ladama

Rosa : small business « it’s a passion project you have to give it your all », the boss have drinks with you but she also yells at you and guilt trip you to work more hours.

Kyrie and Rudolf : they know every single rule in the book and how to avoid getting in illegal territory while exploiting and morally harassing you as much as they can get away with. Rudolf sends Kyrie because of her ✨Female Touch✨ to be the bearer of bad news, everyone is cordial and nice but it’s extremely cutthroat and you WILL be fucked over if you’re not a shark. (EDIT : if you are a woman you better be careful because if Kyrie is under the impression you might be after Rudolf or if Rudolf is after you… life ruined.)

A fearsome witch appears!

It's been theorized based on the manga presentation that Kyrie might have been the first to witness Asumu's corpse even if she walked away but that Battler would have likely been the first other person to find Asumu dead if it happened on a school day.

So enjoy this AU ideas of Kyrie walking onto the corpse in Asumu and Rudolf's room being like 'well Asumu died the day I finally found the resolve to kill her. All those preparations and she just dies all by herself. I want a refund for all that stress and insomnia.'

THEN she hears the sound of Battler, who isn't at school because of sudden sickness, so Kyrie has to hide in Asumu's closet for an unknown duration because she's still carrying that huge knife on her person all while the kid who lived instead of her son is crying his heart out on the other side and SHE CAN'T LEAVE WITHOUT BEING SEEN!

Should she take the gamble of waiting for him to walk out and leave through the window?

If he finds her, does she lie or take the occasion to kill two birds with one stone?

As much as Kyrie claims she views children as an anchor to cement a marriage and relationship, the twelve year gap between her 'stillborn' first child and Ange is very intriguing in its possible implications:

Full series spoilers under the read more

1. canonically female (no variation)

2. canonically the protagonist of her story (if it’s an ensemble cast you have to say you can legitimately see her as The main character)

3. your personal #1 favorite character in that story (ties are acceptable)

The implications of Rudolf deciding to tell Battler and Kyrie alone at the conference about the baby switch and highly expecting to die as a result(could be read as a sort of assisted suicide) haunt me in how Kinzo-esque it is: are you thinking of the consequences of your actions on the people around you or just seeking personal atonement?

The person who he expects the most to kill him would be Kyrie. I don't think he has seen Battler's anger lean towards retributional violence the way it does in canon episodes after the first twilights, given his son walked out in 1980 instead of personally attacking him or Kyrie physically so Kyrie would be the most likely.

AND YET setting up the situation that way in the worst case scenario forces Battler to either stop from or watch the person he just learnt is his biological mom murder his father. The father who in spite of his sins was the one he had finally started reconciling with. (Or have Kyrie watch Battler - no Winnie, no Battler, no Winn- kill the man she obsessed over for more than 18 years and whom she weaved the illusion of a happy family around. Realize Rudolf chose to give her back her son after 18 years and make a murderer out of him)

Then there is a dead body on both of their hands and Battler has to pick between becoming his mom's accomplice or her possible next victim to hide her crime.

This doesn't even cover how Rudolf decided to have this conversation without any safeguard and to risk Ange losing both her brother, father and possibly mother(going on the run or getting arrested for murder) in one fell swoop.

This man says that he won't complain of Kyrie kills him on the spot for the baby switch news when Ange is either IN THE SAME ROOM(Visual novel) or PLAYING HIDE AND SEEK TO FIND THEM(manga) so she would stumbled onto her father's dead body or the murder in real time(they don't know yet she's been listening all the while)???

I understand he is constrained by the limits of the gameboard both from a doylist and watsonian pov but like again man if you choose to allow for the possibility of both of your children having to face the idea of their mother killing their father on what is supposed to be a happy day, that's also a deeply questionable afterlife ChoiceTM.

The disparity between how Kyrie learns about Asumu's pregnancy between the EP6 VN and the manga is interesting:

In the VN(both official and og Witch hunt tl) it's referred to as Rudolf quickly moving Asumu into the Ushiromiya registry(og text uses 電撃入籍 with the latter two kanjis indeed relating to 'entry into the family register' without anymore precision)

And manga(Yen Press TL) says she didn't realized until they had arranged a shotgun wedding with an picture of a chapel beside the narration box. (Note that chapel weddings happen in Japan while not necessarily being linked to an actual Christian church and may instead be linked to a hotel or wedding venue)

Maybe it's a cultural perspective that I lack and lowballing his blackmailing potential(he did do that for the baby switch) but could Rudolf really have 1)take the news of an unplanned child without having made up his mind yet, 2)hide that initial stress from Kyrie when he returned to work (after a holiday, a weekend, or maybe even just the next morning lol), 3) hide the flow of money from his business partner required to possibly bribe GOVERNMENT officials to speed up the process?

However if Asumu's child was planned by both her AND Rudolf, he would have had a much easier time hiding his plans and filing the paper work for marriage certificate and Koseki changes on top cultural/social ceremony booked at a venue. (Kyrie finding out through the wedding card invitation would be hilarious whether or not she was invited. ESPECIALLY if other of Rudolf's colleagues were but not her. Not even talking about the monetary gift she would been expected to bring)

The matter of Rudolf's agency in Asumu's pregnancy and wedding

Kyrie's narration can be biased as hell especially towards Asumu from their love rivalry or Kyrie's projection such as the idea that the phobia of shaking transports is fake? If the child and quick marriage/entry into the registry is only Asumu's scheme then it means Rudolf hasn't made a real choice between the two of them yet.

And yet as readers we know that when it came to shove Rudolf decided he'd rather remain married to Asumu(even if he doesn't have the guts to fight Kinzo and Kyrie openly about it).

EP8 manga flashback of Rudolf portray as more pissed off by Kyrie while he is not depicted as resenting Asumu for an unwanted pregnancy in the entire flashback which is a ContrastTM.

There's also a certain bit in the VN "The stillbirth might even have given him a chance to break off his relationship with Kyrie." that clashes with manga Rudolf's words of deciding to take care of Kyrie because he felt guilty about the baby switch. His lack of surprise towards Kyrie beating Asumu up likely means he knew of how violent she could get in removing rivals so would have reasons to hide Asumu's pregnancy until an abortion wasn't possible or they were married and her death would be way suspicious to Kyrie.