“Impossible... Her entire system had been overwritten...”
Seeing R return to her senses, Yuuhi finally seemed shocked for the first time.
“There’s only one reason why a robot would rebel,” R replied, forming the shape of a heart with her hands. “Love. Rekka saved the world by falling in love with me. This is where the ending credits would start rolling.”
“Hey!”
What the heck was this?! A Hollywood movie?!
“Tch...” Yuuhi clicked her tongue, not seeming particularly convinced or amused.
“Hey, you! You better not be thinking about choosing R of all people to end the War of All!” L shouted, glaring at me in disgust. “Filthy lolicon...”
“I am not!”
“There, there, Sis. It’s my fault for being so irresistibly charming. You shouldn’t blame Rekka.”
“Who the hell are you calling ‘Sis’?!”
“Oh? And here I thought you called me your little sister earlier...”
“I said stupid little sister! That’s different! They’re two different species!”
“So what does that make the elder sibling of a stupid little sister? A dumb big sister?”
“Who are you calling dumb?!”
Both R and L seemed to be in top form... Everything was back to normal between them, I guess.
“Save it for later, you two! The battle isn’t over yet!”
All around us, the future heroines were still fighting their past selves. Even the doctor was fighting now, too. We had to destroy Yuuhi’s Doppel Stone as soon as possible to put an end to things.
“Hmph... Don’t think I’ll just let you have your way.”
“Same to you. I’m not going to let you escape. Sis and I are top-of-the-line models, you know?”
“...”
Even confronted by me, R, and L, the steely light in Yuuhi’s eyes never faltered. It wasn’t sheer pride or overconfidence, however. It was just the strong light of an unrelenting will. I could tell that much. I could see it in her face.
What is this? If the doctor was right, the War of All is really Yuuhi’s doing... but I don’t sense any evil in her.
Why was Yuuhi fighting with us? What was her motive?
“...”
“...”
R and L seemed to sense the same thing I did, and showed a similar reluctance to attack. But we couldn’t just stand here forever. While we hesitated, the situation around us was deteriorating. We had to defeat Yuuhi now or the tables could turn on us at any moment.
“Tch...”
I scolded myself into forcing one foot in front of the other. But as I stepped forward, I saw it... A shadow rising behind Yuuhi.
That’s the guy Yuuhi had knocked out at the beginning of the fight!
He now had a knife in his hand... and it was aimed right at Yuuhi.
“Tch!”
Yuuhi noticed him not a second after I did, swinging her elbow around behind her to land a close-range blow. But in spite of her swift response, the man’s knife was faster.
Clink!
The knife cut right through Yuuhi’s earring, dropping the Doppel Stone to the ground. It rolled along the floor...
“!”
And I promptly took the chance to scoop up the crimson gem.
“Everyone, stop fighting and snap out of it!”
Once I had the Doppel Stone in my hand, I immediately shouted my order. And just like that, the fighting stopped.
“...Huh?”
“What... are we doing?”
The room was abuzz with the confused murmuring of the past heroines and the relieved sighs of the rest of us. I, for one, heaved an especially large sigh before turning to Yuuhi... Or rather, the man that attacked her.
Why would a guy on Yuuhi’s side...?
When I saw his face, however...
“What?!”
It was torn up. Yuuhi’s elbow had probably grazed him when she was counterattacking. The man’s face was seriously damaged... It was literally torn up, but... What? As I looked on in shock, I realized the man’s near-shredded face wasn’t yielding a single drop of blood.
“Just... who are you?” I asked.
In response, the man stood up briskly and pulled off the rest of his face.
“WHAT?!”
“Calm down, Rekka. It’s just a mask.”
“Oh... a m-mask, huh?”
Now that I took a closer look, it did have the texture of one of those prosthetics they used in movies.
“You...” Yuuhi murmured.
“You may have guessed it by now. Since your strange ability nullifies any transformations, I had to counter with a more practical gimmick. But you’re so reliant on your ability that you overlooked this primitive trick, didn’t you?”
The higher-up guy was confronting the glaring Yuuhi... No, I shouldn’t say “guy.” Once he’d taken off his mask, I realized it was a woman. And not just any woman. She looked a lot like someone I knew...
“I-Is that you, Hibiki?”
“In the flesh. I was only pretending to be knocked out, so I think I get what’s going on here,” future Hibiki said with a soft smile.
I wasn’t the only one surprised by her appearance, however. The doctor and Satsuki were similarly shocked.
“Hibiki! What are you doing here?!”
“I don’t have any convenient powers like Satsuki and the others, you know. I have to earn my information the hard way. It wasn’t easy to become a trusted higher-up in the extremist faction,” Hibiki responded smoothly.
Apparently, she had chosen not to join any particular faction herself and was researching the extremists of her own accord. Even she had realized something was suspicious about the mastermind... Surprised by Hibiki’s investigative abilities, I asked her a question.
“Hibiki... Do you happen to know anything? About why Yuuhi would do something like this, I mean?”
“Unfortunately, when it comes to her motives, you’ll have to ask her about that yourself. However,” Hibiki continued, “if it’s her real identity you want to know, I’ve pinned down that much.”
“Her real identity?”
“Yeah.”
“...”
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