"This town is totally empty. Helloooooo! Anybody Here?!" Neptune yelled as she ran ahead of Casshern in the abandoned town. They had only recently found some form civilization but from the looks of it, no one was there. "hm… guess no one is here. What a let down." The child said, sighing as she hung her head slightly.
"We'll just have to keep moving on until we find someone…" Casshern said calmly as he walked up beside her. Neptune looked up at him and smiled, nodding her head in agreement. "Yeah! Let's go!" she said with her usual cheerful demeanor. The cyborg and the CPU began to make their way through the town and towards the exit.
As the two made their way through without any issues they heard a loud scream which made them stop dead in their tracks and look back. "Didja hear that?" the lilac haired girl asked the brown-haired man. Casshern nodded his head and looked down at the girl. "Let's check it out." He suggested.
Neptune nodded her head and so the two began to make their way to the northeastern part of the town where the scream came from. So someone really was here, but why were they screaming? It was too soon to say at the moment but they would most certainly found out the reason.
It wasn't long until they had reached the source of the sound and saw a group of robots and humans being terrorized by larger robots. "It's always robots…" Neptune said to herself with her hand over her face. Casshern's face mask and battle helmet had appeared upon seeing this, readying himself to fight if needed.
Almost immediately, everyone had locked on to Casshern. "It's Casshern!" one of the robots said, completely turning his attention over to the man in the white suit. "Casshern..? The one who caused the ruin? Why is he here…?" someone said, as the entire group looked at him in both shock and terror.
"Wow, you're really popular, Cashy~ everyone knows who you are!" the violet eyed girl said, placing both of her hands on her hips and smiling. "We must devour Casshern!" one of the hostile robots yelled, making their way over to the party of two. Casshern's eyes flashed bright green for just a moment before he jumped into the air drop kicked the first one that approached them. As usual, the robot was destroyed instantly by the attack and dismantled easily.
"Devour? But you're like robots 'n stuff. Robots don't eat. You guys are some dumb robots." Neptune commented as one of the robots attempted to attack her head on only to have its entire body obliterated by a simple spiral kick to the head and several punches to the body by Casshern. Neptune smiled cheerfully and waved her hand at the brunette. "Thank you, Cashy~!" she exclaimed before turning her attention over to the group of cowering people and skipping over to them in the midst of the combat.
"Hello, people! We have come to save you 'n stuff!" She assured the group. They were all silent as they simply stared at the girl, examining her appearance. "She looks so perfect…as if she is unaffected by the ruin…"a man said in reference to the CPU in front of him. "Huh? What's that mean?" she asked, only to be ignored by them speaking among themselves.
"She must be immortal like Casshern. If we devour her, we can get eternal life." They said among themselves but still loud enough for hear. Neptune's eyes went wide after hearing this and started back away. "WOAH! YOU'RE GONNA TRY TO EAT ME?!" she said in shock.
The people immediately looked over her way. "We can take her. It's just a little girl." One of the men said as the group began to make their way over to her with a look of desperation in their eyes. Is this what the ruin did to people? This world was clearly on its last legs as it seemed like people would do anything to survive. Neptune was actually starting to understand why Casshern felt the way he did about this place.
Casshern had quickly finished destroying the group of robots that had attempted to 'devour' him and turned his attention towards the group of people making their way over to Neptune with hungry eyes. "Neptune!" he called out, jumping up into the air and landing directly between her and the crowd. "These people are loony-toons! They wanna eat me!" Neptune exclaimed, running behind Casshern and pointing at the group from behind him.
The group of people stopped the moment they saw Casshern and began to back away. They knew they were no match and weren't even going to attempt to try to fight him. "This is your entire fault…." one of the women said, holding her child close to her. "If you had never killed Luna then the ruin would have never happened!"
Another said.
The cybernetic male closed his eyes, knowing that nothing he could say to them would make them feel any differently. He slowly tuned around and began to walk away from the group in silence. Neptune blinked and shook her head at what she had just seen and heard. "You're all ignorant!" she yelled, making Casshern stop and look back at the girl.
"Neptune…?" Casshern whispered quietly as he stared at her slight shock. "You wanna sit here and blame this guy that you know nothing about for ruining your planet. Were you there when he killed this Luna chick? Can you tell me exactly what happened that day? No? Then how can you be so sure that it's entirely his fault! He has no idea who he is! All he knows is what people tell him! The same goes for you! All you have to go by are a bunch of rumors! You have no right to accuse Cashy of anything if you don't know the full story! You can't treat someone you barely know like a monster just because of what people say! If anything….YOU'RE THE MONSTERS!" she preached to the people, taking a deep breath before turning away from them and walking next to Casshern.
"Let's go, Cashy…" she said quietly, walking ahead of him as the people simply watched her go, clearly at a loss for words. Casshern walked behind her silently, not sure on what to say to her. His helmet and mask retraced themselves as the eventually reached the towns exit. "Neptune, you didn't have to say that..." he finally said, looking down at her with his green eyes.
Neptune looked up at him and shook her head. "You're wrong. I did have to do it…" she started to say as her gaze slowly shifted down. "I don't want you beating yourself up over nothing. Those people and anyone else who says negative things about you are clueless dum-dum moron rejects. I know you're a good person… and you should know that too. I refuse to believe that this is your fault until I have proof…" she said softly, looking back up at him and smiling one of her typical happy and energetic smiles.
A small smile appeared on Casshern's face. No matter what they come into contact with Neptune always treated him exactly the same. Aside from one other person, Neptune was the only person who had ever viewed him as a good person and not a monster. That's why she was so precious to him. She was the most precious memory he had and he hoped he never forgot her.
Casshern and Neptune continued walking along into the desolated unknown. Life seemed like it had completely been erased from every corner of the earth but they knew that somewhere on this ruined planet that life existed somewhere, they just had to find it first. This walking continued for hours until they came into view of train tracks in the sand.
"Oh! Tracks?" Neptune said, her eyes lighting up interest at this new discovery. Casshern looked down as well at what the CPU had just found, examining it closely before speaking. "Do you think if we follow them we'll find somewhere new?" he asked the violet eyed preteen next to him. Neptune placed her left index finger on her cheek, thinking for only a second before nodding her in agreement. "Yes! Let's follow these! I mean, it's not like we have anything else to go by now~!"
"Right…" Casshern said in response as he looked into the distance that train tracks ran along into before walking along the tracks with Neptune skipping beside him. The two of them traveled in silence for a few minutes before Neptune started to speak. She had been wondering something for a long time and decided to finally ask him about it. "Cashy….Who's Luna?" she asked, looking up at the man with a curious face. "Luna…?" said the male in a questioning tone as he looked down at her. "Yeah! Who's Luna? She must be really important since everyone is upset at you for supposedly killing her." She said and then awaited some form of explanation from her male companion.
"I don't know much about her myself… All I know is that she can help bring salvation to those affected by the ruin..." he explained. Neptune blinked a few times before folding her arms and tilting her head in thought. "Implying that she's alive… you think she's alive, Cashy?" she asked him, even more curious now. "I'm not certain, but people I've come across have claimed to have heard she's alive. That's all I have to go by now… I'll just keep searching for Luna and hope that I learn more about myself along the way…" said the male in his usual calm, soft voice as he looked down at the tracks beneath them.
"And what'cha gonna do when you finally find her?" she asked as her last question, walking along the edge of the tracks with her hands behind her back while trying to keep up balance. "I don't know…" he answered quietly, closing his eyes. Neptune smiled cheerfully and hopped in front of him, causing the male to come to a complete halt immediately. "Neptune..?" he said with a somewhat puzzled expression, unsure of why she had just preformed her most recent action. "New plan! I'm gonna help you find this Luna chick and help you get your memories back! Yup! I ain't goin' home until I do just that!" she exclaimed, placing both of her hands on her hips and giggling a bit.
"Neptune, you do-" before the male could even make it halfway through his sentence, Neptune placed her hands over her eyes and began to drown him out by being loud. "LALALAALA CAN'T HEAR YOU! I'M GONNA HELP NO MATTER WHAT YOU SAY! LALALALALA! POPTAAAARTS!" She yelled, turning her back to him and running ahead. "a-ah…" Casshern stood there with his hand out as the girl ran away from him.
As usual, any attempts to stray her away from helping him had quickly gone denied and ignored. Perhaps it would be in his best interests to simply let her do whatever she liked for the most part. While he didn't really approve of her being in this place with him, he couldn't lie to himself and say that he wasn't happy she had forced herself to tag along with him. She was right; he didn't have to go walk this road by himself anymore.
In the midst of his thinking, the violet eyed CPU was getting dangerously far away from him which made him start running after her. "Wait, Neptune! Don't go too far!" he called out to her, his arm still extending in her direction as he proceeded to chase down the still yelling and skipping goddess ahead of him. Neptune looked behind her and saw him running, smiling widely at him before speeding up.
"You're gonna have to keep up, Cashy!" she teased; now going from a skip to an all out run along the train tracks until she randomly tripped and started to fall over. "Nepuuuuu!" she yelled, bracing herself for the fall ahead of her. "Neptune!" Casshern cried out as he dashed over to her at a lightning fast speed and caught her by the wrist, stopping her fall entirely.
"…" the girl in the jersey dress was silent for a moment before standing up straight and looking back at the man in white with a blank expression. "Neptune, are you okay?" he asked, kneeling down in front of her and checking for any signs of injury despite her not even falling. He was overly cautious. "Nepu~ I'm totally fine!" she assured him, giving him a thumbs up and one of her bright smiles.
A sigh of relief passed his lips as he returned the CPUs smile. "Good…don't do that again. Okay?" he said in a more authoritative tone than usual, expressing his concern for future occurrences that may or may not happen. Neptune nodded her head in understanding. "Yup! Gotcha! I won't do that again because I nearly busted my head open."
Casshern gently pat her on the head before standing back up and looking down at her. "Now that we have that settled, let's continue." He said to her. The young goddess nodded her head excitedly as she threw her fist into the air. "Yes! Walking this time!" she shouted and began to walk forward with her cybernetic friend.