Were We Doomed From The Start?

33.- Judgement

A familiar voice spoke to them in an eerily calm manner, staring at him.

"So you finally made it.
The end of your journey is at hand.
In a few moments, you will meet the king.

Together...
You will determine the future of this world."

Ninja got into battle stance, assuming he meant they would fight.

"That's then.
Now.
You will be judged.
You will be judged for your every action.
You will be judged for every EXP you've earned."

Ninja looked at him a bit confused.

"What's EXP?
It's an acronym.
It stands for "execution points."

A way of quantifying the pain you have inflicted on others.

When you kill someone, your EXP increases. When you have enough EXP your LOVE increases.

LOVE, too, is an acronym.
It stands for "Level of Violence."

A way for measuring someone's capacity to hurt. The more you kill, the easier it becomes to distance yourself. The more you distance yourself, the less you will hurt. The more easily you can bring yourself to hurt others."

Ninja stared back at him, the monster's face showing now.
Sans, of course.
Shadow checked Ninja's stats while behind him, noting how little exp they had collected thus far.

...

"...but you. you never gained any LOVE. 'course, that doesn't mean you're completely innocent or naive.
just that you kept a certain tenderness in your heart. no matter the struggles or hardships you faced...you strived to do the right thing. you refused to hurt anyone. even when you ran away, you did it with a smile."

Ninja slowly turned to look at Shadow, remembering how he was dragged away from the Undyne fight. Shadow nervously smiled, disappearing after.

"you never gained LOVE, but you gained love. does that make sense? maybe not.

...now. you're about to face the greatest challenge of your entire journey.
your actions here...will determine the fate of the entire world. if you refuse to fight...asgore will take your soul and destroy humanity.

but if you kill asgore and go home...monsters will remain trapped underground. what will you do?"

Ninja stopped to think for a bit. He wasn't entire sure, but there was always a way to make a compromise without anyone dying or staying below, right?

Shadow was right behind Ninja again ofc, and was smiling on Ninja's shoulder while watching him think about it, being lost in his own head for a little bit to find the solution.

...

"well, if i were you, i would have thrown in the towel by now.
but you didn't get this far by giving up, did you?"

Ninja shook his head.

"that's right. You have something called "determination."

so as long as you hold on...so as long as you do what's in your heart...i believe you can do the right thing.

alright.
we're all counting on you, kid.
good luck."

Sans winked, and when Ninja nodded, he was already gone, having disappeared in the blink of an eye or maybe even quicker.

Ninja turned to look at Shadow and they both shrugged at the same time before continuing down the hall past a few more windows before finally reaching the end, with a hallway to the left. It fed into a long grey corridor that had a brick wall at the end, with grey vines and a sigh next to the entrance.