Even If I Hate You, Once More. (2)
"...Wait. You're telling me you ran away and left behind the thing you made with your own Despair Core?"
Honestly, it didn't make much sense to me.
A Despair Core was no different from a monster's heart. And she had bolted without a second thought, leaving me—something forged from her own—behind?
...Had she really made me from her Despair Core?
"I-I was genuinely terrified, alright?! The Monster Girl I'd gone through all that trouble to create wouldn't listen to a word I said, and a magical girl was already bearing down on us in real time after sensing the mixed hope and despair pouring off the test subject! On top of that, that lunatic was a psychopath who smashed every secret lab of mine the second she found it!"
"...Ah."
So Emerald, back from a previous world, had apparently spent her time hunting down the Doctor's trail.
With her labs getting wrecked that thoroughly, a little PTSD was only natural.
Abandoning me still didn't sit right, though.
"A-and the escape pod was only a single-seater, and also—well, I figured since she was a Monster Girl I made, she wouldn't lose to some magical girl!"
"...So you basically dumped me there thinking, Go on and suffer a little, you disobedient brat~, didn't you?"
"..."
"..."
She was reading the room. With everything she had.
Whether I'd hit the mark or not, the Doctor couldn't meet my eyes—her pupils darted every which way.
No way. Was it actually true?
She had abandoned something made from her own heart for a reason that petty?
It isn't even 'Calm down, heart' territory—what the hell...
"Haaah..."
"Ugh..."
The moment I sighed, the Doctor's shoulders flinched.
What on earth was I supposed to do with this person.
I clicked my tongue and looked down at her, and she started shrinking into herself.
At least she seemed aware she'd done something wrong.
"I—I was wrong... Please, just help me..."
"...Fine. Whatever."
When she begged that pathetically, refusing would have been rude.
I could have coldly shut her down, but whatever control command of hers was supposed to work on me seemed to be functioning—just a tiny bit.
Haaah. Being born as Apocalypse was the real crime here.
"R-really? You mean it? No take-backs?"
"Why are you that happy about it?"
"Because it's the first time you've ever listened to me!"
"I'm going to pretend that doesn't sound as ominous as it does."
Our precious little one has changed—that kind of vibe.
The Doctor's face was exactly that: a parent watching a child who only ever caused disasters finally, for once, do as they were told.
She looked so moved she might actually die of it, which almost made me wonder if I really had been that impossible to handle.
"So what exactly am I supposed to help with?"
"Obviously we wipe that bastard out. Khh—my lab...! My research records...!"
What a pain. Did we really have to go as far as wiping him out?
Given how Curse skulked around, tracking him down would be a headache all by itself.
And besides—wouldn't the magical girls take care of him eventually? Was there any need for me to step in?
I had no interest in spinning my Despair Circuit and drawing the kind of attention that put me on magical girls' radars.
"Do we really have to destroy him?"
"Of course we do! He has to go! A mere human, putting on airs—toward me!"
"I've got a better idea. Want to hear it?"
I wasn't sure it would work—no. It would definitely work.
As the Doctor tilted her head, I walked her through the plan step by step.
The longer the explanation went on, the more she cackled—oddly endearing, in its own way.
"Pwah—pwahahahahaha!!!"
"See? Not bad, right?"
"Fine, fine. I've never met anyone more unhinged than me! Pwah!"
Who exactly was calling whom more unhinged.
I gave the crown of her head a light thump, and tears welled thick in her eyes.
Apparently the punch I'd packed with affection had hurt quite a bit.
An ascension built on despair. And revenge on Dr. Apocalypse, who had left his laboratory in ruins.
He had lost her in the end, but even so, Curse's mood wasn't half bad.
He had claimed Dr. Apocalypse's research records, and more importantly, he had realized his own power was enough to overwhelm her.
"So she truly intended to create a god..."
The records she had left behind detailed using a Despair Core to construct a circuit that would serve the same role as a magical girl's Hope Circuit—a Despair Circuit.
How it was made, and by what method, had been erased; he couldn't know that much. Even so, the mere fact that a Despair Circuit could be created sent a thrill through him.
"Hm...?"
He had been buried in those records for some time when he lifted his head—stirred by a sudden wrongness.
Despair gathered deep inside the lab. And from the gaps in that mass, another thin strand of despair had bloomed.
It lasted only a moment, but Curse locked onto that alien despair with absolute certainty.
Like tossing a pebble across a still lake—no. This wasn't a pebble. This was more like—
"...!!"
In despair's wake, hope revealed itself.
Hope that had already begun closing in from far away, giving him no room to respond, opened fire with a barrage.
A roar so immense it almost failed to register as sound at all.
The laboratory collapsed in an instant. Curse was on his feet before he knew he'd moved.
"...Looks like I'll have to abandon this place."
He had no intention of facing a magical girl unprepared.
Perfect preparation. Flawless planning. Those were the only things that made up who he was.
Curse slipped slowly into the shadows, already sketching his next base of operations in his mind as he walked.
With a vow that the next one would never, ever be found.
"Pwah—pwahahahahahah!! Look at him scrambling with his tail between his legs! Kheh, what a beautiful sight. Beautiful!"
"See? Not bad, right?"
With a whooping cheer, the Doctor threw her arms up, and I slapped my palm against hers.
Now that the plan I'd laid out for her had gone off without a hitch, she looked thoroughly unburdened.
"Using your despair to summon a magical girl and have her hit him for us... Ahahaha!!"
Making Curse taste the same sensation of running from Emerald day after day had gotten an outstanding reaction out of her.
Take the single most aggravating thing that happened to you, and make the other guy live through the exact same thing.
That was the principle the plan had been built on, and it had closed out as a complete success.
"By the way, this thing's got some serious performance."
"Doesn't it? One of my personal masterpieces!"
Grrrk, grrrk—
"Yeah, yeah. Nice to see you again too after so long."
I exchanged greetings with the monster I'd first met at the Shelter and ran the sequence back through my head.
Ride the monster into Curse's lab, spin the Despair Circuit to call Emerald, then ride the monster back out.
It even had a function that let it melt into the shadows and relocate without leaving a trace, so there hadn't been much risk of getting caught.
"Hey. Can I have this?"
Honestly, I wanted it.
With this, I could roam wherever I pleased, draining despair without having to watch Emerald's mood, right?
The teleportation device every office worker dreamed of was sitting right in front of me. How was anyone supposed to resist that.
"N-no! Absolutely not this one! This creature is my lifeline!"
"Come on. Think of it as a little gift for your daughter. Parents are supposed to give their lives for their kids, aren't they?"
"I already did! I made you with my Despair Core—what more do you want?!"
Well. She had a point.
I smacked my lips and let it go cleanly.
Stripping the escape option from someone who couldn't even function as a proper monster without a Despair Core would have been a little much.
I was a generous monster. I'd let her keep it.
"Anyway—daughter this, daughter that. What are you even talking about? Who's the daughter and who's the parent here?!"
"It's a joke. A joke. Don't you get jokes, Doctor?"
I said it shamelessly, and the response that came back was pure speechlessness.
Honestly, a parent like the Doctor was a bit much for me too.
"So. When are we doing the next one?"
"The next one?"
"Huh?"
"Ah?"
Wasn't one time enough?
We seemed to be operating under completely different assumptions.
Apparently the Doctor had decided I was going to pull the same stunt for her over and over.
Come on. Even so. She'd seriously expected me to do this multiple times?
"I-isn't once a little unsatisfying? You think so too, right? Right?"
"...Haaah."
She wasn't even a child.
With her Despair Core gone, it felt like the screws in her head had come loose right along with it.
Once was plenty. What was the point of running this again and again.
Maybe her logic was something like, I didn't only get hit once, so you don't get to only get hit once either!
"No. Absolutely not. If a magical girl catches on, we're finished."
"Then we just make sure they don't catch on...!"
"You're not a kid..."
She had the energy of a child who, after getting an airplane ride, kept whining for another one because it was fun.
Making the person who wrecked her lab suffer the same things she'd suffered had clearly gone to her head—and combined with her appearance, it only made the Doctor look even more like a child.
The fact that a nasty mad scientist was lurking inside that form was, if anything, the truly terrifying part.
"Then just once more! Only once! Please? I'll—I'll even get on my knees if I have to!"
"...Huuuh. Fine. Just one more time."
"Yes!"
I sighed and nodded at the Doctor, who had become the living embodiment of desperation. She threw both arms into the air and cheered.
Well. What could possibly go wrong?