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“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.”