*Nobody is happy with this

[vapidus]

The last shards of the piece of Xehanort's heart dissipate, unable to hold themselves together, and Vanitas stares out at the Abyss, keyblade hanging by his side. There's nothing but silence and the distant roar of wind.

"Ventus?"

Vanitas scuffs a boot on the featureless black disc below him, barely discernible, then kicks it. There's no response at all. Not even the hint of the potential for response. It's just silent and dark and empty.

"Ventuussss. Venty Wenty. Venbutt. Wake the fuck up." A pause. "I'm burning your chess sets."

Nothing. There's a hiss and Vanitas turns to see a piece of darkness dissipating from the disc into mist, revealing a piece of colour that shines upwards.

"About time."

He walks over to it, and stops short when he sees what it is. It's nothing that should be on Ventus's disc at all. A single blue, catlike eye, and a little of the red and black around it. There's another hiss behind and to the right of Vanitas, and another small shaft of exposed light spiking up.

Foreboding hits Vanitas like a freight train. So does consciousness.

He sits up with a gasp of breath, feeling like one big bruise, and he stares down at callused and scarred hands and arms, one ringed with a bracelet. These aren't the clothes he was wearing. This is not his beautiful house. He pats himself down, and he can't find his Wayfinder.

If there's one thing about the World That Never Was, it's no lack of reflective surfaces. Still puddles of rain that never fell. Dark windows in buildings never occupied. Vanitas stares at glowing red eyes in a face not his own, and swears.

Navigating this world was easier when it wasn't absolutely teeming with heartless fallen from the giant Unmoon above. Vanitas has never seen a swarm this thick or large, and he ran out of potions a while back. It's all he can do to find ways to disengage long enough to spam Cure, wait for his magic to recover, then spam it again, an increasingly taller ask as he makes his way back to the Castle where he's sure the others are still fighting. He wears the cloak, but he doesn't want to risk a dark portal just yet.

He wipes his hand across his eyes, curling his lip at the black gunk that just will not stop oozing from them like viscous tears. His clothes - Ventus's clothes - are smeared with handlines of it from nose and mouth and maybe ears, he hasn't checked. He's still wearing that blue lobster shirt, faded from time that chilled Vanitas. He sways and leans against a wall, fighting the urge to throw up. It hasn't been this bad in years.

The same liquid tar hits the pavement, and Vanitas waits, but no red eyes appear in it. A guard armor takes the opportunity to attack, and Vanitas barely dodges the attack and is struck by the pieces of wall produced by it, knocking him to his knees. His breath mists in the air as he pants harshly, disoriented.

Comments

ventus voice: im done being baby. i want poweer

[vacantis]

Vanitas's falls under the onslaught of rubble and the Guard armor pauses a second, any obvious target no longer immediately visable. It turns, making some sort of rumbling heartless noise, and something slips into view.

The appearance of shoes is usually proceeded by footsteps, but the silver and black pair now standing in the corner of Vanitas's line of sight are silent as if they had just suddenly appeared. Silver and black boots with a distictive x patterned buckle....exactly the same pair that Vanitas's now wore.

A glance upward and two yellow eyes blinked down at Vanitas, cheerful and lambent in the silver lighting. "Ventus" put his hands on his knees and bent over, smiling a friendly polite smile so unlike anything his true self had ever worn.

"My." He said, the strange monotone turned lilting tone of his voice ringing out among the echoing halls of The World That Never Was. "Aren't you in quite a state."

[vapidus]

Man Xehanort sure is getting a good view of Ventus's nostrils through those huh. Well, right now the ground mostly.

Vanitas jerks a little as the shoes enter his field of vision, a piece of concrete falling off his back. He glances up, and confusion that's not quite hope turns into consternation at the yellow eyes shining in the face he now has.

"What the hell," he spits, struggling to get upright and stilling when the guard armor turns back a little and the sound of voice and motion. When it turns back, still casting about for the half-heart it can locate but not pinpoint, Vanitas switches his glare back to the apparition in front of him.

"I killed you," Vanitas hisses in a whisper up at him. Darkness drips off his chin. The hell is going on.

[vacantis]

"Kind of a morbid start to a conversation." "Ventus" says, smiling a little as he kicks a rock away from the pile of rubble. It scitters aross the floor with a soft clatter, but the guard armor doesn't seem to notice, which really drives in the "is this real or not" of the situation.

"I mean, a hello would be nice to. You spent a long time yelling for Ventus to come back, you know." Up close its clear this Ventus is slightly blurry around the edges, as if Vanitas's brain is plastering a slightly fuzzing image from memory (which it kind of is, but please do not rule out the immense amount of heart based magic in the world).

"So here I am. What's left, anyway. Are you liking the body you claimed? You seem to be having a bit of trouble." Another fox grin, almost like the one Xehanort gave when Vanitas had struck him down. "All that darkness you've been gathering all these years must be feeling pretty gross."

[vapidus]

Vanitas's eyes flick to follow the movement of the rock, brow furrowing. He glances at the guard armor and back again.

He feels like he needs about five showers, but he's not going to give Venahort the satisfaction by admitting it. Even leaving out it's metaphysical nature as darkness which shouldn't bother him, it's everywhere and it's just a really bad texture. Like cold blood. Yeuch.

Vanitas never realized gathering darkness was something he could do or indeed was doing almost continuously. Being drawn to arguments just felt like an extension of his natural love for chaos and drama. Choosing nights Aqua or Terra were having nightmares to hide under their beds felt coincidental given he did that even when it wasn't the case. He never really thought about why Unversed when left to their own devices would try to get involved in cases of whatever emotion made them or whether he'd be getting more than he intended on reabsorbing them. Five years is a long time to be doing this unknowingly.

He still hasn't really put it together.

"I wanted Ventus, not you," he says in as vicious a whisper as he can manage at the required volume level. He squashes that quiet bit of doubt that it's apparently been ten years; the yellow eyes say as much. As far as Vanitas is concerned, that can only be Xehanort's signature, the same way red is apparently Vanitas's. "What did you do with him." What do you mean, what's left.

This isn't like it was before. He could feel himself and Ventus pressed together then, a little too much for the space. Here, the body still fits perfectly, way too perfectly, and there's pressure but no sense of another heart. This shouldn't be happening at all. He reaches forward carefully, to avoid making further noise, and then swipes at Vennort's fuzzy ankle.

[vacantis]

Darkness, negativity. It's all built up in a heart and body designed to handle it. Ven's very human body must feel cramped and crowded with all those unversed that can't escape.

"I haven't done anything." "Ventus" rolls his eyes. "If you want to blame anyone, you could blame the Ventus you want for being an idiot and sticking around to fight Xehanort when he'd obviously loose." No he won't elaborate, mostly because he knows it will piss Vanitas off more to imply the worst but not explain it.

"But I guess I'll be nice and explain what nobody else will, seeing as your weirdo friends are all occupied slaughtering the castle." He hops back to avoid Vanitas's swipe, but Vanitas's finger grazes his image to feel...nothing. Not even a cold breeze or a static sensation. Just air. "Lets see. Right now the body your in is as empty as dirt. It's still alive, goodness knows how, but there's no heart in there to power anything."

He stuck his hands on his hips and leaned over a bit. "So, plenty of room for any hearts that come knocking, catch my drift? For the both of us." There's a reason there was only Xehanort in there, Vanitas.

[vapidus]

It's a good thing his face is apparently a pressure valve but yeah... not fun. Wait for Vanitas's reaction when it clicks he's bleeding himself. Eventually there'd just be his heart remaining.

"Dirt isn't empty, idiot." This sort of sentence is basically Vanitas's equivalent of the buffering symbol as he processes things. He does that Standard Kingdom Hearts Motion of pressing a hand to his chest as he frowns down at the ground, but like. More angrily than normal. Vennort is right, implying the worst does piss him off.

He knows you can destroy a heart and leave the body intact. He just did it. The idea it happened to Ventus...

But he has no reason to trust Xehanort, and denial is easy in the face of that fact. Some part of Vanitas is proud Ventus fought, just as another is traumatized by it. He doesn't want to have lost someone again, so he won't. Ventus, the proper Ventus, has to still be out there somewhere. Also only he gets to call Ventus an idiot.

"So why are you still here?" If this body is empty, it should really and truly be empty, shouldn't it?

He doesn't care for being leaned over. He looks at the lumbering guard armor and hurriedly pries himself out of his cover, leaping up into the air and slamming Void Gear into the wall of the nearby skyscraper like a giant crampon, balancing on it. It definitely gets the heartless's attention, but he's too high to reach, hopefully - he actually ended up going higher than intended. If he's going to yell at a hallucination this is ironically a less precarious place to do it, slippery darkness aside.

[vacantis]

I mean consider this a kind of clense? You'll be super nuetral hearted by the time you get your body back!! Unversed will be easier to deal with then ever!

Vennort just sort of grins at Vanitas's backsass. Asshole. He continues to grin as Vanitas vaults up his keyblade, growing smaller and smaller as Vanitas ascends a the skyscraper. Until Vanitas looks behind from where hes crouching and "Ventus" is just sitting on a peice of floating rubble, swinging his legs like he'd always been there.

"Do I need to spell it out?" "Ventus" cocks his head a little. "It's kind of dull being just the exposition here." He puts a hand on his chest in his version of the "Kingdom Hearts Standerd Dramatic Speech Pose" and smiles. "I'm Ventus's body with Xehanort's heart. Kind of like your friend Terra, but less complete." Less total possession and more...a fusion? A personality reset? A mind with its values and bonds changed and overwritten? "And you are now Ventus's body with Vanitas's heart. Tell me you've noticed you have more then just that body now." He put his hand on his chin and sighed. "Unless you've been so busy you don't even realize you should have like half of his memories."

[vapidus]

This is the worst of all detoxes and he wants a refund.

It was too much to hope he'd be able to leave whatever was going on behind just like that, but Vanitas sure wouldn't have complained if it had happened.

Vanitas has been just a heart wrapped in darkness for a long time - as far back as his memories go. By rights, he shouldn't be cognitive at all, but something more like the heartless that dither below. Eraqus's lectures on them were therefore always very awkward, once he had more of an idea of what he was.

And there were other lectures too. A chill shoots up Vanitas's spine as he mentally shies away from the impression of them like a hot stove, and the words of his current doppelganger. His next glance at Vennort is a bit wall-eyed.

"No."

That's it. That's his response to this. He's not dealing with this, not today. He's Vanitas, and only Vanitas, he's not... wow he hates this. The problem with memory, though, is that it's associative. As long as he wasn't really thinking about it, it was fine. Now though, it's like the throb of a poked-at rotten tooth, fragments and shards leaking through of the shadows behind the thin glass wall he's hurriedly putting up with the strength of a heart used to pulling double time, unused to this role.

[vacantis]

"Yes." Ventus swings his legs a little more, looking extremely smug. "Told you that plan wasn't going to get you what you wanted." Or maybe it did? Did Vanitas ever want a human body? Vennort sure wouldn't know. You're like the only part of himself he doesn't have memories from.

"Anyway." He says, standing and streching with a 'hup!'. "Don't feel to bad about blocking all those out. It's what he did anyway." A wink as he leaned over to look at the heartless below. Time to test the tenable reality of this hallucination! There are a few flutterings below, and "Ventus" picks up a rock in one hand, bouncing it a few times as he starts to take aim. Things are getting a little chummy around here Vanitas. You forget he literally wants you dead.

[vapidus]

If Vanitas ever wanted a human body, it was more of an idle fancy than a concrete goal. Wanting to be more like Terra or Aqua, before resenting the fact it felt like he should be coming from all sides. And even then what he pictured in his head was more like... himself, just more. Not taking over someone else's, although it turns out himself isn't entirely himself either.

Even when fused with Ventus the first time, he couldn't leave fast enough. There's a part of Vanitas that will never leave that says he shouldn't rely on anyone, he's a burden, he can only truly trust himself. Turned inside out to it's more healthy end, it becomes independence and a desire to stand on his own, to stay his own.

Vanitas bristles. Even the idea that wanting to just be Vanitas isn't him just being Vanitas, he hates. He never thought overmuch about Ventus's reasonings for fusion and he never wants to, especially in a position to know for sure. It tries to sneak up anyway and he shoves it.

"Don't you dare," he says, futilely. The wanting dead feeling is mutual, and it is super unfair that he's already killed this guy once and he's still around - that's mostly what he wanted out of this. He's standing on his keyblade and while he can change it's form to Missing Memories, that still isn't super useful to stopping this imminent event.

[vacantis]

Do you want to stay your own or do you desperetly not want to be somebody who didn't want to be themselves in the first place. Fun thoughts! I love compounding trumas.

"What? You'll kill me if I don't?” Vennort seems to think thats the funniest idea in the world, but he stops tossing the rock in the air once as he winks at Vanitas.

“I mean, I’m not even real.”

And the rock comes down but not in Vennorts hand. Ventus isn’t even there at all, the rock comes down in Vanitas waiting palm and before he can even realize it his arm is moving to chuck the rock at the Flutterings.

there's an impressive level of self sabotage going on here

[vapidus]

There's some resonances going on here for sure. Sorry Ventus, you're going to come back to a mess of a house.

Vanitas has time to blink down at the stone landing in his hand and then everything moves faster than thought. The rock hits a fluttering, which squawks, and then every single pair of yellow eyes in the swarm is on him.

There's no thought of why did I do that, but more like the pre-emptive echo of it, one half of a lightning-strike without the return. There's a brief bit of no thought at all, like something overloaded and has to reboot, a flash of white void. At the same time he's watching the flutterings get closer with detached observation.

Something clicks into gear when they're close enough to touch but it's mostly muscle memory - dismiss the keyblade, drop through the swarm, kick off the wall, hit the guard armor blade first, bounce, land and run. The impact painfully jarring up his legs snaps Vanitas out of it a little, but it's panting along an alley with an increasing swarm of Heartless gathering and following that he gathers enough presence of mind to turn sharply and smash his way through the glass window of a nearby building and jump through over the shards. That'll at least stop the larger ones, and restrict the flying ones.

The buildings of the World That Never Was feel... unfinished. Like boxes with a skin more than anything ever used to live or work in. Like rough, unpolished designs for video game levels (not that Vanitas has any great knowledge in that area) - all hard edges and emptiness. There's no Heartless in the upper floors of the building yet, sealed as it was, but the place will soon be crawling with shadows.

He's boxed himself in. He boxes himself in further by retreating to something that could be an apartment or an office but is too bland to distinguish itself as either, and locking the singular door with his keyblade, every muscle fibre taut and on edge.

In the silence that follows every fluttering-inflicted cut makes itself known in red hot lines. Vanitas breathes in, and breathes out, and stares at the hand that threw the rock. It shakes a little, and he scowls.

"Stop that."

It doesn't. He doesn't. He only realizes he's backed into the wall when his spine hits it and then his legs splay out from under him.

"I hate you," he tells the air in the center of the room, curling the- his- Ventus's fingers in on the palm. The tone tries for threateningly conversational but misses the mark and lands in pure vehemence.

xehanort eating popcorn asmr

[vacantis]

“I assure you the feeling is mutual.” “Ventus” is sitting beside Vanitas now, with no clear indication of when exactly he’d gotten there. He stretches casually. “I really can’t believe you were the winner of our little spat.”

He draws his knees up and pulls his arms around them, cocking his head. “I mean, your strong but you needed two people to clear out a heart last time. I don’t think anyone was expecting such an...underdog victory! What’s your secret? Been eating well?”

There’s a squawk as a fluttering impales itself on some walk outside. Vennort chuckles, drumming his fingers. Xehanort’s laugh with Ventus’s voice was...horrible honestly. Nobody should sound like Xehanort.

[vapidus]

How many times does he have to teach you this lesson, old man?

Vanitas both smirks and jumps at the opportunity to rub something in, an opening that has been sorely lacking this past while. "Maybe you're just weak. Pathetic. Losing it in your old age, are you?" Really you've just ended up burning yourself here, Vennort.

There's a quiet scratching at the door as backdrop starting halfway through, but thankfully there's not enough space under it for darkness to puddle inside. Those claws will be at it for a while.

That laugh is absolutely horrible and Vanitas would tell him to never do that again if he wasn't completely sure he'd do it again just to spite him. They're a little too similar in that regard. Vanitas simultaneously takes the opportunity to start inexpertly healing his wounds, making the occasional frustrated noise at the slowness and the itch and the situation in general.

[vacantis]

“Ventus” pursed his lips in a very Ventus like expression but his eyes were burning with uncharacteristic rage.

“Charming.” He said languidly. “I’m not a day over fourteen I’ll have you know. Give or take a decade.” Don’t ask him why this body didn’t age he won’t tell you. No need to let Vanitas know Vens real heart still exists.

He would do it again to spite Vanitas but thankfully insults really put him out of the cackling mood. Vennort is not as unshakable as Xehanort, even as a malevolent phantom with nothing to loose.

“By the light just heal yourself and be done with it or open the door.” Vennort complains as Vanitas fails yet another Cura. This is torture for a master of magic like Xehanort, torture. “The tedium of your incompetence will kill me twice.”

he looks like he's about to yell 'that's my OPINION'

[vapidus]

Vanitas's expression increases in smugness until he looks like the cat surrounded by knives. Gottem. He knows your weakness now, Vennort. Beware.

"Give or take a century." Vanitas's sense of time has been a little thrown off by dimension hopping, but he does know it's been ten years, somehow. He'd ask but he gets the strangest impression Vennort would not be helpful in this arena.

"Die then," Vanitas says deliberately indifferently, focusing on one red line across the back of Ventus's arm in particular. He's not returning this body in mint condition it seems, but Ventus probably won't notice some extra scars. He'd slow down the spell even further just to piss Vennort off that little bit more, but he doesn't have enough fine control for that. He prods a finger towards Vennort's apparition. "Like you can do better."

he fuckign WOULD

[vacantis]

Goddamit. It's hard being an evil form of somebody insecure Vanitas. Its hard and nobody understands. Ventus ignores the rest of Vanitas's insults because he actually has no good responses for them and thusly decides to simply sulk in the background.

"I could, thank you very much." Vennort leans backward to float a little, drifting by Vanitas like an asshole ghost that he is. "Of course, you'd have to let me~" He flashes a charming smile.

"I mean, it's better then dying right. I recall you being very particular about your desire to live overruling so much. Must have sucked to hang around the original guy, thinking like that." What a sad sack of lame suicidal tendencies and repressions! Can't you see the current Vennort is much funnier and cooler.

starring vanitas's spotty monk-education

[vapidus]

Repliku might have an inkling but the one in question isn't around yet. Ventus's sulking only increases Vanitas's smugness quotient. He will remember this.

Vanitas's gaze follows Vennort's ghost across the room. Good thing no one's here to see you interacting with nothing at all, Vanitas.

"This isn't going to kill me, idiot," Vanitas gripes, the spell dropped with his concentration. "It's just cuts." The flutterings slashed him up pretty bad but they aren't too fatal, he thinks. Unless they get infected. Does he have to worry about that now? He's never had to. He's a bit iffy on how it even happens. A little bit of uncertainty slips into the back end of the sentence.

That likely isn't what Vennort even means, though. These cuts might be livable, but there's a crowd of heartless out there. Future ones might not be. And Vanitas has already noticed it - getting injured makes everything harder to do, so it's easier to get injured, so it's harder to avoid getting injured. Suddenly, healing spells are a much bigger deal than he thought.

He's... actually not sure what would happen if Ventus's body died with him still in it. Would he just be his normal self again, a mortal shell lying on the floor under him like in that one memory? Would Kingdom Hearts be like 'oh fuck I missed one' and grab him despite protest? He doesn't want to find out. Moreover, he wants to keep this body alive for Ventus - the real Ventus's - sake.

"I'd rather have him than you," Vanitas returns. It didn't occur to him until Vennort said it, that aspect of Ventus staying behind to fight Xehanort, and it feels like something sharp in a joint, only in his heart, for a brief second. His eyes narrow. "Why should I even trust you?"

He hasn't forgotten the thrown rock. Clearly Vennort coughing up healing spells isn't going to come without a cost or agenda, and Vanitas doesn't plan to just walk face first into it.