Chapter 5: The “Mini” Little Apocalypse

“Satsuki?!”

As I shielded my eyes from the blinding light, I called out for my childhood friend.

“Wait, what are you even attacking everyone for?!” I asked Rachelle, shaking her shoulders.

“Heh heh heh...”

It was pointless. Words weren’t getting through to this angel. I had no idea what was going on. How had things even ended up like this? Why did Rachelle have to attack Satsuki and the others? And what in the world was she yelling about?

Eventually, the light faded. The flickering in my eyes was annoying, making me rub at them several times. Several seconds later, my vision finally returned to me.

“Everyone!”

Thankfully, the girls all appeared to be unharmed, although it looked like they were still reeling from the blinding light. They were standing there in a daze. I decided to ignore the cackling Rachelle for now and ran over to them.

“Satsuki! Are you all right? You’re not hurt, are you?”

“No. I’m fine, Rekka.”

Phew. She seemed a little out of it, but she was still the usual Satsuki.

“Hm?” I suddenly noticed a leaf in Satsuki’s hair. “You have a leaf in your hair.”

“Huh?”

Satsuki started feeling around her head with her right hand in a fluster. Bad luck. It was on the left side.

“It’s over here. Let me get it for you,” I said, reaching my hand out... when somebody suddenly grabbed my wrist. “Iris?”

“Why are you only ever nice to Satsuki, Rekka?”

“Weh?” I was so blindsided by her out-of-nowhere question that all I could offer for an answer at first was some weird noise. “I’m not? She just has a leaf in her hair...”

“You called Satsuki’s name first just now! It’s not fair! Why is it always Satsuki?!”

“I-It’s not always. That was just spur-of-the-moment...”

What was going on? She was being awfully fussy... Was this the aftereffect of the competition over me on Ciel?

“We even went on a date together today! So why didn’t you look for me first?!”

“Ow, ow, ow!”

Iris was squeezing my wrist with all her strength! It felt like it was going to snap! I tried to find the words to comfort her between my yelps of pain, but this time it was Satsuki that interrupted things by slapping Iris’s hand away.

“Stop that! You’re hurting Rekka!”

“What?! Don’t cut in on my conversation with Rekka!”

“You’re the one who did that! I was talking to Rekka first!”

“H-Hey, calm down you t—”

I was trying to mediate between the bickering girls when I was suddenly yanked by the back of my collar, cutting off my sentence in my throat. Then I felt something extremely soft pressing against the back of my head...

“Rekka...”

“L-Lea?”

She was the one who’d grabbed me from behind. Which meant these two pillowy lumps up against me were...!

I immediately tried to straighten myself out, but she was hugging me so tightly from behind that I couldn’t move much at all.

“U-Um, please let go...”

“Did you really go on a date with Iris?” Lea ignored my question to ask one of her own.

The combination of the extreme proximity of her face looking down at mine and the soft sensation behind my head made my heart thump erratically. God, she was so close that I could feel her warm breath... But just as my mind started to race, something tugged on my legs.

“Wuh?!”

And hard. I was pulled all the way down to the ground.

“Rosalind... and Harissa?”

“Sir Rekka, what does she mean by date?! What have you been doing all day anyway?! You told me you’d be home early because of the opening ceremony, so I’ve been waiting for you this whole time!”

“Rekka! I can’t believe you’re being deceived by those sacs of fat again! Do you like breasts that much?! Argh! I’ll teach you a woman’s true value!”

“O-Okay...?”

I lay on the ground as Rosalind and Harissa scolded me from both sides.

“Uh... I-I’m sorry?”

I held my hands up in a gesture of surrender... although I didn’t quite understand why I was at fault here, a-and I wasn’t being deceived by her chest at all! In the middle of all this, the still-bickering Satsuki and Iris made their way over to us and instigated more trouble.

“Hey! Give Rekka back!” said Iris.

“What do you mean, ‘back’? Rekka doesn’t belong to you, Iris!” said Satsuki.

“S-Sir Rekka visited the village elder with me! S-So Sir Rekka is m-mine!” said Harissa.

“You’re all spouting nonsense!” said Rosalind.

Wh-What was I supposed to do? There wasn’t even room for me to say anything...

As they continued to hiss and spit, Lea squeezed past the four of them and grabbed me again, pulling me towards her.

“Rekka, go on a date with me.”

“Huh?! Wh-Wh-Wha—”

“You went on one with Iris, right? But that’s in the past now. Go on your next one with me.”

If it’s in the past, wouldn’t it be better to forget about it...? Please?

“Lea, get away from him!”

“...Tsumiki?”

Surprisingly, the one who tried to stop Lea was her good friend Tsumiki.

“What, Tsumiki? I’m just inviting Rekka on a date. Don’t get in my way.”

“I-I’m not getting in the way! I just can’t forgive the way that womanizing pervert smiles when he touches your breasts!”

“I’m not smiling! And I didn’t touch them!”

Not of my own free will, anyway! Lea was the one who touched me!

“Oh, is that all? I don’t mind if Rekka touches me, though.”

“Th-Th-That’s not right! Here, I’ll help! I’ll get him away from you!”

“Ow, ow, ow!”

They were trying to tear my arms off! Tsumiki was forcibly trying to pull me away from Lea, who refused to let go. They were each gonna have a piece of me in a second!

“Hmph! Let go, Tsumiki! Rekka’s in pain!”

“You let go, Lea!”

“No!”

“Uuugh! I won’t feed you anymore when you come to Nozomiya!”

“What?!”

Lea hesitated for the briefest moment, but it was enough for Tsumiki to yank me away from her. She yanked a little too hard, however, and the force of it knocked her off-balance and sent her tumbling backward.

“Wah! Huh? Kyah!”

“Uwah!”

She was holding my arm so tightly that I, of course, went tumbling with her.

“Ouch... Huh?!”

“Hahh!”

I could hear Tsumiki gasp from directly below me. Apparently, I’d landed on her when we fell.

“R-Rekka...”

Lying entangled like we were, our faces were oh-so-close together... We both unthinkingly blushed at each other. Wh-What was this? I’d never seen such a sweet look on Tsumiki’s face before. Despite the predicament we were in, I couldn’t help thinking it was cute, but...

“AAAAAAAAH!”

The other girls were all shrieking.

Satsuki, Iris, Harissa, Lea, and Rosalind were all angrily roaring over the, uh... compromising position I’d ended up in with Tsumiki.

“What are you doing?! Dummy Nammy!”

“Ack!”

Lyun released a magical burst of wind that blew me into the air, but luckily...

“You all right, young man?”

“Y-Yeah... Thanks, Corona.”

Corona, who could fly freely, had apparently taken flight to save me. Thank God someone was still there for me.

Honestly... what was wrong with everyone? At first, I thought it was just one of their usual spats, but I’d never seen Lea and Tsumiki fight before. Lea especially wasn’t the type to raise her voice with her friends. I realize it was a little late for this to be dawning on me just now, but something was definitely wrong here.

“Young man, no... Rekka.”

“Hm?”

“Do you like larger breasts?”

“Bwuh?!” I spluttered at Corona’s unexpected question.

“If you do, you may do as you please with mine,” she offered.

Her cheeks were tinged with red as she pulled me closer... to her and her magnificent chest. Well, we were already pretty close together, so maybe it would be more accurate to say she was squishing me up against her. Damn it! They’d practically been in my face this whole time, and I was doing my best to pretend like they weren’t, but now I couldn’t not notice them! They were right there! And... so soft...

But just as my mind was thrown into lustful disarray...

Clack!

“Hm?”

I heard what sounded like something metallic clamping down, then felt something tighten around my throat and forcefully yank me backward—right towards the ground. Just as I thought I was about to crash into it, my body decelerated, and I came to a gentle stop just inches above the ground. As for who had lassoed me like a cowboy... er, cowgirl...

“Goodness... Everyone wants to run off with you, Rekka.”

“Sh-Shirley?”

“But it’s all right. I can catch you anytime with this anti-gravity whip,” she said with a grin.

So the reason I was floating right now was because of her gravity-defying whip? It was probably designed to negate gravity for the target in order to reduce their struggling. It’s pretty hard to run when your feet aren’t on the ground, after all.

“You there, science girl! Unhand Rekka at once,” Rosalind roared.

“Shirley! Let go of Rekka right now!” Iris hollered.

“How about no? Teehee,” Shirley refused with a taunting grin.

“Don’t mess around, you...” Satsuki seethed.

The other girls were also on their way over, each trying to divert the others away. Things were already out of hand, but this was just... No, that’s enough!

“Hang on, everyone! Stop! Just calm down!”

I raised my hands and my voice, trying to restore some semblance of order... But it was like none of them even heard me. Really, what had come over them?

As I was pondering that, the conflict between the girls came to a head, and all hell broke loose. In an instant, they were hurling magic, technology, and bare fists at each other. It was like a war zone.

“Waaaaait!”

My frantic yelling was swallowed up by the thunderous commotion. No one was going to hear me now. Why had they all attacked each other so suddenly? This was going way too far, even for a fight!

“Hold still, damn girl!” shouted Rosalind.

“Don’t you run away! Leave Rekka here!” shouted Iris.

“I refuse!” shouted Shirley in reply.

Why was everyone even fighting to begin with? What had gotten them so worked up? Shirley was still swinging me around with her anti-gravity whip, so I was powerless to do anything other than watch the chaos unfold.

“You late-comers all cling to Rekka way too much!” shouted Satsuki.

“Just because you’re his childhood friend doesn’t give you dibs!” shouted Tsumiki.

“I want to cling to Rekka, too!” shouted Lea.

The fighting was steadily intensifying. They were knocking down trees in the grove, kicking up dirt, and generating giant clouds of dust and smoke.

“Sir Rekka and me are getting hitched! Y’all ain’t gettin’ in the way!” shouted Harissa.

“No, I will have Rekka!” shouted Corona.

“There’s no way we’d hand him over to a former Demon King!” shouted Lyun.

After that, the shouting just deteriorated into cacophony. All I could make out was my name every now and then. I didn’t have the faintest idea what was happening, other than that it seemed like I was the reason they were fighting... But there was also that light Rachelle had fired at them earlier. That was still on my mind. Everyone had started acting weird after getting hit by that.

So, in order to get to the bottom of things, I’d have to start with interrogating that ridiculous angel... which meant I had to get out of here for now. Maybe if I left, the girls would stop fighting, too. But first I had to do something about this anti-gravity whip...

“That’s right! My suit!”

Zeta had mentioned all kinds of useful features in Galactic Great’s suit when she’d introduced it. One of them might come in handy right about now. If I recalled correctly, the voice activation command was...

“Galactic Blade!”

The next moment, my right arm started to vibrate at a high frequency from my elbow down. It was so strong that it felt like it could snap my bones, but thanks to the suit, I was fully protected.

“Oof!”

I struggled with balance due to the lack of gravity, but I swung the Galactic Blade down on the whip restraining me. It appeared to be made out of some kind of special space material, but the built-in secret weapon of the custom hero suit was made to fight against much tougher things. The Galactic Blade cut through the anti-gravity whip like it was butter.

“Ngh!”

I hit the ground clumsily, rolling a bit before coming to a stop and getting up.

“Ah, no! Don’t run away, Rekka!” Shirley yelled upon realizing I’d escaped.

“Rekka! Over here!” Satsuki called.

“We’re going to go finish our date, Rekka!” Iris clamored.

“Sir Rekka, I’ve made up my mind! Let’s sleep together tonight!” Harissa chimed in.

“Everyone, just calm down! I’ll be back!”

Using the power of the suit, I dashed off at lightning speed. My biggest concern was Iris, who was wearing the same suit I was and had much higher base stats than I did. Thankfully, Satsuki and Harissa blocked her path, allowing me to get away successfully. But it turned out she wasn’t the only one I needed to be worried about.

“Rekka! Where do you think you’re going without me?!”

“You stay here, vampire, or Rekka will run away.”

“Are you saying it’s my fault he’s running?!”

Rosalind and Corona bickered with each other as they chased after me. Lea and Lyun were flying through the air right behind them, too.

“H-Hold it right there!” As the only normal person in the group, Tsumiki had fallen quite far behind, but even panting, she was still running and shouting as best she could.

“Why don’t you just give up and let everyone debauch you?”

“Quiet!”

As I yelled at R for not ever being able to mind her own business, I ran deeper into the woods. The forest appeared to be completely untouched by human hands. The rooty and wild underbrush was difficult terrain to run on. It nearly tripped me up more than once. Eventually, the somewhat flat land began to slope into an increasingly steep hillside.

WHAM! BAM! SLAM!

“Wh-What was that?!”

My feet came to an unwilling stop at the thunderous commotion coming from behind me.

“Perhaps one of the heroines is smashing trees out of their way? Or maybe they’re trying to obstruct the other heroines,” R postulated.

“Damn it! How did things end up like this?!” I cursed.

“The cause is fairly clear, if you ask me.”

“Right, the light Rachelle fired out...” I recalled what had happened 20 minutes ago rather unpleasantly. “What was that light, anyway? Why did it affect everyone this way?”

“That’s also quite clear, I believe.”

“Huh?”

I turned to R in surprise, who gave a tired sigh in response.

“You’re so hopeless. Consider this a huge favor.”

“O-Okay?”

“If you’re wondering about the light Rachelle released, then start by thinking about what kind of angel she is.”

“What kind of angel? She’s... the angel of love and passion, right?”

“Right,” R said with a nod. “Now, what was she gathering today?”

“...Love energy?”

“Right again.”

“What about it?”

“Next question: how, exactly, did Rachelle want to collect said love energy?”

“Huh?”

Why was R asking me all these questions? She’d said she was doing me a favor... Which had to mean this was leading to some kind of hint, right?

“Let me think...”

This morning, we’d met a starving Rachelle who’d traveled from across the sea in order to get the love energy she so desperately needed. And she’d asked for...

“...A scene of carnage?”

“Correct.” R nodded unemotively.

I didn’t quite understand how angels gathered energy, but Rachelle was able to do it just by being near a source. Moreover, she was a total weirdo. She seemed to equate carnage with the pinnacle of passionate love. So if she’d had her powers restored...

“Don’t tell me that she’s now gone on a rampage and is trying to create carnage herself?”

That was the only explanation I could think of. If it was right, then the chaotic contest she’d started over me made sense.

“The carnage the heroines are creating right now is akin to what’s going to happen during the War of All. Although this is on a much smaller scale, so I suppose we should call it the ‘mini’ little apocalypse. Perhaps that’s redundant...” R murmured pensively.

As we were talking, the destructive sounds of battle coming from the other side of the forest only grew more intense. At this rate, there wouldn’t be anything “mini” about it... Wait a minute!

“That damn angel! This whole thing is all her fault! I knew she was a fallen angel!”

“Well, it does seem as though she absorbed excessive amounts of energy, resulting in her wild rampage.”

Ugh, when she put it that way, it made it sound like she was on a drunken bender... But regardless, at least 80 percent of today’s ruckus was explicitly on her!

“Hang on. If that’s the case, does that mean the situation will resolve itself if we do something about Rachelle?”

“That’s a more than reasonable hypothesis.”

To be honest, I had been agonizing over what to do about the girls going crazy. This was my first little ray of hope.

“That being said, Rachelle has absorbed so much love energy right now that she’s likely insanely powerful. She might even be stronger than the kaiju was.”

“Ah, crap...”

Come to think of it, she had single-handedly one-shot the kaiju that had given the rest of us hell. Damn it, just how much trouble was she going to cause?!

“Rekka!”

My heart nearly jumped out of my chest when I heard someone call my name, but when I turned around to see who it was...

“Are you all right, Rekka?”

I spied a worried-looking Kiri.

▽

Kiri led me to a cave in the forest so I could hide.

“Hi there.”

“Hi again, Starmon.”

Her mascot, Starmon, was there waiting for us.

“Starmon found this place,” explained Kiri.

“Yeah?”

Apparently, when Satsuki and the others had started fighting, they’d fled the scene.

“Come to think of it, how come you weren’t affected by Rachelle’s light, Kiri?”

“Even you can’t conquer a heroine you haven’t saved yet,” R answered with a sigh.

Whatever. I was just glad one of the girls was still sane.

“Wait, you’re saying Kiri’s a heroine? Well, I guess that was obvious...”

She was in a desperate situation with the odds stacked against her. She was headed full-speed for a bad ending.

“Anyway, I’m glad you’re safe, Kiri.”

“Yeah...” Kiri nodded, but she didn’t seem very happy.

“...Kiri?”

“Hahh... Hahh...”

She suddenly fell to her knees, gasping for breath like she was in pain.

“H-Hey, are you okay?!”

“Yeah...” she said, but her expression was twisted in agony.

“Star Prism...” Seeing her like this, Starmon called to her with a tearful voice.

“Starmon, what’s wrong with Kiri?! Is she sick or something?!” I asked.

“No, she’s not sick... This is because her hero gauge is depleted.”

“What’s a hero gauge?” I had to ask.

“A hero gauge is the essence of a hero. It increases when fighting and defeating evil in the name of justice. However, if said evil isn’t defeated or the hero does anything to shame their name, the gauge decreases.”

As far as I could tell, Kiri was a spirited girl with a strong sense of justice. I just couldn’t imagine her doing anything that would shame her as a hero.

“Hahh... Hahh...”

“Kiri!”

Unable even to remain on her knees any longer, Kiri fell over. I reached out to catch her in a panic, and was lucky to grab her before her head hit the ground. As I gently laid her down, Starmon continued explaining.

“We’ve actually been fighting an evil organization for the last year, but they figured out Star Prism’s hero gauge and took nasty countermeasures against it.”

“Nasty countermeasures?”

“I’m afraid so.”

According to Starmon, this is how it went. Star Prism’s hero gauge increased when she defeated evil, so the bad guys learned to prevent that by not letting her defeat them. In other words, whenever they were about to lose to Star Prism, they would take themselves out before she could do it.

“At first, they would only self-destruct when their demise was inevitable, but that counted towards Star Prism’s hero gauge anyway... So they eventually mastered the timing and learned to self-destruct early enough that she would get no credit for their defeat. And so they’ve been chipping away at her hero gauge over the past six months.”

Apparently this “hero gauge” thing was like a measure of a hero’s extraordinary nature. It was an inherent measure of their heroism, more or less.

Honestly, hearing this all was a little hard to swallow, but if what Starmon was saying was true, these bad guys were real bad dudes. They’d chosen an effective—not to mention nasty—plan to take out Star Prism. The more they depleted her hero gauge, the less power she had as a hero. And if this had been going on for half a year, that would explain why she was so weak fighting the kaiju.

“But Star Prism persisted, believing that she could defeat the evil organization one day if she continued fulfilling her duties as a hero to sustain herself. She managed to destroy most of the organization while she still had some of her hero gauge remaining, but before she was able to defeat the head of the evil organization, he summoned a huge kaiju from space to annihilate Earth. He said that if he couldn’t have it, no one could.”

“What a jerk.”

So the kaiju that Zeta scouted and Rachelle had finished off was summoned by Kiri’s evil organization, huh? That meant...

“Since Kiri didn’t defeat the kaiju, she still hasn’t been able to refill her hero gauge?”

“I’m afraid not...”

“Oh, no...”

Damn it! It was starting to feel like all of this was turning out to be my fault. I was the one who threw out space gramps’s back so he couldn’t play Galactic Great, I got Rachelle to take out the kaiju without hearing Kiri and Starmon’s side of the story first, and I hadn’t even been able to stop Rachelle’s ensuing rampage.

“Argh! I’ve been so useless this time, getting dragged all over the place!”

I was so worked up that I kicked the wall of the cave out of frustration.

“Hngh...”

The noise seemed to disturb Kiri. She groaned as she placed a trembling hand on the wall to support herself and sit up.

“Don’t push yourself, Kiri.”

“But... it must be terrible out there right now.”

It was true that the sounds of destruction in the distance were gradually growing louder. Things had probably gotten pretty ugly. The girls, all brainwashed by Rachelle, were attacking each other as they searched for me.

“At this rate, the town might get caught in the crossfire... They have to be stopped.”

“No, there’s no way...”

There was no way everyone would go that far... is what I wanted to say. But I only knew the girls, not what Rachelle’s brainwashing might make them do after she’d gone off the deep end with love energy. And without knowing that, I couldn’t say for certain how this was going to pan out.

“Star Prism, don’t force yourself!”

“Starmon... I have to. You know me, right?”

“I do! That’s why I’m stopping you! There’s barely anything left in your hero gauge! And if you exhaust it completely... you’ll die!”

“What?!”

No way... She was gonna die?

“What are you saying?! Didn’t you say the hero gauge was just a measure of her heroism?!”

“But like I said, that is the essence of a hero... If a hero isn’t defeating evil, then they have no worth as a hero.”

“What are you saying?! She’s been fighting an evil organization for an entire year, right? Her hero gauge has only been depleted because her enemies are using underhanded tricks!”

“Yes, but... The rules are the rules. That’s just how the contract works.”

“Contract?! Starmon, you’re the one who got Kiri into this, aren’t you?!”

I flew into a rage and tried to grab Starmon.

“Stop! This isn’t Starmon’s fault...” Kiri got up and gently lowered my raised arms.

“But this is just too unfair!”

“I don’t care about that!” Kiri flatly dismissed my indignation on her behalf. “I was the one who wanted to become Star Prism! Starmon isn’t to blame. If anyone is, it’s the head of the evil organization!”

“That may be true, but...”

“I don’t care what happens to me! Whatever it is, not stepping up to protect everyone would be far worse!”

The Namidare bloodline forced me into the role of main character in all kinds of stories, but Kiri was the real main character this time around. She was a genuine hero. And today was the least heroic I’d ever been... I needed to make a comeback. And fast.

“I’m going,” said Kiri bravely.

“Wait,” I said, stopping her from going. “Just give me one minute. I’ll figure something out in that time.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ll find a solution for everything.”

I used that minute to organize the threads of the various stories in my head.

Kiri’s story. Star Prism’s special ability. Her power to purify evil.

Zeta’s story. Her show. The story she was trying to tell. The state of her company.

Rachelle’s story. Her rampage. Her maniacal control over everyone right now.

Gathering the pieces, I went through all the possible connections trying to see what would fit where.

“Hey, Starmon. Star Prism can convert people’s support into power, right? Will that still work even when she’s been weakened by a depleted hero gauge?”

“Huh? Y-Yeah. I said she converts support into power, but it’s more like a temporary boost to her hero gauge—the source of her power. Once that support runs out, her gauge will drain accordingly. But in the meantime, it works just as well as the real thing.”

“Okay. Now, if she defeats that insane fallen angel, that should be sufficient to boost her hero gauge, right?”

“Yes, I believe so.”

“In this particular case, ‘defeating’ her is really just bringing her to her senses. Would that still count?”

“Yes. Like I said, Star Prism’s special ability is the power to purify the evil within one’s heart. Turning evil to goodness is just as heroic as vanquishing it.”

“All right.”

So if Kiri could stop Rachelle’s rampage, then I could solve two stories with one solution. The issue would be getting the support to power her up. With the kind of power she’d need, we’d need a lot of people cheering for her... But once we had that, Star Prism would be back to normal. No, if we did this right, she’d be way stronger.

“By the way, the back of your neck has been blinking for a while now,” said Starmon.

“Huh?”

“What is this? Some kind of switch?”

He jumped onto my shoulder and pressed the flashing button.

“Wah!”

As Starmon yelped in surprise, Galactic Great’s helmet extended from the suit and covered my head.

“Yo! Can you hear me, brat?!”

As soon as I had the helmet on, my eardrums were rattled by a deafening shout from the internal transmitter.

“Is that you, Zeta?”

“So you’re still breathing after all! Respond to me faster if you’re alive, damn it!”

Had she been trying to connect to me ever since her crash landing before? I must have worried her. I apologized earnestly.

“Jeez... What are you doing now? I haven’t seen any more plasma beams, but the tremors and the ruckus haven’t stopped. What happened to the kaiju?”

“Yeah, about that...”

I was kind of at a loss as to where to start explaining, but Zeta didn’t wait for an answer.

“Well, the program’s already doomed, so there’s no point in worrying about the kaiju anymore. Once I get back, I’ll have to handle the channel termination and bankruptcy forms...” She spoke with a certain amount of calm resolve, but then let out an especially emotional sigh. “Hahh... And there was so much more I wanted to make...”

That quiet mutter finally revealed the true heart of the matter. The real bad ending for Zeta wasn’t her company going under, it was her career as a creative professional being cut short.

The Galactic Federation Netvision Network her channel was a part of made it extremely difficult to rejoin with them once a contract had been terminated for bankruptcy or violations. They wouldn’t even humor a reapplication unless there were extenuating circumstances. The netvision network was an amazing system that allowed a single person to run an entire channel themselves, but the rules had to be all the more strict because of that.

“...”

Just then, something clicked in the back of my brain.

“Wait a minute, Zeta!”

“Hah?”

“Your company... No, your channel is totally yours, right?”

“What about it?”

“That means you can play whatever you want whenever you want, right?!”

“Well... I suppose so, yeah.” Zeta replied to my over-excited barrage of questions in a somewhat confused voice.

“Then, Zeta, I have a proposal for you.”

“What?”

I explained to her the plan I’d just come up with.

“Okay, I’ll bite. This new project of yours does sound interesting. Implementing it would be perfectly feasible. Thankfully, none of the filming equipment was damaged.”

“Really?! Then...”

“But you know what this means, right? You’ll have one shot. And I mean that. Just one take,” Zeta said with a hint of worry in her voice.

I grinned in response.

“It’ll work out somehow. You said it yourself, Zeta. You’ve done everything you can.”

“Heh, that’s right.”

With something of a chuckle—I couldn’t tell if it was genuine or embittered—Zeta agreed to my plan.

“What about you guys, Kiri, Starmon? Do you think you can manage it?”

“Yeah!”

She was still a little wobbly on her feet, but Kiri pumped her fist into the air to show her enthusiasm. I needed to take a page out of her book here and give this my all.

“All right! Let’s go put on the biggest show the galaxy has ever seen!”