Chapter 169 - Black and Green

Stepping back onto Leanbox soil almost felt like a completely different experience for her compared to the last time that she did so, something which she had NOT expected upon coming back here. Though, it wasn't like she HATED the feeling per say, and that had to be because of multiple different things with their own stories behind them. That thought process filled the mind of one familiar CPU of Lastation, a sense of elation and warmth spreading through her chest, giving her a pleasant feeling as she stepped out of the Sky Harbor and out onto the Leanbox Capital's streets, her twin tails fluttering behind her thanks to the winds that had been generated by the atmosphere. The sun shone brightly within the clear blue skies, illuminating the world of Gamindustri which she had come to have accepted, no longer seeing it as what it had once been: from a pure and comedy-filled paradise, to he dark, brutal and gritty realistic nightmare it had been transformed into. Both by her hand, as well as by the hands of countless powerful enemies who wanted a piece of Gamindustri for themselves, one way or another.

A low sigh escaped her lips as she walked down the sidewalk, the sight of her being here no longer registering as important in the eyes of the Leanbox natives thanks to her representatives having helped them get used to their presence. 'Returning here… I didn't expect things to have changed so much, but they have… and in ways I could never have anticipated for myself.' She thought in bemusement as she crossed her arms over her chest and closed her eyes, pondering on her thoughts whilst not paying attention to her surroundings… although, that was only a front since she kept her other senses WIDE open in case something happened. Something which almost did when some random mugger 'tried' to pickpocket her whilst she walked but unfortunately for him, she ended up retrieving whatever he took from her pockets without him even realizing, and by the time he had she had already long since faded into the mass of citizens out on the streets. Part of her DID think about giving the guy a 'reward' (read: a beat down so bad that he would never talk to anyone again) for his troubles, but in the end she decided that it was just too far beneath her to give acknowledgement to dirt which she could kick across the road at any time.

Still, there was no changing the facts here, she thought whilst continuing her stride with her destination being Leanbox's Basilicom with the intent of meeting a certain blonde-haired Leader. So many things had happened since she had last set foot on this land, that it honestly made her feel like she had just stepped onto Leanbox for the first time again, something which she had… rather mixed feelings about. On one hand, she had gone through a LOT back in Lastation, seen so many things which had changed some of the views that she had once formed about the world for better or worse, it had yet to be decided for her. Yet, on the other hand, she had to wonder if all these changes would result in her… companions (yes, companions, nothing else you idiots!) being able to hardly recognize her. Aside from that, the situation honestly made her put things into perspective: Gamindustri was the end goal for all of them, a sweet delicious stake which had been thrown into a den of lions, those lions being herself, her brethren, her people and all the evil forces wanting to take this world for their own. Not like she would let them though, and she herself wasn't the only one who felt that way.

This Land… its been so long since I've last seen it, but seeing it right now brings back so many memories… the rich nature here feels just like how I remembered…

A low, masculine voice spoke through the storm of thoughts flowing through her mind, rendering them silent as the owner of the voice had intended. Once she heard them, she couldn't help but finger the hilt of the weapon strapped to her in its sheathe, gently caressing its hilt as a wave of nostalgia washed over her. 'You and me both, Siegfried. Lastation may be my homeland and I would not change that for the world, but I'll admit this: Leanbox definitely has that warm homely feeling… if you don't count the countless vying Nobles who want to one up one another in every way possible.' She thought, her mind momentarily souring as did the look on her face as her features scrunched up, a grunt of displeasure erupting from within her throat. If there was one thing which she detested about this Nation other than its almost barbaric culture due to lacking in technology, then it would be the pointless struggle for political power even when an emergency which could threaten an entire nation was RIGHT THERE on their freaking DOORSTEP. Seriously, she just had to wonder how stupid people could be sometimes.

Yes, that is indeed a unfortunate experience. You aren't the only one whom had to deal with those idiots, for I myself had to when I was alive all those millennia ago. I had hoped that after many millennia, those kinds of people had already faded away into the passage of time. Sadly, it looks like I am wrong… #SIGH# I guess that there will always be those kinds of people in the world…

This was something which she had to admit was the truth, no matter how much she had wanted to wish it wasn't. It was about midday in this Nation when Noire, Goddess CPU of Lastation the land of Black Regality, had finally arrived back on the soil of Leanbox the land of Green Pastures, and from the looks of things, besides the completely different feeling accompanying her upon returning to this land (not to mention she no longer felt bothered anymore about all the 'big breasted women' surrounding her), Noire herself noticed many things which she hadn't gained the chance to before. Mostly due to the nature of her circumstances at the time, but it wasn't like these changes weren't welcome. For one, nobody gave her mixed stares anymore, and instead just kept going on with their day. She could sometimes make out the various militia, representatives and Agents from her Nation walking with some of the natives, talking to them and building genuine relations whilst adopting some of Leanbox's customs, something which Noire herself couldn't help but feel proud at seeing. Whilst part of her would have been furious at her people for not adhering to Lastation's customs, as the saying went 'when in Rome, do as the Romans', her people assimilating into this foreign Nation's culture provided them helpful experience, as well as grounds for future relation building between their Nations.

In addition, there wasn't much of a tense atmosphere as there had been when she had come here last, likely due to there being nothing too big going on. With the citizens thinking that the fighting against Chaos was happening far away from them, it lead to the citizens growing rather complacent, something which Lastation's CPU didn't really like all that much since it wasn't like the problem was just going to go away if one didn't think about it. However, Noire could also see the plus side of this mentality, as it would mean that there would be less of a panic-filled atmosphere which would potentially ERUPT into pandemonium at just the slightest provocation. Siegfried had once told her that ignorance can sometimes be bliss in some ways, and right now what she had seen of the citizens was a perfect example of this.

Though as she thought all about this, her mind also wandered towards what she had recently gone through back in Lastation, events which have altered Lastation in so many ways at this point… though, they effected HER the most. No longer could Noire see herself as the same as she had been before, as not only did she have an entirely new transformation within her which had its own influences on her personality, but her HDD Form had been permanently altered with no way of it being able to return to its original state. Not like she minded though, since it actually far surpassed her original HDD in power as well as provided benefits to her which she actually found useful. That… and it honestly looked quite cool, if she were to admit to herself. Although it came at a cost, for she no longer had the Ashbringer anymore, instead she only had a select few swords (and some guns) in her arsenal, swords of differentiating types but with extreme abilities of their own. Her Heavy Sword Dragon Fault, her Lightning-based and sword-shaped Devil Arm Nevular, her Dragonblood Form which essentially functioned like a Drive Skill, among st other powers related to the Dragon as well as the Devil. If she were to use gaming terms, then the categories called Goddess, Dragon and Demon would be her three tech trees, with abilities that stemmed from them like branches.

After everything which had happened back there, not only did Lastation have a new multi-purpose Landmark called the Temen-Ni-Gru in its Capital, but Noire also had a place where she could study the subjects relating to the Demons as well as Chaos/DPUs in general, and train to her heart's content. The Temen-Ni-Gru listened to her and her alone, and as its mistress, she had absolute dominion over its facilities. Though, thanks to the new 'tenant' within her (seriously what was with her and forming new Tenants within her noggin? Was she becoming like Nico now? Did she have so bad a social skill that she had to have people speaking directly into her from her brain to be able to say she had somewhat of a social life? That sounded both saddening and tragic…), Noire herself felt completrly different physically. Mostly due to this thing called a 'Cultivation Skill' which her newest tenant, a being known as Fafnir or as she liked to call him by his true name Jiang Chen.

Dragon Transformation Skill…

That had been its name.

Though she didn't dare say that it didn't have any good merits to training, despite the brutality that she had gone through the moment that she had first woken up after first meeting him. This Skill apparently worked as a long term Cultivation Skill, one which involved these things called 'Dragon Marks' which were then placed onto her Soul, improving her physical ability the more she had (each one offered 10,000 pounds of strength, increased her endurance and natural healing too), and once she reached about 100,000 Dragon Marks she would be able to transform into a TRUE DRAGON, a creature which Jiang Chen had mentioned having enough power to go on par with the stronger Tier of DPUs back in his day. Heck, if she were lucky and managed to obtain the Skill's approval (apparently the thing was sentient according to Jiang Chen) then she would gain special abilities born from a True Dragon Bloodline that the Skill would convert her blood into, making her half Goddess and half Dragon… though in essence what she TRULY was turned out to be a Trybrid, a mix of those two things and Demon thanks to her Devil Trigger. The Dragonblood Form could only be counted as half a Transformation in Jiang Chen's eyes at best, so it would be next to useless to her as, when in that state, she only had like a couple hundred Dragon Marks worth of strength…

She rather thought he had been a bit picky honestly, especially since even without it, her body had about 500 Dragon Marks at the moment so a couple hundred wasn't too bad.

'Well, at least Vert's been doing somewhat of a decent job in keeping this place afloat whilst I was away…' Noire thought to herself to conclude her thoughts on the matter. Whilst her training had so much more improvements happen to her body, Noire would rather save those for when she would actually get into a fight again, since most of them worked best in that kind of scenario. As she thought on what she had thought earlier, something came back to her which Noire decided to address the Heroic Spirit whom taught her how to wield Balmung effectively, allowing her to utilize 100% of its power against her enemies. 'Though, I wonder where she had been going? I mean, I'd heard rumors that Vert had left one day and had her Oracle take charge of things with her official permission in her absence… I saw more of her than I did the CPU of this Nation now that I think about it…' She trailed off, slowly losing herself in thought again…

That is until she sensed someone's presence nearby, causing her to twist around to the source of the presence. She didn't draw out the sword of Siegfried strapped to her back, Balmung, due to the lack of killing intent as well as familiarity in the presence she had sensed, something which soon became understandable and by soon she meant in the next couple seconds. There, her crimson eyes laid their inquisitive gaze upon a certain Cyborg Ninja bodyguard, one whom had dressed himself up in a fashionable black suit whilst standing by a building, looking like he was waiting on someone. The moment she saw him, her eyes gained a happy glint to them as she proceeded to stroll over, placing a hand on her hip as she went to announce her presence. "Working hard are we, Raiden?" she questioned, to which Raiden looked up towards her when he heard her voice.

Seeing him in that suit reminded her of her own change of wardrobe which had happened during the incident with the Temen-Ni-Gru. It was a wardrobe change which had happened thanks to her original clothes having been melted to nothingness thanks to some demonic stomach acid which had gotten onto her when she had been accidentally swallowed up by a large whale-like Demon called a Leviathan. Now, her new clothes, which had been presented to her by Lid who'd gotten them from a mission in Leanbox (ironic huh?), consisted of a dark colored blackish purple colored coat with golden outlines. The coat came with these large sleeves with slim wrist cuffs, whilst the coat curved around her torso and covered the tips of her chest, exposing a decent amount. The coat connected at the center through some golden lacing then it split like V down to her thighs, exposing a crimson skirt with white frills. Around the waist section, there were these white bands which ended in arrow-like tips. The coat's collar had one of those fancy white broaches around her neck, with a crimson jewel lodged into the center. The shoulders even had white decorations similar to ones won in wars on them, whilst the right sleeve had an elbow and forearm guard over it, matched by a gauntlet over the hand. The coat had several heart-like ornaments hanging down from the bottom, whilst her legs remained covered in black stockings supported by garters, her knees being encased in white greeves which ended in knight-like feet.

Upon seeing her, the Cyborg Ninja as well as one of her mentors shrugged his shoulders with a 'what can you do?' kind of look on his face. He looked like he had been doing pretty well for himself since she had seen him last, if all things could be considered, though he likely didn't realize this but Noire had to mark him as the first Lastation Citizen she had seen still wearing their colors in this Nation, pretty much everyone else whom she had seen had already assimilated themselves into the Nation. It brought a smile onto the blackette's face, as well as a sense of amusement. For a Ninja/Bodyguard, the man seemed to like standing out a lot. "I'm still on duty at the moment, despite what this looks like Lady Noire." He replied with a whimsical roll of his eyes, stepping off the wall he had been leaning on to stride on over to her.

"How's things been whilst I was away, Raiden? I see most if not all of our people have been inducted into Leanbox's culture already…"

"Ah, that." Raiden blinked momentarily when his mind processed her question, before he glanced around to notice several of the Lastation representatives going about their day in relative peace. "Well, it's a lot better than when it all started, believe me. At first, they were like stubborn bulls when it was suggested during one of the meetings that we dress up more like the common Leanbox folk to fit in better, mostly due to their nigh on fanatical devotion towards you. They had felt like they would have been betraying you in their minds if they start wearing Leanbox clothes, until the Oracle pointed out "since Black Heart's goal is an alliance between Nations, and you guys are refusing to co-operate, aren't you betraying her trust in you all by being so stubborn?". It may have been a bit of a sly move, but it worked. Things gradually changed to the point where they were moderately okay with tolerating assimilating into Leanbox like this. If your asking why I'm still dressed like a Lastation businessman, I'll say this: not too fond of Leanbox's clothes so I keep sets with me from home. I prefer clothes which I'm familiar with, that's all there is to it." He explained, gesturing to those people whom he had mentioned before then gesturing to himself from the head down.

"Hmmm, I see." Noire responded, humming thoughtfully as she reviewed in her mind what she had been told. With how her people were, mostly by faith she had preached over many centuries at this point, Noire could see how her representatives could have acted in such a manner. Though, she guessed that there were those kinds of people across all four Nations in Gamindustri, something which Noire had PLENTY of reason to believe which she had rather mixed feelings about. Religion is good in that it gathered people under a common cause, gave them rules to live by that didn't feel as restrictive as laws, as well as gives them validation, a reason to exist. However, like every coin there were multiple sides to this, and Religion was no different. Fortunately, it seemed that there wasn't very many incidents between her reps and those of Leanbox, so she could thank the stars that she had dodged THAT international bullet. However, this then brought her to another question which had popped into her mind the moment that she had seen Raiden where she had, one which she proceeded to query with him about. "So, I have to ask: what are you doing out here, anyways? You said you were on duty, so does that mean…"

Trailing off, Raiden gave a response to the CPU of his home Nation. "I'm here on a request from Lady Green Heart herself." He answered, much to Noire's surprise. "Now, I normally wouldn't have answered to her, since I'm a Lastation man trough and through. However, Lady Green Heart told me this wasn't an order but more like a… request, one which she would have been happy to pay me back for should the need arise. I declined the paying back part though, since her request was pretty simple: to meet with you and tell you that she will be waiting for you at these co-ordinates." Raiden explained as he tapped the hidden earpiece, and when he did so, Noire heard a beeping noise from the hidden earpiece in her ear (part of her wanted to scold herself for forgetting that she even still HAD that despite having gone through what she had, though another one wanted to commend whoever built it since the thing must have taken a lot of abuse over the time she'd been wearing it.). When the beeping finished, a 2D screen appeared before her displaying a map of the Capital city, and in one of the what looked like parks (a particularly large one at that), there stood a blinking crimson 'dot'. "That dot's where Lady Green Heart is awaiting you, Lady Noire. I have tried asking what she would want to meet with you herself for, but she only mentioned about 'seeing how you measure up', which if you ask me means she wants to fight you."

'A fight… huh? Well then, looks like Vert's got the same idea in mind as I do… gives me an idea of what she's been doing all this time as well.' Noire thought to herself, sensing some trepidation coming from Siegfried through their link, Balmung rattling within its sheathe on her back. However, she calmed it down by rubbing it's hilt, all while looking back towards her bodyguard, dispersing the screen since she'd memorized where Vert was apparently waiting for her. "Alright, I'll head on over there myself. Don't worry about following me, I'll be able to handle this one."

Raiden, surprised by Noire's words, made to say something to her in response, but sadly Noire had already left the scene in a blur of speed, stunning both him as well as any onlookers into silence.

That had been… something. Just what had happened to that young maiden to make her so fast?


It didn't take Noire long to clear the distance between her and the park which Vert had been said to be waiting for her in. With her training, the blackette had managed to make a thirty-minute walk in half that time, resulting in her appearing as if from a blur at the park's entrance. However, this didn't stick inside the blackette's mind for very long as something about the park itself had caught her attention rather quickly, as evident by the way her crimson eyes erratically scanned her surroundings from left to right and vice versa repeatedly. 'This Park…' she mused mentally as she strode inside. 'Its fairly large… and deserted too… strange, considering the time of day that it is, I would have thought there would be a strong amount of people in a place like this…' This observation filled the old CPU with a sense of wariness and suspicion, emotions which gradually increased with the heavy CLANG each step her armored Greeves made on the ground she walked on. 'With such a large space… could Vert really be thinking of…?'

Before Noire could continue thinking about this, she soon caught sight of the blonde CPU she had been questioning this whole time, standing close to the back of the Park whilst leaning on one leg of hers. She seemed to not have noticed her though as she looked to be busy checking out something on her Phone, likely something BL related if that rather flushed expression and the minor nosebleed were any indication. The moment that she noticed the blonde CPU however, Noire also noted that her outfit had changed from when she had last seen her, as she noticed that Vert no longer wore any kind of formal Dress or anything like that. Instead, she wore a white waistcoat which had an ovular chest window, exposing her cleavage as well as the black sports bra underneath it. Around her waist was a dark green belt which had a Leanbox Symbol shaped buckle, holding up a pair of dark blue jeans, whilst on her feet she wore a pair of black high heeled Sandals. Not to mention that, to complete the rather exotic look she was apparently going for, Vert had tied her hair back into a Ponytail with a white and green ribbon, though her hair still fell down her back to her waist the same as her original hairstyle.

Whilst Noire got surprised by the change in wardrobe since she had only known the woman to wear formal-looking dresses whenever she and her had encountered one another prior to the Temen-Ni-Gru incident, something else the grabbed her attention a few seconds later. That something turned out to be a weapon, one which she had strapped to her back which took the form of a Spear. No surprise there since Vert specialized in Spearmanship and other Polearms, but the Spear itself felt very off to her. For one, its appearance, the Spear's pole section looked like a normal one, but then when one looked to the Tip it looked to have been shaped out of some weird bluish-purple crystal, shaped into the form of a love Heart with spikes protruding out its sides. The tip had two empty holes in the middle similar in shape to a set of lungs, whilst the weapon as a whole radiated a presence that reminded Noire an AWFUL lot of Share Energy or something divine, yet there was an undertone of Malace as well, hidden deep within the Spear's core.

'That Spear… I don't get it myself, but the more I look at it the more I feel like I'm one step away from going past death's door…' Noire thought as she repressed the urge to shudder before that Spear. 'However, if I were to guess… I'd say that this is some kind of Noble Phantasm, since its sensations eerily remind me of Balmung. If that's truly a Noble Phantasm, then Vert's came into the possession of a Heroic Spirit.' That thought both didn't bode well for Noire as well as incited her curiosity to know how this CPU had come to be in possession of such a weapon. The former had been apparent due to her previous experiences with Vert having… not been the best, the Spear user having been a prominent thorn in her side back in the Console War with those feelings still not having properly subsided even until now, meanwhile the latter came because thinks to her study of important myths and legends regarding these ancient warriors whom have transcended their mortality into their status as Heroic Spirits fascinated her. Their power didn't need to be stated since she had seen what they could do with Okada and Geronimo (Temen-Ni-Gru Incidnet) being great examples. It was then, though, that her thoughts paused when she sensed something through her link with Balmung, something which caused her to question her own Heroic Spirit in an incredulous, almost disbelieving manner. 'Siegfried… why are you so tense right now?'

That spear. If that Spear belongs to the one whom I think it does, then should we start fighting her and she invokes its power, I fear we may have a massive threat on our hands…

'Is it really that dangerous?'

I may not have encountered her in my original life, but I do have memories of fighting her… somewhere else. It was… not a pleasant experience…'

'Her?'

Yes, HER. To best explain it… think of that 'Yandere' trope you've seen in your Otaku culture, magnify that to a deity's standard, and now you get an idea of what I'm talking about…

After hearing his words, Noire could not hold back the dread-filled shudders this time as anxiety and nervousness filled her insides. 'Oh Goddess…' the thought with a mild tremble with Siegfried humming as if to say, 'now you understand my trepidation?'. That… DEFINITELY didn't sound like a fun time, Noire felt. She never really got the appeal of Yanderes even though a while back a lot of Otakus seemed to like them curtesy of that one famous Anime about people with phones who predicted the future, honestly if a Yandere were in the same vicinity as her she would likely have ran the opposite direction.

Finally, however, her thoughts paused when Vert looked up from her Phone, noticing her presence thanks to hearing her footsteps and blinking out of her flushed demeanor. Her eyes widened slightly, as if to say 'oh, you're here at last!' before she quickly changed her tone. Clearing her throat and returning to a composed look, Vert offered a polite smile towards the approaching CPU, tilting her head as she spoke. "Why hello, Noire. So glad that you could come here even after you just arrived." She said, offering a polite nod of the heads afterwards. "I apologize for making you come out here, regardless."

"No worries, honestly it's a bit refreshing, talking to you like this instead of in the Basilicom where we have to maintain a civil attitude." Noire replied, placing a hand on her hip and leaning on one leg. She referred to the times when they had talked to one another as fellow Nation Leaders during meetings to discuss the Alliance between their Nations along with Planeptune, most of the time they had to talk all formal and business-like, and whilst both of them could do so for extended time periods, it would have inevitably got pretty boring quickly. Though, if one were to ask her, Noire would say that Vert would have been the one to get tired of it first since she maintained the image of a splendid CPU no matter how she felt. Looking at Vert up and down, Noire finally decided to get some answers out of her, starting with her new wardrobe. "By the way, looks like someone's had a bit of a makeover, whats the story there?" she questioned, pointing at Vert's Outfit then her finger shifted towards the Spear on her back. "And I guess there's a secret behind that Spear as well."

At this, Vert gave a nod as she drew the Spear, doing so by reaching behind her and grasping its shaft. Almost instantly Noire noticed something else off, the way she moved just now seemed to pass by in a flash, her movements being rapid and well-practiced to a point where they looked NOTHING like what she previously sported. Did Vert find some kind of Spear master and learn more under him or her or something? She then pulled it out from behind her, twirling it in front of her until she firmly grasped the Shaft in both hands, stabbing its rear end into the ground to her right flank. "You could say that, though I'm not the only one whose had a wardrobe change." She retorted knowingly as she looked Noire up and down herself to note the new outfit she sported. The physically older looking woman then raised her left hand, running it up her ponytail as if to flex off her body, a slight smirk on her lips helping pass this feeling along. "Though I suspect that its similar to my reason for changing. I wanted something which would symbolize my newfound view on things, since they've been well… forced to change, for lack of a better word…" a flash of pain and humiliation erupted within the CPU's eyes as her lips curved into a frown for a second whilst she glanced downwards, though it vanished moments later to be replaced with her previous expression. "Plus, these new clothes feel quite… liberating, yes that's the best way I can describe it. I must admit, it does feel rather nice to not wear something which is as restrictive as a Dress in battle, I can see why so many female sword users do the same thing."

"Well… I can sorta get that…" Noire began, but her confidence from before faded a little bit as she glanced to the side. "I mean, us changing clothes like this isn't really done much in fanfictions since it can potentially lead to confusing the readers, but if used correctly its quite an interesting show of character development." She remarked, humming thoughtfully before shaking her head to clear those thoughts from her mind. "Anyways, you've got some more explaining to do, so out with it, Vert." she stated, a slight edge appearing in her voice as she stared directly into the other CPUs' eyes. "Whats this I hear about you up and leaving your Nation to fend for itself whilst you go to who knows where? You claim to be trying to change, even changed your clothes, but is that all there is to it cause to be frank, I don't see it." Yeah, she wasn't going to lie, when Noire had heard of Vert's mysterious disappearance, she did feel kind of pissed off. Why the hell would she have left Leanbox with it in the condition that it was, when they needed her now more than ever, not just for advice but for moral support too? Just thinking about it irked her to no end, but thanks to there being other more pressing issues Noire didn't have to ponder on it very much, though now that she stood face to face with her, the blackette just HAD to demand those answers.

"… Heavens, Noire…" Vert wasn't going to lie, she pretty much jumped out of her skin thanks to the sudden shouting and demands which the blackette CPU had launched at her similar to a shotgun blast at point blank range. She now had a bit of an annoyed and exasperated look on her face as she gave a low sounding sigh. "That's not really how you're supposed to ask for answers to your questions… but I suppose that its only fair, since I kind of dropped out of the public eye without much warning, only informing a select few about my intentions." She may have said that like she wanted to admonish Noire for her actions just now, but in all fairness, she could see why the blackette CPU would have acted like she had. Considering her personality, goals and drive her reaction could only be expected… now that she thought about it, weren't they in similar boats in terms of their mistakes? 'Well, if I think like that then all four of us are at fault in some form… We're just taking different measures to handle them…' the blonde thought to herself, all before answering Noire's question as she leaned against the side of her Spear. "You could say that I… went on a training trip, of sorts. You could also say I went out there to see how my Nation is faring with my own eyes, get a grip on the situation proper from the ground level, instead of looking through the windows of my Basilicom." She replied, a regretful look dancing across her eyes as she looked up to the skies above. Watching the blue skies above her, Vert continued with her response, Noire knowing that she had more to say. "I guess this was the same for each of us, but that battle at Halo Mountain… you could say it forced me to open my eyes, to a fair amount of truths which I had been desperately trying to shy away from. As such, I wanted to find out how I could change myself, how I could gain the confidence needed to face this new reality with my own power… and to that end, I traveled across the entirety of Leanbox, going from one place to another and experiencing as much as I could. You could say I was scouting for information, Noire, and in the end… I came back only recently, but forever changed as edgy as that may sound."

Hearing that, Noire had to nod her head in agreement. "Yeah, I guess that DOES sound kind of edgy, if I think about it…" She admitted, crossing her arms under her chest. "I can also see now, why you did what you did Vert, and whilst I don't agree with how you went about this, since your Nation needs you more than ever right now, I CAN understand that you're trying in your own way. I guess… I guess that each of us are tackling these problems differently, Neptune with her grand quest, me with hard work, and you with your self-exploration…" Noire admitted, reluctantly though. She didn't like to expose how she truly felt in any kind of situation, since it got awkward for her rather easily. However, she still had to keep going since she wanted to convey her thoughts on this matter. "Makes me wonder what that berserker of a CPU is doing over at that frozen tundra of hers…"

At that, Vert nodded as the two fell into silence, letting a small breeze pass through the Park that made their hair flutter in its direction. The cool sensations and sounds calmly blew through the scene, soothing these two warrior maidens spirits, minds and very beings almost as if they were being caressed by a parental figure… as if Mother Nature herself wanted to assure them that things would be getting better now that they had their new path.

Noire, in her mind, finally got the answers to her previous assumptions thanks to this… somewhat of a conversation, since it felt more like her integrating Leanbox's CPU. Vert going on a Training Trip… now that she thought about it, she guessed that would have been something that Vert, in her mindset at the time, would have done. She had just stepped into a world more complex and convoluted than a labyrinth, thinking that she would have been able to take it. She could imagine the stress which she would have been put through thanks to that, something which Noire didn't think Vert with that mindset would have been able to handle very well. If she weren't supported by some pretty faithful, loyal followers like that Oracle, then the blackette could see Vert breaking down moments into her stay in the political world. The defeat at Halo Mountain both wouldn't have helped, and probably had acted as the final nail in the coffin as it were too, prompting her to go out into the Nation to see if she could change herself, make it so that she could fight these battles with a better mindset and grow as a person along the way. 'Judging by this mix of Divine and Demonic I can sense within her… she's likely got a Devil Trigger too, alongside that Noble Phantasm… though something about that DT of hers feels strange, it doesn't feel like an ordinary DT like mine at all.

Noire, I don't think I need to tell you this, but I'll say it anyways: do not underestimate this woman. I can tell that, aside from that THING she calls a Spear, this woman's power has skyrocketed to much higher levels...

'I know, I'm not blind Siegfried…' Noire responded to the original wielder of Balmung, though internally she heeded his unnecessary warning whilst glancing at the Spear Vert currently leaned on.

Her gaze apparently didn't go unnoticed by the way, since Vert noticed it too and let out a small smile, stepping off her weapon and grasping it, pulling it out the ground. "Now then, since we've gotten this out of the way, lets get straight down to business. I assume you wish to know why I asked to meet you here, yes?" she questioned, getting a nod from Lastation's CPU as she too drew out her Noble Phantasm, holding Balmung diagonally downwards to the ground beside her. "It seems that, like me, you too have gotten a lot stronger since we last met. But, how far have you really come? How much has your power swelled since back then? Its probably helped that there are rumors of a new 'tourist attraction' back in your Lastation, since its garnered quite the attention from mine and Neptune's Nations. As a result, the Share Balance across Gamindustri will likely have been shifted into your favor for the time being, so could that have been how you've increased in power? I would like to find out for myself."

"…Sheesh and people say I'M not honest with how I feel…"

"Hm? Whatever are you talking about, Noire?"

"Oh, come Vert stop playing dumb." Noire retorted to the curious question launched at her by Count Green Heart, all before launching a counterattack of her own. "If you don't want to say it, then I'll pull a page from that brat Neptune's book and spell it out for you so you can hear it clearly: you just want to test my strength because you don't want to be the only one whose put in a moderate amount of effort into getting stronger. You want to see if I'm taking this alliance thing of ours seriously, that's all there is to it. You don't care about some 'tourist attraction' in my Nation, your not that kind of leader. No, I know what your REALLY like Vert, no matter how hard you try to hide behind that facade of yours. Nico isn't the ONLY one who can see through masks, you know. Whilst your a Leader and a closet gamer, your also a warrior, someone whose fought and bled on the front lines. That kind of life is more appealing to you than you would like to let on." At this, Noire pointed Balmung in one hand at her, utilizing her Doppelganger ability to summon a replica of the Noble Phantasm into her other hand and positioning said replica in the same position as the original had previously been in. Her lips curved upwards into a knowing yet excited smirk, her eyes dancing with the flames of battle that were rekindled at the thought of fighting another Goddess again. Perhaps what she was going to say to Vert also applied to herself somewhat too. "You're someone who values the aspects of a warrior, of military might, of power. That's one of the things which you respect the most, and no amount of 'politeness' and 'courtesy' will change that."

"…"

For a moment, Vert stared at Noire, looking absolutely shocked with her eyes wide in surprise and her jaw dropping open so much so that the blackette restricted the urge to cockily tell her to close it or else flies could go in. She honestly didn't expect this, nope no way in a thousand years did she think that Lastation's CPU would have the gall to say what she did to her just now. It had caught her so off guard that for a moment, her brain had become completely silent, no longer thinking of anything as she suffered what could be considered the Goddess's version of a blue screen event. has stopped working, as one might say. This also got reflected in her stance, due to how she had lowered her Spear to a position which suggested a lack of aggression, like the rest of her posture didn't do that.

However, this only lasted for a few seconds, before her brain rebooted and Vert aimed a rather competitive smile towards her future sparring partner… a look of absolute desire for violence burning in her deep blue orbs which seemed to have gained a spark of life to them. "I see… a rather interesting concept, Noire. For now, shall we speak with our combat ability? Let us dance the dance of combat, any and all doubts will be cleared there!"

"Hah, well said!"


Upon yelling that out, Noire burst forwards to become a blur, ending up right within Vert's range within a millisecond with both Balmungs already in two swinging motions akin to a stretched out cross. Upon the collision, a low shock wave erupted out from the point of impact, briefly causing their respective hairstyles to flutter backwards due to the wind gust... although when Vert had tried to block she had quickly realized that she wouldn't be holding it out for long. Vert managed to therefore slow them down by holding her Spear out in a diagonal angle and catching them with its Shaft, bending her upper body backwards to finally avoid the cross slash. She had to then jumped aw slightly to avoid the followup strike which mirrored the first but came from the opposite direction, though this one got avoided only by the skin of her teeth, allowing the blonde to see the blades gleam menacingly in the afternoon sunlight. Noire didn't let her get away though, as she quickly dashed forwards and jumped into the air, twisting into a sausage spin before she came out with her right Balmung being swung in an overhead swing. Vert quickly raised her Spear to block it, the blade colliding with the weapon's Shaft, causing her legs to buckle as a pair of small craters formed beneath and around her high heels. Noire, not one to let things like this slide, repeated the same attack multiple times over, hammering away at Vert's defense.

Finally having had enough, the blackette planted both legs onto Vert's shoulders and kicked off her, back flipping to avoid a Spear swipe which could have very well sliced her head clean off if it had connected with a normal person. Landing safely, Noire then flipped back into the air when she saw a thrust coming towards her, landing atop the Spear's shaft to launch a right thrust kick with her right leg toward's Vert's face. However, the blonde woman didn't want that to hit her, so she managed to tilt her head to the side to avoid it, then with an abrupt burst of strength, the CPU of Leanbox gave a mighty war cry as she lifted her Spear upwards with Noire still on it, causing the Lastation CPU to go wide eyed as she lost her balance, causing her to fall off the weapon which Vert proceeded to slam the shaft section just beneath it's tip into her side... though Lastation's CPU managed to block the full brunt of it by crossing both her Swords together before the Shaft could impact her, knocking her flying across the Park. If she were to be bothered to keep track, then Noire would have seen how she had cleared about 5 meters distance from her opponent upon her landing, of which she looked up and went wide eyed at the wide sweep aimed towards her eye level. Quickly dismissing the Doppleganger of Balmung, Noire stabbed her Sword into the ground where the Sweep came from, successfully managing to block the strike from impacting her again. At that point, she stood upwards whilst twisting her left leg, bending herself backwards to launch a high kick towards the side of Vert's head for her troubles, although the blonde CPU ducked under it and brought her Spear back for a multitude of thrusts towards the blackette's person...

Thrusts which got halted before they could even be launched by the emergence of two long, humanoid-looking skeleton arms which had grasped onto her Spear by its shaft.

"?!"

"Hah, gotchya!"

Vert's eyes became the ones to go wide this time, not having expected something like this which ended up buying her opponent a couple precious seconds, something which Noire exploited whilst smirking like a devious gremlin. She did this by pulling on the Spear with a vicious YANK, forcing Vert to stumble forwards right into the blackette's following attack: a kick to her stomach which had the speed and force of a bullet train with proof being how it literally broke through the air to create a headwind around itself. Unable to avoid it in time, Vert had no choice but to get hit by the strike, and she did so... right in the solar plexus, the weakest part of the body. There's always a reason why people tend to go there in fights after all, which the blonde CPU showcased when she gasped at the force behind the blow, all the while spitting out a sufficient amount of saliva, before being sent flying after she got separated from her Spear. Noire herself took one look at the Spear whilst Vert slammed all four limbs into the ground, and then tossed it forth towards her opponent in the style of a professional javelin thrower, to which the blonde CPU responded by catching it out of the air and twirling around a full 360 degrees to get rid of its excess momentum, twirling it into a swing which ended up blocking a strike towards her neck from Balmung. The moment that the two weapons collided though, did Vert gasp sharply when she found herself sliding backwards with Noire pushing forth, halting a couple seconds later with their weapons in a deadlock.

'This... this power...!' Vert thought in shock, staring into the eyes of her fellow CPU whose smug ass smirk got put on full blast, all the while their weapons trembled violently in their grasp as they struggled to overpower one another in an intense duel for dominion. All of what had happened before had happened only in a few seconds, thus the blonde woman noticed how their hair slowly fell down from the lack of motion-related forces acting upon them now... though she doubted that this would remain so for very long. 'This is more than what I had anticipated. I had heard that Noire has been undergoing some serious training from the few times I overheard some of her representatives talking with one another, but this is on a whole new league! My Spear's range advantage feels like its been rendered absolutely mute by this point! Where the heck did this level of power come from?!' she screamed in her mind as her arms wildly protested against pressing against the Sword Noire wielded for much longer due to it feeling like she were trying to push back a Skyscraper or something of similar size. It felt as though in any moment, her strength would become the one to give up first, something which stung at her pride as a warrior more than she would have liked to admit.

"Hmph, let me guess, you're thinking about where my power comes from, eh Vert?" Noire suddenly spoke, catching the older looking woman by surprise, something which Noire had to grin at. Her thoughts had been written all over her face, the blackette had noticed, her apparent strength superiority having done what she had expected it to and had caught her off her game. Although she didn't have the same mentality as a bully not to mention she could understand her fellow CPU's feelings, almost on a spiritual level actually, she still didn't diminish the feeling of immense ELATION in her chest at being the dominating one on the battlefield like this. "Please, its so easy to read you right now that its hard for me to even call you my fellow CPU. Though, I guess its understandable that you'd be confused..." she remarked, before flicking Balmung and breaking their connection, then driving the pommel into Vert's gut before she reacted to then follow it up with a snap kick right to her jaw, sending the woman flying backwards... though she didn't get very far for one of her Samsara Arms having grabbed her by the leg to stop her from flying only to let its comrade bring its massive fist down on her from above, smashing her into the ground with a heavy BOOM being left in her wake. "Hmph, well lets just say I now pack a LOT more of a wallop in my attacks."

After hearing that and then getting kicked in the side to knock her away, Vert gritted her teeth as she slammed her arm into the ground, propelling her upwards into a flip. 'Heavens, like your attacks didn't convince me already!'s he screamed in her mind as she repeated her flipping motion to bounce along the ground, retrieve her Spear and the finally landed permanently, sliding along to a halt. She then quickly threw something else out to distract the Lastation CPU: a SYHLET SPEAR Skill attack actually... only about 100 of them erupted out of their Magic Circles with each of them being intended to impale Noire all over. As they neared her though, Noire didn't let their impending approach get to her, instead her sword arm became a blurred form as she ducked, dodged, weaved about between them, slicing through each of the Spears without letting out a single uneven breath. Unintentionally, Noire even ended up pulling off a few sexy as hell dance moves like spinning on one hand and holding out her legs like some kind of breakdancer, or even pulling off a classic moonwalk as those Spears which she couldn't slash (which were few honestly), got knocked aside by her Samsara Arms.

...You do realize those things would likely shatter thanks to the current endurance of your body, right?...

'Yes, but that might clue Vert in as to how my body's been improved like this, since its obvious she's thinking this to be all from the so-called 'Share shift' towards Lastation thanks to Temen-Ni-Gru...'

By the time that she had destroyed the last Spear, Noire glanced around to see where Vert had positioned herself, only to pivot herself to the left from the front just seconds before a Spear thrust could impale her through the abdomen. The Spear got pulled back as Vert, whom had gotten in close behind her brought it back to her for a wide swing from the right, intending to smack the blackette away from her, only to get punched in the face by one Samsara Arm, dodge the next one's attack just in the nick of time by hopping backwards...

POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW-!

...Only to receive about 62 blows from them all at once in the next second, causing her to gasp as she got sent flying across the park, rolling across the ground before coming to a halt. Pain erupted through her body in waves whilst this happened, and it was all that she could do to stop herself from crying out, all the while Vert winced and grimaced every few seconds during those moments thanks to the spikes of said pain that had erupted within her body. "Ugh... guh..." the woman barely got out, slowly but surely stumbling as she tried to get to her feet, using her Spear as a means of support. "What the hell...? Those movements were so... fast, that I couldn't..." she mumbled under her breath.

"Had enough, Vert?" Noire spoke, catching her rival CPU's attention with proof being how she looked up from her old-man-on-a-walking-stick kind of position as the black-haired woman held Balmung in a non-threatening posture. Of course she remained aware of the fact that this was a Spar and as such, had been holding back a LOT of her physical ability. If she were to go full out with her strength, she didn't know if the surroundings would be permanently altered forever, not to mention that it would be a bit too excessive for the type of fight this was. Though she may not admit it out loud but seeing Vert being knocked down a peg like this sort of scratched this... itch she had, one which she had been aware of for a long time but never got quite round to settling. Maybe she secretly wanted to teach Vert a bit of a lesson for flaunting around her boobs so much, or maybe it was her personality in general, but right now she couldn't help but notice the feeling of satisfaction pouring forth from deep within her. Placing a left hand on her hip with her left Samsara Arms doing the same thing like it were a puppet mimicking the actions of its master, Noire huffed as she stood proud, a matching smile on her face whilst looking over her weakened opponent. "If you want, you can call it quits and take back what you were insinuating about me before."

For a moment, Vert looked like she wanted to yell something out, likely due to the gloating that the blackette had been giving out to her, but she instead chose to keep quiet about that. Instead, she took a few deep breaths and closed her eyes, settling her heartbeat and her posture becoming still. "Well... it does seem like you've changed Noire, you've at least got some more bite for your bark." she admitted, causing the blackette to twitch a brow though she didn't rise to the obvious provocation. Once her body became still, Vert muttered something which wasn't recognizable, before she spoke once more in a clear voice this time. "But there's still more I want to know, so its time I start making my own moves apparent." At this, Noire blinked in slight surprise, quickly getting into a defensive stance when Vert opened her eyes again but this time had a rather... excited smile on her lips, no signs of her previous demeanour at all. "You won't mind right?"

Did this woman have some kind of screw loose? What did she call before when she had been beating the stuffing out of her? Cause if one asked Noire, she wouldn't really call that been fighting at all, just her getting smashed, and NOT in any perverted sense. Just when Noire began opening her mouth to admonish her fellow CPU, her eyes suddenly became focused when she noticed some glowing crimson symbols appearing on Vert's body, starting from her arms, up to her shoulders before spreading to every pore her hourglass figure possessed. 'Huh? What the heck...? Wait, is that...?!' The blackette thought as a shocked expression overcame her previous one. 'What the hell, since when did Vert get her hands on stuff like THAT?!'

There wasn't any time to respond to this thought however, not for Siegfried whom had intended to but the following events didn't allow him to, and ESPECIALLY not for Noire when Vert's body completely healed itself within a couple seconds to result in Vert looking like she hadn't even fought before, causing her smile to widen into a grin. The next thing she knew, Noire reflexively blocked a downward slash aimed for her head by holding Balmung out horizontally, a Spear strike which had come from Vert when she had instantly closed the distance between them. 'Tch, increased strength, too...!' Not to mention that she had to use a bit more of her power to keep them in this deadlock of theirs, and when she managed to push Vert back she instead launched another set of strikes at high speeds, strikes which consisted of a few thrusts, a wide horizontal sweep which lead into a twirling motion from Vert before she lead it into an overhead smash just like earlier, one which Noire blocked like she did earlier (having sidestepped and deflected the previous ones away from her). This ended up resulting them in becoming deadlocked once again.

'What?! Not only this instantaneous healing ability, but she's also been buffed similar to a Drive Skill! But this is NO Drive Skill, not even something like Nico's DEMONIC OVERDRIVE Skill. This has to be something like Wardcraft, but if that's really the case, the question is HOW she had come into possession of such knowledge...'

"Surprised?" Vert suddenly spoke when she saw the conflict forming on Noire's face. "I call those my 'Regen Wards', something I cooked up in my travels, though they're coupled with some 'Drive Wards' which I created to take care of the whole power usage thing Drive Skills have. Whilst they're not as effective as the latter, they're able to suck up less power overall, so I'd count it as a win. There ARE Soul Wards for protection against Soul attacks on my Soul too, but you don't need to worry bout them. They're a nice response to the healing done by Demonic Beings, and I had an EFFECTIVE teacher whom had helped me make them." Vert explained simplistically, far too simplistic for someone like Noire whom pushed Balmung upwards to throw Vert back, and then settled into a thrusting attack before the older looking woman could bring her Spear back to defend herself with. However, that wasn't what the mentioned woman wanted to do in the first place, since she instead pivoted to the right side, ending up on the outside of Noire's sword arm, so she simply re-angled her Spear and used its rear end to jab at Noire's side, causing her to stumble sideways. If it weren't for her Samsara Arms providing some form of balance (and a shield to block several Spear Strikes), the blackette likely would have been put in a much worse situation.

"WIND RELEASE - WIND CUTTER!"

This advantage soon became mute however, when Vert swung her Spear in a horizontal swing, the gust which got created by the arc morphing into and launching multiple long Wind Blades through the air to her opponent. The way that they shot through the air kind of reminded her of speeding bullets, no joke, but the tell-tale sounds of whistling soon chopped up that train of thought into tiny little pieces. With a sharp reflexive movement, Noire crossed her Samsara Arms in front of her once she had gotten to her feet for defence, but a couple of them cut into her shoulders, causing her to curse. Whilst the damage wasn't very much thanks to her endurance, she still felt the force behind them plus she could feel some 'wounds; being carved into her Samsara Arms, arms which were well suited to both offence AND defense, something she'd found out in the Temen-Ni-Gru. She then switched to activating her ZANDATSU, amplifying her perception so that she could launch countless smashes onto the ground around her. This ended up creating a smokescreen around the entire Park, and in Vert's eyes it had been done in just a couple seconds thanks to the speed which the blackette had went at.

Seeing this prompted her to strike some more, going in from a series of slashes from multiple directions by creating afterimages of herself, providing just how fast the blackette had become in her human form... but those slashes soon became null when Vert willing activated the OTHER Satanic Treasure in her possession known as the Tetsugan, her durability skyrocketing to lessen the damage to her body from Nevular. The amount of damage the sword DID do resembled, to its dissatisfied master, that of the damage Vert had been able to do to her this entire fight.

Eventually, the blackette disengaged her ZANDATSU as she made to circle around the wind user, intending to jump at her from behind until she remembered just how stupid creating a smokescreen against a WIND user had to be, so she instead put energy into her legs and jumped upwards, making sure to be as quiet as possible whilst Vert swung her Spear in a full 360 degree spinning slash, using the generated wind to disperse the smokescreen harmlessly. 'Tch, guess this Wind Manipulation's Fujin's work, huh? Never got to see it much in action, but from what I read about Satanic Treasures, its still in the same rankings as Raijin had been, therefore if Vert's managed to create these stupid as hell Wind techniques from it that would only make sense to me. Wait, if she's manipulating the Wind like this, then where's her Satanic Treasure? I don't see it anywhere on her body... #GASP# Could it be a similar situation to what happened to Raijin?' Noire wondered, before putting that to the back of her mind for now. Instead, she activated QUICKSILVER to slow down time, and then jumped forth with the intent to cut through her back. Noire managed to do so, landing a diagonal slash to her back, then another and finally a horizontal one before hopping away from her, letting QUICKSILVER deactivate, resulting in the blonde woman stumbling forwards from the wounds inflicted upon her person.

"Ugh! You've picked up some annoying tricks I see..." Vert mumbled under her breath as her body once again formed those glowing Regen Wounds, healing the injuries to her person. "Looks like I'll have to teach you on WHY attacking me from behind is a BAD idea! WIND RELEASE - WIND WAVES!" With that declaration, Vert swung her Spear in one hand in a reverse horizontal arc, creating a much LARGER Wind Blade which sailed towards Noire MUCH faster than the smaller variants she'd blocked before. This time, instead of blocking the Wind Blade as it sailed through the air leaving a large fissure in its wake, Noire chose to deflect it away from her by backhanding it with her right Samsara Arm, the used the left to grab a large piece of the fissure, pull it out to resemble a car sized chunk of earth, before tossing it over to Vert like a projectile. Vert of course, easily sliced through it with her Spear having been coated in pure Wind, which seemed to elongate its blade to twice that of a Longsword whilst giving its rear end a matching blade. "WIND RELEASE - VACUUM BLADE!"

Noire cursed when she saw this, temporarily sheathing Balmung into its sheathe behind her to instead switch to Nevular. 'In this case, having a bit of Elemental Support will be much appreciated right now...' She thought This action got followed up by swinging it to launch a LIGHTNING FANG towards her opponent. VERT responded with a WIND WAVES, resulting in the two attacks creating an explosion of both Wind AND Lightning, causing both girls to cover their eyes... or rather, only Noire to since Vert simply jumped right through it, not caring at all about any burn marks which she sustained thanks to the Regen Wards taking care of them, twirling her Spear above her head to bring it down on her opponent. Noire held Nevular above her head, blocking the first strike, then she repeated it with the following diagonal one s well as the same type of strike but from the opposing angle. 'Looks like that VACUUM BLADE technique allows her to have better range than even Nevular in a CQC situation...' Noire noted thanks to the space between them in this slash. 'I'll just have to get in close through an opening!'

SLASH-SLASH-SLASH-SLASH-SLASH-SLASH-SLASH-SLASH-SLASH-SLASH-SLASH-SLASH-SLASH-SLASH-SLASH-SLASH-SLASH-SLASH-SLASH-SLASH-SLASH-SLASH-SLASH-SLASH-SLASH-SLASH-SLASH-SLASH-SLASH-SLASH-SLASH-SLASH-SLASH-SLASH-SLASH-SLASH-SLASH-SLASH-SLASH-SLASH-SLASH-SLASH-SLASH-SLASH-SLASH-SLASH-!

The two went, circling around one another whilst trading blows faster than the eye could track. One time Vert had to unleash something she called WIND RELEASE: VACUUM SPHERE which involved her inhaling air, manipulating it inside her mouth, then firing it as small Spheres of Wind which would have pierced through any normal person like they were bodies of water. However, Noire's endurance saved her there, though she couldn't avoid it completely due to it being released like a Shotgun Shell. Side flipping over a low sweep which had been aimed to take off her legs, Noire crossed her arms in front of her chest in order to block an attack named by Vert the "WIND RELEASE: WHIRLWIND FIST!" Which basically looked like a torrent of Wind surrounding her fist that she used to throw a punch at her from out of nowhere. Fortunately it didn't do as much damage as it should have thanks to her endurance but it still blew the blackette across the Park.

Getting back to her feet and throwing Vert back Via a LIGHTNING FANG (she DID try to do a LIGHTNING VIOLET SOAK but Vert managed to dodge it too, much to her inner frustration), Noire contemplated unleashing her QUICKSILVER ability again, like she had done with those punches from her Samsara Arms earlier. It would slow the woman and Noire's surroundings down so she could better manipulate the battlefield, but in the end she decided against it. The blackette wanted to keep as many of her trump cards hidden till the end of the battle, only then would she explain herself, as since Vert wanted to see how strong she had become Noire would do the exact same thing. After all, nobody had heard from Vert for so long now, and here she was claiming that she had immersed herself in training? There's no way Noire WOULDN'T try to pull out other tricks from her like this. This mental debate took about 0.2 seconds to decipher, by the way, before she retracted her Samara Arms into herself as she switched out Nevular back for Balmung, the Lightning Satanic Treasure returning to her Inventory as she gripped her Noble Phantasm in one hand. 'Alright, I'll accept that she has some Wardcraft skills then, it seems like she's using them only to augment her own abilities so far though, perhaps she still favours martial prowess more, I can guess this based off how she's been using it only for empowerment and healing so she could fight better...' she thought as Balmung began absorbing power from Noire's being at a fast rate. 'With my training, its become possible for me to fire a low power version of Balmung's signature TWILIGHT WAVE, so this place will hopefully not get absolutely THRASHED...'

When she saw the sword's jewel beginning to glow like it did, Vert's eyes widened when she realized what the other girl had intended to do, though this onlylasted a short second before she decided to put out one of her own tricks again. "TWILIGHT WAVE... and a low powered one too..." the woman muttered, though Noire easily heard her and hid her own emotional reaction at being found out so easily. "Well, no matter. I've been waiting for a chance to use this, anyways..." With that said, Vert held her Spear in a thrusting motion, her eyes sharpening... though, why did a love heart appear in her left eye just now? Noire briefly pondered that, and that lasted barely a second though, since her eyes then took in how the Spear began to glow with a pure blue, almost smoke-like aura which formed around it. Not only that but the Spear seemed to also... increase in size, becoming about 5 times larger than its original size. Instinctively, alarm bells rung in her mind, as Noire's past experiences with fighting Heroic Spirits told her this HAD to be some kind of Noble Phantasm, and knowing just how dangerous they could be... she quickly proceeded to launch her attack as Vert provided the necessary invoking. "Love... Hate... love... hate... love, love, love, love... BRYNHILDR ROMANTICA!"

"TWILIGHT WAVE!"

Both Girls yelled out the names of their respective attacks in just one instance, quickly springing forth into action afterwards. On one hand, Noire swung Balmung in an upward arc, launching her ranged attack towards Vert whom had jumped into the air, twirled her Spear, before thrusting it forwards. The Spear's rear end ignited into blue flames which propelled it forwards like a missile, taking its wielder with it as Vert flew STRAIGHT into the incoming attack... and sliced through it after a 10 second long struggle. Eyes widened for Noire when she saw this, but she didn't let it distract her from the incoming attack so she instead swung Balmung, infusing it with more of her Share Energy, with the resulting collision creating a bright burst of light which covered the entire park.


A moment or two later, the light died down...

Showing two panting women standing opposite one another, looking slightly winded and a little injured, but thanks to their respective abilities those injuries didn't last very long. As for their surroundings however... well, one could say that the park could have some water in it to form a nice little pool or a pond, since the crater which had been formed by their combined Noble Phantasm attacks could certainly be filled with such. Both women stood on opposite sides of the crater, staring each other down and looking badass all the while what with winds blowing through their respective hair, their eyes burning with intense emotion.

Both of them held their weapons at the ready, their respective auras constantly flaring with the desire to fight, to repeatedly meet one another in battle. Though, it would be highly unlikely that they would be clashing with those two techniques again any time soon, something which the two CPUs instinctively remained aware of and acknowledged about one another.

"So then... that Spear is some kind of Noble Phantasm?"

"You would be correct, it is the same as your Sword, Balmung. And as a reward for impressing me so far, I'll tell you: her name is Brynhildr, one of the Valkyries: a group of female warriors whom served a CPU of the past called Norse Heart."

"Ah, THAT one. I remember looking into her whilst studying about Heroic Spirits, a Valkyrie whom fell for a human King, tried to help and be with him, but ended up getting punished by Norse Heart, resulting in her being afflicted with a curse which makes her both love and hate the man who caused her to be like that. Hunting him down and killing him before committing suicide afterwards..."

Both Noire and Vert idly conversed with each other, slight smirks gradually forming on their faces from their previous determined scowls, expressions which expressed the pleasure and thrilling sensation coursing through them at the moment. Both CPUs may be leaders of Nations, people whom governed a large majority of lives in ways which they saw fit, but right now, at this moment... neither of them paid this fact any heed. All they could focus on right now, was each other and how much FUN they had begun to have with each other. For a moment, the two just stand there, sizing each other up whilst mentally noting any potential signs of impending attacks from their respective foes... though none of them come to be.

"Well then, it appears that our HUMAN battle is complete..." Vert eventually chose to comment, looking deep into Noire's crimson orbs as she came to this conclusion, though looking into her fellow CPU's gaze told her that she felt the same way. With everything that had happened before, it wouldn't be necessary for them to continue this little spar... as humans, anyways. Therefore, it would now be time for them to tear into one another as other beings, something which the two of them promptly followed through with by allowing the light shows which accompanied their respective HDD Transformations to take place.

By the time that Noire and Vert, now transformed into Green and Black Heart respectively, emerged in their new forms, both of them sized each other up whilst gradually floating over to the space the crater's center. For Black Heart, her altered HDD Form allowed her to take the form of a woman, one with a slim build, but with a short height compared to a fully-grown adult woman, similar to Purple Heart. Her eyes glow with a teal colour and golden power button symbols, whilst her hair, however, sported this pure GOLDEN colour to it, illuminating her immediate vicinity. This light also got helped by the pure energy wings protruding out of her back, golden in colour and shaped like an angel's with the size of a hand glider just like the previous ones. They gave off the feeling of a Seraph because of this, alongside the fact that above the woman's head was what looked like a glowing golden halo of pure energy. On the sides of her head, two golden metallic broaches could be seen attached to her head's sides, sporting 3 angelic metal wings each. For her body, the woman wore a pure golden cloth form-fitting swimsuit, with black highlights scattered across it, with matching bicep-length gloves which ended in large, golden metallic clawed gauntlets. Her legs were covered in golden stockings with black outlines, but instead of gauntlets she had golden high heeled stiletto boots. Over her shoulders, she wore large golden cauldrons, each one having multiple plates sliding down her biceps for added protection whilst a set of golden waist guards were attached to her hips. For her weapon, she gripped what seemed to be a fusion between Ashbringer and her CPU Sword: a two-handed Greatsword, one much longer than she was tall, with a futuristic black metallic design yet with a diagonal tip. A circular guard surrounded the hilt to protect the hands when using it, whilst it sported a brilliantly glowing golden edge. At the base of it's blade one could see the Gem which oddly resembled that of Ashbringer's core quite a bit.

In Green Heart's case, the young woman looked to have gone through some kind of RADICAL evolution to her HDD Form, just like how Black Heart had done so by fusing with the Ashbringer during the Temen-Ni-Gru incident. In Green Heart's case though, she obviously felt that whatever she had fused with had some kind of wind feeling to it, what with that being the dominating theme to her new outfit. 'Could THAT be what had happened to her Fujin Gauntlet...?' the golden haired Black Heart wondered, curiously though she managed to keep her emotions hidden behind a facade of cool composure.

The Leanbox CPU's HDD Form, indeed it had gone through radical changes as previously mentioned. Her ponytail now looked much more... ruffled, like it had been messed up by a strong breeze with her eyes having been changed to a lime green color instead of their original amethyst color, although their power button symbols remained the same. Furthermore, her outfit had been modified in both form AND color, becoming a full ass green cloth leotard like ones ballet dancers would wear, with extra Armour plating concealing her breasts, hips, shoulders, top of her head and feet. The Armour parts were completely black though, with some green X symbols here and there, the Armour on the Chest looking more like some sort of cage trying to restrain them or keep them still whenever she was in motion. Her shoulder Armour looked similar to those technological Droids in that one movie franchise about two factions who use the force differently beating the stuffing out of one another. Her head wear, it now looked more like a pair of black pointy elf ears coming out the top of her head and slanting backwards, with green interiors. Her arm and Leg wear looked pretty much the same form wise, but color wise they had become green predominantly with black sections. The same could be said for her CPU Spear too, whilst her petal-like wings now changed into a green color matching her eyes, whilst becoming shaped like gusts of wind.

One could call her HDD Form one of Wind itself.

"Let me guess, something happened and now you have the powers of your Fujin as if they were naturally yours to begin with?" Black Heart questioned, holding out her black and golden sword in one hand, ready to fight, Her Seraph golden wings kept themselves flared out, ready to supply her with a quick burst of speed for anything she deemed necessary. "Cause that's the only thing I can think of to explain this new change in your HDD Form."

Green Heart hummed thoughtfully. "Hmm, becoming an observer, are we? Or are we stating the obvious about BOTH of us?" she responded, noting the changes to Black Heart's form too. "Yours must have come from fusing with the Ashbringer, its the only thing which has that feeling of holiness that I can think of to explain this situation. As for your question, you could say that I fused with it after some... issues on my side of things." She explained, though vaguely at the end which made Black Heart want to know more, though she didn't show it since that could have been used against her as blackmail. "But enough of that, let us trade only a few blows with one another in these forms, this action-packed chapter the author's making has gotten quite large, and there's still more to come."

"Sure, I guess that's fine."

With both of them agreeing with the Author (AN: Whoo Hoo!), both ladies got into their respective stances... before charging in and clashing with one another, Wind vs Light. Their forms blurred throughout the space above the crater, keeping themselves in the air yet determined to knock each other down to the crater beneath them like it was the last goal in a long running videogame. Though, during the battle, both sides analyzed each other's abilities in their respective forms, forming (pun not intended) their own opinions about them.

Just when they made to clash, Black Heart vanished and reappeared behind her opponent to launch a flying kick to her opponent's back, only for Green Heart to reflexively slide out of the way. Black Heart remained undetermined however as she performed her own form of the 'leaf whirlwind' attack that a certain green spandex Ninja uses by swinging her sword horizontally in a 360 degrees circle. before going for another one aimed towards Green Heart's legs. The Leanbox CPU managed to block both the first one and then the second, all before twirling her Spear before her like it were some Helicopter blades... that being Black Heart's sole warning before she flew out of the way of a wild tornado of Wind launched from Green Heart's spinning Spear, one which smashed into the ground below.

Fortunately Green Heart dispersed it before it could cause too much damage... only to form a spherical Wind Barrier around her to block an aerial offensive consisting of many long blades of Light, ones launched by Black Heart herself. Green Heart then swung her Spear and the Barrier exploded into many dozens of Wind gusts, blowing away the Light Blades as well as Black Heart whom quickly recovered and dashed back towards her prey... whilst dodging a series of Javelins made from Wind that attacked her from above, as well as larger versions of those WIND CUTTER, WIND WAVES, and also the VACUUM SPHERE techniques, curtesy of Green Heart.

"HA!"

"HAH!"

Both woman released their own war cries, brining their weapons up which got covered by their respective elements before they got brought down to bear against one another. Both Black Heart and Green Heart growled at one another, pushing against the other's weaponry whilst blasts of Light and Wind erupted from the collision in place of sparks. They weren't very powerful, and didn't last very long, so they didn't worry about them damaging their surroundings, so after a few more seconds the two of them separated, with Green Heart pointing her Spear at her opponent with wind starting to gather around the front of it's tip. However, it couldn't be considered like her previous attacks since the winds kept spiralling and rotating together, going faster and faster by the second to the point were electrical SPARKS erupted from within it. It started to look a little like a core of a storm, influencing its surroundings by creating a spiralling circle of wind around its creator. "This is it, Noire, my final attack in this form! Hope you're prepared!"

"Right back at you!" Noire responded, an excited smile spreading over her lips as her wings unfurled themselves, spreading open wide as Trails of Light jumped off them in droves, gathering together at the space above her head. She'd noticed the influence on the surroundings that Green Heart's abilities had too, and just barely managed to hold back the admiration from showing onto her face. In HDD, Green Heart's power over wind practically SKYROCKETED as far as Black Heart found herself concerned, since not only could she create larger versions of her previous techniques, but she seemed to create literal HURRICANES and Typhoons around her with every swing of her Spear, tearing through everything in their path whilst each thrust created these long Tornados of Wind that contained all the chaotic force of a literal STORM. Something which she became much more convinced when she saw Vert utilize the wind to simulate Lightning by creating a static charge through the friction of the whipping Winds. If Black Heart hadn't gotten the benefit of being able to move way faster than what Green Heart could do despite her great offense ability, then Black Heart might have been done in if this were a real fight. All the while, her body became overcome by the brilliant golden glow of her aura, her golden power button symbols shining like search lights.

With one big war cry, both attacks got launched towards one another...

For a repeat of what had happened last line break to once again occur.


When the light died down this time, both CPUs remained floating upright, looking little worse for wear... well, actually they looked a bit worse than their last collision, since Black Heart had a few golden cracks forming over her Armour whilst one of her wings looked like it was flickering in and out of existence. Her suit looked to be shredded in a few areas, exposing some bruised blemishes on her otherwise pure silky Skin. "Haaah... haaaaaaah... haah..." Heavy breathing escaped the woman's chest, her sword hand trembling slightly whilst she gripped her weapon tightly with the weapon itself still radiating the power of Light. Thanks to her power though, these things quickly became a none issue, and the reason why she hadn't avoided sustaining these injuries was due to having to block even MORE strikes formed as Javelins and Spheres around her from all directions, likely due to Green Heart's doing. "Well then... looks like we have... a better grasp on... our HDD Forms powers... then..." she commented offhandedly whilst readying herself for the next and FINAL bout, knowing that Green Heart still had yet to unveil that strange feeling Demonic Power she had sensed,

Said CPU herself seemed to sustain more injuries than Black Heart though, and that was saying something since some of her wings looked to have been broken off either at the halfway of 3/4 down. Some damage could be see across her armour too, whilst her suit became halfway shredded, exposing much more ski than Black Heart's. Small trails of blood ran down her body in various places, but Green Heart didn't show much care for it as her injuries rapidly regenerated just like Black Heart's, likely thanks to her Regen Wards which were still usable in this form, apparently. Glancing back to Black Heart's form and noting the healing properties she had, Green Heart gave a small amused smirk of her own, the light in her eyes shining brilliantly like two brilliantly blazing stars, obviously expressing the pleasure of a good fight she felt flowing through her veins right now. Twirling her Spear in one hand, Green Heart formulated a response to her fellow CPU's statement. "I concur. You seem to possess Ashbringer's Light abilities in this form, which makes me think you fused with it like I did with my Fujin." she stated, getting a brisk nod of confirmation from her adversary before she continued. "Now, for the final part of this fight... at long last."

"Sure, but before we do..."

"Hm?!"

All of a sudden, Black Heart suddenly broke forth into a mad flight path, heading straight towards Green Heart uncaring about her damaged Wings. This time, she held nothing back from her speed so Green Heart couldn't retaliate against what the Lastation CPU did next. Reaching forwards with her free left hand, Black Heart grasped onto Green Heart's face, gripping it firmly whist blasting off from MICROSOFT's desolated park. 'Wha...?! She WAS holding back on her speed, wasn't she?!' Leanbox's CPU thought in dismay, trying to mentally control the Wind to try and break out but to no avail. The rather furious turbulence created by Black Heart's movement as she flew through the air n the form of only a single streak of light energy that danced along the skies caused Vert to be unable to retaliate against her hold, the Lastation CPU not paying her much heed as she did whatever she had intended.

Thus, the fight took itself OUT of the city of MICROSOFT.


10 minutes later, she managed to locate a large, open air space in which Black Heart's senses told her nothing in the vicinity could be harmed, no settlements or any demonic encampments within a set of 50 miles in any direction. Below, was a massive countryside plain, one of the many throughout the land of Green Pastures and NOT the same one which a certain redhead DPU/Ghoulish Spec Ops Agent destroyed in his spar with his Party. 'Yeah, this one will be suitable...' Black Heart thought, nodding to herself in approval before she slowed down enough to toss Green Heart opposite her, kind of like tossing a trash bag into a dustbin actually. "Now before you get all mad and yell at me for what happened before..." she began as Green Heart regained her balance about 8 meters away from her and proceeded to open her mouth to do exactly that. "I figured that this last section of our Spar will be pretty... Devilish, so as to not cause mass panic since its likely that you didn't tell anyone about your Demonic Powers, it would be best if we moved this fight outside of the City where nobody can know or get hurt. We WERE getting pretty wild with those attacks there..."

Yeah, Black Heart had noticed for some time now that some of their attacks had gotten dangerously close to their surroundings, barely stopping them from going outside of the park. If things kept escalating the way that they did, something which she felt certain that they would, then the danger of involving innocent civilians would have increased to unacceptable levels. They'd limited the destruction to the Park, but the moment that there was a legit danger of the surroundings being affected negatively, Black Heart knew for a FACT that she had to act quickly. Their Spar shouldn't have to involve injuring those whom they protected, otherwise what would have been the point of them becoming more powerful in the first place? Black Heart may have looked like she had gotten carried away, but mentally she always kept in mind the level of danger that Leanbox's people as well as her own whom had been stationed here, would have been in from their fighting.

Once she finished speaking, realization flashed across Green Heart's eyes after a few seconds of processing her words, causing a sigh of resignation to escape the green haired woman's lips. "... That's a valid point, and you're right. Whilst I have gained somewhat of a Demonic side, something which has a story to it by the way, I have not told anyone about it yet, since the Demons aren't exactly on people's favourites list at the moment. Who knows how much my, and potentially your Shares, would plummet should they find out about it." she remarked, thoughtfully as a worried look crossed onto her features. Her worries weren't unfounded though, since the public likely wouldn't react too well if they knew that their revered Goddesses had to become the very monsters that they fought in order to do their jobs correctly.

"Heh, if they want to label us monsters, then they should look in a mirror first." Black Heart retorted with a scoff, placing her left hand on her hip. This caught Green Heart by surprise as evident by the slight gasp which had escaped her lips, but the CPU continued regardless. "Yeah we've become more monstrous, but whose to say that humans aren't monsters? We've got SEVERAL examples of behaviour from humans which coincides VERY much with the monsters we fight. It would by hypocritical if they start criticising us for wat we do when they're no better." Yeah, Black Heart did NOT let herself be under the illusion that humans were the best people in the world, not after the shit that they've pulled over the years with the stuff revolving around those Half-Ghoul Children being one of the more recent cases. She may be their protector, but that didn't make her blind to their darkness. Thinking otherwise would just be asking trouble to come to her door, which was the exact OPPOSITE of what she wanted. Black Heart loved her Nation, to be sure, but she wouldn't be stupid enough to say that all people were good in the world, as much as people might thin otherwise.

This had been something which she had been contemplating ever since the whole Temen-Ni-Gru incident, when she had seen a mortal man scramble for the power of Gods and going through endless levels of despicable actions to get it. Through him, Black Heart had seen another example of how twisted humans can be, alongside Ganache and Avenir, at which point the question: 'is humanity really worth protecting?' cropped into her mind no matter how much she fought against it, eventually making her ponder on that question. The thing was, aside from Chian who was an exception, Black Heart had seen a LOT of shady individuals ever since Avenir's zombie attack, she saw some of humanity's ugly, shady and twisted nature to the point where even she had begun doubting her own convictions she had previously spouted. Though back in those times she hadn't put too much focus on those since she had been so focused on regaining their trust and atoning for the mistakes she had made, only being truly forced to contemplate this after the Temen-Ni-Gru fiasco got settled. After all, an innocent person got killed because of one man's desire for godlike power, and so quickly people blamed her for not doing anything to save her, forgetting the fact that if Black Heart hadn't done what she had, then a LOT more people would have ended up victims of Slaanesh. CPUs weren't all-knowing after all, something which Black Heart had to come to terms with as a painful reminder. She'd even gotten some advice from Siegfried, Rik and her third Tenant Jiang Chen on the matter, their opinions being that she should decide for herself if humanity was worth protecting.

In the end though, Black Heart managed to come to one conclusion that she'd reached after a bout of soul searching, and that was to keep her conviction as a Leader going, do everything which she had been stating she'd do but to NEVER let that cover up the fact that there were scummy people out there who were far worse than any monster. If those kinds of people acted up then Black Heart couldn't allow herself to hesitate: she would crack down upon them without mercy, so that her Nation didn't have to suffer from their twisted machinations. It was a tall order, definitely, not to mention one which Black Heart wasn't sure she could accomplish, but she felt determined enough to try. It didn't matter to her WHAT she would become, as long as she kept her core beliefs in her soul at all times.

It had been a while, but finally Black Heart had seemingly found a balance between being a Leader as well as a Monster in her own right.

"... My, you certainly have grown, Noire..." Green Heart commented under her breath so her adversary didn't hear her. In her eyes, it had been obvious to tell what the other CPU thought, not to mention she could glean an opinion based off the facts which she had heard about the various incidents across Lastation from her representatives and idle gossip between their Nations. To Leanbox's CPU, seeing the maturity displayed by her adversary after so many centuries worth of fighting against her, she could hardly believe it. Of course she had seen elements of it during what meetings they had attended together after the Gala, but this would mark the first time that Green Heart saw just how HUGE Black Heart's changes had impacted her mind. No longer could she see her as the ruthless, almost psychotic tyrant back in the Console War up in Celestia, to the point where she could start considering Black Heart as a much more capable Leader than she had expected. Guess miracles WERE still possible in this cruel, twisted world which Gamindustri had become. "To that end, it compels me to take this last bout between us a LITTLE more seriously than before..."

Upon hearing that, Black Heart shook those earlier thoughts aside before focusing back onto the fight. She gave Green Heart a competitive smile, her eyes dancing with amusement and mirth. "Like you weren't before?" She retorted sassily, getting a slight chuckle from Green Heart before she became serous, her eyes narrowing into a blade-like glare whilst her Demonic Power began to rise, signalled by the rumbling sensation coursing through her right now. Black Heart felt it, the inner Demon which she had been strengthening through countless battles was slowly waking up, stirred by her call and willing to answer it. "But before we start again, lets just prepare ourselves, shall we?" She suggested as her aura began to change, losing its divinity and slowly turning into a crimson, Devilish colour with sinister sensations erupting forth from Black Heart's being... all before her body began the transformation she had desired.

For a moment, Green Heart had to cover her face from the wave of Demonic Power which erupted forth from Black Heart's body to cement the transformation's startup process, and by the time that it died down, she easily noticed the changes in the atmosphere. The atmosphere felt cold, dark, sinister and utterly twisted in its nature, with even the slightest movement being potentially the lead to her own downfall. Sweat formed across Green Heart's brow as a feeling of tension overcame her being, a tension which she ultimately chose to disperse by taking a few deep breaths whilst lowering the arms covering her face allowing her to see what Black Heart had transformed herself into with her Demonic Power...

No, her Devil Trigger.

With the Devil Trigger activated, Black Heart turned into a woman who stood at 5 foot 8, her body slender, yet dangerously seductive: medium length neck, sharp facial features, small shoulders, slim arms, hourglass shaped figure with wide hips, long legs etc. Her hair becomes a bloody crimson, flowing down her back like ocean waves. Several bangs curved around her face, framing it along with the two crimson slitted power button symbols within the centre of her abyssal black eyes.

From atop her head, two large mechanical bat-like ears protruded out the tip, shaped like a V whilst a mechanical headband wrapped around her forehead. It's centre held a wide-open mouth, a single crimson orb clutched within that sported a slitted black pupil. She is clad in an all-black, form-fitting bodysuit, with demonic-looking constructs in the forms of infiltration equipment placed throughout. Her forearms, shoulders and kneecaps each had slim-looking guards which match their body parts, the shoulders and kneecaps having long, sharp spikes protruding out. Her hands are covered in some black gloves which had clawed, crimson double edged, serrated nails, with her feet being black high heeled, fashionable boots. Behind her back, were a pair of small, Bat-like wings... then a larger pair coming out her back.

In her right hand, there lay a single, large double-edged sword. It had an incomplete circular object attached to its bottom, with leather around its hilt. The blade itself was longer than she was tall, with both sides having varying sized human faces engraved onto them, all frozen in pain.

"So... that's the form you take when you Devil Trigger, is it?"

"Indeed... call me Abyss Heart in this form, for that is what awaits those who cross my path."

"My, now that's something only an edgelord would say... or perhaps edge lady in this case." Green Heart commented, sweat dropping with a nervous-looking, if not strained smile on her features. Seeing how this Abyss Heart didn't react to her words made her sweat drop even more, as well as wonder if this could be considered an improvement on her original personality. 'She doesn't seem nearly as haughty and arrogant, a least. But still..' the woman thought, narrowing her eyes as she felt the power rolling off her opponent. No way did it lose out against the light divinity which her HDD Form had, in fact it felt like she were looking at the combination of God and the Devil himself having decided to finally settle their differences and make the world a better place with peaceful co-existence... well, more like the two took turns in the driver's seat since right now she couldn't sense ANY of the holy and Divinity a Goddess formed from Share Energy would exude, but rather the sinister, twisted power of the Demon instead. "No matter... since we're all going full on edge-mode this chapter... mind if I join you?"

Before Abyss Heart answered, Green Heart howled as she repeated the same phenomenon as what had happened earlier, only in this case Abyss Heart didn't cover her face. Instead she just stared at her opponent, waiting for the change to be over with so they could fight already. Her sword Chaoseater yearned to be used for battling viciously after all. The Demonic Energy wave settled down, and Abyss Heart finally became witness to Green Heart in her demonic Devil Trigger Form, causing her eyes to narrow slightly. "So... this is it..."

With her Devil Trigger Active, Green Heart now looked NOTHING like her original HDD Form, having given up the divinity for the demonic. Her body got covered entirely, from the neck down she wore a full black Spandex suit with red outlines, her torso and abdomen having a crimson tattoo of sorts across it. Atop her head, she had two black horns which curved forwards, as well as an Eyepatch over her left eye, exposing only the right which had turned into a pure black one, one which looked similar to an endless void. Within its centre, is a crimson slitted power button symbol like the ones Neptune and Noire's Devil Trigger Forms had. For hair, she had hers flow out freely like her original hairstyle in human form, but it had been styled into black dreadlocks instead with barbed crimson tips.

Her arms were covered to the biceps in black arm sleeves with red outlines along the biceps, going into a set of black, skeleton-like gloves with crimson clawed nails. Her feet ended in skeleton-like high heels as well with crimson sharpened soles for kicking, the 'heel' sections looking like they could stab into someone. Protruding out the base of her spine, was a HUGE ass long black tail with the appearance of a human spinal column with crimson tendrils wrapping around it though they didn't hinder the appendage's offensive ability any. For wings, she possessed two large, bat shaped ones with tattered webbing, similar to Noire's in size, but unlike her form's Green Heart only has these two wings.

For a weapon, she held in her right hand a crimson Spear as long as she was tall, one which had dozens of spikes protruding out of its shaft in a random, disorganized manner until the large blade-like tip which had 2 sets of 3 (6 in total) which went perfectly horizontal.

"... Nice to finally meet you like this... Abyss Heart." the demonic form of Green Heart spoke evenly whilst holding little emotion, holding her Spear over her shoulder like a Gangster whilst positioning it in a way that it wouldn't impale her body, all the while her lone eye narrowed into a blade-like gaze at her. She once more proceeded to speak, her tone frosty in terms of coldness level. "Know that I do not see this as any form of entertainment, but a duty. It is the 'duty' of a King' to attain victory, no matter the circumstance, therefore do not expect mercy from me." With those icy words, words which the normal Green Heart would have NEVER said to an opponent, this demonic form she had taken ended up getting into a battle stance, pointing her Spear diagonally downwards whilst both hands grasped the spike-riddled Shaft. "Know the name of your victorious foe: Carnage Heart-"

FWOOSH!

All of a sudden, her words got cut off as the demonic form of Green Heart, also known as Carnage Heart as she introduced herself, tilted her head slightly to avoid a burst of twisted Demonic Lightning which arced passed, slamming into the ground behind her. The woman then looked back to the one whom had caused it, that being Abyss Heart whose Chaoseater, which writhed in similar Lightning, had been pointed directly at her head, likely aiming to blast it to smithereens or just a simple 'warning shot', either or. In any case, the message itself which this strike presented became clear to the dreadlock-haired woman: shut up and fight already.

"...You talk too much, user of Gae Bolg." Abyss Heart confirmed that message verbally with her following words as she nonchalantly held yup her blade to the air above her head. The exact second she did so, Carnage Heart felt it, yet another change in the atmosphere with this one coming from Abyss Heart. All around her, her body's aura began to flare like a living flame, the aura surrounding her Chaoseater almost HOWLING like a beast during its pointing at the heavens as if it were challenging them to a direct confrontation. "SKY… WOLF… SLASH…!" With an explosive roar, a tremendous wave of aura like the rough sea was suddenly released from the massive Chaoseater. Instantly, the surrounding space stirred and the air was forcefully split open. The instant the heavy sword slashed downwards, an illusionary image of a blue wolf roaring towards the sky flashed momentarily behind the Demonic Goddess. When the blade descended, it ended up releasing a crescent shaped aura from its tip, one which launched itself straight forth towards Carnage Heart, whose hair fluttered behind her from the force the attack had generated.

Twisting her Spear in her right hand, the Demonic Leanbox Goddess reared it backwards... before thrusting the Spear forwards whilst empowering it with her Demonic Energy, something which took physical form by coating the Spear in a violent and chaotic crimson aura of malice. The moment that the two attacks met, both of them released a HUGE repelling force at the point of collision, nearly blowing Carnage Heart back as she got hit by waves of tyrannical, domineering and twisted power coming from the strike, filling her mind with the image of a howling wolf bearing its fangs own on her, ready to chomp down and snap her body in two like a frail stick. Fortunately for her, Carnage quickly managed to deflect the attack, having changed her intent mid way after figuring out that outright destroying this attack (which had been well within her capabilities mind you) would waste way too much time for her liking, by angling her Spear in a certain way and then slashing horizontally, knocking the attack away from her and letting it destroy some ground harmlessly, leaving her perfectly intact.

"... The power was insufficient... I see, so it is indeed best to have my Dragonblood Form's physical might when using attacks from THAT then..."

"?"

For a moment, Carnage Heart thought she heard her foe say something, but pushed it aside in favour or prepping her next attack, However, if she thought Abyss Heart would let her have some respite after that, she got proven wrong a moment later when she seemingly appeared right before her with Chaoseater poised for a reverse upward slash from her right armpit. The strike got launched, the blade being coated In demonic Flames this time, Carnage Heart tilted herself backwards to avoid it, then used the momentum to spin her Spear into an upward spinning slash with the intent of carving up Abyss Heart's torso with a diagonal attack. Before the strike could land though, Abyss Heart slammed the rear end of her weapon onto the blade, knocking the Spear's tip downwards and away from her. At first, Carnage Heart made to strike with the reverse end of her weapon like Abyss Heart had done, but then she noticed something in the air. 'Hm? Something's amiss...' she thought, frowning. 'Feels like something is being drawn in... but where? and What? Is it air...?' she wondered, until she got her answer when she noticed the many skulls on both sides of Chaoseater's blade sucking in something... and it wasn't air either.

"Have some of my SOUND BAZOOKA." Abyss Heart stated, before the massive Sword's Skulls unleashed a collective scream louder than a thousand otaku crowds at a concert, blowing away EVERTTHING in her vicinity including Carnage Heart. The woman let out a gasp of surprise as her body became riddled with injuries, lacerations and deep wounds forming over her body due to the soundwaves slamming into her thanks to that attack. She cleared about 10 meters worth of distance, before quickly opening her eye and regaining her balance, shifting back into an upright position all the while swinging her Gae Bolg upwards, creating a gust of black wind from her Spear's tip which blocked a series of sword swings from Chaoseater. Chaoseater's mistress however, wasn't having any of that, as she proceeded to activate her QUICKSILVER ability, slowing down time around her in order for her to twist around and sever one of Carnage Heart's arms, one of her legs, as well as leave a few deep gashes on her back... one of them going through one of her Wings unintentionally, so that when she deactivated the ability Carnage Heart had even MORE injuries (her previous ones already halfway done regenerating through Demonic Energy) to deal with.

Though, she forgot about one thing:

Carnage Heart possessed a third appendage, a fully operational TAIL, and she would NOT let her live down that blunder.

Therefore, as Carnage Heart fell, she quickly grasped both her severed limbs with her remaining arm after tossing Gae Bolg into the airspace above them, causing Abyss Heart to arch a brow at her whilst raising Chaoseater to delver another SKY WOLF SLASH to finish this. However, the flaring of the Tail quickly caught Lastation's CPU's attention, thought it became too late for her to react since it wrapped around her sword arm's wrist in order top rear her back and toss her away, sending her crashing into the ground below her. This allowed Carnage Heart the few precious seconds which she needed to reattach her limbs, heal her injuries quicker and then catch the falling Gae Bolg in her right hand.

"You did well, Abyss Heart, to go against a king the way you have. Therefore, I will show you the ability my Noble Phantasm, Gae Bolg, possesses."

Speaking with a slightly impressed tone, Carnage Heart reared her Spear backwards, Gae Bolg starting to shine brightly whilst energy poured out of its form, the tell-tale sign of a Noble Phantasm ability activating. Feeling its power rising, Carnage Heart quickly shot upwards to about 100 meters away from Abyss Heart's position, rearing her weapon back as if drawing back a bow. "Taste the spear of gouging Carnage: CARNAGE SPEAR!" She bellowed, and with a mighty war cry, Carnage Heart threw the spear with a mighty thrust down towards her. CARNAGE SPEAR, the name she had chosen for the Noble Phantasm she commanded, it blows away a multitude of enemies by throwing this homing magic spear missile. By throwing the spear at such a force that would damage her own body, the attack gained power and range over one used by 'the foolish idiot version'. The Spear inflicted area-of-effect instant death to the enemies that it hit, or great damage if instant death is avoided. The moment that it left her arm's grasp, the woman flinched as a TWISTED surge of pain rocked through her body like she were hit with a thousand supernatural sledgehammer swings, rattling it with injuries which her Demonic Energy Reserves made to heal like fireman being dispatch to put out a house fire, although they couldn't heal the pain which she found herself being put through.

Down below, Abyss Heart looked up through one barely open eye, noticing the incoming Noble Phantasm shooting towards her like a falling meteor, causing her brows to furrow. If she would have been in her human form when she saw that weapon, she'd likely be stricken with fright, after all she had studied the legends of many mythological heroes. As such, she recognized this Spear, Gae Bolg, as the Spear of the legendary Celtic Warrior of Leanbox's conflict of tribes period before Vert's arrival: Chu Chulainn. A hero who was said to be a Demigod, but that fact was widely debated amongst scholars. Nonetheless, the guy had an impressive legend, but the most important thing to her was the fact that this Spear attack, whilst not containing the original ability of 'always striking at the heart' the original magic spear had', it still had great power as an anti-Army Noble Phantasm. Blocking it was out of the question, her DT Form didn't have the strength to do that, the same could also be said for evasion since the attack will end up destroying a whole hell LOT of ground upon impact.

'Tch, looks like I'll have to go for endurance. I don't know if my body can endure something like this, but perhaps I can use this to my advantage...'

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

Upon the Spear's collision with the space Abyss Heart resided in, a huge explosion occurred which raised upwards to the heavens above, filling it as well as the surrounding areas with lots of smoke, dust and small pieces of debris. Seeing the destruction laying itself out before her, Carnage slowly located down towards the ground, keeping her gaze level with the bottom of the smokescreen whilst wordlessly raising her right hand, Gae Bolg seemingly teleporting there in a crimson flash for her to grasp. Lowering her arm, Carnage Heart now floated just above the ground beneath her like any typical deity did in Gamindustri, narrowing her demonic eye at the smoke. 'With that strike alone... considering how this battle has gone so far, I do not think that this is the end. Likely another strike from Gae Bolg of THAT would end up finishing the job, but...' she thought to herself.

Glancing down at the mentioned Spear, Carnage Heart furrowed her brows as memories of what had happened came back to her, of how she came to possess this Noble Phantasm along with the associated Spirit. This had actually tied into something else way bigger, so she eventually remembered things from the very beginning. It had all started, well... she would say around the ending of the Gala, though at the time she hadn't really noticed and wouldn't have noticed until much later in her life. However, back then, she didn't realize it but Gungnir, the Spear which se had used as a life support in place of her CPU Powers, had been absorbing Demonic Energy from the surroundings as well as the Demons and World Eater Legion soldiers whom she had fought. This energy, instead of being absorbed into the Spear completely, instead it diverted that power into her body, where it gradually grew and grew like a spiralling whirlpool gradually gaining momentum each second that passed. Eventually, it reached a point where, during her training trip, she had finally taken notice of the suspicious energy inside of her, and when she had tried to access it...

She'd barely managed to keep herself from losing consciousness as her mind desperately tried stopping her from blacking out from the pain.

Turned out, using that power had some serious backlash on her, something which she could NOT have foreseen. From her experience, her human self had judged that she couldn't use the Demonic Energy inside of her due to its wild, malicious nature being the complete opposite of her own, acting somewhat like a poison to her system. It actually reminded her of the time when Nico in his DPU Form poisoned Noire with his energy, although that wasn't exactly intentional and Noire managed to survive. For a while, she had wondered why this was, but she did have one idea as to the reason, something which got clarified much later for her.

Anyways, the only way she had discovered that she could use the energy safely was whenever she had Gungnir in her hand, for the weapon seemed to have the ability to manipulate the energy for her as an external manipulator. It had prompted her human self to research into Gungnir a bit more, and eventually she had discovered that what Mundus had mentioned about it being a 'copy of a copy' turned out to be more true than she could have ever realized. Apparently, the Spear she held was actually a copy of Norse Heart's Gungnir, which had power FAR surpassing that of this one. Apparently, this one had been created as a means to imitate Norse Heart's power, imbuing it with some of the principles surrounding the legendary Spear to fight against her. Unfortunately her idiotic human self couldn't find out who owned the ORIGINAL Gungnir, so they had no idea on how powerful it truly had been, however the fact was that her human self's Gungnir had absolutely GARBAGE manipulation abilities, but they were just BARELY enough to keep the demonic power from raging out of control too much, though even then she couldn't use the energy much or for long. To get a better example, every time she used it her human self would have gained injuries all over her body, spilling nearly every last drop of her blood in one moment. If it weren't for Gungnir quickly directing the energy to healing her, then her human self would have expired long ago.

Fortunately, Vert had found a way around this when she met and fought against a powerful Greater Demon, one who acknowledged her ability when she had fought it to a standstill after a week's worth of non-stop combat after it had dragged her into what it had called a 'Demon World' where they could fight unimpeded by laws or reality. As a reward for beating it, the Demon did two things: it explained to her that the reason why her Demonic Power hurt her was because it had been trying to develop into a proper Devil Trigger, but it lacked a 'Soul' strong enough to mould it into the ideal shape. Her Goddess soul was just too incompatible for it, as only Demonic Souls could handle Demonic Power, with Nico being a DPU Candidate who got the DPU Core to imbue his Soul and turn it into a demonic one being why he could as a non-demon originally. Essentially the energy didn't have a Soul to command it, so the Greater Demon did the second thing: allow its soul to fuse with her own, therefore merging with her own soulless Demonic Power and finally stabilizing it to a point where Gungnir didn't have to control it. From there on, her human Self gained her Devil Trigger ability which turned her into her current form, naming herself Carnage Heart due to the destruction which she left in her wake whenever the DT got activated.

At some point afterwards, she had found Gae Bolg within the same Demon World after using it as a means to practice controlling her power in Devil Trigger Form, which had been permanently corrupted by the ambient Demonic Power within the Demon World and transformed into its current state. The Heroic Spirit possessing the weapon, the Celtic hero Chu Chulainn... he had been influenced by the power to the point where any of his reportedly easy-going personality got erased, leaving only his aspect of a battle machine remaining. Upon meeting her when she had touched the spear, he had immediately sensed another Heroic Spirit with a Noble Phantasm in her, so things became... tricky, sine ordinarily having more than one Heroic Spirit within the same body was classed as unheard of. As such, he instead allowed her to possess his Spear Gae Bolg as a Noble Phantasm alongside another one, but had infused them with her Demonic Power so that they could only be used whenever her human self turned into Carnage Heart. Otherwise, she could only use Brynhildr's Noble Phanasm.

Thus, Carnage Heart became the proud owner of the Noble Phantasms belonging to Chu Chulainn (alter), a Berserker Class Heroic Spirit.

'... Wielding Gae Bolg and infusing with that Heroic Spirit has influenced my Devil Trigger, changing my appearance and personality a little. As such, whilst a part of me still enjoys the battle, I sill see it as more of a duty at the same time... its both vexing as well as curious at the same time...' Carnage Heart thought, frowning in discontent at the conflicting emotions spiralling within her gut, the urge to enjoy the thrill of battle like she usually did in the past as her human or Goddess self, as well as the nature of Chu Culainn (Alter) who saw battle as "merely paperwork." According to him, there's absolutely no joy towards battle, but he'd do it merely for the sake of verifying his existence as "king". Many Heroic Spirits whom he's met in this state of being have denounced that state of being to be "foolish", but to be fair that's kind of justified for them. The "king" that Cú Chulainn saw in life was foolish, without exception. Nonetheless, his craving for victory is much stronger than the normal Cú Chulainn. That's because gaining victory is a natural duty, just like how Carnage Heart had declared before. It IS possible for him (and by extension herself) to conversate and logically think, but fundamentally, it does not consist of him conversating with his opponents because he points the vector wholly at "gaining victory in battle". Hence, there is no compassion in him and begging for one's life would absolutely have no effect against him... so Carnage Heart herself had inherited some of that ruthless nature from him as well.

Putting those thoughts aside for now, Carnage put her mind back into the game, focusing her gaze ack onto the smoke as she awaited any possible changes which could point to her adversary alive. That is, until she got tired of waiting and swung Gae Bolg sideways, releasing a wave of black wind which blew away the smoke in its entirety, one swift movement allowing her to peer towards where Abyss Heart had once been...

Only to find there to be nobody there, not even a corpse.

'Hm? Suspicious... I know I didn't hold back in that strike, but I would have thought she were strong enough to leave a corpse behind...'

"WILD FANG!"

"?!"

Upon hearing a voice she did not anticipate hearing ever again, Carnage Heart instinctively glanced upwards, noticing the rapidly approaching Abyss Heart shooting down towards her like an eagle diving towards its prey, a large, red aura covering her sword which she raised for an overhead slash to her position. Not only that, but she also heard the loud howl of a wolf, in addition to seeing a large, blue wolf appearing behind the falling sword maiden. It lunged forth down towards her, maw open wide with the intent of crushing her beneath its fangs... something which Carnage Heart refused to allow and formed a Wind barrier around her whilst hardening her body with the TETSUGAN. A loud eruption of force and power soon followed the moment that the two of them collided, Carnage Heart only lasting a couple seconds before her barrier fell, and Abyss Heart's strike landing atop her right shoulder, going right through and out of her left hip. Although the wound had been weakened by her barrier, it still managed to leave a deep gash behind, the force applied to it knocking her flying backwards. The force also succeeded in creating yet another large crater, one large enough to fit an entire castle inside and then bury it underground without anyone even realizing it was there. As Carnage Heart bounced along the ground multiple times, pain explosions rocked her body every time it met the hard earth, causing her to grimace and flinch every time... so once the 10th bounce passed, her eyes shot open wide.

Her Tail sprung into action, stabbing into the ground before she could hit it again, and then dug through it to stop the force from propelling its wielder's body any further. This caused Carnage Heart to look like she was sliding along the ground with her Tail, soon halting and using said appendage to hold herself upwards for a few seconds, just before she took her Tail out and hovered on the spot again. She was NOT at 100% though, as the gash spewed blood every time she had bounced along before and her Tail now looked like it had lost a few of its spikes, more than a 1/4 of them near the tip, thanks to its actions. Even now, it still spewed rivers of blood down her body, causing her to look down as her Demonic Power raced to heal the wound. "That strike..." she mumbled, twirling Gae Bolg a full 360 degrees multiple times with one hand, before raising her head to meet Abyss Heart's gaze.

Once she did so, she noticed the lack of injuries on her person, something which she frowned heavily at. She wanted to ask her how she had managed to get out of Gae Bolg's attack unscathed, but before she could Abyss Heart simply beat her to it, pointing Chaoseater at her face. "Not a bad strike, Spear of Gouging Carnage. If I hadn't activated my QUICKSILVER at the last second then applied my DOPPLEGANGER ability, I would have been forced to tank something I'm not sure I would have survived, unlike your previous strikes..." Abyss Heart commented, causing Catrnage Heart to remember the rest of their fight, or to be more exact the beginning when she made a complete duplicate of the Noble Phantasm Balmung.

"How forthcoming..."

"Honesty's something I follow in this form, don't pay it much heed."

"Very well."

That short conversation was all that they shared, before prepping their next attack. For Abyss Heart, she prepared a strike first, thrusting her sword forwards and yelling out its name. "VOICE MISSILE!" As soon as he called out the name of her attack, the man Skulls all released a collective shriek, launching a large sound blast towards her opponent. Carnage Heart hopped to the side as she swung Gae Bolg at it, slicing it in half whilst also launching a black WIND CUTTER at her, for Abyss Heart to side flip and launch a second VOICE MISSILE. This started a full 5 minute bout of them jumping about and launching their respective attacks at one another in a bid to out do their opponent from range.

After those five minutes passed...

"Enough. The time has come to end this."

"As cliché as that line is, since it comes from some dumb villain book, I'm inclined to agree."

The first one who spoke just now, turned out to be Carnage Heart, whom had spoken after the two had broken off from one of the rare few directed in the VOICE MISSILE and Black Wind attack-riddled battlefield. Each of them may not look it with their expressions remaining black and yet with an icy cold undertone, but both of these two warrior maidens felt like this battle would need to end soon. Not only had it gone on for FAR longer than originally intended, but with their reserves starting to approach the danger zone in terms of how much they had used up each, this would likely be the last attack... for them both.

"Let us settle this with one last attack, we put our remaining power on the line." Abyss Heart suggested, prompting a nod of agreement from her adversary. "Alright then. Since I lack anything special at this point, I'll simply overcharge my Chaoseater for one final attack." she proclaimed afterwards, holding the large sword before her in a traditional kendo stance whilst the blade began to pulsate, a large, bright red sinister aura starting to envelop it and make it twice as large as it normally should be. Behind her, her wings flapped once then extended outwards, Demonic Power seeping forth from them like blood escaping from a wound at high speeds, gathering around and then into Chaoseater to charge up its power further, causing the sword to almost howl in delight. Abyss Heart's body soon became the same as her sword, covered in a crimson Demonic Aura with a pair of hollow red eyes opening above the back of her head, a low growl being emitted which seeped into her surroundings though the demonic Goddess didn't look like she had noticed.

Nodding her head in response, Carnage Heart decided to prepare her own attack as well, starting with... dismissing her Gae Bolg, the weapon vanishing out of existence just like that. "If you can dodge the first strike of my Spear, then its possible that you can make a repeat performance... I cannot allow such a possibility to occur, so I will..." She began when she noticed the dubious look which Abyss Heart had sent her way upon seeing her discard her Spear. "Show you just what a BEAST truly is...with my SECOND Noble Phantasm. Come, CURRUID COINCHENN!" Carnage Heart called out the name of the second Noble Phantasm with a loud and mighty war howl, rearing her head backwards as, out of nowhere, a crimson tidal wave of Demonic Power erupted forth from the space beneath her feet. It completely covered her form without hesitation and took no more than a second to do so as it shielded Carnage Heart from view, all the while on the other side of the battlefield Abyss Heart cautiously waited for whatever happened to finish up, along with keeping an eye out for any sneak attacks hence why she didn't attack herself. It had happened before in this battle, where she had recklessly thought her opponent had exposed an opening only to nearly get the stuffing knocked out of her by a supposedly 'stray' wind gust which would nearly knock her off balance.

Finally, the aura died down, showing Carnage Heart with... some new duds on her, and BOY did add to her rather 'beastly' appeal. She now seemed to be clad in a helmet-shaped like a horse head with a single crimson horn coming out on top and pointing forwards. Whilst the upper section above her boobs was covered by Armour shaped like skeleton, with some 'hand' like formations wrapping around them, her shoulders were clad in Shoulder pads shaped like fingers positioned as if they were tightly pressed together and clutching said body parts, sporting crimson spikes like two bloody crowns. For her forearms, she had her seemingly two main weapons: two HUGE ass black and red skeleton claws covering them, the digits being crimson and longer/larger than longswords. This, combined with her Tail and Wings, gave her the look of a stereotypical edgy ass Demon, as she gave a feral growl within her new Helmet. Her Tail slammed into the ground behind her, then swished from side to side, leaving a small dust cloud at her rear whilst her aura swelled to epic proportions, just like how her adversary was doing just now.

Curruid Coinchen: The second Noble Phantasm of the Chu Chulainn (Alter) that Carnage Heart could use, an Anti-Unit (self) type Noble Phantasm which, upon activation, summoned the skeleton of the beast whose ribs forged Gae Bolg in the first place, and then allowed her to wear it it as very powerful Armour. Whilst this Armour was highly offensive in nature as it empowered her strength and Endurance something fierce, it also had one big downside: it restricted her from using Gae Bolg and adopt a more CQC Oriented fighting Style, hence why she had never bothered to use this Noble Phantasm until now Fortunately the Noble Phantasm didn't end up taking away something like her Wings or her floating ability, otherwise she would have lost a lot of her mobility.

Now both attackers had their forms ready, each of them wasted no more time... and once more gave some mighty war cries as they charged in for their final collision...


"Haaa… Haaa…."

"Huff... Puff..."

The battle concluded... in a draw.

Yup, the battle which had been lasting for nearly an entire day (according to the setting sun, that is), had ended in a way where neither party had won or lost, with both their attacks colliding with each other at the same time and forcing the two Goddesses to revert back to their human forms, completely drained of any Demonic Power. Their respective weapons had also vanished, Vert's returning to her Inventory after her DT Form vanished, whilst Noire's did the same with both Goddess falling onto one knee, their respective injuries sustained after the vicious battle having quickly healed up through their own abilities. As a result, the two Goddesses now remained on the ground, back first and facing upwards towards the skies, hence how they had figured out the time of day it was to predict how long they had been fighting.

"Now THAT... was a fight. I haven't had to fight... like that in a fair while..." Vert spoke through some occasional panting, having taken a bit of a rest before speaking and allowing her Regen Wards to fix her body previously. She could also feel her Demonic Power starting to regenerate now, but she knew from experience that with how much she had drawn on it would take some time for her reserves to return to optimal efficiency, therefore she didn't think too much about the possibility of returning to her Devil Trigger Form. Instead, she had to ponder in amazement the spar which she had with Noire, their spar having escalated way more than she had originally expected into a full-blown battle thanks to the revelations which had happened within it. She honestly wanted to have a shorter one, just enough to see how much Noire had grown since when they had last seen one another... so what had changed? For a moment, Vert lay there, a puzzled look mixing in with her confusion before remembrance dawned on her. 'Ah, that's right... she called me out on my, in layman's terms, BS. In the end, it wasn't because of any political or economic reasons related to Shares, or rather that wasn't my main objective. No, I wanted to see how my power measured up to hers. I didn't want to be seen as the only one who had to train herself whilst everyone else got off easy slacking off, it irritated me just thinking about it... haaaah, perhaps Noire was right with what she had mentioned before.'

From above her (since she still lay on the ground and Noire's head was just opposite hers), Vert heard the sounds of Noire snickering to herself in amusement. "Yeah, I'd say the same... I guess we got a little carried away though, what with all the destruction around us and all." she remarked, weakly raising a finger and gesturing around them by making a circle with her index finger. This prompted Leanbox's CPU to look around too, noticing just how utterly DEVASTATED the entire plain looked. Aside from the two large craters created by their larger attacks, there were also smaller ones scattered throughout, making it look so much like the site of a meteor shower or something. Piles of dirt could be seen as well which had formed around the craters, dirt which had once been part pf them but got knocked out from the explosive forces that made the craters in the first place. Vert could only sweat drop at the sight, mentally agreeing with her fellow CPU on how the two of them had gotten maybe a TAD too carried away. "Though I'm glad we were able to move our fight when we did, otherwise I can only imagine the damage that could have been caused."

Hearing THOSE words caused Vert to grimace, her hands and feet twitching although she still couldn't move her body, it felt so much like it just wanted to rest for a bit thanks to all that intense fighting. Of course she would have done this though, since Leanbox was HER Nation which she had built from the ground upwards, if anyone asked pretty much EVERY one of the four of the current Goddesses had done so, building their own Nations from nothing that is. As such, another CPU from a different Nation caring more for the one she herself ruled than Vert herself kind of stung at her pride, as well as installed a great wave of shame over her like being drenched in water from a bucket that had been tipped over from above her head. 'Noire's right... again. If she hadn't moved our fight elsewhere, not only would our fight likely have caused unnecessary casualties, but it could have ended up in people finding out about our Demonic Powers. If THAT were to happen, I can only imagine the fallout which could have erupted in both Leanbox AND Lastation…' she thought as guilt stabbed itself repeatedly into her chest, feeling a strong sense of failure fill her being. ''This, coupled with the fact that I practically dropped out of the public eye, it wouldn't be a surprise if there were people in Leanbox who think I left them, washing my hands with them and leaving them to the wolves scratching at our doorstep.' she thought further, unknowingly clutching the ground where her hands were in a mix of guilt and frustration. Her teeth clenched as well in silent self-loathing, until she turned to her fellow Goddess. "About that... may I...?"

"You've got nothing to worry about, Vert."

"Huh?"

Blinking in surprise when she heard Noire's voice as well as the words she had sprouted, Vert tried her best to look up at her from her current position, though all it did was barely catch the knowing and understanding gaze which Noire aimed her way. Thus, that dumbstruck-riddled word and expression was the sole thing she had responded with, prompting Noire to give out a sigh. "Look, I know you are feeling guilty, I can practically feel the negativity and sadness rolling off you in waves. Now, before we fought I had thought that you had abandoned your Nation myself, and originally I was pretty ticked off about that so I had initially wanted to beat some sense into you..." she began, causing the blonde woman to deflate in sadness again. "However... the more we fought, the more something became clear to me, and that thought lead me to a whole new thought process which... well, it ended up explaining things about you pretty well, Vert."

"What do you mean, Noire? You're not making much sense right now, where are you going with this?"

"...I guess I should probably get straight to the point, then. Well, I'd been angry because I had been comparing you to myself, since my mistakes in the past and yours are more similar than one might think. I mean, seriously, we both failed our nations spectacularly, in fact all four of us did." Yeah, that was the truth, Vert admitted, no matter how much it hurt to think about. Yvoire, the constant politics, it had all taught the blonde CPU how much she had failed her Nation by going into that damn Console War. "But, the more I think about it, the more I came to realize that, unlike me who took the more indirect route to regaining my people's trust, you simply chose to go down a different path to me. If we were to apply some dating sim logic here, you chose the route leading to the simple best friend character and I chose the long, complex route to the smart business character, Guess those approaches fit us pretty well, now that I mention it out loud."

A brief chuckle escaped Noire's lips as she found some strength returning to her body, allowing her to slowly shift onto all fours and crawl along to Vert's side, sitting beside her and allowing her arms to be placed behind her on the ground for support. Then, she continued. "Before you think that you abandoned your people to go on the training trip, just think for a moment: what are our Nations specialties? What are our types? How do they prominently function? For example, that brat Neptune's is the most technologically advanced out of the four as much as it baffles me about that half-pint." Her comment caused an amused yet agreeing snort to escape Vert's lips, knowing just how right the blackette CPU was about that. "So, her Nation's the Technological one. Then there's mine, and after some thinking about it, Its come to my attention that mine relies on business deals and connections the most out of the four. My slogan is literally 'we can only do everything!' after all. Therefore, my Nation is the 'business' type. So tell me Vert, what type is YOUR Nation? What compromises the core of your Nation?"

For a moment, Vert had no answer for the blackette's questions, mostly due to never having figured out an answer herself. Though she could see where Noire was coming from since Neptune and her Nations DID have those types and specialties... but then, something hit her when she remembered how her Leanbox got founded, and all of a sudden things started clicking into place within the CPU's mind, something Noire noticed through the light of realization that formed in Vert's eyes as she spoke in a breathless tone. "Military might... Martial prowess..." Upon saying that, so many things clicked in her mind that Vert had a bit of a difficult time processing them all, but when she did she suddenly found strength that she didn't even realize she had return to her body, allowing her to sit up alongside Noire. "Planeptune is technology... Lastation is business... and Leanbox is military might or rather martial prowess... our martial arts, our political system, everything was founded though military supremacy. Back before Leanbox's eventual founding, I realized that power and force was what was needed to unite the many warring tribes of the time. They needed a structure they could understand, so I made one which showcased the different forms of military and martial might between them: the smart ones becoming the Nobility and the strong ones becoming the Military Families. In essence, one is the sword and other is the shield... Martial Arts and fighting... all of it is the core of the Land of Green Pastures! That's what Leanbox truly is!" Vert exclaimed... before suddenly exploding into laughter. "Ahahahahahaha! Ahahahahhahahahahahahaha!"

Whilst she laughed, clutching her stomach with her arms and bending over her front, Noire nodded her head in approval beside the blonde CPU, crossing her arms under her chest as a low exhale left her lips. "Heh, took you long enough to realize it Vert." she commented, a small smirk and a chuckle of her own escaping her as Vert slowly managed to calm down and regain her composure. "Now that you know that, do you STILL think you abandoned your people? That you left them for our own selfish desires?" she questioned whilst raising a brow.

A question which Vert found MUCH easier to answer now that she had figured out Leanbox's core... or rather, it would be more precise to say that she remembered it. How could she have forgotten something so simple? Something so basic and yet so important as it had been the very thing which formed the basis for Leanbox's very EXISTENCE? She felt like punching herself as well as her past self for being so stupid. "Heh, no Noire, in fact its quite the opposite." she answered happily, looking back at her with a wide smile on her face. "I'd been doing exactly what my Nation's core truly is, simply following the rules which I had established so long ago, If you want something done right, you do it yourself. I got beaten yeah, but that just showed me that I needed to get stronger in order to remain at the top. Leanbox is founded on the 'might makes right' principle... it just seems that we may have forgotten our roots..." she replied further, before looking back up to the skies. "... I must express my gratitude to you Noire, for assisting me even when I hadn't even asked for it."

"Think nothing of it, Vert. After all..." Noire began, trailing off as the two CPUs finally managed to stand up on their own two feet. She then aimed a small, but VERY competitive, smile back at her fellow Goddess, offering a handshake. "A: A certain redhead we know would have mentioned the same thing, and B: I can't have one of my rivals be THIS mopey, now can I? How can I say that Lastation is only capable of everything if the other Nations are too wimpy to provide the competition?"

At this, Vert gave her a matching smirk... no, rather she gave Noire a large grin instead as she reached out and grasped the offered hand, causing the two to shake like two businessmen finally establishing a deal or a greeting. "That is true... but make no mistake, Leanbox won't tolerate any slacking off on our allies end either. so be ready to try and keep up."

"Hmph! That's my line, Vert!"

"We shall see, ohohohohoho!"

"ufufufufufufufufufufufufufu…"


Chapter end!

WHEW, FINALLY! This one took a WHILE to get out! Sorry bout that, but the action in this chapter took a LOT longer than I had intended to write, and I got stuck on some parts as well. Originally it was supposed to be much shorter, but I guess that, like the CPUs in their Devi Trigger Forms (any who want to do fanart of them, go right ahead - for either of the two's multiple forms), I got a little carried away. But hey, alls well that ends well, right? Now we can focus on the final chapter before the Leanbox Arc officially ends and we go over to LOWEE! Though I might start the next arc of my Symphogear Story like I mentioned previously, whose to say?

Anyways, about Vert. I know she hasn't had much attention focused on her as the rest of the cast (unlike what I had stated in the beginning of this arc), but I did TRY to characterize her here and there throughout the whole arc. There's her dealing with the Console War, her own situation with her lack of CPU Powers, and also her own guilt over seemingly abandoning her Nation so she could train to get stronger. However, as Noire pointed out both before AND after the fight, Vert simply was adhering to her own principles which she had used to establish Leanbox in the first place. I'd like to say that I wrote her decently enough, not to mention I've never seen anyone write her the way I have so there's that. As for her abilities, I've shown quite a lot of them so far, and with the established systems in previous chapters plus the Noire Side Story, I'm pretty sure you all can figure out how she's similar in position in the Tiering System to Noire, Neptune and the others. She's kind of got two Heroic Spirits, but the condition is that she can't use them together due to one of them being... well, semi-divine in nature, I guess, and the other truly twisted into a Demonic, berserk one. Therefore she can only access one in her Devil Trigger State whilst the other is still accessible in her other two forms. As for that demonic Heroic Spirit, he's the Berserker form of Chu Chulainn, famous Celtic Warrior and owner of Gae Bolg. His design can actually be seen to have an influence on her Devil Trigger, and if you ask me, I think that seeing her holding a pulsating demonic Gae Bolg whilst looking like the Devil incarnate whilst looking like she could actually fucking kill you, can send chills down ANY man's spine. Nico is still stronger than any of them if you ask me though, but that may change during the course of the story, whose to say but mwah? Hehehehehehehehehehehe...

Also, the convo between Noire and Ver is one of my favourites in the chapter since, well, its sorta paralleling what Nico had done for Ivan last chapter: Nico and Noire were both at first furious with Ivan/Vert's situation, until they both got a different perspective through differing means, and hen provided an alternative resolution. One could say that Noire both grew splendidly as a character, as well as activated 'Nico no Jutsu' in place of Naruto's talk no jutsu. Its also one of my favourites cause its both allowing Vert to grow as a character, and also to showcase just how much Noire has changed in the main storyline, since there was more but that was in her Side Story. The MC (plus Neptune) now aren't the only ones who can motivate now, whoo hoo! Now, how this will develop further on will remain to be seen, but I can bet you that things with Noire and Vert (including their addition into the Harem) will come eventually since, even though I say this is a Harem fic, I'm trying to keep each character interesting and deep, with some decent interactions with one another.

Speaking of which...

Here's something I haven't been doing in a while:


Special Event - Girls being pervs!

"Um, Vert, where are we going? And, why are we going there by crawling under some forest bushes?"

So asked Noire with an incredulous, yet suspicious sounding voice as she narrowed her eyes at her fellow CPU. The two of them, after coming to that agreement, had initially started walking back to MICROSOFT and perhaps would have started doing some damage control, when all of a sudden Vert had stopped immediately. Then, with her eyes wide (as well as a somewhat antenna growing out of her head out of nowhere), she then grasped Noire's hand and forcefully dragged her off into random forest several dozen miles off.

She didn't even get a chance to say anything or protest, something which really ticked her off as well. 'And i'd just finished beating some sense into this woman, too...' she thought grumpily, swatting aside some sticks which tried to smack her in her face... only to get smacked anyways by others, further souring her mood.

"Why, we're going to get some well-overdue entertainment, dear." Vert, noticing the irritation flowing off her fellow CPU in waves, replied with a mischievous smirk on her lips. "Don't you think that we deserve it after everything we've gone through this chapter? The Author surely thinks so if he's adding this special event for us." She the placed her index finger on her lips in a shushing motion before looking back in the direction they were crawling. "Now, please hush, for we are almost at the spot."

Annoyance filled her being, but Noire pushed it aside for the time being, knowing that this was just going to be one of the things Vert wanted to do. If there was one thing about this woman aside from her pride, it was that she was also stubborn as all hell. Once she set her mind to something, she'd do it no matter what... though, Noire guessed she could say the same about herself too. 'Wait, am I stubborn... Oh Goddess...' she thought as the thoughts soon started taking away the blood from her face which resulted in her looking paler than an albino.

"Ah, we are here...!"

"?"

Just before she could have a mental government meeting with her other tenants on how she could change this fact about herself, something which likely wouldn't end too well since like her, her tenants held equal amounts of pride along with stubborn issues, Noire suddenly stopped moving when she heard Vert say what she did. This allowed her to notice how they had stopped near the exit out to some kind of... was that a lake? Why did someone like Vert drag her all the way here if not for a shower? Did she smell bad or something?

"Aaaaaaand, we're here why...?"

"Look over there, Noire, and feast your eyes on... ohohohohohoho…"

'I'm not liking that old man laugh which crept out of her just now...' Noire thought whilst shuddering at the giggle which Vert had done. Not to mention the hazy red flush on her cheeks similar to how guys look whenever they see a hot woman naked and posing suggestively... made her want to get as far away from her as possible for some reason. Though, as morbid as this felt to her, she couldn't deny that she had some form of curiosity about why she would be reacting like that. 'What could be causing this woman to be acting like... this... oh... oh! OH!'

"There... do you see it, the paradise for all women?"

"Wha?! Why are we-?!"

"Shhh, not so loud, they might hear us!"

When Noire saw what Vert had been intending to show her, her face literally turned into the same colour as her demonic aura with her eyes becoming white circles, her jaw falling to the ground with steam rising out her forehead. Quickly making an exclamation out of shock, fear and anger, Noire became silenced when Vert, without looking at her by the way, placed a hand over her mouth to cut off whatever it was she was going to say, stopping it from finishing and disturbing the... sight, before them.

For what they saw...

Were three certain boys: Aiden, Ivan, and Nico...

Thing was...

Each of them...

were topless.

Grunts escaped their mouths as the trio went about their business, unaware that they had some uninvited female guests watching them. The three boys looked to be exercising with one another in various ways like doing push ups, sit ups, reps etc, wearing only their lower body clothes so their upper torsos, shoulders, arms, fists and hair became bare to the world. This allowed the spying CPUs to become witness to something which a few girls might like to fantasize about: the sight of seeing three freaking adonis-level bodies duking it out in a masculine battle of flexing. Each movement got accompanied by a flex of some muscles, veins sometimes appearing, with sweat dripping down their forms in an almost tantalizing, sinful and yet seductive manner, with the occasional dip into the water which resulted in their skin glistening in the sunlight...


Ivan: "Hufff… huff... 15,500... 15,56... how many are you guys on? Aiden? Nico?"

Aiden: "That low...? It is imperative that you quicken… CYBORG... I am on my 18,000th..."

Ivan: "Wha?!"

Nico: "Hmph, to me... you BOTH need to catch up... i'm on my 20,000th one... switching over to my press-ups... soon."

Ivan: "Well, you're the exercise freak here, Nico! Though, I can see why... with that freaking spartaa-like bod of yours."

Aiden "CYBORG... do you think that DEATHSTROKE... got that body to... attract the ladies?"

Ivan: "Whatever his reasoning was... it sure as hell works!"

Nico: "No... I just keep up with my training... a lot. When fighting what I do... You have to keep up some kind of... training regimen... switching to sit-ups."

Ivan: "Switching to setups already... after we agreed to switch when we hit the 20,000 mark... dude, you're inhuman sometimes."

Aiden: "You DO realize... what's wrong with that... statement... right? Switching to press ups."

Ivan: "... Oh,"


"whew... its getting rather warm in here..." Vert commented, waving her hand in front of her red face... though the wide perverted smile on her lips which threatened to split her face in half showed how LITTLE she cared about her current condition. Whilst the other two were quite decent and impressive in their own right, it was Nico whose body she couldn't help but drool over. She did NOT forget to burn everything her eyes presented to her into her brain for later, not this kind of eye candy which she likely wouldn't have gotten in a million years. 'This is something I've only been able to dream of in the past... of meeting my in-game husband candidate in the flesh thinking he would be a handsome hunk in every way possible. I had always pictured it in my mind, how Nicky would look without his upper body clothing in my mind... but seeing it in person is a whole different matter entirely! #DEEP SIGH#...'

Whilst Vert herself got lost in her thoughts and fantasies of being embraced in a... passionate act with the bare chested Nico in her bedroom (NSFW stuff, guys, you know what she's thinking about ;) ), Noire herself had an internal panic attack, screaming at the top of her lungs as some... impure thoughts started flooding through her mind. It didn't help that Siegfried and the others were remaining silent on this one, preferring to watch her have a mental breakdown instead… well, that was the last two, the Heroic Spirit simply stayed silent due to finding the subject uncomfortable as it were. 'Stop it, Noire! You're freaking better than this! Its not you these thoughts are coming from, they're obviously from Slaanesh! He's trying to corrupt you like his lackeys have tried to do! Don't let them out don't let them win! Just because these guys are so brutish, borderline baric, strong, handsome, irresist-AAAARGH! Stop it, darnitNoire! Stop-it-stop-it-stop-it-stop-it-stop-it-stop-it-stop-it-stop-it-stop-it-stop-it-stop-it-stop-iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!'

Then, at this point the trio of boys put an end to the exercising that they had been doing out here for whatever reason (much to Vert's disappointment and Noire's hidden relief... mixed with a tad of something else which her tsun nature refused to acknowledge), before proceeding to dry themselves off. Or rather, Nico apparently released a heat wave using his Hellfire abilities to evaporate any sweat or water which still clung to their forms, warming them up in the meantime whilst Aiden commented on how fruitful this raining session had been. He'd commented about how they had come out here for a bit of sparring practice with their hand to hand combat skills, only to do that alongside with a bout of exercise too... which made Vert nearly whine that she had missed something as 'fruitful' as seeing three buff dudes duking it out like that. Noire meanwhile, merely nodded her head in understanding of their choice location, since she too preferred to have her sparring matches in the wilderness of Nature... though it had been a rather acquired taste since originally she liked her training facilities (Temen-Ni-Gru included) back in Lastation.


Meanwhile...

Ivan: "So then, shall we head back?"

Nico: "Hold on, lets not go back just yet."

Aiden: "Why?"

Nico: "Well... I think we could do some practice jamming out with our instruments here. I mean, I've got our equipment, and power isn't a problem when Ouranos can use his energy as a power source."

Ivan: "You sure your taling sword-thing is up for that though? Thought they only want to kill and get stronger or some shit like that."

Nico: "You let me worry about him... alright, just got back from talking to him in my Inner World, turns out he doesn't mind as long as a certain song is played at least once."

Aiden: "It seems as though humans are not the only ones who like your music, Nico."

Nico: "OUR! OUR music, Aiden, its a group thing no matter how much you try to say otherwise, anyways since we have our gear set..."

Ivan: "Sure, sounds fun! I always LOVE jamming it out to some rocking songs! Heh, maybe we could end up becoming a boyband or something professionally, you never know."

Aiden: "Negative. I am not as suited to music as you, CYBORG... I'm at my best on the battlefield."

Nico: "Hey, if wer'e talking battlefields being home, then that'd be my thing, Aiden. Anyways, let get jamming boys!"


From there on, the two observing CPUs watched as Nico went about summoning all the gear which they would need for their 'jamming session', something which quickly clued the two in as to who it had been that had posted that music video everyone got s worked up over. Their equipment consisted of several guitars, a drum kit, some amplifiers, a microphone attached to a stand and some speakers. Then, Nico went about summoning Ouranos, his Archdevil Arm in order to supercharge the equipment to full functionality, at least for a couple hours or so.

Once that was done, the trio of boys quickly grabbed the instruments they were suited to, Nico and Aiden strumming guitars with Ivan at the drum kit. Then, at long last, they began to play:

(Play Devil May Cry 5 OST - Devil Trigger epic metal cover by little V - Lyrics sung by Nico)

The darkness of night falls around my soul

And the hunter within loses control
Gotta let it out - gotta let it out
Gotta let it out - gotta let it out

This demon inside has ahold of me
Clenching its power - trying to break free
Gotta let it out - gotta let it out
Gotta let it out - gotta let it out

Move fast, baby - Don't be slow
Step aside – reload – time to go
I can't seem to control
All this rage that's inside me

Pullin' shots – aimin' dots – Yeah I don't miss
Branded by Fire – Born in the abyss
Red hot temper – I just can't resist
All this vengeance inside me

All of these thoughts runnin' through my head
Arm on fire, veins burnin' red
Frustration is gettin' bigger
Bang Bang Bang – Pull my Devil Trigger!

Embrace the darkness that's within me
No hiding in the shadows anymore
When this wickedness consumes me
Nothing can save you and there's no way out

I'm a wildfire you won't tame
Igniting my temper, can't put out my flame
There's no way to contain
This storm swelling inside me

I'm a bomb you can't defuse
Might just accept you're gonna lose
Can't turn down, I refuse
to hold back anymore

All of these voices inside my head
Blinding my sight in a curtain of red
Frustration is getting bigger
Bang Bang Bang – Pull my Devil Trigger!

When the night ends it's not over
We fight through to get closer
Like a silver bullet piercing through
I throw myself into you


Back in the bushes...

'Whoa...' Noire thought, her eyes wide in disbelief and awe as she listened to the song first hand. Now that she was, any doubts which she had about the possibility that Nico and his two guy friends were the ones making that pre gala Music Video, had been pretty much shattered by his singing voice. He actually had a surprisingly gifted voice for someone who didn't see too publicly interested in entering the music industry, she could only imagine how many fans he'd have if people knew this about him. More than that though, Noire couldn't believe how hearing his singing voice soothed the storm within her mind which had been there previously, calming both it and her heart especially when she paid attention to the lyrics, memorizing them in her head. When she had done so, a huge feeling of... connection, swelled up inside of her, a feeling of relatability and comradery, though she soon figured out why. This song... not only did it sound cool as all heck, but it ALSO served to symbolize the feelings she had gone through when she had unleashed her Devil Trigger for the first time. The thoughts that ran through her mind, a fierce blaze igniting around her soul with everything she had seen turning into a bloody crimson. Frustration building up in her heart until she finally couldn't take it anymore... and as a result, she pulled her Devil Trigger. 'Something tells me that this song's more geared towards a certain type of person... wait, what's this smell?' she thought, before her nose twitched as something... weird, reached her nostrils. Her eyes then widened and her face became pale when she figured it out, turning to her fellow CPU. "Um, Vert...?"

"Yes, dear...?"

"Did you...?"

"Well, how could I not when I hear a sexy guy singing whilst still remaining topless? Its like every fetish I ever had coming into one! Ahhhh, what I wouldn't give to grate some cheese on those abs...!"

"... I have no words. No really, I don't have anything to say in relation to that."


'...I guess then that you do not plan on notifying the others that we have been watched?'

At the end of the song, Aiden and Ivan gathered together to begin talking about the song, how it could be improved, all the while the redhead teen himself just sat on a nearby rock, one leg lifted with its foot on his thigh, as he finetuned his Guitar. Ouranos lay strapped to his back, thrumming with demonic electricity as a sign of dominion, a show of power to any who may dare try to stand before it. Personally, he just felt like it was acting like a big gorilla would whenever its staking claim to something, puffing out its chest and bashing its fist against it.

Still, when he heard his Demon Persona's words, a small but knowing smile tugged at his lips, one which he hid from view. 'Oh, them? Nah, I know who they are, I recognised their signatures shortly after sensing their energies. Looks like they had been practicing their demonic powers, something which I'm surprised that they have, but since they do it increases my respect for them. Handling the demonic arts is NOT for the weak of heart after all, it takes a strong resolve as well as great mental fortitude, plus they aren't doing anything threatening so I'll just let them think they haven't been noticed yet. Odds are that Aiden and Ivan are aware of them too. but they haven't said anything either.'

'True...'

Yeah, Nico had already been made aware of those two onlookers, Vert and Noire, hiding in those bushes not too far from their position, however he didn't think it necessary to call them out. Aside from their pride being damaged at being found out doing something so unlike their statures as Goddesses, he was just having WAY too much fun with his bros to care. Heck, he'd been surprised when his bros had asked him to come out with them like this only a day after the whole Operation Babe Hunt, though it wasn't like he would have refused unless he had some important business to take care of. Hey, a true bro is someone who has his bros back, and doesn't put females before their needs. Nico may like his female company more than guy company in general, but these two were the only ones whom he could truly call his bros. If bromanship could be called a power, then these two would be at the top of that power's scaling system.

'BAH, YOU'RE TOO SOFT ON THEM BITCHES, KING! YOU KNOW WHAT I'D DO IF I WERE YOU, RIGHT?'

'Kick their asses from here to the opposite end of the globe?'

'HEHEHEHEHEHEHE, YOU KNOW ME SO WELL...'

'Sure I, your a barbaric version of me.'

'OOOOOH, KEEP THEM COMPLIMENTS COMING!'

So yeah, this is how his day ended, broing it out with his best guy friends, rocking it out with some sexy tunes and exercising.

True MANLINESS!