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Part 24 - Shogun    In their place were numerous parked taxis, standing by for a chance to carry away the drunks unwilling to wait for the first train of the day. Most of the taxi drivers had reclined their seats and were napping. Yet there were also more hardworking drivers among them, who rested against their steering wheels and gazed blearily in the direction of the 107 building and the shopping district. But they weren't trying to ascertain whether any potential customers were walking about.  At least, those five to six men were presumably street cleaners because of their yellow arm badges, with "Sanitary Worker." characters inscribed on them.  For some reason, they all wore black suits. Furthermore, ever since arriving, they had blatantly evinced no signs of starting to clean.  Moreover, this did not happen in merely one place. Everywhere from the center to the edges of the scramble crossing, they took measurements and wrote things down on pieces of paper. Now, too, they gathered directly below the traffic lights and silently paid close heed to the movements of the pendulum device. At last the instrument let out a small noise.  Sanitation Worker B: "38 points higher than last month.... Just as we thought." But no one in early-morning Shibuya was there to take heed of their curious actions and murmuring. As soon as customers climbed into their cars, the taxi drivers took off and quickly forgot about the mysterious street cleaners. The drunks were less than fully conscious and could hardly see their surroundings in the first place. Female entertainers and nightlife workers, released from the stress of having to keep smiling at repulsive drunkards, got into taxis to return home as fast as possible.    The corpse of a man whose blood been withdrawn in its entirety, and whose body surface had transformed in color to an inhuman green. It was discovered in a bathroom in the Shibuya station of the Inokashira Line. And it was inevitable that the mass media and @channel would seize on it, given the abnormality and brutality of the murder, as well as the fact that a photograph of the body had been put on display in an online auction before the body itself was actually discovered.  Several days prior to the incident, tissue packs advertising blood donation drives, with the exact same sentence written on them, had been passed out in large quantities in the plaza in front of Shibuya Station. I had one of those tissue packs close at hand. Now, reading back over it, its incongruity-filled text could be interpreted as an advance warning of the murder, rather than a recruitment notice for blood donations. Apparently the police were searching for the part-time workers who had distributed the tissues, but for some reason, they hadn't managed to find many leads. OST: SHIBUYA  While signs of it had already been present in the "staking" case, the tendency toward theatricality had manifested far more strongly this time around.  However, the number of youth visiting the area showed no indication of dropping. As usual, the pedestrian scramble and the shopping district were packed with people.  --Whose eyes are those eyes? Plus, it wasn't only online; these words had also infiltrated the ranks of delinquents who walked around Shibuya. On @channel, it was fashionable to tack the phrase onto the end of your sentences even if it had nothing to do with what you were talking about.  "So whose eyes are those eyes?" And so on. To young people, perhaps "New Gen" was simply a cause for excitement and epic threads. Though to me, it was the most aggravating thing imaginable.  There remained something like a lump in a corner of my heart, of course, but by immersing myself in ESO over the weekend, I was able to temporarily forget all that hateful and incomprehensible stuff. Even today, when I had to attend school, I succeeded in getting through classes by sleeping or wracking my head over information about rare items in ESO. I've grown up a little, hehehe. OST End  The last time I had come was two weeks ago, and it was the first time I'd ever left such a large gap between visits. I found the atmosphere of the store and everything it comprised to be amazingly nostalgic: The rank smell of the breeze released by the air conditioning, the manga volumes that had come to be infused by the scent of nicotine, how comfortable it felt to sit in a reclining chair, the snores of old men in the midst of dead silence.   "What I learned from doing so was that...." "You were putting on a one-man play...." "'Shogun' is none other than--" "You yourself."Recalling what Yua had said, I fearfully scoped out the neighboring Room 36. I had confirmed that no one was nearby me when I first entered the store, and it must have been empty, since I couldn't hear any noise, but I still twitched at the thought that someone might be there nevertheless. Getting up, I surreptitiously peeked over the divider, but as expected, there was no one using Room 36. Relieved, I sank my body back into the reclining seat.   "Yua's got some amazing delusions...." I couldn't help pitying Yua. She was clearly sick in the head. The best way to deal with someone like her was to let her be. She was an accident waiting to happen. These past two weeks, I'd risked getting dragged into all kinds of hassles. Until then, I'd had a remarkably uneventful daily life, and Misumi-kun was just about the only person who started up conversations with me. Why had only bizarre and unreasonable things happened lately? Pictured: The 'Vampire House' Incident  Even that dying message must surely have been a coincidence. Regardless of whatever anyone said about it, weren't they commonly used words? The likes of me had come up with them, so there'd be nothing strange about it if someone else thought of them as well.  SFX: Three Loud Beeps  Something nearby started ringing out of the blue. Startled, I jerked in my reclining chair. It was the sound of a phone. But whose? Because it was quiet inside, the electronic sound echoed particularly emphatically throughout the area. I looked around. But I couldn't spot a phone anywhere.  A thought suddenly occurred to me, and I fished around inside my bag. Sure enough, what had been ringing was the cell phone I'd bought just a few days ago. I looked gingerly at the LCD display. Normally, the caller's number would be displayed here.  For starters, who on earth was calling me? I hadn't given this cell phone's number out to anyone yet. The only people aware of it were my family, and Nanami, busybody that she was, had put them in my address book.  Then who.... was it....? The phone went on ringing stubbornly. Would someone calling a cell phone usually make it ring on and on with such persistence? I'd never used one before, so I had no idea, but it was an unbelievable nuisance. To suddenly encroach on your personal space and have it ring until you picked up. It was just the right way to invade someone's privacy. This was why I hadn't wanted a cell phone. SFX End  Relieved, I checked the LCD screen again. "1 missed call," it said. I had no desire to call back, given that I didn't know who would pick up. Thus, I decided to let sleeping dogs lie. It'd be bad if this kept happening in the future, so I'd better learn how to put it on silent. Haa, cell phones are such a bother. I didn't like phones to begin with.  With phishing and identity theft, wouldn't it make more sense if people at least made some attempt at confirmation? I was completely mystified by how they could stay unfazed while having conversations with a potential impersonator. Even if I knew the principles behind how it worked, it was hard to believe that one's voice could pass through phone lines to reach faraway places. When you talk on the phone, your voice gets converted to electrical signals. They pass through the phone lines until they reach the person you're conversing with, and your voice gets turned back to normal, becoming hearable for the first time. To put it a different way, for you to talk on the phone, the process needs to include a minimum of two such conversions. In the case of a cell phone, it involves a complicated system wherein your voice starts off by getting turned to electrical signals, which travel to a nearby station via radio waves, then run through normal phone lines to another telephone exchange, from which it heads to the station closest the person you're calling, and finally reaches their cell phone in the form of radio waves.  For that matter, was it possible to deny the prospect that, in the process of conversion to electrical signals, my voice and words might change to something totally unrelated? For instance, what if I called Nanami, and instead of reaching her, my call got sent to some sketchy facility, and a person I'd never seen before in my life pretended to be Nanami and answered the phone. Maybe they'd even be a computer, instead of a human being.    It had been two weeks since I'd used Liselotte, but I was pretty satisfied by how well she cheered up everyone around her. I left @cafe in a good mood and headed home. The shopping district was as boisterous and full of people as ever. I had always found it annoying. And the illumination of the various stores lined up along the street made it so bright that I had a hard time believing it was night. At the end of that bright road-- I jerked to a stop when I saw "it," for it stood out still more in the middle of the crowd. That girl was--  In the shopping district, where people came and went without ceasing, where it was difficult to so much as walk in a straight line, she stood still, smack in the middle of the road, resting the colossal sword she held in her hand on her shoulder. It was a blatantly bizarre spectacle--  She was the girl I'd seen at 107-- She'd been there when Nanami and I went to get a cell phone.  In addition-- I recalled the sharpness of her glare. I had met her once before, at school. Almond-shaped eyes; a face attractive enough to make her a model, although it conversely made her seem unapproachable; sleek, dark, waist-length hair.  But why was she staring at me? Thinking I was being overly self-conscious, I turned around. At times like this, it might turn out that she was actually looking at an acquaintance of hers over my shoulder or something, but that didn't seem to be the case.  I shrank. I understood what it felt like to be the proverbial frog getting glared at by a snake. Staring back was out of the question. Locking eyes with people was my biggest weakness. So I had no choice but to look down. Time to run....  There were a lot of people there, but I'd take a pass on letting some scary 3-D girl pick a quarrel with me. She might try to shake me down for money. Girl B looked like she was alone, but in truth, maybe her juvie friends were lying in wait nearby, plotting to beat me senseless once she lured me in. I wasn't about to take the bait....    "Ah.... Eh....?" I looked to the front again. As before, the sword-bearing Girl B went on glaring at me. When, how the hell had she circled around me....!?  How had she known I was going to turn around, anyway?  "Hey." "!!!"Her voice reached my ears with an awful clarity. I frantically surveyed my surroundings. I wanted to think she'd been calling to someone else. Though suspicious, I searched for someone who seemed like a suitable target for her "Hey." But of course they weren't there. A couple of salary men passing nearby gave Girl B dubious looks, but they soon realized she wasn't referring to them and walked away. Girl B, who had until then been standing dauntingly in place, took a sudden step in my direction. That was sufficient to make me certain of it. Girl B was targeting me, after all....  As discourteous as ever.... In my seventeen-year life, I could probably count the number of times a girl had spoken to me this curtly. There were times when Kirimiya Tsubaki (nickname: Tsunko) had talked to me like that, in a tsundere sort of way. Then again, Tsunko was a 2-D character from an eroge called "Tell Me Doll."  She had this overwhelming feeling to her, though she was only a girl. I wondered at it a little, but the reasons were simple. The sharp look in her eyes. And.... her oversized sword. For a sword, it had a fairly singular design.  It was definitely a weapon from a mecha anime or something. Had any mecha anime started airing recently....?  It was a mysterious sword--  Girl B had already cut the distance between us down to two meters. Close enough so that if she swung her sword, it would reach me.    "Uwah!" Crouching down on the spot, I covered my head. If I didn't dodge it, it would hit me right in the head. It wouldn't cut me or anything, but with her swinging that hard, I'd get a cerebral concussion and a dented skull for sure! I hate pain! "Wh, wh, what're you done--...."  You know how this goes. Positive, Negative or Neutral?
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May 21, 2020 08:55
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| # ? Jun 7, 2024 06:54 |
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positive
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May 21, 2020 13:15
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neutral "Three hours passed in the blink of an eye" when we logged in as Liselotte in the cafe. I wonder if we just committed another murder? Steins;Gate discussion: The green victim looks kind of like how things look when they failed to time travel. But maybe that's just coincidence.
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May 21, 2020 17:08
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I think it's been a while since we did neutral, let's try that. Takumi's hatred of cell phones because people can intrude on you by making phone calls at any time is interesting in light of Steins;Gate treating phones as devices that are mostly for text-based communication (such that a similarly socially-anxious quasi-hikikomori character loves them because she can text people instead of speaking to them even when they're in the same room). It seems like it should be representative of a shift in the way people generally thought of cell phones, but the games only came out a year apart so probably not. Maybe it's just that the SG cast are a bunch of weird nerds while Takumi's family are normal people who still want to actually talk to other people?
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May 21, 2020 19:49
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Re: the steins;gate discussion Yeah, it’s very reminiscent of that, and this is where they probably got that idea, but in S;G, the failed time travelers went full gelnana and became human shaped piles of goop. Never go full gelnana
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May 21, 2020 20:04
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Ghost Car posted:I think it's been a while since we did neutral, let's try that. Like half my friends refuse to use voice calls on phones, including my girlfriend and like two or three other women I've dated. I think it's a common social anxiety thing.
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May 22, 2020 00:43
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I'm calling it now. Neutral is ahead.
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May 22, 2020 05:10
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I'll say this much: the fourth murder gave me the heebie jeebies about as bad as when I saw the time travellers' pictures in Steins;gate. Brr.
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May 22, 2020 05:34
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Part 25 - The Girl From Class D  She was aberrant.... Doing something like swinging a sword around amid all these people.  "S, save me...." "Don't kill me...." Before I knew it, I was trembling. It felt like I'd poo poo myself in fear any second now. "Hm...." "What are you thinking about?" What the hell was she talking about.... Was she gonna kill me if I couldn't see it? I couldn't answer without knowing what I was supposed to be seeing....! "Calm down a little." "I'll ask one more time." "Eh....?" "Di-Sword?"It was the first time I'd heard that word. It must mean the sword she was carrying, but.... For the time being, I nodded. Jeez, of course I could see it.... It'd be weirder not to see it. Because she was carrying around a sword that big and conspicuous in the shopping district, of all places. I'd be able to accept it if this were Akiba, but in Shibuya? No way.... "I see..." "....?" Gathered? Who? Gathered who? I was here of my own accord, at least, but....  You speakin' Japanese? I wanted to say, but typically enough, I lacked the courage. After all, if I said something klutzy, she'd stab me.... Really, though, she hadn't been making any sense whatsoever for a while now. "Tell me if you see one." I hurriedly closed my eyes.    Soon afterward, the girl who had called herself Sena had vanished.      A mysterious screech sounded from a little ways away. It caught me by surprise, and my shoulders jumped. When I looked in the direction the voice had come from....   "Bro!" OST: Girls  "........." Because you made me depressed, obviously....  "Ah, and you're always quick to shut up like that."Really, why had she decided to come to Suimei Academy, the same school I attended? It caused me boundless trouble when we bumped heads at school like this, or when she put her foot down and started meddling with this and that.  "Hey, hey, what about your phone? Do you use it? You're not using it, are you?" "........."I started walking faster in hopes of shaking Nanami off. But she stubbornly stuck with me.  "At least call home to let us know you're alive. That's why you got it in the first place." "If you can't bear to, no matter what, um.... You can just call my phone, so." "Mom's worried about you." "Are you even eating properly? It's probably always convenience store boxed lunches for you, huh?" "I figured living by yourself would be too much for you. Come back home." "Do you have any idea how I feel when I go to see how you're doing?" "I, I always get so anxious about you...." What the hell was her problem! Are you my mom or something!? And don't talk about that kind of thing on the wayside, it's humiliating. She made me gloomy even at the best of times, and now my mood was steadily plummeting in the worst possible direction.  It happened a lot in eroge, and there had been times when I'd longed to be in such a situation, but Nanami couldn't hold a candle to 2-D little sisters. Haa, gimme a cuter sister. OST End Nanami and I, both somewhat cross, walked up to school side by side. I studied her to see if I had a chance of escaping before we reached the school gates. Though she'd been talking fast and furious when she came up to me, Nanami had fallen silent and was walking along with an absent-minded look on her face. Her eyes seemed to be drifting around, but maybe it was only my imagination. Her feet were unsteady.  SFX: HONK HONK HONK HOOOONK "Wa, watch out!" The car zoomed by, honking its horn. She'd narrowly missed being hit. "You, wh, what're you doing....!" Blinking, Nanami cocked her head to one side.  "Why did I do that....?" "Huh?" Not understanding something she herself had done. For the record, let me say that I didn't find it moe. It wasn't moe in the slightest! Seriously fed up, I left behind the still-stupified Nanami and hurried on ahead.   When walking down a hall, stick to one side or the other. Go neither too quickly nor too slowly. Lower your eyes and walk without meeting anyone's gaze. Those were the three items I paid careful attention to. Don't stand out at school; be the same as air. That was how I got around safely.  Yet today, the same person appeared again and interfered with my attempts to blend in. Catching up with me from behind, Misumi-kun gave me his usual friendly pat on the shoulder.  "........." "At least return my greeting. Well, but I know you're not that kinda guy." "....?"  "Truth is, I just discovered something totally wild about her."Misumi-kun suddenly lowered his voice and checked out our surroundings. It was probably something vulgar again.... Wearying of him, I almost let out a sigh.  But his words made me catch my breath.   "It seriously freaked me out. Who knew FES was a student at our school!" "And she's in the same year as us, dude." "This is what they mean when they talk about fate." We were on the third floor. If he slipped even a tiny bit, he'd fall down, break his neck, and lose his life. I was on pins and needles as I watched him. Misumi-kun gradually leaned out further, looking at down at the entranceway below the window. "Oh, speak of the devil. Taku! I found Kishimoto! She'll be here soon." "Eh...." With so many coincidences piling up, maybe he had been correct in saying it was fated. Not that I had any interest.  He was overflowing with self-confidence as he spoke. Hoo boy, it must be nice to have a face like his. Pick-up lines and the like existed in a completely different world from me. I didn't want to try using them, either.  Just as Misumi-kun had said, it was the real FES. I made certain of it myself, watching secretly from a slight distance. Even now, I was surprised she had turned out to be the same age as us. FES walked along slowly, wearing her Suimei uniform and giving off an air of ennui. It created a remarkably different impression from how she had looked while singing on stage. At the time, though she spoke apathetically, she had given off something along the lines of a powerful sense of energy and activity. But right now, the atmosphere around her merely made her seem melancholy and difficult to approach. Pretending not to notice it, Misumi-kun walked casually up to FES, with the same friendly intimacy he always showed me.  Uwah.... What a refreshing, yet false-seeming, smile.... To think he could take that attitude with someone he'd practically never met before. It made me shiver with awe. I idolized him. But I didn't want to imitate him. "Ah, I'm Misumi Daisuke. Nice to meet you~" "Whoops, you think we've never met before? But that's not quite true." "I went to a Phantasm concert a little while ago. So this is the second time I've seen you." "And, your singing voice from back then was, hmm, how do I say it? It gave me the chills." "I guess I mean how your voice combined with their music?" "Ah, but it'd be a hassle for you to do it right away, so hey, are you free after school? How about the two of us go somewhere and take our time talking it over?"Misumi-kun chattered on without resting. He used a different tone than normal, and he was obviously putting on another voice. Plus, instead of directly hitting on her, he brought up the topic of bands and such so as to casually invite her. By the way, it was the first time I'd heard about him wanting to form a band. No matter how I thought about it, it had to be a lie. He'd go that far to score some points, to "make" an event flag stand up with her. But--  As though she hadn't heard a single thing, she went on plodding down the hallway.   "........."FES came to a halt. Her faintly lowered gaze slowly rose....  Eh? Me!? Come to think of it, I'd thought she was staring at me during the concert, too.  Another day, another Trigger. Positive, Negative or Neutral?
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May 22, 2020 12:03
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positive we got two new girls with threatening auras at school now, so let’s give our poor boy a break. I mean they aren’t going to kill him at school... right?
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May 22, 2020 15:23
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Yeah, seconding the positive.
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May 23, 2020 02:50
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Calling it here. Positivity reigns.
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May 23, 2020 05:05
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Part 26 - Police Procedural WarningThe following update contains one image which could be objectionable, and a lot of text that is definitely objectionable. Don't read this at work.    "Eh? Really? What's this? Could it be me~?" "The one over there." "Over there?" Over there....? Over where?  "Er...."Maybe I was the guy she liked!?  SFX: Various onlookers start making a fuss FES began walking toward me, Still not averting her gaze.  "No, um~, I went to your show, too--" "I knew it at a single glance."FES wasn't listening to Misumi-kun. She seized my tie in one hand and pulled me toward her. Close enough for me to have an acute sense of how she was breathing.  "You're the one I'm destined for." FES stroked my cheek with the tips of her fingers. She didn't show a hint of a smile. The seductiveness of that gesture made me shudder. I was becoming enchanted by her. I couldn't look away. "I've made my decision."SFX: Everyone goes silent   SFX: The crowd goes wild! OST: Tender Hearts Although her declaration was something quite remote from the air of ennui that FES bore about her, the gap between the two was, to the contrary, unbearably cute.  "U, um.... W, what about.... my.... feelings?" "You don't want me?" I was getting swept along by the flow of things. I'd end up as one of life's winners simply by becoming engaged to such a lovely girl.   SFX End. OST End.  While I was having my stupid daydream, FES murmured something in a tiny voice and swiftly went away.  Having been completely ignored by her, Misumi-kun was sulky. Given that she could so cleanly turn down an invitation from a stud like him, perhaps FES was actually the yuri type. "....Sh, she'd be.... a great soeur. Hehehe."Especially if her petite soeur was a loli-type character like Nanami. Yeah, yeah.   "Ahh, what a drag...." "....Sword?" "Yeah, it's what Kishimoto said, right?" Being saved.... "Hey, Taku, did any of Phantasm's songs have lyrics like that?" "........."A sword....  Now that she mentioned it, two days ago, A completely different person had interrogated me about a "sword"....  I'd thought she'd cut me down for real. The sword she'd held had differed in shape from the one FES brought to her show, but they possessed similar atmospheres. I wondered if they were connected in some way.... I don't know.... I don't know a thing.   I considered tacking on "I myself" as the last item, but I stopped. I was perfectly normal. My surroundings were aberrant. That'd be obvious to anyone.    The reason, of course, was to pick up my long-awaited Burachu Seira-tan, post-awakening version! While I was buying it, Yua's face briefly flitted across the back of my mind, but I soon forced that train of thought to a stop. I took a look at the Seira-tans put out on display to catch customers' eyes, but since the sculptor was Kijima Yoshio, nothing indeed needed to be said about the quality. I'd better hurry home and savor every nook and cranny of her. Hehehe. As long as I could gaze at Seira-tan's face every so often while playing ESO, I was happy. Despite that, why did the third dimension have to keep bringing me nothing but burdens? It was the same now.   I thought I would pass them by without meeting their eyes, but they were blatantly watching me.  Out of the two, the first to call out to me was a bleary-looking geezer who wouldn't have seemed out of place gambling at a racetrack. His hair was messy, his face was unshaven, and his clothes were a wrinkled suit, a sloppily tied necktie and shoes without any traces of polish on them. The very picture of a man who had failed to get ahead in life. Somehow, the fact that he was flapping a handheld fan at himself only served to emphasize his wretchedness. His expression, too, was melancholic. He put on a flippant smile.  I had nowhere to run to. While I wavered about how to answer him, the two of them came walking right up to me.  "This is who we are." --They had finally come. I could only think of one reason. The "staking." "Mind if we ask you a few questions?" "But we won't force you, of course. Ah, no need to brace yourself like that. We just want to hear what you have to say."  I started sweating. If I did anything stupid, they might start suspecting me of being the perpetrator and haul me off to the police station. I couldn't let that happen. I resigned myself to my fate and gave a small nod. "Er, say, d'you know about what's commonly called the New Generation Madness?" As I'd thought.... Wiping the sweat off my forehead, I nodded back at him. "Then, you must also know about the third case, aka the "staking" homicide? It did happen right in this neighborhood." "Ah, by the way, would you tell us your name?"I couldn't help sucking in a breath. This wasn't Zhuge Liang's trap, was it....? Or maybe they were a group of con men who'd act like policemen while talking to me, when really they were going to extract my personal information and put it to ill use. Or else underlings of the demon girl herself. "Mm? Huh, you won't answer us?" "........." Once they started doubting me, there'd be no end to it. What should I do? If I answered with a false name, that alone might give them sufficient grounds to arrest me.... "Ahh, are you worried about protecting your personal info? Do I really look that untrustworthy?" Yeah, you do.... Anyhow, his amiable manner of talking was surely just an act....  In the end, I couldn't think of anything to do and had no choice but to answer honestly. "Can I call you Nishijou Takumi-kun, then?" I nodded.  "Really?" Haa? What did he mean by really....? What was with that reaction, when I'd been good enough to answer truthfully.... "Haha. Nah, that was rude of me. Forget about it." "........."The detective's deliberate-sounding laugh echoed through the quiet residential area. Uuhh, I wanted them to be quicker about releasing me.... "That uniform's from Suimei, right? What year are you?" Did I have to answer that kind of thing, too....? "Junior...." "Hm? Sorry, didn't catch that. I'm already at this age, so my ears aren't doing too well. Could you say it again?" "I'm a, a junior...." "A junior, huh. Thanks." "....!" Were they asking for my alibi? Could it be that they suspected me....? But that was absurd! "Nah, it's not that you're a suspect. Just thought that if you'd been in the area around that time, you might've seen a suspicious person or heard some kind of sound, that sort of thing." "........."Somehow, listening to this detective talk really got me irritated.... Maybe speaking in such a way as to purposefully anger the subject was a kind of interrogation technique. But I'd seen a suspicious person. With my own eyes. Distinctly. I vacillated about whether it was okay to tell that to this sketchy-seeming old fogey.  Right now it seemed like she was letting me slip away, but she had the precog "Shogun" as one of her toadies. She herself must be able to use some sort of unbelievable power as well. That might truly be the case. If so, if I were going to speak about the demon girl to the police, she might've already found out by using her sixth sense of something. And then maybe she would come to kill me....  When he said this, my heart rate jumped. If I didn't say anything more, they'd definitely think I was the criminal. But I was scared that even if I lied by saying, "I didn't see anything," they would know I was faking it.... The older man used the fan he was carrying to fan the side of my face for me. A cool breeze stirred my hair.  I didn't exactly want to hear that from a guy who walked around with a fan in this season, but admittedly, it wasn't particularly hot today. The temperature was at just the right level for comfort. I wiped my sweat off again and again with the sleeves of my uniform.  OST: Mysterious  The color in the detective's eyes changed. I realized I must've said the wrong thing, but I didn't understand what part of it had been the wrong thing, in the first place.  "What didn't you do?" "........."  "I, I saw.... her!" "The scene of the 'staking'.... There was a girl there....!" "With her hands covered in blood.... In front of the body...." "There were lots of stakes stuck into it.... There, there must've been o, over 500 of them.... It was freaky...." "The body was li, like a hedgehog...." "T, that girl looked at me and said 'I'm so glad' and s, smiled...." "She's a demon.... She's not human." "The New Gen c, criminal is....! An ex, existence way above regular humans....!" "She uses foresight and all these other incredible powers--"OST End  Maybe they didn't believe me. I shut up again as that thought occurred to me.  "It, it's.... true...." "Yeah, I know, I know. It's valuable info." "P, please.... protect me.... with the police...." "Before that, do you know how old that girl was? Or her clothing, or her facial features." "....Su, Suimei...." "By Suimei, do you mean Suimei Academy?" "That's the uniform.... she was wearing...." "In other words, she goes to the same school as you."After lapsing into thought for some time, the old man grinned. And then muttered something that could have been either a real question or a rhetorical one.  "........." "What grade do you think she's in, Nishijou-kun?" "....I, I don't know...." "Then d'you know her name?" "I d, d, don't know.... I, I don't know that demon's.... na, name...." "What about her height, weight, and while you're at it, her three sizes?" What was up with this geezer....? Was he mocking me? How could I possibly know even one of those! I don't have a moronic, love comedy manga-esque power like being able to tell someone's height and weight and three sizes from a single look!   "I've gotta consider this carefully once we get back to headquarters." "Sempai, you serious....?"Lifting a hand to silence the dumbfounded younger detective, the older one gave him some kind of sign with his eyes.  "Eh.... Wh, why...." They didn't believe me, after all. They wanted to label me a deviant and set me up as the criminal.... "Well, she's a demon, right? We've gotta protect you from her, don't we?" "........." O, oh. I get it. Thank God they believed me. There'd be nothing more comforting than having the police looking out for me. Of course, our opponent was a demon, so maybe even the police could get felled with a single blow. But it was better than being completely unarmed.  The younger detective wrote it down in his notebook. "Anyhoo, thanks for taking a moment out of your busy schedule. We'll guarantee your safety, so there's no need to fret anymore." "And we might call you if we'd like to ask you something else, so I'll talk to you again then." "Eh...." "Your eyewitness testimony could become be a key part of how we solve the case." "See ya."The two detectives bowed their heads to me and swiftly walked away. After turning back to glance at me, the younger detective began saying something to the older one in lowered tones. The older one kept walking without responding to him. I took deep breaths. Haaa, I'd been so nervous.... It was my first time being questioned by real detectives. I'd acted pretty suspiciously, but somehow they'd believed me.... maybe. It'd be wonderful if the police caught the demon girl.... But the police were basically powerless, so it might not be a good idea to expect too much from them....    "Hehehe. And a mega-ero face. I was right, this kind of face, sort of like she's about to cry or about to cum, is the best part about Kijima Yoshio's stuff. Seriously, GJ, Kijima." "Half-undressed, awesome! It's sexy to have some parts hidden! Like where she's putting her left hand and stuff, man, I can't take it." "And her top's cast-offable! From this angle, she looks almost totally naked! Hyoo--hoh!" "The way her hair flows is really great. It's my pet theory that her hair is the key to the post-awakening version, and I sure wasn't mistaken." "All right, time to take a long-delayed look at her panties. Let's see...." "Hm, hm, they did a nice job on her V-zone. The way they put in wrinkles makes it look real.... Wait, oh, ooooh, is, is this.... ca, camel toe....? Whoa, hehehe, major whoa! Way too high quality!" "She's only the fifth Seira-tan, so maybe it's too early to decide, but isn't this the best outta all of them? Seriously, it's not like they'll ever put out something better. Kijima really is a god!" Simply looking at her made me grin uncontrollably. This truly was a moment of supreme bliss. I got right down to posting my impressions of the Seira-tan figure at one of the @channel figure threads. After having done so, I checked my email and whether or not any of my friends in Furepara had made updates. "Oops, I've got a friend request." "Who's this?" "Someone from Seira comm?" "Yeah, yeah, okay." It was the "gaze," with its usual intense presence.   When was it that I'd first begun to sense this "gaze"? I'd long since forgotten completely. It interfered with me at every little turn. There were a lot of different elements that kept disturbing my uneventful life, but this "gaze" was right up on Nanami's level in terms of being a horrendous bother. Fine, then maybe I'll play it.... The "It'll take more than that to make me turn around" game. Still facing my PC, I tried to come up with the kind of lines you'd find in a manga. "Come on out.... you bastard." Positive, Negative or Neutral?
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May 23, 2020 12:08
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On a side note: This next week will have a couple of family celebrations, birthdays etc. in quick succession. Between the preparations and the festivities themselves, I cannot promise that I'll be able to post anything for the next week or so. I will be back, however. Rest assured.
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May 23, 2020 12:12
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It's interesting how I'm enjoying everything about this except the protagonist; it's presented really well as far as timeskips and movement between scenes go, and the game is doing a great job ratcheting up the tension by piling on mystery after mystery, but it's all just smothered by the incessant garbage that is Takumi Anyway, Negative.
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May 23, 2020 12:16
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Yeah, neutral
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May 23, 2020 13:15
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Jen X posted:It's interesting how I'm enjoying everything about this except the protagonist; it's presented really well as far as timeskips and movement between scenes go, and the game is doing a great job ratcheting up the tension by piling on mystery after mystery, but it's all just smothered by the incessant garbage that is Takumi I hope Takumi develops into a better person. We were getting somewhere with Yua, at least. Vote Positive
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May 23, 2020 13:52
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I think we've seen enough of the swords now for me to mention that they're an element I kind of wish hadn't been brought in. They're just such a wildly over the top anime thing that it always felt a bit jarring to me compared to the relatively plausible and horrific elements of the rest of the story. I still loved the VN overall, mind you.
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May 23, 2020 18:12
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As of this point, there has been a three-way tie for 24 hours. I am hereby breaking the tie. We're doing Neutral. If my schedule is empty enough, the next update will be posted tomorrow. If it is not empty, don't expect another update until the 30th at the earliest.
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May 24, 2020 12:05
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Part 27 - Girl D  There was no answer. Of course not. On the contrary, it'd be much scarier if there was-- SFX: Knock Knock  A sound  I'd lost in today's not-turning-around game. There was no one else in the room. An auditory.... hallucination? I wanted it to be one.... In my heart, I hoped that was the case. SFX: Knock Knock Again. SFX: Knock Knock Knock Another sound. SFX: The Knocking continues indefinitely in a firm, yet polite manner  In short, Someone had come. Very few people ever came to visit here. Even newspaper subscription soliciters wouldn't go all the way up to the roof. All I could think of was.... Home delivery service worker? No, I wasn't supposed to be getting any packages today. Nanami....? No, Nanami would bang at the door much more wildly. And she'd make a racket outside, yelling "Bro! Open up--!" Yua....? The chances were high. She'd been here once before. Had the demon girl ordered her to come here and kill me? But if so would she bother to knock? The knocking sound persisted. Frozen in place, I thought about what I should do. But I couldn't come up with a single good idea, and all that rose within me was panic.  Maybe that was being way too cautious? But I had to be doubly careful. Shibuya had been remarkably dangerous as of late. If it were Yua, I mustn't let her in. If I did, it'd be the same as saying, go on, please kill me.  I stared in the direction of the door. But it was dark, and I couldn't see well.  "Ah...."When I reached the middle of the room, I was finally in a position to confirm it.   Chills ran through my whole body. My heartbeat sped up with anxiety.  In any case, I had to hurry and lock it. If I made a sound, they'd know I was pretending not to be here, but it was better than letting them get inside.    SFX: Takumi trips and lands on everything littering the floor, producing a very loud crashing noise. The knocking stops.  I slipped grandly and landed hard on my rear end.  SFX: The door creaks open  I didn't know who it was, but the person who'd been knocking was trying to open the door without permission. I made as if to get up, but the pain kept my body from doing as I wished of it. That's why all I could do was watch the door open with tear-stung eyes.     OST: Fear       The de, dem, demon girl....! To think that the demon girl herself, not Yua, would be the one to come marching in....!  Our eyes met. Right then, the demon girl smiled delightedly. Her smile made me shudder.  "Jeez, why didn't you answer sooner?"Oh God.... Oh God... Oh God....!  She'd come to kill me at last! She was smiling with joy at the thought of murdering me! It had to be because I'd told the police the facts! She'd seen me do it with her second sight! "D, d, do, do....""Don't kill me!" I tried to scream, but my excess of terror made it hard for my voice to come out.   "Dodon?" Craning her neck, the demon girl let forth the words of some mysterious spell. She was cursing me or something, it must be black magic....! In hopes of opening even a little distance between me and her, I scooted backwards on my butt. With my hands slipping countless times on the trash scattered about the floor, I fled for the furthest-back part of my room--my computer desk.   The demon girl came trespassing in. On top of that, she courteously took off her shoes. "Sorry to disturb you."  Unexpectedly, however, the demon girl was only carrying a bag. I couldn't see anything resembling a deadly weapon. No, it must be inside that bag of hers....! I mustn't get caught off-guard. The moment I relaxed, she'd home in for the killing blow. Or else maybe she had already placed a curse on me with the magical words she'd used before. A few days later, I might suddenly die by bursting all over with blood spurting from my body.... "I, I, I beg you...." "Don't.... kill me...."I cradled my head and splayed myself out on the floor. I detested the two detectives who had appeared before me with every fiber of my being. "I, I, I'll apologize for talking to the police, so...." "A, and, even then, they didn't, b, believe me. Even a, a teensy bit...." It was a lie to buy myself some time.  When I thought that far, I gulped.    "Hieee...." The demon girl suddenly snapped into a salute-like pose. And bizarrely enough, she'd muttered something resembling a sound effect for it of her own accord.... Was this, too, a devil's curse?   In the dark, she says? Did she intend to play dumb? Or was she silently pressuring me with, "Forget everything you saw, act as if nothing ever happened." "........."This girl.... What the hell was she thinking....? Hadn't she come to kill me?  Rising from the couch, the demon extended a hand to me. Her expression seemed extraordinarily gentle. Plus, when I saw her close up.... She was pretty cute.... "........." Thinking a demon looked "pretty cute"? What the gently caress?  Don't believe her....  Don't be deceived by this demon girl's smile. This was the temptation of a devil. If I gave into temptation, I'd die. Don't believe in anything. Don't believe anything anyone says. "B, but.... I, I saw...."    "I'd never have dreamed I'd get called a murderer.... Tahaha...." What did she intend to do with me....? "New Gen...." Would I.... in the same way as that guy in the fourth case.... "Aren't you gonna kill me....?" "Or, or take me to where Yua and Shogun are--"  Maybe the three of them felt like banding together to get rid of me in a group lynching.... "N, no, not th, that...." "Save me...." "Hiee...." So that's how it really is....! "Oh, don't freak out like that. You react to every little thing in just the right way to get me down in the dumps...." "P, please.... I won't ever.... t, talk about it to anyone.... again, so, l, let me go...."  "Helloooo, Taku? Calm down a little, will ya?"   She'd known my name even when we met for the first time, at the "staking" crime scene.    "!?" Like I'd thought, she was clairvoyant! She'd known my name and my address, too, because she'd used her power on me!  "--I've thought that for a while." For a while....? Since when? Speaking of which, had I been talking to myself just now? I myself had absolutely no awareness of it. Really? Had I really, truly been talking to myself? What were the chances that she was lying to me? Or that she'd read my mind?   A.... friend.... "Also, Taku, are you making fun of me? I mean, yeah, my test scores aren't that high." "But it kind of hurts to have someone tell that kind of thing to my face." Was someone here weird in the head....? Who? Me? This girl? "C, could you be.... a t, transfer student....?" "Ah, now that you mention it, apparently there's a transfer student coming soon. Mr. Tsukachin said so."The two halves of our conversation didn't match up.... My previous fear, mixed with the strain of having no idea of when I might suddenly get killed, was starting to fade. But in its exchange came a different variety of dread, gnawing its way into my heart and making me go cold.  "Ummm, hellooo?" "If you're making that face, could it possibly mean you still don't believe me?"  Who are you? She was a murderer. A demon girl.  Classmates, she says....? In other words, we weren't only friends, we were classmates? "Guess it can't be helped, huh. You don't come to school that much." "But that doesn't give you free license to totally forget that I exist."  "........."  "Ahem. Then I've gotta make you remember." OST Ends   "........." "Hey, no reaction!?"  "........."OST: Silence  In the first place, other than Yua, I'd never known a 3-D girl who talked to me with such familiarity. And Yua was the demon girl's subordinate. Ah, I get it....! What the girl called Sakihata was enacting right now, right in front of my eyes, was the very same method Yua had used. Knowing I wasn't used to interacting with 3-d girls, she meant to lead me into a trap by behaving friendly with me and tempting me.   After all, when I was at school, I stayed fixed at my desk from beginning to end, either pretending to sleep while having daydreams, or staring at the surface of my desk, or pretending to read my textbooks, and nothing else. I had practically no memory of my classmates' faces and names. I'd made no effort to remember them. Which was it? Was she telling the truth or lying to me?    Da, Daichin? What was that supposed to mean? A name? Some kind of secret code? A devil's spell?  "Eh...!?"Sh, she knew Misumi-kun's name....? On top of that, calling him Daichin.... She wouldn't say that unless they were really close.... "On that note, here ya go."The demon girl quickly spotted my cell phone, which I'd left lying out on the sofa, picked it up, and held it out to me. Apparently she wanted me to try calling Misumi-kun. I didn't like using the phone, but she might kill me if I disobeyed. Driven by that fear, and helpless to do anything else, I was about to call him-- When I realized I didn't know his phone number. Upon seeing me freeze in confusion, the demon girl tilted her head again, came around beside me, and looked over my shoulder at the phone's screen. Her hair stirred, sending the pleasant smell of shampoo floating up to the tip of my nose. But she was a demon! I won't let her tempt me! I'm not into 3-D stuff! Lend me your strength, Seira-tan!  "........."  "Then you gotta tell me that ahead of time. Sorry, sorry."   The demon girl had entered his number smoothly. No matter how I had looked at this, it appeared to be a number she was used to dialing.  She passed the cell phone back to me with a smile. Unsure of what else to do, I ended up taking it and putting it to my ear.  "Yes?" "Ah...."  It sounded like he was downtown, as the bustle of his surroundings came in through the receiver. "Who's this?" "........."  This time, the demon girl peered into my face from in front of me. Dammit, your face is too close....   "Ohh, Taku, huh." "............" Wasn't Misumi-kun being a little strange? How had he figured out it was me so quickly? I still hadn't gotten past the "Ni" part of my name.  "It wasn't a familiar number, so I was wondering who it might be." "Does this mean you bought a cell?" "........." Maybe this "some other person who sounded like Misumi-kun" was her underling, pretending to be Misumi-kun in hopes of deceiving me. The demon girl, too, may have understood from the beginning that I didn't know Misumi-kun's number, and therefore "guided" the situation to make it develop in this manner. Anything and everything started to seem suspicious. I didn't know what had been truth and what - a lie. To begin with, what kind of trap was the demon girl trying to make me fall into by using such elaborate tricks?  Or was there a reason she had "no choice but to trick me," even if it meant taking such a roundabout approach?  That was completely ridiculous!   "It's pretty unusual for you to contact me."  "Well, can't say I'm all that happy to get a call from a guy, though. Haha." His tone of voice was perfectly identical to Misumi-kun's.  "Want me to teach you how to pick up girls?" "Yeah, as if." "........."Should I try to get down to business and start talking? I sensed a gaze at my back. That girl was watching me steadily. The tingle at the back of my neck had yet to disappear. With what manner of expression was the demon girl looking at me? I wanted to turn around and see for myself. But I was too scared to do it.... "If you don't have anything to say, I'm hanging up. I don't have enough free time to listen if you're not gonna talk. I'm with a chick right now." "W, wait....!" "So, what is it? If something's up, make it quick." "Um, uh, er....!" "What? Spit it out." "......In, in our" "Mm?" "Class...." "Yeah, what about our class?" "There?" "Is what there?" "A girl...." "Haa?" "Na, na, named.... Sakihata...." Becoming more and more incoherent, I somehow managed to explain myself. "............"Misumi-kun suddenly stopped answering. Silence.  "Haaaa~~~~" The next thing I heard was an enormous sigh. "You sure your brain hasn't been affected by all those video games?" "Wha...."Wh, what was he saying all of a sudden.... On top of that, why'd he have to use the language of a certain kind of totally irresponsible, groundless, anti-gamer "science" to label me....   "Wh...."How.... "No matter how much you might not be interested in 3-D girls, Have you really forgotten about her too?"   The demon girl and I had been in the same class since freshman year? The three of us had gone to see a movie together a little while ago? A little while ago.... When?  "Cause, I'm about as whimsical as she is." "Man, it's a big world out there, but I'd say Rimi and I are just about the only ones who'd concern ourselves with an antisocial guy like you." "Ah, that might be putting it a little too harshly. Haha." "........" I couldn't acknowledge that such a past existed. The "Misumi-kun-esque somebody" was talking about a story. Not about the past. For the past could succeed in forming only with the support of one's memories....  "Who.... are you....?" "Whoa, whoa, have you gone crazy for real? You've even forgotten me? Way too much gaming--" "...."OST Ends  "Haa, haa, haa...."  Looking rather worried about me, the demon girl quietly offered me a handkerchief. A pretty, patternless handkerchief colored a faint vermillion. There was a slight floral scent to it. Instead of taking it, I attempted to somehow keep my composure and organize my thoughts about my current circumstances. But it didn't go too well. My endlessly suspicious emotions spun down into a whirlpool of disorder.  OST: Silence After sighing in what sounded like light disappointment as she put away her handkerchief, the demon girl asked me this with a triumphant expression. It was the attitude of someone who'd known the answer from the start-- I couldn't afford to answer her.  Maybe I was the one who'd gone crazy. If you took the chat with "Shogun" into consideration, it was hard to discard the possibility that someone other than myself was controlling me. Or only my memories of this demon girl.... of the girl called Sakihata Rimi, by some accident had been knocked clean out of me. Whatever the case, I didn't understand myself.... Was it memory loss? Sonambulism? Something else? Or all this together? "You okay?" "If you're not feeling well, how about lying down on the sofa?" The demon girl spoke to me kindly.  I shook my head to show her my refusal and raised my face with all my strength. Sweat got in my eyes, making my vision blur. The demon girl's face was closer than I'd expected. What color did she hold in those eyes of hers?   "Hm? What, what?" "Ah, sorry. It was selfish of me to come in."  "But, I was knocking, you know?" "And no matter what, you wouldn't come out, then I heard this loud noise, so I was on pins and needles." "........." "Mm? What is it this time?"  What was her reason for coming to visit me? If she'd come to kill me, she would have acted on her intentions long ago, yet why wasn't she doing anything? "Ahh, the reason, I came here? Um, that's--"   "Here." Without quite meaning to, I accepted it from her. Certainly, it had "Future Aspirations Questionnaire" written on it, with blank fields for up to three entries. ....Was that really it? Only that?  "........."I didn't want to get involved. I mustn't get involved with 3-D girls. This was a trap. Don't listen. This wasn't reality.   If you don't mean to kill me, then please let me be.  Holding my head, I closed my heart. I started to tremble dreaming that a girl called Sakihata Rimi had never been there in the first place. SFX: Door Opens  SFX: Door Closes OST Ends    It reflected a screensaver of Seira, a character from "Blood Tune the Animation." In this container house, which a girl called Sakihata Rimi had visited half a day earlier, there could now be found solely the form of its owner, Nishijou Takumi. The time was already nearing five in the morning. It was Takumi's daily habit to play online games until dawn, then sleep like a log on his sofa. Now, too, Takumi was lying on the sofa in an uncomfortable-looking position. He didn't use his bed to sleep in. Though he possessed a proper bed, the reason he didn't sleep there was because it had been monopolized by the manga volumes, CDs, and so forth that he had piled atop it. In the period when he avoid cleaning because it would be too much of a bother, his bed had gradually transformed to a type of shelving. Henceforth, he began using the two-seat sofa as his sleeping space. OST: Silence  A painful-sounding moan spilled from Takumi's mouth. Perhaps he was having a nightmare; his entire body was sweating, and his closed eyelids trembled. His expression twisted agonizingly, And as he tossed and turned over and over, he came close to falling off the sofa.   Refraining from sitting down, he moved the mouse while standing. The screen saver disappeared, and his desktop filled the monitor. Illuminated by the monitor's pallid light, Takumi's expression was horribly empty. His body wavered from side to side. Drool hung down from his half-open mouth.   The movements of his body were lackadaisical, but he showed no hesitation in selecting threads related to "New Gen" in the breaking news board. In total they numbered approximately sixty, and Takumi opened them one by one in order, from the top down. And while gazing at the monitor, he began touch-typing. He repeated this in each of the sixty existing threads.   OST Ends
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May 25, 2020 12:47
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As stated before, I will be taking a short break. I will resume posting updates on the 30th at earliest. Rest assured, I will be back. In the meantime, I hope you all have a pleasant week.
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May 25, 2020 12:50
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Uh, those threads he’s in aren’t mentioning the fourth murder... I have a bad feeling about this. I think our boy is losing his drat mind....
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May 25, 2020 14:29
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Part 28 - Design By Committee I hadn't been able to confirm it the last time I came here, but today, I would definitely get them to tell me I was normal. Dr. Takashina would remember me. I'd reveal that I was "Nishijou, your patient up until four years ago." And I'd get to hear all kinds of things from him.  This hospital opened at eight in the morning, somewhat earlier than regular hospitals. Which was why I had come exactly in time for opening hours, but.... The sofas in the lobby were already filled with seated old people. Why!? Even though the hospital had barely opened for the day, why were there so many people here!? It's unfair to get a head start! Come on time, like you're supposed to! Inwardly insulting them, I had no option left but to wait.  But immediately afterward, they called my name, and I was relieved at the fact that I hadn't been forced to wait as long as last week.  "Um.... Ta, Ta.... Where's Dr. Takashina....?" Upon my growing perplexed, the nurse standing in attendance behind him--what was her name again.... Hazuki-san--answered with an apologetic expression.  Not here anymore....? Unfamiliar Doctor: "Or rather, last weekend, he collapsed from fatigue. As a result, he's taking this week off." What a nightmare.... My one and only ally.... ....Wait, had Dr. Takashina really collapsed from fatigue?   "Ni, Nishijou-san....?" I had no intention of letting anyone besides Dr. Takashina examine me. So instead of undergoing a check-up, I left the hospital as though I were fleeing it.    Leaning against the fence surrounding the roof, I stared vaguely up at the sky. The skies of Shibuya were drab, and it would be hard to call them clear. "It'd be better not to go to the hospital anymore...." The demon girl's dragnet was tightening. Maybe I had nowhere left to run. Maybe even the detectives I'd met yesterday had in truth been fakes, the demon girl's cronies. And they'd been testing me. Because the timing had been way too good. Come on, the demon girl had pushed her way into my room right after I'd met with the detectives. She was a demon, after all. She wasn't human. It'd hardly take any effort for her to manipulate human hearts.  In that case, the only way to survive was by presupposing the worst. Was there no one who would be my ally....? All of them seemed like my enemies. Everyone looked like one of the demon girl's underlings. "Save me.... Somebody, save me...." Why don't I have even a single ally? Why wouldn't anyone come save me? Why did I have to end up like this? I felt terribly forlorn, and I wanted some source of support. Someone who would protect me. Something that would protect me.   And the words she had given voice to when we met at school. I'd been lost in my delusions and hadn't heard them, but Misumi-kun had said the following.   If this were a game, I'd be a hero, and we'd reach the usual cliche development about my having to get my hands on a legendary sword to defeat the demon. Without my seeking it out, I'd recently heard the keyword "sword" from two different 3-D girls. And there remained a chance that FES was my ally. Although, going by her attitude, Girl B--had she been called Sena?--was most likely affiliated with the demon girl. A sword, huh....  I muttered to myself as though I'd gone off my rocker. For me, it was the equivalent of clutching at straws. If I got a sword, I might be released from this nightmare.... I couldn't help having such expectations.    SFX: Computer Noises For the moment, I started off by checking to see whether a sword similar to the ones carried by FES and Sena had appeared in any anime, but I couldn't spot anything like that in this season's crop of anime, at least. I'd expected as much. I normally check out all the recent new anime.  Of course, since there was Mew Tube, I didn't have any problems completing my line-up with anime from the BS and CS satellite subscription channels. Which was why there was no way I'd overlooked any anime. And no such sword had appeared in any of the shows I'd checked. It was that distinctive-looking. If it showed up, it ought to have caught my eye, but I had no memory of seeing one.    Terms I was closely familiar with, such as ESO's Shangri-La Edge, kept popping up. At this rate, I wouldn't make any progress. Even though I had to hurry up and find it! I had the sense that Sena had used a more concrete name when speaking of it, but what could it have been....    Right, Di-Sword! I quickly stuck it in the input field and ran a search.   Only two of them, though. Even so, I was gradually starting to think of these two links as my road to salvation. Holding down my excitement, I investigated them in order from the top down.  No, calm down.... Go back one more time and take a look at the cache.   "It's from folklore....?" In the first place, why was it such a minor sword? Why not go with Excalibur or Kusanagi, something in the Major League? No, this wasn't the time to complain.   The words, "I bought a Di-Sword," particularly concerned me. Was a Di-Sword something you could purchase?   Was he a completely unrelated third party, or had "the person behind" the blog deliberately changed the particulars of how he wrote.... I understood that no answer would come no matter how much I thought about it, so I stopped looking at the blog.  I had a feeling that it was too good to be true, but I also had a feeling that it was destiny.   If they didn't have an official site, that meant they didn't take orders online. I searched Taboo! Auctions but didn't come across anything likely-looking. Which meant that my only option was to go to the store in person. I didn't want to go outside very much. But--  Now, I had come to think of it as my sole, absolute means of fighting back against the demon girl. I didn't know what I would do, in concrete terms, after obtaining the sword. I wasn't brave enough to use it to kill her, or anything of the sort. Even so, I harbored the hope that if I got a sword, I would be somewhat freed from the terror that tortured me. Yeah, a Di-Sword was like a protective charm. It would surely strengthen my heart.  SFX Ends  Cat Street is a twisty, winding road from Shibuya to Harajuku that runs about a block off Meiji Avenue. Apparently it had been built by filling in an area that was originally a stream. There were various explanations behind why it had originally come to be called Cat Street, such as there being many feral cats, or because it was the sort of narrow path that only cats would use. Well, not that it made much of a difference to me. Cat Street was fairly far away from me. By foot, it could easily take fifteen or twenty minutes to get there. It'd be a quick trip by bike, but unfortunately, I didn't have one. I decided to go by a route that took me past the plaza in front of the station, then past Shoutou by way of cutting through Miyashita Park.   Cat Street had been quiet, compared to the big shopping district, and its image was far closer to that of Harajuku than Shibuya. The stores lined up there were all chic shops that of course had nothing to do with me. Go off and die. Knowing that I was practically acting delirious as I walked along, I became even more annoyed. For me, being here was like playing in an away game. All those bastards around me thought they were so drat cool. And there were more couples than in the shopping district. Whatever, they probably wanted to act like they had money, even though they didn't, so chances were that most of them were window shopping.  What a waste of time. I felt some regret, thinking to myself that I shouldn't have come after all, but I reminded myself that it was all for the sake of obtaining a sword, and determinedly put up with it.    "Is this it....?"Though I'd only ventured one side street away from the main road, the ambience underwent a dramatic change. It was a thin, narrow, dirty alley, one impossible for cars to pass through. On either side were wood-built residences and out-of-business stores with closed shutters, which invariably came equipped with spray-painted graffiti on them. Cat Street, which seemed so clean from the front, with all its high-class brand name stores, was in the end no more than a flimsy, papier-mache facade. Behind that facade lay any number of mercilessly discarded wrecks. Although I personally disliked both the front and the back. Both were unfamiliar territory for me. The only place I ever wanted to go was ESO. Even so, Town Vanguard had a far smaller, darker air to it than I'd imagined. I started to understand why the blogger who had mentioned it had described it as an underground store.  How was I supposed to go in such a sketchy-seeming store, when it was asking too much of me just to have me go alone to a gyuudon shop.... I wanna go home....   No one passed through this narrow alley. I'd whiled away thirty minutes with my waffling, but not a single person had gone by me.  But I couldn't go home empty-handed. This was the only place I could obtain a Di-Sword.... Even though I understood that with my head, my instincts made me reluctant to enter the shop. I imagined that maybe a clerk would come out for me.  She'd have a perfect grasp of exactly what I wanted, and she'd hold a Di-Sword out to me in a wonderfully friendly manner.... "Here you are, please take this sword, Master...."   Unlike in my fantasy, though her clothes were rather gaudy, the kind of thing that made you wonder what kind of nomad camp she'd snagged them from, and her face, on the other hand, was amazingly glum. Her hair was cut in the bomb-a-head style, with thin, frizzy ends, and creepy patterns were drawn on the bandanna twisted around it above. She said she was a store worker and had come out after seeing me wishy-washily going around outside. My fantasy hadn't exactly become reality. Well, but that was to be expected.  OST: Town Vanguard  If this store were under the demon girl's control, and everything about the Di-Sword had been a trap to lure me in, I'd have no right to complain about getting slaughtered on the spot.... I swiftly surveyed the store's dim interior. There wasn't a single customer.  Though I spotted items that might have been products, it was difficult to judge whether or not they were really for sale. All of them had been left about haphazardly, and there was no way to distinguish them from plain garbage. And for beginning, not one of them had a price tag. I didn't realize it until I came in, but there was a lot of porno merch. Among them were the sorts of devices you often see in rape/humiliation eroge, and I was at a loss for a safe place to look. Apparently this store was similar to a variety shop aimed at adults. After bringing me into the store, the clerk sat down on a stool beside the counter, zoning out as she smoked and showing no indication of continuing to meddle with me. She must have been one of the sources of the mist in here.... Regardless of the fact that it had been less than a minute since I'd first come in, nervousness, embarrassment, a weird sense of pressure, and my feeling physically sick made nasty sweat seep out of my forehead. I wanted to leave this otherworldly place as fast as possible. I had to be quick about finding a Di-Sword.... I walked toward the back as I browsed my way through the store.  That one corner stood apart from the rest, being the only area with conspicuous colors. Numerous pole-shaped toys had been neatly put up on display.  I was skeptical of whether they would really glow. It would seem that the light shuriken mentioned in the blog had sold out, which was also surprising.   I tried picking it up. It was unexpectedly light. I wondered what it was made of, though it seemed like soft vinyl.... There was no blade. The edge was slippery, and of course it didn't hurt me in the slightest even when I stroked it with my fingers.  I wondered if perhaps it was a fake.... I was worried about it, but there wasn't anything else in this store you could have called a Di-Sword. Would this even shine in the first place?  But there was no glass to be seen anywhere on the sword I had in hand. Maybe I ought to give up on buying it....     Right, if I didn't buy it right here and now, I'd lose my only chance of obtaining a Di-Sword. It looked cheap at the moment, but maybe, once it recognized me as its rightful master, it would manifest a mysterious power. Or maybe I'd seen too many anime and manga.... But I had sensed just that sort of unknown power in FES and Sena's swords. So even this sword must....   Smirking darkly, she pointed at the Di-Sword and muttered, "10000 yen, and I'll throw in a free bonus." At first, its absurd cheapness made me doubt my ears. I certainly hadn't thought it would be less expensive than a figure. I had build up a fair amount of savings from RMT, and if it only cost 10000 yen, I could get away with buying it simply by giving up on purchasing one figure.  OST Ends  Town Vanguard didn't do deliveries, and so my only option was to carry it home myself.  But I'd already paid, and the clerk fiercely refused to let me perform a return.  Having to haul a huge toy like this down a fashionable street....     Partway through, I'd broken into a run and had kept at it ever since, so I was breathing hard by the time I reached my base. The cold looks from the other pedestrians had really stung.... I was impressed with Sena for being able to endure this embarrassment. In a certain sense, it made me respect her. I stood no chance of following in her footsteps. SFX: A footstep noise "Nn!?" Was someone there....? Petrified in place, I gulped down my breath. The ever-so-innocent smile of the demon girl who'd called herself Rimi popped into my head.  W, what should I do? Should I run? I sensed a presence. The sunset cast someone's shadow across the ground. No matter how I looked at it, that silhouette was female.  When I actually held it up like this, it felt even less dependable than I'd thought. Sena's sword had possessed a mysterious formidability and an overwhelming kind of pressure that refused to let anyone near it. But the Di-Sword in my hands didn't have anything of the sort. Maybe it really was a fake.... Could I fight with something like this? O, of course I couldn't.... I couldn't do it even if I had the real thing.... Plus, I hadn't understood until I tried holding it the way I was now, but it was pretty heavy. Maybe I was gripping it wrong. In any case, it would prove impossible to swing it around properly.    Despite that, I harbored the faint hope that as long as I had this sword, I'd be okay, that it'd somehow do something for me. But I didn't hit anything. My enemy didn't say anything. Could it be that a single strike from my Di-Sword had utterly destroyed the demon girl? If so, it'd be beyond amazing--  "Eh...." She was looking at me a tad derisively. OST: Soliloquy "Wh, wha, wha...."All the strength went out of me at once. I flopped right down where I'd been standing. "Y, you.... Don't scare me.... like that...." Who the hell did she think she was? This was why the third dimension would never hold a candle to the second.  "Why do I have to wait for half an hour, worrying about you the whole time? You've made my precious time go poof, stupid."Worrying....? She'd been worrying about me? Like I'd be fooled by such an obvious lie. "So, where'd ya go? You almost never head out, right? You didn't pick up when I called your cell, either." "For starters, what's that sword?" "Did you just get back from buying it?"Nanami gazed curiously at the sword. "Ah, I get it. It's an anime toy or something, isn't it? Since you're an otaku and all." "But this toy doesn't suit you at all, you know." "........."Ignoring Nanami, I undid the lock on the container house's door and began to go in.  "W, wait! Don't ignore me--!" "G, go home...."If she'd come to check on my survival, she didn't have anything left to do here.  "Um, hey, since I came all the way out here to see how you were, try to be a little more grateful." "I even brought you a present and everything...."Nanami spoke sulkily, pouting. "A present....?" "Yeah! Mom told me to bring it. Here." "........."I had mixed feelings about this.... I'd eat clementines if they were there in front of me, but they weren't my favorite food or whatever.  "On that note, I wanna take a quick break, too, so I'll eat 'em with you." "Go home...." "Sheesh! Your sister's brought you a present, and she's saying she'll help you eat it, you know!? Be a little happier!"What, precisely, about eating clementines with Nanami was supposed make me rejoice?    As if I would.... Basically, I don't drink anything besides Coke.  "Huh? What's that?"Quickly spotting the bangle I'd tossed away at the floor, Nanami picked it up.  "Did you come from buying this, too? It's in pretty good taste, at least for you."Cute, she says? What about it? No matter how I looked at it, it was a piece of kitsch one could buy for the likes of 500 yen. Nanami was the one with bad taste. Disregarding her, I took one of the clementines and went to sit in front of my PC.  "Hey, hey. Why're you throwing this away?" "Be, because, I don't need it...." "Hmmm...." "Haa....?" "It's fine. You were gonna get rid of it anyway." "One in a while, act more brotherly and give your little sister a present."You call it a present, but it's an unneeded item that you started coveting all on your own.... "T, then go ahead and take it...." "Really!? Whee--" "Heheh~ Bro, whaddaya think? Does it look good on me?" "N, not at all...." "Oh, really." "Stupidhead." "........." What kind of education have you been receiving, huh!? Go play a hundred eroge! "Heheh~, dummy."She was grinning perkily. I was getting really pissed off here.... "I like this, so I'm not gonna return it anymore, okay?" "Well, that can't be helped, so I'll take real good care of it for you."Like I care. No one asked you to treasure it. I hadn't gotten it for Nanami's sake, to begin with. "If, if you're done here, go home...."  The moment I said it, Nanami pursed her lips. "You don't have to say it like that." "And we haven't eaten the clementines yet, and you haven't poured me any tea yet." "I, I don't have any tea for you to drink." "So~ pissed~"Nanami glared at me fixedly, her shoulders tense with anger. At last her eyes started to well up--  "I got it! If I'm that much of a bother, I'll leave!" "Yeah, make it fast...." "Urrggh~~~"  OST End Yelling in a voice that resounded piercingly through the room, Nanami grabbed her bag and bolted out with tremendous energy. Haa, that storm-like time had finally come to an end....      "The First Melt has ended with results that surpass our expectations." "There are only slight discrepancies between the GE rate's rise and our initial calculations." "Are our attempts at biorhythm control also proceeding smoothly?" "Shibuya's GE rate, while simultaneously much higher than those found in other areas, is also particularly stable." "As a result, deliberately manipulating it is a simple matter. Similarly, forcing a marked heightening in the biorhythms of Shibuya's inhabitants would also be...." "Please refer to the report on our experimental results. I believe you will find the fruit of our efforts to be more than acceptable." "Hmph, it's only natural that you produce the desired results. That's why we're spending a great deal of money and human resources to accomodate you." "I understand how effective it is. These past few months, the ranks of our church's followers have multiplied several times over." "What of the CODE samples? Though you've secured three people's worth of samples, you have yet to reach our target numbers." "Indeed. It will be difficult to achieve those numerical values without samples from at least five subjects." "We are currently in the process of gathering sample carriers. All that remains is extraction." "Then I leave it in your hands." "May the divine light save you. Henceforth, carry on with precaution." "Yes, very well, sir...."
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May 30, 2020 04:28
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Part 29 - New Classmate SFX: Computer Noises    Today, too, I'd spent ages hunting in ESO, but no monsters had dropped the rare item I'd been looking for. No success, even after pulling an eight-hour marathon.... Well, but this kind of thing happened a lot. I glanced quickly at the side of my desk.  On a side note, this sword didn't radiate any light whatsoever. I was hoping that, sooner or later, it would metamorphose into one with as cool a shape as Sena's, but.... Inside my monitor, Grim's avatar happened to be right in the middle of leveling up. My Neidhardt had reached the maximum level, so he wouldn't be going any higher. Rubbing my sleepy eyes, I thought to myself that maybe it was getting to be time for me to create my next character, the third after Liselotte.  It was a familiar enough concept in RPGs, but I thought experience points also existed in real life. When I first started ESO, even I was a baby who didn't know right from left, but now I could boast of being the strongest in Baselard, with my name of "Neidhardt der Blitzschnelle" known all throughout the land.  It wasn't unthinkable that the person behind me might, by some chance, happen to lose some of the experience points he'd build up. Then maybe it would be all too natural for me to forget things I'd known. Maybe the fuzziness in my memories could be traced back to the same source. And then there was "Shogun" and the demon girl. Before my experience points got cleared, perhaps it had been perfectly normal for me--the person behind me--to post under the handle of "Shogun" in chats, and to spend time IRL with the demon girl--with Rimi. No, that was certainly improbable. But in the past, I might've possessed a power capable of letting me square off with that demon girl. Was I the only person who had thoughts like this? Although I also felt like it wasn't a particularly strange or mysterious way of thinking. Because the only thing human beings have to go by are the fundamental standards they've come up with all on their own, maybe even now I--not just me, but everyone in the whole world--was judging everything wrong while living out my day-to-day life.  At the time, it had made me think I was kind of amazing for enduring the pain all the way through, and I simply became proud of myself. Thinking back on it now, however, that comment had probably been based on judging the degree of pain by the relative progression of the cavity. But even with the exact same level of pain, there might be people who could bear it and people who couldn't. In other words, I suspected that people might be utterly different in how they recognized and experienced such sensations. Take giving birth, for instance. Online, I'd often seen people saying that though women are able to hold out through the pain of labor, it would be inherently impossible for men. Take marathon runners, for instance. Maybe they excel not because of the power of their bodies, but instead because of their ability to endure pain. Take sadists and masochists, for instance. If there are people who enjoy hurting others, then there are also those who feel pleasure when others hurt them. In short, I figured that the way people felt things, and the strength of their inner nature, their ability to put up with it, varied from person to person. Perhaps the level of pain in the toothaches and headaches I endured from time to time in truth far surpassed the range of pain an ordinary person could take, and if I passed the same level of pain on to someone else in the same manner as a relay runner passing on his baton, the agony of it would make them go into shock and die.... The conclusion this led to was the selfish delusion that maybe I was a very special type of human being.  Though I'd rejected that idea, surely everyone had these kinds of delusions. Every man longs to be the strongest in the world. Everyone wants to think they're special, that they've been chosen. They want to think a dramatic, stormy life, like in TV shows and movies, is awaiting them in their future. It was the so-called yearning to be a hero. To put it more crudely, being self-centered. Of course I, too, had those kinds of desires. Indeed, it might be my destiny to defeat the demon girl. But then, if I were told to carry that out in real life--I'd require that a number of conditions be met first. At the least, the one thing I really needed was the ability to use cheat codes. For stuff like secret attacks, or perhaps "invincible mode." I didn't want to undergo any pain or fear. If I couldn't do that--if, in other words, I was supposed to do it with my own power, I definitely wouldn't.  SFX End  SFX: Westminster Chime  When I reached the front of my classroom, I breathed deeply to collect myself. I mustn't do anything to draw my classmates' attention. For me, coming late would be a fatal mistake. My life would implode as soon as some juvie set his eyes on me.  Of course, I didn't give them any kind of thoughtless greeting like "G'morning." I turned myself into air, so as to make the others pick up on my existence as little as possible, and headed for my seat. I always did things this same way. SFX End    "Yo--, Taku! You're coming to school three times this week, huh? How hardworking of ya." "........."Misumi-kun again.... Though I was kind of sick of him, I'd feel bad ignoring him, so I started to raise my head--and hesitated.  The day before yesterday, I'd done as the demon girl told me and called him. At the time, he'd acted undeniably strange. To begin with, he'd answered by saying that the demon girl was our classmate, as if this were perfectly normal. Even though I knew it wasn't so. Maybe the demon girl had brainwashed the current Misumi-kun. On the contrary, there was also the possibility that she'd switched him with someone else. "Hey, what's wrong? In "deep sleep mode" already?"Takumi's Ringtone  It was my cell phone....! poo poo, now of all times! What kind of idiot would call at a time like this! On top of that, even though I was sure I'd set it to vibrate, the ringtone was ringing at the same time! I might've messed up the settings. "Oh, Taku, dude, it's ringing."I know that much! Should I hurry up and answer it? But if I did, Misumi-kun would know I'd only been pretending to sleep. Besides, I don't like talking on the phone.... Except, if I didn't pick up, it would bother the rest of the class. Judging by how my ringtone was reverberating through the classroom right now, things were pretty drat bad. I wasn't supposed to stand out; this was incredibly bad.... "O--i. Not gonna get it? Are you really sleeping?" "........."poo poo, while I wavered over what to do, I'd completely lost my chance. I couldn't move.... SFX End  I let out a relieved breath in such a way as to keep Misumi-kun from catching me at it. I'd been right to learn how to use voicemail. "Hey, Taku. Who was calling~? That four-eyes from before, the one you went home together with? It's her, isn't it?"Dammit, you're so noisy.... Please don't do anything more to interfere with me, because that phone call already made me stand out much more than I should have. Had Misumi-kun always been this persistent?     "Dunno why, but he seems tired."She was in this classroom as though it were natural for her to be here. "Whatever, he probably spent too much time gaming." "You're too soft on Taku." "Yeah, cause you're the enemy of all women. No need to be nice to a guy like you."She was chatting away as though it were natural for her to do so. She was blending in as though it were natural for her to belong with us. I was too horrified to raise my head. I didn't want to acknowledge the fact that she was here. "Well, even if you aren't nice to me, I've got plenty of other girls to take care of that. Fu-fu-fu." "That's why I keep telling you, it's not a good idea to say that kinda thing. Your girlfriend's gonna cry if she hears you." "Not that I know who your girlfriend of the moment is."SFX: Westminster Chime "See, the bell rang. The teacher's coming." Two days ago, she hadn't been here. At least, the only person who'd come to talk to me that day was Misumi-kun. Yesterday, I hadn't come to school. And today, she was here. How had she wormed her way in--?  I surveyed my surroundings with my eyes alone. I wanted the voice from earlier to have been an illusion. To prove that to myself, I had to make sure that girl wasn't anywhere in this classroom.... I didn't see her. I didn't see that girl's form anywhere. Had she been a hallucination after all? SFX End   But I couldn't turn around. I couldn't do something so likely to catch others' attention. poo poo, I felt incredibly fidgety. Was she really in here, or not? My neck muscles weren't prickling. No one was looking at me. I didn't feel a gaze. Was she-- Wasn't she-- Which one-- Staring steadily down at the top of my desk, I attempted to search out that girl's existence by her presence alone.  I'd forgotten his name. I had the feeling that it'd been something like Tsukaji or Tsukada. He was a PE teacher who'd graduated from a PE college, a total musclehead. But he wasn't hotblooded and didn't use corporal punishment. If I had to put it one way or the other, I'd say he was the type to get a joke. For some reason, the class started going into a commotion. But at the moment, my attention was completely occupied by seeking out the demon girl. "........."Like I could possibly detect her through her presence alone! This wasn't a manga! Was I a fool or what!?  The teacher muttered. I see, that was the reason there'd been a fuss.  "........."Mr. Tsukachin: "Come on, Orihara. Say hello to everyone." "........."I haven't heard the transfer student speak. Was there really someone there? I cast a look at the teacher's podium.  She was remarkably small. Maybe even more of a runt than Nanami. She was the moe type who looked a little timid and gave off an aura of having been bullied. I'd say she reached the so-so level, for a 3-D girl. For some reason, she was facing down, and the corners of her eyes were full of tears. My classmates' commotion increased in response to the fact that she wasn't trying to say anything. Our teacher patted her on the shoulder considerately. Mr. Tsukachin: "Ah, well, seems like Orihara's a little nervous. Okay, no need for a greeting." Mr. Tsukachin: "Everyone, this is Orihara Kozue. Get along with her, okay?" Mr. Tsukachin: "Orihara, your seat's the furthest back. It's okay to sit down now." "........."Without saying a single word, the transfer student bowed her head and began walking my way.  But that itself would be fairly attention-grabbing behavior. There was also the dread that the delinquents might pick a meaningless fight with me, saying, "Don't start drooling over the transfer student just cause you think she's cute." What should I do? Should I turn around, or would it be better to wait until homeroom ended.... I hung my head and clenched my fists. It was no good, I didn't have the guts to do it.... What if I turned around, and my eyes met that girl's.... The thought of it made me shudder.   This doesn't come across in the screenshot, but there's a echo-like sound effect in Kozue's voice. Her mouth didn't move either. Her voice undoubtedly had reached my ears. The transfer student passed close by my desk. "Eh?" Before I knew it, I'd unconsciously raised my face. The transfer student paused beside my desk for the barest of seconds. But she didn't turn toward me.   Had she been speaking to me? Why had she started talking to me, all of a sudden? I resembled her? She was glad we were in the same class? Had we met once before? No, I had absolutely no recollection of her face. Unlike in certain eroge, I didn't have a childhood friend I'd played together with in the distant past. Was I becoming popular with girls, after all? Or else--  SFX: Westminster Chime  There were about five minutes until the first period class started. Misumi-kun was charging toward the transfer student's seat. It looked like he meant to start hitting on her out of left field. My other classmates also seemed deeply interested in her, and the classroom had grown more wild and boisterous than usual. At a glance, it appeared to be a nonchalant, peaceful tableau.  My impulse to turn around warred with my reason, which told me I mustn't. "Taku." "....!"SFX End  She really was here. She existed in this place....! "You don't look well." "You okay?" Run-- You've gotta run-- No matter how I thought it, my legs were trembling, and it didn't seem like I'd be able to stand up well.   OST: Silence   In the same way as two days ago, she spoke to me as though she were worried for me. In the same way as two days ago, she held out a handkerchief with a soft floral scent to it. Instead of accepting it, I hastily wiped my sweat with my hand. "Wh, y...." "Hm? What is it?"  "Hey, hey. What did she say to you?" Rimi crouched in place, so her eyes were on the same level as mine, and propped her chin up on her hands. She took a peek at my face.  "I'm super curious--" What was she talking about? Who had said what to me? "The transfer student."    Rimi was still smiling. But was it my imagination that her voice had started shifting into more of a demanding tone, like she was interrogating me? "I thought you weren't interested in real girls?" "Could it be that you are interested?" What do you plan to do after asking that.... Did she mean to pump me for personal information, and then abuse it? To begin by stating the conclusion, I'm not interested in 3-D girls. I always said that sourly. "Then, then" "Are you interested.... in me? Tahaha...." "........."A chill ran down my back. Though I'd just wiped it, fresh sweat sprang up on my forehead.  The danger signals rang on and on in my head. Don't talk with the demon any longer. Otherwise, she'll destroy me!   OST End    I ran up the stairs without looking to either side and came out on the empty roof. It looked as though she hadn't chased me. Even so, I couldn't let myself feel relieved yet, and so I hugged my knees and hid for some time in the shadows. My knees were trembling. I couldn't believe I'd succeeded in running in this condition. It showed how desperate I'd been.  The Di-Sword I'd gone out of my way to buy hadn't been useful in any capacity. I certainly couldn't bring it to school, not with how much it'd stand out here. She'd caught me off-guard. Two days ago, when I heard from Misumi-kun that Rimi was our classmate, I'd figured that he'd either been making it up on the spot or had merely been imagining things. But she had really "become" my classmate.... It would almost definitely prove useless to ponder how she had managed to slip in. Because she was a demon. She could easily do things of which humans were incapable. Maybe she had brainwashed my whole class--no, maybe even all the teachers at school. I couldn't go to the hospital anymore, and now I couldn't go to school. Yua was at @Cafe, and "Shogun" appeared online. She and her underlings were clearly venturing closer and closer to me. And they were constantly launching psychological attacks at me.  They stirred me up and threatened my peaceful lifestyle, when all I wanted to do was live quietly.    Here, I had at last been freed from my strain. The problem was what came after this. During break, students would without doubt come up here to eat their lunches. That was why making a break for it in the middle of fourth period and returning to my base at top speed was the best option.  I decided not to worry about the fact that I'd left my bag in the classroom. Whatever the case, all I had in there were textbooks. My wallet, my key and anything else important would be in my uniform's pockets.... probably. Growing uneasy, I searched through my pockets. Wallet, key, cell phone.... they were all where they should be.  "Who on earth....?" I couldn't think of anyone who would call me besides my family. Nanami seemed like the most probable. She didn't think about whether she might end up causing me trouble.  And anyway, all that talk about sending officers to my base had ended up going unsettled.  It appeared not to be Nanami. When I looked more closely, I saw that I had a new voicemail. I had the vague feeling that I might or might not have seen this number before. Just in case, I checked the history of calls.  In other words, since the time when I first bought this cell phone, only these five calls had reached it. Plus, three of them were from Nanami.  The one from a little earlier and the one from five days before were displayed as numbers instead of names, since they hadn't been recorded in my address book. It was the same number. "03-X733-X991"  It's time to make the call. Positive, Negative or Neutral?
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Jun 1, 2020 12:43
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He’s panicked. He’s probably in a negative place.
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Jun 1, 2020 13:53
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Calling it. The next update is Negative.
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Jun 2, 2020 13:53
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Part 30 - Tōryanse (Let Me Pass)Warning The video I'm linking below is highly recommended to watch. It contains elements of this update that are impossible to understand through screenshots. That being said, it is also recommended that you do not use headphones while watching it. If you must use headphones, be prepared to turn the volume down. WAY down. Turn it down as soon as you hear the true (non-delusional) voicemail. Watch This: Video: The Voicemail    SFX: Connection. Beeeep. OST: Tender Hearts   "Um, I'm sorry.... Calling you all of a sudden...." "Except, there was something I wanted to talk to you about, no matter what...." ".....I managed to buy.... the new Seira-chan figure." "I owe it all to you, Nishijou-kun." "Thank you.... very much...."  "It's very cute, but.... a little ecchi.... isn't it. Ahaha." "I was really embarrassed.... when I bought it...." "Ah, I know, did you see this week's Burachu?" "That was an amazing plot twist.... I was excited the whole time I watched it--"OST End  "You multiple personality freak."OST: Silence "You killed someone." "Murderer." "You're the real criminal." "Pay for your sins." "Because I won't let you escape." "Whose eyes are those eyes?"SFX: Click. Beep, Beep, Beep....  OST End  It was no more than my own delusion, but it terrified me. For it was entirely possible that Yua had actually looked up my cell phone number somewhere and called me. I wanted to avoid listening to the voice message.  Shaking off my melancholy, I made the message play back. Scoping out my surroundings again and again to verify that the demon girl wasn't there, I put the phone to my ear.  Voicemail Service: "Message number 1. Friday, October 17th, 8:28 AM." SFX: Connection sound. Beeeep. Voicemail tune "What's this?" I had the sense that it was ringing out from a slight distance. Perhaps the person on the other end of the line had been near a traffic light. This song was often played at pedestrian crosswalks, in order to let people with visual disabilities know when the light turned green.  Though a lot of people knew the melody, far fewer knew the lyrics. Ah, on a side note, I know them. Because I'd learned them in middle school. Well, but it wasn't as though I remembered them perfectly.    SFX: Tune abruptly stops and is replaced by a siren. Beeeep boooop beeeep boooop  It sounded like "Coming home is beeeep booop beeeep booop--" It wasn't very auspicious, what with how it reminded me of an ambulance. Meh, it must've been a coincidence, but it was creepy all the same.... SFX: Siren is cut off by a LOUD Buzzer. BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR  The instant after the traffic signal's melody got cut off, there came a massively high-volume sound akin to that of a buzzer.  SFX Ends. "Wh, what!?"When I gingerly returned the phone to my ear, the message had already finished playing. What had it been? At the very end, I might've faintly heard a roar like the ground rumbling.... That buzzer was something completely separate from the melody of the traffic light. For it to have such tremendous volume, all I could assume was that the phone's receiver had been deliberately placed close to the source of the sound. "A, a prank?"My heart began to race when I thought that. Had I done anything to earn someone's dislike? Who had made this call to me, anyway.... I could return the call, using the number displayed on my phone, but I wouldn't be able to bring myself to redial a prank caller.... In the end, my only available choice was to leave it be. Besides, my current situation was far worse than a prank call like this.      Thinking that he'd like to speak with the teacher who had been responsible for Nishijou Takumi during elementary school, Ban Yasuji attempted to contact him via phone, but was told that, sadly, he had passed away. Ban, resorting to speaking instead with the one who had answered the phone--the head teacher, Kamio--went to the school together with his partner. As it was a Saturday, the school gates were closed. The two detectives, Ban and Suwa, stopped there and looked over at the school building. An extraordinarily eye-catching, brilliantly colored mural was painted on the white outer wall. Without any knowledge of art or aesthetics, Ban had no idea what it signified, but the way the spiral-shaped painting changed to seven different colors as it went from top to bottom reminded him of a rainbow.    He tried striking a casual pose. One that was dandy, cool, refined.   "They say to go around to the back. There's supposed to be a side door."  The side door soon led to the school's rear entrance hallway, and getting to the staff room only required turning down one corridor. Naturally, there were no children present in the building, and to the two detectives, it felt chillier than when they'd been outside, although this could have been an illusion created by the slick linoleum floor.  One of them rose and bowed his head upon seeing the detectives enter. He was Kamio, with a mild smile and mostly-white hair swept over with a side part. Ban and Suwa showed their police IDs to him almost simultaneously, then entered the topic at hand soon after a few brief greetings. It was Suwa's role to ask him questions.  Kamio: "I recall him. I wasn't his teacher myself, however, so I can't give you any real details. Are you all right with that?" Suwa nodded, taking out his notebook and readying himself to jot things down.  "What kind of child was Nishijou-kun?"Kamio: "I heard that he was difficult to handle. He was unique." "Unique?" "Could you explain it in more concrete terms?"Kamio: "I'm not sure if it's permissible for me to say that much.... Could you ask his family or his doctor?" In recent times, all schools had begun responding with this don't-rock-the-boat attitude. They wouldn't cooperate fully when it came to anything that might result in a lawsuit from a parent or guardian. It made doing one's job as a policeman much harder.  Kamio: "It was an accident. During a field trip, the bus they were on ran into a collapsing...." "Ah, I know about that. They showed it on the news."Kamio: "The children were only injured, thank god, all of their lives ended up being saved, but...." Kamio: "Mr. Saitou ended up as the sole victim.... It's so hard to bear thinking about it." "Did Nishijou-kun become caught up in the accident as well?"Kamio gave a small side-to-side shake of his head in response to Ban's question. Kamio: "He stayed home from school that day, and so he wasn't on the bus." "Why did he stay home?"Kamio: "I seem to remember hearing something about his illness having worsened, but...." Ban, too, had a faint recollection of that accident. After the accident, glancing at the TV had shown him the mass media swarming day after day around the house of the one male child who hadn't been involved. Kamio: "It was a very sad accident...."   We usually didn't chat about anything important. We'd exchange information about interesting threads on @channel, go on and on about ero stuff, recommend new comics to each other or discuss the previous day's anime, casual stuff like that. Surprisingly, we didn't talk about ESO much. Why, you ask? Because we'd talk it to death afterward, while we played ESO.   quote:Neidhardt: Has there been some kind of weird prank going around lately?  As usual, Grim had to go and use those words.... He'd made my mood go sour in an instant. Plus, his Japanese was strange. Were those words so fascinating that they merited being shoehorned in, even when they didn't fit? At least, they didn't fascinate me one bit. Far from it. They made me go cold. But no point in fighting with him about it, not before I finished asking about the prank. I simply had to put up with him.  quote:Grim: Like, the sound of a freak-otaku fapping? lol  I didn't know whose handiwork it was, and something about it concerned me, so I had a go at asking if Grim had heard of it. If it were purely a crank call, all I'd have to do from here on out was ignore it. "........."Huh? Grim wasn't reacting. I wondered why.  quote:Neidhardt: O--i.  But if he was asleep, there was no helping it. We'd meet later in ESO anyway, and I could raise the subject again then. The moment I thought that and started to rise from my seat,  quote:Grim: Kept ya waiting Oh, so that's what it had been. But in other words, it meant that even the super-knowledgeable Grim hadn't known about this prank. quote:Grim: But no one was talking about it anywhere  The identity of the caller concerned me, after all.... But I wasn't gutsy enough to call back. Ah, but since I knew the phone number, I could use someone as a scapegoat and make them call for me. Nanami and Misumi-kun seemed like the best choices. No, Misumi-kun was out, because he might have been brainwashed by the demon girl.   Right then, my stomach gurgled. Man, I was hungry. Did I have cup ramen stocked up somewhere?   If possible, I'd have preferred to avoid walking around after dark. Because lately, all it had given me were nasty memories. I unthinkingly hastened my pace, hurrying down the road to the store.  The stores that were always open had been closed. It was a tad strange. Maybe I was under the wrong impression. Like thinking it was 7 PM, when in actuality it was around 2 AM. Okay, maybe not. Hehehe. "........."  The sudden absence of something I had taken for granted: that alone was enough to give me the sense that I'd fallen into another world. Under ordinary circumstances, I skirted away from meeting with and talking to people, but right now I just wanted to see someone's face. I ran inside the convenience store. There absolutely had to be a clerk in here-- So I thought as I surveyed the store's interior.  No customers, not even a cashier. "Ha, haha.... You're kidding."This wasn't possible. The cashier had to be doing something in the back of the store. If I brought some goods up to the register, they'd soon reemerge. That was why, in the end, I took my time picking a boxed lunch. While pretending to check out some manga magazines, I set my boxed lunch down by the register.  Positive, Negative or Neutral?
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Jun 3, 2020 14:34
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Our boy is getting more paranoid and is maybe about to crack. I hope the tension lasts. negative
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Jun 3, 2020 16:14
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Voting neutral.
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Jun 3, 2020 21:35
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Taku's having a rough day, let's make it rougher. Negative.
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Jun 3, 2020 22:47
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Neutral, Takumi needs a break.
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Jun 3, 2020 23:22
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positive, our boy needs some good emotions
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Jun 4, 2020 05:58
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He's going nuts and the detective scene makes me think we're in for a "whose eyes? the player's eyes!" twist so in honor of this negativity, negative
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Jun 4, 2020 11:05
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Calling it now. Negative has squeezed out the win.
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Jun 4, 2020 13:41
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Part 31 - Re-evaluations Somehow, I had a bad feeling about this. It wasn't normal at all.    Beyond the automatic glass doors lay the road upon which not a single person was walking. I saw a human form in the shadows of the apartment complexes sandwiching the street. "Ah...."The form soon hid away. Even so, I had seen it distinctly. The figure's hand had been holding up something like a long, black pipe. It resembled.... OST: Silence  This meant they were the riot police.... Or, alternatively, a SAT team. I hadn't seen any shoppers or cashiers because the police had sealed off the area....! But for what purpose....? Having thought that far, I gave myself a start. I swiftly looked around the inside of the store, then concealed myself in the shadow of a shelf.  There was currently a stand-off taking place right now, in this very store.... The criminal, having taken the cashier hostage, could have holed up in the back room. And that criminal might be.... the true New Gen perpetrator....!  More importantly, the police were the police. If you've shut down the area, you should've stopped me before I went in this store! Was there no way for me to go outside? If I stayed here, I'd end up as a hostage, too. Luckily, I hadn't bumped into the criminal yet. If he was holing up in the back room, it would be best to flee now. I was so frightened, my knees quaked. It took a tremendous effort merely to stand up. Even so, I hovered low and stealthily made for the automatic door--  It began with the kind of cliched declaration that you wouldn't even hear on TV detective shows anymore. From outside the store, a policeman began roaring through an amplifier. Startled, I hid deeper in the shadows of the shelving. Police Officer: "You are completely surrounded." Police Officer: "Release your hostages and come out quietly." What an endlessly stereotypical way to call him out. Don't you have a negotiator or something? Police Negotiator: "We'll give you thirty seconds to make your decision." So short! Thirty seconds, he said! Police 'Negotiator': "You are to surrender by then." Police 'Negotiator': "If not, we'll be forced to take action." Wai....! Leaping into action; do you mean to expose the hostages to danger!? Do that in contemporary Japan, and the public and the media will bash you like there's no tomorrow! What the hell were the police thinking!? I stifled my breathing and curled up into a ball. My heart hammered away incredibly fast. It felt like it would tear itself to pieces. If the police broke their way in by force--this convenience store would surely become a battlefield. I'd get caught up in it, without having any say in the matter. I might die from being hit by a stray bullet. Anything but that.... I couldn't see the criminal's movements. The store was silent. I became irritated.   What I saw shocked me. Several SAT sharpshooters, their sniper rifles at the ready, were camped out in an area easily visible from here.  The police meant to shoot the criminal to death. Would they be able to get away with that kind of thing in Japan? I couldn't believe this.... Police Firing Squad Leader: "Ten more seconds!" Th, this has to be a lie.... Give me a loving break....  OST End "....Eh?"   "Eh? Eh?"I grew bewildered. Since when had I had a knife? No, rather, where had I gotten this knife from? Someone nearby: *scared whimpering* From close by came the sound of someone groaning. A clerk was lying there. A bleary-looking man, probably a college student. His hands were bound behind him, and his mouth was sealed with packing tape. The clerk stared at me. His eyes were dyed the color of terror. --Why are you looking at me?  A criminal....? Was I the criminal? No, it wasn't me. I haven't done anything....! Police Firing Squad Leader: "It's time!" OST: Mysterious Police Firing Squad Leader: "We will now proceed to open fire on you!" It's a lie.... Police Firing Squad Leader: "Snipers, ready!" It's a lie....! Police Firing Squad Leader: "FIRE!"   OST End SFX: Sustained gunfire ensues as the police use their fully automatic sniper rifles to blast the criminal to bits.   ....There's no such thing as policemen like that. Anyway, what was up with the whole yelling "FIRE!" bit? It's not as if this were a Sengoku-era battle. Several minutes passed while I fantasized. There was no indication that a cashier would appear. I very much wanted to believe that the clerk had dozed off. So I tried waiting another five minutes. But in that time, neither a cashier nor any other customers appeared. I didn't even hear any sounds.    I'd presumed that here, if nowhere else, couldn't possibly be devoid of people, but....  I waited for the train to come in. Once it came, there would have to be passengers getting off.   I waited for ten minutes, and still no train came.  Having come to this point, I finally realized the gravity of the situation. Strange. This was bizarre. Oh yeah, I should try going to Shibuya Station. People would definitely be there. No doubt about it. Twenty-four hours a day, it didn't matter when, people were always, without fail, in the Shibuya Station plaza.    I ran as if my life depended on it. I didn't want to stop, even when my breath came up short. It might have been the first time I'd run with all my might since I was born. As I ran, I prayed for this to be some kind of tasteless nightmare. But it wasn't a dream. My heart and lungs hurt so badly, it felt like they were shredding. It was a pain that transcended the dimension of dreams. I was surprised at the extreme fervor of my own breathing. It hurt no matter how much air I sucked in.    By now, my legs had gone unsteady. My body felt astoundingly heavy. Even so, I forced my feet to keep moving forward. I could no longer afford to keep an eye on my surroundings. On the contrary, the entirety of my consciousness was focused on the pedestrian scramble that symbolized Shibuya. A little longer. Just a little longer. Once I passed 107, it'd be right there.... The largest in Japan.... It was the place in Japan where the largest number of people came swarming together all at once, moving simultaneously with changing of the traffic signals, which.... which was why I had to get to the scramble, the scramble....     The Shibuya Station plaza, which you could survey from the Y-shaped road in front of 107. A soundless world. A dead-seeming world. This space that was supposed to be flooded with sound was now governed by silence. All I could hear was my own ragged breathing. "No.... No...."In the middle of the wide street, I fell heavily to my knees. I couldn't walk any further than this. Shock had drained all the strength from my body. "This is Shibuya, isn't it....?" Wh, what was happening....? It was a lie. This had to be a lie!  Yes, I had thought I wanted to live a quiet and peaceful life by myself. I didn't want anyone to meddle with me, and I didn't want to get involved in anything. But I hadn't wished for a world without anyone else in it! If no one was there, who would pay for my living expenses!? If no one was there, who would make convenience store boxed lunches for me to eat!? If no one was there, who would play ESO with me!? If no one was there-- SFX: A rusty squeaking noise is heard.  A sound-- I heard a sound. It wasn't me. Someone else had made it. Someone was here! Someone other than me was close by here! I felt like I'd reached salvation. As I'd thought, it had coincidentally happened to appear like no one was here. In truth, not one person had disappeared. I hadn't been left behind in the world, all alone. I was so relieved, I almost cried. I sent my gaze in the direction the sound had come from.  "You're...."The one there was.... a boy in a wheelchair. A short distance away from me--though still in the middle of the crossing--he sat quietly in place. At the moment, I couldn't tell quite how old he was. Going by the size of his body, he could only have been an elementary school student. Because his hat was pulled down low over his eyes, I couldn't see much of his expression. Except--  The boy's voice sounded particularly clear to me. Feeling as though he'd whispered right into my ear, I unintentionally whirled around. But of course there was no one behind me. "U, um.... W, what might be happening here....?"Though he was younger than me, I found myself speaking formally. "Why isn't a, anyone.... here....?" "Do.... do you know.... th, the reason....?" Despite the fact that his voice sounded young, there was nothing childish about its ambience.   Message? I didn't know what he was talking about. "Wh, who are you....?"The boy moved his wheelchair a tiny bit forward. Perhaps because it was old, simply going forward made it let out rusty noises.   I was confused. Why had this boy murmured "Whose eyes are those eyes?" here and now? What in the world was he?    "Wh, what are you...."I rubbed my eyes, wiping away my tears. Thanks to that, I was finally able to take a clear look at the boy's face--  "Hiie....!"OST: Silence This boy wasn't even a boy. His skin was wrinkled as an old man's. His cheeks were gaunt, his eye sockets were sunken to a sickly extent, his eyes were clouded, he had no eyebrows, and his body was as small as a child's.... OST End  "I am--" For a second, I forgot to breathe. My head rocked with an impact akin to that of being struck by a hammer. The ground shook. No, my body was tilting. I splayed a hand on the asphalt, holding myself up.   He was.... 'Shogun'....? "Don't forget." "You mustn't run away."SFX: "Shogun"'s wheelchair begins squeaking, and softly fades into the distance.  SFX: All manner of noise can be heard in the background, from various crowd noises, the school bell and, above all else, a loud tinnitus-like hum.  But I didn't think of telling him, how dare you get me involved, and hitting him. That sort of thing didn't agree with me.... My head had started aching. The area around my temples throbbed sharply. I curled into the fetal position and endured the pain.  "Taku--"A single noise began to spread throughout the soundless world. Whose voice was this? SFX: The noises (apart from the hum) are replaced by a dozen voices, male and female, adult and child, all repeating one sentence: "Whose eyes are those eyes?"  "Taku."SFX: All the voices and sounds gradually fade away. The thing that had been a noise gradually transmuted into a real voice. Someone had placed a gentle hand on my shoulder. Passerby A: "Che, you're in the way." Passerby B: "What's he doing?" Passerby C: "Kids these days...." Passerby D: "You sure it's not some kind of performance?" "Taku...."  Clear eyes filled with life. Eyes that looked wholeheartedly at me, only at me. Again. Again, this girl had appeared so suddenly-- "Can you walk? Try to walk...."She slipped her hand around my side and tried to make me stand up. I shrieked and shook her off. Coming back to myself, I looked around. As before, I was in the middle of the road. But it wasn't empty anymore.  "Taku...."Looking as if she were about to cry, Rimi extended a hand toward me. "Listen to what I'm about to say." "St, st, stay away!"When I yelled, the throbbing in my head changed to the direct pain. Even so, intent and uncaring, I crawled to open more distance between me and Rimi. "It, it, it, it's you, isn't it....! You showed it to me! It's your d, delusion....!" "Co, controlling my h, heart, attacking my.... psyche....!" "You, y, you devil....!" "I'll k, kill the likes of you with my s, sword....!" SFX: SMACK!  "Hii, hiiiee....!"She was gonna kill me for sure now....! On all fours, I scrambled this way and that across the ground.   OST: Pity  Her soft form enveloped me tenderly. She was very warm. She smelled ever so faintly of sweat. Her smooth, shining hair tickled the end of my nose.  "Pull yourself together."With the wind out of my sails, my whole body threatened to go limp. "It's dangerous to stay here...."There was a slight catch to her voice. I didn't know whether or not she was crying. "Cause the light's turning red...." She didn't intend to kill me? Why was she helping me? That hallucination from earlier, where all the people in Shibuya vanished--it wasn't something she'd made me see? When I sensed such kind-hearted warmth, When she hugged me without the least bit of malice, It had the effect of shaking everything I'd believed up until now.   Was I foolish? Was she pulling the wool over my eyes? Except, one thing alone had become certain. With Rimi holding me, I felt incredibly relieved. I didn't know what to call this peculiar sensation. Upon letting go of me, Rimi clasped my face in her hands and looked at me steadily again. Her eyes were a little reddish. "Please." "Come with me now." "Okay?"Somehow, I ended up nodding. Right now, we were standing all alone in the middle of the crossing that everyone had vacated. The vast numbers of people waiting on the sidewalk for the light to change were paying close attention to us. I heard laughing voices come from here and there. Myriad cars pointed their headlights at us and began blaring their horns.  OST End  She was still holding my hand. That by itself made my heart grow calmer and calmer. I wanted to give myself over to this serenity. I wanted to stay like this forever. Rimi turned back in my direction.  She smiled as though she were tremendously happy. I didn't think that expression of hers was a lie or an act. But-- "L, let me.... go...."Because up until now, I had been utterly hostile toward her-- Because I had thought she was a demon--  "Ah, sorry, sorry. Tahaha."She quickly dropped my hand. "Anyhow, you really surprised me. Curling up in the middle of the street like that." "I had no idea what would happen when the light turned red--" "I'm.... going home...." "Ah, then I'll take you back. You're not feeling well, are you?"Her voice followed me from behind, but I shook my head to refuse her.   "Th, tha, thank you...."    WarningThe following section will include pictures from all New Gen Incidents, including never-before-seen images from the 'Pregnant Man' and 'Staking' incidents. These images are hidden behind links, owing to their graphic and NSFW nature. It is highly recommended that you view them when you are able to.  Ban Yasuji ruminated bitterly over this as he gazed out upon the detectives gathered in the Shibuya Police Department's large conference room. The "Inokashira Line Shibuya station public bathroom homicide"--or, as the media called it with amusement, the "Vampire House" case--had led to a truly grave personnel shortage. With three brutal murder cases having occurred in the same jurisdiction, and in close succession, the chances of them all being the work of the same criminal were at last growing higher. Some argued that the "Cornelius Tower group suicide case" should be left to the juvenile division, but due to how the media treated it as part of "New Gen," there was the possibility that the police would become the targets of criticism if they made it an exception.  At the moment, as part of the integration process, the sequential "New Gen" cases were being reexamined one by one.  Yesterday, the two of them had stayed up all night putting their heads together over documents related to the four cases. Good work, Ban muttered internally, chin propped up on his hands. OST: I'm rounder  "The 'Cornelius Tower group suicide case' occurred on September 7." "Out of the four incidents that the media has nicknamed 'New Gen,' it was the first to take place." "At half-past 11 in the afternoon, a mixed-sex group of five fell from the heliport on the roof of Shibuya's Cornelius Tower, and all of them died." "They were all high school students, still minors. There were three males and two females. Out of the five, however, one boy and one girl went to the same school, while the remaining three each went to different schools." "Small traces of flesh were found under their respective fingernails, and the autopsy also revealed scratches on their palms." "From there, we deduced that they had fallen while holding hands." "There was nothing resembling a will on the roof." "The five victims met up on their way back from school and headed toward Cornelius Tower together." "As further proof that this was more than a group suicide, one can point to the fact that non-staff members are forbidden entrance to the roof of Cornelius Tower." "At the time of the incident, the door to the roof was locked, and none of the victims' fingerprints had been left behind on the doorknob." "Also, the door's key was not discovered among any of their personal possessions." "This raises the possibility that a third party, someone other than the victims, was on the scene before and after the incident." "The investigation is proceeding under the assumption that this third party had the key to the door, and that either prior to or after the incident, they locked the door and left." "We've finished questioning all of the employees who work in the Cornelius Tower hotel. Virtually all of them have alibis. Currently, we're questioning the employees of companies who have offices located in the Tower." "We have yet to discover a reason explaining why the five victims would commit suicide." "Four out of five of those related to them in some way--family, friends, schoolteachers, and so forth--state definitively that they had no motive for killing themselves."The slide changed, switching to the second case--the "Shibuya Station college student fetus homicide." "Next, I'll talk about the so-called 'pregnant man' case." "It occurred on September 19. Twelve days after the case nicknamed the 'group diving.'" "The first person to come across the crime scene was an employee at a nearby karaoke place. The body was discovered at around 5 in the morning." "The victim was Konoe Chizuo, 21 years old, a third-year college student in the Shibuya region." "He was already dead at the time of discovery." "The estimated time of death is approximately four hours before the body was found, at around 1 AM on the morning of the 19th." "The body's abdomen was unnaturally swollen, and we discovered a fetus inside it." "According to the results of the autopsy, someone cut the victim's abdomen open while he was still alive, and then inserted the fetus into his stomach." "It's believed that at the time, the fetus was already dead." "The victim died after his abdomen was sewn back together. He had scratched at the stitched parts, and there were traces of a portion of the thread having been torn out." "The fetus was about 8 months old, which suggests that it was removed from the mother's body via a Caesarean section." "We have yet to find out anything about the mother. It's unclear whether she is dead or alive." "A DNA analysis showed there to be no blood relation between the fetus and the victim." "On a side note, the fetus had Type B blood, while the victim had Type A." Suwa took a breath. He appeared to have grown weary from talking continuously. Not to mention the fact that he must have been nervous at speaking in front of so many of his seniors. "Next is the third incident.... 'Maruyamachou staking homicide.'"After a second, the displayed slide changed to a photo of the "staking" crime scene. "This is a photograph of the crime scene." "The incident occurred on September 29. The victim was Outa Hisashi, 56 years old. A professor at Totou University." "The first to find him was a man living in a nearby apartment." "The cause of death was strangulation. After being murdered, the victim was pinned up with about ten small metal spikes." "As you can see, the body had almost no external wounds." "The spikes, too, were mainly affixed through his clothes, although some of them did pierce his flesh." "The mass media has proclaimed it to be 'a staking, a bloody tragedy,' but there was practically no blood loss involved." "The spikes are sold by a German company called Kreuznagel. They are stakes with a distinctive long, cross-like shape." "Because the criminal ultimately chose to use something cross-shaped, the investigation is also proceeding from a religious angle." "We have received multiple statements that between 2100 hours and 2130, when the incident took place, the continuous sound of stakes being hammered into a wall could be heard in the area near the crime scene." "As the victim's estimated time of death overlaps almost perfectly with that time period, we believe that the victim was either killed on the spot or somewhere close by." "The reliability of this statement is somewhat doubtful, but we have also received testimony that a female student from Suimei Private Academy was seen at the scene of the crime." "Last is the 'Inokashira Line Shibuya station public bathroom homicide'.... commonly called the 'Vampire House' case." "The case occurred on October 10. The body was discovered at 5:30 AM by a station worker." "The victim's identity remains uncertain. He possessed not a single article that hinted at his background." "The estimated time of death is between 10 AM and 6 PM of the previous day." "All of the victim's blood had been withdrawn, and he was abandoned in a mummy-like state." "As you're well aware, this photograph was taken by some unknown person and posted as a sample picture on an Internet auction roughly fifteen minutes before the body's discovery." As he listened to Suwa's explanation, Ban clicked his tongue. --This suggested that death was becoming something of a fashion....
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Jun 5, 2020 09:44
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The picture and description of the staking doesn't match what Takumi saw, nor the picture sent by Shogun. Both of those showed lots of blood on the corpse. I think maybe even the security camera picture the detectives had that showed Takumi running away from the scene might have had blood. There's clearly something fishy going on. Perhaps reality itself is changing over time.
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Jun 5, 2020 10:27
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It may be more that only people who are affected by whatever is actually happening see the pulped version of the stake victim; key difference between Takumi and most anyone else who sees the gory version being possibly some level of control/resistance if he can manage to overcome his crippling deficiencies long enough to develop it. Might be that the shady crew we've seen a couple times don't want the cops to twig that something more hosed up is going on than just the appearance of an especially psychotic murderer, or might be a happy accident that their stuff isn't hitting the cops as of yet.
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Jun 5, 2020 11:40
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Part 32 - Di-Sword     There was a small plaza at the EAST tower's first-floor entrance, which neighbored the station, and while it may not have been as popular as the area by the statue of Hachiko, people often used it as a meeting spot. Even now, ten or so people were glaring at their cell phones while waiting for some appointed time.  From the descending escalator that came down from the Inokashira Line station, which was found on the second floor of Sign City. She leaned against a white column nearby it and scrupulously scanned the area. Yet for some reason, and never mind the season, she was nibbling on a popsicle, which completely contrasted with the sharpness of her gaze, making her appear intensely amusing. In fact, she was not waiting for anyone, but instead she was quietly observing the people going to and fro. From right where she stood, one could see all the way to the jumbotron located by the scramble crossing. A famous singer's PV video was slowly drifting there. On the lower portion of the screen, information about the so-called "New Gen" cases ran in a continuous ribbon. There wasn't a day without New Gen-related news. TV, newspapers, the Internet, weekly publications, even the jumbotrons along the street and electric sports scoreboards. Sena had absolutely no interest in those sources of information, but walk around Shibuya, and one would often pass people talking about such topics.  Over the past few days, she had begun to spot people with those words printed on the front of their T-shirts. In Shibuya, the phrase had become wildly popular as an underground meme and was beginning to develop legs of its own. People on the streets spoke, smiling, of how related goods were selling pretty well at Harajuku's souvenir shops, providing proof positive that human beings have zero interest in anyone besides themselves.   The rumble of trains reaching the platform, taxis honking, people chatting as they walked, BGM leaking from the jumbotron and from inside shops, the announcement from the escalator explaining how to ride it safely.... The sounds never died out; Before one ended, the next would manifest and they went on to play a multilayered and discordant noise. In the midst of that noise, Sena only paid attention to people's voices. Her brain blocked out all other sounds, and she came to hear their words clearly.    In this section, a number of random passersby give their opinions on recent events, with their interjections showing up on screen at unpredictable times and arrangements. Given that these conversations also overlap each other, it can be difficult to keep track of who's talking about what, especially without the benefit of sound. In lieu of making a dozen screenshots, here's the transcript of what they say: The Shibuya Scuttlebutt posted:Conversation 1  Sena gave a small click of her tongue. She soon ceased listening. She hadn't found anything worthwhile in any of the noise. Ultimately, noise was no more than noise.  She looked around one more time. Since some time before, she had felt a horror akin to having cold fingers caress her back. A "gaze" thrown at her by someone unknown. But she couldn't seek out its true form. Sena pushed herself away from the pillar against which she was leaning.   "A miss, huh."    "That sky..." "Why is it so blue that it makes me want to cry?" "I didn't...."  "....Say." "Where is this sky?" "Is it okay, to wish....?"    Seira-tan was calling me.... Burachu was great yesterday. Seira-tan played a huge role, and there'd been a sexy kissing scene. The sakuga quality was way up there, too....  "If you wake up, I'll give you a good-morning kiss, so.... What am I saying, stupid, stupid, just forget it!" Seira-tan was calling me....! Plus, with her saying such moe things to me, I couldn't avoid getting up....   "Hey! How long are you gonna keep sleeping, you dum-dum!" When I switched off the alarm clock, Seira-tan's voice got cut off in the middle of resounding through my room. "G'morning, Seira...."My Seira voice clock came in quite handy. If I didn't turn it off, her voice would get louder and louder before finally turning into a meaningless buzzer. Because I wanted to greet the morning after having been woken up by Seira-tan, I had trained myself to hit the switch before the buzzer started ringing. Up until now, I'd only failed at it twice. It was so easier to wake up with Seira-tan's help. No, in actuality, I usually felt pretty awful from playing games till dawn or from how uncomfortable the sofa was, but being woken up by Seira-tan made it much less painful.  It would've been okay for me to go only twice this week, but now I was compelled to be at school three days in order to make up for the gap. I didn't want to go, but it'd be bad if I didn't. If I stayed home any more than this, I wouldn't be able to graduate. Not that failing to graduate would change anything about me.  It seemed terribly nostalgic. It seemed terribly lonely. It seemed terribly sad. And it seemed terribly distant. Would Rimi.... come to school today....? I had constantly kept thinking about what happened the day before yesterday. I thought about it on and on, to the point of neglecting ESO.  Those must have been my delusions. I certainly couldn't believe "Shogun" was an old man like that, and thinking back over it, there were simply too many impossibilities involved in people vanishing from Shibuya. It had been a delusion that particularly felt real, but I was ashamed of myself for being so quick to believe in a situation so far removed from reality.   If she hadn't done that for me, I might have become deranged and lost sight of myself. Why had Rimi saved me? I wondered if it was because, as she'd said.... we were friends. I had not a single memory of things like her being in my class since freshman year, or of us going to a movie with Misumi-kun. But the attitude with which she made contact with me was clearly one of "a close friend." Rimi had been a little close to crying when she held me. At the very least, I didn't think it was an act. She was the first girl to ever worry about and cry over a gross otaku like me.... When she acted like that toward me, it instantly blew away all my previous dread and suspicion.   How should I act around Rimi from now on? Is Rimi my ally or my enemy? Is Rimi the "New Gen" criminal?    After what had happened with Yua, I'd given up on my custom of eating breakfast here before heading to school. It didn't feel so pleasant when I thought that Yua might be "watching" me from somewhere. And if she came over to talk to me, she'd regurgitate her annoying, crazy conspiracy theories at me again. I couldn't afford to spend any time around her. "Yua is Rimi's subordinate." Maybe I had been wrong in believing that deduction of mine for so long.  In any case, it would be better to stay away from her. Except today, I had somehow ended up coming here. I carefully studied my surroundings to verify that Yua wasn't there, then slowly lowered myself onto my usual bench. I cast my eyes toward the pond while stuffing my cheeks with the chocolate pastry I'd bought at a convenience store earlier. There was little wind, and the surface of the water remained idyllic. Once in a while, I saw koi-like fish slide through the cloudy water. Today, rarely enough, there were no other people in the park. It was a very quiet space. As my gaze swam about the park, what I thought of was, predictably enough, Rimi. To be honest, going to school was a bother, knowing I would have no choice but to see her. For that, I went here, just to buy myself some time. I felt like I'd said all kinds of harsh things to her. Yet, Rimi had kept smiling and continued treating me kindly. If I went to school now, she would surely start talking to me again, the same as before. Smiling, acting as though what had happened in front of the 107 building didn't bother her in the slightest, calling out to me as my friend.  With what kind of expression should I go meet her....? I definitely didn't think of Rimi as a demon anymore.  Misumi-kun had said that Rimi and I had got along well as classmates for the past year and a half, but.... I had no memory of anything of the sort. Perhaps something was going wrong with the person behind me, after all.    My class was on the third floor. It was quite a pain in the neck to climb up there. If only there were an escalator, I thought.  She dragged her right foot a little as she walked. Maybe she'd twisted it. Her small body wavered from side to side. She seemed awfully precarious. As the other students steadily caught up with her and passed her on both sides, she climbed up slowly, literally one step at a time. Looking at her from below, it seemed like her panties would start showing any moment now. C, crap. At this rate, I'd end up as a Peeping Tom. I didn't want people to call me Mirrorman.  "!"The girl caught her toes on the edge of the stairs and suddenly wobbled.  Luckily, she stopped on a landing so she hadn't fallen all the way down the stairs, but she remained on her knees as though she was in pain, and she didn't move for some time. Was this a flag-emergence event? No, of course it wasn't. Even if it was, I wouldn't be able to bring myself to speak to her.  Sorry, but get help from a third-dimension-loving womanizer like Misumi-kun, okay? Please don't seek anything from me. "........."But she stayed curled up so motionlessly, I started to get tad concerned. After getting halfway up the stairs, I turned around quietly to see how she was doing.  Her knees were knocking. Like those of a newborn deer. Blood oozed from her knee. I wondered if she had scraped it.  "...." "Ah...."That face.... I'd seen it before.... Wasn't she the girl who'd transferred to my class last week? Her name was.... What was it again? I couldn't remember.... On top of that, she was crying.... Did it hurt that badly? She'd fallen pretty flashily, but it hadn't looked like a big enough impact to merit crying.... Nobody attempted to offer her a hand.  "........." What could she be searching for.... I thought to myself.  Her fingers were clutching..... a Band-Aid.  "...."Our eyes met.  W, well, for the time being.... she seemed to be all right. And even if I didn't stay and watch her, she'd be okay....    I silently took to my seat. Come to think of it, I seemed to remember that transfer student saying something to me on the day she transferred in. Something about being glad we were in the same class. Rimi had soon made me forget all about it, but I wondered what those words had meant....  As always, Misumi-kun was calling me. Maybe the truth was that he didn't have any friends besides me. At least, the way he always started talking to me and only me was sufficient to give me such doubts. "Listen up. Yesterday, I saw two sketchy old guys go into the principal's office." "....?" "So, Rimi and I secretly eavesdropped, and we were totally floored." "Eh....!?"Detectives....!? "They were looking real serious-like at a list of all the students in the school." "Maybe it had some kind of connection to New Gen."Perhaps it meant the real New Gen criminal was a student at this school.... No matter what, all I kept thinking of was.... Rimi's face.  I jumped. Speak of the devil, or whatever they say at times like this; when I heard Rimi's voice burst in on us, I felt my heart rate leap. I couldn't look up. I was tense. It was an utterly different kind of tension from what I had felt up until last week. "It was your fault for going off and opening the door. You know that, right?" "I couldn't help it. It was my first time seeing a real detective, and I got a little over excited and I just...." "Thanks to you, even I had to get questioned by them." "Hm~mm, Daichin, have you done something that makes it bad for you to talk to the police?" "Well what about you?" "I wonder, ahaha." They disregarded my existence. But to be honest, I liked it better that way. I wasn't confident that I would be able to say anything back if Rimi did talk to me. I'd anticipated the chime ringing without either of them saying anything to me, but when I flicked a look at the clock, there were still five minutes till the warning bell.  Kozue-chan? Who? "Ahh, I see. It's you, so I figured you probably wouldn't remember her, but it really is just like I thought." "She's the girl who transferred in last week. Orihara Kozue-chan."Oh, so that transfer student was called Orihara Kozue. "A, at the stairs...." "The stairs?" "Saw her...." "Oh, gotcha. Then she oughta be here soon." "........."Misumi-kun's voice was brimming with enthusiasm. I hadn't seen him act this lively since a few days ago, when he found out that FES was a girl from the class next door.  Now that he mentioned it, I'd also seen him hitting on her last week, pretty much as soon as she arrived. He really was indomitable. Way to go, never mind the fact that you have a girlfriend. "Hey, don't you think Kozue-chan is way cute?"You sure ask me things I find hard to answer. I nodded ambiguously. Apparently he took it as a sign of agreement. "Right~? I took a liking to her the moment I saw her. Somehow, she makes you wanna take care of her--" "All the guys feel the same way too, they're all calling her cute. But the girls don't seem to think too highly of her."   "Besides, the one calling her 'a pain' is probably your girlfriend, isn't it?" "Mm? Yeah, and what about it?" "She even picks fights with me a lot. 'Don't get any closer to Daisuke-kun,' she says. Plus, it's not just her, a whole bunch of them tell me the same thing." "Seriously?" "Haa, so you're oblivious. How about you do a little soul-searching?" "Oh no, but it's so hard to be popular. Pff--" "Ah, here's Orihara-san." "Doesn't it kinda look like she's hurt?" "You're right, I wonder what happened...."That was what she'd gotten when she tripped on the stairs earlier.  "I'm gonna go over for a bit." Ahh, please don't leave me, Misumi-kun....  Rimi didn't say anything. Despite that, she didn't move away from my seat either. Because I was hunched over, practically deep enough to sink my teeth into my desk, I didn't know what kind of face she was making.  Positive, Negative or Neutral?
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Jun 6, 2020 10:59
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Neutral.
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Jun 6, 2020 14:10
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Voting neutral.
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Jun 6, 2020 15:29
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