He was back. He felt the same jolting feeling in his SOUL again, but he was used to it by now. Kind of. He still gripped the edges of the table.

"I'm not the only one who felt that, right?" He asked sans, feigning ignorance.

"don't play dumb, bro." Sans told him, his eye sockets empty and dark. "i remember the last two timelines. i know you do, too." Corsiva was slightly shocked.

"Sans, I…"

"don't apologize. just. don't." Corsiva sighed. "what happened after i died?" Sans asked him, his white pupils slowly manifesting again.

"I just want you to know something before I start. This is not the human who travelled through the Underground in the first timeline. Their body was being possessed by the dead human child, Chara." Sans looked slightly suspicious, but he nodded. "Well, I fought them for a bit. Turns out I can kill them pretty easily when I want to." Sans flinched a bit at this statement. "Relax, I only killed them because I needed to stall them. And I was only able to kill them because they killed everybody in my life. Since nobody has died yet, I won't be able to bring myself to kill them. I could severely injure them right now, just not kill them." Sans calmed down a bit.

"so, what happened then?" Sans asked his adoptive brother to continue.

"Well, eventually I showed them that even if they DID kill me, it wouldn't matter, because I could Save and Load too. I was just as determined as them, so they couldn't do anything to get past me. And I killed them again. We had a bit of a conversation in the Void place, because I can apparently just travel there when I feel like it, I just can't take someone or something else out with me. I asked them why they were doing what they did. After a little bit of arguing, I told them that I thought I could forgive them if they tried to be better, and they revealed why they did it: They didn't have a choice.

"See, Chara was being forced to do what she did by this crazy ultra powerful demon person with an ego problem who wanted nothing more than to gain a linear body and kill everyone and everything. I started calling them the Chess Master when they made a statement that this was all a game to them and everybody else was just a pawn in their game. Also, I found out that they were the reason that the machine malfunctioned and turned me into a skeleton. So, they apparently wanted to make me capable of becoming god, or just capable of withstanding god-like powers without dying. They made Chara kill everything to turn my life into a living hell, and make me weak enough for them to possess my body, turning me into their vessel. Then, when they had control of me, they would kill everyone and everything, and move on to the Surface to repeat the process. So needless to say, they were kind of insane, so I had Chara teach me how to Reset, they taught me, I did it, and here we are. Now, we should probably go talk to Toriel before we screw up the timeline and/or disturb the time-space continuum. Unless, of course, you'd like to get erased from existence in a fraction of a second." Sans nodded with a small shrug, and the two set off to restart the day.

Back at the entrance to the Ruins, Frisk had just landed back in the underground again. She was currently just crouched down on the ground, silently crying to herself.

"Look, Frisk… I…" Chara tried to apologize, but she didn't quite know what to say. "…I just wanted to say… I'm sorry. I know that it can't make up for what I did, both to you and to the rest of the monsters in the underground, it never can. But I just want you to know that I'm sorry. So… if you can't forgive me… I understand." Frisk was silent. She had stopped crying. Chara eyed her curiously, slightly worried.

"I'm not crying… because of what you did." Frisk eventually said aloud, her voice still sounding choked up, as she looked at Chara. "I'm crying because… I went along with it."Chara looked even more upset at that.

"Frisk, you're not the one to blame here." She insisted. "It's me who did all of this. I convinced you to Reset. I'm the one who made you start the killing. If anybody is to blame, it's me."

"It's not just that." Frisk insisted. "When we did all of that… I could feel everything. When we fought Undyne, when we fought Sans… when we fought Corsiva… even though it was you who was in control… I felt everything. Every impalement. Every disintegration. Every minor annoyance. I felt all of the pain, just like you. And… I could feel the sorrow and pain coming off of Corsiva, too. Everytime we killed somebody, I could feel it emanating from him. Pain. Anguish. Depression. Anger. Sadness. Mourning. I don't even know how, but… I could. And I could tell that he really was sorry when he killed us so many times. Sure, he might have been laughing, and taunting you, and grinning the whole way through… but he was sorry. He didn't want to fight us. He didn't want to kill us any more than we wanted to die." Frisk was silent.

Chara stayed silent, too.

"…To be honest… I didn't really want to fight him, either." Chara admitted, making Frisk look at her. "You once said that Corsiva was your best friend. Well, that can be said for me, too. He can relate to what I've been through. He understands pain. He understands me. In a way that nobody else does. But more than that… I don't think that I wanted to kill somebody so close to you. All of the other monsters in the underground, you knew, but barely. The ones that had made an impact on you were foolish, at least from my perspective at the time. But Corsiva… he was different. You barely even knew him, yet you immediately made a connection with him. He completed you, and he completes me. I mean, you had barely known him for a few hours in the first timeline, and he cared enough about you to actually disobey both the Captain of the Royal Guard and the King of the Underground. He saved your life more times than I can count. And… I don't think I wanted to take that away from you. I was silently glad when I found out that he could Load, that he wasn't truly dead.

"I couldn't kill him. Not then, not before, and certainly not now. So, now, it's all up to you." Frisk looked at Chara again, surprised and slightly confused. "These two previous timelines, I was always having some partial control over you. Whispering suggestions in your ear, telling you what to do and where to go. But this time? You get to choose. Not me. You. I won't interfere." Chara was silent again.

"You know, I really wish you were solid." Frisk eventually said.

"So you could punch me?" Chara asked.

"Because I really want to hug you right now." Frisk instead responded. Chara looked over at her. "I forgive you, Chara." Frisk told her friend. Chara smiled at her, tears in her eyes.

"Thank you." Chara replied. Frisk nodded with a small shrug, and the two set off to restart the day.

A/N - Well, I'm back! And the story will get much more lighthearted from this point (for now). The Genocide Run is over, and I'm sure you can guess what we're gonna be doing next. Just in case you don't, I'll give you a rundown of what we've seen happen so far. We've had a Neutral Run, with the "Family Ending," otherwise known as "Flawed Pacifist." Then, we had a Reset back to the beginning, and went through a Genocide Route, which was aborted during and/or after the fight with Corsiva. Now, Chara's leaving all of the choices to Frisk, and Frisk alone. Take a guess where that's going to end up. Anyways, I hope that you enjoyed this chapter, as well as the last few Genocide chapters. Please comment and/or review, I'd appreciate to get some feedback from the people who read this story. I hope you have a good day, and I'll see you in the next one. Until then, peace out, and may the force be with you.

-SF