[X] ...to grab Yato. You'll take this thing on together. Your first real fight. Let's do this. (Will fight the oni using UMT with Yato; ???)
[X] ...to take Kuziwa down. You can't bring yourself to cut his arm off. But you can't get the oni out of him as you are. You'll just...try to knock him out and hope for the best.
[X] ...to grab Yato. You'll take this thing on together. Your first real fight. Let's do this. (Will fight the oni using UMT with Yato; ???)
[X] ...to save Kuziwa. You won't let this thing have him. And if you need to remove his arm for that...so be it.
I personally feel like the stalk option is the best. Like some where saying I feel like the k.o. option is the hard threshold option and unlikely to pass. I feel stall is the hope Lil bro or someone who can damage the oni soul in the girl.
Cutting off the arm is the safe option but remember what this will look like once the light come back on. The normals will think we just mutilated our contestant.
Heck I feel even wearing yato will be seen that we chested once the lights come on.
Cutting off the arm is the safe option but remember what this will look like once the light come back on. The normals will think we just mutilated our contestant.
Remember, our opponent was missing that arm when he came in; if they don't remember the whole "oni possession" thing, they will, at worst, assume that our opponent overdid it and reopened that wound himself.
And that's if they don't remember an oni blatantly possessing one of the contestants in public, possibly on live TV, right in front of literally all of them. With that context, "ripped the guy's arm off" is downright merciful.
edit: The way I see the risks are as follows:
Stall: Every second we don't put this bitch down is a second she can use to murder some bystander. And you'd better believe that the host is gonna get blamed for that if it happens.
Takedown: Oni are spiteful bitches. If she starts losing, she might ragequit by deliberately killing her own host even if it kills her too.
Amputate: Lesser risk of the above-mentioned ragequit, and probably predictable because she undoubtedly has a pretty good idea of her own weaknesses.
...I wonder if the "beans" thing actually works? (context: Setsubun- which, coincidentally, occurs at the start of February- involves bean-throwing because Japanese superstition states that malevolent spirits such as oni are driven off by beans... for whatever reason; Japan is weird.)
[X] ...to grab Yato. You'll take this thing on together. Your first real fight. Let's do this. (Will fight the oni using UMT with Yato; ???)
[X] ...to save Kuziwa. You won't let this thing have him. And if you need to remove his arm for that...so be it.
[X] ...to grab Yato. You'll take this thing on together. Your first real fight. Let's do this. (Will fight the oni using UMT with Yato; ???)
[X] ...to take Kuziwa down. You can't bring yourself to cut his arm off. But you can't get the oni out of him as you are. You'll just...try to knock him out and hope for the best.
[X] ...to grab Yato. You'll take this thing on together. Your first real fight. Let's do this. (Will fight the oni using UMT with Yato; ???)
[X] ...to take Kuziwa down. You can't bring yourself to cut his arm off. But you can't get the oni out of him as you are. You'll just...try to knock him out and hope for the best.
Fuck it! Someone's got to be the shining ray of hope in this shonen and we've seen into our Bros mind and so we know if definitely can't be him!
[X] ...to grab Yato. You'll take this thing on together. Your first real fight. Let's do this. (Will fight the oni using UMT with Yato; ???)
[X] ...to save Kuziwa. You won't let this thing have him. And if you need to remove his arm for that...so be it.
[X] ...to grab Yato. You'll take this thing on together. Your first real fight. Let's do this. (Will fight the oni using UMT with Yato; ???)
[X] ...to take Kuziwa down. You can't bring yourself to cut his arm off. But you can't get the oni out of him as you are. You'll just...try to knock him out and hope for the best.
[X] ...to grab Yato. You'll take this thing on together. Your first real fight. Let's do this. (Will fight the oni using UMT with Yato; ???)
[X] ...to take Kuziwa down. You can't bring yourself to cut his arm off. But you can't get the oni out of him as you are. You'll just...try to knock him out and hope for the best.
[] ...to take Kuziwa down. You can't bring yourself to cut his arm off. But you can't get the oni out of him as you are. You'll just...try to knock him out and hope for the best.
Not only did she say that, but I'm pretty sure she already did that herself (note the sound of metal hitting flesh- presumably her hitting him in the face with the back/flat of her cleaver).
"It is no trouble," he bows slightly, flashing a confident smile at you, "And you'll be happy to know that my sister is doing fine. She should be up and moving again soon. Though I'm still unsure what caused her distress last time."
You flinch before turning back towards the arena, "Uh, don't worry about it too much. She was probably just thirsty.
Away from them sit the Student Council President and Estella the two are speaking about something, while Irina is leaning back in her seat. Her eyes are narrowed as she watches the arena.
However, he surprises you. When you try to throw him, he jumps just enough to avoid losing all his leverage on you. He flips in the air, twisting his way out of your hold within moments. It's a surprising maneuver but you recover quickly.
You stop and then look over your shoulder at Kuziwa. The guy has stopped moving, right hand tightening around the fabric covering his stump. His body seems to be shaking with barely contained emotion. The tension in the room grows as everyone starts to mumble to themselves. Some of the judges look like they're about to rush toward the guy. You turn around fully and call to him, "Hey, Kuziwa? You good over there?"
"Y-Yes," he assures you without turning around. The grip on his stump tightens and his voice sounds shaky, "I-I'm just excited. Simply give me-gaaahhh!"
Kuziwa's body jerks along as he moves, like a puppet being led by its strings. The right half of his body is doing all it can to resist, but the left part is gaining more and more control. As he moves, a figure begins to materialize on his left side.
It stands as tall as Sensei Hazma, its features identical to the ones that are slowly taking over Kuziwa's body. Its three eyes look around the room at everyone in attendance, before settling on the struggling Kuziwa.
"Hayato! Remain calm! The lights will return in a few moments. Simply wait for that and then escape," Yamato shouts from somewhere to your left. Then you hear footsteps retreating somewhere deeper inside the building.
"My Lord...the Bonding Ritual done by me and the fox are not the only ways humans and monsters are able to form a union. There are other ways. One such way is to have the monster reside within the body, soul, or mind of the human. This gives the two a closer Bond that, sometimes, gives them both more power."
"And you haven't told me about this why?"
"Because that form of bonding ties the monster closely to the human's physical, mental, and spiritual being. If done unprepared or if the monster forces the union...the human will either die or become a Vessel for them. Their will subsumed and under the complete control of the monster."
"Huh? Oh. Right that. I lied," the oni says casually as if she's talking about the weather, "I only said I wouldn't eat anybody to get you to let me in. I didn't do anything before to make you think I was serious. Really, I was just waiting for the moment I could get you around enough people. Then I'd pop out and start eating."
Huh i can't actually see that twist to be honest, but anyways anyone got any idea how yato and said oni related aside from being enemies, my money is the oni being the reason yato being a pair of gauntlennts
And Yato's ??? trait that just activated is almost certainly something along the lines of Oni Slayer. Between the auto-pass for this one specific monster, and his sheer hatred of her, it's quite obvious that he's got some kind of personal history with them; "mortal enemies" seems like the most likely relationship they could have.
He must have been alive when oni were more numerous and a menace in Japan, and it was his duty to protect people from them. Yato might have even been the legendary Minamoto no Yorimitsu, or one of his Four Heavenly Kings.
By all accounts it looks like the range of our competitors, sans supernatural support, is just 50-80ish. 50 minimum, and 80 is the highest we've technically seen, with even the effective 70 being enough to beat our rival school and theoretical the tournament favorites. With a base of 101 in everything AND a significant debuff? And the mechanics of just adding skills together for a multi-style/person fight? Victory is all but literally guaranteed.
To be perfectly clear: I half-suspect the "wishy-washy" "go for the KO" approach to fail, either because the oni's strong enough to force us to go for the weak point, or because she's flat-out parasitizing the poor guy and could conceivably just eat the rest out of spite the minute it looks like she's losing.
She only needs his body, after all; what does it matter to her if he's a lobotomized vegetable?
There's also the thing that longer this fight goes, more likely regular people are to see her, aside from the quick glance right before the lights went out. And longer this goes on, it becomes more and more likely that the Organization agents get here, and then we'd need to try and explain why we have cursed gauntlets on our hands.
[X] ...to grab Yato. You'll take this thing on together. Your first real fight. Let's do this. (Will fight the oni using UMT with Yato; ???)
[X] ...to save Kuziwa. You won't let this thing have him. And if you need to remove his arm for that...so be it.
We need to keep the fight here and not let her rampage around, or let more people see her. And before someone we don't want to, like the Organization members, get here.
[X] ...to grab Yato. You'll take this thing on together. Your first real fight. Let's do this. (Will fight the oni using UMT with Yato; ???)
[X] ...to take Kuziwa down. You can't bring yourself to cut his arm off. But you can't get the oni out of him as you are. You'll just...try to knock him out and hope for the best.
Not only did she say that, but I'm pretty sure she already did that herself (note the sound of metal hitting flesh- presumably her hitting him in the face with the back/flat of her cleaver).
This occurred to me too; I mainly didn't mention it because the name(s) slipped my mind for a bit. Considering the mountain themes he's got, out of that set I'd guess Sakata no Kintoki.
Because either A: they missed the part where he's already unconscious, B: they're too squeamish to take a guy's arm off to save his life, or C: they're bandwagoning. Possibly a combination of all three.
[X] ...to grab Yato. You'll take this thing on together. Your first real fight. Let's do this. (Will fight the oni using UMT with Yato; ???)
[X] ...to save Kuziwa. You won't let this thing have him. And if you need to remove his arm for that...so be it.
Because either A: they missed the part where he's already unconscious, B: they're too squeamish to take a guy's arm off to save his life, or C: they're bandwagoning. Possibly a combination of all three.
[X] ...to grab Yato. You'll take this thing on together. Your first real fight. Let's do this. (Will fight the oni using UMT with Yato; ???)
[X] ...to save Kuziwa. You won't let this thing have him. And if you need to remove his arm for that...so be it.
Because either A: they missed the part where he's already unconscious, B: they're too squeamish to take a guy's arm off to save his life, or C: they're bandwagoning. Possibly a combination of all three.
And what do we plan to do to make things work out if we don't take his arm off? I mean, just blindly fighting doesn't sound like a very good plan, so we don't have a single alternative to "rip the guy's possessed arm off" at the moment.
Meanwhile, we have Yato's statement that taking said arm off would be the best way available to fix the situation, and Yamato, being the logical guy he is, would presumably encourage us to do it. Hell, if he was able to, I'm sure Kuziwa himself would literally ask us to do it!
Unrelated: It just occurred to me that it's probably a good thing we put so much work into our Physical Resistance; if we hadn't put so much work into it we probably would've lost an arm saving that judge. As is, whether she was attacking seriously or not, the ability to tank an oni is pretty impressive.
And what do we plan to do to make things work out if we don't take his arm off? I mean, just blindly fighting doesn't sound like a very good plan, so we don't have a single alternative to "rip the guy's possessed arm off" at the moment.
Meanwhile, we have Yato's statement that taking said arm off would be the best way available to fix the situation, and Yamato, being the logical guy he is, would presumably encourage us to do it. Hell, if he was able to, I'm sure Kuziwa himself would literally ask us to do it!
Unrelated: It just occurred to me that it's probably a good thing we put so much work into our Physical Resistance; if we hadn't put so much work into it we probably would've lost an arm saving that judge. As is, whether she was attacking seriously or not, the ability to tank an oni is pretty impressive.
Ye of little faith and cold logic. I'm sure that feels like a safe option but I just see it as a well trod path that leads to the same bitter disappointment he already had to suffer through before. Sometimes it's better to kick logic to the curb, do the impossible, and forge a brand new path to a brighter end! Not because it's easy or some guarantee but because it's the right thing to do!
Ye of little faith and cold logic. I'm sure that feels like a safe option but I just see it as a well trod path that leads to the same bitter disappointment he already had to suffer through before. Sometimes it's better to kick logic to the curb, do the impossible, and forge a brand new path to a brighter end! Not because it's easy or some guarantee but because it's the right thing to do!
Ye of little faith and cold logic. I'm sure that feels like a safe option but I just see it as a well trod path that leads to the same bitter disappointment he already had to suffer through before. Sometimes it's better to kick logic to the curb, do the impossible, and forge a brand new path to a brighter end! Not because it's easy or some guarantee but because it's the right thing to do!
Again: The problem with this is that we have no idea what we're doing.
Lemme put this in more realistic terms: Some guy has severe, contagious necrosis in one limb. The doctor recommends amputation, both to prevent its spread in the guy's body and so the infected limb can be cremated to contain the spread. Do you A: shounen-logic and hope that you find a cure, or B: amputate the arm as the doctor recommends?
Define "no trap options" for those of us who've forgotten. Like, is it "every option has a minimum chance of success, if properly prepared for" or is it more "it is theoretically possible for anything to happen, in the same way that any given child could be the next Great Inventor who will completely revolutionize society as we know it and progress our technology more in a single decade than we otherwise would over an entire century?"
Because in one, a "trap option" is defined as "anything in which success is not a plausible result" while in the other it's defined as "anything in which success is literally impossible."
Also, "don't do trap options" doesn't preclude "someone else takes matters into their own hands and cuts his arm off while we're fighting the oni and hoping someone finds a miraculous third option that leaves him intact and un-possessed."
I believe our bro would just tell us to cut the damn arm off already, on the logic that this topic has likely already been researched quite exhaustively and removing the possessed body part really is the only way available to us.
