Cendrillon PalikA – Kashika Galle

Kashika (CV: Sugiyama Noriaki) a mysterious self-proclaimed magician who appears in front of Hairi one day with glass slippers and the clue to unraveling the curse. He lives with Hairi and often provides her with advice.

Hairi decides to ask Kashika to help him since he seems the most useful albeit he claims he’s just an ordinary human who can’t do much magic. But Hairi manages to force him to help (after falling him useless otherwise lol) and he finally agrees to do so. He’s able to get the key from Rindo and comes back at 5:00 in the morning to tell Hairi. At night, Hairi goes with Kashika to move the needle of the clock tower for the first time. After that, Hairi can’t sleep after having a nightmare so Kashika brings a picture book about Cinderella and reads it to her in her room. When she falls asleep, he wishes her goodnight and leaves the room.

The next day, Hairi can’t find Kashika and wants to find out more about him.  Campanella leads her to him near the cherry blossom tree and she tries to ask him some questions about him and his past, but he refuses to answer. That night, the mysterious being called ‘Harmonia’ appears and asks if she wants to know more about Kashika. Albeit he reveals its a ‘cruel truth’. However, she’s not sure she wants to know and Harmonia eventually disappears. After this, Hairi continues to work alongside Kashika regardless. Kashika even gives love advice for Eris lol. So Hairi has a dream where she’s in a unfamiliar place and sees Harmonia again. He tells her its Kashika’s “secret place” in Tokyou.

In order to find out, Hairi follows Kashika in the middle of the night and it leads her to the place she saw in her dream. After spouting the name “Ruri” and sitting on a swing, Hairi is spotted by Kashika although he’s not mad at her but tells her he won’t be answering any questions and so she’s gestured to leave. After that, Hairi is interested in the swing at his secret hideout so she asks if she can use it and he tells her he doesn’t mind either way. So one night Hairi visits the hideout and playfully uses the swing. Kashika aees her playing and teases her saying an adult will come kidnap her if she stays there all alone and finally convinces her to come home after she plays for a bit.

After that, Kashika tells Hairi to meet him at his hideout and so she does. He reveals he’ll allow her to ask him some questions about himself and so he goes on to explain. He’s apparently a few 100 years old but isn’t a some high being, but a regular wizard. In his past, his situation was similar to the story of “Beauty and the Beast” and he was cursed by a wizard because of how selfish and arrogant he was which is why he’s been living so long. He tells her unraveling the curse will unravel his curse so he asks Hairi to help him which she reaffirms to him she planned to help him anyway. She then asks about “Ruri”, the person’s name she heard him mutter.

One day, Hairi and Kashika have their own little “date” aside from moving the needle of the clocktower. Kashika takes Hairi to the flower field outside of Tokyou and shows her a trick where he can make birds fly over to him. Hairi finds it hilarious so she instinctively laughs at the appearance of him with birds all over him lol. After that, Hairi moves the needle of the clock tower like usual. After that, Kashika encounters Hairi cleaning her shoes. He admits he sent shoes to all of the men she possibly would’ve collaborated with along with the message “the one who wears it will make your wish come true”. However, Hairi ended up choosing Kashika and she believes now she can make his wish come true.

One day, Hairi wants a change of pace so she takes Kashika out on another date to eat sandwiches together. They end up going to a place outside of Tokyou where Kashika knows of. As they eat, Kashika licks off some food from her face to tease her. 👀  But that night, Hairi spots Kashika wandering off into the night and when she finally catches up to him, he asks her what she thinks his wish is. She believes its to undo the curse on him but he tells her that he lied and that he’s not cursed. Not only that, but he doesn’t really want to unravel the curse and his true wish is “revenge”. He tells her by moving the needle of the clock to 12:00 will make the curse spread around the entire world. He says he won’t apologize for lying and disappears off somewhere.

So a few weeks pass and Kashika has disappeared. Hairi continuously comes to his hideout hoping he’ll appear. But she doesn’t know if he ever will so she tries to talk to Harmonia again. Much to her surprise, Harmonia appears but only comes to inform her that he’ll eventually appear at his hideout and she must wait until the time he does. So she waits a few more weeks and finally he appears again. He asks why she’s been waiting for him everyday and she says its because she wants to know the truth. So he finally gives in and decides to tell her everything. Kashika was originally born in the royal family as a prince 200 years ago. He hated being royalty and felt restricted but felt salvation when he met “Ruri” whom was an Astrolabi.

Ruri and Kashika got close but Ruri caught an illness similar to the curse that turned her body into glass. She couldn’t be cured so Kashika suggested his father move the needle back so an epidemic can be avoided. However, he believed her case may have just been by chance and refused to move the needle for one girl. So Ruri ended up dying and the disease spread even more. Because of this, the needle was finally moved back to prevent the disease but Ruri was still dead which caused Kashika to deapair. Kashika ended up meeting Harmonia and created the curse on Tokyou today due to his hatred. Now he’s essentially immortal but lives on to now try and curse all of humanity. So of course Hairi tries to rationalize with him, saying he shouldn’t involve the innocent lives or others for his revenge scheme. But he tells her she doesn’t understand a thing and there should be nothing wrong with doing this for his own self satisfaction and leaves.

After this, Hairi starts to wonder why Kashika even told her everything in the first place since it would’ve been more convenient for him to say nothing. So she goes to the clocktower and meets him again there. She asks what he’s going to do since she doesn’t plan to cooperate anymore and he says he can just kill M who was the one who fixed the clocktower in the first place. But Hairi doesn’t believe he really wants to unleash a curse but rather wants to be freed from them. Kashika is of course, in denial about that but Hairi then decides to grab his face and make him look her in the eye while she tells him how ridiculous his plan of revenge is 😂. In addition, she says she’ll save him no matter what because she loves him and will try and make it so they can both live together.

After that, Kashika is hesitant about his choice and is no longer sure about what he wants to do. Hairi tries to figure out ways to unravel the curse and Kashika decides to accompany her and tells her if she truly finds a way to unravel it, he’ll admit defeat. But if she fails, he’s gonna curse humanity one way or another. She even brings an axe and tries to try and tear the inside of the clock tower down but as Kashika told her before, it won’t work 😂.  After that, Kashika suggests she should talk to the one who knows everything aka Harmomia. However, when she calls him he won’t come. So she decides to come up with a plan of pretending she’s going to kill M and destroy the clock tower. This ends up working and Harmonia appears.

Hairi asks them if there’s a way to undo the curse by breaking the Astrolabe and Harmonia tells her she’s more or less right but you have to destroy the link to it. In other words, all Astras used to link to it must be destroyed. There are 3 in total; Hairi, Ela, and the last one Harmonia has. Harmonia gives it to Hairi since she’s showed them so much entertainment up until now. So Ela entrusts his Astra with Hairi and leaves the rest up to her. After that, Kashika is in disbelief that Hairi pulled off something like that in front of Harmonia and realizes he’s in love with her too. So they kiss under the cherry blossom tree while sharing their feelings for each other.

After this, Hairi goes to the clock tower to destroy the Astrolabe by linking with all three of Astras. In doing so, she falls unconscious for a while and wakes up with Kashika by her side. Finally, his time has started again and the curse is broken so they promise to live together happily ever after.

In the epilogue, the curse is now undone so Kashika and Hairi go on a normal date since that’s what Hairi has always wanted lol.

In the 1st bad end,  Hairi’s bluff to destroy the Astrolabe is and kill M is taken seriously so Ela calls for guards to capture Hairi. In the 2nd bad end, Hairi chooses to not trust Harmonia in waiting for Kashika to appear so she ends up waiting until its too late and Kashika kills M and proceeds with his plan to curse humanity.

In the 3rd bad end, Hairi fails to destroy the Astrolabe so Kashika deems it a failure. He takes out a seed called the “seed of hatred” and puts it in his mouth after biting his lips. He then makes Hairi drink the blood from his mouth and starts laughing saying this is fate !! In the end, Hairi is cursed and can no longer move or speak and lives in Kashika’s glass world with just her.

Final Thoughts: I’m not gonna lie, I was expecting something with a bit more of a … bang. But this route felt fairly simple and if anything it was kinda anti-climatic. Maybe its because it starts to become super obvious this guy is suspicious from the get-go because he tells you to move the needle of the clock tower for you to wait–find out that doing that will only curse the entire universe!! So why would Kashika tell you to do something like that?? Could it BE…. that…. HE WAS THE ONE WHO CURSED TOKYOU?? Yeah I mean if you play through all the routes, its really not hard to figure out. I guess that’s why the shock is just… underwhelming. Anyway, since I was expecting it, it was hard to even taken his silly/flirty scenes seriously. And then of course he has to tell Hairi about his tragic past about losing a loved one (just like Klone pretty much). I expected something a bit less cliche but I guess that was just that. It was pretty simple honestly. Anyway,  I actually did enjoy Kashika as a character. He was quirky and fun which is why his sudden despair and rage kinda felt almost out of place. And then suddenly after being a piss ass and whiny he goes to visit Hairi all normally which felt weird after he basically told her he wants to destroy the world. AND LASTLY, Kashika was the one who started the curse in the first place. Hairi’s parents died because of the curse so would she not feel somesort of resentment towards him because of this?? I mean, he caused a lot of suffering yet no one really addresses that fact. Kashika is kinda just free from his sins because Hairi was able to make him open his heart to her. Maybe I just don’t buy it, but it seems too convenient. I mean, as a couple they were pretty cute, but I just felt there needed to be something else to make the pieces of this story fall together better.  Not to mention the bad ending is like… kind of awkward in retrospect. He confesses his feelings to Hairi but if she fucks up he goes off yandere and idgaf anymore. I don’t even think this game cared about the inconsistencies at this point lol.