[x] "Thanks for saving me"
-[x] But taking your option would mean that not only I'm a liar, but a coward as well. Even if I don't remember, I'd probably still feel it. Call me romantic if you will.

Well, Okuu is a danger to everyone so keeping this a secret is out of the question. And lying to Koishi is also not an option because, unlike her canon counterpart, she seems to read completely conscious thoughts as well. Like, y'know, lies.
As of who should know... I suppose that, if Komeiji manages to put her down asap, there'd be no reason to make an incident out of this.

>--and then it's over.
Huh, I wonder what that was all about. I was getting kinda scared that glas had pulled one over us with the assurance over the last update. I'm pretty impressed and quite surprised how this situation resolved itself. Thinking about it, this was just about the only way Taizou was going to make it out of there alive. I wonder if she would have showed up if had ran too?

Honestly, her offer is pretty tempting. I'm probably just about the only one that doesn't unconditionally hate Koishi (I reserve that for her incarnation in AFT), and it feels like some of the abuse we get from her is due to how antagonistically Taizou decides treats her. She pretty accurately summed up our situation and what each decision probably entails. Anyway, for Taizou the person, a mind wipe is actually pretty appealing. Set aside all the nastiness of the genocidal hell raven aside and back to his "normal" days underground. He's got more than enough going on keeping the oni from wrecking everything without bringing Okuu into the situation.

For Taizou that is our character in the malleable prologue of SA, there's only one option: No thank you to the memory wipe, and apologize to Orin because there's no way you're going to let this be a secret anymore. Orin has done all that she could, Taizou tried the diplomatic route, then he tried to beat his resolve into her, all to no great effect. Keeping this a secret from Satori is impossible short of the memory wipe or just flat out avoiding her. I know she can't read memories, but not thinking about Okuu even once while we're around her is next to impossible (speaking of which, how has Orin managed to keep this a secret for so long?). Avoiding her is going to exacerbate the problem between Satori and the oni, and that's just going to rile up Okuu even more. On top of that, it would seriously strain Taizou's relationship with the oni and the Ancient City in general.

If we choose to walk this path, we're going to have to break Orin's heart and strike out into the underground with a new purpose based on what we've learned. We can really only talk to a few people about this, mainly Satori and Yuugi (maybe Yamame, but I doubt she has much of a mind for politics and doomsday scenarios). First thought was to go straight to Satori, but going to her with no leverage or general understanding of the situation would be foolish and dangerous. We really need to confide in Yuugi that we've found what was destroying the crops, it's happening because of how the oni are behaving towards Satori, if the oni find out it could cause something even worse to happen, and we need to work with Satori to defuse the situation.
The Komeiji sisters seem to be the only ones capable of stopping Okuu right now, and the youngest seems content to enjoy the spectacle. I just hope Satori doesn't take this opportunity to become a dictator.

[X] "Thanks for saving me"
[X] "I can't choose to forget this though, so I'll have to decline your offer."
[X] "After that, well, as much as I hate to say it, I guess you're going to get your 'spy thriller.'"

I want to add something about wanting a sweet piece of the romance novel, but the analogy is stretched enough as it is and say that while very desirable, the opportunities to romance Yuugi seeming to be dwindling away as we unravel the story. It's great how frequent updates are now, though. Feels like we're starting to get into the dense part of the story, so having it flow like this is great. Keep up the good work glasnost.

[X] "Thanks for saving me"
[X] "I can't choose to forget this though, so I'll have to decline your offer."

>>5420
I was thinking Orin can avoid Satori pretty easily, since she is a cat and Satori is busy with the oni most of her time.

Yeah, I guess I wasn't too clear here. If you could, include in your vote a decision on what you're going to do after turning down Koishi in terms of your agreement with Orin and/or talking about Okuu with someone. Not that any of the current votes are invalid or anything, but if there isn't a consensus on a plan of action at the end of this vote, the next update will probably be fairly short so that I don't end up making a decision for you.

>>5423
Oh, don't be that way. I was referring to the little barbs like "step away from the keyboard" and >implying, and nothing further. I think I've made it perfectly clear how much I appreciate the discussion that ULA gets, both on a personal level and in terms of contribution to the story, but I'll say it again by way of apology: thank you.

[X] "Thanks for saving me"
[X] "I can't choose to forget this though, so I'll have to decline your offer."

And it'll only get worse from here.

[x] >>5420 and everything he said.

Koishi could just make Utsuho forget about her whole evil overlord idea.

>>5430

I don't think Koishi CARES about that. Like she does about almost anything. She could completely rewrite her mind, but she simply doesn't feel like doing so.

>>5418

No matter how good of a liar you are, you always have a bit of guilty conscience when you lie. She can read the subconcious part of your mind, which includes the conscience, as it should be part of your super-ego.

(I'm not sure about the use of "conscience" in the english language, as I see it rather rarely. Hopefully everything was comprehensible.)

As for the vote:

[X] "Thanks for saving me"
[X] "I can't choose to forget this though, so I'll have to decline your offer."
[X] "After that, well, as much as I hate to say it, I guess you're going to get your 'spy thriller.'"

I guess that's the Koishi fanboi in me, telling me we should've accepted her help right from the beginning. Bear with me.

[x] "You saved my life, Koishi, and I thank you for it, regardless of how our previous interactions may have played out. Let's hope I've gotten the wrong impression of you, after all."
-[x] "I must decline your offer, however, as tempting as it might be on the surface. I don't think I could stomach abandoning my responsibility both to the Oni Council and the people of the underground city, Oni and Youkai alike. Despite how I may have been treated by some of them, I honestly believe they deserve better than that. I seem to have a tendency to try to help with other's problems, sometimes to my own detriment. I will stand by what I believe, though. After all, one of the main reasons humans and youkai mistrust or hate one another is a lack of understanding. If no one takes the first step towards reconciliation, nothing will ever change. In the end though, you are in the position of power here, not me, as I'm sure you know full well."
-[x] First and foremost, if you can, inform Satori in some way about what you learned about Utsuho and her intentions. Make it clear that while you can understand a desire to protect the hell-raven, there are others living underground and on the surface, and they deserve better than total annihilation, regardless of past misdeeds on both sides.
--[x] Suggest that Satori herself inform the Oni Council of the situation. They have a right to at least be informed. It also needs to be clear that brute force on their part would be both useless and potentially disastrous. This will probably not sit well with them. It may be in both Taizou's and Satori's best interest to explain the situation to Yuugi, as well. She and a few others may be the only ones capable of dealing with the council in a way that doesn't result in all out war.

Utsuho needs to be made to understand the reality of the, admittedly unsatisfactory and unideal, situation and the effects her actions could have in working against her ultimate goals, rather than for. Mutual understanding between humans and youkai, something that would by no means be simple or easy to achieve, must be reached through compassion and communication, rather than use of (excessive) force which can only result in more of the same. Many humans and youkai may not at first be receptive to any sort of cooperation, but open-mindedness, kindness, and respect often can have surprising effects. While there will always be stubborn or prejudiced individuals, having vocal leaders working towards a relationship that is, if not symbiotic then at least mutually beneficial or respectful, will go a long way towards achieving shared goals. Satori is by far the most likely candidate to be successful in this regard of anyone in the underground city. Yuugi could help significantly in this, as could Orin. If Utsuho is as important to her as she seems to be, she should want this to come to a peaceful solution as much or more than anyone else, hard as it may be to stand up to her power-crazed friend.

This vote puts a lot of faith in Satori, but I'm not sure we have much choice. It also assumes Satori isn't completely aware of Utsuho's intentions. Hopefully that's not a misconception on my part. And that she won't be totally opposed to dealing with her pet, and attempt to hide bird-brain's 'master plan' and misguided zeal.

This may be modified or removed when I sober up. I'm not sure I'm really in line with Taizou's character, here, but I think the sentiments fit. Feel free to pick and choose. Probably would've have made this half as wordy, if not for the fact that this seems to be a rather pivotal decision in the story, much more so than the last.

Taizou doesn't know that without his involvement, events would play out in a relatively bloodless manner, with Utsuho being taken down by Reimu or whoever. We as readers also don't know for sure whether the events of this story match exactly with canon SA. On top of that, even if Koishi wipes our memory, and makes it so that we go back to where we started down this path, I'm not sure if she'd be able to completely undo or negate the effects we've had on the underground population, for better or for worse. That'd be a whole lot of mind-wiping, and while I wouldn't put it past her, it just seems implausible.

>>5424
Sorry, I was being pissy and lazy. I'm drunk now anyways, and its probably better all around this way. I'll edit this for consistency and coherence in the morning. I wouldn't want a half-assed decision made in one of my favorite stories here.

[x] "Thanks for saving me"
[x] "I can't choose to forget this though, so I'll have to decline your offer."

[X] "Thanks for saving me"
[X] "I can't choose to forget this though, so I'll have to decline your offer."
-[x] Explain the situation to Satori and ask for her for her opinion on this.
-[x] Explain the situation to Yuugi and ask her for her opinion on this.

I don't care if we get a short update, we can't make a decision such as this without the point of view of the two main parties. That said, I want the council to find out but not on their terms. They seem intended to start a war or something.

[X] "Thanks for saving me"
[X] "I can't choose to forget this though, so I'll have to decline your offer."
-[x] Explain the situation to Satori and ask for her for her opinion on this.
-[x] Explain the situation to Yuugi and ask her for her opinion on this.

Sounds good. They are probably the two most well-minded people and at opposite sides of the "war", although Satori will probably take care of it when Taizou tells her.

[X] "Thanks for saving me"
[X] "I can't choose to forget this though, so I'll have to decline your offer."
-[x] Explain the situation to Satori and ask for her for her opinion on this.
-[x] Explain the situation to Yuugi and ask her for her opinion on this.

Works for me~!

[X] "Thanks for saving me"
[X] "I can't choose to forget this though, so I'll have to decline your offer."
-[x] Explain the situation to Satori and ask for her for her opinion on this.
-[x] Explain the situation to Yuugi and ask her for her opinion on this.

Satori seemed kinda reasonable. Much more than I expected actually. And Yuugi is a given.

[X] "Thanks for saving me"
[X] "I can't choose to forget this though, so I'll have to decline your offer."
-[x] Explain the situation to Satori and ask for her for her opinion on this.
-[x] Explain the situation to Yuugi and ask her for her opinion on this.

sage for worthless vote with no discussion

[X] "Thanks for saving me"
[X] "I can't choose to forget this though, so I'll have to decline your offer."
[X] "After that, well, as much as I hate to say it, I guess you're going to get your 'spy thriller.'"
[X] "Speak to Yuugi about what you've learned."

Talking to Yuugi and Satori seem mutually exclusive to me. That is to say, I don't know how to talk to both without a fairly significant choice being necessary after talking to the first. I remember Satori (would have) made some threats of violence (if she thought it would have been an effective way of keeping Taizou quiet). Without Yuugi's backup, I assume the worst if Satori got to Taizou first. I know that'll be an unpopular opinion, but we don't know enough about Satori and her motivations to hope for the best again. Hopefully I'll be proven wrong about not entirely trusting Satori, but until then, Yuugi first.

This isn't going to end well.

[X] "Thanks for saving me"
[X] "I can't choose to forget this though, so I'll have to decline your offer."
[X] "After that, well, as much as I hate to say it, I guess you're going to get your 'spy thriller.'"
[X] "Speak to Yuugi about what you've learned."

I'm unsure about whether or not to tell Satori before Yuugi, she may or may not go through with her threat. I think we need to know what Orin plans to do too, now that this plan failed, before going forward. Don't exactly need to lose the trust/gain another enemy right now. No mind wipe though, they'll just resurface anyway.
[X] "Thanks for saving me"
[X] "I can't choose to forget this though, so I'll have to decline your offer."
-[X] Ask Orin what she plans to do if you keep it secret

[X] "Thanks for saving me"
[X] "I can't choose to forget this though, so I'll have to decline your offer."
-[x] Explain the situation to Satori and ask for her for her opinion on this.
-[x] Explain the situation to Yuugi and ask her for her opinion on this.
They don't really seem mutually exclusive and if by any chance Satori (the elder) goes crazy and decides to do a 180º turn in her behavior by using violence, she won't risk harming a member of the council.

Called for refusing Koishi and telling both Satori and Yuugi. Updates may have to take a backseat to work temporarily, but I'm shooting for the weekend at the latest.

>>5434
Nah, this is fine; the only way the update was going to be annoyingly short was if you didn't make a decision with regard to your 'promise' with Orin.

>>5439
Oof. I can't even win for losing, it seems. I love you too, guy, so don't feel compelled to sage for no discussion.

[X] "Thanks for saving me."
[X] "I can't choose to forget this, though, so I'll have to decline your offer."
- [X] Explain the situation to Satori and ask for her opinion on this.
- [X] Explain the situation to Yuugi and ask for her opinion on this.

Orin, Satori, Yuugi, the rest of the oni... so many conflicting interests. You know you have to make a decision, but the longer you sit here, the harder it becomes to convince yourself that anything you could do counts as the 'right choice' anymore.

"Helloooo?"

You do know of at least one wrong choice you're not going to make, though. "No," you say resolutely, pushing yourself to your feet and taking a few steps backward, away from Koishi. "No... memory wipes, or whatever it is you do."

"Hmmm." Koishi doesn't move from her position on the ground, and her neck cranes backward awkwardly as she looks up at you, that vapid smile of hers taking on a more contemplative air. "Why shouldn't I?"

...So you only ever had the illusion of a choice here, after all. "Fine. Not like I can stop you," you spit, masking your fear with anger. "Try not to knock out the part of my brain that reminds me to breathe while you're in there. Unless you feel like killing me, in which case, hey, be my fucking guest." Masking your fear with anger rather poorly. At least with Okuu, you had a chance to defend yourself; with Koishi, you won't know what's coming, even after she hits you with it.

"What? Don't be silly!" Behind you. You wheel around to find her on her feet a few yards away from you, adjusting the brim of her hat as she looks off into the distance in the direction that Okuu flew away. "I promised, right? I would never play with your precious memories without your permission."

You breathe out. You don't believe her for an instant, of course, but if she's playing coy like this, then maybe she really does plan to let you go.

"I just want to know why." She turns toward you, folding her arms behind her back. "Since if I were you, I would just forget."

"And just ignore Okuu until she puts her plan into action?"

"But that's what you were doing before, right?" she asks, looking genuinely confused now. "Keeping the door in the underground garden a secret."

"That was before I knew there was a genocidal maniac down--"

"But you knew there was something that Sister didn't want the oni to know about. Before you came down here, you wouldn't have known if she was keeping something even more terrible than Okuu down here, and you decided to keep her secret. Now that you know exactly what it is, you're going to tell everyone!"

You take a step backwards. Koishi hasn't moved yet, and her voice is still calm, but there's something in her eyes that you don't like. "That's because I trusted her to--"

"That's strange, right? Sister didn't lie to you at all, but now you trust her less! Even when the only thing that's changed is you!" And now that something is in her voice, sending her pitch up just a little too high as she stares at you. Funny, how you'd never noticed how that perpetual smile of hers doesn't quite reach her eyes. "That doesn't make sense, does it? People should be more consistent in how they think about things than that, shouldn't they?"

"Hey, maybe I made the wrong decision before," you admit, taking another step backward. "All I know is what I'm going to do now." And you do know, you realize. As much as you'd like to make Orin happy, this is too big to keep a secret anymore; you've got to tell at least Yuugi, if nobody else, and the two of you can figure out where to go from there. "You have a problem with that, you know exactly what you can do. Until that time, my mind's made up."

But before you've even finished speaking, any sense of malice you were feeling from Koishi is gone, and when she smiles at you, it's the real thing, or at least as close as she ever gets to the real thing.

"Okay, then! If you've decided, then I'll go get Orin so you can leave! Bye, Taizou!" And with that, she finally moves, turning on her heel and bounding-- no, skipping away into the darkness.

"That's... it?" you mumble to yourself. You were expecting things to turn out... well, less pleasantly for you.

"That's it!" she calls back without turning around, even though she should have been well out of earshot.

...Huh. Maybe you've misjudged Koishi, after all. There's no denying that she's not really right in the head, but when it comes down to it, she has saved your life multiple times now, and for all the antagonism between you, she hasn't actually caused any permanent injury yet. Maybe the two of you just got off on the wrong foot?

Well, except the wrong foot was her trying and failing to wipe your memories. And there was that time she made you strangle yourself--

Ah, screw it. "Koishi?" you call after her retreating form.

"Yeees?" Off in the distance, Koishi stops mid-skip, one foot still in midair, and without putting it down, she twist-hops her way back to facing you again. "What is it, Taizou?"

"Thank you for saving my life." A brief pause. It seems like it would be much less awkward to say this if the two of you weren't 30 paces apart. "Uh, twice." Another pause. "That's it, really."

Even from this distance, you can see Koishi's head slowly turning sideways until her head is at a 45 degree angle, brow furrowed in confusion. She stays that way, unmoving, unspeaking, for at least 15 seconds, just staring at you--

"Okay!"

And then, with a single word and another flash of that smile, she jerks herself back around 180 degrees and continues skipping, rhythm unbroken.

...Well, at least you feel better. Sort of.

For the next few minutes, you're alone in the dark, waiting; the thought occurs to you that Koishi may have just left you down here to die, but you manage to ignore it long enough for Orin to show up.

Or at least, for most of Orin to show up. Physically, she's unharmed, but even in this dim light, you can see that she looks a mess; her eyes are puffy and bloodshot, and the cat ears on her head are turned sideways and folded down, drooping like... well, like the ears of an unhappy pet. Clearly, Koishi told her about your plans. Saves you the trouble, and yet...

Well, there's nothing you can do about it now. "Hey, Orin," you say neutrally.

No response. She carefully avoids meeting your eyes as she walks past you, and she doesn't even speak as she motions for you to follow her. With nothing left to distract you from the pain of your injuries, you hobble your way through the cave in uncomfortable silence, Orin keeping a firm distance between the two of you as she navigates.

It's not until you can see the light of an exit off in the distance that she finally breaks the silence. "Taizou?"

"...Yeah?" you reply, bracing yourself for the worst.

"I'm... I'm sorry."

...Oh? "Huh?"

"For l-leaving you alone with Okuu." She still hasn't turned toward you, but the sound of her voice tells you well enough how she must look right now. "You could have gotten h-hurt, and I... I..."

"Hey, don't worry about it." Now that you think about it, her running away after all those assurances that Okuu wasn't dangerous wasn't exactly the nicest thing she could have done. Still, the time has long since come and gone for you to get angry about that, and it certainly wasn't on your mind during the actual fight. "I can hardly blame you f--"

"No!" But Orin isn't content with that. "I shouldn't have done it! It was dangerous and wrong and if I had been there..."

"No, really, I forgive you--"

"--and if I had been there, I would have been able to stop her! S-She's not really as strong as she looks! So..." She's slowed to a halt now, and as you try to move around in front of her to get a look at her face, she hurriedly turns away, hunching her shoulders as though to keep you back. "So don't think of Okuu as a bad person! She's not!"

...So it does come down to this, after all. "Orin--"

"She's not! Even if she talks like that, she wouldn't really hurt anyone! So... so you don't have to..."

'Wouldn't hurt anyone'... you bite your tongue to stifle the retort that rises to your mind immediately; that's not going to do anybody any good. "Orin, your friend..." Is insane. "...needs help. I'm sorry there wasn't anything I could do, but just letting this stay hidden doesn't help an--"

"So just let me keep talking to her!" Finally, Orin turns on you, apparently oblivious to her own tears as she forces her face up to yours. "If you can't do anything, then you should just stay out of it! Then nobody has to get hurt!"

"I don't want to see Okuu hurt either. Nobody does," you say soothingly. Probably not strictly true, but Orin's beyond the reach of logic at this point, anyway. "I'm not making any plans, and I'm not going to take any sides. I just want to talk to a few people and see--"

"Not Okuu, you-- you-- arrgh!" With a sound somewhere between a growl and a high-pitched whine, Orin actually shoves you,and then stomps her way right back over into your face before you even finish stumbling backwards. "You idiot! You don't understand Lady Satori at all!" she screams, fists clenched at her sides.

Wait, you don't understand Satori? "What does--"

But she's already gone, sobbing loudly as she sprints off towards the light that marks the exit to this cave, and before you can even think to give chase, her human form disappears, and the black cat left behind in its place melts into the darkness and vanishes from your sight.

Even knowing it was coming doesn't make it any easier to take. The rest of the walk back seems even longer than you thought as you try to remind yourself that you really are doing what's best and focus in on what you're actually going to say about this. It's just going to be Satori and Yuugi at first, you decide; you'll have to tell the council head eventually, but you want some time to figure things out for yourself before that, not to mention time to figure out an excuse as to why you kept this underground room a secret through multiple searches.

Of course, you'll also need one of those for Yuugi, you realize glumly. It wasn't actually lying, it was for a good reason, you were being threatened by Koishi -- you have a laundry list of decent excuses, but your limited experience tells you that oni as a whole are more interested in moral absolutes than they are in whether or not you were 'technically correct'. Honestly, you don't know how upset she'll really be at the revelation, but you already wish you didn't have to find out.

And one more thing that's been floating around in the back of your head for a little while now: you still don't know for sure that Satori doesn't already know about Okuu's plan. You don't want to believe that she's been lying about her innocence all this time, but you can't rule it out as a possibility, and if it's true... well, she's already told you that she has no moral qualms about using force to keep people silent. Is it really safe to tell her about this now, while you're alone?

The exit you've been heading towards, it turns out, isn't the one you came in through, but the secret door in the basement of the palace, and you step through the narrow garden and begin to make your way up the stairs that lead out into the main foyer. You're still not sure of anything -- what you're going to say, how you're going to say it, what you're going to do after that -- but you know that you're going to need to have at least one decision made by the time you reach the top of these stairs.

[ ] You need someone you know you can trust. Go tell Yuugi first.
[ ] Satori's pet, Satori's mansion... she deserves to be the first to know.

[x] You need someone you know you can trust. Go tell Yuugi first.
Of course. What else.

[X] You need someone you know you can trust. Go tell Yuugi first.

That other choice smells like a bad end.

[X] You need someone you know you can trust. Go tell Yuugi first.

[X] You need someone you know you can trust. Go tell Yuugi first.

A) Yuugi's the most neutral in this whole thing while Satori might get defensive. And Hey Oni don't lie.

B) Taizo needs some comfort.

Now the interesting part is how will this play out.

[x] Satori's pet, Satori's mansion... she deserves to be the first to know.
I still don't know what Satori did to earn such mistrust. The only justification for that would be if she already knows what is her pet going to do...
Since this feeds in canon (somewhat) I don't think so.

[x] Satori's pet, Satori's mansion... she deserves to be the first to know.
While I have a hard time believing Satori doesn't know Okuus plans, I'm going to give her the benefit of doubt, and trust her anyways. Than we can call this shitty day done, and go home and drink with Yuugi.

[X] Satori's pet, Satori's mansion... she deserves to be the first to know.

Surely Satori should be able to tell of Taizou's intentions in maintaining a peaceful coexistence between the Oni and Youkai. For him to be upfront about his discovery first with her ought to provide something of a restraint upon Satori's actions if she wishes to continue acknowledging Taizou's relatively neutral position.

Besides, unless she manages to get Koishi to erase everyone's mind of Taizou's existence, Satori shouldn't be surprised if a certain oni starts searching for Taizou and asking questions.

[x] You need someone you know you can trust. Go tell Yuugi first.

[x] You need someone you know you can trust. Go tell Yuugi first.

[x] Satori's pet, Satori's mansion... she deserves to be the first to know.
All my arguments have been said so...

[x] Satori's pet, Satori's mansion... she deserves to be the first to know.

At the very least whether we fully trust her or not, she needs to know that WE know about Okuu, and that we seriously feel that just leaving her in the basement is not helping at all. The Oni may have been/are looking for a reason to move, but if she hasn't been able to do anything with Okuu by this point...

[x] You need someone you know you can trust. Go tell Yuugi first.

Now to just avoid Satori until we can get to Yuugi. Not sure how much of a range there is on her mind reading.

[X] Satori's pet, Satori's mansion... she deserves to be the first to know.
It would be simpler just to do this now

I doubt she had actual intent to hurt him, especially since the Oni would become suspious if you disappeared.

[X] You need someone you know you can trust. Go tell Yuugi first.

To be honest I have no real problems with going to Satori... it just seems too easy... and that doing that right away would start even bigger problems.

[x] You need someone you know you can trust. Go tell Yuugi first.

[x] You need someone you know you can trust. Go tell Yuugi first.

[x] You need someone you know you can trust. Go tell Yuugi first.

In Yuugi We Trust

[x] Satori's pet, Satori's mansion... she deserves to be the first to know.

[x] You need someone you know you can trust. Go tell Yuugi first.

[X] Satori's pet, Satori's mansion... she deserves to be the first to know.

You're supposed to be helping the search through the mansion. They're probably already suspicious that you left.

>>5682
I'm not sure if there's a search going on or not at the moment. I doubt it since the sound of the door opening or such would be a big giveaway.

>>5682

You should probably read the updates before you vote. We're not currently searching the mansion with the counsel.

[X] You need someone you know you can trust. Go tell Yuugi first.

Can you also update a little faster now glanost, please?

[x] Satori's pet, Satori's mansion... she deserves to be the first to know.

What if someone from the council asks Yuugi if she knows anything? Or if she feels she has to tell them anyway? I want to know whether Satori knew before we blow the lid off this, and maybe give her a chance to tell them herself.

>>5695
Kinda doubt that since Yuugi kinda made a point to distance herself away from this mess. She just houses the neutral guy.

[X] You need someone you know you can trust. Go tell Yuugi first.

[x] You need someone you know you can trust. Go tell Yuugi first.

I don't think I already voted. Honestly, I'm not sure.

Yuugi wins, even discounting >>5664 (which looks like a first draft of >>5665 that was mistakenly left undeleted) and >>5711.

>>5692
I really hope so.

>>5711
Do what I do; hit the checkbox on every vote and try to delete them all at once. It'll tell you if any posts were actually deleted, and posts that weren't yours will be unharmed.

>>5715
Sorry about that, I wasn't aware that made it, but I went and cleaned that up.

[X] You need someone you know you can trust. Go tell Yuugi first.

Yuugi Knows best.

(I hope.)

You guys need to mellow out. While Glastnost's speed of updates is slow as fuck, generally they're good and of decent to long length. There's other stories to read on the site too you know, take a look through the archives.

That said, 1 update every two weeks at the LATEST would be pretty cool, and if not, a status update then.

[X] You need someone you know you can trust. Go tell Yuugi first.

It has to be Yuugi. She's the one person involved in all this who you know you can talk to without getting hurt (at least, not immediately, physically hurt), she's the most interested in helping everyone actually get along with one another, she'll be able to help you tell the council head when it comes time -- and above all, you really want to talk to her. It's been a long time since breakfast, and you've passed yourself back and forth between people who want to use you, people who want to kill you, and people who need their heads examined enough times that you're no longer sure who fits into which category. With Yuugi, not only do you know where you stand, but you're pretty happy to be there, too.

If you're going to get there, though, it means leaving here. Taking a deep breath and holding it, you hit the top of the stairs at a brisk pace and just keep on walking; through the door, across the foyer, out the main door, and into the street without breaking stride. You don't see anyone, and if anyone sees you, they keep it to themselves.

Just as you had hoped. The coast looks clear out here, too; not really that surprising, given that the search was already ending when you snuck off to meet Okuu the better part of an hour ago. With a last look behind you, you head down the stairs and out onto the road. From here, you'll cut through the edge of the city, but after that it's just empty road all the way up until you get back home and--

"Hey, Taizou!"

--meet Yuugi?

Sure enough, when you turn around to look, you find none other than your oni benefactor, raising a hand to flag you down as she walks across the street towards you.

"Wha--" Er, maybe asking what she's doing here is a little rude. "H-Hey, Yuugi!" you call back haltingly, waving back to her.

"Good timing!" she booms, greeting you with a clap on the shoulder as the two of you meet. "I was just comin' over to see what was keepin' you! So what, you get held up?"

...You were really hoping you'd have a little more time to straighten things out in your head before telling Yuugi. "Uh, yeah. About that--"

"Hey, you had to skip lunch searching, right? You wanna go get something to eat?"

Damn it. In any other situation, you'd be more than happy to accept such an invitation, but right now, the two of you need to talk about things that you'd rather not have overheard. "Sounds good, but before that," you say hurriedly, casting your eyes back and forth over the street once, "I was hoping we could talk a little bit about, uh--"

"Oh, that? Don't worry about it!"

...You just left the mind reader's house, right? "Huh?"

"You're talkin' about, uh," she hesitates, lowering her voice slightly, "what we talked about this morning, right?"

"Uh..." This morning was so long ago.

"Y'know..." Yuugi casts another glance over your surroundings and leans in a little closer, lowering her voice even further. "What you overheard?"

"Oh!" Ah, yes, the other person/group that wants you dead. "Uh, that was--" Not what you were talking about. "Didn't you say I shouldn't worry about--"

"Well, yeah, but you seemed pretty freaked out, so I figured I'd do a little diggin', figure out what's up." She shoots you a cocky grin and thumps her chest once with her fist, puffing up with pride. "And now I've got it all figured out for ya. C'mon, I'll tell you 'bout it over a burger."

"Yuugi, there's something else," you say hurriedly, and Yuugi turns back around, looking at you confusedly. "After the search, I was... well, I found... something out, and, uh..."

"Yeah? Something interesting?" she asks casually, still clearly not catching your drift.

"Something that we need to talk about soon." Still nothing. "Somewhere where nobody else will be able to overhear us," you add pointedly.

And now she gets it. The switch from confusion to shock comes almost instantly, but the transition to melancholy takes an unpleasant eternity as you watch Yuugi's happy mood evaporate bit by bit; first her slumping shoulders, then a heavy sigh, and finally an almost pained expression that's quickly hidden by a hand at her brow, massaging her forehead.

Damn it. If nothing else, it helps to know that you're not the only one who feels like you're up to your neck in this shit, but this isn't what you wanted.

"So... okay. Yeah." It sounds like she's talking to herself at first, and you're almost struck by surprise when she raises her head to look at you once more. Her expression is... resolute; no sadness, but none of the happiness from a moment ago, either. "So, you wanna... yeah. Okay." She sighs once more, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear idly. "Okay, let's head home. We can get som--"

"No."

"--n the way-- eh?"

Fuck this. You're rebelling. "I've considered it carefully, and I've come to the decision that I have nothing to tell you that cannot wait for a half hour. Now, you and I are going to go get some food, and God help whoever or whatever should stand in our way. Understood?"

And just like that, the resoluteness is gone, replaced first by utter confusion, then an uncertain smile as she shakes her head. "Really, we don't have to--"

"Yuugi!" The mock anger comes naturally, fueled by the leftover real anger at your circumstances, and Yuugi actually jumps as you step toward her, brandishing your index finger. "There comes a time in a man's life when he must put his foot down! I have put my foot down," you say, stomping the ground for emphasis, "and I do not intend to pick it back up, except to move it in the direction of a burger! Now, are we clear?"

Your final line is the last straw, and Yuugi's smile, growing steadily through your speech, breaks into a big, throaty laugh, and she bends double, grabbing onto your shoulder to brace herself as she shakes with laughter. "Crystal," she manages after a few seconds, wiping a tear from her eye as she looks back up at you with a grin.

"Excellent. Now," you say, bowing slightly and extending your arm to gesture down the road, "lead the way, if you would be so kind."

"Hm." Yuugi straightens herself back up with one last chuckle, eyes following after your gesture, and her expression turns thoughtful for a moment. "We're gonna have to run if we wanna beat the dinner rush, so..." And then, with a small step away, she reaches out and grabs hold of your outstretched hand. "Hope you can keep up!"

And before you can even realize it, the two of you are off, Yuugi's grip holding tight as she takes off down the road, pulling you off balance. You catch one last glimpse of her smile and hear her laugh echo back at you as you stumble awkwardly for a few steps, and you can't help but laugh in turn as you right yourself and pick up the pace, catching up to beside her as the two of you run off to who knows where.

---

"...And this is supposed to taste like meat?" you ask skeptically, peeling back the bun of your just-delivered meal to inspect the contents. It certainly doesn't look like meat.

"Well, no, it still tastes like tofu, that's why you've gotta cover it in sauce. But the texture," Yuugi says, opening wide to take a bite of her own burger, "is just like the real thing."

"I don't get the point."

"Cows don't eat rocks and dirt is the point. Meat ain't cheap down here, and oni without meat ain't happy oni."

"But it's still not actually meat, right?"

"Well, yeah, it's not like we actually need meat to live. It's just, y'know, a lifestyle kinda-- oi, are you gonna eat the damn thing, or just stare at it until it gives up and jumps in your mouth?"

"All right, all right, I'm eating," you say, parrying Yuugi's playful jab from across the table as you pick up the burger. You're actually a little surprised to see a meal like this down here; admittedly, the sandwich isn't exactly the most complex of humanity's inventions, but it only caught on in the village due to the relatively constant influx of people from outside the border. Does this mean that the oni are still in contact with humans on the surface somehow? Or maybe oni come in through the border and end up down here, just like--

"You've got five seconds before I hold you down and shove it in your mouth, Taizou. No joke."

You roll your eyes at Yuugi one last time and take a big bite. It's... sweet, but with a bit of a tang to it; something like a teriyaki sauce, but without the saltiness. The 'meat' itself is pretty flavorless, of course, but you have to admit that you wouldn't have guessed it wasn't the real thing if Yuugi hadn't told you.

"Not bad at all," you say, taking another quick bite almost as soon as you swallow the first one. It's got a little spicy flavor to it, too; even better. "What's in this sauce?"

She shrugs. "I don't have a recipe or anything. He puts in a whole load of molasses when he makes it, though." Well, that explains the sweetness. Not the spicyness, though. Wow, this actually has a little bit of a kick to it. "And ketchup is the base, I think." A lot of kick to it. Damn. "Oh, and there's like a barrel full of hot peppers in there."

Yuugi's hand reaches your glass a moment before yours, dragging it across the table and just out of your reach. "Makes me thirsty just thinkin' about it." Your fingertips just graze Yuugi's glass as she snags it with her other hand, holding them both at shoulder level on her side of the table. "Yes, indeed, I do believe I could drink both of these and still be thirsty."

"I will fight you, Hoshiguma," you growl, letting your mouth hang open to let your breath fight to cool the raging inferno in your mouth.

"Ooh, scary."

The small table squeaks against the floor as you make another fruitless lunge, and Yuugi leans her chair back on two legs, easily keeping herself and her hostages out of your reach.

"..." You're literally tearing up here. "...Please?"

With just the slightest hint of a smug grin, Yuugi wordlessly passes your glass back into your waiting hands, and you snatch it away instantly and drink, downing half the water inside in a single breath. As the pain in your mouth and throat slowly ebbs away, you collapse back into your chair involuntarily, gasping for air, and let Yuugi resituate the things displaced by your brief struggle. As the table squeaks back into position before you, you raise your head up at Yuugi once more, her expression meticulously absent any trace of malice or cunning.

"...It is pretty good."

"A little spicy, though," Yuugi says earnestly.

"A little spicy."

For the next few minutes, the two of you banter back and forth, talking about nothing in particular as you finish off your meals in short order (it's not that bad once you're expecting it, really). Yuugi was right to rush over here; in just the time it took for the two of you to get your food, the restaurant went from virtually empty to more than half-full, and the entryway is already full of people waiting for a table as the two of you make your way through the crowd and out the door back onto the street.

"So what was that you were going to say about finding something out?" you ask, following Yuugi's direction through the city.

"Ah, yeah. Nothin' much, really, I'm still thinkin' that the whole thing's not gonna be that big of a deal, all told." She shrugs. "I think I can tell ya who you overheard back then, though."

"Really?" That sounds like a pretty big deal to you, given that you were too drunk to give her any useful information about what you heard, apart from the message itself.

"Wasn't that tough, really. I'd already been keepin' tabs on who thinks what about oni-youkai relations and such, y'know, just in case it ever came down to it." You're not entirely sure what anything would 'come down' to, and the phrase sounds a little foreboding, but you keep your concerns to yourself as Yuugi continues. "And I hadn't heard so much as a whisper about any plans to get rid of you from the council proper, which just doesn't happen unless people are actually trying to keep secrets."

"Add it together with what you heard, and you have to figure that these two guys have been meeting each other outside of council work for some 'I hate humans' parties or whatever." She's a little more subdued than before, but some of that prideful energy creeps back into her speech as she continues to elaborate. "And obviously they're not just gonna tell everyone what they're doin', which means they're leavin' a trail of dodged questions behind 'em. Really, the only hard part was findin' the first couple of guys whose schedules had one too many coincidences. From there, it was just figurin' out how far out their little meetings went."

Wait, so she spent her day walking around and cross-checking people's schedules for you? "This sounds like it was a lot of legwork," you say appreciatively.

"Well, it's not like it was strictly business. Y'know, have some drinks, gossip, take care of some errands," she chuckles. "Basically a normal day, plus a little extra."

"I really do appreciate it, though." Honestly, you had begun to let the topic slide out of your mind in light of more recent events, but now that you're thinking about it, the prospect of more information is already making you feel safer. "So what did you find out in the end?"

"Looks like it's four people, maximum. Definitely Takeshi Taka and Yoshio Sakai, those're probably the two you overheard. Probably Eri Kishimoto, maybe her brother Masao Kishimoto. Uh, you may not have actually met any of those guys," Yuugi adds hesitantly, catching your expression.

That's not what you were thinking about, though. "Yoshio Sakai... blonde hair, kind of young-looking?"

"That's the one. How'd you... wait, don't tell me he's--"

"One of the oni I'm supposed to be commanding in the search," you finish unhappily. "I remember his name because I specifically called him out for not paying attention before the first search."

"Haha, ouch. So after he probably already had his horns in a knot over working under you, you went and chewed him out?" It looks like Yuugi's finding this a lot funnier than you are, but she cools it after taking a look at your expression, giving you a slap on the back. "Hey, I still think you shouldn't bother worryin' about the entire thing. This is just FYI, so you know who you're lookin' out for."

Well, you did hear at least one thing that made you happy. "No chance of Rasetsu being on the list?"

"Nah. He keeps to himself, really." She snickers. "Well, more like he's creepy enough that people stay away from him naturally. Ah, here we are."

You'd been taking an unfamiliar route through the city ever since you'd left the restaurant, so it's not until she pulls out a ring of keys to unlock the door that you recognize this place as Yuugi's liquor store. So this is where she was headed? You cup a hand over your mouth and nose to ward off the suffocating odor of sake in the air, and keep it there until the two of you have crossed through the main room on the ground floor and made it up the stairs to the distillery on the upper level.

"So." Your feet barely hit the floorboards, though, before Yuugi turns around, hitting you with that serious stare from before. "Now's your turn."

Well, it's not like you didn't know what you were coming here to do. You find yourself a uncluttered spot up against a wall, far enough from any fragile-looking equipment that you feel safe, and lean back, taking a few deep breaths. You already more or less know what you're going to tell her -- it's just a matter of how you're going to say it, now.

[ ] Write-in.

---

Kind of a tailor-made "lengthy dialogue write-in" point, but do feel free not to do it like that if you prefer.

When do you need the write in? do we have some days or does it need to be now?

Realistically, it's probably going to be another week before the next update, so you've got some time.

>>5757
Working on it.
>"...It is pretty good."
>"A little spicy, though," Yuugi says earnestly.
>"A little spoicy."
Nice conversation. Nay, nice scene. Quite charming... they make a good couple.

Despite what we've learned, there's quite a few things we don't know about why Satori wanted to keep the secret passage a secret from the oni. We can really only speculate why it was so important to her. One scenario is that Okuu's plan and Satori's plan are one in the same. I really doubted it, but the way Koishi was scolding Taizou for being inconsistent with his trust of Satori because of what he learned has me thinking about this somewhat seriously:
>Before you came down here, you wouldn't have known if she was keeping something even more terrible than Okuu down here, and you decided to keep her secret.
>"That's strange, right? Sister didn't lie to you at all, but now you trust her less!

Why is Koishi wondering why Taizou's getting so worked up about the genocidal bird girl? He trusted Satori, so that and/or worse should be okay, right? Keeping Okuu a secret so she can use her to take over the world? If she didn't lie and knew about everything running through Okuu's mind, that's the unfortunate implication. Add to that
>>5660
>"So just let me keep talking to her!" Finally, Orin turns on you, apparently oblivious to her own tears as she forces her face up to yours. "If you can't do anything, then you should just stay out of it! Then nobody has to get hurt!"

>"I don't want to see Okuu hurt either. Nobody does," you say soothingly. Probably not strictly true, but Orin's beyond the reach of logic at this point, anyway. "I'm not making any plans, and I'm not going to take any sides. I just want to talk to a few people and see--"

>"Not Okuu, you-- you-- arrgh!" With a sound somewhere between a growl and a high-pitched whine, Orin actually shoves you,and then stomps her way right back over into your face before you even finish stumbling backwards. "You idiot! You don't understand Lady Satori at all!" she screams, fists clenched at her sides.

Why is Orin asking us to let her 'keep talking to her so no one get's hurt' if the 'her' isn't Okuu? Is she actually talking about Satori here? Is Orin trying to convince Satori not to use Okuu to take over? Kinda doubtful, since earlier on Orin mentioned that Okuu was starting to act 'weird.' Oddly enough, crop destruction wasn't that big of a deal for Orin, but Okuu's behavior was. This leads me to another possible situation: Satori was in fact using Okuu to destroy the crops for some reason, but does not know about Okuu's evil plan to save the world. I'm pretty comfortable with Satori blowing up the fields, actually. She takes her responsibilities for the underground pretty seriously, so if she's actually doing it, it's probably (hopefully) for a good reason. From Orin's description of what's been happening (>>5244), and the bit at the end about with
>"What if Lady Satori doesn't--"
you can't help but wonder what Rin is afraid Satori will do if she learns what Okuu is up to. I think it's either 'doesn't let Okuu stay here anymore/live' or 'doesn't stop her.' It would partly explain why she doesn't want us talking to Satori. Still don't know why Orin got so angry at that part, but Satori's situation is a big ol' question mark at the moment. Speaking of which, another possible scenario is that Satori has no idea what Okuu is up to and has some completely different reason for wanting to keep her a secret.

Just thinking out loud at the moment. Gonna take a walk to think about how to bring this up with Yuugi after that, probably something to the effect of "I've found what's destroying the crops, but we might have an even bigger problem on our hands. Before we go to the council with this, though, I need your help Yuugi. We need to have an emergency meeting with Satori right now." I initially wanted to go straight to Satori, but decided on Yuugi since we'd need her around if Satori learns what we know and tries to do something unfortunate to Taizou, the oni, Orin, or possibly even Okuu. Assuming, of course, Yuugi is even down with that and not going to the council straight away anyway. Definitely need to tell he we lied about the secret passage way, too. Probably a deal breaker for her, but I rather she hear it from Taizou.

[x] "This is gonna be a bit long winded, so bear with me and let me finish first, then you say what you wanna say, please?"
-[x] "First things first, Satori, from what I understand, is infact the 'cause' of these crop destructions.
--[x] "Except, she's not the one actually doing them, it's her pet, not one I think you've met. She has another one, that may or may not be a nutjob. Her name's Okuu and the reason she might be crazy is because she wants too completely wipe out humanity and possibly a couple of youkai races for some wrong one small group of humans commited to her and her friends some time ago. Well, the thing is, Satori doesn't know she wants to do this, and Orin has been trying to enlist my help to try and stop Okuu from going through with this. Which I tried, mind you, but almost got killed in the process. I'm also hoping Satori has a good reason for destroying the crops, but see, that's not the problem anymore. The problem is how we go about dealing with Okuu. Then we can worry about why Satori was destroying the crops in the first place.
---[x] "I'm here telling you first because I don't trust Satori enough, or know how she'd react to finding out one of her pets is bent on killing hundreds of innocent people. I'm also not telling anyone leading the investigation, like Kisaburou, because god knows he'd just freak out on finding out Satori is destroying the crops and I was *sort of* lying to you guys.
----[x] Lastly, I was sorta knew Satori was hiding something for a little while, just know how potentionally dangerous it was, or if it was related to the destroyed crops anyway. That, and Satori, promised it was better off if no-one found out and she had her reasons for hiding whatever it was. Uh, That's just about everything, and I'm not sure what to do at this point, because it seems like someone's going to get the short end of the stick no matter what happens...

I'm a bit fuzzy on the details as to what happened in the previous threads, but I haven't looked at them in forever, so correcrt me if I'm wrong on anything.

>>5768
Reposting, adding something to the end. And fixing a couple of typos.

[x] "This is gonna be a bit long winded, so bear with me and let me finish first, then you say what you wanna say, please?"
-[x] "First things first, Satori, from what I understand, is infact the 'cause' of these crop destructions."
--[x] "Except, she's not the one actually doing them, it's her pet, not one I think you've met. She has another one, that may or may not be a nutjob. Her name's Okuu and the reason she might be crazy is because she wants too completely wipe out humanity and possibly a couple of youkai races for some wrong one small group of humans commited to her and her friends some time ago. Well, the thing is, Satori doesn't know she wants to do this, and Orin has been trying to enlist my help to try and stop Okuu from going through with this. Which I tried, mind you, but almost got killed in the process. I'm also hoping Satori has a good reason for destroying the crops, but see, that's not the problem anymore. The problem is how we go about dealing with Okuu. Then we can worry about why Satori was destroying the crops in the first place."
---[x] "I'm here telling you first because I don't trust Satori enough, or know how she'd react to finding out one of her pets is bent on killing hundreds of innocent people. I'm also not telling anyone leading the investigation, like Kisaburou, because god knows he'd just freak out on finding out Satori is destroying the crops and I was *sort of* lying to you guys."
----[x] "Lastly, I was sorta knew Satori was hiding something for a little while, just know how potentionally dangerous it was, or if it was related to the destroyed crops anyway. That, and Satori, promised it was better off if no-one found out and she had her reasons for hiding whatever it was. Uh, That's just about everything, and I'm not sure what to do at this point, because it seems like someone's going to get the short end of the stick no matter what happens..."
-----[x] "Of course, I could be completely off on everything and everything I just shit is one stupid assumption. I'd really rather get the story from Satori's side first before we do anything to rash.

I'm a bit fuzzy on the details as to what happened in the previous threads, but I haven't looked at them in forever, so correct me if I'm wrong on anything.

oh wow, there's still some really some stupid typos i missed. First off, on the second to last option, it should just be 'sorta knew' and not 'was sorta knew'. Next, on the last option, where it says 'shit', it should say 'said'.

I'm sorry, I'm horrible at proofreading. I'm sure there's more though.

>>5771
>"Lastly, I was sorta knew Satori was hiding something for a little while, just know how potentionally dangerous it was, or if it was related to the destroyed crops anyway. That, and Satori, promised it was better off if no-one found out and she had her reasons for hiding whatever it was. Uh, That's just about everything, and I'm not sure what to do at this point, because it seems like someone's going to get the short end of the stick no matter what happens..."

Shouldn't it be "... just didn't know how potentially dangerous..."? Otherwise it doesn't really parse right.

>>5767
canonically Orin expected a far worse reaction from Satori than what actually happened, perhaps part of a pet's thinking. She's worried that Satori may flip out at her and Okuu or give Okuu up to the oni or something.

I highly doubt Satori knows of Okuu's plan or Orin's stunts. Though she may have her own reasons for keeping the burning fires of hell secret. I seriously doubt that Satori would condone Okuu's plan of genocide.

Where does this thing about Satori doing the crop destruction, it was all Orins work, wasn't it?

>>5777
Okuu is the direct cause of the damaged farmland, but since Satori's hiding her, she takes some of the blame as well.

>>5778
More like Satori's unwittingly allowing it to happen, considering it's not her doing the destruction or even ordering it. Saying she's the one who's doing it is bending the truth beyond recognition.

>>5779
I think in private, she's trying to find out what's going on but to no avail with how Orin and Okuu been acting.

>>5772
Yeah, uh, you're right. Like I said, i sorta rushed that write-in and im horribel at proofreading. If something doesn't seem correcr and like it should say something else, it probably should. Thanks for pointing that out, though

[x] >>5770, or whatever vote makes the most sense and is also closest to what's going on.
-[x] Before you get started: "By the end of this, you're going to be somewhat angry with me. Please keep in mind the insane situation I'm in, the juggling act I've been having to perform, the acres of bullshit I've been going through, and don't hit me too hard."

Hmm...

[x]"Take a seat Yuugi cause this is going to be one Hell of an explanation"
-[x]First off Satori is either oblivious what's going on at her home or knows it and is trying to solve it on her own."
--[x]"Next, it seems one of her pets, a Hell Raven with incredible power, had gone insane as Orin, a close friend of this pet, asked me to help her talk it out of following through a plan involving the entire annihilation of everything that do not follow its views. This goes beyond simply destroying croplands as I'm talking about actual lives at stake; Youkai, Human, Oni, it doesn't matter as we are all fair game to it."
---[x]"My attempt at talking it out didn't go so well, but I'm alive at least."
-[x]"I had little faith in Satori being able to handle my revelation fairly, so I felt I could trust in you Yuugi."
--[X]"Satori needs our help but without the brute force of the Chief Chairman's methods."

I didn't like >>5770 as it would imply that Satori actually had all intents of destroying the croplands. For what benefit could Satori possibly have in destroying cropland?

Not to mention at the end of it sounds horribly wishy washy; either Taizou actually faced a mad power-tripping Hell Raven with all intents of invading the surface and beyond or he didn't. Whether it's actual insanity or simply rage (one may get sympathy for insanity, not so much for rage) remains to be seen.

[x]"Take a seat Yuugi cause this is going to be one Hell of an explanation"
-[x]First off Satori is either oblivious what's going on at her home or knows it and is trying to solve it on her own."
--[x]"Next, it seems one of her pets, a Hell Raven with incredible power, had gone insane as Orin, a close friend of this pet, asked me to help her talk it out of following through a plan involving the entire annihilation of everything that do not follow its views. This goes beyond simply destroying croplands as I'm talking about actual lives at stake; Youkai, Human, Oni, it doesn't matter as we are all fair game to it."
---[x]"My attempt at talking it out didn't go so well, but I'm alive at least."
-[x]"I had little faith in Satori being able to handle my revelation fairly, so I felt I could trust in you Yuugi."

Works for me~!

>>5755
[X] "First of all, I messed up my job while we were searching Satori's palace. Pretty bad, actually. The oni got to look everywhere they wanted, and none of Satori's property was too broken, so that was fine, but... I found something, and I didn't tell them about it."
[X] "Satori found out what I knew, she asked me to keep it a secret... and I did. She told me keeping it a secret was important to her, and that it was more important than politics, the oni, or anything else. I believed her. I didn't think she would be hiding anything related to the crops or something terrible."
[X] "But that might have been a mistake. Whether she knows it or not, what Satori is hiding is what's destroying the crops. It's one of her pets, I think. A girl named Okuu, she has wings and a giant cannon on her arm. I don't know how she does it, but she and Orin confirmed that she's the one doing responsible for the crops."
[X] "Orin asked me to meet her just now, to try and talk her down. Okuu is... disturbed. She has it in her head that with her powers, she's going to destroy everything and force the survivors to come together. I don't know if she can actually do it or not, but I tried to reason with her. When that didn't work I fought with her. As you could probably guess, she beat me up kinda bad. Koishi stopped her saved me in the end."
[X] "I'm sorry for keeping this a secret from the council, and I'm sorry for keeping it from you until now."
[X] (Assuming she hasn't kicked Taizou out by now) "Before I go to the council, I'm going to meet Satori. I need to find out if she knows what Okuu is doing and what she's planning. I'm worried about what Satori might do when she finds out what I've learned, but I want to know why this was so important to her. Would you please come with me when I go?"

Went back and read a lot of the stuff regarding our job as leader of the search, and aside from the self-designated responsibilities, our role was never clearly defined. Still, talking fine points isn't going to cut it here: we lied. On the one hand, lying is just something you don't pull with oni, and it turns out that we hid something significant. If Yuugi cuts all ties with Taizou at the point, I wouldn't blame her. After the council finds out, I think Taizou will be lucky just getting chased out of the underground city.
On the other hand, we made a decision and part of me wants to stand by that decision. Whether we really fucked up is going to be determined after we learn about Satori's situation and/or her reason for hiding Okuu. I'm still toying with the notion of not apologizing about the decision/apologizing but saying we don't regret the decision. If it does piss her and the other oni off, it sort of proves that Satori had a pretty good reason for wanting to keep this secret.
Last bit is a stretch and might not be important right now. However, if Orin is right and Satori does something rash after we confront her, I don't know if Taizou alone will be able to stop her.

I was thinking about adding in a bit about Okuu's penchant for shooting fireballs, Koishi and Orin's insistance that Okuu is a good person, Taizou's reluctance about going straight to the council and risking setting off Okuu, the line of reasoning we used with Okuu, the finer points (or lack thereof) of Okuu's "might makes right" philosophy, or going into the people/places/things Satori might rage against after we let her know we know, but the write-in is getting long, so I'll say that some of this knowledge is implicit in said vote.

[x] >>5796
I don't think Yuugi would exactly kick him out for lying, he has good reason and he's a human.

So many write ins, so hard to decide. I will let this stand here for another 2 days and wait for what other people vote for.
I really am not sure what to pick.

>>5808
>>I really am not sure what to pick.

Pick which ever makes the most sense to you as well as would work for in Taizou's best interest.

If I could I would again vote for >>5793 as it straight and clear to the point.

Voting for >>5793

[X] "First of all, I messed up my job while we were searching Satori's palace. Pretty bad, actually. The oni got to look everywhere they wanted, and none of Satori's property was too broken, so that was fine, but... I found something, and I didn't tell them about it."
[X] "Satori found out what I knew, she asked me to keep it a secret... and I did. She told me keeping it a secret was important to her, and that it was more important than politics, the oni, or anything else. I believed her. I didn't think she would be hiding anything related to the crops or something terrible."
[X] "But that might have been a mistake. Whether she knows it or not, what Satori is hiding is what's destroying the crops. It's one of her pets, I think. A girl named Okuu, she has wings and a giant cannon on her arm. I don't know how she does it, but she and Orin confirmed that she's the one doing responsible for the crops."
[X] "Orin asked me to meet her just now, to try and talk her down. Okuu is... disturbed. She has it in her head that with her powers, she's going to destroy everything and force the survivors to come together. I don't know if she can actually do it or not, but I tried to reason with her. When that didn't work I fought with her. As you could probably guess, she beat me up kinda bad. Koishi stopped her saved me in the end."
[X] "I'm sorry for keeping this a secret from the council, and I'm sorry for keeping it from you until now."

>>5811
I'd think >>5796 is clearer.

Hopefully Glasnost would take the best bits out of both in the next scene.

>>5814

problems with >>5796 and I'm going by points.

take what you will though from this anon's perspective of the situation.

[1]The first time around he found something but soon as our dear Hell raven made her brief appearance Both the Chief and Taizou along with any Oni's that were present were heading towards another direction. Had their minds relatively wiped clean of what they saw considering Koishi was with them. Taizou though had scraps of that memory remain and managed to piece them together.

Taizou can't very well just go and explain it to the Council without hard evidence as well as more likely than not, Koishi will do the exact same thing again, thus making Taizou a fool if not a liar. (intentionally or not)

[2] Satori may very well know of the situation but either does not realize the danger in prolonging it being discovered or truly knows what is the issue but does not know how to deal with it quietly on her own. She knows how the Oni will react if they found out she's been holding out a huge probable cause and may give the Oni Council incentive to kill some one she cares dearly. I'd say that's a difficult situation to try figuring out an answer peacefully.

[5]Taizou has no reason to apologize as he has not done a thing wrong in regards to staying quiet about what he figured out on his own. He could not very well gone simply on a hunch or scraps of memory that were left alone by Koishi. Koishi could have very well warped his memories where he could have ended up leading the attic area if she had wanted to but instead left enough (whether accidentally or purposely is up for debate) information that Taizou was able to piece things together with the chance meeting of Utsuho finalizing the truth of the matter.

[6]Yuugi wouldn't kick Taizou informally for one thing considering how the council seems to work for one thing. Another thing is she's probably the most reasonable player in the entire mess that is the underground society; what with Youkai and Oni fighting on occasion. More likely than not she'd agree on the prospect of meeting with Satori along side Taizou privately away from the council to help resolve the issue.

Less incentive for the council to raid Satori's home, the more likely that peace could not only be made between two major players but also open up chances for Youkai and Oni to co-exist on more peaceful terms.

Possibly...

>>5815
>Taizou can't very well just go and explain it to the Council without hard evidence
Taizou wouldn't need any hard evidence. In >>4133 he had his suspicions about the nature of his memory wipe confirmed, had the existence of the passage acknowledged by Satori, and the assurance that the oni wouldn't find it unless we told them. At the time, we knew she was hiding something, and she was dead set on not letting Taizou know any details aside from how incredibly important it was to her. With all of that well in mind, we decided to not tell the oni about the secret entrance in >>4467.

>Koishi will do the exact same thing again, thus making Taizou a fool if not a liar.
She's made numerous assurances that she would no longer mess with our memories. If Taizou sets his mind on revealing the hidden entrance, Koishi would have to be more direct in stopping him that tweaking his memory. That may not preclude her from the messing of everyone else's memory, though, as per our encounter with her in Yuugi's house.

>Satori may very well know of the situation
Not disagreeing on this point, since it's qualified by the third part of the vote noting Satori may or may not know what Okuu is up to or what she's planning to do. I'm not really following what's at issue here, so that's chill.

>Taizou has no reason to apologize
I think Taizou needs to say something, and while an apology might not be the exact right thing, it's certainly not the wrong thing. Furthermore, what Taizou said himself in >>5660
>It wasn't actually lying, it was for a good reason, you were being threatened by Koishi -- you have a laundry list of decent excuses, but your limited experience tells you that oni as a whole are more interested in moral absolutes than they are in whether or not you were 'technically correct'. Honestly, you don't know how upset she'll really be at the revelation, but you already wish you didn't have to find out.
really gets to me. I'm of the opinion that we need to lay our reasons for what we did bare so at least Yuugi understands where we're coming from. That's half of the theme of the vote; explain the situation to the best of our understanding, and to explain ourselves. Best case scenario is that Yuugi smacks him for being needlessly formal about the whole thing, but better safe than sorry. I also have this nightmare scenario playing through my mind where Satori feeds on Taizou not being perfectly transparent to Yuugi about why he made the decisions he did (a la what she did to the oni that got attacked in the middle part of >>4467) and turning us against each other.

>he has not done a thing wrong in regards to staying quiet about what he figured out on his own. He could not very well gone simply on a hunch or scraps of memory that were left alone by Koishi.
But he didn't really figure it out on his own. Refering back to >>4133, Satori pretty clearly explained why his memory was jumbled, there was indeed a hidden passage, and she wanted us to keep it a secret. We did exactly that a few updates later; we had the opportunity to reveal the truth of the basement and we did not take that opportunity.

>Yuugi wouldn't kick Taizou informally
Totally agree; my failed attempt at humor. I derped.

Like you said, different people, different perspectives. Content wise, the votes communicate roughly the same thing but going about it in two distinct ways. That said, please stop calling her Hell Raven from Taizou's point of view. No one ever said who or what she is, and there's no way he'd know what specific type of youkai she is. [/nitpick]

>>5815
>>5816

Now why can't most cyoa's that tend to have lengthy or concise discussions be like this without falling apart to petty things...

;_;

[x]"Take a seat Yuugi cause this is going to be one Hell of an explanation"
-[x]First off Satori is either oblivious what's going on at her home or knows it and is trying to solve it on her own."
--[x]"Next, it seems one of her pets, a Hell Raven with incredible power, had gone insane as Orin, a close friend of this pet, asked me to help her talk it out of following through a plan involving the entire annihilation of everything that do not follow its views. This goes beyond simply destroying croplands as I'm talking about actual lives at stake; Youkai, Human, Oni, it doesn't matter as we are all fair game to it."
---[x]"My attempt at talking it out didn't go so well, but I'm alive at least."
-[x]"I had little faith in Satori being able to handle my revelation fairly, so I felt I could trust in you Yuugi."

>>5816
>please stop calling her Hell Raven from Taizou's point of view. No one ever said who or what she is, and there's no way he'd know what specific type of youkai she is.

Huh, I was sure sometime way back Yuugi or Satori at one point mentioned the types of pets lived within the home.

Probably got another story that will always be sorely missed mixed up with this one in memory.

As always, will attempt to write over the weekend, so if anyone has any new write-ins or sentiments that they would like added to the current batch, now's the time. I was planning on doing some vote combining regardless of the result, and with the vote tally currently at 4-3-2 it'd be silly to declare a hard winner anyway, so don't worry about numbers and post away.

>>5833
>and with the vote tally currently at 4-3-2 it'd be silly to declare a hard winner anyway, so don't worry about numbers and post away.

Considering the nature of the vote, the character of the discussion that resulted (thorough, but not uncivilized), and a relatively objective standpoint of where the standard anonymous user might suspect this story is currently at (that is to say, creeping up on the end-game), I think taking the cumulation of the amassed votes is a damn fine idea.

[X] Write-in.

"You, uh, might want to sit down for this."

Yuugi raises an eyebrow at you, mirroring your pose by leaning back against a table opposite your position against the wall. "I'm plenty prepared. Talk to me."

"Uh, yeah. Just... this could take a while, so hear me out all the way through first, okay?"

A silent nod, with just a hint of a frown. She probably just thinks you're stalling, by this point. Hell, maybe you are; it's not like it's not an attractive option at this point.

Can't do it anymore, though. "Satori..." Is oblivious? Is trying to hide Okuu from the oni? Is the mastermind behind the crop destruction? "...Bad place to start." Yuugi cocks an eyebrow at you again, shifting her feet slightly and crossing her arms.

Okay, enough. "One of Satori's pets... Okuu. She's some kind of... bird youkai, I guess, I don't know wh--" Enough. "She's the one responsible for the crop destruction. Orin told me first, and Okuu herself confirmed it."

Yuugi's reaction is subtle; a clench of the jaw, a slight lowering of her head, and a second later, she's looking back up at you with that same resolute expression, giving you a slight nod to continue.

"Orin gave me a message during the search. It sounds like she's known about Okuu for a while." Yuugi exhales audibly, and you hear something that sounds a lot like 'fucking cat' on her breath. "I was late coming out because I went to meet with Okuu. She is..." Orin's tearful face rises to your mind, and you swallow your first choice of words. "Orin is friends with Okuu, she called me out because she needed help talking to her. Okuu..." There is not a damn way to sugar coat this. "...told me about why she had destroyed the crops. She plans to kill... everyone. Underground and above ground, regardless of species."

You hear a sharp breath in, but the surprise still doesn't show on Yuugi's face, and her attention remains singularly focused on you. Still, you give her a moment to collect her thoughts before continuing.

"She attacked me. If Koishi hadn't shown up, I probably wouldn't have made it out of there." As if on cue, all the aches and pains of the past few hours decide to remind you that they're still there, and you wince slightly. "But as far as I know, Koishi and Orin are the only people who know what went on down there. I didn't run into Satori at all after that, and you're the only person I've talked to." You take a short breath. "Orin specifically asked me to keep what happened a secret from Satori. From everything she said to me, it's possible that Satori doesn't actually know about Okuu's plans."

This time you get a real gasp, and Yuugi's eyes go wide for a long moment. Next is a confused grimace, first at you, then up over your shoulder, then down at the ground as Yuugi goes into deep thought trying to make sense of all this; you keep silent for longer this time, giving her as much time as she needs. Of course, knowing what you know about Satori's actions will probably change her mind on a few things, but tellling her that--

"That's everything?"

--is the hard part.

"...Not quite. Satori is hiding something. There's a..." Wrong angle. You still don't want to paint Satori as a villain here. "You remember what I told you about Koishi? What she does?" Yuugi flinches almost imperceptibly, clearly recalling the memory, and nods once.

"That wasn't the first time it had happened to me. The first day of the searches, she led me and the council head down to where Okuu is, though a hidden door in the basement. She... threw some kind of fireball at us, then..." You close your eyes for a moment, trying once more to grab hold of the slippery memories of that time. "...I don't remember. She erased our memories. The council head didn't seem to have noticed a thing, I don't know why I even remember any of it. I wasn't even sure what had happened, or if my memories were real, until I talked to Satori the next day." You swallow once, twice, a third time, but your throat is still dry as you open your mouth to speak again. "She told me that what I had seen was real, and... asked me to allow the search to progress without revealing what I knew." You want to look away, but you force yourself not to. "I agreed."

A moment of silence.

"But..." Yuugi is clearly still just confused at first, furrowing her brow at you. "They searched down there, didn't they? You're sayin' you just..." The corner of her mouth twitches up in an odd, disbelieving half-smile, and you finally look away, unable to look her in the eye any longer.

"You mean you really... C'mon, Taizou," she says, a hint of a nervous laugh in her voice, "that wasn't how it was supposed to go, right? You agreed to it, too. You're supposed to be on nobody's side, right? So we could finally get this thing over with? How could you--" She cuts herself short as her voice begins to shift to an almost pleading tone, and you bow your head a little lower, biting your lip.

"...You swore an oath," she begins a moment later, the waver controlled, but still not completely gone from her voice. "To the council. A proper one, like..."

She trails off into silence gradually this time, and the two of you stay there for a long while, nothing but the sound of breathing passing between you. When you finally get the nerve to look up again, her head is in her hands, hiding her face as her body slumps heavily, leaning on the table behind her for support. Truthfully, you don't remember any of the details of that oath you made, but you're pretty sure that's not what Yuugi wants to hear right now. Really, you doubt there's anything you could say that would be what Yuugi wants to hear right now. Except--

"I'm sorry, Yuugi," you say solemnly. "I didn't mean for things to turn out like this." You mean it, but that doesn't make it ring any less false in your ears, and after another few seconds of silence from Yuugi, you forget about trying to say anything else and let the room fall back into silence.

"Okay." When Yuugi finally does speak, nearly a minute later, it's clearly not directed at you; she's staring at her hands, held out limply at waist height. Silently, her fingers flex around empty air, as though to grab hold of something unseen from the space before her, and she holds them their for a moment longer, just staring, before letting them drop to her sides.

"Okay," she repeats, more solidly this time, and with a short step forward, she pulls herself up to her full height, brushing off her skirt lightly with her hands. "What's done is done. Can't be changed." She takes a fleeting glance at your face once more before turning on her heel sharply, pacing a few steps away from the staircase. "Cannot be changed. What we need to do now is figure out where we're going next." As she reaches the far wall of the room, she does an abrupt spin and continues to pace in the opposite direction, her words speeding up in time with her pace.

"Komeiji is an unknown. Even more than she was already. Everything I know about her says she's not the plotting type, but if she's gonna deliberately hide things, she doesn't get the benefit of the doubt anymore." You frown reflexively, turning your head away in shame, but there's no malice in her voice, and she doesn't even glance at you as she continues to pace to the opposite side of the room. "The trick now is just doing things properly from here on out. We can't risk anybody getting half the story and deciding to lynch Komeiji before we know for sure what her role in this is. First thing, we need to... to... ...why?"

At that last word, you raise your head once more, just in time for Yuugi's palm to land right beside it on the wall behind you with a dull thud, bringing your faces less than arm's length apart.

"I don't get... I can't..." Her voice is clipped and halting, but there's no anger on her face, and no sadness; mostly, she just looks... tired, like she's been through days in the past few minutes. "Why would you make a promise like that to Komeiji? Why did you even agree to do this in the first place, if you were just going to..."

This time, you continue after Yuugi's words fade, before the brief pause can become another long silence. "I don't have any excuse to make, Yuugi. All I can tell you is what I was thinking when I made the decision."

She doesn't say anything, or even nod; she just keeps staring with those tired eyes, and your next words tumble over your tongue as you try to get them out. "Satori told me that what was down there was bigger than the search, and it was the first time I'd seen the council head's... searching method, and I was... I thought that the danger of waiting and seeing about Satori's secret was less than the danger that would come from telling the council head."

Yuugi's reaction is immediate; her body sags, bringing her face even closer to yours, and her lips twist, her tired eyes joined by an unimpressed sneer. "Right, 'cause oni are dangerous, huh? Best keep 'em at arm's length, even if it means a few lies--"

This time, you can tell that her words are aimed to hurt, and knowing that gives you the nerve to reply. "That's not what I--"

"No, I, I didn't--" But Yuugi is already backpedaling before the words have even left your mouth, raising her hands to cover her own mouth as she stumbles backwards away from you, wide-eyed. "I s-shouldn't have said that. I... I just... I mean..."

Before the emotion makes it all the way back into her voice, she takes another step away, and as you reach toward her, she turns away, quickly crossing the distance to the stairs.

"A-Anyway," she begins again, talking over the sound of her own footsteps, "we need to tell the council head about this."

"Yuugi--"

"We have to tell the council head now." She stops short of leaving altogether, one foot on the stairs, but she still doesn't look back at you. "We can talk a-after about... we have to tell the council head now," she repeats helplessly, like a mantra to herself.

You open your mouth to try again, but close it without going any further; for good or for ill, that topic is closed for now. Already, you can see Yuugi pulling her shoulders back and her head up, going back into the same all-business posture she took while analyzing the situation just a moment ago; probably preparing what she's going to tell the council head.

Even that's a problem now, though. You left the palace in a hurry, but you really do need to talk to Satori; if not to find out what she actually knows, then just to warn her about what happened down there. If things had went your way here, you doubt that going there first would be a problem, but after this, you're not sure how Yuugi would react to such a suggestion, and you're out of luck to press finding out. You could try just going back to the palace on your own, you guess, but you don't want to do that now for the same reasons that you didn't want to do that before you told Yuugi, plus one more; you don't really want to part with Yuugi on these terms.

Not that you're looking forward to giving the council head the news, either. It looks like things are going to be unpleasant for a while no matter what; all you can do now is try to make the best of a bad situation.

[ ] Go along with her to the council head.
[ ] Try to convince her to see Satori first.
[ ] Split up and go to Satori alone.
[ ] Write-in.

>consequences to agreeing with keeping satori's secret

Called it. We're clearly in Oni camp now, secrets and lies are just gonna blow up on our face in a spectacular fashion.

[x] Go along with her to the council head.

[x] Go along with her to the council head.

I really would have liked to go and split up and talk with Satori while Yuugi does her part.
But it was stated that this is a horrible idea. So let's go with normal.

First of all: correct me if I am wrong but I do not see the problem here.

First and foremost our role was that of an independent observer and arbitrater. We somehow kept part of the memories of the first underground visit and questioned Satori, who assured us that it did not have anything to do with what the oni were searching for. Personally I am inclined to believe that she really does not know that Okuu is the culprit, and thus told us her truth. We decided to believe her and accept it as that, until Orin finally spilled the beans about Okuu and brought us there for our second visit. Now that we know who the culprit is the searches should be over, all that is left is to stop Okuu, who should be held responsible for all that, perhaps adding Orin because she kept quiet. Satori did not know anything and was actively deceived by both of her pets. Now, as soon as we found out the truth the first thing we did was go to the oni we trust the most and tell her to find a way to tell the council and solve the whole incident.
Since I remember the vow to the oni about as well as Taizou does I could be wrong here too, but did we somewhere along the line promise to tell the council about every speck of dust we personally see? Our only responsibility was to make sure the search does not get interrupted and is undertaken in a civilised manner. We did not stop them from searching the garden again, and from our and Satori's knowledge Okuu's cavern was not relevant either, which is why we did not specifically state that there was one during this second search. Yes, we and Satori were wrong about that, but I seriously doubt we are to blame for being deceived.

So I ask again, what is the problem Yuugi has with Taizou's alleged lies? And where is the problem in telling both the council and Satori the truth of what is going on in order to reach a mutually agreed conclusion to this?

[X] Try to convince her to see Satori first.
-[x] "You know it as well as I do that in order to improve relations between Oni and Youkai we need the cooperation of all sides. If we march in over to the Earth Palace and make declarations on what we know without providing evidence it wouldn't do anything but worsen the situation between all.
--[x]"For the record, I did what I felt that not only could keep any possible violence from spilling out into the public, but also to give you some peace of mind."

Shame Taizou couldn't show that in his best efforts, he wanted to minimize the possible casualties that may occur regardless of who may strike first. Is Yuugi even aware of what the council does during their searches..?

I just have a feeling we are teetering between "altruistic hobo end" and "Best End" Either way both very well may grant a peaceful underground city, but only one seems to give a true sense of peace instead of that feeling of hostility lingering throughout the city.

Thing is, technically even if Taizou did everything to the letter and specifically behaved in favor of the Oni camp, regardless of what is happening, I can't see it ending all that peacefully. Hell it may even spark a possible civil war that old oni from way back mentioning...

>>5883
It's about following the spirit versus the letter of the agreement.

As you can tell from our dealings with oni, this difference is NOT trivial, and we swore an oni oath, into an oni council. It's natural for them to expect us to behave in an "oni way", instead of the "tricky human way".

[x] Try to convince her to see Satori first.

>>5885
The oath was to be neutral, right? Everything we've been doing is being just that even with some lying. It's not our fault that the Oni Chief expected us to play along with his plans.

[X] Go along with her to the council head.

>>5887

>>5883 here:
I know oni are not too hot on the whole lying business and I can also see the argument >>5885 made of the "tricky human way", but otherwise you are right with us staying neutral, to the best of our abilities as well if I may add. Personally I see the part of keeping quiet about Okuu's room more as an "everyone has his/her own little secrets" thing, just that neither Taizou nor Satori were aware that this particular little secret was important to the whole affair.
Also about the oath: if anything we can say that the oath itself was the oni trying to undermine our neutrality. We were not really in a position where we could have declined swearing it and stay safe(read: alive) for the rest of the day. When Taka and Sakai were plotting our death after the oath, they would have probably downright killed us on the spot if we did not. Even disregarding them as a special case the oni should have at least been aware of the intimidating effect they can have on a puny little human when he is faced with them, especially after most (Yuugi excluded) were not really polite most of the time as well.
So even if they were to bring up the whole oath thing and/or wanted to question our neutrality, we only did what we decided best with both sides in mind. Mistakes were made, but not out of ill intent but rather misinformation.

Also not voting since I am lost on what to do now, just wanting to bring these points up.

>>5889
The problem with the "I didn't think that giant fireball was important" argument is that it's incredibly shaky. Taizou and the others were supposed to look for anything that could cause all of the crop damage, but he thought that wasn't related? It sounds like an excuse a kid would make to get out of trouble.

[X] Go along with her to the council head.

On the one hand, the council might appreciate Taizou owning up to his lying directly; on the other, this gives the oni that want him dead a reason to kill him that the others may approve of.

>>5890
telling the Oni head would basically give them the basis he wanted to oust Satori... and what might have been a one sided slaughter might be an complete apocalypse once Okuu gets involved.

Let's not forget he isn't concerned about the crops so much as getting rid of Satori and have the Oni dominate the underground; the crop incident is just a nice excuse to possibly do just that. Now if his objectives were purely I'd be more for telling him about it.

[X] Convince her to wait until you can set up a meeting with both Satori and the council head.

We’re supposed to be the neutral party, so why pick one side first over the other?

[X] Convince her to wait until you can set up a private meeting with both Satori and the council head.
Well said. Are we gonna fix our little non-neutral moment with another non-neutral moment? Give Satori a chance to explain herself before the gung-ho Oni head decides to start a war. Which leads me to..
-[x] ...and that's why I agreed with keeping temporarily that 'secret': because I felt that going along with the Head's plans would mean starting a civil war in the city. Who would you think the Youkai would side with if that happens?
-[x] Oni can't lie so he never hid his intentions: to make up an excuse to kick Satori out of here. I wouldn't want to start a war in this city, your city due to some guy's petty xenophobia!

[X] "Sorry, as you said human society is built on lies. I made a choice that felt right, but I should have asked if it was honest."

>>5884 here changing to...

[X] Convince her to wait until you can set up a meeting with both Satori and the council head.

I can roll with this.

>>5894

...what?

>>5894
Get out of here Wiseman.

Hey I am not that angsty moral-fag logic fail.

[x]>>5892

And maybe with >>5893's extras though I think they could be worded better.

[z] >>5893

>>5894
DERP.

[X] Convince her to wait until you can set up a private meeting with both Satori and the council head.

Works for me~!

[X] Convince her to wait until you can set up a private meeting with both Satori and the council head.

[X] Convince her to wait until you BOTH can set up a private meeting with both Satori and the council head.

Just in want to emphasize that Yuugi would probably be able to request the meeting with the head and satori easier than you could.

Though I would like a few comments directed at the council head if a meeting is set up if he has an outburst at the "hidden information" regarding the coercion of the oath with regards of "How impartial can a moderator be if one of the groups he's moderating for tries to claim him as one of their own."

I'm probably not going across clearly but basically I want to give off what an impartial mediator is supposed to do, and how information told in confidence cannot be brought up by the mediator, only the active parties can.

[/rules lawyering]

Is there anything we know about the oni and their motivations that we somehow didn't reveal to Satori? In other words, something we were keeping secret? Not that that's easy with Satori, but...

We can't let our role as mediator be interpreted as "make sure the oni accomplish what they're trying to accomplish". Our ultimate goal here is conflict resolution.

>>5913
As far as Satori knew, she had nothing to do with those crops being wrecked and she wanted us to minimize the damage done during the search. I believe Satori wanted to keep the old hellfires secret as it'd lead to trouble. Jealous over getting the rights to such a thing, assuming that's causing it, various things. Sure the last bit is more or less true, but no one but those two pets knew it at the time.

I think Satori got that we were trying to be neutral about the whole thing. Recent events may end up complicating this.

One more thing. I really should have thought of this before the last update, huh?

This whole thing started because crops were destroyed. The oni were investigating Satori as a suspect in the crop destruction. We have singlehandedly, at great risk of life and limb, discovered the culprit and are now proceeding to inform all parties involved. This may not be an excuse for maintaining confidentiality with Satori until we uncovered the full story, but it must be clear that our intent was never to hide anyone's guilt.

>>5914
Okay, but I was talking more about the oni's perception. We aren't just doing this to help them, we're trying to help everyone resolve this issue.

>>5915
which until recent events mainly detailed trying to minimize things until the Oni give up or actually find some other sign. If anything we've leaned more on Satori's side than the onis if anything.

[X] Convince her to wait until you can set up a private meeting with both Satori and the council head.

Yes, Satori deserves to know about this. Yes, you made a promise, and the council head deserves to know about this.

So.

"Yuugi, we need to wait until--"

"We--"

"--until we can get both of them together!" you finish hurriedly, raising your voice over Yuugi's objection. "If this is going to become public knowledge, then Satori needs a chance to give her side of the story now, before anyone else has a chance to draw their own conclusions. If she's not there, it's just going to be the council head, turning everything he hears into another excuse to storm the palace. You know it's true!" you say, rising to a shout again as Yuugi takes ignores you, taking another step down the stairs.

When she stop and turns her head to reply, though, it's not a shout you get back in reply; it's that same weary tone she used when asking you why you hid the truth. "What did she do that makes you want to defend her so bad?" she asks, an almost genuine curiosity in her voice that sets you aback. That's how she sees this? "I know what I told you about politics and all, but how did you get so sure that we're the bad guys here? What if..."

You wait for a moment after she trails off to begin speaking yourself. "It's not about good guys and bad guys, Yuugi. It may hav--" You stop yourself short, considering what you were just about to say. There's still some small part of you that isn't so sure that hiding the truth won't turn out to have been the best course of action after all, in the end, but... "It was a mistake to keep this a secret. I screwed up. But making a mistake in the opposite direction isn't going to fix anything." You take a step over toward Yuugi, leaning against the railing of the stairs to look down at her. "You said it. I'm supposed to be getting people together, making sure nobody has any complaints about how this is run, and that's it. But you know there's two sides to this, and if we go to the council head and tell him this, and he decides that it warrants an immediate search with a dozen guys carrying battle axes, then that other side's not gonna get heard, no matter what I say, because," you say as Yuugi shoots you a look like she wants to disagree, "because I don't know what that other side is. I don't even have any good guesses. Nobody does, because none of us have heard the whole truth yet. That's what we need before we can do anything."

That... almost did it. The look goes away without Yuugi saying anything, but she clearly isn't convinced, and you're out of arguments to make. "Look, you said yourself that you don't think Satori's some evil mastermind, right?" you try, working to keep the pleading tone out of your voice. "There is another side to this. Satori needs to be there because it's not my place to try to advocate for her."

Nothing. Yuugi just keeps staring impassively, no different than she was when you first called out to stop her, and with nothing else to say, you have no reply but to stare right back, silently willing her to understand what you're trying to say. The confrontation continues for one minute, then two, until it's not even a confrontation anymore, until it seems more like she's trying to stare through you than at you, and even with nothing to say, you open your mouth to speak again--

"Yeah."

--and close it again as Yuugi finally speaks. And then open and close it silently one more time, just for good measure.

"You're right," she says with a slight nod, keeping her gaze locked on yours for a moment longer before turning away, taking the stairs two at a time. "We'll split up. You get Komeiji, bring her to... the steps outside the palace is the closest thing to neutral ground there is. I'll get the council head and--"

"Wait!" Snapping out of the stupor from Yuugi's sudden concession, you all but throw yourself down the stairs after her, reaching the ground floor at the same time that she reaches the front door. "I can't go get her alone!"

Yuugi pauses, hand on door, and an exasperated look flickers across her face as she turns her head back toward you. "Why?"

"I said I don't think she's some evil mastermind, but that doesn't make it so," you say, crossing the room in broad strides as you speak. "I'm not going to be able to fight back if she decides to shoot the messenger."

The exasperation flickers back on, and Yuugi gives you another long, hard stare before throwing the door open and stepping out. "Let's do this quick. I don't like leavin' the council head out of this any longer than I have to." She strides out into the street, and you shut the door behind you, hurrying off after her as she makes her way to the palace.

The atmosphere between the two of you still isn't what you'd call comfortable, but you're moving too fast to really notice; even Yuugi's short, quick strides are long enough that you nearly have to jog to keep up. You sneak a few glances at Yuugi, but her eyes are locked straight ahead; even if there was some sort of conversation you wanted to start, you doubt it'd get through with her like this. Resigning yourself to the circumstances, you focus on getting where you need to go, and you find yourself at the palace in short order. Yuugi takes the steps three at a time going up, and you're still a few steps short of the top as she opens the door--

--to an enormous black bear.

"Ah--"

"GGGRR--"

And before your feet can leave the ground, it raises one gigantic paw up to its head, then swings it down in a straight line towards Yuugi--

"Yuugi--!"

--who catches it effortlessly in a single hand. With a noise like a sigh, she lets her shoulders drop, and her other hand shoots forward, grabbing a handful of fur on the animal's chest.

"--RWRR--"

And with a short step forward and a single thrusting motion, the bear is gone from the doorway. You can't see past Yuugi into the darkness of the palace, but you can hear the thing's growling shift into whimpers as it flies through the air, followed shortly by a thud and a crash from within as it hits the ground.

"Ah, fuck." As Yuugi speaks again, you remember to breathe, and you absently take the last few steps up the stairs, unable to keep yourself from gaping. She just won a fight with a bear in the amount of time it would have taken you to realize you were fighting a bear.

Wait, if that bear was waiting at the door, then... "Shit."

"Yeah. Come on." Yuugi swings the door open the rest of the way, sending it slamming against the reverse wall as she strides in, and you slip in after her, keeping your eyes peeled for more animals.

You... find them.

The entire main foyer is filled with a literal menagerie. Animals great and small, predator and prey alike, all milling about the space, with all the chaos you would expect from such a gathering; you have no idea how none of this racket made it outside, barring some sort of soundproofing magic. Your entrance turns a few furry heads, but oddly enough, you aren't immediately set upon, and the majority of them ignore you entirely.

"I told you not yet."

And amongst the hustle and bustle, kneeling next to the the prostrate form of the bear Yuugi just threw, is Satori.

"That's no excuse." She's talking to it, you realize, and it's responding; the animal pulls itself upright, but it still seems to slump under Satori's scolding tone, letting out a pitiful whine. "Upstairs with you." With a firm hand, she shoves the bear away from her, and it trots away on all fours, head hung low.

"Lady Komeiji." Yuugi's switched back up into that polite tone she seems to reserve for Satori and the council head, even if it is through gritted teeth. "What, exactly, is--"

"Stop that." Finally, Satori rises and looks at the two of you, interrupting Yuugi sharply. "Neither of us are in the mood."

"Fine. What the hell is this?" Yuugi booms, thrusting a hand toward a particularly busy corner of the room.

"My apologies for the unwarranted attack. Teodor has a difficult time following directions."

"That's not--"

"I am preparing my pets to watch over the palace in my absence," Satori interrupts. "In the event that someone should try to enter while I am gone," she continues, staring pointedly at Yuugi.

"How thoughtful. Look, we're kinda in a hurry, so let's--"

"You misunderstand. I have no intention of going with you."

That stops Yuugi cold, and as you see her fist clench at her side, you decide to step in before she can form a response. "Then where are you going?"

"You already know that." As her attention turns to you, though, her cool detachment turns to cold anger, and her words take on a sharp edge. "Orin told me everything. I had hoped to get the details from you, but I see you were... otherwise occupied."

So she's angry now, too? "If you talked Orin, then you know I've been planning to tell you since the moment I left."

Her eyes flick over to Yuugi briefly, then back to you. "In due time, no doubt."

"You're mad at him for keepin' secrets?" Yuugi asks coldly. "I got some bad news for you."

"Satori," you begin again, taking a step closer to her, "we need to know that you weren't responsible for Okuu's actions."

"I wasn't. I swear it," she says bluntly.

You flinch. "Just your word between the three of us isn't--"

"And what more do you hope to get from me?!" And the ice-cold facade shatters into genuine anger as Satori stomps up to you, pushing her face up into yours. "What further evidence could exist?! And do you truly believe it would matter?! This 'discussion' you intend to lead me to is nothing more than a kangaroo court, and you all but know it already! And you," she continues, turning toward Yuugi sharply, "you do know it, and the only thing stopping you from believing it is your self-delusion as to the nature of your leader!"

She turns back to you, and the lid is back on the bottle, her face a mask of cold anger once again. "I told you when I asked you to keep this secret. There are bigger forces at play here than oni, or my pets, or anything else you can imagine. I have made my decision, and it is to fight the battles I can win." Anger cooling even further, Satori grimaces, taking another look around the room at the animals at work. "Do as you will," she says, talking to both you and Yuugi. "If you cannot restrain your collective desire to tear down the palace, I hope you will at least avoid harming the animals."

Bigger forces... wait, bigger than her pets? "You're not going down after Okuu?" She doesn't reply to your question, just continuing to stare. "Just what bigger forces are you talking about?" Silence. "What's going on here?"

Her stony glare lasts for a moment longer before cracking away, revealing the derisive, spiteful smirk underneath. "After all the effort to which I have went to keep my secrets mine... you really think I'm going to tell you?"

"I think you're gonna tell him." Yuugi steps forward, brushing past you to come toe-to-toe with Satori, the two's gazes meeting a foot away from each other as Yuugi towers over Satori. "I think you're gonna explain it to everyone, in nice, tiny words so we can all figure out what the hell you're playin' at."

"Yuugi--"

"You intend to detain me." Satori seems unfazed by this development, looking up at Yuugi placidly.

"'Intend', nothin'," Yuugi spits. "You're gonna come talk with us, and I ain't really concerned with whether you want to or not right now."

"I believe you agreed not to use force when--" Satori stops, and that malicious smirk reappears on her face. "Ah, of course. That's a wonderful justification you've made up. I wonder if you really believe it."

"Satori, don't do this." The situation is going out of control rapidly, and you're not sure if there's anything you can do anymore to rein it in. Is it really all right to force Satori into this meeting? For that matter, is it really worth it? She doesn't seem to care about what's happening any more. Why can't she just tell you what's going on? Maybe there's some trick, some leverage you could use to get it out of--

"There isn't." Damn it.

"Last chance, Komeiji."

"Yuugi, wait. Let's--"

"No," Yuugi says plainly. "No, I've been lied to and jerked around and shit is not as it should be, so we're doin' things my way." She finally closes the distance between her and Satori with a firm hand on the shorter girl's shoulder. "Now, you've got it already, but I'll give you my word that you will be allowed to leave this meeting unharmed and no harm will come to your pets, your family, or your mansion while you're gone. So, seeing as how you did agree to work with us to resolve this dispute, I don't really see where you've got any good reason to refuse. That said, it's gonna be real embarrassing for both of us if I have to pick you up and carry you there, so I'm giving you one last chance to come along quietly and get this all sorted out. We clear?"

"...You're serious." No response from Yuugi. "Then I have no choice. Now."

And then you're on the ground face first, something on your back with fur and snarling hot breath and the strength to keep you pinned holding you down, and your flailing swing of the arm backwards strikes true, but a second one is there to replace the first before you have a chance to right yourself, its weight pushing into your lungs, and you catch a flash of teeth from the corner of your eye--

--and then the weight is gone, and you flip yourself over just in time to see Yuugi toss the wolf into one corner of the room one-handed.

"Yuugi, wha--" Yuugi jerks you to your feet in one pull, an experience almost as painful as hitting the ground in the first place, but then she takes off running, and as you spot Satori slipping through the door to the basement on the far side of the room, you chase after them both.

The staircase down is as dark as ever, and it's a minor miracle that you manage to avoid pitching yourself into the ground, at the rate you're going down it. Yuugi, on the other hand, isn't so lucky; you don't see her fall, but you hear the crash, accompanied by an unpleasant snapping noise. You nearly stop, but the urgency of the chase presses you to continue; besides, she didn't need your help wrestling a bear, so you doubt she needs you to dust her off after a fall.

As you reach the dim light signaling the bottom of the stairs, you see that your haste paid off; Satori's still there, wrenching the secret door into Okuu's lair open.

"Satori!" You spring from the lowest step, arms outstretched, and your hands close around--

--empty air, as she deftly ducks under your grasp. You're barely able to counter your own momentum to avoid the fist swung towards your midsection, and she dodges your next attempt at a grab even more easily than she did the first.

This time, you realize, you won't be able to pull back for another try, and as Satori's strike hits your solar plexus, you commit yourself even further forward, hoping to simply fall on her and grapple for long enough for Yuugi to arrive.

The moment the thought enters your head, though, Satori's moving, crouching to get under you, and when your weight hits her, it's your stomach against her shoulder. You let out a groan as the pain shoots through your bellybutton and out your back, and you can't even brace yourself for the landing as Satori 's fist jams into your ribs, pushing you off of her and to the ground.

"I'm sealing the door shut behind me, and reinforcing the entire hell of blazing fires magically," she says, turning back to the cave wall without a glance at you. "Don't come after me. If I haven't returned within two days..." She stops for a moment, straining against the frozen mechanisms of the secret door to open a gap large enough to fit through. "I hope you can find a way to get the animals to the surface."

"S-Sa..." Even considering your adrenaline rush, you've had the wind knocked out of you enough times in quick succession that you have no choice but to gasp for air, bending double on the ground.

"I can't tell you why." But Satori answers anyway. "If I could, I would. But I cannot. You have to understand that there is--" And then she stops, and after a moment, the ghost of an odd, crooked smile rises to her face. "Well... I suppose you really don't." And then it vanishes, and she steps through the doorway, pausing on the opposite side of the threshold to look back at you once more. "I'm sorry, Taizou."

And the door shuts.

By the time Yuugi makes it down to where you are, you've managed to drag yourself up the wall to a standing position, still taking shallow breaths to ease the pain from your midsection.

"Where--"

"Through... the wall..." you wheeze, pointing a finger toward the now-undetectable door. "S... She sealed it from inside."

For a moment, Yuugi's face twists with rage, arms flexing as though to lash out, but she's back under control before you can react, wearing a mask of cold determination.

"Here?" she asks sharply.

"Uh--"

"Right here?" she repeats, jerking her thumbs towards the spot on the wall you indicated. You nod slowly, still not comprehending, and her eyes flash again as she turns her attention away from you, placing one hand on the wall as though to brace herself.

"Stand back." And drawing her opposite arm back, fist clenched. You realize what's going to happen just in time to--

KRRMMMM. Flecks of rock pelt your back as you shield your head and neck with your arms, the shaking knocking you to your knees. Even after the noise stops, the aftershocks seem to go on for seconds, rumbling through the ground beneath you, and you wait until your knees stop shaking to push yourself to your feet.

"Fuck," Yuugi curses sharply, and after a moment, you know why; even through the lingering cloud of dust, you can see that the wall is basically undamaged. As she pulls her fist away, you can see the small indentation it left in the stone, a network of tiny cracks spiderwebbing away; more than any human could have done, but not nearly enough to break through to the other side.

"She said she was magically--"

"Figured that out," Yuugi snaps back at you, raising her arm for another punch, and you barely manage to fall back to the opposite wall and grab a handhold in time for the next impact.

KRRMMMM. This time the aftershocks last even longer, and they come with some worrisome rumblings from the stone above your head. As you shield your eyes against the dust cloud and peer in once more, though, it doesn't look like this attack was any more effective; all you see is another fist-shaped dent, overlapping the first.

"Yuugi--"

"You just wanna let her run away like that?!" Yuugi's up in arms before you can even begin to speak, shooting down the suggestion you hadn't yet made. "I just need more time to break through this goddamn--" And she throws another punch; a bit wilder this time, but still hard enough to send you staggering back to the relative safety of the back wall.

As much as you'd like to trust her on that, you get the feeling that she's acting more on emotion that reason now; not ten minutes ago, she didn't even want to come here, and now it looks like she's put all thoughts of the council head out of her mind.

You haven't, though. After what Satori's said and done, you're not really sure of what to do anymore. Part of you still wants to catch her, but you don't know what you'd do if you did; her mind seemed to be made up to... do whatever it is she's doing. Maybe it really would be best to pull back for now and take care of the other half of this unstable situation.

[ ] You can't just let this go; not like this. Keep trying to go after Satori.
[ ] You have nothing to gain from finding Satori; not anymore. Go talk to the council head.
[ ] Write-in.

---

Sorry.

[X] You can't just let this go; not like this. Keep trying to go after Satori.

[x] You can't just let this go; not like this. Keep trying to go after Satori.
-[x] She reinforced the door, but not the area around hit. Ask Yuugi to probe the areas around the door for a weak spot.

[X] You can't just let this go; not like this. Keep trying to go after Satori.
-[x] She reinforced the door, but not the area around hit. Ask Yuugi to probe the areas around the door for a weak spot.

[X] You can't just let this go; not like this. Keep trying to go after Satori.
-[x] She reinforced the door, but not the area around hit. Ask Yuugi to probe the areas around the door for a weak spot.
--[x]"Yuugi, everything we do is in support of something we value"

God damn it Satori...

[X] Get Yuugi to calm down. Beating against the door is just going to waste time.
[X] "You know the council head better than I do, so is there any way to explain this situation that won't result in him wanting to go three rounds with the door?"

>>6144
>She reinforced the door, but not the area around hit.
Actually, she did.
>"I'm sealing the door shut behind me, and reinforcing the entire hell of blazing fires magically,"
Duck Tape won't work this time.

[ ] You have nothing to gain from finding Satori; not anymore. Go talk to the council head.

We need back up.

[X] Get Yuugi to calm down. Beating against the door is just going to waste time.
[X] "You know the council head better than I do, so is there any way to explain this situation that won't result in him wanting to go three rounds with the door?"

I almost don't want to vote, I don't know what's right for us to do.

>>6154
In Yuugi we trust.

[X] Get Yuugi to calm down. Beating against the door is just going to waste time.
[X] "You know the council head better than I do, so is there any way to explain this situation that won't result in him wanting to go three rounds with the door?"

>>6154
Yeah. I just want to vote for whatever resolves our personal relationship with Yuugi. Council and everything else is second right now, especially since Satori's down there getting her pet in line, and any second now a Red and White blur of death will plow through the city.

[X] Get Yuugi to calm down. Beating against the door is just going to waste time.
[X] "You know the council head better than I do, so is there any way to explain this situation that won't result in him wanting to go three rounds with the door?"

>>6157
>Yeah. I just want to vote for whatever resolves our personal relationship with Yuugi.

This would only happen if Yuugi some how gets over Taizou withholding information. On the flip side though, something Satori said...

>turning toward Yuugi sharply, "you do know it, and the only thing stopping you from believing it is your self-delusion as to the nature of your leader!"

>your self-delusion as to the nature of your leader!

hmm...

>>6158
Yuugi most likely doesn't believe that the chief has less than honorable intentions, something we and Taizo easily picked up on. Then again humans are great for picking up on "trickery". Now if it's something else... whoa.

>>6157
Think that Satori went ahead and let Orin trigger the events of SA?

>Teodor

I love you.

[X] Get Yuugi to calm down. Beating against the door is just going to waste time.
[X] "You know the council head better than I do, so is there any way to explain this situation that won't result in him wanting to go three rounds with the door?"

>>6159

I think actually that Satori went to try and calm Utsuho down, but doesn't really think that she'll come back alive.

> If I haven't returned within two days...
> I hope you can find a way to get the animals to the surface.

>>6160
I entirely believe the reference actually summoned Harker back.

>>6161

Yep that sounds about right to me.

>>6160
Holy shit, I just got that reference.

[x] You have nothing to gain from finding Satori; not anymore. Go talk to the council head.
>>6166
I thought it was a reference to Roosevelt.

Monthly bump for updates.

>>6325
Considering there just WAS an update, you should perhaps pay a bit more attention.

>>6326

Not that Anon, but the last update was over a month ago, so asking for a monthly update would seem entirely justified.

God damn you, you got my hopes up!

Finally caught up. Now I'm waiting with the rest of you...

Is Orin even still signaling the surface? If she isn't, that's very, very bad. Suika needs to show up before this story ends and SA happening is the only realistic way for her to outside of an epilogue.

As for right now,
[x] Fetch the council head. He'll break down this wall in no time.
It's best to not mention the whole lying to him thing. He doesn't need to know about anything other than Orin's note and the fallout from that. I suspect Yuugi isn't going to let Taizo get away with not mentioning it, but it's worth a shot.

>>6360

He could update again. It is closing in the 2 months now.

>>6326
>>6327
>>6328
>>6362

Learn to sage, asshats.

>>6363
>implying that /underground/ is active and it would disturb the other stories here.

>>6364
>Using implications outside of /v/
You are sure to piss someone off with that kind of post.

>>6365
As you did. Using sage here is of no use. The weekly traffic is in the single digits if you are lucky.

>>6366
That is of little importance. If you say stupid shit that is off-topic, you sage it. There are no exceptions.

Here's a protip, just for you. Sage isn't some kind of insult.

>>6367
I know what sage does and what it is good for. But i see no reason to use it here at this moment.

>>6368
Perhaps because it is rude to bump a thread with something completely off-topic, especially when said thread is notorious for going without updates? It's pretty much common courtesy, man.

>>6369
If the writer reads this i want him to know that there are still people here who wait for some updates. If no one would say anything it would be like no one cares.
This will be the last post from me, don't want to shit up the thread. And i will use sage. My goal has been brought over.

This wasn't anything like that one other bump on /sdm/. If anything, another vote and further discussion on the story might prompt glasnost to at least give a status update. Quit overreacting and generally being faggots.

Okay, so here's the deal. Without going off my nut and blogging furiously like last time, let me say that my school/work schedule is the main factor at work behind the lack of updates. Particularly at this late juncture in the story, writing an update requires large blocks of uninterrupted time to ensure I don't fuck up my own continuity and have accounted for all possible reader choices, and in the absence of such blocks, my creative energies tend to go toward things that can be accomplished in 10-minute chunks. I am still writing for pleasure with some regularity, but it's all going toward either translations or random one-shot ideas.

The other issue is that I've taken to heart what people have been saying in various places: this story does not really have much hope of remaining engaging if it proceeds at an update-a-month pace. It goes against my instincts to believe that speed could ever be near as important as writing quality, but when I consider stories which I have liked versus stories that I have loved on THP, update frequency is a distinguishing factor too often to be coincidence. The updates comprising the climax, at least, need to be at around a two-a-week pace, I think, to avoid destroying what impact they might have before they're even read, and that is not a pace I can handle right now.

Having said all that, though, I can imagine all the writers of dropped stories having thoughts along those lines, and I can see myself falling into the same pattern all too easily. (This is why haven't declared a formal hiatus during any of my extended absences, even though by all rights I should have to be fair to you guys; giving myself carte blanche to delay things is kind of a scary prospect.) So I will be updating this weekend, to prove to myself that this is not dead, but I am really not sure what the schedule will be after that.

This is a really shitty thing to tell you, especially after nearly two months of silence, and I'm really sorry. I wish I hadn't made quite so many mistakes as I have, and I thank you all for sticking around despite everything.

Re: sage-related anger: I don't really think that either the guy who bumped this or the guy who was annoyed at the bump are really in the wrong, so let's just agree to blame me for creating the situation in the first place and get along.

>>6372
So... lets just assume that after the next update the story will be on indefinite hiatus until further notice.

altruistic hobo end or not in the future, it's been a fun ride since then.

>indefinite hiatus
No. Don't say that. I am perfectly fine with one update a month or so.

>>6374

That's just it though, his next update, when it does get posted, ends a two month wait rather than one month. I know its something of a joke that we prod glasnost in regards to his "Valve Time™"-ish pace after a slew of votes. But as it's become the norm, its bound to sour some anon if it has not already done so; It's rough for some, and others have become complacent about it all as well

My apologies if I'm wrong with this observation.

Do what you need to do glasnost, the one thing that been consistent have been the quality of your writing and those that continue to wait eagerly for your next post.

This anon included as well...

>>6375
>others have become complacent about it all as well

Guilty. I've become increasingly tolerant of/complacent with authors that take forever and a half to update. Partly because I'm reading a lot less now (probably due to lack of updates), but I know that it's hard for some authors to sit down and write (especially around this time of the year when exams roll through and wreck all sorts of schedules). I was going to bump the thread when we got to the two month anniversary of the last update, but someone did me the favor. We're just lucky the tread hadn't reached autosage yet. Dunno about you, but creating an entirely new thread begging for updates is awkward as hell.

Anyway, we've waited a lot longer for stories half as good as this one, and even though I'm pretty sure we're not getting the end we want, I'm confident this story will end, and it will be glorious.

>>6376
>I'm pretty sure we're not getting the end we want

Not with that attitude.

Mistakes have been made, but we can turn things around.

>I'm pretty sure we're not getting the end we want
Don't say that. Just because he updates slowly means that he needs to pack more things into one, cut some corners here and there to have the story proceed and advance the plot.
If he is still willing to write, even with his busy life and less time, it will come to a satisfying end.
Like already said, many of us are used to the slow update rate and it became normal.

>>6372
I don't mind the slow speed as your updates have plenty of "meat" to them, unlike some other writers which take 2 months to do something half as long and a quarter of the substance.

>>6376
Have some faith that things will end well; I doubt Yuugi will be mad at Taizo forever.

[X] Get Yuugi to calm down. Beating against the door is just going to waste time.
[X] "You know the council head better than I do, so is there any way to explain this situation that won't result in him wanting to go three rounds with the door?"

KRRMMMM. Another punch to the wall, another miniature earthquake shaking down dust from the ceiling, and you know what you have to do. You want to go after Satori as much as Yuugi does, but your chance is gone now, and now you're just wasting time that could be spent on more productive ventures.

"Yuugi. Yuugi!" At your second call, she freezes mid-punch, and she turns on you a moment later, fist still raised and with a look in her eye like she wouldn't mind using it on you. The glare drops almost instantly, and the fist a second after that, but you still find yourself taking a step backward, tongue tripping over your message.

"What?" And even if she's not actually threatening to punch you, you really don't want to get between Yuugi and her goal on the other side of that wall right now. Her fists may be lowered, but they're still clenched tight, a few small veins bulging out over the tensed muscles in her forearms, and even after her expression softens, her body language still tells you quite clearly that talking to you is the furthest thing from her mind.

But that can't stop you. "She's gone," you say, as gently as you can manage without sounding patronizing. "We need to--"

"Fine." This time, though, you don't get an impassioned shout, or even the muted disappointment from before, as she turns away from you again; this is just cold, hard anger. "You go do what you need to do."

Fine, then. If it's anger she wants, you've got that in spades. "We need to go talk to the council head," you repeat, with an edge this time, "because this isn't getting us anything but a inch-deep hole in the wall."

"An inch closer than talking's gotten us this whole damn time."

She doesn't even turn to respond to you this time, and as she raises her arm for another strike at the wall, your own emotions reach their boiling point, and you reach out to grab her, holding her punch back. "You're the one who said--"

"Don't fuckin' touch me!" You barely even manage to lay a hand on her before her entire body snaps back, knocking your hand away with enough force to sting.

The brief pain only brings the rest of your body's aches into focus, though, and your own voice raises to a shout before you bother to think. "Are you kidding me?! You wanted to see the council head not ten minutes ago! You were ready to leave Satori hanging out to dry--"

"That was before she stood right in front of me and told me I was an idiot for ever trustin' her!" Yuugi screams. "Now she's right behind this wall, and you expect me to just walk away?"

"And how do you think I feel?! After everything I did, thinking I was getting closer to ending this thing between you and her, and now this?!"

"'Everything you did'?! What about everything you did? How can you stand to let her go, after all of her secrets got you--"

"I can't! I can't fucking stand it! Why do you think I came down the stairs after her?! Like I was going to beat a youkai in a fistfight?! I came 'cause it pisses me off, just as bad as it pisses you off, and if she was standing right here in front of me now, I'd do the same thing and get beat up the same way, but she's not, she's gone, and beating at the damn wall does shit for us right now!"

You're losing your train of thought to lightheadedness, between all the screaming and that shot to the solar plexus, and you brace yourself against the wall and breathe, feeling the pain in your ribs almost as acutely as you did when Satori hit you. For the first time since your screaming match started, Yuugi is silent, but she's not calm by a long shot; when you look back up at her, it looks like she's using every ounce of willpower she has to keep herself from outright attacking you.

This is exactly what you wanted to avoid. Swallowing your pain and quashing your own anger as best as you can, you open your mouth to speak--

"Fuck!" Before you can react, Yuugi spins back around and lands another punch on the wall; this time, though, there's no wall-shaking force behind it, just simple frustration.

"Fucking-- fuck-- rrraagh!" Okay, not simple frustration. Yuugi is apoplectic, one step away from an outright meltdown, and any thoughts you had of calming the situation with words go out the window as you watch her literally tremble with fury.

And then--

"Okay. Okay. You're right." Like holding a magnifying glass up to the sun, all that rage seems to evaporate from her body to coalesce in her voice, giving even those simple words a sort of deadly, focused purpose. "You are..." A clenched fist and a slight waver in her voice. "...right." And then she raises her head, and you can still see a hint of that furious rage hidden behind her mask of resolve as she strides for the stairs. "Let's go."

You have to struggle to make it up the stairs, with your lungs feeling how they do now, but you don't dare ask Yuugi to stop or slow her pace, and you doubt she would if you did. If you thought she seemed intense before, during the trip from the liquor store to the palace, then you didn't know what intense was; if somebody put a brick wall in Yuugi's path right now, you doubt she would bother to punch it down before walking through it.

You, on the other hand, can barely get a handle on your own thoughts. Despite what you said to Yuugi back there, you still don't want to throw Satori to the mercy of the council head... or do you? None of the trust that you've paid her has been repaid; you can't do anything but guess at her motives in keeping the secrets she has, and you know for a fact that you don't have the whole story. How can you possibly explain this to the council head?

Before you even realize it, you're out of time to think about it. Yuugi's driven pace brings you to the council house in virtually no time, and the two of you come to a halt as one before the door. You move to enter, but Yuugi steps ahead of you, placing one hand against the door...

...and stops.

"Taizou..." She's... 'calm' isn't the word, the anger is still plain in everything she does; it's more... distant, like she's reciting a script, speaking without considering the meaning of the words she's saying. She isn't even looking at you, either; she's just leaning up against the door, one arm braced against the building as though the walk over here suddenly exhausted all her energy. "You tell the story."

"...What?"

"About all this. What you said, back at the store, about gettin' the whole truth, that's all true. That's gotta be said. I don't know how you manage to..." And now the anger creeps back into her voice, and her fingers rake against the door, squeezing into a fist, as she stops herself. "...Anyway, I ain't calm, is what I'm sayin'. If there was time for me to go cool my head on all this, I'd take it. But I dunno if there is, and I ain't in the state of mind now to say what's gotta be said if we're avoid a war."

'War'. Your mind returns to that room full of animals, and past that to the group of youkai that stopped you on the street, and then further back to Koishi's attack, and you can't suppress a shudder.

"So I'm relyin' on you," she says. "Say what you said to me to the council head, and we'll see how this all goes down. Okay?"

You're not looking forward to explaining this to the council head, not at all, but...

"...Okay." There's no other response you could give. If nothing else, the thought that Yuugi can still say that she's relying on you, after the events of the past half hour, raises your spirits.

"Okay. Good." There's a note of finality in her words, but they're followed by a unsteady sigh, and rather than moving away, she leans even further towards the door, letting her arm bend until she's nearly resting her head against the building, drawing her face out of sight. "Okay," she repeats again, as though to reassure herself. "Okay."

"And just tell the truth, okay?" she blurts suddenly, and finally, she glances back at you from her position leaning against the building. If you hadn't seen her at the height of rage not two minutes ago, you would never have guessed it; the expression on her face now is the same fatigue you saw before, just after you told her about Satori's deal with you. Faced with that look, your shame at your own role in this whole mess returns again, and you only meet her eyes for a moment before you can't help but glance off to the side.

"No more..." Yuugi's command peters out before long, too, and she turns her head back toward the door, silent for another moment, before levering herself back upright and straightening her back once again. "Yeah. Okay, let's go."

And with that, the door slides open, and the two of you step inside.

He's there, alone, brooding over the chalkboard at the far end of the hall. The specifics are different, but the theme is the same; diagrams of troop movements, Xs and Os and arrows showing who fights who and when. The word 'war' echoes in your mind again, and you swallow once as you and Yuugi round the table in the center of the room to approach him.

"Council head."

At Yuugi's call, he turns to face you. "Yuugi, Taizou. Good evening."

"The situation with Komeiji has changed."

The way his expression changes is subtle; a brief twitch of the eyes, a flattening of the lips, and then he turns his full attention, and the unpleasant glare that seems to be his default expression, on Yuugi. "Report."

"Taizou?" Yuugi prompts, and that stare turns to you.

"Begin."

And remains there like a statue, utterly unchanging, throughout your entire story. No questions asked, no prompting to continue, no emotion. It unnerves you, at first, and continues to unnerve you later, but you press on through the tale: first, Koishi's abilities, your first trip into the secret cavern, and your memory loss; after that, your second trip, from just after the end of the formal search to your encounter with Yuugi. The same story Yuugi now knows, told in almost exactly the same order. Everything...

...with one exception. You told the council head that you didn't remember your first trip, at first, but you didn't tell him just how quickly it returned to your memory, hoping to avoid the question that would come next: why didn't you tell anyone? You tried to gauge Yuugi's reaction as you told that part of the story, hoping for a hint as to whether or not it was safe to let the council head know what you did, but she remained as stoic as him.

And now you've reached the end, and the council head finally shifts, closing his eyes for a brief moment, before fixing you with his usual stony glare.

"That is all?" There's no accusation or judgement in his voice; he doesn't suspect you of hiding anything.

Yuugi's reaction plays back in your mind; the disbelief, the sadness, the shouting match.

'You swore an oath,' she said.

...Just what is the punishment for breaking an oath, in hell?

[ ] Leave it at this. The council head won't need any more help deciding that Satori's to blame for everything.
[ ] Try to work around the issue without saying outright that you kept any secrets. What's important here is what Satori knew, not what you knew.
[ ] Tell the whole truth. You broke your oath once; breaking it twice won't make things any better.

---

This would be a shitty place to leave the story for a month, so there's going to have to be another update within a week.

Hope this doesn't suck.

[x] Tell the whole truth. You broke your oath once; breaking it twice won't make things any better.

[x] Tell the whole truth. You broke your oath once; breaking it twice won't make things any better.

It's been a long time, so this vote is not being made with any sort of informed opinion. I simply believe Yuugi would appreciate this more if we don't lie, or leave anything out.

[X] Tell the whole truth. You broke your oath once; breaking it twice won't make things any better.

Hmm...

[x] Tell the whole truth. You broke your oath once; breaking it twice won't make things any better.

[ ] Tell the whole truth. You broke your oath once; breaking it twice won't make things any better.

OW...

[x] Tell the whole truth. You broke your oath once; breaking it twice won't make things any better.

[x] Tell the whole truth. You broke your oath once; breaking it twice won't make things any better.
>>6385
This sums up everything that i am thinking.

[X] Tell the whole truth. You broke your oath once; breaking it twice won't make things any better.

On the one hand, deciding upon a course of action for the sole purpose of making someone happy is the antithesis of building a constructive relationship, i.e. telling the truth purely for Yuugi's sake. On the other, admitting to breaking the original oath is tantamount to granting Kisaburou free license punt Taizou's pathetic ass back to the surface and/or reconstituting the elements of Taizou's head into the consistency of oatmea, but maintains (something resembling) the moral high ground. However, if he isn't feeling especially homicidal or vengeful, there's an outside chance that Taizou could still affect a reasonable change.

The best we can hope for is to remain an influential voice in the diplomacy of the underground city: someone that can ask for the patience of the oni council in the same breath that he asks for someone familiar with old hell to guide us to a possible entrance/weak-spot in Satori's reinforcement.
[X] Tell the whole truth. You broke your oath once; breaking it twice won't make things any better.

Inevitably failing that/In the worst scenario, we embrace the 'Altruistic Hobo' end and pray for a somewhat positive post-script involving Byakuran.

Why was Taizou able to regain his memories? Was it because we voted to pay attention to them, preventing Koishi from moving them?

The council head must know of this potential anti-Koishi tactic.

wouldn't telling the whole truth lead to giving the Concil head what he wants: an excuse to fully take over the underground? We should try to shoot for a nice ending, not run it into the ground and hope for a nice consolation.

>>6394
I don't think the story is immediately ending after this choice. We will still have a limited window of time to set this right with our negotiation skills. Or so I hope

Anyone else think Koishi is watching?

>>6396
When is she not watching?

>>6395
But it's a major choice, one that might actually set the ending. Though I admit this is a very rough patch, with Taizo tossed into various impossible situations. We should think more on this before making any votes.

>>6396
Who knows, though odds are good that she is...

But you know I'm curious what will happen as canonically Satori was rather in the dark about Okuu's plans. Here, she's trying her hand at dealing with it. This is something else to consider. I doubt most people, especially Yuugi want an war. The Chief is an exception and it seems Yuugi doesn't realize that.

>>6404
I don't think this vote will have any bearing on whether there's a war or not. The council head already knows more than enough to start his war; this is just a "Lie in front of Yuugi" "Don't lie in front of Yuugi" vote.

>>6405
...I think the council head's reaction in regards to Taizo should also be taken into consideration.

>>6407
I'm sure he'll be understanding. He's certainly seemed like a forgive and forget guy in the past, right?

>>6408
You mean like that time he punched a youkai kid in the gut so hard he started throwing up bits of his innards? Over a tomato?

>>6409
That kid hit an oni! He deserved it. Taizo, on the other hand, merely broke an oath. As a human, that's practically expected of him.

[x] Tell the whole truth. You broke your oath once; breaking it twice won't make things any better.

Hopefully he'd understand that it was done more out of stupidity and/or worry rather than with any malicious intent. ...Like it'd matter, though.

Either way, I think we're out of a job.

[x] Tell the whole truth. You broke your oath once; breaking it twice won't make things any better.

>>6405
If he did, he'd have started it already

>>6410
That's what we thought when we started this mess and look how pissed Yuugi is. The only reason the Chief wouldn't be so upset is that this'll give him the pretext he's been looking for and a way to spin things to make Satori come off as malicious.

>>6411
At best, at worse? well, Taizo'll have front row seats to a war breaking out.

>>6413
The only reason Yuugi was so upset was because she thought humans, and Taizou specifically, were better than that. The council head has no such delusions.

[x] Tell the whole truth. You broke your oath once; breaking it twice won't make things any better.

>>6414 I wonder if he was expecting that from the beginning... After all, if the neutral party is compromised, Taizou can no longer stand against him.
So the council head (whatever his name is) will be totally free to lock the whole place.

>>6475
That's kinda been my point, even when Taizo was elected the neutral party, the Chief most likely expected him to turn things in his favor.

>>6476
Chief is ALWAYS a dick.

But I'm more worried about Satori and Yuugi.
Yuugi won't hate us, but we'll have to avoid her for a while. And Satori... she's in great danger.

If glasnost plan to write a second run, I'll go for Satori. Or Koishi, I don't know.

>>6477

Of course Satori is in danger, and she knows it. In her mind, she's basically on a suicide mission. Why else would she ask you to take her pets to a safe (or at least safer) place after a set amount of time has past?

>>6478
If she dies, I'll vote everything for her in the next [s]like|/s] run.

>>6477
I don't even want to think about a second run. So many likable characters... at least when I started reading this, that choice was made long before I had any input.

>>6479
>>6477

I think you guys are getting a bit ahead of yourselves, what with the talk of a second run. When If Glastnost completes this first run, I can die happily, even if it takes over another year, I want to see this finished.

I keep trying to write this, but I just keep staring at it until my attention span snaps. Mostly just posting to say that I'm still alive and still trying. Sorry for being such a fuck-up.

>>6509
It's all good, man. I'm happy enough with you just telling us you're still working on it for now. Don't feel like you need to rush it for us.

>>6485
We only start worrying about the 2nd run once we get this under control.

>>6509
Waiting patiently.

>>6518
We aren't on Koishi's route.

>>6520
All Routes seem pretty fucked at the moment.

>>6521
that's a poor attitude to take, sure we screwed up and there's fallout, but thinking we've already lost before trying does nothing to help.

GET BACK TO WORK WRITEFAG!

I'll tell you what I know.
We're mainly on Yuugi's route, maybe a little on Satori's too (enough to be involved with her business, and don't forget we trusted her).
I expect a Yuugi ending, unless she's unable to forgive MC. And that case, we have to focus on Satori.
I'll tell what I know.
Yuugi won't just forgive MC out of the blue. We'll have to get rid of any troubles, including Okuu's rampage. If we can do that before the Oni Miko arrives and rape everyone, it'll be okay.
I'll tell you what I know.
Reimu's coming is like a Joker. We have no idea how the Underground City will react to her. Will she be like a electric shock? Or, because of her, will the "balance" be destroyed, and the City will burn in the hell of a civil war?
I'll tell you what I know.
Good guy win, bad guy lose, and as always, ENGLAND PREVAILS.

Why don't you all shut up and wait patiently for the writer person to update? There's no use bumping this just to whine and complain.

>>6524
Reimu isn't coming. Orin put all her eggs in one basket. Look how that turned out for her.

>>6526
Who knows as of this point, it's an open book.

>>6525
>writer person
Go back to the basement Flandre.

Oh come on glasnost. This delay is bad even for you.

Go bug him on Danbooru then; I've seen him posting in the forums recently.

>>6532
Are you sure that is him?

>>6534
I'm pretty sure as a surprising number of key figures here are on Danbooru.

I've noticed the writing's tone (depressing, walls closing in etc) is a bit similar to the author's current life style.

was this intentional?

>>6547
I would question how you know so much about Glasnosts life.

>This would be a shitty place to leave the story for a month, so there's going to have to be another update within a week.

Five months later

>>6802
nearly six now
;_;

Okay, time to grow a spine and own up to the fact that I have basically been a tremendous prick over in this part of the Internet.

Details tomorrow because I am really tired and I would get all bummed and say stupid things if I tried now.

Also, I never anticipated that I would have to thank Docteur Hartmann for anything. It feels sort of weird, but a good sort of weird.

preemptive tl;dr I do not plan to drop this and I'm sorry for all of this nonsense.

Bumping over actual, active stories without an update because I am a huge fucking egomaniac. Sorry, YAF and ddyk.

>>7141
>preemptive tl;dr I do not plan to drop this

Hooray!

>>7141
>Details tomorrow because I am really tired
>tomorrow

See you in a month or two!

>>7141

Good the see you're sill kicking, in any case.

It's a good thing I didn't post what I wrote yesterday, because it is mostly excuses and mopey blogging. I've spoilered it below for people who want that sort of thing, but the upshot of it all is that there are two things that need to get done before I finally finish writing this.

One is a recap of the story up to now. As it happens, I still have about as firm a grip on where I want the story to go as I did before leaving off, but I can only guess how many readers I chased off by being a flake, to say nothing of users who joined TH-P after I stopped updating with any semblance of regularity. I have not really decided whether this should be in the style of Owen's summaries (i.e. one- or two-sentence descriptions of each post in a thread with links) or a more narrative style (i.e. paragraphs of text telling an abbreviated version of the story), so please give me your input on that.

The other is to get my groove back as a writer, to the extent that I ever had one. The good news is that I have 19 drafts in my Gmail folder, 15 of which are unfinished Touhou short stories, so I should be able to spit-shine one, post it, and let the resulting wave of adulation and/or excoriation get me thinking writerly thoughts again; between that and this /nue/ thing, I should have no want of opportunity for a while. Any non-Nue stories will go in a thread in /gensokyo/ (unless you guys think it should go in /th/, in which case please tell me so), so keep an eye out.

Lastly, I've seen it kicked around a few places here, so I'll confirm that I am the glasnost on Danbooru. I'm split on the issue of whether or not to tell you all to bug me there should I appear to have flaked out again: half of me feels like it would increase accountability and get me working again, and the other half feels like A) I would be better served by learning to motivate my own damn self, and B) this is some late-stage, metastatic form of tripfaggotry where I give out other bits of my online identity to seem important. So, uh, make up your own minds on that one, I guess.

Excuses/blogging:
I have a strange reaction to having to do hard things: basically, I close my eyes, cover my ears, and blow off deadlines with reckless abandon until a real, hard, "do-this-or-you're-fucked" deadline approaches, at which point I freak the fuck out, work non-stop, and shit out something that fulfills whatever duty I was assigned. The trouble is that after a lifetime of doing this, my "you're fucked" spider-sense borders on the preternatural and I very rarely catch any shit for doing this; without negative feedback, any impetus to change this behavior has to come from within, and you all know better than anyone that self-discipline is not my strong suit.

So, long story short, my "you're fucked"-sense started going off in January for a deadline in April, and in classic form, I finished up the weekend before my ass was due to be grass and escaped any consequences for my behavior. By this point, though, the shame of having blown you guys off for so long made posting here again its own special sort of difficult, so I initiated operation "la-la-la-I-can't-hear-you" once again with TH-P as my target, the trouble being that since TH-P can't threaten not to pay me, there was nothing to snap me out of it.

So that's my story. Sorry it's so, you know. Retarded.

>>7170
Any common themes for these sorts? Such as locations or are they truly all over gensokyo? I'd like to hear that before recommending any boards as /gensokyo/'s chronically overlooked since that one anon started an actual story. The that posts those satire bits there. And /th/'s rather overcrowded/active as is.

As for the knowledge you're on danbooru as well? Well, the trade off is the more places we know you're on, the more we can bug you when you start flaking out worse than usual.

>>7171
My top five are something depressing with Sanae, something with Tewi best read with The Entertainer playing in the background, a Murasa origin story in a strange experimental style, a Byakuren story that I couldn't finish in time for that Christmas thread, and MokouxKeine, so yeah.

>>7172
>and MokouxKeine, so yeah.
jump to

>>7170
NONE OF THE ABOVE

CONTINUE MEMOIRS OF A VAMPIRE

DO IT FAGGOT

Also hi, good to see you again!

>>7187
It's dead, Jim. Me and you are the only ones who even remember it.

>>7188
>Me and you are the only ones who even remember it.

Not true. Setting a story about Remilia in 18th century France was a pretty ballin idea.

Though as far as the writefag's work, I'll take anything I can get.

>>7170
>I have a strange reaction to having to do hard things: basically, I close my eyes, cover my ears, and blow off deadlines with reckless abandon until a real, hard, "do-this-or-you're-fucked" deadline approaches, at which point I freak the fuck out, work non-stop, and shit out something that fulfills whatever duty I was assigned. The trouble is that after a lifetime of doing this, my "you're fucked" spider-sense borders on the preternatural and I very rarely catch any shit for doing this; without negative feedback, any impetus to change this behavior has to come from within, and you all know better than anyone that self-discipline is not my strong suit.

Dude, I do the exact same thing. I bullshitted my way past so many deadlines in college. I don't even clean my apartment unless someone's coming to visit the next day. I'd probably read reddit all day at work if I had my own office.

>>7187
>CONTINUE MEMOIRS OF A VAMPIRE
^^^THIS^^^

Go figure. I thought only Taisa liked MoaV. (Hi, Taisa!) The reason I stopped it before ULA, though, apart from the fact that ULA had more man-hours in it and was further along story-wise, was that I had intended it to be a mystery-drama hybrid, but ended up stitching the worst parts of those genres (tortuously slow pacing and wild mood swings from dramas, overly conspicuous character establishment and convenient plot devices from mysteries) into a confused Frankenstein's monster. The "what's wrong with Patchy's health" subplot was the second thing I came up with for the story, and both reader reactions and my own reading indicates that I didn't execute it in a particularly compelling way.

But these are the risks you take when you put a first draft on the Internet one page at a time. I am less sure about the four-chapter scheme I had planned for that story, because the plots of the Sakuya and Meiling chapters in my mind are still a rehash of the Patchouli chapter and virtually nonexistent, respectively, but I will at least be finishing the storyline I started. After this, though.

Translating Wild and Horned Hermit this weekend before even Voile gets tired of me; pic related. Will post here afterward for focusing purposes.

>>7190
why you would go on a site thats based off stealing 4chan's content and making it even more unfunny than it already is, is beyond me

>>7192
It's where stuff gets translated and has productive things somewhat?

>>7191
>Translating Wild and Horned Hermit this weekend

Hooray!

>>7196
I meant reddit

>>7192
>>7200
Reddit is huge. That's like if you saw /vp/ and went around telling people 4chan is a pokemon fansite.

Well, that went surprisingly well.

http://pastebin.com/YNQkwms4 -- WaHH Chapter 5 script. Posted here exclusively for a few hours, because I still love you best, THP. (Also if anyone can think of an abbreviation for "labor union" that anglophones actually use, that would be swell.)

Still waiting for opinions on whether you want the ULA summary in single-sentence style (e.g. >>/sdm/42033) or in narrative form. (Although I guess those of you who are still here and reading this are the ones least likely to actually need a plot summary.)

>>7203
4chan isn't a Pokemon site?!

But yeah, low-subscription subreddits are where it's at; f7u12 is aggressively unfunny, and most of the default subscriptions are nigh-unreadable for one reason or another. Sort of like how most of 4chan is just an eyesore nowadays. oh god am i a hipster douche now i think i may be

>>7205
Nice, does this mean 3 and 4 are done as well? And would you know when the translated 3 and 4 will hit the touhouwiki? I do need to catch up on 4 at least.

>>7206
I finished the translation on 4 a while ago at http://voile.gensokyo.org/res/43418.html ; they just haven't edited it because the scans for 3 proved elusive and they didn't want to release out of order. The translation for 3 I posted yesterday at http://voile.gensokyo.org/res/41901.html , and 5 will be at http://voile.gensokyo.org/res/45687.html shortly, so you can watch those URLs for edited versions.

>>7205

Narrative form sounds nice, though who are you gonna use as a narrator?

>>7205
>ULA summary in single-sentence style

Definitely this. That format looks pretty fun to write, gets people all caught up in an amusing and engaging fashion, and it doesn't get caught in the narrative flow of the story. Refreshes the old readers, catches new readers right up, and in the best case scenario, people feel motivated to re-read old threads for all the details. Some of the same could be said for a narrative retelling, but they generally aren't as entertaining (for me at least).

>>7219
Gordon Freeman of course.

>>7219
Me. When I say 'narrative', I just mean 'as a continuous story'; basically, the way that you would tell the story verbally if you were summarizing it for someone who had never read it.

But I was already leaning towards the alternative, and >>7230 makes a good point about the encouraging re-reading, so I will probably go with that instead.

Sanae story is coming along; it's not as good as I'd hoped, but I've sat on it for long enough, so it's getting posted whether I like it or not. I think I will do that and the Tewi one in one thread in /gensokyo/, then summarize (if I'm not done with it already), and then get this show on the road again.

Koishi or Satori could make a good narrator.

Sanae story is up in >>/gensokyo/7531.

To keep this vaguely /underground/ related and (weakly) justify a bump: anyone who's not reading Chirei De by Karaagetarou over on Danbooru is missing out. Make your way to http://danbooru.donmai.us/pool/show/1407 and enjoy.

>>7328
I've read it already, but thanks for the suggestion.

Just popping in to say that I just went through the "Autumn Sky Paparazzi" pool and noticed you had translated the majority of it. Many thanks.

This story in a nutshell:
-some guy goes underground.
-lives at Yuugi's place.
-face underground's racism.
-notice there's something rotten in the underground city.
-have to be impartial between an "argument" between Satori and the onis.
-lie and hide.
-Satori disappears, Utsuho wants to burn the world, Yuugi doesn't trust MC anymore.
That was this story extremely shortened.

Someone tell me how to send PMs on Danbooru so I can yell at glasnost.

>>7428
My Account -> My Mail -> Compose. Or this: http://danbooru.donmai.us/dmail/compose?to=glasnost

And now I notice it's been a month. I wrote the Sanae thing, and a Nue thing in /nue/ (but which one? it is a mystery), and now I am writing the Tewi thing and it is going pretty well, and after that I will definitely stop stalling and write the summary here (not that >>7414 didn't do a good job), and then it will be update time.

>>7448
I want to believe.

Don't leave us hanging again....

>>7448
>>7414 here.
What I wrote was more a reminder than a real summary. I have a pretty good memory, but I don't have the patience or the time to write a real summary, and even if I had it, it's YOUR story, not mine, and I would feel awful if I were to take over your story after bringing you back.

And I want to be reeve, too.

where are the updates eggman

you said there would be updates

I pester him daily about it.

come on man

That board is dead. There's not a single good writer here. YAF left, and glasnost is missing.

You'd be surprised what he's going through for you readers. I'll leave the details (or lack of) up to him, but you really shouldn't be hating on him.

>>7799

Not hating here. Just waiting.

He'll continue eventually. He always did.

>>7799
If writing is painful, I'd rather he do something he enjoys.

just tossing that sentiment out there

>>7803


He enjoys writing. There are just complex complications.


Again, details or lack of to him. Last post I make on this subject, lest I tread on his personal space.

He should post something that tells us what he is up to instead of just being silent.

>>7805
Nah. Telling us won't magically make the update come faster. And, you know, privacy.

>>7811
What this has to do with privacy i sure don't know.
A notice is always welcome so that we know what is going on. Saying nothing is always the worst thing to do. And even if he says things like "nothing at the moment" i am fine with that. Before he lets the whole thing rot he should put it on hold or something.

sigh.

also, apologies to all the people whose hope I might've gotten up with this post.