A/N: Though this will probably go unnoticed, I find myself loving Saya No Uta/Song of Saya for most of the things that make up its (admittedly fucked up) setting.
It helped draw a line between sympathy and rooting for someone, yet while I've seen many people make arguments about how the Second ("Saya Wins") Ending is the True Ending, I find it the least satisfying ending overall, primarily because things like the ending song that's present in the First (Normal) and Third (Humanity Wins) Endings, the ending credits for the second ending are completely, totally silent.
Beyond the fact that it's basically the worst ending for everyone involved, the only people happy in that ending are the villains, and since both are terrible, terrible people, I really can't see that as a good ending.
One can give the argument of "Humanity will adjust" or that "Saya doesn't follow our morals as humans" excuse, but with what we know, the human race has to suffer for who knows how long, and Saya, who, admittedly, is indeed placed on a different moral system than humans, understands full well how horrible an act rape is, having experienced it herself, and yet still rapes another woman.
Everything else I can find clues she's just too naïve to understand, but what she did to Yoh though, there's no excuse whatsoever.
Now that my verbose explanation about the second ending is done, I'll leave you to read.
"This is how you wanted to celebrate?" Ryoko Tanbo restrains her usually demented smirk as she and her companion leave from the car they had driven in together.
It made sense to Koji; she kept up the mask of a sane woman well enough during her work hours.
It was only a matter of course that she'd take steps to hide the fact that there was a madwoman beneath that cool exterior of hers.
"It's your treat, right Doctor?" Koji asks her. "Not a fan of Noh?"
She shrugs her shoulders passively.
"I never saw myself coming to see one. It's not too ambitious though, financially," Ryoko says wistfully, taking in the warm air of spring, "so I'm not complaining. I never took you for someone who'd like this sort of thing though."
She throws a glance his way, him having changed out of his graduation outfit, and Koji manages a bitter smile whilst shaking his head.
"I didn't. But I remembered Omi wanting to see one one day." His smile falls, expression becoming neutral. "She never got the chance, but I tried to see if it was the sort of thing we could've enjoyed together."
"What did you find?" the doctor quirks a curious eyebrow at the former medical student.
"It isn't the sort of thing she would've liked." Koji replies, smiling bitterly.
"But it's to your liking now?" Ryoko guesses.
He nods simply.
"There are some things I can enjoy, from watching this sort of thing."
"That's fine. But I don't know why you insisted on having me join you." She replies, adjusting her brown leather jacket closer around herself, before her hand reaches up to push wire-rimmed glasses up the bridge of her nose. "You won the bet already. Do you just feel like rubbing it in my face?"
"No." Koji says bluntly.
Strange and strained as their relationship was, Ryoko's presence eased the pain of continued existence for him, if just barely.
The perfect testament to this fact was the bet he and Ryoko had made with one another: If he committed suicide before he could graduate from medical school, then she would win; if he managed to graduate, then he would win.
Though the obviously sane thing to do would be seeking out some form of therapy for both of them, both had lost the luxury of such an innocence long before then, at different times.
For Ryoko, the well-experienced neurosurgeon had lost it when she'd gotten too deeply interested in the now missing doctor Masahiko Ogai's research.
For Koji, it had been the fateful two days that Ryoko had saved him after he'd been pushed down a well by his late former best friend, Fuminori Sakisaka, who had left him at the bottom with the intent of letting him starve to death.
Both Dr. Ogai and Fuminori had been dead for quite some time.
Both victims of their actions were left with the horrible nature of the truth of what they dealt with in those times.
In both cases, there had been a single link in it all, it being the grotesque alien monster that Ogai had named "Saya".
Though Koji knew little of Saya, the day he'd laid eyes on her horrible form had been the day the truth laid itself bare to him.
It had also been the day that he killed both her and Fuminori with Ryoko's help.
Before that day, Koji had noticed something was obviously wrong with Fuminori, but could never place his finger on what.
Despite this - despite Fuminori suffering such a drastic personality change after the car crash that took his family's life away - Koji would never dream of a time where he would kill Fuminori willingly.
This very understandably changed when Koji found the chopped up remains of his girlfriend, along with those of the family living next door to Fuminori, inside his former best friend's fridge to eat.
The house had been empty at the time, but this horrifying realization, in light of Fuminori trying to leave Koji to die in the mountains, was enough to solidify any resolve Koji had in killing the man.
Who was apparently housing a nymphomanic, xenophiliac alien thing trying to take over the planet at the time.
The sheer absurdity of the world he'd stepped into in his quest to kill Fuminori was the exact reason he could not seek out therapy, lest he be taken for a different type of loon than he actually was.
((I probably am that sort of loon at this point, now that I think of it.))
This was not mentioning the fact that he'd committed murder; whatever his motives might have been, and whatever Fuminori had done beforehand, he still had to avoid incarceration.
Given the fact that prisoners obviously couldn't have firearms in prison, the comfort of death as an escape from the perpetual nightmares he suffered each night would not be afforded to him.
Few things gave either of them the purpose to live anymore, and though suicide was indeed terrible, there could be no doubt between them that the idea that they could end their own suffering once and for all was a comforting one - one so comforting that it was the only illusion of power keeping them from going through with it, ironically enough.
The only other thing, at least for Koji, was the comfort of knowing he was not suffering alone.
The bet he'd made with the doctor came forward when he'd visited her one day.
As per usual, Ryoko drank her alcohol like a fish in water, and Koji smoked.
Her judgement unimpeded by the alcohol, Ryoko agreed to the bet nonchalantly, not even bothering with the facade of a concerned citizen telling someone to just not kill themselves.
She instead approached it with her usual uncaring attitude, saying it was an interesting bet and that she would take up his offer, for lack of anything better to do.
Her manner of looking at such dark matters had originally made Koji be put off, and later infuriated, by her, yet by that time he knew her nihilistic worldview was all part of a truly terrible inside joke they shared.
She truly was just that used to the prospect of her own death and the deaths of others - at least when it was Fuminori or Dr. Ogai in the case of the latter.
Little needed to be explained for why either of them found themselves in this position, especially since Dr. Ogai had been the biggest reason for all their suffering next to Saya herself.
"If that's really the case," Ryoko's expression becomes aloof, her words bringing Koji out of his thoughts as she stuffs her hands into her pockets, "what's the point in bringing me here with you?"
"I wanted to show you something, doctor." Koji replies calmly.
She gives a curious expression, but says nothing else as they enter the theatre.
Even as she leaves to go to the late-night graduation party, Ryoko still does not know what Koji was trying to show her in the production.
When she asks him, the first part of his explanation comes in the form of a question.
"Did you see the hannya mask the main heroine wore?" Koji asked her.
She nods, and props her elbow on the side of passenger door of the car, him driving it, as she rests her jaw on her fist.
"It wasn't the freakiest thing I've seen, but yes."
"The only characters that wear that sort of mask are people who are transformed into monsters by their own intense emotions." Koji replies. "They used to be normal people before they went through that transformation."
When she gives no reply beyond a curious glance, he continues.
"Something about how the hannya mask is designed was interesting too; if you look straight into it, it looks like some evil monster's angry face. But when you look at it from an angle, the person looks like they're sad."
"Why did you want to show something like that to me?" Ryoko asks, trying to understand what he's trying to tell her.
"It reminds me of us honestly." Koji said. "Of how we can't go back to our normal lives, now that we know the things we do."
The car becomes silent as Ryoko gazes at him for a few moments more, then looks away.
"Is that so?" she asks simply.
"Yes. We might not have done the same things as those people wearing hannya masks," Koji adds, "but I know things aren't the same as they were before."
"Should I have bought you a mask then?" she asks jokingly.
"I don't think I'd look good with it on." Koji answers dryly.
She chuckles to herself, and the rest of the drive is silent, Koji then subconsciously beginning to think of another sort of bet, him unsure if he wants to make another long-lasting one.
His fellow classmates are all doing drinking games, and Koji allows himself to be swayed by peer pressure to binge drink.
The practice was perhaps a tad self-destructive, but it was a widespread practice of his nation for people to drink themselves dumb in contests to see how strong their tolerance was, and with little else keeping him around for the party, he does so.
Koji is therefore unaware of the fact that Ryoko out drinks the whole lot of them without much effort, the most hardened drinkers being shamed in comparison to her.
He is not fully aware of himself even as the doctor in question takes him home, Koji red-faced as she reaches the house.
Even as Ryoko listens to his drunken babbling, her mind wanders dismissively as she gives him not so subtle hints to help her get him home, her being reminded of the time she'd dragged Koji out of the small tomb Masahiko Ogai had committed suicide in.
When she finally reaches the inside of Koji's apartment, she unceremoniously throws him onto the nearest couch and watched the cushions catch his falling body.
She huffs, then checks that the doors are locked before collapsing onto the nearest vacant seat, her foggy mind slow to let her understand how exhausted she was.
Despite this, her body had adjusted itself to avoid sleep, and the incessant nightmares that followed, and the two impulses opposed one another.
Knowing she preferred wakefulness to anything else, Ryoko forces herself to tune into the room, and hears Koji speaking to her.
Through his drunken slur, she eventually understands what he's trying to say.
"Hey, doctor? Do you want to do another bet?"
Ryoko smiles bitterly into the darkness of the room.
"What's there to bet about?" she asks. "You finally became a doctor. What else is there to bet on?"
Though she speaks in a sardonic tone, she wonders briefly if this would be beneficial for her, in some way.
Though Saya being dead gave her solace that she'd killed the monster who haunted her nightmares, it could not fix what had already been broken in her.
In truth, the sole thing that had driven her since the fateful day she began hunting Ogai had been the will to kill the monster she'd made her nemesis.
Though she was Koji's predecessor in such matters, the two were left without the drive only a purpose could give them.
All that remained for them was the horrible truth of their forever scarred minds, and few things gave her any sort of purpose nearly as fulfilling as obsessing over the day she would claim the life of her enemy.
Perhaps another bet would give her something like that.
Koji rattles off ideas off the top of his heada, but given the state of his mind then, it quickly devolves into the jumbled mess of a drunken man, the bets becoming more like vague goals over time.
She dismisses most of them, a part of her mind recognizing the fragile bond that has formed between them, this same part of her finding it darkly humorous how deeply Koji tries to sustain it, even with jumbled ideas being all he can deliver.
One idea gives her pause despite this.
"Why don't we become Noh actors?" Koji asks.
"Why? Did you change your mind about getting a mask?" Ryoko is unsure of whether she's genuinely curious or merely humoring him at this point.
"We're already as messed up as the hannya characters." Koji says. "You'd fit the role perfect."
"Are you calling me ugly?" Ryoko asks with a tilt of her head.
"No, just..." Koji's mood goes from jovial to solemn in seconds. "We just can't go back to normal after everything. It's just like them."
"Isn't the point of being an actor being able to pretend you're something you're not?"
"Maybe." Koji lays his head on a couch pillow.
She wonders briefly to herself about what Koji told her of those who wore hannya masks in Noh theater.
"The only characters that wear that sort of mask are people who are transformed into monsters by their own intense emotions." Koji replies. "They used to be normal people before they went through that transformation."
"Tonoh," Ryoko calls to the man, "what if I agreed with you, and said it would fit me?"
Koji gives a sound she perceives as his attempt at saying she could go on.
She does.
"I've been obsessing over killing that thing named Saya for a long time now." Ryoko leans herself back and stares at the ceiling. "When I killed her, after you dealt with Fuminori, I never thought I'd feel so satisfied and empty at the same time. I suppose my own intense emotions changed me, changed who I am. I've accepted that I can't go back to those days, when I was blissfully ignorant of the sort of world I would enter. But maybe the realization isn't all that's changed me."
Ryoko sighs, trying to collect her thoughts, but her mind swimming.
Such a strange time for overdrinking to bother her now, she thinks.
"After Ogai disappeared, I became an insomniac for a long period of time."
She goes on despite her swimming mind, her venturing into a sense of reflection that she does not understand, but dares not stop.
Why she keeps forcing herself on without purpose is beyond her.
Perhaps this is just another vain, useless purpose to put herself behind, for the sake of giving herself reason not to succumb to the ever-tempting thought of suicide.
"It wasn't until I'd taken my father's gun that I could sleep anymore. But even after I killed Saya, I didn't feel any better. The nightmares never stopped. And by then, I had been so dead-set on it, all while keeping up the mask of a normal neurosurgeon, that most times I don't even recognize the person in the mirror anymore."
Mind still foggy, she subconsciously continues.
"At this point, I've realized how tired I am of it all. Of having this burden that no one else can share with me. Of pretending everything's alright to everyone's faces while feigning ignorance for their sake. It's all I have at this point though, and it's not as if I can just stop."
Despite her words, a maniacal smile adorns her lips.
"I don't have anything to live for now. The most I can do is just wait on the next bet. I guess I've started to treat you like a drug." Ryoko says this with neither shame nor guilt, her looking to Koji then.
Yet, through his drunken stupor, he understands everything she says.
So he asks, tone ringing with neither offense or anger, but understanding, "How, doctor?"
"Any chronic drug user can tell you." Ryoko says. "The reason they've abused drugs for so long isn't in search of some mystical high. What they really want, when their bodies crave that next fix, is that feeling of normalcy that they lose. They don't take it to feel good. They take it for the sake of being normal. And that's what happened to me. You're the only one I can ever feel normal with anymore. Not in the sense of being a normal person. But in the sense that I know who I am, even if it is an ugly sight."
The unsaid truth is finally spoken.
Silence permeates the room, and Ryoko's unhinged smile wanes.
She finds herself unsure of what to think, the darkness that shields Koji from her view reminding her of the veil that hid the eldritch thing called "truth" from her.
She finds herself plagued with the temptation to tear it away, so that she can see Koji in that moment.
Yet, only his words give solace to this impulse.
"You're not alone doctor." Koji says, and her mind has briefly forgotten his drunkenness in light of her revelation. "I think that... I'm just the same. I need you just to feel normal."
Ryoko tries to process this, but before she realizes it, her smile becomes bitter as she stifles the temptation to laugh.
"I see." She replies coolly.
"It's not just that." Koji adds, the couch cushions making strange sounds as Ryoko guesses he tries sitting up. "After everything Fuminori did, to Omi and Yoh, I lost so much. And Fuminori... He came to close to taking the one thing I had left."
Ryoko's silence acts as her gesture for him to continue.
"The one person I have left is you." He admits. "If I lose you, then... I'll have really lost everything."
She chuckles softly.
"How fitting." She says. "I'm really all you have left? Am I to you what you are to me then?"
He hesitates briefly.
"I... Think so. I need you to feel... Normal. Whatever "normal" even is for me anymore." Koji murmurs.
Ryoko closes her eyes, then rises to her feet, her walking towards his side.
Koji looks up to her, then sits up when she sits down next to him.
"If that's the case, what should we do then Tonoh?"
Koji looks over to her, yet his mind is tired and slowed by the alcohol in his system.
Little remains present in his memory of that night afterwards.
Koji only knows it's the first full night's sleep he's had in months.
A/N: Admittedly, part of me wanted to write a lemon in here, in regards to this being based off an eroge novel, but I decided to leave it ambiguous on how it ultimately ends up.
Here lies a more "happy ending" for Song of Saya's third ending.