The immediate thing I had to do was tell mom and dad what happened to Ralsei. They'd probably know what to do and how to help. Then I could go chase Ralsei and give whatever comfort I could.

Mom was easy to find in the crowd, though she was standing as far from dad as possible so that was a little annoying. Asriel was with her, having stepped back to let others proceed to say their dreams.

"Mom! Azzy! Ralsei ran off crying, something is definitely wrong!" I shouted.

"Oh dear, I'll go see if we can temporarily put a stop to activities!" Toriel exclaimed.

"...Kris, do you really need to worry about him?" Asriel whispered just loud enough for us to hear.

"Are you insane?! I love him!" the anger I felt at Asriel's words was uncontrollable.

Asriel said nothing in response, and even seemed a bit taken aback by my outrage.

"You did this to him, didn't you?! Is that what kept you guys earlier at home? What did you do?!"

"Don't get mad at me, Kris! I just had to see if he was good enough for you, and, well…"

"And nothing! You hurt him, you idiot!" I shoved him away and stormed off.

Asriel was yelling after me, but I didn't want to hear any of it. I'd just have to tell dad and then I could leave.

I bolted to the other side of the crowd, told dad what I did mom, and he seemed to understand. He also took to seeing if he could put a stop to things for a while. That was it, I was ready to go find Ralsei.

"Wait Kris!" I heard Susie yell.

"We want to come too," Noelle said.

I nodded, the extra help would be nice. The first place I thought he'd be was my house, but maybe he wanted to be alone so he ran off to somewhere like the graveyard or that old hill down south, so I sent Susie and Noelle that way to search. We'd meet by the school if we didn't find anything.

My house was closeby and I thought it to be the most likely spot Ralsei would be at. I needed to know what was wrong and how I could help. If he told me Asriel did anything to him I think the "best brother" would suddenly be the worst.

I ran inside hoping that he'd be standing there, but there was nothing. He wasn't in the living room or the kitchen or the bathroom. I fervently checked upstairs, but to no avail. There wasn't anywhere really to hide in my house, so I left and headed over to the school.

Soon I saw Susie and Noelle coming up together, and I softly cursed myself that they weren't able to find him.

"Why did we meet here, may I ask?" Noelle questioned.

Susie and I exchanged a knowing glance.

"Let's make this quick," I said, "this may be hard to believe, but Ralsei is actually from another world opposite to our own. And the link just so happens to be in our school, and that's why Susie and I were missing all day."

"Uh… okay, I think I get it. So you think he went back to his world?" she asked.

"That's the only other place he could've gone, unless he started running through the woods."

"And let's hope he didn't, we'd never find him," Susie said.

I pushed open the door. I thought it was strange that the school was still open, but it just meant that Ralsei might have come this way.

"So where is this portal?" Noelle asked.

"Right ahead," Susie answered.

"That closet? But… okay?" she seemed very confused.

"Alright Kris, your lead," Susie said.

We went forward until we reached the closet. Just like before, I opened it and out poured darkness.

"Is it… too late to say 'no' to this?" Noelle said timidly.

"It'll be fun! Besides, we gotta do this for Kris!" Susie said.

"...See you on the other side," I said, stepping through the doors.

Noelle's scream behind me as we were falling would've been funny, but a grimace found its way onto my face and it wasn't going away until I found Ralsei. I had a mission, and I was all too determined to complete it.

I landed, and soon Susie landed as well. She tried to catch Noelle, but the speed of her fall was too much to handle. Again, no laughter from me.

"Woah…" Noelle gasped, taking in all the sights.

"Well that's a better reaction than either of us had," Susie joked.

"Wait, what are we wearing?" she remarked, obviously referring to the sudden clothes change.
"Things can get pretty… weird here. I'm assuming what you have on is something that'll help protect you if anything goes wrong," I said.

"Weird? How weird?" Noelle asked.

"We might get attacked or something," Susie said bluntly.

"Attacked? Oh no!" Noelle cried.

"But don't worry! Look what I can do!" Susie summoned her ax.

"Susie, put that away. We're not going to hurt anyone," I said.

"Fine. But if anything goes for Noelle then I'm going to make sure it doesn't happen again."

We proceeded along the path. Noelle was a bit slow at first because of her want to sightsee, but the dark plants that shot at us definitely put some skip in her step. After that she was practically clinging to Susie. Funny that Susie mocks Ralsei and I for being "glued together" but Susie and Noelle seem just as close.

Eventually we arrived at the Castle Town. Thankfully none of the puzzles had been reset or any new obstacles appeared in the path leading up to Ralsei's castle.

Noelle gasped at the sight of the huge castle before her.

"Ralsei really lived here?" she asked.

"Yes, he lived here alone," I answered.

"Alone? That's… sad," Noelle said.

"And right now he's alone again. Come on, let's go help him!" I shouted.

We entered into the castle. If he was here, then there'd only be one way to get to him, and that was through that first door. I tried to open it, but it seemed to be locked.

"Ralsei?! It's me, Kris! Could you let me in?!" I yelled, starting to pound on the door in annoyance.

No answer.

"Stand aside, I'll break the door down," Susie said.

I did as instructed, desperate for any solution. Susie took a swing at the door with her ax, but some kind of magic force field blocked the hit from doing anything. That at least told me Ralsei was likely to be in there.

"Damn it! Ralsei, open up! We want to help!" Susie yelled.

"Ralsei, I know we've never really talked much but… I'd like to help as well!" Noelle shouted.

"Ralsei, please! I love you!"

Still no answer. Susie went to pounding the door. In the midst of it however, two Rudinns appeared behind us. I didn't hear them moving around like I usually would, so I took a guess and thought that Ralsei summoned them here. What was he doing?

Immediately the Rudinns raised their swords up, and that decided immediately we would have to battle them. But I didn't want to battle, and I didn't want to hurt them, so I didn't even bother pulling out my sword.

"Wow, I've never seen a Rudinn shining quite like you!" I told one of them.

Noelle gave me a sideways glance, but Susie knew immediately what to do, sparing the first of the two. The other one took to the offensive however, summoning diamonds and sending them flying our way.

"Noelle, look out!" Susie yelled, blocking one of them with her ax. The rest of the projectiles were dodged fairly easily.

I tried a similar trick with the other Rudinn, and it worked effectively. They both lowered their swords, and waved at us before heading away.

"What… just?" Noelle asked.

"You can usually find a way to spare attackers with kindness here," I explained, then faced the door again, "that's something you explained Ralsei! Be nice to everyone!"

"Damn it Ralsei, what are you doing?!" Susie shouted in anger.

Once again, there was no answer. But this time the door did very slowly slide open, and Ralsei revealed himself to be standing on the other side.

"...Kris, Susie, Noelle…" he said very slowly.

"Ralsei!" I was about to run up and hug him, but Susie caught my arm.

"Wait, Kris, I think something's wrong," she told me.

I looked back at Ralsei. He lifted an arm up to his side, and in his palm magic started to gather.

"Please… go away!" he shouted.

Fireballs came out furiously from his hand, raining down all around us but none of them actually making any sort of contact. It was as if he purposely missed in order to not hurt us.

"Ralsei… look at me!" I yelled at him. He didn't hear it.

"I don't want to be a burden to anyone anymore! Just leave me here and go be happy!" he shouted, unleashing another volley of fireballs.

This time his attack was much more effective, three of the fireballs he launched managed to hit me. I didn't notice if any of them hit Susie or Noelle. My attention was entirely on Ralsei right now, and if he thought I was going to quit just because he hit me, he had another thing coming.

"I'll be happy when you come with me," I told him.

"Don't lie to me Kris!"

"It's not a lie! It'd never be a lie!"

But again it was as if he didn't hear me. This time instead of fire, he launched stars. They moved much slower, but they managed to catch me off guard and I got hit by one.

"See Kris? All I'll do if I go back is hurt you and everyone else more!"

"That's a lie and you know it!"

"Kris…" he put his hands together in front of him, "just forget about me! You're too perfect for someone as pathetic as me!"

A whirlwind came from his hands, pushing me back a little before I could manage to hold my ground. If words weren't going to work, I had a better idea.

Susie and Noelle watched on in awe as I managed to take a step forward, and then another one after that. Slowly, with all my strength, I was making my way to Ralsei. And then I'd prove that I loved him. But progress was steadily dropping to a snail's pace, as Ralsei seemed to notice that I was still willing to fight back and so he kept increasing the strength of his magic. But nothing he could do would stop me all together! It was just a little more!

When I was right before him, I used the last of my strength to throw myself into a hug. I wrapped my arms around him, rested my head on his shoulder, and just hugged him. His attack stopped, and slowly he put his arms around me. He sniffled, then burst into tears. Breaking the hug now would be heartless, I just rubbed his back and let him cry as much as he needed to, whispering sweet nothings into his ear the entire time until he calmed down enough to talk.

"I'm sorry!" he cried out.

"It's okay. It's perfectly okay. We can put everything behind us," I said gently.

"But… Kris, I hurt you so much just then… didn't I?" he said weakly.

"If you did, I didn't notice it."

Ralsei didn't say anything else, but instead began singing a little melody. In truth, his magic was incredibly strong and I'm surprised I stayed up for as long as I did. But his song made me feel instantly refreshed-or maybe it was the hug that did it.

"Um… Kris, I don't want to ruin this moment you two are having but, can we go home now? Then we can share it with everyone," Noelle said.

Susie was quick to agree. Maybe she was just hungry and wanted more pies.

I looked to Ralsei and gave a smile and a nod.

"R-really? You really want me to come back with you?"

"Listen, Ralsei. You're my friend, and if I want you to come back, I know Kris does," Susie said.

"Ralsei, I love you. That much will never change," I said, "we're bound to have troubling times like these, but it will never make me love you any less. Now please, let's go watch the stars?"

Ralsei gave a small smile, "...Okay, Kris."