Wednesday 23 October 2019

When the Cicadas Cry Out "Dear Sweet Jesus What"

This'll probably be hilarious to imagine nowadays, but the Higurashi anime was probably the first anime to actually unnerve me a little, by the end of it's first arc. Watching everything slowly go to shit around Keiichi was a hell of a time, I tell ya what. Then I read some manga arcs and they had some creepy pages going on, too. Hell, when I got around to the original sound novels, thinking I was too toughened up to be caught off-guard, BAM! Nude Satoko sprite out of nowhere to traumatise me.

Let's just say that Yandere-hen THE CONTINUATION by YuuyaKizami21 doesn't quite reach that same level of creepy atmosphere. Or tragedy. Or nuance.

Keiichi was held captive by Rena for long. It is time for him to escape. Sequel to Higurashi No Naku Kori Ni: Yandere-Hen. Yandere Rena x Keiichi. Bad summary, rated T for Yandere. Multiple endings.

Nice and simple, I suppose. Evidently, this is a sequel to a previous story by this author. I started with the sequel because I saw it first and I'm just hardcore like that.

Multiple endings though, huh? Can't wait to see how that turns out, I guess.


I've lost track of time. I've lost track of how long I was within that psychopath, who killed all of my friends... Only because they were just hugging me that day.

So Mion, Shion, Rika and Satoko all felt the need to hug you on the same day, huh? Wonder if this includes other pals like Oishi. Or maybe Chie.


She said that they were 'Lewding' over me, trying to take me away from her. She even raped me a few days after I got kidnapped, and she called my friends hugging me is Lewd!?

Welp, joke's on me, I'm the genius trying to poke some fun at this line here.

I would like to point out, if nothing else, it's hard to take the horror being kidnapped and taken advantage of seriously when the catalyst involved allegations of 'Lewding'. The capital L is apparently important here.


Now I am locked up in a bedroom, in Her new home that she somehow bought in Tokyo.

Somehow.

I'm not gonna bother pretending I know anything about Japan's layout, especially when you have to involve a fictional village, but surely, surely, this trip to Tokyo involved moving to another prefecture entirely. No one noticed anything unusual about this trip? A girl clinging to a terrified boy the whole way through, or luggage that emitted muffled screams of help?


My left leg was chained, which extends to the bathroom, here, and the kitchen.

So did the chain come with the apartment, or did no one question the high-school girl buying herself a manacle?


She was not home currently. I tried to remember what did she and I conversed about last time.
"Keiichi-Kun~ Reina wants to go shopping for our needs, OK?~" She asked me.


As opposed to shopping... for... the neighbour's needs...?

-So after Keiichi bravely insults her and receives a slap, he's left alone-

Now it's been hours, no... maybe more... I am completely lost track of time.
Then Suddenly I heard the front door opening and closing. I then heard whoever it was who opened the door walking up the stairs.
"Help..." I said weakly.

Given that this is supposed to be Rena and his... okay, Rena's apartment, it seems weird to obfuscate whoever entered the place like this. How mysterious.

Then I heard a gasping sound from the other side of the bedroom door. It's clearly not her.
Seconds later, the knob was turned and the door opened, revealing a long black haired girl who is probably in her high school year.

gasp omg no way help has arrived

Please don't question why this random high school girl decided to break into someone's apartment for no readily-apparent reason.

"Please... Help me-" I was trying to plead to her so she can free me, though it got interrupted as I saw another figure behind her.
I widen my eyes as the figure raises her right hand, carrying a machete.

Oh, well that can't be Rena then. We all know she uses a billhook, it's like her signature weap-

The poor girl was then sliced from head to groin by the figure I feared so much.
Rena Ryugū.

Ah. Well, uh... that's... that's a really sharp machete, then. Y'know, since it apparently cleaved through a girl's skull, and worked it's way down with no resistance whatsoever?

Is... is Rena stronger than Jason Voorhees?

"She is nobody, Rena. You don't have to-"
"Kill her? Well NO! I KNOW SHE'LL TAKE YOU AWAY FROM ME, JUST LIKE THOSE 4 SLUTS WHO LEWDED YOU!"


Fits perfectly, doesn't it?

-Rena suddenly gets a headache-

She then puts her hands down, and opens her eyes, revealing the snake slits that she had when she kidnapped me.
"Aha... AAAAHHH! AHAHAHAHAHAHAA!"

I wonder if anyone ever actually notices a change like that, especially with all the hallucinations going around. Somehow I kind of doubt it's an actual, physical change... but then, I also doubt Rena would have the power to smack Jason around like a ragdoll, and look where we are.

"What's wrong!?"
"You're as hard as the others!"

Uuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

"You're just like all those parasites in Ibaraki! Being so stubborn!"

Oh okay yeah that's what I thought you meant.

"And now, you are going to be with me... BY FORCE!" She took her machete.
She raised it, and swung it on me, but I dodged and the machete hits the chain, cutting it off. I then punched her in the head with all my might. She went down instantly.

Well, uh... that escape sure was easy. So that was all it took, huh? tricking the super-powered high-school anime girl into cutting a chain with one swing of her machete, then downing her with one punch, man. At least it's a simple matter to just walk out the front door, huh?

I quickly head out of the room and close the door. Then I walked downstairs to the front door. I turned the knob and...
"Of course It's locked. Why? Why exit?" I asked sarcastically.

Oh, huh. Weird. I guess Rena had time to silently close and lock that door when she followed the schoolgirl into her own apartment. Well, that's fine, just return to her unconscious body, get the key from her pocket, an-

I then begin to search the house for the key, I checked the kitchen, bathroom and living room. The only place that I haven't checked is the basement.

???

Why would the key be anywhere else?! If it's anywhere, it'd be Rena's pocket, Keiichi! If you're gonna faff around like this, at least tie her up or something, gawd.

It's a huge basement, it had 2 rooms, however one of the rooms are filled with dried blood, and had hanged bodies. Is she planning to eat them?

...No? Why would she eat those bodies? ...Why would she be hanging bodies in the basement, anyway?

...Why does an apartment have a basement, let alone one this huge?!

And I looked at the second room. Inside looks like an interior of a church, many seats.

AND HOW THE HELL DID RENA SET ANY OF THIS UP BY HERSELF

And in the end of the room lies 2 mannequins. One wearing a wedding suit with a KEY hung on it's neck as a necklace, and the other wearing a wedding dress.

...Is... is this apartment built by Umbrella or something? Why would Rena keep the key to the front door inside her recreation of a church in the oversized basement of an apartment? How did she have time to enter the apartment, bypass the schoolgirl without being noticed, trek all the way up to the mannequins to hang the key, then return all the way back to Schoolgirl-chan, arm herself with a machete in the meantine, and then kill her in the time it took for that girl to open the door and ask why a young guy was chained to the wall?

Just saying, there might be one or two slight discrepancies going on here.

"Darling! Come back to me!" I heard her calling.
Drat.

Drat, drat and double drat. The killer yandere has woken up. If only he had some way of preventing her from given chase, but alas, that half an hour of free time he had just wasn't enough.

I quickly took the key off the mannequin and just as I turned around...
"Traitor." I saw her, tilting her head, with those snake eyes. I also saw maggots crawling out of her neck.

Author cleverly weaving in the symptoms of Hinamizawa Syndrome into Keiichi's narration to make the maggots look real, or the author deciding the maggots are actually there and crawling out of her... we'll assume she has wounds on her neck. YOU MAKE THE CALL

"Get away from me, Rena!"
"Rena? Who is Rena? My name is Reina!"
I stood still, dumbfounded.

"Seriously is this really the time for your pedantry I'm trying to escape from your murderous clutches here."

"So that Rena had finally fooled you that she is Rena? That's actually a fake name."
I quickly ran and pushed her away, unable to chit chat with her for long.

Well, to be fair, he's probably a little pressed for time. Pushing Rena - sorry, Rena... Reina? Whatever - aside was a bit rude, but hey, we've all got places to be, I suppose. They can chitchat another time.

I then ran back upstairs, and went to the kitchen briefly to take a knife as a weapon, before running to the door and unlock it. Just as I unlocked it, I heard her voice again.
"You really are hard." She grabbed my neck and pins me to the door.

It's cute that Keiichi even bothers getting himself a weapon, considering Rena's super strength, super speed and super stealth. She was pretty broken in that Daybreak game, wasn't she?

Also, Rena, please. I'm starting to think your phrasing is deliberate, here.

-Keiichi stabs her stomach, but the superhuman Rena pulls it out with no trouble at all. So Keiichi totally for realsies promises to be with her forever and ever-

I took the knife quickly, and stabbed her in the right eye.
"We could have been a perfect couple..." Was her last words, as maggots were crawling out of her eye, and she falls backwards.

...That's all? Nothing else to say? No "why though" or "holy fuck this hurts" or even "CRAAAWWWWLLLIIIINNNNG IIINNNNN MY EEEYYYYYEEEEEE"? Feels a bit bland for her last words, to be honest.

It's over. She's dead already.
-Neutral Ending~ Free at Last.

...Well, uh... sure, I guess. Good thing there's no loose ends to tie up in this timeline. Rena's dead, so that's it. No, never mind the two halves of the murdered schoolgirl at the end of the hall (I think that's where she is. This apartment's layout is more fucked than that house in Handshakers), or the bodies hanging in the giant basement. We're all done here.

...Well, there's two more 'endings' toread, and since they're so kind as to start at the bit with Kei pinned to the door, we might as well take a quick look at the Bad and True ends, I suppose.

Chapter 2: Bad end
A/N this is the bad ending.

Thanks, Yuuya.

There's no way I can forgive her, for what she had done all this time.
"I'll pass. There's no way-" I said, but then was silenced with a kiss on my lips.

Just ignore all the blood that's spurting down your throat, given you plunged a knife into this anime Terminator's gut a second ago.

I felt a bunch of slithering things going inside my mouth. After she let go of me, I saw that maggots are crawling out of her mouth.

Seriously though Rena you might want to see someone about that it's not normal to have so many maggots living in your mouth.

-Then Keiichi begins to itch everywhere and maggots crawl out of him-

My vision began to darken, and the last thing I saw is that she cries out blood, and is grinning widely.
"Now you are Reina's property, darling. You're Reina's forever..." Is the last thing I heard.
Then everything went black.
Bad end- Devoured by love.

I feel like killing him is a bit counter-productive to 'owning' him, but hey, what do I know? I lack experience with murderers, psychopaths, and girlfriends.

Time for the True End! Hopefully this is where all the super fun happy times go.

I can't escape. This is already my fate to become her's.
"OK, I promise. Forgive me." With that, she let go of me.
Then I felt an intense pain in my back, and everything went black.

...Did the door punch him? What exactly happened there?

When I woke up, I see that I am in the basement, in the church like area. I looked at myself to see that I am wearing the black wedding suit, and I already wore a ring.
Then I looked at the benches, to see skeletons instead of people sitting there.

I suppose when the groom's unconscious, the wedding reception is a lot more boring than normal, huh?

So wait are these supposed to be the bodies from before? Slight difference between corpses and skellies, y'know.

"Rise and Shine, darling. Who do you love?"
"You."
"Who do you obey?"
"You."
"And who is that?"
"Reina Ryugū"

Is it my general lack of experience talking again, or does these vows seem a tad one-sided.

She then smirked and slaps me in the face. Blood began dripping from my mouth. She then grabbed my chin and forced me to look at her.
"It's Reina Maebara~"
-True end~ Broken and married

...Uh... yay? I think? Uh... sure, okay.

So, uh, wow. That sure was something. Not sure how to feel about the 'true end' being cool with, at bare minimum, domestic abuse, with the implicit and very real threat of bloody murder via Umbrella-sponsored serial killer schoolgirl keeping these two together. I am most definitely sure that this was not a good story, however.

If I can put aside my own dislike for bleak, depressing stories, this story lacked so much detail and logic to everything from it's premise to every action and line of dialogue given, I can't understand what the point of any of this was. Besides, surely you realise that Rena's real charm are her silly noises and quirky speech patterns, speech patterns?

At least Rika can safely ignore this particular loop.

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