You wouldn't steal a boy

[vapidus]

In the moment immediately after the action there is only silence, everything utterly frozen.

The old man in front of Vanitas coughs, blood dripping out his mouth. He makes a noise - he can't speak. Keyblades can cut through nearly whatever they wish and the bone of a ribcage isn't an obstacle. Eventually, his widened eyes dull and his weight slumps and drags the tip of Void Gear down, the keyblade sliding out of the wound it punctured half with only the force of it's summoning. Vanitas realizes, in a distant and offhand way, that this is the same guy depicted in all the portraits and statues all over the place.

He stares down at the body, blood still dripping from the Keyblade's tip onto the floor at his side. It doesn't seem entirely real. Why did he do that?

This morning, the biggest worry on Vanitas's mind had been the failure of a magic lesson. He'd been angry and fuming less because of it, and more because of all the little things it had been the final straw for. Darkness this and light that. That was it, Vanitas had decided. He was running away. It was a quick and simple decision, and he had found his way through a tunnel of darkness into another world, which was new and interesting in and of itself, and definitely a worthy distraction.

He'd spent some time exploring the white stone buildings and streets, all oddly empty, then a house that contained splashes of colour. It was extensive, with rooms and halls folding in on themselves. A keyblade made short work of the many and myriad locks, even if it was annoying to use it on near every single door. What was initially novel became vaguely, indefinably foreboding. It was in the bloodied bandages he found in a rubbish bin. It was in the odd way the pantry was stocked. It was in the pristine, white, show-home room he still stood in the empty doorway of, with it's bookshelves with no books on them.

I can never go back, Vanitas had told himself this morning, and Vanitas now considers this a stupid, petty and childish thought, like a little kid declaring they were a cloud for a day. Because now, with the blood of some random stranger on his shaking hands, he really can't go back. He's proved them all right. Behind him, he can feel his shadow ripple and swell.

Comments

[vacantis]

Sorry? Did you say something? Who has the organs here? Your last shoulder check pretty much turned the consistency of his ribs to a Nature Valley bar.

Ventus has a very snarky monotone reply about how Vanitas is definitely the person who should know everything about the Unversed because he makes them but unfortunately he's distracted by the sound of the Unversed screeching and his own shoddy healing job. He pats at his own chest further, the Cura smelling vaguely of flowers Ventus has no context for. The warmth that blooms is a welcome relief, and he sighs.

"I'm coming!" He groans back, pushing himself up and wiping his nose on his (conveniently black!) sleeve. He stumbles the rest of the way into the foyer, letting Vanitas do the closing this time.

Once his eyes adjust its clear the mansion is a mess. He nearly trips over a fallen beam and all the portraits and walls are dark and smokey looking. A fire maybe? Or just age?

He knows they should continue to run but Ventus needs a little more time to heal thank you, and spotting a dusty run down couch in a room nearby, makes a beeline for it. He sits down again, fingers sparking as he makes another Cura spell and brings it up to his face, and then tending other wounds with a cold mechanical efficiency. The anger in his demeanor leaches away a little, but so does most of the emotion on his face. It's the same sort of blank faced composure he had when they first met, though its obvious the facade isn't nearly as complete. There's plenty Ventus has to be mad about right now, its just clear right now isn't the time to get emotional about it.

"Do I look like I know." He finally repeats, throwing Vanitas's words back at him as he stares over at Vanitas. "I'd actually be more interested in why you wouldn't Vanitas. You've made thousands of unversed, clearly. Why set something like the remment on yourself now." Yeah please explain that. What the fuck is your deal.

[vapidus]

You can walk off being boy soup, right?

Vanitas wastes no time shutting the doors and pointing his keyblade at them. Silver and black chains briefly cross the door in an X before vanishing into motes. He kicks the doors twice to test their hold and nods.

While Ventus makes a beeline for the couch, Vanitas paces around the foyer looking at and poking objects with Void Gear until the restless wound-up energy that wants to be Floods dissipates more naturally. Unlike Ventus, he feels they're decently safe in here as long as they don't go outside, and that helps a great deal, especially since he doesn't want to so much as look at an Unversed right now.

Ventus seems to have healing well in hand, anyway, the smell of flowers filling the air. There's not much Vanitas's meager-to-non-existent skill in the area could add to the party - he has the familiar urge to call Aqua over instilled by a year of occasional training accidents, quickly stifled by the remembrance she's not here. Vanitas's mind naturally shunts the thought and emotions associated away before anything can happen.

Finally, the room thoroughly inspected, Vanitas stalks over to where Ventus is, dismisses his keyblade, and leans against a wall, looking out into the foyer. He turns his head when Ventus speaks. The cold, dry tone feels... weirdly nostalgic, and definitely like he's being scolded by Eraqus. Vanitas doesn't appreciate it coming from someone who looks like a broom given human form, although it's debatable he would it coming from anyone at all. His eyes narrow.

First of all... "I didn't set it on anything, it was born pissed." Probably because it was made of a ton of Unversed he'd already aggroed (likely also because as Ventus's ire, Vanitas would naturally be a target of it). Ventus's statement of him having made thousands of Unversed isn't wrong - Vanitas hasn't been counting but he wouldn't be surprised - but something about it still rankles. "I've never seen anything like that before." Not even this 'remnant'.

Normally Vanitas is very fine with people assuming he knows more than he does, and equally reluctant to admit he doesn't. Here it's been nothing but confusing and aggravating. "Why, is it a surprise? You clearly have all the answers here, Mr. half-of-me." A lot was happening at the time but he does remember that. He also remembers being told Xehanort should have let him die. It's not kindly predisposing him to Ventus.

[vacantis]

Ventus doesn't really feel safe from the unversed, even here. In his experience there were either places that had unversed, or places without them and this world had rapidly switched from one to the other in the half hour or so since he'd arrived here. At best this was a temporary refuge, and Ventus wasn't getting his hopes up. Unversed always had an uncanny knack for tracking.

Of course, it was even harder to relax when the one and only person capable of making unversed was in the same room as him. As Vanitas locked the door and paced, Ventus watched him with the same air one would watch a ticking time bomb, or perhaps an especially hungry tiger. He narrowed his eyes when Vanitas came into the same room as him, but said nothing.

When Vanitas started to talk continued to stare at him like that, the same half empty guarded glare. A few times he opens his mouth to respond, only to shut it and scowl at the floor.

"Ok. Fine." He finally says, leaning back with a sigh. He glares vaguely at the ceiling as if it is to answer for all his troubles. "I thought I understood. But nothing you do makes any sense." He gestures vaguely with his hands, wishing for the comforting weight of his keyblade even though he knows its not worth the minute effort to summon it. "Here's what I know. Once upon a time Master Xehanort had an apprentice so useless at using his darkness that it had to be separated from him to be worth anything. That's you, by the way. I don't know what this Terra or whatever has been telling you. Or where you've been. Or how you got that face in the last..."

He trails off. He's not actually sure how long its been since they were separated. Xehanort hasn't told him. He scowls, glossing over it and hoping Vanitas won't notice. "....last whatever. Clearly you haven't gotten any less hysterical and useless. And you still make unversed." He jabs a finger at Vanitas. "I meanwhile stuck around, cleaning up your mess until you showed up and killed Master Xehanort." Ah, there is the aura of bloodlust again. It's restrained, but Ventus sure is angry now that he has a second. He was...Attached.

"Anyway. Thats...thats all." He grunts, leaning forward to stare at his hands. "I don't get if your a monster, or stupid, or trying to mess with me. But I'm not going to take it. The second I've rested I'm killing that thing." And dragging Vanitas back to the graveyard...but he's not gonna mention that.

he'd lose his membership

[vapidus]

"Once upon a time, two years ago," Vanitas serves back. "Xehanort's apprentice - I guess that's you - died in a training accident, and what was left went to live with someone else. That's what I know." He's not going to tell Ventus about the Land of Departure, with a defensiveness wrapped around the idea of it. Ventus isn't getting that much. Some 'training accident'. From what Ventus says, and from Ventus's continued existence alone, someone has been telling lies.

"That's your fault," Vanitas says. He was doing fine not making them until this disaster right now. He had it under control. Stop looking at him like he's a monster. He is. He forces himself not to twitch when Ventus jabs at him with a finger. Guilt is definitely a negative emotion, and he has to try and hold it's head down underwater because it's also not helpful right now.

"Fuck off," Vanitas spits. "I made it, so I'll deal with it. Stay out of it." He does feel a responsibility for it, and doesn't want anyone to become injured fixing a problem he made, especially someone who's already taken hits (who's already been 'cleaning up his mess' and isn't that a horrifying revelation), but his paler face belies the fact that this is also just a terrifying option. It's like if Ventus had declared he was going to break one of Vanitas's bones.

[vacantis]

"My fault?" Ventus says in what is almost a sputter. He narrows his eyes, replaying through the events again. The unversed hadn't shown up right until after Vanitas had started convulsing, which was about around when Ventus and himself had been talking and also when Ventus had....attacked Vanitas. In his conflicting rage he doesn't think he feels that poorly about it, he'd certainly do it again, and yet even so a bit of unfamilar guilt coils itself in his stomach. It's not like Ventus has ever attacked another person before. He just did it like he would an unversed he couldn't stand. Which Vanitas was right! So it was fine. It's not like there was a huge difference between attacking people and unversed, if they were going to hurt you. Except the talking part.

"And I'm not dead.' He tacks on, none of his inner turmoil showing on his face. Nope he's gonna keep looking mad because he Is Mad.

He leans forward to squint at Vanitas's rebuttal. Why did he look so frightened. "You don't actually care about it, do you? Like its your kid or something?" Its a valid question ok? Ventus has zero idea of how Unversed work. "Is that why you're so bad at fighting them? I don't think your little absorption trick will work and I can kill it you know."

he's not ready to be a father

[vapidus]

"Obviously," Vanitas says, since it handily acts as a reply to both. "I haven't made any at all in the past month," he elaborates on the first. There's a river of pride running through the sentence as he tips his head back. Like a workplace sign that counts the days since last injury - if Vanitas resented the sign being hung up there at all. "So clearly it's you." You and your dispensing of flashbacks. He was handling it until that tipped him over the edge. He kind of wasn't.

If Vanitas had been drinking, there would have been a spit-take. As it is there's the almost audible sound of his brain shutting down and having to boot back up again. "Wh- no. They're just..." Unversed. He hasn't thought about it in any greater detail - that term encompasses all of it. "Bits of me. My emotions. That run around. Ew."

His eyes narrow as he draws himself up. "What, you think I can't handle it?" He can't, but the problem with not entertaining thoughts so you don't make little monster-animals is that you well, don't think about them. "I don't care if you can kill it, it's mine." At least if he does it himself, he can brace himself. He doesn't want to be wracked with pain from nowhere without warning anymore. Not so soon after it stopped. He already couldn't hold it in the first time.

Outside and behind, there's the sound of what might be wingbeats, and then the sound of what is definitely something heavy landing on the roof, sending old ash and dust drifting down from the rafters. It can't see or hear or access them, with the old house standing up determinedly well to it's assaults, but it can sense them and their argument, and there's loud scraping against the tiles and another shriek of frustration.

[vacantis]

"Your emotions?" Ventus tilts his head a little, looking confused. Huh? He just kind of assumed they were Wayward Bits of darkness. He also didn't really take the time to think about the fact that Vanitas has emotions. It shouldn't be suprising, and yet he feels a little put off by this brazen admission.

"Ew." He repeats before prodding a little for a reaction. "If they're little bits of you thats still kind of like a kid though." Now he's just kind of being mean.

"You weren't very good at fighting them before." He pushes back, leaning away a little from Vanitas's outbursting and narrowing his eyes. "I'm just saying. You can't just say its yours and then not kill it."

He's not even really thinking about the people in this world (other people is a very forign concept, groups of them even more so). It's just obvious to him that if an Unversed exists, it has to go. He starts when the Unversed shrieks again, jabbing his finger upwards as if to say "see!"

"If you want to help, fine. But I'm not going to just sit here and let that thing dig us out."

[vapidus]

He has emotions every day of his life, Ventus! Ninety per cent of the time they stay in him, too. But they are also wayward bits of darkness when they don't.

Vanitas is unfazed by Ventus's continued needling, able to return fire with his footing regained. "Oh, so you have kids every time you cut your hair? If you ever do." It doesn't even look like you wash it, Ventus. Gross. Vanitas's hair has Sora's silky fluffiness rather than his canon grease-spikes thanks to Aqua's stamp of the concept of baths and thirty minute long showers that use up all the hot water - that last one is his own spin on it.

Vanitas looks up sharply, eyes widening, as the thing lands on the roof - dust from the rafters lands on them and he scrubs at them with a hand and an 'argh!', before turning his slightly watery glare on Ventus. Stop saying he's bad at this (even if that's an objective fact).

"You're the one who's going to be helping me", Vanitas says, jabbing with his own finger, which is the closest he can make to a concession here. The two are equally stubborn because that's apparently a neutral trait, but Vanitas has had to at least learn some conflict resolution skills, even if a lot of the time it's 'pretend I'm bored anyway/meant to do that'.

"Do you even have a plan?" Way to subtley disguise digging as an insult, Vanitas. But he would like to know what Ventus is going to do before he does it. His goal has shifted to 'get the killing blow'.