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0.
Mayhem.
There is no other way for Ceroba to describe the fight.
Mayhem, petals raining down.
Mayhem, unleashed around them.
Mayhem, ten tails lashing behind her.
Mayhem, a cracked mask on her face.
She is losing.
She knows she is losing.
But this is how it must be.
She'd sealed her fate when the first attack had hit.
Feathers- or whatever her real name was- lying across the railing.
Starlo on the other side, similarly unconscious.
Her doing.
This would come to an end one way or another, win or lose.
And she is losing.
Until she isn't.
Clover, poor, righteous Clover, not having harmed a single soul, stops fighting.
Their soul freezes in her final desperate attack, their face shifting into a smile, as if they planned this.
She doesn't stop.
Fire strikes its target.
Flesh burns, and Clover drops.
Their soul floats up from their body, yellow and whole and pure.
This is what she had planned, right?
Then why do her hands shake as she seals the soul inside its container?
Why are her eyes watering when she picks up the bloody, burned corpse?
She has no right to be holding them like this, like she hadn't caused their suffering.
Like they were family.
She stands with a corpse in her arms and a yellow soul in a container, looking over the city.
It is a beautiful view.
She supposes there are worse places to die.
She should go to the lab, get Kanako's soul and combine them.
She doesn't.
She leaves the corpse below the tree, and returns to the Wild East with a filled soul container, two unconscious monsters, and blood on her hands.
The Feisty Four are at the entrance, shouting at her and trying to block her way.
She drops Starlo and Feathers, and leaves the way she came.
She isn't welcome. Not after today. She knows that.
Instead, she goes to the mansion.
She has not gone to the mansion since Kanako…
The door is unlocked. Courtesy of Ed and Star, probably.
She wonders why they had even bothered. They know she spends her days in the Wild East instead. Did they already want her out?
She leaves Clover's soul in Kanako's room.
She goes out to the gravesite, after.
She does not know why. It only succeeds in lowering her mood even more, like always.
When she returns, five figures are at her door.
She stares at them, and they stare back.
Starlo steps forward, gesturing for her to come with.
She is happy to see he is healed. She doesn't show it.
She keeps her face neutral as she joins them.
No words are spoken during the walk home.
When they arrive, they head straight to their house.
Her house, too.
All six of them had their own place to sleep inside, which they all took.
Despite only knowing them for a day, and planning to kill them throughout the entire time she spent with them, Ceroba missed their deputy.
꧁᪥🌸᪥꧂
Ceroba had always been the odd one out in their group.
She had never participated in their little gang, nor the soft kisses they'd give each other, nor the less soft ones.
She has another thing to set her apart now.
The red stains on her fur that refused to leave.
She's tried to wash them out several times, and the others insisted they no longer see anything, but she does.
She always will.
When she looks in the mirror, her ponytail transforms, tails lashing behind her, and she is back in New Home, for a moment.
She doesn't wear her hair up anymore.
She deposits the bow in her old room in the mansion one day.
She doesn't go to pick it back up.
The Underground is searching for the missing human. It had become well known that there was one, after many sightings were reported, but it seemed they had simply vanished over a week ago. No monster knew where they had gone.
No monster, except herself, Starlo, Ed, Ace, Mooch, Moray, and Feathers.
Though she hasn't talked to them. Any of them. But they must have guessed the basics, at least.
Feathers was the most debatable, Ceroba not even having spotted the bird monster since the day it had happened. Though she would be surprised if she didn't know.
Ceroba feels like she is going crazy.
No one has said anything about it.
She can barely sleep, flashbacks in her mind whenever she does.
Her hands are sticky, and red, and yet she knows they aren't, and when she blinks she sees they aren't.
Not literally.
A figure is often in the corner of her eye, though whenever she turns around, looks for it, it has already disappeared.
It looks like a flower, she thinks.
She knows the others worry about her.
She also knows anything she could tell them would not stop their worries.
After all, she cannot go back to erase what has been done.
The past is the past, and the past is her fault.
So when the five go out on a dinner date, Ceroba stays at home.
She has never been one for romance or partnership. Chujin was the only exception she's experienced.
The five came close, though.
While she was upfront about her not wanting a part of their romantic endeavors, they always made her feel included.
Whether that be with a night out, a comfy house, or a family.
She still remembered the first time she'd come over. She'd met most of them by proxy before, but she hadn't spent much time with any of them.
It hadn't been long after Chujin's death and Kanako's falling down. The mansion had been too empty for her to spend her time in.
She'd gone to Starlo, spent the day catching up with her old friend.
“Would you like to stay for dinner?” He'd asked.
“Would you like to stay forever?” Mooch had added.
Ever since, Ceroba has lived in the Wild East.
꧁᪥🌸᪥꧂
1.
Ceroba doesn't know why Ace keeps following her.
It seems the past few days, the monster shows up wherever she goes.
Whether she goes to the bar, or to their house, or even to Blackjack or the medic- Ace is there.
She hasn't gotten a proper moment to herself since it started.
Even more confusingly, he doesn't even talk to her, not even acknowledging what he's doing.
Until one specific day at the bar he does.
He slides over an ace of spades card- still without saying a word.
She's about to ask him why, but he stops her. She frowns, flipping over the card in her hand.
There's writing on it.
‘I don't hate you. We all make mistakes.’
She's…
Surprised? Confused? Saddened?
She's that, and endeared.
It isn't comparable, what she's done.
But when she looks back up, Ace is there, his expression genuine, and her heart tightens.
꧁᪥🌸᪥꧂
2.
Ceroba doesn't usually spar.
After graduating, she's kept up her magic skills on her own. The only time she's ever practiced together with someone was with Starlo, and that had been years ago.
And she doesn't need it either. Which became clear during the first proper fight she'd ever had. That she'd won.
That she'd killed Clover in.
Before that, the worst fight she'd fought was fending off bullies in school. Those fights never ended in tragedy. At worst, a suspension for a few days.
Yet her powers have grown immensely since then, apparently.
Grief changes a monster, she figures.
Disregarding her short mental spiral, Ceroba looks at Moray, who is awaiting her response to the question they'd just asked.
They'd asked to spar with her.
“Why?” She wants to ask, but doesn't. “Why are you ignoring that I could kill you?”
She's done so before.
She wouldn't kill Moray on purpose, but it was said that any EXP made it easier for someone to harm. To kill.
Killing Clover had given her EXP.
Still, she hesitantly nods.
“Alright.” She says.
Moray smiles at her, and they duel.
She holds back.
She loses.
It's expected.
She's relieved.
What she doesn't expect is for Moray to smile at her, practically beaming.
“That was awesome!” They say. “You did great!”
They pause, but start talking again before she could think of a response.
“You were all stiff, though. Like you're refusing to deal any damage. I can take a few hits, Cer! Plus, I know you're not trying to… let anything bad happen to me, so you really don't gotta worry about that happening.”
Ceroba stares at them.
They're dancing around the actual reason for her worries.
They're saying they trust her.
They called her by a nickname.
She almost tears up.
꧁᪥🌸᪥꧂
3.
There is a cat bed on the couch.
The couch that she sleeps on, in the house of her and the Five, to be more specific.
Before, Starlo usually took the couch, or he'd sleep at his parents’ place, but ever since that day she's forced him to take the bed opposite to Moray.
A sore back is the least she deserves.
The cat bed is easily recognised too. It's where Mooch spends the nights, and sure enough, it has disappeared from its usual spot.
She frowns, wondering if there was a prank at play. Either on her, or on Mooch, she didn't know.
She decides to move the bed back to its original location, gets on the couch, and promptly forgets about it.
When she wakes up, she feels a weight on her chest.
It's warm. She doesn't want to open her eyes just yet.
Her arm wraps around the mass, squeezing it closer.
It's soft, too. Did the others get a pet while she was asleep?
It's not until she hears a familiar sound, a purr occasionally interrupted by soft chittering, that her eyes fly open.
She has to stop herself from throwing the smaller monster off in shock.
“Mooch?” She sleepily questions.
The squirrel monster’s eyes slowly blink open with a yawn.
“Yeah?”
“What are you doing?”
The cat bed still is on the counter, but Mooch had apparently made up her mind on where to sleep.
“Sleeping?” Mooch jokes.
She jumps off shortly after, and Ceroba is left to ponder in confusion.
She doesn't run into Mooch for the rest of the day, but when she wakes up next morning, a suspiciously similar weight is once again laying atop her.
She's about to shoo her off again, but something makes her pause.
The cuddly monster is making warmth bloom in her chest, and she doesn't just mean physically.
When was the last time she's hugged someone for longer than a few seconds?
She hasn't allowed herself since the Clover incident, and even before, she can't think of any proper moment that happened after Chujin and Kanako.
She's missed it, she realizes.
So, she lets Mooch stay where she is, gently scratching between her ears. Could Ceroba pet her like a cat? Was it offensive of her to think that?
She is about to let her hand drop back to her side when the purring she'd heard the day before started up again, and she decides it's probably fine.
“Why?” She asks when Mooch eventually awakes.
“You looked like you needed a few good hugs,” Mooch answers. “And I wanted you to know I care about you too.”
“Thank you.” Ceroba chokes out, and she means it.
꧁᪥🌸᪥꧂
4.
Ceroba doesn't know why she's gone here.
Here, being her old bedroom.
But she hasn't left since she'd arrived a couple hours ago.
She lies face-down on the bed, gripping the pillow as she grumbles into it.
She'd been thinking about Clover again.
The past months she's tried to think about them as little as possible, but they'd always been in the back of her mind anyway.
Because she'd done that.
What had happened to the old Ceroba? The one who was a loving mother and wife, the one who was unburdened by the regret she carries with her now?
Had she died along with Clover? Along with Chujin? …Along with Kanako?
Except Kanako isn't dead. The royal scientist had said she would fix her.
Though the nonexistent responses to her questioning letters say something different.
Kanako is dying or dead and it is her fault.
Clover is dead and it is her fault.
And she isn't doing anything about either of those things, because she'd decided ignoring her faults was better.
She could have finished Chujin's research by now.
She could have fused Clover's soul with Kanako's, and it might have even worked.
Would it have?
Kanako's soul already had the serum from the previous human’s soul in it. Would their impurity cause the entire experiment to fail?
And what about Asgore? She hasn't kept up with the search for Clover, but she's sure they will find her eventually.
She knows they've found the corpse she's left.
It was hard to ignore the uproar it had caused- a dead human without a soul, and no one knowing who killed them?
Especially since Asgore didn't have the soul.
She'd left the blue soul in Waterfall a year back and it hadn't been traced back to her. But, she knew it would be possible if they searched harder now.
Which they might, considering it was a very similar situation.
Chujin being at the sighting, the Axis prototypes…
She's surprised the royal guard hasn't come knocking at her door yet.
If they did, the soul wouldn't be hard to find.
But she's tired, and annoyed, and angry.
She doesn't know what to do.
She hears stumbling outside her door.
Had they found her?
She sneaks up slowly, hand resting on the doorknob.
The door creaks when opened, but she can't stay in either.
She isn't going to go down at the king's orders.
A low hiss in her throat, she tightens her grip, throwing the door open and-
A pink face stares back at her sheepishly.
Ed stands in her hallway, a potted bamboo plant in his arms. The stems have a bow wrapped around them, bright red and messily tied.
“Ed?” She asks in surprise. Her ears perk up from their previous pinned back position, and she has to repress a smile at the sight of the other monster.
“Uh,” he stammers around the plant, slowly lowering it to the ground and placing it- though it had still been hovering a couple centimeters, which was made clear by a soft thump as it hit the ground.
“So, me and Star never got around to finishing cleaning this place because of the whole… situation… and I figured I could do that now… and also bring a gift?”
Her eyes drop back to the plant. She already has many similar bamboo plants- which was probably why Ed suspected she'd like it- but one more couldn't hurt, right?
“Thank you, Ed.”
She goes to take the plant into her room, smiling at him before closing the door.
The bow will stay, that's for sure.
꧁᪥🌸᪥꧂
5.
Ceroba couldn't remember a time before Starlo.
They grew up together. They'd always been like two peas in a pod, two cobs on a corn plant.
When she met Chujin, and Starlo met his posse, they'd grown apart.
They were still friends, but they didn't do much together for quite a while, instead focusing on their relationships.
Even after she moved in with them, after she'd inserted herself into their group, their friendship didn't seem quite as tight as when they were kids.
Apparently, it was loose enough for her to attack her best friend.
She still thinks about that night.
It plays in her dreams more often than not.
Starlo turning towards her, emotions in his eyes that she can't decipher fast enough before Feathers- Martlet, she recently discovered- grabs Clover and leaps, and she strikes them down.
Starlo's expression turning to shock, gaze flickering from the body and back to her as if he couldn't process what she'd done. Anger, fear, disgust, hatred in his eyes, or perhaps not, she can't tell, as he rushes towards her and she hits him forcefully, watching as his body crumples against the wall.
Martlet didn't die. Starlo didn't die.
But she hadn't known that.
And Clover did die.
She didn't even stop to think when Star tried to convince her, or when he'd gone down.
She'd rushed straight into battle anyway.
And it hadn't even given her anything.
Or at least, nothing she used.
After that, the bond between her and Starlo had no longer felt fractured, but fully broken.
Except he'd still invited her home after everything had happened.
He still allowed her to sleep in the same house as him.
He still welcomed her in whenever she returned late at night and the others had all fallen asleep.
And the rest of the Five had accepted her back as well.
She cared about all of them, and she showed it.
They cared for her back as well.
Except it has been months, and she hasn't had a proper conversation with Starlo once.
She wouldn't blame him if they never will.
Even if her heart would ache.
Each time she stands face to face with him, each time she sees him wandering from the corner of her eye, each time he is there, in view, but silent whenever they lock eyes.
Her mind would scream at her to say something, do something, repair a bond maintained by a single tattered strand.
“I miss you,” it told her to say. “Can we talk?”
Just a single sentence.
But she refused.
Still, the world didn't seem to take no for an answer.
And he didn't either.
Because as much as she tries to stay away from Starlo, their lives are connected.
And on top of that, he keeps smiling at her, like nothing had ever happened between them.
And then, one day, when he opens his mouth to say something, he doesn't silently close it again.
“How's it going, Cer?” He asks.
It's such a small phrase.
She looks around. They're alone. The posse has moved further, leaving the two of them alone on the porch.
A crack in the wall between them.
He saunters over to her, leaning against the singular pole holding up the roof above them.
“Been a while.” He comments.
Something breaks.
She rushes towards him, wrapping her arms around the lanky monster, her face buried in his shoulder.
“Sure has,” she mumbles. “Missed you.” She's not sure if he even heard her.
Star hugs her back when he's recovered from the suddenness of the embrace. Ceroba hums happily from the warmth it gives.
“Shoulda talked sooner.” He manages to say despite the force with which Ceroba is squeezing him closer to her.
“Should have.” She agrees.
They stay like that for several minutes, eventually separating, though their hands remain clasped.
They stare at each other.
“I'm sorry,” They both say, at the exact same moment, comically enough.
A grin sneaks onto her face.
“You first.” Ceroba says, just before Star is able to.
He pouts for a moment, then gives in. “I'm sorry for not being there for you after everything went down.”
She nods, knowing it's best not to argue for now.
“I'm sorry for hurting you. And lying to you. And everything that happened with Clover, and keeping secrets, and-”
Starlo cuts her off. “You're forgiven.”
They smile at each other, and Ceroba collapses against him again.
There's more to say, but it's a start.
꧁᪥🌸᪥꧂
+1
The soul flutters in its container.
Its yellow light flickers when she grasps it with both hands. She stares intently at it, before sighing.
This house has been haunted by death for long enough.
When she stands, she brings the container with her, holding it tightly to her chest.
There's still old bloodstains on the glass. She picks them off, dried blood gathering under her fingernails.
Starlo is waiting outside. Martlet is too, along with a monster she hadn't met before, but who claims to have known Clover. Martlet had met him in Snowdin, and they'd shared stories, apparently.
She exits the house, nodding at the others in greeting.
Starlo and the vampire monster- Dalv, she'd heard- were talking before they spotted her, and she gives a knowing smile to Starlo, who looks embarrassed.
Then, they head off.
There wasn't a word spoken during the trip. Monsters stayed clear of them as they walked, though Ceroba could hear faint whispers and gasps of shock from each of them.
They arrive.
A looming entrance towers over them, gray bricks lining the walls.
There's calm humming in the room in front of them. The king must not have heard of their coming yet.
She bows her head, pressing her forehead to the glass container one last time.
“I'm sorry, Clover.”
When the words leave her lips, it feels like a weight has been lifted from her soul.
She looks back up.
She looks at her companions.
And she enters the throne room.