Five months have passed since then and nothing major has happened to Gamindustri, it's almost as if things became too quiet. K-Sha and Sen have remanded unconscious the entire time, although Kei has been creating a Sharicite to attempt to revive her, although it's taken her quite a bit of effort and lack of sleep to complete it on her own while also managing Lasation. Last I saw Kei was a week ago and it seemed she hadn't slept for several days, I worry about her condition if she keeps that up. However, earlier today I had received a message from her saying she is coming to see Sen with the completed Sharicite, so hopefully she will be able to get some rest if her work pays off.
I hear a knock on my door followed by Histoire's voice, "Nepgear, Kei is here to see Sen, do you wish to come with us?"
"Sure, give me a bit to get ready," I call out in response. Then I head a thud like something dropped. "Histoire, is everything ok out there?"
"Mostly, that sound was Kei. She managed to come over here on her own like this and it seems she finally had her exhaustion catch up to her."
"We should let Kei rest so she can see Sen awaken."
"Alright then, I shall bring Kei into a guest bedroom to stay in."
Seven hours pass and Kei finally awakens. She still looks incredibly tired, although she is looking a bit better since they got several hours of sleep.
"Ah, Lady Nepgear and Histoire, what are you two doing here? Wait... did Sen wake up?!" Kei seems to have entered a panic after this question, stumbling to put her top back on properly and deciding to just leave it unbuttoned for now.
"We were going to go see her with you but then you passed out from exhaustion, you really shouldn't exert yourself so hard. We would have helped you to make the Sharicite, but you were claiming you could do it yourself," Histoire looks like she's about to start lecturing Kei of all people, but holds off given the situation.
"We'll walk you to where Sen and K-Sha are being treated," I say, trying to reassure Kei. "Hopefully your plan works and Sen wakes up."
"Thanks," Kei says with a sigh. She seems too weak right now to even raise her arms to put around us, it's a miracle she walked from the Lastation Basilicom to Planeptune's Basilicom.
Histoire moves under one of Kei's arms while I move under her other so we can help Kei walk without her losing balance. I knew Kei could be workaholic at times, but I feel her feeling responsible for this happening is why she took it this far.
We walk down to a secluded part of the Basilicom's infirmary, there a door is locked and requires access from either an Oracle or CPU in order to unlock. I grant the door access to open and we head inside. There lays K-Sha in one bed and Sen in the other, both still unconscious. Histoire takes the Sharicite from Kei and brings it over to Sen. When the Sharicite is placed on Sen, it's shine slowly disappears and Sen moves some. She continues to seemingly have restless movements for a few minutes before her eyes open.
"Where... am I..." Sen manages to get out.
"You're in the infirmary at the Planeptune Basilicom," I tell her.
"Is... that miss Kei?" She says, trying to point at Kei, her vision seems to be a bit blurry still.
"Yes, it's me," Kei says trying to get closer to Sen before losing her balance and nearly falling.
"Kei, you need to be more careful. You already nearly worked yourself to death these past few months, you need to take it easy!" Histoire says sternly to Kei
"I know... I think I'm going to just take a few days off work just to rest and make sure Sen recovers."
"Miss Kei... thank you..." Sen gets out before falling back asleep.
"..."
"Don't worry, she's just sleeping," Histoire reassures Kei. "K-Sha on the other hand... I'm not sure what has happened to her or if whatever she used reduced her body to a vegetative state because she took in so much energy into a normal body..."
"At the very least, she isn't dead since she's still breathing and still has a heartbeat," I chip in. "All we can do with her is wa-" I was cut off by K-Sha moving some.
"It seems we'll get our answer sooner than we thought."
K-Sha opens her eyes and sees us standing before her. Her eyes widen and she holds her head, seemingly in pain. She tries to let out a scream but nearly nothing comes out.
"What... what has happened to me..." K-Sha whispers, seemingly not being able to go any louder.
"You've been unconscious for the past five months after you went berserk after trying to attack Lastation's Basilicom," Histoire tells her, floating around to try to investigate her body.
"I... attacked Noire? Why... would I ever attack someone I looked up to so much," K-Sha whispers once more, seemingly straining her voice to get it be as loud as it is
"K-Sha... Noire hasn't been around for the past 10 years..." Kei tells her.
"W-what do you mean... I remember seeing Noire just the other day she even came over to my place..." she begins to hold her head again.
"K-Sha, we need you to tell us all of what you remember from before you went unconscious," I tell her, holding her shoulders in an attempt to keep her calm.
"Alright then..." She takes a deep breath then begins.
"I was doing my job when I was approached by a man in a hood, I don't remember what he looked like besides that. He said he would give me something that could help what I was doing, so I accepted it. He had given me a golden crystal that had a smaller purple crystal inside of it. He said just think of what I wanted to accomplish and I would be able to do it with the crystal.
A few days after I obtained that gold crystal, I heard news that the CPU of Lastation finally returned, so I had went up to the Basilicom to pay Noire a visit and she said afterwards that she would like to speak with me at my home, which got me a bit flustered at first but then I accepted after calming down. When we got to my house, Noire told me that she would like to help me in my goals of reforming Lastation, and I was excited that the CPU of Lastation was willing to help reform.
My memory is blank from that point until now, sorry."
"It sounds like that crystal she had altered her memory and vision to see what she wanted... Which makes it somewhat dangerous that there's someone just handing them out," Kei crosses her arms and tries to think.
"It's likely that it's not just one person handing them out, rather a group doing it," I say, hiding the fact I used one of those purple crystals to defeat K-Sha and Sen.
"Also K-Sha, the person you thought was Noire was actually Sen here, she's the new CPU of Lastation. And the time you said you went to visit Noire at the Basilicom was the time when Sen was kidnapped and you had said you took her," Histoire tells her, being very blunt about it.
"I-I kidnapped someone?" K-Sha says, the pain in her head seems to have come back. She looks over at Sen and then tries to get of her bed, only to fall on the floor.
"Are you ok?" Kei says, wanting to go over to K-Sha who's on the floor seemingly unable to get up.
"I... I can't move my legs... I can't even feel them..." K-Sha starts to panic on the ground.
"Calm down, we'll help you up," I say, helping Histoire sit Kei down and then lifting K-Sha off the ground and back into her bed.
"That crystal doesn't seem to have any negative effects on Sen, however K-Sha lost her ability to speak up and ability to walk. The power it grants seems to come at a high cost to normal humans like her," Histoire says, trying to not let K-Sha hear after we lay her back down.
"I... I'm deeply sorry for what I did... I did something unforgivable yet you three are taking special care of me..." K-Sha whispers out, tears forming in her eyes.
"Well, now we learnt that you weren't in control of your actions, so it wasn't your fault that all of this happened, although even if we wanted to punish you, we would feel bad now that we know what has happened to your body."
"I... thank you... you are all too kind..." she says as tears roll down her face, then she falls asleep.
"We should tell the other heads of the Gold Third what has happened and to keep an eye out for this group handing out these dangerous crystals," Histoire says, to which Kei and I both nod in response.
A month passes and K-Sha and Sen have both left the infirmary. Both had been taken care of by Kei as she left Lastation in the hands of Histoire and myself for that time. Sen has started her training on how to be a proper CPU with Kei after they left for the Basilicom. K-Sha had been bound to a wheelchair and decided that she will take some more time off from working with the Gold Third to get adjusted to her new life. In other news, the other heads of the Gold Third have been informed of the group of hooded individuals and have agreed with working with us once more to stop them as they are seen as a mutual threat to both of us as well as Gamindustri as a whole.
"Nepgear, I sense an anomaly that I can't tell what is," Histoire says, coming into my room early in the morning.
"Hmm..." I get out while trying to wake up. "What is it Histoire?"
"There's a spatial anomaly in the sky above Planeptune."
"A what now?"
"To explain it more simply, there's a crack in the sky right now. It's not extremely noticeable so it isn't going to cause a panic, but we should look into it as quickly as possible."
We quickly head over to where the crack is and we see IF already in the area looking for something.
"IF, what are you doing here?" I ask her.
"An anonymous client sent in a request a few hours ago to look for a purple book with a Planeptune symbol on it, they said it was important to them, so I am out here looking for it. I didn't even check if they had offered a reward, guess I'm still a bit of a softie after all these years," IF chuckles a little. "What brings you two out here?"
"We're here for that," Histoire says, pointing up the crack in the sky.
"How did I not notice that?"
"We don't know what caused it, which is why we're investigating around here to find any clues. We should work together, hopefully we find clues and the book you are looking for," I suggest.
"Sounds like a good idea Nepgear, let's start looking then."
An hour passes with no luck and then suddenly we hear a noise coming from the distance.
"What was that?" I ask in surprise.
"I'm not sure... I'll go check it out," IF says, reaching in her coat for one of her katar.
IF pulls a bush aside and we see a black book sitting there, it appears similar to Histoire's book. IF goes to pick it up and she looks at it.
"It's just a harmless book, has a pretty design on it at least," IF chuckles before having the book fly out of her hand and smack her in the face. "Ow, what the... what is this book," IF tries to slash at it with her katar but it just flies out of the way.
"What ever happened to 'look, not touch'?" The book says, smacking IF with itself again.
"Wait, it can't be," Histoire says, shocked, before flying over to the black book and opening it up. A girl the size of Histoire comes out of the book, except she has a tomboyish look to her as opposed to Histoire's more refined look.
"Hey thanks for the... oh hey Histoire, long time no see," she says.
"I... how are you here right now? I thought you were sealed?" Histoire begins to fly around the other book.
"Huh? I thought that you knew I was active again? We've been here before a few times, I even caused a uhh... incident a few years back I think is when it was."
"No, miss book, this is the first time we've seen you," I tell her, also trying to investigate her.
"At least you two keep a distance instead of trying to grab me immediately like her... ahem, I guess we got a bit off with our directions while traveling, but I should be able to just... wait is she not here with you?"
"Who are you talking about?" IF says, trying to hold back from attacking the book again. "And who are you even?"
"Oh right, if you haven't met me here that means you don't know my name. I'm Croire, I'm like Histoire but I do things differently... except even if I want to now I kind of was booknapped for a while, at least I get to have some fun while traveling worlds."
"Croire instigates problems through history to make history more 'interesting' when in reality she's just always bored and causes problems in order to entertain herself," Histoire says giving Croire an angry look.
"Hey, that was the old me... kind of... I don't actively do it now at least, only on accident now... besides a small handful of times..."
"Well, you weren't the book I was looking for I guess I'll just go ba-" IF is cut off from something, or rather someone, suddenly coming down crashing on her.
"Sorry, sorry, sorry. I guess I shouldn't have jumped so high," a familiar voice says to IF.
"Wait... it can't be..." I say, looking at who's on top of IF currently. She has a strap on her leg that seems to be for holding something, a black hoodie on with cord like straps, long pink hair, and two d-pad shaped hair clips on her head. "N-Neptune?"
"Huh, oh, hi Nepgear, long time no s-" She was cut off by me going to hug her. "I didn't realize I was gone for long enough to be missed this much."
"Hey Neptune, this isn't the world we were in before, it may seem similar but we have never been here before."
"Then how do you explain how Nepgear recognized me so quickly," she chuckles.
"I don't think she did, I think you just matched enough traits and even voice for Nepgear to think you are her late sister," Histoire says, trying to not let me hear, I hear it but choose to now acknowledge it.
"What do you mean by 'late sister'? Is the Neptune of this world not around still?" Croire asks.
I pull back from the larger Neptune and wipe away some tears. "Neptune, along with all the other CPUs besides myself, had died in the fight against the Deity of Sin ten years ago, actually it's halfway to eleven years now. I was the only CPU for the longest time until six months ago when Lastation got a new CPU, although some issues came about and they weren't able to properly take the position until a few days ago."
"Hmmm... does that mean that sword was used?" Croire asks, she seems like she's trying to push some buttons.
"Yes, it was. It's currently sealed in an area that only myself and Histoire can access because I don't want any more suffering to come from it being used."
"I-" Croire tries to say something but has her book closed my the large Neptune.
"Well, that's enough out of her, I am still needing help to find the Nep-Note so we can be on our way," she says, trying to hold Croire's book still.
"That's nice and all, but can you please get off of me?" IF says, struggling under the large Neptune.
"Oh, sorry. I guess I kind of forgot that I landed on you," she chuckles before standing up.
IF brushes dust and dirt off of her coat and then looks at the large Neptune, "I wasn't expecting the anonymous client to be a large Nep, then again who else could make such an absurd request this early in the morning," IF chuckles some.
"This world is very different than the one I know that looks like this. The one I know has all the CPUs alive and well, as well as a connection to my home being open between the two. So much happened there that I would sound crazy if I brought it up here."
"Like what?" Histoire asks, her eyes lighting up to learn what is happening in other worlds.
"Well, there was a lady called Rei who connected with another version of herself to try merging two dimensions together and also a former CPU of Planeptune who tried to revive and also... merge dimensions together. You know, that world really has trouble with people who want to merge dimensions together."
"Wait, Rei? Like Rei Ryghts?"
"And a previous CPU of Planeptune?"
"I knew that things would sound weird if I tried explaining them, basically things seem to have diverged enough in this world that events won't happen in a similar way unless they're forced to happen that way."
"I could help with that," Croire says from her book before having her cover hit by the large Neptune. "Ok fine, I won't... for now..."
"I would be able to provide some help normally, but I was headed to the world I was used to instead of this one in order to deliver some news I have there, so once we find the Nep-Note, I'll be off."
"Oh... alright then," I respond, trying to hold back some more tears. Even if it isn't my Neptune, it was good being able to see her one more time.
We spent two or three more hours looking when we eventually found it. The large Neptune thanked us for helping and she opened her book and Croire went inside of it. The crack in the sky came down to the ground and appeared in front of the large Neptune before opening into a portal.
"Hopefully the chaos doesn't spready to far before I get there," she says before stepping into the portal and closing it behind her.
"I hope that she will come back some day, I want to learn more about that other world," Histoire says, excited at the idea of a world similar but very different to the one we're in.
"But Histiore, can't you connect to other Histoires?"
"I can but only across space, how she described it sounded like they had traveled through time to reach us here, which would require much more energy that I can't hold within myself to communicate with easily. I do wonder when or how Croire developed the ability to travel through time, she used to be able to only travel through space that way."
"At least I know now that there is a world out there were things didn't go this way and everyone is alive and happy," I say, smiling at where the portal once was.
"Hopefully there will come a day where all the nations have a CPU and we can live like we once did," IF says, clearly letting some tears out, but acting like she isn't crying.
"Well, we should be headed back to the Basilicom since we finished what we headed out here to do," I say, starting to walk off before I heard IF call out.
"Hey, mind if I come play some games over at the Basilicom? I need something to clear my mind after what just happened and what's been going on since I've been so busy with Guild work the past few months."
"Sure, we could use the company, I could even come play with you," I say in response.
"Thanks Nepgear. Now then, let's head off."
There stands a group in Gamindustri Graveyard, all the members hooded.
"It seems that the Neptune of not only another dimension but of another timeline came to this world. It seemed she knew of us and was headed to inform the other timeline of us but ended up here," one figure said.
"She didn't tell the people here of our plans at the very least, however the one they called K-Sha did reveal one of our members gave her a Gold Crystal infused with one of our crystals," another figure said.
"Would this mean that we have to move on to another world already? This world is fun to mess with since so many variables are out of control."
"No, they don't know where we are or the identity of any of our members, and besides, we can't leave someone who has control of this power unattended or else they could end up bringing her here, assuming she hasn't already been summoned here. Her power could destroy this world if they entered into a fight and it doesn't end quickly."
"Don't worry, she lost most of her power. There is very little chance she would have revived this fast especially with enough power to be a threat to any of us."
"Then can I go cause some trouble for the people of this world? I'll make sure that nobody can tell it's me doing it."
"No, we must remain neutral even if we do not agree with how this world is becoming. We will simply speed up it's destruction if it chooses to become that way."
"Our efforts are to act as the executioner of the judge known as fate, we simply provide the push towards the execution. This does not mean we cannot involve ourselves in these worlds. We provide the means to fulfill desires, however the methods used and what the desires are is up the person who use it."
"Heh... I guess you're right. I'll hold off on causing problems, although, I might go provide Lowee with the push it needs to see how it will go," they teleport away.
[TMK: a shorter and less eventful chapter than the previous, although this was done on purpose. I wanted to give a "cooldown chapter" so it didn't jump from Sen and K-Sha waking up to the next major event in such a short time span text wise. I'm going to be changing upload schedule to basically be a "whenever I get done" type deal so I don't feel obligated to upload in a set time period and get work done as fast as possible so it builds up. So onto explaining some things.
K-Sha's body - She used the Gold Crystal in this world and she was left unable to walk and unable to talk loudly and has to whisper now despite being loud enough to be heard from a distance away when she was using it. Histoire did theorize that the purple crystal has negative effects on humans while leaving CPUs mostly fine, this is more or less the case, but it will be explained in more detail later as to why this is the case.
Big Neptune and Croire - The idea of these two coming kind of came to me randomly as just "what if post-Conquest Nepgear met Neptune, but it isn't her Neptune" so the idea of the big Neptune and Croire coming to her world came to be from that. Even though it had been ten years since Conquest ending happened, I thought that Nepgear would have both been scared and really happy to see Neptune again, even if it isn't her Neptune. Right now, I don't have plans for them to come back, although this is subject to change at any point.
Histoire talking through time - Histoire was able to talk thought a time desync in Victory to speak with Ultra Dimension Histoire, however not only did it take Histoire 3 days to do it (3 years for Ultra Histoire), it also was technically through space. This was kind of done as a way to limit myself to only this world and not spontaneously have characters from the main world come in and just mess with the setting outside of specific things like big Neptune and Croire coming in here.]