Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

In This World

Part One

Alone in the Dark

Trigger warning: contains Genocide Route, complete with murdering most or all of your favorite Undertale characters. Contains descriptions of lots and lots of death. Take care of yourself. It might get worse before it gets better.

Gaara flipped through the hand seals and chuckled darkly. A summon realm would be easier to wipe out and ensure his safety. He could live alone, forever, safe, in a place of his own destroying and remaking. He disappeared into the darkness.

Gaara found himself in a crater filled with sunlight and vegetation. He rose on a pillar of sand to get out of the cavern. Bonk! Gaara growled, using his sand to lash out at the barrier. After a little bit of frustration, Gaara was looking a bit feral. He growled at it, his eye bags deepening.

"Howdy!" Came a bright, cheery voice beneath him.

Gaara descended, maintaining his floating column so he could loom menacingly over the summon creature.

"I'm Flowey! Flowey the flower! Gosh, you must be so confused!"

Gaara smirked menacingly, not even remotely interested in attempting to coddle the flower's delusional words.

Flowey's smile twisted in a horrific way. "I like you already. You remind me of my sibling, Chara."

Something in Gaara, some dormant part of him, felt a sort of kinship with the flower. He sat down. Murdering the flower could wait.

"Let me tell you about LOVE," said Flowey, still with that murderous expression on his face.

"I already know about it, " said Gaara. "I live for myself. I love only myself. The love of others is deceptive. I came here to wipe everybody out so I could be alone in a world."

"Then you already know the truth of this world," said Flowey. "Here, it's kill or be killed." He yanked Gaara's soul from his body, and surrounded it with pinpricks of flame. "DIE!"

A red flame came out of nowhere, blasting the flower away.

"Oh, what a terrible flower, attempting to harm a chil--"

Gaara wasn't in the mood to deal with false kindness. Someone had just attempted to kill him. They had almost succeeded. He wrapped his rescuer in sand and squeezed.

It hadn't taken him long to slaughter his way through the purple caves. He had even killed a gravestone shaped bed sheet with eyes. He had found his way to the goat woman's house, and walked through it, coming to a snowy wood. He had been alone for awhile, but now something was following him. It had an extremely high killer intent. Gaara grinned savagely, baring his teeth. They begin to curve and grow sharp under the influence of his beastly chakra.

Sans didn't know that red headed boy, but he knew one thing. The human had killed before and after coming here, and he would have to die. He had felt her life force wink out. His sweet voiced friend in the ruins. All the froggits, whimsuns and moldsmals had died too. He could have forgiven that. Maybe the child had felt unsafe, that they had attacked monsters, but humans too? No. There was something evil in that child that Sans the skeleton could not fix. He just had to get Papyrus and the rest of Snowdin out of there first. He teleported to Doggo first, maintaining a mad wave.

"hey, doggo, go get your family together, and have them evacuate snowdin. it's an emergency." Doggo ran barking for Lesser Dog, Greater Dog, Dogamy, and Dogaressa.

Sans teleported to Snowdin, grabbing Monster Kid, and saying, "R u n ! G o f e t c h U n d y n e ! T e l l h e r a h u m a n ' s h e r e a n d h e ' s k i l l i n g e v e r y o n e !"

Monster Kid gasped, running for Waterfall as hard and fast as he could.

Just as he returned to his post, he saw his brother, Papyrus, melt into dust.

"I still believe in you, human!"

"Y o u ' r e g o n n a h a v e a b a d t i m e ," he said as he pulled Gaara's soul from it's body.

Chapter Text

Gaara awoke where his journey had started, shaking his head in confusion and distress. No one had rescued him from the skeleton, and his soul, his very vulnerable, unprotected human soul, had fallen rapidly. His arms shook. He was feeling something he hadn't felt in awhile. Fear. He saw the flower charging for him, and knew that it knew. He ripped Flowey to shreds before it could get close.

The goat stepped out of nowhere, head down. Had it had some concern for the flower?

"Greetings, child," Toriel said, having that look on her face like she knew something was amiss about the little boy.

Gaara decided not to kill her instantly this time, despite hating that look. "Who are you?"

"I am Toriel, caretaker of the ruins. I come here every day to see if someone has fallen down behind the barrier. Will you come?" She offered him a fluffy paw.

Gaara didn't think she fully remembered what had happened the last time they'd met. She knew on some level, though. That white covered paw was shaking. Gaara stood there, stiff and straight, shinobi perfection, hands at ninety degrees.

"Why do you open yourself up after it's caused you pain? Close yourself off from the world and it'll be harder for you to be hurt." He said flatly.

The large sized adult went to her knees in front of the child, arm still extended. "It is not worth it to me, my child, to live without love. It's worth the hurt."

"They will hurt you. They will destroy you. They will rip your heart and body into a million pieces, and stomp on the remains."

"My heart has already been broken. Eight times, I have been shattered. Love has been what has healed me to any degree." Toriel's eyes shone with unshed tears as she opened her arms for him.

Gaara's arms shook with fear and fury. "I killed you!" He exclaimed, tears peaking out of the corner of his eyes. His sand swirled violently around him. "I put you in my sand coffin and buried you! Now get up and fight me!"

"But you could kill me anyway, couldn't you? Would it do me any good?" Toriel asked in a disarming way. "All I can do is throw myself on your mercy."

Gaara broke down, attempting to swallow his sobs. "My own uncle rejected my humanity and tried to kill me! Why would you love me?"

Toriel picked up the weeping boy and held him close. "Because you need it."

Gaara zoned out while Toriel carried him through the ruins. Figures he remembered killing all too well haunted his peripherals as his mind drifted. Mother had been quiet since he'd reverse summoned himself here. He sought her power, almost meditative in its pursuit. Ah. There it was. Something else was there, occupying Mother's attention. Whatever it was, it felt similar to the flower. Something crucial was missing from it.

"Do you know the name Chara?"

Toriel gasped, and her grip wavered, but she maintained her hold on Gaara.

"They were my next oldest child."

Gaara took in a desperate suck of air. He had killed this shockingly compassionate woman's son. The son was cruel like him. How had he become so cruel? Why did his heart feel, and why was the emotion so intense, about this?

I'm changing, he thought. So could he. I took that from him. This time.

The thought came that he could change time. First, though, he needed information.

"Do you know who Flowey is?"

"Mmm, why do you ask?"

She had a clue, obviously, but he doubted she would be so tender and warm with him if she understood Flowey to be her son.

"He mentioned Chara to me. Said I reminded him of them."

"Chara hated humanity," Toriel started.

"Sounds familiar," Gaara said with a bitter smile.

"Both of you have been hurt tremendously by humans, I would say." Toriel looked grieved.

"My uncle tried to kill me with a lot of explosive tags and failed. The only one who has ever given me a lasting scar is me. Wait. This is pain in my heart. The pain of loneliness? And betrayal!" He realized.

"Chara's story is similar. They were sent to a camp to change who they were, and they weren't believed by their parents when they said their uncle was harming them."

"Chara was betrayed and angry, weren't they?" Gaara asked. "I wish I could have known them. Might have fed their uncle to Mother."

"Mother?"

"Mother lives inside me and wants blood. She gives me power. Lots of power. In exchange, I mustn't sleep. If I do, she breaks out."

"Well, that simply won't do."

Gaara felt Toriel's magic running over him. It was very like chakra, he noted. Fascinating.

"I think I can change her bindings so she doesn't rampage when you sleep."