Maybe promises are made to be broken.
We'll be together every day, Kairi had told her. Right, Sora? Slack-jawed, Sora had agreed.
It was a silly promise to have made. The Realm of Darkness stole Sora away shortly thereafter. Roxas and Riku were swallowed up along with him. Powerless, Naminé could do nothing but ache. She watched the setting sun through Kairi's eyes and yearned to join it below the horizon.
Kairi had been the one to bring them all back. Her pure heart opened a door where none stood. For one brilliant moment, darkness and light had been bridged.
The power of a whole heart astounded Naminé. Her own abilities necessitated the absence of things: the substitution or erasure of people and places. Of thoughts and feelings. She could link these things together with those of her own creation. She herself had called these links chains.
Now Naminé lets out a hollow one-note laugh. There is no other word better suited to describe what she manufactures. It encapsulates all that is wrong with her: that she should see the heart as something to shackle. Perhaps this is why only one of her many promises has ever been fulfilled.
It had not been very long before Sora left the island. Roxas and Riku went with him. Just as powerless as before, Naminé could do nothing but wait. Their absence cast a long shadow. Kairi would climb up onto the bowing palm tree and watch the sun as it set. Would remain there until the stars filled every inch of the sky. Moonlight undulated on the surface of the water. It looked like a bridge neither of them could cross.
She knew then what she and Kairi are when together: the moon.
What they were supposed to be together was complete. Now Naminé suspects that had just been wishful thinking on her part. Those hours spent with only Kairi for company had shown her the truth. They were only a thing as whole as the moon.
Without her, Kairi would be a sun.
She knows this because Sora knows this. Inside Castle Oblivion, she had tried to fetter his heart. How silly of her to try to chain down what amounted to the sky. It had been even more preposterous that she ever attempted to counterfeit one of the heavenly bodies in his heart.
Vainly, Naminé had hoped that there would be enough room in that sky for her too. Sora had promised her that there was.
When I wake up, he said, I'll find you. And then there will be no lies. We're gonna be friends for real.
It was a promise he would not be able to keep. What a shame she had ever agreed to it in the first place. False hope might be the worst kind of lie.
Sora does not know her beyond her name. She would know: it had been by her own power that she wiped away every fingerprint she once left on his heart. By her power that she plucked every dropped eyelash of hers from out of his memories.
For how little a time she has lived, Naminé is aware that her abilities are nothing short of extraordinary.
She relies on her abilities now as she looks for a way out of this nameless place.
Somehow, she and Kairi had been split apart. It had been a painless but mind-boggling event. In one moment, Kairi and her are the waning moon. Naminé is a shooting star in the next.
She landed here: wherever here is. A part of her suspects this is not so much a place as it is a state of being. Using her powers, she searches Sora's memories for any knowledge of where or what she is inside of. Nothing turns up.
Sora is the very heart of her powers. Naminé can manipulate anyone so long as they are in some way connected to him. So long as they have a heart of their own.
Her mind follows the chains from Sora's heart to others. Riku's memories hold some answers for her: he had been someplace very much like this before coming to the inside of Castle Oblivion. Her heart sinks when she learns that someone else had to pull him free from this corridor between the light and the darkness. Sinks even further when she revisits the moment Sora and Riku read Kairi's letter: her heart had found theirs. Their connection manifested a door to light and to home. Colour fell like moonlight onto the rippling surface of the dark sea.
It seems likely that she cannot escape here on her own: she will need some outside help.
Naminé is not sure that she can count on that help coming.
Kairi would likely look for her. Riku might too. Sora would help if they asked him to. But that all hinges on them not being preoccupied with whatever separated her and Kairi in the first place.
She would rather not wait to be rescued. Not again.
Desperate, she travels further along the chains. It takes time to reconnect the scattered links she discovers in the shadow of Sora's heart. Fortunately, it seems she has nothing else but time.
The links are reconnected.
This newly discovered heart belongs to a boy with Roxas's face.
The sight stings her. Reminds Naminé of how Roxas had looked at her: like she was a lighthouse. She had not the sense back then to tell him that she did not have all the answers. That she could not be his salvation. He had looked at her so warmly.
She could not help but notice her own indistinct reflection in his eyes.
The only promise she has fulfilled had been shared with him. Naminé once thought she could be content with that.
See? she remembers saying. We meet again, like we promised.
Now she knows better. Knows exactly who else she had been addressing back then. Sora's soft and confused huh? in response had been enough to break whatever she has for a heart.
Roxas deserves better than her selfishness.
She looks past her own emotions to dive into the boy's memories. It feels like a wind had blown through his heart and scattered every last link to the sky. It might take her an eternity to piece these things back together.
Naminé begins.
She manages to fit only three links together when something unexpected happens. The short chain pulses like a heartbeat. Links dripping in darkness answer its call. Almost magnetically, the chain reforms itself. Naminé has never understood how Riku could smell darkness until now: it smells like everything she has ever feared. Like flowers and ozone.
Many more links emerge from the murkiness of the boy's heart. But they creep to a halt. Stranded.
Evidently, Naminé will have to collect the rest herself.
She is just not sure that she wants to.
"You scared?"
Naminé physically leaps backward. Someone else is here with her inside this place. Instinctively, she knows that whoever it is does not intend to rescue her.
She sees him then: a boy hangs suspended just ahead. He could not have always been there. He must have appeared just as the dark links did. A helmet obscures his face.
"Who are you?" she asks.
He does not answer.
It takes her a moment to notice how limply he dangles in the mist. It almost looks like he is asleep.
The boy radiates darkness. That gives her pause. Perhaps it would be best if she abandoned this particular chain. There are many others that she could turn her attention to.
So she does. Naminé spends what feels like days trying to reconnect what cannot be connected. Links slip between her fingers. The chains she manages to put together disintegrate whenever they become too long or too heavy.
The most she gets from them is a name— Ventus— and the fragments of faces the boy once knew.
One of them looks suspiciously like Sora's own.
Just then, the links of darkness move of their own accord. Eight more fit onto the dark chain. The remaining disconnected links go still again.
Hesitantly, Naminé considers her options. Either she can continue for who-knows-how-long to try to piece together Ventus's heart or...
She takes a step closer toward the masked boy. Takes another.
The metal of his helmet is cool under her fingertips. Even this close to him, the tinted glass hides his face.
Naminé holds her breathe. Pulls the helmet up.
Sora looks back at her.
Her heart sputters and stops. The helmet unceremoniously slides out of her hands. It makes no sound as it hits whatever she is standing on.
It takes her a few moments to identity all of the differences between this boy and Sora. First: he has black hair and amber eyes. The latter do not blink as they stare through her.
His jawline and build look stronger too. As she understands it, muscles grow through a process of wear-and-repair. There is nothing more wearing than darkness.
The last difference is not something she can observe: it is instinctual. She just knows that his smile would not resemble Sora's in the slightest.
While with Kairi, Naminé had learned that there was such a thing as the power to dive into dreaming hearts. Naminé still wonders if that ability is anything like her own. Perhaps it would be for the best if these powers were dissimilar. After all, nothing good could come from waking this boy.
She wants to try anyway.
Two heads are supposed to be better than one. It is entirely possible that this boy might know how to escape from here. Her attempts to open up a Corridor have failed consistently. Perhaps the depth of his darkness might be enough to establish a better connection.
It is not like what she is about to do cannot be undone either. Should his memories reveal him to be too dangerous, Naminé assures herself that she can shatter the chain of his memories.
Her stomach twists in on itself at the thought.
All of this would go much quicker if she had a sketchbook and some coloured pencils to hand. Her power does not come from the act of drawing. It only helps her to focus. Her drawings were also the only things she could ever have for herself before she began to collect broken promises.
The dark chain between Ventus and this boy is relatively easy for her to complete. Naminé follows it to a new heart.
If Sora has a sky for a heart, then this boy's is outer space.
The silence is deafening. Never has Naminé felt so adrift before. It is almost impossible to breathe. The links of his heart are as distant and radioactive as stars.
Desperation propels her towards them regardless.
The links themselves are painless to touch once she is near enough to do so. Up close, Naminé can hardly call them stars. They burn without producing light: that they appeared to glow is more the aftermath of flash blindness and nothing else.
There had been light here. Once.
She sees the very moment where that light was stripped away from him. The air is arid as he swallows his own scream. What is left of his light lies at his feet. The old man across from him has reversed the order of things: a shadow now casts light across the floor.
He receives a name from this man: Vanitas. It feels like a lashing.
It is the first of many to come.
Everything has teeth. The sun. The moon. The stars: these things are rocks and gas and entirely soulless. They only remind him of Ventus.
It is by this association that they grow jagged edges.
The Master would take Ventus somewhere far away. Before their departure, Vanitas stole a moment to examine Ventus's face. He searched for a crease between his eyebrows. Searched for flared nostrils and a hard set to his jaw.
Ventus only disappointed him.
Closing his hands into fists, Vanitas squelched the cry that tried to claw its way out of him. It was not fair that he had been the one to inherit all their pain. Ventus should be made to bear some of it. If he had not already been broken, Ventus would disintegrate under the weight of what Vanitas carries on his behalf.
The thought fills him with a kind of glee that leaves Naminé with goosebumps. Fills him with a kind of rage that scalds her lungs. She can feel that halted cry within him grow frenzied. Her heart nearly stops when it bursts out of him as more than just a sound.
Stumbling backwards, Naminé returns to this misty purgatory to find that more than just a sound standing beside the boy. Its red eyes have no pupils. She knows it stares at her regardless. Every edge of this monster looks as sharp as a knife.
Vanitas lets out a hoarse laugh.
"Weakling."
"I—" Breathless, Naminé finds she cannot move. Fear has deadened all feeling in her legs. The monster is almost comically small. Even still, she does not feel much bigger than it.
Its movements are quick and erratic: the monster dips its head under its arms. Bolts upright on tiptoe. Its arms swing outward as its legs bend. Heart hammering in her chest, Naminé prays that the only other power she has to hand will work.
She coats herself in what she sees: an outfit more organ and muscle than cloth. Burning eyes and dark hair.
Naminé becomes Vanitas.
She has not used this power too often due to how difficult it is to maintain. Her disguises have always been imperfect: her so-called good luck charm had turned back into thalassa shells when Sora had reason to question its importance. Riku had known her just by her smell.
Yet the monster does not seem to suspect her. It makes odd clicking noises as it turns the other way. Relieved, Naminé considers her next step.
At present, Vanitas is just conscious enough to sleep-talk. He remains floating with his feet only inches above where her own are planted. She is afraid to think of what he might be like if he were to regain full consciousness. He is dangerous. Too dangerous.
That is, if she does not remake him.
The idea is more than distasteful: its repugnance makes her nauseous. Naminé knows well what it means to remake someone. The guilt is something she carries with her to this day.
But maybe this is different.
In Castle Oblivion, she had done the wrong thing for the wrong reason. Now she just might have the right reason to do the wrong thing.
Undecided, Naminé enters his memories once more.
She is free to flit between his memories so long as she has the momentum to cross interstellar space. Naminé watches his memories out of chronological order. Watches as Master Xehanort steals the air from Vanitas's lungs to feed oxygen to his own diabolical plan.
His willingness to assist Xehanort would astonish Naminé had she not felt his every thought and feeling as her own.
Somewhere out there, one of his monsters— his Unversed— is slain. He receives the news just as he had his name. Receives even worse when what is left of the Unversed returns to his being.
Join now
She recoils from the link and falls backwards into another. All at once, the world is too hot and too cold. Too bright and too dark.
Join now, join now, join now join nowjoinnow
The χ-blade dissolves before his eyes—
joinnowjoinnowjoinnowJOINNOW
— and the rest of him with it.
The pain is unbearable. Shrieking, Naminé clutches at her chest and reels away. The Unversed hisses as Vanitas lets out an ear-splitting scream. It takes everything Naminé has to keep Vanitas's face from slipping off her own.
It feels like an eternity passes before their voices finally fade away.
His memory does not fade from her mind. Does not fade from her aching maybe-heart. Naminé finds herself on her knees. Beside her, the smoky glass of Vanitas's helmet reflects her.
He had wanted the same thing as she did. He had wanted it even more than Naminé ever had.
Lifting her gaze up from the helmet, Naminé realizes that more Unversed have materialized. They are riven from him just as he was from Ventus. Now there are Hareraisers and Mandrakes here. Buckle Bruisers and Archravens. Scrappers with Flood scampering about their feet.
Something like anger seizes her at the sight of them. She wants nothing more than to take an eraser to them all. But the intensity of that feeling decants into pity.
Vanitas is more than just dangerous. Even still, Naminé cannot bring herself to believe that he deserves this curse. There is no other word for it.
Naminé climbs to her feet. Double-checks her disguise before turning her eyes to Vanitas's floating form—
Her heart catches in her throat.
"Nice trick." Vanitas says hoarsely. Blinks groggily as he scowls. "But you can't fool me." The Unversed around them chatter and hum lowly. A Bruiser slams its shields together and Naminé winces from the clatter. Her ears are still too sensitive. "Who are you?"
"Like you," she says. Her voice is his as it was in his memories. Right now, a half-truth is the safest answer for her to give. The truth would likely cause her disguise to collapse.
His doubt might break her mask anyway.
The Unversed rumble with displeasure. Their intent is almost palpable: it feels as though shade is being cast over her. Something inside her knows that she does not have much time left to act.
He was not supposed to wake up yet. Naminé does not understand why it is that he has stirred so soon. Fortunately, it seems he has yet to fully awaken. The only parts of him that can move are his eyes and mouth and nostrils.
Her thoughts move faster than her heart can beat. She has not had enough time to establish herself inside of his heart. As a result, she does not think she will be able to shatter it.
But she could try.
Join now, she hears distantly.
All of her organs feel like they are made from the pigmented cores of her pencils. Each breathe she takes threatens to snap them into two.
Join now, join now...
Naminé holds her breathe. If she does not try, she will die. His Unversed will kill her.
Join now! It had been as much her voice as it had been his.
Maybe there is another way.
"You can't go back to him the way you are now," she says. Vanitas's eyes narrow as they slide left and right and back again. He must be having trouble focusing. "But, I can help you."
Stooping down to pick up his helmet, Naminé glances at the Unversed. They thrum threateningly. Fortunately, that is all that they do. She takes a shallow breathe. Rotates the helmet so that the glass faces Vanitas when she holds it up to him. His reflection should appear on it. Of course, she has no way of knowing if that is what he sees as he squints at it. "The Unversed— let's stop them, okay?"
That gets his attention. Vanitas's laugh is harsh and guttural.
"'Stop them'?" Sneering, Vanitas looks over the curve of the helmet at her. Their eyes meet. Darkness emanates from his form and rises above them. An enormous thing made of clanking metal takes shape within the shadows: a Trinity Armour comes into being. "Try it. They'll rip you apart!"
There is a run in her disguise somewhere. Soon it will come apart.
The disguise is counterproductive at this point anyway.
"I'm already in pieces!" Naminé says in her own voice. Swings her arms out to the sides. The helmet slips from her fingers for a second time as her disguise falls away entirely. "Same as you."
She had not expected Vanitas to be so shocked. His eyes are wide and his mouth agape. The Unversed have collectively gone still.
"What are you?" he asks breathlessly.
"A witch." It does not sting quite so much to hear it now as it has in the past. "Please, let me help you. I can seal them away."
Vanitas appears stunned into silence. Naminé half-suspects that his mind is not awake enough yet to process what is happening.
"I don't need your help," he snarls. The muscles in his arms bulge as his limbs refuse to budge.
"But your heart— you want help, you don't?" It sounds less like a question than it does a statement. Naminé knows how he sees the Unversed: indispensable as tools. Ill-favoured as anything else.
Now the Unversed make noises that grow louder and more frantic with each passing second. Naminé cannot hear her heartbeat or the rush of her blood over the abrupt cacophony. She wills herself not to look away from him. Steels herself for the worst: their attack. Her retaliation.
She does not want to shatter him.
The noise subsides. The Unversed remain where they are. Furious, Vanitas bares his teeth at her.
"Go ahead," he says after a long moment. There is almost something like amusement to his voice. "'Least if you die, it'll give me something to laugh about."
"Okay," Naminé says with a nervous smile. "I just need you to hold them back. I'll work as fast as I can."
"No promises."
Sucking in her lips, Naminé tries not to laugh. Fails. Vanitas lifts an eyebrow at her as she giggles. It might be hysteria. Or it might be that she has had enough promises for a lifetime.
Regardless, Naminé dives back in.
His heart has changed: it is not so empty anymore. Vanitas's hostility has manifested as asteroid fields and unidentifiable debris. She has never seen anything like this before. But then, Naminé supposes she has never seen anything like the Unversed before either.
Naminé takes a moment to reorient herself. Many of the links have moved since she last saw them: they have formed constellations by themselves. It takes her some time to find the link that she is looking for.
Long ago, Naminé had offered to lock away the darkness within Riku's heart. All she would need to do was disconnect the links that had formed after the destruction of Destiny Island. His memories of Ansem and everything he had done would go away with them.
She had offered to make a prison in his heart. As she had hoped, Riku turned her offer down.
It would have been the right thing to do for the wrong reason.
A comet collides into her from behind. Naminé cries out. It feels like a crater has been freshly blown into her mind and body. His negativity finds her own and feeds it. The worst of thoughts intrude on her consciousness as her skin sears.
Pushing off of the comet, Naminé launches herself forward toward the link. She needs the one where the Unversed first came to be. A jagged piece of debris strikes her elbow. It feels like it cuts right into her bone.
She would never be enough. She would never be wanted.
Naminé gives her head a good shake. Presses onward. When she is hit for the third time, she lets out a pained gasp.
Everyone has left her. Everyone has left her all alone.
Distantly, she can hear Vanitas laugh. It is a hollow and almost pathetic sound. Nothing like his roar of a laugh from his memories. She knows why he laughs like that.
If she dies, he will be alone too.
Things are slipping from her vision. Another piece of rubble hits her: she deserves to be alone. Something grazes her leg and leaves it on fire.
Vanitas was right. They are ripping her apart.
The link is just within reach. A part of Naminé screams for her to reach out and take the link. The rest of her wants to do nothing more than drift away into the emptiness.
She nearly listens to the latter.
Her whole being screams from the effort it takes to reach out to the link. It pulls her from orbit and into itself.
Vanitas peers down into Ventus's expressionless face. That scream builds inside him. Naminé can feel it build inside her too. This time, she gets the sense it might well rupture her lungs. Two-thirds of her panic. They tell her that she should have just shattered him. Tell her that she should never have peered into his heart.
They tell her that she is going to die.
And for what? the thing building inside her screeches.
Naminé shuts her eyes. Her ears. Shuts out those voices. In this moment, she picks up a coloured pencil the same shade of blue as the eyes of everyone she has ever loved. The very same shade as her own.
She knows exactly for whom.
With a single stroke, Naminé draws that scream out of him as just a sound and nothing more.
Her eyes open again to purgatory. Finds herself sprawled out on the ground. Her bottom is a little sore and her elbow throbs. But no other pain persists.
Naminé looks up and finds she is alone but for Vanitas. He hovers limply in the air with unblinking eyes. He looks almost as he had when she first found him. Only, Naminé knows better. Riku's replica had the very same look when she had broken his heart.
Just like the replica, she could put him together again.
It would take time. A lot of time. Naminé would need to redraw all of his memories for the sake of consistency. Paradoxes and plot holes can have devastating consequences if she is not careful.
Or she could leave him here. It is entirely possible that he could wake up on his own. She could only hope that her seal on the Unversed would hold even then. Could only hope that their absence would lessen his anger toward the world and his other half.
Standing up, Naminé makes her decision.