I have played so many visual novels in my entire life but this is the one that God decides to throw me in? They couldn't have put me into a more tame horror or maybe just a regular school life one. Hell, they could've just put me into a character who doesn't die all the time and I'd be a lot less angry. However, that wasn't the case. Out of all the visual novels I'd ever played, I was put into the batshit crazy one as a character who couldn't stay alive if you put her undercover, had an entire secret service dedicated to her, and the best home security system in the world. Which is honestly pretty impressive in a morbid sort of way.

Enough of that though. If I just stand around crying, nothing will change. I mean, if I do stand around and cry things probably can't get worse but they won't get better either. Still standing in front of the mirror, I decided to take in Setsuna's appearance in real life. Her art in the game had always been pretty, as it often was in visual novels, but as an actual person, it was kind of surreal. Her black hair was in a pixie cut, short and a bit choppy but somehow fitting her perfectly. Golden eyes bright with whatever emotion. Tanned skin without a blemish to be found. A toned body from years of cross country (which is, strangely enough, an important part of one of the routes).

In conclusion, should visual novel characters ever become real people it would be a public health problem and probably bring about the simp apocalypse but that's a conversation for another day. I should be better analyzing my situation right now. Looking around Setsuna's bedroom, I caught sight of her phone charging on an end table next to her bed and picked it up to check the date and time. Sunday, November 1st, 9 AM. The day that the game starts on and always goes back to when Akari would reset. [Spiral Of Obsession] occurred over the span of a week, but it went for much longer due to the Reset. The calendar mechanic was also an important part of the game as avoiding Setsuna's death events for different routes would all depend on the choices that were made before the date and time for each event, conveniently made note of in Akari's phone which could be checked by the player at any time.

So. I was at the very beginning of the game, most likely before any routes were started. But I was still Setsuna. A character would die in every single route no matter what happened. Which meant I was still absolutely fucked. While the game technically started at 10 AM as that was when Akari would be woken up by Setsuna to begin the game. Which meant I had about an hour to prepare myself and my thoughts. Waking her up early probably wouldn't change anything but I don't want to take any chances. While messing up the storyline could mean my survival, it could also lead to a permanent death because of the all-important factor of Reset. If I screwed up the story and it leads to Akari not getting the ability of Reset, it meant I would have nothing to fall back on if I died. No guarantee that I'd be alive again. I'm definitely not willing to take that chance with all the death events Setsuna has. No way.

I'm freaking out. Freaking out isn't going to help me it's just going to waste time. Time I seriously need to sort out my game plan to put my suffering at a minimum. I just need to calm down. Breathe in and out. In and out. Giving a quick pat to my chest, I sat down on Setsuna's bed and opened up her calendar app, quickly typing down events for the 7 different days on which the game took place. All routes, all important choices, all the death events. Jesus, there are way too many, oh god. When I finished, the 7 days were filled with events and notifications for their given times. Now with an actual written down list of all the events I can see a clear starting route is before me.

I'm doing the route with the least brutal deaths first. All the routes have around the same amount of death events so trying the route with the least painful deaths first would be a great experiment to see if everything in the visual novel applies here. If it doesn't, at least I died quickly. If it does, I'll still have to die again but at least I know I won't die for real. Then there comes another problem. I don't get to choose the route. Akari does. Well, I could always try to directly influence the decision but then I'll have to always say the same thing to continue the illusion of Reset if it works, and I don't wanna have to remember that while having to die a bunch.

. . .

But I really, really, really don't wanna put my fate into the hands of another person right now! Considering the personality that Akari was given, she'd definitely choose every other route before the one that would spare me a terrible death. Which fucking sucks. So I basically have no choice but to directly influence the decision and just remember exactly what I say if I want my experiment to work. So when the clock had finally reached 10 AM, I made a decision.

I have to force Akari onto the Hitomi route no matter what. Even if I have to remember exactly what I say for every reset. I'll just make it short and sweet when it comes to the route decision conversation.

Ugh.