Footsteps of Destruction & Scarlet Flower
Summary
Twelve years
have passed, and Saki now works for the Department of Mutant Management, which
regulates Monster Rat affairs. She’s visited by Satoru, who works at Saddharma Farm,
and whom she’s not on speaking terms with due to an unspecified “petty
squabble,” but she puts that aside when he explains why he’s here. A group of
Monster Rats from the Tarantula Hawk colony, which is loyal to the Giant
Hornets, was attacked from ambush while gathering mold samples. This doesn’t
make sense, since colonies have to submit the relevant permission forms to the
DMM before taking any military action. Saki promises to look into it right
away, and when Satoru jokes about how authoritative she sounds they’re able to
make amends.
Currently,
the Monster Rat colonies in the Kanto Region are primarily divided into two
factions. On one side are the Giant Hornets, who treat their thirteen allied
colonies as vassals in a feudal-style system. On the other are the Robber
Flies, who control their eight subject colonies more directly, the queens
reduced to a reproductive role while an elected Diet decides their affairs.
They are roughly equal in military strength, with the Giant Hornets having a
slight advantage of 500,000 troops to the Robber Flies’ 300,000. An
investigation has revealed that the attack was committed by the Stemborers, one
of the few colonies that are still officially neutral, though they’re close to
the Robber Flies. Kiroumaru and Yakomaru are summoned to testify before a panel
of judges that includes Hino Koufuu of the Evaluation Committee, Kaburagi
Shisei, who is the Security Committee Advisor, and Tomiko. Kiroumaru accuses
the Robber Flies of orchestrating the attack, citing their desire to control
the Stemborers and rumors that the Stemborer queen has been imprisoned.
Yakomaru affirms that they are trying to unite with the Stemborers, but the
queen is fine, though she has left
her political duties to a regent named Quiche. But, he also contends that
they’ve been threatened by the Giant Hornets not to join the Robber Flies. He
claims the attack was a ruse using stolen Stemborer arms and armor, so that the
gods would move against the Robber Flies with no cost to the Giant Hornets.
A war breaks
out, and Saki and her colleague Inui watch a battle between the main Giant
Hornet army and an allied enemy force from which Robber Fly troops are
conspicuously absent. Inui shares a rumor that the Giant Hornet soldiers are
given a chemical before battle that makes them fearless, but regardless, they
win the battle. Later, however, the Department Chief has a different story –
the battle between the Tarantula Hawks and the Stemborers ended when the former
defected and wiped out their supporting force.
When Satoru
brings news of an even more shocking defeat – the main Giant Hornet army was
wiped out with no casualties on the opposing side, though Kiroumaru is presumed
alive, whereabouts unknown – another meeting is convened. The Monster Rats have
increasingly sophisticated technology, including firearms, leading to echoes of
Satoru’s earlier suspicion that they’ve captured a False Minoshiro. Saki’s mom,
testifying in her capacity as Head Librarian, refers to some ancient weapons
capable of that kind of destruction, but Kaburagi insists it wasn’t a bomb –
rather, because of the absence of any weapons apart from some undamaged arrows,
he believes it was done using Power. Tomiko says with certainty no one in this
town or any other would do that, and renegades are off the list too. A thorough
analysis was done on those bones that were brought in; species, age and sex, DNA,
dental records, everything matched up. There can be no doubt that Maria and
Mamoru are dead. It’s agreed that the Robber Flies and all their subjects need
to be exterminated, which will be carried out by Inui and his Preservation
Officers.
Someone
suggests postponing the summer festival, but Koufuu says they can’t stop that
because of some Monster Rats. While at the festival Saki thinks she sees Maria
and the others; it is, after all, the day when spirits cross over from the
underworld. She also saw a kid wearing the traditional monster costume, which
Satoru says she imagined since kids aren’t used for the monsters, but then she
sees another one after they wander away from the crowds, pouring someone sake.
They turn away for a moment and suddenly the other person’s dead; that’s no kid
– it’s a Monster Rat! They found out what’s happening and are rebelling.
Explosions go off in the square, and they return to find everyone gathered
together under a protective shield. Koufuu and Kaburagi easily dispatch the
Monster Rats, but some have disguised themselves by taking human shapes and
manage to assassinate Koufuu. After Kaburagi dispatches the assassins a beam of
light shoots up from Koufuu’s eyes; Saki sees a woman in the glow. Kaburagi
orders everyone to form groups and eliminate any remaining Monster Rats they
find, while Tomiko vows revenge on Yakomaru.
In a
dream/vision/I’m not sure what, Maria apologizes to leaving Saki, and admits
she did wish she’d gone with her, but maybe it’s for the best. After all, two
girls can’t have children…
Thoughts
Great, just when I thought I would stick to my ‘Monster Rats are
humans’ theory for a decent length of time something has to come and throw it
into doubt again – I mean the start of episode 17 when Saki wonders at the
choice of using naked mole rats to create the Monster Rats. Then the fact
everyone wonders about or stumbles over the use of the word ‘mutant’ seems like
it must be significant. I mean, it doesn’t prove anything one way or another –
whether they’re descended from rats or used to be human ‘mutant’ is equally appropriate
to what they are now. But if they’re just mutant rats, why bother dwelling on
its use at all? That they are gives me the niggling feeling it’s meant to be
important somehow. Saki’s statement would seem to prove it one way, but we’re
not sure how much of what everyone knows or remembers is actually true. Of
course, I’m also wondering why I bother to keep speculating on this at all; I
keep waffling over which explanation makes more sense and it doesn’t feel like
I’m getting anywhere.
And speaking of Monster Rats, are they ever gonna explain this whole
‘changing shape’ thing? This is the second time we’ve seen it – first it was
the Earth Spider-Robber Fly war where they turned into various animals, this
time they had vaguely human shapes so they could try and assassinate Kaburagi
and Koufuu. They just randomly have different shapes and it goes by completely
unremarked; maybe the reason is well-known to the characters, but it isn’t to
the viewers, and it goes by without any context or explanation. I mean, it
isn’t deal-breaking or anything because it happens so rarely, it’s just weird.
But then again, why am I getting hung up on something being weird in a series
that has plenty of odd things in it? Like that giant woman in the flash of blue
light that came out of Koufuu’s eyes (and what’s up with that!?) after he died; it’s suspiciously similar to the image of a
woman that appeared after Rijin burned the Minoshiro, and the angel-of-death-y
figure that Saki saw in the smoke after he wasted the attacking Earth Spiders.
Whatever it is, ‘tis significant says I. And so are Kaburgi’s double pupils,
but I’ve got no idea what to make of that other than ‘well…that’s weird.’
Much less odd, but probably important in some way, is the way people
kept grinning in these two episodes. Koufuu did it whenever they were talking
about how suspicious or well-armed the Monster Rats were and wondering if they
were planning something, but given his ‘hah! I knew it – you damn dirty rats!’
reaction when they attacked the festival, he may have just found the idea
they’d try something amusing (he did look amused whenever he grinned), because
he didn’t think there was any way it could succeed; it didn’t, not completely,
but what you believe isn’t going to stop a bullet (presumably, since we don’t
actually see what hit him). The actually suspicious, probably-important ones
were when Kiroumaru grinned after it looked like the judges had caught Yakomaru
in a lie, and again after he apologizes for taking more than an hour to beat
the enemy force like he’d promised – how sincere was that apology? Adding to
that his unknown whereabouts after the annihilation of his army and it now
looks like he’s hatching schemes of his own. Which is somewhat surprising –
Yakomaru has been firmly established as shady, but what little we’ve previously
seen of Kiroumaru set him up as a more honorable figure. Of course, ‘honorable’
isn’t the same as ‘dense’ or ‘straightforward,’ so it’s not like it makes him
incapable of thinking like Yakomaru or figuring out what he’s trying to do. Being
honorable doesn’t mean there aren’t still ways for you to catch a shady person
at their own game. Unless he really is dead he’s up to something, that’s for sure.
So is Yakomaru, of course, but saying so is just repeating myself. What
isn’t is that there were some surprises regarding it this time; Tomiko’s
assertion that the bones they eventually found were Maria and Mamoru’s was a giant ‘oh no, he didn’t!’ (in the
zinger sense; well, some might mean it in a horrified way). He totally would if
he saw a reason to and could get away with it, or else it puts his proposed
cover story in a new light, but if that were true how do you explain the things
narrator!Saki said earlier on, about Maria being responsible for many death, or
that “two girls can’t have children” comment. Even if I’m assigning some things
more importance than they actually have, there’s no way that little gem isn’t important. Seriously, it’s the last thing
said in the episode, it’s gotta be foreshadowing something.
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