I Saved Too Many Girls and Caused the Apocalypse: Volume 13

by Namekojirushi

  I decided not to ask how she had “located” me. There was now no doubt in my mind that she was the one who’d been behind all the freaky stuff going on this weekend, but I still didn’t get her angle.

  “Why do you want me to make you lose so much? Shouldn’t it be the opposite?”

  I could understand the feeling of wanting to win. I could even understand certain situations where strategic loss was really a victory, but I couldn’t imagine why someone would so genuinely want to just straight-up lose at something.

  “You say that, but I’ve never lost at anything my entire life.”

  “Y-You don’t say...”

  “Well, you could call it a simple case of curiosity. I want to know what defeat tastes like... or something,” she said with a bold laugh.

  “...”

  I still didn’t get it, but I sighed through my nose and gave up asking questions for the time being.

  “Oh, Sir Namidare.”

  Just then, a friendly voice called out to me from over by the school entrance. It was one of the most crowded areas of the festival considering it was where everyone was coming and going, but standing amidst all the people was...

  “Suzuran, what are you doing here?”

  “Helping Sister Yulia.” Suzuran said, glancing over at Yulia standing next to her.

  She was dressed in her usual habit and talking to all the passersby, saying things like, “Please consider a donation for those less fortunate.”

  “I see. Charity work, huh?”

  I saw that both Suzuran and Yulia were holding donation boxes, and I kinda put two and two together.

  “Yulia in her robes makes sense, but I dunno how I feel about you collecting donations in your maid outfit, Suzuran...”

  It felt rather mismatched, or rather, strangely indecent. Or maybe I was the indecent one for thinking that way? Beats me.

  “Pardon?” Suzuran, however, innocently tilted her head at my comment. “Would you like to donate too, Sir Namidare?”

  “Ah, sure. Here.”

  I casually dropped some spare change into the donation box.

  “Thank you very much.”

  Suzuran bowed her head politely, then looked at Touko beside me afterwards.

  “Would you like to as well?” she asked, holding the box out towards her.

  In response, Touko said, “Sorry. It’s against my principles to give any kind of charity at all.”

  “Very well,” Suzuran said, relenting easily...

  “Huh... People normally get offended by that, but not you.”

  “What? Why would that offend anyone?”

  “When you refuse to do good, people typically make the assumption that you’re evil.”

  “Is that so? It’s my understanding that all good things are to be considered a blessing. Their absence isn’t a comment on one’s character.”

  Touko’s eyes went wide upon hearing Suzuran say that, and then she burst into laughter.

  “Ha! You’re pretty interesting.”

  “Is something the matter, Suzuran?” Yulia asked as she walked over, apparently drawn by Touko’s loud laugh. “Oh, Rekka!”

  “Hey, Yulia.”

  After Yulia greeted me, she eyed Touko carefully... then turned to look at me again with an angry expression.

  “Rekka.”

  “Y-Yes?”

  “While it’s fine to surround yourself with love, don’t you think you’ve had a little too much love? I’ve heard that the number of girls following after you has increased yet again.”

  “U-Um...”

  “If that’s really true, then why don’t you undergo some training under me at the church for a time? I’ll work all of your worldly desires right out of you.”

  “Please, no...”

  Yulia’s training would undoubtedly be harsh, and in order to avoid getting myself dragged into anything, I quickly grabbed Touko and made an exit.

  “That took up a fair bit of time. Let’s hurry along with the next match.”

  “Yeah.”

  Or so I said, but what was I supposed to do? I wasn’t really an ace at anything, and my grades and stamina were only average at best. The only thing special about me was my bloodline. It didn’t seem like there was much I could do against someone who could bend reality.

  “There he is. Hey, Rekka!”

  “Rekka!”

  Just then, I heard two female voices call out to me. I turned to see Chirika and Nyanyan, both dressed in casual streetwear.

  “Hey! You two came to check out the festival too?”

  “Yup.”

  “More female friends? You certainly do have a lot of those. No wonder that nun got angry.”

  Peeking her head out from behind me, Touko gave her simultaneously impressed and exasperated opinion.

  “Rekka... who’s that?” asked Nyanyan.

  “Touko Iwazu. I’m currently challenging her because reasons.”

  “Hey, isn’t that introduction a little sloppy?” Touko booed unhappily, but I ignored her.

  “Oh, what’s this about a challenge?” Chirika asked, folding her arms with a look of keen interest.

  Did word of a challenge stir her samurai spirit? Wait a minute...

  “Touko, do you want to try challenging Chirika once?”

  “Hm? This girl?”

  “Anyone will do as long as you lose, right?”

  “Mm... Very well. I accept,” Touko agreed after a moment’s hesitation.

  “Then, Chirika, would you mind coming with us?”

  “Hmm...” Chirika looked pensive for a moment before replying, “While I don’t know the details, I cannot refuse a request from you, Rekka.”

  From there, we moved to the old gymnasium adjacent to the old school building that housed the light literature club room. Normally it was only used by the kendo and judo teams, so there was no one there during the festival. I was hoping we could settle this uninterrupted... and without getting in trouble, of course.

  “So, what kind of match will this be?”

  “Kendo.”

  “Hmm, so I can use one of the bamboo swords here?”

  Touko looked through the available bamboo swords disinterestedly. She currently was oblivious to the fact that Chirika was a samurai. It seemed she’d investigated me a fair bit, but she hadn’t known about Poppy and Rachelle. That being the case, there was no way she knew about Chirika and her origins.

  “Do you think you can win, Chirika?”

  “I just have to beat her before she has a chance to use her ability, right? No problem,” Chirika replied simply as she picked up a bamboo sword for herself.

  “Next is armor...”

  “Ew, I don’t need that. It’s smelly.”

  “But what if you get hurt?”

  “I can heal that much myself with chi. My opponent can wear it if she so wishes, however.”

  “That’s all right. I don’t need any either.”

  Hmm... W-Well, they were just fighting with bamboo swords, right?

  My concerns aside, the two girls took their positions two meters apart from one another.

  “How shall we start?”

  “Rekka Namidare, you give the signal,” Touko ordered.

  “All right. Nyanyan, please step back.”

  “Okay.”

  After giving Chirika a worried look, Nyanyan backed up all the way to the wall. Seeing her safely out of harm’s way, I raised my right hand.

  “Begin!” I shouted as I lowered it.

  “...!”

  In the blink of an eye, Chirika stepped forward. All I really saw was her shadow. She was putting the fully honed skills of a finely trained samurai on display. By the time I processed what was happening, she was already on top of Touko.

  “Ah...”

  Touko noticed Chirika just a second later, leaving her without time to do anything but gasp. Chirika swung her bamboo sword, aiming for Touko’s chest...

  “?!”

  And missed. The sound o
f her swing cutting through air surprised both Chirika and me watching the whole thing. Touko clearly hadn’t moved.

  “Take this!”

  Touko swung her bamboo sword down on the stupefied Chirika. She just barely managed to dodge it, then stepped back to get some distance.

  “Why didn’t that connect...?”

  “Sorry. I always have a prayer up that repels any ill will or hostility directed at me.”

  By prayer, she probably meant that she’d put the power of her words into effect beforehand. Then she’d provoked Chirika just enough before the match to actually stir up a little hostility. She’d planned this all out...

  “But it doesn’t seem like I can hit you with my bamboo sword either,” Touko admitted before continuing “So would you mind throwing the match for me?”

  “...?!”

  The second she heard those words, Chirika froze in place. She then cast aside her bamboo sword and bowed her head towards Touko like an offering.

  “Wh-What... is this...”

  “There. I win,” Touko declared as she tapped Chirika on the head with her sword.

  That was a head strike, which meant Touko had in fact won.

  “You can just make someone lose with your power...?”

  Eating shaved ice in one bite, transferring the effects of dark matter to another person... This was unlike anything she’d done before. She’d put safeguards in place in advance, and then used her power cleverly in the heat of the moment. Even though it was plain as day she’d never be able to beat Chirika in a real fight, she’d used her words to force the results she wanted. It was a completely unfair display of power that made me question whether she really wanted to lose or not.

  “So, what’s our next challenge?”

  Seeing Touko’s smile, I couldn’t help the cold sweat running down my back.

  ▽

  I... I just couldn’t win against her...

  “That’s zero wins and 58 losses for you. You really can’t win, can you?”

  Touko sighed, looking down at me sprawled out on the ground in a lonely corner of campus. It was already past four o’clock now. The festival would be ending in roughly two hours. But even if I had all the time in the world, I didn’t see any way I could beat Touko now. After the match with Chirika, I’d sought help from Satsuki, Iris, and Rosalind. I then went to Hibiki, Shirley, and everyone else who’d come to visit, but not one of them could beat Touko at something either. The power of words was just too overwhelming. She was practically invincible. No matter the challenge presented to her, all she had to do was will her opponent to lose and she would be the victor. I didn’t want to say it, but I was afraid she was invincible.

  “...Can we establish a rule about you not using your power in the next match?”

  “That would make coming to you for all this meaningless.”

  “Guess so, huh?”

  “There’s still time. Do your best. I know you can do it.”

  I was being cheered on by the very culprit who’d stomped me into the ground. Or so I thought, when...

  “But I guess if you’re saying you want to give up, then I’ll just have to destroy the world...”

  She casually uttered those dark and threatening words in a joking tone. I guess I should say it was a half-joking tone considering there was a very real chance she could actually do that.

  “Hey.”

  “What?”

  “It’s just... I still don’t get it. Why do you want to lose so much?”

  “Mm... Probably because it feels hollow having everything go my way all the time.”

  “That doesn’t sound like you, Touko.”

  Touko’s eyes went wide, and she fell silent for a moment before asking, “Why do you think that?”

  “Intuition.” I gave her the short version first. “But if I had to explain, for someone who thinks life is hollow, you have a really happy laugh. You sound and act like any normal person.”

  What I realized after one day with her was that other than her power of words, Touko was no different from a regular girl. Maybe she was a bit on the mature side, but it wasn’t like that was a bad thing.

  “Hmph.” Touko huffed through her nose dramatically before flashing a bittersweet smile. “You think I’m normal?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Even with a power like this?”

  “I know plenty of people with the power to destroy the world, you know.”

  Upon hearing my answer, Touko burst into laughter.

  “Can I tell you a short story, Rekka Namidare?”

  “I’ll listen to whatever you have to say,” I assured her, finally sitting up.

  “The power I possess—the power of words—will always work in a way convenient for me, even when the words I use are vague.”

  “Right.”

  When she asked for everyone other than me to disappear back in the classroom, people she wasn’t even aware of like Poppy and R had been affected too. When she deflected the effects of Tsumiki’s dark matter onto me, she hadn’t even known what said effects were. And when she asked Chirika to lose the match, she hadn’t specified how. What she’d said was vague, but the results were always optimal for her. It really was the ultimate power.

  “However,” Touko continued sadly, “there’s one thing the power of words can’t do... and that is to take back things that have already occurred.”

  “...!”

  The power of words could change the present reality, but it couldn’t change the past.

  “For example...” she began. “Let’s say that I accidentally, impulsively, or perhaps emotionally end up erasing something precious but unfavorable to me. That would be a source of great regret, so I create that something once again. But from that moment of onwards, it’s automatically something that is now favorable for me.”

  Something unfavorable but precious... I could think of plenty of things that fit that description. For example, friends. Not everything always went the way I wanted with my friends, but that was part of what made them precious to me in the first place. We could butt heads and disagree all we wanted, but they were and would always be precious to me. I’d even say it takes a truly precious friend to tell you when you’re wrong, even if you don’t want to hear it.

  And what if one day, in a fit of rage... you made them disappear. You might immediately bring them back if you had the power, but it wouldn’t be the same. They would never disagree or fight with you ever again. And that would just be...

  “Touko...”

  Just what had she done in her past? I almost asked her, but hurriedly swallowed my words. It would be too cruel a thing to make her relive... I shivered at my own thoughtlessness.

  “That’s why I absolutely refuse to do anything for others. You see, I am just a normal human... pathetic and weak, always foolishly relying on my power. If I wanted to save someone, I could solve any difficulty ever. But that’s precisely why I choose not to save anyone at all, no matter how small the matter. Because once I do that, there’d be no end to it.”

  “...I don’t get what you mean there.”

  “For example, you know how that nun and maid were collecting donations earlier? You know how they say a paltry 100 yen could save dozens of children in Africa?”

  “Yeah.”

  I’d seen commercials and posters like that before.

  “I could save hundreds of thousands of children from starvation and disease with just a few words, all without the need for donations. But is that really something I should do?”

  “That’s...”

  Surely it was, right? That’s what I wanted to say, but Touko opened her mouth first.

  “Let’s say I did that for all the children of Africa. But there are plenty more children starving outside of Africa, right? In America, China, Japan, Russia... They’re everywhere. So does that mean I should just do the same for the whole world?” Touko continued, “But if I did that, won’t the people who’ve worked hard for their food be unhapp
y? My power comes free, after all. So does that then mean I should feed every single person in the world? Yet once I do that, what will become of all the farmers and ranchers who make their living producing food? Meanwhile, my power always works favorably for me. If I wanted to have the cooking of a five-star chef, I could easily. It would be simple.”

  “...”

  I was gradually starting to see what Touko was getting at.

  “The point is that my power is too strong. It has too much control over reality, and it’s too easy to make mistakes that way.”

  “...Are you afraid of using your power?”

  “Rather than my power, I’m afraid of myself,” Touko said with a dry laugh. “They call it indulgence, right? For someone else’s sake, for the sake of justice, because I feel sorry for them, because I can’t let them be... If I start giving in to those things, I’d end up overusing my power. It’s like a faucet you just can’t turn off when it starts. If I give in to those emotions and impulses, I’ll never be able to go back. From there, things would just spiral out of control.”

  “I get that...”

  Honestly, that struck a chord with me.

  “You’d do anything for the sake of the heroines, after all,” R said with a tired sigh.

  “That’s why I only use my power for myself. The desires of a single person shouldn’t have too much effect on the rest of the world in the end.”

  I now somewhat understood the burden Touko was shouldering. However...

  “So what does that have to do with making you lose?”

  “Were you listening? I said shouldn’t...” There, Touko looked me dead in the eye. “You know, I once tried to seal my own power.”

  “And how’d that go?”

  “Well, the seal easily undid itself when I tried to save a drowning dog. If I utter words that contradict themselves, the words that are more favorable for me are the ones that take effect.”

  “...”

  “I’ll say this once again: I am weak. I don’t know when I could lose control and end up changing the world to a critical degree. That’s why I wanted restraints. I wanted to know if there was anyone or anything in this world that could stop me.”

  “I see, so that’s why...”

  That’s why she’d asked me to make her lose. That was why she’d done her best to win even though she really wanted to lose. She wanted to know if there was really anyone that could genuinely beat her, and she’d been testing me all day to see if I fit the bill. I hadn’t met her expectations yet, but was there some way I could? Might there be someone else who could stop her? Even among my friends and the strongest enemies I’d ever fought, I wasn’t sure there was anyone in this world that could actually stand up to her...