The lingering will gasped at the sudden realization, looking to Xehanort-Sora immediately, who only grinned at the sight. Vanitas could not believe that Xehanort had just cut off his arm, with the armor falling to the ground like rain, and leaving the lingering will with a heavy disadvantage. As soon as he noticed this, Sora's will quickly ran over to Xehanort, trying to hold the man that had taken his body off while Vanitas tried to recover as much energy as he could. However, once Sora's will had made it to him, Xehanort had brought his hand out and fired a blast of darkness right at the will, sending Sora flying backwards and hitting a wall hard, the impact so strong that the wall began to crack. Sora's will then fell to the ground, unmoving for a moment, which scared the group to death.
Now that Sora was out of the way for now, Xehanort walked over to Vanitas, who had let go of his keyblade for a brief moment to grab onto the place where his arm once was. Thankfully, Vanitas quickly noticed that Xehanort was coming towards him and summoned his keyblade just in time to block the old man's heavy blow, their keyblades meeting for a long time. Vanitas grunted as soon as the other keyblade made contact with his, the burden of only being able to use one arm to hold his keyblade taking its toll. "You know you are not going to be able to block me forever, Vanitas," Xehanort mocked, pressing his keyblade down harder on Vanitas's, "Why are you doing this anyway, huh? After all these years, they have fought against you, trying to end your life at every moment they could; well look at where helping them got you. And now you want to join them? Do you really expect them to welcome you with open arms?"
Vanitas looked right into Xehanort's golden yellow eyes when he continued. "Even if they did welcome you, do you really expect you to stay out of the darkness? You might have some light in you now, but no matter what you do, you will always be evil, you will always be in the darkness."
Vanitas growled at Xehanort when he said these words, but was the old man making a point? Even if Vanitas did survive this, would the keybladers keep him around or would they just kill him off like they have been trying to do for all this time? Was it even worth fighting anymore? He was dead anyway, Xehanort would kill him as soon as he had given up fighting. Slowly, without even noticing it, Vanitas began to give up; his keyblade that was blocking Xehanort's slowly losing the fight.
"You can do it Vanitas!"
This voice was from someone no one was expecting, and even caused Vanitas to turn his head to the barrier, where Xion was standing behind it, cheering him on. "You don't have to listen to him anymore, you don't have to be evil or live in the darkness anymore!" She continued, "I know it might be hard to believe but we do forgive you, I forgive you, alright? You proved that you have redeemed yourself and I swear on my life when you survive this you can come with us!"
Vanitas was in disbelief just as much as anyone else in the room at that moment. Xion had forgave him, and not only that, but guaranteed that if he made it out of this alive, they would accept him. Vanitas then looked to Riku and Kairi, who nodded in agreement at Xion's speech. Vanitas then looked to Xehanort, who looked down at Vanitas with a stern glare, before he continued to push down on the will's keyblade. But now that he knew he would be accepted if he made it out of this, Vanitas knew he could not back down and pushed back Xehanort's keyblade, the two in an even more heated battle then before.
It was so sudden that if you blinked, you would have missed it, but a dim light shined off of Vanitas, enveloping him for a brief moment before he returned to normal. This brief light proved to have the upper hand because when Vanitas's will was enveloped in it, he managed to push Xehanort-Sora back, flying through the air and eventually hitting the invisible barrier behind him. The room became completely silent at that moment, looks of disbelief appearing on the three behind the barrier's faces.
Xehanort grunted as he rose from his position, looking over to Vanitas in as much disbelief just as much as the others were. When he got up however, Xehanort-Sora found a keyblade to his throat, the blade belonging to Sora's will, who recovered from the previous attack. Before Xehanort even had time to react, the will pushed him, the barrier disappearing at that moment since the battle was over, and into a wall behind it. And by the time Xehanort tried to react again, he saw Sora's will, Riku, Kairi, and Xion all pointing there weapons at him, cornered.
"It ends now, Xehanort," Riku said, prepared in his battle stance.
Xehanort-Sora's glowing yellow eyes glanced behind the four and laughed. "Correct you are Riku," he said, "I achieved what I came for; therefore I must make my leave."
Xehanort then motioned his head behind him, which made the others turn around to see Vanitas kneeling down on one knee and then slowly falling back down on his back. In the time they looked away, Xehanort-Sora summoned a corridor of darkness and vanished, returning back to the Door of Darkness. The four heroes did not care that Xehanort got away though, and they instead ran over to the lingering will that had proved he had changed for the better.
Xion was the first one to make it over to the will, kneeling down next to him immediately. Xion was shortly followed by Sora's will, Riku and Kairi, looked like she was about to perform cure on the will, but he stopped her. "Don't waste your magic…" He trailed off, "It's too late for me."
"No, it can't be too late," Xion protested.
"Well believe it because it is…" He turned his head in the direction of Xion, "I was expecting this to happen, I knew Xehanort was not going to let me get away with betraying him."
The other four lowered their heads at Vanitas's statement before he continued saying, "I am fine with it ending like this though; rather die doing something good then live the life I was living before."
"We're glad you actually changed though," Kairi said, "There was no way we could have made it through this castle without your help."
Vanitas snickered, "Sure you could have; you guys are the heroes, everything always works in your favor… Not so much for us."
"Don't say something like that," Xion interrupted, "You are a hero, you proved that today, so really not everything works out for the heroes because this happened to you."
Vanitas laughed again. "Thanks for the complement Angel," Vanitas said, referring Xion to the winged humans in heaven, "Total lie, but thanks."
"She's right you know," Kairi said, "You know, the light looked pretty good on you."
"You caught that huh?" Vanitas's will asked, "I didn't know if I was going to be able to do it, the only person I know that did that was that Lover Boy." He laughed at his own nickname to Sora before saying, "Glad it worked out that way though."
Vanitas then looked over to Sora's will, who tapped on his chest and glanced at the others briefly, and Vanitas immediately got what he was trying to ask. "Yeah, using the light of your… friends to become stronger. Obviously, as you probably could tell, it didn't last long, but it was just enough to get that old man away from here." Vanitas explained, answering the lingering will's question.
"Well we're glad you did that, we really are," Xion said to him. She then bit her lip before saying, "Sorry about exploding on you earlier, I really didn't know that you had changed until now."
Vanitas shrugged his one shoulder. "It's alright, if anything I should really be apologizing to you, yah know, for the whole thing with you joining the Organization."
Xion frowned. "I know I might not like the answer you give me, but did you really love me?"
Vanitas paused for a long time before replying, "I still do love you… But I know you don't love me back."
Xion shrugged. "Sorry, it's just… everyone moves on, you know?"
Vanitas glanced over to Riku at this moment, who had stayed quiet the whole time, who widened his eyes at Xion's comment. He then laughed, knowing that he still had feelings for Xion, even if he wasn't supposed to. "I understand," he said, his energy slowly dying with every word he said, "Don't have much time left anyway."
The will then looked at the whole group. "Keep heading up the stairs… There's one more room after this, once you get through that, you'll be at the top…" Vanitas then glanced over to Riku again. "Oh, and Riku?"
Riku looked to Vanitas immediately at this moment. "Yeah?" He asked. Vanitas responded by rising his only hand slightly, moving his fingers towards him to try and make Riku bend down to him. Riku di as Vanitas asked, and then slowly kneeled down next to the will.
However, Riku was not expecting the will to grab onto his armor, pulling him down close to the will's face. "You better… Take care of her…" Vanitas finally said before he let go of Riku.
Riku looked to Vanitas with sympathy in his eyes. Did the will just ask him to take care of Xion for him? "I promise," Riku replied.
Vanitas's will let out a short nod after Riku said this, and then remained still for a long time… to long for that matter. Riku sighed as he took his hand, shaking Vanitas's shoulder but with no response, before taking his hand off of the lifeless will. Xion wanted to cry so bad at this moment, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't. Kairi placed her head on Sora's will's shoulder, who only lowered his head as respect for the fallen will.
After several moments of silence, Riku finally spoke up. "Come on," he said, "We need to get to the top and stop Xehanort from freeing Chaos."
Riku wanted to add and to avenge Vanitas at the end, to speak for everyone, but by the time he tried to say it everyone began to walk on to the next room.
... SO. MANY. FEELS! T_T
So yeah, sorry to all of you hoping Vanitas was going to live. I truly am sorry, I didn't want to kill him off as much as you guys, but he had to.
BUT! On a lighter note, KH3 is confirmed to appear at the Tokyo Game Show! And I think I speak for everyone when I say I am beating they are going to announce KH 2.5 HD Remix.
Oh and by the way, Fandom Hearts is the best thing ever. Don't know what it is? Look it up on Youtube... You will not regret it.
So it was just announced today that the 4th Transformers movie is going to be titled 'Age of Extinction'... Huh... That sounds oddly familiar...
The next two chapters, especially the one after the next one, are chapters that I have been looking forward to for a long time. So please R&R and look out for them!
