Chapter Text
Under the cover of night and darkness, a figure in a black coat stepped lightly through the halls of the Land of Departure, furtively glancing over his shoulder, pausing at the slightest sound, sneaking through on a mission… from himself. Or one of his selves, anyway.
Beneath the hood were the tell-tale amber eyes and silver hair of Sora, the Corrupted Heart, secretly working for another of his alternate selves - one who he thought of as the Dark Heart. That Sora had somehow ended up in this reality and wanted to get back to his own, at any cost, even going so far as to threaten and bully Corrupted into cooperation.
His ability to help his other self was limited however. Corrupted knew that one of his other selves - the Metal Heart - had taken it on himself to keep a wary eye on him, highly distrustful of the Sora that he frequently referred to as ‘freak boy’. It was a nickname that Corrupted happily accepted, knowing just how accurately it described him.
Despite Metal’s cybernetic, almost robotic, body, within that artificial body was still a living brain that still had all the same needs as any other, which meant that even Metal needed to sleep. And so, Corrupted got up to his mischief in the dead of night, when he was certain that Metal slept.
Corrupted cautiously and slowly opened one door, peering inside the darkened room to check on Metal. He’d already come up with a plan long before, just in case Metal ever turned out to be awake when he made this check. As always however, he lay sprawled on the bed, a narrow sliver of moonlight creating a streak of illumination across the room.
Metal always slept under the covers and remained clothed beneath, Corrupted had noticed. He remained extremely sensitive about his body, and could become agitated, even aggressive, very quickly at those who drew attention to its artificial nature, to the point that he tried to keep most of the visual signs out of sight as much as possible.
The door was gently closed again, Corrupted satisfied that he wasn’t going to have any interference, and he started to move on once more. Personally, he felt that Metal was being far too hard on himself, and that if he had a body like that, with all the benefits he’d seen, he’d absolutely revel in it - but Corrupted also knew that his world-view was extremely twisted.
He also knew that if any of the other seven Soras found out what he was doing for Dark, Metal would be the first to come after him and attempt to make him regret it. But that was all part of the fun, and he had no qualms with what he was doing, despite knowing the potential consequences. He even had an excuse ready to go in case he was ever found out and asked why he was doing this…
Another door was opened, less cautiously this time. Corrupted knew that no one would be in the small lounge room beyond - Naminé, Vanitas and the Sora known as the Helpless Heart had all long since gone to bed. Corrupted tried not to think about the latter two - he’d found out about their relationship after accidentally slipping into their timeline, and the idea of them being together still made his blood boil.
A brief search of the room turned up what he was looking for - the mysterious letter to Naminé, written by the equally mysterious Master of Masters, containing a request and instructions. With them, Naminé would be able to reach into other timelines, even ones that no longer existed, and draw forth even more alternate Soras - though only for a short time, the letter indicated. If they wanted to become a permanent resident of this timeline, they would need a vessel.
“Wonder if they’ve mentioned that to Even?” Corrupted murmured to himself. “And why Dark doesn’t seem to need a vessel…”
Corrupted knew that he couldn’t take the letter - it would only be a matter of time before Naminé found it missing - so he tore out a page from the back of her sketchbook and wrote a copy in his own spiky scrawl. A commonality between him and his other selves that once, in a time before all their timelines had diverged, one of their teachers had likened to, “...a spider crawling out of an ink-pot and walking over the page.”
But if he could read his handwriting, then probably so too could Dark, and that was all that mattered. With this, perhaps Dark could come up with a plan to return to his own reality - a reality that Corrupted was intrigued by. From what little he knew, it didn’t sound like a simple alternate timeline - instead it sounded almost like… a mirror-reality.
It left him with many questions, which Dark refused to answer until he’d got back, having promised to take Corrupted with him. Just how different had their story turned out, with light and dark taking on each other’s roles? How different did each world turn out? Let alone the questions surrounding the idea of the seven princesses of pure dark hearts instead…
With the copy made, Corrupted returned Naminé’s letter where he’d found it, folded up and pocketed the copy, and started to make his way back again. There was one last order of business he had to take care of before joining Dark, and that was dealing with his day-time tail in Metal, who never let Corrupted go anywhere unsupervised just in case.
He’d focused on that task before all others, knowing that he needed to find a solution so he could operate during the day, otherwise everything else was pointless - as much as Dark had told him he’d be watching, he still needed Corrupted to actually physically deliver the results, and Dark was not willing to make another appearance in the Land of Departure unless absolutely necessary.
Corrupted’s earlier nightly exploits had therefore involved visits to what Metal simply called ‘That World’ - he always refused to name it, citing bad memories of how he’d lost his original organic body. Corrupted didn’t care what it was called, he just needed to know how Sora’s new body worked.
Of course, in this timeline, what had happened to Metal had not happened here. As a result, when Metal had first returned, he’d been obliged to tell them all about it - and as his body was a custom-made job, he had to share all the details with Kane, the cybertech who’d originally designed it for him in Metal’s original timeline.
Which had meant that the details were still on Kane’s computer systems for him to find and study, finding out things that Metal probably hoped no one - especially Corrupted! - ever found out. And now he knew exactly how he was going to deal with Metal…
Once more, he cautiously opened the door to Metal’s room, scanning it quickly. He froze, heart racing, as Metal moved - but to his relief, his other self was just shifting in his sleep, helpfully pushing the covers to one side without realising it. He waited a few moments to be sure, then started checking Metal’s now exposed pockets.
He knew he had to have a light touch with this - Metal’s cybernetic body had much more acute senses, and even though it would still take a few moments for him to actually register them and wake up, if he actually did wake up…
But luck seemed to be with him, as Corrupted found what he was looking for in the second pocket he checked - Metal’s gummiphone, powered on but in sleep mode. Corrupted quickly got out of Metal’s room, and once outside he woke up the phone only to power it off. He knew from what he’d discovered that Metal had linked it to himself, allowing him to access it through the display he saw overlaid over his vision, negating the need to actually pull the phone out.
If left on though, Metal would be able to tell where it was - and Corrupted couldn’t have that, not yet. All Metal needed to know was that someone had stolen it. Of course they’d suspect him, he was the first one to be suspected of everything! But he’d taken a leaf from another of his other selves, the Last Heart, who’d altered his own clothing with extra pockets.
Corrupted had been a bit more subtle, adding concealed pockets to his coat. His other selves could search him all they wanted - they’d never find Metal’s gummiphone. Not until it was too late…