Hey friends, welcome back to… perhaps not Rokkenjima this time, since today, we’re going to the Tea Party! So I suppose that will take us back to Purgatorio. I said most of my thoughts about the ‘big picture’ last time.
We open with an ahaha.wav, and Beatrice remarking that she never expected Bernkastel’s piece to come in at the last minute. Bernkastel says something interesting…
So that’s a valuable nugget of information: pieces are found, not constructed. Bernkastel didn’t sit there scratching her head until she was like, aha, what if Battler’s half-sister came in, that’s a fun idea—Ange ‘really’ was running around out there somewhere.
Lambdadelta hasn’t yet figured out who Ange is:
Lambdadelta: What’s with that piece?! Who was that person, who was it?! She didn’t say her name! That’s not fair!! Hey, don’t you think so too?!
Beatrice calls her on her inability to pick up on foreshadowing and text cues.
Beatrice: …I have a general idea. ……Come on, normally, anyone would know.
Lambdadelta: Normally?! No we wouldn’t, it was that character’s first appearance, wasn’t it?! If she doesn’t say her name, I won’t—the players won’t—everyone won’t know, right?!
Bernkastel: …………Beato, it’s alright if you don’t tell her. See? Isn’t she a funny kid?
Harsh. Interesting that Bernkastel mentions the players here. Is that a fourth wall break? Or does she simply mean Battler and the witches playing hypothesis chess? Anyway, Lambdadelta begs to know, in exchange for her own ‘special secret’–one that will ‘blow you away like finding out that Santa-san is actually Daddy!’
Santa is real and went down the chimney with magic, uuuuu!
Anyway, Bernkastel just fucking destroys her in her usual deadpan way.
Bernkastel: …Lord Santa Claus only visits the homes of children with clean hearts. He didn’t come to your place, then?
Even Beatrice has the sense to get in on the bit.
Beatrice: Well, lord Santa Claus is gracious. Unless you are a reeeally bad scoundrel, he will give you a present. After all, he even gave them to me!
The pair spin some cute little anecdotes about when Santa stopped coming for them. Beatrice wrote him a letter after ‘her maiden’s heart awoke’ to say that’s enough and please splurge on the last gifts, while Bernkastel says she tried to ambush santa with scissors to cut his beard.
Maybe I’m quoting too many lines I just think it’s a cute bit.
So, her secret. She claims to have realised the identity of Eva Beatrice.
Ehheheheheheh! I realised who that girl actually is. Does anyone know? *giggle*giggle*! There was a hint in the way she talked.
Oh, this should be good. Since my current theory was that she is a ‘piece’ added to the game by Lambdadelta. She focuses on Eva Beatrice’s ‘why don’t you just X forever’ catchphrase (エバー). Which sounds like ‘Eva’. So…
Either Lambadelta is doing a very deep cover bit or I have to drastically revise down my estimate of her relevance.
Beatrice plays along a bit, but Bernkastel walks off. Instead of telling Ange’s identity, which she says won’t measure up, she says she’ll tell the culprit of the game Higurashi no Naku Koru Ni. Uh, spoilers! Luckily… Lambdadelta is still in the middle of it so she runs off without hearing it.
That got kind of meta… I can’t actually remember which of these characters is from Higurashi. Guess I’ll find out when we play that game. Because believe me, I’m giving it the same treatment.
Bernkastel departs, announcing her intention to prepare and strategise for the next game. Beatrice teases them about how close they are, which leads Bernkastel to go on a sarcastic little yandere rant:
Lambdadelta: …..I want to gouge out her eyes so she can see no one other than me. ……Oh, wouldn’t that just be to die for? It’d be wonderful to dunk them in black tea. Ahah!
The converastion turns at last to the game. Beatrice says she was a ‘breath’ away from defeating Battler. If she’d kept up the role, she just might have. Anyway, Lambdadelta asks a question, and the music hits…
Lambdadelta: …Just when are you going to stop screwing around? …Do you even have the slightest intention of winning?
She gets a sinister little shadow over her eyes…
Beatrice retorts that Bernkastel could never win on her ‘perfect’ game board. Hehe, ‘kanpeki’ is what my Japanese teacher says to me when I pronounce something right.
Lambda acknowledges the point: even in a hundred or a thousand years, Bernkastel wouldn’t be able to beat this ‘impressive and perfect’ game board. And then she blindsides us with this:
Well, isn’t this something!!!
So Bernkastel has just been acting so goofy when Bernkastel is around to cover up her and Beatrice’s real relationship. Beatrice is clearly scared shitless of her, stumbling over her words. Lambdadelta clarifies: while the game board is perfect, that is only in the hands of a perfect player. And she sees ‘Beatrice play around a lot’ in her games, and does not like it. She has come to think Beatrice doesn’t really care if she wins or loses…
Lambdadelta: Listen close, okay? Your role is to break Bernkastel, force her to yield. In other words, that means being the victor in this game for all eternity. ……As long as you keep trying to become the certain victor, then I will give you my power as the Witch of Certainty. …………However.
If you fight in a way that doesn’t deny any possibility of your loss, …that’s a different story.
Beatrice attempts to clarify: it’s a game, of course there will be some times she wins, and some times Bernkastel wins. Lambda dismisses this: she doesn’t care about the game. Just imprisoning Bernkastel.
So Beatrice reaffirms that she won’t lose. Bernkastel says she can play around and use ‘fakes’ as part of her tactics. Fakes, huh. So perhaps Eva Beatrice was a ‘fake’?
Anyway, Lambdadelta underlines the threat, promising to remind Beatrice what a ‘truly shabby’ creature she used to be, with a ‘delightful delightful penalty’ waiting.
So, those ‘bubbles’ I was speculating about last time? Guess we just got a name for them: ‘fragment worlds’, and there are billions. Actually, now this came up, I think these were mentioned before in a previous tea party.
Anyway, Beatrice disappears, and Lambda addresses the departed Bernkastel…
Lambdadelta: Oh, how I love you, Bernkastel. …Scrabble your feet in Beatrice’s bird cage as much as you like, and spend a thousand years learning that you can no longer escape.
……And when you give in, …I’ll train you so you can’t tweet in anyone’s palm but mine.
New theory then: this whole thing is some really elaborate BDSM scene.
And then, with Lambdadelta’s evil laughter, the episode ends!
Not a long scene, but we learned some pretty key pieces of information, I’d reckon. I had no clue of the relationship between Beatrice and Lambdadelta, but I guess this confirms, that point when Beato ostensibly redtexted all that stuff denying witches… probably had some truth to it.
So, OK, that leaves the Tea Party of the Unhuman. And then I can have a go at solving that final mystery. I feel like ‘Nanjo committed suicide in front of a mirror’ is a bit of a cheap answer.
What is this ‘perfect game board’ that Beatrice ostensibly had? Was it already a ‘fragment’ when Lambadelta found it? In what sense is Bernkastel trapped there, anyway—she only seemed to show up at the very end of the first episode, so was it just like… bait to snare her? If it wasn’t a fragment, was it just a scenario in the ‘real world’ with the right properties to ‘fragmentise’?
Anyway, we haven’t got all the information disclosed in this episode yet. So let’s check out the final section.
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