Part 88: Takatoshi Hijiyama 4

Chapter 88: Takatoshi Hijiyama 4





My yakisoba pan’s waiting for me…



I need to find Okino.



Consider Tsukasa Okino

(If I had to guess… Okino must be a cat person. Well… Not that that’s particularly important to know…)

Consider Sentinel

(So the Sentinel’s a weapon from the future…? It’s strange to say, but… it does make sense. After all, even one of its “computers” was so far beyond what we knew.)



Music: LONER (Azusa Chiba)




Where is Okino?






Hijiyama suddenly notices Ryoko as she turns around and jumps back in surprise. I feel the need to point out that she was only “hidden” because of the tree, which is not between them from Hijiyama’s perspective, so I guess he just wasn’t paying any fucking attention.




(But she’s so pale, and covered in bandages… In the tree’s shade, she looked more ghost than girl…)



(As long as I’ve gotten this close already, maybe…)



This is not the time.




Are we on for today?
*shakes head with pained look* …… I’ve got somewhere to be.
Well, all right.



Oof, sorry Juro. Let’s just try to get Hijiyama a drink.



Hijiyama’s thirst will yet go unquenched.




I like how Hijiyama can just stroll through a school he doesn’t attend wearing the wrong uniform. Man, people didn’t give a fuck in the 80’s! Or, er, they won’t the fake future 80’s. Whatever.




It’s Okino’s little friend again.



Does it live at the school?



That’s not his name!

Lucky?
You know, because he’s a lucky cat!



A cat of many names, it sounds like.



You just hang around this cat…




What, seriously?
I mean, it’s… it’s usually like, a couple coins…





Let’s see what’s under the box, shall we…?



We now have a new Thought Cloud item, “Change,” which will allow us to to perform the rather inglorious task of scrounging our immediate surroundings for loose coins. Let’s use it by this box that Shintaro the cat was sitting near.

Also, someone more in-the-know about Japanese culture please tell me the proper word for this box thing, it feels kinda weird just calling it a box. I’d like to at least know what it’s for, because a cursory google for the purpose I thought it served was not very helpful.

edit: Apparently it's for putting weather sensors in. Interesting!

Consider Change






That’s a lucky find.



I… dunno if I have the money.

By the way, we can Consider “Change” at any time, but if we do it in the wrong spot, this will happen:

Consider Change




Well, let’s head to the cafeteria and get our yakisoba pan.






I know you’re broke, Hijyama, but 150 yen for lunch is actually a pretty fair rate, considering that 150 yen in 1985 is equivalent to about $1.41 in USD today.



If we want to progress, we need to go back to the wooden school building from the cafeteria. The “path” through the school grounds is a big circle, for the record. We go from the wooden school building to the walkway to the break area or the schoolyard, and then from the schoolyard to the cafeteria to the wooden school building. We can also reverse that order. But we can only go from the wooden school building to the walkway, not back to the cafeteria.



None of that was important to understand, for the record, but it does explain why I go to the wooden school building here and then immediately turn around and leave the area for the walkway. It’s just a minor shortcut.



Kind of hard to see here between the dual camouflage of the bush and Hijiyama’s leg, but Shintaro can next be found at the walkway.

Consider Change





And that makes 200 yen, enough for a delicious yakisoba pan.




But if we head to the break area, we can buy a drink first. I doubt this game is going to allow me to softlock myself by spending all the change, so let’s do it.




Drink Canned Soda




But now we don’t have enough money to buy our yakisoba pan… However, we’re near some vending machines. Surely some clumsy students have dropped a few coins here and there?

Consider Change




Perfect!



He was looking under the vending machines. What do you think he was doing?
Maybe he dropped his change?
Oh, what? I wouldn’t go digging around for it. That looks so sketchy.

Embarrassing…



Well, let’s just get our grubby little fingers on some yakisoba pan, finally.



Wait… doing some quick napkin math here… the drink cost 100 yen? And the yakisoba pan only cost 150? Something’s wrong there. I know this is a boom economy for Japan and all, but that can’t be right. Maybe the 2188 folks fucked up the economy somehow and soda is now ludicrously expensive compared to actual food.




Consider Yakisoba Pan



But it’s okay now. Time to dig in…







Well, with that out of the way, let’s head back to the wooden school building and see if we can’t find Okino.



Is he not at school?





One of the Sentinels’ scout units… Why is this here?




Music: Between The Lines (Kikuchi Yukinori)



……
What’s wrong…? You can’t move? Something’s happened. Did Okino get him too?



Don’t tell me I’m going to have to carry him. What a hassle…
……
What am I, just another one of Okino’s cronies…?

Does Okino actually have any cronies besides you, Hijiyama?

I don’t have to run around cleaning up his messes.




Bj begins to roll away.







I’ll take a look…




Oh boy, some fresh 2188 mindfucks!




What’s wrong is this core system.
Oh. Figured it out, huh?



Music: Cognitive Dissonance (Rikako Watanabe)

Professor Shinonome found it. Deimos? Really?

Deimos!?

Everyone knows that’s one of the old kaiju survival sims. Even I played that thing all the time when I was a kid.

Wait, what!?

*chuckle* Don’t worry about it.



The kaiju come from a video game!?

I’m just reusing the infrastructure. Environment management code. Relax. We’re not gonna get kaiju popping up.

*laugh track*

Still…
And hey, faster than building the codebase from scratch. Right?



The work’s done. We’ve done all we can for the human race’s future.

There it is again, the implication that humanity is doomed…

As long as this colony’s life support holds out… As long as I’ve got even a second more, I’d rather spend it with you.
Tsukasa… …You’re right. I’d rather be holding you right now, myself. I’ll see if I can explain it to Professor Shinonome.
Thanks…




That wasn’t… me, was it…?



It’s impossible…




Put it up again.





Music: Emotional Storm (Yoshimi Kudo)




Why did it come to this…? It was all logistical debate over Project Ark. An energy dispute. And Tsukasa… He argued to cancel the plan. To divert the energy to life support. If that damn Ogata and his cronies hadn’t come armed… …No… Too late to point fingers now.




Holy shit! …But, hold on a minute. 2188!Ogata brought guns to this dispute… in favor of the continuation of Project Ark? Now, I know that the circumstances must have changed dramatically since 2188!Minami originally proposed it to 2188!Ogata, but he rejected the plan. What happened to make him change his mind, especially when it sounds like his life was on the line?

As for the survivors…





It won’t even take 20 hours. All we’ve worked for will be gone. …I came here so I could protect people. And now I’ll die here, with my friends’ blood on my hands…




I hope I live to protect them. Protect all my friends…

2188!Hijiyama’s voice is weak, but still breaking. He’s clearly on the verge of tears.





What did I… just see?





Okino…? Where are you!?

Hijiyama runs out of the old school building.



Back over with BJ and Ei…

That was… this world’s Takatoshi-san…



I brought him here. Looks like Okino’s with him, too…



Music: Beyond the Memories (Rikako Watanabe)








(But what even was that? ……)



…You didn’t go to school today?
Oh, yeah. I skipped to do a little time travel.
*momentary shock*



Were you out looking for me at school?
No, uh… not really?

This has nothing to do with anything going on in this scene but I just realized how wild it is that both Hijiyama and Okino keep hanging around Sakura High School considering the fairly high chance that either of them runs into Nenji, who they fucking kidnapped and who would absolutely not hesitate to start shit.



*blushes, shakes head* Why is that a good thing?





Music: Deafening Silence (Mitsuhiro Kaneda)






You led me right to Okino’s doorstep.
No… You’re here to kill him!?
Hijiyama-kun, calm down. He’s Ei Sekigahara. He and I play for the same team.
*shocked*

Oh, Okino, you and your ambiguous wordplay.

……
Isn’t that right?



I think I know why you’re here… You want what only I can give you.

Really laying it on thick there, huh?

You can drop the gun.





Please, help me.
Sure.



You two…? Don’t tell me…



Oh god, you poor bi idiot.

*chuckle* What if we are? What does that matter to you?



Okino, stop fucking with Hijiyama. He’s had a rough day.




So, that was a trip. A lot to go over now, but we’ll try to cover as much as we can.




We’ve already talked about the apparent 2188!Ogata inconsistency, so we’ll ignore that for now.




Seven deaths, huh? Anyway, let’s recap what we’ve learned:

• Presumably those seven deaths include Hijiyama. But who died? We know about Okino, Hijiyama, Ogata, and Izumi. Also, two survivors: Ida and Shinonome. That makes nine people alive at the time of the dispute.
  
• So… 2188!Okino was in charge of Project Ark’s infrastructure, or environment management programming, or something like that. We don’t know the specifics yet because his Mystery File is locked, unfortunately. But Okino reused old code from a kaiju-themed combat simulation, which I guess must’ve turned the terraforming machinery designs into “kaiju” when 2188!Shinonome altered things. Interesting.
  
• All this just goes to show that the key moral of this game is that lazy coding practices will lead to human extinction. …I intended that to be an obvious joke, but it’s actually really plausible and now I’m sad.
  
• We already know that 2188!Shinonome was the person who altered Project Ark so that the heavy machinery, the kaiju, will purge humans from all sectors and reset everything. This event explains how that might have happened a bit better: 2188!Shinonome was one of the last people alive on the colony, and she also knew about the Deimos program 2188!Okino lazily stapled onto Project Ark.
  
• This is a bit of a leap, but… when we saw that message from 2188!Shinonome in Yuki 3, 2188!Ida is probably dead by then, right? Possibly by 2188!Shinonome’s own hand, considering that it seems like 2188!Ida also betrayed her, and it would mirror what our own Ryoko did in a more recent event. It’s like poetry, it rhymes. Either way, it’s likely that she was the last person alive on the colony.
  
• What actually happened to the colony, anyway? How did it come to life support vs. Project Ark? How did the hangar get destroyed?
  
• Where was 2188!Morimura? She’s not even mentioned here, and Project Ark seems to have been her baby.
  
• A bit of a side note, but I believe the only 2188 characters we still haven’t “met” are Ida, Tomi, Ei, Juro, and Megumi, though we’ve heard about Ida and Juro. That’s just our playable characters, though. Holding out hope for the ultimate final boss, 2188!Miwako.
  

And of course, that’s not all, because… *sigh* It’s time for more nonsense with the conspiracy board!!!!



I added links to show that Izumi killed Okino and Hijiyama killed Izumi. Now, you may ask, why am I linking 2188 versions of characters with characters who simultaneously represent their “present” selves? And, honestly? I’m just doing it to make this all even more confusing.



I also link Tomi and Okino. We know she’s sneaking off with Okino for some reason, but we don’t know why.



And now for the part you’ve all been waiting for, 218—oh jesus christ

Yeah, this section got… mighty fucked up with this series of scenes. I removed “Project Ark?” because I feel like we have a decent handle on what it is at this point, but that was mainly for space concerns. I added nine new items to this right now, and linked relevant concepts as well.

All in all, I added:

• “Colony in ruins???”
  
• “Izumi killed Okino, Hijiyama killed Izumi”
  
• “Okino programmed Project Ark from kaiju simulator”
  
• “Terraformed alien planet” (this one was a long time coming, I know)
  
• “Okino and Hijiyama were together”
  
• “Ogata changed his mind, brought guns to defend Project Ark”
  
• “Project Ark preserving humanity”
  
• “Seven died in energy dispute (Project Ark vs. life support)”
  
• “Ida and Shinonome last two alive”
  

And here’s the whole thing so far. May god have mercy on my soul.