Chapter 12: Is There No Business in Getting Ganged Up On... Or What...?

(This chapter contains the author’s original story elements.)

Though it was evening, flames drifted through the abandoned city, casting shadows.

"Hngh!!"

"...!"

KWAANG!!

"Nihahaha! The Goddess Squad isn’t all that, are they~!"

Bang! Bang!

"What are you all doing?! Hurry up and hit that pretty-boy parasite!!"

"Weeaaak—weeaaak(Boom!!)aaaaaagh!!!!"

And right in the middle of it all, I was getting the absolute shit beaten out of me.

Fuck, somebody save me.

"Snow! Cut off his escape route!"

"Yes!"

Bang!!

A flash burst from the rooftop, and the ground behind me was instantly gouged into a crater.

Holy shit.

Was our little sparrow—Snow White—always this strong? Sob! As a player, I’m so moved...! No, that’s not the point!!

I’m about to die here.

I’m not joking, I really am!!

To put it another way, it was no different from the Four Heavenly Kings of Hell charging straight at me!!

"Everyone knows what Rukh was like as a child. Because Rukh couldn’t do anything while getting beaten up, he made his long-range attacks strong(Boom!!) and his close-range attacks strong(Crash!!). Fuck, Rukh, is this really right??!!"

"I don’t kno—!!!"

Bang!!

"Gyaooooook!!@"

"Try dodging this one like before!"

I couldn’t even answer Eclipse’s complaint before getting hit yet again by Red Hood’s massive sniper rifle.

Stop shooting, you goddamn idiot!!

And the Goddess Squad attacked ferociously, as though they really meant to kill me.

Red Hood and Liliweiss attacked me from the front, and when I barely ducked low enough to avoid the bullets—

"Come on!!"

"Ah, damn it, Red Hood."

Clang!!

A clash of blades with Red Hood.

And whenever I tried to leap into the air—

"Hah, hah!!"

"This time, we’ll truly finish you!!"

Rapunzel and Dorothy came at me trying to kill me. Aaaaaah! Down with violence!!

More importantly, Dorothy, why the hell are you so angry?

I barely evaded them by twisting my body every which way, but I was gradually getting exhausted too. I’m screwed!! Six against one is ridiculous to begin with! Why are the Four Heavenly Kings all coming after me?! Why?!

"Aaaaargh, Rukh, you frustrating bastard!! You just need to control your strength!!"

"It’s not something I can just—(Hey, hey!) Urk—do whenever I want!!"

This is too hard!! What a thing to brag about, asshole!!

"You just have to control your strength, right?! Just hold out for one minute!!"

"Hold out for whaaaaat?!"

"Usho, yoiyoi!!"

Along with Eclipse’s dying cry, she vanished somewhere, and excruciating pain struck my side, forcing a scream out of me.

Red Hood, you crazy—beep!! Why are you so desperate to kill me?! Whyyyyy?!!

.

.

.

.

"Oh? You endured even that? Impressive?!"

"Ghhhhh..."

Red Hood narrowed one eye at the Rapture standing before her, finding it both fascinating and grotesque. Despite her and Liliweiss’s attacks, the thing was still standing firmly on both legs.

And above all...

"Ghk... [Haima]...!"

Twitch... twitch.

Twitch...

"Crackle... Snow, did you see that?"

"Yes. It’s... regenerating."

It muttered something to itself, and the wounds they had barely managed to inflict began closing back up. Hey! That’s not fair!!

"Oh? It regenerates?"

Crack, crack.

Ooh! Looks like our mech gorilla is about to do something! Right! Our major was the kind of person who could split a Rapture in half!!

Liliweiss pressed down on each of her finger joints, producing a murderous cracking sound, then—

"Then we just break it before it can regenerate!!"

BOOOOM!!

"Uwaak!"

She shattered the ground and launched herself forward.

Oh dear~ Poor Sicarius. He must’ve wanted to fight more.

Moments later, metal crashed against metal with a bang, and a cloud of dust blanketed the surroundings.

"Tch, I wanted to fight more... Situation over! Hey~! Liliweiss! We need to research that thing or whatever, so don’t beat it too badly!!"

Did you hear me?! Yet in response to Red Hood’s shout, only dust and silence answered.

Why was it so damn quiet? This was making me uneasy.

"Liliweiss?"

Step, step.

"What are you doing? Can’t you hear me?"

Step, step.

"Ghhhk...!"

"Hello?"

It shouldn’t have been possible, but as the silence continued, Red Hood walked through the dust—and what she saw was—

Creak... creak-creeeak...!

"What...?"

Liliweiss’s fist, a fist that tore Raptures apart like sheets of paper, was caught in one of Sicarius’s hands.

"A Missilis weapon... so that’s..."

Whirr.

"...you?"

The wind from earlier had completely loosened Sicarius’s hair, allowing Liliweiss to see this slaughterer’s face clearly.

White hair, even more ivory-white than Snow White’s, and madness glaring at her from beyond the eyepatch.

"Hmm~ Rukh said you were really strong, but..."

Liliweiss poured all her strength into pulling her fist free, but what came back was—

Thud!

"Ugh!!"

"You’re nothing special~"

A fist drove straight into her stomach.

KWAAAAANG!!!

Liliweiss was sent flying far away.

.

.

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????’s POV

A body. So this is what people mean by sensation?

I tilted my head back and inhaled, feeling something cold enter my body.

Air.

I could feel oxygen and carbon dioxide passing through me, and it was so blissful I wanted to take this eyepatch right off—

"Absolutely not!!"

"Whyyyyy?"

"Just listen to me for once!! And what is this?!"

A man’s voice in my head—yes, Rukh’s—rang through my skull.

"The best solution was changing who’s in control of the body?!!"

"But it’s true, isn’t it?"

There was only one way Eclipse could think of to attack while controlling her strength.

This super-genius, frail, beautiful girl would borrow the body for a little while!!

And this was the result. \●W●/

Ah, this is nice. I’m happy.

And Rukh, you bastard, you got to experience something this good all by yourself?

Your line sounds a little weird, you know?

"Ahem. Anyway, don’t worry. The body will return to normal soon enough~"

"I understand, but you absolutely cannot hurt them... Behind you!!"

Clang!!

Metal collided once more. Without even turning her head, Eclipse blocked the incoming blade with her arm and slipped out of its trajectory.

"It’s my first time seeing our Rukh-Rukh so scared~ But don’t worry~"

Clang!!

Huh? Something red went flying, but... whatever, I guess?

"Because I’ve already figured out what to do with all of them."

.

.

.

Liliweiss had lost in a contest of strength.

That Liliweiss.

The woman who effortlessly dealt with Tyrant-class individuals had lost in a battle of strength?

Everyone froze at the impossible sight, until the Commander was the first to regain his wits and give an order.

"Damn it...! Everyone! Attack without holding anything back! This one is on a completely different level from the ones before!"

"O-Okay!" "Roger!!" "Got it!!"

As everyone loaded their weapons and rushed in, the Commander hastily emerged from cover and ran toward where Liliweiss had fallen.

The rubble...!

"Liliweiss! Can you hear me?! Liliweiss!!"

"Ghk... I’m... fine!!"

Thoom!!

Watching Liliweiss shove aside rubble larger than herself with one hand, the Commander breathed a sigh of relief.

"Just like a mech gorilla. You endured even that attack."

"Mech goril—whew. We’ll talk about that later, okay? For now..."

Let’s stop that thing first.

With those words, Liliweiss headed back toward the gunpowder-scented battlefield.

.

.. ...

"Excuse me, isn’t ganging up on me a little unfair?"

I’m only one person, damn it!!

Eclipse wondered if switching bodies had been pointless. Why were these NIKKEs, each with their own specialties, so determined to kill her?

"For a Rapture, you sure talk a lot."

"A Rapt—hey, sword lady? Isn’t that a little harsh—"

"Sword... lady?"

"Screw this."

CLAAANG!!!

Silver flashed before her eyes, and Eclipse raised the back of her arm to block it.

"You can curse at me, but I can’t curse at you?!"

"Such a loose tongue..."

"You little—"

Click.

Bzzzzzt!!!

"Ghhhhh???!!"

Something shot out from Sicarius’s wrist, blue light flashed, and Scarlet collapsed with her eyes rolled back.

"S-Scarlet?!"

"Say hello to our former lawyer."

Now that was satisfying. She kept calling me a Rapture and whatnot, so when I waved my wrist around to show her the black device, bullets immediately flew at me.

For fuck’s sake.

I instantly leaped away and ran along the wall to dodge the bullets.

Hah, I didn’t want to bring this out...

.........

ECLIPSE—Large Target Suppression, activated.

........

Its original purpose was to subdue large targets that infiltrated the Orbital Elevator using a digital framework. To that end, it had every kind of combat data, and—

Bang!

"Too slow!!"

Its evasion capabilities were damn slick too.

One versus many? I could win that shit with ease.

First...

"You."

"W-When did you—?!"

I rushed in from behind the blonde NIKKE at the back of the group, draped in cloth like a nun. She raised her spear to block me, but—

Bzzzzzt!!

"Heeeeeeeng♡♡♡♡???"

????????? What the hell??? Why is she like that????

I dodged the trajectory of her spear and sent the same restraint current into her abdomen as before. But why did she make that sound...? Oh dear?

Bang! Bang!

That crazy pink-haired—beep?!

"From this world..."

Huh? What was up with Pinky’s condition?

"Disappear!!"

Pink light rippled from her gun, and then—

BOOOOOM!!!

It blasted me away.

Dorothy’s ultimate move, Paradise Lost. In an instant, a black highway of ash and gunpowder stretched out long over the place where Sicarius had been.

"That was just my afterimage, though?"

"...!! When did you?!"

At some point, he had appeared behind Dorothy, smiling like an irritating wizard about to use dark magic.

"Whoops, excuse me for a moment?"

"What in the—kyah???!"

He wrapped his arms around Dorothy from behind.

"W-What are you doing?! A man holding a woman...!"

"Clench your teeth."

"...Pardon?"

He bent her waist backward and drove Dorothy into the ground. The move’s name: a German suplex!!

KWAAANG!!

"Kghk."

The ground shook. Dorothy, planted headfirst into the earth, twitched a few times before going limp like blanched spinach.

"I toooooold youuuuu not to kill themmmmm!!!!"

"I didn’t kill her, okay?? (Bang!) Whoa, fuck!!"

Gunfire rang out from the rooftop, grazing the back of his head, and he immediately hurled rubble toward it.

"Eclipssseeeeee!!!!"

"I just knocked them out!!"

I told you, I’m a super-genius! Yeah, right!!

Ugh, the nagging, seriously. As his head began throbbing, he pressed hard against the corner of his eye. Maybe I should just take over this body—wait, where did the eyepatch go?

He felt around his face, but there was nothing over his eyes.

"Rukh, we’re screwed."

"Why?"

"I can’t see the eyepatch! It must’ve flown off!"

"What?!!"

"And the switch is about to end!!"

"How much time is left?!!"

"Five..."

"Five minutes?"

"Four, three, two, one!"

Bzzzzzt.

"Agyagyagyag!!"

His head crackled like a malfunctioning computer, and I returned to my body. More importantly, had Eclipse fought too intensely earlier? I couldn’t put any strength into my body—

Bang!!

"Kuhk."

"Hey!! You sure had a great time beating up my comrades earlier!!"

"Left! Left! No, right?! Uh... anyway, dodge, Rukh-Rukh!!"

Boom!!

"You sure did beat them well, didn’t you??!!"

Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat!!!!

Blood running from her head, Red Hood flew at me in an instant, shoved her gun into my stomach, and fired like a madwoman.

Something burst out of my mouth, probably because my internal organs had been damaged... Cough! Lady, wait! I’m dying! I’m really dying!

Thud.

Maybe I had overexerted myself. My knees buckled on their own, and a ringing filled my ears. [Haima], I need to use [Haima]...!

"Oh dear! Rukh-Rukh! Hang on just a little longer!!"

Please hurry up instead of talking..!

Grab!!

"Ghk?!"

"What, is that it? You fought so well earlier."

My head was forcibly lifted, and Red Hood’s face came into view. Wow... Seeing her in real life really is different from seeing an illustration... Cough!

Splat.

Red liquid ran down my throat and stained my clothes. These are the only clothes I have, though.

And perhaps because I had rolled around, my white hair covered my face and obstructed my vision.

"...I saw you wearing an eyepatch earlier... Are you hiding something in that eye?"

Rustle, rustle.

She grabbed my collar, and the rough sensation of her glove brushed against my face as she began moving aside the hair that hid it. I’m screwed, Chagall!! I don’t want to advertise that I’ve been corrupted!!

Giving up, I let all the strength drain from my arms and legs. If I’m going to die, I might as well die peacefully...

I haven’t even met my favorite character yet... Sob...!

I closed my eyes, and then—

And then—

And then—

...Why am I not dead?

"You... you... you!!!!"

"...?"

I opened my eyes at the strange reaction, only to find something astonishing had happened.

Red Hood—the macho big sister herself, Red Hood—was making a flustered expression! And not the kind she made when she was joking around!

What in the world is going on? ●□●???

"Samael...?"

"...Pardon? Uwaak?!"

Red Hood lifted me with her powerful grip and slammed me against a wall.

"You... you’re Samael, right?! You are, aren’t you?!"

"Who the hell is that?!"

"What the hell happened there... what happened there?! Why... who turned you into this?! Why did you end up like this?! Whyyyyy!!!!"

Red Hood roared like a beast, tightening her grip around my collar until I couldn’t... breathe...!

"Who... the hell... is Samael...?!!"

"...What...?"

I barely managed to force out the sentence... My strength had returned. Which meant—

Chance!!

"Sama—ghk?!"

Thud!!

I sent her flying far away, clutched my aching side, and turned my body to flee. With most of the Goddess Squad out of commission, if I escaped now...!

"Where do you think you’re going?"

"...!! Fuck."

The mech gorilla was standing in front of me. Her mouth was smiling, but her eyes were absolutely furious!! I’m screwed, Chagall!!!

"I guess I underestimated you too much earlier."

Crack, crack.

Liliweiss’s hands went crack, crack, while tears went trickle, trickle from my eyes. Can’t you just keep underestimating me?

"So... whew... how about we settle this with strength against strength?"

"...I’ll gladly oblige."

"Oh? You’re coming at me? You won’t run away?"

"I need to if I’m going to beat the shit out of you~"

"Then... come closer."

Liliweiss clenched her fist, her eyes beginning to gleam.

And I...!

Dash!!!

"I’m ruuuunning awayyyy!!!"

"...What?"

"Goodbye, everyone! I want to live longer! You all keep on surviving too~~~"

I bolted in the opposite direction. Who the hell would be crazy enough to fight an enraged Liliweiss?

A crashing sound rang out behind me moments later. Whoops, looks like the mech gorilla was really angry~

Sicarius soon ran madly beyond the setting sun, and this incident was later recorded as the Goddess Squad’s first failed operation.

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.

.

"Um... Commander?"

"Hm? What is it, Snow White?"

"Um... that is..."

The Goddess Squad had not suffered major injuries in the battle against Sicarius. Snow White had escaped with only minor scrapes.

Dorothy and Scarlet had gritted their teeth over having been absurdly beaten by a Rapture and gone off to spar with each other. Rapunzel had... developed some neurological problems and gone to get repairs. Liliweiss was writing the operation report.

"Um... Red Hood is..."

"You... idiot... you’re... an idiot... moron... you should’ve caught him..."

"...Sigh..."

Meanwhile, Red Hood was in the cafeteria, drinking alcohol and banging her head against the table. Snow White had already tried and failed to stop her, which was why she had brought the Commander.

The Commander watched her silently, then took a seat in the chair across from her.

"...Forget our ranks. How about we talk adult to adult, Red Hood?"

"Huhhh? Commander wanna drink toooo???"

Having apparently downed more than five bottles already, Red Hood’s tongue was tangled as she poured him a fresh glass and slid it over.

Ahhh... this is the stuff.

"Ahh, it’s been a while since I drank. Normally, when I drink, our mech gorilla—"

"Idiot... idiot..."

Thoom! Thoom!

She slammed her head against the table again, and the table’s scream echoed through the room.

More than anything... Red Hood, with her usually bright personality, was suddenly like this?

"...Did you know Sicarius?"

"...Did Snow White tell you?"

About what I said while grabbing that guy by the collar? Yeah.

Red Hood took her hand off her glass, let out a long sigh, and looked up at the ceiling.

"...Commander, as you know, before I was a NIKKE, I was a thug. And before you were Commander, you were a mercenary."

"...That’s right."

"NIKKEs and humans aren’t so different if you think about it... If a dead comrade appeared before your eyes, the personality you had as a mercenary would come back too, Commander."

"That’s... Wait, what did you say?"

A dead... comrade? Having found a clue in Red Hood’s words, the Commander furrowed his brow in thought and looked at her as if he could not believe it.

"Red Hood, don’t tell me... Sicarius is your dead... comrade?"

Without a word, Red Hood nodded.

+

Trivia

The move Dorothy got hit with is called, "His name, John Cena."

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