“Shirley, how are we looking?”
I pointed to the black cloud.
“...Yeah, it looks good. It’s sufficiently dense to block out 99 percent of the sun. It should be pitch black below us,” she said, staring at the main bridge computer as she spoke.
With the central energy storage facility down, the Estashionian city beneath us would be completely without power. A blackout and no sun. Utter darkness. That was the first stage of the plan. Next was...
“Okay. Then once I give the signal, break through the clouds and begin the attack run.”
“Aye aye, sir.” The pirate who we’d designated the stand-in captain nodded and gave me a firm pat on the chest. “Take care of Fam. And save Captain Squallow.”
I nodded.
“Leave it to me... Now let’s go, Fam, Shirley.”
“Right!”
“Indeed.”
Both of them followed me through the transporter to the bottom of the ship. Once we were there, we used a monitor to connect with the main bridge. When I confirmed that the connection was working, I offered Shirley my right arm.
“Let’s do this.”
“Okay...”
Shirley took out a medical gun, the syringe of which was filled with Berserker Cells.
“Like I told you before, any physical changes you induce with the Berserker Cells will result in extreme pain. This made even trained soldiers go mad after a few minutes.”
“I just need a strong spirit, right?”
I tried to make a joke, but Shirley didn’t laugh.
“I still think I should be doing this myself,” she protested.
“I can’t let a girl do something this painful. I’m doing it.”
“...If you don’t think you can take it, use the flesh of immortality Raul gave you immediately,” Shirley said reluctantly as she held the needle against my arm. “The key is simplicity: focus on what you want to do in the most basic terms possible. If you let the pain distract you, it will make the transformation much harder.”
“Right.”
Shirley winced and pulled the trigger on the medical gun, releasing the Berserker Cells into my body.
“A-Aah... Gwaaah!”
The first thing I felt was my brain, or rather my mind, spreading out through my whole body. I could even feel the blood flowing through my veins. The price, however, was terrible pain. Especially my head. It felt like it was going to burst.
“Rekka! Rekka!”
“You wimp! Hang in there!”
“...I’m fine. Let’s get going.”
Shirley and Fam’s worried voices made my head pound, but I mostly ignored them and gave the signal to the main bridge. Just a moment later, the floor shook, and the ship descended through the black clouds. The storm clouds were alive with lightning. Even the Berserker Cells wouldn’t be enough to get me through that alive.
But no matter how thick the clouds, it was a piece of cake for the ship to pierce through them. I only had seconds. I didn’t have time to complain about the pain. I started by trying to change my eyes so that they could see in the dark like an owl.
“Gah... Hrrngh...”
Yeah... I couldn’t see myself doing this for long. It really would be a race against time. But it worked. And now that my night vision was stronger, the room seemed brighter. I narrowed my eyes and first turned towards Fam.
“Fam... You can take off your headband now.”
“Are you sure?”
“One more headache won’t kill me. I’d rather deal with the pain than risk you not having time to take it off later.”
“...Got it.”
Fam took off her headband, and once I was sure it was working (though, honestly, the pain was already so bad that it was hard to tell), I turned back to Shirley.
“Shirley, you go back to the main bridge. Just handle the rest like we talked about.”
“Right. Come back safe, okay?”
Those were her last words before she went through the teleporter.
“...Ngh!”
Next, I enhanced my hearing. Even with night vision, the sharper my senses were in the dark, the better.
“Guh... Aagh!”
And then the most important part: the wings. I felt something piercing through the skin of my back, and when I focused on them, I could hear the sound of them flapping.
“Hey... Are you really okay?”
“I’m... fine. Just get me to the loading dock...”
The ship had a loading dock for moving cargo on and off board. When we made it through the clouds, we were going to use it to jump ship.
“We’re breaking through!” I heard one of the pirates say.
“I’m opening it up!” Fam said next.
And then I felt a strong wind against my cheeks and heard the strong roar that came with it. I was a little startled, but I opened my narrowed eyes and looked down at the surface. With the power off and the sun blocked by the clouds, the only thing shining now... should be Tetra’s eyes!
“I see her! Let’s go!”
“!”
Fam wrapped her arms around my waist, and I focused my mind on flying towards Tetra. I felt my body rise up, and then I began to glide towards the surface at incredible speed. Of course, I had no idea how to fly. Thankfully the Berserker Cells altered my body to move the wings in the way I needed them to. However...
“Gah! Gaaaaaaaah!”
My whole body was racked with pain. My very nerves were screaming. It was like ice picks were being jammed through my body and a hammer was crushing my flesh into paste. The pain of using the Berserker Cells was serious enough that I was worried about passing out.
“Don’t you go soft on me now, wimp!”
“...!”
Fam’s voice brought me back from the brink of unconsciousness. My flight path stabilized, and I opened my eyes wide. The pain made my vision blurry, but I knew I had to grit my teeth and bear it.
“Hang on!” I yelled.
I ordered the Berserker Cells to make me go faster. There was more pain, but it worked. As we approached, I heard a roar from below.
“Grwaaah!”
The giant’s arm shot at me like a spear. I just barely dodged it. As I’d expected, the giant had changed its own body to be able to see in the dark, as well. It was really the only option in this pitch black, but that was just what I wanted!
“Now!”
Shirley’s order came down from a megaphone on the pirate ship overhead. I closed my eyes just as the sky exploded above me. I knew what it was. The ship had fired its plasma cannon off into the distance, far away from me and Squallow. And then...
“Gyaaaah!”
The giant screamed. Night vision worked by gathering light-sensitive cells into the retina of the eye so that you could see even at night when there was very little light from the moon and stars. It worked great if you were nocturnal, but it was too strong in regular light levels. Seeing a bright flash when using night vision would be enough to either temporarily or permanently blind you.
That was the point of the plasma cannon. I’d closed my eyes and looked down to avoid the blast of light, but the giant had been looking up at me and taken it head-on. We hadn’t been able to get to the giant before, but now he was totally defenseless. I raced towards him as fast as I could. This was my only chance!
“Grrowaaah!”
Huh? At the last second, the giant rallied with a roar.
Squallow, still attached to the giant’s forehead, raised his head and looked up at me. His left arm changed shape... Was that the plasma cannon I’d seen at Ryugu Palace?!
Crap! If I kept my eyes open, the plasma cannon would blind me. But if I closed them, I couldn’t dodge it. I had no idea which was the better option. But in the midst of my turmoil, two tiny hands covered my eyes.
“Dodge like I tell you to!” Fam yelled into my ear.
Even without night vision, she could see when the plasma cannon was firing.
“Go right!”
I twisted my body to the right as hard as I could. I felt a blast of heat right next to me.
“Gaaaaah!”
I leveled myself out again and forced myself to land on the giant’s forehead, right next to the Squallow and Tetra.
“Tetra!”
In a single step, I covered the distance between me and Tetra, and I used my enhanced strength to tear through the cables and tentacles to free her.
“Graaah!” Squallow roared.
Hundreds of fleshy spears sprouted from the giant’s forehead, all of them pointed at me.
“Fam!” I yelled.
“Boss! WAKE UP!” Fam screamed as she released a maximum-power electromagnetic wave from her horn.
Strengthened by her feelings, the pulse hit Squallow and the master chip amplifier on his back directly.
“Guaah...”
Squallow groaned in intense pain, but the blades and tentacles that were about to attack us all came to a stop. Right now, Squallow was only following orders from the master chip amplifier. Once the machine started to malfunction, he shut down, too.
Now that I could get to him without him killing me, I jammed the immortal flesh I’d taken from Raul into Squallow’s mouth. There was no point in using it on the giant made out of metal and Berserker Cells. I needed to get it into the part that was really Squallow in order for the flesh to do its job. That’s why I’d gone to all this trouble.
“Guh... waaah!”
Squallow screamed, but then fell silent. When the screaming stopped, his mask fell off. I could see his face, unharmed, underneath.
Then there was a snapping sound as the plasma cannon shattered only to be replaced with a blue arm. The immortal flesh had returned Squallow to his original, perfectly healthy form, and his body separated from the giant’s. He was now—finally—himself again.
“Boss! Aah! You’re heavy!”
“Wait! Are you okay, Fam?!”
Fam tried to grab Squallow and was almost crushed under his weight. I ran to her side to help.
Epilogue
With its core gone, the giant began to fall apart. We escaped from its collapsing forehead and landed on one of the surviving buildings in the city.
“Mmgh!”
I swallowed the other piece of Raul’s flesh that I’d been given. It gave my body the power to reject the Berserker Cells, and I returned to normal. Just like Shirley had said, the pain had almost driven me insane... but I’d managed to pull it off.
“Guh...”
Squallow had also returned to normal—to his original merman form from before he’d even become a cyborg—and slowly woke up.
“Boss!”
Fam grabbed him in a hug. He slowly lifted a hand and patted her on the head.
“...I guess I worried you, didn’t I?”
“That doesn’t matter!”
Fam started to cry. I figured she probably didn’t want anyone seeing that, so I turned away and watched the pirate ship swoop in to pick us up.
Then I contacted Iris and the other girls to get them to meet up with us. I’d asked them to help the townspeople, but once they saw what happened with the energy storage facility, they’d switched to evacuating them instead.
I was worried that not many had made it out, but I was thinking in Earth terms. I was used to the fastest mode of transportation being a car, but the citizens here had flying vehicles and access to things like Iris’s warp watch.
“Between the military alert and the pirate attack, everyone knew something was up. Most everyone had evacuated before this even started, so it all worked out.”
“I see. Glad to hear it. Thanks, Iris.”
As for Shirley’s attempt to get all of the adults to kill themselves via the master chip amplifier, between her order for their deaths to be slow, our unexpected interference, and Rain’s help, no one had actually died.
Fam and Rain were standing on either side of Squallow, but Shirley and Garnet were standing a bit away.
Everyone was silent. Everybody here knew Shirley’s story. They knew it was possible to sympathize with her, but...
“Shirley... I’m not a hero, and I’m not the police. I just wanted to save everyone. But...”
That was just what I wanted to do. I couldn’t force my way of seeing things onto Rain, who’d lost her mother, or Squallow, who’d been forced to kill Muse. What they thought about Shirley was a different matter.
“...”
“Rekka, don’t make that face.”
Shirley rubbed her slender fingers against my cheek.
“You said you were my friend, right? That’s enough for me.”
“Shirley... Um...”
“Thank you, too, Tetra. And... I’m sorry.”
After apologizing, Shirley headed towards Rain and the pirates. Squallow, still supported by Fam, looked her dead in the eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ll do anything I can to atone. Do with me what you will.”
Shirley lowered her head as she awaited her judgment.
“When we pirates came together, we made a few rules. One of them was forbidding vengeance against our homeland.”
Squallow’s voice was calm rather than filled with rage as he addressed Shirley.
“We’re a bunch of former refugees and poor people. Every one of us suffered back home. Once we became pirates and we learned how to use weapons and wield violence, we all wanted to tear the eyes right out of the people who used to look down on us. But I forbade that.”
A lot of what Squallow was saying applied to Shirley, too.
“Revenge taints your soul. And when a tainted soul returns to the sea after it dies, it taints the sea, too. Our ancestors allow us to shed blood in order to feed our children or protect our comrades... but in the end, revenge is just about you. It’s selfish that way. It’s about getting rid of the thorns in your heart, or feeling the joy you get when you hurt someone you’re angry at, or making the people you hate suffer. It’s just killing for pleasure.”
Shirley was silent. Squallow’s heavy words weighed heavily on her. The regret was visible on her face.
“If I take revenge on you for Muse, my father, my father’s father, and his father before him will never forgive me. And so I forgive you.”
“I... I think Squallow is right,” Rain said. “I do want you to atone, but not for the sake of revenge. Just so I can forgive you some day. Is that all right?”
“...Yes!”
Shirley was still looking down. Her shoulders were shaking softly, and Garnet gently held her in her arms.
Whether this was a truly happy ending or not... I didn’t know. I couldn’t help but think that if I’d been a little faster getting to the top of Ryugu Palace, I might’ve been able to stop Squallow from killing Muse.
“Um, sorry, but why are we all so glum? It’s all over, isn’t it?”
Ugh... And then he had to go and spoil the whole mood.
“Raul, would you shut up?”
“No, listen, kid. I honestly don’t understand why everybody’s so down now that we’ve reached our big conclusion.”
“Look...”
I carefully chose my words as I explained to this idiot what happened at Ryugu Palace after he peaced out. But even then, Raul still looked a little confused.
“Wait, did I not tell you?”
“Huh?”
“Actually...”
I could hardly believe what he said next.
▽
A week later, I was back home, sitting on my sofa and staring at the ceiling.
“Man, that space trip was one heck of an ordeal, wasn’t it?”
“Was it really any different than usual?”
R was right. I hated to admit it, but R was right.
I’d had a fun beach vacation, followed by a trip across three planets. I was still a little tired from it all.
In the end, everything had worked out thanks to Raul, but...
“Man, it still kind of pisses me off thinking a
bout it.”
“What?”
“What else? Raul. How could he have forgotten to tell us something so important?”
“Oh, right. You mean how it was actually Raul in disguise who’d almost been killed by Squallow while the real Muse had been knocked out and was hidden away in the closet?”
“Yup. That.”
When Raul had split off from us during the pirate attack, he’d gone to the top floor and changed places with Muse. He’d known just by looking at them how powerful Rosalind and Suzuran were, so he left it up to us to protect Rain while he took the more dangerous job of protecting Muse. It sounded like something out of an action manga, but he’d managed to pull it off.
I heard later that even though he’d started calling himself the “Phantom Thief Baron” about 500 years ago, he’d actually been alive for several dozen times that long. Could he be older than Earth itself? As I was thinking about that strange man who was probably still wandering through space somewhere, the front doorbell rang.
“Sir Rekka, you have visitors.”
“Right... Huh?!”
Harissa led me into the living room, where I was shocked to see my “visitors.” It was Rain, Fam, and Shirley.
“We came to say hello now that we’re neighbors.”
“R-Right...”
I bowed.
Wait, why was I bowing? What was going on?
“Um, hang on a second.”
I motioned for the girls to come sit down on the sofa. I then went and got a chair from the dining room and sat across from them.
“So... neighbors?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
It was Rain, sitting in the center, who spoke up. Fam was too busy eating the snacks that Harissa had brought, and Shirley just silently smiled.
“Um... Fam, if I remember right, planet Berano agreed to take in the refugees from Planet Gale, and the pirates dissolved after that, right?” I asked.
“Yeah, that’s right.”
Crumbs of the snacks she was eating fell from Fam’s mouth as she spoke.
“The mermen returned from across the galaxy to live on Berano again, and the former Seageists formed an army to protect the planet from slavers. Did I get that right?”
I Saved Too Many Girls and Caused the Apocalypse: Volume 5 Page 17
