Chapter Text
“What I am is darkness.”
He’d said it. He’d meant it. He’s sticking with it. That everyone present took those for final words as his body faded into particles of shadow was their own problem, not his. Fact of the matter is, Vanitas was not as dead as he would have people believe.
He rematerialized outside of the labyrinth of buttes and stone walls Xehanort had erected and started walking. The Xehanorts and the Heroes would, for sure, be too preoccupied to notice him get up and leave their final epic brawl. Not his problem. He didn’t have a destination in mind. He hadn’t even thought to leave the badlands, a familiar territory after so many years, so physically walking out into the desert seemed as good an option as any. Which was to say: Vanitas could not point to any good option he’d ever picked.
Picking good options was not easy when you were born to be a puppet for a supervillain obsessed with destroying the universe out of perverse curiosity. Vanitas had thought about leaving, sometimes, and about striking out on his own. Causing his own chaos and mayhem. But he had always needed to be stronger first, to take Xehanort’s teachings so that if he did leave, the consequences wouldn’t hit as hard. Faking his own death in the middle of a twenty-person ultra showdown hadn’t been as hard as he’d thought it would be.
Vanitas curled his fingers in and out of fists, and tried not to notice the sweat starting to gather between his suit and his bare skin underneath. Maybe now that he had the time, he could grab himself some socks from some unsuspecting world, to be a buffer between his feet and the rubber of his boot soles. He was long past the point of noticing blisters, but if he thought about how gross he must be right now, he might just spew Unversed about it. Luckily, the Heroes had already killed all the nearby heartless. So that was one less problem. He ducked behind an outcropping of rocks and spared a look back. He couldn’t see much from here, but the sound of heavy impacts still reached him. His feet felt on the verge of squelching from their moisture. He grimaced.
Yeah. That was obviously step one of his budding plan. Socks. A bath, if possible. A dark corridor was easy enough to open up and stroll through, and coming out the other side to cooler air was a relief. He could not say why he chose this world in particular, just that it was not somewhere people would think to look for him, and it was quiet. Vanitas couldn’t remember smelling the flowerbeds last time he was here, because of the helmet, but he could imagine the scent well enough. Now, with his visor cracked, he was hit with the full force of it. He would have to do something about that. It was strange seeing half his field of vision in full clarity and the other half shadowed as usual.
This world was different than the last time he had been here. Less people for starters, but that suited him fine. The castle loomed half-crumbling to his left, but that hollowed-out bastion of light was not his ultimate goal here. He turned to start the trek into the lower reaches of the town. Statistically, with all the people that Radiant Garden had lost to darkness, there had to be one empty house easy enough to break into if he could just find it.
He skirted around the cobbled town square, pulling himself up walls and over roofs where he deemed necessary. If the rubber soles of his boots were good for something, it was staying quiet during parkour.
Vanitas paused. There may have been a snag in the plan, mainly how to tell the abandoned houses from those simply unoccupied. He would have to wait for nightfall. Observe the lights from windows carefully. It might even take multiple nights…
That was fine. This did not even register on the boy’s scale of roughing it. It was just- Vanitas had always thought himself capable of killing anyone who got in his way, but there was something excessive about the idea of killing the people here. It was one thing to try killing the other half of yourself (who was trying just as hard to kill you back), and another to kill bystanders. No matter how evil Vanitas felt, he hesitated sometimes. Master Xehanort would be disappointed in him.
He pulled himself up another stone wall, hopped lightly onto the brown roof tiles of another house, and settled down behind the mess of copper pipes that counted for chimneys on this world.
…………….
“...ra? Sora! Would you like to get down from there?”
The voice that woke him was tired, but young. Vanitas panicked for a second. They had found him. His Master was coming to take him back. He had won the battle… That didn’t sound right. The voice had not been calling his name. He poked his head around the chimney pipes and looked down.
“Oh. Not Sora.” It was one of his Master’s Nobody’s old lackeys. Steel-coloured hair over one eye, lab coat, stupid purple ascot. Vexen’s partner. The boy settled back into his hiding spot, confident that even if this idiot had found him, he had nothing in his arsenal capable of removing Vanitas. If he wanted Vanitas gone, he should have attacked him while he still slept, instead of shouting the wrong names at him.
It was early evening on this world by now, judging by the warm light on one half of Vanitas’ face. He wondered whether the final battle was over yet. Probably, given the fact that this world still existed for him to fall asleep in. But, as he kept having to repeat to himself, that was not his problem anymore. He was free to do whatever he wanted to do now, and what he wanted to do right now was take a nap and then maybe later do a little breaking and entering. For fun and profit. The profit being socks. The science lackey was still speaking to him, something about did he need a ladder if he was stuck up there.
Vanitas scoffed, and leaned out again. “Fuck off.”
And amazingly, that seemed to work. The man shrugged and shuffled back off in the direction of the town, which still looked to be occupied at this time in the evening. He lay back down a final time. Hopefully. If nobody else decided to be nosy and not mind their own business about random boys sleeping on rooftops.
He woke up in the dark being carried in someone’s arms, which really spoke to how exhausted he must have felt. Or the bastards must have put a sleep spell of him. For their own safety. Yeah, that sounded better. He twisted sharply, using broad shoulders as a springboard to land catlike behind his captor. The man was big; easily three times bigger than Vanitas himself, with wild, light-coloured hair bound back forcibly by a headband. He looked at Vanitas like he couldn't decide whether to pity him or insult him. The boy snarled and thought about summoning his keyblade, before remembering his decision not to kill the people of this world unless absolutely necessary.
“Kid, I’m not gonna hurt you.” His voice was low, and terse, but not necessarily gruff.
“Where were you taking me?”
“Ienzo told us you were out here sleeping on a roof. Said it looked like you needed help. Asked us to come get you and bring you back to the castle.”
Vanitas felt his anger rising. How dare they? He had never asked for help in his life, and especially not from perfect strangers. Where did they get off looking down on him like that? Like a useless child? He crossed his arms and adopted the most infuriatingly disrespectful hip-cock he could. Wouldn’t do to appear phased; the guy might use that emotion against him somehow.
“Okay, then. Guess I’ll tell you what I told him earlier. Fuck. Off.”
“Look, kid, we can’t just let an unknown guy go around sleeping on people’s properties. It’s for everyone else’s safety too, so come quietly.”
“So I’m a prisoner now?”
The big man sputtered, caught off guard. “Wh- No, we just- Ienzo wants to help, I mean-”
“You can help by telling me which of these houses are uninhabited.” Maybe if Vanitas tripped him up enough, said enough unexpected lines, the guy would let information slip.
“I’m not going to do that.” Fuck.
Well, he at least tried it the easy way. Vanitas summoned his keyblade and held it pointed up at the man’s head. He narrowed his eyes in a suppressed flinch and Vanitas had to push down his own victorious expression. This guy had definitely fought a keyblade user before. Maybe his Master’s Nobody? Did he have a keyblade?
Vanitas took a fraction of a second to register his surroundings. The square on the way up to the castle where he had fought that teammate of Ventus’ so many years ago. This guy had definitely cast some sleep spell on him; no way he would be brought so far from him hiding spot otherwise. Absolutely no way. The guy pulled an axe out of god knows where and he was forced to refocus.
True to form, Vanitas got in the first swing, surprising his enemy. He hit fast and with his whole body, not expecting to miss, and the man’s axe rang as his blade scraped against the hasty block, but did not move back at all. He continued his assault with the terrible confidence granted to any short person full of rage, striking faster than the other could keep up with and catching his feet in pools of darkness wherever possible. It took a few minutes, but when he did go down, he went down like a rock. Vanitas raised his blade for a finishing blow.
Midswing, he felt the familiar impact of a fire spell hit him square between the shoulder blades. He stumbled to the side and straightened up slowly, then turned to see his next opponent.
“I don’t want to hurt you more. Let him up, please.” The lab rat in the ascot was back. “Aeleus? Can you stand?”
That must have been the big guy’s name. It rang a bell somewhere in Vanitas’ head, but he didn’t have time to examine the thought. The younger enemy walked closer, clutching at a book and a… blanket? That seemed a little out of place, but perhaps he’d come straight from his bed. But, he was still in the lab coat. Well. Who was Vanitas to judge how others chose to sleep? He couldn’t currently pinpoint the last time he took his own customary suit off.
The scientist (did he bother getting this guy’s name?) managed to pull the old man off the ground while Vanitas was distracted, and now looked at him expectantly. Must have asked a question. Vanitas huffed and looked off to his right. Despite it being the middle of the night, they had managed to gather a vague crowd, obviously of gawking imbeciles uncaring of their own safety.
“It seems evident you don’t plan to come with us, but can I at least secure a promise that you won’t attack civilians? I mean, it seems all we can do is to offer you our trust, unless you’d like to leave this world. That is another option available to you… uhh, you aren’t Sora. What is your name?”
“...I’m staying. Not with you though.”
“And you won’t hurt people? I’d hate to resort to drastic measures.”
He made a show of considering it, then nodded once.
…………….
He had been following this ascot jerk for five days now. Or, trying to. He didn’t leave the castle much, but the orange-haired mountain of a man and his darker guard partner were easier to trail. Not that that said much, since they never left their goddamn posts. Vanitas snarled and readjusted his position hidden in the shadows, and wondered for the hundredth time why he had let himself get distracted from his goal of stealing a house. But still, if he left them alone now, it would feel too much like giving up.
And it wasn’t all a waste of time. He had finally had time to think these past few days, to slow down without the threat of his Master breathing down his neck anymore. He could only assume the man was dead, since the worlds continued onward blissfully unaware of that particular looming danger. He could admit, with some distance between them now, that Xehanort had not treated him fairly. But that understanding only reaffirmed his choice to be darkness. He had followed the Heroes around for enough time to see them throwing around forgiveness left and right like the weaklings they were, and if they expected him to join in on that, he would definitely kill them for it. He had grown up with two very important understandings. One, that power came from darkness. And two, that the strongest darkness came from hatred. He would stay strong. He would keep his hatred of Xehanort, and it would keep him safe.
He still had no socks, and his visor was still cracked, but he had no way to fix it and nowhere to stash the helmet if he didn’t.
A brilliant idea struck him. Or an obvious idea, that merely seemed brilliant in his sleep- and food-deprived brain. He just had to break into the castle itself. If the scientist and his buddies had the gall to leave him at large, then they didn’t get to complain when he stole their stuff.
He didn’t wait for night this time. If it didn’t work in his last plan, then he wasn’t going to bother with it in this one. And anyway, sneaking into a castle was easy enough, given his amount of practise, and the fact that castle design tended to be predictable. Either there was going to be a path underground through the sewers, or Vanitas would have to climb one of the towers, which would normally be impossible, except that this castle was painfully understaffed. Vanitas decided, as was customary for him, to take the low road. He, for sure, already smelled bad enough that a quick romp through the sewers couldn’t make it that much worse.
He found a grate easy enough to slice through with his keyblade, and confidently ducked into the tunnel system. No one needed to know how many wrong turns he took. It’s not like he would not be telling this story to anyone.
Nothing seemed out of the ordinary when he emerged into the castle proper, keeping to the shadows and on the balls of his feet. The bedrooms would be deeper in and further up. He set off down the hall. It was dusty, but richly decorated, cream-plastered walls, an easily stealable vase on a pedestal every meter or so. Paintings of old guys hung up to stare judgmentally at him.
Maybe he was reading too deep into that last one.
It was when he reached the kitchen that the problems started. Namely, his stomach taking that moment to growl violently.
...There were only a limited number of other people in the building, and it wasn’t a recognized meal time. He could probably take a moment to grab something. Even still, Vanitas did his best to stay silent, snatching a tupperware out of one of the fridges at random and settling at a bench. This one was labeled for “Dilan.” It meant nothing to him. The pasta was good. A hand came down heavy on his shoulder and he flinched violently, leaping backwards against the counter and causing a great clatter of dishes and utensils. Vanitas was starting to think he wasn’t very good at this whole “making plans” thing. Probably why Xehanort never let him do it for himself.
It was that Aeleus guy, complete with stern eyes and a shit-eating smirk. His partner stood a few feet behind, staring mournfully down at the meal Vanitas had dropped. He must be “Dilan.”
“Dinner isn’t for another hour.”
“Did you forget so soon? I beat the hell out of you, jackass,” Vanitas snarled, “and I could totally refresh that memory right now if you’re so eager.”
“Dilan’ll make more pasta.” Vanitas turned the offer over in his head as the other guard made his protests.
“I’m free to leave afterwards?” Aeleus nodded. “Then, deal.”
He’d make sure to steal Dilan’s socks in particular on his way out.