Darker than BLACK – 05

Summary:

One foggy night, a blonde-haired man identified as Mr. Smith is discussing business with a boss and his two underlings. Before they get started though, Mr. Smith requests that they not smoke and explains the dangers of smoking. When one of the underlings continues to light up, Mr. Smith takes his briefcase and starts to walk out, so the boss gets his underling to stop. Returning to the table, Mr. Smith shows them the large amount of money that’s in the briefcase, and offers more if what they have is the real thing. The boss questions what he is going to do once he get obtains what they’re negotiating for, so Mr. Smith jokes that he’s going to start by killing the people of a rival company. He then admits that he’s going to resell it. This causes the boss to question the item’s worth, and he calls off the deal. In response, Mr. Smith reaches for his briefcase, but one of the underlings places his hand on it, tells Mr. Smith to leave, and lights a cigarette. After getting smoke blown in his face, Mr. Smith touches the underling’s hand and activates his Contractor powers. It solidifies the arm and causes it to snap off. Mr. Smith then throws solidified coffee into the other underlings head, leaving only the boss standing.

The boss runs outside scared, but he soon comes face to face with a woman and a child as he crosses the nearby bridge. The woman is also a Contractor, and her powers allow her to create gusts of wind that lead to a swirling cloud above the boss’s head. The swirling cloud dumps a ball of water onto him, drenching him in what appears to be harmless water. However, the boss then realizes that his feet are frozen to the ground. Unable to use his gun, the boss is so scared that he tells Mr. Smith the location of the item they had been negotiating for. He breathes a sigh of relief after his three opponents walk away, but his entire body then solidifies and he crashes onto the ground. Afterwards, Mr. Smith smokes a cigarette as the price of his contract and coughs repeatedly. The woman who helped him meanwhile drinks a can of beer. The group then finds their goal – a girl named Havoc – sleeping in a hotel room. Mr. Smith formally introduces the woman as April, the boy as July, and finally himself as November 11 – they are MI6.

Havoc soon arrives in Japan with an armed escort and is described as being the worst Contractor ever because she killed thousands during the Third South American Heaven War with her ability to generate vacuums at will. However, she seems to have lost that ability. Now that Havoc is in Japan, Misaki and the rest of her team watch on as a man named Eric Nishijima interrogates her before taking her to the Pandora research laboratory. As Misaki watches the helicopter take off, November 11 suddenly appears in the room and comments on how Havoc is a mere shadow of a Contractor now and on how the Heaven’s gate disappeared five years ago. He then introduces himself as Jack Simon of the British Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and refers to her as Misaki, but she prefers her family name Kirisaki. The officers take him for a ride, and when asked if this is his first time in Japan, November jokes that he’s been here before for an assassination. A curious Misaki then asks him why they’re turning such a rare and highly-valued person like Havoc over to Pandora. Even though new international laws were enforced after the dispute, she doesn’t think that every country gave up research on people with abilities and the Gate. November 11, however, explains that the British people don’t really want this research.

November 11 then gets a phone call, and soon afterwards, Misaki does too. Her call is from a worried Kouno from the car behind them carrying that’s April and July. When Misaki then overhears November 11 saying that the transfer to Pandora is to prevent one country from monopolizing Havoc and giving an order to kill everyone who came from the CIA, Misaki immediately has all the cars in their procession stop. It is only now that November 11 reveals that the CIA is chasing after a bluff and that the real Havoc is actually inside their car trunk. He explains that this wasn’t done because the police weren’t trusted, but rather so that he could find out the source of the information leak. Misaki makes the decision to take Havoc personally to Pandora headquarters, but by chance her car and the other car get separated at a railroad crossing. Soon after the front car passes the crossing, a black figure dashes across the road and forces the car to a skidding halt. November 11 then receives another call from July saying that someone has come. Announcing that this is a trap, November 11 gets out and approaches the black figure standing in the distance. That figure is Hei, or as Havoc calls him, the Black Shinigami.

April also gets out of the car that’s still on the other side of the railroad tracks and summons another whirlwind of clouds with her Contractor powers. It rains down a brief torrent on Hei and allows November 11 to try to freeze him with the water, much like he did previously. Hei, however, grapples onto a tree in a nearby park and runs off. Misaki is only able to see flashes of light coming from inside as the battle continues, and before she can contact headquarters to request help, Huang appears beside her car and throws in a canister of gas that knocks out her and everyone else inside. By the time she wakes up, Havoc is gone. She has no choice but to return to headquarters and apologize to her superior Hourai. Eric Nishijima is also there, and he comments on the Japanese police’s inability to manage classified information. It is here that Misaki finally learns that November 11 is Jack Simon’s codename and that he is MI6’s best agent. Nishijima then informs them that in accordance with Article 22 of the Pandora Law, the police will be under Pandora’s command for the rescue operation. After the meeting, Misaki gets a report from the Astronomy department that BK-201 showed activity during that previous attack.

With this in mind, Misaki tracks down November 11, and hears him say that being a Contractor is a burdensome existence because they have to smoke when they don’t want to smoke or drink when they don’t want to drink. When Misaki questions if they knew that this would happen, November 11 admits that his countermeasures weren’t enough. That being said, he doesn’t think that the organization that kidnapped Havoc can be reached through diplomatic channels, meaning that it wasn’t the CIA. July suddenly interrupts their conversation with what appears to be Hei’s location, so November 11 decides that it’s time to corner “Mr. 201BK.” Meanwhile, Huang gets off the phone and informs Mao that they’ll be handing Havoc over the organization tomorrow morning. Mao notes that they don’t want to bring Havoc close to the gate, and Huang comments that he doesn’t want a monster like that near either. However, they soon find out that Hei and Havoc are both gone, and Yin doesn’t know where they went. At a hidden location somewhere, Hei has tied Havoc up. He refers to her as Carmine, which she notes is a name that she hasn’t been called in a long time, and he demands to know what happened back then – specifically where his little sister Bai is.

Preview

This was a good episode even with Hei only appearing in the last couple of minutes. November 11 took over pretty well as the mysterious main focus for an episode, which was fairly entertaining to watch, especially since he doesn’t like smoking and that was the price of his contract. I wish they showed more of the battle between him and Hei though.
The whole Havoc and Heaven’s Gate in South America seems to add a whole new element to this, particularly since her loss of power seems to be tied with the disappearance of that gate. It’s unclear as of yet what the connection between the two gates are, but I would guess that the organization Hei, Mao, and Huang are a part of doesn’t want Havoc near the Hell’s Gate in case it gives her back some of her power.
They also appear to be continuing the names-based-on-colors theme as Hei refers to Havoc as Carmine and his little sister as Bai (white in Chinese). Heck, I didn’t even know he had a little sister. Now that I think about it though, there was that girl at the beginning of the first episode with the telescope – perhaps that was her? I expect that this mystery and others will get developed more as Hei gets to question Havoc and find out what happened in the next episode.