Part 3

In which we casually travel through time and resurrect the dead!

Zerovirus
Zerovirus
Last time: we fed our magic notebook a bunch of our blood and unlocked the power to go back in time so that we could find out who murdered our girlfriend, which is normal. everything is normal. This is fine.
We've gone back in time, to the 'recall point' the notebook gave us- specifically, when Sai Yano split off from Ran and Tama after brushing their teeth.
Now, one of the questions we've been having, is, 'just how many degrees of flexibility do we have with this whole recall business'?
The notebook's description is pretty weird when it comes to explaining what we can and cannot do.
But it turns out apparently one thing we are permitted to do, is, straight up change our decisions.
Ran interrupts Sai as she's about to leave, and asks if she can go with Sai.

Ran: Can I visit the swimming pool with you? I'd like to see what the swimming pool in this school is like.

Privately, Ran thinks to herself about whether this isn't going to- y'know, cause a time paradox, or whatever. Will things change if she's able to run into a living Ann Sakura, and possibly protect her from her murderer?
If this were Rail of Mobius, Sai would tell us 'no you can't come along' because of fate blah blah whatever, and stop us in our tracks. Thankfully, this isn't Rail of Mobius.

Sai: What, aren't all pools pretty much the same everywhere?

Sai: Well, whatever. I feel bad about trying to foist you off on Tama, anyways. Come with me, then.

Oh, there's an interesting framing device here, though, where...
Okay, so, what seems to be going on, is,
there's two Rans in the narration- there's the Ran in the 'past' who's just arbitrarily making a different decision at this recall point,
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and the Ran from the 'future' who's basically astral-projecting and watching how things could have gone differently.
Zerovirus
So we have the physical Ran there saying things- and a second, meta-Ran, making commentary on her other self's actions.

Ran: (Ah, I see. My past self right now is thinking that, rather than investigate the schoolhouse a second time, she'd much rather find an excuse to investigate an entirely new area, the swimming pool. That's why she's making an excuse to go with Sai.)

Ran: (The remembrances are entirely logical and reasonable, as usual. That's reassuring.)

Ran: Hold on a moment, I'll finish brushing my teeth real fast.

The Ran talking in parentheses seems to be the 'observer' Ran, and the one not talking in parentheses seems to be the one in control of the actions.
It seems the nature of this whole recall thing is that it just simulates an arbitrary alternative thing-that-Ran-could-have-done, and executes that thing for Ran, while future!Ran watches without the ability to interfere.
Well, now that we've figured out how that works, Ran and Sai bid Tama farewell and head off to the swimming pool.
Zerovirus
They make it to the pool.

Sai: Well, here we are. So, tada, the pool. Neat, huh?

Ran: Well, all pools are pretty much the same everywhere.

Sai lightly swiped at Ran with her swimsuit bag.

Sai: Come on, you're the one who asked me to bring you! Well, whatever, I guess I'll show you the changing rooms too while you're here.

Ran: Wait, you're not expecting me to go swimming as well.

Sai nods in the affirmative.
Zerovirus

Ran: Oh absolutely not. It's way too cold for swimming.

Sai: Eh, it'll be fine so long as you do warmups. I'll be besides you so don't worry.

Sai points towards the new shower room.

Sai: There's some swimsuits in there, you can borrow one.

Ran: (Wait, she's pointing towards the new shower room? But that's not... where miss Sakura's corpse will be found.)

Ran: (If I go in there, I might miss the chance to verify Sai's claim that she saw miss Sakura alive...)

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Ran: The showers are over there? Then what's that over there?

Ran was referring, of course, to the old showers where Ann Sakura's body would eventually be discovered.

Ran: (Good thing I'm so perceptive, as usual. It's natural that I'd ask about something as confusing as two showering areas. If she hadn't asked, I'd have had to step in and ask again afterwards.)

Ran: (That would surely be unnatural.)

I'm... not sure what Ran means by this. So Ran has some ability to direct her past self's actions??? Is that what this is implying?
IDK.
Anyways, Sai explains that those rooms are the old shower rooms.
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Ran, obviously, still wants to visit the old shower rooms rather than the new ones, but Sai doesn't particularly want to let her do that.

Sai: The old showers don't even have changing rooms. Why would you visit them when you could just use the new ones instead?

Sai drags Ran into the new showers. Ran is... she supposes she's okay with this! The important thing is to not let Sai out of her sight so that Sai can't claim she ran into Ann while Ran wasn't with her.
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Sai: Come on, we've only got an hour left until the class meeting starts! Trust me, a morning swim is the best way to get energized. You'll love it!

Ran: Nnnnnngh. Absolutely not. I'm definitely going to freeze to death.

Sai: Pffft. You sound like my little sister. The first time I took her to go swimming in the winter she dug her heels in just like you.

Sai: But after that she asked me if we could go swimming every day. I bet it's gonna be the exact same with you! Come on!

Ran: No! Your sister must surely have DNA suited for swimming, just like you! Whereas I don't, because I'm a purely terrestrial build!

Sai: Oh, the way you make excuses is just like her too. Let's go!

Ran: Noooooooooooo~

Ran: (T... Thank goodness I didn't actually choose to come here with Sai...)

Ran is subjected to cold swimming pool water torture while Sai shouts encouraging things at Ran. This goes on for some time.
Ran has not seen hide nor hair of Ann Sakura.
This is beginning to concern her.
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Ran: (This was absolutely not worth it. Even insulated by this whole thing just being a recall point, I can still vividly feel how awful this whole thing would have been to go through.)

Ran: (And to think that Yano imagined that I would get hooked on winter morning swims after this! I'm never coming back to this swimming pool in the winter, not even if it kills me!)

Ran: (Anyways- seriously, where is miss Sakura?? Is Sai actually just lying to me about having seen her?)

Ran looks at the clock. She remembers that Sai arrived in class around 7:10. Right then, it was 6:42. Ann had around twenty-eight minutes left to show up, that meant.
Just as Ran's wondering if Ann's going to arrive at the last possible moment, Ran hears people conversing outside the door of the changing room.
jjjqance
Interesting we get the meta narration
Zerovirus

Ran: (People have arrived!)

Ran: (...Can't hear'em clearly, though. Is that miss Sakura's voice? There's some distance to the swimming pool from here, and there's a door in between us- not to mention that Sai's slapping the swimming pool water with her feet! It's so annoyingly loud!)

jjjqance
I would have expected that we'd just literally get to replay the dialogue trees
Zerovirus
If Ran had knowledge of the future, she'd obviously run outside to get eyes on what was happening.
Unfortunately, the 'Ran' in control here is the 'Ran' simulated by the notebook using only knowledge Ran would have had at that time,
and this 'Ran' decides that she needs to dry her hair before she runs out into the winter morning air so she doesn't freeze to death.

Unfortunately, the sound of her rubbing her wet hair with a tower fully covered up the sounds of conversation from the outside.

Meta-Ran: FUCK GOD DAMMIT FUCK I AM CUTTING OFF ALL MY HAIR SO THIS NEVER HAPPENS AGAIN IN THE FUTURE
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jjjqance
I wonder if ran makes decisions in general with the expectation that she might simulate herself from the future
Zerovirus
that would make a lot of sense, and would very much justify her policy of always acting like erika furudo
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'you never know, maybe future me is screaming at me about why i didn't investigate under that bucket right now. i should find an excuse to look there!'
Zerovirus
Once Ran's done drying her hair, the conversation outside has ended. She exits and only sees Sai.
Ran thinks to herself about how, if only she could control her body during the recall points, she could have just stepped out- and seen miss Sakura- so much sooner. But her past self had no reason, at that point, to expect that it was Ann Sakura that Sai was talking to, and so of course her past self did nothing, and let the opportunity slip through her fingers.
Zerovirus
Still, Ran's perceptive as always.

Ran: (At the edge of the swimming pool, there are footprints that extend forwards. Sai is still soaking her bare feet in the swimming pool; without a doubt those footprints must have been left by some other person.)

Ran: (It's not guaranteed that those footprints belong to miss Sakura, though. If Sai is the culprit, then the other person who left those footprints could be an accomplice...)

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Ran: (No, if that were the case, Sai wouldn't have brought me to the swimming pool. It'd be an unnecessary risk. After all, she couldn't have planned for me to chicken out of swimming so quickly. What if I'd actually taken to the cold water and stayed outside the whole time? Sai wouldn't have been able to kill miss Sakura, then. And she clearly was hoping I'd swim longer; her actions didn't at all feel like she was trying to shove me into the changing room as quickly as she could.)

Ran: (So... these footprints are, indeed, most likely, miss Sakura's footprints...)

i love ran's method of thinking
Zerovirus

Ran: Was someone talking to you, just now?

Sai: Yep. First time seeing her visiting the swimming pool at a time like this, actually. Well, it's rare to see them visit the pool, period.

Ran: They came here to swim? You're telling me there's someone else on this planet who can swim in wintry water like this first thing in the morning??

Ran: (Damn it. We slipped right past each other in the world of the recall point.)

Sai: Hey, didn't you just go swimming with me? Don't act like it's so weird.

Physical!Ran asks a question anyways, and Sai's responses so far seem at least consistent with miss Sakura being the person who showed up here.
 zerovirus: i love ran's method of thinking
jjjqance
The fact that she thinks
Zerovirus

Sai: I was curious too, though, to be honest, so I asked her about it as well. She was also carrying a bag in one hand- probably a swimsuit?

Sai: But she said she wasn't here to swim, just to make a delivery to someone.

Ran: (If only I'd pushed open that door... Miss Sakura...)

Ran: A delivery? So you're saying that there's someone else here besides us? I hadn't noticed at all.

Sai: Mhm. Another one of our classmates, who apparently got the urge to go swimming all of a sudden.

Sai: They showed up even earlier than we did, and they've finished swimming by now.

Ran: (Miss Sakura... I miss you...)

Ran: You're not going to ask her to swim a while with you?

Sai: Eh, nah. I swam a bit with you already, so I'm plenty satisfied.

Ran: (...Sai's hair is tied up again. She unties her hair before she goes swimming and before she goes to sleep.)

Ran: (Looks like she's quite adept at braiding her own hair at this point.)

 zerovirus: > Ran: The showers are over there? Then what's that over there? > Ran was referring, of course, to the old showers where Ann Sakura's body would eventually be discovered. > Ran: (Good thing I'm so perceptive, as usual. It's natural that I'd ask about something as confusing as two showering areas. If she hadn't asked, *I'd* have had to step in and ask again afterwards.) > Ran: (That would surely be unnatural.) I'm... not sure what Ran means by this. So Ran has *some* ability to direct her past self's actions??? Is that what this is implying?
jjjqance
I think she means she'd have to ask in the future...?
Zerovirus

Ran: What, really? I thought you were a swimming freak.

Sai: Yeah, usually I'd be insatiable about the swimming, but...

Sai leaned in close to Ran, so close that Ran could smell her shampoo. It was the same kind of shampoo that Ran had used that morning.

Sai: Swimming with you reminds me a lot of playing with my little sister. It's been a long time since I've seen her, so I'm good.

Sai: Also it'd be a pain to put my swimsuit back on at this point.

Ran: ...I'm guessing that last one is the real motive.

Sai laughed, and took Ran's hand.

Sai: C'mon. I'll take you to the classroom.

Ran: (...Looks like this is probably good enough for now.)

Ran: (Pleasantly surprising that I was able to see a different side of Sai as well. Not bad.)

And then the screen abruptly goes black. Like, not a fade to black, just sudden blackscreen.
Followed by a return to the notebook UI.
That's it for the 'special recall', apparently!
We could go back for some of the choices or previous investigation segments, if we wanted.
For now though I think the game clearly wants us to hit the 'end recall' button, so I'm going to do that. (The game will probably let us go back, anyways. The recall tab is omnipresent within our notebook.)
jjjqance
What's interesting is that if this game has some kinda loyalty system, we're presumably still stuck with whatever choices we made the first time
Despite getting to see the other branches?
Zerovirus

Ran closed the notebook, raised her head, and shivered.

Ran: (Still feeling the chill from the cold water. Whoof.)

Ran: (I remember that one time I got my head chopped off in a recall point. Neck hurt for days on end after that.)

jjjqance
Ran lived an exciting life
Zerovirus

Ran grit her teeth. She forced herself to recall the experiences she'd had during 'normal' time, so that the things she saw while Recalling didn't get mixed in.

Otherwise, she'd lose her mind- or at least that was how she thought of it.

She imagined that there were two boxes of puzzle pieces in front of her, where all the pieces were mixed up. All she needed to do was complete the image of Ann Sakura, and ignore the other puzzle.

Soon, she'd completed the task, and restored herself to her usual state.

Ran: (Alright, that's enough. The answer to this case is obvious, so let's finish the job.)

the game once again reminding us that ran has a very Healthy and Normal and Not At All Obsessive relationship with Ann.
OH THE GAME IS ASKING ME TO SOLVE NOW
jjjqance
I was about to say it's sensible to worry about getting mixed up
Zerovirus
The game has presented me with a list of unsolved questions about this case.
I need to answer all of these questions. Then I'll be allowed to indicate the culprit of the murder.
And once I've done that, the case will be solved and (hopefully) Ann will return to life!
So let's see these questions.
Zerovirus

1: How did the killer call miss Sakura to the swimming pool?

2: Why did miss Sakura go to the swimming pool?

3: How did the killer clean up the bloodstains on their own body?

4: Why did the killer decide to commit the murder at the swimming pool?

5: Was miss Sakura the person who spoke with Sai Yano?

6: How can we confirm the identity of the killer?

jjjqance
The answer to 4 might be to use the showers which answers 3
I don't remember, who smelled like shampoo?
Zerovirus
Sai's shampoo smelled like ours, apparently. Koizumi's shampoo smelled extremely nice.
jjjqance
Koizumi may have used sakura's shampoo...?
Zerovirus
Good thing is that we'll know if we reason wrongly, because miss Sakura won't revive after we state our culprit theory aloud.
In that sense, we've got a lot of ways to check our reasoning.
Let's start with your theory because why not.
jjjqance
The discrepancy in the amount of blood wasn't one of the questions
Zerovirus

(That's right- from Sai seeing miss Sakura, to the class president- last to arrive in class, not counting Sai- showing up, there wasn't a lot of time between these points.)

(The culprit definitely cut miss Sakura's carotid artery, and repeated the cut multiple times. They must have gotten a large amount of blood on themselves.)

(Based on what I saw in the recall, miss Sakura appeared after 6:40, which means that the amount of time the killer had to commit the crime and clean up the bloodstains on themselves must have been extremely limited.)

(This is a major question.)

wait what happened to- i don't get to submit an answer?
The question just went red. That's all.
I don't quiiiite get the UI here.
Let's click on stuff and see what happens!
Badewell
Ran doesn't need our help, she's got this
Zerovirus
...oh, apparently what we're doing is
choosing angles of attack for Ran. We're marking questions that Ran is going to focus on as part of her solution to this case.
...Can't I just mark every single question, then?
Zerovirus
i cannot.
wow, this is
a fascinating system.
apologies that i didn't write everything down but basically...
apparently i can mark four of the six questions here
and ran will decide, yes, these questions are worth investigating
and for the other two,
ran will explain them away if you click them after you've already marked four questions for further consideration.
nightpool
catching up...
avunvain
bizarre
but cool
Zerovirus
Questions 2 and 5, which got discarded, were responded to as follows
nightpool
oh okay interesting
Zerovirus

2: Why did miss Sakura go to the swimming pool?

Ran: Well, she went to help the murderer, of course. She went there to deliver the murderer something to help the murder take place. That's in-character for her according to everyone else. No need to think further here.

nightpool
I'm in love with the fact that we get a protagonist who's good at acausally negotiating with her future self
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Zerovirus

5: Was miss Sakura the person who spoke with Sai Yano?

Ran: Of course. Who else could it have been? Come on.

nightpool
best protagonist trait
Zerovirus
this is a fascinating system
i can't imagine how the game resolves this system though
(lots of Forget The Golden Witch vibes honestly)
jjjqance
Hm for 2 I thought the answer would be someone asked her to deliver a package
nightpool
we can unmark stuff, right?
Zerovirus
we cannot unmark stuff. but i presume that, if we can't make our theory work, the game will let us try again. why wouldn't it?
this is clearly a tutorial murder.
 jjjqance: Hm for 2 I thought the answer would be someone asked her to deliver a package
nightpool
I was thinking that was the killer?
jjjqance
Yeah could be
nightpool
weird that we can't unmark stuff...
#5 seems ... hmm, idk
Zerovirus

Ran: Alright, those'll be the four questions. Let's answer them in logical order.

Ran: How did the culprit call miss Sakura to the swimming pool?

PHONE

ARRANGED IT BEFOREHAND

uhhhhhh... hm.
uh.
uhhhhhhh.
nightpool
we... know her phone is missing
so I think phone
jjjqance
Yeah makes sense
nightpool
the only reason to ditch the phone is that it might have incriminating evidence, right?
do these people have passcodes on their phones....
Zerovirus

Ran: (That's right. Miss Sakura's phone disappeared. It's very possible that the killer took the phone because the killer used the phone to lure miss Sakura to the swimming pool.)

 jjjqance: I don't remember, who smelled like shampoo?
nightpool
koizumi definitely confirmed that she used Sakura's shampoo
Zerovirus

Ran: (But either the culprit didn't know miss Sakura's phone password, or she didn't want to snoop on miss Sakura's phone. In any case, she couldn't remove the records left by their cellphone contact.)

nightpool
which is why we liked it
jjjqance
ah ok
 zerovirus: > Ran: (But either the culprit didn't know miss Sakura's phone password, or she didn't want to snoop on miss Sakura's phone. In any case, she couldn't remove the records left by their cellphone contact.)
nightpool
wouldn't the same logic apply to us investigating it....?
Zerovirus

Ran: (I'm sure that, even if they're committing murders, they'd still worry about things like that, because they believe that their relationships with the dead won't end just because of a murder being committed.)

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Ran: (So, in order to prevent the text message from being found, they had no choice but to hide miss Sakura's phone.)

Ran: (The exact details are unimportant. Whether the culprit's carrying it on herself or if she tossed it in some neglected corner, either works.)

nightpool
not following that logic ....
Zerovirus
ran's saying 'these people believe that murder is okay but reading other peoples' text messages: an unforgivable sin'
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'which, yeah, i guess i can see how they came to that conclusion if everything here works the way they think it does'
avunvain
they have standards!
nightpool
right but then how could we investigate Sakura's text messages
avunvain
just, skewed ones.
nightpool
the same logic applies symmetrically
Zerovirus
i mean, we'd be doing it to solve the murder, whereas they're doing it to hide the murder, so i guess we'd get a pass.
avunvain
"i do not share their ethics"
"i am totally 100% fine with snooping"
"fuck it, all these people can hate me, i'm gonna Win at Crime Solving"
nightpool
sure, Ran would snoop, but how would Koizumi know that anyone except someone from the school would be investigating
Zerovirus

Ran: Now, why did the culprit choose to commit the murder at the swimming pool?

POOL IS WELL-HIDDEN AND RARELY VISITED

CULPRIT NEEDED THE SHOWERS

SAI YANO IS AN ACCOMPLICE

it's probably the showers!
nightpool
is it?
Zerovirus
yeah, because, if koizumi showered, she had to use someone's shampoo.
and sakura was the only other person there.
this neatly explains why koizumi's hair smells so nice.
nightpool
but she could have done that at the dorm...?
oh wait!
sai told yanu to tell asakura something about the showers
hot water was out?
ha!
Zerovirus
oh yeah! dorm showers were out of hot water apparently.
i forgot about that!
though even if she could have done it at the dorm- like, in this situation, the culprit would be dripping wet with blood.
they'd have left blood footprints.
why wouldn't they just shower where it was most convenient?
if the culprit were going to use the dorm showers then they'd have committed the murders at the dorm.
nightpool
the dorm baths were out of water
Zerovirus
so really there's a lot of reasons why the dorm showers can be disregarded.
nightpool
that also neatly explains why Sakura Ann was there
Zerovirus
she also needed to shower!
nightpool
wait but then why wasn't everybody else there lmao
Zerovirus
everyone is a disgusting gremlin but our beloved miss sakura who is eternally perfect and pure
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nightpool
okay, culprit needed the showers makes sense
there's still some stuff here that's confusing me but I think we've got the shape of it
jjjqance
rarely visited doesn't even make sense cause sai was there and is presumably there a lot
nightpool
lmao good point
Zerovirus

Ran: The murder definitely happened there, the body wasn't moved. It's probable that the culprit told miss Sakura that she'd left something behind, and asked miss Sakura to deliver it- something shower-related, most likely. That's why miss Sakura trusted her and entered the showers with her. Rather than say that the culprit tricked miss Sakura to visit the swimming pool, it's more accurate to say that she tricked miss Sakura to visit the showers.

nightpool
exactly
Zerovirus

Ran: Plus, it's easy to wash off all the bloodstains in the shower, and it makes the whole flow of events very natural.

Zerovirus

Ran: Furthermore, at the swimming pool's showers, it's easy to justify wearing a swimsuit, so that when the carotid artery blood gets all over you, you can wash most of it off and then neatly hide the swimsuit in a bag or something.

Ran: This explains why the culprit chose the showers, AND how they dealt with the bloodstains, all at once.

Suddenly, Ran remembers how Koizumi tripped, and she caught Koizumi, that morning.
jjjqance
ahh they probably put the swimsuit in the plastic bag or something
Zerovirus
jjjqance
that's what was in koizumi's purse
Zerovirus

Ran: Didn't I feel something in Koizumi's bag??

jjjqance
how convenient
Zerovirus
As though the game's afraid it's not being clear enough, it treats us to a flashback of that whole scene.
This is super a tutorial lol.
nightpool
called it
Zerovirus
ran, whispering in her ear: i know it was you, you did it, and mark my words i will have my vengeance
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okay no that didn't happen we're just flashbacking
but yep this sure recontextualizes koizumi being all cutesy and nervous around us
oh! this line! from the flashback!
nightpool
well only to a small extent
Zerovirus

Koizumi: This morning I used someone else's shampoo while showering at the dorms...

SORE WA CHIGAU YO
YOU SHOWERED AT THE DORMS??
SAY THAT AGAIN MOTHER FUCKER?
nightpool
LMAOOO
well to be fair we only heard about the baths
jjjqance
maybe she likes cold showers
nightpool
it wasn't hot water I think
Zerovirus

Ran: Fuck, that was DEFINITELY the swimsuit she wore while she was murdering miss Sakura, wasn't it.

nightpool

Sai: Oh, yeah, by the way, last night after I came back from my swim, I found that the baths were outta water.

Sai: Make sure you let Asakura know about that, and tell her to come fix whatever's wrong in the afternoon.

jjjqance
maybe she likes air showers...?
Zerovirus

Ran: And not to mention the whole thing about the dorm showers being out of water, she clearly wasn't aware of that at all.

nightpool
haha I called it
Zerovirus

Ran: Looks like she was blushing and nervous because she was worried I'd seen the contradictions. I guess I overthought that situation.

nightpool
lmaooo
nah ran she was definitely into you lmao
Zerovirus

Ran: It's definitely the class president. Let's go tell the others that I've figured everything out.

nightpool
Objection!
avunvain
ran "investigation 5, romantic perception 0" ibuki
Zerovirus

Ran: Hopefully she'll just confess. I'd rather not have to dig through her bag for the proof.

nightpool
why the grisly method of murder?
Zerovirus
shrugs
wonder where she put the knife, too.
We head back to the bathroom.
Everyone's chitchatting over the corpse like nothing's wrong. Ran still can't get used to that.
Sai greets us. She's impressed that we're back so quickly. Miho asks us if we still have a headache or not.

Ran: Nah. Anyways, I've figured out the culprit and the method.

Aya: Wow, already? Ran-chan's the fastest case-solver I've ever seen!

Tama: Yes, it seems that it only took her half an hour to find the answer since Sakura-san's body was discovered.

nightpool
well to be fair we have bullshit time travel powers
Zerovirus

Ran: I'm not going to explain my entire process of deduction, because I want to hurry up and bring miss Sakura back to life.

ran, conveniently avoiding explaining her bullshit time travel powers
Everyone else seems okay with it, though!
Well, they're okay with being locked in school for a year.
I guess they're also okay with Ran just being A Genius Detective.
nightpool
what's her name is still going to figure it out
possibly just from this
Zerovirus

Ran: I'm going to begin describing the culprit's method, now.

 nightpool: possibly just from this
Zerovirus
Just by your bullshit refusal to explain how you figured this out alone, this level of reasoning is possible for Takei Miho. What do you think, everyone?
nightpool
no no by the shower thing
Zerovirus
oh it's the full danganronpa style minicomic
Ran begins by explaining that the culprit set everything up by telling Ann that they were planning to go swimming next morning.

Sai: Ooh, I didn't know you were an artist, Ran.

Sai: ...Your drawings suck, though.

jjjqance
wtf she's literally drawing this?
Zerovirus
apparently!!!
jjjqance
this drawing makes no sense diegetically
sorry i've now lost all respect for the game
Zerovirus

Ran: Whatever, if you can understand it then it's good enough. It'll be clearer than me trying to explain everything with just words once we get to the later stages of the explanation.

nightpool
swimming? huh?
oh I guess they did say that
Zerovirus
it's animated
holy shit it's animated
you're right this makes no sense diegetically
jjjqance
yo those are some bullshit drawing powers
Zerovirus
but damn is the production value great
straight up flipbook stuff here

Ran: The next morning, the culprit went to the swimming pool, avoiding the new shower room, and heading to the less-convenient old shower rooms.

Ran: Then, the culprit called miss Sakura.

Ran: She lied to miss Sakura about how she got her school uniform wet by accident, and asked miss Sakura to bring a spare uniform over.

nightpool
didn't we just decide it was the shampoo??
huh?
:/ :/
Zerovirus

Ran: Miss Sakura arrives, and-

Miho: Whoa, you're suddenly putting a lot more effort into your drawings.

Ran: ...

Sai: Well, we can definitely tell who she's got a bias for, can't we.

nightpool
feels like we're fucking this up a little bit but I'm not sure why
lmao
jjjqance
hm did we ever actually seen ran decide that she'd asked her to bring shampoo?
Zerovirus
she hasn't, no
that's entirely our own presumption
jjjqance
but now we have to wonder why koizumi had sakura's shampoo
i guess maybe cause they're roommates
Zerovirus
Oho? You're approaching me? I can't bleed to death from getting my throat cut out by you without getting closer. Ho ho! Then come as close as you'd like!

Ran: And then...

Ran: The culprit ran up, and used a sharp implement of some kind to rip open miss Sakura's neck.

Ran, instead of drawing actual blood, just writes the character for 'blood' in the upper left corner.

Ran: And then there was a lot more blood, as the culprit continued cutting.

ran, i really do not think your illustration is actually helpful, at all.
i am in full agreement with sai.
this drawing sucks.
okay ran we get the point you can stop now

Ran: I speculate that the culprit wanted to kill miss Sakura quickly, either because she didn't have a lot of time left before class started, or because she wanted to end miss Sakura's misery as quickly as possible.

nightpool
feels like we fucked up the question choice a little bit
Zerovirus
(She's also describing a lot of other minor details but it's pretty much the exact same as the theory we've constructed so far and so I'm omitting anything that's just unsurprisingly recapitulating what we already figured out.)
nightpool
awww
I wanna be vindicated by the story!
Zerovirus

Ran: The culprit was already wearing a swimsuit, and so she was able to wash the blood off easily. Afterwards, she went about disposing of the evidence.

Sai: Well, no shit, of course she disposed of the evidence, einstein.

Ran: You're only saying 'no shit' because I told you just now, dipshit. If I hadn't, I guarantee you'd be combing all over the floor like a sniffer dog trying to dig up a clue right now.

Everyone is very impressed with Ran's reasoning, so far. Which is kind of reasonable, since, Ran is using information that she literally could not possibly have known, things like 'Sakura was carrying a bag when she went into the old showers', which, in this reality, Sai had never mentioned to us.
When we brought it up, Sai was like, 'oh yeaaaah, now that you mention it I did see that she was carrying a bag.'
It makes us look like some kind of ultra genius.
But we're just cheating!!

Ran: (If she thinks that's impressive, I could probably blow her mind by telling her that I know about her little sister.)

nightpool
well most of this we probably could have figured out without cheating
I mean we were 90% of the way there
jjjqance
she could do the thing where she tells about her sister and makes up some BS reason about how she knows
Zerovirus

Makoto: Miss Ibuki, you wouldn't happen to be a policewoman, would you?

Ran: I wouldn't, no.

Makoto: Teehee. You're very fascinating.

Koizumi: So, miss Ibuki, based on what you've described, what kind of evidence would the culprit need to discard after this?

nightpool
well I wonder why she might ask!
Zerovirus
Ran states that the two major pieces of evidence that need to be discarded are the knife and swimsuit. The blood itself has been washed away so these two are the only items that-

Sai: Hang on, what about the phone? If we found the phone then we could just check the text message logs to figure out who lured Sakura here, right?

Ran: Would you really look through miss Sakura's phone without her express permission?

Ran: If the answer is yes, I'll kill you myself.
☝️ 1
nightpool
could just be that they've got a open phone policy for investigation purposes
which would be fun
I feel like that's the kind of thing I would do if I was at a bullshit magic murder school with 6 other people
Zerovirus

Sai: Well, sure. Even if I didn't know the password, I could use her corpse to unlock it.

Miho: Yano-san, uh...

Ran: Prepare to perish, wretch.

Ran: Exactly. If we could check the logs of the phone right now, this whole mystery would be solved immediately. This is why I'm confident that the killer, rather than throwing the phone somewhere random, kept it with the swimsuit.

Ran: The killer didn't have much time to clean up, after the murder was done. I don't recall that any of you expressed surprise that anybody was early or late to class, yes?

Zerovirus

Tama: That's right. Well, usually, Asakura-san comes to class together with me.

Makoto: That's usually the case, but we stayed up way too late last night, and this morning you had cleaning duty, so there was no way I was getting up at the same time you were.

Aya: Me and Miho show up at that time, usually, too.

Miho: Mmm. And Yano-san regularly swims in the morning, so her time of appearance was entirely normal as well.

Ran: Okay. Then the general flow of events after the murder should have gone something like this...

(the hourglass has the characters for 'time' inside it. it looks so fucking goofy.)
nightpool
just so you don't get it confused with all the hourglasses that represent death
Zerovirus
Ran says that, if you abstract the layout of the school a bit, this is basically how things are laid out- the path from the swimming pool to the schoolhouse comes very close to the path from either to the dorms.
Ran then concludes that the culprit could have done one of two things: Disposed of the evidence on the way to school, or taken it with them, to school.
nightpool
oh come onnn
just say the thing about the bag already! stop keeping us in suspense
Zerovirus
Ran hypothesizes that the sharp implement (she uses the word 'implement' rather than 'knife') could have been dumped anywhere, but not so with the swimsuit, since a swimsuit lying somewhere randomly is much stranger than a small sharp object lying somewhere randomly.
I'm... not sure I understand the reasoning there?
But whatever, it's your time to shine, Ran.
Miho asks why the culprit couldn't have just dumped everything on the route between the buildings.
nightpool
miho sees the chance to show us up
Zerovirus
Ran's answer is 'time pressure'. She asserts that it's improbable that the culprit had enough time to set up hiding places for the evidence safe enough that it was worth risking leaving the evidence in the open.
nightpool
hmmm
Zerovirus

Ran: But if you're so convinced the culprit is way smarter than me, we can go and do a deep search of all the possible places the culprit could have hidden the evidence, after I'm done explaining myself.

Ran: Except we won't need to because I know the swimsuit is in Koizumi's bag and I'm just dragging it out to torture everyone, audience included!
😭 1
Zerovirus

Miho: Well, before we do that, we might as well search everyone's bags for a swimsuit first.

Ran: My thoughts exactly. Now let's-

Sai: Hold a moment right there.

Ran: Eh?

Zerovirus

Sai: Forget about the fact that I know I have a swimsuit in my bag. Ibuki has already said she knows who the culprit is.

Sai: Which means that she doesn't need to know who else has the swimsuit to know the culprit.

Sai: So how'd you figure it out?

Ran: (Yano's reaction time is incredible. That's right- the swimsuit can be used to prove the method of murder, and then by combining method and time, the killer can be isolated.)

Ran: (But, in their eyes, I didn't go with Sai Yano to the swimming pool, so I have no way of knowing that miss Sakura definitely only died after 6:40, which is the basis for all my reasoning involving time pressure.)

Ran: I-

Sai: Plus, your reasoning itself has a major hole in it.

Sai: You're assuming that the culprit definitely wore a swimsuit, because a swimsuit would be the easiest thing to wash the blood off of, right?

Ran: Well, yeah. Swimsuits are typically made of non-absorbent fibers since they're used to swim with. What else would it be-

Sai: There's an even better option for the killer, in terms of being able to quickly wash off blood without leaving any evidence behind.

sai are you about to say that the killer was naked

Sai: The killer was naked.

okay
thanks sai
...I guess it's theoretically possible- the shower is one place you can reasonably be naked and not have it be incredibly weird.
of all possible places.
Still, Sai is arguing that we don't know if the killer wore a swimsuit- except we know that Koizumi's hiding something in her backpack.
Zerovirus
(Background chatter:)

Aya: Ahahahaha, seriously? I mean, I thought of it too, but it still sounds too ridiculous when you say it out loud.

Makoto: I want to laugh just imagining it. Imagine Ann having to face a completely naked classmate wielding a knife!

Koizumi: N-naked?! Blushes intensely

gee. i fucking wonder why.
nightpool
lmaooooo
Zerovirus

More background chatter:

Aya: Hey, Miho, next time you kill me, you should do it while naked.

Miho: Aya, I assure you, if ever I summon you to my presence, and when you get there it turns out I'm completely naked, I'm summoning you for a completely different purpose.

Aya: That's exactly how it ought to be!

these fucking lesbian schoolgirls.
avunvain
miho
you are
fantastic
this entire cast is fantastic.
 zerovirus: > Tama: That's right. Well, usually, Asakura-san comes to class together with me. > Makoto: That's usually the case, but we stayed up way too late last night, and this morning you had cleaning duty, so there was no way I was getting up at the same time you were. > Aya: Me and Miho show up at that time, usually, too. > Miho: Mmm. And Yano-san regularly swims in the morning, so her time of appearance was entirely normal as well.
nightpool
.... at this point I'm more interested in "we" stayed up too late last night.
who is "we" and why?
Zerovirus
everybody in this school is a thirsty lesbian
nightpool
"summon you to my presence" lmao
Zerovirus
Koizumi objects to the idea of the murderer being naked, because the murderer, who is definitely not her, would definitely never commit a murder while naked, because- well, the victim will come back to life! And then they'll all have to live with the fact that one of them got to see another one of them commit a murder in the nude!

Sai: Hey, I'd be fine with that, so long as it really worked and I didn't leave any clues behind.

Makoto: Haha, well, maybe the killer this time is more uptight than you, Sai!

😭 1

Sai: Oh, you're one to talk, Makoto. Don't think any of us have forgotten your past escapades.

Sai: Anyways, Ibuki, ready to admit that you've made a flaw in your reasoning?

Ran: No, because I know where the swimsuit is, and I've just been fucking with you the whole time.

nightpool
does she actually
yessssss
Zerovirus

Sai: You little shit.

Aya: Oh? Where is it then?

nightpool
god I love Ran
avunvain
how literal is "fucking with you" as a translation here
are we talking the same level of profanity
Zerovirus

Ran: Remember when the class president fell over, this morning?

Aya: Oh, right! The lascivious embrace between the class president and the unruly transfer student!

Koizumi: E-em-embrace-! It wasn't an embrace! She was just supporting me!

Miho: Aya, stop teasing.

Aya: Okaaaaay fiiiine.

Ran, finally, brings up the clincher argument: the class president lied about showering at the dorms.
nightpool
does she even say the thing about the swimsuit lmao
Zerovirus
oh she did
everyone else is like 'okay but how do you know it's a swimsuit, maybe it was her collection of porno mags'
they didn't actually say porno mags but i wish they did
When Ran brings up the whole 'how did you shower if the water was out' thing, Tama was like 'oh yeah I didn't tell anybody about that yet but Asakura, so she couldn't have known that the water was out. Which means she didn't visit the dorm showers at all, so she never found out about the water problem!'
jjjqance
after playing the AI Somnium Files i never want to see 'porno mags' in a mystery game ever again
☝️ 1
Zerovirus
Koizumi sus. Vote Koizumi.
Zerovirus

Ran: So, why don't you tell us where you got the shampoo, miss president?

Ran: Did you find it in the bathroom? Or did you bring it with you from the dorms?

Koizumi: I- uh... Er-

Koizumi's eyes flicker all over the place guiltily. Finally they return to settle on Ran.

Koizumi sighs.

Koizumi: I wanted to try to kill Sakura-san quickly, this time, and catch everyone by surprise.

Koizumi: I can't believe I exposed myself so quickly.

Koizumi confesses!

Koizumi: I killed Sakura-san. The swimsuit and phone are in my purse in a plastic bag. It's as Ran said.

Ding ding ding! Finally!
Alright now let's see the revival.
That should be happening right?
Zerovirus
Ran, of course, wants to deck Koizumi in the face, but she restrains herself.

Ran: (The class president didn't do it out of malice, Ran. Get a hold of yourself.)

Ran: Thank you, class president.

Ran: So, now that I've finished talking, miss Sakura...

Ran looks down at Ann. Though the corpse hadn't changed obviously, the neck wound was starting to heal, starting from the inside out.

Huh! Slow regeneration. No glowing lights or anything. Very anticlimactic.
 zerovirus: > More background chatter: > > Aya: Hey, Miho, next time you kill me, you should do it while naked. > Miho: Aya, I assure you, if ever I summon you to my presence, and when you get there it turns out I'm completely naked, I'm summoning you for a *completely* different purpose. > Aya: That's exactly how it ought to be! these fucking lesbian schoolgirls.
nightpool
this would be very hard to localize to english lmao
not enough space.....
awwww i was looking forward to Sakura Ann's magical girl transformation sequence.
jjjqance
time for sakura to not remember ran or some other heartbreaking thing
Zerovirus
There goes the blood! Vacuumed up like a vacuum cleaner. Well, no, actually,

Ran was very certain that the blood wasn't being sucked back into Ann Sakura's neck.

Rather, it was just vanishing, like time was reversing itself.

The bones regrow, then the flesh and veins, and finally the skin.
avunvain
also Alac 4 the win on this one eh
👍 1
Zerovirus

The process took only a minute or so.

Yeah, without the alacrity stat I don't quite know how we would have proven it.
It would have been a different ballgame without the cheat of 'we totally know it was her'.
nightpool
we could have gone back and spent the temporary points i think
we could have just reasoned from the time pressure thing
that does make the writing in the reveal sequence make a little more sense
also we don't really know what would have happened if we didn't catch her, maybe we just catch her bag instead and get the bag clue but not the shower clue
but if we don't get either, then "she spent a long time not explaining the swimsuit thing because there needs to be a way for her to solve the mystery without knowing the swimsuit thing ahead of time" explains why the reveal was structured the way it was
Zerovirus
As soon as Ran sees Ann twitch a finger, she kneels onto the floor and hugs Ann.

Ran: Miss Sakura! Oh, miss Sakura....

Tears fell from Ran's eyes as she embraced Ann Sakura.

The lover she'd sought for four whole years finally returned to Ran's lap.

Helplessness, anxiety, pain, loneliness, astonishment, sorrow, and joy were all intermixed in Ran's brain.

On a parallel track from her passionate actions, her faculties of reasoning were already beginning to warn her that she needed to carefully consider the causes and potential consequences of everything going on here.

But, right now, Ran just wanted to put all her attention on Ann.

jjjqance
uh-oh
nightpool
:(
hey, maybe this game isn't going to rip my heart out entirely first thing.
anything could happen!
Zerovirus
And then Ann wakes up!

Ann blinked an eye, as though she wasn't clear what'd happened.

Ran noticed something was off, let go, and looked up and down at the lover she hadn't seen for so long.

Ran: Miss Sakura? Why aren't you talking? Are you feeling uncomfortable?

Ann: No, I feel quite well.

Ann Sakura spoke in a very calm voice. She laid there in Ran's lap and turned her head towards Koizumi.

Ann: Hyuga, you got caught?

Koizumi nodded.

Koizumi: And before the first session of class, too.

Ann turned back to Ran.

Ann: It was you who caught Hyuga?

Ran, still crying, wiped her face, and then put her hands on Ann's shoulders.

Ran: Miss Sakura... What's happened to you? Why are you so calm?

jjjqance
well ann doesn't seem weirded out by ran's affection
guess that's a good sign?
nightpool
seems a little weirded out
Zerovirus

Ran: All these years, I've- I've gone to so many strange places and experienced so many unpleasant things, looking for you.

Ran: And now you're here, and- I don't want to be a complainer, but- Miss Sakura, shouldn't you be saying something to me about that?

Ran: It's been years since you've seen me, hasn't it? Did you miss me?

Ann turned her head and looked at Ran's face. She had the expression of someone who was scrutinizing a piece of artwork, and it unsettled Ran.

Ran still thought that Ann Sakura's eyes, which reflected Ran's own face in them, were absolutely beautiful, however.

jjjqance
ok yeah now she seems weirded out
Zerovirus

And then Ann blinked, and an emotion which Ran thought could never have appeared between the two of them manifested in her expression.

Estrangement.

Ann: Who are you?

ayooooo the classic
the double amnesia combo
jjjqance
noooo
Zerovirus
NEW CHARACTER ADDED TO THE NOTEBOOOOOOK
let's check the notebook!
oh, the notebook's been updated.
on the right side the new notes are:

Yano's little sister

Doesn't an open-air pool get dirty?

New and old shower rooms?

Wanna go swimming with miss Sakura 🐟 🐟 🐟

nightpool
awwwwwww
the stuff she writes in her notebook is so cute
it's completely at odds with her exterior personality.
i love it
Zerovirus
and as for miss sakura's character sheet...

Ann Sakura

Late Heisei

Investigation 9, Alacrity 6, Charisma 9

Uniform is identical to Ran Ibuki's, but the color scheme has been changed to that of the other students'. Personality is extremely different from the Ann Sakura that Ran remembers.

Her portrait has exactly one line:

I love you, miss Sakura

i guess we should be glad that ran didn't give her max stats in every category given how much ran looks up to her apparently.
Zerovirus
aaaaand i think i will be stopping it here for the night!
nightpool
OKAY! OKAY!
max stats UH HUH
her lowest stat is the same as our highest stat come ON
Zerovirus
we should be glad ran didn't give her charisma 999
jjjqance
that would have meant ran recognizing her attraction was due to charisma and not her natural divine goodness
Zerovirus
betcha this is going to be danganronpa but everyone's going to get a chance to die once
honestly i love this setup
danganronpa but the victims come back to life at the end of each case is great
it really lets you not worry about the best characters being removed from the cast, and it cuts down on the amount of pointless bullshitting about hope and despair
jjjqance
what are the stakes gonna be though
Zerovirus
who cares. a good homicide is its own reward.
jjjqance
(also i hope we get to commit a murder at some point)
👆 1
nightpool
hey look on the bright side at least this confirms we probably didn't skin our girlfriend and turn her into our notebook.
Zerovirus
we probably turned her memories into our notebook instead
nightpool
i'm saving that premise for something else now btw.
 zerovirus: we probably turned her memories into our notebook instead
nightpool
oasjdfoajsdof oh god you're right
 zerovirus: > Ran: The culprit was already wearing a swimsuit, and so she was able to wash the blood off easily. Afterwards, she went about disposing of the evidence. > Sai: Well, no shit, of course she disposed of the evidence, einstein. > Ran: You're only saying 'no shit' because I told you just now, dipshit. If I hadn't, I guarantee you'd be combing all over the floor like a sniffer dog trying to dig up a clue right now.
Laenan
Can I get the translator's notes on "no shit" and "dipshit" in these use cases
Benedict
oh man hell yeah we was right
it was totally class president girl and her mysterious bag of squishy something
and yeah c'mon ran you totally should've seen amnesiac ann coming
when someone was like "huh, really? she never mentioned you", the "she doesn't remember me" theory should've leapt immediately to mind
maybe she's got amnesia, maybe she's a doppelganger, maybe your ann is a doppelganger of this ann, maybe there's some actual time travel going on and this is ann-from-the-past before she met you- could be anything
Zerovirus
Maybe we’re a doppelganger
 laenan: Can I get the translator's notes on "no shit" and "dipshit" in these use cases
Zerovirus
Translator’s note: ‘no shit’ in this case coulda also easily been translated as ‘duh’, but why go for the boring option when you could go for the spicy option glasses Same with the ‘dipshit’- that could have been translated as ‘fool’ but 🌶️
Laenan
Aha! I was wondering about that
Laenan
Is "fool" in that way spicier in chinese than "fool" in english?
Zerovirus
It was 蠢货, which could be ‘fool’ or ‘dumbass’ or ‘moron’, somewhere around thereabouts valence-wise
Laenan
interesting, i love it
Chaos' Crowl Kanigami
Today I am taking the real life Tour of Time
The Eurostar 😎
Wish me luck ahah
Benedict
ah, the chunnel- known for its death-fueled time travel and army of murder meidos
Chaos' Crowl Kanigami
The meidos made a decent breakfast tbf
But yeah not enough deaths or Time gods, disappointing
Zerovirus
i originally wanted to play a lot of chrono jotter today, but i wasn't feeling very well
i suppose i can still get in an hour or so though