Ventus

Ventus, also known as Ven, is one of the main protagonists in Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep. From the view of the story, it is revealed that he is a Keyblade Wielder before Sora and has a strong bond to him, even though they only ever meet through their hearts. Of the trio formed by himself, Terra and Aqua, he is the youngest of the three.

His name means "Wind" in Latin, and Sora's name in Japanese means "Sky". The two are connected, as Sora's heart makes contact with Ventus's injured heart, shortly after the creation of Vanitas, to fix his Awakening station, and at the game's ending, Ventus's heart merges with that of Sora, thus granting him the ability to wield the Keyblade. For this reason, Sora's Nobody, Roxas, takes on Ventus's appearance.

Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep
Ventus is the youngest of Master Eraqus's three apprentices. The game opens up with a clip from his past, revealing a connection to Master Xehanort. In this flashback, Ventus has an Awakening and finds that his Station of Awakening is broken off. He hears Sora's voice, and he offers to connect with his heart until one day he completes his own heart. Sora's heart fixes his Station. This all took place on Destiny Islands, where Ventus' conscious body and Master Xehanort were during these events.

Xehanort took Ven to Master Eraqus to learn from him how to become a Keyblade Master. Terra and Aqua met Ven with open arms. However, when Terra asked Ventus about who he was, where he was from, among other things he screamed out in agony, eventually falling unconscious. Eraqus revealed that this was because Ven had lost his memories. Afterwords he remained asleep for some time, as he slept, Aqua kept watch over him, to keep him safe. Moments later, Ven woke up. Overjoyed, Aqua quickly alerts Eraqus and a worried Terra about Ven's recovery.

It was then that his heart began to heal and he started to form strong bonds of friendship with Terra and Aqua. During a training session, Ven lost humiliatingly, but Terra and Aqua reassure Ven that he was getting stronger. Terra felt sorry for Ven, thinking that it was his fault Ven panicked, so Terra befriends Ven, and becomes like a brother to him. Terra even went so far as to give Ven his wooden training Keyblade, telling him that he, Ven, and Aqua carry with them, the same dream of being a Keyblade Master.

Years later, Ventus watched a starry sky, and was accompanied by Terra and Aqua. After a workout session, Aqua revealed to her friends that she made lucky charms for them, as a sign of their friendship. The next day, following the Master Qualification Exam, he once again earns the interest of Master Xehanort and his apprentice Vanitas. After dark hints regarding Terra left by Vanitas, Ven attempts to follow Terra and embarks on a journey of his own in order to save his friend.

Along the way, it is revealed that Ventus was once the apprentice of Master Xehanort and that Vanitas was actually a being created from the darkness of Ventus's heart. At one point of their training in the Keyblade Graveyard, Xehanort summoned multiple Neoshadows and persuaded Ventus to use his darkness. However, he refused to comply and was defeated. Deeming him to be too weak, Xehanort created Vanitas and Ventus gained amnesia in the process. In order to make him stronger for the creation of the χ-blade, Xehanort delivered Ventus to Eraqus.

After learning of his past, Ventus returns to Eraqus in order to discover more. Realizing Xehanort's plan, Eraqus proceeds to destroy him. Fortunately, he is saved by Terra and sent to Destiny Islands, much to his displeasure. There, Vanitas is waiting for him, causing him to fully remember his past with great pain. Before leaving, Vanitas tells Ventus to go to the Keyblade Graveyard, where he will see Terra and Aqua one last time. Once reunited with his friends, Ventus requests to be erased, much to their shock. Before they could reply, Xehanort and Vanitas appear and the battle begins.

During their final battle at the Keyblade Graveyard, Ventus is frozen in the process by Master Xehanort. Aqua manages to catch him, saving his life. Braig quickly appears and fights Aqua. Stalling long enough, Braig withdraws from the battle. Vanitas knocks out Aqua as he drops down from a cliff. Before the enigma could finish her off, Ventus uses all of his willpower to thaw out of his frozen state and fights Vanitas. To this end, Vanitas summons many Unversed to hold Ventus down as he forcefully integrates into him completing his heart. Vanitas and Ventus are transported to the Awakening, engaging in a metaphysical battle while Aqua and Mickey Mouse battle Ventus, possessed by Vanitas.

When Ventus wakes up, he finds himself in his Awakening, only that the other half of his pillar has a picture of Vanitas. Vanitas floats down wielding the incomplete χ-blade and attempts to integrate into Ventus once more to complete the χ-blade. Ventus tells him that he would defeat him and destroy the χ-blade. Vanitas laughs, saying that if the χ-blade was destroyed, Ventus's heart would be destroyed as well. Ventus replied that he didn't care, saying he would save Terra and Aqua.

Vanitas is defeated in the two fights and fades out of existence. However, this also results in Ventus losing his heart. Aqua later places his body in a chamber within the Land of Departure. Somehow, Ventus's heart finds its way to a young Sora, in his own Awakening, and his heart passes on into Sora's body.

Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days
While Ventus does not make a physical appearance in the game, Xemnas and Xigbar see Xion (a Replica of Roxas) as Ventus. Xigbar reveals that his complete being has met the real Ventus.

Kingdom Hearts II
When Sora first returns to Hollow Bastion and encounters Organization XIII, Xigbar stays behind to taunt him, at one point commenting that "he" used to give him the same glare that Sora did. Tetsuya Nomura has confirmed that Xigbar was referring to Ventus glaring at Braig when he was frozen in the Keyblade Graveyard.

Later in the story, at The World That Never Was, Sora encounters Xigbar again, who comments that the Keyblade chose "a dud this time" and mentions that Sora doesn't look like "half the hero the others were", referring to Terra, Aqua, and Ventus.

Blank Points
Ventus is seen at the Land of Departure with Terra, uttering Sora's name with a sense of renewed hope.

Abilities
Ventus is the fastest of the trio, using swift combo attacks with quick movements. Unlike most Keyblade wielders, Ventus wields his Keyblade, Wayward Wind, in a reverse grip. Aside from his impressive speed, Ventus also utilizes a variety of magic, including new and unique spells such as the Zero Gravity. Due to his affinity for both light and wind he is able to use the powerful Holy and Tornado spells and mix both elements into his attacks. His known Command Styles are:

Level 1 Command Styles

 * Fever Pitch: Ven's personal Command Style that puts a large emphasis on overwhelming enemies with wide-ranged, speed-based combos. Activated by filling the Command Gauge with physical-based commands. The finisher of this Command Style consists of a long combo ending with five beams of light. This was named "Speed Rave" in the Japanese release.
 * Thunderbolt: A swift Command Style that unleashes powerful lightning upon attacks. Activated by filling the Command Gauge with Thunder-based commands. The finisher consists of Ventus summoning a ball of light over his Keyblade then thrusting his Keyblade into it causing multiple lightning bolts to come out of the energy ball and raining down on enemies.
 * Firestorm: A ranged and versatile Command Style that focuses the Keyblade to erupt in flames while attacking. Activated by filling the Command Gauge with Fire-based commands. This was named "Fire Blazer" in the Japanese release. The finisher consists of Ventus jumping in the air, charging energy, and hurling a fireball that erupts into multiple pillars of flame.
 * Diamond Dust: An ice-based Command Style that seems to specialize in crowd-control and dealing with multiple enemies, named after the common attack of the Blizzard-based summon Shiva from the Final Fantasy series. Activated by filling the Command Gauge with Ice-based commands. The finisher consists of Ventus summoning a surrounding ice formation that shatter after a certain time and damages enemies.
 * Frozen Fortune: Another ice-based Command Style that uses an ice cream theme. Randomly activated by filling the Command Gauge with an Ice Cream item. The finisher consists of Ventus summoning multiple balls of ice that shatter after certain time and damages enemies. This was named Ice Blast in the Japanese release.

Level 2 Command Styles

 * Cyclone: After meeting certain requirements, Ven's initial Command Style morphs into much more powerful Cyclone Command Style, attacking surrounding enemies with spin attacks. Activated by filling the Style Gauge with Raid, or Aero-based commands. The finisher consists of Ventus spinning hitting enemies around like a cyclone.
 * Wingblade: An omni-directional Command Style designed to combat multiple enemies from all directions with a wingspan of phantom swords.The finisher consists of Ventus jumping in the air with his blade pointed downward; Ventus lands and causes a flash of light that damages nearby enemies. Bears a resemblance to Riku and Sora's "Session" limit. Activated by filling the Style Gauge with Blade (eg.Blizzard blade), counter, or Magnet-based commands.
 * Sky Climber: A Command Style that gives Ven great midair advantage, it allows him to ride his Keyblade around to attack foes from above at high speed. Activated by filling the Style Gauge with Dash commands or Zero Gravity-based commands. The finisher consists of Ventus mounting his Keyblade and hitting multiple enemies before heading skyward, then coming back crashing down and finally, spinning on himself, causing a small tornado. This was called "Air Rider" in the Japanese release.

Additional abilities include:
 * Dimension Link: An ability that allows Ventus to summon character's powers from other worlds to aid him in battles.
 * Shotlock: An ability to lock on to many enemy targets at once
 * Pulse Bomb: Ventus holds his keyblade backhanded and sends out energy from the light of the Keyblade, causing many small explosions. The orbs created slightly resemble those used in Sephiroth's Shadow Flare attack in Kingdom Hearts II.
 * Multi Vortex: Ventus starts by slashing in all directions multiple times before spinning and creating a giant tornado filled with shooting stars.
 * Dark of Link: Ventus creates three crystals that concentrate together into a giant beam of light energy. Ventus and Vanitas take aim at one another, Vanitas firing a beam of blue energy while Ventus counters with a gold one of his own. Different buttons must be rapidly tapped, and even the analog stick may need to be rotated in order to win the grapple. This ability is only used in Ventus's final battle against Vanitas.

Personality
As mentioned earlier, Ventus is the youngest of the three Keyblade warriors. Personality-wise, he has many similarities with Sora; he's sweet, cheerful, curious, and gets excited at anything new or interesting. He also makes new friends easily in different worlds and really cares about his best friends Terra and Aqua, viewing Terra as an older brother. Ventus is very much unable to cope with Terra turning and subsiding to the darkness in his heart. Some of his traits and personality might have passed on to Sora when his heart joined him. Along with his kind personality, he also shows a lot of bravery, especially evident when he battles Vanitas for the final time, where he promises to fight for his friends no matter what, knowing the fact that he would lose his heart as a result.

Appearance
Ventus bears an uncanny resemblance to Roxas, bearing identical facial features. Further highlighting this resemblance is Ventus's outfit, which is strikingly similar to Roxas's own Twilight Town clothes. He wears a jacket that resembles a fusion of Roxas's jacket (white on the right side) and Sora's jacket in Kingdom Hearts II (black on the left side), also reminiscent of the Yin and Yang symbol. The collar of the jacket is red and pleated, again, similar to the collar on Roxas's own jacket. Underneath this, he wears what appears to be a grey vest with a single button and several white, angular patterns on it. He wears a third layer under this, in the form of a plain, high-necked, black shirt. He also has a chunk of dull green and grey armor on his midsection that appears to be under his vest, and another piece of armor on his left shoulder. Master Eraqus wears a similar piece of armor, though more blue-green, and more obvious.

Ventus's pants are also similar to the pants Roxas wore, though Ven's balloon outward slightly before closing up about halfway down his legs, similar to caprice pants. These pants are colored in shades of grey, black, and white. He also wears an ornate, dull green and grey piece of armor on his upper-left arm, along with a black and white checkered wristband that is, once again, strikingly similar to Roxas's, but with white edges as opposed to Roxas's black-edged wristband. Like Aqua, he wears two criss-crossing straps on his chest, on which he wears a silver badge vaguely resembling the Heartless emblem or the Nobody emblem turned upside down. His boots are rather odd when compared to Aqua's and Terra's, as they resemble an armored version of normal street shoes in shades of dull green and grey.

When touching the piece of armor on his shoulder, Ventus becomes fully clad in armor. In "Birth by sleep", Ventus's suit of armor shares the coloration of the pieces he normally wears, predominantly sporting shades of green and gold. In this suit, Ventus adds a yellow cape to his outfit that is discolored, almost appearing rusted. The armor on his knee is gold and bears a sharp, upward-pointing hook on the outer side of each one. Ventus's helmet has a notably different design from Aqua and Terra's, appearing more squashed and flat at the top. His helmet also has two prongs on either side of his head which point backwards and angle diagonally upward. Strangely, Ventus's boots are colored completely gold in this outfit, as opposed to the multi-colored ones he normally wears. In Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep, Ventus's armor is altered. He loses his cape, his boots change to more closely resemble those in his unarmored state, and the coloration changes much more than Terra or Aqua's. Ventus's armor loses the greens entirely, now sporting steel blue, gold, and black armor, with several red lines decorating it.

During the climax of Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep, Ventus was forced to fuse with Vanitas, and ended up taking on the appearance of Vanitas's red and black bodysuit. While Ventus's head remained the same, his eyes were changed to the color of Vanitas's eyes.

Trivia

 * The Japanese Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep website's startup screen refers to Ventus as the "Swift Wind Returning to Bonds" (絆巡る疾風).
 * In the opening of Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep, Ventus is shown falling the same way Sora does at the Kingdom Hearts opening movie and the same way Roxas does at the end of the Kingdom Hearts II opening movie, but with Ventus, the Kingdom Key and Soul Eater are floating as he falls.
 * Ventus is shown to stand in the same stance that Sora often does, with his hands behind his head. Several of Ventus's attacks also resemble both Roxas's attacks during his boss battle in Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix and Sora and Riku's Eternal Session Limit in Kingdom Hearts II.
 * Many of the Keyblades shared between Terra, Ventus, and Aqua differ in length based on who wields it. While Terra's Keyblades are the longest, Ventus's usually are the shortest.