Hunger

> "The Beast - it's always there, waitin' to take over. When it does, it's like a wild animal wearin' your skin... desperate, scared, reckless. He'll do anything to survive and it's you that has to deal with the consequences."
>
> Smiling Jack.

**Hunger** is a game mechanics in Saiko no Sutoka: Halloween Edition.

## General

It represents a feeling quite common to a feeling of hunger, but significantly accelerated. Considering that the actions of the game are (presumably) in Akira's dream, it most likely reflects the (unfortunately inevitable) process of Saiko's transformation into a deadly Yandere. According to Saiko, she do not know why she is hungry.

## Stages of the process

### Phase Zero

> "Please eat this food!"
>
>

Or, the so-called satiety. Saiko is being in this state immediately after her awakening or after a "hearty breakfast". In this state, Saiko will not ask to eat, and upon finding food will bring it to the player to "share it with him". She will not be angry at Akira for "disobeying", which will allow the player to hold the food for later.

On the "Easy" difficulty, this phase lasts for 2 minutes, on the "Normal" difficulty level it lasts for 1 minute.

### Phase One

> "I do not know why I am starving."
>
>

Slight hunger. Phrases with requests to "fix it" will begin to alternate with requests to find her food, any food she finds will be eaten immediately, and when she notices it in the hands of Senpai, Saiko will approach him and take it away from him, knocking him down. The player has the opportunity to avoid this by simply giving her the food; the opportunity to feed her will appear in this phase.

On the "Easy" difficulty, this phase lasts for 2 minutes, on the "Normal" difficulty level it lasts for 1 minute.

### Phase Two

> "Senpai, I'm hungry. I'm hungry, Senpai."
>
>

Severe hunger. In this state, Saiko will bend over and grab her stomach with her hands, repeating that she is hungry, and her heartbeat will increase. for the rest, her behavior will be the same as in phase One.

On the "Easy" difficulty, this phase lasts for 2 minutes 30 seconds, on the "Normal" difficulty level it lasts for 1 minute 15 seconds.

### Phase Three

> "Why do you smell so delicious?"
>
>

A state bordering on insanity. At this phase, Saiko's heart will beat even harder, and she herself will straighten up and, with a mad look, begin to approach Akira, trying to stay as close to him as possible, declaring that he smells delicious. In this state, she will not attack the player yet, but will give him unambiguous hints that he should hurry up with finding food; after all, there is little time left. From time to time, she will start bouncing on the spot, comically begging Senpai to take a bite of him (at a Easy difficulty, this can happen up to 2 times). If you interact with Saiko at this moment, Akira will pat her head, after which her head will fall off. The head can be picked up and returned on her neck, or carried away to walk with it through the forest. Also, with a 50% probability, while stroking Saiko, she can say that "she also missed him", after which her hunger will roll back to the Phase Two.

On the "Easy" difficulty, this phase lasts for 4 minutes, on the "Normal" difficulty level it lasts for 2 minutes.

### Phase Four

> "Just one byte is all I need, please don't make me wait."
>
>

Forget everything you knew about Saiko. Forget that she is cute, beautiful, and so on, even if she is your wayfu. If before that you were afraid of her like paranoid - congratulations. Now you have a good reason to belike this.

The fourth Phase is a state of complete insanity, when hunger completely engulfs Saiko's consciousness, causing her heart to pound wildly, and her - to devote herself entirely to searching for food, whether it's pieces of food in the forest or the flesh of Akira and Yui. Upon seeing the player in this state, Saiko will immediately rush to him, taking a "typical zombie pose". Having overtaken the player, she will push him to the ground, after which she will jump on him and start eating him alive. Also, Saiko will actively hunt down Akira in case of bleeding, greedily licking his blood from the ground. When she sees Yui, she will also rush to her, but Akira will not be able to steal the keys from the struggling Yui, because the zombie, trying to mindlessly attack the blonde psychopath, instead of holding her, will not be able to detain her long enough for the player to get the keys. This reduces the goal of "Hard difficulty" to the fact that the player must NECESSARILY bring Saiko out of the hungry madness before she helps him escape.

If in the Phase Three you stroked her on the head, it is recommended to return her head before the onset of insanity; although the headless body will not be able to harm Akira, the player will not be able to return her head to feed her, since Saiko will immediately attack him, completely ignoring her head. An attempt to feed a headless body will lead to a fatal glitch, where Saiko will stop responding to anything at all (version 1.0.2.).

### It can't be worse... right?

The fourth phase is actually the last phase of Saiko's hunger, but the "Hard difficulty" implies that it is not the limit; in this mode, Saiko is at maximum hunger, from which Akira can bring her out by feeding her 3-5 pieces of food. Considering that each of the 6 "pieces of food" appearing on the map throws Saiko back to 1 level of hungry madness, it turns out that when the Fourth Phase is reached, the stopwatch continues to go, which means that a player who has been looking for food for too long to bring Saiko out of a state of madness may come across a very unpleasant surprise: one piece of meat will no longer be enough...

## Trivia

* To combat the Saiko's hunger, not only the food that scattered on the map can be suitable, but also the flesh of senpai himself (20-25 HP per 1 piece of food).
	+ According to Habupain, if Saiko runs into Akira and starts eating him, she will get off of him when she is full. However, at the moment, this statement cannot be verified; Saiko attacks the player only at the 4th phase and does not get off until his death, which means either that the statement is false, or that Akira does not have enough health for this.
* The detail in which Saiko can chase the player by licking his blood off the ground was not originally planned; Habupain added it at the last moment.