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Ventus had a little secret.
Ever since he woke up, he had a stowaway in his heart.
“Don’t you think the stars have been… brighter, recently?”
He’d kept that quiet. They weren’t fighting, and it wasn’t like Vanitas could go anywhere.
They didn’t answer his question. But he felt them, inside his heart, gazing at the skyscape as well.
Some of the stars were very bright. Brighter than he’d ever seen them be. They were much too far away for him to just fly his way there on his glider, so he simply admired them.
It’d been three days since he noticed some of the stars seemed to glow more than usual. Now, more of them were brighter, some so much that their colours had faded into white.
Days passed. Ventus looked every night, noting in his mind which stars had grown more brilliant. Some of the constellations changed, their brightest stars no longer the ones they’d been.
“Hey, Vanitas,” he started, eyes fixated on Iota Geminorum, which had now grown to be the most intense of the Gemini constellation’s stars. “If we could get you a replica body… would you want one?”
“No,” they replied, from within his heart. “There’s no point, Ventus. Your precious friends would kill me on the spot for being a threat or whatever. I’d probably attack you anyways.”
“Would you? Why?”
“Your heart is boring as fuck, but outside is more annoying.”
“... I guess that makes sense, doesn’t it? It’s what you wanted the whole time, to come back here, right?”
“What I wanted, was the χ-blade. I couldn’t care less about this place.”
“Right. Hey, look, over there! With the brighter stars, it kinda looks like a heart!”
Aqua and Terra noticed the brighter stars, too. They’d reached out to King Mickey, and together they started forming plans to investigate.
“When the stars disappeared, it was because they were worlds falling to darkness,” Aqua explained. “We can’t be sure nothing’s happening to those as well. These stars are really far away, so we’ll need to prepare an expedition by gummi ship, with enough resources to make the trip back as well.”
They planned, together with the scientists from Radiant Garden.
Ventus wasn’t invited. Apparently, it was a Keyblade Master thing, now.
“But Aqua! I know all these stars super well. I could tell you which ones look wrong!”
“It’s dangerous, Ven, and your skills would be better used from here. We’ll take our gummiphones, you can guide us from Radiant Garden with Ienzo if you want?”
He settled on staying in the Land of Departure. He knew the skyscape from here, not from anywhere else; he wouldn’t be able to tell which is which unless he took the time to learn them all over again, which would distract him from his friends’ expedition.
“Do you think they’ll be alright, Vanitas?” He asked quietly, watching his friends fly out into the day, towards Radiant Garden, from which the gummi ship would set off. He kind of wanted to follow, but he knew for sure he’d be caught this time.
“Don’t know, don’t care,” they snarled in response.
Two days, and many phone calls later, the expedition consisting of Aqua, Terra, Riku, Mickey, Even and Ansem set off towards a faraway galaxy, which shone so bright it could be seen during the day, even when the sun was high.
Two more days later, one of the stars that had made up the big bright blotch in the sky was gone.
“We don’t know what happened,” Terra was the one to handle calling him. “Even and Ansem are trying to figure out what could’ve caused it. Mickey says it’s not like when the worlds fell to darkness. Stay safe, okay, Ven?”
“I am safe! It’s you guys I’m worried about. Do they have any idea what happened?”
“Not yet. I’ll tell you as soon as we know, I promise, Ven.”
Another day passed. More stars went bright. More stars went out.
They still had no idea what happened.
“Hey, Vani,” Ventus whispered, both to himself and to his guest. “It’s… not the darkness, right?”
“No.”
“What’s… happening, Vani?”
There was no answer.
The expedition changed course, their original targets now gone from the skies.
“It’s… the stars are blowing up. Ansem says it’s only meant to happen when they’re dying from old age, but…” Terra had said in a call, and sent with it a video recorded from the ship - a far away star so brilliant it was blinding, before it suddenly collapsed inwards, exploding in a wave of energy.
Supernovae.
That was the name of the phenomenon.
So many of the stars in the sky had gone bright, it felt like night never came.
“Vanitas?”
“What?”
“What’s happening?”
“... Why do you want to know?”
“Why? My friends are out there trying to figure it out, in the middle of danger! I want to know, I want them to be able to come home!”
“You misunderstand my question, Ventus. The truth will hurt. You already know that.”
“Tell me anyway, Vanitas. I want the truth. I… want to hear it.”
“...”
Vanitas was silent for many long moments. Ventus took the time to ponder his own words. There were many truths he didn’t actually want, that he refused to see. But he wanted this one, for himself.
“This worldline is dying.” were the words that finally came. “It’s time for it to go.”
“What? What?!”
“You’re the one who asked,” Vanitas huffed. “I’m only answering your question, Venty-Wenty.”
“I- I don’t get it! What do you mean, ‘this worldline is dying’? Does that mean we’re all-?”
“Doomed? Yes. The stars, the worlds are all going to blow up, one by one.”
“What are we supposed to do then?! There’s a way to stop it, right?”
“It’s over, Ventus.”
“No! I don’t believe you. You’re lying, Vanitas!”
“Believe what you will,” Vanitas huffed. “I’m telling you the truth. I don’t care what you do with it. If you want to waste your last few weeks trying to stop this, go right ahead.”
“No, I don’t believe this…” Ventus’ eyes welled with tears. “... What am I supposed to tell Terra and Aqua…?”
Vanitas was silent.
Over them, the sun that lit the Land of Departure looked a little redder.
“We will find a solution, but for now we need to find an alternative means of communication,” Ienzo explained to the whole group. “The energy from the supernovae are messing with the waves the gummiphones use to communicate. Please keep an eye out for-”
Ventus ignored it. He knew the truth now. Still, he refused to believe there was no solution. Not after everything they went through! They survived two keyblade wars, Xehanort’s machinations, so much, and for what-?
No! No. There had to be a way through this. Something had to be causing the stars to die out, maybe the heartless were devouring them or something!
The more he tried to convince himself, the less Ventus believed his own words.
Terra and Aqua’s calls regularly fizzled out. They could barely hold a conversation anymore. All that he knew was that his friends were safe, headed for a star that was yet dim enough to reach it before it collapsed.
“Vani…”
He started and stopped. No sentence followed for a good few minutes.
“Thank you for telling me the truth,” he said, eyes set on the burning hands of the Gemini.
“Aren’t you being selfish, keeping it to yourself?”
“What would I tell them?” A sad smile graced Ventus’ lips. “‘Hey, guys, by the way, Vanitas is alive in my heart and told me we can’t do anything about it!’ … That doesn’t sound right, does it?”
“And here I thought you were incapable of cruelty, Ventus.”
“No. Terra and Aqua wouldn’t want to know there’s no way out. They always look for a solution. It’s… I think it’s better like this.”
“Well well, Venty-wenty purposefully keeping things from his friends. Who would have thought?”
“It’s not like I’d be able to tell them anyway. And hey, it’s not much better for you! Now you’re stuck spending your final moments with me.”
“I was stuck with you anyways, dumbass.”
Quietness seeped in, filling in the blanks.
“Hey, Vani…”
“What?”
“If you had a body, right now, and you could go wherever you wanted… Where would you go?”
“...”
No answer was given. But in the depths of his heart, Ventus had a feeling of foreign warmth, close up against him.
Contact was lost.
Ventus could imagine Terra and Aqua’s renewed determination at the thought of being able to figure it out and go home, to find him again. He could imagine them, wondering if he was worried.
The night sky was bright, no longer giving the comfort of the dark, instead lit up by thousands, millions of stars on the brink of bursting, far away from the Land of Departure.
The sun of its system, too, was dazzling. Vivid oranges had given in to deep reds, and Ventus was left watching what was probably his last few days.
He wasn’t alone, at least.
“Hey, Vani.”
“What?”
“What do you think we would’ve been, in another life?”
“What kind of question is that, dumbass? There’s plenty of other lives. There’s probably entire realities where I don’t exist.”
“Is that true? What would I be like, in that kind of place?”
“How the fuck am I supposed to know?”
“Hmmm…”
Ventus pondered the question, trying to think of what he would be like if Vanitas had been an inherent part of him instead.
“I don’t think I like that. It sounds lonely.”
“You were.”
“What?”
“Lonely. Before I was with you. It’s what drew me in.”
“... Huh. I wish I remembered before better. I’m curious what you were like.”
“It’s not worth it.”
“I don’t believe that!”
“I don’t care what you believe. Before wasn’t like this.”
“Before also wasn’t the end of the world, so I think I liked it a little bit better. I wish I could have before with you, though.”
“...”
Ventus smiled. Above him, the surface of the Land of Departure’s sun rippled, thrumming with uncontainable energy.
“Hey, Vani.”
“What?”
“Thank you for being here.”
“Fuck you.”
“I mean it! I’m… despite everything, I’m glad you’re here. With me.”
“Whatever. Don’t care. Stop being weird, Ventus.”
“I…”
Ventus scrambled for words.
“Hey, Vani…”
“What.”
“Do you… think we’ll be together, in the next life?”
“There’s no next life, Ventus. The world is ending. The entirety of this worldline is going to collapse in on itself.”
“... And then?”
“And then…”
“Do you know what’s gonna happen?”
“... In a really, really long time… everything that remains will gather in in one place. That place…”
Above them, the sun’s surface quivered, reds overwhelmed by sudden blue. It looked bigger than ever.
“... In that place, where everything gathers, there’ll be too much… and it’ll scatter all over again. Then, a new world will be born.”
“Will it be full of stars, like this one?”
“Why do you admire the stars so much? They’re about to kill us.”
“I just… think they’re beautiful, you know? It reminds me of…” your eyes, were his words, unsaid. He remembered burning orange, splattered with gold, as if a star shone in the middle of each.
He didn’t say it. Didn’t need to.
“Hey, Vani.” He said, one last time.
“What?”
“Will we meet again?” his voice was soft, and high above, the sun collapsed inwards.
“... I’ll wait for you.”