Chapter Text
Roxas falls.
The Dark hole in front of him, full of those grabbing, grasping white monsters, swallows him up. Into the unknown. From the forest to...who knows where.
He can’t save himself, can’t stop himself.
He still reaches out anyway. For anything, for anyone. Even into the Dark.
He’s falling and falling. Reaching and struggling.
(It’s cold in here. Always cold in here. The prison of this strange void.
There’s something falling. Something familiar.
Is that...?
His Light.
He struggles against the chains keeping him bound. Frees one hand. Only one hand.
Could use that hand, to try and free himself even more.
That’s what he should do.
But that Light...
He reaches out.
And the Light, for once in his miserable existence, reaches back. )
Roxas falls and lands on...glass? What’s going on?
Opening his eyes...he’s on a platform. A platform made of glass. There’s a boy on it, with brown hair and red clothes. Eyes closed as if he’s sleeping.
The boy seems...familiar somehow. Though Roxas knows for a fact that he’s never met this guy before. Not in his entire life. Yet...
Somewhere in his chest, he knows this boy.
Blue eyes examine the glass carefully, taking in everything about his new surroundings. The boy...Roxas’ eyes widen. He’s holding the Keyblade. Roxas’ Keyblade.
“What’s going on?”
Before his eyes, appear three different objects. A shield, a sword, and a staff.
The Dark beyond the platform shakes and shivers, glimpses of the silver monsters writhing into his sight and back out again. Like they’re trying to break in.
Roxas shivers.
The objects float there. Waiting for him to do something.
“Uh...what do I do now?”
No answers. Just him and the weapons and the monsters in the Dark.
Great.
Well, the sword might be best for fighting here. He walks towards it and reaches out, wrapping his hand around it. The sword vanishes into a flurry of lights and the world shakes as something new appears from nowhere.
A door. His body trembles.
Why is a door so important?
When Roxas holds out his hand, the Keyblade appears in it. He looks down at the weapon and then at the door. Well, it is a key, isn’t it?
“Well, can’t do anything else here...”
Roxas reaches out with the Keyblade and with a twist of his hand, light comes out of it to open the door.
The door that fades away and off to the edges of the platform appears something new.
Two sets of stained glass stairs. Another choice. One leading up up into the light, to what looks like another platform like the one he’s currently on. The other...goes down into the Dark. To somewhere Roxas cannot see.
The bright path, full of Light, is far more welcoming. A hum in his chest as Roxas wants to go up those steps. But...he hesitates, eying those stairs carefully.
On the edges, in the Dark...he swears he can see silver bodies twist and turn. More monsters, waiting for him to go up. Attack him.
The Light seems to draw in the monsters just as much as they do him. Waiting and hungry.
There’s no gleaming silver surrounding or on the steps going down. So maybe there’s no monsters down there?
Anywhere away from more monsters sounds like a pretty good idea to him.
Downstairs it is.
The stairs seem to go on forever, but when they do come to an end...
At another glass platform with another sleeping boy. A boy with dark hair. And a red background, instead of blue.
At least, Roxas thinks it’s a boy like the first platform. Kinda hard to see with so many pieces missing, cracks and chunks Roxas has to be careful to mind or risk falling through to the dark nothingness below.
Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all.
But there are no monsters here. Which is a definite plus.
Roxas tilts his head one side and then to the other, squinting. Down here, with less light than up above, it’s a little hard to see every part of the picture properly. He still tries.
There’s something almost...sad, about this collapsing picture. Left in this darkness, alone to rot.
No tug in his chest here, drawing him towards the picture. No connection at all.
Just...him and the glass boy. Alone.
Roxas shivers. Chilly down here. Very different from the heat of a Twilight Town summer.
“How do I get out?”
The floor under his feet trembles. Shakes as something reaches out, something huge and gray and monstrous. A creature with no face like the rest of monsters that have been chasing Roxas. Tall and shivering, face zooming up to his. Roxas steps back, turns, tries to run. But there’s nowhere to go and his footing is very unstable, glass shaking and shivering as the monster attacks.
It’s all he can manage, to fight back with the Keyblade. Strike again and again, struggling free of those strange black and white thorns twisting about, jump past to attack. All while watching his footwork, so he won’t fall through the cracks.
Until at last, the monster falls and Roxas with it, Darkness reaching up and pulling-
(He wants!
Reaching, tearing, he wants. )
Then, there is no Darkness.
Only a white room. With a girl in it.
The blonde, glowing girl from before.
“Huh?”
The girl puts her fingers to her lips, smiling. “Sh.”
(No. No. No.
He bares his fangs, struggles to his feet under the pressure of a million chains.
Not when he’s gotten so close, not when that Light is finally seeking him.
Wanting him.
They can’t take his Light away from him!
He won’t let them. He can’t.
Snapping and snarling. Roaring and screeching. A thousand different monstrous shapes and all of them fully him.
He pulls , like he has a million times before.
But this time...this time, the silver chains snap.
He nearly topples onto his front, from the sudden lack of pressure to fight against.
Free. Free. He almost can’t believe it.
There’s no time to appreciate his sudden escape. Not with his Light moving farther and farther away.
Merging.
Without him.
He kicks off, upwards to The Light.
Hisses, “You’re mine, Ventus.”
There will be no getting away this time.)
~
Roxas wakes up in his bed, in his room, with a violent gasp. Nearly rolling off the bed as his chest heaves for breath.
“I’m...here?”
What? What’s going on? He pats his chest. Everything seems fine and it shouldn’t be. He should be...Roxas swallows.
But here he is, not dead. Not in that strange white place with the girl. And that stranger who stole the munny.
No, it’s just him.
Only him.
It’s like he never got swallowed up by the silver monsters and their portal. Did it even happen in the first place?
Roxas...doesn’t know.
He checks his hands, his clothes. Useless. It’s the same as ever. Maybe it didn’t happen? Then...
“What a weird dream.”
Glass and monsters? Maybe he’s just been eating too much ice cream lately. ...Which is impossible. It’s probably something else.
Get dressed, head down stairs.
“Don’t forget, Roxas, the Tournament’s today. Have to see you put up a good fight!” The old lady in the lobby calls after him.
He waves back at her. “Of course I will! Got to win the prize, after all!”
The old lady cackles. “Good luck on that!”
His friends are waiting outside, of course. Olette and Pence cheerfully greet Roxas, while Hayner... Hayner looks away.
Oh man. Roxas looks away too. It’s...how can he say what really happened, if no one believes him? Just...dreams. Dreams, that’s all. Dreams that somehow mess up his life, so maybe nightmares?
“C’mon, Roxas, the Struggle Tournament is today!” Pence calls out.
Roxas lifts his head, forcing a smile onto his lips. “Yeah, I’m coming!”
Maybe winning will be enough to drive the questions and confusion out of his head. That’s the hope, at least.
The Tournament...Roxas didn’t expect the first fight to be between him and Hayner. Maybe he should have.
Everything else in his life seems to be going crazy already, why not this too?
The best he can do is win this Tournament for his friends.
He lets out a breath. Yeah. He can do this.
Even with Siefer telling him to beat up Vivi. Which the likelihood of being asked that...well, as likely as pigs flying. Crazy and unbelievable.
But he can still do this. For his friends.
Until he can’t. Because seriously, Vivi?
Figures that Vivi would turn out to be one of those monsters. It’s not like everything else is in the process of going terribly wrong.
“How am I going to fi-”
His struggle bat’s a...Keyblade now?
“Alright.” A shrug. Okay, this just...might as well happen? Okay?
He readies his stance and takes on the monsters. Each one exploding into flashes of blue, of light and dark. But mostly dark. Until they at last stop coming.
Roxas pants, resisting the urge to drop the Keyblade. His palms are slick. Can’t stop, not yet. What if something else happens?
“Uh, everyone?”
No one’s moving. Why is no one moving?
Clapping. Loud, almost overwhelmingly loud, in the sudden silence of this newly frozen world. When Roxas turns to face the source of the sound, it’s a cloaked figure. The same kind of coat as the guy who stole his munny and shoved him. But clearly different, the shoulders, the hips, the height...none of it matches the other guy. “Roxas, all right. Fight, fight, fight.”
The clapping stops as the figure walks toward him. Completely confident in every movement and somewhat...familiar? But Roxas has never met anyone like this before.
Roxas frowns, squinting at the figure. Who pauses, midstep.
“You really don’t remember?” There’s a note of...disappointment, in that voice, with those words. The hood is shoved back by gloved hands, revealing bright red hair and strange brilliant eyes. Not human eyes, with purple teardrops streaked right underneath them on too pale to be healthy skin. Corpse color, almost. “It’s me, Axel.”
“Axel?” He doesn’t know that name. (Yes he does.)
“Talk about blank with a capital B.” Those unnerving eyes keep themselves attached to Roxas’ face. “Man oh man, even the Dusks aren’t gonna crack this one.”
Underneath the man’s hands, spiked metal circles, weapons, spin themselves into existence with crackling flames. An inhuman ability, just as inhuman as the rest of him.
Roxas knows what they are without being told: chakrams. He should raise his own Keyblade, people don’t just take out weapons without expecting a fight but he just can’t...bring himself to do it for some reason. Not right away.
“Wait a sec, tell me what’s going?” He steadies himself, ready to fight if he has to.
“This town is his creation, right?” Axel glances around at the surrounding buildings. “Which means we don’t have time for a Q&A.”
The cat eyes narrow at Roxas, air heating up to nearly unbearable levels. “You’re coming with me, conscious or not. Then you’ll hear the story.” Chakrams rise and fall again, as Axel readies himself to attack. Clearly.
Yeah, okay. That’s not good. Roxas shakes off his lingering doubts, slowly backs away. He still doesn’t want to fight.
The air shivers and trembles around them, with something other than a heat haze. Shivering and cracking, like there’s something underneath the air itself. Which is stupid. Right?
“Uh oh.” Axel’s eyes widen with apprehension.
Roxas shakes his head, looks at the Keyblade. Ever since it showed up, everything’s been different. Monsters showed up!
“What’s going on!?” Throws the weapon, to let it clatter away uselessly. Only for it reappear right in his hand. “What?”
“Number Thirteen. Roxas.”
A shiver in his chest, a burning in his heart at the words. Defining him.
Chakrams go up. “The Keyblade’s chosen one!”
Fine. Fine. So this is how it’s going to go?
“Fine, you asked for it!” Roxas swings into action, by swinging his Keyblade. Axel swings back, in a flurry of footwork and sparks.
And there is fire. Everywhere.
“That’s more like it!” Axel almost cheers (?), rushing forward in attack only for Roxs to take every blow and bounce back.
Easy enough to fight him, even with the sweat in Roxas’ eyes and running down his back. Almost as if the guy isn’t putting his all in? Or maybe it’s just that easy.
“Hey, I ring any bells yet?”
“Not in a million years,” Roxas shoots back, for some reason. Parrys another hit and lands a kick to Axel’s midsection, knocking back. Nearly off the edge of the Struggle Platform. The man manages to catch his balance just in time, overreaching with his chakrams to rebalance.
“Huh, not bad, Roxas.” The scent of burning pine fills the air. “But I got you now!”
Suddenly there’s a barrier. Stopping Axel right in his tracks. The fire stops and dies out entirely.
“What-?”
A flash of...numbers, like whenever the Keyblade’s shown up. A man in red, his face hidden. Roxas can’t help but shiver seeing those orange eyes. Those eyes that look through him like he’s nothing at all.
“So it was you.”
Flaming chakras fly through the air, straight for the mystery man’s face. Only to be blocked by some invisible...barrier. Like the barrier that must have stopped him from getting Roxas.
But at least if Axel’s distracted by this guy, he can’t take Roxas away to who knows where. Still, Roxas holds onto the Keyblade. Can’t risk it.
The masked man completely ignores the attack, turning to face Roxas instead.
“Roxas, this man speaks nonsense.”
“Roxas, don’t let him deceive you!” There’s something earnest about Axel, as he shouts those words at Roxas.
“You were going to take me away!” Roxas can’t help but point out, even in the middle of his confusion.
“None of you are taking anyone. Except me.” A new speaker, rough and confident. Out of nowhere. Literal nowhere, like Axel a couple minutes earlier.
One as tall as Roxas himself, dressed in a weird bodysuit with red veins on it. Got a skirt to, but that doesn’t seem to stop them from posing confidently as if they have nothing to fear.
Another stranger? Seriously, how many more weirdos are going to show up today?
But looking back at the guy in red, and Axel, they both seem as confused as Roxas is in a way they weren’t before facing each other.
“Who are you?” Axel demands. His chakrams are back out. Spinning.
The dark figure’s hand closes around Roxas’ shoulder. A vice.
“His better half, of course.”
Another hand flings out and in that direction, one of those strange dark holes tears open.
Oh no. Oh no no.
Roxas struggles, pushing at the figure. Whose grip does not loosen in response. Only tightens.
“Hayner, Pence, Olette!” he cries out, to his friends. To his frozen trapped friends.
The red robed man narrows orange eyes and moves his fingers in a strange gesture.
Axel flings his chakrams at the figure but too late. They somehow manage to both pull and shove Roxas at the same time into the hole.
“No!”
~
The Dark Corridor doesn’t lead into the Dark like it should. Like Vanitas expects it to. Not exactly.
It’s a in-between made of numbers and blue. Flashing and bright, a swirl of... everything. Everything annoying in his life, at least.
And there are golden chains.
Chains, chains, it’s always chains. Holding him backing, binding him. Or Ventus in this case. Entangling his limbs and coming from the chest, keeping Vanitas from properly claiming what is his.
He snarls and pulls. Rake his clawed fingers through the air, releasing plenty of Darkness to rip those connections to shreds. No need for anyone else, for friends, to interfere when he’s so close to becoming whole once more.
“Back off!”
Chains break. Shimmering pieces everywhere, like the light of a broken heart.
“-what’s your name?-”
“-You’re stupid!-”
“-the heart may be weak. And sometimes it may give in-”
“-it’s my lucky charm!-”
“Kingdom Hearts is Light!”
Humph. Memories. Useless memories that don’t belong to either of them. Scattered to the winds now, they don’t matter. Only getting in his way. He reaches, Darkness coming to his call-
Clawing his way out of this in-between, to the real Darkness. And then to his destination, on from there.
Tugging Ventus along to where this mess will finally be fixed, where everything began and ended last time.
The Keyblade Graveyard. The place doesn’t look as much of a mess as the last time Vanitas saw it. But that’s probably because his Unversed haven’t been out to screw things up for a while.
Master Xehanort must have possessed Terra and moved on. If he thinks Vanitas is dead...well, the Keyblade Master has no reason to come to the Keyblade Graveyard incredibly often. If at all. Which gives him time.
He’ll fight Ventus, make him merge properly this time, get the X-Blade. Easy peasy. Especially since there’s no one else around to interfere, this time.
His Master will probably show up then, for the X-Blade. But that won’t be a problem, because the X-Blade will be his.
Now, to Ventus...who isn’t shouting at him? That bright heart trembles, that delicious Light flickering in and out. Under his mask, Vanitas scowls. What’s gone wrong now?
Ventus shakes. Shivers, as he falls to his knees. His new clothes seem to...fizzle.
Vanitas prowls closer.
Has his Light half gone all weak again? Vanitas really doesn’t want to spend more time getting him back up to par. He might as well go find that Aqua to try instead, in that case. If his Master hasn’t already killed the blue haired girl.
Hm, a quick fight should be enough to see how weak Ventus really is now. It’s been a couple months, Vanitas needs a good warm-up too...
He holds out his hand, to summon Void Gear.
It...doesn’t come. Nothing. He tries again.
His Darkness flickers and snaps. No Keyblade. Failure. Vanitas resists the urge to tear off his mask, rip at his face, his eyes.
He needs his Keyblade. Without it, he’s...
(Nothing.)
His eyes flick over to Ventus. Who looks different. The clothes are different.
Ventus is...wearing a black coat now? Like that coat the Master wore every once in a while.
What? What is going on?
“Who are you?” True and pure confusion as the blue eyes look up at Vanitas. Of course. More memory loss?
Vanitas sneers. “Forgotten me again, Ventus?”
Ventus struggles to his feet. “Look, I’m not who you think I am-”
“Sure you aren’t.”
Blue eyes flash as that familiar face twists into a snarling scowl. Not a Ventus expression at all, not the new Ventus, at least. No, it’s more like...what he pictured himself to be like. Before.
The kid summons a Keyblade. In his right hand. Vanitas narrows his eyes. Pointed straight at him, not in that backward grip that Ventus always uses.
(One he used, before his Master taught him otherwise.)
It’s not Wayward Wind either, or any of those other strange Keyblades that Ventus somehow had access to.
Too plain, too... Light.
Vanitas hisses. That heart...Ventus’ heart is no longer at the forefront, no longer calling him with its obnoxious cry. Suddenly, Vanitas realizes. He doesn’t know what the Ventus in front of him is feeling, unlike every other time. There’s a space in him, a gap that he hadn’t realized existed until now.
This is...new. A heart he doesn’t know, only partially behind that Keyblade. A Legacy Keyblade then, not one that really belongs to this...not Ventus.
“Who are you?”
(Why do you get to look like me, when I don’t?)
(Did you steal that face?)
“My name is Roxas.”