Chapter 6: The Problem Right in Front of Me
Chapter 6: The Problem Right in Front of Me
“First, my fleet will surround the extremist base and demand surrender. Unless they have something up their sleeve, we shouldn’t expect much resistance. There aren’t many who would dare to stand against a federation fleet armed to the teeth, after all. And while that’s going on, you all should be able to move freely.”
The extremists didn’t yet know we’d made contact with Iris. The fact that they were holding the past heroines hostage was a big secret, so the first thing they’d do when Iris demanded surrender would be to try and hide or relocate the heroines. That meant that while Iris was negotiating with the extremists, we had to sneak in and figure out where they were keeping the girls.
“Shall we begin the operation?”
In order to sneak in to the extremists’ base, we borrowed a small spaceship from Iris. Harissa cast her invisibility spell on it, and we quietly departed from the midst of the federation fleet.
“Will we really be okay with just my magic?”
“Probably.”
In order to avoid radar detection, we’d specifically picked out a ship with high-spec stealth functions. If, between that and Harissa’s magic, the extremists still discovered us, then... Well, I was willing to cross that bridge when we got there.
Fortunately, however, all my concerns turned out to be unfounded. We safely arrived at the extremists’ base—which was really feeling like the final boss’s castle at this point—without issue. The base itself was on an asteroid that was roughly one quarter the size of Earth’s moon. The entire asteroid had been terraformed and had a proper atmosphere, so it looked like we wouldn’t need space suits once we got there. We stealthily landed some distance from the base and got ready before setting out.
“Lea, will you lend me your power again if we end up in a battle with the extremists?”
“As long as it isn’t a battle between heroines.”
“Hmm...” I turned to the doctor and Satsuki. “Are there any heroines in the extremist faction?”
“Not that I’m aware of, no.”
“I don’t know of any either.”
“Good. Thanks,” I said with a nod.
Our main objective here was a rescue operation, but there was no telling what might happen along the way. We could be in for a fight, but as long as any heroines weren’t involved, we could count on Lea to help us out there. As far as I knew, she was the strongest heroine there was, even here in the future. Well... She probably couldn’t use her full strength without Tsumiki’s dark matter, but she was plenty strong as she was. We might be in for trouble if the extremists had more of those giant robots they used to attack my hometown, but would they really whip out something like that when they were completely surrounded by a navy fleet from the Greater Galactic Federation? Maybe I was being a little optimistic in assuming they wouldn’t.
We were about to sneak into the extremists’ base, and there was no way those giant robots would be able to move around inside a building. I honestly didn’t think they’d be willing to destroy their own base just to trample us... But that being the case, that meant actually getting from our ship to the base would be the most dangerous leg of the operation.
“All right, everyone. We have to be extremely cautious from here on.”
“You’re the last person I want to hear that from,” L snarked as she set out.
Since she knew the most about the extremists, we’d decided it would be smartest to have her head the team. As a Kiklim, she also had every kind of sensor imaginable. She was the ideal candidate for discovering and dismantling traps, so we had her lead the way as the rest of us followed behind her. The asteroid was grassless, and the texture of the ground below my feet felt a lot like walking on dirt. The gravity here was also pretty similar to Earth, so getting around on foot wasn’t a problem.
“Stop,” L suddenly said, halting at the front of the line. “There’s an electromagnetic wall here. If you pass through it, you’ll get fried.”
“Really? I don’t see anything...”
“Your human eyes wouldn’t,” L said with a sigh. “I can force a hole open in it, but that’ll set off alarms. It would be better to just find the proper door, so give me a minute to find it.”
With that, L used her particle relocator and vanished from sight.
“Man...” I said, looking around.
The extremists’ hideout was finally right in front of us. Whether my... Whether the heroines of the past were inside or not was the question now. Even if they weren’t, however, there was still something I was hoping to find here: a hint. Some kind of clue as to the mastermind’s identity. That was the bare minimum we needed to walk away with from this mission. Without it, we’d never get anywhere.
There’s no way we’ll leave here totally empty-handed, but... I’m still a little uneasy.
I couldn’t help recalling the conversation between L and the giant robot pilot back during the attack on my hometown. L hadn’t known the extremists were coming, and the extremists that did come were surprised at how L reacted to them. It was like they weren’t on the same page. There was some sort of disconnect. An odd inconsistency. Had they received different orders somehow? If so, how did that end up happening?
It was possible there’d just been some confusion somewhere along the chain of command, but that didn’t seem likely given the simultaneous attacks on the future and the past. The extremists were perfectly coordinated in that regard. That made it seem like L was really the odd one out, which was curious.
If she was the only one with deviating orders, then rather than there being confusion in the chain of command, it sounds like there was just someone acting of their own accord...
Granted, that may have been L herself. But either way, there was no immediate answer to my quandary. While I was thinking it over, however, L reappeared.
“I opened a gate that you all should be able to pass through over there. Follow me.”
L then led us to what was apparently a door of sorts in the invisible wall. We passed through it, and no sooner than we set foot inside could we hear a commotion. The extremist base was in absolute chaos. Apparently being surrounded by a federation fleet had caused quite a panic. The electromagnetic wall had blocked out all the shouting that we could now hear clearly—and it was a welcome sound. With this much of an uproar going on, it should be a piece of cake to sneak in.
“Lea, let’s use telepathy to communicate from this point forward. Can you connect everyone?”
“Sure.”
Lea nodded and began concentrating, linking our minds together with her magic power.
“Can you hear me?”
“Yeah. How about everyone else?”
Everyone else nodded in turn. It looked like we were good to go.
“All right. L, please take the lead again.”
“I can do that, but where do you want to go first?”
Hmm... I had to think for a minute about that.
“Is there any kind of confinement center in this building? Somewhere they might hold people?”
“Like a jail? There’s nothing like that.”
“I’ll have to keep thinking, then. If the heroines are being kept here, they’d definitely need somewhere to lock them up...”
“Your heroines... There were over 20 of them, if I recall correctly. That’s an awful lot of people to keep locked up in one place.”
“Right? It’d have to be a pretty big room.”
“Hmm... The office or the lab would work. The storage room is also rather large, but that wouldn’t make a great makeshift prison...” L said, cocking her head to the side. “Sorry, I can’t really narrow it down.”
According to L, even the building’s office and lab were big enough to hold 20 people if they moved the furniture out. And the list of options was even longer if they didn’t bother thinking about space and comfort. If the extremists were just treating the heroines like prisoners, then they may have shoved them all together in one tiny room. I was hoping they’d at least been hospitable enough to give the girls a decent size room.
“I guess there’s no way of knowing...” I said with a mental sigh before looking back to L. “Quick question, L. You said you’d never met the mastermind directly before, so how did you get your orders?”
“Only a select few of the higher-ups have direct contact with the mastermind. They get orders and then pass them down accordingly.”
“Hmm... So it’d be fastest for us to just locate these higher-ups,” I mused as I rubbed my chin.
“Hang on a second, Rekka,” the doctor suddenly interjected. “Satsuki, can you locate Rekka’s heroines with the Magic of Omniscience?”
“What? Didn’t we try that already?” Satsuki asked dubiously.
“Then what about the mastermind’s exact location?” the doctor asked without missing a beat.
“I’m afraid that’s a no-go as well... What are you getting at here?”
“What if you searched this building for places that you can’t search? Anywhere you can’t look into must either be the mastermind or the heroines.”
“I-I’ll get right on it!”
Satsuki quickly picked up on what the doctor was putting down and activated her magic.
She’s right! If the mastermind and the heroines’ locations are blind spots in her magic, then all we have to do now is find those blind spots!
Impressed with the plan, I waited for Satsuki to finish her search.
“...”
Since she was searching for blind spots rather than directly searching, it took much longer than usual.
“I found it... There’s a spot here where my omniscience is blacked out like an eclipse. That must be where they are. I can show you the way.”
“All right. Let’s follow Satsuki’s directions moving forward, L.”
“Yeah, yeah...”
“Please, L.”
“I said okay, Satsuki! Jeez...”
L turned away in a huff and took the lead again, this time following Satsuki’s directions. We made our way forward, unlocking doors, disabling security systems, and running through corridors while avoiding the extremists. We took several elevators, heading further and further down each time. The lower we went, the less people there were. And by now, we’d reached a rather deserted area. We took one last elevator and reached the bottom floor of the base. Or so it seemed...
“Huh? This is the lowest floor?” Satsuki asked.
“That’s right,” L replied with a nod.
However...
“That’s strange.”
“What is?”
“The area I can’t see with my magic is further below here.”
“Huh?”
“What are you saying?”
We all reflexively looked down. Naturally, there was nothing to see but the floor.
“Are there any other elevators that go down?” I asked.
“Nope. Not as far as I know, at least,” L replied.
The curious situation left us all scratching our heads.
“What about a secret staircase or anything else that might lead downward?”
“If there were, wouldn’t it be the elevator we just took? Maybe there’s a special switch or something to make it go down another floor...”
“Why don’t I break it and find out?”
“Please don’t, Fam.”
“Hold on. I’ll try searching again.”
“Thank you, Satsuki.”
Satsuki used her Omniscient Magic once more. This time her search was simple and precise. But...
“There’s nothing.”
“Huh?”
“There’s no physical way of getting further down from here.”
“What the heck?”
“Well... Perhaps we need some way to teleport there instead.”
“Oh, cool. We have L’s particle relocator for that.”
“Let me remind you that it wasn’t exactly designed for human use...”
“Is now really the time to be worried about that, though?”
“Rekka, why don’t I just open a hole in the floor?”
“Please don’t, Lea.”
“Why not?”
“Well, because if you do something that flashy, then the extremists will definitely know we’re here!”
And so on, and so forth... After getting this far, we’d hit quite a stumper. Fortunately, however, one person in particular seemed to have a solution.
“Sir Rekka, Satsuki.”
“Harissa?”
“Could you leave this to me?”
“Sure... Do you have something in mind?”
When I asked that, Harissa turned to Satsuki.
“Satsuki, the room that may contain the mastermind... Can you tell me precisely how far below us and how wide it is?”
“Certainly. I can search that up in a flash.”
“If you can, I can use that information to calculate coordinates for a teleportation spell.”
I was honestly a little surprised to hear Harissa sound so confident.
“You can teleport without Red Thread now?”
“It’s a newly developed technique. If I focus the spell on myself, I can teleport to a specific location without the need for any kind of mark or connecting object.”
“You can do that with just the magic of a single person?! And without the use of a warp machine?!” the doctor asked with wide eyes.
“Way back in the beginning, Iris’s warp watch once saved us all. That’s what I used as inspiration for this spell,” Harissa replied with a nod. “Unlike with warp drives, there’s no time-space distortion upon warp-out with magic, so there’s no fear of being detected when we enter the room.”
“But... are you sure about this? Isn’t leaking a powerful spell like that to outsiders a little compromising for a royal sorcerer? If you’re not careful...” the doctor fretted.
And hearing her say that made me worry a little too. But Harissa just laughed.
“It’s fine,” she said, glancing up at me. “Putting our heads together and being resourceful like this reminds me of the old days. The Sir Rekka I knew back then accomplished great things by using everyone’s powers together.”
Harissa was the first heroine that both me and future Rekka had saved. Of all the stories we had in common, hers differed the least. I could tell by the way she’d brought up Iris’s warp watch just now. Future Harissa was probably the heroine closest to the version of herself that I knew. That was why... That was why she knew firsthand how hard I’d had to work to wring every last drop of wit I had to resolve her story. It was the same way I’d worked to solve all the stories back then—by combining everyone’s powers.
“My magic... can no longer save everyone. That’s why, at the very least, I want to save the past heroines and help put an end to this long war. That is my wish.”
“...”
Her magic can no longer save everyone? I see... The horrors of war had spread too far. It was all Harissa could do to protect her own kingdom at this point. I had to think long and hard about that for a moment. The emotion in Harissa’s voice when she said those words was gut-wrenching.
Compared to my future self, I was definitely much less capable. The heroines here probably saw me as a child with no power at all, and they were right about that. But even then, even so... I’ll be damned if my name isn’t Rekka Namidare!
“Leave it to me!” I shouted, thumping my chest.
“Shh, Rekka! Not so loud!”
“Oops!”
I was proud and eager to accept Harissa’s wish, but the doctor’s admonishment quickly snapped me back to my senses. I hurriedly clapped a hand over my mouth. And it was just about then that Satsuki joined the conversation again.
“All right, I’m done searching.”
She gave Harissa the exact dimensions of the room below. She’d even determined the thickness of the floor separating us from it.
“Okay, I’m all set. Is everybody ready?”
Harissa looked to us all in turn, each of us nodding back. She then readied herself and cast her spell.
“Tri Teleatticate!”
A burst of magical light enveloped us all, and a short moment later, our vision blurred. I got that strange floating feeling I always did when leaping through time and space, but it only lasted for a second. Before I knew it, we were in another room.
While we were only further underground, this new room was expansive and well-lit compared to the dim basement we’d been in just moments ago. For its size, however, the room was practically empty. There was only a small table and a chair with two people, one seated and one standing.
One of them’s... a girl?!
The two people at the table were talking, and I was surprised to see one of them was a rather young girl. She looked about my age or maybe a little older. She had black hair, and was wearing a jacket and jeans with an oversized buckle. Even more unexpected was the fact that, at a glance, she looked like a human from Earth. Japanese, even... But that wasn’t it. There was something about her that I just couldn’t put my finger on. I was getting this weird sense of déjà vu, like I knew her from somewhere.
“Rekka?”
“Er... Sorry.”
I’d gotten lost in my own head, but the doctor’s voice brought me back to reality. The girl at the table was talking to a guy who appeared to be a humanoid alien.
“Lady Yuuhi! We’ve been completely surrounded by a Greater Galactic Federation fleet! Please give us your orders!”
“What are their demands? And how did they find our base in the first place?”
“I don’t know, but they’re demanding that we hand over Rekka Namidare... It makes no sense at all!”
We stayed quiet and eavesdropped on their conversation from across the room.
“Is that guy one of the higher-ups you were talking about, L?”
“Probably. I don’t know each and every one of them personally.”
“Seems like he’s reporting to the big boss right now...”
Did that mean this Yuuhi girl was the mastermind? The same one who’d been orchestrating the mass abduction of past heroines and the attack on my hometown?
“Satsuki, is she a heroine here in the future?”
“Not that I’m aware of... Do you know her, Harissa?”
“I can’t say that I do. Is anyone else familiar with her?”
“I’m not.”
“Me neither.”
Not Harissa, not Satsuki, not Lea, not Fam, not L, and not even the doctor... No one knew anything about Yuuhi, but the War of All had started as a quarrel between the heroines of the future. Did that mean Yuuhi was one of them?
“But if she’s a future heroine, why is she trying to kill Rekka?”
“You’re right... That would be fundamentally contradictory.”
“Maybe she just got tired of fighting?”
“Or maybe she’s one of those ‘if I can’t have him, nobody can’ types?”
“A real psycho, huh? We can’t discount the possibility.”
The conversation began progressing without me in a rather frightening direction. A-Anyway...
“More importantly for now, I don’t see the heroines anywhere here.”
“I don’t either. But just in case, L, can you scan the room?”
“Just a moment.”
At the doctor’s urging, L placed her hands on the ground. Not a moment later...
Crack!
“Active defenses?! On the whole room?!”
L quickly pulled her hands away from the floor, but it seemed the damage had already been done.
“Tch...”
On the other side of the room, Yuuhi clicked her tongue.
“L-Lady Yuuhi?”
The higher-up she was talking to seemed none the wiser to what was going on, and he certainly didn’t see what was coming next... Yuuhi suddenly stood up and delivered a swift blow to his neck.
“Gah!”
He flinched briefly before collapsing to the ground.
“She knocked him out...?!”
But why? Wasn’t he a member of the extremists? I had a lot of questions, but no time to think. Yuuhi held a hand up, palm outward in our direction, and muttered a single word...
“Break.”
When she did, I felt something like a gust of wind brush my cheek.
Huh? What was that?
I could tell she had done something, but I had no idea what. I was at a loss. But in the midst of my confusion, Harissa seemed to figure it out.
“...Huh?! Be careful, everyone! The invisibility has been dispelled!”
“What?!”
Wait, the telepathy had been cut too? Was this Yuuhi’s doing?
“So you’re here already, Rekka Namidare. That was faster than I expected.”
“You know who I am, yet you’re not surprised to see me... I guess that means you really are the mastermind behind all this.”
“Mastermind? Hmph, is that what you’ve been calling me?” Yuuhi spat out boldly and hatefully.
There was so much I wanted to ask her, but it would all have to wait.
“Give me back my heroines!”
“...”
Yuuhi narrowed her eyes, not responding. She scanned the group of us, her gaze falling on L.
“So it was you that led them here, was it, L?”
“Shut up. You... You didn’t tell me anything. You just cast me aside. You don’t have any right to complain,” L said, glaring sharply at Yuuhi.
L was never informed about the attack the extremists had planned on the past, which was the start of all this. She took it as a sign that the extremists—that the mastermind—had abandoned her. She felt thrown away. Yuuhi, however, was the one frowning right now.
“You’re the one who has no right to complain, L.”
“What did you just say...?”
“Don’t you know, L? You’re already a heroine of this Rekka Namidare. You have been ever since the summer festival.”
“Huh?”
“I suppose you may not have realized it since you’re still in the middle of being saved. But given a little more time, you would have betrayed me of your own will.”
“...”
Yuuhi’s declaration left L at a loss for words. Whether her silence was because what Yuuhi said had struck a chord with her or because she was just that stunned at the accusation, I wasn’t sure.
“You seem awfully certain of yourself, Yuuhi,” the doctor suddenly interjected. “I’m surprised you have the gall to play it high-and-mighty after deceiving my precious L like you did.”
“If it isn’t the king of Laputa...”
“I’d love nothing more than to give you a piece of my mind right now, but there’s something else I have to ask first.”
“...”
Yuuhi showed no reaction to what the doctor said, which she took as a sign to continue.
“Is it possible that you know the whereabouts of our Rekka Namidare?”
Huh?
At first, I didn’t understand what the doctor was saying. I slowly replayed the sentence in my head... Wide-eyed, I looked back and forth between Yuuhi and the doctor.
“Wh-What do you mean by that?!”
“Remember how I told you there were two serious incidents that triggered the War of All?”
“Two triggers...”
I scanned back through my memories. The doctor had said that the first trigger for the War of All was the terrorist attack on the Greater Galactic Federation’s central congress. The second was the fact that my future self went missing.
“The real cause of the War of All was the disappearance of our Rekka Namidare, which started the rumors that one of the heroines was monopolizing him... And the reason they continued was because no one could prove otherwise. Not even Satsuki could locate Rekka with her Omniscient Magic.”
Yeah, that’s right. She’d said something like that before too. I remember thinking it was strange that... Wait, Satsuki couldn’t locate future Rekka with her magic? Just like... how she couldn’t locate the mastermind or the heroines either?
As I was turning all this over in my head, the doctor glared at Yuuhi.
“It only occurred to me today after all the time we’ve spent chasing you down... The thought that someone other than the current heroines might’ve been involved with the War of All from the beginning,” the doctor said calmly.
According to her theory, it was Yuuhi who had kidnapped future Rekka. And upon hearing this, Satsuki, Harissa, Lea, and Fam all narrowed their eyes sharply in her direction.
My heart was pounding so hard in my chest that it hurt. It couldn’t be... It just couldn’t, could it? I wasn’t even sure if I wanted her to be right or not. All I knew was that I was on the edge of my seat.
After several moments of tense silence, Yuuhi opened her mouth...
“I have nothing to say to you.”
And refused to give us an answer. I swear the temperature in the room dropped a couple of degrees.
“...Shall I force her to talk?”
Even big-hearted Lea was saying some pretty violent things now. But in the face of sheer murderous intent, Yuuhi didn’t even flinch.
“Hmph... I expected you lot would show up eventually the moment that artificial life form named R got in my way and let Rekka Namidare escape,” she said. “Did you really think I would just be waiting here unprepared?”
Yuuhi pressed some kind of switch hidden in the sleeve of her jacket, and when she did... a rip in the air next to her tore wide open.
“A warp?!” Fam exclaimed.
“No... That’s more like a gate to another world!” Harissa declared.
But Yuuhi faintly shook her head.
“Saying it’s a gate to another world is close... But you’ve still got it wrong. This rift is connected to the other side of the mirror. The side that you would normally never come into contact with.”
“The other side... of the mirror?”
“That’s right. The space inside this rift is a pocket dimension not connected to any other world. I can hide anything in here, people included, and never be discovered by anyone.”
“What?!”
The Magic of Omniscience accessed the Akashic record, which was the annals of history across all worlds. But if what Yuuhi was saying was true, then the mirror dimension wasn’t part of any world... That’s why Satsuki hadn’t been able to learn anything about it with her magic. That... That had to mean...
“Come on out,” Yuuhi called.
When she did, several figures emerged from the rift.
“Wha?!”
I doubted my eyes.
“Huh?! I-It’s us?!”
I was surprised, but the future heroines standing next to me were in downright shock. It was because we recognized the people who’d emerged from the tear.
Satsuki. Iris. Harissa. Lea. Rosalind. Fam. Corona.
They were all heroines we knew well.
“Why are they following her orders...?” I muttered in disbelief, searching for a reason.
When I squinted, straining my eyes to get a better look at Yuuhi, I could see she was wearing an earring with a small red jewel. It... It looked familiar.
That’s a Doppel Stone! It can copy magical and psychic powers!
Come to think of it, the doctor had said Yuuhi used a Doppel Stone to wipe my memory of the heroines. If she had one with that kind of power, I could understand why the heroines were following her orders.
She must’ve copied Rosalind’s charm power into it!
Once I put two and two together, I could see it plain as day. The heroines all had a glassy, dazed look in their eyes... They were clearly being controlled. That meant I’d have to give them some kind of shock to snap them out of it. Yuuhi likely knew that, which was why she’d brought out the heroines with the highest combat potential. Granted, she’d brought out Satsuki and Harissa too.
“Go.”
With a simple order from Yuuhi, the past heroines all moved to attack us in a rather systematic way. Past Satsuki came for future Satsuki, past Lea came for future Lea, and so on. Basically, the girls were attacking themselves.
“Crap! I’m sure you all already know this, but make sure you don’t hurt yourselves!” the doctor yelled.
The doctor once said that the greatest weakness of people from the future was that they couldn’t attack people from the past, right?!
It wasn’t that they couldn’t attack, per se. For example, future Satsuki could kill her past self if she needed to... But then she would disappear too. Even if she didn’t go that far, just injuring her past self could do lasting harm that would come back to bite her. In other words, the future heroines couldn’t seriously fight their past selves. And that put them at a disadvantage. The mind-controlled heroines of the past weren’t pulling any punches. It was an utterly one-sided fight.
Now, as for Iris, Rosalind, and Corona who didn’t have their future selves to fight...
“Erk!”
Naturally, they came after me!
Of all the heroines, it had to be the three of them!
I wouldn’t stand a chance against any one of them.
If I have a prayer right now, it’s getting at least one of them on my side... But how am I going to manage that with the three of them attacking me together?!
As I racked my brain, they drew menacingly nearer.
“Tch!”
Who should I aim for? The easiest one to shake up... didn’t seem like it’d be Corona. That meant I had to go for Iris or Rosalind. I desperately tried to remember a time I’d seen either one of them completely shaken... And the first thing that came to mind was that time I accidentally grabbed Iris’s chest.
“Here goes...!”
It was quite possibly the worst thing I could have thought of in the heat of the moment, but I didn’t have time to come up with a plan B.
Iris! I’m sorry!
I set my sights on the alien princess. Rosalind and Corona were coming at me from the left and right respectively. I would duck under their attacks and charge at Iris to bring her back to her senses. That was the plan, anyway. Considering the difference in physical ability between me and the heroines, however, my chances of succeeding were practically nil. But I still had to try. It had taken me five seconds just to think things through this far. There was no time left. All I had to do now was move forward... But when I looked up, I could see dark energy gathering in Corona’s palm.
“Wait... That’s unfair!”
I had no way of blocking a ranged attack. Corona unleashed her spell without mercy. I reflexively raised my arms to shield myself, but I knew it wasn’t going to save me! I was about to get obliterated!
“What are you doing, dumbass?!” L shouted, throwing up a barrier to block Corona’s magic.
“L! You saved—?!”
Before I could even finish thanking her, I gasped. A red mist was encroaching, obscuring my vision.
Rosalind?!
I covered my eyes immediately. Visibility within the red mist was zero. I was practically paralyzed, not knowing which way to go or what to do...
“Rekka! Get down!” the doctor suddenly shouted through the fog.
“!”
I huddled down on the floor as instructed, and not a moment too soon. Rosalind’s arm went sailing through the air where my head had just been.
“...”
She looked down at me with lifeless eyes before dropping an axe kick on me.
“Whoa!”
I threw myself to the side, rolling to get out of the way.
Ka-bam!
The floor tiles crumbled where Rosalind’s heel forcefully met the ground. Realizing she’d missed, she transformed once again into red mist. But...
“Bad move, Rosalind!” I could hear the doctor shout as white smoke began coursing through the red mist.
I watched in surprise as the mist crackled and solidified in place almost instantly. It was like the doctor had used some kind of freezing spray on it.
“I’ll unfreeze her later, so just hold on for now,” the doctor said as she made her way over to me.
I see. The doctor isn’t one of my heroines, so she has no past self here to fight.
The same applied to L. The two of them would be the key to overcoming this.
“Rekka, at this rate, things are only going to get worse.”
“I know.”
The heroines fighting their past selves right now had it even harder than I did. Their past selves were going all out, but all they could do was stay on the defensive. As long as they couldn’t fight back, it was only a matter of time before they were defeated. That meant now was the time... While the past heroines were still occupied, I had to make a decisive move. And that would be...
“You...!”
I turned to look at Yuuhi.
“...”
And she was looking right back at me. We both knew it. That this match would be decided with either my or Yuuhi’s defeat.
“The earring...” I muttered.
“What about it?” the doctor asked.
“If we can do something about the Doppel Stone embedded in it, Yuuhi should lose her control over the heroines. Once she does, we’ll have this in the bag.”
“That may be true, but how are we going to do that?”
“I have an idea.”
▽
“Lea, connect us with telepathy one more time!” I yelled loudly.
Yuuhi had shut it down earlier with her mysterious power.
“It’s up!” Lea’s replied telepathically.
“Everyone, listen up!”
I quickly told everyone my plan telepathically so that Yuuhi couldn’t hear it, but she wasn’t going to just sit there and let us get away with that.
“Break!”
Just like that, our telepathic link was cut again. It didn’t do anything to the past heroines, however. They were still fighting at full strength under Yuuhi’s control.
Tch, so she can pick what abilities she cancels! How annoying!
It seemed Yuuhi could pick and choose which powers she targeted with her break ability. That was cheating on a whole new level of unfairness... It was probably how she’d avoided detection via Satsuki’s Magic of Omniscience until now too.
But unlucky for her, my plan was short and sweet. There were just two steps, and I’d already finished telling the girls everything.
“Ealim Nekram!” Harissa shouted, casting her invisibility spell over us once more.
Once they lost sight of us, the past heroines were stopped in their tracks. This was step one.
“...”
“...”
L and I made eye contact. In accordance with step two, she pulled a certain device out from her sleeve.
“Break!”
When Yuuhi used her mysterious power again, the invisibility was lifted. We reappeared as one would expect, but not everything was as it had been. Something was different about Corona, who’d been facing off against L.
“?!”
Iris took one look at her and froze. That was because Corona no longer looked like Corona... Indeed, thanks to L’s hologem, she now looked like me.
“Hah!”
Iris, following the orders she’d been given under the charm, attacked “Rekka Namidare” as she perceived him. Corona, however, had no idea what was happening. She was suddenly being attacked by her ally, and without any mirrors in the room, she would never know why. Moreover, the hologem generated a disguise with science and technology rather than psychic powers and magic. Yuuhi’s cancellation ability would, hopefully, be ineffective against it.
While Iris and Corona were tricked into dueling each other, L, the doctor, and I were free to do as we pleased. We took the opportunity to make a break for Yuuhi.
“Yuuhi!”
“...”
I called out to her, but she only glared at me. There was a keen glint in her eye.
“So you’re the same as ever... You never give up. I should’ve known. It runs in the family.”
I ignored Yuuhi’s words as I clenched my hand into a fist.
“Chirika! Shirley!” she called.
“What?!”
At Yuuhi’s beckoning, Chirika and Shirley jumped out of the rift to the mirror dimension. Chirika immediately sprung at L, while Shirley went after the doctor. Both of them ran past me to get to their targets.
“Tch!”
“Shirley, no!”
L and the doctor both had to come to a halt to deal with the new incoming threats.
I see! She’s wary of me returning them to their senses, so she won’t bring them out unless she has to!
That meant I had to settle things before she brought out any more reinforcements. We could really be in trouble here!
I continued to run for Yuuhi, who clenched her fists too. It was clear neither one of us was backing down. The moment we were in range of each other, we both swung. It was almost like we were mirror images of each other.
“...!”
“...!”
Fist met fist with terrific impact on both sides. It staggered both of us, but the moment of reprieve gave Yuuhi just the opportunity she needed.
“Rekka Namidare, I’ve prepared the perfect opponent to defeat you.”
“And who would that be?”
“An old friend of yours, you could say.”
At that, Yuuhi summoned someone else from the rift...
That blue hair. That old-school military uniform. That tiny build. That unreadable face.
Yuuhi was right. This was a good friend of mine.
“R?!”
When I called her name, R looked at me as expressionless as ever.
“Enemy strength confirmed. Elimination target acquired,” she declared quietly.
“What are you saying, R?! Elimination target?! Don’t you know who I am?!”
“There’s no use,” Yuuhi spat coldly. “After her system ceased functioning at a binary level, I completely rewrote everything. She’s no longer one of yours.”
“What?!”
Yuuhi’s words shook me greatly.
“That’s impossible! There’s no way you could hack into my R’s system!”
Even the doctor, who was being kept in check by Shirley and her scientific weapons, was shaken with disbelief.
“...”
Yuuhi, however, ignored us both.
Come to think of it, we still don’t know who out of the extremists was able to use the doctor’s time translocator!
I didn’t really understand it myself, but the time translocator was supposedly extremely difficult both to install and to operate. I’d seen that much firsthand when a small error had warped L directly into my room on her mission to assassinate me, causing the whole plan to fail miserably. But somehow, between then and the attack on the past, the extremists had figured out how to use the time translocator with enough precision to accurately send a small army of giant robots back in time. It was possible... that was all Yuuhi’s doing. That had meant she had the skill and know-how to rival the doctor, which in turn meant that it was conceivable that she’d reprogrammed R.
“Eliminating target.”
“Guwah!”
The blue beam of light R fired from her fingertips pierced through my limbs. With the smell of burning flesh filling my nose, I collapsed on the spot.
“Damn... it...”
At times like this, I was all too aware of how powerless I really was. If only I had all those special powers like my future self... Really, it would be a huge help if I were just a little more fit. Or a little smarter. I just needed something to give me an edge... Then maybe I would’ve been more of a main character.
There was nothing special about me. I was always relying on other people. In other words, my friends were my only real power... But Yuuhi had taken them from me. Especially R, who’d been by my side since the very beginning. She’d never lent me her powers like the heroines, but she was always there for me. And Yuuhi... She’d taken even that from me.
I... don’t have anything left...
R slowly approached where I was writhing on the floor.
“This is the end.”
Her fingertips began glowing a second time. I didn’t even have to look to know they were aimed at my head now.
“Rekka!”
“Sir Rekka!”
“Brother Rekka!”
Realizing the trouble I was in, the heroines abandoned their fights and tried to rush to my aid.
“Do not interfere.”
With a wave of her hand, R threw up a semi-transparent blue barrier around us, preventing the future heroines from getting any closer. That gave the past heroines the opportunity to catch up to them, and their respective fights resumed once more. There was no one left to stop R.
“This is goodbye.”
I stared straight into the blue light that flew forward from her fingers. Just before it reached my face...
SHNK!
A red barrier appeared to block it.
“L?!”
She must have used her particle relocator to get inside the R’s barrier! This was the complete reverse of what had happened in my room months ago: L was now saving me from R’s attack. There was a clear difference in power, however, and R’s beam pushed L further and further back. She was going to be overwhelmed. However, just as I thought that...
“Why do I have... SUCH A STUPID LITTLE SISTER?!” L yelled angrily.
“...”
The light in R’s eyes wavered a bit. At that, the red barrier and blue beam both burst, cancelling each other out.
“Aaargh!”
Ignoring the pain in my legs, I stood up and started running towards R. Forcing strength into my numb arm, I made a fist. In the end, when all of my power had been taken from me, the only things I had left were this fist and...
The belief that no one can ever really steal the bond between us!
R locked eyes on me. Light began gathering at her fingertips again, this time aimed directly at my forehead. But I was aiming for her forehead too.
“SNAP OUT OF IT ALREADY!” I shouted, swinging my fist.
Thunk!
I landed a solid blow, sending R’s cap sailing through the air. The blue barrier surrounding us disappeared.
“...”
“...”
R walked over and wordlessly picked up her hat, which had landed quietly on the floor some distance away. She then looked at me and said...
“Punching a girl? You turned into quite the brute while I was away, Rekka.”
She spoke in her usual mocking tone as she slipped her cap back on, pulling it down to cover the reddening mark on her forehead. Fighting the pain, I mustered a laugh.
“Don’t be like that, partner.”