"Human... it was nice to meet you." King Asgore spoke to the tiny human before him, the one who had just said they had no more business within the Underground to take care of.

"Goodbye." It was time. He looked down, away from the little face that would certainly keep him from doing what he had to if he looked upon it any longer. In a flash, he brandished his trident, and leaped into the air above the archway that the human had entered through, reducing it to rubble in a single blow of the three-pronged weapon. The human would no longer be able to escape; there was now only one way this battle was going to end.

"I don't want to fight you." The human spoke in their small, yet very much determined voice. The king's hands trembled for a moment, but he continued with his attack regardless, sending torrents of flame at the human. He could hear a thud, and knew that he had landed a hit upon them – knocking them down.

"I don't... want to fight you!" They said once more, still determined, but noticeably weaker. Asgore felt his breath catch in his throat, but shook off the feeling and sent cascading waves of fire at the human. Another thud, and there was another pause – a longer one than before – before the human spoke yet again.

"Stop... fighting!" He still could not look at them, but their voice was clearly pained now, even as they remained determined to stand up. This was familiar to him, wasn't it? The cries of a young individual intent on ending conflict... even so, there was no going back for either of them – but his next attack came slower, and his guard lessened slightly. His trident morphed into a scythe, and his eyes briefly flashed with blue and orange colors before he swung the scythe twice in succession. He trembled as he heard yet another thud.

There was no response from the human this time, though he could sense that they had gotten back up again. The two of them spent a moment standing across from each other before Asgore continued fighting.

He surrounded the human with enclosing rings of flame – but left a small opening within each one, a small part of him apparently refusing to swiftly do the deed, even as close as he was now. The moment he heard another thud, he immediately stopped his attack, and briefly waited to see if the human was still... capable of responding.

"Please... please, no more." The human was practically begging him to stop. There was no other option for the king, though; any further words would not dissuade him from what he had to do. He remembered that six humans before this one had perished long before they ever made it to the barrier, but this one – this one in particular – had somehow managed to survive to the very end. This one was the very first human he had ever seen since the barrier was formed, and they would be the last SOUL needed to have enough power to shatter the barrier that kept all of monsterkind trapped in the Underground.

It was his duty as the king to save his people, no matter the cost. Therefore... "no more" could never be an option.

There was one last thud as the king's final attack collided with the human. He looked up, and saw a sight that scorched his mind forever: the child was laying on their back, a red liquid that ancient memories told him was blood – a human's lifeforce – was scattered across the ground in a haphazard manner. Their striped shirt had been ripped to shreds, with wounds from Asgore's scythe torn into the skin beneath it. Their brown hair had been singed where it had not been burned off entirely, with black scorch marks on their face and remaining clothes.

And above the mangled body of the human was a red heart-shaped object, floating there without a living body to contain it anymore – the seventh SOUL, the final SOUL.

He vaguely remembered the reports he had been given by the Royal Guard upon the collection of the previous six SOULs: rather than disintegrate into dust as monsters did when they died, when a monster killed a human, all the damage they had inflicted to their SOUL appeared on their body according to the kind of damage that had been dealt to them. According to the Royal Guard members, any monster that was even so much as a witness to the scene of the death would be troubled by it for the rest of their lives, to say nothing of the ones who had been the direct cause of it.

Yet the king himself had never been either a witness or a participant in the death of a human. Not until today. He now truly understood the pain he had made the monsters under his rule suffer from having to bring an end to the lives of humans – and yet... there had been no other way to escape their fate.

He retrieved the red SOUL and placed it in the empty container he had brought. It occurred to him that since this was the only portion of the Underground where the barrier was exposed and also accessible by every other monster, he couldn't leave the human's body where it was. Apparently, it was a human tradition to bury their own once they had passed on, regardless of how they had met their end. Instead of that, each of the bodies of most of the previous humans were dealt with by placing them in a coffin and storing them in a room just outside of New Home. Their bodies had not been altered in any way since no one knew how, except for one instance where a member of the Royal Guard – a Pyrope that had been disgusted with the fact that humans left their bodies behind after dying – insisted on burning the body to ashes instead. The ashes were then placed in the coffin.

It turned out that the Pyrope had unknowingly participated in another human tradition – they called it cremation, where the body would be reduced to ashes and either kept in a jar or scattered over something the human held dear to them. It had the effect of making their death almost seem like that of a monster's, though no monster would ever equate the two.

"It is... for the good of all monsters." He muttered to himself, before releasing a concentrated stream of flame at the human's body, refusing to look upon them as they were turned to ash. He would have to bring a jar to store the ash in – he knew nothing about what the human might have held dear, and pushed that line of thought out of his head as he cleared the rubble he had created to keep them from escaping.

Finally, his people would be able to achieve their most long-awaited goal: freedom. Not only freedom... but retribution as well. He would be the one to absorb all seven SOULs and destroy the barrier, becoming a force beyond comprehension that would lead his people into a new life on the surface.

It had always been his duty – nay, his destiny. A destiny he could only but acquiesce to.

A/N: I've actually been sitting on this one for a while. I wanted to continue past this point, but I never got around to finishing that next part. This part was always meant to be standalone, though, so here it is. Maybe someday I'll finish up the second part, but this is enough for now.