Kairi looks around frantically as the colored clock begins to dissolve, returning the four companions to normal time. She's spent the last ten minutes recovering from debilitating spear wounds, healing Riku, and holding onto Sora; it's only now that she looks around that she realizes that the Hollow is no longer in sight. The demolished mayor's house still lies in a pile of rubble, but the gigantic enemy that once sat on top of it seems to have disappeared. She turns to her spirit, Namine. "Where did the Hollow go?"

"That's right," Namine remembers. "Now that I'm out of your body, you can't sense spiritual objects as clearly." She flicks a finger and a white colored pencil soars towards Kairi, who snatches it out of the air. Immediately, the air shimmers, and Kairi is able to see the tentacled monster slowly lashing out at them.

Kairi tucks the pencil in a tiny zipper pocket at her waist; as she feels the slight pressure of the object against her hip, her Chain of Fate rattles and begins to fade away. "What's happening?"

"We're still connected," Namine assures. "Just… well, in Cid's technological terms, imagine it as a wireless connection, instead of a landline. Don't lose that pencil," she warns as the other colored pencils twirl around her.

Something huge and black rises up behind them. Before Sora or Kairi can move forward, though, Namine whirls around and makes a slashing motion. An orange pencil expands swiftly, leaving an angry amber streak hanging in midair. The bundle of tentacles pauses momentarily; then it tumbles apart as several severed ropes. "Go!"

A booming echo resounds around them as the clock finally fades away. Now with eleven colors at her disposal, Namine begins to sketch a gigantic mural in front of her. "Fend them off," she instructs as passes her sketchbook to Kairi.

"How do I use this?"

"It knows what to do."

Sora and Kairi look blankly at the inanimate object. "I sure hope so," Sora says nervously.

"Why don't we all just hide under this till you're done with whatever you're drawing?" Kairi proposes anxiously.

"It's not invincible," Namine retorts, her brow furrowed in concentration as she orchestrates her air diagram with both hands. Her pencils appear to blur together, until Kairi realizes they actually are dissolving from pencil into particle form. "It's more for deflecting blows that would otherwise incapacitate you."

The crack of a whip shatters the relative silence, and a cascade of tentacles pour down on top of them. Sora manages a small but trusting smile before switching keychains. Intertwining gold threads weave along the shaft of the weapon, and a heart topped by the crown pendant Sora wears around his neck become the teeth. With a roar, Sora leaps into the mess of black tentacles, moving at inhuman speed with unerring accuracy. His brain is processing events at an incredible rate; time doesn't slow down, he just speeds up. Firaga leaps unbidden to his mind as he tears through defensive tentacles like wet tissue paper; glowing blue particles flash around him as Sora aims Ultima directly at the Hollow's mask in front of him.

Flames lick down the web of gold interwoven into the shaft. They pool in front of the crowned-heart teeth, engulfing the Keyblade. Sora can feel the immense power tearing through him, licking at his clothes and incinerating everything around him.

Then the power rushes out of him and explodes from Ultima in a pillar of Firaga. It completely envelops the Hollowfied mayor and the mayor's gigantic tangle of tentacles and the crumbled rubble of the mayor's house, plus the wilting garden in the backyard and the scattered houses beyond. In the distance, a part of the Hinterlands forest is set afire.

All the tentacles around Sora go berserk, flopping around madly and withdrawing into the flaming body. Sora lands on the ground and stumbles back towards Namine and Kairi. A thin, keening scream rises weakly from the fiery entity, almost beyond the hearing capacity of humans.

Sora slashes Ultima twice, then slings the Keyblade over his shoulder. Turning around casually, he boasts, "You think that did it?"

Rancid breath washes over him. He's staring straight into a set of broken teeth within a set of broken teeth. A double maw ready to devour him. Sora feels his knees go weak and his sudden adrenaline rush leave him. Three Hollowfied residents of Halloween Town stand before him: an old hag now clutching his shoulders with her bony, liver-spotted hands; a small child in a simple nightgown smeared with bloody handprints; and a mummy that reeks of rotting flesh. Just the stench alone paralyzes Sora, and the double set of teeth leans closer to tear a chunk out of his head.

Then the tip of Way to Dawn barely clips his nose. The bony hands anchored onto his shoulders dissolve into blue spirit particles as the body they're connected to is split cleanly in two, revealing a healthily sturdy Riku.

"Riku!" Sora yells, jumping to his feet. Ultima knocks the mummy shuffling towards him to the ground. "You're alright!"

Riku nods gruffly. "Thanks to you. And her." He leaps into the air and drives Way to Dawn straight into the mummy's mask, shattering it. Within seconds, the monster dissolves away completely.

The two boys look at the lone child left over. It doesn't advance on them, but rather stands there motionlessly. Sora looks questioningly at Riku, who silently responds by lifting his Keyblade above his head in an openly aggressive manner.

"That's the last one," Riku growls. "Kill it, and our work here is done."

Sora glances back at the flaming pile of rubble. The Hollowfied mayor is motionless, though the coils of tentacles lying around still twitch feebly. The child in front of him, however, has nothing to do with this.

Sora puts a palm on Riku's chest, preventing him from moving forward. "He's just a kid," he defends. "He just happened to be in the wrong place and the wrong time, but he's not—"

"He is what he is," Riku replies coolly. "He might have been innocent, but he's changed now."

Sora bites back his reply—that Riku had been in the same situation, and look how he turned out. But then he spots something trailing out of the back of the child's head. It appeared to be some sort of black cord, and it runs out of the child's head and into the ground. It was like Namine and Kairi's Chain of Fate, only with a black tentacle…

"Riku," Sora says urgently. "I think—"

He's interrupted as the main Hollow stirs suddenly, sending up a cloud of fiery sparks. All its remaining tentacles rise into the sky feebly, and Sora and Riku take ready stances; but then, each tentacle simply plunges itself into the ground and appears to burrow down.

Sora leaps into the air to avoid potential spikes rising from the ground, but none are forthcoming. It isn't until Sora lands that the first white-tipped tentacle re-emerges from the earth, rising upwards slowly. Riku severs it cleanly, but all around them, several white-tipped tentacles sprout from the ground like germinating plants on fast forward. Even as Sora severs two sprouts, three more rise up in their place.

One tentacle reaches four feet and pauses; then, with a slight crackle, the sharp white bud on the tentacle's end expands and explodes, belching out a mysterious white substance. This quickly molds itself into a discernable shape: another former resident of Halloween Town, except now with its face covered by hardened white substance transformed into a mask, and a large gaping hole in its chest.

The next couple minutes are a blur of feeling.

The shadowed master on the white throne speaks unexpectedly, but the subordinate does not show any signs of surprise. "Yet another pawn enters. How… interesting."

The subordinate closes his eyes briefly. When he opens them, his emerald green eyes reveal nothing. His face is an eerie blank slate; it would appear that his entire figure were carved of marble, if his strange green eyes did not pulsate with existence. Nothing else of his body indicates the presence of life but his intense pupils.

"Number Four."

The subordinate's pupils flicker at his title, but his eyes do not move. "Yes, master."

"Send a scout."