originally posted at https://canmom.tumblr.com/post/163221...
That’s the magic over.
I’m noticing that the characters are actually finding a few ways to fight back against Beatrice. If we accept that magic is real, then solving the riddle is not the only strategy. With Natsuhi’s Shinto spirit mirror fueling Kanon and Sayo’s powers, adequately prepared, they might be able to wage a magical battle against Beatrice.
The problem is, their memories reset every time a new ‘game’ begins, and meta!Battler has a very limited ability to affect the narrative. If meta!Beatrice controls the actions of narrative!Beatrice only, meta!Battler would have to provoke her into somehow conveying the necessary information to the human characters. Kinzo alone (apart from the magical servants of Beatrice) seems to have the ability to recall what happened in previous ‘games’.
It’s also odd that Sayo and Kanon only revealed magic powers when the lives of people they loved were directly threatened. It doesn’t seem in-character for either of them to keep something so important and useful a secret, which makes me think they didn’t even know they had these powers?
Anyway, while doing his rounds, Genji discovers the bodies of Nanjo and Kumasawa. He informs Rosa, Battler and Maria, who come out to see.
They find the bodies with necks sliced open by something extraordinarily sharp, and with two of the Stakes of Purgatory stabbed into their ankle and knee. So they’re the Seventh and Eighth Twilights. Gohda got staked in the chest, so he’s the Fifth Twilight. That suggests George and Sayo will be the Fourth and Sixth twilights, though since they were gouged after Gohda, doesn’t that mean they’re out of order? Does the order even matter? Beatrice seemed to follow it the first time round.
Then they’re like, hold on, what happened to George, Sayo and Gohda. Genji says that they left two or three hours ago to get something from Natsuhi’s room. …you never went to check dude? …because, Genji says, there must always be one servant waiting for orders.
Even Battler is like, what.
They all race to Natsuhi’s room. They find the door scratched and dirtied with a big handprint on it, with the same ‘red paint’ used to draw the magic circles.
They find the door locked. Of course, Rosa had all the keys to this room… except the one that was on Natsuhi‘s corpse, and I won’t be surprised if they find that key inside the room.
Naturally, they’ve been gouged in the expected places. George gets to be the Sixth Twilight (stomach), and Sayo the Fourth (head).
That’s still a sequence break though, if Gohda indeed came before Sayo.
Battler gets Maria to recite the rest of the rhyme. He despairs.
Maria is not this time telling Battler that they’ll all be resurrected in the Golden Land. She’s instead assuring him that he’ll be all right as long as he’s with her.
We confirm, as an aside, George was holding the key to Natsuhi’s room. One more locked-room mystery, to rub it in.
They return to the parlour. Rosa tells Genji to fuck off and go to bed. Battler’s like, seriously, all alone? Rosa starts insisting he’s a ‘wolf’ again. Ugh, seriously.
Rosa does not deserve this level of loyalty. She pulls the ‘we’ll make up tomorrow’ line again.
Battler is more than done with her paranoia.
At that point he finds another letter from Beatrice. She says the ninth twilight is about to begin, and they’re all out of time.
Of course, since Battler found the letter, that leads to Rosa concluding he, too, must be a ‘wolf’. Is Battler going to get shot?
It’s a repeat of the final act of episode 1. Rosa says there was nothing on there when she entered the room, and now there’s a letter, so Battler must have been the one to put it there.
No doubt Beatrice’s purpose in leaving the letter.
First, she accuses Battler of selling out his parents for money. Battler’s like, how dare you, and then Rosa suggests he’s an imposter.
Rosa’s already got almost the entire group killed by pointing fingers and splitting the party, but that’s not going to stop her.
Battler responds with a counter-accusation, the Rosa-accomplice hypothesis.
Meta!Beatrice interjects. She says in red:
- Natsuhi’s room was exactly the same, just like usual.
- The door and the windows were locked from the inside.
- There were no frauds or tricks, no means of seret passage nor places to hide.
- Natsuhi’s own key was in George’s pocket and locked inside the room.
- That leaves only five master keys, and “Rosa” was holding all of them.
- The parlour is the same.
- The key to the parlour itself is sealed inside the servant room.
- So unlocking it with anything other than a master key is impossible.
- The locked-room definition of the room is the same as always.
In short, the only option meta!Battler has left to justify a mundane account is to claim Rosa is an accomplice. His answer: shut up.
Back in the narrative, Battler accuses Rosa of placing the card on the table to frame him. I’m not sure who she’d be trying to convince. Rosa makes that point: why wouldn’t she just shoot him? Battler suggests it would be to justify it to Maria. Maria, of course, believes Beatrice is responsible, so that excuse wouldn’t really fly.
Battler raises a question we’ve still not had addressed: why wasn’t Rosa in the chapel when the others were killed?
We don’t get an answer, because Maria finally interrupts the argument.
Battler accepts this, and says all this argument about keys and alibis is stupid.
Narrative!Battler calls for an end of the accusations and recrimination. He pleads for Beatrice to show herself and shoulder the blame.
The scene ends with Battler delivering perhaps the longest, most drawn out scream of BEATRIIIIIIIIIIICEEEEEE we’ve seen yet.
And we finally return to Kinzo. He aten’t dead. He’s just been napping.
He wastes no time going on a Beatrice Rant.
It gets very creepy.
After a bit, he takes that back and goes back to ‘I just want to see you again and apologise’.
At that point a butterfly enters the room. So much for all those magic wards.
Beatrice doesn’t show herself. She’s not at all impressed.
…but then she says maybe a non-human woman would fall for that. She mentions an unfinished chess game (themes!), and Kinzo at the same time sets up that game again.
Beatrice is like, you fool, say you love me. Though not quite explcitily, through that ‘single element of the world’ metaphor.
Kinzo does, almost like he can subconsciously hear her.
Beatrice is like, no, actually. It would take a ‘miracle’ for someone to fall for you on the basis of that.
At that point someone knocks on the door. We don’t hear them speak, but it’s heavily implied to be Beatrice.
The next, most likely last chapter is ‘Resurrection’.
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