I'm blending in just like a pine tree: Let's Play Ninja Love

I vote A, too.

...Did he? I think he did. He was so happy he sparkled. Wait a second You better not be a blood sucking super ninja, mister! But the pale skin and that hair Not listeniiiing.



Shekushi: Kotaro, you sure worry a lot!

Well, it's kind of his job to be a hovering mom.

Kotaro: Of course I worry. You are the princess.

Boo, I was hoping for something more ship-worthy.

Shekushi throws the potato into the air, does a spin, and catches it perfectly with a loud, "Tada!" So cute~ Now why can't she do that with plates. Or paper screen doors. Kotaro stares at her expressionless. That face starts to get a little creepy after awhile.




PROGRESS

...Sometimes I think I focus on Shekushi's love life too much. Then we almost die so I just run back to the happy thoughts.

Shekushi: Hm...I wonder, I never relax, and I'm kinda obnoxious



-----------

We all sat back content after a delicious meal.

Shekushi: Everybody's so nice, they gave us so much stuff! (No response) Probably because you're such a cool guy! (No response)

Perhaps the Kotabot is not programmed for such dialogue?



Wait, his facial muscles moved?



Kotaro: If we get too close to them and start to care about them...

I see a mountain of tragic backstory in the distance

Shekushi: What's wrong with caring about them?



You totally lost a sibling in the past, didn't you. I smell a mystery!

Mystery smells a lot like potato stew.

A and C ended up in a tie. After I wrote the post. Oh well.

Shekushi smoothly assuages his worries and hands him a drink. Kotaro carefully tested a sip before swallowing.

Shekushi: Who drinks like that?
Kotaro: Ninjas have to test for poison...

Ellipses: Kotaro's best friend

Kotaro hands us wine and Shekushi starts chugging away. Is she crazy? Just the religious wine at the temple made my throat burn![/SIZE]



Shekushi makes...interesting noises.

"Ugh, ugh, agh...gugg"

Kotaro: Was there poison in the glass?!



I slide my face into my palm. PERSONAL BUBBLE MAN.



Scary face. And how can you bring the antidote when you don't even know what the supposed poison was?



Kotaro tests her glass. Nothing seems to be wrong with it, considering they're from the same bottle...I casually abandon my glass. Shekushi repeatedly apologizes.



He's laughing! I'm not sure whether to panic or take a picture with my magic box.





Pft

-------------

We moved aside the table and laid down futons. Shekushi asked abou Nobukatsu.



Kotaro: You may have a cold. It's colder here than in your village.

No kidding. I snuggle deeper into the covers.



Okay, you may have ninja superpowers but it's too freezing at night here for that. And where are you going to sleep then?



Kotaro orders us to stop worrying and go to sleep. A few moments later, a cold wind blows through the house.



Shekushi. You know which one you should pick.

I'm torn between making Shekushi be polite and my natural instincts.

Okay, I'm not torn at all. I vote C.

A >:3

C!

He probably won't go for it but at least we might get to see him flustered.

C!

C~

C! C! C! C! C!

C ♪

The only reasonable choice is C!

Jumping right onto the C bandwagon.

another C here, at least If we screw up the game, let screw it with panache!

I would also just like to note that I have been doggedly GREEing my way through Hanzo's route...

Anybody want to smash the bottle of wine over the ship?

(Sorry for not updating during break)



I bang my head against the floor in surprise. Let's see how Stoic-san responds to that.



This is bad. His facial muscles are so out of use that his words, if you can even call it that, are more expressive.

Shekushi: Not like that!

Liar.

Kotaro: A princess of your age shouldn't say such things.



Shekushi: I guess he doesn't want to get any closer to me.

It looks like Shekushi need to be in a life threatening situation to get any. I'm glad Kotaro is maintaining his morals though.



And how are you going to protect her if you get a cold, pray tell? I doubt even ninjas have superpowers against the common cold. Nothing can shield anybody from that torture.



Shekushi bids him goodnight and closes her eyes. I follow suit and try to fall asleep but her mental chatting keeps me awake.

Shekushi: This futon smeels like Kotaro...I feel so...safe. It's like I'm wrapped up in his arms...

Ugh, stop your mooning and get to sleep already. Just as I'm losing consciousness, my magic box beeps. I groan and pull it out.



That was pretty sweet except that it woke me up, and that third sentence is kind of creepy, and I guess I'll just disregard that spelling mistake for now. I guess I'll check for any updates since I'm up.



...What's a matchlock? Whatever, the land of warm milk and fluffy sheep beckons. Sheep summoning, huh...



Who the heck are you!?

Chapter three

It's been a couple days and there's been no sign of Nobukatsu and Kotaro's already reported to Hanzo. The three of us are chatting in the forest, correction: Shekushi and I were chatting in the forest with Kotaro awkwardly standing there when the sound of rushing water drowns out Shekushi's words. It seems I'm still a bit paranoid since I thought that the ninjas were attacking again.



Shekushi's eager to go see it. We start off after some warnings of caution from Mother Kotaro.



Three villagers approach us soon after. Shekushi gives them our typical excuse of looking for medicinal plants. They smile congenially.



I think we need to remove Kotaro of knives. These increasing murders are a trifle troubling.




The book again. Was your entire ninja training comprised of reading this book? And where can I get my hands on a copy?

While I'm wondering when the Gutenberg press spread to Japan to enable for the ninjas have widely accessible books, the villager feigns confusion then abruptly rushes at Kotaro with a sword. Just another in the life.



The ninja decides to go with the ever eloquent, "DIE!"

diediediekillkillkilldiedie

Then, ninjas are falling down all over the place to the musical accompaniment of bodily noises. Kotaro zips about in a blur, killing each ninja just as the previous was falling.



Puppy?



No puppy?

Kotaro lifts Shekushi into the tree.



Definitely not a puppy.

Kotaro zooms about taking down every ninja that attacks him.



I smack Shekushi's arm; her mooning got too loud apparently.

Ninja 6: He must be protecting her! Get her!

There's a bit of shouting from every which way, possibly from myself as well.



(I guess the first one means that she'll go with the ninjas?)

Uhhhhh... Weird choices. Aren't the second two basically the same? As in, shouting and drawing further attention to your hiding place?

A. Whatevs, man! I got this. And by that I mean Kotaro's got this.

I'm not sure how the other two options will turn out since she's basically just yelling,so option A.

These are some weird choices. Since you get magic fairy dust sparkles to tell you which one is correct, I'll go with B.

Stahp it ninjas!

Alright could be, "Yep, I got this" upon which our heroine uses her genetic ninja ability to destroy her enemies. Of course she'll totally fail if she tries that, so smack them with the rolled up newspaper and tell them to stop it (B)

once again B cause.. C? hahaha really, I know that every otome heroine must conform to the Damsel in distress scheme but. Nope, No way. let's be a real girl and


( that include not screamin " kyyyyaaaa, A Ghost! A vampire! A ghoul! A werewolf! A demon! while seeing that Mikage suddenly popping out of nowhere")

Shekushi: Stop it!
Ninja: This girl won't relax!

...You're starting into rape dialogue there. Can we ninja leap the other way?



Apparently not. Kotaro is busy fighting off ninjas and can't get over here.



The waterfall seems to get louder.

Shekushi: They might torture us for information before they kill us. So even if it's dangerous...I...

WaitasecondShekushi. You aren't going to do what I think you're going to--



All the ninjas and I stand still shocked for a moment. I take the chance to jump out of the tree and climb down the waterfall.

--In the evening--



Chiyo's here as well. Kotaro has been worrying his hair even more white. Chiyo and I have been taking turns caring for Shekushi's fever. She's been sleeping for half a day which isn't that bad considering she threw herself off a waterfall. Chiyo fetches some soup for her seeing as Shekushi probably can't manage solids right now. Kotaro thanks her as she leaves.



Kotaro: You sure are crazy...
Shekushi: I'm sorry. I thought that if I was a hostage they could...

Could somebody finish a sentence without ellipsing for once?

Kotaro: Are you crazy? Don't ever do something like that to protect me!

Aren't we being a little presumptuous here? Shekushi's an important symbol for unity between the clans. What's going to happen if she gets kidnapped?

Shekushi: I can't promise you that. I can't control myself in times like that. My body moves on it's own.

No, I'm pretty sure you made a conscious decision to throw yourself into gallons of rushing water smashing onto sharp rocks.



Kotaro admits they could have tortured him had they caught him. He kneels on the ground bowing until his forehead touches the floor.

Kotaro: I'm sorry to have put you in danger.
Shekushi: Get up off the floor! What are you saying!? Who cares? In the end we are both safe.

Shekushi grabs his hands.



Kotaro gently removes his hands and backs away.



Kotaro: I killed all of them.

I promptly choke on my saliva. He managed to get all of them!? There were so many ninjas and more just kept coming. It was like putting 2 rabbits in a room and leaving it locked for a week.

...Okay, maybe not the best comparison. Next part present with minimal comment because it's so sentimental anything would ruin the moment. These two fly to their own little world quite often.

Shekushi: I'm sorry...I'm sorry you have to say things like that to me! Even though you risk your life for me and the ninjas...

She firmly grabs his hand again.

Shekushi: Your hands are NOT dirty.

Kotaro silently averts his gaze before resting a hand against her forehead.

Kotaro: You still have a fever.



Kotaro leaves to get Shekushi medicine when she tugs his kimono sleeve.

Shekushi: Will you stay by my side?

Kind of his job, honey.

Kotaro: Of course I will.
Shekushi: Are you mad at me for worrying you so much?
Kotaro: I could never be mad at you. Don't worry. You can worry me all you want.

Shekushi stares into his eyes. "Because...I'm a princess?"

Shekushi swallows the medicine and crawls into bed shivering. Kotaro hovers like a frenzied mother. Fevers are awful, half the time you're freezing...



...and half the time, your body gets the hots all of a sudden.

Shekushi: I can feel his warmth on my skin. It's like the cold has vanished.

All the while, slightly exotic music playing (courtesy of Pandora) not unlike the background music for arabian princess bed scenes.

--Later in the night--

Hosuke wakes Shekushi up who follows suit in waking me up to tell me



Kotaro: Sorry, big guy, not now...the princess is sleeping.



Shekushi: It feels so wonderful in his arms.



...That's kind of creepy. Would you say the same thing about your pillow?

--Few Days Later--

Shekushi's all better now~ We go about the village. I'm starting to get a little worried about our pace. Now that Shekushi can move again, we should really be heading towards Iga. While I ruminate on such matters, Shekushi chats with Chiyo.



Chiyo: You fell in the river and were freezing cold...so Tojiro took off all his clothes and held you to keep you warm.

On one hand, that's sweet. On the other, ew naked people hugging.

Wait, how did you know about this Chiyo?

Kotaro takes this inopportune moment to step into the conversation. He hands Chiyo some money. What are you...?

Kotaro: Here's a tip so stop running your mouth.

Bribing children is bad practice. I quirk my eyebrows up at him.



Time for gossip!

Villager: I heard that he's so spooked he won't leave the house!

Before Shekushi can reply, shouts of rice come from around the corner.



Oh. These guys again.

The samurai suggest taking Chiyo. The chief protests that she's only 13!



So like



Chiyo begins trembling. I would to in the face of Pedobear. Shekushi hugs her close and shouts that she'll volunteer as tribute go. Greaaaaat. I immediately start whispering potential rescue plans into Kotaro's ear. Okay, so we'll disguise ourselves with rainbow afros and fake mustaches...

Ranbow afros? fake mustaches?... welcome to the herd!



You guys will be totally invisible, I'm sure
sorry, I HAD to ruin this wonderful plan :D

So... My tablet was not compatible with ANY of Solmare's game, which is a shame coz I totally want to buy Hanzo. He's the most adorable and sweet guy ever, if a rather stiff stick in the mud. But Kotaro and Saizo aren't so bad either *sigh*

I don't remember who said it, but the Naruto thing I totally agree with XD Kotaro is such a dead ringer for Kakashi and Sasuke is a dead-ringer for Naruto (the irony).

On the other hand, the history fan in me is screaming in agony.
Masashige Kusunoki isn't supposed to be a ninja. Nobunaga didn't order the annihilation of ninjas out of such a silly spiteful reason as "ninjas will stop me from taking over the world!" Even then, he only sent his troops against Iga. Neither Koga nor Fuuma was involved. And I'm really tired of Nobunaga being portrayed as the super evil demon villain. It's a crazy war of dominion. ALL the warlords have ambitions for ruling the world, not just Nobunaga. And the ninjas are usually commissioned by rival lords. Unless the stuff I've been reading are missing out details, they won't go up and start a revolution. Plus, they won't actually stand a chance against the official troops, considering in real life Nobunaga DID obliterate Iga *weeps tears of blood*

But! I'm still curious about how the story plays out. I LOL at how Kotaro is already attached to the princess after, what, a few days? And this is one of the early chapters? Whew.

And because I need research of the canon gameplay if I'm going to write that spite Nobunaga route fanfic I was thinking of making... I mean, come on, the guy was practically walking around half-naked. How am I supposed to take him seriously as the Big Bad Meanie villain? He just looks like a flamboyant poser ronin like Musashi. But I don't think Solmare would ever make a route with him because it would only appeal to those with psycho-ojisan fetishes.

So was Tail of the Moon more accurate then?

I don't know! I don't even read that manga LOL.

*does 15 minutes' worth of Googling*

Okay, so Tail of the Moon IS slightly more accurate, but not really because, you know, there's still the whole "Nobunaga wants to obliterate ninjas OMGWTFBBQ!!" I don't know how important that situation is to the plot, because there's also the whole Mitsuhide rebelling against Nobunaga situation too. Tail is a story from the ninjas POV so what Nobunaga is doing is obviously VERY BAD. But at least Nobunaga isn't some kind of evil demon overlord. I read just the last few chapters of the manga and seeing that the ninjas actually try to save Nobunaga from the castle fire, and Nobunaga isn't drawn to look like some horrible guy, I guess he's portrayed to be this very hard-edged ruler with an iron fist, but not necessarily evil.

I still don't know what else happens in the manga coz Google only gave me hardly anything beyond "Klutzy, epic fail ninja Usagi is supposed to marry Hanzo and have babies with him. DRAMATIC ROMANCE ENSUES."

That being said, according to what I read in history, what happened was that Nobukatsu went up and attacked Iga for no good reason (at least Solmare got that right). Without Nobunaga's permission, might I add. Maybe he just wants to look cool. The ninjas retaliated in self-defense, and Nobukatsu's army lost. Nobunaga then sent his main forces to Iga in return and pretty much destroyed the clan. The survivors ran off to various places; to mountains, villages, temples, etc. A handful went to Ieyasu for refuge (Hanzo was among this bunch) and Ieyasu took them in as part of his army. I'm not sure what made Nobunaga attack Iga, considering his son was the one in the wrong. Maybe his son spun a very convincing lie. Maybe Nobunaga just didn't like hearing about his army losing (Nobukatsu's troops was probably part of Nobubaga's troops too) and squashed Iga to keep up his reputation. I don't know.

So yeah, I'm sure that one person who said Solmare nicked the plot off Tail was right. Or maybe I just don't know enough Japanese stuff to see if it's a common trope or not. I mean Evil Demon Nobunaga IS a common trope in Japanese media. But Nobunaga-Wants-To-Kill-All-Ninjas I'm not so sure. It might just be part of the Evil Demon Overlord package, you know?

Okay history class is over. Back to the subject of sexy medieval Japan guys, now.

wow DA.. impressive for sure! kind of do want too...

My history ramble is impressive? Or half-naked Nobunaga is impressive? XD

Yeah, so that was sort of a joke because I boggle over the fact that Solmare actually designed their super evil demon lord bad guy to look like a model for a Vegas Chippendale poster. That picture wasn't just some lol-picture they put in the introduction. That IS his actual character sprite in-game, meaning that the guy pretty much walks around everywhere dressed like that all the time. This is seriously WTF I DON'T EVEN to me. Though having an actual Nobunaga route wouldn't hurt, because I'm sort of curious what would happen. He has a son, Nobukatsu, so he obviously already has a wife and/or concubines. That kind of situation normally don't fly well in otome games, because you have to be the ONE AND ONLY TRUE SOULMATE LOVE FOREVERS.

In the Nobunaga-romance trollfic I'm half-heartedly planning right now it pretty much ends with a very horrible death ala real life history, but hey... It IS a trollfic. It's not supposed to be happy.

What is Nobunaga like in the other routes? I played Sasuke's route first, and simply put, Nobunaga is horrible in that route.

He's horrible in pretty much all of them, although if and how much he appears varies from route to route. Sometimes you barely see him before someone offs him, other times you have to put up with him trying to molest the protagonist for several chapters.

Whether Akechi Mitsuhide is a decent guy, a hopeless nebbishy failboat, or even worse than Nobunaga varies much more wildly.

haha, both, my dear ( but in the first or second page I realized that since the game is taking place in 1571, Musashi should have been a 10 years old boy :D) so historic WTF seems to be constant in the game.
Seriously, he's always half naked? oO Well walking around dressed like this all the freaking time wouldn't be efficient when it comes to war..:D

Yeah, I know, right? Oh btw, it's Munenori who was born in 1571 and is supposed to be 10 years old as per the game's timeline (game takes place in 1581). Musashi is born in 1584... meaning that he shouldn't even be around yet!

It would've been fine if this is just the one sprite they used on the scene where Nobunaga is trying to molest Heroine, but NOPE. My headcanon says that Nobunaga does that both because he thinks he's awesome and because he's enjoying trolling all his servants. Never mention Nobunaga Oda's clothing if you do not want to die a horrible and painful death.

Well, I wonder just what happens that Heroine ends up in Nobunaga's court. Did she get captured? Was she play ninja and attempting to assassinate Nobunaga?

Oh, there was a route where Akechi is actually horrible? I want to see THAT. Which one was it? What is he like?

The particular instance I'm thinking of occurs in Goemon's route:

I don't recall if it's just the one route, but in Munenori's route:

LOL Goemon. LOL. I take it that Nobunaga actually falls for the bait?

OH MY GOD THAT MUNENORI ROUTE. That has to be the most historically accurate setups I've seen so far in this mess of WTF. Because, you know, Nobunaga's death IS Mitsuhide's doing. And Mitsuhide then tried to run off Ieyasu as well, but then Hideyoshi squashed him before any more damage was done. Do we get to see Ieyasu at all in any one of the routes?

Naturally!

I don't remember him showing up in any of the main routes, but he's turned up in some of Munenori's side stories.

BECAUSE THE HEROINE IS SO SEXY AND IRRESISTIBLE EVEN CRAZY WARLORDS FALL FOR HER SOLMARE YOU BROKE MY BRAIN YOU'RE MOCKING ME AAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No, self, I will NOT be writing the Nobunaga trollfic. No. I won't. I still don't know enough about this quack setting to be writing ANYTHING about it D: *bangs head on desk*

Ahem.

See, this is what I was thinking. Instead of launching a war, why not just send ninjas to assassinate Nobunaga or something? That would've been much easier. Considering that these ninjas are the "magic warriors with supernatural abilities" type of ninjas, I should think that infiltrating the castle wouldn't be so damned hard. And that IS what ninjas are for. Assassinations and espionage. Not "charge-and-kill-everyone" full-scale war! Or, heck, have the heroine just directly seduce Nobunaga and then kill him in sleep or poison him instead of having Akechi and Nobunaga kill each other over the heroine. After seeing Quinrose's "Iza, Shutsujin! Koi Ikusa" this plan really gives me strange vibes because Akechi and Nobunaga ARE dating options there ಠ_____ಠ And both of them are crazy horny bastards (but Akechi is the creepier creep, oh dear lord in heaven).

And Akechi was a failboat because... what stupid thing did he do?