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Chapter 63: Juro Kurabe 6
Music: In The Doldrums (Rikako Watanabe)
Let’s go home.
Consider Shootout Dream
(In my dream, a woman and I went back in time to prevent the extinction of humanity. To do that, we had to blow up some sort of research facility. And, well… We did it. And if that weren’t enough… We shot the researchers dead. The woman I was with in that dream looked eerily similar to Fuyusaka-san.)
Getting close to Tomi and Miwako will simply trigger their exit from the classroom.
Don’t you want to go to Amiguchi-kun’s place? You didn’t bring it up today.
……
Now we can hang out, you and me! Where do you wanna go?
I’m fine with whatever.
Use That One Video on Kyuta Shiba
Probably. Wanna go check?
Okay, cool. Don’t forget your bag.
Video store’s closed.
By the looks of it… I don’t think it’ll be reopening any time soon. The windows were completely shattered.
It musta been part of that big gas explosion.
Oh, I saw that on TV. That was our video store?
Consider Shopping District Incident
(There was a gas leak in the shopping district. The explosion damaged buildings and shattered windows. I heard about it on the 7 AM news.)
We don’t have much of a choice.
What are you doing here?
I followed you after school.
Tell me the truth, please.
…?
Music: Something’s Fishy (Kikuchi Yukinori)
You don’t need to play innocent.
How did you activate it?
Sentinel? What is that?
Are you telling me you’ve forgotten? It just happened the other day. Right here.
Use Shopping District Incident on Keitaro Miura
I heard about it, but…
That wasn’t a gas explosion. It was you.
Transmitted…?
I think I saw that one.
Don’t you deflect this, Shiba! You did something to Juro that time! That’s why he’s got no memory of any of this Sentinel shit!
Oh yeah, now that you mention it… That did happen in one of the tapes you let me borrow.
Wait, what? It happened in a movie?
Why, I’m simply talking to my good buddy Kyuta Shiba who is not suspicious in any way, silly!
Use Kyuta Shiba on Keitaro Miura
His name is Kyuta Shiba.
……
Uhhhhhhhh
…? Shiba-kun? He’s right next to us.
Sorry, but… It’s just you and me here.
God dammit, is anyone in this fucking game real!?
C’mon, Miura-kun. Wait…
Music: Cognitive Dissonance (Rikako Watanabe)
No rush, man. But you gotta tell me what you thought!
So I guess he ended up becoming a criminal himself. Not sure how to feel about it. I think it’s pretty controversial.
Oh yeah? I thought the ending was awesome.
Why do you keep talking to yourself? Is everything okay?
Then who are you talking to?
Use Kyuta Shiba on Tomi Kisaragi
Shiba…? Who the heck is that?
You know, Kyuta Shiba. Our classmate?
There’s no one with that name in our class.
Huh…?
Well, this is strange. Let’s talk to Miwako about this, surely she’ll know who Shiba is!
I know. The papers, right? I’ll get them later. Listen… Kisaragi-san’s acting strange. She’s saying there’s no one named Shiba-kun in our class.
Shiba…? Um… Who?
He’s standing right there.
…… Kurabe-kun…
Half expecting her to say “Kyuta Shiba died 40 years ago this very night…”
There’s no one named Shiba here.
……
There are two possible explanations for this. The first is that Juro never grew out of the imaginary friend phase of childhood development. The second is that this is all an elaborate prank like in that episode of South Park (ugh) where Cartman eats the skin off all the KFC so the other kids get everyone to pretend he’s dead. Gotta be one or the other, choose wisely.
They’re being so mean.
Is this some kind of prank? Or are you talking to ghosts? Either way, it’s not funny.
These girls need a better sense of humor. Let’s go.
Shiba-kun…
Hey, um… We grew up together, right?
We’ve been best buds since grade school. What’s gotten into you?
Something’s just not right.
…It is strange, though.
Music: Double Bind (Mitsuhiro Kaneda)
Consider Kyuta Shiba
(When I think about grade school, I don’t remember him at all. I can’t remember any times in middle school, either… ……)
Well, to be fair, all your memories from before, like, a couple months ago are fabricated anyway.
You said you’ve been with me all this time, but… I can’t seem to remember the details. I don’t have any memories of our time together… Why do you think that is?
*sigh*
Guess I overdid it with the mind-hacking lately.
Mind-hacking? Like in that future crimes report Gouto found?
It’s your next set of memories.
……
When we cut back to the present, Miura is chasing Juro.
Calm down.
He’s… Shiba-kun is—
Music: Hard Pill to Swallow (Kikuchi Yukinori)
When I’m not careful, I blow my cover.
Who *are* you?
But I had to come up with something that suited you. You get along well with this kinda guy, right?
I’ve already filled your head with transplanted memories. They’re running all around in there, aren’t they? But don’t worry. Leave things to me, and you’ll be just fine.
Transplanted memories?
Yup. Mine.
But he’s right there in front of me.
What a shame.
So those movies were… Shiba-kun’s memories…
Shiba’s? No.
Ah, son of a bitch!
So chill out. Unless you want to look like a crazy person.
Just forget about the world for a bit… And watch this. You’re gonna love it. …It’ll wipe your mind clean as a whistle.
…I appreciate the translation note, but it’s pretty comical.
Anyway, “Kyuta Shiba” is voiced by an old favorite of mine, Ben Diskin. He’s… a character, all right!
The first update we make to the board is removing this “What does Kyuta Shiba know?” mystery. The obvious assumption was that he was in league with Morimura, but this seems to have grown a bit in scope. So many people with so many contradictory schemes running around, good god.
To replace that mystery, we have a more general “‘Kyuta Shiba’?” mystery we put up.
And we also connect Juro to Shiba and Shiba to Juro, to mark that they’re the same person. The already-placed Juro-Juro link now forms Juro triangle. This is… getting complicated, folks.
And here’s the finished board.