logsinthenight | EVENT LOG: ENTER MR SANDMAN (DEFENDERS)

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EVENT LOG: ENTER MR SANDMAN (DEFENDERS)

EVENT LOG:
ENTER MR. SANDMAN (DEFENDERS)

characters: those who signed up as defenders for the event
location: all around Beacon
date/time: november 16-29
content: the defenders attempt to drive off a spirit invasion
warnings: lots of horror! body horror, psychological horror, gore, violence, etc.. please cw all threads where appropriate! mods will do the same

in your closet, in your head.

It all happens in a matter of moments. Your friends, your companions, and even some people you aren't all that fond of; everyone who took so much as a bite of the spirits' feast suddenly collapses into a comatose heap. Which is bad enough already, but the worst, by far, is yet to come.

Before anyone can really figure out what's happened to the sleepers, the woods surrounding the town come alive with sound. Rustling, screeching, clicking, howling, and under it all, the characteristic hoots and whistles of the forest spirit tongue. But these aren't the friendly creatures that set up the banquet in the first place, and they aren't the familiar faces (or masks) from around Beacon. As they begin to emerge, bursting forth from the trees, these spirits reveal themselves as a horrifying army of terrors. And sprinkled among them, distinguishable by the emerald glint in their sockets, are the infamous "green eyes", the dangerous spirits that appeared once before.

Attempting to talk to these spirits is a moot point, made obvious by their immediate assault on anyone they get close to. They attack with claws and teeth, with limbs far stronger than they have any right to be, and the green eyes, as they are wont to do, will try to get into your head. Somehow, they seem to know what it is that scares you most, and they don't seem too hesitant to use it. It's not clear what they want— are they here to eradicate you? To frighten you? To send a message?

Whatever the case, one thing is very clear: you and everyone else, sleeping or waking, are in serious danger. Are you ready to defend Beacon?

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[ There's no replacing Sora. That's as futile as their combined attack, so easily shrugged off by their inscrutable and inevitable opponent. Riku doesn't try to replace him, he isn't trying to place a slap-shod bandage over the sucking chest wound that was losing his best friends.

That doesn't mean teaming up with others has no merit. It's not just about strength in numbers, because in deadly fights like this one greater numbers can only swell the amount of casualties, can limit their mobility.

It's about the connection forged from their months here, tested by the times they've clashed, strengthened by the quiet of the museum and weeks in each other's company. Time and struggle bonded them. Sora called his friends his power. Riku would even hazard to say their hearts are connected by a dark thread, inextricably linked to Sora's absence.

Vanitas is knocked back an inch and Riku is already swinging around from behind him, a steadying hand retreating from the center of his armored back. He blurs, slipping away into a mere smudge of black-violet as he tries to surge around, to flank the spirit, bringing his own broadsword to bear.

Their opponent doesn't seem to reel when struck, it requires very little time to recover from its own attacks, as well... that makes finding an opening difficult, so Riku relies on an attempt to stagger it, striking on the heels of its own attack on Vanitas. To force an opening, or to at least test if it can be done. ]

[Without visible eyes, it's difficult to tell where the spirit is looking at any given time. Its face is certainly pointed at Vanitas beneath its blade, but are those eye holes really enough to see through in this gloom? Does it even use sight to navigate? It's probably a silly thing to contemplate, but it might cross a mind or two when the spirit, without turning its head, flicks out its free hand to produce a second sword that it uses to block Riku's attack.

Only then does it slowly swivel its masked face in his direction.

It shoves roughly on the blade locked with Vanitas', as if attempting to knock him back, then disengages with that particular sword, bringing it around to stab at Riku.

It still remains silent as a grave.]

[ Vanitas wonders that very thing, and not for the first time since this engagement began. So many of these spirits didn't operate on the same rules they did— certainly not the kind Vanitas was used to. Even now, the fact they seem to be void of any kind of light or dark serves to confuse him. But that isn't as relevant now as clocking this one's fighting style.

Vanitas staggers when he's thrown backward under the deceptive strength of the spirit's shove. Their blades come apart with the tell-tale sing of metal on metal.

He exhales sharply, and takes the opening he perceives when it turns it's focus with renewed vigor on Riku. Vanitas surges forward toward it's back, ready to clash. Then, for half a second, it seems he freezes— but its only his shade, a life-like after image still engaged with the spirit when in reality, Vanitas is a foot over it's head and bringing the jagged edge of Void Gear down with alarming weight and speed. ]

[ It's fast, with a preternatural awareness that tells him it doesn't need to rely on sight alone, if at all. There's no perceptible hesitation, no lag between it sensing something and reacting to it. The spirit in battle is a terrifying wonder to behold, and Riku won't let it shake him.

He can't afford to - there are friends lives on the line, and trailing an opponent this dangerous back to his sleeping companions is not a risk he's willing to take.

There's a horrible clash and a metallic screech when his broadsword meets the obsidian gleam of its first weapon, sparks kicked up as his inferior metal meets something sharper, harder, carving a notch into the blade. Riku shoves against their locked weapons to reverse his forward momentum, trying to swing himself around in a wide twirl.

It's not a flourish, though it might be mistaken for one, when it presents less of a profile for the second blade to dig into. He's a little slower than he wants to be - the blade scores a bright line across his chest.

The spirit's blade is so sharp it doesn't even hurt at first, until he feels the hot bloom of blood starting to cool in the cold, early winter air. Thankfully, it's not deep, but a few inches closer and that thrust could have almost assuredly been lethal. Vanitas drops from above and Riku continues his spin, dragging with him his broadsword for a swing that starts low and carves upward. ]

[One from above, and one from below; a human fighter would have little chance of stopping both, and little time to even choose which one to block and which one to be struck by. But of course, this isn't a human opponent.

The spirit leans into the motion of its swing at Riku, and, much like him, it takes the energy from his push against its blade. What results is a graceful spin and a less-than-graceful twisting of the limbs in order to bring the onyx swords once more to clash with both blades. But it doesn't manage the double-block before Riku slices through a bit of its cloak, and Vanitas' blade winds up nearly pressed into the spirit's shoulder. Its arms are stopped in unnatural positions, shivering slightly from the effort of holding back two strong fighters.

But rather than remain locked in this standstill, the spirit does something sudden and perhaps unexpected. It withdraws its blades simultaneously, nearly too fast to track, and ducks low to slip between its opponents and gain some distance. It moves like an automaton, completely inactive and then a flurry of motion in less than an instant.]

[ This is how much of this fight has gone up to this point— the spirit is fast and inhuman, can move in ways no normal person could. If either of them were regular fighters, this would probably be even more disturbing than it is. But Vanitas was forged with magic against Heartless, and Riku has been fighting creatures of darkness for years. So when it manages to block them both, Vanitas bares his teeth with frustration as he lingers there, hovering with his blade caught against the sleek obsidian of the spirits.

But before Vanitas can muster up a second attack it's twisting and moving away. The sword slips out from under Void Gear with a clear note and Vanitas' trajectory brings him to the ground. He crashes his blade against the earth with a rumble and a shockwave of darkness, but the spirit is out of range. ]

Enough! [ Vanitas shouts, and pulls up on his magic. The shadows around them shiver and the world somehow seems to go even darker as he raises his Keyblade straight up with his own body— and charges the spirit in quick succession, vanishing into the darkness onto the appear again from another direction in a rapid onslaught. ]

Just where do you think you're going?!

[ Getting that close to a successful strike only to fall short of the mark... Riku's lips peel back from his teeth, grit against the low and animal grunt he makes in frustration. Fighters less experienced with throwing themselves up against impossible odds might have despaired - or sighed in relief when the spirit peels off.

Riku stands up straighter, loosens his wrist with a flicked swing of his chipped broadsword, sends the blade pointing out at his side when Vanitas takes off after them. The attack Vanitas uses is well known to him, a powerful tool he learned first when the Seeker of Darkness had taken control of his body and something he had continued to use long since.

When he jumps into the fray, he knows where to go. He may not be able to reach his Keyblade, but he has his Darkness, he has the Light burning in his breast, he has this battered blade and a promise to keep. He charges after, slips to the side or ducks for what he knows is coming - for every time Vanitas surges out of a dark portal to carve a path of destruction.

This is a dance Riku knows well. If he can't distract, then he seeks to batter the spirit into Vanitas's path, to goad them to be where he expects Vanitas to charge next. ]

[ It happens quickly, and maybe that should have been expected, given the way this spirit moves. They've both had to be at the peak of their game to keep up, to keep it at bay. Maybe, in the end, this is the thing that stops it— finally getting what it wants.

Vanitas wouldn't even say he moved wrong, so much as he isn't infallible. Nobody is— and while he and Riku have both been using a variation of a sword for a long, long time, sometimes the opponent just has that right twist, that right opening. The spirit catches Vanitas' keyblade and the metal sings as the obsidian blade gets caught in the teeth. It jerks the keyblade, and Vanitas goes with it—

Dual-wielding has it's benefits, it turns out. The second blade goes right through his middle, and the effect is almost immediate. ]

Hrk— [ The impact is smooth. Vanitas might not even have noticed it, if he didn't feel his lungs suddenly struggling to work. If the blood didn't leap right up his esophagus, paint his tongue in copper and start oozing over his pale lips. He's face to face with the spirit, his pupils small and his eyes huge, and the spirit is expressionless. Vanitas can't even see his reflection in it's mask.

The blade twists in his gut and slices outward, and Vanitas starts to bleed in earnest. He chokes on what comes up in his mouth, it starts to pour down his waist. The spirit could have cut him clean in half if it's swing had been wide enough. Void Gear falls from his hand and hits the dirt with a clatter.

Darkness hemorrhages out of him and Vanitas pours it onto the spirit in a last, desperate effort to swallow the thing into a Dark Corridor, to send it somewhere far away— maybe somewhere beyond the lake. Somewhere nobody can go. ]

[ In hindsight, Riku might recall that the worst detail is how there was almost no sound to it, the spirit's blade whispers into Vanitas and it's only when Vanitas chokes on the blood that splashes from his lips, the abrupt interruption in their skirmish that Riku realizes it's been decided all at once.

How bitter a taste when that is the moment the Keyblade at last responds to Riku's call, when it's too late to do anything about it. He'll be reminded because it rests so close to the chill that flashed through his veins when Riku found out that Kairi had drowned, somehow, just gone overnight, and not a childhood living by the water nor sleeping flanked by her protective best friends could keep her safe.

Another brick added to the growing monument of Riku's failure to protect the people who have come to matter to him, in some form or another.

Darkness billows out from Vanitas like he means to bleed a hole to drop the spirit into and Riku's chipped blade splinters apart in his hand as he lunges. There's no light because there can't be, there's just the glimmering impression of something condensing into a broader shape.

By the time he brings it down with a roar, like he'd slapshot the spirit into Vanitas' growing Corridor if he's able, what's gripped in his fist is Braveheart. ]

[ There's really no room. They're locked there, frozen, as Vanitas unspools loop over loop of Darkness into the night, bleeding out as much black as what spills over his waist like some macabre stream with it's dam burst free. His armor is so dark and the light is so low that it almost can't be seen— but as it blooms, it colors the blue fabric of his battle skirt darker and darker, the stain spreading like the billowing shape of the Dark Corridor.

Braveheart crashes into the spirit, and it vanishes into the portal almost immediately. ]

Gauh— [ The sound sucks out of him in the moment the obsidian blade unsheathes itself from his body, going with the spirit. Vanitas sinks to his knees, like he's at prayer behind Riku, standing between him and the darkness he's created. The portal collapses in upon itself like a black star winking out.

Vanitas starts to tip forward. ]

[ There's no room in his head for measured decision-making. He doesn't think, he doesn't stop to. Riku stands there only long enough to see the thing vanish, pivots a second later, dropping to one knee to catch Vanitas as he starts to topple.

He's bleeding, Riku could swear he feels it, feels the weight of Vanitas against his arm and shoulder getting lighter by the second. Maybe that's the cold flashfire in his veins when the loud white noise of his thoughts crystallizes into he's dying.

He's dying.

Riku doesn't get around this realization to get to the point of telling himself it's his own fault, that if he'd just listened to Vanitas, didn't stand and fight, he wouldn't be bleeding out, wounded well past what Riku knows he can heal. Five died a mess, no matter how many times he drained his magical reserves dry with Curaga.

Both of his knees feel wet where he kneels. Riku puts his other arm across his back and shuffles closer, automatically, something he does without thinking about it. Hindsight might prompt him to wonder if it wasn't just some instinct to ease the inevitable, an unthinking impression that whatever happened, it isn't right to discard someone to die slow, alone and suffering. ]

I'm sorry. [ It tumbles out of his mouth. ] I'm sorry. I can't heal this.

[ Vanitas wheezes, the sound wet on every inhale and exhale. It's strange. He's felt this sort of thing before, something like it; when he lost the battle against Ventus and Sora and the very essence of what he was was seeping from him slowly but steadily. But this is more difficult. The struggle to breath, the way he can feel his pulse in his midsection, the steady stream of blood oozing out of his body.

Somehow he almost forgot Riku was there, the shock of it so startling, the need to end the battle too severe. But here he is, pressed up against his front and his arm around his back. The position forces Vanitas' chin up, cheek to cheek with Riku. His arms stay loose at his sides, but...

I can't heal this. Vanitas closes his eyes. It's nice, he thinks a little deliriously. It's not even that painful, the way the white noise increases, the way his body is starting to feel numb. The way he's starting to feel nothing at all. Cradled like this against Riku's chest, it's almost like being held in Sora's heart again. Like being joined with Ventus.

It would be alright to die like this.

Vanitas exhales and blood spittles over his lips, slides down his chin to drip onto Riku's shirt. ]

Didn't ashk for... your help.

No, you didn't.

[ At first he's warm, half of him painted in the lifeblood of...

An ally. The chill sets in right after, he's clammy all over except where Vanitas is a limp shape propped up against him, swiftly bleeding out. There were more merciful ways to die, but there were worse ways, too; the spirit cut decisively and Riku can give them that. It's...

It's...

Nothing that's wholly good nor wholly bad, through the shock of realizing that Vanitas is dying he can think of that much. It feels like one of those things that can't be challenged with the limited, moralistic thinking of people like him.

Time is swiftly running out, ruddy grains flowing freely from this broken hourglass and he doesn't have the powers of the old bastard who once seized control of his body to slow its course. He can do... nothing. Nothing for him. He can't mend his hurts. He could try to give him a swifter end but that risks making something worse when Vanitas is already halfway there, the surrender palpable in Riku's arms.

He thinks about the desolate desert Vanitas was raised in. How quiet and how long the loneliness, and thinks:

It's better than dying alone. His Master wouldn't have hesitated to leave him to rot in the wasteland. Everyone, even a being born of Darkness, is deserving of some measure of kindness.

This, Riku admits, comes far too late. ]

You better come back. I won't have you showing me up... and getting the last word like this. Sora-

[ He's aware that invoking a word enough time makes it lose its potency, its meaning. That's not why he so rarely speaks his name. It's because of the fist that closes around his heart when he does. Braveheart disappears in little crystalline fragments that melt into the dark, his palm comes up against the back curve of the other boy's skull. ]

Sora would never let me live it down.

[ His breath rattles, thin and uneven, his lungs trying their hardest to keep working despite the fact they don't have the power to do it anymore. His chest feels tight, like he's being compressed slowly; but it's a distant sort of discomfort. Mostly, it's that lightness— and the feeling of Riku's arms around him. The fading out sensation of a heartbeat not his own.

Riku is speaking. He can hear it as the sound, but not the words. His palm comes up under Vanitas' head and that feeling of being held carries him through.

Even being here, with this physical body, he's still everything that he had been before. The Darkness is his chemical make up, and for as swiftly as he bleeds out to nothing, the rest of him starts to crumble around the edges, too. On the brink of consciousness he thinks of the relief Sora had felt, right on the edge, when all the fighting was done— when he gave himself up to his fate. The memory melts into another, like the fingers of dusk reaching covering up the daylight, into that brief moment he'd been complete.

Welcome back.
I'm home.
We'll never be apart again.

Vanitas exhales one last time and his body goes limp in the cradle of Riku's arms. ]

[ This gesture of kindness isn't even the first. There was a soldier medic, there was Sora, there was the being who lives under the church, there was his own replica who called himself Dawn, trying to feed snacks to his Unversed. But in light of Riku's own lived experiences with the Darkness, it makes sense that he comes around eventually on the idea that, whatever Vanitas has done, however many times they clashed, he doesn't deserve to be alone in his last moments.

Even the moment his fury and rage tore down the boathouse in which Riku lived, together with Sora and Kairi, it was just anger expressing an outpouring of grief, trying to let out the storm raging in his heart in the only way Vanitas knew how.

How will I explain this to Sora? Riku thinks, as if he's waiting somewhere out of sight, growing cold and numb around the hollowness in the wake of his spent adrenaline. In the quiet stillness, he watches Vanitas begin to unravel into flecks and wisps of Darkness, the texture of the hair beneath his fingers growing strange, like grasping paper only to discover it's become ash.

To linger here even this long is dangerous, it exposes the unguarded survivor to attack by some other, opportunistic spirit and it's luck alone that leaves them undisturbed in the long minutes he remains after Vanitas has disappeared.

Riku lifts his head with gritted teeth and, fists clenched, pushes himself - cold and drenched - to his feet. ]

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EVENT LOG: ENTER MR SANDMAN (DEFENDERS)

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cw; blood

cw: blood

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cw; suicidal ideation

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cw: death

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