An excerpt from CPU Blanc's memoirs, volume 21 chapter 3:

A superficial world that looked close enough to be her own yet wasn't, like a moment lost in time to the annals of history within a cataclysmic catastrophe that only she had borne witness to in a dream. To live each day without really feeling alive and to be alive without knowing how to live, that was the curse of this story's protagonist. The faces she greeted were worn masks worn by people she thought she knew, but only she was fully aware of the truth. Why had she been cursed with this knowledge of the cruel realities of the world? What capricious god had seen fit to place her in this precarious balancing act, constantly teetering between damnation and ignorant salvation? Was it so criminal to desire a moment of happiness for her own amidst the raging chaos generated by her mere existence that her punishment should persist in painful perpetuity? There was only one answer of course; She'd done it to her own damn self. This land was still Gamindustri, she was still a CPU, goddess and leader of her beloved nation, but everything was ever so barely slightly wrong. The CPUs were supposed to be diligent leaders of their nations created from the wishes of those who believed in them, not morons who couldn't figure out which side of a controller was up. For this purpose, our heroine set out on a journey of self-discovery, aiming to determine exactly what it was that had caused the course of their world to turn so very very very very wrong.

"Blanc? Hey, Blanc!"

Over the course of her journey, many would ask the fearless heroine what the most daunting task or daring feat she ever accomplished was, showering her in admiration despite her humble requests to have such praise redirected. Most of the time she would simply brush them off. It wouldn't do for a symbol of the hope of humanity fighting to avoid allowing the dark personal demons raging within her to surface and destroy the world to become a selfish braggart like some of her companions. When pressed to answer, however, she wouldn't describe the horrors of spending years trapped in dangerous dungeons or her struggles against deities who could wipe her world out of existence with a mere thought. No, her greatest struggle had always been the quiet moments, when all was well and there was no enemy in her face that deserved her swift justice. It was in those moments that those who truly represented all that was wrong with the world chose to rear their ugly heads in her direction, fangs and chest bared to strike. Even now, here in the Share Tower building representing the heart of commerce and diplomacy for all of Gamindustri, our heroine struggles. Still, the heroine soldiered onward in the hopes that her struggles would serve as an example to follow for future generations to come and-

"BLANC!"

Blanc blinked once, the present moment finally holding her attention. She had lost herself in thought somewhere in the middle of Lastation's report on the current state of their latest releases. It wasn't entirely her fault; nothing was particularly interesting to her about the other nation's products besides the emphasis on hardware specifications. Zoning out was therefore an understandable reaction when her fellow CPUs were presenting, albeit an awkward mood setter when they didn't follow her train of thought. "Yes, sorry, what were we talking about?" Blanc asked, focusing on the woman standing by the projection screen at the front of the room.

Said woman sighed and shook her head, black pigtails swinging back and forth rhythmically. Noire was Blanc's favorite of her colleagues, if only because she acknowledged the importance of their position more than once a month. For a goddess of a nation she was too overconfident and insecure at the least convenient times, but Blanc would sooner count on her for help in a crisis than her other fellow CPUs. "Seriously, if you're not going to pay attention, you might as well have ditched with Neptune. I was asking whether you'd made any progress on exploring the potential for making some of our games more cross-platform friendly."

It was one of many questions Blanc had prepared for, the CPU's instincts kicking in to take over for the part of her mind that had wandered away. "Oh. No, not at this time. While it's a high priority for our developers, we likely won't catch up to the standards you set us at for a while."

Noire bit her lip but refrained from pushing the envelope further. The agreement for cross-platform integration had taken over a year to broker and had resulted in more than zero fist fights, but one of the conditions they'd settled on was Lowee could take as long as it wanted to catch up to Lastation's demanding technical specifications. "Well, I guess there's nothing to be done about it then. In that case, Lastation has nothing else to report this month. Oh yeah, and the Share Tower designers asked me to ask you all for comments on their redesign of this room. You can let me or them know what you think when we're done here. Please don't break anything this month. They worked really hard to get this together in time and the Share Tower might finally kick us out if we keep this up." The CPU of Lastation indicated some comment cards left on the center of the table before she returned to her seat, completely failing to mention that last month's incident had been at least forty percent her fault.

The large conference room felt much emptier when nobody was speaking. Blanc's gaze wandered past the room's four other occupants to the features of the opulent meeting room. It was painfully obvious that Lastation's people had been primarily responsible for designing both the Share Tower and their new room, and not just because the neutral meeting ground happened to be closer to Lastation's capital than anyone else's. Soaring arches allowed excessively large windows to blast sunlight across the marble floors, gold-tinted table and chairs, like the whole chamber was constantly trying to suck in a deep breath from the outside. Aside from the bare minimum materials necessary to conduct a meeting, which happened to include nothing more than the gold-tinted round table, meeting chairs, and a jet black projector, the room was cavernously empty. It was the polar opposite of the admittedly homey feel the room had when Planeptune's design submission had won the bid for control of the room, and Blanc intended to report as such on her comment card. Noire's constant complaining about the lack of gravity that old design had lent to their supposedly business-only affairs had erupted into a brawl last month. This predictably led to the conference room's 12th redesign in almost as many meetings and they were back to banal. Though the Share Tower had originally been constructed to foster cooperation and commerce between nations, it had ended up primarily filling that role by creating jobs for interior designers. Had Neptune been here, Blanc could see the imp going stir crazy without having something for her to smash in pettiness out of having her room ruined.

Ignoring the garish affluence was difficult, but Blanc managed it by turning her attention to the matter at hand for a moment. Having these official monthly meetings felt like a rather large waste of time to her, considering how often the four CPUs would meet up to do everything from saving the world to shooting the breeze on a near-daily basis. They didn't even bother dressing up, instead wearing their normal day-to-day attire and approaching the meeting with the same flippant attitude that they would a simple monster slaying quest. The benefit of giving the media a way to assuage public fears of console warfare was an acceptable consolation Blanc wished she'd thought of though. For all their progress from being at each other's throats, the limitations imposed by a finite number of shares needed to power each nation never failed to leave all but one of the CPU's minds. Subjecting herself to official check-ins in the name of keeping things relatively balanced was a fair price to pay for peace. This only left preparing for the next inevitable calamity that would befall the land of Gamindustri as her primary occupation. For better or worse, it was a full-time job. "Then it's time we addressed the elephant in the room!" Vert, CPU of Leanbox, declared, slamming a hand on the table. "Which one of you is going to take responsibility for the decline in tourism to Leanbox?"

There was an uneasy silence in the room. "Is that supposed to be a rhetorical question?" Noire eventually asked.

Vert rose from her seat, her frame towering over the other CPUs present. Despite her regal appearance accented by long flowing blond hair and a frilly green dress, Blanc was already nearly tuned out of the CPU's tirade. Her physiological advantages had stolen all the nutrients her brain had needed to fully develop, so listening to her when she got a bad idea in her head was an exercise in futility. It was a shame, truly. If she spent half the time she spent gaming or being a braggart on doing her job, there was a slight chance that her nation would be seen as a credible alternative to Blanc's Lowee. "Of course not! Leanbox prides itself on being open to everyone, yet in the past month we've seen a near 10% decline in tourism compared to similar times in previous years. Leanbox hasn't changed its wonderful nation, so one of you must be up to something you're not sharing with the class. I demand answers!" For some reason, the blond CPU was leveling her accusatory gaze right at Blanc.

Blanc stared blankly at Vert in return. There was no reason to rise to the CPU's ineptitude if she wasn't planning on saying anything important. As Vert opened her mouth to try again, CPU candidate of Planeptune and CPU Neptune's sister Nepgear spoke up. "It's not Neptune's fault! There's a lot of stuff going on in the world that could have caused this problem to occur, okay?"

Vert blinked, her mouth still half-open. When she recovered, her expression had softened considerably. "Of course, Nepgear dear. I wouldn't dream of accusing you of anything. You're my adorable little sister, after all."

"I'm not your-"

"Thank you, Vert," Historie, Planeptune's Oracle and the only person Blanc would truly call reliable in the room, thanked the CPU over Nepgear's protest. "Although I would need some time to complete a thorough analysis, the recent increase in monster incursions has likely produced the tourism issues that you're describing."

Vert thought about this for a moment. "Then you all have been experiencing similar issues?" she pressed, unwilling to let the issue go. "This is part of the lifeblood of Leanbox we're talking about. I've devoted followers in all corners of the world who depend on their ability to visit my nation."

The way Vert described her cult made Blanc want to puke, but she'd learned over the decades that Vert didn't take well to that kind of behavior for some reason. "No issues from Lastation, but that's just what you'd expect from a nation like mine. I mean, yeah there's been more monster attacks, but we're handling it and it's not negatively affecting us. We don't depend on tourism much anyways," Noire boasted with a hand flipping her hair back arrogantly.

"Planeptune has not experienced tourism issues either," Nepgear admitted. "If anything, Neptune's, um, absence has given us a significant boost in tourism this past week. Oh goodness, I hope that wasn't her intention." A collective sigh went around the room as everyone took a moment to acknowledge what Neptune had done to all of their reputations merely by existing.

That Neptune managed to run her nation into anything but the ground was a testament to how hard the people around her worked to pick up the massive amounts of slack she left behind. Sensing that everyone was waiting for her response, Blanc rolled her eyes in the most inconspicuous way possible. "We had a record month this year for tourism, though it was within expectations since we just opened a new amusement park. I mentioned this in my report you know."

"So you admit that it's your fault!" Vert exclaimed, pointing a finger dramatically at the CPU. "You opened a park just to take away shares from all of us for your own selfish gain, didn't you? I bet you're creating these monsters somehow too, aren't you? I didn't hear anything about a monster increase in Lowee."

Blanc's short patience snapped in two. Why Vert had chosen to be an antagonist today wasn't as important as defending the honor of her nation. She rose, steadying her hands on the table in front of her. "First of all, the park plans were approved by all of you months in advance. I had to jump over who knows how many hoops because you kept coming up with stupid reasons why building needed to be delayed. Second, the people who visit your nation to rub elbows with your lascivious cult are a completely different demographic from my family-oriented amusement park. Third, the real reason you don't have tourists right now is a combination of monsters making the highways between nations less safe to travel and Neptune's absence. If you'd been paying attention, you know very well that people move around less when a CPU is missing, especially if it's Neptune. That woman is a trouble magnet. Planeptune's tourism is up because her Basilicom pays out money to anyone affected by her shenanigans when she returns regardless of whether they live there or not. Any more dumb questions?"

It was a hostile summary of events, but Blanc had no intention of granting quarter to someone like Vert. To her surprise, the CPU merely smiled as if this had been her plan the whole time and sat down again. "Well put for you, Blanc. I didn't think about it that way. I retract my accusation. By all means, let's continue."

Though it felt like she'd somehow managed to lose the argument that she'd won, Blanc sat down again. Vert hadn't even commented on Blanc's dig at the nature of her followers, meaning that this issue was either actually bothering her or she was biding her time for something. It was just another illogical guessing game that made her grateful Leanbox was on the opposite side of the world from Lowee. Planeptune and Lastation had their quirks, but nobody could make Blanc quicker to anger than Vert could. Nepgear glanced around nervously, and realizing that it had suddenly become her turn, she shot out of her seat.

"W-well, moving on to my report, as you know, Neptune is busy, ah, with some work at the moment," she explained sheepishly. "But aside from a rise in monster attacks that has caused some trouble for citizens living outside the major cities, we have nothing of note to report."

"So Planeptune is affected in other ways, eh?" Vert, muttered to herself. "It would seem that something actually is at work under the surface here. Are you certain that there has been no rise in monster attacks in Lowee, Blanc?"

"If there was anything on the scale you and the others were talking about, the hunter's guild would have reported it to me," Blanc waved off casually. "Despite the appearance of our nation, we're more than well-equipped enough to handle a few monsters. It's possible the increases you speak of haven't been noticeable enough in Lowee to reach my attention."

This was a bold-faced lie, and the heroine knew it very well. However, she had to play it cooler than a winter night during a blizzard in her beloved nation. If she drew too much attention to the fact that her handling of the rise in monsters had led to slight increases in shares for Lowee, it would only bring unnecessary trouble to her people. Inequality bred contempt, after all. Her story wouldn't be this storied if she hadn't picked up a trick or two for handling herself in the field of verbal combat along with physical combat, after all.

"At least the nation itself is well-equipped, even if the CPU isn't," Vert taunted, conspicuously leaning forward in her seat to flaunt her genetic advantages over her fellow CPU.

Blanc's blood pressure reached a record high that morning, but nobody was around to document the achievement, leaving her outburst at Neptune's birthday party over Neptune ruining Rom's cake slice as the largest recorded Blanc freakout incident on record. "Say it again, thunder tits, I dare you," Blanc threatened, already preparing to summon her hammer.

"I said you're compensating for something, nothing more, nothing less. It's nothing to be ashamed of, Blanc." Vert's honeysweet tone dripped with venom that Blanc couldn't fathom the reason for, not that she was putting much of an effort in to figure it out.

In an instant, Blanc's hammer was in her hand. The face of the hammer was bigger than Blanc's body herself, yet she wielded the weapon as if it weighed nothing. Her eyes gleamed with justified rage as she prepared to swing with her full might at her foe. If Vert was lucky, she'd go flying through enough walls that Blanc wouldn't feel like following her. Before she could, however, someone darted in front of her, standing on the table between her and her target.

"Stop it!" Noire demanded, holding her hands out. "Both of you! I just said I don't want this room destroyed today! We're going to get sued if this keeps up!"

Blanc gritted her teeth. She wanted nothing more than to wipe the stupid smirk off of Vert's face, but taking the first swing would mean that she'd get blamed for everything for some reason, and Vert knew that. If anything, the CPU was just goading her into causing problems as some misguided revenge for Lowee's success where Leanbox faltered. By the time she'd processed the problem thoroughly, she'd calmed down enough to relax back into her seat. "An apology would be nice," she spat as calmly as one could at Vert.

"If I must," Vert conceded, sitting back in her seat as well. "My apologies, Blanc."

Blanc grunted and folded her arms, still seething but keeping it to herself for the sake of her nation's pride. The apology was met with silence from the room for a moment that irritated Blanc. It wasn't like she preferred the good old days where the four nations were constantly at each other's throats, but having a building specifically dedicated to peace on the territory of all four nations felt wrong somehow. If that was what made everyone so unusually aggressive when they visited, it only proved her right. "So you don't know where Neptune is?" Blanc eventually asked, changing the subject before anyone could think of something inappropriate to say.

"No, not at this time," Histoire admitted without any resistance. "It'll be about 3 days before I can finish attempting to make contact with her again. Up to this point she has either refused to accept contact from me or my calls are not going through."

"Of course it will…" Nepgear muttered before a look from Histoire inspired her to sit down.

With Nepgear's report unceremoniously ended, what little direction the meeting had faded away. Without Neptune to drive conversation or any reports to give, it suddenly became that much harder for everyone to figure out what to say. "If that's all, then I'll take my leave," Blanc spoke up, rising from her seat. "I have a lot of work to do."

"I do too!" Noire insisted despite nobody asking her as she jumped down from the table. "But it's important that we make sure there's a plan in place to deal with this mysterious rise in monsters before it starts threatening people. Solving the mystery now would save us some headaches later."

"Why don't you start up your own hunter's guild then?" Blanc suggested. "The increases could be natural."

"Planeptune has been exploring this option," Histoire added. "It could serve as another branch of our currently existing adventurer's guild. There's no reason Lastation and Leanbox couldn't implement something similar."

At this suggestion, Noire folded her arms defensively and turned her head up. "Hmph. Lastation can handle itself. I just didn't want to allow my competition to get completely destroyed by a few measly monsters." The way Noire scoffed at Blanc made it clear that she was having just as much trouble as Planeptune but didn't want to admit it.

"Well, Leanbox has had no excessive issues, implying that the issue is probably centralized somewhere on the mainland. Though our shores have been more, shall we say exciting than usual recently," Vert added. "I don't suppose Lowee has any hunters they can spare for a patrol or five?"

It was an innocent enough suggestion that Blanc could easily fulfill on goodwill alone. Unfortunately, Vert had thrown that option completely out the window less than five minutes ago and she knew that. Whatever the conniving CPU wanted, Blanc wasn't about to provide it after being burned one hundred too many times. "If you have a request, you're welcome to file it to the hunter's guild request board and wait for a response," Blanc informed her curtly. "We don't conscript hunters to do jobs they don't want to do."

"A shame," Vert sighed. "Perhaps that is why nobody is available to take care of my adorable little sisters when you find yourself busy with your work."

Blanc had been more than prepared to leave the conversation entirely before Vert had provoked her again. A part of her deep down understood that there was no tangible benefit to feeding into Vert's taunts, but touching on the second of her three sensitive subjects was the most effective way anyone knew to cause Blanc to lose control. "You wanna get thrashed that badly?" Blanc warned, jabbing a finger menacingly towards the blond CPU. "I'm more than happy to take this outside if you're desperate to get your ass kicked. And they're my little sisters, not yours."

"They've been spending plenty of time with their older sister," Vert denied, smiling serenely "I merely heard that you've been shutting yourself in your office for most of the last month. Could it be that you're hiding Lowee's monster issues from us?"

Blanc's pointed finger turned into a fist that was slammed on the table in front of her. The table jostled around but didn't break, having been specially reinforced to withstand the blows of the goddesses after the staff had gotten sick of replacing the table after every meeting. "Is it a problem that I want Rom and Ram to see the world?" Blanc hissed through gritted teeth. "I'm not so petty that I'd hide a problem that basic from the other nations. If you have an issue with how I raise my CPU candidates, then say it to my face. Don't get vindictive just because your nation couldn't produce any."

The room generally expected Vert to back down with this statement, but instead the CPU rose from her seat, making sure her chest was on full display to everyone present. "All I said was that you might do well to appreciate the future of your nation more," Vert responded innocently. "Perhaps the idea of forward progress is too foreign for Lowee to understand, but they're going to take over for you eventually, are they not? Maybe you'd like to write another terrible novel about it?"

"They're not even close to ready for that yet," Blanc snapped, the third sensitive subject of her writing ability pressing her far beyond the level of reason. "Don't get snippy with me just because my nation is handling this problem better than yours is. At least I bother to put in the work to make sure the lights stay on."

"Neptune and Vert deserve that," Histoire nodded to herself.

"No she doesn't!" Nepgear insisted. "Neptune definitely meant to come this month, she just had some, ah, um, difficult work to do this week!"

"It's hard to remember which one of you is the CPU candidate sometimes," Noire sighed. "Speaking of which, I really do need to go too. Uni is giving a presentation on some new hardware this evening. Again, you two, outside please."

"Oh, the sequel to the one that failed outside of Lastation?" Nepgear asked innocently. "She told me-"

"Are you trying to pick a fight?" Noire suddenly asked, her eyes indicating the rhetorical nature of that question. "Because Planeptune is more than welcome to try and achieve the level of innovation that-"

"Enough!" Histoire yelled, floating to the center of the room to interrupt both ongoing arguments. "Do we have to do this every month? Honestly, you four. At least pretend to get along for an hour when you don't have a screen in front of your face. I'm sick of having to cover up potential international incidents every time one of you visits and gets into a scuffle."

There was quiet for a moment before, one by one, all the CPUs present apologized. Vert still looked like Blanc needed to teach her a lesson, but the Lowee CPU figured it could wait until next time. Despite the rage she felt remaining built up in her like some sort of stomach ulcer, she couldn't bring herself to wield her powers and transform for the sake of satisfying her own personal grudge today. It wasn't like punching Vert's face in would do anything other than validate the CPU's claims in everyone's mind. She did a fine job taking care of her little sisters and juggling her personal hobbies with work. Knowing this didn't prevent the topic from sitting heavily on her mind as she transformed into CPU White Heart and flew off towards home. Vert wasn't normally that rude. White Heart knew that, knew she should have dug deeper and tried to determine what the real problem was, but she'd instead spent most of the meeting not paying attention or seeing red. Perhaps these meetings were more causing more problems than they solved. She'd heard the whispers of the Share Tower employees when they thought nobody was listening about how all the CPUs were actually berserk monsters liable to fly off the hinges at the slightest affront. It was disgraceful.

White Heart shot across the sky like a bullet, allowing her to take in the nation she ran from the air as she made for the castle Basilicom that she ran her snow-covered country from. Save for her eyes turning red and her hair becoming longer and electric blue, she wasn't too physically different in her CPU form from her human form. The white body suit didn't do her curves any favors, but she had nothing to hide. As long as she got her job done, nobody had any right to complain about how she looked, and she was far more devoted to her work than even Noire. In fact, the CPUs had less right to criticize how she conducted her business most of all, Vert especially. If they thought she was doing a bad job, all they had to do was show her how much more prosperous their nations currently were. "They should remember who got here first," The CPU muttered to herself as home came into view.

Taking note of her current location, White Heart slowed down, allowing herself to be seen in the sky without causing a panic. A few people passing by on the snowy streets below waved up at her as she flew towards her Basilicom home. White Heart waved back at them, though her mind remained elsewhere. It was tempting to fly straight to her office using the balcony she'd had created specifically for that purpose, but the pent-up frustration that she was feeling was the sort of thing she would only get out from walking around for a while. With that decision made, White Heart finished her trip and landed gracefully at the front entrance with a white flash that returned her to her human form. Financier, Blanc's chamberlain, was waiting at the front door like she'd somehow expected Blanc to enter this way the whole time. "Welcome back, Lady Blanc. How was the meeting this month?" she asked kindly.

"Same as always. Irritating," The CPU grumbled. "When was the last reported sighting of Neptune in Lowee?"

Financier bowed as she closed the door behind them. "I believe the last time she was here was roughly a week ago when she visited an amusement park with the CPU candidates. May I ask why?"

"It's bugging me that she didn't show at today's meeting," Blanc admitted as she started toward her office, knowing Financier could keep a secret for her. "Not that I think she's in trouble, but if she's about to cause problems for everyone, then I'd like to know about it."

"Ah, speaking of that," Financier started as she caught up to Blanc's subconsciously fast pace. "I believe Rom and Ram may have gotten into some mischief while you were gone."

"Doodling on my books again?" Blanc asked, already feeling her temperature rising. There was a famous joke in Lowee that if they could channel the energy generated from Blanc's rage, they wouldn't need heaters. Those who thought to make such a joke in front of Blanc usually corrected their mistake quickly.

"Perhaps," Financier half-admitted, looking away. "I apologize. Though I couldn't get them to admit which ones, I promise we'll solve the mystery by-"

"Save it," Blanc cut the woman off with her hand, unwilling to let herself lose control again today. "It was the reference books on the second shelf from the top in the main library. If they wanted to be as annoying as possible they'd go for those, and I saw Ram eyeing them the last time we were in there. Mystery solved. I'll deal with my sisters later. Please replace those books. I have some work to take care of."

Financier was startled. Blanc usually would have flown off the rails at the mere mention of the idea that her younger sisters were destroying her property. The maid recovered in time to bow once more. "As you wish. I'll let them know of your intentions to see them when you are done."

Blanc nodded in thanks and made her way through the castle. Though she passed the odd worker here or there, the rooms were much emptier than the floor plan suggested they should be. Her castle had been designed with a much larger number of people going in and out in mind, and while Blanc did occasionally hold conventions worthy of the maximum head count, those events were sporadic at best. Expanding the staff would be pointless if they only needed to keep things looking nice a few times a year. The only exceptions were the rooms Blanc and her family frequented, one of which was the room behind Blanc's office that she entered after unlocking it with a key only she had. Inside this mostly empty room was a large floating crystal gleaming brilliant white, the symbol for power frozen in its center. Lowee's sharecite had changed a lot in the years that Blanc had been in control, growing from a tiny crystal to a stone that would give a geologist a heart attack. It was one of the most powerful symbols of her progress as a ruler besides her nation herself, and checking up on it regularly to absorb her power from it directly was arguably her most important duty. As she knelt in front of the hovering stone, memories of the day her sisters came to her flashed in her mind. It had been the happiest day she could remember, yet the questions that had followed had never managed to leave her mind since then. How was she supposed to train these twins to take over her nation? When would they be ready? Could she handle this?

No heroine truly walked her path alone, and this great heroine was no exception. After millennia of struggling with no reward but the glistening sweat on her brow, the heroine was granted the greatest gift she would ever receive: a family. It was a message from the sharecite that she'd earned the chance to reap the harvest of the hard work she'd sown over long years as a CPU, that her countless feats of strength and intelligence had earned her this rightful triumph. Of course, this didn't mean that her fight had ended. Far from it, as her new younger sisters were just that: young, inexperienced, nubile, vulnerable, unprepared. It would take everything she had and more and one step beyond that to mold them into the future that her nation needed to reach, and so the heroine's journey took the next step forward, into a great unknown that not even she could have fathomed that she would ever-

Blanc's monologue was interrupted by the door creaking behind her. The CPU's hammer was summoned into her hands in an instant, Blanc wheeling on her heels to strike down the invader in her private sanctuary. Only when she recognized the intruder as C-sha, leader of the hunter's guild and her close confidant, did Blanc stand down. "I thought I told you not to interrupt me when I'm in here," Blanc chided, annoyed.

"I mean, you did, but you also left the door wide open Blanny. I was going to just close it, but you seemed upset about something, so I sort of got distracted watching you. Sorry about that." C-sha clapped her hands together in apology.

Blanc sighed, the last of her anger leaving her body for the moment. There was nothing to chastise her friend for if she was the one who let her guard down. Though her friend's conspicuous physiological similarities to Vert had been hard to get over, the brunette was far more affable than the CPU and was one of the few humans Blanc could rely on in a pinch. She stepped out of the room, locking the door behind her. "Alright. Forget it. Did you need something?"

"Yes, but it seems like you need something more than I do," C-sha responded, refusing to drop the subject as Blanc sat at her desk in her much more tastefully decorated combined office and library. "What's bugging you? Did the CPU meeting go that badly?"

A vicious internal battle raged on in Blanc's mind as she determined what the best response to her friend in this particular situation was. The outcome of years' worth of warfare waged in nanoseconds was Blanc turning on her computer nonchalantly. "Nothing unexpected. They're having problems with monster incursions like us and Neptune couldn't be bothered to show up. Same old problems otherwise."

"Then what's Blanny's problem?" C-sha insisted, leaning on her friend's desk. "Last I heard, Lowee was outpacing the other nations in shares for the first time in a while."

"Which is why it's important to keep on top of new developments and ensure it stays that way," Blanc finished. "It won't take the others long to catch up if we don't stop innovating. I'm just busy, C-sha. You don't need to worry about me."

Fixing her eyes on her computer allowed Blanc to avoid speaking, but it didn't encourage C-sha to fill the gap in the air between them. Trying to beat any CPU in a stubbornness battle was about as smart as grinding for experience on dogoos, but C-sha always put up a valiant effort. Scrolling through the numerous emails that had piled up in her brief absence didn't reveal anything particularly interesting, but it gave her a break from thinking about her own problems. This included the one heaving a sigh in front of her. "If you're not going to talk about it, I suppose I won't pry," C-sha eventually conceded. "But it's not good for you to be cooped up in here. You should come with me on a monster slaying quest."

Blanc raised an eyebrow, looking up from her work. "Is that what you came here to ask me? Sorry, but I don't have time today. Or tomorrow, for that matter. We have some new policies going into effect tomorrow and I need to-"

"That's why you need to get out of work mode and let loose," C-sha interrupted, chopping Blanc lightly on the head. "If nothing else, it'd be good PR for you. Your people haven't seen you out there working for them on the front lines for what feels like weeks. I know this stuff is important, but you and I both know everyone else doesn't see how hard you're working when you aren't on the front lines."

The CPU swatted C-sha's hand away irritably. "Don't do that. If you were any other human you'd be dead right now,"

"Terrifying," C-sha responded sarcastically. "It's just a couple extra monsters roaming around the snowfields. You can be back in time to work on your novel before dinner."

A blush colored the CPU's cheeks as she turned away with a huff. "Like I have time for personal indulgences like that. I'm working updating my memoir of our adventures. I can't just treat it like any old manuscript! Rom and Ram might need it after I take over! It has to be perfect!"

C-sha raised her hands in mock surrender. "Okay, message received. I just think it'll be good for you to get out of your head for a bit, Blanny."

Sensing that she wasn't getting anywhere fast with the dismissive approach, Blanc cracked her knuckles and thumbed through her schedule. She was booked for the next week, but Financier was extremely adept at crunching hours when it was asked of her. C-sha was right about the importance of PR anyways. "If I say I'll go later this week will you leave me alone?"

Blanc's friend tilted her head. "Considering we'd be working together I don't know if that makes sense, but sure, okay. I'll be on call when you're ready, okay? Don't brood for too long." Without giving Blanc a chance to change her mind, C-sha jogged out of the room.

A string of insults that had no recipient formed and disappeared into nothing before they could leave Blanc's mouth. She wasn't sure who she was supposed to be angry with: C-sha for barging in and ruining her chance to work, her sisters for messing with her stuff while she was gone, or herself for allowing everything to happen in the first place. Blinking away the sudden wave of fatigue that overcame her, Blanc refocused on her computer. Seeing some fan mail from her subjects was heartening. It had been a difficult couple of years, transitioning from idea to idea in an attempt to maintain the spirit of Lowee as a magical, fairy tale sort of land without completely discarding the systems that had been established to help the country run better when she'd been unceremoniously removed as leader of Lowee for a while by Gold Third. The end result was an odd hybrid that encouraged both relaxation and personal autonomy, but it seemed to work for the vast majority of her subjects. After sorting through her research into the recent monster incursions, Blanc found herself staring at a blank piece of paper titled Heroine Story. It was supposed to be her place for brainstorming ideas about a new original story, but no idea had managed to survive her scrutiny long enough to stay on the paper, with the hyperbolic style of her light novels often getting mixed into what was supposed to be Blanc's non-fiction memoirs as a result. Blanc's fingers hovered over the keyboard, as if a thin barrier was preventing them from adding any words to the pristine white sheet in front of them. "The heroine was gallant, brave, and always seemed to know just what to say. She could chronicle her adventures perfectly without bias while at the same time juggling her other responsibilities. She didn't let her writing style bleed into her non-fiction work, because that would ruin everything, even if it did make the story much more interesting."

Of course, this monologue wasn't considered to be of suitable pristine quality to join the two words already typed on the page. Ever since she'd started her memoir, progress had been slow, unfocused. When asked what her goals for the story were, she seemed to know exactly what to say and what she was talking about. Upon sitting down to type something, however, nothing ever survived her initial filtering. "Just write something. It doesn't matter if it's crap. You'll never get anywhere like this. If you can't even do this you'll never create something strong enough to survive after you're gone. How are Rom and Ram going to lead the nation if you can't show them a model they can rely on?" Somehow, repeating maxims like this didn't encourage a story to miraculously appear on the screen.

The CPU shook her head, closing the latest story file as well. "There's too much to do to be thinking about this," she chastised herself. "If you don't go with C-sha today she'll come back here and start prying again. Be efficient. You're an intelligence-type CPU. Be at your best. You're in control."

Just as Blanc was about to head out once more, the door to her office opened again. Financier entered with a curtsey of her maid dress. "My lady, pardon the intrusion. C-sha is-"

"I know," Blanc waved off, making for the door. "I'm on my way to see her now. Has she left yet?"

"C-sha has left," Financier finished, causing Blanc to frown. "I came to inform you that there has been an emergency breakout of monsters near Uncharted Canyon. C-sha and some of the other stronger hunters have already left to address the problem. She asked me to apologize to you and to say that she'd make it up to you another time."

That C-sha expected Blanc to follow her despite what she'd said spoke volumes to her about how easy she was to read to that woman. Putting the thought aside for now, Blanc focused on the monster incursion at hand. "How bad is the threat?" Blanc asked, already calculating how long it would take her to fly to the dungeon. "Similar to the previous outbreaks we've been having?"

"It's nothing they can't handle," Financier reassured. "As with before, it seems as though the monsters are remaining confined to the dungeons. C-sha said you were busy and that she'd be able to handle this herself."

Even if that was true, Blanc was still bothered. "She couldn't have waited two minutes for me to finish checking my emails?" the CPU muttered. "That's twice today these stupid monster outbreaks have caused problems for me."

"She was waiting for half an hour," Financier gently informed her boss. "I believe you may have underestimated the amount of time it takes you to read your emails. If you'd let me have someone filter them for you I-"

"Not happening," Blanc interrupted, already heading for the door. "Thanks, but you do enough around here without having to dig through my emails. I've gotta go. This can't sit unaddressed any longer. Let Rom and Ram know I'll be back before dinner."

"Go where, may I ask?" Financier asked with the innocent air that told Blanc she was going to vehemently oppose her decision if she thought it was a waste of time. "Your sisters will want to know."

The heroine was surrounded by several friends, many of which seemed to underestimate her abilities as a heroine. When she made a decision, that was supposed to be final, so why did everyone insist that she was thinking about everything the wrong way? Did anyone ever tell Mario not to save the princess because hey, maybe you're the jerk for shoving yourself into the affairs of two kingdoms and unnecessarily prolonging a war that has resulted in countless more lives lost because one side can't surpass the other? It was food for thought, but the heroine was rarely hungry.

"To take care of something I should have done the second I realized it was happening. It's my fault for thinking that the other nations could handle something competently, that they could do more than belittle me for performing more effectively than them. I'm going to take care of this stupid monster incursion mystery once and for all."