Chapter Text
You closed your eyes and inhaled deeply.
"Okay." You reached out, taking hold of the hand Seven extended to you. Even if you RESET everything, that could be fixed; After all, UNDERTALE had survived RESETs before, and this time didn't have to be any different. Once you were safe, you could help everyone get back to the points they needed to be at, especially since you had a better idea of your own strength.
This would be for the best, whether they believed you or not.
As soon as you took hold of Seven's hand, you could see that he visibly relaxed, and a smile appeared on his face. "I'm so glad you agree, F/n. Honestly, I was a little worried you'd turn me down." He laughed sheepishly.
You released his hand and stared at the ground, feeling a little guilty about your choice, but not prepared to go back on it. "Well, since I know what I can do, I can help them get back to where they need to be." You would return to the original story and help Frisk through the Underground, and get your friends back out into the world.
Seven nodded in agreement. "Exactly. All we need to do is collect those souls."
"So..." You looked around the Void, recalling you'd left Error behind. "Would it be okay if I went back to check on Error, and tell him what we need to do?"
He shifted a little uneasily, averting his gaze. "Well... not exactly."
"Huh? Why not?" You frowned to yourself. It wouldn't take much to open a portal back to the Void, and you were sure Error would still be where you left him. He was probably worried sick right now.
He shook his head and turned back to you. "You won't be able to use your powers here. This is a 'corrupted' zone." He explained.
"A corrupted zone...?"
"Yeah. That was how I redirected you from the portal you'd made."
So, he'd seen you do that. "Well, can you send me back, then?"
There was another pause, and he shook his head again. "I can't. It was risky to just bring you here, but to bring you back there..." He trailed off, and you took the hint; It would be bad news. You stared down at your hands, thinking for a moment. Error was back in the Void, probably panicked at your sudden disappearance, and apparently there was nothing you could do about it.
A feeling of helplessness started to creep up on you, but before it had a chance to take over Seven spoke again. "He's... probably looking for you, you know." He didn't sound particularly happy, but the thought gave you a sudden hope.
"...Yeah, he probably is." You nodded to yourself, perking a little. He'd never just sit around and wait for you to come back.
"If we start looking for the CORE souls, I'm sure we'll run into him." Seven finished, giving you a purposeful look.
The promise of finding Error again strengthened your resolve, and you nodded, standing up straight. "You're right. So, how are we going to do this?"
Seven turned away from you and raised an arm, closing his open hand in the air. The data that composed his fingers seemed to lag a little behind them, creating a strange swaying motion rather than closing the way a normal hand would, but a portal of pitch-black data appeared in front of you, swirling gently. "We'll go to the "other" worlds, and find the CORE souls." He turned to face you. "Once we have seven of them, we can RESET."
"Seven souls..." You stared at the portal intently, as though you could see where you were going just by looking at it. You weren't stupid; That meant seven deaths. Seven sacrifices.
You closed your eyes and imagined a world without Error, without Gaster, without anything.
You walked up to the portal and stuck a hand in, then turned to Seven and smiled weakly at him.
"Let's go."
When you stepped through the dark portal, something odd happened; You suddenly became light-headed, and as though you'd been struck on the head, you blacked out.
~
Sans watched the dark sky, his usual nervous smile down-turned ever so slightly. While he was completely used to messed-up things happening, this was... more unnerving than usual.
While the sky was painted its normal red and the moon still glowed sickly yellow, bathing the dead forest in shadows, there was something terribly amiss; The large, coal-black tear that had appeared in the sky.
He hadn't thought much of it at first; Honestly, he'd done his best to ignore the fact that it even existed, as the mere thought of another problem popping up made him sweat. Unfortunately, Papyrus had noticed it as well, and after a swift verbal beating, had instructed him to keep watch over both the hole in the sky and the road leading to Snowdin.
"ah, dammit..." He sighed, slumping over against a tree. "s' hard enough to watch the stupid road, let alone this thing..." After a cursory glance down the road, he looked back up at the sky, his good left eye focusing intently on the hole. "but... " In all his years, even back before the Underground became corrupted from the insanity of Genocide run after Genocide run, he'd never seen something like this happen.
"...what the hell is it?"