[LP CYOA] Spiral

[treave]

'He' would be happy for Na-chan to escape.

 

[Nevill]

Are there even soul surgeons to separate this unholy siamese monstrosity?!

 

[Kz3r0]

Let'see:
Sgakuchi Mansion era
Fox Guy, the baron(?)
The Maid, Unknown, maybe the woman in the photo whose face couldn't be seen.
Ei, Eina, daughter of the Baron.
I have a feeling that the Sakaguchi family is using us.

Uehara, Shizuka and Seika, Tendou family, descendants of the woman who married the Baron.
Maeda Nami, her family is from the Juunimon Tree village.
Amazonaki, she is from the Sakagychi family.
Shinohara Juuzo and Seiji, their family is from the Juunimon Tree village.

Ward 169 era

Unknown.

Kaimei era.

Maeda Nami, the founder of the hospital was from her family.
Kaiano Rina, relative of the pool ghost


Ikei era

Sawada
Taketatsu
Mori
Mitsuki
Tokigawa
Okuyama

None of them seems to have connections with previous eras
There are two suspicious cases tho:
Sakaki made a career as writer using the Juunimon Tree stories as inspiration, could be from the village as the others.
Sakimura goes at the same private school as Uehara, Maeda was an alumn there, Seiji too it seems, there is the distinct possibility that his family is from the Juunimon Tree village.

Considering that all those people had been carefully picked up by Seiji maybe all of them have ties to the Village.

 

[Nevill]

The Maid, Unknown, maybe the woman in the photo whose face couldn't be seen.

She looks like Uehara, so if she had a 'real' prototype, she must be of Tendou blood. But that leaves us not a lot of possibilites - Shizune and Shizuin (and Seika? somehow I doubt it, though). If it is Shizune, why would the Baron's wife serve him as a maid? If it's Shizuin... she did not die in the incident and wasn't 'taken by an oni', was she? Why would she be there?

I don't really buy 'the fox guy is the Baron' theory. Not yet, in any case.

I have a feeling that the Sakaguchi family is using us.

Sorry, are you saying that they had a plan spanning centuries?

It could be that something is using us, but I don't think it originates from mortals - or even if it did, that we serve their plans as they expected it.

Uehara, Shizuka and Seika, Tendou family, descendants of the woman who married the Baron.

I doubt it. Shizune's kids bear the family name of Sakaguchis, not Tendous. It is possible that Amanozaki has descended from Mina, but I find the possibility that Uehara or Seika are directly related to her to be miniscule. It is still possible, though, that a member of the Tendou clan would take a wife from Sakaguchis and give their progeny their family name again... but why would a girl from a nobility and/or yakuza marry into the family of priests?

I think one of the 12 has connections to the Kimura family as well. Still it's too few ties to draw a connection by blood for everyone. Maybe the Ward 169 era can answer the rest of our questions.

 

[Kz3r0]

About Na-chan being here:
Iif this is a simulation she simply respawned, this begs the question how a simulated individual can physically escape said simulation, unless Nevill is correct and the simulation is expanding.
This is the spectral plane by jumping off the roof she precipitated down the Juunimon Tree as well, so to speak, and ended up at the roots of her bloodline, a slight variation would be that maybe this is time travel after all and by killing herself she ended up here trough the Juunimon Tree.
The most simple explanation is that she came here in the same way as we did, thanks to Fox Baron.

 

[Nevill]

She gives me a similar-yet-different vibe. Her hair is different, for example. It is possible that her memories are, too.

“Do you two… know each other?” Yukina asks delicately, afraid to interrupt the staring contest.

Maeda gives her a small, uncertain smile. “The tea. Here it is,” she says, setting down the tray and dodging the question entirely.

Barring some sort of revelation, the Maeda we know would think us to be Shinohara Seiji. And would probably try to smother us, too.

This one either knows we are not, or does not remember the occurence fully.

It is interesting to note that she, too, is a stranger here. That might mean she was artificially injected into this time period just as we were, rather than created as a part of it. Though I wonder how that would work with a miko.

The question we should ask ourselves is this - if she knows we aren't Seiji, should we be wary of her? Should we be concerned about the possibility that she might want to help him?

If this is a simulation she simply respawned, this begs the question how a simulated individual can physically escape said simulation

How can a dead person be returned from the grave? If the souls can be simulated, then the process should be fairly similar. And Seiji thinks that something along these lines is possible.

Ramblings

I am more interested in WTF happened during her ending. How did she get back, even if briefly? A wizard Juunimon did it? Where did her body come from? What of our body? If we ever escape this, wouldn't it mean that our body would exist simultaneously with our torn off arm, in the very same reality? Or would the act of our escape - if we ever succeed - override that reality and Maeda's death?

It looks like the Nights correspond to multiple realities that occur simultaneously and independently from one another, so only one of those gets to persist. It is for us to choose which one. Or maybe whatever happened during the Fourth Nights changed the nature of the experience and ours is the last and only reality, with no more restarts and resurrections. Whoever dies here, dies a final death.

Also, we suspect that the Seiji Uehara saw was a result of a soul transplant. It might be possible to imbue one's soul into a body of another.

 

[Kz3r0]

How can a dead person be returned from the grave?

Actually this is par of the course for the ritual, both if living people travel to the other side or got resurrected in the process, as I have already wrote we are a more difficult case because we are unsure if Seiji is really alive and we don't have a real body of our own.

Two considerations, I think that the Baron attempted some esoteric ezperiment with his wife and she ended dead, it's possible that he got possessed in the process, it happened to Seiji after all.
That Maeda lost her hair tint could simply mean that she has been here for quite sometime.

 

[Nevill]

Actually this is par of the course for the ritual, both if living people travel to the other side or got resurrected in the process

The funny thing is... is there evidence that the ritual ever worked that way? Was anyone ever returned from the dead before?

Even the people the legend is based on, Orpheus and Izanagi, did not succeed.

Would be a rather sad twist to the story.

 

[Kz3r0]

The funny thing is... is there evidence that the ritual ever worked that way? Was anyone ever returned from the dead before?

There are three possibilities:
Living people travel to the other side thanks to the Juunimon and the ritual, none seems to come back tho.
Twelve people are killed, sacrificed, they return alive, or some of them, after the ritual is completed, unlikely, as far as we know only one person is supposed to survive, the thirteenth and even that is uncertain.
This is a simulation and the real bodies are still alive out there, so is theoretically possible for the twelve to come back, from what we gathered the actual group of twelve is here thanks to the onslaught unleashed by Seiji, so this one seems unlikely.

 

[Nevill]

Well, we have not seen them die yet. Basically, this whole quantum observer-centric technobabble exists for the sole purpose of telling us that their status is not confirmed and that there is a possibility - slight though it may be - that they are still alive somewhere, probably in a comatose state similar to Maya's.

“Yes. If my memory is correct, Shinichi once implied that the American researcher, Cooper, brought over some data from his partners over at IAE indicating that observation of the human soul was possible via the brain. They had some crackpot theory that observation was necessary for existence, some bastardization of quantum physics that I can't believe ever got funding.”

It is up to us to make that possibility into a certainty by messing with the underworld/simulated reality.

It is possible that the deaths of Seika and Eina were not observed, either, leaving room for them to come back.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

At the moment, Adachi does not feel anything in particular for Maeda beyond the camaraderie of experiencing Ikei.

 

[Kz3r0]

This is my theory about the ritual and what happened:
Originally was more benign, twelve people were required to pass on the other side while still alive, a thirteenth, the officaint of the ritual, acted as interface or gatekeeper, keeeping at bay the malice of the dead and allowing the twelve to come back, this is why it was expected that Seiji would have been possessed, is par of the course.
The Baron tried his own approach, his wife died, probably Skaguchi wasn't strong as he thought or the variations he added backfired, after that the Baron tried to bring Shizune back or was under the influence of the malice or both.
The ritual got twisted, bloody sacrifices replaced ritual offerings that were probably simulacra, however bringing back the dead is impossible, by accident or by design the Baron tried to achieve control of the Juunimon Tree and became Fox Guy, his daughter Eina was used to become the Maiden or her incarnation.
Juuzo and Seiji tried to use the bloody version of the ritual to attain control over the Juunimon Tree, they encountered unexpected resistance, the Baron(?), and resorted to modern science to achieve their goal.
Apparently they were successful, replaced Eina with Seika, this is why Fox guy is outside the red bubble we saw and this is why Ei was a starving book when we found her.
Something happened and father and son became sworn enemies, maybe there were still problems with the ritual or the results were not what they expected, competing goals, who knows, now Juuzo wants to replace Seika with Mitsuki and Seiji thrown a very bloody wrench in his wheels to stop his machinations.
If I am correct this means that Seiji, us, is the actual interface/gatekeeper, while he doesn't seem interested to bring back anyone we should have the power to do so theoretically.
Remains the question how Juuzo inserted himself in the ritual, if what Seiji did was to hijack the experiment this is easily explained, else the old man did some black magick of his own to interfere with Seiji's interference.
There is also the question of the 'oni', we witnessed a person with superhuman strenght ripping off our head, is it possible that the ritual confers such strenght to some of the partecipants, or is this 'oni' brought forth by the ritual itself?

 

[Nevill]

My theory is that Shizune's death was not supernatural. Perhaps an argument broke out, or she heard something she wasn't supposed to, or the government got involved. Perhaps it really was an accident in that nobody killed her (though I still think something happened right before that to upset her or make her forget caution).

I think the Ritual of Opening was a simple rite to commute and make peace with the deceased, something akin to the celebration of the Day of the Dead.

I am not sure if 'malice of the dead' was a problem before the Baron's intervention, but the rituals we learned from Ei are very ancient. Perhaps the living have no business with the dead. But there are, undoubtedly, beneficial spirits. Could it be that such an aggressive reaction is just a local anomaly? The thought that the dead universally hate you just because you live is a disturbing one.

The Juunimon has its own history of blood offerings. I suspect the original version of the ritual might have involved human sacrifice. It is possible that the ritual got tamer and the villagers started using substitutes with the passage of time, so the Baron just attempted to re-enact the real one.

I am not sure how and why the dismemberment figures into all that. Who does it? Supposedly it has to do something with the Witch and the Maiden.

I am not sure why Shizuin survived, even though she lost her mind. Was it her who butchered all these people? How?

 

[Kz3r0]

Actually Ei' spells are perversions of Shinto exorcisms, I don't think this makes them ancient.
That the Juunimon ritual entailed blood sacrifices is probably correct, not on the same scale as we saw tho, probably to avoid that things will go out of control, so I think that the Baron not only reenacted the oldest version of the ritual but made it bloodier to elicit a stronger response, exactly as Seiji did using as opening of the ritual the slaughter of an entire hospital, due to these actions if the malice of the dead was a problem before now is completely out of control.

 

[Kipeci]

F

If we humor the old man on his demon hang-up, perhaps he'll be in a better mood for asking the more difficult questions. And if an oni does burst in to try and rip out our hearts so that no more questions may be asked, we'll at least be prepared.

 

[Nevill]

'He' would be happy for Na-chan to escape.

Alright, now I am positively mindfucked.

Spoilers, but it's of the sort that is minor and not liable to influence voting: this night is the first time that he has appeared ever since you woke up in Ikei.

Either his brief resurfacing in the 4th chapter does not count as 'appearance', or there are two Seijis.

 

[treave]

Depends on who you think 'he' is.

 

[Nevill]

Who else would call Maeda 'Na-chan' if not her childhood friend? She probably didn't even have other friends with her temperament. I mean, how lonely do you have to be to await the return of your first love for 12 years?

The question is, who was that guy that Uehara saw? And what happened to turn one into the other? Gah, bloody identity crisises messing up plots since time immemorial!

 

[Nevill]

See, now you have to define 'existence'.

Clearly there is some residue of him left that may not be him exactly but still has enough of his characteristics to be recognized as such by others. And we are talking about a world where existence is defined through observation...

*sigh* I should just enjoy the ride, shouldn't I?

 

[Kz3r0]

Who else would call Maeda 'Na-chan' if not her childhood friend?

A close relative perhaps?
Who we know that would be both old enough to call her chan and young enough to have known her while also presumingly died in the hospital?

 

[Nevill]

Who we know that would be both old enough to call her chan and young enough to have known her while also presumingly died in the hospital?

No one that we know of, and the cast is limited enough that I am absolutely sure it was Seiji's memory. Look at where we fished this line:

You speak the words as if from a script that has swum up from the deepest reaches of your fading, disoriented memories, smiling weakly at Nami.

“It’s going to be okay, Na-chan.”

It was from 'our' past.

And it triggered her bad, so that means she heard that one before.

 

[Kz3r0]

Turns out that we are the real Seiji and is the other one that possessed us.

 

[Nevill]

I counted at least 3 or 4 entities by that name.

Shinohara Seiji, a kid who was Maeda's friend. Stupid, useless, bookish, cowardly - according to Maeda. Suffered an accident while saving Nami's life, though his exact fate was concealed by the Shinohara family. Rumors were that he died, leaving Juuzo no successor (we've seen that rumors in this story are rarely baseless).

- Accident -

Shinohara Seiji, a cold-minded scientist. Calm, collected, not very emotional - according to Sawada. Potentially ruthless, which makes him a good candidate for the "neighbour's" identity. By 2012, he was a marked man who didn't have long to live (unless he was lying, which I find very unlikely). Suffered an unknown fate, potentially fatal.

- Experiment gone awry -

Shinohara Seiji, an entity in the hospital during the 'incident'. Quite possibly wasn't aware of Sawada's plan - his own plan, - as he was surprised (?) to see Uehara. It could, however, simply be a shock from seeing Seika's face. Behavioral characteristics unknown. Was subjected to the same fate as the 'original twelve' (?).

- The Incident -

Shinoseki Adachi, who also gets called Shinohara Seiji on a regular basis.

Strictly speaking, we have no reason to assume any of these entities are the same, though they still might be.

Turns out that we are the real Seiji and is the other one that possessed us.

We have memories from an awful lot of people, doesn't mean we are 'them'.

 

[Kz3r0]

How about this scenario:
By Maeda's memories we know that Seiji sacrificed himself to save Maeda herself, hence the scars on our body, Seiji got hospitalized at Kaimei or Ikei, I am unsure about the timeline, probably he 'died', his soul fell in the Abyss of Souls and something possessed his body, maybe Juuzo tried the ritual to bring him back, this is how the Cool Serial Killer was born, come the massacre at Ikei and thank to the ritual real Seiji, us, retook control of his body again.
Quite convoluted.

 

[treave]

*sigh* I should just enjoy the ride, shouldn't I?

Well, I won't be answering too many questions that aren't directly related to the current choice.