Chapter 2: Need to Change
Chapter Summary: Aqua insists anyone can change. Vanitas insists he doesn't want to.
Vanitas woke to the sound of Aqua heaving up the rest of the light-concealing smoke.
“How long is this,” she coughed up another opaque lungful, “going to last?”
“Not long enough,” Vanitas replied. He could already smell her light resurfacing, which meant every Heartless within a hundred miles could too. In fact, a few smaller, stupider ones were creeping through the entrance of the cave already. Vanitas shot off a few volleys of Dark Blizzaga until the entrance was frozen shut.
Even though Aqua still looked like she was at the brink of death, she found enough strength to summon her keyblade and point it at him.
Not her keyblade. Didn’t that blade belong to Eraqus?
“If you dare shove that black magic down my throat again, I swear I’ll kill you.”
Vanitas raised an eyebrow. If he didn’t know any better, he’d think he’d rubbed off on her. The Realm of Darkness must’ve been even harder on her mind than he’d thought, or else his light-concealing magic had been too effective. He didn’t think it was strong enough to destroy any of her light.
“That’s not my only trick,” he said, standing up. She flinched, backing up farther into the cave like a cornered animal. “Stop it, it’s for your own good.”
“Yeah, right,” she said sarcastically. Her guard didn’t falter.
Vanitas rolled his eyes and tossed her a hi-potion, which her reflexes were just sharp enough for her to catch.
“Look, if you’re spewing light everywhere you’ll just get both of us killed. Drink that and man up; this won’t hurt. Much.”
He smirked. Just because he wanted her alive didn’t mean he couldn’t have some fun.
Aqua glared with all her strength, but eventually she caved and drank the hi-potion. While she was momentarily distracted, Vanitas cast a cloud of black fog over her, but unlike the darkness from before, this fog seemed to dissipate as soon as it touched her chalky skin. She gasped and dropped the empty potion bottle.
“Tch. You’re fine.” Vanitas kicked the bottle aside. “That was just a weaker cloaking spell. Hopefully it’ll be good enough.”
“Why do you care?” Aqua asked, scratching her arms, which were breaking out in goosebumps.
“I told you already, I’m bored. If you actually paid attention, you’d realize I’m just as stuck here as you are.”
“But you’re darkness. You belong here.”
He shook his head. “I don’t belong here. I don’t belong—”
Anywhere. It had been so long—his whole life, practically—since he talked to anyone, it almost came out.
“Shut up,” he muttered. “How did you get here, anyway?”
Her gaze traveled upwards, but the cave’s low ceiling blocked the sky she must have hoped to see. Not that the darkness outside would be any better.
“I saved Terra,” she said with a light smile.
It was amazing how at the mention of her friend’s name, all her anger, pain, and fatigue faded away. For the first time since he had found her in the Realm of Darkness, the light returned to her eyes. It was enough to make Vanitas want to find Terra, wherever he was, and strangle him.
“He was falling into the darkness, but I sent him back to the light.”
“Wait a sec.” Vanitas paced around Aqua. “You had a chance to let that loser rot in the Realm of Darkness, and instead you chose to get yourself stuck down here trying to save him?”
“He would have done the same for me,” Aqua said firmly, somehow managing to glare straight into his eyes even through his mask. “He was a true friend.”
“You and Ventus, always going on about your friends,” Vanitas muttered.
“At least I have some!” Ventus had said before their final battle. What was he saying, Vanitas needed friends? Please. Look where that got the three of them—Ventus’s heart shattered, Aqua stranded in the Realm of Darkness, and Terra… well, apparently Terra got the good end of the friendship deal, if Aqua saved him.
“Wonder what happened to the old man, if Terra’s not up to his ears in darkness…”
“What?” Aqua asked.
“Xehanort,” he said a little louder. “The creep planned on possessing your friend’s body, but I was too busy fighting you and Ventus to tell if that worked out or not.”
Aqua’s brow furrowed. “It did, but… wait, ‘creep’? Who are you to talk?”
Vanitas rolled his eyes. “I never possessed Ventus, if that’s what you’re getting at. We were originally two halves of a whole. My personality just happens to be stronger. Always was.” He chuckled darkly. “If you had met your precious Ventus before Xehanort split us in two, you would’ve jumped down here before even thinking about being his friend.”
“You’re wrong!” Aqua yelled, summoning her keyblade and standing unsteadily.
Vanitas might’ve thought twice about playing mind games with her if he knew just how quickly she would regain her strength. Maybe he shouldn’t have given her that hi-potion.
“I didn’t give up on Terra even though there was darkness in him, and I’d never give up on Ven!”
“Then what about me, Aqua?” He crossed his arms. “Do I have too much darkness to be saved?”
He wasn’t sure where it came from. For a moment he wasn’t sure of what he’d said at all. He just stared through the protective layer of his mask and tried to make out the emotions beneath Aqua’s troubled expression.
“…Forget it,” he finally said, turning towards the cave’s frozen entrance, where the Heartless had stopped ramming themselves against the ice, now that Aqua’s light was hidden.
He didn’t need “saving.” He was darkness, and that was it. He had no business being so close to someone so full of light; it was messing with his head. Why did he think he could keep her? They’d just end up killing each other—again. It wasn’t like he needed her. Surely something else would happen to keep him from dying of boredom…
“No,” Aqua said quietly, breaking his thoughts.
“No what?” he spat without looking at her.
“You’re not too far gone. No one can stray so far from the light that there’s no way back.”
Vanitas snorted. “You’re assuming something you shouldn’t.”
“And what would that be?” She asked it like a challenge.
“That I’ve ever seen the light in the first place.”
Vanitas thought he had stumped her, but eventually she replied, “That doesn’t mean you can’t find it for the first time. It wouldn’t be easy, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done.”
He clenched his fists in frustration. This whole conversation was stupid. He was stupid for bringing it up in the first place. He didn’t want light. All light did, especially in a place like this, was get you killed.
“And now you’re assuming that I’d even want to.”
“…Well, you did save my life.”
She was going to try and use that insignificant little fact as proof he had goodness in him? As Braig would’ve said, as if.
“Yeah, and I tried to kill you plenty of times before that. So what?” He leaned against the wall, eyeing her out of the corner of his helmet. At some point in their conversation she had sat down and began to wash her face with some water she had filled the empty hi-potion bottle with.
She shrugged. “Maybe I’d just like to believe that the only other person trapped here with me isn’t completely evil.”
“Maybe you’re too optimistic for your own good,” Vanitas muttered.
“Probably,” she admitted.
Good. She hadn’t gone completely insane, then.
“Come on,” he snapped. “Time to go.”
“Go where?” she asked, combing her hair with her fingers. “I’ve been walking forever, and there’s nothing out there.”
“I don’t…” Wait. He did know. “This place doesn’t go on forever. I can sense which parts of the Realm of Darkness are lighter—the edges. Maybe we could find a way out of here.”
“Really?” Her eyes lit up again.
Little did she know this was only a half-truth—he could sense concentrations of darkness, but he had no sure way of knowing if by following the lighter areas they could make it out. But even if they couldn’t, it was a way of making sure Aqua stayed with him even after she came to her senses and realized he would always be darkness.
“Sure. I don’t have a reason to stay down here.” He shrugged.
“Wait,” she said dubiously. “When we get out of here, what’s stopping you from trying to start the Keyblade War again?”
Vanitas rolled his eyes, not that she could see. He counted the reasons on his fingers. “One, the X-Blade’s destroyed; two, Xehanort’s apparently gone, thank the Void; and three, I’m not a complete idiot.”
Like he was going to go back and do the same thing he’d died trying to do once already? No way.
Her brow furrowed. “If you’re so glad to be rid of Xehanort, why did you help him in the first place?”
“What else was I going to?” He shrugged. “Now come on, I’m bored and you want to get out of here.”
Despite his rudeness, Aqua didn’t argue. She pocketed the empty potion bottle, not one to litter even in a place where no one was around to care. When he left the cave, she stayed a good two yards behind him, so there was no misconception that she actually trusted him.
She said he could change. Not that he would.
No, he was perfectly suited for survival here in the Realm of Darkness. If anyone needed to change, it was Aqua.