Chapter 6: Legend of a Real-Time Hero
Chapter 6: Legend of a Real-Time Hero
“Now...”
I took a deep breath to calm my racing heart.
“Are you nervous?” asked R.
“Well, yeah. I’ll never get used to this.”
The climax of the story... The proverbial fork in the road where things either take a turn for the good or the bad ending. There was just no getting used to it.
“No, no. That’s not what I meant.”
“No?”
“Starting with getting dragged to the theme park earlier, you’ve been completely powerless against the heroines fighting over you, Rekka. You’ve just uselessly been jerked around from one thing to another all day.”
“You sure know how to hit where it hurts...”
It was true I’d been led around by the nose the whole day. It was fair to say I was useless.
“But I’m finally seeing what I need to do, and I have a plan to resolve all these stories. Now I just need to do what has to be done.”
“Yes... Well, that may be correct.”
There seemed to be something else on R’s mind. But whatever it was, she didn’t say it. I didn’t bother to reply, and instead focused on what lay ahead of me.
“Zeta, how are things coming along on your end?” I asked.
“We’re good to go here,” Zeta replied from the other end of the transmitter.
“All right. Well, then, here we go... Make sure you don’t record what I say at the beginning, okay?”
“I know that. I wouldn’t include that tripe even if you asked me to. Galactic Great’s image would be ruined. I’ll let you know when the cameras are rolling, so make sure you’re in character from that point onward.”
“Gotcha.”
I ended the transmission for now, braced myself, and jumped out from between the trees. Zeta sent navigational information to the suit to guide me through the forest around to a cliff that overlooked where the heroines were currently fighting.
“Whoa...”
Everything along the coast had been destroyed for as far as the eye could see. The ground was caved in here and there, the trees had either been mowed or burned down... It was all a testament to how fiercely the girls were fighting.
The only one who had retired from the battle was Tsumiki, who had no special abilities and had long been knocked out. Lea was carrying her unconscious body in her arms to protect her. She wasn’t in Leviathan mode, and when I got a good look at her, I realized Corona wasn’t using her true powers, either. So despite being under Rachelle’s influence, they were all still friends. They were holding back, mostly using their powers to obstruct the other heroines in their search for me. However...
“You never know when they’ll lose all control,” R warned.
Hopefully we could stop things before then. I really hated to see them fighting like this. For the record, Rachelle—the cause of this mess—was hovering in the air overhead, encouraging the chaos.
“Ahahaha! Yes, everyone! More! More amour! More burning passion! That’s right! Ignite the fires of your love!”
Seriously, the only thing that wasn’t already on fire was the mountain. Any more and we’d have a full-blown wildfire on our hands. Gotta remember to extinguish all of this once we’re done...
But that wasn’t the biggest problem on our hands at the moment. I realized that, as Rachelle was yelling, more and more love energy from her crazy aura was raining down on the girls. And the more of it they absorbed, the worse their fight grew. There was no way we were gonna stop the fire without stopping their battle. And there was no way we were gonna stop their battle without stopping that dumb angel.
“Ah, Rekka!”
Suddenly, Iris noticed me from below the cliff. She called out to me, which alerted the others to my presence. They all looked up at me. Okay, it’s now or never! I cast aside all my shame and yelled in the loudest voice I could muster...
“IRIIIS!”
“Hi, Rekka! What is it?” Iris paused her fight and turned to wave at me cheerfully.
The expression on the other girls’ faces doubled in severity. It’d probably only get worse from here, but there was no turning back now! I had to say it! I pulled myself together and steeled my resolve. Then I shouted at the top of my lungs...
“PLEASE TAKE OFF YOUR CLOTHES!”
No, I didn’t mean it in a weird way! It was purely for the sake of the plan! It wasn’t anything dirty, I swear! But there was no way the others would believe that...
“Oh, my! How bold of you, Rekka!” cooed Iris.
“WHAAAAAAAAT?!” the other girls all screamed, looking like they were out for blood.
Yeah, I was prepared to be treated like a pervert... But I had to stick to the plan! As I was groaning to myself, the transmitter inside of my helmet crackled.
“Hey, the way you worded that just now made it sound like you wanted her to strip naked.”
“Huh?”
Prompted by Zeta’s words, I looked down. And yup... Iris was already in the middle of trying to take off all her clothes.
“Wait, wait, wait, Iris! The suit! I just wanted you to take of your suit!”
“Aww, you don’t need to hold back. I might be a little embarrassed, but if it’s what you want...”
“No, that’s not what I wanted!” I corrected myself in a great panic.
Luckily I was able to convince her to take off just the suit, but...
“REKKA!”
“NAMMY!”
“REKKA!”
Satsuki and the others were beyond livid. Ugh... I was worried that asking Iris to take off her suit would aggravate them as it was, but my poor wording had only managed to make it worse.
“Rekka! Wh-Wh-What are you asking Iris to strip for?!”
Satsuki was the first to come flying. She used her magic to send herself rocketing up to the cliff where I was standing. She swooped in, grabbed my collar, and shook me furiously.
“I-It was a misunderstanding! Um, wow, Satsuki, you’re pretty strong—ow, I said it was a misunderstanding!”
“REKKAAAAA!”
“Huh? Bwuh!”
While I was in the middle of trying to explain myself to Satsuki, Rosalind suddenly came charging in from the side at superhuman speed and kicked me right out of Satsuki’s grasp.
“OUCH! If it weren’t for the suit, you would’ve snapped me in half just now!”
“Silence, you rip!” Rosalind looked crazed with rage, her scarlet red eyes glinting menacingly. “Y-You’d prefer that little girl’s naked body over mine?! And out in the open like this?! You despicable lecher!”
“Like I said, this is all a misunderstanding!”
Damn it, Rachelle’s brainwashing was making everyone so much more aggressive than usual... Er, wait. This was kind of normal, wasn’t it?
“It matters not! I shall put an end to this at once! I didn’t want to use it, but you’ve left me with no choice but to entrap you with my charm!”
Uh-oh, that was bad news. If I lost myself to mind control now, everything would be ruined.
“That weird helmet won’t save you from my powers!”
I held up an arm to shield my eyes when a ball came flying up from below and struck Rosalind directly in the face, exploding upon impact. A paint-like substance burst out, covering her eyes.
“Wh-What is this?! I can’t get it off!”
What the heck was that? It was like a paintball of glue... The next thing I knew, a whip lashed up from the precipice, wrapped around Rosalind’s ankle, and dragged her over the edge.
“Waaaaaaaah!”
“Whew, good grief. No good would have come of her charming you here.”
As I suspected, Shirley took Rosalind’s place atop of the cliff. It seemed she’d scaled it with the assistance of the floating device she’d used in the theme park earlier. Moreover, she had a medical gun in her hands.
“Sh-Shirley?”
“Don’t worry. It’s just a tranquilizer.”
“Yeah, that’s exactly the part that worries me...”
What was she going to do after she sedated me?
“Good night.”
Shirley flashed a smile before pulling the trigger...
“Hold it right there!”
But a sudden furious gust of wind blew the tranquilizer dart off course so it missed me entirely.
“Oh, Lyun. Did you get out of the electromagnetic net already?”
“No thanks to you! Stop using sneaky tactics like surprise attacks!”
In contrast to Shirley’s mild surprise, Lyun was positively fuming. The wind around her was whipping as she shouted.
Apparently, Shirley had sprung the aforementioned electromagnetic net on everyone while they were distracted by my appearance. Satsuki had escaped it because she’d flown off immediately with her magic, but it was a rather calculating move on Shirley’s part. Well, even if it was electromagnetic, it was still just a net, so it probably wasn’t designed to do any harm... It seemed like she’d yet to bring out the “really” dangerous items she’d mentioned earlier in the park.
As someone who’d been caught in the net, however, Lyun was irate and glaring daggers at Shirley. And in the middle of all this, Corona flew up over the cliff’s edge, too, making this a four-way—no, a five-way, including me—standoff. That was when Zeta radioed me over the transmitter.
“Yo, Rekka. Things are in place now on Kiri’s end, as well. Camera roll in three, two...”
So, it’s finally show time...
I straightened my cowardly posture and stood bolt upright as I took a deep breath. The girls had their eyes glued on me.
“I am Galactic Great, protector of the galaxy!”
But they were all watching me with dubious disgust, mind you.
“R-Rekka... are you all right?”
“I am Galactic Great! I do not know this Rekka you speak of!”
That part was important, so I made sure to emphasize it. The girls all looked at me dumbfoundedly, including Satsuki and Shirley, who already knew about Galactic Great. They probably couldn’t believe I’d started to act the part for Zeta’s show, Legend of a Real Hero: Galactic Great, here and now. But while they were all agape, I took the opportunity to call out Rachelle, who was still hovering overhead.
“Evil harpy of envy and madness, Rachelle!” I shouted, pointing a finger at her. “Just because you’re unpopular, you’ve driven madness into the hearts of girls from across the stars to make them fight! All to disenchant the boys of the galaxy and keep them from having healthy, loving relationships! I’ve seen through your evil plan, and this is as far as you go!”
“Hahaha... hah? What are you saying, Rekka? I’m the angel of love and passion, not envy and madness!”
“Silence, you fallen... you fake angel!”
Of course, I wasn’t doing this for airs or appearances. It was part of my plan to save Zeta and Kiri’s stories, as well as the rampaging Rachelle. Which was why I, who had only played the role of background trees in school plays until now, was putting everything I had into the coolest hero performance I could pull off!
“Your wicked deeds may be allowed by the laws of entropy, but I, Galactic Great, will never stand for them!” I threw my bright red scarf over my shoulder and struck a heroic pose. “I will burn brighter than the Big Bang!”
“I don’t really follow, but...” Rachelle was still smiling dopily in her intoxicated state, face flushed red. “My power has already surpassed that of an archangel! No one can stand against me now! Gone are the days of being picked on by my superiors and doing grunt work like a secretary!”
What? Is that all she wanted from her extreme power-up? Really? How mundane... I guess that proved Rachelle wasn’t actually evil at heart, just overworked and fed up with being benevolent about it. But it still didn’t change the fact that she’d been one giant headache for me.
“It may be my role to save damsels in distress, but I still have to punish bad girls like you!”
“Hey, watch your mouth on a live broadcast. Nothing risqué.”
“Oh, my bad...” I apologized to Zeta under my breath.
As part of my plan, I’d had Zeta switch up her channel’s programming structure so she could air a live show. Which meant that all of this was being streamed directly by viewers. We only had one shot to get it all right. I couldn’t fail here!
“I’m grateful for everything you did, Rekka, but I won’t let you get in my way!” Rachelle poured more of her maniacal love energy into the heroines. “Now, come! Your beloved is right there! Fight for him! Show your love!”
So her plan was to send everyone into such a wild rampage that I had my hands full dealing with them...
“REKKAAAAA!”
“Hm? Bwuh!”
I was suddenly tackled from behind and sent face-first into the ground.
“I won’t let you go anymore, Rekka!”
I-Iris?! Since she couldn’t fly, she’d run the long way around to get up the cliff and come at me from behind.
“Hey, idiot! How can a hero get taken down that easily?!”
“D-Don’t say that...”
I replied to the irritated Zeta as quietly as I could so no one else would hear, but she was right. This certainly didn’t look good.
“Ugh, fine! Repeat after me right now, got it?!”
Obeying Zeta’s instructions, I repeated the line she gave me through the transmitter.
“Curse you for using the innocent girls as your puppets! How underhanded of you, Rachelle!”
Aha, I see! That would explain why I’d just let Iris knock me over instead of defending myself. It made perfect sense that a hero would avoid hurting innocent civilians. And that was fine with me. I wanted to resolve this conflict between the heroines without hurting anyone if possible. Nice thinking, director!
“Eeheehee! Now, how about we pick up where we left off?”
“What?”
With that, Iris suddenly started unbuttoning her—wait, did she mean picking up with that?! What was I supposed to do?!
“Iris! Get away from Rekka!” shouted Corona.
“Don’t you dare do anything strange to Nammy!” shouted Lyun.
They both raged at Iris and her forwardness, blasting her with their dark and wind magic respectively.
“Whoa!”
I pushed Iris aside using the power of the suit and took both magical attacks in her place.
“Gwah!”
“Rekka?!”
“Nammy!”
Corona and Lyun were both shaken to see their attacks hit me.
“Ugh, guh... This suit really is amazing...”
The spells they’d fired were pretty powerful... The intensity of the love energy they were receiving from Rachelle must be making them even stronger than usual.
“What are you doing to Rekka?!” Satsuki screamed.
“That was Iris’s fault!” Lyun screamed back.
They continued to shout at each other.
“If you guys don’t butt out, I’m going to snap, too!”
After being interrupted, Iris had pretty much half-snapped already, flaring up at the other girls. And then...
“Now you’ve done it, little girl!”
“Huh? Kyah!”
Rosalind had finally peeled off the sticky substance she had taken to the face and, after stepping back and waiting for an opening, was launching a surprise attack on Shirley. Crap!
“Rosalind, stop!”
I kicked off the ground with all my strength and ran forward to tackle Rosalind, who was coming at Shirley from the side. With her in my arms, we rolled along the ground together... right off the cliff!
“Uwaaaaah! Ack!”
How many times has this suit saved my life today...?
“Rosalind, are you okay?”
I’d made sure she landed on me and not the other way around, so I was hoping she was all right, but...
“...”
There was no response. Instead, she curled up in my arms and muttered shyly...
“Rekka... my chest...”
I looked down to try and figure out what she was talking about, and when I did, I realized that I’d accidentally clutched one of her breasts when I grabbed her.
“I’m s-s-sorry!”
“N-No, it’s all right...”
“Oh? I always thought Rosalind was one of the more confident heroines, but it seems like even she has her weaknesses. How cute.”
Now’s not the time for your nonsensical input, R! Mind your own business!
Rrrrrumble!
“What’s that?!”
Suddenly, a huge shadow fell over us. Something was blocking out the sun, and when I fearfully looked up to see what it was...
“You...”
Floating in the sky overhead was a train-sized Leviathan carrying a livid Tsumiki on her forehead. I was wondering where Lea had disappeared to earlier, but it seemed she’d gone off to wake up the unconscious Tsumiki and replenish herself with dark matter.
“I came to punish you for asking Iris to strip out of nowhere, only to find you groping Rosalind’s chest in broad daylight! You disgusting lolicon!” Tsumiki roared.
“You’re wrong!”
“Oh, so it doesn’t matter whose boobs they are?”
“What are you even saying?!”
Tsumiki seemed to have lost her mind, too... Wait, hold on.
“By the way, when you said punish...”
“I’m going to beat that womanizing, lust-driven head of yours to the ground, of course! Do it, Lea!”
“Okay, but... I just consumed all that dark matter. Will this really be all right?”
“You know how tenacious Rekka is! He’ll be fine! Besides, if we don’t do anything, he’ll just ask another girl to take her clothes off for him!”
“That’s unforgivable.”
“Exactly! Now squash him!”
“Nooooooo!”
I started running with Rosalind in my arms and dodging the rain of water bullets coming at me. Which wasn’t easy considering how busted up and holey the terrain was.
“Zeta! Are the other preparations not done yet?!” I called to her through the transmitter.
“I posted the commercial to the site and the netvision forums already. There are plenty of hardcore superhero show fans, so hopefully word will spread quickly. We haven’t quite hit our target numbers yet, but... Hey, it’s not time for you to appear yet!” Zeta hollered in a panic.
Not a moment later...
“Hold it!”
I heard a familiar voice from the clifftop where we just were. The heroines had all followed me down, so it had to be...
“I am Star—No, I am Galactic Beauty! You who threaten the peace of the Earth—er, the galaxy! I will punish you in the name of the Great... uh, the Great... the Great Universe!”
It was Galactic Great’s partner, Galactic Beauty. But the one playing her part was no longer Iris. Zeta had come to collect the costume she’d stripped off and given it to Star Prism a.k.a. Kiri. Like Zeta had said, Kiri wasn’t supposed to appear until later. There were still other preparations to make. But nevertheless, here she was. Considering her personality, she’d probably gotten tired of sitting on the sidelines.
“Wait there, Galactic Great! I’m coming to save you now!” she yelled before jumping courageously off the cliff.
But she was met with a great deal of resistance from the heroines. They each shrieked for her to go away and let their attacks fly.
“Yaaah!”
Their collective attack shot her down immediately. Everything from her cool entrance to the way she was instantly taken out was like a perfect replay of the kaiju incident earlier. We really should have waited until all the preparations were in place!
“Ow, ow, ow...”
“Galactic Beauty! Don’t push yourself!” I called to her.
“No, I’m okay!” she replied in an amazingly cheery voice for someone who’d just been shot down. She then glared up at Rachelle in the sky. “If it’s come to this, then I’ll just have to cut things off at the head! Don’t you move!”
“Aww, I can’t feel any love energy coming from you! Outsiders should keep out!”
“Yaaah!”
Wow, Galactic Beauty got taken out again! And by a single forehead flick this time! Just as we feared, Rachelle was super powered up by all the love energy she’d absorbed. Her rampaging on top of that was just a bonus. What to do...? Starmon had said we needed to be more powerful than Rachelle in order to use that. But if she’d powered up more than we’d imagined, our plan had better be extra effective if this was going to work out—wait, was Kiri falling this way?!
“Uwah!”
“Guh!”
“Ack!”
Kiri crashed into me and Rosalind, and the three of us went rolling together.
“Y-You all right, Ki—er, Galactic Beauty?”
“I-I’m fwine...”
She didn’t appear hurt, but her head was clearly still spinning from falling out of the sky. The dubious slurring gave her away. Now... where was Rosalind? She wasn’t in my arms anymore, and I wasn’t really sure what had happened. I looked around to see her on all fours with her face half buried in the dirt. There was a nice, long gouge out of the ground behind her, so I guess she ended up getting knocked the furthest by the impact with Kiri and inadvertently used her face for brakes... How tragic.
“Reeeeekka...”
Yanking her face out of the dirt, Rosalind called my name in a voice so deep it sounded like it had come from the depths of hell. As she did, Satsuki, Iris, Harissa, Tsumiki, Lea, Shirley, Corona, and Lyun appeared behind her. Each and every one of them was glaring my way furiously. I mean, I’d taken hold of Kiri at some point in the tumble to try and protect her, so it did look like I was hugging her, but...
“Stop messing around!” the girls all shouted in unison.
“You guys think this is my fault?! You’re gonna blame this on me?!”
“W-Wait, why am I being chased, too?! Really, why?!”
I ran as fast as I could, and Kiri was forced to run with me.
“Hey, stop running! Heroes don’t just turn and flee from danger!” Zeta scolded.
“Sh-She’s right!” Kiri agreed.
“Don’t listen to Zeta, Kiri! We can’t fight back against them!” I argued.
I grabbed Kiri’s shoulder just as she was about to turn back, and I encouraged her to keep running.
“Damn it! Just because your immediate opponents are being controlled doesn’t mean we can let this scene drag on forever. It gets old pretty quick. No, wait, maybe we could use this...”
“What is it? Did you come up with something, Zeta?”
“Hold on. I don’t know how well it will go, but I might be able to use the live broadcast to our advantage.”
“Really?!”
“I said hold on! We’ll see. Just believe in the fans and hang in there.”
“Easier said than done right now!”
Boom!
Corona launched a blast of dark magic that exploded the ground beneath us like popcorn and sent me and Kiri flying.
“Guh!”
I somehow managed to use the suit’s power to land on my feet, but there was a second explosion almost immediately. This one didn’t seem magical, however, so it was probably Shirley’s doing.
“Is it just me, or are your attacks getting more and more violent?!”
“It’s your fault for bringing in new girls one after another, Rekka... Why can’t you keep your eyes on me?!” Satsuki yelled as she prepared a magic attack I’d never seen before.
“Uh, Satsuki, when did you learn that kind of magic?! Didn’t you say you were bad at offensive spells?!”
“I used the Magic of Omniscience to access information on lost magics!”
Spurred on by her rampant passion, Satsuki had started to use her heirloom magic in ways she never had before, making her all the more powerful.
“It looks like I can’t afford to hold back any longer.”
“Not you, too, Shirley!”
Shirley began pulling out some rather menacing-looking devices... probably the “really” dangerous items she’d mentioned earlier.
“Goodness. Thanks to you being an indecisive, lucky pervert, the carnage has gone from girls fighting over you to girls trying to punish you for being so disloyal.”
“Gee, it’s nice to see you’re as calm as ever, R!”
Especially since I was the victim in the scenario she was describing!
“Oh, yes! Yes! Just like that! That was the purest burst of love energy yet! Everyone, keep fanning the flames of your passions! Ahahaha!”
And so the heroines’ pursuit grew even more intense as Rachelle wriggled in elation in the air above, cackling all the while. It left me and Kiri with nowhere to run. We’d been cornered.
“Oh, Rekka...” Iris called, cracking her knuckles on behalf of everyone else.
“W-Wait, let’s all just calm down first...” I desperately pleaded.
“...Hm? What?” said Kiri.
Something seemed to have caught her attention, but I didn’t have the leisure to look and figure out what it was.
“Repent!” shouted Iris.
“Are you going to kill me?!”
My fear of Iris made her clenched fists look several times more intimidating! Not even the cutting-edge space tech in my suit would protect me from her! Just as I seriously braced myself for imminent death, a hand shot in from the side and caught Iris’s fist.
“You...!”
Iris tried to pull her fist back, but couldn’t.
“It’s here...” Kiri muttered from under Galactic Beauty’s helmet. “It’s here, it’s here, it’s here! It’s finally heeeeere!”
She stood tall and threw her hands in air, cheering loudly before using that momentum to toss Iris to the side.
“Wah! Wai—!”
Iris stuck the landing just fine, but seemed surprised at Kiri’s sudden change in attitude. And that went for just about everyone else present. I was the only one who knew just what the “it” Kiri was talking about was.
“If it’s here, then... the plan worked?”
“Yup! I can feel the energy of everyone’s support now!” said Kiri.
“Yeah, we somehow reached our target numbers,” confirmed Zeta through the transmitter.
The key to the plan this time was Kiri’s—or rather, Star Prism’s—special ability. She could purge the hearts of the heroines that had been brainwashed into aggression by Rachelle’s craziness, but she’d need a substantial amount of power to do it. Star Prism gained additional power commensurate with the number of people who were cheering for her, so it was possible to get her enough support to make it happen. The catch working in our favor was that people didn’t necessarily need to be cheering for Star Prism, per se.
But there was still an issue of logistics. We were in a remote corner of Japan. It wasn’t exactly like there was an audience here, and it was far too dangerous to try and bring one out. That was where Zeta’s netvision channel came in.
First, Legend of a Real Hero: Galactic Great was switched to a live broadcast at the last minute. Even on Japanese television, emergency broadcasts would interrupt scheduled programming when it was serious enough. And since this was the definition of serious and Zeta owned her own channel, I figured she’d be able to swing that without too much trouble.
Next, the Galactic Beauty costume was retrieved from Iris and given to Kiri. She was currently wearing it over her Star Prism transformation. Luckily the suit adjusted to fit the wearer, so that wasn’t a problem.
The last piece of the puzzle was getting Zeta and her staff to spread the word about the live broadcast. Zeta had said that the concept of this project was to have a real hero fight against real evil. That being the case, I thought that people getting to see it unfold live would give it added credibility and realism, thus giving rise to Legend of a Real-Time Hero: Galactic Great. It turned a daring project into a reckless one, but Zeta had said it was better than nothing and given it the green light.
Now, as long as the project became a hit, Zeta’s story would be saved. And there was an additional benefit to the skyrocketing viewership...
“Wow, I’ve never felt power like this before! There are so many people supporting me right now! Rekka, this is amazing! I had no idea there were this many people in the universe!”
“Yeah. Also, call me Galactic Great.”
“Okay, Great!”
“Hey! No nicknames!” Zeta snapped immediately.
The other benefit was that all the viewers would be supporting Kiri. Galactic Great was a superhero show. Almost everyone watching would be cheering for the good guys, especially since this was real. Sometimes viewers were sympathetic to the villain in fictional works, but with real lives at stake here, everyone would be cheering for evil to be vanquished. They’d be cheering for the hero, Kiri—or Galactic Beauty in this case. And the result was just as expected.
“But how did so much support reach Ki—Galactic Beauty so quickly?” I asked.
“Easy,” Zeta said rather proudly. “I posted a spoiler that her character could power up through viewer support. Well, the audience isn’t just kids, so it’s not like everyone will believe it. But those kinds of skeptics won’t think this is really real anyway. All we had to do was sit back and wait for the real fans to hype things up.”
So she was running this just like one of those hero shows they’d put on in department stores and whatnot... Thinking back on it, I remember cheering for the hero with all my might as a kid. Whenever the hero was in need and heard the rallying cries of their fans, they’d always get back up to face the bad guy.
“Here I go!”
And now, Kiri—powered up by the cheering of people all throughout the universe—valiantly charged into the group of heroines. Her strength and speed were overwhelming, and she knocked the girls unconscious one by one.
“Now it’s your turn!” Kiri shouted as she charged at Lea.
“Hah! Curse you!” Lea cried.
Like the other heroines, Lea had also been caught off guard by Kiri’s sudden burst of power, but she’d pulled herself together in time to defend herself. Not even a powered-up Kiri could take Lea’s Leviathan form so easily, leaving them fairly evenly matched.
“Hey, don’t let Galactic Beauty do all the hard work! No one wants to see Galactic Great just lazing about!” Zeta barked through the transmitter.
“I mean, I see your point, but...”
The fight this time was mostly reliant on Kiri’s power-up. Getting Iris to take off the suit and buying time until the viewership numbers hit our target goal had fallen on me, but now that our plan was fully underway, there wasn’t much left for me to do... Or, really, there wasn’t much I could do.
“No, wait...”
Thinking back on it, I’d been able to make even the ferocious Rosalind fall silent earlier by doing that. It was a little embarrassing, but I couldn’t let Kiri take on the burden of fighting all of the heroines by herself. It was too risky and wouldn’t look good for the show. If there was something I could do, then I had to give it a try, even if it was embarrassing!
At present, the heroines still resisting were Iris, Rosalind, and Corona, plus Lea with Tsumiki riding on her head. Five girls in total.
“Iris!” I yelled the name of the girl closest to me and charged towards her.
“Huh? Yes, Rekka—?!”
Iris immediately froze after what I did. But of course she would. If anyone did that to me, I’d freeze up, too. After all, I’d thrown both of my arms around her and was hugging her tightly.
“AAAAAAAAAH!”
A collective angry roar rose up from the other girls around me, but I continued to hold on to Iris with all my might.
“U-Um, umm, Rekka... Oooh...”
Iris blushed bright red. I could practically see the steam coming out of her ears as she collapsed.
“My, my... It looks like you overheated her brain with such a forward, aggressive approach. Very sexy,” R commented flatly as she peered at Iris’s face.
Honestly, my brain was about to overheat, too...
“Well, I suppose the heroines have all been injected with a heavy dose of Rachelle’s mysterious love energy... I imagine your plan was only successful because you’ve never made a proper move on her before, so I guess you being so obtuse actually worked in your favor this time.”
“Shut up, R.”
After laying Iris carefully down on the ground, I ran over to Rosalind next and embraced her the same way.
“R-R-R-R-Rekka?!”
Her body was a lot more delicate than Iris’s, so I held her gently. The other girls were still shrieking in protest, but I closed my ears to them and focused on Rosalind. She was actually the one who’d given me the idea for my plan to hug the heroines into submission; she’d been shockingly docile in my arms earlier. So I cast aside my shame and embraced her as tenderly as I could until she fainted.
“Nnn... ngh...”
Eventually, Rosalind’s porcelain cheeks turned rose red and she went limp in my arms.
“H-Hey, you! How could you do something so disgraceful?!”
“Tsumiki!”
“Wha?!”
Using the power of the suit, I launched myself up onto Lea’s head to get to Tsumiki, who was angrily yelling at me for hugging the other girls. My sudden appearance took her by surprise, and I took her into my arms.
“Wait, y-y-you... H-Hey...”
“Please don’t be mad.”
“Eep!”
If she did, there’d be another fight—which was why I’d whispered softly into her ear to try and keep her calm. Tsumiki reacted much more than I was expecting, flinching and stiffening up... Was what I said really that surprising? She seemed to lose the strength in her knees and sunk to the ground.
The only girls left now were Corona and Lea, but I’d need to get Lea out of Leviathan form before I could hug her. Somehow or another...
“Rekka...”
“Hm?”
Just as I was thinking that, Lea transformed back into her human self.
“That’s unfair. Hug me, too,” she said as she walked up to me with slightly flushed cheeks.
“Wait. Me, too,” Corona said, doing the same.
Everything was going so smoothly that I had to wonder... But if this was what it took to get them to settle down, I’d gladly embrace both of them.
“I know I said you were useless and getting jerked around by the heroines today, but I take it all back. Well done, Rekka, you harem-hogging bastard.”
“Compliment me or insult me—pick one.”
Of course the peanut gallery had to comment after things finally quieted down.
“You’re kind of amazing, Rekka...” Kiri said in slight awe as she approached.
I didn’t know what she was so taken aback over, but whatever.
“Rachelle! Galactic Beauty and I have used our powers to free everyone from your evil grasp! Now it’s your turn!”
I mean, all we’d really done was knock them out, but I had to make it sound good for the sake of the show.
“Bwahahaha! You’ve done it now! At least you turned out the be the man I thought you were! However...” Rachelle flung her hands towards the sky and summoned a mass of love energy between them that was bigger than anything I’d seen yet. “All I have to do is make you two prisoners of my love energy, too! For the sake of my ascension into archangelhood, with benefits including three meals a day and an afternoon nap, I’ll have you become my love slaves!”
“I get what you’re trying to say, but you’re making it sound perverted...”
I shouldn’t be surprised she was ultimately after something so silly. No matter how much of an nuisance Rachelle was, she wasn’t really evil at heart. She was just drunk on too much love energy and had lost herself to its effects.
“You just wait, Rachelle! You can forget about ascension; I’m going to knock you down a peg! Now, Beauty!”
“Yeah, Great!”
“I said no nicknames!”
Zeta was mad, but we didn’t have the time to deal with her. Rachelle was on the verge of flinging that mass of love energy at us. Kiri and I linked hands and faced the angel in the sky overhead...
“What should the name of our secret weapon be?” Kiri whispered in my ear.
“Its name? Can we just call it whatever you normally do?”
“No way! Right now we’re Galactic Great and Galactic Beauty, you know? We need an appropriate name.”
“That’s right, fool!” chimed in Zeta. “Give me five seconds.”
“Please make it two!”
We didn’t have that much time to spare!
“All right! Shout this—”
Zeta came up with a name for our attack on the spot. And just as she did...
“BUUUUUURNING PASSION!”
Rachelle released her torrent of pink light. Kiri and I wasted no time unleashing an attack of our own.
“GALACTIC STAAARBUUUUUUURST!”
When we shouted the name of our move, a sparkling vortex of starlight shot forth from our hands. It collided with Rachelle’s pink ray midair, and the two lights struggled to push each other back. Sparks were flying everywhere.
“Nnngh!”
“Rrrgh!”
“Aaargh!”
We all grit our teeth and dug in to resist. Except Kiri was doing most of the work on our side... The Galactic Starburst attack we’d just used was really Star Prism’s special ability, Starlight Healing. It was a technique to purify evil, and with it, we were aiming to purge the excess love energy in Rachelle’s heart that had sent her on this rampage in the first place.
“Nnnnngh!”
So, essentially, this was all up to Kiri. I was only holding her hand and playing along for the sake of a good show. It wouldn’t be as cool if Galactic Beauty finished off the villain by herself. I’d known this was how it was going to go down from the beginning, but damn... Here I was being useless again. Was there really nothing I could do to help?
“Hngh, ugh...” Kiri groaned in pain, and our starlight ray began to weaken.
Had Rachelle become too powerful after absorbing love energy all day? She’d kept the heroines fighting right up until the very end... Maybe the support of people all across the galaxy wasn’t enough for us to win this after all.
“Ahahaha! This is the end!”
Rachelle poured more love energy into her beam, intending to finish us off with it. Was this the end? Just as that thought crossed my mind...
Squeeze.
Kiri tightly grasped my hand.
I’m such an idiot... Here she was, doing her best even though she was still groaning in pain. How could I chicken out first? Pull yourself together, Rekka Namidare! Who are you? The man bestowed with the Namidare bloodline, that’s who! I’m the one who has to save the heroines!
“Kiri!” I yelled her name loudly enough that she could hear me over all the commotion, and tightly squeezed her hand back. “No matter what happens, I’ll save you! No matter what!”
Even if Rachelle overpowered us here, I wouldn’t bend to the ridiculous power of her stupid love energy! I’d overcome Rosalind’s charm before! And even if Kiri ended up brainwashed by Rachelle, too, or the other heroines woke up and started attacking again, it wouldn’t matter! I’d still save them regardless!
I dug deep and screamed internally with all my might. The next moment, there was a flash of something bright. From within Galactic Beauty’s suit came the light of a thousand stars. Then, the ray shooting from her hand intensified dramatically.
“Ngh.... UUUAAAAAAAAH!” Kiri gathered the last of her power and yelled hard enough to lose her voice.
“No way... KYAAAAAAAAH!”
Kiri’s empowered starlight ray deflected Rachelle’s love energy and surged forward to engulf the angel and put her to sleep before gently lowering her to a soft landing. Just before she reached the ground, the aura of love energy surrounding her scattered. When it did, her wings turned white once more, which I took as a sign she’d be her normal self when she awoke—her normal annoying, dumb angel self. And once she was taken care of, Kiri and I both fell to our knees and panted for breath.
“Hahh... I’m so exhausted...”
“Same...”
“Yeah, I guess I don’t have any room to talk... That was all thanks to you, Kiri.”
“That’s not true.”
“Huh?”
“Because...” Kiri smiled from under the visor of her helmet and pointed to her chest. “You managed to reach me. Just as we were about to be crushed, I felt a large wave of support come from you.”
“I see....”
“Can you two save the subtle flirting for after you’ve wrapped up the show properly?”
Zeta’s quietly seething transmission made us both start in a panic.