Undertale - Reprise Part 5

It’s the end.

Two things had become abundantly clear. First of all, every other time Frisk had faced off against Asriel in any of the other timelines, Asriel had either been toying with Frisk, or holding back. Second, Asriel wasn’t playing around this time.

He was too fast. Frisk couldn’t get any distance from Asriel, who was close enough to touch and slashing wildly with both of his blades. Frisk ducked, feinted, leant back, but one of the swipes caught an arm and sent Frisk off balance, and it was swiftly followed up with a cut across the leg. Frisk stumbled, and before they could regain their footing, both blades pierced directly through Frisk’s chest.

Magical attacks were unlike physical ones. The wounds they left looked drawn on and didn’t bleed, and the pain that they inflicted was more mental than physical. But that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt like hell.

Frisk barely had a chance to make a strained gasp before the blades shimmered and exploded, the fragments feeling as though they were tearing Frisk apart from the inside. Frisk looked up in shock from the glowing spot on their chest to Asriel’s grim, determined expression. Asriel raised both hands, point blank, and Frisk’s entire world was filled with glowing, rainbow light.

There was a small discontinuity. Frisk landed on their face heavily, flopping into a pile of limbs and pain. Frisk groaned, pushing at the ground with shaking hands in an attempt to rise.

“Frisk… I told you not to worry. I told you to leave me be.” Asriel loomed, floating a few centimeters off of the ground. He didn’t even look winded. If anything, he looked disappointed. “Why couldn’t you just let go?”

Frisk managed to put one knee between body and ground, rising enough to look Asriel in the eye. “...I tried. I really did. I spent years trying to forget, to move on. Having so much to do helped.”

“I remember. You helped so many monsters, you made it your mission to get everyone settled into their new lives on the surface.”

“You saw that? It was a lot of work.”

“I had nothing better to do.” Asriel touched down to the ground, gently. It seemed that the asskicking was on hiatus for the moment. Frisk tried not to be visibly relieved. “And yet… eventually, you came looking for me, it seems.”

“I found you, back in the cave where it all started. And you were… empty. Gone.”

Asriel’s expression flickered, some imperceptible mix of emotions washing over him. “...Gone?”

“Like… you were dead inside. An odd flower with a face, nothing more.”

Asriel exhaled, seeming to shrink a little. “...Well, that was an ending, at least. Everyone else was happy, and that’s what mattered.” He clenched a fist. “And now this. Isn’t this what you were fighting to stop, Frisk? Some lunatic looping the world and stealing the future to play games with everyone’s lives?”

“I… I couldn’t leave you like that.”

“You should have. It’s not fair, that you’ve done this, Frisk. Life isn’t fair, and someone always has to pay the price, and if it’s not me then it’s everyone else.” Asriel looked away. “...This is my fault. Another disaster, caused by my carelessness. You tried so hard to save everyone, I thought I could trust you to do the right thing. I see now that that was a mistake.”

Asriel raised a hand, which crackled with power.

“I’m sorry, Frisk. I really am. I know you only wanted to help, to save me as well. But… I’m not… I’m not Asriel. Asriel died a long time ago. I’m just a sad mistake, an echo, a blight that makes this world worse just by existing. All the souls in the world won’t fix that, no matter how many I have inside me. And even when I’m an empty shell, I’m a threat to everyone and everything. The only way to make this right is to… to erase myself, starting with your memories of me.”

Frisk started to chuckle. Asriel faltered a little, his serious expression changing to one of confusion.

“...Um. Are… are you ok?”

“Sorry, sorry. It’s just… I was so worried about this.”

“Worried… a-about what?”

“I mean, I spent... decades, trying to figure out what I was going to do once I got here. Planning everything out, having this conversation in my head, over and over. Trying to account for everything, so that no matter what, I could make this all work. I knew I’d only get one good try at this, after all. It’s just… I always figured that getting you to kill me would be the hard part.”

Frisk grinned up at Asriel, who shrunk back from the movement.

“...Excuse me?”

“Dying. It’s the only thing I never tried.”

Asriel looked uncertain, the power he was wielding flickering and dying on his fingertips. He didn’t seem to know what to say, so Frisk continued.

“A long time ago, in a different timeline, you asked me why I went to the mountain in the first place. After all, the legend goes: ‘Travellers who climb Mt. Ebott are said to disappear.’” Frisk grimaced, willing their legs to work, slowly climbing to their feet. “Well… the truth is, I was counting on that. It’s a long story, but the short version is that… well, when you say ‘the only way to make this right is to erase myself’, I definitely know what you mean. I’ve had that feeling before. Climbing the mountain, wanting to disappear forever. But…”

Frisk took a deep breath. This was new. Frisk had never told anyone this story before.

“Well, this is why I know that Resets aren’t just caused by Determination. When I fell, I knew I was going to die. It had seemed like such a good idea at the time, too. But as the darkness rose up and swallowed me, I could feel fire in my soul. I knew that… no matter what, I wouldn’t die. I couldn’t die. I refused. Just like now. Just like every time I’ve died, over all the timelines. I couldn’t accept death, I had to fight it. Even when my body was broken. And you’ve felt that too, right?”

Asriel looked down, unable to meet Frisk’s gase. “I… Yeah. When I first Reset. I thought that I could end it, but instead, I ended up clinging to my… I guess you could call it ‘life’, although it didn’t feel like it. I remember being furious with you, when you took that power away from me. It was the only thing I had left.” He glanced back up, and his eyes were shining wet. “I never knew… why didn’t you…?”

Frisk shrugged, wincing as various muscles and organs protested the movement. “I never found a good time to bring it up. Besides, between looking after your mum and dad, living through everyone’s attempts to kill or capture me, and then helping everyone get settled on the surface, I had a lot of other stuff to think about instead.”

“But now… you want me to kill you? To take your soul? Why?”

“Well, I’d prefer if you didn’t try to erase my memories of you. I had something else in mind.”

Asriel looked confused. Frisk couldn’t help but find the way he wrinkled his brow kind of cute, particularly in contrast to the demonic markings on his cheeks. It was weird, the things you noticed when you were literally dying on your feet.

“So, when you were a flower, you could only Reset back to the point you were created, right?”

“...Right.”

“Resets are tied to the person with the most Determination. They’re also tied to that person’s timeline, from the moment their Determination is awoken, until the end of their natural life. At least, that’s how it works for me. For a god… it should be possible to reach before that, provided it’s still your timeline.”

Asriel’s eyes widened as he began to see what Frisk was working towards.

“You’re not Flowey anymore. You’re Asriel again, whether you believe it or not. Some part of you has persisted, a single strand of fate. If you take my Determination… my Soul… if you take it back to the last time you were Asriel, then just maybe… we can save you. We can save the only Soul that will let you become whole again. Yours.”

Frisk reached out a hand. Asriel stared at it, his own fingers trembling by his side.

“Frisk… There’s no way you could possibly know for sure. If you give up your ability to Reset, and it doesn’t work…”

Frisk smiled. “I got to live a full life, Asriel. I made it to my 90’s, you know. I got real old, and wrinkly. I can’t say it was all positive, but I lived a life without regrets, except for this one. If it doesn’t work, and I die… Well, I died trying to set this one last thing right.”

Asriel slowly reached out his hand, and gently took Frisk’s hand in his own. It was warm.

“Are… are you sure?”

“I’ve never been so sure of anything. I’ve been thinking about this for a hundred years, Asriel. I’m ready.”

Asriel merely nodded, tears welling up in his eyes.

Frisk smiled again, trying to look as reassuring as possible. And then, Frisk died.

Frisk collapsed forward into Asriel’s chest, and everything went dark. The familiar feeling of Determination flowed through Frisk, drowning out the world, and Frisk gathered all their strength and pushed, hard, willing the power away.

Everything… stopped.

***

“You cannot give up just yet… Chara! Stay Determined…”

The whole world is ending.

Asriel was kneeling in the flowers, cradling a human. Asgore and Toriel were reaching for the both of them, frozen in time. Asriel was falling apart at the edges, tears frozen on his face, cuts and wounds peppered across his arms and chest. It was the very last moment that Asriel had lived, paused.

Frisk could feel Asriel’s power, the power of all the souls in the underground. Frisk’s soul was being held out at the very edge of it, as far as Asriel could reach. Everything about this was wrong, as though the very fabric of reality itself was stretched to it’s absolute breaking point, and the world around Frisk was warped as a result.

The tragic scene, the end of a family. It advanced by a single second. The Asriel of the past dissolved into dust, his parent’s frozen in expressions of shock and anguish as both of their children collapsed onto the golden flowers. Asriel’s soul hung in the air, trembling and tearing. It was white, with a stain of red from Chara’s touch.

Frisk reached out as the soul cracked and twitched, and gently placed both hands on it, pulling it to their chest and holding it together. The shaking and cracking stopped. It was warm.

Frisk could feel Asriel’s fear. Chara’s anger. It seemed the two of them were mixed. There was no time to consider the consequences. Frisk pulled the soul into his own, the warmth flooding into their body.

Everything began to stretch and warp. Time, reality, Asriel, it was all calling Frisk back, away from this moment. The Dreemurrs, the flowers, it all stretched to a point on the horizon and pulled away sharply. Frisk felt like they were falling.

***

“Frisk! This is all just a bad dream. Please… wake up!”