Impression
Sadly, we didn’t actually learn too much this episode. Kuro’s decided to be incredibly cryptic, and it almost feels like she’s giving more away through her actions than her words – that is to say, not much at all. I’m pretty sure some of what she’s done has just been to wind Ilya up, although there’s also been purposeful, meaningful stuff – I don’t think I’d be able to clearly identify which is which as of now. Sometimes Kuro even ticks both those boxes, like when she went on that glorious kissing spree in Ilya’s school – while her kiss with Mimi wasn’t as hot as the one she had with Miyu, I’m glad they once again didn’t cop out of showing us that scene. I must admit that my yuri goggles have blinded me to reality a bit – given that I’m familiar with the Nasuverse, I really should have known that those kisses amounted to a mana transfer between the “victim” and Kuro. Within the Nasuverse, mana is transferred between people through any sort of sexual interaction, presumably with increasing intimacy translating to greater amounts of mana. That’s why Kuro used so much tongue. Dammit, I hate it when there’s a rational explanation for things like this. It originated as a cheap method of implementing H-scenes within Nasuverse visual novels, but I think it’s great that it’s been exploited to the max here. A full-blown yuri kiss scene is pretty much the best possible outcome – although anything is better than that stupid mana transfer dragon.
While that’s the explanation behind Kuro’s actions, it doesn’t explain why she’s going around storing up mana. You’d think she’d be overflowing with it given that Ilya’s reserves were drained as a result of Kuro’s appearance – maybe there wasn’t a transfer between them? Kuro certainly isn’t trying to suck face with Ilya. Her goal is unknown too – what does she need all of it for? What’s she ultimately trying to do? Other than to kill the original Ilya that is – somehow I’m getting the feeling that Rin’s little deterrent is only a minor setback for her in the grand scheme of things, although it was admittedly a pretty smart move to take. Kuro knows full well what sort of entity she is, she’s just not spoiling it. Instead, she’s finding all sorts of novelty methods of shaking up Ilya’s everyday life, transferring into her school and mounting an attack on the ever-dorky Shirou – although I’m not too happy about the fact that Ilya seems genuinely concerned that someone will steal onii-chan from her. Screw Shirou! It’s all about the Miyu route! Kuro’s free to have Shirou if she wants 😀
Finally, the revelation that Miyu has her own onii-chan even further embeds in stone the notion that she’s the Grail vessel for whatever parallel world Kaleidoscope brought her from – presumably her old life had her living in conditions very similar to Ilya’s current situation. She’s gone pretty quiet again, which I suppose is meant to imply that she was heavily reminded of just how far she is from her own world. I’m not sure if this will escalate into something bigger, or is just supposed to be a bit of food for thought, but it’ll take a back seat for now as Kuro continues integrating herself into Ilya’s life. Somehow as her cousin.
It seems odd on the surface that Kuro would be taking prana, but… her situation right now is similar to being a Servant without a Master. Sure, she got an indescribable amount of it when she appeared, but she also USES a huge amount doing things like tracing broken phantasms in battle, and she can’t replenish it on her own. She also requires it simply to exist. No matter how much she started with, eventually she’ll run out, and that will be… bad.
On another topic, take note of how she got angry when Illya was ranting at her about destroying Illya’s normal life. There’s something important there.
Miyu, Miyu… there’s so much left to learn about Miyu. Her story is part of the overall storyarc that ties all three Prisma Illya manga series together, and is thus one of the longest plots in the entire series.
You mentioned Kuro hasn’t exactly had a great life up until now – might it be that she thinks Ilya’s been taking her relatively happier life for granted? It feels like, in Kuro’s eyes, all this turbulence is still paradise compared to what she’s been through.
Kuro doesn’t get genuinely angry all that often. When she does, it’s worth noting what caused it, because that’s probably a clue to a great many things about her.
Not going into any more depth on that subject. It’s too easy a thing to spoil.