Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It began with a twitch. A slight movement in the hands. The itch of a trigger finger, poorly reciting a six-shot rhythm, soon followed by the phantom tinge of dust and gunpowder. The memory reverberated throughout the senses, bouncing back and forth like a bell, demanding movement with each wave. In their sleep, the corpse’s brows furrowed, struck by a looping nightmare.

And then it started over in the way it always did: a rising pitch, a blinding gleam, all consuming, growing brighter and louder, until—

The coffin door flew off its hinge, soaring through the sky and crashing back down as Clover’s body shot up.

Sweat drenched their pores as they gasped for breath, their lungs suddenly desperate and their eyes blind. They gripped the sides of the coffin for support, their mind reeling as blood rushed back into them. The sound of something beating rattled their skeleton. Not a heart, and certainly not the SOUL they knew. Something weaker. Desperate. An electric shock, gone as quickly as it came, abandoning Clover forever — again.

They were alone now. Both inside and out.

Clover’s eyes adjusted to the light as the rest of their senses stabilized. When the ringing finally faded out, they slowly felt the whole of their body return to them. They rubbed the sweat from their forehead, wiped their face, blinked, breathed, and looked around them.

They were in a familiar hallway. To their left was a row of coffins identical to the one they sat in now. To their right, two more coffins, and then a set of stairs.

Clover squinted in confusion. They struggled to process the room, a headache barring the rest of their memories. Their mind floated, still dreaming. Clover’s head, along with the rest of their body, felt tight and stiff. They looked down on themself and realized why.

Their legs lay crooked as their feet met the end of the coffin. Their body had grown. Clover had grown. How much? They inspected themself. The threads of their clothes stretched as they moved their arms, already at their limit. These were children’s clothes. A costume, composed of flannel and leather. Clover remembered it. They remembered the values of it that brought them to this place. They instinctively felt reached for the top of their head, their hand immediately getting entangled in a bush of hair that had long outgrown its crown and sent its vines down Clover’s cheeks instead. No hat.

Clover remembered why. They remembered the last time they held it, and to whom they extended the thing to.

Time passed, and Clover sat still. Those memories were too much to bear, even in broken, anachronistic fragments. They still could not understand it: not the matter of their death, and certainly not the matter of their life.

Their eyes drifted to the coffin beside them.

Limbs shambling, Clover emerged from their own tomb, placing a hand on the wall for support as they approached their neighbour. They gritted their teeth, stifling both grunts of pain and inner reservations, and leaned downward, hands cupped beneath the coffin’s lid.

A single peek was all the was needed. Clover dropped the wooden cover back onto its frame. They looked upon the rest of the row. They had to be sure. One by one, Clover shuffled over each coffin, fighting their bones and better judgment as they inspected them.

Empty. All of them. One would think it to be a relief, but the truth was the question of where the rest had gone and why Clover was left behind was far more unnerving for the sole remnant. Their expectations were also at odds; what were they hoping for? Dead bodies? Faded SOULs? For a unexplainable moment, Clover imagined the strange delusion of this somehow being a reunion. The thought escaped them, blown away by the breathless room. Clover limped to the end of the hall to escape their claustrophobia. Their mind continued to abate, fighting to remember the details of their journey, and the faces of its characters.

They dug their fingernails into the stone wall. Enough.

A light poured from the top of the stairwell. Clover limped their way up the steps.

---

It was like looking at a painting.

New Home had no sounds. No movement. The grayscale cityscape consumed the entire horizon, with not a single inhabitant to justify its existence. Clover fell forward as they tried to pass through the corridor. They groaned in frustration as they took their anger out on their shoes, throwing the children-size boots off and loosening the cuffs on their sleeves and shirt. In a land made for monsters, they were the Frankenstein, hairy and delirious. Eventually, Clover’s bones creaked back into place, adjusting to a slow cycle of movement.

The remnant wobbled their way back towards the main square, where colour and an art-deco style flourished in the capital. Clover was moving on autopilot. Tracing steps to remember their destination. Something landed on their face, interrupting the process.

Clover picked the cherry blossom of their nose. Their gaze gravitated to a balcony in the distance, where a red tree had just finished shedding the last of its leaves onto the pavement below.

Their vision flashed. Their heart raced. Their blood flared a familiar warmth as Clover remembered the trial they had overcome and the parties present for it. Longing and loneliness suddenly overwhelmed them. Clover searched the streets for someone. Anyone.

“Ceroba…?” their voice croaked.

No response; an echo magnified just how alone they were.

Clover scanned the skies. “Martlet?”

Not a single bird in sight, and certainly not the one they knew.

Clover dropped the leaf and bolted forward through New Home. They twisted through the alleys, checking the windows and circling the empty streets.

“Please!” they begged, their throat contracting as tears streamed down their face. “Don’t leave me here!”

Their legs gave out again. Clover tripped face first into the concrete. Blood from their nose quickly coated the bruises on their skin. They wailed and rolled over, covering their eyes so not to see just how small they still were, even after all this time.

“I don’t… want to be alone.”

Clover’s cries reached for the surface layer and spread towards everything below it. They laid there, writhing in a smear of purple and red. In time, their energy escaped them again, and so Clover simply waited, watching the last cherry blossom do its best to dance by itself, with no current of wind available as a partner.

Clover waited. But nobody came.

---

The many trials you’ve endured have taken a toll on your appearance.

Sunlight, emitted from the still soaring steadfast Swelterstone, beat down on Sunnyside farm. Compared to Clover’s last visit, the fields were incredibly barren, having been already harvested for the last time. All that remained was the cottage home and a water pump connected to the underground well. Clover stared at the bucket they had just filled. Thirsty as they were, they had to overcome their own reflection first.

Time had passed during their rest. Enough time that Clover was no longer a child. The markings of their repeated falls, the dustiness of the dunes, and the natural wilt of death all combined to render their face incomparable to the small shape it seemed to be just a single sleep ago. They looked awful. The one silver lining was that Clover was now old enough that, in addition to the hair on their head, some peach fuzz on their face had begun to grow out as well. Not their usual style, but there was something to it. Rugged. Cliff-like. Very cowboy. If Clover still had the saving grace of shade thanks to their old hat, they might have been able to settle with looking like the Bad rather than the Ugly.

They quenched their thirst first and washed their face second, then took off their clothes and cleaned the rest of their body. Clover refilled the bucket and took it back to the cottage. They had already searched the entire estate to find, as predicted, nobody. They borrowed the supplies of what Starlo’s family had left behind. A set of clothes including a poncho belonging to the North Star himself, and a lifetime supply of canned corn in the pantry, left behind in favour of the millennia-long supply the family took with them, wherever it is that they went.

Clover had only just recently begun to ponder that question.

Accepting that everyone was gone had taken days. Trying to logic out where they could have evacuated to was set to take weeks, at this rate. The hopeful answer, the answer Clover wanted to believe in, was that they got what they wanted. That monsterkind had finally escaped the to the surface, whatever the cost, and they lived lives so free and so happy that they no longer needed the Underground. Such was the cause Clover had sacrificed themselves for, after all.

But there was a problem with that.

The problem was that they were still here. While every single monster, from the towering king to the smallest creature, was taken to the surface, Clover was still here. While the bodies of the five children were brought back to the homes, assuming anything remained after Asgore extracted their SOULs from them, Clover was left behind. Was their rebirth somehow planned? That would explain why Clover’s friends did them the favour of not burying them six feet under. However, if it wasn’t planned, that could only mean their friends had betrayed with their refusal to honour Clover’s death, and abandonment of their corpse.

And besides all that, there was another, even worse possibility.

A journey of perseverance and pacifism is what Clover held closest to their heart – or whatever remained of it. But they could no longer deny that something else festered in their memory. They knew. Despite proving the kind nature of the justice they believed in, they knew something they had no business knowing. They had seen it in a vision. In locked memories, assailing them in their sleep.

When monsters die, they turn to dust. No corpse. No remains. No indication that they have left this world past the moment of their fading. Nothing.

Clover ran a finger against one of their scars. A thin layer of sand stuck to their still-moist skin, having been carried by the dunes.

“It’s just the weather,” Clover told themself, never mind that they did not understand how such a thing even worked down here. The Underground’s currents were dictated by magic and machinery, but whichever of the two that had been left in charge was doing a poor job of preserving the landscape. The earth had shifted, transformed by sandstorms and quakes. There was no longer a linear path to rely on.

Clover continued eating their corn dinner alone. They had brought down an old photograph of Starlo and Ceroba from the second floor and set it on the table for company.

Okay. Think it through again. Say that monsterkind did escape. How? Through what channel? There seemed to be multiple points of entry to the Underground, but exits were far rarer. There might have been one behind the throne room back in New Home, which Clover had already searched, but that had since been sealed off. The only chasm Clover already knew of was the one back in the Ruins. Maybe the miners created an elevator, or maybe Martlet had built a catapult built for launching passengers so that she could save her boat the trouble. Even if the place turned out to just as forgotten, and Clover was left with no choice but to scale the wall themself, it was all they had.

Clover scooped the last of the can’s contents into their mouth and swallowed. They stood up from the table, thanked the non-present farmers for their hospitality, and made for the exit – but not before turning around and tucking the photograph back into their pocket. Whether Starlo had left it out of embarrassment or shame, Clover would return it all the same.

---

The way to the Wild East was blocked by converging hills of sand that had shifted overnight, so Clover circled around it, braving the untrodden wildlands between valleys. They clutched Starlo’s poncho as they went, trying to imagine a circumstance where the sheriff would ever willingly throw himself to the dunes as Clover was now.

Probably not. Starlo had to be smart enough to know when to stop playing cowboy. Surely he wasn’t up there, on the cityscape surface of humanity, miles away from his frontier home, still playing the lawmaker. Surely not. Surely…

Clover stopped walking. The Swelterstone had dimmed, and the Underground’s equivalent to dusk had begun to settle on the dunes. Yet even in that dim environment, Clover’s expression of disillusionment shimmered across the sands, plainly visible from all directions.

Yeah. A changed cowpoke’s still a cowpoke all the same.

A more serious revelation followed up on this one: Clover realized that it was likely only they had lost track of time. Everyone else would have actually lived through it. Moved on. Even if Clover was right, and they did make it back to the surface, what then? Were they to just walk back into everyone’s lives as if nothing happened? They hardly had a family to return to besides, but still. What right did Clover have to see their friends after all the damage they had done to the underground? After their campaign? Their justice? Their—

Clover gripped their head in both hands.

“What are you talking about!?” they asked themself. “What are you doing? What is this?”

No response. Not from Clover, nor the Underground. The inherent feeling of guilt stuck to them as a pang in the gut. Guilt over what? Clover blinked. They see an azure star raining towards them, and raise their weapon. They hear the words ‘ten paces’, count six, and turn. They see a flower in the dark, whose petals drip off and float to the ground, mimicking the shape of a yellow SOUL. They then blink again and it's all gone.

Back to reality. Back to isolation. Clover checks their surroundings one last time.

“Was it… me?”

No answer. No flower. Just the glimmerstones, a wanderer, and nothing else. Clover brushed their hand against their chest, wondering if it was still possible to rip out whatever remained in their body there and then, just to confirm it was still there. Was there anyone else who could confirm it? Anyone at all? No. They’re all gone, remember? Not a single being was left behind, except for you.

Clover saw a familiar structure in the distance. In about an hour’s time, they would be upon the Ketsukane homestead.

…Not everyone.

---

Clover used a lighter to fire up the inside of a paper lantern. They set it down beside the tombstone in front of them.

Chujin Ketsukane. The best of us.

Clover stood motionless. Now what, genius? Are you going to bring a shovel to the man’s rigid jaw? Defile the best of them? Or are you upset that this one managed to get away from you, long before you entered this place?

Clover turned around just to be sure they were still alone; this newfound tendency to fill the void with self-deprecation was something they were still only half-conscious of. As for the question of unearthing Chujin, the truth was Clover had thought about it. Not because there was any reason to believe that doing so would expose an unseen truth or reveal a treasure worth their time. The coffins back at the palace were empty. Unlike those ones, Clover could not so easily confirm the contents of the grave before them.

They took a step back, rationale kicking in. “Am I really so broken…?” Clover asked themself in response to the idea that they could find companionship in the dead. They then remembered their own circumstance, and concluded that it actually wasn’t that far fetched.

All the same, like many others, Chujin deserved better. This, Clover knew. And if his remains were still here, in a place where Clover could leave their message, then that was enough. They approached the grave once more, and tried again, pressing their palms unevenly together in an awkward, unpracticed prayer.

“I wish I could have known you.”

In the distance, a walking stick carting a lantern entered the homestead. Clover didn’t notice.

“I wish… that I could have known your family pain sooner. Maybe I could have tried harder.”

A tassel attached to the end of the walking stick hopped with each step, wobbling alongside the monster that depended on it. They turned past the house, making for the cemetery.

“I just… I hope they’re happy,” said Clover. “Do you know? Is there any way that you can help me be sure?”

The familiar sound of total, deafening silence met Clover’s question. But it was not without an answer.

Slowly, Clover felt the light inch closer from behind, coating their backside in an ominous ray that tickled their spine. They heard the sound of heavy, irregular breathes that licked off of one another with an audible dampness. The walking stick struck the ground one last time, the footsteps following light and fallow. Clover felt their hands clam up as their neck hair bristled.

Something had found them. And whatever it was, its gaze had already pierced them clean through. The human forced themselves to turn and acknowledge it, their entire body shaking with each inch.

Something stood behind them. Something… dead. If it was a monster, it was unlike Clover had ever seen — and yet, the rough shape of it, the perks of its ears, and the style of its frayed clothes was unmistakable.

She was a mammalia, her pale white fur oozing in place as flesh-coloured streaks underlined her petite, defective features. She wore a Ketsukane robe, its ribbons and seams delicately cared for, as timeless as the ghost that wore them. In her eye was a flower, a cherry pink blossom that bloomed to life in one socket. The remaining eye, hidden behind ashen locks, resembled a black inkwell tainted by a single dark blue speck.

She was a dead monster walking. Clover saw themself in her, and felt the end upon them.

The monster hesitated for only a few seconds. She gripped her stick, enveloping it a magic that shined as it transformed, and took on a level stance. As she channeled her attack, Clover’s instinct awoke. Their finger reached for their holster.

They grabbed nothing. Clover looked down. Their revolver wasn’t there. No, of course not. Don’t you remember? You left it behind! Just like everything else! Just like—

Clover tried to ignore the memories and refocus, but it was too late. A ball of energy struck them directly, launching the human into a tree. In an instant, Clover collapsed, the weight of their coffin returning as their vision began to fade. The monster approached them and knelt down, staring deep into their eyes.

“Tell me who you are,” she quietly demanded.

Clover gasped as their consciousness fought for just a few more seconds of time.

“I… was a good friend. I hope.”

The monster frowned at the unhelpfulness of the words. But then, something dawned on her. Her vision cleared, previously blinded by protective instinct. She dropped her stick, arms stretching out in sudden concern and regret.

“It can’t be… But I just--” she whispered to herself. “You're... No, wait! Stay with me!”

It was too late. Exhaustion overtook Clover, drowning them in darkness. For a brief moment before total loss of consciousness, they saw the full extent of the web that had waved its weaving before them. They saw their memories. All of them. They saw all the points that justice had led them, and a betrayal to rival every love they had ever felt.

They saw a hallucination of their SOUL. It was white, drained of its colour.

White, like what remained of Kanako Ketsukane.

Chapter Text

Kanako stood in front of the torch she had lit, stuck in its senescent glow. She hated the way it reflected off her ghastly self, revealing the dust that trailed her as she maintained her ruddy, forgotten home.

It should have been a grave. Instead it was a resting place. There was a difference. It lied in the human she had dragged into her living room. Kanako returned to them with firewood for warmth and soup for the SOUL.

She watched them as she knelt down, wincing at the heat. Too much light. But it was helping them, she hoped.

Kanako knew their name. Clover.

It had to be them, even with so much missing. The stories she was told described someone pure and faithful. The human by her side seemed comparatively… polluted. Involuntarily grown past their cruel limits. Kanako had never actually met the child her mother described, and yet the youth she saw in human was unmistakable. Even barely conscious, they refused to let Kanako remove their poncho, clinging to it as if it were a parent’s embrace.

Kanako’s warped gaze dimmed. The damage dealt to them was her fault -- and not just the recent incident.

She set the soup bowl down and lifted a spoon, using her spare arm to perch Clover’s head. “Please eat.”

The human conceded, swallowing between deep breaths. Clover blinked awake, stirred by the stock’s richness, and sat up to gently take the bowl from the fox-monster. Kanako watched their tender motions in silence: blowing on the broth, savouring every sip, and then stopping for a moment just to stare at the meal in their hands, struck by a certain yearning. A single crackle escaped the fireplace. Clover set an empty bowl down.

And then, for the first time, they looked at the monster beside them.

Kanako flinched. She expected Clover to break there and then, just as she did whenever her own reflection entered eyesight.

But them human’s stare was not fearful. The way they cocked their head seemed more inquisitive than anything. Maybe even accusatory.

“…Is this your house?”

The question took Kanako off guard and wrung out her insecurities. She looked around. No, perhaps this wasn’t her house. Not anymore. The one her mother brought her to above ground was even more safely secluded. That one was specifically made for the dark reality of their broken family. Ketsukane homestead was a relic of happier times, filled with smiling portraits, points of prayer, and memories interwoven in the delicate fabrics that connected the rooms, ensuring everything held each other hand-in-hand. The human was correct to question her. What right did Kanako have to return here, rather than to the lab that made her?

Clover attempted to scan the surroundings for themself, but their body audibly ached as they twisted. The human pressed a hand against their ribcage.

“Are you alright?” Kanako fretted. “…I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—“

“Where’s Ceroba?”

Kanako balked at the mention of her mother. Clover didn’t notice. Their attention had quickly shifted away from the monstrosity beside them. A sense of sudden urgency possessed the human, enough to act in spite of their injuries. Clover pulled the blanket off them and limped into the neighbouring room.

“Ceroba!” they called, lumbering aimlessly throughout the corridors. “Ceroba!”

The monster timidly followed, scared by the noises the human made as they pushed themselves in all directions.

“Clover, you’re hurt! Please wait!”

She watched the human stumble over a low table and send its belongings across the room. Kanako instinctively extended herself to help, but recoiled at her own macabre hands as they slipped out beneath the sleeves. What was this feeling? How was she not used to this by now? Clover’s legs fought against them, wobbling as they turned the corner. It was envy. In that moment, Kanako realized that she would have gladly taken a broken body over this one.

Her mother’s choice was finally beginning to make sense.

The monster shook her head free of nonsense. She dashed around towards the foyer. Clover was on their knees now, scraping forward like a crippled spider. Kanako put herself in front of them, barring the way. She still wasn’t brave enough to physically stop them.

“You need to slow down,” she insisted.

Clover raised their head. Between long locks, their trembling eyes were barely visible.

“Where are they?!” the human panted. A cloud escaped their lungs. What was that? Kanako felt it touch her nose. Dust?

“They’re not here,” said the monster.

“No.” Clover clawed at the wall, dizzily hitching themselves back up again. “Let me go to them. Let me go home!”

“Clover!”

The name escaped her mouth like hellfire, leaving the aftertaste of an acidic bile in her throat. Kanako looked at herself. She measured her breathing: it was that of a beast. A twitch lingered in her eyelids. Kanako saw that she had grabbed Clover by the shoulders, digging her fingers into their skin. The human froze. At last, they had finally registered the monstrosity in front of them. Kanako should have savoured the absence of fear when she had the chance.

The monster retracted her arms, leaving cuts in the human’s clothes and bloody scars beneath them. She felt her insides shrink and her skin bubble. Guilt consumed her. Kanako covered her mouth. She wanted to speak, but could not, for fear of her words coming out like burning wax. The monster made the hopeful mistake of letting herself look back into Clover’s eyes one last time.

She knew that human eyes were supposed to be coloured. Clover’s were not. They were blank. Drained. Deep within the iris, she could make out something swirling. A spiral painted in lead. Clover edged backward and tripped again. They looked up at the monster towering over them, confused and afraid.

Kanako could not cry. Her bloated organs made tears impossible, replacing them with white ink. She ran out the front door and slammed it behind her.

---

It was funny. When she was a child, a real child, Kanako would often question the need to memorize the exact order and timing of a process as seemingly far away and as unnecessary as praying.

“It’s important,” said Chujin. “Our thoughts won’t reach the dead if we don’t.”

“But I don’t want to talk to the dead,” insisted Kanako. “Ghosts are scary… Can’t they just stay in the spirit world?”

The father smiled. He brushed his daughter’s head with his hand, his gaze skyward.

“They’re not so bad.”

Kanako followed his eyes, trying to see whatever he saw. “How do you know?”

“They’re just like us. They loved and they laughed, and as long as we pay them our respects, they’ll keep loving and laughing.”

Kanako thought about the family and friends she already had to say goodbye to. She clung tightly to her father.

“…You promise?”

Chujin nodded. “Promise.”

As dusk came and the Swelterstone slowly ignited itself once more, the two took up proper position by the shrine. Kanako mimicked her father and closed her eyes. Chujin opened one of his, peeking at her daughter with a grin.

“Do you need me to go over it again?”

“I remember!” she drawled.

The father snickered, but respected her confidence. They waited in silence together. A minute passed. Then another. Kanako got impatient and preemptively opened her eyes.

The shrine was gone. It had been replaced with a grave.

The monster checked the horizon again. As the dunes began to sparkle with the promise of a new day, Kanako recalled what she was taught.

The name on the gravestone sent a quiver through her spine. The daughter shook it off. Be strong.

Kanako began with an offering: a persimmon she brought back with her from the surface. The monster pulled it out of her bag and gently placed it on base of the tomb. Next, two bows: once for recognition, twice for respect. Then, just two claps, and she could send him her message. Kanako brought her hands together—

No sound.

She opened her eyes. Kanako stared at her hands — what remained of them. She tried again.

Silence.

“No… No, no, no!”

Why? Why wasn’t it working? Was it just because her palms were more flesh than skin now? Even then, there should at least be something! What kind of damned side-effect was this? Kanako never tried to pray in the long span of time between the changing of her form and the current moment. She hadn’t forgotten how to, but already walking the precipice between life and death made the act feel disrespectful. Still, in spite of that, she came to her father’s original resting place. She came today, of all days! So why…? Why was she denied even this!?

In time, Kanako’s panic subsided into a despair she realized she should have numbed herself to by now. The monster looked at the Swelterstone as it began to mimic the beauty of dusk, illuminating the Underground.

Today was the tenth anniversary of Chujin’s death, and the sacred hour would soon pass without anyone’s acknowledgement of it.

Kanako turned back to her father’s grave.

 “…Would it just be easier for me to join you, papa?”

“Papa.”

The monster flinched. She whirled around to the voice behind her.

Clover stood strong, despite their condition and the haunting figure in front of them. They looked at her, and then the gravestone, finally making the connection.

“You’re her. You’re their daughter.”

Kanako retreated into the shade of the neighbouring tree. It still had the dent of the recent attack in it.

 “S-stay back,” she warned. “Don’t come near me.”

Clover ignored her. They hobbled forward towards the gravestone, stopping short of its base, and for a moment, simply stared. The human traced their gaze downward, noticing the persimmon. They knelt towards it.

“...Wait, what are you doing?” Kanako squeaked, defensive of her offering.

“You stopped me earlier,” Clover replied. “I wasn’t finished.”

The human titled their head at the fruit, trying to understand its role in this. After a moment of consideration, they came up with an idea for their own gift, and reached into their pocket.

To Chujin, they offered a single cherry blossom petal.

Clover stood up again, and brought their hands together, but seemed unsure of themselves. They struggled to guess the proper shape their palms should take.

“How do you do this?” they asked the monster beside them.

Kanako stared blankly, unable to comprehend them. The look of fear from earlier had since been completely extinguished from their eyes. Had they willed it away themselves? Or was it perhaps her who was mistaken? The monster could not understand a single thing about the human before them. All she could gather was that they embodied something impossible.

That was exactly how her mother had described them. In a time of hopelessness that Ceroba had turned her eyes from, a pure SOUL had appeared to help the mother overcome the burdens she could and shoulder the ones she couldn’t. They were a miracle, and an opportunity for growth beyond it.

Kanako checked the Swelterstone again. There was still time.

The monster cautiously exited the shadows and joined the human by the grave, trying to maintain as safe a distance as she could offer. She took up the straight-backed position her father had taught her. Clover followed suit.

“…Bow twice,” she instructed.

Clover attempted the act, despite the havoc it wrecked on their body.

 “Deeper and slower,” Kanako criticized. “Like this.”

She demonstrated the movement for them. Clover copied it perfectly.

Kanako angled her hands in a triangle. “Clap twice.”

The human complied, their scratched palms making a subtle snapping sound identical to the one Kanako practised in her youth.

“Now send him your thoughts.”

Clover closed their eyes and went silent. Kanako didn't try to read them. She merely waited, basking in the growing sunlight and the spiritual aura her father had left behind. It was the one aspect of her training she was still attuned to, even with the layer of scum dulling her senses. Kanako closed her eyes, bathing in it. 

It felt every bit as warm as her father’s hand.

“I’m finished,” said Clover.

Kanako opened her eyes. The Swelterstone was fully lit now. A wind spawned from somewhere in the dunes and came to them. Clover breathed it in.

“What did you tell him?” asked the monster.

“Not much,” the human admitted. “I just wanted him to know that I’m grateful.”

“...Okay.”

“And I let him know that you were here too. That you came for him.”

Kanako felt her heart skip a beat — she felt proof of a heart. Tears swelled in her eyes. Actual tears, unstained by the decay that permeated within her and had intercepted every emotion she had ever felt before this one. She felt her father beside her, and beamed at him, finally ready to say goodbye.

“Thank you…” she sobbed aloud. 

Clover nodded without altering their forward gaze. The first wind they had felt since their awakening lifted the cherry blossom into the air, leading it into the covered sky, proving that heaven reached as far as the Underground.

---

Kanako handed over the roll of bandages she recovered from the first aid kit. “Do you… want my help?”

“I’m fine, thank you.” Clover stayed seated near the kotatsu. “Do you mind if I do it here? Getting up and walking again sounds painful...”

“Oh! N-no, not at all!” Kanako started to stand. “I’ll give you some privacy.”

“Actually, I’d like to talk."

“Talk?”

“Yeah.”

The monster flushed at the request, her skin a little more receptive to her feelings than it was before, but sat back down. She kept her back to the human as they unbuttoned their poncho. They did not speak immediately.

“W-what did you want to talk about?” Kanako stammered.

“Your mother, Ceroba. Is she happy?”

The monster paused before answering.

“…She is.”

Kanako meant that. She thought how her mother embraced her when, after so long apart, her daughter had finally recovered enough of her former self to be held and to feel held once more, no matter her appearance. Ceroba confessed everything to Kanako. She told her of a time when she abandoned hope for her daughter's recovery. She told her that, after so long apart, there was a time where her love for Kanako was conditional, desperate for everything to be as it was when Chujin was alive.

Ceroba didn’t feel this way anymore. She loved her daughter, ghastly as she was, and everything she had done on the surface was for her sake. Kanako was not the only amalgamate. She had met the others. Listened to how they learned to cope with themselves. Some of them had even reintegrated into society. But Kanako could not follow in their footsteps.

It was by her insistence that Ceroba was brought to her lowest. The worst stage of her mother’s grief was caused by her. Her father’s worst nightmare was realized by her.

Ceroba was happy, but Kanako could never forgive herself for what she went through to reattain that happiness. Not the pain, and certainly not the compromise.

“What about the others?” asked Clover.

“Others?”

“Oh, right.” Kanako heard the sound of a bandage ripping behind her. “Erm… Do you know a monster named Martlet?”

Clover was doing a poor job of trying to sound distant. Kanako could hear the strain in their voice as they spoke her aunt’s name.

“Of course I do. She’s family,” said the monster.



“Family? …Good. That’s good. What about a—“ Clover stopped and sighed. “—a sheriff named Starlo?”

“Sheriff?” The word confused her. “I know a Starlo, but he’s not a sheriff.”

She heard the sound of Clover picking up the tea she served. “What is he then?”

“My stepdad.”

Choking behind her. Loud. Clover put the cup back down and quickly swallowed. “R-really now!? Golly… About time.”

“I’m sorry?”

Clover laughed lightheartedly at themself. “Nothing, nothing. So you all made it to the surface then?”

“...I didn’t believe it at first,” Kanako confessed. “Mom waited for me. She stayed down here, near the Lab, until I was ready. Then… she showed me what the sun looked like.” The monster titled her chin, respectfully peering behind her. “That was you, right? You’re the one who sacrificed themself for us.”

The human didn’t respond. Kanako peeked at the poncho they had removed. She didn’t recognize it beforehand. She did now.

She fixed her eyes forward again. “They miss you.”

“Then why didn’t they take me with them?”

Clover’s voice came out weak. Kanako knew that their fists were clenched, quivering with repressed feelings.

“They didn’t think you were theirs to take. Mom is still trying to find your parents.”

“She’s wasting her time.”

Kanako heard them rip and apply the last bandage, having secretly counted their scars. Clover shuffled back into their shirt. The poncho near Kanako’s foot did not move.

“…Did they bury me?”

“They did.”

“So why did I wake up in the capital?”

Kanako bit her lip. A thin tickle of blood leaked down her jaw. They deserve to know, even if they hate you for it.

“I moved you.”

Silence. Deafening, sincere silence. Back in the lab, Kanako spent most of her time redeveloping her sentience. It was involuntary. What she did remember of those trails, she wished she could forget: learning to fear before understanding compassion. Experiments like her, around every corner, looming over the young monster with caring intentions her mind could not register. It had been a long time since Kanako felt such a threat encroaching upon her.

“…What?”

Kanako’s face clenched. She wiped her chin.

“I dug you up. Mom and Starlo, they… All they do is talk about you. They brought me to that place in New Town, where they put you, because that’s what humans do. They wanted to me meet you, and I… I got sick of it. So I dug you up, I pulled you out, and I—“

She stopped. She had to stop. Kanako felt a hand on her shoulder. She let it rotate her.

The monster did not see the vengeful fiend she expected. What she saw was a human, still a child, with quiet tears in their eyes.

“Tell me,” said Clover.

The calmness of their gaze was the only thing stopping Kanako from collapsing onto herself.

“I got scared,” said the monster. “I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t open your coffin. I couldn’t look at you. But I knew that I already defiled you and I couldn’t hide that so I put you aside like some… some object, and put off facing you. And now you’re here, sitting in front of me. …And I don’t know how.”

Clover slowly processed all of this, their expression unchanging.

Had she done it? Was the lie she just told good enough?

“How long have you been here?” they asked.

“A week,” answered the monster.

“Are you going back to the surface?”

“No,” she shook her head, then remembered something, and added: “but I won’t stop you from going there.”

Clover contemplated that; another lie.

“What about Chujin?”

“…Even after we moved to the surface, Mom would come back every year to talk to Dad. But now… things are busier than they used to be. Last year, we almost didn’t make it in time. This year… is the tenth. Mom forgot.”

The human nodded one last time. It was a profound motion, as if to say, 'that is all'. Whether ending it there was a choice Clover made for themself or Kanako, the monster couldn’t tell. Maybe it was for the both of them.

Daylight trickled through the windows of the old home. A memory echoed in the beams. Kanako cut her mind off of it. She pointed to the first aid kit.

“You’re not done, are you?”

“What?” Clover looked at the container, then at the rest of the bandage roll still in their hand. “Oh. Yeah, I guess.”

“No,” Kanako disagreed.

Clover arched a brow. “No?”

“You’re still a mess. Your hair is filthy.”

“I’m not filthy. I took a bath.”

“When?”

Clover opened their mouth but nothing came out. Their eyes rotated in place, registering the passage of time.

Kanako sighed. She doused a swab in alcohol and picked it up with tweezers. “Here.”

The monster inched closer. The human inched back.

“What are you doing?”

“Fixing you. Sit still.”

Kanako pinched their chin and pressed the swab against a site of repeated falls near Clover’s brow. The human writhed in her grasp, bearing the pain nosily.

“Stop it.”

“Just stay still, it’ll only take a sec. You need to slow down and rest—“

“Stop it! I’m not going back!”

Clover’s sudden outburst pushed Kanako backward, smacking the first aid out of her asymmetrical fingers. The monster’s tail curled around her as she caught herself. Liquid seeped from an antiseptic solution, staining the carpet.

Kanako stared at the human in shock. Clover tried to curl up before she could get a look at them, but she had already seen it: their eyes were shaking. They had that swirl in them again, the one that pulled at their wrinkles and swallowed their sight, gnawing at them. It wasn’t Kanako that scared them earlier. Something else was playing out in their vision. Something worse. She understood that now. The monster carefully approached the human, searching for their face between their knees.

“Clover…?” she whispered their name.

The human refused to uncurl. They stayed there, tucked into themself like a statue, suffocating whatever noise their insides wanted to exhale.

Kanako withdrew back to her seat. It was too much. She couldn’t let herself touch Clover and take the risk of hurting them again. She instead looked at the mess they had made. The monster rose for her zabuton and reassembled the first aid kit, put a cloth over the spillage, and removed the tea tray, returning a few minutes later with a fresh batch.

“I’m sorry,” she said to the human as she poured a cup for them.

The monster intended to leave them, but a tug on Kanako’s sleeve stopped her. Clover gently pulled at it, silently begging her to stay.

She sat. The human unfolded themself and took a sip of the tea. The way their nose twitched at the heat gave Kanako a nostalgic feeling, reminding her of her own reaction to the aroma the first time Ceroba had served it to her.

“It’s not your fault,” Clover finally spoke. “It’s mine. There’s something…” They tried to gesture to a part of themself — the ear, the temple — and realized they didn’t know where to point. “…I’m still getting used to being here, I guess.”

“Here?”

“Alive.” They paused, then shifted towards her, suddenly awake. “We… are alive, right?”

Kanako looked at herself; lying a third time was too much for her.

Clover frowned. They drowned their troubles with another sip. It didn’t work. Something horrible crept to the surface of their skin. They took a deep breath.

“Kanako.”

The monster stared at them. It was the first time they had said her name.

“Are you… Are you sure Ceroba is alive?”

Kanako blinked.

“What?”

“Just… Tell me she is. Please.”

“Why?”

She saw the unknowable depths of their sunken gaze again. Inner echos trailing in opposite directions, surging all at once, then leaving again, without any explanation. That part of their face was already pale, bleached by a circle of shade that used to conceal it and pallid particles of sand that refused to leave their lids.

Clover breathed. There it was again: dust. The human looked up towards the rafters of the house, at the whole of Ketsukane itself.

“I had a nightmare while I was asleep,” said the human. “In it, I killed her. I killed all of them.”

Chapter Text

Clover looked at their reflection in the oasis. They realized that Kanako was right, and that their face truly was a mess. It wasn’t just dirt and damage. There was plenty else. Scars that had surfaced in their sleep, bags under their eyes, and a general absence of colour. Clover remembered how it all compared to the reflection of their younger self when they saw it in this same oasis years ago.

‘It’s you’, was the thought they had back then.

Now they weren’t so sure.

“Clover, could you help me with this?”

The human turned. A pebble near their feet tipped into the water, rippling their reflection. Kanako was collecting clothes off a clothes line from the roof of a house — or rather, she was trying to, but the thing had suddenly become persistent.

“It’s stuck. It won’t move.” The monster stared longingly at the clothes.

Clover entered the house and joined her on the roof. They tried the line for themself. One of its two reels was jammed.

“See?” said Kanako.

“Hmm.” Clover inspected the reel connected to their side, twirling it like a rotary phone. “Well, this side is fine. So that means…”

The two stared at a tall tree across the valley. Hammered into its neck was a rusty reel, tall enough to beg the question of how and why someone climbed that high in the first place.

Clover frowned. “Why are we using your neighbour’s line for your laundry?

"Hm? Oh, I’m not,” Kanako answered. “Those clothes aren’t mine.”

“Then whose are they?”

She shrugged. “No idea. They’d look good on you though.”

“What? I’m not stealing someone’s clothes!”

Kanako’s eyes gravitated to the oversized poncho the human wore. Clover crossed their arms in front of it.

“I’m not stealing a stranger’s clothes!” they corrected.

“Well, I’m not sharing mine,” the monster declared. “And I’m not letting you borrow Dad’s.”

“Fine.”

Kanako pointed her staff at them. “But I’m not letting you wear that sweaty cape everywhere, either!”

Clover groaned. Loathe as they were to admit it, Starlo had already tested the limits of the poncho’s age. Forcing it beyond that threshold had manifested a stench in the fabric that wouldn’t wash out. But come on! These were the smells of leather and gunpowder, the true musk of the high desert! Ain’t nobody said keeping the peace was clean work.

The human noticed the deathly glare of the monster next to them. In that moment, they truly felt for Starlo, knowing that there had likely been times when Ceroba was forced to shut the sheriff down in the exact same way.

With a pout in their cheeks, Clover left the roof and began climbing the tree on the opposite side. They already knew Kanako wouldn’t entertain the option of cutting the line. Clover honestly disliked the idea of vandalizing the townspeople’s property just as much, even if it was abandoned. The farther they ascended the palm tree, however, the more they came to doubt their ethics.

“Don’t fall!” Kanako nervously called out, also realizing the actual height of the line a little too late.

Clover reached the reel and checked its rims. Stuck in a few of the many holes lining the spool were three small stones, likely thrown to the skies by passing gusts. Clover freed an arm and dug their finger into the notches.

“Seriously, please don’t fall!” Kanako yelled again.

“You’re not helping!” Clover called back. 

They focused back onto the reel. Just one last little pebble to poke out…

“There. Try that.”

Kanako gave her side a spin. The clothes inched a few pulls closer to her.

“Oh!” She gleamed with relief. “Wow! Great job!”

Clover nodded triumphantly. “Yup. The fixer-upper. That’s me.”

Kanako started properly pulling the laundry to her side. Less than a single cycle in, the tree reel collapsed, falling off its nail and plummeting into to the sands below, clothes following suit. The human and the monster stared blankly at the ground. A minute later, they each descended their respective spire in silence.

---

Still damp, Clover walked back to the cafe. They found their companion behind the counter and presented themselves.

“Better?” they asked.

Kanako did a quick scan of them. She squinted at their new attire, searching for any damage.

“Yeah,” she smiled. “You look really nice—“

She met Clover’s face. A barrage of cuts and nicks scarier than any monster stared back at her.

Kanako nearly jumped. “What the—!? What happened to you!?”

The human twisted their head, proudly pointing to a newly made ponytail. “I found a scrunchie.”

“Not that! This!” She erratically gestured to their chin, their jaw — everywhere. “What happened to your face?”

“Oh. I also found a razor.”

“You shaved?”

Clover looked hurt. “You didn’t notice?”

The monster retreated back behind the counter. “Hold on, I’ll get you something.” She mumbled to herself as she combed the lower shelves, brushing aside hordes of abandoned paraphernalia. “Won’t take clothes but you’ll take scrunchies and knives… Won’t take baths, oh no, I’ll just walk around with blood on my—“ 

Among the many miscellaneous items was a hand mirror perched on its side. It caught the monster’s reflection: her cinereous fur and crooked snout. Kanako froze. It had been awhile since she was forced to look at her own face. She rose from the counter.

Clover noted something amiss. “Kanako?”

“Nevermind,” said the monster. “I shouldn’t be criticizing you.” She looked at them again. “…Why did you shave, anyway?”

They shrugged. “I dunno. Seemed like a grown-up thing to do. And I’m a grown-up now. I think.” They tilted their head at her. “Actually, how old am I?”

“How should I know?”

“How old are you?”

Kanako leaned on the countertop, pulling at one of her whiskers. “Old enough. I don’t know. I never really cared about doing adult stuff.”

“Adult stuff?”

“Yeah. You know.”

Clover stared emptily. They obviously didn’t.

“Hold on,” Kanako grinned. “Are you one of those kids who never got into trouble?

”

“N-no.”

“You’re a goody-two shoes, aren’t you, Clover?”

“Am not!” The human put their hands on their belt, reassuming the bad western accent they constantly imitated in their youth. “Ah’m a right hellraiser. I break ‘orses, catch bandits, ’n I ride off into the sunset when ah’m finished.”

“Oh, impressive!” Kanako clapped, no longer minding the absence of sound. “Tell me more."

”

“Hm. …If the little lady insists, reckon I got no choice.” Clover began to saunter around the cafe, living out their daydream. “Since I was a wee young’un, I knew myself t’ be a justice-keeper. I spent my kiddie years keeping peace at the playground, and when the wind called for me, I went to her. Was then that I crossed paths with North S— Uh, actually, his name’s not so important. What matter’d was that he was the quickest draw in all the East. He thought he was hazing a tenderfoot with me, hittin’ me wit’ all these 'trials', but I cleared 'em easy and became deputy for my trouble. Though it couldn't stop the thunderation that came after. The man had a score to settle. He challenged me to a dual, and I…”

Something caused them to trail off. Clover cleared their throat and continued.

“…Well, last I heard he retired peacefully. And that’s that.”

“Right.” Kanako did a poor job suppressing her giggles. “So I guess that makes you one of those ‘gunslingers’ I heard about.”

“Darn tootin’, miss. Most dare say ah’m the best there is.”

“Maybe you could show me how it’s done then.”

Clover broke out of their fantasy. Their facade fell clean off.

“Huh?”

---

Clover gaped at the wild revolver in their hand. They looked up. Across the Wild East practice range were plenty of targets: cans, bottles, and a few dummies with cowboy hats put on them for good measure.

“Where did you get this?”

“Borrowed it.” Kanako lazily gestured at the gun shop on her right. “Mr. Blackjack tried to take all of his stock to the surface, but had to leave some of it behind. Apparently trying to bring a bunch of firearms into a different society is a crime or something.” The monster bounced in place. “Anyway, come on! Take the shot!”

Clover tried to fathom her. They couldn’t understand what brought on this new wave of excitement in Kanako. She was beginning to reminded them of their younger self, back when they snuck into the local theatre to watch old westerns and fell in love for the first time.

The human exhaled. They pointed the gun forward, its grip fitting much better in their grown hand than it did the last time they visited this range. For some reason, they couldn’t shake the feeling that their target, the dummy, wasn’t what it appeared to be.

Clover remembered North Star standing next to them, giving them his guidance.

They took the shot. BANG! The bullet whizzed past the dummy, just inches away from its cheek, and summoned a small gust of wind, causing the hat it wore to fly off the head and float for a few seconds.

“Aw, you missed,” Kanako complained.

Clover didn’t lower the weapon. They quickly shot again — BANG! — this time firing right below the hat before it could float back down to the ground. The bullet sent another wave of wind, whisking the hat higher. Then again: BANG! And again. And two more times, for good measure.

The hat swung through the air, high enough to clear the distance as it rocked back and forth in the desert breeze, drifting in its descent.

Clover caught it as its last sway through the air as it brought itself to their side of the range. They placed it on their own head. It suffered no bullet holes.

“Ain’t no need for violence,” said the deputy. “Not when the wind itself follows justice.”

The monster and the Wild East alike silently gawked in awe. Kanako’s throat bulged as her ears shot up. Clover smirked, waiting for the shock to wear off and for her to shower them with praise.

Then, suddenly, the monster burst out laughing.

The shock transferred over to Clover. “Uh… What’s so funny?”

“You!” she barely managed between shakes. “Oh, no, I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just—“ Kanako pressed down her aching cheeks, in danger of fainting. “You’re just like him! You’re just like Dad! Mom used to tell me about all the dumb things he did to try and impress her. I still catch him practicing his finger guns sometimes. Haha!”

“Hmph,” Clover tutted. “You and Ceroba just don’t get it.”

“Oh, come on. We’re all that’s keeping you ‘cowpokes’ in line. Someone has to keep track of reality.”

“Big talk for someone who didn’t even notice what they said just now.”

“What?”

“Nothing. So, are you satisfied yet?”

Kanako raised a contemplative brow. “Eh, not really. I could do that just as easily.”

“Like heck you could.”

Feeling challenged, the monster summoned her staff to demonstrate. With a single motion, she manifested a magic gale, sending a row of cans into the air, and with another casting, summoned an array of fireballs, striking each airborne target in quick succession of one another.

Each tin came back to the ground sizzling.

“…Not bad.” Clover started reloading their revolver. “Mind showing me that again?”

Kanako thought nothing of the request. She focused her energies, sent another set of cans airborne, and then—

BANG! BANGBANGBANGBANGBANG!

With a single fanning of the hammer, Clover ejected six bullets from the hip, perfectly landing each and every shot, making fireworks out of the cans. Kanako’s fireballs swept through the air and hit nothing.

The human twirled their gun, blowing the smoke off their barrel. 

“Best out of three?”

Kanako pouted. She was plainly annoyed by the defeat, but surrendered nonetheless.

“Fine, you win. But only this one.”

“This one?”

“You owe me a full demonstration. I want to see you live up to your words.”

Kanako’s words were dead serious, and yet, for a split second, Clover thought they saw her tail wag behind her back. They were beginning to understand the origin of this sudden interest in cowboy culture.

The gunslinger motioned the way back into town. “After you.”

The monster went on ahead, carefully thinking on how else she could test the exciting lifestyle her parents boasted. Clover strayed without meaning to. The revolver was back in its holster, but their finger still itched for the trigger.

The human removed the gun and inspected it again. Something had possessed them just now. Kanako didn’t have the frame of reference to know it, but such a level of gunplay should have been far from feasible for Clover. It was a far cry from what the practice their games of pretend had yielded in the past. A missing link, an era of mastery, lingered in their instincts. It hungered for something more.

Clover made sure the revolver wasn’t loaded and double-checked the safety before putting it back in their holster.

---

‘My favorite movie :)’

Clover flipped the VHS cassette around to see if there were any comments on the thing that were actually helpful. There wasn’t. Kanako clicked the two other tapes together excitedly.

“We’ll use these as a frame of reference,” she declared. “If you’re a cowboy, you should be able to do whatever stunt humans in these movies pull off.”

“They’re actors,” said Clover, not wanting to admit that they had once been inspired into antics by westerns as a kid. “They don’t know the first thing ‘bout real wranglers.”

The monster slouched. “Man, you’re no fun. What turned you into such a buzzkill, Clover?”

“I died.”

She leaned her cheek against her hand, squishing a tumour-like tissue back into place. “Skill issue.”

“What?”

“See? You don’t know words. I’ve been more exposed to human culture than you have at this point.”

“Whatever!” Clover flailed their arms. “Cowboys are still the same! They keep the peace! They’re heroes of freedom! They gamble, they drink, and they’re not afraid to break the law if that’s what it takes!”

“What about fighting aliens like they did in that one movie?”

“That movie sucked. Everybody hated it. It’s got nothing to do with what being a cowboy’s about.”

An idea dawned on the monster. She did her best to suppress a grin.

“Really? But they made like three more of them.”

She watched as the colour drained from Clover’s face.

“…Uh, what?”

“Yeah, they made a sequel and it turned into this whole thing that everybody loved. It’s all humans on the surface talk about surface now. I mean, you can’t even see a cowboy without a martian next to him anymore. It’s impossible.”

“N-no way...”

“Mhmm, it’s true. Even Starlo’s converted now. He’s the one who brought the idea back, actually. Y’know, ‘cause he’s like a—“

“No! No no no! That’s not cinema and it sure ain’t cowboys!”

Clover shoved the tape they were holding into the receiver and immediately pressed play, leaving the rest of their argument in the hands of Mooch’s favourite film.

“This is cowboys! ”

The human shut their eyes and crossed their arms in bold, pre-emptive triumph. Kanako watched the opening segment and arched a brow at the unfamiliar title card.

“‘Brokeback Mountain’?”

Clover’s eyes shot back open. They yanked the tape out of the player’s mouth and stuffed back into the self — then changed their mind and put it in their bag instead. Kanako waited for them to explain themself. They didn’t. The two sat in silence until the human finally bowed their head in submission.

“…Let’s just do whatever you want.”

---

Kanako flipped the box over and let an endless pile of cards flood out onto the table without any concern for the stray few that spilled elsewhere into the barn. Clover pulled Moray’s face out of a haystack and laid it down with the rest of the Feisty Five.

“Everybody knows this one,” the monster wagged her finger as she nodded to herself. “A bunch of outlaws enter a secret room at midnight to gamble their life wages. The make bets, spin a revolver around, and by the end of it, only one man survives!”

Clover tried their best to sort out the mountain before them. “You’re thinking of revolver roulette. This is a card game. You don’t need a gun for it.”

“Oh.” Kanako looked disappointed. “How do people die then? Paper cuts?”

“No one dies! Where’d you get that idea from?”

“Starlo. He told me all about it when I was little.”

Clover sighed. “Of course he did.”

Kanako watched as her companion spread the cards out before her in an organized grid. Among the many illustrations were a few faces she recognized. Actually, she recognized all of them. Clover could tell by the curious sparkle in her eyes as she ran her paws against the deck.

“The rules are easy,” said the human. “Match two cards that are touching to clear them from the board. Once you do, the rest fill the space, going from right to left. Get rid of all the cards, and you win.”

Kanako looked up. The sparkle disappeared. “Card matching? Really?”

“Racin’ the clock’s tough business, miss.” Clover stuck a piece of hay between their teeth and chewed on it. “Ain’t no greater thrill. Help’s a man practice counting for the dual that will make or break him soon after.”

The monster didn’t believe him. “Why don’t you play a round then?”

“Already did.”

Clover pulled a full deck of cards out of their shirt pocket, splitting the cards between their fingers just enough to prove that it had already been piled in pairs.

“Broke the local economy with this game, I did. Record’s twenty-six seconds, if you think you can beat it.”

Kanako turned back to the pile on the table in front of her. She found Ceroba’s younger self in the set after having already sworn never to bring herself face to face with her mother again. Something welled within. Kanako summoned her staff.

“…Start counting.”

Clover took a step back and went back to picking their teeth.
Channeling her energies, Kanako willed the cards to begin shuffling aboard the board on their own, sliding pairs together, replacing the empty slots, and picking out more cards from the pile, all with quick, calculated gusts.

The invisible machine of her magic raced, her eyes working five steps ahead as she dictated the exact order of movement each card needed to take in order find its missing half and executed the flow flawlessly. A SOUL beat inside of her, amplifying her focus. It wasn’t hers.

The two remaining faces of North Star found their place together in the discard pile.

The hilt of Kanako’s staff hit the ground as she exhaled, remembering how to breathe.

Clover approached the table in disbelief. The unscalable mountain of cards had been reduced to a single, stacked deck in the centre of the table. Everything surrounding it had been wiped clean. Not even dust remained.

“…Twenty-four,” the human admitted.

A trickle of sweat dripped down Kanako’s head like wax. She quickly wiped it away. “Twenty-four without a dealer,” the monster corrected. “So does this mean I would’ve been rich back in your day?”

Clover drifted downwards, noticing something on the ground. “Maybe, if you could do it without cheating.”

Kanako jerked sideways. “What? I didn’t cheat!”

“Probably not knowingly,” the human granted. They pulled the top card off the discard pile and compared it to one they just picked up. The last card Kanako submitted had been a single Ceroba, preceded by the two Starlos. In her haste, the monster had overlooked that her true, final submission was odd-numbered, as well as the fact that it was missing its corresponding card.

Clover shrugged. “But I’ll give it to you anyways. Somebody vandalized this one.”

“Vandalized?”

The human offered her the card. A different face had been doodled over Ceroba’s, coloured brown and with a much happier expression. It was the face of a young child, with her hair tied up in a single ponytail. Clover didn’t recognize it.

“Somebody you know?”

Kanako resisted the urge to crumble the card in her hands. She set it face down and returned it to the pile.

“No. Not at all.”

---

Adult Soda. Clover remembered drinking what they found of it in a trash can once. They decided to keep that memory to themself.

“Go on,” Kanako egged them on. “Try it.”

"You’re gonna be disappointed.”

The monster ignored them, pulling out more bottles from behind the bar. “Come on, just do it.”

Clover sighed. They cracked open the lid and took a swig.

Kanako leaned towards them. “Well?”

“Tastes flat and warm,” the human cringed. “And it’s still just water.”

“What? No way!” The monster picked up one of the unopened bottles and tried it for themself, removing the lid with a single flick and downing the liquid haphazardly. She swallowed, clicking their tongue at the aftertaste. A few seconds passed. And then: “Hic!”. Kanako scowled. “Liar.”

“I’m not!” Clover noted a label on the back of the bottle. “‘Distilled locally. Carbonated and then infused with magic. Not for children of young age or those unable to consume spells’. See? This stuff is made for monsters.”

“Uuuggghhh.” Kanako enunciated groggily, wrought with boredom. “I’ve had sake before; this is nothing. Why’d Dina have to take all the good stuff with her?”

Clover looked around. “Actually, I’ve been wondering about that. Why’s the Underground empty? I get that you guys managed to get to the surface, but did everyone really move up there? Seems like a lot to leave behind.”

“Some monsters stuck around for a few years. Mom did. She said that there were plenty wanted to stay here, but overtime, they just… gave up. I guess they ran out of reasons to stay. Even King Asgore lives aboveground now.” Kanako tipped a bottle, rotating it in place with her finger. “I was scared I was going to run into someone on my way from the Ruins.”

“Ruins.” Clover took another swig without realizing it. “So you guys did leave through there.”

She nodded. “There was another passage, but Asgore closed it. I think that was after everyone left.”

“Why’d he seal it off?”

“Maybe there was something there he didn’t want people to see.”

She was right. Clover remembered it: the sight of seven coffins, laying side by side.

…Actually, no. That wasn’t what Kanako meant.

They could see it in her sunken, spiritless gaze. The monster had a different image in mind, a different place. Maybe it had something to do with the reason she had returned. Kanako had already said that she had no intention of going back to the surface, but Ceroba would piece together where her daughter had run off to and come back for her eventually. If an estranged life was what Kanako sought, there had to be a plan she had not yet told Clover about. A world that she could herself lock inside, forever, if need be.

What the human couldn’t infer was whether or not they had a role in this idea, now that they had unexpectedly entered the monster’s life and given her at least a little bit of joy.

Kanako could tell Clover was reading her mind. She didn’t like it. “What about you?”

“Me?”

“How much longer are you sticking around here for?”

Clover felt a familiar weight in their shoulders. The dark thoughts that had followed them across the Dunes still weighed heavy. If all of this was a tactic on Kanako’s part to reveal the human’s true self through drink, it was working, never mind the lack of alcohol.

“I don’t know,” confessed Clover, reaching for another water bottle. “It’s not like I’d know where to go past Mount Ebott.”

“I could give you directions.”

“To Ceroba?”

The two locked gazes in a staredown. Kanako broke first.

“…No. Sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

The human’s gaze gravitated back to the swinging doors, reminiscent of when they first found themselves in the Wild East, and pining the company of who was with them at the time. It was easy to ask about Ketsukane, and to talk about the Feisty Five as role models in Clover and Kanako’s lives, but the truth was the human was desperately missing one monster above all others. She was the first one who they had grown closest to, and the last one they wanted to torment with their return.

I know this isn’t the path you intended, but… Let’s… put all this behind us. You can come stay with me. Live out a happy, violence-free childhood! I’ll teach you craftsmanship… And you can teach me marksmanship!

You don’t deserve to die this young.

“…Clover?”

The human turned back to the bar. Kanako was offering the rag to them.

“Are you okay?”

Clover felt their cheeks. They felt a stream of tears soil their chafed skin.

Acknowledging it was a mistake. The contradiction triggered a spike trap in their mind. That memory wasn’t real. How could it be? When could it have happened? She was there with you – Martlet was there – when you walked off that apartment building. There was no goodbye. No regrets. You did not need to say goodbye because she believed in you and you believed in her there was no punishment for letting yourself love like you had in the past no betrayal nothing killed her nothing hurt her you choose the path that was best for her for all of them and no mat ter how much it hur t each time you n ever stray ed ne ver faltered you j ustdiditagainandagainand

“Clover!”

The human blinked, their pores drenched in sweat. Something still rattled inside of them. Somewhere behind their eyes. Circling. Screaming. They re-entered reality – this reality, anyway – brought back a familiar desperate voice. Huh. Déjà vu. Didn’t this happen yesterday? Guess it’s gonna keep happening. Maybe you could beat it somehow, old friend. Sus out the anomaly. Burn it. Or we could just try again, like we always do.

Kanako leaned over the bar, trying to look into the endless abyss the lurched beneath the human’s bangs. She kept the rest of her body as far away from them as possible, not daring to reach out a hand or extend any motion she couldn’t immediately take back.

“Is this… one of those nightmares you told me about?”

* There. You see that? She’s onto us now. That’s what you get for trusting every ‘lost girl’ you come across.

“Oh, shut up,” Clover drawled, wearily slurring their words together. “She’s not like you.”

Kanako blinked. She looked around the empty saloon.

“What? Who are you talking to?”

* She’s just like me. They’re all like me, because in this world—

“You’re the only one who says that.” Clover left their stool and began pacing around the room. “I could’ve made it out there, had I never met you. I could’ve had a happy life.”

* You had a thousand lives, idiot. None of them were happy. You know why? Because somehow, in all them, you never listened to me once.

The human brandished their revolver, twirling it around as they remembered those days.

“…You know, I think the problem is that I didn’t kill you enough.”

Kanako froze. She felt her insides harden, warning her. It was an animalistic instinct lost to her for years only for it to come back now. There was something else. Something besides her own native reaction of unmatched terror.

The remnants of a second SOUL, giddy and in love with the notion of justice finally being done.

* Well, I think the problem is that you’re a broken kid from with deadbeat parents. And I clearly shouldn’t have expected anything else from someone who thinks they can make a family out of dolls and corpses.

Clover’s tone turned mocking. “Oh, you wanna talk about that? You wanna go there? Okay, mister ‘Oh… Please help me! Oh, I’m so scared!’, how’s hell treatin’ ya? ‘Cause last time I visited, it seemed pretty cold.”

The mere mention of a chill brought back memories for Kanako. The lab had been prone to growing too cold to bear, what with how often amalgamates got caught in the ventilation. Her current situation wasn’t so different. Clover’s pace had quickened, their march around the bar entrapping the monster within a box-shaped snare. The spinning of their revolver increased.

* You just don’t get it. You never will, you’re too stupid. Living off garbage and worms. No wonder you eat gunpowder.

The human picked up another bottle, smashing it the cap open against the counter. “Yeah, I clearly should’ve gone with weed killer instead.”

* Hah! Oh man.

“What?”

* You’re gonna love this.

"What?”

* Look at her.

Clover stopped pacing. They turned their prey. The monster stared back, trembling in fear. From her perspective, the human was standing directly between the entrance and her. The quickly waning sun shaped the black silhouette of an exterminator summoned to put down a rapid dog. Their neck craned as their lifeless eyes drooped, dispassionately judging the abomination before them. Something caught their attention. They pointed to her face.

“...You’ve got a flower in your eye.”

They were right. A cherry blossom had sprouted in one of the sockets. Kanako didn’t know why her bloodline granted her that singular beauty, just to take everything else from her.

Clover had an idea, but they did not care to share it.

The monster waited for the end. It was all she could do. Her body failed to move and her magic failed to channel, no matter how much her frayed senses begged her to run, to fight, to do anything. The stolen spirit in her blood sabotaged her systems. Clover approached the bar.

They loaded a single bullet into their gun, spun the cylinder, and set the weapon down on the counter between themself and their quarry.

A moment passed. Kanako quivered as she forced the question from her lips.

“What… is this?”

Clover’s dead eyes shifted with a speed that didn’t match the rest of their fatigued frame.

“Reset roulette. You wanted to play.”

They spun the gun in place, letting it rotate as they took one last drink. It stopped with the barrel pointing back in their direction. Clover set the bottle down and picked the revolver back up.

No hesitation. They pressed the barrel against their temple and pulled the trigger.

Click.

Clover put the gun back down. “Your turn.”

* She’s not gonna do it.

Kanako stared aimlessly at the gun in front of her. She couldn’t understand what was happening. She didn’t want to understand. The monster clutched her staff, suddenly desperate for the mother she left behind.

* See?

“Fine.” Clover picked the gun up again and pulled down the hammer. Kanako didn’t register them pointing it at her until it was too late.

Click.

She nearly hallucinated the bullet piercing her core and tearing her apart. Would it actually kill her, with the way her body was now? Kanako didn’t know. A familiar feeling of powerlessness overwhelmed her. Her emotions began to break down, all crashing into each other at once.

“Please stop…”

* Okay, look: we might have had our differences, and we might keep having our differences, but I didn’t actually mean you should leave it to a fifty-fifty here. I mean, what are you actually gonna do differently if this next shot kills you?

Clover shrugged. “Find happiness.” They pulled the trigger on themselves, oblivious to the irony.

Click.

* Happiness? I thought you were in for justice?

“Fat lotta good that did me.”

The human pointed the gun forward again. Kanako clenched her teeth and closed her eyes.

Click.

She breathed. It felt more artificial somehow. Kanako realized why. Four empty shots so far meant only two possibilities were left. Now was the time to ACT. Now she—

Click.

The sound echoed through the saloon. Their motions were too fast. Too devoid of fear. It had been conditioned out of Clover. It made Kanako realize all the things she still had. All the things she still wanted to do. It didn’t make any sense. Why was this death any worse than the last? Kanako’s chin slowly crept back to face the human in front of her.

It had been only a day, but her brief time with Clover had somehow come to mean so much more than that.

The human didn’t move. Their arm had fallen back to their side, but they had yet to raise it again. The game was won; only one conclusion remained. And yet, a twitch in their features was holding them back. It was impossible to see it for what it was, but she saw it rise. Something swelled in Clover’s throat. It bubbled and brewed, threatening to explode them, until—

“Hic!”

Clover’s cheeked flushed as they suddenly became woozy, flagging in place. They glanced at the bottle of Adult Soda on the counter.

“Huh…” they said sleepily. “Guess it works after all…”

The human’s eyes rolled into the back of their head. They fell unconscious, crashing into the counter on the way down and letting their gun soak in the puddle of blood pooling from their forehead.

Chapter Text

Kanako looked around her room and wondered if she had made the right choice. It was either this or the unused bedroom of her mother, which, even after cutting herself off from her, still felt too dishonorable. There was still the basement. Kanako could have locked Clover down there instead. She also could have just as easily left them behind anywhere else. The monster looked at the human that she had dragged onto her bed despite all the wiser options.

They were still sweating. Every once in a while, Kanako caught sight of their finger twitching in their sleep. It wasn’t that long ago that they had held a gun to her face. Now they were here, resting under her roof, back in her care, all for the second time. The monster prepped a fresh change of bandages for the wound on Clover’s head.

“This is what horror stories are made of,” she muttered to herself. Classic monster western material. A naïve little girl meets a human out in the wild. She ignores her father’s teachings and tries to befriend the stranger, lets her guard down, chooses to believe that not all humans can be as bad as they say. Maybe this one was like her, abandoned and alone. Maybe this one just needed their family back.

Kanako paused the mending process, stricken by the thought. Clover was like her. That was the problem. A lethal monstrosity like her was supposed to be one of a kind, but that didn’t make them friends. That didn’t mean the monster was suddenly deserving of solidarity after all she had done. It only meant that there were two shadows in the Underground now. There had to be. There was no other place for them.

Maybe Clover pulling the trigger on Kanako was a good thing. It reminded her of what she had come here to do, now that her tribute to Chujin was over. The brush with death reminded her of her place in life: in a layer lower than hell.

Kanako took only three precautions before leaving her home forever. First, she barred a plank over her front door of the estate, locking the human inside. Second, she buried the revolver she had given to Clover back out in the Dunes, where it could never be found. And third, she discarded all the family memorabilia still stuck to her cloves, leaving her tassels and staff behind as she left under the cover of night.

---

* Well, this brings back memories, don’t it?

Clover gazed at the bed of golden flowers, trying to find the imprint of their initial fall into the Underground. No such thing still existed. It once again proved the reality of time. A whole town of flowers had died and regrown since then. That, or the flowers had simply forgotten about Clover. Much in the same way everything else had.

* Eh, maybe too many memories, actually.

The human turned to the lone flower beside them.

“You’re dead.”

*Wow. More threats?

“No,” Clover shook their head. “I mean you’re literally dead. You’re not actually here. You’re just a figment of my imagination.”

Flowey made a show of clapping his leaves together.

*Aha, brilliant deduction, genius! Only took you, what, a million deaths and a coma to logic that one out.

“What happened to you?”

* What happened to me? How ‘bout you mind your own business and concern yourself with what happened to you, ‘pardner’? When you’re gone, nobody sticks around waiting to give you the catch-up. They move on. Get on with their pathetic lives. …At least they should’ve.

“The seventh one got you, didn’t they? Whoever came after me.”

* Oh, come on, are you even listening? You don’t get to know. Why do you even care so much anyway?

Clover picked their ear, trying to grasp the vines inside. “If I’m gonna be stuck with you from now on, I’d at least like to know why.”

The flower exhibited an ugly, familiar sneer.

* You’re stuck with me because your brain is rotten and lonely. And guess what? I lied. There’s no more files. You lost the draw. Good luck finding any bullets to put into your head after that last show.

Clover looked around the empty room, studying their dream. An endless echo emitted as their heel hit the cobble. The beam of light shining down on them reached an impossible distance, as if it were a projection of heaven itself, beckoning for its next Angel.

They turned back to Flowey.

“I remember.”

* Yeah, I bet you do.

“I answered the call.”

The flower’s grin withered.

* …What? No.

“You tried to use me against them but they beat you anyway. You wanted them to leave you behind, but they didn’t. They came back for you. Until you pushed them away.”

* Okay, fine!. You’re right! I lost! Are you happy? Does that make you nice and comfy in your grave of dust, my liege? Is this another part of your ‘justice’?

The human stared blankly, without single hint of pride or fury betraying the pity they felt.

“…I don’t know.”

Flowey refused to flinch, but something in his stem caused enough of a reaction that the flower had to forcefully twist itself away.

Clover approached the bed of golden flowers. The slowly bent down and placed their body in the center, inserting themselves between the petals in a place where none of the plants would be crushed. They brushed the leaves, basking in the aroma. It smelled just like the tea Kanako had served the day before.

“Did you meet all of the missing humans?”

Flowey refused to turn.

* …Not of all of them.

“Did you try get any of them to kill Asgore like you did with me?

* Nah. Took me awhile to figure that one out.

“But you could’ve reset, like you did with me.”

* Sure.

“So, why didn’t you?”

* Because none of the others were ever as fun as you.

Clover noted the amount of effort it took on Flowey’s part to summon that horrible tone of voice. That, combined with the fact that the flower still could bring himself to face them, was enough.

The humans eyes grew heavy, despite daylight pouring into their lids.

“You… didn’t answer me before. Are you okay with this?”

Clover heard Flowey groan.

* How many times are you gonna make me say it? Nobody’s waiting for us.

The light, consuming all of Clover as it lulled them to sleep, delivering them to back to the world where they belonged.

* The living don’t play catch-up with the dead. You have to go find them, and do it yourself.

---

Clover woke to the sounds of a sandstorm rattling the windows, threatening to pull the entire Ketsukane estate down to its hinges. The voices in their head had finally grown quiet, and the only migraine that remained was the natural, incredibly painful one. The human rubbed their forehead. They felt the bandages, remembering where they had left off.

“…Right,” they scoffed at themselves. “That.”

Clover creaked their body over the edge of the bed and tried to get their bearings. It took a minute for them to realize where they were – where they still were. After what they had done to Kanako, their own opinion on the matter was that they deserved to bleed out on that grimy bar floor. Instead, they had been carted all the way back to Ketsukane. Clover scanned the bedroom, reading through the monster’s life story with a single glance. Childhood drawings coloured in familiar faces that had spent too long being monotone in Clover’s memory.

One of them was a self-portrait of Kanako as she was in her youth. Her bronze face and brown hair reminded Clover of the card game in the barn, and they realized their mistake.

“Kana—” Clover tried to call out, but they felt their throat tighten along with the rest of their body the moment they left the bed. A nearby serving of cold tea did a good enough job of emulating the special ice-flavour sold at Mo’s specialty shop. The human stood up straight and tried again: “Kanako? …I’m sorry. Can we talk?”

Clover descended the stairs and ventured into the empty estate. It didn’t take long for them to realize they were alone.

* hm. so she saved us, but still fears us…

The human clutched their head, the former feeling of inner peace quickly fading.

“You’ve got to be kidding me. We’re still doing this?”

* i’m sorry.

“It’s…” they breathed. “It’s fine. It’s not your fault. Just… which one is this?”

* the last one.

Clover stopped by a vase of flowers.

“How do I know you won’t try to kill her again?”

* please. that wasn’t me.

“…Yeah, I guess not,” Clover admitted. What happened in the bar was their own paranoia. That episode in particular couldn’t be blamed on any of the phantoms they were tolling around. “What about Snowdin?”

* snowdin?

The human scowled, a deep grudge emanating from the endless sea of memories that festered within. It swirled into a whirlpool, churning back into a delirium that had molded the motivation of every action, every mistake. False heroism. A sense of vindication. Closure. Every sacrifice Clover had ever offered – both themself and others – was all for a simple sense of purpose. A loneliness felt in every life. They had fully grown now, and in that stasis, had matured just enough to realize the puerility of it all.

There were no enemies left. No dolls to play House or Cops and Robbers with. Just a storm of dust closing in. The only adversary Clover still had was the audacity of ignorance.

But heavens be damned if that meant they would suffer it.

“You took lives. I know you did,” the human chided as they stomped towards the living room.

* that’s not what happened…

Clover pressed a foot against the kotatsu and kicked the table aside, revealing the hatch beneath it. They took hold of the handle.

* what are you doing?

“Getting us up to speed.”

---

Kanako stopped short of the metal doors, realizing just how tight her breaths had gotten as she drew closer to her destination.

The lava floor of Hotland bubbled. Its heat caused her loose, viscous skin to peel like cheap paint off a gummy plaster. She instinctively tried to tighten her robe, but had already discarded all the cords her mother had woven.

How many hours had Ceroba wasted combing her daughter’s spongy hair, candling her pottered skin, and lining her clothes all so Kanako could maintain the image of a corporeal being? How many years had been spent trying to fool a ghost?

The monster’s staff creaked as she leaned against it. No, that wasn’t fair. Kanako was trying to blame her mother both for clinging to the past and for moving on from it. The daughter was the problem. She had always been the problem. Waking up was not her choice, but it was a mistake all the same. It revealed the shameful secrets of countless monsters.

In becoming an amalgamation, she revealed the failures of Chujin. In emerging reborn, she risked the shame of the King and his scientist. In forming a new family, she learned of a love Starlo had for her mother, and felt that she was the object that stifled his courage for so many years.

Kanako felt herself fading in the heat. She forced the doors open with the casting of magic, and stepped into the lab.

The truth was that everyone had moved past their pain. On the surface, Kanako Ketsukane had a beautiful life, rife with nothing but love and forgiveness. But she couldn’t accept it. Not when guilt outweighed all else. The choice to repent was hers alone.

Kanako navigated the dark interior, feeling around for the elevator. As she reached the panel and pressed a button, she thought about the few days of bliss she had been allowed before concluding this journey. She thought about Clover.

It was nice to pretend, if only for a little while.

The doors opened, and the monster stepped inside.

It was nice to have a sibling, if only for a little while.

---

The human stood solid in front of the pixelated silhouette, burning their eyes into the monitor, making it impossible for the SOUL inside them to escape its words. They had closed the hatch so that the light from the living room wouldn’t disturb the image of Chujin Ketsukane.

“Part of me wanted to quit everything that instant but… This outcome was earned, was it not?”

*…

Clover ejected the tape. They already knew the rest, and had pieced together what it then led to thereafter. What was important right now was illuminating the incident beforehand.

* i don’t understand… i… i don’t remember any of this.

“Yeah, get used to it,” they said as they moved to the shelves, searching for anything else of relevance.

* it wasn’t supposed to be like this. There was a man there that day, and I… all I wanted was her friendship.

Clover paused. “Kanako’s?”

* yes.

The SOUL had sounded perpetually confused until that point, but their demeanour shifted with that single word. Clover nodded, sensing its sincerity in their gut.

“Do you know where she would’ve gone?”

* no… she was different back then. naive but kind-hearted. it wasn’t like her to run away from things. not even when…

The voice trailed off, supposedly going through the paradox Clover had already conquered. The human gave up on the shelf and consulted their fractured memories instead for clues.

“Well, she came down here with a plan. If she didn’t want to be found by Ceroba, that can only mean she has somewhere to hide.”

As their thoughts worked in tandem, the image of the SOUL became more tangible to Clover. A blue ballerina floated around them, drifting as they debated.

Like the human, they looked like an oversized child clinging to an ideal, garments long outgrown.

* she had a hideout in snowdin. that’s where she kept me. it was this weirdly shaped treehouse. actually… or was it a birdhouse?

Clover’s chest throbbed at the mere mention. The ballerina wobbled with it.

*woah. what was that?

“Nothing. She probably would have picked somewhere her parents haven’t found out about.”

The SOUL shrugged.

* well, you’re the one who got the world tour. i only made it so far.

“Can’t you just… channel Kanako or something? Connect to her, like, spiritually. The same way you’re doing with me.”

* what? No. why would I be able to do that?

“Because you came from her. That’s how this worked, right? Chujin— Kanako’s father made a formula with your SOUL, and she adopted it. Or at least a part of it. The point is that you have a lot more business with her than you do me!”

The ballerina stared aimlessly at them. Their ghostly eyes twitched, nipping spectral images only they could see. Clover recognized the motions. It was exactly what the human went through whenever they felt conflict between memories and present time. Between other selves and the husk that was left behind. The only difference was that the ghost's reaction was a lot tamer than the human's.

* …oh. I get it

“Yeah!” Clover barked – then immediately lost their train of thought. “Wait, get what?”

* This is your fault.

“Huh?”

The ballerina made circles near their temples with their fingers, resting face colder than before.

*This. The looping, or whatever the heck you went through. It’s like… I can feel it now. And it’s trying to trick me. Ugh. This fucking sucks.

The ballerina clasped their hands over their mouth in absolute shock of their own profanity. Then they realized they actually wasn’t surprised at all. Well, kind of. The ghost went cross eyed as they tried to see into the core and decide what their personality was. The weird thing was that Clover already knew for a fact that this person hadn’t gone through what the human had. Clover didn’t know how they knew that, they just did. They also knew what conclusion their haunt had already drawn from this dilemma: that the ballerina's newfound identity crisis was simply something that came with the territory of being linked to one of Justice’s many faces.

* wow. I hate this. You’re the worst.

“Well, just get out of here then! I didn’t ask to be haunted. Go back to Kanako. She’s the one who’s carrying you.”

* right. About that.

The ballerina swam close to Clover, intimately hovering inches away from their face.

* Do you mind if I test something?

They didn’t wait for an answer. Clover felt their lungs implode as a swift pang in their chest took their breath away. The spirit had dug their hand into Clover's ribcage in an attempt to pull something out – although, somehow, it felt more like whatever was inside them was trying to get out on its own. A moment later, that ballerina withdrew their hand, and Clover was forced to gaze upon that which they had thought they lost forever.

A SOUL. Their SOUL. But it was no longer in the colour they remembered.

It was blue. Dark blue. A perfect match with the ballerina who casually tilted and flipped it while they hovered in mid-air.

Clover stood up straight. “Is that…?”

The ghost tapped their spectral finger against the heart, sending out a hollow chime similar to that of a fake gemstone.

* Nope. Mine’s long gone. This is a copy. Or maybe…

The ballerina floated an eye over to its backside, staring through the SOUL’s semi-transparent shell.

* Oh my goodness. It’s my egg.

Clover cringed. “What? Ew.”

Offended, the ballerina flicked the side of the floating SOUL with their finger; Clover felt a sharp jab in their temple.

* You said Kanako’s dad made a formula out of me or something, right? And then she took it? Well, my guess is that this she grew this thing herself, then.

“Wait, she grew that? Is that even possible? But... if it's artificial, then what does that make you?”

* I’m trying not to think about that part. The rest of this is already incredibly weird and very much outside the bounds of my consent as is.

Clover’s vision began to grow dim around the edges. They fought against the dizziness.

“I’m so confused… So you’re really saying that Kanako grew a second monster SOUL?”

* Mmm, not quite.

The ballerina grabbed it the SOUL and threw it to the floor, catching as it rebounding back up and leaving it in an upside-down pose. Clover felt their intestines get wrung out like a wet towel.

* This is a monster SOUL. Except blue. I’m not an expert, but I’m pretty sure these things aren’t supposed to last as long as ours.

They dribbled the SOUL again, tilting it back into its upright position. Clover felt their spine fold like origami paper.

* This is a human SOUL. Except apparently it was born inside of my best friend, who was a monster. And also, it was made from a fragment of my own SOUL, which isn’t here anymore. Still trying not to think about that part. Point is: it’s probably the reason why you’re here now. You’re welcome for that, by the way.

Clover struggled against the verge of death. “I liked you… better when… you were gentle… and talked in lowercase.”

* Yeah, well, if I’m going to be stuck in your murder mind palace, I’m not going to do it as whatever pushover I woke up as. I'll go with whatever's happening right now, thank you very much.

The ballerina lifted their leg and chucked the SOUL under it, sending it back into the human’s chest. Clover grasped their upper torso as they gasped for breath. They could feel the indigo tones of integrity beneath their yellow flannel.

“…If this is Kanako’s, then why do I have it?”

The human’s predecessor pretending to rest their head on the shoulders of their host, wrapping their arms around them as a sorrowful frown formed on their already blue complexion.

* I don’t know, but… I probably caused her a lot of pain in there. I remember feeling confused and… incompatible. Whether she donated her SOUL to get rid of me, or rejuvenate you, I think it’s at least safe the say when the deed was done.

Clover thought about that. They imagined the image of Kanako digging them up, gazing upon their rotted corpse, and making her judgment then and there. They wondered if seizing the abomination of her own SOUL and placing it into the hero she had heard tales of her whole life gave the monster any form of closure.

They hoped that it both did and didn’t; what was the right wish, as a phantom who came back to life and threatened their savior at gunpoint?

The ballerina tightened their grip, clinging to the illusion of their new home.

* Clover, if she gave you her SOUL without any sort of backup, then… She might be in danger. I need you to find her for me. And I need you to help me apologize. …Do you know where she is?

The human closed their eyes. They searched through every path, every conversation they had ever had with their loved ones. They recalled the moments in which Ceroba confided in them.

“I do.”

Clover stepped forward and grabbed onto the ladder leading out of the hidden room, their new companion following close behind.

But as the human reached the top rung and creaked the hatch back open, they saw the front door of the estate down the southern corridor, and froze in place.

It was wide open, with the board barring it from the outside discarded in the vestibule. Three figures, all dressed in duster coats, were in the process of entering the house and taking shelter from the sandstorm that raged outside. Their faces were obscured by hoods, but that didn’t make any one of them any less distinguishable.

The cloaks Dalv had lent to his friends were all equipped with the same horn holes his was, after all.

Clover ducked their head back down, closing the hatch again, but it was too late. They could feel the gaze of Ketsukane snap to the centre of the house the moment they dared to move.

“Ceroba?” asked a muffled Starlo as he patted his cloak clean and closed the front door. “Something wrong?”

She didn’t answer. The monster bolted northward, her stomps heavy against the floor above Clover. They saw a lock on the hatch and turned it. Ceroba banged on the square.

“Kanako!” she cried with desperation. “Kanako, please open this door! Come back to me!”

“Kanako?” Clover could hear Dalv step forward. “Is she really here?”

More footsteps. All three of them were upon the human now, surrounding the hatch as they each bent down to try and retrieve the child locked inside. Clover backed away from the ladder. They felt the walls close in with each bang, and suffered the claustrophobia of their coffin once more.

Their spiritual companion however, remained completely indifferent to this development. A crooked smirk formed on their face; even in death, they couldn’t resist.

* Well then. Which way, western man?

Chapter Text

Ceroba stomped on the trapdoor, halfway through breaking it off its hinges.

“Kanako, open this door right now!”

The fanged monster beside her winced with each trample, noise upsetting his nerves. “Ceroba, please calm yourself. What if you’re scaring her?” He stepped closer towards the shut hatch. “Kanako, are you there?”

“She has to be.”

“How are you so sure? Did you see her yourself?”

Ceroba opened her mouth to argue, but words suddenly escaped her. A slow process of acceptance and anger found once more cycled in her eyes, as if to ask ‘If not her, then who else?’.

She felt a threat in the absence of answers. Ketsukane summoned her staff, gripping the shaft with ferocity.

Dalv recoiled, shifting a desperate gaze to Starlo beside him. His friend heeded the call.

“Woah there, Ceroba.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “Why don’t we all just take a breather here? Kanako’s not going anywhere; she needs the rest of the house as much as we do, storm ‘n all. Let’s try to keep it standing, hey?”

Ketsukane felt the familiar sensation of defeat overwhelm her the moment Starlo offered his comfort. She slowly collapsed to her knees, dropping her staff and spreading her hand against the frayed floorboards separating her from her love. Dalv folded into a similar position beside her, legs tucked under his body. Starlo saw the prayer circle and decided he wasn’t quite ready for this yet.

“Y’all, uh… y’all still got tools here, dontcha? Lemme see if I can find somethin’ to pry this open with.”

Dalv watched the sheriff leave, silently admiring his optimism, yet picking up on one last muttering with his advanced hearing: “Findin’ a needle in this haystack; yeesh. Probably be easier if you had just swallowed your pride and took the man out for a drink, Star….”

Dalv awkwardly drifted back to the mother and the supposed daughter that was still hiding from the both of them. He would’ve expected Kanako to say something by now, but the truth was he knew he could never understand what she felt, even after all the time they had spent together. He felt like a fraud.

And any such feelings were nothing compared to the dishonour that consumed the widowed mother that was left behind.

“…I forgot,” she mewled.

Dalv turned to her. “Pardon?”

“I forgot the day of my husband’s passing. That’s why she ran away.” She lurched over the floor, falling to her elbows as tears formed in her eyes. “I’m a horrible mother, Kanako. I’m so, so sorry…”

“Ceroba…” Dalv tried to embolden himself. “It’s not your fault. Did Kanako ever talk to you about this?”

“She shouldn’t have needed to!” Ceroba wailed. “I’m the one who failed her. I’m the one who broke our promise! What good am I as a mother if I can’t make her happy, even after all the second chances I’ve been given?”

Her friend faltered for a moment. He reflected on his own despair and tried to summon the courage to face it.

“I think… we’ve all been lost on how we’re supposed to redeem ourselves… ever since that day. But no one said that it was something we had to figure out immediately, or even a decade later. It might even take the rest of our lives. What makes it stomach-able for me is that I have you guys, but… I think there’s where we made our mistake. We spent all this time tending to Kanako, treating her differently because she needed us, but we never talked about how we needed her. At least… I didn’t.”

Ceroba’s back gave out. Her stomach pressed flat against the floor as her hands balled into fists.

“Oh, Kanako…” she sobbed. “I’m sorry I failed you like this… I’m sorry that after all this time, I still don’t know what’s best for you. I just… wanted our time together back. If you want to live here instead of the surface, that’s fine. I’ll do anything to hold you again. Just please… open this door. …Come back to me.”

A stream of tears leaked from Ceroba’s jaw and dripped down to the floorboards below, sinking through the cracks and entering the basement.

Clover felt the droplet splatter against their nose as they stood beneath the thin, square shaped rays of light that leaked through the hatch’s edges, resisting the urge to reach out to the family they had on the other side.

The third monster returned to the living room. Dalv looked up, sensing something off about him.

“Starlo…?”

Ketsukane felt a presence kneel down next to her. Starlo gently pulled her away from the floorboards and inserted himself between her and the trapdoor. In his hands were two items: a woodcutting axe and a photo frame. He set the latter of the two down as he took up chopping position.

Ceroba looked at the framed photo. She remembered this. It was a photo of herself and Star in their youth, kept on a mantle the farmhouse for so many years. But what was it doing here? A clue to the answer was already attached to the edge of the frame.

A Wild East deputy badge, securely pinned to the corner, resting alongside other cherished memories.

Starlo balanced the axe alongside the hatch’s hinge.

“Kanako, if you’re in there, you best step back now. That said, if it just so happens to be anyone else, trespassing on this ‘ere sacred property…”

The sheriff raised the axe, a shadow looming over his squinting gaze.

“Then yer boutta learn what happens when you toy with my family.”

A single swing was all it took. Starlo axed the floor with enough precision to cut the hinge clean through, sending the rest of the panel crashing down as the basement became illuminated and clear to see in its entirety. The trio of monsters peered inside.

Yet not a SOUL remained in the coffin they just unearthed.

---

Clover scrambled beneath the floorboards, shoving cobwebs aside as they crawled their way through the foundation of the Ketsukane Estate until they reached a wooden baseboard near the northern edge. The human punched the planks open and immediately regretted it, torrents of sand flooding the burrow as the storm raged on. Tugging their shirt over their nose, they pulled themself outside.

They wished they had thought to bring their poncho for this.

The blue SOUL projected itself as their host began their blind trek through the Dunes.

* You sure you don’t want to go back? They all seemed pretty eager to talk things through.

“I can’t,” Clover said with their face still covered, hoping the sand would be a good enough excuse for their terseness.

* I know I’m the one who asked you to go find her, but I didn’t mean you should get us killed over it.

The human ignored the ghost as they trudged forward, their boots lifting puddles of sand with each step. The visage of the estate, fading into a sea of sienna, disappeared behind them as the desert’s gusts pelted Clover from all sides, sapping their energy. They refused to heed its warning, numb to the feeling of withering.

* …Okay, this is stupid. Turn around.

They counted their steps and closed their eyes, rejecting the current moment and reliving their original journey as they had years ago.

* Hey! Listen to me!

They recalled the best parts and picked them out – tasting the magical flakes of sand and snow, basking in the breeze as it lifted their clothes, studying the stoney stars with the excitement of a child who wondered if they were the first of their own kind to see all the natural wonders of the universe for the first time, a second time, and then letting those miracles remind them of the sanctity of life; that which persisted even in a place as doomed as the Underground.

The ballerina appeared in front of the human, looming over Clover, barring the way forward.

* What are you doing? What are you so afraid of?

Clover opened their eyes again. Their own SOUL balked at what they saw in their host.

Dust, stuck in an endless swirl.

“Everything I have ever done… every good act…” They choked, sand clogging their lungs. “…has been cancelled out… by a bad one.”

The ballerina understood enough to save their host the trouble of a speech. It did nothing to dissuade them.

* Why does that matter!? I’ve seen your memories, and I know the ones you care about most. Back there, you have a family, even now! Do you know how badly I wanted that my whole life!? I would’ve killed for it!

“You almost did.”

The SOUL malfunctioned. Their tethered spirit sank through their chest. Though the false, scattered memories they suffered were but a mere hallucination compared to Clover’s, it didn’t make the pain of knowing the actual lengths they had gone to any less painful.

“The living don’t play catch-up with the dead,” the human forced the words through the sand. “We have to make the difference ourselves.”

The ballerina blinked. Clover’s reasoning had almost worked on them. Almost.

* …If you think your ‘redemption’ or whatever its called is going to stop you from dying in this very real storm, think again. Because there is no way I am letting you—"

Clover tugged their SOUL out of their chest and wrestled it back under the control with a single squeeze, causing the ghost in front of them to wicker out like static. They pulled a forgotten bandana out of their pocket and wrapped the thing in it, silencing the ballerina for the time being. The human continued their trek with the heart close enough to their side that they could still feel it fuel the rest of their spirit, never mind the questionable science of this whole phenomenon.

SOUL or not, the most annoying bit of knowledge was that the ballerina was right.

The sandstorm showed no signs of letting up, and was hellbent on outlasting Clover. It wasn’t long until the human felt their knees give out, just as they thought they were about to reach a familiar farmstead. The world began to blur as it burned into their exposed skin.

You can do this. You can.

Clover was determined, but just as they had knelt down for only a moment, simply to rest for a few seconds and then stand up again, a pair of talons grabbed the human by the shoulders and pulled them to the skies, robbing them of that risk.

---

Kanako gazed at the long series of beds spread out evenly throughout the hospital room, their white sheets cheating the otherwise pitch blackness that surrounded her. She gravitated towards one bed in particular, feeling the thin blanket with a wistful touch.

It was still unmade.

The monster patted out the flat sheet, tucked the fitted back around the corners of the mattress, and readjusted the pillow before moving on.

---

A dim light stirred Clover awake, specks of sand dripping off their brow as their nose crinkled. The urge to sneeze quickly faded, the plume nestled beneath their chin moving with the rest of the wing to shield the human from the ray, and let them drift back into a dreamscape of blue.

Blue was nice. Clover had grown attached the colour of their prior soul; the golden shimmer of a deputy’s star meant something. Clover used to need that meaning. But now, they carried a different pigment inside of them. …And that was okay. In a spiral of red and grey, blue was the colour that placated those nightmares. It was the colour whose love shined through those tainted memories. Clover hadn’t realized just how scared they were to lose it forever, and afraid to admit how badly they missed its embrace.

But now it was here, with them again after so long, and the human couldn’t resist. Tears swelled in their eyes as they buried themself deeper into the feathers that warmed their frigid core. Clover surrendered. They needed this. More than anything, they needed this.

Martlet curled the rest of herself around her young in gentle defiance of the years lost.

---

Time passed. Clover wasn’t sure how much. Enough to alarm their monster companion, at least, and spur her to feet as she remembered she still had a job to do. The human had ended up following her out of the abandoned penthouse they had taken shelter in and deeper into Hotland. As they approached some sort of steel facility, the monster reached into her pocket and produced a keycard.

When she reached the face of the building, she stopped in her tracks, unsure what to make of the fact that the metal doors had already been pried open.

“…Huh.”

Clover stopped beside her. Knowing her, they expected the monster to blather out a best-case scenario for the cause of this ominous scene, or feign confidence in some sort of plan that would, in reality, do a very poor job in keeping them both safe.

Instead, Martlet placed that courage in herself, crossing a sharp wing over her chest as she turned on a flashlight activated to her belt, the rest of her engineering equipment clinking like armour as she walked forward.

“Stay behind me.”

The human watched in awe as their guardian braved the dark, running her light alongside banks of inactive consoles as she patrolled the inside and searched for the breaker. Clover felt a tug the bindle they had tied to their hip. Rolling their eyes, they loosened the knot just enough for the SOUL to manifest a head sticking out of the bandana as it looked up at its owner with a judgmental glare.

Clover folded their arms, scratching the leftover flakes of the sandstorm off their skin. “I would have made it.”

* Whatever.

The ballerina tiled their neck, curious about the being inside.

* …So, you ran away from those other monsters, but not this one.

Clover turned away. “Shut up.”

* Look, I’m not going to give you shit for it. Besides, things might have actually worked out for us here.

“What do you mean?”

* Oh, come on. It’s your mind I’m rifling through here, messy as it is.

Clover looked up at the silver edifice looming over them. 'I must go to the Lab! It’s where Kanako is being kept!'

Heralded by the sound of a heavy switch, the building’s lights suddenly sparked awake once more, a near-blinding luminescence and the sounds of beeping computers now pouring through the open doorway. Clover re-tightened the bindle and stepped aside, joining Martlet on the opposite side of the room as she operated an astonishingly ancient-looking desktop, cross-referencing the lines of code in its start-up menu with notes she had scribbled down in an old handbook.

“What are you doing?” asked the human. It was the first thing they had actually said to her in ten years.

“Turning off the fans. There’s not much reason for maintenance to come down to the Underground anymore, so the Royal Sci— Erm, a friend of mine sends me down here instead for a routine checkup instead. The weather down here can get preeetty messy sometimes, but turning the climate systems off altogether would be even worse. It’s all connected to a bunch of cave systems elsewhere so regulating airflow is important. Did you know we have our own dam? Because I kind of… forgot. Came down here one time to find out the thing had burst a month ago and overflowed into an empty village, haha… Patching all that up by myself was a fun summer project.” She paused her typing, her expression shifting from plain sheepish to fear-stricken. “You weren’t… here for that, were you?”

“Uh, no.”

“Oh!” she let out a breath. “Thank goodness. …Wait, I mean— I mean it obviously wasn’t good that you weren’t here, just good that you weren’t here for that! I mean for the flood! Not for the project. I’m not saying I would’ve not included you from experience of rebuilding an entire village from the ground up just so no one would ever know I destroyed it, I’m just saying that it’s good that you were safe from that destruction. …Well— Well, not safe, just…”

The monster lurched over the keyboard, suddenly overcome.

“…I should have been here, is what I’m saying.”

Clover felt a pang in their gut. They grabbed Martlet’s shoulder, remembering when she had done the same to them just hours ago.

“I’m glad you came when you did.”

The computer beeped at them, demanding attention. Martlet quickly re-straightened her back and started typing away again.

“Ah, sorry. Just… give me a moment here. Once I’m finished with this, we can…” She tried to swallow the sentence and wring the longing out of it. “…We can get out of here.”

Clover acknowledged her with a hesitant nod. They looked around the room while they waited, secretly searching for clues on Kanako’s whereabouts. The Lab’s main complex wasn’t nearly as big as the rest of the building made it seem. Between a few scattered workspaces, a small library, and a hole in the wall leading nowhere, there wasn’t many places where Kanako could be hiding. Were they wrong about her coming here? Where else in the world was left for her? The human’s eyes glazed the walls leading back towards the eastern entrance.

There was still the elevator. Its panel had one only one direction for one button: down.

The human strayed a single step. Martlet’s eye caught it immediately.

“Oh, uh, Clover,” she stammered with an uneasy smile. “Could you, er, come here and help me with something?”

The second they returned to Martlet’s side, the edge in her feathers relaxed.

“Yes, right there!” she said a little too enthusiastically. “Now just, um…”

The monster searched the table, pulling out every drawer. Out of one, she lifted a pile of heavy, damaged floppy disks and dropped it in her companion’s hands.

“Hold that for me!” she said triumphantly.

Clover awkwardly stretched their toes, inching their eyesight above the stack. “Is this important?”

“Incredibly important. Just stay right beside me. Within arm’s reach – because, you know, I might need those for a… a back up. Security. Code. Thing. You’re doing great.”

Martlet began rushing through her work, wrapping up her business at the main computer and then inspecting the other consoles, all while ushering her companion every step of the way. Clover wasn’t stupid; they knew what this was. It was a once impossible fear since made rational. The idea Clover could have their friend by their side one moment and see her disappear the next, fading forever into an obscure nightmare, was a real thing they experienced time and time again, at the end of an uncountable measure of lines. Now, Martlet feared the reverse. Even in the face of a miracle, she had restrained herself. Accepted it without question, not just because her gratitude for this reunion easily outweighed her disbelief, but because, even now, even after an eternity apart and with every reason to believe that the human beside her was mere hallucination of a forgotten hope, the monster could only think of them. Only of their feelings. She valued Clover’s comfort and their recovery from death far more than she did her own sanity. And so, she had asked them no questions. No demands for an explanation. She had simply accepted the miracle for what it was.

Except…

She feared it slipping through her feathers. Naturally so. Such was why she descended into a storm, driven by the one in a million chance that the mirage of the silhouette she saw was real. Why she gripped the overgrown human in her wings, unable to see them as anything but the child she still knew. Why she was scrambling for an excuse to keep them by her side.

And she was right to worry.

Clover looked back at the elevator again. They felt their nerves tear at each other, their guilt attempting to rip apart the resolve they had finally mustered after an endless cycle. I could have made it. I could have had a happy life. That’s what they had said to Flowey.

And it was here. It was finally here. All you have to do is let her take you away.

The stack of discs dropped to the floor. Clover’s arms fell to their sides, fists cupped.

Martlet stared at them and their mess, trying to make sense of it.

“…Woah. H-hey, it’s okay… I’m finished now. See?” Her smirk was non-plussed and heavy. “Let’s just… forget about the rest of it and get going. You’re probably sick of this place, huh? Well, we can leave it all behind. Just gotta find Ceroba and— Oh! That’s right! Ceroba, Starlo, and Dalv – they’re all here! Back in Oasis Village. Oh, man, you have no idea how much they’ve missed you. We can go see them right now. You, me, and—”

“Martlet.”

The monster became a statue of her own joy -- soon after, a tomb.

“I have to go.”

Martlet blinked. Clover watched the words send a shiver through her as she processed the sentence again and again, trying to parse them as meaning anything else. She failed, but refused to admit it.

“…Y-Yeah,” she nodded. “We can go now.”

“No. You have to let me go downstairs. Alone.”

Her functions faltered. “…I don’t— …Hah. Hahaha… ……No. No, you don’t.”

“I’ll come back. I just need to go and—”

“No!”

Martlet lunged forward, fiercely gripping Clover’s hands in her own. A bead of sweat trailed down her temple as her shoulders shook with tension.

“You can’t go,” she quavered. “Whatever it is, we can figure it out together. I-I’ll do it right this time, I promise! Just… Please, don’t go. Not again…”

Clover felt her grasp on them tighten. They saw a desperate intensity in her eyes that they recognized from a past life – the worst one. Something boiled within the each of them. Clover knew the extent of Martlet’s drive, but they also knew that theirs was greater.

They could best her, if that’s what it took. They could FIGHT and win. Would it truly be any different from running away, like they did back at the estate? Was fleeing really the better alternative to confronting the dust bunnies that shrouded Clover’s mind? She doesn’t see you as an adult. To her, you’re still a child. The living don’t play catch up. The responsibility of asserting their growth, their strength, lied with Clover themself, and if that’s what it took to wake everyone else up to the truth, then—

The human clenched their eyes shut.

…No.

No more.

No more pretending that their words could never measure up to their actions. No more blaming the ghosts that were no longer there. No more running, but no more showdowns, either. Love blooms like a sunflower: upward. Eventually, it needs to be cut. Hurt. If not, the stem will keep growing until it outweighs the head of the flower, causing it to break its neck as it bends, craning downwards without realizing it. The flower needed to be severed before it reached that point, and you had to trust that it will still love you, that it will regrow in your arms once more, in spite of the damage done. Every fantasy otherwise, every dream of true pacifism, ends with the petals growing too heavy to keep gazing skyward. It ends with the entire field looking down on you, because you are still their perfect, angelic sun, and you have lied about it for too long.

This was how it nearly ended for Ceroba Ketsukane. It might have been how it ended for her daughter, and for Clover, in another life.

…But not this one. Because this was the last one.

The human opened their eyes.

“I need you to listen, and I need you believe what I’m about to say.”

Clover’s tone immediately pacified Martlet. It was a kind of voice she had never heard from them before.

“There was a time… where I hurt you. Where I hurt all of you. Where I did awful, unforgivable things to entirety of monsterkind, all because… I don’t even know. Because I thought it was right, and back then, I needed to feel like I was doing something right in order to keep going. It was dumb, and it was childish, but it was real and I remember it, even if you don’t, and that’s never going to go away.”

Martlet stared into their eyes and saw the absurd truth of their words: a silent storm of dust circled in the colourless irises of the child she once knew.

“I just… I need time,” they continued, throat cracking. “Time to accept that. And then maybe… to move on.”

The monster remained aghast, unable to make sense of any of this. The only thing she could understand was Clover: just weight of their wince and the regret they carried, the true details of both still in planes beyond her. She blinked, and adjusted her chin, finally noticing that ten years had passed. Embarrassing as it was, Clover had to be the one who reminded her of that.

The following surge of happiness easily overshadowed her humiliation.

Marlet let their hands go. “Clover… You have all the time in the world. You have the rest of your life back.”

The human felt her words summon water in their eyes. They suppressed their tears and resisted the urge to pull the monster back and embrace her. They hadn't yet earned that, not when the rest of their business was still unfinished.

“I know. And I’m going to use it, I promise, I just… I have to go get Kanako back, first.”

Martlet’s features went wide. She had forgotten that she had a reason to be in the Underground besides her routine inspection. “Kanako? You mean she’s…” She trailed off, gaze drifting to the elevator behind them.

Clover nodded. “It’s my fault you guys haven’t found her yet. I promise, I can bring her back, I just need you to trust me.”

“Of course I trust you, but going down there by yourself…” She shuddered, knowing what lied in wait beneath them. “It’s dangerous, even empty. I should come with you.”

“No,” the human denied her. “I need you to go back to the Estate and tell the others where we are. Let them know Kanako is here, and that I’m bringing her home.”

“You say it like it’s so easy. I still don’t know how you’re here! The only reason I was able to believe it is because you were right in front of me.”

Clover contemplated the dilemma. They unwrapped the bandana bindle they had tied and revealed their SOUL inside.

Martlet nearly fell over backwards. “What!? Your SOUL— How did… Wait, did it get a tan?”

The shoved the SOUL back into their chest, bringing the monster’s attention to the bandana instead.

“Show this to them.”

Clover handed the cloth over. Marlet tenderly took it into her feathers, feeling its sewn patterning with a wistful frown.

“…You’re serious, aren’t you?”

The human couldn’t meet her gaze. They turned and made for the elevator, but felt something grab their arm. Clover braced themselves for another argument.

Martlet detached her flashlight and put it in their hands.

“…We’re not here for just her anymore. You have to come back too.”

Clover slowly yet firmly gripped their fingers around the torch. They gave into the monster’s demands, pledging the promise with one final nod. Martlet walked them over to the elevator, trying to contain her sorrow as the doors opened and their companion stepped inside.

The human smiled at her. “I’ll see you soon.”

A part of her stayed visibly unconvinced until the doors completely shut, separating them once more. As Clover pressed the switch, and the elevator began its descent into the forgotten depths, the blue SOUL’s projection emerged once more. The ballerina crossed their arms, choosing to say something on the monster’s behalf as darkness swallowed the both of them.

* You better.

Chapter Text

Clover disembarked the elevator and stepped onto an ivory railroad of steel. End of the line.

They knelt down and drew a finger across the white markings painting the metal floor. It a strange, swampy morsel that dissolved in their fingers with the viscidity of something between semi-dry paint and aged fungus. The substance already defied description as it was, but was even more mystifying about the mold was that it only lost its cohesion the moment Clover pinched it free, instantly melting in their fingers as if it simply lost the will to live the moment it was separated from the rest of its pack.

The human turned on their flashlight. The trail leading away from the elevator wasn’t a pair of lines. They were footsteps.

Clover began their pursuit of the tracks, too fixated to spare any fear. The ghost of their SOUL, meanwhile, was beginning to find much less safety in death.

* What… is this place?” The ballerina trembled as they looked around the corridor. “Is this really where they kept her all these years?”

Their host didn’t answer. The ghost turned around.

* Clover?

They found them in front of a monitor down the hall, reading a log that had been left behind with a stoic expression. Clover moved on to the next one a bit further down, then the next, pausing for a few seconds to ruminate in between. The ghost floated up to them.

* What’s wrong?

The logs were only the first few of a supposedly longer chain, but Clover was already piecing the rest of the truth together. They thought about the Zenith, and the taboo she had employed to ascend. They remembered assuming that every instance of the serum was all of Chujin’s making.

…Was that also what happened to their original SOUL, in the end? Was their essence also extracted for an attempt at salvation? Would their younger self have still consented to their own death, knowing what would happened to what remained? Clover shone their light sideways, and found Kanako’s prints again as they crossed a corner. The deformed monstrous rancour of the white still meant nothing to the human. They had chosen their values, and the only thing they saw, they only thing they would ever see, in Kanako Ketsukane was a girl who deserved better.

The answer to the question was yes: Clover had given up their life once before, and if it came to it, they would gladly do so again. The human turned the corner.

* Hey, come on! Don’t leave me talking to myself!

Clover walked into what they discerned was the lobby for another branch of the lab, the door to which was already open. Someone had saved them the trouble. The tracks on floor revealed who.

Kanako’s footprints had grown heavier overtime, leaving behind greater, wetter strains of slime as she had circled around the whole facility, her daily routine already established by criss-crosses of white. The most recent trail leading from the eastern corridor into the main lab had left behind steps the size of mud puddles. Clover clued their senses to the current room temperature. They finally noticed the absurd wave of heat flooding through the labyrinth. It easily outdid the sweltering of the Dunes, and even the blazes of the Steamworks.

“The AC’s broken… Damn it, she’s going to melt in here.”

* Broken? Maybe it’d be easier to go fix than it would be try and find her, then.

Clover jogged forward. “Doubt it. She probably destroyed it herself.”

The two descended further into the metalwork belly of the ferrous beast. Clover marched by another row of monitors, gleaning their histories as they sailed forward with a slow stride. The inner workings of the Lab had suddenly hushed itself, as if preparing for what was to come. Even the human’s footsteps against the steel floor came out muted. They paused and turned around. The ghost of a ballerina had strayed a few meters behind.

“What’s wrong?” Clover asked, returning to their side.

They didn’t answer immediately. The ballerina visibly quailed, taking note of the long, linear corridor they had found themselves in. The only exit was the way they came.

* I… don’t think I should be a part of this.

“Why not?”

They glared at the human; was it not obvious?

* I just really shouldn’t, okay? This is between you and her.

Clover’s lip curled backward. “I thought you said you wanted to make up with Kanako. This is your chance for that.”

The ghost gripped their head, hands passing through the temples.

* I didn’t— I do, but I can’t. Don’t you get it? I’m a fake. I’m not really the same person. I’m just some… some copy. A parasite Kanako grew against her will.

“Didn’t seem to bother you before.”

* Yeah, well, all the other awfulness that’s happening in your body made a pretty good distraction.

The ballerina clutched themself and turned away. Clover flinched, features pinching together as they reflected on their own incomplete state. They moved towards the projection of their SOUL, offering themself to the departed.

“…I’m not feeling all that ‘real’ myself. I’m still not even sure that I’m remembering whatever happened right. What happened in this run-around, anyway. …Feels more like… I’m trying to carry all the best bits of it over, even if it’s selfish. Or dumb. And then just… work with that. Because…”

The ghost peeked an eye at them.

* Because…?

Clover shrugged. “Because there’s a chance I actually get to keep it this time, I guess.”

The ballerina read their host’s mind. Clover had already tried a ‘reset’ of their own since reawakening. It didn’t work. It could never work. Their childhood was too far, far away to relive. The only trade-off for a lifetime lost was that losing whatever they were left with was no longer guaranteed. Compared to mistakes made in other histories, the results of this one were nearly as ideal as possible.

Ideal for everyone but the bearers of a blue SOUL.

* …It’s not the same with her, you know. I can’t talk to Kanako like I can with you. All I did was haunt her. That’s all I’m good for.

“What about when you were alive? Were you haunting her then?"

They considered that, and was forced to focus on what they knew happened: laughs shared, hands held, and the trading of snowballs and flower crowns.

Clover held out their hand.

“Come on. I’ll help you.”

The ghost stared at the human, seeing a child aged ten years younger within them.

They positioned their transparent hand in the human's palm.

* Why are you doing this?

Clover smiled nonchalantly. “I like to think that we might have been friends have at least once, if I ever had the chance to meet you. Well, I mean, besides that one time Flowey used us.”

The ballerina didn’t remember that bit. They had to look into Clover’s mind again in order to understand what they were talking about. The ghost withdrew their hand, eyes dim.

* …You know that’s a paradox, right?

“A what?”

* A paradox. As in it should have been impossible for you to know about that.

“What? Why not?”

* Because your SOUL flew away afterwards.

“Oh.”

Clover looked up the ceiling. An even dumber smirk slowly crept onto their face. The ghost flicked a frown.

* Why are you still smiling?

“It’s just nice to think that something might be watching over me.”

---

Clover stood in front of the entrance to the power room, flashlight revealing a deluge of white leaking through the open doorway. Seeing it overflow reminded them of the white flora of the Steamworks greenhouse -- they had passed by it on their initial journey back to the Ketsukane Estate after waking up to in New Home. The flowers were still there, even though the robots were either gone or inactive, and they didn’t feel so different from what Clover was looking at now.

They stepped inside the last chamber, and was proven right.

In the centre of the room, a single ray of artificial light seeped through the steel ceiling, emitting from a source that was too high and too lost in machinery to make out. The ray beamed down on a colourless grassy mound feeding a bizarre flower: a cherry blossom, somehow sprouting from a stem in the ground instead of the branch of a tree. The half-melted remains of Kanako Ketsukane sat in front of the plant, watching and waiting. She knew the human was there, but refused to acknowledged them. Clover stepped forward, carefully maneuvering around the milky roots and oozing knolls that filled the room, attaching itself to whatever it could — pipes, panels, and peninsulas of mechanical debris — like moss. They reached the mound in the middle and shone their flashlight directly on the monster’s backside, unable to see her face.

“Kanako…?” they whispered her name.

A pained exhale escaped the creature in front of them. The monster slowly twisted their body back towards the entrance.

For a moment, just a moment, Clover’s spine tingled, and they had to truly ask themselves if they had ever seen anything worse than this. They reaffirmed their grip on the flashlight, reminding themselves that it didn’t matter. All the same, they couldn’t ignore what they saw.

Kanako had brought herself to the final stage of amalgamation. The only difference was her body was not conjoined with any other; she was alone. Her snout had collapsed, softening the rest of her face to the point of deliquescence. A river of lichen ran down her shoulders and dripped from her fingers, staining the robe she wore in a fetid substance. She laid down, kneeling, and in doing so, made it impossible to judge where her legs ended in the circular puddle of taproots that surrounded her. Countless other shapes made up the deformed fragments of her body. Clover focused only on her face, and the part of it where they could still see the monster they knew: the eye, which even after removing the source that made her, still shone blue.

“…What are you doing here?” she gurgled, mouth half-knitted by stalks of slime that arched as she parted her lips.

“I’m sorry for what I did to you,” said Clover. “I lost control and… I blamed you for my problems because I was too scared to face them myself. I know you probably can’t trust me, but… I also know what happened now. All of it.”

Venom built up in her scowl, viable to ooze out the pores. “You don’t know anything.”

“You can’t blame yourself!” Clover countered her denial with determination. “It wasn’t fair; you were wedged into a corner. It didn’t—”

She rose. “Fair? You think you know about fair? My dad died for what you people called ‘fair’! He killed himself for your war! He…”

Kanako caught herself, the rage in her voice melting, but not fading. Any anger she felt about the state of the world, towards the circumstances that pushed monsterkind down into the depths in the first place, was now misplaced. Kanako had decided that she would no longer be a part of that world. To admit that she still felt something for it would be to admit that she still had hope. The very same hope that drove Chujin to his end. She needed to separate herself from him as much as she could before the end. She needed to make sure she died as his worst nightmare realized, and not his daughter.

Clover felt all of this in their deep blue heart. They thought about their own parents. Half-hazed images barely persisted past the sea of resets that divided childhood and present. A thin cube of a living room. Bottles and dishes pilling up. Sounds of static echoing throughout the house; the television is broken again. There’s a light pouring through the curtains, and in the distance, they see a mountain.

Then the human blinked, and it was all gone. For good this time. Clover did not grieve; they directed their focus back on what had brought them here.

“Kanako,” they said her name. “Your mom is here. It’s time to go home.”

She pulled herself inward, hiding her face behind her arms.

“You go.”

“She came here for you.”

“…Did you talk to her?”

Her tone wasn’t doubtful. It was curious. She was beginning to wonder just how well Clover’s return could eclipse her departure. At first, the human refused to entertain that possibility — but slowly, they began to ponder the implications themself.

“Did you want me to?” they asked.

Kanako didn’t answer.

“…Was this your plan all along?”

“What?”

“Did you save me so that I could take your place?” Her gaze dimmed again. The monster turned away. “I didn’t… save you. I…”

Clover recalled a conversation they had with her at the estate. Back then, Kanako had claimed to have dug them up and moved them to the hall of coffins in New Home — and that was all. Clover now knew that this was a lie. The last part, anyway. Kanako had very deliberately left a part of herself behind in what had been a rotten corpse. Such was why she did not recognize it, when she found it walking the earth mere hours later, sending prayers near her father’s grave.

The human glowered, extending the arm and stretching out an alarmingly sharp set of fingers. Suddenly, they drove their hand into their chest, opening some kind of portal that allowed them to reach inside. A moment later, they pulled out a blue SOUL, exactly as it was when Kanako ripped it from her own being and inserted it inside Clover’s. She inched backward, immediately recalling the harsh whispers and sleepless nights the thing had caused back when it first grew inside her.

“You did save me. It’s the reason I’m here now.”

Kanako remained recoiled in shock, performing a double take on the vessel that beat beside its new host. Her shoulders gradually relaxed as guilt returned to weigh her into dust.

“…I didn’t… I only put it in you because I wanted to get rid of it. I didn’t think it’d revive you — I still don’t even know how any of this works! I just…”

* …I don’t blame her.

The ghost was still hidden within the SOUL. Clover remained focused on the task at hand.

“It doesn’t matter,” they tried to reassure the monster. “The point is that this came from you. You grew a human SOUL inside of you, from scratch! Don’t you get it what that means, Kanako? Chujin was right. He was trying to find ways to transform regular monsters into Boss Monsters, but found something better. Think about it! The fact that you made this, and thatI can carry it, proves that we aren’t as different as we thought. We can take this to the surface. We can resolve whatever tension there still is between humans and monsters! …We can make your father proud.”

Kanako looked at them, eyes wary and watery. Her stomach retracted as if the mere attempt at words dug the breath out of her.

“Clover… I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m terrified. Terrified of myself. Of the world. I can’t take it anymore. I just can’t…”

The human had seen Kanako scared before — they had been responsible for it, already, on multiple occasions. But gazing at the paling husk as she wept imparted a true understanding of the monster before them.

No… Of course this wasn’t what she wanted. An end to monsterkind’s struggle was a promise freedom and peace, but those values were irrelevant to Kanako. A future with her father would have been enough. The human was hardly different; Clover’s delving into the Underground was a hollow gesture. They only did it to find something to fill the hole of their upbringing. Back then, all either child ever wanted was companionship from their distracted parents. Now, they were too horrified with what they had become in the meantime to bear being seen. Time had made ironic jokes out of them both.

Clover bit their lip, desperately searching inward for a solution. What could they do? What could they say? They rewound every moment they spent with Kanako over the past few days. They thought about how, even after descending into the Underground and making a choice of eternal isolation, she had still allowed herself an afternoon of play, tugging Clover around by the arm. They thought about the stubborn, unconscious wish inherited she from her mother: to lead a different life, where she didn’t need to think about the choices that destroyed her old one. Clover now knew all the choices they themself had made. All the chances they had squandered. And yet, the human was still here, not to defy the need for redemption, but instead, to see it through.

Kneeling down to her level, they made that example known to their friend.

“…I was scared, too. Hell, I still am. I can still feel the nightmares whenever I thought about your family, and when I saw them just now I… I had to run away. All I can think about is what will happen if I hurt them again.”

“Then you get it!” said Kanako. “You know why I can’t go back.”

“I do, but I know you don’t want to be alone either.”

She twisted her melting face into a cruel growl in an attempt to scare them off. “And what makes you so sure of that?”

“Because I don’t want to be alone, now that I’ve met you.”

Her expression evaporated.

“Going to the surface, facing my friends and making up for the years lost, it’s scary, but…” Clover continued, “…I realized that I have to, you know? When I woke up, and walked through the Dunes with you, all I wanted was to go back to the kid I was back then.” They let out a chuckle. “Things were so simple compared to now, after all. …But I realized that’s not possible. ‘Cause that kid came back, and played catch up with me.”

She squinted at them. “‘Catch up?’”

“I don’t know much about what’s been happening on the surface, but if I had to take a guess… I’d say that change has been happening pretty slowly up there. That’s how it was back in my day. People don’t much like having their good memories confronted, but it’s gotta happen. You gotta tell them thing’s have changed — that we’ve changed — and you gotta make ‘em see that. And then you gotta hope they’ll still love it for you anyway.”

Kanako stared in awe of the human as they naturally slipped back into an accent that seemed familiar to her somehow, as if they had finally remembered who they were, and that person was her dearest, most cherished friend.

Clover leaned back, laughing again. “Dying’s a hell of a wake-up call, turns out.”

The monster quivered, the heat of the place reminding her of the borrowed time she had set for herself. She looked at her deformed paw as it threatened to permanently leave her body.

Kanako realized she wasn’t ready to lose this moment in time, either.

“…Do you really think they’ll accept me?” she asked her friend.

“You mean the rest of the surface? Forget that. You ain’t gotta to justify your existence to anyone, Kanako — not unless you want to. Only thing you hafta do is tell Ceroba how you really feel. I had to go through the motions with Martlet, myself.”

“But what about what you said earlier? About my SOUL and Dad—“

“I misspoke durin’ that. Made it seem like he isn’t already proud of you as is even though I’ve already heard everybody yap about how much he loved you. Hell, you two were practically the only thing they talked about back then. Point is, it’s a good way to honour him, I think, but not if we end up rushin’ it. We can take our time. Learn to accept ourselves first. Your dad seems patient enough; I could feel him smiling at me back when we prayed to him."

* Actually, can we not gloss over her first concern? If she doesn’t have a SOUL of her own after giving you hers then—

Oh, right.

Clover stifled a cough. “…That said, how are you doing? I mean, if you gave the SOUL you grew to me, then—“

“I have another.”

“Huh?”

Kanako demonstrated the existence of her own inverted monster SOUL well enough.

“That blue one never replaced anything, it just… grew alongside what I already have.”

Clover’s shock gradually transformed into admiration. “…You really are a miracle.”

Kanako nearly keeled over. She certainly didn’t feel like a miracle. The Lab’s heating was nearing the same level as the rest of Hotland, and the monster could feel the distance flames pull at her skin as her consciousness began to wane. Letting herself sink into her true amalgamous form was an instinct, a sudden option that was suddenly available to her the moment she sat down on the steel floor and practiced a meditative technique her father had taught her long ago. What happened next had occurred an instant, and it felt far past the point of no return.

That is, until the outstretched arm of Clover entered her vision.

“…Let’s go home, Kanako. Together.”

The monster stared at the hand, the offering she never thought she’d both receive and feel herself worthy of receiving. And yet… she trusted it. More than anything. She allowed herself to imagine this moment as it might have been, years ago, if things were just a little different. Finding lasting companionship in another human, much like the one she had met in Snowdin. A young monster, and a hatted child, exploring the Underground, hand in hand.

Kanako reached out and took hold of that miracle, believing in it, and for the first time in a long time, felt the security of a person who would never let her go, no matter what.

---

The cool, tender air of New Home couldn’t have come a moment sooner. As Clover supported their sister with her arm around their shoulder, Kanako could feel the elongations in her soft skin crawl back into their proper place. A breeze brushed her cheeks and entered her lungs, filling her core with a fresh breeze that somehow made her insides feel less hollow than they did before.

This was not the way home. Clover had instead chosen to get Kanako away from the heat as soon as possible, and had taken her north. The monster didn’t complain. She knew her mother was waiting for her back at the estate, and that whatever would happen after that would be… a lot. Clover was here now, and they would help — that was their promise. Still, Kanako was grateful for whatever extra time she could have to brace herself for the choice she had made. They walked in silence — or at least, silent to each other. Kanako watched Clover’s wayward gaze as they limbed along, and noticed that they seemed to be distracted by something, lips slightly parting to mouth words, as if they were talking to themself.

A phrase leaked through. “…tell her yourself…”

“What?” said Kanako.

Clover let out a heavy sigh. They stopped walking for a moment and tapped their chest, a faint blue glow emanating from the well-cultivated SOUL within them.

“Did you ever get around to watching the rest of your dad’s tapes?”

“Yes.”

“What about the one where he—“

“I know,” she cut them off as way of asserting that she was over the horror of it all; her most unconvincing act yet. “What… about it?”

The human tapped their chest again. “Well, that friend of yours is talking to me now.”

Kanako blinked, then squinted.

“…Is this like that thing that happened back in the bar, or—“

“No, no. That was different ghost. But I helped but him to rest so done he’s haunting me — uh, I think. It’s complicated. Point is this one here’s the real deal.”

She stared at Clover, waiting for them to realize the absurdity of their statement.

“Ugh, look— You’re friends, ain’t ya?” they said aloud to no one in particular. “Why do you need me to middleman this business?” A pause; waiting for a response. “Yeah, I used the same excuse, and ya remember what she said to that? ‘Skill issue’, whatever the heck that means.”

Kanako glared at them. “What is happening?”

The human glowered, lazily extending their arm and reaching into their chest once more. They pulled out the blue SOUL.

“You know, you never told me your name,” they said to the thing.

A diaphanous ballerina emerged from the heart. They crossed their legs as they hovered around the human.

* No, but I did tell you that she can’t see me like you can. We were incompatible for each other, and if it wasn’t for her dad, I—

“Lilac…?”

The ghost froze, eyes wide. It and Clover both turned to Kanako, who stood breathless before the floating phantom, looking directly into eyes that should have been invisible to all but the SOUL’s host.

Clover titled their chin, lips curled. “You were sayin’?”

“Is that really you?” Kanako stepped forward. The ballerina inched back, suddenly mortified by the knowledge that they could be seen.

* …No… No no no! They tried to worm their way back into the human. * She can’t see me after what I did! You have to keep me away from her!

The human played catch with their own SOUL, indifferent to the spectre phasing back and forth through them. “Rent ain’t free, lil' coryphée," they rhymed. "You’re the one who wanted me to go an’ save her. I’m not lettin’ ya bottle up the rest of that self-hate back into me.”

The ballerina groaned as they tried to duck behind Clover’s back and balled themself into the fetal position. Kanako stepped around the human and met her friend in their shade.

“Lilac,” she repeated the name, parting from her parched lips as if they were a sweet-scented water. “What happened to you? I-I don’t…” Her neck drooped in shame. “…I’m sorry.”

* What? Lilac’s face exited their arms. * No! You don’t have anything to apologize for. It was me who…

They trailed off. Kanako tried to reach them. “…What?”

Clover wandered as they continued to juggle the SOUL, reading the ghost’s mind as if they were images in their own. “What Swan Lake here is trying to say is that they're sorry for all of it. What happened in Snowdin, that havoc inside of you -- that ’n lots more.”

* You stay out of this!

Kanako winced at them. “But… it is you, isn’t it? This whole time, whenever I heard your voice, I thought…that it was just another hallucination. I should have tried harder. I should have tried to understand you instead of casting you out and—“

* No, you shouldn’t have. It took me this long to figure out what was going on myself. Besides, I’m not even them. I’m not the person you were friends with. Lilac’s SOUL is gone. I’m just… a fake.

Clover spun the SOUL on their finger as if it were a basketball. “A fake made of the romantic memories Kanako kept of you.”

* I’m seriously going to give that flower a run for its money if you don’t shut up!

Kanako crouched down, overwhelmed. “I can’t believe any of this... This is all just…”

Lilac sunk to her level, desperate to comfort her.

* Look, I only became conscious after joining with this guy and suffering through a mind palace of endless trauma — which, thanks for that, by the way. Clover winked at them with finger guns. * The SOUL your dad made was human, which means it was only ever gonna properly work with a human. You can’t blame yourself for—

“My dad killed you. …I could have stopped him.” Lilac stopped talking, the ballerina's nettled persona blown away with the wind as they looked down on the monster sobbing before them. The ghost drifted closer, setting themself down on the ground beside Kanako in an attempt to bridge the impassable gap of physical presence. It should have been a futile effort, but somehow, Kanako felt a lingering sense of warmth by her side as Lilac placed their head on her shoulder.

* …I can’t speak for the child you knew. I can’t tell you what they was thinking that day. But… I don’t think they regretted meeting you, because, knowing how they was raised… you were probably the best thing that’s ever happened to them. Maybe that’s what it was. Possession. Fear that, somehow, they was losing you. Not because of anything you did, but… because that risk was just what they feared the most.

Kanako lifted her snout to the ceiling, watching the grey horizon turn a different shade of ash as the Underground’s equivalent to twilight began to descend on them.

“…You’re just like them. Smart. Elegant.” She turned to the apparition beside her with a thin smile. "...I'm really happy you're here, Lilac."

The ballerina’s face loosened, a pensive smirk of their own overtaking their dread.

Clover stepped forward and helped Kanako back up to her feet. They led her onward again, heading towards the courtyard where the cherry blossom tree stood. Lilac floated alongside them.

“But, I really still don’t understand,” the monster insisted. “The way you guys were talking earlier made it seem like you thought only Clover was able to see you.”

The human arched a brow at their ghastly companion. “Well, it’s not like we ever confirmed it. Just sorta assumed.”

* What with all the other hallucinatory demons haunting this dude.

“Mhmm,” Clover nodded, suspiciously untroubled.

“But you’re real,” Kanako reiterated. “SOULs don’t usually have spirits, do they?”

* What, you think I know? It’s not like I can just look it up in the library I’ve got here. The lamp I'm stuck in has hardly ever read a book in their life.

Clover pouted, unable to refute that. “We’ll… look into it when we getcha back. But I wouldn’t be surprised if this s’all another achievement of your dad’s.”

The trio reached the balcony, petals blowing in the wind as the tree had begun to process of letting the last of its young break free of the concrete peninsula. Kanako left Clover’s shoulder and walked to the centre of the square, approaching a long blanket of dirt tucked into breach within the cobble, and a tombstone that had been erected behind it.

Clover. Forever in our hearts.

She peered at the human beside her with the eternal fear of being unforgiven clawing its way back into her. Clover stared at their grave for the first time, unsure what to make it. Their gaze drifted down to the down at the puddle of soil. The implant of a shovel’s edge could still been seen in the mound.

“So this is where you…”

Kanako nodded. “…Yes.” She tried to think of something to say. “It… It got moved around a lot, by the King’s request, but Starlo… He always arguing, fighting to make sure it would make its way back. Mom told me that he got everyone from the Wild East to come up here and threatened to lead a rebellion against Asgore unless he let them build a grave here.”

“Why did you move the coffin all the way back to that corridor?”

“I… I don’t know. I guess… I wanted to see if Mom would notice.”

“Notice what?”

“That you weren’t here. She forgot about Dad. I knew she would remember eventually, and that she’d come back to try and make up for that, but it made me think… What about you? Would they come here also, pay their respects, and then leave all without realizing that you weren’t even in the ground they buried you in?” There was not an ounce of pride in her words. “…I wanted that as a weapon to disgrace her with, if making her hate me was what it took for them to leave me here.”

Kanako nearly choked as a new, silent stream of tears erupted from her scattered pores. She had left her grief behind, but doing so had only given her regrets to all the more room to fill in. Mucus clogged her emulsive face. In the corner of her blurred vision, she saw Clover tear something off their clothing and hold out something to her.

It was a piece of their frayed, sank-soaked vest, but the motion in which they offered it implied that it was instead to be treated like a handkerchief. The monster felt her hiccups pause. She stood in reverence of Clover’s kindness. The human beamed back at her, eyes fully open, as if they had finally woken up from a long nap.

“It’s not much, but... Better than nothing, I hope.” They looked beyond their grave, gaze locked on to and grateful for the beautiful view they had been buried beside. “I get the feeling we won’t be stuck wearing these rags for much longer.”

Kanako accepted the cloth. She spread it out in the hands, memorizing its pattern and the feeling of its texture before cleaning herself with it, immersing herself in the smells of her desert home. It wasn’t just tears and snot, all the frayed liquids that had formed on her face seemed to wash away with a single stroke, making her face feel the most solid it had been in years.

Lilac rotated in place, spotting something behind them. They grinned smugly.

* Hey, cowboy. Your stork’s come to take you home.

Kanako turned and followed the ghost’s gaze to the skies. In the distance, the silhouette of a bird monster could be seen flying through the air. It had clearly seen them also, and was now descending back behind a building, an eruption of distant voices faintly heard as news of the reconnaissance reached the ground.

Clover let out a soft chuckle. They turned to their spiritual companion.

“Would you like to meet ‘em?”

Lilac did their best impression of a housemaid who had just been popped the question.

* Me!? Oh, goodness, but I’m just too nervous! What if I mess up and make an irreversible impression to the parents of my beloved? The shame would be endless! I would simply die! Again! They shifted back to their normal, aloof self. * Get me in there.

“Yeah, yeah,” Clover hummed as they inserted their SOUL back into their chest, the ballerina fading from view as they shrunk back into their humble, cozy home.

Ironically, Kanako felt her own chest tighten. Stepping into view out from behind the building were three more silhouettes alongside the first monster, still far away, but unmistakable all the same. The tallest shadow was the first to stop them. It paused for a moment, then broke out into a dash, sprinting their way with the other three behind it.

She felt something fester in the back of her mind. The drawling of forsaken emotions began to cloud her judgment. Her throat tightened and her heart — the remaining monster SOUL her father had left her with — skipped a beat.

“I’m not ready,” she whispered.

Clover took her hand without looking at her, eyes fixated on the distant shapes as their clothes and colours gradually became visible.

“Me neither,” they admitted. “But that’s okay. We’ll take it slow if we have to, and we’ll make them understand that.”

Kanako tightened her grip on them. In her other hand, she held the soiled rag against her chest.

“What if she doesn’t forgive me?” she mewled.

Clover peeked at her out of the corner of their eye. “Are you gonna forgive her?”

Kanako saw her mother fully come into view as Ceroba entered the square. Her voice cried for her daughter. Starlo clenched his hat as he kept up with her.

“…I already have.”

Clover looked back at the fountain and watched Martlet and Dalv circle around the opposite side. Their legs began to quiver, but was quickly soothed thanks to the efforts of their SOUL, which let out a resonate, pacifying thrum, doing what it could for them in place of exposing itself.

Kanako let out a final breath. “I’m really glad I met you, Clover.”

The human felt their strong, gunslinging facade break as they suddenly wished that had kept the cloth for their own use. Their voice cracked.

“I’m glad I met you, too.”

Despite the sheer weight of the embracing barrage that assailed them from all sides not a moment later, the two stayed hand in hand, their grip on one another inseparable until detachment was necessary to climb out of the Underground — and even then, immediately replaced by Kanako reaching out and pulling Clover over a wall as they finally reached the surface.