Episode nine came at me with a bat labeled ’emotions’ and started beating me down violently from the moment the episode began.
It was established at the end of episode eight that a major player in the terrorist bombings of nine years ago would be being transferred back to Japan to testify at Warlock’s trial. That attack personally touched three members of the special 7 team.
First is obviously Nanatsuki.
We actually get a lot of back story here, also some insight into why he may have the powers that he does. The question is, why does the boss know about them? What’s his connection to Nine? I’m getting off-topic, back to Nanatsuki. He was at first grouped in with a large number of hostages but when Warlock asks for a young/energetic person another boy starts to get taken away. He steps in and offers himself instead. This gives us our first look into what kind of person he was before his life was touched by Luka.
Obviously Nanatsuki was already raised with a strong sense of justice and being saved that day and hearing the words that Luka said to him only reinforced that ideal in him. So he is dragged off and presented to Warlock, he can’t remember much but he does remember the pain and something else. However, he blacked out and then was saved by Luka. I can only assume that Seiji was given some dragon blood, the same way that Luka was later when Warlock kept him alive. That might explain some of the powers he’s shown throughout the series so far if he has dragon blood coursing through his veins.
The second one affected by this attack is Nijo. He was present there that day, waiting to be picked up by his brother and his brothers’ partner Ichinose. The explosion went off some ways away from him, he only got off with minor injuries but what he lost that day was more important to him than any level of injury he could have sustained.
He lost his brother, his idol. Even if he isn’t physically dead as he now knows. He’s not the same person that Nijo used to know, so essentially. He died that day. Everything he’s done from that day though, changing his surname and working for Special 7 has been to get revenge and plant a bullet in the brain of the person who killed his brother and now he’s assigned to his guard duty.
God, I honestly thought Ichinose was a lot more in the loop then he is. The series paints him as a sort of psychological genius, but it seems like he’s the worst at reading the people close to him.
All of this build-up and backstory all come together as members of Nine begin attacking the man there to testify. Nanatsuki on his honor as an officer swears to protect this man because that’s the kind of justice the man who saved him sought and the kind he seeks as well.
Nijo actively tries to kill this man, he points a gun at him and Ichinose walks into this scene. Discovering that Nijo is his former partners’ brother, it hurts him. You can TELL it hurts him, you can see how hurt he is as he pulls his own gun out on Nijo and says that the Luka Mizuma that he remembered.
Would want him to stop this. A disturbance from a truck being stopped from ramming into the building ends this confrontation and they resume transportation of the prisoner.
At first, he was supposed to be brought to the station but the location is changed last second to a hotel. Which, I found immensely sketchy from the moment the words left Belle’s mouth. Why would they suddenly want him brought to a less secure location? Security concerns my ass. I suspect there may be some Nine connections and corruption in the police. Well, either way, be it corruption from the inside or just an infiltration job. Brainwashed Luka Mizuma takes down an officer and poses as them, leading the man, Ichinose, and Nanatsuki into the room.
As they arrive there, the bomb goes off.
Ichinose SAW him, but did he recognize him? Does he know now that his old partner is alive? I couldn’t tell if it registered to him who he was looking at before the explosion went off. Luckily, Ichinose and Nanatsuki aren’t too injured but the witness is dying. Nanatsuki is having a breakdown because he couldn’t protect him, the witness goes to give him something with his dying breath and it’s an eye, probably artificial? Interesting, i wonder how that will come up later.
Well, if Ichinose noticed Luka or not. Nijo did, he runs after him and confronts him. This hurts, so much. He can’t see this monster as his brother anymore and has his gun drawn on him. I was sitting here hoping this wouldn’t be the end of the episode, as it cut to another perspective I had hope that Luka would say something or that the episode would continue. However, instead, we hear the sound of a gunshot and the screen goes black and into the ending credits. I made a sound that sounded something like this “FU-” and then tried to build a time machine to next week.
This cliff hanger killed me! This entire episode killed me. This whole thing was pain from start to finish and i’m not okay with that!
This was certainly the best episode of the series so far and it leaves open a lot of questions and answers a few things. We’ll just have to see where things go from here, but please, let’s have episode 10 not emotionally assault me.