The skittering sounds of metal sliding against metal echoes into the void. "Why. . . Why can't we get in sync?" Vanitas groaned as his body slammed back into the glass pane, cracks that had long formed across the stained surface now widened, splintering and cutting his body.
His fierce attacks had weakened and slowed, he struggled to stand,limbs lagging behind his thoughts as though trapped in molasses. Breathing heavily, he arched his neck and stared bitterly at his "brother," Ventus floating a few feet above him. A cloak of light seemingly surrounded his body, keeping him safe from the arching tendrils of darkness that reached from the split glass symbolizing the fraying connection of their heart.
Why? Why do you hate me so much, I'm a fucking part of you! You've seen that Ventus, you know that it's true, why do you keep denying me?!" Vanitas felt his voice climbing in volume until his final words came out in a strangled scream. Far past embarrassment, the embodiment of pure darkness could feel the tears staining his cheeks.
Usually his strong emotions would result in an eruption of Flood ripping their way out of his body, leaving behind only blistering pain and an aching emptiness, until he himself cut them down. Returning the emotions two fold, and only heightening the ache inside, something that he had learned to live with. Only here, within their broken hearts was he allowed to feel his emotions and not be punished for their existence, and that fact only concentrated Vanitas's anger into a white hot core. Wiping his face, the tawny boy grit his teeth, clenched his fists and launched himself again at Ventus.
Their fight continued, gruesome and brutal, no thought to sword form, or strategy. A brutal hack and slash that hurt the attacker as much as the recipient. Suddenly void gear became lodged in the guard of wayward wind, the force of the attack Vanitas had unleashed wrenched both of the key blades from the weilders' hands and tossed them off the edge of the glass platform the two battled upon. Immediately Vanitas felt the last of his energy leaving his body, he allowed himself to sink to his knees, completely out of breath from the aggressive back and forth he had been part of.
Ventus roared, and threw himself at Vanitas, tackling him to the ground, he began punching him repeatedly. Quickly as he could Vanitas sluggishly raised his arms to fend off Ven's vicious blows, which said blonde responded to by hammering his fists against the barrier of his forearms.
"You will not absorb me, you will not take me, you will not become a part of my heart! My heart is mine! My friends, my memories, and my actions are all mine!" Ven ranted, his words slurring together as his hands began to slow down, exhaustion clearly taking over. With the last of his strength, Vanitas pulled his legs up and tucked them under Ventus's chest, with a final heave he threw Ventus from his position atop him.
The only sound in the aftermath of the vicious scuffle, were the sounds of their two hearts beginning to wrench themselves apart piece by piece, shattering as they did so. The formation of the X-blade having failed, and therefore the formation of their heart also falling to ruin. Briefly panic overtook Vanitas as thoughts pummeled his psyche. His body had been destroyed when his heart had merged with Ventus, where would his consciousness go if he wasn't allowed to stay? How would he heal from having his heart shattered so completely.
A sob escaped Vanitas's throat for the first time in recent memory, tears unabashedly running down his face as he pushed himself into a kneeling position in the enveloping darkness closing in on his vision. Raising his head proved difficult, but Vanitas ground his teeth together as he pushed himself beyond his limits, what he saw shocked him, Ventus was simply laying on his back, watching the darkness close in on their shattering plane of existence. The white glow that surrounded him seemed to be glowing even brighter, and a smile had found it's way onto the boy's face.
He refused to try and understand, spending his last moments attempting to try and wrap his mind around the idea that was Ventus, his light hearted counterpart. Vanitas had tried many times before over the years, it was only now he accepted the fact that he couldn't understand. They would not become whole again, the scar tissue on their halved hearts' which had been torn apart had finally healed.
They now had their own separate hearts, they had grown too different from who they had originally been. It was almost a relief, Vanitas allowed himself to accept the momentary feeling even as confusion also swept over his emotional landscape.
"We're both going to die here," Ventus startled, angling his head to look at Vanitas with an expression of bewilderment. Vanitas allowed an imitation of a smile to form, he could feel the phantom heart beat inside him begin to slow as darkness swirled around him like a cloak, beginning to lift him from the platform of his heart that was growing ever smaller.
"We've denied each other totally, our hearts however incomplete have developed on their own. This was never gonna work," He allowed a dark self deprecating chuckle to leave his mouth, it sounded almost more like a bark than a laugh. "Xehanort had me tricked from the start. . ." He glanced once more into Ventus's eyes which over the course of his monologue had seemed to clear with some unknown emotion welling within them. Vanitas couldn't bring himself to dislike the golden boy in that moment, all his emotions seemed to simply dull within him as his energy left.
"Good luck . . . Ventus . . . Maybe one day we'll meet once more . . ." Finally his vision faded, darkness took Vanitas in its grasp and spirited him far away from this plane of existence. The last thing he remembered seeing before totally losing consciousness, was the pale face of a boy opening his mouth to say something, a look of concern on his face. Vanitas dismissed the thought entirely, the only thought in his head being, "No. . . Of course not . . . Who would be concerned for me?"
On another world far from where this battle of wills took place, a young boy with a compassionate heart felt the distress of another's. The boy who had been playing in the surf of the beautiful island world suddenly fell to his knees. Sora's face crumpled, the pain of the broken and crippled heart he had sensed being too much for his young heart, and still he reached out. He allowed his soul, his essence to reach into the void and bring the essence of this shattered heart to rest safely within his own.
At this moment, unknown to the boy, he became a recipient of the Keyblade by accepting its unknowing wielder into his heart, and so Sora's life was changed forever, hidden inside his heart the shattered being latched on and began to heal. Within his heart, shrouded inside a beacon of light, a heart of pure and infinite darkness, began to stitch itself back together.