Slowly. Slowly. She had enough time to fix this. Be out and back before anyone knew she was even gone. She had to do this. Her pride was on the line. She couldn't have others fixing her mistakes. Losing was embarrassing enough. She couldn't let someone else fix her problems. Let someone else fix her sister's country.

  Still, she knew this place like the back of her hand. Far better than any of her guests. She could sneak out, easy-peasy. She just had to be sure to take things slowly. One step at a time. She just needed a few more before she got the window. Then she could get around to avenging herself after she lost, too!

  SQUEAK.

  Uni froze mid-motion as the floorboards let out a sound beneath her feet. She stood completely still, waiting to hear any other sound, any sign that she had woken the others up. Silence filled the air as Uni slowly lifted her foot back up, taking great care to put it down on a part of the floorboards that weren't noisy.

  Of course, nobody heard. Everyone was fast asleep. There was nobody awake to hear her. She had absolutely nothing to worry about. She could be in and out before anyone knew she was gone.

  "Uni, what are you doing up?"

  Uni swore up and down that she, at that moment, did not scream like a small child.

  Everyone knew she was lying, though.

  x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

  "Hold it right there you two," I do my best to whisper shout, keeping the two twins from rushing in. I would like to have my own words with Uni. Granted, harsh ones that she probably didn't need to hear right now. Or ever. But I was willing to admit that she didn't need to hear a single word out of my mouth on the matter. As much as I wanted to call her out for her recklessness, I wasn't going to at this point.

  In part because Nepgear beat me to the punch. And seemingly knew how to pull such a punch so it wouldn't emotionally shatter a person. That wasn't something I was good at.

  I planned on ignoring things once I caught sight of what was going on. Nepgear seemed to have things well in hand. Nepgear was the one who convinced Uni that a united front had been needed against me in the first place. She had a far better pulse on Uni than I ever did. Plus, I kind of needed the sleep, to be honest. Sure, sleeping through, that, would be a stretch to sell. But I could be a pretty heavy sleeper.

  Of course, any thoughts of sleeping through died a quick death upon a single realization. I wasn't the only one in earshot.

  Or the building, really, I wouldn't be surprised if there was much, if any, difference. Sure, there was probably a contingent that would sleep through the noise, or likely come to the same conclusion as I did. Any guesses as to who wouldn't be part of that group? If you guessed, a pair of twins hardly any mentally older than ten years old?

  Rom would try to be the voice of reason like she always was. But Ram would likely have none of it, and then we'd be off to the races. Not that I was still expecting anything bad to happen, but an ounce of prevention was worth a pound of cure. Until the group hugs became needed. And while I had no problem with group comfort hugs, which honestly, I expected that Uni would need.

  What? I could read between the lines. She probably would need a group hug by the end of this. And it wasn't as if I couldn't read between the lines, either. Sneaking out in the middle of the night like that? After we had just found her beaten up? I knew exactly where that was going. I didn't think she'd do it, but here we were.

  She was going to head out and fight Brave again. Understandable, as the man needed to be fought, and he clearly was a threat. Doing it on your own after you lost the first round? Not so much. Okay, maybe less understandable, and more unintelligent.

  Then again, I think there was more to it than Uni simply wanting to avenge herself going on here. Uni was emotional, yes, but she wasn't exactly what I would consider dumb. She should know that that was a bad idea. I paused for a moment as if lost in thought.

  Ah. It wasn't that she was trying to avenge herself. Not directly. I wanted to smack myself for not realizing it sooner.

  I may have been a unique case, but if I wasn't, our nations were about all we had left when it came to our sisters. A slight against a nation was a slight against our sisters. We wanted to take care of our nations as best as we could. What else did we have left to honor their memories? Sure, we all wanted our sisters back, but they were still absent from our lives. For me, I wasn't ashamed to admit that there were mixed feelings. We'd only started to patch things up after I blew up in Vert's face. But for them? They had their sisters for an entire lifetime. They knew nothing else, and to have their sisters stripped from them?

  Of course, they were going to defend what they had left. Even if it meant coming into conflict with those who would otherwise be their allies. In hindsight, it was pretty damn clear what was really going on.

  Her loss wasn't about her losing, but what that loss meant as far as protecting the last precious thing she had to hold onto her sister. And if she could be beaten by a member of ASIC leadership?

  Yeah, I could see where that would be going. None of that was good. For any of us, really.

  x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

  "Uni," Nepgear started, looking at her somewhat younger friend. For her part, Uni shifted her feet. She hadn't expected to be caught during this, least of all by Nepgear, of all people. Hinum, yes, absolutely. She was the one Uni had been most concerned about. Hinum totally would be awake for unknown reasons in the middle of the night to hear someone step on floorboards. It's what Uni would expect out of the younger Candidate. To be inexplicably ready for just about every situation no matter how unlikely it was to occur in the first place. Just get in, take names, kick face, and be done before sunset.

  Because that was just how Hinum did things. She was used to fighting Judge, on her own, without any help. For all Hinum's waxing about teamwork and unity, she was the only one who didn't need it. She was more than enough on her own to solve all of these different sorts of problems. She didn't need that sort of help. She just did so without a second thought or care in the world.

  She knew Hinum had an unfair advantage, but that didn't change anything. Uni knew she should be capable of much more. If a barely minted candidate could match the ASIC's highest-ranked officers, so should she. Uni should be able to do at the least that much when it came to Lastation's safety.

  Right?

  And yet. She lost to Brave, and it wasn't even close. She lost by a mile, to someone that was, at the end of the day, a threat to her country. And she couldn't do a single thing to stop him.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  What were the odds Hinum would have been able to do without issue? Well, minimal issue. But that wasn't the issue. A newly minted Goddess would have solved things quicker than she did. She'd been solving them faster. Solve them better. With less mess and less fuss she actually thought about bringing the businesses on board and focusing purely on the ASIC rather than wasting time fighting over nothing.

  "Uni?" This time, the touch on her shoulder was enough to snap her out of her thoughts, as Uni crossed her arms with a huff. She didn't need comfort, she needed to fight Brave! She needed to prove that she could do this on her own! That she didn't need anyone's help defending Lastation, as a CPU Candidate should!

  "I don't have time for this!" Unit turned around, preparing to step away only for a hand to wrap around her wrist, not letting her move an inch. Uni began to turn around, preparing to shout, only to stop because of the surprising firmness that made up Nepgear's features. It wasn't angry. In fact, Uni couldn't place it, not easily. Her mouth was a thin line, instead of the nervous, or well, just smile that Uni had come to associate with Nepgear as a whole. The upbeat and positive look that seemed to be on Nepgear's face most of the time had fallen away.

  "Please."

  It was one word. A single word. Something that at the end of the day, should have been meaningless. Not even worth noting. But, here and now? It was more than enough.

  "Please what!" Uni snapped, with a scowl.

  "Stop trying to solve every single problem by yourself!" Even though Nepgear's voice wasn't loud, it still had plenty of impact. Uni almost felt herself stagger from the verbal blow. "We're all trying to get our sister's back. We're all trying to save Gamindustri. You don't have to keep doing this on your own anymore! Please, just accept getting help! You have friends that want to help you, who want you to be safe."

  Uni stood there, completely taken off guard by the outburst. Nepgear considered them, friends? Of course she did, that was just how Nepgear was. But the others? There was no way they'd consider her a friend.

  Of course, the moment the thought crossed Uni's mind, she felt not one, not two, but three separate impacts slam into her back, sending her tumbling to the ground. Uni groan, in part because one of those impacts was significantly larger than the others. Two pairs of arms wrapped around her waist, while a third, larger pair, gripped Uni's shoulders.

  "Accept our friendship, you freaking tsundere!" A voice that could only belong to Hinum said, Uni getting the impression that the only reason the taller Candidate wasn't vigorously shaking her shoulders was that doing so would result in Uni's face hitting the floor.

  More. Hitting the floor more.

  Which meant the two smaller groups of hands had to belong to Rom and Ram, the two younger Candidates keeping a death grip on her waist, practically sitting on the backs of Uni's knees.

  "Would you get off me!" Despite intending to sound angry, the cracking of her voice stopped Uni from mustering the voice to even approach sounding intimidating.

  Hinum, at the very least, repositioned herself as to not be laying on top of Uni's body. Rom and Ram did not.

  "Not until you stop being stupid!" Ram said, even though without Hinum, there wasn't much the two younger Candidates could do to stop Uni from standing up.

  "Excuse me?" Uni did her best to growl, trying to turn around to glare at the two limpets.

  "You tried to go off on your own like that. It isn't exactly smart," Rom spoke next, her quiet voice doing more than the words of just about anyone else in the room. Rom, the same girl who couldn't hurt a fly simply because she was too meek, had called her an idiot. Implied she was an idiot. Same difference.

  Hinum seemed just as surprised as anyone else by that, before the blonde shook her head as if loosening up the cobwebs in her head.

  "Rom's right. Going off on your own to get revenge is, not the brightest move. I can understand why, don't get me wrong, I really do. You're a bright, if emotional, young lady, so you should know that, too," Hinum rubbed the back of her head. "But we need a united front at this point."

  "None of you have had it easy out here," Nepgear spoke next. "You've been fighting for years, trying to keep each of your respective nations safe. And you've all done everything you can. Even that was sometimes not enough. But we can do this."

  Uni blinked. Hinum was nodding along confidently, but there was a twinge of nervousness underneath Nepgear's voice. As if her words were for just as much herself as it was for them.

  "Histoire thinks we're ready. That we have enough shares to free our sisters. But it will require all of us to work together to do so. We have to work together, otherwise, all your effort will have been for nothing."

  "And yours," Hinum said, patting Nepgear on the back. "Don't sell your efforts short. If it weren't for you, we probably wouldn't even have the opportunity to even try to rescue our sisters."

  Uni could feel a slight, if painful, twinge in Hinum's voice at the mention of sister. What had gone on there to have that type of response? Whenever the topic was approached, everyone was ecstatic, if nervous. Hinum?

  Always gave off this air of melancholia, Uni wasn't sure of what, exactly. It was certainly nervousness, but there was something compounding it. It went beyond just how her sister would react to how things were in Leanbox.

  "We should probably still fight Brave though," Uni's head whipped around at Hinum's words. "What? Leaving him in Lastation while we rescue our sisters isn't smart, either. Plus, fighting him would make for a good warm-up for Judge."

  Uni nodded, despite herself. Brave was far from the worst of the ASIC generals. Frankly, he seemed like the most reasonable, to an extent. But she couldn't just let him run freely right now, not when they were so close.

  Still, even she couldn't stop and notice how Nepgear shuddered at the mention of Judge's name.

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  He figured it would be only a matter of time. Green Sister had entered the country. It had always been a matter of time before she had rallied the other Candidates for combat. He would consider it predictable. She was so much more hot-blooded than most people believed she was.

  A three-on-one was not optimal. Green Sister, Purple Sister, and Black Sister, Uni, all working in tandem? That would be a difficult fight, not insurmountable, but challenging. At least, last he had heard, Trick was keeping the twins distracted.

  Slowly, Brave stood. There was still work to be done.