003 ☠ video.

[dissolves]

[ hi, sup City. how are you today? Vanitas is just great. he's got his mask on, although only half of it is visible since the camera's tilted to show the area behind him instead of Vanitas himself.

because that's definitely Roxas following behind him at a safe distance. he keeps it at that angle a moment longer, then-- towards his face ( mask ). ] I don't suppose strangling would be an appropriate way to dispose of this, would it?

Comments

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[dissolves]

If someone used their keyblade to split a heart in two-- a half of pure light, and a half of pure darkness, what do you think would happen?

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[skylight]

[ The pause here is considerable. Sora half feels it's a trick question and doesn't fully know how to articulate why, but his answer is honest. ]

Two halves of a whole. Maybe. I guess.

[ Not a Nobody precisely, since a heart dark is to him still a heart but then he's not sure if that's what they mean here and even his honesty is wary still. ]

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[dissolves]

Two entirely separate beings. Darkness, and light.

What is darkness? [ Vanitas doesn't give Sora time to answer. ] Hatred. The reason why I don't need a reason to hate-- it's as simple as that.

Ventus' heart was separated into two different halves. Darkness, and light. I was born from his darkness. I feel nothing but hatred, because of him. The only way to solve this-- is to merge with his heart.

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[skylight]

[ It takes Sora a while to respond and even in taking all of that time, he doesn't know what to make of what he's been told. Take it at face value? He knows of course of Nobodies, of the cause-effect domino chain, more or less. But this isn't that; and what's more, if Vanitas is the darkness, then...who is the light? Ventus himself? Or...?

He paces while he addresses the device, gesturing with one hand though it's of course not audible. Well, the pacing might be. ]

Why was it separated in the first place?

[ Still often guilty of leaping without looking though he is, Sora has - if sometimes little else - tried to get a better handle on the questions he asks...mostly in that he asks them. ]

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[dissolves]

Does it matter?

[ to Vanitas it does, a lot, but his tone is pretty casual about it, shrugging it off as something that is not important, that doesn't matter-- because why isn't what this conversation was supposed to be about. ]

( audio ; filtered )

[skylight]

Actually, yeah. I think it does.

[ Sora though by no means a cerebral sort of boy, has often been the kind to go with his gut (to a fault.) He does so in this case, peering at Vanitas, reading his tone but more so suspecting that there's more to be found behind it. In this case, weirdly, he thinks of Riku who for the longest time seemed aloof from a lot of things that ended up mattering very much to him.

The most, even. ]

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[dissolves]

Ventus is weak. He was defeated too easily, and my master was less than pleased with it. He split us in two, left Ventus to die because he was unnecessary.

[ only half the truth, but half was enough. still, his tone doesn't change -- even if he's talking about someone else's death. ]