Crouched atop the metal railing of a tall building's last remaining balcony, Cloud watched an alien chase down a family of three. The monster's black form moved fluidly, fast, but not as fast as Cloud knew an alien cold go. It was toying with its prey, apparently relishing their terror. The wispy end of its long tail curled and twisted, betraying excitement.

Cloud fought to unclench his jaw and pry his fingernails from the insides of his palms. If he bled, he wouldn't be able to grip his sword properly, and that would be the end of it. He could maybe take the one alien, but this area was full of the creatures. They must have found a sizeable group of survivors holed up somewhere.

Cloud forced his gaze away from the scene below as the alien sank its three rows of needle-like teeth into the woman's arm – the arm not occupied with a baby. Nothing he could do, except get himself killed and fed on, and that would be like aiding the enemy.

He stepped off the railing quietly and backed through the shattered door and into the building. He tried not to look at the body of his fallen comrade and left the apartment. Ground floor was dangerous, and the streets were a phenomenally bad idea, so Cloud made his way up the main staircase, to the roof. Buildings were packed tight in this part of the city. He should have minimal trouble travelling from rooftop to rooftop.

Once under the open sky – a mockingly ordinary blue, it was – Cloud set down his pack. His gun and all of the ammo had to go. Bullets were useless against the aliens. Not only were their bodies thin and streamlined, like some hellish versions of the cheetah's grace, but their skin was hard and slick. Bullets mostly slid off them, or went right through the gaps of their strange, skeletal anatomy.

The only effective way of fighting them seemed to be swords and blunt weapons. Crushing the protruding bones and cutting off limbs took a lot of work, but at least the aliens were killable.

Cloud repacked all of his supplies so that it would make minimal noise when he moved, strapped his sword to his back, and took off in the direction he thought was south. His unit was gone, the last line of defence lost. Cloud might as well move towards what was already destroyed, hide behind enemy lines until the conquest of his world was over and the aliens started paying more attention to what they left in their wake.

And once that happened, well. He would try to take a few of them with him.

He dug himself a hole in the rubble of a small house, filled it with as much dirt and rags as he could find in the vicinity, and settled in for the night. It was cold no matter how tightly he curled up, but lighting a fire would be suicide.

The cold northern wind was blowing strong. Soon, it would bring the rains. Cloud didn't worry about it too much. His supplies would last him about two weeks, if he found clean water. Otherwise he had less than a week before dehydration would make him useless.

He sighed and squirmed, folding his hands under his head. If he didn't find any water, he would just have to light a fire and wait for the aliens to come to him. Cloud would make sure his last stand was one to be remembered. Even if only the aliens were there to witness it.

Comforted by that thought, he let himself relax. He was right on the edge of sleep when his heightened soldier's senses picked up movement. Cloud could feel his body react to the mako-fuelled adrenaline surge. He kept his eyes closed, lest the glow betray his position, and listened.

A couple of aliens, as far as he could tell. They walked right over the outcropping of rubble under which Cloud lay. They were moving very quietly, hunting something. Cloud frowned. He moved one hand to press over a secure pocket in his vest. He had two pills left. He would rather not use any now, but if there were only two aliens around, and someone's life was on the line, he might.

Cloud waited for the aliens to move away before slipping from his hiding place. He strapped on his sword and followed the creatures, using every ounce of stealth he possessed.

Sora woke up fighting. He wasn't sure what he was fighting at first, but his hopes of facing fellow humans were dashed as the pipe fragment he always clutched in his sleep connected with something hard and made a dull sound. Aliens, then. A human bone would have cracked.

That was it, then. In total darkness, with no chance to find his bearings, Sora was not going to survive a single alien, and the creatures rarely moved alone. He gritted his teeth anyway, grabbed onto a slimy part of carapace, and swung the pipe towards the thing. Claws dug into his thigh and he screamed, hit harder. He pushed at the alien with his other hand, fighting to avoid its teeth.

Sora was exhausted and weakening with every second. Distantly, he was aware that there was no real point in fighting. Stopping was not something he could force his body to do, though.

Suddenly, there was a crackling sound and a military flare landed to Sora's right, blinding him temporarily. The alien, the nocturnal creature that it was, was even more disoriented. Sora blinked furiously, desperate to see despite the bright lights dancing in his vision. He turned the pipe around in his hand so that its sharp end faced the alien, and stabbed. Blurry as his vision was, he only managed to jam the pipe into the crevice behind the alien's snapping jaws on the third try. Sora pushed the pipe sharply in a practised move. The alien made a clicking, growling sound, its movements became frantic as it attempted to back away. Sora brought his other hand around and with a strained grunt pulled most of his torso off the ground. His weight did the job. The alien's skull cracked, and a thick black substance started trickling down the pipe and onto Sora's hands.

The alien twitched and sunk to the ground, half onto Sora, who panicked. The flare went out. If there were more of the creatures around, he needed to get up fast. He pushed and squirmed, but his arms were numb, his whole body heavy with exhaustion. Sora heard the crunch of gravel right next to his ear and screwed his eyes shut, preparing for a very painful death.

"Let me help you with that," said a voice.

Sora's eyes snapped open. About six feet above him, a pair of glowing blue eyes met his shocked stare. The weight of the alien was lifted off him and to the side.

"Um," Sora said.

"Get up," said the voice, which was definitely male.

Before Sora could process the order, there was a firm hand pulling him up roughly.

"Are you bleeding?" asked the voice.

Sora shook his head, swayed on his feet a little. "Whoa. Uh, possibly?" From up close, the eyes looked impossibly bright. It kind of hurt to look at them. "You are a soldier, right? Where's the rest of your unit?"

"Dead."

Sora deflated, cursing inwardly. But one soldier was still better than none. "Oh, sorry to hear that. And thanks for the rescue."

"We'll talk later." The voice sounded irritated now. "Grab what you need and follow me."

"Oh, right. Um."

Sora dropped to the ground and pawed about for his bag. Then he tried to pull his pipe from the alien corpse, but it wouldn't budge. He looked to the blue eyes, which rolled heavenwards and Sora was pushed to the side. He watched as the soldier's dark silhouette dislodged the pipe with very little effort. He felt much better once he had the pipe back in his hand where it belonged.

"Is that it?" the soldier asked.

"Yep."

Sora was grabbed by the strap of his bag and pulled into a fast march. He stumbled, but caught himself.

"Hey!" he hissed, and was ignored. "Tell me your name at least."

"Cloud," was the clipped response.

"Right. I'm Sora. Nice to meet you."

Cloud said nothing, and remained silent for the rest of the night. They stopped by a heap of rubble. Cloud retrieved what looked like a military backpack from a body-sized hole, then walked off towards a crumbling building, one of the few still standing in the area. The aliens hadn't destroyed them. It had been the weapons deployed against them that caused the most damage to the surroundings. Sora remembered hiding in a basement on more than one occasion, listening to the explosions going on above and hoping to hell no bomb would fall on top of him.

The house Cloud chose was missing a whole wall and the roof. It looked about to collapse. Cloud managed to throw his bag over the edge of the second story floor, then pulled a series of parkour moves and got up there himself. It gave Sora some reassurance concerning the house's stability. He went inside and wandered about the ground floor until he found a staircase, like a normal person.

Cloud was leaning against a remaining bit of wall, cross-legged on the floor. A few tufts of his spiky hair stuck out over the edge of the wall. Cloud's eyes were closed, but Sora was mostly certain the man wasn't sleeping.

"I'm going to try and sleep," Sora said, not expecting a reply. He curled up in a corner and tried his best to get comfortable. Sleep just wouldn't come to him, though.

Cloud watched Sora's attempt at sleep from under hooded eyelids. He didn't like wasting the energy that the mako pill gave him, but moving at night with the boy in tow wasn't a safe idea. It didn't matter anyway. He doubted there were more people for him to save. The last pill he could save for whenever the aliens would get the better of him.

The sky turned grey with the dawn of a new day. With a series of soft grunts, Sora pulled himself onto all fours, then into a standing position. Cloud looked him over, searching for any damage he might have missed earlier.

"Hello," Sora said. "Huh. Your eyes are way less glowy now. Like, almost dull. Also very red."

Cloud shrugged. "That's normal."

"Hmm." Sora wandered over the the edge of the floor. He squinted. "Oh wow, it felt like we were walking for miles last night, but the aliens are right there. Three of them, holy shit. You sure are good at killing those things."

"You aren't bad at it, either. Though you could have avoided taking so much damage."

Sora looked down at himself. Searching hands soon followed his gaze. His shirt was torn and bloody, but as far as Cloud could tell, it wasn't serious.

"Damn. I need to get all these kitty scratches cleaned up."

Infection was a possibility, of course. Cloud shook his head. "We don't have enough water."

Sora sighed. "Yeah. Maybe it'll start raining soon..."

Cloud considered the boy. Sora wasn't much shorter than him, but he definitely was much more scrawny. He seemed energetic enough, though.

"How old are you, Sora?"

"Seventeen. You?"

Cloud contemplated not answering, but it was only fair. "Twenty-three." He looked up at the clear blue sky. It would be best if they moved away from the area, but he didn't think Sora was up to a ten kilometre run, so they would have to wait.

"Do you want to stay here today?" Sora asked. The boy was strangely acute.

"Yes. A patrol of aliens should show up soon, confirm the others' death. We can either stay put or start running now and not stop until I think we're safe."

"Oh. Um. I think I prefer the first option."

Cloud nodded tiredly. "I'm going to rest. You don't need to worry about waking me up if something happens."

"'Kay."

Cloud closed his eyes and focused most of his attention on his breathing. Slowly, he let himself sink into a meditative state, relaxing his body but keeping his senses alert.

From atop the bared roof beams of a nearby, taller house, two figures watched as Sora got busy cleaning his cuts with a tiny slip of fabric and spit.

Yuffie made a face. "Can we stop watching now?"

Leon shook his head. "You heard the older one. More Dark Ones should appear soon."

"I guess these two are more entertaining than rubble and ruins," Yuffie said, and sighed. "I don't like staying around people if we can't help." It wasn't fair. These two had so much fight left in them. They didn't deserve to die.

Leon stared on ahead, expression blank. "Follow the rules, Yuffie."

"I know. I will. It's not easy, though."

"Nothing is easy any more." A hint of a smile appeared on Leon's face. "And maybe it never had been."

I'm doing another project for NaNo, and will be able to come back to this one sometime in December. I really want to finish it, because Cloud and Leon are my first OTP and Kingdom Hearts is my first fandom, so there will be updates. Just not very soon.