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Summary: Set some time after Ventus's final battle with Vanitas.
If Ventus had a choice, and he always chose to believe that he did, he would much rather regret the decisions that which he didn't make, rather than the ones that which he'd followed through. For example, he regretted only just being able to pursue Terra. Why couldn't they both have just left home together? Perhaps things would have turned out differently. He would've been there to support Terra with his struggles, and Aqua, wherever she may now be, needn't have worried so much about them. The last time that he saw her was amidst the strife which took place at the Key blade Graveyard.
Aqua pursued Ventus whilst Ventus pursued Terra. Aqua needn't have followed if Ventus had just stayed put, but then what would have happened to Terra? Maybe he would've been okay, but out there travelling from world to world, combating the unversed on his own...
Vanitas wasn't much help either. His aloof intervention had been too much of a bad omen for him to ignore; it really troubled Ventus, knowing that there was even the slightest chance that what Vanitas said in his room had been true. Those words, so without emotion stirred up a sense of doubt and youthful rebellion. He belittled and taunted him at every opportunity, and dragged his friends into the mix so that they could spar and conjoin. There was no room for a peaceful resolution. Why couldn't there be? Everything that Vanitas had done made things so much worse. Whether it was either with words or by a blow dealt with his sword, Vanitas unrelentingly pummelled them all down again and again and again into the dirt until they could no longer run or were ready to die. The blade that nearly pierced Aqua's chest—what if his rage hadn't literally melted away the ice off his armour?
He regretted calling Aqua awful.
A part of Ventus wondered if he had been really Aqua's undoing. She had nearly gotten herself killed trying to protect him.
No, of course not. Even if Ventus had stayed behind, he would've been delaying the inevitable. Maybe they would've been worse off. And there was the Master to consider; Ventus had been kept in the dark about his whole identity, Vanitas's origins, and the fact that he was some kind of ultimate weapon that which Xehanort wanted to control. Unfortunately, the making of the Key blade had turned out to be Vanitas's only given purpose. He was a lone wolf trudging through life. He was friends with no one aside from his master. Hardly anyone would recall him in death.
The connections between Ventus and the other world's inhabitants, including the people from his own planet, were quite possibly the most important things he'd always kept close to his fragmented heart. He missed them more than they probably thought they knew. He had so much time in the abyss to muse things over. He couldn't wait for Terra and Aqua to fill him in with the extra details when he woke up.
If he woke up.
Despite the master's firm objections, Ventus had spent so much time imagining what it would be like to finally leave; now all he longed for was to return home. Finally leaving home was the best and the worst thing that ever happened to him.
