I Saved Too Many Girls and Caused the Apocalypse: Volume 9

by Namekojirushi

  “Oh, my. Even I couldn’t have foreseen an affair between Rekka and his two upperclassmen at school this summer.”

  “Have you ever foreseen anything before?”

  I casually brushed off R’s typical nonsense and headed to the camp area where the girls had told me to meet them. Walking down the wooden hallway, I soon arrived at a room with its sliding door left wide open. It looked like the overnight rooms were Japanese-style.

  “I’m back.”

  “Good.”

  President Momone replied to my greeting as Tokiwa waved from next to her.

  The computer from the light literature club room had been hauled over and set up at the coffee table where Tokiwa was typing away furiously, occasionally reaching for her notepad to jot something down. Perhaps the trip to the pool had given her some inspiration. She was really focused on writing.

  “The boys’ room is next door.”

  “Okay.”

  Taking a hint from President Momone, I went to put my things down in the next room. And when I came back...

  “...”

  “...”

  Klak, klak, klak, klak, klak...

  With nothing in particular to talk about, we sat in silence. Bored, I sat down on the tatami floor and stretched out my legs with a big sigh. I could feel my fatigue easing up, but it was like my body was getting heavier at the same time. I decided to lie down on my back.

  Both the window and sliding door were open, letting a refreshing breeze blow through the whole room. The room was also out of any direct sunlight, making it even more refreshing. Ah... It kinda made me feel like taking a nap...

  As I started to doze, I felt something plunk down on the floor nearby. I blearily opened an eye to see that it was President Momone, who’d taken a cross-legged seat next to me.

  “Hmph! What seemed like a careless position at first actually conceals everything between her legs and the hem of her skirt perfectly. As expected of the One-Eyed Dragon, you might say...”

  R was eagerly trying to peek up the president’s skirt.

  “You seem idle, problem child.”

  “Yeah... we’re basically just here for Tokiwa, after all...”

  With Tokiwa concentrating on her writing right now, we couldn’t do much more than chat among ourselves.

  “What are you doing over your summer break, President Momone?”

  “Hm? The usual. Studying, attending club activities, going out with friends... plus training under my grandfather and occasionally exterminating monsters.”

  “...Exterminating monsters is usual?”

  “What about you?”

  “Me?”

  Studying? I still had a ton left to do. Club activities? I had none. Going out with friends? I’d gone to the pool once. Other than that... I’d been to another world with a Demon King and defeated a different Demon King, stopped the scheming of a psychic organization, met a pop star, made friends with some spirits... Yeah. I didn’t have any room to talk.

  “Just some stuff.”

  “Hmm...”

  President Momone narrowed her lone eye, but didn’t press the matter.

  “Well, come to Kibi Shrine if you run into any ghosts again. I can at least listen to your problems.”

  “Yeah... Thanks.”

  Her unexpectedly kind offer woke me up a little. In the end, she was a pretty considerate person... But I’d probably get hit with a bamboo sword again if I said that to her face. Just as I was thinking that, I heard a flurry of fast-paced footsteps echoing down the hallway outside.

  “Rek—!”

  “—ka!”

  “Hey—!”

  “Are you—?”

  “You—!”

  “—together!”

  “—doing?”

  “It’s—!”

  “—brother!”

  Multiple overlapping voices called out all at once, making it almost impossible to decipher any one sentence. But I did get the idea they were all shouting at me. The gaggle that then plowed into the camp area consisted of nine girls: Satsuki, Harissa, Iris, Lea, Rosalind, Suzuran, Rain, Corona, and Fam. I had absolutely no idea why they were all together.

  “What’s wrong?”

  But the most puzzling thing of all was why they’d showed up at school.

  “It’s because Harissa said...!”

  Satsuki, who had entered the room first, started to answer in a pained voice before the other girls plowed her over from behind. I looked at Harissa since her name had been brought up.

  “I didn’t know the meaning of this ‘study camp’ mentioned in your letter, Sir Rekka, so I asked Satsuki, and she said that it meant you were staying overnight at school with your attractive upperclassmen! That’s why...!”

  Harissa couldn’t finish her explanation either before more of the others mowed her down.

  “And I can’t accept that!” Iris shouted, with several people nodding in agreement.

  I guess this meant everyone heard I was staying overnight for a camp with Tokiwa and decided to drop in to make sure nothing bad happened? They... really didn’t trust me, huh?

  “We’re here to all play with Brother Rekka, right?”

  Well, except for Fam and a couple of the other girls. That was at least a little reassuring.

  “It suddenly got a lot more lively...” President Momone sighed.

  The room that had only been filled with the sound of Tokiwa’s typing before was indeed suddenly a lot more boisterous. Actually, now that I thought about it... I didn’t hear the clack of the keyboard anymore.

  “Rekka.”

  Hearing that voice, I felt something heavy pressing up against me. Shocked, I looked away from the door and down at myself... only to realize that Tokiwa had slunk away from her computer and was now practically on top of me.

  “AAAAAHH!”

  The collective scream of the girls reverberated through the room. Tokiwa ignored it like it was just a birdsong on the breeze and leaned forward.

  “Let’s do something youthful next,” she whispered.

  ▽

  Youthful. Summer.

  From these two keywords, the conclusion my simple mind came to was “baseball.” It was the summer for nationals, after all. We had the numbers for it and everything. I couldn’t just ignore the girls who’d showed up. I thought it was a good idea to do something together. And the only thing we could do with this many people was sports... was what I figured.

  And so, after a lot of whining and complaints, we headed towards the school field to play baseball. We ended up borrowing the school’s gear to play. There were some obvious outsiders like Lea and Corona, but President Momone arranged it with the school on our behalf.

  There were 12 of us in total once I counted in myself, Tokiwa, and President Momone, so we split into two teams of six. Since we didn’t have enough people on each team to fill all the positions, we went without second base and had a triangle instead of a diamond. That meant the pitching team would just need to take care of a pitcher, catcher, first baseman, third baseman, left fielder, and right fielder. The batting team was banned from stealing bases and tag ups. We had no umpire, so we’d be making the calls ourselves. No one really knew the rules in detail anyway, so we were kind of just going with a general policy of “hit the ball, run to the bases, and get the points.”

  And as for how we chose teams... For some reason, we decided by lottery instead of dividing up into groups based on ability and skill level. If Iris, Lea, Corona, and Rosalind all ended up on the same team, it wouldn’t even be a game anymore. Yet they adamantly insisted on a lottery. According to them, trying to decide who would be on which team would take all day. I felt like I’d heard something very similar recently...

  Anyway, the lottery worked out as follows. Red team: me, Satsuki, Lea, Fam, President Momone, and Tokiwa. White team: Iris, Harissa, Rosalind, Suzuran, Rain, and Corona. The strongest players gathered on one team for the most part. We had Lea on our side, but it still didn’t seem fa
ir.

  “Gah! Now that we’re enemies... I won’t hold back, Rekka!” Rosalind yelled angrily from the batter’s box.

  She’d shouted at the sky in frustration when she first drew the straw that put her on the white team, and she’d been howling ever since. It seemed like she was ready to channel all of that frustration through the bat now...

  Meanwhile on the red team, we got to organizing ourselves: Lea as pitcher, me as catcher, Fam on first base, Tokiwa on third base, Satsuki in left field, and President Momone in right. Our plan was to use Lea’s strength to keep the opposing team’s power lineup in check. Honestly, the rest of them would probably be a piece of cake. But we’d have to be careful of any balls that headed for left field. Satsuki was terrible at sports...

  “Here I go, Rekka!”

  Lea gave me an unhurried wave and assumed the pitching stance she’d learned moments ago. Well, we were just playing for fun, so her casual attitude was probably the right way to go about this. Tokiwa said she just wanted to do something youthful, not play serious baseball. And as I was thinking that...

  “There!”

  A supersonic ball smashed right into my mitt. The force of it was so strong that it sent me flying backwards. As my helmeted head made contact with the fence behind me, it finally dawned on me... I hadn’t given a second thought as to how I was actually going to catch any of Lea’s fearsome pitches.

  “Are you okay, Rekka?!” she shouted.

  We had to call a timeout on the first pitch. Luckily I wasn’t hurt or anything, so I just asked Lea to dial back her pitches enough that I could catch them. We resumed the game from there, but...

  “Take that!”

  “Whee!”

  “Hah!”

  Rosalind, Iris, and Corona all made consecutive hits, putting us three points behind. Even Lea’s weakened pitches were a force to be reckoned with, but all three girls got home runs. After that, Lea easily struck out Rain and Harissa. And while Suzuran nearly scored off of us, a fine play from President Momone put them at three outs.

  “What’s with this game of superpowered baseball?” President Momone asked—quite aptly, if I might say so—as we returned to the bench when we switched teams.

  It was true: our heartwarming, youthful game had been kicked into overdrive, but more importantly, it was our turn to go on the offensive. A one-sided game would be boring, so we at least wanted to get a few points in.

  “You can do it, Lea!”

  I cheered for Lea when she stepped up to the plate. She happily waved back.

  “Urgh... Why you...”

  For some reason, the pitcher—Rosalind—was grinding her teeth at our friendly display.

  “I’ll crush you without mercy, Lea!”

  The gauge on her anger was clocking at 200 percent. Her tiny arm got a big windup, and she let the baseball fly.

  “Rargh!”

  The white ball blasted towards Corona’s waiting catcher’s mitt, the tailwind kicking up the dirt underneath it.

  Whoosh! Strike one.

  Rosalind snorted smugly. Since Corona was catching for the white team, Rosalind didn’t have to hold back on her pitches like Lea did. That meant we’d be at as much of a disadvantage even on the offensive.

  “Tch!”

  However, Lea’s second swing was a good one, and she made it onto a base... even if it was only first. Second up to bat was me.

  “Hey, Rosalind?”

  “What?”

  “Will you go easy on me?”

  “I refuse.”

  Of course not. Well, there was no way I was hitting anything if she didn’t... In the end, even with Rosalind pitching two balls out of the strike zone, I struck out. Next up was President Momone. Rosalind pushed the ball count to a dangerous three, but President Momone struck out eventually.

  “Do you think you could get that Rosalind girl to join the softball club somehow?” she asked when she came back from the plate.

  Apparently our school’s softball team captain was seeking new members to strengthen the team, but that vision probably wouldn’t be fulfilled. I couldn’t even imagine Rosalind blending in with normal students in a sports club.

  Anyway, after that, our fourth batter—Satsuki—sadly struck out too. It was time to change innings. I imagined the rest of the game would be similarly one-sided, but...

  “Jeez. I didn’t have any intention of going all-out for a pick-up game, but it won’t be very fun at this rate.”

  Much to my surprise, our One-Eyed Student Council President didn’t seem fazed by the odds against us.

  “Time for a pitcher change. That good with you?”

  “Huh?”

  President Momone was asking Lea, who just looked at me questioningly.

  It seemed President Momone had something up her sleeve, so I decided to trust her. I nodded to Lea, who left the mound and took President Momone’s place as our right fielder.

  “Here we go, Rekka Namidare. Make sure you keep your eye on the ball.”

  “Huh?”

  I only understood what President Momone meant once the ball was flying through the air.

  “What?!”

  Just before the ball met Rosalind’s bat, it suddenly took a dive.

  “Waaah?!” Rosalind exclaimed.

  I nearly lost sight of it. It was one of those so-called forkballs.

  “What was that?!” she demanded.

  That demonic pitch crafted from the epitome of human intelligence easily struck out Rosalind. After that, there were curveballs and circle changeups... as well as a breaking ball with some crazy trajectory that I was unfamiliar with, but it led to President Momone finishing off Iris and Corona in three pitches each.

  “Why don’t you just join the softball team, President Momone?”

  “I’m busy with the student council and my training at home.”

  President Momone easily brushed off my question and removed her mitt, throwing it at the bench. Now that our almighty student council president had fortified our defenses, all we had to do was score. We’d need four points to get ahead, or at least three for it to be a draw. First up to bat this time was Fam...

  “Yah!”

  But it was over in three swings. Oh, well. Next was Tokiwa’s turn.

  “...”

  Tokiwa held the bat in both hands, giving it two or three test swings with a dazed expression on her face. Each swing made her stagger unsteadily.

  “A-Are you okay?” I asked.

  “...”

  I gasped a little when I realized what I’d done, and tried to avoid eye contact as I backed away... But it was too late. Tokiwa saw right through me and made an immediate leap. An extraordinary amount of sweat was pressed against my skin.

  “I’m okay,” she said.

  After multiple shouts and complaints from all over the field, Tokiwa let go and trotted back to the batter’s box. Watching her from behind from the bench like this made her look even more slender than usual. There was no chance she’d stand up against one of Rosalind’s super fastballs.

  “Will Tokiwa be okay out there?” I asked. “She looked like she was going to topple over just from swinging the bat...”

  “Well, I wouldn’t write off that possibility completely,” replied President Momone. “But she might surprise you.”

  Crack!

  The sound of the metal bat meeting the ball overlapped with President Momone’s last few words. Tokiwa had gotten a hit, but had sent the ball flying directly into the fence behind her. Translation: a foul. Normally, that would count as one strike, but...

  “She actually hit it...?”

  That wasn’t the problem here. Her opponent was Rosalind. A vampire. While she didn’t have much control over her pitches, their sheer speed and power were literally superhuman. It should have been impossible for a normal person to hit one of those.

  “Midori’s eyes have always been exceptional. But since she’s no good at sports, it’s a completely wasted talent.”

&n
bsp; Now that she mentioned it, Tokiwa did have really good reflexes at times. As I stood there impressed, Tokiwa hit a few more foul balls in the strike zone and patiently waited out the balls, which put us at a tense full count: three balls and two strikes. The next pitch move would be decisive.

  “Ugyah! ...Ack!”

  In her panic, Rosalind misjudged her power and threw the last pitch completely off-course. And that put us at four balls. That gave Tokiwa a free walk to first base, but there was no way we could risk letting her run, so we substituted her for Fam, who was last in our lineup.

  “All right!” she cheered, leaping enthusiastically onto the field when Tokiwa returned to the bench.

  “You were amazing, Tokiwa.”

  She grinned at my compliment.

  With that, we returned to the top of the lineup, which meant Lea was up to bat.

  “Hah!”

  Just like her first turn, she got a great hit off of Rosalind and made it to first base. Since we were only playing with first and third, that meant the bases were now loaded. This could be the turning point. And the next batter was... me.

  Would someone be willing to pinch-hit for me...?

  “...”

  Rosalind was so irritated at the loaded bases that she didn’t say a word. It was scary. Then she went to town.

  First pitch: strike.

  Second pitch: ball.

  Third pitch. ball.

  Fourth pitch. strike.

  I was instantly driven into a corner. Even when I swung the bat, I didn’t get anywhere near the ball. Should I just close my eyes and pray that the next two pitches were balls? But I couldn’t see through the strike zone like Tokiwa, so that wasn’t an option.

  Ugh...

  Tokiwa had given us this opportunity... I had to make a miracle happen here!

  Rosalind assumed her stance for the fifth pitch as I racked my brain.

  Think. Think! How can I make the most of this chance...?

  “Ah!”

  I quickly moved my bat into a horizontal position, ready for a bunt. Of course, I had no experience with bunting. I just figured I had a higher chance of making contact doing this than by swinging.

  Widening my eyes to the size of plates, I fixed my gaze on the ball, just waiting for the moment Rosalind let it sail. That was when the first miracle happened.