Greenlit Trouble Chapter 20: Cheese for Everyone!, a hyperdimension neptunia fanfic

Ch 20: Cheese for Everyone!

Uzume woke up with a loud yawn as the early rays of the morning sun filtered into the tent she was in. After rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, she slowly sat up and let her gaze wander around to make sure that no monsters or demon rabbits had tried to barge in during the night. Judging from the fact that the place looked relatively intact, she guessed that Sync's theory about her plot protection keeping away any dangers while they slept had been correct. Of course, the four cans of monster repellent that they had judiciously sprayed around their tent probably also had something to do with this.

Looking next to her, Uzume saw that Big Nep was sprawled out inside her sleeping bag and still fast asleep. Giving a soft chuckle at her friend's sleepy mumbling about meeting some kind of pudding king, she looked over to check up on the third member of their party. To her surprise, she found that Sync was missing as the extra sleeping bag he had borrowed from Big Nep was already neatly rolled up and tucked away into the far end of the tent where her helmet and bear-skin cloak had been stored away as well.

Uzume gave a frown as she wondered when he had gotten up. Sync had been rather hesitant about sharing a tent with the two older girls the night before – stating that it was rather improper for him to do so - but after Uzume had told him that she did not mind in the slightest and Big Nep promised not to glomp him in his sleep, he had finally relented. The fact that there was also plenty of room for all three of them inside the large tent (Big Nep had recently bought a larger one after Uzume had accidentally set fire to her old tent during their previous camping trip) helped seem to further ease the boy's mind over the matter. Still, it was not hard to imagine him slipping out of the tent as soon as she and Big Nep were asleep in order to keep watch outside instead. She knew that was what she would have done if she had been rather embarrassed by her own sleeping arrangements.

Moving as quietly as she could in order to not disturb her friend, Uzume got out of her own sleeping bag before pulling open the tent flap and walking outside. After letting her eyes adjust to the light, she looked around and was relieved to find that the rest of their camping site was just as untouched as their tent. Taking a moment to breathe in the crisp morning air to fully wake herself up, she began looking about the area for any trace of Sync.

She did not have to search for very long as she soon found him sitting on top of a rocky outcropping just a couple meters away.

"Yo, Syncsy!" Uzume greeted with a wave as she walked over to join him. "You weren't out here all night, were you?"

Sync did not immediately answer as he remained silent with an oddly pensive look on his face. It was not until Uzume reached him and was about to repeat her question that he chose to reply.

"I woke up just a couple minutes before you did," he said, his expression still set in a neutral frown. "Thought I'd use the chance to get some fresh air and do some thinking."

"Thinking about what?"

After waiting a few seconds and receiving no further elaborations, Uzume gave a shrug and sat down next to him.

For a couple minutes, the two sat in silence as they simply observed the vast plains that was visible from their vantage point. The hilly terrain was quite a sight to see as the rising sun cast a golden glow over the grassy landscape that seemed to stretch on forever. Numerous deer were seen roaming the plains as they peacefully grazed for food in the early hours. Luckily, it seemed none of the deadly predators of the world were awake yet as there were no sign of any giant bears, tigers, wolves or demon rabbits around. There was, however, a flying train circling the peaks of a faraway mountain but it seemed content with simply patrolling its supposed territory as it showed no sign of descending onto the plains below.

"You know," Sync eventually said, apparently breaking out of his thoughts. "There's been something I've been meaning to ask ever since I learned about you."

"Hm? And what's that?"

"Well... Is it true that you almost destroyed all of Gamindustri before?"

"What?!" Uzume blurted out, completely caught off-guard by the unexpected question. After taking a moment to (somewhat) compose herself, she hastily provided an answer.

"That wasn't me! It was Kurome! She's the one who wanted to smoosh the dimensions together and end the world!" She paused as a half-thoughtful, half-guilty look crossed her face. "Well... I kinda guess I am Kurome now seeing as how we sorta fused back together and all. But we were still two different people back then so it doesn't count!"

A faint smile appeared back on Sync's face as he gave an amused snort. After giving the flustered CPU a chance to fully calm herself, he elaborated his question.

"I was actually talking about before all that," he clarified. "Back when you were still the CPU of Planeptune."

Uzume's lighthearted demeanor immediately disappeared at this as she fidgeted uncomfortably.

"Oh. That," she murmured. "I'd rather not-"

She stopped when she noticed that Sync had turned his full attention towards her and was now staring at her with an expectant gleam in his eyes. Realizing that the boy had only really heard about her through second-hand explanations and trivia up until now, she decided it would not hurt to play along and properly explain herself to him.

"I... didn't have as much control over my reality-changing powers back then," she hesitantly explained, pushing down the mix of emotions she felt at recalling her past. "The power to change reality sounds pretty neat until you realize just how bad things can get if you don't know how to properly use it."

"What do you mean?"

Uzume gave a wince before replying with a guilty look.

"Hordes of monsters popping out of nowhere, natural disasters like tornadoes and earthquakes appearing in places they shouldn't, entire sections of the land just disappearing without a trace; it's easy to see why everyone started to both fear and hate me. Looking back on it now, I guess it's no surprise that some of the more radical groups even went so far as to try and kill me."

Sync stayed quiet as he took all this in with a solemn expression. After a rather awkward bout of silence between the two, he looked back up to her with a questioning gaze.

"So why did you seal yourself away?" he asked. "Or rather, how? If what I read and heard about you is true, then you must have already been slipping into your Kurome persona by then. I don't understand how you managed to hold back your increasing hatred for the world and willingly imprisoned yourself instead."

Uzume thought long and hard about this question as she looked back on her past memories and feelings. Eventually, a faint smile appeared on her face as she came up with a suitable answer.

"It's still hard for me to clearly recall my thoughts from back then but... I think I can guess why. It's cuz I didn't want to give up on my mission."

"Your mission?" Sync asked, raising a questioning eyebrow.

Uzume gave a nod. "Yeah. You know how everyone has a mission in life? Well, mine was to protect my people and to make sure they could live a happy and peaceful life. I'd already failed to protect someone close to me at that point and I wasn't going to let something like that happen again. I think the 'me' of that time felt some of that responsibility as well even with her growing hatred and madness. That's probably what allowed her to make that final decision to lock herself away before she completely lost herself. And... that's probably why my current personality was split apart from her later as well. After all, I wasn't ever going to give up on my mission, even if the person I had to defeat to accomplish it was myself."

She stopped to look down at her hand before clenching it into a determined fist.

"That still hasn't changed you know," she declared firmly. "My mission, I mean. I might be the ruler of a different dimension now but I'll still give it my all to protect both it and Planeptune. I might have messed up before but I'll definitely show everyone just how much of an awesome CPU I can really be!"

Though she did not notice it, Sync had started gazing at her with something very much like respect in his eyes.

"Your mission in life, huh?"

Quietly muttering this to himself, Sync turned his gaze back to the plains. Whatever internal debate he had been having earlier seemed to finally reach a conclusion thanks to Uzume's statement as he gave a short, resolute nod to himself a few moments later.

"Nine points," he suddenly said, getting back up as Uzume turned to look at him in confusion.

"What?"

"That's what I'm raising your current coolness score to."

Before Uzume could figure out how to respond to this, he turned around and began heading back towards their tent.

"For the record," he called out behind him, "I think you're already an awesome CPU even without trying so hard to look cool all the time."

Uzume was definitely taken aback by the unexpected praise as she could not hide the blush that appeared on her face. It did not take long for her to recover though as she got up as well and quickly chased after him.

"Hey, why only a nine?" she shouted out. "If you already think I'm awesome, why not just give that full ten points already?"

Sync's only response to this was to give a cheerful laugh.

The three adventurers were all packed up and back on the road an hour later as they continued towards their next objective in high spirits.

"So how much further till the next village?" Big Nep asked with a smile.

Sync paused a bit to reach out with his powers before answering with a shrug.

"Kind of hard to say. I don't know if it's just this dimension or my lack of shares but my spatial senses are a bit blurry here. There's a large number of objects moving about near what I'm guessing is a few buildings several miles up this road so I'm assuming that's another village. Of course, knowing this place, I could just be sensing an unusually large wolf pack roaming around a bunch of house-shaped rocks instead."

Uzume (who was back in her iron helmet and bear-skin cloak) gave a nervous laugh to this.

"I'm sure it'll be fine," she said rather uncertainly. "Just to be safe though, we should probably walk there normally to see what's coming instead of just teleporting there directly."

Her two followers seemed fine with this plan as they both nodded in agreement.

After several minutes of walking, the group found to their relief that the place Sync had sensed was in fact a small village full of regular people. The thing that really got Uzume's attention though was the fact that this village apparently kept all of their chickens in a fenced off area next to one of the farmhouses.

"Yes!" Uzume cheered upon seeing the locked up poultry. "You're not blowing up anyone today you foul... um... fowls! Stay inside that prison like you deserve!"

This garnered quite a few odd looks from the nearby villagers but the CPU was too busy celebrating to notice.

"Well, guess we should start asking around to see if anyone's spotted a giant doomsday dragon flying by recently," Sync said cheerfully. "It'll probably be faster if we split up for now and-."

"Ooh! Dibs on the tavern!" Uzume interrupted enthusiastically, spotting the large building at the center of the village. "That's always where the most important quests and information are in an adventure game!"

"I'll question the town guards in the meantime," Big Nep offered cheerfully.

"I suppose that leaves me with the passing travelers and local farmers then," Sync finished. "Alright, we'll meet back up here at the village entrance in half an hour. Just make sure to watch yourselves. With how things have been going so far, I wouldn't be surprised if a chair tries to eat one of us or something."

Uzume let out a laugh to this. "Ha! Eaten by a chair. Even in a place like this, that seems-"

"Oh, it's a very real possibility," a passing village woman who happened to hear their conversation warned. "I had a sister who was eaten by one of those wooden menaces several years ago. I always did warn her to watch out for those Werechairs during her travels."

Giving a sad sigh, the woman walked away leaving three extremely weirded out and terrified adventurers behind. Deciding it was probably better for their sanity not to question any of this, the three of them silently parted ways as they decided to busy themselves with their investigations instead.

"Are you going to sit down anytime soon?"

Uzume ignored the bartender as she continued to glare down at the wooden stool in front of her as if waiting for it to attack her.

"It's not a Werechair if that's what you're worried about," the bartender laughed. "I've been regularly inspecting all of the chairs ever since the last ambush two years ago. Besides, those things generally only attack during the night anyways."

After patting down the wooden furniture one last time to make sure it really was safe, Uzume hesitantly sat down on it.

"How do you people live in this world?" she let out with a groan. "Everything seems to either want to kill you or eat you."

The bartender simply gave a shrug. "Eh, you get used to it."

Taking pity on the obvious newcomer, he offered her a complimentary mug of root beer (which somehow existed in this bizarre medieval world) to cheer her up.

"Thanks," Uzume muttered before downing the entire thing in one go.

The bartender gave a small chuckle at the sight before returning to cleaning the rest of his mugs with a cloth.

"So," he said conversationally, "what's a wandering adventurer like you doing in our humble little village?"

Uzume lowered her mug and gave a loud burp (something that all cool people did, despite what Umio and Histoire said) before replying.

"I'm actually looking for a dragon. Have you seen one around these parts?"

"Plenty of those things around here," the bartender replied. "Haven't seen one for myself but a lot of travelers say they're found at the end of dungeons as bosses."

Uzume shook her head. "Not those kinds. The one I'm looking for is special. It's more realistic-looking with pointy black scales and an evil 'I'm going to kill everything' aura around it. It's kinda hard to miss. I was hoping you might have heard about someone who spotted it flying past recently."

The bartender seemed to think about this for a moment before answering.

"Sorry but can't say I've heard about anything like that. The most notable thing I've heard lately are a few rumors saying that the flying trains are returning." He shook his head at this with an amused snort. "Bah, a bunch of silly nonsense if you ask me. Everyone knows that the trains were all killed off ages ago."

Uzume gave a sigh as she realized she would not find any answers here.

"Well, thanks again for the drink pops," she said as she got back up. "Guess I'll have to keep searching elsewhere then."

"Ah, hold on a sec," the bartender interrupted, seemingly having remembered something. "Now that you mention it, I think I heard one of the guards talking about some kind of giant flying monster a few days back. Figured he was just talking about those trains like everyone else but it might have been that dragon you're looking for."

"Do you know where he is?" Uzume quickly asked, immediately perking up at the possibility of a potential information source.

"I'm pretty sure he was transferred to the nearby city recently," the bartender answered. "Best bet is to go there yourself and look for him. All you have to do is follow the main road west of here and you'll be there in about five plus one hours."

"Er, you mean six hours?" Uzume asked.

"What's a 'six'?"

Uzume just blinked back for a few seconds as she tried to figure out if the man was joking or not.

"You know, six," she eventually said. "The number that comes after five?"

The bartender gave a loud laugh to this causing the CPU to give a bewildered expression.

"Ha! A number after five! Now ain't that a hoot! Everyone knows the only numbers that exist are one, two, three, four, and five. Of course, there are some people who think that 'one' and 'two' are not actual numbers either but that's just ignorant drivel."

"Oookay then..." Uzume said, not really knowing how to respond to this weird revelation. "I'll just... be going then."

Leaving the still-chuckling bartender behind, Uzume walked out of the tavern feeling like she was missing the punchline to some form of odd joke.

Several minutes later...

"So the numerical system of this world only goes up to five?" Sync asked once Uzume finished filling them in about her investigation. "Huh. Maybe that's why everything seems so medieval around here."

"Well, at least we now have some kind of lead," Big Nep said cheerily. "The guards I asked also said the same thing about one of their co-workers talking about a flying monster recently so it definitely checks out."

"By the way," Uzume suddenly said, turning her attention over to Sync. "What's with that weird staff you're holding?"

"Oh, this?" he said, holding out the weapon in his hand. The wooden staff could have easily been mistaken for a plain old walking stick if it had not been for the oddly detailed carving of what looked like a triangular slice of cheese placed at its top.

"I got it from a strange bearded man in a colorful suit," Sync explained. "I have to say, the guy could have probably given mini-Nep a run for her money when it came to going off on random tangents. Anyways, long story short, I offered him the cheese we found in the tomb yesterday and he gave me this staff. He said it was a prototype of his main artifact, whatever that meant."

"What's it do?" Big Nep asked curiously.

Sync gave a shrug. "All he said was that it would provide cheese for everyone. I haven't tested it out yet but-"

"Um, pardon me," a generic farmer interrupted, walking up to the group with a distressed expression. "You three are adventurers, correct?"

"Yup!" Uzume replied without hesitation. "The coolest and greatest adventurers ever!"

Rather than being put off by this introduction, the farmer instead let out a relieved sigh.

"Oh, thank the goddesses. I've been looking for capable people like you." Without giving his audience a chance to say anything, he continued on. "You see, my prized goat was stolen from me by a giant last night. I already asked the town guards for help but they refused to do anything saying that this was beyond their pay grade. As such, I was hoping the three of you could help me out instead. Of course, I'd be more than willing to pay you for your troubles if you do so."

"Hey, our first official side-quest!" Big Nep exclaimed excitedly. "I was wondering when we'd run into one of these! We should totally accept it!"

"I don't know," Sync said doubtfully. "This is probably a rather high-level quest if even the town guards refused it. And with how things have been going so far, I'd say it'd be safer if we-"

"We'll do it!" Uzume proclaimed, giving a large thumbs-up to the farmer. "As a true hero, it's my duty to help anyone in need!"

As the farmer began to express his thanks and filled them in on where they needed to go, Sync just gave a small sigh with a resigned smile on his face.

"Well, this should be amusing."

"You know," Uzume squeaked out, "When that farmer guy talked about a giant, I was expecting an over-sized caveman with a large club. Not... well, this."

Her two companions said nothing as they simply continued to stare open-mouthed at the five-story tall version of Blanc towering above them. Dressed in her usual white outfit (complete with her trademark muffin hat), the gigantic clone of the CPU silently glared down at the trio with her truck-sized hammer in hand. At her feet, a rather derpy-looking goat grazed about on the grassy hill they were all on without a care in the world.

"Well, good luck Uzume," Sync eventually said, slowly backing up from the giant Blanc with Big Nep doing the same next to him. "Ms. Neptune and I'll wait for you back down at the village."

"H...Hey!" Uzume cried out, looking back at her retreating teammates. "Don't leave me here alone! I don't want to get flattened by-"

Much to Sync and Big Nep's horror, Giant Blanc's eye gave off an ominous red glow as soon as the word 'flat' was uttered. Before Uzume even had a chance to turn back around, the giant CPU brought her hammer down.

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH-!"

Uzume suddenly found herself becoming the first goddess to transform into a satellite as the massive hammer smashed into the ground in front of her and created a shockwave strong enough to launch her into the sky. Her screams eventually faded away as she disappeared completely into the upper stratosphere.

Unfortunately, Giant Blanc's rage did not seem to be sated with Uzume as she turned her still furious gaze towards the two remaining adventurers. Before either of them could do anything, the giant CPU began to charge towards them with her over-sized hammer held high over her head.

"Run!" Big Nep yelled.

Sync, however, had other ideas. Acting mostly out of panic, he waved his newly obtained staff in the direction of the oncoming threat. To his surprise, a glowing red bolt of energy blasted out of his weapon before hitting the enraged giantess head on.

The effect was instantaneous as the over-sized Blanc immediately disappeared from view as a massive puff of red smoke obscured her entire form. Before the two adventurers could comprehend what had just happened, a torrential mass of cheese wheels erupted out of spot where the giant CPU had been formerly standing.

As the magical red cloud completely faded away and the sudden flood of cheese that had erupted upwards began to rain back down around them, Big Nep turned to Sync with a stunned look.

"Did you just... turn her into cheese?" she asked, ignoring the large wheel of cheddar that plonked her on the head.

Sync looked back and forth between the cheese wheels dropping down all around them and his staff with a shocked look of his own before eventually giving a hesitant nod.

"I think I just did," he confirmed in a daze. He suddenly gave a fearful shudder as the full impact of what he had just done (as well as a particularly large chunk of mozzarella) hit him. "Oh crap, I just turned Blanc into cheese. Ram and Rom are going to kill me if they ever find out about this. I don't think they'd be too thrilled about me turning their older sister into cheese, even if it was an alternate dimension version of her."

"Don't worry," Big Nep assured. "My lips are sealed. It's a secret to everybody."

Sync gave her a grateful look before inspecting his cheese staff with a new sense of wonder.

"I have to say though, this thing is pretty amazing. A staff that can turn anything into a mass of cheese in one hit. Something tells me this is a hax-tier weapon even in this crazy world."

Before Big Nep could reply, the farmer's goat that they had forgotten about until now stepped up in front of them and began to nibble on a large wheel of Gouda on the ground.

"Oh right," Big Nep said, "I guess we should go return this goat back to its owner."

"Actually, shouldn't we go pick up Uzume first?" Sync asked as the downpour of cheese finally subsided. "I doubt we can turn in our quest without our party leader around. Plus, it's rather faint but I'm sensing that she's finally returning back down from orbit. Based on her current trajectory, she'll probably be landing several hundred miles to the north-west of us."

"Can you teleport her over to us?"

Sync reached out his power for a bit before shaking his head. "She's way beyond my warp radius. And it's kinda hard for me to lock onto her exact location due to this world's spatial interference. It'd probably be easier for us to just go to her instead. We'll need to manually cross a bit of the distance before I can teleport us over to her general area though."

Big Nep did not seem daunted in the slightest at the thought of having to hike some more as she gave cheerful nod.

"Alright, let's get going then! We need to get to Uzume before she gets herself into anymore trouble!"

Sync gave an amused smile. "You know, if this keeps up, she'll end up replacing Noire as the unluckiest person in existence."

Sharing a laugh at this, Sync and Big Nep made their way to pick up their wayward party leader with their temporary goat companion following along.

"Oh, there you guys are! I was starting to worry you wouldn't be able to track me all the way out here."

It was late into the afternoon by the time the group managed to reunite once more. As it was, Uzume had been waiting for them at a small town in the middle of an expansive swamp. Apparently, she had crash-landed near the place several hours prior and had decided to ask about with the locals while waiting for the rest of her team to find her. Judging from her looks, she had been having a decent enough time despite her brief journey into space.

"Um... Uzume?" Big Nep asked, looking behind her friend with a worried look. "Who's that big burly man standing behind you with an ax?"

"Oh him?" the red-haired CPU answered nonchalantly. "He's just a villager that I picked up as a temporary quest follower. His wife was killed by some vampires and I told him I'd help him hunt them down when I got the time." She waved this aside with her hand as if it were a minor detail. "But that's not what's important right now! I found a lead on our doomsday dragon right before all of you got here!"

"What did you find out?" Sync asked, ignoring the bizarre staring contest that Uzume's new follower and their goat were having.

Uzume answered with a wide smile. "I met this weird traveler in a green cat-themed outfit who told me that she saw a large black shape flying to the west of here last night."

"That seems a bit vague," Big Nep said. "How do we know she didn't just see a flying train?"

"Well it wasn't too long ago so we can probably head over in that direction and check for ourselves if we hurry," Uzume replied enthusiastically.

"I do sense something like a large city in that direction," Sync supplied. "We can stop there for more information and potentially book a room at the inn for the night if nothing shows up."

"Sounds good to me!" Straightening out her helmet and cloak, Uzume pointed forward towards the road leading out of town. "Onward my faithful companions! The dark dragon awaits!"

With their new uncompleted side-quest follower in tow, the heroes continued forward to their next destination.

"Why do these things keep happening to me?!" Uzume screamed while running from the city guards.

"Well, you did steal that wooden bowl at the inn," Sync answered, a faint smile visible on his face despite their predicament.

"I didn't steal it! I just accidentally picked it up while trying to talk to the innkeeper!"

"Um, guys?" Big Nep interrupted. "I think our other two followers are trying to fight the guards chasing us."

Stopping to turn around, the three heroes found their goat and ax-wielding villager attempting to fight off the massive group of heavily armed guards by themselves.

"No! Bad goat! Bad villager! Get back here before you get us into even more trouble!"

The two NPC followers completely ignored Uzume's frantic yells as they charged into the fight with reckless abandon. Luckily, the two of them were apparently marked as essential as they were forced into an invulnerable recovery state once the guards finished wiping the floor with them in about three seconds flat. Unfortunately, this shifted the guards' focus back onto the main group as they stormed forward with their weapons raised.

"Yeah, we should probably run," Sync advised. "I'm sure our followers will automatically teleport back to us once we enter a new area. That's usually how these types of follower systems work."

Uzume and Big Nep did not need any further prompting as they hightailed it out of there.

Two days later...

"You know, I'm seriously starting to wonder if we're even following the right track here."

"What makes you say that, Sync?" Big Nep asked.

Sync gave a small shrug as he and his tutor wandered the marketplace of the mountainous, stone-built city they were in.

"It's just, all the travelers we've gotten information from said they saw a 'great flying monstrosity' or something along those lines. How do we know we're not just chasing after a giant train engine instead of our dragon?"

Before Big Nep could respond, Uzume ran over to them with a large smile on her face.

"Hey! Syncsy! Big Nepsy! I just found out from Gearsy that an unidentified flying object was spotted on her radar two days ago! She said that it was flying towards the mountains in the north-east the last she saw it!"

"Wait, are you talking about our Nepgear or this dimension's Nepgear?" Sync asked.

"This dimension's of course," Uzume answered. "She's apparently a court wizard in this world who's obsessed with studying the ancient robots that are buried underneath the city."

Sync gave an amused snort to this. "Of course she is."

"Hey Uzume," Big Nep cut in. "Is it just me or did we gain a few more followers?"

The CPU gave a sheepish laugh as she rubbed the back of her head.

"Well... I might have taken on a few more side-quests along the way. Everyone sounded like they really needed my help and I couldn't just ignore them."

"You know," Sync reminded wryly, "we still haven't finished any of the thirty or so side-quests we've picked up till now."

Uzume gave an embarrassed cough to this. "I'll get to them... eventually. I just think the doomsday dragon that can eat everyone's souls is the most important concern right now."

"I'm pretty sure we'll be heading back home once we finish the main quest Uzume," Big Nep remarked. "It's a pretty common plot element for the heroes to be magically sent back to their home world once their journey's over."

Uzume did not have much to say to that as she instead pretended to be busy adjusting her helmet.

"Eh, it's fine," Sync shrugged off with a smile. "I'm sure all of our unfinished side-quests will just reset once we leave. The adventurers of this world can deal with them once that happens. Anyways, why don't you introduce us to your two new followers?"

Uzume was more than happy to put an end to their current conversation about her horrible side-quest management as she eagerly answered Sync's question.

"I kinda forgot to get their names but the guy in the priest robes said he needed our help hunting down a cannibal cult. As for the person next to him, he's a demon hunter who wanted a hand investigating that house just around the corner."

"Wait. If the quest objective's right there, why didn't you just complete it already?" Big Nep asked.

Uzume gave another cough as she tried to avoid looking at her friend. "Well, um... I think it's a really high level quest and I was hoping that-"

"The place is haunted, isn't it?" Sync guessed with a knowing grin.

The sudden embarrassed look on Uzume's face was more than enough of an answer on its own.

"Well, I guess we should deal with this now since we're in the area anyways." Saying that, Big Nep turned to give their leader an encouraging pat on the shoulder. "Don't worry though Uzume. I'll hold your hand if it gets too scary in there."

"I'm not scared!" Uzume refuted rather predictably. "It'll take more than a silly little haunted house to scare me! Heck, I'll even lead the way through it right now! Everyone, follow me!"

Sync could not help but give a chuckle as he stepped in line behind the flustered CPU.

"Oh, I can already tell this is going to be a lot of fun."

"I take it back! This isn't fun! This isn't fun at all!"

Sync yelled this out as he ducked under a flying meat cleaver that tried to take his head off.

Absolute chaos reigned all around the living room the heroes were in as it became clear that whatever was haunting the place did not take too kindly to strangers. Moments after the group had entered, the main door had magically sealed itself shut before every loose object in the well-furnished house was levitated into the air and thrown against them. Mass panic quickly erupted as the adventurers found themselves mercilessly buffeted by everything from cabbages to entire bookshelves. Things only became worse when all the lights in the room begun flickering on and off ominously while the ground shifted violently underneath their feet as if they were stuck in a massive localized earthquake.

"Waaaaaa! Uzume wants to go back home to Umio!"

Not surprisingly, the CPU had reverted to her Orange Heart personality quite some time ago as she clung to Big Nep like a terrified koala to a tree. The older Neptune, for her part, seemed less concerned about the haunted house trying to kill them all and more concerned about the lack of air she was getting due to Uzume's excessively tight embrace.

"Uzume... can't... breath..."

Meanwhile, the NPC followers they had gathered were going completely haywire. It was clear they viewed the supernatural event as a combat situation but the lack of an obvious target for them to attack had made their poor AIs glitch out. As a result, they had all begun to run around and bump into the walls like a bunch of headless chickens as they tried and failed to locate their enemy. The only exception had been the demon hunter who had apparently been scripted to go mad with fear in this situation and had tried to attack Uzume and Big Nep. Suffice to say, the only thing that remained of him now was a large pile of cheese wheels on the ground.

As the various furniture, tools, food items, and other household objects began to whirl about with increased speed, a spine-chilling sadistic laugh suddenly echoed out throughout the room.

"HA HA HA HA HA HA! KNEEL FOR ME YOU PIGS! KNEEL BEFORE THE LADY OF DOMINATION!"

Uzume's eyes widened in horrified recognition as she let out a scream so high-pitched that it shattered every single glass object in the room.

"KYAAAAAAAAAA! IT'S LADY IRIS HEART!" Yelling this, the CPU tightened her grip around Big Nep causing the older girl's face to become even more purple than her hair. With a look that was on the verge of tears, Uzume turned around desperately to Sync. "GET US OUT OF HERE BEFORE WE GET PUNISHED!"

Having been busy charging up as much energy as he could to break through the magical barrier surrounding the house for the past several minutes, Sync was only more than happy to oblige.

"Well, on the bright side, we managed to make it out of that haunted house alive. On the downside, I probably could have chosen us a better place to appear in."

Neither of Sync's teammates had the luxury of answering him as they were too busy running across the mountaintop as a gigantic flying train rained fiery death upon them.

"I think it's safe to say that the unidentified flying object this world's Nepgear told us about was that flying train. Judging from my senses, I'm pretty sure my emergency teleport brought us to the north-east mountain that she mentioned."

"Forget that," Uzume breathed out from next to Sync. "I'm just glad we finally managed to take down that thing."

Big Nep gave a tired laugh while sprawled out on the ground. "It at least played a pretty catchy theme song while chasing us. Still, it's a good thing we had those NPC followers around. I don't think my teddy bear would have gotten the chance to hit the train with his cheese staff if they hadn't pulled it's aggro from us."

"Cheese Stick," Sync corrected, twirling about his over-powered weapon proudly. "That's what I'm deciding to call it from now on. Speaking of which, do either of you want to try out some of the cheese the train turned into? I managed to grab a few wheels before they fell down the mountainside."

"Ooh!" Big Nep eagerly said as she shot up. "I wanna try some train cheese!"

Uzume, meanwhile, simply glanced over at their extremely singed-looking goat, villager, and priest. Funnily enough, the motley group was standing calmly near them as if they had not just been in a life-or-death battle with a giant fire-breathing train engine mere moments ago.

"Man, why can't these guys just go and save the world for us?" the CPU grumbled. "They're practically immortal and can obviously hold their own in a fight too."

"They're only NPCs, Uzume," Sync reminded, taking out a large wheel of white cheese and cutting it with his Share Blade. After slicing it into a bunch of uneven yet serviceable bite-sized chunks, he picked up a tiny piece and sampled it to make sure it actually was edible.

"Hm. Not bad," he eventually rated with shrug. "Apparently this train got turned into Provolone."

After handing over a piece to Big Nep, Sync turned back to face Uzume.

"Anyways, the NPCs in this world seem to start behaving like badly-programmed robots once they're brought along for a quest. In fact, I'm pretty sure they're not aware of anything going on around them if it doesn't directly pertain to their quest."

"We must avenge my wife!" the ax-wielding villager shouted out as if to highlight this.

"The cannibal cult hides in the mountains!" the priest added. "Quickly, we must head there!"

'Meh-eh-eh-eh' the goat bleated, looking just as derpy as ever.

Uzume gave a loud groan as she conceded the point.

"Ugh. I just wish we can find our dragon and get out of this crazy place already," she said tiredly.

"Chin up Uzume," Big Nep encouraged. "I'm sure we'll be done with our quest and be back home in no time. In the meantime, why don't you try out some of this cheese? It's actually quite good."

Uzume let out a large sigh before slowly getting up to grab a piece.

"Uzume. Don't do it."

"I'm telling you, that mammoth's taunting me!"

Another two days had passed and the group found themselves traversing across the wide open plains once more. During this time, their number of followers had grown to include a young priestess girl, her coal-miner dad, the ghost of a dead adventurer, a horrifying bird-hag witch, an archaeologist looking for an ancient scroll, a stray dog, and a horse that Uzume had bought (which she had given up trying to ride after being thrown off a dozen times).

At the moment, the group was passing by a pair of large woolly mammoths. Oddly enough, the mammoths were wearing a large blue and pink muffin hat respectively very much like another pair of twins. Fittingly, the one wearing the blue hat was quietly minding its own business on top of a nearby hill while the one in the pink hat had approached alongside the group and had been busy making odd noises at them. Most of the group had paid little attention to this but Uzume saw the action as a challenge and had been trying to pick a fight with it for the past several minutes.

"It's just a mammoth Uzume," Big Nep said, trying to calm down her agitated friend once again. "I bet it's just trying to be friends with you."

"No it's not! Look, it's making faces at me right now!"

Sync and Big Nep looked over at the pink-hatted mammoth only to find it giving them an innocent wave with its snout.

"You're just imagining things," Sync said, giving the mammoth a friendly wave in return (as well as a subtle mischievous grin that Uzume failed to catch).

The red-haired CPU gave a rather childish pout to this as she put her hands on her hips.

"I'm not imagining things! That mammoth is totally making fun of me!"

"Let it go Uzume," Big Nep said. "Besides, I doubt you'd be able to take it on in a fight anyways."

"What are you talking about? I could totally- Look! It's doing it again!"

Unfortunately for the mammoth, Sync and Big Nep turned around much faster than it had expected and was caught red-handed as it pulled at its eye with its snout while sticking out its tongue at the CPU.

"Ha! Caught in the act!" Uzume crowed triumphantly. "Now what do you have to say for yourself?"

Rather than looking embarrassed or apologetic, the trouble-making mammoth simply lowered its snout and blew out something that sounded like a raspberry.

"Oh, that's it! I'm gonna teach you some manners!"

Before either of her teammates could stop her, Uzume rushed forward to try and smack the large animal. To everyone's surprise, the mammoth did not try to fight back as it instead began running towards the hill that it's blue-hatted counterpart was grazing on. Even more strangely, it began making a loud, distressed noise that could be heard all throughout the plain.

"You big scaredy-cat!" Uzume taunted as she chased after it. "Come back here so I can beat some sense into- why is the ground shaking?"

To Uzume's horror, a giant Blanc suddenly crested over the hill with her hammer in hand. Like a child running to its parent, the pink-hatted mammoth went over to the over-sized Lowee CPU before tearfully pointing towards the frozen red-haired adventurer with its snout. Giant Blanc's eye immediately took on its signature red glow as she glared down menacingly at the poor fool that had tried to harm her mammoth. With a roar that shook the entire plain, the giant CPU charged forward with her gargantuan hammer raised above her.

"Not again!"

That was all Uzume had time to say before the hammer came down and she was sent hurtling skyward once more.

"Well, that's another one for the Blanc Space Program," Sync muttered as he and Big Nep watched their leader disappear into the clouds with a twinkle.

Just like last time though, Giant Blanc's fury was quickly redirected towards the remaining adventurers. However, before the large CPU could charge forward, the pink-hatted mammoth quickly moved to stop her. Making a bunch of trumpeting sounds, the mammoth seemed to convince her caretaker that the remaining adventurers were not a threat. Thankfully, this managed to calm the giant goddess as she lowered her hammer with a huff. Sending the adventurers (especially Sync) one final suspicious glare, Giant Blanc turned around and headed over to check up on her other mammoth.

"Whew. Glad we avoided that fight," Sync said, letting go of the NPC followers that he had been holding back with his telekinetic powers. As it was, all of them had tried to initiate combat as soon as Uzume had been attacked but had thankfully ceased hostilities as soon as Blanc had lowered her weapon.

After double-checking to make sure none of the NPCs were still in a combat state, Sync approached the pink-hatted mammoth with a grin.

"Thanks for stopping Blanc. It would've been bad if things got any more out of hand over a harmless bit of Uzume baiting."

The mammoth seemed to somehow understand what he was saying as it let out something that sounded like a mischievous laugh. Giving it's partner-in-crime a mock salute with its snout, the trouble-making Ram-moth parted ways with them and headed off towards its family.

"Heh. I guess the two of you get along no matter what dimension you're in," Big Nep commented. A teasing grin appeared on her face as she nudged her student with her elbow. "It's almost like the two of you are soulmates or something."

Rather than getting flustered, Sync waved this off with a small chuckle of his own. "Don't let our dimension's Blanc hear you saying something like that. She'd probably smack you to the far side of Zero Dimension before launching Lowee's entire Blue Shell arsenal at me."

Big Nep's gave a rather nervous laugh as she realized this was very much in the realm of possibility. Deciding to veer away from the dangerous subject, she looked back up into the sky.

"Guess it's back to finding Uzume then. If things go on in their usual pattern, she'll probably land down near the next important plot point. Hopefully she doesn't accidentally unleash a necromancer queen on an entire city or something before we get to her."

Sync gave an amused snort. "Knowing her, she'd probably end up recruiting the necromancer queen as another follower."

The two of them looked back at their small army of NPCs before shaking their heads with a half-exasperated, half-amused look. With all that said and done, Sync reached out with his spatial senses to pinpoint the space-faring CPU's location before leading the way forward.

Three days later...

"Uzume... I think you might have a bit of a hoarding problem."

"What are you talking Big Nepsy? I'm not hoarding anything."

Big Nep did not bother to say anything as she instead just glanced over at the crowd of new followers that the CPU had ended up gathering during their time apart. Though it was hard to judge just how many there really were due to them constantly moving about and bumping into each other from their poor AI, it was clear there were at least a minimum of twenty new followers within their midst.

Following her friend's gaze and realizing what she was talking about, Uzume gave a rather sheepish laugh as she rubbed the back of her head. Luckily for her, Sync chose this moment to come back from his scouting trip and joined back up with them on the snowy mountaintop they were all on.

"Alright, I took care of the musical trolls blocking the road further down. We shouldn't have any problem getting down the mountain now. Also, we're going to be having a lot of smoked Gouda for dinner tonight."

Before either of his teammates could respond, one of the new NPC followers wearing a hood suddenly walked up and bumped into him.

"Yes? What did you need?" the follower asked while inches away from Sync's own face.

"Er... I think I need a little bit of personal space, lady," he said, slowly backing away from the overly-attached follower.

"Oh, you'll get used to that," Uzume casually explained. "Her idle interactions get a bit annoying but she's really handy in a fight."

While Sync continued to put as much space between himself and the clingy follower, Big Nep peered down curiously at the hooded NPC's face.

"Hey, wait," she said in recognition. "Isn't this that Segami girl from that spin-off game with Iffy? What's she doing here? And why does she have fangs and glowing red eyes?"

Uzume let out a rather uncomfortable laugh to this. "Well, she's apparently some kinda vampire princess in this world. I found her while exploring a cave and I kinda sorta promised her that I'd take her back to her friends that live on an island to the north."

"But then you saw just how strong she was and decided to purposefully not finish the quest to keep her around indefinitely," Sync finished for her with a knowing smirk. "I'm guessing the same goes for all the new followers you gained while we were away as well?"

"N...Not all of them," Uzume replied, refusing to meet her teammates' eyes while pushing her index fingers together. "Some of their quest locations were just too far away for me to deal with. Plus, I was getting kinda lonely without you two around." The last part came out in a barely audible mumble but Big Nep and Sync seemed to hear it anyways, as evident by their widening smiles.

"Aw, Uzume," Big Nep said, walking over to give her friend a hug. "Now you're making me feel bad about taking that detour to fix up a self-refilling pudding cup before coming to find you."

"Wait, what?"

Sync quickly changed the subject as he joined in on the group hug.

"Well, I'm glad we're back together. Going on a grand journey just isn't the same without our fearless leader around."

Uzume could not help but smile at that.

"Heh. Thanks Syncsy. And you too Big Nepsy. You two are the best."

Unfortunately, their touching reunion did not last for very long.

"Yes? What did you need?"

"For Umio's sake, Segami! Just stand back there and stop bumping into me!"

The next few days of their 'epic' dragon hunt ended up being just as productive as ever. Which was to say, not a whole lot.

"You know, you'd think this many NPCs could take down a single train on their own but I guess I overestimated the capability of their combat AI."

"Eh, they're not doing too bad," Uzume replied to Sync, snacking on some of the Mozzarella that he had laid out for them.

"Go for its face!" Big Nep cheered from the sidelines. "Shoot it in its eyes!"

None of the NPCs bothered to follow her instruction as they all just fired and swung their various weapons in the general direction of the giant flying train. Not surprisingly, most of these attacks ended up missing and hit their fellow teammates instead, which, in turn, caused them to aggro onto each other. By now, the three main heroes had given up on trying to stop these fights (trying to get all their followers to exit their combat state was too much of a hassle; plus none of them could die anyways) so the trio simply watched on as a good chunk of their followers were busy waging war on their comrades while the train continued to wreak havoc from above.

As the massive battle stretched on with no end in sight, Big Nep eventually got tired of standing around and walked over to join her sitting teammates.

"Is it just me or have we been running into a lot more of these trains lately?" Big Nep said, plopping down next to Sync as she grabbed a piece of the cheese as well.

The group paused to give a collective wince as a massive explosion fired off by the bird-hag sent one of their priests crashing through a boulder before Sync answered the question.

"No, there's definitely been an increase in their encounter rate. I'm pretty sure my inventory is almost full with all the different types of cheese I've turned them into lately."

"You're a bit of a cheese nut, aren't you?" Uzume remarked teasingly.

Sync waved his Cheese Stick at her jokingly. "I prefer the term 'cheese connoisseur' thank you very much. Besides, if sis can be obsessed with her fancy teas, then I'd say I'm allowed to enjoy my cheese as well."

"Okay, okay! Just stop waving that thing in front of my face. I don't want to end up like that thief who tried to mug us a few hours back."

Sync lowered his staff with a laugh as he helped himself to the last remaining pieces of Mozzarella. In the meantime, Big Nep watched on as their army of followers continued to fail at bringing down the flying train engine.

"Hmm... I wonder if we accidentally set off some kind of event flag that caused more of these trains to appear," she remarked.

"I'm fairly certain that we didn't pick up any kind of quest involving these trains," Sync said after finishing his snack. "And to be honest, even if we had, I doubt we would have finished it considering the general lack of side-quest management that's been going on."

Uzume gave an embarrassed laugh to this while Big Nep continued to look thoughtful.

"Maybe there's another adventurer out there that's caused this?" she eventually guessed.

"If there is, they must be someone pretty important to trigger such a major event flag like this," Sync said, pulling out some of the foul-smelling Limburger cheese he had saved. Ignoring the disgusted look Uzume was giving him, he continued on speaking. "I just hope that taking all these NPCs with us isn't interfering with whatever quest they have."

"I'd be more worried about all the things you've turned into cheese so far," Big Nep said with a laugh. "You did miss quite a few of your shots along the way and they might have hit some plot essential character or object by accident."

Sync gave an amused snort to this.

"Come on, my aim wasn't that bad. And even if it did hit something, what are the chances it hit anything important?"

The mysterious adventurer from before gave a sigh as she stood in front of the locked gates of the ASIC Embassy. Normally, there should have been some kind of guard at the entrance that she could initiate dialogue with to advance her current infiltration quest but the only thing in front of the gate at the moment was a large pile of yellow cheese.

Adjusting her hooded cloak, the adventurer sadly contemplated her recent string of bad luck. Practically every single one of her quests had been bugged due to a large number of missing NPCs or enemies. She did note that there was usually a large amount of cheese left over in these bugged areas but she was unsure of what to make of it.

Luckily though, she had some handy 'tools' that allowed her to bypass these glitchy situations. Seeing that she would not be able to proceed with her current quest without somehow getting past the locked gate, she decided to utilize one of them.

Pulling out a plain wooden bucket from her inventory, she began surveying the stone wall surrounding the embassy before picking out a suitable spot. Then, with the bucket held out in front of her, she ran forward towards the wall.

Bizarrely enough, the bucket somehow allowed her to phase past the seemingly solid obstacle as she glitched her way into the previously sealed off area.

Giving a brief smile at successfully pulling off the exploit, the adventurer put away her handy bucket as she made her way over to the main door. Crouching down to maximize her sneaking capabilities, she quietly slipped her way into the ASIC headquarters to retrieve her needed information.

"Are you kidding me?! We came all the way out here for another train?!"

Hearing the flying locomotive's theme song beginning to play for the umpteenth time, Uzume finally snapped as she let out a massive frustrated scream.

"That's it! I'm done! I've had it with these wild goose chases!"

Not surprisingly, things had been going rather... poorly for the three heroes. The trio had just passed the two week benchmark for their quest and there had still yet to be a single solid clue as to their dragon's whereabouts. Patience was starting to run thin for everyone as every rumor and supposed sighting led them time and time again to either a flying train or some other equally ridiculous flying monster. Even Big Nep, who had remained optimistic for nearly their entire journey, could not help but give a tired sigh as she once again watched their army of NPC followers surge forward to engage the flying train engine.

"Uzume has a point," she let out. "It feels like we've been going around in circles with our search. In fact, I'm pretty sure we've been to this forest area at least twice already."

Next to her, Sync did not bother to say anything as he simply nommed on a piece of Feta cheese. However, the lack of a smile on his face as well as his worn out expression made it pretty clear that even he was starting to grow tired of the whole ordeal as well.

After loudly venting all her frustrations for nearly ten whole minutes, Uzume finally tromped back over to her teammates looking completely drained.

"I'm guessing you can't sense the dragon hiding someplace around here either?" she asked Sync.

The only response she got was a rather robotic shake of his head.

Uzume flopped down onto the leaf-covered ground with a thump as she stared up into the ironically clear and beautiful blue sky with a dead expression.

"Why are we still bothering to look in this crazy place?" she groaned. "I bet that dragon's already left this stupid dimension by now."

"That can't be it," Big Nep tried to reassure, although she sounded rather uncertain herself. "The final boss isn't allowed to run away without letting the hero know about it. It has to be waiting for you somewhere in this dimension so that the two of you can finish your battle."

Neither Uzume nor Sync bothered to respond to this as silence fell between the three of them. After several minutes passed with only the sounds of their followers waging war on each other and the flying train echoing about them, Sync finally spoke up.

"Well, I guess we've got no choice then," he said, brushing off the cheese crumbs from his hands. "I didn't want to do this since it felt like cheating but we're all probably going to end up going insane if we don't end this journey soon."

Saying that, he looked over towards his mentor.

"Ms. Neptune, can I borrow the Nep-Note for a second?"

"Um... sure," Big Nep replied. With a confused look, she pulled out her purple notebook from her pocket and handed it over to him. "What are you planning to do with it?"

Sync did not bother to say anything as he instead turned his attention onto the magical book.

"Hey, Croire," he called out. "I want you to take us directly to the doomsday dragon."

Not surprisingly, he received no answer as the tome-fairy either did not hear him or was simply ignoring him. Deciding that the latter was more likely, Sync resorted to more drastic measures as he began to vigorously shake the book up and down.

"I know you can hear me Croire," he called out. "Take us to the doomsday dragon or I'm getting Uzume to start shaking this book instead."

This finally got a response from the ill-tempered fairy as she spoke up in a panic.

"Stop... shaking... me... you... stupid... brat!" Croire yelled, apparently being bounced off the walls of her notebook prison. "I... don't... know... where... the... dragon... is!"

Sync finally relented as he looked down at the book with a raised eyebrow.

"What happened to the whole 'I'm an all-knowing tome' bit?"

Croire spent a few minutes recovering from the miniature earthquake before letting out a derisive scoff at him.

"Do you really expect me to process every single insignificant detail that goes on around me? Yeah I can probably look up where your damn dragon is but it'll take me about four weeks to dig it up from my archives."

"Four weeks?!" Uzume yelled as she got back up. "I'm not gonna spend another four weeks in this madhouse!"

A large volley of gigantic cabbages exploded behind her as if to highlight her words.

Sync, meanwhile, had a thoughtful look on his face.

"Then do you know where the final dungeon of this world is?" he asked Croire. "You told us you were trapped in this dimension for a long time so you probably came across it before. If what Ms. Neptune said is true, then it's very likely that we'll find our dragon waiting for us in that location."

Croire answered him with a snide laugh.

"I might know where it is, yeah. But what makes you think I'll help you idiots out?"

Big Nep stepped in to stop Sync when he raised his hand to start shaking the Nep-Note again.

"Stop doing that," she chided disapprovingly. "Some of the other specimens I collected in there are pretty sensitive. They might end up exploding if you keep shaking it like that."

"Ha!" Croire said triumphantly. "Looks like you won't be shaking anything out of me anymore! What are you going to do now, shota boy?"

All the stress that had been building up for Sync during the past two weeks finally seemed to come to a head as a dangerous glint flashed across his eyes. With a rather ominous chuckle, he moved away from his teammates and opened up the notebook to the page where Croire was being kept.

"H...Hey," the fairy said, her previous bravado quickly fading away. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Oh, I just thought you might be a bit hungry," Sync answered, his calm voice belying the dark aura surrounding him. "Here, have some cheese."

Saying that, he pulled out a gigantic block of foul-smelling Limburger cheese from his inventory before shoving it into the page that Croire was trapped in.

"BWAH-!"

Judging from the sound, the large hunk of smelly cheese had ended up squashing the fairy after being sucked into the page.

"You damn brat!" Croire shouted indignantly. "I'm going to freaking kill you!"

"What's that?" Sync asked, his smile widening wickedly. "You're still hungry? Here, I'll let you have some more."

Much to Croire's horror, the ticked off boy brought out an enormous collection of fetid-smelling cheeses before dropping them one by one into her prison. The cheesy torture session continued on for several more minutes before the smell and weight of all the cheese smothering her caused Croire to finally break.

"S...Stop!" the fairy cried out in a muffled and chocked voice. "I'll do it! I'll take you idiots to the final dungeon so stop with the stinking cheese!"

Much to Croire's relief, Sync put away the moldy blue cheese he was currently holding with a triumphant laugh. Meanwhile, Big Nep and Uzume watched on from the sidelines with uneasy looks.

"So this is what my teddy bear is like when he gets mad," Big Nep noted with a rather nervous laugh. "It's a good thing I never made him lose his temper with me."

"No kidding," Uzume said with a shudder. "He might not be trying stab people with a spear but he's got that same scary vibe that Vertsy got when I accidentally joked about her getting fat."

As the two of them watched Sync continue to laugh maniacally, they could not help but wonder if repressed insanity was just a standard aspect of the Leanbox family.

"Ugh... we're here. Now get these shit-smelling cheeses out of my page before I get sick."

Sync did not immediately reply as he, Uzume, Big Nep, and their private army of followers (which had thankfully disengaged from their hostilities after being dragged away from the flying train) looked about the new area they had been teleported to. At the moment, the group was standing at the edge of an enormous ancient temple located far up in an isolated mountaintop. Peering down into the distance, the three heroes could vaguely pick out the forest they had just been in far off to the west of their current position.

"You sure this is the right place?" Sync asked skeptically, quickly scanning their surrounding area with his power. "I'm sensing a lot of zombies and a couple of flying trains roaming about but not our dragon."

"The stupid lizard's probably hiding out in this world's Celestia," Croire quickly said, obviously fearful that the boy would start chucking more cheese at her. "I couldn't teleport you idiots there directly so I brought you to the portal leading to it. I think I remember it being somewhere at the top of these ruins so have fun getting to it."

Sync quickly confirmed this by reaching out with his power and picking up a faint yet powerful spatial anomaly at the very end of the massive exterior dungeon. Unfortunately, there was a large amount of spatial interference radiating out from the portal that prevented him from simply warping himself and his group directly over to it.

"Guess we're in for a bit of a walk then." Saying that, he snapped shut the Nep-Note without removing any of the cheese he had put into Croire's page. Ignoring the furious, muffled yells coming from the fairy, he pulled out a large bottle of air-freshener before spritzing an ample amount of it around both himself and the notebook.

"Here," he said to Big Nep, handing her both the notebook and the bottle of air-freshener. "You might need to continue spraying this for few days while Croire finishes eating all the delicious cheese I supplied for her."

Big Nep quickly took both items and put them into her pocket with an uneasy laugh. "I guess I won't have to worry about feeding Crostie for a while."

Sync gave a dark smile to this which caused Uzume to give another fearful shudder. Deciding to move away from the topic of cheese-related torture, she looked on over to the massive ruin that lay in front of them.

"So this is like the second-to-last dungeon, huh? It certainly looks impressive."

Thankfully, Sync's temper seemed to have run its course as he answered her in a decidedly more cheerful manner.

"The dungeon layout is pretty linear but the amount of enemies might make this a bit troublesome," he explained. "I'm pretty sure our followers can distract most of the basic mobs but we'll need to clear the way of any high-level enemies that block the main pathways ourselves."

"Heh heh. I guess it's time to Nep up some baddies then," Big Nep said eagerly, drawing out her twin swords with a flourish.

Uzume mirrored her friend's enthusiasm as she stepped up while cracking her knuckles.

"One more dungeon till the final boss, huh? Well, I'm definitely up for this, even if we are going up against a bunch of gross mummified zombies."

"And flying trains," Sync reminded with a laugh. "Also, I'm pretty sure there's a bunch of giant spiders in those side-towers that we'll need to go through."

Uzume's determined look quickly fell away as she backtracked away from her position at the head of the group.

"Um... why don't the two of you take the lead for this one?" she told her teammates as she hid behind them. "I wouldn't want to hog all the glory after everything we've been through together."

Suppressing a laugh at Uzume's antics, Big Nep and Sync led the way forward with their literal army of NPC followers marching behind them.

"That definitely took a lot longer than expected but we're finally here," Big Nep said cheerfully.

"Ugh. Stupid zombies," Uzume grumbled. "Why did they keep shouting only at me the whole time? I had to climb up that stupid ruin at least eight times cause they kept blasting me off to the bottom level."

"They probably wanted revenge on you for that group of zombies you shouted off the entire mountainside at the beginning," Sync said with a smile.

"By the way, do you think our followers will be okay back there?" Big Nep asked, looking back at the large, glowing portal they had just come through. Apparently, their NPC followers were not allowed to follow them into this area as none of them had automatically teleported over to them as usual.

"All of them are immortal," Uzume reminded while straightening out her helmet and cloak. "Besides, I saw Segami easily taking care of five of those zombies by herself. I'm sure the rest of them can also handle themselves."

Big Nep easily accepted this with a nod as she and her teammates turned to look out at their final destination.

Unlike all the other variations of Celestia in their various spin-off universes, this one was not a verdant island paradise floating atop the bright blue sky. Instead, this divine realm had the appearance of an enormous mountain valley that very much reflected the land below. Tall evergreen trees and majestic statues of presumable ancient heroes dotted the landscape while a large clear river ran through the middle of its expanse. Above them, a sea of stars and a multi-colored aurora illuminated the peaceful yet somber twilight that shrouded the entire place. Far away, a chorus of distant chanting seemed to herald the newcomers as they stopped to take in the awe-inspiring sight.

"This dimension might be completely crazy but they sure do have one heck of an afterlife," Uzume breathed out.

Her companions silently nodded their heads in agreement as they took a few more seconds to appreciate the view.

Eventually, the group remembered they still had a quest to finish as they shook themselves out of their reverie and began heading down the stone path laid out in front of them. Unlike the ancient ruins they had just been in, this area seemed completely devoid of any dangers as the group safely made their way into the valley proper without encountering a single enemy. However, a different sort of obstacle soon appeared to obstruct their path.

"What the-? Where did all this mist come from?"

Just as Sync noted, a thick layer of mist blocked the way forward as it seemed to entirely cover the center of the valley. Despite its harmless appearance, the obscuring cloud radiated a strong sense of ancient magic and despair that made him hesitant to go through it.

"Hey, wait," Big Nep said. "Isn't this-?"

"YES! WE FINALLY FOUND IT!"

Sync looked over at Uzume in confusion as the CPU practically jumped up and down in delight.

"Um... mind filling me in on what's going on here?"

Big Nep was the one to answer him as Uzume was too busy celebrating to do so.

"The doomsday dragon covered the town in our world with this mist when it attacked," she explained. "I'm pretty sure it becomes immune to all damage while it's inside the cloud and only the chosen hero can remove it. Anyways, since this mist is here, I'm pretty sure this means our dragon is further inside."

Uzume finished off her celebrations with a little dance before pulling out her megaphone with an wide grin.

"Alright, stand back! It's time for me to show off my chosen one powers!"

After making sure her teammates had backed away - and put on earmuffs for extra safety - Uzume took in a deep breath before letting loose a massive shout. The enhanced sound blast immediately dispersed the supernatural mist around them as the entire valley seemed to shake from the unleashed power. Uzume repeated this process two more times before every last trace of the mist covering the land had vanished completely.

"The way is clear!" the CPU declared triumphantly. "Now onward to our final battle!"

Taking off their protective headgear, Big Nep and Sync followed behind their leader as the three of them eagerly ran up the large hill marked by the stone path.

As the trio reached the summit, however, their eagerness changed into confusion as they came upon an absolutely bizarre sight.

"Is that... the doomsday dragon fighting against a giant train engine?"

No one bothered to confirm Big Nep's statement as they were too busy watching the chaos taking place above them.

On one end, an enormous black dragon with pointed black scales and glowing red eyes was soaring through the air while unleashing a torrent of devastating elemental shouts at its opponent. Facing off against the dragon and easily brushing off its attacks was a flying train engine far larger than any the group had encountered in the wild. With a light-blue paint job and an evil grin on its creepy plastic face, the train was a fearsome menace in its own right as it let loose a piercing whistle against the dragon in retaliation. The once-peaceful sky was immediately changed into a fiery maelstrom as a torrential rain of flaming coal-filled train cars descended upon the dragon as well as the surrounding land below it.

"Hey, wait," Uzume said in recognition. "I know that train! That's the one that showed up while I was about to be executed!"

Before she could say anything else, one of the flaming train cars suddenly came down directly towards her. Luckily, Big Nep was fast enough to drag her back to safety before she ended up being turned into orange paste.

"Thanks," Uzume breathed out as she stared wide-eyed at the large crater the coal car had left behind.

Big Nep just answered with a smile while Sync had his eyes focused on something else in the skies.

"Is it just me or are there a bunch of lights fighting those two?"

His question was soon answered when one of the fast-moving specks of light seemed to notice the newcomers and flew down to meet them.

To their surprise, the shining figure turned out to be none other than Purple Heart as she landed down in front of them. In contrast to her Hyperdimension counterpart, this version of the Planeptune goddess was clearly based around the version from the 4GO series as evident by her white outfit, angelic wings, and halo. Despite her current tired appearance, she still radiated an aura of elegance and grace that was rarely found in their dimension's Neptune (which, to be fair, was mostly due to her being too lazy to spend the energy to activate her HDD most of the time).

"Greetings Trainborn," Purple Heart said to a very confused-looking Uzume. "Your timing is impeccable. We have need of your great powers to vanquish the World Eater and this dark interloper."

"Wait, hold on a second," Uzume cut in. "Trainborn? What are you talking about? I'm just here to beat up that giant dragon."

It was Purple Heart's turn to look confused as she looked at the redhead. "Are you not the prophesied hero of legend? Was it not you who dispelled the World Eater's foul mist from this realm?"

"Yeah, I took care of the mist but what's all this other stuff about?" Uzume said. "I mean, I guess there was that weird scroll that apparently said I was a chosen hero or whatever but how do you know about it? And why are you calling the doomsday dragon the World Eater?"

"Actually I think she's referring to the train with that title," Sync said. "It definitely makes more sense for her to call the dragon the interloper since it came from our dimension."

Purple Heart was about to respond to this when Green Heart flew down from the battle above to join them.

"Is there a problem here?" she asked curtly. "Why hasn't the Trainborn brought down the World Eater yet?"

"Oh, hey sis," Sync said, giving a slightly muted yet obviously teasing grin.

"We are not related," Green Heart immediately replied, her response coming out almost automatically despite the fact that she seemed more confused than anything.

Sync did not get a chance to laugh at his little inner-joke as a loud thundering shout echoed from the sky. Looking up, the group saw that the dragon had summoned a rain of flaming meteors to counter the train's coal cars.

"Okay, we obviously don't have a lot of time before the entire world ends so why don't the two of you give us a bit of handy exposition on what's been going on here before we appeared?" Big Nep said, still looking rather upbeat despite her words.

Green Heart looked rather affronted at being spoken to so casually but Purple Heart ignored this and answered the question.

"The dark interloper, this 'doomsday dragon' as you referred to it, appeared within our realm roughly two weeks ago. It attempted to feast on the souls of the dead so we, the four goddesses, came forth to stop it. To our surprise, the beast was immune to all our attacks and could not be slain. With no other recourse, we constructed a barrier around it to contain the foul beast." She paused to swing her sword up and obliterate an oncoming meteor before calmly continuing on. "We managed to safely hold the interloper in place until the World Eater suddenly descended upon our realm two days ago. It immediately covered this realm with its cursed mist which weakened our powers and allowed the doomsday dragon to break free. Since then, the two have been waging war against each other in a battle for supremacy."

"We've been trying to contain their destruction but I fear it is only a matter time before this entire realm is brought to ruin," Green Heart concluded. "Our only hope now is for the legendary Trainborn to put an end to this madness."

The trio remained silent for a bit as they tried to process all of this while avoiding the rain of coal cars and meteors.

"Hey Syncsy," Uzume eventually asked. "Did that scroll of yours say anything about me taking down these trains as well?"

Sync shook his head. "Not that I recall. Of course, I only got a very rough translation of it with the equipment Histoire had so it's possible I overlooked something."

Uzume gave a nod to this as she turned to the two goddesses with a smile.

"Well, I don't know about this whole Trainborn business but I'll help you guys out. It seems like that train uses a lot of the same techniques as the doomsday dragon so I'm sure my chosen hero status will work on it too."

"Um, Uzume?" Big Nep interrupted. "Did you forget that you can't transform in this world? How are you going to even reach the two of them?"

The red-haired CPU simply let out a laugh as she raised her megaphone and struck a pose.

"Heh, I don't need my HDD for this! I'll unleash my true potential as a chosen hero and show everyone a power that goes even further beyond!"

With that said, she began to charge up her energy with a loud yell. To everyone's surprise, the ground around her began to quake as a powerful surge of energy emanated from her. A glowing orange aura soon surrounded her entire form as her ponytails whipped about wildly in the raging energy storm. With a increased yell, the aura around her began to intensify as-

"I hate to ruin the moment but can we please skip the fifteen minute power-up sequence?" Sync yelled, barely dodging a barrage of coal cars and meteors with a short-range warp. "I don't think Celestia's going to be around by the time you finish growing out your hair and removing your eyebrows."

Uzume reluctantly complied with his wishes as she cut her transformation short with a grumble. With just her blazing orange aura surrounding her, she readied herself in a crouching position. Then, for the first time in her journey, Uzume blasted off into the sky of her own volition as she jumped with enough force to leave a sizable crater behind.

"Take this!" she yelled, soaring up directly towards the doomsday dragon as her audience watched with wide eyes. "Dream Smash-"

Uzume's moment of glory was abruptly ended when the dragon swerved in midair to avoid one of the train's attacks and unintentionally whacked her aside with its large tail.

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH-!"

Seeing the supposed chosen hero fall screaming back down towards the ground before crashing face-first into a nearby hill caused Purple Heart and Green Heart to forsake their dignified appearances as they both gave a giant facepalm.

"Well... we're doomed," Green Heart muttered from beneath her hand.

Big Nep just gave an embarrassed laugh at Uzume's sad display before quickly running over and pulling her friend out of the ground like an over-grown carrot. In the meantime, Sync pulled out his Cheese Stick and fired it off against the dragon and train. Unfortunately, their plot protection was far too powerful for even the mighty cheese magic to have any effect as neither of the giant monsters bothered to even acknowledge the failed attack as they continued to destroy the landscape with their titanic battle.

"That... that was just a practice run!" Uzume cried out, stumbling back over to the group with the help of Big Nep. "I demand a redo!"

The exasperated goddesses lowered their hands and were just about to express their disappointment when a piercing whistle suddenly echoed out from behind them.

To everyone's surprise, the devastating rain of coal cars and meteors disappeared as the sky magically cleared up. Before anyone could figure out what was going on, another loud whistle sounded out as a visible sound wave flew across the sky and hit both the rampaging dragon and train head on. A glowing blue veil of energy immediately appeared around the two monstrosities as the mysterious attack seemed to sap away at their strength. With a furious roar and whistle, the two monstrosities floundered about in the air until they were eventually forced down onto the ground.

"Whew. Looks like I made it just in time," an oddly familiar voice called out.

Turning around, the group found themselves staring up at a hooded figure standing heroically atop the hill behind them.

"Wait. Is that-?"

Uzume's question was answered when the newcomer looked down at them.

"Now that's a face I wasn't expecting to see."

As everyone stared with wide eyes, the mysterious adventurer pulled back her hood and revealed herself to be none other than... another Uzume. Though she had her hair tied back in a simple ponytail and had a much more calm demeanor about her, it was hard to mistake the completely identical face she had with the CPU. As a light breeze caused her cloak to flutter back, the group saw that this Uzume was wearing an ornate red samurai armor underneath that was very akin to what the Hunters wore in the Hyperdimension. Looking closer, they saw that she carried a beautifully-crafted katana in her left hand while her right hand held what could only be a large orange traffic whistle.

"So," the new Uzume said as she approached her stunned doppelganger. "Are you supposed to be the spirit of one of my dead ancestors who happens to look exactly like me?"

Uzume failed to answer as the doomsday dragon and train engine both located their attacker's location and let loose a ground-shaking roar and whistle. Apparently deciding to put their battle on hold for the time being, the two monsters charged forward to deal with the bigger threat.

Getting over her initial shock, Purple Heart quickly turned to address the new hero.

"Though your powers are apparent, I must confirm. Are you truly the Trainborn that was foretold by the prophecy?"

"I am," the whistle-carrying Uzume confidently answered, holding up her weapons as she focused on the approaching monstrosities. "There were a few... complications along the way but I've chased the World-Eater to this realm to finally vanquish it for good. However, I admit I'm rather confused about the involvement of this dragon."

"Heh heh. That one's actually mine," Uzume answered, rubbing the back of her head sheepishly. "It ran away to this dimension after I beat the crap out of it back home."

Trainborn Uzume did not get a chance to question this as the dragon and train neared them with another roar and whistle.

"I suppose it doesn't matter," she said instead. "I'll deal with both these threats so I suggest everyone else to fall back to a safe distance in the meantime."

Purple Heart and Green Heart quickly complied with her wishes as they flew up to where the other two goddesses were holding position. Uzume, however, held her ground with a huff.

"Hey, I spent the last two weeks in this crazy world to find this overgrown lizard!" she complained. "There's no way I'm just going to sit back and let someone else take it down, even if that person happens to be me!"

Luckily, Sync was at hand to prevent an argument from occurring.

"What she's trying to say is that you'll need her help to deal with this," he reiterated with a smile. "That dragon and train might share a lot of similarities but I'm fairly certain only the designated chosen heroes can deliver the final blow to it. That's usually how these prophecy things tend to work."

Trainborn Uzume took a second to consider this before acknowledging this with a small smile.

"I still don't fully understand what is going on but I welcome your help," she told her other self. "Let us vanquish our foes together then, friend."

Seeing that she was not going to be disregarded, Uzume returned the smile as she thankfully lost her confrontational attitude.

"Heh. I guess you aren't so bad. Then again, I guess you are me so that's kind of to be expected.

With a shared nod, the two Uzumes readied their weapons and charged forward to meet their enemies head on. Behind them, Sync and Big Nep pulled out a bucket of popcorn as they settled in for the climactic final battle in all its surround-sound glory.

"Dream Roar!"

The first move went to Uzume as she delivered a flying kick against the doomsday dragon's face. The powerful blow managed to send the enormous dragon skidding back several feet as it let loose a surprised and angry roar. Before it could recover, Uzume used her momentum to jump higher into the air and aimed her megaphone at her opponent. Taking in a deep breath, the CPU unleashed a massive shout through her weapon which created a sound blast strong enough to leave a large crater as it hit its target.

Pressing her advantage, Uzume put away her megaphone and rushed forward as soon as she hit the ground.

"Dream Combo!"

The dragon had no chance to retaliate as a massive flurry of punches battered its form.

"Ora ora ora ora ora ora ora ora ora ora ora!"

The relentless barrage continued for several seconds before Uzume paused to pull back her right fist and gathered a large amount of share energy into it. With a wide smirk, she let loose her finishing blow.

"ORA!"

A literal explosion went off as the reinforced fist connected with the dragon. For once, Uzume had the chance to enjoy watching something else go flying into the air with a scream as the dragon was catapulted into the sky before crashing into a nearby mountainside with a resounding crash.

"Hell yeah! That's what you get for making me waste all that time looking for you!"

Meanwhile, her alternate dimension counterpart was still in the middle of her own battle against the blue train engine.

With a series of powerful slashes from her katana, Trainborn Uzume managed to temporarily stun her opponent as she fell back to charge up her sword with a glowing orange energy. However, the train recovered faster than expected as it let loose a torrent of hellish flames against her.

"Watch out!" Uzume yelled out.

Her warning turned out to be unneeded though as Trainborn Uzume quickly raised her traffic whistle and let loose a short tweet. Immediately, her entire body turned ethereal as the flames passed harmlessly through her incorporeal form.

Without any hesitation, Trainborn Uzume began running through the jet of fire while continuing to charge up her katana. The train, unaware of any of this, stopped its fiery blast with a smug look on its plastic face. It's expression soon turned to surprise, however, when it found the ethereal form of its enemy standing directly in front of it. As her body automatically turned solid again, Trainborn Uzume swung her charged weapon forward with a ferocious yell.

"Dream Sever!"

A crescent beam of orange energy blasted out of the sword as it connected with its target. Though the attack failed to cut through the train's reinforced metal exterior, it did manage to send the monster flying with its sheer force. With a shrill whistle, the train flipped through the air multiple times before it finally crash-landed onto the ground in a heap.

"Nice one!" Uzume cheered as she sent her alternate self a thumbs-up.

"Good job with the dragon as well," Trainborn Uzume returned with a smile. Her expression quickly turned serious again as she looked back to her opponents. "We shouldn't celebrate yet though. I'm fairly certain this battle is far from over."

Right on cue, both the dragon and train recovered from the beating they sustained as they both took to skies with a furious roar and whistle respectively.

"Damn. Fighting them in the air is going to be super annoying," Uzume said, remembering her failed aerial assault. She quickly remembered her partner's special attack though as she looked back over to her. "Hey, can you use that magic whistle of yours to force them to land again or was that just a one time thing?"

Her alternate self looked at the two raging beasts with a calculating gaze before answering.

"I can use it again but it'd be difficult to hit them both without the element of surprise. The whistle's blast radius is fairly large but it's also very slow-moving. Unless we can somehow stun them and get them to stay still, I doubt I'd be able to land the shot."

Uzume mulled this over for a few seconds before she suddenly gave a wide grin.

"Heh. Looks like you're in luck," she said confidently. "I have just the skill we need for this situation."

After jumping back to avoid a large fireball sent by the dragon, Uzume began charging up her energy once more. Her alternate self provided cover for them in the meantime by letting loose a pair of freezing whistle blasts against the two flying monsters. Though the dragon and train engine both managed to dodge the attack, it bought the CPU just enough time to dramatically point forward and call forth her special plot-enhanced SP skill.

"Endless Umio Heaven!"

What appeared to be hundreds of flying torpedoes shaped like the dandy fish appeared in the air above her as they immediately homed in towards her enemies. The massive salvo of fish-shaped projectiles split into two distinct groups as each stream rocketed forward on a collision course with their respective targets.

"Let's see you dodge this!" Uzume yelled out triumphantly.

Almost as if to spite her, the two flying monsters did just that. In complete defiance of the laws of physics, both the dragon and train engine shifted sideways in the air as they magically ninja dodged the projectiles.

"Wha-?" Uzume let out with a dumbstruck face.

"Yeah... enemies tend to do that in this world when you use a non-sound-based projectile on them," her other self supplied.

Before Uzume could go on another rant about how stupid this dimension was, all of the torpedoes suddenly disappeared into a shimmering green ripple in the air. Two other spatial distortions opened up behind the dragon and train at the same time as all of the redirected Umio torpedoes flew out of them. Caught completely unaware, the two monsters had no time to react as they found themselves bombarded by the fishy explosives.

"Hope you don't mind me taking the spotlight for a second!" Sync called out jokingly from behind them, the green glow on his hands making it quite clear what had just happened.

Trainborn Uzume wasted no time in taking advantage of this opportunity as she raised her whistle and let loose a piercing blast of blue energy. The enormous sound wave soared through the air before managing to make a direct hit with the stunned beasts. With a shocked roar and whistle, the train and dragon fell back towards the ground like a sack of bricks. With an enormous crash, the two monsters impacted against a ground just a few meters apart from each other as they left a gigantic crater in their wake.

"Now's our chance!" Uzume shouted. "Let's hit them with everything we've got!"

With that, she covered her fists with a flaming aura of orange energy. Likewise, her alternate self powered up her katana as it blazed to life in a similar manner. With a fierce battle cry, the two heroes rushed in together against their foes.

"Formation Skill: Ultimate Dream Combo!"

Both Uzumes seemed to disappear from view as they accelerated to unbelievable speeds. All that could be seen for several seconds was a massive chain of orange explosions detonating against the monsters as the heroes unleashed a devastating barrage of punches and sword slashes against them.

"It's not over yet!"

With a shared shout, the red-haired duo appeared on opposite ends of the dragon and train engine so that the two monsters were trapped between them. Uzume pulled back her right fist as the energy surrounding it took on a spiral shape, giving it the appearance of a giant drill. On the other end, Trainborn Uzume held up her sword as the light around it intensified to near-blinding levels. Before either monster could recover, Uzume swung her fist forward launching the large energy drill from her hand while her counterpart brought down her charged sword and unleashed a massive wave of destructive energy.

The ensuing explosion from the two attacks colliding was strong enough to send both Sync and Big Nep flying even with their allied protection status. Of course, neither of them sustained any actual damage from the blast as they managed to safely land on their feet and looked out over the devastated battlefield. As some of the dust settled, they found to their surprise that the train engine and dragon were still alive. Judging from their heavily damaged forms though, it was clear they were on their last slivers of health.

"Time to end this!"

The remaining debris finally dissipated to reveal both Uzumes standing tall with their megaphone and whistle in hand. Behind them, an innumerable number of sound-amplification glyphs hung in the air as they all pointed towards the dragon and train engine.

With identical smirks, the two Uzumes raised their weapons and unleashed the full force of their shout and whistle.

Complete and utter annihilation was the only way to describe the resulting attack. A sound blast equivalent to a nuclear detonation swept out and obliterated everything in front of the two heroes. Even the distant mountain range that happened to be in the way of the blast turned to dust as the attack vaporized it in an instant. Reality itself seemed to threaten to break apart as the entire realm shuddered violently at the catastrophic noise.

After what seemed like an eternity (though it was actually just a few seconds), the devastating attack came to an end as silence fell across the land.

"Do you think we got them?" Uzume asked as she lowered her megaphone.

Her alternate self put down her own weapon as she looked over the result of their attack. Though the dust had yet to fully settle, she could still see that a giant half-mile wide furrow was carved out of the earth where their attack had traveled. Based on the empty space where the mountain they had ended up obliterating was, it was safe to guess that the new ditch ran all the way to the very edge of the realm itself.

"Yeah," Trainborn Uzume answered. "I think we-"

Her declaration was cut short when a loud roar and whistle sounded out in front of them. As the two Uzumes looked on in shock, the debris cloud in front of them was swept away to reveal the still-intact forms of the dragon and train engine.

"What?!" Uzume cried out. "How are they still fine after being hit with such an obvious finishing move?!"

As it turned out, the two monsters were not as fine as they first looked. The attack definitely seemed to have an effect as both the dragon and train began to convulse violently. As the two heroes watched with wide eyes, the dragon let loose an ear-splitting roar as parts of its scaly black hide exploded outwards while the rest began to melt into a tar-like substance. Next to it, the train's metal exterior began cracking while what appeared to be rust rapidly spread over its blue paint job.

"Aw crap," Uzume muttered. "I forgot final bosses always have a second, tougher form."

The dragon chose this moment to let out another roar as it spread out its dissolving wings and fully displayed its nightmarish tar-like body. Turning its horrifying melting face towards Uzume, it opened its maw and...

promptly exploded into a large pile of dragon bones.

As Uzume blinked disbelievingly at the dragon's dead skeletal remains, the train engine let loose a final whistle as well before it promptly exploded into pieces leaving only an empty coal car as its carcass.

A long silence stretched out between the two heroes as they simply continued to stare at the remains of their respective 'final bosses'.

"Wait... that's it?" Uzume eventually asked aloud. "That's all there was to the fight? No multiple forms? No special attacks, gimmicks, or battle conditions?"

"Boss fights aren't exactly one of this world's strong points," her other self said. "Even so, I expected something at least a tiny bit more unique for the final main quest boss."

"I know right?" Uzume agreed. "This is just pathetic! I felt more victorious when I finally managed to kill a demon bunny!"

Her alternate self raised an eyebrow at this but did not get a chance to say anything as the four goddesses chose this moment to come down and address her.

"And thus the evil of the World-Eater is no more," Purple Heart declared. "Honored Trainborn. Your brave and noble actions have brought back hope and peace to this world. Songs will be sung of your victory this day. May history forever remember your great deeds."

"However, I sense that fate has yet a role for you to play," Black Heart continued. "Though this journey has come to a close, countless others yet remain for you to traverse."

"Return to your realm now, mortal," White Heart said. "Continue your path with our blessings."

"And when you have completed your count of days, know that the gates of Celestia will be open to you," Green Heart finished.

With their speech done, the four held out their hands and created a rainbow-colored portal in front of them.

"Hey, hold up," Uzume interrupted. "That's all you're doing for the final ending? My alternate self just saved the whole world for you guys and all she gets is a glorified 'good job'? Don't you think you should give her a proper end-credits celebration party at the least?"

The CPU shrank back in fear when the four goddesses turned to glare dangerously at her. Meanwhile, Trainborn Uzume simply laughed the whole thing off.

"It's fine," she told her other self. "Knowing that I saved the world is enough of a reward for me."

Saying that, she approached Uzume and held out her katana hilt-first.

"What-?"

"Take it," Trainborn Uzume said. "Take it as a token of appreciation for your help in defeating those monsters. You don't seem to use one-handed swords but I think it'll at least make for a decent trophy to have on display. You can have it to remind you of our victory today."

Uzume hesitated as she glanced down at the ornate and masterfully-crafted blade.

"I... I can't just take this. I mean, isn't this your strongest weapon? Don't you need it for the rest of your journey?"

Her other self gave a smirk as she put away her whistle and pulled out an identical-looking katana to the one in her other hand.

"Item duplication is a pretty handy glitch," she quietly told her surprised counterpart with a wink.

Uzume gave a grin to this as she accepted the gift and put it away into her inventory for safekeeping.

"Are you done yet?" White Heart asked irritably, dropping her noble pretense and reverting to her expected brash attitude. "We can't keep this thing open forever, you know."

Trainborn Uzume gave her other self a final smile before turning around towards the glowing portal. Just as she was about to step through it, Uzume spoke up once again.

"Oh, one more thing! I might've sort of taken on a bunch of side-quests and their related NPCs with me during my own journey. I'm probably going to head back to my home dimension after this so... um... if it's not too much of a bother, can you maybe help finish all of them in my place?"

Her other self gave an amused backwards glance as she answered.

"You mean those NPCs that were busy fighting each other in the ancient temple outside?" Seeing Uzume give a sheepish nod, she let out a small chuckle. "Sure, I'll make sure to help them out. They'll probably reset back to their starting locations once you leave so I'll pick them up then. Though considering the number of NPCs I spotted, it might take a while for me to get through them all."

With that said, Trainborn Uzume turned back towards the portal again.

"See ya later, me," she called out behind her. "It was fun beating up that giant dragon and train with you. Look me up if you ever happen to drop by this world again."

Giving a final stylish wave, the legendary hero strode forward and disappeared with a flash of light.

"So cool," Uzume uttered as the portal disappeared.

"You said it. She definitely gets a full ten out of ten points on the coolness scale."

Uzume let out a surprised yelp as she found a smiling Sync and Big Nep suddenly standing behind her.

"Wha-? When did you two get back here?!"

"Just now," Big Nep answered, putting away the empty popcorn bucket she was carrying into her inventory. "We figured you wouldn't want us to ruin your farewell scene with yourself."

Sync was just about to add in his own comment when the four goddesses floated over with dour looks.

"Now then, what shall we do with these troublemaking interlopers?" Black Heart said with her arms crossed.

"How about we beat the shit out of them for making us spend two entire weeks keeping their damn dragon in check?" White Heart said, pulling out her ax to emphasize her words.

Green Heart gave a sigh at her friend(?)'s suggestion. "Please mind your language. Need I remind you again that your vulgar display reflects poorly on all of us?"

As the two began to squabble, Purple Heart stepped up to address the three travelers with a sigh of her own.

"I believe it would be in all our interests for the three of you to simply return back to your world. If you require aid in doing so, I can at least create a portal back to your home dimension."

"Nah, I've got this," Sync replied.

After a fair bit of concentration, he managed to pull open a small green portal in front of him.

"Are you okay?" Big Nep asked in concern, noting her student's heavy breathing.

"I'm good," he reassured with a smile. "It's just a bit taxing trying to do this with barely any share energy around."

Uzume, meanwhile, walked up to face the four goddesses again.

"You know, I did just fulfill an ancient prophecy and saved both our worlds," she pointed out with an expectant smile. "I'm not saying you have to but... I wouldn't mind getting some kind of awesome, legendary item as a reward. You know like some kinda fancy godly sword to go with my other self's katana maybe?"

The four goddesses minus White Heart just gave her a deadpan look. The berserker goddess, on the other hand, chose to respond to this by raising up her ax with a dangerous glare.

"I was just joking!" Uzume quickly backtracked. "Saving the day is a good enough reward for me!"

Deciding she had overstayed her welcome, the red-haired CPU quickly ran over to the portal that her friends were standing next to.

"You ready to go then?" Big Nep asked with a smile.

Uzume responded with a furious nod. "Definitely. Let's get out of this crazy place already."

Sync, however, seemed to have some unfinished business as he walked over to the nearby remains of the dragon and train.

"Hmm... I wonder what kind of cheese a dead dragon and train would turn into?"

Before either of his teammates could stop him, he pulled out his Cheese Stick and blasted both the large skeleton and coal car.

It was as if someone had detonated several tons of TNT in a massive cheese factory as cheese of all variety exploded outward. The gigantic mass of the dragon's skeleton along with the train car apparently equated to several billion cheese wheels as a literal tidal wave of the fermented dairy swept out across the holy land.

"I immediately regret my decision!"

"Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

"Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"

With that final scream, Uzume's bizarre adventure finally came to a close as she and her friends were swept off into Sync's portal by the cheesy tide. As for the four goddesses – who had barely managed to escape to the sky in time – all they could do was watch with open mouths as their entire realm was submerged underneath the massive flood of cheese.

As the small green portal below them disappeared with an almost taunting flash, White Heart dropped all semblance of her divine image as she let loose her inner rage.

"YOU DAMN BRAT! COME BACK HERE SO I CAN FUCKING KILL YOU!"

Several days later, on an isolated island castle to the north...

"My lady, there are rumors going about that Segami has finally awakened and is roaming the land."

The darkened figure sitting atop the throne tilted her head with interest as her glowing red eyes seemed to brighten.

"Hm, is that so? Then you know what must be done Dreamcast. Find her and bring her back to me at once."

"As you will it, Lady Saturn."

As her servant left the room, the twin-tailed overlord gave a fanged grin.

"Yes, soon the prophecy shall be fulfilled. Soon the tyranny of the sun shall come to an end!"

Assured of her victory, Sega Saturn devolved into full-blown maniacal laughter.

Unbeknownst to her, however, a certain red-haired adventurer just happened to start up a quest involving a group of vampire hunters...