Ch 5: Hollow Ataraxia

It was an empty void of nothingness and yet also the bastion of all life. Shrouded in impenetrable darkness but also illuminated by the brightest of light. A place where every second was as long as the never-ending span of eternity. A realm that did not 'exist' so much as it simply 'was'.

It was here that she now resided. Without any conscious thought and with only the tiniest notion of her own self being, she simply drifted in this place of impossibility with no physical form to call her own. A dreamless sleep that she was somehow vaguely aware of. And yet, despite all this, there was still one single thing that she could manage to comprehend.

Peace. She was at peace. A blessed sense of calm contentment that would have caused her to smile if she had any form to call her own.

Just like always and never, she continued to drift about without any thought or worry as she simply basked in her hard-earned sojourn.

All that came to a swift end though as a powerful force suddenly seemed to wrench her from her rest. In an instant, her sense of self returned as the emotions that defined her past existence flashed before her. Joy, hope, indecision, shock, pain, regret, guilt, determination, love, worry, anguish, grief, resignation. She felt all these and more before they were all blended together into an incomprehensible mess and swiftly absorbed back into her reformed self. Not only that, a tidal wave of memories flooded into her mind at the same time; both from her first life as well as from the countless others she had experienced thereafter. Most would have been driven mad by this massive influx of information but to her it was simply par for the course. Instead, she simply used her newly reforged thought process to make a nonchalant observation.

'The summoning feels a lot weaker than usual...'

She quickly dismissed the thought as inconsequential though when she felt the force from before tugging at her once again. With a disembodied sigh, she allowed herself to be pulled towards her next target.

Her only hope as she began her descent back to the mortal realm was that things would not be quite so messy as her last job.

If anyone had happened to be crossing by the Gamindustri Graveyard where the CPUs were imprisoned at that moment, they would have been met with a rather shocking sight.

For the first time in nearly three years, Nepgear's HDD suddenly turned off as she reverted back to her human form. This oddity, however, was rather negligible compared to the reaction of the slowly stirring CPU Candidate herself.

Blinking open her eyes with the same resigned sluggishness of an office worker waking up for their job, Nepgear blearily took in her surroundings for a brief second before letting out a large yawn. As she did so, she casually ripped free of the thick cables that had been restraining her as if they were nothing more than wet tissue paper to her. Landing on her feet with surprising ease, she began to perform a few stretches without any change in her neutral expression.

"Oof. I think this new body has a few kinks in it. The last time I felt this stiff was back when I was actually alive." Her casual air as she said this gave the impression of someone simply performing morning exercises at the park rather than in the middle of an ominous graveyard filled with doom and despair.

As she continued on with her stretches, she cast her eyes about her surroundings with an air of relaxed boredom. Even when her gaze passed over the captive forms of the CPUs - including her own sister - there was no reaction from her at all as she seemed to regard them as nothing more than part of the scenery. In fact, the only thing that seemed to catch her attention at all was the large tower standing at the center of the graveyard. Or more specifically, the large mass of evil energy that was slumbering within.

With a final set of leg stretches, Nepgear finally turned to focus on the dark tower with a flat look.

"Really. The Deity of Sin. Again. I'm fairly certain this has to be the forty billionth time I got called in because of her." She shook her head with a world-weary sigh. "It doesn't matter. A job's a job. All I need to worry about is taking out the trash as usual."

With another sigh, she extended out her hand to her side.

"At least I got my wish for a clean mission. Too bad it's also going to be so completely and utterly dull."

A mass of dark purple energy suddenly began to converge towards Nepgear's outstretched hand as she said this. In a matter of seconds, the energy solidified into a familiar and terrifying form.

The sickly, violet-colored blade appeared first followed closely by its dark purple hilt and handle. A malevolent aura of hunger and despair powerful enough to overshadow even the oppressive atmosphere of the Gamindustri Graveyard immediately began to radiate from it as it fully materialized into the physical world.

Indeed, the weapon was none other than the infamous bane of the CPUs: the Cursed Sword Gehaburn.

Shockingly, Nepgear seemed completely unaffected by the sword's all-consuming negative energy as she casually grabbed it with both hands and aimed it at the ground. With one final sigh, she raised the cursed sword above her head before plunging it down towards-

"Wait, what?"

Nepgear halted mid-action with the tip of the blade a mere centimeter off the ground. With a confused look on her face, she slowly raised the sword back up before looking directly at it.

"What do you mean something's off?"

As bizarre as it was, the CPU Candidate seemed to be talking to none other than her own sword. To make matters even weirder, Nepgear began nodding her head a bit as if the inanimate object was somehow responding back to her. This strange exchange continued on for a minute before Nepgear looked down at herself with a surprised look.

"What the goodness?! You're right! This really is a physical body!"

She then spent the next few seconds looking over herself as if she had never seen anything quite like it. The real kicker though came when she suddenly used the Gehaburn to slice open her own palm without any hesitation.

"Amazing!" she breathed out, seemingly not feeling any pain from the deep and bloody gash. "An actual flesh and blood body! It's been so long since I've been in one!"

Surprisingly, the cut immediately healed itself up the moment Nepgear turned her eyes back to her sword.

"But why though? I was always given a body made purely of mana for all of my other missions. Why would the boss suddenly give me a physical body like this for no apparent reason?"

Once again, Nepgear became silent as she appeared to listen to her sword's answer.

"Wait, the boss didn't send me here?! But that's impossible! She's the only one who has the power and authority to summon me! I mean, I did notice that the power that dragged me here felt a bit different than usual but that still doesn't explain how-"

Nepgear paused as if the Gehaburn had interrupted her. All of a sudden, she gave a sheepish laugh.

"Oh, right. Still thinking like a mortal. Heh heh. Alright, give me a few seconds to find out what's going on."

Nepgear closed her eyes as she seemed to intensely concentrate on something. A moment later, a stunning surge of power seemed to flare up around her whole being. It only lasted for an instant – a mere millisecond really - but at that moment, it was undeniable that Nepgear had access to a power capable of creating and destroying entire universes at a mere whim.

As this omnipotent power swiftly disappeared, Nepgear opened her eyes again with a small smile.

"I see. So that's what happened. To think that she would be able to... Heh heh. Well, it's definitely interesting to say the least."

She looked back down at the Gehaburn for a second before answering it.

"Yes, I also contacted the boss. She said we could stay here for now. I mean... the boss never really talks so it was kind of hard to tell but she hasn't dragged us away yet so I guess that means we can stick around... right?"

Whatever the Gehaburn said in response caused her to give a slight huff.

"Hey, no need to be mean. If you keep this up, I'm going to leave you at the bottom of the ocean again."

Apparently satisfied with the response she got, she looked back out towards the horizon.

"Gosh, I never thought I'd get a vacation like this though. I wonder what I should do?"

She looked back down at the Gehaburn a moment later with a disapproving look.

"No, I'm not going to kill everyone and feed them to you. You eat all the time when we're working and honestly, you're starting to put on a bit of extra weight. I think this vacation is a good time for you to go on a bit of a diet."

Right at that moment, the duo's seemingly one-sided conversation was rudely interrupted by a rather loud arrival.

"GAH! Bored! I'm so bored! There's nothing to kill here and- Huh? Hey, wait! What are you doing over there?! You're supposed to be hanging off those cables with the rest of those loser bitches!"

Casting an off-hand glance to her side, Nepgear saw the gargantuan robot menace known as CFW Judge storming towards her. Rather than moving to confront him, however, she simply regarded him like most people would a passing car before turning back to her sword.

"Look," she said sternly, continuing on with their previous conversation as if a giant murder robot wasn't mere meters away. "You can make all the excuses you want but I'm the one who has to carry you around all the time. If I say you need to go on a diet, you are going to go on a diet."

CFW Judge surprisingly did not seem to care about being ignored (like most villains tended to do) as he instead brought out his over-sized halberd to bear with undisguised relish.

"Ha ha ha! Perfect! Just perfect! I was looking for something to tear apart! I know Magic told me not to kill you but I'm sure she won't mind me slicing off a leg or two!"

With startling speed, he rushed across the remaining distance separating him from his target as he swung down his massive weapon. The speed and direction of his attack should have ensured that his prey could not dodge at all. And yet... he somehow found his weapon striking nothing but empty air regardless.

"Huh? What? How did-?"

"You'll live," Nepgear's voice said from his far right. "Anyways, can we just get back to figuring out what we're really going to do for the rest of our vacation?"

Swiftly turning around, Judge was confused as all hell to find the girl standing several meters away while still talking animatedly with her sword.

"Oi! How the fuck did you get over there?!"

Once again, Nepgear disregarded him completely as she instead brought up her free hand to her chin.

"Hmmm... I suppose I could always try my hand at knitting. I don't think I've ever gotten into that before. Or maybe mountain sculpting. I never did get to finish that carving of Shin Nepgeardam V because someone decided to obliterate the planet before I could put on the finishing touches."

Finally starting to get ticked off at being ignored, Judge raced forward and swung his halberd again.

"DIE!"

His second attempt went just as about as well as the first as Nepgear simply seemed to faze out from existence and reappear behind him.

"Oh, don't give me that," Nepgear continued on, completely oblivious to the massive wave of killing intent Judge was now radiating. "We only needed to get rid of that continent but nooo. You just had to stab yourself into that Lifestream reactor preemptively and blow everything up."

With an enraged yell, Judge swung about his weapon in a devastating circle. Unfortunately for him, the only thing he managed to hit was a nearby stack of discarded consoles.

As Nepgear casually reappeared in front of him yet again, he felt his already tenuous thread of patience and sanity snap.

"GRAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

With nothing but bloody murder on his mind, Judge flew at Nepgear in a berserker rage. The giant robot was more or less akin to a living hurricane as he stormed after his evasive target across the desolate landscape. Entire mountains of old consoles and electronics were turned to dust as he plowed through them with only madness in his eyes.

It was only three hour later, after he had hacked and cleaved his way across almost the entire length of the Gamindustri Graveyard, that he was finally forced to come to a halt from pure exhaustion.

And standing tauntingly in front of him - still bickering with her sword like an old married couple no less - stood the entirely untouched form of Nepgear.

"Yes, but waffles are way better at holding syrup than pancakes," she argued, the conversation having long since gone completely off the rails during Judge's rampage. "Plus, the crispy outside makes it so that it doesn't immediately get soggy like pancakes do."

"What... the fuck... are you?" Judge gasped out, too drained to really project the rage he was feeling.

To his surprise, Nepgear actually seemed to respond for once as she finally looked up from her weapon. However, her gaze did not fall on the out-of-breath robot but rather the north-eastern skies.

"Oh? It looks like some interesting people are gathering about."

With a small smile on her face, she looked back down towards the Gehaburn.

"Why don't we settle this debate later? I don't think either of us wants to miss this show."

The sword apparently 'spoke' to her again as her expression suddenly changed back into one of exasperation.

"No! How many times do I have to tell you that you're not-" The Gehaburn most likely said something again as Nepgear cut herself off with a large sigh. "Alright, fine. I'll let you have one little snack before we go. But after that it's nothing but plant monster souls for you."

There was another brief pause before Nepgear finally seemed to take notice of the giant, hulking robot that had been trying to kill her for the past several hours.

"What, that thing?" A faint hint of disgust crossed her face. "Ewww. That's nothing but junk food. I know it's close by but why don't you find something a bit more appetizing than that?"

Despite his exhaustion and the oddity of the conversation, Judge could not help but give out an indignant shout to this.

"Hey! Who are you calling junk food?!" A second ticked by before he quickly reconsidered his words. "Wait, I'm not food at all!"

Nepgear once again ignored him completely as she rolled her eyes at her sword.

"Do what you want then. Just don't throw up on me again when you get food poisoning from it."

Judge was just about to angrily interrupt the duo's 'conversation' when he suddenly felt... lighter. For some reason, he could no longer feel the heavy fatigue that had been weighing down on his body. In fact, he could not feel much of anything at all.

It was only as his vision suddenly tilted downwards that he saw the horrifying truth. In the span of a second, his entire body had somehow been sliced up into tiny metal chunks as his decapitated head fell towards the ground. His dying central processor barely had time to numbly process this fact before a faint noise that sounded ominously like laughter echoed in his head. The last thing Judge managed to notice was a sudden flash of sickly violet and a sharp burst of agonizing pain before everything faded to black.

With unnerving stillness, the Gehaburn continued to float about in the air of its own accord as Judge's impaled head, as well as the rest of his dismembered body, slowly dissipated into a mist of dark energy. Rather than being drawn back towards the Deity of Sin, however, the energy was forcibly sucked into the blade of the cursed sword instead. In a matter of seconds, all of Judge's essence was completely consumed as the Gehaburn seemed to glow a little brighter. Seemingly content with its grisly feast, the sword silently flew back to its master's waiting hand.

"Done now?" Nepgear asked, completely unfazed by her sword's brutal actions. Apparently receiving a response, she nodded. "Good. The show's just about to start and I want to get front row seats for it."

There was another brief pause before she gave a slight shrug.

"It's only temporary amusement while I think of something else for us to do. Of course, if none of the actors manage to sufficiently entertain me..."

A small, creepy smile appeared on her face causing the entire land to shudder as if Gamindustri itself was somehow shivering in fear.

Without another word or any sort of flashy indication, Nepgear simply blinked out of existence as if reality itself could no longer keep track of her. The only thing left behind was a lingering aura of blood and death that caused even the formless mass of energy that was the Deity of Sin to cringe away in primal fear.