Per wiki policy, Spoilers Off applies here and all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned.
A murderous impulse seeps into my soul like thick, black tar.
A game about ancient mysteries manifesting themselves as curses that fall into the hands of people eager to use them? You better believe there's plenty to keep you up at night here.
- For starters, just the premise alone is enough to let you know what you're in for. The town of Honjo is suddenly plagued with deadly curses, manifested into netsuke carvings that allow anyone to use them at peak efficiency, regardless of their skills in curses or black magic. While some Curse Stones end up in the hands of those who refuse to use them like Yakko and Tsutsumi, thus keeping their effects from hurting anyone, others end up in the hands of those with less morals like Ayame and Nejima. And the game pulls no punches in showing just how horrifying it is to be killed by these things.
- Even taking into account the power they give you, picking up a Curse Stone is not a fun experience. Without exception, every single Curse Bearer who touches their stone for the first time describes how the memories of the curse echo's last moments flood their mind, and how their murderous, vengeful rage fills their heart immediately. More than one character describes how they feel like this murderous impulse will push them to do something they regret if they're not careful.
- Yakko obtains her Curse Stone, The Fool's Procession, fairly early on into her route. She resolves not to use it, until she sees Mr. Jonouchi, someone she believes to have a part in her friend Michiyo's death, talking with a student after school hours. In that instant, she flares up with uncharacteristic rage, and immediately decides to use her Curse Stone to kill him. The only reason it fails is because Mr. Jonouchi turns around as he hears the song Yakko's Curse Stone produces, and sees her before Mio forces her to flee the scene. Yakko thanks Mio for helping her, saying she has no idea why she did that. Which makes sense, as we later learn that she is possessed by the vengeful spirit of Michiyo, and in that moment Michiyo took control of her and forced her to try and kill Mr. Jonouchi in her stead.
- The Nejima's Reminiscence ending is by far the most horrifying of them all. Nejima has been threatening to cause a massacre using his Curse Stone pretty much all game. After Tsutsumi and Erio mess up their one chance to bag Nejima and he escapes, he damn well makes good on his promise. Nejima's Curse Stone is The One-Sided Reed, which is revealed to kill people via cutting off an arm and a leg so long as the Curse Bearer knows the name, age, face, address, occupation, and current location of the victim. And as the janitor of Komagata High School, Nejima had access to the personal info of every student attending the school. The game describes how over 300 innocent high school students are suddenly dismembered out of nowhere while sitting in their homes. Imagine enjoying some time at home, only for your arm and leg to suddenly sever from your body without warning or any identifiable cause. If that's not enough, the game then tells us who Nejima (and presumably Yoko) revived with the Rite of Resurrection: Ashino, the evil onmyoji whose bloodline is responsible for everything happening in the game.
- Harue's ending, Harue's Legacy, isn't terrifying on its own, showing nothing more than Harue's revived son apparently living a happy life and meeting with Richter at some point in the future. It's the leadup to the ending that's terrifying: Harue meets with Ayame in the Shigima home, and Ayame threatens to kill her with her own Curse Stone, The Taiko of Tsugaru. Harue, for her part, decides to strike first, activating her Curse Stone in the middle of their conversation and burning Ayame to death in front of Richter. The game does not cut away from Ayame's body, making you watch as she burns to death and her skin melts off.
- And if you mess up the conversation and cause Ayame to throw away the lighter she was carrying, thus negating the activation requirement of The Haunting Clappers? Harue still takes matters into her own hands, as she picks up the lighter Ayame threw away and lights Ayame's dress on fire, thus fulfilling the condition of her curse anyway and allowing her to kill Ayame all the same. After all, the curse just says the victim needs fire on them. It doesn't matter how they got it.
- Harue activating the conditions for Ayame's curse isn't much better. Due to The Taiko of Tsugaru's curse, she is beaten to death. While we don't see it, we see Harue's screams as she is slowly beaten until she dies, and it's horrifying.
- Speaking of Harue, most of the time she looks like a calm, collected woman (if a little dead on the inside), but the (fortunately few) moments where she becomes panicked have her usually beautiful face become distorted in a very unsettling and disturbing way.
- Shogo killing Yakko in the prologue. Unlike other Curse Bearers who were after his life (and whose murders could be ruled as self-defense), Yakko made no such attempt and the mere sight of her Curse Stone was reason enough to murder her in cold blood with a curse of his own.
