Chapter Text
It was a place he knew well.
Standing there, soaking wet on the beach at twilight, Roxas stared out towards the water he’d fallen quietly into. It was dusk, or perhaps dawn. Which it was didn’t truly matter. It was twilight here, and maybe it always would be.
“Where…” Not Destiny Islands, but Destiny Islands. He was there and he wasn’t, a place that was warm and familiar and comforting. A place he knew. A place that was home. Roxas knew where he was. “… I see.”
“Roxas! Roxas, over here!” There, not far from where he stood, a voice rang out. Like everything else there, it was something he knew. Like everything else there, it made his chest ache. Was he real? Was it a dream? Did it matter? But she was calling his name, and all he could do was take off running. Through the beach shack, up the stairs, to the tiny man-made island connected by bridge. A place he knew. A voice he knew. A soul he knew.
“Xion!”
She was there, she was safe, she was exactly the way he remembered and he could remember. It rushed in like the water on the beach and spilled down his cheeks, a flood of memories that he hadn’t realized he’d lost. Though he’d felt it still inside of him, it wasn’t until she was standing before him again that Roxas truly understood the magnitude of what had been taken from him.
Xion was warm against him when he threw his arms around her, and all he could do for a moment was hold on.
“Roxas, it’s okay, don’t squeeze so hard! I won’t go anywhere, I promise!” Xion’s arms wound around his middle, and the squeeze she gave him back was just as strong.
“How am I supposed to believe that, huh?” Roxas couldn’t stop himself from crying, a familiar feeling, a feeling he had felt not long ago. But this time, it all belonged to him. The burst of relief, the soaring joy, all of that was his and his alone. It was a feeling that no one else could lay any claim to.
He’d missed it, her laugh. The sound of the waves, Xion’s laugh, the beating in their chests. Sora had saved them, though Roxas was sure he didn’t have a clue. Sora still didn’t even know who he was, not really. But that was okay, because in here was…
“Ohhh,” a voice said from behind him, a voice that made the hairs on his neck stand up. It was his voice, and Roxas knew from the expression on Xion’s face that the sound of it had him looking terrified. “Xion, you really weren’t kidding. He does look just like me!”
When Roxas turned, a chill having already taken the feeling from his hands, it was to see a face that was identical to his own. He swallowed hard, and one of Xion’s hands took his freezing ones. Standing at the entrance to the seaside shack was a boy who looked just like him.
“Wh…”
“Sorry,” the boy said, scratching the back of his neck and almost seeming embarrassed. Roxas thought that their expressions probably matched as well, two disconcerted faces. He wiped at his cheeks, not knowing what else to do. A stranger, who looked just like him. “This is really weird, isn’t it? I didn’t realize how weird it was going to be but now that I’m looking at you it’s really, really weird. Oh man, this is so weird…”
“Uh… sorry, just… Who are you? We’re in Sora’s heart, aren’t we? I know why Xion is here, but…”
“That’s right. This is Sora’s heart. I’ve actually been here for a really long time, longer than almost anyone else I guess. My name’s Ventus, but call me Ven!” Ven took a few steps towards him, looking just as awkward as Roxas felt, and held one hand out. There was nothing he could do but take it, uncanny as it felt.
“I’m Roxas,” Roxas said lamely, faintly thankful that his voice didn’t sound as bad as it could have. Ven looked exactly like him, he had thought. But from those words Roxas was beginning to realize it was the other way around. “Why… why do I look like you?”
“I wish I knew,” Ven sighed, letting go of his hand and making his way over to the bent tree that had grown on that platform. It was perfect to sit on Roxas knew, because Sora had sat there so many times. Rather than climbing up onto it, Ven only rested his hand on the bark. “We’ve got some ideas, you know, but I don’t really think… until I met Xion in here, I didn’t know what a Nobody was. We’ve only talked a little so I’m still not sure I get it, but the best guess we’ve got is… Since we’ve been here in Sora’s heart for so long, when you… when he made you, because my heart was also there, it sort of… shaped you? A little bit. I think my heart might have been inside of you. Sorry about that, it’s probably… kind of weird to say. Maybe a little creepy.”
The cold horror was back. Ven’s heart had been… inside of him? Roxas patted his chest, knowing it looked stupid but unable to keep from doing it nonetheless. Was that the reason? When Axel had asked him if he had a heart, had it been because it was true? Had he had a heart that simply didn’t belong to him?
Roxas ran his hands through his hair, trying not to simply crouch down, clutch his head, and scream.
Who was he? Sora, Ven… If a heart had been inside him all along, was he a Nobody at all? The one thing he’d thought was certain was falling out beneath his feet. Ven’s heart? Then, surely, he didn’t have one of his own. Just another anomaly from the start. Even more of a mistake than he’d thought. Something was hammering wildly in his chest. Roxas swallowed hard, trying to push it away. What was he? What was he?
“It makes sense,” Xion said, sounding as if it was something they’d discussed over and over. Roxas glanced back and forth between them, unsure how to respond. Ven’s heart was in Sora’s heart, and had been for some time. Except for when it had been… in him. What was happening? It was hard to breathe, but Xion’s voice was helping him focus. “Roxas, are you okay?”
“I…” Roxas covered his mouth with one hand, hoping neither of them realized it was an attempt to settle his breathing. Even through the gloves of his uniform, his fingers felt cold. Taking as slow of a breath as he could, Roxas lowered his hand again. “I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine,” Ven said, and Roxas wanted to scream at him for it. How could he be fine? He was staring at his own doppleganger and coming to the horrible realization that he wasn’t the original. Ven had been around long before he’d ever been born, then. Was Roxas just a cheap knock-off, some confused compilation of Sora and Ven? Even his form couldn’t sort his existence out. Was he Sora at all, or was he just a pale imitation of Ven? “Look, even if you look like me, and, sound like me… I don’t think that has to mean anything.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” The words seemed incredibly stupid to Roxas. Of course it had to mean something. How could it not? He was just too stupid to figure out what that meaning was, evidently. He was inside of Sora, completely floundering, lost yet again. Roxas wasn’t sure if he would ever understand anything about himself. Maybe he was nothing more than an unnecessary, accidental duplicate of a boy he’d never met.
“It’s just like… sure. You look like me. But that doesn’t mean you’re me, and it doesn’t really have anything to do with who you are. It was really weird, sure! For a minute, I didn’t know if I had something wrong with me, that I was messed up for looking like you. So I’m sure that’s worse for you. But…” Ven paused, his forehead wrinkling as he thought. It was a lot to take in, really. What had it been like for Ven, to have Xion tell him that someone who looked exactly like him existed? “Well, I guess let me put it this way. I really, really don’t get what a Nobody is, I think. But from what Xion told me, one day you just… existed, looking the way you did, basically at the age you are now. Is that right?”
“… Yeah. That’s what happened.”
“I thought at first, “That must have been awful.” But then I remembered how I was born, and I’m not so sure. Your way might have been a little easier. Maybe I’m kind of jealous. We were both sort of… not “nothing”, when we were born, but we didn’t have any real sense of identity. I’m, uh… I don’t really think I totally understand where babies come from. Don’t get me wrong, though! I basically get it, I just… I’m not positive on some details.” Ven seemed immensely embarrassed by this admission, but Roxas wasn’t sure why. Was it something to be ashamed of, not knowing that information? It wasn’t as if Roxas knew where Nobodies came from other than in very general terms. How much did Xion know that she’d passed on to Ven? And Xion was a Replica, so she hadn’t even had the same experience as him. “But, I do know what they’re like? Human babies can’t even really think at first, and it takes years before they can actually do anything. I mean, they can’t even walk. I think you were born doing a lot better than that.”
“What?” Roxas didn’t think he even understood what a baby was, much less where it came from. They had to be young people, didn’t they? From context, that had to be it. Just a tiny person who couldn’t do anything at all? That couldn’t be right. He’d seen children, but he didn’t think that was the same thing. Children could walk and talk and do things.
“Um, Ven… What’s a baby?” Roxas wanted to sigh in relief as Xion asked the question. It meant he could keep pretending he’d known what one was from the start. Ven was already blinking at them, before realization seemed to dawn on his face. They were Nobodies, if Xion was even that, and they’d only existed for a brief amount of time. Probably, there was almost an infinite amount of things they simply didn’t know about. “It’s just, I’ve never heard of them before, or seen one.”
“You’ve never seen a baby? It’s really wild. They’re just really small, and fat, and their eyes are so big. They have to be held all the time, they can’t crawl for a while. They can’t talk, they can’t walk, they barely even understand what’s happening most of the time. At first they can’t even hold their heads up on their own. And they don’t even know how to eat!”
“Then how do they… how do they make it long enough to stop being babies?” Being a baby sounded like a nightmare. Had Ven been a baby? Roxas thought it was bad enough to have been the zoned-out shell that he had started as. “Is there anything good about being a baby?”
Ven opened his mouth to speak, and then closed it again. It seemed like he was thinking about it hard, but also that thinking about it made him feel bad somehow. What had Ven been like as a baby? Small, fat, with big eyes, unable to do anything on his own. That seemed awful.
“Other people take care of you,” Ven said finally, before smiling a pained smile. “People who care about you, they help you do things that you can’t do on your own. They help you become a person. And you grow up, and you sort of… forget. I don’t remember being a baby, no one really does I don’t think. But I’ve met young kids, and I’ve seen pictures of babies?”
“… I see.” Did he? Maybe it didn’t matter. Hopefully saying that wouldn’t come back to bite him. Finally, though, Xion spoke again.
“Roxas and I never had that. One day we just sort of… were there, and while we didn’t know who or what we were…”
“We could eat, at least.” Both Xion and Ven laughed at that, and he couldn’t help laughing too. It seemed like Ven thought babies were just as impractical as they appeared to him based solely on that description. Why were they like that? For the first time in his life, Roxas found himself a little glad that he’d been born a Nobody. As he smiled, Roxas realized that had been exactly the point. Ven had been trying to help him feel better about himself – about everything happening. “I guess being a Nobody beats being a baby.”
“You’re telling me.”
“About that, though…” Xion rubbed her forearm with one hand, looking a little nervous. She was going to take the conversation back into uncomfortable territory, but Roxas got the feeling that it was something Xion felt needed to be said. “At first I thought, what if you… I wondered if maybe you were Ven’s Nobody and not Sora’s, but that’s not right at all. You’re still Sora’s Nobody, I wanted you to know that hasn’t changed. Ven wasn’t turned into a Heartless, so he can’t have made a Nobody. And…”
“My body’s somewhere else,” Ven said, running his hand along the tree. As he said the words, he seemed a little sorrowful. Where was Ven’s body, and why was he inside of Sora instead of there?
“Something happened to you.”
“Yeah. We all had a lot of stuff happen.” It seemed like Ven wouldn’t continue, but Roxas didn’t know what to say. Before he could do more than process that, Ven was turning and leaning against the tree. It was going to take some getting used to, Roxas thought. Looking at Ven was almost like looking in a mirror. Their clothes were even similar, contrasting patterns of dark and light. Finally, Ven broke the silence. “You can use Sora’s Keyblade, not mine. You definitely came from him, that’s for sure. And Xion’s right. You can’t be my body, because it’s still around. Just somewhere else. My body is really far away, I think. Asleep. You were close to it, probably, because… Well. I’m still sort of connected to it, so I know it’s still there. But my heart was broken, and even though Sora helped me… I can’t go back to yet. We don’t know how.”
“Ven got hurt a while back,” Xion said, going back to rubbing her arm. Roxas was already frowning, running over the words Ven had spoken. Something had seemed wrong about them. Not a lie or even a misdirect, just something… off, that he had only subconsciously recognized. “That was when they came here.”
“We all ended up here, huh? In Sora’s heart. I was right here, a long time ago. Well, on the real island.” Ven patted the tree with one hand, grinning in a way that again was a little pained. “He saved me, back then. I only barely remember it. I know it was here, because it felt so familiar when I went to these islands again. When I got hurt again, this was where I came. Sora’s heart. We’ve been here ever since… well, almost. I think, well… I’m pretty sure, I went with you. No, I’m sure. There was no other time I could have. When Sora turned I went with you, and that’s probably why you look the way I do. And, now I’m back here. I’m sort of glad I’m not alone anymore.”
“Right… but, if you were here when Sora made me, that would have to be over a year ago. You’ve been in here that long? A-and… in me, I guess. That is… that’s really weird. But, weren’t you lonely all by yourself? How could you stand being alone for over a year?”
Ven’s face went flat, and the pain that had been in his smile lingered in his eyes. Xion turned away from them, looking back towards the shack that Ven had emerged from and the open door there. Roxas didn’t feel like he could tear his eyes from Ven’s expression, an expression of overwhelming sadness. Ven and Xion had only been within Sora’s heart for a few days at best, and inside it wasn’t as if they could talk to Sora himself. Before that…
“I first came here ten years ago.” The words rocked him, and Roxas’s mouth fell open dumbly. Had he misheard? Ven had said…
“Ten yea-”
“We got really messed up. But, maybe I was the one who really did it? I was asleep most of the time when I was inside you, but once I woke up it was sort of. Scary. When I was in here, it never got lonely, though. Because…” Ven kicked at the sand with one armored boot, before looking up with a sour grimace. “Hey, would you come out already? Roxas must think I’m crazy with all this “we” stuff!”
The deep, annoyed sigh that came from somewhere in the seaside shack startled him terribly. That was what it was – Ven had said “we”, enough times that he’d picked up on it without realizing. Even Xion had said it, “they” instead of “Ven”. There was someone else in Sora’s heart, and whoever it was really, really didn’t want to come out.
“Come on, already! He knows you’re here now, you might as well just get it over with.” Ven put his hands on his hips, and now he looked truly annoyed himself. For a moment Roxas thought the other boy would simply stomp into the shack and extract the third person, but he didn’t move. “Get out here, don’t make me drag you out. It’s not like you could stay hidden forever!”
“Roxas, this is gonna be a little weird,” Xion said quietly, her cheeks flushing faintly when he looked to her in confusion. Completely lost, Roxas could only try to read her expression. It told him nothing useful, just that what was about to happen would be awkward. “You look just like Ven, but he looks a lot like…”
The boy who sullenly emerged from the shack had Sora’s face.
He was almost sulking, those familiar features twisted up, and Roxas felt his stomach lurch bizarrely. It was Sora’s face, but all of it was wrong. Ven was like looking into a mirror, but this boy was a distortion of Sora.
“Who…?”
“That’s Vanitas,” Ven said, exasperated. Vanitas scowled outright, looking as if he’d turn right back around and leave the way he’d come. Though he couldn’t tell how or why, Roxas thought that the relationship between those two with their eerily familiar features was very, very complex. “All the stuff that happened, the reason we’re in here, that’s because we fought. Ten years ago.”
“He killed me,” Vanitas said, an oddly calm tone in a voice that was, like his face, familiar and wrong. Sora’s voice, almost. Sora’s face, almost. Black hair that rose in the same spikes, yellow eyes that held the same shape. Words that were very, very disturbing. Roxas whipped his head around to face Ven again, and saw the other boy’s face had turned red.
“I did not!”
“You did. Ventus dissipated my form, and kicked my heart to the curb.” That had a little more emotion to it, but rather than being hurt it was biting. It sounded like the words of someone trying to hurt, not someone who was suffering. But maybe it was both. Roxas said nothing, knowing his expression was wildly confused. All of Ven’s attention was on Vanitas now though, so he didn’t even notice.
“Don’t act like you’re the victim there, you tricked me into it and then shoved your heart into my body!”
“Your body, huh?”
“Yeah, it’s mine!”
“Sure is, Ventus.” Vanitas didn’t call Ven “Ven”, it seemed. That felt like a line drawn in the sand… maybe.
“I can’t do anything with you throwing a tantrum, seriously…” Ven shoved his hands in his pockets, clicking his tongue loudly. In much the same way, Vanitas crossed his arms and leaned against the doorway with a huff. It was strangely in-sync. They were strangely in-sync, in more than just their reactions in that moment.
Vanitas’s clothing was a rough match to Ven’s, almost every part of it. Rather than black on the left side of his shirt and white on the right, Vanitas wore the reverse. It wasn’t the only inverse. Where Ven’s pants were dark, Vanitas’s were light. Now that he was focusing on it, Roxas found himself inspecting their clothing even more closely than before.
Ven wore armored shoes, and Vanitas’s boots were comparatively plain, a muddled red with thin vertical stripes. The bits of his undershirt that were visible were the same way, oddly striped in red. Vanitas had fabric hanging from crisscrossed belts that circled his waist that gave the illusion of a duster or cape, while Ven had similar bands that crossed over his chest. The point where they intersected had a badge placed over it, a symbol that Roxas didn’t recognize. It existed nowhere on Vanitas. He had something different as a belt buckle, another shape that meant nothing to Roxas.
Vanitas didn’t share the armor that Ven had on his left shoulder, nor what peeked out from under his shirt. He did have something that lined his jaw and the back of his head though, pieces of some kind of helmet. Ven didn’t have anything like that. The duster, mismatched armor, and checkered wristband that only Ven wore threw off the symmetry of their clothing. Otherwise, it looked as if they had completely coordinated.
Roxas didn’t know what to think of it, other than that it seemed definite that the two of them were linked the same way he was linked to Sora. Vanitas’s odd words had raised the question of whether or not Ven’s body was solely his, and it didn’t seem like it was about his own body no longer existing. “Dissipated his form”… Roxas didn’t know what to make of that.
“Vanitas is… he’s me,” Ven said finally, as if he’d realized no one had spoken for a long moment, “… but he’s really not.”
“That’s ridiculous. I either am or am not you, Ventus. Pick. You know which one’s right, don’t say something so halfhearted.”
“I get it already, give it a rest. No, he’s not me. He used to be me. No… we used to be, one “us”, and now we’re… two people.” Ven paused, clearly nervous about what he was saying. Surprisingly, Vanitas didn’t take the opening to belittle him. Somehow Roxas was already certain that Vanitas was the kind of person who reveled in doing things like that. “We had a… an accident, I guess you could say.”
“It was assault,” Vanitas said cheerfully, and that chilled Roxas to the bone. This was far worse than it had been to see someone who shared his face. An accident, assault. What did that mean? Vanitas was already opening his mouth again. “It was a complete violation of the innermost sanctum of our being. An intentional shattering of a heart! And Ventus made all of it useless.”
“That’s enough,” Ven said sharply, and Vanitas grinned a smug grin. Ven had been here in Sora’s heart, with him, for ten years? Vanitas was possibly the most unsettling person he’d ever met, but Ven shrugged him off with ease. “We just met Roxas, don’t start this already. I get it, but give it a rest. You’d think you’d be less willing to tell people about it, since you lost. When we first got split apart, Sora helped me. And then when we fought and got hurt, we both came here. That’s all. You don’t need to spin it in such a weird way.”
“Why not? Are you ashamed to have people know what you did right away?”
“You attacked me. And you hurt Aqua. Ugh, but why am I repeating that? We’ve been through it before. Anyway, shut up. You need to stop, I know what you’re doing. I’m staying here.”
“Tch.” Vanitas was disappointed by those words, and it wasn’t until he saw that reaction that Roxas realized everything Vanitas had said was bait. He wasn’t sure what it had been bait for, but Ven had turned his nose up at it. A fight, probably. Did they fight here, within Sora’s heart? It felt almost sacrilegious, an affront to their safe haven. “Fine, I get it. It’s not like I’d force you, obviously.”
To Roxas’s dull surprise, Ven legitimately rolled his eyes at that. Everything that was happening was so unbelievable that he couldn’t even react the way he should have. Instead of saying anything, Roxas simply made his way to the tree and hopped onto it. There was no way to process everything happening just yet, so all he could do was take it in. Xion was flustered, Roxas realized. He wasn’t sure why. She definitely knew more than he did, having been within Sora’s heart with this dysfunctional pair for at least some time now. She had come… when? With him, surely. But if Ven’s heart had been with him as well, didn’t that mean that Ven too had only returned to this place in the past two days? Where had Vanitas been?
“You wouldn’t be able to force me in a thousand years.” Vanitas laughed at that, and it was far less menacing than he expected it to be. Roxas couldn’t get a handle on it, what their emotions towards each other were. But, thinking about his own emotions surrounding Sora, Roxas knew there was no way it would be simple for Ven either. Ven was scowling, more exasperated than angry, and Vanitas seemed genuinely delighted at it. It wasn’t that the glee on Vanitas’s face wasn’t malicious, but it was also oddly harmless.
It just seemed… tame. Almost domestic, as if it was a routine. Neither of them considered the other to be a threat. That was at complete odds with the fact that their conflict had apparently been violent enough to reduce them to a state where they could only survive here. Maybe, over the course of the ten years they’d spent, they’d had no choice but to call a truce and coexist somewhat peacefully.
“Not bad, Ventus. Come see me later.” Though the words seemed casual, they had a weight to them that Roxas couldn’t identify. Rather than heading back down the stairs through the shack Vanitas instead jumped down, striding easily towards the door that Roxas knew led to the cove. Before he opened it, he turned to look back up at them – or, at least at Ven. Everything in his demeanor was smooth and almost sophisticated, to Roxas’s dismay. Somehow the action was cool. He hated that already. How could he think Vanitas was cool? “Don’t keep me waiting too long, idiot.”
“Suuuure, I’ll get right on that. I’d hate to disappoint you.”
Vanitas laughed, and stepped through the door.
Once it had closed again, an explosive sigh burst from Xion’s lips. It made Ven jump a little, and in that moment he seemed to realize exactly how absurd the whole situation had become. Then again, it had been absurd from the start. Every single thing that was happening was absurd.
“Sorry, that was probably… I’m used to the way he is now, so it wasn’t until Xion came here that I realized how weird we must seem to other people. And now she’s sort of getting used to it, which maybe isn’t a good thing.”
“I think he’s more show than anything else,” Xion said slowly, and Ven began to nod immediately. Roxas wasn’t so sure. What kind of force did it take to damage a heart to the point where another had to shelter it? More force than he could muster up, Roxas thought. Ven had to be terrifyingly strong, Roxas figured. “I haven’t been here for very long, but… Roxas, I think he’s sort of harmless. He never came out until Ven brought him, so he definitely doesn’t care about hurting us.”
“He’s just sulking and trying to save face,” Ven sighed, resting his hands on his hips. It made Roxas feel bad for him, a flood of sympathy for the boy who had put up with that for a decade. Was Vanitas always like that? “He did the same thing with Xion, it’s like he’s embarrassed. And, no. He’s upset about… well, stuff. It’s not totally senseless. Don’t get me wrong, he’s still the worst when he’s in such a foul mood.”
“But you said he attacked you?”
“Oh, yeah. He definitely did that, more than once. Vanitas used to be just as bad as he just acted, all the time. He actually nearly turned me into a pile of ashes once.” Ven rubbed the back of his neck with one hand, looking flustered by what he’d just said. It was clear that he was trying to figure out what to follow that up with, so Roxas kept his mouth shut. The fact that Ven was just as awkward as him in that moment was incredibly reassuring. “We used to be enemies, yeah. It was a long time ago. He definitely doesn’t think of me as an enemy anymore. Back then was different. Who ever heard of someone seriously fighting themselves, right? But that’s definitely what we did.”
“Oh.” Roxas brought a hand to his face, scratching his cheek. It hadn’t been that long ago, had it? Earlier that day, it must have been. It was a day that seemed like it had been forever, a lifetime. Roxas wasn’t sure that it hadn’t been. His lifetime had ended, maybe, and he was little more than a ghost within Sora’s heart. “I guess I did that too.”
Ven’s smile, nervous as it had been, vanished.
“I-I mean,” Roxas continued, unable to pause and dwell on his own stuttering, “Before I came here, I was… I was somewhere else in Sora, I think.”
“Somewhere else?” Xion frowned, reaching out to take his hand. For the first time since arriving, Roxas allowed himself to think about it. Ven and Vanitas, they had hearts. They did, because something that didn’t exist couldn’t be torn in two. Were they simply half of a being, or was it possible for a shattered heart’s pieces to heal without coming back together? Certainly, the pair weren’t the same person anymore. But himself, and Xion…
How long would they remain here? Were they mere echoes of themselves, destined to fade away in time? All he had been was a body and a mind in the end, wasn’t he? Without that body, surely, his “self” wouldn’t survive. It was scary. Naminé had said he wouldn’t disappear, but…
“It was Sora… I think. It was a different place. I took him into it too, I… was angry. I was hurt, it was this pain in my chest, it was overwhelming. But he won. Of course he won. Unlike you and Vanitas,” this was directed at Ven, whose expression he couldn’t read, “I’m not really… real. I’m just a Nobody. Now that Sora’s whole again, there was no way I could compete. His heart’s so strong, and I… don’t even have one, I don’t think. I don’t have a body anymore. I don’t have a heart. I don’t know what I am.”
“Roxas, I’m not sure that’s right.” Xion squeezed his hand, before climbing up on the tree to sit beside him. He tugged her up easily, knowing it was just simpler if they worked together. That was natural. They worked together. “I don’t think I really understand it, what a heart is. But we’re still here, even though we aren’t supposed to have them and even though our bodies…”
“They don’t exist anymore. Mine was never even mine, and yours, I…”
“I did trick you, you know.” Xion let go of his hand, lacing her own fingers together instead. Though he didn’t say anything, Ven sat as well. Not on the tree – it wasn’t that there was no space for him, more that he seemingly would rather sit on the edge of the raised platform. He was just taking the words in, Roxas thought. “Xemnas wanted me to destroy you, so he let me leave. I didn’t want that. I lied to you, so that you’d destroy me instead and I could come back here. I couldn’t do it on my own. I was… scared. But my memories, they were Sora’s and he needed them back.”
“Not all of them, though! The time you spent with me and Axel, that had nothing to do with Sora, they were yours! There had to be another…”
“But doesn’t that mean she had a heart?” Ven was swinging his legs as he spoke, not looking at them. Roxas didn’t know what kind of expression was on his face. Now in the reverse of what had happened before it was Ven who was the third wheel of the conversation, the one with no context for it. But his voice was confident, certain. “And, she still does. I mean, I definitely don’t really get it, but from where I’m standing… You can’t be a “you” without a heart. You can’t feel pain. You can’t have memories. When my heart was broken I lost my memories, and it took years for any of them to come back. I don’t even have most of them, maybe they’re lost forever. Maybe Vanitas has more of the missing ones than he’s told me, or we both do. Just locked up still. But both of you have them. Memories, I mean. From where I’m standing, just sort of looking in, both of you definitely have hearts. I’m sure of it.”
More than anything, Roxas wanted to believe that was the truth. He’d thought it was, so recently. Everything had happened so fast. But the words he’d spoken to the man with the bandaged face, hadn’t they been true?
“My heart belongs to me!”
Wasn’t that right?
“Maybe,” Roxas said finally, his voice soft. They were words he’d spoken when he had forgotten what he was. Starting from that blank slate once more, had he realized something that he couldn’t have before?
“But, even if you didn’t, does it matter? If you feel, if you remember, does it really matter whether you have it? What even is a heart, you know? Even without one, you’re someone yourself. Sure, you got split up from Sora, but you’re still a person.”
“Then, aren’t you the same with Vanitas?” Xion’s words, taunting as they were, got Ven to turn to look at them with a disgusted scowl. He’d been the one to say Vanitas was him, but it seemed like the idea was completely unpalatable to him. The realization that Ven sat the same way he did, with his hands loosely resting between his knees, didn’t actually surprise Roxas. It really seemed like he’d picked up the other boy’s mannerisms, but… Roxas thought there were worse people who he could act like. He’d gotten so used to being a fragment of Sora that Roxas wasn’t sure he had enough of an identity to have a crisis regarding it with Ven. Those feelings were definitely in there, though.
“Definitely. Vanitas is… he’s definitely not me, he’s him now. He really is the worst, you know. Always trying to pick a fight, and he’s so dramatic, and he’s clingy.” Roxas wanted desperately to say something in response to that last word, but Ven was waving his hand as if he wanted to banish the thought. It didn’t seem like Ven realized how at odds the idea was with the Vanitas that Roxas had just met. What constituted “clingy” to Ven? “Did you see him jump down? He couldn’t take the stairs, because he’s trying to look cool again. I think he’s jealous, that’s why he’s trying to unsettle you guys. So you’ll stay away, maybe. No, that’s probably it, that’s just like him. He’s being moody. Even if he has a good reason, he’ll just have to deal with it.”
“Ven, can I ask you something? About Vanitas.”
“Yeah, go for it.”
“You said he doesn’t see you as his enemy. So does that mean… Are you… friends, with him?”
For a moment, it seemed Ven didn’t understand what he was saying. Then he was laughing in genuine surprise, holding onto his sides loosely and bending over. From the way he was reacting, it was the funniest thing he’d heard in a long time. Roxas didn’t know what to make of that, but Xion was laughing too now. Her face was flushing, but she was laughing. He really didn’t know what to make of that.
After a long moment, Ven was able to compose himself enough to speak. “I wouldn’t put it that way,” he said, before dissolving into barely-suppressed snorting. He covered his mouth as if to hold the laughter in, looking like he’d almost cry because of it. “Sorry, sorry! I don’t think that’s the right word, friends. We’re just… us. We’re a… Haha. We stopped fighting a long time ago. There was no point. You have no idea how angry I was to see him, though! I thought I would be all alone in here, but when I woke up he was sulking on the dock. Still, when I came back here, he was… Oh!”
Ven jumped, as if something had touched him. But something had touched him, something that looked like two paws wrapping around his foot. With an exasperated snort, Ven hauled it up. Once he’d done so, Roxas could see what it was – an impossibly fluffy, rotund cat with a tied ribbon as a tail. Perhaps it was two tails, long ribbon tails that hung from a bow. It looked almost like a pink cloud vaguely shaped into a cat, it was so fluffy and round. Though for a moment he was shocked, once he looked at it closer Roxas immediately knew the creature wasn’t a Heartless. It was a pale pink in color, with a heart-shaped nose and a black mark on its back that Roxas thought he’d seen somewhere. The cat’s face looked strangely insistent, and Ven pet it gently as it headbutted his chest.
“I get it,” he said quietly, and as Roxas watched Ven cuddled it up to his chest. Whatever the creature was, Ven was treating it softly. Roxas thought it was probably the right thing to do. That cat seemed like it needed something from him, almost demanding, and Ven definitely cared about it and what it was looking for. “Sorry, I should really go.”
“Go?” The words didn’t really make sense. Clearly the cat’s appearance meant something, but Roxas wasn’t sure what that something was. Were these creatures on the island as well, and Ven took care of them? The idea that there was a group of things that were and weren’t animals in Sora’s heart was a little weird.
“I’m kind of expected,” Ven said, getting to his feet without setting the creature down. He patted its head again, and though it still was determined it seemed calmer and rubbed against his neck. “This guy’s something called an Unversed. They don’t naturally exist here, they’re constructs. Uh… they’re emotions, but given shape.”
Small, fat, with big eyes, and Ven doing things for it. Ven was treating it like a baby, almost. No, that wasn’t right, Roxas thought. But he was treating it gently, as if it was precious to him. To Roxas’s immense confusion, the other boy bent and pressed his lips to the Unversed’s face. Though the cat made no sound, its paws rose to caress Ven’s cheeks and hold on to him.
Were these Sora’s feelings? What would Ven do with them? Another creature was floating up, and then another and another – a flock of bright yellow creatures, birds with long, red beaks that looked like flowers and wings that flapped too fast to be truly seen. Each of them was stamped with the same mark, another kind of Unversed. They crowded around Ven, pushing at his body with increasing insistence.
“Okay, okay!” Though there had to be at least a dozen of these creatures, Ven was patting and stroking each of them without doubling up even once. He knew exactly which ones he’d already touched, it seemed. Ven was clearly used to them and knew how to respond to them. One by one, he scratched them beneath their beaks. Ven was almost acting like he was being surrounded by a swarm of eager dogs. “I know. How lame, honestly… I’ll be back, I promise. I just gotta go sort things out, or else there’s gonna be more. I don’t want that stupid chest to show up, so I really need to go. They’re getting all excited now, jeez. Relax, you guys!”
“R-right,” Roxas said dumbly, feeling as stupid as he sounded. The swarm of emotions around Ven was contracting, all of them trying to draw closer to him. It was like they were clamoring for his attention.
“I can explain after, or… Xion, you can tell him if you want. I’m pretty sure you get it.” Xion nodded easily, her smile strange and gentle. She knew what the Unversed were, it seemed. Though Roxas didn’t think she shared the same obvious fondness for them that Ven had, she definitely thought they were cute. They were kind of cute, Roxas thought. “Okay, I’ll be back soon!”
Though Ven had expressed exasperation that Vanitas had skipped the stairs, he too jumped down from the bridge and jogged towards the cove. All of the Unversed followed him, almost like ducklings trailing after their mother. It wasn’t until the door closed behind him that Roxas realized where he’d seen the symbol on those creatures.
The buckle on Vanitas’s belt was the same design.
Roxas felt his mouth fall open, and Xion let out a snorting giggle.
“You figured it out, then?” Dumbfounded, Roxas turned to face her. Clearly Xion thought it was pretty funny, and if nothing else that made him happy. They were Vanitas’s emotions. That was something he had no idea how to react to. Unsure what to say in response to the question, Roxas simply nodded. “Aren’t they adorable? I don’t know what they all mean, but they show up sometimes. There’s lots of them. Some of them aren’t cute at all, but those ones are. There are ones that sort of look like floating jellyfish, and they show up when he’s lonely according to Ven, but that’s all I really know.”
“Lonely?” It was surprising that Vanitas could feel something like that. Maybe what Ven had said about him putting up a front was truer than he’d thought. He wondered what the ones he’d just seen meant. They all seemed like they liked Ven, at complete odds with how Vanitas had acted. What was that supposed to mean?
“Yeah, they were here when I first came here. There were loads of them, hundreds or maybe even thousands. Just… everywhere. They were the only thing around. I didn’t know what was happening at first, either. I actually thought they were Heartless, but they weren’t attacking. But when Ven showed up, Vanitas came out and they both… they acted really strangely, it was something I’d never seen before.”
“How so?”
“When Ven and I arrived here, it was the same way you did. We sort of… fell. We fell from the sky, into the ocean.”