Poor Atsushi.
This episode was not kind to him. While the first half is strongly centered around discovering some of Kyoka’s backstory, he still took his share of a physical beating. Then in the second half, he’s forced to see and face something that he isn’t prepared for.
So once again, this episode is split into two halves.
Part a. Lucy, former guild member and now part-time worker at the coffee shop under the Armed Detective Agency passes a mission along to Atsushi and Kyoka. However, she’s not going to make this easy, she sort of has it out for Atsushi for reasons that he can’t exactly figure out. Ultimately her anger boils down that he didn’t come to save her from the Moby Dick like he promised. Which also boils down to she didn’t wait for him to rescue her either, so really, who’s at fault here? Well, in the process of her petty revenge. She nearly drowns him, gets them both naked, and delays the mission for a bit.
Eventually, they find the briefcase that is detailed in the mission and retrieve the papers from it.
The papers are a detailed report about what the real story behind the death of Kyoka’s parents was. They were both Assassins, her father highly trained in combat and her mother the previous master of the ability Demon Snow.
A ability user with a grudge against them comes in to attack them. Their ability, allows them to use mind control via blood. So if the person carrying the ability dies or is injured, the ability can transfer to the next person. It possesses her father first, leaving her mother with no choice but to use Demon Snow to kill him. However, this just transfers the mind control to her. In a last desperate attempt to protect her daughter, Kyoka’s mother transfers her ability to her daughter. However, since there was so little time and the situation was so tense the transfer wasn’t complete and Demon Snow attached to Kyoka’s cellphone instead.
At the end of the day, Kyoka has to face that Demon Snow isn’t a curse that took her parents from her but instead the last testament of her parents love for her and that she’s been wrong in hating it this entire time.
Who left this file for Kyoka though? Well, a certain member of the Port Mafia (Kyoyo Ozaki) left it behind for her to find as something of a gift for starting her new job with the Armed Detective Agency.
Part b.
I don’t really know how to feel about this part. Another mission comes up, it’s supposedly for Ranpo but he has no interest in it. So he sends Atsushi in his place and leaves him with only one bit of advice “If you get stuck, visit a flower shop.” so Atsushi and Tanazaki go to investigate the death of a man that was hit by a truck.
Tanazaki gets an identification on the man from the police and as he shows the picture to Atsushi, Atsushi screams and freaks out. Appropriately so, the dead man is someone that the audience will clearly recognize from Atsushi’s traumatized flashbacks to the orphanage. The headmaster that tormented Atsushi for years.
I am honestly not sure how to handle this entire segment. People change, time and distance can change people.
So the idea that the headmaster was coming to see Atsushi to apologize. That the reason Ranpo told him to check a flower shop was because the headmaster had ordered a thing of flowers to bring to Atsushi. Isn’t too far out there, and I am glad that the show doesn’t allow Atsushi to forgive this man for all of the horrible things he did. Just because he was going to apologize, or just because he is dead.
He flat out abused Atsushi, physically and mentally.
It’s just, strange, it was really just an accident. No supernatural ability, no murder or trickery. A straight up traffic accident, and it killed someone who so severely traumatized one of the main characters. I suppose, that is how life is. Everyone, good and bad is destined to die one day and it won’t always be in a dramatic battle or of old age or sickness. Sometimes it will be something this simple and that’s such an odd thing to face.
Another episode of calm, if these parts could be considered calm. I suppose in their own way, they are chaotic. However, a storm is still brewing in the background and these days of small chaos are on their way to an end.