| Ryuunosuke and Nezu prepare to descend into a storm drain amid rain despite the former having a bad feeling about what will happen. Meanwhile, Shin, Ushio and Sou flee through the cave underneath the island. Shin notices that the grotesque Shadows (with the tops of their heads cut off) are concentrating on Ushio and ignoring him and Sou. Ryuunosuke tells Nezu they are nearing the Shadow 'nest'. Mio tries to call Shin but can't reach him since he is underground. She finds Shiori's hair tie, and someone who sounds like Shiori shouts that Shin is 'over here'. Tetsu comes along, and he and Mio think they see Shiori pointing into a manhole, but then she vanishes. Tetsu doesn't want to go down there, but Mio persuades him. Shin, Ushio and Sou manage to outrun the Shadows, and find themselves in a chamber full of coral--Ushio says they are a form of Shadows. Ushio's arm is bothering her again. Since the original Ushio has been cremated there may be no way to fix it. The three are captured by Tokiko and two giant Shadows. Meanwhile, Ryuunosuke concludes that the Shadows reached the island via underground passages like the one he and Nezu are in. They are blocked by iron bars, but Nezu guesses that what lies beyond is Hiruko cave, a giant cavern supposed to lie beneath the island. Supposedly Hiruko, the island's guardian, adopted it after washing ashore long ago. "Sis would know more about that" Ryuunosuke remarks. "Should I change over"? Nezu suggests they ask Karakiri, the Priest. Mio and Tetsu think they see Shiori behind bars; there's a flash and Shiori says "Yuck". The bars are gone. (Maybe Shiori tried to copy Mio but couldn't, since Mio's Shadow has already been killed) Unknown to any of them, Ryuunosuke was watching. "Sis's premonition might have been right" he says. Tokiko says Shin, Ushio and Sou have "trespassed on sacred ground". She says she is there to retrieve a "defective item" (Ushio?). Shin whips out his nail gun and shoots her shadow, but there is no effect--Tokiko is still human. She observes that he will kill Shadows, but not a human like her. "Why don't we have a little chat?" she says. Meanwhile, the Doctor asks nurse Negoro to "add this (a body) to their food today" (the body may be that of officer Miura). Shin, Ushio and Sou surrender to Tokiko and the two Shadows. Sou asks if their father (the Doctor) ordered her to do this. She says he doesn't understand because he wasn't 'chosen' by their father. She promises that they won't be harmed. "Hiruko awaits" she says. Ryuunosuke and Nezu find themselves among the corals. They see Shiori, and Ryuunosuke deduces that she wasn't really killed before. Shiori warns that she promised that he'd wind up dead the next time they met. Somehow, Shiori knows Ryuunosuke's real name. Ryuunosuke figures a creature alongside Shiori is Haine, who he hasn't seen in 14 years. "Where is the body that stole mother's right eye?" it asks. Shiori emits a flash and concludes that neither Ryuunosuke nor Hizuru/Nagumo knows where this 'body' is. Nezu says these are not the Shadows of humans but something completely different (is this the four-armed thing from the Festival?). It morphs a copy of Nagumo's body, complete with shotgun, and shoots Nezu. "This reading ahead business isn't good" Four-arms (Haine?) says. Nagumo has taken over (I think) and gets shot as well. Shiori describes the Shadows with Tokiko as 'wild ones'. Ushio figures that the reason Shin surrendered was because he didn't want to loop while so close to the truth. Tokiko asks no forgiveness but asks Shin to keep what he is about to see secret from Mio. We see Mother (Hiruko?) apparently undergoing a blood transfusion. "Time to feed" she says. |
| I'm not sure I like the direction SR is taking all of a sudden. This is getting confusing and frustrating; why would any human help the Shadows, when their goal is to obliterate everyone on the island? It seems that these weird, half-headed Shadows eat humans rather than just consuming data, like the ones that have been copied from humans. The best thing about this show up 'til now was that despite all the bizarre things that were happening, it explained itself well and I could easily understand it. Now, it feels like too much is happening too quickly. |
