Vanitas takes to the escalation like a serpent coils in preparation to strike. There's an echo in how Riku draws himself up in spite of his injuries, in spite of the fatigue, his teal eyes feverbright around the slow black yawn of his pupils. Neither of them are happy. But maybe the both of them crave the outlet, something different from the frustration and the misery. Something simple and ugly.

Riku exhales.

He takes the guilt, the anger, the despair, he takes their shadows in his heart and drinks them down until his fingertips tingle and his blood races. The Darkness is its own venomous rush, an all too familiar high. He can smell it radiating off Vanitas, can feel it saturating his every muscle fiber with a strength he knows is only temporary.

It's a little like adrenaline, he scarcely feels the protesting twinge of his sprained ankle as he steps around the bar, speaking low.

"Hmph. That the best you can do?"

"Yeah," Riku continues, "I couldn't protect them. That what you want me to say?"