He wonders what the topic is
about before remembering it’s about becoming someone popular. But he
wonders: what *is* a popular person? He often self publishes his things
and people tend to say they like that, but he doesn’t personally care
about it much, so he figures it’s a different sort of popularity. He’s
still happy to hear it, he just thinks he has a different sense of the
idea. At the very least, it means nothing to him.
Kuniyoshi
then decides to change topics and asks you what it is you’d like to be
liked for. He says he likes lots of things about you, then laughs and
says of course he does. Your Appearance is spot on, but for some reason,
he gets all nostalgic talking to you. He doesn’t know what it is, but
it feels like something just went by him.
Whether
you’d be happy or not about that, he doesn’t know. But oh well he
shrugs. He is himself, you are you, and you both have your different
paths. He asks, is that enough? He’s about to ask something, but he
trails off before he finishes.
Back to the
present Cu Sith is tearing up over how mean you guys are since he just
wants to find the king. He cries again, leading Alp to ask if this is
his NP. He already knows how it works and says if he cries again he’ll
blast away everything in the immediate area. The things near him are
already starting to be mown down, and Leib tells you guys to calm down
and get close to him.
Narration notes that
the nearby trees are covered in something red, like they’ve already been
damaged. Leib comments about how he hates working, then activates his
own NP upon you guys. The wave of destruction seems to pass you all by
to your surprise. Leib and Alp tell you to look at the trees, and the
ones with the red sap on them creak and tear apart as they seem to die
in your place. Licht understands this to be the power of Leib’s
artifact, calling it his intellect. Leib just says he didn’t really want
to reveal or use it, but he had no choice under the circumstances.
Leib
apologizes to his brethren for what he’s done to them, then says he’ll
end things as soon as possible and signals to you and Alp. The two of
you take action and Alp asks you to surprise Cu Sith. You draw Cu Sith’s
attention and apologize as you clap you hands loudly right in his face.
There’s no illustrative image of a nuke going off, but this does make
Cu Sith faint.
Alp then attempts to
activate his artifact, but Kuniyoshi interrupts to sob over Cu Sith and
say he’s on his side, propping him up to nurse him. Cu Sith regains
consciousness and recognizes him as the king. Kuniyoshi denies this at
first, but Cu Sith insists it is him and says he’s always been looking
for him.
Alp is the one to say that
Kuniyoshi is the actual dream holder, which would mean that like Durga,
he was only half awake up to this point. Leib asks if this means a new
king will form, and Kuniyoshi questions being the king here. He then
starts accepting it and says it’s all as he has drawn, wondering if this
is his kingdom. Leib orders Alp to use his power, and Alp tries, except
he gets interrupted and knocked off his feet as a huge bronze Kuniyoshi
statue pops up from the ground with a quake.
Licht
tries talking to Kuniyoshi and get him to snap out of it, but Kuniyoshi
fully embraces the dream king role and baffles him with his totally not
a magical girl transformation. You react by asking what’s up with his
outfit, say you like them, or being taken aback.
Going
C, Kuniyoshi proclaims that as king he must fulfill his duties and walk
the path of fluffiness. And anyways, since he’s the king he can make
the law whatever he wants, so he calls for therians of all kinds to come
to his land. Licht comments that Kuniyoshi’s self-restraint seems to
have snapped, but admits he’s not sure Kuniyoshi ever had any to begin
with. If nothing else he’s given up all reason and submerged himself
into the dream.
Benten stands up at this
point, which Licht notices. He says he was worried about her but
realizes something is going on with her. Benten pulls out her biwa and
tells Kuniyoshi she’ll be his imperial musician, which surprises him.
She reminds him that he said everyone should come to his country, so she
intends to do so and asks if he was lying. She offers to liven things
up in his land of desires.
Kuniyoshi agrees
that he said so and says she can do whatever she likes. Cu Sith starts
cheering that things will be fun and lively in the castle, and Kuniyoshi
wants to go over there already. You ask if Benten has been hypnotized
by the dream and try to wake her up. Licht tries to snap her out of it
too, but Benten shushes you both.
Benten
admits to easily getting swept up in things, but she’s also someone who
follows the flow of things she says as she winks at you two. She says
she’s still herself and not affected by the dream, which Licht is happy
about. Benten then tells him to wait and to ambush Kuniyoshi when he
drops his guard so she can blow away everything else after that.
Licht
questions her, and Benten is excited to stomp down Kuniyoshi’s dream
world and show off her rocking life style. Licht freaks at this and
wonders if Benten really is herself as she’s even crazier than usual.
You either say she’s in the mood for an uprising, say Licht has it
rough, or say Licht tried to do something similar once.
Going
C, Licht says that was how he was in public and says he doesn’t want
his friendly relationships to get all bloody. Anyways Benten says to
leave things to her, and you say she totally is under the dream’s
effects or wonder if things are okay. Alp stays quiet, and Kuniyoshi
slows down for a sec to invite him to join.
Alp
is surprised to be invited to the castle, and Kuniyoshi apologizes for
making him upset earlier. He’s sure that if he comes along it’ll be fun.
Alp weakly protests needing to end the dream, so Kuniyoshi tries to say
he won’t make him sad if he joins him. He also brings up Alp wanting to
be popular and offering to use his Royal Authority to make it happen.
Kuniyoshi
mentions finally remembering talking about a bunch I things after
changing into the outfit, and Alp remembers something too, saying it was
his...something. Kuniyoshi says this place is the paradise he imagined,
and that all it lacks is Alp.
Alp is
surprised by this and almost asks him something about what he thinks of
him, but Kuniyoshi goes on to talk about how everyone would like the
cutest Therian like him, what with his silhouette and tactile sensation.
He can rap, he can dance, he talks cute, and above all he’s a panda. He
even likes his surprised expression as well as his other expressions,
then asks that he always be with him and let him touch his fur.
Alp
is quiet for a bit, then asks Kuniyoshi to wait there for a bit.
Kuniyoshi readily agrees and says he’ll wait no matter how long, not
like how he would with the royal musician. Benten takes offense of
course.
Alp turns to you and asks to talk.
You ask him what’s up, and he says he wants to talk to you as the one
he’s been with the longest in the dream. He asks what you see him as.
You can either say a panda Transient, someone working hard at rapping,
or a good dancer. He nods and lists all those things and adds that he’s
loved by people. He seems sad as he starts saying that’s all he is when
you stop him to say there’s still something important left. That is to
say, he’s someone who wants to be popular.
Alp
is taken aback by this, then asks you one more question: were you
making fun of him when you said he wanted to be popular? It’s something
someone who isn’t already popular would say after all. You tell him you
weren’t, that it’s fun when you’re with Alp, and say that’s who Alp is.
Alp
has something of a realization as to what his anxiety is. He wonders
what sort of dream world he’d have if his artifact could see it, then
thinks it’d be where he’s a star, recognized, accepted, and loved. It’d
be the wish he had and worked towards when he came to Tokyo.
Alp
then asks if a dream where crowds love you is a dream held by someone
who has never been given love. He mulls it over, but says it’s because
he’s that pathetic that he had that dream. He apologizes to his past
self for saying he never had anything, as he had a dream. It was his
dream and no one else’s, something all his own.
After
all his ruminating, Alp thanks you for finding and seeing him. He turns
to Kuniyoshi and bows, then says he can’t go with him. Kuniyoshi asks
why, so Alp says in the dream what Kuniyoshi said was right. It just so
happens that Alp is greedier than he thought he was, because he wants
tons more friends.
You try to talk to Alp,
and he says it’s okay. He’s just finally found his own dream. Now he’s
going to cooperate with you guys to undo the dream world shift, and he
swears to make friends with all the people he accidentally dragged in
once he brings them back out.
Kuniyoshi
finds it disappointing but leaves it at that. He says they’ll be going
and says he’ll be waiting if you ever change your mind, then tells Cu
Sith to lead the way. They start leaving, and Alp unsuccessfully tries
to stop them. The others just laugh as they go, and Kuniyoshi suggests
you guys go looking for the hidden minister somewhere in the theme park
before leaving.
Leib sighs about how
complicated things have gotten, and Licht apologizes for his friends.
You tell him it’s not his fault or Kuniyoshi’s fault, it’s Alp’s fault.
In A and B Licht gets cheered up, and in C Alp just looks guilty.
Anyways Licht says you’re kind and says something needs to be done.
Benten and Kuniyoshi mean a lot to him, so he’s open to using force to
bring them back if need be.
Leib asks Licht
if anything happened before his group went to bed and explains actions
during that time have had effects on the dreams based on previous
patterns. Licht starts thinking and talking about it as the flashback
starts up.
Back when Team Art School starts
getting ready for bed, Kuniyoshi geeks out over sleeping in the Ueno
classrooms as the most exciting thing ever. He wonders what kind of
people used the desks and the ideas coming to him are just *so
stimulating.* Licht tries to suggest he shouldn’t go touching them like
that, then quickly moves onto saying he shouldn’t rub his cheeks against
them.
Licht also asks Benten to not take
so many pictures of another school and freaks out about her knocking a
vase over. Benten says she has to take notes when she sees something
cool, then thinks Licht must want to take pictures too. She then picks
up a camera hanging from her shoulder she says she likes and rapidly
snaps shots of him.
Licht protests having
pictures of his bedtime clothes taken without permission, so she tells
him to relax and says she’ll shop them in her rock style and send them
to him. He’s less than thrilled by this, but Kuniyoshi asks for the pics
too because he thinks it sounds interesting. Benten and Licht are
surprised by this.
Licht starts feeling
flattered by Kuniyoshi’s interest, but it turns out that he’s actually
interested in the energetic photo editing techniques Benten uses,
setting aside her personality for now. Benten thinks there’s a dig at
her in that remark but decides not to take issue with it so late at
night. Licht deflates in his disappointment.
Benten
decides that now she wants to go take a bath since there shouldn’t be
many people in there. She asks what the boys will do, so Licht says
he’ll go since the hot water might help his headache. Kuniyoshi decides
to go too to see what the communal baths at Ueno Academy are like.
Licht
pulls out of the flashback there and says Kuniyoshi hung out with him
at the bath. They later noticed Benten asleep in their room, and Licht
went to bed soon after. He knows Kuniyoshi loitered in the halls for a
bit after, but isn’t sure after that. Leib says they now know why the
dream world looks as it does, but as with Durga’s case there’s no leads
on how to solve it. You either say Kuniyoshi is fearsome or say you
wanted to join in.
Going A, Licht says
Kuniyoshi was always like that. He likes beastmen so he’d go meet them
and make products. If this dream world is apparently made with
Kuniyoshi’s desires then he agrees that must be true. Alp say that the
other Dream Rulers had their anxieties, fears, and rejections run
rampant against their wills. This time it’s Kuniyoshi’s own desires that
he accepts going on a rampage.
Alp says
this will need special care since he can repeatedly surpass the rules of
the dream. Leib figures that means you’ll have to prepare to take
Kuniyoshi on and figures there’s no other option. You suggest going
after Kuniyoshi and heading for the castle, but Alp stops you because he
wants to say something to everyone.
Leib
is surprised, and you agree, nod, or stay quiet. Leib says it’s fine, so
Alp admits he’s not really a panda and that he looks as he does due to
an artifact. He has to live by eating other people’s dreams, which lead
to him being hated in his home world. When he came here, he came up with
his current self as a means to making new relationships.
The
reason Alp is bringing this up now is because he doesn’t want to lie to
you guys and to himself anymore. If that leads to him being disliked
and shunned, even isolated, then so be it. Even if people would like him
if he lied, he’d never be able to like himself. So now he wants to
change himself for real.
Leib comments on
Alp needing to eat dreams and says it’s a hard thing to say. You either
ask why or say you understand. Either way Leib says dreams are where
your thoughts and desires appear, and no one would want to show all that
off to people. It’s normal for people to not like anyone just sticking
themselves into their private parts.
But
even so, Leib says he understands as he doesn’t like talking about his
artifact either. He calls rules and roles power, yet also a curse. He
understands how Alp feels more than he imagines. Leib then pulls out his
artifact and explains its power to transplant injuries and even death
to something else, as you’ve seen earlier.
Leib
says that in his home world he was an avatar of the forest and an
arbiter between hunters and animals. It was his job to rank and weigh
lives. Help the hunters too much, and the animals would die out. Help
the animals too much, and the hunters would starve out. The light in his
eyes went out as he had to measure the value of life until he was
summoned to Tokyo.
Leib calls his concept
overbearing, and says that so long as he has it he’s always measuring
other people’s lives. Even then he chose to use it to save you guys,
saying there’s nothing more pathetic than what he did. You point out
that he did save you guys, and Alp hastily agrees. He points out that
Leib never used it until earlier despite all the dangers, and says it
has to be because Leib didn’t want to use it if he didn’t have to.
Alp
starts fumbling for words, so Leib tells him to stop crying and thanks
him. He says doesn’t hate him and is in the same boat really. You thank
Alp for opening up and say you won’t hate him. Leib offers to hear him
out again if you guys get out and Alp has any other worries. You tell
Alp it’ll be okay and start telling him about yourself, so he remembers
that you don’t have memories prior to Tokyo.
Alp
thanks you all again as he realizes something, then says he’ll undo the
dream world for everyone’s sake and return Kuniyoshi to normal. Leib
says he’ll also be fighting to get Cu Sith back so Alp won’t be doing
everything. Alp is the one most familiar with things so he is expecting
him to handle a lot of stuff though.
Licht
laughs, so you ask him why. He says he’s remembering his meeting with
you and laughs at the situation before stopping himself from going all
Dark Mode. He tells Alp not to worry as he’ll help however he can, if
probably not in actual battle. He says Kuniyoshi and Benten are
important to him and says Alp isn’t alone since you and he are here. You
say you guys should go and bring everyone back, and everyone agrees.
Alp
quietly thanks everyone and says he’s glad he met you all and is
surprised how reassuring it is to be accepted. He brings up that he
really is greedy and that he doesn’t just want to be friends with just
you and Kuniyoshi. He wants to be friends with everyone. He swears to
make the others like him, saying he’s prepared for things as the episode
ends.
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