I hope you enjoy Shadows Of The Light Arc 2: Tainted Water.

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Aqua awoke to a slight scent of maple in the air, it smelled like pancakes, she was tempted to go upstairs and grab a plate. She began to get out of bed when she remembered, she couldn't show herself to Terra, she was cut up and beat up from the fights she had intentionally gotten herself into. She had a large cut down her leg, most of the scars she had were barely noticable due to them being almost the same color as her skin. It had been six months since Ventus had died, and she still beat herself up because she couldn't bother to wake up when the person she loved was dying right beside her.

Aqua broke down right there on the bed, it had been hard for her the last couple of months, she had to accept Ventus was dead, she had to accept that he wasn't coming back, she had to accept that there was nothing she could do about it. No matter how hard Terra, Axel, and Riku tried, he wasn't coming back unless they destroyed his heartless and nobody. The tears kept falling, she wasn't just remembering the six months, she was remembering the year she had spent with Ventus.

when she accidentaly confessed to Ventus how she felt about him, when he casually said he felt the same. The first time they had sex, the morning after, the laughs, the cuddles. She missed him so much that she completly lost interest in the rest of the universe, nothing else mattered to her except him, and then he was taken.

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Yen Sid prepared the pancakes he was making for Aqua, he was trying to get her to come out of that infernal basement she had stupidly decided to lock herself in, she knew not what was happening around her. Yen Sid had found Vanitas and had been questioning him about the events over a cup of tea and some buttered bread for the last four days. He had to get Aqua out of the basement, she wouldn't here him out otherwise. As the pancakes became fluffy and full of maple syrup he had somehow been able to but into the center of, he became increasingly aware of a presence behind him.

"You've been tampering with the darkness again haven't you boy?" Riku walked up to the counter and helped prepare the breakfast.

"How did you know it was me?" He asked as he whisked some eggs.

"There are only two people in this group who voluntarily allowed darkness to invade their body, that kind of bond between human and darkness does not close as easily as some would like." He poured batter into the pan. "The darkness is able to enter your body, wether you like it or not it will be able to enter until the bond is entirely broken. Yours is stronger than Terra's because you allowed it to enter more recently than he did, you also accepted it completley where as Terra fought it but slowly allowed it in, meaning your bond is stronger."

Riku stopped whisking the eggs. "You couldn't have just said that? You couldn't have just started with, your connection is stronger than Terra's?"

Yen Sid smiles and flips the pancakes one by one. "I could have, but where is the fun in that?"

Riku sighs and continues to whisk the eggs "What all did Vanitas say? I assume it's some crap about how he loved tearing Ventus apart."

"No actually, i didn't"

Riku turns around to see Vanitas. Vanitas has replaced his usual armor with a black shirt and dark blue jeans, blood is present on his lip as if he had just gotten done coughing his lung out.

"I explained to Master Yen Sid that i don't know what happened, one moment i'm screaming at Ventus to talk to me, i don't know if he heard me but i was screaming. The next moment i'm covered in blood outside of The Land Of Departure, so i ran away hoping no one would find me. Obviously i was wrong."

He says that last part with a hint of anger aimed towards Yen Sid.

"And the blood?" Riku asked

"A side effect of being merged with my better half, my soul became dependent on his. Now that he is dead, i'm losing my own, it's causing my body to collapse on itself." Vanitas began to cough, causing blood to come from his mouth. "Eventually i'll die from either my soul dying out, or from anemia. Either way i'm on a very short timer." He continued coughing, it eventually turned into a fit, causing him to have to sit down.

Riku grabbed a napkin and gave it to Vanitas.

"Thanks, this is getting worse and worse, i could probably add drowning in my own blood to that list of possible deaths." Vanitas wiped the sides of his mouth with the napkin.

"Is there anyway to fix this?" Riku asked as he turned to Yen Sid. "Anyway at all?"

"Other than somehow bringing Ventus back and letting their souls merge for a short time? I'm not aware of one." He said this as he returned to making pancakes.

Vantias got up from the chair. "What a pleasent thought, i'm going to go to the training yard." Vanitas walks away from the room and leaves the building.

"Why is he acting different? Sure he's still an asshole but he's not trying to kill us" Riku said this as he grabbed kuppa juice from the fridge. "He's lost his other half, he is his own soul now. Granted he is a dying soul."

Riku looked down at the counter, wondering why he hadn't seen Sora or Roxas lately. A thought occured to him, he didn't like the thought but he had to ask Yen Sid to make sure. "Master Yen Sid, could Ventus' death affect Sora and Roxas?"

Yen Sid stopped making pancakes for a moment "I hadn't thought about that, the thought had completly slipped my mind. It's quite possible, but i don't think it would affect them in such a severe case as it affected Vanitas."

This helped Riku and his worries, with that he left the kitchen and headed to the training yard where he knew Terra was practicing combat.

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This is the end of the story so far, i'll start making more again so you the veiwer can have more of this story.