Undead Girl Murder Farce – 12

「流れの交わる場所」 (Nagare no Majiwaru Basho)
“Where the River’s Flow Changes”

Victor finally makes it out of the shadows, center stage, doing our friends a solid in rescuing them from the Royce people. I have to hand it to Aya and Tsugaru for how they smoothly manage to use their enemies right and left against each other to get out of tight spots. Of course, nothing’s without a price, and Victor gets the werewolf village’s location as a reward. I’ve been waiting for an epic clash to go down between the Banquet and Aya’s crew- it seems like every episode inches them closer, but we’re not quite there yet. I do like the dynamic that the Banquet doesn’t exist purely as the baddies, Aya and company can team up with and use them when convenient before retreating to their respective firing lines.

Aya cut it awfully close there in the forest with the werewolves at their heels- even Tsugaru was starting to worry. Luckily, the sharpness of her mind is more than ample match for the sharpness of wolf fangs, cleverly deducing that there had to be a secret hiding spot in the area to explain the covert killings. I totally hadn’t thought of that- but that’s why Aya’s a-head of the game. The secret spot turns out to be a tunnel that connects the werewolf and human villages, between which the killer apparently dragged their victims, judging from the blood stains.

The headman and other human villagers are going to be awfully disappointed- their scape goat, Alma, was found dead, clawed by the looks of it, and now out of the running for public enemy #1. Public enemy #1 is still on the run, though finding his gun (the one stolen from Gunter) is an important clue.

Louise is confirmed dead, her body and grieving family stumbled upon by Tsugaru and Aya in the forest. The skeletons are finally being dredged out of the closet, Louise’s parents confessing that they left her out to die in the forest 8 years ago to selfishly try to avoid responsibility of caring for her (not that they took much responsibility for her afterwards, as Aya testified previously). Unfortunately, doing the right thing doesn’t always result in a pat on the back, Jutte risking her identity to save Louise and Louise ultimately outing her to save her own face in the community. What a vicious way to repay a kindness but then again, if you’ve been ruthlessly abandoned by your parents like that, you can’t afford to play at niceties.

Camilla’s got herself a feast day with a whole group of young, nubile werewolf women. Maybe knocking herself into a food coma will make her easier for Shizuku to deal with, now that Shizuku’s back in the action, gun in hand. Aleister’s here too, which I fear doesn’t spell a good ending for the forest. I suppose if you want the werewolves bad enough, smoking them out or just plain obliterating their home is one way of going about that.

Tsugaru’s become quite the deft hand at fighting werewolves, putting 3 down for the count in quick succession. He used some rather bombastic physics there, but “go big or go home” has always been this series’ motto and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Sadly, the humans have also discovered the secret passage to the werewolf village, judging from the moth dust all over them, and they and the Royce pair waste no time in wrecking havoc on the werewolves. The werewolves are certainly no innocents- just as bad as the humans- however, I do feel bad for the wolves because everyone is ganging up on them, a 3 against 1 battle. And what a battle it is shaping up to be next week, some of the pairings already pitted, dramatic reveals teased.