| Doujima and Miho are following a Witch, Muroi, down dark alleyways. All of a sudden he uses his powers, and as the two women flinch, he disappears. Miho reports that they've lost the target. Muroi jumps up an entire building and lands on the roof, where he finds a medieval French fop, curly mustache and long curly hair and big hat and all. Muroi attacks, but the fop doesn't even flinch at the powers used on him, or uncross his legs. The fop opens his eyes, and his powers slice Muroi in half. The fop - who is wearing high-heeled boots and a floppy cravat - bends down and places an origami crane in the dead man's hand. In Nagira's office, someone is moving around in the dark with a flashlight. Robin herself is out at the well talking to Michael, fishing for reassurance that Amon's not dead. Michael says that there's a bloodstain where he was taken away, but Karasuma and everyone said that his wounds wouldn't be life-threatening. Robin senses through the Force that Amon MUST BE ALIVE, SHE FEELS IT, and Michael humors the crazy woman. Michael also tells Robin that he heard that HQ was sending a Hunter here. Robin asks if it's a replacement, and Michael isn't so sure about that. Michael wonders if they're being fed the information, and asks Robin if she knows a Hunter named "Sastre." Robin freaks. On the roof, the police are investigating Muroi's body as Karasuma and Doujima watch. Apparently there was nothing suspicious on the body, but they can't get Michael on the phone. Miho says they have to let FACTORY know so they can confiscate the body before it's autopsied. Doujima refuses to do it, and Miho says nobody asked her to. Robin wheels her bike home, brooding. The next day, Nagira is at the pachinko parlor, gathering info as usual. His informant hands him a piece of paper with Robin's name on it, asking if he knows her. Nagira denies it, but buys the information. Apparently a paper crane was found in a dead man's hand, and the crane had this name written on it. Robin sits in her room, thinking of Sastre (he's still the Fop to me, sorry) and wondering if he's come to hunt her. Zaizen talks to his Research Gimp, who's reporting that Orbo has massive adverse side effects on humans, and the efficiency of humans was 30% below that of Hunters. Zaizen's not pleased to hear this news, and scowls that they stillneed to use Hunters. In STN-J HQ, Haruto's actually wandering around without his cast and crutches - he's almost completely better. Miho and Doujima are both out checking out last night's case, and Hattori and Kosaka are AWOL yet again. Nagira returns to his office and asks Hanamura where Robin is. She replies that she hasn't seen Robin, and yells at Nagira to do some work for once instead of following Robin around like a dog in heat. Nagira looks abused, and goes up to talk to Robin. He reports about the paper crane, and Robin concludes that it is Sastre - those are his methods of Hunting Witches. Nagira promises to look into the case some more. The next day there's another murdered Witch with an origami crane. Nagira keeps looking for information, and Robin huddles in a small ball rocking back and forth. She concludes that the only way to fight Sastre is to use the ultimate technique, so she sneaks out of her room in the middle of the night. Nagira is sitting in the dark in front of the safe. He asks her if she was after the ultimate technique to fight Sastre. He'd thought of that too, but turns out the safe's been robbed. I'm telling all y'all, it's a sabotage! Nagira seems to know who probably stole the Piece of Wisdom, though. The Fop's cornered some punk in an alleyway, and scares the crap out of him until he spills his guts about the Piece of Wisdom's whereabouts. Nagira does his own investigation, and Robin hides in her room. The punk that Sastre had cornered is now an ex-punk with another origami crane. Haruto and Miho watch the goings-on, and wonder when STN-J can step in. Nagira corners a old man in Walled City and yells at him for selling the information about the Piece of Wisdom. He finds out that the man sold the information about the artifact to a man called Chisai, and calls Robin to join him. Chisai is in the slums with some of his goons, waving the Piece of Wisdom now. He runs into the Fop, who is folding himself a nice origami crane. Man, he has long pretty eyelashes. Nagira and Robin come to the place where Chisai is rumored to be, and it's empty. Nagira locates Chisai's body behind a couch, and turns around to see Sastre in all his foptastic glory. Sastre's holding the Piece of Wisdom, and then he burns it in front of Robin's eyes. Robin freezes, and Nagira stands in front of her and fires at Sastre when she doesn't run. Sastre blasts Nagira aside with his powers (he seems vaguely surprised that Nagira's injured but not dead...I wonder...) and Robin, terrified, starts to fight with Sastre. She's not doing too well because she's so scared of Sastre. Nagira gets up and fires at Sastre, and Robin is moved to fight harder to keep Sastre from killing Nagira. Miho uses her Magic Hands to detect the fight, and she and Haruto run to the scene. Robin's fighting, and suddenly her fire blows the Fop's hat off! Well, obviously the Fop isn't going to stand for the mussing of his clothes, so he attacks. But for some reason, Robin can now work in Matrix-like Bullet-Time, and can see and dodge each attack easily. As Miho and Haruto arrives, she blows Sastre away, realizing that the little piece of wood wasn't the ultimate technique; the ability to control the elements was inside her all along. She faints, and Haruto and Miho are about to go to her when Amon steps out of the shadows and tells them not to touch her; she's a Witch. His cryptic statement of the episode delivered, he leaves, and Nagira looks between Amon and Robin. "Three hundred and twenty years have passed since the coven sank in the dark. A hunter who waits for his prey. The footprints. Endless darkness. The child of darkness still wishes to see tomorrow." [previous] [next] |