The morning sun filtered in through tall windows, soft golden light spilling across polished stone floors and velvet curtains.
The manor had returned to its usual state of quiet dignity, the echo of last night's laughter long faded.
Servants were already sweeping, arranging breakfast platters, and making themselves invisible as nobility stirred.
Rudy stumbled into the hall from his room looking like he hadn't slept a wink. His robe was wrinkled, his hair a mess, and there was a faint look of both triumph and panic in his eyes.
Sans was already sitting on a bench near the window, legs crossed, sipping from a warm teacup he absolutely didn't ask permission to take. He looked fresh, annoyingly so, like he hadn't been sitting under the stars all night sorting through weird family dynamics.
He didn't say anything at first.
Just watched Rudy shuffle past with that familiar deadpan stare.
Then he spoke, voice calm, low, and just amused enough to be dangerous.
"morning, casanova."
Rudy froze mid-step.
"W-What?"
Sans took a sip, then gestured lazily toward the empty seat across from him.
"you gonna sit? or you just gonna pace the hallway and pretend you didn't sneak back into your room after a two-hour, late-night 'strategic alliance meeting' with our sword-swinging, easily-flustered cousin?"
Rudy turned scarlet. "Y-You saw that?"
Sans tilted his head. "bro, everyone saw Eris walk in. the only person who didn't was probably the old butler, and he's legally blind in one eye."
Rudy sat down hard on the bench, burying his face in his hands. "It wasn't like that. I mean, kind of? But not really? It was just... we talked. A lot. About... stuff."
Sans gave a long, knowing "uh-huh," then leaned back, letting the silence do half the work.
Rudy peeked through his fingers. "She said... she wants to wait. Five years. Until we're ready. Until we're... grown up."
Sans lifted his brow slightly. "five years, huh? bold move. sounds like the kinda promise that'd make a sappy bard write a whole opera."
Rudy slumped deeper. "Is it weird that I said yes?"
Sans didn't answer right away. He let the pause stretch a bit, let the weight settle.
Then, softer:
"nah. not weird. maybe a little impulsive. definitely a little messy. but not weird."
Rudy looked up. "Even though she's... our cousin?"
Sans finally smiled, tired and a little crooked.
"welcome to nobility, kid. family trees here are more like... family tumbleweeds. lots of circles. lots of tangled branches. sometimes they loop back into themselves. not your fault you got born into one with extra loops."
Rudy groaned. "You're not making me feel better."
"wasn't trying to." Sans shrugged. "just being real. look, i ain't judging. she's strong, she cares about you in her own... violent way. and you're not exactly subtle about how you feel either. but—"
His voice lost its usual laziness, tone flattening just slightly.
"you gotta think about where this path goes. you're both young. she's from a powerful house, you're still technically a commoner in their eyes. five years sounds easy now. but it's long. things change. people change."
Rudy frowned, nodding slowly.
"you promising her your future... that's no joke, rudy. you sure that's something you can keep?"
Rudy didn't answer immediately. His fingers curled in his lap, mind clearly racing. Finally, he gave a tiny nod. "I think so. I want to try."
Sans studied him for a long second.
Then leaned forward, tapping him gently on the forehead with a single bony knuckle.
"then do me a favor. mean it. no more half-hearted crushes. no more just chasing warm feelings. if you're really gonna wait... wait for something real."
Rudy blinked. "You're really serious about this."
Sans smirked, the glow of his socket flickering faintly in the morning light.
"hey. just 'cause i make jokes doesn't mean i don't care. you're my brother, rudy. first one i've ever had."
He stood up, stretching with a groan.
"besides... if you mess this up, i'm gonna have to deal with an angry Eris, and honestly, she scares me more than any genocidal maniac i've met."
Rudy laughed, tension breaking just a little.
Sans turned toward the hall, hands back in his pockets.
"come on. let's get breakfast. i think the staff made something fancy with way too many forks."
As Rudy stood to follow, he paused.
"Hey, Sans?"
Sans looked over his shoulder.
"Thanks."
He just gave a short nod.
"anytime, squirt."
And with that, the two of them walked off toward the breakfast hall—one step closer to growing up, one joke at a time.
...
..
.
Something is coming, a calamity...
.
..
...
The sky was too blue.
That was the first thing Sans noticed as he stood near the training yard, lazily leaning against the shade of a tree while Rudy ran Eris through a complex mana control drill.
Ghislaine watched nearby with her usual sharp-eyed silence, only stepping in when Eris tried to brute-force a spell.
But Sans wasn't watching the lesson.
He was looking at the sky.
The clouds had stopped moving.
He squinted, one socket flickering. There it was..... static. Like the atmosphere had frozen just a second too long. No wind. No birdsong. The kind of stillness that made his old bones itch.
He knew that feeling.
"....this ain't right," he muttered.
Rudy turned at the sound, catching the edge of his brother's tone. "What's wrong?"
Sans pushed off the tree, standing upright. "don't know yet. but get ready to cast. now."
Rudy blinked. "Is something....."
That's when the sky cracked.
A blinding purple light split the air above the city. Mana surged like a tidal wave, visible to the naked eye, dense, unstable, violent.
The ground trembled, not like an earthquake but like the world itself was being rewritten.
A sound like a scream, no, not a scream, not human. Something deeper. Older. More wrong.
"ERIS!" Rudy shouted, instinctively grabbing her arm.
Ghislaine was already moving, sword out, face deadly calm. "Get behind me!"
But Sans wasn't looking at them anymore.
His eye flared bright blue.
"portals...?"
He could see them now, rips in space, warping in random spots. Unstable teleportation magic on a scale he hadn't seen sinc-
He didn't finish the thought.
The ground beneath their feet began to glow.
"RUDEUS!" he shouted, voice low but sharp. "HOLD ONTO ME. NOW."
Rudy didn't argue.
He lunged for Sans just as the light consumed them.
Time didn't slow. It didn't freeze. It shattered.
For a moment, Sans felt like he was being pulled apart cell by cell, soul-first.
The magic wasn't refined, just raw, ancient, as if someone had grabbed the laws of the world and torn a hole straight through them.
He tried to anchor his magic, use a gravity tether, a barrier, anything, but it was like trying to cast in a vacuum.
No rules. No logic. Just chaos.
The last thing he saw before darkness swallowed them was Ghislaine vanishing into her own vortex and Eris screaming Rudy's name.
...
Asura Kingdom – Royal Capital Outskirts
When Sans opened his sockets, he immediately noticed two things.
First, the world was a lot too normal. Everything around him screamed "civilization," which made him feel, well, a little out of place.
He had definitely been through worse teleportation jumps, remembering the Undertale wreckage, after all, but the sensation of landing in the Asura Kingdom outskirts felt different. Too clean. Too neat.
Second, he was not alone.
"You're taking your sweet time, huh?" came a voice that Sans would've recognized anywhere. Familiar, teasing, with a tone that could somehow both distract and irritate him in equal measure.
Sans didn't need to turn around to know who it was. He'd met this person far too many times to be fooled.
"you," he said flatly, not even bothering to check who was behind him. "didn't i specifically tell you to stop showing up in my multiverse?"
Chara, or Lyssa, as she was calling herself here, stepped out of the shadows, her red eyes gleaming in the moonlight, just as mischievous and sharp as ever.
Her hair was tousled in the way that always seemed perfectly imperfect, and her cloak flowed with a confident, almost playful sway.
"You always tell me that," she said, crossing her arms over her chest, her smile growing wider. "But you don't really mean it, do you?"
Sans let out a dry chuckle. "no promises. you keep showing up, and i keep not asking questions."
"Yet here you are." She took a step forward, the corner of her lip quirking up. "Always so serious. No fun at all."
Sans rolled his eyes, though the tiniest smirk pulled at his skeleton lips. He'd gotten used to the way she worked by now.
The teasing. The subtle little flirtations. Chara enjoyed seeing his unbothered reactions, like it was some kind of game to her.
"why are you even here?" Sans asked, his voice low. "did you get tossed in with me, or did you just decide to pop in for fun?"
She tilted her head, her golden-red eyes gleaming with that familiar mischief. "Who says I'm not here for fun? I always enjoy a good surprise, especially when it's you."
She took another step closer, deliberately slow, as if savoring the moment. Her gaze never left his, almost challenging him to react in any way.
Sans felt the weight of her presence even as he kept his posture casual, not budging.
"you've been busy, huh?" Sans said, glancing around at the unfamiliar landscape, noting the cracked stone and abandoned alleyways. "looks like we're far from home."
"Far from where we've been," she said cryptically, stepping just a little too close now, her voice dropping into that teasing whisper. "But then again, you've always been a little lost, haven't you?"
Sans snorted, not giving her the satisfaction of a real reaction. "i'm not lost. just temporarily... misplaced."
She laughed softly, a sound that seemed far too familiar to him by now. "Sure, sure. Whatever helps you sleep at night, Bone Man."
Sans sighed, staring down at her. "look, if you're not gonna give me an answer, i might just leave. don't really feel like dealing with you today."
"Oh?" Chara's smile twisted into something sharper, more playful. "You're just gonna leave me, then? After all we've been through?"
He felt a flicker of something at the back of his mind. Of course, he knew what she was talking about.
Every time they crossed paths, there was always that thing between them, never fully addressed, always masked under layers of teasing and sarcasm.
She flirted with him endlessly, just to get a reaction. Just to see how far she could push before he either cracked or shut her down completely.
It had never bothered him much. In fact, he was used to it by now. She wasn't exactly shy when it came to making her interest known.
Not that it ever meant much, at least, that's how he convinced himself.
Sans didn't answer right away. Instead, he took a step back, still feeling that same tension between them. "so, you really like this place, huh? looks like a big, fancy mess."
"I'm making the most of it," Chara said lightly, as though she wasn't about to let the moment slip by. "The Kingdom's got its fair share of problems. But there's always a place for me, somewhere in the chaos."
She caught his gaze again, her grin widening. "And I always find you in the chaos, don't I?"
Sans couldn't help but chuckle. "guess you're persistent, i'll give you that."
She stepped even closer, her voice quieter, almost playful. "Maybe I'm just trying to find something worth sticking around for."
"if you're talking about me," Sans started, his usual dry humor slipping into his tone, "you'll be disappointed. i'm nothing special."
"You always say that," she said with a mock pout. "But I know you better than that."
Sans looked at her for a moment longer, his eyes narrowed. "you just like getting a rise out of me, huh?"
Chara raised an eyebrow, the glint in her eyes never fading. "What can I say? You're fun to tease. And besides..." She gave him that unmistakable grin. "I think you like it too."
Sans, despite himself, rolled his eyes. "you're unbelievable."
"Maybe," she said, a soft laugh slipping from her lips. "But you do like me. I can tell."
Sans smirked a little, though it was only a faint shift. "keep dreaming, kid. i'm used to the jokes by now."
But as he turned to start walking, Chara's voice followed him, carrying the familiar weight of both challenge and something else, something warmer.
"Don't worry, Sans," she called. "I'll be around. You'll see."
Sans didn't respond right away, but he knew one thing for sure.
If there was one constant in this whole mess of a world, it was Chara.
And she wasn't going anywhere.
'Aw~, i was tracking him down from Storyshift, didn't know his world got such...dramatic changes. But...he can turn into a human huh? That mean...we can probably do that now eh?' (No, it's not like that)
She followed him, just like old time, friends across worlds.