This is an idea I wrote out preluding Tornado, so you could almost consider it a beta to Tornado. Gets to the point a lot faster, however. As such, it probably won't get a continuation from this point, so consider it complete.
Although Riku had pulled him out of the nightmare of the dream worlds, they were back in reality, now, and nightmares weren't physical enemies you could consciously defeat with a swipe of the keyblade.
Oh, but how he wished.
It was early. Dawn, in fact. They were staying in a strange maze of rooms at the Mysterious Tower; he, Riku, Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Lea and Kairi, in order to support Kairi's training.
He'd taken to often training with the others as well. Riku and himself sparred, as usual; nothing about that seemed to have been altered by their now-present difference in rank. Lea, too, seemed eager to train, though he hadn't lost any of his slipperiness from his days as Axel- he'd switch between a Keyblade and his chakrams mid-battle and then set the ground on fire.
Oh, memories.
He was in the lounge/kitchen space, his legs curled up under a kotatsu, and a blanket around his shoulders. It was pretty chilly this early in the morning, without the sunlight to warm the rooms, and he was becoming hyper-aware of it lately due to lack of sleep.
His fingers were curled around a mug of coffee that had almost turned into a sort of sticky, blackish-caramel ooze. Obviously, coffee didn't work so well when you added half a cup of sugar, but at least he could keep that in mind for next time, and the smell itself was waking him up a little.
"…Sora?"
He turned, his spiky-brown mess swaying a little as Riku walked into the room, his silver-violet hair still damp from an early-morning shower.
"Oh, g'mornin' Riku!" said Sora, trying to adopt his usually bright smile, before a wide yawn made his expression droop back to the glum one he'd been wearing before his friend had walked in.
Riku glanced at the cup in Sora's hands, before his own expression dropped a little and he pried it off him, taking it to the kitchen.
"That was a waste of both coffee and sugar, you know" he scolded, as he rinsed out the cup. Sora pouted, propping his elbow on the table and placing his head in his hand.
"Who are you, m' mother?" he snipped, looking annoyed. Riku raised an eyebrow.
"I'll show you how to make instant coffee properly, if you want" he offered. Sora considered it for a moment, before hugging the blanket tighter, standing up and walking over to him.
Riku gave him a small smile, before pulling out two clean cups.
"How strong do you want it?" Riku asked.
"I dunno" he mumbled. "Strong enough to wake me up, I guess?"
A sigh escaped Riku's lips, before he prepared two cups with the same amount of instant coffee. He then added three spoons of sugar to one of the cups, and half to the other one, before beginning to boil the jug.
"Will three be enough to make it sweet?" Sora asked, glancing into the cup.
"You don't need any more than three spoons of sugar, Sora, trust me" Riku replied, pulling the milk out of fridge and adding it to the cups, stirring to dissolve the coffee. "Four kinda makes it sickly…I don't know what kind of concoction you were going for."
He shrugged in response to this, as the jug whistled. Riku poured the hot water into the cups, and after a few stirs he handed the sweeter one to Sora.
Sora blew on it a few times, before taking a sip, his expression contorting for a few moments before easing up.
"I thought that was going to be worse than it was" he said in surprise, taking another sip.
"Coffee's good stuff, though it can make you crash pretty hard" said Riku, messing with his hair a little. "That said, why haven't you been sleeping, Sora?"
Sora blinked a few times, before looking at his friend. "How'd you know I hadn't been sleeping?"
"The bags under your eyes are purple" said Riku with a shrug. "I've had sleeping difficulties in the past before, I know the signs. So what's up?"
The brunette boy glanced at his sock-clad feet, the steam from his coffee gently wafting into the air.
"Nightmares" he mumbled. "Really bad ones."
Riku said nothing for a moment, before exhaling. "Like what? You don't usually seem worried about things enough to cause nightmares."
Sora sighed. "It's…weird. They're broken, and make no sense at all. Easiest to summarise I keep seeing choppy scenes of either you or Kairi being hurt in various ways."
The boy rubbed his hair, taking a drink of his coffee and trying to quell his anxious expression. "One was Kairi being struck down by a helmeted guy wearing a dark suit…another was her dying in my arms outside the station in Twilight Town. You…I keep seeing you leaving unexpectedly, or Xehanort getting his hands on you, or-"
Sora stopped abruptly, before shaking his head. "Thing is sometimes it's things I've already seen, just juxtaposed to you guys instead of other people. There's one where you're fading away in Betwixt and Between…but I was there, and it was Axel, not you."
Riku raised his eyebrows, before his expression became thoughtful for a moment, as he took a sip of his coffee. "Maybe…it was Roxas's feelings filtering through."
The mention of Roxas sent a painful twinge through his heart, reminding him of the pain Roxas had let him see during the dreams; pain he hadn't yet had time to process…or really a want to do so.
"Maybe it was" Sora murmured. "That could be it…doesn't explain half of the dreams, but I guess it's a start, right?"
He adopted a smile, this time taking a glug of his coffee. Riku smiled back, but worry still lingered in his eyes.
"Just…let us know if anything comes up" said Riku, finishing off his coffee and rinsing it out. Sora nodded brightly, before scooting out the door, heading for the training rooms.
At least, for a few nights, Riku's insight helped ease them a little. Knowing they were Roxas's feelings didn't make them less painful, but at least he could understand a little better, why he was seeing these things, and what the other boy had been through while he had slept.
But his relief was short-lived, as a few nights later, they came back clearer and more painful than ever.
This time he saw things as they were. A blue-haired, familiar girl being struck down. A black haired girl fading away before his eyes. A brunette young man leaving him behind. Axel, dying in Betwixt and Between. The battle with Axel in the basement, the battle with the girl…
A sharp, yet thick and muddy feeling of longing for salvation, of piercing, numbing loneliness; the shout of a familiar voice saying at least I have friends.
Sora shot up out of his covers, his cheeks wet and the tears still flowing as he curled up, clinging to the blanket and beginning to sob. It was too much, buried underneath years of having to press forward, keeping up smiles and hiding his fears.
How was he supposed to handle this amount of emotion? All that pain, and fear, and hate, and anger…it felt like he was feeling all of them at once, like his tears were both sorrow and frustration.
"They kinda trap you, don't they?" murmured a voice, a familiar voice. Sora looked up, recognizing the masked boy from his dreams, standing at the end of his bed.
"Who are you?" he instantly snapped, anger flaring up in his eyes, a fledgling feeling he couldn't process rising up.
"You'll have to learn to cope, or it'll just swallow you whole, you know" replied the boy, not skipping a beat at Sora's question. "But I dealt with it on my end when it was my turn, now it's yours."
Sora looked at him in confusion, before he was alerted to a small scuffling sound, which he turned his head toward. When he turned back, the boy was gone.
Sora swallowed, before deciding he had to find out what had made the noise. He clambered out of his sheets, looking around the room, before his foot knocked something and he tripped, his cry of surprise joined by a small squeaking noise.
He hit the ground hard, leaving him rubbing his backside with a pained expression on his face.
"That hurt" he mumbled, before opening his eyes to see a small, blackish-blue creature looking at him with red eyes.
He stared at it for a moment, but it made no move to attack him, simply gazing while the two, lightning shaped prongs on its head twitched.
"Never seen anything like you before" Sora said in surprise, cocking his head to the side. "You're not a Heartless or a Nobody…I don't think you're a Dream Eater, either."
The creature squeaked again, and moved forward quite quickly, causing Sora to jump, but the creature simply put its head in his hand, rubbing against it.
He petted it, which seemed to make it immensely happy, and a small smile dawned on the brunette boy's face.
"I'm gonna name you Floyd, ok?" he said, grinning a little, and the little creature looked elated. He picked it up, bundling it in his arms and returning to bed, emotional exhaustion quickly lulling him into a dreamless sleep.
The next morning, Sora got dressed while Floyd waited patiently for him, before the boy picked the creature up again and headed toward Yen Sid's room. Surely the retired master had seen its kind before, or at least, knew where it had come from.
"Sora, what on earth is that?" came a shocked voice from nearby, and he turned to see Riku.
"Heya Riku!" said Sora cheerfully. "This is Floyd. I found him in my room last night."
"Isn't that a Heartless, though?" asked Riku slowly, looking at it, and Sora shook his head.
"It would've attacked by now if it was" he said with a shrug, before giving it a pet, the creature closing its eyes in delight. "He hasn't been hostile at all."
Riku didn't look reassured, but Sora gave him a grin anyway. "I'm going to go see Yen Sid and ask, o' course. It'd be silly not to, right?"
Riku gave him a short nod, so the two headed up the stairwell, coming up to Yen Sid's door. Riku knocked, and the door swung open, where Yen Sid and Mickey had been talking.
Mickey had turned to greet them, but at the sight of the creature in Sora's arms he immediately drew his keyblade.
"Sora, get away from that!" he shouted, and Sora instantly dashed away.
"Wait, it's not a Heartless!" he protested. "It hasn't attacked me at all!"
"I know it's not a Heartless!" retorted Mickey. "That's an Unversed!"
"A what?" asked Riku slowly, and Mickey sighed, turning to Yen Sid, who was stroking his beard.
"What an oddity, to see another Unversed so long after we thought them gone from the worlds" he said, thinking to himself. "It may be that this is a different kind of Unversed to the ones you fought so long ago, Mickey."
Mickey looked worried, his brow furrowing. "D'ya really think so, Master Yen Sid? It doesn't look any different."
"Can someone tell me what an Unversed is?" asked Sora, pouting a little.
The older Master closed his eyes for a moment, before opening them again and beginning to speak. "The Unversed were a legion of fledgling emotions from an unknown source, that began to invade many worlds. After the battle at the Keyblade Graveyard, what was left of their numbers vanished, and we presumed that they were gone for good."
"Fledgling emotions? Did you ever find out who they belonged to?" asked Riku, and Mickey sighed a bit, dismissing his keyblade.
"I can't be sure, but from what I heard, it was a boy formed from the dark part of Ven's heart."
"The boy in the mask" Sora whispered, and Mickey instantly spun around to him.
"How do you know of him, Sora?" he asked, and Sora fidgeted.
"I've seen him in my dreams a few times. It's not like I know his name or anything…"
Yen Sid stroked his beard again, before turning to Sora.
"Could you please bring your friend over here?" he asked, and the brunette hesitated for a moment before bringing the creature over and placing him on the desk. He instantly asked to be picked up again, waving his arms at Sora.
"Are they really bad things?" Sora asked, looking at Floyd for a moment before looking at Yen Sid.
"I do not know, Sora. For the time being, you should keep a watchful eye over him. He does not attack you, but the same cannot be said for others."
Sora pouted, before picking Floyd back up again. "Floyd wouldn't hurt anyone, right?" he said, looking at the creature, who nodded at him.
"It's intelligent" said Riku darkly, looking at it. "You should keep up your guard."
"Ok" said Sora, before marching out the door.
The three masters glanced at each other, worried looks filling all their faces.
He wasn't sure how he was going to do it, but somehow, he really wanted to prove Floyd wasn't bad. The way the creature looked at him, like all it wanted was his attention…
"So I see you've made yourself an Unversed" came a dark voice, followed by a quiet chuckle.
Sora span around, looking to see the masked boy, leaning against a wall casually.
"How are you here, if you're Ven's darkside?" he asked, and the boy laughed.
"Who said I was still Ventus's darkside?" he quipped in response.
Sora's brow furrowed, his expression becoming extremely confused, before he suddenly processed what he'd said at first.
"What do you mean, 'made myself an Unversed'?" he asked slowly, looking at Floyd.
"It's one of your fledgling emotions, idiot" the boy retorted. "Why do you think it appeared after you had those dreams? It was created in response, and plenty more will follow."
"Huh?"
"You really are dense. That one is just the beginning. Unless you learn how to handle it, every emotion you experience will result in one. And they're different, depending on what you're feeling."
"Wait…Floyd came from me? How?" stuttered Sora, his eyes going wide.
"Dunno. Wrong person to ask. Never found out why they were coming from me either."
Sora glared, his eyes narrowing slightly. "So you were the source of them last time, huh? Is my seeing you the reason they exist?"
The boy chuckled a little.
"Let me put it clearly for you, Sora. You are the source of the Unversed. That's how it was back then, that's how it is now. Only thing was that back then I acted as a darker vestige of yourself, and felt things the way you would if there was no positivity to contrast against it.
In short, your royal denseness; I am you, and I had the same power."
Sora looked completely confused for a few minutes, before the boy raised his hands to his helmet, placing his fingers underneath the silver part and tugging it off, as Sora's eyes widened.
Him. Different eyes, different hair, but…him, nevertheless.
"Who are you?" Sora whispered, staring.
"I was known as Vanitas during my time as Ven's dark half. But as I said, I am you.
My name is Sora, and I am as much Sora as you are."
"Sora?"
He spun around to see Riku giving him a worried look, an expression of mild terror lacing his face.
"Are you alright?" he asked. "You're as white as a sheet."
Sora swallowed, before nodding despite how hard his fingers were trembling. Vanitas…was what he'd said true? Was someone like that really him?