Love Bullet - Vol. 3 Ch. 15 - Loop 0

[Prismatic-chan]

those two are definitely making up at some point.
not just with a handshake.

 

[kiero13]

hasumi 😭 😭 😭 page 31 where she was found is so beautiful but also so tragic i dont wanna like it nor the toxic yuri like why did inee have to make sae so pretty

 

[DJNebulous]

Sae's hair is different than everyone else's so that's another indication that she was in disguise. Prior chapters only mention that Hasumi ran after another classmate but they don't seem to recall who that was.

If Ito has always been the target there's indications that she's had some manner of interest in Hasumi that seems to be stronger than her supposed crush on the guy. Maybe Sae deliberately bullied Ena to remove her from the picture to try and set up Ito with the guy?

Like so far the Cupids we've seen have been pretty open minded with their pairings but I wonder if it's possible for there to be Cupids who believe that only specific pairings actually "count"

 

[potatoskitty]

Peak is back! Thank you for the chapter.

 

[UdenEmpati]

Sae's hair is different than everyone else's so that's another indication that she was in disguise. Prior chapters only mention that Hasumi ran after another classmate but they don't seem to recall who that was.

If Ito has always been the target there's indications that she's had some manner of interest in Hasumi that seems to be stronger than her supposed crush on the guy. Maybe Sae deliberately bullied Ena to remove her from the picture to try and set up Ito with the guy?

Like so far the Cupids we've seen have been pretty open minded with their pairings but I wonder if it's possible for there to be Cupids who believe that only specific pairings actually "count"

there was a Q&A with the author where she states that all humans have black hair, and that the usual "dyed hair" you see in manga wouldn't apply to this series--and that along with the overall darker tones was her way of differentiating humans from cupids.
So Sae, even seen in this flashback, not having black hair like everyone else, tells me she's a standout of particular significance. She also is clearly leading the bullying against Hasumi, and everyone else simply follows along.

Plus, we see her with those "Charm Eyes", reflected in the sensei's when talking about the pizza party thing. The rest of the class also praises Sae for being so successful in convincing the teachers to go along with whatever she suggests.
That's pretty indicative of that Charm effect, as well - and as you said (since I just read through everything today), in previous chapters, the "student Hasumi ran after" wasn't named. So Sae's been forgotten.
The only weird thing that I don't know can be squared yet, is that she appears in that photograph with everyone else. Would her "disguise" be preserved even after the fact? Would she be recognized by her classmates as "Sae-chan" even if she otherwise no longer exists for them? I think we'd need one of them to look at the photo and pick her out to be certain, and that hasn't come up yet.

But I'm pretty confident that yes, Sae has been a disguised cupid. She also was the one who suggested the pizza party early, which prompted the ahead-of-schedule hike up the mountain.
What if she also was responsible for the earthquake, and the resulting landslide? Peeling off from the group, so that she'd be "missing" when it happened, knowing that Hasumi is responsible and dogged enough to look after even her bully in an emergency? This whole thing could have been Sae working to get Hasumi killed.
She knew where to find her post-cupidization, after all.

To what end....I think there are a couple routes.

• Your guess is a reasonable one; plenty of people IRL believe in "OTP" type love stories, and someone sufficiently obsessive about it could turn to violence against would-be "transgressors". Though Sae going all the way to seemingly killing Hasumi, and tormenting her so much in life. That feels incredibly personal, so simply warning off Hasumi from interfeing would have taken a lot less. (the whole "hatred isn't the opposite of love, but its twisted equal" type thing - the amount of bullying Hasumi suffered at Sae's hands is far too intimate, in my mind, to be a mere erasure of a love rival for someone else.)
  
  
• I could see it being that Sae herself has feelings for Hasumi, but something got twisted, and it shows up in this perverse manner. Perhaps Sae herself has something going on mentally, that has skewed her way of dealing with people? She herself is a cupid, meaning she met the same conditions as the others, in death.
  
  
• The most off-the-wall, would be that Sae is someone from Hasumi's past even further back - someone older than Hasumi (since cupids don't age after death, apparently), who died and blames her death on Hasumi for whatever reason. And now she's come back to bully and torment Hasumi, trapping her in death as a cupid to "punish" her.
  I actually kinda like this one, or at least some iteration thereof--after all, Sae's the same "age group" as Hasumi at the other classmates, but if there's a "cooldown" between death and cupid-birth like with Koharu, then Sae had to have died some time ago. Though then again--Ena herself seems to be caught in some kind of "loop" with her own death and aftermath; so there might be bigger things at play that we don't have context or mechanic-knowledge for.
  edit--another idea: Sae had feelings for a younger Hasumi, died, and is now trying to trap Ena with her as cupids. Sure, they can't feel love--but she can now have Ena all to herself in the afterlife, and show her "extreme attention", even if it's not a positive loving kind.

It's compelling, though. I know I saw that it appears that the author has planned this whole story out--and that Ena's own arc will take multiple volumes (started in vol.2, but could go as far as vol.4, perhaps). So we'll be here for quite awhile it would seem, and that's leaving aside Koharu's own character narrative, much less Kannas or Chiyo's (who are probably going to be just as complex, I figure).
For an introductory work, this is very ambitious on her part, and I'm excited to see where this goes.

 

[ikuyoooo]

wait....what??????

 

[LordofAlI]

So was Sae a cupid in disguise? Damn imagine being stuck with someone who messed with your life like that even after death.



Ena deserved better man. She died trying to save one who all they did was hurt her.

 

[redscarf]

I feel like that other cupid sae did all of that just to make ena a cupid which is twisted and fucked up

 

[GLFanatic]

If It was me, I wouldn't be as nice as Ena was...

Oh, you gonna be a dick to me? Enjoy your landslide!

 

[DJNebulous]

What if she also was responsible for the earthquake, and the resulting landslide? Peeling off from the group, so that she'd be "missing" when it happened, knowing that Hasumi is responsible and dogged enough to look after even her bully in an emergency? This whole thing could have been Sae working to get Hasumi killed.
She knew where to find her post-cupidization, after all.

To what end....I think there are a couple routes.

• Your guess is a reasonable one; plenty of people IRL believe in "OTP" type love stories, and someone sufficiently obsessive about it could turn to violence against would-be "transgressors". Though Sae going all the way to seemingly killing Hasumi, and tormenting her so much in life. That feels incredibly personal, so simply warning off Hasumi from interfeing would have taken a lot less. (the whole "hatred isn't the opposite of love, but its twisted equal" type thing - the amount of bullying Hasumi suffered at Sae's hands is far too intimate, in my mind, to be a mere erasure of a love rival for someone else.)
  
  
• I could see it being that Sae herself has feelings for Hasumi, but something got twisted, and it shows up in this perverse manner. Perhaps Sae herself has something going on mentally, that has skewed her way of dealing with people? She herself is a cupid, meaning she met the same conditions as the others, in death.
  
  
• The most off-the-wall, would be that Sae is someone from Hasumi's past even further back - someone older than Hasumi (since cupids don't age after death, apparently), who died and blames her death on Hasumi for whatever reason. And now she's come back to bully and torment Hasumi, trapping her in death as a cupid to "punish" her.
  I actually kinda like this one, or at least some iteration thereof--after all, Sae's the same "age group" as Hasumi at the other classmates, but if there's a "cooldown" between death and cupid-birth like with Koharu, then Sae had to have died some time ago. Though then again--Ena herself seems to be caught in some kind of "loop" with her own death and aftermath; so there might be bigger things at play that we don't have context or mechanic-knowledge for.
  edit--another idea: Sae had feelings for a younger Hasumi, died, and is now trying to trap Ena with her as cupids. Sure, they can't feel love--but she can now have Ena all to herself in the afterlife, and show her "extreme attention", even if it's not a positive loving kind.

It's compelling, though. I know I saw that it appears that the author has planned this whole story out--and that Ena's own arc will take multiple volumes (started in vol.2, but could go as far as vol.4, perhaps). So we'll be here for quite awhile it would seem, and that's leaving aside Koharu's own character narrative, much less Kannas or Chiyo's (who are probably going to be just as complex, I figure).
For an introductory work, this is very ambitious on her part, and I'm excited to see where this goes.

I was thinking along the same lines with having potentially caused the landslide.
Was initially leaning towards possible homophobia on Sae's part rather than a general OTP obsession. The whole "you ruin the vibes between these pairs" and "don't get near her or you'll become dirty too" kind of hint that way, and people have certainly harassed to the point of death because of it. Your other possible theories are more personally engaged though and the bullying does seem targeted that way. I like the third and fourth ideas a lot even if they are a little off the wall.

 

[UdenEmpati]

I was thinking along the same lines with having potentially caused the landslide.
Was initially leaning towards possible homophobia on Sae's part rather than a general OTP obsession. The whole "you ruin the vibes between these pairs" and "don't get near her or you'll become dirty too" kind of hint that way, and people have certainly harassed to the point of death because of it. Your other possible theories are more personally engaged though and the bullying does seem targeted that way. I like the third and fourth ideas a lot even if they are a little off the wall.

That's fair. The bullying also just seems so centralized around Sae & Hasumi, that I'm actually wondering if the other students were all Charm'd into it by Sae.
As in, it's not that their class is actually malicious toward her; yes, groups will generally target and force out the "odd individual", and so I don't think they were all straight-up Mind Control'd or anything--but Sae influenced the class to ostracize Hasumi, then let "peer pressure/tribal politics" take its course, while she leads the bullying from the front.

Also - more ammo in the "Sae's a cupid" camp - she's nowhere to be seen on this trip they're all on, but back in chapter 13 on p.15-17, Touma and the two boys he hangs with had dumped trash on Hasumi and he was conflicted before trying to turn back to help her. We only see him and the two boys, but there's a fourth person, in a girl's school uniform, almost off-panel and we never see her face/who she is. But we see the "gal socks" in ch.13p.15, panel 3, with her upper body obscured by a speech bubble.
But then on pgs.16/17, someone is speaking off-panel, and Touma's eyes get the ringed Charm look to them--and Ito is called out by name, as a "if you stop Hasumi's bullying, Ito will be targeted next" warning, which causes him to turn away from Hasumi on the ground.

Plus - we see how she wears her jersey jacket half-off and down her left arm as a student--and when see Cupid Sae, she's got that same jersey, jacket half-off and down her left arm.

The weird bit, and this is me really reaching, is the final page of chapter 14--there's a winged figure crouched on the ground in Ena's 'base'. The figure's skin is all black, and there are wings on their back--but the wings look like they might be defeathered. But, and again this is me going Full Tinfoil, the hair style of that figure, and what can be discerned of the clothing, look similar to Sae's.

That's more disconnected to the point you made, but it does raise questions as to Ena's perdicament. She's seemingly trapped in a loop, playing out this scenario over and over. To the point she's completely unfazed at the reset at midnight this time around. But we see her having been dug out of the ground by Cupid Sae, who is now nowhere to be seen. So if she is trying to torment Ena, then where'd she go and why is she AWOL? We don't see the whole of Ena's base when Koharu & Co. show up, but perhaps it was empty until the time reset.
If Sae is trapped in this as well, and Ena is not being chained up and tortured somewhere, the identity of that figure at the end of ch.14 feels like a major clue as to what's happening. And if that seemingly-injured/distressed person is Sae, then the nature of this "Curse" might be more complicated than it appears even now.

 

[salthejackman]

A cupid with a horrid personality... should be interesting!

real

 

[Taw]

I wonder if Sae was isolating Ena on purpose so when she did die she'd end up a cupid.

 

[kr3sn1k]

there’s evil cupids hmm

 

[lowarctic]

those two are definitely making up at some point.
not just with a handshake.

 

[Ju2c0c0]

OH HELL NO THIS B BECAME A CUPID?????

 

[mylovenovels]

Wow two loners dying together thats something

 

[nnnn20430]

Ok, so now I think Sae was probably a cupid already, and she got Ena killed as a cupid. Because maybe in her past life, Sae liked Ena, and after dying and becoming a cupid, didn't want Ena to end up with anyone else, so she isolated her, and got her killed in hopes of reincarnating as humans together. Maybe because of this selfish act she is now a cursed cupid?

 

[UdenEmpati]

I keep revising where I stand on Sae & Ena's relationship each time I read back through - because another potential angle is that

Sae has been a cupid for longer than we can suspect--and she didn't know Ena when they were both humans, but came upon her when only Sae was a cupid.
cupids can't fall in love--but they can feel the desire for it, and the jealousy of being incapable of obtaining it (like when they get shot by cupid guns, and Koharu having to process the grief of "missing her chance" with Aki before dying).
So--Sae sees Human Ena, and "falls" for her for some reason. But she can't love properly, and it gets distorted into something like possessiveness. And she hatches the scheme of "oh, make Ena a cupid, and she'll have to spend forever with me".

But what if Ena falls in love? Can't have that, she won't become a cupid. So what does Sae do? She 'goes human', and proceeds to isolate Ena via Charm'ing the whole class and bullying her, so that she'll remain alone and beaten down and very unlikely to find love through all the abuse.

Then it's a matter of finding a way to get her killed. Probably can't just murder her--I need to carefully reread to see if it's stated, but maybe cupids can't directly harm humans like that. So the landslide is used. Then it's a matter of finding Ena and digging her up, and presto--she's stuck with Sae, who can "mentor" her like Kanna did Koharu, and keep Ena around her in that way.



From there - the question becomes: does Sae's transgression here (I'm assuming it breaks a ton of rules for cupids, assuming any form of beaurocracy) enact the curse, or does something down the line do it, wherein Ena and Sae get into a fight that goes far beyond what Chiyo keeps doing with Kanna & Koharu?
There's also the fact that enough time has to have passed that Chiyo and Ena meet and know one another. Possibly once this loop is already in place, or before it happens. But if it was before, then how long before, and even if it was after the loop, Chiyo would have not been around Ena for very long--and the impression they've left on one another and their interactions during that fight when Ena snapped Chiyo's arm tell me they've got more than a brief meeting between them.

So I think that it wasn't Sae's act of killing Ena that started this curse, at least with those additional bits of context and info. The timeline for everything is unknowable at present, because we don't know how this loop operates--are these all the actual classmates from Ena's time? If this is an isolated loop affecting this specific area, what are their parents doing with them missing for however long? Are they just "gone" from the larger timeline and reality, stuck here while the curse persists and everyone's forgotten about them? Or is this some kind of dream-state, where they're all memories of Ena's, playing out until she resolves the problem?

We need more before anything can be said on that front. But the curse is definitely tied to Ena and Sae in some way. Ena also seems surprised that Koharu changed Touma's feelings toward Ito--that feels significant, because it means the scenario can apparently shift away from what Ena is expecting. So the four of them will be needed to resolve it, but whether it's actually revolving around Ito & Touma and Ena, or if it's cupid-centric, or something else, can't be acertained at this time.

 

[DarkeLourd]

The only weird thing that I don't know can be squared yet, is that she appears in that photograph with everyone else. Would her "disguise" be preserved even after the fact? Would she be recognized by her classmates as "Sae-chan" even if she otherwise no longer exists for them? I think we'd need one of them to look at the photo and pick her out to be certain, and that hasn't come up yet.

If we go all the way back to chapter 10's cover, we see the same photo without Sae in it at all.