Name Withheld For Spoilers

[Puncyclopedia]

First off, thanks for all the feedback. It's very much appreciated. As a reward for reading this, here, have the title reveal, in spoilers, of course:

One True Pairing

This is, and always was going to be, the hardest to write/least satisfying chapter in this piece for a thousand reasons that most of you have hit upon. I'll touch on them in the comments below.

Dammit Emi, Shizune warned yooouuuuu

She hasn't yet, that's part of the problem, you see.

It's been a few years since I last read it, but I think it sticks pretty close to the source material - in fact sticking to the source material is kind of it's premise - at least to as much of the source material as was available at the time of its writing. It was written back when only act 1 was out, so don't expect Jigoro to show up or that Lilly and Shizune are cousins...

As for this story I'm not quite sure I understood everything nurse explained.
I first thought "point A" was where Hisao starts out at the gate, but it seems "point A" is actually his entire time at Yamaku, since both the beginning and the end are predetemined. Makes its labelling as "point" a bit strange...

Also there are two questions that would have been right at the top of the things that I'd want to know that Hisao didn't even think to ask:
1. Who the hell are YOU that you know all this stuff and are able to pull a whole room outside of time itself?
2. WHO am I supposed to date?

Point A is vague on purpose. The nurse's explanation is bad for two reasons: one, because it's supposed to be vague, and two, because I didn't write it so well. ;p The nurse is a messenger of something that the nurse doesn't understand particularly well (we'll get to this in the "why not Mutou?" comments further).

Your other two points are well taken. #2 will come up in chapter 3, it was originally here, but I rewrote basically the entire chapter and forgot to put it back in. Whoops, but I think it'll be better served in Chapter 3 at this point. The first question is something I dithered on a lot - my beta reader pointed out that having him ask it is going to lead to an unsatisfying answer (which is what it did in the first version). I can see the argument for putting it in - I may at least go back and edit him at least *thinking* it, but probably will keep that aspect as it is otherwise for now.

This is an interesting read so far, looking forward to more.

Thank you. It should get better (and more intelligble) from here.

It's interesting. I don't know what you have planned or where this is going, but I have a feeling that Hisao may have got his answers too easily, or at least too soon.

Chapter 3 will touch on this in significantly more detail. For now, though, I will say that if Hisao didn't get his answers this soon, this fic would be rather boring to read. There is probably an equally good version of something similar to this with Hisao figuring out the basic rules of the universe and going from there, but I've made some creative decisions (choice of ending that this starts from among them) that preclude me from writing that story (in my opinion, at least).

The arc words of this story are to a very real extent "now what?" That's a question that Hisao now has to answer, and perhaps the most important thing that I hope people take away from the first two chapters (and what you remember from the canon) is that he's very, very poorly equipped for the journey he's about to embark on.

Yeah, I'd have expected Mutou as well

Agreed. Mutou makes a lot more sense.

Full disclosure - my original outline for this had Mutou in that role until I thought about it more and opted for Nurse, for the following reasons:

- The Nurse has access to an office that can be the place beyond time and space. This is relevant for a few reasons that will be made more clear in the story, but in pragmatic terms - it's a place where Hisao can talk to the person who knows Things in absolute privacy and not worry about someone overhearing and getting him sent to a different kind of facility.
- I liked the idea of Hisao not feeling well and having to go visit the Nurse - and suddenly having a giant pile of WORSE things dropped on him. Thanks, Nurse! The nurse is the person who essentially deals with "wellness" at Yamaku, and Hisao is not particularly well right now for reasons that have surprisingly little to do with heart conditions.
- I wanted the Person Who Knows Things to not be front and center. Mutou is front and center in Hisao's life - Hisao can't avoid him. Kenji was another option, but again, Kenji shows up too often. Nurse can be involved only as much as I want (or as Hisao wants, for that matter)
- Mutou has another role in the story that suits him better.
- Nurse is much more of a messenger. Mutou would have understood everything perfectly and explained it too well for what I want to accomplish.

Chapter 3 will probably be up by Monday - busy weekend ahead, but I've started writing it.

Thanks again, everyone!

[Puncyclopedia]

Quick update, so everyone knows I'm not disappearing for another year. Posted this in Hindsight already, but it equally applies here.

I'm in the midst of the final stretch of business school right now, which will keep me in its icy grip until the first week of May or so. The chapter I'm working on for this is (IMO at least) pretty important, so I don't want to rush it. Hopefully it'll be worth the wait when it comes out - likely mid-Mayish.

Cheers, and apologies once again for the wait

[TheIllustriousK]

Oh man, Well, have not read any sort of KS for some years now, decided to come back to check on what is happening and found this.

Had to create an account just to say I like what i'm reading.

Here is a funny thought, what if Kenji was originally the Universe's Chosen One but he could not complete his objective and over the course of multiple re-winds went completely mental? And ofcourse during the whole story he is aware of all Hisao's re-winds too and sees him as his chance of breaking his own cycle. That would be hillarious.

[PKMNthiefChris]

Well I hope you come back to this at some point. No rush and no insistence but I like what I see. It's really good

[Raimen]

I'm glad this story got bumped. I know it's barely started, but I enjoyed the premise.

To me, it's setting up to be quite different than Numbered Days. So far, it seems only Hisao and the Nurse are aware of the time loop, and how much Hisao remembers from loop to loop seems questionable.

Also, I wonder if Chapter 3 would have started with Hisao at the gates of Yamaku? I think Emi got him that time.