Chapter 15

"Chara, we need to go," Flowey said urgently. He dropped the acolyte's corpse on the ground and prepared to burrow away from the temple they had invaded.

Chara didn't respond. Instead, she was surveying the temple, letting her gaze drift to each of the statues that adorned it's walls. She stopped and clenched her fist when she arrived at the pair of Asgore and Toriel. Flowey rolled his eyes. She'd been in a mood the past few days. He understood why she was getting frustrated, but now was not the time to let her emotions run the show.

"Chara!" he said, a bit more forcefully this time. She turned, half-glaring at him. That glare had two meanings. One, what do you want? Two, don't push it. By now, Flowey was used to it. She didn't like it when he reminded her of the reality of a situation, but she was far too practical-minded to lash out at him for it.

"We need to go," he repeated. "You killed a human, which means it won't be long before Death shows up, and we both know we aren't ready to take him on yet."

Chara stared at him for a few more moments. Then, she nodded. "Fine," she said. She gave the statues one last hate-filled look before she vanished into the shadows. Flowey sighed, and burrowed after her. One of these days, her emotions would get the better of her, and when that happened there would be a huge mess. Flowey himself was confident he'd never face such a problem. He really didn't feel much emotion these days. Oh, he was still angry at his and Chara's betrayal, and he had every intention of getting revenge on those responsible. That anger was always in the back of his mind though. A reminder of the goal he was working towards, but not much more than that. When it came to day to day moments, he'd discovered that he didn't really feel anything at all.

Take their most recent mission for example. They had infiltrated a temple to interrogate the head acolyte. Once Chara realized she didn't have the info she was searching for, she just killed her. If he was honest with himself, Flowey had to admit that he had leaned towards sparing the young woman, but only because killing her created a small chance that Death would catch up to them. As for the morality of the killing itself, he was largely indifferent. What was he supposed to feel?

Sickened? Nope. Killing her didn't really bother him. She was an acolyte, a servant of their enemies. Besides, she might be dead, but her soul would live on. Its not like her existence had been completely erased.

Should he feel satisfaction, then? Not really. An enemy she might have been, but Flowey couldn't blame her for following the teachings she had been raised in her entire life. She hadn't known the truth like he did. Besides, there was nothing personal in her death. She had simply been an obstacle in their plan.

Mostly, he just felt cold and empty.

Of course, none of that really mattered to him anyway. He might not have much in the way of emotions, but aside from their vengeance, the only thing he cared about was making Chara happy. Is she got any amount of pleasure from killing acolytes, then so be it. He would do anything to ease her suffering.

"Just you wait, Death," he thought. "One of these days I'm gonna rip your soul into shreds. And I'll definitely feel happy about that."

Meanwhile, Death himself felt like someone had just hit him over the skull with a sledgehammer. He found himself lying on the ground, and his vision was blurry as he opened his eyes. He began to push himself up, and instantly felt someone grab him.

"Easy, Sans," Gaster said. "Take it easy. Hold still and reorient yourself first."

Sans did as he was told, and the blurry vision passed soon enough. He slowly sat up with Gaster's assistance and glanced around the room. The Mirror was covered by its sheath again, aside from that nothing had changed. He looked at Gaster and asked, "What happened?"

"Well, you looked into the Mirror and after a few seconds you fell over unconscious. I suppose I'm to blame for that. I forgot to mention that seeing visions from the Mirror can sometimes be quite taxing on the mind. Though I didn't expect anything too dramatic considering this was your first time. I'd say you got more than you bargained for."

"You can say that again," Sans muttered. Had that entire vision really only lasted a few seconds? He cold have sworn he'd stood there looking at himself for several minutes before he tried to leave. Was this due to the space-time distortion the Mirror gave off? He shook his head. Those questions could wait till later. The disorientation was fading fast, and he stood up and brought his hood back over his head. "I suppose you want to know what I saw?" he asked.

"Only if you want to tell me," Gaster replied. "Sometimes, visions can be of an extremely personal nature, so if you'd rather keep it to yourself, I understand."

"No, it wasn't anything like that," Sans said. He gave Gaster a brief summary of what he had seen, but he left out the parts about Toriel.

"Strange," Gaster mused. "That's probably the single most interactive vision that I know of. To think that you had an actual conversation with it."

"Yeah, I was pretty surprised when I realized I was taking to myself. I think the theory that the Mirror might have a mind of its own just got a lot more believable."

"Indeed," Gaster said. "As far as I am aware, no one has ever spoken with anything or anyone during a vision. Of course, there are only four, five now, people that have ever gotten a chance to see a vision, so I suppose its still plausible to consider that it was just a random event."

"Honestly, I doubt it was random," Sans interjected. "My first time looking into the mysterious and potentially all-knowing Mirror and it not only talks to me but talks about Chara? I'd bet you anything that wasn't a coincidence."

"I'm inclined to agree," Gaster said. "In any case, I think we should take the Mirror's advice and try to learn anything we can about Chara. If the Queen were still here, she would be the logical person to ask, but she's not. I'll look over my records as well as the palace archives to see if there's anything of use. I suppose I ought to try locating the Queen too, even though I don't want to."

Sans picked his words with care. He needed to sound interested and impartial, without letting Gaster pick up on the fact that he already knew how to find her. "Why wouldn't you want to?" he asked.

"Excuse me?" Gaster replied.

"Well, I know its not a secret anymore that I really don't like her, but it seems like everyone else would be ecstatic to have her come home. I kinda wondered how she managed to go into hiding anyway. Surely someone must have tried to stop her."

Gaster smiled ruefully. "No one tried to stop her. In fact, Asgore ordered us to let her go."

Sans felt his eye-sockets rise. "Really? First time I've heard that."

"I assure you its the truth. Oh, the king was truly heartbroken over Toriel's decision, but the only way he could have stopped her was with force, and he didn't have it in himself to do that. Besides, its not like the mortal realm had anything truly dangerous enough to threaten a goddess of her power. As for myself, having helped bring you into this world, I figured she probably wouldn't be very happy to see my face. Furthermore, I decided I would respect and honor her decision. If she ever wanted to return, or to be found, she would see to the matter herself."

He paused, smiling faintly at some old memory before continuing. "However, it appears that I no longer have any choice. As much as I want to respect her privacy, the security of our world comes before everything else. I will do what I can to locate her."

"Do you think you can do it?" Sans asked.

"I do not know," Gaster said. "Its simply a matter of how well she's hid herself. Toriel is one of the few gods that are on par with me in terms of magical power and ability. I would say the odds of me finding her would be no better than even."

"I see," Sans replied. It amazed him that someone as bright as Gaster hadn't figured out the trick to locating Toriel yet. Maybe it would come to him when he started trying, but for now Sans decided to go with it and hope for the best.

"All right then. I guess I'll head back out into the field. I'll keep an eye-socket out for Chara while I'm reaping souls. First though, I think I need a nap."

Gaster chuckled. "Sweet dreams then. Until next we meet."

"See you around old man."

Sans teleported back to his house in the Underworld. He was looking forward to this nap. Between his most recent encounter with Toriel, his confrontation with Gaster, and the vision the Mirror had given him, he was worn out. He ought to have a nice deep sleep ahead of him. Which is why he let out a mental groan when he heard Papyrus's voice shouting at him from behind. He hadn't even made it two steps towards his room yet.

"Sans! Where have you been? I've been looking all over for you!"

Sans turned around and forced himself to smile. "Hey bro. Sorry to worry ya. I was just upstairs having a chat with the old man."

"Oh, really?" Papyrus replied. "I suppose that's okay then. But anyway, there's something I wanted to talk to you about. I think I might be broken!"

"Uh, broken? What do you mean?"

"The strangest thing happened today. I had just finished my reaping and came home when I got another death vision. Only, this person had already died!"

Sans only looked at his brother with an air of confusion mixed with exasperation. "I'm afraid you've lost me Paps."

"Sans! Haven't you been paying attention? Whenever I see the name of a human, its always before they die. This time, I didn't see the name until a few minutes after."

Sans perked up at that. That was strange. "Well, did you get the soul?" he asked.

"Of course! I am the great Papyrus! Even if its a little late, I always do my duty."

Sans shrugged and said, "Well, as long as you got the soul, I think you're good. Who was it anyway?"

"A temple acolyte."

Sans froze. An acolyte? And the death hadn't been detected by Papyrus until after it had occurred? It could just be a coincidence, but after the past few hours he wasn't taking any chances.

"Why don't you take me to where the body was, just to be sure," he said.

Papyrus shrugged and walked over to him. He laid a hand on his shoulder and teleported them both out of the Underworld.

They arrived in a temple, and in what appeared to be the main chamber. The brothers floated in the air above the body of the young woman. She was just now being discovered by the other acolytes, and several present were crying. Sans took it all in, but he focused on the injuries she had sustained. The cause of her death was evident, her throat had been cut wide open. She had several much smaller injuries all over her body. As he examined closer he noticed the wounds looked similar to needle marks, but they were too rough to have been made with needles. Sans needed only a split second to figure the rest of it out. Thorns. Those were thorn wounds, undoubtedly made by Flowey. In addition, every single one of them was located right on a major nerve. The woman had been tortured before she died.

Sans no longer doubted anything the Mirror had shown him. Its predictions were already coming true. He grimaced at the thought.

"I guess I'll be paying a visit to Toriel after all," he thought.

He turned towards his brother and said. "Ok, I've seen enough. Don't worry, bro. You aren't broken."

"Really!?"

"Really. Now come on, let's go home."

They teleported back to their house and Sans walked up to his room without another word. Somehow, he didn't think he was going to sleep well after all.