A heavy weight pressed down on Asgore's heart as he surveyed the tombstones. Though he had long since grown used to the sight of death, the sight was nonetheless profoundly unsettling. The dead memorialized here were not ones to have peacefully departed. He bowed his head, silently mourning the many whom had been lost.

Standing just behind Asgore was Jack, staring at him pitifully. "So… as you've probably guessed by now, we've been through some rough times."

Asgore didn't reply at first. He glanced at a tombstone placed in front of him, and then slowly turned to face Jack. With a deep and weary sigh, he spoke.

"This Island was meant to be a safe haven for our kind. Had I known such tragedy would befall it… perhaps I may have acted differently. The decision to leave was not one Toriel and I made lightly."

"Yeah… there was something I was wondering about that," said Jack. "Why did you leave?"

"Oh? You don't know?"

"Well… no," said Jack. "There are stories of you leading us, but none of them ever say what happened to you. I'd just assumed you'd grown old and died, but it doesn't seem you age like the rest of us do."

"No, I certainly don't," said Asgore, smiling softly. "I haven't aged beyond my prime for a long time now."

"Great, but that doesn't answer my question," Jack retorted. "Why did you leave us? We were your subjects, right? Why did you abandon us?"

Asgore hesitated. He looked Jack straight into his pleading eyes, struggling to find the right words to answer with.

"…Our desire was to aid those that still needed us," Asgore finally spoke. "At the time, many peoples still faced extinction at the hands of the human empires. Toriel and I left for the surface to aid the remaining monsters in their struggle."

Jack stared up at Asgore, eyes wide. "Is… is that why you brought all those dustlings with you?"

"Dustlings?" said Asgore. "Would you care to elaborate? I've heard you use that word before, but I am unsure what it means."

"Yes, dustlings!" said Jack. "Outsiders! Monsters that aren't us! Are you saying you abandoned us for… for them?"

"Oh… oh dear," said Asgore, his eyes widening. The implications of Jack's sudden outburst were not lost on him.

"You have no idea what they did to us, do you?" said Jack. "There's a reason our ancestral home in the Sand Zone's been abandoned. You won't find anything there but ruins now, and it's all because of them! Ánd you come here not only bringing more dustlings with you, but you're telling me you left us behind for them?"

Asgore's eyes narrowed, staring down at Jack intensely. The smaller mimiga flinched under the weight of his gaze, which carried with it a millennia of authority.

"Now you listen here, Jack. Whatever it is the other monsters of this Island may have done, my subjects had absolutely nothing to do with it. We fought together for our very right to exist on the surface, and spent more than a thousand years suffering together beneath the earth. I will not tolerate any prejudice against them. Do I make myself clear?"

Jack let out an audible gulp. "…Alright. Fine. But I'm only letting your 'subjects' stay here because Momorin trusts them. Don't forget that."

Without another word, Jack turned around and walked towards the cemetery entrance. As he approached the gates, he hollered back at the rest of the group.

"Alright, time's up! Everyone out!"

The sound of the shout cut clear across the plot of land, freezing all of the bystanders in their tracks.

"What!? Why!?" Sue shouted back.

"Because this is sacred ground! Now come on, let's get moving!"

With a degree of emotions ranging from disappointment to relief, the others gathered at the entrance, and Jack opened the door to let them through.

"So you haven't seen Tenryu since she was released?"

"We've been tracking her location via GPS, but she hasn't been on the Island since she left. Thankfully, her habitat seems to be limited to the nature preserve surrounding us, so we don't have to worry about her being seen."

"Ah... I see. I was hoping I could get a chance to meet her again..."

Alphys had only barely managed to pick up the conversation between Kazuma and Itoh as she followed the rest of the group across the village. She continued to work on her soul scouter, carefully adjusting the machinery with a pocket screwdriver through an open panel in the back.

"Hey Alphys, pay attention! We're here!" Undyne said.

"Huh?" Alphys looked up, and saw that they had indeed arrived back at the laboratory, its door still left broken and crumpled falling inwards into the building proper. "Oh, um... sorry! I was a little bit preoccupied. What are we doing here, exactly?"

"Didn't you hear the Professor?" said Kazuma. "We're having lunch, then we're going to be heading back home."

"So soon?" said Alphys. "We barely got to see any of the Island at all."

"Hey, I'm not complaining," said Sans. "Traveling sounds like a lot of work." His comment earned him a glare from Alphys, as well as Papyrus and Frisk.

Professor Booster led the group through the door frame, and they group continued into the laboratory, past the room with the teleporter and assorted lab machinery and towards another doorway. As they approached the second door, Jack ran forward and opened it, directing a glare at a sheepish Balrog.

Beyond the door was a hallway filled with pristine white tiles, not unlike the laboratory they had departed from. The corridor was short, containing only a few windowless doors labeled as living quarters. They continued towards the corridor's end, towards another pair of double doors, with a small cafeteria visible beyond. As they approached, a sudden thought crossed Alphys's mind.

"Hey Curly," said Alphys, turning towards the blonde robot, "I was just wondering, are you even able to eat? I know Mettaton can, but it would be kind of strange to leave you out because you couldn't."

"Oh, that? You don't need to worry," said Curly. "I don't really need to eat, but I can if I want to."

"R-right, of course," said Alphys. "Um... if you don't need to eat, would you mind if I went in the other room and took a look at you?"

"...Huh?" said Curly.

Alphys began to feel sweat condensing on her forehead. "N-not in a weird way, of course! Just enough to, um... you know."

"Know what?"

"Hey Alphys, what's the holdup? Come join us! Don't you wanna share a lunch with me?" Undyne called out.

Startled, Alphys turned around, and saw Undyne standing beside entrance to the cafeteria. She realized that as she and Curly had spoken, the rest had moved on without them, leaving only Undyne still in the hallway.

"Um... actually, I think I'll pass!" Alphys shouted back. "I want to take a moment to check out Curly's body!"

Curly suddenly froze. Her face flushed deep red, and the sound of a cooling fan began to drown out the laboratory's ambient noise. Across the hall, Undyne stared at Alphys incredulously.

"W-wh-what! No! I-I didn't mean it like that! I... I...!" Before she could even finish her sentence, Alphys reflexively buried her face in her hands, wanting nothing more than to disappear.

"Oh, I get it," said Undyne. "You want to understand the technology she's built with, right?"

"Huh?" Alphys uncovered her eyes, and looked at Undyne. "You... you're not mad?"

"Are you kidding?" said Undyne. "You really think I'd catch you perving on some robot girl? I know you're better than that, Alphys. Anyway, I'm going to be heading in. You want I should bring you something?"

"Oh, um... if they have any ramen cups, could you get me one of those?"

"Sure thing!" said Undyne, grinning ear-to-ear. She loudly pushed the cafeteria door open and headed in, disappearing from the hall.

Alphys let out a sigh of relief. "Um... sorry about that," she said, giggling nervously.

"Does she think I'm not good enough for you?" said Curly.

Alphys's jaw dropped. "W-what?"

"Kidding! Only kidding!" Curly hastily reassured. "So how about we head over to the lab? There's some space on the table if you want to look."

Curly sat on on the edge of one of the tables, just before Alphys. There multitude of diagnostic tools hung just behind her on the wall, and the space appeared specifically set up just to accommodate her.

"So I take it Professor Booster's given you a check-up before?" said Alphys.

"That's right," Curly replied. "I don't think he really understands anything about me, though. He just says I'm far more advanced than the robots that were sent to the Island eleven years ago."

"I see," said Alphys. "Just out of curiosity, were you anything else before you were a robot? Like... a ghost, maybe?"

"Huh?" said Curly. "Um... no, I'm pretty sure I was always a robot. Why would you even ask such a strange question?"

"You've already shown the capacity to care about others," Alphys explained. "That means you have a soul. But since you're an artificial being, you couldn't have been born with it naturally. Either you gained it from somewhere else, or whoever built you was able to build an artificial soul for you as well."

"An artificial soul? Is such a thing even possible?"

"I... don't know," replied Alphys. "Theoretically it should be, but... I really have no idea how a soul would be made in practice."

Alphys averted her gaze from Curly, feeling like the gravity of her past actions were pressing down on her, pushing the air out of her lungs. She tried as hard as she could to think about it, but the memories continued to drift over her mind like a dense fog.

"Are you okay, Alphys?" said Curly.

"I... I'm fine. Just give me a second." Alphys reached into a pocket on her lab coat, and pulled out the soul scouter, tapping on the screen with a claw. "With this, I should be able to—"

Alphys cut herself off mid-sentence with a gasp, letting the soul scouter drop to the floor with a clatter. She stepped backwards, staring at Curly Brace with eyes as wide as tennis balls, and both of her hands clasped over her mouth.

"C-curly! Your soul! It's... It's..."

Curly blinked. "It's what?"

"...It's human!"