You won once more, Prisme. I admire your determination to keep this world alive even against me; yes, I am dying. But as you know now, I will never cease. I will return. These humans and gods I shall embrace, and to the grave I shall guide them. You can only ever buy time, Prisme; you know best what I am. I will see Gamindustri's end, even if it takes until this sun falls dark.

-A§"o!§e

As summer began to wind down, with August already halfway past, IF and her two friends were out and about with little care. Even Nepgear, though she should have known better, easily forgot about Gamindustri's sorrows as she enjoyed herself. A very human trait.

The three of them had decided to engage in vanity and shop for nothing in particular, merely to waste time as they took a break from work and studying. IF mainly just tagged along, seeing that she had little use for actions that so lacked in meaning; all her purchases were long done and her mind remained focussed on more important matters. Personal matters, that was. The fact she would soon turn eighteen and begin to live by herself was not lost on her. How fortunate a girl she was, that this could be her greatest trouble at the moment. Not a thought was spent on the potential death she may die any day.

"Hm... Nepgear?" Compa sounded thoughtful as they wandered, her brow creased in contemplation. "How is Nep-Nep doing? I haven't seen her much lately."

Much as expected, the young CPU merely shrugged. Nothing was out of the ordinary for her. "She is as bright as always. But she isn't home right now." The girl did not appear suspicious of the fact. "I have no idea where sis is, but she vanishes from time to time, and always around the Day of Creation."

Truly, the ability to trivialise such information was shared by humans and their gods alike. As indeed Gamindustri's most important holiday neared, this had remained a constant throughout Nepgear's life.

Surprisingly, it was Compa who held this tiniest spark of suspicion. She recalled a previous conversation they had had. "So she is taking care of some kind of business again?" Nepgear merely nodded.

IF innocently wondered by herself, thinking about what it might be Neptune was doing in secret. Had she known, nothing would have been the same.

Heh.

::

At the same time, Purple Heart was overseeing her grave.

Despite her not yet being dead, this statement is not contradictory. An endless expanse of grey extended before the purple deity's sight, each grain of sand marble-sized. Her divine aura flickered as it protected her from the creeping darkness, a shiver running down the woman's spine despite the fact she had felt it so many times before. No sun shone from the purple sky, with only a streak of silver running through it as illumination. That, and her own silver shine.

The landscape before her was not even, occasionally turning into towering mountains; she knew, without ever seeing any of them, that CPUs were lying atop each of them. Divine souls were all that could retain its form here, once their life had ended.

As the gentle whisper of death surrounded her, Purple Heart walked; her stride was quick and purposeful, ignorant of the monument to transience surrounding her. She had purpose in this plane, much different to anything else put to rest here.

There were days when mortals could walk these fields, given that they found the way. Yet Histoire saw, more often than not, that they would try to regain the soul of a loved one they lost. Despite the fact most heeded the warnings, some were driven too far by grief, or simply believed themselves an exception to the rules. They were not. The Graveyard will not allow anything that belongs to it to be taken. And only one being in its grasp could leave on her own, detached from its will.

For many millenia now, Histoire remained the gatekeeper to this realm; only with her approval would anyone be able to enter.

Purple Heart was the only one who lived here, surrounded by the entirety of death.

So she wandered, between the remains of men and gods. Her eyes never strayed from the path she knew to walk, for she feared what she may find were she to check atop a hill. Were she to look, she would have found gazes following her. CPUs of old tended to wake from her passage, curious about the young one passing by them.

Yet they would always fall back into their slumber once she passed. No sound came forth but the crunching of her feet on the sand, inaudibly loud even to the goddess herself.

After a time spent wandering, its length indeterminable, things began to change; the sand made way for black stone, partly pushed away and partly having retreated in natural fright of what lay further inside. Purple Heart paused for less than a heartbeat, fear addling her mind for an instant before being crushed. Her indomitable will pushed the shaking body forward, refusing to give in to what lay before her.

Amidst the stone was a pit, filled with what may be liquid darkness; it was not simple blackness, but the absence of light itself.

Before her gaze could be caught by the pit's contents, Purple Heart turned to the side and materialised a sword to ram down, marking her position. Then she began to walk around the creature, carefully measuring each step and counting them up in her head.

As she walked, a dozen eyes opened in the blackness as one. Of all shapes and forms, those eyes blinked in unison as they swirled and followed her movements. She was quiet, entrancing like all gods were to mortals. She also shivered under the burden on her mind, refusing to admit it had been lost so long ago.

The eyes closed as she left their sight, another twenty opening up on a shadowy appendage closer to the young goddess. Human and feline, canine, and reptilian, slitted and with no pupils at all. What they all lacked were lashes, and some held no eyelids. Some blinked, some did not, but they all continued to focus on the CPU's futile act. They ranged in colour from milky white to a red more at home within an inferno.

Words were spoken toward her, but she ignored them as she wandered; they did not echo, their weight not allowing them to be repeated by anything but the owner of this voice. Purple Heart did not listen, did not respond.

She had been entering this place once a year, every year, for centuries. Ever since the first years, she would always follow the same routine, walking her circle and counting.

A deep, female laughter filled the still air as she finished and immediately began another round to verify her count. Purple Heart frowned, yet did not react otherwise. She did not listen now, either.

Once her second round was over and the counted numbers equal, the CPU nodded to herself and turned to leave. Her sword dissipated into wisps of silver light, each of them quickly fading; she could feel countless eyes on her back, yet never once cast a glance at the swirling mass.

Just like that, she left without ever looking back. Purple Heart had finished gauging this primordial being's growth, finding it within expectations. CPUs had done so for tens of thousands of years, to prevent an unexpected outbreak. Her face did not give away whatever she was feeling about the matter, though any thought of hers was ultimately pointless. Neither her nor anyone she knew would be alive for Her next revival.