This week’s episode starts out where last week’s left off, with the Sensei arriving at the village. She sees Aki being ganged up on by 4 guys, one of whom is a Seki named Atsushi. He attacks Aki with Kuramitsuha (which used to be and is currently Aki’s), but the attack is blocked by Kukuri, who is controlled by Kyouhei at this time. Kyouhei introduces the woman as Senou Chihaya, and she begins to lecture Aki, who just ignores her. She ends up taking over for a sick teacher at the local school, but she has no prior exposure to Kakashi (sorry for the term change…this is the Doll) or Seki. Kyouhei later sees Aki, who has been forced to care for a dog by Chihaya, and Aki finds himself strangely unable to disobey her. The Seki from earlier returns to try to ask Chihaya out, but she adamantly refuses and asks him to leave. She is later scolded for raising her hand to a son of the Kuga, which angers Kyouhei. Kyouhei vows to protect her, but she refuses his help. She later runs into Aki, who compares himself to her a bit, in that they both rejected in the village. The next day, someone writes on the chalkboard that Chihaya committed adultery, which causes her to run away from the school, but returns after running into Aki again. Kyouhei chases after her, and ends up talking with Aki about her. Chihaya’s reputation continues to deteriorate and she is once again approached by Atsushi, but Aki appears to protect her. She reveals to Aki that the writing on the chalkboard was true, and that she had indirectly caused the father’s son to get hit by a car. Chihaya tells Aki that he reminds her of that boy and proceeds to kiss him (who didn’t see that coming?). They then make love (O.O ok…that, I didn’t see coming). She asks Aki to leave the village with her, but he refuses, saying that he has to regain Kuramitsuha (I wonder if he succeeds at that). The next day, Chihaya finds out that someone took pictures of her with Aki and they had been given to the principal, who fires her. That night, Chihaya hears Nono (the dog that Aki had been taking care of), but hears it whimper and she rushes out to check on it. She is greeted by Atsushi and Kuramitsuha, who kidnap her. Aki finds the dog dead and a note saying that Atsushi has Chihaya. Aki rushes to save her, but Atsushi is waiting. He attacks Aki with Kuramitsuha, but Chihaya covers him and is fatally wounded. Atsushi gears up to attack Aki again, but Aki somehow stops Kuramitsuha’s attack. As others rush in to see the cause of the commotion, Aki goes crazy and starts killing them all with Kuramitsuha. Kyouhei arrives to find everyone dead and Aki standing there alone, covered in blood. Back in the present, Kyouhei reveals that he eventually found out that Aki didn’t kill Chihaya and that the event caused him to stop being a Seki.
Wow…I really liked this episode. First off, I knew that Aki probably wasn’t all that bad, but I never expected this. I definitely like that Aki is the perceptive one and it was cool seeing the scenes with him acting like a fairly normal boy. It’s hard not to feel sympathy for him after this episode and also for Moyako, who I’m assuming is the girl who is always watching Aki in the flashbacks. I’ve still yet to see what was so dark about Kyouhei that caused him to rage so hard in the earlier episode, but maybe I’m just misunderstanding. Also, I don’t really see the resemblance between Chihaya and Shiba…Chihaya looks more like a grown-up Utao. Seeing Kyouhei correctly use Kukuri was kind of cool and makes me wonder if he’s going to become a Seki again. I can see why he quit being a Seki, though. Kid’s got no balls…didn’t do a single thing. Anyways, looking forward to more.
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