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Summary
Teiichi notices that Yuuko has been clinging to him more than usual lately, and is easily sulking over the other girls’ affections towards him. When Kirie explains her theory on the shadow that’s been following her around, Yuuko overhears, and the shadow introduces itself as the manifestation of all of Yuuko’s negativity that she’s been cutting off all along. Yuuko keeps denying it though, and she starts seeing a warped version of her reflection in Teiichi’s eyes brought about from her jealousy for the other girls. Confused, she pushes Teiichi down the stairs and merges with the shadow – when Teiichi arrives to school on crutches after healing, Yuuko no longer remembers him.
Impression
Given how there aren’t actually any other ghosts in the school apart from Yuuko (all the different stories were her, one way or another) I guess it was inevitable that the shadow was actually a lost part of Yuuko that she’s been ignoring all this time. Let’s call that one Yuuko Alter Shadow Yuuko shall we? It’s quite the nasty creation – born from cheery Yuuko’s locked negative emotion. I’d never actually wondered why she was so happy all the time, and just chalked it off to having someone to talk to and stuff. What it has to gain from following Kirie around I have no idea, but that led it to Yuuko, which was probably its initial target.
If I were to play the blame game, I could point out that Kirie and Momoe indirectly had a hand in this, due to their eager (for Momoe) affections towards Teiichi towards various things, from asking for a private “tutoring session” in exorcism or inviting him to lunch then feeding him, before a jealous Yuuko knocked it away in what was probably the most violent Yuuko I’ve seen thus far. Shadow Yuuko might be housing all her negative emotions and lost memories thus far, but it’s clear that Yuuko is still able to manifest more negativity, yet hasn’t been able to do so until someone like Teiichi, whom she loves, comes along.
The bombshell we’ve all been waiting for in a not-so-horror story like this has finally arrived, though pushing Teiichi down a flight of stairs wasn’t exactly what I had in mind. It was pretty clear that Yuuko and Shadow Yuuko merged during that moment – what I think was that Yuuko was reminded of her alter whenever she looked at Teiichi, and to stop destroying herself emotionally she decided to eliminate the cause of the problem…or something like that. Immediately, I can tell that the new Yuuko is less clingy and more normal, and even slightly creepy at the end there. Anyway, I do hope that her memories as cheery Yuuko are in there somewhere – I’d hate to be Teiichi or Kirie right now, with the task of fixing Yuuko’s new amnesia.
- I’m not sure whether to believe the backstory of Yuuko’s death that Teiichi managed to outline – being the willing sacrifice to curb a spreading disease sounds very Yuuko-like, but it seemed a little too convenient at the time. Maybe the new Yuuko will have a different version of the story with these memories?
