Chapter 16:

　　Riko fell like a house of cards. We held hands on the beach at night and I started kissing her. Soon enough she was warming to my ministrations and then she was climbing all over me. Cure Miracle was her other half, so I guess all it took was a little push and she became putty in my hands.

　　Cure White, Cure Magical and Cure Egret all had to hold hands with their special someone to transform. They'd all gone through world ending disasters, personal disasters, triumphs and character defining moments together. If they had ever been paired with a boy, this would have been the natural result. Cute-sama help us if that deep a history between a boy and a girl still wasn't enough to merit marriage. Well, Cute-sama had already helped me so. . .

　　When I asked Nico out on a date at the breakfast table, she held up both her hands with her pinkies and pointers out. "Pass!"

　　"I can't do that, Nico. You're literally the last one out." I explained to her.

　　"Nico Nico nii." She said helplessly.

　　"The next time I could ask you out on a date is 100 days from now. Do you want that?" I asked.

　　"What's 100 days in a thousand years?" Nico asked.

　　"You're going to become more and more invisible." I warned her. "If I don't dote on you, if you don't have any children who need you, a thousand years will be a long, long time."

　　"Why does an idol have to sleep with just one of her fans?" Nico wailed.

　　"Because you were too cute so I had to have you." I explained patiently. "Especially when you were Center, dancing on the beach in that stunning swimsuit, singing 'Natsuiro Egao de 1, 2, Jump!'. You were jumping up and down in a tiny bikini with fireworks going overhead, with red eyes and long black twintails, with the voice of a siren that can still the seas, and Cute-sama said "I'll grant you any one wish." Who do you think I was going to wish for?"

　　"I've become too beautiful. Even living is a sin." Nico sighed and clunked her head straight down onto the table.

　　"Now of course I can just give up here and sleep with Himeno tonight instead. But you're all alone and we're all over here. I want everyone happy together, everyone equally loved, a 100 waifu harem. My wish was for 100. Nico, you're #100. It all falls apart here if you say no. And if none of the attention I've given you so far was enough, nothing more I do will be of any use either. It's the end of the dream." I stood up from the table and started to walk away.

　　A chair clattered behind me and I felt a tug on the back of my shirt. I twisted my head to see who was behind me and it was Nico, her face still pointed towards the floor.

　　I turned around and held her hand between mine. "Let's go to the beach."

　　She nodded silently and we left the crowd of girls at breakfast together.

　　We watched the sun rise all the way up and then set all the way down together, as Nico gathered her courage on a towel and prepared her heart. I hadn't wanted this to be so hard on her. I hadn't realized how lonely Nico had been in her origin, such that nothing Cute-sama could do would help. I had just naturally considered her irresistibly beautiful and added her to the list. And even now, rather than compromise with an easier girl, I just wanted to make love to the beautiful, wonderful Nico in front of me. I didn't want to trade her for anyone, even the Nico who couldn't care less about me.

　　"I'm last in line." Nico eventually said, as we listened to the waves and the seagulls' cries. "Am I last in your heart?"

　　"That would be Kirino. I love a lot of things about her, but I can never forgive her for dumping me even after agreeing to marry me. I try to forget about it and only remember the good times together, but it continuously irritates me. Like sand in an oyster, I'm always reminded that she can't be trusted, her love isn't enough, in the end it will all come to nothing." I answered.

　　"So am I 2nd to last?" Nico asked.

　　"That's probably Mikoto. She's always getting angry and trying to fry me with lightning out of the blue. It's hard to tell if there's any dere moments at all, it's just tsun tsun tsun, deadly attack, deadly attack, deadly attack. Is she even a girl under all that emotional armor?" I complained.

　　Nico giggled, feeling better. "If it's going to be a 100 waifu harem, I guess I'd better not repeat anything you said here."

　　"You're an important person to me. Isn't there a phrase -- save the best for last?" I asked.

　　"You already said Wendy was your favorite." Nico gave me a deadpan look.

　　"There's still an awful lot of room in my heart for non-Wendy. Like, if being my favorite constitutes all the visible matter in the galaxy, then it looks like Wendy's everywhere. But then it turns out all the visible matter in the galaxy is just 2% of the world's energy. After that is dark matter, which no one can sense anywhere, but it has to be there because otherwise why does the visible matter clump the way it does? And then it turns out that beyond that is an even greater force, dark energy, that compels the universe to expand outward, even though all the dark matter wants to fall back inwards. Wendy is a shining star, but you Nico are the dark energy that can rip that star apart." I enthused.

　　"You want me to kill Wendy?" Nico's eyes looked even deader.

　　"It's just a metaphor." I said.

　　"I know. You're saying even Wendy can't encompass all that is good in this world, and that's where people like me fill in the gaps. She's overly honest and obedient and kind, and I'm overly dishonest and disobedient and manipulative. So Wendy and I will never overlap. You can love each of us for completely different reasons." Nico said.

　　"I guess I should have said that from the start." I admired my muse.

　　"If Cute-sama hadn't made me feel completely fine with sharing, I'm pretty sure your talk of dark energy would have sunk you into a black hole right there." Nico giggled.

　　"So you'll do it?" I asked pinefully.

　　"If we make love. If we start a family. I think eventually I'll fall in love naturally, before I even know it. But if we don't do anything together, nothing will change. I'm a natural coward. I don't know what to do or how to feel about any of this. But you're right. The longer I wait, the more invisible I'll become, until I'm no longer even a resident of Paradise. I may as well wander off into the woods and spear fish in a leopard bikini."

　　Nico picked up my hand and placed it directly on her left breast situated over her heart, gazing tremulously into my eyes. "Everyone else looks so happy. I want to be happy too."

　　When we got back into town late at night we walked through the darkened halls of the mansion, my hand tugging hers along towards the big bed of my master bedroom we could sleep together embraced in.

　　Upon entering the room we were ambushed with light summoned from Aisia's wand. Everyone was together, waiting. It looked like they had been eating popcorn and watching a movie together on the big screen that filled one of my walls. But when we'd gotten close and triggered Himeno's telepathic sensor they'd all huddled together and waited silently in anticipation.

　　"Doki doki, waku waku." Aisia looked at us with expectant eyes.

　　"I'm wife #100." Nico gave in and reported to the crowd.

　　All the girls clapped in thunderous approval. "Nico! Nico! Nico!" The shout rose up spontaneously -- or was Himeno coordinating that part too?

　　"Everyone." Nico started to tear up.

　　"100! 100! 100!" The cheer crested even louder, even more enthused.

　　100 waifus in another world. I looked over their endlessly varied but eternally beautiful faces and was wonderstruck at the happiness I'd seized into my hands.

　　I walked through the crowd with Nico and everyone touched her shoulders, her waist, her back, her arms in blessing.

　　"Okay, okay, everyone out." I shouted. "This is the consummation of our wedding night. I want to sleep with my bride."

　　"I want to sleep with everyone." Nico contradicted me, leaping onto the bed and waving at her adoring crowd.

　　"My bed is big, but not that big." I rejoined.

　　Sakura Kinomoto began to chant: "O key that burns with the power of dreams, reveal your true nature before me, Release!" After spinning her staff around a few times with amazing cheerleading baton derived skills, she planted it on the floor and gave me a triumphant look. "I can make us all Little enough to fit."

　　"We're all one big happy family now, all equal, right?" Nico demanded.

　　Technically HaruHaru hadn't done anything yet but I guess I should go with the flow right here.

　　And so the most massive platonic orgy of all time settled in together under a strange new set of small-object physics, with Nico's head in the crook of my shoulder and her left leg draped over mine. Wish fulfillment had never felt better.

* * *

　　I knocked on Cure Flora's door.

　　"Come in." Haruka Haruno said.

　　"You're the only one left." I said with an irrepressible grin on my face.

　　"Congratulations." Haruka sighed. "I had hoped the others would put up a little more resistance. Now the wolf is already at my door."

　　"Do you want some ice cream?" I offered.

　　"So you can lick it off me?" She asked.

　　"Well. . .now that you mention it. . ." I blushed.

　　"You like me better as Cure Flora, right?" Haruka asked, standing up from her chair and closing the door behind me, twisting the lock. "If I recall correctly, you 'fell in love with my pink-striped hair'. If only I hadn't dyed my hair like a delinquent, I wouldn't be here." Haruka sighed again.

　　"I actually have a picture of the normal you on my wall too, right next to your transformed state." I said.

　　"But you prefer Cure Flora." She repeated herself.

　　"I prefer Cure Flora." I admitted, and she grinned triumphantly.

　　"Is it worth the risk? Once I transform I can kill you in five seconds flat." She smiled invitingly.

　　"It's worth it. Your pink stripe is worth dying for!" I confessed.

　　"All right then. Watch closely, because you won't get to touch me again for 100 days. Your one and only multi-hued wife, in all her naked glory, for the first time in her lifetime, stands before you." Haruka Haruno pulled out her dress key and plunged it into the parfum, turning it decisively as her blue eyes locked with mine. Then she coquettishly rose her right shoulder and tilted her head against it with a knowing smile, her eyes still tracking to mine, holding her parfum outstretched in front of her.

　　"The Princess of flowers blooming in full glory -- Cure Flora!" She struck a dashing pose.

　　She really was in full glory. My heart raced as she took my hand and led me to her pink sheeted, pink pillowed bed.

　　100.