A/N: First time writing a fanfic.
It was currently night closing in on bedtime, there were five girls in the living room, the Planeptune siblings, Uzume and adult Neptune were sitting on the floor playing a game together, and on the opposite side of the room,Histoire was seemingly busy looking at a holographic screen. She was looking at the schedule for the next day.
There was also Croire, however she was still stuck in adult Neptune's notebook that adult Neptune called her Nep-note. The book itself was on the couch behind the four girls.
Croire had finally chosen to relax being fully aware that she could not escape anytime soon. As for Umio, the one person (or fish) that was missing, he had left earlier that day for a business trip around gamindustri to see how well the monsters from zero dimension were fitting in.
It had been almost a month since Uzume's return from the long trip she had with adult Neptune and Umio. Uzume's new room had also just finished being built and everyone went to check it out after dinner. The room was fully furnished and even had some random dolls laid out for decoration. The bed was also a queen sized bed. Uzume found it unnecessary, but it was what it was.
While the four girls were playing a 4 player co-op game, Uzume was still thinking about her new room.
"Man, the room is really cool, a lot more spacious than I expected."
"Of course it is! Can't have a CPU sleeping in some tiny room that looks like something a college student rents!" Neptune excitedly explains.
"Yeah! But... Are you sure you don't want to share our room? It used to yours too…" Nepgear asked, a little disappointed that Uzume was no longer going to sleep with them.
"Nah, it's cool. Even if I am CPU like you, the current CPU governing is Neptsy and you Gearsy, as the candidate. I am more of an employee."
Uzume's room had been decided after her return as she requested to sleep in a different room, much to the sibling's discontent.
Neptune pouted, "Mmm… You don't have to be so modest you know, people still love you and considers you a CPU."
"Governing you say… If only she would." Histoire joined in on the conversation. Floating towards the group.
"Histy… People still love me! And besides, with Uzume with us, we've been going on more quests!" If Neptune could pout any harder, she most certainly would. Instead she paused the game, put down her controller, stood up and began flapping her arms to express her annoyance further.
"Yes, it is true and we do have more shares now. But that doesn't mean that, that is all you need to do."
"But Histoire, you were the one that decided to handle all the paperwork after Neptune's 'problems'..." Nepgear interjected. Neptune could be seen flinching in pain from that remark.
Laughing a little nervously, Uzume tried to make a positive spin on the conversation.
"Now, now. It's all true but hey, from all the stories you've told me, you've both worked hard when it really mattered."
"Awww, shucks, now I'm getting embarrassed." Neptune said, slightly blushing and rubbing the back of her head.
Histoire sighed before coughing to regain the attention of the 3 CPUs.
"Anyway, it is about time you all go to sleep, would you like to stay for the night?" Histoire turned towards adult Neptune as she asked.
With the game being paused, adult Neptune was currently talking to Croire. Adult Neptune had been sleeping in a nearby hotel until now. However, with how late it was, Histoire decided to let her sleep in the basilicom for the night.
"Oh! Sure thing. Thanks Histy!"
With that, the five split. Neptune turned the console off and left with Nepgear to get ready to sleep. Histoire guided the adult Neptune to a guest room and Uzume left to rearrange her new room more to her liking.
A few minutes later, Uzume was in the hallway with several bags of items either to throw away. While walking down, she found a fairly large unfamiliar bookshelf, until now she didn't think much of it since it was at a part of the hallway that she didn't really go to. Even back when she was the CPU governing, the area was a dead end with several storage rooms. On top of that, up until now, she was sleeping on a futon in the sibling's room, and never got to chance to look at the shelf closely but now that she got a room and it happened to be past the shelf, it piqued her interest.
Stopping, Uzume curiously inspected the shelf. She did not remember a bookshelf ever being in the hallway (Not that could remember much of this part of the hallway), let alone one this big. It was a shelf about 3 meters wide and almost 2 and a half meters tall, nearly touching the ceiling. Furthermore, there was an oddly large gap between the shelf and the wall. she peeked behind it, suspicious of the gap.
It was at this moment, her eyes widened in surprise. It was only in the form of a silhouette, but there was something large but thin sticking out from the wall. The silhouette was nearly as tall as the bookshelf.
Uzume immediately dashed to find anyone, but more specifically Histoire, Neptune or Nepgear. Soon after, she arrived at Histoires' room. She swung the door open, and found Histoire typing something down onto a holographic keyboard before she quickly turned it off as she turned towards the doorway.
"Yes Uzume? Do you need something?"
"Yeah, I just found something weird behind the large bookshelf down the hallway."
"Something weird behind the bookshelf? Ah, you must be talking about the storage room that I have sealed up."
"Storage room? Why would that need to be sealed up? Not to mention the doorway seemed pretty big for a storage room." Uzume couldn't help but eye Histoire suspiciously.
"No, it is just an old storage room with a lot of old equipment. I sealed it up after Neptune was born, since there were some items that would be a bit too dangerous for Neptune to be walking around with."
"Okay… well I'm going to go now and throw out these things." Uzume slowly backed out of the room, suspicion still evident in her eyes. Closing the door, she then walked over to find Neptune.
Thinking to herself "From all my time with Neptsy, she didn't exactly seem like one to careless walk around with a dangerous item. Sure she was energetic, but not careless. Not to mention that still doesn't answer why the door is so large…"
Opening the door, she found Neptune and nepgear in their pyjamas and were just about ready to settle into their beds.
"Huh? Need something Uzume?" Neptune turned around from the bed looking at Uzume while Nepgear got off the ladder leading to the top bunk, to turn towards her as well.
"Yeah, I found what looked like a door behind a bookshelf, I asked Histoire about it, but she said it was just an old storage room that was sealed up to stop Neptsy from getting in. But that sounded a little suspicious to me."
"Oh~ that door…" There was a moment of pause "Yeah, there are some things in there that should left alone."
"Neptune…? What do you mean left alone? Is it really something that dangerous?"
"Well, they certainly could cause a big problem if they are in the hands of some bad guy."
Both Nepgear and Uzume could only look at each other expressing both confusion and suspicion. The door was something Nepgear didn't know about until just now. They both nodded to each other, signalling to meet up later.
"Well, if Neptsy says it's true, then I guess Histoire was telling the truth. Well, I'll go throw these out and then go back to my room to sleep. Goodnight Neptsy, Gearsy." Lifting her hands, Uzume showed the baggage she was carrying.
"Goodnight Uzume!"
"Goodnight!"
It was 2 am, 3 hours have passed since that interaction, and everyone was asleep. Except for two people, Nepgear and Uzume. Nepgear had snuck out from the room making sure not to wake Neptune up. Uzume was already in front of the bookshelf. They were both still in their pyjamas.
Upon Nepgear's arrival, the shelf was moved to the side, revealing even more questions in the form of a large metal door completely painted to blend with the wall. It was a door that Uzume had no recollection of. The door looked like it belonged to some secret laboratory you'd see in comics. Needless to say, the door was locked with a password. A small screen was present on the centre of the door, asking for the inputs.
"OH! LET ME GO GET MY HACKING DEVICE!" Of course, such a door would fire up the tech mania within Nepgear. She bolted to her desk in her bedroom and within only a few seconds, Nepgear returned with said device and immediately began working on the door. How she managed to keep it quiet while retrieving the tool was impressive.
Uzume decided to look out for anyone, it did make her feel like they were thieves breaking in.
"Oh! I think I'm getting close! Just need to find a few more…" Nepgear trailed off, constantly mumbling to herself as she continued on hacking the door.
Uzume was getting excited to see what kind of secret was lying behind this door. Just what kind of item is it that it needs to be sealed up? However while questioning herself, she could not help but feel discomfort, almost as though someone was watching them. She Looked around once again and even scouting out a bit, but she could not find any evidence of another person being present.
"Ok, it's open."
On cue, the large door opened, revealing the secret inside. Upon seeing the contents inside, the two opened their eyes wide, taking half a step back in surprise.
"W-what the goodness!?"
"What is all this?"
The two screamed in shock, forgetting that everyone else was sleeping. Unfortunately, that shock had left the two girls wide open. A fatal mistake.
"!?"
Their bodies paralysed. Then two handkerchiefs appeared covering both their mouths and noses. Both Uzume and Nepgear could feel their conscious fading, but not before seeing the perpetrators' faces.
"Hpmmmmh? (Histoire?)"
"H-Hmmm? (N-Neptune?)"
With that, the two fell asleep, and Neptune gently put them down onto the floor.
"Phew, that was close. Me thinks we are going to need to improve the security on this one. We really shoulda spent more money on hiding this."
"Indeed, it was my mistake to assume that the door wouldn't be found with just a bookshelf."
"You really cut the budget on this one…"