The fact it's a game =P

On a more serious note:

When you play each side (Yin/Yang) you see things the other character did.

So we're left with two possibilities.

1) This game is like Resident Evil storywise (where the "true story" is a mix of the two playable stories)

2) The Yang Phase happened in the "real world" and the Yin phase is Utsuki's dream while she's "merging"... at least until she wakes up in the second wicker chest... up til the stories converge in the Kuon phase.

Personally I think 2 is the most likely.... and fits the context of what we see.

1 is less likely as the events don't match up, for example You can come across the hole Utsuki made in the fishing hut with Sakuya before she meets Utsuki... but before that meeting Utsuki couldn't access the manor yet... so we have a contradiction.

2 on the other hand has a lot of things to support it.
The things the twins say, the fact you can see that Utsuki and her sister have merged "Before" it happens in the game on the Yin side. (Example: Save your game before entering the temple and Utsuki will have a vision... this is accessed later as well when Utsuki realizes she and her sister have merged)

Also: about the bell.. after you leave you see Kureha's face appear in the lord's neck... my guess is that Sakuya fought the lord, and Utsuki "remembered" doing it during her merge dream.

The same applies to the kid, Kureha grabbed her... so Utsuki would have remembered it as well from the merge.

The only thing that doesn't quite mesh is the fact the two girls seem to have seperated later... of course I guess it is possible that the merge occured "after" Sakuya's last fight with Kureha and before she came to the end with Utsuki.... as Kureha would need to heal after the fight and she'd have Utsuki's body to work with....

And we've seen it doesn't take that long for a merge to occur.

Ok, I'll elaborate.

Item 1) The twins tell Utsuki after she enters the wicker chest she'll "return to the begining" or something like that.

She returns to the place she died. (if we take Yang as litteral)

Item 2) The Torii shrine.

when Utsuki wakes up there, defeats Dokai, and exits she meets "one" of the twins, the other is dead at it's feet.

Also, after she talks to the one twin and goes to the tree, you can clearly see that the tree has been burned to the ground.

Something that didn't happen until Sakuya torched it.

Finally Dokai himself.

After you kill him (again) and grab the Sacred Cloth off of him, she "specifically" notes that it was from Dokai.... something that couldn't have happened unless she had met him (as she probably did in Yang) or gained the knowledge through a merge (which would have happened when Kureha merged with Doryu)

Since she didn't meet him in Yin... we can only reason that she gained the knowledge from some other source... or in this case Kureha.

Item 3) Flashbacks

Utsuki has several flashes that show that she's already merged with Kureha.

The save point at the shrine, for example.

This happened before she was seemingly killed at the temple (I'm talking about the scene where Utsuki notes that Kureha "needs it again")

Item 4) Kureha's diary

In the Yang phase it doesn't mention that Kureha killed Utsuki.

That fact isn't added to it until "after" Utsuki finds it after awakening and she adds it herself (watch the cutscene, you can see her grabbing the pen) and the last page appears after the scene.

Item 5) The shrine part 2

Unlike the mansion, "everything" that Sakuya did at the shrine was done before Utsuki got there.

The floodgate.

The torched tree.

The opened path to the underground.

Dokai can be explained because these things have a hard time staying dead.

It happened in both phases: in Yang Sakuya witnessed Kureha killing Doryo and tossing Utsuki off the cliff. In Yin Utsuki was pushed off with noone else around. So, which one exactly did happen according to your theory?


Rewatch the scene, in the Yin scene Utsuki jumped off... Kureha didn't push her that time. Also before she takes the plunge Utsuki/Kureha (you can hear both voices as one) accuse her of killing Kureha.

My guess is she took the pluge to get back to the place of her (and Kureha's) death.

Also note that the rope ladder that Sakuya used to decend was already cut on both ends and the mirror was in place.

Okay, so then why Utsuki also "remembered" standing in front of Ayako's room, ringing the bell and then having a conversation with Ayako?

Because of Kureha, remember, she was watching the whole thing so she would have seen it, remembered it, and then Utsuki would have used those memories to fill in her "dream".


I assume you're referring to Ayako as the kid? So, according to the two statements above you are saying Utsuki herself didn't actually meet Ayako, but it was all based on the memory of Kureha? Maybe I interpreted it wrong, but if that's what you're saying then the theory is flawed.

That's exactly what I'm saying, and I don't see how you think that's flawed. ;)

It would be the exact same thing as with the lord, Kureha witnessed these events, and Utsuki used them to fill in her own "memories" of things.

We can't take the cutscenes in Yin too litterally, at least not before Utsuki wakes up in the chest at the shrine because we know for a fact she was killed and that "dreams" are warped versions of their memories.

Remember in Kureha's diary she mentions waking up "knowing" Utsuki pushed her? When it's pretty clear that that event didn't really happen.

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I'm not entirely sure where all of the break points are yet... I'm only on my second playthrough and I've only had the game a week... but based on how the events come together this does make a lot of sense..

My best guess (at the moment) is that Yang happened up to the point that Kureha pushed Utsuki off of the cliff.

Then the Yin occured at the same time as Sakuya filled out her chapter... where both chapters come together at the end.

The main question is when did Utsuki really wake up... my best guess is the at the shrine and after Sakuya had moved on.

I hate multiposting.. but something else occured to me.

At the end of Yin Sakuya makes mention of Utsuki's sister... she'd only know who that was exactly if she was introduced (otherwise she'd just assume it was another hungry dead)

That only happened in the Yang phase.

Also, this theory would explain the lopsidedness of the two stories....

The fact that Yin has 2 boss fights and Yang has 4.

Sakuya has to deal with the lord, the lady, the giant ape... monkey... thing... O_o, and the priest...

Utsuki only has the lord (whom Kureha appears to have fused with) and the priest (who seems to be recovering from a major ass kicking when you come across him)

While it's obvious why Utsuki didn't meet the giant apething... there's no explanation for the lack of the lady of the manor.... Unless Sakuya had already killed it.

Also, note the priest in the shrine in both chapters...

In Sakuya's he's still in ok shape and chanting... in Utsuki's he's messed up and about to die.

Again indicating that Yin happens sometime after/during Yang.

If the two chapters are seperate... we have two decent games that have a few plot holes....

IF the two chapters are connected, we have a really creepy and cool story that meshes when you find the connecting points.

The grass is greener on my side ^_^