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8bitsupervillain · 21 days ago

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Higurashi When They Cry Hou Ch. 8 Matsuribayashi pt. 115

Yet, despite my feelings on how the chapter has gone towards the very end, she needs to be rescued too.

When I finished Matsuribayashi for the first time I was unaware that this fragment/scene even existed. I had read the singular TIP, and the staff room and walked away for some time. I wasn’t entirely sure what to make of the ending of Matsuribayashi and I confess to a certain amount of confusion. Sure the ending wasn’t particularly great, but I didn’t understand why this of all things had apparently upset the fanbase so. It may not have been the best ending to a series, but I thought it was pretty good. Eventually my looking at various forums and so on led me to this:

The idea that the fragments needed to be played a certain had certainly occurred to me, but I knew going in that there was no way I was going to get it correct on my first swing. After all there were fifty-one fragments, I sincerely doubt anyone playing/reading the visual novel got it correct their first time. So I went through the fragments in the order provided in that steam guide, and it unlocked the 52nd fragment.

Flags from kids meals

Somehow I had managed to dodge even the text underneath the fragments believe it or not. I saw the title on that steam guide, but not the flavor text.

I admit that when I read this the first time until the dialogue specified Miyoko’s Dad I genuinely had no idea who the “she” the game was referring to.

This is actually one of the things that I really like from the adaptations compared to the visual novels. The 2009 versions, as well as the unmodified 2020 release just have the background and the dialogue on screen. So the inclusion of “Rika” in the modded version is entirely just a decision made for the PS3 and later ports of Matsuribayashi. I like the manga and anime versions of this scene for the inclusion of an adult “Rika.” It’s a minor touch, but one that I enjoy. It doesn’t necessarily add anything to the scene, but I admit that I enjoy the intentional confusion that their inclusion adds to the finale. Because in spite of how it may look, this is not Rika Furude.

I do have to wonder though, if Matsuribayashi had decided to make the Rika who’s not Rika into more of a character than she already was would it have helped the more controversial elements? Throughout the Connecting Fragments Rika appears from time to time to help the narrative move forward towards the miracle ending they need to free Rika and Hanyuu from the time loop. I mentioned in part 103 that I had a theory as to why Rika seems to know everything, and nothing. Cards on the table, but it’s because the Rika of the Connecting Fragments, and the Flags from a child’s meal chapter are definitely not the Rika Furude we’ve been with the majority of the chapter. This Rika, who the Minagoroshi manga said was Frederica Bernkastel is a Rika from one of the other fragments who was able to attain powers similar to Hanyuu. At least this Rika is able to interact with people from other fragments, if nothing else. Back at the very start of the chapter when Miyoko is escaping from the orphanage she hears "a mysterious voice" the modded version of Higurashi uses Rika's voice actor for this line. So I believe that this Rika is somehow able to join forces with Hanyuu and the pair were able to manipulate fate into working out for their "miracle." It's why there are points during the Connecting Fragments where Rika seemed to know a lot more about the plot than she later seems to actually know.

Could you imagine if I had taken screenshots of every single variation of this conversation and put them here? I imagine you’d kill me due to the repetition. This is the end of my inclusion of the manga screenshots by the way.

Initially upon reading this I admit to a small sense of confusion, because I was reading her words literally, that Miyoko Tanashi was fated to die if she went with her parents on this mall trip that claimed her parents lives. It didn’t occur to me until later on in this that it was meant in a more metaphorical sense.

I don’t want to bring up the notion of what you might think is canon or non-canon, but I just want to remind you in the anime adaptation the accident that claimed the Tanashi parents was a bus crash with one other vehicle. But also in the anime adaptation it’s shown that the driver saw Miyoko and it guilted him into slowing down so they avoided that grisly fate. The manga however when it showed the crash it was just a Final Destination vision that killed and mutilated a whole pile of people. So much so that even in the visual novel at the start of the chapter the crash had cut off Miyoko’s dad’s arms.

And so, in the very last minutes of Higurashi When They Cry Hou Chapter Eight: Matsuribayashi Miyo Takano died.

I know that this is presented as something that’s supposed to be unambiguously good. After all, Miyoko’s parents are alive, so she’ll never live with Hifumi, and the entirety of the series, with all of its tragedies and death will be avoided. However I don’t know if this is actually a good ending, this is even ignoring the stuff that will occur later in the series. At the time when I read this alternate ending, which is what this is, I wasn’t really feeling it. It’s not bad necessarily, it just didn’t do anything for me, I felt more for the bad ending of Himatsubushi where Akasaka was unceremoniously shot to death than I did for this.

At the time, when I first read the visual novel my mind was awash with what changing this flow of events could possibly mean for the characters. Would events transpire the way they had originally, only without the spicy external threat of Takano? Would Satoko still kill her parents? Despite this being the finale for the series (if you say it enough, it becomes true) I’m not really willing to look at the theories and speculations about what it all means. But I do have my speculations.

I think if you make a fragment where Takano is madly in love with Tomitake you get Matsuribayashi.

Part of me wonders if the series would have been helped or hindered by a dramatic romantic subplot running alongside the narrative? I recall really enjoying the relationship stuff in Watanagashi, but I don’t know how I’d feel having to go through a romance plot in say Tsumihoroboshi. Or if in Minagoroshi if there was a relationship chokehold on the plot when dealing with the Satoko stuff. As much as I don’t imagine loving the concept, there are some romantic subplots in Umineko that I thought were pretty okay, hell episode 6 of Umineko could be read as an odd romance novel of sorts. “Without it love it cannot be seen” and all that not withstanding. If you want to get really into it, the entire series could be seen as an indictment of how love is one of the worst things that can happen.

Part of me wants to be really cynical and sarcastic about how “Higurashi will move on without us” because of how often Ryukish07 has been going back to this financially lucrative well. But I can’t really fault the guy for getting paid, lord knows if I created a popular series like this I too would try to milk it for all its worth.

I do have to say it is a bit of a change of pace to see the author of a work give their approval for fan works in the actual work itself. Usually that sort of thing is saved for the stray social media post, or post on their own web site. I don’t really have anything to say about his entreaty for you to create stuff, because honestly more people should be willing to take a risk and expose themselves to the creative process. Even if you’re doing it just for you it’s fun, soul crushing at times, but still it can be fun.

#higurashi #higurashi when they cry #higurashi no naku koro ni #higurashi playthrough

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aurorauau · 6 days ago

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the tale of how these Rose Guns Days end...

here we have it. I have many thoughts but for the sake of not making a thousand posts of my same surface level analysis, I'll just talk about individual characters and my impressions of their endings...

Rose is one of my favourite protagonists of the whole 07th/wtc lot (if it has a Miyoko Tanashi it might as well be wtc) despite her writing being very frustrating at times. the complex got her good... her ending being a bittersweet one in which she's at her lowest point mentally that we've seen her ever since the Caleb arc makes sense when she was locked up for a year and in her own personal hell, being totally unable to do anything and even speak in her own voice to her friends. similarly to what I said in my Meijiu and Wang post, the vagueness of the 1950 ending, Rose choosing how she's going to be seen, all serves to give Rose control of her narrative... I think the part with Julie doesn't land as well, it didn't reveal too much so I think it still worked

Leo has frustrated me from beginning to end which I've laid out in real time. I think I can deal with many problems with him by just looking at Jeanne's authorship. everyone helped but Leo in this domino sense is the person who started it all and helped turn Jeanne's life around. so of course he's portrayed as super competent as he is. as for him always joking and flirting, it's the impression she got from their time together! imagine Battler from the first two episodes of Umineko... still I'm disappointed that he didn't grow on me and only became more disliked (because of thing with Zel)

Richard is just legendary. I need to put him next because as a counterpart to Rose he's genuinely one of the best antagonists to me. the way he's constructed gradually, getting to know him and seeing the cracks in his nice facade and then the complete unraveling of him after losing his whole family. I love his dynamic with Rose, Stella, Keith, Meijiu, and of course Cyrus his bff who I will add on here because I don't have much to say about him... I like how Cyrus deconstructed every role that he was put in and always felt like a person

Meijiu felt like the deuteragonist to me because his relationship with Rose and Richard, his arc in the second and third season were so strong that everything I could say won't measure up... I'm so happy with his ending since first off he didn't die and whatever I wanted to happen could happen next at this point. I could say I wanted him to do more but I love that he gets an ending where he plays the support role he always wanted to play

Gabriel is great! I think he was a bit overhyped to me but he managed to pull through. his duel with Richard and Butler coming in as I've said was just terrific and a much better ending than Primavera group storming in and defeating him but with his death very few things actually change which imo works for the bittersweet ending. we saw how he was disliked in the ghq, which doesn't make ghq benevolent and not full of other people who will terrorise the city in more subtle ways that aren't mired in trauma-driven revenge but just disdain. Butler was the perfect character to illustrate this with his jovial image, lack of principles and all, in the end he's in a very good position to return to his old ways but inside he's just not the same...

I want to say Alan and Keith invented love but they invented some more complicated things... again maybe I come off as super positive about everything but I love their ending! Alan shielding Keith's head as they fall, Keith's realisation and of course cutting off just at that moment was cruel in the best way... Xiaolan seeing that Alan might be dead was harrowing though... my parentified child's turn to feel Alan-style guilt for something she couldn't directly control but she got involved so I guess it's on her. I think this moment was the best part of the ending because it could really be anything. the next moment, Alan could moan in pain still alive, Keith could shoot at Xiaolan if he has anything to shoot with and run away, etc...

Zel, Nina and Charles had a sweet, heroic ending just for something different... but keeping in that bittersweet tone. imo these kids had some of the most solid writing in the whole story and it's very satisfying to see it wrapped up this way. the next is truly up to them... I think the part with Oliver's grave was a bit on the nose but I'm here for that. they made me wish for an epilogue just to see if they're still hanging out together as adults but I think having the space to imagine it is perfect...

Zilong almost gets away with not doing anything but detectiveing in the background and talking to other mafia bosses since he was introduced later than most, but I'm really glad we actually got to meet him, and not just a shadowy figure on the phone, specifically that Rose got to meet him... the "Rose's group meets with the gds" part was kind of sloppy to me considering all the buildup, but it's good enough. the gds as a group are my favourites here (isn't it obvious) so good for him

some disappointments: I think I understand the point of everything with Stella and Meixue but I still can't get over how they were chewed up by the narrative, especially Stella who had some of the best potential as a character, at least play a more key role in the second arc rather than just delivering a letter. in the process of the story of the mythmaking around these dead women not unlike Rose... the story has to lose two standout women characters so I'm happy I was spoiled on Stella being marked for death early on. I think in killing them off undoubtedly and not characters like Alfred the point is obviously that death isn't narrative punishment for those who deserved it but a tragedy to be treated with gravity... sigh...

Claudia and Meryl's diminishing roles didn't help much. I love them both to bits and Meryl at least got her double bookkeeping moment, solidifying her as a core member of the group, where I felt a lot of the original gang besides Rose and Richard were kind of flattened. what is Wayne's role even. kidding... Wayne grew on me and I think he had a very interesting arc... which we don't see most of. old Wayne is terrific, I always liked his comments

Caleb and Miguel coming back and fighting with Rose was fun, I was always kind of confused by their redemption but I guess it's very telling of Rose. Rose needs to love herself more. Amanda too... I really don't know why she's still with these guys, I assume she has nowhere else to go. there was a real affection between Amanda and Caleb but he was and still is not a good partner to her... she's got one of the most negative endings to me but like I always say it's vague enough. maybe she gets a chance to turn her life around like Jeanne?

Jeanne. Jeanne is a liar sometimes. I'm still very fond of her almost as much as I like pinning any problems I had with the narrative on her. I think on a reread it'd be key to read it all with the full context of who Jeanne was in mind. handing off her seat to Julie because of her grandma... after Jeanne got it partially because of her grandpa was a bit comical. I don't know what to think of that whole born leader thing. Jeanne still came through with her personality and force of will developed through her life and hardships - it's that her noble heritage was a plus to make her more palatable to the people of the city than a former sex worker with a bad reputation... well that's what I think. I really liked having a story framed by a narrator from the beginning as a contrast to the Umineko framing for example

Julie is fun, idk what to say about her but since I'm near the end of my words I should just to say something wild. I was convinced that Meijiu was her grandpa since the second arc. put the two of them together and Rose and look at their design elements. I don't know if this was intended at all, probably not, but it amused me and has a leg to stand unlike Claudianne (rip Claudia's relevance)

if I forgot anyone it's because they're worthless and must be ashamed to even be on the screen. kidding... I've talked about Butler so for the end I will say I also liked the mystery of Ange. love that we don't know what happened to her or who did what. maybe on a reread I will find myself more frustrated with the 1950 ending but it's good. I have less to say about the modern one, it's ok. there are some mixed messages in the overall narrative... but unraveling them is part of the experience so I'll be doing it in the meantime

#this shit is long and i still didn't say much about the themes. i will say i THINK i guessed the key themes right in the caleb arc #feels good feels organic. and don't forget when something is phrased in a way you don't like you can just blame jeanne #rose guns days spoilers #rgd posting #auau original

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felixcloud6288 · 8 months ago

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Higurashi: Festival Accompanying Chapter 1

We know all the secrets surrounding June 1983, but we don't know everything leading up to that month.

Everything begins at some point likely around the mid 1950s. Before she was Miyo Takano, she was Miyoko Tanashi. She was scared of horror stories, loved collecting the flags that came with her kids meals, and loved her parents very much.

S-Save me r/vexillology!! I'm trying to identify all 19 of the flags Miyoko has collected.

The flags I can identify for sure:

Brazil: near the bottom center

Canada: near the center to the right of Brazil

China: in the top right corner

Denmark: In the top left, above South Korea and partially buried under two other flags

Finland: Above Denmark and slightly covering it up

France: The flag covering up Denmark

Germany: bottom left corner

Greece: Center far right

Japan: Near the center

South Korea: Center far left. Partially covered by the drawer wall

Switzerland: Bottom center, next to Brazil

Turkey: Bottom right corner

United Kingdom: Top Center

United States: Top center. Right above Canada

Meanwhile I think these are also in the pile:

Argentina or Austria: The flag under the Swiss and Brazilian flags. I'm leaning toward Argentina because red is drawn in darker shades

India: The flag at the top right above the US flag and partially covered by the drawer

Italy or Ireland: Flag to the right of Switzerland and above Turkey. I'm leaning more toward it being Italy.

I cannot figure out what the flag between Canada and Greece is. At first, I thought it was the Czech Republic, but the shading on this image doesn't match the Czech colors at all. And it's backward too. There's also a flag in the top right corner that is very hidden. All I can tell is it has white on the bottom. My guess is it might be Indonesia. I was also considering Estonia, but Estonia was under Soviet rule at this time and it was illegal to fly the Estonian flag.

I was really hoping the Mexican and South African flags might be in here.

You're placing a curse on your kid if you tell them god will give them happiness if they're good. You're telling them it is their fault when life happens and things fall apart. And almost as if on cue, Miyoko's life falls apart on the same day her father told her that. The only thing you could say she did wrong was she didn't hear her father when he called out to her.

Mr Tanashi losing his right hand in the train derailment is just twisting the knife. It's not enough that Miyoko's mother died in the accident and that she saw her father die. She's also denied one final headpat before he dies.

I want to try being fair to the social workers working on Miyoko's case. This is the mid 1950s. World War II ended at most a decade ago. Around 4% of Japan's population was killed in the war. Two cities were utterly destroyed, and there's the general economic collapse that comes from long-term military action.

No matter how much they may want to help, resources in this environment are stretched thin. Trying to find and contact a single person with no leads would likely be difficult today. It would be a herculean task in the 1950s.

And it's also this kind of scenario that lets an institution like the one Miyoko was sent to to exist. Those social workers were genuinely clueless about how that orphanage mistreats the children brought to it. They genuinely think they're providing the best possible solution given the situation, and the head of the orphanage knows how to put on a kindly face in front of them.

I genuinely don't know if the panel of the man patting Miyoko's head is real or her imagination. Him giving her even the slightest kindness is so out of character. And Miyoko grew up in the exact opposite of an abusive home. Her instinct when seeing someone raise their hand to her is expecting kindness and being utterly confused when she's hit instead.

I love and hate how that first slap to Miyoko is so perfectly executed. A full page image on the right half of the page spread. You just turn the page and see Miyoko violently slapped across the face. It's as sudden to us as it is to her. And right before it happens, the chapter implied that there is hope for her despite everything that's happened. But that one slap knocks the hope out of her and us.

back

#higurashi no naku koro ni #higurashi when they cry #higurashi no naku koro ni reread

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purely-interests-here-not-much · 1 year ago

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Well... I guess for my late spirit for PKMN Day, just thought that this would be interesting to post, plus including some upcoming Digimon fan content as well. My teams over the course of Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, as well as a future team for the upcoming Digimon Mystery Dungeon by @/nerointruder, who's done some wonderfully amazing sprite portraits for their fan hack (plus is using EOS as the base!), though progress is currently slow at the moment, do show and give them a follow to show your love and support to the work they're putting in! Ok, shall start from the top? Sidenote, based around my OCs from my little Digimon AU and some being my main+PKMN OCs. DMD: Chrono Prominence - Team Rise - Akasa (Sistermon Blanc) - Kiran (Beelzemon Rebel) - Kaira (Lilimon Noble) - Shinjiro (Angemon to ArchAngemon) - Tamiko (Minervamon) - Mao (Agunimon to ConquerorGreymon) - Mizuki (Tailmon Jinx) PMD Super - Team Fate - Kira - Dakota - Shinji - Tanashi - Gerero - Junya (HEY, since Gen VII didn't get a Mystery Dungeon game, I had to make an workaround, so I like to imagine that Super has Gen VII PKMNs there, so at least Junya & Gerero can be together with the rest!) PMD Explorers (top to bottom) - Team Titans - Takashi - Gen - Haruhi - Hiroshi - Haru - Konata - Masataka - Natsumi PMD Blue/DX - Team Galaxy - Kohta - Yuri - Satoshi - Rito

This one being bonus of Team Rise and them as their respective Child Digimon, Akasa besides being the only "human" in my AU as well as main leader of the team for when the fan hack eventually comes out would be a bit of an mystery for the team, as here and my AU, she and the others don't seem to remember much, hell even Kiran+CO didn't seem to realize that they each were all Digimon at first when they woke up! Since DMD is using EOS as a base, which allows for a 4-person team... MAN, the 4th slot in the original Blue Rescue Team is such a tease... -.-

As for Shinjiro (ArchAngemon), before it actually became a thing from Bandai, my interpretation being based around Arrancarfighter's design, honestly prefer theirs over the official one we got. uu' As I can't draw worth jack >>'

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tanashigurashi · 9 months ago

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ブログに新しい記事を投稿しました。

#田無タワー #スカイタワー西東京 #田無 #西東京市 #東京 #東京都 #展望台 #西東京 #タワー #田無ぐらし #tanashi #nishitokyo city #tanashi tower #地域ブログ

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koifishstudies · 2 years ago

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#tanashi

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catsvrsdogscatswin · 9 months ago

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Higurashi Month 2024, Day 5: Adoration

Higurashi Month prompts archive: AO3

Miyoko Tanashi's first experience of religion is the typical mixing bag of any young child in that era of Japan. A little of this, a bit of that, some names, some rituals, some philosophies tying it up in a neat little bow. She doesn't think on it because it never matters, and why should it? There is only the eternal and present now.

She splashes water for purification at a shrine, she has a little luck-charm tied to the strap of her school bag, and she's familiar with the sight of an upraised hand of Buddha. They're all just simple, easy things; habits that she is expected to learn to fall into as she grows up, like tying shoelaces, or washing hands.

She knows this that and the other, but it doesn't sink in, doesn't mean anything.

Not yet.

~*~

What she has learned cannot withstand this kind of grief.

Miyoko sits, stunned, on a plastic chair that is hard and cold and slippery and every texture a seat shouldn't be, clutching the glass of water a nurse gave her and trying to scrape together a single coherent thought when the bottom has gone out of her world.

Parents are a fact of life. They happen like sunshine, like rain, like gravity. They can't be gone. They can't be dead.

Except- except they are.

And now what?

Now what?

There is no "now what." For every moment and every step of Miyoko's life, there has been an adult to guide her, parents to tell her what to say and what to do and who to thank. Even if one were to set aside the thunderous mountain of grief crushing her underneath it, she does not know what to do. She does not even know what to think.

Her knowledge of religion, at this point, is too gentle to stand up under the hollow, aching weight of this sorrow and loss. Her parents did not teach mourning rituals to her. They did not know they would need to; all her other relatives are gone. They should have been no one she needed to mourn for, yet.

One of the kami in Miyoko's childish collage of knowledge is what seems to be known to some people as kami-sama, the kami of them all, best and greatest and only. She's distantly familiar with the wall hanging of the doll nailed onto a crosspiece of two sticks, and knows it to be some kind of presentation or manifestation or representation or something else of that kami.

She learns a little more when one of the wrung-out nurses finally has a moment to spare for her, enfolding her in a starchy hug and stroking her hair as Miyoko cried, telling her that this kami-sama has plans for everyone and that her parents have gone somewhere wonderful and happy, and that they'll always be watching over her as she grows.

The nurse tells Miyoko that she is loved –even if she can't see it yet– and the best thing she can do for her parents now is grow up happy and healthy.

Miyoko believes her, in the same way a drowning victim will cling to a boat in a flood.

~*~

Love does not survive in the orphanage.

Love does not even make it past the doors.

All it is is hitting and hurting and fear, the bone-deep terror that sinks its teeth into Miyoko's brain and thrashes her mind like a terrier with a rat. Every moment, every breath, is teetering on a precipice of doom, and her nerves are constantly stretched wire-tight, twanging and prickling and jumping like electric currents.

She can't even relax in bed. The walls are thin, and she can hear the distant thumps and yelling deep in the bowels of the building –even when she cries, even when she wraps her sad excuse for a pillow around her ears. She can hear, and the terror that it might be her the next night and the sick giddiness that it's not her this night has her stomach in knots and bile rising in the back of her throat.

They are given paper and materials to learn. Miyoko would not say that they are taught, because teaching involves lessons and the only lessons here are how to avoid a beating. But they are given schoolwork and expected to complete it, and because the people here are from oversees part of the curriculum is something called catechism.

It's a strange, tricky foreign word, but Miyoko chants it over and over to herself ever since she saw Erika pronounce it wrong in class and get a ruler whipped across her face –on the flat side, thankfully, otherwise it would have cut her cheek to the bone.

But Miyoko does not want that to be her, and so she repeats the slippery syllables over and over again in private until her tongue can glide perfectly along them. She studies just as hard, hunching over her rickety wooden desk and scribbling out words on her papers with the feverish intensity borne of soul-deep fear.

See how hard I'm studying. Look how hard I'm working. Don't punish me! Don't punish me!

Some concepts slip through the haze of terror and the painful perfection of repeating lessons back to the orphanage staff. Kami-sama's proper English name is God, and she must shape the first letter differently than when she is talking about other kami because he is singular and important and all the other spirits she knew are not important at all, actually, by comparison. They are cheap imposters in paper masks compared to the-kami-with-a-capital God.

God is important, and God loves. Miyoko is told that frequently, but in as many words she and the other orphans are also told that they must earn God's love; that they were born defiled, as all humans were; that their parents dying is proof that their sins still needed cleansing.

They are told, in word and deed and endless experience, that suffering cleanses sin.

~*~

When Miyoko is old enough –smart enough– to try and run, and she finds herself lost and frightened, scratched and muddy, staggering through the rain, she prays to God.

She prays because it is what she has always known will attract the attention of the divine; the orphanage's lessons shape the formula of her prayer, they and the nurse tell her whom to address it to, and her desperation to return to the comparative paradise of her past life fuels it.

This isn't fair.

She didn't do anything to deserve this.

Miyoko understands that the orphanage directors say with bone-deep certainty that all humans are born in sin and from sin, but her parents never said that. Her classmates never said that. The nurse and the social workers and the doctors never said that. Nobody else ever said that.

And even if it was true, she had lived a happy life until the train accident! If she was cursed with sin, then the punishment should have followed her from the start!

To have known what it was to be happy and then live like this is a far worse punishment than having been born into this kind of life.

It isn't fair. It isn't fair!

Miyoko hurls her defiance to the heavens, filling her shout with the essence of her very soul.

If this was the life she was meant to live, then she doesn't want it. She won't have it. If suffering cleanses sin, then surely by now she has suffered enough to cleanse a hundred lifetimes.

If this is all she's ever meant for, then she won't continue this fate. She will accept a lightning bolt, be smote from the earth, and once dead, she will return to her parents in the paradise the nurse said waited for her.

But if the kami that is called God is capricious enough, fickle enough, to allow her fate to be changed, then Miyoko challenges it –him– right here and now.

She will not have this life. She rejects it with every inch of her soul. She will have her fate changed, now. Death or salvation –she accepts either into her heart with a fierce joy that makes her hair feel like it is standing on end, crackling along every inch of her skin.

But perhaps that is simply extra charge from the roaring bolt of fire that spears down out of the sky and destroys a stump a few meters away.

Miyoko's heart shakes in her chest as she watches the smoke rise from the charred wood, but inside, she feels a kind of euphoria. That could have been any tree in this forest, any smoking stump on the mountainside. But it is the one next to her. It is like a voice, speaking in her ear, that someone is watching.

The awe that fills and swells her spirit drains a little when Miyoko looks around and sees nothing. She shivers, suddenly recalling that she is cold and soaked to the skin –and then sees a little glint of light reflecting through the trees.

When she follows it, she finds a phone booth, which is dry and, comparatively, warm. She crawls inside and shuts the door, and then, with a piercing gleam of hope, sees the coin.

It is ten yen. Enough for a call, however short.

She can call for help

Miyoko clutches the coin until the edges dig into her palm, and thinks as she has never thought before.

This is it. God helps those that help themselves is a favorite saying at the orphanage, meant to make them work harder, and Miyoko knows that this is is her first and only opportunity. Anyone could have forgot a coin, lightning could have fallen anywhere –but they didn't. They happened at this time, in this place, and together they make a miracle that she cannot disbelieve.

This is God acknowledging her efforts, and giving Miyoko a chance to prove herself –to earn the salvation she feels trembling just beyond the tips of her fingers.

God helps those that help themselves. He has arranged for this, and now it is up to Miyoko to grasp her destiny in both hands and make something of it –to break free of her doomed fate.

She has to get this right.

Miyoko thinks of who she can call, who can believe her, and remembers a name.

Hifumi Takano.

She has one chance –one chance only to remember the numbers soundlessly garbled through blood in her father's mouth, one chance to dial those numbers one by one into the rotary, one chance to squeeze the receiver against her ear, shut her eyes, and pray that it is right, that Hifumi Takano will be there and hear her.

One chance to create a miracle.

"Hello?"

~*~

Paradise cannot even begin to compare to what life is like after her Grandpa adopts her. Miyoko wakes up every morning in her clean, soft, peaceful room, and cannot believe it all over again.

Grandpa is like her parents, in that he believes in religious matters in an easygoing, hodgepodge sort of way. Miyoko doesn't mind it. She will believe whatever he believes, because Grandpa can do no wrong in her eyes, and she is very young still. Her ability to form her own convictions is only just beginning, coalescing slowly out of everything she has learned and seen and been taught.

She believes in the divine, of course, even though Grandpa is a scientist and treats it with a certain amount of gentle skepticism. The miracle of the coin and the lightning is not so easily forgotten by her.

But as she listens to her Grandpa talk and works to help him organize his notes, Miyoko begins to wonder about things she has not been given the luxury to wonder about before. Kami are everywhere and in everything, so teaches her classmates, and yet Miyoko knows that they are real, when even she can tell that her friends think otherwise.

The budding young scientist who makes tea for her Grandpa and his guests and listens attentively as he talks through his theories begins to make theories of her own.

Kami are real. She knows this, irrefutably. But if divinity can be accrued, like with nekomata and other yokai, then what is divinity, truly? Is it simply a natural power? And if so, can that power be harnessed and understood, like electricity or magnetism?

But her fledgling theories and thoughts are far less important than her Grandpa's research, into which he pours so much. Miyoko puts her questions aside and works just as hard as he does, because he is her Grandpa who has given her so much.

He sometimes says that he doesn't mind if his research doesn't gain publicity until after he is dead. Miyoko doesn't understand, and then he explains the concept of Jesus Christ to her.

The catechism at the orphanage didn't go into much actual detail about kami-sama God-with-the-capital-letter, and so Grandpa explains it to her; that this Jesus died and was reborn after three days –reborn in people's hearts, where he would live forever– and that is why Grandpa does not mind if his research does not immediately bear fruit. As long as it is known someday, so too will he.

Miyoko is pleased with the idea of her grandfather living forever, immortalized by the wonder of his research.

She is excited to make it so.

~*~

Gods are decided by what is in people's hearts.

Then, what difference does it make, what authority do gods have, to toy with people's fates? Why, when they draw their very power from believers, are they so cruel as to constantly throw dice to decide those believers' destinies?

Miyo decided long ago, on that fateful night, that she would not allow her life, her destiny, her fate, to be decided in such a way. She swore it with such white-hot intensity that the heavens themselves answered her call, and she bent the world into the shape of a miracle –a faint, fragile, and fleeting one, a mere coincidence in so many words, but… a miracle, nonetheless.

And she learns from that, oh my, yes.

A heart that is indomitably focused on one goal will bend the very whims of fate to suit that goal. Gods may throw the dice to control fate, but an unshakable conviction is enough to shave a corner of those dice, bounce the table, jostle those plans.

For one reason or another –Miyo does not care which– she has reason to believe that gods cannot truly, actually, visibly act. They cannot send down floods of angels or hordes of locusts, as in tales. They cannot, she suspects, even truly manifest themselves in human sight. All they can do is twitch reality a little bit, shift and settle things so that, by mere happenstance and luck, in-potentia miracles are created.

That is fine. Gods belong in people's minds, anyway.

She has seen those dice in play, and she has seen how to break free of them. She has plans to; indeed, nebulous plans in her mind that go even further than that –vicious little thought-experiments that she indulges in as a faceless revenge fantasy.

…Miyo does not often think of the betrayal, not in so many words and actions. She uses the memory of the emotions instead –the sudden shock, the hot wave of tears and shame– to urge herself relentlessly onwards.

Success after success. Valedictorian, socialite, scientist; perfect grades, perfect manners, perfect beauty. She cannot, and does not, allow anything to shake her in the slightest. She will stand at the peak of the world, and look down on all those that mocked her beloved Grandpa. She will etch his name and his triumph into reality because it is not fair that anything else should occur.

The gods can throw whatever dice at her they like; she will overturn each and every one of them. Each challenge is surmounted gracefully, each victory tucked with commendably modesty under her belt. She studies the world around her and relentlessly applies herself to targeting, exposing, and using the vulnerabilities she notices.

Hinamizawa Syndrome will become known.

And on that day, Miyo Takano and her Grandpa will become gods in the minds of mankind.

#Higurashi Month #Higurashi Month 2024 #Higurashi no Naku Koro ni #Higurashi When They Cry #When They Cry

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