The Judgement Hall.

Again.

It wasn’t the first time he had fought there- in this timeline, or the last. It seems the human’s mind was never made, whether the path to be walked would be full of blood or dreams. It was a guessing game each time. But, if one thing is for sure, it’s that the skeleton found a way to enjoy the guessing game no matter which way it turned.

The sweetness of getting to the surface was the temporary satisfaction of seeing his kind happy. The sweetness of the neutral was- well, it depends. And the sweetness of the genocide route, was seeing the eyes of that bastard human girl.

But she wasn’t much of a girl now, even if her host was. He looked ahead as her steps loudly echoed through the hallway, her slim, curvy figure slowly coming more clear and into view. Her green sweater with the yellow stripe, her brown tights and shorts, and mary jane shoes- all the way he remembered.

Back then, that sweater was too large for her. He remembered when the Prince came through the child hangout spot of the day- down in Waterfall, where the echo flowers grew rapidly. She was wearing that same large sweater that belonged to Asriel, and stood besides him as he introduced her to them.

Her beady red eyes bounced between each kid as he named them off: “And this here is Grillby, his dad owns a really good restaurant in Snowdin. Here’s Undyne and- oh! Sans, and his baby brother Papyrus!”

His face felt warm as she locked eyes with him, making him look down at the ground awkwardly. She wouldn’t stop staring, even as the list of names continued. The kids were ranging from 8 to 17, with him being 12 at the time. So was Asriel and his new sister.

“Y’know, I remember the day we were blessed with the Underground’s first human,” he started, shoving his hands into his pockets. The genocidal girl stared back at him, an endearing smile on her unchanging face. However, deep in her vibrant devil eyes was a speckle of curiosity.

“You always were pretty obsessed with me from the beginning; though ya didn’t talk much. I get it, y’know, childhood crushes can last for a while, but most of us get over them by the time we’re adults. But hey, you come back every other reset to come find me, huh?”

Her face remained unwavered as he spoke. But it was true that since the day they met, she followed him around like a fly to food, usually by herself after escaping her brother. Somehow she always knew where they were, whether in Snowdin or Hotland.

“Real dedication, or determination I should say,” the skeleton continued. “Say, that reminds me. Remember that one time you swam through the ice river to save me?”

She remembered. Asriel was being an awful pain that day, bringing her to all these places she had zero interest in. Later that day would be a national kids dance- where all those under 18 would come to celebrate their youth. But, in reality, it was a large surprise birthday party being held for the fallen human. It was the guards’ job to place decoration, and the children’s “royal duty” to ensure everything was to Chara’s liking.

However, she just didn’t talk much, for she had zero interest in her own celebrations. So when nobody was looking, she ran away to find that boatman to give her a ride to Snowdin. She wanted to give her friends, and one friend in particular, a personal invite to the party.

As she stepped into the crunchy snow, she handed the boatman some gold before scurrying off to find her friends. They spend a lot of time by that bridge and the door to the ruins- and so, she went that direction first. However her friends were a lot closer than she expected.

As she ran passed where the ice wolf hurdles the ice blocks (this was during his break), she turned her head for a mere moment before stopping dead in her tracks. There was Sans! And, some other familiar faces. Teenage wolf boys, and they were much larger than Sans and her combined. And they didn’t look happy.

”Yeah, I always wondered what happened to those cubs. People always suspected their excuse for a dad finally snapped.”

Her loud gasp fell on deaf ears as she watched the scene unfold. Sans was being held over the ledge, hanging off the side. The slight weakening of the wolf’s grip on Sans’ hood would be enough to send the little skeleton into the river filled with ice. “See, when we say by TONIGHT, we mean by TONIGHT,” one howled.

The skeleton gripped onto his hood tightly, fear plastered onto his scrunched face. “You said 15g, not-“ “Yeah, and 15g with 85% interest is what, bonehead?” “Yeah, is there a brain in there, skely?”

Chara watched in awe. A sensation in her heart was set; a burning to run over and put these uncivil bastards in their place. That feeling was her soul.

Her soul was determined to hunt these kids down.

She ran over, and with incredible force, she pulled the older wolf back and onto the ground, taking Sans with him. The younger wolf was startled, before angrily pushing the girl back roughly. Sans fell straight into the snow, confused as he collected himself. “Ch-Chara?” The older wolf got up quickly, brushing himself off.

”Oh yeah princess? You came to save this sack of shit? Fucking waste of royal taxes,” he barked, lifting Sans up from the ground. Chara scowled, before reaching into her pockets and pulling out a bag of gold. There must have been 150g or more in there.

She threw the bag in front of them, glaring at the boys. They looked at each other in shock, before looking at Sans. The older one then smirked, looking back at her.

“You wanna keep him alive by paying off his debt? Fine. We won’t kill him.” The younger wolf picked up the gold from the ground, storing it away. The older one pushed Sans towards Chara. Her face softened as she quickly reached for him, and he reached back. Only for the older wolf to pull the skeleton away.

”Don’t get me wrong, those boys were menaces…”

”Oh, not so fast! We do charge a late fee,” said one, “and it isn’t repaid in gold!” chimed the other. Sans gasped as the two boys lifted him up and threw him into the river, laughing as they did so.

Chara screamed, panic setting in with dread. Never before had she ran so fast, jumping straight into the waters to swim to Sans, who was struggling to swim. Panicked shouts from the boys followed, as they knew they were in trouble if the Princess died. But Chara didn’t care; her soul was set on saving Sans.

“Sans!” her blood curdling scream was cut off from water getting in her mouth from the wavey rivers. She couldn’t swim to save her life, and the freezing temperatures took control of her body quickly as her fingers and lips started to turn blue. She looked around the best she could, and began to cry. He was nowhere to be found, and it was getting too hard to stay afloat.

That was until something suddenly wrapped around her, pulling her from below the water and moving her closer to land. Instinctively she fought against it, until she saw the skeleton arm hugging her tightly. Quickly he grabbed onto a piece of rock, using it to pull himself and Chara up onto land.

Upon getting back onto land, she laid flat and began coughing up water and gasping for air. The skeleton however was far more focused on her health than his own.

”Ch-Chara, why would you jump in after me! You could have froze to death or drowned! What if we lost you? What would I do without you!” He yelled angrily. But, his anger quickly faded when he saw the tears form in her frozen face. “Oh, Chara…” He lifted her up, hugging her tightly.

”I just… I don’t want to lose you, Sansy,” she whispered into his ear hole, her lips quivering as she spoke. He felt his heart break a little. Her first spoken words to him were those.

“Let's… go somewhere warm, okay? Papy’s prolly by the fireplace.” He picked her up effortlessly, water dripping off of them. He lost his hoodie in the water- not that it would have kept her warm anyway.

”But, I have a feeling something else got to those boys first. Or, someone. You know something about that, Chara?”

The frozen memories were replaced with reality once more, as Chara remained smiling across from him. Her smile twitched- giving Sans the answer he wanted.

”Yeah, I thought so. It was just a little suspicious. Leaving golden flowers at their graves, really? I just can’t believe your murderous tendencies go back that far, heh heh.”

She turned her knife slightly, allowing Sans to see his own reflection.

”Yeah… But I guess you started to hate me since that day too, huh? When it was all said and done, and the dance finally took place, I didn’t ask you to dance. I guess I didn’t think a Princess would wanna dance with me- a poor kid from Snowdin. Didn’t think you’d still be mad 20 years later though.”

As if done intentionally, the faint music player of the king began in the distance. A popular romance song from his era of music. Chara giggled softly to herself- which was new. She really was listening. She took a step forward, then another and another, each step gracious and with purpose.

”Guess I’ll make up for that now,” Sans said, taking his hands out of his pockets and taking a step forward. “Care to dance, my love?”

The room darkened, as the blue outline surrounded her and her soul. The fight began; however, a little more choreographed than ever before. As she swung her blade for her first attack, he dodged in perfect timing, sliding behind her and grabbing her extended arm. His other arm wrapped around her waist, creating a second of a dance before gaster blasters spawned in.

In another moment, he caught her as she jumped in the air over the bones that popped up from the ground. Like one of those scenes in movies where the man holds up his girl in the air- only for bones to fly through the air at her, and she jumped away.

And then finally, she wasn’t fast enough to dodge an attack. Just as she went to slash him, a bone went straight through her chest. And, timed perfectly, the song changed to the famous “Put Your Head on My Shoulder” as she fell forward onto him, dropping her knife to the ground. Sans wrapped his arms around her, holding her up as she fell straight onto his shoulder.

Her weak arms wrapped back around him the best they could as her knees gave out. He went down with her, hugging her on the ground. Right besides the knife.

”You’re a crazy bitch,” he chuckled, rubbing his hand up and down her back.

”You’re a fool, Sansy,” she weakly whispered back.

And the knife plunged into his side, catching him off guard. He sighed sadly, his hands shaking as she kissed his cheekbone.

“I was hoping… this would last a little bit longer,” he chuckled, pulling away from her as blood began to leak from his side and mouth.

Chara stared into his sockets lovingly— something he hadn’t seen in a very long time. He cupped her pink cheek weakly, and she leaned into it. Then, softly, she kissed his forehead.

”We’ll do this again,” she whispered to him.

”Heh, I already…” he coughed, before splitting into millions of pieces. Chara sat there with a soft smile on her face, staring at the pile of dust before her.