I Saved Too Many Girls and Caused the Apocalypse: Volume 15 Read online

  “That’s impossible! There’s no way you could hack into my R’s system!”

  Even the doctor, who was being kept in check by Shirley and her scientific weapons, was shaken with disbelief.

  “...”

  Yuuhi, however, ignored us both.

  Come to think of it, we still don’t know who out of the extremists was able to use the doctor’s time translocator!

  I didn’t really understand it myself, but the time translocator was supposedly extremely difficult both to install and to operate. I’d seen that much firsthand when a small error had warped L directly into my room on her mission to assassinate me, causing the whole plan to fail miserably. But somehow, between then and the attack on the past, the extremists had figured out how to use the time translocator with enough precision to accurately send a small army of giant robots back in time. It was possible... that was all Yuuhi’s doing. That had meant she had the skill and know-how to rival the doctor, which in turn meant that it was conceivable that she’d reprogrammed R.

  “Eliminating target.”

  “Guwah!”

  The blue beam of light R fired from her fingertips pierced through my limbs. With the smell of burning flesh filling my nose, I collapsed on the spot.

  “Damn... it...”

  At times like this, I was all too aware of how powerless I really was. If only I had all those special powers like my future self... Really, it would be a huge help if I were just a little more fit. Or a little smarter. I just needed something to give me an edge... Then maybe I would’ve been more of a main character.

  There was nothing special about me. I was always relying on other people. In other words, my friends were my only real power... But Yuuhi had taken them from me. Especially R, who’d been by my side since the very beginning. She’d never lent me her powers like the heroines, but she was always there for me. And Yuuhi... She’d taken even that from me.

  I... don’t have anything left...

  R slowly approached where I was writhing on the floor.

  “This is the end.”

  Her fingertips began glowing a second time. I didn’t even have to look to know they were aimed at my head now.

  “Rekka!”

  “Sir Rekka!”

  “Brother Rekka!”

  Realizing the trouble I was in, the heroines abandoned their fights and tried to rush to my aid.

  “Do not interfere.”

  With a wave of her hand, R threw up a semi-transparent blue barrier around us, preventing the future heroines from getting any closer. That gave the past heroines the opportunity to catch up to them, and their respective fights resumed once more. There was no one left to stop R.

  “This is goodbye.”

  I stared straight into the blue light that flew forward from her fingers. Just before it reached my face...

  SHNK!

  A red barrier appeared to block it.

  “L?!”

  She must have used her particle relocator to get inside the R’s barrier! This was the complete reverse of what had happened in my room months ago: L was now saving me from R’s attack. There was a clear difference in power, however, and R’s beam pushed L further and further back. She was going to be overwhelmed. However, just as I thought that...

  “Why do I have... SUCH A STUPID LITTLE SISTER?!” L yelled angrily.

  “...”

  The light in R’s eyes wavered a bit. At that, the red barrier and blue beam both burst, cancelling each other out.

  “Aaargh!”

  Ignoring the pain in my legs, I stood up and started running towards R. Forcing strength into my numb arm, I made a fist. In the end, when all of my power had been taken from me, the only things I had left were this fist and...

  The belief that no one can ever really steal the bond between us!

  R locked eyes on me. Light began gathering at her fingertips again, this time aimed directly at my forehead. But I was aiming for her forehead too.

  “SNAP OUT OF IT ALREADY!” I shouted, swinging my fist.

  Thunk!

  I landed a solid blow, sending R’s cap sailing through the air. The blue barrier surrounding us disappeared.

  “...”

  “...”

  R walked over and wordlessly picked up her hat, which had landed quietly on the floor some distance away. She then looked at me and said...

  “Punching a girl? You turned into quite the brute while I was away, Rekka.”

  She spoke in her usual mocking tone as she slipped her cap back on, pulling it down to cover the reddening mark on her forehead. Fighting the pain, I mustered a laugh.

  “Don’t be like that, partner.”

  Next Prologue

  “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.”

  “...”

  We all turned our attention to Yuuhi, who silently looked back at us as Hibiki spoke up.

  “Her name is Yuuhi Namidare. She came from a parallel world completely separate from ours, where, you could say, she’s her own Rekka Namidare.”

  —To be continued—

  Afterword

  This was the fifteenth volume of the super-cosmic battle royale romcom. Hello again to everyone coming from volume 14, and hello to everyone who bought all 15 volumes together.

  How did you like the middle part of the future arc? The story mostly took place in space this time, but the entire series has gone back and forth between the three main stages of present day (Earth), future (space), and other worlds (with some liberties). I wanted to include all three stages somehow in the future arc since it’s the grand finale. And so, next time in volume 16... Well, you probably guessed it already, but to be perfectly honest, I don’t have any solid plans yet. (Haha...) Regardless, I’ll do my best to reach the end. Speaking of doing one’s best until the very end, I wanted to make sure every heroine had an important role to play in this arc, but... What should I do?! Half the heroines have yet to appear! Aaah! Will I be able to reach my goal?! Stay tuned to find out!

  Now, last but not least, the usual acknowledgments. To Nao Watanuki, thank you once again for the many wonderful illustrations this volume! The designs for the future heroines even had me, the author, excited to see them! Thank you very much. To my editor Mr. Kinoshita, this volume only came into being with your guidance. Thank you very much for overseeing my plot and manuscript once again. And finally, to all who are involved in Little Apocalypse, the editors and marketers at HJ Bunko, the bookstores that line their shelves with this series, and the readers who picked up this book... You have my deepest gratitude. I hope you’ll continue to support Little Apocalypse.

  This is the illustrator Nao Watanuki. The rough sketch I am introducing this time is Yuuhi. She was rather easy to design, as I was told her features would highly resemble another certain character.

  No sense of season and kind of apocalyptic?! I think she turned out pretty wild. She’s rampaging about on the cover as well. Thanks to the designers, the checkered pattern and photos in the background were also composed in a very unique way. I hope you were surprised by the change from usual!

  Namekojirushi, editors, thank you for your work this time. And to the publishers who I normally don’t interact with but have taken care of me, thank you for the opportunity to study your work more closely via the cover this time!

  Now, it’s the last spurt. I hope the readers will come along for the ride. Thank you for enjoying this series, and I hope to see you next time as well!

  Nao Watanuki

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  Copyright

  I Saved Too Many Girls and Caused the Apocalypse: Volume 15

  by Namekojirushi

  Translated by Mana Z

  Edited by Megan Denton

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2015 Namekojirushi

  Illustrations Copyright © 2015 Nao Watanuki

  Cover illustration by Nao Watanuki

  All rights reserved.

  Original Japanese edition published in 2015 by Hobby Japan

  This English edition is published by arrangement with Hobby Japan, Tokyo

  English translation © 2019 J-Novel Club LLC

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property.

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  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  Ebook edition 1.0: August 2019