めた *ahem* META
Ladies and gentlemen, it's time for a Hot Springs Episode. So what's the chances of this not being fanservice? And no Skinship Grope occurring?Well, the way to mess with this would be for some kind of disastrous event to occur while on the way to / in the water. We shall see.
Caution! Do you load it?
のｔ META
Apparently, Hibari's fine with baths as long as she's not alone. She seems to be looking forward to it, even. Uhm, apparently she might just be acting. Well, I'm not Japanese, but I can't say I picked it up from the VA. Ah well; this may well be amusing.
"Let's strengthen our bonds by socializing naked!"
Tanomura knows where it's at, ladies and gentlemen. Hibari engages him in a furious argument about this, however; she wants a degree of separation. Tano does not care. At all.
And then he says the two genders can bathe on different sides, as the two non-autistic women run away. What a tragic moment. Aroe finds no issue with taking a bath with the men, of course. Fade into CG, and we have a moment which I'm sure some fangirls would appreciate, showing our three guys in the bath. Tano's showing off his entire chest, in fact. Tano's dissappointed that the men and women couldn't bathe together, and Taku admires his apparent composure. Tano replies that no no, he faps a lot when he's able to. After some teasing from Tano, Taku admits to fapping a bit as well. Tsuka, though, doesn't really like such activity. Well, he has a weak right hand. Tano then wonders how the women are doing in this aspect. Takuma, ever the prude, asserts that women do not masturbate. Well, apparently Tsuka has noticed Aroe do it from time to time.
Tano, verging into pervert (yay!) territory, vows to satisfy rather more voyeuristic tastes if at all possible. By peeping, of course.
Takuma's offered some sake by Tano, who realizes the relaxing situation, then angsts about liking his situation despite the less-that-ideal conditions around him. Tano offers his wisdom about it not being bad to enjoy the moment, then offers Tsukasa some - he accepts, but worries that the others may be drinking too much. Taku quickly realizes this as being problematic, showing off his worrying nature; Tano does not agree with the sentiment, though. Hmm, contrasting characters.
Tsuka relaxes, and wonders if they shouldn't share some with the girls. Is this a sneaky way to see a bit more of them? Perhaps. Tanomura opposes, as the women are hiding their breasts.
And that, ladies and ladies, is a crime.
Hibari overhears them talking about something delicious... And visits them by climbing over the rock wall, providing a rather meh character-pic. Sadly, she's wearing a towel, the bastard. She breaks the bad news about TsuYuka to poor Taku-chan - Yuka's rather taken. Except she doesn't because Yuka pushes her into the water. And Tsuka dodges the subject too... Oh dear.
Then Aroe randomly walks out of the bath! Ohshitohshitohshitohshit. The high energy DnB track plays, letting us know that this is some serious shit. Aroe playing in the snow. Serious shit. So serious that when Hibari notices she's actually completely naked after getting out of the bath to chase Aroe, she attempts to steal Yuka's towel.
Tano appears pleased to oversee this development. Oh, and then he actually offers to let Hiba-chan borrow his towel. I swear, this guy is the best. Too bad, they refuse on grounds of personal hygiene.
Meanwhile in the world of not being an idiot, Tsukasa is chasing Aroe. Apparently, she's slippery due to being covered in soap. This means, he calmly reasons, that to grab her he will have to be more... forceful. The only option appears to be hugging her! And so he does, because he's not a goddamn idiot. The screen fades, and the perspective shifts to where the rest are. With Tanomura providing live commentary on Aroe's attempts to evade out Tsuka-sama. Apparently, this is such a scene that even Takuma agrees that is... something else. Yuka and Hibari, meanwhile, are hugging each other, and Tano-chawesome attempts a boob grab, eliciting a powerful kick in response. Our poor Tano-chan is knocked out. With a smile on his face. Takuma takes over narration duties after this.
Tsukasa has finally subdued Aroe somewhat. She is, however, playing with something Tsuka-chan's not too pleased to have her touch. And, sadly, we soon reach the end of this excellent segment of comedy.
ACT 2, SCENE 3
The fun and games thus concluded, the men are shown to be doing some useful work for the shelter - apparently, they were unable to escape being roped into the administrative department. Expo time - apparently they're running out of space in the shelter. As they return to camp, Yuka is cooking, as one might have expected. Hibari is having a snowball fight with Aroe, as might have been expected. Taku is discussing technology at the generator, as might have been expected.Tano wonders if physical labor is really good for Tsuka. Tsuka, though, apparently has no useful skills other than just that. Is Tsuka-chan secretly feeling guilty because he's no real use, as he can no longer play the piano (as) well? Perhaps - he seems to be working himself hard. Hurt/comfort between Yuka and Tsuka approaching? We shall see.
Because the mood is getting too festive, Tsuka gets lost and overhears the head doctor lecturing his staff for being wasteful with their supplies, say, on patients that will die anyway. Their job is to save your life, not to hold your hand while you die, after all.
Because the mood got grave, we get a calm scene again, or something. Someone actually put this game in Utsuge, lolololol. This time, it's some discussion of Aroe. Hmm, and the peaceful music stopped; Hibari's somewhat concerned. Aroe seems to only behave based on repetition and ritual, apparently. Well well. She wants Aroe to be able to have fun, do things spontaneously, that stuff... She has no human-like hobbies, as she puts it.
Aroe is more or less a robot, and must become a human, Hibari says. Having fun in non-human ways is sad! Well, Hibari has grown very attached to Aroe. I suppose Aro-chan has some moe potential.
Hmm, what was that scene with Tsuka back at the hot springs, then? Clearly not fun.
Meanwhile, Aroe places a go piece on the floor, as she's beeing doing for a while now, and it makes a nice noise. She laughs. But is she happy? Such deep questions are raised, ladies and gentlemen. If only they had the tvtropes Useful Notes on autism available, surely they could know something more about her plight/nonplight (I will refrain from reading it, as I wish to emulate the characters' way of thinking).
Hmm, Tanomura might be using his last name only, as his father is called Tanomura-san as well by the camp leader, Hiba. And then he holds a mostly meh-ingness short meeting about making sure to keep the peace with the other admins. Hahahahaha, admins, awesome title. Afterwards, there is socialization with people not of our core group. Hell, Taku even finds someone who plays his MMO and talks with him. Presumably this is to show our characters are not antisocial, as we don't really see much of interaction with non-main characters. Tsukasa feels isolated, though - and then Yuka greets him with a smile. Fade to black.
Act 2, Scene 4
Tsukasa happens to be passing by the head doctor's room - he's called Kakizaki, by the way, and has his own facepic (so does Hiba). The good doctor is wearing headphones while doing paperwork of some kind. Using his super-hearing skills, Tsuka-chan identifies the piece as The Nutcracker - classical music, of course. As the head nurse has been complaining of the doctor's refusal to take a break even for food, Tsukasa attempts to persuade him to stop this, but quickly realizes he will not succeed. As he turns his back, though, Doctor Overwork collapses. In fact, his condition is so bad that he can't resist Tsuka picking him up and getting him to a nearby bench - nearby due to people being heavy. He then sensibly calls for a nurse, who gets him a drip. As expected from Doctor Stupid Stubborn Overwork, he soon wakes and demands to be left alone so other patients can be tended to. Tsuka, however, has the excuse of lack of physical strength and thus stays with Kakizaki-sensei. Kaki immediately eats the humble pie about his situation, and tells Tsuka to leave again, since he's fine now.Any bets on him not getting up again? Well, people do seem to act less stupid than usual in this vn, so maybe it's 50/50. Also, he can barely move.
Except Tsuka does not agree with the prospect - politely but quite firmly. Seriously, this guy is so fucking cool. Also, apparently his dad was conducting for the recording he heard earlier. While Tsuka-chan is slightly flighty about revealing that he is in fact an Amako, he gives his full name when asked. And since it's convenient, apparently Kakizaki has heard him play, oh, twelve years ago. In a restaurant. He still remembers it, and is somewhat sad that Tsuka-chan did not become a pianist, which Tsuka politely apologizes for. Of course, he wants to hide the reason for his unfortunate fall from glory.
Kaki-sensei apparently has an interesting story to tell, though. Mostly in the form of a past-tense flashback from his POV, with occasional conversation. Through various ways, he was failing as a medicinal researcher due to his bad interpersonal skills, eventually getting kicked off a big project. Aften this, he got the emos bad and started not caring, because that's what you do (hmm, why does this seem so... intimately familiar to me? Hmmmmmmm...). And then, he hears about Amako senior, who was apparently a fairly unreliable man and had cancelled two concerts in a row due to women or something. For whatever reason he eventually finds himself guided, by a guy speaking japanese that was apparently a foreigner, to the pretty meh restaurant Amako junior was playing at - and the performance changed his lief!
The reason wasn't necessarily that Tsuka's performance was great (but it was), but that he stayed completely focused and unaffected by abuse flung at him by the guests (due to his father's many ills). Looking at the piano-pwning boy, he realized that his emo was stupid and pointless and stuff, and went home and started working again. But now, he sees Tsuka-chan has apparently gotten lazy or something, and is very distressed that the boy he thought to be so unflappable and committed has in fact stopped playing - it messes with his new idea of the world. He asks Tsuka to leave, And he does.
Well, if Tsuka ain't locking this up in himself a bit. Though I can see why... Presumably this is his potential drama/personality depth source.
Cut to the night, and our hero is sneaking into the off-limits-due-to-risk-of-collapsing school building. He wants to play the piano again - presumably he was touched by the doctor's words. Yuka, presumably stalking him, notices. As one might expect, she asks to join - and he agrees, because today is different somehow. Being the rather emotionally suppressed man he is, we do not find out his fear of performing with an audience until he's just about to do it. After all, his mental state is not so good today. I suppose Taku's observation on his character was fairly correct.
After playing some music and thinking to himself how horribly horrible he's being for even playing when he's so shit at playing, the piano must hate him now oh god, and then Sasaki-san (still Sasaki-san) commends him and wonders if his right hand is really injured, or he's lying.
He tries to display how horribly horrible he is by playing left-hand-only plieces, and yes, his playing is indeed better this way.
And his hate of his terrible, terrible play and possibly self continues as he walks away from the room. He feels he's losing his connection with reality and seems to have a metaphorical hallucination of a boy with no left hand, who wants his. Well, this guy has problems - is he hiding these hallucinations from everyone, in fact? He seems to strain himself to act normal after he's called out of his unpleasant reverie by Sasaki-san, and thinks he is - though she still seems worried. This implies, perhaps, that he's got some experience in hiding things.
Or I'm overanalyzing.
Another day, and our horrible-at-piano hero wakes from a clamor. Because of his responsible/atoning/something nature, he makes his way towards the admin(awesome) department as he hears voices coming from it. Apparently the hospital, which is now not holding that many patients as most have been moved to the shelter, has experienced some slight trouble. In fact, it's on fire, and some people have died. Some strange people have attacked them for no good reason, it seems. As Tsuka arrives ro investigate on Hiba's orders, he smells smoke from the fires, and is treated to a scene which stuns him for a moment. People crying, raging, and in general being rather emotional or shocked, plus quite a few burning corpses. Wow, this is a pretty creepy scene. Because I'm actually forming the mental image, I feel it's hard to stay detached. Well well, that's good, isn't it?
Tsukasa gets himself together, and asks for Kaki-chan. We then experience an interesting narrative technique used, as two women exchange short expository lines alternatingly. They speak in near-monotone voices, and might be in the initial stages of PTSD according to my degree in e-psychiatry. Basically, there was much fire and blood and people stabbing other people. Really, this thing was pretty good, possibly worth playing the vn for if you're looking for interesting ways of narrative. Kakizaki, defiant to the end, screamed his displeasure at their actions - for which he was knocked down and set on fire. As the the voices explain, quite a bit of his body is just a black mass.
I was wrong about there being no good reason; in fact they were three men, and had sensibly decided to raid the place for food and medicinal supplies and reduced the amount of mouths to feed as compensation.
Fucking dicks.
I mean, there's absolutely no point to setting the people on fire, it's not like they could fight back. Very shoddy job, really. Also, killing people tends to be wrong, so there's that too.
The others of the group of main characters have apparently gathered at the unpleasant place too. Tano's been gathering information, some of which I have presented to you earlier because that made for better writing and shit. He's quite angry, and wants to chase the culprits. Meh, what's three knives anyway? It's not like anyone could get hurt in a knife fight. Well, perhaps he's brought his sword; there's that to think about. Guy could probably slice you three ways to sunday if my estimations are correct.
Oh, and immediately after I wrote that, the text mentions that he is, in fact, holding his japanese sword. Maybe I should do some readahead before speculating.
Naaaaaah.
Takuma, having learnt a valuable lesson about weapons, is holding a long stick. The knifemen are on foot, and carrying heavy bags, so our heroes should be able to catch up with them. Hiba objects, for their help is needed at the scene of the crime as well. However, Tano rejects this proposition, and actually runs off after them. He's pretty confident in his sword skills... Or pretty stupid. Or both.
The other men of note follow, Tsukasa included despite him probably being pretty bad in a fight due to his bad hand and stuff and Takuma included because what the hell maybe he'll stop being a fucking wuss one of these days (lolno). Both of our non-awesome-swordguys are wielding sticks. Let's hope they're sturdy ones.
They soon find footprints. Bloody footprints.
Their secret to pwning the attackers will be Tsuka's hearing superpower. Against a backdrop of recycled city-CGs, they walk, Tsuka on point.
And then, he faintly hears a woman's voice ahead of him.
