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“Okay, so according to this graph… Lui, I forgot how to read this.”
Lui let out a hearty chuckle. “Oh Laplus, you’re so funny. The x-axis represents months and the y-axis is unwanted gang activity.”
“That’s right. Thank you, Lui.” Laplus again gestured to the projected screen. “With our targeted operations and other countermeasures, we’ve managed to cut things down by over 60%. That’s not to say things are perfect, but we’re moving in the right direction.”
“Which is?” Chloe mumbled from underneath her arms as she laid her head on the long wooden table.
“I was getting to that newbie. As I’ve decided since I asked you all to join HoloX, our ultimate goal is to rule the world. With all the detractors, it makes that goal difficult. If we focus on cutting them out now while we build a more respectable reputation, it makes the ascension to control easier. Plus, it’s given us one of the greatest covers an organization could have: being entertainers and influencers on a multi-continental scale.”
“That’s right, gozaru! I really started to gain confidence now that I perform in front of so many people!”
“Precisely! So I’m very glad to see things trending in this direction. And of course, this information was compiled by Lui and Koyori, so I give you thanks as well.”
“You’re welcome Lap-chan!” Koyori’s tail began to wag to and fro.
“Okay, that rounds out our meeting. Does anybody have any other business to bring to the table?” Laplus sat back down at the head of the table.
Chloe sat motionless, still with her head down. Lui uncrossed, then recrossed her legs. Koyori folded her hands in her lap as her tail ceased its wagging. Iroha had a smile, paired with a slight blush from her exuberant response.
“Alright. That will be all. Yes My Dark on three. One, two, three! Heed My Call!”
“Yes My Dark.”
“Yes My Dark!”
“Yes My Dark!~”
“-Yes My Dark.”
Laplus was the only one who stood up from the table. Everybody sat right where they were.
“Geez, who died? Nobody’s ready to leave yet? Whelp, see ya around!” The short woman began to stride toward the exit of the conference room.
“Um, Laplus.” Koyori was the only one to speak up. Her ears folded back on their own. “Can I talk to you outside in a minute?”
“Sure, Koyori.” Laplus turned back towards the coyote.
“Wait! Before you talk with Koyori, could you come with me really quickly? Iroha blurted from the swiveling chair behind the pink-haired coyote. She had an expression that bordered on both distressed and sheepish.
“Huh? Iroha-chan? Well, I’ll make it real fast with you Laplus, then you two can talk.” Koyori stood up and faced the blonde. She was extremely animated with her hands, waving them all over the place to freeze Iroha in her seat.
“...Okay? Can we go now?”
“Hold on.” Now Lui had piped up. “Before you go, Laplus, I do have something I need to say. It’s something very important and I would appreciate it if you let me get it all out before you respond.” She pulled away from the table and sat forward in her rolling chair.
“Now this is getting ridiculous. If I did something wrong in the presentation, you could have let me know in the moment.”
“No, it’s-” Lui stumbled over her words, a rare occurrence for the normally well-composed hawk. “I- I need to get this off my chest. Laplus,” Lui looked to meet her eyes, “I’ve fallen in love with you. I want you to be my girlfriend, and I would be yours. Please accept my feelings.” Her face lit up with a brilliant shade of red as she completed her confession.
That sucked the air out of the room. Chloe sat up, shooting the hawk girl a look of pure shock. Iroha was equally surprised, almost leaving the ground with a shriek. Koyori’s eyes just went wide as she stood in silence, mouth agape. Lui looked down to avoid staring at Laplus, shyness amplified by the amount of eyes on her.
“Lui-nee? Are you serious? You’re in love with me?” Laplus was confused as to why Lui had chosen this moment to declare her personal feelings to the demon lord. It seemed more like a practical joke at first, until Lui still refused to meet the shorter girl’s eyeline and instead opted to fiddle with one of her zippers.
“No! She’s not serious!” Koyori shouted. Her fists were balled up and her eyes were shut. “She’s joking! Because- Because-”
“Because why, Koyori-chan?” Iroha managed to recover from the initial shutdown she experienced to ask a question of concern to the emotional coyote.
“Because I was going to tell Lapu-tan how much I love her!” Koyori yelled as she turned to face the short girl leaning against the doorframe. “Laplus, I feel like we’re made for each other! I love you! Please go out with me!” Koyori pleaded as she continued to flail her arms.
“Woah, Woah, Woah! You like me too, Koyori?” Laplus took a step back. Now two members were declaring their affections for the horned girl. “Where is this coming from?”
“Hmmmmm…” Iroha began rocking on her heels as she looked down. Her face now bore a distinct tint of pink as she twiddled her hands together. “I think everybody had the same idea. I believe Lui and Koyori both jumped the gun, trying to get to you first de gozaru.”
“Hang on, what idea?”
“I was also going to confess to you Laplus. I made special cookies that I was going to offer to you. But it seems I am not the only one who has been swept up in your charm.” Iroha stomped her foot. “But, that does not mean I will give up so easily! I’ll say it properly, I love you My Dark! I want to become more than just friends with you! Please choose me to be your one and only, de gozaru!” Iroha dropped to one knee, not even bothering to present her hand.
“Haaaaaaah?! All three of you like me like that?” The demon brought a hand up to cover her mouth. Not even Laplus had seen something like this coming. At least, not for real, and not from each of them individually.
“Actually,” A voice piped up from the desk, “It’s not just everybody else.” The remaining orca girl removed her hands from her face. Chloe’s eyes were puffy and her face was slick with tears. “It’s me too. I want you Laplus. You’re the only person I’ve ever felt this way for. Please return my feelings!” Chloe shut her eyes as more tears began to build at the corners of her lids.
What the hell? Laplus whispered to herself inside her head.
Everybody I brought on board, everybody I’ve worked with, they all developed feelings for me? How did this even happen? I haven’t been leading them on, have I? I’ll admit, some of them have crossed my mind at some points, but never in this capacity! How am I supposed to-
“So what’s your answer?”
“Huh?” Laplus snapped back to attention.
“Who do you choose?” Lui repeated her question. She finally gained the courage to stare into Laplus’ eyes. “Don’t keep us waiting now, even if it does make you look cuter.”
“I…” Laplus tried to regain her composure as she looked around the room. Lui’s directness, Koyori’s kiridere attitude, Iroha’s loyalty, and Chloe’s pitiful looks had all hit her in different ways. “I can’t-”
“Wait!” A voice came screaming down the hallway. A figure slammed into Laplus as she turned to confront the intruder, sending both people flying in opposite directions. Laplus had the softer landing, crashing back down into her throne that sat at the head of the table.
“You can’t choose any of them yet! You have to hear what I have to say first!” The second figure stood up, her hat falling off her head and onto the floor.
“Owwwww, my neck- Towa-sama? What are you doing here?”
“Lap-chan! I came to ask you out on a date!” Towa stated as she approached the demon. “I was waiting until you came out, but as soon as everybody revealed their intentions, I had no choice but to charge in here and lay my claim to you first!” Towa smiled as she delivered what she believed to be the ultimate proposal to her dear kouhai. “So what do you say?”
“No!” The chorus of voices belonging to the other members in the room shouted in unison at the encroaching devil.
But an additional voice chimed in with an extra line: “You can’t have her, not if I have more senpai power than you!”
A burst of smoke spawned on the other side of the table. Shion stood on the wooden surface, her wand in hand as the vapor dissipated around her. “Here I am! At the eleventh hour! To seize my world-conquering lover and ascend to the highest heights! We’re going to be the greatest power couple in history Laplus, and all I’ll need is your hand. What do you say?” Shion strutted down the length of the table and stood before the forcefully seated demon lord.
I’m losing my mind! I must have had my brain scrambled by my limiters! People are appearing out of nowhere! And they all want a piece of me!
“But what if I want Lap-chan’s hand?”
Tokino Sora stepped out from behind the velvet throne. “I outrank everybody here in senpai strength. Laplus,” She bent down to gain the girl’s attention. “If you were serious about wanting to marry me, then I’m just as serious about marrying you! Will you take my hand, and make all your wildest dreams come true?”
As Sora was coming to the girl’s right, Towa seized her chance to take Laplus’ left arm into her grasp. “Don’t worry about anybody else Laplus, just tell me you want me. That’s all you’ll have to do.” Her smile was no longer warm, and more so bordered on sinister.
“WHAT IS HAPPENING?” Laplus had reached her breaking point as she yelled. Her face was well and truly cardinal by this point. All the other girls had moved an equal distance towards her, trapping her in the very tight space of her throne.
“That’s not fair! My Dark shouldn’t have to give in to senpai pressure!”
“Like you’d be any better if you had Suisei-senpai groveling at your feet, begging to be your lover, Iroha.”
“Chloe, please! We are not trying to start a fight amongst ourselves! This is about Laplus, and who gets the exclusive right to be her companion!”
“Well, in that case, we seem to have a little issue. I can’t let anybody have Laplus to themselves. We’re in business together, see?” Another voice, belonging to a Hizuki Yui, crept over the top of the cacophony of confusion and dissatisfaction. “Laplus, honey, we’ve got a product to sell. We can’t have either of us committed to anybody else. Just you and me! Imagine the profits we’d make if we deepened our relationship.” Yui crawled over the arm of the chair to position herself on the shorter girl’s lap. She giggled as she ran a finger down Laplus’ jaw and left her finger sitting on the demon’s sealed lips. “If you agree, say nothing. Let’s save it for the bedroom.”
“That’s not fair! I want to sleep with you too! If that’s what you want.”
“No! Laplus is mine! I’ll combine our DNA to create a new race of perfect Coyote/Demon Hybrids!”
“I’ll make you whatever you want to eat at any time! We’ll always be well off! You can come live back in my village!”
“Laplus is going to be with me, forever and ever and ever! She won’t even look at any of you ever again, or I’ll break down crying and slash you all to pieces!”
“No no no! Laplus, think about us! You’ve admired me for a long time, right? We can remake the world to be a place for demons! And our love will be at the center of it all!”
“Tough luck buttercup! This demon lord belongs to me! Just imagine the power we could wield as a pair! We’ll have everything we could ever want at our fingertips!
“I’m sure we can unlock your shackles together! You’ll be a free woman! We’ll live rich, full lives together! No expectations! No complications! No obstacle would ever be able to stop the two of us! Just a lifetime of domestic bliss! Aren’t I the girl of your dreams?”
“Not if I get her first!” The chorus of jealous women rang out in an uproar.
From there, Laplus couldn’t hear anything clear enough to determine who had said what. What she did feel was the simultaneous grabbing and pulling of every fiber of her being all at once. Two sets of hands had her by the horns, two had each of her arms, and another was clutching her limiter disk. Her legs were being pulled apart by another two pairs of hands, and a final set rested over her face. She couldn’t breathe. The little light her eyes could register was flickering in and out of existence. The pain was getting too intense, as if her body were pieces of cardboard being pummeled and shredded. The love of these eight girls was literally going to tear her apart if she didn’t do something.
“Laplus!”
“Lap-chan!”
“Lapu-dono!”
“Lapu-tan!”
“My Dark!”
“My Buddy!”
“My Fiancé!”
“My Partner!”
As the voices continued to channel their adoration, Laplus’ consciousness began to fail her. She tried everything to escape and get one inhale in, but it was hopeless. The pushing, the pulling, the shouting, the crying, and the pain were all she could register. She tried to get out a noise resembling a plea for them to stop, but it was hopeless. Laplus simply closed her eyes, and waited for the end.
“GAAAHHHHH!” Laplus screamed as she shot up in bed, launching a creature off the end and out the door. Her heart was thumping incessantly in her chest as she wheezed for oxygen. She felt her head start to pound, so she shut her eyes as she leaned forward. Laplus let out a groan of agony.
Once she adjusted to her current state of mind, she concentrated on how much of her was still there.
Two horns, a face, two arms, two legs. Still have my limiter disks too. I’m in one piece, thankfully.
Laplus had been having trouble getting full nights of sleep lately. Her mind would go to really weird places in her dreams, creating ludicrous and bizarre situations that she always ended up in the middle of. It almost always included her friends, which was the most frightening thing about them. Especially because she had already found someone.
“Did you have another nightmare?” Speaking of the devil (figuratively, of course, her partner wasn’t one), her bedfellow stirred and sat up beside her.
“Yeah. It wasn’t fun.” Laplus focused on trying to calm her frantic heart, but she still felt awful.
“Hey, that’s no good. Come here. Let me make the bad feelings go away. You want a laugh?” The person sat up and wrapped her arms around the fragile demon girl, trying to lighten the mood.
“I know you’re trying to be all lovey right now, but I just got through hearing some of the most insane confessions I’ve ever imagined. So I’m not in the mood for much sappy stuff, even from you dear. I think I’m just going back to sleep if I can.” Laplus laid back down, re-situated her horns, and shut her eyes.
“You sure? If you need anything, I’m right here. I’ll always be right here.” She closed her hand around Laplus’ fingers and pulled the blankets back over the both of them.
“Yeah. I get it.”
“I take it you got swarmed by a harem of girls?”
“It wasn’t fun.”
“Did you choose any of them by the way?”
“No, never got the chance to. Plus, I think I’m happy with who I have now, and I know they’re happy for me.”
“I thought you said you didn’t care for the sappy stuff right now.”
“I don’t know. I thought you might be the tiniest bit jealous.”
“I don’t get jealous.”
“You do, just not over trivial things. But I chose you, didn’t I? You have nothing to be concerned about.” She gave a quiet laugh as she cracked herself up with the cheesiness of her words.
“Smooth-talking as always Laplus. Save it for our next date.”
“How about tomorrow? You’re free, right?”
“If you sleep the rest of the night, we’ll go out to breakfast with Fubuki and Mio in the morning.” The other girl rolled away to bury her face in some pillows.
“Deal. Good night, sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite Ayame.”
“Night, Laplus-san.”