RETROACTIVE DEFENSE OF PAST SELF

[vapidus]

This is the first time it happens, so Vanitas is taken completely by surprise, mid-conversation even. The surroundings fuzz, blur; Vanitas's eyebrows come together but before he can say a word, the Ventus in front of him vanishes. So do the Unversed around them. So, as he turns and stands, turning his head this way and that, has the cairn.

Instead of the desert, there's a courtyard. White buildings, bleached as bone with doorways of mouths, surround it. He can hear and smell the sea, somewhere.

"What." Says Vanitas, into the listless air. He's not stupid, he's on another world somehow but he didn't do it, either by lanes or dark corridors.

An Unversed peels out of his shadow and into those of a bush. Fast enough he didn't get a good look at it, but one of the small ones. He ignores it for now, and starts walking, then using keyblade tricks to go from roof to roof. Staying in the empty streets makes him feel weirdly exposed, watched.

Ventus is nearby - he can feel it, he's always been able to feel it even when he had no idea what it was, when it faded over time to the point that, now, he has to really concentrate if he wants any kind of indication of it's truth, and more importantly, it's direction.

He levers up a skylight with his keyblade instead of tapping it, and drops down into the little atrium. This is a weird-ass house, but he's nearby, he knows it.

"Ventus!" he yells. "This better not be your fault!" Although it probably is. Either Ventus.

Comments

[vapidus]

"Maybe I will!" Vanitas shouts back, because he is 20% competitiveness by volume. He doesn't actually make a move though, because Ventus has the high ground and he's not making that aero-to-the-face mistake again. He would probably have already gone for it if they were both at ground-level, in a 'spontaneous spar' way.
Spars were a good way of dealing with his feelings early on. Unfortunately, this may not have been the greatest habit to enshrine.

Vanitas, unfortunately, does not consciously pick up on that note in Ventus's voice when he says he can't mess this up. He knows about Xehanort and Xehanort and his Ventus, but his Ventus doesn't act like this, and Vanitas never got a full window.

Ventus backs away from the window, and this is a mistake as far as Vanitas is concerned, because now he can try that jump again, only this time going right through it (just). Void Gear donks on the window frame and he has to sort that out. Then he picks up one of the probably many pieces of paper sent flying by this move, turning it the right way up and tilting his head at it. The words Keyblade War jump out at him. "What, this stuff?"

[vacantis]

Ventus remains at a healthy 5% competitive, but this side of him had been sleeping and dormant due to only knowing one old man in his entire brief amnesiac life.

If Vanitas had begun a spar, Ventus might have done something stupid--luckily, there was height--oh god not there wasn't. Ventus yelps and covers his head as Vanitas manages to shatter the open window just by the concussive force of landing on it and wrenching his keyblade through the frame like it was nothing. All of the paper gets blown of the desk, the books slammed against a nearby wall with a thump and Ventus is left standing alone with this tall, and extremely dangerous stranger.

It's about now he actually begins feeling afraid. Not only at the total novelty of this threatening weilder. That was frighting but...

The very second this older boy had come close, it was like the...thing in Ventus had shifted into overdrive, a faint rumble turning into the hiss of steam as he met the other boys red eyes. He felt alert and powerful, hair standing on end with the very potential of it--and just as terrified at this reaction. Darkness never acted like this, like a dog bucking at a leash--it simmered, only to reach icy hands to grab at Ven when he felt angry or afraid. It never just awoke for nothing, amplifiying his feelings until it was all he could do to stop himself from blasting the other boy with as big a spell as he could muster.

"Go away." He repeated, feeling shakier this time. Who was he even adressing. "I mean it. Go away. I'm working right now and I don't have time for this!"

[vapidus]

Vanitas really should have been expecting a desk there, whoops.

It's also at this point, now that he's closer, that he realizes how short the other Ventus is. Vanitas doesn't remember being twelve and hasn't ever seen anyone who's twelve, but this is probably what it looked like. It feels like a shadow passing over him. There's fear in the way Ventus reacts to him, and something in him feeds off it in a way he's used to and been, with increasing self awareness, a touch uncomfortable with, but it's somehow stronger. Something about the Ventus in front of him is making his hackles rise.

This is, however, a Vanitas that has had four years of practice controlling his emotions, and even more recently, at accepting their existences. He makes himself nonchalantly look away and dismiss Void Gear so he can pick up another piece of paper and compare it, in a way like a cat might smugly wash itself at a length just farther than a leash, goading. But also because this is what defusing is, apology is, in Vanitasese; cessation, distraction.

Same handwriting, still about the war. If it's for Xehanort... "Keyblade War this, Keyblade War that..." he mutters. The urge to rip them flashes through him. He puts them down on the desk and, now that he thinks he can handle it, looks back at Ventus. "Fine," he says shortly, glancing for a door, and then after a pause, because Ventus seems like he's losing it in a way a little incongruous for having his window smashed in. "What's up with you?"

[vacantis]

"Are you listening?" Ventus snapped, hunching his shoulders and hissing in a way that was to much like Vanitas. "I said I'm busy. Is that not enough for you to fuck off?"

He wants to throw the keyblade. He can see it now. The other boy turning his head makes his temples throb. A spell--a single spell, one he knows he can use and the other boy will never expect. Then his keyblade, sunk into his chest before that darkness could vanish and it could be his--more of it then ever. It would, it would be--

Ventus looks away himself, biting at a knuckle as he glanced at Vanitas over his shoulder with a growl. What on earth was he thinking? He--no he was not going to think about it.

"Nothings wrong with me." He snapped again, feeling more and more aggressive the longer this went on. At least saying it let it go somewhere. "Whats wrong with you, huh? Coming in here and ruining my day? I'm going to get punished for this--if you care? But you probably don't."

[vapidus]

Vanitas can't help but smirk. "No," he says. Despite actual intent to leave, his knee-jerk contrarianism and love of pissing people off is rising to the fore. Some things about himself he's very good at reigning in. Some things he's never really tried to. They slip through a little easier. Ventus is so angry it's great. The other Ventus didn't get this angry even about the cairn. His Ventus just tries to turn him to paste without preamble and there's no heat to it. The urge to just keep pressing this button, to play chicken, to bare teeth and lock eyes, is so tempting.

Ventus is acting almost like him.

It's the kind of idle thought that then gets a record scratch as the entire length of the train of it then attempts to back up along the track. This boy is really short, really young. He's not a barren wasteland of light, he's got darkness in him; it's so strong now if it gets any thicker it'll be rising up like miasma. His eyes, now that Vanitas really looks, are yellow and green. Vanitas hasn't thought about the boy who died in a year, now.

Of course, what this looks like on the outside is Vanitas stops, eyes wide, and then starts disbelievingly laughing as the worst possible response to these questions.

i want to be evil lint :)

[vacantis]

If Vanitas had an ounce of self awareness, he might have realized that since he was looking at a baby version of himself: laughter was probably the worse option he could pick right after outright attacking. When was the last time you reacted maturely to someone laughing at you Vanitas? Answer honestly.

Ventus clenched his jaw so fast you could practically hear the snap of it. Wayward Wind, hanging by his side for this entire conversation. He brought it up. Vanitas was only a half a room away, and Wayward Winds short blade came up about a foot short from his chest.

"You-" Ventus began, and then couldn't even find the words to continue. The blood was rushing in his head and the shattered few remains of sense and reason that were yelling at him that this was wrong, and bad and he needed to stop right now or he'd do something he couldn't take back again were drowned out by the perfect clarity of anger. This stranger couldn't just--talk to him like this! Threaten him and ruin his life!

With a twist of his wrist he flicked Wayward Wind in a low arc, rushing Vanitas with a growl. Magic flicked at the edge, green and gold and Ventus slammed his shoulder into Vanitas--only to suddenly go slack.

There had been a live wire in the room, something Vanitas had seen a little, thrumming between them, and that brief moment of contact was enough to make it snap. The atmosphere went from the regular tension of two angry teens, to a true sense of forboding--the miasma Vanitas had sensed coalescing into something far more sold and tangible, tugging at him with a quiet insistance.

Ventus meanwhile, sat up from where he had fallen to a floor with a casual sigh--and fixed Vanitas with two bright yellow eyes.

"Well," He began, in a calm even inflection that didn't match at all. "This is interesting. What might you be?"

you're my dad! boogie woogie woogie

[vapidus]

Vanitas is a very mature young individual and would surely calmly- okay I can't even finish the sentence. He absolutely would flip his lid.

If there's one saving grace to Vanitas's apparently suicidal urge to goad Ventuses, it's that he's become very quick at the draw because he usually doesn't know the exact instant he's going to be flung out a window at high speed. Void Gear flashes into his hand in a downward high block by thoughtless habit - only Ventus doesn't use Wayward Wind, he shoulder-checks, knocking Vanitas off balance as he stumbles back in absorbing the momentum. And then Ventus drops to the ground? This is the weirdest feint Vanitas has ever seen. Foreboding runs over and through him as he stares down at the collapsed form; the same feeling as watching a tornado start to form from debris, close enough you can feel the air being sucked in, pulling your entire body towards it.

Ventus collapsed. Vanitas knows, with absolute certainty, that it's not Ventus that sits up. Void Gear is by his side, gripped tightly. "What. The fuck." What does this mean? Who is this? Whose heart is this? Is this Xehanort's doing? He knows bone deep nothing that man could do could match this.

son im very dissapointed in you for not being evil and crazy :/

[vacantis]

"Hm." 'Ventus' sits up further, brushing his oversized jacket off with a huff. "No memory then? Its funny, you are almost certainly me. I can sense it. And yet..."

He leans over on one elbow, crossing his legs and staring up at Vanitas. The shadows behind him flicker--because they are almost becoming solid, a heavy fog that is almost real enough to see. Perhaps an ancient prerequisite to the unversed.

"Well...why don't we start with you? You are not of this reality, I'm certain. I already exist here, in this body. A traveler from the future perhaps? I'm quite curious what happens now."

sorry dad

[vapidus]

Vanitas has never been scared of the dark. It's where he lives, it was his first home. He's scoffed at Terra beating himself up. He's cursed at his Unversed. He's hated and feared Xehanort, but not because the man had darkness. It is this lack of fear, even at the heart of a morass of complicated feelings about himself and the way people around him thought of him, that kept an internal gyroscope upright, that allowed him to push back, internally, against the idea he was, inherently, bad and wrong.

Standing here, with the hairs on the back of his neck sticking up, he can see, just a little, just a shade, why people might.

"Why should I tell you?" he snaps, off-kilter, on the back foot and hating it. The irony of him being in this position is not lost on him. "What do I get?"

Answers, maybe. His mind is reeling, trying to catch up to the roulette. This is him? He doesn't remember? Natural suspicion is rising up against the ring of truth. He'd closed the chapter on it, or so he thought. Ventus was many things, but a liar not one of them, and Vanitas had hated that then as well. Even before that, he hadn't really thought much about who he'd been or where he'd come from. He'd been curious enough to ask, but it hadn't mattered to who he was.

just do better next time :/

[vacantis]

Vanitas's darkness is so very much the darkness of the human heart--for the best and worst of it. The flickering entity in the room with him had all the cold slickness of the ways between, of the realm of darkness itself. Something alien--even in this new world where darkness was as natural a law as light.

"Hm..." 'Ventus' looks thoughtful. "Very transactional. Would you like my explanation first then? I'm a very good guesser."

He puts his hands on his knees and stands. Despite still being a full head shorter then Vanitas, the action still looms. "I've been in this body a long time. Much longer then it remembers. Time is very funny, like that." He snorts a little at his own joke. "My name... I suppose I was once called Darkness, but that seems a bit redundant now. Oh well. Perhaps Ventus will do?"

Another joke. Darkness is a very funny guy. Yellow eyes meet red as 'Ventus' looks Vanitas up and down.

"And if you want my explination--you seem to be...well thats quite interesting isn't it. Some sort of mix of myself and a human heart. A true chimera. I didn't think such a thing was possible, even here." Perhaps to Vanitas, Darkness appeared a predator, confident and sleek and unbroken--but unspoken was the fact that Darkness lay sleeping even in this world, unable to take its own form anymore outside of the body it had chosen. Oh it was powerful, very powerful, yet its stability was not centered in this world. It was no shadow of the human heart or a creature born from this new realm of darkness--it remained itself, something very old and arising from beyond the world of light, even after dragging the entirety of reality down to its level.

Perhaps the Foretellers had succeeded more then they might have thought--or perhaps it just meant there was more to go, a final nail yet to be placed on the coffin. Darkness was very good at patience.

[vapidus]

They stand there, two snapshots in time, the before and after of darkness. There is an empty throne out there now, left and ignored, with only Vanitas's claim to it as prince.

"You're not Ventus," Vanitas snips defensively. It's like if Xehanort claimed to actually be Terra; injuring Terra's body or no, Vanitas would have attacked him on the spot. The Ventus that was in front of him wasn't his Ventus, but had more claim than whoever this was. "Pick something else."

Vanitas likes transactional, as a general rule. No mess, no fuss, no one owing each other anything, just the impersonal grounding of trade. No wonder he has such an affection for gifts. Darkness answered, with more than expected even, so Vanitas sets his jaw to reply. "Vanitas." A terse name for name.

"It's all Xehanort's fault," he says, the words coming easily from habit. "He wants Kingdom Hearts and had the bright idea that splitting Ventus in two would get him a Chi-Blade." Vanitas's eyes narrow. He'd taken a step back when Ventus stood up; that was a mistake. "Only it didn't work out." It's a reeling concept. 'You came from a boy that died', he was told once. "Who are you? Where did you come from? What do you mean, longer than it remembers?" There's just so much going on.