Chiharu was in the chiropractor club, and he was hoping that she could give him a hand.

“If things go right, I might be able to advance two routes at once!” His rotten brain produced.

Like always, the harsh reality collided dramatically with his improbable fantasies. Chiharu was indeed waiting for him at the chiropractor club, but her role was the opposite of a helper.

“I’m here to stop you!” Chiharu stood with her arms crossed in front of the club door.

“Why?!”

“I would do it without a reason, but in this specific case, Gimei told me to.”

“Are you sure you're not doing that thing where you secretly want to help me but cannot be honest with your feelings and end up going against me solely because you can’t handle your emotions?”

A series of Japanese symbols that could be pronounced with the sound “go” started to emanate from Chiharu’s body. Her eyes suddenly disappeared behind dark and physically impossible shadows cast from who knows where. She looked angry. As angry as she did every other time Henry annoyed her. There was but one difference.
Now she laughed.

“You don’t need to convince me any further, Henry! I have been waiting for an excuse to beat you up. Now that I have at least one other person supporting me,” Her red eyes shined through the shadows, “I won’t hold back!”

“It’s my second day here…” Henry whimpered like a small dog.

Chiharu bent forward and leapt at him. She jumped with such speed it caused the ground she stood on to cave in and visible shockwaves of air to form around her feet.

Despite all of this, Henry managed to dodge the attack through the sheer power of “It would be anticlimactic if the protagonist died now”.

For the sake of both realism and immersion, we are going to justify Henry’s survival with the plausible but improbable excuse of:

Blinded by bloodlust, Chiharu put too much power on the attack, worsening her aim and making her miss the punch. Her arm penetrated through the wall behind him and got stuck.

His life saved by a plot-mandated miracle, Henry would not let this occasion go to waste. Taking advantage of her stuck arm, he began running as fast as his legs allowed him to.

He began feeling relief after turning a couple of corners without any sign of doom. But his hopes were shattered just like the walls he could hear crumbling in the distance. It didn’t take long before Chiharu reached him.

A hand punched through the floor and grabbed his ankle, making him fall face first. With a punch using her free hand, Chiharu rose from the ground like a scene out of a bad zombie movie, the only differences being that they were on the third floor of a school and that the zombie was a sixteen-year-old girl.

“Mitsuketa~” Her words were left untranslated for added dramatic effect.

Henry was powerless against such a force of nature. Lying helplessly on the ground, he had resigned to his fate. And his fate was on the knuckles of the girl currently thrwing him a punch.

But the power of “It would be anticlimactic if the protagonist died now” was strong.

An explosive sound thundered through the halls, and debris rained down like snowflakes in a winter storm. Dark! Fighter! Kimei! stood between them, holding the Moai statue. Instead of Henry’s face, Chiharu had punched, and consequently turned to smithereens, the Easter Island’s face.

“K-Kimei! You saved me!”

“Looks like I made it just in time! Is this villain giving you trouble?”

“Yes but… Aren’t you the villain? I thought you were trying to conquer the world?”

“… Careful! She’s about to attack!”

Chiharu was looking at them, unmoving.

“I’m not doing anything… Weren’t you the one that told me to—”

“Hiyah!” Kimei threw what remained of the moai statue at her.

“How are you managing to throw a stone statue?!” Henry asked, slightly jealous.

“It’s made of polystyrene.”

Chiharu just let the light piece of colored foam bounce off her head and fall to the ground.

“Listen," Henry said, "Can I ask you something, Gimei?”

“I do not know who that is! My name is Dark! Fighter! Kimei!” She posed.

“Right, Kimei. Why did you send a battle shounen antagonist after me? I can understand solving some puzzles, but this is way beyond my capabilities. Or did you seriously expect me to fight?”

“I didn’t tell her to attack you!” She whispered to him, trying not to break character, “I only told her to make it difficult for you to enter the clubroom, like giving you a riddle or something. I didn't think she would go berserk like some sort of kaiju! That was all her.”

“Couldn’t you ask someone less… murderous?”

“There aren’t many people I can ask this sort of thing. Remember, this club is a secret! And she only knows about it because she helped me build the grotto.”

“She did?”

"I could never bring those supporting beams by myself! I initially thought of asking the coal mining club, but I had to keep the grotto a secret from the school, and since I couldn't get my hands on a forklift, I decided to ask Chiharu for help."

“But she’s not part of the club?”

“She wasn’t interested in joining.”

“Then why did she agree to build a grotto?!”

“Don’t ask me.”

“Then why did you agree to build a grotto?!” Henry asked Chiharu directly.

“It’s a girl thing, you wouldn’t understand.”

“Oh.”

“So, like… are we still doing this?” Chiharu was patiently waiting for her cue.

“Right!” Kimei got back into character. “We have to defeat her if we want to learn the number!” She assumed her fighting stance.

“I’ll take that as a yes!”

Running at incredible speed, Chiharu launched herself at Kimei, weaved past her, and punched Henry in the face. His body flew across the hall.

“Hey! Fight me, not him!”

“I don’t have a reason to fight you. Henry is the one I’m after!”

“T-the struggles of managing a harem…” Henry grunted from the floor, with his mouth cartoonishly turned sideways.

“Don’t underestimate me! OBLITERATING FURY OF THE ONE THOUSAND DRAGON GODS!”

Kimei ran at her and delivered an incessant flurry of blows to her chest and torso, to which Chiharu did not react in the slightest. She waited for Kimei to tire out and then pushed her to the ground with a simple shove.

“It’s time to end this.” Chiharu walked towards the boy still lying on the ground. “Any final wish?”

“Don’t kill me please?”

“Nice try.”

She dragged him towards the windows and smashed them open with his body. He was now hanging upside down above the void, held by the foot by a merciless Chiharu. Below him, a small, crocodile-infested lake.

“Isn’t this a bit too much?!” He screamed.

“It’s useless!” Kimei cried out as she desperately tried to push Chiharu away from the window, without any result. “She got too much into the evil character! Shw can’t stop herself anymore!”

“Say your prayers, Henry!” Chiharu’s eyes shone red.

“This is why I prefer slice of life stories!”

How is Henry going to get out of this situation? Is the power of “It would be anticlimactic if the protagonist died now” strong enough to save his life? Is anyone going to question how it is possible for a high school girl to be this strong? Do you even care? Does anything really matter at all? Am I real? Are you real? Hello? Can anyone hear me? Help?

Find out all of this and more, in the next chapter of Dragon RomComPar!!!

POSTFACE

- THINGS THE TYPING MONKEY WROTE

Miabmz moo: Gwc amzqwcatg axmvb bqum bw lmkqxpmz bpqa?

Go: A strategy board game where you place a colored piece on a grid and try to surround the opponent’s pieces to capture them. At the end of the game, the person with the highest captured pieces wins. Simple, right? It is so simple, in fact, that the number of possible board positions is many times larger than the number of atoms in the universe.

Go: That was the wrong go. The go in the story references a sort of onomatopoeiaou for menacing situations. It comes from the fact that if you go to a random person in the street and start saying go at them over and over, they are likely to call the police.

Mitsuketa~: Translator’s note: Mitsuketa means I found you.