Now that we’re back in the lockdown, nothing’s really changed on the surface. Demons are still around, demon tamers are still around, normal people are still trying to stay out of the way (though one guy in the flavor text is a little baffled that the world didn’t end yesterday like it was “supposed” to. We can do a couple scenes where the crew revisits some of their old stomping grounds from earlier in the week such as Miyashita Park and Aoyama Cemetery where, as odd as it sounds, they reminisce some of the things they did, like sleeping in the park’s shelters or encountering Wendigo in the graveyard. By the third event in the sequence at Tokyo Dome where we beat Wendigo and changed the death clock for the first time Yuzu’s back in her more resolute end-of-Day 6 mood that had to be ignored to make this path work, and she’s in a good enough of a mood to more or less ask Akira to come with her on a date to the amusement park here after everything’s over (while, in a reversal from the usual roles, Atsuro spends the whole time whining about how thirsty and hot he is).
But before we go too far into the day, there’s a very important Ikebukuro scene that disappears after 11:00 that we absolutely need to see. It takes place at Eikokuji Temple where the crew finds the remaining three Devas, Bishamon, Koumoku, and Zouchou, in deep conversation. Bishamon balks at first at the idea of letting humans in on their problem, but the three eventually agree to let us in on their discussion: they’re debating over what to do about the barrier that protects Tokyo from demons, since as we learn in the other routes Jikoku’s death has weakened it, and as more demons appear in the city it grows weaker still, and it will eventually collapse entirely. What they need to restore it is something called the Artifact Sword which is imbued with the fallen Deva’s power, but they don’t know what the Shomonkai did with it. So we offer to help find the sword, and Bishamon apologizes for being curt with us before and tells us to return it “by evening”. See, this 8th day actually has two different endings, and which one you get hinges on the completion of this optional sidequest, and between its events and the mandatory ones for the day, you have no room for error whatsoever. If you accidentally wait too long on one step, you can kiss the whole thing goodbye, and I’ll be resetting a lot in order to cover as many scenes as I can.
Other than that, there’s a scene in Shiba Park where the crew briefly sees Honda, still deranged, duking it out with a bunch of demons in search for one strong enough to grant his desire, and then there’s another in Akasaka Tunnel with Fushimi and Izuna. There we can overhear that after we escape Izuna took Amane into custody and it looks like the government’s planning to try her for bringing about the lockdown if they can’t capture her father. Meanwhile, Kaido’s still at large and a soldier comes up to report to Fushimi that there’s a team who’s trying to engage a girl who’s being called a “witch”, clearly Midori, elsewhere.
Let’s do something about that. We can find Midori being pursued by an SDF team bent on capturing her too at Shinjuku, and a handful of demons join the fray as well, drawn by Akira’s power of Bel. So let’s get in there.
Yuzu Mission 5
- All enemies must be defeated
- The whole party cannot die
- Midori cannot die
Now, despite the mission objectives stipulating Midori’s survival, whether it’s through a bug or an oversight she doesn’t actually appear on the map as a unit. Can’t really worry about keeping someone alive when they’re not even there!
Which is good, because as seems to be the trend for this day there are a lot of enemies on the map. Five SDF teams and six endgame-level demons, including Ariochs. They won’t attack in concert of course, they’ll duke it out with each other whenever they can, softening each other up so that we can swoop in and finish them off. Oh, and the Ariochs find new ways to be assholes by pairing with Mithras. These guys will try to paralyze you with Paral Eyes (gee, that’s almost a Dragon Quest-level pun) and then use Death Call to insta-kill whoever’s affected. I had to reset ‘cause one of the buggers ruined my “no team leader death” attempt with that combo.
Completing the mission earns us 2700 EXP and 1900 macca.
Midori materializes out of nowhere after the battle to fill us in on what happened to her after we parted yesterday, which is that while she was on her way home the guys in the black vans tried to capture her so she just decided to come back to the lockdown to get away from them. After Atsuro figures that the government’s going to try using their parents as leverage to get them to surrender she rejoins the party and we’re on our way again. Our next stop is Ikebukuro where we find Keisuke with Shoji. It was the same story with him, and Shoji’s been helping him hide out from the SDF. Atsuro worries that she might get implicated for helping them but she shrugs that suggestion off, saying that she’ll see the lockdown through to its bitter end. So, Keisuke rejoins the party while Atsuro and Akira think that Shoji can be pretty cool sometimes...apart from her weird newfound 8th day sense of humor.
There’re two scenes with the crew hiding from Izuna and learning from Haru that now the SDF is trying to hunt down all the demon tamers if you want to watch them, but the event I need to see is down at the Sengakuji Temple, where the SDF has cornered Kaido. His COMP charger’s broken so his batteries are dead and he can’t fight back. Like in the above battle demons arrive too, so even though Kaido doesn’t look like he’s going to be very appreciative we’ve got to get in there and bail him out.
Yuzu Mission 6
- All enemies must be defeated
- The whole party cannot die
- Kaido cannot die
Also like in the Midori battle Kaido doesn’t actually appear on the field so we don’t have to worry about keeping him alive. The SDF soldiers are a little stronger now, and if you’re unlucky enough to have them concentrate fire on the human you could be in trouble if they gang up on someone. Still though, they’re kinda cake. The demons share Elec and Force weaknesses which is nice, and one of the Fafnirs had the final Command Skill I needed to crack, Final Strike, so yoink.
Completing the mission earns us 2900 EXP and 2100 macca.
Kaido reluctantly joins the party after the mission’s over with. He’s Lv. 66 and predictably specializes in Strength and Vitality. He’s quite strong, but since he has low Speed and Agility he can’t get as much out of Multi-Strike as Atsuro can or act as often, so there’s really no real need to have him do anything but warm the bench.
Our next event is an important one at the Diet Building, where the crew finds a host of angels after Naoya. Of course Naoya’s hardly concerned, boasting that whoever harms him will receive vengeance seven-fold as the story of Cain and Abel said. Fushimi runs onto the scene to implore the angels to let him go, for the government wants to arrest him for his role in triggering the lockdown. Just like with the policeman yesterday the angels are completing dismissive of his opinion, even when Fushimi challenges them to a fight. So finally, he says that if they won’t listen, then he’ll inform them of what the government has decided: the completely sever ties with the angels, and that they will solve this crisis on their own. The crew steps in here, unwilling to see him get killed, and he reluctantly agrees to escape, saying that he’ll be back with reinforcements. Naoya’s finding this whole charade very entertaining and says that he’ll tear the angels apart.
Yuzu Mission 7
- All angels must be defeated
- The whole party cannot die
- Naoya cannot die
Unlike the last two missions, Naoya actually does appear on the field and will fight alongside us. The angels will focus on attacking him over us when they can, but he’s very much capable of taking care of himself and can defeat them without much trouble.
Completing the mission earns us 2800 EXP and 2000 macca.
Fushimi returns with the promised backup after the battle and marvels at our power but he still wants to arrest us. But before either side can make a move a light begins to shine down from the sky and a large, silvery angel descends from the heavens. Oh hey Metatron, I’ve actually had you in my party for a little while now. The generic soldiers flee in terror as Metatron introduces himself to those remaining and Naoya says that as the Lesser Tetragrammaton we’d best hear him out. In fact, Metatron’s so special that the presentation changes to show his artwork taking up both of the 3DS’s screens to show how enormous he is compared to the other characters.
Metatron’s message is essentially a tit-for-tat: just as the Japanese government has declared that they will no longer have ties with the angels, Heaven will no longer have ties with man, who are hereby “cast out from our hearts and eyes” for continuously rejecting God’s mercy and failing to eradicate the demons as we promised. Atsuro outraged at this literal “holier-than-thou” attitude but is told that any wailing or protest will fall upon deaf ears. Metatron ascends back into Heaven, and the death clocks all vanish, save for the party’s.
Naoya immediately says that this is cause for celebration, since mankind has finally won its eternal freedom from God and that all that’s left is to take responsibility for our actions. That’s really rich of him, acting like he has nothing to do with any of this. Like seriously, he almost word-for-word uses the “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” argument as applied to the COMPs to deflect blame away from himself. Yuzu asks him to help them figure out a way to get rid of all the demons, and predictably his answer is to have Akira become overlord. But without Jezebel being around becoming the King of Bel isn’t an option anymore, so now our only recourse is to kill all the demons in our world while also finding a way to prevent more from getting in. So we have to beat the current summoner, and that means Belberith, who’s still up in the Mori Tower along with all the other Shomonkai members.
And since we met with the Devas and learned about the barrier earlier, Naoya gives us a keycard that he says will help us in that endeavor. So time to get moving, even with the angels gone we’ve still got a lot of work left to do.
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