I opened my eyes and saw an orc lifting his axe.

Home sweet home. Just for fun, I remained sitting and allowed the orc to slam its axe against my head. The blade shattered, and the orc was left staring at the stick of wood in its hand with befuddlement. I stood up and stretched. This should have been a higher energy moment for me, the grand return, the epic quest to gather my lost companions, but it really just felt nostalgic. I looked around at all the death and destruction with a smile on my face, until I found exactly who I was looking for.

Jeffrey. Sweet, sweet Jeffrey, here and alive again. He was struggling just like before, reduced to using the tip of his spear as a knife after the shaft of his spear got cut in half by an axe. I ran over and extended my left hand. "Jeffrey!" I called, tears streaming down my face. "Take my hand!"

"What the fuck?" he said, turning to look at me. The orc he was fighting used that opportunity to try and get a stealthy blow in, but I blasted the absolute shit out of it with magic. I stopped in front of Jeffrey and held out my left hand.

"Come with me if you want to live!"

"Why...? You seem kind of like a freak. And isn't that a cultist's shirt?"

Jeffrey wasn't playing fair, and to be honest, he was sounding kind of like a dick. Regardless, I grabbed his right hand with my left and ran off to the human's side of the battle, practically dragging him behind me. An arrow came whizzing this way, but it bounced right off my head. Oh, how times change. A little level grinding really went a long way.

It wasn't long before I found what I was looking for. Rose had her back turned to the confused-looking captains as she scanned the mass of human troops for someone. Me. She found me as soon as I was in view, and she came jogging over as I ran her way.

We met up, and she looked at Jeffrey. "Who is this?" she asked, not recognizing him.

"Jeffrey."

She lifted an eyebrow. "You actually used your wish to save him? You went back this far for him? Unbelievable."

"Look, it's more complicated than that, okay? I mainly did it for you." I leaned forward to kiss her, and she pulled off her plate helmet to reciprocate. Her flowing blonde hair spilled across her back as we locked lips in a passionate kiss. Jeffrey watched on with bafflement.

"Isn't that Paladin Rose...?" he asked. "What the fuck are you kissing her for?"

We pulled apart, reluctant as always to abandon the softness of the other's lips. "What next?" Rose asked.

"The plan is to dramatically go through each autosave one by one, accumulating lost allies, until finally I load back in front of the Goddess and then... I don't know. Actually, maybe nothing will happen? She just seems pretty horny. Maybe she'll just shrug off all of you coming back and hop on my dick."

"I see your planning is as rigorous as ever," Rose said with a roll of her eyes.

"Do you have a better plan?"

"Yes, I could have come up with something better if I had been in a position to wish for literally anything from the Supreme Goddess, but it is too late for that now. I can send you a notarized list of superior options once things settle down."

"You make it seem like you think we'll win anyway."

She flashed a smile. "Of course I do. How could you and I ever lose?"

"What the fuck is this lovey-dovey horseshit?" Jeffrey demanded, looking mad.

I ignored him and focused my energies internally, preparing to load again. A naive assumption would be that I could not bring people with me when I loaded, since I hadn't been able to do that with quickloads. But things were different now. One, I was hard-loading instead of quickoading. Two, the Goddess herself had unlocked the full system for me. Three, there was no reason a system for moving one body/soul couldn't move multiple bodies/souls. And four, by god, I had the Power of Fucking Friendship on my side at the final hour of a climatic moment. Reality would fucking bend to ensure a miracle happened.

And so it did.

"Load Autosave 2," I said, Rose holding my right hand and Jeffrey still imprisoned within my left.

The world went black, just as meteors appeared in the air.

We arrived at Koh'rin's gate. The elf dude... uh... Lah'heh or something had frozen in a half-step towards us, caught completely off guard by Jeffrey appearing out of nowhere. A quick look revealed that there was only one Rose, which was a relief; I had worried that there would be some soul-duplication going on, but just like I "replaced" my past left when looping back, we "replaced" our future selves when moving forward in time. There could only be one copy of each soul. Or something.

I looked around, and found Hilda looking at us with bafflement. Poor, sweet Hilda. She wasn't an avatar of the Goddess so much as she was susceptible to possession and outside influence. It would be tempting to cut her off, and view her possession as a betrayal, but it seemed to me that the Goddess was mostly just along for the ride, having pushed Hilda to be more horny and then at times forced her to summon monsters without her knowing. She was not at fault herself.

But this was too far back in the past to grab her. She wouldn't have her memories. Rose and I left her behind, running past Lah'heh to the palace where Sophia would be waiting.

"Where the fuck are we?! What?!" Jeffrey half-screamed as I dragged him behind me. That drew the looks of quite a few passing elves, but no matter.

We didn't even reach the palace before we saw Sophia running this way. There was a contingent of guards chasing after her, but she didn't care. Her green skirt fluttered in the wind, and when she saw me, her face lit up and she intensified her running. She leapt into the air before reaching me, slamming into my upper chest and wrapping her arms around my neck before showering me with kisses.

"I thought I was dead for good! I thought I'd never see you again!" she said weepily.

"Never. I'm the goddamn protagonist."

She smiled through her tears and loosened her arms, falling to the ground. She then saw Jeffrey and instantly frowned.

"Who's this douchebag?" she asked with a sniff.

"Language," I warned. "This is my good friend Jeffrey, and I will not have you insulting him."

"Is that a fucking elf...? Where the fuck did we go? What is even happening?"

It was unfortunate that I had to keep ignoring Jeffrey, but it didn't seem like responding to him would be for the best.

"Sophia, go grab Rose's hand. Continue the chain."

She nodded, and just as the contingent of guards fell upon us, I said the words.

"Load Autosave 3."

"What the fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck?"

I awoke to Jeffrey cursing out loud. Sophia and I sat up in bed, both of us half-naked. I felt slightly conflicted about Jeffrey being here, but I quickly Blinded him while we threw basic clothes on, then undid it.

"Rose will be going to Daiya's chambers right away," I said, trusting her to make the rational move here. Sophia nodded, and we left, with me making sure to grab Jeffrey. I still had the route to Daiya's chambers memorized, and we actually ended up getting there while Medea was having her brainwashed dwarves open the door.

"Heir?!" she exclaimed, looking our way with wide eyes. It was kind of nostalgic to see her as a villain again instead of a tradwaifu who did no wrong. There was no point grabbing her, though; future Medea was alive and well, and presumably this fake alternate reality would be erased the instant I loaded into the future.

"No time to explain!" I shouted, barreling past her and into Daiya's room. Daiya standing in the center of the room in a meditating posture, the psychic-dampening helmet already positioned on her head. For a moment I considered the possibility that this helmet had something to do with Daiya developing unusual feelings for gems, but the 'how' and 'why' really didn't matter. I smashed it off, and her eyes opened immediately. With no change in expression she looked at me and nodded. Rose burst in a second later, with Medea shouting confused curses after her. We reformed the chain of hands.

"What the absolute fuck?" Jeffrey said, feeling increasingly dazed. "Where even is this? Who? Why? Why am I even here?"

"Load Autosave 4."

I blinked, and we were in the meeting room.

Medea and Hilda stopped their argument to look on in bafflement as a random dude suddenly appeared behind me. Rose leaned back in her chair as they balked.

"You know, Malcador."

"Yes?"

"You could have just loaded this save to begin with. We were all here."

"Uh..." I paused. "Not Jeffrey!"

"I could take or leave him, to be honest."

"What the fuck?" Jeffrey said. He was kind of a broken record. I noticed he was getting a kind of blank look in his eyes as he surrendered his mind to the unknown and stopped thinking entirely.

"Look, it was important to go through all the save points. It was the only way to build up enough drama to ensure enough Friendship Power to win, and there would absolutely not be a happy ending without Jeffrey by our side."

"Is this more of your meta nonsense? I thought we put this aside when things went exactly according to my initial plan despite your misgivings."

I frowned and looked around. "Why are we even talking about this? This is an important moment."

Rose lifted an eyebrow. "We have no choice but to wait five or so minutes before Flare and Xetra arrive. We might as well kill some time."

"Oh yeah..." I trailed off awkwardly, then looked around. Jeffrey was muttering to himself and shaking. Medea and Hilda were getting increasingly antsy about not knowing what was going on, which was certainly a trend of the past few loops, but only Hilda was coming with us from here. She would lose a week or so of memories, if the Goddess couldn't restore them, but that wasn't the end of the world. It would be a bit awkward to kick Medea away from the group so as to not interrupt her Beastkin Empire progress, but it had to be done.

We milled around for a bit, the momentum completely killed. Eventually we started playing a half-hearted game of "I Spy", which ended prematurely when the only non-person things in the room were the gray walls and stuff. Thankfully, it wasn't long before the door was flung open.

"MAAAAAAAAAL!" Flare shouted, jumping on me from behind in the glomp of a lifetime. She lovingly bit my neck, her teeth sinking painfully deep and causing a spurt of blood.

"Ow! Could you at least try to bite in a less sexy way so I don't have to suffer so much pain?"

"Nuh uh," she replied, biting harder. I swung my shoulders around to try to fling her off me, but she just tightened her grip on me and cackled.

It wasn't until Xetra burst in that Flare willingly released me. I faced Xetra, and she just looked at me with a sharp frown.

"What?" I asked.

"The Goddess was evil. Demon tradition was right." Her eyes were flat, unamused lines.

"Uh... Whoops. M-Maybe oral tradition has value after all? P-Perhaps information survives the journey through generations for practical reasons sometimes?"

She pushed up her glasses. "Uh-huh. As long as you recognize that." Her frown broke into a smile, and she tilted her head up for a kiss.

I obliged, then looked around. "Aeneas didn't follow?"

She frowned again, wanting nothing less than to talk about Aeneas. "I... took care of him."

That sounded pretty fucking grim. Luckily, all I had to do was not ask, and my mind remained pure and clean.

"Okay," I said, clapping my hands. All eyes were on me, as they had been anyway. "Next load, we're going straight to the Goddess. Who, by the way, is listening to us through Hilda. She probably exists beyond time or something. Fuck if I know."

Hilda pointed at herself. "Me?"

"Yeah, you're being possessed or something. I'll be fine once we travel forward, I think. Anyone have any ideas for what to do? Should we just rush Sauron and disintegrate in his mere presence as a final act of defiance?"

"We could just not go back," Sophia offered.

I shook my head. "Sauron's under her control somehow. We either have to fight him now or later. There's no avoiding his teleporting."

"I agree," Rose said. "Malcador, is there any chance of us beating him whatsoever?"

I frowned, thinking. "If he uses his full power, almost definitely not. The entire planet would be destroyed. He would have to lose on purpose, or let us win, or..." Suddenly, it hit me. Of course!

"Medea," I said. She looked my way. "Actually, everyone. Come outside for a second. Sorry, Hilda, but you have to sit this one out."

She frowned, which may or not have been the Goddess frowning, but either way we left her to go outside.

"Okay," I whispered once we were all huddled together. "Here's the plan..."

I loaded us back to the fifth and final quicksave. The gang and I all appeared back in the middle of the temple, together and in the proper time once again. We brought Hilda with us from the past as well, indirectly saving her just like we had saved Jeffrey.

The Goddess was, somehow, already sitting on the bed. She looked at me with a pout.

"That was quite rude," she said, then waved her hand. I felt the ability to save and load leave me. "How could you exploit an innocent maiden so?"

"Look, I just wanted the Five back. Is that too much to ask for?"

The Goddess stood up from the bed, glowering. "Yes. It is. I have waited for you for millennia, and I am not about to share the perfect man with five other sluts. They've had their fun. It is my turn, now, and forevermore."

"Can't we negotiate? Maybe after a little sex?"

"No. Demon King, eliminate the sluts," Palutena said with a wave of her hand.

Sauron stepped forward, massive set of black plate armor clinking. "Sorry, dude, but an order's an order." He surveyed us, and his eyes crossed Jeffrey, who was wearing a face-covering helmet and a thick layer of armor. "Who's this?" he asked.

Palutena shook her head, sitting back on the bed. "No one who matters. Some fool. Kill him last; he is not one of the Five."

"Like, you got it." Sauron stepped forward, then moved so fast it was like he teleported. He was in front of Rose in an instant, and his mace would have cleaved right through her if I didn't use my ungodly high stats to warp over similarly fast and block him.

"Your foe is me."

"You know you can't beat me, dude."

"And you're not allowed to kill me. Maybe it'll be a fair fight." I flashed a grin.

It was hardly an impressive duel from an outside perspective, but living it was among the most terrifying experiences of my life. Each swing of the mace risked massive soul damage, and while they were just slow enough for me to dodge, it felt like dancing through heavy traffic on a highway. As for damaging him? Don't even think about it. There were no legendary swords on my quest, and my steel sword had no chance of cutting through his plate armor. Each blow I landed did no perceptible damage, and the one thrust I landed on his cheek just chipped off the tip of my blade.

Time stretched into infinity, with each second lasting forever, but even then it felt like we were fighting for days. Each blow of his was in slow motion, and mine, even slower motion. Sophia provided some arrow support, landing crucial blows that distracted him just long enough for me to evade his more deadly thrusts, and psychic support from Daiya proved essential for my survival. Through our powers combined the dance extended longer and longer, and by the time he spoke again and broke the spell, I didn't even know how much time had passed—just that it had been a fair bit.

"What happened, dude?" Sauron asked. "I'm back to only using, like, three percent of my power. I gave you some time to warm up but you're not gettin' better, dude."

I peered behind him, and grinned. "You know, Sauron, for all your infinite power, you have one weakness."

"And like, what's that, dude?"

"You always hold back. You hold back so much that using 3% of your power instead of 5% hardly feels like a difference, despite how unthinkably vast that gap is."

"What's your point?"

"I'm far, far weaker than I should be, and it's not even suspicious to you, since you're just so used to people being weaker than you."

Sauron furrowed his brows, the smirk fading from his face. Then it hit him. He whirled around, but it was too late.

"Stop, Demon King!" Palutena declared. She was naked now; her sashes pulled off and discarded, her decorative waistband wrestled off. Semen poured out of her holy pussy and hit the ground like a stalagmite of thick liquid. Her divine nipples were erect, and her healthy pink skin was flushed red with intense arousal. But most noticeable of all was the pulsating, pink womb tattoo emblazoned on her lower stomach. "Do not harm any of the Five!"

Sauron balked, and looked at the impossibly muscular, half-naked man beside her. Jeffrey? No. "Jeffrey" pulled off his full plate helm, the last of his clothing, and let it clatter to the side.

Malcador. It was me. He had fucked the Goddess into submission while Sauron was distracted; had he tried to that before, Sauron would have held him down while the Goddess branded into him submission.

Sauron looked back my way in disbelief. I shrugged, and let myself fade away into dust. I was just a Doppelganger that Medea had made, after all.