A Maelstrom's Tale
Chapter 18.5: The Aftermath Pt.2

On one fine afternoon, Naruto was in his room and making an entry on his diary while Nikan was rolling around a bit on the floor to blow some time off until the blonde is ready to leave, and Chara was floating around with a bored look on her face before calling out to Naruto.

"How much longer are you gonna keep writing on that book?" asked Chara boredly.

"Can't say for sure but I'll be done before you know it," Naruto assured the ghost girl who simply huffed while floating upside down to stare at him.

"Whatever you say, whiskers,"

With that said, Naruto returned his attention back to his diary and resumed writing on it with a thoughtful look.

Dear diary,

It's been several weeks since my return from the timeline where the genocide in the Underground had occurred and I was at least able to stop it at the third time. It was a real eyeopener for me, making me realize what could have happened had Frisk and I treated what we went through in our own timeline like a video game.

After my return, I had to go around and apologize to the monsters for my sudden absence as they were worried about me. The Dogi couple nuzzled me for more than an hour the moment that they saw me, Ms. Muffet was quite upset and I had to promise her to visit her more often for a cup of tea though Chara seemed to be grumpy when I was with her.

Naruto paused for a moment to think about something before continuing to write

After the revelations of many things, there were changes among everyone; both subtle and also major. For one, Asgore and Toriel seem to get along much better compared to before when she often gave him a hard time about his past actions. I hope that the bad blood between them goes away and they get back together, I can tell that they truly miss each other.

One of my greater worries is about Frisk as ever since I told her about what happened in the Genocide timeline, she's been having nightmares where she saw herself doing genocide which terrified her and fear falling asleep to avoid having those nightmares again. I need to find a way to help her.

As for Asriel, he's been coming by a lot to hang out with me while at times I would visit him and Toriel-obachan, and also to reconnect with Chara given their history together in the past. At times I would let Chara take control of my body so she would speak to him and even play video games as although Azzy tends to beat her often in them much to her frustration. Guess there's something she can't beat him at yet.

Hearing a sneeze, Naruto glanced over his shoulder to see Chara rubbing her nose in confusion as to how is it possible for a ghost to sneeze. Naruto looked back into his diary with a chuckle, knowing what exactly happened.

Another change to be noticed would be from my mom, I began to notice tht she appeared happier and much more joyful ever since I told her of meeting dad's spirit and hearing his last words to us. There was no doubt that she missed him just as much as I do, he was our pillar of stability and we felt lost without him. But now, she's finally out of that stupor and moving forward with a bright smile on her face.

Alphys has also been expressing interest in the power of SAVE and RESET, she wanted to know how they work and the potential they have since I can come back from the dead unless I'm in another timeline. I have no intentions whatsoever to use the RESET but I've been noticing SAVE Points at certain places with one being at my home, I never saw them before until my return from the Genocide Timeline which makes me wonder about the cause of it.

Papyrus is still his usual optimistic self, always seeing the bright side of things in spite of the revelations. But he tends to feel a bit nervous whenever Chara takes over my body and I can tell that Sans would be watching from somewhere during those times. Chara herself doesn't seem to want to be around Papyrus too much out of guilt for killing his counterpart who never saw her as an enemy and had tried but failed to change her mindset.

But not everything is fine as of now, Undyne still doesn't trust Chara which I can understand at least since she along with the others know what she's capable of in her original timeline, being rather tolerant whenever I let her take over my body to get used to everyone in my timeline. Ever since then, Undyne's been like a hawk watching over Chara's every move in case she goes back to committing genocide just like in her old timeline.

Don't even get me started on Sans, he too doesn't trust Chara just like Undyne and I can't blame him for that to be honest. After all, the other Sans in the Genocide timeline lost everything; his friends, his brother, everyone…He watched it all happen and couldn't do anything to stop her and in the end, he was a victim to Chara's killing rampage like all the rest she slew throughout the Underground. Anyways, Sans hasn't really been doing much other than being his usual self when I'm around, but when Chara is in control, that's a different story. I can tell Sans is keeping a close eye on her every movement she does that isn't involving causing harm while Chara just dislikes him in general due to her experience with Sans. So clearly her, Undyne and Sans aren't in good terms with each other and I hope that changes soon.

Naruto let out a sigh of mild exasperation at what he had just written, clearly seeing the tension between the three being thick enough to cut like a knife through butter then he picked up where he left off.

Speaking of Chara, she's starting to get used to my timeline after living here for some time now. As I mentioned previously, she's getting used to everyone. in fact, she's been getting oddly close to me for a while now and possibly protective too which it might have something to do in school or more specifically, the school bully Susie. Ever since my last encounter with Susie involving my inability to fight back due to my past issue, Susie's been picking on me for the most part after her initial threat of her biting my face off all because I caught her eating chalk the other day. Back then I didn't wanna fight her because of reasons that could hurt her or worse, but now that I have no qualms of taking action, Susie has been getting on my last nerves recently and apparently the same could be said for Chara.

Frisk, Asriel, Red, MK and even Noelle are worried about me but I told them I'm fine though they don't seem to believe that, especially Red as she wanted to stop this nonsense but I told her to not get involved cause I'll handle Susie if things get too out of hand, at first she wasn't sure but accepted it.

However, Chara wanted to take control so she could do something to her which was out of the question. Besides, she hasn't done something major yet but when she does…well I'll handle it. Plus, Chara at times makes some jokes about Susie like referring to her looking just like Barney the Dinosaur which made it pretty hard to not laugh during class since I can definitely see the resemblance of one.

Naruto chuckled at the memory then something caught his eye which made him write about something relating to it.

Lately, I've been undergoing training and relearning the techniques that dad had taught me. I had redesigned the techniques to be more defensive but that has changed now that I'm moving forward and no longer shackled by my past. I'm also learning new magic arts from the grimoire; it seems to flip to pages on what I'm supposed to learn and wouldn't allow otherwise. I intend to ask the others about the Blue and Orange attacks so I can incorporate them into my fighting style, pretty sure they'll come in handy in the future.

Oh yeah, Undyne has another training trip planned for us in a couple weeks' time, can't wait to show her what I can really do now that I'm no longer hesitating to attack anymore. I might even learn something during then.

"Aren't you done yet? We're burning daylight here!" Chara exclaimed, clearly at the limits of her patience.

"Okay okay, I just finished my entry right now," said Naruto closing up the diary and putting it away, Nikan perked up and immediately scampered over to his side with his tail wagging happily.

"Finally, now let's go over to Azzy's place. This time he won't be able to beat me!" said Chara with fire in her eyes.

"I don't really understand why you're so hung over this, does it really bother you that Azzy is better in video games than you?" asked Naruto as he left his room and was going down the stairs to get his bike from the garage.

"You don't get it; my pride is at stake here! How can I proclaim myself the best when I keep losing like this? there's something about losing that really grinds my gears,"

"Yeah, I can tell…," Naruto muttered, recalling her behavior when they fought back in the genocide timeline.

"Well, this time is going to be different, I'll show Azzy who the true victor is…me!" Chara declared loudly.

Naruto rolled the bike out to the drive with Nikan hopping into the basket and prepared to ride "Just try not to turn it into a five-hour marathon like last time, mom and Toriel-obasan weren't exactly happy when they found out,"

Chara simply huffed in response "Then Azzy should prepare himself to lose,"

The trio rode off for the Dreemurr home to spend one of their more normal days with the others. Unbeknownst to them, Player was watching them leave with a grin on her face.

"Nice to see them getting along, but they'd better be ready for the long road ahead of them. Naruto's venture through the Genocide timeline is merely a key opening a door into something they won't be able to close now. Makes me curious to see how they'll go about it; I can't wait for when that time comes!" Player giggled in excitement before teleporting in a bright flash of light to destinations unknown.

This is Hussbek online with the latest chapter, Naruto was writing another entry into his diary about what happened after he revealed most of the truth to everyone as well as he was also going through afterwards. Chara is trying to redeem herself in the eyes of others with some recognizing her efforts and others no so much or even at all; namely Sans and Undyne. Frisk has been having nightmares of herself committing genocides much to everyone's confusion as she never did such a thing. Naruto has also decided to undergo serious training in order to recover from his self-imposed limitations of his overall combat prowess along with learning new things for the future.

Next story to be updated is Naruto the Mega Gamer.

Stay tuned to find out and be sure to read and review like always.

This is Hussbek from Ghana.

Signing out and staying alive.