Part 73: Juro Kurabe 7
Chapter 73: Juro Kurabe 7
Music: Head In The Clouds (Rikako Watanabe)
Lets go home.
Consider Q-ta Shiba
(Shiba-kuns not actually human. And not only that Hes been manipulating my memories. It seems his goal is to turn me back into Juro Izumi.)
Consider Visitor from Another World
(Fuyusaka-san and I were the only ones who made it We escaped to Sumire Bridge, 16 years into the past. These must be Shiba-kuns memories Or rather the other Juro Izumis.)
Youre meeting up at the same place again?
Pretty much, yeah. See ya!
Bye!
Tomi leaves.
Miwako leaves as well. Theres now nothing left for us to do
But talk to the man of the hour.
What? Why the long face? Have another nightmare or somethin?
Knock it off. Im not stupid. I know Im the only one who can see you.
Hmm So it wasnt fully wiped.
I guess mind-hacking has its limits.
Use Q-ta Shiba on Kyuta Shiba
48Q. QTA_CBA. I already told you. Im an artificial personality.
That doesnt mean anything to me.
Im not watching it.
Use Juro Izumi on Kyuta Shiba
Why did you give me Juro Izumis memories? Are you trying to turn me back into him?
You were never meant to be this way in the first place.
We cant have you causing a scene here. Your memory needs to be wiped clean.
Music: STAGNATION (Yoshimi Kudo)
And with that, Shiba disappears into nothing.
All we can do now is leave, I suppose.
And we immediately bump into Nenji!
Are you looking for someone, Ogata-kun?
Sure am. Tomi Kisaragi.
Unfortunately, we do not.
Cant expect you to know.
Running wont change a thing.
Music: Who D-Unit (Yoshimi Kudo)
Fuyusaka-sans absent. What about Yakushiji?
Weve got some new Thought Cloud options just for this. Lets see
Consider Megumi Yakushiji
(Is she really on my side? She wants to change me back into Juro Izumi. Can I trust her ?)
Consider Q-ta Shiba
(Shiba-kuns not actually human. And not only that Hes been manipulating my memories. It seems his goal is to turn me back into Juro Izumi. I wish this was all just a dream.)
They added a new line onto the end here for some reason.
Consider Iori Fuyusaka
(Fuyusaka-sans out today. But I feel like She might know something about all this.)
Consider Shu Amiguchi
(Maybe I could ask Amiguchi-kun. On the other hand Its getting late. Hes probably gone home already )
Consider Ryoko Shinonome
(Shinonome-senpai She knows about Juro Izumi for sure. I should go talk to her. Hopefully shes at the nurses office.)
Please wake up.
Ngh
Im Juro Kurabe.
Kurabe
Please help me.
What happened?
Use Q-ta Shiba on Ryoko Shinonome
Juro, Ryoko doesnt know who that is.
Hes been messing with my memories And replacing them with Juro Izumis.
Music: Cognitive Dissonance (Rikako Watanabe)
Izumi-kuns ? Thats odd. According to Morimura His memories were lost for good.
Ms. Morimura? Our teacher? What does she have to do with this? Im talking about Shiba-kun.
Who is Shiba-kun?
Kyuta Shiba. He called himself personality 48Q. Im the only one who can see him.
In any other game Id be worried that Ryoko thinks Juro is out of his gourd right now.
Im sorry I dont know anything about that.
Well If Izumi-kuns memories were transplanted into you Does that mean you know about his past?
I saw it all in the form of dreams and movies.
What happened in them?
What were your dreams like?
Use Shootout Dream on Ryoko Shinonome
Fuyusaka-san and I went back to the past. We bombed the facility that was said to be the source of it all But the police caught us, and we ended up in a shootout.
With Iori Fuyusaka ? This is all news to me
Use Terrible Dream on Ryoko Shinonome
I went around killing students, one by one. I wouldnt let any of them get away. Among the dead I saw people I knew Like Fuyusaka-san And Yakushiji.
Izumi-kun did that? It cant be Theres no way he would do such a thing.
Use Visitor from Another World on Ryoko Shinonome
Shiba-kun gives me memories on video tape.
Video tape ?
Somehow this is still the most insane part of this whole thing.
Fuyusaka-san told me theyre all real events from the future.
Like what?
I made it back.
So were back to these names, eh?
Music: Power Of Destruction (Mitsuhiro Kaneda)
I arrived right in the middle of the invasion. Barely made it back in one piece. I dont think the world had much of a chance.
Is that a flier from a movie theater?
Logs indicate it shut down sometime in the Heisei era. But at the time I visited, it was right there in Tsutsuji Ward.
And Sector 3 is in 2025. Thats another 40-year gap.
This machine only lets us travel to specific time periods All of which are under attack by the invaders.
Why are they showing up in the past?
I have no idea
We have no record of such an invasion occurring back then. If thats the case, its inconsistent with history as we know it.
Youre right. It was just last year that we were invaded The year 2104. That was the first and only time. If there were a kaiju attack prior to that, we would have known about it.
We must be dealing with a time paradox.
It could have caused reality to split into parallel universes.
I like how the characters are equally dumbfounded about this as I am and are throwing out equally harebrained theories. I dunno, maybe the kaiju broke spacetime?
We know that kaiju technology allows for time travel. Its not hard to believe that would impact the future in some way.
While this device does appear to be a time machine It may be premature to make such assumptions.
An earthquake
A big one.
Something feels weird about it
Its reached zero.
Dont tell me This shaking is
Its time.
The very Earths crust is crumbling. This is an unprecedented disaster
Several areas now report an elevation of below sea level Is it sinking into the ocean?
At this rate, well be going down too.
So this is what the countdown was for It may not be possible to survive this. We have no choice We must seek refuge in the past!
What?
Are you serious? If we do that we might not ever come back.
And if we stay here, we die.
When its all set, Ill join you. Please, get to the device.
All right. If youre setting our destination coordinates Let me suggest Sumire Bridge. Amidst the destruction I saw earlier, that bridge was still standing.
Its not letting me select any sectors. I dont understand my commands arent working. I need to find a time itll let us travel to. Stay in the device.
Just hurry, okay?
I dont know what year that is But its the only destination we can access right now.
Music: A Cruel Thesis (Yoshimi Kudo)
I cant. Its not letting me set a timer. Ill need to operate it manually. Go on without me!
Music: Staring Into The Void (Yoshimi Kudo)
Were in 2089 now. We traveled 16 years back in time.
I see So thats why. Look over there.
No wonder Century Tower isnt there. It wasnt built until 2100. Itll be over ten years from now before it goes up again
Lets go. Tsukasa-kun isnt coming back.
Even the Shikishima State Building is missing
You agree with me Right?
Even your own mother wouldnt recognize you. Our citizen ID wont be valid here, either. We cant purchase anything or use public services. The city may look familiar But this is the world of 16 years ago. To us it might as well be a foreign country. But we cant go back. We have no choice but to figure something out.
The invasions going to happen again in 15 years. We need to warn everyone about it.
Will they even believe us?
All we can do is try. And if they dont Well take matters into our own hands. No one else knows whats coming. It has to be us.
It should still be buried underground. If we can find it, then
I get it now We can save Okino-kun. All we need to do is travel through time again
I cant say its impossible. But if were ever going to do that We need to make it through today. Lets find ourselves some food and a place to sleep.
Youre right.
Shall we?
*nod*
Wait was that the version of that scene that Juro mentioned to Iori? The one thats inconsistent with the version of that scene we already saw, where Shu was there instead of Juro?
Oh, my head hurts.
Living in societys shadows.
Ryoko quickly backs away from Juro.
Juro approaches again, and Ryoko takes another step back.
Music: Ennui Vibes (Yoshimi Kudo)
Its not one of your lost memories. If it involved rewinding time 16 years with Morimura Then it must have been him.
Who?
Hes gone back in time over and over again.
A time traveler? Thats crazy
Dude, you brought up time travel with the flashback just now!
The memories youve been seeing are his.
But his name is Juro Izumi. Does that mean hes me from the future?
No. Its a different Juro Izumi.
Oh come ON!
One who came from a lost world
Juro, personal space. Jeez.
I was told hes incredibly dangerous
My dreams are memories of a lost world? And Shiba-kun is that worlds Juro Izumi?
That man has nothing but his consciousness left. He transferred himself into an android and fled.
His consciousness?
Looks like Senpai isnt feeling so good.
Man
Stop this!
Oh, cmon. Ryoko Shinonomes a freakin weirdo.
Another lock, this time from Yukis story.
This latest chapter really threw a few wrinkles into this games conception of time travel, so were going to replace a pretty old mystery involving the discrepancy with the damage to the pillar in the Kurabe household with a broader mystery involving the myriad time travel shenanigans that are afoot, primarily: why are there no records of the kaiju invading the earlier time periods? Clearly theres some manner of split in the timestream, but why?