LOVE

DDLC x UT

"You kind of left her hanging this morning, you know?" A green-eyed young woman told him with an innocent smile.

"you'd be dead where you stand." A currently eye-less monster informed a brown-eyed young girl, dead serious with the threat.

Two separate universes. Two unique dimensions. Two distinct timelines. Two different games. One single desire: LOAD. And so, at two different locations, at two different times, two distinct yet identical choices led to a series of events no one could have predicted.

Matt Clayton stood there, mouth agape as Monika spoke those chilling words without remorse in her dazzling green eyes. She looked too cheery, too happy to be the cold-blooded murderer he knew she was. He froze in place, refusing to hear another word from her mouth. He refused to acknowledge the pounding feeling in his chest, knowing that the love of his life was no longer in this world.

'Sayori…'

He remembered the previous timeline… the timelines… all of them. He'd accepted Sayori with open arms, allowing his lifelong friend to cry into his shoulder. He'd rejected her advances to protect her from her own emotions. He'd hung out with her in the Literature Club. He'd ignored her, hoping she'd lose interest and move on. He'd hung out with Yuri, reading the Portrait of Markov. He'd sat beside Natsuki, enjoying Parfait Girls with the young tsunder. He'd stuck with one girl for the whole time, he'd tried each combination…

'No matter what I do, I can't save you, Sayori.'

And that's ignoring the cold, hard truth of the Literature Club… the end of the line, where all the kindness and love within Sayori is extinguished, replaced with madness and obsession. Seeing the monster she becomes at the end… Matt couldn't take seeing his world turn out so wrong in the end.

'Sayori's madness shows that Monika isn't fully at fault, but still…'

Regardless of his realizations, a not-so-small part of him can't help but despise the club's president. How could she be so cold and heartless? How could she take away everything he loves, thinking that he'd, in turn, love her? Perhaps she was a lonely girl, but does that excuse her actions?

It was at this point, that Matt began to channel his deepest, darkest secret: His ability to 'LOAD' and travel through time. He'd discovered it shortly after the 'ending', where he began the entirety of this story again, with all the death and destruction nothing but a distant memory. Many might consider it a gift, but Matt would call it a curse. The ability to move through time and space at will, but forever being trapped in a loop with no happiness…

It was hell. And he still hadn't found his answer, but there was one thing he knew for certain.

'I can't see Sayori hanging. Not again…'

With that thought, his gaze hardened against the calm gaze from the president, causing her to minutely flinch at the harsh glare. Her cheery smile twitched, before dissolving entirely into a frown. "What's the matter, Matt?"

Matt couldn't help it, his anger got the better of him. Sure, Monika remembered many things, but it almost felt like she was teasing him. She'd never acknowledged the past timelines. Every time the 'ending' occurred, with the world being deleted, she'd seemingly 'forget' everything.

"I hate you, Monika."

His harsh words had the desired effect, as she recoiled as if physically struck, hurt easily visible in her emerald pools. "Wh-what? M-Matt… You can't possibly…"

He interrupted her, "I hate everything about you. You take everything I hold dear away from me, as if my needs and desires are irrelevant. You break my heart and tear me up, and do it with a smile on your stupid face." He told her, each word causing her to shrink back at the unexpected onslaught, "I hate you!" he yelled at her, gaining everyone else's attention in the room, but he couldn't care any less about anyone else.

For the first time in a long time, he saw her waver, her lip twitching as wetness appeared in her eyes, "Y-you don't know what you're talking a-about, M-Matt…" She said, trying to reassure herself more than anything else.

"You took Sayori away from me…" He breathed out quietly, but knowing full well Monika had heard him. At that her gaze re-hardened, as if she was ready to retort.

"You think killing her would make me love you?" He asked her incredulously. His gaze quickly shot to the only-visible-to-him option floating in the air: 'Load'. "No, Monika, I could never love an ungrateful, hate-filled monster like you!" He yelled at her, quickly selecting the option before him as reality began to twist to his command.

Something felt different this time, but Matt shook it off as him 'breaking the script' as he liked to call it. When he would do something he wasn't supposed to do. The last thing he saw from this timeline was the young woman's frown turning into a snarl, but the anger mixed with sadness in her eyes. She reached an arm out in desperation, before the world turned white.

'LOAD LOADED LOADED… LOAD'

Frisk wasn't intimidated in the slightest by the skeleton's childish display. In all honesty, the supposedly dangerous monster before him wasn't so scary when you've seen him at both his best and his worst… yet still took care of him in either scenario. It, too, didn't help that she'd had this conversation far too many times to count.

Though she didn't react at all to his threat, the skeleton continued speaking his dialogue, as if nothing was different. She tuned out the monster as she spoke internally to the demon that resided within her.

'Hey, I heard that!'

'That's the point. You were supposed to, Chara.'

'Bah, whatever. Can't you hurry this along already? Speedrun time, right?'

'Yeah… speedrun time…'

The 'Speedrun', as Chara likes to refer to it as, is as its name suggests. After having completed most if-not-all of the 'endings', Chara and Frisk had become quite bored. Especially considering that no matter what they did, the world either dissolved into deletion only to be restored by Chara, or they went to the surface before being forced to delete everything to restart and reload from the beginning. However, an idea soon formed in the young demoness' mind: What if they tried to complete the whole journey as quickly as possible?

The first venture through the Underground took a few weeks. Now, though, their record was thirteen hours when they were a Pacifist, and eight hours when they went genocidal. It was pretty impressive, they'd both thought, but they knew they could do better. Who knows? Maybe if they do it fast enough, they'd get a different 'ending' or a true 'ending' with no more resets.

'Yeah right…'

'I'm just trying to be optimistic, Chara.'

'Whatever…'

Breaking the script, as Sans was known to do on occasion, the monster before them had the pinpricks of light return to his eye sockets as he stared at the human in front of him. His boney grin stretched to the closed version of a frown he could manage, while still holding an upturned mouth. "or you could just ignore me, that's cool too…" Sans said.

Frisk and Chara would normally ignore script breaks from the skeleton, but they decided to humor the skeleton. Especially since this 'script break' was unique compared to his other occurrences. Shrugging, the young human replied, "I don't care, there's no reason to care."

"jeez kid, you sound like an echo of yours truly." He said in full seriousness, possibly hinting at his knowledge of the timelines and other lines he'd said before about his apathy. "something you two wanna tell me?" He asked.

Sans had never officially acknowledged Chara, so that was new. "What are you talking about, Sans?"

The short skeleton's eyesockets narrowed, "you know what i'm talking about, kid. is that demon influencing you? is that why you're never satisfied?"

It was Frisk's turn to narrow their eyes, "She's not a demon, skeleton." She defended Chara, "She's my companion, and my friend."

"i thought we were your friends, too. and I've seen how you treat your 'friends'." Sans shot back, easily pushing all of Frisk's buttons and raising her anger.

"I could finish you. Right here, right now."

'Could you really, Frisk? There's witnesses, and we don't have the same room to maneuver that the Hall has.'

'Not now, Chara.'

"geez, pal, someone woke up on the wrong side of the flower bed this morning." Sans replied with his usual grin, "i can't wait until the next reset after we reach the surface, hopefully you'll be less demented, then?" He said with a shrug, before shaking his head, "nah, there's no way you could ever get any better."

Having had enough despite not killing anyone on this 'run', Frisk leapt from her chair, holding a plastic knife in her hands as she dove for the stupid skeleton. "Shut up!"

The light music came to a screeching halt within Mettaton's Hotel, each and every monster present staring at the human child who'd just tried to attack Sans. The next thing Frisk knew, the plastic knife was lodged within the wood chair, with the skeleton standing with a smug expression on his face two feet to the left. 'Gee, and I thought I was the violent one…'

"hehe, you missed." He stated simply, "you know, that's not very knife. mettaton's gonna need a new chair in here."

Frisk slowed moved her gaze to glare at the skeleton, "Why are you so annoying this time?"

"i dunno, maybe i just have a bone to pick with you… or two?"

Growling lightly, Frisk took a moment to assess the situation they were in. Many monsters have left, but she knew that this commotion was going to draw the Royal Guards throughout Hotland. This wasn't good, both for the time they wanted to still have to finish this 'run' and that this would draw unnecessary attention. 'Smooth move, Frisk.' Chara unhelpfully supplied.

Seemingly able to read Frisk's thoughts on her current situation, Sans spoke, "Hmmm, seems like you're gonna LOAD now, huh?" He asked, "It's cool." He added with a shrug, "maybe you'll be a little knifer next time." Seeing the look of disgust on Frisk's face, he chuckled, "yeah, i agree. shouldn't have made two knife puns in a row. i have sharper wit than that, right?"

'Load already. I don't want to hear another word from that stupid bag of bones!' Chara cried out in Frisk's head for mercy.

"i'm gonna take a stab in the dark and guess that the demon's ready to go. see ya around, kiddo…' He said with a grin, though now it seemed kinda forced at the idea of Frisk loading.

Without further delay, Frisk focuses on her selection, choosing to LOAD their previous save. Unfortunately, it was made a while back, but they'd still be able to make it work. The world around them faded to black as reality began to peel back. 'See you in a moment, Partner.' Chara said as they momentarily lost their connection as the timestream pulled them backward.

Heart filled with Determination, Frisk was sent through time and space. However, things weren't how they normally were. Instead, the world and 'void' around Frisk flashed white, blinding the young woman.

'LOAD LOADED LOADED… LOAD'

Now, what were once both unique and separate realities, a convergence occurred. A singular similar action enacted within both realities at the same time caused a short convergence; a twist in fate. And now, with the deed done, both realities will have to deal with what had just transpired.

In one world, a young girl began to stir into consciousness, laying on a bright couch with two skeletons watching her after discovering her sleeping in the cold snow. An internal voice prodded the woman, wondering who they were what happened to the previous host of this body.

In another, a young woman was laying on cold tile, slowly waking up after collapsing out of nowhere. She was surrounded by so-called friends in the middle of an afterschool club meeting. This first thing noticed was the quiet absence of a voice in her head; Her partner was missing in action.

Frisk and Monika, along with those involved with each of them, were in for some nasty surprises upon waking up.

A/N: This was an idea I had a while back that I decided to publish for some reason. May work on it in the future, but not immiedatly. Or, at least, I don't plan to. We'll see if I get inspired to add more. Who knows? Hope it's interesting.