Impression
First of all, it seems like “forgiveness” really is the answer to that question – while it’ll certainly be a recurring concept throughout the show, I wonder if that’s what the titular “riddle” is. Although in turn, that would make the dice bastard the “devil”, and somehow I just can’t see him playing too big a role in this – even though he definitely knows more than he’s letting on to Tokaku, he seems more like an overseer or a supervisor rather than the mastermind behind it all. Though who knows? I’m sure this show’s got many twists and revelations left to surprise us with.
I’m sure one of those twists involves Haru, and Omoikane’s comments last week on Haru being a trained assassin herself are starting to seem plausible. What she revealed to Tokaku this week was probably just the tip of the iceberg – and there’s already something ominous in the fact that she’s resistant to drugs. Up until now, I was willing to assume that the many scars littered throughout her body were just due to attempts on her life… but I’m not so sure any more. Perhaps the most worrying thing right now is that we currently have two different versions of how Haru’s family died. According to Haru herself, they died trying to protect her from whoever’s after her life (apparently there are lots of people) and her desire to graduate and keep a smile on is to honour their memories and what they died for. But Nio made it sound like Haru killed them herself in cold blood – no, that’s exactly what she said. It didn’t seem like she was lying, either. I do still want to believe in the happy, innocent Haru, though – I don’t want her to be faking it at all. But the only way she would be both genuinely bubbly and genuinely bloodthirsty… would be if she had a split personality, wouldn’t it?
More new assassin classmates turned up, and yet the only two I can remember apart from Tokaku are Nio and Inukai Isuke. Isuke must really want a wish if she was willing to jump the gun even while everyone else were still acting like students – I’m actually surprised she drugged that tea, though I suppose it’s just like Haru to drink it without any hesitation. To be honest, it’s the sort of thing you don’t really expect just because it’s so clichéd – and because Isuke could have killed her in a hundred other imaginative ways. I’m not sure why she had to try to fill up the bath with hot water and stick her in there – couldn’t she just have slit her throat right there? Or do the assassins have to make it look like it was some sort of accident?
At least we know that this whole thing is somewhat institutionalized. It seems like the assassins can’t get any outsiders involved, and if they fail to succeed they’ll have to drop out. I’m surprised they have procedures for everything – they even have to tell Haru before they try to kill her, meaning they can’t just jump her at random like I expected them to. And from what I could tell (correct me if I’m wrong) it seems like each of them only has one shot at it, which will now make Tokaku’s job a bit easier. While her exact motives for wanting to protect Haru are a bit dubious at this point (can we just chalk it down to yuri love?) it’s nice to know that Tokaku’s not interested in killing her any more. I just hope she doesn’t backstab her at the end.
Finally, I wonder what other limitations the assassins have – especially whether they’re allowed to kill Tokaku or not now that she’s defected. Isuke could have done so, and yet she walked away. And in return, is Tokaku allowed to kill them – or rather, is she even capable of killing them?
Isuke doesn’t slit throats. After the last episode I ended up looking up the manga, and there’s a fairly significant amount of her backstory that was omitted from this episode explaining some of her behavior, motivations, and the origin of her name.
As for the assassin’s rules, people seem to be having difficulty understanding this. What they have is a card that once they have delivered it to Haru, they have 48 hours in which to kill her. They can make as many attempts within that 48 hours as they want, in as many ways as they want, so long as it doesn’t end up inolving someone who isn’t a member of the black class. Once those 48 hours are over, if they have not succeeded in killing Haru, they do not get another card. That card is their “one chance.” They will immediately be expelled and removed from the school at that point.
As for Haru, as far as I can tell she is genuine. The manga thus far hasn’t revealed everything about her (in fact it hasn’t revealed much more than you’ve seen thus far), but she has never broken character. She is resistant to pain and drugs simply because the many many many times she has been hurt, nearly killed, hospitalized, etc. have caused her to build up resistances to those things. And she has chosen to live her life being happy, despite everything that happens to her. She doesn’t deny the bad things, but she refuses to let them destroy who she chooses to be. If that is an act, it is one I’ve been unable to spot any holes in through 19 chapters of the manga.
PS: I personally wouldn’t trust Nio as far as I could throw her. I am by no means going to take her word for what Haru may or may not have done.
I see… 48 hours seems like a huge window of opportunity, especially if they can try as many times as they want within that time frame. If that card is what grants them “permission” to target Haru, then the fact that Tokaku’s torn hers up means she really has defected for good, and can’t actually kill her (unless she doesn’t want a wish I suppose).
As painfully tragic as it is for Haru to have built up resistances in that sort of way, it does beg the question of why she’s still alive. If people have carried out countless attempts on her life to the point she’s resistant to pain, it’s a miracle she isn’t dead yet. Reminds me of Fidel Castro!
Nio seems like she’s done some research on all of her classmates, which makes me think it’s not just a baseless claim. She started mentioning something about the pocky girl’s family too, which clearly struck a nerve.
Oh I’m sure Nio knows a great deal. She has the same “scent” as the other assassins, and she works for that school as the interface between it’s headmaster and the rest of the black class. Just judging from the amount of knowledge she has, the way she acts, and the fact that she doesn’t seem particularly skilled in physical combat, I’d say she specializes in information management. But she’s still an assassin, or she wouldn’t have that scent. I’d say what most likely is that she manipulates information to get people killed. She knew Sagae Haruki’s weak point was her family, so she used the fact that Haru’s family is all dead and presented it in a way to make Haru a more appealing target for Haruki.
That’s my judgement on it, anyway. It’s not like they take the time to spell all this out anywhere, so I’m interpreting from things I’ve seen about the characters, but I think it adds up.