and chapter 3 done, that didn't take to long (checks calendar). well. FU. so I don't have an excuse. to quote a song: "life has a way of breaking things for you." so yeah shit happens birds fly and brother (or sister) I'm a mess. I have a lot to say so I'll say very little for your sake. so yes here is the long awaited Noire chapter, had some awkwardness writing this one (almost as if I spent over a year making it and wrote an entire chapter I had to delete). next update will probably be a while (it's me) and may or may not be this fic. Again if you have any suggestions, critiques, or just anything nice to say please do. Have a good morning, afternoon, evening wherever you are. Oh also there is a reference to something else in this chapter if you find it, uhhh idk have an excuse to eat a cookie.

It was late at night for the steampunk city of Lastation. The city of workaholics, despite the citizens best attempts, was mostly quiet, or as quiet as a city can get. But despite this in her basilicom at the center of the urban sprawl. In her tower of bureaucracy and paperwork, the queen of workaholics was still awake even this late at night.

Noire was at her desk in her large gothic library-like office, typing away at some digital paperwork. She let out a quiet sigh, despite her best attempts she was nowhere near her old pace due to her injuries. But nevertheless she pushed on despite being exhausted and literally working one handed. She looked down at her desk, specifically at where she was resting her arm. The Planeptune doctors did their best but, unfortunately Noire's hand was considered unsaveable. She tried to move her nonexistent fingers, causing the muscles and tendons in her wrist to shift under her skin. She shook her head and looked back up at her monitor and got back to work. Another unfortunate side effect of missing her left hand was the mistakes, things she would either not have messed up on or quickly fixed were now more prevalent due to her injury. She let out an annoyed growl as one such mistake popped up. She corrected it quickly, but as she kept working more came alongside her growing frustration. She lightly slammed her fist on her desk as she stopped to let her anger disperse. She pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes before letting out an exasperated sigh. She opened her eyes and looked to her left as she heard the elevator to her office activated. It wasn't long before Noire knew who else was awake this late. As the elevator stopped and the barred door opened, out stepped a short Noire doppelganger. Or more correctly her younger sister Uni.

"Hey sis, here's my paperwork for the day. Sorry it took so long I might have grabbed more than I could handle." She said as she walked over to the front of Noire's desk. The raven haired goddess for her part simply nodded and motioned to put it with the rest. The candidate did just that before standing there awkwardly looking like she wanted to say something.

"So, Noire it's pretty late and you've been pulling a lot of nighters recently. So I was thinking, why don't I finish up for you." Uni said nervously, she knew her sister didn't like taking breaks or stopping when there was work to be done. But Uni was determined to be a good sister and make sure her disabled sis didn't push herself too far. Noire sighed as she leaned back in her chair, looking her sister in the eyes. Had it been a normal day, she would have said no and sent Uni to bed. But, she was exhausted, Uni had a good point, and she was getting better at swaying Noire with her puppy dog eyes. There was also the fact that at this time of year, Noire's mental health wasn't the greatest, so she gave in. After what was an awkward amount of time of them silently looking at each other, the older goddess simply nodded before getting out her chair. Uni quickly and excitedly replaced her before cracking her fingers and grabbing the first sheet. Before she could put pen to paper, she heard a noise. Turning her head right, she saw Noire standing in front of the door to her room. She opened her mouth to say something, but all that came out was a harsh, airy, wheezing noise. She made an annoyed grunt as she ran her fingers across the scar that went from one side of her neck to the other.

"Don't worry sis I won't stay up too long." Noire might be mute but Uni knew her sister well enough to sometimes get what she was trying to say. Noire gave her a small smile before heading into her room and closing the door. Uni looked back at the papers on the desk, but felt an itch at the back of her mind. After hearing her sister attempt to talk, it made her curious what she sounded like. Of course she knew what Noire sounded like thanks to various videos of her, but that didn't stop Uni from pulling out her phone. It was one thing to hear Noire give a speech, but for the raven haired candidate it was an entire other thing to hear her in a casual tone. Uni pulled up a video Neptune had sent her when she asked what her sister sounded like. The video was from the view of a phone camera (evidently Neptune's going by the giggling) looking through a crack in a door. The view was of a sliver of Noire's bedroom with her standing in the middle of it. The black themed goddess was wearing a pink skirt, a white shirt with a heart shaped hole in the chest, and a small black jacket. She picked up a black rook from her bed before striking a few poses.

"I'm queen of the castle, I'm queen of the castle." She said in a sing-song manner. It was at this moment the camera woman (Neptune) couldn't hold back their laughter. Noire sharply turned towards the door, her face bright red from embarrassment on being caught enjoying her guilty pleasure. The camera then starts to shake as the purple goddess starts to run, with a very angry Black Heart chasing after, with the video ending in a screen shot of half of Neptune's face and said angry goddess over her shoulder.

Noire let out a silent sigh as she leaned her weight against the closed door. She felt like a bad sister, even though she tried her damnedest to be there for Uni. The mute goddess gave her sister encouragement, praise, and everything else a little sister could ask from an older sister. But it was always through text or writing, she had told Uni many that she loved and cared for her, yet it felt hollow, half hearted without her able to voice it. It was something that ate away at Noire even though it seemed like a small thing. What made it worse was that she knew it ate away at Uni too. She sighed again and shook her head before pushing herself off the door, she pushed the thought away, after all there was nothing she could do about it. She looked to her bed, her mind instinctively going though what she needed to do before collapsing into bed. That's when she noticed that she left some cosplay props on her bed from earlier in the day. She picked them up and quickly opened up her walk in closet, specifically the far wall where there was a secret panel. She pushed said panel open revealing another smaller closet holding all of her costumes and such. For most, having a secret compartment dedicated to one's hobbies was strange. But Noire was concerned that people would call her weird if they found out she was into cosplay (never mind that Lastation was the unofficial cosplay capital.). As she put away the props, she heard a scraping noise. She turned to see what made the noise, only to catch a glimpse of silver falling towards her. In an instant she felt her adrenaline spike and she jumped back before whatever it was hit her. It was a prop sword, metal yes, but blunt and to Noire a goddess, completely harmless. That realization didn't stop her heart from continuing to rise and her breathing to become faster and shallower. She felt her mind slipping into a dark place, so she quickly closed the secret panel and walked out her closet and sat down on the edge of her bed. She felt her heart pounding against her ribs as she tried to will herself to think of anything other than dark thoughts. But as hard as she tried, the panic continued to set in, her vision going dark at the edges and a feeling akin to the grim reaper himself draped a blanket woven of pure dread over her shoulders, as the memories flooded back.

10 years earlier

Black Heart had been aiming for Purple Heart's throat before this strange girl interrupted. With a wave of magical energy, she and the other goddesses were pushed back and knocked off balance. Finding her footing again, Black Heart watched as this seemingly normal human (save the weird "glitching") changed towards the celestial beings. White Heart struck first, swinging her oversized axe down upon the girl only for it to be blocked and causally slid off to the side. She finished it off with a wide slash, causing White Heart to go flying with blood spilling from her chest. Green Heart then took her chance and charged the girl ready to impale her. She sidestepped the attack and countered with a knee to the goddess' gut and a slash across the face. Black Heart, not one for standing idly by, also took her turn to charge the girl. She slashed upwards, but her attack was both dodged and knocked away. Faster than she thought possible for a human, the girl swung at Black Heart's hand, cutting into it and causing her hand to go limp. The goddess let out a cry of pain as she made space between her and the girl before checking her wound. It was shallow but still deep enough to make her hand useless, worse than that though, her regeneration wasn't working meaning she'd have to fight with her non-dominant hand. She looked up to see how her fellow goddesses were fairing, only to see White Heart's HDD mode break and her flying away covered in wounds and blood. This gave Black Heart pause, one from actually seeing White Heart's human form, which appeared to be a young girl with light brown hair and an oversized, fur lined coat. The other was that she was unconscious and extremely injured, thee White Heart of Lowee, the most durable and physically strongest of the goddess, defeated. She hesitated, but this is not Noire of later years, no, this was Black Heart at the height of the Console war, despite a part of her feeling hesitation, she gave into her bloodlust. She charged again aiming to end this frustratingly powerful human. She took a swing, an awkward telegraphed swing, one which her opponent used against her. With another simple side step and a cleave, Black Heart's hand and sword went flying with a large trail of blood. She let out another cry as she stumbled back trying to stop the blood spurting out of her stump. She looked up in time to see the girl rapidly approaching, the edge of her now very bloody sword aimed directly at Black Heart's neck. With the second she had to react, she leaned back, just enough to keep herself from being decapitated. But not enough to save her neck. She felt an immense pain as she felt the blade quickly and cleanly cut through her throat, veins and arteries. Her HDD gave out as she collapsed out to her back, she felt, tasted and smelled her blood pouring down her throat, causing a feeling of drowning. She rolled over onto her stomach, keeping her bleeding stump between her body and the ground to try and stem the blood flow, while her still damaged hand tried to keep her from bleeding out from the neck. All the while as the world started to go dark she felt like she was drowning as her lungs filled with blood.

Present

She still felt like she was drowning, she could still taste the iron, she could still feel a weight on her chest. She was breathing rapidly and shallowly as her heart pounds against her ribs and her vision was still dark around the edges. She reached out and grabbed a bottle from her nightstand, an orange prescription bottle. She practically shattered the top off before downing a few pills and waited. She focused on her breathing trying with all her might to slow it down, at the same time she tried to fill her mind with good memories. Images of hanging out with Neptune and the other goddesses, of her various fun misadventures through Gamindustri, of Uni. One memory stuck out, she had been working at her desk when she unknowingly fell asleep. When she woke up she felt a weight pressed up against her, she looked over to see a sleeping Uni, curled up next to Noire on her slightly oversized office chair. Why her sister decided this was where she was gonna sleep Noire didn't know but the sight before her was too cute to question. She took in a slow and steady breath, then another, and another. She focused on her memories involving Uni as she forced her breathing to normal, her heart rate slowed, and her vision returned to normal. She still felt terrible but at least she wasn't full of panic, anger and embarrassment yes. She let out an annoyed sigh, she was a goddess, one of the most powerful beings in the world, and here she was crippled by a panic attack. She looked down to see she had reflexively brought her handless arm to her chest and gripped tight the remaining wrist with her good hand. She still felt her missing hand, sort of, the doctors called it phantom limb pain. It feels as if she was forced to close her hand so tight it started to hurt and then more. She ignored it and went back to getting ready for bed, trying to forget that whole event ever happened. She haphazardly removed her gothic-like outfit before throwing on her nightgown, not even bothering to tie the front closed (it was hard enough one handed on a good day), and collapsed in bed. As she laid in bed she once again gripped her wrist close to her chest as she tried unsuccessfully to get a good night's sleep.