First Impressions / Zero no Tsukaima

Summary:

As the girls are doing their physical drills, Agnès announces the arrival of a special instructor from the Royal Magic School: Éléonore de La Vallière. In fact, Henrietta had personally sent Éléonore to help, though Cattleya had come too because she wanted to be with Louise. That night, Saito is sorting through the sisters’ underwear as part of helping them unpack when Siesta suddenly shows up and joins him. Siesta starts talking about the underwear and how she wouldn’t look good in it, but because Saito says that she definitely would, she decides to put it on in front of him since she doesn’t want to lose to Louise. Unfortunately for Saito, Louise returns to her room at that very moment and sees Siesta lifting her skirt. Louise is ready to punish Saito for being unfaithful again, but the sound of an explosion coming from the direction of Osman’s room interrupts her, and Saito runs off to investigate. At the scene, Osman announces that it was an accident and Agnès asks everyone to return to their rooms, but she specifically keeps Saito from going back because she needs his help on a mission.

As it turns out, a thief had actually entered Osman’s room and had gone after the safe to steal the Wind and Water Rubies that Osman was keeping for Henrietta. Osman had managed to stamp a seal on her left breast before she blew a hole in the wall and escaped with what she came for. Fortunately, what was stolen were imitations, and the real Rubies are with a Romalian friend. Since they believe that the thief is still inside the school grounds, Agnès wants Julio and Saito to help conduct a search. As for why Louise isn’t helping them too, Julio explains that the culprit used earth magic, meaning that all the mages are suspects, including her. And while Agnès doesn’t truly suspect Louise, she does suspect Louise’s sisters because their father has opposed Henrietta’s policies, meaning that he could use the rings as evidence to create a scandal about her and Wales to oust her. For now, Agnès and Julio will investigate the female students while Michelle and Saito will investigate the faculty for the stamp that Osman applied to the thief’s breast.

Michelle leaves the two Vallière sisters for Saito, so he heads to Éléonore’s room first. He gets as far as unbuttoning her nightshirt to find no marking before she wakes up and beats him up. Saito’s next target is Cattleya, but he doesn’t get very far into her room because her pets start making noise and end up waking her. To make matters worse, Louise then finds him there and drags him back to her own room where she makes him take off his shirt so that she can make good use of her new whip. When she finds his body already scraped up, she realizes that Éléonore must have already punished him for entering her room too. This makes her want to kill him even more, but before she can do so, the sound of an explosion once again interrupts her. This time, it came from Cattleya’s room, and they head there to find a hole in her wall. Agnès gets there at the same time and discovers a burn mark on Cattleya’s chest, but it seems that the thief attacked her and the mark came from a drop of silver that was from a melted candle holder. Louise recognizes that this alchemy was more earth magic, but since Cattleya can use this magic too, Agnès and Julio still suspect her.

Michelle then discovers the two stolen rings in the straw that Cattleya’s pets were sleeping on, which would seem to incriminate her further, but Éléonore then shows up and finds a strand of hair. Using a magic potion, Éléonore is able to trace this hair back to it’s owner’s head, and that person turns out to be none other than Michelle. This leads to Agnès ordering Michelle to show if she has the marking on her chest or not, and when Michelle refuses, Agnès reveals that Osman had lied about the rings being fake in order to throw the thief off guard. Based on how surprised Michelle is to hear this, Agnès now realizes that she tried to frame Cattleya after hearing that the rings were fake. Michelle then shows that she does indeed have the marking on her chest, and before Agnès can react, Michelle attacks her with her sword. Fortunately, Saito protects her and starts fighting Michelle, but even when he manages to disarm her, she uses her magic to blow another hole through the wall to escape. Michelle doesn’t get very far though because she comes face to face with an earth golem created by Cattleya, and Agnès then shatters Michelle’s wand with a bullet.

In the aftermath, Michelle admits to Agnès that her father – who was a counselor to a justice – felt betrayed by this country when he was charged in a corruption scandal 10 years ago and stripped of his nobility. He killed himself and her mother followed suit soon after, leaving Michelle to fend for herself and forcing her to do whatever it took to survive. Agnès can identify with this because she too had been the only one alive after her village was burned down, but she doesn’t share Michelle’s views about how this country is rotten. Instead, Agnès feels that the abominable ones are those people who misuse their power and deceive the queen. She then questions whose orders Michelle was following, but Michelle only reveals that it was an old friend of her father’s who believed in her father’s innocence. Agnès realizes that she is talking about Richemont, the head of the high court of justice, and reveals that it was Richemont who was responsible for what happened 10 years ago that drove Michelle’s father to commit suicide. Michelle can’t believe this, but Agnès says that she’s investigated everything about him because he’s her enemy. Meanwhile, Louise beats up Saito for what happened with Siesta, for not telling her about Agnès’ investigation, and for entering her two sisters’ rooms.

Preview:

It seemed to me that checking for that marking was nothing more than a good excuse for Saito to try to look at Éléonore’s chest and get caught in Cattleya’s room by Louise, leading to her trying to kill him and generally feel betrayed by him. That technically might give Siesta a chance, but it’s unlikely. At this point, I’m thinking that maybe Siesta might be best left out of the story because each time they include her she seems to be getting more desperate to beat Louise. Last time she lied about Saito inviting her to his room and this time she lifted her skirt to change underwear in front of time, so who knows what’ll happen next time.
As for the actual plot, this Richemont guy seems to be a new bad guy who I assume is the reason Agnès hates mages. I don’t know how big of a role he’ll play, but since he tried to get Michelle to steal the rings, it would seem like he’s trying to oust Henrietta in the same way Michelle described earlier in the episode to Saito. And regardless of whether or not he’s in cahoots with Sheffield, this would seem to be further proof of how fragile Henrietta’s rule is. Speaking of which, it looks like Saito will be getting to spend some quality time with the queen next week, and maybe he can help her rebound…

34 Comments

  8. “Secrets are bad for relationships, it seems…”

    Correction: Poorly kept secrets are bad for relationships lol. Although you can hardly call something that is almost immediately found out a secret.

    DG04
    Reply

  20. @Hudson,

    Who is in the image of this one then:
    https://randomc.net/…%2005%20-%20Large%20Preview%2002.jpg

    BTW, you are right, it does look like a shadow of her arm. I kinda feel funny since I watched too many nipples looks lik that showm in both Code Geass and Claymore.
    Thanks.

    coba
    Reply

  25. @Hudson: That is Henrietta, remember the first episode when she asked Saito and only him, to give his aid to her when she needs it. It was very strange to me why she only said it to Saito and not Louise. It was Anies who mentions it to Louise that they will be called for missions, but Henrietta only asked Saito and not Louise. Maybe im just reading too much into it.

    Nagasumi
    Reply

  30. omg dont tell me that the queen will fall for him. why is she sleeping next to him although she knows louise loves him. omg i liked her until now i wouldnt expect her to be a bitch like siesta..poor louise

    abc
    Reply

  33. Siesta has the guts to defy FATE, something I admire… but she goes too low in her pursuit of Saito’s heart. But she might succeed if Louise doesn’t change her treatment of Saito. I wonder if Louise ever can overcome her aristocratic caste mentality to accept Saito as equal…

    ewok
    Reply

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