#de void

The fifth day came around. Though physically Vanitas was getting better, his emotions shifting around so much during the past few days seemed to be waking up Sora’s darkness. This whole thing was foolish. He knew that holding back his Unversed made it build up pressure inside his heart, but if that was also where Sora’s darkness was, then it made sense that it couldn’t sleep. 

On the topic of sleeping, Vanitas wasn’t doing much of that either. He got an odd feeling when he went back to the room the day before, like he was being watched. When the feeling continued despite the closed door, he knew he couldn’t sleep if he tried. 

So overall he wasn’t in the mood to deal with the other people in the castle that morning. And then Ventus knocked on the door. 

“Vanitas?” Ventus called through the door. “Do you want to, uh, eat breakfast with us?”

“No.”

There was a sigh. Then footsteps walked away from the door. Vanitas took that as the end of the conversation and went back to laying down. 

A moment later, the bookcase on the left side of the room swung open, startling Vanitas upright and out of the bed. Ventus walked in the room, grinning and holding out a hand. “Come with me.”

Somehow, Ventus had convinced Vanitas to come to breakfast with him. Maybe it was because Vanitas himself felt like he was starting to run low on energy, maybe it was because of something else (something more annoying that should be asleep but instead liked to use his ribcage as a scratching post in order to communicate). 

Whatever it was, he certainly had no idea how he ended up being dragged along by the hand through the secret passageway. These thin, run down stone halls… He could feel the heavy disorienting magic, it was the same that ran through the rest of the castle, only moreso. If Ventus wasn’t leading him, Vanitas would likely end up trapped there.  Yet another prison, but not nearly as peaceful as Sora’s. 

Soon Ventus came to a small door, pushing it open into what Vanitas could only assume was the castle’s pantry, seeing as it was stocked with shelves and shelves of food. 

Ventus dragged him from the pantry through the kitchen and into the dining room, where Vanitas was met with the sight of Aqua and Terra setting the table. 

There was a small pause in their routine as the two of them saw him, and Vanitas felt his feet become rooted to the hard floor. How was he supposed to “get along” with people he threatened on multiple occasions? He knew and they knew that this would never go well, he could see it in their eyes. But then Terra took a step to the side to set out a fourth plate, and the moment passed. 

The breakfast was a small spread of breakfast pastries and meats, alongside some fruit. Vanitas sat in his chair next to Ventus silently. The table was quiet for a while, but then Ventus and Terra started talking about plans for the day. 

Vanitas only half-listened in, mostly looking down at the food that was put on his plate and pretending Aqua wasn’t staring at him with that weird look on her face. It was like she was curious about why he was here, but conflicted. She was probably struggling between her own standards of politeness and her wariness of him in general.

He didn’t care either way. As much as making everyone uncomfortable was fun, he was tired and in pain. This new pain was different from his old pain, but he could learn to live with it all the same. Just not right now, while he wasn’t at his best. 

Needless to say, Vanitas was distracted enough with picking at his food that when he was included in the conversation it caught him off guard. 

“Is there anything you want to do, Vanitas?” Ventus asked him. “Somewhere you want to go?”

Vanitas repressed his natural urge to roll his eyes. A privilege. They were slowly rolling out privileges for his good behavior (aka not attempting to kill anyone). He had an immediate answer for this one since he’d expected them to do something like this. 

“The Keyblade Graveyard,” he answered, then finally picked up a tart pastry from his plate and took a big bite of it. 

Ventus was confused and looked a little bit like he regretted asking, Terra was surprised and caught off guard, Aqua looked even more suspicious of him but also curious, and Vanitas almost lost focus because of the familiar taste of the sweet berries in the pastry (the flavor brought up memories from long, long ago. memories that didn’t belong to him any more than they belonged to his brother sitting next to him. he hadn’t had anything with flavor in it in a long, long time). All in all, everyone at the table tried and failed to cover up their initial reactions. 

Terra spoke next, “Why do you want to go there? It’s a wasteland.”

Vanitas took his time chewing, drawing out the silence in order to think. There was a nonzero chance that they’d let him visit the Graveyard depending on what he said now, but there was basically no chance they’d let him go today. 

“I used to live there, I have things I need to get.” He shrugged. 

“You used to live there?” Ventus asked in shock. “What, in a cave?”

“Yes.” Vanitas rolled his eyes. “Where else? With the graves?”

Terra set down his fork. “If you lived in a cave, then where did…?” he trailed off. “Nevermind. What are you trying to go back for?”

“Whatever’s left. It’s been over a decade, I’m not kidding myself that anything’s still there.” Then, to add a touch of sentimentality that he knew they’d fall for, he added. “…I’m looking for a memento, mostly.”

“A memento?” Aqua repeated. “Of what?”

Vanitas didn’t respond for a long moment, he took another bite of his food. This conversation was going to steer uncomfortably close to the real truth, but unfortunately in this situation the only lies he knew they’d completely fall for were the true ones. “Who I used to be.”

There’s a moment before Aqua spoke again, “…I see.”

Ventus spoke after a bite of food, looking up at Aqua. “If it’s that important, we could make the trip right?” 

“Maybe not today, Ven,” Terra said. 

“But soon, yeah?” He practically begged her and Terra. “C’mon guys…”

Again, Vanitas had ended up relying on Ventus to advocate for him. He was starting to dislike this whole trust thing if it meant getting pity points from his brother. 

“We can go tomorrow, alright?” Aqua offered. “In the afternoon.”

“That’s fine.” Vanitas nodded. He gestured down to his now empty plate (he’d discarded half the food on it when they weren’t paying attention, he’s never really had much of a stomach), then stood from his seat. “I’m done. I’m going back.”

“Could you take your plate and drop it off in the kitchen?” Ventus asked. Vanitas almost expected more resistance than that, but decided not to waste the opportunity. 

Reluctantly, he grabbed his plate and took it with him back to the kitchen. The kitchen was expansive, and obviously made for more than four people living in this castle. He set down his plate near a sink and made his way back to the room. He wondered about the people who used to live here, the ones who laid the powerful enchantments in the foundation. Where were they? Dead now, most likely. And yet still their magic remained. 

And so did their eyes, Vanitas thought, having to accept that he likely wouldn’t be getting any actual rest today. Someone was still watching. 

Once he was out of sight from the kitchen entrance, Vanitas kept his awareness strictly to his surroundings. Still feeling those eyes, he dipped into a shadow and moved quickly. He didn’t go underneath the first door he came across, but the next door, just in case.

The eyes were gone. Vanitas felt himself relax in a way he hadn’t been able to since he got here. The room he walked into seemed to be an armory of sorts. The walls on the side were lined with keyblade armor, but only small pieces, like the ones Aqua, Terra, and Ventus wore. The center was open, with different marks and scratches covering the hardwood floor. It was like something was supposed to be there, yet wasn’t. 

Who cared? Now that he got away from whoever was watching him, he could probably settle in between the sets of armor and sleep for once. It wouldn’t be restful, but it’d be something. 

He settles down in the corner, hidden among equipment and metal, but with a perfect view of the door. Now, if only he could feel settled on the inside enough to get some rest, but that little thing never stopped. 

As if sensing his thoughts, it moved again, tearing at the walls like a cornered animal. Maybe…

Vanitas held out his hand, releasing a small Unversed. A long time ago, he learned that the way he started to release the buildup of emotions controlled how the rest of it went. The floodgates opened, he felt his energy drain with it. Tens and tens of the same kind of tiny creatures of darkness and suppressed emotion poured out from him. His arms, his shoulders, his chest, they crawled out of his skin because he couldn’t summon the energy to release them himself. The pressure in his heart was releasing, he felt lighter. More numb. 

But now he had to deal with all these Unversed, which swarmed all over the sets of armor. He sent them into the shadows, he didn’t care what they did as long as they stayed out of sight. 

Finally, Sora’s darkness stopped its clawing, no longer being suffocated. Vanitas couldn’t even feel relief at the end of its rampage. He just felt numb. 

Warmth flooded his heart with the suddenness of a tidal wave, the same warmth that… helped him the other day. There was so much more of it, he felt almost smothered. It was hard for Vanitas to stay numb to it, it was so overwhelming he could feel his heart beating fast as he stressed over what to do with it. He could deal with pain better than he could deal with this. If he didn’t know better he’d think it was an attack, a heat bordering the feeling of burning. But Sora had never been like that, even if his darkness was a little more careless.

He calmed down. Eventually. He stopped himself from fidgeting enough to settle into it. Surely at this point he’d feel pathetic, like the weak people all around him who needed comfort for the smallest things. But the warmth left no room for anything like that. It felt like an apology. No one had ever apologized to him before, not sincerely. 

Vanitas opened his eyes. He wasn’t sure when he closed them. It was dark, likely morning by now. There were no eyes on him. The room was silent. 

For the first time since coming here, he didn’t feel restless. He could just sit there, not thinking of anything, not being in pain. That warmth was still there, still apologizing. 

Vanitas sat there for a few more moments, before standing up. His Unversed had spread throughout the shadows all over the castle at this point, hiding like harmless little bugs. He used them as he walked back, tuning into their senses to make sure he was alone. 

He walked back normally, giving himself time to start up a conversation. He still felt tangled in a web of numbness and warmth, so it was hard to sound as serious as he should have. 

“Are you awake?” he asked. It wasn’t supposed to be awake. 

Sora’s darkness stirred. Of course it would understand the long-forgotten language. Each word Vanitas had spoken was made for hearts, after all (hearts don’t even need words to speak to each other, no wonder such a useless language died after the war).

Yes. No, it murmurs, Sleepy.

So borderline awareness. Vanitas would need to find some way to calm it down enough to sleep. Sora’s heart was so easy to sleep in, it was warm even in its darkness. Vanitas’s heart was probably not nearly as inviting. He couldn’t afford it clawing its way out, he wasn’t sure if he would survive more damage like that. It was an annoying new task he needed to complete, one that reminded him of how little control he had over himself even now. 

Sad, said Sora’s darkness. Protect.

There it was again. “Protect what?”

Mine, was its response. 

“Your light?” Vanitas could understand if it was that. It reminded him of something he’d forgotten about, a moment that had been buried in scars. Vanitas had originally felt the need to seek out his brother out of protectiveness, it was something he had felt overwhelmingly in the first few minutes he was created in. And then Master Xehanort made sure that instinct never rose again. 

But the response from Sora’s darkness was more surprising. That same protectiveness, blurring with added possessiveness. No. Yes. No, mine. 

Vanitas didn’t know what to make of that response. He put the thought on hold, as he was approaching his designated room. 

Ventus was inside. What is he doing in there? he wondered. Vanitas waited by the open door and listened. 

“…Probably just exploring the castle.” Vanitas heard. Again, Ventus speaks in the hissed words he shouldn’t know. “He’s fine. No use worrying so much over him anyway, he’ll come back.”

Suddenly, Ventus’s tone and language completely switched. “He’s supposed to let someone know where he’s going, isn’t he? Am I the only one who actually cares about that?”

He sighed. “Guess so.”

“What are you doing?” Vanitas leaned on the doorway and watched as Ventus jumped in surprise.

“Oh, Vanitas! I was looking for you.”

Vanitas raised an eyebrow. “Why were you looking for me at—” He glances at the clock on the desk. “—3:28 in the morning?”

“Uh,” Ventus scratched the back of his head. “I wanted to see if you needed something?”

“At 3:28 in the morning.”

“Y-Yeah?” Ventus lied. He was so obviously caught off guard, it almost seemed too convenient. Maybe that was just Vanitas’s wariness talking. 

Vanitas let the room settle into silence as he stared Ventus down. The longer he stayed silent and kept his face blank, the more Ventus seemed to crack. Seemed to. Finally looking ready to cave in, Ventus opened his mouth to speak. 

But Vanitas didn’t let him. “You know, I actually do need something.”

Ventus breathed in obvious relief. “Sure, anything.”

“Tell me what happened when you went to rescue Sora.”

Ventus’s face fell. “Ah. Right, I guess you were pretty out of it when we found you both.”

Right, when they found us… Subconsciously, Vanitas’s hand wandered to the wound on his side. It was closing up as well as it could, all things considered. Still, walking around all night for the past few days might’ve been a bad idea at this point, but it’s not like he could draw on Sora’s darkness to heal himself faster. Any more poking at it and it might awaken fully, and then Vanitas would be left fighting for something that’s rightfully his. Again. 

The apologetic warmth was still there, Vanitas held onto it despite himself. 

“Come with me,” Ventus said suddenly, drawing Vanitas out of his thoughts. Ventus pushed open the window to the darkened sky of the morning. 

Vanitas scoffed. “You really think I’m going to follow you out of a three-story window?” 

Ventus shrugged. “Your loss.” And he jumped out the window. 

Vanitas moved to watch as Ventus gently floated down, a cheeky look on his face as his feet touched the ground. How annoying. 

Vanitas easily swung himself over the window’s ledge and slid down the side of the castle, his clawed hands digging into the wall as he controlled his fall. Once on the ground he followed Ventus to a hill not too far away, but out of distance for being heard from the castle. 

Ventus sat down in the grass, his eyes gazing up at the stars in the slowly brightening sky. “Aqua and Terra didn’t want me to tell you anything, but it’s only right that you know.”

“Spit it out.” For some reason, Vanitas couldn’t get that sentence to sound how he wanted it to. The warmth was distracting. 

“I wasn’t there at first.” Ventus leaned back on his hands. “Riku had gotten a major lead, Kairi went after him. I’m not sure what happened in between, but they found you.”

Vanitas could vaguely recall that harsh and blinding light, the wound he received as a result of that encounter not long before he brought them to Sora. He could only imagine what would’ve happened if she got a direct hit. 

“I came along after because I…” Ventus paused. “Because I needed to.”

“You needed to?” Vanitas raised an eyebrow. 

“Yes, I did.” He responded, his shoulders hunched and defensive. “And I needed to make sure Sora was okay. He’s done so much for me, if he ended up getting hurt, I thought…”

Something about those words sparked something in Vanitas’s mind, making the world spin around him. He sat down on the grass to hide his dizziness as the memory was pulled to the forefront of his mind.

Whatever that man did to his heart would kill him if he didn’t do something, and then Vanitas would be gone as well. Out of the prison, but still in chains. 

He could leave again, he should leave again. 

“Hey, Vanitas…?” Sora called out from behind him, shifting and trying to push himself up with the wall beside him. 

“What?” Vanitas snapped. No good. He spawned an Unversed to get rid of his panic. There, now he could focus. 

Sora smiled at him, but it was more like a grimace. “I think I know why I’m here now.”

On the fourth day, he left his room around midnight again. He felt restless. It was itching inside of his skin and raking claws along the inner walls of his heart. He’s dealt with worse, but this is especially unpleasant in a way he only barely dealt with just days before — and if there’s any more of it it’ll drive him insane. So he walked through the halls, hoping to find some new way to escape the feeling. 

He turned a corner, unsurprised to find the throne room. Here, the air was chilled to the point where it was tipping over the edge of being uncomfortable. 

Moonlight streamed through high windows, casting a long shadow from the sole throne that Ventus once rested in. Silently walking over, Vanitas sat cross-legged in front of the throne, at the edge of the shadow. 

The sight of it rising so tall above him felt like a mockery, and he had to swallow another fit of frustration. The burning under his skin only increased, to the point he even considered letting go of any semblance of a form entirely. He hunched over, ignoring the pain. 

“How does Sora get to be so lucky?” He grumbled under his breath. Where he once longed for freedom from the boy’s heart and would kill to get it, he almost missed that place now. “What I wouldn’t give to sleep and never wake up.” 

Those “Guardians of Light” were fools, all of them. Sora would never wake up, and at this point he wouldn’t even want to. With how desperate they were to have him back, Vanitas had once figured that he would be locked up somewhere until he told them what they wanted. But no, they were too naïve and left him where he could roam. What could stop him from leaving? 

Another wave of pain ignited in his chest, but he held back any sort of reaction. Right, that could. It was waking. 

Vanitas shoves his boiling emotions back down, he hates this entire situation. He wants to tear into someone with his keyblade, but he can’t. He wants to leave and never come back, but he can’t. He wants to get rid of his feelings entirely, to just create an army of Unversed and be reduced to numbness. But the hostility that sparked in the eyes of Aqua and Terra before they put that rule in place meant that it would not end well for him. No matter how powerful that army might try to be, he knew that as soon as he felt that numbness he would no longer fight back. Again, he is restricted. 

He may have had little freedom when he was under Xehanort’s control, but now he has none in the hands of those on the side of light. 

What would he even do, if he had the freedom to leave? Where would he go, where could he go? 

In some ways, he just wanted to go back to Sora. Ventus would never accept him, and so he realizes now that Sora’s heart wasn’t… unpleasant. It was okay there. He was okay there. He could sleep there for a long, long time. Then when Sora finally kicked the bucket, so would he. But if he did that, Vanitas would never know peace. Not after what that man did.  

So he thought about other options, he could just fade to darkness. If it all stopped, none of this would be his problem. But if he saw through his end of the deal, he could never feel like this again and still live. Yet at the same time, that deal was why he was in this mess to begin with. 

Why did he agree to do this again? Why the hell was he here? Why didn’t he just leave the second he got out? Why couldn’t he just let Sora—?

“Is that…” Terra’s voice came from somewhere behind him, interrupting his train of thought. “Vanitas?”

Vanitas froze, cursing his stupidity. He was so focused on thinking of ways to escape the plan that he let his guard down. He stood up swiftly, turning to get a better grasp on getting away from the situation. 

Terra was closer than he thought, meaning Vanitas would need to pass by him to leave. Oh how he hated this, the whole charade was starting to chip away at his sanity. But whatever. He walked past at a brisk pace, a pathetic attempt to make it seem like he wasn’t practically running away from this conversation. 

But Terra caught his arm before he could fully make it past. “Wait a moment.”

Immediately Vanitas whipped around, but found himself frozen. For a moment — just a flash — Terra wasn’t the one holding onto him with a firm yet unharming hand, but he was there instead, a phantom of his painful grip manifesting at the same place on arm. But Master Xehanort was dead and gone, Vanitas knew that. The vision disappeared, and a wave of the worst combination of relief, desperation, and rage hit him all at once. 

“Let go of me,” Vanitas hissed out, uncaring of whether or not Terra could understand him. He was barely able to stem the flow of emotions that threatened to get out and attack. He couldn’t let any out, not even a sliver of a malformed Unversed. At that point, the rest would all come pouring and kill Terra. And if he killed him, Vanitas would absolutely end up being killed by rabid Guardians of Light. 

Still, Terra complied easily and let go. Vanitas snatched his arm away. “Sorry. Anyways, I wanted to talk to you, Vanitas.”

“What do you want?” Vanitas didn’t bother keeping the venom out of his voice, pouring his emotions into his words in a last attempt to get them out. 

Terra actually took a step back, blinking in confusion as if he had felt it. But it didn’t last. “We got word from Ienzo, a scientist who studies hearts,” he clarified. “He and a few others were in charge of finding out the cause of Sora’s coma.”

Oh. Vanitas knew where this was going. 

“As it turns out, Sora’s heart is fractured in a similar way that Ven’s was. Do you know anything about that?” 

Vanitas rolled his eyes and scoffed, buying time to carefully consider what to say. “Even if I knew, why would I tell you?” He puts a grin on his face, “You always go running to stupid options the second you can’t do something yourself. How sad.”

Terra wasn’t phased by the taunts, but it wasn’t like Vanitas was expecting him to be. He just needed Terra to think about something else. “Whether you like it or not, you are the best option. You were there,” he pointed out. “And also whether you like it or not, we’ll find out what you’re hiding and why.”

This conversation was not going in his favor, was it? Vanitas thought about it. He could probably provoke Terra a bit, spout something satisfactory but ultimately empty of meaning, and back out of it. 

“Oh please. Unless you plan on torturing me you won’t hear a thing. And even then…” Vanitas shrugs, “Do any of you even have enough of a backbone to try?”

“Don’t underestimate any of us.” Terra’s brow furrowed. “Just because we won’t stoop that low doesn’t mean we won’t find out. Especially if you don’t have a good reason for doing all of this.”

Vanitas ignored him. “Yeah well Aqua already spilled, by the way.” Tilting his head, he gave Terra a moment to think about it. “I know, she knows, and you know that Ventus has made the mistake of trusting me.” Something that Vanitas still couldn’t understand, but he could use it to his advantage. “And I haven’t stepped out of line enough to lose it just yet, so you can’t even touch me until I do. You’d be betraying his trust.”

Terra, to his credit, only sighs. But something in him sounded completely sincere when he spoke again. “All we want is to bring our friend back. He’s helped so many people, including me and you. I think it’s only right we help him, and if you don’t believe that then… You’ll come around.”

Vanitas didn’t know how to respond to that, but that restless little thing inside did. What surprised him wasn’t the sharp pain pulsing in his chest, but the wave of emotions that accompanied it. They weren’t his, and yet they still felt just as overpowering. Protect, came through, almost a word rather than a feeling. Who was it trying to protect? Vanitas didn’t care, he pushed it back down. 

He never expected Sora’s darkness to be so… active. All that light, and yet still his darkness was responsive. It wasn’t an even 50/50 split — anyone could see that Sora had more light than darkness in his heart — yet it was a struggle just to hold it back. Sora had so much light in his heart that it was hard to believe he’d still be in a coma after the split, he had more than enough to sustain himself. Maybe proportions didn’t actually matter when it came down to it, because Sora had a much bigger heart than most people. 

But maybe, just maybe, Sora’s darkness was more integral to his personality than anyone could have ever guessed. More than this hastily made plan could ever account for. 

“Are you… hurt?” Terra was speaking. For some reason, he was looking at him weird, like he was concerned. 

Ah. He doesn’t have his helmet on. He must’ve been making a face as he was trying to keep it down. He’s so unused to anyone seeing his bare face, he made this conversation worse. Whatever, the easiest way to leave a conversation was to walk away. Which he did.