Neptune (XL edition, The Greatest Bug Hunter in all of Gamindustri, Braless Heroine, and more) had always been too curious for her own good. Whether it was a bug that looked harmless enough but could actually kill someone much larger than her in an instant, or a path that looked totally safe and anyone else would've made the same mistake but then end up falling from the sky in between two cute girls and some weird witch with bad fashion sense… her curiosity got her into strange situations. In some dimensions some people might have reminded her that curiosity killed the cat. Sadly, that saying wasn't known in any of the dimensions she'd ever visited or the one she now called home.

And so it was that after returning from yet another successful hunt one fateful evening, while walking through the halls of the Planeptune Basilicom, she overheard two annoyed-sounding voices coming from Histy's room. Naturally, being a Nep, there was no way she was going to ignore those. It wasn't even curiosity, it was simply being aware of obvious narrative hooks! After all, if she weren't supposed to eavesdrop, then the plot would've simply not had her be here at this time. That's how these things always worked.

It was her fate as a protagonep, really.

Thankfully she had a lot of practice sneaking up on things (usually bugs) thanks to her backstory. At this time of night every little sound in the Basilicom seemed to echo through the halls, but she knew from long experience that a lot of that was in your head, and that if you were confident in your sneakiness no one would notice. Usually. Probably.

Tiptoeing towards the door, she held her breath as the voices stopped for a second. Did they hear her? But no, it was just a natural pause. This time, too, it seemed her confidence had worked, as she put her ear against the door.

"You really don't need to give me this talk, Histy. I get that I've been locked up a while and missed a bunch of things, but…"

The first voice, clearly Uzume, sounded rather heated to Neptune. Strange. She'd always gotten the impression that she and the oracle got along rather well, at least compared to her smaller self. Were they having a fight of some kind?

"Be that as it may, it is still important that you're aware of the expectations around how a CPU should act. I know you're much better about this than some other CPUs I could mention, but I would still ensure we don't need to spend all our credits on Tuffmill every month."

"Histy!" At this point Uzume fell back into a more higher-pitched voice, "This is like, really uncomfy! Uzume isn't really into boys or any of that stuff! They're like, all smelly and weird, not cool at all."

Neptune suppressed a giggle. No argument there, but leave it to Uzume to put it like that.

Histoire's voice softened, managing to sound a lot less lecture-y. Neptune wondered if she just turned into a total softie whenever she encountered the old Uzume she remembered?

"Well… it's probably true what Neptune says, this is a yuri-centric universe that never seems to show anything too improper… and I suppose Tuffmill aren't that expensive anyway. I just feel that it's my responsibility to—"

"Ooh, big Nepsy is cool though! Uzume thinks small Nepsy is cool too, but have you seen big Nepsy when she's like, focused on those bugs she tries to catch? Yesterday she caught a really rare Nepmon with her book and it was like, so cool!"

"Yes, well," Histoire sighed, and Neptune felt forced to conclude that she didn't sound particularly thrilled to be dealing with another Neptune in her Basilicom, but tough potatoes for her, or however that nepspression went. Or maybe she was just trying to stop Uzume from continuing so she wouldn't keep making more thinly veiled references to a different game franchise. The Lowee lawyers could be scary.

But that sure was interesting, the way she seemed to feel about her! Was it a coincidence, for Uzume to slip into her old personality and talk about her this much in the middle of a lecture about the birds and the bees? Neptune was a protagonist, and as a protagonist, she didn't believe in coincidences. Then again, with the plot being set up so that she would be eavesdropping on this conversation, it could also be a flag to set her up for some kind of tragic misunderstanding in the future.

Argh. It always went both ways. This is why she didn't break the fourth wall nearly as much as her smaller self.

At any rate, it sounded like Uzume caught herself, because she cleared her throat in that characteristic sort of way they'd all come to associate with Uzume after accidentally being all genuine and cute and everything.

"Ahem. Right. So, I'm having fun hanging out with Nepsy and just having a good time settling back in here, so there's no need to worry about any of this stuff for now, right?"

A very long pause. "…Of course," then, a few seconds later, "just be careful not to let the larger Neptune pull you into anything too crazy, would you? Those girls…," Histoire continued, but then stopped, and Neptune could just see her shaking that little fairy head of hers in frustration. Psh. As if the oracle was that easy to deal with herself. Her nagging could be a real nightmare. Probably. Or at least that's the impression she got from her smaller never-exaggerating-in-any-way self.

"Of course, Histy. No need to worry about me! I'll just be my usual cool self around her."

Neptune, still in thought about what she'd heard, realized almost too late that this was sounding very much like the end of the conversation they were having. The sound of footsteps moving towards the door warned her just in time to jump behind a nearby convenient pillar—Basilicoms were great for those sorts of things—before Uzume opened the door and walked out.

It was blind luck that she picked a pillar in the opposite direction of Uzume's bedroom, so at least she didn't have to quietly scooch around the edge to avoid being seen. If anyone asked, though, it was all neptuition.

Thankfully, she got lucky, and barely avoided ending up in one of those awkward sitcoms where the voyeur gets caught and has to come up with increasingly bizarre excuses while an obnoxious laugh track plays in the background.

Now, for the real test. Should she leave this alone, see how things play out on their own time, just hang out with Uzume as usual, orrrrrr… should she conveniently come hang out in her room just to see where this plot takes her?

She couldn't call herself a protagonep if she just let things develop without her protagonepsty input, now could she? Plus, Uzume was cute.

The second option it was.