We were once more in that modest country home I shared with Yukihime, the woman I love, the woman I want nothing more in the world than to get back home to. I've got a whole eternity I still want to share with her, after all.
Opposite me at the little table, Chara took the knife upon the pie - an old, scratched, but clean blade that had clearly gone through a lot, but was now retired to household work - and carved out a big, greedy slice. "It smells just like I remember it," they said, softly. Their voice wavered, a child already at the verge of crying with emotion. "I don't want to talk to mother before we go... there's too much to say."
After Chara took their piece away, leaving the knife, the knife lifted of its own accord, neatly cutting a slice, as if puppeteered. The slice lifted and landed onto a plate, and that plate hovered away from the quaint little table. The slice went up, and up, settling into the hand of another child - a child of queenly demeanor, sitting upon a throne of gilded skulls. Upon one arm of the thone was a crimson goblet containing, maybe, wine. "You still don't exert complete control of the phantasmagoria, Touta. My full powers are manifest here. Even Chara's memories of pie are leaking out, scenting the air for us, and setting taste to the food at the ends of our forks." She put a bite in her mouth. "I've never tasted so much nostalgia in a single bite. As many centuries as I've lived, I think that's saying something."
"Yeah, so what?" I said, cutting the next piece. "I want to make this a place where we can share. Where our feelings can reach each other, so we can come to an understanding, 'cause we couldn't outside."
I served that piece of pie not to myself, but to the skeleton sitting at the fourth position around the little table, looking up at the vampire empress with a rictus grin of death upon his face... because he was a skeleton.
That skeleton, Sans, spoke last, as he skewered the entire pie piece on his fork at once. "Hey, uh, Touta. I think I owe you an apology."
"It's fine, man, you were just doing what you thought you needed to do, same as me. You shouldn't apologize for that any more than I should." I said.
"Nah, not that." He wagged his fork, and flecks of flaky, delicious pie crust flung away with the gesture, escaping across the room. "You see, I always sensed something real bad inside of you. Like you were a killer with no soul. But..."
"Indeed, young skeleton." Kitty interjected, looking down upon her throne with a smirk. "You were never sensing Touta. No monster could sense this boy's innocent soul... not while I am here." She stood up from her throne, still above us all, and Sans stood and took a step back, very clearly intimidated by the increasingly palpable aura of cold power radiating from her.
"I am Evangeline Athanasia Katarina McDowell - The Dark Evangel. The most powerful and glorious of all evil mages," She held up her goblet, as if to toast, a twisted smirk upon her face, and a delighted, gloating cruelty in her eyes, as she monologued, "My throne sits atop a million corpses. Thousands of demons come at my beck and call. Even Judas Iscariot kneels at my feet and worships me like a God. This is my spirit... sealed within the power of this one innocent man. I am where his LOVE comes from... am I not? Tell me, skeleton... what is my LOVE? What number upon the black cross I bear, that fills you with such fear?" She opened her other hand towards the skeleton, cupped as if it held the world in her grasp.
"It's... Two Hundred and Fifty-five." Sans' eye lit up with power, as his own energies focused, more and more intensely until Touta could feel the skeleton's killing intent grow sharp enough to cut a slice out of the butterscotch pie. "Okay. I know what the problem is now. Thanks, Touta, for letting me in here... Sorry I fought you. You and Chara weren't the ones I was afraid of, after all."
I finished carving out my slice, and I sat back with my plate at my part of the kotatsu. I clapped my hands together.
"Itadakimasu."
The throne was gone, as was the flickering of Sans' eye. The four of us were around the little table, no powers, just pie. "No playing around the table during dinner, Yukihime. Sorry... Kitty. Sans, don't buy her melodrama."
Sans reacted first. "Uh. What'd you do, Touta?"
Kitty, sitting opposite Sans still, but without majestic dark throne, raised a wine glass - smaller, more refined and less villainous than the goblet she had a moment ago. "This is a place of dreams, skeleton. Because we are all the guests of his mind, Touta is all but the god of this world. Be thankful he has decreed that no one dies this moment... and enjoy your pie." I could tell, though, that her wine glass was showing off that she could try to push back against me if she wanted... she just didn't want to. She was going along with me, while still wearing her 'villain' mask.
I wasn't going to have that mask. "Sans, don't buy that act. She's actually really nice. But she's had a very sad and bloody past, and that's what you're seeing, but she's trying to use that, I guess, to get you mad at her instead of me and Chara, but we're the ones with the power to break time or whatever."
"Uh..." Sans took a bite of pie. "Ten minutes ago I thought I knew what was going on. Now I guess I gotta ask you to throw me a bone, Touta. What's going on in here?"
I couldn't help but snicker. "Yeah, it's pretty crowded. Long story short, I'm an immortal monster - a really, really powerful one."
Sans nodded. "Yeah, I noticed."
"And Chara there's a different immortal," I gestured to the child eating pie and slowly crying tears of deep, personal catharsis and maybe I shouldn't have brought so much attention to Chara right now they were clearly dealing with some shit.
"And," The crying, blushing child added, "I"m a monster too."
Sans said, "Uh, thought you were the first human... to fall?"
"I identify as a monster. Kitty's the "Dark Evangel", and I'm "The demon that comes when people call its name."
Sans nodded. "Well. I, uh, guess you transitioned pretty well."
Chara sniffled and took another bite, talking around the butterscotch pie in their mouth, "It wasn't fun. But I guess it's getting better. I have pie now. And... Touta is helping me."
Sans said, "Helping you... do what?"
"Break the barrier. Helping put me back together. And... Touta promised to take me with them. I guess I'll be able to really live, maybe. It's hard to hope after so long, so I try not to think about that part."
"I promise to do my best," I said.
"Oh, yeah. About that... 'putting you back together'. Uh... sorry about all that. That's my fault, isn't it."
"Not just you. But... yes."
"Yeah. I'm sorry I hurt you, Chara. When I made the promise I made to do those things... I shouldn't have done that. I don't make promises anymore."
"You promised not to hurt humans," I said.
"Heh. Yeah, guess I did make that promise. Leave it to Touta to bone up on his Sans history. Sanstory."
I chuckled again, then got quiet - making jokes was Sans' 'mask', wasn't it. Everyone at this table was hurting, and like Yukihime with her villain act, Sans was hiding it too, at least a little.
"...Sans," Chara said, "I'm... sorry, too. I was so hurt, and I just... fought back, with everything I had. All my anger. I'm why you can't remember those things well anymore. Why you can't remember your friends."
"Yeah, I kinda figured," He said. "I wish I could forgive you. I get it, though. That might be the best I can do."
"So," I said, "Chara mentioned that your friends are still alive, and have bits of Chara in them. So if we can find them and absorb them, we might be able to help put Chara back together, and fix your friends at the same time. Oh, and I'm going to remove the part of Chara that's in you, while you're here. Hope you don't mind."
"Oh." Sans said, softly. He took a bite of pie. "Now I get what Chara was saying about 'hope'. You're really good at this 'hope' thing, Touta."
Kitty said, mouth full, not even opening it - telepathy? I guess just showing off dream powers - "Touta, you really do think you can just fix everything, make it all better?"
I looked over to her. "Well... maybe not. But I'm sure as hell gonna try, you know?"
She smiled, her lips twisting cruelly... but the smile softened, and I could see the smile spreading to her eyes, as her own mask wavered and dropped long enough for her to say, "That's just... so you, Touta. I hope you can succeed."
"So, yeah, that's the plan. Just make everything better with my immortal monster powers, and maybe it'll also give me enough power to head home, along the way, and take some immortal monster friends with me."
Chara said, "I'm gonna think about if I want to talk to mom and dad before we go, while you do that. I'll tell you what I decide before we go, okay?"
I nodded. "Yeah."
Sans shrugged. "Okay, I'll let you do your thing. Think you proved I can't really stop you anyway. Don't make me feel like a bonehead for it, okay?"
I nodded. "I'll do my best!"
Kitty smiled. "You're so flippant. You're just walking through all these peoples' lives and upending it all. I hope everything works out, Touta."
I nodded. "Yeah. Me too."
We finished off the pie before I made us wake up.