As the girls continue their journey to bring Spring back, Sakura had decided it’d be best for them to stay with the Agent of Summer (Rumi) during their time on Iyo. It’s the first time Hinagiku has met her, though the prospects of befriending Rumi as Sakura had suggested along the way got side-railed when they arrive only to hear that Rumi’s not feeling well, so she can’t come to greet them.
However Hinagiku does get to meet her eventually, as the Rumi’s power of Summer allows her able to communicate with and control animals. So she used this to lead Hinagiku to her room where they briefly met and spoke. But rather than a two-way conversation, it was more so of Rumi venting her frustrations with her sister Ayame, who presently serves as her guard. She felt like she wasn’t really caring how she feels, considering she didn’t even let her know in advance that Hinagiku was coming, nor even announced her arrival.
But the root of this venting spree comes from the fact Rumi’s upset that her sister is getting married. As soon as she marries she’s expected to resign. For Ruri, having Ayame be her guard was the last link they’ve been able to salvage when she had been chosen. In the village of Summer, when the Agent of Summer’s family only raises them through childhood. Once they come of age, it’s their future spouse who takes over supporting them, and at the same time, serves as their new guard.
Fortunately Ruri likes her fiance, (though it’s uncertain whether the feelings are mutual or not at this time– hopefully for her sake, they are). But still, the one she trusts the most is her sister, and she’s been her pillar of emotional support. As Sakura puts it, perhaps she’s the miracle that’s needed to help keep the season turning because Agents manifest the seasons with their hearts. That’s why she can’t bear to lose her.
The talk about romance did shed some interesting light on how things work for Agents and Guards alike. It also paints a picture as to why Guards like Sakura (and potentially even Itecho) would rather keep their feelings to themselves than to pursue romance. Although the system’s rules are not necessarily the same for each Season’s village, this might be the sort of rule that they all share. However while we were able to learn a bit of the limitations for the Guards, we don’t know yet for certain how it works each for all the villages when it comes to the Agent of Season’s marriage arrangements. The reason why I bring this up is because it does make me wonder if there’s any rules that forbid any of the Agents of Seasons from marrying each other. But considering how on the ball the series has been so far, we might not need to wait too long to get answers for that, or if we do have to wait, we’ll likely get some clarity on the matter eventually.
Speaking of of how quickly plot points are being brought up and then answered. I was pleased to see we got some more depths and answer as to why the Village of Spring were the first to call of the search for Hinagiku this week! To probably nobody’s surprise (because I sure wasn’t): They were really waiting for Hinagiku to be killed off. Why waste time, energy and resources if they were willing to sacrifice Hinagiku and simply wait for another? Ironically, this selfish and utterly horrific decision came back to bite them, because the exact opposite happened. Hinagiku was alive but still missing.
What this does go show though, is by keeping the the Agents of Seasons alive, gives the Insurgents far greater leverage to work with. Think about it. Until one is certain how to absolutely break the cycle of being chosen by the Gods to be an Agent of Season… Wouldn’t it be far more efficient to simply hold an Agent of Season captive, under their complete control, compared to killing one, only for another to spawn elsewhere, and send them on a wild goose chase again? So it makes a bit more sense why Hinagiku had survived this terrible ordeal. If they wanted to deny the rebirth of the Agent of Spring, that’s exactly what they had to do. Unfortunately for the Agent of Season (in this case, Hinagiku), being kept alive in a situation of being held captive can make them feel they’d be better off dead.
Speaking of which, after enduring the conditions she was held in, when Hinagiku finally returned to the Village of Spring, and learned that they were the first to give up on her– if she were broken, it only broke her further. She locked herself in her room and it took her two years before she resumed her duties. They called her defective because she wouldn’t do want they said, and tried to kill and replace her when they didn’t need her anymore. So naturally she refused to manifest spring and wanted to die already because she felt so unwanted and unloved.
Last week they revealed that the Agents of Seasons are essentially caged birds, and this episode was an extension of that. Ruri, the agent of Summer hates the fact the moment they become the chosen ones, they are completely stripped of their freedoms. They are turned into the living puppets of the Gods, controlled by the Village and Agency. They do not have the right to be among the ordinary, they are expected to always say ‘yes’ to orders, they live their life in isolation of glorified cages. Losing everything they’ve held dear all because they are the ‘Chosen’ to be the next season is less of a blessing and more akin to a curse.
Now bearing all of that in mind, I’m left wondering what the Agency and other villages think about The Village of Spring’s quick withdrawal from the search. I feel like a lot of blame of a decade long winter can be pinned onto them for their blatant negligence because of their refusal to participate in the search. Obviously the more ‘responsible’ approach to this matter would’ve been to keep searching until they knew for certain that she was dead due to a new agent of Spring being born.
Unfortunately things are getting dangerous again. Sakura had thought they’d be safe under the protection with the Agent of Summer, but they already got intruders who appear to be there to kidnap Sakura once more. Powers’ out, Agency failed to submit any heads up of potential threats and are unable to reach them because the communications are down. However, who’s behind this could be anyone for the matter, especially since we now know that the Village of Spring has reasons to kill Hinagiku. The fact tat we now know that they have very real motives to killing her despite the fact she’s back and carrying out her duties again, further explains Sakura is really trying to lay low and off the radar as much as possible.
