Winds of Connection Chapter 4

The plan had been going well. For a time.

Sure, Aqua had basically given Ventus permission to do what he wanted to do anyway. Explore different worlds, make friends, all of those good things. He had to worry about what she and Terra were going through, knowing it was on some level for his sake. There was no way he couldn’t. But he figured if he kept moving then Vanitas, whatever plan he had in the works, would have to work to keep an eye on him, keep following him. That meant the masked jerk couldn’t cause any more problems for either of the people Ventus cared most about and Aqua could focus on dealing with whatever was really going on.

He just hoped it would be worth it in the end. That by the time they all met up again, they could put this whole thing behind them. Go back to how it was before.

He went to a few different places, not stopping for too long at any of them. A nice little town in the middle of a festival that old duck had given him tickets to. Even though Ventus had given his spares to Terra and Aqua he wasn’t surprised he didn’t find them there. Then there was the coliseum, meeting a couple of guys who wanted to be heroes. From there he ran across a weird ship travelling the Lanes Between somehow, trying to capture a little blue fuzzball that Ventus helped to escape. Then finally to an oceanside place where kids fought pirates with the help of a little fairy girl. It turned out the fairy had somehow gotten hold of Mickey’s Star Shard, the thing he used to travel between worlds. He had to bargain with the fairy to get her to give it to him. Offered a kiss for it.

Weirdly, the fairy had looked from him, to Peter the leader of the boys who lived there. Then she got this really conniving look on her face before she puckered up, fluttering her eyelashes at him. Well, whatever she was planning wasn’t Ventus’ problem and he really needed that Star Shard...

But on getting the world-travelling object back, things began to go wrong. It was cold comfort that they were going wrong in a way the Star Shard decided they needed to go. The second he took hold of the star-shaped artifact it whisked him away to another world, dropped him on the doorstep of a mysterious tower and two guys who reminded Ventus of his time in Disney Town. He had thought his luck was turning when they dragged him in front of Master Yen Sid. A colleague of Master Eraqus, a powerful wizard and apparently Mickey’s Master! He could get an update on how things were going at home, on how Aqua was doing! Not good news on either front, sadly. Master Eraqus was still insisting Ventus be returned home. He and Aqua had a... Well Master Yen Sid called it a ‘disagreement’ but Ventus knew he meant fight. The last the old wizard had heard, Aqua had gone off on her own while disregarding Eraqus’ orders.

All of that was less than good news. The blond didn’t like the idea of being the cause of fights between people who were close to him. But that was nothing to the reason he had been brought right to Yen Sid by Donald and Goofy. They had been looking for MIckey and thought Ventus’ appearance with the Star Shard was finally a lead. Not so, but it at least meant Mickey wasn’t bouncing around from world to world anymore so the great wizard could track him down with magic.

And they found him. Defeated. Left beaten and unconscious in a landscape Ventus found worryingly familiar.

Ventus knew he would be going against Aqua’s instructions. He knew. But it couldn’t dissuade him. Mickey had saved Ventus’ life before! He couldn’t abandon him when he needed help after that!

Would it have been better if he had stayed where he was? Stayed with Yen Sid, let Donald and Goofy go to rescue their king? No. Even with the benefit of hindsight he knew they would probably have simply died. Waiting there for whoever arrived was Master Xehanort and Ventus knew the only thing that had saved him from a deadly fate was that the keyblade master had greater plans for him. Plans Xehanort was happy to divulge as fragmented memories assaulted his former student. Memories of what had been done to him. The pain he suffered. The trauma. All planned. Ventus had thought himself a student back then, when in truth he was an experiment to forge the ultimate key. The X-blade. His heart ripped into halves of dark and light to be forcefully united once again. And the time for that union was drawing near.

What Xehanort had been planning... Vanitas’ involvement. That had been it, hadn’t it? What it was all about. And Master Eraqus had known all along. It was why he insisted Ventus come home. Why he was furious when Aqua refused to return him.

Ventus had barely had the chance to realise all of this before he was thrown through a portal back home. And there...

Things went from bad to worse.

Barely had Ventus even said what he had learned before Eraqus decided he was too much of a risk to allow to live. Terra stepped in, started fighting the Master. The last thing Ventus saw before his friend tossed him through another portal was Terra tapping into his darkness.

So now here he was. In a place he didn’t recognise, and yet did at the same time. A beach. What looked like a tropical island. There was a memory but it stung to try to draw it closer. Besides, wherever he ended up didn’t matter! He had to go back and help Terra to... He didn’t know. He just knew he needed to help!

“Hello again.” His hand that had been reaching for the trigger to his keyblade armour stopped. A keyblade appeared in it as he whirled around to look up at the masked Vanitas casually sitting on the edge of the dock. “Oh, I like that look! That’s exactly the kind of look I was hoping for! Having a bad day?”

“You!” Ventus exclaimed. “How did you find me so fast?! I didn’t even know I’d end up here!”

“Ventus,” Vanitas drawled in disappointment. “Didn’t Xehanort tell you? Even an idiot like you should understand it all by now.” Expression hidden behind the mask, his actions conveyed his mockery as he casually rested an elbow on his knee and the mask on his hand. “Come on, put the pieces together. Ha! Put the pieces together! Ah, I didn’t mean to make a joke there. But no, seriously, I’ll wait.”

“Does everything have to be a stupid mind game with you?!” Ventus demanded furiously. “I know you’re my darkness! I guess my darkness was all about being a jerk!”

“Well you’re not wrong!” Vanitas vocally shrugged. “But yeah. I was your darkness once upon a time. Now go on, what does that mean?”

“... We’re connected,” Ventus finally realised with dawning horror. “Everywhere I went you could follow me by following the link between us.” The plan Aqua had come up with had been pointless. It didn’t matter how often he moved from place to place. Vanitas could track him no matter what.

“Ladies and gentlemen it’s true, he really can learn! I mean sure you got spoonfed every bit of information you needed. But you got there in the end! I’m proud of you.” The hand holding his mask dropped, the arm casually resting horizontally on his knee. “Yes. I was your darkness and because of that I can follow you wherever you go.”

“I guess if you’re the darkness following me everywhere then that makes you the shadow, doesn’t it?”

A tinge of malice crept into Vanitas’ self impressed laughter at the barb. “Oh, the reject thinks he’s clever now. You’re right though. I did follow you everywhere. Watched you travel from world to world regathering the strength you lost. I watched you grow like a proud parent. Now,” the dark figure rose to his feet, the black and red keyblade flashing into its hand, “it’s time to fulfil our destiny!”

Ventus could hear the smile in Vanitas’ voice. The X-blade. If the two of them fought their broken hearts would clash and forge it then and there. And so the solution was obvious. The keyblade in Ventus’ hand vanished. His stance relaxed. His expression one of smug victory. “No.”

“No?” Vanitas still sounded amused.

“I don’t care how badly you want to be Xehanort’s tool. I have something to live for. If fighting you is what makes the X-blade then I just won’t fight you. Kill me if you want. No matter what, yours and Xehanort’s plans end here!”

It was a logical play. The sensible play. The self-sacrificing play. After all there was a non-zero chance Vanitas really would just cut him down then and there. But for all of that, Ventus didn’t think his darkness’ reaction would be uproarious laughter as his own keyblade vanished. “You know I remember when the best backtalk you had was shouting ‘That’s not true!’ over and over. Haven’t you grown bold. Now what might’ve been the cause of that I wonder...” He made a show of putting a pondering finger under his chin, then raising it as if in epiphany. “Oh! Maybe it comes from a couple of special people finding some strange value in half-hearted trash like you!”

“If I’m half-hearted so are you, idiot,” Ventus sniped.

“Tch,” Vanitas tutted, actually growing irritated at his light half’s backtalk. “You know what? I think we need to see how long you can plead pacifism while I cut your pretty little girlfriend to ribbons. Oh, and don’t worry about Terra. We have plans for him too.” With a wave of his arm, a portal appeared behind him. “Of course, if you want to stop being a coward and accept your role, you’ll meet me at the Keyblade Graveyard to settle this. If not, Master and I will just have to satisfy ourselves with our other guests.”

-(-)-

Ventus trudged between the rows upon rows of keyblades that made up this place. The Keyblade Graveyard. He couldn’t deny each keyblade truly did resemble a grave marker. Would his rest here? Would his even exist if the X-blade was forged?

He wanted to believe it wouldn’t be. It said a lot that his hopes for the outcome were of a tragic death. At least then he would end on his own terms. Xehanort had tried to make him a puppet. Had succeeded with half of him. And really, Vanitas was succeeding where his master failed. Ventus was here, wasn’t he? Right where Xehanort and Vanitas wanted him.

He saw Aqua and Terra. Their expressions grim as they talked, too far away for Ventus to hear. That Terra was even there said as much about how his fight with Master Eraqus ended as the guilt that creased his brow.

The regretful expressions didn’t brighten at all when they saw him walking towards them. They all knew why they were there. All of them had been played from the very beginning by Xehanort and Vanitas. Even in hindsight it all seemed so inevitable that it would come to this. None of them knew what they needed to if they were going to even try to avoid this outcome.

“Xehanort… He wants me and Vanitas to fight. He hopes it’ll forge some sort of X-blade.” He spit the word. He didn’t know what it was, not really. But he refused to die to make it. “If that happens… Terra, I don’t want that to become that. If it comes down to it, I want you to end me.”

“Ven!” both Terra and Aqua shouted at the same time.

“Don’t say that! Don’t you ever say that, okay?!” Aqua demanded, grabbing him by the shoulders. “We’ll work this out! We’ll protect you no matter what so just–!”

“That’s not how this works, Aqua,” Ventus said softly, taking her hands from his shoulders. “Xehanort planned all of this and this is the only way I can see out of it.” He looked up at her. If he was going to say this he would look her in the eye. “I want you to know. I love you, Aqua.”

He didn’t know what he wanted her reaction to be but anger wasn’t what he expected. “Shut up!” She pushed his hands away. “Shut up! Don’t say that like it’s the last time! We’ll find a way out of this! I swear it! I’ll protect you!”

Footsteps in the dust.

As Xehanort arrived with Ventus’ masked counterpart he held nothing but smug satisfaction in his gaze. As he revelled in his grand design and declared its final purpose with a finger pointed at Ventus. “X-blade!”

This was the moment. The potential end of everything the three apprentices had worked for. In unison they all activated their armour, steeling themselves for the fight of their lives.

Ventus didn’t know why he tried to move first, tried to attack the bearded keyblade master. Some urge to defy Xehanort. A desire to forge his own path. To rage against the man who only saw him as a tool, unsatisfied with destroying him only once. But as Ventus moved, so too did Terra, pulling the blond back as he raced forward. Meaningless. It didn’t matter at all who went first as Xehanort with a mere wave of his hand tore the ground below him upward creating sheer cliffs from which the two creatures of darkness could survey their attackers. With another wave of his hand, hundreds of the dormant keyblades surrounding them came to life. This was the power they were trying to battle? It was too much! How could they fight someone who could do all this without even summoning his own keyblade?!

Vanitas took the opportunity his master presented. Jumped down onto the storm of keyblades and began riding it, guiding it toward Aqua and Ventus. The blades were as lifeless as ever, merely debris, but that didn’t mean they were harmless. A storm of metal moving at high speeds needed to be avoided. Aqua and Ventus managed, barely, but then Vanitas changed targets, the storm crashing into Terra who had still been attempting to reach Xehanort. He became lost in the storm but only pushed further upward by it. Aqua cast some sort of shielding spell, protecting her friend for only a moment.

This... This was insane! Ventus couldn’t even have imagined a battle like this. How was he even supposed to help?! But that kind of indecision was useless to him now. He had chosen to not be a bystander after his last meeting with Vanitas. He couldn’t fight his dark half so that left him one option.

“Ven!” he heard Aqua call behind him but his mind had been made up. He raced to the bottom of the cliff and pushed his speed-amplifying wind magic further than he ever had until it could push him against gravity, let him run right up the cliffside! If he couldn’t fight Vanitas then he would fight Xehanort! It didn’t matter how outclassed he was if he would die today regardless! Even a moment of distraction would be enough if it helped Terra! If he could go out helping the people he loved!

But as the two apprentices arrived at the top at the same time, Ventus had the misfortune of being the one in better shape. Terra came out of Aqua’s shield in a tumbling crash, while Ventus leapt up with his keyblade ready to swing at the bald head of the man who had made his life a living hell!

And the master merely continued smiling. Grabbed Ventus by the helmet with one hand while keeping the other behind his back. Even as the greatest threat in his vicinity, Xehanort still considered the blond worthy of only half of his attention.

“Blizzaza.”

There was no time to be shocked. No capacity to comprehend Terra’s shout of horror. He couldn’t even feel the air or the sudden drop as he was tossed right back off of the cliff. All he could feel was every bit of heat in his body getting snuffed out at once. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t think past the all-consuming chill.

And then he was in Aqua’s arms as he came back to some level of awareness. His helmet was gone. He had no idea what happened to it. “A... qua...” he tried to speak but he could still barely move.

There was someone else. Someone Ventus had never seen before. Aqua was... Leaving him?

“Curaga! Crawling Fire!”

“Nnnngh!” Ventus groaned. He could feel again. The numbness was fading but that meant he could feel the searing heat of the fire spell all the more as it chased away the cold. He still couldn’t move yet. But soon. And as his awareness became clearer he saw Aqua fight the stranger. The one-eyed man was no match for her. Skilled as he was with his crossbow weapons, he wasn’t a keyblade master or a great magician like Aqua was.

Whoever the one-eyed man was, he chose to flee rather than fall to her. “C-Cura,” Ventus stuttered, healing the injuries done by both the ice and Aqua’s fire. She’d brought him back from the brink so he made sure to make it worthwhile. He needed to help. Somehow. Vanitas could be anywhere and–

His eyes widened as he saw his dark half plummeting down towards them. Right above Aqua. “Aqua!”

The keyblade struck right across her back. Vanitas couldn’t even move before Ventus was driving forward, his keyblade lunging right for that ridiculous mask. The black glass cracked but held against the strike, Vanitas hopped backward to get distance even as he cackled to himself. The cascade of keys swept through once again and carried him away. “Cure!” It was the best Ventus could do for his lover in the short time he had before Vanitas’ wave of keyblades descended on him again.

The blond’s teeth grit. If Vanitas could do it, so could he! He raced across the rocky platform further away from Aqua, leading the masked man away. “Wind Raid!” The technique he had experienced at the hands of Vanitas back then. The one he forced himself to learn as he battled the unversed. His keyblade sang through the air as it zeroed in on his dark half.

Vanitas only laughed all the harder as he blocked many but not every strike. “Yes! YES! You understand now Ventus! This is how it has to be!”

Even without his keyblade in hand Ventus faced the keyblade tide head on, watched Vanitas driving it right toward him. At the last moment, the blond leapt over the oncoming assault, grabbing his keyblade as it came away from the masked man and put it under his own feet as he came down in the tide of keyblades.

The tide split into two.

Just like that it became an aerial battle. Two equal streams of keyblades and their riders clashing against one another again and again. Spells flying from both in an attempt to disrupt the other, force them back to the ground to take the advantage.

And all the while Vanitas wouldn’t shut up. “Even this, Ventus! You think you naturally became capable of this?! We’re the same heart! Before you were just remembering what you were but you were never capable of this level of control, of strength!” He was gleeful as he drove his wave downward to avoid an oncoming spell from Ventus, only to come up again and crash directly into his lighter half. “It’s already begun! Our skills, our memories, our hearts are already flowing into each other! We’re already on the verge of becoming one!” The two rode side by side, clashing with individual blades from their swarms. “Make peace with it as I have, Ventus! We don’t get to have love! We don’t get to have friendship! Our destiny is to forge the X-blade! Nothing else!”

“Rahhh!” Ventus screamed as he had enough of dealing with Vanitas’ ranting. His own keyblade swept up from under his feet. His swarm scattered and fell beneath his feet as he pointed his blade at his dark counterpart. “Aeroga!”

“Guah!” Vanitas grunted as he was forcibly blasted off of his swarm by a windstorm, then again and again downwards directly below Ventus. “You’re finished! Time Splicer!”

“What?!” It was all Vanitas could do to say it before his body froze in place, no longer even falling. Then Ventus literally fell upon him, using his frozen form as a platform as the blond struck again and again and again and again, showing no mercy to his immobile foe. One final strike hit home before the Stop magic in the technique ended and both plummeted to the ground. Vanitas screamed the whole way down as he felt the impact of a dozen undefended attacks all at once.

And. Most galling of all for Ventus. As the dust cleared around them, as he took in the broken form of his enemy... Vanitas started laughing again. “Well you’ve done it now haven’t you, Ventus?” he rasped. “All that rage. All that hatred. All I had to do was get you to break like I did and you were more than ready to play your role.” A ring of darkness spread around the two of them from Vanitas body. Ventus watched it impassively as clouds of darkness began flowing towards him. “What?” Vanitas asked, still amused. “Nothing to say? No last sign of defiance? No ‘I won’t let you get what you want!’ or something equally idiotic?”

“You’re right,” Ventus said as he could see Vanitas’ body begin to disperse from the feet and on upwards, becoming just more darkness that Ventus would absorb. “It would be stupid to say something like that.”

“Well how about that,” Vanitas audibly smiled as the dispersion of his body reached his head.. “I don’t know whether to be proud or disappointed.”

The last of him vanished. And as the final flickers of Vanitas were absorbed into Ventus, his mind was drawn inward, into his own heart.

-(-)-

“So here we are.”

Ventus came back to awareness standing on a stained glass mural in an empty void. Beneath his feet the image of himself and Vanitas. Between them a keyblade forged from two separate blades. Very much like the one Vanitas was holding as he stood across from Ventus.

There was no mask in here. In a place like this there was no room for hiding one’s true self. It didn’t surprise Ventus at all that Vanitas looked to be his exact replica.

“It isn’t finished yet,” Vanitas noted, observing the supposed X-blade in his hand. Its form indistinct and hazy. “But I don’t think that’ll be a problem for much longer. You understand now right? Finally willing to give in?”

“I think I understand a lot of things now,” Ventus answered, looking sadly at his counterpart. “Forging the keyblade. Is that really what you want?”

“Hearts and souls, yes!” the irritated aspect of darkness snapped. “How could you possibly be stupid enough to even ask that question?!”

“I’m not asking for me. I know the answer. I’m asking for you to answer it.”

“What are you even talking about?!” Vanitas demanded. “If you’re trying to buy time you should know I’m murdering your girlfriend out in the real world!”

“No you aren’t,” Ventus smiled, something that only made his other half angrier. “She wouldn’t fall that easily. Are you going to stop dodging the question?”

“Oh for the love of, I answered your moronic question! Yes I want to forge the X-blade! That’s what my master wants, that’s what I want! You got it through your thick skull yet?! Now are you going to keep wasting time or–”

“That’s what Xehanort wants,” Ventus paraphrased, “It’s what he’s always wanted. Right back to when I was his apprentice. What he did to me...” he grimaced as the memories rolled in, as images of those days appeared around them in the void. “It broke me. Enough that it allowed him to make you. I never even considered what he would do to you after that.”

The gloved hand of Vanitas tightened around the incomplete X-blade. “Shut up...”

“He wanted you to be pure darkness. Same as he wanted me to be pure light. But that’s not possible, at least not for long. One can’t exist without the other. I’m not pure light anymore. I recovered, I grew, I became a person again once I was outside his influence. And with that, my darkness came back too.” Ventus could only feel sympathy as he looked at his other. “But you weren’t outside his influence. And he needed you to be pure darkness. I don’t know what he did to you...” He looked again at the images of Ventus’ own torment surrounding them. “But I think I can imagine.”

“Shut up shut up shut up!” Vanitas roared as he charged with the wraith-like blade, swinging wildly as Ventus only focused on defending himself. “None of that matters! Nothing I went through matters! Stop with your damn mind games, they won’t work! We only have one purpose! One reason for living! Everything we went through, it was for this moment! I made–”

“You made peace with that?” Ventus asked, slapping an overextended swing of the X-blade aside. “You said that before. About how we don’t get to have love. When I thought about it after we met at the Keyblade Graveyard... I didn’t understand why you tried to drive me and Aqua apart. But I think I understand now.”

“You don’t understand anything!” A wave of dark-coloured lightning burst out of the X-blade. Ventus rolled back to avoid it only to be on the receiving end of another barrage of strikes. “You got to live your happy little life after Xehanort was done with you! A friend who cared for you! A lover who was there for you! All while I was being shaped into a weapon! I’m glad I get to destroy everything that made you happy! Maybe then you and I will be even!”

“If you hated it so much why are you still doing what Xehanort wants?!”

“BECAUSE IF I DON’T THEN WHAT WAS THE POINT OF IT ALL?!”

And there was the truth laid bare. Vanitas had to forge the X-blade or all of his suffering would have been meaningless. Ventus had to fight him or the love he had for his friends would have been worthless. They were the same person. The same heart. Both pushed into this final conflict for the sake of a man desperate for a power he barely understood. Who manipulated everything to set the two halves against each other.

Vanitas looked at the X-blade. How it shook in his grip until he tensed his arm to keep it steady. To hide his indecision. “It’s too late to stop now. We forge the X-blade, Ventus. There are no other options.”

Even if it might only make Vanitas angry again, Ventus couldn’t help but smile. “Sure there are. We could destroy it.”

“You wanna die that badly?” Vanitas scoffed. “The X-blade is made up of both of us. If it’s destroyed then we go with it! Also what the hell is this ‘we’ you’re saying now?!”

“You’d rather meekly give Xehanort what he wants so he can be all smug and pat you on the head like a good little lapdog?” Ventus asked cheekily. They were the same person and if Ventus didn’t appreciate a comment like that, he sure knew Vanitas wouldn’t.

“You think you’re smart now, huh? You’re still just an idiot.” Vanitas raised the X-blade, not threateningly. He positioned it vertically between them. “If we destroy it... We both die.”

“It’s made of only parts of us,” Ventus reminded his other, putting a hand on his shoulder. “We’re more than what Xehanort designed us to be. We destroy the X-blade, then... we become one again. Maybe we’ll survive.” He shrugged helplessly. “And if we don’t, at least we screw over the jerk who tried to make us his puppets!”

Vanitas let out short, pitiful gasps of laughter. The sound of him daring to hope for a good outcome from all of this. “Now that, that’s some smart thinking for once. I must be rubbing off on you.”

The two young men, both alike and yet couldn’t be more different, they stood on opposite sides of the mural that hung in the middle of an empty void. The X-blade floated abandoned in the middle. Both men held their own keyblades pointed at the legendary artifact.

Shouted.

The void shattered around them along with the X-blade as they slammed into each other and held on for dear life.

They would know nothing for some time. A complete lack of awareness as their heart... wandered. The fusion was nothing less than traumatic as what was left of the two halves joined together, cast adrift by it. The reunified heart’s body faded as they drifted further and further away until there was only one thing pulling on them. Another heart on a faraway world. A heart that, on a chance encounter, had offered aid to one piece of the once broken heart.

On that island, a young boy was enjoying himself, exploring a secret cave he had discovered. Riku would be so jealous when he told him! Or... Well, maybe it wasn’t much of a cave. It was more like a little crawlspace in the cliffside. Maybe it could be a place they could hide treasure! Or it could be a great place for hide and seek! Riku would never find him!

And then the boy, seemingly without cause, fell unconscious. While inside of him, his young heart was in a panic. There was another. Familiar, yet unfamiliar. Strong and terrifying. All his heart could do was run and hide, hope the invader would go away.

In the outside world, as the boy slept for two straight days, the boy’s hair gradually faded from a chocolate brown to a dirty blond.