Mind control as a power is almost entirely too powerful. This episode displays that as Kaname shows his true colors to Nijimin, dropping any pre-tense of his act in front of her because he is in control of the power now. He throws her a rope and goes to tell her to kill herself, which honestly, doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. He really could of used her to get at Aya and the other girls and he’s just going to waste that by having her end her life? Well, Asahi is sent by Kiyoharu in an attempt to save Nijimin, and she does get a good blow or two in on Kaname before Nijimin takes the rope that was thrown to her and ties it around Asahi’s neck.
Kaname overwrites Kiyo’s magic and sends Aashi to go kill Kiyo. Which she immediately does and god I was so scared. I really love Kiyo and I was really hoping that she would live to see the end game whatever it may be. Luckily, the one blow did not kill her and she is brought to Kosame so her healing stick can be used. Aya, feeling guilt for not speaking up about her brother grabs the stick and begins cutting herself to provide enough blood to help heal Kiyo. They bring Kiyo back from the edge of death, right in time for Kaname to show up where they are staying.
He orders the girls to sit, and goes to get some of that healing for himself since he was injured by Asahi’s earlier attack. He brings in Nijimin as well, he orders her to go collect everyone’s magic sticks. As she goes to take Kiyo’s from her, Kiyo breaks the mind control and talks to Nijimin. She tries to assure her that she’s the only one who can get them out of this situation. That she needs to sit, wait and pretend to still be under his control while finding a good time to get in and kill him.
Unfortunately, Nijimin’s temper and tendency for rashness makes her completely ignore this. She reels on Kaname and goes to attack him, startled, he uses the magic stick he was holding. Ringa’s sword and slashes her right through. In a last moment of desperation, with the last bit of her life. She takes a glass bottle from the ground, the milk that Kosame had been drinking earlier in the episode and shatters it into a make-shift weapon.
She shoves it in his throat and then falls down.
Kaname goes to reach for the healing stick again, when someone invisible stops him. Is it another magical girl? A site admin? Who knows, all we know is that this invisible person puts down a smoke bomb and by the time everything is cleared. Kaname is gone and the girls over over and mourn Nijimin.
The rest of the episode is dedicated to Nijimin’s backstory. As a child, she wanted to be someone who could make everyone smile. She loved being in front of crowds and seeing the smiles of the people around her. She wanted to become an idol, so everyone could smile.
One day, when she was well set on her way to achieving her dream. She comes home to find her father had hung himself, unable to pay the debt that he owed to the Yakuza. She obtained her magic stick and altered her families memory of what had happened with her father. Probably so they could smile and then continued on her dream to become an idol.
She managed it, her dream. Their smiles. So, she dies without any regrets in her life.
Nijimin’s tale I feel is a cautionary one of being drawn in by the wrong type of person and being manipulated. I feel honestly pretty bad for her, while you might argue she brought this on herself by letting herself be brought in by Kaname. Shame on you, that’s victim blaming and you should feel bad. He was already a master at tricking the people around him into thinking that he was a much better person then he really was. I am very sad that she died in this way.
I was really hoping to see her fight against the site admins along with everyone else after releasing her mistake with Kaname and getting her stick back.
If nothing else, this fuels my desire to see Kaname meet a horrible fate. Now I can only wonder, who or what was the invisible presence that helped the magical girls? We’ll see I suppose.