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In the twisted and torn artificial canyons of the Divide, a sandstorm raged.

It was not a natural storm; it was far too vicious, too massive, and it never seemed to end. Given that it was the product of nuclear devastation and Old World science perverted to its maximum, perhaps it was true and the storms would never cease.

The Divide's inhabitants learned to deal with it, one way or another. Some sought shelter underground, others bet on their scales and armor to protect them from the metal shavings tossed into the air at speeds that could rake the flesh off of bones. Some of the Marked Men endured it all even as their flesh regenerated to compensate, and their howls echoed across the desolate land, only to be lost to the storm.

And above them all, above even the winds that seemed to tear at anything that dared to exist, two figures sat on a rocky cliff overlooking the tortured earth.

For the longest time, neither spoke, and neither sat at ease. As if one was waiting for the other to make the first move.

And one of them did.

"Why?" Ulysses asked.

The Courier stared at the Divide, perhaps hoping it would answer for them.

But it didn't, and eventually the Courier spoke.

"You're gonna have to be a little more specific than that. 'Why' what? Why'd I skip breakfast this morning? Why is the sky blue?"

Ulysses scowled and the Courier hummed. "Or are you asking why I dragged you here even though it would have been way easier to just let you die in that hellhole of a missile silo?"

Ulysses' scowl deepened, which was all the answer needed. The Courier nodded, turning towards the ruined metal and the radioactive sandstorms that would probably outlast life itself.

"…I don't know," the Courier said at last. "I just don't- fuck, what were you hoping I'd say? That it was the right thing to do? That I thought you could be forgiven, and that was enough reason for me?"

Ulysses scoffed, "Do you think men like us can ever know forgiveness?"

The Courier stopped and thought about it.

"Do you think we deserve it?"

But there was no answer. No noise at all, except for the merciless sound of sand beating against rock.

Begin Again

I don't know how to describe what happened after that.

I don't know if any word or combination of words can.

One moment I had a gun in my mouth and I'd just made up my mind for the last time. I could see Chara's eyes widening in shock—maybe they hadn't expected me to actually go through with it all—before everything just went away. I felt, vaguely, like I was falling in a dream, but not waking up. Even that was muted, my whole universe had stopped revolving around the senses of the body, a consequence of blowing my brains out with a weapon most people can't even wield without hurting themselves.

And then my last shred of sensation disappeared. I was still awake, aware, but it wouldn't have mattered much if I wasn't. There was nothing left to see or feel. It wasn't pitch black, like when you close your eyes in a dark room. It was just nothing. Hell is an echo chamber dominated by whispered memories and the final thoughts of my fast-fading mind. It reminds me of old regrets and the desperate wish to do things over, only for nothing to change.

I suppose there are worse places to be.

I wonder how many pieces of me were still thinking that when I ate a bullet. In my experience, shooting someone in the head is a pretty definitive way of putting them down, but as modern medicine is quick to tell us, total somatic death still takes a little while to set in. Brain activity continues, lingers even after the cerebrum's lying in a million pieces. Maybe those fragments are all that's left, and these are just the last ramblings of the mailman's oxygen-starved and ventilated brain, just as meaningless as any drug trip.

Christ, with all the cybernetics and shit jammed into my skull, maybe I'm not even that lucky. These flickering thoughts could just be running on microchips hooked up to rotted meat, trying desperately to keep running even on minimal power and-

The world snapped back into focus, clear as day. Clearer than even that.

Everything, by the way. Not just sight. There's the familiar weight and gentle pressure of my helmet around my head. Numbness I wasn't even aware of was gone in an instant, and once more I could feel my legs and arms, which seemed a little bruised but otherwise okay. And of course the flowers pressed against the glass of my helmet's visor.

I take back what I said earlier. Hell could be full of nothing but yellow flowers and I would never know the difference.

But I can't even focus on that because after I sat up, verified that I was in the same bed of flowers I landed all the way at the start of the Underground, I wondered what the fuck happened. Because I was no longer in darkspace and contemplating the futility of everything I did. I was kneeling in foliage and coming to grips with the fact that I still had my knife and gun, and had definitely not used the latter if the full cylinder and my intact skull was any indication.

That sparked an odd question for the more analytical side of me. You know, most of your thoughts are just electrical pulses and chemicals being in certain areas in certain amounts. I didn't lose my memories, so did I just get- what, teleported back here, with my mind exactly the way it was a few moments ago? Or was it all reset back to some arbitrary point in time, and this was me trying to reconcile my past mindset with my present memories?

It barely crossed my mind that I could have just hallucinated the whole thing. Maybe I was so desperate to think I wasn't crazy that traveling back in time was the more plausible option.

Maybe it's because I knew what it felt like to be so full of despair, so ready to give up, and know there was no way any dream or half-baked illusion could mimic it.

I sighed. Thinking about it like this was just going to give me a fucking headache, something I had no desire to experience after that hallucinogenic fugue state I was in.

No, for now I would just- do what I always do. Gather information, form a plan. Get out of here. Don't make the same mistakes as last time.

Although speaking of last time, things were already different. Hadn't I injured myself on the fall? I distinctly remember something like that happening. And where was Chara? They were right here when I-

Something moved in the flowers next to me.

I whirled around to face it, so quickly and so silently that whoever it was didn't notice. I saw a pair of arms stir before a kid sat up- and that's the operative word, it really was just a kid. A part of me panicked and thought it was Chara. Another part of me scoffed at myself for being afraid of a child, then swiftly reminded itself that some way or another they'd beaten me.

Then the kid turned to me, and the fear ebbed away when I realized it couldn't be Chara. She—at least I was pretty sure it was a she—was probably the same age and had the same build as the ghost, but that was where the similarities ended. This kid had brown eyes and hair, a face that didn't seem nearly as cruel as Chara's, and was looking right at me with the kind of expression you would reserve for a masked lunatic with glowing eyes and a gun in his hands.

(*You saw-)

Oh fucking great. Cool, I thought. You're here too. What were you going to say? What is it that I see, huh? A scared little girl? Or-

(-*Someone who looks just like you.)

And that kinda made me stop when I realized the kid's fearful expression hadn't gone away while I was raging at the voice in my head.

"Uh, hey," I started, then winced when the child shrinked back. Either she was really shy, or I still looked and sounded like a fucking murderer. Which I was, but-

You know what I meant.

I put the gun away and took off my helmet, slow enough that it didn't seem alarming.

"Kid?" I tried again. If my track record with Chara was anything to go by, I wasn't incompetent at it, but talking to children wasn't my strong suite. Still, I was determined not to alienate the only person I'd met so far. "Uh-"

Who are you? What the fuck happened to Chara, and the souls? Why am I here again? How-

"My name's Six. Courier Six." I paused, wondered if the kid would answer. "What's your name?"

A few seconds passed, long enough for me to consider dropping the question for something else, but then…

"…Frisk," she said after a moment, in a voice that didn't sound like it saw much use. "I'm Frisk."

"Well, Frisk," I looked around. "This place-"

Toriel collapsing into a pile of dust Sans with a knife burrowed into his skull Undyne cradling Alphys' broken body Asgore's hopeful expression crumbling with the rest of him-

"-Is a little dangerous to go through alone. Do you…" I paused at what I was doing. Considering how it went the last time, did I really want to try taking this kid along with me for the ride? Knowing what was in store?

And then I remembered the alternative would be to leave a child on her own, in a place where half the inhabitants would kill her to secure their freedom, and I wondered what the fuck was wrong with me. I was so goddamn tired of writing people off as a loss, either by leaving them behind or killing them for being in my way.

And yeah, maybe this was all still some fever dream, maybe it wasn't. I just knew I didn't want to make those same mistakes again.

"-Do you want to try getting out of here together?" I asked.

Frisk hugged her arms against her striped shirt.

I held out a hand.

Neither of us moved for the longest time.

Then, slowly, the kid took my hand.

There was something hilarious about the sight of the kid trying to wrap her little hand around the massive bulletproof gloves of mine, but I didn't laugh. I held on tight enough to be reassuring and gently enough to avoid breaking bones, and I gave the kid a nod.

She nodded too, and made an effort to smile up at me.

We had an understanding, I think.

We walked off together into the Ruins, and I might have felt just the slightest bit relieved, that after everything, there was still someone who was willing to put their trust in me.

…

(*The child, who you sought to protect, and your resolve to correct past mistakes…)

(*The desire to do the right thing, despite everything you've done, and everything that's been done to you…)

(*It fills you with determination.)

A/N: Did you know that after posting chapter eight in April, I didn't write at all for three months, then consecutively wrote nine *and* this in less than three days? Because now you know. Sorry for the wait.

That aside, I wanted to thank you for your reviews. I know I say that a lot, but I mean it. When this story is complete (something that I very deliberately avoided doing last chapter, some of you noticed), I'll probably remove all these notes from previous chapters so the fic's less bloated, but you can bet that the final chapter will have a very special thanks for your reviews. They really are a big part of why I write this story, and I wanted to let you know that even if I don't respond, I do read them, and I especially appreciate them. Honestly, the main reason I don't write back, outside of the occasional PM, is because I don't want the chapters to get cluttered with messages to reviews that you have to go back five pages to see.

There was a moment though, where I pondered marking the story as 'complete' then posting this a few days later, but I figured too many people would notice and lose their shit in the time between the previous chapter and this, so I ended up not doing that. But man, can you imagine?

I teased it before, but congratulations, we now see the RESET mechanic at work in the story, and it's not just the same world with a new Courier, in fact, this is only the start in a line of differences that- well, I wouldn't want to spoil it. I'm sure I'll write the next chapter in less than a year.

See you next time.

PS: I do hope that the ending to that last chapter wasn't too… troubling, for those of you who aren't in the best of places. They say to write what you know, I just hope it didn't seem too familiar to any of you readers.