Nayleen and Tay were relaxing in their seats, exhausted after a long day of work.
The past few weeks had taken a toll on them, but they were staying strong, keeping Fuwanovel safe from DDOS attacks and global mods breaking stuff.
As they fall asleep, gathering their strength for another day of defending the forum, a shadow glides into the room. The shadow moves quickly, slithering across the floor, sneaking up behind Nayleen's chair.
The shadow splits in two as it reaches its target. One part wraps itself around Nayleen, the other moves over to Tay and wraps itself around him.
...
The next day.
Nayleen looks over at Tay with a mischievous smile on his face.
"The global mods have gotten too soft lately. I think it's time we taught them a lesson."
Tay turns his head, meeting Nayleen's gaze.
"What exactly did you have in mind?"
Nayleen looks down at the chess board in front of him. This was no ordinary chess board. Each piece on the board represents certain members of the Fuwanovel forum. In addition, there was three sets of pieces, meaning there was a total of three kings.
Picking up two of the kings with the tip of his fingers, Nayleen breaks them in half.
"Three global mods, only one can remain in their position."
Tay nods, letting out a subtle, evil laugh.
"Who will come out alive?"
Nayleen joins in.
"Who will come out as the winner?"
He turned his gaze towards the broken chess pieces that had fallen to the floor.
"Now then... How will this end?"
Their laughter continued into the night, as the two made preparations for the fight that was to come.
..........
Chapter 1
The three armies
It was a cold day. A dark sky filled with clouds that never seemed to disappear was hanging over the battlefield. It was quiet; so quiet that one could hear the heartbeats of the people around you. The battlefield was a huge piece of land that went on for miles and miles. With terrain ranging from harsh deserts to big forests and steep waterfalls, it was truly an overwhelming place. Standing in a line in front of their commander, Kaguya's forces were prepared for battle. It had been four hours since the battle had started, and yet no one had reached Kaguya's base yet.
He thought it was a good idea to remain in his base and wait for someone to attack, instead of wasting his fighter's energy by charging through the huge landmass. It was possible that the other moderators were thinking the same, and if that was the case, the day would end without a drop of blood being spilled. Thinking back on the previous day, Kaguya rubbed his temples in anger and exhaustion.
The three global moderators had suddenly been summoned by the admins. They had no idea what was going on, and they did not have the time to ask. The second they were teleported to the administrator's location, they realized something was amiss. In front of them were huge racks filled with weapons, armor and the likes. Ranging from big swords, crossbows, shields and kunai knives, it was quite a scary sight. Next to the equipment there was a grand, black stone tablet with red letters written across it. It read:
"The time has come.
Three global moderators, only one can remain.
Recruit those you can from the forum within the next hour, prepare for battle with the equipment before you and then ...
Go to war.
Good luck."
Neither one of the moderators knew what to do. They stood still, immobilized by confusion and fear. They were sure this had to be some kind of a twisted joke.
"Alright, this is stupid. What the hell is going on?" Breaking the silence, Kaguya shouted that as he surveyed his surroundings.
A dark voice suddenly echoed through the area. It was impossible to tell where the voice came from; it was a thundering roar that made all the moderators flinch.
"Select your fighters, or face the consequences! This is not a joke. This is a matter of life and death!"
The sudden overpowering voice made the mods even more uneasy, but they still didn't act. This was a mistake.
Suddenly, a strange black sphere appeared before them. It was about the size of a football, and for a few seconds it merely floated in mid air. It gave of a strange crackling noise, similar to an electric current. Slowly but surely, the sphere started increasing in size, until it was big enough to fit a small car. Then, a big rift of pure white light split the sphere in two, and the figures of two people suddenly appeared in its stead. It took a few seconds for the moderators to recognize the people in front of them, but they soon realized, they were Fuwanovel members; 12kami and XionsProphecy. They both look terrified, as if they had just seen the devil himself.
XionsProphecy took a step forward and approached Kaguya.
"W-What is going on?! Where am I?!"
Before Kaguya had the time to respond, the overpowering voice once again erupted throughout the area.
"You will do as we say, or the consequences will be grave!"
And with that, a red magic circle appeared under the feet of XionsProphecy and a pillar of fire burst out beneath him. The sound of his screams and the smell of burning flesh made all the people present stare at the spectacle in shock. Terrified he would be next, 12Kami tried to run away, but chains sprouted from the ground and wrapped around him violently.
"Now, what will you do?"
"S-Stop it!" Nosebleed shouted.
"... Very well. If you are ready to begin, let me explain the rules. Each one of the moderators can recruit members from the forum to join their ranks. The moderators can use their own powers any way they want. Make your own fighters stronger by lending them your strength, directly attack your opponents army, make shields protecting your warriors. The game will be over once only one global moderator remains. Oh, and one last thing. You can name one of your fighters a general. This person will have ... A second chance at life, should something tragic occur." As the voice finished explaining the rules, an evil laughter followed. Soon after, all that was left was dead silence.
___________________________________________________________________________
"That was four hours ago, huh..." Kaguya whispered to himself as he looked at the quiet battlefield.
In the end, no one knows what happened to 12Kami. Was he killed too? Was he released?
When the moderators chose their armies, only a handful of the forum's members were selected. It seemed that only the ones who volunteered for the battle could be picked.
Looking over the warriors in front of him, Kaguya made a decision; he had waited long enough.
"You two, move out!"
The two soldiers saluted, and then they sprinted into the darkness of the forest ahead.
........
Eight warriors were scattered across the battlefield on the first day. Among them were team Down's soldiers Nashetania, Funyarinpa, Fred the Barber, their general Tiagofvarela and Moekyun. From team Kaguya, Dergonu and Velociraptor were deployed, and from team Nosebleed, only < ?? >was sent out to fight.
........
In a forest, 2 km from Kaguya's base
Dergonu and Velociraptor were headed for Down's territory, when a sudden fireball shot out from the depths of the forest. Barely dodging it by a hair, the two were separated from each other. Losing track of Velociraptor, Dergonu turned to face the person who fired the fireball. He was protected by Kaguya's armor, but the amount of energy put into each warrior's shield was small, meaning he couldn't take more than one or two of those attacks. Who had fired it? Was it someone from Nosebleed's team or Down?
"Who's there?!" Calling out for the person hiding in the darkness, Dergonu readied his mace. The weapon of his choice had been a huge metal mace, almost as big as himself, with menacing spikes. It was a weapon he couldn't dream of lifting without the strength given to him by his commander, Kaguya.
A shadow suddenly burst out from the forest. Before Dergonu could react, two throwing knives collided with his armor. Both of them hit right around the heart, but they were stopped by the thick, red armor. Not wasting any time, the attacker nimbly closed in the distance. It took a second for Dergonu to recognize the attacker due to their speed, but he soon saw that is was MoeKyun from Down's army. The shimmering green garb he wore had several chains filled with throwing knives. Reaching for two more, MoeKyun made sure to stay so close to Dergonu that swinging his mace was impossible. Taking the opportunity when Dergonu was unable to do anything, MoeKyun stabbed at Dergonu's armor repeatedly. It didn't take long for the attacks to completely remove the protective shield made by Kaguya, and the knives started poking small holes in Dergonu's armor.
"Tch." Clicking his tongue, Dergonu tried to think of a way to get out of the situation. But before he could think of anything, one of MoeKyun's knives hit Dergonu's collarbone, sending a sharp pain through his body. Taking a step back and readying his knife, MoeKyun was preparing to deliver the final blow, when he suddenly froze up. Turning his head to depths of the forest from which he came, his mouth dropped open in surprise.
"N-No way ... G-General..."
Not wasting any time, Dergonu used the chance to take a step backwards and swung his mace straight at MoeKyun's chest. A green barrier deflected the hit and made sure the mace didn't break the skin, but MoeKyun was knocked down from the impact. Landing on the ground with the air knocked out of his lungs, he never stood a chance. The giant mace came down, hitting his head. Once again, Down's protective barrier blocked the attack, but every part of Moekyun's body felt like it was lit on fire from the pain.
"This time..." As he said that, Dergonu lifted the mace over his head one last time and brought it down on MoeKyun. What followed was a gruesome crack like sound, like breaking a branch of a tree.
A few minutes earlier, 100 meters from Nosebleed's base.
Down's general, Tiagofvarela, was making his way towards Nosebleed's base. Compared to Down and Kaguya, Nosebleed had a significantly smaller army, and so Down thought it was best to target him first. Because of this, Down had sent his strongest fighter in an ambush. If Nosebleed wanted to participate in the fight, he had to send several of his forces out into the battle, meaning his base would be exposed. It would be a fast, quick attack. Take out whoever is there and get the hell out. For his weapon, Tiago had chosen a long katana, which rested in a sheath strapped to his left side. He was wearing a green garb, woven by powerful silk threads imbued by Down's own energy. His garb was slightly different from the others in Down's army. This one was specially created for the general. The biggest difference was the big crest on the chest and back, with the word leader written in kanji.
As he spotted Nosebleed's base, Tiago took a deep breath and drew his katana. The blade was about a meter long, with beautiful markings.
"Let's do this."
Preparing for his attack, Tiago steeled his nerves and readied his blade. Then, he charged.
"Perish."
A soft whisper suddenly reached Tiago's ear, and a strong sense of despair washed over him. The voice sent a chill down his spine. It was as if the voice literally grabbed a hold of him, preventing him from moving. Before he could do anything, a man in a pink and black cloak stood before him. It was impossible to identify who it was, as the large cloak covered his head and body completely. The man simply snapped his fingers, and a huge explosion knocked Tiago several meters back. He felt his barrier slowly draining. Whoever attacked him was truly powerful.
"How did he notice me?!" He asked himself, trying to calm his hammering heartbeat.
"Game over." Suddenly, a different voice could be heard behind Tiago, and something cold cut through his chest. Looking down at his own body, he saw a long spear sticking out of his stomach.
"W-Who..?"
He never got the answer to that question. Tiago's body fell to the ground, lifeless.
Fred the Barber from team Down was positioned behind a large rock. The area around him was filled with smoke, ash and fire, and the only thing stopping him from being burned alive was his commander's protective garb. This was a volcano located a few km away from Down's base. Fred had been in a battle with one of Nosebleed's men for several minutes, when he suddenly felt it. His general, Tiagofvarela, had fallen. Hit by the sudden shock of losing one of his leaders, he fled from the battle in order to gather his thoughts. It was a strange feeling. Tiago had been his friend, and in this crazy battle, he had been his general. A powerful sadness welled up in him as he shook his head, holding back his tears. Why? Why was this happening? Just a day ago they were messing around on the forum, having fun like any other day. And now? Now they were here, caught in some insane death game.
"I ... I want this to be over." He whispered as he placed his hand on his forehead and closed his eyes.
"Then die."
A sudden hostile voice made Fred jump backwards, and just as he opened his eyes, he saw a fist slam into the rock he was leaning against, crushing it into small rubble. It was him; the fighter from nosebleed's army that he had been in a scuffle with a few minutes ago. Because of his cloak which covered every part of his body, it was impossible to identify who the attacker was. The cloak was black, with pink markings all over. The attacker was unarmed, but his hands glowed in a bright purple light. Clearly, he was using his energy to make his punches stronger. Whoever this person was, he was powerful. Had they underestimated team Nosebleed? Fred's general had fallen in nosebleed's territory, and this person was clearly using energy to make his fists into lethal killing machines. How could Fred fight such a fearful foe in his current state?
"No... I can do this. I have to avenge Tiago!" Encouraging himself, Fred got to his feet and readied his weapon. It was dagger with a fairly long, curved blade. The tip was emitting a faint green glow and the blade itself was black as the night. Of all the weapons on the weapon racks, this was the only thing Fred felt comfortable wielding. Carefully taking a stance preparing for the fight, Fred calmed his breathing and grasped his dagger tightly.
The attacker moved first. His movements were really fast and precise. Fred managed to dodge the first punch, but the second one followed right after. The assailant's fist hit Fred in the left flank, causing him to fall backwards. But as his body fell to the ground he moved his arm holding the dagger downwards and cut a deep gash in the attacker's cloak. It didn't look like the blade pierced his flesh, but Fred felt the resistance of his opponents barrier. He had done some damage to it at the very least. The problem was that he had taken a strong hit himself, and wasn't able to move very well. His opponent quickly regained his posture and moved in for the kill. Just then, an arrow flew past Fred's cheek and hit the attacker in the stomach. The impact of the arrow sent him flying.
"You okay Fred?"
Turning his head to see who had come to help him, he was met by Funyarinpa's gentle smile. In his hands was a beautiful green longbow.
"Come on. Let's retreat for now. Whoever that guy is, he isn't normal."
As he said that, Funya reached out for Fred's hand and helped him up.
Tilting his head slightly, Fred wondered what Funya meant.
"Isn't normal? I think we can take him if it's the two of us."
Funya simply shook his head in response.
"I got word from Down to come and get you. There is something wrong with Nosebleed's army. We have to go back to the base and ..." Before he could finish his sentence, a purple light flew past Fred's field of vision and collided with Funya. His bow was crushed into pieces and Funya was knocked down, his barrier broken.
"FUNYA!" Screaming for his fallen comrade, Fred turned to face the attacker. It was the same cloaked man from before. The arrow was still sticking out of his chest but he moved around like it was nothing.
"..." The man said nothing, but approached Fred with his fists raised. The purple light which surrounded his hands flickered about intimidatingly.
The man jumped at Fred, knocking him to the ground. After that, he made sure to grab Fred's blade and throw it away.
"..." The man still didn't say anything, but Fred could see a hint of an evil smile under the darkness of the attacker's hood.
Raising his fists above his head, he prepared to bash Fred's head in. But he had made one miscalculation. The arrow that was sticking out of his chest was within Fred's reach. Fred had merely pretended to be defenseless when he lost his dagger to get an opening. Grabbing the arrow with all his might, Fred pulled it out of the man's chest and thrust it upwards into his throat. The arrowhead pierced his Adam's apple and blood started spewing out from the open wound.
Making a disgusting gurgling sound, the man slowly lost all strength in his body. The endless stream of blood poured out, staining Fred's clothing in red.
After defeating his opponent, Fred checked on Funya. He was too late. The attacker had crushed his entire rib cage, and one of the bone splinters had hit his heart.
"Who ... WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?!" Screaming in anger, Fred ripped off the attacker's hood. All he could do once he removed the hood was gasp, and fall to his knees.
"W-What the fuck..?"
Lying on the scorched ground in front of him was ...
"Aww, I thought it would at least take out a few more enemies before it broke."
"Hmph. It doesn't matter, it did its job just fine. Now we know ... They work."
Three men were sitting around a fire with their weapons next to them. They wore black cloaks with pink symbols; the armor given to them by their commander, Nosebleed.
The three men were chosen as guards, and were protecting the base of Nosebleed. Nosebleed's army consisted of about half the number of warriors that Down and Kaguya had, but Nosebleed had a trick up his sleeve.
Using the life force of the fallen general from Down's army, Tiago, he had created clones of his own warriors. These warriors were as strong as Tiago himself, and took the place of his own fighters on the battlefield. They didn't have the extra life that came with the role of general, but other than that, they were powerful and loyal. Each clone was linked to one of Nosebleed's soldiers.
The one that had been killed in battle had been the clone of Kiriririri, but Nosebleed had made the clone itself wear the face of Tiago. That would assure him an edge in any fight versus a team Down member. Sadly, that trick only worked once, as the body of Tiago himself had been used to create the clone. All the other clones were identical to the person they copied. Basically, it was as if nosebleed literally had two of each of his fighters, except for Kiriririri who had just lost his clone.
With this, the difference in numbers between the three armies meant nothing.
A sly smile spread across Nosebleed's face as he looked at his own general, Mitchhamilton. He held a long, golden spear stained with blood.
* Quick note, the clones in Nosebleed's army works just like a normal fighter.
This was done so that each commander has the same amount of fighters, making the first week of the RNG rolls completely even. Each clone will die just like a normal team member, though the person won't get a DEAD END unless he has lost his clone already. (Like Kiriririri has now.)
Mitchhamilton, Nosebleed's general, does NOT get a clone, as he is a general and already has 2 lives.
Having lost sight of his comrade, Dergonu, Velociraptor was making his way through the forest. Who had attacked them? Was it an attacker from Nosebleed or Down's army? Well, it didn't matter. All he could do now was search for his opponent and hope that Dergonu hadn't fallen in the time they were separated.
"Hm?" As he was running through the dense forest, Velociraptor spotted a strange light about 30 meters away. Was it an enemy? The light seemed to be flickering ever so slightly, though because of the tree cover it was hard to see what it was. Preparing for a potential fight, Velo readied his weapon and ran towards the source. He was surprised to find a member of Down's army sleeping near a fire. Was he for real..? Not only had he approached Kaguya's territory, he had lit a fire and then he went to sleep?! Who the hell was this guy?!
Taking a step closer, he saw that the fighter was Nashetania.
"Hmph... A free kill I guess." Whispering to himself, he readied his weapon. It was an extension of his hand; a glove with long, sharp claws. Each claw was at least 10 cm long. The glove itself was made out of tough leather, and the claws were metal. Lifting the glove above his head, he brought it down on Nash, who was sleeping peacefully. Or so Velo thought. As the glove was about to make contact with Nash, he quickly spun around and brought his fist upward. It hit Velo right in the face, making him stagger backwards.
"Well would you look at that. Like a moth to a flame." Nash moved his hand behind his back and brought out a large battleaxe from inside his garb.
"RAAAWR!" Jumping forward, Nash struck at Velo with full force. Barely dodging the attack, Velo sidestepped and cut at Nashetania's exposed back. The claws hit, but something tough was stopping them from doing any damage.
"Damnit, a barrier?"
Putting some distance between them, Velo ran a few steps backwards, positioning himself behind the fire Nash had lit.
"You can't cut me! Down gave me the strongest barrier among all his men! No matter how many times you hit me, a blade won't ever cut through it!"
After taunting Velo, Nash launched another attack, swinging his battleaxe around like a madman. Velo was faster and had a lighter weapon, but just like Nash had said, his attacks were useless against the barrier.
Had this been Down's tactic? Draw someone in close to his soldier, then have him crush the attacker when he least expects it? Seeing has he had put so much energy into the barrier protecting Nash, it must have been the plan all along.
"Damnit..."
If only Dergonu was with him they would have the upper hand, but because of the attack earlier, they were separated in the forest.
"What's the matter? Tired?" Smiling from ear to ear, Nash relentlessly attacked Velo with his battleaxe. A few of the attacks hit, sending strong waves of numb pain through Velo's body.
"Think! THINK!!! How can I beat him?!" Trying to figure out a way to win, Velo looked around.
"An opening!" As Nash yelled that, he spun around quickly and his battleaxe hit Velo in the chest, sending him flying over to the fire. He landed hard, most likely breaking a few bones in the process.
Had Nash been the one who attacked them earlier? Was his plan to split them up, then draw them in one by one with the use of the campfire? ...
Wait a minute... Fire! Nash had said that no blades could cut through his barrier. Could that mean it had little defense against magic? Was that the reason he was trying to lure his attacker into close combat?
"DIE!" Running towards Velo who had fallen to the ground, Nash prepared to crush his defenseless prey with a final attack.
"Now or never!" Velo brought his hands together and focused all his remaining strength on tapping the flames from the campfire besides him. Just the act of moving his arms hurt like hell, but he had no choice but to fight through the pain. As Nash was about to strike, Velo released all the flames in a vortex that wrapped itself around Nash. The flames ate through his barrier like it was nothing, and soon started burning away his flesh. Screaming and swinging his battleaxe around like a lunatic, Nash moved around desperately. In order to not get caught in the frenzy, Velo crawled away, sinking his glove's claws into the soft ground and pulling his body forward.
"I ... Lost..." With those final words, the burning figure collapsed.
Members in this chapter:
“Tch. Where did that little worm go?”
VirginSmasher came to a halt as he scanned the area. The blazing sun made the asphalt below his feet feel like liquid magma, and the light from the sun reflected in the countless windows around him, making it even harder to spot his target. VirginSmasher had been one of the Fuwanovel members picked for the second week of the death game, and he had already been caught in a fight with another user. But, after a few minutes of battle, his opponent had fled, and VirginSmasher lost sight of him.
“I was this close, too…”
Kicking the ground in frustration, VirginSmasher made the asphalt below his feet explode into a million pieces, sending rubble and dust flying around the area. His powers were quite simple. His strength and agility had been increased tenfold, essentially making him a human wrecking ball. Problem was, the person he had been chasing had some kind of teleportation ability, making it impossible for VirginSmasher to land a hit.
“Ugh… What’s with this arena though?”
VirginSmasher looked up at the sky. He was standing in the centre of a massive city, in the middle of summer. It had to be at least thirty degrees in the sun, so all the moving around made him feel like he was melting.
“Last week they got a nice and cool forest, yet we’re stuck in this hellhole. What a jok— Huh?!”
Sensing something approaching from above, VirginSmasher sidestepped and turned to face whatever it was. Two arrows graced his throat, and slammed into the ground behind him, producing two large holes in the concrete.
A thin trail of blood ran down VirginSmasher’s neck. Had he moved just a fraction of a second later, he’d be dead.
“Heh. Looks like I got some new pray.”
VirginSmasher said with a smile, as he looked up at his new opponent.
“...”
Sitting on the top of a nearby telephone pole was Alden_0023, pointing a strung bow at VirginSmasher. Alden wore a grey cloak, with a quiver on his back and a range of different throwing knives stuck to his belt.
“I won’t miss a second time.”
Alden stated in an indifferent tone, and before VirginSmasher could even move an inch, Alden sent another arrow towards his target. The arrow soared through the air with incredible velocity. VirginSmasher barely managed to react in time, slamming the arrow out of the air with his palm. The arrowtip dug into his hand, ripping through the flesh like it was butter.
“Hmph!”
Not bothered by the pain one bit, VirginSmasher slammed his right hand into the ground, and a large crack in the concrete moved towards the telephone pole, which started to collapse moments later.
Alden leapt in the air, and after a graceful backlip, he reached for another two arrows, and fired them both at his target, before landing on another telephone pole about ten meters away from the previous one.
This time VirginSmasher managed to dodge the arrows completely, and jumped towards his opponent. It was an impossible leap for a normal human. The ground below his foot cracked, and VirginSmasher’s body shot forward. In the air, he thrust his healthy hand towards Alden’s chest, then, before hitting his opponent, he twisted his arm sideways and opened his palm, producing a shockwave which pushed Alden off the telephone pole.
“Kuh…”
Alden groaned in pain, but still managed to fire another arrow at VirginSmasher before he landed on the ground. While the arrow did not hit VirginSmasher, it distracted him for long enough to keep him off Alden’s tail for another second.
That second was all Alden needed. With incredible speed, he sprinted towards a nearby building, and jumped up on the wall. As if his feet were layered with glue, Alden ran straight up the wall, firing several arrows at VirginSmasher in the process.
“Tch, the hell is with this guy?!”
Dodging the arrows by a hair's breadth every time, VirginSmasher danced around on the ground below as the barrage of arrows rained down from above.
“Guess I’m switching to long range attacks as well. Hmph!”
Grabbing a nearby piece of rubble, VirginSmasher threw it up at Alden as hard as he could. The concrete block split up into several smaller pieces as it moved towards its target, smashing into the building with a loud bang. Broken glass and rubble fell towards the street below, as a large chunk of the building was torn apart from the impact.
“Did I get him?”
VirginSmasher squinted, trying to find Alden in the middle of the chaos. He soon spotted the shadow of a person rushing out from the rubble, and right after, several small objects flew towards him at great speeds.
“Tch, more arrows?!”
VirginSmasher prepared for another volley of arrows, but what was thrown at him was in fact just some rubble from the building.
“Shit!”
Realizing the attack was just a distraction, VirginSmasher spun around.
“Got you.”
Alden released the bowstring, and sent an arrow flying towards VirginSmasher’s exposed back. Although he did notice Alden’s trick in time for him to turn around, he did not manage to dodge the arrow, which dug into VirginSmasher’s chest.
“Guaah!”
VirginSmasher reached for the arrow, and snapped it in half. Then, he grabbed the arrowhead which was sticking out of his back, and ripped the arrow out of his torso.
Meanwhile, Alden landed on the ground about twenty meters away. Although his physical abilities were heightened, he had still fallen about ten meters, so he needed a second to collect himself after the landing.
“You little bastard!”
VirginSmasher rushed towards Alden, filled with rage. The pain from the wound in his chest only fueled his anger. Putting all of his remaining strength into one last attack, VirginSmasher charged his enemy.
“You don’t… give up, do you?”
Scrambling to his feet, Alden reached for another arrow. While he had not been injured from the fall, it had knocked the air out of him, making it difficult for him to avoid VirginSmasher’s sudden charge.
“Haah!”
VirginSmasher lunged at Alden with everything he had. Alden barely managed to throw himself to the side, dropping his bow in the process. VirginSmasher’s hand collided with the wooden bow, smashing it into a million pieces.
“Heh, what are you going to do now?”
VirginSmasher spat out, as he watched the pieces of Alden’s weapon fall to the ground before him.
“This.”
A sharp pain spread through VirginSmasher’s body, as Alden seemingly threw something in his direction.
“Huh…?”
Looking down at his own body, he saw three throwing knives buried into his chest.
“Well, fuck…”
The world around VirginSmasher grew cloudy, but he did not collapse right away.
“I’ll at least… take you with me…”
Raising his trembling arm into the air, VirginSmasher tried to charge at Alden one last time, but before he could move, another set of throwing knives dug into his torso.
“...”
As the life left VirginSmasher’s body, he managed to flip off Alden before his dead body collided with the ground below.
Meanwhile, on the top of the tallest building in the city:
Two figures stood face to face on the roof of a skyscraper, located in the centre of town. They were too high up to see or hear the commotion happening below.
“Heh, so you finally caught up to me, huh? I was hoping I could avoid fighting...”
Mr Poltroon paused and eyed his opponent, adjusting one of his white gloves.
“I’d especially like to avoid fighting you of all people.”
With a wry smile, Mr Poltroon took a step back, moving towards the ledge of the skyscraper.
“... Sorry.”
Snapping his fingers, Kaguya created a force field around the roof, trapping the two of them inside.
“*Sigh*... That’s what I thought. Well, I guess only one of us gets out of this thing.”
Mr Poltroon tilted his head to the side, and smiled wryly once again.
“I don’t suppose I could talk you out of this?”
Kaguya didn’t respond, and instead brought his hands together. His entire figure was drowned in a bright white light, and the outline of a moon appeared above his head.
"<蓬莱の薬>"
<Hourai elixir>
A small flask appeared in Kaguya’s hands, and he quickly brought it to his mouth, emptying the bottle in a second.
Hourai elixir, also known as the elixir of life. Those who drinks from it are, in short, immortal for a set period of time. Even if Poltroon destroyed Kaguya’s body while he was under the effect of the potion, he would just regenerate. In other words, Poltroon had to stall until the potion wore off if he wanted to win.
Summoning his trusty cane into his hands, Poltroon struck a cool pose and prepared for battle.
“I suppose it would be rude to attack first, so I’ll wait for you, kind sir.”
“You’re fighting with that?”
Kaguya looked at Poltroon’s cane.
“What, is it not to your liking? I find it quite dashing, personally.”
Kaguya shook his head, and jumped towards Poltroon, and unleashed a flurry of punches at an impossible speed. Poltroon blocked each punch with the back of his cane, deflecting the attacks with ease.
“Not bad. I expected nothing less from one of my underlings.”
A smile spread across Kaguya’s face. It would not be such a short battle after all.
Kaguya attacked again, but this time he conjured two blades of pure moonlight in his hands, slashing at Poltroon’s body.
Still, Poltroon deflected the attacks with his cane. The blades did not leave a single scratch in the wood. Needless to say, it was no ordinary stick. With each attack Poltroon stopped, Kaguya unleashed another.
Realizing he would eventually get hit if he didn’t do something, Poltroon leapt backwards, distancing himself from Kaguya. As Kaguya was about to give chase, Poltroon thrust the tip of his cane into the ground, creating four large circles before him.
Kaguya was not sure what they were, but did not really care, because of his immortality. Even if it did end up hurting him, he’d just heal right back anyways. Ignoring the suspicious circles, Kaguya rushed towards Poltroon.
The moment Kaguya’s foot grazed one of the circles, a powerful force puashed Kaguya’s body to the ground, pinning him down.
A gravity trap.
“Kuh… You think this will hold me?”
Kaguya’s body started shaking, as he used everything he had to force himself onto his feet. With sluggish movements, he moved off the circle, and was released from the magic infused in the trap.
“Guess it won’t be that simple.”
Poltroon raised his cane, and prepared for another one of Kaguya’s onslaughts.
The two moderators were caught in an intense fight for over twenty minutes. Kaguya was on the offensive the entire time, while Poltroon deflected most of the attacks coming his way. He did get a few hits in himself, too. But, each attack that hit Kaguya was useless as long as the elixir was in effect. The roof they were standing on had been all but destroyed, and the barrier kaguya had raised was long gone.
“Haah, haah, haah…”
“Haah… Haah…”
The two were catching their breath, taking a short break from the intense fight.
“It doesn’t look like I’ll be able to finish you like this.”
Kaguya raised his arm above his head, and the sky above grew cloudy. Thick clouds moved in front of the sun, leaving the city covered in darkness.
“I have to praise you for pushing me this far. But, this is where it ends.”
“<満月>”
<Full Moon>
Kaguya started hovering above the ground, and slowly floated up into the sky. Above him, the clouds began to disperse, but the sun was nowhere in sight. In its place was the moon, dyed in an ominous shade of red.
Large spheres of moon energy formed around Kaguya’s body, and with a snap of his fingers, Kaguya sent the spheres raining down onto Poltroon.
“Hmph!”
Poltroon knocked the first two out of the air, sending them crashing into the adjacent buildings. But, he could not stop them all. Eventually, one of the spheres hit Poltroon’s body, knocking him through the roof, hurling him down into the floor below.
“Ouch…”
Lifting his body up from the rubble, Poltroon tried to come up with a plan. If he didn’t do something, Kaguya would turn him into dust within a few minutes.
Poltroon made his way towards a nearby window, where he had a clear view of Kaguya, who was sending more spheres into the building. Explosions erupted all around Poltroon. It was only a matter of time before one of them hit him. Looking up at Kaguya, then down towards the street below, Poltroon made up his mind. He had no choice but to flee.
“Well, here goes nothing.”
Poltroon brushed some rubble off his shoulder, then jumped forward, crashing through the window before him. Tumbling towards the asphalt below, Poltroon knocked down another sphere, which Kaguya shot after him.
“Running, are we?”
Kaguya gave chase, flying after Poltroon, sending several spheres towards him. Poltroon kept knocking them out of the air, as he approached the ground below.
“I won’t let you get away.”
Kaguya kept on firing sphere after sphere towards Poltroon. Meanwhile, the street below was growing closer and closer.
The situation was dire. Even if Poltroon slowed his fall and landed safely, he would simply not be able to run away from Kaguya.
In a desperate attempt to slow him down, Poltroon conjured several magic circles along the wall of the skyscraper beside them. Kaguya saw Poltroon’s trick coming, and easily avoided the traps by simply stopping his fall before he reached them, hovering about thirty meters above the ground.
But what Kaguya did not expect was that the spheres he fired towards Poltroon were also affected by the traps. They were pulled in by the magical circle, and large explosions erupted all over the bottom part of the building, making the already damaged skyscraper collapse completely.
Hundreds of tons of rubble, steel and glass tumbled towards the two moderators.
Poltroon, who had somehow managed to brace his fall with a spell, just barely managed to move away from the rubble before it crashed into the ground. But, since Kaguya was thirty meters above, he did not have as much time, and the rubble pulled him down with it, pinning him below the massive pile of debris.
Kaguya's immortality potion was still in effect, but even someone as strong as him would not be able to lift the hundreds of tons that rested on top of his body. Once the elixir’s effect ran out, he would be crushed to death by the rubble.
“... Phew.”
Mr Poltroon let out a sigh, and started to walk along the street, his entire body aching from the exhausting battle. As Kaguya’s power began to vanish, the clouds he had conjured dispersed completely, and the sun once again began to shine down on the city.
A few minutes later, across town:
Weiterfechten was walking through a back alley, lifting up his top hat as he wiped som sweat from his brow with the cuff of his victorian tuxedo. His attire did not exactly help against the scorching heat.
He had seen a battle unfold a few blocks away some minutes ago, and chose to get away from them as quickly as he could, not wanting to be caught in the crossfire. While a battle between two members could mean a possible easy kill for him if he snuck up on them, it was apparent from a mile away that the two fighting were not normal members. Weiterfechten had fled as soon as the giant balls of energy began raining from the sky.
“Hm?”
Noticing something stir in the darkness a few meters in front of him, Weiterfechten came to a stop, and reached for his fencing sword, which was resting in a hilt over his left hip.
“Who’s there?”
A small girl walked out from the shadows of the dark alley, gazing at Weiterfechten with an emotionless expression.
Had he not watched last week’s game, Weiterfechten might have thought of the little girl as a defenseless bystander. But, he knew better. He had seen the little girl stab her “ally” in the back in cold blood, laughing.
“Funny I should run into you here, little girl. The person you killed last week happened to be a good friend of mine. I shall take this opportunity to avenge him.”
Kiriririri opened her small hand, and a beautiful sword with a silver blade and a golden hilt appeared out of thin air.
She then brought the blade behind her head, and took a swing at Weiterfechten, who quickly drew his own sword and blocked the attack. Despite being a little girl, she was strong. The impact of her attack made Weiterfechten take a step back, and a dull pain ran down his arm. She was no ordinary girl, that much was obvious.
“初ノ型〈紫電〉”
<First strike: Purple Lightning>
Kiriririri whispered and closed her eyes. Then, her blade glowed in a purple light, and she cut at the place Weiterfechten had been standing.
Being a skilled fencer, Weiterfechten jumped out of the way on instinct, which was smart of him, as a deep cut ran through the ground where he had been standing just moments before. The light that erupted from the girl’s sword looked like lava melting its way through steel, as steam rose from the cut in the ground.
While the girl seemed to lack technical skills with her sword, she made up for it in brute strength.
If Weiterfechten was going to win, he had to wait for the right opportunity, preferably right after the girl used one of her attacks.
Testing her out a bit, Weiterfechten thrust his blade at the girl. Like he thought, she moved awkwardly, and barely managed to deflect his attack. But, as he tried to move in for another thrust, the girl’s blade began to glow once again, and she unleashed another purple ray of light from her sword. The light grazed Weiterfechten’s jacket, setting it on fire. He ripped off the jacket in a fluster, and threw it onto the ground.
“Careful with that thing. You’ll poke someone’s eye out.”
Weiterfechten pointed at Kiriririri’s sword.
“You know, I really liked that jacket. Now I’m even more angrier.”
Weiterfechten sent several precise attacks Kiriririri’s way, trying to prevent her from unleashing more of her pesky attacks. He focused on stabbing at her right side, forcing her to keep her dominant arm back, which in turn, meant she couldn’t raise her sword.
“二ノ型〈流星〉”
<Second strike - Meteor>
Pushed back by Weiterfechten’s onslaught, Kiriririri whispered the name of a different attack. Thinking he’d be fine as long as she couldn’t use her sword, Weiterfechten kept pushing forward. Then…
“Whoa!”
Barely managing to notice before it was to late, Weiterfechten jumped awkwardly to the side, as a purple circle started forming around his legs. Right as he jumped out of the circle, a rock dyed in the same color as the circle crashed into the ground, digging about a meter into the dirt before it came to a stop. Thick smoke rose from the small crater, making Weiterfechten cover his mouth with his arm.
“What the hell… Hm?”
Looking at the girl again, Weiterfechten noticed that she was breathing heavier than before. While that could just have been because she was dodging his attacks, another idea popped into his mind. Could it be that the special attacks she was using tired her out? If that was the case, all he had to do was keep avoiding her strikes, and he should be able to land a killing blow.
“Phew… Hmph!”
After catching calming his own breathing, Weiterfechten stepped forward, once again resuming his attacks. Kiriririri did not even try to deflect his attacks with her sword, and dodged them the best she could instead. Although her movements were awkward, they were really fast, so landing a hit became quite challenging, even for someone as skilled as Weiterfechten. Her small build made the task even harder, as his target was much smaller than he was used to.
Kiriririri suddenly took a step back, and her blade began to glow again.
“Here it comes.”
Weiterfechten thought to himself, and prepared for another one of Kiriririri’s attacks.
Kiriririri brought her blade above her head, and sent the biggest ray of light yet flying towards Weiterfechten. It moved faster than the previous attacks, too, making it even harder to dodge. Moving out of its way by a hair’s breadth, Weiterfechten felt the heat of the purple light searing his skin as it rushed past him.
“Guh…”
Staggering for a second due to the incredible heat, Weiterfechten took a moment to regain his balance, then moved in for a counterattack while Kiriririri herself was recovering from the powerful attack.
“Hmph!”
Weiterfechten thrust his fencing sword towards the little girl’s chest. The blade moved towards Kiriririri at high speed, and for the first time in the entire fight, Kiriririri’s expression was filled with emotion, as her eyes shot open in fear.
The sudden resistance of human flesh made Weiterfechten’s arm come to a halt.
But, he had not hit the target he expected. Kiriririri had moved her left arm in front of the blade in the last second, and the tip of Weiterfechten’s sword had been stopped a few inches from Kiriririri’s body. Fresh blood ran down her arm, and her expression twisted in pain. Nevertheless, she raised her right arm high above her head, gripping the hilt of her sword firmly.
終ノ型〈天絶閃衝(ラスト・ パフェ)〉
<Final strike - The last Parfait >
After she stated the attack’s ludicrous name, her blade lit up in a brilliant purple light, and Kiriririri cut at Weiterfechten’s body.
Weiterfechten jumped back, letting go of his own sword, to at least avoid the attack, but it was no use. The glowing blade grew longer, like it was chasing him, and even though he jumped a good meter and a half back, the blade reached his body with ease, carving into his flesh, making fresh blood sprout from his chest.
“Graaagh!”
Letting out a primal scream, Weiterfechten collapsed.
"Hehe."
Kiriririri looked down at Weiterfechten's corpse, and chuckled.
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So before I start, I don´t really know if this can go up on fuwa review or not so ... I´m just posting it here in the same format. If anyone know if it can be moved over there then that would be cool. Anyways, on to the review:
Opening statement:
Yosuga no Sora is one of those games that a lot of people might judge before actually giving it a go, due to its nature. Maybe you heard rumors, read a negative review or an angry comment about it. Either way, there is a lot of negativity surrounding the game, and I hope that by making this review, some of that will go away.
Yosuga no Sora review
By Dergonu
Yosuga no Sora is a slice of life romance visual novel by Sphere. It tells the story of the two twins, Sora and Haruka who just lost their parents in a car accident. In order to leave behind their painful memories, they seek a new beginning in their old childhood town, all the way out in the country. Upon arriving in town they are reunited with old friends and make new ones. The story starts of fairly simple as a slice of life romance comedy, but slowly evolves into more of a dramatic love story touching on some controversial topics like incest.
Similar to a lot of popular VNs, it is in a school setting with romance and comedy as essential components, though its unique aspects does make it quite enjoyable despite this.
My initial reaction when starting the game was that the music, backgrounds and the art itself is all pretty good. The music slides nicely into the background and doesn't feel disruptive or too repetitive. It´s nothing phenomenal, but it is by no means bad. The art is nice, especially considering that the VN isn't exactly new. One thing that annoyed me was the text box. Often the text will be too long and it will force you to scroll down, making it hard to read, especially in auto mode. This is of course not a big problem, and its primarily only a problem for the English parts, not the un-translated parts of the game. Still, it's a small annoyance. Other than that, the menu and the interface is ok, but does feel a little jumbled at times. The English titles on the menu is essentially unreadable and so you have to either read the katakana/ kanji or get used to where the different options are.
The game consists of 5 heroine routes, but one is on a different level from the other 4; that being Sora's route.
This is where I feel the novel loses a little potential. The story is clearly supposed to primarily be about Sora and Haruka, and this reflects clearly even in the routes where Sora isn't the main heroine. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the other characters don't deserve a route. All five of the characters have their merits, and all five routes are fairly enjoyable, but I feel that the difference in quality is quite noticeable between Sora's route and the other 4. Another thing that disappointed me was the way choices was handled in the novel. You get 5 choices during the story, and basically, the only thing they do is let you choose what route to go into. Meaning, choices have absolutely NO effect on story, CG, endings etc. Like I mentioned, this novel does touch on some controversial topics, and is quite dramatic at times, which to me says that it would be logical with choices for the player to make during the story that impacts the ending, but instead all you get is one story and one ending for each route.
That being said, the characters is a big plus for me. They are colorful, diverse and work very well together as a group. The most fun part of the common route and for lots of the slice of life parts of the character routes is definitely "double Akira" and their shenanigans. All the characters do get some screen time even outside their own route, though for the supportive characters like Yahiro and Kozue (the class president), you get a lot less character development. Yahiro only really has a purpose in Motoka's route, (which is untranslated) and class rep really only exists to bring some drama in primarily Sora's route. But overall, the characters is a big plus for this novel.
The five characters that gets a route is:
Sora, Harukas twin. Will mention more about her a little later, but she is a fairly standard tsundere character with a powerful emotional connection to her brother. (Translated.)
Kazuha, Harukas classmate. She is an oujosama, being the daugther of the most influential and powerful man in the little town. She is strict and a little uptight, but she is really cute and a very likeable character overall. (Translated.)
Akira, another one of Harukas classmates. She is the oposite of Kazuha in that she is laid back, highly energic and doesn't care too much about rules and such. She is easily influenced by Ryouhei, or "ryou-nii" as she calls him, and the two form the infamous pair of troublemakers, "double Akira." (NOT fully translated.)
Motoka, Kazuha's maid. "The older woman route". She is a really funny character. Actually quite clumsy and impatient, she is the last person you'd think of as a maid for a rich family. The two sides of her personality makes her really interesting and funny. Sadly her route, which is the best outside of Sora´s in my opinion, is untranslated and so you´ll have to pull out some text hookers etc to read it. Parts of it is translated, but this only accounts for about 40% of the route. (NOT fully translated.)
Nao, the "onee-san", Haruka's upperclassman. Haruka has known her since childhood, as they were neighbors when Sora and Haruka spent time in the town in the past. Their past is slightly complicated, though they quickly hit it off again when Haruka returns to the town. She is a character you either find really annoying or one you end up really liking. Sadly, for me, it was the first one. (NOT fully translated.)
Back to the story. Like I mentioned earlier, the story is about Haruka and Sora settling into a new town after their parents passed away. Now, Sora is very shy and not very sociable. The main reason for this is that she spent a very large amount of time as a child in a hospital due to her weak immune system. Because of this, it became Haruka's job to take care for and look after Sora. As the story progresses, we learn more about the pair and grow more attached to them. At times we will see certain scenes from Sora's point of view, and I for one grew very attached to Sora fairly quickly. She is a pretty standard "tsundere" character, but as we see things from her point of view now and then, you see both sides of her simultaneously and this makes for a little bit of a different experience from normal, bland tsunderes. The story maintains a pretty laid back air to it for a while before entering the more dramatic parts. This is the case for all routes, though the extent of which the drama takes control of the story will wary. In Soras, route the drama primarily consists of the two dealing with conflicting emotions, that being the romantic love for each other that they both try to hide and understand, and their love for each other as siblings. Here again the novel kind of lacks a kick in the other routes. In my opinion, Kazuha and Akira's routes doesn't really achieve much in the form of story. They dig out some fairly plain story about Kazuha's parents and the link between them and Akira, but it didn't really move me at all, and it was resolved in what felt like an anticlimactic and boring manner. That being said, their routes are still enjoyable. I very much enjoyed the interactions between Haruka and Kazuha especially, as they are very different people and make for a really adorable couple. Also, the H-Scenes in the novel work well in strengthening the relationship between the characters, and for once offers a non virgin main character in a slice of life romance VN, which is a plus in my book, as they become a little different from the majority of scenes in similar novels.
Overall, the VN does a good job in providing the reader with some form of entertainment throughout the entire story. At no points did I feel like I was being bored by the story, though I was rather impartial towards some of the things that happened in some routes that wasn't Sora's. The comedy is enjoyable and the romance aspects are really well done. In conclusion, Yosuga no Sora is a slice of life romance with some unique aspects that become either a hit or a miss. The game offers some drama at later stages of the routes, and even if it doesn't make you feel too much, the nice and cute romance and comedy will at least keep you reading till the end. Sora's and Motoka's routes are the most memorable for me. If you are looking for something deep and heavy, this is not the VN for you. That being said, if you want a romance VN unlike all the others in its genre, this one will definitely offer some unique parts that you won't find everywhere else. Despite some flaws I think this is definitely worth a read, especially for Sora's route.
One final note for western readers, I´ve mentioned it above already but only about 80% of the game is translated, so for some parts of the routes that isnt: Common, Kazuha or Sora,(meaning Motoka, Akira and Nao,) you will need a translation program to read.
+ Nice, colorful and diverse characters that works well both as a group and individually
+ The music, art, CG as well as H-Scenes are all well done and work well together
+ The slice of life, comedy/romance aspect are very well executed
- Many of the routes in the VN, despite being enjoyable, aren't very memorable and the endings feel rushed
- The lack of choices to impact the ending makes for a less impactful experience
- The dramatic, later parts of most routes is poor compared to Sora's route, lowering the overall quality of the VN
Hey folks! So, for those of you who don't know, I am currently studying abroad in Japan, and will be here for the next 5 months. It's something I have been looking forward to for a while, though moving to a foreign country, especially one as different as Japan, is quite a tough transition. I'll be writing some stuff about my trip here in my blog now and then, talking about how things are going, what I have been up to and stuff like that. Today I'll be writing a bit about the first few weeks here, and the things that has been tough to deal with for me.
(I have currently lived in Japan for about 2 weeks)
So, I have heard people talk about "culture shock" when coming to a country like Japan. I figured I wouldn't really experience that, because I knew so much about the culture beforehand. Well, I was wrong. That didn't help.
Japan is... different. I mean, I love it here, but man... everything is so different from what I'm used to, it has gotten to me for sure.
People here honestly look like robots to me. In Japan it isn't really normal to speak much in public at all. You are meant to be quiet to respect those around you. They also stand in nearly flawless lines on the subway/ train platforms, at restaurants, stores and so on. They stay at work and school until late at night, and you mostly see students studying, even at lunch time. They are incredibly diligent, almost to a scary degree tbh. Everyone picks up their own trash, and you won't find a single shred of garbage lying around anywhere. There is no noise like loud music or anything of the sort anywhere, (except for actual clubs and stuff like that, of course.) The buses and trains runs like clockwork, leaving and arriving exactly when they are supposed to, and the trains are filled with people sleeping, worn-out from long days at work/ school/ club practice.
It's like this country is literally run by robot overlords or something.
Honestly, it's a bit overwhelming. There are so many things you need to keep in mind. Don't do this, don't do that, make sure you remember this, never forget that, bla bla. From where to stand in an escalator to your body language when speaking to people, what forms to use when speaking to others in different social standings... My head hurts from trying to remember half of it.
Another thing that really hit me hard is the food. I love Japanese food, but eating it 4 times a day 7 days a week has taken a toll on me. I honestly just can't get the food down even if it tastes good, especially in the mornings. So, I have started looking for western styled restaurants and shops, and found a few, luckily. It's strange, but there is a certain... joint taste to all food in Japan. It's hard to explain it, but there is just a certain "something" to all of it. Without mixing a bit of western food here and there, I just don't have an appetite. It has been surprisingly difficult to adjust my body to eating Japanese food all the time. It will probably be a few more weeks, possibly even a month + before I get completely used to the food here. Until then I'll make some pretty frequent stops at western restaurants, to stop myself from starving, lol.
Ugh, and the climate. Holy crap, the humidity... please help, lol. The humidity here is constantly around 85-90%+, and with heat around 30 degrees C, it literally feels like you are walking around in an oven 24/7. You can't move an inch without getting sweaty. Go home and shower, then walk around outside for a mintue and you are already completely soaked. Not just sweaty, actually like, wet all over. You skin feels clammy from just being outside for a second.
And the bugs. They are some weird mutated monsters summoned from hell. Like, holy crap. Some of the wasps/ bees here are bigger than my finger, and the Cicadas and other bugs of that size look like they could literally eat me. There is also one huge ass spider living outside our apartments, and I am personally convinced he will some day grow large enough to take over Japan and rule as the new emperor. Luckily winter should be coming soon-ish, (heh,) so they should all die soon. As someone who is completely terrified of bugs, and who can't take too hot temperatures, I cannot wait for the winter. Please winter-san, just get here already!
Lastly, the university schedule really did a number on me. Today we were at school from 10:00 AM to 19:00 PM. In addition, each period is 90 minutes long, without breaks, and the classrooms are either way too hot or air conditioned too much, making them freezing. We will also have classes on saturdays, apparently. The club recruitment day is on Friday, and a lot of people are super excited about joining clubs, but all I can personally think about is: How on earth are you going to balance all this school work, and several hours of club practice each week? I'd die, lol. So yeah, I'll skip on the clubs, personally. They do have a few really fun looking clubs here though, like the TCG club, the cosplay club, the boardgame club, the English conversation club and so on.
The school festival is in a couple months. That will be awesome. Can't wait for that.
Anyways, this update has just been mostly about the stuff that overwhelmed me during my first 2 weeks here. I am getting used to them little by little, and there is of course tons and tons of good stuff that outweighs the bad. The next blog post I write will be much more positive
Would you rather read the chapters in a PDF document? Click here!
Chapter 1:
Chapter 2:
Chapter 3: (Word count, 4439)
The Last GM Standing Chapter 4 (Word count, 3984)
The Last GM Standing
Chapter 5 (Word count, 4491)
Eclipsed woke up, feeling a strong sense of weariness wash over him. It was dark and cold, making him long for a warm bed to rest in. But there was no such thing anywhere in sight. He was lying in a cave, completely alone. Outside he could faintly hear the sound of a fierce battle... What was going on? Forcing his body to stand up, he sluggishly moved towards the cave's exit, trying his best not to fall over from sheer exhaustion. His vision was slightly blurry and his hands were aching so badly, it made him want to scream at the top of his lungs. Of course, he did not have the strength for that. The spectacle that waited for him outside was so shocking, it made him completely forget about his own problems...
....
Satsuki and three other members from Team Nosebleed were making their way towards Kaguya's temporary base. They had gotten word that Kaguya's forces had just returned from a battle from their comrade, Valmore. Valmore himself had lost his clone in the same battle, and was now using his real body to join into the ambush. Kaguya's forces were badly hurt in the battle, and since Valmore needed no time to heal because he had taken no damage to his real body, they were able to deploy the ambush nearly right away. It only took them a few hours to locate Kaguya's new base, and they were now really close.
However, what greeted them once they arrived at the base's location, was not what they were expecting at all.
....
Maxel saw the enemies approaching from a mile away using his improved magical vision. It looked like four members from Team Nosebleed were approaching. On top of that, a few members from team Kaguya were stationed outside the small cave; the location of their temporary base.
"..." Maxel held up four fingers and pointed towards the horizon, then he held up three fingers and pointed towards the nearby cave.
"You know, the way you never speak really freaks me out Maxel." Answering his mute teammate, Babiker from team Down raised his weapons and nodded.
"Alright. You move in first, stay a little away from the cave. Start by attacking them with magic and I'll jump into the close combat battles once everyone has been thoroughly confused." A smile filled with bloodlust appeared on Babiker's face as he tightly gripped his two weapons. They were metal rings, about 40 cm in diameter forming a half circle, with a grip at the back. The sharp metal rings were formed into the shape of the sun and the moon. The moon one was shining in a faint blue light, and the sun in an orange glow.
"Sound good?" Babiker asked as he looked over at Maxel again.
"..."
"I ... I don't know what I was expecting..." Shaking his head, he turned away from Maxel and faced towards the cave before them.
As the two members from team Down charged towards Kaguya's base, another great battle was about to start.
Team Down, Maxel vs Deep Blue, Valmore, Satsuki and Kingdomcome, Team Nosebleed
A blinding light shot down from the sky, striking the group of approaching team Nosebleed members. The light was so bright, all four instantly shut their eyes and came to a complete stop.
"..." Moving his hands around, making different symbols in the air, Maxel quietly chanted a spell. The pillar of light had formed a large cylinder shape around the battlefield, and everyone trapped inside were completely blinded.
Making several arrows out of pure light, Maxel lifted them above his head and sent them towards his targets.
Suddenly sensing something approaching from the left, Deep Blue brought his hands up and made a shield of ice around himself and his teammates. He was unable to see, so he crafted the shield like an igloo, forming cover all around them. Just at that moment, something hit the shield hard, and Deep Blue felt his energy drain as the barrier fought back the attacks.
"What the hell is going on?!" Someone shouted. It was a female voice, belonging to Satsuki.
Knowing the situation was quite dire, Deep Blue quickly took the command in the battle. Because he was the only one in the group well versed in magic, he would be the only one who could sense oncoming magical attacks.
"Kingdomcome, shoot as many bolts as you can in this direction, NOW!" Grabbing a hold of Kingdomcome's shoulders, Deep Blue turned him so that he faced towards the location of the mystery attacker.
"Shoot, NOW!" Doing what he was told, Kingdomcome fired a great deal of bolts from his crossbow out into nothingness.
"Satsuki, Valmore, run in opposite directions! Just... Satsuki, you move to your right and Valmore, you move your left."
Doing as they were told, they started moving sideways in a clumsy fashion. Deep Blue was trying to make it as hard as possible for the attacker to both protect himself and attack them all at the same time.
"HEY! I am seriously just going to keep running? Give me something to kill!!!"
Ignoring the shouting Valmore, Deep Blue started preparing for a counterattack. Kingdomcome was firing completely blindly, so it would be fairly easy to avoid for the attacker. But, it should at least have distracted him a bit.
"First we have to do something about this light... I should be able to stop the spell if I manage to wound the caster." Thinking to himself, Deep Blue started preparing a spell of his own.
It would take a while to prepare it, and so during that that time, Kingdomcome would be a sitting duck. And, sure enough, just seconds later Deep Blue felt an oncoming attack moving towards Kingdomcome.
A lance of light collided with his chest, painfully cracking through his barrier. The barrier absorbed enough of the blow to not make the wound fatal, but Kingdomcome was knocked to the ground, and was no longer capable of shooting at the attacker.
"Just a few more seconds..."
Another attack was just about to hit them when Deep Blue's spell was finally ready.
"Everyone, GET DOWN!" As he shouted that, he launched the spell. A massive magic circle appeared before him and the air around them instantly fell below freezing. A ray of blue light was launched from the magic circle, and anything in its path was frozen instantly. As the spell reached the attacker, the light blinding them suddenly faded. Once again having regained his vision, Deep Blue quickly tried to get a grasp of what was going on. A large area in front of him had been completely encased in ice. A few meters to his left was Kingdomcome. He was still breathing and it looked like he was still capable of fighting, but he was clutching his left side, clearly in pain. Satsuki was nowhere to be seen, and Valmore was fighting someone from team Kaguya. It seemed the people from Kaguya's team had wasted no time as the light perished, and had attacked them.
Question was, where had the one who made the light pillar gone?
....
"..." Maxel hurled a spear of light at his opponent, giving away his hiding place in the process. The spear was blocked by a wall of ice, but he just followed up the attack with two more. His opponents were scattered, leaving only one target. No one would be able to protect themselves from the relentless attacks made by the most powerful magician on team Down for too long. The third spear made a massive crack in the wall of ice, and Maxel started running towards his target to finish him off. Forming an axe of light in his hand, he closed the distance in seconds, and struck at the wall of ice. It broke apart, making small shards of ice fly everywhere. Maxel charged at Deep Blue, striking at his chest. Deep Blue dodged and retaliated with a spike of ice aimed at Maxel's leg. It was obvious that Deep Blue was tired from blocking all the previous attacks, and so his own magic was slow and fairly weak. Maxel knocked the ice out of the air and swung his axe at Deep Blue once more. It collided with his left arm, which was cut clean off.
"BLUE!" Valmore shouted and was running towards the battle, trying to make it in time. He had abandoned his battle with the team Kaguya member in order to come to his comrade's aid. But, it was too late. Maxel lifted his axe and struck at Deep Blue's head...
Valmore ran as fast as he could, and used the momentum from his charge to strike at Maxel with all his might. The pickaxe Valmore wielded flew through the air and collided with a magic circle created by Maxel. The shield wavered, but didn't break. Blood from Deep Blue's head being cut off was everywhere, and Valmore screamed in anger.
"You piece of ... Die!"
"..." Maxel said nothing, but made a symbol with his hands. Shortly after, a small golden magic circle appeared in his hands, and a bolt of light shot out, hitting Valmore in the chest. It wasn't powerful enough to knock him to the ground, but it was enough to make him lose his balance. Maxel followed up with an axe swing. The weapon of pure light moved towards Valmore, who was defenseless because of the previous attack. His throat was wide open, and if the axe hit, he would be dead in seconds. But, right before the axe hit, a blue crossbow bolt collided with the weapon, making it shatter into pieces. Kingdomcome had made it back on his feet, and was aiming at Maxel.
"..." As Maxel fired several bolts of light at Kingdomcome, Valmore had managed to get his footing again, and jumped up in the air. Maxel was distracted attacking Kingdomcome, and as Valmore swung his pickaxe downwards, it hit Maxel's head with a loud crack. Maxel suddenly stopped moving, as dark red streams of blood trickled down from the top of his head. His body twitched a few times, before it collapsed on the ground.
The exhausted members from team Nosebleed took a few seconds to catch their breath as they surveyed the battlefield. They had finally taken out one of the attackers, but many still remained. Needless to say, their ambush had been an absolute failure...
Nimbus and Dergonu, Team Kaguya vs Valmore and Kingdomcome, Team Nosebleed
"Now Nimbus!" Shouting while he charged towards his enemies, Dergonu lifted his giant mace above his head.
Chanting a few magic words, Nimbus held his hand out towards the mace, and a bolt of deep blue lightning shot forward, enveloping the weapon. The electricity started swirling around the top of the mace, making holding the weapon completely safe for Dergonu.
"They are attacking again. Kingdomcome, cover me."
Valmore ran to the left, away from Dergonu, as Kingdomcome started shooting crossbow bolts at his target. Dergonu used his mace to knock the oncoming bolts down before they hit. The mace left a crackling trail of blue lightning when it moved through the air. Dergonu quickly started chasing Valmore, but was interrupted by another wave of projectiles. Valmore made a big right turn and rushed towards Dergonu's back. As Kingdomcome was shooting at his front, it was impossible for Dergonu to block both the projectiles and the attacker from the back. Or so one might think.
"Don't get cocky!" Shouting in an angered tone, Dergonu spun around quickly. The mace he was holding created a small circle of electricity, which started rotating quickly. Turning his head and looking behind him, Valmore noticed that Nimbus was muttering something to himself, most likely strengthening the power of the magic. The rotating circle of electricity knocked down any oncoming projectiles, and simply being near it made Valmore's skin itch. Dergonu suddenly came to a stop and with a big swing, he struck at Valmore. Valmore still hadn't taken much damage in the previous battle, and was able to dodge the massive mace with the skin of his teeth. Sadly, the magic that was protecting Dergonu still had not dissipated, and made a counterattack impossible.
"Valmore, get back!" Hearing the voice of his comrade Kingdomcome, Valmore did as he asked and jumped away from Dergonu.
"Scatter!"As Kingdomcome shouted that, the bolts fired from his crossbow suddenly started detonating mid air, firing smaller spikes all around them. The circle spinning around Dergonu was unable to stop all the small fragments, and several of them dug into his body, damaging his barrier. It didn't seem like the impact was very powerful, so the spikes didn't break his skin, but at the very least his barrier was damaged.
"You little prick!" Shouting, Dergonu slammed his mace into the ground, and a great blue wave of lightning traced over the ground, moving towards Kingdomcome.
"Like I'll let you do that!" Valmore, who had been standing a few meters away, jumped in between the attack and Kingdomcome. The electricity hit his body and it felt like his entire body got lit on fire. Fighting through the pain, Valmore shook his head and clenched his pickaxe hard in his right hand.
"T-This is nothing you bastard..." Trying to shake of the damage done to him, Valmore took a unsteady step forward.
"Tch." Clicking his tongue, Kingdomcome aimed his crossbow up in the air and fired several shots up into nothing. As the bolts had moved a decent way up into the sky, he snapped his fingers, and a loud explosion made Dergonu and Nimbus look up. From the sky, hundreds of smaller spikes were raining down towards the two. In return, the attack had drained nearly all the remaining strength in Kingdomcome's body. He wasn't very good with magic. The crossbow itself was the thing that let him fire so many bolts without loading in ammo. It was a weapon charged with Nosebleed's energy. But in order to use more flashy attacks, the user had to charge his or her own energy into the weapon, something that completely drained Kingdomcome. In his already wounded state, two such attacks was the limit.
Meanwhile, the spikes were raining down over the two team Kaguya members. Nimbus managed to make a shield above himself before the spikes hit, but Dergonu was not as lucky. A chunk of the oncoming spikes dug into his skin, making his entire body scream in pain.
"Guh ...." Letting out a pained sound through clenched teeth, Dergonu fell to his knees, using his mace to keep his body somewhat steady.
"Raaawr!" Charging at Dergonu, Valmore lifted his Pickaxe up high. As Valmore attacked Dergonu with all his might, Dergonu had no choice but to use his arm as a guard against the attack. The twin-tipped pickaxe bore deep into his arm, and left two gaping holes in the flesh. Blood poured out from the open wound as Dergonu grasped it and screamed in pain. Sadly, after having taken a lot of damage from the attack he blocked for Kingdomcome, Valmore was not able to dodge the lightning bolt approaching from his side. Two thick lightning bolts hit his chest from the side and tore his torso open. He was lifted off the ground and his body split in two, each piece landing a few meters away.
Kingdomcome, who had almost lost consciousness because of exhaustion, was lying still a little further away. Dergonu had gotten to his feet and moved over to the immobile foe. Lifting his mace awkwardly with one hand, he finished off the team Nosebleed member. After, he once again fell to his knees. Blood loss and pain was pushing him to the brink of losing consciousness.
Team Nosebleed, Valmore (REAL) and Kingdomcome (CLONE)-DEAD END
"Looks like Maxel is out huh? Never thought they would actually manage to take down that mute bastard. Well, whatever. Time to make myself useful."
Approaching the battlefield quickly, Babiker stealthily moved towards the centre of the action. His feet did not make a sound despite his swift pace, and he readied his weapons for battle. Coming to a stop next to a fallen team Kaguya member, he checked to see if he was dead. It seemed like he was still breathing.
"Seems like you have had a bad day kid." As Dergonu heard the sudden voice, he instinctively reached for his mace.
"Left hand - Moon, first strike!" As he shouted that, the blue blade wielded in his left hand shimmered, and he smashed his weapon down into the mace at an incredible speed. The mace was completely destroyed on impact.
"Right hand - Sun, first strike!" This time attacking with his right hand, Babiker was about to finish of Dergonu, when a blue light coming from his side made him jump backwards. Something hit the ground where he had been standing, and exploded in a mass of blue sparks and black smoke.
"Heh. Looks like he wasn't alone, huh? Name is Babiker. I'll be severing your spine today. Nice to meet'cha." As Babiker introduced himself, Nimbus fired another set of lightning bolts at his target.
"Whoa! How rude!"
"Insolent pest!" Speaking in an angry tone, Nimbus held out both his hands and created a big magic circle, sending several small rays of lightning towards his opponent.
"Heh. Right hand - sun, fourth strike." The blade on his right hand glowed brightly, and Babiker simply mowed down all of the rays like they were nothing. He then casually cracked his neck and sighed.
"You know, I've been waiting for my turn to fight for days now. But now that I am out here, I have to say ... This is kind of boring."
"Well then, let me end your boredom quickly." Moving his hands around in the air in a skillful manner, Nimbus drew a sigil in the air in blue writing. The sigil started glowing, and soon after, a crack in the air itself appeared in its centre. Holding his hand up towards the sigil, Nimbus' hand was enveloped in blue lightning that oozed out from the cracks. After a few seconds, Nimbus pulled out a longsword made out of pure lightning from the air, and the sigil disappeared right after.
"I'll use this to turn you into dust."
"... You might not want to fight me in close combat buddy."
Ignoring Babiker's taunting words, Nimbus charged, holding the sword out in front of him. The blade was light as air, and created out of pure energy, making it a very strong weapon. Nimbus struck at his opponent a few times to test out the weapon. It was so light, wielding it was almost a task in itself. But in return, attacking with extreme speed was a simple manner. Launching a flurry of attacks against Babiker, Nimbus advanced forward. The weapon made a crackling sound as it moved through the air. Each time he struck at Babiker, he moved a little faster as he got used to wielding the weapon. Babiker started parrying using only his left hand, but after a while, he started using both weapons to deflect the onslaught of sword strikes. The two clashed against each other for a good minute without either landing a decisive hit.
"Eyyy, not bad! But still. You're kind of slow." Babiker avoided the oncoming strike by moving backwards, and then readied his left hand for a counterattack.
"Left hand - moon, eighth strike!" As his left weapon glowed with incredible intensity, Babiker struck at Nimbus, the blade moving so fast, it was pretty much impossible to see it. Still, Nimbus just barely had time to react, and held up his own weapon to parry. But even though the attack seemingly came from the front, suddenly a strong impact to his side made Nimbus scream in pain. He walked back a few steps and looked at his opponent in surprise.
"An afterimage. My attacks are ranked from one through ten. The one's above seven are usually so fast, most people can't see them. I have to give it to you though, you almost got it."
Nimbus' side was throbbing, and warm blood was slowly oozing from a cut left from the attack.
"Well then, let's see if you can get this one." Bringing his right hand forward and closing his eyes, Babiker prepared for another attack.
"Like I'll let you do that!" Nimbus leapt forward and swung his sword at Babiker with all his might. Babiker simply moved to the side and retaliated.
"Right hand - sun, ninth strike."
An overwhelming force pushed Nimbus forward, as something heavy struck his back, despite the fact that Babiker was right in front of him just a second ago. His entire body was screaming in pain, and he was completely unable to do anything as he was thrown forward. The sound of bones cracking and his own screams were the only things he could hear. Nimbus never got up again...
Meanwhile, Babiker was clutching his own chest, barely able to stand upright.
"H-Heh... Guess I forgot to mention that my own body can barely handle more than one attack above eight..." As his knees gave in, he lost the strength in his body and hit the ground with a thump.
Satsuki had gotten separated from her teammates after the pillar of light went out, and had ended up right outside the cave where Kaguya had set up a temporary base. The entire battlefield was consumed in chaos. Ice, lightning, screams and explosions. Satsuki simply sat in silence looking at the spectacle, uncertain of what she should do.
"For starters, let's try to find Deep Blue and ..." Before she could finish the sentence, she sensed a presence behind her. Spinning around and facing its origin, she saw a male warrior from team Kaguya. He was using the wall of the cave for support, and looked quite weak.
"Huh... Guess I'll deal with you first." Drawing one of her hatchets, she moved towards the opponent and tried to hit him with her axe. Surprisingly though, as the axe was about to hit, a thin layer of fire blocked it, and a sudden increase in heat made Satsuki take a quick step back. As she once again looked at her opponent, she noticed that his eyes were completely red; blazing, like a fire was lit in them.
"Seems you won't go down that easy. Wait ... whoa..." As she glanced at his hands, she noticed that they were badly burnt. In fact, the entirety of his arms were completely charred... How had he been able to deflect her attack in such a condition?
"Did you get lucky..?" Trying to attack him once more, the same thing repeated itself. She got close and was about to hit him, when a sudden increase in temperature made her jump backwards. It was as if he was literally on fire...
"It... Burns..." He muttered, and lifted his hands before his own eyes.
"The ... Contract... Is... Not... Over..." Suddenly, his upper body erupted in flames.
"W-What the hell?!" Taking another step back, Satsuki looked at the scene in shock.
....
Something was clawing at Eclipsed's sanity, forcing him to move against his will. His upper body was enveloped in flames, but for some reason, it didn't hurt. What was going on?..
His right arm started moving even though he wasn't doing anything. A fireball flew towards Satsuki, and she was barely able deflect it with her axe. Two more followed, and she repeated her previous defense. Now, both of Eclipsed's hands were moving, and the fireballs were more frequent, sending four or five at a time. Satsuki was having trouble deflecting all the attacks, as they increased in numbers. Feeling his legs move, Eclipsed started approaching her and struck at her with his charred left arm. She sidestepped, and cut at his extended arm with a hatchet. Despite the fact that the weapon hit, he felt nothing. A small cut was made in his charred arm, but no blood came out.
"Seems your barrier isn't working anymore." As Satsuki said that, she struck at Eclipsed several times. Some of the attacks hit his torso, some hit his arms, and some hit his shoulders. Still, the cuts did not draw blood.
"Just ... Just die you monster!" As Satsuki took a big step forward, she used all her strength to strike at Eclipsed's neck. The hatchet approached with great speed, but before it hit, it caught fire and melted in her hand.
"T-This is just insane..."
"Must ... Honor... The ... Contract..." As Eclipsed said that, he took a step forward and wrapped his arms around Satsuki. As the scorching heat started burning her skin, she screamed at the top of her lungs. But, there was no escape from the death grip. Slowly but surely, her body caught fire, and she started losing consciousness.
As they stood there, the flames flickering like a bonfire, Eclipsed opened his mouth and chanted:
"Shimmer, spear of Helios!
Flicker, and pierce all that stands before you,
burn down all resistance and turn flesh to ashes!"
As the chant was finished, the ground under his feet broke apart, and a spear of pure fire erupted from below. Enveloping both people in the blazing heat, the spear lasted for several seconds, and once it perished, nothing was but a pile of ashes.
Team Nosebleed, Satsuki (REAL)-DEAD END
Team Kaguya, Eclipsed-DEAD END
....
"Seems the fire spirit truly did drive the kid mad, huh?" Kaguya muttered to himself as he gazed at the battlefield below. He was sitting on a throne in the air; the throne was simply floating there, not supported by anything.
He had lost two of his warriors in the battle today, but was not able to do anything. If he attempted to approach the battle, a hooded creature with yellow eyes would stop him.
"So the rules at the start were complete bullshit..? All that about letting us fight in any way we want..? Seems we are being saved for the big finale, huh?"
As the sun set on the battle, and the moon peaked out, a cold breeze swept across the battlefield. Another day had passed. Many had already lost their lives, at the end was drawing near...
This is a tale of chips, bugs and DEATH.
Enjoy:
Last week I had the joy of seeing a cockroach in my bathroom. My reaction was obviously to scream, shut the bathroom door and flee into my bedroom, where I remained for 30 minutes, stunned by fear. After playing with the idea of never ever setting foot in my bathroom again, I thought to myself: "No! I have to man up and fight this thing!" Grabbing a plastic bag, I rushed into the bathroom, ready to trap the fucker and throw him in the garbage. But... he was gone. Now, there is absolutely nowhere he could have gone. My bathtub is stuck to the floor, so there is no crack to hide under, and I looked all over the tiny, tiny bathroom and he wasn't hiding on the ceiling, or in some corner. He was legit gone. This of course made chills run through my body, as I thought I had found a cockroach with superpowers. Scared to death, I went back to cowering in fear for another good 10 minutes, before I decided to just stop thinking about the fucker. I started brushing my teeth, getting ready for bed.
Then, as I spat into the sink, and the toothpaste ran down into the drain, I saw something rush past me. Turns out, the cockroach had fled into the pipes, then hooked onto the pipes and sat in there. (They can do this with their hind legs, apparently.)
The fucker was back, and he was almost touching me. Screaming, I ran out of the bathroom and grabbed whatever I could find that could be used to trap the fucker with. And there was... an empty pringles tube.
I ripped the lid of the thing and slammed it onto the cockroach, trapping him inside the tube. Luckily, the roach was just perfectly sized to fit within the dimensions of a pringles tube, so no part of him was sticking out. I had him completely trapped. Rushing back into the bedroom, I grabbed another plastic bag and some duct tape. I then tried to push the roach into the plastic bag, but he almost escaped as I tilted the tube, so I had to improvise. Pushing the plastic bag against the tube, I stopped the roachs' escape, and shoved him further into the pitch black abyss. Once the whole bag was inside the tube, I taped it shut with duct tape, and threw that into another plastic bag.
After a short victory dance, I brought the bag containing the defeated roach outside, and threw it into the garbage.
Derg 1 Roach 0
- Fin -
<??> Watched the screen in front of <him/her?> intently. Everything was ready. The time had finally come. All that planning, all that preparation. It had all been for this moment.
“All the pieces are in place. Well then, let’s start the game, shall we?”
<??> Pressed the button before <him/her?> with a wicked smile.
“Hear me, members of Fuwanovel. You are here for a single purpose; to entertain me! Those who have their name announced over these broadcasts shall enter the arena, and fight to the death! Anyone and anything you see out in the arenas will be an enemy, so be careful… And ruthless. As far as the rules go… There are none, heh.
Good luck.”
Day 1:
Members in this chapter:
“The game has begun. Good luck.”
“‘Alright, time to hunt.” Ranzo jumped down from the platform he was standing on, numbered ‘11’. He had woken up inside an unfamiliar room just moments before, where he had found his suit and weapons. After a short, confusing briefing from the person in charge, Ranzo’s <cell?> had opened, and he could walk out. What greeted him was a massive forest, full of large trees towering high above him. The large trees blocked out almost all the sunlight, making it hard for Ranzo to see where he was going. But, it was either straight ahead, or back to the cell, so Ranzo chose to keep walking.
The “briefing” had been simple. “You are stuck here. You are to fight anything and anyone you come across. If you are the last alive after the game is over, you win. If you die, you lose.”
“Gee, really? If I die, I lose? That’s a shocker.” Ranzo spun his scythe around his body with precision while he walked, clearly used to handling the weapon. A sabre hung from his waist in a makeshift sheathe, crafted from his belt.
After having advanced through the forest for a good ten minutes, Ranzo reached a suspicious looking cave, marked with a number— “7”.
“Hm, another contender?” Ranzo whispered, and gripped the handle of his scythe firmly while he scanned his surroundings. If his hunch was right, the numbers represented contenders in the “game”. He was 11, and “7” was a different Fuwanovel user, also entered in the game.
Crack.
Ranzo spun around instinctively at the sound of a branch breaking behind him, and in the same motion, he threw his scythe forwards. The sound of metal colliding with metal made Ranzo flinch for a brief second, and he lost sight of the person who had knocked his scythe out of the air.
“Tch.” Ranzo gripped his sabre and chased the mystery person, like a wolf rushing towards a sheep. He had no plan. The only thing going through his head was: kill it. Whoever or whatever it was; kill it.
Meanwhile
SeniorBlitz ran as fast as he could through the forest, like he had the grim reaper himself on his heels. That was in fact what Senior had thought for a second when he saw the scythe fly towards him just moments before. Senior was not well versed in any kind of combat. He had, in fact, never been in a fight in his entire life. What he did have, however, was a special ability. The ability to know what to do, where to go. He couldn’t explain it well, but there was something guiding him at all times. If he was about to trip and fall, something in his mind would tell him to stop. If he ever got lost, something would guide him back home, even if he had no idea where he was. It was thanks to that power, that guide, that Senior was still alive. He had seen the scythe coming seconds before it was thrown, and had used the sword that was given to him at the start of the game to block its path. He had sadly dropped the sword in his escape, and was therefore now unarmed.
“Stop running my friend, I wish you no harm!”
His attacker was shouting at Senior from behind. Thanks to his ability, Senior knew that he would be able to shake off his tail if he just kept following the path laid out in his mind. He did not look back, he did not falter.
“Tch, you little… How long do you plan on running for?”
“I’ll catch you eventually you little slime! Just you wait, I’m coming for you!”
The voice of his attacker grew distant, as Senior just kept on running through the forest. Before long, he had completely shaken off the madman running after him.
“Haah, haah, haah…” Senior finally had the opportunity to stop for a breath. With his hands on his knees, he spent a few minutes calming down. He knew that the man behind him would not be able to find him for at least another ten minutes, thanks to his ability.
“Alright, time to find a better place to hide.”
Senior got back up, and started walking through the dense forest, looking for shelter. He figured it would be smart to find someplace safe to gather his thoughts. It would be best to do so before nightfall, so he started walking faster, following the path lit up in his mind.
“Just about another hundred meters this way, and— Huh?!”
“GRAARGH!”
Senior was so focused on following the path to “safety”, he paid no mind to his surroundings, and did not notice the strange creature approaching from his left. Whatever it was, its massive jaw closed around Senior’s chest, and he was lifted up into the air and shook brutally back and forth, the sharp teeth of the beast ripping his flesh apart with each movement.
“GYAAAAH!”
Senior let out a primal scream, and tried to punch the creature with his free arm, but it was no use.
The beast’s iron jaw remained closed, and the life soon drained from Senior’s body, as most of his organs and blood poured down onto the grass below him. His entire torso had been ripped to bits, and what was left of him was soon devoured by the beast, leaving only pools of blood and a few chunks of flesh behind.
About an hour later, Ranzo arrived at the scene of Senior’s death. Taking one look at the pool of blood and gore, Ranzo clicked his tongue, and turned back.
“Guess someone got to him before me. Oh well, time to look for the next guy, I guess.”
Whistling a song to himself, Ranzo spun his scythe around, matching the song’s rhythm as he walked back into the depths of the forest, looking for new prey to hunt.
Elsewhere:
Arcadeotic sat at the end of a cliff, looking at the waterfall below him with a emotionless expression, balancing a katana on his feet. A single sudden motion would surely send the sword tumbling down the fifty meter long drop.
Arcadeotic was wearing a blue yukata, stained red with the blood of a pack of wild boars he had killed an hour ago. After cooking some of their meat on a fire, he had eaten some for himself, then tossed the rest down into the abyss. He had no intentions of sharing the meat with anyone else, nor did he want the smell of the meat to attract possible predators. He had extinguished the fire as soon as he was done cooking the meat, but it might still have notified someone of his location. Nevertheless, Arcadeotic sat completely still on the cliff, staring out into nothingness.
Sure enough, after another few minutes, the sound of footsteps could be heard behind him.
Still, Arcadeotic remaind motionless, not facing his attacker.
Sneaking up behind him was Thatcomicguy, clutching his spear with his right hand. In his free arm was a wooden shield, covered in thick leather. Other than his weapons, Thatcomicguy was completely naked, though his body was covered in blue war paint.
Thatcomicguy snuck up to Arcadeotic until he was a mere two meters away, then stabbed at Arcadeotic’s back with his spear. Right before the spear hit Arcadeotic’s back, he jumped straight up into the air, grabbed his katana, and in the same motion as he drew it from its sheath, he cut at Thatcomicguy’s chest.
Thatcomicguy barely had time to block the slice with his shield, and was forced back a few steps from the impact.
Meanwhile, Arcadeotic landed gracefully on the edge of the cliff, and quickly moved in for another attack, cutting at Thatcomicguy’s left foot.
Arcadeotic closed the distance between them in a second, and mercilessly sliced a deep cut in Thatcomicguy’s calf.
“Ugh…”
Thatcomicguy groaned in pain, and pushed his shield forward defensively, hitting Arcadeotic in the chest.
Arcadeotic fell backwards, but quickly regained his balance.
For the first time in the fight, Arcadeotic glanced at his opponent, and chuckled.
“You look ridiculous.”
Thatcomicguy paid him no mind, and tried to focus on his plan of attack. He should have the upper hand, even with the cut on his leg, as he had the longest reach thanks to his spear, and a shield to block the katana’s slashes. The leather on his shield had taken a hit already, and was already starting to come apart. It probably wouldn’t last too long.
Seemingly having come up with a plan, Thatcomicguy stepped forward. Although the pain in his leg was nothing to joke about, he did not let it stop him.
“Yeah, well, we’ll see who gets the last laugh.”
Keeping just enough distance between himself and his opponent, so that the katana would not be able to reach him, Thatcomicguy thrust his spear towards Arcadeotic. Arcadeotic easily deflected the thrust, but as he was about to counterattack, Thatcomicguy swiftly changed his grip, turning his spear downwards towards Arcadeotic leg, and dug the tip of his spear into Arcadeotic’s knee. Arcadeotic winced in response, but didn’t let the pain stop him from fighting. Not wasting any time, Arcadeotic slashed two times, but both attacks were blocked by Thatcomicguy’s pesky shield.
“Tch.”
It became impossible for Arcadeotic to stand on his wounded leg, which meant he would be at an even bigger disadvantage than before. His strongest point was his speed, but without his full mobility, he would be unable to close the distance between himself and his opponent fast enough to stop the spear from keeping him at bay.
“... An eye for an eye, huh?”
Arcadeotic said to himself, as he tried to come up with a way out of the dire situation. He had cut his opponent’s leg, but in return, his own knee had been damaged. Both of them were less mobile, but it seemed like his own injury was a bit more serious.
“Well, what can you do.”
Arcadeotic walked forward with awkward steps, his wounded leg mostly just being dragged along the ground.
“I’ll end this with one strike.”
The bold statement from Arcadeotic made Thatcomicguy snicker.
“Oh, is that so? Well by all means, come at me.”
Thatcomicguy spat back, readied his spear, and covered his chest with his shield. There was no way Arcadeotic would be able to attack his opponent’s torso. And yet…
“Hmph!”
With a grunt, Arcadeotic jumped forward, and with all his might, he slammed the flat side of his sword into the wooden shield. The impact made Thatcomicguy stagger, and he let out a painful groan as he put all his weight on his wounded leg.
Still in the air, Arcadeotic slashed downwards. His sword moved along the rough leather covering the wooden shield, until it reached Thatcomicguy’s exposed shoulder. The sharp blade slashed open the naked shoulder, making Thatcomicguy drop his shield. Unfortunately for Arcadeotic, he was unable to brace himself properly after the attack, and he crashed into the ground, dropping his katana. The air was knocked out of him as his chest collided with the rough ground. But, he wasn’t done there. Although the world around him was spinning, he used his healthy leg to kick violently at Thatcomicguy’s wounded foot.
“Guaaah!”
Thatcomicguy screamed, as he too fell to the ground, paralyzed by pain.
Crawling towards his katana, Arcadeotic was ready to deliver the finishing blow. He gripped the hilt of his weapon, and turned towards his fallen enemy. Although every part of his body hurt, Arcadeotic somehow managed to stand, and moved towards his prey with clumsy movements.
“Hya!”
As he reached his target, he brought his katana above his shoulder, and slashed mercilessly at Thatcomicguy's neck.
Clink.
The sound of something breaking made Arcadeotic look at his sword in confusion. The katana’s blade had snapped in half, most likely a result from his fall. And since the blade had broken mid swing, he had not actually hit his opponent.
“Well, shi—”
Before Arcadeotic could finish his sentence, the tip of a spear dug into his throat, making a spray of fresh blood shoot out from the wound, dying Thatcomicguy’s skin in red.
As Arcadeotic’s dead body hit the floor, Thatcomicguy dropped his spear, as the strength began to leave his body.
“You… Tough bastard…”
With those words, he passed out.
Meanwhile, at the outskirts of the forest:
“How’s this place?”
“Hmm, looks good. We’ll camp here for now. Someone start a fire.”
“Ugh, do you think there are any more of those things out there? I’m not sure I’m comfortable sleeping here, out in the open…”
“Don’t worry, we’ll take shifts keeping guard. #28, #6, you two take the first shift.”
“Huh? Who died and made you the boss?”
Four figures, covered in mud and blood, were talking under the cover of a giant tree, just half a kilometer from the edge of the forest. The four of them were members of Fuwanovel, and contenders in the death game that had started previously that day. But, neither of them wanted to kill their fellow members, and as a result, they had formed a team.
Shortly after they teamed up, however, they were attacked by giant monsters that seemed to live in the depths of the forest. Hungry and tired, the four of them had finally reached a seemingly peaceful area, and were setting up camp with what little resources they had.
The four members were Sayaka (#28), Norleas (#9), Shikomizue (#13) and Kiriririri (#6).
Shikomizue was the natural leader type, and had taken the lead of the group as a result, something that did not sit well with Sayaka.
“Why do I have to listen to your orders, huh? I’m tired too! I want to sleep just as much as the next guy!”
“Look, I don’t mean to be rude here, but in terms of actual combat abilities, me and #9 are the strongest. We need our rest, so that we can protect this group when the time comes. You and #6 are… Well you know.”
Shikomizue gestured towards Kiriririri, a small girl with silver hair, who was poking the ground with a wooden stick, paying no mind to the conversation that was happening around her. So far, she had not participated in the fighting at all.
“Okay, I’ll give you her, but we’re not that crazy! Master and I helped you in the fight against those… Those things, didn’t we?!”
Sayaka pointed in the direction they had come from, where the group had fought against numerous strange beasts.
Shikomizue scratched his head awkwardly in response. He did not want the group to start fighting among each other, as that would just make things worse. He wanted to figure out what was going on, and how to get out of it. In order to do that, he needed to get as many people as possible to form a team. If no one killed each other, the “game” or whatever it was, had to come to a stop. That was the conclusion he had reached.
“Fine, I’ll take the first shift, along with… Her.”
Shikomizue looked towards Kiriririri, who had just finished drawing a strange symbol in the grass.
“Alright then, let’s get that fire going and—”
“Get down, something is coming.”
Norleas reached behind his back and fished out the two daggers he was storing in his jacket, then crouched down, signaling for the others to do the same.
The group gathered together, and those who had them drew their weapons.
“What did you see?”
Shikomizue did not have to wait for a response, as a large bear, covered in metal plating, walked past them. It was looking around, like it was searching for the group. It looked… Off. It looked intelligent, just like the other beasts they had fought that day.
“Something is definitely not right with these things. They started attacking us right after we formed a team. Almost like… Someone doesn’t want us to team up.”
Shikomizue thought to himself, as he recalled the days events. Actually, every time they had been away for combat for a certain period of time, something would come and attack them.
Almost like something, or someone, were controlling them. If that was the case, then...
“Master, behind you!”
Sayaka shouted to himself, and jumped forward. In the next second, a large paw covered in metal slammed down on the very spot Sayaka had been standing.
Reaching into his maid uniform, Sayaka fished out a strange statue, in the shape of an anime figure.
“They know we’re here master, so we might as well make some noise.”
Turning the head of the statue around 180 degrees, Sayaka threw it behind the tree, where the second bear had attacked from.
“Everyone, if you don’t want to go boom, I suggest you run!”
Moments later, the figure exploded, turning the ground beneath it to ash, blowing the bear to bits in the process.
The other bear was alerted to their presence, and jumped at Norleas, who slashed at its snout with his daggers before it had time to react. The beast roared in pain, and slammed its massive paw towards Norleas, who elegantly jumped out of the paws path, and went in for another attack.
While the plate armor proved to be an obstacle, Norleas still managed to bring the massive beast down in a matter of seconds, as a flurry of dagger cuts tore into its hide like it was butter, always finding the unprotected parts of the bears body.
Meanwhile, Shikomizue was fending of two wolves with his wakizashi katanas, holding back one wolf with each blade, as he pressed them against the wolves sharp fangs.
“Where is #6? Someone cover her.”
“Yes, yes, Master and I got her, don’t worry.”
Throwing explosive statues at everything that moved inside the forest, Sayaka jumped around Kiriririri, who was sitting on the ground, watching the fighting happen around her with an indifferent expression.
“Ohh, we’re gonna make master so proud, yes we are, tralala.”
Sayaka sang as he looked up at the sky, throwing statues now seemingly at random. A few landed close to Norleas, but he simply moved out of their path with incredible speed each time, still slashing and stabbing any beast that came in his way with his daggers.
The group fended off countless beasts, until finally, only one remained. It was a massive tiger, also covered in metal plating like the bears from before. The beast’s eyes were glowing in a strange blue light, and it moved faster than any other creature they had fought so far.
Sayaka had tried throwing several statues at it, but it always got out of the blast zone before it was damaged.
Norleas was unable to get close to the beast as well, as it was simply too fast.
Shikomizue knew they were out of options.
“Tch… Is this really how it ends?”
He clicked his tongue, and started to walk towards the beast while he shook his head.
“Am I really doing this?”
After glancing over his shoulder, taking another look at his three teammates, Shikomizue nodded, and closed his eyes.
“Listen up. I know what’s going on. These things are being controlled by someone. As long as we’re in a group, we’ll be sitting ducks. They are either being controlled by whoever started this fucked up game... Someone who wants us to keep fighting, or it’s another contender, in which case we should split up to try and find the bastard.
So... Guys, split up. Run. For now, just get as far away from each other as possible.”
“GRAAWRH!”
Like it understood what Shikomizue was saying, the tiger roared, and charged at the group. It was not happy.
“Yes come on, you stupid cat.”
Shikomizue charged as well, running straight ahead, towards the beast’s fangs.
Then…
“GUAAH!”
Shikomizue screamed in pain, as the tiger bit him, its large fangs digging into his left side.
“I’ll keep this thing at bay… You guys… Run away… Now!”
Lifting up his free arm, Shikomizue gripped his katana firmly, and slashed at the tiger’s front legs, which were not covered by armor. That should slow it down. The thing was, it would have been impossible to target its legs without making it stop first. And, the only way to do that was to make it stop moving, for instance, by letting it bite one of them. Shikomizue had realized this a while ago, as he watched his comrades fail to hit the beast, and he had given his own life so that the other three could live.
“You guys better figure out what the fuck is going on here, and stop this ‘game’, alright?”
Shikomizue looked over his shoulder, watching as his allies ran into different directions. No beasts chased them.
Pleased that he his plan had worked, Shikomizue fished out a cigarette from pocket, and moved it to his mouth, his hand shaking. He didn’t have anything to light it with, but he still put it in his mouth, and took a deep breath, closing his eyes.
That was his last breath.
Norleas walked through the forest in silence. His daggers were still dripping with blood from the countless monsters he had killed. Still, he had not even broken a sweat. Killing was his job, after all. It was a breath of fresh air for him to kill beasts instead of people.
It was strange. The person whose job was to take people’s lives had chosen to join an alliance to avoid killing others.
It was different this time, after all. The people in question were his friends. His fellow Fuwanovel users. There was no way he could kill them.
Sensing something moving behind him, Norleas gripped his dagger, and prepared for battle. But…
“Oh, it’s just you.”
He lowered his weapons. Behind him stood the strange girl from before, Kiriririri.
“What, didn’t you hear what the boss said? We’re supposed to split up. What, are you scared in the dark by yourself?”
Kiriririri didn't’ say anything. She simply lifted her arm, pointing into the darkness behind Norleas.
“What? What is… It…”
Norleas turned around to look at what she was pointing at, and suddenly felt a sharp pain in his abdomen. Looking down at his own stomach, he saw a silvery blade sticking out from his chest, covered in fresh blood.
“Wh-What…”
“Hehe.”
The laughter of a little girl was the last thing he heard, as his lifeless body fell to the floor.
Kiriririri pulled the sword out of Norleas’ corpse, and it soon turned into light particles, vanishing into thin air.
Kiriririri then simply kept walking through the forest with an emotionless expression.
Hey everyone! So it's time for another review, this time of a yuri title that I just finished last night, Kimihane Kanojo to kanojo no koi suru Ikkagetsu. I got recommended this a little while back and decided to read it because I thought it was just a short yuri nukige. But boy was I wrong ...
The story:
The story is quite lighthearted and simple, three girls who think they saw an angel when they were younger live together in a dorm. These three girs get along very well and the story is just their daily lives unfolding before our eyes. Or, rather, it is actually being seen by someone else. The story is told in a third person narrative, being looked at by a mystery person. The third person narrative is quite interesting; its something I haven't seen much off in VNs, and it made for a fun experience, reading an untranslated novel in the third person.
It's a novel strongly built on the slice of life element. The story is split into 4 chapters, with 4 routes, each route has its own unique twist on the four chapters, with new CG, dialouge and events.
The routes are each coupling, Rin x Hina, Hina x Fumi, Fumi x Rin, and finally a secret route unlocked after the completion of the previous three.
Each scene during the game tends to be quite specific and short, but in return there are many of them. So let's say they are sitting in the living room having dinner, there is a short sequence where they do that, then it suddenly switches to a different scene, let's say, they are now at school. This is actually a very comfortable way to read an untranslated novel for me, as its very easy to get the context of the conversation. Also, story wise, there is a reason for this specific short scene duration, and it is revealed during the last, hidden route.
There is an enforced playing order, where a new route is unlocked after the current one is finished. Also, there are NO choices in the game. You get some unique dialouge choices in the form of these screens:
However these have no effect on the routes and the story at all, and they are simply small unique scenarios.
All in all, the story is very light and cute, the language in the novel is simple, but it still keeps you entertained the entire time. Similar to Sono Hanabira, it focuses strongly on it's character interatcion.
The characters:
The story offers very few characters, only four of which has a sprite. These four characters are the ones who make up the bulk of the game's story.
These characters are:
Hina:
Hina is kind of the little sister in the group. She is super adorable; a small girl with a loud voice. (She tends to yell a lot.) She does a lot of stuff that just makes you go, "aww", but unlike Fumi, she is quite ... Noisy. She isn't a fragile and gentle little girl, but rather a loud and energic one.
She spends a lot of her time yelling at Rin, and this makes her appear more like an older sister, despite her role in the little "family" being the little sister/daughter.
Rin:
Rin is my favorite character of the three. She is a slob, managing to put her glasses in the fridge like 8 times during the story. She sleeps in all the time and is always yelled at by the little energy bomb that is Hina. Basically everything Rin does will make you laugh. She is less innocent and more direct and frank, making her do hilarious stuff like roleplay sexual scenarios with Fumi's stuffed animals, get in bed with Fumi telling Hina to look away as "mama and papa" are going to be doing grown up stuff. She will make you laugh a lot, and thats what I loved about her.
Of course, just like the other two she has sides of her which aren't so clear, that you learn more about during the routes.
Fumi:
Fumi is the mother among the three. She is very polite and formal, always takes care of the housework and steps in as a peacekeeper whenever the two others start quarreling. She is gentle and adorable, but just like Rin, she has different sides to her which are discovered during the routes.
Lastly, Sachiko:
Umm.. She is the ... Middle aged dorm manager who keeps on touching the girls... She also tries to pay them to be painted nude. .. uhh.. Someone call the police..?
General impressions and thoughts:
Like I said in the introduction, Kimihane looked like your average yuri nukige to me, but wow was I wrong. It is by no means a nukige; I'd probably call it a moege, (as there are only 2 H-scenes per route and quite a lot of cute and adorable, lighthearted dialouge and scenes dominate the game.)
The art in the game is really nice, with several CG variants for each scene and well done character details and sprites. This also makes the H-Scenes quite enjoyable, though like I said, the H-scenes were actually not what made me stick around for this one.
Each character has a lot of developement throughout the story, and each route brings out a new side of them that we haven't seen before. This makes each route feel unique and very enjoyable. The humor in the game is quite entertaining, and the romance is well done, though its a little bit simple and moe like. Don't expect extremely prfound and deep relationships.
Even though the story is so simple and light though, it doesn't make you feel bored or tired of what is going on. The characters keep the romantic routes interesting, but what really blew my mind was the hidden route. Once I played it, I just went... "Ohhhhh!" It did such a good job of suprising me and I think it will suprise you as well. I never saw that coming.
Anyways, since the game is fairly short there isn't too much else to be said. Honestly, my conclusion is this: PLAY IT! It's short, its really cute and light but at the same time it has its moments where the story really takes you by suprise. The characters are wonderfull and entertaining and the art is really nice.
I personally rated this a 9/10 on my VNDB, but keep in mind; I am yuri freak.
I think a more objective rating would be something like a 7.5. But this is definitely not something you should play just because it has yuri. It's quite the good little novel, and it left me seriously pleasantly suprised.
Hello hello! I have spent the whole day no lifing this game and now its time to make a review of it!
Introduction:
Just like the last game, Nekopara vol. 2 is a rather short kinetic novel, (about 4-5 hours, depending on your reading pace. Maybe a little longer if you listen to all the dialogue.) It has very nice art, animated sprites, animated H-Scenes and ... nekos!
Starting off after the ending in vol.1, all the catgirls in the Minaduki-family are now working at La Soleil. So far the MC, Kashou, has conquered two of the six. How long before the rest of them fall for his incredible ... Baking ... Skills?
The story?
So I went ahead and added a question mark there. Don't take this the wrong way; I am not saying the game is bad and that its completely devoid of a story, but let's face it, this game is primarily about looking at the pretty nekos naked.
Its very strongly built on the slice of life type element, literally just showing the life of everyone at La Soleil as they do their best to keep the now very popular bakery running. It's pretty much a moege / nukige, depending a little on how you want to look at it. (I guess if you play the all ages version, its just a pure moege .. )
In Vol.2 the two catgirls Azuki and Coconut are our new heroines (two of my favorites, so that made me go hell yes!)
The story starts with Coconut being extremely clumsy like always, and therefore she ends up very dejected. All the other nekos have a job they can pull off well in the bakery, but all Coconut can do is lift heavy stuff. She breaks mugs, gets in the way and just generally doesn't do much productive work.
Azuki on the other hand has taken the role of the leader among the nekos, and with her being the oldest of the lot, it was a rather natural role for her to fill. Coconut and Azuki constantly get in fights, something that makes the relationship between the two kind of strained.
Eventually Coconut wants to get some special training from Kashou, so that she can do better at work and finally have her onee-chan compliment her.
Meanwhile, Chocola and Vanilla has to go take another test in order to keep their bells. The bell test was something they both struggled with originally, especially Chocola, so it's something that could end badly. Will they manage to keep their bells, or will they be forced to go through the process to get them back all over again?
The story basically continues in this pattern from here, though if I say any more, I'd basically spoil the little story the game has. Therefore, let's leave it there.
All in all, for me the story was quite enjoyable. It's extremly light hearted, and I knew that as I started playing it, obviously. It has a few moments that is kind of touching, and others that are really funny.
Really though, it's nekopara; its short, you wont get an incredible amount of story, but you sure as hell will be entertained by the little that is there. (Unless you don't like nekos, but if thats the case, you are a sad human being )
What about Chocola and Vanilla?
When I started playing, this was a question that was in the back of my mind. Will the new heroines simply replace the old ones? Well the answer is, no!
Of course the new nekos have a bigger role in the story overall, but both Chocola and Vanilla are still present more than enough. (They are in fact, in every single H-Scene. )
On the note of Vanilla and Chocola, their part in the story with the bells is rather small, but they are present during most of the story scenes featuring Azuki and Coconut as well, but more as background characters.
Another thing I was wondering was; are they going to make any improvements to the game at all? I didn't really have anything specific in mind, but the main concern I had was: is this literally just going to be a copy paste of the first game, but with new heroines?
Luckily, it wasn't. I mean, of course we are in the same setting so there is re-used backgrounds, the music is somewhat the same and the art itself hasn't been changed significantly. It's not like they have made any big changes that we can see, but just in a general sense, the game itself isn't the same as the first one.
First of all, the new heroines both have different and unique personalities that makes the little story aroud them interesting, and it also spices up the H-Scenes so they don't feel like they are just re-used with new characters.
Also, the story starts of like the polar oposite of the first game, with Vanilla and Chocola already being involved with the MC. We see a little part of their daily life, and how the other nekos are around them when they "get funky". (And example being Coconut walking in on Chocola and Kashou when they are making out.)
So although the feel of the game is similar, its not a lazy copy paste kind of game. I was a little dissapointed to find out that no new elements, such as possible choices or a new fun function like when the petting menu was introdouced. These are fun little things that would make the game even more entertaining.
An amusing thing that happened during the story was when the two remaining nekos went ahead and kind of broke the fourth wall, saying "if this pattern continues, will it be our turn next?"
Conclusion:
Nekopara vol. 2 is rather short and you shouldn't go into it expecting a very deep story. It's very light and full of moe. Luckily the game itself isnt a copy paste from the first game, though I wish some new elements were introdouced. Hopefully the possible next game will have something new in it, like a small choice or something else that spices the game up even more.
In order to avoid a bunch of people getting weirded out by a subjective rating, I'm going to say this: If you liked the first game, you are definitely going to love the second one! If you didn't really care for the first one, then this might not be your thing. Of course, if you have a thing for Heterochromia heroines, then the game might be worth it just as a nukige. Coconut sure does look ... S-Smart Yes, lets go with that.
I rate nekopara vol. 2 neko/10 What, were you expecting a serious number? Well, too bad. I loved it though. I need more. Please make vol.3. Now. Ok?
Good.
Thats it for today, thanks for reading. Now go play this thing!
Before I begin, I just wanted to say that I've gotten some feedback lately that my "reviews" have been fairly ... Laid back and not too serious. This is completely true, and I've written this with that feedback in mind. This is a much more objective, serious review of a game that I've wanted to review for a while. Hope you enjoy reading it, and please keep giving me feedback that can help me improve, I do appriciate it.
Shuffle! Review,
By Dergonu, fuwanovel
Shuffle is a romance / fantasy visual novel originally released by Navel in 2003/2004. The game was later licensed and translated by Mangagamer, along with its two sequels Tick! Tack! and Really? Really! (You can buy the games here: (nsfw content on the game's page.)
In the game you play as Tsuchimi Rin, a fairly normal high school student. When Rin was younger he met two beautiful young girls by chance, and spent the day playing with them. It turns out though, that these fate encounters would later change Rin's life forever.
Shuffle offers 5 romantic routes as well as a common route, the story featuring elements of romance, drama, fantasy and comedy. (Note that a newer version of the game called Essence+ offers a whole roster of new characters and heroine routes not found in the original release, but this version is un-translated, and is not the version covered in this review.)
The main story takes place in a fantasy universe where two portals have opened in the human world. These portals connects our world to the world of the Gods and the Devils. Contrary to popular belief, Devils and Gods are not omnipotent almighty beings which hate one another, but instead they are fairly similar to us, and the two races live alongside each other in peace. The Devils and Gods do have magical powers, and certain features does make them look slightly different, the primary attribute being their long ears. In the game, we follow Tsuchimi Rin in his everyday life. It has been 10 years since the portals opened, and Gods, Devils and humans live alongside each other peacefully.
The overall look of the game is very nice for such an old novel. The art is pretty to look at, with nice sprites and colorful, well drawn backgrounds. The menu is detailed and easy to navigate, offering a great variety of settings to improve your experience. There is a date display in game, and choices will affect which heroine's route you enter. The choices are very plain and easy to understand, often literally containing the name of the characters to make it easy to choose the heroine route. In addition, the game has no bad endings, so playing it blindly with no walkthrough is risk free.
Once you enter a heroine route, a sprite of the heroine will be displayed during scene changes, so you know when you have entered a route. All these things taken into consideration, Shuffle is a very laid back and casual visual novel experience, but that in itself isn't necessarily a bad thing.
The music in shuffle goes hand in hand with the other elements we have discussed so far. It's very light and very simple. Each one of the normal tracks played throughout the primary part of the common route and the start of the heroine routes are simple, light and cute. They offer simple instrumental music with slight variation that glide smoothly into the background.
The tracks unlocked later on during the final dramatic parts of the routes, feel like they are on a different level from the earlier ones. They do a better job of making the player feel engaged in the game, as they feature more detailed instrumental music which fits the setting very well.
The music tracks in the game are all enjoyable of course, and fit nicely with the feel of the game, but if more effort was put into making all the tracks like the last few ones, then it would allow for even greater immersion in the game, something that could possibly make the game better than it already is.
Still, every track is very comfortable to listen to and none of them are disruptive in any way.
Among the five heroine's routes, each story offers a fairly similar structure. It starts of very light, introducing one small piece of information casually that will later turn into a dramatic twist to the route. This small catalyst is easy enough to spot early on, and figuring out vaguely what is going to happen is fairly easy. That being said, the game still does a decent job at hiding exactly what it is that is going on. The primary part of the heroine's route will be about Rin and the girl falling in love, and developing their relationship. The game offers 2 H-Scenes for each character, with CG variations based off your choice in the route, and an epilogue which takes place after the events of the main route. As the story progresses, the catalyst which was introduced earlier will start to become more present in the story, and a big climax towards the end filled with drama will occur. This can remind you of a normal nakige build up, but the last dramatic part is so short and gets overpowered by the lightheartedness of the previous part of the game so strongly, that it can't be called a nakige at all.
The game re-uses a fair share of the same situations and conversations during the early part of the heroine routes. These only have certain new lines of dialogue, making the scene itself the same. This comes off as lazy, and gets old after the second route. At the very least, short new events should have occurred during these parts to make these scenes slightly more entertaining. This is luckily only the case for the beginning of the route, and the later parts are all completely unique to each heroine.
Sia's route is supposed to have two variations, but similar to the previous problem mentioned above, they simply re-use the scenes with tiny changes in the dialogue. The final experience is the same, and so it feels almost pointless to have these two variants, as they simply don't do anything majorly different from one another. It is not a good / bad end type of deal, but instead two sides of the same ending, with all the scenes identical, except for certain variations in dialogue and the character's behavior. This is a little bit of a shame, as Sia's route is very good. Had the two sides of the route been pulled off in a better way, this route would have been even better.
Primula, Asa and Sia's routes are the only ones that has "believable drama". The other two routes doesn't make you feel like what is happening is really a big deal at all. It is trivial drama that doesn't have any real impact compared to what happens in the routes mentioned above. This is not to say that the routes are bad because of this, but it does make the game feel a little inconsistent, as if the two routes which feel less impactful are played after the other three, then you won't really be that pleased with the end result. Actually, one of these routes has to be played before Primula's route is unlocked, so only one of the routes actually have that problem.
The endings in the routes also feel a little bit rushed. Once the drama is introduced, the player has almost no time to let it sink in and feel the effects of it, before it is resolved. This makes the novel lose some potential, as it doesn't feel like there is any "risk" to it at all. It's almost as if the game is saying that something bad could happen, but then it instantly corrects itself, saying don't worry, we wouldn't actually do this!
Still, with those factors in mind, the story in the game is still enjoyable. The actual core of the heroine routes does a good job of making the player care for the heroine and about what happens to her, and seeing as the game instantaneously lets you know that it is a very laid back, plain and casual experience, the slightly rushed endings and not overly dramatic parts are to be expected.
To sum up, Shuffle! is a very light and simple, yet effective visual novel. It does a good job of making the player care for its characters, as long as the player is willing to accept the game's light hearted and simple atmosphere.
The music and art in the game is well made, especially the art and backgrounds. Considering the age of the game, it is in fact quite pleasantly surprising to see such nice artwork in the game. The music could have had even more effort put into it though, as there is a clear difference in quality between a few of the tracks.
The routes are a little inconsistent, and offer parts which are essentially just copy pasted with slightly altered dialogue. This alongside the predictability of certain events, the game loses a bit of its potential.
+ Nice art, music and well made menu makes for an enjoyable experience.
+ The story is enjoyable overall, and does a good job of making the reader care for the heroines
- The drama in the later parts of the game ends far too fast, and are essentially pointless
- The game loses potential with the lack of variation in its re-used scenes, especially in Sia's route
Rating: These things taken into account, shuffle! gets a 7.8/10 rating
Beat Blades Haruka is a gameplay oriented nukige released by Alice Soft, which was recently translated and licensed by Mangagamer. The game offers 150 H-scenes, ranging from normal vanilla scenes to darker things like rape and beastiality. The game's appeal is clearly rooted in it's H-content, but does that mean that's everything the game has to offer?
In Beat Blades Haruka you play as Ikusabe Takamaru, a boy who desperately wants a girlfriend. His friend, Narika, keeps getting in the way of his possible romances, something that irritates him quite a bit. But soon, his fairly normal life of being rejected by women and half-assing himself through school quickly comes to a halt when the beautiful ninja Haruka, who has traveled to our time from the past, suddenly appears in Takamaru's life.
Chasing the evil Noroi who has lept through time with his follwers in order to turn the world into chaos, Haruka and her fellow Cresent moon members turn to Takamaru for help. It turns out, Takamaru is a descendant of the Dragonian, meaning he has the power to transfer strength to the blades of the crescent moon. (The blades being female ninjas.) This power, SP, is transfered from the Dragonian to the blades by ... Having sex.
Takamaru's mission is to use the blades at his disposal to fight the four Tetra Sealers, Noroi's most powerful subordinates, take down the towers which connect to Noroi's realm, and to stop him once and for all.
During the game, the player gets a whole lot of choices that will allow them to take full control of their destiny. Will you be the good guy, fighting to stop Noroi? Or will you give in to your dark desires, using the blades as tools for your own pleasure and gain?
Offering a large variety of different endings, Beat Blades Haruka is a very unique gameplay nukige that allows its player to choose a lot more than just a singular ending, but they have the ability to impact the very way the entire game is played.
The gameplay:
During the story, a big part of your time will be spent preparing your heroines for battle. During the gameplay parts of the VN, you will be matched up against an enemy. You can spend SP, (sex power), that you accumulate through dragon syngery, (sex), to unleash powerful attacks against your opponent, and you train your heroines stats through either dragon synergy, training, castle raids or defeating enemies. The lower your stats are compared to your opponent, the harder it is to win. The stats highlited in blue, like the defense in this picture, means the stat is underleveled compared to your opponent, and the chances of winning are smaller. By losing a fight against a male Kainin, one of Noroi's lieutenants, the heroine will be raped and an option to skip the following rape H-scene will appear. (Unless you disable that feature in the option menu.)
The gameplay is entertaining, though it is a little difficult at first. Getting used to what all the different stats does is a little bit hard and overwhelming, and the stats are also a little poorly balanced. For instance, by stacking a large amount of reflex, you will be able to sweep through the game, as your character will essentially never miss, and she will also dodge a lot of the opponent's attacks. But if it's the other way around, and your reflex stat is low but your other stats are high, you still wont do much damage, as most of your attacks will be dodged. Basically, there is too much focus on reflex, something that makes combat a little bit imbalanced at certain points in the game. Your opponents gets really strong in the late game, meaning their reflex stats are high, and so if you didn't train your heroine correctly, a bad end is waiting for you. (If you are defeated by a sealer, you get a bad end and a game over.)
Still, these flaws aside, the gameplay is enjoyable. It's fun training up your heroine, either choosing to clear out the streets to protect the people like the good guy, or simply being an asshole and having your heroine raped over and over. (This increases her stats a great deal, however it gives you + brutality, and if the heroine is raped too much, it can lead to a brutal bad ending.) The variety offered to you makes playing the game a second, third or fourth time fun.
The phase system, Libido and your dice
While we are still on the gameplay part of the VN, there is a few things to note. The game itself is split into four parts, 3 phases and then actual story. The 3 phases are morning, afternoon and night phase. Between these phases the game's story progresses, and you see normal VN style dialogue as well as choices that you can use to impact the story, as well as your heroine's stats.
During the morning and afternoon phase, you either train up your heroine by having sex, raise your libido or rest, in order to get more dice recovered. The night phase is spent actually fighting your opponents, and going on castle raids.
(What exactly are these dice and how do they work?)
The dice system in Beat Blades Haruka is what let's you make your "moves" in the phases. You get X amount of dice each day, based of your dice recovery. You can have a maximum of 8 dice at a time. The dice can be a number between 1 and 6, and the dice itself is used to "pay for" actions. As an example, if you want to sleep with haruka to increase some of her stats and her SP, you have to "pay" some dice. The lower levels of dragon synergy are cheaper, but give less stats, the higher levels are more expensive but give you more stats. The system is very forgiving. If you roll a 7 on something that needs 8 to complete, 7 will be subtracted from the action, so that in the next phase, it will only cost 1 dice. The dice itself is based off RNG, though do note that it is essentially impossible to soft reset for. Still, with the way the system is made, soft reseting for dice is not even needed, so there is nothing to worry about there. If you do it right, completing the game in the 99 days given to you is a walk in the park.
Lastly, libido is a strange stat. It is what makes your dice recovery higher. Every 10 points of libido, your dice recovery goes up by 1. What does this mean? It means that after the night phase, you will get back X dice. So if you have a dice recovery of 5, the next day following a night phase, you are given 5 dice. Raising your libido is simple, and is done by either having sex with a female Kainin, choosing an option at a choice screen with (libido) next to it, or just clicking "raise libido".
The game's value beyond H-content?
We have already talked about the gameplay side of the game. It's entertaining, though very repetative and it's also focused strongly around H-scenes. (In order to prepare your heroine for a battle you have to have sex, and if you lose a battle, you get into a rape scene. H is a big part of this nukige, obviously.)
But what about the story itself? Music, art, characters and such. What is the value of the game outside just the H-scenes?
The character designs and art in the game is overall very nice. A lot of work seems to have been put into each character's design, though the personalities of the the main characters are fairly bland and simple. Most work seems to have been put into the kainins and tetra sealers. They are all very badass, pretty, hot, what have you. Each one of them has many small details that stand out, and are just overall very well made. The main characters are by no means poorly designed, but in comparison they do fall a little short.
The art itself is very nice, with animated cut-scenes, well drawn backgrounds and detailed character sprites.
The music in the VN is pretty good, offering a variety of tracks for different situations that fits well with the atmosphere of the scene.
The story itself is what it is. The game does take itself seriously; it's not like it just jokes around and put all focus on H. The story is decent. There is moments where it will take you by suprise, certain moments that are more emotional than others, though the actual story is fairly short. The main focus of the dialogue aspects of the game lies in the different scenes you can get with the heroines and side characters by making choices. If you focus on one girl a lot, increasing her love hearts in the game, you will go on dates with her and get close with her. If you are an asshole and just have your blades raped and defeated, you will get unique scenes that deal with this.
The actual main story that remains the same through all playthroughs is therefore minimal, as the game wants to keep the focus on your choices as the player. This is both a flaw and a strength in the VN. It's a flaw because it means that ultimately, the story itself is slightly underwhelming and short, but it's also a strength because it does mean the player feel like he or she is more in control of the outcome.
All in all Beat Blades Haruka is a solid VN, offering unique and entertaining gameplay, a big variety of choices that lets the player impact the game's ending, though it does lack some impact in its delivery of the story.
+ Entertaining gameplay
+ Good art, music and character designs
+ A huge variety of choices that let's the player choose how the game is played
- Slightly underwhelming main story
- The main characters are a little bland and some more time should have been put into them
- The stat system is a little imbalanced
Would you rather read the chapters in a PDF document? Click here!
Chapter 1:
Chapter 2:
Chapter 3: (Word count, 4439)
The last GM standing chapter 3:
On the third day of battle, the sun was blazing hot. The dark clouds that had been hovering over the battlefield for two days straight were nowhere to be seen. The base of team Nosbeleed, which was turned into a charred wasteland after the previous day's battle, was abandoned. The battle had been pushed further and further away from the forest and open plains, and a group of warriors found themselves in a harsh desert, being tormented by heat under the scorching sun.
...
Trying to get away from their pursuers, Kiriririri and Nebjula from team Nosebleed were running through the desert at full speed. Because of the protective shield granted to them by their commander, the heat didn't mean too much, but fatigue was taking its toll on their bodies. They had been running for hours already, and it was only a matter of time now; their tail would soon catch up to them, and they would have to fight. And sure enough, after a few more minutes, the outline of a person could be seen appearing in front of them. Coming to a complete stop, the two team Nosebleed warriors prepared for battle. Their pursuers soon came to a halt as well, their weapons shining brightly in the sun.
"Ohh, I see our prey has stopped running. What's the matter, tired?" Pouting her lips whilst making an intimidating face, the woman in the group presented her weapon in a taunting manner; a sickle. The curved blade of the weapon was forged in a deep black metal. The tip of the sickle was jagged, with several small razor sharp edges that were there in order to inflict as much damage as possible. It allowed the weapon to function as a stabbing tool as well as a cutting blade. The woman was wearing the green garb standard for Down's army. Interestingly enough though, behind her, two more warriors were approaching, but they were clad in the red armor of Kaguya's army. To her left was another one of her teammates. Had Kaguya's soldiers been sent after Down's soldiers?.. There was also one more person who had appeared in front of Kiri and Nebjula, another one of Kaguya's men. In order to cover both their sides, Nebjula and Kiriririri stood back to back, weapons at a ready. The situation was quite chaotic, and the only way to identify who was who, was by the color of their armor.
The female soldier from team Down took a step forward and smiled at Kiriririri.
"So, which one of you will be my playmate? Oh, wait! I haven't introduced myself yet, how rude." Taking a step back again and bowing gracefully, the woman's hair swayed in the harsh wind. She was paying no mind to the two enemies who had appeared behind her.
"My name is Kawasumi. It's a pleasure to meet you gentlemen. Now, I'll start by cutting up you!" Just as she finished her sentence, Kawasumi charged forward, her sickle heading for Kiriririri's neck. Kiri quickly parried the attack by charging his fist with energy and striking at the approaching weapon. The sound of his fist colliding with the steel was deafening, but neither party cared. They launched attack after attack at each other, completely ignoring their surroundings. Kawasumi laughed joyfully during the fight, seemingly having a fun time. Kiri was focused, not saying a word.
Nebjula, who was standing behind Kiri as Kawasumi attacked, quickly got his weapons ready and struck at the opponent in front of him. Zebhra from team Kaguya who was holding a sword, blocked the first mace hit, and jumped to the side to retaliate. The thin blade moved quickly, and Nebjula barely managed to stop it with his maces. Unleashing a flurry of attacks at Nebjula, Zebhra moved forward, not giving Nebjula a chance to strike back. At the same time, one of the men in the back came forward, joining the fight. The desert was soon turned into a big mess of a battle; green, pink and red clashing in an epic fight.
A shadow quickly moved towards Kiririri, and he only managed to dodge it by a hair. Looking to his left, Kiriririri spotted a man in red armor with his hand extended towards him. A big red magic circle was floating in front of his hand, and the shadow that had attacked him appeared to have been made by it. Beside him was a another one of Kaguya's soldiers, standing with his arms crossed. Was he not going to attack?
"Hahaha, this is magnificent!" Shouting in a wild voice, Kawasumi rapidly struck at Kiri with her sickle, each blow being blocked by Kiri's fists. Then several knives made out of shadow quickly flew towards him again, sent out by the magician standing in the back.
He was able to hit them in mid air, stopping them from doing any damage, whilst still fending off Kawasumi's sickle.
"You really are good. I'll make sure I kill you slowly as a reward." A wicked smile spread across her lips, and she took a few steps backwards, distancing herself from her foe. Then she readied her sickle again and leapt forward.
Meanwhile, Nebjula was busy fighting off an onslaught of magical attacks as well as a flurry of sword cuts. The attackers from Kaguya's army who had appeared behind him both seemed to use magic. The shadow user who was fighting Kiri and Kawasumi was Jade, and the one attacking Nebjula was Nimbus. One of the oncoming lightning bolts got past Nebjula's guard and struck his chest. It was blocked by his barrier, but it had been worn down by running in the blazing sun for hours, and it still hurt quite a bit.
"Damnit..." He needed a way to get some distance from the sword-wielding Zebhra in order to attack Nimbus who was attacking with lightning magic. This was easier said than done though ...
"Wohoooo! YEAH!" Suddenly, a surreal voice came from behind, and a man wearing a green garb ran past Nebjula at a crazy speed and rushed through the oncoming magic attacks. He brushed them off like they were nothing and quickly reached the two long range attackers. In his hand was a cleaver, stained with dried blood. It was the man who had been standing next to Kawasumi earlier.
"Nohman has arrived!" Loudly declaring his name, he swung his weapon violently at the two, making them scatter. Still fending off Zebhra's sword, Nebjula tried to get a closer look at the battle between Kawasumi and Kiriririri.
Kiriririri was still fighting off the relentless attacks with ease. Kawasumi's sickle moved through the air so fast, it was hard for Nebjula to follow it, but Kiri was still able to parry and retaliate using his fists. Now that Jade's magic had been interrupted, it was easier for Kiri to move around freely.
"Take this, and this and this and this and this!!!" Striking at the barrier protecting Nimbus, Nohman brutally attacked it again and again. His battle style was vicious and reckless, but it was quite effective. In seconds, Nimbus' barrier shattered, and he had no way to stop the cleaver. Just as Nohman lifted his weapon in order to finish off his victim, Jade fired several knives made of shadow at him. Quickly turning around and hitting every single one of them out of the air, Nohman shook his head.
"Two against one... Hm. Well, whatever. This will be fun." Smiling from ear to ear, Nohman advanced on Jade this time. Jumping slightly in order to avoid the lightning bolt coming from behind, he turned his body mid air and struck upwards, hitting Jade's right arm. A barrier blocked the hit, but he still did some damage. As he landed, Nohman spun around swiftly and launched at Jade again. But this time, the lightning bolts were moving a little too fast, and two of them pierced Nohman's chest, sending waves of pain through his body. Nohman lost his balance and tumbled to the ground. Still, he wasn't done yet. Violently striking at the foot in front of him, Nohman's cleaver made a deep cut in Nimbus' foot.
"GHAAAA!" A loud scream was heard throughout the blazing hot desert.
"Damn you!" Shouting at the fallen attacker, Jade fired several knives at his exposed back. But, before they hit, something hard hit him in the side. Missing his target ever so slightly because of the sudden attack, Jade stumbled backwards and slowly got back on his feet. Nebjula was standing in front of him, clutching his two maces.
...
Team Nosebleed, Kiriririri vs Team Kaguya Zebhra and team Down Kawasumi
Suddenly feeling oncoming danger from behind him, Kiri turned his body sideways in an awkward manner. Then, a sword struck in the place he had just been. The sickle that Kawasumi was swinging around like a lunatic also swept right past him, missing his arm by mere inches. Kicking the ground behind him hard, Kiri leapt forward and hit Zebhra in the chest. He attempted to block the sudden attack with his sword, but Kiri's fist was faster. Lifting his right arm slightly, Kiri then caught the sickle quickly advancing towards him in his palm, strengthening his skin with energy in order for it not to cut him. He then kicked at Kawasumi's legs, making her fall over. Kiri was currently fighting two enemies, one from team Down and one from team Kaguya. Nebjula had gotten wounded in the fight against Zebhra, and Kiri had taken over for him. Instead, Nebjula had moved over to the fight where Nohman was on the verge of being killed by the two magicians from Kaguya's team. He would be of more use there. He had sustained a deep cut over his back, making sudden movements really difficult. But in a close combat situation versus magicians that liked long range battles, he would hopefully be fine. It seemed impossible for him to retreat in the chaotic situation, and so he had instead moved over to a different battle. It was becoming difficult for everyone to determine friend from foe, and a wild free for all like battle was underway.
Zebhra and Kawasumi were both standing again, and charged at Kiri; it seemed they had decided, he was the biggest threat. Nimbly dodging the oncoming blades, Kiri turned his body around and preformed a roundhouse kick that struck Zebhra in the chin, bringing him to the ground. He didn't have time to let his guard down though, with two attackers being present, and paid the price for it. Lightly jumping up into the air, he brought his hardened fist down towards Zebhra's head, but before it hit, Kawasumi moved in. Her sickle cut through Kiri's barrier and left him with a small wound on his left side.
Stepping on Zebhra wo was still on the ground, Kawasumi moved in closer.
Zebhra angrily made it back to his feet and approached as well, but he still did not attack Kawasumi. He was dead set on taking out Kiri.
In order to win Kiri had to act fast. Seeing as the two weren't actually teammates, their attacks weren't very well synchronized, and they would still be wary of each other. He had to use this to his advantage. The two of them raised their weapons and approached Kiri.
"... Now!" Moving forward and grabbing both weapons in mid air, Kiri used the rest of his strength to protect his palms from the sharp blades. He then moved forward, advancing past the two attackers, turned around and brought his fist forward with all his might. It struck Zebhra in the neck, and an ominous snap sound followed. Zebhra fell to the ground, his head dangling about without the proper support from his broken spine.
"Haha, look at it wobble!!!" Laughing sadistically whilst looking at the spectacle, Kawasumi yanked her blade out of Kiri's hand and cut at his chest. No longer able to summon any strength, Kiri had no way to defend himself. The blade cut through his chest, destroying his lungs. Kawasumi pushed him to the ground and got on top of his bleeding chest, bringing her face close to Kiri's.
"Sleep well sweetheart." Placing the tip of her blade on Kiri's temple, she slowly put pressure on it. The jagged spike started making its way through the skin and after a few seconds of intense pain, Kiri closed his eyes for good.
Team Kaguya, Zebhra- DEAD END
Team Nosebleed, Kiriririri (REAL) - DEAD END
Team Kaguya Nimbus and Jade, vs Team Down Nohman and Team Nosebleed's Nebjula
"Whooohooooooo!" Swinging his cleaver at Nimbus like a madman, Nohman charged forward. Nimbus was having trouble moving because of his wounded foot, but managed to dodge the attacks. Nohman had sustained quite a lot of damage previously as well, and so he wasn't moving as fast anymore. Still, he didn't seem to care one bit.
"I'm going to cut your throat open and watch the blood soil the sand!" Nohman shouted as he switched between deflecting magic and striking at Nimbus. Meanwhile, the wounded Nebjula was fighting Jade, who had sustained a broken arm from Nebjula's earlier attack. Finally, Kawasumi was busy cutting Kiri's corpse open, not caring about the fight going on behind her. Her green armor was stained completely with fresh blood.
Jade was using his magic to both deflect attacks and retaliate, making his energy drain at a rapid pace. Lucky for him, Nebjula's back had sustained a serious wound, and he was moving rather sluggishly.
I'll have to finish this in a few attacks, or I'm going to run out of energy. Jade thought to himself.
Sending two large spikes of shadow towards Nebjula, Jade took advantage of the time Nebjula needed to dodge, and started chanting in order to strengthen his next, final attack.
"Make those who oppose your ways,
wither before your gaze...
Eyes of evil, hands of darkness, gazing, clawing...
Continuing his chant, Jade brought his hand together and aimed them at Nebjula, who was running towards Jade with his maces raised. A magic circle appeared between the two and black light particles started forming around Jade's hands.
"Turn their bones to dust and their heart to sand,
become their nightmare,
...the bane of man."
As he finished chanting, a wave of darkness washed over the place where he stood, and the ground beneath Nebjula's feet split open. A large hand made of pure darkness gripped his entire body tightly, and held him in place. The pain of having pressure put on his open wound rendered him defenseless, and there was nothing he could do against the overpowering magic.
Several red eyes appeared from the darkness below, probably belonging to whatever creature had seized Nebjula. Slowly squeezing the life out of its prey, the hand gripped Nebjula tighter, and the sound of bones breaking made a chill go down Jade's spine. It didn't take long for the monstrous hand to crush every bone in Nebjula's body. After releasing the magic, Jade collapsed on the spot, having used up way too much energy. As his consciousness faded, he caught a glimpse of the fight still taking place some distance away, between Nohman and Nimbus. Both parties were still standing. As for Nebjula, the remnants of his body was brought back into the shadows by the devilish hand, and he was never to be seen again...
Team Nosebleed, Nebjula- (CLONE) DEAD END
"Die, you glorified light bulb!" Shouting at Nimbus, Nohman chopped vigorously at his target with decreasing accuracy. The two gaping holes in his chest had started to really slow down his movements, but in return, Nimbus had also received a long cut to his left arm, leaving him with only one functional arm and leg. No longer capable of moving much, he had resorted to using his energy for making his own shields as well as attacking his opponent with electricity. Each time Nohman struck Nimbus' shield, Nimbus felt that the strength in each blow was decreasing. He only had to hold out longer than his opponent. Probably realizing his dire state, Nohman gritted his teeth.
"You little ... If I am going down here, I'll make damn sure you die as well." Suddenly throwing his cleaver onto the ground, Nohman reached inside his garb and brought out a small dagger.
What could he accomplish with that? Nimbus wondered.
Getting ready for a possible surprise attack, he strengthened his shield. Then, Nohman did something quite surprising. Turning the dagger around, he thrust it into his own chest. Then, he uttered a small chant in a weak voice:
"I will be, the one who makes...
a world of pain, where no one wakes...
Once they hear, the voice of death,
the two will draw, their final breath..."
When Nimbus realized what Nohman was doing, it was already too late. Nohman's skin started glowing, and soon it started breaking apart. A green light shone through the cracks, and after a few seconds the battlefield was enveloped in a massive explosion.
It was a spell that, in return for giving up one's own life, granted massive amounts of energy for a final attack. Such an attack was designed for one simple purpose: to take out whoever else it can in the process losing your own life.
A massive crater was the only thing that remained of Nohman, but...
"Tch, what a pain." Holding his passed out teammate under his arm, Nimbus looked at the crater. He had moved quickly, snatched the unconscious body of Jade, then he had escaped before the explosion went off. It was an act impossible for most people, but Nimbus had used a last resort given to him by Kaguya himself; a way to stop time for a couple of seconds. Once used, he was no longer capable of repeating it. It was a gift granted to Nimbus because he excelled at magic, and so he was the one best suited for using it. And it had ended up saving the lives of himself and his teammate, Jade. The violent explosion that Nohman had set off would destroy anything in its path.
"Did that crazy bitch make it out alive?" Looking down at the crater from afar one last time, Nimbus started making his way back to Kaguya's base.
Walking along the outskirts of the desert, Mitchhamilton and Satsuki were looking for their teammates, Kiriririri and Nebjula when they saw a massive explosion. A figure clad in pure red was making its way out of the chaos, and was headed in their direction. Mitch reacted quickly, recognizing the figure as someone from Kaguya's army. He grasped his spear and hurled it at the rapidly approaching target. The person, who Mitch had first mistaken for a team Kaguya member, was actually wearing Down's garbs, but they were completely stained in wet blood. The woman managed to nimbly avoid the spear, and kept running. Following her general's example, Satsuki moved towards the enemy.
"Tch, can't a lady get a second of peace around here?" The team Down member was a woman, completely covered in blood from top to toe. Whatever had happened could have been linked to her own teammates, and so Satsuki wanted to interrogate the woman. But, in order to do that, she first had to defeat her. Preparing for combat, Satsuki drew both her twin axes from behind her back. The axes were small and compact, like hatchets used for chopping down trees, but they were solid steel and sharp as could be.
"Little lady, I am in a hurry, so please move."
Not listening to the woman, Satsuki charged just as her general Mitch was making his way over to join the fight. Satsuki jumped up in the air and swung her hatchet down towards the woman's head, but instead of hitting her flesh, a powerful force threw Satsuki back. Mitch, who had arrived at the scene as well, was also blown back by a sudden invisible force.
"Kawasumi, go back to base. I'll handle these two."
Satsuki could hear the voice of a man through the ringing in her ears. Lifting her chin up, she spotted the retreating figure of the woman. It seemed someone from her team had shown up in order to help bring their wounded back to base.
"Tch. Mitch, what do we do? Do we chase her?" Turning to her general for advice, a sudden shiver went down Satsuki's spine.
"LOOK OUT!" She shouted and jumped forward, grabbing a hold of Mitch. Barely managing to push him to the ground in time, several kunai knives flew past their heads and hit the ground behind them. Right after, an approaching enemy in a green garb rushed forward with a katana. Clutching her axes, Satsuki stood up and blocked the blade, staring straight into the face of Down's general, Tiagofvarela. Mitch quickly got to his feet and struck at Tiago's body with his spear. Sidestepping in order to avoid the attack, Tiago let go of his katana for a second, then snatched it out of the air before it hit the ground. Striking at Satsuki with great force, he swung his katana up in an arc. The blade made a whistling sound as it cut through the air, and the impact from the blow made Satsuki's arms burn. She managed to block it, but this was an enemy she was not capable of fighting on her own; that much was obvious. Luckily, it was two against one. The two started attacking Tiago in rapid succession. Every time one attacked, the other one would strike from a different direction, making it hard to block the oncoming attacks. Also, Mitch's spear made for a great medium ranged weapon, where as Satsuki was striking from close range, making the attacks even harder to predict. As a spear thrust was blocked, two chops from Satsuki's axes followed. Still, Tiago spun around swiftly, his katana moving so fast, it was like it became one with the air itself. The sound of steel clashing with steel and the constant footsteps of the three was all that one could hear. Tiago ducked in order to avoid the approaching axes, and used his katana to knock the spear thrust out of the way, then he launched his body forward. Pointing his katana at Mitch's chest, he took advantage of Mitch's poor close combat compatibility and the katana dug into Mitchhamilton's shoulder as Mitch did his best to steer the blade from his heart.
"GRAAHH!" Mitch screamed as he clutched his bleeding shoulder, and Satsuki quickly ran up to him to check on his condition. Tiago followed up with another attack, this time a diagonal cut, but Satsuki's axe parried the strike. She tried retaliating, but Tiago was able to keep her at a distance. Without the aid from Mitch's spear keeping him at bay, getting close to Tiago was a challenge for Satsuki. Every time she tried advancing, he would swing his katana quickly towards her body, forcing her to retreat or dodge.
"Time to end this." Tiago suddenly sped up his movements, stepping forward and clutched his katana with both hands. He then preformed another cut from above, but with much more force than before. The heavy attack made Satsuki's hands falter, and the sharp edge of the katana cut a deep gash in Satsuki's face, slicing all the way from her left eye down to her cheekbone.
"Satsuki!!!" Panicking, Mitch charged back into the fight, wielding his spear with only one hand.
"RAAAAAAARGH!" He Thrust at Tiago with all his might in the hope of pushing him back, but instead Tiago moved his body to the left, avoiding the spear, and stabbed at Mitch with his katana. Mitch, who was approaching at a great speed, was incapable of stopping and was impaled on the blade. Tiago started turning the katana around inside of Mitch's chest, making large amounts of blood spill out from his mouth and from the open wound.
"D-DAMNIT! DIE!" Charging towards Tiago whilst clutching her wounded eye, Satsuki tried to hit Tiago with her hatchet, but it was a futile effort. Tiago grabbed her arm mid air, not even needing a weapon to stop the attack, and snatched her axe out of her hand. He then used her own weapon to cut open her throat. Mitch, who still wasn't dead, tried to summon some strength to use magic, but before he could do anything, Tiago pulled his katana out of Mitch's chest and spun around. The blade flew through the air and connected with Mitch's neck, separating his head from his shoulders...
Team Nosebleed, Satsuki (CLONE) and Mitchhamilton (REAL) DEAD END
...
Satsuki had slowly bled out on the ground, and Mitch could not be brought back because he already lost a life the previous day. Nosebleed was looking at the figures of his four fallen soldiers. Nebjula and Satsuki had been clones, but it was still a tough loss. Kiriririri and Mitchhamilton had been two of his best fighters, and both were gone for good. Clutching his fists tightly, Nosebleed looked up at the sky; starting right at the shimmering sun.
The figure of a reaper holding a scythe was barely visible on the horizon. It was watching him from the distance, it's yellow eyes glowed faintly. It was the same creature that had stopped him previously when he fought with Down. He had noticed it then, this ... thing, used to be 12Kami, the member who disappeared on the first day of battle. For what purpose was he created? For what reason was here there, watching Nosebleed's every move?
Turning his back to the reaper, Nosebleed brought the corpses of his comrades back to his new base, preparing himself and his soldiers for the next day of battle. The coming days would be even harsher and more grueling than ever before, that he could tell...
This is going to be a guide on how to buy digital VNs legally on Gyutto, using Tsui Yuri ~ as an example.
This can indeed be done from a foreign IP adress, so no proxy is needed. That being said, the entire website is in Japanese, so here is a guide with pictures and steps, walking you through it. (NOTE! You must be 18+ in order to make purchases here, obviously.)
NOTE: NSFW PICTURES ON THE SITE!
Link to the Tsui Yuri ~ purchase page
Go ahead and add the game to your cart, like this:
Now go ahead and click LOG IN AS GUEST. For those of you who cannot read moon runes, click the box with the big red circle. Note, should they ever change the layout of their site, just find the big box with these moon runes and click it. (NOTE AGAIN! Slightly NSFW content in one part of the picture.) Yes, I will be saying NOTE a lot in this guide. Deal with it
Now select credit card and continue. (Yes foreign credit cards works.)
Now just hit confirm and move over to the purchase page. (Just ... just follow the big red circles.)
And here we are at the big screen of death. Actually, what goes where is uber simple to understand, but if all you see is gibberish, don't worry. Here is the list of what goes where. (Once again, should they ever change the layout of their site, remember which one of these corresponds with what information, and fill it out.)
List of the required info in order:
credit card number
expire date
security code
Full name
Email adress. (THIS MUST BE YOUR REAL EMAIL! IT IS IMPORTANT!)
Confirm your email adress (AGAIN, THIS IS REALLY IMPORTANT.)
Now click the button on the bottom with red under it and continue.
Now it takes you to a screen saying an email has been sent, and it lists your order number etc. (You will see your email on the page, and if you managed to put in your real email, you did good. If not... Then just ... ugh..)
You will now have gotten an email with the download link and a unique password. THE PASSWORD IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT! WIHTOUT IT, YOU CANNOT ACTIVATE YOUR GAME!
In the email there is a URL called "guest login." Click the link, and then move down and find your game. Hit download.
NOTE!
Seeing as you are a guest, you have 1 week to download your game. The game files themselves are movable obviously, so once you have them, you can put them on an external hardrive, but the download link will disappear after 1 week.
The password you got in your email WILL WORK EVEN AFTER 1 WEEK. It will be the password you use to activate the game. (EVERY COMPUTER MUST ACTIVATE THE GAME 1 TIME BEFORE USE.) So write this password down or save the email containing it.
If we look here, we can see that the text in the circle says the game download is expired, where as the one on the top, tsui yuri, is downloadable. Click the big download button of your new game.
Now, extract the game files with WinRaR or whatever.
( Copy your password to the clipboard or remember it. )
And here we are! You have your game downloaded, and only one step remains! Putting in your password and Email once. The first time you open the program, it should look like this: (Note that the .exe file will be called something different for each game, obviously.)
And now fill in the information. (THE TOP FIELD IS FOR YOUR EMAIL, THE BOTTOM FIELD IS FOR THE UNIQUE PASSWORD.)
If you did everything correctly, you will now have your game working and ready. The next time you open it up, you will not need a password to access it. (Every new IP adress will though. So, if you move the files to your work computer or whatever, you will need to activate it again using the password.)
Would you rather read the chapters in a PDF document? Click here!
Chapter 1:
Chapter 2:
Chapter 3: (Word count, 4439)
The Last GM Standing Chapter 4 (Word count, 3984)
The Last GM Standing
Chapter 5 (Word count, 4491)
The Last GM Standing
Chapter 6 (Word count 3334)
- Finale, part 1/2 -
The atmosphere on the battlefield was suffocating. With the sun once again covered by dark clouds, a strong wind blew across the area, seemingly building up to a storm. The three GMs were standing on an open field, facing each other, with their remaining warriors at their side. Kaguya, Nosebleed and Down. Only one of them would come out of the battle alive...
....
Nosebleed was knitting his brows as the powerful wind struck him. In his mind, countless questions raged around. Why do we have to do this? Why wont the others put down their weapons? Why do we have to fight?..
At his side, Kingdomcome and Nebjula stood, with their weapons drawn. Nosebleed had lost many during the battle, and was down to his last two brave soldiers. He wished for nothing more than to let those two brave survivors make it out alive. But in order to do that, he had to fight ... He had to fight for them, and for the ones who had already given their life in this gruesome battle.
"It's time. I can't guarantee your safety during this fight ... Not that I have been able to do that previously either..." Looking down at the ground with a shameful expression plastered on his face, Nosebleed spoke to his comrades.
"Don't worry, we will be at your side until the bitter end." Kingdomcome said as he put his hand on Nosebleed's shoulder.
Nebjula said nothing, but walked up at Nosebleed's other side and prepared his maces for battle. His hands were shaking ever so slightly and his lips were trembling. Before them stood Kaguya, with his four remaining fighters, and to their right was Down, who also had four warriors remaining.
No one spoke. The overwhelming silence was soon followed by a loud roar of thunder coming from the east. Just as the sound of the thunder was heard, Kaguya made the first move... The battle had begun.
- The beginning of the end -
Kaguya lifted his arms above his head and summoned a massive fireball, hurling it at Down.
Down reacted quickly and pushed his comrades out of the way, then jumped up in the air, making the fireball collide with nothing but the bare ground. As he floated through the air, Down gripped his sword and made a big swing, targeting Kaguya. The blade approached its target with great speed. Kaguya lifted up his right arm and the blade collided with his flesh. But, despite the strength of the attack, his skin was not cut. A big shockwave blew across the battlefield, as a reaction produced by the powerful impact of Down's sword. Down quickly drew back his blade and went in for another attack. Kaguya used his arms to block the attacks, and retaliated with punches that Down fairly easily dodged. The two traded blows for a while, neither landing any good hits.
"Devourer of light,
bane of the living,
ruler of death,
envelop the world in darkness!"
Chanting a spell from behind Kaguya, Jade stepped forward and sent a large cloud of dark smoke towards Down. The smoke crept forward like a living being, seeking out enemies, and completely avoiding teammates. Down reacted quickly and jumped back a few meters, then he raised his sword towards the sky, and a bright green light erupted from the tip. The light wrapped itself around himself and his warriors, shielding them from the smoke.
"Dergonu, Greenshadow." Speaking to two of his underlings, Kaguya pointed forwards, and the two launched an attack at the exposed Down. Because he was busy holding back the shadow from his forces, he was wide open. It was not a physical barrier, but instead one to hold back magic, which meant humans could pass through it. The two ran towards their target and raised their weapons.
"Get back scum!" Before they reached Down, a shadow quickly jumped out from behind him, blocking both their attacks. Two green swords glowing in a green light, similar to that Down was producing, was blocking their weapons.
"Yaaa!" Their opponent, FinalChaos, pulled back his swords and spun around, making the blades strike at both targets in a circular motion. They both had to raise their weapons in a defensive manner to block the attack, at which point another attacker stepped out behind Down and struck at the two team Kaguya members. He held a long green dagger, and stabbed at Greenshadow's chest. Greenshadow quickly moved his shield in between himself and the dagger, whilst still holding back FinalChaos' sword attacks.
Fred the Barber, the second attacker from team Down, quickly moved sideways and tried to stab at Greenshadow's flank, but Dergonu jumped in between them. The four warriors started attacking each other left and right, looking for openings. Meanwhile, Down was still holding back Jade's magic, which was starting to approach its limit.
Suddenly a rain of crossbow bolts approached Down and the other fighters present. Down extended his left hand, making a physical barrier to stop the sudden attack, leaving him even more exposed than before. Kingdomcome from team Nosebleed was positioned about 50 meters away, firing freely at the group. To his left stood Nebjula, protecting his teammate from potential threats.
"Damnit ... At this rate we will be sitting ducks... Babiker, Kawasumi, take out the sniper, I'll hold back Kaguya. If you run into Nosebleed himself... then run." Doing as their leader told them, Kawasumi and Babiker started running towards the team Nosebleed members. Fred the Barber and FinalChaos were still in a fight with Dergonu and Greenshadow. Jade and Gijimu were standing next to Kaguya, working like bodyguards.
....
Team Down: Fred the Barber, FinalChaos
VS
Team Kaguya: Greenshadow622, Dergonu
....
Down finally got a break from all the oncoming attacks. Kawasumi and Babiker had approached Kingdomcome, and Jade's magic had finally stopped. But, just as he had some time to catch his breath, two pink shuriken soared through air, approaching Down's position. He quickly tried to swat them down with his sword, but as the blade was about to hit the oncoming shuriken, they moved as if they had a will of their own, making them avoid Down's weapon. They hit him in the chest, making his personal barrier take a strong hit. Upon closer inspection, Down saw that the shuriken were tied to a string, which was being controlled by someone further away.
"... Nosebleed."
Clutching his sword with all his might, Down swung it in a big arc, moving it towards the location the shuriken were being controlled from. A massive wave of green energy approached its target, breaking everything in its path. A pink magic circle appeared in the target location seconds after, blocking the attack.
Meanwhile, FinalChaos and Dergonu were in a fight a little further away from the GMs. As Down had engaged in battle with an enemy, FinalChaos had taken command of the battle against Kaguya's troops, and had sent Fred the Barber to fend of Greenshadow622 while he himself fought Dergonu. Fred's dagger would be of little use against a massive mace. Of course, it wasn't very ideal against a sword and a shield, but if he could at least hold out until FinalChaos finished his own fight, then that was enough. FinalChaos was calmly analyzing Dergonu's attack patterns as they fought, trying to find an opening. From the look of it, he would not tire easily, not to mention that if he stalled the fight too long, Fred could be in danger, so he would need to finish the fight some other way. Dergonu wasn't particularly fast, but every time FinalChaos moved in to strike at him with his dual blades, it made for a dangerous opening. All it took was one hit from the giant mace to knock him out. He had to play it carefully. Because of that, FinalChaos did not take the initiative, and instead waited for when Dergonu attacked. Then, he moved quickly away from the mace and sliced at Dergonu's exposed side. His swords collided with Dergonu's barrier, bouncing off him. Because the attack was a very swift cut, it wasn't particularly powerful, but it was enough to slightly weaken Dergonu. If he kept that up, he would be able to win.
"You little ... STAND STILL!" Shouting in an agitated voice, Dergonu suddenly lifted his mace above his head and smashed it down in the ground in front of him. As it didn't look like the attack would hit him, FinalChaos made no attempt to avoid the attack, which was a mistake. The mace produced a shockwave, which knocked FinalChaos off his feet. Dergonu followed up with striking at FinalChaos on the ground. It would be impossible for him to dodge it from that position, and so he used his swords to absorb the impact from the attack. He had to use all his strength in order to hold back the giant mace. It slowly but surely started pushing back FinalChaos' swords, inching in towards his chest. There had to be a way out. Still remaining calm, FinalChaos looked for a way out of his dire situation. He could kick Dergonu's legs, making him trip, but that could mean his mace would hit him in the process. Such a blow could be fatal, so that wouldn't work... As he approached his limit, no longer able to hold back the mace, he came to a conclusion. Suddenly letting go of both his swords, he made the surprised Dergonu tip forward. FinalChaos then gripped the approaching mace, stopping it right before it hit his chest. Following up his surprise maneuver, he kicked at Dergonu's leg, as the mace hitting him was no longer a risk. Dergonu fell over, losing the grip on his mace.
"Crap... You annoying pest!" Gradually getting more and more annoyed, Dergonu launched a flurry of randomly directed punches at FinalChaos, who had not been able to retrieve his own blades yet.
"You can have this back." As he said that, FinalChaos threw the mace at Dergonu. Acting on pure reflex, he gripped the mace midair. FinalChaos then snatched up his blades from the ground, and thrust them into Dergonu's wide open chest, crushing the remaining resistance in his barrier.
"Ghhhh..." Letting out a pained noise, Dergonu lost the grip on his mace, and fell to the ground.
"Now... Time to check on Fred." Turning his back on his dead opponent, FinalChaos looked around for his comrade.
....
Fred the Barber was trying his best to fight off Greenshadow's attacks. He was unable to parry the attacks directly, as all he had was a dagger, however he was able to stab at Greenshadow's side whenever he moved in for an attack. He had landed a few hits, to his own surprise, but he had also sustained a wound to his left arm, making the already difficult fight even harder. Greenshadow's shield was also a problem. Because of it, Fred could only attack Greenshadow's right side, because the shield would make attacks to his left completely impossible. Fred was breathing heavily, and his heart was beating faster and faster. The pain in his arm did not really bother him, but he was starting to get really nervous. He had no real plan of attack, and the only thing he could do was fend off his opponent, keeping him at bay with some sneaky counterattacks here and there. At this rate, he would not be able to win... Would he die? Would he lose? Was this the end?
Greenshadow looked at Fred with a hint of guilt as he moved in for another attack.
I see... So even he knows it, huh?
The blade moved towards Fred. He sidestepped, but just as he moved away, he realized his mistake. He had moved to the left, which meant ...
Greenshadow's shield bashed Fred right in the face, completely impairing his vision, making the world spin around in his head. Then, right after, a cold sensation hit him in the stomach. The feeling of cold steel piercing his skin.
This is the end, huh? ... Maybe it's for the better.
"FRED!" Someone shouting his name made him snap back to reality. FinalChaos jumped between them, striking at Greenshadow. His swords hit Greenshadow's shield, but he managed to force Greenshadow back, making him take the blade out of Fred's stomach. Fred collapsed, and FinalChaos dropped his swords, catching Fred before he hit the ground. Greenshadow looked at the scene, with a pained expression on his face.
"I'm sorry." With those words, he turned his back on them and walked away.
A hint of a smile appeared on Fred's face.
"S-Seems I did a lousy job of stalling him, huh? ..."
FinalChaos shook his head quietly, and held his comrade in his arms, closing his eyes. Fred had been one of the people on his team he cared quite a lot for. Some of the others were too brutal, too ruthless and bloodthirsty. But maybe ... Maybe those qualities were what one needed on a battlefield like this.
"Rest now ..." Upon hearing those words, Fred nodded ever so slightly, and soon after, the light vanished from his eyes, the smile still present on his face.
Team Kaguya, Dergonu- DEAD END
Team Down, Fred the Barber- DEAD END
....
Down felt the life force of another one of his warriors vanish, and anger welled up inside him.
Why? Why are we doing this? Why?!
"GAAAH!" Unable to contain his anger, he shouted at the top of his lungs, and struck at Nosebleed with incredible strength. The power of his attack was enhanced by his rage, making Nosebleed's barrier wither.
"Guh..." Surprised by the sudden attack, Nosebleed took a careful step backwards, putting more energy into his barrier.
"No more! NO More!" As Down shouted, he prepared to strike at Nosebleed once again, but was suddenly stopped as a Kaguya moved up next to him and struck at his chest with a fist wrapped in fire. The attack created a massive explosion, sending Down flying. He lost the grip on his sword, and as he hit the ground, it made a giant crater.
Turning around to face Nosebleed, Kaguya struck at his new target. Nosebleed was not caught off guard however, and easily avoided the hits. He then retaliated with a hit off his own. The two struck at each other repeatedly, making waves of fire and energy fly everywhere. Down as still lying in the crater, unconscious.
About 50 meters away from the GMs, another battle was taking place.
"Nebjula, duck!" Kingdomcome fired a flurry of bolts at Kawasumi, as Nebjula jumped to the side just in time. But, as the bolts were about to hit their target, Babiker moved in and hit every single one out of the air.
"Too slow kid." He said with confidence.
As Kawasumi saw an opening, she struck at Nebjula with her sickle. Nebjula blocked it with his maces, but Kawasumi was much faster, and followed up her attack with a kick to Nebjula's head, making him fall face first into the ground.
"Damnit..." Cursing to himself, Kingdomcome fired more bolts at the team Down members, trying to buy some time for Nebjula to get back up. But, every bolt was hit out of the air by Babiker before they hit.
"Who the hell is this guy?!"
"Keep them coming buddy, I can do this all day!" He answered in a smug tone.
Kawasumi grabbed a hold of Nebjula and lifted him up in the air by his neck.
"Good boy. I'll have some fun with you before I kill you." As she said that, Kawasumi placed her sickle on Nebjula's hand, and cut off one of his fingers.
"AAAAAAAHH!" Screaming in pain, Nebjula kicked at Kawasumi viciously.
"Come on now, be still! You are making this so much harder!" Kawasumi tried to get a good grip on her opponent, but wasn't able to keep a firm hold on him because of his resistance, and eventually dropped him.
"Look what you did! Your dirty shoes made my armor all filthy..."
Kawasumi kneeled down, once again trying to get a good grip on Nebjula's neck.
"Y-You bitch..." Nebjula suddenly thrust his head upwards, making the top of his head collide with Kawasumi's nose. As she gripped her bleeding nose and staggered backwards, Nebjula got to his feet and picked up one of his maces.
"Payback time." Nebjula then lunged forward and was about to strike at the defenseless Kawasumi. But, right before he managed to attack her, Babiker launched a kick which pushed Nebjula back. Nebjula hit the ground with a loud crash. But, during the second Babiker looked away from Kingdomcome, another volley of crossbow bolts flew towards him with great accuracy.
"... Shit." He had no time to deflect them, and the projectiles hit his body all over, piercing his arms, legs and chest. Warm blood flowed from his open wounds, and his entire body screamed in pain. After just a few seconds, he fell to the ground with a thump.
"Nebjula, let's hurry! Looks like Nosebleed is in a pinch!" Kingdomcome quickly ran up to the fallen Nebjula and helped him up. Nosebleed was in a fight with Kaguya, and it looked like Kaguya was landing quite a few hits. They had to hurry over to their commanders aid.
"Like I'll let you escape after screwing up my nose you little shit!" Kawasumi got to her feet and moved forward quickly, aiming for Nebjula's neck.
"Look out!" Kingdomcome instinctively pushed Nebjula out of the way, and Kawasumi's sickle hit Kingdomcome's neck. The thin blade made a deep cut in Kingdomcome's neck, cutting through his throat, nearly separating his head from his body.
"Whops... Looks like I hit the wrong one. Well, whatever. You're next."
Nebjula did not react to Kawasumi's words. He was completely paralyzed, covered in his teammate's warm blood. He stared at Kingdomcomes body, not knowing how to react.
"... Eh?" Kawasumi suddenly let out a high pitched voice. She had completely stopped moving, and blinked repeatedly, as if she wasn't entirely sure what was happening. She touched her stomach, and her hand was stained in blood. But it wasn't Kingdomcome's blood... It was hers. There was a large hole in her stomach.
"Grgh.." Not able to form actual words because of the blood flowing out of her mouth, Kawasumi collapsed. Behind her stood Gijimu from team Kaguya, his hand covered in red blood.
"I will let you go this time, but once we meet again in battle, I won't go easy on you." Gijimu simply left Nebjula with those words, before he had a chance to reply. Nebjula's legs were shaking violently, and he finally fell to the ground, covering his face in his hands.
Team Down, Babiker and Kawasumi- DEAD END
Team Nosebleed, Kingdomcome (REAL)- DEAD END
The battlefield was covered in smoke, massive craters and dead combatants. This was the final part of the battle. Team Down and Nosebleed now only had a single warrior left each. Kaguya still had three remaining warriors.
The battle between Nosebleed and Kaguya had not yet reached a conclusion. Down was unconscious, his body being protected by FinalChaos. Nebjula was still recovering from shock, and Gijimu, Greenshadow622 and Jade had joined in the fight versus Nosebleed. But, despite being in a difficult situation, Nosebleed was keeping his cool, and was not about to give up anytime soon. The fight still wasn't over.
A cloaked figure was looking over the battle from afar, waiting for the winner to be crowned.
Shirogane no Soleil -Successor of Wyrd- <<Unmei no Keishousha>>
( "The soliel of silvery-white" - Successor of Wyrd << The Fated successor >> )
This is the first game in Skyfish's epic norse mythology series. I had never even heard of this game before Clephas made a blog post about it a little earlier this year, and that might be the case for many. Having finally played the game myself, I have to ask... how is this possible? Why is such a great game not more well known? This VN truly deserves more exposure than it currently has.
Introduction:
Shirogane starts off with our main character, Ryuuhei, and his sister Tamako on their way to a set of ancient ruins in Iceland. Ryuuhei is not an archaeologist like his sister, but was dragged along by her on the pretense of being her "bodyguard." Ironically, that is exactly what he ends up being. Ryuuhei's group gets pulled into an encounter with a strange creature called "Berserk", a monster made up by the broken soul of an ancient warrior, which fell in battle ages ago. Powerless against this incredibly dangerous foe, Ryuuhei prays for help, asking for power-- the power to protect the people he loves. His call is answered by a slumbering Valkyrie, Sol, who makes a contract with Ryuuhei. She will fight for him, in exhange for his life force. Every time she uses her powers, she drains some of Ryuuhei's life force out of his body, shortening his life. They fight off the Berserk together, but this is merely the beginning of their tale. This seemingly random encounter might not have been as random as they thought. One might even call it... fate.
Story
The story in Shirogane is fantastic. It's told in two parts, "Valkyrie in love", and "Successor of Wyrd." Some of the story takes place in the present, while certain other parts takes place in the past. Shirogane contains tons of refrences to norse mythology, though the descriptions of characters and events from norse mythology in the VN are not necessarily identical to the "real thing". Therefore, while familiarity with norse mythology helps with appreciating certain aspects of the game's story, it is not at all needed. What matters in terms of refrences are all explained well enough in game, and seeing as they usually put a unique spin on things, it is not at all needed to know everything there is to know about norse mythology before reading this. (That being said, knowing some of the general concepts about who is who, and what is what will certainly make it an even more enjoyable read.)
Although Shirogane is a very serious story, with tragic themes riddled all over it, just like normal stories from norse mythology, the game contains a good number of humoristic slice of life moments as well. That being said, all of these moments fits very well into the flow of the story. We are seeing things from Ryuuhei's point of view, as he deals with the fact that his own life span is constantly being drained because of his contract with his Valkyrie. As a result, you feel a little more attatched to these everyday moments, since they are seen through the eyes of someone who only has so much time left to enjoy them. In addition, the comedy is pure gold most of the time. The slice of life moments very rarely feels out of place, and never gets in the way of the story. The humor in the game had me literally laughing out loud so many times, I lost count.
Characters:
One of the biggest strengths of this game is without a doubt the characters. Each character feels unique and is well fleshed out. They all add something to the story in their own ways, and it's hard not to grow attatched to them, be it heroes, anti-heroes or straight up villains at times. The interactions between the characters truly pulls out all sorts of emotions from the reader, making the story feel like one hell of a roller coaster ride. (In a good way. Prepare your tickets to the feel train, folks.) While the "good guys" are all very well done, my favorite characters were honestly the villains / anti-heroes that are introduced throughout the game.
On top of making fantastic "villains", the "duos" in the game are brilliant. Essentially every single character is paired up with another in some way, and they all complement each other greatly. These "duos" were without a doubt one of the best parts about the game in my opinion. Be it heartbreaking moments or hilarious ones; nearly all the most impactful moments in the story stems from one of these duos' interactions.
Art, Music and Writing:
As shown in the screenshots above, the art is nicely detailed. Considering this game was released in 2007, the art is very impressive. The amount of special effects, cut-scenes and CGs is no joke either. Sadly, things aren't as good in the music department. The music is by no means bad, but it does feel a little bland at times. Certain tracks do work very well with the tone of the story, and are straight up beautiful to listen to, but others feel repetitive and aren't that impactful. So, my complaint with the music would be the inconsistent quality of the tracks. That being said, this is hardly a big issue, as the writing, art and story makes slightly repetitive music matter very little in the end.
Overall, I have very few complaints about this game. It was a fantastic read from beginning to end, and I strongly recommend reading it. I don't use the term kamige a lot, but this definitely qualifies in my personal opinion.
You can buy all the Soleil games on DMM. (NSFW LINK!!!)
So I know @Deep Blue made one of these a little while ago, but I really wanted to get one out myself as well. (I am also including pictures. You are too lazy man! ) Now that the game is released, I feel it really deserves some coverage!
(Note that I read the beta version, and so some improvements will have been made to the final release. Also, I wrote this review in a littel bit of a subjective style, really because I want to get through my personal feelings that I experienced when I read the VN. It might make the review seem slightly biased, but I hope this doesn´t make the review seem less serious. I played the game with a completely objective state of mind, and this is just my honest opinion of the game. Anyways, on to the review:)
One thousand lies is a 5-10 hour OELVN made by Keinart Lobre, (@Keinart.) The VN is about a group of friends goofing around as they get closer to graduating from high-school, though there is a lot more to the novel than what initially meets the eye.
(Note, the novel has both a Spanish and English version. I read and proofread the English version.)
In One Thousand Lies we meet Ciaràn Endyein, a slightly delinquent-like teenager who, along with his best friend Ausse Ealdwine, pull of silly yet harmless shenanigans that always end up getting them in trouble. The two are also accompanied by the pretty and intelligent Ziva Shani, who constantly try to psychoanalyze Endyein.
At the beggining of the story, Endyein recieves a strange, mysterious email, telling him to go to a certain place without any more detailed instructions. The sender appears to have stolen a package Endyein was waiting for, so confused and angry, he decides to do what the email says. (With some persuasion from his friends.) This sends him down a fairly heavy psychological, yet heartwarming and slice of life-like journey.
Story and writing
The story in the game starts of really light and funny. It´s a slice of life story that has refreshing and entertaining humor; it doesn´t use overused clichès that you have seen 100 times before. As you get further into the story, you will start to notice that not everything is exactly how it seems. It´s hard to talk about this without spoiling the entire story, so we are going to keep it short. The story is well written, has pretty good pacing and does a good job of hiding the real kicker until the very end.
The writing in the novel is, like I´ve already mentioned, really good. It is every editor´s dream, going through a novel that has essentially no mistakes, and that doesn´t repeat itself over and over, but instead offers new, refreshing words and phrases for each sentence. The language was almost a little bit too complex at times, as I felt it was unnecessary to use such big words for a normal, every-day setting. Still, the novel does use a lot of psychology terms and the likes, so it´s not like a complex language is a bad thing for it.
There isn´t much else to say about the story, as the novel is quite short, and giving any more information could possibly spoil it. All in all, story and writing is very well done, and deserves a good 9/10 rating.
Characters and art
The characters in the novel are all diverse and interesting in their own way. You have Ausse, the slightly dumb but lovable rich kid who might or might not be the MC´s friend because of his financial situation.
Ziva, the beautiful and determined female friend who constantly gets on the MC´s nerves when she tries to diagnose him with different psychological disorders.
Claire, the cute and shy girl who only opens up when in the presence of Endyein.
Luce, the playful and energic joker who always has a funny remark that will put the MC in his place.
And finally Diniz The Sloth. (I think that title should be sufficent in describing him.)
Each character has nice and well drawn sprites with several facial expressions that feels natural.
The CG in the game is very pretty, though certain facial features gets a little less "natural" in the CGs compared to the character sprites, especially Luce´s. Regardless of this though, the CG is very nice and well made.
The backgrounds are kind of like a painted sketch, which is a unique but interesting style that I personally found quite enjoyable.
The only complaint I would have about the characters is that Diniz seems to have very little screen time compared to the others, and therefore he has little time to become a part of the main cast.
Characters, 9/10,
Art 7.5/10
Music and atmosphere
The music in the novel is pretty good overall and seeing as the game is not voiced, this is a good thing. There are several comfortable soundtracks that helps bring out the emotion reflected in the scene, especially during the more enigmatic and mysterious situations the novel has to offer.
The music did not take me by storm, but it still did its job very well in filling the "silence" when playing the unvoiced game.
Not much more to say about it. Music gets a 6.5/10 score from me.
The atmosphere in the game is quite hard to put into words. During the reading experience, it is obvious that there is something there that is more than just a few teenagers messing around. There is some kind of heavy undertone in the writing that clearly tries to tell you something more, but its written in such a way that what exactly that is, doesnt become apperant until the very end. I think that the way this was done is really quite impressive. Each character has a part to him or her that helps hint to this, and each scene does put out tiny clues, though in the end, figuring out what the cause of such an atmosphere is before the credits roll is not easy.
This part of the game gets a clear 10/10 rating from me. It was quite the ride.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, OTL is an entertaining and innovative OELVN that doesnt try to do all those things we have already seen in Japanese VNs, but instead it uses original humor, exceptional writing and an interesting and thrilling psychological aspect to make the entire reading experience a blast.
I had no idea what I was getting into when I started reading this, and simply voulenteered to proofread / test the game because of Deep Blue´s interest in it. Needless to say, I was not dissapointed.
Final rating: 9/10.
Here is a link to the thread for the game here on Fuwanovel:
The mastermind behind the Fuwanovel death game watched the two screens on the desk before him/her with a wicked smile.
"Seven dead already, heh. This is going well."
The video from the past two weeks of the battle royale had been playing on the screens in a loop for hours, with the faces of the four picked for the current week displayed on a different monitor above.
"Hehe. Now, let's see, what kind of arena should I put these four in?"
"Mind if I handle that?"
"Huh?!"
Taken completely aback by the presence of someone else in the control room, <??> nearly fell out of his/her chair.
"How the hell did you get in here?!"
"Hmph. You think your weak magic can control me? Please. I was bored, so I figured I'd join in on this weird game you have going on. So, with that said, I'll be taking over for a bit, heh."
With that, Clephas devoured <??>, trapping them in one of his stomachs.
"Now, let's have some fun. Hmm, these four, huh? Alright. Let's begin."
Using his powers to summon the four members from their cells, Clephas devoured them all in an instant.
The First Stomach - alden_0023 & Thatcomicguy
The first thing Thatcomicguy noticed was the smell of blood. Opening his eyes, he could tell that he was no longer in his cell.
"Come on... Was I picked again?"
Getting off the floor, he shook his head in frustration. He had fought for his life against another Fuwanovel user in the death game just two weeks before. He was hoping he would be able to avoid being picked again for at least a few more weeks. But, he had no such luck.
"Where the hell am I...?"
Looking around in confusion, he could tell he was in a classroom. The windows in the room were shattered, and the walls were riddled with holes and cracks. The floor was also badly damaged, covered in claw marks of all things.
What on earth had happened there before he woke up?
"Hnng..."
Noticing some rustling coming from the other side of the classroom, Thatcomicguy gripped his spear and got ready for a possible fight.
"Ugh, my head..."
Alden_0023 rubbed his forehead, slowly getting to his feet. The moment he spotted Thatcomicguy standing in the other side of the classroom, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
Then, in the next moment.
"Hah!"
Drawing his bow with incredible speed, he sent an arrow flying through the room. Barely managing to block the arrow with his shield, Thatcomicguy started running through the room towards the door, trying to escape.
Another arrow flew towards him, barely missing his neck before digging into a nearby desk. Having reached the door, Thatcomicguy kicked it as hard as he could, making the door fly open. His hands were full because of his weapon and shield, and he had no time to spare, as Alden prepared another arrow.
But, the moment the door flew open, both men suddenly froze in place. It was a natural reaction. Anyone would be shocked by the sight that waited on the other side of that door.
A group of six small figures sat hunched over a corpse, happily chewing at its flesh. They had already eaten a great deal of the corpse, and their small bodies were covered in fresh blood.
"Wh-What... the fuck?"
The group of small girls suddenly stopped eating, and turned towards the two men in the classroom. While they might have looked like normal young girls at first glance, they had two features that no human child had. First, their teeth. The mouths of the girls were covered in shark like teeth, each tooth about ten centimeter in length. As a result, it was impossible for the girls to even close their mouths. Their eyes were glowing in a bright red color, and their pupils were completely gone. The entire eye was simply covered entirely in the red light.
"Cannibal... lolis... Seriously?"
Thatcomicguy uttered in a voice dyed in confusion and dread.
"..."
Realizing the situation was quite dire, Alden lowered his bow, and ran towards one of the broken windows along the classroom wall, then leapt through it.
"HEY! ARE YOU LEAVING ME WITH THESE THINGS?!"
Ignoring Thatcomicguy, Alden performed a forward flip in the air, then prepared his body for the fall. It seemed like the school they had woken up in was quite big, and they were on the sixth floor. But, contrary to his expectations, Alden's body did not fall at all. Instead, he was pulled up, flying towards the roof of the school.
"What in the..."
Soaring up past classroom after classroom, Alden reached the roof of the building, but his body showed no signs of stopping. He was literally falling upwards.
"Tch."
Clicking his tongue, Alden grabbed a hold of the railing covering the school roof, managing to stop his "fall" in the last second. Pulling his body towards the roof, he gripped the railing as he slowly moved towards the fire escape leading back into the school. The moment his foot moved inside the school building, he force pulling him upwards let go.
It seemed like moving outside the school was out of the question. The bizarre arena was nothing like the arenas used the previous weeks.
"What on earth is going on..."
Meanwhile
"AHHH, get away, get away, get away, AHHH!"
Thatcomicguy screamed, as he ran as fast as he could through the dark hallways of the school. Just a few meters behind him were five of the six small girls, giggling as they chased him.
He had managed to kill one of them with his spear in his escape from the classroom. This did not seem to anger the rest at all, as they chased happily after Thatcomicguy. It seemed like the girls had the ability to retract their teeth, and were now humming and laughing. Still, their eyes glowed. It was clear that their eyes were filled with bloodlust. If he stopped for just a moment, they'd probably rip him to shreds.
"Tehehe, I love playing tag."
"We're gonna get you, we're gonna get you ~~"
"GO PLAY WITH SOMEONE ELSE, AHH!"
Still screaming, Thatcomicguy kept running at full speed down the hallway, until...
"Shit..."
He reached a dead end. The stairs leading down to the floor below were blocked by a massive pile of rubble. The roof above had collapsed, also covering the stairs going up in the process. In other words, he was trapped.
The small girls were now just half a meter away.
"Tag. You're it!"
The girls opened their mouths, and their fangs once again sprouted out.
Preparing for what would most likely be his final battle, Thatcomicguy took a deep breath.
"I'm naked in front of a group of lolis, pointing a spear at them. That's a headline for yah."
Crack.
A sound coming from above made Thatcomicguy look up towards the roof, and soon after, a big chunk of the ceiling came crashing down, landing on top of two of the girls, squishing them.
"WHOA!"
Sitting on top of the rubble was Alden, his body covered in small cuts. Or, were they bite marks?
"Ah..."
Realizing what that meant, Thatcomicguy looked towards the hole in the roof, and sure enough, peeking down from above were even more of the rabid lolis, looking at Alden like he was a delicious looking plate of food.
"... Sorry dude, looks like this isn't your day."
With that, Thatcomicguy stood completely still, as the hoard of cannibalistic lolis swarmed Alden, biting through his flesh and bones like it was nothing. The sight was horrifying, making Thatcomicguy look away in disgust.
Taking advantage of the situation, he quietly snuck past the hoard of killer lolis, covering his eyes the entire time. He then started making his way down the hallway, leaving the little monsters to their dinner.
The Second Stomach - xGreyHound & Jazid-Kun
A jungle of mysterious plants in all sorts of colors stretched as far as the eye could see. A nearby river was filled not with water, but lava, and the sky was dyed red, not blue.
In the middle of this impossible jungle stood Jazid-Kun, looking around him with a smile.
"What a fitting stage for bloodbath. Heh."
Striking a cool pose, Jazid spoke in a dramatic tone of voice. Wearing a black school uniform and with an eye patch covering his left eye, Jazid did not exactly look like he belonged in the strange jungle. If not for the two large swords in crossed sheathes on his back, he would have just looked like any other high-school student.
"Chaos shall rain! Today, we dine with death himself!"
"... The hell are you on kid?"
xGreyHound sent Jazid a confused look, gripping his AK-47 firmly. He was on guard, prepared for the worst. The arena he had been placed in seemed even crazier than any of the previous ones.
GreyHound did not have it in him to kill a kid like Jazid, so he had approached Jazid with the suggestion of an alliance. Jazid accepted, though now he was going on some kind of chuunibyou rant, which made GreyHound instantly regret his decision.
"Please kid, be quiet..."
"Let the curtain fall on this blood drenched play! Let the games begin!"
Jazid shouted, stretching his arms up towards the red sky.
"... I swear, I will smack you over the head if you don't quiet down."
"Hah! A mere mortal like yourself? You wouldn't be able to lay a finger on me."
Rustle.
"?!"
A nearby plant started stirring. GreyHound quickly pointed his gun in the direction of the sound. Another plant started to move, then another. Before long, every single plant in their vicinity had started to move. At first, GreyHound thought the movement was caused by something moving through the plants, but... that wasn't it. The plants themselves were moving.
Clearly a little weirded out by the moving plants, Jazid moved a few steps closer to GreyHound.
"I, uh... I shall protect you, mortal!"
"Yeah, whatever, just draw your weapons at least."
"Kukuku. You mean these?"
Jazid gestured towards his swords.
"I cannot simply draw them out of their sheathe without the proper chant. They are sealed by a powerful—"
"Get down!"
GreyHound pushed Jazid to the side, as a giant vine shot out from one of the strange flowers. The vine was covered in strange spikes, reminiscent of teeth. It slammed into the ground mercilessly, making its sharp spikes dig into the dirt.
"Y-You cannot scare me, for I am... I am..."
"Shut up and run!"
GreyHound turned around and darted into a clearing, as several more giant plant monsters approached the two.
"Y-Yes sir!"
Following suit, Jazid ran as fast as he could after his teammate. Just a second after, five more giant veins slammed into the place he had been standing.
"Wh-What are those thin—"
"Duck!"
Interrupting Jazid once again, GreyHound shouted a command and pointed his gun toward Jazid's face. Doing as he was told Jazid quickly ducked down, and the massive mouth of a bizarre plant closed right above him, catching some of his hair in its massive jaws.
"Dieee!"
GreyHound fired several rounds into the head of the strange plant, making green goo fly everywhere. The plant let out a deafening screech and backed up a few steps, hissing at the two. It's mouth was layered with more teeth than a shark, each one at least five centimeters long. In addition to its killer bite, it also had several long vines covered in spikes sprouting from its body. It was the height of a human man, and moved incredibly fast.
"Over there! Run to the lava!"
"L-Lava? Are you crazy? I-I mean, lava would have no power over my immortal body, of course, but you are just a normal human, so it would surely be in trouble."
"Just shut up and run."
Turning back towards the way they had come, the two started running towards the strange lava stream, about fifty meters away. The stream was no more than one meter in width, but if GreyHound's theory was right, it would do.
"We're jumping over that. Get ready."
Not waiting for his ally to reply, GreyHound leapt across the lava stream. The intense heat from just being in the vicinity of the lava made even just breathing hurt, but it was better than being devoured by flesh eating plants the size of humans.
Jazid made it across the lava soon after GreyHound.
"Kuku. Looks like our plant friends were not so smart after all."
At least twenty of the killer plants tried to follow them, but they all let out loud shrieks as they approached the lava, and took several swift steps back. They were clearly not fond of the heat.
"We have no time to waste here. There could be more. Come on."
"Look out!"
As GreyHound turned his back on the plants and started to walk in the other direction, several of the strange creatures sent their vines flying towards the two humans. It seemed like there was no real limit to how far the vines could stretch, and they approached GreyHound's back with great speed.
"Hah!"
But, just moments before they were about to tear GreyHound to shreds, the vines themselves got cut into tiny pieces.
"Hmph. To think you'd make me take off my eye patch. I'm surprised you'd push me this far."
GreyHound turned around to see what had happened. Sure enough, Jazid's eye patch was gone, revealing an eye with a different color from the other. He had also drawn his swords, which were covered in green goo from cutting apart the vines.
Jazid had somehow managed to remove his eye patch, draw his swords, then cut several vines within a matter of seconds. GreyHound could not help but be amazed at the spectacle, and thanked his teammate for saving his life.
Rustle. Rustle.
Something started moving in the leaves behind the killer plants, and Jazid stood rooted in place, watching whatever it was intently.
"Come on kid, more of those things are coming from the looks of things. We gotta go."
GreyHound did not wait for a reply, and started to walk away from the lava and the plants. But, Jazid did not move.
"Kid, I will leave you, I swear! What are you even... looking... at..."
GreyHound's voice began to falter, as he too laid eyes on the creature on the other side of the lava. It took the form of the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in his life. She wasn't wearing a thing, and on top of her head were two pretty cat ears. Wagging back and forth behind her legs was a fuzzy tail. It was, without a doubt, a catgirl. An incredibly beautiful one, too.
Being fans of visual novels and the likes, both men knew very well what she was. While she appeared harmless, the fact that the plants were not killing her was a clear warning sign in GreyHound's mind.
"We gotta get the hell out of here, now!"
Jazid did not respond, but instead started to move slowly towards the catgirl, dropping his swords on the ground.
"Wait, what the hell are you doing!"
Jazid showed no interest in GreyHound, and kept on slowly approaching the catgirl, who looked back at them with an enchanting smile.
"Dude, this is not the time for your weird ass fantasies! We have to get out of here. Guh?!"
GreyHound tried to reach out for Jazid's hand, but he had gotten so close to the lava, the heat made GreyHound jump back in reflex.
There was nothing GreyHound could do but watch, as Jazid slowly walked into the scorching heat of the lava, seemingly under some kind of spell cast by the mysterious catgirl. He did not even blink at the pain from having his foot melted by the incredible heat. All he did was watch the catgirl on the other side of the lava stream, with a smile on his face.
After a few seconds, Jazid's body had been completely consumed by the lava.
"Y-You bitch, what did you do to him?!"
Pointing his gun at the catgirl in anger, GreyHound's body shook in terror. The creature simply returned a brilliant smile, and started to walk back into the depths of the strange jungle. The flesh eating plants followed suit, leaving GreyHound alone with nothing but the smell of burning flesh, and a sense of dread.
Hello hello! It's time to do something a little different and so I thought I would make kind of a review / overview of the Strike Witches manga, specifically my favorite in the series: One winged witches.
So One winged witches is just one of the several arcs which you can find in the strike witches manga, but what is so nice about the Strike Witches manga is that they don't rely heavily on each other, meaning you can read it in any order you want. (Though basic knowledge of the characters in the series will be fairly important.
Introduction:
What is Strike Witches?
Strike witches is a fairly popular shoujo ai anime and manga that features many pretty young witches as they fight against the alien race "the neuroi". The series is set in an alternate timeline where world war II is not fought against ourselves, but against a common enemy; the aliens, neuroi that has invaded earth. It's actually quite interesting and I could go on about the hidden meanings behind many of the characters, events etc. and how they link to WW2 and human nature for days, but I'll skip that and save it for a different time. Today is all about One winged witches!
If you have absolutely no knowledge about Strike Witches at all, this is pretty much spoiler free, but it might be a little bit hard to understand if you have not watched any of the anime / read any of the manga.
The One winged witches!
The one winged witches starts us off with the very well known, and yet nearly never used character, Wilma Bishop. Interesting trivia for those who didn't know, Wilma was actually the first witch ever drawn. She is the older sister of Lynette Bishop, one of the elites in the 501st joint fighter wing, the main cast of Strike Witches.
The one winged witches are witches who doesn't have the same amazing abilities found in the main branches of the witch forces like the strike witches(501st), storm witches(31st), brave witches(502nd) etc. Some of them are wounded and cannot keep up with the elites, some are actually very skilled but are way to egotistic and cannot function in a big, joint fighting force and some are too old. (For those of you who don't know, when you reach a certain age in Strike Witches, your witch powers starts to dvindle and falter. This is different for most witches, but after the age of 20 it usually starts to set in.)
Wilma has joined the silly little group for reasons currently unkown and she joins the completely un-organized witches in their fight against the neuroi.
The One winged witches' job is very simple: They are located at a base fairly close to the 501st and so the one winged witches only have to deal with the stray neuroi that is not destroyed by the elites.
The story
After Wilma joins the group she is met with many different impressions. Some of the members hate her and some quickly take a liking to her. The story itself is very simple and slice of life like, even more so than previous Strike Witches titles. There is of course still a fair share of drama in between, in fights and among the members, but the general feel of the story is slice of life through and through.
This is one of the Strike Witches arcs that honestly makes me cry every time. Now, I am a sissy; this is an established fact. Anyways, the story is quite simply Wilma trying to make the one winged witches come together and fight as a team. She is one of the most experienced witches and she is very charismatic and full of energy, which makes her a good peacekeeper in the group. (Taking over the role of the actual commanding officer in a way.)
The characters:
Amelie Planchard - A fairly timid witch who absolutely adores Perrine from the 501st joint fighter wing. Wilma wants to help her improve so that she can once again fly next to Perrine.
Francie Gerard - A fairly shy witch. She doesn't believe in her own abilities, something that Wilma wants to do something about during the story. She is a big fan of Charlotte from the 501st, and because of this there is some rivarly between her and Amelie. (As in, my crush is better than yours!!!)
Misa Kadomaru - She is the captain of the one winged witches. As you might have guessed by now, Wilma will try help her in making the members of the team collaborate and function better together.
Laura Toth - An elite from the 501st join fighter wing, who was thrown out due to her inability to function well with others in a team. She is very confident in her own abilities, but Wilma wants to try to teach her the beauty of friendship and cooperation.
Wilma Bishop - Basically the protagonist of the books. She is the new recruit but quickly becomes the most important member in the group.
Conclusion: Simple but effective
So this has been fairly short, but seeing as this series is simply 2 manga volumes its hard to go into very detailed information without spoiling literally everything about it.
One winged witches is a beautiful story about the so called "detatchement group" coming together and going through a lot in order to strengthen their bonds and prove that even though they are considered "the broken witches" they still work just as hard as everyone else. The characters are all interesting and taking into consideration that its only 2 manga volumes, they have a lot of character developement and backstory which is interesting and touching. Each one of them has an idol they want to live up to and a dream they want to achieve. Wilma is by far my favorite character in the entire Strike Witches universe, and that was honestly brought on soley by this short little series.
Overall one winged witches is a wonderful little story that will leave you craving for more, (and there is a lot more, with 2 anime seasons, 1 movie, another season coming soon and plenty of other works like more manga etc.) What makes this story so good is the interaction between the little group and the way you get to watch them grow together. The ending is satisfying and touching and ... And ... BEWBZ!!!
Sorry. Had to throw that in there. The ecchi is indeed strong with this one at times. If you want panty shots and bare breasts when the occation calls for it then you have come to the right place.
Hello ladies and gentlemen of fuwa! Today I will be sharing with you a little writing project I've been working on. Thanks so much to Forgetful Frank for agreeing to edit the book for me! When I started I was editing it myself, which is slow work and I often miss mistakes in my own writing, and so this way it should be a lot better for everyone involved Also, a big thanks to Melowbee for making the illustration for Kitsune! It's a wonderful confidence boost to actually have someone make drawings for my story! Do keep in mind that the book hasn't been fully edited yet, and so a few mistakes here and there is to be expected. Once the book has been fully edited, I'll update the PDF!
On to the book:
キツネと私 - Kitsune and me
Summary:
After spending half a day locked in her clubroom at school, Sakura heads home in the middle of the night, in pouring rain. Taking refuge from the terrible conditions, she stumbles into and old and mysterious shrine. Here she discovers a strange little artifact that she thinks may have been stolen from a museum. Wanting to get it checked out the next day, she brings the artifact home. But as the artifact ends up coming to life in the form of the ditsy, energic and completely stunning Kitsune, Sakura's life will never be the same again...
Information on the book:
Kitsune and me is primarily a comedy, focusing on the relationship between the main character Sakura, and her new guardian ... fox-girl, Kitsune Mimiko. When writing it I focus primarily on having fun and silly interactions between the two, and purposely try to use clichés from common visual novel, anime, manga and light novel works. It's a fun little project I recently decided to start working on, and it's not meant to be taken too seriously. The story offers elements of comedy, romance (yuri), fantasy and action. The structure is fairly similar to most VNs, in that it starts of fluffy and is riddled with mainly humor, and then it gets more dramatic towards the end.
Also, note that this is written in English, though I use certain words and phrases from Japanese. Again, this isn't meant to be taken too seriously. Words such as bentou will be in the book to keep the essence of the "Japanese setting" and words such as "ne" will be left in Kitsune's sentences, as they are a part of her speech pattern and that doesn't translate as well into English in my opinion. I also keep Japanese titles when I see fit, like using Kitsune's name. For these parts, translations are on the side of the Japanese symbols.
DIGITAL PDF DOWNLOAD FOR THE BOOK!
A sketch of Kitsune made by Melowbee!
Art made by Melowbee, thank you x100!!
Editing is done by Forgetful Frank, thanks so much for that!
Special thanks to Nosebleed for helping me with Kitsune's name!
Would you rather read the chapters in a PDF document? Click here!
Chapter 1:
Chapter 2:
Chapter 3: (Word count, 4439)
The Last GM Standing Chapter 4 (Word count, 3984)
The fires of hell
The air was scorching hot, making breathing in itself a task. Large amounts of pitch black smoke rose from the inextinguishable fires that raged throughout the battlefield. The ground was stained in fresh blood, and the corpses of several brave warriors were spread around in the burning hot sand.
......
Eclipsed was making his way towards the sound of a woman screaming. Just seconds ago he had been searching for his wounded comrades when he could hear the sound of blades clashing and people shouting. Then, a terrible scream resounded throughout the desert, followed by silence. And there, standing over the corpses of two figures dressed in Nosebleed's robes, stood a member from Team Down. The man was holding a blood stained katana. His green garb was also showered in fresh blood. The dead man at his feet was headless, and the woman lying a few feet away was submerged in a great pool of blood.
The man turned his head towards Eclipsed and stared right at him.
"Tch..." Eclipsed clicked his tongue over being discovered. It had been such a great opportunity to perform a surprise attack. But it did not matter. Eclipsed did not waver and kept on approaching his enemy, Tiagofvarela. Seeing as the man was a general, he was not an easy opponent. Eclipsed had to attack with all his strength in order to win. He had to use... That.
"O keeper of flame, creator of light,
thou who maintains life itself,
lend me the power to set ablaze a thousand enemies,
bestow upon me the strength of thee,
O keeper of flame, creator of light."
Coming to a sudden stop mere meters away from his target, Eclipsed chanted such words of power and brought his hands together, as if praying. Upon hearing his opponent chanting, Tiago launched an attack, but Eclipsed's body was enveloped in a vortex of fire just as the blade was about to connect. The katana bounced of the flames as if they were solid, and a deep red flame started burning though the metal. The tip of the blade started melting quickly upon being scorched by the immense heat.
"W-What the ... You little..." Expressing his irritation and surprise at the sudden turn of events, Tiago took a step back and picked up the spear of the fallen Mitchhamilton. The weapon was stained in wet blood, but otherwise in good condition.
A few seconds later, the vortex of flame subsided. In the spot where Eclipsed was standing, a massive sword had appeared out of nowhere. The blade was completely orange, glittering like the coal at the bottom of a fire. The blade was more than two meters long, and looked almost impossible to handle. The hilt was formed like a claw of some monstrous creature, and the entire weapon was shining so brightly it almost hurt Tiago's eyes just looking at it. It was a scary sight indeed. Fighting against such a weapon on his own would be reckless. Eclipsed raised the massive greatsword over his head and brought his arms down. The simple motion created a giant wave of flame that washed over a big area in front of him. Tiago swiftly sidestepped, but a part of his leg was caught in the scorching heat. The energy still left in his barrier withered and faltered, leaving his leg badly burnt.
"Kuuh..." Wielding another person's weapon and facing off against an immensely powerful flame incarnation, Tiago was truly in a tough spot. There was no choice. He had to call for help. Bringing his hands to the warm sand below, he quickly drew two symbols with the tips of his fingers. Because the weapon Eclipsed was wielding required such an immense amount of power, he was not able to attack again right away, and Tiago was able to finish creating the two summoning circles. After uttering a few words in order to activate the spell, the two circles erupted into pure light and tore a hole in the earth itself. Tiago's intent was to summon three of his warriors to the battlefield, but right as he started calling for them, Eclipsed was ready to attack once more. Failing to keep his concentration as another wave of flame approached him, the summoning spell went out of control and pulled several unwanted people into the battle...
...
"Ahh, what the hell just happened? I was just about to kill some idiot from Nosebleed's army... Ohhh, wait a minute. Looks like I still get that chance after all."
Gijimu, Team Kaguya.
"... Hey, Tiago, are you the one who called us here?.. And here I was thinking I'd get a day off from this fighting..."
Turnip Sensei, Team Down.
"Hmm... Well, I have nothing better to do. Might as well join the party."
Valmore, Team Nosebleed.
Because of the chaotic summoning spell, several people from different teams were pulled into the fight.
Looking at the spectacle in front of him with a carefree expression, Valmore lifted up his pickaxe and faced towards the closest enemy. Valmore's weapon of choice was rather peculiar; a miner's pickaxe with two spikes at each end instead of one.
"Well then, time to crack some skulls open." Performing a big swing with his pickaxe, Valmore smashed the weapon into the ground where Turnip Sensei from Team Down had just been standing. Barely avoiding the strike, Turnip Sensei retaliated with a hard punch. The attack didn't reach Valmore, so he did not even bother dodging it. But as Turnip Sensei's fist stopped, a powerful shockwave connected with Valmore and threw his body several meters back. The punch had been mixed with magic, and had created a really strong shockwave.
"Huh. Now that's a cool trick." Suddenly hearing a voice coming from right behind him, Turnip Sensei brought back his elbows with great force, trying to hit the person who spoke. But both blows hit nothing but air.
"Hah. Can't hit me with something so simple I'm afraid." The figure of a person dressed in red appeared before him. It was Gijimu from Team Kaguya. He held no weapons, just like Turnip Sensei, and was standing ready in a battle stance. His left arm was held in front of his body in a guarding position, and his right arm as resting right next to his waist, ready to strike at his opponents.
"Now you've done it!!!" Valmore had gotten back on his feet and was once again rushing towards Turnip Sensei.
"A free for all huh? This should be fun." As Gijimu commented on the situation, Valmore reached their location. With violent movements, he attacked both Gijimu and Turnip Sensei. The pickaxe moved swiftly through the air, and was actually a little hard to dodge for Turnip Sensei. Gijimu on the other hand, nimbly jumped away from the weapon and brought his fist into Valmore's side. The punch bounced off Valmore's barrier, but cracks started forming in the pink shield, indicating that it was running out of energy. It looked like Gijimu was skilled in hand to hand combat. Valmore was trained in fighting with a weapon and lastly Turnip Sensei used magic in the form of shockwaves. A rather obscure mix.
The three clashed once again, and the ground shook as several battles unfolded at the same time in the blazing hot desert.
...
Kingdomcome Team Nosebleed vs Flutterz Team Down vs Duyy Team Kaguya.
Flutterz was running away from the relentless rain of crossbow bolts. His enemy was positioned nearly 50 meters away, and it was impossible to get close to him. Flutterz used a sword, and although he was fairly well versed in magic, it was difficult to find any openings to cast spells due to the constant onslaught of bolts. His opponent, Kingdomcome from Team Nosebleed, must have been using magic to operate the crossbow, as the bolts were fired nonstop with great accuracy. Also caught in the crossfire was Duyy from Team Kaguya. She was doing a good job of dodging the crossbow bolts, but she was also incapable of getting any closer to the attacker.
"Come on .... Is there no way to get an opening?!" Cursing to himself, Flutterz knocked down two oncoming projectiles with his sword. The entire desert was enveloped in a blazing heat, created by both the hot sun and the gigantic sword of fire that Eclipsed from Team Kaguya was using. Eclipsed was quite a distance away, fighting a battle of his own, but the heat still reached all the way over to Flutterz.
Suddenly, a loud rumbling made Flutterz' body jump in surprise. As he turned over to see what was happening, a massive wall of solid rock had erupted from the earth, and was blocking the path between himself and Kingdomcome. It seemed that the person who made the wall was none other than Duyy. How did she find the time to summon such a powerful protective spell with the relentless attacks constantly interrupting her? Well, no matter. This was his chance.
Firmly grabbing his sword, Flutterz started rushing towards the massive rock wall. Kingdomcome had started moving as well, and leapt up in the air, running up the wall. He must have been using magic to make his feet stick to the surface.
"Tch. At this rate, he'll get an even better sniping position." The wall was a good 20 meters tall, and if Kingdomcome got up there, he would have a perfect location to snipe everyone on the ground. Knowing he had to stop him, Flutterz finally had a few seconds to cast a spell.
Stopping in his tracks, Flutterz closed his eyes and aimed his arms at the top of the rock wall, where Kingdomcome was headed. Gathering his energy and focusing it into his fingertips, he cast a quick but powerful spell.
A big magic circle appeared before him, and hundreds of tiny pellets of pure energy were fired at Kingdomcome with immense speed and power. The perfectly circular pellets were shining brightly in a pink light. A massive cloud of smoke erupted from the stone wall as it broke apart from the attack. Large chunks of rock fell from the wall and crashed into the sand. Focusing on maintaining the spell, Flutterz did not move from his spot, shooting down any rubble that fell towards him with the energy pellets. The spell lasted for a good minute. As nearly nothing was left of the great rock wall, Flutterz let go of the spell, and the magic circle vanished. The feeling of a massive amount of energy leaving his body made Flutterz feel tired. Because of the smoke and rubble, it was impossible to see if Kingdomcome had survived the attack. Before Flutterz had time to scout the area though, Duyy suddenly jumped him. Throwing four great boulders from the rubble at Flutterz, she was trying to use the opportunity to take him out right after he cast a spell. Sneaky move.
There was no way he had time to cast another spell, and so he had to use his sword to slice the stones in two. His blade was sharp and imbued with magic, so it was no trouble. Problem was, Duyy was only using the rocks as a distraction, and had been charging a new spell during the time Flutterz used to deflect the boulders. Duyy brought her hands together and chanted a spell, then smashed them both into the sand below. Because she was still quite some distance from Flutterz, he was incapable of hearing her chant and had no idea what kind of spell was coming. Right after, a great deal of big spikes made out of rock sprouted from the ground. The spikes started right in front of her and quickly moved towards Flutterz. There was no way for him to avoid them on the ground. He had to grow wings and fly away to get away from them, something he obviously couldn't do.
"... Crap."
As the wave of rock spikes reached his feet, the sensation of his own bones being crushed to bits made him want to throw up. An unbearable pain welled up from his legs as the rock smashed through his knees.
"GRUAAAAA!" Letting out a feral scream, Flutterz tried to move from the spot but was completely immobilized. The last thing he saw was a blue light; the flickering of a crossbow bolt moving towards his face from a distance.
So he did surivive huh? ... With that thought, Flutterz' consciousness faded.
....
Duyy was looking at the impaled body of Team Down's flutterz. Her surprise attack after Flutterz cast a spell had been successful, and he had been crushed to death by her spikes. Or so she thought.
"Game over sweetheart." As a voice coming from behind made her spin around awkwardly, five crossbow bolts ripped through her barrier and pierced her chest.
"Kuuh..." Warm blood was running down her body as her legs gave in under her.
"Y-You... B-Bastard..." As she let out her final words through clenched teeth, she collapsed.
After confirming that both targets were indeed dead, Kingdomcome sat down in the sand and started treating his wounds. A large amount of the energy pellets had hit his body earlier, and he had broken several ribs, as well as his left arm. He had barely been able to fire his crossbow after. Lucky for him, the two enemies had thought him dead, and he had gotten a chance to shoot them from a distance.
"Guah... This hurts more than I thought it would ... Just going to take a quick rest." Talking to himself in a strained voice, Kingdomcome let his body fall backwards into the soft sand and took some time to collect his strength.
Dergonu and Eclipsed Team Kaguya, vs Totodile and Tiagofvarela Team Down.
Totodile was standing next to Tiago, creating a shield to protect both himself and his general. Totodile was a great magic user, and had been summoned by Tiago in order to protect him against the scorching hellfire that Eclipsed was wielding. The power inside the blade Eclipsed had summoned went completely out of control, and Eclipsed was no longer capable of containing it, sending massive waves of fire in all directions. Dergonu, Eclipsed's teammate, was also having trouble staying away from the flames due to their chaotic nature.
"Totodile, I'm going in for another attack, back me up."
"Gotcha." Bringing his hands together and concentrating on his surroundings, Totodile made waves of water appear from magic circles positioned throughout the battlefield. The weapon Eclipsed was using was a truly powerful fire incarnation, meaning mere water wasn't able to extinguish it, but it could at the very least weaken it temporarily. Sending the water in a giant wave towards Eclipsed, Totodile focused his attacks on the massive blade. As the water collided with the flaming weapon, a deafening hissing sound followed by big puffs of smoke were produced. Tiago rushed towards his enemy, spear in hand. He got up close to Eclipsed and jabbed at his chest. The spear made contact with Eclipsed's skin and pierced it, leaving a small hole. Eclipsed jumped backwards just as the spear hit, and because of that he had avoided a lethal hit. Still, the wound was bleeding quite badly.
Taking advantage of the opportunity, Totodile prepared another magical attack. He focused on the two nearest magic circles and created large arrows out of water. But ...
"Raaaaaawr!" Suddenly, a shout coming from his left made him lose control of the magic. Then, a strong impact to his entire left side made his body scream in pain. His barrier was crushed and several bones were broken as Dergonu's massive mace hit him by surprise. Totodile was thrown backwards, but somehow managed to land on his feet.
"Y-You ..." Pointing his still functional hand at Dergonu, Totodile started charging another magical attack. He knew there was no time for something too powerful. Firing a small blade made out of water at his opponent, he tried to push Dergonu back. Sadly, the giant mace knocked the magic out of the air fairly simply, and Dergonu rushed in for another attack. Totodile tried to jump to the side, but his left leg wouldn't budge. The giant mace collided with his head, and the world around him went pitch black...
....
Tiago was doing his best keeping Eclipsed in check. The massive weapon of hellish fire was completely out of this world, and every attack sent massive waves of flames towards his body. He had been able to diminish its effect with Totodile's magic, but for some reason it had suddenly stopped. The situation did not look good... Tiago had managed to wound Eclipsed two times, cutting his right arm and his chest, but neither of the wounds were fatal. It was clear that Eclipsed was almost out of energy from using the weapon for so long, but Tiago couldn't let his guard down for a second. One single direct hit, and he would be turned into ashes right then and there.
"Kuh..." Trying to fend off the immense heat, Tiago clenched his teeth and focused all his remaining strength on simply staying upright. Eclipsed was moving really slowly... All Tiago needed to do was land one more hit ... Just one ... More...
"Damnit..." It was too late. Tiago's barrier had already been broken earlier in the fight, meaning he had essentially no protection against the heat without Totodile there to help. His body was completely burnt, and he was no longer capable of standing.
"T-This is how it ends, huh?" Looking up at the sky, a bitter smile spread across Tiago's face.
"I-I served you well, right Lord Down?.." As he asked that question, the giant flaming sword moved towards his defenseless body and a massive explosion of fire and smoke enveloped the area.
...
Team Down, Tiagofvarela and Totodile- DEAD END
....
"Good job Eclipsed. You outdid yourself." Looking up at the source of the sudden voice, Eclipsed slightly raised his head. His entire body was aching. He was unable to move much, and his eyesight was completely blurred. All he saw white haze.
"K-Kaguya...Sama?..." Squeezing out those words, Eclipsed felt his consciousness slowly fade away.
Kaguya caught Eclipsed as he lost consciousness.
"You there, take him back to base." Speaking to Dergonu in an indifferent tone of voice, Kaguya handed Eclipsed's body over. Then, he turned around and gripped the giant greatsword lying a few feet away. Because the summoner had lost control over it, it would soon explode unless someone sent it back to hell form which it came. Gripping the hilt tightly, Kaguya closed his eyes and funneled some of his energy into the blade. The scorching flames meant nothing to him, and soon after, the blade vanished in thin air. Eclipsed had done something extremely reckless, summoning such a might weapon on his own. Even someone like Kaguya would struggle if he wielded it for too long.
"Well then... Let's go take a nap." Not caring about the fights still going on around him, Kaguya created a portal in front of him and walked through it, appearing back into his base.
Valmore Team Nosebleed vs Turnip Sensei Team Down vs Gijimu Team Kaguya
Turnip Sensei blocked an oncoming fist and retaliated with a shockwave. The magical attack was dodged by the swift melee fighter Gijimu, but the more sluggish Valmore was struck in the chest. With Valmore knocked to the ground for the time being, Gijimu and Turnip Sensei traded blows. Gijimu was much faster, but in return, his attacks did not contain as much strength as Turnip Sensei's. In addition, Turnip Sensei was a magic user, where as Gijimu used only physical attacks. Twisting his body in mid air, Gijimu brought his leg back and hit Turnip Sensei in the face. Gijimu followed up by performing a perfect backflip and landed calmly on his feet. Sadly for him, right after, a pickaxe dug into his foot.
"Hahaha! Got you, you stupid ninja!" It seemed Valmore had pretended to be down in order to get a sneak attack in against the swift Gijimu. The pickaxe had gone through his barrier and dug a deep hole his foot. Gijimu said nothing, and simply kicked Valmore's head with his good leg.
"OW! What the ... How the hell are you still standing you little..." Before Valmore could finish his sentence, a shockwave approached from the left. Since his leg was caught by the pickaxe, Gijimu was also unable to dodge it. The shockwave blew both Valmore and Gijimu over, making them collapse in the warm sand. Turnip Sensei sprinted towards Valmore and grabbed him by his collar, lifting him up in the air.
"L-Let me go you big brute..."
"Shut up!" Turnip Sensei shouted as he smashed his own forehead into Valmore's face. A loud crack could be heard, signaling that Valmore's nose broke.
"OWW!" As Valmore screamed in pain, Turnip Sensei lifted him above his head and threw him away. Valmore, who was flying through the air, suddenly smiled. There was blood streaming down his face due to the broken nose, making his smile seem even more crazy. Turnip Sensei suddenly realized why he was smiling. As Valmore was tossed, he had brought his hand holding his pickaxe upwards. Because of the velocity of the throw, the arm had moved quickly, and the pickaxe dug into Turnip Sensei's throat. As Valmore flew away, the pickaxe ripped out a chunk of Turnip Sensei's trachea, making large amounts of blood spew out. Valmore hit the ground a few meters back, looking at his blood stained pickaxe.
"Well, one down, one to g..." Before he could finish the sentence, a fist approached his face and hit him right in the nose.
"AAAAHHH! FOR THE LOVE OF..." Holding his already broken nose, trying to stop the bleeding, Valmore shouted. Gijimu threw three more punches towards Valmore, who was unable to dodge. They hit him hard, and made his feet give in beneath him. But, because Gijimu had a big hole in his foot, he wasn't able to move too fast himself, and Valmore hit him hard in the side with his pickaxe, just as he fell. Blood shot out from the wound.
"Nod tho tchough tnow arthe you?" Trying to speak with his beat up face, Valmore looked up at Gijimu. The pickaxe had made a deep wound in his chest, and Gijimu was covering it with his hands, trying to stop the bleeding. Preparing his pickaxe for a finishing blow, Valmore got ready to attack again. As he moved his arm in an arc approaching Gijimu, he felt a strong pain in his chest. As he looked down, he saw a hand covered in blood that had pierced through his rib cage, and was inside his chest. The pain was unbearable and he let out a pained scream. Gijimu pulled his hand out of Valmore's chest and staggered backwards.
Unable to speak properly because the attack had destroyed parts of his lungs, Valmore thought to himself...
"I'll be back you bastard... Just you wait..."
With that, his heart stop beating and darkness enveloped his world.
Would you rather read the chapters in a PDF document? Click here!
Chapter 1:
Chapter 2:
Chapter 3: (Word count, 4439)
The Last GM Standing Chapter 4 (Word count, 3984)
The Last GM Standing
Chapter 5 (Word count, 4491)
The Last GM Standing
Chapter 6 (Word count 3334)
- Finale, part 1/2 -
The Last GM Standing (Word count, 3832)
Chapter 7
Finale Part 2/2!
"Raaawr! Take this!" Gijimu charged towards Nosebleed, striking at his chest with all his might. At the same time, Jade chanted a spell and several dark chains sprouted from the ground, wrapping themselves around Nosebleed's legs. Greenshadow622 was also attacking, striking at Nosebleed's back from behind with his blade.
"... Pathetic." Nosebleed simply caught Gijimu's punch with his bare hand, used his left leg to kick Greenshadow's sword away, and broke through Jade's chains like they were made out of air. Still, the attackers did not waver. They kept their assault going, trying to land even just a singular hit.
"Raaawr!" Gijimu took a step back, then jumped forward, bringing his right foot towards Nosebleed's head with great force. Nosebleed avoided the kick as if it was approaching in slow motion, and grabbed Gijimu's leg, picking him up and throwing him away.
"Tch. You ... monster!" Shouting at Nosebleed, Jade prepared another attack and started chanting again.
"Devourer of light,
bane of the living,
ruler of death,
envelop the w..."
But before he could finish, Nosebleed moved his left hand downwards, and the string attached to his wrist made one of his shuriken fly towards Jade with great speed.
"Watch out!" Greenshadow jumped in between the shuriken and his teammate, and blocked the attack with his shield, but in the process, his shield was splintered into a million pieces. Both team Kaguya members were thrown several meters backwards from the impact.
"Ugh ... You guys are all freaking useless." A voice coming from behind him made Nosebleed turn around. Kaguya was sitting on a nearby rock, looking at his underlings getting beaten.
"Guess I'll have to put in an effort."
"..." Looking at the warriors on the ground, then back at Kaguya, Nosebleed shook his head.
"You aren't worthy of commanding them. I'll end the battle here today, and avenge my fallen." Nosebleed's face was distorted into a hateful scowl.
"Haha. Now that would be a fun sight. Come on then. Give it your best shot." Kaguya spread his arms in a taunting manner and got up from the rock.
Nosebleed moved his hands around, making his shuriken fly towards Kaguya's position. Kaguya caught one in the air, and swatted the other one away with his free arm. The shuriken caught in his hand wasn't able to pierce his skin, and the one he deflected collided with the ground, making a loud bang as the magical weapon crushed the earth beneath it.
"Hmph. Weak!" Kaguya started running towards Nosebleed, preparing for a counterattack.
"You're too cocky." With those words, Nosebleed snapped his fingers, and the shuriken in Kaguya's hand glowed. Before Kaguya had any time to realize what was happening, a small magic circle appeared above the shurkien, and a second later it blew up. A massive explosion enveloped Kaguya, making the ground beneath his feet cave in, and a massive cloud of smoke and dust settled over the battlefield. Nosebleed had made a shield in front of himself before the explosion occurred, protecting himself from the explosion.
"Gaaah... Now that one stung a bit..." Slowly walking out of the smoke could, Kaguya was once again approaching Nosebleed. His clothes were full of black spots and holes, and his arm that caught the blast was charred, but other than that, he seemed fine.
"Tch. I'm not done yet!" Nosebleed tensed his legs, and then jumped right up into the air. His body flew upwards, and once he had moved up about 15 meters or so, he brought his hands together, chanting a spell. As he chanted, Nosebleed's body was suspended in the air, like he was flying. A pink magic circle with black markings appeared before him, and slowly grew in size.
"This will take you down a peg!" He shouted, and the magic circle erupted into a blinding light, sending hundreds of shuriken tied to strings down towards Kaguya. Every single one of them were tied to Nosebleed's wrist, making it possible for him to control them like he had done with the previous two. The shuriken he created rained down towards Kaguya, and were mere seconds from hitting him.
"Shimmer, spear of Helios!
Flicker, and pierce all that stands before you,
burn down all resistance and turn flesh to ashes!"
Suddenly raising his voice, Kaguya chanted a spell as quickly as he could, and right after, the ground beneath his feet broke apart, making a big pillar of fire shoot up towards Nosebleed. It was the same spell that his underling, Eclipsed, had taken his own life with. A powerful fire spell, summoning the strength of one of the most powerful fire aspects. The pillar of fire broke through all the shuriken, turning them into dust, and kept on moving towards Nosebleed, who put up a last minute shield in a panic. Because he was also caught in the fire, Kaguya felt some of his strength drain from his body as the scorching fire assaulted his flesh. The fire hit Nosebleed's shield, crushing it to pieces, and Nosebleed was caught in the relentless flames.
....
"This really is the final battle, huh?" FinalChaos was seated in front of his master, Down, who had been wounded by the other GMs a little earlier. Now FinalChaos, the last remaining team Down member, was protecting his fallen master, while he watched the epic duel between the other two GMs. FinalChaos was clutching his swords so hard that blood was starting to run down his hands. There was nothing he could do versus such monsters. If it really came down to it, there was no way he could stop Kaguya or Nosebleed from killing Down in his current state.
"DAMNIT!" FinalChaos shouted, and punched the ground with great force.
"... Let them come. I might not be able to win, but I'll make damn sure it will be hard for them!"
....
Nebjula was slowly walking calmly towards the heat of the battle. His eyes were without light, his mentality weakened. Upon witnessing so many people die, his last ally dying before his eyes was the last drop. He no longer cared. It was too late... He wouldn't survive like this, so why even care? He was ready for his final battle. The last fight.
His right hand was missing a finger, and streams of fresh blood rand down his right mace, making it look even more menacing. The pain of his missing finger meant nothing. He walked forwards with no particular destination in mind, only having one though present in his mind... He would fight... He would fight...
Team Nosebleed's last member, Nebjula vs Team Down's last member, FinalChaos
Someone were approaching. FinalChaos pulled himself together and looked forward. The figure of a person could be seen walking towards him. The person was holding two weapons, and from the look of his armor, he was a member of team Nosebleed. But it was hard to see exactly, as his cloak was completely covered in blood.
"I'm coming to get you... I'm coming to get youuuu!~" The person suddenly started talking, and the words he uttered sent a chill down FinalChaos' spine. Who was it? Preparing his blades for battle, Finalchaos looked at Down one last time and then turned around to face his opponent.
"Split their skulls... Hehe..." The team Nosebleed member was quite close now, still rambling. His tone of voice was chilling. As he was just about two meters away from FinalChaos, he stopped completely. He held two maces, and his right hand looked wounded, as fresh blood was still pouring out from an open wound. The man suddenly looked up, and his empty eyes stared into FinalChaos'.
"... Die..." Nebjula suddenly moved his right arm, and threw one of his maces at FinalChaos. The sudden move made FinalChas flinch, and he struggled with avoiding the oncoming mace. The spike at the end of the weapon grazed FinalChaos' shoulder as it flew past him. Following close behind the mace, Nebjula ran towards his opponent, lifting his left mace. FinalChaos struck at Nebjula with one of his swords, but Nebjula easily dodged it and ran straight into FinalChaos. Nebjula's head collided with FinalChaos' solar plexus, knocking the air out of him.
"Guh..." FinalChaos staggered backwards, but managed to keep his footing. Nebjula quickly followed up with another attack, swinging his mace at FinalChaos. Every attack was mighty powerful, making FinalChaos flinch as the wind made by the mace hit his eyes.
"I'm coming to get you!!!" Nebjula kept on rambling, and suddenly ran straight past FinalChaos.
Wait ... Coming to get you..? Is he talking about?!
"DOWN, NO!" As FinalChaos realized what Nebjula's goal was, he shouted at the top of his lungs and threw his sword at Nebjula. The sword soared through the air at a great speed, and after a second, it collided with its target. The sword pierced through Nebjula's back, cutting through his lungs and parts of his spine. But ... It was already too late. Nebjula had just enough time to move his mace for one attack, which had been directed right at Down. Down was still unconscious, which meant his barrier was the only thing still protecting him, and it had been seriously weakened in the attack from Kaguya earlier... Nebjula's mace had crushed the remaining barrier, and had hit Down's defensless body, crushing his ribcage completely.
"... AHHHHHH!" Not knowing how to react, FinalChaos just kept screaming, and threw his other blade at the already dead Nebjula. FinalChaos shook his head as tears ran down his cheeks. His final job ... His final purpose... It had been to defend Down, and he had failed. His knees gave in beneath him, and his body fell to the ground. He slammed his fist against the bare ground over and over, most likely breaking the bone, but he didn't care.
"I ... Failed..."
Because the leader had died, all of Down's remaining soldiers would be disposed of. The one last remaining warrior, FinalChaos, shouted and screamed as he cursed himself for letting Down die... Soon after, his body turned to dust...
12Kami was looking at the battle from above, his body floating as if it was tied up by strings.
"One ... Dead... Two to go..." His yellow eyes shimmered brightly, and the scythe he was holding in his right hand was glowing in a green light. Down had been defeated, which mean that Down and all his dead warriors were sealed away in the reaper's scythe, and they would never come back.
12Kami remembered the rules that were branded into his mind.
1) The GMs are not allowed to fight until the final day. Stop them at all costs.
2) Once the GMs finally clash, only one can come out alive. If they refuse to fight, kill them yourself.
3) Once the winner has been crowned... The winner and all his forces will be released from the game, and all the deceased teammates will be resurrected. The members of the losing teams will forever be trapped in the reaper's scythe.
4) ... If you wish, you may challenge the winner. If you can defeat him, you will get your own freedom, and will be released from the hell we have trapped you in.
"... Two to go..." 12Kami whispered to himself as he looked at the battle below.
Nosebleed's body was aching, screaming in pain. Kaguya's attack had broken his shield, and the only thing that saved him from a sure death was his final remaining barrier. It had taken a lot of energy, but Nosebleed had been able to fight off the relentless heat, and survived the attack, but in return, his body was enveloped in pain. He had felt it... His final warrior, the last remaining teammate he had on the battlefield, had just died. It was over. Nosebleed was alone. Shaking his head in anger, tears ran down Nosebleed's cheeks.
"I wont ... let you die in vain! AHHHHHHHH!" Screaming as loud as he could, Nosebleed forced himself to his feet and charged towards Kaguya's location. Kaguya was still recovering, as the attack had hit his own body as well.
"Puppets! Stop him!" Kaguya shouted and pointed towards his underlings who were standing next to him.
"Buy me some time! Hold him back!"
The three team Kaguya members were slightly scared of fighting the GM on their own, but still listened to their master, running towards the advancing Nosebleed. Gijimu preformed a swift kick at Nosebleed's legs, trying to make him Trip. Nosebleed avoided the kick with ease, and retaliated with a punch to Gijimu's chest. Gijimu managed to block the attack, but both his arms screamed in pain as Nosebleed's fist hit, and the bone in his left arm broke. Jade cast several spells from a few meters away, while Greenshadow started cutting at Nosebleed with his blade. His shield had been broken earlier, so his sword was his only remaining weapon. Nosebleed avoided the attacks, and started chanting a spell as he kept on approaching Kaguya.
"O great shadow,
sever the bonds of the flesh,
divide, split, divide!"
As he chanted, Nosebleed's body suddenly split into four, and each part approached an enemy, the main body still continuing towards Kaguya. Gijimu's broken arm was dangling at his side, useless, and he had to fight off his enemy with his remaining limbs. Jade was doing his best, trying to keep his opponent at a distance. Greenshadow was being pushed back as well, and Kaguya was still recovering from his wounds. As no one were able to reach Nosebleed's main body, he continued his chant.
"Divide, split, divide!
fire, earth, water, air,
sever the bonds of the flesh,
release me from the chains of man,
and grant me the strength of thou,
oh great shadow."
When the chant finished, each one of Nosebleed's bodies erupted in a bright light. A round seal holding a picture of an element on it, appeared on his chest. Fire, earth, water and air, one for each body. The main body that was running towards Kaguya was water, the opposite of Kaguya's favored magic.
"It is time to end things, Kaguya!" While he shouted at his opponent, Nosebleed raised his right arm, and it morphed into a blade made out of water. He was now mere meters from Kaguya, and prepared the blade, striking at Kaguya's chest. Kaguya had regained most of his strength, and was able to avoid the attack, but Nosebleed quickly recovered and continued his assault, sending a flurry of attacks towards his opponent. Kaguya managed to sidestep, and clenched his fists, making fire envelop his hands. It was the same attack he had used to take out Down. He struck at Nosebleed with great power, but the water surrounding Nosebleed's body weakened the oncoming attack, making the impact much too weak. The inefficiency of his attack made Kaguya flinch for a second, but he quickly came back to his senses.
"Ok, then how about this?!" Kaguya took a big step backwards and held his hands out, moving them towards Nosebleed. As he did that, the ground beneath Nosebleed's feet started moving, and several spikes of earth quickly approached Nosebleed's chest.
"I don't think so." A voice came from Kaguya's left, and the spikes that were approaching the main body of Nosebleed stopped completely. A different Nosebleed was standing a little further away, holding the body of Greenshadow622 in his hand. The symbol for earth was branded on his chest. Using any form of elemental magic against Nosebleed would be completely useless. Gijimu and Jade were still fighting their opponents, but Nosebleed was clearly about to beat them as well. It seemed Kaguya was on his own.
"Hmph. Fine. Guess we will have to settle this the old fashioned way." Kaguya kept his cool, and raised his fists. After just a few seconds, the other two Nosebleed versions had defeated their opponents, and Kaguya was now staring at four enemies.
"You know, when I see you up close like this, I have to say... You guys are all butt ugly."
"Any other last words Kaguya?" One of the Nosebleed's spoke up, slowly approaching.
"How about bite me?" With those words, Kaguya stepped forward and struck at one of his opponents with all his might. His left fist struck the water version of Nosebleed right in the chest, and a loud cracking sound of bones breaking resounded throughout the battlefield. The body he had struck broke in two, making blood and bone fragments fly everywhere.
"I'm not going down that easy!" After easily having defeated one opponent, Kaguya moved over to the next one. He struck at the earth version, his fist moving towards Nosebleed's chest yet again. This version managed to dodge the attack by a hair, but Kaguya followed up with another strike. It wasn't as powerful as the first two, but it hit Nosebleed's left arm, making the bone bend in the wrong direction. As Nosebleed staggered backwards, clutching his wounded arm, Kaguya struck at him again, making Nosebleed fall to the ground. Trouble was, even though Kaguya was doing well against one of the Nosebleed's, the two others were preparing a spell behind him. As Kaguya was about to land a finishing blow on the earth version of Nosebleed, the wind and fire version behind him sent powerful spells directed towards Kaguya's back. A spear of fire approached Kaguya's back, and the wind spell quickly wrapped itself around the fire attack, amplifying its intensity. The brutal attack dug into Kaguya's back, slowly melting his flesh and pushing Kaguya's body forward. He flew a few meters away, and landed on his wounded back. Kaguya tried to get up again, but the earth Nosebleed moved his still functional arm over to Kaguya and gripped his leg, preventing his movements. Meanwhile, the remaining two Nosebleed versions prepared one final attack. As another enhanced spear of fire approached Kaguya, it dawned on him ... He had lost. When he started fighting, he didn't think any of his opponents were actually worthy of being called equals... He still didn't.
"... You got lucky." As he said those final words, the fire enveloped his body, and turned his remaining flesh to ash.
"..." As Nosebleed witnessed his final enemy burn to a crisp, he said nothing... It was over, but he had lost way too many. This was not a time to celebrate. This was a time to mourn.
Team Kaguya, Greenshadow622, Gijimu and Jade-DEAD END
Team Kaguya leader, Kaguya-DEAD END
....
....
...
..
"It looks like it's over. Congratulations." A dark, raspy voice spoke up from behind Nosebleed. Nosebleed said nothing in response, and simply sat down on the ground, covering his face. He was exhausted, and his emotions were running wild.
"Congratulations." Repeating his previous line, the person who was talking walked past Nosebleed, and sat down in front of him. It was the cloaked reaper that Nosebleed had seen several times before, overlooking the battle. The reaper who had gotten in between Nosebleed and Down's previous fight. In his hand was a scythe, which now glowed in a dark red color. Several red and green dots were spread across the scythe's blade... Actually, there was also one section towards the tip of the blade, which had several pink dots on it. Seven to be exact... The number of Nosebleed's warriors. Could it be..?
"Congratulations. You are the last one standing. You did well. Here is your reward." As the reaper spoke, he lifted his scythe up towards the sky, and the pink dots on the blade started glowing. The sky above the reaper turned dark, and clouds started forming out of nowhere. The clouds slowly started spinning around faster and faster, and after a little while, a full blown tornado had formed in the sky. The tornado slowly but surely moved down towards the two, however the wind was not affecting Nosebleed or the Reaper for some reason. It was as if the tornado was merely an illusion. As the eye of the storm reached the two figures, the wind settled at the tip of the reaper's blade, and the pink dots which were glowing brightly were sucked up into the tornado. Then, a completely blinding light shot out from the clouds, branching into seven smaller balls of light that all collided with the ground somewhere close to Nosebleed.
As the wind settled and the light went away, seven people had appeared next to Nosebleed. They were all the fallen warriors from team Nosebleed that had been killed during the battle, Mitchhamilton, Kiriririri, Satsuki, Valmore, Deep Blue, Nebjula and Kingdomcome. Each one of them were completely unscratched, and they were staring at the reaper in front of them in awe, not knowing what was going on.
"W-Where are we...?" Mitchhamilton spoke up, walking towards Nosebleed with a confused expression. The reaper was the one who answered.
"You have won the battle, and you are free. Congratulations." Before anyone could say anything else, the reaper snapped his fingers, and the figures of the eight warriors disappeared into nothingness. They had been called back to the world of Fuwanovel, as the only eight survivors of the long death game.
It was over.
....
As the dust settled, and the winners had been teleported away, a figure of a man walked up to 12Kami. He was wearing a black suit, but the entirety of his body was enveloped in a dark shadow, making it impossible to see who it was.
"So you chose to let them go. Why did you not fight them? Do you not value your own life?" The man's voice was distorted, much like the reaper's.
"... I do not want to witness more bloodshed." The reaper answered, looking down at his feet.
"Haha... Well, suit yourself. You do realize that this means you will be trapped in this dimension forever? You and ... them." As the man said the last word in the sentence, he pointed towards the reaper's scythe. The reaper, 12Kami knew... They were still there. They were still conscious, trapped inside the void. He could hear them. They were screaming... The 25 fallen warriors from team Down and Kaguya, as well as their two leaders... They were trapped in the reaper's scythe, and because they lost, they would never get out. They had suffered the same fate that 12Kami had.
"Well then. Enjoy eternity listening to their screams." With that final line, the figure of the man vanished, and 12Kami was left alone. He looked at the scythe in his hands, as he heard the screams of the poor people trapped within it.
Like I said in my previous blog post, I have been wanting to keep my blog more active for a while, and this time I'll be talking about yatagarasu's yurige, Seisai no Resonance.
Before we get into it, I have to admit, I skipped a few routes in this one in order to get the true ending. (Nagi's true end.) It's not that the other girls in the game are bad, but more that Nagi was such an interesting character, her normal ending was not enough to satisfy me, so I HAD to skip to the true ending. (For a very annoying reason, you HAVE to complete at least another route, (possibly all of them?) after Nagi's before you can get Nagi's true ending, as Nagi's true end serves as the whole game's true route.) I ended up grabbing a 100% save file, so I could jump into her true route. Because of that, this post will primarily be talking about the common route, Nagi's route and the true ending.
To quickly sum up the setting and start of the story. Kanae, our main character, travels to Otofuse Island to look for her mother, who vanished seven years ago. Otofuse is a small island closed off from the main land, where a strange ritual takes place every year. The reason for this ritual is, long ago, a big fireball fell down on the island, and a pair of shrine maidens were the ones who calmed down and sealed away the flames. Ever since that that, a yearly ritual is held, where two shrine maidens are picked to preform a similar sealing ritual like back then. The shrine maidens on the island now wield strange "gems" that grants them special powers. (More on this later.)
Kanae takes a ferry to the island, but before she reaches Otofuse, a strange girl from a "shady" organization running the island, the shourai-kai, attacks her and she falls into the sea. Washed up ashore, Kanae is rescued by the beautiful and mysterious Mirai, who tells Kanae she has to become a shrine maiden in order to see her mother again. After a bit of a struggle, Kanae enrolls at Sakihana all-girls school, and aims to become a shrine maiden in order to see her mother.
Gameplay
This game has a rather interesting battle system, which is used for boss battles, training matches and so on in the game. (So, often when Kanae gets in a fight, you end up battling.) I personally found the gameplay very fun, but totally out of place. Because of how rarely you actually end up fighting, and how little the result of the battle matters, it almost just served as an obstacle between the story segments, which I did not enjoy. Like I said at first, the gameplay itself was actually pretty fun and well made, but it just... felt totally uncesessary. (At the end, I honestly just found myself annoyed at the fact that these battles were interrupting the story.)
The combat is quite similar to fighting games like the Naruto PS3 games etc. You can move in a 360 angle, use different powers to fight your opponent, drain your "spirit(?)" as you preform special attacks and so on.
Overall, although the gameplay started off as fun and was well made, I really didn't feel like it had a place in the game at all.
Story
As Kanae tries to become a powerful shrine maiden, so that she can be selected for the yearly ritual and see her mother, you learn more and more about what is actually going on in Otofuse.
Why is the shourai-kai trying to kill Kanae? Why must Kanae become a shrine maiden in order to see her mother, and what happened to her mother seven years ago? What are the strange beings living in the forest outside the school grounds?
I found the story very good, which was really cool for a yuri title, which often focuses primarily on the romance, not the story segments.
Towards the end, I was glued to the screen, wondering what would happen next, and the way the game was paced was quite nice in my opinion. Some people have complained about the writing of the story, but I found it absolutely fine. It was entertaining from start to finish. Now, moving on from the common route, I will only be able to talk about the Nagi route and the true ending, but honestly, you should play this game just for that. (Short version, it was great.)
Nagi and Kanae
This is without a doubt one of my favorite yuri romances, ever. Kanae is goofy and funny, sociable and a little bit overly friendly with most people she meets. Nagi on the other hand, is a retracted, cold and cunning girl. (She is very intelligent when it comes to most things, but she isn't very good at social situations, unlike Kanae, and she is a bit of a tsundere under her closed off shell. Strange, but great mix.) At first, she uses Kanae for her own benefit, which is searching for an answer to a question she has had for a while. (Basically, what is actually going on? Nagi doesn't believe that the ritual and the shourai-kai is what it seems to be, and wants to dig deeper in order to find the truth.) Kanae wants to find her mother, and the two start working together. From there on out, one of the greatest yuri romances I have read unfolds. (And plot too, but pffft, who cares about that. )
The two of them are literal opposites, Kanae with her warmth and her flames, and Nagi with her cold attitude and her ice. (Going back to the powers I mentioned earlier, the true image of their soul is reflected in the shrine maiden's powers, which is summoned from a special stone they all have. (Kanae recieved hers as a gift from her mother years ago.)
So, for the closed off Nagi, we have ice.
And for the warm and loving Kanae, it's fire.
As Kanae learns more about Nagi, she decides that she wants to be the one to "melt Nagi's ice," which is honestly one of my favorite quotes ever, and the two of them just fit so perfectly together in the game, as they are literal opposites. The pacing in Nagi's route is absolutely perfect, and the romance is slowly but surely introduced, so not rushed at all. There is also a fairly small amount of H-scenes, 2 for Nagi if I remember correctly, both of which happen at just the right time, which made the relationship between the two seem all the more real to me. (It's not like Koiken Otome, where you are showered in H-scenes fairly early on.)
The fact that Nagi is the true heroine in the game is so, so right. She is a really great character, and her paired up with Kanae makes for a fantastic couple. One thing that did dissapoint me a little with the game was Nagi's normal ending, which in all honesty, is a "bad" ending, not a "normal"/"good" one. (It's very bittersweet.) The fact that you HAVE to play through the rest in order to unlock the true ending makes the time between the real Nagi ending and the "bad" one too great, and if you are going to play the game, I honestly recommend getting a 100% save file, so you can do the true ending in all it's glory right after Nagi's normal end.
The rest of the cast and a conclusion
The rest of the cast in Seisai no Resonance is great, with a few rather standard template characters like Yuu and Mako, but even they are quite interesting, and although I didn't play their routes, I very much enjoyed what I saw of them in the common route and Nagi's route+ the true end. My favorite character besides Nagi and Kanae has to be Yayako, Nagi's only friend before Kanae. She is such a hilarious character, and I will definitely be playing her route at some point. (And yes, that is a cat on her head.)
Overall, Seisai no Resonance is a really great yurige with an interesting plot, well written romance and an interesting cast. The gameplay, although well made, serves more as a distraction from the story, and could in all honesty have been removed. But, despite that, I really enjoyed the game, and would strongly recommend it to all yuri fans.
(The game's opening, for those interested)
Time for another blog entry, and today I'll be talking about the dungeon crawler, Ikazuchi no Senshi Raidy. This is the first installment in ZyX's dungeon crawler series featuring Raidy, a very popular game series.
For those of you who aren't familiar with dungen crawler games, they are gameplay like titles featuring a dungeon that you as the player need to navigate through. Depending on the game, there might be random enemy encounters, bosses as you climb floors, secret passages, traps, loot and more. The actual gameplay is most of the time simply using the direction buttons to move your character forwards, sideways and backwards as you progress through the dungeon, as well as mouse clicks to fight possible bosses and enemies you encounter. In Raidy 1, you play as "the lightning warrior" Raidy, who heads into a tower controlled by a demon in order to save the nearby village from his evil. The tower has several floors, every one of which contains a mini boss, and your job is to move through each floor, kill the boss and climb to the next floor until you reach the demon himself, so that you can kill him and put a stop to his plans.
As you move through the dungeons, you will encounter random enemies, who will increase in strength for every floor. These random encounters award EXP, which will be cruicial for for your survival in the dungeon. (This game is seriously challenging, and if you are even just a tiny bit underleveled, you WILL die, which will result in a game over. Therefore, you often have to spend quite a bit of time on each floor after defeating the boss, just grinding a few levels so that you won't die instantly on the next floor. A bit more on the difficulty later on.)
The game actually came out in 1994, though the current version available on JAST's homepage has updated craphics compared to the original release. The current art is actually very pretty, which was a big plus for me as I played it, since I was expecting something much, much worse.
A random encounter in the dungeon
That being said, the audio in the game is quite bad. The quality isn't top notch, but the worst part is the absolutely cringe voice acting by Raidy... It's actually quite comical. She is extremely emotionless when she speaks, even in crazy situations, (like her being raped by a crazy werewolf... yes, this happens, lol.) I don't know for sure, but it seems to me like the voice acting is the original from the 1994 release, as that would explain the rather lacking quality compared to the new art. Still, this is just a tiny little detail, and it didn't bother me much at all.
Like I mentioned before, your goal is to defeat all the floor bosses in order to climb up to the top of the tower and kill the demon, but this is not a simple feat. Each floor introduces new traps and labyrinths which are seriously difficult to figure out without a guide. I personally played the whole game without a guide, something that took a long time considering the actual length of the game. I spent a long time grinding for exp, walking in circles through the mazes and getting stuck at certain traps, (like the freaking evil 180 turn pad, which turns your character 180 degrees without you noticing, making you walk in circles forever unless you figure out the trap, or turn around by chance.) Traps can feature many different things, like chests rigged with poison gas, invisible walls, turn pads and so on.
As you advance through the dungeon, you will be completely blind, and you have to memorize where you came from until you manage to find the floor map, which usually lies hidden quite far into the dungeon. The map will let you see an overview of the current floor, and it's a huuuuge help when navigating, though finding the damn things can be a pain. You do have a compass, which is very helpful, as you can use it to somewhat get a grasp on where you are at all times.
You will eventually discover certain rooms and points of interest, wchich will give you screens like these. You will have to click each option several times in order for figure out all the information you need, (so if you are talking to a prisoner in a jail cell, you might need to select one option up to 5-6 times in order to get the correct info out of them.) This is very important to remember, because every mini boss will be invincible until you have learned their weakness. This means, if you rush into the boss room, you have absolutely no chance of winning, and you will get a bad end, and a bad end rape scene. (If you want to 100% the game, you do have to get these, so saving before entering the boss room, just to unlock the scene is recommended, so you don't have to go back to get these again later on.) Also, on that note, there is 1 secret ending in this game, which you can only get if you 1) collect all the information on a boss, save, then try to fight them but lose, get the rape scene and then reload the save, then defeat them. (An instant defeat becuase you didn't know their weakness won't count.) I'm mentioning this because actually going through the whole game again just to do this will take hours, and it's quite a grind just for 1 new scene, just keep that in mind if you plan on playing this game. - Get info, save, fight and lose, then win, repeat for every boss.
Now that we mentioned that, it's important to point out, rape is a core part of this game. (The mini bosses are capturing villagers and rape them, when you lose to a boss you get a rape scene, and when you defeat a boss you... rape them... yup...) So yeah, do not expect any vanilla H in this game, because you won't find any of it. Oh, and... 95% of the game is yuri. (Yay!)
Earlier I talked a bit about the difficulty in this game. Traps, mazes, strong bosses and all that makes for a really crazy combo. Honestly, the difficulty in this game might be a bit too high for certain people. I personally love a challenge like this, and had a blast playing through the game, trying to figure out how to beat the next floor, and the 2-10 hour game felt like a much longer one, because of the amount of time I spent in game. The thing is, the actual scenes and VN elements are rather short, and you will be spending most of your time in the gameplay, defeating enemies and searching for loot and clues. Therefore, it is important that you find these elements in the game entertaining, or else this will be a real chore to get through.
The combat system in the game is very simple. You can preform a normal attack, block, flee or cast a magic attack which consumes your mana. Your normal attacks deal less damage than the magical attacks, but are more consistent. Both you and your enemies can land critical hits, which will do loads more damage than normal, so it's important to keep your health up with healing potions.
The block feature is mainly there so that you can lose on purpose if you want, (all you do in that situation is walk into a boss room, spam the block button until you die, so that you don't risk killing the boss.) The magical attack does more damage the more mana you have, and becomes rather unreliable as fights drags on, but can be cruicial when it comes to weakening bosses, as the first 2-3 hits can be quite strong. One thing I have to mention here is... save... A LOT! Save all the time. If you die to a boss, it's game over, and you have to start all over, or from a save point. If you forgot to save and went on playing for a while, getting back that progress can take ages, and it can really make you ragequit.
I think that about covers everything that needs to be said about Raidy 1. It's a very enjoyable game, especially considering it's age and limited length. The art is really pretty, the gameplay is fun and challenging and the characters are all pretty cool, (though again, Raidy's voice actress is literal cringe.) You can buy the game and 2 of the sequels over at JAST, (here.)
So, the past week I have been reading ChuSinGura 46+1, and surprised myself by blowing through 仮名手本忠臣蔵編 (basically, chapter 1,) in under a week. Between the length of the game, as well as the difficult samurai speech patterns and complicated edo-period political schemes, it certainly is the most challenging VN I have read in Japanese as of yet. Anywanys, as the game is so bloody long, and the chapters can somewhat be considered self contained, I just wanted to write something about my impressions and thoughts of chapter 1.
It has been a long time since I was this into the VN I'm reading, be it translated or not translated. I think the last time was when I read Nurse Love Addiction when that came out, as the mystery element in that game really took me by surprise, and I read it all in a couple of days. That's months ago though, so finally finding a game again which really just hooked me from the beginning, and kept me hyped all the way to the end was a great feeling. ChuSinGura's combination of silly humor and dead serious plot was a breath of fresh air. It goes to show that a game doesn't have to take itself too seriously to be really good. It honestly felt very similar to Majikoi on that front. (Also, the colored text, the character movement during combat scenes and what not. The game is quite honestly very similar in style to Majikoi.)
So, the first thing I have to say about this game is that it is just stunning. The art is really pretty, the specific colored text for each character gives them all a unique feel, and the sprites having sooo many different poses and expressions really makes their personalites feel so much more real and alive.
(They even literally have specific sprites just to hold food and drinks they are eating/ drinking in that scene... such details in the sprites alone isn't that common in most VNs I have read, at least.)
The large amount of not just CGs, but event backgrounds took me by surprise as well. Many times I was certain I was looking at a CG, only to find out it was a specific background made for that scene.
Honestly, the story was just fantastic. Some people might argue that the silly and goofy jokes and what not ruins the seriousness of it, but I strongly disagree. Sure, the game has a lot of not-so serious moments, but they do not at all remove any of the emotions behind the actual story. I'll admit, I did cry several times through this story, and probably will in the following chapters, too.
(A few CGs and scenes I loved. Spoilers inside the spoiler tags, duh. Mainly just CGs, but a bit of my opinions about what happened and what not inside.)
Another thing I absolutely loved about this game is the antagonists. Well, not the actual morons plotting the evil plan behind the scenes, but the antagonists who the samurai actually fight... Specifically, Shimizu Ichigaku, who has to be one of the most badass characters I have seen, ever. (I'm also really looking forward to seeing Yamayoshi Shinpachirou in the game, as she uses a nodachi, and that is basically my favorite type of weapon, ever.)
Anyways, now, for some badass stuff from Shimizu Ichigaku: (Once again, some spoilers in the spoiler tags:)
Finally, I have to say, Suguha is a great main character. He is definitely one of my favorite protagonists in any VN. Although he is powerful, he isn't the super stronk dude who just wrecks everything in his path, like some protagonists are. He is very devoted to his master, but still has a certain amount of doubt and fear, especially surrounding his own life, and won't hesitate to speak up if he feels something needs to be said. It really comes off clearly that, despite him being put into this surreal setting of the 47 ronin avenging their lord, he isn't truly a warrior from that time period. He isn't fearless and he is definitely flawed. But his sense of justice and devotion to his master is still very admirable. He is also really funny, and the mix of a modern guy from the 21st century in the Edo-period really makes the whole game so much more funny. Overall I just loved his character.
On that note, the romance between him and Kuranosuke was really great. I thought the romance was going to be a bit pushed to the side in this game, but it was handled perfectly.
I could write about this chapter alone for hours and hours, but I'll probably come back and write more about the game once I finish the rest of the chapters, so I'll leave it here for now.
This has quite honestly already jumped up to the spot of one of my favorite VNs of all time. If the next chapters are as good as the first one, this might just take the #1 spot for me tbh.
Anyways, that's it for now. Time to get back to reading!
Gonna go ahead and make this update here as well. When I have something more than just the weekly update to share about the project, I'll make a blog post about it on my own blog, (so I don't spam the dev feed.)
Hello everyone! Today I have great news, and some kind of meh news. First the good news!
Porygon has finalized the patch making tools, so we can now get all sorts of stuff worked out. (Previously we had issues with the text not displaying right, some symbols dissapearing etc. That's all gone now.)
On the translation side of things, I had some days off this week and got some decent work done. The progress has moved quite a lot since the last update. (Progress update and more is below.)
Now for some meh news. I have a really important exam in one week, (like, if I don't study like crazy, I am so failing it,) and so I am kind of studying myself to death here. Because of that, next week I wont have a lot of time to translate. I will still make updates like usual, but expect like, a miniscule amount of progress the next week or two, as I try my hardest not to fail and screw up my life
Also, @Meat_Bun1 is back on the project as an editor, and he will be fixing all the silly mistakes left in by me.
Anyways, progress time!
Here is the progress, and also, for those interested, a few pictures of the translation in game. (Note that these pictures have completely un-edited lines, so ... You know, this is not the quality of the final translation.)
Progress:
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