Let's Play Umineko, Episode 4 Scene 3: The Bodyguard

[prof]

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Ushiromiya Maria

A little magician who inherited the black blood from Kinzo.

She has a natural talent Kinzo didn't have, and even though she's very young, she reaches the level of magician. Nonetheless, her powers are still very weak, and she is just an apprentice.

However, her enchanting ability to give magical power to tools is a natural gift, and the magical items she makes are a match even for the master class.

---

After her meeting with Bernkastel. Despite leaping from the roof, she's fine now.



Ange claims she was testing her luck, on account of her youthful zeal. As fitting of Kinzo's granddaughter.



Eva finally died, so now everyone is trying to snatch the inheritance away from Ange.

The man talking to her, Okonogi, redoubles his insistence that Eva died without revealing the secret of what happened on Rokkenjima. He's one of the leaders who was intrusted with part of Eva's business empire.



He speculates that Kinzo had planned to make Eva the successor from the beginning, and that the epitaph was established in order to give it to her.

Once Kinzo chose his successor, he could simply tell them the answer.



That or she's a mass murderer. That's also possible.

One clue does support his theory: When Eva escaped Rokkenjima, she was wearing Kinzo's family ring.

In the end, it's all just circumstantial evidence. In the end, only Eva knows what happened, and nobody can prove it right or wrong. There is no one truth.



The one truth declared by the police is that it wasn't a crime. Anything beyond that is a Devil's Proof. All that's left is to believe Eva's story or not believe Eva's story.



They're on opposite sides of the argument. And why's that?



Because without love, it cannot be seen.



Ange doesn't have love, and she doesn't see it. Anything she sees will only solidify her certainty that Eva is the culprit.

That's why she can't reach the truth. Her own personal truth has already been settled.



In order to seek the real truth, Ange has to seek it from multiple viewpoints. She has to honestly consider the possibility that it was an accident.



It seems like our little meeting is over. We've got a mystery to solve!

Or it would be, but it seems like there's been a snag.



A messenger from the Sumadera branch family - Kyrie's sister, Kasumi - is here to "protect" Ange. This probably actually means they're planning to squeeze Ange for every yen she's worth.

Which is a lot.



An unexpected offer of assistance in the face of a common foe.

Ange dashes out of the office, in order to escape the Sumaderas.



The young Ushiromiya heir is sharp - she doesn't trust the Sumaderas or Okonogi. She takes the elevator to the third floor, then finds an emergency exit to slip out through.



But her enemies are as persistent as they are numerous. Target found.

A wave of suits emerge from the cars and close in.





Okonogi emerges from the elevator to greet the enemy messenger, Kasumi Sumadera.

She's a real character.



As Okonogi lies about Ange's whereabouts, the two just barely attempt to conceal their contempt for each other. Kasumi's pride doesn't allow her to admit how much the Sumadera family has declined, to the point that they can't ignore the Ushiromiya fortune.

Word comes in that the suits have located Ange again.



Meanwhile, outside, Ange stares down Kasumi's goons.



BGM: Like the Gale

She's managed the top floor, so how bad could this be?

Ange jumps.



The goons chasing her are still where she was a moment ago - on the third floor. Now she's at ground level.

It's her chance to escape!



But they weren't stupid enough to send everyone up - one of them stayed in the car. Ange is forced to the ground and held in place as he calls for backup.

Is this the end of her escape attempt?



Ange looks up, and sees a familiar face offering to help her up.



The moment they're both in his car, Amakusa tears off into the streets of Tokyo at maximum speed.



Juuza Amakusa. Formerly one of Eva's bodyguards. They didn't exactly get along, probably because he kept trying to hit on Ange.



It seems like Okonogi called for him. He's employed Amakusa as Ange's bodyguard.



Amakusa says fifty thousand a day for his services past the weekend. Ange says she'll double it if she can hold onto him for a couple weeks - she has business to attend to.



Ultimately, this is just a trip for her own satisfaction. Ange plans to surrender if she doesn't find anything once she reaches Rokkenjima.



Word of Ange's escape has reached Kasumi. She is not pleased.

She's going on a bit of a trip.



According to Kasumi's goons, the car Amakusa used to escape was a rental, and it'll probably be abandoned. Pursuit won't be easy.





Turns out that Ange's earlier paranoia was unwarranted - if she had just gone to the basement, then she wouldn't have needed to jump off another cliff.



Ange's distrust of others is starting to affect her. Just like her aunt.

Without love, the truth cannot be seen.



Even if the truth she's seeking were to appear right before her, would she even be able to see it?

---

You told me to search for the truth of 12 years ago, but there's something I'm not getting.
What's that?
What is truth? There are as many truths as there are people. There are as many interpretations as there are people. Those can be twisted by opinions, and changed indefinitely. Is the truth really that vague?
That's right, truth isn't fixed. It can be a particle or a wave, and it can hold conflicting forms at the same time. You are free to believe that the cat in the box is alive or dead. But the truth is very delicate. It can change its appearance just by being observed.
You're talking about Schrodinger's cat? Nonsense. If you open the box, you learn the truth. Discussions about what happens before you open it are just armchair theories.
That's right. And yet, in order to deny those abstract theories, you need to open the box. It's impossible to negate any idea about the contents of a box that cannot be opened. This is what truth is.
...As long as truth isn't denied, it keeps its true form.
That's right. As long as the truth isn't observed, it keeps its form.



So even something as screwed up as my family being captured by the Rokkenjima witch and shut up 12 years ago for all eternity can exist as truth, as long as we don't know what happened 12 years ago...
12 years ago, the witch called Beatrice wrenched open an opportunity for endless ideas, and swallowed everything up in a cat box. Everything in a box which cannot be opened is truth.
That's right. We don't know what happened on that island, so it's useless. I just have to wrench the box open, but the box was closed up 12 years ago, and I don't even know where it is. Even if I visit Rokkenjima, what can I learn about what happened 12 years ago on that desolated island?
Who knows? I wonder what you could learn. This is something that can only be done by the person who is able to walk around freely in the world of 1998, 12 years in the future. The final witch, ANGE-Beatrice.



If you say it like that, it sounds like I'm a pretty overpowered piece.
The future of 12 years later in which you are placed is distant. However, the further a piece is placed in the future, the stronger the power it holds. I told you, didn't I? The truth changes its appearance when observed.
Come to think of it, I heard something like that once. Even if one day, all of a sudden, a star in the constellation Centaurus were to explode, the light from that explosion would take four and a half years to reach Earth.
That's right. In other words, even if the sun in Centaurus has already died, people on Earth wouldn't be able to percieve that truth for another four and a half years.



...That's right. By itself, the Rokkenjima accident gave rise to nothing but suspicion of a conspiracy regarding Eva and the Ushiromiya family. But later on... it was dramatized and linked to the occult, and the conspiracy was painted over by the legend of the witch.



The false truth that exists before the light from an exploding star reaches Earth is almost like the human conspiracy theory. The wine bottle with a letter in it that drifted ashore several years later, the 'message bottle', painted over that theory and made things return to the occult witch theory. A witch didn't exist in 1986. The witch took control of Rokkenjima because she was observed several years later by us, the humans of the future.
A small revision is necessary. The witch could have existed even in 1986, as one of the endless possibilities that can exist.
Certainly. If she were observed, she would disappear, so she curled up in the cat box. The witch tried to get out of the box. She made it so that she would be observed, weeding out possibilities other than the witch theory. In other words, in order to make it impossible to negate her, she negated all possibilities other than the witch theory. In other words, Beatrice satisfied the Devil's Proof with a frontal attack. That was her plan from the beginning.
The message bottle is information observed in the future after 1986. It cannot be observed by Beatrice or Battler. It can only be observed by ANGE-Beatrice.



But Okonogi told me. You can't see things in three dimensions with only one eye.
You mean that while looking at it from the viewpoint of denying witches, you must also look at it from the viewpoint of accepting witches? That is the correct way to think. The number of viewpoints is a denominator. The more your number of viewpoints increases, the more the mystery is divided.
I understand. There was a message in a bottle that washed up on a neighboring island several years after the crime. That passed into the hands of a dilettante. I made an appointment, just in case.




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