If I had never followed a guide for Atsumori's route, I think I would have tore my hair out playing the game, despite me feeling very sympathetic for the poor kid. lol But Atsu-kun is so cute ;A; ♥

It's interesting that as you go along with different characters, some scenes change or some are only activated if you're aiming for that character's route. Watching some scenes again was like a trip down memory lane when I first played this game T^T Like the one when the Genji team just arrived in Kumano and meet Hinoe for the first time. I wonder how Benkei must've felt like, just standing there and watching his nephew go all nanpa on Nozomi lol. 8D;

Let me say this: Atsumori's route is tricky and requires a lot of patience because you have to keep REPLAYING certain chapters and oh boy, thank goodness they implemented the R1 Skip option or else I think I'd drop dead from listening to all the lengthy conversations. +_+

Anyways, I restarted Atsumori's route all over again because I've forgotten what has happened so far. She meets him for the first time in chapter 2 when he escapes into the Kajiwara household, and then once more in chapter 3 when Nozomi and Yuzuru find him injured by the river bank (because you fought him right before that LMAOOO). Things really only do pick up their pace after chapter 4 when with the help of Nozomi's 1337 Ryuujin powers, he manages to get into Honguu Taisha safely and she considers him as their friend. I don't think many can stand him because of his overall emo aura, but I find him okay. Just that I have to crank up my TV volume when he's speaking because he mumbles and his voice is SO DEEP DDDD8

To be honest, I'm at a complete lost whenever Kurou and co. start babbling about the war because there is a bajillion strings of kanji and my eyes just go @_@ whenever I read them, and it doesn't help that I don't have a Chinese base and reading vertically pains my eyes. T_T; Someone who's played it, fill me in on the general happenings of the Ichi no Tane battle in chapter 5? Since it's pretty much a general occurence that every character goes through in the game.

ANYWAY, CHAPTER 5. This chapter is annoying me the most yet it's the very same chapter that's slowly dishing out info about Atsu-kun! DX It starts with Kurou losing in a verbal contest with Masako (it's like he can never defy her, poor sod). And then after that, you get to choose who Nozomi would wonder about and naturally you pick Atsumori, who left her a handwritten note asking her to meet him somewhere before the war starts. Nozomi didn't understand it at first so she asked Ridvan to translate the note for her, but when she finally got to meet Atsumori, the war started. And here you restart the chapter!

RETRY 1: You meet up with Atsumori, and he asks Nozomi what she feels about the onryous. Nozomi replies him, saying that she feels that the onryou are actually very sad creatures and Atsu-kun's like "D: WHY". She then goes on about the onryou's internal sadness and how they can never seem to free themselves, and then Atsu-kun asks her what she'd do if she were to face an onryou up front. Nozomi then says that she'd try to find out about the onryou's sadness and then Atsu-kun drops the bomb on her, that he's an ONRYOU! dun dun duunnn D8 More talk from Atsumori about how he's also a walking piece of kegare (穢れ) and how he used to be human, but died and then the Heike turned him into an onryou and without them, he can't live because they are somewhat controlling him.

Atsumori then asks Nozomi of a favour; to kill him if need be if he ever becomes uncontrollable and of course you say you can't do that D: Atsumori then explains that the Heike stole the 3 Sacred Treasures, and one of them that can somehow break his curse is the Yasakani no Magatama (八尺瓊勾玉), which he lost. You then run out of time, but Atsumori says that Nozomi is someone that he can really believe in and trust and then the war starts. AND THEN YOU RESTART THE CHAPTER FOR THE SECOND TIME 8DDD;;; OTL

I find it interesting that his story is linked to one of the Sacred Treasures, just like Benkei who had something to do with the mirror treasure. Kinda gives their storylines a bit more of a meaning? I dunno. /OOT

RETRY 2: Cue the same things happening up until the Magatama bit, whereby Nozomi knows what it is and presses Atsumori to tell her more. He does, and she sorts scolds him along the lines of, "IF YOU KNEW IT WAS AN IMPORTANT THING TO KEEP YOU INTACT, WHY DID YOU LOSE IT?!?! DDD8" in which Atsumori goes "D8". His explanation is that when she and the other Hachiyou fought him at Mi.. ahh some river, he had already turned into his true onryou form at that time and the Magatama was lost. They then vow to find the Magatama together and then the war starts.

Okay, thankfully I don't have to replay this chapter again but I'll have to jump waaay back in time to another one, so I'll leave that for tomorrow afternoon to tackle or else my brain is gonna go boom from the storyline/information overload lol.

NO CUT FOR THIS BECAUSE ATSUMORI IS TOO CUTE WHEN HE SMILES T^T



I foresee that I'm going to take a long time to finish this game... D: And do forgive me if there are disrepancies in the storyline; my understanding of the language isn't good at all and so understanding it is sort of like a hit and miss thing, with the help of Rikaichan and various online kanji dictionaries T^T