Just as a warning, this chapter is rather dark, but not super angst. Sorry for the wait, but I wanted this new chapter to come with the never cover art, but it's going to be done soon, so I'll just release it when the next chapter comes. Some of the material I've used is actually inspired from Chara's Beginnings along with a few other comics that you might be able to recall.

Upon waking up, I found that I had been resting in a white flower patch that was surrounding me as my eyes fluttered opened. I must have slept really heavily, because I felt dazed as I tried to get up. Luckily, I had still had on my green coat, scarf, and thankfully my pair of pants, so I wasn't very cold. Judging by the grey skies above, I was lucky to still have my clothing on this time. Wait, that wasn't right. Infact, miles away from me, I could see Mt. Ebott standing over the early morning horizon. I begun to wonder if it had all been a dream, or rather some sort of bittersweet nightmare. The grass outside of the patch of flowers I stood on was rather high in height, and the nearby path had looked rugged and, well, it was just a dirt path. In fact, I couldn't see sight of any familiar landmarks belonging to the national park, just vast fields of grass over the hills and trees. "Chara, how did we end up out here… And where exactly are we?" Now, Chara may not have been omnipotent as much as they had led on, but it wouldn't have hurt to ask. "Chara?" I didn't get a response that time either. "Please Chara, this isn't the time to be giving me the silent treatment." I chuckled uneasily, but alas, silence is what I was met with once again. It soon became apparent to me that they weren't with me, which led me to question their whereabouts. I hoped they weren't still in the Underground, but it wouldn't make sense if they were; not that trying to make sense of anything really meant anything to me anymore.

Suddenly, I caught hearing of the distant sound of galloping hooves coming down the dirt path. Thinking that who ever rode the horses would be able to assist me, I made my way closer to the path as I tried waving them down. What I saw puzzled me and was quite an oddity of a sight to see, to say the least. There riding down the trail, two armored horses with two knights mounted on them were coming my way. I could only imagine that maybe they were on their way to a renaissance fair. When they got close to me, I backed away as the leading knight's horse stood up on its back legs before letting out a neigh. "Child, what is thy name?" These guys must be pretty dedicated actors.

"My nameth iseth, uh, Kaneki Ken… eth." I giggled to myself, to which the knight gave me a questioning look in response. "Sayeth, whateth be thy nameth as welleth, sir knighteth?"

"... You're quite the jester, child." He chuckled. Taking off his visor, I could see the man's friendly smile and black eyes looking back at me. "I am Sir Amon." He introduced himself, before turning his head to nod at the knight behind him. "This is my partner, Sir Akira, daughter of Kuero Mado." Looking over to Akira, she had taken off her visor to stare at me with a bored expression. "Kaneki, do thouth wish to travel back to the village with us?" I knew that taking rides from strangers wasn't a very smart idea, but it beat having to walk back home. Who knows, maybe this guy could get me into the fair for free, then I would be able to call... I had to focus on one thing at a time.

"Yes please." He held his arm down, to which I hopped up to grab hold of. With ease, he lifted me up and helped me on the back of his saddle. "This is perhaps a long shot but, you wouldn't have happened to have know someone named Chara have you?" Amon gave me a questioning look as he and Akira rode down the trail.

"What would a child like you know about her?" Her? Is that what their sex was? I never considered Chara to be gender orientated, but I suppose that some people wouldn't address them as genderless. After all, Chara did had sort of long hair. Whatever, it wasn't my business.

"Well, it's kind of weird, but just like you and Akira, I suppose that Chara and I are partners in the same sense." I explained as I kept my eyes on the scenery surrounding us as we entered the forest. "But in reality, we're really good friends." Amon remained silent for quite sometime, probably thinking to himself. It wasn't until we exited the forest and begun to ride near a large lake shimmering with the grey clouds above did he let out a sigh.

"A child such as the likes of thouth, so naive and good." He chuckled half heartedly. "That's good though." Amon shrugged. "Child, surely you must be aware of the legend?"

"Mt. Ebott? Yes, I know of the monsters down there." Amon let out a soft laugh from that.

"Thou really art a jester after all." He chuckled. "Child, that was recent, by no means is it a legend!"

"... You can stop the roleplaying you know." I muttered. Despite how friendly he was being, he was starting to frustrate me. He obviously knew who Chara was. "Look, I'm thankful for the ride, but Chara's my friend, and I would like to see them as soon as possible." For the rest of the ride, Amon remained silent.

Before I knew it, we were in the midst of the market in the middle of the village. After thanking them both, I hopped off the horse to land on a patch of the same white flowers from before. "Safe travels, Kaneki."

"Goodbye, Amon! You too Akira!" After waving them goodbye, I turned around to see the several market stands ranging from produce to tools around the small area. I didn't care at this point if this was still a fair or not, I just had to find Chara. "It's me! Kaneki!" I shouted on the top of my lungs as I made a quick jog around the market. I was attracting the attention of some of the villagers, I had no doubts about it, but it seemed as though they were all too focused on whatever was transpiring in the middle of the large crowd to keep their focus on me for long. "Chara! Where are you?!" Suddenly, all commotion fell into silence, and those who had seen me returned their attention all on me as soon as I mentioned Chara's name. All the eyes of the people staring made me nervous, but I held my ground as I approached the group. "Umm… E-Excuse me, but has anyone seen a child my size? Actually, they might even be a little taller than me, but um… Their name is Chara, they have brown hair-"

"Red eye!" One of the villagers shouted out in a disgruntled voice. I paused, and nodded with a shrug.

"Well, they actually have two red eyes, not one. But-" Suddenly, a large man grab hold on my wrist with brute force. I let out a yelp of pain, and tried to pull away, but the man's size and strength surpassed my own. "What are you doing?!"

"Demon! That child shares evil with the demon!" A woman from the crowd shouted as I was dragged toward the middle of the crowd. I heard insults and curses as well as feeling spitting and even a felt few punches and kicks from the surrounding villagers. What had I done wrong?

"Is our sins far too much for a single child to hold?" Another voice quickly asked. The large man raised me in the air before slamming me hard against the dirty ground below. Dazed and out of breath, I felt tears crawling down my cheeks as I stared up into the skies. The crowd began to shout more and more curses at me, but I couldn't make out what they were saying at that point. Kick after kick, spit after spit, I felt more despair than I've ever known.

After an hour, I could sworn that some of the faces in the crowd resembled my mother. Might as well have been.

"Enough!" A loud a sudden voice boomed through the madness. Throughout my body, I felt nothing but pain, but I was able to turn my head slightly enough to see a tall man with short white hair dressed in grey robes standing above me. "The gods appeared to have given us a new child, one that carries a single red eye… What is this?!" He questioned in exaggeration as knelt down to get a better look at me. After analyzing my face, he spat on it before standing back up to address the crowd. "Loyal servants, this child is bearing a both red and grey eyes! This must be a test of the gods for us to show our purity to them!" Nothing he was saying made sense, yet, the crowd around him listened and were clearly agreeing with anything this crazed man was saying. "The brothers and I shall discuss further more what we should do with this child! For now good people, rest and continue on with your day; fear not, the gods have yet to steer us wrong, and neither have we!" Although they had stopped attacking me, the villagers dispersing spat and threatened me as they continued on with their day. "Help him up and follow me to the temple." Feeling familiar small hands around my chest and arm, I stared up to see their dark red eyes staring at me with a look of utter sorrow.

Traversing across the white and black checkered marble floor of the chapel, Chara and I silently made our way into the basement where the cultist had ordered us to go by force. Being thrown inside, the door locked from the outside as we were plunged into darkness. However, I heard Chara shuffling around in some drawers before they lit a candle on the ground. "I never seen them so violent." Chara muttered under their breath. They stood up to walk over to their bedding on the ground, where they kept a bucket fill with what I supposed was water. Pulling out two clothes, they made their way back over to me before handing me a wet cloth. We sat there as we wiped off the spit and dirt matted on our faces. On my cloth, through the dimly lit room, I caught glimpse of blood on it. Blood, not that red mist from before. "... How do you know my true name?" Although they looked different with their torn clothing and messy hair, I was glad to hear that they were who I thought they were. However, I was also sad to see them in this sort of state.

"We're friends." I smiled back as I reached my arm to put on their shoulders. They flinched as I did so, but soon just stared at my arm as as kept my hand on their shoulder. How long were they treated like this, to have reacted so badly from a mere friendly gesture such as a shoulder pat? It upsetted me. This is what their lives must have been like, and just how I assumed and what they've told me in the past, they indeed did have a terrible life. "Why are they doing this to you?" I asked, to which Chara looked at me as though I was mocking them, but after a while, they realized I was serious.

"... You must be new here… You see, humans are born with evil in them, and since it's impossible clean ourselves even through good deeds, I was chosen to bear all the evils of humanity… Or so I thought I was the only one." They sighed as they stared back at me. "We exist so that no matter what, the rest of humanity can do nothing evil."

"... Is that what you believe though?"

"Why else would they treat us like this?" Perhaps they didn't remember what happened, but I still refused to believe that they should accept being content with that sort of outlook on life. Looking down toward my legs, I watched as the same white flowers from before growing around me. That's when the door swung open.

Several robbed men had grabbed me to strap me to a wooden chair in the middle of the chapel's marble floor. The same man from before had explained that I was the link between humanity and evil, and that I would have the supposed honor to endure the trials of being a martyr for humanity's evils, so that the gods would be suffice with allowing the eradication of evil for all. Like I said earlier, none of what they were saying made sense. I felt terrified when I saw who would be the one to inflict 'justice' against me. There standing in front of me, stood my mother, dressed in the same shirt and skirt that she would go to work countless times in. She smiled as she approach toward me with a basket of white flowers. She wordless scattered them on the floor at my feet. I refused to beg or talk to her; I was now catching on that this wasn't real, but the pain was. Inside the basket, she pulled out a pair of pliers, and begun to crush my fingers one by one. "This is what they would have done to me, Kaneki." I cletched my teeth. In this hell, my body refused to allow me to pass out from the pain, so I had to endure the pain of each one of my fingers being crushed in between those bloodied pliers. Looking down, I could see that my nails had become blackened from the nail collapsing into shards. "I had to leave, I didn't want to live like this." After getting done with my fingers, she moved down to my toes. "Why were you trying to save me?! Do you honestly think I was worth saving, is that it?" Placing the bloodied piliers back into her basket, my mother hummed a tune as she pulled out a dagger. "Or did you just want to die?" I closed my eyes as I felt my mother plunge the blade repeatedly through my hands. "I wouldn't blame you if that was why… Honestly, I wouldn't want to exist with a monster like me either." After all the feeling from my hands had gone numb, she begun to slash wildly into my arms and chest. "After all, none of the is real. What you're experiencing right now is just an over exaggerated memory of mine, except I'm making this far worse for you than anything I went through." I had lost all feeling in my arms at this point, and just as I had feared, my mother mirrored what she had done to my arms and hands to my legs and feet. "So just take your soul back already, stop trying to let me have it!" Tossing the dagger into the bloodied basket, my mother kissed me on my forehead. Opening my eyes, I could see her calling in for a robbed man to place a tall mirror in front of me. "Marie Antoinette syndrome, is what they call it. You know, your hair being white due to stress and all… But would you like to know something?" Pulling out a sharper yet smaller knife, my mother plunged it inside my right eye. Through my left eye, I could see that my hair was white in my reflection. "This is how I saw you ever since we met." The pain immediately came to a halt as I was plunged into darkness as soon as my mother shoved another knife into my left eye.

"This is what you wanted, right? Well, now that it's just us, and there's no way for me to RESET, I think we'll just have the same fun with each other as before, partner." I felt their hand over my shoulder before they swung me around to face their blackened and mangled eyes. Their ungodly scream shuddered me to my core as they got closer to my face. Pushing me on the ground, they pulled hard on my scarf in order to strangle me. I felt the pain of suffocation as I gasped for breath. Harder and harder they pulled, but all I felt was pain rather than any sense that my life was in danger; after all, wasn't I already dead? "I'm the demon that you invited into your soul, Kaneki! You and I will be in this eternal hell together, and it doesn't matter what-" I cut them off mid sentence. I wrapped my arms around them and held them in close as I hug them.

"You're not a demon though." I whispered quietly. This infuriated them.

"Yes I am!" Shoving me back on the ground, Chara pulled off my scarf before wrapping their hands around my throat. "I'm the demon that-"

"Stop." I whispered as placed my hands around their back. Through their black disfigured eyes, I could see their red pupils beginning to take form as they stared at me in shock. I continued to comfort them with a smile on my face, to which then I could see all blackness evaporate from their eyes. Despite what many had thought about their red eyes, I could only see innocence and greatness. "You're just a kid." I felt their hands move away from my throat as tears fell from their eyes and onto my face. "We're both just kids."

"... Why… Why are you keep being so nice to me?"

"That's Kaneki for you." Both our eyes widened as we looked at each other before turning to face who had said that, but I had already instantly recognized that voice. "Always thinking about others, even when he thinks he's being selfish!"

"… Hide?!" I couldn't believe it. There standing beside Chara and I, was my best friend, the one I had killed. He wore the same green slacks with his yellow and black jacket just as he had on when we left for Mt. Ebott. He even had on the very same goofy grin that I longed to see ever since that day.

"Hey buddy! Who's your friend?" Looking over at him, Chara was quick to help me up to my feet as they stood beside me with their hand interlocked into mine.

"I'm… I'm Chara." Staring around us, Hide chuckled to himself as he quickly whistled a tune.

"Wow, is it always this dark in here?" He asked jokingly. Raising his hand, Chara and I watched as the void slowly faded away, and instead of darkness surrounding us, we found ourselves underneath a blue sky with white clouds painted across its beauty. "Much better… Oh, my bad! Chara, right? That's a pretty sweet name!" Although I found myself smiling, I looked over to see that Chara had refused to even look at Hide in the eye.

"Chara?" I leaned my head in to see their face, but they turned away as soon as I caught a glimpse of them still crying.

"I'm… I'm sorry."

"You shouldn't be sorry, infact, I should be thanking you!" Chara lifted their chin to looked up at Hide with a look of confusion.

"Why?! I hurt Kaneki!"

"You might have been a little too extreme with your methods, but I get it: You just wanted to look out for Kaneki, which I really respect!" Hide turned his attention to me with a little bit a sad look, but was still smiling nonetheless. "Kaneki, you have to stop blaming yourself for what happened, okay? What happened was just an accident, I know you didn't mean to kill me." He chuckled. "Heck, what's done is done, so there's no reason to be stuck in the past now, is there? Chara, that goes for you too." Hide scolded lightly before placing his hand over my hair to rub through it playfully. Taking his hand off my head, Hide placed his hand over my shoulder. "Kaneki, if you give your soul to Chara, they'll live as a separate entity than you, you know this, right?"

"I do, Hide." I gave Chara a smile as I felt their hand tighten softly around mine.

"What will happen to Kaneki then?"

"Kaneki will cease to exist." Hide stated, and I knew something was up as he said that in his purposefully over dramatic voice, so I didn't feel any dread from hearing that. "Neither will I, because... Dream roll please!" I knew this must have been mind boggling for Chara to experience, but I couldn't help myself as I leaned down to pat my free hand over the legs of my pants to mimic the sound of banging of drums. I couldn't explain what was going on, but it didn't matter to me, I was having a blast! Letting go of Chara's hand, Hide and I locked hands as we begun to dance around like idiots. We giggled and laughed, and the more and more we danced, the less I noticed the sky around us fading away into the front of Toriel's house.

I was at lost for words. Where Kaneki and Hide were, laid a single kid laughing like a complete idiot to himself in a field of white flowers. It was Kaneki, or at least he looked and sounded a lot like him. Gone was his winter outfit, in fact, I looked down to see that I was wearing them; instead, he wore a light grey suit, with two useless zippers on his chest might I add, that hung above his knees as well as a solid white tie and black dress shirt, which matched his black-striped slacks and brown shoes. His hair was in the shape of Kaneki's, and even the bottom half of his hair was white, but it seemed slightly longer and a bit messier than before, and on the top half was black- much like how Hide's hair was. As he smiled at me, I could see that his left eye was now brown while his right eye was grey. This was the happiest I've ever seen Kaneki, and it was rather refreshing. "Kaneki?"

"Used to be." He chuckled as he got up to brush himself off. Without warning, he leapt toward me with his arms outstretched. Not wanting him to fall, I gladly swung him around before we embraced in a joyful hug.

"What should I call you then?" He took a moment to think of response, as he made clicking noises with his mouth.

"How about… Haise Sasaki?"

"Haise Sasaki? What does that even mean?"

"Who cares, it sounds cool!" Haise Sasaki, huh? I knew it was just Kaneki with Hide's soul, but it didn't matter. We were alive, and if Kaneki wanted to be called that now, then so be it! Suddenly, I felt another pair or arms wrap around us. I turned around to see that it was Frisk, but it didn't stop there. Two more hugs were followed by first Asriel, then Juuzou, and before I knew it, the five of us were picked up by Toriel as she snuggled us. "Hey, you're gonna mess up my tie!" I couldn't help but smile at his attempts to try to keep his tie in place. I supposed not all humans were bad, heck, I was beginning to embrace the idea of having a family. It had been a while since I last saw a glimpse of the sky, and now with that image still fresh in my head, only made me question to myself why humanity wanted to keep monsters away from it. In fact, all this darkness and cavernous setting was rather dull compared to the outside.

"Haise." I whispered in his ear. "I want to go back to the surface… I want all of us to leave this place."

"Is that so?" He chuckled. "Then it's settled, we'll destroy the barrier then."

"How do you think we're going to do that?"

"I know we can do it!" Frisk cheered.

"I think so too! I mean, he brought you and himself back to life didn't he?" Juuzou laughed. I watched him as he stuck his fingers in Haise's mouth to make him smile. I heard Toriel gasp slightly as well as Asriel and I watched as they backed away from the hug to stare in awe above us. I looked up to see what they had been staring at. Above the four us, I could see four white hearts hovering above us. The cavern begun to vibrate violently, and the four us seized the hugging to focus our attention on the four white hearts beginning to beat faster and faster. Suddenly, four beams of color light erupted from above and flew straight down at what I supposed were our souls. A beautiful eruption of colors illuminated the room in a flash, and when the lights and vibrations had stopped, we looked above to see that the hearts above our head had became vibrant with color and even had a pulse of their own. Frisk and I's red souls back lowered into our bodies, just as Juuzou's cyan heart and Haise's black and white heart did as well.

"Well… That just happened." Haise chuckled as he fixed his tie, or at least he tried. What had just happened didn't exactly frighten me, not at all… in fact, it gave me a warm feeling of happiness. "But yeah, don't worry, I'll make sure that barrier goes away..." He muttered under his breath. I could tell that he was starting to get frustrated at this point where he was making small grunts as he fumbled with his tie. I smiled as I lightly pushed his hands away before taking hold of the tie to fix it myself. "Thank you Chara!"

"Don't mention it, after all, we can't save the day with you looking like trash now, can we?" I chuckled. Although I had fixed his tie, my hands remained wrapped around it as I continued to smile at him. I could feel my cheeks blushing as I leaned in for a small kiss on his nose. "First, let's get something to eat; I haven't eaten in a REALLY long time."

"I bEg Of YoU… PlEaSe… DoN't EnDaNgEr tHe LiVeS oF aNyOnE." My orders were clear, yes, but I wasn't going to allow someone who didn't even exist tell me what to do.

"You want everyone to stay here, right?" I mused with a glare at my self-proclaimed father. "Well, asking them isn't going to do anything, so just stand back and keep pissing and moaning over how much you miss your sons or whatever." WD Gaster had a look of despair on his misshapen face, and even beaten and laying helplessly on the white floor of that small room, he continued to beg for the lives of those who existed in the Underground. I didn't see why he did, I'd imagine spending time in a place with of naught would make one stop caring about anything.

"We NeEd To PrOtEcT tHeM, nO oNe Is To Die!" I scoffed at the fool hearted scientist as I brushed my fingers through my red bangs.

"I'll make sure they stay, but if they succumb to their wounds to the point where they die… Well, that's just their fault for being weak now, isn't it?" WD Gaster glared at me as he tried to get up, to which I quickly rectified that by grabbing his broken body with a single tendril before slamming him against the wall.

"... YoU'rE nOtHiNg LiKe KaNeKi Or HiDe…" I flashed a quick grin at him as I knelt down to remove the key he kept in his black coat.

"You're right, I'm not." I chuckled as I stood on my feet. As I turned to leave, I kicked a shattered gaster blaster across the floor and into a cloud of dust as I held the key out in front of me. Through the glitching reality and static sounds of white noise, I could faintly make out the sound of a waterfall through the distortions. Turning back, I stared at him with the same black and white eyes that he glared back at me before grinning at him. "I'll love to stay and continue this conversation, but… I think it's time for this bird to leave the cage."

"AkAnEkI… pLeAsE… lEt ThEm LiVe…" Typical banter coming from him that I grew accused them in short time I knew him, but it was still pathetic nonetheless.

"If they want their own happy ending, then they'll all have to earn it… I know I'll have to earn mine."

Okay, I promise this time, for real, that the next chapter will be them leaving the Ruins lol. Just to clearify by the way, Akaneki is the latest form of Kaneki from the manga, you know, the one that gets his arm chopped off and stuff lol.