Allison & Lillia – 22

「明かされた悲報」 (Akasareta Hihou)
“Revealed Treasure”

Episode at a Glance:
After being discovered, Lillia gets knocked out and inadvertendly reveals Treize’s royal pendant in the process. Word of this quickly reaches Claire, who returns to the solitary house thinking that they have princess Merielle in their hands. During this time, Claire’s men continue planting explosives around the house, while Benedict and Fiona are escorted away. Noticing that help is near, Benedict distracts the other with some talk about the war, allowing Travas and his men, members of the Royal Army, to rescue them. With the abductors unwilling to talk, Travas heads back to the house with Benedict and Fiona, where they stumble upon Treize, who survived the gunshot thanks to his gun. Back inside the house, Travas later informs Benedict and Fiona that they’ve disable all the explosives.

Leaving the house with Lillia, Claire and her other party notice ski tracks and footprints in the snow, so they suspect that Benedict and Fiona were rescued. Realizing that some of the tracks lead back to the house, Claire uses her radio to call for Fiona, who responds via one of the handsets they picked up earlier. Claiming that they have Merielle hostage, Claire tells Fiona to come out alone for a hostage exchange. Hearing this, Benedict and Fiona are confused because Merielle should be at Sufurest in the Kingdom of Vezero. Treize wakes up shortly after and explains that they’ve mistaken Lillia for Merielle. After Treize fills everyone in on what happened on their end, Travas decides to let them continue believing that Lillia is Merielle so that they won’t simply kill her. Claire then radios again, forcing Fiona to agree to the terms, and gives them until sunrise as a deadline. With everyone out of ideas, Fiona decides to go through with the exchange, swearing to survive, but Treize suddenly says he has a plan.

Out in the field, Lillia wakes up in a drowsy state, under the impression that Claire simply has a beef with Allison. However, she soon realizes that she’s been captured and finds out that Elver doesn’t know if Treize survived the shot or not. After talking to Lillia for a bit, Claire quickly learns that she may not be who they think she is. Elver then recalls that Merielle’s pendant has a flower on the other side, so Claire checks the one around Lillia’s neck and finds a bird on it, making them realize that they’ve got the wrong person. However, they decide to go through with the plan anyway, thinking that Fiona believes they have Merielle. Lillia then asks if she can leave since she’s not really the princess, but Claire naturally doesn’t let her. Left with nothing else to do but ask why they’re doing this, Lillia learns that Claire is searching for a treasure that her deceased father was looking for. Feeling sympathetic, Lillia reveals that her father passed away too.

A little while later, Claire and her men lie in wait for Fiona, who arrives alone like they asked. Fiona then gives Claire the option to surrender, stating that she’ll guarantee a fair trial for her men and even allow her to expose that she’s a fake, but Claire refuses. Fiona then tells Treize to act, so he throws aside his coat and skis towards them. Still unaware that this isn’t Fiona before them, Claire tells her men to shoot, but not to kill. Off in the distance, Travas disarms two of Claire’s men with a sniper rifle, giving Treize an opportunity to knock out Claire and Elver. With Treize standing over her, Claire tells him to shoot, but Elver tries to convince her to surrender so that she can live to fight another day. Treize however gets pissed off for being told he’ll be sent to Hell one day, so Lillia dropkicks him in the back and tells him not to torment Claire.

With Claire and her men put into custody, Lillia is formally introduced to Benedict and “Francesca” some time later. Allison then comes by and wishes everyone a happy new year, but Lillia is more concerned about her mother being too friendly in front of royalty. Figuring that Treize still hasn’t told Lillia the truth, Allison quietly asks Treize about it, who claims he never had a chance to. They all then fly off to take a look at Ikstova’s royal treasure and bring Claire along, claiming that only she has a detailed map about its whereabouts.

When they arrive, they find a village full of people who claim to be the valley‘s protectors for the past 400 years, but are unaware of this treasure they’re seeking. In light of this, Benedict and Fiona recall how the Ikstova royal family was established then. One of the villager then notices Fiona’s royal pendant, apologizes for the rudeness, and bows down with everyone. Claiming that they really don’t know anything about the treasure, the villager suggests that they head onwards a bit further towards Sou Beil, making Benedict, Fiona, and Allions realize that the treasure is the valley itself. As it turns out, the valley could’ve easily been used to allow Roxche to win the war, but the Ikstova royal family hid its existence in order to protect it and its people. With the war over, the valley posses little value, so Claire collapses to her knees and breaks down in tears, but Lillia comforts her, telling her that they both have to live on for their fathers’ sake.

 

Next Episode:
「偶然の旅行者たち」 (Guuzen no Ryokousha-tachi)
“Unexpected Travelers”

Impressions:
Hmm, how convient for Treize to be saved by the gun he was carrying on his back. I guess I should have figured as much seeing as this series never really shows us any bloody scenes. For example, Travas choose to disarm Claire’s men instead of killing them on two separate occassions this episode. In any case, it looks like it was his turn to shine this arc, seeing as Allison took care of the last one. Not to be outdone, Treize did his fair share too, dodging bullets while on skis and eventually taking out Claire and Elver. I don’t imagine someone on skis would be terribly hard to hit with a gun, especially when you have an automatic, so I’ll attritube this to very bad aim on Claire and Elver’s part. As for their punishment, it turned out to be a ski to the face courtesy of Treize.

Other than that, I think credit goes to Lillia for saving Claire from a fate similar to her father’s and from becoming an extremely bitter person consumed by hatred. I find it ironic that Lillia is so receptive to Claire’s though, especially when you consider the fact that she still no idea of Treize’s nor his royal heritage. On a separate note, when I saw Lillia use her “Lillia Kick” on Treize, I swear it looked like she broke his back, so it was as scary as it was amusing. However, when I heard her say that she learned it from Allison, it all made sense.

Anyway, the treasure turned out to be the valley itself, which was purposely hidden by the Ikstova royal family because they didn’t want it to be used during the war. As it turns out, just beyond the valley is Sou Beil, which means Roxche could’ve easily won the war if it were used. With the war over now, it can hardly be considered a treasure anymore, hence why Claire was heartbroken by this revelation.

Next week looks like the beginning of the next (and probably final) arc in the series, which revolves around Treize’s arranged marriage with Matilda, who was introduced briefly in this episode. So for everyone waiting to finally see Lillia learn Treize’s secret and (most-likely) agree to marry him, this should be it!

 

Cast:
– Lillia (リリア) / Mizuki Nana (水樹 奈々)
– Trieze (トレイズ) / Yoshino Hiroyuki (吉野 裕行)
– Allison (アリソン) / Kuwashima Houko (桑島 法子)
– Travas (トラヴァス) / Morikawa Toshiyuki (森川 智之)
– Benedict (ベネディクト) / Yamadera Kouichi (山寺 宏一)
– Fiona (フィオナ) / Noto Mamiko (能登 麻美子)
– Claire (クレア) / Tanaka Rie (田中 理恵)
– Elver (エルバー) / Aomori Shin (青森 伸)
– Wayne (ウェイン) / Kuroda Takaya (黒田 崇矢)
– Jake (ジェイク) / Izumi Hisashi (いずみ 尚)
– Mike (マイク) / Matsuo Daisuke (松尾 大亮)
– Burress (バーレス) / Nishina Youhei (仁科 洋平)
– Merielle (メリエル) / Saitou Chiwa (斎藤 千和)
– Matilda (マティルダ) / Fujimura Chika (藤村 知可)
– Valley protector (谷守) / Akimoto Yousuke (秋元 羊介)