13 Sentinels: Takamiya, Gouto, Kurabe, Fuyusaka, and Yakushiji today.
Takamiya: Back to the investigation and whoops caught by Gouto and Shinonome at the factory. Awkward. Kinda funny that they apparently just let her go again but it pays off when ace detective Takamiya catches 426 like a boss. But that was an interesting conversation she/he/it (Shinonome called it an AI at one point, I think?) had with Morimura before it jumped off the bridge!
Gouto: Okay, lol, this seems like the rapid-fire answer portion of the story. Not surprised that after the prologue he had what looks to be by far the steepest unlock requirement after all the reveals just the prologue had. Sounds like my question of how Fuyusaka and Morimura are co-existing in multiple forms this far back when Morimura appears to be native to 2089 got its answer - Clones and nanomachine memory tech from 2188. Also future 2188 Gouto being the CEO of Shikishima when I just kinda assumed future Ogata had climbed to that role!
Kurabe: The Mystery Files had kind of cleared up ambiguity on 426 before but then this one made it even more obvious. 426's path has been ??? -> Kisaragi Android -> "Aiba"/Tamao android -> Kyuta Shiba/Juro Kurabe. Also apparently Kisaragi has been meeting with Okino? Looking forward to that.
Fuyusaka: Lots of flashbacks across Morimura's life. The bridge showdown with Izumi being the most interesting. Also when she confessed to Sekigahara his response about being an assassin from the future ordered to kill her confirms my technically-a-suspicion-but-I-figured-had-to-be-right call that the "other person" on the line that future!Gouto contracted to kill Morimura was indeed Sekigahara.
Then I had to do another battle, but it gave me a whopping total of 6 Mystery Points to spend so I was able to unlock Yakushiji and Kisaragi on top of Amiguchi who just needed the fight itself cleared. Haven't played as Yakushiji and Amaguchi in a while and the bit with Kurabe above suggesting Kisaragi and Okino are meeting up makes this a pretty good lineup to me!
Yakushiji: I check up on Yakushiji and Fluffy first. Miura got got but Amiguchi had one of the stranger reactions to getting shot by auto-summoning a Sentinel. pretty good counter-ability i must say. Also Kurabe saw the whole thing which is kinda awkward. Good thing my pal Fluffy says he can fix this. Next time I'll see what other wacky adventures these two get up to.
Overall: Okay, so the "who" of 426 is mostly solved (well not exactly there's some lingering questions for me about that ??? origin I laid out earlier) so I've moved on to the "why." Piecing together the conversations when the Tamao Android got cornered along with Fuyusaka's dream of Morimura shooting older!Izumi I'm currently working with something like this - 426 might actually be the good guy here? It sounds like there's some gambit pileup here between some of the 2188 Shikishima projects. Working on the tentative assumption that Juro Izumi is 426 I think the conflict broke out when Morimura's faction decided to sabotage the interstellar project. It sounds like her motive is to "escape" with Izumi but doing so will sacrifice 15 lives (I assume the core cast + idk Okino and maybe Morimura's clones?) I think this definitely ties into the bit between Ida and Morimura Sekigahara heard way back when about "closing the loop." Meanwhile, Izumi/426 isn't down for that. Shinonome has to play a role here too I think given that recording she sent about Ida lying to her, giving up on humanity, and sabotaging the terraforming project. Argh, I feel like I'm circling in on some of the core mysteries but can't quite piece them together yet. Or maybe I'm comically off-base!
---
xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out?