#the backgrounds don't match up bc I have a different screen resolution than what RSS is capturing on‚ which affects where the sprites fall

[declawedwildcat]

I've gotten a few different questions about this, so I tried to put together a quick visual reference for why I think the short hair will show up again!

It's very very tiny, but the edges where Kuras' hair cuts off in the "NPC" screenshot don't match up with where his hair normally falls on his real sprite – that little loop you see at his neckline cuts right through a lock of the short hair, and new lineart has been drawn over that gap. So this is actually a different hair, since if the longer part was just on a separate layer from the top part you would still see the edge of that lock through the loop.

I don't think it will actually be the Hot Topic Kuras in the full game (as much fun as I've had theorizing how it could be), but I do think this short hair will show up on his normal look at some point in the story! Hair cutting has a lot of symbolic uses, and a narrative about guilt/repentance is rife with ways to use that imagery.