The snake bit its own tail.
A temporal closed loop.
No wonder Reimu said there would never be another Yamata no Orochi again.
No wonder Asakura Reimu said "I love you" to Moriyama Hei the first time they met.
No wonder the game felt strangely suffocating and unsettling during the initial playthrough.
Because...
Because—
This Asakura Reimu was actually from the future. After becoming the Sword Spirit of the Totsuka-no-Tsurugi, she had sent herself and Yamata no Orochi back to the present.
After experiencing so much, how could she not have feelings for Moriyama Hei?
Now it all became clear.
Asakura Reimu had repeatedly sent herself and Yamata no Orochi into this time loop, sacrificing them over and over.
But the realization brought a sharp pain to Koze Furukawa's chest.
Ouch.
Koze Furukawa clutched his chest, writhing in agony.
Nishinai!
Nishinai! Nishinai! Nishinai! Nishinai! Nishinai! Nishinai!
Pokeni!
Nishinai!
He looked up, and there it was: the producer credit read—
[ Kogahara Tsubakiaki ]
Old Thief Gu Yuan!
Nishinai!
[ Script: Urobuchi Gen ]
Urobuchi Gen...
Nishinai!
Huh?
This name... doesn't feel quite right.
Koze Furukawa distinctly remembered the script being written by a female author named Ishino Mika.
No wonder this installment felt so different.
Beyond the more rugged writing style, the sense of suspense and eerie atmosphere was completely absent in the previous installments.
But Koze didn't stop cursing the writer just because it was a man; the ending was truly unbearable.
So unbearable he wanted to mail a razor blade to Pokeni.
That suffocating feeling left his chest tight and suffocating, with no outlet for his emotions. He couldn't even cry.
Moriyama Hei had undoubtedly become the second Asakura Haruka, forever losing the love of his life.
And even if Asakura Reimu could travel back in time, her death would remain inevitable.
Dragging his exhausted and emotionally shattered body, Koze Furukawa collapsed onto the bed with a thud, like a plank of wood.
He just wanted to quiet his mind and get some sleep.
But his mind was filled with images from the game.
Asakura Reimu had become his new favorite.
Yet love had been so fleeting. Before he could savor even a fraction of its sweetness, Old Thief Gu Yuan had stabbed him in the back.
He'd thought the sequel would make up for the first game's shortcomings.
But neither Asakura Haruka and Yuuki Rei from the previous generation, nor Moriyama Hei and Asakura Reimu in this generation, had a happy ending.
All of them had been stabbed.
Stabbed to death.
It made him want to dismember Old Thief Gu Yuan piece by piece.
Damn it!
He felt so miserable, even more so than when he'd played Onmyoji 1.
But then...
After about half a minute, a faint smile touched Koze Furukawa's lips.
That's right.
This was the taste of Kogahara Tsubakiaki.
With that thought, Koze Furukawa abruptly sat up in bed.
"No way... If I keep playing the Pokeni games, will Kogahara Tsubakiaki turn me into a masochist?"
The next morning, his colleague Kinoshita Jun approached Koze Furukawa.
"Furukawa, I heard they released a sequel to Onmyōji! Did you get it?" he asked, his face beaming with excitement.
"Yeah," Koze nodded slightly, his heart heavy with frustration.
He glanced at the man and saw an intense longing in his eyes.
Tsk tsk.
"You haven't gotten it yet?" Koze asked.
"I... haven't yet," Kinoshita said with an embarrassed smile. "Since you already have it, why don't you let me borrow it?"
"No way!" Koze refused decisively.
"Why not?!" Kinoshita looked at him in astonishment, as if he were a monster. "Aren't we good friends? Shouldn't friends share things? I'll let you play my next new game when I get it."
"No way," Koze insisted.
"Damn it, why not?!"
"If you want to play, buy the game yourself," Yoshimasa Furukawa said sternly. "You make a decent amount each month, right? Besides—"
"Without our support, Pokeni might stop making RPGs altogether."
"Really?" Kinoshita hesitated. "Well, I don't really want to play anymore anyway. There are so many RPGs out there."
"Oh, what a shame. Onmyoji 2 has a storyline about Yuuki Rei."
"Really?!" Kinoshita's eyes lit up.
But then he remembered the game cost 8,000 yen, almost a day's salary. He flinched.
"Well, I don't really care what happens next. Onmyoji 1 was enough for me."
"Asakura Haruka met Yuuki Rei," Furukawa said expressionlessly.
"Ah—!" Kinoshita ran his fingers through his hair. "Damn it! Stop talking! I'll buy it, okay?!"
Following the extraordinary success and positive reception of Onmyoji 1, many players eagerly awaited the sequel.
On the day the game was released, a steady stream of players flocked to game stores to buy cartridges.
After experiencing the game, players even began discussing it publicly:
"Ah, what do I do? I feel so miserable. Old Thief Gu Yuan crushed me again."
"Yeah, it hurt so much I couldn't sleep last night. And this time... how should I put it? It's even more suffocating than when Yuuki Rei died in Onmyoji 1.
The thought that Asakura Reimu sacrificed herself from the very beginning, and that this cycle of sacrifice will continue forever, just breaks my heart."
As an RPG that could be discussed in such a way, the Onmyoji series was truly a peculiar example of a "comforting" game.
Before the Onmyoji games, even those who shared a passion for RPGs were often ashamed to admit it. But the Onmyoji series possessed a special magic—
If you play a game and don't talk about it with others afterward, you feel a heart-wrenching pain, like you're about to die.
You can't even sleep at night.
So it's better to just discuss it together.
Not for any other reason, but to find mutual understanding and solace.
When grief is shared, it becomes—
collective grief.
"It's infuriating that Yuuki Rei was killed a second time. Even though that body wasn't her anymore, when I saw middle-aged Asakura break down in front of her, I couldn't help but tear up."
"Indeed... even knowing it was Yamata no Orochi, that body was still Yuuki Rei. If it were me, I probably wouldn't have been able to strike the final blow."
"Isn't it the same with Moriyama Hei?"
Everyone fell silent.
After a moment, someone said, "Kogahara Tsubakiaki. Nishinai."
The group exchanged glances and nodded.
"Kogahara Tsubakiaki. Nishinai."
They shared a knowing smile.
"But still, we should support Pokeni's games properly. What if that old thief Gu Yuan stops making games in the future?"
"Right."
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