Hyperdimension Neptunia is owned by Sega, Idea Factory and Compile Heart and whomever else worked on it.
Chapter 71
As the barriers were lowered and everyone was allowed to move, Purple Heart looked at Laharl and then at Flonne in confusion. "What the heck are you two doing here?"
"Well..." Flonne winked, smiled and pointed at Purple Heart before a door appeared in front of her, opening to reveal a familiar face. "I got a call from someone who was concerned for you, Neptune."
"Pudding?!" Purple Heart gasped as the Prinny ran up to her. "What?"
"I'm sorry, dood." Pudding bowed to Purple Heart. "But I couldn't let you get hurt, Master Neptune. I had Master Histoire give Lady Flonne a call and asked her to end the fight before someone got really hurt, dood."
Purple Heart had a conflicted look on her face before she sighed and nodded, petting Pudding on the head. "Yes, I suppose so. Good job." She looked at Laharl, who was looking amused at her. "Don't tell me that you two were doing something you shouldn't when Pudding called."
"Bah!" Laharl scoffed and crossed his arms, looking away in annoyance. "Flonne cheated."
"I did not cheat, Laharl." Flonne pouted, "I just found a way to win in the game you didn't expect."
"What are you talking about?" Laharl told her. "I totally saw that coming and was totally blocking when you launched that attack, my controller must not have reacted in time."
"Uh huh..." Purple Heart, Pudding, Flonne and Black Heart all said with similar looks of disgust on their faces.
"Anyway," Laharl huffed as he ignored their looks, "I wasn't going to go with but then I realized it was time to get more of that pudding you promised us a few centuries ago."
"Oh yeah, the stone giants..." Purple Heart muttered, remembering how stone giants had invaded Laharl's netherworld and did the worst thing imaginable...
Made it impossible to get more Sea of Gehenna pudding.
"And since Flonne was asked to come up here anyway," Laharl shrugged. "I thought I'd follow along."
"Um, Lady Flonne..." Artina sweat-dropped heavily as Flonne looked at her. "I'm not in TOO much trouble, am I?" She gulped as Flonne gave her a dark look.
Suddenly Flonne stopped giving Artina a dark look and smiled. "Oh, don't worry, Artina. I'm sure that you have a good reason for all of this... Riiiight?" The sudden change was off-putting and both Artina and Purple Heart could swear that they were seeing flowers behind Flonne.
"Um, mom..." Stadia looked at Purple Heart before looking at Flonne. "Is everything good now?"
"I don't know." Purple Heart said and gave Artina a dirty look. "I guess it depends on what she decides to tell."
Artina had an indignant look. "Are you insinuating that I'm a liar?!"
Purple Heart shrugged. "You said it, not me."
Laharl and Flonne both gawked as Purple Heart and Artina got into each other's faces and started growling with an aura surrounding each of them. Pudding, Black Heart, Stadia and Ouya all looked non-plaused, this was something that they had seen many times over in their lives.
"Shouldn't you be spreading your legs for that guy?" Artina asked, her eyes white and blank with an angry expression on her face while pointing at Sobar, who was making his way over to the group with Neptune.
"Shouldn't you be walking down the street and begging people for money to spread yours?" Purple Heart shot back, an aura of fire surrounding both of them.
"Wow!" Neptune had a bewildered look on her face. "I never knew that there was a me that could talk like that."
"Well, with all the bad blood between the two of them, there's a lot more that could be said." Sobar said as he calmly walked up to them and put his left hand on Purple Heart's shoulder. "Neptune, please, calm down, you know this won't do any good." He sighed in relief as she let out a huff and turned away, the aura of flames dying out around her while Artina huffed and looked away as well.
"Wow, I didn't think Neptune would calm down that fast." Purple Sister said as she and Black Sister flew down to meet up with the others, followed by Green Heart, White Heart and both White Sisters.
Orange Heart, Yellow Heart and Iris Heart walked up to the group.
"And who the heck are these other CPUs?!" Artina suddenly yelled as she glared at the CPU Candidates and Orange Heart. "I thought those ascention items were heavily regulated and controlled to keep anyone from becoming a CPU."
"They are." Green Heart said with a small smirk on her face. "But we can't control everything, if we could, do you really think that we would have allowed you to come anywhere near this world while we were gone?"
Uzume, Nepgear, Sobar and Uni all sighed as tensions started to pick up again between the CPUs and Artina.
"Um..." Flonne spoke up as she looked at Sobar. "I'm sorry, but who are you," she pointed to Nepgear, Uni, Rom and Ram, "and all of you," she then pointed at Uzume, "and you?"
"I'm Uzume Tennouboushi, former CPU of Planeptune." Uzume waved at Flonne."
"I'm Uni, CPU Candidate of Lastation."
"I'm Nepgear, CPU Candidate of Planeptune and Neptune's little sister." Nepgear smiled at the Angel.
"I'm Ram," Ram said and pointed to her sister. "That's Ram, we're the CPU Candidates of Lowee."
"Uh huh, and Blanc's little sisters."
Uni had a flat expression on her face. "Urgh, you three just had to show me up, huh? I should have mentioned that I'm Noire's little sister."
Flonne, Artina and Laharl were all rather surprised. "I've never heard of them having little sisters." Artina muttered to herself as she scratched her head in confusion.
Flonne opened her mouth before she blinked in surprise. "Oh! Right! I remember over-hearing Lady Neptune telling Etna that she missed her little sister when Etna mentioned her brother."
"Huh, that was a long time ago." Purple Heart said softly as she chuckled. "Nepgear, Uni, Rom, Ram and Uzume are from my home dimension." She huffed and gave them an annoyed look. "And I didn't ask you to come with."
"You didn't tell us we couldn't either, Nepsy." Uzume pointed out and Purple Heart rolled her eyes. "Besides, after you saved my butt when I told you to get out of Zero Dimension, do you think I'm going to sit back and not help you when I owe you?"
"Uzume..." Purple Heart sighed softly. "This isn't the..."
Uzume suddenly growled and got in front of Purple Heart, poking her in the chest. "There you go again! Dammit, Nepsy! Stop trying to take on the world's problems by yourself!" She gave Purple Heart a pleading look. "You try too hard, you're just burning yourself out. You gave up everything for the people of this Planeptune, your happiness and even your children. You ruined your relationship with Plutsy because you took too much onto yourself." Uzume's eyes started to water up before she hugged Purple Heart. "Please? No more. Stop taking all of the world's problems on by yourself."
"Uzume..." Purple Heart whispered as Uzume tightened the hug.
"Please, Nepsy?" Uzume asked and sniffed. "Heh," she let go of the hug and rubbed her eyes, "I'm usually not that emotional in this form. Totally not cool on my part."
"No," Purple Heart shook her head, "I... I have a lot of stuff to work through, thank you." She sighed heavily and looked at Sobar. "That reminds me, why are you here? Don't you have stuff to do as King?"
Sobar smiled at Purple Heart. "I never introduced myself to the Angel properly." He looked at Flonne and gave her a bow. "My name is Sobar, one of the former Kings of the Mole People."
"Former?" Purple Heart asked in surprise. "What do you mean?"
Sobar just smiled at her. "I've retired. My youngest grandchild from my youngest child took over the throne. Olivia's a sweet girl, she'll be fine as the Queen."
"Grand..." Purple Heart gasped in surprise. "Our... Our grandchild?" Sobar nodded and Purple Heart looked down, a truly distressed look on her face. "I missed so much of their lives." She screwed her eyes shut as tears filled her eyes.
The other CPUs all looked away, going quiet as all of them realized that they all likely had grandchildren as well and none of them had been able to spend time with their families either.
"So, you two..?" Flonne asked, her eyes sparkling. "That's so sweet! It's not often I see a husband and wife still..." She trailed off at the awkward look on Sobar's face. "You mean, you two aren't..?"
"I..." Sobar began and Purple Heart shook her head. "...Neptune?"
"...Can we talk, in private?" Purple Heart asked.
"That's a good idea." Flonne clapped her hands and smiled. "Why don't we meet up in your Basilicom in an hour? That way we can all calm down." She gave Artina a look, causing her to nod. "Okay, see you in an hour." Flonne, Artina and the Angels all disappeared while Laharl stayed there with an annoyed look on his face.
"Hey, I just want pudding, okay?" He huffed in annoyance. "Getting to see this freak-show of love isn't something that I signed up for."
Purple Heart chuckled and nodded, "sure, I'll get the cooks to make some up." She looked at the others and they nodded as they all transformed back into their human forms. "So..." Neptune smiled, "let's go back, okay?"
"Yeah." The group collectively agreed and went back to the Basilicom.
(-)
Neptune looked at Sobar as the two sat on chairs facing each other in her office, which had the doors and windows closed to limit the exposure of natural light that hurt Sobar. "I..." Neptune began and looked down.
"Neptune." Sobar said softly and held out his hand, causing Neptune to gasp as she saw the ring in his palm. "I kept it."
Neptune reached out with a trembling hand and took the simple gold band, before smiling at him with tears rolling down her face. "W-why did you keep it?"
"Because I knew there was something wrong, Neptune." Sobar said while smiling at her gently. "I knew that you were hurting, but I was too stupid to come after you. I should have retired sooner and made one of our children take over the throne."
Neptune trembled as she squeezed the ring in her hand and pulled it against her chest. "I... I missed you."
"What happened, Neptune?" Sobar asked the smaller girl. The sudden look of pure despair that crossed Neptune's face had him kneeling in front of her and hugging her. "Let it out. Let it all out."
Neptune hiccuped before hugging him back and burying her face into his shoulder as centuries of emotion suddenly bubbled up and spilled out of her as she cried loudly into his embrace.
As he listened to his estranged wife cry and babble about so many things, Sobar felt his heart breaking with each moment as tears fell from his face while he held her. As small as Neptune was normally, she felt so tiny and fragile while he held her that he was worried she would shatter like an expensive wine glass if he let go of her.
"I won't let you be alone anymore, Neptune." Sobar whispered, which caused Neptune to let out a fresh amount of wailing as more emotions came pouring out of her.
(-)
Meanwhile...
Histoire looked at the CPU Candidates and Uzume in surprise. "Is it really so surprising to see a tiny me?"
"Uh huh..." Uzume said before suddenly hugging Histoire. "You're like the most super dee duper cutest Histy ever! Uzume wants to take you home with her and put you next to her Histy and have dress up parties and..."
"Uzume..." Nepgear said as she coughed into her fist while Uni helped pry Uzume's arms off of Histoire, "you're doing it again."
Uzume's eyes went white and blank as she let go of Histoire. "ACK! Sorry!" She smiled and rubbed the back of her head while Histoire coughed and panted. "I didn't mean to go crazy like that."
"It," Histoire coughed, "it's okay. I haven't had someone do that to me since I first met Neptune." She smiled at Uzume. "So, you're Neptune's ancestor?"
"Close enough." Uzume told her. "I was the CPU of Planeptune about eighty or so years before Nepsy became the CPU. I was sealed away because of some bad stuff that happened, but Nepsy saved me and so now I'm here."
"I see..." Histoire looked over to see Ouya and Stadia looking around the place with looks that combined nostalgia and wonderment. "Yes, I know how that is." She nodded and turned to the two girls, floating over to them. "Ouya! Stadia!"
"Aunt Histy?" They asked at the same time and looked at her. "What is it?"
Histoire smiled at them. "I know that we have a meeting in about..." She looked up as a clock materialized above Stadia's head and nodded. "Twenty-eight minutes until the Angels return, but I wanted to say this," she looked back at them while smiling more. "Welcome home you two, I missed you both."
The next thing Histoire knew, Ouya and Stadia were hugging her as tight as they dared.
"I missed you too." Stadia whispered while Ouya nodded.
I was planning on having the meeting and screaming here, but... I thought this was a good place to end this chapter. I'll get to the meeting proper in the next chapter.