Chapter 3- A New Day's Upon You
Summary: "Light and darkness co-exist. Two sides of the same coin. You can't just get rid of one side."
"What if we could, though?"
Vanitas was sick and tired of light screwing him up. When was a normal-ish life with the opportunity to gain needed strength again going to be on the cards? Soon, since light gave him one more blasted chance.
Sora broke so many laws of nature to bring his friends back together. As such, he was shoved into a different world with no way to get back home. Friends out of reach, but new ones in grasping reach. And by Kingdom Hearts he was going to help out a familiar face.
UA seemed like the perfect cover for them, solving all their problems. Until it didn't.
After all, light hates darkness, and darkness hates light. Destiny was inevitable.
Vanitas opened his eyes expecting light to burst through his peace, but instead was embraced by more darkness. He frowned, a rare expression on his face. He looked underneath his dark red shoes to see the blasted light shining into the abyss above.
There it is.
He stood on a circular pillar that emerged from the darkness. Vanitas crouched and inspected the ground closer. His eyes detected dirty red circles with the unversed (his) logo. It contrasted with the dark blue background, which almost looked like ocean waves washing onto a shore. Vanitas casted his eye further to see a large stained-glass image of himself with his helmet off. His black spiky hair almost covered his closed eyes, his expression peaceful. The stained-glass version of him had Void Gear, his keyblade, summoned and it hung loosely at his side. More circles lay between Vanitas and his stained-glass version, depicting people that Vanitas hated with a passion, but they were the ones who kept him tethered to life.
For the sake of light and darkness, why am I at my Station of Awakening?
Vanitas knew this place too well. It was his incomplete heart (But it didn't have any gaps, does that mean he had a complete heart now?).
Vanitas was on edge when a figure floated down from above. He summoned Void Gear and got into a fighting stance. The figure saw Vanitas and tilted his head to the side, confusion clear on his face. He summoned a keyblade too, although it was a lot more cartoony and simpler. It had a square yellow guard and a grey shaft and teeth. The teeth was shaped like a many spiked crown. The keyblade had a keychain hanging off the guard, which was a simple circle with two smaller circles to make the shape of a very annoying and useless king's head. The figure however did not get into a fighting stance and just looked at Vanitas.
"What are you doing in my Station?" Vanitas growled.
"I don't know. I think I must have dozed off to sleep, and my heart led me here. I think your heart was calling out for help."
"Don't give me any of those shadows. I don't need anyone's help, especially from you. Anyway, weren't you s'posed to be 'banished from this world' or whatever for misusing that power?"
"You mean the power of waking?"
"Waking-smaking. Doesn't matter." Vanitas relaxed slightly, but still shot a glare at him.
"You would know more about that than I would. I don't really know how, but I'm here now. Vanitas, I want to help you."
"Did you not hear me earlier? I don't need your dusking help."
He walked forward, hand outstretched. Vanitas stiffened and Void Gear started to gather dark energy at its tip.
"You may be a shadow, but even shadows deserve a chance to be redeemed and have friends. Look, even I was a shadow and look at me now."
Faintly, Vanitas heard someone call his name. He chuckled at his lucky break. "I need to go now, and I think you do too. Can't sleep forever. Well- maybe Venty-Wenty could. He seems to always be sleeping."
"Wait, Van-"
Vanitas opened his eyes to annoying cherry blossom petals on his nose. He brushed it away as he looked for the person calling his name.
"Hi, kid. Your pathetic training over yet?"
"It's Midoriya! And yes, it is. We can go now if you want?"
"Yeah, yeah. Let's go now."
Vanitas stood up and stretched. He then walked over to Midoriya, arms folded. The plain boy tilted his head at Vanitas.
"Were you sitting there for the whole time?"
Vanitas replied without missing a beat. "Yeah. And?"
"I was training for a few hours. You didn't go home or anything?"
"Nah. That tree was more comfortable."
The two fell into step, while Midoriya led the way. Vanitas casually glanced around, making a mental map for himself. Midoriya was obviously uncomfortable with the growing silence, but Vanitas was not going to sort that out. Vanitas could deal and liked the quiet. People glanced at him and his outfit, but he paid them no mind. But now Vanitas thought about it, some of the people of this world were mutated: someone with green skin was loading boxes into a warehouse; a pig head walked a dog; and someone with a horn and scales was angrily yelling into a phone.
"So, uhh… what's your quirk?" The kid spoke up.
"My quirk?" Midoriya nodded, weaving through a crowd.
What the hell is a quirk? Is it these mutations?
"Well, what's yours?" Vanitas coolly responded.
Midoriya chuckled nervously. "Well, um, it… it's a strength enhancing quirk. B-Basically."
"You got awful nervous describing your 'quirk'. Wonder why?"
Midoriya sweat dropped and stopped in his tracks. He was about to make a bungled explanation before he got interrupted by an explosion a few blocks away. Screaming then ensued and people began to run into the two.
Vanitas grunted slightly in pain, as he felt burn marks appear on his belly. Midoriya was already running against the crowd, wanting to see the action. Vanitas ran too, and quickly caught up with Midoriya.
The scene that welcomed Vanitas was wild. Fire had spread across the entire building and was now a raging inferno of heat and light. The building inside could be seen, and what looked to be an office previously was now a melting pool of seats and ugly desks. Unluckily, there were no people in the office, or they were busy escaping out of sight. Rubble began to dirty the street below as the building was shedding its skin.
Vanitas felt a familiar presence and groaned when he spotted some of his unversed skittering around and trying to put out the fire. They were the flood type. They were damaged, and Vanitas made a mental note to destroy them later.
Seriously? I gave you guys one order: info collecting while hiding. And you messed that up spectacularly.
The flood unversed bowed their heads down in guilt. Sorry Master.
I'll sort you guys out later, if there is a later.
Vanitas looked over to Midoriya who could only be described as fan boy unleashed. He was muttering like a madman and a yellow notebook was furiously being scribbled in. Vanitas groaned. Not only did he have to deal with those idiot floods, but he also had to deal with a fanatic too?
Someone came running in and seemed to be an amalgamation of a red water hydrant. He had very skinny ankles and wore a strange costume. He placed his hands (?) in front of him and water began to spout out of them, starting to put out the fire.
"Ohmygoshit'sBackdraft!" Midoriya spoke rushed, his eyes gleaming. Vanitas wanted to vomit.
Another person rushed in, a bulky man with a skin-tight blue outfit. A V-shaped orange flame broke the costume's blue theme, and his hair was made of flames too. He charged into the building and began to defeat the unversed within. They went down easily from the man's fire attacks. Vanitas' breathing hitched a little as the pain increased.
"Isee, EndeavourisdealingwiththecreatureswhileBackdraftismanagingthefire. Cleverindeed, butEndeavourcanonlydealwithsomuchheat, nevermindtryingtofigureoutwherethevillianisandwhathisquirkexactlyentails, that'sstillalotofworkandnotmuchtime…" Midoriya continued his analysis, before noticing Vanitas in pain. "Are you alright Vanitas?"
"Just dandy. Go back to your muttering spree, don't mind me." Vanitas tried to convince him.
Midoriya searched his hidden eyes, reading his body language. Vanitas bit back another unversed burning to its death, hatred returning.
"You're not fine. Where does it hurt?"
"Just my ankle, I tripped earlier. Doesn't matter, I can deal with it myself. I'm not weak like you."
Midoriya looked like he was about to say something else, but he bit it back. He looked back at the building to see the fire was put out. Endeavour came walking out of the building just as police arrived at the scene and cordoned the area off. Midoriya began walking again and Vanitas followed.
A few hours earlier
"Ah, Young Midoriya. You're late today." A skeleton of a man greeted a running Midoriya on a peaceful beach. A few people strolled the beach, but it was mostly quiet.
"Hi All Might!"
"All Might? Where?" People began to make a fuss and tried to see All Might.
"O-oh. I must be mistaken!" Midoriya shouted back, sweat dropping.
All Might chuckled. "It's not like you to be late."
Midoriya caught his breath before explaining. "I ran into someone when I was coming here. They want me to take them to UA."
"Do they know that they can travel there themselves?"
"I know, but…" Midoriya looked down, conflicted. "He looked sad for some reason. And mad. He was just sitting under a cherry blossom tree, all alone. I wanted to help him, but he kept on denying it and refusing any attempts. I agreed to take him to UA, but I can't help feeling I can do more."
"Hmm… a tough situation to be sure."
"All Might… could helping someone who doesn't want any help the right thing? Or will I just hurt him?"
All Might stayed silent for several moments, considering. He sat down on the sand, yellow hair moving in the breeze. Izuku Midoriya sat down beside him.
"I think… if anyone looks like they need help, you should help. They might not realise they need assistance, and sometimes they want to do things their own way and by themselves, but if you judge that they need saving, you do so. They might not be grateful, they may hate you, they may even spread nasty rumours about you- in my early days I had a few of those. But it is worth it. A hero helps people no matter if they want it or not. Meddling in affairs people don't want you to be in is the definition of a hero."
Midoriya swallowed those words and reflected. He stood up, fist clenched and determined. "I'm going to help Vanitas as much as I can. I'm going to give him a reason to smile."
All Might smiled back. "I believe if anyone can do it, you could. My advice though? Give Vanitas some space. After a while, he'll come round to you. Don't push too much otherwise he'll fling away from you. Now, shall we start training?"
Sora woke up and sat up on the bench. He looked around and guessed that half of the day had passed. He had a lot on his mind, and so he started walking. He began mulling things over and his next steps. His heart led his feet, and his feet led him to a solution to all his problems.
Hell, if Sora wasn't going to help a familiar face.
Xerayn's Notes 3:
Hi guys! A longer chapter because I felt guilty doing only a thousand words for a chapter. I had to do a bit of research to figure out which heroes would cameo in this chapter, and I got a bit distracted, so… lol. Vanitas is really fun to write too.
Thank you so much PittBullBytes for the review! I really appreciate it.
