A/N: YAY! I GET TO WRITE VANITAS AGAIN! I missed him, and it was only a single chapter break. I think I may be getting a bit obsessed. Also, I changed my mind about how long he's been in protective custody. It's going to have been three years now instead of two. I think I'm going to stick in the explanation for his attacks this chapter. I don't want to wait until book two and they are really kind of plot relevant. Who among you is familiar with the concept of a ticking clock scenario? It's kind of like that. I wasn't kidding when I said I wasn't giving the guy a break. Then again…it might fit better later. Not to mention it adds a bit of suspense… We'll see. There will probably be a few flashbacks. Or not. It depends on how Vanitas wants to be written. So far when I just let him do what he wants I get great results that make the plot even better than I had originally envisioned. Why mess with a good thing? If it doesn't fit in this chapter, then I can save it for later! I've already managed to fit in one of the things he gave me that didn't fit where it initially appeared, and I might use the second one in this chapter. I love writing this guy! I really do! I'd try and hug him only I think I'd get stabbed…so, yeah, I'm going to respect his personal space. No unwanted hugging from me. Also fictional character; I kind of can't hug him anyways. BUT IF I COULD….I wouldn't…because I don't want to be stabbed with Void Gear. I just realized how crazy that all sounds reading it back…but I'm not deleting it. This is how I actually think, people. Be afraid. Now let's begin.
Disclaimer: The Kingdom Hearts franchise and the associated characters still belong to SquareENIX and Tetsuya Nomura. That is all.
Chapter 20: Solitude
Officer Hikaru Himura was grinning madly as she looked at the duty board; it was Thursday, and that meant it was her day to handle the inmates' meals. She was elated. It wasn't that she liked going into the basement, or particularly enjoyed getting heckled by the most recent batch of drunkards and petty thieves. No, there was a particular inmate that she was looking forward to seeing. He wasn't exactly friendly; every other Thursday she'd been on meal duty he'd just walked over, grabbed his tray, muttered his thanks, and walked back to his bunk. The other guards on meal duty had reported the same behavior. The young man had the same reaction regardless of gender or age. However, Officer Himura didn't care about any of that. She just wanted to enjoy the eye-candy. Yes, he was a good fifteen years younger than she was. It did not change the fact that he was freaking gorgeous. Besides, as far as she was concerned there was nothing wrong with it so long as she only looked and didn't touch; being appreciative was not a crime. She headed for the cooler at the back of the break room where the inmates' meals were kept. The Night Watch was responsible for keeping it stocked. The giddy thirty-year old grabbed the cart sitting next to the cooler, opened the doors, and started moving trays of food onto the cart. She only needed seven simply because that was how many inmates they had at the moment. Officer Hikaru wheeled the cart over to the microwave and placed the first of the trays into the machine to be re-heated. The ginger-haired officer flicked her braid over her shoulder as she waited on the microwave to do its job and briefly wondered how many jealous looks she was going to get once those of her co-workers who shared her…fascination…realized that she was going to get to see him first today. She had bet one of her gay co-workers that she would get more than he did when it was his turn on the roster. The man had put up a bottle of white wine from his family's vineyard as his wager and she loved white wine. She was winning that bet!
Finally, she finished reheating all of the trays, and started making her way for the stair case with the cart in tow. The jealous looks started the very instant she walked out of the break room and she immediately started marking her mental tally sheet; she had ten right off the bat. Not a bad start. The stairs gave her no trouble for the simple reason that the cart had an embedded Float spell that kicked in the second even one of its wheels left the ground. She continued down the hall for the basement stairs gaining another slew of looks from the officers heading between reception and the records room. By the time she reached the basement cells her mental tally was at eighteen. That was all of the women and most of the gay officers; she was so winning that bet. Officer Himura made her rounds while enduring the jeers and harassment of the six new arrivals. As usual, none of them did anything worse than making cat-calls and lewd remarks. Her personal theory was that the Captain's reputation for enforcing that all of his subordinates undergo blade-training was well known among the locals. The current batch of inmates' wariness of the sword she wore openly was a pretty big hint. Finally, she made her way to the last cell; this was the part she had been looking forward to all morning. "Good morning, Vanitas," the woman greeted as she stopped before his cell door. She had to fight down a blush as she realized the fifteen-year old had decided to sleep only in his boxers.
Vanitas was understandably annoyed when he glanced at the female officer standing outside of his door and realized she was gaping; he hated being stared at. 'Why didn't Touya fucking warn me that it was going to be one of his lady officers bringing breakfast today,' he complained to himself, 'He knows those women have problems! Quit fucking staring!' The golden-eyed teen grumbled, sat up, and ran his hand through his sleep-mussed hair. He figured he may as well get this over with as fast as possible so that the thirty-year old would go away. The fifteen-year old stood up, walked over to the door, folded his arms across his chest, and stared pointedly at the tray of food the woman was holding. Officer Himura snapped herself out of her daze and slid the tray through the gap at the bottom of the barred door; the teen knelt to pick up the tray and glanced at the flustered woman. "Thanks," he muttered tonelessly before he turned and walked away while praying desperately that she would just leave already. Her stare was seriously starting to creep him out. The lady officer shook herself, turned, and walked away without another word; she'd gotten a lot more of a dose of eye-candy than she'd been expecting, but she was not complaining.
Vanitas groaned and rolled his eyes as his enhanced hearing picked up a faint, giddy giggle; he hated his fanclub. He sat down heavily on his bunk and eyed his breakfast skeptically; some of the food didn't exactly look edible. "Are these supposed to be potatoes," he wondered as he poked the waxy white mush on one side of the tray before he shrugged and started eating; he'd stopped being picky two years ago. Even food of questionable edibility was still better than starving. The black-haired teen flinched slightly as the cuffs around his wrists shifted. They'd grown increasingly uncomfortable as he'd aged. The tingling sensation had gradually started to actually become painful over the years. Currently it felt as though the skin in contact with the metal was being burned with a white-hot iron. Once Touya had discovered the problem existed he'd tried to remedy it by switching the original pair out for one with a longer chain, and a milder enchantment. It hadn't worked; they still burned although the teen did appreciate the greater range of motion. There were two upsides to the situation as the fifteen year old saw it. The first was that because the increase in severity was so gradual the affected areas had had plenty of time to learn to tolerate the pain. Now he only really registered it if the cuffs moved to come in contact with a new area of skin, or if they'd been removed for his weekly practice sessions and were being put back on. The other was that, regardless of the effect the cuffs were having, it left no marks. There was no actual damage being inflicted to cause the pain. Vanitas finished his meal and walked over to slide the tray back under the door. He then stretched and headed over to his dresser to grab some clothes. He wasn't going to risk a repeat of that morning's awkwardness when lunch came.
Vanitas' life in the Watch House had been fairly dull for the past three years. The biggest change was the growing fanclub he'd started to collect after he turned fourteen. That was around the time that his body experienced a major growth spurt, and his voice dropped from its childlike tones to a smooth, low tenor. These physical changes combined with his already striking facial features and lean, muscular build all added up to one very attractive teenager. As one female officer once complained, "It's not fair! It's like nature designed every facet of his being to hit my libido like a sledgehammer!" The sudden jump in popularity with the female and gay officers hadn't really changed much aside from giving him something else to be annoyed by. He resented the fact that the only reason the fanclub was even interested in him was because of his appearance. They didn't even know him! It drove him up a wall. Still, even this new annoyance was a welcome deviation from the tedium his life had become. The ebony-haired teen spent most of his time locked in his cell trying to keep himself occupied.
The Captain and youth were in in agreement that being locked up was no reason for his education to stop; the silver-haired man had assigned Officer Fujita to be the teen's tutor, and the man excelled at the role. It also helped that Kazuo was one of the members of the force who had always been sympathetic to the fifteen-year old. They had lessons together on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays after training. Touya had succeeded in getting his subordinates to agree to allow Vanitas to practice his control over the Darkness. The problem was that they were still a bit scared of his powers and so limited those training sessions to once a week; specifically Friday. In the end, there really wasn't all that much he could do to entertain himself. He really had only four major means of passing the time: reading, his lessons with Officer Fujita, meditating, and exercising. He mostly meditated in the morning after he ate breakfast, and again before he went to bed. His godfather was considerate enough to set up a system where he could exchange the books he was bored of for new ones, so he at least always had something interesting to read. Yet, when he wasn't reading or engaged in a tutoring session, the main activity the teen was engaged in was working out.
Vanitas had a fairly set exercise routine. First, he would stretch to be sure he was all loosened up. Next, he'd move on to squats and keep doing them until he got bored and switched to squat thrusts. After that, he'd start doing push-ups. He'd start out normally before he'd move to doing them one-handed; the chain of his cuffs was long enough to allow him to fold his free arm behind his back, and would regularly alternate hands. Once he got bored of that he'd move on to a new form of push-up he'd made up. First, he'd do a hand stand, then shift his balance so that all of his weight was on one hand, bring his free hand up behind his back, and finally he'd start doing one-handed push-ups while still holding the hand-stand; he would do one arm for a while and then switch once he felt he'd worked that arm enough. It took a lot of concentration at first, but now it was his favorite part of the work out. After he finished with the handstand push-ups he'd move on to sit ups until he got bored with those, too. It took him a while because he did three variants: arms crossed across the chest, arms crossed behind the head, and the variant of arms crossed behind the head where the object is to alternate touching each elbow to the opposite knee. The next part of his routine consisted of the teen practicing his flips; he'd do standing back-flips, standing front-flips, off-the-wall flips, and any other sort of flip you could think of. He had to be careful with this part as he'd banged his head on the ceiling more than once when he jumped too high. Occasionally he'd mix it up by moving into a series of martial arts katas instead. After that he'd finish up by doing more stretches to cool back down; all told the full routine took about three hours to finish. He'd do about three routines a day with breaks in between where he was either reading or eating. The end result, of course, was that his body was pretty much a sculpted work of art which was part of why the female, and gay, officers liked looking at him so much.
The black-haired teen finished getting dressed and headed over to the sink to brush his teeth same as every other day. He tried to ignore his reflection in the mirror; he didn't like being reminded of how pale he was now. His skin tone had always been on the pallid side, but ever since he'd been locked away his skin had just been getting lighter and lighter. The fact was that the thin shaft of sunlight coming in from the cell's sole window was not enough to maintain his former complexion. The fifteen-year old's skin was so pale now that it looked almost white; he thought it made him look like a ghost. Vanitas ran his fingers through his hair a few times to work out the few snarls that had formed over-night before he shook his head firmly to get it to settle back into its normal style of messy spikes. It never varied much from the same basic form even when wet. All it did was droop a bit. He always figured it saved him a fortune on styling products; besides, he liked the way it looked. The golden-eyed teen splashed some water on his face and dried it off with the towel hanging next to the sink before he headed for the middle of the room to start his morning meditation session. The one thing he didn't hate Akira for was that his genes made it so that he never had to worry about shaving; the Yagami line was notorious for having very little body hair and zero facial hair. It was a genetic quirk that made his morning routine so much simpler.
The Darkness wielder settled himself down in the position he preferred – legs folded and hands resting lightly on his thighs – before he took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Gradually he focused his attention inwards to the coiled, seething mess of emotions swirling deep within and took stock. His worry for how his friends and brother were doing was still there, as was his frustration with being locked up, his hatred for Akira, the lingering guilt and self-loathing from the Yagami Tragedy which had gotten a nice boost from the guilt and self-loathing he felt for making his brother cry when he left, his regret for the pain he'd caused his loved ones, his fear of being forgotten, his irritation with the officers who would not stop staring, his uneasiness about why his cuffs hurt when they weren't supposed to, his growing boredom from the life he now led, his longing for freedom, the satisfaction he got from learning something new, his confidence in his sense of control, his love for those closest to his Heart was still burning brightly, his grief over the fact that he would likely never see them again, his determination to not let his current situation break him still held firm, his weariness of constantly being in pain was still there, and there too was his growing fear regarding the final feeling in his Heart: the emptiness. It had grown rapidly in the past three years. He had no idea where it was coming from or what was feeding it; all he knew was that it was gradually spreading. He was terrified by what it could potentially mean. He had no idea of just how justified this fear was.
Vanitas spent an hour in focused meditation before he was satisfied that everything was stable; well, as stable as it ever got. The fifteen-year old was well aware of how precarious his mental state was. It was why he meditated twice a day, every day, every year; it helped him to maintain his control. The side effect was that he didn't emote much these days. It wasn't that he didn't feel things because he did, but he didn't show what he was feeling very often. Both his face and his voice were generally emotionless…except for when he was irritated. He didn't bother masking that sequence of emotions. The dark-haired teen opened his eyes and debated for a few seconds as to whether he had time to run through his normal exercise routine before Touya stopped by. His godfather was concerned that he wasn't getting enough socialization and made a point of visiting three times a week. Today would be his second visit for this week, and the teen wasn't exactly looking forward to it. One would think it was because he was holding a grudge for the man thinking it was necessary for the teen to be locked away, but this was not the case. The Darkness wielder didn't hold his current situation against the Watch Captain at all. He wasn't exactly happy about it – and it honestly frustrated the hell out of him sometimes – but he just couldn't blame the man when it was all too obvious that he still felt horribly guilty. That was why it was so hard to endure his visits; Vanitas hated seeing the guilt lingering in his eyes and hearing it in his voice. It made the teen feel guilty as well, and he was honestly quite sick and tired of that particular emotion. He'd been dealing with it in some form or another for the past seven years, and he just wanted a break already.
Touya also had an annoying habit of asking him about his attacks. A month after the teen had originally been taken into custody, the man had been present for one of the painful episodes and it had frightened him. The golden-eyed youth had made the man promise never to tell anyone about the attacks; he could not risk Sora and the others finding out. The Watch Captain had reluctantly promised, but then started asking questions the young Darkness wielder just didn't want to answer. The silver-haired man wanted to know what caused the attacks, if he'd ever gone to see Baba about them, how long he'd been dealing with them, if they were normally that painful, and so on. Most of the questions the teen honestly didn't know the answer to and so couldn't give any reply other than 'I don't know'. The remainder he either didn't feel comfortable answering, or just didn't want to deal with the reaction to his reply. Vanitas sighed as he realized there was no way he'd finish before his godfather arrived, and decided he'd just read instead.
An hour passed and Captain Shimomura still hadn't made an appearance. 'Touya's late,' the teen mused as he set his book down, 'that's not like him. Maybe something came up. I might be able to get some of my routine done after all.' Vanitas stretched and scratched the back of his neck. He was feeling restless, so he figured he may as well start his normal work-out and if Touya showed up…well, he could always talk while exercising. The dark-haired teen was pretty good at multi-tasking. He got up and took up his position in the middle of the room. He started his routine and steadily began working his way through the sequence. He was just getting into the handstand for his modified push-ups when he was suddenly startled by a loud clang from the bars of his cell door. The golden-eyed teen raised his head and frowned as he recognized the man glaring at him through the bars. Officer Hiroto Musashi was one of the worst of the bigots remaining on the force; most of the rest had retired or quit rather than continue to share space with the youth they hated. Officer Musashi was stubborn, though. He was also the worst type of law-enforcement official; the kind who used his position to feed his own sense of self-importance. Frankly, the teen was amazed he hadn't been fired yet. "What do you want," the black-haired teen grunted as he casually balanced himself on one hand, "I thought you were banned from coming anywhere near me after last time." The man's biggest problem was he absolutely hated not being the center of attention. The fact that the Watch House's long term resident had gained a fan club the year before had been driven the dirty blonde haired officer mad with jealously. He'd been on the lunch roster one day and had taken the opportunity to try to strangle the target of his wrath. Vanitas had successfully fended him off, but the man had only stopped trying to attack him after the officer on patrol realized what was going on and subdued his fellow officer. The teen had later learned that Captain Shimomura had banned Officer Musashi from ever going down into the basement again and took him off of all the relevant rotational rosters; he didn't want to give the hateful man an excuse.
"Well," the golden-eyed teen continued in a bored tone, "I don't know what you want, and to be honest I don't care. We both know you aren't supposed to be down here. I suggest you leave before you get caught and fired." The officer smirked coldly as he finally replied, "Oh, but I won't get caught. Most of the squad got called out to deal with a nasty domestic dispute call on one of the farms. There's only me, that wimp Fujita, and that airhead Himura left in the Watch House and I made sure those two will be staying out of my way." A note in the man's tone set off warning bells in the Darkness wielder's mind; he flipped back up to his feet and fixed the man with a dangerous glare. "What. Did. You. Do," he hissed threateningly; he liked Kazuo, and – while he might not like Officer Himura – he did not like the idea of her being hurt. "Handcuffed them together in the men's restroom," Officer Musashi responded calmly. Vanitas relaxed slightly once he realized the two other officers were most likely still safe, but didn't drop his glare. That still left the question of what the man outside his cell wanted, and he was starting to get a bad feeling. "So," the teen stated in a cool monotone, "that still leaves the question of what you want." "Isn't it obvious," the man's face broke out into a twisted grin as he drew his sword, "I want you dead!" 'Not again,' the Darkness wielding teen moaned internally, 'Can't I at least go five years between people trying to kill me? Just five! That's all I ask!'
Touya arrived in the basement at a run an hour later only to find the rogue officer unconscious from blood-loss and pinned to the wall opposite Vanitas' cell by his own sword through his shoulder. "Vanitas," the man called worriedly, "Are you alright?!" "What," the annoyed teen hissed from where he leaned casually against the back wall of his cell, "were you thinking leaving him alone with only two other officers to keep an eye on him?!" "I know. I know. That was stupid," the silver-haired man ran his hand down his face, "You aren't hurt are you?" "He never had the chance to land a hit. I blocked his first strike with the chain of my cuffs and used it to trap his blade," the Darkness wielder replied in a bored tone, "Then I twisted it out of his hands. When he tried to go for my throat I kicked him against the far wall and threw his sword at him. Drove clean through and was embedded so far in that he couldn't get enough leverage to pull it out. He spent most of the time until he passed out trying to insult me. It was pathetic." The Captain sighed in relief before he scowled at the unconscious officer, "Himura was talking so fast while she was telling me what happened that it was pretty hard to make out, but I got the gist of it. He ambushed Himura while she was working reception and knocked her out before he went after Fujita while he was doing paperwork. He slammed the poor man's head into his desk multiple times, and he still hasn't woken up. I've already sent someone over to fetch Baba to check on him…" The golden-eyed teen's face went deadly calm, "…What."
Captain Shimomura paled slightly as the runes on the cuffs blazed in response to the sudden spike of fury-fed Darkness and swiftly continued, "He should be fine. Himura has some rudimentary skill with white magic, so she healed the worst of the damage. I just want to have a professional check up on him and make sure we didn't miss anything." The expression of deadly intent on his godson's face faded as Vanitas sighed in irritation, "I knew I should have just killed him…but I figured you'd rather deal with him yourself. Regretting that choice." "Don't," Touya shook his head firmly, "It was the right one. Now if you'll excuse me I should probably get this guy off the wall, into a cell, and bind his shoulder before he bleeds out. Baba's going to have a field day with this…" He got to work as the dark-haired teen watched; the fifteen-year old was somewhat entertained by seeing his godfather strain to pull the sword out of the wall. He was privately hoping this little exchange counted as their conversation for the day, but doubted it. Still, it was an amusing diversion from the tedium.
Vanitas had lucked out, so far; Touya had gotten so involved with cleaning up ex-officer Musashi's mess that he didn't have time to come back down to chat. The teen had managed to finish his routine and was back to reading again. It was an interesting book entitled 'Warriors of Legend'; it was about the known history of the legendary Keyblade Masters. The dark-haired teen had been fascinated by Keyblades and all to do with them ever since he stumbled across the term in one of his textbooks. Something about them just resonated with him. It just seemed familiar somehow. He was already half-way through the book and he'd only been reading for maybe two hours; it was a three-hundred page book. He was really interested. The book was mostly speculation about what it meant to be a Keyblade Master and made a big deal about how they were supposed to be scholars as well as warriors. The author did know that there were never more than a hundred active at a time, and that their affinities were pretty evenly scattered between being Light or Dark with a few rare Balanced Masters. He was intrigued to learn that there was such a thing as a Dark Keyblade Master; most of the legends of Lux only spoke of Light Keyblade Masters. He'd never known there were other varieties.
The book stated that there had been Masters since before the world was reunited. It speculated about what their duties had been back then. 'They were probably driving themselves nuts trying to figure out how to put everything back the way it was,' the teen commented internally as he turned the page, 'or just maintaining the status quo.' The author apparently believed that they'd spent most of their time fighting Heartless. He'd apparently found some old texts that hinted that the Dark monsters used to be a much bigger problem. The black-haired teen conceded that they probably did spend a lot of time fighting back then, but was still convinced that he'd had the right idea. If Keyblade Masters were as impressive fighters as the book made it sound they probably would have had more than enough free time between sessions of Heartless exterminating to entertain other concerns. The book also speculated about what qualities were needed to wield a Keyblade in the first place. Vanitas was pretty sure the author had no idea what the qualities actually were. The things he listed as being important ranged from being 'true-Hearted' to 'having good hygiene'; it rambled all over the place. Still it was an engaging read. He'd have to ask Touya to see if he could find any more books by this author about Keyblades. Even if he got some stuff wrong the way it was presented was just so amusing. The golden-eyed teen was pretty sure that, whoever Seth Hawthorne was, he was the only scholar to mix serious theoretical and historical discussion with light-hearted whimsy. He normally didn't read for more than two hours at a time, but today he broke his routine a little. He wanted to finish 'Warriors of Legend' before he moved on to his next round of exercise; it took him another two hours to do it.
Vanitas was in the middle his second variant of sit ups when he noticed a familiar pain growing in his chest. "Oh fuck," he moaned as he flopped onto his back, "and today was going so well…" The dark-haired teen braced himself, but was still left breathless when the attack hit. Ever since he was taken into custody their intensity had steadily worsened all across the board. The attacks were longer now; originally they seldom lasted longer than five minutes, but now he considered himself lucky if they only lasted fifteen. The pain had gotten worse and he could not prevent his body from writhing under the onslaught. By the time it peaked it was so bad that he'd end up blacking out as his mind shut down from the agony. He'd only regain consciousness once it had diminished back down to half intensity. The tremors were so bad that, in the few moments of lucid thought he had before the agony peaked, he wondered if he should be calling them convulsions instead. The worst part was the aftermath; he was usually so exhausted by the episode that it was a struggle to even breathe. The empty feeling in his chest also grew more sharply than normal after each incident. After three years he was used to the change, but he still hated the attacks with a passion. He'd have hated them less and feared them more if he knew what they truly signified. The ebony-haired teen did not, though. Finally, after thirteen minutes of sheer agony, the attack ended; he was barely conscious as he gasped weakly for air. 'I am so,' he thought hazily as his consciousness started to fade, 'sick of this…' His head lolled limply to the side as he passed out with a faint sigh. He wouldn't regain consciousness for another hour…and he'd have a worried godfather to deal with when he did.
Touya glared down at his stubborn godson as the fifteen-year old matched him glare-for glare from where he was lying on the floor. "I keep telling you I'm fine," Vanitas protested in a dull tone, "I don't need a healer!" "You were sprawled out unconscious on the floor and barely breathing when I came in" the Captain countered, "I'm pretty sure that is the very opposite of fine." "It was just another stupid attack," the teen huffed, "I'm always in that condition after they're over these days. It always passes, too." "Vanitas these attacks of yours are clearly dangerous," the silver-haired man protested, "At least let Baba check up on you!" "No," the golden-eyed teen hissed. "Why not," the Watch Captain ground out in frustration. "Because I don't want anyone else to find out about them," the black-haired teen replied tonelessly after a pause, "Besides you promised you wouldn't let anyone else find out, remember? If Baba comes in she'll learn the attacks exist and you will have broken your word." Captain Shimomura ran his hand through his hair in exasperation, "I'm starting to doubt keeping my word matters when I see you suffering like this." Gold eyes narrowed menacingly as the teen glowered at his godfather, "This…is not suffering. You swore by the Darkness that my attacks would remain a secret. You break that vow and you will know suffering when Unmei is over-run by the Heartless." "…Come again," Touya gaped in horror.
"The Dark shields," Vanitas stated coldly, "and conceals. Vows made to the Darkness in relation to secrets call on that power to keep the secret hidden and ward it against discovery. Breaking the vow sends ripples through the Darkness which call the Heartless to where the promise was broken. The Heartless are really stupid, though. They don't just go after whoever broke the vow. They go after every Heart in the vicinity. It isn't any action of the Darkness which causes this reaction, though. It doesn't care one way or the other if people keep their words. It can't. It has no mind. Yet it is one of the two primary forces that Balance our world. You didn't think there wouldn't be consequences for dealing with such powers, did you?" "I didn't think it would be anything like that," the silver-haired man shook his head, "Why didn't you warn me?" "I'm a pragmatist. I want my attacks to stay a secret," the ebony-haired teen replied blandly, "I knew if you found out the consequences of breaking a vow to the Darkness that there would be no chance of them being revealed by any action of yours. Basically, I let you make a vow that would trap you into keeping your word because it guaranteed the result I wanted." "….Sometimes you can be really terrifying," Touya deadpanned. "I'm choosing to take that as a compliment," Vanitas allowed a small smirk to flicker across his face, "So are you going to help me up or am I going to be spending the rest of the afternoon down here?" "You're that tired," Captain Shimomura gave his godson a concerned look. "Not tired," the teen shook his head slightly, "Stiff. The attack hit right in the middle of my work-out and I didn't get a chance to cool down properly. My muscles are all a mass of knots right now." The Watch Captain flinched in sympathy as he bent down to grasp the fifteen-year old's right wrist, "Say no more."
By the time Officer Himura came down with dinner, Vanitas' accelerated healing had taken care of his problem with his knotted muscles and he was moving around normally. 'The one good thing about these damn attacks,' the teen considered as he ate, 'is that they have yet to happen twice in one week. I should be clear for a while now.' The rest of his day passed fairly normally. He read some more, he managed to fit in one last exercise session, and he meditated before bed. He did note that the emptiness had grown even more during his evening meditation. It was not an unexpected find. The teen sighed as he stood up from the floor and looked up towards the tiny window near the ceiling on the far wall. He missed the outdoors. He missed a lot of things about his old life, but knew there was nothing he could do to change it. He sighed again and started getting ready for bed. There was no point in pining for what he could not have, so he didn't. It did not stop him from remembering, though.
Once he'd gotten dressed for bed – Vanitas wasn't taking any chances of being caught in just his boxers the next morning –, brushed his teeth, and lay back on his bunk there was nothing more to stop him from drifting into a reflective state. He started thinking about how he'd progressed with his abilities first. He'd finally conjured a full set of Dark armor, and he personally thought it was worth the wait. It fit more like a second layer of skin, but was still tough enough to deflect common blades. The color scheme was also much to his liking: red, black, and dark blue. He'd also come up with a rather devastating attack technique that he had taken to calling the Dark Cannon. Touya had banned him from practicing that one at full power which was understandable; the beam had completely vaporized the training dummies and went on to gouge a fairly big crater in the far wall. He had finally mastered his third tier Dark spells with the exception of Cure which was now on second tier. He'd even finally got the hang of Aero as an attack technique; he still sucked at using it defensively, though. He'd perfected a skill where he melted into shadow and then sprang up in a surprise attack; he called it the Shadow Strike. He'd also developed a technique where he enveloped himself in a sphere of solid Darkness from which he could launch primitive copies of himself to attack anyone who tried to break through the sphere. He was still working on a name for it. His current project was applying what he'd learned in the creation of his armor to trying to create a weapon by the same process; in short, he was trying to create a Sword of Darkness. He was making steady progress in the materialization part, but keeping it solid was another thing entirely. It was going to take some work.
Vanitas then started thinking about how his friends and brother were doing as he drew out the Wayfinder he kept hidden under his pillow and gazed at it. He'd blocked the link between him and Sora so effectively that he couldn't even feel it anymore. On the one hand it was a relief that he wasn't forced to endure his brother's grief when he'd left, but on the other…a part of him missed the feeling of connection. The problem was, since he could no longer feel the link, he had no way of removing the block. The fact that he hadn't heard anything that would indicate that they'd gotten themselves into trouble with the villagers for his sake was of some comfort. He sighed sadly; the problem was…he had asked them to forget him. The fact that they had stayed out of trouble led him to believe that they had obeyed his request, and that hurt. Yes, he'd wanted them to forget, but at the same time he hadn't wanted them to. "It's been three years," he whispered sadly as he pressed the charm to his chest and held it tightly, "There's no way they still remember…not if they were trying to forget… I know it's for the best, but…I don't want to be forgotten… It hurts…" He took a shuddering breath as he curled onto his side and whispered again, "It hurts…"
A/N: And that's this chapter. I know this chapter was really short. The fact is that there isn't really much you can do with a character whose freedom to act is so limited; even if it is Vanitas. I was initially thinking of sticking in a paragraph or two covering him practicing with his abilities (including Unversed creation), but it just didn't happen. I still wanted to cover how his powers had progressed, so I just stuck in a segment where he was thinking about it. For the record, at this point Vanitas has all the abilities, varieties of Unversed, and techniques that he does in Birth by Sleep (which I need to actually play before starting the next book so I can get a better idea of what they actually look like. Watching other people's play-throughs just isn't giving me a clear enough picture… I am going to die so much…) at his disposal. I ended up not using the bit I wrote earlier after all. I feel like keeping you guys in suspense for a few more books. Maybe book four. I have the bit saved in my extras document anyways, so I don't need to worry about forgetting it. We are down to our last two chapters after this. The next chapter is the resolution. Then we have the epilogue which wraps up this book and transitions to the next. This is a good thing…I only have three days before my first day of class as of my writing this. I started writing this story the week before Christmas…it is now January 22nd. Because of my approach to writing and posting stories you will be reading this chapter roughly eighteen weeks after I finish the epilogue. None of the stuff you read is current for me. I'll already be working on the outline for the next four books and possibly even start playing Birth by Sleep. I have a copy now, but I want to finish KH2 before I start. That might take me a couple of months… I'm already part of the way through the outline for book two. I'm not actually going to start writing the next book until the semester ends. Outlines I can do, but a full on story? My school-work would abruptly cease to exist for me. The end result is you are all going to be waiting a while for book two. This…is going to be a massive project that will probably take me at least two years to finish. If not more since I have no idea when my focus will shift away from this fandom, or when it will shift back. Hence my need for the outlines. I need to make sure I don't forget anything important to the plot. Hopefully I can maintain my interest… CURSE YOU SHORT ATTENTION SPAN! I'm rambling again. Sorry. See you all next time!