Flirting.
Makoto had just said that taking down this world's instance boss, the Control Devil, would probably take around ten years.
Megumi Kato's mind went blank.
She'd only confessed to him a few days ago. They'd barely made things official, still deep in that honeymoon phase where she wanted to be around him every waking moment.
And now he was telling her they shouldn't see each other for a decade?
What girlfriend in the throes of new love could stomach that?
Her thoughts spun once, twice, and then she bit down hard on her lip.
She'd give herself to him. Tonight.
She'd originally planned to wait for something more romantic, more meaningful. Maybe string him along a little, keep him wanting. Everyone knew that things gained too easily were never treasured.
But ten years before their next meeting? That changed everything.
Fine, she thought. Lucky bastard.
At least this way he wouldn't forget her entirely. And she had no intention of staying a virgin for a full decade.
Though calling herself an "old" anything was a stretch. She was sixteen. Even ten years from now she'd only be twenty-six. Nothing "old" about that.
If anyone deserved that title... well, there was a certain someone standing nearby who'd been pulling veteran duty across countless crossover fanfics as the eternal untouched maiden.
The words landed like a bomb.
Everyone stared. Because in their minds, Megumi Kato had always been the quietest, most invisible presence among Makoto's companions. If Utaha Kasumigaoka had said something like this, with her provocative attitude and razor tongue, nobody would've batted an eye.
But hearing it from Megumi? The shock hit like watching Naruto get isekai'd into a Limited Tsukuyomi world and finding Sasuke in...
Tomoya Aki's body seized violently, tearing at his wounds. A shriek ripped from his throat, raw and inhuman.
Pure shattered despair.
"Tomoya, stop moving! You'll reopen everything!" Eriri Spencer Sawamura snapped, more frustrated than sympathetic.
Before Makoto could even respond, Utaha stepped forward, voice cutting through with ironclad resolve:
"Me too."
She'd had the exact same thought. She just hadn't said it first.
That sneaky little Megumi had beaten her to the punch.
Ten years apart? What kind of joke was that?
She wasn't waiting that long. And who knew if that dog of a man would have a change of heart... well, probably not, but if she didn't do this, her standing in his mind would plummet.
Fine. Lucky bastard gets his way.
The newer players who didn't know Makoto well could only gawk. Watching these girls, one stunning and the other achingly pretty, throw themselves at him one after another... even Soma Yukihira, who barely registered the opposite sex, and married men like Kogoro Mouri and Yusaku Kudo couldn't suppress the envy twisting in their guts.
Even those who despised him had to admit it.
This man was living out every guy's fantasy.
"Here, though? You're sure about this?"
Makoto glanced at the ruins of Hokkaido, a wasteland that looked like the aftermath of the apocalypse.
He did respect women. Using a place like this for someone's first time felt... cheap.
"If we go to another city, the Control Devil might detect us, right?"
Megumi's voice was soft, sensible.
Something clicked for Makoto then. He finally understood why, in the original Saekano, neither the black-stockinged upperclassman, the twintailed childhood friend, the busty cousin, nor the innocent underclassman could hold a candle to this girl with almost zero presence.
She was so thoughtful it hurt.
Though the protagonist those girls had fought over was admittedly a complete waste of space.
Utaha, who'd been ready to fight for the first spot, heard Megumi's reasoning and quietly stepped back.
That girl really knows what she's doing.
Catching Utaha's expression, Makoto nodded.
"Then we'll stay here a few more days."
They wandered through streets that looked like the end of the world until they found an apartment building that wasn't completely collapsed, damaged but still standing.
"Mom, Dad, give me a minute."
Megumi walked over to her parents, speaking softly.
"Megumi, are you really sure about this?"
Her father's face was tight with pain.
Her mother's eyes brimmed with tears. "This is all our fault for being so useless..."
Their daughter's presence had always been so faint that sometimes, even at home, they'd unconsciously forget she was there. The guilt never left them.
And now their daughter was resorting to this to protect them.
"Mom, Dad, please don't misunderstand. I'm doing this because I want to."
She shook her head gently.
She knew exactly what they were thinking: that she was trading her body for Makoto's protection.
The truth was simpler. She wanted this. He had a mountain of flaws, and he couldn't commit to her alone. But it didn't matter. She was already in too deep.
Across the hall, Utaha was having a similar conversation.
"If he ever treats you badly, I'll fight him myself!" her father declared, jaw set.
No father takes it well when his daughter is about to be carried off by some man, especially when said man had essentially announced to his face: I'm about to steal your daughter now.
"Dad, you want to say that to his face?" Utaha's eyes narrowed into amused slits.
Her father shot her a look.
There was a time when little Utaha used to leap into his arms squealing "Daddy!" Now she hadn't even finished high school and she was already betraying her old man.
"Utaha, later, tell him to take it slow and focus on the... warm-up. When your father and I were first..." Her mother leaned in, whispering advice, hoping to make the first time easier.
"Mom! What are you saying!?"
Utaha's face ignited crimson.
For all her suggestive jokes and provocative banter, when it came to the real thing, she was the most timid of them all.
Everyone else fell into an uneasy silence.
It wasn't that none of them wanted to leave. Most barely knew Megumi or Utaha, hadn't exchanged more than a handful of words with either girl.
But watching two beauties like that willingly throw themselves at this "villain"... any man with a pulse felt the sting.
The problem was, after witnessing the horrors of this world firsthand, nobody dared make a move.
Makoto had already said they'd split up eventually, but since he planned to stay here for a few days, there was no rush to leave. His presence meant this area was safe. That was enough.
"Tch. Shameless."
Yu Ishigami glared at the Kudo family without bothering to hide his contempt.
People like Makoto Ito, Tomoya Aki, the Kudos, especially Yusaku and Shinichi as a father-son duo, they clearly resented Makoto.
Yet they clung to him like barnacles, refusing to leave.
How pathetic is that? Ishigami thought. If you hate him so much, then go!
Shinichi had zero social awareness. Yukiko just parroted whatever her husband and son said. And Yusaku was thick-skinned enough to plant himself here and never budge.
Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic.
And I will call it out every single time.
The Kudo family kept their heads down, silent, not daring to utter a word.
Shinichi lay flat on the ground, unable to move, lacking even the strength to argue back. His fists clenched against the concrete, humiliation and frustration clogging his chest like a physical weight.
Ran Mouri looked at Yukiko, the woman who'd been so kind to her as a child, and opened her mouth to comfort her.
Eri Kisaki gripped her daughter's arm and pulled her back, voice low and sharp:
"Stay away from them, Ran."
Her attitude toward the Kudos had become identical to Sayuri Sawamura's attitude toward Tomoya Aki.
You want to piss off Makoto? Do it on your own time. Don't drag us down with you.
As Makoto and Megumi disappeared into the apartment, the mood grew strange. Not just among the men. Some of the girls felt it too.
"Megumi and Utaha... they're really going to... do that with Makoto?"
Yotsuba Nakano's imagination conjured images she immediately regretted, and her pale face flushed scarlet.
Kotonoha Katsura pressed her lips together, staring at Megumi's retreating figure as the girl said goodbye to her parents and walked to Makoto's side.
Her fists clenched without her realizing it, nails biting into her palms.
But the darkness from the source material was still a long way off. She and Makoto weren't even like that. She didn't have the right to snap.
And compared to all of them, the person who was most destroyed, most broken... everyone knew exactly who it was.
"How... how did it come to this... how..."
Tomoya Aki lay on the cold stone, his lower body wrapped in thick bandages, repeating those words over and over in a hollow, cracked voice.
Every syllable trembled. His eyes were empty, like someone had reached in and scooped out his soul.
Megumi Kato, the girl he'd treasured above all others, the heroine whose very club bore his name.
Right before his eyes, she'd walked toward another man, ready to give him everything.
Tomoya was certain he would never feel joy again. Happiness was done with him.
"Shut up already!"
Eriri finally snapped.
The more pathetic he looked, the more it exposed his feelings for Megumi, and the more it grated on her nerves.
Everyone gathered in the apartment's ground-floor lobby, waiting in silence for Makoto and Megumi to come back down.
Unlike the conflicted hearts of Kotonoha, Yotsuba, and Yui Yuigahama, girls who hadn't crossed that line with Makoto yet, the thoughts of the Akizuki sisters, Ichinose Chizuru, and Mrs. Yukinoshita were remarkably aligned.
They wanted their turn.
Based on what Makoto had said, they might spend the next ten years relying on their own hands.
These last few days were too precious to waste.
Aside from Mrs. Yukinoshita, who'd thrown away all pretense from day one, the others had always maintained some degree of composure.
Not anymore.
Memories of scenes from certain films flickered through their minds. They made a pact with themselves: before they parted ways with Makoto, they'd try everything.
"Airi, want to go in together?"
Marina Akizuki whispered to her sister.
Airi, lost in her own fantasies, flinched.
They'd competed for his attention back in the Naruto world, sure, but all three of them together? That had never happened.
She hadn't expected her quiet, reserved older sister to be the one to suggest it.
"C-can I join too?"
Ichinose Chizuru's voice came out barely above a whisper.
Back in the ninja world, she'd pressed her ear against the wall and listened, fighting the urge the whole time. This might be her last chance before they went their separate ways.
Yui Yuigahama, Yumiko Miura, and the others within earshot froze.
What are you people even saying?
"Yui, are you going to go too?"
Mrs. Yuigahama sidled up to her daughter, keeping her voice down.
"Mom! What are you talking about!?"
Yui's face went from pink to crimson to something approaching the color of a boiled dumpling.
What kind of mother actively pushes her daughter into a man's arms?
Mrs. Yuigahama rested her chin on one hand, expression pragmatic and resigned.
"Look at the state of the world now. Without Makoto's protection, the two of us won't last long."
It was blunt, but it was true.
Unlike the Kudo, Sawamura, and Mouri families with both parents present, the Yuigahama household was just her, a single mother who'd scraped by to raise her daughter alone. When Yui had awakened as a player, that had seemed like a blessing.
Then monsters started appearing in the real world too.
The one stroke of luck was their connection to Makoto.
He wasn't a bad option. Even with all the girls around him, in a world growing more dangerous by the day, he was the best shelter they could find.
But watching that crowd of girls grow ever larger, Mrs. Yuigahama couldn't help worrying.
She wasn't asking for her daughter to be the main wife. Just... not invisible.
Yumiko Miura and Hina Ebina, the other two members of the popular girls' trio, wrestled with similar thoughts. They were the real invisible ones. If they didn't make a move soon, they'd lose their screen time entirely.
Clatter.
While everyone stewed in their private schemes, pebbles rained down from the ceiling.
The entire apartment began to shake.
"Earthquake!?"
Soe Nakiri shouted, grabbing his wife Leonora and daughter Alice before bolting for the exit.
Everyone else followed, scrambling out.
Once outside, they realized it wasn't an earthquake at all.
Everything around the building was perfectly still.
Faces twisted into something between disbelief and mortification.
Remembering who had gone upstairs, every expression locked up.
That... intense?
A young man who bore an uncanny resemblance to Shinpachi Shimura stood speechless.
Makoto having that kind of power wasn't surprising. But that girl, Kato-something... she could withstand that?
The shaking intensified. Walls already riddled with holes from the Gun Devil's rampage began crumbling in sheets, forcing everyone to retreat further and further.
"No... no! My heroine!"
Tomoya Aki dissolved into tears, wailing like a man possessed, looking exactly like Yamcha watching his girl get stolen.
Every tremor was a hammer blow to his heart.
He'd imagined a future with Megumi a thousand times. Imagined her as the one and only heroine of his game. Imagined the two of them achieving their dreams together.
Now all of it was a joke.
"Tomoya, I told you, stop getting worked up! You're bleeding again!" (Not more than Megumi though)
Eriri Spencer Sawamura was at her limit. She did not want to change this kid's bandages one more time.
BOOM.
When they'd retreated half a mile, the apartment looked ready to come down entirely.
At the last possible second, an enormous gray-black spectral figure erupted from the ground and caught the building, holding it upright.
Susano'o.
Then, from that distance, everyone watched as even the Susano'o... began to tremble.
Another half hour passed before the colossus finally went still.
Utaha Kasumigaoka rose to her feet, her voice calm.
"My turn."
Since everyone knew this was her first time too, they gave her the courtesy of going next.
As for whoever came after that...
Line up. Everyone line up outside.
But Utaha didn't get what she wanted right away. Keeping the Susano'o propped up forever wasn't exactly sustainable.
They had to scour the ruins of Hokkaido for another building that was still mostly intact.
Then that building, too, collapsed after nearly two hours of sustained impact.
After that, the Akizuki sisters and Ichinose Chizuru stepped up in turn...
The men who'd been burning with envy had long since gone numb.
This was terrifying.
If it were any of them, they'd have been reduced to dried husks by now.