19A/N: Set after Dream Drop Distance (DDD) but before KH3
Warning: This is based on my OWN headthoughts and opinions so warning to those who read and go 'WTH is this?' Rated T to be safe based on "dark" content. Also may contain spoilers to DDD and Birth by Sleep.
Italics = Vanitas speaking
Awakening of the Hearts
Only a few weeks had passed since that failure of a Mastery Exam he and Riku had gone through. He considered it a failure because not only did he not achieve the title of Keyblade Master but also because they had not been able to stop Xehanort. In reality, the ancient Keyblade Master had nearly claimed his heart and body as the final vessel for their thirteen darknesses.
Ever since then he had felt something stirring deep in his heart, something that had been dormant for what felt like a long time. It wasn't anything terrible but it was a simple tugging as if someone else was redirecting his heart's thoughts and actions. He had been told of a theory of a boy named Ventus that had perhaps sought shelter in his heart long ago but he wasn't sure what to make of it.
He couldn't recall the name yet there was a familiarity to it when he let the name roll off his tongue. The young man had been part of a trio like himself and had been on the path of Keyblade Master when Xehanort snatched his life away. At least that had been the thought. The King's face always scrunched with sadness and pain when speaking of him so Sora had bit his curiosity back at times and stayed silent.
He regretted it often but not enough to change his ways. Yet.
Now he was back in the same dream that had been occurring each night since that experience. A pitch black expanse of nothingness that he walked aimlessly around, enduring whispers and cackles that caused shivers to slither down his spine. He often walked with his hands over his ears despite the childish notion and murmured songs his mother used to sing to fight off the sheer terror the darkness brought.
However something was different this time and Sora could feel a pressure against his skin as if the black was trying to seep through his flesh. He rubbed at his arms vigorously to shake the feeling away yet paused when he saw a shadowy figure in the distance. This was new…
"Your Majesty?" Sora asked with confusion as he neared the small figure cloaked in an Organization XIII outfit. Even with the hood up the ears of the mouse could never be hidden completely. Rather than answer the brunette watched as the King called on a keyblade to his hand. This one was different than his original however and was pitch black in color. Where had he seen that before…?
Suddenly the mouse was spinning around to face him, the black keyblade being slashed upwards to plunge into his chest. Sora gaped, a cough forming in the back of his throat as the metal pressed deeper into his flesh yet no blood flowed and instead light shone gently around the edges.
"Mickey…?" The mouse's eyes were hard as he stared up at the young man, fingers tightly clenched around the handle of the keyblade.
"Ventus's heart needs to be freed. He's been waiting long enough!" Mickey stated in a voice colder than the keyblade wielder had ever heard. "His power is what's needed for the Guardians of Light. Not your borrowed blade."
"B-borrowed?" Sora opened his mouth to question this further and his fingers began to reach up to try and remove the blade from his heart. His hands froze as another stab of fiery pain launched through his spine. Tilting his head slightly back he could see a head of spiked red hair, green eyes glaring nastily into his own.
"While we're at it, I'm taking Roxas from your heart as well. After all he's Ventus's Nobody, not yours." A gasp of agony escaped him as both black blades were ripped from his body at the same time, streams of light pouring out of the gashes formed. It felt like his heart cracked before shattering, trickling free of the light flowing out. The brunette felt his legs buckle and he dropped to his knees, toppling over like a limp doll. Two little balls of light hovered between the King and Axel—or was it Lea?—and even in this form he could sense a terrible anger surrounding the freed hearts.
"Fall to darkness, Sora. It's where you belong after all." Sora's eyes snapped open at the new voice that entered his hearing. The two towering above turned their backs on him, beginning to walk away.
"Wa…it…" he whispered, reaching a hand out towards their retreating figures. A tendril of darkness stretched out of what seemed to be the floor of this dream, wrapping tightly about his wrist to drag it down. The boy yelped as more whips of black curled around his figure, tugging him into the darkness that suddenly writhed around him like quicksand attempting to devour him.
He pulled and struggled, panting harshly as one threaded around his throat. He felt like every nerve was on fire from the pain of the keyblade attacks and his body was now more like weights that hindered him rather than helped him.
Darkness sloshed around his face like liquid as it slipped into his mouth and nose, causing the boy to gag violently.
"You really won't put up more of a fight? I suppose it's understandable considering you aren't meant to exist in the first place."
Sora froze as did the darkness around him, encasing most of his body in black as cold as ice. Golden eyes floated in his vision and the brunette couldn't help a shudder at the absolute hatred that swirled in their depths.
"W-who are you?" The brunette demanded, clinging to anger to make his voice stronger. There was a pause before a chuckle. The eyes began to circle and the keyblade wielder could imagine a person pacing around him.
More like a predator.
"I find it sad that no one told you more about this fate you will have to suffer. Perhaps they wished to keep you in the dark as long as possible. Not even the boy whose heart you took in informed you. What a despicable house guest considering what he took from you."
"Ven…tus?" The golden eyes seemed to ignite at that name and Sora cried out in pain as the darkness snapped tighter in a more crushing embrace.
"So they told you that name at least. Do you know the story, little shadow?" Sora felt tears prick at his eyes from the pain as the bindings around him continued to slowly curl tighter. He stubbornly blinked them away and forced himself to glare at the golden gaze.
"Enlighten… me." Another chuckle sounded and Sora winced at the grating noise yet couldn't help but sigh in relief as the bonds loosened around him.
"Yes, I can see why Ventus's heart fled to yours, little shadow. Allow me to tell you a story. A story of a boy who was too light-hearted for his master. A story of a master who then ripped his pupil's light and dark pieces apart. A story where the dark piece formed its own being to fulfill the wish of the master the light piece couldn't. The pieces in this story I'm sure you are beginning to figure out. I am hoping at least as I don't wish to give away all the surprises." The voice paused and the brunette stiffened as those golden eyes suddenly flashed in his view, boring into his blue orbs. "The dark and light fought as only one could survive but in the end both succumbed to their fate. The light heart fled to the place it had taken refuge before in a child who bore the name of the sky."
"Me?"
"And here I was afraid you were too slow to understand… The boy named after the sky happily accepted the heart in his own as a refuge, unaware of the shadow that followed along after the light. The light piece withdrew inside the boy of sky, not knowing of the consequences that came with its doing." The eyes lowered further and Sora could swear he felt breath ghost across his face. "Tell me little shadow, do you know how malleable the heart is? Especially at such a young age… Where does your strength come from?"
"My friends," Sora responded without hesitation. Almost automatically.
"Is that so…?" The eyes were moving again and now the brunette could make out the outline of a figure as they circled around him. "I heard those exact same words from someone a long time ago… one who wielded a keyblade before you knew what one was. A keyblade you borrow now to wield yourself."
"The keyblade… is mine," the brunette bit out, his free fingers clenching around the darkness that bound him.
"Are you sure? Who gave it to you?" Sora faltered but before he could answer the voice continued. "Keyblades are specially forged for their owners and handed down. You have noticed that each Keyblade Master has their own specific blade including your own best friend…? Yet yours is a simple Keyblade. Nothing special. Nothing grand. Because it is a borrowed power. One from the heart that has eaten your own."
"E-eaten? What are… you talking about?" Sora's breath hitched as the dark ice encasing him began to slowly travel across his body to cover him further. He could now make out the clothing of the figure. Something akin to Riku's when he had fallen to darkness but more red and black like bruises and blood.
"Hearts are selfish, little shadow. Even the most light filled heart is filled with a selfish desire to live above all else. If a heart is broken and weak what do you think it will do? It will replenish itself on what it has available. Including that of a boy whose name means sky." Sora went rigid and his eyes immediately traveled to his chest where a heart would reside.
"I'm sure the light-hearted boy didn't mean to devour the other's heart but as I said, all hearts are selfish. Slowly but surely the heart that was 'Sora' began to be eaten away, consumed to make the heart of 'Ventus' whole once more. 'Sora' doesn't exist."
"I exist!" Sora spat venomously, a long forgotten anger burning through his veins. Memories of Organization XIII swearing at him, labeling him a traitor as Roxas swirled to the front of his mind. "I am Sora!"
"Are you, little shadow? Or am I?" Sora's breath caught in his throat as the figure neared once more and any heat he had from the rage turned icy in an instant. His own face stared back at him, chocolate hair an inky black while blue eyes were gold with malice. "I am the darkness ripped free from Ventus. I am Vanitas."
"Vanitas…?" It tasted vile on his tongue. His look alike smiled though it was more like that of a bloodthirsty shark than a human.
"Yes. I am the third piece of this trio. Ventus is the light heart. Roxas is the Nobody of him. I am the darkness that comes from both. You are but the shell that contains us."
"I. Am. Me." Sora ground out again, attempting to tilt his head back to slow the crawling black that inched towards his lips.
"No, little shadow. You are my vessel. The vessel that my Master tried to bring back in an effort to quash Ventus entirely this time. Your heart pieces have been so shredded by his heart that it is a wonder they even exist as a name of 'Sora'. Perhaps that is all that your heart has left." Vanitas leaned forward, his hands clutching the dark ice the surrounded Sora's shoulders with such force it cracked. "Your ability to use the Keyblade is because Ventus claimed enough of your heart that it recognized its owner. Not enough to call his specific blade but one suitable to work. Your journey to save a friend that fell to darkness was engraved so strongly into you because his heart couldn't bear to go through that again. So he lived that dream through you, again eating away at your heart. Every step in your journey has been decided by the actions of his heart that took over yours slowly but surely. You've noticed it haven't you? The change of style you are adapting to the keyblade? Looser, not so crouched. Maybe even holding it backwards before switching it back forward again?" Sora's eyes widened and he felt the creeping darkness slip across a corner of his mouth
"How did—"
"Because 'Sora' doesn't exist. You are merely a vessel for the heart of both pieces of light and dark. They want Ventus's heart freed. You know that and are aware of the multiple ideas and schemes they have prepared to bring him back. What they don't tell you is what will remain after this is said and done. What happens to a parasite once the host is dead?" Sora flinched as black slid across his eye, tendrils fingering through his hair. "It withers away and dies. Which of the two do you think you are?" Sora clenched his remaining eye shut, unable to answer with the black ice wrapped about his mouth.
"You won't be able to call upon the Keyblade because the heart that it responded to will be gone. Your ability for magic? Gone. Summoning? Gone. Your friends? Well, they're off fighting a war, what could they do with one who has no abilities at all? You'd be dead weight to carry around and protect which means, they would also be gone. All that would be left would be the dark piece of the boy who bided his time deep within the heart of the boy who meant sky. Waiting for the day when he would be awakened." Sora's eye snapped open as he felt the remaining darkness cover his face, a terrible grin splitting Vanitas's face as his last picture before black took over. The encasing dark slowly squeezed, suffocating him and causing feral panic to flare up within him.
"It was a wonderful idea Master Yen Sid had. Awakening the worlds as a Mastery Exam." Vanitas's voice cut through the fear only to deepen it further. "It sent all of our hearts into a deep sleep so that when you were awakened, we were snapped into awareness as well. What I find most beautiful about all this is that even hearing all this, you will still agree to awaken Ventus. Maybe because of the deep desire in his heart that has its claws in yours. Or maybe because you wish to prove that 'Sora' exists. But what will happen is I will finally claim your body as mine and snuff out the little remains of your heart that gets left behind. They will think it is merely their Sora who has succumbed to the darkness. Your friends won't know the truth until every single one of them has been slaughtered by the hand of the one they wanted to save..."
An agonizing pain spiked through his skull and a scene of fire and darkness opened up in front of him. Thousands upon thousands of Keyblades littered the area, stabbed deep within the dry earth. However there were some that rather than be in the ground were scattered about. Each was near a person he cherished yet now their eyes were unseeing and their bodies were drenched in crimson. One figure stood above them all and suddenly whipped around to stare at him as if looking at a camera. His doppelgänger grinned broadly at him, golden eyes ablaze with malicious glee and face splattered with blood.
"How long will you make this scene wait, little shadow?! After all you are the one that will cause it!"
Sora jerked up in bed with a scream, his hands immediately on his face to claw the darkness away. Yet his fingernails only met skin and he halted his actions at the sharp bite of pain afflicted. The boy trembled as he looked around only to be greeted with the familiar sights of his bedroom in Yen Sid's tower. A window was open, allowing the moon and star's light to filter in. Sora carefully lowered his hands only to see blood caught in his nails from his previous act. The sight made something snap within him and he felt bile rise to his throat as he crossed his arms, dropping his face in them to muffle the sobs that began to rack his body.
"I am… Sora," he whispered tightly, visions of his fallen comrades still burned into his mind's eye. "I am Sora." He repeated the phrase over and over again as he rocked back and forth in his bed.
Deep within his heart another piece of light was chipped away by darkness.
A/N: This is my first KH fic so it may be totally off kilter from everything else but it was an idea that popped into my head after getting re-obsessed with this franchise with the new game trailers. It's also a bit of an exercise to try and work those writing muscles. College is finally finished and so is internship so now it's just job hunting and relaxing until then. Apparently relaxing is torturing my video game bby. forgiveme. /snugs the bby
I'm going to try and get back into my other stories but if you follow me no promises there as life is still rather hectic at times. And procrastination sucks… But it's definitely my goal to finish at least one of meh stories before the year's end. Who knows. Might write more for this fandom as well if the muse feels right.
Also! If you have completely different headcanon-y thoughts leave a review! I always love hearing what other people's theories are. :D
Until we meet again~
- Zehava