#im so so normal and smooth brained over haru and yui and how they didnt deserve everything that happened to them

[buddy-arc]

ender once again y.oma.wari 2 posting. but like (gets out my corkboard and thumbtacks) LISTEN .

throughout the game, it's progressively referenced that yui saved haruhi. i've been mulling over this for a few days now and it's only Just after i was screenshotting for sprites again that i connected some dots.

(under cut bc long post + images)

haruhi enters the malice cave after mr. kotowari removes the entrance barricade. periodically, throughout the cave, the screen flashes monochrome and yui appears. notably, she does some actions that haru, at present, has to do to avoid malice minions, like throwing a pebble and hiding in the nearby bushes. at one area, monochrome yui stumbles and falls, remaining seated on the ground for a few seconds with a terrified expression. she had encountered malice minions.

not only that, but the flashback closest to the boss area shows yui hauling haruhi out of the area ahead. this brief scene is immediately followed by:

yui and haruhi had been in malice's lair before. and i must remark, isn't it odd that yui's father died suddenly? isn't it odd that kuro died on the day before the fireworks? it all lines up. haruhi tells yui she will be moving away. tragedy after tragedy strikes yui.

haruhi is moving away. she would be out of malice's grasp. so, what does the evil spirit do? well, he makes situations for haruhi as horrible as possible by hitting her where it REALLY hurts: making her best friend, someone near and dear to her, suffer excruciatingly.

my estimate: yui's father dies. she's devastated - he's the parent she was closest to between him and her mother. yui latches onto her dogs and haruhi for comfort. one day, malice sends his minion and kidnaps kuro. yui and haruhi pursue the spirit up the mountain to the cave. haru herself gets taken by a minion, leaving yui alone to progress further. yui narrowly survives the encounters with other minions, and makes her way to the heart of the cavern.

malice taunts her with kuro and haruhi in his grasp. he tells her she can only choose one. through stressful tears, yui chooses haruhi. there's no question when it comes to that, after all. malice follows through on his word and releases haruhi, although not without her getting battered from the fall. yui carries haruhi out of the cave and to safety. then she heads and retrieves kuro... and we know what happened the day after aka the beginning of the game.

all that suffering resulted in malice easily being able to manipulate yui afterwards, be she alive or dead. notably, during malice's boss fight, he uses the same firework explosion attack that corrupted spirit yui does during her fight. in fact, during yui's boss fight, when she turns to look more human, she's grasping the sides of her head as she calls out. to a degree, malice was straight up forcing her to attack haruhi.

and for the cherry on top, malice made certain that haruhi would have survivor's guilt over the entire thing simply via the fact that yui saved haruhi from malice, but haruhi couldn't save yui from malice.

just. GAH........... this game. these girls. even in my yui-is-revived main verse, the guilt still festers and lingers and in a way it's worse because yui came back different. the changes are noticeable. her spirit is corroded, she doesn't smile as often, she's more subdued... the effects of malice are still prominent. and to haruhi, she would likely see it as her mistake for not being able to save yui. malice is such an awful and cunning villain who's getting what he wants either way, even if he's still recovering from the blows of the final boss fight.