I regret nothing
Nepgear remembers when it started,
It was shortly after the defeat of the Deity of Sin, there was 3 years worth of paperwork that needed to be done and as the dutiful little sister that she is, she started to work on it
Her hope was to reduce the amount of work that her big sister, Neptune, would have to do in order to be able to spend more time with her (what's a little sister that's, in some ways, deprived of her big sister's attention and affection supposed to do?)
She didn't understand it at the time but Neptune's decision to spend her days playing games and lazing around frustrated her significantly
Sure, her frustration was half as much as Histoire's frustration with Neptune but that's besides the point
With all the work that needs to be done, Nepgear, the dutiful girl that she is, would end up spending her free time, that she would otherwise spend tinkering away in her lab, was spent doing paperwork or doing quests
She would eventually get to the point where she would genuinely think "even a single praise would be enough"
But all she would get would be a distracted "thanks " from her while she plays her games
As the days went by Planeptune was lagging behind the other nations in terms of how much work gets done
Eventually Lastation, Leanbox and Lowee would be in a good enough position for Noire, Vert and Blanc would be coming over to the Planeptune Basilicom to play games with Neptune
Out of the 3 CPUs Noire is the one that notices the amount of effort that Nepgear is putting in daily in Neptune's stead
"Planeptune is lucky to have a hard working girl like you"
"Maybe you should be the Goddess instead"
"You're more mature than Neptune"
Are just some of the praises Noire sent her way, sure some of them are more exaggerated than others, but it didn't make the praises any less valid nor did it make the impact she felt those words any less
Technically this is where these interactions should have ended
Keyword being "should"
On one particular day Nepgear was having difficulty dealing with some paperwork and normally she would go to Histoire for help
However on this day Histoire had received a number of reports that she needs to sort through from the guild, and unfortunately leaving Nepgear to handle the paperwork on her own
Nepgear dejected at the fact that she cant handle all the paperwork by herself makes her way over to the gameroom in hopes that she can get some help from Neptune
As luck would have it she would end up running into Noire, who more or less stormed out of the gameroom after Neptine had teased her too much… again
Noire who saw how dejected Nepgear looked which lead to a short interaction between the two of them, which led them back to the office where Noire happily helped the younger girl with the issues she was having
Opting to work with her as a way of teaching her rather than Histoire's current method of handling the issue herself (Histoire said that she would teach Nepgear how to handle those types of paperwork when things have settled down)
Nepgear could see the joy in Noire's eyes when she was teaching her while being completely in her element
What had followed was Noire joining Nepgear when the younger girl went out to do quests
Nepgear felt embarrassed when Noire asked her who taught her how to fight
Admitting that she was basically self-taught was much harder than Nepgear would admit
While was Noire harsh for her part for pointing out how easily Nepgear's fighting style can be exploited and used against her in battle
A short spar between the two of them proved the point
And by the end of the day Noire had taken Nepgear under her wing both to teach her how to handle paperwork quickly and efficiently and to instruct her on how to fix her battle style
If anyone paid attention then they would have noticed that Noire's visits to Planeptune increased since she took Nepgear under her wing
Over the months that followed the pair that is the Lastation CPU and the Planeptune CPU Candidate got closer, close enough for Noire to admit to Nepgear that she(Nepgear) is the closest person to her(Noire) when they are in private
Nepgear can see that Noire wanted to have a closer relationship with her own little sister Uni, similar to what she once had with Neptune (once had because nowadays it seems like they are strangers living in the same household rather than sisters with their near non-existent interactions with one another) but the Lastation sister's own nature makes it hard for them to interact without that unnecessary professionalism that they have
Nepgear didn't know it at the time but she was becoming enamored by Noire
From how her voice is just soothing to her to how her touch tends to leave a lingering feeling
Their training sessions in the privacy of Virtua Forest taking longer and longer each time, not because Noire is teaching her anything complicated but rather Nepgear is becoming more and more hyper aware of Noire as a whole
How her breath tickles her neck, how her touch just lingers on her and very quickly Nepgear's mind is filled with just "Noire" as though the ravenette is the center of her world for the duration of the sessions (not that it isn't the truth)
Nepgear had never been genuinely annoyed or upset with her sister before
Sure she had tried to be faux upset with Neptune in order to get her older sister to work some days so that she can spend the entire day training with Noire
Only to find out later that it didn't work and Neptune didn't in fact sign a single paper so now Nepgear is stuck doing even more work the next day
But as they say, "there's a first time for everything"
It started with a gaming session between the CPUs, like always Neptune would tease Noire calling her a "loner with no friends" amongst other things
Sure Neptune had said them in jest, and usually Noire would get annoyed enough that she would storm off (she would either go home or go to the nicer of the Planeptune sister in her opinion)
On this particular day, Noire didn't storm off, instead she simply stood up and walked out of the room without any fuss or or noise for that matter
It both worried and annoyed Nepgear, it worried her because Noire was hurt and it annoyed her because her sister is the one that hurt Noire
That day Nepgear had retired to her room early
While everyone knows that Neptune and Nepgear share a room what everyone doesn't know is that both sisters also have a private room for themselves
And for the first time since the CPUs were saved from the Gamindustri Graveyard, Nepgear went to her own room for the night rather than the one she shares with Neptune only to find, by pure coincidence, the Lastation CPU there seated on her bed and her face covered by her hands sobbing softly to herself
Nepgear wanted to comfort Noire, so she makes her way to her bed and sits down next to the other girl and gently pull her into a hug and Noire's hands quickly wrap around her as she went from sobbing into her hands to sobbing into Nepgear's shoulder with Nepgear gently rubbing circles on Noire's back
Somewhere along the way the pair of them had fallen asleep on Nepgear's bed with both of them still hugging
Anything that happens between them afterwards
Is a chapter for another time