-

[Seacow]

The voice ended up being a horrible, benevolent dictator, torturing Hisao to the very last ends of his wits; and, if he'd only realized it earlier, he might have been able to save all of them. Ironically, his adamance about saving them all ended up being his downfall.

Can someone please elaborate? My reading comprehension is not so good and I have trouble pinning as to how Hisao might have saved them all. Realising that it's not the girls the creature wanted but himself? A vessel to sustain itself? Was everything that Hisao went through were a mere process to cleanse his mind? "The answer to life, the universe and everything", so to speak?

[Doomish]

What Hisao never realized, even toward the end of the story, was that there was no way to win. There was never a way to win. He fought and he fought for a hopeless cause; in the end, all the voice was doing was softening him up so that it could enter his head and consume him like he couldn't do with the rest of the group. It took killing every single thing he knew to finally break him, but as it used to be Kenji, it knew Hisao. It knew what he liked, it knew what made him angry, and it knew exactly what it would take to bring him down.

And so it went.

[Demonhornz]

I wonder if there's any hope for the others...who knows what will happen? Kenji knew Hisao well, but Hisao doesn't really know the new victims (except perhaps a bit of Miki). He'll probably learn as the torture continues, but...well, again, who knows?

[Sperance]

Damn... I here I was, having some small measure of hope that this wouldn't end in a complete disaster. Good job, man!

[Mirage_GSM]

Of course. The other girls don't know about the strange loophole I found in the voice's plan. I feel all the more horrible. "Lilly, it was my fault." I shake my head, and the tears rolling down my cheeks mean nothing to me. "She's not coming back."

What loophole? Did I miss something or does Hisao have some kind of insightr he hasn't shared with us yet?

I realize with a horrible certainty that she's going to come back, because the voice killed her, not me.

I thought the voice had killed everyone plenty of times before and they always came back...
And shouldn't tat mean that Lilly and Rin will come back?

I grab her wrists and bring them away from her eye...

Impressive with only one hand.
Regarding the ending...
I don't really see how Hisao was any more insane at that point than at several points before in the story, and the way you described the group in the beginning, any of the girls would have sufficed as nourishment for the thing.
Also it seems a bit wasteful, to have six potential snacks killed when you have the ability to simply make Hisao think he killed them.

[Sperance]

Also it seems a bit wasteful, to have six potential snacks killed when you have the ability to simply make Hisao think he killed them.

During the story, I got the impression the voice hated Hisao more than anyone in the group. It could have had any of them but it WANTED to destroy Hisao completely. Sacrificing six snacks seems small compared to taht, or that's the impression I got

[Bagheera]

Also it seems a bit wasteful, to have six potential snacks killed when you have the ability to simply make Hisao think he killed them.

During the story, I got the impression the voice hated Hisao more than anyone in the group. It could have had any of them but it WANTED to destroy Hisao completely. Sacrificing six snacks seems small compared to taht, or that's the impression I got

No, that was just Hisao's ending. He thinks he's become the Voice, but he hasn't. He's just sitting there in the cell, same as the other girls, his mind broken as the Voice slowly feeds off of him just like it does the rest of Yamaku (and who knows how many others).

Until someone kills the thing and ends the whole process, of course.

[Nekken]

Well, I did say that it didn't have to end happily (you'd probably have to apologize to Harlan Ellison a lot more if it did), and that is one way to prove the exact state of the cycle. Well done.

I also love the commentary on KS itself, and the problem with trying to play for a harem ending.

What loophole? Did I miss something or does Hisao have some kind of insightr he hasn't shared with us yet?

The loophole is that if Hisao blames himself for someone's death (either because he actually did the deed or, as in Hanako's case, he can be made to believe that he could have saved her), the Voice either can't bring them back or refuses to do so. My money's actually on the latter, because the loophole itself seems to exist as another Hisao-breaker.

Also it seems a bit wasteful, to have six potential snacks killed when you have the ability to simply make Hisao think he killed them.

That's why my own theory is that Hisao has been alone in the simulation the whole time: the girls are constructs, just as we know the doctor and Rin's husband were. The "real" girls are either in simulations of their own, being broken in their own ways, or being kept in some kind of stasis to be used for this purpose later (maybe when the Voice knows them better), or perhaps some of them have already been consumed. After all, as you say, why waste six potential snacks?

[Doomish]

Of course. The other girls don't know about the strange loophole I found in the voice's plan. I feel all the more horrible. "Lilly, it was my fault." I shake my head, and the tears rolling down my cheeks mean nothing to me. "She's not coming back."

What loophole? Did I miss something or does Hisao have some kind of insightr he hasn't shared with us yet?

I realize with a horrible certainty that she's going to come back, because the voice killed her, not me.

I thought the voice had killed everyone plenty of times before and they always came back...
And shouldn't tat mean that Lilly and Rin will come back?

I grab her wrists and bring them away from her eye...

Impressive with only one hand.

In order: The loophole is and has always been that the voice can torture and murder them all he wants; the second they kill each other, they aren't coming back.

I... Exactly. She's going to come back and be alone, because Hisao didn't kill her, hence the loophole. Misha losing her legs to the sawblades and bleeding out would mean he did nothing to intervene; him finishing her off with a shot to the head meant she wasn't coming back. The same for Lilly and Rin: Because Hisao killed them and not the voice, they're gone for good.

And, of course, that was just a slip-up in general. (fixed)

[griffon8]

Well. I read it. I was entertained.

But I am never reading it again.

[Mirage_GSM]

In order: The loophole is and has always been that the voice can torture and murder them all he wants; the second they kill each other, they aren't coming back.

Uh... Yeah, that particular loophole worked very well the first time he killed Shizune... and Lilly... ^^°
And it doesn't explain why Emi shouldn't come back, because noone ever killed her.
All in all, there's no reason to believe the voice can't bring back anybody it wants to.

[myshoesarebrown]

In order: The loophole is and has always been that the voice can torture and murder them all he wants; the second they kill each other, they aren't coming back.

Uh... Yeah, that particular loophole worked very well the first time he killed Shizune... and Lilly... ^^°
And it doesn't explain why Emi shouldn't come back, because noone ever killed her.
All in all, there's no reason to believe the voice can't bring back anybody it wants to.

If I remember correctly, all those deaths with Shizune and the like before they "escaped' were part of Hisao's hallucination. None of them actually happened.

It's been so long since Emi died, I'm having trouble remembering the scene. Didn't Hisao blame himself for the death, since he... opened the door when he wasn't supposed to or something? I think he indirectly caused her death?

I don't know if it was mentioned in the story, but I wonder how long the voice has been around. Was Kenji the first person he took over? Perhaps he has done the same for thousands, perhaps millions of years? It could be tormenting all of mankind, only doing small groups at a time. 7 billion people, around 6 or 7 at a time being tortured for centuries at a time... it adds up. I wonder if we only happen to see him tormenting this group, and it has done it before.

Then, in theory, this story would fit anywhere in the world, with any people. You could even twist it so the voice in this story is AM, before or after torturing those five from the story.

[Mirage_GSM]

If I remember correctly, all those deaths with Shizune and the like before they "escaped' were part of Hisao's hallucination. None of them actually happened.

How do you tell what part is a hallucination and what part isn't? Did he shoot Shizune "for real" the first time? The second time? Did anything actually happen at all?

It's been so long since Emi died, I'm having trouble remembering the scene. Didn't Hisao blame himself for the death, since he... opened the door when he wasn't supposed to or something? I think he indirectly caused her death?

IIRC he suspected the door might be a trap. He had no way to know for sure. He certainly had no way f knowing what kind of trap would be triggered, and besides, they all have probbaly be killed dozens of times by traps they unwittingly triggered.

[MoonShadow]

In order: The loophole is and has always been that the voice can torture and murder them all he wants; the second they kill each other, they aren't coming back.

It doesn't explain why Emi shouldn't come back, because noone ever killed her.
All in all, there's no reason to believe the voice can't bring back anybody it wants to.

Hanako killed Emi, by pulling out both of her legs. It's not only Hisao who can kill the girls, although he killed the 5 others in the end.

[Doomish]

In order: The loophole is and has always been that the voice can torture and murder them all he wants; the second they kill each other, they aren't coming back.

It doesn't explain why Emi shouldn't come back, because noone ever killed her.
All in all, there's no reason to believe the voice can't bring back anybody it wants to.

Hanako killed Emi, by pulling out both of her legs. It's not only Hisao who can kill the girls, although he killed the 5 others in the end.

Bingo, this guy's right on the money. It's the same reason Misha didn't suddenly come back the first time Hisao and the voice faced off; Lilly killed her by infecting her and turning her to goop, not Hisao. And likewise, Hanako was the one that tore Emi's legs out of her (although at her request) in the chapter where she went; though it wasn't Hisao's fault, the nagging sensation that something was off about them being together followed him throughout the entire story until he finally realized at the very, very end of his journey that he was remembering wrong, and they didn't have a happy relationship at all.

And that's what ended up breaking him. He'd seen enough of the girls dying that he'd become completely numb to the violence around him, but the thought that everything he has possibly stood for up to that point in the story being for nothing tears him right down the middle and he just loses any calm he had left; hence why he just spins around and blasts Lilly in the face.