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Time to do various little scenes and endings to catch up to where this walkthrough says I need to be, because apparently it is a MAZE OF DEPENDENCIES and VERY EASY TO SCREW UP.
After that is Kagiha's route, apparently. Which I am actually pretty curious to see, now!
Just because I find it amusing, I am restarting from my very earliest save, right at the start of the game. And sure enough, I can access the whole flowchart!
Ok! In Chapter 3, choosing "I want to solve the mystery of this manor". Beniyuri goes to comfort poor sad Hikage who just found out that Yamato is his brother after he turned into a monster.
Time to watch Hikage pretend to be a person!
Beniyuri: Maybe I can put my memory card in your phone so you can have a copy of the photo of Yamato and you as kids!
Hikage, an evil magician from the 19th century: Huh?
Man, he's still endearing. I really liked you, Hikage :( The voice actor's really good, he goes from emotionally repressed and serious but decent to cackling supervillain very convincingly. But I can only sometimes hear faint hints of that supervillain right now.
Hikage: I forgot my own brother. What kind of cold hearted person does that make me?
Beniyuri: If that's really how you feel, then you're not cold hearted at all.
"IF" INDEED
"Wow, Hikage is so strong, he must be miserable right now but he's still keeping it all inside and being as pragmatic as ever".
Beniyuri: I want to figure out how to support you better.
Hikage: Look after yourself! You're always so reckless. After all, you came into a man's room alone at night.
HA. I usually hate this trope, but it's fine from a "good" dude who's secretly a villain. As long as he doesn't get too creepy.
But no he just launches into a long winded lecture. Beniyuri is just happy to see him more himself.
Beniyuri: I wonder what this master really wants, and what he's like...
Hikage: Don't ask me, never met him ;)
And now two new Chapter 3 scenes have unlocked!
Supporter of Weirdos:
And of course it's a Kazuya scene, because they want us to think that Hikage=Kazuya. This ambiguity is why I keep to the real names in flashbacks, I hope it's not too confusing!
Kazuya/Monshiro is different to other kids, and while they don't bully him, they avoid him. Ai/Beniyuri thinks he might be lonely, and worries about him.
She finds him in the park drawing elaborate pictures of machines and buildings. This is starting to feel like a deliberately autistic character, not sure how I feel about that given all the Weird Sick Boy tropes. But hey, he's a LI and very sympathetic.
Ai asks him to draw her favourite cat character based on a button she's wearing and when he does tells him he's great and should become an artist.
Boy1: OMG is Kazuya playing with a GIRL? What a weirdo!
Boy2: Maybe he's possessed by a ghost, that's why he's so invisible.
Me, having been a weird arty kid who got called a ghost in school: >:(
Boy1: Takuya is so much cooler, are they really related?
Me, having been a weird unsporty kid with cooler sporty siblings: *trying not to hate Yamato*
Ai: HEY!!
Kazuya: It's not worth worrying about. It happens all the time.
Ai: Do you want to play volleyball with me and my friends?
Kazuya: I'm no good at sports :(
Ai, you mean well, but those are FEMALE friends, if the other boys see him it will NOT HELP WITH THE TEASING. Though maybe it would be worth it, the weird (and as it turned out, gay) boy in my class used to play with us and seemed to think it was better than being alone.
But he refuses, saying he doesn't want to be a bother. So she says tomorrow she'll sit and draw with him, ands he gives her a tiny smile. MY HEART.
Turf War:
Ai/Beniyuri and Takuya/Yamato butt heads over what game to play, with Kazuya loyally following Takuya and Aki and Natsuki following Ai. Natsuki brokers a compromise, but then organises the others to work together against Takuya when he's "it" in a sort of hide and seek game, so that Ai wins and defeats Takuya. That or they all decide to sacrifice themselves for her independently, that would also be entirely in character. Takuya is grumpy about losing but doesn't entirely realise he's being played.
And now, a bad end! Namely, picking up the Ominous Book from Chapter 4.
BUD ENDING (haha):
Beniyuri wants to put the book down, but finds herself flipping through the pages against her will. It's written in a foreign language but there are anatomical diagrams and magical symbols.
It is as if a well opens in the book. She is sucked into the Abyss.
(Hikage is in the room while all this is happening, I wonder if he has anything to do with it or later is like OH NO MY SHARD ;_;)
She calls out for Hikage, and tries to find her way, but all she encounters is empty blackness. She begins to run, calling out everyone's names, begging not to be left alone.
She becomes a puppet, unable to do anything but run. With what little thought she has left she wonders: Am I running towards Heaven? Or Hell? Or have I not taken a single step?
She runs forever into the eternal darkness.
THE END
Uuuuurgh the laptop and windows machine I stream the game from are refusing to talk to each other so now I am in the COLD KITCHEN instead of my WARM COMFY BED.
Real World Ending:
This has a HEAP of CGs attached, yet only one choice? I AM CURIOUS.
So! Back to Chapter 3, with the choice that I first took as "Can Yamato really not come back" and next as "I want to solve the mystery of this manor". And now: "Why did I come here?" which I'm not sure was there before.
And then I just sat and played it all and I'm not crying you're crying.
Beniyuri asks herself why she's here. Is this situation even real? She finds herself pulled into sleep, into thoughts of somewhere more familiar...
Ai/Beniyuri is woken by the beeping of her phone. It's Aki/Karasuba, saying she's late for school.
I was very curious to see how this "real world" ending played out: "It was all a dream"? "It seems like it was all a dream but things get increasingly strange"? "It starts out happy but you realise they're actually all dying"?? Something more ambiguous?
Aki is in a school uniform, his loose yellow jacket reminiscent of the loose yellow kimono he wears in the other world. He calls Ai "Minato" (her surname) or "Minato-senpai", because he's the year below: they hadn't seen each other in ten years, but then he showed up at as a first year at her highschool's opening ceremony.
So now I know for sure that Ai/Beniyuri is 17 and Aki/Karasuba is 16. Him being a year younger helps explain why he was so small and shy as a kid. I had a moment of "I wonder what Natsuki/Kagiha is doing, has he graduated?" then remembered he's dead :( Which he is, Beniyuri generally talks around what happened in her internal narration, but it clearly played out the same way.
Aki's changed from the sickly introvert she remembers. And sure enough the game has sold me on Aki: his abrasive personality is much more sympathetic when you realise it's a former shy, bullied kid trying to never feel that weak again. And he's much less obnoxious here, if still flirtatious.
He walks her to school every day, claiming to not know the way, and even explicitly asks her out, but she avoids giving an answer and convinces herself he's joking.
They bump into an old man (HIKAGE?? He has no sprite and a quavering Old Man Voice so who knows) selling mourning jewellery. Ai admires a butterfly hairpin, so Aki buys it for her, and asks her out again.
She still keeps avoiding answering, and he accuses her of still being hung up on Natsuki, and not wanting to admit that he's gone. Which is true. Ai still blames herself for what happened, and was so traumatised from the loss of all her friends that she's never let herself get close to anyone again, let alone considered a relationship.
Aki: Do you know what middle school I went to? What clubs I did? You never ask. You still see me as I was ten years ago. See me as I am now.
He never points this out (at least not in the English translation) but while his full name is Akira she still calls him Aki-chan, which afaict is fine for a six year old boy but pretty infantilising for a 16 year old one.
She bumps into Takuya/Yamato, who now goes to a nearby elite highschool. The next time Aki asks her to spend time alone, she invites Takuya as well, and they're both quite displeased, and spend the whole day bickering, but the three of them still have fun. Although he can still be mean to Aki, Takuya is much more friendly and decent than he was as a kid, or when he arrived in the other world.
Takuya has to leave early. Ai refuses to let Aki walk her home. She stares at her phone, and ends up ringing Takuya and asking how Kazuya is doing (OH NO) He's awkwardly silent, then says she can see him for herself.
Aki: He's frowning...is he having a bad dream?
Takuya: For ten years? I hope not. He always looks like that, it would be easier if he looked more peaceful.
It becomes clear that Takuya has built his life around looking after Kazuya, giving up on his dreams of becoming a professional soccer player, or even having any hobbies at all.
He asks to walk her home, and she says yes: he's as trapped in the past as her, and so safe.
They talk trivialities. She disapprovingly mentions that her little sister has a boyfriend she spends all her time talking to.
Ai: Isn't she too young for that?
Takuya: Ha, you really are sisters. Don't you remember how you kept telling everyone you were going to marry Natsuki?
They both freeze. He brought up the past they've both being trying so hard to forget. He says it's probably for the best that he moved away: otherwise all they'd have done is kept hurting each other. His parents still can't bear to look at Kazuya.
Ai: I know an apology doesn't fix anything, but I'm so sorry I encouraged everyone to go to that manor. It's all my fault.
Takuya: What? None of this is your fault, Ai! I encouraged everyone too! And I...it's all my fault.
They discuss it some more, and she cries, a small part of her able to move on from the stagnant self hatred she's been stewing in for ten years. He comforts her, but says he's a little glad to know she hasn't moved on either.
And then Aki shows up.
Aki: So you're afraid to be alone with me, but you've been secretly spending time with him?
At first I thought he was just romantically jealous. But it becomes clear that he heard a lot of what they said, and is angry at both of them for not moving on, and not wanting to. And for not still being the cool, confident, older kids he wanted to be when he was little.
Aki: You're weaker than I was as a bullied little kid! You had everything I wanted, and you left it behind in that lake.
He demands they come with him back to the lake, to put the past behind them. Ai doesn't think it's that simple, but says yes, feeling like if she says no she'll lose him forever.
And belatedly I realise that this isn't an ending. It's a flashback.
Aki holds the butterfly clip in her hand along with the glass shard from the manor. They both shine with the same iridescent light. Her past and her future, crushed tightly together in her hand. She thinks about how much she loved Natsuki, and the future he might have had.
They get on the bus and...it crashes. As in, the game. It just sat there with no dialogue and a loop of bus sounds and it was VERY DISQUIETING until I got it to work again.
The game started back up and the bus sounds changed to include falling rain.
The three of them sit as far apart as possible. Ai is exhausted, having stayed up all night trying to get her thoughts in order. She drifts off as they near the lake.
Takuya: I'm going to get off at the next stop and go back. This is pointless.
I don't remember exactly what Aki said but he gets very angry, and it becomes clear that he knows exactly what Takuya did.
Aki: You were always jealous of Kazuya. You should have died instead of him!
Takuya: I know! Do you think I wouldn't do that if I could?! And I'm sure Kaz feels the same way!
;_;
Nooo he still loves you ;_;
And then their argument is interrupted as the bus starts veering off the road. They cry out in fear and then...
All we see is deep water.
Ai knows why she's here now.
This is her just punishment.
Can she move on?
Or will she stay trapped in the past?
THE END
Objectively I know that "being kind of dickish at seven" is very far down the list of awful things LIs I like have done but Takuya's bullying hits rather close to home for me as someone who very much resembled Aki and Kazuya as a child. Yet he doesn't deserve to hate himself so much for it now. Meanwhile, Kagiha is the worst as an adult but he had the most innocent, tragic backstory. I have all these complex feelings about the kids they were and the teens they became. And they're still kinda kids from my older adult POV, so I have a lot of layered THESE POOR KIDS feelings ;_;
And no wonder Aki/Karasuba resents Takuya/Yamato.
I am very curious about Kagiha: he doesn't seem to have remained static for ten years (and I would hope not, I don't want to play a romance between a 17 year old and an 8 year old, no matter how mature he was for his age!) but also doesn't seem to have had to lived the same desperate life as Monshiro. And since he and Beniyuri are canonically in love, it feels right to explore that relationship first, even if it's not one I ship super hard. It doesn't feel like it will get TOO yandere, but we'll see...
Time to do various little scenes and endings to catch up to where this walkthrough says I need to be, because apparently it is a MAZE OF DEPENDENCIES and VERY EASY TO SCREW UP.
After that is Kagiha's route, apparently. Which I am actually pretty curious to see, now!
Just because I find it amusing, I am restarting from my very earliest save, right at the start of the game. And sure enough, I can access the whole flowchart!
Ok! In Chapter 3, choosing "I want to solve the mystery of this manor". Beniyuri goes to comfort poor sad Hikage who just found out that Yamato is his brother after he turned into a monster.
Time to watch Hikage pretend to be a person!
Beniyuri: Maybe I can put my memory card in your phone so you can have a copy of the photo of Yamato and you as kids!
Hikage, an evil magician from the 19th century: Huh?
Man, he's still endearing. I really liked you, Hikage :( The voice actor's really good, he goes from emotionally repressed and serious but decent to cackling supervillain very convincingly. But I can only sometimes hear faint hints of that supervillain right now.
Hikage: I forgot my own brother. What kind of cold hearted person does that make me?
Beniyuri: If that's really how you feel, then you're not cold hearted at all.
"IF" INDEED
"Wow, Hikage is so strong, he must be miserable right now but he's still keeping it all inside and being as pragmatic as ever".
Beniyuri: I want to figure out how to support you better.
Hikage: Look after yourself! You're always so reckless. After all, you came into a man's room alone at night.
HA. I usually hate this trope, but it's fine from a "good" dude who's secretly a villain. As long as he doesn't get too creepy.
But no he just launches into a long winded lecture. Beniyuri is just happy to see him more himself.
Beniyuri: I wonder what this master really wants, and what he's like...
Hikage: Don't ask me, never met him ;)
And now two new Chapter 3 scenes have unlocked!
Supporter of Weirdos:
And of course it's a Kazuya scene, because they want us to think that Hikage=Kazuya. This ambiguity is why I keep to the real names in flashbacks, I hope it's not too confusing!
Kazuya/Monshiro is different to other kids, and while they don't bully him, they avoid him. Ai/Beniyuri thinks he might be lonely, and worries about him.
She finds him in the park drawing elaborate pictures of machines and buildings. This is starting to feel like a deliberately autistic character, not sure how I feel about that given all the Weird Sick Boy tropes. But hey, he's a LI and very sympathetic.
Ai asks him to draw her favourite cat character based on a button she's wearing and when he does tells him he's great and should become an artist.
Boy1: OMG is Kazuya playing with a GIRL? What a weirdo!
Boy2: Maybe he's possessed by a ghost, that's why he's so invisible.
Me, having been a weird arty kid who got called a ghost in school: >:(
Boy1: Takuya is so much cooler, are they really related?
Me, having been a weird unsporty kid with cooler sporty siblings: *trying not to hate Yamato*
Ai: HEY!!
Kazuya: It's not worth worrying about. It happens all the time.
Ai: Do you want to play volleyball with me and my friends?
Kazuya: I'm no good at sports :(
Ai, you mean well, but those are FEMALE friends, if the other boys see him it will NOT HELP WITH THE TEASING. Though maybe it would be worth it, the weird (and as it turned out, gay) boy in my class used to play with us and seemed to think it was better than being alone.
But he refuses, saying he doesn't want to be a bother. So she says tomorrow she'll sit and draw with him, ands he gives her a tiny smile. MY HEART.
Turf War:
Ai/Beniyuri and Takuya/Yamato butt heads over what game to play, with Kazuya loyally following Takuya and Aki and Natsuki following Ai. Natsuki brokers a compromise, but then organises the others to work together against Takuya when he's "it" in a sort of hide and seek game, so that Ai wins and defeats Takuya. That or they all decide to sacrifice themselves for her independently, that would also be entirely in character. Takuya is grumpy about losing but doesn't entirely realise he's being played.
And now, a bad end! Namely, picking up the Ominous Book from Chapter 4.
BUD ENDING (haha):
Beniyuri wants to put the book down, but finds herself flipping through the pages against her will. It's written in a foreign language but there are anatomical diagrams and magical symbols.
It is as if a well opens in the book. She is sucked into the Abyss.
(Hikage is in the room while all this is happening, I wonder if he has anything to do with it or later is like OH NO MY SHARD ;_;)
She calls out for Hikage, and tries to find her way, but all she encounters is empty blackness. She begins to run, calling out everyone's names, begging not to be left alone.
She becomes a puppet, unable to do anything but run. With what little thought she has left she wonders: Am I running towards Heaven? Or Hell? Or have I not taken a single step?
She runs forever into the eternal darkness.
THE END
Uuuuurgh the laptop and windows machine I stream the game from are refusing to talk to each other so now I am in the COLD KITCHEN instead of my WARM COMFY BED.
Real World Ending:
This has a HEAP of CGs attached, yet only one choice? I AM CURIOUS.
So! Back to Chapter 3, with the choice that I first took as "Can Yamato really not come back" and next as "I want to solve the mystery of this manor". And now: "Why did I come here?" which I'm not sure was there before.
And then I just sat and played it all and I'm not crying you're crying.
Beniyuri asks herself why she's here. Is this situation even real? She finds herself pulled into sleep, into thoughts of somewhere more familiar...
Ai/Beniyuri is woken by the beeping of her phone. It's Aki/Karasuba, saying she's late for school.
I was very curious to see how this "real world" ending played out: "It was all a dream"? "It seems like it was all a dream but things get increasingly strange"? "It starts out happy but you realise they're actually all dying"?? Something more ambiguous?
Aki is in a school uniform, his loose yellow jacket reminiscent of the loose yellow kimono he wears in the other world. He calls Ai "Minato" (her surname) or "Minato-senpai", because he's the year below: they hadn't seen each other in ten years, but then he showed up at as a first year at her highschool's opening ceremony.
So now I know for sure that Ai/Beniyuri is 17 and Aki/Karasuba is 16. Him being a year younger helps explain why he was so small and shy as a kid. I had a moment of "I wonder what Natsuki/Kagiha is doing, has he graduated?" then remembered he's dead :( Which he is, Beniyuri generally talks around what happened in her internal narration, but it clearly played out the same way.
Aki's changed from the sickly introvert she remembers. And sure enough the game has sold me on Aki: his abrasive personality is much more sympathetic when you realise it's a former shy, bullied kid trying to never feel that weak again. And he's much less obnoxious here, if still flirtatious.
He walks her to school every day, claiming to not know the way, and even explicitly asks her out, but she avoids giving an answer and convinces herself he's joking.
They bump into an old man (HIKAGE?? He has no sprite and a quavering Old Man Voice so who knows) selling mourning jewellery. Ai admires a butterfly hairpin, so Aki buys it for her, and asks her out again.
She still keeps avoiding answering, and he accuses her of still being hung up on Natsuki, and not wanting to admit that he's gone. Which is true. Ai still blames herself for what happened, and was so traumatised from the loss of all her friends that she's never let herself get close to anyone again, let alone considered a relationship.
Aki: Do you know what middle school I went to? What clubs I did? You never ask. You still see me as I was ten years ago. See me as I am now.
He never points this out (at least not in the English translation) but while his full name is Akira she still calls him Aki-chan, which afaict is fine for a six year old boy but pretty infantilising for a 16 year old one.
She bumps into Takuya/Yamato, who now goes to a nearby elite highschool. The next time Aki asks her to spend time alone, she invites Takuya as well, and they're both quite displeased, and spend the whole day bickering, but the three of them still have fun. Although he can still be mean to Aki, Takuya is much more friendly and decent than he was as a kid, or when he arrived in the other world.
Takuya has to leave early. Ai refuses to let Aki walk her home. She stares at her phone, and ends up ringing Takuya and asking how Kazuya is doing (OH NO) He's awkwardly silent, then says she can see him for herself.
Aki: He's frowning...is he having a bad dream?
Takuya: For ten years? I hope not. He always looks like that, it would be easier if he looked more peaceful.
It becomes clear that Takuya has built his life around looking after Kazuya, giving up on his dreams of becoming a professional soccer player, or even having any hobbies at all.
He asks to walk her home, and she says yes: he's as trapped in the past as her, and so safe.
They talk trivialities. She disapprovingly mentions that her little sister has a boyfriend she spends all her time talking to.
Ai: Isn't she too young for that?
Takuya: Ha, you really are sisters. Don't you remember how you kept telling everyone you were going to marry Natsuki?
They both freeze. He brought up the past they've both being trying so hard to forget. He says it's probably for the best that he moved away: otherwise all they'd have done is kept hurting each other. His parents still can't bear to look at Kazuya.
Ai: I know an apology doesn't fix anything, but I'm so sorry I encouraged everyone to go to that manor. It's all my fault.
Takuya: What? None of this is your fault, Ai! I encouraged everyone too! And I...it's all my fault.
They discuss it some more, and she cries, a small part of her able to move on from the stagnant self hatred she's been stewing in for ten years. He comforts her, but says he's a little glad to know she hasn't moved on either.
And then Aki shows up.
Aki: So you're afraid to be alone with me, but you've been secretly spending time with him?
At first I thought he was just romantically jealous. But it becomes clear that he heard a lot of what they said, and is angry at both of them for not moving on, and not wanting to. And for not still being the cool, confident, older kids he wanted to be when he was little.
Aki: You're weaker than I was as a bullied little kid! You had everything I wanted, and you left it behind in that lake.
He demands they come with him back to the lake, to put the past behind them. Ai doesn't think it's that simple, but says yes, feeling like if she says no she'll lose him forever.
And belatedly I realise that this isn't an ending. It's a flashback.
Aki holds the butterfly clip in her hand along with the glass shard from the manor. They both shine with the same iridescent light. Her past and her future, crushed tightly together in her hand. She thinks about how much she loved Natsuki, and the future he might have had.
They get on the bus and...it crashes. As in, the game. It just sat there with no dialogue and a loop of bus sounds and it was VERY DISQUIETING until I got it to work again.
The game started back up and the bus sounds changed to include falling rain.
The three of them sit as far apart as possible. Ai is exhausted, having stayed up all night trying to get her thoughts in order. She drifts off as they near the lake.
Takuya: I'm going to get off at the next stop and go back. This is pointless.
I don't remember exactly what Aki said but he gets very angry, and it becomes clear that he knows exactly what Takuya did.
Aki: You were always jealous of Kazuya. You should have died instead of him!
Takuya: I know! Do you think I wouldn't do that if I could?! And I'm sure Kaz feels the same way!
;_;
Nooo he still loves you ;_;
And then their argument is interrupted as the bus starts veering off the road. They cry out in fear and then...
All we see is deep water.
Ai knows why she's here now.
This is her just punishment.
Can she move on?
Or will she stay trapped in the past?
THE END
Objectively I know that "being kind of dickish at seven" is very far down the list of awful things LIs I like have done but Takuya's bullying hits rather close to home for me as someone who very much resembled Aki and Kazuya as a child. Yet he doesn't deserve to hate himself so much for it now. Meanwhile, Kagiha is the worst as an adult but he had the most innocent, tragic backstory. I have all these complex feelings about the kids they were and the teens they became. And they're still kinda kids from my older adult POV, so I have a lot of layered THESE POOR KIDS feelings ;_;
And no wonder Aki/Karasuba resents Takuya/Yamato.
I am very curious about Kagiha: he doesn't seem to have remained static for ten years (and I would hope not, I don't want to play a romance between a 17 year old and an 8 year old, no matter how mature he was for his age!) but also doesn't seem to have had to lived the same desperate life as Monshiro. And since he and Beniyuri are canonically in love, it feels right to explore that relationship first, even if it's not one I ship super hard. It doesn't feel like it will get TOO yandere, but we'll see...
