Hyperdimension Neptunia is owned by Compile Heart, Idea Factory, Sega and whomever else worked on it.
Chapter 57
"Uni..." Black Void looked at her sister, a hurt expression on her face. "I..."
"Enemies of the state will die." Uni declared and Black Void felt her eyebrow twitch in anger. "And you two are enemies of Lastation."
"It's no use, Noire." Purple Heart told her and held her sword in front of her defensively. "Speaking from personal experience, anyone who's been brainwashed won't act like themselves or be friendly to the people they care about." Memories of when she had to fight against Yellow Heart and when she nearly choked Nepgear to death flashed through her mind but she violently pushed them down. 'Stupid Neptune, both of those times were your fault. If you had just been a better CPU than P-Ko wouldn't have become Yellow Heart and you wouldn't have tried to kill Nepgear.'
"...Can we fight her without killing her?" Black Void asked and Purple Heart nodded at her.
"Yes."
"I'm tired of hearing you talk. Die." Uni said as she pulled the triggers on her Uzis, forcing the CPUs to dodge to the side to avoid the hail of bullets from her guns. Looking from side to side, Uni jumped back and dismissed her guns to call out her energy rifle. Taking aim at Black Void, she was about to pull the trigger when an energy sword shot through her sword. Turning, she looked at Purple Heart and then back at Black Void. "I see, trying to take one of you down at a time will only leave me open, huh?" Uni asked rhetorically as she snapped her fingers and several floating drones with small Gatling guns formed around her while she recalled her Uzis.
"This stinks." Purple Heart muttered. "I never did well in bullet hell games."
Uni snapped her head up at Purple Heart and jerked it slightly as the drones started to spin their barrels and fired at the CPU while Uni turned and fired at Black Void with her Uzis.
Landing not far from Uni and sliding back, Black Void held up her hand and a barrier formed in front of her, causing the bullets to bounce off of them. 'Either she doesn't have shield-piercing shots or those guns aren't loaded with anything special.' Black Void thought to herself.
When Uni made the Uzis disappear and replaced them with a handgun, she wondered what her little sister was up to. Her thoughts cleared up instantly as explosions rocked her shield, forcing her to slide back from the shots. "Alright, let's end this." Uni said to Black Void, who could only look out through the smoke at her sister in dismay.
(-)
Not far away, Purple Heart was jumping side to side and flying up to avoid the shots from the drones. 'Let's see, fighting them one on one will be too slow...' And spamming her swords might work, but she needed to stand still to direct them and she had no idea what kind of properties they had. "Hmm, I wonder just how durable your armor is." She muttered as she dodged and bobbed between shots before crying out as one got behind her and shot her in the back, causing her wings to short out and send her to the ground below. "Oww..." She muttered as she crashed, face-first, onto the ground. "And no tsundere landing pad this time." Purple Heart muttered as she back-flipped away from her landing spot to avoid the bullets. "I have an idea." She grinned as she landed on her feet and slid backwards.
With a push off from a sigil under her feet, she rushed forward and, with a strong leap, grabbed the first drone she came across and with an impressive display of agility and acrobatics, slid under the drone, up behind it and landed on the top of it, causing it wobble and slowly sink as the others trained their guns on it. "I'm going to use the P-Ko method of making stuff work now." Purple Heart said and punched the backside of the drone, embedding her fist into it and smirking as she found what she was looking for. "Thought so..." Flipping off of the drone, she pulled it with her and adjusted it while she landed on the ground before pointing it at the other drones and pulling the interior trigger and firing a hail of bullets at the drones, tearing through several of them before she had to bolt away to avoid return fire.
Still, with a combination of her experience, speed, agility and the fact that she only ran out of bullets when the last of the drones fell, Purple Heart managed to get out with only a few cuts and scrapes from some bullets clipping her arms, legs and sides. "I hate bullet enemies." She muttered and smashed the drone she was using with her bare hands, causing it to fall to the ground in a crumpled heap. "Now then..." She turned to see how Black Void was doing and frowned in confusion as she saw Black Void pinned down as Uni fired at her. When the bullets exploded against Black Void's shield, she understood a little bit, but there was something that was bothering her.
When Noire didn't move, even as the explosions rocked her barrier, Purple Heart instantly understood. "I see..."
(-)
"Dammit!" Black Void cursed softly as another explosion rocked her shield, which was starting to crack. "UNI! Please!"
"Please die?" Uni asked, her voice cold, heartless and completely unlike what she was used to hearing coming out of her little sister's mouth. "Yes, I think you should. After all, isn't this more fun? After all those times you stabbed me in the stomach over and over again, you deserve this."
Black Void had a confused, angry expression on her face. "What are you talking about?" She gasped as her shield shattered, revealing Uni, who was pointing her gun at Noire.
"All those times you stabbed me, over and over, while laughing at me." Uni pulled the trigger, only to have a click happen. "Out of bullets, huh?" She dismissed the gun and recalled her Uzis. "That's fine, I have more here and, GAH!" She screamed as she was grabbed from behind and thrown several feet away, landing on her back. "What the heck?"
Standing where she had thrown Uni, Purple Heart wasn't even looking at her, instead, she was looking at Black Void. "Noire..."
"What?" Black Void asked as Purple Heart walked towards her and did something that had both of the Lastation siblings staring in shock.
She slapped Black Void so hard that the other CPU was sitting on her ass, rubbing her sore cheek. "What the hell?!" Black Void yelled at Purple Heart. "That fucking hurt!"
"Don't you "what the hell" to me!" Purple Heart yelled while pointing at Black Void. "Didn't you tell me that even good CPUs need to act like Voids sometimes?"
Black Void growled and got to her feet, glaring at Purple Heart. "You want me to kill my little sister?!"
Another slap, though this one was much softer, hit Black Void's other cheek. "Not at all." Purple Heart said softly. "While you're hestitating and holding back, your sister, your real sister, the one that loves you, is inside Uni, crying and begging for her big sister to come save her." Black Void jerked, her eyes wide as she turned to look at Uni, who was getting to her feet. "Take it from me, Noire, when I was in her position, I was begging for my little sister to save me."
"But I..." Black Void blinked as she felt a hand squeeze her shoulder. "What?"
Purple Heart smiled at her. "We all need a helping hand sometimes, Noire. I promise you... We'll save your sister. We'll save Uni."
"...Thank you." For the first time in a long time, Black Void did something she never thought she could do, she gave someone a smile of gratitude. "But I don't know how to..."
"Do you have stun settings in your guns?" Purple Heart asked, causing Black Void to jerk. "Well?"
Black Void's face turned red and she looked away. "I... Um... Maybe? I dunno." She felt her blush increase. "I never needed it before."
"Well?" Purple Heart asked as Black Void pulled up a screen.
"Give me some time to figure it out." Black Void told her. "I need to look at my status skills and figure it out."
Purple Heart chuckled and turned back to Uni. "I'll keep her distracted then." Calling up her katana, she rushed the CPU Candidate, who dismissed her guns and called up a pair of gauntlets over her arms and hands to let her block and parry Purple Heart's attacks. "Oh? You're not helpless at close range?"
"Of course I'm not." Uni shot back. "I'm no idiot. Overspecialization only leads to problems when you're out of your element."
As Purple Heart fought to keep Uni distracted, Black Void went over her status and attacks that she had unlocked. "Let's see... Ionic Blaster? Pulsar Blaster? Might be useful in the future." She muttered as she clicked on both of them to turn them on. "Lesse... Ah! Stun blaster."
Black Void grimaced as she saw it would take nearly twenty seconds to set up fully. "Dammit... Hurry up." Even if it was merely twenty seconds, it felt forever.
While Black Void was waiting for her skills to be fully loaded, Purple Heart was trading blows with Uni and found that the CPU Candidate was quite adept at martial arts as she had not only disarmed Purple Heart, but was trading unarmed blows with the CPU. "You're not bad."
"I could say the same to you." Uni said as she ducked under a kick. "But you seem rusty and you hesitate."
"I admit that it's been awhile since I fought unarmed." Purple Heart admitted as she grabbed Uni's punch and redirected the attack so she could push the black-haired girl away before kicking her in the butt. "I prefer fighting with swords myself." Or cypress sticks, but that only happened when her level dropped to one because having an over-leveled character at the start of the game was never fun.
Purple Heart watched as Uni touched down and then turned back to rush at her and the Planeptune CPU admitted that she really needed to brush up on her unarmed combat skills. 'Though my Noire would probably bop me on the head if I started fighting like that again.' Being beaten in combat because your opponent was using hand to hand while you had a melee weapon was one thing...
...But Purple Heart had used those moments when she was grappling with Black Heart, White Heart and Green Heart in the past to cop a quick feel of the three of them.
Blanc and Noire obviously had objected pretty hard and Vert, of course, merely encouraged her to keep going.
Blocking a knee strike to her midsection, Purple Heart grimaced as she quickly threw her right arm up to block a hay-maker that Uni launched at her head. "Hey, Uni, can I ask you a question?"
"What?" Uni asked as she hopped back out of range from Purple Heart's counter-attack.
"Is this what you really want?" Purple Heart asked her. "Do you really want to kill your older sister?"
Uni scoffed at her. "Older sister? I'm to become a Void! We don't have older sisters!"
"You're wrong." Purple Heart countered as they slowly circled each other. "I've met three other Voids before Black Void, all three of them were horrible beings that tortured their people, tormented their little sisters and caused untold destruction." It still pained her that she hadn't been able to arrive in time to save Plutia's little sister and seeing how she had been pinned against the wall like that only made her wonder what kind of person Iris Sister really was and how she wished, above all else, that she could meet her and apologize for not being there to give her comfort like she did for Rom, Ram and Peashy. "Black Void, however, cares for you, she takes care of her nation and..." She trailed off as Uni laughed. "What?"
"Cares for me? HA!" Uni held her arms down. "She only cares about herself, order and power." She snarled at Purple Heart. "Black Void is just the current CPU, she was never my sister and as soon as I eliminate her, I'll prove that I'm a superior product."
Even if it wasn't her sister, such words actually made Purple Heart hurt and she even felt her eyes start to burn and water at the way Uni was saying such things about Noire. "You're wrong! Uni, I know that you don't mean that!"
"And what do you know about me?" Uni asked and Purple Heart flinched, realizing that Uni was right. As much as this Uni looked like the one she knew, she also knew that she knew nothing about this Uni. "I thought so. It's time to end you and then I'll get praised for what I did."
"...Really?" Purple Heart asked softly, her eyes showing disbelief. "That's what the brainwashing did to you?" While the Uni she knew wanted praise from Noire, she did it because she genuinely loved and respected Noire and Noire was awkward with her praise towards others, not because Uni was a loyal dog.
"UNI!" Black Void called out and Uni turned to see the Void floating towards her. "...I truly am sorry."
Before Uni could ask what was going on, Black Void's hip blasters fired an arcing bolt of energy that hit Uni and caused her body to spasm and jerk as her muscles locked up and she found herself falling to her knees and forward.
Before she even fell more than a few inches, Black Void was in front of her, catching her as Uni's face fell onto her chest. "I'm sorry, Uni." She whispered softly as she knelt down and held her sister tightly. "I'm so, so sorry that I had to be so distant to you." Looking up as she sensed Purple Heart walking towards her, she gave the other CPU a withering look. "What?"
Purple Heart gave her a soft smile. "Nothing. Nothing at all."
Even if this Noire was a Void, even if she was a Tsundere that made every Tsundere she knew look expressive and emotional, she was still a Noire that deeply cared for her little sister and her people.
And that, in Purple Heart's mind, was the way the world should be.
"Will she come out of this back to normal?" Black Void asked as she stood up and lifted Uni in a bridal style.
"Potentially." Purple Heart told her. "She might need a bop on the head, but she should come back to normal. If that doesn't work..." She shrugged, "just give her a hug and tell her that you love her."
"...I can do that." Black Void nodded. "The stun effect should wear off soon, I hope..."
"...Do you love me, Noire?" Uni asked softly as she opened an eye. "...Do you?"
Black Void gave her a look and sighed, nodding. "If I said no, I would be lying. Are you... Back to normal?"
Uni's eyes burned, tears filling them up. "They did so many horrible things to me, Noire. I was so scared."
Black Void pushed down the surge of anger she felt and hugged Uni tightly. "Don't worry, I'll make them pay, I'm just glad you're okay now."
Purple Heart just hoped the others were doing well with their efforts against the other CPU Candidates.
To be continued...
...I shouldn't have listened to Soriano Days in English while I wrote this.
"Can you hear my voice calling out? Through the darkness trying to shout? Trapped within the void of the night, I call forth..."
Yeah, fits what was happening with Uni, huh?