By morning everyone appeared worse for wear. Xehanort appeared the best of them, having actually slept the most. Vanitas was mostly irate from his lack of usual sleep. Though it wasn't the incident that kept him on edge, it was a possibility to what could come after.
The crystals.
Isa's face was covered in an awkward assortment of cross shaped bandages that left him breathing more from his mouth than his nose. If Xehanort's goal was eternal life, then couldn't that extend to healing any injuries? It wouldn't do any good to gain fifty years of life back, and then die from a flesh wound.
Skin could be rejuvenated and put back as it were, not dead or flaking.
In his room the night prior, he'd started writing out theories, hypothesizes, possible steps towards experimentation, and stopped when he hit the dead end of a missing link.
After the series of farewells, apologies, and gushing from Ventus, Vanitas and Xehanort waited for answers from the mysterious Dr. Facilier.
Olette ran the tips of her fingers through Void's fur while he rested, curled in her lap. Purring rumbled through the room, adding to the ambient noise of paper fluttering and the shifting of a body against plush seating. Vanitas sat in his office chair, reading about voodoo from a dusty tome and occasionally sipped from a steaming cup of tea. Isa picked at his bandages in another plush chair, extremely irritated with the material on his face. "If you keep doing that, you'll only irritate it more." Olette warned.
Isa had a book in his lap that became thoroughly ignored in favor of his picking.
"I've been less bothered by maggots." He grumbled.
"Then put some on your face and spare us the need for making ointment." Vanitas snapped, forcing his attention back to the texts before him.
He couldn't believe Xehanort truly believed this sort of ritualism could work, but if he managed to keep his family name afloat for so long by himself, then surely it wasn't a complete hoax.
"Olette." He called.
"Yes?"
"Go brew me some coffee." He was going to need it.
The entirety of his day became dedicated to reading and skimming through book after hoodoo book. There was something uncanny about how close Facilier resembled the deity Samedi, though perhaps it resulted from years of devotion to the craft. Though Vanitas never witnessed any black magic miracle, he would never forget practices of his people and their devotion to the rain and floods.
Below the manor, Vanitas kept notes of his findings and peered at the exaggerated statues, figures, and smoky bottles. Almost all of it was connected to giving and taking life or ailments. The ever creeping suspicion that someone was watching him set him on edge but he had to remind himself the only one able to get down there would be Xehanort himself.
Piece by piece, Vanitas connected one item to the text, read of its usage, and connected it to his notes on Xehanort's findings.
Days passed like this. Waiting on any word from Facilier, researching the Nymian people, experiment notes, and after a crawl of two weeks, the famed voodoo man arrived at their doorstep.
"Master Xehanort!" the tall man greeted. "My apologies for the delay. A bit of-uh, internal conflict with the family left me quite indisposed."
"No matter, we should start immediately."
Xehanort went inside first, Braig's offer to take Dr. Facilier's coat and hat were rejected and Vanitas followed them quietly to the basement.
Isa sat waiting with his legs crossed in a chair in the hall. The bandages had been taken off, but the scar still looked sleek from ointment and raw.
"My my, did ya get in a fight with a bear?" Facilier asked while looming over him, inspecting the scar up close.
Instead of leaning back, Isa sniffed and grinned.
"Now this isn't fair, my doctor gets to have rum but not me?"
Facilier smirked in turn and pulled a flask from an inner breast pocket.
"Well ya might just need it."
Xehanort ignored their uncouth display to unlock the door and head down. Vanitas followed last, watching the two chatter like old acquaintances while passing the flask back and forth. Neither got rowdy, so maybe it was alright. But having this as his first close encounter with Facilier, it was slightly worrying.
In the first lab, Vanitas fetched a trolley to gather all the tools they needed. In the dark room, the dark wood table had been moved aside for a medical one. Dr. Facilier expressed his distaste for it, but yielded.
Several of the smaller fragments of crystals were placed in a formation on Isa's face, and two covered his eyes. Though silent, Vanitas could see his discomfort as the dark man chanted and sung under his breath. Vanitas was sure if he hadn't had that drink he'd be fidgeting.
Vanitas worked in Xehanort's stead, applying mixtures of concoctions of his and the older man's makings on the wound and attaching two electrode pads to his temples.
"Another swig, help you relax a bit more." Facilier offered, and Isa accepted. "Alright now, this'll sting a bit."
The machine beside Xehanort vibrated and hummed to life. Vanitas stood back, grabbing a clipboard and writing down every second.
Isa was calm as he would be as the doctor sang in a deep baritone.
When the crystals began to look bright, Vanitas was shocked still, surprised something was even happening. The machine buzzed and began spilling out a long strip of readings Xehanort took his own notes of.
Heart beating faster, Vanitas watched and wrote as purple sparks flew from the nodes, to Facilier's finger tips, and coursed across the scar. Isa groaned, hands balling into fists and his teeth gnashed down.
The room seemed alive then, whispers coursed through Vanitas' ears and he was unable to help but look around. The figures looked like they were moving, as though a foggy illusion draped over them.
Groans louder, Isa opened his mouth in a yell.
Skin and pink flesh healed bit by bit.
Isa's tolerance for pain waned just as the scar reached a thin line on his features and his eyes flew open, his body jerking upright, and clawing madly at the air. His yells turned to a scream just as he shot up, crystals falling off and nodes yanking off his face. The scar was almost gone and the room watched his face as he looked around wildly.
His eyes were wide, and gold. In his heavy breathing, canine teeth had seemingly grew. It was like looking at a wild animal in human form. On the medical table, he clutched the sides as though they kept him from falling off the earth.
"Well." Dr. Facilier idly adjusted his tailcoat. "Guess it works."
"Quite." Xehanort was smiling, looking Isa head to toe like a fine specimen on display. "I will have to study those side effects."
Isa was blinking and panting, trying to make sense of the world. Vanitas dared to approach, snapping twice to get his attention.
"How do you feel?"
"I…" he looked to each corner of the room. "I feel fine now. As though nothing happened."
Vanitas wrote down his response. "Nothing from your eyes?"
"What's wrong with my eyes?"
With a casual gait as though he lived there, Dr. Facilier pulled out a mirror from a shelf and held it forward. Isa stared down at himself silently.
Journal Entry 63,
It worked. Every shred of research, and dumb luck finding a single rock in a jungle. My personal notes have every last bit of the experiment written down, though I want to make copies by my own hand. It's unfathomable to believe death itself can be a lie. What I saw was beyond what I've ever imagined. And there's living proof of it.
