"Nono Hana is my wife."
In the dark confrontation, the wind brushed past the hems of their clothes. The face of the armed man had been completely swallowed by shadow, leaving only two sinister eyes exposed. Neither of them spoke, but the atmosphere was already tense enough to easily tear apart any intruder.
After beating him up once before, Ash had not planned to pay any attention to this guy now that he had more important matters to deal with. But since he actually dared to say something like that with such a serious expression, Ash had to properly "settle things" with him.
After all, this had become a personal matter.
"According to my investigation, ever since she was thirteen, Nono Hana had always been gloomy and sickly because she didn't know how to dress herself up. From childhood to adulthood, no boy had ever liked her. She didn't even have memories of ever being confessed to." Ash lightly tapped the revolver against his shoulder. With every tap, the man's initially relaxed air shifted toward a crimson danger. "Her beloved little sister even specifically told me about this, telling me to go after her without hesitation."
"So~ Mr. Stalker and Delusional Pervert." Ash's mocking tone made the man's expression twist even further. "You'd better give me a proper explanation for what you just said. Depending on your answer, I'll decide whether to beat you up... or whether I'll have to kill you first before saving her and get a taste of blood."
What did you know?
Provoked by Ash's trash talk, he took the initiative to step closer to Ash for the first time.
Not a single thing I said was wrong. You were clearly the one who caused all of this, yet when you saw Hana suffering in ways she had never suffered in any other world, you still came at me—you're the arrogant one!
"Do you have the right to decide that?!"
The dejected man, equally consumed by malice and anger, glared at Ash in his police uniform. The Rampage Energy rooted in his body began to flow for the first time, about to be released through his hand.
However, before any of that could happen, Ash's eyes flashed red behind him. Ash locked an arm around his neck and slammed him hard against the wall behind him, then shoved the revolver directly into his mouth.
Such strength! The man tried to struggle, only to be forced by Ash's overwhelming power straight into the cracks in the wall behind him.
"Don't answer a question with another question!" Ash's hidden brutality emerged without restraint. Completely unconcerned with him, Ash viciously hammered the gun barrel against his teeth. "Didn't your elementary school teacher teach you something this basic?!"
Extra Case File 72: Ash: I'm the One Stealing Your Wife!
The beret-wearing man in a police uniform had shoved his gun barrel into the mouth of another young man in a white shirt, while pressing his head harder into the cracks in the wall behind him.
It looked like a police officer arresting a criminal, with a touch of excessive force. Except Ash was not a police officer, and the other man could not simply be described as a criminal.
"Mm! Answer me! Can't open your mouth, you brain-dead idiot with an IQ below ⑨?!"
Ash had his own pride in his role as a villain. Randomly spraying trash talk while throwing a tantrum was an extremely vulgar way to build character, and normally he could not be bothered to use it.
But that did not apply to Ash right now. Other than certain cuckold fetishists, no man could stay calm in a situation like this. At any rate, Ash was pissed off.
"Who the hell do you think you are? You think you know so much? Just because you know a little, you dare put on airs in front of me? Huh?!"
Crack!
With a movement of Ash's hand, a molar, along with blood, was pried from the man's mouth and rolled across the ground.
As Ash's arm exerted more force, the man—whose interrupted attempt had prevented him from mobilizing the Rampage Energy in his body—struggled desperately. His face gradually changed from blue to purple, then to the color of liver.
Only when he was about to suffocate did Ash release him expressionlessly, allowing him to cough loudly on the ground.
"Now, you little punk." Ash squatted in front of him and spoke to him word by word in an exceedingly cordial, murderous tone. "If this were before, I would've watched to see how you could entertain me. But I don't have the interest or time for that now."
He fished an alarm clock out of the scattered rubble behind him, wound it up, and set it ticking in front of the man.
"Who are you, where did you come from, what exactly is your relationship with Hana, and what useful things do you know? No riddles. Tell me everything, word for word, in a short amount of time."
"If you can't explain it clearly, your head comes off."
"Cough, cough, cough—cough!" The man glared at Ash with resentful eyes until dejection once again covered every emotion. "You really fooled Hana badly. Falling for you was the greatest misfortune of her life."
Click! The revolver's hammer was pulled back. The muzzle, mixed with blood, saliva, and the smell of gunpowder, pressed against the man's face as the expressionless Ash tapped the ticking alarm clock.
"Bullshit counts as time too."
"My name is George Kurei, and I am Nono Hana's husband." Seeing Ash's index finger begin to press down, the man quickened his speech. "I am Nono Hana's husband from the future... the husband of Nono Hana from the future of another world."
Ash picked up the alarm clock and wound it again.
"So." Ash pointed behind him at the ultimate darkness swallowing the world. "In the future world, this is something destined to happen?"
Was this so-called temporal corrective force?
"Not necessarily in this exact form, but Nono Hana, as a Pretty Cure, will die protecting humanity. In the end, Rampage Energy will devour the entire world and destroy everything. That is something destined to happen."
"Even if different worlds have different forms of manifestation, this result is an unchangeable fact."
Different worlds? Ash temporarily noted that key point, raised an eyebrow, and continued questioning him.
"You know who I am?"
"I do. An Interdimensional Traveler."
"What did you come to this point in the past to do?"
"To find a way to save Nono Hana."
Though he looked useless, coming to the past and other worlds to find a way to save his wife did sound reasonable... wait.
As something suddenly occurred to him, Ash's brain cells began to boil, and an uncontrollable fury appeared on his face.
From the way you spoke, you arrived in this world before I did. Then...
"You said you wanted to save her. What did you do?"
Klein lowered his head in silence, his eyes still filled with endless dejection.
"...I was observing. Looking for a way to save her."
"You said there were different worlds... then tell me, you coward."
Ash's expression gradually twisted as he grabbed the man by the collar and hauled him up from where he lay sprawled on the ground.
"For the sake of supposedly saving Hana, how many times did you watch the woman you called your wife die—?!"
"My Hana once told me." At this point, the man's eyes were full of longing for the past. "I didn't need to do anything. She would be responsible for saving everything, so I... watched. I watched for a way to let her live."
The killing intent radiating from Ash made him seem like a demon god.
"As long as Hana could live, that was enough. I once placed my hopes in you... but you hurt her instead and left her in this state, so I finally understood."
As he spoke, Klein, held in Ash's grasp, began to laugh.
"I will find my teacher and use his technology to make use of Rampage Energy, just like the Hana of this world is doing now."
"And the only way for Hana to live is to use Rampage Energy before she grows up, plunging the whole world into absolute stillness. Then no one will die anymore... in the end, the only one who can save her is me—"
"Quit acting out that pathetic despair-for-the-world routine!"
Ash, who could no longer be described as merely angry, violently threw Klein away. He smashed through the wall behind him, crashed into the door of a police car, and was immediately grabbed again by the pursuing Ash.
"Never mind how you came to that conclusion like some bargain-bin Lugiel."
"You stood by and watched your wife die in front of you. Then you gained the power to travel through time and worlds. And your way of saving her was to keep watching versions of her from different worlds die, then make the Rampage Energy that killed her into the power supporting you. In the end, what you wanted was to make the meaning of her fight completely lose, to make Pretty Cure completely lose to the Doomsday Monster."
He was no longer someone who could be described as merely a surrenderist.
"I have to say, Mr. Klein, your thought process is so astonishing that even I'm impressed."
Ash wanted to curse him out, but even with Ash's moral standards, he could not think of anything fitting for the moment.
He desperately needed insults more vicious than "motherfucker," "bastard," and raging forum trolls.
"Don't decide the world's ending all by yourself! The people who decide that are all the humans struggling to live in it, not someone like you who stands there acting superior and watching!"
Ash roared like a machine gun, leaving the self-righteous Klein so dizzy that he could not say a word.
"You keep talking about saving Hana, but from what I can see, other than that pitiful woman who was originally your wife, there isn't room in your eyes for anyone else at all!"
You merely treated the Hanas of other worlds as substitutes for the one in your heart, then watched them die to satisfy that warped wish of yours.
"No, the current her isn't your wife anymore either." Ash gave him another ferocious punch, turning both of Klein's eyes into blackened bruises. "She's my woman now!"
That's right. Even if this is NTR, I'll steal Hana away from you, you pathetic little coward.
"Now, tell me!" Ash lifted the battered man and slammed him hard against the dented car door again. "How do I save her when it comes to Rampage Energy?!"
"Go to hell!"
A fist that had finally gathered pitch-black Rampage Energy shot toward the person who had "taken" everything from him as Klein roared.
Extra Case File 73: Receive It Soon, the Roar of Flames!
Ash grabbed the wrist wrapped in darkness with one hand, slammed Klein senseless onto the ground with an over-the-shoulder throw, then punched his nose flat.
Although I can't store special power in my body because of Dark Echo... how many fools like you, who think they're close to gods after gaining power, do you think I've seen?
"Talk! Or I'll twist every bone in your body to pieces!"
Even as agonizing pain coursed through him and blood streamed from his nose, Klein had no intention of yielding to the bastard who had taken Hana and hurt her.
"I have nothing to say to you!"
Ash stayed silent, then suddenly gave him a rather chilling smile.
Is that so?
Then that's great.
Klein, who had briefly passed out, woke up amid the scraping sound of being dragged along. When he opened his eyes again, what entered his vision was a tire covered in mud.
What... was this...?
The man slowly raised his head and met Ash's eyes above him, eyes that looked as if he were staring at a dead man.
"No—you!"
You can't. You fucking can't do this!
Ignoring the man's shouts, Ash pushed aside the unconscious police officer who had been stripped naked, then coldly pressed the V-Commander on his wrist. Little V-REX, standing on the police car's accelerator, pressed down on the pedal.
The police car's engine roared. The weight of the entire vehicle nearly crushed the increasingly terrified man's neck. The foot on his chest prevented him from escaping, while the tire against his neck twisted his head. Under precise control, it stopped at exactly the moment before his neck would be completely snapped.
Fear, pain, suffocation—it was difficult to describe Klein's feelings at that moment.
Ash was interrogating him... or rather, torturing him. And in his rage, Ash was enjoying it.
"How do you handle this Rampage Energy crap?!" In front of the tire that continuously spun and rubbed out a scorched stench, the thick sole of Ash's shoe pressed on the man's neck to keep the tire from actually crushing it. "How do you eliminate its influence? How do you awaken her Tomorrow Energy?!"
"You can't do it—!" Klein desperately stretched out his hands and repeatedly slapped Ash's thigh, his voice tearing until it nearly broke. "You can't do it, and neither can I! In so many worlds, Hana will definitely encounter an enemy so powerful that no matter what she does, she cannot resolve it. That enemy is the malice humanity has accumulated all along!"
Compared to the malice of all humanity, the shining heart of a single girl was simply far too insignificant!
Ash said nothing. He only bit his lip and pressed the button on the V-Commander harder.
V-REX faithfully carried out the order and pushed the accelerator down a little further.
The sudden increase in pressure and pain finally forced Klein to scream. If not for the Rampage Energy still inside his body, he would definitely have died.
Madman—he was a madman, a madman who did whatever he pleased!
How could a madman save Hana? He couldn't do it. He definitely couldn't do it, ahhh—!
Ash's thoughts were much the same.
I have no interest in listening to some deranged idiot wallow in self-pity here. I just need you to tell me what you know.
Ash deliberately gave him half a minute to recover.
"Do you know anything else?"
His voice no longer carried anger. It had become the voice of a demon.
"Tomorrow Energy! Only Tomorrow Energy can purify Rampage Energy!" The man panted heavily, as if he had finally lost the strength to resist. "But when Hana chose that Melody Holy Sword, she had already lost her ability to purify it... The more enemies she defeats, the more Rampage Energy accumulates, until she takes on this form in this world!"
"I don't know if anyone else can do it, but the only one who can awaken Tomorrow Energy is herself. Only Hana's own hope for the future can save her!" His hair hung loose, and his face, which no longer held even a trace of its prior aura, wore an expression uglier than crying. "But she has completely despaired. She can't do it anymore. This is all because of you. This is all your fault!"
At first, he had hoped that he himself could save Nono Hana. But from the beginning, he had only watched everything happen, so he could not do it.
Later, he hoped someone could save Nono Hana, even if it was not him. But he waited until he was disappointed and never received what he hoped for.
Until now, he had once believed Ash could save Hana. But at this moment, compared to his hopes that Ash could save Hana, Klein hated him even more.
Wasn't it all your fault that the Hana of this world suffered such pain and became so miserable?!
Ash kept one hand pressed over his other wrist as he watched the man make a complete fool of himself. Even in the face of those utterly vile curses, Ash maintained an expression so cold that it seemed as if he had heard nothing at all.
Finally, he released his hand, and the tire that had nearly crushed Klein's neck rolled away.
Before you continue