Battle Stance, Kingdom Hearts fanwork: Armory Challenge by RoseOfADifferentColor, written by Raberba girl

The Next Life: Oathkeeper (theme 51) [rough draft]

Ventus/Vanitas Day, 21 December 2013

Summary: It's kind of hard to beat up a bad guy when he's four years old and desperate for your affection.

o.o.o

Granted, Ven barely had any memory of what his life had been like before finding himself here. Still, he thought it was reasonable to assume that he'd never experienced anything as weird or frustrating as being held prisoner by a four-year-old in some bizarre alternate dimension with no floor.

They glared at each other as they floated in the darkness, Ven and the small boy with brown eyes and wildly spiked black hair. "...I bet you don't even know," Ven finally said. "I bet you're just bluffing."

"You're WRONG!" the child shrieked. "I have the key and I hid it and you'll never, ever, ever find it!"

"I bet I will." How good could a four-year-old be at hiding something anyway?

Pretty good, as it turned out. There wasn't...really anywhere Ven could look, since there was nothing here besides himself and the boy. Yet Ven tried anyway, drifting off in different directions to see if this place had...like, walls or something.

As far as he could tell, it didn't, and it was annoying to have that kid following and taunting him wherever he went. "...and you're the biggest stupidest loserey loser and no one wants to be your friend because you're a bad boy who did bad things and they're glad you're gone and they don't even miss you because they never loved you because you're horrible and someone should've just stepped on you and squished you like a bug because you are a bug, and if you were a real bug I'd smash you because I hate you-"

"Would you just shut up?! Seriously, shut up! You are the- the uncutest little kid I've ever seen! Brat!"

"Jerk!"

"Leave me alone!"

"You're trapped in here FOREVER, ha ha ha!"

They both eventually had to sleep, though by that time, Ven felt like the stupid kid had driven him crazy.

When he woke up, his gut was twisting with hunger, and he watched with a cranky glare as the kid, drifting too far away to reach but not nearly far enough for Ven's liking, played with some sort of weird animal. The creature had glowing red eyes, and as Ven watched, the kid squashed it until it suddenly burst into smoke. Ven gasped. The kid gave him a defiant look and ate one of the squishy green balls that had been left behind.

Ven's stomach rumbled. "What are you doing?"

"Eating," the boy said smugly. "Are you hungry, Ventus?"

"...Yes."

"Hah! Well, too bad, because I won't feed you 'til you're nice to me!"

Ven's teeth gritted. The little boy somehow made another creature appear- Ven lunged for it. 'If I kill it, it'll make food...?'

"NO!" the boy shrieked, and to Ven's astonishment and frustration, the child somehow sucked the creature into his own chest.

"Where is it?! Give it back!"

"No!"

Ven seized the boy by the throat. He didn't squeeze, but the boy gasped in fear, and Ven wondered at himself. He had the sense that he was usually a lot nicer than this, but something about this kid really ticked him off.

"Don't. Don't hurt me."

"Bring it back."

"No!"

"Bring it back!"

"NO!"

This time, Ven did squeeze, just a little, but though the boy looked terrified, he held his ground. Wincing, Ven let go and held him by the arms instead. "I'm starving. I need to eat something."

"No! Only if you be my slave and do everything I say and are nice to me and call me Master!"

"Never."

"Do it!"

"No." Ven let him go and drifted off again, trying to ignore the boy's furious shouting as best he could.

The next time Ven slept, he had nightmares, and when he awakened, he had remembered enough to finally recognize his companion. "Vanitas!"

"That's not my name!" the boy screamed.

"I don't know why you look like that, but I don't care, I'll kill you!"

"You can't hurt me! You can't hurt me!"

Ven chased him around until it finally occurred to him that he wouldn't really know what to do with the boy if he actually caught him. He wanted to kill him, but...destroying a little kid, no matter how bratty, was a lot different than fighting an armed personification of evil who was trying to destroy him back. "Gah!"

Ven tried to ignore him. Vanitas apparently got bored and came over to taunt him some more. Ven finally lost his temper and chased him again. Then he put his fingers in his ears, shut his eyes, and sang loudly for a long time, trying to block out Vanitas's existence.

o.o.o.o.o

He was so hungry. He had to get an Unversed somehow.

Ven eventually got desperate enough to actually hit Vanitas, but even though the boy hit back (and bit), he stubbornly refused to summon any Unversed while Ven was awake. "You're killing me," Ven growled. "You're killing me. I can't last like this forever."

"I don't care. I won't ever let you leave. You'll stay with me 'til you rot."

Ven got too tired to chase him, and the hunger pangs eventually went away. Lethargic, he lay in midair, gazing at his tiny dark half, who curled up and glared back. "...Why do you hate me so much, anyway?" Ven murmured.

"Because I hate you."

"Why? What is it about me that makes you angry?"

"...Everyone loves you," Vanitas finally mumbled. "And everyone hates me. It's not fair."

Ven frowned. "They wouldn't hate you so much if you didn't do such horrible things."

"They wouldn't love you if they knew you were me!"

Sudden tears stung Ven's eyes. "Shut up! I'm nothing like you!"

"You're me! You're me! You're ME!"

Ven tried to chase him again, but he was tired and soon gave up. He just floated there and cried, and wondered in the back of his mind why Vanitas was crying, too.

o.o.o.o.o

Ven couldn't tell when he was awake and when he was asleep anymore. The deep fatigue of starvation seemed to shadow him constantly, whether he was drifting in the dark or struggling through a nightmare. "Aqua...Terra..." He thought sometimes that they were stroking his face or holding him, but he had to have been dreaming that, because they weren't here...he was alone. All alone except for the dark half of his heart, and it was true, he really was Vanitas, and they wouldn't want anything to do with him if they knew...

Something sweet burst in his mouth. Ven gasped and opened his eyes.

Vanitas scrambled away warily, and Ven stared at him for a long time before finally realizing, "You gave me an HP orb?"

"I dropped it," Vanitas said haughtily. "It fell in your mouth by accident, stupidhead."

"...Give me another one."

"No way!"

"Vanitas!"

"I hate you! Stay away from me!"

"I hate you, too!"

"I don't care!"

"Then leave me alone!"

"Yeah! Because you're stupid!"

"I hate you!"

"Me too!"

"That means you hate yourself, idiot."

"I HATE YOU!"

"STOP YELLING!"

"YOU STOP YELLING!"

"Gah, I'm too tired for this..."

o.o.o.o.o

After about the third or fourth time Vanitas pulled him away from the edge of death, Ven finally gave up. It all seemed so pointless by now, anyway. "Master," he whispered. After a moment, he realized that Vanitas was asleep against his chest. "..." With great effort, Ven managed to roll over, dislodging the boy enough for him to awaken. Vanitas tensed and stared up at him.

"...Master. Please give me some food."

"What?"

"I'm so hungry...please..."

"No way! I don't-" Vanitas broke off, looking confused.

"I'm begging you. I'll do whatever you want, just please..."

Vanitas's eyes finally lit up. "You'll do whatever I say?! You'll be nice to me?!"

"Yes," Ven said dully.

"Hah!" Vanitas grinned at him in a way that looked more relieved than triumphant. Then the smile faded, and he narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "Are you trying to trick me?"

"No. Please."

Vanitas fidgeted. "Say I'm the best person ever."

"...You're the best person ever."

"Say I'm better than you."

Ven sighed. "You're better than me."

"Hah. Hah!"

Vanitas finally produced and handed over enough HP balls for Ven to feel like a person again instead of half a corpse. The two boys regarded each other warily. Ven finally said, "Didn't you say something before about having a key?"

Vanitas looked at him for a long time through narrowed eyes, then said, "Promise you'll be good and won't trick me."

"I promise."

"Okay." Vanitas started to touch his own chest, then suddenly jerked his hands back down and glared. "Turn around and go away. Don't look."

'You've been keeping the key in your heart all this time?!' Actually, that made way more sense than it should...

Ven rolled his eyes and drifted away. He heard sounds and saw a burst of light that reinforced his theory of Vanitas's hiding place. Then he turned back around and saw Vanitas grinning smugly at him, holding the incomplete χ-blade. "That will get us out of here?" Ven said warily.

"Yup. We can't get out unless we work together. You need me. You can't do anything without me, because you're stupid and I'm important."

"...What do we have to do?"

"You're not allowed to leave me, okay? You're not allowed."

"Fine, I won't."

"Promise!"

"Gah, I promise!"

With the two of them in close proximity, completing the χ-blade was easy - apparently, all they had to do was touch it at the same time. Within the resulting burst of light, something that looked like a gateway appeared. Ven gasped and immediately lunged at it.

"Wait for me!"

'I can't let Vanitas into the outside world. He's evil. He'll try to hurt people again, just like he did last time.' Ven turned back. Vanitas was reaching out to him with both hands. Ven stretched out his own arm - seized the χ-blade, tore it out of the boy's grasp, and backed away.

"No! No!"

The gate closed, leaving Ven and Vanitas on opposite sides of it.

o.o.o.o.o

When Ven opened his eyes, he found himself being cradled by a weeping Aqua, with other people clustered around where he lay in the middle of the Keyblade Graveyard. "Aqua..."

"Ven- Ven...!"

So many people. Delighted cries, cheers, laughter; Terra catching him up in a crushing hug, a familiar-looking young man glomping him, a blonde girl with a sketchpad smiling at him in relief, another familiar-looking guy with blazing red hair grinning at him...homecoming was so sweet.

Yet there seemed to be an emptiness behind the joy. A faint sense of loss, betrayal, rage, grief, and desolation, simmering in the depth of Ven's heart even after the return to Destiny Islands, throughout the many introductions, as they were eating a meal together... It was a constant ache that wouldn't go away.

Ven finally sighed. He simply could not dismiss the memory of Vanitas's face, that last glimpse of the child's despairing expression.

You'll stay with me 'til you rot.

Everyone hates me.

You're me!

You need me.

You're not allowed to leave me, okay?

Wait for me!

It occurred to Ven that Vanitas...might not know how to ask nicely.

Or maybe he did. But maybe he couldn't bring himself to 'grovel,' as he would probably consider it, if his pride was all he had left. 'Idiot.' Ven sighed. "Sora."

"Yeah?"

"...Cast a Sleep spell on me."

"Huh?!"

"I shouldn't wait until I fall asleep tonight...he's been alone too long already."

"Huh?"

"I have a promise I need to keep."

o.o.o.o.o

Vanitas was curled up in a ball, making soft, tight noises of desperation. Even when he saw Ven, his face crumpled and his brown eyes filled with tears, but he otherwise did not move until Ven had drawn near and was reaching out for him.

"I h-hate y-you," Vanitas choked out through tightly clenched teeth. Then, in a full-blown scream as Ven's arms closed around him, "I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!"

'I hate you, too,' Ven thought in resentful resignation.

Then he froze. 'Wait...' He was supposed to be a being of pure light, wasn't he? So...how was he even able to feel anything negative, much less...? 'If I can feel hatred - can Vanitas feel love?'

"I hate you," Vanitas was sobbing brokenly into Ven's shirt, his fists still beating at him, though so aimlessly that Ven could barely feel it now. "I...hate...you..."

"I'm...sorry for leaving you," Ven said, and Vanitas let out a wail. "I'm sorry...I'm really sorry."

"You left me!"

"I-"

"You're a LIAR! Liar! Liar!"

There was only so much point-blank yelling Ven could take; the remorse was starting to shift back to irritation. "You want me to leave, then?"

"NOOOOO!" Vanitas screamed, latching onto him.

"Owww! Okay! Geez, shut up."

"I hate you!"

Ven shook his head and carried Vanitas through the gate.

o.o.o.o.o

Back at Sora's house, Ven awakened with a groan of pain. Vanitas had gone silent as he glared around at all the curious faces surrounding them, digging his fingers into Ven's flesh. "Ugh, let go..."

"He looks just like you, Sora!" Kairi exclaimed in surprise.

"D'aww, now the kids have another friend," Lea laughed, as Roxas, Xion, Dawn, and Naminé watched the newcomer with great interest.

"You brought back Vanitas?" Aqua said angrily.

Terra, however, was staring at the boy's face. "His eyes..."

Ven sat up on the couch. The child clung to him nervously, and Ven put his arms around him. "Everyone, this little guy is...Kazé."

The boy once known as 'Emptiness' whipped his head around to stare at Ven in surprise.

Ven's arms tightened around him. "He used to have another name, but he doesn't want to be called that anymore. He's named after the wind, just like me, because...because he is me."

The way Kazé was staring at him, full of incredulous hope, helped stiffen Ven's resolve. His eyes met Aqua's as he continued, "He is me. So if you love me at all, then you have to love him, too. And if you can't love him, then, well..."

He trailed off awkwardly, then closed his eyes in relief when Terra reached out and rested a hand on his head in an understanding way.

"Ven's mine," Kazé growled at them all. "He's stupid and a liar and he left me, but you still can't have him."

"We can work on that later," Ven mumbled at them, a little apologetically. "I'm kind of tired right now..."

"We have one, too," Xion offered, and Kazé looked at her with interest. "His name's L-e-a-gotitmemorized, but we don't like that so we call him Axel."

"You can't play with Naminé," Dawn announced, which was enough to lure Kazé off the couch and go trotting after Naminé with a glint in his eye.

"No!" Dawn yelled, "No!"

Roxas planted himself in front of Naminé before Kazé could get to her and said, "We decide with rock-paper-scissors. Axel taught us."

"That's for toys, not Naminé!" Dawn yelled.

Xion gasped. "Then we have to play nice! If we don't share Naminé, then they'll take her away like they take away the toys we don't share!"

"I can share," Naminé said anxiously.

It somehow ended with Dawn and Kazé trying to hit each other with miniature Keyblades, as the other three drew a comic about ponies fighting zombies, which Roxas narrated authoritatively as they drew.

"Man," Lea remarked as all the adults watched, "why do we even bother pretending like we're in charge...?"

"They're soooo cute," Kairi laughed.

Beside her, Sora scratched his head. "Man, Kairi, most of them are clones of you or me, it's kind of funny."

Aqua's expression was a bit grouchy as she watched, and Terra put his arm around her. "I think it'll be different this time," he said.

"His eyes might have changed, but he still looks like a troublemaker," she huffed.

"He is," Ven mumbled.

Both his best friends looked at him. "What did you mean when you said that he's you?"

"It's a long story, and you'll probably hate me by the end of it..."

"We could never hate you, Ven!" Aqua cried.

Ven eyed her. "You hated Vanitas."

Terra and Aqua glanced at each other. "Well," Terra remarked, "it's easier to hate some punk teenager who's trying to kill my best friends than a little kid who's crying because he got in a fight with another little kid over who gets to play with what." He smiled a little as he watched Lea putting a Band-aid on Kazé's forehead, as Kairi tired to soothe both his and Dawn's tears, and Riku gave both boys a lecture about what happens to brats who can't behave.

Ven sighed. "I can already tell that having to take care of Miniature Evil Me is going to be a pain in the butt..."

Aqua sighed, too. "We'll just have to work together."

Ven glanced at her. "Together?"

She smiled a little. "I suppose we'll first have to figure out which of the four of us are more willing to move, and if we'll end up living in the Land of Departure or here on Destiny Islands."

"Move?" Terra exclaimed.

Ven stared. "You mean 'living' as in...like, a family?"

Aqua looked at him affectionately. "Are you opposed to the idea?"

"I mean, I just never thought about it before..." Ven smiled. "Seems kind of harsh on Mom to saddle her with another little brat after her first one finally grew up and got out of her hair. I guess it would be better if we took on Kazé ourselves."

Terra chuckled. "Why do I get the feeling that parenthood might be more adventurous than our actual adventures were...?"

o.o.o

Author's Notes: I can't believe it's been almost three weeks since I've posted anything. *sweatdrop* I am so freaking busy, and so easily distracted... ;; But it's Christmas vacation now, so hopefully I'll get to be productive during these two weeks! 8'D

I still haven't finished that Next Life fic about Riku & Dawn, too busy. :/ But that'll probably be the next one I post in this series.

My Christmas project is in a shambles - four days 'til Christmas, yet I still haven't finished a single holiday piece. orzzzzzzz I'm so mad at myself, since I really wanted to go all-out this year, but I'll be lucky if I even get anything posted... DX

Due to my spiritual beliefs, I have a problem with calling him "Vanitas" in fics where he's trying to make a new life for himself and be a better person. Therefore, in stories like that, I will shorten or change his name. I'm fine with "Van" or "Vani," and will use "Kazé" when necessary. Basically, I believe that words have power, and that a person who's constantly called and identified with a negative term, regardless of people's actual thoughts/feelings/demeanor when saying it, will suffer from a self-fulfilling prophecy. At the very least, even if it's not actively working against him, it's still a completely unnecessary spiritual hindrance. So due to my beliefs and out of respect for the character, I only use the name "Vanitas" when he hasn't yet made a decision to ally with the heroes of light and work for good instead of darkness. (And I picked a wind-related name ["kaze" means "wind" in Japanese] because I fervently ship platonic VenVan. XD XD 3)

Complete: 2/100