Hyperdimension Neptunia is owned by Sega, Idea Factory and Compile Heart and whomever else worked on it.
Chapter 65
"Hey, Noire..." Uni began as the two of them walked down a street in Planeptune, "you don't need the eye-patch, so why do you wear it?"
"Well, for one, I'm used to it." Noire said as she reached up and adjusted her tie. "Two, no one's going to confuse me for your sister." Uni nodded, she couldn't disagree with that.
"...If K-Sha knew how sis would look in a suit, she'd be even more nutty." Uni muttered, causing Noire to give her a confused look. "Ah!" Uni felt her face flushing in embarrassment. "Sorry, you don't know her. She's a friend of ours that we made during the CPU Shift but she's a little..."
"Crazy?" Noire asked with an amused expression on her face. "Let me guess, she probably has a shrine to the other me in this world in her closet and steals my other self's panties and masturbate to the smell?" She laughed as Uni's eyes went white and blank while her face was red. "I've known some people like that."
"...Did you date anyone like that?" Uni asked, looking at Noire in worry.
"Hmm... There was this one girl, before I got married." Noire said, sighing softly. "We dated for a decade, but between my duties as a CPU and the fact that she realized that I wasn't aging and she was, she broke it off." Noire shrugged at Uni's curious expression. "It was fun, but she was totally possessive, she hated when I spent time with the others."
"...Why'd you put up with it?"
Noire shrugged again. "I can't say. Looking back at it, yeah, it was probably stupid of me, but she wasn't abusive and I really did enjoy being with her. She just thought that Plutia, Neptune, Vert or Blanc were going to steal me away from her."
"...Not Peashy?" Uni asked and Noire laughed.
"This was before the aliens invaded." Noire told her. "Peashy still had the mental capacity of a five year old. She's actually pretty intelligent, even in her human form, after the aliens did some work on her brain."
"That..." Uni sweat-dropped heavily, "doesn't sound like something I could really go along with. It would be too easy to strip someone's freedom away."
"Yeah..." Noire nodded before waving and some people who were pointing and whispering. "We're just lucky that the aliens who did that to Peashy didn't care for that. Even now, nearly seven hundred years after she got that chip put in her, no one's been able to crack the encryption in it."
"Don't tell that to Nepgear, she'd take it as a challenge." Uni sweat-dropped, remembering how she had used Nepgear to hack into the Lastation security, just to find the weaknesses of it and how easy it was for Nepgear, even with more and more new security features put into place.
Noire nodded as she took out a small device and tapped it a couple of times. "Noted." She said and put it away. "Anyway, as for my ex, I guess I put up with it because I thought it was cute how jealous she got over the thought of the other CPUs stealing me away. Shortly after she broke up with me, she ended up getting married and she lived a pretty good life." Noire told her, causing Uni to smile softly. "I was a bit upset, but at the same time, I wasn't getting older and she was." Noire shrugged and sighed softly. "In a way, I'm thankful she broke it off, I would have stayed with her until she died if she wanted me to, but watching a lover grow old, wrinkled before dying? That..." She shook her head. "I saw how much Neptune losing her children to old age hurt her and the thought of losing a lover like that..."
"...I never knew." Uni said softly. "I didn't think that it was..."
"Immortality sucks." Noire told her. "Sure, living and seeing everything continue on while you stay young is cool and all, but everything around you eventually crumbles." She shook her head. "The fact that I have friends and family who have all lived a long time helps a lot."
Uni nodded. "I can't really imagine it, but I'll take you word for it. Um... There's something I wanted to ask you." Noire gave her a nod. "About your husband..." Uni trailed off as she saw a blush come to Noire's face. "...Why'd you stay with him?"
"Besides the fact that I loved him?" Noire asked before sighing and looking around. "Let's go talk in there." She pointed to a coffee shop and Uni nodded. After walking into a nearly empty coffee shop, which Noire wasn't surprised, since it was in the mid-morning and most people were already gone on their way to work. "Come on." She motioned to the table in the far corner.
After sitting down, Noire nodded to the waiter and asked for a specific order of coffee. When she asked for Mocozian Chocolate Coffee, both Uni and the waiter looked at her in surprise. "Um, miss... We don't have that flavor."
"...Oh." Noire's face went red as she realized that they hadn't heard of Mocozian Chocolate before. "Lesse... Then..." After looking at the menu, she ordered some hot chocolate, which Uni asked for some as well.
"...Mocozian Chocolate?" Uni asked after the waiter left.
"Alien chocolate, quite delicious." Noire told her. "We actually got Neptune to eat eggplants by putting a couple of ounces over a slice. Uni gawked in surprise. "And THEN we all learned that Neptune's actually allergic to eggplants."
Uni nodded, suddenly understanding why the Planeptune Goddess hated them so much. "Okay, but... I need to know, why did you stay with him after what he did to you?"
Noire sighed softly. "Well, to be fair, he was only fifteen when we were captured and brainwashed." She knew that wasn't going to sate Uni's curiosity, so she continued while spinning her finger in a circle on the table. "I was the first one to break free from the brainwashing. I had conflicting memories running through my head at that time." Noire blushed softly. "My husband... Ah, don't worry about it." There was no need to tell Uni about what happened the day she had gotten free of her brainwashing. "His name is Engier if you were wondering." Noire told Uni, who nodded. "As for why I stayed with him..." She shrugged and nodded as the waiter came over with their hot chocolate and put it in front of them before walking away. Uni took a tentative drink of her hot chocolate before Noire spoke up again. "He's an amazing lover." Noire smiled whistfully while Uni coughed as she pictured her sister doing something like that.
"You..." Uni coughed a few more times, "could have not told me that when I was taking a drink."
"But that's the best time for the best reactions." Noire pointed out, smirking at Uni. "But I'm only partially serious with that. He's someone that I could talk to, someone that would give me advice when I needed it, who could offer me a perspective on a situation when I needed to hear it." Noire sighed softly. "...I miss him and my children."
"...But why do you love him?" Uni asked, curious. "He, well..."
"Basically raped me for decades?" Noire asked and Uni nodded, causing Noire to sigh. "...I can't tell you. Logically I should hate him. In fact, that's one of things that went through my mind when I broke free of my brainwashing. When I saw him or my children, I found myself unable to hate them."
"Oh, but..." Uni trailed off, not sure how to continue.
"If it makes you feel better, the first time I saw him in private after being freed from my brainwashing, there was lots of screaming, slapping and stuff breaking." Noire told Uni, who looked confused. "Yes, I love him, but I was still violated and I had a lot of issues to work through."
"So..." Uni trailed off, wondering what happened next.
"After venting and turning into a sobbing mess, he explained that he hadn't loved me at first, but he did grow to love me." Noire told her.
"Like that makes everything better." Uni muttered darkly.
"I said the same thing." Noire said with a laugh before taking another drink of her hot chocolate. "Rather plain compared to what I'm used to, still good though," she put her glass down and continued, "anyway, we ended up talking... A lot. I can't tell you how many times I broke down crying," she smirked at the astonished look on Uni's face, "what? Let me guess, the me of this world has too much pride to admit that she cried?"
"...Well, before I nearly died, I would have said yes." Uni admitted, remembering how much Noire had been crying when she was laying there in her arms. "...It made me feel good... To know that she loved me like that."
"If she's anything like me, you never have to worry about that." Noire told Uni, who looked confused. "Even if she ever gave you a cold shoulder, she always loved you."
"There were days in the past that I wondered if she did." Uni admitted, looking a bit troubled, "it always felt like she wasn't interested in me for me unless I could do better than her, and she always made it seem like I was never good enough."
Noire nodded as she listened. "Did you hate it?"
Uni nodded, looking troubled, "I just wanted her to acknowledge that I was a good worker, but she never did. She got better after Nepgear, Rom, Ram and I freed her from the graveyard." Uni smiled at Noire. "So, I guess there's that."
Noire nodded and took another sip of her hot chocolate. "She probably thought it was in your best interest to be tough on you."
"Um..." Uni fidgeted and Noire raised an eyebrow. "I've heard about things like the alien invasion, something about cultists and the Mole People, but I was kind of wondering..."
"About more minor incidents?" Noire asked and Uni nodded. "Hmm, there was the sweets demon that popped up about twenty-five years after we defeated the Seven Sages, there was the invasion of alien racers that happened about four hundred years ago."
"...Alien racers?" Uni asked, her eyes white and blank.
Noire laughed. "Yeah, the whole invasion was simply a pretext to use our world as a large race track. They didn't want to harm anyone. They were actually helpful in helping us make several large islands around the nations and built roads connecting all of them together." Uni looked confused and Noire smiled at her. "There's basically a giant race track that circles our nations. Each of the islands is actually a nice vacation spot. ...Well, except for Dinosaur island and Hive Island. The aliens on Hive Island are pretty friendly, but they don't want to be bothered by a lot of people." Noire tapped her chin. "Oh, and Volcano Island, which, you can probably imagine why it's called that."
"Yeah." Uni nodded, sweating at the thought of anyone wanting to go to a volcano for fun.
(-)
Meanwhile...
"Achoo!" Peashy sneezed, causing Ouya and Stadia to look at her with worry.
"Are you getting sick?" Ouya asked.
"Pea's too stupid to get sick!" Peashy laughed at them, causing them both to sweat-drop. "At least when Pea's in this form."
"So you got sick in HDD before?" Stadia asked as the three were walking towards a park in Planeptune.
"Uh huh." Peashy nodded as they entered a park, which had swings, a sea-saw, a merry-go-round and a large sandbox, balance bars, several slides and other things. Peashy gave them an amused grin. "Whenever Pea gets pregnant, Pea gets bad morning sickness." Peashy laughed as her sisters face-faulted into the ground. "Ahahahahahahaha! Neptuna and Ploot did the same thing when they were told."
"Whenever you tell us about that stuff in your human form, it comes across as disturbing." Stadia pointed out and her gray-haired sister nodded.
Peashy pouted. "Neptuna and Ploot said the same thing." She shrugged at their disgruntled looks. "Pea knows that Pea looks like a little girl, but remember," a flash of light and Yellow Heart appeared in front of her sisters, "this is my true form, not my child form."
Both Ouya and Stadia stared at her and Yellow Heart blinked and looked down, realizing that she wasn't in her processor, but rather, she had a black and yellow short-sleeved shirt that was tightly wrapped around her torso and short shorts with sneakers and socks on. "What? This is what I wear in HDD when I'm not going into combat."
"...Just not used to seeing you in anything but that or your skimpy bikinis." Stadia pointed out.
Yellow Heart laughed and rubbed the back of her head. "You should see mom's ninja outfit some time then." Both Ouya and Stadia perked up and she shook her head. "No, you'll have to ask mom to show you her kunoichi outfit, you'll probably have to wait a few months to get a good look at it though." She giggled at their confused looks. "Anyway," Yellow Heart shook her head, "I know that I make people uncomfortable or weird them out when I'm in my human form and I talk about that stuff. I do it on purpose."
"HUH?!" Her sisters gawked at her.
"Yep." Yellow Heart nodded. "Hey, I was denied a lot in life, okay? This is my way to get back at everyone."
Ouya frowned upon hearing that. "...Are you unhappy, sis?"
"Hmm..." Yellow Heart tapped her chin. "Can't say that I am, I mean, I have my HDD back, mom's finally returning to her happy self, Ploot's back," though Yellow Heart was certain that Plutia was going to leave them to live with Belgar when they got back home, "and my cute little sisters can finally live with us again." She immediately hugged the two of them, giggling as she buried their faces into her breasts, which caused the two of them to let out muffled cries of displeasure. "Hee hee hee, I can see why Vert does this to me all the time."
After a few moments, Yellow Heart relaxed her hug so her sisters could pull their heads away from her breasts and take a deep breath of air. "Not cool, sis." Stadia grumbled as Yellow Heart laughed and let go of them.
"Will mommy be okay?" Ouya asked.
"Yeah." Yellow Heart nodded at Ouya. "She'll be up in two or three days, I'm sure of it. The only reason that she took forever to recover last time was because Shares were super low, they're much higher right now."
"So..." Stadia looked at the park. "Why are we here?"
Yellow Heart grinned as she bounced, in more ways than one, over to the swings before turning back into her human form. "Pea wants to play on the swings! Let's go!"
Ouya and Stadia both stared, before they smiled and started laughing. "Sure!" They ran over to the swings and joined in.
Soon the park was filled with the sounds of laughter, not only from the three girls, but others as more people from Planeptune made their way to the park and started to play, which led to impromptu games being played with the children.
They all agreed to never let Peashy be it when playing tag. In her human form, she didn't regulate her strength too well, which caused her to run too fast and accidentally knock a park bench into the air...
...Which got stuck in a tree...
...With people sitting on the bench even!
Thankfully, after that was done, the group of children still continued to play all sorts of games together.
After everything that Ouya, Stadia and Peashy had gone through in life, it was nice to be able to play and act like children, even if only for a few hours.
Peashy, stop leaning on the fourth wall about the Neptunia x Senran Kagura crossover that comes out in a few months (as of me posting this)!