Welp, I must be doing something right, since it only took about an hour for this story to get its first review. So, to show my gratitude, I'll go ahead and post the first chapter, which will do as the summary promised: "Picking up where the Soulless Pacifist Ending left off". But first, I'll answer my first honored reviewer.
-kaylafike500: Well, that question has a somewhat complicated answer. This chapter (and by extension, the Soulless Pacifist Ending) will take place several years after Naruto's birth and several years before Episode One of the anime. For reasons that will make sense by the beginning of chapter three, a time-skip of several months will ensue before the first "arc" of this crossover, right in between chapters two and three. Moreover, the end of that arc will take place a few weeks before Naruto joins the Academy. I probably should've included that in my Author's Notes, but hey, we all make mistakes, so we might as well move on. If you want a concrete answer, though, Naruto is currently a few months younger than he was upon joining the Academy.
Okay, with that out of the way, let's get to it.
Chapter 1: Nightmares
Even after several months, Frisk still dreamt of his last day in the Underground. It never happened more often than once every other night, but it was always the same. Frisk couldn't seem to forget his encounter with Asriel. The expressions of rage, pain and loneliness that had crossed his face, all vaguely reminiscent of Flowey's… The profoundly touching words he had spoken in the final moments before he lost his body… Even the hug they had shared. Try as he might, Frisk couldn't seem to completely remove them from his mind.
He had a feeling Chara had a lot to do with that. From the moment Asriel regained his true form, Chara's presence had spoken and reacted with conspicuous agitation from within Frisk. Her consciousness had even seemed genuinely sad when Frisk had chosen to comfort Asriel, to the point that right before Asriel left, she actually said "Goodbye" from inside Frisk's head, as if the former prince could hear her. But Frisk wasn't confused about why Chara had acted in such a way. The tapes Frisk found in the True Lab made perfect sense of it. Chara and Asriel had been adoptive siblings, and effectively viewed each other as childhood friends.
But on one night in particular, Frisk did not dream of that day. Instead, he dreamt about his last day before falling into the Underground. That day had been the worst day of Frisk's life, and constituted the one reason he had agreed to stay with his monstrous friends indefinitely. On that day, Frisk's former home was destroyed by the Eight–Tails: Gyūki. Frisk had fled for his life as his sea-side hometown met its destruction, and fell into the Underground less than a day later.
It was the same scenario he had relived before: the leviathan rising out of the sea, the specialized team of foreign Shinobi rushing to subdue it, his parents screaming at him to run when the demon reached the shore… they were all things that had haunted Frisk before, shaping his resolve to help and protect anyone he could.
Despite the terror those memories elicited within the boy, they were what inspired him to do all the good that he could, and make all the friends that he had. All of his other loved ones were gone, so he had to rely on others in their stead. And what was the point in seeking out friends and family if you didn't treat them like friends or family? Frisk understood, inasmuch that a child his age could, that he had no way of undoing his parents' fate: he'd already tried using his ability to RESET for that. Instead, the child subconsciously projected that resolve into others, seeing every good deed as something done for his village.
This time, however, the dream was different. Neither Frisk nor his family could escape, and they were soon facing the Eight-Tails itself. But just before Frisk's dream-self met his demise, a flash of green intercepted the creature's advance. Gyūki roared in pain, as a line of blood began oozing from his huge face.
"What in the blazes?!" he bellowed, looking down at the figure who had attacked. Frisk gasped: it was Chara.
"Oh, you must be one of Frisk's memories. Now I understand how Frisk wound up in the Underground." Chara giggled innocently. No doubt her trademark smile accompanied her condescending words.
"Humph. I'm not sure what you're getting at, human, but I won't ignore an attacking challenge like that." The beast growled, and immediately thrust his tentacles towards the girl. With agility Frisk had not seen since their battle against Sans, Chara leaped high into the air, almost to the same height as her demonic opponent's head. Not wasting a second, Chara swung her crimson dagger, the Real Knife, forward as if in a downward strike. Halfway through her attack, Chara was propelled forward as if tied to a cannonball by her knife-hand. In less than a second, she had buried the blade squarely in Gyūki's forehead, leading to him roaring in pain once again. Chara scurried down his back, giggling some more. Frisk's parents had vanished, and the ruins of the village had melted away into an empty field.
"How is this possible?! I've never seen such power from a human! You haven't used any Jutsu!" The demon snarled indignantly, and then once again barked in pain.
"You really are an idiot. In Frisk's mind, I have total control over everything. I could have erased this dream completely if I wanted, but what fun would that be?" Chara taunted, sliding through the demon's tentacles and launching several fuchsia energy blasts at them, in the shape of severed fingernails. Half a dozen of Gyūki's tentacles fell to the ground.
"RRRGH! You little brat!" he roared in pained fury. Leaping back almost fifty feet, the monster reared its head back.
"Tailed Beast Ball!" Gyūki bellowed, unleashing a massive, yellow-green beam of energy from his mouth, directly at Chara. The girl just laughed maniacally and slashed her knife down once again. Another energy arc, one as tall as her opponent, emerged from her blade. The last time Frisk had felt more energy from one of Chara's attacks, she had destroyed all of space-time in one blow. In this case, however, the attack cleaved through the Tailed-Beast's attack and continued all the way through his body, cutting him neatly in half. Soon after, he disintegrated into ashes and Chakra.
"Humph. I thought fighting one of your nightmares would be more fun, Frisk." Chara pouted, turning back and approaching the boy. As she did, their surroundings melted away into the same inky darkness that had surrounded them while they spoke with the Anomaly, during the last timeline. With the aberration gone, Frisk's focus returned.
"What do you want, Chara?" he muttered darkly. The girl giggled again.
"What do you mean, Frisk? You've already given me what I want: your SOUL. Then again, you technically weren't the one who gave it to me," She tittered. "If you want to know why I'm here, I thought you would already know." Frisk narrowed his eyes.
"Why would I know? I've never understood you, Chara. All you ever think about is…" Suddenly, Chara's words made sense as Frisk nearly spoke the answer aloud.
"Y-you're here to take back control aren't you?" Frisk whispered, the blood draining from his face. The girl clapped happily.
"Tee hee hee hee hee… I was worried you actually wouldn't know. Then I wouldn't get to see that priceless look of horrified, dawning comprehension on your face. But really, did you honestly believe I would let it end this way?" Chara's reddish-brown eyes melted away into empty sockets. Even without any pupils or irises, the girl was regarding Frisk with a look of obvious gloating.
"I will never forget what we did. Even if the Anomaly tried to stop us, there's nothing to stop us from doing it all over again." She cackled, an edge of sadistic glee lining her voice. Frisk shook his head vigorously.
"No, Chara. I'm not going to let you hurt my friends again." Frisk spat, readying the same Determination with which he had opposed Asriel. The girl let out another chilling laugh.
"You won't let me? You sound just like the Anomaly, Frisk. After all, since when were you the one in control?" The dream dissolved, and Frisk's eyes were forced open. His vision was tinted red, and his body felt as insubstantial as it did in his dreams.
'Finally…' Chara's voice whispered in his mind, and with that Chara let out a horrifying, maniacal laugh using Frisk's voice. The sound frightened Frisk even more than the laughter of Flowey's six-SOUL form.
"Now that I'm in control again, I suppose I ought to start by teaching you a lesson in submission, Frisk," Chara spoke aloud, in his voice, as she climbed out of Frisk's bed. The boy's blood ran cold. "I'm going to SAVE here, and use that SAVE FILE to kill your friends again, and again, and again, until you take a hint. Your SOUL belongs to me, Frisk. And when I'm through with LOADING this SAVE FILE, you won't ever dare to forget that, let alone defy me." Chara snarled, and then opened the MENU with finality. Frisk shouted defiantly and fought against Chara's actions as hard as he could, but nothing happened. He might as well have been dreaming… or having a nightmare. Chara pressed the SAVE button.
/*FILE ERROR: SAVE FAILED*/
"…what?" Chara spluttered after a moment of stunned silence. She pressed the button again.
/*FILE ERROR: SAVE FAILED*/
"C'mon…" Chara grumbled, tapping the button several times in a row, each with the same result.
/*FILE ERROR: SAVE FAILED*/
/*FILE ERROR: SAVE FAILED*/
/*FILE ERROR: SAVE FAILED*/
/*FILE ERROR: SAVE FAILED*/
"Do as I say, you piece of crap!" Chara growled, now tapping the button dozens of times in rapid succession. Then, without warning, the MENU vanished, and in the same instant all of Frisk's INVENTORY items appeared in midair and promptly fell to the ground.
"NO," The Fallen Child screeched, vainly gesticulating in an attempt to reopen the MENU. But nothing happened. "That's not possible. The Anomaly gave us these powers. They couldn't just be gone! Not unless…" Like Frisk moments before, Chara slowly came to her conclusion moments before speaking it aloud. Frisk felt a cold wave of dread rush through her mind.
"…the Anomaly. It's… they're gone…" Chara whispered in disbelief.
MOMENTS BEFORE, ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE FOURTH WALL
"What?!" The player cried in dismay, having just witnessed the ending of Undertale's Soulless Pacifist Route. Before buying the game, the player had managed to learn all that they could about Undertale without stumbling upon any spoilers. Thus they had started their game-play by experimenting with the countless possible timelines within the Neutral Route. After all, the player knew many others didn't have the heart to reset the game after the True Pacifist Ending. And the player knew that the Genocide Route mutated Undertale into a horror game with a ludicrously difficult final boss.
But eventually, the Neutral Route got boring. And the player didn't want to shirk either the Pacifist or Genocide Routes, lest they waste all their effort in avoiding spoilers. So, after recording a no-damage run against Omega Flowey and posting it online (mostly for bragging rights), the player decided to finish the game's other two endings and move on. Knowing that the Genocide Route would be harder to play through (in more ways than one), the player went that route first. And for all the demoralizing things the player persevered through, nothing felt worse than watching Chara get her way. The Genocide Ending filled the player with contempt for Chara, especially when they found out she represented the ideals of unfeeling, quasi-sociopathic achievement hunters who all but ignored a game's story-line.
Needless to say, the player relished playing through the Pacifist Route after that. They had always connected to Flowey's fleeting moments of humanity, and thus found Asriel's fate profoundly touching. With every monster spared along the way, the player felt greater satisfaction with the game, and a greater sense of triumph over Chara and the things she stood for. The player had a feeling Frisk felt similarly, as well.
In light of all that, the Soulless Pacifist Ending left the player absolutely crestfallen. They had even uninstalled and reinstalled Undertale for the explicit purpose of avoiding something like that. So eventually, after staring at the "The End" screen for a minute or two, the player closed the game and uninstalled Undertale for good.
"Screw you, Chara. Now I know why the fandom hates you so much," they sighed in dismay. Looking for some kind of satisfaction, the player opened their browser and typed "Die in a Fire" into the search box.
UNDERTALE UNIVERSE, PRESENT
"Fine. I guess that figures, considering your lack of cooperation at the end of the last timeline," Chara grumbled dismissively, contemptuously writing off the departed Anomaly. "No matter, that won't stop me from killing your friends, Frisk. I'll just have to settle for condemning you to a lifetime of loneliness. Heh… That might even help your chances of seeing things my way, since I had to endure the same fate for a while." Chara went on, drawing Frisk's knife. The boy kept on struggling with his Determination, but still to no avail. Chara reacted as if she barely even noticed him resisting.
"Besides, it's not like I have no control over the Anomaly's powers," Chara snickered, then grimaced with concentration. After a moment, another MENU flickered into existence, one without the SAVE, LOAD or RESET buttons. "I'll just have to be more careful about dying." Chara then began collecting all of the items the last MENU had dropped, each disappearing into Frisk's stolen INVENTORY. Finally, she looked at the plate of butterscotch-cinnamon pie on the floor. Frisk consciously perceived her thoughts, which decided that Toriel must have left it there, then deigned to leave it on the floor. Finally, with the INVENTORY gathered, Chara idly regarded Frisk's Worn Dagger, still completely oblivious to his continued struggling.
"Humph. I would prefer the Real Knife, but beggars can't be choosers, I suppose. Besides, I can always go home and get it back like last time," The girl ventured, then resumed her innocent smile. "Alright enough dallying. Say goodbye to your loved ones, Frisk," Chara taunted, then laughed horrifically. "Oh right, you can't!"
Without any further delay, Chara marched towards the bedroom door briskly. Along the way, she stepped on the pie Toriel had left for Frisk, crushing the treat and breaking the plate without even breaking her stride.
"Let the nightmare begin…"
Okay, that was chapter one. Let me clarify a few things. First off, the semi-sadistic part of my mind that compels me to laugh at tragic fictional events loved writing this chapter. I have a feeling I won't need to put as much effort into writing Chara's character as I did into writing some of Fairy Tail's characters (don't ask me why writing some of FT's characters was hard, because I don't know).
Second, Frisk is now trapped in the same situation as Chara was during the True Pacifist Run: totally conscious of their host's actions, but unable to take any actions of their own. Once again, like a dream.
Third, if you think Chara's MENU powers don't make sense, watch Glitchtale. But for now, just think of it as the same power Chara used to destroy the game in the Genocide Ending (albeit downgraded to account for the Anomaly's absence). In a breath, she has the ability to interact with the fabric of space-time.
Fourth, the player was not a self-insert. Like I said in my Author's Notes (if you bothered to read them), I have not played Undertale. However, I'm pretty much positive that is what I would wind up doing if I played through it as blindly as this player did.
Finally, I'm not going to insist that you review. HOWEVER, please note that reviews are a potent source of encouragement and inspiration for FanFic authors. Plus they're an invaluable source of criticism. So, unless you dislike and/or don't care about this story, leaving a review is highly recommended.
So, if you'll excuse me, I must return to getting ahead on my workload. Later!
