Zigzag Zealot

• 60k word kinetic visual novel 
• NVL-format 
• Yes, edited photographic backgrounds too 
• Mystery-imbued Class S style yuri...?! 
• Luciferianism and the occult?!
• Instances of playing armchair detective...

Content Warnings 

• Religious trauma, dissociation, depersonalization, symbolic and physical descriptions of murder and mutilation, mild self-harm 

Nikawa Kazumi (仁川一実) is beloved amongst all the students in a certain prestigious all-girls Catholic high school... There is not a single student unaware of her name, for they all share in lovely admiration of her, whether idly indulging in fantasies with her from afar or trying their best to hold hands with her in person... Whenever the students at this school speak of love, it's immediately understood they're talking exclusively about the feelings they share towards her and nobody else... And perhaps by no less than the grace of God, this has sparked no bit of jealousy or envy whatsoever amongst all the girls for sharing in their crush, but has rather brought them an Edenic harmony that would make the angels rejoice... What could the girl receiving all this love have possibly done...? Are they an incarnation of one of those very angels on earth...? Nobody can really say, but...if you were to ask the nuns of the school, they'd brush off these 'crushes' the students have as being simple admirations for their sole student council president...

Indeed, Nikawa Kazumi assumed the highest and most honorable position that any high schoolgirl could possibly achieve... And all by herself, without the aid of an assistants or vice presidents whatsoever...she had become the very representation of the school itself! All of it's ideals, romanticism, hopes, and aspirations, bundled into one person that you could always rely on, and that would always, somehow and mysteriously, manage to do the work of multiple people despite only being one?! ...Nikawa Kazumi didn't mind the exhaustion such a role entailed, though. Not by any means. Not when it meant that she could gather such a wonderful collection of dolls to dote on. To see all those almost porcelain eyes on her...ha, well, perhaps it'd be too intrusive to describe the true nature of her feelings here...

However, though she had practically all her classmates' hearts in her grasp...there remained but a single girl who she failed to conquer. Sekiguchi Juuko (堰口十子) She was hesitant to even call her a student...for all she did was simply coop herself up in her own club room. A self-proclaimed club of the occult...a complete contradiction to everything the lovely school of the cross stands for! How could Nikawa allow such a corrupt delinquent make her home in her beloved dollhouse?! She couldn't let it be, not by any means! And yet, no matter how much she argued with her, the same conversations would always repeat between them, and the occult would continue to linger...

Even if Nikawa could play with the rest of her dolls whenever she wanted...just the fact that there remained one she could never control bothered her to no end. How could she conform herself to the same faces that blurred themselves onto each other when a much more beautiful one existed, locked beneath that grotesque club room, that was constantly tempting and taunting her? ...She couldn't let it be. But she couldn't do anything about it either... Sekiguchi Juuko had power that she couldn't comprehend. And she wasn't scared of the occult or anything. Not by any means. No amount of demons could compare...to the influence she started to have on Nikawa. Though, not even she understood what exactly that was...and she would put off those feelings, fearing them...until the day eventually came when there was no one else but them two. The school became empty. Somehow, inexplicably, at a point no one remembered. Perhaps everyone graduated. And Nikawa was left alone, still unable to grow up... And if it were that Sekiguchi who put that spell on her, then...

She could only prepare herself be kneeling at the confessional. Where those eyes that always listened to her...that were always with her...would gaze upon her.

Hey all, this is another 'solo-dev' project by your venux on the cross, Venux Crucifix, this time making something a lot more fitting for my name...

Character design, sprites, writing, and (bare-bones) Renpy-ing done by me! 

As usual, all of the background images are sourced from Wikimedia Commons and were licensed under either public domain or CC0, and were then edited by me between CSP and GIMP. The same goes for the 'textures' that are used across the character sprites. 

All the music used is from Dova-Syndrome this time, and the sound effects that are used are from Freesound, under a CC0 license or similar PD

The font used for the menu and title is Maleficio, and the one used in-game is D-DIN. 

This was made for the Toxic Yuri VN Jam...I thought the idea of a stereotypical stern student council president and a chaotic chuunibyou failing to understand each other and suffering from self-imposed doubts would have made for an interesting way to set up a classic school mystery...even if it's very zigzaggy in direction (well, that's why its called Zigzag Zealot)! Hopefully we're all able to find a little something in this strange student council president we call Nikawa