#bunch of goths bully a baby for a bunch of chapters

[minijenn]

HI I HAVE NO SELF CONTROL AND @oblivionsrebirth-posts EGGED ME ON SO HERE’S THIS DRABBLE I WROTE IN LESS THAN HOUR PERTAINING TO THIS ANGSTY ART I POSTED JUST A LITTLE WHILE AGO ENJOY MY SON SUFFERING SOME MORE BYE: 

Sora’s learning more and more that his Master’s favorite method of torturing him is emotional. Beatings, while leaving his body bruised and bloody, ultimately won’t break him, and Xehanort knows that. Just as he knows the worst kind of pain he can possibly inflict upon his newest vessel comes from deep-cut scars that no one can even see. From the scars that linger upon his long-torn, very close to shattering heart. 

Today’s torture unfolds in front of most of the other members, all of them more than eager to see their foe-turned-slave taken down yet another peg. Ansem finally relinquishes his iron-like grip on his arm, throwing him hard to the ground right at the feet of the Master himself. Xehanort doesn’t even have to command him to stay put; Sora can simply feel the unspoken command surging through his caged heart and imprisoned body all the same. 

“There’s no need to bow, boy,” his Master says, essentially contradicting himself. “In fact, I’d say it’s more appropriate for the rest of us to be doing that instead. After all, it’s come to my understanding that we just so happen to be standing in the presence of royalty.”

A round of confused murmurs ripple through the other members as Sora is forced to stand. He shares the palpable bewilderment of his fellow vessels as he watches Xehanort approach him, grinning coldly all the while. “Have you already forgotten, my thirteenth?” he asks, eventually stopping right behind his newest vessel. An all too familiar sense of fear starts swelling up in Sora as he wonders what unknown horror awaits him this time. “Allow me to remind you then, of a night not so long ago. A night when you were nothing less than the epitome of a prince…”

His master’s hand lightly skims his shoulder, yet strangely no pain sparks from his touch this time. Instead, Sora notices a different kind of shift, one that settles over his clothes. The dreary black coat they’d forced him into when the first brought him here is gone. Instead, he’s clad in a much more familiar ensemble, one that makes his heart fold with nostalgia and grief when he sees it. 

It’s the same, elegant suit he’d worn the night of the ball, one that had been lovingly, magically crafted by Fairy Godmother before, but by Xehanort, it’s been cruelly corrupted in just about every way imaginable. The vibrant touches and trimmings of the outfit have been drained of their color completely, leaving dull, lonely shades of whites and blacks in their place. His gloves are torn and tattered, his crimson claws tearing out of them easily. The only ounce of color that’s allowed to remain is his cape, but even then, the ruby red cloth is largely leeched of its cheery shade, half of it drenched in a fading, lifeless grey. A mirror suddenly shows up in front of him, allowing him to see the full result of his twisted attire, as well as how his eyes, gleaming garish gold, and his hair, white as frigid snow, make him look like a meager mockery of how he had on that perfect night so long ago. A night that can only ever exist in nothing more than his memories now. 

A few of the other members lightly chuckle as they take in the despair of their thirteenth member’s face. But even so, their master’s latest round of torment has only just begun. “What an honor it is to bask in your presence, ‘your highness’,” Xehanort sneers, his condescending tone clear. He suddenly places something atop Sora’s head that makes his heart sink even more: a heavy silver crown that, at one time, might have been impressive and immaculate. But instead, it's old and tainted, with just as many cracks marring its metallic surface as there are upon his own Keyblade. “There,” Xehanort steps away and for a moment, Sora foolishly thinks that might be it, that he might leave him be. By this point, he also knows he should know better. “A broken crown for a broken prince. My vessels,” he says to the other members, who are eager to get in this humiliating display. “Why don’t you take the time to show our thirteenth the proper… respect that’s due to him.”

The other vessels do so eagerly, pouncing upon him before he can even hope to prepare. Their weapons are drawn, and upon their master’s permission, they show little restraint on taking their sadistic delight out on the newest among them. To add insult to injury, each of their brutal blows come with the same sort of topical teases: 

“We are truly humbled by your ‘radiance’, your grace,” Vexen mocks as his shield slams into Sora’s back. 

“You sure are looking sharp there, ‘your majesty’,” Larxene laughs as she digs her knives into his arm. 

“But not sharp enough,” Marluxia comments before he slices his scythe across Sora’s cape, trimming it down to a short, ragged length. “Isn’t that much better, ‘your eminence’?”

“Aw, c’mon fellas,” Xigbar chuckles as a barrage of his arrows tear across Sora’s face. “I think our poor little princey here gets the point.”

And on and on it goes for what feels like an eternity until Xehanort finally commands them to stop. Until Sora’s lying on the ground, his falsely regal attire in tatters, his blood staining their black cloth red. Until his master decides to dig the knife of this awful torture even deeper, just like he always does. 

“While you certainly look the part,” Xehanort forces him to look up, even despite the black eye and bloody nose he’s sustained. “But don’t you remember, my thirteenth? There’s one thing no prince is complete without. Or in your case, two things....” 

He steps aside and suddenly Sora sees them. He sees them and his heart breaks all over again at the mere sight of them, and how much he misses them, how he knows he’ll never get to be with them again. His heart breaks even more somehow when he sees what they’re wearing. Kairi in her stunning pink ball gown, Riku in his well-trimmed suit vest. Both of them looking every bit as beautiful as they had on that night. That one, single solitary night when, for just a brief moment, he had thought everything might just turn out alright. 

How incredibly wrong he ended up being. 

Neither of them say a word to him, but the looks in their eyes say enough. They stare down at him in disgust, as if he’s a grotesque, distorted, despicable creature not worthy of their time or attention. Any trace of love that either of them might have once carried for him is gone, replaced with derision and disdain and hatred for the darkness he’s fallen into, for the monster he’s become. He reaches a shaking, clawed hand out to them, desperate for their presence, longing for even just a single gentle touch. But as they swiftly turn away from him, he’s left with nothing. No comfort, no affection, not even a single shred of dignity as he sits there, bleeding and broken, inside and out. 

“Let this serve as a reminder to you, my thirteenth,” Xehanort’s voice speaks somewhere behind him. He hardly hears it, hardly cares. But he knows that every word his master says to him is nothing less than the truth. “Let it remind you of what you used to be, and what you now are. A prince of light… fallen from his throne to become nothing more than a servant of darkness. That’s all you were ever meant to become, and now,” The edge of master’s Keyblade pushes his crumbled crown off his head. It shatters into countless broken pieces on the floor, just as his very own heart does the moment Riku and Kairi leave him, just as he’s reminded of just how much he’s lost, of what he’ll never get to have again. “That is all you’ll ever be.”