Hyperdimension Neptunia is owned by Compile Heart, Idea Factory, Sega and whomever else worked on it.

So I realized something as I wrote the last chapter.

IF's burns and the discoloration of her skin matches those who died in the fire.

IF's skin is darker than normal thanks to the burns, but she has orange, yellow and blue skin discoloration that runs down her body.

That matches her three friends. Orange is Marvy, Blue is Falcom (her jacket is blue) and her darker skin and the yellow streaks match CyberConnect2.

Even in death, those three are with her. She just doesn't know it.

Chapter 28

"What?" Neptune asked, her face pale as she trembled. "What do you mean?"

Chrome sighed softly. "I've been thinking about it for awhile. Tell me something, how are you feeling?"

"Well..." Neptune began, "I don't have broken bones and..."

"Neptune," Chrome interrupted, "you know what I mean." Neptune sighed while Peashy looked on in worry. "Come on, tell me." She knew that if she was right that things would be very tricky moving forward and she really, REALLY hoped that she wasn't right.

"I..." Neptune trembled softly, "I can't..."

"Let's go back," Chrome suggested and helped Neptune up and followed her back to the ship's living room.

(-)

One quick explanation later...

"Is Nep Nep going to become a Void then?" Compa asked, looking at Neptune in worry as Rom and Ram sat next to the purple goddess while Peashy sat in her lap, the three of them looking at the person they viewed as their big sister with worry.

"I don't know." Chrome answered her. She looked at everyone and gave Gust and Warechu a sharp look. "I don't think I need to tell you all this, but keep this from IF and Linda."

"Huh?" Compa and Neptune asked in confusion.

"You saw how they reacted when they found out that I was a CPU." Chrome pointed out, "now imagine how they'd react if they found out that Neptune might possibly be infected by the Fearicite." Compa and Gust both cringed while Warechu nodded. "There's two other reasons I'm worried about you." She looked at Neptune, who gave her a slightly despondent look. "The CPUs of this world look like friends of yours, right?"

Neptune nodded at her. "There's some differences. My Blanc has brown hair and Verty-poo didn't wander around naked. Plutie would do things that would make you cringe or hate her, but she never killed anyone."

"...Big sis Neptune..?" Ram began, "why do you say "Verty-poo" when it comes to her?"

Neptune blushed softly. "Ah, well... She did some lewd things to me not long before I came here." She sweat-dropped at the looks she was getting. "Unlike the bad Vert, she's really nice and is more like a lazy big sister to me, Blanc, Noire and our sisters."

"...Who's Noire?" Chrome asked, curious about that last name.

"She's the CPU of Lastation." Neptune told her and sighed. "She's kind of lazy, but really earnest, she's really shy and nervous around lots of people despite loving to dress up in costumes and she's recently started doing some minor voice acting for anime and video games when she's not too busy."

"Does she have a sister?" Rom asked, getting a nod from Neptune.

"Uh huh, her little sister is Uni." Neptune smiled softly. "Good kid, she tries to prove she's better than Noire is. The two used to be really awkward around each other, but now they're really close."

"Yeah." Chrome nodded and sighed softly. "Look, I'll say this," she rubbed the bridge of her nose, "as a Goddess, Neptune's more attuned to how people are feeling than a human normally is."

"Because you are?" Gust asked, getting a nod from Chrome. "Gust understands, but what does that have to do with anything?"

Chrome sighed softly. "Between the stress of having to fight people who look like her friends," Chrome knew that couldn't be easy, after all, Neptune had to be close to all of her friends if she talked about them so fondly, "and potentially being corrupted by the Fearicite..." Chrome trailed off and shook her head, "anyway, even if people are putting their faith in Neptune, you have to think about what they were going through before Neptune came along."

"...Blanc was a horrible monster," Ram began softly, "the people hated her, she was so mean to them."

Chrome nodded at her. "Right. Even though you two and Neptune worked hard to get positive feelings from everyone in Lowee, the people there still likely don't like anything remotely related to a CPU right now and Neptune's been absorbing those negative emotions. And in Leanbox, well..." She sighed, knowing that there was no way to talk about this without being blunt, "the fact that the people of Leanbox suffered through a Void that basically had them all as sex slaves, it's likely more than a few of them are feeling lust towards Neptune."

"Um..." Rom began, her face turning slightly red, "is that why I feel funny when I looked at all those bare butts?"

Chrome sighed softly and nodded at the short-haired girl. 'She had to be born into puberty, huh?' That was fun. "Yes, it's probably why you wanted to see some of them naked." Rom and Ram both blushed more and she narrowed her eyes at them. "You two didn't do anything in Leanbox that I should know about did you?"

"Um..." Ram looked away. "We saw some people doing some stuff in a back alley naked, there was lots of noise, and a weird smell and..."

"We just watched," Rom continued, her face turning more red, "but it was really..."

Chrome sighed softly and rubbed her forehead. "I get it."

Neptune blushed and looked at them. "...Do I need to talk to you two about that stuff?" It was so bad when she had to talk to her daughters when they had hit puberty and had taken an interest in that stuff.

"I can do that for you, Nep Nep." Compa smiled as she raised her hook into the air.

When Neptune sighed in relief and smiled at her, Chrome continued, "anyway, because there's no Sharicite to filter the emotions for her, Neptune's getting all of the emotions straight into her."

"So what should we do, Chromey?" Filyn asked as she looked at Neptune in worry.

"We have a few days," Chrome said and smiled at Filyn, "we have enough supplies, I'll see if Linda will land us on the water and we can just take a day to go swimming and relax." Everyone looked at her in surprise. "Right now, that's all I can recommend." Chrome gave Neptune a sharp look. "You need to de-stress and unwind. And you four," she pointed to Rom, Ram, Filyn and Peashy, "you're to help Neptune by making sure she's surrounded by love and positive emotions for the rest of the week, okay?" They nodded and Chrome smiled softly. "Good."

Neptune wasn't sure if this would work, but she hoped so. 'At least I hope it slows the bad stuff down.'

(-)

Meanwhile, in Hyperdimension...

"What the goodness, Uni?!" Nepgear yelled at her friend, who was looking back at her with defiance in her eyes. "Come on, why'd you act like that to Neptune?"

"She goes and disappears on you, again. How many times has it been now?" Uni asked, frustration in her voice. "It almost feels like she spends more time in other dimensions instead of this one."

"You know that's not true." Nepgear tried to protest, though she remembered why she had made Neptune that cell phone to begin with. "She doesn't..."

"Yes she does!" Uni interrupted her. "You do more work than she does for Planeptune. Maybe you should just have Histoire make you the CPU already?"

Nepgear stiffened, her pupils shrinking. "Uni, that..."

"I'm sick of seeing your sister run off and leave you behind, and you're always so upset when she does!" Uni yelled, her eyes screwed shut as tears formed in them. "If you were the CPU, then it wouldn't matter if she was gone all the time!"

"Uni..." Nepgear sighed softly. "Neptune didn't even do it on purpose."

"So what?!" Uni yelled back. "She's always so mean to you! She treats you like a servant, ignores you all the time, gets zapped into other dimensions and..."

"STOP!" Nepgear yelled, causing Uni's eyes to snap open. "First of all, Neptune hasn't been mean to me in over a decade. Okay?"

"What about what Plutia did to you?" Uni pointed out and she blinked as Nepgear practically screamed in frustration.

"Neptune has apologized I don't know HOW many times for that!" Nepgear snapped at Uni. "Not only that, but Neptune cried in her sleep about how sorry she was over that, did you know that?" She got up next to Uni and poked her in the chest. "Did you know that our sisters, Vert and Blanc all hate themselves over what Kurome almost made them do?"

"Huh?" Uni had a confused look on her face. "What do you mean? We forgave them for that."

"But they haven't forgiven themselves." Nepgear sighed softly. "The last time they were over here playing games, I caught them all with this look on their faces. The four of them looked really bothered by something."

"And what makes you think it's because of Kurome?" Uni asked her.

Nepgear sighed softly, "because Neptune talks in her sleep."

"...But why would..."

"They almost killed us." Nepgear shot back at her. "You think that they'd forgive themselves for trying to kill their own little sisters?!"

Uni couldn't answer that and she sighed. "...I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize to me." Nepgear told her, "apologize to Neptune when she comes home, okay?" She turned and walked away, "now there's things that need to be done, so let's go."

Uni sighed, knowing Nepgear was really upset. 'I'm really sorry, Nepgear, I had no idea that was going on with Neptune or the others.' She really had no clue that Noire was still bothered by what happened with the whole brainwashing thing Kurome did to her. 'Maybe I'm the lousy sister if I didn't know something like that but Nepgear did.'

It reminded her of the time she had accidentally been turned into a dogoo and Noire had been the only one who knew she was Uni and not a dogoo and how it had shown how Noire really did care for her despite Uni feeling like her elder sister was being cold and heartless towards her. "OH GEE! I really am a bitch!" She yelled as her eyes screwed shut in frustration.

Maybe that was why she had felt so close to Noire from the Ultradimension? After all, Nepgear had told her that Noire was really mean at times with her sharp tongue and attitude. Sure, it had been a lot easier to understand that Noire compared to her own sister, but Uni sometimes wondered if maybe she hurt her sister's feelings over the whole incident.

Uni could only move over to the couch and sit on it, sighing. "Noire, Neptune, Nepgear... I'm really sorry." She said softly to the empty room.

(-)

As she got to the office, Nepgear pulled out her cellphone and dialed a number on it. "Come on, come on..." She muttered to herself. "Pick up..."

"Heya, Gearsy!" Uzume's voice spoke up, causing Nepgear to sigh in relief. "What's up?"

"A lot of things. Is Neptune with you?"

"Nepsy? Yeah, she and Crosy are here." Uzume's voice was a bit confused. "Unless you're talking about small Nepsy, then no."

"No, I'm talking about the big one." Nepgear answered her. "Can you put her on the phone?"

"Sure!" There was some rustling for a moment as the phone was obviously switching hands.

"Yoo hoo! Nepgear! How's my little sister?" Neptune's voice came over the phone, joy in her voice. "Is Tiny Me treating you right? Do you want to come with me for a vacation or something?"

Nepgear mentally sighed and wished that people would stop saying she was perfect or try to steal her away from Neptune so much. She knew her sister was a good sport about it, but it had to bother her at some level. "No, Neptune's treating me well, but, um... Could you come back here?"

"Huh?" Neptune's voice was confused. "Is something wrong with Tiny Me?"

"She's missing and she's in another dimension."

"...I'll be there soon." Neptune answered as she hung up the phone.

Nepgear sighed as she hung up the phone. "...I hope that Neptune's okay."

To be continued...

If only you knew, Nepgear. If only you knew.

Okay, next chapter we're in Lastation! I promise!

So, I need to make an announcement. I'm going to be starting a new job tomorrow. So I don't know how that will affect my writing speed since I don't know the hours or days I'll be working. Thankfully after I get settled into it I'll be back to writing as best I can.