After thatdiscussion, neither of them felt like sleeping. The only option was to take the awkwardness and walk it off.

"You get enough sleep?" Vanitas asked Aqua before they headed onto the vast, flat expanse. She raised an eyebrow, like she found his concern amusing.

"I will be fine."

"Good. Once we get out there, I'm not stopping."

His reversion to rudeness seemed to placate her. "I don't plan on it."

"Then hurry up."

This return to sense and order calmed him, too. He was in charge; this was his domain. Aqua's worries and threats were irrelevant. He was too important for her to kill a second time.

With that reassuring thought, Vanitas took his first step into the flat waste.

XXX

There wasn't any wind. Somehow he'd known that beforehand, even though the formless ground swirled in the distance. His boots made shallow impressions in the dirt, leaving footprints that erased themselves several paces behind him, like the ground was trying to catch up. As long as he kept up the steady pace, though, it never would.

"Good," he mumbled under his breath. Some paranoid sense warned him that nothing good would come of that.

"Hm?" The silence was so choking, Aqua had managed to hear his soft mutter.

"…Nothing."

He increased their pace. The sooner they crossed this dark desert, the better. At least his sense of smell was unhindered here. Like a compass, it kept them on a straight path, even when the landmark of the chasms disappeared behind them, leaving only an endless sea of dust.

"I hate this place," Aqua said for the hundredth time.

For once, he agreed with her. The flatland was eerily similar to certain parts of the Keyblade Graveyard. He felt like he was walking through a distorted version of his old "home."

"I think this is worse than the chasms," she kept talking. "At least there, there were paths to choose from. Here, there's nothing to direct us."

"Hey," Vanitas warned, "my nose is a lot more than nothing."

She didn't seem too convinced.

"Nothing I can see," she corrected after a moment.

"So you just have to trust me." Vanitas smirked. "You've got a problem with that?"

"Yes, obviously." She barely rose to his jab, which was too bad, because any sort of conversation was better than traversing the desert in silence, with no sun or landmarks or even a trail of footprints to mark the passage of time. They might as well be walking on a giant, sandy treadmill.

With so few variations in scenery, his unfocused gaze again registered the slowly swirling earth in the distance. Only it didn't seem like such a distance anymore. Was it just an illusion? Real deserts sometimes gave people hallucinations, but he thought that was from the heat. It definitely wasn't hot here. The cold seeped from the earth into his boots, like the sand was made of ground-up ice.

The swirling pattern was definitely getting closer. Or he was getting closer to it; it didn't really matter which.

"Do you see that?" he asked, still moving towards the sand formation, wanting to keep a good distance between himself and his faded footprints.

"See what?" Aqua squinted at the distance.

"The sand," he clarified, as if it wasn't obvious. What else was there to looking at? "Something's not right about it."

"Are you saying we're going the wrong way?" she prodded.

He took a deep whiff.

"Stop doubting me. It's definitely lighter this way."

His eyes might not be as reliable as his nose, but he could feel something… off. Not dark, just off.

They might actually walk over it…

"We should stop," he said, suddenly thinking the footprint-eating sand might be the lesser of two evils.

"You were the one who said we're not stopping," Aqua retorted, keeping her stride. "Come on. We can't go back now."

She was right about that. There was nowhere else to go, and the ground kept gobbling footprints behind them.

"We can go around it, genius," he pointed out when the obvious thought came to him.

"Go around what? I don't even see it. Are you sure your mask isn't playing tricks on you?"

He wasn't sure, but he sure wasn't going to take it off and check.

"Whatever. If you're so sure, keep walking."

"I just want to get out of here, same as you." Her boots trailed through the sand, losing momentum. Vanitas froze, but she kept going, straight into the swirling ground, which was definitely not an illusion now. Like a viscous liquid, it swirled over the tops of her feet, ankles…

"What?" She tugged, but the ground was like lead—heavy and very solid, at least when trying to get out. "This is what you were talking about? Why didn't you say it was quicksand!"

"Why didn't you see it was quicksand? I told you to look!" he shot back. There was no point in admitting he'd never heard of this 'quicksand' before. He was mainly going on his gut, and his gut had been wrong last time.

"…Maybe your mask did help you see it more clearly." She took a deep breath, regaining her calm before her darkness could rear up and attack. "Would you please pull me out?"

Vanitas's eyes narrowed, not that she could see. "Is this a trick?"

"No!" Aqua summoned Master Keeper and tried to use it as a lever to push herself out, but it simply started sinking as quickly as she was.

"Vanitas, please." Her eyes shone big and blue, full of light, the way he remembered them from the other Realm. "I… need your help."

A smirk slowly rose to his lips. Here she was, completely at his mercy, and even better—she knew it.

"Heh. That you do."

He braced his feet as solidly as he could on the unstable sand, careful not to slip towards the even-less-stable area. His footprints had completely vanished. Nothing he could do about that now, though.

When he reached for her hand, she accepted it with no hesitation. So he was right about being too important to kill. It was still weird that she wasn't murdering him. Aqua always kept her promises.

"Nngh… how did you put on weight if you don't have any food?"

She scowled in offense—not the 'you-tried-to-touch-me' offense, a little less disgusted than that. "It's not weight! Obviously the quicksand is pulling me!"

"Hmph, could've fooled me…" he muttered, still vaguely irritated at the lack of food.

"Are you stronger than a little sand or not?" she goaded him.

"No stupid desert's getting the best of me."

He gritted his teeth, dug in his heels, and pulled. The quicksand seemed to give for a second before Aqua sunk even faster, up to her knees now. He could've sworn he heard deep, mocking laughter seeping out of the ground.

"C'mon… Aqua's mine, you stupid sand…"

"I'm not—ngh." she cut herself off, probably realizing it wasn't the smartest idea to argue with her only chance of survival.

"It's not working," she finally admitted. "Let me try something else."

"Like what?"

She started spamming commands recklessly—Curaga, Ice Barrage, Triple Firaga, Elixir, Fabracadabra—

"You do have food!" Vanitas practically howled at the sight of the magically-appearing tricolored ice cream. "Liar!"

"Oh, like you've never lied before!" She shot back. "And besides, I actually forgot!"

"Give it!"

"Vanitas, we're in the middle of a situation! I'll gladly share later!" She took a bite (from the spoon that also magically appeared) and was surrounded with a purple glow. "Come on, Spellweaver…"

She sank even faster as she spammed more attacks, trying to trigger her Finish. It only made her sink faster—and if she sank, his only food source would be gone, too. He wasn't waiting for that to happen.

He dove for the ice cream, not considering the consequences.

"Vanitas, no—!"

He snatched the bowl, turned away from her, and dissolved his mask just long enough to dump the ice cream into his wide-open mouth.

"Ah." He burped, feeling purple and tingly himself. Could he do the same twirly attacks as her under the food's influence? Whatever, he didn't need to; his stomach and taste buds already felt like singing.

…Though they did feel a little less like singing when he realized he was now ankle-deep in quicksand. He cursed.

"Didn't think that through, did you?" Aqua rolled her eyes, Spellweaver's glowing aura gone. "And could you please watch your language?"

"The ground's eating you, and you're worried about my language?"

She was buried up to her hips now, he up to his calves. All around were flat, empty swirls of sand, shimmering like oil spills.

No one and nothing would save them.

"So what do we do now, wait to die?" he asked bitterly. He would've rather died for real when he had the X-Blade, under the light of Kingdom Hearts, instead of here, helpless and in the dark.

Aqua squinted up at the sky. "I think we have company."

Sure enough, five Wyverns were circling overhead like giant, demonic vultures. "Probably coming to devour us while we can't escape."

"But they're Heartless," Aqua said. "Heartless don't need to eat."

"They eat other Heartless and absorb their hearts," Vanitas explained, summoning Void Gear as the first Wyvern dove.

He was stuck from the legs down, but he could still use his arms and keyblade just fine. The Wyvern skreed and flew back to its flockmates when it realized he wasn't such an easy prey.

"You come up with a plan to get us out of here!" Vanitas called over the agitated skrees of more Wyverns diving to avenge their brother. "I'll hold them off!"

"Umm…" That wasn't comforting. Where was the Aqua who had all the answers, or at least acted like it?

He couldn't help her. He was busy enough shooting Wyverns out of the sky from his stationary position. Dark Thundaga worked well, but he had to wait too long for the command to reload, so he supplemented that with old-fashioned cuts and slices whenever they grew brave enough to swoop within range. "Got anything yet?"

"Working on it!"

What? She was eating another ice cream – this time one that triggered Ghost Drive. Her phantom teleport-jumps succeeded in getting her calves free, before the sand reacted by sucking her back down more greedily than before.

"It's no use!" she finally said.

"Shut up!" he snapped back, killing the last Wyvern with a bolt of Dark Thundaga. "Is it alive or something? Can we attack it?"

She glanced towards her keyblade, which had sunk to its hilt. "I don't think so."

"There has to be something!" Vanitas yelled. Maybe they could've clung to the Wyverns and gotten pulled out. Too bad he'd killed them all. "I'm not dying here… not like this. At least give me one last Boss Battle…"

"Vanitas," Aqua said softly.

She had sunk to just below her chest, but in spite of the reason to be terrified or furious, it wasn't darkness that clung to her. Light sparkled in the depths of her blue eyes, clean and pure.

"In case we don't get out… I'm sorry."

"Don't think about that! Don't apologize to me! We're getting out!"

He clawed at the sand surrounding his waist, but it tugged at his fingers too. Punching didn't help. Blasting Firaga and Thundaga and Blizzaga didn't help. Screaming didn't help. But he tried them all anyway.

"Vanitas!" Aqua called above his screams, finally getting his attention when he stopped to gasp for breath. "Please. Just listen to me, for once."

"Why?" He snarled, but it gave way to breathless panting. "I didn't save you… I can't even save myself. I'm no hero, Aqua."

"But you tried to be."

Was that the glistening of tears that made her eyes gleam brighter? No—well, yes, but it was also the light. He could smell it. Fresh, clean, soothing. If he… if he did have to die… it wouldn't be such a bad scent for his last breath.

"You didn't have to save me, but you kept trying anyway. All I tried to do was prove I was better than you." She wiped under one eye, with the one arm she'd managed to hold above the earth. "I do believe you have light in you. And… I'm sorry my pride led us here."

"I… Aqua, don't be stupid…"

Up to her collarbone. That arm was dragged under, from the shoulder up. "Maybe it won't be so bad. If I haven't lost my chance at heaven…"

No, Aqua, you idiot, don't go to heaven, don't go and leave me here…

"Shut up," he said, his voice cracking pathetically. "You never gave up against me! You don't get to surrender to some dumb sand!"

In his desperation, a half-baked idea came to him. It might not make a difference. But if it didn't work for her, it wouldn't work for him, and then he would die anyway. So it didn't really matter, did it?

"You're going to live."

He yanked off his helmet, shaking out his crumpled spikes of hair. She gasped, mouth open shamelessly.

"You—you have a face…?"

He crammed the helmet over her head, sealing the gap around her neck with thick darkness, the same way he'd crafted her suit. "Not as ugly as you thought, huh?"

He couldn't see if she was gaping, or wincing, or gagging. At least he knew that his helmet did hide facial expressions—all he could see was his own determined reflection in its thick glass.

Still, he hoped, if he could see her face… maybe, just maybe, there was a glimmer of respect there.

He could dream.

"Vanitas, wait—I know that face!" She was too deep—neck, chin—soon she wouldn't be able to speak. Why was she wasting words on this? Shouldn't she recite some final wish for Terra and Ventus, her friends?

"Who are you? Really?"

He scowled. There wasn't time for an interrogation.

"I'm a heart of darkness. When I see you on the other side, feel free to tell me who you think I am."

"You're not all darkness! I know it! Vanitas—"

Did she realize that if this didn't work, the last name on her lips would be his? He couldn't help a spark of… some not-painful emotion at the thought.

"Save your breath. You'll need it."

He'd been so focused on her that he'd hardly noticed the sand sucking steadily downwards, now lapping at his shoulders. Cursing, he began to weave himself a new viewless helmet, much cruder than his original. Hopefully it would still serve its purpose.

Aqua's gasping breaths kept distracting him, making the black tendrils shudder and lose their momentum in spite of the abounding negativity—panic, fury, spite—that fueled them. He was almost thankful when the hungry sand finally closed over the top of her head.

Sand tickled his neck. A Flood jumped out of him in shock—he wasn't used to anything touching exposed skin, anywhere. He quickly spread his tendrils to cover the gap.

Complete darkness. A heart of darkness, with a helmet-cocoon of dark tendrils, drowning in the Realm of Darkness. He could breathe, though, for now.

Still sinking; he could feel it. Submerged. Still alive. Still breathing. Breathing, but not moving, crushed with sand, so heavy…

But I'm okay… I'm alive…

Bright spots like stars tickled the backs of his eyelids.

I'm alive…

I'm…

...

alive…