A/N: This chapter is short, but it felt complete at this point, so I'm leaving it as is :p

Also, I've been meaning to ask: does anyone have any good Kingdom Heart fic recommendations? Half the ones I come across are massive AUs where the only thing that matches is the names, and I tend to avoid those. I've found a few good ones myself if any of you want a recommendation.

Anywayyys, moving on

Published: 1/16/2018

Warnings: None


Chapter 12

The Boy With the Mismatched Eyes

Percy's eyes snapped opened. Every piece of him ached, but he wasn't exactly sure where it was coming from. His muscles themselves, oddly, felt fine. Despite that, he felt more tired now than he ever had before. Still, something told him to get up. Something told him to rise. The instinct was so persistent that Percy had no choice but to give into it. Slowly, Percy managed to sit up, eyes finally focusing in properly on the world around him.

What happened?

Percy groaned, a small hand coming up to grip at his head. He felt like he'd just run a three legged marathon while the other person was unconscious. Through rapidly drying concrete.

His other hand curled into a fist, grass scrunching beneath his fingertips.

Wait…

Grass?

Percy looked around. Where in the world was he? There was a strange looking castle just a few yards before him. There was soft grass beneath his feet, and it looked like he had landed in the middle of a random courtyard. How he had gotten here, Percy didn't know, but it wasn't any place he recognized.

The sky, though, was what disturbed Percy the most. The clouds churned above him like an oncoming storm, but there was no thunder, no light, no rain.

This place… It felt wrong. Monumentally wrong.

Just like Percy did, actually. What in the world was wrong with him?

"Magical exhaustion. It's… A bit different than physical exhaustion. Your body is fine, but you've strained your soul. You should be a little more careful with what you can handle, kid."

Exhaustion or no, Percy shot up and spun. There, standing several feet away from him, was the blond boy from the Dream Island. He stood several feet away, arms crossed, leaning against a wall.

His eyes, like always, were closed shut. Percy attempted to take a step forward, and instantly regretted it. His muscles themselves, oddly, didn't protest the movement. However, a wave of utter tiredness smashed into him, nearly toppling the child to his knees.

"I told you, kid… Magical exhaustion. Sheesh, can't you listen to words? What's next, teenagers doing a Tide Pool challenge?"

Meanwhile, in the United States…

Percy lost the battle and fell. Gasping, he managed to catch himself, hands shooting out before his face smashed painfully against the ground. Sweat fell from his brow, down onto the grass beneath him. Percy heard a rustle of movement and looked up just as hands came in, curling around his shoulders and pulling him up.

"Here, get up kid. What's your name, anyways?"

Percy muttered a quick thanks as the teen lifted him to his feet. What did Nico say the blond was called again? Ben, right? Like Ben Kenobi? Or something with the wind. Yeah, wind. Hm.

"My name is-" Percy looked up. And screamed. The teen gave a disapproving tsk as Percy snatched his hands back, falling to the ground again with a thud as he backed away slightly.

The teen rolled a mismatched pair of eyes.

"Really, kid? Am I that ugly to look at?"

One eye was perfectly normally. Blue, like the skies. Blue, like Sora's eyes. Perfectly ordinary and human.

The other was a sickly amber, but that wasn't all. That alone wouldn't have caused Percy to scream and back away. He could see past the Mist, to an extent, so Percy saw more than an ordinary human would see.

From the pulsing yellow eye, dark veins ripplied out across the left half of the the teenagers face. How Percy hadn't noticed it before, he wasn't sure, but he suspected it had to do with the eye now being open.

The left radiated darkness, and, for whatever, it had a weird stench to it.

The right, for whatever reason, seemed to radiate light.

"What's wrong with your face?" Percy asked, a quiver in his voice. He was nine, afterall, and not yet the warrior that he would grow into.

The teen sighed, closing his eyes. As he did so, the veins retracted, his face returning to normal. The teen lifted a single hand and rubbed forehead, seemingly trying to sooth away a coming headache.

"I… We… We are what is left. We are the Original. Or, maybe, something more. Something greater."

The blue eye snapped open, starting right at Percy.

"Xehanort… He plays with powers he doesn't understand. With hearts he doesn't understand. He never did question where such twisted Darkness could have been born, never questioned why his lighthearted apprentice had such twisted evil sleeping in his heart."

Percy couldn't help the shudder that past through his body.

The yellow eye followed, and the veins returned. The teen sighed, letting his hands drop, his expression shifting. There was a sadness in his eyes that hadn't been there before, a resignation.

"I… We… Him… Argh!"

The teen went from muttering incoherently to gripping at his head as a short desperate scream ripped past his lips.

Words. In that moment, Percy remembered words. Words Nico had spoken, words Percy hadn't given much thought to but words that he remembered now.

"He's missing part of his soul. No, it's worse than that. He's rejected it. He rejected his own heart. So… Now, well." Nico had gestured.

Part of his soul…

Demons, Nico had described it as. Except, these were more literal than your common inner demons, and Percy could see that now. He could see it, and he remembered.

"Ventus." Percy named him, unable to keep the tremble out of his voice. Why, Percy wasn't sure. Something in him screamed, though. It screamed that he should turn and run. It screamed that he should run away.

Ventus seemed to calm at the sound of his name. The shaking shoulders paused as the hands slowly dropped. Those mismatched eyes snapped up towards Percy, and they looked so confused, so lost.

Percy quickly realized that the person before him, that Ventus, wasn't really are here. Not in the sense of someone who'd lost their mind, but more like… A shard of a person. Incomplete. Missing something that made him whole.

Ventus turned away, casting his eyes towards the churning clouds above.

"The one… The one that bears the Mark. Beware the Mark Bearer. Hehe, hehe!"

Percy managed to stand on wavering feet. Ventus turned towards him again, and the insanity melted. Concern seemed to shine in his eyes. Both of them.

"You shouldn't sit up yet, kid. You used too much power. Too much, if it brought you here."

Percy always had a knack for asking the best possible questions in any given situation.

"Where is here?"

Ventus frowned at him before confusion seemed to overtake him. The blond boy took a step back, then another, as his face scrunched back up in pain. Percy expected him to cover his face again, to close his eyes again, but, instead, he turned and glanced at the castle.

"The end. The beginning. Everything. Where memory and soul walk hand in hand. The twisting hour. It's time. Time, time, time, not enough time."

Then, those glowing eyes snapped back towards Percy and it took all he had not to flinch away.

"Time… Time to wake up. Time to wake, little water bearer."

And, he did.

Percy came up with a scream on the edge of his lips, finally awake. Awake, and, if his eyes weren't deceiving him, in his own bed. The light was off, so mom must have put him to bed after Percy had… Had…

He'd tossed Gabe out, literally, and passed out from overusing his powers. Percy winced at that. He had to be a little more careful with those from now on, he supposed. Percy rose from the bed, his feet colliding with the cool carpet below. Even as he did so, Ventus' words rang in his ears.

Percy couldn't make sense of it. He couldn't' make sense of any of it at all. So, he'd turn to someone else, and maybe she would. The person he trusted most in all of the world.

Mom. He had to find his mom.