| At a crime scene, Karasuma is trying to read what the hell happened, using her powers. (It looks like an ATM has been trashed; I'd go with frustrated men with baseball bats for $100, Alex.) She gets a sense of the machine being destroyed by a crushing electrical surge and some kind of immense power, but then she gets cut off and thinks to herself that her powers really are getting weaker. The usual boring briefing meeting in the STN-J discotheque - what ARE all those colorful lights for, anyways? Apparently it was Muramatsu Keiko, age 23, who had been hitting up all the ATMs. Michael Lee gleefully lets them all know that it'll take 30 years to hunt down all the Witches in the database at this rate, which makes Hattori fear that his entire life will be spent paying loans and hunting Witches. Haruto says that they'll be more efficient if he returns to Hunting, and politely nobody looks at his cast and cane and laughs in his face. Michael says that REALISTICALLY they have to find a way to deal with the fact that Tall Dark and Angsty and his little Victorian cookie are out of the picture. Everyone looks worried, and Karasuma gives Doujima the evil eye until she squirms. Nagira's sending Robin out on another errand, with his assistant keeping a firm grip on his collar to make sure that he doesn't run out to a pachinko parlor. Apparently Robin's supposed to ask for some soba (a kind of buckwheat noodle dish; it's bland but pretty good if you're hungry) at this place. Robin bikes off to the sweet music of Nagira being scolded by his assistant. In the basement of STN-J, Karasuma and Doujima discuss whether to ask for Robin's help on Hunts, since they're so short-handed. Karasuma doesn't seem too thrilled, but Karasuma reasonably points out that at this rate, they're going to get killed, and Karasuma isn't happy being forced into Amon's leadership position. Plus, Haruto's a hot-headed tard who's not likely to obey orders anyway. Karasuma doesn't want to endanger Robin by bringing her out into the open like that, but Doujima thinks that the people who attacked STN-J were actually after Orbo, not Robin. Karasuma isn't as sure as Doujima is, and says that if those people were really Robin, they might be forced to Hunt her. Doujima wheels her little moped past the restauraunt she saw Robin in front of last time, and sighs that her luck would just be TOO good if she managed to catch Robin twice in the same place. She sees Robin in the backseat of a car that's passing, but she can't follow them because her moped is a piece of shit. Apparently Nagira sent Robin out to babysit the small girl who peeked at her in the previous episode. The ATM-robbing witch is window-shopping for expensive clothing, followed by Karasuma, who's not very subtle. Robin and that little girl eat takoyaki at a playground. Takoyaki, as you may know, are octopus dumplings of a sort, so when the little girl pulls out a big chunk of octopus, Robin tells her that in some places, they're called "devil fish." Who the hell taught this girl how to entertain children, anyways? She sounds like my grade-school librarian who threatened to string children up by their toenails in her personal dungeon for overdue books. The little kid happily eats the "bad devil," saying that it tastes good, and this neatly and all-too-conveniently segues into the girl asking if bad people were also called devils, and how her papa was taken away by these human devils. Turns out that the little girl and her mom had to move to avoid being Hunted. Then Robin watches the little girl make a suspiciously perfect mudball, and as the girl's playing, she sees the sand in the sandbox moving and forming symbols. She grabs and shakes the little girl, making her drop the mudball, and predictably, there's crying. But all Robin can think of is the latent Craft she'd seen, and that she would have been forced to Hunt the girl. Now the little girl wants to go HOME, and Doujima shows up in time to keep Robin from scarring the poor kid for life. Doujima seems to understand little kids better than Robin, and she sends the little girl off to play on the slides. The girl, Minori, has been babbling that she gets to change her last name from now on, so Doujima puts two and two together, much to Robin's discomfort. Robin and Doujima argue a little over whether Doujima should be there, and Doujima asks her for her help again. Robin keeps refusing, despite Doujima's assurances that she probably wouldn't be targeted again by SOLOMON. This useless argument goes back and forth for a while while Minori sleeps. As Hattori and Kosaka leave, Karasuma calls Michael and tells her that she's following the target alone, despite Michael's pleas for her to wait for backup. Robin and Doujima are still arguing, and Robin tries to claim that she can't go because Minori is there. But Minori's ride shows up, shooting that excuse down. Karasuma is chasing the STM robber, who has some telekinetic powers. She runs out of Orbo, and gets clotheslined by garbage cans and flowerpots. Before she can dump an A/C unit on Karasuma, it bursts into flames; she and Doujima showed up just in time on the moped. Robin reminds Doujima that the capture is HER damn job, and Robin provides backup while Doujima fills the target full of Orbo. Karasuma is happy to see that Robin's safe, and Doujima tries to use this as another argument for Robin joining them. But Karasuma says that Robin should get the hell out of there before Factory shows up - and how the hell did she get her hair back up into handlebars on the way? Robin asks them to take care of her partner and wanders off. Back at the Nagira Law Office, he slurps down instant soba, telling her that it's customary to eat soba when you move. He's not going to ask questions, but he's not going to clean up after her. Robin asks Nagira if Minori was a Seed, and if Nagira's running anti-STN-J activities and protecting Witches. Nagira says casually that he just doesn't like it when people's rights are infringed, but Robin gets back to her favorite topic and asks if this doesn't make Amon his enemy. Nagira chooses this moment to light a cigarette, and says, "Could be." He can't get rid of his association with Amon; he lived with Amon for three months when they were kids. This probably makes Robin have all sorts of sappy mental images of Amon as a brooding 8-year-old. That night, she sits on her bed and thinks of Amon while staring at the moon, and on god, make it stop. "Three hundred and twenty years have passed since the coven sank in the dark. The fragment for three centuries. Stalking nightmares. A letter from back of the memories. An immortal phantom drives habitants of darkness to the feast of lost." [previous] [next] |