Chapter 43
Sweat poured from Frisk's brow and into her eyes. She licked the sweat from her lips. Her eyes were locked on Suzy, her opponent in this match Ms. Sizzle called shortly after the other monsters began retiring for the night.
In the bright field with lava flowing as a river of sorts, Frisk and Suzy stood five feet apart. Ms. Sizzle watched a short distance away. Clicking her tongue, Ms. Sizzle made the same order she had been giving for the past hour.
"Again."
Suzy charged forward, a black ax materializing in her hand. As Suzy swung at Frisk with all her might, the human used her sword to block the attack. Seeing an opening, Frisk kicked out her leg and struck Suzy in the ribs. Unfazed, Suzy used her free hand to punch Frisk in the face. Frisk stumbled backwards, the bruises that had already formed doing nothing to ease the stinging pain, and she barely had enough time to jump out of the way before Suzy brought her ax down on the human.
Gripping her sword so tightly her knuckles hurt, Frisk tried to catch her breath. Suzy was fast and ferocious. The weapon was heavy in Frisk's hands. The magical weapon Frisk could summon was much lighter in comparison, but she dare not discard the weapon given to her in favor of the magical one. Frisk did not need Ms. Sizzle and Suzy to know she was already aware that they knew she was a magician.
Before Suzy could be the first to strike again, Frisk lurched forward. She didn't want to hurt Suzy, but Frisk knew better than to hold herself back. Bringing down the sword, Frisk put everything she had left to give in the blow. Normally Suzy had a better reaction time, but she was also tired. The reptilian monster had time to react, but not enough.
Frisk wasn't sure if she or Suzy cried out in surprise when Frisk's sword sliced into Suzy's bicep. In horror, Frisk watched as blood leaked from Suzy's flesh and began to trail down her arm. Even Suzy was too stunned to do more than stare at her new wound.
"Well, what are you waiting for?" Ms. Sizzle snapped after half a moment passed without either of the girls moving. "Strike again!"
"No, I think that's enough." Heartrate accelerating, blood rushing behind her ears, and her lungs desperate to take in some oxygen in this boiling hot area, Frisk found it in herself to actually glare at the leader of the Blues. "I was able to draw blood from Suzy before she could draw blood from me. I think this is victory enough for tonight."
Ms. Sizzle seemed to hiss as she responded, "You foolish child! Do you think Asgore will grant you victory if you are the first to draw blood? No. That will be a fight till one of you is defeated, just as this fight is. Now, again!"
For a moment, all Frisk could do was stare. She slowly shifted her gaze from Ms. Sizzle to Suzy. Her opponent was also breathing heavily. Suzy's grip on her ax was loose as if she too did not want to raise her weapon again.
"Suzy cannot take anymore," Chara, who had spent the whole time watching from the sidelines, told Frisk. "She's too tired to fight. Whereas you might find the determination to keep going, she is unable. Suzy couldn't even block you if you struck at her once more. You have two choices: take her out with one final blow, or show her mercy."
Although Frisk did not look to Chara, she knew he wore an expression of concern. He knew this wasn't about fighting and defeating King Asgore, but about Frisk fulfilling her desire to avenge Toriel by killing Mew Mew. If Frisk was to prove to Chara and herself that she would not hesitate to kill Mew Mew, then she had to first display her capability to defeat an opponent in a monitored combat.
Thinking this, Frisk looked Suzy up and down. Frisk was not trying to kill Suzy, just fight the monster until Suzy could not fight anymore. Even without Chara's words confirming it, Frisk could tell Suzy was already at that point. Ms. Sizzle, however, wanted Frisk to take this fight further. Even though it had only been mere seconds between Ms. Sizzle giving her order and Frisk making up her mind, it felt as if Frisk spent moments deciding her decision.
"No." Frisk threw her sword on the ground. "No more fighting. Suzy is not King Asgore, and this is not that battle."
Narrowing her eyes, Ms. Sizzle began, "Frisk, you are the hope of humans and monsters. It is your responsibility to—"
"I am not the hope of anything!" Frisk snapped. "I'm just some stupid kid who climbed a mountain I shouldn't have."
Folding her claws, Ms. Sizzle took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and said, "Fine, we shall cease training for tonight. However, I expect you to seriously think about what is at stake here. Like it or not, our hope depends on you and you alone. We are counting on you to be the hero who saves us all. Every hero has to make sacrifices, and that includes you."
Frisk bit her tongue and said nothing. Without anyone else speaking another word, they all returned to the campgrounds. Before Ms. Sizzle had the opportunity to tell Frisk one last thing before bed, Frisk stomped into her tent and forced the flap behind her closed.
Dropping to the ground, Frisk folded her legs against her chest and pressed her forehead against her knees. Her breathing was still heavy, and her heart still beat hard against her aching chest. By this point, sweat was a thin layer she never ceased to wear.
After she was sure enough time had passed, Frisk slowly pushed herself to her feet. Chara, all the while, watched in silence. It appeared he knew what Frisk was doing before she herself did.
Frisk changed into sweatpants and an oversized sweater, the outfit leading her body to feel as if her organs were boiling themselves. No words were needed to be said for Chara to know what to do. This had happened enough times that communication between the two was no longer necessary.
With the unseen Chara leading the way and directing Frisk through the unoccupied routes, Frisk snuck away from the camp and out of Hotlands. The fact that Suzy, who had spent an unknown amount of time watching Frisk train as a magician without either Frisk or Chara realizing, could be not far behind bothered Frisk, but she chose to not let the paranoia get to her. They already knew that she could use magic and that Chara was a companion; there wasn't much more left to learn. Besides, Frisk needed this too much to care.
As they stepped out of Hotlands and into the cool of Waterfall, Frisk found her breathing getting lighter, her heartrate calming. This was what she preferred, to be alone with no one save her ghost friend. Frisk may have missed her friends, but these alone times had quickly become the most valuable things to her.
Finding someplace quiet to sit, Frisk made herself comfortable by one of the rivers. Chara sat beside her. For more than a few minutes, neither spoke.
Then, "You know, I said the same thing too."
Brows furrowed, Frisk wordlessly turned to Chara. His eyes were locked on the water before him. When he spoke, it was if he were addressing the crystals in the distance and not the human beside him.
"I am not the hope of anything!" Chara repeated. "I'm just some stupid kid who climbed a mountain I shouldn't have."
Frisk blinked, her heartbeat speeding up again.
Closing his eyes, Chara explained, "I said exactly that, word for word. This was back when I was still an innocent kid, a long, long lifetime ago. I was King Asgore's son, a human prince of monsters. For so many of them, Asriel's and my relationship was believed to be a glimpse of the future between humans and monsters. I was their hope. Their entire future depended on me.
"I see just how much being Toriel's heir and being the symbol of the future get to you. Can you imagine going through the same thing when you're eleven? I was no hero, Stripes. I wanted to be the hero, more than anything, but what did I have to offer? If anyone knew how broken I truly was, nobody would have hope in me ever again."
"I'm so sorry," Frisk whispered, not knowing what else to say. "Nobody should have put that pressure on you, Chara. You were only a child."
Chara shrugged. "Either way, it eventually got to me. Remember what I said about monsters being able to absorb human souls? Well, I had an idea. More of a plan, really.
"I never could have been the hero everyone wanted me to be, but perhaps through my sacrifice, Asriel could be that hero. It was a simple plan, really. I would poison myself with buttercups to commit suicide, Asriel would absorb my soul, and he would cross the barrier in search of the six more required souls to break the barrier. The only flaw in my master plan was figuring out where he was going to get them. A hospital, maybe. People died all the time. We were naïve enough to think maybe some dying humans would willingly give up their souls for the good of monsters. After all, we only needed six more souls.
"Besides, all I had done since coming into the Dreemurrs' lives was ruin everything. I accidentally poisoned Asgore once with buttercups. Perhaps if I died by buttercups, some sense of poetic justice would be found in my early death."
All while Chara spoke, Frisk was at a loss for words, her chest so tight it took her a moment to realize she was holding her breath. Even after he finished, she found words could not form. Frisk was unsure if her heart beat so fast she couldn't feel it or if it stopped altogether. She felt a little lightheaded. Her mouth was too dry to swallow.
Frisk must have appeared as disturbed as she felt, because when Chara looked her way after she spent so long without replying, he winced. He didn't stare at her long before turning his attention to his toes. His fingers dug into his sweater.
Quietly, Chara said, "Don't do what I did. Maybe don't listen to me at all. I clearly didn't know how to handle all the pressure."
Taking a shaky breath, Frisk managed to ask, "What happened with your plan? Did you change your mind about going through with it?"
Chara laughed without humor. "No, I didn't. Asriel and I were eager to pull through with my plan. He even gave me the buttercups himself.
"I got sick. I mean, I got really sick. Trust me, death by buttercups was not going to be as poetic as I thought. It was miserable. Yet somehow . . . I survived. The buttercups should have killed me, but they didn't. It's weird to look back on. Here I am, essentially on my deathbed, and I just know I'm minutes if not seconds away from dying. Then . . . I start to feel better. I still feel terribly sick, sure, but I do not feel as if I'm dying anymore. It was as if somehow, somewhere, someone decided I was not going to die that day. Isn't that odd?"
"Like . . . God?"
"I don't know. Maybe. There's so much out there neither of us could ever understand." Chara thought for a moment before he added, "What if there really are other universes out there? What if everything we know is barely a fraction of what was and is and will be? What if I was supposed to die that day, and by surviving, this universe was altered beyond what should have been?"
"Chara," Frisk dug her nails into the soft soil, "did you want to die? And I don't mean were you more than willing to lay your life down for everyone's freedom; I mean did you want to stop living and saw this as the perfect, selfless opportunity to fulfill that desire?"
Thinking for a moment, Chara softly replied, "A little bit of both, I think. Yes, I wanted to free everyone, even at the cost of my life. However . . . , I was never a happy child. To tell you the truth, I climbed Mt. Ebott that day so long ago to end my life. I . . . don't like to get into the details about my life on the surface, but I will say I was miserable. Being adopted by the Dreemurrs was the first time I felt genuinely happy since I could remember, but even that happiness was lost under the pressure of the hopes everyone placed on my small shoulders. I suppose I convinced myself my death would matter more than my life. Only what really happened was my death ended up just as meaningless as my life. All I wanted to do was help everyone. Instead, I hurt them. Perhaps it would have been much better if I died when I fell under the mountain."
"That's no way to talk." Frisk shook her head. "You shouldn't have wanted to die, especially at such a young age."
"I'm not saying you're wrong," Chara mumbled, "but it's hard to believe death wouldn't have been better for me considering all I did with life. Especially since I'm forced to always and forever watch the results of my actions. Perhaps the greatest tragedy of my life is I always believed I could never change, and when I did find it in me to realize I could change and the only thing stopping me was me, it was too late. As long as you're alive, it's never too late. Only death is the finality."
Frisk didn't have a response, so the two sat together in silence for a while. Watching the river flow past, Frisk thought about all Chara revealed to her. It was moments such as these she realized that perhaps they were not so different from each other after all.
"You weren't the only one looking to end their life when they climbed Mt. Ebott," Frisk softly admitted. She kept her eyes locked on the river so that she couldn't see if Chara looked her way or not. "I don't remember my birth parents at all. I don't even know if they're still alive. All I do know is I have been in foster care for as long as I can remember, passed on from family to family like some form of child hot potato. Some families were great. Others not so. Worst of all was I would be adopted only for the family to give me up. I still don't understand why none of them wanted me. What's wrong with me?"
"Maybe they couldn't handle your mad flirting skills, Miss Frisk Fox."
Despite herself, Frisk laughed. She turned to Chara to find him smiling at her. As natural as breathing, she returned the smile.
Brushing her bangs out of her eyes, Frisk wondered aloud, "How different would our lives be if we knew each other on the surface? If we met, would we have become friends? Or would we still annoy each other and banter the way we do now?"
"Us, not banter?" Chara snorted. "I think we would have driven each other up the mountain."
"Or perhaps given each other reasons to not climb it at all."
Frisk saw Chara blink, taken aback by the comment. When he smiled, it was almost sad. Sighing, Chara looked away as he whispered, "I'm one hundred and two years older than you, Stripes. I . . . If we did meet on the surface, I would have been an old man. I mean really old. Absolutely ancient. Perhaps we never were meant to meet and become friends."
"But we have met," Frisk argued, "and we are friends. It doesn't matter how it happened. All that matters is that it did."
When Chara didn't respond, Frisk added, "All things considered, your soul being fused with a locket I might have never found yet did anyway is a good indication we were meant to meet, Chara. Only the wearer can communicate with you. Had Mom never left out the locket, we never might have met at all."
Before Chara had the chance to respond, it sounded as if something fell over in the distance. Frisk's spine went rigid, and she, on high alert, jumped to her feet. Chara was also on his feet and on the lookout in seconds.
Frisk held her breath and strained her ears to hear something else as Chara advanced towards the sound. Although there was nothing else out of the ordinary, Frisk did not want to take the noise lightly. Someone was there, but the question was whom.
"I don't see anyone," Chara said, sounding defeated, as he came back. "Whoever it was, if anyone at all, they're gone now."
"What do you think made that sound?"
"I don't know, but if I had to guess, maybe that rock falling over."
"Someone must have pushed it by accident."
"Or it fell over on its own. There's no reason to be paranoid."
"There's every reason to be paranoid!" Frisk hissed. "That could have been Suzy. Oh, no. She knows about the locket!"
"Hey, we don't know if that was Suzy, if anyone at all," Chara pointed out.
"Either way, I want to go back to the camp now."
"Do you really want to go back?"
"Absolutely not, but I don't want to risk being out here any longer."
As they walked back, Frisk hugged herself tightly and thought of anything she and Chara could talk about. No conversation topics came to mind. After everything they had shared, Frisk didn't know if there was anything left to say, at least for that night. There was so much that was said, but also plenty that went unsaid. Perhaps they could talk more another time, assuming there would be another time.
After they returned to the camp, Frisk quickly changed from her warm clothes to something cooler. She and Chara bid each other a goodnight, and she removed the locket before bed. As Frisk drifted off to sleep, all she could think about was what they had said to each other and what might have been overheard.
Morning came too soon. Frisk began reaching for the locket but stopped, her heart skipping a beat. She distinctly remembered setting the locket on her nightstand before bed.
Only the locket was no longer there.
The locket, and Chara with it, was gone.
