~ 𝐄𝐱𝐩𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 ~ {𝑵𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒎𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒙 𝑹𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒆𝒓}

16.5

"Are you still fighting?"

"Even after what happened tonight?"

"Oh, don't look at me like that. You knew they would come here tonight."

"Please. I just wanted time with them."

"And risk exposure? No no no, I couldn't allow that."

"You couldn't allow that."

"How can you keep saying that?"

"Hm?"

"Why do you keep using 'you' and 'we?' We are not the same thing!"

"Your SOUL would beg to differ."

"You see, as soon as you agreed—the moment you accepted me into yourself—you extended yourself."

"You made yourself... free."

"Does it truly look like I'm free?"

"Ahaha. Not now it doesn't. You were supposed to go into limbo and never return, my dear host."

"But something happened. Perhaps it was (N/N). It most likely was."

"Your resurfacing was my mistake. I was too careless. Too sloppy. And they wormed their way into you, didn't they?"

"Don't. Touch. Me."

"Hilarious, really. Quite pathetic too. You really are weak, you know?"

"No wonder they hated you."

"No wonder they all hated you."

"That's why I'm here, my dear friend. To protect you from them."

"Is your idea of protecting killing and destroying universes just to ensure no one's in your way?"

"This is where the dramatic irony kicks in."

"There is something you don't understand. Or perhaps you do, yet you refuse to believe it."

"I've said it before. I'll say it again."

"Each one of these ideas?"

"Each one of these twisted, destructive, sadistic thoughts?"

"Why, my dear friend,"

"These are your wants, not mine."

"I wasn't the one that initially wanted to destroy the multiverse."

"...No."

"I'm not the one that so desperately wants others to feel agony and strife and fear, to be angry and depressed."

"No."

"I'm not the one that wants to murder their brother."

"Stars, no..."

"Don't you see? All of these terrible deeds, all of these awful crimes..."

"This is you, Nightmare."

"I-I wouldn't..."

"This is all you, uncovered and revealed."

"I wouldn't do any of this."

"All of this is just... you. No matter how hard you deny it."

"You're a monster."

"Oh, I'm not the monster here."

"I think we both know that the real monster is chained up right in front of me."