天下制覇

We hardly knew ye… literally.

Impressions:

This was a pretty odd episode, dedicated to ‘killing’ off a tertiary character that I’m pretty sure never even had a name and was just a plot device for random exposition anyway. We get to see another of the Kokuboro in action though, and while Shion is nowhere near as entertaining as Kaguro, there should at least be some good mind games between her and Yukino eventually. Next week looks shithot, with Kaguro heading back to Karasumori and another faceoff against Gen.

Summary:

In the greenhouse of the weird shopkeeper’s, Shige and he are enjoying some tea and biscuits, served by his beautiful assistant. Shige is there to learn what information he’s been able to dig up on Kokuboro. It’s not really much, other than they’re acting strangely for ayakashi, gathering companions, and whatever they’re planning will be reaching its boiling point relatively soon. Shige wants more information on their location, but the shopkeep says that’d be impossible.

In class, Yoshimori is asleep as usual. His teacher tries blowing in his ear to wake him up, but he’s out cold. It takes an alarm clock to wake him up, but he’s still totally knocked out, and while the teacher tells him a Greek legend, he imagines his shikigami acting out all the roles. Expecting that to be the end of the lesson, Yoshi instead imagines himself beating up all the shikigami for their laziness.

At home, Shige is thinking about whether or not he should ask Masamori’s advice. He finally decides to and they call.

That night, Tokine and Gen are killing ayakashi. Yoshi is hanging out above, drinking his coffee milk. He thinks that it’s strange that nothing’s happened lately. He tries to ask Madrarao about Karasumori’s power again, but the dog is noncomittal. He does talk about how the power affects ayakashi differently and says that it has to do with what ayakashi inherantly are.

A woman is walking somewhere while some creature jumps along behind her. She comes to the shopkeep’s home and tells the thing to be ready.

Inside, the shopkeep is having tea with his assistant when they suddenly sense something amiss.

Shige is sleeping, but also suddenly senses something. He leaps out of bed, ready to fight, but a voice aplogizes for frightening him. He opens the window, and a girl hands him a letter before turning into a fox and running off.

Shige wakes up Yoshi’s father, who had falled asleep doing work, and asks him to put on his old Karasumori battlegear. Dressed for battle, with some form of amulet, the two run off.

They’re intercepted by a member of the Urukai, and Yoshi’s dad’s necklace immediately starts to glow. Shige asks if he’s sent by Masamori, which the guy confirms, and then brings them to an empty lot. He breaths out strands which form a giant centipede. They get on its back and it flies off. En route, the letter is narrated by the shopkeep.

At the shopkeep’s place, the woman and her demon things are coming in through a window. Another woman with a giant sword is there to stop them, but the evil woman summons a string from her finger and slices her in half. She immediately vanishes in a puff of smoke. The demons make short work of a few other women as well.

The demons are gathered around a doorway with seals on it. The woman walks through and the seals melt, letting the demon things enter as well. They come to another doorway covered in seals, which start melting as well. The shopkeep sees them melt and becomes worried. As the last one melts and the door opens, more seals come flying out and hit the demon things, making them pop like balloons.

Inside, he’s ready to fight with seals and darts. She uses her string to pick up his desk and drop it on him, but he dodges. His weapons are sent flying though and he’s forced to try to escape. She follows him into the green house. He picks up a plant and places it in front of him, completing a pentacle on the ground with her in the middle. She walks to the edge, but he pulls out a special gun and fires.

Shige and his crew have made it to the store, but the Urukai have members already there. They prevent him from entering, saying it’s already over. Shige tries to run past them, and sees the shopkeep facedown in the greenhouse with the gun next to his body.

At Kokuboro HQ, the woman, Shion, is reporting in to Byaku. She tells him how the merchant was about to shoot her, but she let a spider fall on his neck from behind, and then using it, controlled his arms, put the gun to his head, and fired. She thinks it went fine, but that there was something strange that happened when she controlled him with her spider.

The next morning, Yoshi is sleeping in. Shige is rereading the last letter from the storekeep, telling him everything that he’s figured out about Kokuboro. Shige can’t help but call him a stupid bastard in his mind and be depressed about his friend’s death. Even Yukino’s grandmother foregos her usual harassment of Shige after seeing how depressed he is.

Yoshi tries to comfort Shige, but Shige calls him an idiot as well before giving him a talk about how that kind of thing happens.

From the top of a crowded city, the shopkeep and his assistant look down. He thinks about how he sent a body double in his place with the help of Masamori and the other Urukai members. He’s happy to use this an excuse to vanish from the respective radars of the humans and ayakashi and start anew, though will regret being unable to see his friends anymore. His assistant then sprouts wings and they fly off.