Ayakashi Ayashi – 05

Summary:
-Although he misses his first swing, Yuki is able to slice apart the Youi from behind the second time he tries. The Youi dissolves into a large pile of meat which the girl’s horse starts to eat. While the South Magistrate’s men surround the horse and capture it, Yuki escapes with the girl.
-Back at base, the Ayashi group discusses how lifelike dolls were made by an eccentric puppet master who had lingering attachments to his dead wife; the Youi had been inside the lifelike dolls. They are also concerned about the South Magistrates manipulating Youi, but Ogasawara knows that Torii is a close friend of the roujuu Mizuno, so they can’t do anything about it.
-Ogasawara, Saizou, and Abi encounter Tamahei and a woman who claims that Yuki, when he was a rounin 15 years ago, killed a merchant named Shichiji.
-The girl from before wakes up in Yuki’s room and hears him and Kumoshichi talking outside. However, she sees Kumoshichi’s body enshrouded in a dark glow, making her grab a knife and rush up to him. She calls him Tezcatilipoca and Diablo, and reveals that her own name is Atle. The girl succeeds in stabbing Kumoshichi, but he then disappears in a dark cloud.
-Abi, Saizou, and the woman who was with Tamahei earlier come running, but Yuki is still confused at why Atle suddenly stabbed Kumoshichi. When Yuki tries to explain who Kumoshichi is, the woman – whom Yuki recognizes as Oshino – starts slapping him because she knows that he killed Kumoshichi.
-Yuki learns that neither Saizou nor Abi ever saw Kumoshichi. Even the guy at the gambling house tells Yuki that it was always just him alone. And when Yuki goes to search for where he thought Kumoshichi lives, he finds nothing. Abi tells Yuki that no one has seen Kumoshichi other than him, but Yuki remembers that Atle did. He returns to the dojo that Oshino says is where he and Shichiji met.
-15 years ago, Shichiji and Yuki had fought each other in a match at the dojo. By using a wooden sword against the real one he gave Shichiji, Yuki is able to throw them both away when the metal gets stuck in the wood. Without weapons, the two started to pummel each other with their fists. Smiling as they got hit, the two soon became friends and accomplices.
-Shichiji had gotten to know Oshino, and on one occasion with them at a festival, Yuki had left suddenly. On her way home, Oshino had been approached by Yuki, and he had forced himself on her. But as she had been struggling, Yuki suddenly got a vision of the other world, which caused him to run away.
-The next day, Shichiji had gone to see Yuki and asked him about what he saw in his childhood. Yuki claims that he forgot, but Shichiji calls that a lie. He thinks that Yuki is still chasing after that world, and that’s the reason why he finds the current world boring and unsatisfying. Yuki gets angry and the two go outside to fight, this time with Yuki using a real sword and Kumoshichi using a wooden one. However, Shichiji had already sabotaged Yuki’s sword earlier while he was talking, so after Yuki takes his first swing, his blade comes off the handle. Shichiji then tackles Yuki, taking his other blade in the process. Yuki explains that he assaulted her because he wanted to try to see if he could become happy like Shichiji. When Shichiji charges, Yuki fumbles his way to his original sword and stabs Shichiji as he yells that he doesn’t want to die. As he falls over, Shichiji says that everyone is the same in that they don’t want to die.
-As Yuki remembers how he killed Shichiji, Saizou returns with Atle. However, Atle gasps because she sees Kumoshichi/Shichiji standing beside Yuki in a ghostly form. A confused Yuki asks who Kumoshichi really is.

Preview:

I decided to go with the bulleted summary for this show because I’d like to spend a little less time writing it than I do other shows, given how it’s not been quite as good as I initially hoped. Maybe once the story picks up or if there’s a really good episode, it’ll get the normal summary treatment.
Anyway, this episode introduced a lot of back-story with the whole Kumoshichi aspect. While we still don’t know what the current Kumoshichi really is, we do know that only Yuki and Atle are able to see him. Perhaps he’s just a ghost of Shichiji whose mission is now to guide Yuki or something, especially since we’re shown with the Oshino and Shichiji incidents that Yuki is far from being a perfect hero. In any case, Atle doesn’t react well to Kumoshichi, and it’ll be interesting to see what she does in next week’s episode.