Chapter Text
The first time Ventus has one of the dreams, he’s camped out in the Realm of Darkness with Terra and Aqua, weeks into their search for any hint of Sora’s whereabouts.
It hardly even counts as a dream, really—it’s more of a brief, disjointed snippet. In it, he finds himself sitting at a round table, feeling much too small for his chair, with several people in the other seats. The person directly next to him looks at him and pats him on the shoulder, an expression on his face that reminds him of Terra. Someone else opens their mouth and starts to speak, and then Ventus is awake before he can hear what it is they have to say.
An awful feeling sits on his chest as he opens his eyes and forces himself to sit up. He had thought his life was starting to calm down—Xehanort is dead and Vanitas has faded away, the two biggest threats to his life gone. The search for Sora has meant that things can’t return entirely to normal yet, but Ventus has still been able to sleep easier, without constantly wondering what’s going to pop up next.
It seems it’s this, whatever it is.
Terra and Aqua are already awake, speaking to each other in hushed tones from the safety of the protective bubble that surrounds them. Aqua takes notice of him first, a concerned look crossing over her face. “Ven?” she says. “You look pale. Are you alright?”
“I—” Ventus swallows down his words. He doesn’t want to worry her further, knowing that being in the Realm of Darkness has been gradually taking a toll on her, even if she hides it. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just had a weird dream.”
The way Aqua looks at him says that she doesn’t quite believe him, but thankfully she doesn’t press any further. “Okay,” she says. “Just let us know if you need to stop and rest anytime today.”
Ventus smiles at her, but the look doesn’t quite reach his eyes. Something is missing.
That night, he has another strange dream that’s slightly longer than the one from before. Someone who reminds him of Aqua is talking to him kindly, and he can see her face almost entirely clearly this time—her earrings stick out to him. She asks him if he wants to go do something, and as soon as he says yes, he wakes up.
That’s where the pattern begins. The more time they spend in the Realm of Darkness, traveling further and further, the more vivid and frequent the dreams become. He sees more people and remembers more names—he even remembers their voices and the feeling of their hugs. He remembers pain and separation and happiness and friendship, all coming back to him so quickly that he feels like he’s reeling.
It doesn’t take long to make the connection that he must be having these dreams because something in this realm is bringing them up. At first he’s confused—what here would have a hold on his heart and mind?—but then he realizes.
It has to be something related to Vanitas, who is Ventus’s strongest tie to the darkness. Ventus’s heart must be calling out to his lost half more strongly than ever—and that’s where the problem begins. If Vanitas is truly gone, how is there still a connection? How would there be some trace of him here, long after Ventus watched him fade away into wisps of darkness?
Unless, of course, the impossible. Or, what Ventus thought was impossible.
Vanitas isn’t gone, and not only that—he might be closer than Ventus could ever think. He, along with Terra and Aqua, have to be getting closer to Vanitas day by day, which explains why the dreams keep getting stronger the further they explore. Is Vanitas waiting there, in the heart of the realm? That question starts to keep Ventus up at night.
Ventus sits with the knowledge for what feels like forever, unsure whether or not he should bring it up to his friends. However, before he can do that, everything changes again.
It happens one evening when they’re settling down for sleep, talking and reminiscing about the old days. Aqua’s Gummiphone suddenly rings, the first communication they’ve gotten in quite some time. She casually pulls it out to check it, and that casual demeanor disappears in an instant as she nearly drops the phone in her rush to accept the video call.
“Kairi! You’re awake!”
As soon as the words are out of her mouth, Ventus and Terra scramble to her sides, squishing in beside her so they can see the screen. There Kairi is, looking as healthy as ever, not as if she’s been asleep for a year. The smile on her face only speaks of good news.
“Hi, Master Aqua, Terra, Ven!” she says, waving to them. “I’ve got so much to tell you—”
They all listen intently as Kairi recounts her journey through memories, ending with the explanation of how Riku is going to find Sora on his own. “So I was thinking that instead I could come to the Land of Departure to study under you, Master Aqua,” Kairi continues, a sweet and tentative smile on her face. “Do you have room for me?”
“More than enough,” Aqua reassures her, using the sisterly tone that Ventus has grown used to. “We’d be happy to have you. If Riku’s already left, Terra, Ven, and I will be home as soon as possible.”
“Great!” Kairi says. She looks away when someone off-camera speaks to her and nods before she turns her attention back to Terra, Aqua, and Ventus. “I have to go now. Let me know when you’re ready for me!”
Once they’ve all said their goodbyes, Aqua puts her phone away and dismisses the protective bubble around them. “Let’s go home,” she says, standing up with a smile on her face.
“Let’s go home,” Terra repeats.
Ventus tries to speak, but words fail him and his throat tightens up. Home—shouldn’t he want to be back there more than anything? Shouldn’t he want to be back in the light again, away from all the crawling Heartless and oppressive feelings that weigh on them every second of every day?
So why does he feel like crying in a bad way? The pressure is already building up behind his eyes, and he resists the urge to sniffle, not wanting Terra and Aqua to notice it and question what’s wrong.
Of course Terra notices, though. While Aqua’s busy summoning the portal, he puts his hand on Ventus’s shoulder and smiles at him. “I’m happy too,” he says. “Things will finally be back to normal.”
Ventus doesn’t tell him the real reason he’s about to cry. He just returns the smile the best he can, hoping it doesn’t look as shaky as it feels, and nods. Maybe leaving the Realm of Darkness and returning to his life will make him feel better. Maybe that’s the real reason for the ache deep inside him that grows stronger with every hour that passes.
The first night they spend back in the Land of Departure, Ventus doesn’t have a single dream. That’s how he knows his hunch was right—what’s been calling to him is firmly settled in the Realm of Darkness. The key he’s looking for has been locked away.
A small part of him thinks that since the dreams have evidently stopped, he shouldn’t bother himself with thinking about them or Vanitas any longer. It would be a far better use of his time to throw himself into training alongside Kairi so that he can continue to pursue his old dream of becoming a Keyblade Master—but now that he knows what’s waiting for him, there’s no way he can forget about any of it.
For weeks he finds his thoughts consumed by Vanitas and what he assumes to be his—their—past, enough so that his friends notice how distracted he is.
“You remind me of Sora lately. It seems like your head’s always up in the clouds,” Kairi says to him one day while they’re sparring. “What’s up?”
Ventus almost instinctively says nothing like he’s done with everyone else, but for some reason he doesn’t this time. There’s just something about Kairi—he feels like she’d understand the call he feels more than anyone else right now. He wonders if it’s a pure light thing.
“My heart’s being called somewhere else,” he confesses, easily avoiding one of her swings, “but Terra and Aqua would be furious if I went after it.”
Kairi is quiet for a few moments as she lunges for him again. When he swiftly evades her like he usually does, far faster than her, she props her Keyblade on her shoulder like Sora and looks at him. “They can be pretty overprotective, can’t they?” she says, a sympathetic smile on her face. “If you ask me… if it’s something that important, I think you should go after it.” She presses a finger to her lips and winks at him. “I won’t even tell. I can help cover for you as long as you’re not gone for too long.”
Ventus smiles. Suddenly it feels as if a weight has been lifted off his shoulders, knowing that he has at least one person’s support. “Thanks, Kairi,” he says. “I appreciate it.”
Kairi copies his smile and then thrusts Destiny’s Embrace out again, challenging him. “Now stop thinking about it and stop going easy on me!” she demands.
Ventus doesn’t know if she’s ready for it, but he doesn’t go easy on her, just because she listened.
He takes another few days to mull over his options before he decides he can’t sit on this any longer. He has to see if Vanitas is really there—it could end up that he actually isn’t, and then Ventus can move on with his life like none of this ever happened.
The next time Aqua gives him and Kairi a day off, he decides to do it. He tells Aqua that he’s going off-world (though he doesn’t specify where) for the day and then arranges with Kairi that she’ll fill in the gaps if Aqua starts asking questions. So before he knows it, Ventus finds himself standing in front of a portal in his room. After putting on his Keyblade armor, he takes a breath—two breaths—three breaths—and steps through.
The Realm of Darkness is just how they left it. It seems quiet and still until he pays attention to the background, where Shadows writhe in the distance, drawn to light. For a few moments Ventus has no idea what to do, so he figures that the simplest thing to do is ask. “Vanitas,” he calls out, his voice echoing in the emptiness. “I’m here.”
There’s nothing. As the minutes stretch out, Ventus starts to feel incredibly stupid. He watched Vanitas fade away into nothing—why and how would he be here? The dreams were probably just a coincidence and the call in his heart is just from restlessness. There’s no way it’s someone who no longer has a physical form.
Ventus draws his Keyblade to summon a portal back, ready to leave, when: Ventus.
Ventus goes perfectly still, not even breathing. Several long moments pass before he replies. “Vanitas?”
Oh, aren’t you smart? the voice says, seeming to come from nowhere and everywhere all at once. How kind of my other half to come visit me again. It’s been a long year, hasn’t it?
Ventus feels like he’s frozen solid, but he doesn’t know why. He came here to seek out Vanitas, after all, so why should he be terrified? Isn’t this what he wanted—closure? Some way to make sense of everything that’s been happening to him? This is that way, the only one.
“I need to see you,” he says. “Can you please talk to me?”
Oh? Dare I believe it? My other half needs me? Be still, my beating heart. Vanitas’s laugh echoes. Why should I do that after you shunned me for so long?
“Because you feel it too,” Ventus says. That’s an assumption, but one that he’s pretty sure is true. “I’m not the only one who’s been having the dreams. They led me back to you, which means…” Yours lead back to me, he thinks.
That’s awfully presumptuous, Vanitas replies. Ventus can imagine his haughty expression in his mind’s eye. I told you that I decided who I am. My path leads elsewhere.
“I know. I’m not trying to stop you,” Ventus says. “I just think we need to talk to each other to find closure.”
Vanitas’s laugh echoes again, making Ventus’s skin crawl. Closure, he says, caressing the word the same way he does Ventus’s name. You mean you want to tie up loose ends so that you can move on with your happy little life.
Ventus can’t help but feel slightly bruised that Vanitas thinks that’s his goal. Things had been different before, sure—Vanitas was a threat to all of existence along with Xehanort, so there had been no choice but to get rid of him. But now it’s obvious that Vanitas has given up on his goal of them becoming one and creating the χ-blade, which means that they can be in each other’s life for the first time now.
“I don’t want to just move on,” Ventus says, standing his ground. “You don’t have to go anywhere but here, but… please just give me this.”
Vanitas is silent for so long that Ventus thinks he might have left. Then, finally, comes a sigh that sounds like a gust of wind in this place without a breeze. You’ve always liked making stupid decisions, haven’t you?
Ventus rolls his eyes, but he still finds himself grinning. “We’ll just have to see if it’s stupid,” he replies. “Now will you let me see you?”
Vanitas sighs again and things go quiet for another minute. Then, out of the shadows steps a figure that Ventus was so sure no longer existed not even that long ago—but now here he is in the flesh, like nothing has changed. His head is held high, always defiant, and he stands there with the same confidence that he did the times he faced Ventus in the Keyblade Graveyard. Vanitas is alive.
“Missed me, Ventus?”
Yes, Ventus thinks without hesitation, though he doesn’t dare to say it. He doesn’t dare to say anything—it feels like he’s lost his voice as he stares at Vanitas, so many emotions going through him all at once. If he had any doubt before that this is where his heart has been leading him, it’s all gone now; it’s obvious that this is what his whole being has been calling out to, so strongly that he finds himself stepping closer to Vanitas without even realizing it.
“You’re quiet all of a sudden,” Vanitas says. He starts to circle Ventus like a vulture around a carcass. “That’s odd. Usually you can’t shut up.”
That jab helps Ventus find his voice again. “Says you,” he replies. “You monologue every time we come across each other.”
“So you can bite back still.” Vanitas laughs and puts his hands on his hips, looking Ventus up and down with a critical eye. “Now what is it you want?”
“Like I said, to talk,” Ventus says. “There’s gotta be a reason for why my heart’s pulling me to you more than before, right? And—”
At that moment, his phone chimes with a text from Kairi, warning him that Terra and Aqua are worried about him. Ventus doesn’t know how Ienzo made it happen, but he modified their Gummiphones so that their time would stay synced with the Realm of Light. When he looks down at the screen to see what Kairi said, he realizes that it’s much later than he expected it to be—time really does flow differently here. He has to get back soon before Aqua sends out a search party.
“I’ve gotta go,” he says, looking down at his phone regretfully. “Can I come back and see you again?”
Ventus thought he explained his reason well enough, yet Vanitas genuinely looks taken aback at the request. “Why?”
“Because there’s so much we haven’t talked about yet!” Ventus says, gesturing widely. “Please?”
Vanitas crosses his arms and taps his foot on the ground, regarding Ventus as he makes his decision. “Fine,” he says after so long that Ventus was positive he’d say no. “Only because it’s boring here. You’d better make it worthwhile.”
Ventus snorts. It’s something novel, to find Vanitas… funny. Does he enjoy talking to him? What a change. “Okay. It’s a date,” he says as he summons a portal back to the Realm of Light, thinking nothing of his words. “See you later, Vanitas.”
As soon as Ventus steps back through the portal into his room at the Land of Departure, he feels like a piece of him has been ripped away. It’s as if someone reached into his chest and tore a chunk of his heart out, and more than ever before, he feels like something is missing. His whole being yearns for it, and now he knows the only thing it can be.
He turns around and watches the last wisps fade away, locking him and Vanitas into different realms. “Vanitas,” he says, his hand over his heart. “Is this what you feel?” The feeling of separation is so heavy and oppressive that he’s a split second away from flinging himself back into the Realm of Darkness. Guilt rolls in his chest, knowing that Vanitas had to carry this burden for so long.
Ventus gradually sinks to the ground, his legs folded beneath him. He breathes slowly until the pain in his chest is more bearable, but he still feels partially hollow and has the sinking feeling it’s not going to go away until he sees Vanitas again.
At that moment, all his reservations are gone. His worries about his friends’ reactions are gone. There’s no way he could bear this pain for the rest of his life—there’s no choice but to go back to the other half of his heart as soon as he can. To do anything else... would be death.