Ch 15: The War's End
"Gold Third's Judgment!"
With a bright flash, K-Sha's trap card unleashed an enormous blast of golden energy that-
"Wait!" Big Nep yelled. "You need to tell us exactly what your card does first before you activate it! That's how these things work!"
Oddly enough, the explosion seemed to agree with her statement as it promptly disappeared back into the glowing piece of cardboard. Glaring at the older Neptune for interrupting her moment of glory, K-Sha reluctantly lowered her trap card and called out its effect.
"Gold Third's Judgment allows me to destroy all characters on the opposing side of the field if you have more party members than me. Also, I get to draw three extra cards and make you discard your entire hand but those effects don't really apply here."
Sync immediately leveled an accusing finger at the Yandere. "Hax! I call hax! There's no way an overpowered card like that made it past the ban list!"
K-Sha's creepy smile returned as she looked over at the shouting boy.
"And who do you think makes the ban list?" she asked.
Sync slowly lowered his hand as he seemed to remember just who exactly he was dealing with.
"Oh... right."
With another maniacal laugh, K-Sha raised her (stupidly overpowered) trap card once more.
"Protect the kids!" C-Sha shouted out, proving that she was the only responsible adult in the entire group.
The rest of the older fighters at least did as they were told as they quickly moved forward to create a human/goddess shield in front of Sync and the twins.
"Hey!" Ram shot out indignantly. "Don't treat us like kids! We can take care of-"
There was a sudden flash of gold as a giant magical explosion swept away everyone except for the aforementioned trio.
"...ourselves."
As the energy wave dissipated behind them, Ram and her two standing teammates turned around to find everyone else lying in a heap at the base of the broadcast tower. Apparently, the trap card's blast had managed to knock the adults out of their transformations as even the Synchronization aura around Big Nep had been canceled out. Thankfully though, none of them appeared to be seriously injured... with the exception of Neptune who had the misfortune of having Vert land chest-first over her face.
Ignoring the Planeptune CPU's muffled yells in the distance, Rom gave a small sigh of relief. "I'm glad they're all okay."
Sync was just about to reply to her when his spatial awareness warned him of an incoming danger. Reacting quickly, he teleported himself a few steps to the side as a silver hand ax cleaved through the space where his head had been just moments ago. Turning to this new threat, Sync spotted K-Sha holding up the said ax with a dark smile on her lips.
"Time to die little pest," she giggled out in an extremely unsettling manner.
As the Yandere rushed forward to deliver another swing, Sync swiftly raised his Share Blade to parry it. To his surprise, the laser blade failed to cut through his opponent's weapon as some form of supernatural energy protected it.
"Since when did you have an ax?" he grunted out, struggling to keep the gleaming metal away from his face.
K-Sha increased her pressure on him as she gave another creepy laugh. "Oh, I've had this thing since I found it on a quiet hill as a little kid. I haven't used it since then but I thought now would be a good time to let it taste some blood again."
Luckily for Sync, Rom and Ram came to his rescue as they forced the Yandere to jump away from him with a pair of ice blasts.
"Get away from my servant!" Ram shouted angrily. "He's mine and you're not allowed to-"
Her words were cut short when her ice blast ended up impacting dangerously close to the proximity mines surrounding Noire. Having been momentarily forgotten about until now, the bound Tsundere quickly reminded everyone of her presence again as she unleashed her verbal wrath upon the pink-haired loli.
"YOU LITTLE BRAT! ARE YOU TRYING TO GET ME KILLED?!"
Ram at least had the decency to look a bit embarrassed about her mistake as she gave a small apologetic wave. Of course, this did nothing to appease the pissed off CPU as she continued to give a furious rant that could have made Histoire proud.
Taking this opportunity to regroup and rethink his strategy, Sync warped over next to the twins. Realizing that it was far too risky to continue their battle near the proximity mines, he decided to relocate to a safer distance before resuming the fight.
"Hold on tight," he told his teammates. Ram and Rom quickly caught onto what he was planning as they flew closer to him. With a flash of green, the three of them were warped over to a relatively undamaged section of the courtyard about a hundred meters away from their starting position.
K-Sha immediately chased after them as expected leaving Noire to vent all of her rage by herself. At the same time, the older heroes finally managed to disentangle themselves from each other as they began to move towards the kids as well. Seeing his recovered allies, Sync gave a wide smirk as he turned to face the rapidly approaching Yandere.
"Looks like your trap card wasn't as powerful as you said it was," he pointed out. "No one was even remotely close to being destroyed."
To his confusion, K-Sha gave a small smirk of her own at this. "Destroying them was never my intention. I've spent enough time with that annoying purple-haired idiot to know how much plot armor all of you have."
Her smile widened as she suddenly pulled out a green-framed card with her free hand. " However, I knew your babysitters would try to protect you and end up being blown away at the very least. After that, all I needed to do was force you away from my dear Noire to avoid damaging her."
Sync's eyes widened as he realized he had unwittingly played right into K-Sha's hand. Before he could gather enough energy to warp his group away again, the Yandere unleashed her spell card.
"I activate the Seal of Konami!" she declared, remembering to properly call out her card's effect this time around. "With it's power, I'll receive a massive stat boost for the remainder of this battle! Also, the loser of this fight will forfeit their soul!"
"Say what now?"
Sync's question went unanswered as the card gave off a bright flash of light.
Dramatic music suddenly began to play as a dual-ringed golden circle with a rune-covered circumference appeared in the air above them. Before Sync or the twins could react, the giant circle descended onto the ground as it effectively trapped them and K-Sha inside its border. As the Yandere began to laugh like a Saturday morning cartoon villain, glowing golden lines began to stem from its edges and into the inside of the circle. Soon, a large golden 'K' similar in style to the pendant K-Sha was wearing was inscribed beneath their feet.
"I don't like where this is going," Rom said.
Her teammates shared similar thoughts as K-Sha began to glow with a bright golden aura. With one final evil cackle, her entire form was swallowed up in a blinding burst of light. By the time the heroes managed to regain their sight, K-Sha was hovering above them while fully equipped in her Gold Third form once more.
"Behold the power of my seal!" she announced, gesturing grandly to the circle with her arms. "Now I can-"
"Your background music is still on," Sync interrupted.
With an annoyed growl, K-Sha turned off her card's soundtrack with a snap of her fingers.
"As I was saying," she continued while glaring at the smiling boy, "now I can finally enjoy killing you all without any outside interference."
As if to highlight her point, Vert and C-Sha finally managed to reach their location as they tried to go through the glowing boundary of the circle. Their efforts turned out to be in vain however as a magical force bounced them back causing them to land on top of the rest of their approaching group.
"Gya-!"
"...Mmmph!"
Or more specifically, Nepgear and Neptune.
Big Nep ignored her younger counterpart being suffocated by an enormous pair of breasts once again (C-Sha being the offender this time) as she stopped in front of the circle and turned to her student.
"Can you teleport yourself outside?"
Sync shook his head with a disconcerted frown. "I can't. The edges of the seal are composed of a massive amount of her Gold Third energy. I can't teleport anything into or out of here due to all the interference. The most I can do right now is warp things around inside the circle."
K-Sha gave a satisfied chuckle at her enemy's distress. "Hmhmhm... It looks like you've finally realized that there's no escaping the Seal of Konami. The only way to escape is by lowering your enemy's HP to zero. Once that happens, the loser will have their soul drained away and spend the rest of eternity trapped within the Darkness Realm!"
"I thought your soul was used to feed a giant snake monster if it was stolen using a magic circle," Ram piped up. "That's how it worked in the anime I saw."
"You're thinking of a different card," K-Sha brushed off. "The point I'm trying to make is-"
"Hey, isn't it illegal to steal souls in this part of Gamindustri without a permit?" Sync suddenly asked.
Rom answered him before K-Sha could complain about being interrupted.
"You can capture spirits and souls in North Lastation without one. But only on specific hunting seasons."
Sync gave the blue-haired girl a slightly perturbed look. "Um... why do you know something like that?"
"Me and Ram used to go hunting for ghosts here a lot," she explained. "Capturing dead spirits with vacuum cleaners fell under the same law as stealing souls with magical cards."
"Enough!" K-Sha erupted. "You will all shut up and be intimidated by my card! Got it?!"
The three troublemakers simply glanced at the fuming Yandere for a second before looking back to each other.
"So, how much do these ghost-capturing vacuum cleaners go for in Lowee?" Sync asked.
K-Sha's patience made an audible snapping noise as she let loose the mother of all frustrated screams.
"THAT'S IT! EVERYONE DIES!"
Considering the amount of times Ram avoided certain death at the hands of her temperamental older sister, she found K-Sha's attempt to murder her nearly laughable.
"Nyah nyah! You can't catch me!"
Clad in a glowing green aura, the pink-haired girl swerved past another ax swing as she continued to make faces at the enraged Yandere. Thanks to Sync's synchro-whatever ability (she had barely paid any attention to his explanation about it other than the fact that it would make her more awesome), she was able to literally fly circles around her enemy as her boosted speed seemed high enough to even give Vert a run for her money.
"Stop moving so I can chop you to pieces!"
Ram just stuck out her tongue in answer to K-Sha's death threat. Asides from pissing off her opponent, this also gave her teammates an opening to launch their own attacks.
"Ice Coffin!"
With a frustrated growl, K-Sha narrowly avoided the giant icicle Rom summoned beneath her feet.
"Damn you!"
A green laser blade suddenly nicked the side of her face causing her energy shield to became momentarily visible as it protected her.
"Language," Sync chided with a smile, his form glowing with a pink aura from his link with Ram. (Despite his overall nonchalance about it, Ram could not help but personally feel that pink did not suit her servant very well.)
K-Sha immediately tried to smack aside the boy with a vicious backhand but proved to be far too slow to catch him in his current state. With a quick warp, he moved back to Rom's side as Ram unleashed her own attack at their enemy's exposed back.
"Wind Storm!"
While the green whirlwind failed to pierce through K-Sha's energy shield, it did manage to at least unbalance her as it sent her tumbling through the air for a bit.
Ram used this chance to regroup with her teammates as she gave an impatient huff.
"This is taking too long! How many times do we have to hit this dummy before she goes down?" Her eyes suddenly lit up as she remembered something. "Hey Sync! Didn't you say your ability also lets us use each other's special powers?"
"Technically yes but-"
"Awesome! Let's both teleport over and blow her up with an explosion spell right now!"
"Ram, I don't think that'll work," Rom responded. As she said this, she fired off a volley of ice spells to hold back the fully recovered K-Sha. "Big bro said we can't use each other's skills without a lot of practice first."
"Who needs practice? I'm awesome enough to master any new skills instantly!"
Ram turned her eyes in the direction of K-Sha as a look of intense concentration appeared on her face. This continued on for a few seconds with her face growing redder and redder the whole time.
"Um... Are you okay?" Sync eventually asked when it looked as if her head would explode.
Ram finally let out the breath she had been holding as the tension relaxed from her face.
"Gah! Why is your teleportation powers so stupidly hard to use?" she loudly complained.
"Don't let it get you down," Big Nep cheerfully encouraged. "It took me a while to figure out how to use it too."
Currently, she and the rest of the party outside were busy attacking the seal's barrier with their weapons in the hopes of breaking through. So far though they had been met with little success.
"Yeah, it definitely takes a while to figure out each other's skills," Sync agreed with his mentor. "I mean, I can't even begin to figure out how to utilize magic like the two of you can." To showcase this, he raised his hand and formed a tiny ice shard in his palm before the frozen crystal destabilized and vanished.
Ram gave a disapproving huff at his poor display. "You're doing it all wrong! You're focusing way too much energy at the start! And what's with that terrible stability control? Sheesh, I'm gonna have to teach you from the basics if I don't want you embarrassing me!"
Sync passed off her harsh criticism with a laugh. "Good thing I have a master of magic to help me out then."
Ram put on a smug look at his words, not realizing that his eyes had wandered over to Rom as he said this. As it was, the blue-haired girl was single-handedly holding back K-Sha with an vast array of elemental spells and highly-advanced explosive glyphs.
"So... do you have any other special abilities?" Ram asked her servant, completely oblivious to her sister's display of magical mastery. "Cause your Syncro-whatever ability really isn't helping out much here." She perked up as she suddenly realized something. "Wait a minute! You never showed us your transformation! This is the perfect chance for you to transform and show me how powerful you are in your HDD form!"
Neptune immediately stopped swinging her sword at the seal as she pointed her finger at Sync with a panicked look.
"NOOOO! He's going to turn into his Super Saiyan CPU Ultimate HDD True Overlord God form! Everyone look away before you fall in love with his illogically perfect image!"
Sync just gave a laugh to this while the rest of the party outside facepalmed.
"Sorry to disappoint you mini-Nep," he said, his smile widening at Neptune's outcry over her nickname. "But I don't think I'll be gaining a massive amount of muscles or a spiky hairdo anytime soon. Or really just about any other sort of transformation for that matter."
"Why not?" Ram asked while crossing her arms.
Sync looked noticeably uneasy about the topic but answered her all the same.
"Um... I'm not sure how to say this but... I can't transform. Like, at all."
"What?" Ram expressed in disbelief. "That doesn't make sense! You're a CPU Candidate! Of course you can transform!"
"Maybe you just don't know how to yet?" Nepgear supplied from outside the seal. "If that's the case, try to take a deep introspective look within yourself and discover a life-changing truth about what's been holding you back this whole time. That's how I was able to get my transformation powers for the first time in the anime."
"Oh, oh! You can also try to hate someone so much that you end up transforming!" Ram added. "That's how me and Rom did it!" Next to her, Rom quietly nodded her head in agreement.
A visible sweatdrop appeared on Sync's face at these suggestions.
"I highly doubt any of those methods would work for me. Besides, I was actually referring to the fact that I physically don't have enough shares to transform due to my... improper bonding with sis's crystal."
Ram noticed his eyes wandering over to Vert as he said this. The blonde goddess returned his gaze with a deep frown as if she noticed something about his words that the rest of them did not get. However, Ram did not care about any of that as she loudly interrupted her servant's weird staring contest with his sister.
"Bah! That doesn't matter! We just need to put you in a situation where you can transform with the power of the D-something machine!"
"Deus-ex-machina," Rom provided.
"Yeah that!" An idea suddenly popped into her head as she said this. With a wide grin she flew next to Sync and whispered something in his ear.
"Ram," he said after listening to her plan, "I highly doubt something like that is-"
"Trust me! My idea's completely idiot-proof!"
"Fool-proof," Rom amended.
"That too!"
Sync stayed silent as he seemed to seriously consider Ram's idea. After what seemed like forever to her, he finally answered with a smile and shrug.
"Eh, why not? At the very least, it'll be worth it to see everyone's reactions."
The entire world seemed to shiver in fear as Ram gave a diabolical laugh.
Vert watched with growing trepidation as the pink-haired girl moved forward to enact whatever nefarious plan she had in mind. Seeing as how the rambunctious rascal's ideas usually tended to range from city-wide-devastation to potentially-world-ending-catastrophe (the infamous blue shell incident came back to mind), Vert had good cause to be worried. Add in the fact that the boy had actually endorsed the plan as well and the whole thing practically screamed 'incoming apocalypse' as if Uzume was shouting it out of her megaphone.
Unaware of the fear radiating from her audience, Ram boldly stepped between K-Sha and Rom's background duel.
"Hey you!" Ram shouted out while pointing dramatically at the Yandere. "I want you to shoot me!"
Vert felt her mouth drop open in bewilderment as everyone else asides from Sync did the same. Even K-Sha put a momentary halt to her murderous rampage as she stared at the pink-haired girl as if she had just grown a second head.
"What?"
"You heard me! Shoot me with your gun!"
K-Sha remained silent as she seemed to consider whether or not this was some sort of bizarre trap. After a while, she seemed to make up her mind as she pulled out her Uzi with a shrug. Without any fanfare or warning, she fired her gun directly at the pink-haired girl.
"AHHHHHH! I've been hit!" Ram declared dramatically while clutching her chest, despite the fact that all of the bullets had bounced harmlessly off her protective layer of share energy. As she floated down towards the ground, Sync ran up to catch her.
"NO! RAM!"
Tears began to appear in his eyes as he held her close to his chest.
"I'm... sorry... Sync," Ram coughed out as she lay in his arms. "It looks like... I'll have to... say goodbye now."
"No! You can't leave me like this!"
The pink-haired girl gave another dying cough. "Don't... cry. Just promise me... that you'll... look after... Rom for me. And... remember that I was... the most awesome... CPU Candidate... ever... Goodbye... my love. Bleh."
And with that, the world's most awesome CPU Candidate (subjectively speaking) breathed her last and fell limp in his arms.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
A very long and very awkward silence fell over the area before Ram peeked open her right eye.
"Psst. Any changes yet?"
Sync's tears magically vanished as he looked down at himself to see if he had gotten a bunch of fancy new processors yet.
"Nope," he replied, reverting back to his usual cheerfulness. "Nothing happening."
Ram opened both her eyes as she snapped her fingers. "Drats. And I was so sure it would work."
Sync just gave a small laugh as he let Ram get up from his arms.
"Ah, well. It was worth a shot anyways." He turned to face the other twin as he got up as well. "Can you lock up K-Sha for a bit? I want us to have a bit of time for a strategy meeting before we start the fight again."
Rom quickly recovered from the soap opera she had just watched as she nodded her head. Before the Yandere could do anything, a large dome of ice materialized around her and trapped her inside.
"What... was all that just now?" C-Sha asked as the kids assembled near them. Next to her, Vert and the rest of the party outside simply stared with white-circle eyes as they all seemed at a loss as to how they should react to the massive amount of cheese they had just witnessed.
"Oh, the guy character always gets some awesome new powers when someone close to him dies in Blanc's books," Ram explained. "I thought we could do the same thing here and get Sync to transform."
"Guess it just wasn't fated to be," Sync laughed off as his audience simply continued to stare. With a wide grin, he turned to directly address his dumbfounded sister. "So how was my acting sis? Think it was good enough to warrant an eight out of ten?"
Before she could answer, a tiny crack appeared in the thick ice dome that K-Sha was trapped in. As everyone turned to watch, a small section of it's front broke apart as a silver ax hacked through it.
"Here's K-Sha!" the Yandere yelled, peeking out through the crack she had made.
"Okay, new plan," Sync said as K-Sha pulled back her weapon for another swing. "Let's deal with the crazy Yandere first before considering a career in theater."
With that said, he pulled out two cans of Nep Bull and handed them to the twins.
"We might as well heal up while we can," he told them. "As for our plan, we'll-"
He was interrupted by a loud fanfare that played as soon as the two girls took his healing items.
Lily Rank Up!
Sync
10 - 10
Ram
Sync
10 - 10
Rom
The heroes all stared up at the giant floating text-boxes in surprise.
"We're already at rank 10?" Sync eventually asked, completely ignoring the sounds of K-Sha hacking her way through the ice. "How's that possible? These things take forever to grind!"
"That's not really surprising," Ram proclaimed. "You're our future husband so of course we get a Lily Rank boost with you."
Vert gave her obligatory choking noise to that.
"We also both had discs with a Lily Rank boosting chip equipped," Rom added in.
"Oh, okay. That makes way more-"
Sync's words were interrupted when the pink-colored aura around him flickered.
"What in the-?"
As the party watched in surprise, Rom became shrouded in the same green aura that her sister was in as well. At the same time, the aura around Sync began to fluctuate between the pink and blue colors of the Lowee CPU Candidates.
"Big bro?" Rom asked. "Didn't you say you could only Synchronize with one of us at a time?"
Sync looked extremely confused by all of this as well.
"That's how it should be but-"
His words trailed off as the aura of energy around all three of them began to move away from their bodies. Before everyone's shocked eyes, the multi-colored lights gathered together in front of Sync before transforming into a cyan-colored share crystal.
"That's..." Vert breathed out.
"Oh no! He's going to-!"
Nepgear quickly covered her sister's mouth with her hand to prevent her from ruining the moment.
Time dragged on as everyone waited for Sync to make some kind of move. For some odd reason though, he seemed to be in a state of complete shock as he remained frozen in place. The only movement was that of his eyes as he momentarily glanced over at Vert.
The Leanbox CPU was fairly certain she was the only one to notice it, but the boy's expression momentarily turned into a worried look. The same worried look that he had worn when she had stopped (publicly) rejecting him as her brother.
Their eye-contact lasted for less than a second though before the sound of K-Sha breaking a particularly large chunk of her ice prison drew both their attentions away. With the same uneasy look on his face, Sync glanced back and forth between the share crystal and the ax crazy Yandere chopping her way towards him.
"This... doesn't make any sense," he muttered out, still refusing to grab hold of the glowing crystal.
"What are you waiting for?" Ram suddenly shouted out. "Hurry up and transform already so we can kick some butt together!"
Her words seemed to break him out of his reverie as he slowly looked over at the twins. The encouraging pair of smiles they gave him seemed to finally settle whatever mental debate he was having as he let out a small sigh.
"Guess I have no choice then."
His smile slowly returned as he raised his left hand to hold up the share crystal. "Let's show everyone what happens when you mess with the three of us!"
The twins gave him a thumbs-up as he brought the cyan-colored crystal to his chest.
"Synchronized Share Divinity activate!"
The first thing Rom noticed as the light faded away from Sync was his slightly older appearance. The most obvious indicator of this was his height as he now stood closer to Nepgear rather than Uni like before. His face, while still looking relatively young, also had a more refined and sharper look that befitted his older age. As for his hair, it now sported a style very similar to White Heart's minus the long side bangs. Strangely enough though, his hair color was also the same sky-blue shade as the Lowee CPU's rather than the expected green.
Of course, all the questions brought about by this was temporarily put on hold as Rom took a look at his new attire. Instead of a plug suit, he wore a slightly larger variant of the white shirt and long black pants that he wore in his human form (much to the relief of Rom; something about seeing men in tights rubbed her the wrong way). Equipped over his ordinary clothes though was a sleek set of plate armor made of what appeared to be blue ice. The gauntlets and boots he wore – which were in the same designs as the four CPUs' – were also made of this strange material as well. The most noticeable change to his appearance however, was the calf-length trench coat that he wore over his armor. Unlike his previous attire, this one was bluish-green in color and had a high collar that hid the sides of his face. Rounding out all of this was a blue visored cap with the Leanbox emblem printed on its front that he wore over his messy blue hair.
As Rom (along with everyone else) watched him, the newly transformed Sync looked down at his new form with his power-symbol lit eyes. One thing that quickly became clear from his flat expression was that his previous cheerfulness had disappeared completely. Instead, a cold sense of indifference seemed to radiate off of him. However, there was something rather distinct about his aura that immediately caught Rom's attention. Though his outer nonchalance made it hard to tell, a very familiar sense of rage and fury emanated from within him. Having felt the exact same unsettling feeling every time her older sister chased after her with her hammer, Rom could not help but give a slight shiver in fear.
"B...Big bro?" she eventually managed to ask, hoping that his hidden rage would not show itself against her.
To her relief, the muted anger that she sensed from him drastically lowered as he looked down at her.
"It's me," he assured her in a slightly deeper yet still not fully mature voice.
Realizing that his attitude towards her had not changed despite his personality shift, she let out a large sigh of relief.
"Thank goodness," she breathed out. "I... I was worried you'd become like big sis when you transformed."
Sync let out an amused snort as he raised his armored hand and inspected it. "I'm linked with the Lowee Sharicite right now. Of course there's going to be some similarities between me and Blanc."
This finally seemed to break the rest of the gathered heroes out of their stupor as Vert spoke up in a shocked voice.
"You... You're connected to Lowee's main share crystal right now?"
The slight hint of warmth that had appeared in his voice while talking to Rom immediately disappeared as he answered his sister in a completely indifferent tone.
"Superficially. I'm merely using some of their shares to maintain this form. Any other share expenditures such as skill usage are sure to come out of our own nation's reserves."
"Hax!" Neptune cried, using the boy's former words against him. "How is stealing shares from other nations to transform fair?! I knew you were a Gary-Stu!"
Sync did not bother to say a word as he instead lowered his hand and slowly turned his gaze towards the purple-haired girl. The temperature in the surrounding area seemed to drop drastically as the boy's face became covered in shadows while his left eye began to take on an ominously familiar red glow.
"Nepu! He's turned into a mini-Blanc! Everyone take cover behind Nep Jr. before he explodes!"
"What the goodness?! Neptune, you're going to stretch out my shirt if you keep clinging to my back like that!"
Ignoring the purple-haired comedy duo, Ram turned to face Sync with an impressed look.
"Just what I'd expect from my servant! You look awesome! Well, not as awesome as me but that goes without saying." Her expression slowly fell as she realized something. "Oh... but Blanc's not going to be too happy when she finds out we let you use some of our shares. She's probably going to try and hammer our heads in for this."
The deadly red glow over Sync's eye as well as his freezing aura immediately disappeared as he turned his gaze over to Ram.
"She can't exactly hold you or Rom responsible for this," he said in a noticeably gentler voice. "Neither of you knew this would happen when I transformed. In fact, even I didn't know such a thing was possible until now. If she still gets mad, just tell her that I'll run a few guild quests for her later to make up for the shares."
Ram quickly cheered back up. "So you're going to take the blame for us? Woohoo! Thanks! You're the coolest and bestest servant ever!"
Sync gave an amused snort to this as the barest hint of a smile appeared on his stoic face.
Right at that moment, the ice dome before them shattered into pieces as a heavily breathing K-Sha made her way forward with her supernatural ax in hand.
"Finally! Now I'm going to-" Her rant was cut short as she laid eyes on the blue-coated figure. "What in the-? Who the hell are you? And how did you get through my seal?"
An intense wave of cold fury began to radiate out of Sync again as he glared at the Yandere. To her credit, K-Sha did not seem to be intimidated by any of this as she merely narrowed her own visible eye at him.
"So the little green pest decided to play dress-up," she noted, finally realizing who he actually was. She readjusted her grip on her ax as she gave a twisted smile. "Not that it matters much. Transformed or not, I'll still chop you into pieces."
Sync continued to glare at her for a brief moment before he suddenly tilted his head a bit in mild surprise.
"Hm. Seems I don't have access to my spatial abilities in this form," he muttered before giving another pause. "And no flight processors either. Good grief..."
He quickly seemed to readjust his plans as he looked over at the twins.
"Ram, Rom. Pin her down with your spells when you get the chance. I'll draw her attention so hang back until you can make a clear shot. After that, just leave the rest to me."
Ram immediately gave an affirmative nod. "You got it!"
"Um... I... I'll do my best!" Rom said, mustering up as much confidence as she could.
With a short nod to his teammates, Sync charged forward with enough force to crack the concrete he had been standing on.
Even with his boosted stats though, K-Sha seemed to have the upper hand in the speed department as she hurled her ax directly at her oncoming foe. To everyone's surprise, Sync did not bother dodging as he simply raised up his arms defensively. Like some kind of unstoppable wrecking ball, he plowed through the ax as the blade shattered against his frozen gauntlets.
Realizing her opponent was a lot sturdier than before, K-Sha quickly took to the skies as she put some distance between herself and the rapidly approaching boy.
"Die you little brat!"
Summoning her dual Uzis back to her hands, she opened fire against her foe.
Sync rolled his eyes at this as he simply let the bullets bounce off his energy field while continuing to make a beeline towards the Yandere.
"Tch. Fine! Let's see how you deal against this!"
K-Sha put away her guns as she pulled out a brown leather whip with a metal tip at its end. With a maniacal laugh, she swung down her new weapon towards Sync.
There was a literal earth-shattering explosion as the whip impacted with its target. One moment the tip of the weapon seemed to make contact with Sync and the next the entire area was obscured by a giant cloud of debris as even the ground beneath him was utterly vaporized by the force of the blast.
"Sync!"
"Big bro!"
Ram and Rom's shouts were drowned out by K-Sha's maniacal laughter as she took in the destruction before her.
"Did you really think you could stand up to me?" the Yandere gloated. "Nothing can overcome the power of my love!"
Oddly enough, the two Neptunes both seemed completely nonchalant about the situation as they looked at the giant debris cloud with bemused looks.
"I'll bet you a thousand Credits that he'll jump out of the cloud and hit K-Sha with a surprise attack," Neptune said.
"Two thousand that he'll wait to show that he's completely unscathed before making his move," Big Nep raised.
The winner of this strange bet soon became clear as a sudden gust of wind swept aside the dust cloud to reveal a very pissed off yet completely unharmed Sync. While Neptune handed her older self her winnings with a grumble, K-Sha looked down at the boy with wide eyes.
"What?! Even Death was defeated with this weapon! How are you-"
Before she could finish her sentence, Sync grabbed onto the end of her whip and yanked down on it with his immense newfound strength.
"-GAK!"
Caught completely off-guard, K-Sha was dragged towards the ground at the speed of a falling meteor. Sync barely had time to move out of the way himself as the plummeting Yandere narrowly missed him and crashed straight into the ground with a resounding boom.
As expected though, the fall did little more than to faze K-Sha as her Gold Third energy absorbed most of the impact. By the time Sync brushed aside the dust cloud that surrounded them, she was already on her feet and glaring hatefully at her enemy.
"Don't get cocky brat. I still-"
"E-Force Blizzard!"
Whatever evil monologue she had prepared was cut short as her legs were suddenly encased in a giant block of ice. Looking up in surprise, K-Sha found the twins looking down imperiously at her with their staffs held in front of them.
"Now Sync!" Ram yelled.
The Yandere barely had time to look back down before the blue-coated figure was upon her.
"Nerf this!"
With a ferocious yell, he summoned an orange foam bat to his hand before striking her in the stomach with it. The force of the swing ended up shattering the ice at her feet as she was sent flying through the air before eventually smashing into the border of her own seal several meters away. With a resounding thud, her body fell to the ground in a heap.
"Yes!" Ram cheered. "We did it! We-"
Her celebrations turned out to be rather premature though as K-Sha gave a loud groan before unsteadily getting back to her feet.
"You... You think this is over?" she spat out while breathing heavily. "It'll take more than a single lucky hit to-"
"You've already lost," Sync interrupted.
"What?"
K-Sha suddenly froze as her eye widened in surprise. In an instant, all of her movements, even her breathing, slowed down to a crawl as it looked as if all her energy had been sapped away. Moving at a snail's pace, she fell down to her knees as she shakily looked down at herself with a horrified look.
"You..." she eventually said, her speech sounding drawn out and weak. "What... did... you... do?"
With a snort, Sync held out the orange foam bat that he had hit her with.
"I nerfed you," he explained coldly. "One hit from my Nerf Bat and you can kiss your stats goodbye. Normally, hitting someone with it would have been nearly impossible due to its terrible accuracy but thanks to Ram and Rom that became a non-issue."
"Heh heh. We're awesome like that," Ram chimed in with a smug look.
With even her MOV stat lowered to a near zero, the only thing K-Sha could do was glare at them while trying to hold up her weakened body.
"This... isn't... over."
"It is," Sync assured. "In your current state, I reckon even a child could flick you to defeat."
"I'll... kill..."
K-Sha froze as an ominous shadow suddenly appeared over her. With an ever growing sense of dread, she slowly looked to her side to find Rom floating above her with her left hand raised threateningly.
"You've been a bad girl," the blue-haired girl scolded. "It's time you got a time-out."
With that she brought down a powerful chop onto K-Sha's head.
A massive explosion occurred at the contact as the Yandere was smashed into the ground with enough force to create a crater several meters deep. Realizing too late that Sync had not been exaggerating about how low K-Sha's stats had become, Rom stared with wide-eyes as she took in the damage her attack had just caused.
"Oops..."
After a few seconds, Ram and Sync managed to recover from their surprise as they moved over to the crater and cautiously peered down it. At its bottom, they spotted K-Sha who was somehow still in one piece. As they watched, she feebly tried to get back up again before finally slumping down into unconsciousness as her transformation petered out.
"I'm sorry," Rom apologized as she flew over to her two teammates. "I didn't mean to hurt her so bad."
"Nah, you did good," Ram quickly said, looking more than a tiny bit unnerved by her sister's brutal finisher. Next to her, Sync quietly nodded his head in agreement as well.
Rom was just about to continue apologizing when the golden circle they were all trapped in suddenly began shrinking. As the trio watched, the seal passed right through them as it homed in on it's master's body. Once it's victim was completely ensnared at its center, the seal gave off a bright golden glow as K-Sha opened her eyes and began to scream.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!"
A giant column of golden light shot up from the center of the circle and into the night sky before it quickly faded from view. With its work done, the seal disappeared as well leaving K-Sha's now lifeless body to slump forward onto the ground with a muffled thud.
Before the stunned trio could move, a lone trading card fluttered down from the sky towards them. Snatching it out of the air, Sync flipped it over to find a picture of a terrified-looking K-Sha drawn on its front.
The silence dragged on as the three of them looked back and forth between K-Sha's body and her soul which was apparently trapped within the piece of cardboard. After a long while, Ram eventually voiced what the three of them were all thinking.
"So... how much do you think we can sell this card for on Amazoo?"
Vert was still reeling from... well, just about everything that had happened lately, when Sync and the twins made their way over to them.
"Ha ha! Told ya we'd win!" Ram declared proudly to her stunned audience.
While the young girl began to celebrate her victory, Sync quietly deactivated his transformation. To Vert's relief, he did not end up collapsing from exhaustion (for once) as he instead just clutched his head as if he was suffering from a serious migraine.
"Oough... how do you people deal with switching between different personalities so easily?" he complained. "My head feels like it's just been trampled by a bunch of angry horse-birds."
"Oh, you get used to it," Nepgear told him brightly.
He lifted his hand to raise an eyebrow at her. "Don't you stay practically the same when you transform?"
"I do but I remember Neptune throwing up all over the place whenever she transformed way back in the day. There was even one time when-"
"STOP!" Neptune panicked. "Don't tell the harem lord anything that he can use to blackmail me! I don't want to have to dance naked in a vat of pudding for his amusement!"
Sync gave a small chuckle to this before clutching his head again with a groan.
"Forget naked pudding dances, somebody just give me an aspirin."
"Here, big bro," Rom said after she and Ram turned off their transformations as well. "Let me help."
A quick recovery spell later and Sync was back to his usual cheery self.
"Whew. Thanks Rom. You're a real lifesaver." He gave her a head pat as he said this which she happily responded to with an adorable smile. Obviously, Vert felt an intense flare of jealousy at this but managed to keep herself in check.
Before anyone else could do anything, Big Nep swooped in to crush Sync in an enormous bear hug.
"I knew you could do it! There was no way a dumb Yandere was ever going to beat my adorable little teddy bear!"
"Ms. Neptune... can't... breathe..."
Meanwhile, C-Sha went over to embrace the twins as well.
"I'm glad you're both alright," she said while Ram and Rom happily returned her hug. "I was so worried about you two during the whole fight."
"Obviously," one of the Hunters said as he and his group walked over to them. "I mean, Lady Blanc threatened to break all of our legs and then feed us to a pack of rusty Chain Chomps if either of her sisters were harmed during this mission."
C-Sha gave a slight cough to this. "Well, yes. There's that too. But I would have still been worried for you two even without Blanny's threat of horribly maiming me."
Off to the side, Nepgear and Vert silently watched all of this while Neptune ran off to try and separate her older self from her cuddle toy once again.
"Aren't you going to check up on Sync as well?" Nepgear asked after a while.
Vert glanced over at the boy as Neptune grabbed hold of his legs and began trying to pull him away while her older self continued to firmly hold his head to her chest in a death grip.
"I believe I'll wait until your sisters are done with him," Vert replied flatly.
Truthfully though, she was rather dreading having to personally confront the boy again. Now that the entire fiasco had been finally dealt with, she found herself rather unsure as to how to act towards him. Her goal of keeping him alive remained unchanged but without the fans/crazy Yandere threat anymore, her sudden desire to protect him would be a great deal more difficult to explain. And considering her actual reason for all of this, there was no way she could just tell him the truth about it either.
Luckily for her, she was spared from having to come up with an immediate solution to her problem as a familiar angry shout came from the distance.
"HEY! AREN'T YOU FORGETTING ABOUT SOMEONE?!"
Everyone turned towards the direction of the outburst before realizing they had all forgotten about Noire. Using this opportunity to warp away from the clutches of the two Neptunes, Sync reappeared a few meters away from the two before using his power again to teleport the twin-tailed Tsundere over to the rest of them. Apparently, K-Sha's defeat had deactivated both the mines as well as her restraining device as the unbound Lastation CPU stumbled onto the ground in front of him.
"If you had dropped me on my face again I would have stabbed you," Noire growled out as she steadied herself.
Sync gave an uneasy laugh to this while the rest of the group gathered around them.
"Are you okay?" Nepgear asked with a concerned face.
The Lastation CPU answered her with a scowl. "I've been tied up on the ground by a bunch of electrified wires this whole entire time. What do you think?"
"No need to be so snappy, Noire," Neptune scolded. "See, this type of attitude is the reason you don't have any-"
"One more word and I will end you."
As Neptune wisely chose to shut up, Rom came up to heal the injured CPU.
"Thanks," Noire said gratefully, her mood improving a bit as her soreness began to disappear.
After waiting for Rom to finish with her treatment, Nepgear spoke up again.
"By the way, what are we going to do with K-Sha? We can't just leave her lying there."
Noire's face darkened again as she gave an ominous growl. "Oh, I have some ideas on what to do with her..."
C-Sha quickly decided to jump in before the Lastation CPU did anything drastic. "Leave her to me. I'm pretty sure the twins messed up her head with their attempted brainwashing so we'll need to fix that up first. Luckily I know a famous doctor in Lowee who can prescribe the needed antipsychotics to deal with her issues. If that doesn't work, I can always just ask Blanc to beat her over the head with her hammer until she returns to normal."
"Why not just take her to a therapist?" Sync asked.
Nepgear gave a cough to this. "I'm pretty sure the last remaining therapist in Gamindustri ended up going crazy several decades ago..."
"Poor man thought he was a duck after all the stories he was forced to listen to," C-Sha said while shaking her head sadly.
Sync took all of this in with a raised eyebrow.
"...that explains a lot," he muttered before turning to face C-Sha again. "Anyways, what about K-Sha's soul?"
"It'll automatically return back to her in a few days," she explained. "That's usually how these things work. Hopefully I'll be able to fix up her brain by then."
Vert noticed Ram making a disappointed sound in the background but chose not to question it.
"So..." Big Nep eventually said after a brief silence. "That's it right? We've finally reached the happy ending?"
Noire gave a scoff to this. "Happy ending? Do you realize just how badly my nation was damaged by this entire disaster? It's going to take a fortune to rebuild everything! And let's not even get started on all the paperwork I'll have to deal with as well!"
"Oh, you won't need to worry about any of that," Sync suddenly said, a wide smile appearing on his face. "I've been saving this for this exact occasion."
Saying this, he pulled out a blood-red oval stone from his coat pocket.
"Hey, it's the Philosopher's Stone!" Big Nep said in recognition. "I forgot I even gave that to you. I'm rather surprised you didn't use it during the battle though."
Sync answered with a shrug. "It wouldn't have worked against K-Sha due to her Gold Third energy and it would have just been a waste to use it against the fans. I figured it'd be more useful to use it to deal with all the collateral damage instead."
"Wait," Nepgear interjected. "There's no way the stone still has enough energy left to do that. I'm fairly certain it was already running low when we used it to fix up the town that the doomsday dragon destroyed."
"Oh, yeah," Big Nep said. "I almost forgot about that giant lizard. Hm. I wonder if Uzume's managed to catch up to it by now?"
Sync passed off his mentor's comment with a small chuckle before addressing Nepgear.
"I should be able to make it work if I charge up the stone with my own share energy. Technically, this is just a heavily transmuted share crystal so it's theoretically possible."
"Wait, you made that thing out of shares?" Vert interrupted before Nepgear could speak up.
Sync gave her a bemused look. "A heavily altered version of it but yes. What, did you actually think we sacrificed an entire city to make this?"
Vert gave a quick glance at their resident mad scientist but said nothing.
"Sync, you shouldn't do this," Nepgear warned. "The amount of energy it would take to fix an entire nation is-"
The boy cut her off before she could finish. "It's fine. Besides, none of this would have happened in the first if I didn't cause the fans to riot. This is the least I can do to make up for it."
Before anyone could stop him, he raised up the stone and began to channel his energy into it.
"Sync!" Vert shouted out in a panic as similar cries rang out around her.
"W...Wait you idiot!" Noire yelled out with an extremely worried look on her face. "This isn't what I-!"
Her words were drowned out as an enormous wave of green energy exploded out of the stone. As everyone watched with wide eyes, the wave swept out across the courtyard causing all the damage it had sustained to fix itself as if time was reversing. Judging from how K-Sha's body was magically lifted out of the crater before it filled itself back up, it seemed there was no need to worry about any of the civilians getting harmed in the reconstruction process either. In the blink of an eye, the entire courtyard was put back together while the city outside was seen being rapidly repaired as well. The green wave had already disappeared past the horizon by this point but it was safe to assume that it would continue on until it had covered all of Lastation.
Snapping out of her surprise, Vert quickly turned back around to Sync as the rest of the group did the same.
A large crack appeared in the stone he was holding before it shattered completely into a thousand glittering shards. With a smile still on his face, he slowly lowered his arm and looked down to face them.
"Heh. I don't see why all of you were so-"
His last word never left his mouth as he suddenly fell backwards like a puppet with its strings cut. Before he could hit the ground, however, a pair of hands quickly reached out to grab him.
It took a moment before Vert realized that it was her own hands that were holding him up.
"Sis?" Sync called out weakly, surprise evident in his voice.
Vert was all too aware of everyone's eyes on her but for once she found that she did not care.
"Don't worry," she reassured him. "I've got you."
He continued to look confused as he looked up at her face with a searching gaze.
"You... care..." he eventually breathed out. To her surprise, he let out a faint laugh to this before giving a soft sigh. "How... troublesome..."
The last of his energy seemed to leave him at this point as he closed his eyes with a small smile still on his lips.
"Sync!"
"Big bro!"
Ram and Rom quickly ran up to the boy with Big Nep and Nepgear following close behind. As soon as she reached him, Rom began trying to revive him with one of her healing spells but was met with no luck. Vert, meanwhile, focused in on her Sharicite to check on his connection. After a few tense minutes, she let out a relieved sigh.
"I can still sense him through my crystal. He's merely asleep."
Everyone gathered let out a collective breath of relief to this. Getting up from next to Sync, Rom looked over to Vert with a continued worried look.
"Will big bro really be okay?" she asked.
"He'll be fine," Vert answered confidently. After a brief hesitation, she reached out to comfort the girl with a head pat of her own. Surprisingly, Rom did not move away from her like she usually did as she quietly accepted it with a small smile.
"Freaking idiot," Noire huffed from behind them while obviously trying to hide her own worry. "He didn't need to nearly kill himself for something like this. He could have just worked for me until he had enough Credits to pay me back for all the damages instead."
"You just wanted another unpaid secretary that would do your every bidding, didn't you?" Neptune asked with a knowing grin.
"Oh, shut up! And I'll have you know that my alternate self paid that secretary guy at least three times the normal salary rate!"
Leaving the two to continue on with their usual squabble, Vert carefully moved Sync onto her back so that she was carrying him in a piggyback style. While he felt lighter than she had expected, his form felt solid enough that she was able to to put aside her fears of him fading away.
"Well, I'm glad everything turned out alright," C-Sha said after a brief silence. "But how exactly are all of us going to get back home? Not all of us can fly and even those who can are probably too tired to get all the way back to their respective Basilicoms."
"Maybe we can just spend the night at a local hotel?" Neptune suggested.
Noire scoffed at this. "None of the hotels would be open right now idiot. Everyone in this city would either be in an emergency shelter or fast asleep because of the brainwashing. Speaking of which, I'll need to help relocate my citizens and soldiers before heading back. Not to mention dealing with all the fuel-less transport copters that K-Sha parked in the city after landing her army here. Ugh. This is going to take all night to get sorted out."
"It's too bad Sync's knocked out," Nepgear said as she gave her unconscious lab partner a sad glance. "He could have just teleported all of us back home."
C-Sha and the Hunters gave an involuntary shudder as they remembered the last time the boy had tried to warp them across an extremely long distance.
"No, I think we're better off finding a different solution," the buxom fighter promptly said. "Though I admit, it would have been nice having a reliable and simple way of warping back home. It's too bad we don't have anything like that."
Right at that moment, a loud yawn sounded off from Big Nep's pocket.
"Ah, that was a great nap," Croire's muffled voice said from within the Nep-Note. "So, what did I miss?"
It was nearly morning by the time Noire had finished dealing with all of the issues in North Lastation and called back Big Nep for a warp back home. Luckily for her, the Planeptune crew had apparently decided to hold a celebratory all-night pudding party back at their own Basilicom which meant that Big Nep had still been awake to pick up her phone. The older Neptune had been quick to reply as she promptly warped over, dropped off Noire in front of the Lastation Basilicom, and returned back to her party with a cheerful wave.
Giving a loud yawn that she was too tired to hide, Noire dragged herself into the building and towards her room. Looking around as she passed, she saw that the boy's repair job had clearly done its job as not a single door or wall was broken despite the invasion that had no doubt occurred there. Seeing all of this made her give a small sigh as she hoped that the boy was doing alright. Not that she was worried about him or anything though. She merely did not want to deal with the political fallout that would result if he had died. Obviously, this was the only reason she would have for wondering about his welfare... Maybe.
Her Tsundere thoughts were interrupted when she saw that the door to Uni's room was slightly ajar. Peeking into the darkened room, she was both surprised and relieved to see that her sister had made it back sometime before her and was currently fast asleep. Deciding not to wake her, Noire quietly shut the door and continued on her way.
After what seemed like forever to her, the sight of her room greeted her once again as she let out a large breath of relief.
"I'm home," she called out to no one in particular as she turned on the lights.
To her surprise, a white fluffy shape suddenly jumped onto her bed in response.
"Meow."
"Oh, it's you Blanc," Noire said, smiling down at the cat she had adopted way back during the original Gold Third crisis. "I'm glad you managed to make it through the fan invasion safely."
Blanc the cat gave a short stretch before looking back up at her.
"Meow." (How dare you abandon your master when those filthy peasants dared to invade my kingdom?!)
Despite her claims of being able to do so, Noire did not in fact have the ability to understand what her cat was actually saying. As such, she simply gave a giggle at the deceptively cute sound her feline had made.
"Heh heh. Sorry about forgetting you in all this craziness. I was so preoccupied that I even forgot about Uni for a while."
"Meow." (You think you can simply apologize your way out of this?! I will tear out your heart and feast upon it for this transgression! And then I'll turn your tiny clone into my personal scratching post for good measure!)
Noire just gave another ignorant smile at her cat before walking over to her desk.
"Are you hungry, Blanc?" she asked, opening up her drawer and pulling out a bag of kitty treats. "Hopefully you managed to sneak something to eat from the kitchens while I was gone."
"Meow." (You dare imply that I filled myself with scraps like some common beggar?! No, you fool. I devoured the peasants that dared lay hands on my sacred throne cushion! As for their remains, they were thrown to my feral sisters in the back alleys!)
"Here you go Blanc," the Lastation CPU said, handing over one of the fish-shaped treats to her cat.
The suspicious feline sniffed at it for a bit before taking a bite.
"Meow." (Hmph! Your sacrificial offering has pleased me. I shall deign to let you live for a little while longer.)
Noire gave another giggle as she put away the bag and watched her pet nibble away at the treat with a smile.
"You know, sometimes I think you're the only true friend I have Blanc."
"Meow." (Pet me, slave.)
Blanc (the CPU) gave a loud yawn as she put down her mug of coffee onto her desk and turned on her computer. While it had been nearly noon by the time she had woken up, she was still rather tired as she had been forced to stay up late into the night after C-Sha, the twins, and the Hunters had warped into her room carrying an unconscious K-Sha with them. The group had been rather tired themselves though and had chosen to give her an abridged (yet still lengthy) version of what had occurred before splitting off to their respective beds. Of course, C-Sha had spent a few extra minutes locking up K-Sha's soulless body into a spare broom closet before leaving herself.
Once her computer had finally booted up, Blanc brought up the local news feed to see if she could figure out the specifics of what had occurred in Lastation. Unfortunately, none of the articles went into much detail other than the fact that the riot in Lastation had been resolved. Disappointed but not surprised, she clicked over to the Lastation news feed while raising her mug of coffee and taking a sip.
She promptly spat her drink back out when she saw the main headline on the page.
"WHAT THE FUCK?!"
Displayed proudly on her coffee-splattered screen were two simple sentences:
Ram and Rom Engaged to Mysterious Blond Shota
Lastation's Newest #1 Favorite Couple
Uni woke up in her room with perhaps the biggest headache she had ever had in her entire life. Actually, scratch that. The second biggest headache ever. Nothing was ever going to top the morning after the karaoke bar incident involving 5pb., a Nepgeardam, a time-traveling princess, a talking kangaroo, and forty cans of 'root beer'. The Lastation CPU Candidate could feel her head throb even more painfully just at the mere memory of it.
With a loud groan, Uni sat up from her bed with bleary eyes. The last thing she remembered clearly was splitting up with B-Sha and Steamax (who B-Sha had put back together after the little doujinshi incident). Uni had decided to head directly back to Lastation to go find her sister while B-Sha had opted to help escort the civilians to the next Lowee city over to find help. As expected, Steamax had wanted to follow the CPU Candidate but Uni had managed to convince him otherwise by pointing out that he would not be able to keep up with her once she activated her HDD. Looking rather dejected - a remarkable feat considering his face was an unmoving metal mask – Steamax had reluctantly agreed to help B-Sha instead and parted ways with her.
After that, her memories became all fuzzy. The most she could recall was that she had flown all the way to a small town that was a few miles west of North Lastation and then... nothing. There was the vaguest recollection of feeling extremely warm and fuzzy for some reason but that was about it.
She clutched her head with her hand as she gave another groan. Trying to recall her scrambled memories was only making her head hurt even more. As far as she could tell, she had probably met up with Noire somewhere along the way and had made it back to their Basilicom before collapsing in her bed in exhaustion. She knew she was in her room at least thanks to the large window next to her which currently had its purple curtains pulled back to reveal the Basilicom's central garden. Considering the notable lack of crazed fans in the area, she guessed that her sister had somehow taken care of the entire riot as well. Not that surprising considering that Noire was one of the greatest CPUs ever after all. Of course, she only respected her sister up to a reasonable amount since acting crazily obsessed over her was just wrong.
Uni gave a frown at that odd line of thought before shaking her head. Deciding she needed some coffee to get herself fully woken up, Uni gave a large stretch and stepped off her bed...
...only to have her feet slip on an unexpected cylindrical object as she fell face-first into a sea of green.
"What the-? WHO FILLED MY ROOM WITH A BUNCH OF EMPTY SODA BOTTLES?!"
Vert's return to her Basilicom was a lot less chaotic than she had expected. Obviously, Chika had immediately gone into a frenzy upon seeing her but a group of odd people wearing Ran Pig masks managed to hold her back. Vert quickly guessed that these were the Ran Rans that Sync had mentioned before and had introduced herself to them (after pacifying Chika with a few kind words of course). As it turned out, the Ran Rans were more than happy to accept her as their boss as they even offered to take the boy to his room for her. Deciding he was in safe hands, she let them carry him away while she decided to deal with Chika.
Oddly enough, her Oracle accepted her order of not killing the boy for the time being without much complaint. She did mutter something about the kill not being as satisfying if he was not awake to witness it but Vert decided to let that one slide.
After that, she had gone to her room (which had been fully repaired during her absence) and immediately collapsed onto her bed without even bothering to change out of her clothes. By the time she got back up, the sun was high in the sky and the sounds of her workers rushing about in the halls could be heard outside.
"Ugh... someone turn off the sun," she mumbled out. "It's too bright in here."
When the sun refused to put itself out, she reluctantly sat up from her bed with a yawn and a grumble. After taking a moment to gather herself, she got up and automatically headed towards her desk to turn on her computer and log into her MMO.
She came to a halt as she neared her desk however as she found a large present box lying on top of it. Hoping that Chika had not bought her another set of lingerie to force her into, Vert cautiously reached forward and opened up the box.
Her mouth immediately dropped open in surprise as she found herself looking at a limited edition figure set featuring all the characters from one her favorite anime, Naked Butler's Host Club. With shaking hands, she carefully grabbed hold of the figure box and held it up reverently. Her expert Otaku eyes quickly confirmed that the set was authentic as she felt her heart skip a beat in pure joy. Just as she was about to start squealing like a teenage fangirl, she spotted a small card lying at the bottom of the present box. Putting her celebrations on hold for the moment, she picked up the card with her free hand and opened it up to read it.
Dear sis,
If you're reading this then welcome back home. It's already been four days since you escaped from Planeptune so I told Ran Ran (not to be confused with Ran Ran; she's rather touchy about that) to just put this present on your desk the morning after your return. Hopefully that'll lower the odds of Chika intercepting this package and hiding it out of spite. Not that I'd really blame her for it though. I mean, I did accidentally change her hair color to neon orange the other night. Fun fact: Nep Bull mixed with Dogoo Jelly and orange juice makes a really effective hair dye.
In case it wasn't obvious, I got you these figures to replace the ones that got destroyed when I first got here. One of the Basilicom workers (forgot her name) told me the names of the ones that got crushed so I had a fairly easy time finding them online on Amazoo. It also looked like you were originally missing a few from the set so I decided to just get you the entire thing. As for the cost, Nepgear and I transmuted plenty of lead into gold during our Philosopher's Stone experiments so money wasn't much of an issue.
Anyways, I know you've been stressed lately due to my arrival but hopefully this gift manages to cheer you up a bit. The last thing I want is for you to permanently run away to become a cabbage farmer in Zero Dimension or something like that. While I can't guarantee that I won't cause more trouble for you in the future, I can at least promise not to drive you too far off the deep end. So, for what it's worth, I hope you stick around and continue being the sister-obsessed, Yaoi-loving, game-addicted CPU that you've always been before. Cause in the end, that's all that really matters to me.
From your #1 favorite person in the whole entire world (:P),
Sync
P.S.
I might have accidentally turned the toaster in the kitchen into an inter-dimensional transport device. We still haven't heard back from the last Basilicom worker who used it but I sent Ran Ran to look for him so I'm sure he'll be fine.
Vert felt her former giddiness fade away as she finished reading through his message. An unreadable expression fell across her face as her eyes slowly went back and forth between the card and the figure set he had gotten for her. An eternity seemed to pass by in silence until a faint smile suddenly appeared on her lips as she gave a tired sigh.
"You truly are a troublesome little child."