"Yui's best friend. She's a quiet and shy girl but gathers up her courage to search for Yui in the lonely darkness of the town."
Haru is one of the main protagonists in Yomawari: Midnight Shadows. She looks for her missing friend Yui when the two of them become separated in the start of the story.
Appearance[]
She and Yui look similar to the Protagonist from Yomawari: Night Alone. While both Yui and the Protagonist have brown hair with a red bow, Haru has long blonde hair worn in a braid and a big blue rabbit-ear bow. She has a marking on her left hand.
Also like them, she wears a school uniform. It consists of a white top with a dark blue undershirt that has longer sleeves, and a matching dark blue skirt. She wears red shoes with white socks. In addition, she is carrying a pink pochette bag in the shape of a rabbit head on a pink strap.
At the end of the second game, she loses her left hand when it was cut by Mr. Kotowari. As a result, in its place is a stump of where her left hand used to be.
Plot[]
Before the events of "Midnight Shadows" (Pre-main story)[]
Haru lives with a normal family, despite not being able (or little bit) to socialize with other classmates, except Yui. During their time at school and after school, the two became best friends with an inseparable bond during near the end of summer. Later, she finds an injured Yui, not knowing she was abused by her parents, Haru gave her a medical attention through the use of a first aid kit (which would explain the bandages on Yui's face).
Prologue: "The Tragedy"[]
At the night before the fireworks festival, Haru visits her home and rings the doorbell a few times. Worrying that she is not at home, Yui (after going through a manipulated suicide) suddenly appears, as if she was still alive, and apologizes to Haru for being late. The two went their way back to the mountains for the fireworks show. On their way back home, with a flashlight in hand, Yui convinces Haru to hide, and does so. With Yui investigating and getting caught by one of the minions from the mysterious voice.
Chapter 1: "Fireworks Day"[]
After hiding in the bushes for a moment, Haru calls out to Yui, but no one answers. She comes out and finds her flashlight and gets ambushed by a Forest Spirit on the way back out. Coming across Yui's home, she wonders if Yui went home or somewhere else, and writes a letter to her house to see if she comes back. Avoiding hostile spirits along the way, Haru arrives back home.
Chapter 2: "Yui Is Missing"[]
Haru goes outside of the house to look for her and comes across a missing poster that has a picture of Yui, with her dog, Chaco, barking at it. Chaco runs away to continue looking for her owner. She encounters more spirits around town and gets chased by Mr. Kotowari, before offering a doll, which the spirit proceeds to cut its right arm off.
Chapter 3[]
At the house, she can hear Yui calling out to her (presumably because of their strong bonds) before going outside of the house and sneaking inside into the library.
She encounters "Yui" in the library, then Mr. Kotowari proceeds to attack Haru, but is appeased after she offers a fossil head. As she traversed the library herself to find her, the "Yui" she is after is not the original one, but a propagated copy (a doppelganger) from the Mirror Spirit. The spirit itself proceeds to create dark Haru clones, as Haru tries turning all the lamps off, weakening the spirit to render it useless (based on the science book she read in the library that the spirit cannot reflect any previous living beings if there is no light to shine on it). Haru puts back the large cloth on the mirror so it cannot reflect anything anymore. She realizes that the real Yui was not here and goes back home.
Chapter 4[]
Going outside of the house again, she encounters Chaco again, still in distress looking for her owner. Going further to chase Chaco, she enters a Haunted House, to find Yui. Inside the building itself, the building is old. In one of the rooms, Haru gets locked inside and her flashlight suddenly turns off, then she is teleported inside the sprits' dimension by alternate rooms, avoiding attempted murders against her. As she makes her way further upstairs, she finally encounters the living wooden pillar, which is the said spirit itself that haunts the entire house. It tries to make several attempts to kill her. When it tries to use a lit candelabra to shoot her down with fire balls, one of the fire balls crashed to the wooden pillar, making the Haunted House Spirit cry in pain. Chaco, coming back in time, helps Haru escape through the fireplace. They got out safely before the house collapsed and escaped. However, the Haunted House spirit rebuilds it and continues to haunt it, waiting for its next victim.
Chapter 5[]
Outside of the house, Haru proceeds to look for Yui in the southwest side of the town. Going further in the woods, she encounters Mr. Kotowari again and appeases him by fixing the toy robot and offering it. Later, she runs into an abandoned train and goes inside it. She encounters the spirit who is the Girl in the Train and manages to get out quickly, but the spirit goes berserk. Haru escapes the spirit by the bridge and tells herself that she cannot save someone who is already dead. Haru gives the red umbrella to the said spirit, and the spirit disappears and leaves Haru with a white handkerchief.
At the other side of the bridge, she finds Chaco looking for her, and leads her to a place where she is not there (but her spirit is), despite only Chaco can see her. Haru realizes that Yui is not here anymore.
Chapter 6 (Witching Hour)[]
At the woods, where the two are reunited, Haru tries to read a note left by Yui, but then Mr. Yomawari proceeds to kidnap her and take her to the factory.
Waking up at the factory, Mr. Yomawari pursues her as she tries to escape. Almost getting cornered, she hides in the bushes, until she hears the sound of a pebble thrown by the Protagonist to distract him away from Haru. When Haru comes out of the bushes, she sees this as a chance to escape. Finally getting out of the factory, she realizes that she is not in her town, but in the Nearby Town (where the Protagonist and her sister lives).
She crosses the bridge, only to get chased by the Original Mr. Raw Head. She outruns the spirit all the way before meeting the Centipede Spirit, in its lesser centipede form, convincing her to go to its shrine for protection, which causes it to disappear or is presumably exorcised by the shrine's barrier.
She finally returns to her hometown and reads the letter from Yui that she is dead and is now a spirit, going back to the mountains to find the truth. Reading this, shocks her to think of it as a lie. She would not care if Yui was already a ghost, she would still want to see her.
Chapter 7 (Late Night)[]
She goes out to follow Yui into the mountains, where she went to find the truth. She attempts to cross the mountain forests, only to be blocked by hostile spirits. Chaco helps Haru by telling her to take the Sewer route, which is also an alternative path to the mountains. After getting out of the sewers and into the hydroelectric dam, Gashadokuro proceeds to attack her, but is scared off by Chaco. Before heading further into the dam, she comes across a large dead mouse, and Gashadokuro tries to attack her one final time, before its family came out of hiding to convince Haru to bury their beloved relative. Haru makes a grave for the dead mouse, appeasing Gashadokuro, with its spirit now resting in peace. The sewer rat family comes out to visit the grave of its dead relative to give Haru the same riddle to solve. She solves the riddle again one last time, Haru realizes that Gashadokuro's identity with its spirit, is in fact the large dead mouse that was not given a proper burial.
Chapter 8[]
At the hydroelectric dam, the water in it is all dried up, giving her a chance to go straight to the mountains. On the way, Mr. Kotowari attacks her again, then tries to kill Chaco, but fails as Haru saved the dog and both of them hid from Mr. Kotowari. Haru tells Chaco, if he were to die protecting her, Yui would be sad, before convincing him to run back safely, promising to bring Yui home.
Haru is determined to not let any of her fear to get in the way, not being afraid of him anymore, as she tries to convince an aggressive Mr. Kotowari to let her through. Mr. Kotowari resumes his attack, before Haru comes across its shrine, cleaning out the garbage, and paying respect to the spirit.
Chapter 9[]
Going further into the mountains, she finds Yui, but this time her spirit is corrupted and is being controlled by Malice. And a Malice-controlled Yui begins attacking Haru at once. Once she successfully appeases her corrupted spirit (in an effort to return her spirit to normal), Yui tells her to take care of Chaco before bidding goodbye, dropping her ribbon to be picked up by Haru. She comes across a grave, with Yui's diary and her will in it. Reading the pages about her life, the last pages are smudged up, and the only words are left by Yui are: "It's all my fault".
Chapter 10 (The Final Chapter of "Midnight Shadows" - Sunrise)[]
Further in the mountains, Malice tries to manipulate her into committing suicide in the same way that Yui did to herself. As she further goes into the place to see where Yui died, the voice convinces her to "go back", tempting Haru to go in the same way of how her friend killed herself, but fails due to being mentally strong. She calls out to Mr. Kotowari that she "cannot take it anymore", as the spirit destroys the statue of Malice, opening a way into the Malice Cave. He gives Haru the Relationship Scissors as a tool.
Inside the Malice Cave, Haru sees the visions of the past, seeing how Yui got in here, and the last memory shows that it was Yui who saved her in the past. Haru, in sorrow, accepts that she can do nothing to change their fate.
In the sacrificial chamber of the Malice Cave, Haru enters the chamber and finds Yui, but encounters Malice. Malice convinces to Haru to "go with her", tempting her to commit suicide in the same way Yui died, only to be rejected. Haru proceeds to cut the red strings that keep Malice alive, and seemingly defeats it. Malice tries to possess and control Yui as a last resort for a final attack, so it can freak Yui out and kill Haru. She tries to escape but the red strings restrain her, trying to cut it in vain, due to their strong inseparable bond of friendship, the only way to destroy it is an equally powerful will. She could not stand Yui becoming a corrupted spirit, and decides to call out to Mr. Kotowari, sacrificing her arm in the process to save Yui's spirit from Malice. Malice is finally defeated, freeing Yui's spirit. With Haru bleeding out, Yui arrives to help her out to get back to the real world, as Haru bid a final goodbye to Yui.
Epilogue: Moving On (Post-Main Story)[]
After the ordeal, Haru is seen giving a red flower to the last place where Yui died. She places the leash on Chaco, as her "new friend". She wonders what the future will look like since life can be scary. She meets the Protagonist, and the two became friends, giving the idea of writing letters to each other, before moving away since summer is finally ending.
Trivia[]
- In the official artbook for Yomawari: Midnight Shadows, the developer/artist laments how hard it was to notice Haru's braided art, despite them having worked so hard and so long on trying to give Haru a 'unique design'.
Gallery[]
This article is a stub. You can help by adding more information to it.