The streets were empty. The sidewalk was warm and the air pleasant. Her wounds had been healing nicely, whether Rain liked it or not. They had come so far together. How long had it been? A few weeks? It was hard to tell down here. Hotland had passed by in the blink of an eye compared to the rest of the trip.

Oh well, it didn’t really matter how long it had taken. They were here now. Together. At the end at last. How lovely.

It seemed like only yesterday that Rain had fallen right into her arms and woken her up. That poor, scared, squeamish little girl- look what Chara had managed to do with her! Rain: the girl who fought monsters and won! Guards, civilians and soon even kings would cower in fear before her. Her face had become a symbol of doom overnight and her body a weapon of war.

She made quite a show of parading her new body down the road, twirling her weapon and letting her cloak catch the soft breeze. Undyne’s eyepatch fluttered in the wind like a small grim banner on the end of her makeshift spear. She was growing quite attached to the hunk of steel.

Her boots scraped against the pavement, their flame color having become dulled by dust.

So many little trophies. So many stolen items to flaunt. Of course out of all of them Rain was her greatest prize of all. Without catching her none of this would have been possible.

When she at last reached her home the feeling was surreal. It was so familiar and yet enough had changed to make her feel like an impostor.

Well, actually, she was an impostor now. So perhaps it was fitting.

Mother had taken quite a liking to golden flowers back in the Ruins but it seemed that Asgore had taken a much less flashy approach to his front yard. A few dry leaves skittered across her path, blown into the shadow of a few distant bushes. Their skittering dance drew her eye to something moving in the shrubbery off near the corner of the building. She cocked her head, hair swaying in her curiosity.

A tangle of vines was dragging something into the bushes and around the corner. A Whimsalot by the looks of it. Its armor made faint scraping sounds before its slack body was pulled into the dirt, where the vines coiled around it like a knot of hungry snakes and carried it out of sight. A moment later a puff of dust rose up into the air, carried away by the breeze.

“Curious.” She mused, tearing her gaze away from the oddity and trying the door. It was unlocked, no surprise there. Her father always had been stupid enough to do something like that.

She left the tangle of vines to do their thing. She knew that her little follower would come around once he had finished up.

She took a deep breath and let the familiar smell of her old home fill her with nostalgia: old memories of playing with her brother or listening to mother read them stories. Pointless little things like that.

She wandered around for a bit, taking in the sights and smells. She had thought that being here may stir up some old feelings, some long forgotten fondness that would make her hesitate. But it didn’t. Not really. Not this time. This was not her home. These were only empty rooms to her now. The toys were only dusty mementos. The flowers simple reminders of days now lost to time.

The place was filled with pointless keepsakes. Old drawings, old sweaters, old photos gone gray with time. Everything seemed almost exactly the way she had left it only more faded. Empty.

Perhaps this was a fitting reflection of herself. At least these faded things had endured.

She wasn’t even surprised when she opened the door to her old room and found everything to still be in the exact place she had left it. The room was all nice and tidy save for a box on the floor. That was new. It had a little red ribbon stuck to its top- her favorite color.

Curious, she plopped herself down on her bed with a creak and put the gift in her lap. She pulled the top off and tossed it aside.

“Oh!” She exclaimed, hand darting inside. She couldn’t believe it. They were still here. She had hid them away before her death and had assumed she would ever see them again.

She pulled a golden heart shaped locket from the box and put it around her neck. The chain had always been a little long for her but it fit an adult just fine.

The second item in the box truly made her heart skip with pleasure. “Hello old friend.” She cooed, pulling a long kitchen knife from the box and holding it up so that it gleamed in the light. It had not even rusted. Someone had taken good care of it for her.

She looked down at her sharpened fire iron and then back to the knife. She had grown rather attached to her makeshift weapon. It had been a trophy from her mother after all and had gotten her this far. She held both items up for exsamination, testing their weight and pondering on which to choose. Which one would she plunge into father’s heart? Which one would she finish the journey with?

She shrugged. “Why not both?” She tucked the fire poker back up her sleeve and slipped the blade into her pant pocket. It was a bit awkward but it would have to do.

She stepped back out into the hall and wandered a bit, taking it all in. Her reflection caught her attention as she passed a large mirror hung out in the hallways and she stopped to look at herself. She put her hands on her hips, gave the mirror a big smile and leaned in close to take it all in. She was a dirty mess for sure. Clothes torn up and bloody, dirt under her nails and bloodshot eyes that had circles under them that were so dark that they looked like bruises. Such were the hints of the daily battles waged between herself and Rain. Those battles were becoming shorter and shorter with each passing hour now.

She turned this way and that. “I sure lucked out, didn’t I?” Long hair, healthy weight, fairly decent height and a smooth face. Of all the bodies she could have gotten, this one wasn’t so bad. Even if she was sort of flat chested and she didn’t quite like how strong her new nose was- but it wasn’t horrible! She wouldn’t call her new body beautiful but it could pass for pretty.

“You picked a nice one.” A familiar voice said, high and friendly as it echoed her own thoughts. “Sure better than being stuck as flower.” He laughed.

Chara looked away from the mirror and watched as a large golden flower slithered out of a nearby vase on a long knotted vine. It looked and sounded like a large snake sliding across the hardwood floor. He rose up several feet off the ground, coils of vines curling up under him like discarded rope. “Howdy, Chara! You finally made it home!”

“Greetings, Asriel.” She tilted her head and looked at him sideways. “How curious that we would both come back here after so long.”

The flower laughed. “Wow, you could tell it was me?”

“You seemed to have figured it out faster than I did.” She pointed out. “It would seem that sharing a soul leaves a lasting impression.” She brushed past him, uninterested in his grand reveal. She wondered if perhaps father had some snacks stashed away in the kitchen. She had a craving for chocolate.

Asriel trailed after her, head low to the ground as he slithered down the hall, vines seeming to defy reason as they stretched themselves to the point of fading into nothingness just as a new set of entwining green slithered out of the next nearest flower pot and attached themselves to his main stem so that he was always being fed more length to move around with.

He looked up at the various picture frames, humming to himself. “Do you remember when we used to play here?” He chuckled, face twisting into something a bit darker. “Boy, I bet today is going to be just as fun as the good old days, isn’t it?”

Chara swayed along, not bothering to look at him. “Yep.”

She wandered into the kitchen and checked all the cupboards and shelves. The fridge was full of bachelor food. Things hardly fit for a king in her opinion. No chocolate either. She did however find one of the keys she needed to unlock the path down into the basement. It was usually blocked off by a minor magical barrier that needed two keys to unlock.

Asriel dipped his head and looked into a nearby bin. It was full of crumpled pie recipes. “Oh look, he was trying to recreate mom’s cinnamon butterscotch pie! Man, remember how we used to argue about that? You always wanted cinnamon, I always wanted butterscotch. Finally mom just combined them one day to make us stop fighting. Was pretty good, I think. It’s been so long now since I have had any. Sometimes I miss it.”

“I always hated the stuff. Butterscotch ruined the flavor.” She sniffed, turning around and leaving him to catch up. “So, how did you get here anyway? You should be dead.”

“Hah, I could say the same about you. How…how did you- why? What made you wake up? ” A sheepish little smile graced him. “Did… did you hear me calling to you?”

“It’s simple really. My soul never faded. My Determination was too great. I tried to get back to my own body and revive it but it was too late. It had been dead for too long. I was too weak to do anything so I just sort of… fell asleep." she sighed in thought and tapped her thin with a single fingernail."I suppose mother took me to the Ruins after that. I slept with my body for a long time. Sometimes children would fall down and wake me up for a little while,” she wrinkled her nose, “but they always fought me off when they realized what I was and I would have to go back to sleep.”

She spun on her heels and held out her arms, closing her eyes and beaming. “But then this little coward came along! She fell down right on top of me! Oh, I hope you were close enough to see it, Asriel! The way she mewed for mercy… for help. She was willing to give me anything I wanted! So I took everything.”

She arrived at the stairway that would eventually lead her to the throne room. A cute little chain and double lock roped off the stairway. The air behind it shimmered faintly in warning of the magic blockade.

She patted her pockets. Ah, she had forgotten the other key hadn’t she?

A vine curled up to waist level, a single intricate turquoise key swaying with the vine’s motions. She snatched it up without a word of thanks and tinkered with the lock. The motions came back in the form of old muscle memory. The chain fell to the ground and the shimmer in the air dissipated. She nudged the empty space with her boot just to make sure then trotted down the stairs.

Asriel followed close behind, vines seeping out of flowerpots and old earthy cracks in the basement floor to carry him along.

“So, where is that father of ours? I know you have been keeping an eye on things, snuffing out the screamers and all that- so I assume you have been watching him for me.”

Asriel practically leapt at the chance to tell her how useful he was. “He’s in the throne room! I kept him in the dark as long as I could but he probably knows something’s up by now.”

“Is he going to absorb the other souls?”

Asriel chuckled. “Him? No. Even now I don’t think he has the guts. He’s not like you and me. He still doesn’t understand this world. That it’s kill or be killed. His delusions make him soft.” Chara snorted at this remark. Bitter bile rose in her throat but she forced it back down again. “He did manage to collect six of them though- souls I mean. He’s got them locked away somewhere. I have tried again and again to get him to show them to me but he just won’t.” His face twisted into a vile shape with a jagged maw. “But you… I know he will show them to you, Chara!”

She brushed aside this promise, instead having become focused on his previous statement. “Kill or be killed? Coming from you, dear brother? My, things really have changed, haven’t they? But you still have not answered my question." She warned. “How are you still alive?” Her lip twitched with the word. His existence seemed quite pitiful- I ironic even, considering it had been a golden flower that had killed her the first time around.

“When you left-”

When you abandoned me. Chara corrected with a mental sneer.

“-I turned to dust. Seeds from the village flowers that had caught in our clothes fell to the earth with that dust. I- I don’t quite remember how the rest happened.” His yellow petals twitched as he squinted in concentration, causing him to fall a few paces behind Chara’s echoing footsteps before he caught back up again. “I think I remember hearing that annoying scientist, Alphys. Alphys did something and I became aware again. I woke up.” He shook his head, petals fluttering. “I was so scared at first. I couldn’t feel my arms or legs.” His green coils pooled under him in thought. “I called out for help you know. 'Mom! Dad! Somebody help me!'” His head tilted sideways, black eyes gleaming, maw gaping in a jagged smile framed in gold. “But nobody came. Not for a long time anyway. Eventually Asgore did find me crying in the garden- took him long enough.” He sniffed; face beginning to mold itself back into that friendly liar’s mask of his. “I told him everything. I explained what had happened and when I was done… he just… held me; tears in his eyes. He kept saying ‘there, there, everything is going to be alright.’ He was so…emotional. But for some reason, I didn’t feel anything at all. I… I didn’t feel anything about anyone anymore.” His brow scrunched up. He still seemed to be bothered by this in some deep dark part of his mind.

Chara watched his expressions out of the corner of her eye as they neared the end of the tunnel.

“I spent weeks with that stupid king, vainly hoping I would feel something.” A jagged, hissing sigh seeped out of his teeth. “But in time it became too much for me. I ran away from home and eventually wandered into the Ruins, where I found her. I thought of all people-”

“She could make you feel whole again?” Chara completed, nodding knowingly. “And let me guess, she failed!” She chirped, mocking both of their failures.

Every time she had met Toriel, both as Chara, as Rain and as the other two worthless children, she too had thought that perhaps the kindly queen of monsters would be able to reignite a spark of something within her. But it had never worked. Perhaps it was because she didn’t have any particular desire to be saved anymore. Not after what she had gone through. Not after being betrayed by her own brother. Not after waking up to find that Asgore had stopped with the charade and had finally gone directly to collecting children’s souls to finish the job he could not get his own children to complete for him.

Still, it had been frustrating to try and fail as often as she had. Killing Toriel had been a weight off her shoulders in the end. “You should have just killed her yourself, Asriel. It did wonders for me.”

“Oh, I did kill her, Chara!” He chirped, once again eager to please and fit in beside her. “Again and again and again! But eventually I stopped bothering. Even that stopped evoking emotion after a while. Going out of my way to find her every reset became a waste of time. So I let her live- it was sometimes funny to watch her cry. In the end she was very lonely.”

Chara opened the door at the end of the hall and warm synthetic sunlight spilled into the darkness. Asriel slipped through the closing door behind her, not seeming to notice or care that she would have been content to let it slam shut and sever his vines if he had been too slow.

The path began to slope upwards. Up ahead the outlines of the castle sat atop the hill like an old jagged crown. It may have been a trick, or magic, or just old childhood views contaminating her mind, but up near the top of the castle she thought there may have been a small ray of real sunlight where the structure came close to the barrier. The hill connected with a massive dip in the ceiling after all, causing a small part of the castle to look like it was etched out of the side of the mountain itself. She knew that this high up the barrier was close by and it wasn’t impossible for sunlight to have found a crack to peek in through over the years. So maybe it wasn’t that outlandish of a thought after all.

As Asriel continued to chatter on, one word stuck out amidst his droning and prodded at her. “Reset? You have that ability too?” She kept her eyes trained straight ahead but there was a dangerous edge in her voice now.

“I did for a while, yes. Until you came along. You seem to have overwritten my last save point.”

“Save Point? Is that what you call them?” She mused. “Well, I suppose that is an appropriate word for them. When the world becomes your game, why not call them Save Points?”

“Hah. Yeah, I guess so." He ducked his head sheepishly as he continued. "You may not believe this… but the first time I found out about resetting things... it happened because… because I had given up. I thought I wanted things to end. But as I felt myself begin to die I realized I wasn’t ready yet. I started to wonder what would happen to me, a soulless creature, if I were to…?” He shook himself from the thought. “Anyway, that stubbornness brought me back.” Chara’s face twitched a little at his continuation of a question that had now been answered. He did not notice her annoyance. “Interested, I decided to experiment. Again and again I brought myself to the edge of death. At any point I could have just let this world continue on without me, but as long as I was Determined to live, I could pull myself back. It’s amazing isn’t it, Chara?”

“Of course. It surprised me too at first." She shrugged. "I guess human Determination does odd things if you soak it in magic long enough. So, tell me Ariel, how long did it take you?”

“How long did it take me to what?”

She spread her arms wide. “To be like me of course! When I left you, you were still so soft. So small. So weak. When did that finally change? When did you first decide to kill?”

He laughed nervously, not comfortable under her gaze. She had let a little bit of her old anger seep into her expression. It may have been as old as a lifetime to the rest of the world but to Chara the wounds of past slights were still fresh, hot and burning.

“Well at first, out of habit, I used my powers for good. I solved everyone’s problems flawlessly. Their companionship was amusing to me for a while. I’m surprised you didn’t try it out for yourself.”

“I had better things to do.”

“Oh. Well, good. It was a waste of time in the end anyway. They just become predictable over time, trapped down here. ‘What do they say if I give them this? What would they do if I said this?’ I ran through it all and once you know the answer, that’s it. That’s all they are.

“The killings started because I ran out of other things to do. I became curious about how they would react if one of them died.” His face carried a worried scowl that mocked itself. “At first I made excuses for myself. ‘I don’t like this.’ I would say, ‘but I just have to know what happens.’” He cackled; face becoming sharper and more grotesque than ever. His vines writhed behind him. “What a pitiful excuse! You of all people must know how liberating it is to act this way.”

Chara chuckled and prodded at Rain to see if she was still listening from her little cubbyhole.

“Of course nowadays even that has grown tiring. I have done everything this world has to offer. I’ve read every book, burned every book, won every game, lost every game. I thought I had seen it all by now. But you? I never could have predicted you, Chara.”

For a creature who claimed to have had the ability to love or feel compassion ripped out of him he sure was beaming up at her now. “I mean, when I first saw you in the Ruins I didn’t recognized you. I thought I could frighten the human and take her soul. I didn’t know you were already in there. And when I failed and tried to reload so I could try it all over again, my save wouldn’t work. Chara, somehow your Determination is even greater than mine! So I know that when you go in there,” he nodded towards the castle, “you will be able to do all the things I could never do.”

Chara paused in their assent. The noble golden archways of the court hall were drawing near, looming over them like giants. “And this doesn’t bother you at all? Knowing that I am the one in control? Knowing that the world is now at my mercy?”

Asriel wilted a bit. He cast a longing glance up at the light above them; that light that they liked to pretend could be the sun. “I’m just…so tired of all this, Chara. I’m tired of all these people. All these places. I’m tired of being a flower. There is just one thing left I want to do.” His face contorted into another monstrous sneer that opened so wide that it actually tore at the seams of his blossom head. “I want to finish what we started. Let’s free everyone! Let’s let them see what humanity is really like! Let’s let them see that despite everything, this world is still kill or be killed!”

The heat was boiling up inside her now. Poor Asriel. Despite his gaudy talk and scary faces he was still the same as always; naive and oblivious. “And what do you want to do after that?”

“Then? Well… I had been entertaining a few ways to use that power.” His face shrank back into its friendly form, eyes shy and evasive.

Chara’s grip tightened on her spear and the feeling of the knife pressed against her thigh became hard to ignore. Answer very carefully. She warned. Say the right words, little brother.

“But, well, seeing you again has changed my mind.” He beamed up at her, hopeful. “Chara, I think if you’re around, just living on the surface with you wouldn’t seem so bad.”

Chara smiled and suppressed a sigh. “Now why would you go and tell me a thing like that?”

Asriel misinterpreted her disappointment for a genuine question. He seemed a little confused. “Chara I said it before. Even after all this time you are still the only one who understands me.” He stood a little taller to try and make himself seem more intimidating. His words came out in spitting hisses like an agitated snake. “You won’t give me any worthless pity! Creatures like us wouldn’t hesitate to kill each other if we got in each others way!”

She folded her arms, resting all her weight on one leg and looking at him expectantly; waiting for him to catch on. “That’s right.”

Asriel was cackling now, enveloped in his act. “There really is a purity to living this way! Like I said before, it’s so liberating to just stop making excuses and accept that this is what we are. Who cares if we are messed up? At least we are better than the sickos who stand around and watch it happen!” Chara prodded Rain again in amusement, but Asriel seemed to have someone else in mind. He had lowered himself back down to the floor and was staring out past the golden arches of the hall again. “I bet there are people standing around just watching this all happen right now, aren’t there?” He called out in a penetrating voice.

Chara scowled at him. Perhaps he had gone a little loopy with all of his whimsical resets.

“So anyway, that’s why I-” He had pulled his gaze away from the arches and had turned to look at her again. The words got stuck to his throat and his gleeful expression began to fade. His stem lowered itself to the ground a little more. He reminded her of a dog rolling over in submission. His laugh was nervous and brittle. “Hahaha…hah. Suddenly I feel sort of…funny. W-why am I shaking?”

“I think we both know.” The fire iron slipped out of her sleeve a little in preparation.

His little black eyes darted over to her arm and locked in on to the small movement. “H-hey Chara, no hard feelings about back then, right? I was still just a dumb kid. I’m stronger than that now. I’m not afraid of hurting people.”

Chara took an abrupt step forward, making sure that her boots hit against the pavement with a snap.

Asriel jerked back, petals quivering, eyes going wide with fear. His coils of vines began to writhe around him and drag him back towards the nearest crack in the road. “Hey! What are you doing? Back off!” He looked around as if expecting someone to come in and help him. His eyes were darting around like two wild birds trapped in a cage. “Chara I-I have changed my mind about all this. This isn’t a good idea. You should go back.” His laugh was a weak, quavering thing that tried and failed to dismiss Chara’s advancing footsteps and growing grin. “This place is fine just the way it is.” His vines were pulling him back into a nearby crack at maximum speed. His face twisted back into that form with the jagged mouth and spat at her. “Stop making that face! This isn’t funny! You have a sick sense of humor!”

“Oh, but I’m not joking at all!” She lunged at him, pulling the knife from her pocket and striking down upon his coils. Her knife bit deep into the retreating vines, severing them from the main body. He shrieked and the loosened vines squirmed around her before crumbling away into nothing. Amidst the tangle of chaos he still managed to pull himself away on his main stem.

“I wasn’t laughing when you let them kill me- again! After all I had done for you! After having already died for you once!” She tried to spear him but his stupid golden head bobbed out of the way at the last second and she only struck stone. She watched the stone press his petals up against his face as he sank deeper and deeper into the crack.

“I did not. Die. Laughing!” She screamed, watching in frustration as those beady black eyes slipped into the darkness and escaped. She slashed at the surrounding vines that continued to trail behind him, but it was no use. His vines were like hair. They could be cut and regrown. He had managed to slip out of reach.

Her heart was racing, her arms shaking. Her breathing was ragged and uneven. She had wasted too much time letting him amuse himself with his little speech. She had let her control slip too soon. He had gotten away. She glared down into that crack. It was shaped like a mocking smile.

She threw her knife at the crack and screamed. She had made herself remember. Why had she done that?

She hated yellow flowers.

Rain’s presence flinched against her rage. She rose to the surface in hesitant little steps, drawn in on herself. She hovered their like a shadow cast over Chara’s shoulder. She eventually reached out to her. “Chara…” She tried to say something. Despite everything Chara had done to her, despite everything she had made her do, she was still trying to find the words to comfort her and salvage things. “Let’s stop this. Let’s let these things go. You can stay here in this body with me. We can share. No more dying. No more hurting others or being hurt.” Her voice quavered. “Let’s just… stop.”

Chara shoved her away, vicious and snarling. “Shut up!” She spat, whirling around as if Rain was actually there behind her. “Just shut up you weak, pathetic excuse for a human! This is your fault. These are your emotions! They are tainting me!” She pulled herself up to her feet and collected her weapons. “I have to make you see. I am going to make you either understand and agree, or give up. This is not your body anymore. Your body, your soul, your life- none of them belongs to you anymore! They are mine! You have already lost so quit trying to save me.” She closed her eyes and took a moment to try and calm herself. This wouldn’t do. She wanted to be cool and composed when she met Asgore again.

She took a deep breath and headed for the golden pillars.

“I don’t need help, Rain. I don’t want redemption. Do you understand? I don’t want it. All I want right now is for you to learn and understand what my brother was too stupid to fully grasp despite all his parroting: that in this world it will always, always be kill, or be killed.”