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Again I am loving the way this story is panning out. I do look forward to reading more. Thanks for taking the time to do this story well.

I couldn't help but fist pump at that final scene.

Good Lord, themocaw, your Saki is probably going to become my new waifu, this is better than great, seriously, keep it up.

And yeah, I've read the depressive epilogue you've written some time ago.

Good lawd dem feels.

themocaw wrote:And why do you think it is that high fashion always revolves around making men look as unmasculine as possible! I can't believe what I'm hearing, man.

I originally read that as "I can't believe what I'm wearing." Which I found humorous.

I'm really glad to see more bonding between them. Their conversation about dinosaurs was adorable, how she tried to get inside his head and how he came back at her. And Hisao thanking her for hanging out with him. That was pretty damn cute.

I'm glad you're keeping Hisao's character alive, as well, instead of just using him as a sounding board for Saki's personality. The "shadow of Iwanako" line was especially good.

I'm continuing to grow really fond of Saki. Hope for a lot more scenes like these.

themocaw wrote:And yet, the shadow of Iwanako still lingers in this place. It's been only a few months since I was last in this position, in a field of snow, surrounded by trees, locked in the dead of winter.

And then I realize. There's no snow here. Only lush, green life all around me.

I have to say, this was the "D'awwwww" line for me this time around.

Just now read your Act One. I love this as much as I loved "Weekend at Hisao's" You are great. If I was any artist at all I would offer to draw you CG's.
I can just pick the moment in Ending scene where "Aria De L'Etoile" starts playing.

So How would you think Saki's Act 2 opening cinema would go?

I cannot wait for more (Though I would like to see you tackle a Rika route)

I had a friend once who claimed that all dreams have meanings.

I don't know if they do, but if so, maybe the dream I had the night after the festival meant something.

Saki was in it, but not in the way that you'd expect a guy's new girlfriend to be. That would have been more fun.

It started out that way, though. I saw us sitting in a room together. Saki was laughing and smiling at me, as she showed me her latest design for her next outfit. For some reason, it had a mask. I remembered thinking that was important.

And then, in a flash, she was standing naked in the middle of an endless, empty darkness, surrounded by porcelain masks.

My vision scanned across the masks floating in front of her. Each one held a different expression. One was laughing. A second was crying. A third was angry.

All of them were her face.

Saki ran her hand along the masks, choosing one to wear. She picked one out, turned and held the mask up over her face.

It was the mask that smiled.

I remember blind panic coursing through my heart. Somehow, I knew that I needed to pull that mask away from her. I grabbed at her wrist and pulled the mask away.

What I saw made me recoil in surprise.

Saki's face was wearing an expression I'd never seen her have in real life. It was angry. Her glittering, cheerful eyes were shadowed with anger. Her lip was curled in a sneer, and her stance was aggressive. She looked like someone ready to fight the world.

I looked down at her hands, the hands I'd seen tremble nervously, the hands that had touched my face and made the outfits that she used to dress her classmates up so beautifully. Her knuckles were scarred and covered in blood.

A single drop of blood fell and splashed against the ground, quickly staining the empty space around us blood-red.

In the crimson light, I could see that each mask was actually the face of a different Saki. Dozens of them, each one different than the one I knew.

I raced through them, searching their faces for the one I loved, the one that I'd come to care for so much in this intense, eventful week. I pushed my way past Sakis with faces I'd never seen, faces that made me cringe in horror or broke my heart with their sadness.

And then I found her, standing alone in the midst of many. The Saki I'd come to love, the one that was in love with life even in the face of death.

I reached out for her, only to be driven back as a suit of armor slammed shut around her, sealing her away from me. I embraced her as hard as I could, but I couldn't feel her warmth, I couldn't feel her softness.

All I could feel was cold iron, keeping us apart.

Wow, that's one heck of a dream.

I take it this would be the opening animation for the Saki route?

Man, that was........... wow.

Alright here is my attempt at a pseudo-walthrough for a pseudo-route (Disclaimer: NOT REAL):

The Rika and Saki "mini-routes" only unlock after you have achieved 100% completion for the Five Main Routes. After these routes unlock, the first noticable difference is that the scene "Into the Nursery" shall now contain an extra sequence introducing Rika. The second change shall occur during the "Cold War" chapter which shall now contain a third dialouge option "Both of you, Just Leave Me Alone." which shall be the first choice that flags for the mini-routes. This shall also, flag you off of the Shizune, Lilly, and Hanako routes if you had flagged towards them with your choice in "Lunch Evoloution Theory".

To choose between either Rika or Saki the two most important choices shall be the ones inthe chapters titled "Shears" and "A Stitch in Time" to get on Rika's route, the options are "Ask Rika's Opinion" and "Escort Rika", while to get Saki you must choose "Agree with Saki" and "Help Saki". Breaking this pattern means you are taken off both girl's routes.

(Note: If you chose "Yes" in "Waylay", you shall still get the "Excercise" chapter the next day and must choose "Take It Easy" to stay with Saki. Choosing "Go For It" puts you on Emi's path as normal. Though I hear you can still get Rika, if have to play again to be sure.)

For Saki, the final choice comes in her penultimate scene titled "Coming Unraveled" the choice to make here is " I don't know what to think of it". Do that that and all that's left is to enjoy the Class 2-3 Maid Cafe. Congrats, you got Saki's route. Choose "I don't like it, no" and it's a Manly Picnic for you.

My dreams never make as much sense lol.

The more I read this and Rikabro's Rikafic, the more I love these should've-been gag characters.

This is an interesting development. Describing the dream as you do in the past-tense is unusual - at least, going by anything I've ever read. Normally dream sequences are present tense followed by "OH IT WAS ALL A DRAEM" etc etc. But the way you described it took a lot of the tension out and helped it stand on the strength of its imagery and symbolism. I think that was a good choice.

Cold Iron

I swear I heard the first chord in my head the moment I read that.

Please do keep writing. It's already crushing me just imagining what's to come.

CarnivalNights wrote:The more I read this and Rikabro's Rikafic, the more I love these should've-been gag characters.

Agreed. Both have turned into engaging characters in their own right. It's a shame the game never did anything with them, but these stories are a nice substitute!

I wake up to the sound of my alarm clock ringing.

The warmth of the sunlight shining through the windows onto my face mirrors the warm feelings in my heart from the memories of last night. The memories of my first kiss swim through my head: the warmth of her lips, the taste of her mouth, the feeling of her body pressed against mine, as the fireworks exploded overhead.

Is this what it feels like to be in love?

These are the thoughts running through my head as I take a shower and get dressed.

-----

As I leave the dorms, I see two people walking through the quad. I tense up as I see them walk by, wondering if I should ignore them or not. Maybe it would be best if I pretended I didn't see them.

No such luck.

"Good morning, Hisao!" Misha's voice is energetic, although her expression doesn't quite match. Not surprising, given how things went the last time I saw them.

"Good morning, Misha. Shizune." I give the bespectacled girl with the dark hair standing behind her a tentative, polite nod.

". . ." Shizune signs to me tentatively.

"Shicchan says good morning, Hisao! Did you have a good time at the festival?"

"Very," I say, feeling an involuntary smug smile on my face. "Did you?"

"We had fun!" Misha says, as Shizune signs rapidly. "We looked for you, but didn't see you anywhere. Where were you?"

It seems that Shizune doesn't want to talk about our prior spat. Well, if she's willing to let bygones be bygones, I am too. "Well," I say, "I was. . ."

"Hi there, darling!"

I am interrupted by the sound and feeling of about 50 kilos of girl pouncing me from out of nowhere and wrapping her arms around me. Saki's embrace is pleasantly firm and a bit resilient as she pulls me into an embrace and gives me a happy kiss on the lips.

Wow.

"Woah. . . um. . . hi, Saki!"

"Come on, darling, let's walk to class together," Saki says, as she grabs onto my arm. "If we don't hurry, we're going to be late!"

I glance over at Misha and Shizune. Shizune's expression is nearly unreadable: something between shock, dismay, and something that could be disappointment but feels more like sadness. Misha, however, is absolutely furious.

"Enomoto!" Misha shouts. "Public displays of affection are disall. . . they're bad!" She puts one hand on her hip and uses the other one to point at Saki's face. "Keep it down, or you'll get written up by the council!"

"Don't be such a stick-in-the-mud, Mikado," Saki says. She smiles wickedly at Misha. "What's the matter with a girl showing a little affection towards her boyfriend?"

Heh. Boyfriend. Hearing that word come from her makes me feel warm all over again, even in the midst of what looks to rapidly be shaping up into a catfight.

"Rules are rules!" Misha shouts, more vehemently than I've ever heard her shout before. "Behaving in such an uncouth manner lowers the tone of the school and encourages disobedience!" She waves her finger in Saki's face, making my girlfriend recoil a bit in surprise. "That's why it's discouraged!"

"Hey, Misha, dont. . ."

"Darling," Saki says, "It's okay. Don't feel like you need to protect me. After all, Mikado's just upset that she's not getting any herself." Saki grins maliciously: a wide, animal grin, meant more to show off her teeth than express any sort of happiness or affection. "Tell me, Mikado, how often do you dye your hair?"

Misha seems confused. "What does that have to do with any--"

"It seems like a lot of trouble to go through to get it that color. That, and curling it the way you do. I bet Hakamichi really appreciates it, though, right?" Saki's grin is positively predatory now.

I have no idea what Saki's talking about. I look over to Misha for an explanation, but to my surprise, the pink-haired girl is frozen in place, like a rabbit cornered by a fox.

"I'm sorry," Saki says, still grinning. "It was rude of me to make aspersions. I'm sure your choice of hair style is purely aesthetic." In a flash, her predatory expression is gone, replaced by her usual pleasant smile. "It looks very good on you, Mikado," she says. "It matches your skintone nicely. Come along, darling."

Saki tugs on my arm and leads me into the school building. I glance back over my shoulder once at the two girls from the student council. Shizune's expression is inexplicably devastated. Misha. . . Misha seems like she's struggling between two impulses. She finally settles for turning to Shizune and signing something to her. It's all I see before the growing crowd hides them from view.

"I'm sorry you had to see that," Saki says softly. "I. . . don't get along with those two at all."

I wonder what I should say to that.

-----

It's okay. I understand.
> That was mean.

-----

"I don't know exactly what's going on here, but I have a feeling that what you said to Misha was somehow really mean," I point out.

"You don't know?" Saki asks. "Misha's in love with Shizune. She has been since last year. She confessed to her but got turned down. Still, she hangs around with her, hoping that she'll get out of the friend zone. It's kind of pathetic, actually."

"Okay," I say, a bit more firmly. "Now I know that what you said was really mean."

Saki looks a bit puzzled. "Why do you care? I thought you didn't get along with them either. Word is you had a fight with them a few days ago."

"How do you know about that?"

"High school girls talk to each other, you know," Saki points out. "I heard it from a friend of mine."

Oh. That makes sense, I guess. "I'd had a bad day," I explain to Saki. "I felt really bad about it, and I was about to apologize for it before. . . this happened."

"Oh." She sighs. "I guess I was a bit over the top, huh?"

"A little bit."

"It's just. . . that time of the month, you know. It makes me kinda. . . bitchy, I guess."

Oh. "Um," I say, a bit uncomfortably. "Are you all right? Do you want to see the nurse?"

Saki rolls her eyes. "I'm on the rag, Hisao, not dying. But it's sweet of you to ask." She leans over and gives me a kiss on the cheek.

I blink in surprise at this sudden display of affection and look around. A few girls are glancing over at me and whispering to each other under their breath. A couple of guys look at me and frown enviously. I give them a smile back then lean over and return the kiss.

Feels good.

"I'll see you at lunch time, then?" Saki asks.

"Sure," I reply.

"Great. Meet you outside your classroom?"

"How about at the stairs?"

"Sounds good to me. Have a good day, darling!"

Saki gives me another hug then bounces happily into her classroom.

I head up to my own class with stars in my eyes and a spring in my step.

This must be what it feels like to be in love.