started fading.

"Could you help him out too?" Sora asked Theseus. The demigod turned and nodded at Sora, and Sora continued while resting Sanji down next to him, "I would help you out, but if Saix is still around I'm going to need my magic. I'll be back though to heal everyone in a little bit." Sora turned and jogged away while Theseus stared at him, and then the demigod's eyes opened huge as Sora lifted his right hand while running and formed a weapon with a strange shape in his hand.

"It can't be," Theseus began, standing up and forgetting about healing everyone for a moment. Three others jogged by him and the man with long curly hair chuckled to himself and shook his head. "I must be mistaken," he said while Killua was still within earshot. The kid pretended not to slow down and eavesdrop, but he did grimace as he heard the man who turned to keep healing people say, "Three of them in the same place? Ha. If the Guardians were already gathering this soon, Nexus would be on the brink of destruction." He laughed loudly despite the bead of sweat rolling down the left side of his face, and though he told himself not to, he wound up glancing towards the entrance of the Dread Fort again.

Guardians? Killua thought with sweat covering both sides of his face. He's talking about the Guardians of Light, the ones in the message King Mickey left Sora. I knew it. Killua came to a stop and watched the others leave the Dread Fort ahead of him. He turned and looked back at the muscular man, and started walking that way with a narrowed expression on his face. What do you know?

Out front of the Dread Fort, Sora, Roxas, and Axel hopped down broken steps and upturned earth to get inside what they thought was the courtyard, even if most of the walls had fallen down. They looked around at the devastation around them and spotted some smoke rising from outside the actual fort's walls, coming from out in the city. "Looks like the fight was hard fought," Sora mentioned, not looking as confident as he did downstairs. He lifted his Keyblade and darted his eyes around, wondering where Luffy and Saix were. Suddenly, he had a strange feeling and lifted his head to look straight up, making his jaw drop as he did.

Roxas and Axel saw the stunned look on Sora's face and they followed his gaze to the sky. Both of them dropped their jaws too, then lowered their gazes to follow the object they saw falling from the sky. Sora hopped backwards so he was right in between the two Nobodies, and the three of them watched as a battered man with long blue hair dropped from the sky right on the spot Sora was just standing. He hit the ground so hard that an uplifted chunk of stone on their right got knocked loose from its position and rolled into an unsteady wall, breaking straight through it and making another section of courtyard wall collapse.

Past all the dust rising up, near the entrance of the Dread Fort's courtyard, or at least where the entranceway used to be considering the walls on both sides of it were gone now, three dozen soldiers running towards the Dread Fort to back up their Lord came to abrupt stops. There were no Nobodies around them which was very odd considering how bad shape the city was in. They stared forward and wondered what was going on, but they all looked inwards as a figure pushed through their ranks. He shoved people to the sides with his shoulders and did not care when they yelled at him. He had two bloody gashes on his chest, one of them a lot deeper than the other, and there was a lot of blood coming down the right side of his head.

"Who are you?!"

"He's the one who was fighting Lord Saix!"

"Take him out!"

Luffy's pupils dilated and every person around him collapsed to the ground in the next second. The aura that burst out from him broke all of their already shaky wills and two of the three in the courtyard opened their eyes wide in surprise at that action. Roxas and Axel glanced at each other, then back to the man who they realized why Sora had so much faith in him now. Then, their gazes fell back to the hole that lost all the dust around it and showed a man on his knees with his head pointed up at the sky. He wanted to raise his arms, but they were in too much pain and he could not get in the position to absorb more power from the moon.

"I feel it coming," Saix said in a low voice. Luffy stopped walking on his other side when he was ten feet away, and the pirate wondered what the man was talking about. His Flaming Grizzly Magnum hit hard, but the man was still able to speak and it surprised the pirate who wondered if these Nobodies got any stronger than Saix. Saix bowed his head then turned it and looked up at the three behind him, "My time on this world has come to an end."

Roxas and Sora stood side by side and Saix let out a sigh at the sight of them not fighting. He turned to Axel next and Axel stepped towards him so they were the closest ones to each other. "Saix," he began, "I understand now." A saddened look spread on the man's face and he continued, "I know what you meant. I am Axel, but Lea is not gone, just as Isa must not be either. We may have kept our consciousnesses, but we are no longer one person." He steadied his expression and become more serious as he finished, "I'm sorry. We're going to take down the Organization, my friend." He said the last part with a strained voice as the wounds on Saix's body started to release dark wisps from them.

Luffy stared at his enemy in confusion. He thought he might have to continue the fight, and he asked, "What's happening?"

Saix frowned deeper as he tried to hold on but his body could not handle it. "Even with a heart," he muttered in a deep, sad voice, "us Nobodies are not meant for this world."

"He's fading away," Sora told Luffy as the pirate still looked confused. "You did it," he said, though Sora did not seem too happy about it either. He needed Saix to be defeated so Roxas and Naminé could be safe, but watching these Nobodies fade was something he never liked doing. "Saix…"

"Sora," Saix interrupted, and his voice was less sad and a lot more serious. "You have let this world continue for so long. So much suffering, so much blood has been shed," Sora's eyes widened and his fists clenched at his sides. "You were not able to anything to save the billions who have died. Actually, you were able to do everything, but you didn't." Saix's mouth curled up the slightest amount as he taunted Sora in his final moment. "The Organization will hunt you down," he said.

"They can try," Sora said confidently. "But I'm going to take you all down, and defeat Xemnas again!"

"Defeat Xemnas?" Saix questioned in a quieter voice as more of his body became shrouded in dark wisps. "You fool," he said, and his voice suddenly turned so much more ominous that Sora got a bead of sweat on the side of his face and all four of the people watching Saix vanish had terrible feelings in their guts. Saix chuckled darkly under his breath, "Maybe you will defeat Xemnas, but if you do, you remove the one piece that holds Nexus together." Sora's eyes opened wide and Luffy snapped his gaze over Saix to see Sora suddenly looking very, very nervous. Saix continued as his face covered in black, "His hold, over the darkness, keeps this world in check. Should he fall, a black shroud will fall over this world."

"What do you mean? What happens if Xemnas is destroyed?! Tell me, Saix!" Sora yelled all this at a black oval of darkness, but by the time he was finished shouting, they could not even make out a shape of a man inside that black any longer.

Roxas ground his teeth as he thought about the leader of the Organization. Xemnas, just what is your role in all this?

"Damn," Sora muttered as Saix vanished completely before them. Axel tssked and turned away, not letting the others see the angry expression on his face. While he was turned away too, he rose an arm and wiped the top half of his face fast. Sora continued staring at the space Saix just vanished from and he started shaking his head around. "He was just messing with us," Sora said confidently. "One last taunt to mess with us before he was gone forever. Let's try to forget it for now."

He looked around at the others and Roxas nodded slowly as ignoring it was a lot easier and less nerve-racking than deciphering what he meant. Sora finally smiled and he turned fully to look straight at his Nobody, "We did it Roxas. We won!"

Roxas hesitated for a few seconds, then the teen with dirty-blond hair smirked as well and nodded back at Sora. "Yeah, we did. I didn't think it was going to work out, but your friends really pulled through." Roxas thought about the blond pirate they left inside and the white haired kid who stayed in the main hall a few minutes ago, and then he turned his gaze to the man who put a straw hat on top of his head and walked towards them. "Thanks," Roxas said and nodded to the man, "for beating Saix." He hesitated then scratched the side of his head and looked away, "And sorry, for the other day."

Luffy thought about Roxas attacking him and Natsu out of nowhere, but he shook his head and said, "Don't worry about it. I would have won anyway if we had kept fighting."

Roxas lowered his bottom lip then called out and pointed a finger at the pirate, "As if! I totally kicked your butt!"

"You wanna go right now?" Luffy asked and grabbed his bicep.

He was bloody all over but the smirk on his face showed he was ready to continue, and after Roxas watched those thirty guards get knocked out with Luffy not even swinging a single fist, the kid held up his hands defensively. "Uh, some other time," he said, and Luffy smirked at the look on Roxas's face.

"Haha," Sora laughed and patted Roxas on the back. "I told you it would work out. My friends are really strong after all, huh?"

Roxas nodded and thought back a couple of days to when he and Sora met outside the Dread Fort to go over his plan. "We'll have to act like enemies to fool my superiors. If we can take down Saix though, I get my excuse to go after Naminé. If the Dread Fort loses it's Lord, there will be an instant power struggle for a new Lord to take over. In the meantime, I'll be "forced" to return to Headquarters to get new orders, and those headquarters…"

"Are where Naminé is? Good. I can feel Riku getting closer to me. He'll be here soon with the rest of my friends and we'll take Saix out of the picture. I promise!"

"You kept your promise," Roxas told his, friend.

Sora smiled and put both hands behind his head. "Of course I did," he said with a smirk.

Roxas sighed as he was trying to be serious there and Sora was just blowing him off. He regained a serious look on his face though and turned to the tall man next to him who had looked back their way and looked relaxed as for the first time in months he was not in chains. "Axel, I won't tell Xemnas what you did. He might figure it out though when you don't come back to Headquarters with me, but maybe he'll just think you got destroyed with the others." Roxas took a deep breath and then held out his right hand, "It was great seeing you again. Goodbye."

Axel stared at the hand Roxas held out for him to shake, and the red-haired, taller Nobody laughed in Roxas's face then smacked his hand down. Roxas gawked as he tried to make that an emotional goodbye, and neither Sora nor Axel were going along with these serious things he kept trying to do. Axel stepped towards him though and said, "I probably should head back to the Resistance and let them know I escaped, but, I've got some things to do first. And the first of those things, is to go back to HQ." Roxas's eyes turned into saucers and Axel smacked his friend on the shoulder, "I'm coming with you to help get out Naminé. Knowing you, you'd probably just botch whatever rescue attempt you're attempting if you do it on your own."

Sora started laughing while Roxas just dropped his bottom lip more. Axel lifted the hand he smacked Roxas on the shoulder with and he tapped the boy twice on the side of the head with a finger. "I told you, were friends. Got it-"

"I've got it memorized," Roxas said quick, stopping Axel from finishing his favorite phrase and making his best friend grin because of it.

"Well good," Axel said. He turned back to Sora and Luffy and said, "You're going to want to get away from the Dread Fort. We'll take our time getting back to HQ, but even if Xemnas does wait to send a team here, other Lords in the area will be sending armies to try and claim the Dread Fort and its surrounding land for themselves. The lot of you are too tired to be taking on an army right now."

"I could fight three armies," Luffy boasted as if Axel had no idea what he was talking about.

The taller man laughed out loud and held his palms up defensively. "If you say so." He turned to Roxas and then motioned with his head backwards. A portal opened out of the ground behind him and he said, "Let's get going. Don't want anyone seeing you and Sora together, do we now?" Axel turned and walked towards the portal, but rose his right hand as he did and gave a small wave that Sora returned to him figuring the wave was meant for him.

Axel disappeared into the portal, and Sora turned his gaze back to Roxas right in front of him. "Take care of yourself, okay?" Sora told his Nobody. "I'll make sure to work my way to the Organization's Headquarters, but you'll have to protect Naminé without me for a little while longer, okay?"

"I know," Roxas said. "I didn't expect it to be finished quickly, but… promise me you'll be there when I need you."

Without any hesitation, Sora nodded and said, "I promise. I know I haven't been reliable these last few years, but I'm going to make up for it Roxas. I'll help you save Naminé, and we're going to take down the Organization together." He held out his hand for his Nobody to take. Roxas looked at Sora's outstretched hand and a small smile came to his face. He reached out and took it, then Sora pulled him in suddenly and put his other arm around Roxas's back, giving him a firm hug. "We aren't the same being anymore," Sora whispered into his Nobody's ear. "You are you, and I'm me, but I don't care any less than when you were a part of me. You're still my friend Roxas. We can do this, together."

Sora pulled back and Roxas stared at him wide-eyed for a few seconds, before nodding his head confidently at his Somebody. Roxas turned away and walked towards the still-open portal. He stepped straight through it without turning back, and Luffy watched as the dark oval closed behind him. The pirate stared at the space they vanished into for a few seconds, then he noticed something on his left that caught his attention. Luffy turned his head and saw the side of Sora's face, and he saw Sora's mouth in one of the deepest frowns he had ever seen on his face. "Sora, what's wrong?" Luffy asked and the teen turned his gaze to Luffy without losing that frown. "We just won," Luffy reminded him as it looked like Sora had forgotten all about it.

"Maybe," Sora mumbled. "We won today, but what Saix said," he shook his head and clenched his teeth. "He was right. I'm not talking about when he mentioned Xemnas, but before that, when he said I could have saved so many, but didn't." He saw Luffy opening his mouth to argue but he held up a hand for him to wait and his friend did. "Luffy, I knew it from the moment I got here, this world was not right. But finding Kairi, then Riku, and then fighting with all of you to beat the Underworld, I got so caught up in my own problems that I wasn't thinking of the bigger picture."

Sora lifted his head and stared into the sky at the two moons high above him. "Finding King Mickey, searching out the Keyhole, and saving the world." Sora's face took on a few years in that moment and it looked like he was being weighed down by the weight of the world.

Luffy frowned at his friend, and he spoke up, "That's a heavy burden." Sora looked at Luffy in surprise as he did not expect to hear that from his pirate friend. He expected something more easy-going, but he actually appreciated Luffy taking it serious more. Luffy continued to be even more surprising though as he continued, "I can always share some of it, if you want?" Sora's eyes widened even more and Luffy finished with a smile, "Remember Sora, you're my nakama. I'll help you whenever I can, even if I never get what you're talking about."

"Hahaha!" Sora couldn't help it and he leaned back laughing. "Yeah, it can get confusing," he admitted and looked back down. Luffy smiled at him and Sora smiled back, "But I'll take you up on that offer."

"Yosh!"

"Hey you guys," a voice said and snapped Luffy and Sora out of their goofy smiles. They spun in surprise and looked at a short man with blond hair who had some pretty nasty burn marks on his body though many were faded.

"Whoa!" Sora exclaimed at the sight of him. He rose his arm and a Keyblade appeared, and he called out, "Cura!" Green light surrounded Meliodas, and the Captain of the Seven Deadly Sins looked down at his chest then up at Sora gratefully as his burns were all gone. Sora smiled back, then jumped and shouted, "Oh yeah! Sanji!"

Sora spun and ran back for the Dread Fort, while Luffy shouted after him, "What happened to Sanji?!" He was about to chase after Sora, when he heard Meliodas speak behind him and he spun around.

"We're heading out." Luffy looked at the shorter man in surprise, and Meliodas continued, "We were going to head north, but Weiss recognized one of the slaves she saw, or at least she says she did." He chuckled as he thought the girl was just using that as an excuse but did not really care in the first place. "Thanks for giving us an opening with that explosion, whatever that was." Meliodas grinned and added, "And nice job beating Saix. You can bet you'll be moving up from orange now."

Luffy's grin spread across his face at the mention of his rank going up. Meliodas lifted a hand and gave the pirate a little wave, "Anyway, I doubted you were going to want to head south with us only to head right back north, so if I could make a suggestion?" Luffy nodded and Meliodas continued, "Get on a train east tomorrow. There's a bridge that crosses the Cataclysm in Sin City, plus, Sin City's just a fun place to visit. I'm sure you'll figure out why." The blond man turned around and waved back at Luffy as he started running off.

Luffy waved back, then cupped his hands to his mouth and called after the man who was moving very fast away from him. "Thanks for taking us this far! Tell the Knight of Leftovers I said bye!"

"I will!" Meliodas shouted back. The man chuckled after shouting it and he shook his head a couple of times. Gray, you made some crazy friends since the last time we met. Wish you still had Son Goku with you when we met, I've got a lot of questions for the Super Saiyan…

---

"I finally found you," Rin said, panting and his blue flames small and flickering around his body. He was panting so hard that he could not take it and slid his sword into his sheath that he picked back up when running through the main hall of the Dread Fort looking around for Mephisto. The demon with purple hair was standing on top of a pyramid on the southern side of the city, and Rin stood flameless on top of the blinking CA$INO sign on the side of it only twenty feet down.

Mephisto Pheles was facing away from the younger man, and he held his right arm out to the side with his white cape in hand, making it flap around behind him. "I've been waiting for you, son of Satan," he called out and Rin darted his eyes to either side of the pyramid to see if anyone heard his shout. Mephisto did not look back but he noticed Rin's head motions and chuckled, "I understand not telling your comrades that you are Satan's son, however, many people on this continent of Aebrith know what those blue flames mean. I would consider telling your friends before they discover it on their own."

"I didn't come here to talk about my friends!" Rin yelled up, wondering if he should draw his sword again. The moons were lowering down near the horizon and behind Rin the night sky was starting to get a little lighter. He had ignored his friends around the city who he had bumped into over the last few hours, instead nonstop searching out Mephisto who he finally spotted on top of the pyramid. "Tell me Mephisto," Rin said in as serious a voice he could, making Mephisto lose his bright smile even and lower it into a small grin that could not hide the dark look on his face.

Mephisto looked out at the city that had some small fires going on around it, that had many destroyed buildings and upturned streets, and he looked out at the Dread Fort that was nearly unrecognizable with the amount of damage done to it. "Heh, I had a good time in this city," Mephisto shook his head and then his look got darker. "It was fun while it lasted."

"Is Yukio alive?" Rin asked, ignoring Mephisto and asking what he knew the older man had the answer to. "He was dying when I last saw him, but you said you could save him. Did you?"

Mephisto's face looked disturbed and Rin did not like that expression that he caught a glimpse of on the half of Mephisto's face he could see. Mephisto began, "Yukio is alive. However," the top half of Mephisto's face shadowed by the white rim of his top hat. "Satan has gotten his hands on your brother." On the other side of the pyramid as Rin, a shorter demon lying back on the top section of the pyramid opened his eyes and grimaced as deeply as Mephisto. Amaimon had some cuts and bruises on him, but like Mephisto he felt that he had fun in the city and was smiling until a few moments ago. Amaimon stood up and walked up to the point of the pyramid where he stood next to Mephisto and they both looked down at Okumura Rin.

"Tell me where my brother is!" Rin shouted up at them.

Amaimon glanced at his older brother but Mephisto just frowned deeper. He looked down into Rin's eyes and narrowed his eyebrows as he spoke, "Travel east, to Sin City. Another of our brothers is a Lord there. Question Astaroth about what you want to know, as I will not get involved this time." Rin opened his mouth to shout and Mephisto spoke louder and in a scarier voice, "And remember this Rin, you can not beat me as you are now." He looked straight into Rin's eyes and a dark aura formed in the sky above him that made the face of a demon with horrifying eyes that glared down at Rin and made him freeze with his mouth open. "As you are now, you have no chance of saving dear Yukio."

Mephisto turned and he floated up off the casino pyramid. Amaimon frowned at Rin for another second before turning and jumping up in the air and flying after Mephisto. He turned to his older brother as they flew off straight to the north. "'As you are now?'" Amaimon questioned. He was not the only one who caught that Mephisto said that part of his sentence twice, and Rin watched them leave while mulling over that phrase in his head over and over again. Amaimon continued, "You don't really think, he could stand up to Father?"

The purple-haired demon did not respond. They flew so far north that they stopped flying over land altogether and instead flew over a giant crevice in the planet that dropped miles down. Ten minutes after leaving the Dread Fort, Mephisto slowed down his flight and Amaimon came to a stop next to him. Mephisto had been quietly thinking since they left, but now he turned around and looked back into the distance where he could no longer see the Dread Fort and that meant that anyone there could no longer see him either. "What?" Amaimon asked him as he could not read his brother's expression in the least.

Mephisto started to grin slightly and that grin spread into a larger smirk from ear to ear that showed off his sharp teeth and menacing gaze. "Amaimon, return to Death City. Take command, and be the Lord for me in my stead."

"What are you going to do?" Amaimon asked, a bead of sweat coming down the eccentric demon's face. "You aren't going to stand against Father, are you? Once he learns Rin is here, we will all be sent to capture him."

Mephisto frowned as he thought about what that would mean, but he clenched his teeth and then smirked again. "I am going to make sure Father does not learn that Rin is here," Mephisto said.

Amaimon gulped but nodded with a mischievous smirk spreading across his face too. "Nice," he said and cackled, though some sweat formed on his face as he did. He turned back to the north while Mephisto continued facing south, and then said darkly, "I won't cover for you if Father or older brother Lucifer asks though." Mephisto chuckled and shook his head as he did not expect anything else. He thought about threatening his younger brother, but he knew whatever Amaimon told him after he did would be lies, because if he could scare him, then they both knew that Lucifer and Satan could scare him a lot more.

Amaimon flew off and Mephisto continued to stare back in the direction of the Dread Fort. If there is a single person who can stop Father, it is not me, nor the Super Saiyans, nor the King himself. Only you can do it Rin. You alone.

---

A/N Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed the chapter! The Lord of the Dread Fort falls and his soldiers all drop around him. Robin learns of Bronxi's existence, why is everyone so weirded out by Usopp? What's up with Xoupps? Sanji makes an enemy out of someone powerful, and Luffy is seen by a lot of people taking out the Lord... Saix fades with an ominous warning about Xemnas and the world, and Mephisto thinks Rin is the only one who can stop Satan. What is going to happen next?! Find out next time on Nexus: Heroes Will Rise!

Espada-001 chapter 43 . May 6

Well it's certainly awesome to hear about all the new Nobodies. And I thought you had the interaction between Sanji and his Nobodie down pretty well. The Straw Hats would probably due what they could to help their Nobodie with the exception of getting absorbed. I'm curious how Axel will actually react to becoming whole especially since he was already ok with his solo existence. Here's something that came to mind recently but with the whole idea of the Nobodies and Heartless mirroring each other. I've been wondering about the stronge powered souls becoming Soul Reaper, or even becoming connected to some other afterlife society. Well that's about all I have for now so until next time have a good day and I look forward to the next chapter.

Nobodies everywhere! They don't seem to last long though huh? XD Anyway glad you liked Sanji and Jixsan's interactions! Turns out Axel wasn't so bad after all, just faking it to convince the other Nobodies :P, and I never really thought about strong souls becoming Soul Reapers. I don't really remember how Bleach dealt with that, but I'm pretty sure the souls that became Soul Reapers did so after being souls for a long time, which since it's only been 2 years since Nexus started kind of excludes most people. Also, if you remember what Hitsugaya Toushirou said about Soul Society after the battle of Metropolis, that also might throw a wrench into things... Thanks for the review!

joebob323 chapter 43 . May 7

Great job with this, I like where this is going. How did Axel's mind change so much though, after the merging? I feel like this is going in a good direction, where now that Goku and Timmy are gone, there is a chance for the others to show their powers.

Thanks! Glad you like the direction this is heading and I tried getting all the characters some moments during the Dread Fort chapters. Robin, Franky, and Usopp were left out a little but I got them in at the start of this chapter, so hope you liked their fight scenes. As for Axel... well, looks like his mind didn't change after all, though he told Saix he did understand what his old friend was telling him about the merging procedure. Thanks for the review! (and I get the not reviewing thing cuz of Fanfic being so funky this past week).

7lights13darknes chapter 43 . May 5

YES!AXEL HAS A KEYBLADE! I was wondering if you would do that or not since he actually has one in the game. Please tell me he is not going to fight sora because that would be anticlimactic ( probably a good fight) but don't let it happen! I was hopping larxcene would be dead by now but now sora might fight her. When i saw that she was going to fight meliodous

Darn it! Melodious, ban, and Weiss i new she already lost. Loved the fight scenes. By the way i like how roxas have the drive forms ( that was a nice touch) when we get to grays team i was hopping that ben would use his keyblade more often? I keep this review short. So good job and keep up the good work. Also you are like my favorite author for fanfictions i actually read both of your ben10 stories they were really good.

Axel having the Keyblade was something I remembered since Lea did have one in that first cutscene we see with him since Axel's death. Since they're merged now, the part that let Lea have a Keyblade let Axel have one, which leads to the question of why didn't Axel already have one, when Sora and Roxas both did? Larxene survives by the good graces of Sanji and Jixsan, though Meliodas got close to tearing her in half when she tried fighting them. Yeah, that fight would not have been fair with three of the Sins against one Nobody. Glad you liked Roxas's drive forms cuz when I thought of it I was like "oh shit! That'd be awesome!" Gray's team coming up in Chapter 9 so we'll see about Ben! I'm happy that I'm you're favorite author, and thanks for the praise on the Ben 10 stories, though sorry for never finishing up The Crash. Had that idea one day but it kind of faded from mind. Anyway, thanks again, and thanks to everyone who reviewed, faved, followed, or just read this story! 'Till next time!