Our heroes, who were on their way into the forest, so that Naofumi could gain some levels.

  As they were looking for balloons, Sora looked at Naofumi, his head full of questions that needed answering.

  "Wait, let me get this straight." He asked, arms crossed, head tilted to the side as he scratched it with his finger.

  "You were summoned to this world by a book? Does that mean this world is nothing but a story?"

  Donald and Goofy were both experiencing existential crises. They knew that Sora had been in the book titled 'Winnie-the-Pooh,' but while Donald may have had his nose in a book before, he still thought this was ridiculous. Also, what did that make them? If this is a real world to them, but to Naofumi it was just a book, what does that mean?

  "Aw phooey," Donald exclaimed, his temper reaching its limit, his body starting to lash out.

  "What's his problem?" Naofumi questioned, not trying to imply the fact that people couldn't have it worse than him, but as far as he knew, Donald was pretty happy when he first met him. Goofy leaned into the other hero of the shield and whispered to him about Donald's history.

  "Ya see…" Goofy looked around to make sure that nobody else was listening. "Donald's always had a bit of a temper on 'im."

  This infuriated Donald, whose temper was flaming to a point that it might have started to seep out of his flaring nose.

  I feel your anger, I do, but be careful who you take it out on, thought Naofumi, who still did not fully trust the trio yet.

  What if they get turned against me, too? Will I have to fight them? Will I have to hurt them… or worse, will I have to–? His thought was cut off as out of the thicket, what appeared to be a herd of usapils started to charge at them.

  "Get behind me!" Shouted Naofumi, his shield held up in a defensive pose, the emerald green light in the centre almost like a lighthouse, directing its allies away from danger.

  "Got it!" Sora said, running to the beacon of light after drawing out the keyblade.

  "WAAAAK!" Donald quacked, taken by surprise at the encroaching horde of the rabbit-esque usapil.

  Naofumi thought everyone was safe behind him until he heard a shout in the distance.

  "Yaaaaaaa-Hoo-Hoo-Hooey!" Goofy yelled as the usapils started to pile on top of him. Sora, Donald, and Naofumi shot off to save their friend from the danger he faced. When they arrived at the turmoil, the usapils started to bare their fangs, but the heroes were undeterred. Using flowmotion, Sora leaped from tree to tree, cutting down usapils as he went by. After seeing Sora in action, Donald, whose adrenaline was still high from his explosive outburst earlier, cast Firaga and roasted a lot of the usapils. Naofumi tried to follow suit by shield-bashing and punching them, but it was to no avail. Goofy, who now had the strength to get up, as there weren't many usapils piled onto him, started to spin himself in a whirlwind to take out the remaining attackers.

  After the battle was over, Naofumi expressed concern and distress over his lack of strength.

  Even their shield user attack? What am I, just fodder? I bet they're sizing me up right now. Yeah, I bet they were just talking about being my friend to make the stab in the back all the sweeter. Naofumi's thoughts were racing again, his anger and wrath echoing Donald's previous moment of frustration, but on a much higher scale.

  "What the hell am I good for if I can't even attack!" He screamed at the sky, as if trying to use his voice to bring it down onto the world.

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  Sora just looked at him while Donald and Goofy each held their hats in their hands and looked at him wistfully.

  "Gawrsh Naofumi, I didn't think ya did that bad. I thought you did quite well, dontcha think?"

  Naofumi, still feeling distrustful and angry, looked at his animal companion and sighed.

  "We'll see about that, won't–" He was cut off as he and the heroes from other worlds heard a high-pitched yelling.

  "Help, they're after me!" A young tankuki girl came running up to them and, seeing that there were two shields amongst the group, she hid behind one.

  "Who's after you?" Sora looked at the kid and asked.

  "The slavers." She started thinking about what to say for a second, and her tail sank low. However, she found the strength to follow up her sentence with "They just came in and started to take us away." The last part brought tears to her eyes.

  What the hell? Naofumi thought to himself, his instincts were set to destroy.

  "Don't worry, we won't let anybody take you away." Naofumi, who was still feeling distrustful of the whole situation, reassured. This made the little girl smile even though the tears were still dripping from her eyes.

  Suddenly, a couple of men and a woman approached the squad, weapons drawn.

  "Hey, that's one of the demi-human brats that escaped!" They said, fingers running from the tip to the hilt of their blades.

  This angered Naofumi, who was having none of it, and immediately ran into the quarrel, with Sora, Donald, and Goofy following right after.

  Naofumi started by running up to the leader of the group, leading the attack with a Superman punch. This did a little bit of damage and caused the lead slaver to reel back in pain.

  "Not bad," he said, cracking his neck and getting ready for a brawl. After being signaled, the woman cast a magic attack, a firewall that encircled the shield hero and her leader. Sora, who was drawing out his keyblade, got it caught midswing by a man with a tower shield. Goofy, seeing as this was his opportunity to help Sora out, used a 'goofy charge' against the tower shield, which caused the towering man with the tower shield to turn toward him. Goofy and the man's shields clashed, neither one ceding an inch. Sora, realizing what Goofy was trying to do, slashed again at the towering man and knocked him out.

  "Thanks for the help, Goofy."

  "A-Hyuk." Goofy replied, his hand on the back of his head with a big smile plastered on his face.

  Donald saw the woman casting spells and realized that this was a power struggle waiting to happen, so instead of using firaga on her, he cast thundaga instead. The lightning that came down struck the woman's staff, causing it to explode, the pieces of wood shattered, and the force of the blast knocked her out, too.

  The leader was the only one from the group left. He kept slashing at Naofumi, who was blocking each strike with his shield, neither one looked like they were going to give up, until the slaver did a leg sweep. Naofumi, who had seen similar situations before, jumped up and brought his entire weight down on the man's leg.

  Crckkk, the man's leg was broken. He tried to get away, but Naofumi wasn't having any of it. The shield hero grabbed the man by the shoulder, turned him around, and proceeded to continuously bash him in the face with his shield until he was completely unconscious and barely breathing.

  "Hopefully, these depraved assholes never come back," Naofumi told the other three. His anger was somewhat released by bashing the slaver's face in.

  The tanuki girl ran up to hug the shield hero, though he wasn't having any of it.

  "Don't do that!" He said in exasperation, still not trusting the people of this world.

  "We can't let her travel on her own," Donald said, with worry covering the tone of his voice.

  "You're right, Donald," Goofy replied.

  Naofumi was struggling with his moral compass of whether or not to help the kid. Sora, however, decided that a hero's work was never done.

  "We're taking her with us," he exclaimed. "We can't just leave her here with all of these slavers on the loose. What if they come back and try to capture her again?" He proclaimed to the group.

  The tanuki girl was overjoyed to hear that she wasn't going to be alone anymore. She ran up to the group and said.

  "My name's Raphtalia."

  "I'm Sora, this is Donald, and that's Goofy. The brooding one over there is Naofumi."

  Naofumi, who still didn't know how to trust anyone from this world, let out a sigh and continued on his way. Raphtalia, who felt like the shield hero cared more than he let on, followed.