[In the absence of a subtitled episode, this version is 50% from the visuals, 49% from outside reviews
and 1% from my smidgen of language lessons (thx JPod 101 =). Best we
can do....as before, warmest thanks to Divine's Random Curiosity blog
and Subculture blog.]
Overwhelmed with grief and rage,
Gau and Raimei charge in to attack Hattori--Gau unarmed and Raimei with Black Gamon--
head on, but are easily dodged and sent to the floor.
Hattori turns to Miharu and sternly blames him for everyone’s
suffering, telling him he's refused to
Yukimi, huddled on what's left of the floor, tries to shield Yoite as the shinrabanshou force grows stronger.
The power that has gathered in the cloud bank sends out a flare so tremendous that it's seen reverberating far out into space,
even past our galaxy; at the same time it resonates into earthly life down to the molecular level, and a gigantic DNA
helix appears to twine around the pillar of light. It's pretty damn awesome. Hattori gloats, saying something about how this hijutsu is truly the mark of the Ruler of Nabari.
Kumohira and Shijima arrive on the scene and see
this mind-boggling manifestation in the distance; despite it, Shijima says
the awakening isn’t complete yet. Kairoushuu ninjas close in behind them.
Kouichi rushes Miharu but is thrown back by a shock wave; he collects Gau and tells Raimei they need to fall back
and think of a counterattack. She goes, head down and feet dragging.==Elsewhere,
Hyou and Shigure, the two remaining Tattegami, are still fighting Kotou, Yae and Saraba, but when they
see the shinrabanshou manifestation they break off their battle
to rush there. Yae and the two Fuuma ninjas follow suit, hoping there's still some way to keep the power out of Hattori's hands.
Having put a reasonable distance between themselves and Hijitsu Ground Zero, Kouichi tries to awaken Gau to no avail;
he remarks quietly that it may be best if he stays unconscious for now.==
Thobari comes running through the woods towards them. He calls out to them and then asks about Miharu.
Raimei strikes out furiously at him with her fists; he stops her, surprised, and she angrily asks where he’s been all
this time while Miharu and Yoite have been in such trouble, her voice breaking as she adds the news of her brother's fate.
He lowers his head, struggles to answer her: "Shimizu, I..."
The pursuing Kairoushuu catch up; Kouichi leaps to fight them, backed up by his "sister" Shijima,
who comments that they'll possibly both be released from their
immortality soon; surely he's pleased? When he hesitates, she dryly says that he must be getting used
to living with humans, but as for her she'll do as she likes.
The landscape continues to be rocked by bursts of force, and after fleeing a sudden landslide
Kouichi urges Kumohira to stop Miharu, asking why --or for whose sake--he won't use Engetsu-rin.
(Watching, perched in a tree on the sidelines,
Fuuma Kotarou --oh, you KNEW he was here--notices Kumohira being told off by his student, but says in amusement
that Aizawa-kun has far more life experience.) Team Banten rushes back to Miharu.
Kumohira attempts to use his release jutsu, but it's useless (and Fuuma-dono in his tree shakes his head at such a futile gesture).
With no other choice, he asks for forgiveness
from Asahi, pulls off his silver earcuff, and tosses it into the air, calling on the Engetsu-rin. As Kotarou and Hattori from
their respective vantages look on with eager anticipation, a brilliant white beam lances out from the flying ornament and strikes Miharu directly in the center of his forehead.
Thobari, looking grim, folds his fingers in a jutsu...
and in one swoop restores everyone’s memories
of that fateful night ten years ago (Engetsu-rin is apparently so powerful that even those who weren't there
'remember' as well).
Miharu, still crackling with green hijutsu fire, finds himself seemingly floating over the forest of
Thobari's flashbacks [we've seen them before, of course, but he hasn't]. --Kumohira-sensei and me, he thinks,
looking down as five people flee through the woods--Miharu's mother and father Asahi and Akatsuki,
Thobari carrying tiny Miharu on his back,
and Thobari's grandfather, Black Durandal. He and we watch as Durandal says he'll stay behind to defend Akatsuki,
hands Thobari a scroll and tells him to go ahead with Asahi and the boy. The pursuing Kairoushuu--led by a younger Hattori--
take Akatsuki and Durandal's lives; while Thobari rushes back to their defense too late, the Ash Wolves
gravely wound Asahi and Miharu. Asahi, we learn, was then the holder of the shinrabanshou; she uses its power
to fight off the Kairoushuu, then, mortally wounded, heals Miharu and falls.
Thobari returns in time to see the hijutsu streaming away across the ground in spidery black lines of power. Fearing that
it's taking her life with it, he attempts to use a
technique that was being developed by his grandfather [I'm guessing it's what the scroll contains?], hoping to
separate the shinrabanshou from her. Instead, it causes the hijitsu to manifest and transfer itself to Miharu
in a tremendous lightning blast. As the boy screams in panic, Asahi raises herself and with her last strength
insists that Miharu mustn't remember what's happened here. Wasurete subete, forget everything, she says--and as we know, everyone forgets,
including onlookers Kouichi, kitty-Shijima, and Kotarou, as small Miharu spontaneously uses the
shinrabanshou to wipe every memory within perceptible range, including his own. ==We see Thobari and little Miharu running through the trees again; the boy
pulls Thobari to a halt and anxiously asks what's happened to Mother and Grandfather, and Thobari stares at him, says
"you really don't know?" What?--asks the boy, completely bewildered, and Thobari, realizing what's happened,
kneels and hugs him, eyes closed in sorrow.
Back in the present, Miharu comes back to himself and falls to his knees,
but though the green fire fades out the lines of black text remain on his skin, shivering in place.
==Kotarou is delighted to finally learn the secret behind
all the kinjutsu; Shigure and Hyou are dizzy and baffled by the sudden flood of memories that weren't their own.
Yae, still running toward the scene, correctly guesses that this is the effect of Banten's kinjutsu, Engetsu-rin.
Hattori and Ichiki are overjoyed (actually laughing!) at the return of their long-lost memories.-- Gathering
himself a bit, Miharu asks Kumohira-sensei why he hid all this from him,
and why he’s telling him now. Now apparently in control of the shinrabanshou, he uses its power to
to find out (verry trippy--the backgrounds split apart and turn into starscapes, undersea scenes, fields of fire--
suggesting that all time and reality are just turning pages to the hijutsu) and peels Thobari's memory open like an
orange, easily learning that sensei wanted to keep his past hidden so that he would never desire knowledge of
the shinrabanshou's powers. The Fairy reaffrims this, but says that Miharu wants her powers now.
Hattori then takes the opportunity to thank Kumohira for
triggering the shinrabanshou's complete awakening, saying that without it, neither he nor the Kairoushuu
had been able to recover his Tensha jutsu: a lost hijutsu, a technique that Kumohira’s grandfather,
Black Durandal, developed but never completed.
With his memory restored, Hattori says he's recovered this forbidden "transcribing" technique
and intends to extract the shinrabanshou from Miharu with it,
taking the hijutsu for himself. Hearing this, Thobari shouts at him--I'm betting this is the same technique that he himself
used unsuccessfully on the night of Asahi's death, and that he's trying to tell the Ash Wolf boss that it won't work.
Hattori brushes this off; Kumohira then attacks him, but is easily eluded and brought down. As the leader steps forward,
though, a bright bolt stops him--a Kira blast.
Yoite, literally dragging himself from the wreckage, is prepared to give all he has left to protect Miharu.
Hattori mocks him, saying he can't do very much with his slight remaining Kira power, and asks what he hopes to accomplish by opposing Hattori now.
He reminds Yoite that it was he who saved his life after he tried to commit suicide by stepping off the roof, how even his own father wished that he'd died,
and orders him to lower his hand. The memory is more than Yoite can bear, and with a howl he lunges to his feet and drives the heel of his hand into Hattori's
chest, firing a desperate, point-blank Kira blast directly into his body. Hattori chokes, staggers and falls headlong to the ground. Hattori-han!--cries Ichiki in terror.
As a pool of blood spreads around Hattori's body, Yoite clutches his head and screams in wild agony.
[Questions:
...go on to next episode [we'll get it somehow! we swear!]
...go back to Episode Guide mainpage.
listen to Spider-Man honor the responsibilities
that come with holding such power.
Miharu wonders in anguish if this really would all have been avoided
if he'd just openly wanted the
shinrabanshou’s powers from the start. Sensing this, the
shinrabanshou awakens; lines of black letters begin to race along Miharu's skin, accompanied by flickers of green light.
Hattori smiles in anticipation while Yoite and Yukimi stare in horror. Suddenly Miharu's body jolts violently and the
shinrabanshou burts into full manifestation; a tremendous column of light, fire and lines of black text blasts through the ceiling and
into the sky to meet the swirl of dark clouds above, while debris rains down on those in the room. Kouichi arrives, sees the chaotic conditions
and rushes into the room to retrieve the unconscious Gau, calling out to Raimei (who's regained consciousness) as he does.
She screams Raikou's name and tries to run to his body, but the floor bursts apart blocking her way; She cries out to Miharu to stop as
Kouichi tries to get her out safely. Ichiki nearly falls through the floor but is caught by Hattori and they manage to escape, and stand in the forest outside as
the column of light continues to blaze up to the heavens;
Ichiki remarks calmly that things are all going according to plan and Hattori agrees. On the other side of the clearing Kouichi sets Gau down while Raimei stares forlornly at the demolished building.
Miharu, nande? ("Why?") she asks...
And we see Miharu as we first met him: at his family's funeral, attending school, passing Thobari in the corridor like a stranger, an impassive kid with still eyes.
(1) why does Kouichi look so young in the flashback when he was already at least a century old at the time?
(2) And for that matter, Yoite doesn't look young enough in the flashback when Hattori finds him in the street; haven't we already seen
that he was a little boy when the Kairoushuu took him in, and didn't change until he'd begun to study the Kira scroll?
(3) How did Thobari keep his memories? it's even more confusing now. If he'd already been wearing the Engetsu-rin earcuff I'd
guess its power to restore memories helped him keep his, but he doesn't seem to be.
(4) In the scene which opens the series--and is repeated several times--the Kairoushuu are still chasing Thobari and
Miharu when they're the only ones left standing, though that's after Miha-chan has wiped everyone's memories.
We already know that Miharu could manifest the shinrabanshou without knowing what it was, but why are the Ash Wolves there?
And if they're chasing Miharu after having lost their original memories of who they were after, why did they go home and
forget about him for ten years? Is this sloppy plotting or did I just miss something?
(5) Best of all--the bloggers quote Hattori as telling Yoite that if he doesn't drop his attack
"the samurai will hate you". (I can vouch that he definitely says "samurai".) Now, as there's only one samurai in this story with an
interest in Hattori's safety, and it was Hattori himself who seemingly sent him to his ancestors last time, does he know something we don't?
Could it be that Raikou's not dead and we'll see him claw his way up from the basement next episode? *x'es fingers*