Trash-chan was suddenly on her back. Mere seconds ago, she had been standing while facing against Timekeeper, and now, without any movement, she laid on her back. Given the name Timekeeper and the events that I witnessed, it was not hard to guess what this opponent’s abilities were. The thing to ponder was what the extent of her abilities could be.

Timekeeper was standing in front of me with a sinister smile. I stumbled back and found my back press into a wall. I was pretty sure I wasn’t standing so close to it before which must mean that she moved me. I took a deep breath to regain my composure before speaking.

“You can stop time, it seems?”

“Oh good, you figured it out! Pachi Pachi,” she said while clapping her hands. She seemed somewhat impressed but played it off in an arrogant manner. Trash-chan let out a cry as she came in for another attack. Timekeeper rolled her eyes and didn’t bother to turn around as the Trash-tier waifu lunged at her. The time waifu simply put her hand up to one of the many clocks that hung on her clothes. In an instant, Trash-chan crashed into me from the side. We both fell to the ground.

“You two really ought to give up. You are outmatched right now.”

“I beat you once before!” Trash-chan said while pushing herself up off the ground and me.

“You simply got away; I would hardly call that a victory.”

Trash-chan would have to explain some things after this fight, but I would let it go for now. I stood up from the ground, and Trash-chan took a step closer to Timekeeper.

“I’m a bit stronger now,” Trash-chan said as some of Raphine’s arrows appeared around her. Three arrows materialized out of her recycling bin; each had a white tip. The arrows orbited around Trash-chan for a moment before stopping in front of her. The arrow points were aimed at Timekeeper as if they were about to be fired.

Then, the arrows disappeared from in front of Trash-chan. Timekeeper had not appeared to move, but she was holding all three in her hand. She laughed.

“You call this being stronger!” She could hardly control her laughter, at least, until the arrows went off.

Timekeeper’s whole arm was encased in a massive block of ice. She pulled for a moment in surprise before turning back to Trash-chan with a furious look on her face. Trash-chan did not hesitate. She was already flying through the air with a flying jump kick. Her foot landed squarely on Timekeeper, and the time waifu was thrown back against the hallway’s wall. The ice shattered instantly.

Timekeeper slowly pushed herself up from the ground with a smug look.

“Looking for this,” Trash-chan held up a clock. When did she get a hold of that?

“When!” Timekeeper was thinking the same thing I was.

“About 20 seconds in the future, or so,” Trash-chan said with a gleeful tone as she threw the clock back to me. I clumsily managed to catch it.

The clock was about the size of a hockey puck with a white face and golden case. It had two red hands that were ticking around in a counterclockwise fashion.

“What?” I muttered to myself.

“Main-kun, tap the face twice,” Trash-chan yelled to me as Timekeeper was reaching for a different clock. I did as she said.

“Nice shot, but don’t go thinking that it will last.” She reached for a spot on her clothes, but her fingers only touched the fabric. Timekeeper frantically began looking all over the ground.

This scene was familiar.

“Looking for something?” Trash-chan asked her. The time waifu looked at her with a glare.

“You took it and already disposed of it then?”

“You bet!” Trash-chan said while looking back at me and flashing a thumbs up. I gripped the clock and turned my hand so that it would not be immediately visible to Timekeeper. “Now it will be much easier to beat her, Main-kun!”

Trash-chan suddenly was thrown across the hallway and crashed into the wall. Timekeeper remained standing where she stood.

“Don’t go thinking it will be that easy. I still have plenty of other abilities to choose from.”

Trash-chan jumped back up to her feet and smiled.

“Your punches are weaker when you don’t throw them.”

Water began to circle Trash-chan as she slowly walked in front of Timekeeper. The time waifu was entirely focused on her opponent. I took the opportunity to look at the clock I was holding.

I had thought she only stopped time, but it seemed like she had multiple time abilities. That only made this fight more difficult. The clock I held rewound time when I tapped it. There was no telling how many times she must have used this during the fight already.

She also seemed to have an ability to freeze time and an ability to fast-forward time. Based on what I saw, her fast forward and rewind abilities must only jump a set number of seconds in time. I still had no idea what the limits on her stopping ability were.

I looked back to the fight. Trash-chan fired off several dihydrogen monoxide spears at Timekeeper, but the time waifu only seemed to teleport out of harm’s way before the water made an impact.

Timekeeper was suddenly behind Trash-chan, and she grabbed the trash-tier waifu by her shoulder. Trash-chan was thrown down the hallway. She hit on the ground and rolled several meters before coming to a stop.

Trash-chan was back to her feet in no time flat. She charged across the room and leaped into the air. As she soared over Timekeeper’s head, she snapped two newly created Trash-whips onto the waifu’s arms. Trash-chan landed smoothly on the ground and tugged on the whips to launch Timekeeper over her shoulders.

Right before the time waifu hit the ground, she disappeared and reappeared, standing next to Trash-chan. She had stopped time to get out of the Trash whips, but she still was shaky like she had received a blow.

The next moment Trash-chan collided against the wall as Timekeeper tapped on another clock. She tapped again, and Trash-chan was rolling down the hallway once more. The green-haired waifu pushed herself off the ground as Timekeeper suddenly teleported beside her. Trash-chan suddenly appeared, landing right in front of me as if she had been kicked down the hall.

In the next moment, Trash-chan hit the ceiling and fell to the ground. Timekeeper was underneath her and grabbed her before she made contact with the ground.

“It would be best to admit defeat.”

“Why?” The trash-tier waifu questioned. Which only led to her being thrown down the hallway once again.

I had to do something. At this rate, Trash-chan was going to keep taking blows without being able to do anything. She continued to take blows as I looked at the clock that made it my way.

I took a deep breath and double-tapped the clock face again.

Trash-chan suddenly appeared, landing right in front of me as if she had been kicked down the hall. She quickly got back up as Timekeeper was suddenly standing next to us. I had already seen this before and took a wild chance. I jumped out and grabbed Timekeeper from behind. She struggled as I wrapped my arms from under hers to her shoulders.

It would only be a matter of seconds before the shock of my interference wore off, and I was promptly thrown down the hall by this waifu, but seconds were all Trash-chan needed.

She lunged forward and snatched another one of Timekeeper’s clocks. The next thing I realized, I was thrown Timekeepers shoulders at Trash-chan with a loud “let go of me!” ringing in my ears.

Trash-chan caught me in the air and helped me fall so that I landed on my feet. It felt like the hallway was spinning, but at least I didn’t hit anything hard at the speed I was thrown, I guess.

Trash-chan smiled smugly at Timekeeper, who was now starting to back up.

“Haha, looks like I have the upper hand!”

“Don’t go thinking you have won!” The time waifu yelled, but her voice was laced with uncertainty.

Trash-chan began to tap the clock face she had taken furiously. As soon as she stopped the time, waifu in front of us was suddenly wrapped head to toe in Trash-whips as if they were a cocoon. The whips had her wrapped so that only from her nose and above were visible; it was likely she couldn’t talk in this state as well. Timekeeper fell on the ground and groaned loudly as she tried to squirm around.

“What?” I asked.

“This fast-forward thing is great! I thought I would need to restrain her, and there it is!”

“How does that work?”

“Don’t ask me.”

The clocks in our hands suddenly broke apart into their components and faded away. We looked at Timekeeper, who had stopped squirming to glare at us.

“Now you’re just a sore loser!” Trash-chan said to Timekeeper.

“Why didn’t she do that before….” I wondered aloud.

“She has to get rid of all her clocks at once when turning off her powers. It’s an all-or-nothing sort of thing. Now come on, let’s go!” Trash-chan quickly explained and began to run out of the hallway. I ran after her as soon as I could.

We rushed out of the door in the hallway. It opened up to a vast open room with multiple staircases and doors. The staircases were not just going up, but instead, they were on the walls and ceilings. It was as if several rooms had been turned on their sides and upside down before being mashed together.

At the top of one of the staircases, there was a waifu with two longhorns. She was at the top of her staircase, but it was like she was looking down at us from where she sat. Perhaps to her, it looked like we were standing on the wall without falling.

“Oh, guests… that is a bit unexpected.”

“Main-kun, get back! I bet she is dangerous!”

The waifu sighed. She got up and walked down her staircase, which to us looked like she was descending up to the ceiling. She rounded a bend and disappeared, only to emerge from a door on our level of the room. The waifu closed the door and opened it again.

“Just go through; Kalen’s plan is a bit much for me.”

Trash-chan looked like she was going to argue, but she took a breath and let it go. She just waved for me to follow as she began walking to the door.

“Are you sure we should go through? What if it is a trap?” I whispered.

“We will just deal with it then.

We walked through the door and emerged in a new large room. A large crowd looked in our direction as we entered. The entire arena crowd that was taken must have been standing in the space.

“Ah, there he is!” A familiar ghost girl flew over to us as she cried out.

“Big brother!” My sister was right after her. I ran up to meet her and hugged her.

“Is everyone here?” I asked.

“Tai-kun!” Osana-chan was the next to run up and hug me.

“Yes, they are!” the ghost waifu answered me.

“We were just planning our escape!” Osana-chan said.

How did they intend to escape? We were who knows how high in the sky.

“We are still working on the plan….” Kura added as if to answer my thoughts.

“I’m telling you, we all get on Estouls’ griffin-”

“Milady, I can’t carry everyone!”

“Well, not all at once. I figured we could take trips!”

Estouls, who had walked up to shoot down Osana-chan’s plan, just shook his head.

Arguments broke out between small groups of the large crowd. From a distance, they all seemed to merge into one loud mess of sound. A crash finally silenced everyone.

“Tai-kun! Emiko-chan! I caught up!” Amplifier, the source of the sound, burst through a newly created hole in the wall and pulled us in for a giant hug.

“Amplifier, ah let go!” I cried and fought to pull myself from the sound waifus grip. She finally loosened her grip before I was able to get out.

“How did you get up here?” My sister asked.

Amplifier didn’t answer. Instead, two more people walked up to us after having gone through the hole in the wall. Shin-san and, who I presume was, Akira. The Waifu Service agent just shook his head as he walked up to us.

“I told you not to go ahead, and do you know the mess you’ve made?”

“Akira!” the familiar voice of Marigold rang out as she emerged from the large group.

“Shin-kun!” Junkers was the next to find her way out of the crowd.

“You go on ahead Tai-san, Akira and I have already devised a plan to get everyone out of here,” Shin-san said.

I figured they would just take over defeating Kalen, but I suppose saving everyone would be the priority. The next thing I knew, I was being pulled along by Trash-chan.

We rushed down several hallways and through several doors until we reached a vast and very tall staircase. At the bottom were Jefischa and my Dad. She held a massive, curved sword up in the air like she was going to strike my Dad down.

The angel fluttered her wings and flashed a sinister smile when she saw us.

“Ah, son, you came all this way to save your old man?” My Dad had noticed Jefishca’s attention gets diverted and looked back as well.

“Dad! Don’t just turn away from a waifu with a giant sword!”

“Oh, don’t worry. She’d only give me a flesh wound with a blade-like that.”

“Trash-chan snapped her Trash-whip around my father and pulled him back to us before the giant sword crashed into the floor. The room seemed to shake from the impact for several minutes even after she pulled the blade up and rested it on her shoulder.

“You two did well to come this far, but Kalen is not exceptionally good at combat. I’m afraid you will not be able to go any further than here.”

The angel flapped her wings and took to the air. With another flap, she suddenly changed direction and was flying to us. Trash-chan grabbed my father and me and leaped out of the way as the sword crashed into the ground. Jefischa didn’t stop; however, she quickly changed direction and was chasing after us. Trash-chan threw my father and me to the side.

By the time we managed to get back up, Trash-chan had both her palms pressed firmly on either side of Jefischa’s giant sword. She held firmly as the angel tried to push the blade onto her opponent.

After a moment of struggle, Jefischa pulled her blade away. She burst around in the air in an unnatural flying pattern. Now that I got a good look, it almost looked like she was moving jaggedly through the air.

“Trash-chan, her flight patterns are unnatural. She won’t move as you would expect.”

“She has the ability called “angle,” my Dad said, “So many people have misspelled or made bad jokes between angel and angle that she can manifest the Memeability trait.”

That was my Dad for you, he might not be too knowledgeable on the names of waifus, but he was an expert on the technical side of them. Still, there was something I couldn’t let go of.

“You know, dad, you are one of those people contributing to the bad jokes.”

“The angle ability lets her move freely in, well angles,” my Dad continued to explain while paying no mind to my comment.”

“Thanks for the help, Jupiter!” Trash-chan yelled out as she avoided another blow.

She snapped her Trash-whip around the angel’s arm, but Jefischa snapped it with a twist of her wrist. Trash-chan gritted her teeth and shot several of Raphine’s arrows and Junker’s bullets. The angel simply zigzagged around in the air avoiding the copper shots and exploding elements.

“Wait a minute! Trash-chan called you by name!” I said while turning to my Dad.

“Of course?” my Dad said in a confused tone.

“She just calls me Main-kun!”

My Dad chuckled.

“I see like you are the main character. I see she was having fun.”

Somehow my Dad seemed to get what Trash-chan was going for. I decided to let it go and turn back to the fight at hand.

The angel came in low and swung her sword at Trash-chan. The trash-tier waifu jumped in the air and let the chunk of metal swipe underneath her. Before she landed, she snapped two trash-whips onto Jefischa’s shoulders and pulled herself close to the angel in mid-swing.

Trash-chan delivered a kick to her chest, and the angel was finally grounded. She quickly stood back up while Trash-chan landed several meters away.

“Very good, Trash-chan. You are a strong enough opponent.”

Trash-chan didn’t answer. She just charged at her opponent with Estouls’ lance in hand. Jefischa dropped her sword. It made a loud clang on the floor as she was suddenly in front of Trash-chan. She backhanded the Trash-tier waifu across the room.

Trash-chan landed on the stairs and slowly began to sit up to face her opponent. The angel waifu was slowly walking to Trash-chan with a smile painted on her face.

“I’m afraid this is it,” Jefischa said in a snide tone. Trash-chan grunted, and something appeared in her hand. She stood up. Then in the next instant, she was behind the angel. The smile on Jemisha’s face was quickly replaced with shock as Trash-chan hit her with a roundhouse kick. The angel flew into the air. Her wings burst out from either side of her, and she changed trajectory to go up in the air.

I looked closely at Trash-chan. She was holding a clock, one like Timekeeper had. I didn’t realize it before, but she had a clock at the beginning of the tournament. That would have to mean that she picked it up from a previous fight with the time waifu? Come to think of it; they said something that made that theory sound right during the earlier battle.

Trash-chan appeared to teleport into the air next to Jefischa. The angel was unable to react as the Trash-tier waifu delivered a punch. The angel was thrust into the floor. She crashed hard on the ground and was rendered unconscious.

Trash-chan was breathing heavily as the clock in her hand fell apart. She just let it fall and turned to us with a smile.

“Main-kun! Jupiter!” She ran up to us and gave a thumbs up.

“Good job, Trash-chan! I see you have been having fun!” my Dad said with a thumbs up. They gave each other dorky smiles.

“Dad…” I groaned without saying much more.

“Anyway, son, I’m glad you showed up right now. They were about to do away with me!”

“Oh no, so she was about to strike you down!” Trash-chan gasped.

“I think she was going to send me to some void dimension or something—equally unpleasant.”

“Dad…” I groaned again.

“Oh, you’re right. I have a lot of explaining to do to you and your sister. I’ll take the time to fill you both in more detail later, but the short version is Kalen took over Waifu Labs and made me do a lot of her dirty work. Fortunately, I was able to make contact with Trash-chan and set her loose before the draft to find you!”

“I have more questions, but I’ll leave them for now.” I turned to the staircase, there was only one opponent left, and she didn’t seem like she’d be powerful.

“Yes, though I’m sure those stairs are up to something, we must climb them to the top to finish this waifu war.”

“Dad, a joke right now?”

“Haha, just be glad I never lost my sense of humor after all these years, son.”

I shook my head and began my climb up the stairs. Trash-chan eagerly walked alongside me, and my Dad was somewhere behind.

“Hold up, you kids; I’m too old for stair climbing.”

“Dad, we’re only on the third step!”

I continued my ascent with the Trash-tier waifu at my side. My Dad continued to gripe the whole climb up.

At the top of the stairs, we approached a wide door. It took the three of us together to push it open and reveal the room beyond.

It was a long and narrow room that might be easy to mistake for a hallway. The walls had equally spaced windows lining them, and the ceiling appeared to be angled and come to a sharp corner at the top.

At the end of the room was a long window that opened the top half of the wall. It met the ceiling at its point and was divided into three panes. Under the window, the rest of the wall was taken up with large computer equipment. Kalen turned away from the computer and looked at us as we entered.

“Ah, you lot. I’m surprised you made it so far.”

How should I react in this situation? My first instinct was to yell something like, ‘you won’t get away with this like I was some sort of hero. That would be antithetical to how I felt right now. If anything, I had bitten off more than I could chew.

“Hello, as you can see, we have you outnumbered. Would you mind stopping?” Trash-chan asked. Kalen laughed.

“The computer is set to go off; no one can stop it. Right now, all you can do is entertain me!”

Trash-chan’s whips appeared in her hands.

“I will take care of this in no time!”

“Trash-chan, wait!” My Dad yelled as she began to run down the long room to her opponent. She leaped in the air and flew close into Kalen.

The next thing I knew, I was the one flying at Kalen. She caught me by the collar of my shirt and held me in the air.

“Hmm, Tai Juyo. I thought your father would have been the one to switch.”

I struggled to pull myself away, but her grip held firm.

“Kalen can switch a waifu and their partner!” my Dad yelled out.

“You could have said that sooner!” I shouted back. I put my hands over Kalen’s and tried to pull her fingers off me.

“Your struggle is pointless, Tai Juyo.”

She might have been right, but I came to fight, and I didn’t have any intention to back down now. Perhaps I was just stubborn.

“Hold on, Main-kun!”

Trash-chan charged across the room at Kalen once again. In response, I was thrown back to the door. I flew over Trash-chan’s head, and she came to a screeching halt out of her sprint. She turned my way with a concerned look on her face.

The next thing I knew, I was standing in the middle of the room, and Trash-chan went crashing through the doors. I heard the sound of her rolling down the staircase echo back into the room until she got too far away for us to hear. Was she out of this fight? That would not be good if that were the case.

“Damn, waifu made me break a nail,” Kalen spat as she pulled out a nail file. She rubbed it on the nail, but when it became clear that it was not improving, she gave up. “Do you have any idea how much money I spent on these nails! You’ve ruined my whole look!”

I didn’t bother replying to her comments and began my charge to her. I could stall until Trash-chan got back.

“Wait, son!” my Dad yelled to me, but I didn’t respond.

I reached Kalen in no time and stopped in front of her.

“So, you’ve come here, but what was it worth? There is nothing you can do with your power to stop me.”

She was right. I couldn’t overpower her. Nor did I have anything on me that would give me an advantage. All I really could do would be to get her talking and hope she wouldn’t notice when Trash-chan got back.

“Why do you want to destroy waifus?” Kalen smiled as I asked the question. I had gotten her attention, at least.

“Waifus are corrupting this world, dear Tai Juyo, but they are not my only goal. I wish to purify this whole world and create a new one in the image of perfection!”

“Perfection as imagined by you?” I asked to keep her talking.

“Someone has to do it. If I don’t, then we would keep going on into a dark path. I will bring light to this world!” She was starting to speak nonsense, so hopefully, I could keep this up.

“What if you’ve only mistaken what your after as light?” I asked without really knowing what it would mean.

“I have pondered on this for longer than you would think, Tai Juyo,” Kalen began to pace back and forth across the room as she spoke, “I have determined that I would be rejected for taking away the precious waifus, but ultimately they would see me as a hero.”

As Kalen continued her monologue, I turned back to see what was going on behind me. Trash-chan had recovered and was tiptoeing her way across the room to us. Kalen was preoccupied with her speech and overlooked the approaching waifu. I had to keep it that way.

“Fine, Kalen, I get it!” I said, interrupting her, “How exactly does that computer destroy waifus anyway?” I pointed to the computer while making sure my gesture was in Kalen’s field of vision. She happily turned to the computer.

“This beautiful machine will rewrite the waifus very core! Their tiers and abilities will be stripped away, and they will be abandoned by those they once partnered with!”

“I thought you were destroying them?”

“It is simple to destroy the bodies, but more waifus would be made afterward. I needed to make sure that they were destroyed in the light of society. All waifus would be made useless, and people would turn away from them!” she flailed her arms dramatically in the air as she spoke.

“I… think you’re underestimating how much people lover waifus.”

“We will soon see who is right, Tai Juyo!” Kalen finally turned to me. Her eyes grew wide with shock as Trash-chan made a final burst to her. Kalen stumbled back but was snagged in Trash whips. Her arms and legs were bound, and she fell to the floor.

“We got her Main-kun!”

“You may have, but it is a hollow victory. You won’t be able to stop the computer,” Kalen sneered. Trash-chan wrapped a whip over Kalen’s mouth to quiet her, and we turned to the computer.

“Dad, do you have any ideas how to stop this thing,” I yelled down the room. My father slowly sprinted to us. He stopped to catch his breath when he reached the end of the room before speaking.

“Sorry, son, this computer was built by a genius to be unstoppable.”

I got the feeling he wanted me to ask what genius built it, but I had a feeling I already knew the answer he would give.

“Is there anything we could do?” Trash-chan asked.

“Hmm, well, we could rewrite the program in it to change the effect. Right now, it uses a pink-haired useless waifu as the base, but if we changed the base waifu with another one close by….”

My Dad and I turned to Trash-chan. Then we looked back at each other.

“Is all waifus losing their abilities such a bad thing?” I asked.

“I fear what they would get with Trash-chan as a base,” my father said.

“Hey, you two!” Trash-chan yelled back but didn’t add anything more to refute us.

My Dad shrugged and began to walk up to the computer. He tapped on some keys and waved for Trash-chan to come close. In a matter of moments, she had several sensors glued stuck onto her face with adhesive strips.

“This isn’t going to hurt, is it?” I asked my Dad.

“Of course not, I won’t feel anything!” my Dad said with a sly smile that indicated he was joking.

He tapped on some keys for a moment and sighed.

“Is everything okay?” I asked.

“I’ve overwritten Kalen’s command, but there may be some unexpected consequences....”

We looked at Trash-chan, who just smiled. I shrugged.

“If that’s all that can be done,” I said.

“I suppose that is what we will do,” my Dad said as he pressed the enter key.

A countdown popped up on the screen with several seconds on the timer.

“Well, that’s it,” I said as the countdown hit zero.

I was expecting some visual effect or sound, but nothing of the sort happened. Instead, we were left to stand in silence awkwardly. It wasn’t too long after when Waifu Service agents burst through the door. They came in looking like they were ready for a fight but relaxed once they saw that Kalen was restrained.

We reunited with everyone back on the ground. I let out a sigh; I could finally relax. We had won this vital waifu war.

*****

In the end, Trash-chan continued to stick around me. My Dad became the new head of the waifu labs and found a new home for my sister and me to come live in with him. We had a lot of lost time to catch up on, or at least that’s what my sister told me.

Kura and Amplifier ended up joining us at the new place, and our three waifus quickly rose in the ranks of the waifu wars. Along with them, my friends and their waifus also grew in the ranks.

In the end, I suppose Trash-chan showing up wasn’t a bad thing. Though, I will stubbornly never admit that to her.