-This is almost a stretch, but still works within the story's context 'cause I had to read chapter one over again to make sure it could work. -grimaces-
-Also, vague Melody of Memory moment in the second half, so extremely vague spoilers in there. I'm also borrowing a pinch from the fan theory that Sora's kinda suffering from literal death due to his Yozora fight model. I am considering Sora 16 now, as a year passed during the ReMind portion of KH3. Also, there's a surprise.
Tw: Blood, vomit, and creepy children. Xehanort still sucks too.
XxX-v-V-v-XxX-s-S-s-XxX
When days fall dark
Everything will fall apart
No path to guide
Solace for a shattered heart
-Demon Hunter, Lesser Gods
XxX-v-V-v-XxX-s-S-s-XxX
14 years ago, before everything went to hell-
He had suffered another long and grueling training session with the Master. It had already been two years since his existence had been torn away from his Other, leaving him behind.
He clenched his fist and grit his teeth, thankful that the Master had yet to notice the face beneath the helmet. He had allowed his arms to suffer terrible damage to ensure his helmet never broke, to reveal the terror his pathetic cherubic face would reveal. He could fake his voice and his tone, but he still couldn't pull a poker face to save his life.
Vanitas blamed the face he wore. The blank doll he had had been born as, as horrifying and nauseating as it had been to bare witness to the smooth white empty mannequin with red disks for eyes, was still a better option to facially emoting. Emotion was only weakness in the Master's eyes.
Even though his negative emotions, despite the agony they constantly caused him as they tore themselves from his body, were seen as a boon for practicing his strength and endurance. Encouraged even, to produce and slay them in a continuous loop to the point of collapse.
His stomach clenched as hunger distracted him and tore away as another Unversed.
Vanitas groaned as he rolled himself onto his raw back, staring up at the black sky above until he fell asleep.
Sleep was a solace as much as it was an inconvenience.
He lay on his Heart's reflection, cracks and broken glass littering its surface. Sometimes he went off in a rage and destroyed pieces of the Station himself.
Other times it was simply existing, or being pushed too hard that cracked his fragile Heart.
But he was fine. Nothing fell away.
The Darkness was his balm as well as his thorn. (So was that other Heart that had touched-)
Vanitas sighed wearily, opting to simply lie in recuperation. Bone deep exhaustion kept him there for an unknown amount of time.
The serene comfort of sleep Ventus got to enjoy bled in and deepened his hatred and jealousy for the Other.
A shard of glass made a tinkling sound in the silence, a soft gasp of someone entering his Heart springing him into awareness as he jumped to his feet. He covered his face with his arm as he wearily looked around his Station for whatever had Dared Enter-!
The toddler took a step back, and suddenly Vanitas felt the connection.
Open the Door
He snarled as he dropped his arm and summoned his Keyblade, "You!"
The toddler cried out and clumsily turned, trying to run away from the angry Dark while screaming, "I just wanted to help!"
Vanitas snatched the boy with the end of his Keyblade, dangling the screaming child as he curled into himself.
The coloring was wrong, and the age difference was clear.
But this was without a doubt the one who gave him his face.
"How Dare You come into my Heart!"
The child began sobbing in earnest, his plain white shirt and red shorts bunched uncomfortably in his hanging hold of his Keyblade's teeth. Vanitas growled with exasperation as he dropped the kid roughly, causing the other to gasp and fall silent.
He stared at the still child and paused, I didn't break him, did I?
The boy sniffed while wiping his face and stubbornly stood. He turned around and faced Vanitas head on while biting his lip harshly, holding back tears as snot ran down his chin.
Revulsion ran through him as he gagged at the sight, quickly grabbing the kids shirt and using it to wipe the kid's face roughly.
The kid blinked, Vanitas half wishing he didn't have to see the snot stain on the kid's shirt as the other smiled a little at him.
Vanitas looked at the toddler bewildered, disturbed, "The fuck do you want, kid?"
The toddler pouted, "My name's Sora, and you aren' suppose' t' swear."
Vanitas made a face before rolling his eyes as he sat cross legged in front of the younger, "I ain't apologizing to a toddler."
Sora sniffed wetly, "I wanna help."
The two stared each other down before Vanitas sighed, "With what?"
"Your Darkness! It Hurts you a lot, right?"
Vanitas sneered at the boy, showing his teeth, "I am Darkness, kid. There's no helping it."
Sora frowned, clearly thinking with his stupid toddler logic, "Than I'll take some of it for myself!"
What?
Vanitas became deeply disturbed, "What?!"
Sora took a clumsy step forward, the other foot stepping immediately into his space and half on his ankle as he shoved his hand into his chest.
Vanitas felt the chubby, clumsy hand feel around inside of his chest as his innards squirmed in revulsion as he grit his teeth. It was deeply unsettling to see a toddler with his hand and part of his arm deep in his chest cavity, feeling around as if he were playing with water and sand.
Pitch black bile began to choke him as his revulsion grew, stuck in place and watching helplessly as Sora finally (finally) took his gross chubby hand out of his chest. A ball of dripping black goop all over. The smell of Darkness was rancid in its concentration, yet Sora looked at what he had taken from Vanitas and locked eyes with him.
"I'll fill this Darkness with warmth and love, so you can have something more than hurt."
The boy then, to Vanitas's continued horror and revulsion, began to eat the Darkness. The boy clearly found it as repulsive as Vanitas himself did, yet he powered through it, determined to make his point and went so far as to lick his fingers clean before Vanitas finally lost it. He snatched the boy's hand and took his skirt, wiping away and reabsorbing the vile Dark left behind and dripping down his arm.
The urge to throw up was intense. His voice was raw and strained, "What are you doing?"
Sora had dark black running down his chin in revolting dribbles as Vanitas roughly wiped the boy's face with his hand to try and keep control of himself, "You're insane, kid."
The toddler seemed to be fighting the urge to throw up, but smiled toothily despite the sickness clear on his face, "There's flowers that only bloom in the night. Night lets us sleep. The Dark can't be all bad."
Vanitas shook his head, "Darkness devours the Light."
Sora stepped back, away from him and stomped his foot stubbornly, "And I'm saying that Darkness can be just as good as the Light. Light hurts too, y'know."
Vanitas knew, because as Darkness, Light burned.
He blinked.
Oh.
Vanitas frowned, "Are you seriously talking about sunburns?"
Sora smiled, "Yup! The sun, the biggest Light I know, can even burn grass, and hurt plants too, even though they need it to grow! So they need shade, which the Dark provides. We need both!"
Vanitas rubbed his face, a strange and angry sorrow bubbling in his chest, "I don't want to see you here again."
Sora frowned, "But-"
Vanitas got into his face, making the toddler clumsily fall back, "LEAVE!"
The boy's spirit disappeared with fear written all over him.
The child's fear, and the new, deep connection from his Darkness he could feel that had been taken away by Sora's Pure innocence made his stomach heave as he finally fell forward onto his hands and knees and vomited inky blackness.
He felt tears run down his face as the sick revulsion continued to make him heave dryly, straining him to the point that his stomach and neck muscles ached. He coughed, startled as a different and new taste filled his mouth. Coppery and red was his blood, as he was left in a confused terrified jumble.
I have… blood?
A new sort of mortal terror engulfed him. He had only ever bled black, or thrown up that terrible oily sludge.
Never before had he had something as human as blood.
He pulled back onto his knees, his fears tearing off his back as new Unversed in a new unending cycle as he shrieked, "Why is there blood?!"
Vanitas screamed, his hands flying to his face as his blunt fingers dug into his flesh, eyes wide in terror as hysteria engulfed him.
He lost track of the time, lost in his own tumultuous thoughts and fears that he hadn't even realized that at some point he had awoken, his screaming howls following him into reality as part of his suit began to pull away from his fingers, unknowingly revealing soft human flesh and trimmed nails.
Things he hadn't bothered to even try to see if possible about his strange and horrible existence.
Vanitas threw himself forward into the dirt, smashing his covered face into the dust and shattering the glass of his helmet. Tears, blood, and inky black vomit splattered the ground with his raw terror and screaming.
Finally the overflow of his own emotions tearing away from him in several forms of old and new Unversed caused him to collapse in an empty heap. His vocal chords ripped raw as blood with lines of black dark and sick saliva coated his chin.
Vanitas fell silent as his eyes rolled back into his head, a final true exhaustion pulling him beyond sleep.
His hands were bare, sweat mixing in with the mess that he was and griming his face and hair.
Sora had tasted for himself the Darkness, and in return, had given him Humanity.
It was a shitty trade, if you could bother to ask the slumbering body of a broken 2 yet 14 year old.
Xehanort, in the pre-dawn light as he ambled sedately through the throng of Unversed came upon his charge. He used his foot to push the boy off of his stomach and to his back.
"So… you had a face." Pity, to be so far into slumber and still hold so much anger.
It did nothing to change his plans, but it did… change a few things, if he found it necessary to enact them.
The old man knelt by the unconscious teen, and ran a finger over the other's throat, feeling the damage he had caused himself.
Well. He couldn't have a mute student- that was more than useless to his goals (and personal satisfaction).
He sighed boredly, and cast a Curaga on the darkling.
Only once would he show such mercy.
He slowly stood to his feet, examining the many new Unversed, and mentally catalogued them as he made his way back towards a newly opened Corridor. "Everything is still according to plan… Just as it was predicted."
He smirked to himself as the Darkness engulfed him. "May my Heart be my Guiding Key."
XxX-v-V-v-XxX-s-S-s-XxX
Vanitas blinked awake on his Heart Station, disturbed at the memory he had dreamed as he heard Sora's Station groan deeply, the sound of glass grinding beneath it.
He grimaced and pulled himself to his feet, wiping himself down as if the dream was nothing more than dirt on his back. He stretched and sighed heavily to himself before slumping.
He was tired.
It was a wrong sort of tired. He licked his lips as he gazed around the empty abyss and crossed his arms over his chest to rub his arms before stopping. Startled, he looked at his hands and found that his suit had receded like in his dream.
But something else had replaced the naked flesh.
He stared at his palms, before turning his hands over as the same gauntlets Sora now wore, but with the red and greys reversed, a peak of light grey replacing the yellow that faded back into his familiar suit.
He stared in confused horror as Sora's Station groaned again in the distance.
Vanitas shook his head roughly, turning towards the other's Heart and reaching out.
Pain, tired, cold, confusion, stiff, loneliness-!
Vanitas stumbled back, to escape Sora's pouring of emotions and the overload of his senses.
Something was wrong.
The vague memory of a city with many tall buildings, a rooftop replacing the image of his (Sora's) Heart Station.
Yozora.
Vanitas took in a shaky breath and closed his eyes.
Where are we?
He reached out again towards Sora's Heart, and suddenly the Other moved aside.
Vanitas opened his eyes startled as he fell into full use of a physical form, stumbling on weakened legs into the side of a building in a rainy back alley. He glanced at the hand that roughly rubbed against dirty brick, Sora's glove there to greet him in its proper coloring.
His breath stopped, the ache in his chest deepening as fear ran through him.
Vanitas placed his other hand on his chest and grit his teeth while clenching his eyes shut, 'A price more than heavy enough to break even the strongest of Hearts.
Sora had endured it.
Vanitas released a shaky breath, skin cold and clammy in growing discomfort as Vanitas began to realize a number of things so very wrong with the body he found himself wearing.
He also noticed Sora had disappeared...or at least, felt incredibly far away.
A huff answered his growing fears. 'This isn't your Story.'
Vanitas froze while growling through his Mind, 'Who the heck are you?'
A chuckle answered him, 'A Guardian.'
Sora's face was entirely too unaccustomed to the level of rage and agitation Vanitas normally emoted as he growled back, 'That wasn't an answer.'
He could practically feel the spirit shake their head, 'Auron. I...act as a Summon here.'
Vanitas blinked. 'When the fuck did he pick you up?!'
The man laughed in the back of his mind, 'Before we arrived in this city, as he wandered through The Final World. My Soul was freed from The Underworld, and so I wandered until I waited for my end there. Eventually, Sora found me… or was it I that found him?'
Vanitas pursed his lips as he finally got used to having a body again and began to walk tiredly towards the bustle of the city sidewalk. He frowned in disgust, 'When the heck was the last time he bothered to shower?'
Auron laughed again, the warmth of his summoning gem heating his thigh as he realized the man's Spirit was kept close and easily grabbed, 'I have been telling him to take better care of himself. He's run himself beyond ragged, and as someone who has lived for a time as an Unsent, I can tell that he is suffering from some form of degeneration. It's almost like a continuous Zombie status effect, but… without the weakness to holy items or healing spells.'
Vanitas shivered, the weird feeling on Sora's skin making his nerves curl as he looked around for a place to shower, "Well, it fuckin' sucks."
Auron laughed loudly, the specter seeming to find his newly acquired presence amicable, 'I agree.'
Vanitas spotted a gaming café sign and went up to the outdoor listing of fees, and available services. He zeroed in on the shower, personal room/cubicle, and food options. A smirk rose to his lips as he double checked Sora's available funds.
Vanitas's heart soared as he noted he had more than enough munny in his inventory, noting that he also had access to the funds of whatever the World he was in required. He raised an eyebrow, 'So, do you know what this World is called?'
Auron seemed to grow silent for a long moment, 'The World we find ourselves in seems to be called Quadratum. The enemy types are strange and remind me of machina. Sora summons me a lot due to the strangeness of his body… but because I also am used to such large cities, having tenured in Zanarkand. I have more self awareness than him and ...he is lonely.'
The man loved to talk, but he'd take the extra info, "Got it." Vanitas opened the door and made a beeline for the poor worker acting as cashier who'd have to suffer his stench, "One cubicle and shower set, please. Oh, and I'd like to order a Number Thirteen."
The poor worker couldn't take his money fast enough.
