Death isn't pleasant.
It never has been, you suppose, you should know, but...
Theres something different about dying knowing that your death was going to mean something, and dying knowing that only meant more pain. And as best you can tell, what you feel when Undyne's spears rip through Frisk for the 13th time is a fraction of what they're going through.
You can't help but wonder if they hate you for that.
They don't, though. Of course they don't. And every time they tell you that, you believe them, but...every time they tell you that, it's a little quieter. A little more hollow. A little less Frisk. But they make sure to tell you, each and every time, and its starting to feel like they're mocking you with it. You're certain that doesn't make sense.
None of this makes sense.
But this is the 13th time. Even your own nerves, dulled as they are, are starting to fry under the weight of so much stress and so much pain, and that's honestly your first mistake. You wait. You wait until it starts to get to you, not even considering how much longer that means it ate away at them. How much further past their limit they've gone.
You ask are you okay?
They don't answer.
You ask can you still hear me?
They nod, or you want to believe they nod.
Do you remember what we're doing? Why we're doing this?
A frown. No response. Hesitantly, you reach out and ask:
Do you remember your name?
They stop, look at the walls of the caverns bordering Hotland, and stare. They see nothing in stone, nothing in their own mind, and you can feel them clawing around their hollowed out psyche for an answer, when all of the sudden-
"Chara. It's me, Chara."
And after that, nothing is said. They face Undyne once more, but their movements are sluggish. Uncaring. A spear drives itself through their foot, pinning them to the ground and where normally they would have shrieked, they simply stare at the wound. Lazily, they tug at it, trying to walk through the spear rather than pull themselves free. And the thing is, you can feel that. It hurts like hell even to you, but they...they just...
Undyne seems to have taken notice that something is wrong, but before her reluctance can get the best of her, another spear flies into Frisks chest, piercing their heart and sending shards of bone into their lungs. They just kind of...slump over and fall, exactly as you'd imagine someone falling asleep on their feet, not being murdered.
This cannot continue.
"It will," they whisper back.
Not like this. And you do something you promised to never do without asking: you boot them out of the drivers seat, and take control of their body. Or Soul, you suppose, seeing as how you're both currently dead. You seize the determination coiled around their heart, and you spin the clock back past their last save, all the way to the beginning.
They do not object to this. You get the vague sensation of inquiry, as if someone distilled the lilt at the end of a question into an emotion, but there's no words there. Frisk is beyond them at this point, and, you suppose, beyond understanding your reply.
You grip the stick tightly in hands that aren't yours and wander through the Ruins. You greet Toriel curtly, informally. The open wound in your heart upon seeing her has scabbed over in the face of fresh pain, and a fresh hatred for those that took Frisk from you.
The first froggit earns a weak protest from them. But as the dust coats your hands and seeps through your fingers, the opposition fades. You can feel it coursing through your arms now. Where once you felt hope and optimism running through your legs, telling you to flee, to act, to press on, now you feel something else. A chill that licks at your arms like fire. Rage. Hate.
You've felt this before. It didn't scare you enough before, and it ruined everything, but now...Frisk isn't Asriel. Asriel was still himself when you died, but Frisk...
You doubt they could take control back if they threw everything they had at it. It's still their body, but...there's just that little left.
When Toriel falls, you hardly hear their protests anymore. You don't care. You remember early on, before Frisk listened to you, how a stray fireball had ripped an arm from their body. Her eyes were glazed over, she wasn't really present when it happened, but...she still did it. She still made Frisk scream and sob and grab at the charred stump, writhing on the ground. You'd taken over then, gritting through the pain long enough to slam your head against something solid. Hard enough to knock you out, after which you both presumably died of shock. Frisk had made you promise never to move on their behalf again, and you'd agreed, but...there was no Frisk. They'd said it themselves, there was only Chara.
Your arm aches. The chill makes it hard to move properly, which is fine. You swing the stick like a club, letting more dust slip between your fingers as Sans catches your eye. He doesn't like what he sees.
He should have intervened earlier.
That cold fades, for a moment, when Papyrus tries to stop you. He's your friend. Or he was. You know this. He knows something is wrong with you. He seems to know you're a murderer, he's not an idiot and neither are you. He beat Frisk to near death three times before you could escape and proceed to Waterfall, and again, his idiot brother just watched you suffer.
Watched Frisk suffer.
You're doing this for Frisk.
You expect that thought to make them stir, somewhere, but you receive only silence. You're not sure which you would prefer.
You kill Papyrus. More dust, more salve for the aches and chills in your left arm.
Sans doesn't intervene.
You shamble through Waterfall, stick held loosely at your side, and kill everything between you and that wretched fish. She plays the hero, of course. Saves MK when you lift him by his feet and try to slam his head into the most jagged rock you can find. He runs off, and you're alone with your tormentor.
Rage and hate coat your arm. You slap the projectiles away with it, and the numbed appendage shatters the first of Undyne's spears without much effort. It leeches into your heart, now, poisoning your blood with dust and hate. Her magic simply fails on contact with you, and you're vaguely aware that you aren't quite human.
Your hand is bleeding. Undyne's helmet has dents in it.
Undyne's is afraid.
You're yelling something at her, but you can't tell what it is. All you know is that it's vile, a hatred that transcends the hateful. You break her mind, and reach out to throttle her. She struggles, of course. God does she struggle. But the two of you wrestle your way to the edge of Hotland, and with a cruel, decisive punch, you throw her down to the magma below.
She screams, for a bit. You ignore it. Frisk is silent.
It goes so quickly after that. Flowey, for some reason, has destroyed all the puzzles between you and Mettaton. Alphys makes a few halfhearted attempts to stop you, but Undyne is dead. Her idol is dead. Eventually, she stops interfering. She stops calling. Ideas flit through your mind. A rope. A syringe. A bottle. The Core. They're all so...inconsequential, which fits Alphys very well.
Frisk stirs at that. You're not sure if you're proud or disgusted with yourself, bothered that you've managed to disgust them out of their coma.
"I don't think this is why you came back" they whisper.
And this time you do hate them for it. Love them for it. Love...LOVE. Gathering LOVE for love? What?
Who cares? you ask finally. They hate us. They hate you.
"Because of what we've done."
What I've done. This isn't on you. You are not in control.
"I am Chara."
I am Chara. You are Frisk.
"It can be both."
Meaning?
"It was too much for me. But maybe it won't be too much for both of us. We can go back. We can try being kind again."
If I give you control again, you'll never give it back. Don't lie.
"Then all this will play out again. And this time you'll know the score. And do what you want."
This isn't what I want.
"Then why-"
They have to pay.
You can hear them again, but they're further away, drowned out by flashes of dying. So much dying. So much pain. The visceral horror the first time around, knowing you're slipping away and knowing you body is shaking itself apart. Knowing you'll do it again before it's all over. Knowing that however much you're suffering, they're suffering more.
You wonder if they can still feel the aches and pains of travel. The exhaustion without rest. If, in some small way, there is a part of you in them that remains human.
If there is, you'll kill it too.
Sans greets you almost casually. Asks some questions. He hasn't wronged you, not really, but you can feel him staring at you. Into you. Judging you. But it's not until he slips off script that it really starts to burn in you, that hate, that sorrow that chars your soul and runs up your arms like ice.
"What happened, kid?" he asks wistfully. "You were so good. You gave me so much hope. What happened?"
"They suffered. They fell. And you watched."
"Who's 'they?'"
"The one you're talking to. The one you knew. I'm the one picking up their pieces."
"And this is how?"
"This is justice."
"Revenge, maybe, not justice. Not this."
"I don't see the difference."
"I suppose you wouldn't," Sans sighed. "You are different."
"So I've said."
"Then I guess someone has to stop you."
"Maybe. That wouldn't be you, would it?" you sneer, and Sans shifts his feet.
His first attack strikes you dead on, and it...God it...it hurts. Like actually hurts. You can feel it, pain in it's simplest form traveling through your veins away from the wound in your hand. Where it goes, agony follows. Exhaustion follows. It's as if that last sliver of humanity Frisk had hiden from you was given a shot of adrenaline, a burst of light, because now...
You're hurt. You're tired. Deliriously so. And yet, there's enough darkness in you to dodge the next attack, enough indifference to ignore the pain long enough to eat a healing item for the first time in...
Well. It's been a while.
Something's wrong, Frisk whispers.
"Something's very right," you hiss back, excitement taking you for the ride of your life. "I can feel this. I can feel something."
I can't.
"Of course you can't. It's not for you. It's for me."
I want to feel something.
You laugh out loud, as another bone drives itself into your shoulder. You clumsily switch the knife to your other hand and shatter the parts that stick out.
Actually, as white light clouds your vision, that last bone may have been yours. But it drives you forward, the shock, the agony, the tears in your eyes as you suffer and love every second of it.
"You don't."
I do.
"You don't," you repeat firmly. "This is for me. My penance, my offering."
This is my fault.
"You didn't do a thing."
I didn't stop you.
"I should have stopped you."
Then we've both made mistakes. Please, Chara. This isn't right. This isn't us. You can't see it now but this is evil.
"I see it. I love it."
No, you don't.
You consider that, as burns flare to life on the left side of your body. All you can think of is how great it is to feel hurt again and how convenient it is that the magic didn't incinerate your clothes. Frisk's clothes.
You are doing this for Frisk. Right.
"Please. No more. No more hurting, no more deserving to hurt and others deserving our hurting them. No more."
I can't. I can't stop. Can't hold back. Can't do what he did to me to you.
"What?"
There are no more protests. Sans eventually gets caught off guard, literally caught napping, and you find it fitting. The same laziness that caused all of this causing his demise. Like poetry. He wanders off, out of the corridor, and for a moment you consider going after him. But a breeze catches, and you see a cloud of dust blow past the doorway at the same time you feel the pain fade, like it's being pulled out of your blood.
The cold returns. You loathe that. You're sick.
"This is sick." Frisk mutters in the back of your mind. You follow the hallways and elevators, come across Asgore and Flowey, and slay them without a second thought.
Nothing stands in your way now, save for the barrier itself. The cold itches it's way down your hand, into the blade, and you shriek. You scream, and scream, and scream as cold flashes into a burning heat, an icy chill that burns, burns, freezes, and burns, and...
You swing the weapon at the barrier. You flip it around in your hand, and stab downward again, again, again, muscles burning in time with the ice, the fire, the hate you know and love, your soul, you-
There's nothing. You're still screaming, bashing away at the wall of light until it shatters into darkness, leaving you alone.
"Chara."
You turn. Frisk stares at you, expression blank.
You see nothing at all.
"I am Chara," you say gleefully. "The Demon that comes when you call it's name."
"You're not a demon."
"Wherever you are, wherever you may be, I Chara, will be there. Together, we destroyed the enemy. We became strong."
"This isn't strength, Chara."
"Then why are you here?"
"Because we can still go back. We can make things right."
"Do you think you are above consequences?"
"No. Of course not. But we can do this. For them."
"I do not understand these feelings, but...I will humor them." You laugh. This isn't funny. None of this is funny. "Do you understand?" Frisk nodded hesitantly, and you clap your hands together, too hard, too loud. "Good! Then it is agreed. You will give me your Soul?" Frisk nods again, and. nothing more is said. The world spins back, and you wake up again in the clearing, once more filling the back seat in Frisk's head.
You are wracked with a perverted sense of sentimentality, aren't you?