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chara vs chara the REHASHENING
The endless horizon drifts beneath his feet as he swings them a little, tapping his heels against the edge of this world tunelessly.
Ventus doesn't know where he is.
That's, it's not exactly the most odd thing. Ventus often doesn't really know the names of the worlds he's on, because it doesn't really matter. But usually then he has a plan, or orders, but he woke up with no notes in his pocket and swinging Wayward Wind around did nothing to summon a portal back home. He's stuck here, purposeless...perhaps its a punishment. Ventus doesn't know what he's done wrong, runs over recent events in his head as he stares out blankly. He'd fought his other self once, beaten up that blue haired girl, unleashed heartless to strengthen Vanitas and draw Xehanorts new body away. All according to plan, so why?
He rips up a bit of grass from the lawn beside him, sprinkling it down slowly into the abyss instead of pondering further. The why wasn't that important, actually. He'd messed up, so he just needed to wait until it was clear what he needed to do.
Ventus doesn't know where he is.
That's, it's not exactly the most odd thing. Ventus often doesn't really know the names of the worlds he's on, because it doesn't really matter. But usually then he has a plan, or orders, but he woke up with no notes in his pocket and swinging Wayward Wind around did nothing to summon a portal back home. He's stuck here, purposeless...perhaps its a punishment. Ventus doesn't know what he's done wrong, runs over recent events in his head as he stares out blankly. He'd fought his other self once, beaten up that blue haired girl, unleashed heartless to strengthen Vanitas and draw Xehanorts new body away. All according to plan, so why?
He rips up a bit of grass from the lawn beside him, sprinkling it down slowly into the abyss instead of pondering further. The why wasn't that important, actually. He'd messed up, so he just needed to wait until it was clear what he needed to do.
vanitas: slurps unversed ventus: what the fuck
Still...it might be better if when they became one again, that didn't happen. Ventus certainly didn't need minions to serve his purpose.
Vanitas is backed to a corner now, a rather stupid decision wasted on a rather stupid test that he quite obviously failed. Ventus needed to keep spoon feeding him answers, it seemed. Or at least he would, but Vanitas asked a bit of a suprising question.
"Er...." Ventus's eyes widen a little and he brings a finger up to scratch his cheek. His tone has lost a bit of its previous coldness, leaving behind a bit of an awkward demeanor. "Did you not...bring us here?" He'd sort of assumed, seeing as he'd woken up here and then had an unversed run at him. Castles seemed to be the sort of places Vanitas liked??
*that noise you make when you get the last bits with a straw*
(You break it you buy it Ventus. All of your darker half means all of your darker half. )
To date, Ventus has been this implacable, incomprehensible thing that explains nothing and seemingly has nothing better to do than make Vanitas's life worse for reasons unknown. To say this has been as intimidating as it is infuriating is an understatement, especially given the power showcased.
Seeing that statue-like air break into awkwardness feels more surreal than anything else so far today, and all Vanitas can do is kind of stand there staring before his brain spins up to speed again enough to speak.
"At which point did you decide I'd want enough of anything to do with you that if I had any choice in the matter I'd take you with me instead of throwing you into the nearest volcano??"
It's meant to be biting but it's also mostly disbelief. If he hadn't seen Mickey's 'uh oh' expression when the Star Shard randomly activated itself, he'd have assumed Ventus was the one that would have had anything to do with this.
Absolutely Disgusting
“Well...perhaps you wanted a rematch..without a mouse?” Ventus said, looking torn between slightly flustered and cold. It’s a strange uncomfortable combination. “We were not planned to meet again for a while, so I can assure you it was not me.”
He sighs lightly. “But perhaps I was assuming overly much.” He says again, slipping back into the coldness of his usual character. “I suppose I continue to overestimate your abilities.” The dissatisfaction is prominent in his tone.
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I'd only want a rematch if I knew for sure I would win, and I want to win, Vanitas doesn't admit. He prefers to hold cards as much as he prefers getting the last word, unaware this is exactly aligning with the aforementioned plans. The idea of which make his hackles rise involuntarily.
Ventus's slipping back into his usual demeanor doesn't help this at all, only it's mixed with... Now, with the contrast, that cadence and tone feels familiar, like he's heard it somewhere else, emanating from below a disapproving, unraveling stare and giving him the weirdest urge to apologize. He can't place it. Eraqus, maybe? No, not even at his most disappointed. It's right there and annoyingly far at the same time.
It'll probably come to him at some point. He adjusts his weight, using his keyblade to get on more solid footing.
"I wasn't aware I was being graded," he says, heavy on the sarcasm. "Your opinion matters so much to me."
He exhales. "If it wasn't you, and we're not 'planned to meet'," he continues, using one hand to make the quotation marks, "then why don't you just turn around and leave?" It's a suggestion that sounds like it should have a reasonable tone and Vanitas is doing his best to make sure it doesn't.
Vanitas hasn't tried to open a corridor yet from it's place lower on the itinerary. He is perhaps soon to get a rude awakening.
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"It's not an opinion." Ventus says idly, his tone practically begging Vanitas to deny it. "Besides, I'm not even the one grading you."
He looks like he might continue, but he blinks again in that same half-awkward surprise, though this time he clamps down on it faster. "We cannot leave?" He says instead, not meaning for it to sound like a question. "The magical distortion around this world is...immense. It might as well be a jail cell." Another reason to assume Vanitas would have taken him here, where he'd be declawed and helpless. Perhaps the Chi-blade could rip through the fabric of this world but no..no Vanitas wasn't even strong enough for that yet. He presses a hand behind his back and clenches his nails into his palm as he grits his teeth at the conundrum, venting his....dissatisfaction. Yes.
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A point of proof is Vanitas taking the bait. "Absolutely an opinion. You think it, and say it, and I don't care."
He looks like he's about to continue, but the second part causes him to go quiet. The hint that someone else is involved doesn't sit well with him.
Vanitas slowly takes one hand off Void Gear and reaches out to the side, not taking his eyes off Ventus. He pulls, feeling the darkness in him churn and spin and try to call an answering formation.
Nothing happens, not even a blip. He lifts Void Gear and points it in the same direction, and though the keyblade thrums with power, nothing happens there either.
"Fuck," he says, with feeling, and then immediately glances around to make sure Aqua isn't in earshot, keyblade tipping back down. He hates this so much.
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He’d had to attend meetings with Braig, several meetings. The man had been very clear about what portions of Ventus’s vocabulary needed to be expanded.
“It seems that proves your friends aren’t here either. Now...As I was saying,” He continued, tone dripping an innate superiority. “This world is a clever trap, a prison.” He pointed at Vanitas. “The only plausible culprit is your Master....congratulations for finally breaking his trust after all these years...”
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Terra, for his part, has been known to drop things on his feet and Vanitas absolutely leverages this fact if he tries to tell him off.
Every word Ventus says makes Vanitas contemplate the void behind him more and more. If he jumped he could probably turn Void Gear into a glider, probably.
Vanitas isn't a trusting individual, almost by default. In the four years he's lived with them, Terra and Aqua and Eraqus have earnt that trust, in little ways, over and over. He's not very inclined to extend Ventus that same courtesy.
But... this is a world that is both the Land of Departure but not. Pleasant but inescapable. It feels exactly like the sort of solution Eraqus would come up with if the dark child under his care went wayward. The kind of cruelness that can only come from light. And Vanitas has gone wayward. Although it was the stone that malfunctioned, a trap on return is not something he'd put out of Eraqus's power.
He doesn't push against it. Something thorny winds around a leg, and something lapine peers out from as close to behind him as it can get without falling off the cliff. With them out, he can gather himself a little, lifting his head and clapping his hands together slowly.
"Congratulations for landing in that exact same trap, then. Genius move."
It's a small consolation, but it is one really. If Ventus can't get out either, he's not any danger to Vanitas's friends either.
I'm not even the one grading you.
That one, he pushes down.
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Maybe that's what was happening? The same revulsion creeps up his throat at the creatures, but Ventus only cocked his head a little as he tried to watch Vanitas's facial expressions, face passive as Vanitas seems to gather himself.
"I didn't land in anything. I simply..." His eyes cross a little as he considers, before a thought strikes him. This would be a perfect trap for Vanitas, but then why would Ventus be here?
"I..." He grits his teeth in a soft exhale of breath, looking away from Vanitas to mutter. "But even then, that does not make sense . It's idiotic to trap us here together-!" Eraqus knew what Ventus and Vanitas were, why would he put them together? Ventus was confident that no trap could withstand the power of the X-blade, so why put its creators together? How had he even gotten here? He was in Radient garden before!
The lack of information made his chest feel tight. He put a hand to it unconciously, blinking. There was no plan or outline for how to deal with this. Where was Master Xehanort??
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Vanitas laughs as Ventus goes cross-eyed, once, thinly, then more. While that ever-present sense of danger has not and will not leave, he can't help feeding off it. "You don't know, do you?" he crows. At least he does (he doesn't.) "You're even more in the dark about this than I am."
Vanitas crouches down, half-sitting at the edge of the world, one hand still up on Void Gear. If he's going to be stuck here he might as well get comfortable, or at least visibly get comfortable in front of someone clearly distressed by it. He has to kick off the entangling Thornbite to do it, and it moves away to the sword with a betrayed air. The Hareraiser continues to stare mournfully at the ground.
"It makes perfect sense," says Vanitas contrariwise, lacking several key pieces of lore. "You messed up."
(So has he, evidently, but shhhh.)
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Vanitas sits down in response, which is really driving the 0.00005% of Ventus's brain thats focused around emotion go buck wild with rage. It manifests as a slight grit to his teeth.
"See." He bites out again. He refuses to sit, and lower his guard. Unlike his other half he actually does his duty, and that means he has to be ready to do it. "Like that. You don't even know what we want. I can't have messed up, because we're here together."
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While step two is missing between 'get under Ventus's skin' and 'get out of the situation', step one is fun enough in an extreme sports kind of way that this feels a little unimportant.
He's still got his hand on the keyblade, though.
"So enlighten me then," says Vanitas, leaning back a little, and then continuing with what is usually a surefire move for him. "I bet you don't actually know."
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Also whats wrong with smelling people? Riku would be disapointed at your small mindedness.
Vanitas is a bit better at manipulating people then he thinks.Something in Ventus sparked at the challenge and he spoke without thinking. "Of course I know. It's why we were created. When we're together we can create-" He blinked, expression flatlining into something dead and uncomfortable. His eyes trailed away from Vanitas for a second and when he spoke again it was distant, not even really addressing Vanitas. "Actually....Am I allowed to tell you that?"
He was pretty sure that Xehanort was going to tell Vanitas about the X-blade soon in order to set him against Eraqus and help spur both Vanitas and Terra further into darkness...But Ventus wasn't really involved in that portion of the plan up until the end. He didn't want to step on his masters toes...the thought of messing up the plan made his head spin uncomforably. But Xehanort wasn't here to tell Vanitas, which was just as bad. This whole situation was really, really, really bad, as far at the plan was concerned.
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He sits up a little in interest, before experiencing a flash of near-failed video game level frustration when Ventus cuts himself off at the important part. It is mixed with a mildly smug satisfaction he got that much.
Then what was actually said hits - the verb used. Created.
What Vanitas had been told about how he came to be had always been vague. From what he'd been told, and not told, and pieced together, there had been some kind of accident, and a kid had died to make him. Eraqus had taken him in out of the kindness of his heart, yada yada yada. Nobody liked mentioning it, and Vanitas himself wasn't inclined to pry overmuch because thinking about it too hard made his stomach roil with Unversed when he had.
Vanitas props his head on his free hand, elbow on his knee, trying not to show this inner consternation. The way the Unversed are acting, clustering closer like plants towards the sun isn't helping this endeavor. The Hareraiser tries to climb into his lap and he drops his hand enough to push it away a little.
"You tell me, messenger boy," he says. It's really, really apparent right now that someone else is pulling the strings behind this, which is a terrifying thought behind which several other, equally as distressing ones are lining up to have a go.
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The unversed cluster and chitter and Ventus clenches a hand for a keyblade that he doesn't want to summon. He'll only summon Wayward Wind if he intends to fight--not before. His trigger happy response to Unversed isn't reason enough to go off the plan.
He blinks at Vanitas command, mouth half open before he squints again. "You...can know....When you're stronger." He finally says. "That's the plan, anyway. I don't think I can say much else without permission."
He says it very matter of factly, as if needing permission to say things is a very expected part of life, and one that needs little discussion.
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'When you're stronger' pisses Vanitas off a little, and it's an added stone flung into the morass he's trying to keep down and under control, things crawling under his flesh. Four years of practice lets him swallow it down, for now, but he knows from exactly those years he can't just store it up forever. He breathes in through his nose. Meditation, with it's inherent requirements for sitting still and behaving never really struck a chord with him, but the bits that did stick help.
He could let it all out now. He really could. Nothing's stopping him, not Eraqus's disdain, not the looks of Terra or Aqua. He's already in a cage, and apparently alone save for Ventus, at that. There's nobody he has to care about hurting. The plate comes pre-broken.
Entirely unconsciously, his hand rubs at his throat as he tries to pay attention to both this and what Ventus is saying. He doesn't want to lose his momentum here.
"Good luck getting it, then," he says, hissing as he pricks himself on the Thornbite's thorns a little likewise pushing it away. It's one more distraction he doesn't need right now. "Because which part of 'the plan' involves being stuck here, again?"