I Saved Too Many Girls and Caused the Apocalypse: Volume 5

by Namekojirushi

  “We’re not going to disappear. If you can’t do whatever it takes to stop your friend from making a huge mistake, how can you call yourself a real friend?”

  I sensed the floor below me about to give out, so I hurriedly jumped to the side. Not a moment later, a huge blade burst forth from below where I’d been standing. It would’ve sliced me in two.

  “Rosalind!” I yelled as I ran from more blades coming out of the floor after me.

  “Leave it to me!”

  Rosalind grabbed Fam’s cape...

  “Do it, girl!”

  And threw her hard like a baseball.

  “Don’t tell me you think you can use that to destroy the master chip. Squallow!”

  “Guuuuuh...”

  One of Squallow’s robot arms stretched out to knock her down. Shirley smiled coldly as she watched her fall to the ground... but right above her, the real Fam—who’d been transformed into Rain with the help of Raul’s disguises—used her knife to slice through the tentacle. Fam landed softly like a cat, and it was only then that Shirley realized who she was. She saw the tiny horn she’d been hiding with makeup and her bangs.

  “What?! How?!” she yelled in a voice that was close to a scream.

  Shirley then looked towards the Fam that Squallow had knocked down a moment ago: Raul, who’d used his powers to adjust his skeleton and even change his voice.

  “Give me back the boss!”

  Of course, the real Fam wasn’t wearing her headband. Sparks were flying from her horn as she got emotional. Just a few steps closer and her electromagnetic waves would work their magic.

  “Tch! Stop her!”

  She probably didn’t fully understand what had happened yet, but Shirley gave Squallow the word to get rid of her anyway. Obeying her orders from the master chip, Squallow tried to use his nearest robot arm to swat her away, but...

  “...Overload.”

  Raul—really Garnet in disguise—ripped through the tentacle arm that was holding her and used the last of her strength to block the blow and protect Fam.

  “That voice... Is that you, Garnet?!” Shirley yelled in shock.

  She’d had no idea Garnet was even there.

  Fam had disguised herself as Rain, and Raul disguised himself as Fam. Garnet was close to Raul’s height, so she’d filled in and pretended to be him. She’d fooled Shirley without saying a word. Having a fake Raul there was important. Shirley had seen Raul’s disguise abilities at Ryugu Palace, so I’d wanted her to think that he wasn’t in disguise at the moment.

  If a simple decoy operation wouldn’t work, then maybe a triple decoy would. It was the one chance we had.

  “Uwaaah!”

  And Fam used that chance we’d been given to close in and slam her head against the master chip.

  Krrsh!

  Her strong desire to bring back Squallow supercharged her power. She shattered through the protective coating and destroyed the master chip.

  “Guwuuh...”

  The blades stopped coming out of the floor, and Squallow froze.

  “...”

  Shirley spent so long staring at the shattered pieces of the ring on the ground that I thought she might be counting them. Eventually her lips curled upwards in a self-effacing grin.

  “A disguise... I guess a master thief can even change the appearance of others. So where’s the real Rain?”

  “...Here.”

  The tiny pirate that Squallow had knocked away at the start stood up and removed her makeup, revealing her beautiful face.

  “Please stop this, Shirley.”

  She opened the palm of her hand and revealed its contents to Shirley.

  “Is that... the Mermaid Princess’s Tear?

  “Yes. This is the real one. What you stole was a fake that Raul planted. I’ve been using the power of this stone ever since we reached Estashion.”

  Yup. That’s what I’d asked Rain to do.

  To make it happen, I’d had them perform surgery to get it out of my stomach while we were in warp on our way to Estashion. But since there was no anesthesia, I literally thought it was going to kill me. Thanks to Raul, I healed immediately after the procedure, but if it had gone on any longer, I might’ve just willed myself dead.

  “Thunderclouds, fog, electromagnetic storms... Many types of weather can cause wireless communications to fail. That’s why you wanted to stabilize this planet’s weather, right? I don’t know if it worked perfectly, but I think I’ve been able to stop most of the Estashionians from hurting themselves like you wanted them to.”

  “...I see.” Shirley looked down at the ground. “I’ve lost everything... again.”

  “That’s not true.” I walked over to her and offered her my hand. “I still think of you as my friend.”

  Shirley stayed silent as she stared at my hand.

  “And I’m not your only friend. There’s Garnet, and everyone else here.”

  “Garnet...” Shirley’s eyes narrowed as she turned her gaze towards the badly damaged android. “I thought that you would be the one person who would never betray me. That’s why I made you. So why...?”

  Garnet said nothing.

  “Did you forget, even though you were the one who made her?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “Garnet was built with a learning-enabled AI, right? As she gains experience and memories, she gets stronger. She didn’t obey you because you made her. She was with you because she decided on her own that she wanted to help you.”

  Shirley’s eyes wavered with uncertainty.

  “...Is that true?”

  “...Yes, Shirley.”

  Shirley fell silent again. And then she reached out her hand towards mine...

  “You won’t fool me!”

  ...and slapped it away. Then she turned and started to run.

  “Shirley?!”

  She ignored me and ran towards the back of the room where the master chip amplifier was. When she reached it, she slid something into a control panel. Immediately afterward, Squallow began to roar.

  “Guwwroooahgahh!”

  “Wh-What?! Didn’t we stop Squallow by destroying the master chip?”

  “Ahahaha! There’s a backup chip in the amplifier! It’s not as powerful, but it still works!” Shirley cackled as she looked up at the roof.

  “Girl! We’re going to destroy that thing!”

  “Righ—”

  Rosalind and Fam started to head for the amplifier, but...

  “It’s useless.”

  “Guaaaah!”

  Several of Squallow’s robot arms reached out and grabbed the amplifier. They yanked it out of the floor, and then he absorbed it into his back like some kind of strange backpack. Several more layers of flesh lumps and metal moved to cover it. They were keeping it in place and protecting it.

  “Now it won’t be so easy to destroy it, will it?”

  Even after absorbing the amplifier, Squallow continued to reach out for anything in his path, devouring all the machinery and metal he could find. His flesh would move to cover bits and pieces of them, and once part of his body, they would protrude grotesquely here and there from the mass that was now Squallow.

  “Tch! Raul! Can you feed Squallow some of your flesh to fix him?”

  That was the last part of my original plan. Just like how he’d restored Fam’s cyborg arm, I was hoping he could also fix Squallow. But...

  “Ugh! Ack! It’s no good! I can’t get close!”

  Whenever he tried to get to Squallow’s mouth—or his chest or head or any other weak point—the robot arms and blades became more violent. And with every passing minute, Squallow’s body was getting bigger and more dangerous.

  “Shirley! What did you tell Squallow to do?!”

  “Destroy this planet.”

  “What?!”

  Shirley giggled as she unsteadily walked across the uneven ground.

  “The Berserker Cells change a subject’s body in the way that most matches their desires. Once he g
ets big enough to execute my orders, Squallow will start to destroy this planet.”

  “What are you talking about? If you do that, you’ll die, too!”

  “That’s fine. It’s all fine. As long as I can take them with me, then... that’s enough...”

  “You idiot!”

  I ran towards her and tried to get her to snap out of it. But...

  “Guaaaah!”

  Several of the tentacles headed towards her, and Shirley just stood there looking up at them. At this distance, I wouldn’t get there in time!

  “Shirley!”

  It was Tetra that ran up and knocked her out of the way.

  “Huh?”

  I caught Shirley and heard her whisper to herself in astonishment, and then I quickly reached out my other arm for Tetra...

  But I couldn’t reach her! My fingers only brushed against her clothes before grabbing air. Now in Shirley’s place, it was Tetra’s body that was lifted up into the air and then absorbed into Squallow’s chest.

  “Tetra!”

  “Rekka... Agh!”

  Tetra tried to get away, but the tentacles and cables in the mass wrapped around her so tightly that she couldn’t.

  “Why... Tetra...” Shirley whispered in my arms.

  “Run... away.” Tetra looked me in the eyes as she moaned in pain. “Rekka, find... my eyes...”

  “Guaaaah!”

  Squallow roared once more before his upper body rose into the ceiling, disappearing with Tetra and lifting up the entire floor with him.

  “Tetra!”

  “Rekka! Come this way!”

  Rosalind grabbed me. She held me and Shirley under her arms as she headed for the teleporter. I tried to struggle, but I was helpless against the strength of a vampire.

  “Rosalind!”

  “Quiet. We’re basically inside his stomach. Even I won’t be able to protect everyone forever!”

  Rosalind kept moving. She gave everyone the order to retreat as she protected us from the constantly changing floors and ceilings. In the end, we were able to gather up everyone, including the pirates and soldiers that were now free of the master chip, and get them back to the anchor rails and onto the Seageists’ ship.

  “Girl! You need to get this ship out of here!”

  “I know! Hang on, everybody!”

  The pirate ship purged the anchor rails and began to rise up and away from the central storage facility.

  SMASH!

  There was a loud impact as the floor shook.

  “We’re under attack! Evasive maneuvers!”

  The shouting of pirates falling into their battle stations echoed throughout the ship as it began to shake violently.

  “Tch...!”

  I ran to the window and looked outside, hoping I could at least get a gander at what was going on. Below I could see the energy storage facility and Shirley’s ship roaring and snapping as they changed form, becoming a giant of flesh and steel. I could still only see the top half of his body, but Squallow’s giant, twisted arms were taking swipes at the Seageists’ ship.

  Another huge rumble. At this rate, the ship was going to be taken out!

  “Damn it! We’re getting out of that thing’s range! More power to the engines!”

  “Grrowaaah!”

  The giant screamed as we just barely dodged one last blow, and then the pirate ship sped up.

  “Guaaaah!”

  The giant’s legs tore out of the facility and it rose up as if it was following us. It must have finished making its lower half underground. Just before the giant receded into the distance, we saw Squallow’s actual body protrude through its forehead. Tetra was patched into its flesh not too far from him.

  “Tetra!”

  But there was no way she could hear me from the rapidly ascending pirate ship. We sped up and off, right out of the giant’s sight.

  ▽

  The pirate ship circled around the thunderclouds that Rain had summoned as we watched the giant continue to rampage across the landscape. We tried to get close several times, but each time we did, the giant would attack, and we’d have no choice but to retreat by rising above the clouds. The giant wasn’t particularly fast, but because our ship wasn’t particularly agile, either, we had no way of dodging its attacks.

  On the main bridge monitor, we could see the giant destroying the city around the central energy storage facility. It was like something out of a monster movie.

  All I could do was think now. I looked down on the terrifying sight from the window of the pirate ship. The giant looked huge on the monitor, but from up here he was just a speck on the ground. There was no real point to seeing it with my own eyes rather than on the computer, but I felt compelled to look.

  Tetra and Squallow were down there. How was I supposed to save them? And then there was what Tetra said...

  “Find my eyes...”

  What did that mean? My train of thought was interrupted by the quiet sound of footsteps as Shirley approached and stood next to me.

  She was staring out the window in shock. Maybe she was trying to find Tetra, too, even though it would be impossible to see her from here.

  “Why did Tetra... try to save me?” Shirley whispered. She didn’t even seem to realize she was speaking.

  She might finally have the one thing that had always been denied her, and that was thanks to Tetra. I decided to answer for her since she wasn’t there to do it herself.

  “Because she’s your friend, of course.”

  Shirley grimaced in sorrow. She collapsed like all the strength had drained from her body, and she started to tremble.

  “I can’t take this anymore... What am I doing? I just want to die...”

  As she sobbed, I could see her head shake. She looked like a little girl who’d gotten lost on the way home.

  “Don’t say you want to die.”

  “Then what am I supposed to do? I want to go back into the past and rip myself apart. I never should’ve been born. My whole life was a farce anyway.”

  Large, sorrowful tears rolled down her face.

  “Shirley...”

  Garnet saw her crying and wiped the tears away with her fingers. Shirley grabbed her hand and held it up to her cheek.

  “It’s silly to complain about being born.”

  I thwacked my palm lightly against the side of my head as if I was rebooting my brain.

  “That’s just giving up thinking. And as long as you’re alive, you’ve got to keep thinking. About today, about tomorrow, about what you have to do to be happy, and about what you can do to make up for your failures.”

  “...What am I supposed to do?”

  “What do you want to do?” I asked back.

  “But... I don’t have the right to say it.” Shirley was hesitant.

  “We’re friends, right?”

  She looked shocked when I said that.

  “That’s all that you need, I think.”

  Shirley closed her eyes and wiped the rest of her tears away with the sleeve of her lab coat before she stood up.

  “I... I want to save Tetra.”

  “Good. So do I,” I said.

  For whatever reason, Shirley finally smiled.

  “Tetra was right. You really did come to save me.”

  “Huh? Of course I did.”

  “Tetra believed you would. When the pirates caught us, she never doubted that you’d come.”

  That seems... kind of embarrassing...? Wait a second. If Tetra was sure I’d come to save her, then what she meant earlier...

  “So that’s it...”

  It was a hint. It was a clue she left to help me when I came to save her. But it was far too thin a thread. Tetra must have known that when she told me. It was only a tiny sliver of hope. One that might never help at all.

  Either way, we’d first have to get past the giant’s attacks. I glanced out the window and happened to see a black cloud hanging in the sky below us. Suddenly I had a new idea.

  The operation to save S
quallow had almost been successful. We hadn’t lost the means of carrying it out. The question now was how we would get close enough to the giant to save Squallow and Tetra, and I’d just come up with a way to do it. Shirley, Rain, Fam... All the pieces came together thanks to the thread that Tetra had left me.

  “Guys, listen...”

  Everybody turned towards me.

  “This time, I want to save everyone’s story. And I need your help!”

  ▽

  The giant kept rampaging through the city. I had to stop it before the damage got any worse.

  “Rain, do it,” I said into the mic. Rain was listening to me from the deck of the ship.

  “Right!”

  Rain closed her eyes and put her hands together in prayer. She was holding the Mermaid Princess’s Tear. As she prayed wordlessly, the feed on one of the monitors in the room—the one showing us what was directly beneath the ship—began to change.

  The sky was filled with the remnants of the thunderclouds she’d summoned, and now they were swelling up and forming into a single black mass. It kept getting thicker and larger. We eventually couldn’t even see the city or the giant below us anymore. The black cloud covered the sky into the far distance, and it only continued to get denser.

  “Hahh... hahh...”

  I could hear Rain panting through the speakers.

  “Rain, you can st—”

  “Not yet... I can keep going...”

  Rain cut me off and pressed on, using even more of the power of the Mermaid Princess’s Tear. The clouds were coming together far quicker than they had when we’d been aboard Shirley’s ship.

  “The thunderclouds are threatening to touch the ship. Adjusting altitude,” one of the pirates said, and the ship began to climb.

  Below us was now the dark, massive cloud that Rain had summoned. It was so thick that it obscured any light from the surface, and it was far larger than anything you’d see in nature.

  “Haaahh...”

  “Rain!”

  Rain used up the last of her power and collapsed on the deck. The pirates with her helped her up.

  “...Thanks. Get some rest.”

  Rain was so tired that she couldn’t even respond other than nodding. Some of the crew then helped her back into the ship. She’d used all her strength to help me.