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

Final epilogue chapter.

Epilogue 4

Yawning as she woke up, Neptune grabbed at the couch to pull herself up to a sitting position. "Nnngh, what time is it?" She looked around, not expecting an answer.

"Six in the morning." The answer she got would have had her jumping off the couch in fright if her lower body worked.

"NEPWHAA?!" Neptune yelled and fell off the couch, landing on her head. "Oww!"

"Neptune!" The voice called out and Neptune blinked a few times as her vision cleared up. "Are you okay?"

"Verty?" Neptune blinked as the blonde helped her back onto the couch. "I thought you went back to your nation with all of the people."

Vert smiled at her. "I did. Right now, everyone's sleeping, including Peashy, so I thought I'd come and check on you." She looked behind her as two more people walked into the living room from outside. "It seems like I'm not the only one." She smiled as the other two Hyperdimension CPUs came into view.

Noire looked at Neptune and had a concerned look on her face. "Hey," she said softly, "you feeling better?"

"I'm fine." Neptune had a confused look on her face. "Why do you ask?"

"Because you're not fine." Blanc countered as she and Noire walked in and grabbed some chairs to sit down near Neptune. "I know you left details out of that story, like why you can't walk right now."

"It... Wasn't important?" Neptune said and grimaced at the looks her friends gave her. "I mean, sure, it sucks, but I'm healing."

"How. Did. You. Get. Injured. Like. That?" Noire asked, punctuating each word and Neptune sighed, hanging her head.

"...Evil me had a god-killing sword and cut my back and stabbed me in the spine."

"Neptune..." Vert gasped in shock. "I'd say that was very important."

"You..." Blanc growled, her body trembling. "YOU IDIOT!" She screamed, her eyes glowing red and she suddenly tackled Neptune to the couch. "HOW COULD YOU GET INJURED LIKE THAT!?" She screamed before hiccuping and hugging Neptune tightly. "Before I apologized for telling you to leave and never come back?! If you died, I never would have gotten to apologize to you, you damn idiot!"

"Huh?" Neptune blinked a few times. "...Wait, you were serious about me going away?"

"NO!" Blanc yelled and hugged Neptune tighter. "Don't do that again, you idiot!" Neptune smiled and hugged Blanc back, enjoying the comfort of the hug.

"...Neptune," Noire said softly, causing her friend to look at her. "You said you were stabbed by a god-slaying sword... Did... Did you die?" Normally such a question wouldn't make sense, but Neptune had died once before she had gone on this adventure and apparently had gone to Hell before getting kicked out, so Noire was worried that Neptune had died a second time.

"Uh..." Neptune grimaced and nodded. "Kind of... I mean, Kurome stopped me from perma-death when she flooded me with negative energy and I... Uh..." She gulped as Noire and Vert gave her a stern look. "...I kind of was turned into a Void because of Kurome."

The next thing Neptune knew, she was being hugged by both Vert and Noire as well.

"You stupid idiot..." Noire muttered. "Dammit, why do you keep getting on adventures like this that ends with you getting hurt?"

"I'm okay, I mean..."

"No you aren't." Blanc said as she, Noire and Vert let go of the hug. She grabbed Neptune's arms and pulled her into a sitting position. "You look like you aged a thousand years on us." Neptune had a confused look on her face and she sighed. "Your smiles aren't reaching your eyes anymore."

"Huh?" Neptune tilted her head as she couldn't understand what Blanc was telling her. "But I'm fine and..."

"Why did you try to convince the other Nepgear to go with the other me?" Vert asked in a stern voice as she crossed her arms under her breasts. Neptune blinked in confusion and Vert sighed as she told Neptune what happened.

*Flash*

"Hey," Ultra Green Heart called out to her other self as they flew to the Western side of Planeptune city. "There's something wrong with Neptune."

Green Heart stopped and looked at both her other self and Darkness Sister Purple. "What do you mean?"

"You know how much Neptune fights to keep Nepgear from being charmed by either of us..."

Green Heart rolled her eyes. "Of course I do. It's why I was attempting to warm her up to the idea of marrying me so I could have Nepgear as my little sister before this happened. Why?"

Ultra Green Heart looked at Darkness Sister Purple and then back at her other self. "She just offered this Nepgear to me as my younger sister." Green Heart stared in absolute shock. "As much as it pains me, I didn't take her up on that offer. It's too out of character for her, I don't know..."

"Because Neptuna thinks she's a bad big sister." Peashy spoke up. "Pea don't know why, cuz Neptuna is awesome! But she keeps saying she's a bad big sister."

Green Heart lightly bit her lips. "I'll find out. Let's help the people out first and then I'll come back later to talk to Neptune, okay?" Ultra Green Heart, Darkness Sister Purple and Peashy all nodded.

*End Flashback*

"Well?" Vert asked with a raised eyebrow. Neptune fidgeted and she sighed. "Neptune, please... I worry about you."

Neptune looked down and a truly troubled look came over her face. "...I don't deserve to be her big sister."

"Jeez!" Noire spat in annoyance. "Are you STILL blaming yourself for that time when Kurome brainwashed us?"

Neptune snapped her head up, glaring at Noire as her left eye seemingly glowed with her anger. "And you're not?!"

"Of course we are!" Blanc snapped back. "I always feel bad about it and whenever I see Rom and Ram sleeping there's a part of me thinks back to how I almost killed them. But you... You're all super mopey and trying to get rid of one of your sisters. Why?"

The glow in Neptune's eye died down and the three watched as Neptune looked at her lap and clasped her hands together while she went silent.

"...Because I meant what I said when I was brainwashed." Neptune finally said after several minutes, getting a surprise gasp from the other three. "I know you three didn't mean what you did, that was just Kurome messing with you, but..." Tears started falling from her eyes as her body shook. "Everything I said and did... Those feelings were there in me, Kurome just brought them out." She raised her head to look at the other three. "I... It's not right for me to be Nepgear's big sister or anyone's big sister."

"Neptune," Noire said softly and knelt down to look her in the eyes. "What do you mean?"

"Remember... After Nepgear beat the Deity of Sin?" Noire, Vert and Blanc all nodded. "I went to take a walk around the city, to just see how things were and enjoy myself... People... They didn't seem as happy to see me as I remember them being. I even overheard some people saying that Nepgear was a better CPU than me... And then there's what happened when she trapped me in Plutie's world by accident. I'm glad that she's more independent now, but... All that time, I felt lots of anger."

"...And it didn't help when I would try to steal her away from you, huh?" Vert asked, sighing. "And how many times did we always tease you when you screwed up while praising Nepgear and being nice to her when she screwed up?"

Neptune nodded. "So I buried it, I knew I loved her, but then we got brainwashed and all those bad feelings came out and..."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

Neptune gasped and looked up as she saw her sister, in pajamas, looking at her sadly. "Neptune, I love you, if you're upset with me, why didn't you tell me?"

"Because it's not right for me to be upset at you over this!" Neptune protested as Nepgear came over and sat on the couch next to Neptune. "...I'm sorry, but it was always there, and then I was exposed to Fearicite and was slowly corrupted and..." She pointed to her left eye. "I still feel the effects, I still get overwhelmed by the negative emotions."

"I see," Noire said and turned around to walk to the kitchen. "I'm thinking that we need some pancakes." She smiled at the confusion she was feeling from the others. "Why not? I'm hungry, I'm sure you're hungry too."

"I'll help." Vert followed after Noire while Blanc did the same.

After they were gone, Neptune looked at her sister. "I... I'm sorry, Nep Jr., I guess you..." She was quieted as Nepgear hugged her to her chest.

"I love you, Onee-chan." Nepgear said softly. "I'm always crying into your chest, so you can cry into mine sometime, okay? And, um..." She blushed hard. "I don't want you to stop being the CPU of Planeptune, okay?"

"Nepgear?" Neptune was confused and looked up at her. "Why?"

"Hmm..." Nepgear smiled happily. "Because the people love you. You are the main character after all."

Neptune giggled and sighed as she relaxed in her sister's embrace. "Thank you." Even if she was the older sister, it was nice to be hugged like this. She knew that Nepgear loved getting attention from her. "Sorry that I need you to comfort me like this."

Nepgear shook her head. "No... Because I know when I need to be comforted, you'll be there for me. We're sisters, right? We can help each other out."

"Thanks, Nep Jr.." Neptune smiled as she enjoyed the hug.

By the time the pancakes were done, both sisters were starting to drift off and would have fallen asleep cuddling against each other, if not for the fact that their stomachs loudly growled and demanded food.

The two laughed at that and Nepgear helped Neptune into her wheelchair and pushed her to the table. The two sisters, Noire, Vert and Blanc all sat down and enjoyed a large stack of pancakes.

Unknown to everyone, Histoire had listened in on the conversation, as she had been sleeping on the top of a bookcase since she had wanted to watch over Neptune but had gotten sleepy and had napped until Blanc's yelling woke her up. '...I guess I do praise Nepgear too much some days and criticize Neptune too much too.'

After hearing the story of what happened and the cause of Neptune's horrific injuries, she figured that toning down those things was the least she could do.

A few moments later, Chrome, Filyn, Uzume, Big Neptune and the other Nepgear walked into the kitchen. "Is there enough for us as well?" Chrome asked them.

"Swule." Noire muttered before swallowing her food. "Sorry, but yes, I made enough to feed Neptune if she hadn't eaten in two days." Neptune just stuck her tongue out at Noire.

Everyone at the table started to laugh at the five of them pulled up to the table to eat.

Neptune smiled as she looked around the table. It was good to be home, but more important to her, it was good to be with her closest friends and family.

No matter how bad things got, so long as they were there for her, she could pull through in the end.

"Something wrong, Neptune?" Blanc asked as Neptune was looking at all of them with a contemplative expression on her face.

"Nah," Neptune shook her head, "just thinking about how much I love all of ya."

Noire and Blanc both turned crimson red when they heard that and Noire coughed as she was in the middle of swallowing her food. "What do you mean by that?" Noire asked, steam coming out of her ears.

Neptune giggled and smiled. "I'll leave that one up for the readers to decide." She winked at no on in particular.

End Epilogue 4

Echoes of the Dark Finish

Don't forget to check out the afterword.