I opened my eyes, and I extended my hand. "Emittam." Releasing Sans from my power. He landed nearby. I turned to look towards the way onward, full of determination, then looked back to Sans to make sure he was okay.
The skeleton stood up, putting a hand on their head and turning to face me. "Welp, Touta, I... uh." His eyes parted from meeting mine, and went downward. "Huh. Decided to wear a suit to go see the king, huh?"
I looked down. "Oh, right. Hallway did feel breezy." I walked through an attack that destroyed me at an atomic level. But unlike me, clothes don't regenerate.
I felt Chara's chortle. "There's some clothes back in New Home. You'll need to tailor some to fit you, but you worked on that dummy, so I know you can sew and stuff."
I half turned back before looking at Sans and saying, "I'm not turning back! I'm just going to get changed."
I could practically feel Sans shrug as he said to my back, "You and the the three monsters you're packing can do whatever you want."
What did he mean by that? There was Chara, and Kitty... "Oh, he must have spotted Flowey earlier," I mumbled to myself. Chara giggled for some reason.
I went back to the house, and Chara guided me to a room with a "room under renovations" sign on it. I tried the door, and it was locked. "Hey," Chara said, "Bust in. Do it."
I pulled on the knob, putting a bit of strength into it, and knob and lock ripped out of the door and frame with a crack of wood. A monster nearby, seeing me do that, hurried out of sight.
The room within was musty and quiet, well furnished but in a strange state of disarray - a room half-moved out of. Maybe three-quarters moved out of? I went to searching, and I soon found a number of tunics, all way oversized for my frame, and a spare sewing kit. "Yeah, I can work with this," I said, as I started to work, carefully cutting cloth with a ki-sharpened fingernail and weaving it back together freehand with needle and thread. I really got into a flow, zoned out for a bit until I'd made a purple suit - even managed to use the tunic border to add a bit of a pinstripe kind of effect down the slacks legs, figure if I'm repping UQ Holder, I gotta look at least a little Yakuza, heh. "I'm a damn stylish gangster," I mused.
Chara responded only as I was leaving the room, with, "You're fast at that, too."
"Oh, well. Yukihime didn't have much money when I was living with her, so some of my clothes were hers and I tailored them to me. Though... I guess that was kinda bullshit, now that I think of it. Maybe she just liked the idea of me wearing her pants." I snorted.
The hallway where Sans was, was empty now, so I just went on deeper into the castle. A corridor later, and I entered a beautiful, sunlit throne room - full of lush greenery and beyond that, buttercups. "Oh, this is beautiful," I said as I walked in, stepping through the foliage.
"You think so?" A deep voice echoed from across the room. I lifted my gaze from the flowers to look on a massive, purple-clad goat man. He was easy six, maybe even seven feet tall, and had golden looking... shoulder-things. Spaulders? He was watering some flowers. He looked at me, and an eyebrow raised curiously. "Howdy! I don't believe I've ever met you before. What kind of monster are you?"
"Oh, uh... vampire, I guess." I said with a shrug. "It's complicated?"
"Well, everybody has their own circumstances. Are you here to see the flowers?"
"Nah," I shook my head. "Like, don't get me wrong, the flowers are awesome! But I'm here to break the barrier." I held my fist before me, clenched.
The goat-man smiled at me, and I could see a bit of melancholy in his eyes. "It's been so long since a monster tried," he said. "I'm surprised you aren't wearing a striped shirt. If you were human, I'd think you were quite young, you know. You look rather like a young human." He touched his chin. "But... no, I don't sense a soul at all. ...Not even a monster soul. You said you were... a vampire? I've never met a vampire quite like you."
I cracked a grin. "I'll take that as a complement, old man," I said. "Look. I came here from outside the barrier, and I'm here to bust this thing the hell open." I could see the big guy's eyes grow wide in surprise at my boasting. "I'm way more powerful than any monster in this place. I almost killed Undyne by accident - uh, don't worry, I didn't, she's fine - and I'm here for two things: Breaking that barrier, and getting Chara's..."
"Well, everybody has their own circumstances. Are you here to see the flowers?"
Chara yelled in my head, "Don't tell him yet! I'm. Not ready."
"Uh. Oh." I looked back up at the big guy - who I guess now that I think about it was Chara's dad, the king of the monsters. "Nah. Okay, so I think I gotta explain a bit. My names Touta Konoe. I'm... a genetically engineered vampire monster, I guess? But also kinda human, compared to you guys. I'm not from your, uh... planet? Universe? I'm from a different Earth, and I got magicked here by accident. I think I have the power to break your barrier, and I think maybe the human souls you have might have the power to get me home. So I think maybe the two of us can work something out."
The big guy's eyes grew wide, and he took a step back. "Oh. Well, that's... very brave of you to offer. But how will you..."
I shunpoed to directly in front of him. "I'm gonna punch the barrier really hard, and we'll see how that goes. And I've got some friends who're going to help me, too. One's lagging back a little but I'm sure he'll be here soon."
He took another step back. "Oh! Well. I don't quite know what to make of this. You're a very assertive young man. Very well, come along. I will take you to the barrier, and you may try to strike it." He turned and walked along, out the back of the throne room.
As I started to follow him, I heard a, "Hey, Touta," from the flowers. In among them, was Flowey.
"Oh! Hey, you're right there! Awesome," I said, "Let's do this!"
"Touta, you're gonna need to get him to take out the other human souls to do this... but the only way he'll do that, is if you tell him that you're a human, too. With a soul. Even if he can't sense it."
"Oh. Really?" I asked.
The flower nodded. "Yeah. I've tried to help him before, but he doesn't really take monsters who try to break the barrier seriously anymore. Maybe because if a monster grabs one of the souls, they might have the power to just run through the barrier and escape. So he's too nervous to take them out for another monster. But if you tell him you're human... he'll do it for you, I'm sure."
"Ah. Well..." I hesitated a moment, "I guess that's not a complete lie. I'm more humanlike than you guys, at least, and Kitty did say that nobody could sense my soul with her here, so maybe that means I do have one? Okay, Flowey. Thanks for the advice!"
"It's what I'm here for, Touta. You go get 'em. I can't wait to put on a suit like yours and join UQ Holder, you and me and Chara all together."
"Sounds good. Though..." I scratched my head. "Where do you know Chara from, anyway? They've never met a flower monster before."
He laughed. "Oh, Chara hasn't figured it out yet? Well... they'll find out soon. I don't want to ruin the surprise! This has all been so fun, after all."
"Ah, okay. I'll go catch up to... uh, what's his name."
"Asgore." Flowey, and Chara in my head, said at the exact same time.
"Yeah. Asgore. And we'll get all this knocked out." I turned and jogged out.
Chara said in my head, "He's so strange. I... do feel like I know him."
I went through a dark corridor, then emerged into a corridor of shimmering twilight. I could feel the presence of magic strongly. Asgore was already there. "This is the barrier. This is what keeps us all trapped underground."
I cracked my neck. "Awesome." And I remembered I needed to do the thing Flowey advised me to do, to get the souls I'd need to get home. "Well, this shouldn't be too hard to do, with my, uh... human soul. That I..." Hrm. Well, if Undyne could believe it... "...Keep hidden from the senses of monsters with my skills."
The big ol' guy whirled around, surprise on his face. "Oh, no..." he breathed. "I'm not ready."
"Ready for what?" I said.
He was silent for a long moment. "You know what we must do," he said, looking down, his face shrouded in the long shadows of the corridor.
"Damn right," I said, "Let's do it."
"This is it, then." He said. He gestured, and seven containers rose up from the ground - six of them filled with luminescent, heart-like shapes. I could feel their power. Chara said, "That's... the poor souls of the humans I made go through the underground. And a lot of me, too. What Flowey said was right, it got him to show us those souls."
"Touta Konoe," Asgore said. "It was nice to meet you. Goodbye." He held out a hand, and a trident materialized in it, red as blood. The hairs at the back of my neck stood up - I could feel a sharp killing intent. Asgore wanted me dead. "Wait..."
He thrust the trident at me, and I dodged to the side. "...What?" Not saying anything, he followed up with a great, very highly telegraphed swing - and I was already getting tired of this shit. As Asgore swung his weapon, my left hand snatched it and absorbed it in a second, like I had with other magical weapons before. I held out my right hand, and let the spell go, letting the trident clatter to the ground at my feet.
"No really, what the fuck, man. I'm trying to save you and all of your people, what is going on."
I sensed another spike of killing intent, from behind me... but not directed towards me. I felt a spell come careening from behind, aimed over my shoulder at the big guy, and, being entirely done with these shenanigans, I snatched it out of the air as it passed. A fireball sputtered and died in my hand. "Toriel?" I asked, as the old lady herself came up behind me.
"Do not be afraid, Touta," She said, "I will stand by your side against this miserable creature. If you have a way past the barrier without bloodshed, Touta, I will help you. But if you do not, I would stop you."
I shrugged. "I don't think I'll need to hurt anybody."
The old guy staggered forward, raising an empty hand. "Tori...! You came back!"
She whirled on him, and while I couldn't quite feel killing intent from her anymore, she sure as hell felt angry. "Don't you 'Tori' me, Dreemurr. You pathetic whelp. If you really wanted to free our kind, you could have passed through the barrier with a single soul, taken six souls from the humans, and freed us all. Instead you had us all live in despair, because you would rather wait here, meekly hoping another human never comes."
The king dropped to one knee, his resolve crushed in an instant. "Tori... you are right. I am a miserable creature. But... could we at least be friends again?"
"No."
A loud noise came from behind me. "Touta-sensei!" Undyne roared as she came into the room. "I haven't missed it, have I? You killing the barrier WITH YOUR BARE HANDS AND RAW POWER?"
"Nope," I said. "I, uh, guess you're right on time."
Behind her, Alphys hustled into the room. "T-Touta! Asgore! You don't need to hurt Touta! And also you probably can't anyway."
Behind Alphys, Papyrus came up to me. "Hey! Just here to make sure there's no fighting! And it looks like there is not fighting, so that's very good! And hello again, miss Toriel!"
"Hello again, Papyrus." She said.
Next to me all of a sudden, was Sans. "Hey, guys. What's up?" Meanwhile, Undyne started comforting Asgore, and Alphys and Undyne started flirting pretty heavily, until Mettaton burst into the scene and eloquated, "Oh, will you two just smooch already?" They proceeded to smooch. And in fact, they started to make out. I clapped. "You go, girls!"
Meanwhile, I could feel Flowey absorbing the six souls. How nice of him to get ready to help. After all, if he was going to run away, he would've only absorbed one, but he was clearly absorbing them all.
While everyone was still talking, Flowey finally finished, and vines started to grow everywhere, weaving around everyone snugly, including me. It was a loose, pleasant grip, though. I guess his equivalent of a hug? He sprang up in the middle of us. "Finally!" He yelled. "I'm just about ready, Touta! Just another minute or two and we can get out of here together."
Though... "Hey, Flowey. The other monsters don't look so good. What's going on?"
"Oh! Well, I'm going to absorb all of them, too! I'll need their power. It's said that all of the monsters of the underworld together, can add up to the power of a single human soul."
"Oh, so like the thing I did with Undyne, but with everyone? Can you really handle that, man?"
Other monsters started pouring in from behind me, starting to fill the room, brought here... I don't know by what. Probably some kind of magic? I felt Chara inside me, saying, "Touta... I don't know if Flowey really has good intentions here. I'm pretty sure all the vines he's using on everyone else have thorns. I don't think he's hugging everyone."
Flowey said, "Oh I know I can handle it. I want it more than anything. I need it, Touta, to achieve my REAL FORM. I need my true body to break the barrier and go with you! We're going to move on to the next world, where we can have so much fun together, forever. I'll never be bored again!"
"Oh, that's cool," I said. "Looks like we got this happy ending in the bag, huh?"
"Hey," Chara said from inside me, "Touta. You aren't too much of a kid to get when someone wants to use you to do something bad... right?"
Flowey was starting to get brighter and brighter, as he absorbed all of the monsters in the room. I could feel his power extending outwards, too, reaching back through all of the underground to absorb everyone. "What are you talking about, Chara. You trust him, right? And maybe everyone's power together can help break the barrier and get me home!"
"Yeah, but... what if he's hurting these people to do it? I feel like he's hurting them. From the part of me that's in them."
"Oh, shit." I said. "Hey, Flowey, could you stop for a moment?" But it was too late. The wave of magic that washed through the underground was already done. And in his place... was a young boy, wearing a striped shirt. A boy-goat, it looked like. Goat boy? Goat-boy.
"Finally," he said, in a child's voice. "I was so tired of being a flower." There was a weight in that voice, and I recognized it, from other members of UQ Holder. This child was an immortal, and he'd been around for a while.
"What?" Chara's voice shook, within me. I could feel Chara's disorientation... and from that confusion, fear. "I don't understand... How? He's dead. I'm why he's dead."
The boy turned to face me, and he smiled. "Howdy, Touta. Chara. It's me. Your best friend... Asriel."
