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Vanitas awakes in agony.
It’s immediate, or at least it feels like it in endless darkness. From nothingness to pain, stabbing like sharp glass in his chest, through every limb, every vein. White-hot agony, scorching pain. The second-worst pain of his life.
(Nothing could eclipse the pain of being torn apart. Of being turned from formless dark pounding on the walls of a prison, begging to be let out or they’re going to die (we'll die, let me out, let me out), into something. Something with sinew and bones and blood. Peeled out inelegantly, reached into and scraped off the sides without care, gouging out everything it had been and forcing it into him.)
(Nothing could hurt more than being stripped from his own flesh with only a thread left behind connecting him to a dying body, a heart too weak, too frail, shattered like glass and bleeding out its last light and breath to an uncaring dark sky. Nothing could be worse than that sensation coupled with his (abruptly his his his there wasn’t supposed to be a he) agony and terror and despair tearing itself out of his flesh for the first time.)
(This came agonizingly close.)
He’d been fading. Dying. Ventus had cracked their heart to pieces and destroyed them both. It had hurt.
Until it hadn’t, the numbness of non-existence.
And now there was only agony.
It tried to tear a scream from his throat (“Be silent, boy. Pain will only give you strength.” Liar liar liar.), but he couldn’t make a sound. Water filled his mouth, his lungs. Not drowning, not smothering, but filling his lungs, forcing him to breathe. Forcing him to keep living, keep suffering, saltwater and pressure in his chest while knives dragged through his skin. Tugging.
Pulling him apart.
No, pulling him back together.
Why couldn’t it just let him die?
He was tired of being in pain. So, so tired.
But all he could do was endure. Shove his mind as far away as he could, like he did when his Master was particularly cruel. Try to distance himself, try not to think. Be anywhere else, be nothing at all.
(He suffered no illusions about what his training had been. Torture. It was a sharp contrast to the things he’d felt from Ventus, the handful of memories he’d seized along their connection when they’d been one. It had made him stronger, yes, taught him forms and magic and power and control, but it had always been for the pain, for the Master to try and cow him into obedience.)
(And when it hadn’t worked well enough he’d gotten a sliver of the bastard’s twisted heart instead, oozing bile inside his very being, barely kept at bay by his darkness that tried to eat away at it but could never grow strong enough to destroy it. All by his design.)
He only snaps back to something resembling awareness when the sensation of weightlessness barely detectable through the pain ends and there's something like solid ground beneath him.
His limbs ache, pain still stabbing through his very existence, but he's used to pain. Used to walking on broken legs and holding his own in a battle as his arms scream at him, as his nerves boil from spells and heat, tilting dizzily but keeping his feet from blood loss and hunger and thirst. He manages to push himself upright enough to see where he is.
The red stained glass of his own heart is familiar in a way that makes part of him boil with hatred through the pain. He knows it so well, the emblem of the Unversed taunting him. There's barely enough of it for him to lay on, the pieces hang in space weightlessly, shards in rainbow colors.
And overhead is a small little island of glass that he knows all too well belongs to his other half.
The idiot had broken the both of them. But he can see the shards moving. It's slow, so slow, but fast enough for the platform above to barely be seen, just enough that he watches a piece floating close join the one completed circle bearing a green star-like mark.
Ventus' heart is being pulled back together. Taunting him. Out of reach with no room for him. Torn out of where he belonged and thrown away.
And still in agony, stabbing all through his chest, through his very being, and all he can do is grit his teeth against it.
He can't watch this. He won't. He's used to pain.
With effort, he manages to roll onto his stomach. He hauls himself forward on arms full of pins and needles to the edge of what little of his heart still stands. He grabs the edge, wishing the sharp edges would bite into his palm, take away some of the pain from inside instead. But it doesn't.
He doesn't need it to. Not for this.
He grabs the edge and throws himself over the side.
It won't kill him. He knows better than to hope it will. But anywhere is better than here, being taunted by his other half's recovery while he suffers alone in the dark.
He falls. Through nothingness that feels like water until it turns into air (finally freeing him from the not-water squeezing his lungs, forcing him to breathe, to live, but the first breath that catches in his chest is of sea air that makes something in the depths of his chest flared in renewed pain, not for the shards of his shattered heart, but for bitter jealousy he can't explain).
He lands on sand. It's soft, nothing like the rock-filled dust of the badlands. He wheezes out a breath, then in again, the pain lessening slightly, taking with it the needles and pins filling up his everything, clinging stubbornly to his fingers and limbs and jaw as sunlight blinds him.
He's darkness. The sun has never been kind to him in the whole of his existence.
All he can do is writhe and try to stand, trying to force his body into cooperation as his ears are filled with ocean waves, familiar in a way that makes something inside him he can't name roil with hatred.
The sun doesn't seem to move, making it impossible to tell how long he lays there, trying to force his body to cooperate.
He manages it, eventually, forcing himself to his feet.
He knows this place.
He visited it once, trailing Ventus through the worlds. He'd threatened Ventus' idiot friends, baiting his other half to the Keyblade Graveyard. And the idiot had sworn he wasn't going to fight him.
And he'd played the idiot right into the Master's hands.
And it had still failed. The X-Blade shattered like their heart. Hearts.
He should be dead. But the sun overhead, hot and unwelcome, was proof enough that wherever he was, it wasn't death. It wasn't the real island, though, no shorebirds, no other sign of life, nothing but empty sand and sea and sky.
Hatred bubbles under his skin, unable to escape. He growls, trying to force it out, irritation growing with it.
But it stays put. The emotions stay in his fractured joke of a heart. No Unversed.
No Unversed.
He growls again, trying to dig his fingers into his arms but failing, his suit too solid, his gloves too blunt (he can't sharpen them, why can't he sharpen them? It's his darkness, it's part of him, why isn't it responding?). The anger, irritation, and hatred writhe around under his skin, unable to escape, filling up his chest in a way that makes him choke.
He tears off his helmet, throwing it as far away as his shaking limbs would allow, and digs his fingers into his scalp, trying to do something, anything.
It doesn't help. What little barely-there pain it brings isn't enough and just adds another emotion to the pile. It's too much. Too damn much.
He holds out a hand, trying to call the Void Gear, call his Keyblade, something, anything.
It refuses to answer.
He tries again and again and again. But it doesn't come. Not in refusal, he can't feel it at all.
His magic fails next. Flames fail to flicker, darkness refuses to answer his call, lightning refuses to crackle across his fingers no matter how much he shoves at it, pushes for that part of his existence that should hold his mana alongside the swirling shadows that make up the tattered remains of the heart he was left with.
Nothing. Nothing and nothing and nothing, no matter what he tries.
A frustrated scream tears itself out of his throat. He has nothing. Nothing.
His chest heaves in equal parts fury and panic, feelings shoving themselves around in his head, in his heart, thoughts racing. It's too much. Too much. And then there's a tug in his chest.
Vanitas whirls, following it, boots struggling in the soft sand, legs struggling to hold his weight. He knows that tug, knows that sensation.
Down the shore, sprawled out in the sand and staring up at the sky like a half-dead starfish, is Ventus, eyes glassy and expression as blank as the day Xehanort ripped them apart.
Everything boils over.
"YOU!?" Vanitas roars.
He doesn't think, he moves. He dives, wrapping his hands around this other half's throat, and squeezes.
"This is your fault," he snarls. "We had it! We were almost complete! You RUINED EVERYTHING!"
And despite his best efforts, despite how much his fingers dig into the other's flesh, it does... nothing. He can feel it doing nothing. Ventus' breathing continues despite his best efforts.
And then his other half speaks.
"I know."
Two words. Two little words.
Vanitas screams, rage and agony and too many other emotions that won't tear themselves loose flooding through him.
He lashes out any way he can. Punches, kicks, anything he can think of to try and just hurt the other. Do anything.
But nothing he does seems to stick.
And worst of all, Ventus just lays there and takes it.
He doesn't fight back. Doesn't attempt to run. Doesn't do anything. He just lays there as his darkness tries to break his nose (he feels the impact, but it's too soft, and when he pulls away he can see there's no break, no blood), brings his boot into the other's ribs again and again and again. No reaction. Just acceptance. Passive acceptance as Vanitas screams his throat raw from fury and hatred and despair.
He only stops when he collapses, too exhausted to stand, let alone throw another punch, lungs screaming, throat burning, muscles on fire, and chest full of shards.
"I hate you," he manages to wheeze.
Ventus, kicked several feet down the beach from where he started, just nods, and Vanitas hates him all the more for it.
It becomes a cycle. Continuing for what could be days, could be weeks, there's no way to tell with the relentless sun.
And Ventus never once fights back.
It infuriates him, after long enough, and Vanitas has to force himself away. There's another side of the island. He stays there for a while, trying to ignore just how numb the link is on his light's side.
He lashes out at anything he can, ending up with knuckles that should feel bruised, aching muscles and emotions writhing around under his skin where they don't belong.
It doesn't help. Nothing helps.
After that feels like an eternity, Vanitas drags himself back to the other side of the beach. Ventus is still there. Laying in the sand, accepting what should have been his death.
Vanitas hates it. Hates him.
Hates himself.
He isn't expecting the tears when they start out of nowhere. He tries to force them in, keep them back, but he can't. He isn't allowed to cry. He was never allowed to cry.
...But the bastard is gone. Or at least he can't reach them. If he could, he would have by now.
For the first time in his short existence, he's safe.
The thought shatters the already splintered shards in his chest and he sobs, unable to keep the despair in or force it out of him as something that can be slain.
He collapses to his knees, too far away to try and choke the life out of his light that caused all of this. Close enough to see him, all blank and accepting of their new hell.
"This is your fault," he manages through the tears. "I just wanted to go back. I'm not supposed to exist. I just wanted to be darkness again. But you wouldn't take me back."
His voice breaks on the last word despite himself.
He'd tried. When Xehanort hadn't been looking, before the bastard had hauled his life away. He'd tried to force himself back in the gouges scraped into his light's heart and he hadn't been able to fit himself back into the spaces he'd once filled.
"It hurts. It always hurts. I just want it to not hurt."
For the first time since ending up on the beach, Ventus moves. Sits up. Manages to get to his feet and closes the short distance between them.
It's his fault. It's always his fault.
He should curse the other. Hurt him. Do something.
But he can feel there's something missing in his chest. Something his heart had been forced to heal around as it tried to keep itself together while fraying at its ends.
The Master's heart is gone.
And all that's left in its place is despair.
"It always hurts."
Ventus sinks down to his knees, joins him in the sand, so close Vanitas could grab him and throttle him if he wanted to. He can feel muddied emotions from his other half. The numbness is giving way to so many things he can't pick them all apart. Confusion stands out among them.
And, for the first time in his entire existence, he feels the link between them tug from the other end with purpose.
His breath catches in his throat. He can feel it, feel Ventus grabbing fistfuls of the connection, anchoring onto them, pulling at them until he can feel them bury themselves into his light's heart.
The tears down his other half's cheeks aren't entirely his own.
Vanitas grabs onto their connection and shoves. Everything that goes with it. Anger, hatred, fear, despair, everything that fills his chest that the other got to escape, oblivious and comfortable.
(Jealousy, envy, want floods the strings from Vanitas' heart against his will.)
Ventus' posture buckles under the weight of it all, a sob ripping out of him.
Vanitas expects hatred back. Anger. Resentment. Maybe even despair to mirror his own.
What floods back down the link is an emotion he doesn't know the name of. It pulls the air out of his lungs.
It's warm.
Ventus reaches for him and for the first time in Vanitas' existence, a reaching hand doesn't make him flinch.
His light pulls him close. Holds him. And sobs. The link spirals between the two of them, a push and pull of anguish and despair, a jealousy of lost years and regret at not noticing the other's pain for so, so long.
For a moment, the divide between them grows so small that Vanitas feels like he's home.
He crumples into his light's grip, fingers digging desperately into the other's clothes as he holds on for his life amid the torrent filling up their chests, trying to hold onto that link, to that light, to something.
His light reaches back across the link and some little part of themselves slots back into place.
(And part of the pain that had haunted him since his creation just... stops.)
They sob until neither has tears left.
"I'm sorry," Ventus whispers, hands refusing to let his darkness go.
Vanitas' grip tightens on the other's jacket, chest heavy with the weight of being understood.
"...Don't leave me like that again," is all he manages.
He's been scraped out once, he can't do that again. Not after this. Not after feeling his light understand, feel the agony he'd spent his entire life in.
The odd warmth across their connection leaves Vanitas feeling exhausted, all he can do is cling, feeling pathetic and weak for it.
But his light doesn't say a word, just holds him, refusing to let go just as much as he is.
For everything, all the pain, Vanitas... isn't sure he can hate his light anymore.
(And Ven, for all the pain, finally understands his darkness. Who never had a chance at happiness. Never had a chance to find people to extend a hand to him. To watch over him when he was sick, to help him remember how to talk and think and live. He'd been forced to experience what Ven had lived through while being denied it and made to suffer by Xehanort. That kernel of jealousy sits so close to the despair in the other's heart that Ven, finally, understands.)
(It's going to take so long for their hearts to heal, but once they are, he doesn't care what it takes, he's taking Vanitas with him. Aqua and Terra can yell at him all they want, the next time he goes home, they go together.)