The white ceiling stung in the Monster Mage's blinking eyes. It was a harsh, strong light that felt as if it was burrowing into her skull and kept going even though she had closed her eyes against it. She was feeling the sense of being the High Officer fading from her and herself coming back in its dreamlike state. The deep unease of feeling the Hero of Xoff's soul take him over and the even more uncomfortable sense of him realizing what had happened was sour and bitter within Cter. It stung just as much from inside her as the harsh light from outside of her.

It meant that the barrier magic surrounding Jarasevo still held though if it could reach all the way into the barracks bed she was in and…

No, wait.

The pillows and mattress under her were comfortably firm compared to the lumpy and uneven stuffing of the barracks beds. The cover laid on top of her heavy, yet still with a cloud-like gentleness to it. It wasn't a bed that was meant to only provide necessary rest. It was a bed that was meant to provide comfortable rest as well.

It was her own bed.

"But why–"

Cter barely managed her eyes open before shutting them close again from the immense harshness of the white light. How was that possible? The barrier magic she and her colleagues had arranged around the city walls would not be glowing so brightly from that far a distance. Was it closer? Had it grown?

Was the barrier magic around the castle walls too?

Was the enemy…

"You're awake."

The few loose strands that peeled off Cter's sweaty head and face whipped sharply as she flung her head towards the voice to the left of her bed. "Are they here, Kry?!" she shouted before trying to open up her eyes again, but failing once more due to the light. "The humans? Are they–"

"The city is safe," he said as if he had been told to say it. "It is not in danger right now. We protected it until the Monster Royals came home." There was an unsure inhale. "How is your arm? I..." A weary exhale followed. "I did my best, but I could only make it like mine. Hopefully it doesn't feel too strange for you."

What did he mean? Cter's arm? Yes, her left arm felt strange as if it had a different shape and length to it, but that was because she was coming back from the High Hero's...the High Offic– She was coming back from the intense memories of the Hero of Xoff so it was no wonder she felt as if she was different. She could still feel the tickling of the dust he slayed on her cheeks.

With her coming back to her own soul she could even feel who those monsters were that the Hero of Xoff killed. His soul was in such a high state of magical awareness that Cter could feel the dust second-hand as if it was a first-hand experience. As if she was touching the dust directly.

As if it was she that killed them herself.

She had never explored a human's memories through their soul before, and from how vivid and real she was still feeling the Final Battle she never wanted to do it again. The burnt smell. The blood in the Hero of Xoff's ears. The change in the friction when a monster became dust. The want to kill more. The need to kill more. The indulgence in that want and need.

Had it not been for the shock when the Hero of Xoff saw that his own soul had taken over his eyes Cter might not have woken up knowing that she was Cter. Had she not seen that the reflection in King Asgore's armor was so, so different from her own eyes she could just as well have woken up as the Hero of Xoff in her mind.

And perhaps in her soul as well…

"God..."

The shock the Hero of Xoff felt was unlike anything he had ever known before. Seeing his own eyes completely erased and replaced with...something else. Something that was like… Like seeing something else in the mirror. There wasn't anyway else for Cter to describe it. No other way for her to think back on it. Maybe it was her soul letting her know that it was better for her not to think back on it. That it was better for her not to give it any thought.

She had to though.

She had to get up. She had to stand up and continue to defend the monsters. She needed to defend them even more after what she had seen and what she had experienced. If the humans reached the Monster Capital with their determination to fuel their souls rather than quench them like they thought the Final Battle would then there may not have been a monster left standing by the end of their slaughter.

They did not stop the same as the Hero of Xoff did. They continued even though many of them must have caught their own reflection at some point. Did they ignore it? Did they even notice? The Hero of Xoff had his soul ever since the First Fusion, so perhaps it had aged enough for him to notice it. The other humans in the army only had their cursed souls for but a few handful of months. Even the most proficient of mage student at Soul's School would not have been able to notice the glint of their soul in their eyes for the first year of study.

Their eyes hadn't accustomed to it yet. It raged the same within them as it did for the Hero of Xoff though. It urged them to kill more and more even though they knew that the Final Battle was already decisively won.

That they kept fighting and killing without any control to their actions after the Hero of Xoff was taken prisoner by the monsters showed that it was something primal that their cursed souls were tapping into. Something that might be in every human there was.

Was it the Soul Rainbow?

Was it…

"I'm going to repeat my question since it is important that you answer me, Cter," said Kry's voice deeper and slower. "How does your arm feel? Can you take over from me?"

Take over? What did he mean? "You need me to patrol the barrier magic?" He sounded tired when asking her. How long was she gone for? He and Kurant must have exhausted themselves while she was unconscious. "Yes, I can. Just let me–" It was difficult for Cter to put weight on her left arm. With it feeling so different it had her putting it down onto the soft bed at a bad angle and her hand slipping out from underneath her, collapsing her onto it.

"Careful, Cter."

But she did not feel the fall.

"Here, let me help."

It did not hurt as her body landed onto her left arm. She did not feel her shoulder bending strangely.

"Oh...god..."

It was limp.

"I'm s-sorry! I..."

There was no structure to it.

"I-I'm s-so s-sorry!"

Tears flooded Cter's eyes as she opened them up against the harsh light which had faded.

"I t-though it w-w-would be enough and–"

A guttural quell twisted Kry's voice, and through the distorted view through the thick tears Cter saw his blurry form turn away from her.

From the harsh light.

"It's..."

From her formless arm.

"All of it?"

A dripping length with a viscosity and shape like wet dough was lifted up when Cter tried to raise her left arm. Drops of white gunk dropped off from where her elbow should have been, landing in a lumpy pile that sunk down into the soft mattress. At the end of the formless dough there was the faint outline of a hand fading away. It was bigger than Cter's should have been, but it did not last for long. The barrier magic that had kept it in shape was disappearing, allowing the White Flesh to reach outside of its thin confine. It must have been quiet and less tumultuous when Cter was unconscious.

Good to...know.

"How long did you keep it for?" asked Cter to Kry's hunched back while feeling on her collar where the White Flesh ended. Where her shoulder ended and her arm began there was the distinct softness of the White Flesh, but moving higher up there wasn't a distinct separation between the White Flesh and her body. There was a gradient where it became firmer and firmer.

Her collar bone she could feel become slightly soft as it neared her shoulder. It was as if pushing her thumb down on a green apple. Firm, but with a noticeable give if she pushed down hard enough. The worst part of it was how the indent rose back up again. It didn't hurt, but it felt worse than hurting.

"Golly."

Most of all though it felt tiring to Cter. It wasn't something she felt like she could scream and be afraid of. Jumping around and waving her left arm as if it was filled with spiders would only have stained everything. She wouldn't have found her arm underneath the loose White Flesh she shook off. It was her arm. It was all her arm. It didn't hurt, so she could not scream about it.

"Golly me."

She could only really look at it with a weary pair of eyes and a deep, sinking feeling to her soul. As it was already so deep with weary from coming back from the Hero of Xoff's memories it wasn't as if walking out of a warm sauna into a blizzard. She was already in a blizzard, so what was another one to her?

"No wonder it felt so strange."

Cter pulled her sleeping gown down her shoulder. She did not remember changing into it, but that wasn't something she bothered herself with. She told herself that Kurant did it for her, and left it at that. At the top of her shoulder the gradient between the White Flesh and her own flesh was clearly visible, like wet sand being the middle ground between the wet lake and the dry beach. Harsh white and slightly pale blended together to look similar to how Kurant's skin was. Its give was that of an overripe apple, with a deep indent left behind by Cter's thumb pressing into the gradient. A few seconds passed before it rose back up again, longer that it did on her collar bone.

The looming question that hung over it was if it was a gradient due to her own flesh halting the progress or the White Flesh claiming more than it already has. It even reached partly onto her shoulder blade which seemed to be more afflicted by the White Flesh than her collar bone was.

Was it because she usually focused her soul at her chest that her back resisted less against the White Flesh? Or was it just because she had been sleeping on her back for so long that it felt as if it was more taken over by the White Flesh?

In any case she could not have it be as formless as it was. She had to regain its shape and contain it. Before she could do it though…

"Did the humans get through?"

The question tasted as bitter and foul in her mouth as the lingering taste from the black gunk that the Hero of Xoff coughed up. An unsettling taste that was as burnt as the dust-filled air was. From the brief glimpses that the Hero of Xoff saw it with it looked similar to the White Flesh of the Fusions and Cter's left arm. She had not tasted her arm though, so she did not know if it compared.

And she wouldn't taste it to compare.

"They are inside the castle," said Kry with his back still turned away. He nodded towards the door, and from the turn of his head Cter saw that he was missing his glasses. His sleeve was still on though with the barrier magic still inside of it that Cter had given him. The glow of his magical lines was faint though. Faint and...defeated. "Just outside the door there are two of them guarding. One from the human army and another from the contingency that was to besiege Jarasevo. I asked for both of them to be from the contingency, but I had t compromise with only one."

"Why so?" asked Cter after beginning to cover her left arm with barrier magic to reform it into something familiar to her. The news that the humans were inside both of the city and castle walls did not shock her as much as she felt that it should have. It must have been the Hero of Xoff's presence still lingering with her, as mostly it was to her as Kry telling the obvious.

That the barrier magic around the city walls were down she could sense in her magic. There wasn't any strain to it. No focus that she had to ration for upkeep. If it was even possible for her to keep barrier magic active from so far away too. She made it under the assumption that she was going to be close to it and keep reinforcing it during a siege. Of course it wasn't there no more.

Of course the humans were inside the city and castle…

"Not yet," came a slow, weary answer. "First I need to know about your arm, Cter. Please tell me you can make it your arm again." He turned to show that his usually slicked-back hair was rough and unkempt, as if he hadn't washed it in a while. His eyes seemed to soften slightly as he saw the White Flesh take on the shape of Cter's fingers from her barrier magic forming them into shape.

They began as thicker than how they should have been, with Cter feeling the Hero of Xoff's hand close around the blade of his hilt as she clenched her left hand. She could see the deep, weathered lines in the barrier magic that he had on his strong hand, and had to shake them away with an annoyed grunt. "Is it?"

There was a pleading undertone in his voice which Cter found worrying. It wasn't like him to be so...forward with Cter's left arm. His voice was just short of being Fang Shuey yelling at Cter because she had stained the bed sheets with the dripping White Flesh. He had contained it himself, so did that mean that he sensed something with it that he was worried that Cter would not notice? Something that her arm could do?

Something her arm...had done?

"What happened after I grabbed onto the Hero of Xoff?" Cter asked straight with the barrier magic forming her hand as it should have been. She made a display of stretching her fingers and turning her wrist so that Kry would be convinced that she had control over it like he wanted to. It was the only way for him to say anything, she figured.

Still it took until her barrier magic began reaching over where her White Flesh had stopped before at the bend of her arm for him to let out a shaky sigh. "Your arm..." He closed his mouth, but he had already said too much.

"My...arm?" she blinked. "Not...me?" The barrier magic around her White Flesh thickened, covering it more. She did so just by the surge of fear in Kry's soul. Something had happened. Something with her arm. Something that led to the humans being inside Jarasevo Castle.

The fear in Kry's aura seemed to darken Cter's study. The gray light from the overcast outside took on an even more dampened hue to it as if there would be lightning at any moment. Had there been one, the unease and worry would have been obvious, but as he kept his back turned and his head only looking over his shoulder half of his face was covered by the purple fabric of his robe.

"As you grabbed at the Hero of Xoff's arm and connected your soul to his the White Flesh must have reacted to the dust on him. Either that or it was his soul that it reacted to, but even if that was the case we will not acknowledge it as such. If that was the case then that would mean that you were about to create a Third Fusion that would have the power of two human souls." He shook his head. "We can not have that be the case." Hard. "We can not!"

There was noise outside the door curious as to what the shouting was about. Luckily for the two Monster Mages the curiosity was not enough for the human guards to enter and see what it was all about. Cter was made aware of their presence though, and it all began to sink in heavier for her. She had made the decision to immerse herself in the Hero of Xoff's memories for reasons that she had difficulties remembering. She did it to protect the city, that she knew.

But exactly how that would have helped though?

If anything she saw that the Hero of Xoff was correct. To have a human army that was fueled by the death of monsters be inside the walls of the Monster Capital where the hate and vile against the humans was at its most concentrated was not only a recipe for disaster and more slaughter, but the oven to bake that recipe as well.

Cter could not but hope that the gray light from outside was from overcast and not from smoke rising up from a destroyed Jarasevo. A Jarasevo that had burned while she was sleeping soundly in her own comfortable bed. Idyll was inside the castle, but was Donial? The refugees? The Royal Guards and the commoners that Kry had spoken to and raised morale? Had they all fought while Cter had slept?

Her barrier-formed fingers clenched together hard, grinding against each other like glass against glass. It was an uncomfortable sound, and it cut Cter's ears. "We do not have long," managed through the pain in Cter's ears. "We managed to capture the Hero of Xoff and flee within the city walls with him and you. I don't know what you did to his memories, but he seemed less affected by them than he was before you touched him and your arm began to..." Kry's head and shoulders sank. "It looked as if your White Flesh was eating his arm. That's as best a description I can give."

"And the human army?"

Kry motioned towards the window and waited until he heard Cter's feet touch the stone floor. "We only have a day or so before they become restless. They arrived yesterday, a day away from when the Hero of Xoff approached us. You've been out for almost two days, Cter. That is far longer than you have been out when you delved into the memories of a monster. We feared that you would be gone for longer, but thankfully you will be able to join in with the negotiations."

The reflection of Cter's arm had her stopping in front of the window. Despite the glass being clean she saw nothing beyond it. Nothing beyond the entire length of her left arm covered in barrier magic with the swirling White Flesh inside. It only grew when she pushed her soul and magic far enough that it gave way for the White Flesh to take over more of her. Previously it had just been another knuckle, to the length of her fingers, her hand, wrist, and lower arm.

Each time it was because she had pushed herself harder, and each time the White Flesh had claimed more and more. With the harsh light reflecting brighter in the window than what was let through during high noon, her delving into the Hero of Xoff's memories had strained her soul more than everything else she had done, combined. That she was even capable of summoning and maintaining her barrier magic over her left arm she only then realized was taking its toll on her.

As if she was getting winded from walking after having run for days on end.

With a small step to the side she hid her left arm behind the curtain so that she could look outside. Doing so only had her wanting to step back again though.

"It pains me to have to say this to you, Cter," informed Kry with a deep and hurt sigh, "but you should get dressed as soon as possible."

She could hear his footstep near the door, but her eyes did not move away from what she saw surrounding Jarasevo.

"They will want to negotiate as soon as possible."

Humans. Thousands upon thousands outside the walls they could so easily get over.

"We will want to negotiate as soon as possible."

Dancing outside the gate that looked to open up just by a faint breeze. Celebrating with inaudible music yet with deafening cheers from their bonfires and flowing kegs.

"I'll let the others know that you are awake."

They had won.

"I'll let them know that we are...ready."

And the monsters had lost.

"And pray for their mercy."