[KH] Now I Have One Too (Sta.sh version)

Summary:  "It's always about your friends, isn't it."  "At least I have some!"  With Ven's cruel words ringing in his ears, Vanitas sulks in the Realm of Darkness until he meets Riku's replica. (No slash.)

'So death isn't the end, after all.'  Riku's replica looked around the dark path where he had found himself after being destroyed by the boy he'd been copied from.  'Looks like my heart will be wandering for a long time.'

Sighing, he picked a direction at random and began to trudge along.  The path stretched on until he lost sight of it in the darkness.  For all he knew, it would lead to nowhere forever.

Vanitas sat hugging his knees as he glared out at the dark ocean.  "The waves are really pretty," he said defiantly.  "I could watch them forever.  See?  I'm not bored at all!"  He was, however, talking to himself again.  "And I'm not crazy, either!"  Something about this statement struck him as wrong, so he put his chin back on his knees and glared again.  "I don't need friends...I'm fine on my own...."

Presently, a soft crunching sound caught his attention.  Vanitas looked up and found, to his astonishment, a person.  An actual, honest-to-God living being, a boy in a body suit identical to his own except for the coloring, making his way toward Vanitas across the beach.

Immediately, Vanitas jumped to his feet, hurled himself at the other boy, and tackled him to the ground in delight.  "You're breathing!"

"Um, yeah."

"You can talk!"

"I was programmed with that ability, yes," the replica said cautiously.

"Fight me!"

"...Well, since there's nothing else to do here...."

It was of some interest to each of them that they both wielded Keyblades.  "What's yours called?" Vanitas asked.

"Soul Eater."

"Aw, that's a cooler name than Void Gear!" Vanitas whined.  "Mine's bigger, though.  And I used to have a really awesome ÷-blade, but that poop Ventus broke it...."

"Are we gonna fight or talk?"

"We're gonna fight!  I'm gonna kill you!"

The boys rushed at each other, yelling.  They hacked away, occasionally stumbling in the sand, observing each other's moves with interest.  Vanitas soon learned to jump back whenever he knocked his opponent down, since the replica packed a powerful punch with his counter move.  The replica began Dodge Rolling away every time he scored significant damage, since Vanitas had an annoying habit of materializing behind him to retaliate.  They were both very swift, sometimes flying into berserk rush attacks.

It was the most fun either of them had had in a long time, imprisoned here in the darkness, but eventually the replica's enjoyment began to sour.  He was steadily losing HP and had no way to heal; Vanitas's attacks were causing more and more damage, and began getting harder to avoid.  The replica got desperate.  He flew into another rush attack, surging across the field - and suddenly hit an invisible barrier that felt like a brick wall. It stunned him for a few precious seconds, giving Vanitas the opportunity to smash Void Gear into him and send him flying.

The replica lay KO'd for a while, then slowly recovered.  He blinked out at the dark water.  Vanitas was kneeling beside him, shaking his shoulder in concern.  "Hey, you.  Wake up, don't go away, I didn't mean to break you.  Don't go away...please don't go away...."

The replica slowly sat up.

"Yay, you're moving again!"

The replica stared disconsolately at nothing.  "How could I lose?"

"Because I'm awesome," Vanitas said importantly.

"Grah!"  Disgusted with himself, the replica got to his feet and instinctively did what he was in the habit of doing after every fight:  he ran away.

"Wait!  Come BACK!"  Vanitas hurtled after him, catching up and tackling him again.  "I said, don't go away!"

"I'm a worthless failure," the replica hissed.  "Not only am I nobody, but I'm a loser.  Why do people keep beating me if I'm supposed to be so strong?!"

"You know, I have the same problem," Vanitas realized.  He sat up, crossing his legs and propping his chin on his hand with a thoughtful frown.  "I'm the strongest ever, I control countless beings of darkness...but people keep beating me, for some reason."

"Who are you, anyway?" the replica asked resentfully.

"My name's Vanitas."  When the replica did not answer, Vanitas poked him.  "Who are you?"

The replica rubbed his arm, glaring.  "I'm no one.  Just a copy of a guy who was better than me after all."

"A copy?" Vanitas said interestedly.  "What do you mean?"

"I'm a fake.  A replica.  Vexen created me in his lab to replace Riku, but that was a joke.  I couldn't replace Riku...he was the stronger one all along."

"You know, Mater Xehanort told me the same thing about Ventus," the other boy mused.  "I was supposed to be better than that weakling...but he kicked my butt!"

The replica peered at him.  "Are you a replica, too?"

"No," Vanitas scoffed.  "I'm a being of pure darkness, born from the darkness in Ventus's heart.  I don't have a spark of light in me anywhere!"

"I wonder why you look so much like Sora," the replica said.

"Who's Sora?"

"This annoying kid I fought back in Castle Oblivion."

Vanitas uncurled comfortably, leaning back on his elbows.  "So, Riku.  What do you want to do now?"

"I'm not Riku," the replica snarled.  "I'm no one.  Just a replica."

"I have to call you something."

"...Whatever.  Just not Riku."

"Fine, I'll call you Repliku."

The replica rolled his eyes.

"Man, are you as bored as I am?"

"There's been nothing to do ever since Riku destroyed me."

"That's because nothing ever happens here.  Not 'til you came along, anyway."

"How long have you been here?" Repliku asked.

"No clue.  Time is kind of wonky here.  You hungry?"

"Not really."

"Well, get used to it, 'cause you'll never get hungry here.  Ever."

"Isn't that a good thing?  It doesn't look like there's anything to eat here."

"There's not."

"Not even fish?"

Both boys looked at the ocean.  Then Vanitas leaped to his feet.  "Repliku, let's go look for fish!"

They both took off running, inexplicably laughing.  They splashed into the shallows, then waded deeper, their jagged skirts swirling around them.  Vanitas was the first to dive beneath the water.  He summoned a Red Hot Chili, which promptly drowned.  So he summoned a whole bunch of them, constantly calling on more to replace the ones that were snuffed out.

The boys hovered in the illuminated waters, overcome for a moment with awe.

"No fish," Vanitas tried to say.  Water instantly poured into his mouth and down his throat; he came up sputtering.  Just when he had gotten his breath back, Repliku, who had surfaced nearby, suddenly shot him a mischievous smile and lobbed a wall of water straight into his face.

"*gack*  *cough*  I'll kill you!"

For a while, they were happily occupied in trying to drown each other.  Eventually, they called it a draw and struggled their way back to shore, having drifted quite far during their tussle.

Repliku observed that he never really got tired, even though it was a long and difficult swim.  It was as if his body had become frozen at a certain point of health, and he would never need to maintain it as long as he was here.  "Maybe exile in this place isn't so bad after all...."

Once they got back to the beach, Repliku, whose fake memories were all about growing up on an island, fascinated Vanitas with stories about his childhood with Sora and Naminé.  This dark shore had no seashells to collect or seagulls to tease, but it did have lots and lots of sand.

"Look, this is how you build them."  Repliku started scooping sand into a pile.  Just when he was starting to mold the shape, Vanitas stomped on it.  "No, no, idiot, you wait 'til we've - we've, not just me - built this huge fancy castle, and then we - WE, not just you - get to squash it flat."

"Ohhh!  I get it."  Vanitas joined in the project with enthusiasm, and Repliku was surprised at how enjoyable it was, building a sand castle with Vanitas just like he had used to do with Sora, at least in his memories.  This was even better, because it was real this time.

Eventually, the boys had produced a gorgeous turreted structure, with scalloped edges and tiny windows and a deep moat.  "Too bad we don't have anything shiny to decorate it with."

"Hang on."  Vanitas summoned some random Unversed and bashed them with his Keyblade.  They exploded into soft plump HP balls, sparkling D-Link crystals, glinting munny orbs, and in one case a jeweled red prize.  "Am I good, or what?"

"Perfect!"

Together, Vanitas and Repliku adorned their sand castle with the sparkly goodies.  They stood back for a minute to admire their handiwork.  Then they shared identical evil grins, summoned their Keyblades, and charged.  "Yaaahhh!"  The castle was smashed, stomped, and bludgeoned to death with great glee by its creators.

"Let's do it again!"

"Absolutely!"

After the fall of the second sand castle, the boys went climbing, scampering over the lumpy rock formations out past the water's edge.  Repliku found a little indentation shaped like a perfect heart.  Vanitas smashed one side of it.  "Now it's a broken heart, ha ha!"

"Someone broke my heart once or twice," Repliku remarked.  "It really hurt."

"I was born from a broken heart," Vanitas said.

"Did it hurt?"

"I don't really know what you mean."  They were lying side by side beneath a rock arch now, gazing up at the dark sky.

"Didn't it feel awful?  Like someone had betrayed you, and you were full of pain and anger and sadness, and it felt so bad you wanted to die?"

"That's what I feel like all the time."  Vanitas looked over at him.  "Is there a different way to feel?"

Repliku sat up slowly.  "I don't think I've ever really been happy," he mused.  "I was artificially created and used as a tool, a slave, manipulated and discarded.  But, in my memories...even though they're fake...I know what it's like to be happy."

"Tell me."

Under the empty sky, to the sound of the gentle waves, Repliku talked about his memories.  How it felt to have friends to play with, a family who loved him, a girl he thought the world of and wanted to protect.

"I wish I knew what that was like," Vanitas said softly.  "But...I'm made of pure darkness.  I don't know if I can be anything else."  He looked at Repliku.  "Ventus...at the end, when I told him he was obsessed with his stupid friends, he said, 'At least I have some.'  He told me that his friends are his power.  That he was strong because of them."

Repliku sighed.  "I think I know what he means.  Sora...he's an idiot, but he never stopped squawking about Riku and Kairi and Naminé, was always hanging out with those Disney Castle doofuses.  And he won.  He didn't just beat me, he defeated Marluxia, and Larxene, too.  He was so strong.  He seemed weak, but in the end he turned out to be so strong.  Maybe that Ventus of yours was on to something."

Vanitas was still for a long time.  Finally he said in a small voice, "Ven was right.  I don't have any friends."

Repliku looked at him.

"I could never make friends, anyway.  I'm pure darkness.  Anyone who gets friendly with darkness is really stupid, 'cause it'll eat them up."

"I'm not like Sora and Ventus, you know," Repliku said.

Vanitas looked at him.

"I don't get my power from my friends.  I get my power from darkness."  He smiled at Vanitas.  "I willingly embraced the darkness so that I could be stronger than Riku.  I guess that makes me pretty stupid...but it also seems that hanging out with you would be right up my alley."

Vanitas smiled back.  "So I'll give you my darkness, and you'll give me your friendship, and together we'll be strong enough to bust out of here and take over the worlds, right?"

They both laughed.  "It's a promise!"

Author's Notes:  Vanitas and Repliku probably aren't actually in the Realm of Darkness in canon, but the idea was too fun to be nitpicky.

I'm also not too pleased with the way the thematic material played out, but it does kind of reflect the stupid philosophy of Chain of Memories (Reverse/Rebirth).