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krys-loves-otome · 2 years

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Masamune Act 2 Plot Summary

Hey friends, good to see y'all again.

So, over on twitter, a friend (@snow-and-saltea) was wanting to get back into IkeSen after some time away and I had just finished giving some thoughts on the routes that I have been playing and they were curious about Masa's second act since I had gushed about it so much. So, I decided to gather my thoughts about it to give a plot summary for them. Took a day and wrote it up, saw that I had basically gushed for about 2100 words, and thought it was going to be a nightmare to repost to twitter, so I sent them a google doc of it instead.

Then, got to thinking about it and decided that I could put this on tumblr as well. Kind of like a call back to when I used to do an essay series reviewing various routes of whatever otome I was playing.

This essay will cover the basics of Masamune's Act 2, with some references to his Romantic route end and his Eternal End. Since it is a plot summary, there are going to be spoilers for a good portion of the route. I don't cover every single detail that went on in the route, I'm just covering some basic stuff along with some analysis. Should also say that as of this writing, I haven't done his Tragic End yet, so that will not be included in this summary. Maybe another time when I'm feeling braver about it.

Anyway, onto the summary!

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Masa's Act 2, like what I'm assuming the rest of the Act 2s are gonna be like, follows the events following their Eternal End.

For Masa's Eternal End in particular, his is focused more on exploring his want to be seen as strong all the time and why he has a hard time showing and or talking about his weakness and insecurities. It's kind of touched upon in his Romantic ending too when he would say super sweet things to MC when he thought she was fully asleep. Not that he wouldn't say romantic and sweet things to her when she was awake, he just didn't want her seeing him in an uncool state if he said the super-super sweet things.

With his Eternal End, there was a look into his past via MC talking to his old mentor and to his top vassal and confidant Kojuro. They tell the story of a quiet, sickly little boy that Masa was before Kojuro cut his eye out, about how he hated how weak and powerless he felt, his not-so-great relationship with his family, plus the trauma brought on from having to kill his dad. Basically, Masa bottles up a lot of negativity about himself which isn't a good thing to do, but Eternal End seemed to hint he's slowly opening up to the idea that sharing that shameful side of himself to MC isn't such a bad thing, that she doesn't care about his flaws, she loves him for all of his parts.

Act 2, well, it really brings his 'shameful side' out in full view and puts it to the test. How much can Masa handle before his 'cool' persona starts to fall away?

MC and Masa are returning to Azuchi after they hear about it being attacked, only for her to see that her Traveler's Guide is now blank. Not only that, but MC is starting to experience some memory loss, in particular about things she used to know from the future. The first instance is her forgetting how to make ruffles, which is troubling because she loves all things sewing, so for her to forget something like that makes both of them feel ill at ease. Not that Masa let's her see that, she's scared so he does his best to soothe her, wifey’s needs come first. Can’t have her being scared, it’s a ‘not good’ in Masa’s book. Once she's asleep (a la his romantic route’s ending), he expresses his worries to her and how he's gonna find some way to restore her memories back to her.

But the trouble doesn't end there. Both him and Ieyasu receive word from their respective provinces that they were being attacked, so they couldn't stay and help Nobu with the growing threat of Motonari and Kicho. Yasu takes off to Mikawa while Masa goes back to Oshu with MC in tow. From there, her amnesia gets progressively worse as she forgets more things about the future. She can't remember her family, when or where she was born, what certain things are called, and it starts to freak her out. Masa tries his best to help her remember things she's told him about the future, like about different kinds of foods or about cars and roller coasters, but her memory is still deteriorating.

Then, we're given one painful reminder from his main route after another. Masa had taken her on a scouting mission but they were ambushed. She tries her best to stay hidden but a lit gun rolls her way. She might have forgotten about all her future sewing knowledge, but she still remembers how to use a gun from Mitsuhide's teachings in the main route. She sees Masa about to get hit, calls to him to get down, and fires the gun. She misses and hits a tree, but still, she fired the gun at a person!

Because of an incident in his Main route, Masa got hurt because of her inability to fire on a guy that would have most certainly killed her if Masa hadn't come along. And there was a big to-do about when he stopped her from firing on Kenshin, that she didn't have to destroy herself and her beliefs to save him by killing someone. That she should leave the reckless dangerous stuff to him and how much he would hate himself if she lost her smile by having to destroy her beliefs.

Because of these previous incidents, we know that MC is against hurting another, no matter the cost to herself. But, because of this memory loss, MC did something that was against her moral code (attempting to kill someone to save Masa) and it disturbed both of them. She's shaken when she realizes what she had almost done, and, once again, Masa tries his best to comfort her, but if this memory loss thing didn't bother him before, it was definitely bothering him now.

Following that incident, MC loses her ability to make expressions. She can't smile or cry, her face now like that of a doll. Masa tries to make the best of it by having her do expressive gestures instead, like her hands on her face for surprise, or to give him hugs when she wants to say she loves him.

MC also notices that her body is slower to respond, like not being able to move her hand a certain way. As you'd expect, this comes back to bite them both in the ass.

Now, Kenshin comes after him for some reason (his reasoning is not really explained well, I'm just assuming that the plot needed for him to come do something, so Kenshin's here to cause chaos) but Kicho interferes with their fight, raining arrows on Masa's tropes. Masa tries to pull MC up with him so they can get away, but her body refuses to move, thanks to her new symptom of temporary paralysis, first hinted at before when she lost her ability to express emotions on her face. Masa gets hit by a poison arrow when MC suddenly can move again. They have to get away before the poison takes hold. So, they jump onto his horse and try to escape but guess who comes to stop them.

Kicho, the bastard.

MC pleads with him to move, but he refuses. Masa is getting weaker and more delirious from the poison, so MC has to think fast about what to do. Masa wants to fight Kicho but MC thinks it's dumb for him to fight in his increasingly weakening state.

So, she does possibly the worst thing she can do to Masamune.

She ties his hands to his horse, jumps down, and sends that horse off from the battlefield as he screams after her, having to watch in horror as Kicho comes up behind her and slices her back open. Masa basically gets to watch his loved ones die in front of him all over again. Fun times!

But! MC isn't dead! Matter of fact, she crawls her way to Kicho and gets him to save her life, which, surprisingly, he does! Wild.

MC's in and out of consciousness, sometimes talking to Kicho, sometimes having fever dreams about Masa. Kicho eventually leaves to do his dastardly schemes. The next person that finds her is Kanetsugu, Kenshin's top vassal. He had met with MC and Masa in a previous joint investigation of Kicho. And he stays with MC because leaving a defenseless, injured woman to die is ridiculous. He patches her up and listens as she laments her horrible actions, of putting Masa in the position of reliving his worst trauma and how much she wants to apologize for doing him so, so dirty.

Because Kanetsugu is a good guy, he gives her a proposition. If she's still sick and hurting in the morning, he'd take her to the nearest village with a doctor and she could go about her way afterwards. But, if she was feeling well enough to travel, he'll take her as close as he can to Masa's base camp, to see if he's still alive. And, true to his word, he takes her as close as he can.

Meanwhile, back with Masa, he drinks as much water as he can to nullify the poison. You can hear the defeat in his voice as he says 'it's always poison, isn't it, Kojuro?' (I don't think it's explicitly stated in IkeSen, but Masa never had a good relationship with his family, his mother in particular. She tried to poison him so his younger brother could take the position of clan head, according to wikipedia. It's more explored in SLBP's version of Masa (thus how I knew about it), but we're here for IkeSen Masa, so that discussion will have to happen another time) He does his own lamenting, that finding and keep love was never meant for someone like him, already losing two people he cared about, that he was too weak and powerless to protect them.

But, he soon finds his resolve again. He wants to find MC again, dead or alive, and live his life so she and others after her can smile in the future. Still weakened from the poison, but determined, he decides to face Kenshin again head-on (because he still wants to fight Masa, and if he won't fight or is dead, he's gonna take the territory he left behind, it's still kinda dumb), then he was gonna find Kicho and stop him from continuing to ruin the future his beloved came from.

I'm gonna first talk about the Passionate route as that's the one I completed first and then I’ll talk about his Blissful route.

Masa and Kenshin try to face off once again, but they're interrupted again (poor Kenshin, he doesn't get much to do this route). This time it's Motonari who comes to ruin everything and set things on fire.

Literally, everything is on fire. Not even kidding. Fire’s everywhere, man.

MC breaks away from Kanetsugu's group to see Masa, still weak but alive, as he's fighting off Motonari in the flames. Because MC is dumb and still very much injured herself, she tries to go and help Masa, but again, fighting going on, plus, again, everything's on fire!

Motonari finally realizes that maybe setting things on fire wasn't a good idea so he runs off while Masa, still weak and now bleeding and probably a little singed, tries to get away from the flames with MC supporting him, two dumb, weak, stumbling idiots in love. When help from the Oda arrives (they had been tracking Motonari and Kicho and now all our friends are together again, yay!) they both collapse then and there to the ground, clinging to each other.

MC wakes up again back in Azuchi, being attended by Ieyasu, with Masa nearby, still unconscious. He explains that while he would have preferred to treat them apart, he knew one or the other would try to get up and find the other and decided he didn't want the headache of them reopening wounds by moving too much, so he kept them together in close enough beds. He updates MC about the current situation and leaves the two of them to their rest. Masa wakes and they talk and apologize. Little bit of kissing too but not much because they both still can't move very well, but that's okay, at least they're together again. Yay!

For the Blissful route, meant as a Romantic Ending equivalent, is much lighter in tone and pacing than its other half. MC and Kanetsugu receive word that Masa and Kenshin are going to fight once more, so the two of them make their way to the battlefield as close as they can, in the rain.

As the two dragons are about to face off, both are suddenly struck by lightning.

No, not even kidding. Both Masa and Kenshin were knocked unconscious by a force of nature so they can’t fight to the death.

I laughed for a good five minutes while trying to process that scene.

Kanetsugu and MC part ways as the unconscious commanders are taken off the field. Kanetsugu lends her his horse, saying she’s smart and that she’ll return to him when MC releases her. Kanetsugu himself rides with one of his underlings as MC sets off to reach the Date base camp. When she arrives, her energy finally leaves her and she collapses. Understandable as she’s still injured, just rode at full speed both to witness Maa and Kenshin be struck by lightning, all in the rain, then having to ride back at full speed to reach Masa, collapsing is kind of expected.

When MC wakes up again, she’s lying next to the unconscious Masa, him soon waking up too. Cue sweet kissing times because ‘omg, I thought you were dead!’ reunion time. After their make-up session, Masa starts to open up to MC, about how he feels like a failure for failing to protect her and his territory. MC says that it doesn’t matter if he isn’t strong enough to do those things, she loves him because she loves all of him, not for how strong or cool he is. She’s glad he’s finally letting her in, to see this weak part of himself that he’s always kept hidden from everyone.

A few days pass (Masa’s aggressors that weren’t Kicho and Motonari take care of themselves, so now they’re free to return to Azuchi and help out Nobu and the others) and they meet up with Kenshin and Kanetsugu again. They make a temporary alliance so they can stop Motonari and Kicho once and for all. Kenshin is good when he finds out that MC is having similar symptoms that Sasuke has, and that stopping Kicho and co. will make him better, so that’s his driving force for joining this alliance. On the ride to Azuchi, Masa, now thanks to his opening up to MC, starts to show more of his negative emotions openly, mainly when MC and Kanetsugu talk about how her wound is doing and about the time they spent together in the hut while Kanetsugu cared for her. Masa, like Mitsuhide did back in his route, shows his jealousy and protectiveness by growling at Kanetsugu. Like he is about most things, he’s not impressed. He baits Masa for his lack of strength in protecting his beloved and MC has to calm them both down before the alliance breaks up because of Masa’s jealousy.

The gang meets up in Azuchi with Shingen and Yoshimoto already there. Masa and MC catch everyone up on current events (how many times both of them got injured in some fashion, much to the horror of everyone about MC’s own injuries; about how she’s from the future and that if they don’t do something about Kicho and Motonari, the future that MC and Sasuke come from will cease to exist, that she comes from the future, all that fun stuff.) They come up with a battle plan and take on their enemies, defeat them, and the future is restored. With that final battle, MC finally regains her smile, Masa is stunned into silence to see that smile after so long, cuteness abounds once again.

In conclusion, if I picked a reason why I loved this route so much (outside of Masa himself because I was already loving him before) it's the character growth shown here. Masa learns that it's okay that he's not as powerful and strong as he projects himself to be, that he can still protect his loved ones despite his weaknesses. I love the throwbacks to his Main route and to show that decisions have consequences, like if the scene from the Main route of MC not taking the shot was flipped on its head and she actually did take a shot at someone, and what that kind of thought process brought out of her. Kanetsugu was a sweet bean despite his sharp tongue. Got to see Nobu and Shingen bickering which was delightful (as well as Yukimura having a 'gross, I have to work with *him???*' moment with Mitsuhide. Yoshimoto also shows up to Ieyasu's aid so he can get the Imagawa clan off his back (because that's who was pestering him) and Yasu can get back to aiding the Oda (along with the lines 'I thought you were dead. Are you here so I can finish off the job that Nobunaga didn't?').

So, yeah, that’s my thoughts on Masa’s Act 2. I do have a bias as he’s my numero dos when it comes to favorite ikesen baes, but I think this is hopefully a good example of how good this route was. The writing was bumped up a notch, there was plenty of drama, character growth, I just love it so much.

So, that’s it for this little summary. Hope you guys have fun reading it. Take care of yourselves out there and I hope to see you all again some time!

#bae in review #kind of #not a true one but it's done in the spirit of #ikemen sengoku #masamune date #masamune act 2 spoilers #masamune eternal end spoilers #I say initially that I had blabbed 2100 words to Yuu about Masa's Second Act when it was actually 2800 words #when I wrote the original summary #thus adding on the additional 700 words #like damn krys #kinda missed doing fandom essays and summaries like this #maybe if I get more spoons to do more someday I'll do some more waxing poetic about otome #but for now #here's me gushing about Masamune and how much I love him #💖

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