The Exposition Dragon

Oh cool, are we finally going to hear about her?

Wait, I think we may have heard about her in the past. I seem to remember this.

Yeah, this is all sounding very familiar, though I can't quite place from where.

Honestly, if I live to be 100, I will never understand the desire to die. This whole concept of wanting someone to kill you as a favor to you just feels so alien to me.

See, my issues with it aside, you got a really cool reason built into your fake backstory for why you need to make it back to the TRC. Shouma got a dog who pees on his face. Darumi didn't even get that.

It's just not fair.

That's it. The final Bond Event. Except for Eito, that is.

Oh, I think you and Nekomaru would get along really well. He's super athletic but with health issues too.

...so did you win? Because it sounds like you were too good. I understand that the problem was that you weren't flashy enough for the audience; Wrestling is a performance moreso than a competition. But.

Did you win? You make it sound like you won.

Ohhh, so that's your "Person back home I must protect". I'd been wondering, yeah. That's pretty neat, though I feel like it has some shades of Sakura Ogami and Kenshiro.

...

...

...

...

See that, Yugamu? You get a tragic story about a fellow assassin you're going to one day put out of her misery while Moko has Anal Boss.

So wait, Tsubasa massaged everyone? Not just the people who were in a funk? Huh. I guess it's nice that we shared the goodwill around to everyone. Except Sirei. That would be sad but, y'know, fuck him.

He came here to die in glorious battle against an equal rival but he wasn't expecting to be chewed to bits by feral apes. That part came as a complete surprise.

Every time he tried to make his "Now slay me and earn your victory" speech, a different member of the SDU teabagged him.

Gaku ran off to put on his music. It didn't help in any way but Super-Hench Daddy did have to listen to it while he died.

It turns out that his invulnerability is entirely psychosomatic. Yeah, the key to bypassing it is to just get so high that you forget he's invulnerable.

And it's habit-forming! We can no longer sustain even a basic existence without getting our pressure points massaged three times a week. We will go into a despair spiral so intense we might even slip into a coma and die if we do not get our fix.

Or it means that the "affection checker" is just a random idea Kako had and not actually what the device is confirmed to be by any metric.

Told you it was habit forming. We are already planning on using it as a crutch to replace real motivation.

It could be. You don't know that. Maybe Super-Hench Daddy got bored and left, realizing there's nothing he could do to us that would be worse than what we're already doing to ourselves.

Oh hey, welcome to the Fuck This club, Bestie. Glad to have you onboard.

And Eva! We've got Eva! I hereby deem this the Cool People Club.

Gaku's here.

I hereby deem this the Cool People And Also Gaku I Guess Club.

Maybe if we suck badly enough, he'll take pity on us. He's here to die in glorious battle so if we seem pathetic enough, he might just get bored and leave out of disgust.

...that's....

...that's not a land mine.....

I am suddenly very intrigued! My will to live is reinvigorated! Tell us, Tsubasa! Tell us how this massager will bring humiliating doom upon Super-Hench Daddy!

This is very unique and creative! I'm onboard with this! I can't wait to give it a try! Takky, volunteer to go first!

Takky! Make Gaku volunteer to go first! If the massager makes you explode like in Fist of the North Star then we would do well to know that in advance!

It can't be worse than what happened in the other Comedy timeline, so one way or another, things are looking up.

Or you could take the device back to Tsubasa and ask her what it is. It's clear to me that we got its function wrong.

He tricked himself into losing the will to live because of how dumb he is. It's honestly pretty embarrassing to watch. Thank you for coming to rescue me from the cold, clammy grip of his despair. You're a true hero, Takemaru.

Honestly not sure what you expect him to contribute in this state. What's even our job again?

Team Leader.

Oh yeah.

Ha! Good fucking luck with that!

As we ride heroically into the War Room slung over the shoulder of a very large man, you can feel the admiration and respect for our position burning out of every corner of the room!

That'd be a tough competition to call. Who's of less value to this organization?

Takumi got infested by a G'ie that is going to kill you all one of these timelines.

Fair but Shouma let a G'ie kill everyone without being infested by one himself.

Okay, yeah, he wins.

Why, you could even call it a despair disease. I see what you did there.

Launching Takky bodily at an enemy target has a better success rate than you might imagine. I say we go with it.

How depressing, honestly. It's just going to be the same gas mines we use in every timeline. Now I'm getting depressed too.

Oh right. That awful thing. We still need to get rid of it.

Yes, it would.

It would hurt to give the Privacy Violation Machine a try.

ESPECIALLY ON HER

Takky. Takky, no.

Does that count as giving permission?

I don't think so. She said "go ahead" because she trusts Takky to respect her boundaries and not do something intrusive like this.

"Can I do something?" "Sure, go ahead" is not a blanket pardon for any of the infinite possible things you might do. Like. If you got permission to "do something" and then honked Nozomi's boob, she'd still be within her rights to slap you in the face. Even though she agreed to let you "do something", there are some basic expectations that you aren't going to do something that crosses her boundaries.

If Takky had told her, "Can I use a device that reads your level of affection for me and prints it out as a numeric value?" then Nozomi would....

...

...honestly, she might agree to that. That actually sounds like a fun thing to do with friends. I'd be curious to know what my Affection Value for my closest friends is.

It's not really the device that's the problem. It's the lack of communication.

Yes, Takky, we're all very impressed with how aloof you are. It's so masculine the way you pretend not to care what other people think of you. Now get on with it.

Oh, good news! It's not an affection tester! No idea what it is but at least we know what it isn't.

We should probably just take this back to Tsubasa now.

Takky, if she had zero points of affection, she wouldn't have agreed to let you use the device on her in the first place, would she?

Wouldn't she?

Huh?

What's that thing you're always calling Nozomi?

A people-pleaser?

Right. That. Doesn't that mean she would let a complete stranger use a device like this on her?

...shit. You're right. We can't judge the feelings of a people-pleaser by what she's willing to do for others or let others do to her.

I still don't think it's an affection tester, though. There's no way Darumi has 53 points of Takky Fondness but Nozomi has 0. That's ridiculous and clear evidence that our hypothesis is simply wrong.

NO ONE CARES, SIREI

NO ONE CARES, GAKU

Everyone cares, Moko. You look spectacular. Don't even worry about a thing.

FUCKING FELT

It should be a crime to ambush someone with early morning complications when they stayed up late the previous night because they expected to sleep in the next morning!

I was busy! And having an ADHD moment! I deserve to rest!

This world is not built for neurodivergent people!

TSUBASA NO

Is one of your inventions the deadly neurotoxin mines? Is that where we're going with this? Because I'm going to be super disappointed if that's all that comes of your gleeful weapon building.

You know, Takemaru, it's funny how you have this whole thing about how it's manly to defend women but that doesn't extend to being nice to them.

Have you ever considered that a proper code of chivalric conduct should include being considerate of other people's feelings?

It's definitely going to be the deadly neurotoxin mines. That's so disappointing.

I blame you for this, Bestie.

Although it is very important to me that both Dahl'xia and V'ehxness learn that he is called Super-Hench Daddy now. That is his name. It can never be revoked. And I need them both to hear about it.